Mr Zimmer.

Freddy really liked the sound of that. But before he could say more to hear the woman say that again, everyone was speaking again. Some .... more than others, like the girl who had apparently arrived late. But he did agree, calling giants stupid was wrong. But the obvious was still not being stated, until Ezra spoke up, and he snorted, ".. I agree, they might just step on us before we have a chance to do anything"

"...I mean - we are not picking on our own size by engaging with them, are we?"

Moritz had been silently listening to the class, refusing to speak up. Despite his excellent grades in other classes, History of Magic was always a struggle for him - as was evidenced by the horrendous score he'd gotten on his OWLs. Yet here he was, forced by his grandmother to continue the course for no other reason than the fact that SHE loved the subject and had taught it, and his dad had taught it at Ilvermorny...did no one care what MOE wanted to study? This was such a waste of his time. Time he could have spent flying. Or studying other subjects like Potions - stuff he was GOOD at.

So for most lessons, he'd been sitting quietly in the back, only contributing when absolutely necessary. And it was no fault of Professor Fergersnout. In fact, he quite liked all the effort she put in to trying to make the subject fun - his brain just couldn't comprehend half this stuff. Why? Who knew. It was just how his blond head was wired.

But the conversation was slowly going off the rails, with students arguing over whether or not giants were 'stupid' and he felt the need to pipe up in defense of Anna - who always amused him in classes, and seemed like a sweet kid. He raised his hand. "I agree with her," he announced, gesturing towards the Hufflepuff. "Giants may be smarter than we give them credit for. I mean, they have whole social systems within their groups, and as we know they're capable of forming bonds with humans and even having kids with them," he elaborated. "But they don't necessarily need to USE those smarts to just...stomp all over us, so maybe we've just never taken the time to see what they're truly capable of. To me, THAT makes them pretty formidable," he concluded.

AND now back to sitting in his corner.

Desiree was pleased with the praise her answer received and even more pleased to learn that she’d correctly guessed which era Professor Fergersnout’s attire came from. The mention of giants came as a bit of a surprise. That was not where she thought this lesson was going, but she wasn’t disappointed. On the contrary, her curiosity piqued. What were they going to do that involved giants and exercise? Climb something meant to simulate a giant? Play a game of tag with someone as the “giant” instead of “it”?

She was so lost in thought that she almost missed the next question. A reason she wouldn’t want to fight a giant? There were so many… their size, brute strength, resistance to spells, lack of patience for diplomacy. She didn’t believe that giants were as unintelligent as they were made out to be, but she thought it unnecessary to add to that discussion. Anna and Moritz had already made good points. So what else could she say?

As she thought, she imagined a giant picking her up and… well, it wasn’t a pretty picture! Raising her hand, she said, “A giant could grab you and crush you… or drop you from a great height.” That was a dark answer - much more so that the perky princess-y Puff would usually give - but she was trying to think outside the box!

Oh deary me.

Perhaps she should halt this question before the discussion turned into a classroom argument. It was a little unexpected that what she considered to be quite a simple question had turned into somewhat of a debate over the intelligence of Giants in general. There was Mr Gellar who was insistent on calling them stupid and Miss Walles and Mr Schultz arguing in their defence. “Let’s not get into the ethics of whether Giants are stupid or not, perhaps that would be a better discussion for debate society instead?” Which she happened to co-run alongside their esteemed Headmaster if anyone was remotely interested. “What we can ascertain is that Giants have not quite achieved the level of intelligence that Wizardkind have but they are capable of communication in their own language and occasionally in ours and as Mr Schultz mentioned they have their own social hierarchies which could be construed as a sign of an intelligent species. They are however not the best at negotiations and it’s their impatience as Miss Schultz and Miss Walles mentioned that means they prefer much simpler conversation”. They could go into a very long discussion over the ethics of prejudices against Giants but then they wouldn’t have time for the rest of the lesson.

Speaking of the Hufflepuff.. “I appreciate your contribution to the discussion Miss Walles and your pure honesty however forgetfulness unfortunately isn’t a valid excuse for lateness. I shall be taking 5 points from Hufflepuff for your tardiness.” It could have been more but the fact that Anna hadn’t lied or attempted to slip in unnoticed worked in her favour.

