Chapter 23 Wandless Fighting Class

Ron walked slowly down the hallway towards the great hall that night, staring straight ahead, but not really seeing where he was going. Surrounding him were Hermione, Dean, Seamus, Lavender, and the rest of the Gryffindors who had all signed up for the wandless fighting class. The guys were arguing about what they would learn first and who would kick whose arse, laughing and fake-punching and play fighting as they walked. The girls were all clumped together in one giggly whispering gossipy mass. If he had been listening, he'd have heard the sighs and giggles and exclamations of how gorgeous this or that elf was.

But he was oblivious to everything except the constant stream of torturous thoughts running through his head. He should be here. His lower lip trembled slightly, but he tightened his jaw and gave his head an almost imperceptible shake. No. I can't break now. Not here. He vaguely sensed the lighthearted atmosphere around him as his fellow Gryffindors joked around on their way to the great hall. Another wave of sadness washed over him. I wish it had been different. That I hadn't been so stupid! He thought furiously to himself. If I had only believed him... but no. I trusted bloody Dumbledore over my best friend. He knew it wasn't the Headmaster's fault, but it still hurt that he'd placed more faith in Dumbledore's infallibility than in almost five years of friendship. I betrayed him and screamed curses at him and smiled as those monsters dragged him away to Azkaban. His fists clenched and his lips tightened in disgust and anger at himself when a soft hand was placed on his arm.

He looked to his right, knowing who it was. Hermione looked at him sadly and moved her hand down to clasp his own. They walked like that, hand in hand, Hermione's head had drifted down to rest on his shoulder and his thoughts drifted to the precious girl beside him. She was his girlfriend now; he tightened his grip on her hand as if afraid she would slip away from him. Besides my family, she's the only good thing in my life anymore. His thoughts drifted again to Harry. If I could only see him one more time... he'll probably never forgive me... but I wish I could just say how sorry I am.


Corin stood silently in the great hall, waiting for the students to arrive. All of the elves including Oron and Laurea were there, some standing around chatting in elvish, some sparring in the dueling circles that had been set up. All of the tables had been cleared and were stacked against the walls making the great hall seem even more massive than usual. On the raised platform where the teachers' table usually sat were rows upon rows of weapons, all charmed to leave nothing but a bruise wherever they hit.

Watching the door, he stood stiffly with his face blank, his posture so straight one would feel the need to straighten their shoulders just by looking at him. He could almost feel the worried glances from Oron and Laurea but paid them no mind. He was remembering the conversation he'd had with the Headmaster just before he had come down to prepare the great hall.

flashback

"Corintur, might I have a word?" Corin turned from his view out the window of his rooms to greet the Headmaster. Dumbledore strolled further into the room on silent feet. If he didn't know better, Corin would think the Dumbledore too was of elven ancestry.

"Of course Headmaster, please sit down." He gestured gracefully to the couches located in front of his fireplace and waited for Dumbledore to be seated before he also sat down. "What can I do for you, sir?"

Dumbledore studied him silently for a few moments and Corin had to fight to keep from fidgeting under the intense gaze. Finally he spoke, "Corin, as I'm sure you know from the sign-up sheets, the wandless fighting class is one of the most anticipated and well attended classes we have this school year. Teaching students to fight and survive Voldemort and his deatheaters has become this school's primary focus besides teaching basic magical skills. And your class will be vital in achieving this goal." He paused for a moment, then went on. "I've had several teachers come up to me asking if it would also be possible for them to attend the classes as well alongside their students." Corin felt a wave of cold wash over his body; he had a suspicion just who had requested this. "Both Remus and Sirius have asked my permission to attend."

Corin, eyes wide, began to shake his head in panic. "No Albus, please."

"Corin..." Dumbledore looked at him in sympathy.

"Sir, I can't." he said desperately, "See them in staff meetings yes, greet them as I pass in the halls yes, but to teach them? To constantly be around them all year long? I'll already have Ron and Hermione in my classes. Please, sir."

"Corin, they want to be able to protect their students, any way they can have an advantage over the deatheaters. They want to make the most of this opportunity. As Sirius put it 'What's the point of protecting the students if they know more about fighting than we do?' Please, Corintur, do this for me and for your students."

Unable to look into Albus' pleading eyes any more, he put his head in his hands, fingers gripping his skull, eyes clenched shut. Dumbledore watched the young elf silently, knowing that what he was asking was an unfair request after all Corin had been through. Yet, he couldn't take it back, for the safety of his students.

