Just A Warm Up Please

Brian returned from a miserable, wet trip to deliver a student to Azkaban. It was not what he had wanted to do. But he and Khaat had been eye witnesses to the girl's murdering her stepmother. It was a bit like murdering a world class creep. Goyle had done the wizarding world a favor, but murder was murder. Flat out. And to have to take a student Azkaban just didn't feel right. But...the law was the law. He didn't have a right to interpret it. That was his wife's job. Or his father in law's. Not his.

He returned to the Ministry and went to the break room and found some very thick, overcooked, burned coffee. He sniffed it, and decided he would risk it, as foul as it smelled. He poured some into a cup and tasted it and grimaced.

"Yuck," he sighed. It was hot. That was about all he was going to say for it. Several paper airplanes beaned him in the side of his head. Served him right for not checking his in box. And some of them apparently were old because they had decided to bean him repeatedly unti he paid attention to them.

"Stop that!" he commanded them. He flicked his fingers at them. "Stack! Now!" The airplanes began to unfold and assemble themselves into a stack of memos that had been in his inbox.

Chris was a little tired today. He had been taking trips all around the United Kingdom to enjoy the small one week holiday's he had received from the Ministry of Magic. He enjoyed particularly the trips he took on the far north where he saw a dragon or two, and a group of giants to the southwest of the U.K. He didn't bring anything to well, remember himself of these trips because, you wouldn't really except for a gift shop to be set up in deep forests would you? He had arrived at the Minister around 11:30am, it was still a bit early, and he knew he could catch up to everything very easily.

"I was having so much fun on my holidays .. But, here we are again."

He looked around the Minister. His face made a big smile. He loved to be there, and to aknowledge he was an Auror, and working for the good of the magic world. The statues on the center , dripping water from them into the fountain, the everyday commotion of people in there, talking to each other, in their robes and briefcases. A large ammount of paper planes flew around them all. He looked around to see if he would receive any, but from all the mess that the main hall had, he couldn't realize. He decided to go into the elevators and then go to the Auror Department.

He took the Elevator, pinning himself against the door since the elevator was full. As he had realized, it was still quite early so , people were still going into their work places. He stepped aside some times to let the people go out and finally, he himself went out in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. He looked around and finally saw one single paperplane flying around his head. He had a meeting with another Auror, and it was supposed to have started 3 minutes ago. He walked into the Lounge room, looking around for the men. He saw only one person sitting there.

"Are you the auror I'm supposed to meet?"

He asked, putting on a confused face.

"You must be Christopher," Brian smiled. "I'm Brian Quinn. Welcome aboard. Nice to have you with us. Alright--enough with the watery ashes. Lets make some fresh coffee, shall we?" He poured the burned coffee into the sink and made a fresh pot of french roast. "So, outside of the fact that I understand from what I was told that you like adventure. If that's the case, you came to the right place. Help me get to know you a bit. Tell me a bit about yourself and what you already do well. Then perhaps we can go to a training room and see where your strengths are before we need to find out the hard way."

Brian refused to put any new auror out on the streets by themselves if he could help it. He knew Marcus Dakota wanted the auror team to be able to stand as a formidible force between those with evil intents and those who wanted to do what was right. And, from personal experience, Brian already knew that was easier said than done.

Brian did enjoy training new fighters both with their physical training and their magic skills. And he did also enjoy taking them underwing in order to help look out for them until they were developed enough to perhaps survive the evils they were up against. From what little he'd read, Satermoon had a great deal of potential

Chris looked at the man. He had an aged face, and could see a little bit of disgusteness on his face due to the poorly made coffee he had tasted, which was beeing thrown away in fact. He started making some new one, revealing some details to him. He of course understud that he, as a new Auror with just 1 year of experience, had been stuck with some desk jobs mostly, and was just now beginning to act as an Auror should, though he still lacked some training, and he was gon'na proudly take it from this man, until he thought he was ready.

The men's name was Brian Quinn, and he was interested in finding out what Christopher's strengths were, what he knew he could excell better at, and he began thinking about it.

"Well, I'm a very good pottioneer .. And I fly very good , almost as good as my duelling skills are. I have a few special skills I started learning in Hogwarts and a little on my own after graduating, which are Legilimency, Occlumency and Wandless Magic, though this one is still a little fresh and needs training, and by that I mean alot. Though I consider myself to be a better Legilimens then Occlumency, though need a little more training. Oh and a little on the side, not sure if you've heard of it or not but, I'm a werewolf too. And that's pretty much my strenghts."

Chris was hoping to get to the training room. In fact his heart had started racing faster once Brian had talked about that. He wanted to have a good duel, which he hadn't had in a while, so he was kind'a hoping really alot for. He knew he wouldn't stand a chance, but he wanted to impress the men, maybe show him a little of his tricks he thought, though his thinking was interrupted by the sound of the coffee boiling and that made him come to attention and wait for the men's reply.

