0700 hours, Third floor. Armour Gallery.


The weekend- and no ordinary one. It was the weekend after the strange events in the Great Hall[1] and if most students were not recovering from their rather confusing adventures into various other bodies, they were most certainly gossipping about it over breakfast. Raine had other plans.

It was, after all, unlikely that students would find themselves in the Armour Gallery so early in the day. The Gryffindor prefect stood in the center of the space, dressed smartly in her Quidditch trousers and fairly informal fencing gear. Nothing startlingly irregular, less she find herself with company- Godric knew how the professors felt about fencing in the corridors.

Solid steel knight upon knight lined the gallery walls on each side. They stood stoic and silent like waiting guardians; the closest armour had her tie looped around its metal scruff. It shimmered with the indications of obvious enchantment. While Hogwarts' armours generally had a life of their own, one had to exercise personal skill to allow for their... cooperation.

Raine was on guard and her saber was held forward at an angle as she faced the armour. Its only function, she hoped, would be to dodge. One would not wish to face a hostile knight.

"En garde!" she exclaimed in a level tone and the armour shifted forward, away from the wall. Good, thus far. "Etes-vous prêts?" It made no other movement so she nodded, satisfied. "Allez!"

Quick as a cat, Raine shot forward with the tip of the saber aimed straight- and with similar speed, she shot back as the heavy armour clunked sideways to dodge. A competitive, uncharacteristic grin pulled at her usually sombre lips. This was working.

1.	The Body Swap

Ezra scratched his head blearily then bit into the apple he'd snagged from the Great Hall.   It wasn't completely unusual to see him up and about at an hour normally reserved for sleeping by the rest of the student population.  He was a light sleeper and the nighttime noises of his dormmates could easily wake him up if someone snored too loudly.  At least it gave him some ammunition against them.   He could end a snark-fest pretty quickly with a few well placed reminders about what the other boys may or may not get up to when they though no one else was awake to catch them at.  In his earlier years,  it had been hard for him getting fewer hours of sleep.  He'd gotten plenty of detentions for tardiness because of it.  Now that he was getting older though, it wasn't as difficult for his body to function on less sleep.

The only problem, of course, was that when you were awake long before everyone else there was little to occupy your time.  Ezra had been awake for well over two hours and had already taken a shower and groomed himself a bit, laying his hair out in that carefully mussed, "I just rolled out of bed" way.    He'd been told by a few girls that it was his look given his hooded bedroom eyes.  He shrugged at the thought, even though it was only in his head.  It was useful. 

Now he was wandering the school to occupy his time.  He'd made it all the way up to the third floor when noises and shouts caught his attention.  He looked down several of the connecting hallways with his eyes narrowed.  Upon investigation, though, he found a trim and fiery redhead attacking a suit of armor with a sword.  He grinned and leaned sideways against one of the arches.  He munched on his apple in careful carelessness. 

"You know," he said finally after watching her work for a second, "That clunky knight is probably not going to do it for you.  Not much of a challenge is it?"

Rather disappointedly, there was little excitement in facing an opponent who did not fight back. The armour clunked efficiently to dodge Raine's thrusts and slashes forward but it did little else- even then, its movements were hardly challenging. Steel made for restrictive attire even to the hollow inhabitant.

She side-stepped to strike it from the left but stopped- a movement in the corner of her eye took priority. "You know," a voice started and the redhead turned instinctively in its direction; her saber was defensively raised. "That clunky knight is probably not going to do it for you. Not much of a challenge is it?" queried Ezra Inkwood, Slytherin extraordinaire. A reptile come crawling from its dungeons.

"Merlin," Raine lowered her weapon and smirked; though she was in fact relieved. "It's you. I tought for a moment that Reid was prowling about." Not that their Headmaster in anyway resembled her much more... aesthetically agreeable classmate.

Messy bed-hair or not, she didn't appreciate the interruption.

"Are you volunteering yourself?" A fiery eyebrow went up quizzically. "Although I rather doubt that you know what would do it for me." Raine of course understood, at least from her vague acquaintanceship with Inkwood, that he had some measure of experience in the sport.

But a lady never lets on what she knows. She shifted her gaze towards the gallery wall and indicated at one of the other two spare sabres leaning next to a stationary knight. "You're welcome to try, of course..."

Ezra stood up straight and held up his hands in mock surrender when she turned on him.   He was smirking through it though.   He tilted his head with a quirked eyebrow.  "You want me to spar with you?" he questioned In clarification.  Then he shrugged easily and moved slowly over to the sabres leaned up against the wall.  He moved slowly and carefully in a sideways walk so he could keep an eye on Raine.  Of course the noble Gryffindor would probably never attack him with his back turned, that didn't mean he would allow her the opportunity.

