It was Wednesday, lesson before lunch, and Defences for the fourth years. The weather was unseasonably warm for late September, even if the day had begun rather foggily. The fourth years had received note at breakfast to meet out on the lawns, rather than the classroom, and just to bring their wands. A steady stream of them were trickling down the slope from the castle, and soon they were all gathered together.

The Professor had shed his long outer academic robe and had rolled up his white shirtsleeves to his elbows under his waistcoat. Despite this informality more reminiscent of the end of the summer term, he still had his tie, and wore sturdy boots more suited to tramping about the grounds.

Before the fourth years were a set of tin baths, full of muddy water that looked like it might have been used as a communal bath for a downtrodden and muddy Gryffindor quidditch team.

“A volunteer,” Professor Storm requested[1], without so much as a greeting to his fourth years. “Lift the bath above your head,” he instructed, pointing at the nearest bath. A firm wingardium leviosa and the it began to lift slowly, but the water slopped, and rushed over the edges, unbalancing the whole bath. The weight of it simply too much for one fourth year to lift more than a foot off the ground and hold. At the Professor’s non-verbal direction, the bath came crashing down, more water slopping over the grass.

“These baths are too heavy to lift alone. Pair up, and attend a bath.” He pointed out across at the line of baths side by side. As they scurried into place, he refilled the first. The water smelled foul and the water looked stone cold.

“On my mark, you will lift the bath above your heads using only wingardium leviosa with no additional charms, and proceed to past that tree.” He pointed beyond them fifty yards to the tree.

“Go!”

1.	If you’d like this to have been your character, go for it, otherwise assume an NPC

If Professor Storm ordered them outside on a warm September day, it wasn’t to enjoy a lecture about spell theory in the sunshine. Tim dashed out from the lesson before as promptly as he could, not wanting to incur any point loss for being tardy despite the additional journey. Joining his classmates on the grass he eyed the baths suspiciously, anticipating the possibility they’d be submerged in them for something horrible. The Defence Professor had previously tried to drown a whole class in the lake…

“Pair up, and attend a bath.” Tim jumped without hesitation, not wanting to be hexed, and ended up with Mairead. Despite her rather forthright tendencies and willingness to use her fists than her wand, she was at least half decent with magic… when she listened. At least they weren’t writing an essay together. As long as she didn’t get to drown Tim in the bath, he was ok with Mairead.

He took one end of the bath and listened intently to instructions. It was a race! Everyone was going to rush.
“Wait!” Tim yelped, throwing an arm out towards Mairead. “I bet you the water’s got to stay in, right?” He knew they were going to get drenched, whatever. There was no way the Gryffindor didn’t want to be first past the tree. “We’ve got to try keep it balanced, yeah?”

It didn't matter what they were doing in Defense Against the Dark Arts class.  Noriko was determined to do well.  Even if she'd been frightened of DADA when she was younger, and intimidated by Professor Storm, that sense of terror had long ago worn away -- at least for most lessons.  Now, even if she'd never admit it to anyone else, she almost looked forward to the class, and she yearned for opportunities to show how far she'd come from her early bum-inflated days.[1]

If they were working in pairs, that meant she needed a partner who was good at magic.  Noriko immediately jumped for Eirene's arm, snagging her before any of the other students could.  Everyone knew Eirene was the smartest in their year, and she'd probably already been practicing with wingardium leviosa.

"Let's partner!" she said breathlessly, linking her arm through Eirene's to tug her towards the baths.  "Which bath should we take?"  She tried to assess them, looking to see if any had been filled with slightly less water, but there wasn't time.  The other students were already scurrying into place.

Professor Storm was giving instructions.  It was a race!  Noriko's eyes lit up, and she looked excitedly at Eirene. 

"We have to win!" she exclaimed, taking a quick second to examine their tub.  "Here, do you want to take the front?  Let's count to three and cast the spell!"  Once they got it up in the air, they could try and run!

