Closed Made With Adrenaline

[Harper Alston]

Winning the Duelling Tournament hadn't officially made it onto Harper's seventh year bucket list, but it was still a goal she hoped to accomplish. She'd managed to win last year with some charm work, and she was hoping to defend her title this year without resorting to such trickery. It would be a nice way to cap off her time at Hogwarts. However, Harper knew that was easier said than done. Her year always seemed to have the largest bracket in the tournament, and competition would be fierce.

Harper had spent a lot of time practicing in the Duelling Chamber, but today she decided to head for the SDA clubroom, figuring that she might as well take advantage of her membership. She was also curious to see if the SDA had any special practice equipment or books that could help her. There didn't appear to be anyone else in the room, but Harper figured she could find what she needed with a little searching. She approached the closest dummy and prodded it with her wand, trying to check whether it was one of those special programmable ones that could shoot out spells on its own.

 

[Flynn North-McGowan]

It was time to start worrying about the Duelling Tournament again and Flynn always found himself incredibly busy this time of the year. Fussing over finding Professors who had the time to proctor the tournament to work out dates and times and all of that. At least this time he didn't have to worry about it by himself and had Indira to help out. Though it seemed he was still doing a lot of the work anyway as he was having to show her how to do things and couldn't just leave her to it. Maybe he should have expected this.

But spending so much time organizing it meant he had very little time to actually practice. He was just going to have to make up for it over the break now he was old enough to do magic outside of school and didn't have to worry about getting into trouble. But when he did have some time between everything he found himself pushing his way into the duelling chamber to at least try and get in a bit of practice. What surprised him, however, was to see Harper there as well. "Is that your new tactic for this year? Poking your opponents?" He offered casually as he slipped his hands into his pockets. "Don't think you need a new tactic. The disillusionment stuff from last year was clever."

 

[Harper Alston]

Harper jumped a little at the sound of Flynn's voice, and she glanced up almost guiltily. She was about to explain that she was just trying to get some practice in when he complimented her. She hid her surprise with a smile. "Thanks. But everyone will be expecting it this year." Harper herself had spent some time thinking about what she'd do if any of her opponents tried the same trick. "It also kind of felt like cheating." She knew it wasn't actually cheating, but she couldn't deny that the charm had allowed her to avoid one of her biggest weaknesses: shield charms.

She'd come down here in an attempt to work on that weakness. It wasn't that Harper was incapable of casting a shield charm; she just found it more natural to dodge spells instead. However, there were certain downsides to that strategy, and she knew she needed to kick the habit if she ever wanted to be an auror. "Do you guys have any of those animated dummies?," Harper asked, glancing back at the dummies. "You know, the ones that you can program to shoot spells at you."

 

[Flynn North-McGowan]

He supposed she did have a point, using the same tactic twice in a row could be rather tricky as people would have been expecting it. But then again, not necessarily. "Or maybe no one will be expecting it because they think you wouldn't try the same thing two years in a row." That could also be a tactic if you wanted it to be. "But it wasn't cheating, it was actually very smart and I don't think it's something I've seen someone do before. I would have never come up with it." If it had been cheating then she would have lost the first duel by default. As it was, she had won every single one of her duels.

As she questioned about the dummies, he did glance over at one for just a second. "Why practice with a dummy when I'm right here?" He had come here to practice himself, and he would much rather fling spells at another person instead of a dummy. They could be far too easy sometimes. "I'll be better practice than one of them, anyway."

 

[Harper Alston]

Flynn had a point, she supposed. She could probably get away with it for the first round at least. "Maybe. But you would be expecting it," she pointed out, raising her eyebrows slightly. Flynn was one of the strongest duelists in their year, and Harper had yet to beat him. It was by sheer luck that she had avoided dueling him last year. She gave a modest shrug, still a little unsure what to think of this new version of Flynn that threw around compliments. "I know it's not actually cheating, but I kind of want to prove to myself that I can win without it. But we'll see," Harper said with a cryptic smile. She did want to keep her title, after all, so she wasn't going to completely rule out the possibility of casting another Disillusionment Charm or even a Supersensory Charm on herself.

To her surprise, Flynn offered himself as a sparring partner. "Are you sure about that?" she teased when he claimed to be more challenging than a dummy. Though Harper knew that an actual person would be a better opponent than an enchanted mannequin, she wasn't quite sure she trusted Flynn — even if he seemed less grumpy than usual. Plus, there was the matter of unsupervised duels being against the rules. Harper didn't mind breaking the rules, but she was less enthused at the idea that she might have to serve another detention with Flynn. "If I say yes, what's stopping you from stunning me and then ditching me here?"

