It was a good thing that someone had told him that all he had to do was use Alohomora on this door, because ever since the war...well...Atlas' instinct was to throw Bombarda at anything that was locked. Fast, reliable, and efficient. Clearing his throat, Atlas did NOT blast the door right off the hinges and walked in at a respectable pace to just...look around.

He wasn't really sure what he was looking for...but he was bored and boredom and Flamsteed genes never mixed all that well. Hopefully something here would catch his forget-me-not blue eye (or eyes, preferable both eyes so he didn't strain them trying to look multiple directions).

Leave this room a disaster? Well...he wouldn't do so intentionally.

The spare office up on the sixth floor had been occupied, and he hadn't been in the mood to practice in the Hufflepuff Common Room in the presence of the other students. That's why he'd been in the Charm's practice room.

He stood a few feet away from a small hand mirror he'd placed on the ground in front of him. It wasn't his, but one he had discovered inside the trunk in the corner of the room.

The third-year held out his wand and pointed it at the mirror, intent on summoning it to him but he had no such luck for the past fifteen minutes. He was so preoccupied with his work that he didn't notice the locked door was opened up and that Atlas, out of all students, had entered the room.

Well...if Daniel were a basilisk he would be dead right now. Or at least petrified. Atlas wouldn't put it past the Hufflepuff to try a Petrificus Totalus on him sometime. Speaking of basilisks though, it was kind of ironic that Daniel had a mirror though since, you know, you could use that while basilisk hunting. So he had read somewhere or something.

"You're here," he said flatly, not that he was upset to see him (indifferent if anything) and more like he was stating a fact. Daniel was, in fact, present in this Charms practice room. "What are you doing with that mirror?"

Admiring his reflection?

Another failed attempt to get the hand mirror to fly his way. But the Hufflepuff was far from giving up. He would stay in this room until dinner if he had to. That was how determined he was to learn a new spell.

The Hufflepuff pointed his wand at the mirror once more, concentrating on the summoning charm, when his concentration was broken by a voice. From the corner of his eye, he noticed one of the Flamsteed twins standing there and it took him a second or two to realise that it wasn't Aries.

Daniel, already irked by Atlas' presence, pinched the bridge of his nose with his free hand before turning to face the older guy. "That's none of your business, Flamsteed" he said. "Now go away, I'm busy" he turned his back to him to face the hand mirror again, his wand pointed at it to attempt the charm for the ....well, he'd lost count by this point.

Oh? Was Daniel bothered by his presence? All the more reason to stay. This was, after all, a free practice space open to one and all and if the Hufflepuff was just using a small mirror he hardly needed the WHOLE of the space for that.

"Suppose that's true," he nodded in agreement. Whatever it was the third year wanted to do with the mirror was of little concern to himself. But what Atlas was interested in was the contents of the trunk just right in Daniel's line of sight. Why it held interest was truly a mystery, but the Gryffindor was strolling right on over to it to rummage around and find something to capture his attention. "It says Charms Practice Room on the door, not Daniel's Practice room." he reminded the younger student in a rather neutral and matter-of-fact like tone, no different than way he would read aloud from a textbook or respond to any calculation question in Arithmancy class.

One thing he disliked about being a student at Hogwarts was that he was a commoner here. A mere equal with no authority to tell others what to do. Atlas reminded him of that in his stupid matter-of-fact tone that this was not his practice room.

"I know that" he said, rolling his eyes. He couldn't figure out why the Gryffindor was always so calm and indifferent around him. It was something about him that irritated him the most. "Then stay on that side of the room, you're distracting me" he should have made a sign and hung it on the door indicating that the practice room was off-limits for the day.

He took a deep breath to clear his mind before returning to the mirror with his wand pointed at it. "Accio" he muttered. Nothing, the hand mirror didn't even budge. "Accio" he said more firmly, but nothing happened again. The most spectacular thing that had happened with the mirror was when it moved an inch once. "Accio! oh, come on!" perhaps a mirror was still too difficult for him? Maybe he needed to start even smaller. A ping pong ball of some sort.

Daniel marched over to the chest again with his wand still in his hand and tapped his foot impatiently as Atlas rummaged around in it.

Hurry up!

Ironically, you answered your question yourself there. Daniel.

"Okay. Just wanted to check because you DID say for me to go away but this isn't your space to prohibit my entry," he responded with an equally irritating calm. More facts, more pseudo patience, more riling the Hufflepuff up. But otherwise, Atlas simply nodded. Staying on this side of the room was something he could do - especially since he was distracted by looking at all the things in here. Most of it hardly held it attention though...that is until he came upon an old pocket watch and then his eyes widened and dilated. THIS could be useful! So he held on to that and used his other hand to search around a bit more, and doing so haphazardly which then had all the clunking and clanking drown out all the foot tapping that was going on behind him. Until he found a little metal to car that might be useful too and paused to examine that in his hand. The good news was that he had not heard nor really paid any attention to Daniel's practicing. Atlas wouldn't have had anything to comment on either seeing as he too struggled with spellwork and it wasn't like he could flaunt his superiority were he to poke at Daniel for his lack of repertoire with a Summoning Charm.