Finally Corin lifted his head, a pained look in his eyes. "Very well, they may attend." He said quietly.

Albus nodded quietly and put a reassuring hand on Corin's shoulder as the elf let out a shaky breath. "All will be fine, Corintur, you'll see."

end flashback

Corin sighed at the thought of the conversation and resisted the urge to mumble some rather inappropriate elvish swear words. He looked up as the first students began arriving. Tonight was only years five through seven; the lower years would have their class in two days on Thursday. The hall, which had been almost silent before was now filled with the excited voices of students. Most were arriving in house groups and he gave a small smile at several students, mostly muggleborns, who were play fighting what he assumed were favorite scenes out of different movies. He chuckled quietly at one student who he could tell was imitating Aragorn's 'orc killing pose' (according to Laurea) from the Lord of the Rings movies.

The smile left quickly though as Remus and Sirius stepped into the room. He could tell they were making their way towards him and he sighed, trying to prepare himself for a conversation with his godfather and friend.

"Hey Corintur, you've got a good turnout." Sirius exclaimed as he walked to Corin's side, scanning the room.

"Yes, I'm glad so many students decided to come. I'm glad so many of my kin decided to help or I would be overwhelmed." He said quietly, he looked towards the door again just in time to see the Gryffindors enter the room. A brief flash of pain came across his face, but he schooled his features so fast that Remus (who had been the only one to catch it) wondered if he'd imagined it.

Corin glanced at the clock on the wall and saw that it was just after seven. He was about to get everyone's attention to give them their instructions when he heard some rather rude talking coming from somewhere behind the Gryffindors. He caught some comments about big clumsy feet and heard some rather rude suggestions about where they could put said feet before he caught on to whom was talking, or should he say what.

"Not...now," He groaned and headed reluctantly towards the source of the interruptions. "Artue!!" Every elf and staff member within hearing distance stilled and started to grin as they saw Corin headed towards the group of Gryffindors, whom by now were torn between being afraid of the advancing elf and cooing at the midget winged leopard.

Corin strode through the crowd of students and stopped in front of his wayward pet trying to look stern when all he wanted to do was laugh hysterically.

"Artue...you are here, why?" The knealin stood fearlessly before his bonded and gave several chirps and purr combinations. Upon hearing his answer, Corin brought his hand up and pinched the skin between his eyes, trying to sooth an oncoming headache. "Artue now is really not a good time to come down to play tag. And how did you get out of the room anyway?? Harmony said she was going to watch you..."

At that question Artue sat down, put on his most innocent eyes and did an impression of a centaur (staring at the star-filled ceiling fixatedly). Corin had the impression that if the knealin could have whistled to himself, he would have.

"All right you furball, what did you do?" Artue swung his head back around to look at Corin, a 'who me?' expression on his face. "Artue... tell me or no more grapes for a week." (Artue had a fetish for grapes after seeing Miri eating them one time.)

The knealin got a wide-eyed look of panic before his face fell in defeat and mumbled something quietly while looking away.

"YOU DRUGGED HER???" The entire room roared with laughter and Corintur said a few choice words in elvish, for which Laurea smacked him.


Ron stood in the center of the room waiting for the test to start. Each student and some of the teachers were spread throughout the great hall with several feet of space surrounding them. All had their eyes on the stage where all of the elves were gathered. He heard several giggles and had to fight the urge to laugh himself as he saw the defense professor's knealin, who was sitting in the corner of the hall sticking its tongue out at the back of Corintur's head. When the elf whipped around to check on the little troublemaker, he was found to be staring intently at the wall as if fascinated by the workmanship. He saw the professor shake his head and roll his eyes, mumbling to himself. Then as the elf turned to face the crowd, the redhead listened intently to the directions.

"Each of you is now receiving a white band which will be going around your wrist." Elves were moving through the room handing out what looked like white leather wristbands. As Ron received his, he saw it was about ¾ of an inch thick and as he placed it on his right wrist, it shrunk to a comfortable fit. "These are what will test you and what will mark you as to which class you will be taking. As soon as the test is finished it will turn either silver or gold: silver for beginners, gold for advanced." Everyone now had a bracelet and the elves had joined Professor Raumoraa back on the stage. "In a moment, I will activate the bracelets and you will enter a sort of virtual reality for all you muggleborns. For anyone who doesn't understand that, it just means that the test will occur in your head and everything you see is not real. You will be tested on your reflexes, physical fitness, and any abilities you have that are applicable to this class. After your test is finished, please sit down where you're standing and wait for the rest of your classmates to finish."

