"Well.....I was hoping to learn to animate an object to act in my defense, like a statue or somthing (say from a golden fountain). And was hoping to working on my nonverbal. I just recently got into that with my uncle and need to master it.....I been able to do it a lot thus far, butonly occasionally on the first attempt. So if i could master nonverbal spells...that would be great." he said, smiling

"Also, I wanted to know more about spell nomenclature...for the sake of inventing spells. I've done a few thus far but they are only simple ones......"he said, trying not to sound overly gloaty, and perhaps suceeding.

Personal problems aside....."Lets get started....Are you ready?"

Ivory walked breathlessly into the arena. Having just run from the library to the dormitories and now here, she was very near winded.

Placing her hands on her knees to catch her breath, she tried to look on the bright side...at least she was limbered up for her duel and odds were she wouldn't pull anything in her attempts to doge, jump, and flee.

Looking around she took stock of her surroundings, just as she learned to do from her DADA classes and the club. Spotting the other people in the room, Ivory tried to stand as straight as possible as she waved to the professors and a few of the students she knew. She had just found out she'd grown half an inch so she was trying to make it as noticable as possible. She was proud as a button to finally be growing even if it was just a measly half inch.

Stretching her arms a bit, she walked over to the edge of one of the dueling platforms and looked around while she stretched. She was waiting for a particular person. One of her favorite people of course. The only person she could trust at the moment to try to duel again. Ever since the previous term when she'd been made to duel practically to the death for entertainment...well suffice to say it had left a few inner scars and had left her with a few fears and a nervousness to duel that she hadn't had before. Hopefully they'd help eachother, come to terms and surpass this. And hopefully have fun trying.

Arya was a tad nervious about dueling, so she had taken her time in coming to the arena. Taking a long shower, making sure all her homework and playing with Perseus before slowly making her way to the first floor.

Sauntering into the arena, wand twirling in her hand, she took a quick glance around and quickly noticed that they were not alone. Smiling as she waved at the other students and professors, she turned her attention to her short friend. "You didn't have to run, Ivy." She said with a grin. The girl was always thankfull that her common room wasn't in the towers. Having to travel up and down them every day would exaust her, kind of like her friend was right now.

"So what's the deal here? Loser has to give the winner....five items from their candy stash? Winner gets to pick the candies?" Arya knew that Ivory had the same kinds of candy that she had stashed in her trunk, and was looking forward to adding more to her own stash. After all the classes, she was starting to run low on supplies. Stowing away her wand, she began to do some of her weird gymnastics stretches. Eyes still on her friend as she waited for a response.

One second Ivory was humming a random exercise song and the next she was bouncing on the balls of her feet as she watched her friend approach her and start stretching too.

"Of course I did silly," she giggled as she gripped her toes. "If not it'd take me like hooooours to get here." Merlin knew the darn common rooms were leagues away. But anywho...on to more important things...

Scratching her invisible beard she contemplated the odds. "Oooh that does sound good, how about we even the odds to may be 15 pieces of candy and the loser has to owe the winner what ever they want for a day." Waggling her eyebrows, she waited to see if her friend agreed while she twirled her wand.

Leaning back, she placed her hands on the ground to stretch her back, still looking at her friend upside down with a grin. "Not if you left earlier than our meeting time, that way you wouldn't be so winded increasing your chances of losing the duel." She poked her tounge out at the girl and kicked her legs in the air, moving into a handstand. After walking around for a few seconds, she rolled on the floor and stretched out her legs.

After a moment of pondering the deal, she pulled out her wand and twirled it slowly. "Make it 20 pieces of candy, keep the slave for a day thing and you've got yourself a deal." She said with a nod, standing now that she had finished stretching.

Grinning happily, Ivory took a defensive stance a little ways across from Arya.

"Alrighty then. 20 Candies and winner's day." Holding her wand in the firm but loose grip she'd been taught, she took a bow before announcing jokingly with a wink.

"Loser's first..."

While taking a few paces away from Ivory on the plateform, she pulled her hair into a ponytail, the last thing she wanted to do was lose a duel because her long hair had obscured her vision. Twirling her wand slowly in her hand, she turned to face the claw, pushing away all nervious feelings about dueling and what could happen, and focusing on winning the duel. This was much easier to do since it was against her friend and not that slime who wanted to finish her off.

Glad that the girl had agreed to the terms, she mentaly went through the spells she knew, poking her tounge out at the girl standing across from her. "We'll see who's the loser...." Arya saluted Ivory and took up her dueling stance. It felt a little weird having not done this in so long, but also it felt good to be dueling again, a small part of her missed the sport.

