Finding it hard to focus... on Charms

Professor Olivers

June 24, 2013 10:20 PM

Beginner Charms [I & II years] by Professor Olivers

Over the past few weeks, Florence had come to memorize both the names and faces of all of her students. Many in her Intermediate and Advanced classes she knew from the years before, but the Beginner class was always a challenge. This year it was a challenge she had conquered and she was able to note each child by name when they stepped into the classroom that Wednesday morning. Just two more days till the weekend where she would be grading essays through Sunday. She hoped this new batch of essays was better than those at the beginning of the term.

Once the clock struck eight, the ever-prompt Florence shut the door with a wave of her hand. “Good morning, everyone,” she said with a smile. She went to stand in front of her desk. “I hope you all worked hard on your essays for today. Please turn them in at the front of the classroom. There is a basket here on my desk where you can hand them in once I start you all on the practical assignment for today.” With that said, she turned and plucked her wand off her desk.

She sent the piece of chalk scribbling on the blackboard behind her. “Today we are going to be working on the Refilling Charm. I had you all write an essay regarding the history of the charm as well as what the limitations to this charm are. I’m looking forward to reading your essays, but for today we’re going to try the charm out ourselves.” On each desk was a tall labeled glass. Each had been filled with different liquids just a few minutes before, but Florence had emptied them all out. If the student did the charm correctly, the still-wet liquid particles would multiply, therefore refilling the glasses. There had been water or different juices in the different glasses, but each student wouldn’t know until they successfully refilled it.

“Each of you have a glass in front of you that was previously filled with either water or juice. Once you have succeeded in your charm, I want you to write down the number on your glass, your name, and the type of liquid you have. I will be walking around and inspecting your work. If you need any help, just give me a call.

"Now, the incantation, as you all should know from your research, is Repleo. All you have to do is simply point your wand at the glass. Second-years, since you all are a little more experienced, I want you to try this spell non-verbally. There will be no other indication that you have succeeded except that the liquid will refill. The liquid will fill up the glass to the original amount that was in there. Don't worry; none of your glasses should overflow."

There didn’t seem to be much more to say so Florence nodded. “Begin.” The charm itself was simple enough, but with first and second years she knew that the biggest problem was usually in pronouncing the spell right and getting used to casting spells with a wand. For this reason alone she loved her Advanced students. Once the essays had come in, she stacked them and put them on the side of her desk, ready to be graded this weekend with the rest of the essays she had let pile up this week. Once she had organized herself, she began walking around, looking to see if their previous research of today’s charm had helped their practical work at all.

OOC: Creative, realistic posts earn more points; you know the drill. Happy posting!

Subthreads:

Finding it hard to focus... by Julian Babineaux with Dimitri Porter

OOC by Prof. Olivers

Why did I have to get that? by Irina Volkov, Aladren with Francesca Wolseithcrafte, Irina

What a day. by Charlotte Spencer, Crotalus with Ji-Eun Park, Pecari

0 Professor Olivers Beginner Charms [I & II years] 0 Professor Olivers 1 5

Julian Babineaux

June 27, 2013 10:18 AM

Finding it hard to focus... by Julian Babineaux

Julian half marched into the Charms class, determined that whatever this week’s task was to be, that he would be able to accomplish it without any difficulty. Charms was one of his favourite classes, and, though he would never dream of admitting it to any of his fellow students, he did enjoy Professor Oliver’s theatrical touches. After last year’s challenges he felt inspired to excel in charms, so that he might be able to be useful in daily life at school and at home as well. He knew that some people might call this showing off, but that didn’t bother him much. Julian knew they were just jealous.

Seeing glass beakers arranged on the benches, he began to imagine what task might lie ahead. Perhaps something with smashing glass, or perhaps directing a small object into the beaker magically. The essay which he placed into the basket at the front of the room was not his best work, he knew, but he had been so distracted that he considered it a triumph to have finished at all. The refilling charm was not the most exciting, but it was very useful and certainly essential to the life of an accomplished wizard, distractions or not. The next thing he knew, however, Professor Olivers had stopped talking and everyone was lining up behind the desks. Again, he told himself to focus on class and not allow his mind to wander. He took out his wand pointedly, and looked around the room to make sure that everyone was doing the same.