The next topic was the size and physicality of giants as mentioned by Miss Atreyu-Rehman. “Giants are capable of growing to 20-25 feet tall, around 4.5 times the average human. As Mr Greenwood, Mr Zimmer and Miss Marchand discussed, we are an easy target for their aggression and even a large group of Aurors find it difficult to subdue a single Giant with magic.” As picked up on by Mr Atreyu-Rehman.

“Now I understand our concerns over painting Giants as the villains in our lesson, however unfortunately history is not full of the sunshines and rainbows that we all wish it could be and I’d argue that THAT’S what makes it so interesting! The reality is that the Giants favour aggression and violence and therefore often fought on the wrong side and had to be overcome in order to protect the good or rather our kind in general.”

“A final question before we move onto the fun part!” she clapped her hands together, excited to show what she had planned. “If the Giants made such formidable opponents, how was it that others were able to overpower them during the wars?”

OOC: Quick final question before moving on in around 20-24 hours.

If she was being honest, Sloane figured she’d lose points for Slytherin as soon as she realised, she’d forgotten her robes but realising whilst you’re in the lesson was a little too late. Sniffling, she shrugged a little and slightly quieter than usual due to her sore throat, called over to the Professor “I’m ill and I didn’t want to miss the lesson. You wanted us to be outside so I figured I’d dress warm. It’s November!” She wasn’t about to apologize for turning up ill when it was his idea to have a lesson outside in November, even if the weather was warmer than expected. She wasn’t about to kick up a fuss however. This had been the second time she’d lost points for Slytherin in a short period of time and, whilst she felt guilty, neither of them was her fault.

Tuning into the lesson as best as she could, Sloane listened to the class introduction but didn’t really take any of it in properly. Everything seemed as though there were some kind of filter covering her ears so how much she actually took in remained to be seen.

Blah, blah, blah Hogwarts, blah, blah.

Listening to some of the answers from the kids around her, she managed to piece together what they were talking about. Sadly, she knew very little about Hogwarts and even less about the history of the place to actually answer it. Conflicts were always interesting though, especially ones with giants, so Sloane did her best to actually listen to the next part of the lesson. She had zero clue what made a giant so formidable apart from sheer guesswork. By the time she went to answer, all of her guesses had already been put out there. Focusing on the latest question, Sloane jumped on it quickly and called out her answer.

“Numbers? Maybe wizards managed to get a lot of them. Like A LOT! I know giants are big but like, if there were twenty or thirty wizards surrounding one giant, it can’t stop every spell cast at it?” She had no idea if it was true or not but it sounded like it could be.

Giants were not bright in human standards but they certainly were so in their own way. They did understand magic, they did hunt for their food… this was why Ary sent a frown at Roman. Surely his buddy did not mean to sound so crass? Yes, a few of his classmates were backing his thoughts up. Ary felt better about this. All living creatures {and even the ones who were dead like ghosts} were brilliant in their own way.

It was just sad that giants preferred violence. Ary imagined the species would have thrived if this had been the opposite. He definitely saw why Voldemort would have wanted them on his side. They were probably promised more violence in terms of their services to him also. Ary raised his hand. “I agree with Sloane. Many witches and wizards to one giant, much like many witches and wizards when handling one dragon.”

Of course there had to be a dragon reference in there.

Coming from a long line of purebloods, Emma hadn't been all that excited to learn about the history of magic. She felt like she'd practically grown up with it and it always seemed far too much theory for the energetic first year. But over the last two months, Emma has all come terms that Professor Fergersnout at this eccentricity that made lessons quite enjoyable and today's being outside in the courtyard was no exception.

Conflict within the wizarding community. Well there was of course the most recent - the battle that occurred right at Hogwarts when she was only like four years old. She recalled her big brothers and their experiences and adventures that year.

What made Giants such formidable opponents? She considered this and the battles that occurred with Voldemort - hadn't they switched sides? So would they ... could they be formidable because of their unpredictability? Because one moment they'd be siding with one party and be easily persuaded to switch?