"Expelliarmus!" She watched the spell shoot towards her friend before taking a few quick steps to the side to avoid whatever spell Ivory would send her way. She didn't want to start of with a slew of spell as this duel was just to get them both back to being comfortable with dueling again.

Giggling at Arya's poking out of the tongue, Ivory reached back and gathered up her hair in a loose knot with a small hair tie. Shaking her head this way and that to loosen her bangs and let them frame her face, she now felt ready to duel.

Smiling in excitement and now a twinge of nervousness, after all they were dueling for the first time in....oooh ages, she sent up a little prayer to keep them safe. Hopefully she wouldn't end it stunned and confounded actually she didn't much mind the confounded she just wanted to be conscious toward the end.

The more she thought about it the more the pit in the middle of her stomach grew so that it felt like there was a small black hole inhabiting her middle that was causing pressure to everything...including her bladder! Everyone knew fear was connected to the urinary system...who knew how but it was.

Now worrying about one more thing of the tens of thousands of things she already was, she gave the puff a little salute as she watched her talk. At least as ready as she'd ever be considering she couldn't just say 'Hows about we postpone this for another oooh say 50 years? You just wait right here I'll be riiiight back.' No it was far too late to say and that and besides who would wait that long anyway.

Setting herself into what she thought of as defensive stance (one that did not involve her cowering in a corner) her eyes glued to the tip of Ayra's wand, watching intently.
But obviously not intently enough because when she heard the spell leave Arya's mouth and saw the red beam of light heading her way, she acutally froze for a second, and even though eventually she reacted, albeit a bit more slowly than her reflexes would've liked, the spell still hit her shoulder with enough force so that the wand was almost jolted out of her grasp....almost.

If it hadn't been for the fact that one of her favorite pastimes was twirling her wand she might never have been able twiddle her fingers enough so that the tip of her wand which was the only part she'd managed to barely hold on to was soon flipped so that she could once again take hold of it properly. But thank heaven for pastimes because that was exactly what she did.

Normally she might've given a big sigh of relief but now was not the time for that no, not now. Now was the time for action. And then almost as if slowly she was letting go of her fears, Ivory began to slowly move so as not to keep in the same place even as she aimed toward her moving friend. "Locomotor Mortis" Knowing she should use her smallness and hopefully speed to her advantage, she bounced on the balls of her feet ready to dodge in any direction, although Merlin knew Arya was just as fast as well.

It wasn't until now that she had realized this would be the first time she and Ivory dueled. She wasn't even sure she had even seen her friend duel besides the little incedent last term, and that didn't really count. Keeping on her toes, she watched as the spell hit Ivory, satisfied that her aim was still good while she was in motion. Arya was about to hold out her hand to retrieve the claw's wand when Ivory twirled her fingers and kept hold of her wand.

A small smile touched her lips at the action, her friend wasn't too bad. Watching as Ivory sent a spell her way, she gave an easy flick of the wrist, pointing her wand upward. "Protego." A shield surrounded her and she felt the spell make contact before bouncing off in another direction, only to be stopped by the magical safety barrier around thier plateform.

Dropping her shield, she aimed her wand towards the right side of Ivory while she moved. "Langlock." Hoping that the spell would be a good distraction or that Ivory would walk right infront of it, she took another few steps in the opposite direction and aimed the spell at Ivory's left arm. "Rictusempra" Cause everyone needed a good laugh every now and again. Arya kept moving while she threw her shield back up, ready for whatever the claw would throw at her.

Even in the midst of a duel Ivory was still observant enough to smile when she saw how nicely her friend brought up her shield. Moving from side to side as she was, she saw how easily her friend flicked up her wrist and could only hope that she'd be able to do it that smoothly...which was now!

Ducking a bit and moving to her right, Ivory brought up her arm and pronounced the incantation at the same time. "Protego!" Luckily, the first spell bounced harmlessly off her quick shield, but unluckily she let her guard down almost too quickly. The next spell spiked through the top of her shield just when she was about to bring it down, and although the worst of it was held off a thin dwindled stream hit her shoulder just about where her armpit was. Whether it was because of the diluted spell it self or where it had landed, Ivory let out a small giggle of mirth as she wiggled her arm to shake off the tickly feeling.