1.	The infamous bum-inflating incident.

Meet on the lawns.  You only need your wands. 

Only the words bring your brooms could have topped those instructions.  When it came to practical versus theoretical lessons, the Gryffindor's academic performance could easily be described as night and day.  Where book work and lectures left her frustrated, disheartened and fidgety, these practical classes gave her an outlet.  Not to mention the joy of being outside in the elements - in this case, the warmth. 

She had, even, volunteered to try and demonstrate the charm - a choice she quickly regretted after realizing she'd been set up to  an impossible task from the beginning.  After casting an annoyed scowl in the professor's direction, Mairead returned to the group and partnered up with Pepper. 

"A'ight, let's do this!" Mairead said, encouragingly.  She knew a competition when she saw one and Tim was right, she wanted to win.  But, just as she was about to cast the charm, Tim held up his hand to stop her.  "Or, does the water just got t'be in there still when we get to the end?" she countered.  She shrugged her shoulders.  It seemed to her, they had two options: try to share the combined weight between them or divide the weight and recombine when they got to the end. 

She dropped her voice so the other students around them couldn't hear.  Strategy was a reasonable part of competition.  "Is there any reason I can't just levitate the water separately from the tub and put it back in when we get back?  It'd b'easier that way." 

Ew. Eirene wrinkled her nose, and looked down her wrinkled nose at the tubs of water. "Did he hide Inferi in there?" She shook her head, putting her hands on her hips. "Why couldn't he make the water clean?"

It wasn't the sort of thing you said or even thought about around Noriko, as her friend noticed any and all looks of apprehension and imagined the worst possible scenario. But Eirene was vexed! The professor had said no other charms, which could only mean he'd put something gross and terrible in those tubs. Her gaze kept flicking to the tub he'd used as an example, expecting something to crawl out of it. It was just a matter of time.

Eirene shot a look at Professor Storm as she hurried to claim a tub with Noriko. Professors! So inconsiderate! She respected her professors, she really did, but they simply didn't consider the feelings of their students often enough. Especially Professor Storm. It annoyed her this year, more so than the year before, when she'd first started to lose the fervent, fanatical adoration for authority that had carried her through her few years at Hogwarts.

She moved to the front of the tub, overhearing some chatter from Tim and Mairead. Eirene glanced at them for a moment, curious, but then focused on Noriko. If they concentrated and worked in tandem, they should win. They were best friends.

"We will win," Eirene tilted her chin up and smiled.

"Three... two... one...

Wingardium Leviosa!"

Eirene pointed her wand at the front of the tub, keeping her eyes on it as it struggled to rise in the air. She flicked her wand up and up. She took a step backwards, then another.

As she glanced behind her at the grass to make sure she wouldn't trip, the tub dipped several inches in the air.

Pepper and ó Fearghail paired up, unconventionally, but the Professor suspected brains and competitive drive might balance out. Wakahisa and Antonopoulos were predictable in their pairing. Their other classmates had bounded to the rest of the baths, and there was a combination of some hoisted in the air, others tipping over on the ground.

It would take two of them to carry the bath and the water inside with wingardium leviosa, which was the challenge. Up in the air together was one, travelling was another, and the water inside a third element. He wanted to see how they approached it first without instruction or suggestion.

One of the teams successfully dumped water over the head of one of the fourth years, Gyan Maheshwari yelped as he was soaked in cold, muddy lakewater because he didn’t manage to levitate his end of the bath as well as his partner. The Professor’s features flinched in amusement at the expected sight, but he put his attention on the teams now making their way forward.

Pepper and ó Fearghail were in discussion, leaning towards each other over the bath. Wakahisa and Antonopoulos were busy levitating after counting down, the bath struggling up into the air as they got the feel for how heavy it was, like a fish on the end of a fishing rod - but their wands.

