Arm yourself

"This year a new event will run at Hogwarts, we will be having a duelling competition!" Dumbledore announced with amusement. As soon as the words had been uttered the whole Great Hall erupted in a torrent of noise. Student's heads were turning in every direction trying to pick up on other people's conversations. Dumbledore held his hand up for silence. "The event will be opened to students and teachers, to enrol please place your name on the notice boards in each of your common rooms! The event was organized by Alice and Professor Lupin, so I'll leave it to you two!" he said gesturing towards the two Defence Against the Dark Arts teachers. It was a well known fact and badly kept secret that the two were going out, so nobody was surprised that they were organising it together.

Alice had arrived at the start of the year to join Lupin in lessons; they were good friends and knew each other outside of Hogwarts. She didn't like to be called by her second name she said it made her feel old so it was Alice, Professor or Miss; she was in fact only twenty one. She had been in Gryffindor when she was at Hogwarts and was still fiercely proud of the fact. She was very tall, thin but not weak, with ginger hair, green eyes and glasses. She coached the Gryffindor Quidditch team, which at the moment were at the top of the league.

"Thank you. Right, the rules are simple, we will choose the duellers and they will be matched against a teacher for each round, this will be posted as soon as possible!" Alice said loudly and clearly.

"They will then duel and whoever wins will battle the winner of the other duels, this will go on until we have one winner in the end, crowned Hogwarts champion!" Lupin said excitedly as he smiled at Alice.

"You have three days to sign up then the competition will begin! Good luck and thank you!" she said, sitting down with Lupin at the end of the staff table next to a very disgruntled looking Snape.

"Right, that will be all, goodnight everyone" Dumbledore shouted as the sound of thousands of chair scraping on the stone floor could be heard. Dumbledore turned to find a rather angry looking Snape in front of him.

"Since when did I agree to do this Albus, it wasn't mentioned to me!" he snarled in Dumbledore's face.

"Since, Severus, the other staff members made you part of this, you weren't there for the meeting so we had to decide for you. Don't worry Severus all the staff will be taking part apart from me of course," Dumbledore replied calmly. Snape turned quickly and strode towards the dungeons grumbling about Dumbledore being an old coot who needed to get his head looked at.

"Someone seems happy!" Alice said laughing out loud as she stood up with Lupin, they were holding hands. "We've got loads of marking to do so goodnight Albus and good luck with Severus!" she shouted whilst they headed towards their shared quarters. Dumbledore chuckled to himself; this was going to be an interesting year.