Professor Aaron McKindy
July 27, 2011 6:04 PM
Deck the Halls [Years I - III] by Professor Aaron McKindy
Admittedly, the last thing Aaron McKindy was feeling at the moment was festive. He had thoroughly decimated his life in the last year, and was staying at Sadi’s again for the upcoming holiday. Jessie and Jera were both currently studying at L'Academie de Român de Vrãjitorie in Romania, which meant his biological daughter had no intention of being home for Christmas – she would be much too busy playing with large, fire-breathing creatures that wanted to eat her. That was all well and good because a Christmas at Sadi’s wasn’t a Christmas alone, but the impending festivities really weren’t making the dark-haired Italian feel any better about his recent life decisions.That just meant he had all the more attention to focus into his classes. Or at least, that was how he had been coping of late.
With an irritable black cat batting at his ankles, Aaron flicked his wand and a ten-foot Christmas tree rose from a three-inch model that had been sitting on the floor in an empty corner of the classroom. The desks in the rest of the classroom had been Vanished for the day, with only the posters on the wall and his own personal desk, sitting on the raised dais in front of the classroom, remaining of the usual décor.
Just a few minutes later, the large, oaken door creaked open and the grey-green eyed man adjusted the large tophat made of pink bubbles that rested atop his head, preparing for the wave of students that would soon be arriving.
“Please feel free to help yourself to some punch and cookies!” Aaron said in greeting to the students who entered the classroom, gesturing at a long, thin table along the wall the door was on. There was a large bowl of crimson punch (out of which small stars leapt intermittently) and several trays of a variety of cookies. Once all of his younger years had entered the room, Aaron cleared his throat significantly and, when that failed to surmount the chattering of the gathered students, he decided to just start.
“Hey guys, I need your attention a moment,” the Pecari Head of House informed them. “Today is an easy class day, but just because you’ll all be sugar-high in the next five minutes doesn’t mean it’s a freebie.
“By the end of this class period, the tree over there,” the man gestured with one arm, long-sleeved olive shirt covering his arm to the wrist, “needs to be fully decorated. Obviously no ladders are provided, so I expect you to use your knowledge and skills at levitating charms to move ornaments up there. Extra credit to anybody who can make the Christmas gnome ornaments,” Aaron this time gestured to a cluster of small, Santa-colored gnomes on top of a bookcase, “sparkle. The spell is in your book.
“I’d also like to see some strings of lights on the tree,” the professor suggested. He intended for this to be a fun pre-Midterm celebration, but also a review of the significant concepts (namely of conjuring lights and basic movement) that the class had learned over the course of the previous half-term. “I’d suggest using the Coresco charm,” Aaron concentrated on the colour purple, flicked his wand, and suddenly had a ball of purple light floating in his left hand, “combined with the movement-chaining charm we learned just before Thanksgiving,” another flick of the wand, “Vinculo,” there were now a small chain of purple lights levitating just an inch above his hand, “But of course, you’re free to use whatever you’d like.” He waved his wand once more and the lights disappeared.
Slipping his wand into the back pocket of his jeans, Aaron smiled at the kids “Have fun! Full marks for all of you if you help decorate the tree – but for those of you who aren’t intending to, remember that I’m watching you.”
Instead of helping himself to a cookie, Aaron busied himself tidying the bookshelf at the back as the students began to trickle over to the tree. He hoped some of them needed help; it would keep his mind off things.
|OOC|
Minimum ten sentences, please! But the more you do, the more House Points your House gets. Be creative and have fun! Tag me in your subject line if your character needs Aaron. Feel free to be creative with the charms you use – check the Harry Potter Lexicon or Wiki if you want some ideas – but don’t forget to remain within realistic guidelines. Chances are, a first year will have more trouble performing these spells than a third year and a third year might be a bit bored with levitation charms by this point; that sort of thing.
Enjoy!
