An activity where dummies were trying to ATTACK them? Super wild, and slightly gave her some war flashbacks from the acromantula attack, but... if anything, last term's attack made these kind of drills necessary. They NEEDED to learn how to act when things were trying to attack them. There was a huge difference between just doing a spell in class and doing it when something was coming at them, trying to take them down. Scary, but that was just the very real threat of living in the wizarding world.

Crazy stuff happened ALL THE TIME.

She could CHOOSE to cast nonverbally, but it wasn't required? Interesting. Well. Of course it'd be easiest to just do it verbally, she had that down perfectly, but... where was the challenge in that? Plus, she probably needed to set some sort of example for her fellow yearmates and give it a try. If she took the easy route, what kind of respect would that ever get her? She HAD to do it nonverbally. Any sixth or seventh year could do this verbally, probably in their sleep, so... sigh. Definitely going to have to take the nonverbal route with this whole thing, which was a little scary because WHAT IF IT DIDN'T WORK AND A DUMMY GOT HER.

Sure, she would only get shoved back, but it was the principle of the matter.

Getting as ready as she would ever be to protect the blue castle, Soph's wand was at the ready... and... GAME ON. The dummies weren't all that scary as they approached, and Soph gave her housemates the opportunity to get the first shots in before one came after her - she sharply drew her wand downward in a straight line and nonverbally cast, Protego!

Though her voice didn't ring out, a magical barrier shot out to block the dummy's red sparks that shot toward her, and Soph let out a cackle of victory. CAN'T GET HER, DUMMIES.

So the nonverbal thing wasn't really working out at the moment, typical. BUT his shot was GOOD, he was SURE that Professor Baxter was talking to him. And if he did say so himself, it was an absolutely fantastic shot at that. Ahem. Just had to get it without saying the actual words next time... But he had been practicing. Plus, hopefully after some more real practice sessions with Baxter, he'd probably start to get it sooner enough.

The real challenge here though was the fact that the dummies weren't stopping. There were SO many. And they were all coming towards Gryffindor. OR well, it felt like they were all coming towards Gryffindor.

Without another moments hesitation, Zander lifted his own wand once more. "Protego!" Er. Whoops? He had forgotten to try the nonverbal first. Aheeeem. But the good news was that his spell was a success and the shield seemed to be working. Hopefully that'd let some of the younger lions figure out how to disarm the dummies for a bit while they were still under some good protection.

Just had to remember not to say words out loud next time. Man. This stuff was hard, okay? Especially under this kind of pressure. How did the Flitwick bloke even do it?

As Soph brandished her wand to disarm the next dummy that came her way or shield herself from the sparks, Soph realized... just how FEW Ravenclaws were fighting alongside her in front of the castle. There was little Davie, BUT WHERE WAS EVERYONE ELSE? Had they all gone and stuffed themselves INSIDE the castle to hide?! THIS WAS NO TIME FOR COWARDICE, RAVENCLAWS.

THE DUMMIES WERE COMING AT THEM QUICKLY.

Rahhhh! "EXPELLIARMUS! EXPELLIARMUS! EXPELLIARMUS!" she cast loudly at one dummy after another, successfully disarming each one she shot at, then realized she'd done it verbally and not nonverbally. WELL. THERE WAS NO TIME, OKAY? And it wasn't like she needed to be SNEAKY here, those things were trying to get her RIGHT NOW.

WHERE WAS HER BACK-UP?! JANELLE? DAXTON? ROO? CHLOE? KIDDOS PLEEEEASE!

Where had Caleb gone? Brooklyn had noticed Maggie’s quite obvious call for someone to help Hady outside the castle, which should have easily been heard by the prefect. The dummies weren’t exactly loud after all, and he should have been close enough that the yells of spells by the other houses shouldn’t have mattered. She was ignoring them, anyhow. There was enough to focus on with the dummies and keeping their castle intact. She didn’t figure there was any reason to be concerned over any of the other houses, but then there wasn’t exactly any reason for her to anyhow. The other houses seemed like they had way more people guarding their castles for some reason, and it was really irritating her.

