Professor Aaron McKindy
December 05, 2006 7:26 PM
Charms Lesson I, Fifth years by Professor Aaron McKindy
The Charms classroom was strewn with multi-coloured beanbag chairs and stacks of books, some of which were the school’s and others Aaron McKindy’s personal copies. The various posters gazed down upon the gathering students. Some of the Muggle ones made points to spout some sort of advice at the fifth years who had gathered in the room. It was past time for the Charms class to start, and yet there was no teacher.At that moment, Professor Aaron McKindy entered the room with a characteristic bang. The room fell silent as the door rebounded off the wall a few times, finally deciding to remain half-open in anticipation of the man’s next sudden move. Aaron strode up to his desk in the silence, and promptly perched on top of it, examining the students.
“I am your new Charms professor, Aaron McKindy,” he said into the silence, feeling the students’ eyes upon him. A good deal of them were probably gaping at his clothing—Muggle style jeans with a purple shirt, along with the pink bubblehat. “You may address me as Professor, Professor McKindy, or anything else that displays at least a modicum of respect. Today, you will be learning the creation of charm bracelets. While these are often displayed in Muggle and Wizarding society as mere decorations, in many places they can also be weapons or useful storage areas.
“If you will notice, there are different shapes on this table. They are not made of metal, but wood. It is advised that you use shapes made from the same type of wood as your wand, as charms set in those shapes will tend to hold longer. To create a true charm bracelet, one must first decide on a spell. Anything more powerful than, say, a third or fourth year level will not adhere properly to the shape, and may cause an accident. I suggest you use the books scattered around the room to come up with appropriate level charms. Once a charm has been decided on, you must spell the potential into the shape by tapping it once with the wand and adding the suffix –tra to the spell. For instance,” Aaron picked up a star from the table in front of him, tapped it, and said “Acciotra”. There was a slight green tinge about the shape, but nothing else changed. “To release the charm, merely tap the shape again, and say ‘priori’. This is very similar to the Priori Incantatum that I am sure you have come across elsewhere. You may work in pairs if you wish.”
Nodding to dismiss the class to their respective tasks, Aaron began walking about, hoping to attach some names to the faces of these fifth years, and perhaps help with any trouble they would be having with this new concept.
OOC: For information on how the room is set up, read the Setting Up the Classroom post. Remember that the wizarding posters will move and may offer advice or criticism, while the Muggle ones are spelled to offer advice and yell rather loudly if your character starts doing anything too out of hand. Nothing above a third or fourth year level can be stored in the shapes, and while you can attempt to store a few low-level hexes or curses, anything above mildly powerful will probably attract Aaron’s attention. Have fun!
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Subthreads: Professor, a double check, if you would? by Zack Dill with Professor McKindy, Lily Collins
Cool. by Kaylie Brockert
Lesson Closes by Professor McKindy
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Professor Aaron McKindy
Charms Lesson I, Fifth years
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Professor Aaron McKindy
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Zack Dill
December 05, 2006 11:29 PM
Professor, a double check, if you would? by Zack Dill
Zack had heard that Professor - now Headmaster - Bulla was no longer teaching Charms, which meant there would be a new teacher in the core class. Charms, Zack had realized early, was what most people considered 'everyday magic'. It didn't require the time and equipment potion making did, and there were no animals, no enemies, and no defunct languages involved either.Consequently, Zack wanted to make a good impression on the new professor. He expected his new robe adornment would help a lot with that, so he shined it up (not that it had gotten dirty in the hours since he had been presented with it) and pinned it prominent on his lapel, opposite his House badge. He was in Alderaan, which he couldn't imagine was a demerit in any teacher's book, but even more than that, he was a Prefect of Alderaan.
Not to rest all his chances on that one badge, Zack also chose his normal seat in the front row (not in the middle because he didn't want to look like he was trying too hard, but a bit off to the left). He dropped his bag on the floor beside his chair and pulled out his textbook, a yellow binder with the word "Charms" written out in Sindarin across the front, a ball point pen (fine tipped), and some college ruled loose leaf paper.
He opened his binder, snapped open the rings, put in the loose leaf pages, and snapped the rings shut again. On the top of the first page, he wrote out the subject name (also in Sindarin), his name (in English, so people would know who to give it back to if they found it), the date (in Roman numerals, because Roman numerals were fun), and the word "Professor" with room for the new teacher's last name (this was also in English, so that if the person who found the sheet didn't know who he was, they could at least give it to someone who could get it back to him).
Ready now, he waited for class to begin. And waited. He checked his watch and waited some more.
Finally, the new teacher deigned to show up, and Zack was not at all impressed by his entrance. Startled, yes. Momentarily terrified, yes. Impressed, no. He wasn't sure if the silence in the room was in response to the door banging open or his own startled scream. Either way, he blushed red as he climbed out from underneath his desk and reclaimed his seat.
So much for a good first impression.
His hand was still shaking from his his scare as he wrote "McKindy" into the space left available for it and it really irritated Zack that his handwriting suffered for it. He normally had impeccable penmanship (if a little small).
