I Solemnly Swear That I Am Up To No Good

[alt_sally_anne]

Neville I thought you would like to know that Ron, Pansy and I all thought of you today. Our instructors here had assigned us some reading last night on new defensive and offensive spells we might work on and then today we got to do some practise duels. There was this one spell that looked really nift; if you cast it properly it would reflect a lot of hexes BACK on your opponent. Brilliant, right? Well thanks to you (and Pansy and that mishap with the blue scales) we all checked the FOOTNOTES.

The problem with that spell is that if you cast it with any other defensive spells you have to do it in exactly the right order or you'll break out in boils. Green boils. It's horrifying! Of course they had healers here but even though they'd heal the people with boils, they DIDN'T tell them what they'd done wrong. So some of them did it again.

None of us missed it and when we got quizzed at the end of the day we said we'd paid attention to the FOOTNOTE that warned about that affect and we got praised for our attention to detail.

Anyway.

I'm sorry you couldn't come. Most of the week wasn't all that much fun honestly but if today's any example we'll be learning some really interesting things in August.

You're coming to Ron's next week right? We can teach you the reflection spell and the other nift spells we learned today.

Comments

[alt_neville]

Brilliant! It's good to know that as a result of our unfortunate experience, you all had the chance to stand out.

Yeah, I'll be at Ron's for sure. Looking forward to it!

Did they give you the book to keep that had that spell in it? Because if they did, I'd really like to look at it.

[alt_sally_anne]

Yes, we get to keep it on loan at least until August, one of our assignments is to master the stuff that's in there.

[alt_ron]

Glad you're coming.

Sally Anne's right, most of this week was just review and sorting out people's 'strengths' when what they were really doing was finding out what you're weak on and then pounding you with drills on it.

And then there was this epic whatchamacallit test--oh, yeah, an inventory of tactical and defensive manoeuvres--I had to go get the parchment they filled out for us. It was a big course thinger where you had to hex a bunch of targets first, and then moving targets, and then moving targets while the floor shifted under you so you'd fall down and then targets that weren't just targets, but they threw hexes at you.

And then you had to run into this maze and sometimes you were crawling under stuff or climbing over it or running round corners and anything could be there waiting for you--like more hexing targs or even live MLE blokes waiting to throw dire stuff at you. And they told us you'd get more points if you didn't always just use the same hexes and parries. And they timed it, too.

And then later we had another test on brooms, which I thought was loads better, but for some people it was just hilariously terrible, I guess. Li looked like she was ready to vom when she got done.

So, yeah. They sent us home with a mountain of stuff to read. Plus we have to be massively better at all that tactical stuff before we come back in August.

[alt_ron]

Yeah, Zabini was too hilarious covered in boils. And so cross when it happened again! I think he must've got healed four times.

Noticed you and Pans moved away from him after the second time!

[alt_sally_anne]

Yeah, that sort of thing makes him CROSS and I didn't want to be in his way if he exploded! Fortunately he didn't decide I was sabotaging him or anything like that.

[alt_ron]

I wonder if Bones still looked splotchy when she made it home? I don't think they healed her all the way, you know what I mean?