Intermediates - Boggarts on Defense Against the Dark Arts

Professor Daniel Nash

April 29, 2018 5:44 PM

Intermediates - Boggarts by Professor Daniel Nash

Daniel was starting the new year with the dangerous creatures unit, which he normally rather enjoyed, but this year . . . was complicated. Veelas were completely off the curriculum this year, not that they were up the sentient creature section yet, but it would come up later and he was hoping the older students wouldn't read to much into their absence. The fourth years and Zevalyn Ives, at least, might reasonably assume he mixed up which creatures he covered each year, and it was simply an off year for veelas, which wasn't a bad assumption since he did do that with other creatures. Even fifth years could just figure he was on a rotating pattern that exposed everyone to them twice during their intermediate career instead of three times, which again, he did with some spells. So not covering veelas was probably not noteworthy enough to cause any suspicion, especially since he hadn't been teaching at Sonora long enough to have developed any clear patterns yet. So that part was fine.

What was less fine was that there was an actual half-veela in his class this year, and they were both acutely aware of that fact, and he was a bit afraid she was going to regard anything negative he said about any other dangerous creature covered in this unit as applying to her. Yesterday, he had opened the topic and given fair warning that the non-sentient creatures were dangerous and active magical predators, but they were animals and most were not inherently evil, they were just doing what they had evolved to do to survive. Which, in the case of boggarts, the first such creature under study, was to feed off the fear of wizards. Also, today, they would be getting to experience one in person.

He hadn't been able to get an actual boggart last year for demonstration, and boggarts had already been covered by the time he took over the year before that (and he didn't think Professors Carter or Pye had done a practical lesson on them that year either, though he wouldn't swear to that), so there was no precedent for how he had previously handled a practical lesson in boggarts. "Before we bring out the boggart today, is there anybody who wants to take a pass to the library for this period, especially if you think you're infected with the plague or have some other reason to fear extreme emotion this year? Also, I'm not letting everybody here run away, so I'm putting a maximum limit of five on this offer, so if you think you can handle this lesson without endangering the class, please try." He was glad for a moment that Jasmine was still a beginner or he would have had to make a conscious decision about whether or not to give her a very stern look at that. Fortunately, he was spared calling out his niece in public this time around.

The offer was made mostly for Cleo's benefit, so if the half-veela needed an out on potentially revealing her deepest fear, she had one, so after he made sure she got one of the passes if she wanted it and the library kids escaped, he levitated out the heavy chest with the boggart in it. "As we covered yesterday," he reminded those who were left, "boggarts like to live in dark places like closets and attics, and old storage chests like this one." He set it down and it rattled a bit as the boggart inside sensed the food supply nearby and tried to get out. "Please line up and remember the spell you learned yesterday. Boggarts feed off of fear and hate the taste of joy and amusement, so they will retreat when they taste that. Riddikulus itself doesn't actually affect them at all. When you see a boggart, what you think you are seeing is only a mental projection - an illusion - of your strongest fear. What riddikilous does is change that illusion, so that it can invoke amusement instead of fear from those who perceive it, which in turn makes you all start tasting awful and the boggart retreats. Stay calm. Stay focused. What you see will not be real. Remember that and try your best to find everything hilarious."

"You're up," he told the unfortunate victim at the front of the line and he opened the chest to release the boggart.

OOC: As stated, some people can run away to the library. For everyone else, Daniel's on hand to prevent major emergencies, so /g him if one starts to occur. Have fun! After the first person, assume the boggart gets sent back into the chest and he opens it up again for the next person.

Subthreads:

From the Silly Pureblood Files by Ivy Brockert, Teppenpaw with Simon Mordue, Crotalus

I didn’t mean to by Jozua Sparks, Teppenpaw

Not going to hide by Winston Pierce, Crotalus

1 Professor Daniel Nash Intermediates - Boggarts 130 Professor Daniel Nash 1 5

Ivy Brockert, Teppenpaw

May 18, 2018 5:01 PM

From the Silly Pureblood Files by Ivy Brockert, Teppenpaw

Although Ivy had been disappointed to not go home for the holiday break, it hadn't been really been all that terrible as she'd still had Vlad, Peyton, Natalie, Kira and Fabian. Plus, Vlad had invited her and Peyton to the ice skating gathering that his roommate had put together. Granted, she'd been the only third year invited, but Ivy didn't really mind. She was from Minnesota and really liked ice skating so it had been fun.

