Practice Makes Perfection Dueling Closed

Magnus stood beside the Professors as they waited for the students to arrive to the enlarged dueling room for today's practice, glancing toward a few of the students he knew from tutoring and study sessions, he smiled and nodded to them, just as Sebastian began speaking.

"Good evening, students," the History of Magic teacher said firmly, but not shouting quite yet. "This is the first duel of the newly sanctioned Dueling Club. Today I want you to observe as an example two prefects who have volunteered to help us learn."

After that Magnus picks out the students he was assigned to teach, speaking in a clear voice for the students while the prefects Sebastian picked out make their way to the stage, he moves to another nearby stage "Anatole, Isabella, Celynne, Colette, Dorian, and Dmitri please come over here and I will separate you into twos so we can begin practicing."

He thought back to his own days dueling at Ilvermorny and grinned a little, hoping he can find someone to tutor in dueling like his teacher tutored him.

Waiting as the students come over he looks them over with a calculating eye 'Seems a good bunch, good magic levels for first years as well' he thought as he senses their magical levels nodding to them, with a smile as they come closer

To be quite honest, Anatole had no idea what he was getting himself into. It was dueling, yes, basically trusting a bunch of eleven-year-old wizards not to kill themselves, which is somewhat like asking someone to not steal from a cookie jar. It was irresistible.

The most that Anatole had heard about it was from Sir Harringtom himself, the brand-new shiny Ravenclaw Prefect that Anatole was landlocked into a rivalry with. Just the fact that Adam got such a high honour messed up a function in his system. It wasn't right. Now Adam had authority to boss him around? And he was nothing and lied helpless? Not on his watch. If Anatole was supposed to be a prince, Adam had just become king of the world.

Well, that was never Anatole's first priority. He knew Adam lived to duel and dueled to live. Anatole could do the task of considering himself dead. He doubted many would come to his funeral, though.

So yes, in order to not have such an unfortunate outcome, he decided to join the Dueling Club. Maybe he would stand a chance by the end of it.

As Adam got up on stage, confident as ever, Anatole's gut almost killed him. There was something welling up inside him he couldn't quite explain: envy.

With a tense sigh, he decided to distract himself. He despised the whole battle.

He despised Adam.



He was breathless like he had just dashed a mile, when in reality, he had sat in his chair and witnessed a part of a terrible duel. Thankfully, his name was one of the first to be called. With a breath of relief, he stood up, searching around as the other names were called. Only one stuck out like a sore thumb: Dorian. That one boy from the Dormitory. It was odd seeing him with a shirt on. Dorian gave him a mild grin as they met eyes, and Anatole, with a sharp inhale, mimicked his smile back. He knew he couldn't handle saying the first word.

Keeping his pupils on the boy, Anatole inched slowly toward Professor Rosier, a man he had no clue about and honestly wasn't extremely curious to find out more. Apparently he taught Runes? Well, hopefully, he could teach them something about dueling.

He watched the Gryffindor's expression change and Anatole gripped his own thigh, pinching it. The pain sent a wild, internal scream racing through him as he clutched his wand in his other hand. Adam, a prefect? Dorian, a club mate?

This couldn't be real.

Not wanting to miss anything, Lettie had made it a point to bring her on-the-go parchment and quill, which she had been hastily scribbling in for the entire meeting thus far. By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail, was a phrase her mother had etched into her from birth.

However silly she may look, all bent over and frantically writing, it definitely helped to have somewhere that she could keep track of her observations on her fellow classmates with. After all, these students would be her most fierce competition, and she was determined to observe and retain every minute detail of their dueling style so she could find the best way to counteract each one of them. Cold, calculated strategy was the name of the game here.

Unfortunately, Lettie's interest in the practice duel was short lived, as it became evident that neither girl was fully prepared to be in the chamber at all. She couldn't help but tsk loudly and roll her eyes obnoxiously on several occasions. By the time they were done, she more than resented the Professor for subjecting them to such torture and had already made it her primary mission to outshine them both.