The tapping, however, was a whole other thing...and the Gryffindor slightly rolled the toy car over his palm before deciding that naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah it wasn't for him and went back to rummaging through the box. Nice and slowly. Hmmm...was this rubber duck anything of use? Hmm hmm hmm. Nope. Back into the box it went and more rummaging to follow.

No thanks, going to take our time over here on the side of the room he was SUPPOSED to stay on.

Daniel's jaw clenched and his wand hand twitched as Atlas spoke, eager to use one of the hexes he had learned last year on him. It would be easy. But he cared about not getting detention. He still had plans to enter the restricted area with Lisa and Alfie. if he received detention now, the professors would keep an annoyingly close eye on him afterwards. Something he did not want.

And sending a hex to him when he was the only one in the room was just plain stupid and also not fair when he had his back turned. He'd wait for now. Hufflepuff's were 'patient' folk after all.

Except for now. Daniel waited for him to pick an object from the box, still tapping his foot. He watched him pick up a small toy car and roll it over his palm before returning to the box to get whatever had piqued his interest now.

He should never have told him to 'stay on that side of the room'. He was already regretting his words. "I know you're being slow on purpose" he said and crouched next to the side of the box and glared at him before reaching over to grab the ping pong ball he'd seen earlier.

See...here was the THING. While it was absolutely true that he was taking his time in searching through the trunk and doing so for the sole purpose of irritating Daniel, it was ALSO true that you could not rush art and what Atlas was looking for were pieces to best fir his art. Not that he felt Daniel would appreciate the Gryffindor's form of art.

Which was also why the next object, another little hand mirror, also returned to the box and rummaging continued.

"I am," he confirmed with a nod of the head and a cursory glance towards the Hufflepuff. "But some good things take time." Unlike, apparently, whatever it was Daniel was up to as he haughtily snatched that ping pong ball. That was okay, Atlas didn't need something like that anyway. Unlike the lightbulb he found next, probably to practice Lumos on, and decided was a keeper.

Daniel scoffed as Atlas admitted that he was deliberately being slow, and Daniel sat down beside the chest box on the floor, observing Atlas' face without saying a word and as he picked out another seemingly random item, Daniel leaned back on his arms.

His thoughts returned to Flourish and Blotts, and how Lisa had accused him, albeit jokingly, of being jealous of the Gryffindor. And as he sat there, staring at him, he confirmed that she was mistaken. Daniel Yoon was not jealous of Atlas Flamsteed. Why would he be? Clearly, he was superior in everything except age.

Why wasn't he leaving and returning to his practice with the ping pong ball in his hand? For one, the distance rule only applied to Atlas, not him. And, secondly. It was probably because Atlas' next set of words piqued his interest. "What good things?" he found himself asking before he could stop himself. He despised being interested in any of Flamsteed's activities yet here he was.

"I want to ask you something" he said out of the blue after a moment of silence as he moved to sit upright again with his legs crossed.

Oof. That sounded nasty. Did Daniel need to maybe see the healer? A tissue? Some cough syrup? Best not let that linger too long, you know? Yes, maybe, being facetious about that scoff.

Atlas shrugged his shoulders a bit. "Suppose that depends on who you are talking to," he mused as he set the next item back into the trunk and found something of more benefit after a bit more rummaging. "For me," he continued, because obviously Daniel was fascinated with what it was he was doing. "...it's about finding objects with the right pieces or that at least look like they will have the right pieces...for metal charming and metallurgy. Got tons of ground to make up for since I can't practice at home." But could recite theory in his sleep at this point.

Holding up the pocket watch to the light, squinting at it with one eye closed, Atlas adjusted his gaze to look at the Hufflepuff and REFRAINED from pointing out that he already had asked him something. At least not so blatantly. "What else?"

For a brief moment, Daniel believed Atlas was going to refuse to answer his question but when he did, the Hufflepuff was genuinely surprised.

Metal charming? he had read about that topic before, but he hadn't been that interested in it that he was doing additional research. "Do you plan on becoming a metal charmer?" he asked, his dark brown eyes had shifted from their intense annoying focus on the Gryffindor to slight curiosity. "So, do you disassemble, reassemble, and recreate as well?" Wait, he was speaking to Atlas Flamsteed here! Daniel shook his head. 'Stop being interested in your enemy, you idiot'

Remembering this, his usual demeanour around the fourth year turned back to 'normal', and he rolled his eyes at his 'what else' because he knew exactly what those words had implied.

