In the Melancholy Moonlight

Chapter CLXII: For All Your Beautiful Traits

I wanna be your end game
I wanna be your first string
I wanna be your A-Team
I wanna be your end game, end game

~

LUCY:

The first D.A. meeting of the year was dedicated to Shield Charms.

"We'll start with the easiest and most common Shield Charm for now," I explained, "but once everyone masters this one, there are other variations we can teach you. Tonight, the incantation is protego. If anyone feels like doing homework, we'll be working on protego duo and protego maxima in the coming weeks. Protego, though, is powerful enough to block most jinxes, hexes, and physical objects. It can protect against a couple of curses, too, but it does not block Unforgivable Curses, so you'd be better off dodging, should a fight ever come to that. Anyway..." I glanced at Harry. "Do you want to demonstrate the shield, or should I?"

The look on his face made my stomach erupt with butterflies. He had been looking at me like that — with a combination of pride and relief and excitement and whatever else — ever since I'd asked him to duel the night before. He grinned. "I'll do the shield. Hit me with your best shot."

We backed up until we were ten paces apart and locked eyes. Our wands snapped into motion at the same time.

"Flipendo!"

"Protego!"

The yellow jet of light of my Knockback Jinx bounced uselessly off of Harry's Shield Charm.

I shrugged and turned back to the group. "Well, there you have it! Use cushions until your Shield Charms become more reliable, I'd rather prevent injuries than have to heal them. Harry and I will make our way around and check up on all of you as you practice! Good luck!"

Shield Charms were difficult, so I was glad I'd recommended the use of the cushions. It was a bit dangerous trying to walk around the room, with objects and bodies flying all over the place, but Harry and I did our best to avoid getting knocked over by one thing or another.

"Say, Lucy!" Fred called as he fired a spell off at George. "Come over here! I have a very important question to ask you!"

"This can't be good," I muttered to Harry.

"Good luck! Let me know if you need back-up," he replied, cheerfully patting me on the shoulder and shoving me in Fred's direction.

I sighed as I approached him. "You've had this charm mastered for years. What question could you possibly have?"

"Well, seeing as Valentine's Day is only a little over a month away, I merely wanted to ask if you had any plans for the wonderful holiday," he said with a waggle of his eyebrows.

"That's what's so important?" I asked incredulously. "No, of course I don't."

Fred clucked his tongue disapprovingly. "Such a shame. A fine young witch such as yourself shouldn't have such a dismal outlook on the most romantic day of the year."

I shook my head. "What are you on about? You have a girlfriend."

"I'm fully aware of that, Cub," he said, glancing over my shoulder briefly before returning his attention to the casual duel he was having with George. "I wasn't asking you out of my own self-interest. There are plenty of other blokes who don't have plans for the day who would be very lucky to spend the day with you."

"Yeah, well, I have Quidditch practice anyway," I replied.

"Only in the morning. I would know, my girlfriend is Gryffindor Quidditch Captain. She wanted to practice all day, but I convinced her to make it just a morning practice so the two of us could have the second half of the day to ourselves."