And then the firstie had to go and do something stupid like leap out of the castle to work on casting from the outside. Stupid. She wasn’t going anywhere, but she did shift to a closer window to the tiny figure and eye a couple of approaching dummies. “Protego!,” she cast, drawing a straight line in the air with her wand and waiting to see if the dummies did something so silly as to bounce off it. Somehow she’d ended up having to protect people, but as long as they defeated the dummies she didn’t care. Besides, there was every chance the boy might prove useful to her if she helped him out. As long as Maggie kept watch over Hady, the prefect could fend for himself.

With a few of the dummies threatening to attack Ravenclaw's castle disarmed, Soph started to back away a bit, her brows furrowing. With a quick calculation, she realized there were more dummies than there were fighting Ravenclaws, which was NOT A GOOD THING. There was power in numbers, but... there was also power in being super proficient at the shield and disarming charms, wasn't there?!

Of course there was. She was PLENTY capable of getting this job done and saving the day. She was not going to go down without a fight.

Her game face on, Sophie's wand was poised in the direction of sparks that were shooting toward her the moment they fired from the dummy and nonverbally cast Protego! with a flick of her wand downwards. The sparks were deflected, and TWO MORE DUMMIES WERE FIRING AT HER. PROTEGO! PROTEGO! Another two downward swishes of her wand in sync with her inner thoughts of casting and two more successful deflections of the sparks.

BUT THEY JUST KEPT COMING. They were NEVER going to disarm all the dummies at this rate. THEY WERE OUTNUMBERED.

DOOOOMED.

"Expelliarmus! Protego! Protego! EXPELLIARMUS!"Henric cast one after the other, disarming each of them at an alarming speed and agility!

Pfft. He wish.

Each time he took a step forward, he got hit by another one of their red sparks. His face reddened with frustration. "PROTEGO!" he shouted. Atleast this one was a success as it rebounded and pushed the dummy back a few inches but it was still holding onto that fake wand."EXPELLIARMUS!" There! His spell blew its wand away. HAHA! No wand for you! On to the next one...

The Sixth year had seen what Blaise and Bentley had been doing, snatching the wands from the dummies but he didn’t interfere. Honestly, if that were their styles to protect the castle he was all for it but of course the Professor did not agree to it. Oh well. “Protego!” Yoongi shouted, verbally this as his heart skipped a beat when he saw a spark flying towards him from the corner of his eye. In a flash, the Gryffindor had turned around and used the shield charm to protect himself and the castle. The spark bounced off the shield and hit the dummy back, causing it to fall over.

But his victory was short lived as another dummy took its place and came closer. He took a few steps backwards and casted a non-verbal ‘Protego’ this time and drew a straight line in the air. The shield wasn’t as strong as when he conjured it verbally but the spark didn’t hit him and another dummy fell over.

Oh but he would accept the dare. He'd very happily show his cousin just why he needed a wand in classes, actually why he needed a wand overall in this magical world.

"But I'm not trying to be funny. I'm trying to show you just what happens when you don't have a wand.." Bentley pointed the wand to the tip of Blaise's head since that was all he could see now that his cousin was hiding behind the dummy...

Bentley sighed heavily and frowned. Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine, he wouldn't get to hit Blaise with the spell this time but he'd catch him unarmed outside of the class. He did have his wand after all.

Ben nodded at the professor and pointed his wand at the dummy instead barely missing a spark from the wooden figure's wand thing.

"Protego!"....."Expelliarmus!"

This would be so much more fun if he could send Blaise flying.

THOSE DUMMIES HAD GONE WILD!!!

They didn't stop sending those red sparks. One of them hit her right arm. "OUCH!!!" It stung, you know. The red sparks. She cast more shield charm repeatedly. "Protego! Protego! "PROTEGO!!!" She did perform the charm perfectly, but still it didn't make the dummies stop sending those red sparks.

AND WHY THERE WERE SO MANY DUMMIES?

This was on! Okay, this is the real war! Gripping her hippogriff feather-core wand, The young lioness didn't stop sending the shield charm and disarmed them too. "EXPELLIARMUS! Protego! Protego! Expelliarmus!"

