She had told the boy to meet her in the Room of Requirement again two days before the scheduled Halloween Ball. It didn’t give him long to rest, but Potter seemed like a strong type, if not just headstrong, so she figured he’d show up. As it was, Laurette had shown up at the room roughly half an hour before their scheduled meeting time, requesting a small dance studio until the boy showed up. She kept the door where it would open to him if he paced and asked for her specifically, and she was sure he’d figure it out eventually.

Sitting on the hard wood floor, the Slytherin female wrapped the ribbons of her ballet slipper around her ankles securely, then started to stretch. She was wearing a black leotard and a small black skirt overtop of it. The skirt was more of a formality to keep her more private areas covered when Potter showed up, as it was still very easy to move and work out, or dodge curses while handing out blows, with this outfit on.

Her slippers were just as easy to fight in as they were to dance in, so she didn’t worry about having to jump right into the lesson she had planned for her Gryffindor student. For now, she simply stretched out as best she could, doing splits and touching her nose to her knees before standing up and bouncing a bit on her toes. Laurette was ready to relax a bit, so she started slowly spinning as music filled the room.

Her legs were long and strong as she pranced through the room, leaping and spinning, falling into a split only to climb out of it in a back walkover move that led to her tiptoeing lithely across the floor, only to spin fast and tight as she heard the door open. Rather than stopping her dance, Laurette simply pulled her wand from the ribbon of her right slipper and shot three spells at the boy who entered.

The first was fast becoming her signature spell- the boiling steam curse that her brother had created. The next, a simple but large slicing hex that flew through the air, straight for his stomach. The final spell she shot at him was a particularly nasty dark spell that created giant puss-oozing boils all over the body. If he got hit by that one, Potter wouldn’t get anywhere with training this evening. She hoped he’d learned a little since their first lesson, or he’d be crawling back to his little girlfriend for some healing before the room even stopped the music.

If Harry’s first training session with Laurette LeBeau had taught him anything, it was that he was far from ready to run with the big dogs in this war. When all that was required was instincts and decent shield work, he was fine. When it came time to actually think and fight, he was far too slow. Where Bellatrix or Sirius or Lupin would have looked effortless like it was still instinct, Harry made it quite clear just how much he was thinking and planning and struggling to keep up.

Oh, and he kept getting hit with well-placed spells. By the end of the other day’s lesson he had been hit with so many spells that even though he had learned a lot, it didn’t really show because his movements were so much slower than normal. It didn’t exactly help that the night in between that first session and this one had held the long quidditch practice of the week for Gryffindor, plus Harry struggling through a very complicated essay for Charms while Hermione glared at him and refused to help. At least she was now keeping her opinions about Sky and about Harry dating Sky to herself instead of shouting them to anyone who would listen. It would have been even better if she had switched to silence before Ron started agreeing with her, but Harry figured the fact that the redhead hadn’t spoken to him unless it was absolutely necessary since their confrontation in the common room the other day told him all he needed to know about that.

All in all he was tired, he was more than a little angry, and he was still sore despite Sky’s excellent healing; not that he intended to let any of that show. He was also fairly sure that he couldn’t take the kind of hits he had last time if he actually expected to start walking out of the Room of Requirement after lessons, which would be nice. As a result of that last part he showed up to his second lesson early, hoping to beat his teacher there and prevent any of the surprise attacks she had used on him last time. Unfortunately, after several minutes of pacing and trying different instructions, he was starting to suspect that the door wouldn’t open for him until she told it to. As a last ditch effort, he paced one more time, a simple “I need to speak to Laurette LeBeau” filling his mind.

He was a little shocked honestly when the door opened for that. Of course, it meant that she was already here and he needed to be ready. He cast the shield Jax had shown him and was rewarded as it absorbed a spell so strong that it shocked Harry, causing him to lose concentration and causing the shield to flicker a little. He dodged the second spell as he got the shield back to top form, feeling it slice the arm of his dress shirt and thanking Merlin that he had at least taken off his robes before coming, as they would have slowed his movement and possibly made the spell hit home. The shield absorbed the third spell, and Harry grinned at it got easy to hold the difficult shield up, even if the initial sneak attack looked to be done for now.

Still, he did not let the shield fade out until he was sure she was done spinning around and tossing spells at him for now. When the music died, he let his shield do the same, stepping in front of the Slytherin and giving a small, formal bow. “Most people would find it improper to duel in such attire,” he said, flashing her a grin as he came out of the bow, wand at the ready. Years of sarcasm towards Snape had him wanting to comment further on the rather sexy teaching attire the Head Girl favored. Only the fact that the punishment would be something far worse than detention kept his tongue in check. He was sure that the intensity of the lesson would have his mind on anything but her body and what she was wearing soon anyway.

The boy was an utter idiot, and it showed by the way he constantly looked at her body and got distracted enough to let his shield falter. She was barely even fighting him yet, just giving him a taste, and he was already getting himself sliced on the arm and breathing a bit heavily. He was just an utter fool. Did he really think he should speak when he was being attacked? Did he think it wise to have such a smart mouth when he should be working to save his own skin? Laurette was relatively sure that when he finally did face Bellatrix, the witch would not be amused.