She frowned at Aryan and Sloane wanting to defeat Giants with numbers. "I don't agree. I don't think we should be trying to necessarily casting spells on giants, but perhaps just winning them over with kindness." Maybe it was her sunny aura and wanting to see the positives, "I just ... giants naturally favor aggression and violence, as you said Professor, but fighting violence with violence i would think would only beset more violence. But being kind... speaks volumes."

The arrival of Anna was most distracting, despite her sparking up a bit of a debate within the class. He, himself, didn’t have much to add to the discussion, mostly because he thought giants terrifying and did not want to admit that. So he supposed that meant he was all for giants being defeated by wizard kind when needed, but he hoped this class wouldn’t turn into a DADA lesson where they’d be faced with a real one. Anyway - Solly smiled warmly at Anna, amused that she didn’t just slip in unnoticed.

“A powerful enough wizard or witch can defeat any opponent.” That was all he had to add, really. Unfortunate for the giants that they didn’t have the ability to wield magic, otherwise things would be very different!

Slytherin should keep going the way the way going with the points losses – that way Ezra wouldn't even have to make much effort to beat Eli in the house cup. He could just hear his brother's judgement of his fellow greens and it made Ezra chuckle to himself. Hufflepuff losing points didn't bother him either way, but he was sad for the floofy girl.

Professor Snout sure seemed excited. Ezra, being an excitable twelve year old, could only be swept along with it - considering this was History of Magic, it was great so far, and a practical activity would be even better!

It was a shame the discussion about giants intellect was halted - it was just getting going. But as for giants and battle..

“We have the upper hand of being able to plan our battles and can use tactics and strategy. Stealth and other ways to outwit the giants. They tend to bumble into battle and just use brute force.”

When Desiree heard Professor Fergersnout's response to her classmates' debate about giants' intelligence, she was glad she didn't take part in it. She listened as the lecture moved on, mildly confused by the direction it took. She didn't understand the need for so much emphasis on giants' aggression. She didn't remember anyone questioning their violent tendencies, just their intelligence, and she didn't consider the two traits mutually exclusive. Comparatively speaking, the next question was fairly easy to understand.

Frankly, Desiree wouldn't want to fight a giant; she wouldn't want to fight anyone unless he absolutely had to. She was more the kill them with kindness type, like Emma had mentioned, but she didn't give that answer for two reasons. 1) it didn't need repeating and 2) she doubted it was the kind of answer the professor wanted.

Recalling a bit of information from her textbook, she raised her hand and said, "Possibly by luring them into small spaces. Giants don't like close quarters and are known to fight each other when confined. So if one were to lure the giants somewhere cramped, they could turn on each other, which could buy time to mount an attack and leave fewer opponents to fight." Did that idea make sense? I'd did in her mind, but less so when she said it out loud!

Just for the record, Regulus was not convinced that the first years really did not bite. Though he'd not witnessed any biting incidents (yet), he felt sure they were all capable of it in the right circumstances. He understood Fergersnout to be joking, though, so had responded with another smile and a quip-like, "They might."

After that, he was fairly quiet, though not for a lack of answer, and not because of being sensitive to the topic - it did not bother him, though there were plenty of reasons it could have. Instead, he fixed a politely engaged expression on his face, and paid close attention instead to what was said by others, and in what manner - while remaining, as ever, being very conscious of what he said, and how he said it. He did the same again, when the topic turned to giants, following the disagreement carefully, crystal blue eyes bouncing from student to student as they spoke up.

But, when it came to the third question, Regulus reasoned that staying silent yet again might give an impression he was not aiming for. After several moments' careful consideration, he raised a hand. "They might have used the environment, instead of casting at them directly." To Regulus, and all he had been taught over the years, it was more or less common sense. "You wouldn't even need to outnumber them if you can turn the ground to a quicksand, or use plants like mandrakes or Devil's Snare, or collapse bridges under them." He could have gone on (and had far more brutal ideas in mind), but decided that that was plenty, especially if he wanted to avoid causing... upset. He supposed he ought to.

