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CHAPTER 7: How to Be Paranoid 101
The next morning was a blur of preparations, Jay's pranks, Shadow's hexes, Coal's scorn, and he and Fire running around to keep them all in line.
The Warriors were so busy, that they had to skip breakfast and have their times tables delivered to them in their rooms as they discussed how to best introduce themselves to the class. After a little brainstorming, the five came up with something that was sure-fire to get the students to pay attention.
Despite all this activity, the group's first Dueling lesson rolled around at exactly 8:00 A.M. When the bell rang, the students strut inside to find a seemingly empty classroom.
"Maybe the teacher ditched!" a tall red-haired boy yelled. His classmates snickered as they lazily took seats and began to talk.
"Oh! That's the cutest little kitty I've ever seen!" a dark-haired girl exclaimed, pointing at a small midnight-black kitten with purple and silver eyes where it rested on the teacher's desk in a basket. The cat watched the girl closely as she approached its desk, cooing odd phrases in a baby-voice.
"And check out that totally wicked-looking dog over there!" The loud red-haired boy yelled, pointing at a black-silver canine with dark-light eyes that stood almost completely hidden in the shadows of a large dueling platform.
"No, mate! That's a real wolf!" a boy with a strong Irish accent jumped in eagerly, stepping forward for a closer look.
"Oh my goodness! Look at that fox!" a bushy-haired girl squealed, pointing to the amber-eyed, slate-gray animal as it groomed itself on the professor's chair.
"Forget that! Look at that sweet little turtle dove on the chandelier!" a blonde girl said, pointing upward at the dark-brown aqua-eyed bird.
For a few minutes the students exclaimed over the four animals; some going as far as to pet the creatures. But that was all brought to a close as the door banged open, and the dark-haired green-eyed boy from the Great Hall last night strode into the room.
"What are you all doing?" he demanded of the students, nonplus.
Flushing with embarrassment, the class took their seats, and the boy ran a hand threw his hair in exasperation.
"I can't believe my entire first period class failed!" he exclaimed.
The class moaned about the unfairness of it all. "Sir! We haven't done anything yet! How can we have failed anything?" the bushy-haired girl wailed.
"Let me ask you something, Ms. Granger." the dark-haired boy started, ignoring her gasp of surprise when he addressed her by her name without being told what it was. "Did anyone every tell you not to pet strange animals?"
"Who are you calling 'strange'?" the class gasped as the four animals they had been admiring transformed into four teenagers. The sandy-haired boy who had spoken stuck his tongue out at them all, and dusted off his cloak.
"He wasn't talking about me." a blonde-haired girl huffed. "I'm 'a sweet turtle dove' after all."
"Well he couldn't have been talking to me." the dark-light eyed girl said dramatically. "I'm 'totally wicked-looking' after all."
A purple/silver-eyed girl scoffed slightly, not offering any commentary as she sulked in the background.
"But it couldn't have been you, Coal." the sandy-haired boy remarked, smirking. "Because you are 'the cutest little kitty I've ever seen'!"
As the four others snickered, 'Coal' scowled. "I'm not cute. I'm dangerous!"
"Which brings us all back to: you all fail test number one." the dark-haired boy explained, no longer laughing. "Now let us introduce ourselves. I am Ares-"
"-Sapphire-" the blue-eyed girl interrupted.
"-Jake-" another said.
"-Shadayo-" a girl acknowledged.
"-Coal." the last finished.
"We will be instructing you for the next year. Get used to it. Now, I wish for us to be very clear on something." Ares stopped for a dramatic pause. "After the next few hours, you will hate me. After the next few days, you will despise me. After the next few weeks, you will loathe me with every fiber of your being. In the next few months, I expect to have a highly paid assassin after my blood. You will dislike this class that much." the Dueling instructors smiled around at them all.
"Any questions?" he added as an afterthought, taking personal satisfaction that his students looked to be on the verge of wetting themselves.
