» Elijah-Thomas Burke v. Augusta Longbottom

[Alastair Knox]

Alastair had gladly stepped up to judge a few duels that were still taking place. He'd watched some of the earlier rounds, but as he hadn't been judging he held no prejudices, though was still baffled by the idea of female participation. Still, he nodded at each of the competitors that had won their previous rounds. "Congratulations on making it this far; I sincerely hope you recall the rules by now. Please bow, and then Mr. Burke has the floor to begin with. Miss Longbottom's display will follow promptly."

[Elijah-Thomas Burke]

To be honest he had not expected to get this far. Mostly as he expected it to bore him after the first round, but every duel brought him a bit of entertainment. The first one brought him a victory, the second an entertaining joke at the expense of a nightmare, and the third was at least easy to look at.

He hoped as he bowed that it would become more interesting than a pretty face. Yet he held no expectations as the girls typically had a rather boring fare in these duels. Which was a pity as he was certain within there rules interesting things could be done.

Perhaps that would be his challenge this duel as he could not aim anything at his opponent and his dummy was boring.

Looking down at the floor that Professor Knox had so generously mentioned was his he tried to come up with something. The girls could transfigure the floor, but he had little desire to do that. What he wanted to try was much harder waving his wand up and down with a flick of his wrist in a motion that went up and down slowly like a wave he focused on the image of waves in the ocean. Then he muttered a spell that if it worked would make the ground appear like a series of small waves heading in the direction of Miss Longbottom. With the advantage of an illusion being that nothing was physically happening and the worst that would happen was she would get sea sick.

Illusions could be powerful, the only problem was he had only mastered simple ones of the parlor trick variety such as what he was attempting. Someday he hoped to master ones that would make individuals chasing him see brick walls where there was just an alley.

[Augusta Longbottom]

Having made it this far in the tournament, Augusta could almost taste her final victory. A fiery determination burned in her deep blue eyes as she mounted the platform and faced her latest opponent.

This time, it was actually someone within her own social circle she had to face. He was a year younger than herself however, so Augusta wasn't actually sure of his first name, but the Burke's were a very well known wizarding family.

The judge announced that the Burke boy was to open the round and Augusta watched with an amused expression as he performed a spell that was more along the lines of something that one of the female participants would have done. Surely this boy could do something more impressive than that!

Directing a small curtsy in her opponent's direction, Augusta raised her wand, racking her brain for a new spell to perform. If she wanted to win, using the same spell twice wasn't exactly what she would consider "impressive."

Figuring she'd start with something less flashy this round, Augusta pointed her wand at the floor and a small crack appeared. Long, green vines started to poke their way through the cracks and within moments a large Venomous Tentacula had formed.

It's spiky vines curled and writhed like snakes while deep-red pods opened wide like jaws, exposing several rows of very sharp teeth-like protrusions. Augusta kept her wand trained on the sneaky plant, just in case it got any ideas about actually attacking anyone- such plants could prove to be treacherous in the wrong hands.

[Alastair Knox]

Alastair surveyed the two as each gave their - hopefiully not best, else that would be decidedly disappointing - reasonable shot at displaying an interesting spell, though he was surprised to see that Burke ignored his dummy completely and instead made the duel far fairer to judge (but less exciting as a whole). They both manipulated the floor, but he was more impressed by the fact that the Slytherin's turn had been entirely an illusion and a stronger spell. "Burke is awarded the point. Miss Longbottom may begin the next round." He drawled slowly.

[OOC: Burke: 6, Longbottom: 4]

[Augusta Longbottom]

What rubbish! Augusta thought to herself- her display had certainly been much more impressive. Now she would be forced to pull out all the stops in just to push the duel into a tiebreaker. Thinking of new spells every day was getting extremely tiring.

Directing a small curtsy in her opponent's direction, Augusta raised her wand and racked her brain for something to do for her next display. Once again pointing her wand at herself, she spoke a few words under her breath. At once, the bottoms of her robes cinched together and a small, diamond-like pattern appeared all the way up to her waist.

If all went well, Augusta would have managed to giver herself the tail of a mermaid. Looking down, she noted that the color of the tail had not turned a blue-green as she had intended, it was still the Hogwarts black, but for the most part it actually looked pretty good. It was a good thing that Transfiguration was her best subject or such a feat probably would have gone terribly wrong.

[Elijah-Thomas Burke]

It would probably surprise many that the truly appreciated plants. He recognized the plant in front of him immediately as a Venomous Tentacula, but was rather unimpressed. He would have been much more impressed if the plant had been conjured right underneath him. Though that would have taken both skill and a willingness to go against Longbottom's case in society. Sometimes he found the fact that he had to hold back against girls as underneath all that delicate lace they had the ability to be tough.

Though he had to respect the restraint of it all.

Restraint he had little intention of mirroring as he smiled towards Longbottom and focused on the plant she had created. As the fact that she had improved her outfit had just made him shake his head. Seriously while she was easy to look at the change certainly did not do that much for her or as a show as skill.

He decided to take a risk, as he had gained confidence from the fact he had managed his first illusion. So he would move onto transfiguration. If he could make a mouse turn into a tea cup rather easily he was certain he could make the ends of a plant look a bit differently.

Pointing his wand he muttered a stream of words as he focused on the ends of the Venomus Tentacula's vines and attempted to transfigure the ends have heads have faces of hydra's with the mouths being the opened pods that his mind naturally associated with the jaw of a monster as grand as a Hydra. Due to the difficulty of what he was attempting he only attempted to transfigure half of the ends in this manner to make an odd hybrid.

He was definitely the wrong hands to be given something so tempting as this to use in a duel.

[Alastair Knox]

A black mermaid tail versus a plant-slash-hydra-hybrid creature. Well, at least they were both getting the idea of something impressive, and both seemed to be trying to pull out the stops in terms of creativity. The problem was, Alastair found, that neither enchantment were rather duel-appropriate; though of course in this situation, the spells were not even supposed to be. Alastair felt it was a real stretch to call this round of the tournament a duel, but nevertheless he announced the result of it, entirely objectively and completely firmly. "Point goes to Burke again; he is the winner. Commiserations to Miss Longbottom, whose place in the tournament ends here."

[OOC: Longbottom: 7, Burke: 12]