Beyond the Wand [Ronan, Lien Hua]

[Deleted]

So many things were happening now that Neville was hardly getting any sleep. If it were just his usual duties as a professor and deputy headmaster, it would be all too easy. Even stacking his duties to the Order of the Phoenix on top wouldn’t have cut too much into his sleeping. But there was too much happening with the students now, too much he needed to do for them, to help them and keep them safe. But even that alone wouldn’t have been bad. The final straw was how much of it he had to do carefully, secretly, disguising what he was doing as more harmless things, mostly from the Headmaster. Reynolds was looking to undermine anything and everything Neville did, seeming to perceive his every action in terms of how it strengthened Neville’s....position, he guessed, was the political term, and weakened his own. So he had to be subtle, and he hated being subtle. It was worse in this case, because he was trying to support students doing what their parents had done, and he hated it. It had been his job, their jobs, to do better than before. And they had. But it hadn’t been enough, and now the students refused to just sit by and wait.

Just like before.

So now, here he stood, in a hallway on the fifth floor, leaning against one wall, looking at a door across from him, intricately carved from ebony and waiting to reveal the secrets within. He had sent for Ronan Finnigan and Lien Hua Williams to meet him here if they had the time, for a private Dueling Club lesson meant only for the captains. He was almost certain Ronan would show up. The boy had the best of both of his parents, and while Seamus might act like a partygoer and a showoff and Lavender might talk like all she cared about was gossip and trends, he knew better. Lien Hua, he was not so certain of. She loved to duel, but she definitely marched to her own beat and might not be as willing to show up for something deemed optional. As well, she was a sixth year, and might still be adjusting to the massive workload her classes would be piling on her compared to the prior five years. She might not have time to come tonight. The appointed time was quickly approaching though, and Neville’s note had very specifically said that once the lesson began, the room would seal itself off from outside entry.

One way or another, he’d know within the next five minutes who would be here tonight.

@ronan @lien

[Deleted]

Ronan was always one for action and adventure and also learning new things. He also enjoyed helping others in whatever way that he could. He had even accepted the opportunity to be the captain of the dueling club. Not sure why he had accepted it but in light of everything that has been happening this school year, Ronan has decided to step up to the plate and be a leader that everyone needed. Ronan was a leader of a secret student group named Phoenix Rising which was set to have its first meeting later this week. He was also helping teach Professor Grey’s classes. And what was even more odd was that now when he roamed the corridors of the castle to learn as much about it as possible the teachers he ran into only gave him warnings if it was past curfew and told him to hurry on back to his dorm. There was something going on and he was going to figure it out. As to why Professor Grey had Ronan helping him teach classes was something that he was still trying to figure out if there was an ulterior motive to Professor Grey’s action in this. Maybe he would talk to his former head of house and see if he knew the reason for this.

He was currently on the fifth floor after coming out of a secret passageway that was hidden behind some tapestry of a phoenix rising from its ashes. This same tapestry seemed to be in places that hid secret passageways, and if he had to hazard a guess the school itself kept moving the tapestry as if to say that it knew what Ronan was up to along with his friends and that it approved or something of that nature.

Ronan spotted Professor Longbottom, a longtime family friend. He respected that man, who always had everyone’s best interests at heart. But he knew better that to say that Professor Longbottom was a softy, no that man was and probably still is a senior auror. Ronan had been contacted by the professor not too long ago asking him to meet him here tonight outside of the room of requirement before they would have a talk or something like that. Something that a teacher would ask a student to do, and he would probably have to pass this off as a remedial lesson in how not to piss off the Whomping Willow. But oh well he had gotten the hidden meaning behind the Professor’s message. Going up to the Professor and taking a glance at the ebony door that was in the wall. "You asked for me to be here Professor?” Ronan asked in a casual tone as if he had no clue as to why he had been asked to come and have a chat with the Professor. “Is there anyone else coming?” He asked as well, because he was curious, was it a one on one lesson or were there to be more people.

@superluigi64 @lien

[Deleted]

"I made it! I made it!"