Zack listened intently to the lecture and took the appropriate notes onto his properly headed piece of paper (using his normal combination of Sindarin/Klingon/Zackese). As it progressed, he became worried because he wasn't entirely sure that he remembered what kind of wood his wand was. He knew it had cost seventy-three dollars but the wood type wouldn't come to him. At the time, he hadn't realized it was important. Wood was just wood.
He frowned at his wand, and wondered if it was cedar. He was inclined to believe it was, but couldn't recall for sure. More importantly, he wasn't sure he had a great eye for telling one type of wood from another. How was he supposed to know which charms McKindy had were made of cedar if, indeed, that was the type of wood his wand was made of?
He didn't attempt to find a partner. He preferred to work by himself when at all possible. Making his way up to the table, he looked down at the shapes with a frown of concentration. He held out his wand next to the ones that seemed to be the closest in color, trying to find a charm with similiar line patterns on it.
Finding one that he thought seemed to be made of the same wood, he decided that it certainly wouldn't hurt to ask. He'd rather be incompetant on wood identification than mess up the assignment just because he'd grabbed the wrong piece.
"Professor?" he asked, going up to the man when he wasn't busy with anybody else, "Are these the same kind of wood?" He held up his wand and the little wooden piece that he'd chosen.\n\n
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Zack Dill
Professor, a double check, if you would?
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Zack Dill
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Professor McKindy
December 06, 2006 5:41 AM
Done and done by Professor McKindy
One of the things Aaron had been looking forward to particularly about this class was that,with any luck, he wouldn't tower too much over the students. Unfortunately, the first student who came up to him was over a foot smaller than he was. Not much over a foot, but still.Looking down at the shapes and the wand, Aaron shook his head. "No, I'm afraid those are applewood. What you want are these." he flicked his wand in a nonverbal accio charm, calling a handfull of small shapes to him. Then he looked at the fifth year, trying to remember where he had seen him before. "Mr. Dill, correct? The Aladren prefect?" The feast sounded along the right lines. Aaron himself had been rather occupied with learning faculty names and such, but the prefects were fairly important. \n\n
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Professor McKindy
Done and done
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Professor McKindy
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Zack Dill
December 06, 2006 2:23 PM
Continuing on then by Zack Dill
Applewood, huh? Zack hadn't realized that was even a tree type. Okay, yes, he knew apples grew on trees, but he hadn't thought the wood from such trees was ever used for anything. It was a good thing he'd asked. He accepted the handful of small wooden pieces from the professor that were made of correct wood type (he still wasn't a hundred percent on what, precisely, his wand was, beyond not-applewood.)"Yeah," Zack agreed, looking up in surprise when the teacher demonstrated that he already knew Zack's name. For a moment, he wasn't sure how the man had managed that but the fact that Professor McKindy next brought up his prefect status reminded him that he'd been awarded that position in front of everyone at the feast. "Yeah," he said again to the second query, though it was probable that the question was merely rhetorical. Zack was, after all, wearing said prefect and House badges.
Holding up the handful of uncharmed charms, he nodded back toward his desk. "I guess I'll get to work now," he excused himself and went back to his seat and sat down. He put aside all but one of the shapes (this one looked a bit like a sun - a round body with rays coming out of it) and frowned at it thoughtfully.
Since suns gave off light, he decided to charm this one with the lumos spell. He tapped his wand to the wooden sun and said clearly, "Lumostra." He tapped it again, this time casting, "Priori," to see if it worked.
It glowed. Not very brightly, but it glowed about the same as a flashlight with a dying battery. Not too bad for a first try.
He grabbed another charm, selecting a six pointed star, and gave it another try. "Lumostra!" And again, to test it, "Priori!"
Brighter than before. Good, improvement was nothing to be ashamed of, even if the charm still wasn't nearly as bright as his wand-based lumos could normally get. He just needed some more practice and to read up a lot more on literal charm bracelets. \n\n
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Zack Dill
Continuing on then
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Lily Collins
December 06, 2006 6:35 PM
A suggestion by Lily Collins
Lily strode into the Charms room, not quite sure what to expect from the new professor. She was pleased to see bean bag chairs on the floor though. Lily had always wanted one, but her mom wouldn't let her because she thought they weren't classy and associated them with hippies and the um, stuff hippies did which of course her mom and her wannabe high class, proper, and semi-religious world didn't approve of. Her father and grandparents of course, were purebloods and therefore, did not know what they were.She picked one with a black and orange pattern swirly pattern and sat down. Lily sank back into it while they waited for the professor..and waited...and waited. Maybe if he didn't get here soon, they could all leave.
The fifth year Crotalus was just about to get up and leave when the man entered the classroom. Lily mentally cursed. It had been so close.
The new professor, whose clothing reminded Lily of either that of a circus clown or of something out of Dr. Seuss, began to speak, giving them instructions on today's lesson. Reluctantly, she got up off her beanbag-she'd only been willing to get off it before if she could leave class-to get the wooden charms.
Lily frowned as she looked over the wood. She knew her wand was oak, but how was she supposed to know oak from any other wood? All she knew was it would be close to the same color as her wand.
Then she overheard Zack Dill talking to the professor .Apparently, he was having the same issue she was. A solution came to Lily's mind. She strode over to the professor. "Professor McKindly, do you think you could label each wood? We might not know one from another if they are close in color. I don't think the average person knows that much about different woods."\n\n
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Lily Collins
A suggestion
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Professor McKindy
December 07, 2006 5:19 AM
A reply by Professor McKindy
Having just finished with Zack, Aaron turned around to find a girl asking him to label the different woods. Ah! He knew he had forgotten something."Of course, Miss...." he replied, striding over to the table and waving his wand over each pile. Purple letters formed in the air over each type of wood, shimmering. The identification should be fairly obvious. So long as the students knew what type of wood their wands were made of, there shouldn't be any more problems of that sort.
He was fairly interested to see what the fifth years would come up with for their charm bracelets. Some of the boys might think it was too feminine a thing to do, but Aaron thought it best to always be aware of what could happen with magical artifacts. \n\n
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Professor McKindy
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Lily
December 08, 2006 3:34 PM
I'm really not so good at titles. by Lily
Lily looked at the purple lettering approvingly. Even though she didn't like when people acted superior, a feeling of satisfaction still came over her when she corrected a teacher's mistake. Lily felt this assignment was a little...silly. She'd never worn jewlery in her entire life and she probably would never think to use this bracelet.She walked over to the pile now labeled oak and took some of the wooden shapes. Lily went back and sat on her bean bag. She began to examine the objects and wondered what kind of spell she should do. Nothing too hard, of course. This wasn't a subject Lily particularily excelled in. However, she was quite good at Defense, so perhaps a defensive charm would be good. Like the Disarming spell.
She took out her wand and pointed it a charm shaped like a frog. "Expelliarmustra". It didn't initially do anything, so Lily tried again. This time it glowed a nice greenish color. She took another wooden shape and did the same thing. Lily spent the rest of class repeating the same monotonous process.\n\n
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Lily
I'm really not so good at titles.
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Lily
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Kaylie Brockert
December 08, 2006 6:25 PM
Cool. by Kaylie Brockert
As soon as Kaylie entered the Charms classroom, a confused look came to her face. Where were all the chairs? Instead there were these weird squishy things. She noticed Lily sitting down on one happily. Judging by her cousin's reaction, Kaylie realized they couldn't be too bad, if Lily, who seemed to hate an awful lot of things, liked them.She settled on one that was a beautiful ocean blue, similar to the color of the rooms that Chris's mother had redecorated for her and sat down. Kaylie looked expectantly at the door for the new professor. When he finally reached class, her eyes widened at his bizzare clothing, especially his hat. For one thing, it was pink, which the guys were sure to make fun of. He sure seemed different than Bulla, that was certain.
Kaylie grinned as he began to speak. This lesson seemed like it would be lots of fun. Making a real charm bracelet would not only look cool, but be practical and useful as well. She got up off the squishy chair, and went to get some of the wood that was now labeled willow, thanks to Lily's efforts. Kaylie looked over the shapes closely because she was going to make a pattern out of hers. She picked up several crescent moon, star, and dolphin shaped charms. She returned to her squishy chair thing and began to work on her bracelet. Kaylie had decided on a spell that would regulate the temperature around her when she played Quidditch. It would keep her from getting too cold or too hot. She did not want to get sick again out there. It would make playing Quidditch easier and more pleasant in bad weather.
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Kaylie Brockert
Cool.
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Kaylie Brockert
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Professor McKindy
January 07, 2007 7:40 AM
Lesson Closes by Professor McKindy
The fifth years were generally quiet, going about their business with a minimal amount of explosions and disagreement. Actually, if it came down to it, there were no explosions, something that Aaron was mildly surprised at. Not disappointed, but surprised nonetheless. It was actually a welcome reprieve from his first two classes, in which one student had collapsed for no discernible reason and another had decided to fire hexes off randomly in the middle of the crowded classroom. He supposed that it would only make sense that this class would be his least hectic, though. There was only one grade level present, and it theoretically contained the oldest and most responsible students.Because the children were working quietly, there was no need for Aaron to really raise his voice at lesson's end.
"Students! May I have your attention for a moment?" he waited until most eyes were upon him, then continued. "It's about time for you to go. You may take your bracelets if you wish. If not, please leave them on my desk as you depart. For your homework tonight, I would like you to research the theoretical and practical uses of Silencing Charms. We will be discussing your findings in class tomorrow, so there will be no need to write anything down. You are dismissed."
As the students began to leave the classroom in pairs and threes, Aaron went about straightening his room, re-Transfiguring the beanbags into desks, replacing books on shelves, and collecting the spare charms that had fallen, unnoticed, during the lesson. Once his room was in order, Aaron retreated into his office to have a nice cup of tea while mentally reviewing the students' reactions. Teaching wasn't really such a bad job at all.\n\n
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Professor McKindy
Lesson Closes
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