Wondering if maybe she could use this to her advantage she doubled over and kept laughing while stealthily aiming at a spot to the side and behind Arya. Disguising a quick murmured trip jinx between laughs, Ivory kept herself on the move although truth be told she was still letting out random giggles.

Hoping to distract her into stepping back, Ivory pointed obviously to the spot in front of Arya. "Reducto!" Although she cast it purposefully, she hoped that any resulting mini debris didn't hurt anyone.

Uh oh.

As soon as she saw the look on Marie's face, Lexi knew she'd asked the wrong sort of question. Her question was about Carter, though, so why would it cause Marie to not smile? Wait, erm...what? Not speaking to each other? Eep, Lexi did ask the wrong sort of question.

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. That doesn't sound like you and Carter at all, though," she commented. She would ask what happened, but since she was an adult and Marie was a teenager, she refrained. In her year as a professor, she'd learned to stay out of the students' business unless they made an effort to involve her. Well, to a certain extent, of course. If that business involved education matters or rule-breaking, then there was no doubt Lexi had to be involved.

This...was not educational or a matter of rule-breaking, though. She just gave Marie a sympathetic look and waited to see if she'd explain further.

Hmm...alright, that sounded pretty reasonable. Plus, non-verbal spell casting was something nearly every witch and wizard wanted to master. Even Lexi herself had found a big interest in it during her school years. For those reasons, she decided to start this little mini-lesson with instruction on silent casting.

"Non-verbal spells," she said, looking at both Nymphy and Marie, "are very easy to learn how to do, but very difficult to actually do. You see, non-verbal spell casting relies mainly on concentration and intention." She gestured toward the dueling arena, motioning for Marie to join Nymphy, so that they could get the practicing underway.

"Since we're learning something new, I want you two to focus more on what you're learning and less on a fast-paced duel. You need to concentrate on your spell, what the spell does, and what you hope the spell will do for you," she said. "Once you're in a dueling stance, I want you to think about the first spell you'd like to cast. Focus on the things I mentioned---what the spell does and what you hope the spell will do for you."

Aya paused for a moment, watching as Ivory shielded herself from the first spell and was hit with the second. The other girl's giggles were infectious and Arya soon found a few giggles slipping out as she took a step to the side. Letting her shield drop, she focused on Ivory instead as she continued to move on the plateform.

She noticed her friend aiming her wand at her, but didn't think much of it as she didn't feel a spell hit her. When a blasting curse was sent infront of her feet, she flinced for a moment, remembering the last time one had been sent at her, before aiming her wand at the small amount debris that came towards her as she took a step back. Arya stumbled on the trip jinx Ivory had set behind her, but quickly caught her footing. "Impedimenta" The pieces of wood and carpeting that were once coming at her slowed in the air. Before the spell could wear off, she cast again. "Incendio" With a whip of her wand all the little pieces were burnt to a crisp, falling to the ground.

"Obscuro" She said after stepping away from the small hole in the ground and aiming her wand for Ivory. Hoping it would hit, she took another step away from the hole so that she wouldn't trip and injure herself. Giving her wand a quick flick then jab, she cast again. "Histedius" Arya kept moving as the green rings narrowed in on its target.

Ok...sounded easy enough...resolution was the key and Nymphy had plenty of that. He lined up in his stance and thought...."Ok, I need a....Summining charm. I'll summon her wand! That works.......Accio Wand.....Accio Wand" he thought. He went even deeper...."I need to summon her wand.....Accio Wand.....I need to summon her wand.....Accio Wand" he thought, squinting and imagine the words running thourhg his mind like the news on a blimp advertisment.

Then with one final thought he open his eyes and imagined so hard that he could swear that he heard his miond audiblly say "Accio Wand!"

He felt a diminshed force leave his wand and thought he saw the girls hand jerk, but it definitly wasn't the full effect. Though, he thought is was good for a first try.

Truebridge nodded in greeting as a few more students arrived, as well as the charms professor. She looked familiar. He had no clue why.

"That is a good start." He agreed.

"Gold. Good timing. Perhaps... perhaps you can help out here. Ellie would like to go over the shield spells we learned in the first class of the term. Would you care to volunteer to demonstrate them?"

He kept one critical eye up on the duels going on up on the other platforms, nodding once as he saw Arya using Histedius. Good to see lessons being applied.

Ellie shrugged. "Eh, I thought so.." Could ya blame her?!

And then Gold walked up. Hello, there, Gold. And Truebridge asked her to help. "Gold won't jinx me." she said, confirming her last statement, and his choice.