He tested both sabres and then turned to Raine and dropped into a defensive posture with a bit of an artful flourish.  "I might know more than you think," he said cryptically in reference to her bravado.  She was fiery and he liked it.  It showed in the twinkle of his eyes as he stared at her. 

He liked Livi a lot but this... this was just fun.  He liked the tension and anticipation as they faced off against each other.  He clenched and relaxed his grip on the sabre, getting a feel for its weight and heft again after so many years.  "You'll have to go easy on me," he cautioned easily.  "It's been awhile since I've practiced this fine art so I might be a bit out of practice."  He winked at her for good measure.

But of course, what student worth their green and silver would retreat from a challenge?

Raine tilted her head interestedly, her shoulders moving back to shift duelling stance- she angled the sabre elegantly ahead. Curious. The manner in which he retrieved and held the weapon was neither clumsy nor inexpert. Those weren't ungainly fingers. For a brief and gullible moment the Gryffindor almost believed him to be telling the truth. Out of practice, perhaps.

And then he winked. Confidence. Hardly a symptom of the unskilled.

"I won't make any promises..." Raine smiled wryly as they moved into standard positions across from each other[1]. It felt like a natural opposition. "Not that you would trust the ones I did. Allez!"

The moment she stepped forward to begin her offensive, she realized her mistake. Raine's lips tensed unconsciously into a thin and focused line- her attack was parried. She treaded backwards to receive a following blow.

"Salazar's rotten socks..." the witch hissed while she took two paces away from the reach of Ezra's sabre. "Careful where you--" she thrusted forward and met against a defence. "-- point that, Inkwood." These weren't practice swords. In a quick and catlike stride, she slashed at her classmate's right shoulder.

He was as quick and the blade only landed parallel, ripping his sleeve: close but not close enough.

"I'd hate to hurt you after all," Raine's tone said otherwise, though her eyes flashed with sporting humour.

1.	Duelling godmodding okay'd by Star and self.

She attacked right away, as he knew she would, foolish Gryffindor.  Caution was a dirty word to the lions and so he used it against her and parried the attack to return with another.  He came close to scoring a sweeping cut from her hip to her shoulder but she leaped backwards to avoid the point.  She snarled at him in anger for it and attacked rashly once again, which he once again defended against easily.  He knew perfectly well how to handle his sword and he wouldn't have cut her unless she had moved forward into his slice instead of away.   And if she'd done that, the she'd have deserved to be cut open for her lack of self-preservation.

Raine surprised him with a quick maneuver that he had to scramble to deflect.  The sharp blade of her sword skittered off of his and ripped open his sleeve.  He dodge backwards, dropping the point of his sword to the ground as he looked down at the rip and then back up rather pointedly at Raine.  He wasn't wearing any padding like she was.  But if that's how she wanted it, then the least he could do was oblige and satisfy the lioness's need for danger.  He smirked.  "I can take care of myself," he warned her.  Then surged forward with a barrage of overhead moves that forced the smaller Gryffindor to bring her sword up to defend herself.  He would press his advantage by requiring more of her upper body strength.  She'd tire out faster than he would.

Underestimation was the folly of many a Gryffindor and as Raine stepped gracefully out of her opponent's menacing reach, she thought that perhaps it might have been one of her mistakes to underestimate Inkwood's skill.

"I can take care of myself," his smirk was brimming with the typical assertiveness of a practiced swordsman. It didn't ebb her desire to impale him. Unfortunately she was too preoccupied in trying to parry his sudden deluge of forward slashes- they were almost reckless in nature and it took the prefect several repels to realize what he was playing at.

Her arms were feeling sore, her fingers stiff from tightly gripping the hilt. He was trying to wear her out; and unless she did something soon, he would succeed. Something rash.

Raine's heart gave a leap as she dropped her sabre from fighting position and dodged Ezra's blade as it cut into the air next to her. Just as speedily, she stepped forward into his reach, barely wincing as she stopped herself from defending his next move. It grazed her face.

"Arrêt!" Blood had been drawn but the tip of Raine's sabre, thrusted forward, was a lethal centimeter away from the boy's neck. "Point to you..." she said between hard breathes, stepping back into neutral position and running the back of her hand across her now-bloody cheek. "But I think I won the war."