"Good." Sapphire continued. "Now, you are fifth years, right?"- The class nodded -"In that case, I would also like to tell you that by the end of the year, you will step out these doors changed people. You will be paranoid. You will be suspicious. You will be schizophrenic in every enthusiastic interpretation of the damn word!-"
"-You will be bloody delusional bastards who hex first, ask questions later." Shadow cut in.
"You will be skeptical about your own underpants for heaven's sake!" Jake roared.
"You people will think twice about going to the bathroom if we have anything to say about it!" Coal snarled.
"But you will be ALIVE!" the five screamed at the class, who looked very alarmed.
"We can teach you how to duck, roll, dodge, aim, shoot, fire, think, plan and lead! From us, you can learn what questions to ask, what skills you have dormant inside of you, how to awaken them, and how to PERSERVER PEOPLE!" Shadow snapped, slamming her fist on the red-haired boy's desk for emphasis. He gulped when she removed her hand to reveal a deep dent in the hard wooden surface.
"However, there is something we will not make you do," Ares added. "And that is: show up. If at any time you decide that this class is too much for you to handle, then you may leave. Do not, however, even attempt to re-enter this classroom once you have gone. If you try, then you will be unceremoniously sent away because not one of us will sympathize with your plight; I assure you."
"This class is a privilege." Coal said icily. "Not a right. And like all privileges, they can be taken away easily... By us. The five of us will say who stays and who goes. If you appeal to the Headmaster: he cannot override us. If you send a request to your head of house: they cannot override us. And if you appeal to your DADA professor..."
"He cannot override you." the class chanted back.
"Very good." Jake smirked. "So let's start with aim. Everyone, wands out and form three lines in front of the targets; if you will. You will be attempting to hit as close to the center of your target as possible. The reason I say attempt is because I fully expect you to fail."
"We will not be sugar-coating words in this class." Coal told them. "The real world won't hold your hand, and neither will we. Deal with it."
"Okay, first up are Ms. Padma Patil, Ms. Greengrass, and Mr. Malfoy." Sapphire said in a board tone. "Aim for your targets, which are 20 feet away, with a Stunning spell, and the ring that you hit will light up. Fire!"
Three cries of stupefy echoed threw the room. Two red lights rushed at the targets. One red light hit the very last outside ring of a target.
"Ms. Patil: good aim needs a little practice though, and more force behind the spell next time so it doesn't fizzle out halfway there again. Ms. Greengrass: Not bad. You hit the target at the very least and it was strong all way threw, though you could work on your aiming. Mr. Malfoy: What exactly were you aiming at, because I can only hope that you weren't trying for the target or else that would have been a very tragic shot indeed." Coal drawled.
The Gryffindor students laughed at the pink-faced Slytherin's horrible shot, not noticing Ares' amused smirk as they did so.
"Poor sods have no idea what they just got themselves into," he said from his seat on the teacher's desk, leaning lazily against Sapphire, who was sitting next to him. She patted his head with a grin as they watched Shadow scowl heavily, and stalk over to the Gryffindor group
"There's a Storm brewing," Jake commented as he retreated over to the desk, referring to Shadow's nickname when she was angry.
"No kidding. Storm is an elf possessed about the importance of good aim." Coal said dryly.
"You heading for cover too? I thought you were tough enough to handle her tirade." Ares observed.
Coal snorted as she seated herself gracefully on a chair. "I'm sorry to report that I am neither stupid nor suicidal."
Ares was saved from responding by Shadow's voice carrying across the room. "-Since you seem to be very comfortable with your aim, Mr. Weasley, by all means, show us how it's done!" she was saying.
Storm's latest victim looked decidedly green as he stumbled up to the 20-foot line from the targets. He took one last look around, but no one was going to save him. Raising his wand, he shut one eye to take aim, but his wand was snatched away before he could fire.
"Rule number 1, Weasley. Keep both eyes open while shooting. You'll see twice as well." Shadow offered the wand again, and the red-head repeated the procedure, taking care to keep both eyes wide open.