Now, though, midterm was over and they were back in classes. Honestly, the Teppenpaw didn't really mind that either. She'd always enjoyed learning.

However, Ivy couldn't say she was thrilled about the lesson they were having today. Boggarts. Who really wanted to face what they were most afraid of, especially within a group of one's peers? Intellectually she knew that the lesson was necessary but it still seemed rather cruel.

At least Professor Nash was letting some of them go to the library. That was really compassionate of him. She didn't think she needed to use one of the passes though, it was much better to leave them for someone who really did. She would feel bad if they freaked out and embarassed themselves because she had been selfish enough to take the pass.

Besides, she really did want to learn how to defeat a boggart. Who knew when one would pop up? They could be anywhere.

She found herself in the middle of the group. Just because Ivy wanted to learn didn't mean she was going to rush right in. She was eager but not that eager.

When her turn came, the boggart morphed at once into her worst fear,a Viking, dressed primarily in tradtional Viking garb, complete with a sword. However, there was one exception. He was wearing a t-shirt that said "Minnesota" on it. Yup, he was a Minnesota Viking! Ivy had always found Vikings in her history lessons to be frightening so to know they were still around and in her own state was quite frankly a bit unnerving.

And he was pointing that sword directly at her! Where was Arabella with her fencing skills when Ivy needed her?

Okay, funny, she had to make this funny. Hmm....well, maybe if the sword was a huge fish. And the Viking was wearing a court jester's hat instead. And he was yodeling. Yes, that would do. "Riddikulus" Ivy called and with the bells on his new hat jingling, the Viking thrust his fish at her, and attempted to say something that was probably vulgar and threatening but came out as a yodel.

The Teppenpaw stepped back and let the next person go ahead.

11 Ivy Brockert, Teppenpaw From the Silly Pureblood Files 394 Ivy Brockert, Teppenpaw 0 5

Simon Mordue, Crotalus

June 04, 2018 7:21 PM

Continuing the theme. by Simon Mordue, Crotalus

Simon could imagine things he would like to do more than take Professor Nash up on his offer to skip class today, but very few of them were things that he could also do immediately. He did not know what his worst fear was. He did not want to know what his worst fear was. He really, really did not want everyone else to know what his worst fear was. His main goal in life was to be as comfortable and untroubled by strong emotions as was physically and morally possible. Plus, his cousin had had the plague and his sister was in the early stages of the plague, which meant it was entirely possible - probable, even - that Simon also had the plague, the specific reason why Professor Nash seemed to have created the exception. He had a plethora of arguments, then, in favor of leaving, one of which he could even admit to in public. This made it even harder to watch other people departing without having even attempted to secure his own escape.

Dignity was, he thought grumpily, a hell of a thing. Trying to preserve it was like trying to preserve a snowflake - touch it and it dissolved at once, leaving only a splotch to prove it had ever existed - and yet he had to consider its preservation all the time, and could not do what seemed most natural, which was to withdraw from all the communion with the rest of wizard-kind which perennially threatened it. He wished to heartily kick both Uncle Nicky and Aunt Cynthia, the self-indulgent fools who had made it so very much more important for all the rest of the family to be flawless. In lieu of the ability to kick them, he hoped Aunt Cynthia had a skull-cracking migraine and that Uncle Nicky’s secretary was unfaithful to him with a Muggle fisherman, and also that Winston had a far worse boggart than Simon himself ended up saddled with.

He awaited the summons with a knot in his stomach and, for all his efforts not to, a certain apprehension in his expression. Of course it was not real - but just the thought of something eating his emotions for its sustenance, and of emotions having tastes - just that thought alone was a bit unnerving. The idea of being regarded by something not as its natural superior, but rather as just a source of food -

He shuddered at that thought, feeling faintly ill and also suddenly interested in vegetarianism, and tried to divert his thoughts to other channels. He would have thought fear would taste bitter, or sour, or something- not pleasant - what could other feelings be like, and also, what was worse - something feeding off bad feelings, or positive ones? Being in an endless state of happiness might feel better, but he imagined it would render one just as useless in the end. Certainly that was the line his father had taken when he lectured Simon about proper behavior, emphasizing that Duty was the chiefest thing and Dignity an important one. Everyone had to have some pleasures, Alexander Mordue had grudgingly admitted, but it was best to find them within the confines of one’s employment and duties and family (Simon had thought of Sylvia’s love of distracting their mother by asking her to talk about her jewels and about Nathaniel’s likings for photography and solitary walks, not to mention their shared inclination to go play like children in a treehouse, though Simon doubted his father had done the same; he wasn’t even entirely sure Papa noticed the majority of Nathaniel and Sylvia’s flaws, thinking of the latter as his little princess and the former as the poor orphaned child), and in any case necessary to put them to the side the moment they interfered with an obligation. So endless happiness was also out - but if one had to choose….

