Teaching? But I know nothing! PV Hui Ming Closed

The weekend was finally here, bringing with it blessed relief from schedule and deadlines.

Hui Ming hadn’t thought that classes would be so demanding – common-sense sort of went out the window when dealing with magic. Between double and triple checking all his homework, keeping up with his Muggle Studies on the side, and having to adjust to the sheer bevvy of different personalities that were in his House and classes, Ming had been quite literally buried in paperwork.

So when he finally found some time on his hands, he seized the opportunity with both hands to go exploring. He wanted to sign up for the outdoors club since exploring the Castle grounds unsupervised was forbidden. But once he had gone down that road, he decided that he might as well take a look at the other clubs and societies as well. Not all of them would hold his interest, obviously. But it was better to have seen something boring than to have missed out on something amazing out of ignorance.

And that was how the wiry first year found himself outside the Duelling Club.

Like any good and sensible person, he had spent some time outside, properly reading through the sign. It turned out that the sign was detailing rules and etiquette of duelling, which was interesting of course; but he had expected it there to be words of caution or warning there, much to his surprise. Given that the kind of damage that could be done by the combata- duelists. They were duelists. But it was surprising no danger warnings were given.

When he entered the room, he had expected the room to be empty, much like all the other rooms he’d visited thus far. He had mainly wanted a ‘feel’ for the room, to try and imagine the type of people who might be part of this club.

Imagine his surprise, then, when he walked in on an older girl kneeling on the floor muttering to herself as she scrawled on the ground. Perhaps she was marking the ground? He had read back in the Muggle world that certain magical rituals had to have ritual circles rife with writing and enchantment and symbolism and metaphors for them to work. Was she trying to do something similar?

She hadn’t noticed him, it seemed, and continued with her task. He hesitated.

He shouldn’t interrupt her. It was rude. But then-

“Ahem, excuse me.” He called out, with every inch of confidence that he didn’t feel he had. “Am I interrupting something?”

Interactions: @Delilah Stewart

[font=times new roman]She felt a little bit slow in her casting, probably because she hadn't casted anything in a few months, it was as if her wand was mocking her when she was at home. If they weren't allowed to use it, why did they take their wands home? why not just leave them at school?

Getting a bit of a fright as she heard a voice, she spun around to follow the voice. "Oh! No, no you're not, I was just practising for this years tournament." She chuckled nervously. She wasn't entirely used to people appearing when she was practising, most of the time she had the duelling room to herself. Sometimes people from her team or the other houses would come in, but she didn't recognise this kid.

"Are you one of the new firsties? I'm Delilah!" Smiling, she sat down on the stage properly, facing the kid, even though they seemed about the same height, Delilah had just entered her 5th year at Hogwarts, one of the most important, since her OWLs were this year. She was excited to say the least. Studying was her thing. She had been told a couple times that she was a stereotypical Ravenclaw, however she had been trying to burst that stereotype of herself over the past year or so.

Getting an idea for another strategy, she quickly scribbled it down on the paper, before turning her attention back to the Slytherin.
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Date: Sunday, 5/9/2021 ---------------------------

Interacting with: @Hui Ming ---------------------------

Interacting: @Delilah Stewart
Mentioning: -
Font: Book Antiqua

English | Mandarin | French | Quotes

The bespectacled Chinese boy looked over the senior girl. Blue trimmings. That made her..... Ravenclaw? He had wanted to be Ravenclaw originally, had thought that it would have been a better fit for him, preferring as he did his own company over that of others. A part of him still wished that were the case. Not that he would ever challenge his Sorting. It was unheard of, terrible rude, and ultimately futile.

That the upperclassman had not retorted with aggression - or worse, rudeness! - was much appreciated, and he responded to her question with a slow nod of his head. "Indeed. You are correct Miss Delilah. I am Hui Ming, first year. Slytherin." The last word was added on afterwards, almost as an afterthought.

The upperclassman immediately went back to her work, something that made Hui Ming actually smile. She was all business, this one, and he approved. It made everything more efficient when people were professional like this outside of social events.