Subthreads: Confused as ever, but in a festive way by Ayita Bly [Pecari] with Katrina (Kitty) McLevy - Aladren, Ayita
Fa-la-la-la-la by Michael Grosvenor with Valerie Lennox, Crotalus
What did the halls ever do to me? by Paul Bennett, Crotalus
...Or not by Jenny Owens with Linus Macaulay
Looks like I'm more likely to <i>break</i> the halls. by David Wilkes, Aladren with James Owen
*Looks for holly-shaped cookies* by Arthur Carey, Aladren
Chipping in by Arnold Carey, Aladren
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Professor Aaron McKindy
Deck the Halls [Years I - III]
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Professor Aaron McKindy
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Michael Grosvenor
July 29, 2011 10:16 AM
Fa-la-la-la-la by Michael Grosvenor
Michael quite liked Charms. Admittedly, the kids with magical backgrounds had had practice at a few of them but he felt like that was going to be the case for everything. Charms wasn’t easy, per se, but it made sense. You wanted something, you did a spell to achieve that. There were set words and a set movement and you quickly knew whether you’d got it right or not. Potions, you could brew for a whole double period and not realise until the end that you’d made a mistake. And then you didn’t even know where – you could have gone wrong right at the first step. Add to that that today’s lesson sounded fun. Michael loved Christmas (who didn’t?) and getting to decorate the tree at school reminded him of all the fun he was going to have helping his family put theirs up when he got home. It was also nice to know that not everything was crazy and different in the wizarding world. They still had some of the same Christmas traditions.He eyed the delicate china ornaments. He was okay at levitating but he’d never really tried with anything breakable and he wasn’t sure his aim was good enough to get the little hook onto a branch so he didn’t exactly trust himself with that. The gnome ornaments were also looking a bit surly. He’d just about got used to the idea of what should be inanimate objects moving about but a frowning Christmas decoration was definitely off-putting and he certainly wasn’t about to start trying new spells on them, especially one that made them sparkle – he was almost sure that they’d be more annoyed by him getting it right than if he, say, melted their hats.
“Coresco,” he began, playing it safe by imitating Professor McKindy’s example and using a Charm they’d already had practice of in an earlier class. His light wasn’t as bright or as big as his Professor’s or some of those produced by older students but it was alright. “Locomotor… light?” he asked, beginning the spell before realising he wasn’t really sure what to call the object. It quivered in the air before fizzling out. Oh well, at least it was easy enough to start again and he was fairly sure where he’d gone wrong. Calling it a light with a more authoritative tone seemed to make it respond, although it stopped short of reaching the tree. Well, if you stood at certain angles, it maybe looked like it was up against the branches.
“Locomotor light,” he tried again, moving closer to the tree so that he wasn’t trying the spell over such a great distance. The light tucked itself in a little. Once he’d added a few lights around the tree, he began to fancy something a little different. He supposed he could try the sparkling spell on something other than one of the gnomes. Or he could see if there were any other Christmassy spells in the book. Pulling his textbook out, he flicked to the index and skimmed for all the festive words he could think of.
“Is there a spell for paper chains?” he asked the person next to him, having failed to find mention of them and thinking that it just wasn’t Christmas without them.
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Michael Grosvenor
Fa-la-la-la-la
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Michael Grosvenor
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Valerie Lennox, Crotalus
July 31, 2011 5:29 AM
La-la-la-la by Valerie Lennox, Crotalus
As usual, Valerie felt rather tired as she entered Charms. She was feeling better, her ears not quite so sore, her fever gone but she never really felt good . Like she was always either recovering from something or coming down with something if she wasn't actually sick.And Valerie was always worried about it, every single second of the day. She was always anticipating the next ailment. Especially right now, as it was cold and flu season. The Crotalus had a tendency to get both, every year. Sometimes multiple times.
She was especially worried about another bout of pneumonia. Valerie nearly died of it last year. They hadn't expected her to survive or recover and the latter had taken quite some time and had been met with more than one setback along the way.
Valerie managed a smile as Professor McKindy mentioned the lesson. She had never actually decorated a tree before, Valerie had always been too weak and of course, unable to do magic, having not learned it yet. Trees were always decorated by house elves and maybe Melanie.