“Some excellent ideas here. It seems that we are mostly in agreement that outsmarting a Giant is the best tactic but nobody has picked up on a Giant’s weak spots. Although Giants are mostly resistant to magic, their skin is seemingly not immune to being injured through non-magical means. In 1996, a Giant whose name may be familiar to you all, Grawp, was injured by the Centaurs arrows. Furthermore, the eyes are another weakness and have been known to be affected by the Conjunctivitis Curse rendering them unable to see and therefore easier to outwit.”

“Now if you’ll all follow me..”

Fergersnout quickly turned on her heels and led her brigade of students a short distance out of the Courtyard to an open patch of grass that had been laid out with an assortment of wooden crates and large boulders resembling an assault course. At the furthest end of the course was a collection of bows and foam arrows. Next to the Professor was a table displaying several potion bottles, foam clubs and armour.

“Welcome to your battleground! There is nothing more fun than learning through activity so today we are going to reenact a battle between the Giants and the Centaurs.” Wasn’t this EXCITING?! “On the table next to me are TEMPORARY growth potions. They will increase your height to seven feet for the next thirty minutes only but also make your movements slower. As you can see in front of you is an assault course. I will divide you all into two teams, Giants versus Centaurs. Centaurs - your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to get to the end of the course without being hit by the Giants foam clubs using the objects to hide behind. Once you’ve reached the end you can use the bow and arrows to shoot at the Giants armour. Giants - Your objective is to hit the Centaurs armour with your clubs before they are able to reach the end. All your armour is charmed to erupt glitter every time it is hit ” Which meant that Fergersnout would have an awful lot of cleaning up to do but at least the students will return to the school covered in a beautiful rainbow hue of sparkliness. If it turned into all out warfare they needn’t worry as everything had been charmed to be as soft as possible to prevent any possibility of injury. There were also no real winners in the battle, it was just meant as an exercise to induce their creativity whilst reenacting a moment in history.

She divided the class into two down the middle. “Giants, you can go ahead and drink your potions and collect your clubs and armour now. Centaurs may collect their armour and feel free to practice with the bow and arrows whilst you are waiting. Once we are all ready I shall drop my handkerchief and let the battle commence!”


OOC: Your students can go ahead and get prepared for the activity. A couple of ground rules before we get started..

1. Everything is either made of foam or charmed to prevent injury, this is supposed to be a fun activity and not an excuse to hurt each other.
2. The effects of the growth potion are TEMPORARY and your student will return to normal before the lesson has ended.
3. No godmodding. You are welcome to specify that you are aiming for a particular person but it is up to them whether they get hit or not.
4. Please specify whether you are a Giant/Centaur as the title of your posts.
5. There are no limits to the number of posts you want to make, just have fun, be silly and creative. There are no extra points for ‘winning’ or whether your student is hit or not. It’s all about the ~experience~. Professor Fergersnout will be wandering around supervising/joining in.

Any questions just vm/pm me or ask IC.

Roman had not quite predicted what an argument and outrage he would create when stating that giants were stupid. Merlin. He glanced around at the naysayers and just blinked in misunderstanding. Why did people care so much about giants anyway? It wasn't like any of them were here, and since that was the case, he wasn't offending any. And the fact of the matter was that they were not as intelligent as humans, and he simply would listen to the rest of the discussion instead as he tried to garner some understanding of why his fellows would stand up for the species with such zeal.

Hmm.

The activity, however, seemed interesting and enjoyable enough, and Roman was left trying to decipher whether he'd drink the size-increasing potion or not. He wasn't keen on being huge, but he had never shot a bow-and-arrow before, real or fake. With his height and size, he felt like he was small and quick enough to avoid anyone pretending to be a giant, and so when the professor put him on the centaur side, he was thankful. He would be nimble and quick, and that was the plan! He took his stance at the ready!

Sloane stood there for a second as she considered the professors words. She was that ill! Shrugging, Sloane simply turned as the professor explained something about the lesson. It didn’t matter because she wasn’t going to be there.

“Say no more professor. I’ll catch you when I’m feeling better. Byeeeeee.” And with that, Sloane turned to head towards the castle. Funny thing, she was feeling better already.

