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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Oh well then, she's in for quite a show. The third swing from the dummy catches Leo by surprise, lands square on his jaw, and sends him reeling back a few steps. For a split second he appears dazed, but a quick shake of his head clears that up. Leo wipes at his mouth with the back of one hand just to make sure he's not bleeding, before leveling a gaze on the dummy...and then attacking.

At first it's simple boxing, but as he slowly manages to push the dummy back towards the other side of the ring, he brings the rest of his body into his attacks.

That is a show. Dinah steps up quietly, standing below the ring and looking up under the ropes to watch.

Boxing, she knows. But there's something there as well that she doesn't know; an offensive technique that's like Karate, but isn't. She stops wondering about what she can teach him and starts wondering what he can teach her.

And the dummy is taking quite a battering.

Indeed. And the battering doesn't stop. Not until Leo has managed to get the dummy all the way to the other side of the ring, and pinned up against the ropes. It's then that he draws his wand and for a split second there...looks as if he's got enough rage to utter an Unforgivable.

But...only for a second.
Because once that second is passed, his repression field goes up and he's back to his seemingly calm demeanor.

"Finite Incantatem."

Dinah smiles.

"Nice technique," she remarks.

"But I see what you mean." About not dueling.
He needs to work on self control.

He catches a glance of Dinah out of the corner of his eye, but quickly looks away. It's not shame or anything, he just needs to pick up the once again lifeless dummy.

Yes. That's it.

He sighs.

"It was a crucio."

Dinah's eyes drop down to the floor of the ring, then she pulls herself up, until she's standing inside the ropes with him, holding her hands out for the dummy. She'll put it away.

"What was?"

He shakes his head at her offer and heaves the dummy over his shoulder.

"The curse I used the last time I dueled. The one that got me expelled from Arkham."

You know, the reason he doesn't duel.

Mildly, "Oh."

It's surprisingly casual for the situation; namely that Dinah Lance, golden girl of Gryffindor is suddenly alone in an unmappable room, that only two people will think to look for her in, with a Slytherin who would use an Unforgivable curse in a duel.

It doesn't even sound forced. More like something it slotting into place in her mind.

"Who was he?"

He looks about the room for the place the dummy lives, and then back to Dinah.

"Chester Copperpot. Chet," he says "To his friends."
Leo was not one of his friends.

Dinah nods towards a cupboard by the wall, extracting her wand from the band for a quick "Alohamora."

So now she knows his name, but that wasn't really the question.

"What did he do?"

Leo nods and then begins to make his way from the ring, to the cupboard.
The dummy isn't exactly light, but you'd never know by how easily he moves with it.

"He was a bully. Probably still is, though I hope not."

Well, there's that.
Dinah has little enough patience for bullies. A voice inside her says that she can totally understand throwing a curse like that at a bully.

Another voice tells her that she shouldn't be able to understand throwing a curse like that at anyone.

"So do I."

He probably still is, though.

Fwumph goes the dummy in the cabinet.

"Not that it should matter. No one deserves that."

After all, it was Leo's fault to begin with. Had he been paying attention he'd have seen that his brothers needed his help long before the duel was necessary. They had been standing up for him when he couldn't stand up for himself.

"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!

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