Another team dashed forwards, their bath sailing through the air in front of them, but the water sloshing left and right. The Professor watched them with mild approval, only adding to the competitive feelings of the rest of the class. After all, if you survived these challenges from Professor Storm, he might even bless a house point.

"Careful!" Noriko exclaimed, as the tub dipped and a little bit of water splattered out. 

She had cast Wingardium Leviosa in unison with Eirene, but even with the two of them working together, it was a struggle to hold the tub up.  It was just so heavy, and with the water inside, even the slightest motion out of sync made it start to slosh back and forth.

She kept her wand pointed at the tub, clutching it with both hands, as if that would help to steady her spell-casting.  She could see another group out of the corner of her eye starting to run, their bathtub hovering in the air before them.  She and Eirene were losing!  They had to hurry.

"Here, it's too slow to walk backwards!" she exclaimed to Eirene.  "We need to be on the same side so we can run!"

Eirene hated running, but Noriko was right. She could see victory out of the corner of her eye, slipping away as she sluggishly stepped backwards.

"Fine, fine!"

She remained at one end of the floating tub and started to shift the tub parallel to the tree. Her logic was that they needed to stay balanced, on opposite ends of the tub.

"Let's run sideways then!"

Her wand strained in her hand, protesting her efforts.

She could pretend this was a dance in which she didn't land on the damp grass, on her bum. If she fell, it would be sideways! Her feet shuffled awkwardly, but she was faster now, and she could see ahead of them just fine.

As she ran, she kept up a running commentary. 

"Eughhh! I can smell the water in my hair!"

Eirene used her free hand to smooth her hair behind her ear, her feet lagging ever so slightly.

"I wish I had casted Scourgify on the water before this all started!" Eirene lamented to Noriko. She'd felt sure Storm would have deducted points out of spite.

“He hasn’t specified,” Tim replied, “but you get the feeling there’s always a twist in this, right?” Some days you thought the fastest would be the winners with Storm because he was all about speed as well as precision, but then other days it was all about the precision and then the speed later.

“Is there any reason I can’t levitate the water separately from the tub and put it back in when we get back? It’d be easier that way.”

“Can one levitate water in no container with only wingardium and no additional charms?” Tim asked, he’d only seen it used on more solid objects, and small creatures. Water wasn’t a person, but it wouldn’t be in a bath either to contain it. Noriko and Eirene were already dashing forward, water in the bath, but it was slopping everywhere.

“I’m not sure we’ve got time to debate!” Tim said, pointing his wand towards the bath.

With a grunt and a subtle growl of frustration, Mairead nodded and conceded to Tim's point.  "Fine, fine.  Probably."  He was right.  They were wasting valuable time and Mairead did not want to lose. 

Hopefully, there would be some twist and that twist would get the ones in front first and they'd have an opportunity to catch up. 

"A'ight, how 'bout on three?"  Mairead glanced towards Tim and nodded decisively.  "One, two, three wingardium leviosa!"  Mairead flicked her wand at the tub of water and directed it up off the ground. 

The combination of metal and water wobbled and teetered, slightly, but seemed to be holding.  "Ye think ye got it?" she asked, casting a quick glance towards her partner.  "A'ight - we jus' need t' keep a steady rhythm, eh?  Stay coordinated.  Otherwise we gonna slosh around."  The hard part, of course, was concentrating both on a rhythm and keeping the spell steady at the same time. 

"Ye good?"

They were still losing!  There was a team far out ahead of them, water sloshing in every direction, and now there were others coming up behind them.  They had to go faster!  They had to win!

And now Eirene was slowing again.  Noriko nearly stumbled as their bathtub lagged in unison with her classmate, hovering at an angle that caused it to start sloshing about the sides even more than it had been.  If she hadn't been gritting her teeth, trying to steady their heavy burden again, she would have shot a dirty look at her friend.  Who cared about dirty water when there was a race to win?  First Eirene had to serve a detention after getting in trouble in one of her electives, and now she was making them lose!

