Concerns on Charms

Professor Aaron McKindy

September 04, 2010 10:28 AM

Charms, Years III-V: Biometrics for Wizards by Professor Aaron McKindy

Exaudio read the spell on the blackboard. The dust was still clinging to the large letters in desperate hope of not joining its companions on the ledge beneath the board. Meanwhile, Professor Aaron McKindy was sitting at his desk with a mug of hot tea by his right hand, reading an article in a professional Charmists’ magazine. It was a pretty fascinating argument against the separation of Charms and Transfigurations in magical schooling, which had always been something that bothered Aaron after he’d reached a certain level with his work. On the other hand, most wizards and witches didn’t reach the point where they needed to take advantage of the meld between Charms and Transfigurations. No point in unnecessarily confusing people, after all.

Just as he finished the article, students began to wander in through the heavy oaken door of the Charms classroom. Taking a final sip of his tea, the dark-haired wizard stood and readjusted the tophat made of large, bright pink bubbles before going to the door to greet his students. Today, his robes were a medium blue with nothing particularly interesting going on with them. Usually he managed to Charm some sort of design or other onto his robes, but today Aaron had gone with something a little more on the side of ‘normal’. To be honest, the Italian was worried about Sadi. The Headmistress was a good friend of his, but ever since he and Jessie had accompanied Sadi’s family on vacation over the summer Sadi had been fighting a very nasty illness. She had her good days and her bad days and seemed to be getting through things as best she could, but that didn’t leave Aaron any less worried for his friend.

His students provided a nice distraction. It was the first lesson of the year and Aaron began his lesson as he did customarily, chatting with students as they arrived about their summers. Given a choice between dealing with students and ‘adult’ wizards—although many of his students were considered adults—Aaron would choose his students with no shred of hesitation. He was friends with Sadi, of course, and got along decently with her husband. There was Garen, and Garen’s former roommate Zeke whom Aaron more-or-less got along with as well, but those three exceptions aside, the man couldn’t think of any adult he was especially friends with. And Zeke was more of a friend-by-extension anyway.

“Okay guys,” Aaron started the lesson when the kids had basically settled into their seats and seemed to have had a decent amount of time to catch up with their classmates about their summer adventures, “today’s lesson is on a personal favourite of mine: the recording charm.

“We use locking charms to lock things we don’t want to be opened with a simple ‘Alohomora’. Locking charms can be very complicated or very simple, and they can be either complicated or simple to remove. This year, we’re going to be putting a special emphasis on access charms. I get the feeling that they’re going to start being more and more present in the CATs and RATs exams, but besides that,” the man grinned, grey-green eyes focused on the group of students scattered in the desks about the room. “locking things can be useful. Anyone have siblings or nosy parents? Exactly,” Aaron chuckled at the students’ expressions. Privacy was something that most teenagers wanted, and in a magical household it could be harder to come by than usual.

“For centuries, Muggles have used locks, keys and codes of various sorts to stop others from invading their privacy. Until very recently, they didn’t have anything any more stable than that. Wizards can protect their locks by making them impenetrable to a certain group of spells or by putting a nasty Stinging Hex or two to catch unsuspecting intruders. But the problem with both of these methods is that all you need to access what’s being protected is a certain type of information. Where is the key hidden? What’s the combination for the combination lock? Which spells won’t work and which spells will? As wizards, we are especially, ah, adept at discovering information intended to be secret. Anyone have examples?”

The usual set of examples were shouted out by the more active members of the class, with one or two surprises. Aaron definitely heard a mention of Veritaserum as well as some more minor truth-telling potions that they’d probably learnt over the years from the various Potions professors at Sonora. A few spells got a mention as well, mostly along the lines of Unforgiveables.

“Right,” the man said with a nod, as the class seemed to collectively run out of ways to get ‘secret’ information out of another person. “So we developed something that can’t be stolen easily: we invented a way to safeguard our information in a way that other people can’t access it. We developed a way to combine typical locking spells—which we’ll be learning later this year, if you were curious—with voice-recognition. By recording a voice sample using this charm,” the man motioned at the spell on the board, “you key that lock to your voice and your voice alone. Of course, there are ways to get around this as well, but they are much more complicated than the ways to get around more basic spells.