0 Julian Babineaux Finding it hard to focus... 0 Julian Babineaux 0 5

Prof. Olivers

June 27, 2013 7:26 PM

OOC by Prof. Olivers

Delete the following sentence: Second-years, since you all are a little more experienced, I want you to try this spell non-verbally.

Non-verbal spells would not be a realistic endeavor for beginners to even attempt. Apologies on my part. I was getting ahead of myself (along with Florence's high expectations of her students).

0 Prof. Olivers OOC 0 Prof. Olivers 0 5

Irina Volkov, Aladren

June 29, 2013 1:21 PM

Why did I have to get that? by Irina Volkov, Aladren

Irina carefully took out the essay that she had worked so painstakingly on out of her Charms folder. On her desk sat the perfection that only came from hours of slaving, ensuring that every sentence, every word held meaning. She read over the essay a final time. Chewing on her thumbnail, she frowned at the last sentence. Should she change it? Would it have sounded better if…? No, she couldn’t think about it anymore. If she did, she would end up wanting to rewrite her essay again and she had already done that at least five times in addition to the multiple revisions. No, she had to let it go. It was an O worthy paper. She knew it was. She just didn’t get anything less than O. It was unacceptable, less than unacceptable really.

Sighing, the Aladren forced herself to concentrate on the lesson at hand. There was nothing more she could do with the paper without turning it in late and that was not an option. Sitting up straighter, she tucked the paper under her book so she could write without fear of something happening to her paper. Okay, so they were learning incantations. Actually, they were putting into practice what they had written their papers on. Honestly, she appreciated that. She enjoyed learning about the charm before putting it into practice. She was a logical person and as such found performing a spell easier if she knew the reasoning behind the charm.

The wand movement seemed easy enough. There really wasn’t any. All she had to do was point at her, which was good. The last time she had to move her wand around was in Transfiguration and it had gone flying. It had been a rather embarrassing moment in her academic life. Thankfully, another student had been kind enough to retrieve her wand for her. Without that to worry about, she practiced the word ‘Repleo,’ which wasn’t too awful either. There were spells that had very specific inflections and had to be staggered to the right degree and so on. No, this was not the simplest cast, but it was far from being Advanced level. She could handle this.

Pointing her wand at the glass, she stated confidently, “Repleo!” She was not surprised to see her glass begin to fill. An almost smug smile appeared on her face. Irina knew she could do it. Slowly, but surely, the liquid became evident as being, “Ew! Tomato juice!” She hated tomato juice. In fact, she hated tomatoes altogether. Turning to the person next to her, she said, “That charm was pretty easy, don’t you think? What did you get? I got disgusting tomato juice.”

0 Irina Volkov, Aladren Why did I have to get that? 0 Irina Volkov, Aladren 0 5

Francesca Wolseithcrafte

June 30, 2013 1:27 PM

The glass is half empty by Francesca Wolseithcrafte

Charms had not started out as one of Francesca's favourite subjects but her opinion of it was improving slightly. This was largely due to the fact that she had settled into using her wand and was now getting the hang of things much more quickly than she had as a fresh first year. She still needed to practise dutifully after class to achieve perfection but the whole process wasn't taking nearly so long as it had at first. Her spirits were also bolstered upon entering this particular class to learn that they would be doing the practical accompaniment to the spell they had researched for homework. Unlike wandwork, Francesca grasped theory very easily, and she felt she cast spells better if she knew how they were supposed to work.

As they got onto the nature of the practical task, however, she felt her concern rising. She would have liked to know what had been in her glass. She felt it would have made the task more concrete – helped her to visualise. But she wasn't Transfiguring, she reminded herself. Visualisation was not a key aspect of the spell. Although she felt that left a gap. There was theory, which she understood. There was the spell, which she had to do. In Transfiguration, working out the process and visualising it, to her, bridged the gap between the two. Here there was nothing to link the theory to the practical, and thus the element in which she was stronger remained isolated, unable to come to her aid so effectively.