Aryan did not doubt that. He might not know the approximate number of wizards or witches it would take to overcome a giant but he did know that as it was with dragons, a great number might be needed. Ah, yes. He could see the professor’s point about a giant’s skin. He supposed that there was only so much battering that a giant can take. This was something the boy reflected on as he followed the class.

Look at all the interesting things, which turned out to be a ‘battleground’. Those potions were the most intriguing in Ary’s opinion. The activity was easy enough to understand and Ary did not mind at all that he was placed on the giants’ side.

When given the go ahead to down the potion, he did so and immediately felt the effects. Even though he had expected it, Ary was still startled when he shot up an extra two and a half inches or thereabouts. Hey, this was cool! He was ‘tall’, even if he was a rather skinny giant! And this new height did take some use getting used to for it was with great clumsiness that he went around to collect the armour and a club.

Soooo, it seemed as if his answer was very wrong, but Solomon still had every faith that someone powerful enough could do it, so he didn’t feel too embarrassed over his incorrectness.

Woah - the activity sounded AWESOME.

He straight away wanted to be a centaur and was pleased that he was placed on that team. As much as becoming giant sounded fun, he didn’t much fancy being a stupid creature as opposed to a valiant one. Solomon pretty much bounced over to the armour and weapons, and fully equipped himself, taking a moment to figure out how the bows and arrows worked.

While waiting, he had a little practice and sent an arrow straight into the air and into the far distance. Oops.

Hey - he was pretty good at this.

Anna smiled at the older Ravenclaw when he agreed with her - though truth be told she was not sure why he was agreeing with her and certainly had not realized that her thoughtful ramble of a response may have low key initiated a debate. Her tone had hardly been passionate either...much more akin to describing just what specific shade of blue she saw the sky. Ironically, Magical Debate Club was not one of the extracurriculars n her schedule but maybe she should consider adding it too! The fourth year Hufflepuffle felt the very real urge to apologize for accidentally sparking a debate but it didn't seem all that necessary considering the rest of the climate of the courtyard and such. Especially since the professor did not seem all that upset by it either.

The point deduction...well...it was expected but not something Anna ever felt particularly upset by. Points were not all THAT much of a motivating factor to her and not just because she struggled to earn them in the first place. That just tended to happen when one forgot to do their assignments. "Oh, I know, professor," she nodded in agreement and with entirely too bright a smile for someone who was in just the tiniest bit of hot water. She probably should actually plant herself somewhere for the rest of the lecture, which naturally meant she was going to meander over towards Solomon the Valiant and not the Apologetic of the Glistening Waters which also meant she was skipping right on by The Agreeable Ravenclaw of Giant Intellect and the Gryffindor boy with a handsome princely nose who also was sharing about giants squishing things like grapes. Now beside Solomon, Anna had entirely missed the trajectory of the next part of the conversation - though her contribution probably would have been to just shower them with gifts and distract them - but was ready to participate in the activity!

Even without her friend joining the side, it was an easy choice for her not to go all giant and possibly squish more things...meaning centaur it was! But like...er...also...erm...NOT having glitter explosions was a wasted opportunity so there truly was no guarantee that she was going to be very effected at dodging anything. It would be fun to end the lesson covered in glitter, wouldn't it?

"Hope you feel better soon!" she called out to the first year that had decided they needed to leave. Good thing the Professor Ameliorating Teddy Bear was also an excellent healer.

And then Anna followed Solomon over to the armour and offered him a wide smile before her gaze shifted to the smaller Slytherin to whom she had initially responded to and offered him a smile as well. Fumbling with the armour a bit, she managed to get it on...ish...it was all kinds of collywobbles and ill-fated but it WAS on. As for the bow and arrow, well, she had never used one of these before and she wasn't entirely sure what she was doing with it...but Solomon sure did. See? "How do you make that look so easy?" she asked with a small nervous giggle as she struggle to even hold her arrow up with the bow. As soon as she pulled back on the string bit, the arrow was drooping down and tumbling to the courtyard ground as well. "Thing you could you teach me?"

Oh. My. Merlin..