She usually had a tree-fake, of course, because real trees were part of nature and nature brought germs into the house and those could potentially kill Valerie-in her bedroom and that was often where her family opened presents, rather than under the grand tree downstairs. The one Valerie rarely saw as she was rarely allowed to get out of bed. It was their way of including her and she was grateful for it.
The first year had to admit, she was pretty much looking forward to going to home for midterm. To be with her family who cared about her especially her sister and to sleep in her own bed. Valerie still felt kind of alone at Sonora. It was hard to make friends when she didn't feel up to socializing a good portion of the time. When lessons had to come first and then she needed to rest so she wouldn't get so ill again. Not getting enough sleep would put stress on Valerie's already poor immune system.
She looked over the tree, trying to decide what she could do to it. Valerie was about to try coresco when the person next to her spoke. "Pardon?" The Crotalus asked. "Paper chains?" Valerie wasn't aware of such a thing. They only had fancy,magical decorations on their trees at home.
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Valerie Lennox, Crotalus
La-la-la-la
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Valerie Lennox, Crotalus
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Michael
July 31, 2011 6:51 AM
'Tis the season to be poorly? by Michael
From the quizzical note in his classmate's voice, Michael guessed that was one of the differences between a magical and a non-magical Christmas. He knew Valerie was in Crotalus and, if she had no idea what a paper chain was, she probably came from an all magical family. He wondered whether he was in risky territory here. Still, she hadn't said 'I've no idea what you mean, they must be a filthy Muggle thing, or 'No, and I don't wish to taint myself with such knowledge, so maybe she was an ok Pureblood who just happened to be in Crotalus. Cherry was in Crotalus and was neither Pureblood nor mean, so he figured there must be some other characteristics that got people sorted there.“Paper chains are made out of long strips of colourful paper. You make them into rings, each one joined up through the next so they make a chain,” he explained. It still felt a bit odd having to explain the most mundane of Muggle things but at least paper chains were a lot more straightforward than aeroplanes. He glanced up and was suddenly struck by how bulky and out of place a paper chain would look on the tree, which was glowing delicately with the light of real magic. “They probably sound kind of boring,” he said, worrying about how silly and primitive Valerie might think Muggles were if she thought they covered their trees in bits of paper. “But the real point is it's fun – you make them together, with your family. If you knew a charm to make the paper colourful and a cutting charm and a sticking charm we could use the paper out of my notebook... But I guess that's an awful lot of things we haven't covered yet, so it's probably not a very good idea.” Looking at the white paper he suddenly remembered something else he and Natalie made at Christmas, which would definitely require fewer steps. “But I have another idea,” he grinned, “How about I show you, and then you can tell me if you think there's a way to do it by magic?” he knew Valerie was in the same year as him but coming from a magical background, she was bound to know more than he did. Even if she just knew the Charm existed but was way above their level, that would be good to know. Pulling a page from his book, he folded it into eighths and cut the edge so it was curved. He then snipped random little nicks out of the paper, before unfolding it.
“It's a snowflake,” he grinned. “Hey, we could use the sparkling Charm on this!” He flicked through the book to find it. “Would you like to try first?” he offered, feeling like Valerie might be better at it than him. Professor McKindy had made it sound like it would be tricky to pull off.
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Michael
'Tis the season to be poorly?
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Michael
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Valerie
August 04, 2011 5:32 AM
Poorly what? by Valerie
She listened to Michael's explanation of what a paper chain was. Valerie appreciated a great deal how polite and patient he was being with her. She still remembered David's rather cold reaction to being asked about films in Potions. The Crotalus honestly had not known what she'd done to offend him. It had been the first time anyone had ever spoken even remotely harshly to her.Maybe Valerie was being paranoid about the whole incident. After all, she was so used to people tiptoeing around her and trying not to upset her and treating her like a fragile piece of glass. Maybe she really was too sensitive.
