Charms

Chapter Seven
Recruit

The past few days, for Lily, had been very stressful. New concepts, new spells, new foods, new patterns. A whole new way of life. She still wasn't quite sure she fit in; so many of the rest of her year were so much more confident than she, and the older students even more so. But she would adjust, like all others, to this.

She strolled to the library, as leisurely... and as hopelessly lost... as she possibly could be. But as she turned a corner, there it was. She must had been wandering the previous corridor for ages without even realizing she was so close to her goal.

Her goal, in fact, was reconnaissance. She had been briefed on her mission - Find Phae, who would have books waiting for her, make sure neither Katie nor Tater saw her, and get back to Ria. Simple in words, complicated in practice... especially during your first week at school.

How was she about to find Phae without alerting the Ravenclaws in the group? She grumbled inwardly and caught herself scuffing her feet on the carpet. Now, that wouldn't help her cause, now would it? She picked up her heels and continued on, grabbing a random book out of a nearby shelf to cover her face. In true secret agent style, she slinked across the entire length of the library to the far back corner.

Three leather chairs were evenly spaced on one side of a long oval table. Luckily for Lily, the chairbacks faced her instead of the person sitting in the middle one. She wasn't sure if it was Phae or not. It was kind of hard to tell sometimes, seeing as she could change her looks at will. There were three books shoved under the person's chair. Not far enough that Lily was comfortable with what she was about to do; however, she did it anyway.

Sneaking up on whoever occupied the chair took all of Lily's nerve. She combined a slide and a crouching tiptoe to accomplish the task at hand and after a few long moments of heart-pounding silence, she placed her now clammy hands on the books. She picked up all three slowly and brought them to herself, then made an exit in the form of darting behind a bookshelf a few rows away. Looking at the titles of the books, she was pretty sure these were the ones.

She made her way to the front of the library, checked out the books, and steeled herself for her next task - getting back to the common room.

"Lily! You took long enough, did you complete your super secret mission?" Ria asked, with extra dramatic flair. Lily giggled and held out the three books from under the chair. "Yep, these are the ones! Congratulations on completing your first mission. Go treat yourself to a cookie, me mum owled them to me while you were gone. They're delicious, as long as you're not allergic to peanut butter."

"Oh, no, I'm not." Lily walked over to the table on which the cookies sat and took one, took a bite, and munched contentedly. "These are really good!" And too soon, her cookie was gone.

"Okay, break's over! Time to get this show on the road. Chop chop!" Ria looked like a drill sergeant now, Lily found it fitting to salute the second year and march up the stairs to Ria, Phae, and all the other second year Gryffindor girls whose names still eluded Lily. She wasn't exactly the best at remembering names and attatching those names to the correct faces.

"Before we begin our lesson today, I'm going to re-brief you on your objectives. Meet all of your objectives and you will be rewarded. You know the bet: Beat both Katie and Tate in an organized duel in the common room in two day's time - if you win, you get a prize. If you don't... well... We'll figure that out later. Gotta keep you motivated, you know? Now, I'm not going to tell you who's going to give you more trouble, but I can tell you their strengths and weaknesses. First, Katie. She's crazy good at transfiguration, great at evading spells, but she's not very patient. Take advantage of that. And Valerie... Hm. Well, to tell the truth, she hasn't really let on to her strengths. Don't try to sneak something in, she notices everything. She's ready for anything. It's like she can read your mind, or something. Crazy. And she's very, very patient. But she's not as in to agressive spells. Got it?" Lily nodded. "Good."

"First, we'll work on simple defense spells. Expelliarmus. Protego. That sort of thing. I'm not going to ask if you're ready, because it makes no difference. We're starting anyways." Ria looked over at Lily as if daring her to refuse. Lily's vivid green eyes flashed with determination, wand at the ready.

"Say it with me. Ex... pel...ee...AR...mus." Lily repeated what Ria had exaggeratedly pronounced.

"Good. Now, you have to say it like you mean it. Face me, look me in the eye, hold your wand out steadily, and say it like you mean it."

"Expelliarmus!" Lily half-shouted, pointing her wand at Ria, who raised her eyebrows expectantly.

"No, no. More power. You're not going to have any effect on anyone that way. Except for that one mousy kid in Hufflepuff... whatever his hame is. But that's not who you're duelling! Again."

"Expelliarmus!" Lily did shout this time, to some effect. Ria's wand was not so much thrown out of her hand as it was lightly dropped; it made a slow descent to the ground, which it didn't ever hit. Ria snatched it back before it was even halfway there.

"Keep practicing, and you'll get it. Now, rapid fire. Keep hitting me with it every time I get my wand back, see how far away you can get it to go... and how fast." Ria winked and lazily fingered her wand. "Go."

"Expelliarmus!" Ria almost dropped her wand, but didn't. "Expelliarmus!" Ria's wand dropped slowly again; Ria quickly grabbed it again. "Expelliarmus!" It was launched a little bit to the side of Ria, making Ria lunge for her wand. "Expelliarmus!" Now the wand went more back and to the left, Ria had to take a step before she could reach out and get her wand back. "Expelliarmus!" Her wand flew back and hit the stone wall behind Ria, it took a few moments for her to get it back. "Expelliarmus!" Ria stumbled backwards, her wand flew forwards and into Lily's outstretched hand. Lily mimicked Ria's eyebrow raise and held the wand out to Ria.

"So, you've gotten that down pretty well." Ria wore a pleased smile on her face. "As a reminder, you'll have to get them off balance for the best effect, but I think you've got it. On to shield charms, then?"

The lessons with Ria went on for the next two days, for hours at a time. After her lesson, she was assigned to look over and practice spells from the books she had gotten. Coupled with the group practices with Phaedra, Katie, and Valerie, Lily (and her wand) was close to exhaustion. And with her classes, it was very close to being too much. But Lily was steadily launching herself headlong into her studies, impressing especially Professor Flitwick and sometimes Professor Slughorn (her potions teacher) and Professor McGonagall (transfiguration).

It was going to be a long few days before the duels.