Sword Fights and Banter

[Oswald Brigham]

If ever there were a place conducive to the imagination, it was Hogwarts, and even after a full year at the castle Oswald was discovering new areas in which to play. The grounds, especially, had become his favourite place to explore, what with its secret gardens and scary forests and dragon lairs (though the latter may only have existed in the Gryffindor's head). Today he wandered through a thin covering of trees, nudging sticks with his foot until at last he came across a suitable sword. He'd have loved to have started a stick collection, but his dad had made it quite clear that he wasn't allowed to hoard more than two types of item at once. "Such a hypocrite!" he said to himself, stooping to pick up the straight length of wood and examine for animal poo or anything else he didn't want to touch. Once upon a time, before he'd begun to check so thoroughly, he'd accidentally touched a slug, and the cold, sticky feeling had given him such a fright that he'd grown to hate the weird little creatures even more than gnomes. He shuddered just to think about it.

The stick was a little long, so he wedged one end underneath his foot and yanked upwards, snapping it in half. Perfect. Next he whacked it against the trunk of a tree a few times, just to make sure it was strong enough to withstand dragon slaying. When it had passed his merciless trials, he trudged onward through the coppice, scanning the ground for dragon footprints. They weren't hard to miss, of course, and soon enough he came across the unmistakable print of Antipodean Opaleye. Hearing a rustle not so far off, the Gryffindor darted behind a tree, wielding his sword in both hands, and then, bracing himself, jumped out to face the dragon. Except, it wasn't a dragon, and the rustling hadn't been in his imagination at all, but the production of a very real pair of footprints. Oswald lowered his stick and blushed.

 

[Phoebe Holland]

Phoebe was always happy to be outside and exploring the Hogwarts grounds. Now that the school-year was nearly over, she really wanted to make a good mental map of the good spots she wanted to explore more next year. Normally she would have brought her sister Rose for this, but things were still sort of weird between them lately and she would see her sister all the time during the holidays. She was busy studying some funny looking plants she would want to look up later when she heard a voice nearby, followed by the sound of a piece of wood snapping in two. Phoebe was nothing if not curious, and before she knew it she was forgetting all about the plant and heading into the direction of the sound. She took a step back in alarm when someone jumped out at her, but then she started to laugh. This was incredibly similar to the last time they met, before their first year had started. "Oswald! If you do that one more time I'm going to think you're an assassin sent out to kill me." She teased. "It's been ages, how are you? Are you fighting something? Is it real or imaginary?" She looked around and quickly grabbed another stick. "You can fight me now, if you want." She grinned. "If you dare."

 

[Oswald Brigham]

Collecting his nerves, the Gryffindor grinned. "Maybe I am!" he said, brandishing his stick a few times without meaning. Then he shoved one end into the dirt and leaned on it. "I've been better. I was tracking this enormous Opaleye, and then someone showed up and put me off my trail!" He scoffed. "Of course it's real. I've tracked loads of dragons like these ones before. Well, a few of them were real. One of them. But my dad wouldn't actually let us track it far enough to find it. But that's not the point." The Gryffindor pulled his stick out of the mud, frowning curiously as Phoebe picked one up for herself. He screwed up his nose. She didn't even check for slugs. "Sure," he said, taking a firm grasp of his sword and raising it in an offensive stance. "I'll have to go easy on you, though, of course. Unless you think you can beat me!"

 

[Phoebe Holland]

Phoebe smirked. "Nah, an assassin would be better prepared." She told him. "Besides, poison would be a lot more effective, so remember that if you ever do get an assignment to kill someone. But if it's me I'm haunting you forever." She promised. His talk about the dragon made her laugh softly, she liked playing pretend sometimes too, but the fact that he once tracked a real dragon, even if he didn't find it, made her very interested. "Really?" She said with a raised eyebrow. "You know how to track animals?"

But the conversation wasn't very long as the swordfight started. She grinned at him and brandished her own 'sword'. "Oh no, don't go easy on me." She said with a smirk. "If you're that good, I want to see it for myself. If not, I can definitely beat you." She jumped closer and wiggled the stick at him teasingly him before tapping it against his stick. "Impress me."

 

[Oswald Brigham]

"Yeah, you got me there," conceded Oswald. Then he frowned. "How do you know so much about assassination, anyway?"

Phoebe's next question caught the Gryffindor off-guard. On the one hand, he really wanted to impress her, but on the other, he didn't want to lie. Maybe she was the sort of girl who appreciated the truth, anyway. Hoping this was the case, he said, "Well, sort of. It's really hard, though. I can't do it without help from my dad."

As Phoebe jumped at him a little, Oswald flinched. Oh, it was on. He was still going to go easy on her, because he didn't want to hurt her, but he would at least pretend to try his best. "Sure," he said, twisting his wrist so that his stick made an elegant circle in the air. He didn't know much about sword-fighting, but he'd picked up a thing or two playing with the swords his dad had brought into the shop, and from watching old movies on his projector. "You definitely don't want to say goodbye to your friends, first?"

 

[Phoebe Holland]

Phoebe smirked at his question and tried to give him a mysterious look as she tossed her hair back. "I'd rather not say, it's a secret. I'd have to kill you" She joked with a wink.

She appreciated him telling her he could only do it with his dad's help, it made sense. "That's still really awesome." She told him with a grin. "I bet you can do it by yourself in no time, and then you can teach me how to do it." As always, Phoebe was interested to learn everything she could, and tracking sounded both useful and fun.

She was quite impressed by his trick of twirling the stick in a circle, and she was definitely going to practice that later. Phoebe had the feeling he knew more about this than she did and would probably have more experience, but she never backed away from a challenge. "Nah, I'll talk to them after I comfort your weeping friends." She said with a laugh. Then she charged at him again with her stick, jumping forward to jab at his belly.