"Good," Brian said, listening to the details that Christopher told him about. "Wandless magic demands more control than a wand because you don't have the power of the wand behind you and the movements can't be pinpointed as accurately as you can with the tip of a wand. It is manageable, but it also requires more energy. The spells aren't as powerful as they would be with a wand. Still, it is useful though. Especially if you're disarmed in a duel. "I didn't know about the werewolf thing, but it isn't an issue unless you're not taking your wolfsbane potion. In which case, I am positive the Minister will insist you take it."

The link between the werewolf curse and the Lupin family was self explanatory. Brian didn't feel he needed to elaborate.

"But perhaps what we should do is to go and warm up a bit in the training room, and then we can see whether or not you're ready for active field duty yet. It sounds like you like to duel. And that means you and I should get along just fine."

Wandless Magic was a thing he found quite indispensable to have if he was gon'na become a top-notch Auror, considering that he could find himself in some awkard situations, where he wouldn't have his wand. That's where his wandless magic ability was something that would come in hand. Pinpointing and all those things, where some of the problems Chris was trying to work out about that, he sometimes trained at his house on some objects, lifting them, throwing them, exploding them, but most of the time when it got more complicated he just couldn't do it, and by that , he had to keep training his mind more, so he could make it happen.

"Yeah, I know. I always keep some Wolfsbane Potion at home, and at my clothing, just if I forget to take it before leaving or something. It's better to be safe, then be sorry in Azkaban."

He let out a small laugh, and then put on a little serious, challenging face. So the man liked to duel as well? Well, weren't they perfectly matched. He accepted the challenge, and pointed his hand forward, indicating the men to lead the way to the training room, which he would follow and then, they could, "practice". Hopefully he'd be good enough for the men.

Brian led the way downstairs to the basement to a practice room that Robert had had created specifically for the training of the aurors. Next to that was a full service state of the art gym because of how much Robert and Brian both believed that aurors, if possible, needed to be in good physical form as well. Wands certainly were helpful, but there were times when simply being able to run or being able to hold one's ground in an old fashioned fist fight was very necessary. And Brian never missed a morning in a gym unless it was a true emergency.

The training room was large enough to be able to be set up for whatever environment the wizards wanted to train in. It responded to the voice commands of the aurors and conjured a training environment.

"Knockturn!" Brian commanded. The room conjured into an illusion of Knockturn Alley late at night. Abandoned largely, but with all the crates, broken bottles, and typical Knockturn litter. "There we go," he smiled at Christopher. "That ought to do. Wands first? And then perhaps a bit of wandless magic drills?" He took a place at the far end of the room. He gave the customary bow and then looked at Christopher, his own wand at the ready. He never fired the first shot. He always allowed that for the lesser experienced man.

"I believe its your move," Brian grinned.

"

The training room, was next to a state of the art Gym, presumably both built by the Ministery or the Auror Department , so that they could train their Aurors properly. The room was quite fascinating actually, after someone pronounced a name of a place they knew, the room would transform into it. After it transformed into Knockturn Alley, Chris could see the dark lighting on the streets, boxes here and there, the usual untidyness of the place, something that he was used to seeing, as he had taken some trips there, to investigate some problems with troublemakers. He looked around, and saw Brian ready himself for the duel.

Chris himself took out his blackthorn wood wand, 13 3/4 inches long, and bowed too. He looked in the eyes of the men, and nodded, confirming they should do wands first, and then some wandless magic. He pointed the wand at the men, and with alot of emotion, he casted stupefy.

"Stupefy!"


(STUPEFY = STUNS OPPONENT)

A quick shield spell deflected the stupify. It was a good opening spell for the duel.

"Good start! Now, what will you do with this?" he asked.

He pointed is wand at a wooden crate and nonverbally flicked it into the air and with a second flick sent it flying towards the young man. It wasn't a difficult spell, and wasnt necessarily a hard one to deflect. But it would give him a good idea of where the skills were.

He was seeing the ambition and the drive the young man had. These were the raw bones Brian always looked for when he trained a fighter. And he had trained many. Unless there was something underneath that Brian wasn't seeing at the moment, he didnt' see why Christopher wouldn't be able to shape up onto a fine, strong auror.

The stupefy spell was deflected easily by the man, but he wasn't aiming for a fast victory. He wanted to show what he could do, and ending it quickly both by him or the man, most probably by the man would just be unhelpfull. He saw the men flicker his wand and throw a crate, non-verbally at him, though he knew this was only a small test, and something that could be easily fended off with many different spells, though he prefered to do this, in a more tactical way, so that he could surprise Brian.

"Confringo!"

He casted the spell , flickering his wand at the crate, and while it blew off and sended many bits of wood around the air, he took the momentum to cast another spell, hoping to catch him off guard.

"Expelliarmus!"

He wanted to show that he could give a very good Auror, if trained and helped properly, and perhaps become one of the finest ones the Ministry had ever seen. He wanted to make sure that the message he was trying to pass could get to Brian, that's why he was gon'na try hard to impress him in that duel.