Blank Sheet

Study Time

After a few more duels with Hermione, Medea was completely exhausted and still hadn't beaten her opponent a single time. She had tried to come out of her defensive way to duel, she had tried using different spells, she had tried to surprise Hermione, she had tried everything she could think of. But it didn't work.

Instead, she had sore muscles and felt as if she couldn't move at all. She was sad and angry that she didn't even get close to beating Hermione. She was disappointed and had really no nerve for another hour of duelling others, getting beaten again and again.

Still, she couldn't leave her first session of the DA before it had even begun, so she braced herself up to stay and slapped on a smile as soon as the others entered. At first, many of them were unsure of what to do, as they hadn't seen her in the sessions before and all of them knew she was a Slytherin.

The Weasley twins entered soon, they carried a trunk on which something like Weasley's Wizard Wonders or anything stood. They kept advertising any kind of ill-making sweets and shot a tiny firecracker through the room.

Hermione explained everything, but many of the other students still didn't trust her. While Harry explained what they would be doing today (practising the stunning spell again), girls shot daggers at her and boys bumped into her on purpose.

"Okay, pair up in twos and practise the spell, I'll walk around and see where I can help," Harry said and everyone followed his orders. Soon, everybody in the room had a partner. Everybody, but Medea.

"Hey! Medea, right? You wanna pair with me?" a tall boy asked her, "I'm Dean. Thomas."

Medea sighed in relief, happy she found a partner. There had been so many times in school by now when they were told to pair up and she ended up alone.

Dean was a very nice partner. Even though he had been a part of the DA ever since it was founded, he was patient with her and her skill, that was, due to a lack of training, far below his level.

He kept explaining her things, waiting for her, he went easy on her in order to make her feel good. Her performance improved a lot during this hour with Dean, he gave her good advice and Harry as a teacher explained a lot she hadn't known before.

At the end of the session, they were told to do a duel with their current partner in order to improve their resilience under pressure and fasten their reflexes.

This was a thing scaring Medea again because her last duel didn't work out too well for her. When Harry announced it, she gazed nervously at Dean, afraid of getting shown her weakness again. But still, Dean had been nice throughout the session, Medea tried to calm herself down.

She breathed slowly, trying to get herself under control and getting her knees to stop trembling. She reminded herself of the many times she had duelled in Durmstrang when it always went pretty good.

She positioned herself after bowing to Dean and waited for the signal to start. One.

Harry counted. Medea intended not to be an opponent as easy as she had been with Hermione. Two.

The bushy-haired girl had told her what to do differently. Stay focused. Take the offensive. Outguess his moves. Be unpredictable. Three.

She shot an Expelliarmus. Medea's blood pumped fast, she could hear it in her ears. Dean blocked the spell with an impressive shield charm. He shot back, his Stupefy missed Medea, she had ducked in time. Instead, the burst of red light hit Parvati. But he didn't go back to the defensive then, they both shot an Expelliarmus and met at the middle. Their spells worked against each other for some time, emitting sparks when a plan worked out in Medea. She broke the contact and cast a powerful but still non-verbal Incarcerous to beat her opponent in a matter of seconds.