Closed Of course it's you

[Elio Boneheart]

Just practice.

That's always what anyone said whenever he expressed his displeasure with not getting something quicker. Keep practicing until you get it. There were never any tips on how to get it, because apparently that wasn't going to help him. This was something he could only do on his own which was a bit bullsh!t if he did say so himself. He didn't see how constantly trying to make something happen when it wasn't going to happen was going to help, and even after he'd tried to get his wand to light up, which he'd barely managed thanks very much, he still couldn't do much of anything else. He felt like he was still on the basics when he should have been on other things, more advanced. Sure he could conjure a bunch of flowers for Mikael, or throw up a shield, but doing anything wordlessly or wandlessly? Or both? Nope, impossible. Nothing he tried was helping, is this what happened when the majority of your education was out of a textbook? It wasn't that his mother didn't try to help him, but she was hardly a professor and he always felt like maybe she was pushing him to do the things she never got to - like be a healer, which he'd already decided wasn't for him and he still didn't know how he was going to tell her that. She'd been pushing him to go and speak to the Nursing staff and ask them if he could train with them, but so far hadn't been in there to ask. He didn't know how to tell her that he wasn't going to either - but he supposed he would have to at some point. After another failed attempt to do anything wordlessly, he slumps onto the couch he'd summoned, he had no idea where it had come from and he hoped no one was missing it, but right now he needed to sit down, he was tired, he was annoyed and frankly he wanted to be left alone... in the middle of the duelling chamber. Ah hell. He didn't even care anymore.​

 

[Mikael Nightray]

There had been something off with Mikael's boyfriend in the last few days. With most students, he would chalk it up to pre-exam jitters, but Elio wasn't really prone to that in Kael's expert opinion. What his boyfriend was prone to was semester-long jitters. Anxiety about his studies all semester round. And not just his own studies too, sometimes Elio was also prone to being anxious about Mikael's studies. And Hinata's on occasion. So yes, with his boyfriend being more or less down, the Slytherin had gone in search of him. Thankfully, one had directed him (after a bit of bribery) in the direction of the Duelling Chamber, where his boyfriend was last seen attempting to practice spells alone apparently. Which was a little counterproductive, in his opinion, and weird, considering he'd been hounding Mikael into practicing casting spells for his OWLs. As soon as he entered one of the chambers, he caught sight of his Gryffindor boyfriend slumped on a couch, which made him frown. Taking out his wand, he softly casts a very very mild stinging hex on his boyfriend as he walks up to him. "That seems very counterintuitive to practicing," he says as he stands in front of his boyfriend, his wand held relaxed against his side, "Come on. Wand up."​

 

[Elio Boneheart]

"Of course," look, it's not that Elio didn't want Mikael around, but when he was trying to practice non-verbal magic it made it hard to do it when he had an audience, not to mention Mikael hadn't learned it yet so he was hardly the person who was going to have the information that Elio needed right now. He jumped up immediately though when Mikael hexed him and he turned his already sullen face in his direction, not even bothering to retaliate, his leg (where the spell had hit him) now sporting an angry red welt. "That was so unnecessary," he said, before rolling his eyes. "What are you doing here anyway, shouldn't you be studying or something? I'm trying to... uhm," well he couldn't say he was studying or anything because Mikael had walked in at exactly the wrong time to believe that. "You shouldn't throw spells at people, even if we're in the duelling chamber, I wasn't ready."​

 

[Mikael Nightray]

Mikael raised an eyebrow at the complaint. Well, perhaps he would soothe the injured area later with some ice. Maybe. Depending on how this went. "Well, I may or may not have heard that it's my turn to pester about your studies now," he says. Well, he didn't really hear, but it was more like guessing. He'd already helped Elio study for theory when they had that picnic by the lake. There wasn't much he could help with, though, when it came to conjuration or apparition, seeing as he wasn't allowed to perform either until next year, and by then, Elio would have been done. Nonverbal casting, though, that he could help with. He knew the theory. And well, there wasn't really much that needed to be known about it. Mastery of spells, focus, and practice from what he understood. There were still gaps in his own knowledge, gaps that would have likely been filled by Elio's education this year. It was likely all Elio needed was a bit of a push and a lot of practice. Thankfully, Mikael can be quite pushy, and he was a willing duelling partner even if he could only cast verbally. "Hmm. Well, you're ready now. Stupefy," he casts without further warning. He did tell Elio to put his wand up earlier.​

 

[Elio Boneheart]

"You're in your OWLS year, you're the one who's supposed to be focusing on your studies, not me," he said irritably, but couldn't actually stay annoyed at Mikael even if he wanted to. Mikael might have been a grump, but he was Elio's grump and he actually liked being in his vicinity. Maybe getting Mikael to take an interest in his studies would help Mikael to be interested in his own studies. He knew that was probably wishful thinking but he'd always been something of an optimist for the most part, maybe a realist in practice. He was about to suggest again that Mikael shouldn't be hitting his boyfriend with stinging hexes when he had to quickly raise a shield charm (verbally) because he was now trying to stun him. "Mikael!" he yelled, ducking behind the couch because he was a loser and not a wizard apparently. "Come on, I don't want to duel." He was still in pain from the stinging hex on his leg so he was limping, but apparently his boyfriend didn't really care about that. @sshole.​

 

[Mikael Nightray]