Those were the first words out of Lien Hua's mouth as she skidded around the corner, nearly crashing into the opposite wall (man, she needed to learn how to bank, she had the exact same problem as Captain America). She totally wasn't dressed in her robes, tonight - sneakers and trousers were the name of the game, toss on a T-shirt ("Who Needs Gender Roles When We Can Have Pizza Rolls") and make a mad dash for the fifth floor. She wasn't trained in any secret passages, and she wasn't exactly the gal to leave the Common Room on time. In fact, she had almost completely forgotten about it, given she had been busting her butt on a Transfiguration essay. Aka, her worst nightmare.

As a result, she had almost completely forgotten what was going down tonight, and for a moment, the co-captain had hesitated. On one hand, she had a lot a lot of homework. And it was going to be a hard press to not end up late. On the other hand... if she didn't go, she was going to have to do homework. Specifically, try to finish this Transfiguration essay.

Well, when you put it that way, no way in the DUH was she not gonna go. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

It was a close call, making it in time, though. She had slipped her wand into her pocket, grabbing her notebook and stuffed it into her other pocket - she was actually wearing men's trousers, thank Merlin and Shazam and anyone else who liked to absentmindedly listen to the thoughts of teenage girls, as they had pockets - so she managed to fit both of this in, and then it was pretty much full-tilt sprinting down to the fifth floor.

Not sure if she had a few minutes to spare or not (she didn't have her watch on, dumb dumb her), the girl didn't stop her sprinting even as she rounded the corner, narrowly missing ramming right into the opposite wall, and nearabout sighed in relief when she saw Professor Longbottom still waiting, and with Ronan, too! Didn't sigh, though. She was kind of breathing heavily, a decent amount, and was yelling out her introductory statement - "I made it! I made it!" - but it was time to slow down, at least a little bit.

Doing her best to slow her full-tilt sprinting, Lien Hua managed to slow down enough so that she skidded to a stop behind Ronan, taking a small jump (because jumping was awesome, why not) to get close enough to the both of them. "Yo! I'm here! Nearly forgot, whoopsidoo!" She grinned, bright and beaming, winded but excited from her run. Yay!

Thank, uh... Hermes, yeah, Hermes for her speed!

[Deleted]

Neville was not disappointed. As he had predicted, Ronan showed up only a moment later, all calm on the outside. Thankfully, Ronan had inherited that from his father—Seamus was a natural at letting nothing appear to phase him when he wanted. Lavender had been....less adept at it, though by the end of the year she was much better. He asked, like it didn't matter in the slightest, if he was right that he'd been called here and if anyone else was coming. Neville smiled at the young man. “I did indeed, Mr. Finnigan. I also called Miss Williams here, but since this is optional, I can't be sure she'll—” But a frantic shouting reached his ears from around the corner, the same words repeated over and over. Lien Hua rounded the corner, almost managing to slam into the wall (Neville would have taken that wall full in the face if he'd barrelled down the hall that fast), beelined straight for them, and finished her chant beside them, out of breath. As usual, the Hufflepuff had two speeds: stop and go. Neville smiled at her though, letting her catch her breath. “Indeed you did, Miss Williams. And with time to spare, at that. But, as you're both here, we shall get started.” He waited a moment for Lien Hua's breathing to normalize before continuing.

“So, I've asked you both here tonight because you're the captains of your respective years in the Dueling Club. This is an...additional lesson, I suppose you could say. With things the way they are, my duties as Deputy Headmaster have become more pressing, so since I have some free time tonight, I wanted to give the two of you a lesson in teaching and leading. This way, you two can run a Dueling Club meeting yourselves if for whatever reason I can't make it to one. I don't intend to make a habit out of it, but just in case.” And just in case one or both of them started leading anything else, not that he'd know anything about that. Neville pushed off from the wall, rolling his shoulders. “To that end, I'm going to use the Room of Requirement as...mm...a parallel, of sorts. And I'll speak to the both of your tonight about things I make it a rule not to speak to students of. You may know some or all of what I'm going to tell you, it's not hard to find even though I try to keep it quiet, but you'll be hearing it from me. I'd hate to take you from your studies any longer than needed, so let's not delay. Follow on.” With that, he walked over to the door of the Room and opened it up. Normally, he'd let the students step through before him, but he was careful to be the first one through the door so as to take priority control over the room.

