10 10 - Flying and Duelling

Getting to the pitch, There were already a few Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws waiting along with Madam Hooch, our teacher. Stepping forward towards a broom I waited for the rest of the class to show up and five minutes later, everyone was here.

"Good evening class, today we will be learning how to fly on a broom safely and correctly. Flying is not unlike walking, It's just much more difficult, and far more dangerous. Now, I want to point out if I see anybody mess about on their brooms they'll be expelled before they can say Quidditch!".

"Now, everybody step besides a broom, lift your arm and say "Up!", if done correctly the broom will shoot straight into your hand."

All the students stepped towards their broom and started saying 'Up'. Out of the entire class, Me and one other Ravenclaw with only one Hufflepuff managed to get their broom up on their first try, When I said 'Up' it felt like my magic was connecting to the broom and honestly, it felt good. I noticed that you have to be in control of the broom, when you say 'Up' you have to mean it and not just say it, just like how you would with a spell.

It seems most of the braver and forthright students were in Gryffindor and Slytherin as more than half the class looked nervous.

After all of the students managed to pick up their brooms, with half managing to pick it up saying 'Up' and half physically picking theirs up, Madam Hooch told us to kick up hard from the brooms on 3.

A few students kicked up a little early and unsteadily but there were no accidents, as for me, flying felt amazing, I felt free in the air despite having such a slow and beaten up broom, it was as comfortable as walking, I suppose this makes me a natural on a broom. I don't think i'll spend much time with quidditch but I'll definitely be taking more flying classes.

After doing some basic flying exercises for an hour I went to my next lesson which was Astronomy and after that was finished, I went to the library with Ryan, Kevin and Penelope where we found a table that was out of the way and talked quietly about random things like how we feel about quidditch and what our favourite lessons were for a few hours until it was time for dinner.

After dinner, it was 7:20pm and I said goodbye to Ryan, Kevin and Penelope where I made my way to the Room of Requirement, covering my tracks the same as yesterday. I'm not sure if I will tell my new-found friends about the ROR, I've worked out that after a year or two, if I don't mess around, I'll already have read pretty much every book at Hogwarts and my duelling prowess will probably be, while not nearly good enough to go against people like Dumbledore or Voldemort or even Professor Flitwick who is a duelling champion, I'd say I could hold my own against Professor McGonagall or Snape, so I'll probably tell them about the ROR once i'm at that level. As for Snape, I refuse to call him a professor unless he actually teaches and I don't consider writing something on the board and distracting students as teaching.

After startling me in potions that one time, I decided to just keep my occlumency shields to the max, keeping me calm and ignoring Snape altogether until I've finished.

So, getting to the ROR and using the same room as yesterday, I first went to the huge bookshelf, Pulled out a book, flipped through the pages, and did the same to another book, and another book, I did this until I'd skimmed every book there which took over half an hour, after this happened, the bookshelf suddenly flipped around revealing another set of books.

'Interesting, I'll look through those later.'

I then made my way towards the duelling area and did the same thing as yesterday but this time I implemented some of the techniques from the Duelling book I read yesterday such as how to dodge effectively and how to link movements with each other to not lose momentum, After doing this for 20 minutes I managed to win every single puppet and beat level 1 with 100% win ratio.

So I did the only thing I can do and tried out level 2, or "Mediocre".

When I did this another puppet came flying out of the wall and they started shooting stunning spells at me again.

With a basic foundation in duelling movements and being faster and more accurate at shooting spells back, I managed to last a few minutes and take out 2 on my first try but when rolling while shooting a stunning charm at the second one, I was blocked off by a spell in front me of me and because of my roll I was unable to move backward and too low to duck so I got shot clean in the chest and after being hit 2 more times, the rest of the puppets stopped moving.

The difference between Level 1 and Level 2 seems to be they have one more puppet attacking and their spells are a bit faster and more accurate.

Trying again, I lasted a bit longer than last time but still only took out 2. After doing this for 40 minutes I managed to smoothly transition between each movement while casting spells at the optimum time but due to my basic knowledge in duelling techniques I only managed to win around 30%.

I know the difficulty says 'Mediocre' but damn, this is hard.

Making sure I was invisible, had no scent and made no noise, I dragged my sore body to the Ravenclaw common room and into my room before collapsing into my bed and entering my mindscape, I spent the next hour reviewing quite a few of the books that I skimmed through earlier, these included more advanced duelling movements and techniques along with which spells are easier to cast straight after another, it's called chain casting and it's when one end of a wand movement flows seamlessly into another spell allowing you to cast two spells at a faster speed than normal.

I don't plan on only using my wand, one of the books I reviewed mentioned that wands were created as an amplifier, they amplify your magic. They should be used in battle and powerful spells, but not every spell you cast. However, the general opinion today is that you need to be incredibly powerful to cast wandless magic, probably the doing of the ministry and pure-bloods who want to keep this information to themselves.

So far the duelling puppets just shot stunners at me while I dodged and shot stunners back but I don't want to learn just how to dodge and stun back, I want to know which spells to cast and the best moment to cast them while moving as efficiently as possible. I'm not learning how to duel so I can show off but I'm learning to survive against people like Bellatrix Lestrange and Voldemort. Tomorrow instead of just firing stunners back, I'll work on my chain-casting and try implementing some of the new spells that I read about.