Baby's First Disarming Charm

"First, I reckon we do a demonstration," said Harry, nodding to Oleandra. "Just stand over there and take out your wand, and I'll Disarm you."

Harry and Oleandra took their positions a few paces away from each other. They suddenly felt quite silly, just standing there with all of those people looking at them expectantly.

"Ready?" asked Harry. "Expelliarmus!"

Harry was fast, but Oleandra's Mystic Eyes were faster. She saw him summoning his magic, so she simply dodged right before he made his move, causing his spell to harmlessly explode the bookshelf behind her.

 (Harmlessly referring to Oleandra, not the books. The books flew into pieces, much to Hermione's chagrin.)

"Don't dodge," said Harry irritably. "I just want to show them how the spell works."

"The enemies out there won't stand still for you," Oleandra reminded him. "A moving target—"

"Expelliarmus!"

"Cambio Exuvia!"

The red bolt of Disarming light struck Oleandra in her centre of mass, causing her to stumble a few feet backwards… and then a spoon flew out of her hand. Harry goggled at her; where had her wand gone? And where had that spoon come from?

The Quick-Change Spell had been designed to quickly swap between disguises or armours; but theoretically, as far as the spell was concerned, anything the caster was touching could be considered clothes. It worked like this: the spell targeted an item close to the user's body (usually clothes), and swapped them for another, similar item stored in an imaginary space.

Oleandra had come up with this application as a countermeasure against Incarcerous, the Binding Ropes Spell. She had ended up trussed up like a boneless ham more often than she'd have preferred, so the idea was to simply swap any ropes binding her body for a nice scarf, freeing herself in the process.

Since Oleandra couldn't be made to sleep through magical means that weren't poison-based, the Stupefaction Curse wouldn't work on her; meaning that the Binding Ropes Curse, the Full Body-Bind Curse and the other various limb-locking Curses were the only ways to immediately incapacitate her, as far as she knew.

So, that was one more weakness eliminated!

"Sorry about that," said Oleandra with a wink, "I very much like my new wand, so I'd rather not scratch it."

"As long as I get to demonstrate the spell," Harry said uneasily. "Once the others have got the hang of it, you can try to get them to learn how to dodge or aim at moving targets, I s'pose…"

Oleandra wasn't going to be the easiest co-leader to work with, it seemed…

"Right," Harry said again. "Everyone, divide into pairs and start practising. Oleandra, you're with me."

Harry had to admit that Oleandra was a slippery target; she moved as if she already knew when and where he was going to fire his spells.

Oleandra picked up the fallen spoon and swapped it back for her wand with a wave of her hand.

"My turn, then," said Oleandra.

The Disarming Spell was second year magic, so how difficult could it be?

…

The answer was: not very. However, the word Expelliarmus was still quite a mouthful, and to Oleandra's annoyance, Harry had also decided it would be funny to copy her by making himself a moving target.

By the time she'd finish pronouncing, "Expelliarmus," Harry would have already moved over six feet away. Her tracking wasn't that bad; the problem was the timing. Once she started the incantation, she had to say it exactly right in order for her wand to register it correctly, but the problem was that she wouldn't necessarily be pointing at the right spot, by the time she'd finished speaking.

"Just stand still, will you?" Oleandra finally snapped. "I just want to see if I've even got it right."

Oleandra finally managed to tag Harry a few tries later, by ricocheting her Disarming Charm off a wall-mounted torch's metal sconce, taking him by surprise, and sending his wand spinning into the air.

"Why don't we take a look at how the others are doing?" Harry proposed, bending down to grab his wand (and to prevent Oleandra from seeing his embarrassed face).

A cursory glance across the room quickly informed Oleandra that the RC (Temp)'s members were nowhere near ready for free combat simulation. A handful couldn't even cast the spell, and others kept missing, even though their target was completely stationery.

Oleandra sighed; it would take a lot of work to get those fellows to a certain level of competency. Nevertheless, she resumed walking around the room, offering pointers to those who were especially incompetent.

That's not to say that all of them were hopeless; take the Weasleys, for example. Ginny's casting process was flawless, and her older brothers Fred and George seemed experienced at magical duels; it was obvious that this wasn't their first scrap. Of the lot of them, Ron's aim was the worst, but he wasn't a lost cause, by any means.

Oleandra walked past Harry and Cho Chang. They were busy flirting with each under the disapproving glare of Marietta, Cho's best friend, so she left them alone and headed for the corner where Tracey and Theo were taking turns taking shots at each other.

Tracey was giving it her all, but she wasn't especially skilled or talented at duelling. She was just ordinary, and she had no experience. From her first year to her fifth, she had never seen any actual magical combat, unlike Oleandra and Daphne, as they had never brought her along on adventures. Tracey had used to be perfectly okay with this arrangement, being somewhat of a coward, but now, the stakes were higher than ever before. She was no longer content with standing on the sidelines; she wished for the power to protect the woman she loved.

Theo, on the other hand, was rather impressive; his father had clearly taught him a trick or two about duelling. From what Oleandra understood, he had already mastered the Disarming Charm a long time ago, but at the very least, he seemed to be glad for the opportunity to get some practice.

Finally, Oleandra went to see Astoria, who was practising with Colin Creevey's little brother Dennis. They were both third years— and to be perfectly honest— they were both atrocious at aiming; a problem which was accentuated by the fact that they overexaggerated the Disarming Charm's required wand movements to a ridiculous degree…