au_hogwarts | The Room of Requirement

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The Room of Requirement

After arriving on the Quidditch Pitch, Dinah doesn't waste any time heading to the seventh floor, still carrying the bundle she brought back with her.

When she told Leonardo he wanted the gym, she meant a very specific gym. Ever since her second year when her mother was in St, Mungo's for the first time and all she wanted was to be with her uncle Ted, she's taken to using the Room when it looks alomst exactly like Ted Grant's gym in the East End. Except that many years of use as a training spcace for her nad her friends have given it a specialist twist. The punching bags, for example, punch back.

Elbowing her way in with the bundle in her hands, she glances around the room for Leonardo. She's not late, but she wouldn't put it past him to be early.

[OOC: Plot locked to Leonardo]

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"No."
On that, Dinah agrees with him

She vaults over the ropes of the rings and approaches him across the floor, reaching into the cabintet to pull out a flat body shield.

"There're plenty of things in here that won't fight back."

He laughs quietly, and smiles ever so subtly.
"That's good to know."

Now that he's not moving, and is within arms reach, it's just possible to see network of scars that decorate his torso peaking out from behind his undershirt.

"I'm sorry you had to see that."

Dinah pulls the shield out and leans it against the wall; she only wanted it out so it was there.

Simply, and with a smile to match his own, "I've seen worse."

"In that case I'm sorry for that as well."
Leo has enough sorry to go around...and then some.

"Dare I ask what that does?" He nods in the direction to the shield.

"This?" Dinah pokes it wth her foot. "It protects the midsection when someone's hitting you. Muggles invented it."

It's not enchanted, if that's what he means.

Yes. Thank you. He was not aware of that.
That right there? That little sigh? Is one of the many long suffering ones he usually brings out for brotherly occasions. Today? He brings it out for Dinah.

"Oh good. I'd hate for the successful sneak attack by inanimate objects tally to go up by one more today."

Dinah opens her motuh to make a smart response and instantly shuts it.

"Yeah, sorry about that. I don't always have an opponent to practise on."

She has Will, but they don't always end up in here together.

"It's fine. I should have expected the unexpected, this is Hogwarts after all. It's just, that back home we had a No Enchanting The Gear rule."

Mike and Raph do love to prank. And Mike...is really good at charms. Freakishly so.

"Wand work? Or hand to hand?"

Dinah nods, suppressing an amused smirk.

"Yeah, if I tried that," a nod to the closed cupboard and the dummy within at my Uncle's Gym, he'd have my head so fast I wouldn't know what hit me."

To his question, "Both. Either. I like to be ready for anything."

Dinah's Uncle sounds an awful lot like Leo's Father. SO much so that the story makes him laugh.

"It's a good way to be. Especially with the NEWTS coming up."
Because clearly that's why she's training so hard in a magical gym. NEWTS. Right?

Dinah blinks at him, then smiles.

NEWTs, right.

"With any other teacher I wouldn't worry, but who knows what S - Professor Brown will throw at us?"

She KEEPS DOING THAT.

"Well she is American. It's a well known fact that we can't be trusted."

He can prove it with SCIENCE!

Dinah snorts in contained laughter.

"As long as you admit it yourselves, I don't have to say it."

"Why lie, the truth is far too much fun," he says with a shrug.

It's the best line from one of Mike's favorite movies.

...

"Is that a quote from something?"

Dinah doesn't get exposed to much Muggle culture these days, even with a squib Uncle

"A movie called, Hook. It's one of Michaelangelo's favorites."

He pauses as he considers how best to sum up the plot.

"It's...what would happen if Peter Pan grew up and then returned to Neverland.
...

Which will mean absolutely nothing to you if you've never read Peter Pan."

It's hard to be a muggleborn sometimes.

"I read Peter Pan," Dinah says brightly. "My Dad was a muggle, and he used to read it to me, even when I could read it myself.

"He always made me clap."

Dinah's Momm said it was irresponsible, teaching her things that aren't true about fairies. Larry said she didn't get the point.

"Clapping is an important part of the story," Leo says somberly. A little too somberly for it to be in any way serious.

"Our mother was the one who did the reading. And since Peter Pan was one of Mike's favorite stories, we heard it a lot."

So much so that Shen would begin to swap out English in favor of Japanese where she could. It was one of the ways she taught Raphael the language.

"I had a friend called Peter," Dinah says, glancing towards the swords on the table. "He taught me how to use a sword, and when I did a lesson well, he always agreed to pretend I was Ja... I was James Hook."

Her voice catches, once, and she straightens. "You want to try with one of the punching bags? It won't fight back."

Leo commits Peter's name to memory, along with the fact that she spoke of her father in the past-tense. That's too much loss for any one person to handle.

"It's not the fighting back so much as the surprise. Having said that, I still prefer objects to people."

For now.
He looks around the room for a speed bag.

There are a couple of such speed bags attached to platforms on the wall by the larger bags, in the area towards which Dinah now indicates.

"Knock yourself out.

"...not lterally. I'm going to find a rack for the swords."

It's a big cupboard.

His eyes fall on the bags just as Dinah gestures to them.

"I'll try my best to remain conscious. But...I can't promise anything."
That, right there, is Leo's idea of a joke.

He walks his way towards the speed bags, but pauses to offer:

"If you need a hand, let me know."

Dinah pauses, already half in the cupboard, and looks over her shoulder at him.

"I can manage, thanks. You enjoy the work out."

With the permission to enjoy a pursuit of his own design, Leo continues towards the speed bag. Soon enough the the rhythmic sound of punching fills the room.

Dinah, meanwhile, does indeed find a sword rack that's much too big to have fitted in that cabinet. She levitates it out and against the wall while she carefully unwraps and racks up each of the swords Lucy gave her.

The last one, though, is her own. This she keeps out, holding straight in front of her as she looks down the blade.

And gives a coupe of practice thrusts as her smile grows.

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