“So! For this class period, I want you to work on setting this spell on a set of locks that have already been pre-charmed to possess a ‘base’ locking spell. First, you cast the charm,” with a flick of his wand, Aaron sent one of the small wooden boxes with locks on them that were sitting on a set of tables on the far side of the classroom zooming towards him. Carefully, he executed the wand motion (something that looked like a sine graph with a curlicue at the end) and pronounced the spell name, quickly following it with a carefully pronunciated ‘Aaron Patrick McKindy’. There was a flash of silver around the lock before it returned to looking like nothing had happened.

“If I open it now,” Aaron said, withdrawing a key from the pocket of his robes, “without repeating the passphrase,” and he put the key in the lock and turned. He didn’t particularly need to explain what would happen, because a series of silver sparks showered up and around, the key warming in his hand. Before it got too hot, Aaron withdrew the key from the lock. “That happens. Of course, the reaction is keyed to the base charm put on the lock. If the base charm sends a flock of canaries spinning around the head of the intruder, I would be Banishing a group of little yellow birds right now instead.

“In case you were wondering,” the man added, somewhat contemplatively, “a similar Charm is set on each of the passageways to your House Commons. Anyway. I want you to get in pairs and work together on charming your boxes—they’re on that table over there—and testing to see if they work. For homework, I want one essay from the two of you together about which locking spells you think were on each of your boxes. That’s due next class, at least four pages please.”

With that, Aaron let the kids get to work. He rather liked locking Charms. Then again, Aaron had always been fond of his privacy.

|OOC|
More sentences = more House points. More interesting posts = more House points. Follow the rules, you should know them by now. If you need Aaron, please tag me in your subject line and I’ll get to it as soon as possible. Please note that the locking charms probably shouldn’t maim or seriously injure anyone—Aaron likes his students, after all—but beyond that, feel free to be creative.

Subthreads:

I foresee many uses for this lesson. by Raines Bradley, Crotalus with Daniel Nash II, Aladren

If there was ever a charm I needed, it's this one. by Pippa Brockert, Teppenpaw

Title block by Alessa Hinckley, Aladren

Concerns by Quentin Melcher, Aladren

0 Professor Aaron McKindy Charms, Years III-V: Biometrics for Wizards 0 Professor Aaron McKindy 1 5

Raines Bradley, Crotalus

September 04, 2010 8:41 PM

I foresee many uses for this lesson. by Raines Bradley, Crotalus

Raines' summer had been spent in a private hell of Italian vocabulary and genealogies more complex than those of some Greek gods, so when his reasonably early arrival to Charms led to being asked about it, he quickly said something more socially acceptable, turned the question back on Professor McKindy, and melted out of the conversation as soon as a few other students were present enough for his absence to either go unnoticed or seem natural.

He sat, as usual when he had the choice, near the front, but not at it; he needed to keep the number of things he found distracting at a minimum when working, and - though he had, to his great satisfaction, grown a good bit since this time last year - he was never going to be tall, so physically the front of the room was in his best interests, but he didn't want to draw the wrong sort of attention to himself, which made it imperative to sit a bit further back. The very front of the room was for the geniuses, the ones who enjoyed lessons most and were best at them, and it was easier to look like something close to one of those people when he wasn't directly among the real things.

That was his golden rule: when he could not be the best, he could at least appear to be. Appearances were all that really mattered anyway. Most people were too stupid to ever look past them, at least at this stage in their lives. His mother said that more people began to take notice of inconsistencies once they were adults, but until then, even if it was only due to having a better set of connections who were easier to play off of each other than those most people had, he was best at something.

He found the lesson, once the shape of it began to become apparent to him, interesting, but he elected not to share any of his own thoughts on retrieving information from an unauthorized or unwilling source. For one thing, his usual strategy was to either extract it from his parents or cut a deal with Catherine, who was just bright enough to get the information without letting half the state know and just dim enough to still not fully get that she was an adult and could therefore brush him off any time she wanted. The only information he might need magic to obtain would be things about who his parents were having affairs with, and he wasn't yet bold enough to actually blackmail one of them. His father would knock him upside the head if he tried, and his mother - well, she might be pleased at his progress, or she might marry him off to a hunchback in Guam or some such on top of getting his uncle to disinherit him. He could never be quite sure of her in that regard.

It was better for his ego, though, to think that he kept his thoughts to himself just now because he was playing a nice role here and didn't see the need to introduce things that would muddle that image up to his fellows. So he thought about that instead.

Still, he wasn't always going to be stuck on a smallish estate in Louisiana, with nothing more pressing that his grades to worry about. This class was proof that things moved along, work got more advanced. Information would become more important, and so harder to obtain and easier to lose. So he paid attention, including, in addition to the actual notes, the professor's full name for future reference.