She like Gold. She was nice. And she felt it pretty true that Gold would not jinx her. So she gave Gold a pleading look. Puhllleeaasee. Plus, she didn't want to end up getting stuck with someone else- Someone who might hurt her. However unintentional it might be...

Marie tried to smile at Professor Carlton when she said shewas sorry to hear about her and Carter. "Thanks, hopefully we will be talking again soon," she said. Maybe later she would try to find him so they could try and work things out.

For now though she needed to concentrate on what was going on here, and that was learning non-verbals. She clinbed into the arena with the boy who didn't think he needed to tell her his name... Pfft, she told him hers, the least he could have done was tell her his. Oh well, she will just think of him as the boy without a name. It's not liike she wanted to be friends with him.

The key to non-verbals was concentration and intention. She needed to focus on what she was doing, on what she wanted to happen. She needed to see it happening in her mind. She could do this, she knew she could since she HAD practiced it before. She had vowed to learn non-verbals last term after she got beat by Raiden when he was using them.

Closing her eyes she concentrated on the Imperiano shield. She envisioned the blue aura surrounding her and only her. Nothing was going to get to her right now. 'IMPERIANO!' She thought very loudly in her mind then did the proper wand movement, a tight circular motion, wrist flicking just the slightest bit, all the while concentrating on that blue bubble that would be around her. Opening her eyes she smiled as she seen the shield was there.

'Oh yeah, thank you Raiden for motivating me last term to learn non-verbals', she thought.

Nymphy thought his spell had failed, but then saw that the girl had cast a blue shield around herself. Aw....the Imperiano Aura Charm. It was a bit advanced, but not that powerful. If Nymphy had started off with a Blasting Curse or something more sinister than a Summoning Charm, then the shield would prabably have failed. Furthermore, Nymphy thought it was a little unrealistic for the girl to get it on her first try, so he strongly suspected that she wispered the words.....

Anyway, the fact that the shield came up made Nymphy feel better becasue it proably meant that his charm had been sucessfully cast, but merly block by her Aura. Nymphy then look at his professor for further instruction, as far as he could tell, they had both tried their stuff and were now ready for a few tips and what they could do better....

Oh. YAY! Gold's face lit up. "I would love to, sir," she said. Because Elli was cuuuute and snuggle-worthy.

In a very Ravenclaw way, of course.

Her smile faded, to give way to a look of mild surprise, when Ellie spoke up. "Of course not," Gold said. She wasn't going to jinx Ellie. Not in a look-here-and-JINX sort of way. Expression half-thoughtful, she focused her green gaze back on Professor Truebridge.

"May we start, Professor?"

Quote:

Originally Posted by grangerfan8

Aya paused for a moment, watching as Ivory shielded herself from the first spell and was hit with the second. The other girl's giggles were infectious and Arya soon found a few giggles slipping out as she took a step to the side. Letting her shield drop, she focused on Ivory instead as she continued to move on the plateform.

She noticed her friend aiming her wand at her, but didn't think much of it as she didn't feel a spell hit her. When a blasting curse was sent infront of her feet, she flinced for a moment, remembering the last time one had been sent at her, before aiming her wand at the small amount debris that came towards her as she took a step back. Arya stumbled on the trip jinx Ivory had set behind her, but quickly caught her footing. "Impedimenta" The pieces of wood and carpeting that were once coming at her slowed in the air. Before the spell could wear off, she cast again. "Incendio" With a whip of her wand all the little pieces were burnt to a crisp, falling to the ground.

"Obscuro" She said after stepping away from the small hole in the ground and aiming her wand for Ivory. Hoping it would hit, she took another step away from the hole so that she wouldn't trip and injure herself. Giving her wand a quick flick then jab, she cast again. "Histedius" Arya kept moving as the green rings narrowed in on its target.

As soon as Ivory saw her spell make contact with the carpet, she had to resist the urge to shut her eyes because well quite obviously closing one's eyes in a duel never boded well. "Protego!"However what she did do was bring up her shield as quickly as she could. Didn't want any scary distracting debris heading her way.

But then she didn't have to worry about debris because something else was speeding her way. Holding up her wand firmly, she was happy to see that her shield held up the attack, and she was right in the middle of lowering her shield to cast again when the green rings centered on her dwindling shield with enough force to knock her off her feet.

For a split second she was pushed back and although her mind was running through different spells she could do nothing much really as her bum came into hard contact with the floor. Nothing much besides bringing her wand up offensively with one of her favorite spells. "Muffliato."

