If Ayla had learned anything from the first week of classes, it was that she needed to focus more. She had never really been into her marks before but in a vain attempt to block out all the horrible rumors that had been spread about her the term before she had made a vow to focus more on her schoolwork and her friends and to not let anything bother her. She was doing really well at focusing on her friends, that came naturally to her but focusing more on her schoolwork was proving to be quite the challenge.

Ayla had always been good at charms, they had come naturally to her but any other sort of wand work she had fallen behind on. She could brew up one of the most potent love potions that any third year in Hogwarts had ever tried, she could change her hair into any colour of the rainbow and she was fairly good at altering her clothes to fit her hour glass shaped body but even a simple spell like Stupefy often gave her trouble. This lack of confidence in her spell work caused her to falter in both Defense Against the Dark Arts and Transfiguration. She wished she had Dahlia's natural talent for everything regarding wands. She hated to admit it but she was rather envious of her little sister. It was that envy that had her standing in front of a target dummy in the Room of Requirement practicing spells.

She glanced over at Chris with a half smile before sending over a wonky Stupefy that only caused the dummy to spin around. Her shoulders sank and she looked to her fellow Third year. When the idea to work on her wand work came to mind Ayla decided to make it as much of a social exercise as she could recruiting as many other third years as she could to the cause. Chris had been the first to volunteer and she was thankful even if he was the only one to show up, "Well that didn't work."

With the new year now underway at Hogwarts, Chris knew that he should try to improve his spell casting. He knew that he needed to do better at Charms and Defense Against the Dark Arts. For that matter, he needed to do better in Transfiguration as well. He couldn't just ride his theoretical papers to give him a good grade in the subjects. It shouldn't be that much of a surprise when his spells didn't always go as planned. But, his Professors seemed to think he could always do better. Thus, they tried to raise the expectations on him. Sadly, he knew he had to do better.

Thus, when he received an invitation from Ayla to join her in the Room of Requirement to practice spells, he nearly ran down there. Unfortunately, he nearly got lost when trying to find the room, walking right past the door since the wall was usually bare there. He should've noticed it right away since the Gryffindor common room wasn't too far away from this room, but he didn't try to find the room of requirement too often. After tracking his steps back, he was finally able to find it.

Chris watched as Ayla sent a Stupefy charm to a target dummy, only to get the dummy to spin around. Naturally, the spell didn't work too well. He tried to think about the way she casted the spell, and shrugged. "Maybe it's the wand movements?" he suggested. Pointing his own wand to the dummy, he cast a Stupefy charm to the dummy, which caused the dummy to be pushed backwards. "No, that's not it.."

Ayla chuckled softly, "well at least you did better than me." She moved across the room to where she had her Defense book open on a cherry wood end table with a cute little stain glass lantern. She was kind of surprised how well equipped the room had become when she entered it but then she supposed that was the point. It made her wonder if this was the same room that had once been made for Dumbledore's Army.

She turned back to her classmate, "I should be better than this." She squared her back and turned to the practice dummy yet thinking about her wand movement as she suggested, "If my twelve year old sister can do it I can too." She flicked her wand and spoke as clearly as she could, "Stupefy!" This time the dummy shot back a foot or two.

She sighed, dropping her shoulders, "I think that's an improvement." She glanced at Chris again, "Why is this so difficult? We're wizards such this just like happen?"

Hearing Ayla's comment, Chris shrugged, "I don't know about that." At the very least, Ayla's spell made the dummy move a lot more than his. While they were both not correct, they were far from the actual stunning effect that was supposed to happen. If he remembered correctly, the spell was to stun in an instant, and clearly not move the target. At the very least, they were not failing in front of Professor Storm, which always helped.

Chris watched as Ayla went back to look at her Defense book on a table. While learning about the spells was nice, that quite frankly wouldn't help unless you knew how to perform the spell correctly. Despite that fact, he still had trouble in that department, and it appeared as if Ayla had trouble as well.