He left out the most obvious shortcoming of the system: in most cases, someone would know the information that was on the document in a voice-charmed lockbox. He supposed there could be something, with different people writing down disconnected parts and then having it scrubbed from their memories, but that was more complicated than what most people were going to go in for. He couldn't imagine what data an average person would consider that confidential, and besides, most people objected strongly to memory wipes being performed on anyone other than Muggles. Objected strongly enough that it was illegal, though every now and again one did hear of rogue Obliviators who were making a profit by "helping" people forget traumas or crimes or with making people who knew something the client wanted kept secret forget about it. The government arranging something like that would go against the view of it he'd always had presented to him, which was of a weak, loosely-linked network of competitive offices dominated by local power players, but who was to say that the establishment wasn't playing everyone while they thought they were playing it as well as each other? Paranoia was paranoia, but it didn't mean there was nothing to be paranoid about.

Oh, yes, this was an interesting lesson. If not for the last bit, the one about having to write a joint essay, which made a hint of a smile fall off his face faster than a stone from a height, he would have been tempted to congratulate McKindy on a good lesson on his way out of the door. As it was, he made sure, after collecting a box, to end up beside someone he thought was reasonably intelligent and whose presence he could tolerate. That narrowed his selection quite a bit, even among other Crotali and the Aladrens, but he thought it would be worse to behave in a pseudo-egalitarian manner and end up killing off one of the Pecaris for botching up his grade. He didn't think the Headmistress - or, for that matter, McKindy, who was their Head of House - would appreciate his thoughts on how valuable most of them were to the world anyway.

"Shall we work together?" he asked, intentionally being as pleasant as possible. Hopefully, they could complete the entire exercise in a day, but if he started off at the top of his amity scale, then he would still be at least civil if this dragged on and he began to lose patience.

0 Raines Bradley, Crotalus I foresee many uses for this lesson. 0 Raines Bradley, Crotalus 0 5

Pippa Brockert, Teppenpaw

September 07, 2010 11:52 PM

If there was ever a charm I needed, it's this one. by Pippa Brockert, Teppenpaw

Charms was Pippa's best class after COMC and she'd only improved since Professor McKindy had been her teacher. His predecessor had intimidated her terribly and Pippa had felt she hadn't done as well in Professor Taylor's class because the woman had had very high standards.

Not that Pippa wasn’t used to having high standards placed on her. Being part of an important pureblood family, she had been raised a certain way, and certain behaviors were expected of her. She was expected to be a proper young lady at all times, get good grades, but not excel at or enjoy things like Potions and always be polite and respectful to authority, at least if they were pureblood. Pippa was not allowed to play Quidditch and it was generally accepted that she wasn’t supposed to be too athletic or forceful. None of this was that hard on her, but it was on her sisters.

Professor McKindy was nicer too, more warm and friendly. The Teppenpaw tended to feel more at ease with those who were kinder and more compassionate despite (or perhaps because of) the adults she interacted with on a regular basis at home. Nobody would call Grandmother Royce any of the adjectives that Pippa had just applied to the Charms professor, even if it was just in comparison to the previous one. In fact, certain people-such as Melora-would claim that Professor Taylor was more compassionate than Grandmother. (Of course, Pippa’s older sister would have applied those adjectives to Flatt the Elder before she would have Pippa’s maternal grandmother. Melora and the older woman didn’t get on at all.)

She knew she had it easier from Grandmother than either of her sisters, but that really didn’t make her relax all that much. It only made Pippa feel she had to do better so as not to disappoint her. Not to mention that the Teppenpaw didn’t want to do anything to ruin her betrothal to Justin. If she disgraced herself and it didn’t go through, everyone would be so mad at her. Pippa had had a taste of that after the dance and didn’t want to go through it again. Sometimes, she wished she could be more like Melora and just not care but she did. It was just that, well, it would be easier and she wouldn’t feel quite so anxious.

At least they were proud of her for becoming prefect. Even if Tawny was mad about it. That is, if that was even what the Pecari was mad about. Pippa had known the younger girl since Tawny was born and in her memory, there had been very few times when Tawny wasn’t angry. Most of them had been when Pippa was somehow miserable.

As Professor McKindy began the lesson, and Pippa gave him her full focus, she grinned. If there was ever a charm that she might need, it was an unlocking charm that was scanned to her voice only. The Teppenpaw had kept a diary for years now and she always had the fear that Tawny would read it. As guilty as it made her feel to think that way about her own sister, Pippa couldn’t help it. It would probably have been stupid to trust the Pecari at this point after how she had treated Pippa over the years. And the usual ways probably would not have helped her because if Tawny was bored enough she’d just look for a way to get around whatever extra measures Pippa would have taken.

