Order Only (Juniors)

[alt_sally_anne]

I'm thinking about Professor Desai's assignment. Both in terms of not giving away more than we have to, but also in terms of who I should write about. Normally if I needed to write about a close friend it would be Pansy, but I'm wondering if I should write about Ron so that I could talk up something Desai might not know? (Since you need to impress her.)

It's tempting to tell her I 'duel like a hesitant Ravenclaw' (or however it was Mr Shacklebolt put it) -- though really my biggest problem with duelling is I can't stop myself from flinching and so I end up taking too long to react. In an actual battle I might be able to patch people up so they could go back to fighting -- I mean if someone's hit with the entrail-expelling curse or something really horrid I wouldn't be able to do much about that, but if they got a blinding hex I might be able to fix it quickly enough they could still be useful. I also have excellent aim but only if I'm not worried about someone hexing me, which is not exactly useful in a proper fight.

None of that is any sort of real secret.

Anyway Ron if you want to have me write about you, I'll show you the scroll before I turn it in so you can be sure I'm not giving anything away she shouldn't know.

Probably no matter what I say about myself I'll definitely be classified as the sort of ally you sacrifice if you need to. (That was a jolly cheerful lecture today, wasn't it?)

Comments

[alt_daphne]

I can't think of a single person who is so worth my attention that I would declare them a "rival." I would quite enjoy critiquing Smith, but I doubt Professor Desai wants to hear about his snogging technique.

I don't know Steven Capper well, though, so I believe I'll write about him.

[alt_sally_anne]

I tried to get Patil to write about me but I think she's going to write about Pansy, Daphne, or Justin. (I do think it's probably going to be someone she considers a rival.)

[alt_daphne]

Oh, it will be me.

[alt_sally_anne]

Yeah, you are almost certainly correct.

[alt_daphne]

I sound as if I'm pleased about that, but honestly, I have a strange pity for Padma. She certainly needed to be Head Girl far more than I did. It almost makes me want to hand her the title, if only I could pretend that she wouldn't be dreadful at it. No, I'm better suited.

The thing about her is that she's so focused on succeeding that she never bothers to learn from her failures. And until she can do that, well--she'll never get to where she wants to be.

Oh, but if you write about her as your rival, you should mention that. I bet Desai would find it intriguing!

[alt_sally_anne]

Well, she got onto the Council.

But I think that mostly just proves your point.

[alt_daphne]

Doesn't it just.

[alt_ron]

Eh?

Oh. Erm. Didn't see she'd posted until just now. I was, er, advising some of our first years on strategic thinking.

Right. So, sure you could write about me. Why not? Should I write about you, then? It can't be Kat or Nev, really, because it's better if she's not sure how close or not we are. Guess I could write about Pansy. No secret we're friends. I mean, it's one of those things she'll have heard, how odd it is, the Gryffindor-Slytherin business.

[alt_sally_anne]

Probably Pansy, so it doesn't look like we sat down with our quills and worked out the essay together, you know? (Since you're trying to impress her.) Nev would be hard, because he's definitely one of the people who's better than he lets on at school.

[alt_ron]

Well, it depends what we said and whether we made it look like a shoddy job or not. But, sure, I'll write about Pansy unless she wishes I wouldn't.

Actually, I might ask Harry. I mean, why not? We were head to head in CCF last summer and I know exactly the things I'd focus on in an analysis of his fighting style, especially the things that make me prefer to have him on my side than opposite.

Not sure who else I'll do. I mean, I'd see if I could get Goyle or Crabbe to let me talk to him, but that seems like taking the whole thing a bit further than's necessary. Can you imagine spending an hour, trying to get sense out of either of them? Same for Bulstrode, really. Just more trouble than it's worth.

Dunstan or MacDougal, maybe. I suppose that would be all right.

[alt_harry]

You should write about me because I'd like to see your thoughts.

I can write about you too, if you want.

[alt_harry]

That sounds utterly naff.

This isn't coming out right. I mean, I want you to write about me because I think your analysis of my fighting style would be useful to me.

[alt_ron]

I knew what you meant. And, yeah, it'd be great if you did. I want to see what you'll say!

[alt_pansy]

I'm not sure how much we could get away with. Desai's pretty sharp, yeah?

I mean, if it were for Professor Raz, I don't think I could claim to not know Nev very well, and if she's read up on us, which she probably has, I'm pretty sure she'll catch those public entries I made about Mr and Mrs Longbottom. But I'm not sure that qualifies as 'knowing well'.

I might go with MacDougal, only because of the falling-out we had.

I think I'm overthinking things.

I'm going to say that I'm slightly better at shielding spells than offensive spells, and I can sometimes get distracted by what's happening to people around me, but once I'm focused, I can be fairly quick on my feet. I don't think I'll talk about the more advanced stuff that really clicked for me, like those linking spells we worked on at the end of term with Professor Raz, and the paired work we did at Moddey.