With curious indifference she glanced down at the red smeared across her knuckles and repeated the motion, the way a cat might when cleaning itself. It did not occur to her that the duel could have gone much worse or that she might have scarred her eyes instead. Raine looked back up at Ezra, thoughtfully.

"You certainly can take care of yourself, Inkwood."

The sound of clapping was slow, almost mocking, as it echoed softly across the room. “But not enough, it seems,” a voice slid in, easy as you please and tinged with laughter. From his spot by the entryway – arms folded and back pressed comfortably against the wall – Theo grinned at them both, the smile a languid tug at his lips.

Like his peers, the sixth year used his weekends as an opportunity to do as he wanted; that morning, he had woken up at the crack of dawn, intent on claiming the quiet hours of the library for himself. By the time he had wandered by the armoury – drawn in by the metallic sound of clashing foils – the sluggishness that had pulled at him vainly had fully dissipated, and he had begun viewing all that he saw with that familiar, calmly proprietary air. As far as he—and those he deemed were important—were concerned, it was justified.

Or would be. For now, the pair before him was a satisfactory exception; Raine’s bleeding cheek, in particular, had drawn a lingering, hungry stare.

He turned his gaze on Ezra innocently, the corner of his mouth tugged further into a smirk. “Is this going to be a trend?”

   

Ezra smirked in good-natured defeat when he felt the tip of Raine's sword against his neck.  Only a Gryffindor would do something so dangerous to their own safety just to win a friendly dueling match.  He shook his head and lowered his sword tip to the ground.  "Of course I can, I told you so didn't I?  I'm a pretty trustworthy guy, all things considered."  He winked at her again, just to piss her off, but he did mean it despite his playful attitude.  For a Slytherin, he was probably remarkably trustworthy, not that that said much in general as Slytherins as a whole were considered particularly nefarious.

That slow clapping from the doorway caught his attention.  He turned and saw Theo leaning languidly against the wall, seemingly smug but staring rather intently at Raine's bleeding cheek.  "You just had to come interrupt my morning, didn't you?  Don't I spend enough time with you during the week to earn a day of freedom?" he joked.  Then he held his hands out to either side with his foil hanging loosely from his fingers.  "It might become a regular think but I wouldn't subject our fair lioness to your company every Saturday."  He laughed easily.  "Are you amused by our little duel? Perhaps?  I quite enjoyed it myself; it proved a worthy challenge."  He turned to Raine and quirked an eyebrow.  "How about you?"

Oh dear... she was outnumbered.

Raine's attention, heightened by the duel, had snapped to the familiar figure who had been observing them- she allowed her gaze to linger. Theo Whitman had a lovely shape to his shoulders from this angle. Even lovelier eyes, if they hadn't been so intently settled on the diagonal wound scarring her cheek.

"Whitman," the prefect blinked in greeting and watched cautiously as the two Slytherins interacted in the idle, uninteresting way that most members of the duller sex did. Her heedfulness hardly left Theo's face though she glanced momentarily at Ezra to gauge their geniality with one another. Snakes did not travel in groups.

A fiery eyebrow went up at being referred to as their fair Lioness and she tried not to bristle at the notion of belonging to anyone. Raine turned her head to address Ezra's question, smiling dryly.

"I can't complain, I suppose..." she trailed off and paused to wipe a tear of blood that had been trickling from her gash. "It was certainly more challenging than men of steel." Unhurriedly, the redhead brought her hand up to her lips, delicately lapping away the crimson. A salty, metallic taste. She wrinkled her nose.

"Can't say that I appreciate the scarring." Not that it wasn't entirely her own fault, of course. Raine looked to Theo, tilting her head enquiringly: "But perhaps it's more flattering than I imagine?"

What had cooled briefly as it had glanced at the other Slytherin, flared back to full force once it flickered back to her. “Mmm,” hummed Theo succinctly, as he let his gaze rove over the cut again. There was something pensive – speculative, even – about the way he had that wound traced—then follow her tongue, as it delicately swep over the back of her hand—but whatever he was thinking wasn’t voiced aloud. Instead, “Quite,” was uttered, punctuated only by a faint quirk of the lips.

His own tongue darted along them, before his eyes turned away.
 
“It was amusing enough,” Theo drawled, lazily craning his head in his friend’s direction. By the time he’d glanced back at Ezra – shoved his hands into his pockets, sauntered up to them once he’d kicked off the wall – the smile on his face was effortless, positively angelic. “As far as losses go. But I imagine my amusement doesn’t quite match yours—or wouldn’t, I think, if this becomes a habit for you. I’ve heard it grates on one’s nerves after a while."