If only they could get it to stop sloshing!  Except there wasn't a way to stop water from sloshing about, unless --

"Wait, wait!" Noriko exclaimed suddenly.  "Let's put it down!  I have an idea!"

Mairead and Tim had stopped lollygagging around and were catching up! This could not happen! She would survive if she lost to Tim, but not to Mairead. Never Mairead.

"We don't have time for ideas!"

Eirene snapped, then looked at Noriko.

Noriko often had good ideas. She only piped up in this excited tone when she had a good thought or plan, or felt especially frightened, and Storm was on the other end of the lawn.

"Fine. On three, two, one..."

She slowly lowered the tub to the ground, prepared to listen.

“Ye good?”
“Yeah, good.” Tim replied, without realising how he’d imitated Mairead’s phrasing. “Right foot forwards first, I’ll match your stride. On three again - one, two, three.”

He could feel the weight in his wand arm. They had levitated a number of things in charms, but this was probably one of the heaviest above his head, Tim thought. They both set off right foot first, and Tim watched Mairead’s stride out of the corner of his eye and the bath swinging above them with the majority of his attention. He didn’t want to get wet, and more particularly, he didn’t want to have a bath land on his head.

“We’re catching them!” Tim panted, as they drew level with their classmates.

Lift the bath above your heads using only wingardium leviosa with no additional charms, and proceed past the tree.

“It’s too slow to walk backwards!

The fourth years were cooperating as best they could between them it seemed, given the little time they had been given to consider the task. The first team crossed the line, and dropped their bath, shrieking at how wet they were. Wakahisa begged Antonopoulos to put their bath down partway there, ó Fearghail and Pepper were marching in time like soldiers and coming up quickly.

The Professor gestured to those at the tree to wait, and some of the students leaned against the baths as they caught their breath, calling encouragement (or discouragement in the case of Slytherins) to the rest of them.

“Haven’t got all day, Wakahisa, Antonopoulos,” the Professor called, trying to spur the girls back into action.

OOC: Feel free to have them all reach the tree in your next post

Mairead spared a quick, fleeting glance towards Wakahisa and Antonopoulas that couldn't possibly fully convey how much beating them was currently her only goal in life.  In fact, she didn't even really care if she and Pepper won; they could be second-to-last, so long as those two were last. 

So, with that goal in mind, Mairead turned her back to Tim as he counted them off to set the pace.  Mairead dipped her head in time to his counting and their water-filled bathtub rose into the air.  She took her first step in time to the rhythm Tim had set and could feel him glancing between her and the tub to make sure they stayed together.  Which, it seemed, was not the most efficient method.  There were other ways to keep a pace! 

Keeping to the rhythm Tim had originally set, Mairead started singing[1].  Though she kept her voice soft, she was careful to emphasis the downbeats as they coincided with their stride.  It was a tune her mother would always sing while doing dishes or laundry; it took far less concentration to remember the tune than it did to keep diverting her attention from the tub to her partner and back. 

A grin flickered across Mairead's face as Timothy pointed out they were gaining ground.  Better yet, Professor Storm had to prod the other two girls into action.  Subtly, Mairead increased the tempo of the tune in the hopes of speeding their pace up, just a tad.  And, after a handful more (slightly faster) paces, they reached the tree. 

"Anna Choinnich Dhomhaill" Mairead slowed the tempo to a crawl as she enunciated the beats for setting the tub down, smoothly.  With a grin, and leaning over slightly to catch her breath, she threw a hand up towards Tim in a high five.  "A'least we know, if yer bath ever goes wanderin' we can git it back!" 

She brushed the sweat from her brow before realizing there was a better solution to this problem.  Walking over to their (mostly) full tub, Mairead dunked her head into the water.  She threw her head back as she stood back up, her curly hair sending sprays of water flying and drenching the shoulders of her robes. 

1.	M'Intinn Raoir - though at about half the tempo!