She eyed her glass, running through everything in her head that she had learnt about the spell. It was firmly a Charm – to create food or drink out of nothing violated Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration. Therefore, everything she needed was already present. She was just manipulating it. The spell had been invented based on the principle that, if you could double something using gemino, then you could magically refill a glass by making copy upon copy, until it was full. Whilst this would be time-consuming, it showed that it was, theoretically and practically, possible to refill a glass by magic. It was then merely a case of speeding up the process by creating a spell that repeated this process quickly and automatically. Francesca still half felt that picturing the liquid multiplying would have helped but she had to trust that it would not. She focussed on instead on the abstract idea of multiplication as she pointed her wand.

“Repleo,” she cast. Perhaps it was having done the theory beforehand. Perhaps it was mentally revising it before casting the spell. perhaps it was simply having grown accustomed to her wand. Whatever the cause, the result was that pale yellow liquid started to pool in the bottom of the glass. It continued to grow until it reached halfway up. Initially, Francesca worried that she might have produced rather anaemic orange juice – inexperienced casters attempting to duplicate comestibles often produced copies with lower flavour or nutritional value – but a sniff of the substance revealed it to be just right for what it was.

“Grapefruit,” she replied, when Irina asked her what type of juice she had. “Which is not especially to my tastes. Luckily I don't think we have to drink our results today,” she smiled. She knew Irina from the Quidditch team, which was enough to intrigue her in itself. However, the locker room was a place for tactics and small talk, rather than politics. The latter was what interested her most about the girl. She conducted herself, generally speaking, in the manner of a Pureblood, apart from playing Quidditch. She also spoke with a foreign accent, and Francesca wondered whether that was the key... Perhaps WAIL's nonsense hadn't taken hold wherever this girl was from. Perhaps it would rear its ugly head and its members would try to win her round once they saw her on the pitch. Hopefully, by having Francesca as an example of an American Pureblood who played, Irina would understand that there was an alternative.

“Looking forward to our next training session?” she asked, keen to bring the conversation around to her priorities. Although politics was a part of it, she also realised that she missed actually being able to enthuse about the sport with other people. It was good to have that option again.

OOC - I hope what I wrote about your character was correct – it's what I've inferred from your other posts but please correct me if it's inaccurate.

13 Francesca Wolseithcrafte The glass is half empty 250 Francesca Wolseithcrafte 0 5

Dimitri Porter

July 03, 2013 11:54 AM

Juice or water... lets find out which one by Dimitri Porter

Dimitri made his way to Charms class having missed seeing his sister yet again. He wasn’t really worried about it. They were in the same house after all. They would run into each other sooner or later. He walked into class and found himself a seat. He saw Francesca across the room and waved politely to her and Irina who was seated close by. He sat gown putting his bag down on the floor. He turned his attention to Professor Olivers and wondered what they would be doing with the beakers she had up front. It appeared that liquid of some kind had been inside them due to the drops of liquid that appeared to still be inside the glass. He waited patiently for the Professor to tell them about their assignment for class. He was a little surprised to find that they would be working on the Refilling Charm that day and nodded slightly. So that must be what the beakers are for he thought to himself as she continued. He kind-of liked the mystery factor to the whole thing in that they had no idea what had been inside of the beakers. He couldn’t wait to get one of them and refill it to see what was inside.

