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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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."

"I think they manage," Dinah says. "You of all people should know that us Gryffindors aren't always the goody-two-shoes reputation makes us out to be."

"Of all the reputations that the Gryffindors are guilty of having, being straight-laced is hardly the one most heard in impolite company. Canon fodder, however..."

"Oh."

Dinah is disappointed. For like, a second. "Yeah, we're totally cannon fodder. If you ever want someone to run in half-cocked, you know which House to look in."

"Should I ever have need of storming a castle, I'll be sure to keep that in mind."

His smile falters for a second, and when he speaks again his tone is much quieter, much more subdued.

"How...how is my brother doing?"

He and Raph haven't really spoken much since they arrived.

Dinah hesitates, reluctant to say she doesn't really know.

"He's quiet," she says finally.

"Except when he's picking fights. I think Montoya might have broken his nose if someone hadn't been there to break it up."

It's hard to tell who was in the wrong, there. Probably both of them.

Quiet. That's never good. Not that loud was ever good either, but at least with loud you knew where you stood with Raph. With quiet? There was no real way of knowing until it was almost too late.

Leo sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose.

"Are they okay? Montoya, I mean."

Raph's bravado isn't all smoke and mirrors. The kid can kick like a mule and punch like a sledge hammer. And when he loses...he has a tendency to break wands. Though, surely that hasn't happened or Leo would have gotten a Howler from home.

"I think she bruised her knuckles, if that's what you mean," she says with a faint smirk.

"Don't worry, Leonardo. We'll still have a fully functioning Seeker to squash you at the next Quidditch match."

His eyebrow raise before he can school them into submission like the rest of his face. She actually landed a punch on Raph? That...that's impressive. She must really be fast, or...have a fuse shorter than his.

"Well good. You're clearly going to need all the help you can get."

Leo hasn't the foggiest idea who's even on his house team.

That's because Slytherin's team sucks this year.

Dinah catches his vaguery and his eye, smirking.

"It could just be that he needs time to adjust."

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