Ezra was immediately drawn to the side of the giants. Not because he particularly wanted to be hit with foam weapons or to actually BE a giant.. but because it would make him seven whole feet tall!

That was taller than anyone he knew and his family, unlike him, were on the tall side. He wanted to know what the world looked like from that perspective and, for once, actually be taller than his fellow second years instead of being the short kid.

He joined Aryan and the other giants and selected a potion, He downed the potion and felt his body tingle in response. This was weird. The ground started getting further and further away.

“Oooooooh!” He squeezed his eyes shut.

He was growing taller and taller and taller.. and then finally stopped when he hit seven feet.

Did they have time to get used to this? He walked around a bit. He felt so clumsy like he was walking on stilts. He held his hand in front of him. His arm was so long! MERLIN. He looked at the ground wide eyed. This was fun and all but he was glad the potion was temporary and he would return to being pint sized when it was all over. Could you imagine having trying to navigate the castle in this state??

He looked at Ary and giggled. “So this is what it feels like to be tall.” Ooh.. he needed his armour. He went about and selected a few things, as well as a foam club.

It was difficult to hide the displeased expression on Fergersnout’s face as Sloane practically ran out of class. It was an emotion unfamiliar with the usually upbeat Professor but there were certain behaviours that warranted it. Unbeknownst to Miss Knott, she WOULD be checking with Feirgrund whether she had visited him and would make her judgment accordingly.

Satisfied that the students were preparing themselves for the activity, Apollonia took the opportunity to wander around ‘accioing’ back the straying arrows and placing them in a pile to be used again later and watching to see whether anyone required any help. Solomon seemed to have a handle on using his bow but Anna was struggling a little. She hadn’t expected everyone to get a handle on archery immediately which in her opinion made it all the more fun. What good would it be if everyone was good at everything? She would’ve offered a little extra tuition but she was already asking her comrades for help and instead of interrupting like the over-eager adult she was, she decided to let them help each other.

Roman had seemingly decided against any practice and had already taken his starting position. Aryan and Ezra were stumbling around with their new found height which was quite an amusing sight to see.

With a fond chuckle she headed to the middle of the course, removing a white handkerchief from her pocket which she raised high above her head before singing that loud operatic note to gain the students attention. “Esteemed warriors, we have gathered here today to settle this conflict between the Giants and Centaurs. Upon the dropping of my hankie, may the battle COMMENCE!” The white handkerchief floated down to the ground and the Professor swooshed her cape dramatically as she moved to the side to allow the students to begin.


OOC: Time to have fun! You have free rein to play as you see fit provided you don’t break any of the aforementioned rules in my previous post. You’ll have until Saturday evening (GMT) to play.

More ‘giants’ were joining him. Ary could clearly see that they too were surprised about the height increase and attempting to adjust to it. He himself still was as well. The Slytherin giggled as well, his gaze now on Ezra. “A strange feeling. I feel as though I may fall over at any second.” Imagine looking down and getting slightly dizzy.

With the professor kickstarted the activity, Aryan distractedly watched the hanky float towards the ground. There was just something about it caught in the wind on its way down. But anyway, it was time to complete the task ahead. “Stick together?” he asked Ezra. Maybe that way they would have more success that way. Already the first year was surveying the ‘centaurs’, silently weeding out a first target.

Desiree felt like an idiot when the professor mentioned the Giant’s weak spots. How had she not thought of that?! She was so busy trying to think outside the box that she ignored the obvious answer! Well, there was nothing to be done about it now, so she followed the group to the open grassy patch. Her bright blue eyes scanned the area, taking in the odd assortment of items… potion bottles, boulders, crates, armor, bows, foam arrows and clubs. What could they be doing with all this stuff?

Her mood brightened when she heard it involved archery. She’d never tried it before, but it sounded fun! Plus, it reminded her of Princess Merida and the movie Brave. If she wasn’t already excited to try this activity, hearing that the armor exploded glitter when it was hit would’ve done it. See, professors? This was how to do a messy activity! No need for water or mud; if you’re going to get people dirty, do it in a pretty way!