"I'm sure that it's something that we're doing wrong," Chris offered as Ayla shot another stunner to the dummy. The dummy was pushed back, but it was still not stunned. Yes, something had to be wrong with that. But, he had no idea what it could actually be.

Chris shrugged at Ayla's questions. "I guess it's not that easy to cast a spell?," he questioned. Looking back over at the practice dummy, he pointed his wand at it again. "Stupefy!" he casted, adjusting his wand movements. However, the spell bounced off of the dummy, and hit the opposite wall. "Now that's even worse," he muttered.

Ayla smiled and kept herself from chuckling when Chris' latest attempt harmlessly bounced off the dummy and hit the wall instead. She was glad that Chris had decided to come with her, especially since it was clear they were both in need of practice. She didn't think she'd feel any better about not being able to do the spell if she had someone who was really good along with her. It would probably make her feel even worse.

She turned back to her defense book and growled in frustration. What was the point of having a text book in the subject if it didn't tell you how to properly perform the spell? She had always done better by hands on work over reading something out of a book but even still, the hands on stuff didn't seem to be helping. She wondered if maybe she'd have to bite the bullet and let a more experienced student teach her how to do it right. She knew there was no way she was going to ask Storm for help nor was she going to stoop as low as ask Dahlia for help. She still wasn't talking to her sister and had been doing a rather good job at ignoring the younger Hufflepuff since coming back to school.

She sighed and turned back to the dummy, "I think the only thing that makes this worse is knowing my brother and sister can do it and they're both first years." She bit her lower lip and tried to imitate the wand motion showed in the text book, "Stupefy!"

The red bolt of magic hit the dummy dead on and it swung back, a bell dinging to indicate that it had been successfully stunned, "I did it? I did it!" Ayla spun around and flung her arms around Chris giving him a kiss on the cheek, "I did it! I actually did it!"

Chris eyed the wall, where his spell hit. He didn't want it to collapse, as that would've been even worse. It was terrible enough that his spells were clearly lacking. He definitely didn't need to destroy Hogwarts in the process. That was what potions was for, not spell casting.

Nevertheless, Chris was yet again unsuccessful in performing a proper stunning charm. That was certainly not a good thing. At the very least, there was still plenty of time before the end of the year, when they were bound to get tested on those sorts of things for their classes. Hopefully by then his spell casting would improve.

Chris looked over at Ayla as she finished looking at her Defense book again. The textbook barely acknowledges how to do the spell. After all, the theoretics behind the spell was nice and all. But, that did very little to understand how to perform the spell, which was why he generally stopped looking at the book. He found that he usually did better when he saw someone actually performing the spell correctly, preferably without yelling.

With Ayla's next attempt, Chris watched as she was now able to hit the dummy correctly. The spell worked correctly and everything. He was about to comment on her good work, when Ayla appeared to be enthusiastic about performing it right. "Good j-," he started to comment, but was cut off. Ayla had just kissed him. Him of all people. The last time he was aware of it, no girl happened to be attracted to him. For that matter, he hadn't been attracted to anyone himself anyway. After the kiss on the cheek, he blushed bright red, unable to utter anything at the moment.

Unable to ignore the bright red tint of his cheeks Ayla stepped back and gave him a sheepish grin, "Sorry I just get really touchy when I'm excited." She turned back to the dummy hoping she hadn't embarrassed the boy too much. Last she had heard Chris hadn't really discovered girls yet, like most boys their age. She wished they'd all hurry up and grow up already. It would save her from having to turn to older boys like Xavier to get any sort of affection. Not that the older boys were any better at it.

"Why don't you try it?" She ushered him in front of the practice dummy, "Try it like this." She took his wand arm, taking advantage of his slightly shocked state and moved it into the position she had just used, "Now move like this." She demonstrated the wand movement she had used, not all that different than what they had been trying earlier but apparently spell casting was all about the subtleties.

"Just swish and twist a bit. I know it seems complicated but I mean if I can do it I'm sure you can." She gave him an encouraging smile convinced that she had done enough to help him. If he managed to pull it off they could both celebrate in a job well done, much better than any treatment they'd have gotten from Professor Storm.