Chapter 16
"You are late!" Severus growled as Hermione and Emily walked through the door into his dungeon at 7pm and 32 seconds.
"We can't be late to our own practice session Severus. It is practically impossible." Hermione said cheekily. Trying to get Snape even more wound up she added "Everyone else is obviously just early."
"Ok so lets get started guys." Sirius jumped in before the argument turned into a good old fashioned duel.
Two green balls of light came shooting at the girls from some where in the room, one hitting Hermione square in the chest while Emily pulled off a shield charm just in time. Marcus stepped out of the shadows while Hermione struggled back to her feet. She was mad as hell at being caught off guard and smirked when he continued his assault on them. She was ready to get her own back. Emily blocked the stunner aimed at her and sent one right back while Hermione dogged the spell he sent at her and fired expeliamous. Both spells hit him dead on and sent him flying to the wall knocking his wand from his hand.
"Nice hit." Hermione grumbled as she went to help Marcus up from the floor.
"Just keeping you on your toes. You weren't as fast as I thought you would be." Marcus snapped.
"Well I'm not perfect you know." Mione whispered. Then louder she said "I have never been as quick as Emily in duels, have I Em?"
"No, but you sure can take a beating and get back up." Em laughed.
"Yeah, I guess I am like a tank, I get hit by spells and keep going. It's my thing." Hermione smiled, trying to make light of the situation.
The next four hours were spent in a five way duel between Emily, Hermione, Marcus, Severus, and Sirius. Spells came at everyone in a wild array of every color in the rainbow. By the end of it Severus and Emily were the ones least injured but they weren't looking so good either. The other three were sitting in varying stages of exhaustion spotted around the room. Marcus had been using a desk as a shield while firing spells around it but ending up being hit by numerous spells from Hermione who had snuck around to the back of the table. However, mione had been so focused on getting Marcus that she hadn't seen Emily take aim at her. Basically each person in the room needed to see madam Pomfrey before they did anything else.
"Next time we do this we are so doing it in a room closer to the medical wing. This walk sucks." complained Sirius who was hobbling on a broken leg up the stairs.
"Next time defend yourself better and you wont have to take this walk." Severus snapped.
"Ohhhh, coming from the man who had his hair turned purple then burnt half way off." Sirius retorted.
By the time Sirius and Snape finished their argument the group had reached Madam Pomfreys office.
"What are we going to tell her, I don't think that she is going to take practicing as a good excuse." Hermione whispered as they all stared at the hospital doors.
"You would be very right with that assumption young lady. Are you really going to tell me you did all this damage to yourselves for PRACTICE?" Madam Pomfrey screeched.
The group turned around to find the mediwitch in fluffy pink slippers and her flannel night gown glaring at them as if they had just tortured and killed a defenseless little bunny. They retreated into the hospital wing and split up to sit on five separate beds while the mediwitch bustled around the room muttering things that sounded like "Stupid, idiots uncontrollable brats, teach them a lesson…... Stupid pains in my rear end."
After Several nasty concoctions and rants later the group trooped out of the medical wing and to their respective rooms to recover from the training session. Fighting four people is a heck of a lot harder than fighting one, so this kind of exercise would really help when it came to the dueling competition. It also helps with awareness and having "constant vigilance" when spells are flying from all over the room it teaches the duelers to watch their backs at all times. The only problem with the twins plan for training was that they had only practiced for one part of the competition and everyone was already about to pass out from the effort.
"At least we don't have classes anymore." Hermione mumbled as she fell in to bed.
"Oh I almost forgot to ask, what did you and harry talk about other than you kissing Snape?" Em asked.
"CRAP, Harry! I completely forgot. He was supposed to be training with us, oh I feel like such a butt head. I hope we see him at the statue of the dragon, were we will be registering for the competitions tomorrow morning, so I can say sorry. Why does my memory have to be so bad?" Mione whined.
"Night Mi, sleep well I am sure we will see Harry tomorrow." Em said reassuringly as they both drifted off.
The next morning saw the girls limping and complaining the entire way to breakfast because of their aching muscles. Their hunger was insatiable as they plowed their way through sausages, pancakes, bacon, French toast, regular toast, and hash browns. Apparently expending a great amount of magical energy made girls extremely ravenous. So the scene that Harry walked in on when he strode in to breakfast was a rather shocking image as the girls shoveled food into their mouths from plates that were stacked 2 foot high with various breakfast items.
"Ummm guys are you ok?" Harry asked cautiously approaching Hermione and Emily.
"Haryy, isoyigotyu" Hermione gurgled around a mouth full of sausage.
"Honestly mione, you are worse than Ron. Swallow then speak." Harry laughed.
"Harry, I am so sorry I forgot you."
"Huh? Forgot me for what?"
"Training last night, we had a session at 7." Emily pitched in helpfully.
"Oh, well from the looks of you guys this morning I am glad I wasn't there. Hey is Snape's hair purple?"
"ummm yeah, my bad." Mione laughed guiltily.
"Ok, now that I would have payed to see." Harry laughed.
"Lets go sign up for the competitions the dragon should be there by now." Em suggested.
Outside the great hall doors they found …………
Hugs and cookies to everyone who reads this, so sorry this took me so long, I have been so bogged down with school work but thank you so much for sticking with this story. Pleases read and review :)