“Do you think your opponent is going to be concerned about propriety, Potter? Do you think Lestrange is going to worry about whether or not her hair is in place as she tries to curse your block off?” She sauntered toward him, lazily flicking her wand another three times, this time throwing three slices at his head, stomach again, and knees. “You know I get bored when all you do is use your stupid little shields and your foolish disarmers, Potter. You already proved not to be able to get the latter in on my flexible form…”

A graceful leap had her tumbling through the air, another curse flying from her wand at the spot she was pretty sure the boy would soon dodge to, as she calculated his movements based on the way he’d fought before. The curse she sent was the jet of steam that he’d been hit with the last time she’d trained him. That time, he had screamed so loud her ears nearly popped. She wondered how he would deal with it if it hit its mark yet again.

“You’re predictable, Potter! And you need to bloody fight back! If you are just going to prance around like some ballerina you might as well take your leave now. I only perform solos.” She stood there waiting for the boy to make some sort of move, ready to dodge whatever he sent at her. With Potter, things were never a surprise. That was one of his key problems, and Laurette was sure it would take a lot of time to fix it. For now, she’d simply revel in yet another session of no pain for her, and torture for the foolish lion.

The mention of the name Lestrange snapped Harry back to seriousness and attention, as it always managed to. Sirius had quipped with the dangerous witch happily in the midst of their duel, and it had been the last thing that he did. Was he really acting exactly the same way, when he wasn’t even in the same league as a duelist that his godfather had been? No wonder the last lesson had gone so bad and she was treating him this way now. He knew he wasn’t ready to be the duelist he wanted to be, but he found it hard to believe that he was so bad. Except in moments like this, when he was utterly disgusted with himself.

He put the shield back up, dexterously moving it to absorb the three hexes and give him a chance to think. She was right, of course. Shields were important, especially ones like this that could stay up while he was firing spells back at his opponent, but they would never actually win him anything. Disarming wasn’t likely to do much more. It worked on Voldemort, but he suspected that had more to do with the special relationship between them than anything else. He needed a new signature spell. He just didn’t know where it was going to come from.

As soon as he let the shield down again she started tumbling around and sending spells at him again. This looked like the one that had basically boiled him before, which meant that he didn’t have time to get the shield back up. Instead, he dropped to the ground to avoid the spell and bounced back up, growing angrily at her words.

“You haven’t exactly showed me how to do any spells yet, Lebeau,” he snarled, sending off a group of minor hexes at her that would almost certainly do him no good as they were several years below her skill level, but they were all that he could think of at the moment. “Maybe if you spent as much time suggesting new signature spells as you do jumping around and testing my expertise with shields, I would be able to shoot something more effective than a bloody jelly legs at you.”

He gave a scream of rage, letting out of a sudden stream of stunners. He was fairly certain that it wouldn’t do him any good, but it was a quicker and more powerful curse than anything he had shot at her so far. Maybe it would at least get her off her game enough to realize that he was a worthwhile student. He really didn’t know how else he was supposed to do. At least he was still in one piece so far this time.

"Oh, I haven't showed you how to use spells? Does that mean that you don't know how to do anything at all? I wasn't aware the great 'Boy Who Lived' was utterly clueless and should have failed all five years of school he's had so far!" Laurette snapped at him as she easily whipped her wand around, blocking his feeble attempts at attacks and narrowing her eyes in annoyance.

If this was the leader of the supposed army that would face the 'Dark Lord,' then Laurette was starting to doubt that allegiance she'd sworn to the Riddle girl... Potter was proving to be completely useless and daft. IF he couldn't figure out what to do or think on his feet, he would never be able to face anyone in a duel, especially someone like the Lestrange matriarch.

The girl spun with a leg in the air as she dodged a spell without even using her wand, instead using it to shoot off another spell that had solid spikes of ice flying toward the Gryffindor male. "Honestly, Potter, use your brain. If you didn't rely only on magic and instead used other fighting methods you might be able to use your wand for something more useful than blocking my attacks! And if you haven't observed any of my methods yet while you failed to do anything but throw up your idiotic shields, well you are worse off than I realized."

At that, the French female landed in a crouch, holding a bubble-like shield about herself as she peered angrily at the raven-haired boy. "If you cannot figure out how to do some of these things on your own, then you are never going to impress anyone, especially not me."

Laurette twirled to her feet, breaking the shield and shooting fireballs mixed with more of the spikes of ice at Potter and the wall behind him. If he didn't do more than a harmless jinx or another shield, she'd throw him out of the room. This was it for Laurette. If the boy didn't man up, she wasn't about to help him prepare to die.

Harry snarled in rage at the latest comment, even while she easily blocked the stunners that he had sent at her. “They don’t exactly teach things in OWL level Charms that you could use to kill someone, believe it or not,” he spat out angrily. “Unless I’m missing some trick with Cheering Charms that makes them really different.”

He cast Reducto to slow down the flying ice, then fell to his knees, and then his back, sliding under the slowed down ice. At least the idea of using a blend of magic and muggle fighting techniques made one useful idea that she had given him. He still doubted it would ever be worth all the pain that he had gone through during and after their first session, and doubted it was really what he had signed up for, but that probably wasn’t worth even thinking about now that things were underway.