He walked up to the front of her desk when she instructed them to and chose a beaker at random. He took it back to his desk with him trying to study the liquid drops from the inside. He thought he might be able to guess what had been inside it from the droplets, but no such luck. He put the beaker down on his desk and pulled out his wand. He said the spell a couple of times to himself before he was ready to cast it. He glanced over and saw that the boy next to him appeared to be doing the same thing. Dimitri grinned to himself and kept mouthing the spell. When he was fairly certain he had the right pronunciation he gave the spell a whack. He pointed his wand at the beaker and said, “Repleo!” He frowned when he realized that the droplets had yet to move from where they originally sat. “Well that was a bust,” he said aloud, glancing from his neighbor’s beaker to his own. He sighed slightly and wondered if he had said it correctly. He went back over the spell in his head saying it to himself again a few times as well. When he was pretty sure he figured out what the problem might have been he gave the spell another go, this time saying it slightly different than he had before. “I wonder what would happen if I put more emphasis on the end of the word,” he mused loud enough for his neighbor to hear him. He raised his wand for a second time and tried casting the spell. “Repleo!” he said again this time putting a little more emphasis on the Leo part.

He watched the droplets in the beaker and began to get frustrated when he didn’t see anything happening. He was about to mentally kick himself when he noticed the liquid in the beaker slowly beginning to move. He watched curiously as the little droplets began falling on top of one another and slowly filling the glass back up. He wanted to hug himself he was soo excited. He kept watching as the glass continued to fill itself. It stopped about 4 inches from the top. The liquid inside was a light amber-ish color and had a faint scent to it that he couldn’t quite place. Dimitri turned to his neighbor and held up the now full beaker. “What kind of liquid does that look like to you?” he asked. “I think it’s grape juice, but I can’t be sure.” He had a pretty good feeling that he was right and it was white grape juice, but he could totally be wrong. Heck for all he knew it was apple juice.

0 Dimitri Porter Juice or water... lets find out which one 0 Dimitri Porter 0 5

Charlotte Spencer, Crotalus

July 08, 2013 5:27 PM

What a day. by Charlotte Spencer, Crotalus

Charlotte had done very little during the past few days to socialise. She was not a very social creature to begin with, but the past few days had been especially difficult. Her mother's birthday was at the beginning of October and they had always celebrated together. Even when Adam had gone to school, Charlotte had been there to celebrate and cut cake with her mum and go to their traditional birthday restaurant. But Charlotte was not there and it made her incredibly homesick.

Another element to add to her homesickness was her stuffed up sinuses. She knew a cold was coming on, but it hadn't hit terribly enough to use a Pepper-Up. Besides, she had no Pepper-Up with her and she was too shy to go to the medic herself. She could bear through a stuffy nose and a scratchy throat. It warped her usually melodic voice and made her sound more like a wizard, but she could bear it. As long as she didn't have to go to the medic on her own for a mere cold.

Charlotte usually told Adam everything, but she did not want to share this particular sadness. He did everything for her already; she didn't want to worry him any more. She went and sat alone as she always did in classes. Adam was encouraging her to make friends, but the first year was terrible at it. Didn't he know that? She sneezed into her handkerchief and then pulled out the necessary material for today. She looked at Professor Olivers, having heard from Adam that she was a former actress. She certainly acted like a thespian on occasion.

Charlotte's essay for today was brilliant. She was a great writer and she had a way with words that was above average for someone her age. She thought much more than she spoke and articulated much better on parchment than in person. It made for high marks, but very few friends to call her own.

The practical lesson for today was indeed that: practical. These were the sorts of spells her parents performed when they hosted parties. Charlotte had learnt that it was of the utmost importance to keep the drinks flowing, the music good and the conversation lively for a successful party. Refilling drinks was high on the list of a good hostess. Charlotte looked at her glass, seeing droplets of liquid in it. She hoped no one had drunk out of this glass. Then she would feel unsanitary, refilling a previously drunk drink.

Charlotte brought out her wand and ran her fingers along the wood, feeling the magical extension of her for any cracks or flaws as she always did. It comforted her, running her fingers along her wand, as did petting her kitten or brushing her golden hair. All three objects had one thing in common: she owned them and did not share them with anyone else. Touching things, and an animal, she could call her own gave her a feeling of ownership and independence. Very little independence, of course, but it was there nonetheless.