This was, apparently, the only way to go. She walked up to the table and grabbed a box. Pippa turned to the person next to her and asked. "Do you want to work with me on this?"

11 Pippa Brockert, Teppenpaw If there was ever a charm I needed, it's this one. 132 Pippa Brockert, Teppenpaw 0 5

Alessa Hinckley, Aladren

September 15, 2010 12:07 AM

Title block by Alessa Hinckley, Aladren

Generally speaking, Alessa liked most of her classes except for DADA and COMC. Charms was pretty awesome even though Professor McKindy's fashion sense kind of hurt her eyes. It didn't bother Alessa too awful much though. At least he didn't make them do anything athletic even though he did have them bake once. Even that was better than trying to find their way out of the labyrinth or worse, playing a silly muggle game where they had to throw balls at each other. That had been the worst. Alessa couldn't wait to take her CATS so she could drop Defense once and for all.

It wasn't like she really needed that class. Sure, the Aladren was part of several wealthy and well-connected pureblood families which automatically made her a target and she was sure to be betrothed to someone equally wealthy, well-connected and pureblooded but still, Alessa was sure she could hire someone, some body guards to protect her.

And she was certainly never ever going to play any sort of athletic game. The thought made her shudder. Alessa would rather do anything in the world than that, even touch rat spleens without gloves. She only had to touch a rat spleen for a second to put it in a potion and then could wash her hands. Those dreadful athletic things in DADA lasted for a whole class period.

At least flying lessons were only required for firsties, thank Merlin. Alessa was never getting on a broom again, barring the imperius curse being placed upon her.

Charms, however, was a most useful class and one Alessa was likely going to be taking after CATS. Her parents said that Charms was necessary for the day to day life of any witch or wizard, no matter what one was going to do. However, Alessa had to admit that while she could see the point of the lesson, the Aladren wasn't sure when she personally would use this. Maybe when she had kids and needed to lock up holiday gifts or other things she wouldn't want her children to get into.

Yes, that was it. It always helped Alessa to become more interested in doing a lesson when she figured out exactly what she could use it for. She might have liked to do well, but if Alessa didn't know what the point was, sometimes, it was harder to maintain enthusiasm-or rather what passed for enthusiasm, she wasn't the type of person who showed much excitement about most things-for something.

She walked up and grabbed a box. Alessa turned to the person next to her. "Hey will you work with me on this?" The Aladren asked them.

11 Alessa Hinckley, Aladren Title block 150 Alessa Hinckley, Aladren 0 5

Quentin Melcher, Aladren

September 16, 2010 1:28 AM

Concerns by Quentin Melcher, Aladren

That morning, Quentin had gotten a letter from his father. He rarely ever wrote to Quentin so the Aladren had been surprised about it.However, the contents of the letter were not. His parents were apparently seeking a betrothal for him and talking to the parents of potential candidates. Quentin did not quite understand why his father bothered to tell him this when Quentin had only known since birth that he'd be betrothed someday.

Honestly, he wasn't sure how he felt about this. Quentin would have liked to have picked for himself. How could he trust his parents to pick someone that he would actually like? He knew they would pick someone who was both intelligent and interested in intellectual matters-there was a difference, Chelsea was a prime example of that-but he didn't think they would take things such as kindness and compassion into consideration. The Melchers had never been a family that cared about such things.

As soon as Professor Mckindy began to speak, however, Quentin ceased to think about the letter. His attention was solely on the lesson, which like most lessons, fascinated Quentin even though he was not sure when he would use it. The Aladren was an only child and it wasn't as if he had secrets or anything else to hide.

For even if he did, it wasn't as if his parents really would pay close enough attention to really pry. All they seemed to care about was that Quentin got good grades and married an important pureblood girl who was intelligent and wealthy. He only hoped that they would also pick someone who wasn't too snobby or cruel. Someone who would accept not just Quentin but his halfblood cousin as well.

That was another thing. The Aladren was quite worried about Kirstenna. Not only was he convinced that she had pica, he was rather concerned about some of the ideas she had regarding the former Transfiguration professor and the absence of one of her friends. Not to mention the young girl's sadness about her missing friend as well. Quentin really did sympathize. Had Marissa disappeared the way this Brian guy had, the Aladren would have felt bad too though he would not have assumed that she'd been kidnapped. Kirstenna had quite an imagination, which she must have got from her mother's side of the family.