Professor Nash’s voice cut across his ruminations. Here he went, then. He tried to focus on the memory of...whatever it was...Ivy Brockert had called up - that had been frankly ridiculous even in its original incarnation; a viking alone was intimidating, but one in an anachronistic shirt which said ‘Minnesota’ on it for no apparent reason couldn’t help being a bit comical, to his mind, as well - instead of on the ever-bubbling, barely-suppressed cauldron of anxieties which composed much of his interior life. If he could just focus on someone else’s problems instead of his own….

When the floor was cleared, the boggart flashed and then - a greenish, spectral woman with long black hair, one who looked more like a corpse recently removed from water than a person, or at least Simon’s idea of such a thing. That it was neither human nor inferius was, however, quickly proven by the motion of the lips, and the shriek which followed - Simon’s hands both went up to cover his ears at once, but he remembered himself and snapped the one holding his wand back down to point at the boggart-banshee and shouted (as it somehow seemed important to be able to hear himself casting the spell) “Riddikulus!”

The banshee continued, unfortunately, to scream, but the spell definitely had an effect - said banshee now had an elaborate horned headdress and a breastplate on along with the obligatory rags. Now the banshee was a faux-Valkyrie opera singer, a phenomenon which made his very lips tremble to keep back giggles as he stepped aside for the next student - though the effort did become easier when he considered that it was entirely possible he had just either frightened or offended Miss Brockert. He stepped over to the Teppenpaw girl and tried to think smooth thoughts.

“I think your solution to that was better than mine, Miss Brockert,” he said, with the slightest suggestion of a bow of his head. “I wish I had thought to - well, at least alter that thing’s voice. I never thought I’d think yodeling was the best option to hear before!”

16 Simon Mordue, Crotalus Continuing the theme. 369 Simon Mordue, Crotalus 0 5

Jozua Sparks, Teppenpaw

June 05, 2018 11:11 AM

I didn’t mean to by Jozua Sparks, Teppenpaw

The conversation with Deputy Headmistress Skies had helped somewhat with Jozua’s guilt over bringing the disease into Sonora and causing a quarantine over Christmas. It wasn’t gone. Sure, it was spreading all over the wizarding world and it could have reached the school through any of the staff, but it hadn’t. It had come to Sonora through him. Sure, there was no way he could have known he was carrying a highly contagious disease when he arrived in September, and he would have surely stayed home a few extra weeks if he had known, but he hadn’t. He’d returned to school and brought the plague with him.

Intentional or not, unlucky happenstance or not, it was still all Jozua’s fault.

And illness or not, Patient Zero or not, Jozua had been the first to show symptoms, the first to lose control of his magic, before anyone knew what was happening. People knew now why he had, Professor Skies said people shouldn’t hold plague magic against anybody, but Jozua couldn’t shake the feeling that his incidents were somehow different from those that came after. Less forgivable.

Maybe not the sparks. The sparks were about on par with what other kids were doing. That had clearly been accidental magic, well outside his control.

The more concerning issue, in Jozua’s opinion, was the flame out in Transfiguration. That had been different. His bout of accidental magic had been in putting that out, not setting it off in the first place. That had just been out of control magic, plain and simple. It was possible, probable even, that the illness had exacerbated the issue, but it didn’t seem to be a symptom everyone had. He wasn’t even sure if anyone else had experienced it. Maybe Parker. Jozua wasn’t sure. But if it wasn’t just a rare side effect of the illness, what did that mean? Had Jozua been at fault for his unstable magic at the beginning of the year?

Or did it just mean he was more in tune with his magic, more consciously aware of how it felt day-to-day so he was able to recognize a change and just being so hyper-aware if it made it harder to control when it wasn’t in its natural state? It had seemed to settle back to normal as soon as his fever was gone. But was that causality or just coincidence?

He supposed there was no way to know for certain unless the instability returned, and whether or not it coincided with a reinfection, but so far he had shown no signs of either occurring.

