Hidden Wings - Part I

Practising

It was quiet at Hogwarts.
No students were running around, no one playing tricks on others or yelling in the corridors.
All was silent.
The Great Hall was empty, the classrooms were empty, and so were the offices. Even Professor Dumbledore's office was deserted.

But would one throw a look deep beneath the castle, one would find a different picture.

In the Magnus Antrum, a large hall with marble walls and floors in the colors of gold and black, at least a hundred witches and wizards were present.

All of them wore long pants and long-sleeved shirts in black with a small golden phoenix emblem on their right shoulder.

And all of them were training.

The air was filled with clanking noises of steel or wooden weapons hitting against each other, as well as the crackling sound of magic in the air.
Every training group comprised of four members which stood within a marked fighting area surrounded by a blue dome-like shield. Some groups focused on magic, others trained ways of defending themselves without magic.
Fourteen people were Professors at Hogwarts, twenty were Professors from other Wizarding schools scattered across Europe, but all hundred of them were members of the Order of the Phoenix.

And their latest member that had joined, was Argus Filch.

Despite him not being able to use magic, the old man had a great knowledge of all secret passages and corridors in the castle. And added to that, he had a great talent with hitting others using a wooden stick. He was fighting in a group, alongside Filius Flitwick, who used his dragonfly-like wings to buzz through the air, Poppy Pomfrey and Irma Pince. And against the expectation of many, he was doing rather well.

Magic crackled everywhere, glowing in different colors. Severus Snape fought alongside Albus Dumbledore, both of the wizards surrounded by balls of energy that sizzled in the air. The two other members of their group, which were their opponents in this task, were Aurora Sinistra and Mioha of the Moondancers.

Professor Sinistra, a tall witch with dark hair and dark skin, was wickedly good at casting shielding charms while blasting a hex at the same time at her opponents. She and Mioha had divided up the tasks between them; while Professor Sinistra was fighting Professor Snape, Mioha was focusing for Professor Dumbledore.

And once again, long silver whips whirled through the air as Mioha let them crash into Professor Dumbledore, who threw up a shield in the last minute.

Mioha's silver whips sizzled and crackled as she whipped them around at a high speed, not only using them to block spells but also to trap her opponents by wrapping the whips around them. They had become her favorite tools in dueling, and she had gotten extremely good at handling them. Not only was she in full control of her powers now, but she was also in the best physical shape she had ever been.
And so, she and Professor Sinistra were giving Professor Dumbledore and Professor Snape a run for their money.

Elegantly moving across the round fighting arena like a panther, Professor Snape attacked his colleague with a series of stunning hexes that whizzed through the air like lightning bolts.

Professor Sinistra blocked them by creating a shield in the form of a large, vertical wall, which she let zoom forward against Professor Snape. The latter then faced a tall, white wall of magic about to squish him. He blasted it into bits and sent those tiny shards into the witch's direction.
She laughed as she easily dodged the shards.
"Is that all you've got, Severus?", she teased him.