Anyway, whether she was or not, Michael seemed considerably kinder and the Crotalus appreciated that. "No, they don't sound boring at all." Valerie replied. They sounded like something she could easily do for hours and hours on end, something she could do to pass time while she was stuck in bed, too weak to do too much but not sick enough to be completely out of it. Of course, she would still have to be careful of paper cuts.
"Your family makes them?" Valerie asked. She couldn't imagine sitting down making things together. Her and Melanie maybe, but her father was often busy with work things and she just couldn't see her proper pureblood socialite mother sitting down with them. Valerie's mom did not really spend that much time with her. When Valerie was in the hospital, she would visit and such and check on Valerie when she was ill but Tamara Lennox was not really much of a hands on mother. It wasn't the pureblood way.
The Crotalus was just glad for what time she did get to spend time with either of her parents. She knew they really did love her and try to include her, it was just that they didn't have a lot of time. Valerie doubted they would spend the time with her that they did if she weren't ill. Maybe her father when he could, but definitely not her mother. Valerie often felt like when her mother did spend time with her, that she was taking her mother away from something more important that she'd rather be doing.
The first year nodded. "I guess I really don't know too many of those spells." Valerie felt a little disappointed but brightened when Michael showed her how to make a snowflake. "Certainly." Valerie took the snowflake and cast the sparkling charm on it.
The paper snowflake began to twinkle and the fragile first year smiled. "It's lovely." She said. Valerie had managed to make it sparkle all on her own and that made her feel sort of good. Usually she felt so helpless and incapable.
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Valerie
Poorly what?
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Valerie
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Michael
August 05, 2011 5:44 AM
Poorly as in ill by Michael
Michael was pleased that Valerie wasn’t being sniffy about paper chains. So far, every kid he’d met from a magical background had seemed really interested in non-magical things.“Lots of non-magical families make them,” he nodded, just in case she was getting the idea that this was something special and rare that only happened in his family. He didn’t think that she might be questioning the idea of the family spending time on an activity together – after all, Christmas was a time for family.
“Wow!” Michael gaped, as Valerie managed the spell first time, “That was amazing! And look at it now! It looks so great. Well done. I guess I need to have a go now, don’t I?” he smiled, starting to trim a new snowflake out of his notebook. He reviewed the spell from the book. It was described as having a ‘delicate, shimmering wand motion.’ What on earth was that supposed to mean? How could you move shimmeringly?
“Spæcra!” he cast, wiggling his hand in a generally uncertain sort of way. He was impressed when a beam of light shot from his wand, having thought that nothing would happen at all. However, he was slightly less impressed when a singed smell met his nose. Looking down, he found he had a blackened snowflake in front of him.
“That’s a lot less festive than yours,” he observed, “I guess I might need quite a few to practice on…,” he noticed the person in front of them had helped themselves to snacks. He’d forgotten all about those. “Do you want to make a start on making me a pile of them whilst I get us some punch and cookies? Or the other way around,” he offered.
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Michael
Poorly as in ill
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Michael
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Valerie
August 10, 2011 9:56 AM
Oh, well, it <i>is</i> flu season. by Valerie
"Really?" Apparently, non-magical people had quite different customs than magical ones. Valerie had heard they did, and it made sense, as they didn't have magic but she was quite surprised that they would just sit around making paper chains and snowflakes together. Didn't the men have to work and the women have social obligations?In her world, children were mostly taken care of by nannies and house-elves and in Valerie's specific case, a private nurse. She only really spent much time with the nurse and Melanie. Her sister liked to spend time with her and keep her company. Valerie missed the younger girl terribly and couldn't wait to go home for midterm and see her. She felt rather lonely here at Sonora.
Valerie flushed when Michael complimented her. "Thank you. I, um, actually practiced the spell before." She added. The first year sometimes tried to do spells on her own. Valerie felt like she had to compensate sometimes for being so weak and sickly so she wanted to do well on spellwork. Especially in Charms and Transfiguration, she didn't think she was really capable of the level of activity required for some DADA lessons and COMC was outside where there were a lot of germs.