Desiree was practically bouncing in place with anticipation, already formulating a strategy. She was small for her age and pretty agile from years of ballet class. She could probably hide behind something or else dodge the “giants” with her ballet moves. Then a thought occurred to her. What if she was a giant? Ohnononono! Then all her excitement would be for nothing! Fortunately, she was placed on Team Centaur.

She followed her teammates to collect her armor. Once she had it snugly fitted in place, she picked up a bow and arrows, trying to hold them the way Merida did in the movie. She spied a nearby crate to use as a practice target and aimed her arrow. It went a little too far to the left, grazing the crate’s top left corner. That wasn’t great, but it was better than she thought she’d do on the first try!

Before Desiree could grab another arrow to practice again, she saw Professor Fergersnout drop her handkerchief signaling the start of the “battle”. Wasting no time, she beelined for the nearest boulder and ducked behind it, bow and arrows in hand. She cautiously peered out from her hiding place, waiting to fire until the “giants” came closer.

Anna gave Solly too much credit, as always. All he did was shoot an arrow into the sky, not hit any kind of target, but of course, he accepted her compliments with grace. “Sure, I can show you.” He positioned himself with his bow once again, only this time aiming at one of the now giant students. Would he get in trouble for shooting an arrow before reaching the end of the course?

Likely so, and anyway, Professor Fergersnout has just given them the go ahead for the activity.

“… Later!” Sorry, Anna.

Solly pulled his bow and arrow out of engage mode, and made a dash for the first object he could see for standing behind, all the while leaving Anna far behind for all he knew.

He would love to see these giants try and catch him!!!!!!

Roman hadn't bothered to practice with the bow and arrow, and now he was seriously regretting that. Once he made it to the other side, he had to try to hit the giants!

So far he could see that Aryan was HUUUUGEEEE, and he figured that might be his first target if he made it through without any of the giants hitting him. On his own team were some of the people who had argued that giants weren't that stupid, which was fine. Roman was already over it, but he'd be thinking about it later, probably at an inopportune time of the night.

At the drop of the handkerchief and snug in his armor, Roman TOOK OFFFFFFF for the other side of the area. Were they rendered motionless if they were hit once? If this were a real battle, they would be seriously injured or even killed by being hit, so he felt it was only fair to stop running if he WERE hit. Thing was, Roman was small and flighty, like a little bird soaring through the air, in and out, weaving around. There were plenty of things to hide behind, and the first year soon found himself sliding to hide himself behind a giant tree stump.

But the giants were just so...tall.

Ary lifted his club which, while it wasn’t heavy as it was foam, was hampered by the fact that his movements were incredibly slow. He really didn’t see how this was an advantage for the giants. Then again, they seemed to be mostly at disadvantages given their height, their agility and their limited intelligence. He was referring to the giant species as a whole and not just the #TeamGiant for this activity.

Still, the first year was ready to try his best. The centaurs were already running for cover. It was now or never. Almost in a lazy manner, Giant!Ary lifted the foam club and took aim for those centaurs scattering about. He took particular aim at Centaur!Solomon’s armour. In the process, he also swung clumsily left, right, north, northwest, south, southeast and all other directions one could think about so who knew if the club connected with anyone else.

What frustrated Ary was how slow the movements were. Never before did appreciate so much his small and skinny but agile stature.

With the stumbling around and the dizziness of being so tall, Ezra was already predicting how this was all going to go. Centaurs had the advantage of being able to navigate swiftly and hide. Giants were huge and always in plain sight. This was all very realistic, bar the fact that the weapons were made of foam and Ezra could at least still think like a human person.

A nod to Ary. “Sorry in advance if I'm rubbish.” He chuckled. And yes, please let them stick together! This was all too daunting to be left alone in the battlefield.

He gave his new friend room, who was already swinging his club at the Centaur!Solly. Wide eyed he watched, before realising he was very exposed just standing there. Roman was off like a bullet, so he lumbered toward Centaur!Desiree who had slipped behind a boulder. He swung his foam weapon in her direction, “Come out, little Centaur.” He said doing his best impression of a giant. Then a stupid giggle escaped him, ruining the whole giant act.