A New Way To Train.

Waking up to a few drops of water being flicked onto his face, Loki blinked and looked around himself as everything came into focus.

"Wait- what just-" Loki started but then he saw Dominic's face in view and suddenly remembered everything, "Dominic! How did you do that? That was one spell inside the other!" Loki asked the question that was eating him up.

"Haha, that's just a trick of mine, quite commonly used in duelling competitions actually.", Dominic said with a soft smile.

"But how!?"

"Do you know how spells are shot at other people?" Dominic asked patiently.

"Yeah, you shape your spirituality activate the spell and then toss your spirituality at the intended target, that is also what gives spells their colours, since hastily activating a spell creates a little loss of magic in the form of light."

"That's a good short explanation." Dominic nodded.

"But how did you wrap one spell inside the other without having them getting mixed up!?" Loki asked with a frown.

"It is a simple trick really, takes a little skill to perform but it's easy I promise. All you have to do is create the first spell and give a clockwise rotation to your spirituality-

'What?'

"-while giving the second spell that is wrapped around it an counter clockwise rotation so none of the points of the spell every have enough time to come in contact and blend together."

"Huh…yeah easy…definitely."

"Precisely."

But then Loki suddenly said something else with a proud expression on his face, "Did you see me use the Finite Incantatem spell to dispel your spell!!? How was it!? Wasn't it great!??"

"Yeah, I didn't expect you to do something like that." Dominic truthfully stated. "How did you think about that?"

"I was just worried about how I would defend myself since I didn't know the Protego charm or any other charm to defend myself. The only thing in my arsenal was the Finite Incantatem and so I took the risk. And even then I spread out my spirituality and used a lot more than I should have."

Loki added the last line, but didn't actually mean it, he just didn't want to reveal that he had perfect hand eye coordination, something that might make someone suspect him as being a beyonder.

"It was still fantastic." Dominic nodded.

"So what did you mean by I have to learn how to fight?" Loki asked the question he had been meaning to ask ever since he fainted.

"Ah~" Dominic let out a soft sigh, "You've got good skill and a decent base already, but you fight like it is a joke. Your instincts aren't up to the mark. You leave yourself open like you're a body bag and attack like you're adding water to the great lake."

"It's all too simplistic is what I want to say."

"If you want to seriously be able to defend yourself and not get caught off guard by simple tricks, you need to treat each and every spell from the enemy as a life threatening move."

"The enemy is always different from you, this means that they have something particular they are best at, and know something you might not have thought about, like my layered spell that caught you off guard." 

"In simple words what you lack is experience." Dominic concluded.

"Ah! But how am I to gain experien- Wait! Don't tell me!?" Loki immediately looked at Dominic with a little surprised expression.

"Yeah, I think it's time you fought a few people on your own, but before I leave you to the mercy of the Slytherin students, we'll practice duelling for a while. It'll be good for me to wind down and for you to hone your instincts." Dominic said with a sharp nod.

'Isn't this 'winding down' just a different word for beating me up?'

"After a few months of that, I'll leave you to defend yourself so that you get used to sneak attacks and brawls.", Dominic said with a smile that was doing its very best to hold back his laughter.

"What!? But-"

"I know you're worried about being hurt but once people see you aren't easy prey they'll leave you alone. I will talk to Professor Snape about it and given your unique situation I think he would agree."

Loki frowned since he didn't like this at all, it felt like he was being left out to fend for himself while trapped in a pit of hungry poisonous snakes, but he still expressed his gratitude, "Thank you very much."

The rest of the week went by in a breeze and ended before Loki could even rest for a moment since he was swamped by things to do all day, early in the morning there were classes where he had no give now because Defence Against the Dark Arts was now a class he had to attend.

After lunch, he studied runes on his own and did homework and in the evening he was either battling Dominic or in the Hospital wing where he ate Madam Pomfrey's brain about healing magic. He didn't learn very much from her though.

But thanks to his skills as a Sequence 9 : Marauder Loki was rarely ever on the receiving end of attacks. Most times he was able to tactically keep his options for escape handy so that he could quickly make an escape if things were turning south.

On top of that, Dominic made sure to always give Loki a way out in case things were turning heated and dangerous.

In the night he had detention with professors who all gave him various tasks from grading papers to going to the forbidden forrest to get herbs or even taking care of the plants in the greenhouse and feeding them manure.

Overall Loki's only free time was spent going to the forbidden forest to visit the Unicorns with Hagrid.

"Hagrid did the Headmaster agree?" Loki asked Hagrid but he needn't have, since Hagrid was already sporting a wide smile on his face.

But Hagrid said something that shocked Loki to his core making him glad he asked the question.

"Professor Dumbledore first asked to see Norberta and when he saw how tame and friendly she was being he let her stay in the school, there apparently is a room in the dungeons that is suitable for her and is connected to the forbidden forest for her to hunt."

'Tame and friendly?'

"She didn't bite any of his fingers did she?"

"No! In fact she let Professor Dumbledore touch her belly and give her a belly rub. Wouldn't have believed it myself if I hadn't seen her there."

"Wha-!?"

"Can't believe it right!?" Hagrid asked with a smile as he nursed a few of the younger foals by cleaning their hooves.

'Norberta let him give her a belly rub?'

'Does this mean dragons have an inherent sense of danger?'

'But why is my intuition telling me otherwise.'

'Damn I don't want to think more about this matter outside the Sefirah Castle.'

'I'm half sure about what my intuition is warning me about but I don't want to end up dead or worse on someone's radar for no reason.'

'I'm good being a simple thief being chased by Mr. A.'

'Shouldn't have brought up this topic at all, damn it.'

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