Who: Rebecca Morris, Amber Bletchley, and later Andrew St. Clair What: Clash of the duelling champions When: Saturday evening Where: Duelling Club Status: In Progress
It hadn't been a good week. That wasn't surprising - the nightmares had been keeping her awake, the tension worming into every bone in her body, and Rebecca hadn't slept a full night since nearly the beginning of October. She could feel the frustration building up inside her, waiting to burst out. And, holy fuck, she was tired of it all.
Duelling Club was a welcome break. She didn't much enjoy the club aspect, but it was good to let off some steam, and of course practice was essential. You had to be able to fight. That was the one thing drilled into her head deeper than anything else, not just by her father, but by bitter experience. You had to be able to fight, and Duelling Club was the best place to do it, when you couldn't fight properly without the threat of expulsion.
But it was getting hard to find sparring partners. Since the Swedish girl had joined, there was an odd number of members, and most of them weren't exactly keen on fighting Rebecca - not with the reputation she had - which meant that she was inevitably short a partner unless Kiely stepped in. There might be a chance of some action this week, though, she thought, looking around the room - after the cold sweeping through the school, they were decidedly thin on the ground, and among those missing was St. Clair, so she might even get a shot at the Durmstrang girl. She'd heard stories about Durmstrang's duelling classes (and the fact that they had duelling classes at all had made her want to go there for a number of years) and it seemed likely that Amber might present an actual challenge - something all too rare in this class.
Something made her hang back, though. Maybe it was the knowledge of how close she was to snapping, or even a kind of fear that Bletchley might actually beat her - whatever it was, she hung back, leaning against the wall and drilling her wand against her hand, until most of the club had paired off. Only then, when it was clear that Bletchley didn't have another partner, did she straighten up.
Thank fuck. This might actually be worthwhile, after all.