Angel was totally enjoying this lesson and she suddenly saw a dummy coming towards the castle and shooting spells, she dodge on with the Protego spell and then she decided to try and disarm it.

"Expelliarmus!" Angel did the wand movement but then nothing happened. "Expelliarmus!" Angel did the wand movement but still nothing, she could see herself now telling the team she had let them down and she didn't want that to happen.

"Expelliarmus!" Angel did the wand movement and concentrated really hard and then she suddenly realised that the spell was totally working... how awesome was this, she had protected the castle again.

Honestly, Sophie Brown was half tempted to take a page out of Dakest's book and try to conjure up a huge ring of fire kind of deal and just wipe out all the dummies in one huge swoop of the fire like a rope. HE had done well with that way to keep the enemy at bay with the acromantulas, so SHE wanted to try it, too. But... that wasn't the point of the lesson, was it? This wasn't meant to be a quick-thinking exercise about trying to use spells creatively to accomplish a task. This was just practicing two spells. A good task, really, and mega useful and practical for all of them, but... still. She was ITCHING to show those dummies who was boss.

She could take them. Each and every one of them. She so could.

But the matter at hand was that Ravenclaw's castle was still under attack, only Davie was fighting the good fight alongside her so far, and the others must've been hiding inside. Still mega lame, but there was no time to worry about them now - she had to focus on the task at hand. Her shields only lasted so long in deflecting the sparks shot by the dummies, and soon enough Soph was back at trying to disarm as many dummies as she could hit before they reached Ravenclaw territory and INFILTRATED IT.

"Expelliarmus!" she cast with a wave of her wand at one dummy, then "Expelliarmus!" again at another, both before remembering AGAIN that she'd meant to be doing these nonverbally. It was just super instinctive to do it verbally, all right? But at least with disarming, she DID see the perks of nonverbally casting it. Good to keep the enemy on their toes, even though these dummies didn't know any better, probably. Still, she didn't think the shield charm mattered verbally versus nonverbally, but... it was still nonverbal practice, right? So maybe all of this really DID have a good purpose.

At any rate, Soph was back at it again, trying to cast Expelliarmus! Protego! Expelliarmus! with the appropriate alternating wand movements between spells, deflecting sparks and disarming any dummies that threatened to get too close to her house's fortress.

Not today, dummies. Not today.

Blaise breathed an audible sigh of relief when the Professor stopped his cousin in his tracks. That was a close one. One more second and his cousin might have rearranged his features. For once the woman proved useful and so he did smile real wide at her. "Of course. Yes. Thank you Professor." The boy even mimicked the wand movement she described and with enthusiasm went, "Protego!"

See? He had this. No wand needed. His cousin could keep his wand in his bag all he wanted because Blaise was under the Professor's protection. All was good.

The boy stepped from the dummy he'd been hiding behind and grinned spitefully at his cousin. Look at that. Protection and he didn't even use his wand. Brilliant, wasn't it?

"Protego!"

Hah.

Well his shield had been holding up well, but unfortunately it wasn't quite as far-reaching as he would've hoped because INCOMING!!!! They were trying to attack Gryffindor fort from the OTHER side! Not cool. Nope.

Zander quickly ended his charm with a quick finite, before running to the other side of the fort where he found a few more of his teammates and a lot more of those dummies. Sweet Merlin, where did they end?

He wasted no time with his wand, however, and quickly-- Wait. He needed to try nonverbals again, didn't he? Sigh. Because he had sort of forgotten about that bit. Ugggggggghhhhh. This would be the bane of his existence, probably.

PROTEGO! He tried, to no avail. Hmph. But of course the pressure wasn't as high-stakes because the dummies weren't that close yet. But they were approaching really really quickly. It was go time! PROTEGO!! he thought again, this time practically screaming in his own head.

And... Surprise. Not much. Just a blue whisper of a spell.

