Chapter 21: Training Continues
*****
Defending yourself from an attack probably shouldn't be quite this amusing… Alinora thought, suppressing a wide grin. She had to keep up her singing to continue her defense spell- grinning would only interrupt that effort.
Ali had been working on a defense spell that was musical in nature. Working with Professor Flitwick extensively over the past couple months, she was now putting it to the test against both he and Professor McGonagall. While most charms or spells, are made up of a wand motion and a spoken verbal component, this one substituted song and dance. While it might not work for most people, so far it was proving quite successful for her.
They'd been going strong for almost twenty minutes now, her movements still flowing along with the melody in her head and the lyrics she was singing. Ali had her wand out, but it wasn't necessary for the spell- it was more of an accessory. She could see the hexes and curses being deflected by the glowing web she'd spun around herself.
She realized that they would have to be stopping soon, as the others would soon be here for their lesson. Just then she caught a glimpse of them entering, out of the corner of her eye, as she twirled to the beat. Noticing a couple of hexes being deflected off in their direction, Ali added an extra motion to her dance, throwing up a sparkling shield in front of them- to stop both their movement forward and as well as preventing any stray spells from impacting on them. Alinora was beginning to feel a bit tired…
"I think it's about time to call it a night Minerva and let Miss Roane rest a bit." Flitwick called out as he finally lowered his wand. McGonagall nodded, finished casting her last spell and relaxed.
As the last spell deflected itself off towards the ceiling, Alinora slowed her steps and finally stopped moving completely, ending her song at the same time. Panting slightly she leaned over to stretch her back muscles, reaching down and out with her arms.
"Ali! Move!" she heard Katie yell and she quickly stood up and started moving to the side when something hit her left shoulder. Gasping in pain and shock, Ali looked back and saw what appeared to be a piece of the stone that made up the ceiling of the room. Looking up, she could see where McGonagall's last spell had hit the ceiling and knocked loose the chunk that had hit her.
"Okay, that wasn't fun." Ali grumbled clutching at the wound on her arm, craning her neck around and trying to get a good view of what had happened. All she could tell was that it hurt and was bleeding fairly profusely.
"Hold on Ali, let me take a look. Ginny, could you run and get me a wet cloth from the bathroom down the hall?" Ginny nodded and ran out as Katie walked over to take a look at Alinora's arm. "I don't think it's too deep, though you'll probably have a pretty nice bruise. Good thing you moved as much as you did or it probably would've hit you on the head… Madam Pomfrey has been showing me a few healing charms and once I've removed some of the blood to get a look at the damage, I should be able to patch you up enough to stop the bleeding."
"Sounds good to me. I don't know what that last spell was you threw at me, but if it can take chunks out of this ceiling; I'm glad I didn't catch the full brunt of it." Ali said, grinning over at Professor McGonagall who was in the process of fixing the damage to the ceiling.
"What's the use of testing your defensive spell if there's nothing being thrown at it that can cause real damage?" McGonagall replied.
"Quite true."
Ginny had returned with a damp cloth and Katie began dabbing at the blood. George pulled a couple chairs over for them to sit on while Katie was doing her work and was now squatting on the floor beside Ali with his arm around her. Ali leaned her head against his chest and attempted to finish catching her breath.
Soon enough, Katie had finished with her basic charms and sealed over the cut on Ali's arm so that the bleeding was stopped and she could move it as normal. Flitwick and McGonagall had left once they were certain things were going to be okay.
"Great job. Thanks Katie. Okay guys, enough stalling, time to get to work. We've been doing various exercises over the past four months to build up your skills in doing magic without a wand. You've all worked really hard and have improved much faster than I originally expected considering none of you had any prior knowledge of the topic. So tonight, I want us to have a little fun with it." Ali grinned at them mischievously, trying not to laugh at their slightly confused looks- this wasn't the way lessons normally began…
Alinora walked over to a small desk near the door, pulled out her wand and put it down on its surface. "Okay, any of you who brought your wands with you, bring them here." All four were quick to join her and deposit their wands with hers. Once they were all accounted for, Alinora placed her hands out flat over the pile, mumbled a quick charm and watched in satisfaction as a glowing field rose up to seal off the wands.