As he slid, he shot a jelly legs jinx and a full body bind at her, hoping that the change in angle together with the fact that he was shooting sort of on the move would help something to get through. That or that the close quarters they were in after he finished the sliding dodge of the ice would rob her of the time she needed to stop him. Oh, it would be great if he manage to hit her with a full body bind. Then they would see who was useless and who wasn’t.

They were practically face to face when he popped back to his feet, and he realized that he was too close to properly shoot off spells. The idea of punching her in the face was appealing, but he somehow doubted it would go over well if he punched the teacher in the middle of a lesson. “How would you like me to learn to do spells that you seem to do entirely nonverbally?” he questioned in irritation, trying to keep her half distracted as he planned his next move. “Last I checked I need to know the incantation, even to do it that way.”

He backpedaled quickly, letting explosions like fireworks out of his wand as he went. Maybe his old method of destroy stuff as a distraction could be modified in a way that made it even more useful to him. He kept backing away as he shot them off to give himself room to dodge and mixed an offensive spell in between each one. Most of them were things she wouldn’t have used in years, so maybe something would catch her entirely off guard and make some kind of point for him. Or maybe she would just kill him and be done with it. That seemed just as likely, really.

Potter was at it again with his little kid curses and run of the mill displays. Laurette yawned as she dodged him, lazily waving her wand to put a shield up and block about three of his spells before they even had a chance to hit her. HIs words were foolish excuses and she wasn't having them. She'd used words at first with him, especially during their first lesson. Was it her fault that he hadn't bothered to pay enough attention to what she was saying?

Hardly. She was beyond irritated with the 'Golden Boy' who so often acted as if he was invincible. And to think, he wanted to go up against Bellatrix Lestrange? HA! She'd laugh at him! Maybe he could win with his piddley spells if he did start going at her with them if only because she'd be so overcome with laughter that her eyes were clouded.

"You call yourself a duelist, Potter? You fail so badly at this that I can't even imagine you actually facing a true opponent! It's no wonder I destroyed you our first time together! You couldn't fight off a blast-ended skrewt." She stuck her nose in the air and flicked and swished her wand a total of five times, sending her most wicked spells at the boy.

If he didn't end up boiled alive, he'd have his blood frozen right in his veins. Or he might just start bleeding internally from every organ. Oh, then there was the one that snapped every bone in the body. Ooo, and the fun temperature spell that had the body going from record lows to record highs... That one was a trip. Usually made for some fun side effects, too.

The wicked smile was on her face and an evil gleam made her dark eyes glow. "You're unworthy of my time, Potter. An unredeemable failure as far as students go. Now get yourself out of here however you have to, whether it be by walking or crawling to that nurse of yours. I've got dancing to do."

Laurette turned on her heel then, dismissing the Gryffindor as the room around them shifted to become her own personal dance studio. Mirrors lined the walls and a wooden floor and bar were in place as well. A classical piece began to play, and the Slytherin began to spin, letting her body relax into the music. Nobody was going to ruin her day. Especially not some idiot like Potter.

At this point the Head Girl’s taunts and insults basically rolled off Harry’s back. It was quickly becoming apparent that their styles were incompatible and that there was nothing really for him to learn here. He hadn’t even managed to get her to the point of testing his new favorite shield on Crucio, something that he had been looking forward to. Still, he had learned a few things and gotten a few ideas for what to do next, and that was probably more than he should feel entitled to, especially after the travesty of their first lesson.

Before he could say another word spells were flying at him that were familiar from the other day, right out of her wand. These were the ones that had messed him up so badly last time, more or less. This time he had a plan, though. He conjured his shield one more time, and held it long enough to absorb the first two spells before letting it go and trusting it to hold itself up from that point. That would give him enough time to do basically anything he wanted based on the power of these spells and what they had done to him before.

The problem was he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do. She had turned her back on him as soon as she finished firing spells, signaling that the lesson, and probably their time training together, was done. Part of him was more than happy with that and was ready to walk away so quickly that he would be out of the room and halfway back to Gryffindor tower before the shield was even gone. Another part of him wanted to attack her with every spell he knew and leave her a bleeding, oozing mess to prove that he was a real threat as both a duelist and a person and that she should never turn her back on him.

Luckily his Gryffindor nature won out, and he realized that he could never attack an opponent with their back turned. That didn’t necessarily mean that he was as done with LeBeau as she thought he was, even if they were technically on the same side, but she could be worried about later. Of course, he didn’t want to actually hurt or lose an ally as strong as the Head Girl, no matter how wounded his pride was, but he was determined that he would become the duelist he knew he could be, the duelist that would make his dad and godfather proud and make him an opponent worthy of facing anyone. When he did, he would find a way to duel LeBeau in a fair and somewhat recreational setting, and he would hand her ass to her. That would show the insane dancing girl to doubt him.

For now he settled in on the first of his two choices, if a little late thanks to the time he spent deciding. As the shield faded away his heels were disappearing through the door of the Room of Requirement, on to the next thing that needed to be done.