The Tangled World!

Team-Building Exercises

"All right," Harry addressed his group of friends, "in order to take down the cerberus, we need to put all three of its heads asleep at the same time. I doubt it will just let us do that, so we need to practice not only coordinating our spells so that we can cast at the same time, but we need to work on hitting targets while moving. I think we should start by trying to hit targets while moving, then work on casting simultaneously before we eventually combine the two. Sound good?"

Hermione, Daphne, and Tracey all nodded, so Harry moved back toward them. They had asked a few of the teachers if there were any places in the castle with targets to practice spellcasting, and Professor Flitwick was able to direct them to one of the training rooms used by the school's dueling club earlier in the century. The room obviously hadn't seen much use in the time since the dueling club's disbandment, so it had taken them a week to clean it to a usable state.

Now, though, they were finally ready to begin.

"What spells should we practice besides the sleeping charm?" Hermione asked.

Harry paused. "Um... I'm not actually sure. What spells are generally useful?"

"The fire charm!" Tracey shouted giddily.

Daphne sighed. "Tracey's pyromania aside, the fire charm is a good spell to know. It's a good spell for warding off all sorts of dangerous plants, and Hagrid did say that devil's snare was an obstacle in the corridor. Anyone else have any suggestions?"

"The knockback jinx is generally useful for dealing with anything that isn't alive." Harry added. "Though given that the last obstacle we know about is a troll, it wouldn't be very useful unless we had obstacles and debris that we could knock into it. What sorts of spells are useful against a troll, anyways?"

"Fire generally works well, from what Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them had to say." Hermione said. "Though basic spells like Incendio are too weak to do anything significant. We could try learning the fire stream charm, Imflamare. It's not taught until third year, but I don't think that it's too hard to cast from what I read about it."

"Spells that bypass its magic-resistant hide would also work." Daphne commented. "Most of those are sixth and seventh year spells, but we've already learned the tripping jinx. Trolls aren't known for having fine movement, so tripping one would likely incapacitate it."

"Hold on – you mean that when Hermione and I were running from the troll, I could have stopped it with a tripping jinx!?"

"Probably, but I wouldn't have counted on it. Even spells that bypass its hide would be weaker. At best, you would have stumbled it for a second. If we wanted it to have an effect, then we'd all have to hit it at the same time."

Harry nodded. "Right, so we'll add that to the list of spells to practice. Hermione, do you have any suggestions?"

Hermione paused and thought it over. "I think that we should practice moving around in smokescreens. Harry, I'm assuming from your fight against the troll that you're proficient in that charm?" At Harry's affirmation, she continued. "In that case, we should practice moving around under its effect."

"That would be useful, but I wouldn't put it as a high priority." Daphne interjected. "It's already likely to take us several months to learn this stuff, and we really shouldn't waste more time than necessary."

"That's true. We wouldn't want..." Harry trailed off, then blinked a few times. "Why are we doing this?"

"I want to steal the Philosopher's Stone!" Tracey exclaimed.

"I want to know if the headmaster is actually foolish enough to keep the Philosopher's Stone in a school." Daphne said dryly.

"I just couldn't resist a good mystery." Hermione said with a shrug.