Roses and Riots | f. weasley

Chapter 38: Dumbledore's Army

In the D.A's third meeting a couple of weeks later, Harry was teaching them how to use the Stunning Spell. They watched as second-year Nigel Wolpert eagerly volunteered to go against Harry in a demonstration. 

"Silly child," Beth said with a grimace, as she watched her brother practically skipping across the room. The small blonde boy ran to the opposite side of the room to Harry, looking extremely excited to be Stunned by Harry Potter.

Harry hesitantly raised his wand, "come on then, Nigel. Give it your best shot."

Nigel nodded and held out his wand, "Stupefy!"

The spell sent both Harry and Nigel flying backwards onto the floor.

Harry groaned as he sat up, "not bad at all, Nigel. Well done."

Nigel grinned wildly and turned to give Beth two thumbs up and she shook her head fondly and gave him a thumbs up in return.

"He's too eager for his own good," Beth said to Emilia as they paired off to try out the Knockback Jinx on each other.

"It's sweet how excited he is though," Emilia replied brightly, and then the two girls faced off.

"I have a feeling I'm going to regret this," Beth murmured as she and Emilia raised their wands.

"Stupefy!" They cast the spells at the same time, but only Emilia's jinx landed and sent Beth stumbling backwards.

"I'll get you next time," she said and Emilia grinned at her friend as they watched everyone else take their turns.

Standing next to the twins, Emilia grimaced as she saw Ron and Hermione facing off. Ron was standing tall with overconfidence, and the twins snickered.

"Come on Ron!" they encouraged in unison, and a few others echoed their sentiments.

Then George turned to Fred, "one Sickle."

Fred grinned, "you're on."

"Must you bet on everything?" Emilia chided them disapprovingly.

"Yes," they said.

They watched as Hermione stunned Ron before he could even cast the spell, and he flew backwards with a loud yelp.

Everyone laughed and Fred held out his hand to George pointedly, and George took a Sickle out of his pocket and pushed it into Fred's waiting palm.

"Thank you," Fred said cheerfully.

"Shut up," George muttered.

Ron walked over with his ego bruised, "I let her do that."

"Sure you did, Ron," Emilia said.

"It's good manners, isn't it?" he added as if trying to reassure himself.

"Yeah, 'course it is, mate," George said with a grin. "Don't worry, it wasn't embarrassing at all."

Ron nodded, not sensing the sarcasm in George's words, "yeah, that's good. It was completely intentional."

Fred snickered and looked down at Emilia who rolled her eyes fondly at the Weasley boys.

At the end of the session, Emilia walked over to Cassius Warrington who looked more relaxed than she'd ever seen him, talking to a group of Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw students near the pile of school bags.

He smiled as she came over, "hey, Emilia."

"Hey, Cassius," she greeted him. "How did you find today's session?"

He looked around, looking positively elated, "I think I did okay! I was a bit worried after last week that I wasn't going to be any good."

"You're doing really well," Emilia assured him.