"Do you want to have a duel with me someday?" he asked and felt incredibly foolish for 'asking' rather than 'ordering'

"I mean, I'd like to see if my hard work of practising has been paying off, and honestly... you'd be the ideal opponent" See, he wouldn't feel bad if Atlas Flamsteed got hurt. He was perfect~

Atlas shrugged his shoulders, MORE than happy to talk about himself and his interests. It was one of his few bragging points and he rarely had the opportunity to really share it with people - especially people who seemed interested. The first person outside of family had been Nemesis Upstead...and the gift they had given the Gryffindor in relation never left his pocket. Atlas still could not do the things that Nemesis could...but he also couldn't really practice outside of school to even have half a chance ... or a third at being close.

"Not sure," he replied with a light shrug. "I started with robotics at my other school...it all sort of goes hand in hand." Meaning his school before Hogwarts. "Mum and my unchiul are practically masters at it. Mum has loads of mechanical creatures roaming and flittering about the house...and Unchiul Andrei can do loads of cool stuff with it combined with his proficiency with elemental magic." Atlas WANTED to do that too...but it seemed like that was not in the cards for him. "But...yeah...kind of all of the above...though I'd say I, er, recreate more than reassemble."

Pleasantly surprised by this turn of events between them, or perhaps pleasantly wary was more accurate, Atlas noticed quite the dramatic shift in Daniel's tone and body language which...had the Gryffindor wondering which part of what he had just said had been so upsetting. Did Daniel not like mechanical creatures? If so...why? Was the Hufflepuff suddenly morally offended by Atlas' deconstructive tendencies?

And then ... this turn.

"Why? Because you know you'll beat me?" It was, after all, no mystery nor secret that Atlas did not excel in Defense Against the Dark Arts and just overall was not particularly strong with most spells.

Daniel was afraid that when Atlas addressed robotics, he'd start talking about everything he knew about the subject. Something the Hufflepuff didn't care about. Robotics had to do with Muggle science and, despite being a Muggleborn himself, he was uninterested in anything Muggle related. Except for his family who he adored, he didn't care about other Muggles. They simply weren't worth his time. "Isn't metal charming used to manufacture Golden Snitches?" he muttered as he returned his attention to Atlas. Merlin's Beard, what was he even doing?!

When Atlas mentioned recreations, he felt torn. He rolled the ping pong ball on the floor under his palm as he thought. On the one hand, he was intrigued. What types of recreations had the Gryffindor already created? Were they mechanical creatures like his uncle made? And where did he work on them? In the Room of Requirement? But on the other hand, he didn't want to appear to be .....interested. Or, at the very least, more engrossed than he had already shown. He stretched his legs out in front of him and began tapping the side of the box with his shoes. "cool...i guess"


Then there was that response. It would have seemed reasonable to anyone else. But, to Daniel, those words irritated him more than having to admit that he had been interested in Atlas' curious activities. He despised it when people admitted defeat without even trying first. "You're right" he replied as he stood up from the ground and wiped the back of his pants before he smiled down at him. One that did not reach his eyes. It rarely did. "That wouldn't be fair. I need a formidable opponent anyway" Someone who could compete with his level. He turned and walked to his side of the room.

It was funny how many witches and wizards would stick their noses up, in varying degrees, in the air about robotics and the Muggle approach to things. But the truth of the matter was that the same principals of Muggle metallurgy were relevant and applicable to metal charming...and you simply could not study one without the other. So, basically, it was pretty ignorant to think that one was above such studies - they were crucial to magic too.

Basically...it was a good thing Daniel had kept his thoughts to himself or else the tension in the practice room would have grown even more stank.

"Sure is," he nodded lightly. "Though mum and my unchiul never got into that business. Neither are all that fond of quidditch...though mum did play in a students versus professors match while she taught here." Dad too but, well, they weren't talking about dad.

Squinting without outright doing so, Atlas' gaze lingered on Daniel a bit more before he starting poking around the box again...and the Hufflepuff started kicking it unnecessarily. Not that THAT was irritating or anything (it was).

The blonde was unsure as to whether or not Daniel's comments were meant to rile him up, but they did not. If anything else they were solidifying some truths that Atlas had already subscribed to. One being that Daniel was possibly looking for a reason to 'best' him in something and Atlas had seen straight through the plan. The other being, and connected to the first, that it was a known fact that Atlas was not a very proficient dueler and therefore it would not be much of a challenge not particularly good practice. Unless maybe the Hufflepuff was blindfolded...but Atlas did have some integrity he would like to pretend was still in place. "Glad you see my reason," he replied with a slight shrug of the shoulders, completely unbothered and eyes quickly back to his collecting of miscellaneous objects.