Now, however, was not the time to think about it. There was a lesson to do. It wasn't that Quentin lacked compassion, but right now there was nothing he could do about either impending betrothals or his cousin's issues, so he went to go up and get a box.

11 Quentin Melcher, Aladren Concerns 129 Quentin Melcher, Aladren 0 5

Daniel Nash II, Aladren

September 17, 2010 11:45 AM

I could use it; I'm just not sure I <i>should</i>. by Daniel Nash II, Aladren

As Daniel entered the Charms classroom, he was first struck with relief that the professor's clothing was not adorned with distracting designs as was his norm. The second thing he was confronted with was an inquiry into his summer which he answered politely but vaguely (unless he knew someone at Sonora watched Street Beat and was aware of all the associated personal dramas, he didn't like to talk about it in his magical life, which meant he had very little to discuss about his summer to most Sonorans, McKindy included).

So after he admitted he had read a few good books and enjoyed his time off (which was technically a lie because he'd been working full time and had barely managed to squeeze in enough time to finish one book), he slipped passed and took a seat near the front, but not too close to the front because - Aladren or not - he wasn't trying to be a teacher's pet or anything. (He frowned briefly at James and wondered if this had contributed to why he didn't get prefect.)

His frowning was interrupted by the start of the lesson, and Daniel hurried to get his parchment ready and his quill inked so he could take notes. He absently nodded in agreement when asked about nosy family members (which was technically another lie because Holly and Luke simply didn't care enough to poke around in his stuff, Mom and Dad and Barry and even Anton respected his privacy, and Molly was only a quarter-sister so she therefore didn't have access to either of his rooms seeing as she lived full-time at the Greers . . . but he understood the concept seeing as how he was the family's nosy snoop).

Honestly, Daniel was more interested in the ah, 'adeptness' of wizards to find out things they weren't supposed to know (he took note of the suggestions offered by his classmates that he hadn't already known about). But learning about the locking mechanisms was almost as good. Nobody in his largely muggle family would have a chance of using any of them except Holly, but if Holly did . . . whatever she was hiding was probably something Daniel would want to know about, and the more he knew about the lock, the better chance he had of getting through it.

He kind of wished McKindy had gone into the 'much more complicated' methods of getting past voice recognition, but figured he could probably look it up in the library later if he was really curious. When the professor mentioned that a similar unlocking charm was on the other House Commonrooms, he was especially curious. Not that he'd actually try to break into another House, but knowing how would be kind of awesome.

This, he knew, was why he was in Aladren. He liked to pretend it was because he was a good student and was academically gifted, but Daniel knew that was, at best, only part of it. He'd given up school entirely in favor of acting the year before coming to Sonora. He'd had tutors at the studio of course - that was California law - but the fact of the matter was that he'd valued his education well below both his family and a career he didn't even want at the time.

But he'd devoured every book of magic Holly had brought back from her strange school for the simple reason that he wasn't supposed to know about it. That sense of the forbidden had carried him through his first two years, and by then being an Aladren was habit and had been integrated fully into his role of Daniel Nash II, Sonora Student (which was significantly different than his role of Danny Nash, Actor, and he honestly wasn't quite sure how that had happened, or which one was more real).

Fortunately, Daniel Nash II, Sonora Student, was smart, responsible, as respectable as a muggleborn can be in a society where a portion of the population looked down on them, and reasonably pleasant to be around. (Unless you were James, but that was different.) And those qualities made for a good classroom partner.

Daniel had barely returned from collecting his own locked box when he turned toward Raines Bradley as the Crotalus asked the requisite question at this point in the class period. Daniel nodded and smiled politely. "That's fine with me," he agreed. He had no arguments with Raines and he seemed intelligent. Plus, he wasn't a Pecari. All excellent qualities themselves in a partner.

"First, cast the charm," Daniel repeated McKindy's instructions, quietly and more to himself than to Raines, and lifted his wand. "Exaudio," he cast, mimicking the motion and diction that the charms professor had used. Then he stated clearly, as he would if he were setting up his cell phone's voicemail again, "Daniel Nash the Second." He had a numeral so he didn't feel like he was lacking anything for not using a middle name. Had he been locking this for real, he'd use something he was less likely to have said in public, but this was just a class exercise and his name would do.

1 Daniel Nash II, Aladren I could use it; I'm just not sure I <i>should</i>. 130 Daniel Nash II, Aladren 0 5