Speaking of which, where was Valerie supposed to sit down since all the desks were gone? She couldn't sit on the floor because of the dirt and germs and it wasn't proper anyway. Valerie wasn't even supposed to sit on the floor in her own exceedingly clean room at home that very few people actually walked on, let alone one where probably every student at Sonora plus Professor McKindy had walked on.
And she couldn't stand up the entire time either. Valerie did not have that kind of stamina and she was feeling a little bit weak. Nor could she produce a chair out of thin air. A first year didn't have quite that level of magic and besides, it would probably just tire Valerie out more to do so.
"It's a good try." She assured Michael. Not everyone got everything right on the first try. The Crotalus hadn't gotten it the very first time she'd tried it either but she'd kept at it until she'd been too tired to try anymore, then, when Valerie had rested some, she tried again until she got it.
Valerie nodded. "Sure." She would much rather make the snowflakes while he got the snacks. "I'll make them. And just punch for me, thanks." The Crotalus didn't think she was allowed cookies. Even Melanie only got them on special occasions. She gazed from the two snowflakes to the floor again. Valerie really didn't know what to do with this situation. She hated to ask for special treatment but being ill was far worse.
The first year bit her lip. "Wait, do you think you can get Professor McKindy over here too so I can ask him for something to sit on? I sort of need to sit down and I can't on the floor." Not wanting to appear like she thought she was better than him, Valerie added. "Um, I'm sort of not allowed because floors are dirty and I could get really really sick." She looked down at the ground, completely embarassed, she hadn't wanted to tell people about her condition but the alternative, of him thinking she was stuck-up seemed worse.
Besides, people would probably figure something was wrong eventually, considering that Valerie had and probably would continue to miss a fair amount of classes. Not to mention being excused from flying. It wasn't as if Valerie could hide it for long. Staff probably knew already, between the Medic and her father's cousin and the aforementioned being excused from flying lessons.
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Valerie
Oh, well, it <i>is</i> flu season.
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Valerie
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Michael
August 15, 2011 10:21 AM
I prefer 'festive season'... (Tag: Professor McKindy) by Michael
“Thanks,” Michael smiled, when Valerie called his charred wreck a ‘good try.’ He was fairly sure she was just being kind but he appreciated that. He was also glad to know that she’d been practising and wasn’t just some crazily gifted prodigy. It was bad enough having to play catch up with knowing about the magical world, without his classmates being gifted children.“Sure,” he nodded, as Valerie asked about getting their Professor to come over. She looked kind of awkward and embarrassed and he wanted to pat her on the arm or something to let her know it was ok because she looked exactly how he felt sometimes. However, he wasn’t really sure if it was ok to pat people, especially people who were terribly well-to-do and terribly frail. He wondered whether it was a Pureblood thing, that children were treated as being delicate. He’d vaguely heard something about Purebloods not liking girls to play Quidditch and it seemed to go with the general quaint, slightly story-bookish air of unreality that, for him, surrounded the way these people lived. “I’ll be right back,” he added, just because he wanted to try to say something normal sounding to let Valerie know he didn’t mind.
“Um, Professor?” he asked, approaching where the teacher was tidying books at the back of the room, “Could you go see Valerie?” he nodded to where his classmate was standing. He wasn’t sure how best to relay her message because he was worried it sounded like a slightly strange request so he just decided to tell the Professor what she had told him, “She says she needs to sit down but she’s not allowed to sit on the floor.”
Having delivered the message, he went to the refreshments table. He was about to pick up their snacks when he realised that he wouldn’t really have anywhere to rest them if he went back to Valerie, and it might be rude to butt into her conversation with Professor McKindy and to eat a cookie in front of her seeing as she wasn’t having one (and, as no one didn’t like cookies, he guessed that meant she wasn’t allowed). Instead, he decided to nibble his cookie at the table whilst Valerie sorted out her chair issue then he would take their glasses of punch over.
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Michael
I prefer 'festive season'... (Tag: Professor McKindy)
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Michael
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