Studying in Silence ((cue Selwyn))

The spell Amelia has cast in defense at the boy had exactly the effect she had intended. Just moments after she had waved her wand in the direction of his hand she felt her scalp return to its normal pressure and painless state. With his weight removed from her, Amelia was able to return to a normal standing position, instead of hunched over in agony at having a snarky Slytherin hanging from her mane of red.

The boy stumbled away from her, clearly feeling the effects of her spell. Although she had burned what appeared to be his dominant hand, when his wand came out it seemed to fit just as well into his left hand as it would have in his right. Making a passing note of this unusual trait, Amelia watched as the boy’s hand glowed red with the sting of her spell. It was his turn to shout in pain now and he wasted no time getting to name calling.

Since her spell had been only in self-defense and not meant in malice, Amelia did not hesitate to remove the relatively unknown spell from the boy’s hand with a slashing motion of her wand. Because her father was responsible for coming up with new spells, Amelia had quite a few in her repertoire that would be unrecognizable outside his close-knit group of academics. He shared his work with Amelia, knowing her mother had no interest whatsoever in the field, which is how Amelia came to know a few incantations that many of the professors here might not have recognized as legitimate magic. Although most of her father’s work was obscure and, on the whole, not applicable to normal situations, she did find that some of what he taught her came in handy. Like the scene she was not faced with, for example.

After ensuring that the spell had ceased, Amelia pulled a piece of parchment from the desk she had been working at and folded it into small rectangular package, which she sealed the edges of before holding her wand over it and sending a stream of cold water into it. She then froze the water and sealed off the last of the edge of the parchment pouch, making an effective ice pack.

Crossing the room to her distraught detainee, Amelia pushed the ice pack into the boy’s hand, closing his still-hot fingers around it. She could see she had not made a friend through this encounter, but what else was new? Amelia didn’t make friends with people who did not come bursting in to disturb her studying with a clear intent of malice; this situation had been doomed from the start.

“I believe I just taught you some manners,” Amelia said in response to his question, taking her hand away from the ice pack when she was sure he had hold of it. She took a step back from the boy, crossing her arms across her chest again and meeting his gaze, almost daring him to respond with another snarky comment. Amelia wasn’t usually the confrontational type, but the way this scene had played out made her ready for anything he might throw at her – though hoping this time he would leave her hair out of it.

He watched as the girl removed whatever charm it was and started making an ice pack for him. Oh ship. She couldn't come over here. She could not come over here. Not right now, anyway.

Selwyn was still riled at being hit by her spell. He could feel the clench in the pit of his stomach which was never a good thing and usually signalled that his instincts wanted to take over. He stared ahead at nothing and concentrated on calming down. It was just a spell, no big deal. And he'd pulled her hair, so he probably deserved it. And, really, was a game in the corridor worth changing in front of the entire school? Or even just one person? No it was not.

Even though Selwyn's breathing was still ragged in his ears, he felt much better by the time the girl came over to push the ice pack into his hand. And the hand didn't have talons, which meant things were looking up for him.

He scoffed at her comment about how ill mannered he was and backed up again. Selwyn knew he was notoriously unstable when it came to keeping hold of himself. So although there were dozens of comebacks to what she believed she'd taught him, and it was oh, so tempting, probably a more practical reply was required.

"Stay there. You have no idea how lucky you just were," he warned the girl.

Although the boy seemed less than pleased at having his barbed tongue thrown back at him, at least he managed to hold his this time around. It seemed the burn to the hand had been less painful to him than the burn to his ego, but that wasn’t the only thing bothering him. After many years of observing people Amelia had grown adept at reading emotions and motivations, which is what had clued her in to the boy’s malintent when he first came in. Now, though, he seemed to be struggling with controlling his temper; not unsurprising since he didn’t seem the type to have been outsmarted all that often.

Amelia wasn’t sure what it was, but when the boy backed away she allowed him his space, knowing that this gesture was not with the intention of finding a new means of attack. The Ravenclaw prefect raised an eyebrow at the heathen boy who had somehow managed to turn her afternoon of quiet studying into a display of her quick temper, a trait about herself she would rather keep hidden indefinitely but had a hard time managing in situations such as these.

“What do you mean lucky?” Amelia asked in response to his statement, rather disliking the fact that he was taking to telling her where she ought to be standing after she had already proven herself capable of putting him in his place. His tense tone suggested something beyond what his words conveyed, but Amelia hadn’t the foggiest idea what was going on in the boy’s mind, nor the patience to wait for him to decide she was worthy of telling.

“I think you are the one who ought to be counting your lucky stars,” she added, not bothering to move to where he had backed away to, following his order to stay put not because she felt obligated to but because he wasn’t worth pursuing at the moment. “I could have done much worse, but Shaklebolt would have my head on a silver platter.”

The ice on his hand was soothing, and it helped. Selwyn stowed his wand in the other pocket of his robe so he could check his injury. As he'd expected, there was no scarring. Apart from the sting that rose fresh soon after the ice was removed, there was nothing to indicate anything was amiss. But then, she'd proved she was too smart for that.

"I'm sure you could," Selwyn recovered with a sarcastic reply as he realised that in his panic, he'd almost given himself away.

How had it even come to this, anyway? He had come up here with the innocent intent to test his money making scheme before he attempted to make money off it, and had ended up almost sending a senior to the Hospital Wing, where there would be definite enquiries about the shape of some of the wounds. Now, he just wanted to be out of her presence as soon as possible. Right after he found out who she was, of course.

Awkwardly, Selwyn levered himself up onto one of the desks till he was sitting facing her, and then pulled his wand back out his pocket.

"But even though you think I'm just an irritating little kid, I'm still one of the Hogwarts Champions and they were right when they said you'd be good practice," he went on. "What was your name, by the way? The others didn't tell me, just said you'd be up here. I'm Selwyn, in case you haven't heard."

That was close, and really, she was right. He was lucky she hadn't hit him with something stronger, or he really would have changed, and he was lucky he was a champion so he had a plausible excuse for picking a fight with her and then acting like he could take her on in a duel.

The boy’s retort exhibited the return of his sarcastic tone, but the fact that he had taken the time to examine the damage to his hand meant he now understood the extent of her abilities. Even in her panic, she had chosen an appropriate spell: effective and evidence-less. Growing up with a father whose soul job it was to think up new spells meant defending herself against the unthinkable – everything from bats flying from the end of a wand to a spell which made her entire body feel the way your foot does when you have been sitting on it too long. Although she may not appear at first glance to be intimidating, she bore a lot of knowledge and experience which made her a formidable enemy.

Without the use of his hand, the boy’s jump onto the desk seemed a bit awkward, but he made it just the same. His sitting position and the action of pulling out his wand were contradictory: one suggested defeat, the other an omen of attack. With her wand still in her hand just in case the boy decided to give attacking her another go, Amelia let her arms fall away from her chest in order to be better prepared in case she had to defend herself.

As it turned out, however, the boy was done with the snarky remarks and instead seemed to have decided that honesty really would be the better policy. His story this time around had far fewer obvious flaws, though Amelia raised an eyebrow when he mentioned that he was a Hogwarts Champion. It took her almost a minute to reconjure the image of the four champions leaving the great hall after they had been announced. The boy who had been announced as the Slytherin champion fit the general build and colouring of the boy who now stood in front of her, which made his claims more believable.

But who would have sent him up here? Amelia wondered. She knew Aden was a champion, but he didn’t seem the type to sic Selwyn on her. And then there was…

Christabelle.

Amelia had really hoped the blond bombshell from her house would have gotten over their small spat in the common room, but this incident seemed to say otherwise. It was flattering, in a way, to think that Christabelle thought enough of her magical abilities to pit them against the house champions, but not telling her about it didn’t exactly scream friendship. She would have to seek out the blond later to discuss her use as a crash-test dummy for the champions. For now, the boy – Selwyn, as he had introduced himself – had requested an introduction, and she figured she owed him at least that for giving him first degree burns across his palm, though he had deserved it.

“Amelia Lyons,” she said, still not entirely fond of the Slytherin champion but the feelings of wanting to wring his neck were beginning to subside. He still hadn’t made a good first impression, but if he had been suggested to come up here by Christabelle the fault did not lie entirely with him.

“And by the looks of things, you could use some more practice,” she added in all seriousness, “I doubt hair-pulling will win you many points from the judges.”

Let's call that one-all shall we? By now, Selwyn knew enough about Amelia to know she'd have called him out if she thought he was lying. At least one of the other champions, probably Aden or Chrisabelle (he doubted she even knew Abbey), didn't get on with her. Good thing he hadn't named names.

"Depends," he shrugged. "They say it's knowledge based, but when you get down to it; it's still a competition. If the others do badly compared to me, then I could still win. That's how Potter won the Triwiz back in the day, right?"

With a self-satisfied smile, Selwyn stroked his non-existent wise man's beard and gave Amelia a nod of all-knowingness.

"So you never know. Pulling someone's hair might be just the ticket. Especially if it's attached to a gorgon or something," he said.

“You may want to study up on your history,” Amelia replied, annoyed with the boy again. Anyone who ran his mouth as much as Selwyn did ought to know what he was talking about, but this boy seemed to have no qualms about fudging facts in order to play them toward his argument, “There was a bit more to that tournament than a few mistakes on the part of the other competitors.”

Amelia rolled her eyes at Selwyn’s imitation of The Thinker by Auguste Rodin. The boy would need to bulk up quite a bit before he managed to replicate that statue, not to mention getting a filter over his mouth. Although his self-satisfied smirk indicated he thought he had just won the argument, Amelia was far from believing herself defeated. She was, however, beginning to wonder if it was worth arguing with the boy; he likely wouldn’t ever admit to being wrong. He didn’t seem the type to lose quietly; he was still putting up a fight verbally, even though he knew her capabilities magically.

“If you are facing a gorgon, I hope for your sake you have something better up your sleeve than hair pulling,” Amelia said, no longer invested in the argument but still going along with it. Her studies had already been so drastically interrupted, she may as well teach the kid a thing or two before ushering him away so she could finally sit in peace and quiet, “Or you’ll be stone before you can say ‘stupefy’.”

This girl was soooooo up herself, and Selwyn suspected it had more to do with being a Ravenflaw than being a seventh year. Christabelle was exactly the same and it was going to be to her detriment when this tournament finally got started.

"That's what you think," he said.

"Everyone knows about gorgons. Everyone knows their image turns people to stone. And everyone knows the way to overcome a gorgon is to reflect their visage right back at them."

Amelia was about to get a crash course in the unique Thorfin thinking style. He hoped she was paying attention, because it could really change her life. Or maybe he hoped she wasn't paying attention, because he didn't like it much when people were as good as him. It was a hard decision, to be honest.

"So, don't you think that the gorgons know it too? We've been doing it to them ever since Odysseus, so it's just about possible that they've noticed the trend," he said.

"I reckon blindfolding myself and pulling their hair would come completely out of left-field, when you think about it in context. I mean, you didn't expect it, did you?"

He treated Amelia to another of those had-his-cake-and-ate-it smiles. She was right, he wasn't the type of person to admit he was wrong, because he was never wrong.

((Just for the record, Amelia is a sixth year, not a seventh year))

Amelia could not help but roll her eyes visibly at the boy’s childish comeback. It seemed that no matter what she said to Selwyn, the boy was still going to find a way around anything she said. For as difficult as some people were to read and understand, Selwyn was turning out to be an easy one to summarize. He was out of his element, being in a room with someone who could match both wits and wands with him, but he wasn’t going to back down easily.

Despite her annoyance with the boy who could not admit when he was wrong, she had to admit he wasn’t completely talk. In spite of the usual “all bark and no bite” Selwyn did have some original thought flowing through that thick skull of his. He may not have been smart enough to avoid a confrontation with Amelia, but, from his ideas about facing a gorgon, Amelia could see he was capable of thinking outside the figurative box. His idea wasn’t great, but it was unique. She could give him at least that much credit.

Amelia did nothing more than raise an eyebrow at Selwyn’s smug smile, resisting the urge to roll her eyes out of fear that she might get dizzy from the number of times she had already done it today. The boy did have a unique thought process, but the place he ended up was far from ideal. This time, Amelia attempted to keep her voice civil. The fact that the boy was taking the competition seriously meant he had at least some sense of intelligence about him, and if he wasn’t as completely full of himself as she perceived him to be, he might actually be able to take some advice.

“Blindfolding yourself would be unexpected,” Amelia conceded, “But I don’t think taking away your main sensory input is the best tactic for defeating anything, much less a gorgon. If it were me, I would combine a mixture of muggle and magical.”

Amelia paused here for a moment, waiting to see if Selwn would object to her proposal, but after a moment of silence she continued, speaking animatedly as she described the tactic she had developed while Selwyn was speaking.

“Muggles have developed a type of sunglasses called aviators, which are exceedingly popular in the states currently. These sunglasses are reflective on the outside, but can be seen through by the person wearing them. By using these, you would maintain your full range of sight, but if the gorgon attempted to turn you to stone with its stare, the effect would be rebounded. It is, as you said, a clichéd method of preventing this particular fate, but there is a reason it is so prevalent in mythology. Without that method of attack, a gorgon is far less powerful. To finish the fight, I would suggest Vipera Evanesca. The spell is intended to vanish serpents, the last true weapon of the gorgon after its deadly stare. It would then be possible to remove its head, rendering you the victor.”

Amelia lowered her arms, which she had been using to further loquat what she was saying, folding her hands in her lap. It wasn’t often that Amelia spoke this much, but the academic intrigue had brought out a part of her which was far more willing to speak its mind. Now all she had to do was wait for Selwyn to contradict her.

((Selwyn isn't to know what year your character is in))

She had a point. Damnit, she had a point.

"But I don't have a pair of those glasses, and having never seen them, I couldn't conjure them in the tournament," said Selwyn. "Until now, I'd never heard of them, and if I'd not had this conversation, I wouldn't know they existed."

"And I wouldn't blind myself if I didn't know how to compensate for it. There's this duelling spell, Augeo Sensus, it makes you more aware of the magic around you. A magical creature would feel like a magnet to someone who cast it on themself."

He folded his arms, kind of fed up at her attitude. It wasn't a good one, and that would be fine if she was a serpent, but she was a bloody raven, so she deserved to be brought down a peg, or two or one hundred and two.

"Just because you know more stuff than me doesn't mean you're any better than me, or that you'd be better than me if you were in my place. How come you're not in Christabelle's place, anyway? You're probably better than her," he asked.