She raised her wand to attempt the spell, but was caught off guard by a tickle in her nose. She paused, her face scrunching in the upcoming wave of a sneeze...but it didn't come. The terrible in-between feeling of perpetual sneezing made Charlotte feel embarrassed, but also angry at not being able to sneeze. "Blast," she breathed, trying to think of ways to force herself to sneeze. After several seconds of silent, teetering sinus build-up, she thought it had passed when it suddenly hit her again. "Achoo!" It was much louder than Charlotte's usual squeaking sneezes and her pale cheeks were splashed with pink. "Excuse me," she said, glad that she had kept her handkerchief in her hand. She would have covered her entire face if she could have with that piece of white cloth. "I didn't disturb you, did I?" she nearly whispered in embarrassment.

0 Charlotte Spencer, Crotalus What a day. 0 Charlotte Spencer, Crotalus 0 5

Irina

July 12, 2013 10:41 PM

Or half full? by Irina

Irina made a face when she heard the results. Grapefruit juice didn’t sound much better than tomato juice. She preferred orange and sometimes apple for breakfast. Though, she liked cherry and grape as well just not for breakfast. She giggled when Francesca joked that they probably wouldn’t have to drink their results. That was certainly a good thing! She would have failed the assignment if they had to drink the juice. She hated that it was even on her desk. Her delicate nose wrinkled in disgust. The tomato juice smelled awful!

Thankfully, the subject of Quidditch diverted her attention. She glanced over in surprise at the question. “Oh, I’m not sure. This is really the first time that I’ve ever played, so I don’t know if I’m doing very well. It’s actually really hard,” she said. “I didn’t think it was going to be that much work.” That probably didn’t sound exactly right. She didn’t mind hard work at all. In fact, she spent hours on her academic work, but physical labor was another matter entirely. She felt like she couldn’t keep up with her teammates. “You make it look easy.”

She wondered if maybe the problem was that she wasn’t working out the muscles that she needed to be working on. She had no idea when she would ever find the time to fit something like that into her schedule. “I don’t mind being on the bench though. I like just being part of the team. Plus, it’s good for my resume. I plan on going to Harvard.” Or maybe Yale. She wasn’t really sure which one she wanted to go yet, but she definitely wanted to go to one of them. They were the top schools.

0 Irina Or half full? 0 Irina 0 5

Francesca Wolseithcrafte

July 14, 2013 4:10 PM

I'm not sure that's how I tend to see it by Francesca Wolseithcrafte

“You fly very well though,” Francesca commented, noting that Irina had said it was the game she was new to, rather than that. “Really, that's the biggest skill to gain – everything else is just building on that. I was accustomed to only really playing informal games with my siblings, and we didn't have Quidditch last year due to the Challenges,” alright, there had technically been teams but she had been keeping her head bellow the parapet, and avoiding being led by David in too many activities. She thought that controversial sports and murder would both have marred her social life somewhat. “Most of my skills on the full sized pitch I picked up from camp during the summer.” It felt so wonderful to even be able to say that to another person. To let them know how she'd spent her summer and not have to worry what they would think.

She wondered whether Irina had played informally at home, and really just meant that the formal full game was new to her, or whether flying was approved of but not Quidditch in her home. She rather hoped that was the case as it made everything a lot more straight-forward. She had never probed the issue too deeply, but the impression that the general mutterings of Sonora – as well as her political knowledge gave her – was that the Ann Pierce playing Quidditch was doing so in defiance of her parents.

“Do you know what you plan to study?” she asked Irina. Her ambition impressed Francesca. Aiming high or having an idea of the path one wanted to follow were things she found to be good qualities in another.

Speaking of which... She returned her attention to the glass in front of her. She would have preferred to return the glass to empty and start again, in order to properly challenge herself and fully get the hang of the spell. However, vanishing liquids was beyond her, and there was nowhere to dispose of it in the classroom.