"Okay! The goal for this session is simple- attack and defense. No hexes, just simple color charms that mark those who get hit. Very similar to our… testing of your new products back before Christmas." Ali said, smiling at Fred and George, who were beginning to grin back. Glancing over at Katie and Ginny she could see they were also beginning to smile. "No real teams and no goals other than to stay as unmarked as possible. Also, the color charms have to wear off in thirty minutes. We'll play for twenty minutes. Everyone understand?" At their nods, Ali continued. "Okay, find a place to begin your stand." They each moved to different areas of the room and waited. Ali transfigured a nearby book into an hourglass. "Ready? Begin." and she turned over the hourglass.
*****
Twenty minutes later, they were all panting and laughing as they gathered in the center of the room. Collapsing to the floor in a loose circle they looked around at each other to see what damages they'd managed to do. Everyone was marked a little, but no where near the extent most had carried during the earlier battle in the Gryffindor common room.
Alinora, from her seat between George and Katie, looked around at them in satisfaction. It was all well and good to do magic without a wand when you had time to focus and concentrate on what you wanted to do. It was something completely different to do so successfully in the wild free-for-all they'd just had, but they'd managed it well. She grinned happily at George, who reached out to take her hand as he grinned back, and then she turned to address the group.
"That went very well. I think we all are aware of how well things went, considering this was a much more chaotic situation than our normal sessions are. There's a reason for that though; we were being critiqued tonight- every class has tests and tonight has been one of ours." With that said, Ali turned to glance back into a dark corner, where no one's eyes seemed able to focus; and with a slight grimace from the attempt to concentrate said, "I think we're about ready for you now."
As the others watched in confusion, there was a slight shimmer then they were suddenly staring at Professor Dumbledore and Alistair "Mad Eye" Moody who had been seated in the corner watching the proceedings.
"Yes, I think that would be our cue." Dumbledore said calmly as the two joined them in the center of the room. Glancing down at the floor where the others were sitting, Dumbledore shook his head and summoned two chairs from the other side of the room for himself and Moody to sit on. Once they were comfortably seated in the gap that had been made to include them, Dumbledore continued. "Alinora has been keeping me up to date with your progress over the past months. I, in turn, have been communicating with Alistair since he met with Miss Roane earlier this year." Dumbledore turned to look at Moody who had been staring intently at each student in turn. His other eye was constantly in motion, scanning the room for any sign of attack. "Alistair, would you care to begin with your comments?"
Moody nodded, still staring at them consideringly. As he began to speak, Ali felt a jolt of pain streak through her head. Her grip on George's hand tightened involuntarily, pulling his attention away from what Moody was saying. He glanced at Ali's face and noticed that she'd gone slightly pale and was clutching at the side of her head with her free hand. Leaning over slightly, George whispered to her, "Are you okay? You don't look so good…"
Ali shook her head slightly and attempted to smile at him. "It's nothing, just a headache. Came on pretty fast though…" She stopped, tilting her head in Moody's direction, "We should be paying a bit more attention to our critique." Smiling a bit more naturally, she turned back to listen to what Moody was saying. George stared at her in concern for a bit longer before he was able to resume concentrating on what was going on.
"All in all, I'm quite impressed by skills you've shown. You are all intelligent, creative and, from what I've been told, quite courageous. Those are skills I've been looking for. I may no longer be an Auror, but that does not mean that I'm not still concerned with the safety of the Wizarding world and the ultimate removal of Voldemort and his Death Eaters. We have a war coming, and we need to be prepared. Because of that, I have a proposition for the four of you…"
"Wait a minute," Ginny broke in, glancing around suspiciously, "there are five of us here, why are you proposing this to only four of us?"
Moody stared at her in silence, for once both eyes in agreement as to their point of interest. Under his intense regard Ginny began to squirm, but pulled herself together to stare back at him in irritation. At that Moody smiled and nodded his head to Ginny. "I'm only putting this offer forward to four of you because Miss Roane accepted months ago and therefore doesn't need to be asked."
The others turned to look at Alinora, but she ignored them. She was staring intently at Moody, a very serious look on her face.
Moody continued, "Most of you will be leaving school in a few months- have you given any thought to what you will be doing afterwards?" He paused for a moment, but no one spoke up. "I'm in need of a couple of brave, intelligent, talented and creative people, who are capable of keeping secrets, to take on a very important job. It's likely to be hard and most likely very dangerous, and you'll need to be able to work together successfully in order to make it work. How is it sounding so far?" He once again stared at each of them in turn as they all sat there in silence, faces set in intense concentration, waiting to hear what came next. "Well then, let me tell you what it would entail…"
