"Tonks if you can't stay up then there is no point in you even fighting back!" Auror Taylor bellowed at her. "Jones, stop that stupid prancing around, what do you think you're in? A dance?"
That last comment got a lot of chuckles, much to Jones' frustration. He was about to say something but Auror Taylor spun around to go on at another helpless Trainee.
"Partridge, look where you aim your spells, do you want to hit a Death Eater or a civilian? You won't know, would you? Focus! Focus! Focus!"
Those last three words were bellowed at the room at large. The room that had been divided up to hold six of them at a time in target practice. Because that's what they had progressed to in their Duelling module. Firing spells at targets. But it wasn't as simple as getting good accuracy on stationary targets and more. No, they'd progressed past that to moving targets, to stationary ones that fought back, finally to moving ones that fought back. Which is what Tonks was in the middle of doing right now. Not that there was any real speed to these though, not yet anyway. And they weren't to use any complex spells. This was solely to improve their speed and stamina. And aim. Don't forget aim. Harder Duelling targets would come over the next few months and years - this was just covering the basics.
It was exhausting and exhilarating all at once. You know, when she actually managed to stay upright long enough to fire off some spells. Which she could do, reasonably well at this point though she could either fire off a load of spells or be accurate - she couldn't do both yet at this level. Yet being the operative word. She was pretty sure she'd get there. She'd got there at the other stages, there was no reason to think that she wouldn't on this one.
Though, there was one thing that was holding her back this time. Her grace. Or, rather, her lack of it. It turns out to dodge spells you had to be able to move. Quickly. Which she could do but more often than not that ended up with her flat on her face. Not fun. Though it was better than her losing points for getting hit.
At least she hadn't outright failed the moving target like Fontaine had and was now a target behind all of them because she'd had to redo that one. They weren't even expected to get very high marks yet jut she still managed to fail. Only Jones had made snide remarks about it, thankfully. Jones had been awfully smug and awful about it as well, rubbing it in the poor girl's face. It wasn't fair to tease her like that, Tonks had almost decked him one. Not that that took much, to be honest but still.
Auror Taylor had heard him and made him do so many laps around the main duelling arena that he actually fell to his knees before he was done.
Tonks hissed as the dummy got her. Ow! That's what she got for not giving it her full attention.
"No daydreaming over there, Tonks!" She was reprimanded. "Eggleston, do not drop to the ground like that, you won't be able to get up quick enough!"
She fired back a spell of her own at the target and it flashed green as it was a harmless spell, just an expelliarmus but she did get five points for her accuracy. She got it dead in the centre. Annoying jinxed and hexes, those that were more distractions than the causes of injuries turned the target yellow. Ones that cause minor injuries or temporarily took someone out of a fight, like a weak cutting spell or even a stupefy, turned it orange, red was for serious injuries and black was for deadly. None of their targets were supposed to turn anything above orange.
Speaking of orange, she got a stupefy in. Only two points though, the damn thing moved too quickly.
"Right, that's time," Auror Taylor bellowed as all the machinery came to a screeching stop. "Get your miserable arses in the shower so you don't stink the place out and then to your next class. Go! Go! Go!"
They hustled, knowing better than to go slowly. Everything was down at a run here with no time to stop. And it was supposed to get worse as they progressed through training.
Speaking of worse, why was there never any real hot water in the showers? She showered quickly, just really getting the sweat off her, and hurried to her next class. Her hair was still damp, she noticed as she sat at her desk. Yuck.
What was also yuck was the fact that this was the Report Writing class. Which was never fun. Less so if your muscles were aching from duelling.
"Why are we getting taught this now?" Dubois groaned. "Surely we should be taught this at the end?"
"How do you figure that?" asked Tonks, rubbing at a sore spot on her leg.
She was pretty sure that it was going to bruise. All the way down it. Because that's what happened when you feel on something weird shaped. Like a boulder. Her shin had been all scraped up from that too but thankfully she was allowed to get that healed. Not enough time to be given enough bruise balm, however, as they were hustled off to their next class. And no one liked to be thought of as the pansy trainee that needed all their bruises tended to. Nope. She wasn't going to be that person.
"Well, didn't they say at the start that they didn't expect us all to complete the training program? What's the point in teaching us how to do reports if we don't all make it to the very end?"
"Practice?" She shrugged, not particularly caring when she did this module.
They were going to have to do it anyway and she was going to be here at the end.
"Well, it sucks."
"What do you prefer? Legislation or reports?"
"You're asking me to choose between the worst of the worst, here."
"Tonks! Dubois!" Both of them sat up straight at the barked order. "Am I boring you?" Auror Hayes, the wizened, old Auror who was taking them for this.
He may be old and balding and have a croaky voice but he was also built like a muggle tank. He was huge. And definitely not to be trifled with.
"No, sir!" They both said quickly, not wanting to get on his bad side.
He squinted at them suspiciously but thankfully turned his back to them and flicked his wand at the blackboard.
It was weird shifting from duelling to report writing. Completely opposite ends of the spectrum. And a bit jarring, if she was being honest. It was like getting mental whiplash. Tonks knew she found it difficult to suddenly switch her way of thinking from something that needed a lot of physical energy to one that required a lot of mental energy. And not even because the work was hard! Report writing wasn't hard, it was just boring so she needed to force herself to pay attention. She'd already been beaned on the head once by a piece of chalk for her attention drifting off. She hadn't been sleeping. Nope. No way.
The chalk had hit her before her face had hit her desk.