Ron nodded to himself while absently wondering what 'virtual reality' was, he supposed Hermione would know and made a mental note to ask her when they got back to the common room.

"Is everyone ready?" There was an affirmative sound and he nodded then said in elvish. "Begin."

Instantly Ron found himself in a black space with a light directly above his head. He looked out into the blackness and jumped slightly when he saw words form directly in front of him. DODGE. He would have contemplated this further, but he saw a yellow ball come hurtling towards him. Throwing himself out of the way, he had barely three breaths before more balls were sent flying at him and he continued trying to dodge. Most of the time he was successful, probably from dodging bludgers in quidditch, but occasionally he got hit. Luckily the balls were made of hollow rubber covered in neon yellow fuzz (tennis balls), so they just stung a bit but didn't bruise. Finally, when he was almost ready to collapse the balls stopped coming and he rested his hands on his knees, gasping for breath.

A light flashed over him, and he blinked as he found himself suddenly refreshed, no longer out of breath and ready to continue. He went through several more tests, one involved running after a light ahead of him till he felt like he could fall down and sleep for a month. Another was like an obstacle course going over and under and through things. Another had him jumping over ropelike things that came flying at him at anywhere from ankle to knee level. The last few tests had him fighting against a shadow attacker with various types of weapons. Some he had no clue what to do with them, others like the sword he had a vague idea how to use and he did okay at. After each individual test, the light flashed and he felt refreshed and ready to continue. Finally after his last test, a fight with the shadow warrior in hand to hand combat, there was one final bright light and he found himself back in the great hall again.

Remembering his instructions, he sat down immediately and glanced around. About half of the students were seated, the rest were still standing, their eyelids twitching as they continued their testing. Glancing down at his wrist, he was surprised to see his wrist band's appearance. It still felt as soft as leather, but glinted gold in the torchlight. And inscribed on the top, as if carved into metal, were three elvish words. Yes! I'm in the advanced class! He grinned, glanced to his left, and saw Hermione had finished as well. He showed her the gold on his wrist. She smiled and held her wrist up silently, showing him a silver wrist band which again held three elvish words, but were different and longer than the ones written on his.

Finally, everyone was seated and Professor Raumoraa took center stage again. "Congratulations to everyone who made the advanced class. Again, that's everyone who now has a gold band on their wrist. For those of you who are in the Beginners class, we will now be meeting on Wednesday nights at this same time, seven to nine. You'll notice that each of your wristbands, in addition to changing color, now have three elvish words inscribed on them; those are your first, middle, and last names. Now, everyone please get up and move to stand somewhere you can see around the dueling circle." There was a circle marked out in the middle of the room and everyone made their way over quickly so as to get a good spot.

"We will be having five mock fights: one of each type of weapon, bar archery, and one hand to hand combat." The students looked at each other excitedly and soon the fights started. Oron and another elf did swords, a couple other pairs did daggers and staff. Corin joined Oron in the ring for hand to hand, which he promptly lost after about three minutes. And Laurea and Corin finished it off with glaive sparring, which he again lost. Ron grinned as he saw his teacher grumbling to himself. With that last fight, the class was finished. They then were instructed that as they walked out the door to place their wrist band on either a gold or silver decorated book. This would record the statistics from their tests both in the books for their instructors to view and on a piece of paper for them to take with them back to their dorms. Ron glanced at his when he got it and saw that it had his name, house, age, weight, reflexes on a scale from 1-10 (he got an eight), physical fitness again 1-10, which he got a seven, a notation that he was keeper for Gryffindor, and that the recommended weapon for him was the sword. As he and the others made their way back up to Gryffindor tower, they compared which weapons they would be training with (he discovered Hermione would be learning archery) and talked excitedly about their new favorite class.


Sigh yes, i know i promised i'd update sooner this month... I hate writers block... ah well. This is my longest chapter ever!! Soooo proud (tear). Anyways, heehee, I love Artue. If knealins existed, I'd so be getting one. He's such a fun little guy to write about! It was also interesting to be writing from Ron's point of view. His remorse and self hatred about how he treated Harry. yea, poor him. I'm still ticked off at the boy though, so they don't get to find out about Corintur for some time. Well, hope you like it and review!

Arye