au_hogwarts | The Room of Requirement

Entry tags:

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]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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.

Don't mind him, he's totally not being nosey.
Just punching.

Dinah's smile grows with every swing, until it's a real, happy grin again. Then she stops, thinks for a second, and enchants the dummy right back out of the cupboard, tossing it a sword from the rack.

Don't ask how it's holding it. It doesn't have any hands.

Magic has no logic.
Magic needs no logic.

Leo shifts his stance slightly, better to watch the proceedings.
She's not using a completely foreign technique, just not one he's used to employing on his own. It's interesting, and brings to mind many a swash buckling movie.

Yes, there's plenty of buckle there. But it's also highly practical. The sword's heavier than a traditional dueling sword and doesn'r broke much fancy swordwork. Dinah and the dummy have it out with strong, forceful sweeps.

It's at lest ten minutes before she manages to get under and touch its side.

Slowly the sound of the speed bag gets more and more quiet, until it stops moving all together. In fact, Leo's even left that area entirely, and has returned to his parchment and quill. He's taking notes with regards to form and function.

Later he'll ask Don about metallurgy, and how/if the metal deposits in a given area played a role in the structure of swords.

Dinah keeps at it for another round, until her sword cuts fabric and the dummy folds, dropping its own sword to the ground. She stoops to pick it up in her free hand, leaving the sweat to drip down her face.

On the way to the rack, she glances his way.

"Do you really learn like that? Through notes?"

"They help me to keep my mind organized," he says without looking up. "My hand is an extension of my body which is an extension of my mind. To keep them all sharp I must train them. Hone them."

Pause.

"Plus, I'm not a quick study, and kind of rely on repetition to learn anything."

The quick study would be Don, who's near eidetic memory is legendary back home.

He doesn't sound like any of Dinah's uncles, except maybe Ted Knight, who approaches wandmaking like a science.

"I don't get it," she admits, finally freeing her hands at the sword rack and properly wipnig her face. "I can't learn anything unless I'm on my feet actually doing it."

"Don't let the parchment fool you, I do a lot of that too. I just...alternate them. When I'm still I'm thinking about moving, and when I'm moving I'm thinking about being still."

Leo is always doing something. Even, no...especially when it looks like he's doing nothing.

"For instance." And he's back on his feet again, this time heading towards the sword rack. "I noticed that when you were attacking you used this grip and stance," he says picking up the heavy blade. "But I'm far more used to this stance." And now he holds it as one would a katana. "If I don't jot down a note about that...I'll forget about it later, and there could be something important disguised as a difference."

"I wouldn't know how to put that on parchment," Dinah says, eying the way he's standing. She looks at him for a second then picks up her own sword again, copying his stance on her second attempt.

"But if I can get my body to remember it, I'll know it."

This is why her notes were so rubbish.

"Must be nice," he says with complete sincerity.
Leo, it seems, is one of those annoyingly brilliant people who views himself as nothing but a failure because...he on occasion fails. And when he does, on the rare occasion fail, he does so in a rather spectacular fashion. Like...the time he attempted to take on an entire Dark Wizarding enclave by himself.

"My brother Michaelangelo is like that. I'm not."

"Yeah," Dinah replies dryly. "Nice for everything except sitting in a classroom listening to boring Professors drone on."

She has terrible memories of Professor Binns' History of Magic class.

"What I'm thinking, though. Is if you can learn from watching, I could just take on a dummy in a different style every time we do this."

It takes him a second to understand what she's suggesting, but the moment that idea finds purchase...

"You...you wouldn't mind?"

Dinah shrugs, with a small smile.

"Hey, I need the practice."

For, um. NEWTs.

Yes clearly. NEWTs.

"That would be amazing. And I would be in your debt."

Oh boy, here comes the honor talk.

Dinah gives him a sideways look, sill not putting the sword down.

"I'll have to think of a way for you to repay me."

He moves to replace the sword on the rack.
"Well, that doesn't sound too ominous."

She grins, innocently.

"I wouldn't want it to be too ominous."

He raises his eyebrows.

"With talk like that...they might resort you into Slytherin."

"I guess Aloysius is rubbing off on me," she says, swinging her sowrd back into the hold she's most used to before putting it away.

"It's too late anyway. After six years Gryffindor is stuck with me.

"A sorting that I'm sure keeps them all up at night."

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject