Thursday, March the 14th, 1894 — Lower Levels

The sounds and grunts reached her ears even before she arrived at the portrait, and the ruckus nearly made the young witch reconsider. The mantra of "Parry! Riposte! " were followed by concussive blasts, thunderous things that echoed down the corridor. To her inexperienced ears, it sounded like a fully-entrenched battle, and Millie fully expected the whole of the portrait room to be engaged in it. She found herself almost surprised to find the entirety of the battle contained to a single portrait, the rest were full of all but their occupants, abandoned to the noisy repercussions from The Sentinel of Grymwald: Master of Arcane Stances.

"Excuse me?" Millie tried once, her voice barely making it through the din. Privately, she wondered whether this had been a good idea after all, the rest of the portraits had the good sense not to be around the deafening fight. Perhaps it would have been wiser to follow their lead.

"Parry! Riposte! " She raised her voice to try again, but the knight-wizard was locked deep in the horns, or rather sword and wand, of his embattled opponent. He was awe-inspiring to behold, quick in form and imposing in bare-chested figure, painted that way to better demonstrate to young duelists she supposed.

"EXCUSE ME, YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE?" It took a sonorus charm to get his attention, and Millie shirked at her own voice thundering through the room. It did the job, at least, and as she lowered her wand the pair of painted duelists paused to stare at the young witch who dared to interrupt them.

The first to speak, sweat glistening off of muscles that never seemed to relax even as he lowered his weapons, shooed the other away with a stern wave. Sir Alistair Grymwald studied her with an intensity that belied the painted canvas he occupied, causing her to take a step back in shock. "Halt. Any wizard who might demand my attention could not also be a coward. Stand fast and let me look at you. "

Millie stood, too paralyzed to correct the portrait about her sex. It might have been just as well, from what scraps she found about Sir Alistair, he was as archaic in temperament as the forms he taught. She expected that much of the twelfth-century knight-wizard, just not how imposing a figure he really was. She snuck a glance under his watchful eye, admiring his steady chin and robust figure before his forceful words snapped her out of the reverie.

"You present a formidable challenge, but I accept. Raise your sword, in the French manner, and we will begin. " With that, Sir Alistair held a long, one-handed sword up in front of his face. It seemed that Millie didn't even have to ask, Sir Alistair was almost too eager to pass on his knowledge. His dueling skills were unparalleled, to learn from him could be just the thing to give her a real edge in dueling.

There was just one problem.

"Well, I only have a wand..." she began, eliciting a frown from the eminent knight-wizard. Stammering, the young witch tried to explain, only to be cut off again by the imposing man.

"A wand then, surely Hogwarts still requires those." With a nod from the young witch, who brandished her own wand in the same pose, Sir Grymwald carried on. "We will begin with the simplest form. "

The knight-wizard proceeded to demonstrate the most complex stance and set of steps the young witch had ever seen. She followed as best she could, Sir Grymwald forced her to start again when she faltered or got distracted by his masculine features. Millie was already flushed that she could hardly look more flustered by the time she realized she wasn't alone in the portrait room.

---

OOC: Open to anyone at Hogwarts. No need to match this post in length.

The following 2 users Like Millie Potts's post:2 users Like Millie Potts's post
   Anne Moony, Benedict Hunter

---

There weren't many things Anne let stand between her and a meal, but as she began climbing out of the dungeon, the corridors echoed. What a polite shriek, but a shrieking all the same. Rubbing her hands over her ringing ears, Anne abandoned her quest for supper to investigate.

What Anne didn't expect was to find Millie alone in a portrait room, dancing about in front of a portrait with the wand. Never one to leave a question unasked, Anne was at Millie's side in a second, her face grinning. "'ello Millie. What are you doing?" Anne asked in her best little sister sing-song voice.

---

The following 1 user Likes Anne Moony's post:1 user Likes Anne Moony's post
   Millie Potts

---

MJ about made me cry with this one!
Thread Log

It was bad enough for Millie to have snuck down to this part of the school, she wasn't even certain if it was allowed. Maybe she was past a silent barrier or down a corridor that should not be traversed, or perhaps that was just the folly of listening to Hufflepuffs telling tall tales. Either way, the young witch already had the distinct feeling of being where she didn't belong.

The moment she heard the voice crawl down her spine, Millie nearly jumped out of her boots.

"Oh, Anne!" Millie gasped, part-relief and part-horror. She spared a glance back at the portrait, whose occupant was looking over his shoulder to see if his newfound pupil was following along. Withering under his silent glare, and now under Anne's curious one, her cheeks must have simply burst into flames. They burned hot on her face, leaving the young witch stammering an explanation. "I was just...I heard about this portrait...and how he's..."

Did she really have to say it? Millie was certain her friend could see it, plain as the ink on the canvas. The knight-wizard's sculpted physique held no question about why she'd sought out this portrait over all the others in the castle. Especially with Sir Grymwald's booming voice shattering the lull around them, sending off one of the more adventurous neighbors to seek quieter refuge elsewhere.

"...the best in all Norman lands, and all magical besides. Not a knave or villain has crossed Sir Grymwald and come away unscathed! " The boisterous knight rumbled in his frame, adjusting his form just enough to address the newcomer. Before Millie could explain more to Anne, the portrait did that all on his own. "Have you brought news or another challenge for my famed tutelage? "

Millie braved a wan smile, buoyed that the knight-wizard's own inadvertent bluster served for her purpose as well. It was easy enough to nod in Anne's direction, agreeing with the portrait's assumptions. After all, she had come for the chance to learn at the feet —frame?— of a powerful, old wizard, even if he was rather archaic. Or rather easy on the eyes.

"He's supposed to be the best ancient duelist..." she added, as if to help her friend's decision. As long as Anne only thought she was there to learn, this might not be so embarrassing. If she pushed further, Millie might be just as hapless as she felt a moment ago. "I thought it couldn't hurt."

---

  

---

Anne's glee was momentarily dimmed by visible confusion. Millie wasn't dancing around in front of a portrait; she was dancing around in front of this portrait. "How he's what?" She wondered aloud, turning her attention to the painting. Anne looked over the overly bombastic, a new favorite word she learned in one of Millie's silly books, knight. Wizard becomes a knight was an Anne hero, without question. Anne could be convinced to do something silly for a wizard-knight, but Millie?

It took Anne another look between the portrait and her rapidly reddening friend to make sense of things, but when it clicked, Anne's resulting smirk was too smug for anyone's comfort. "She's brought," Anne was quickly adapting to the portrait's dialect, her smile brightening up her eyes, "a brave new challenger, oh Sir Grymwald." While Anne bowed to the portrait, her eyes never left her friend. The message was clear - Millie was never living this down.

---

The following 2 users Like Anne Moony's post:2 users Like Anne Moony's post
   Millie Potts, Violetta DeCroix

---

MJ about made me cry with this one!
Thread Log

For a moment, just a moment, Millie wondered if Anne was about defer to their friendship and the level of trust between them. In the same manner that, a hundred times before, Millie had been willing to follow Anne despite her own reservations. To, for once, let Millie take the lead. It felt too audacious to be possible, but the subconscious thoughts telling her no were drowned out by the senses she'd fixed on Anne's reaction.

And up until she watched her friend take a bow, with a stare worth a thousand words pointed right her way, the young witch's senses had all been screaming yes!

Millie swallowed back her questions. There was no time for those, nor for any protests. Above her, Sir Grymwald had already taken a new starting pose, bidding the young witches to do the same. She hesitated for just a second, perhaps in case Anne's agreement had been tenuous only, and then Millie followed suit. Leading, if only as first among followers for the moment. She tried to dwell on that as she contorted her body into the newest position, and not the fiery warmth on her cheeks that refused to go out.

"No, again, again, " demanded the stern voice from above them. "I have had it said to me, 'Sir, your pupils fight with the grace of swans.' And then they ask how it is done, and I must decline. For I will not have it said that my pupils fight like asses, not even in training! "

The young witch dragged her eyes back to the portrait from where they had scattered, her muscles frozen at the withering comments from Sir Grymwald. As he held his body in place, an ideal pose to accentuate the flex of his upper musculature, she had to try to stifle a giggle at the mixture of reactions flowing through her, relaxing her stiffness away. The terror of his words were only canvas deep, really, not unlike the fictional characters of her books. They might have seemed silly, barked out from a portrait on the wall, but Millie couldn't laugh at such a well...painted portrait.

Not knowing whether it was her stance or Anne's that had prompted the outburst, Millie started over anyway. Her calves were unusually stretched, and the arch in her arm felt entirely unnatural. She was surprised that the portrait could see the error in her body's pose at all, not with the way the loose fabric of her robes draped and flowed over them. Then she felt her cheeks redden again, and decided not to think about the hows and whys of anything else, only on what her arms and legs were doing.

"Good, " the portrait said, clearly satisfied by some change between the two of them. "And now we go again. "

Millie only had time to spare a single glance over to Anne before Sir Grymwald began another set of complex steps to follow. She felt a small smile growing on her lips as she willed her body along. There was something actually enjoyable about sharing her secret adventure with a friend.

---

The following 2 users Like Millie Potts's post:2 users Like Millie Potts's post
   Anne Moony, Violetta DeCroix

---

A broad smile of authentic joy quickly replaced Anne's smirk. This was ridiculous...and this was wonderful.

A part of her mind was still puzzling over Millie's apparent interest in the portrait. Anne, personally, wondered what sort of training her new knight-mentor might have had to achieve such strength. Millie's interest seemed a bit less academic. The idea that Millie, bookish, reasonable Millie, would start tripping over her word for anyone baffled Anne, but she'd seen this change happen among her peers. Anne? Anne couldn't be bothered to notice boys, not really. Perhaps it was because of her mates on the Quidditch team or the idiotic presence that was Jimmy Fletcher, but Anne was convinced that a full half of the species was moronic and in need of pity; not praise. It didn't matter what brought her closest friend to this strange moment, Anne loved seeing this side of her dear friend.

Four years of dueling and quidditch club gave Anne the flexibility and endurance to keep up with Grymwald, but even Anne felt overheated in her robes after what could have been ten minutes or an hour. Whether it was one of them getting clumsy or the ominous growl Anne's stomach gave; she stood up out of her stance, breathing faster than she expected. The move set the portrait into some long-winded speech on perseverance and Anne groaned. "I reckon he was Gryffindor. Nobody else feels the need to give speeches about everything."

---

The following 1 user Likes Anne Moony's post:1 user Likes Anne Moony's post
   Millie Potts

---

MJ about made me cry with this one!
Thread Log

In the breadth of Hogwarts' curriculum, there was rarely a need for this much exertion. Spells and potions could be performed seated, sometimes standing, and the rare excursions from the castle were done at a walking pace. Sometimes, during long nights of hard-to-grasp sleep, Millie relived the memories of the flight instructor requiring his students to run the length of the lawn as a warm up. In the outdoors, she could cover a distance that measured the course of her progress and had the benefit of a makeshift breeze to dry her skin.

Here in the portrait room, there was neither. The young witch's brow was already matted with a beading dampness that threatened to run into her eyes. And for every step she took, there was always another to lead her back to the beginning, keeping the two pupils in sight of their portrait-bound instructor. By now, Millie was tiring and feeling the soreness in her muscles, though her limbs surprised her with an eagerness to take to each new step and position. The routines were beginning to make some sense, as baffling as they were to the modern learner.

Millie had grown used to the sharp rebukes given out by Hogwarts' instructors, and though Sir Grymwald's prickled more than most, she weathered them with a glance at his sculpted physique. To get that such an exemplary form, she supposed, he must know what he was doing. The young witch felt her eyes lingering long enough that when Anne's scathing words cut through her reverie, the sharp look she shot toward her friend was partly born of her own sense of shame. "Anne! Must you always say the first thing that comes to mind?"

It wasn't that the young witch considered her friend wrong at all, it was rather characteristic of Gryffindors to be so boastful. Or loud, at least. Out of any of them, Greta might be among the quietest, and Miss Gillenwater was loud enough when she had something on her mind. Having chanced upon the opportunity to learn from such a well-honed master of the arts, Millie was loathe to insult him and lose it all.

A chuckle from the portrait subject drew away her knit eyebrows to Sir Grymwald again, "If there are no more grand speeches to be heard at Hogwarts, then these are despondent days indeed. For once it was known that one could seek an answer of a Ravenclaw soon after dawn, break for midday, and return to find them only halfway through their lecture. "

Millie wasn't so warm that she could not feel her cheeks redden at the implication, and drew her lips into a thin line. Of course, she knew of some in her House who were so enthusiastic about their studies that they might burst if there was no one around to share them with. The thought of speaking for an entire day, much less two, even on a subject of her passion, filled the young witch with such dread that her tongue made its way past her own reticence. "Perhaps Ravenclaws have since learned to hold their tongue unless speaking to someone with actual interest...or worth."

The last word came out bitterly enough to make her fingers long for the comfort of her necklace chain, but soon the young witch's ears rang with the peals of laughter issuing from the portrait. She didn't look up, her eyes drawn to a spot just below the frame, expecting to be the one who invited their dismissal at last.

"Ah, a sharp tongue and a sharper mind. It pleases me to find that Hogwarts has not fallen short of producing young wizards worthy of my vaunted tutelage. " The dueling master, whose body must have been painted to gleam in a room untouched by sunlight for there wasn't so much as a hint of sweat disfiguring his immaculate form, raised his wand arm approvingly. At himself, or at the pair of new students he had just acquired, Millie couldn't quite tell.

---

The following 1 user Likes Millie Potts's post:1 user Likes Millie Potts's post
   Anne Moony

---

Anne had the audacity to look her best friend in the eye, grin, and respond, "Yes, actually." Watching Millie turn all the shades of red was as good a show as any. It was so rare to see Millie this easily rattled and, in the privacy of this little bubble they had found for themselves, Anne would tease.

When attention turned back to the portrait, Anne snorted her laugh of agreement. "Halfway seems generous," she piped in with a grin. Millie was benign, but Anne's mum was Ravenclaw and when she wanted to punish her children, the lectures were monumental. Anne was enjoying the laugh, but she also watched her friend and noticed Millie turning inward. Defenses activated, now thinking that she was going to be scolding the portrait; Anne tightened her grip on her wand, ready to go. Relaxing when the portrait praised Millie, Anne sheathed her wand with a sigh. "Alright, Sir Grymwald. Are we knighted yet?"

---

  

---

MJ about made me cry with this one!
Thread Log

With her friend at no less than her usual self, and Sir Grymwald affording her the thinnest allowance, Millie found herself caught, and in a different manner than when Anne first appeared. Her own eagerness to advance twisted up in the narrow tightrope walk of presenting herself as a pupil worthy of the painted knight's attention. It took all that she had to keep her hand on her wand, and not at her throat, where her nerves seemed to have joined together in a bundle at every thinly-won escape from dismissal. Millie's eyes drifted over to Anne, wondering if she was going to add another cluster of nerves to her bundle.

This was no Hogwarts professor, who would at least put up with a measure defiance and sarcasm in their classrooms.

"Knighthood, HA! " The noble duel instructor guffawed from his place within the portrait frame, casting out a withering glance at his pupils. "Squires yet you may be, Merlin-willing. The path there is torturous and lined with failures, and with any good chance you will soon join them. I do not suffer fools and nor do the perils of true knighthood. Far too many who call themselves " Sir!" do so by the disdain of their peers and victims alike. No, if you wish a quick path to be knighted, then I have been the fool to suffer a blight of twisted hope. Deliver me, and yourselves, here to the foot of my portrait by fortnight's end, and we shall see if your training has not been in vain!"

Her ears rang from the contorted shape they had to assume, piecing together the vagaries and misdirection in the knight's speech. No wonder she'd been told that Sir Grymwald was a harsh taskmaster, even his words required heroic efforts to unwind. Millie was tired of listening and worn by the lesson, so by the time she could decipher a dismissal hidden in the words it was all she could do not to collapse to the floor altogether. It took her several tries to return her wand to its pocket, freeing the young witch enough to shake away the rest of the ordeal that clung to her as fiercely as droplets of sweat.

"You surprised me, Anne," she admitted, surprising even herself with her own directness. Millie's hands were free to reach for her necklace again, but for the moment she didn't need to. It was an odd thing to suffer, the desire but not the need for the calming effects she found between those silver links. That was yet another thing for her to think about after this day. "I was worried you might laugh at me...learning dueling poses from a portrait."

She had never said the thought aloud, and now it even sounded silly to her own ears. Millie might have laughed, if her fingers were not at her necklace again, surprising her for the third time in as many moments. She caught a glimpse of the portrait figure above them, having returned to the vital matters that concerned such portraits, paying them little attention again. Her eyes stayed fixed for a few too many seconds again before she wretched them away. Millie was conscious of her warm cheeks again, reaching out to clutch the nearest part of Anne she could to lead her quickly away from the portrait hall.

"You're not going to," the young witch wondered, a stark awareness falling over her in that moment. "tell anyone about this, are you?" Millie's own judgement wavered, certain that if it was her being asked, she would have a hard time staying tight-lipped. Fingers tightened against the necklace at her thought, pleading as silently as her thoughts and eyes, hoping that her friend would agree to keep these lessons, and the dashing looks of their private instructor, to herself.

Millie was already looking forward to the next lesson, one she didn't think she could bear if the whole castle knew about it.

---

  

---

Anne was having difficulty keeping her laughter internal. A knight wizard from some other time and place lectured them on knighthood's perils. She flew at heartstopping speeds while avoiding bludgers and other people for fun. The school nurse was fond of Anne and her frequent visits after dueling or quidditch practice. Peril was Anne's thing.

She caught most of his tirade before piecing together the appropriate response she knew would earn them another session of this madness, "You are right, great Sir Grymwald," Anne couldn't help but add an extra dose of Scottish brogue to the Rs for the hell of it. "We'll be back before fortnight's end and prove ourselves worthy squires." Anne gave a deep bow before turning heel, grabbing Millie by the shoulders, and dragging them both several feet away.

Anne dissolved into giggles, dropping her head to Millie's shoulder and trying to curb the snorts of laughter. She gathered herself quickly when Millie spoke up. "'Case you missed it, I am laughing, Mills." Anne gave her shoulder a pat as she took a step back and tried to right her hair. "I'm not going to bad laugh at you, but I'm always going to laugh and hope you're laughing with me. Besides, this is loads better than learning from a book. You, my brilliant, brilliant soon-to-be Ravenclaw Knight of the Portrait friend, found an advantage for Dueling Club! We're going to be brilliant next competition time."

Anne went willingly with Millie, confused when Millie stopped and went for her necklace again. Anne's confusion was genuine when she scoffed and offered, "Why would I tell anyone? You and me are going to be knights, Mills, knights. You think I'm going to spoil that and tell other people? This is ours, Millie."

---

The following 1 user Likes Anne Moony's post:1 user Likes Anne Moony's post
   Millie Potts

---

MJ about made me cry with this one!
Thread Log