Which meant Jozua had no excuse for claiming a library pass when Professor Nash offered them to the infected. Not that Jozua really wanted one anyway. Sharing his greatest fear with the entire class (less the five of them who got passes) wasn’t exactly high on his list of favorite things to do, but he doubted it could do much more damage to his self-esteem than realizing he was the reason everyone had to miss Christmas already had.

So he not only stayed for the practical demonstration but somehow managed to be at the front of the line to face the boggart. He hadn’t attempted to push forward to be at the front, but neither had he attempted not to be at the front while apparently everyone else had. So here he was. First.

Well, maybe Professor Nash would look kindly on him for this after he’d skipped so many classes at the beginning of the year.

“Ready,” he said, taking a defensive stance with his wand between himself and the boggart as Professor Nash opened the chest.

He wasn’t entirely sure what he expected. Probably a Lethifold or something. Lethifolds were terrifying. He used to have nightmares all the time where he woke up thinking his blanket was a Lethifold trying to smother him and eat him.

The boggart didn’t turn into a Lethifold.

Deputy Headmistress Skies stood in front of the now empty chest. She looked stern and a more than a little bit angry. Quite a lot like she had that Transfiguration class when he’d briefly set his desk on fire, actually.

He was still trying to adjust to the idea that he wasn’t up against a Lethifold, and therefore his idea to turn it into a fuzzy yellow blanket with the Teppenpaw crest on it wasn’t going to work (his personal theory was that the Teppenpaw crest was at least as equally effective as holy water on dark creatures) so he didn’t manage to do anything to the Boggart Skies before she started talking.

(And seriously, how do you make the Deputy Headmistress funny without risking turning your DADA professor against you for disrespect to his boss? Really, it was bad enough that Professor Skies was his boggart but now he somehow had to make her hilarious, too?)

“Mr. Sparks,” she/it said in a very disappointed tone. “As if being responsible for getting the entire school sick and quarantined wasn’t enough-“ Jozua flinched visibly, his face going pale and his mind going more blank than it already was because it wasn’t Skies he was afraid of.

It was everyone else knowing he was the reason they had missed Christmas. He was why everyone was getting sick. He was why they had been stuck at school instead of able to see their families and friends at home.

It was all Jozua’s fault.

And now everyone knew.

Terror gripped him, held him frozen in place. Not so much of the boggart. The boggart had done its thing. There was nothing further the boggart could say or do to scare him more than he was already.

What would everyone else think? What would they do? What would they say?

Jozua had ruined all of their holidays.

He wasn’t quite sure what happened in the seconds followed those damaging words. He guessed Professor Nash took care of the boggart for him. Merlin knew Jozua was in no condition to do it. The thing probably got a good and tasty meal out of him. But somehow the boggart was back in its chest and Jozua was being directed back to the end of the line and being told he could recover while everyone else got a turn and he could try again after that, if there was time.

Jozua walked back to the end of the line, as if in a fog. That had happened. Everyone knew. The worst thing was, the boggart wouldn’t even be the same thing for his second attempt. That cat was already out of the bag now.

“I’m sorry about your midterm,” he mumbled to the student he ended up behind, still feeling almost numb. He wondered if that was the physiological effect of his greatest fear being realized, or because the boggart fed off of him. “I didn’t mean to get everyone sick.”

1 Jozua Sparks, Teppenpaw I didn’t mean to 348 Jozua Sparks, Teppenpaw 0 5

Winston Pierce, Crotalus

June 05, 2018 4:27 PM

Not going to hide by Winston Pierce, Crotalus

Winston arrived in the DADA classroom with a sense of dread. Yesterday, Professor Nash had gone on about boggarts, and had everyone learn the Riddikulus spell. It wasn’t a huge jump from there to the assumption that today there could be an actual boggart to face. He was right.

He was also surprised that there was the option to go to the library if you were infected, and Winston thought he probably was. He was pretty sure he’d been the one responsible for putting Cleo in a dress just before midterm. He also was pretty sure Cleo was the one responsible for shutting herself away behind the wall. But that class had turn weird fast enough that at least one of them was definitely infected, and probably both of them were. He almost raised his hand to get the pass (Cleo was), but Simon didn’t, and Winston wasn’t about to run away if Simon wasn’t. Simon was his roommate, and he was pretty sure Simon’s little sister Sylvia had it, too, so it was highly likely that Simon had caught it from somebody even if he hadn’t shown any symptoms yet. So if Simon was braving the boggart, Winston had to, too.

So he didn’t raise his hand for a pass and lined up with everyone else who hadn’t got one, making sure he was behind Simon, so he knew what he was up against.

Jozua was scared of getting in trouble. He was so scared of it that he couldn’t even get the spell out, apparently. Pfft. Winston could do better than that and he wasn’t even a fifth year who ran a dueling club. Winston thought little about what Jozua was getting in trouble for. Sucked to be him, getting it first, but it was just an illness and Jozua had been pretty spectacular in his displays at the very beginning of the year, so it was hardly surprising to know he was the one who brought it into the school. Big deal. Diseases spread. If you were going to have a boggart about getting in trouble, at least get in trouble for something horrible. Winston’s greatest fear, whatever it was, had to be better than that.

More people went, including Ivy, whose boggart confused him slightly, but bloodthirsty vikings would certainly be frightening to meet, and fears were rarely rational. The shirt suggested she was afraid of running into them in her own state, which, while highly unlikely and not historically accurate, wouldn’t be something he wanted to run into in New Hampshire either.

Then it was Simon who was afraid of hags. A respectable fear. Good to know. A less than totally impressive reimagining of it (Winston rubbed at his ears to stop the ringing) but a successful one. So room for outshining him, but a solid performance by his roommate. And no accidental magic. So he’d either kept his calm very well or he really wasn’t infected yet.

All too soon after that, it was Winston’s turn.

A tall shadowy figure rose up out of the chest as Professor Nash opened it again. It had silvery fur, and looked a bit like a skinny bear before it vanished entirely behind one of the desks.

Winston’s heart beat loudly as he recognized it: a Hide Behind. He’d been fortunate never to encounter one before, but Duesius had seen them on Mt. Pierce before, and Dad warned him not to go out in the woods a night because because there might be one out there.

His fingers tightened around his wand, but he couldn’t see it. How could he make a Hide Behind ridiculous if it was hiding behind one of all these desks?

And abruptly, there were no desks. The DADA room was completely clear of furniture. It had only the students, Professor Nash, and the Hide Behind- er, the boggart. Right a boggart. That’s all it was. He could handle a stupid boggart.

“Riddikulus!” he shouted, pointing the wand toward the Not-A-Hide-Behind, turning its fur neon green and giving it a clown costume, complete with curly rainbow hair, a red nose, and giant shoes.

Winston bet it couldn’t hide behind anything looking like that and he laughed. He had absolutely done a better job that Simon at neutralizing his fear.

Pleased with himself, he headed to the back of the room, missing the professor’s annoyed look at him for Vanishing the containment chest.

OOC: As I also write for Daniel, that last bit is not god-modding. Also, whoever goes after Winston can assume the desks are still gone (a clear working space is convenient for now, so Daniel will just get them back later), but the professor managed to retrieve the chest from wherever it got Vanished to, so he can continue confining the boggart away between students and then letting it out again when the next person is ready.

1 Winston Pierce, Crotalus Not going to hide 370 Winston Pierce, Crotalus 0 5

Ivy

July 05, 2018 10:29 PM

I don't think yours is that silly. by Ivy

Ivy stood back and watched the rest of the boggarts. She felt kind of wrong about it, like she was invading their privacy even though they had all seen hers. That was one thing about doing them in a group though, everyone knew everyone else's worst fear. Nobody had any real advantage. But she still felt guilty about watching.

However, she had nothing else to do. Ivy had brought a book but she wasn't sure that she was allowed to read or do other homework. Which would have been a whole lot nicer than sitting like a vulture preying upon the knowledge of other's fears.

Fortunately, she only had to see one, Simon Mordue's, before he finished and came over to talk to her. "Thank you, Mr. Mordue." Okay, she had winced a little at his attempt to make his boggart humorous but reminded herself it was only a boggart and his opera singing banshee wasn't exactly the same as a marauding Viking threatening her with a sword. Anyway, she appreciated the compliment.

Ivy nodded. "They do make an incredibly unpleasant noise." In all honesty, a banshee was an overall rational thing to be afraid of. They were awful to look at-not that the Teppenpaw was all that shallow, but banshees had a frightening look rather than just being unattractive-and made a sound that wasn't just nasty but could actually kill people . "I would hate to see a real one myself."

11 Ivy I don't think yours is that silly. 394 Ivy 0 5