Hilda Hexenmeister
July 31, 2021 11:36 AM
Dueling Club by Hilda Hexenmeister
OOC: I am assuming Professor Brooding-Hawthorne (DADA) is present given that she is the advisor on record, but have not checked with her author that she has continued these duties. BIC:
Hilda stood in the middle of the dueling arena. The dueling club had not met as often this year as it had when Jozua was still in charge of it, though that had at least as much to do with Professor Brooding-Hawthorne (the DADA one) being away as often as she was as because Hilda didn’t like leading the meetings as the new club president. Heinrich had been the one to reduce the number monthly meetings to one or two, depending on their advisor’s availability, and Hilda had just continued that trend, so she was sure nobody would really blame her for it.
Still, the first part of each meeting, when she was the President In Charge, were her least favorite minutes of each month. It was also the few minutes each month when she most acutely missed Heinrich’s presence while also cursing his name for leaving this on her. It hadn’t been until the summer after he graduated that he remembered he hadn’t prepared a successor, and one afternoon when she hadn’t been leaving him alone enough, he had sprung it on her.
She hadn’t realized the trap at first. The administrative details had been simple enough and she could direct bouts just fine, and the Professor did most of the teaching of new skills, so she had already been committed when Heinrich reminded her she would also be in charge of getting the meetings started and leading the warm ups.
Even that wouldn’t have been so bad … if she didn’t need to do it in English. But she did, because this was an American school and while German might very well be the second most spoken language at Sonora right now, that was because most Americans were overwhelmingly monolingual, and the four Germans outnumbered the two Russians and three Latinos.
Honestly, though, Hilda couldn’t complain about that too loudly. Her own bilingualism was patchy at best and forced by her circumstances. Had she had her way, she would have happily failed her English lessons until her parents stopped forcing them on her and spent the rest of her life speaking German and occasionally using a handful of English phrases that managed to stick with her for variety or to set a tone. Or maybe they would have let her switch to Dutch or something since English wasn’t working out. Norwegian sounded pretty, maybe she could have learned that. But no, she was American now and it had to be English.
Now nearly one full year into her presidency, Hilda was a little more confident in the words she needed for leading the dueling club, and her nerves were not as obvious now as she greeted the other members as they arrived. She kept to simple words like “Hi,” and “Hello,” for the most part, but they were genuine and accompanied by smiles, so she hoped she came across as friendly rather than aloof or too scary.
Being a Beater and the president of the dueling club probably didn’t exactly grant her a reputation as being warm and fuzzy. Which was fair, because she wasn’t, but she didn’t want to terrify the younger kids out of her club either.
Once it seemed everyone had arrived, she didn’t bother with a sonorous charm because the room wasn’t that big and she was plenty capable of projecting loudly enough to be heard as she said, “Everyone line up! We will start now!”
The club members lined up to the wall where they did warm ups every meeting, no longer needing directions to know where to go. Once they were in place, Hilda continued, “This is last meeting of the year. Have good summers, and good life to graduates.” She nodded in acknowledgment toward the seventh years in attendance. “No new spells today, sorry,” she added, because with only today to practice them, everyone would just forget them by next fall anyway. “We work on making better the ones we know.” They’d had more than a dozen meetings over the course of the school year, so even the first years should have a couple of simple jinxes and of course the shield charm under their belts.
“On guard,” she ordered, switching from announcements to warmups with all the lack of warning or transition they should have come to expect from her. She called out orders, telling them to advance, retreat, defend, attack. She stood in front of them mirroring the commands she called out to them, retreating when they advanced, advancing when they retreated, shielding when they attacked, throwing out low level jinxes to test their shields when they defended.
After about ten minutes of that, she announced, “Time to bout! Beginners, that ring, Intermediate and Advanced, that one!” She would spend the next half hour overseeing the beginners, directing their bouts and offering advice as necessary, which was the far hardest feat required of Hilda’s rough English during the dueling club meetings, but somewhat less stressful for her when it was just a handful of young kids rather than the whole group. The older kids she trusted to oversee themselves unless Professor Brooding-Hawthorne saw a reason to step in. For the second half hour, the Professor would take the younger group and give Hilda a chance to practice her own dueling with the older ones.
OOC: You can post about warm-ups, participating in one of the duels, or waiting for your turn to duel.
Subthreads: Just waiting here by Valentine Duell
En guard!! by Billy Cobb
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Hilda Hexenmeister
Dueling Club
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Valentine Duell
August 01, 2021 11:34 AM
Just waiting here by Valentine Duell
This was most likely going to be Valentine's final dueling club meeting. She definitely felt a little sad about it. But, unlike Art club, it was pretty much impossible to sneak homework in here to work on... well, other than DADA practical practice, which was a good thing. Her DADA grades weren't terrible, and she attributed a bunch of that to the dueling club, Hilda and the extra attention from Professor Brooding-Hawthorne. If she dropped it, what would happen? No, when she dropped it. She really didn't want to let Hilda down, she was doing great at running the club, but... she would be running her own club next year and still have classes with more work and she just could not keep this up. She really, really hoped Hilda understood.The announcement that they were not going to be learning anything new today was good. She wasn't sure she could handle any more new things at this point. At the command then she moved through the warm-ups with the rest of the members and did okay. It was fun to do, a bit like Quidditch, but different. Even though she really, really hoped she never needed any of this practice, she knew it was good to get and Aunt Giselle seemed to think it wasn't a bad idea either. Oh, she hadn't thought about that. Would Aunt Giselle be sad if she quit? She had seemed to think that Val knowing how to defend herself from the Dark Arts would be a very good thing. Ohmygosh... did Aunt Giselle know something?! Was she destined for terrible battles against the actual forces of darkness?! Maybe she'd better talk with Aunt Giselle this summer, get some more tea leaf readings and such.
When warm-ups broke into the practice sessions, she moved towards the intermediate/advanced ring as instructed. She was slow enough that she wasn't the first one up to duel. So while she waited she turned to one of the other students that was waiting as well. "How likely do you think it is that we will need to face the forces of darkness?"
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Valentine Duell
Just waiting here
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Billy Cobb
August 01, 2021 11:55 AM
En guard!! by Billy Cobb
Billy had naturally joined the dueling club. It was exciting, adventurous, would be handy when he became a world traveler, and Hilda had told him to. At least that was how he had taken it anyway. Whether she knew it or not, Hilda had become something of a mentor to him after she took charge of making sure he knew what he was doing as a Quidditch beater. Mentoring was one of those things that was common back home after all. Once you were done with your schooling, you took up an apprenticeship under the person doing the job that'd you take over once they got to old to do it.The added bonus to this club was that he got to hang out a bit more with the DADA professor. Most of the professors were okay, but Professor Brooding-Hawthorne was an actual world traveling adventurer! Getting stories of her adventures out of her was one of his favorite things to around here.
He made his way through the warm-ups, doing his best to follow Hilda's commands and mirror her actions. He was a bit overenthusiastic and missed a few but that was fine. Once they were sent to their circles, he rushed to the beginner one and claimed it as his own. He grinned defiantly at the other person who dared step into his domain and took up something close to the appropriate stance. "On Guard trespasser! I'll defend this ring from all challengers!"
OOC: Hilda's relationship with Billy approved by her author and some previous posts
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Billy Cobb
En guard!!
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