Once the other two had entered, Neville willed the door to seal itself off, not allowing others to interrupt them. The room the three of them stood in was small, rather like a small cabin in a ship. The walls were paneled with wood and covered with dozens on dozens of pictures, all but one taken by Colin Creevey throughout that last fateful year. The only one not taken by him was the last, where the survivors stood together, still burned and bleeding and exhausted, holding each other up for one last picture. Of course, there were many pictures later in life, but none in this room. By one wall was a bookshelf with books on defensive spells and enchantments, Sneakoscopes, and a Foe-Glass, and in another corner was a training dummy. Two wooden pillars held up a red hammock with gold trim beneath them. Neville let the two look around for a moment, examining photos. Both of them had parents in these pictures, though Cho Chang wasn't in many—she had graduated the year before, and only returned to the castle the night of the battle, when her coin had lit up along with everyone's as Neville summoned the DA back in anticipation of Harry's arrival. But she was in some of them nonetheless. “After Easter of 1998, I was the only leader of the DA still at Hogwarts. When my grandmother took out the Auror sent to take her hostage, the Carrows decided enough was enough. Six Death Eaters were sent after me, and they had nearly cornered me when I managed to slip past one group and activate the Room. This is what it gave me—minus the photographs, of course.”

@ronan @lien

[Deleted]

Ronan nodded his head and was about to speak when Lien had come running down the corridor. Normally seeing something like that display would have made him chuckle but this was a serious issue or at least he was taking it as such but he did smile a little. He was curious what the professor had to show them and teach them. “So, I've asked you both here tonight because you're the captains of your respective years in the Dueling Club. This is an...additional lesson, I suppose you could say. With things the way they are, my duties as Deputy Headmaster have become more pressing, so since I have some free time tonight, I wanted to give the two of you a lesson in teaching and leading. This way, you two can run a Dueling Club meeting yourselves if for whatever reason I can't make it to one. I don't intend to make a habit out of it, but just in case.” Well there we go in a nut shell that is what this was all about. Ronan was definitely glad that he had decided to come tonight. Something new and beneficial to learn. Maybe he could use what he learned here tonight in leading Phoenix Rising.

At the mention of studies Ronan smirked a little since he already had all of his homework done and caught up. So for him after the meeting he was going to do whatever struck his fancy. After following the professor inside of the room that he was well aquainted with, Ronan saw before him a decent sized room and the walls were covered with pictures. He immediately spotted his parents. Especially his dad, he had seen many of these pictures or at least most of them. Some he had even been shown by his dad and also by Harry memories of those times. But what he admired most about these pictures was the fact that they showed just how the war had changed these people. And according to Ronan’s dad and Harry, they saw many of the qualities in Ronan himself, that they had gained over the years and through the last war. Well now they were in another war and Ronan would do his part.

“Well this room gives us exactly what we need to survive doesn’t it?” Ronan asked in a rhetorical tone. They all knew the function of this room. If this was the professor’s sanctuary then it was quite nice. He thought of what the room gave him every time and smiled a little. It had what he needed. But Ronan knew that thinking about that would change the room, and so he shrugged off those thoughts so that the room would only have to conform to the professor’s will.

Ronan absentmindedly put his hand in his pocket as he felt a slight weight fall into it. It was a letter, but from who was the question. He pulled the letter out of his pocket and opened it up, As he looked at it the parchment shimmered a little bit before words that were once invisible began to appear on it. HE immediately knew who it was from and so he turned his body just a little bit as if he was looking at one of the pictures that was lower on the wall that he stood in front of, which was the one of the survivors of the final battle. The reason as to why he had turned was so that Lien couldn’t read it since she was close to him, and if she did it would turn to ashes before he got a chance to read the message. He knew that it would be useless to hide the letter from Neville but oh well. Ronan quickly read it and once he read the last word it turned to ash and then disappeared as if a gust of wind had carried it off.

The letter had been from Walton, request Ronan’s presence in his office tonight at midnight. Well the good thing was that he was sure that this meeting wasn’t going to take too long since that is what Neville had just said. Ronan wondered just what that meeting was about. However he pushed that aside and focused on the current meeting that he was in. Ronan even wondered if Neville had seen him pull the letter out and if the man would ask about it. Not that he would tell him what it said but just the jist of it.

@superluigi64 @lien