"Well then it's a good thing dueling will help us both in our studies," Mikael said, watching as his boyfriend cast a shield charm verbally. He clicked his tongue at that because that was certainly not the goal. His Gryffindor boyfriend was supposed to be casting nonverbally - silently. "You need to focus on the spell. Stop doubting. You already know the spell," he reprimanded. The Slytherin then watched his boyfriend duck behind the couch, making him roll his eyes. Mikael certainly had no compulsions on casting magic on the couch, moving it aside to rest against the far wall of the chamber with a whispered incantation. "Then learn to shield silently," he said as he cast another Stupefy.​

 

[Elio Boneheart]

"We can't have a proper duel, you need a proctor for that," he complained, especially annoyed when Mikael decided to move his couch out of the way. He rolled his eyes, he didn't see how forcing him to trying and block random spells non-verbally was supposed to work, but Mikael had always been a stubbornly impatient @sshole, so he wasn't terribly surprised. When Mikael aimed at him again, he shielded again, verbally, but quicker. Mikael had a one up on him solely because he'd been duelling with his dad for years, whereas Elio had really only just started, so he was less than a novice. His mum had never done much in the way of teaching him how to duel so it was all really a lesson in figuring things out for himself. And apparently non-verbal was the more difficult of the things he had to learn. Jeez. "Okay, hit me with something again, not the stunning spell" and he better not use the stinging hex again either.​

 

[Mikael Nightray]

"I won't tell if you won't," Mikael said simply. His eyes narrowed as his boyfriend once again used an incantation to cast the shield charm. That simply wouldn't do. "Stop overthinking. You don't need to say the incantation out loud," he reminded his boyfriend. That was what his mum would say. Most people outside of the family tend to assume that his dad, Liam Nightray, was the taskmaster - and sure his dad would keep throwing spells at him until he learned how to shied. Then again, a lot of people didn't know his mum all that well. Or else they would know that Dad was the one who taught them the basics, but it was Mum who really hammered everything in. "The mute can cast spells. Stop thinking it's too difficult. Just cast," he insisted. He thought about Elio's request though to hit him with a different spell. It was a bit difficult since he needed to remind himself that he was not facing Horror or Terror or his parents right now. He was facing his boyfriend, who was trying to figure out nonverbal spells. "Rictusempra," he decided.​

 

[Elio Boneheart]

Elio rolled his eyes at the way Mikael didn't seem at all bothered about being potentially interrupted whilst dueling. Well, they weren't officially duelling because there was no intention to be a winner, so... surely that wasn't a proper duel, right? He frowned, wondering if there was any likelihood that if they got caught, Professor Cade would let him off easily. He had a suspicion the man hadn't liked him since catching him with Bailey - though she'd managed to talk him out of losing points, he was pretty sure that wasn't enough to protect him from something like this indefinitely, though there was some decent assumption that he wasn't going to get into as much trouble this time since this wasn't Bailey. He didn't know how Professor Castillo thought about this sort of thing though, so potentially it was only Mikael in trouble, well, he'd made his choice though. He listened to what Mikael said, trying to relax, think about what he wanted to say. Then Mikael casts at him again, he was ready, but trying to cast the spell non-verbally didn't work and so the spell hit's him square in the chest and he breaks out into uncontrollable laughter.​

 

[Mikael Nightray]

When Mikael threw the spell, he knew almost instantly that Elio would not be able to cast a shield in time, or at least non-verbally. And so he cast a Finite quickly after so his boyfriend wouldn't be trapped in uncontrollable laughter for very long. It was a decent attempt, how decent Mikael wouldn't be able to tell. He's not exactly a legilimens. But he did see that Elio tried, which was more than could be said when they started. Pinpointing the problem would be difficult, but Kael had always been a determined person even if his family didn't quite notice most of the time. "Don't think about the incantation. The spell doesn't lie in the incantation or anyone saying Protego would be able to cast it willy-nilly." It was only a guess about what his boyfriend was thinking in the moments before he attempted to cast. "Think about the spell itself. Visualize the shield, how strong it should be, and how your magic flows through it. If you need to scream the incantation in your mind, then do so, but that shouldn't be at the forefront of your thoughts," he said. It was the only way Mikael could explain it. His mum had said that when one started to learn non-verbal magic, it was easy to forget that thinking the incantation has never been the one way to cast a spell. The basics taught them to visualize spells. To focus on the spells. And then use the incantations. For some reason, when one begins to try casting non-verbally the visualization changes to a mental chant of the incantation. Mikael would just have to break Elio out of the habit. "Again. Tarantallegra."​

 

[Elio Boneheart]

Was Elio annoyed that it was his younger boyfriend coaching him through this? Still, could have been worse, it could have been Elijah. he supposed he was right though, with what he was saying. He knew there was an element of needing to think less, it wasn't the problem, the problem was that he couldn't think less about it, he didn't know how he was supposed to think less. He' been told the same thing by the professors too, but that didn't mean he was getting to this any easier. he had been trying to visualise the shield and how it would look when he cast it, would it be the same as how it looked when it was verbal, or seeing everything in colours so that he could think about it more clearly. It wasn't like it appeared as a full barrier, not like holding up a shield or anything like that. He nodded and moved back slightly as Mikael told him to think about screaming it in his mind, maybe that would be a good way for this to work. When Mikael hits him with another spell, he shouts Protego in his head, surprised when Mikael's spell bounces right off.​