The slight, cheerful shrug of his shoulders said the rest for him: Not that I would actually know.

Had he been anyone else, one could have thought he was being self-deprecating –and then just like that, he’s facing the prefect again, tone light and careless as if he hadn’t just maybe, possibly, casually insulted one of the few people who truly knew him. When he bothered to think about it, Theo liked to think of it as… a professional hazard, a bit of friendly risk that came with the privilege of being his friend. After all, the boy had little use for those whose egos couldn’t take the occasional sting. (Of course, how one preferred to spend one’s time away from him was none of his concern.

…Unless it reflected badly on him, anyway. Or when friendship obligated him to save his friend from ill-conceived ideas and horrendously bad taste.

Tilting his head to the side, Theo faced Raine again, matching the redhead stare for stare. The bright smile faded into a teasing grin. “Excellent footwork, Almasy, as always. Perhaps I should leave you two—I’d hate to see it suffer, if my company might prove to be… distracting.”

He smirked at Ezra. “For either of you.”

   

Ezra rolled his eyes when Raine licked blood from the gash on her cheek off her fingers.  Her mother should have warned her that playing with fire was dangerous.  There was a slight chance that she knew exactly what she was doing by baiting Theo but that just made her twice the fool in Ezra's book.  Ezra knew better than anyone just how dangerous Theo was, and he happened to be in the guy's good graces.

For what it was worth anyway.  Being his friend had advantages and disadvantages.  Like being blatantly and casually insulted in order to make Theo seem better in comparison.  Ezra smiled tightly and gripped the blade of his foil with his bare hand.  He stepped halfway between the Slytherin and the Griffindor and proffered the handle to his mate.  "Perhaps you'd like to give her a go," he challenged easily.  "You might find she's a little tougher than you'd think."  He tipped his chin up and waited for an answer.  He wasn't ashamed of losing to Raine.  If he'd really wanted to hurt her, or to prove something to her or Theo, he would have succeeded and left no doubt in the process. 

Theo knew him well enough to know that, at least.  He could do it but he wouldn't, not like this where he would be caught.  When Ezra acted, he didn't get caught.

At his friend’s oh so courteous offer, that amused twist to his lips… gentled, for a lack of a better phrase, the look he swiveled Ezra’s way sharp beneath its friendly gleam; it seemed he had struck a nerve. With more than a small amount of amusement, Theo spared a moment to dwell upon just how easy that had been. “I’m sure I will,” he agreed peaceably, eyes crinkling with apparent good humor as he accepted the blade. “You certainly did, didn’t you, Ezra?”

And as he did they slid over to Raine’s, something intent - intimate - banked in their gaze. A corner of his mouth quirked up wryly, and he offered her a shrug –almost as if in apology.

With a deft flick of his wrist, Theo switched the foil to his other hand, the movement swift and easy. He began taking a few steps back, away from them, each one slow, but controlled –nearly feline as he drew away. “What do you say, Almasy?” Theo smiled. His free hand moved leisurely as it undid his sword arm’s cuff and rolled up his sleeve. “Care to have a go at me?”

The look in those blue eyes was considering, taunting… wicked, practically simmering with expectation.

Behind that perfect smile, his blood began to hum.

There was a sliver of self-preservation in Raine's mind that roused itself as the two boys exchanged quips. Not a particularly impressive display of intellect. As far as she surmised, they were neither hostile nor friendly with the other... which was unsettling although one could suppose that perhaps they were as catty as their female housemates.

The Gryffindor held her weapon loosely, switching between her right hand and wand hand at intervals as she watched her classmates. "You might find she's a little tougher than you'd think," Ezra dared and she tensed as Theo accepted the blade. Oh, the snare of male pride; no doubt the death of many a gentleman wizard. Hence here was a Whitman across from her rather than an Inkwood. “What do you say, Almasy?” His smile brought a similar expression to her lips. Taunting, cocky. “Care to have a go at me?"

More than a single go, certainly, but she would have none of that now- not after being referred to as a wild creature to test out (animagi undertakings aside). Raine straightened her stance and considered the two snakes with a deliberate look.

"No. I don't think so," she brought the point of her sword forward slightly, an inch away from Theo's chest, and then withdrew it gracefully. "You've both bored me. A lioness doesn't like waiting for her prey to finish their conversations."

More significantly, Almasy women weren't raised to be conversation pieces.

"When you're both done measuring sabres, come see me for a real challenge..." Raine trailed off with a dry smile. In a perfunctory gesture, the prefect inclined her head curtly at either of them before turning to move towards the Gallery entrance.