The short Asian boy - he was only 4'9" and found that most people towered over him - before his attention being drawn back to the senior. He had thought this was a Dueling Room? He was not quite certain what he had expected, but in his mind duelists were a cross between the overly cowboys of the west, and the knights of Europe. Not someone like Miss Delilah, who gave every appearance of being a normal human being and not a muscle-head.

Maybe he was mistaken, and she was the team manager. Or some other job that required handling the administrative aspects of dueling. Many of the larger sports teams had managers, he was aware.

"Pardon the interruption, Miss Delilah." Hui Ming spoke up, the embodiment of a polite, if formal, child. To his surprise, the upperclassman peered up from her paper then. Oh, my. Why could more Slytherin upper-years not be like her?

"I do not want to make presumptions, and I hope you'll forgive my rudeness." He hedged. The upperclassman seemed nice, and the very last thing he needed was to offend her with his ignorance. "I had been under the impression that dueling consisted mainly of lashing out a barrage of spells before one's opponent?"

He flinched at his own delivery. You're coming on too strong, Ming! "I- Sorry. What I meant to ask was... what are you doing, exactly? I did not think Dueling involved paperwork."

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[font=times new roman]With his response, the first year seemed quite professional, introducing himself fully, unlike Del who had just blurted out her name. While she was trying to pay attention to the younger student in front of her, she kept brainstorming ideas in the background.

When he asked the question she was a bit surprised, even though she had only been duelling for a year, the theory stuff kind of came second nature to her. "Oh, no, you're not being rude it's okay!" She smiled, she didn't want to discourage him, he must've been in here for a reason.

"Oh, actually one of the biggest parts of duelling is planning." While this wasn't a surprise to Del, she had heard it had surprised people before. "If you and your partner just send random spells at your opponent, it's unlikely you are going to get anywhere. You have to figure out what your opponents are able to do, what spells they know, who has the advantage and what spells you can use to gain more of an advantage." She hoped that made sense, she had found an odd passion for duelling that was for sure. She wanted to bring more into it if she could.

She pointed to her sheet when he mentioned paperwork. "Oh this is just kinda the way I plan things, I don't know if you would really understand what I've written its kind of nonsense. It's basically just possible spell combinations me and my partner could use in duels, since we don't know our opponents yet." She pushed the sheet forward in case he wanted to have a look, but it was mostly random words and shorthand.
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Date: Sunday, 5/9/2021 ---------------------------

Interacting with: @Hui Ming ---------------------------

Interacting: @Delilah Stewart

“Well, if you don’t mind. . ." Ming said slowly, flinching internally at speaking so informally. Perhaps it was just his training, but every fiber of his being screamed at him about the rudeness of the words he had spoken, the lack of proper respect and reverence given to an upperclassman. At the same time, his experiences over the past month in the Summer Camp showed that perhaps it made more sense to attempt to fit into the crowd than stand out with his own ideas of propriety and acceptability, especially when he was demonstrably in the minority.

Intrigued at the offer to look at the paper in front of him, Ming took a couple of steps forward to take a look at the proffered piece of paper. Dark eyes skimmed the paper, finding disjointed words. Some of seemed to be English, disjointed and unusual; while others were nonsensical, like ‘Flipendo’. What in the name of everything holy was a Flipendo? Perhaps the most interesting of the scribbled words were those that had identifiable Greco-Latin roots. These last ones, Ming surmised, were likely spells.

Several long moments of silence, as Ming attempted to commit these spells to memory – spells that were socially acceptable means to hurt others would be worth looking into, given the dangers of Slytherin. After a number of seconds had elapsed, and Ming could no longer justify claiming incomprehension, he looked up at the upper-year.

“I do apologize, Miss Delilah.” He said stiffly. “It appears that you were correct, this makes very little sense to me.” A small pause, before he decided to push his luck.

“Perhaps you would be willing to explain one, so I may grasp all of this a bit better?”

Scanning her own paper, she nodded. "Yeah of course, I'm happy to explain it." She was always happy to see new students who seemed to enjoy or be interested in the things that Delilah liked. "So uh... this line." She said as she pointed out the line that said 'Obscuro A, cant dodge, flipendo damage. Partner can incendio B, maybe leviosa'. "Essentially, A and B are the opponents. Assuming opponent A is stronger than B, I could cast Obscurio on opponent A, and then use Flipendo after that, whilst my partner focuses on opponent B with simpler spells like Incendio or Wingardium Leviosa."