"Stupefy!" he yelled, waving his wand wildly. The red light shot out of his wand and crashed into a stack of books about 10 feet to the left of the desired target.
"That, Weasley, boarder lined pathetic." Shadow stated without preamble. "As you can see, you have no room to comment on other's spell work. I highly doubt that you could hit the Great Wall of China if you stood 3 feet from it."
"Let that be a lesson to all of you. Watch what you say in this classroom unless you think you can back it up. Now... Everyone continue to practice. We-" she cast an irritated look over at her fellow Warriors where they were slacking by the teacher's desk. The snapped to attention and stood up, trying to look alert. "-will be walking around and correcting your aim."
And that was really how it went the rest of the period. A few minutes before the bell was due to ring, Ares brought his hand to his mouth and whistled sharply. Dead silence followed, since the students were starting to understand that disrespect made bad things happen.
"For you're homework, you will practice your aim. We shall know if you have decided to blow this task off. You have been warned."
As if on cue, the bell rang, causing everyone to jump. The students hastily gathered their things and walked out of the room quickly, trying not to make eye-contact with their instructors so as not to invoke their wrath. One student, however, lingered behind.
"Professors?" the bushy-haired girl asked uncertainly.
"You may call us just by our names outside of class," Jake said calmly, motioning for her to take a seat, as did the other professors.
"Well then you can call me Hermione." the girl said shyly.
"Well, then, how can we help you, Hermione?" Sapphire asked warmly.
"Well, I was just wondering, how come you five are so experienced but still the same age as me?" Hermione asked curiously.
"Ah, well. Different environment growing up, mostly." Ares answered thoughtfully.
"Did you grow up together?" Hermione asked with interest.
"Actually, we did. Or, mostly. Ares over there showed up when we were all 11, and we've been together ever since." Jake said, pretending to wipe away a tear from his eye.
Ares shock his head at his friend's antics, and said, "This part of the world seems rather torn up. The Headmaster was down right paranoid when we first turned up. Good for him!"
"'This part of the world'? What part of the world are you from? I don't recognize you're accent."
"We're from the United States. There's no right or wrong way to talk there. It's very diverse." Shadow lied smoothly. She was good at that. It was close enough to the truth anyway. Their woodland wasn't to far off the coast of northern California
"Oh! That explains it. You-Know-Who isn't over there, so you wouldn't know-" Hermione reminded herself.
"Yes, we wouldn't know, so I'm afraid we don't know who." Coal said sharply.
"Why you gatta be like that, Coal?" Jay asked. "We already know who she's talking about-"
"I want her to say the name." Coal thought to him stubbornly.
"Bitch."
"And don't you forget it."
"Well, we don't really like to say the name over here-" Hermione tried to explain.
"He's not going to jump out of the nearest garbage can and A.K you just for saying his name!" Fire exclaimed, exasperated.
Hermione considered this for a second, before muttering something under her breath.
"Sorry? What was that?"
"Voldemort!" she said, louder this time.
The five Warriors stared at her for a few second before Shadow rolled her eyes and Coal snorted.
"That has got to be the stupidest name I've ever heard in all my years of life." Sapphire stated indifferently.
Hermione just gapped at them. Suddenly, the second bell rang, and it jolted her out of her stupor.
"I'm going to be late!" she gasped. Before she could work herself into a state, Sapphire handed her a piece of parchment. Hermione took it, confusedly, and red it threw. It was a note to her next period teacher excusing her lateness. "Thanks, you guys!" she exclaimed, hurrying out the door.
"Why did you give her a pass?" Coal asked once the girl had gone.
"I like her." Sapphire insisted.
"You like everyone!" Jake pointed out.
"We have to set up for our next class, people!" Ares yelled.
"Oh yeah!"
Introduction to Dueling: an Elvin approach! Thank you for the reviews guys! Hope you liked the chapter!