Although a part of her wondered if the spell hit, a bigger part of her just used it as temporary distraction so that in a flurry of movement she could kick her legs and roll into a kneeling stance and cast again before she was caught unawares on the floor. Aiming at somewhere in the vicinity of Arya's feet, she tried to whisper her incantation in case the Muffliato hadn't worked. "Duro" Then back up she was as she tried to find her center of gravity again.

Ayra already had her shield up as she watched Ivory get hit with her jinx and fall to the ground hard. This being the first time she used the spell in a duel, she was proud that all of her practicing had paid off and she hadn't missed her target. She was still trying to avoid the small hole on the plateform while keeping her focus on Ivory.

Blocking the first spell, she dropped her shield and took her stance aiming her wand for Ivory. She figured it best to send another spell at the girl while she was atempting to get to her feet. Opening her mouth to cast, she was caught off gaurd by the second spell. Arya teetered in her stance when the spell hit her feet, turning her shoes to stone.

She atempted to pull her legs together, but the stone proved to be to heavy for her. Instead she sent off a spell at Ivory while to girl gathered her footing. "Locomotor Mortis." Turning her attention back to her stone shoes, she ran through her short list of spells trying to find one to rid her of the stone shoes.

"Reducto" Her right stone shoe exploded when she aimed her wand at it and cast. Turning away from said foot, she used her arms to shield herself from the stone before turning her attention back to Ivory. Had to keep her distracted while she removed the shoes. "Locomotor Mortis" Once sending off the spell, she went back to ridding herself of the other stone shoe.

OOC for quidditch_captain: Judging by the last line of The1HBIC's post, it looks as if her character has already started learning/practicing non-verbals, so unless I'm mistaken, it seems as if this wasn't her first try at casting non-verbally.



"Very nice job!" Lexi commented, proud to see the excellent attempts made by both Nymphy and Marie. It even looked as if Marie had already started working on her non-verbals. Either that, or she was just really good at this sort of thing. Nympy seemed to be trying really hard to focus on his concentration, too. If he kept practicing, Lexi was sure he'd be able to cast a few non-verbals sometime in the very near future.

"Keep going. Be aware of your surroundings and your opponent, but remember to concentrate on the spell you'd like to cast and what you'd like for it to do," she said. Not wanting to break any concentration Nymphy or Marie may have already started working on, Lexi grew quiet and just stayed off to the side. She watched the two students in anticipation of what would happen next.

Ok....lets try again, if he was right, Marie would try to block again. So he made this attempt worthless by saying in his mind "Obscuro!" It was a begginers level spell, but when trying to do non-verbals, he thought it best to start small. And to his elation, dark smoke furled from the end of his wand. No one could see anything. He then snuck around the room so that when the fog cleared, he would have the advantage......

"Yes do. Thank you Gold. I'll be right here if you need anything." Truebridge offered and gestured at the two girls to begin practicing.

It would be good to see how well Gold remembered it all.

Ellie clapped her hands all excitedly. Safe to say, she was very happy she hadn't been paired with a meany person who liked jinxing people. Gold was safe. She nodded.

"Thanks." she said to Professor Truebridge as she moved to more open space. "So, I left early first lesson, and I had only gotten histedius... and we were learning revertoscutum, but I never got a chance to practice that.." the little girl explained all this to Gold rather quickly. "So, I just need help with everything from there and beyond." She had no idea just how many spells they had learned in that class, but she figured there might be a few. Seeing as Truebridge had said, 'spells'. And 'spells' was plural.

So, she pulled out her wand and turned to Gold smiling. Yeah, she felt pretty good.

"Yes, sir."

Gold turned to look at Ellie, but the first year had already burst into a bout of information. When Ellie fell silent, Gold nodded. "No worries," she said. She sat down on the edge of the stage, and motioned for Ellie to do the same. No use standing while they talked, was there?

"Well, we'll start with Revertoscutum. Re-ver-toe-skew-tum," she repeated, more slowly. "It's called the 'glass to sand' shield, because it reverts physical things to their previous state. The wand movement is as simple as one can get - you only have to point." She pointed her own wand, as if to demonstrate, and said the incantation. The result was a shield that was a light aquamarine, a water-like colour.

"If you think you have the incantation right, give it a try," she said, encouragingly. "Otherwise, practice the incantation first." Because the wand movement was the easy part. "When you try the spell, focus on what you want - for anything that hits your shield, to be reverted."

"You might get a shield that's a lighter or darker shade of blue than mine," she added, in case that happened.