When Professer Rosier called them over so that they could start their practice duels, Lettie sighed loudly and said "Oh, thank Merlin." She hurriedly stashed away her quill and parchment and went to go meet him with a smile. "Hello there, Professor! I just wanted to say before we start, I'm really excited to be given this opportunity! Thank you so much for offering you knowledge to us - I know that we could learn a lot from you!" she flashed another charming grin before drawing her wand in preparation.

As she waited to be paired up, Lettie took some time to size up her would-be opponents. From the looks of them, they were nothing to write home about. Lettie gave a small chuckle as she thought to herself, this will be a piece of cake. 

Dmitri Jones couldn't contain his excitement when duel practices were announced. First thing in the morning, all he did was write his full name with a flourish on the sign-up sheet with a self-satisfaction the Slytherin didn't even attempt to hide.

If he were to be perfectly honest, the upcoming official opening of the Duelling Club and its related duelling activities was all Dmitri could ever think about in the several days prior. The Slytherin felt that he has already proven his prowess academics-wise. This time, he would be able to test his mettle against equally-talented individuals and gauge just how far his academic learnings have taken him in a challenge of practical application.

Dmitri was excited--albeit quite a bit nervous as well.

He has  something to prove. 

And the people who have something to prove always have the most to lose.

However, they have more to gain as well.

Thus, Dmitri put it through his mind to outperform any one person that might go in between his way to ultimate duelling victory.
 
When the demo battle took place, the raven-haired boy just stared blankly--and boredly--at a blank space on the opposite wall. Nothing that could happen in this battle will be useful to the Slytherin in the near future. Of course, one can always say he can learn strategies from the duel that was ongoing. But as he has burnt multpile candles poring through all the rules, technicalities, and strategies of the Duelling Club, he figured this wouldn't serve any real purpose other than a mere short-term entertainment--ironic, since it kind of failed to impress Dmitri.

He only snapped back to focusing on the things happening around him when he heard his name called by one of the professors. This one he never really knew anything substantial about--other than being a teacher in one of the future years. Dmitri passed Magnus Rosier quite a lot in the halls of Hogwarts but none of those "interactions" were significant aside from curt nods and acknowledging glances.

The instructor called a few other names from the other houses as well--none of whom he could recall ever having an interaction with.

Which is probably for the better.

It would be easier for Dmitri to crush them under his proverbial boot when he has no emotional attachment to them--even as a mere acquaintance. 

Other than a lazy glance he threw the other students in his group, The Slytherin never really did much to acknowledge their presence. Even when one girl excitedly spoke to the professor animatedly, all Dmitri did was roll his eyes, look at his nails, and throw Magnus a look complete with raised eyebrows that clearly conveyed, "Can we start now? This unnecessary loitering is boring me."

Whether he won or lost, one thing was for sure: there's no time to waste in finding out.

Cel stood with her hands clasped with each other, no sliver of emotion showing on her neutral face-- no warmth, no cold... but perhaps just a tiny bit of an excited sparkle in her heterochromatic eyes?
The sparkle dimmed as she met the gaze of each of the other students, one by one-- or at least tried to, for those who weren't looking in her direction. Internally a spark of annoyance shot up her spine as the other students made their comments, whether verbally or physically.
Calm down, Cel, she told herself. There will be idiots in this school. You know that. There are idiots in every school, in every place. You're one of them. The last sentence was added on as sort of a thoughtful note, neither a sarcastic comment nor self-deprivation.
Truthfully, she was as excited as anyone else might be-- meaning very, extremely so. She'd never dueled before, though she had practiced spells that could be used to duel in the Dueling Club room before.
Now Cel reviewed a few of those spells in her mind: Knockback jinx. Fire-summoning spell. Curse of Bogies, though I'm not sure how useful that one will be. Probably not that much.
But the girl stayed silent, her gaze neutral.