AND NO HE REALLY COULDN'T MESS AROUND ANYMORE BECAUSE BOY WERE THEY STARTING TO CLOSE IN!! Ahhhhhhhhhh !!!! SOS ! PROTEGO!! And maybe it had something to do with the added pressure, but a shield definitely happened. Wait, what? It was a weaker one than he had managed to make before when he had said the incantation out loud, but LOOK HE ACTUALLY DID IT!!! Had to count for SOMETHING! The little victories in life, y'know?

This was not the day that Rooney wanted to be doing all of this and up on his feet. Actually, he was already in such a murky mood about his conversation with Henric that he didn't want to go anywhere near the idea of using his wand. He wanted to get books and read through them and find out absolutely everything and be able to justify all of his points instead of getting irked and moody. Instead, he had taken full cover behind the Ravenclaw fort and was trying not to kick himself for being such a fraidyfudge. After a few minutes, or maybe more than a few, Rooney headed around the front of the fort and finally looked at those pesky dummies and their pesky wands and those pesky sp--OKAY NO THANKS. This was all too much. He ducked back into the fort and huddled right into a corner with no intention of coming back out.

Until he heard the sweet musical voice of Miss Sophie Brown and it was almost like she was calling to him and he was a magnet to her and oh there he was by her side, fighting for their lives like any wonderful pairing in history. Teeheehee. Hi there, Miss Sophie Brown. (Head Girl of Hogwarts) How you doin'? OH what was that? Sparks? Yes, yes, he knew all about the sparks when two people were so made for one another. More teeheehee.

Wand raised, he narrowed his eyes and got ready to kick some dummy butt. Not really kick, because that wasn't the task at hand. "Oh my GOSH give me a minute!!!" To prepare, obviously. He didn't get the time though, because another dummy was advancing right this way and he was very close to running away, but he needed to impress Miss Sophie Brown. "Expelliarm--MOOSE." Okay, he hadn't been expecting those sparks to almost caveer into his head. SERIOUSLY. WAS THIS EVEN SAFE?!!

"Expelliarmus!" So..that didn't work. But at least he wasn't throwing the word moose around again?

It felt like half an eternity until the dummies were defeated and a twitching mess on the floor. Some of them displayed injuries...like that one with a dangling arm BUT that was OKAY. Because her students had done that.

Clapping her hands, Astrid called in a loud-enough voice. "Brilliant work, everyone!" They definitely kicked bum. Look! Another twitchy dummy. THEY did that. Pat on the back everyone. "This will be all for today." They needed some rest, that's for sure. "The way you all came together and helped one another was amazing. I especially liked how you became teams and had each other's back."

Unable to put away that proud smile of hers, Astrid swished her wand, setting a bowl that contained sweets, quills, stickers and Quidditch team badges. "You are all welcome to take something from the bowl of surprises. You did fabulous. Keep a look out for the homework that will be posted on the board by the door. Have a nice rest of the day."

Norah took a few ginormous steps forward, brandishing her wand like a sword. Queen of the castle, remember? She had to keep showing those dummies who was boss. Queen Boss Norah. That was even better than Queen Prefect.

She had her eyes set on an approaching dummy, but ended up turning quickly to see who was yelling about a moose. Um. What? Her eyes found Rooney being pursued by a mean old dummy. Not ROONEY. That was just cruel. That cutiepie deserved all the safety and good things, didn't the dummies know? She ignored her castle for a moment and aimed at the dummy getting closer to Rooney instead. Drawing a sharp downwards line with her wand, she cast, "Protego!" between the Ravenclaw and the dummy. Just so he'd have a chance to disarm the thing, y'know? That dummy was approaching awfully fast, it just wasn't fair. Norah raised a hand to give Rooney a little salute, but was knocked backwards by a dummy before she could complete the motion. Oh right. Back to the normal order of business.

She regained her footing just as a second set of sparks pushed her back even further. It wasn't FUNNY anymore, you dumb thing. It was just annoying. As if it could read her mind, the dummy sent over some more sparks and left the fifth year knocked onto the ground. Okay then. From the floor could work too. She aimed upwards at the dummy and cast a firm "Protego," the scrunchiness between her eyebrows softening slightly when the dummy was knocked backwards. Victory was still sweet, even from the floor.