Delilah very quickly remembered that the person she was talking to, was a first year, and might not actually know these spells. Although she didn't know his blood status.

"Uh, Obscuro is a blindfolding charm, it makes a blindfold that sticks to your opponents face, it's pretty cool. Hard to dodge a spell if you can't actually see. One time I casted it at somebody but they half dodged it, it only covered one eye!" She laughed. "So, Flipendo is the knockback jinx, it does some pretty hefty damage for being a spell you learn in first year. Incendio is the fire making spell, its a bit harsher honestly, I'm not a big fan of using it, something feels wrong about literally setting somebody on fire."

Finally, she explained the last spell she had mentioned. "And Wingardium Leviosa, levitating charm, makes the opponent fly about a metre in the air. Just another way to make them struggle to avoid your spells. Look, lemme show you."

Delilah picked her wand up off the stage beside her, and placed the sheet of paper down on it. Pointing the wand at the sheet she said "Wingardium Leviosa!" and with a swish and a flick, the sheet rose into the air, not particularly high, she wasn't trying to make it fly away, that would be pretty tricky to catch. Just about 30 centimetres above the surface. As she let it float back down she spoke again. "I tend to be partnered with folk younger than me quite a bit, probably because I'm good at healing? I don't know. But that's why a lot of my strategies have my partner doing more simple spells than I am."

Date: Sunday, 5/9/2021 ---------------------------

Interacting with: @Hui Ming ---------------------------

Interacting: @Delilah Stewart

The smallest of frowns marred the face of the first year from the brief explanation of tactics, his lack of familiarity with vernicular hampering his understanding. Flipendo sounded like a tripping jinx, perhaps - combining flip and upend? And Obscuro seemed pretty self-evident.

Stark was the relief as the older girl went into depth about the spells themselves, but the tactics themselves became clearer. The Slytherin quietly waited until the explanation of the spells were over, and his counterpart moved on to demonstrating a levitating spell.

There was a second or two of silence, as Ming attempted to process everything that he was told - incapacitate the opposition before going in for the big hits. It made sense, and made the sport seem like much more than the mindless spellslinging he had originally thought it would be.

"Interesting," he said quietly, observing the floating piece of paper. "I have a question."

Perhaps he spoke too quietly, for miss Delilah made a comment about her partners being younger than her. A surprise, since he had assumed that duelling would be a year-wise event, pitting students of the same years against each other. Another oddity in this world, but one that it would be ill-advised to bring up.

"I understand how levitating an opponent would make it easier to target them. However" he said instead, opting for the less problematic observation. He waited a moment, before continuing. "How would blindfolding help? Wouldn't casting a spell give away what the spell is and where it is coming from?"

She nodded, as he asked the question. It was a fully understandable question, Obscuro was an extremely common spell in duelling, however he was completely correct, thinking about it logically, with almost everybody in the school having to audibly say their spells out loud, it would kind of give it away at times. "You're right, you would know where the spell is coming from, however it isn't used just to hide their view of yourself, but it also hides their view of their surroundings."

Delilah thought about casting the spell at him to show what she meant but then realised that might be a bit mean to do to a first year who had only just started. "So, uh, even if you know where the spell is coming from, that doesn't mean it's that easy to dodge it, you'd be surprised how disoriented you can become with your vision completely gone. And along with that, it's also hard to cast spells blindly. And then there's the people who can cast spells without saying a word, I want to learn that skill actually." As soon as she was capable of it, she had hoped to become one of these people who could cast spells silently, after all, think about the great advantage that would give her in duelling, she would be unstoppable, imagine if she could do wandless too? Not only would it be brilliant in duelling, but she would just be able to do so much, imagine, sitting at home reading a book, not needing to touch the pages because you could just flick through them. She was certainly excited for her 17th birthday next December.

"Everybody has different tactics, you'll have to watch some duels sometime to get the real feel."

Date: Sunday, 5/9/2021 ---------------------------

Interacting with: @Hui Ming ---------------------------