 

[Flynn North-McGowan]

He just grinned a little, "I always expect anything. And it doesn't matter if you don't even tell me your plans. Not that I think you would do that." Telling an opponent what you were planning on doing was just an incredibly stupid thing because then they could just practice beating that exact tactic. Or you could tell them a lie and they could be practicing for the wrong thing. Now that could be clever. Depends on how good you were at lying. "Just play to your strengths. You shouldn't try and comply with the 'norm' and what everyone else expects from you. That won't get you very far." It was good to be creative and do what you were good at. Which was why he was quite good at the shield charm and used it far more than dodging. It was much harder to dodge quickly with only one working foot, after all.

"Yeah, course. Why not?" He wasn't worried about it if it was just going to be a little bit of practice. It might give them both a chance to try out a couple of new things before deciding on the final tactics for the tournament. Though he did have to fold his arms and raise his brow a little as Harper accused him of doing something rather unsportsmanlike. Sure, he wasn't the greatest sportsman out there, but he wouldn't go that low. "Do you really think so little of me that I would do that? I might be a bit of a d*ck, but I'm not that much of a d*ck."

 

[Harper Alston]

Harper laughed lightly. "I take it you're feeling confident about the tournament, then? But you're wrong. I plan on winning all of my duels with Tickling Charms and Cheering Charms." She supposed one could theoretically drive their opponent into hysterics with a few well-placed charms, but she had yet to see anyone successfully do that during a duel. Harper shook her head. "It's not about complying with the 'norm.' It's more about... challenging myself. And making myself a better duelist." She wanted to work on her weaknesses, not just compensate for them with her strengths.

Her joke seemed to have flown over his head, and Harper was struck by how seriously Flynn took dueling. It surprised her since she hadn't really thought he took anything seriously. Then again, she supposed she should have expected as much from someone who had won three tournaments in a row. At Flynn's question, Harper shifted uncomfortably. Because the truth was she had genuinely thought he might do that. She still kind of did. "I don't know what to think of you," she said honestly. "I don't really know you." After some less than positive interactions with Flynn when they were younger, Harper had mostly tried to avoid him. But it seemed he had changed. "But if you say you won't, then I believe you." She was still going to keep her guard up, but she was willing to give practicing with him a shot.

 

[Flynn North-McGowan]

Flynn did have to offer a small chuckle and a shrug of his shoulder, "Alright, that would at least be something. I don't think I've ever seen someone win a duel because their opponent is too busy laughing." He supposed it was a good distraction so you could disarm them while they couldn't get a shield up, but he'd not seen someone win just by making someone laugh. He didn't really know if that was actually possible or not in the first place. "Practice is where you challenge yourself and work to get better, not a tournament. You're the reigning champion, you should be worrying about trying to make it two in a row instead of trying something new. It's our last year, you won't get another chance to be champion again." And Flynn fully intended to bring his best stuff this year and stick to what he was good at.

"And yet you think you know enough about me to draw the conclusion that I am the sort of person to just hex someone and then leaves them?" Maybe twelve-year olf Flynn would have done that and probably found it quite amusing as well, but he liked to think he had changed quite a bit since then. He wasn't twelve years old anymore, he was almost eighteen. An adult in the eyes of society. And while he might not take everything 100% seriously all of the time, he was just cruel for the sake of being cruel. "Only say yes if you're going to trust me not to try and seriously hurt you. You need to trust your opponent when there's no one around to supervise and make sure we don't accidentally kill each other."

 

[Harper Alston]

Harper shrugged. She wasn't sure how to explain that she had loftier goals than just winning the school Dueling Tournament without sounding conceited or dismissive. She'd already checked that accomplishment off her Hogwarts bucket list. Now she was more concerned about becoming a better duelist so that the Ministry would take her as an auror. She would rather use her tournament rounds as additional practice for her larger, overarching goal. "You're not wrong," she said seriously. "But maybe I think I can do both, challenge myself and win," she added with a playful grin.

She wasn't sure Flynn's question was a fair one. It was pretty normal to be wary of someone you didn't know well, especially when it came to something as dangerous as unsupervised dueling. And that didn't even include all the history they had. "You haven't exactly been the nicest to me in the past," Harper said simply, thinking of the time he had threatened to leave their shared detention. She had ended up doing all the work while he sat back and laughed at her. "I mean, I'm over all that now, but you can't say that conclusion came out of nowhere."

Harper shook her head. "I've never thought that." Flynn had been grumpy and rude to her in the past towards, but there was difference between being a bit of a jerk and being downright cruel. She still thought a younger version of Flynn might jinx someone and run. But she didn't think any version of Flynn would seriously injure someone for fun. "I know you wouldn't try to seriously hurt me. So yes."