“Repleo” she cast again. It was very difficult not to think grapefruit juicey thoughts now that she knew what should be in the glass. But it had worked fairly well the first time when she hadn't known and she sort of felt like she had to be able to do it without knowing to have properly mastered the spell. The glass continued to fill until the liquid was only an inch from the top.

“I think I may have discovered circumstances under which we are required to drink our projects,” she said, with a slight smile to show that she was only being playful, “I'd really rather like to have another crack at it but I can't see how else that's going to be possible. Unless Professor Olivers comes to our rescue, of course,” she added. She rather suspected that their professor would come by and periodically reset their glasses if needed.

13 Francesca Wolseithcrafte I'm not sure that's how I tend to see it 250 Francesca Wolseithcrafte 0 5

Julian Babineaux

July 17, 2013 5:15 PM

I think we'll have to taste it and see by Julian Babineaux

Julian really didn’t know, and shook his head in bewilderment. The liquid in the glass beaker that his neighbour was holding out looked too pale to be apple juice to him, but he couldn’t say that he had ever tried grape juice. Whilst it pleased him to watch the container filling up, and that the task was evidently not that difficult to complete, it bothered him enormously that someone else had managed it first, while he gazed off into the middle distance like, he thought, a floppy haired lettuce.

With that in mind, he raised his wand to have another go, but nearly knocked his empty beaker off the bench in his haste. He cursed under his breath and once more attempted to focus his energies. He inhaled deeply, and gripped the wand, but then decided that his methodology was all wrong. He was taking this much too seriously. It was just a beaker full of liquid after all. He gave himself a shake and tried to relax. “Sorry I didn’t introduce myself, I was a bit distracted!” he told the other boy, and spread his hands wide. “Any chance you could give me a pointer or two?”

0 Julian Babineaux I think we'll have to taste it and see 0 Julian Babineaux 0 5

Ji-Eun Park, Pecari

July 18, 2013 8:05 AM

Peppered up but not pepped up by Ji-Eun Park, Pecari

School, for the most part, was ok. It was very different to home and Ji-Eun found there was a lot to get used to. It was even different from her old school, and the sorts of people who went here were different too. None of these things was necessarily bad but they could catch her off guard. One thing she'd discovered that she hated though was the medicine. She had come down with a stinking cold, bad enough for her to go to the medic in search of some relief. The Potion he'd given her burnt her throat and made her ears smoke. Her mother's own solution to coughs and colds was much gentler – it was a warm infusion, made with ginseng, and had no such hideous side effects. Her ears were still emitting occasional puffs of smoke and, though she would have loved to go away and hide until they stopped, she didn't think that was a good enough reason to miss class.

She slunk into Charms. Normally she sat right in the front but today she tried to place herself somewhere as unobtrusive as possible. The Potion had done a good job of clearing her head, she had to admit that much. Her mother's remedy was much slower acting. That meant it was, in theory, easier to focus on Professor Olivers. However, Ji-Eun had a hard time of channelling her attention away from the worry of whether or not, at this precise moment, she was doing an impression of a human campfire.

She took the glass that was handed to her, not feeling much enthusiasm for the class in spite of her symptoms having gone. She hadn't even done a lot with her hair that morning, and that was something she usually enjoyed doing. Her dark locks were in a simple plait, with a thin ribbon running across her crown. But, she had to do her best, regardless of how she felt. And she didn't even really feel poorly any more, just embarrassed and sorry for herself. Pull yourself together, she told herself firmly.

“Repleo!” she cast, pointing her wand firmly at the glass. Speaking with authority was something she struggled to do, as she generally wasn't an authoritative person. She stared into the glass, trying to decide whether there were a few drops more or not. Either way, it wasn't an impressive effort. She still needed to find that commanding voice, it seemed... It was one of the reasons she liked Potions, beyond having grown up with them. You didn't have to be strong-willed and show a particular attitude to a potion. You just had to be careful and conscientious, and those were things that suited her temperament much more. She was about to try again when the girl next to her sneezed rather loudly.

“It's ok,” she smiled, as the girl seemed very apologetic. “It's not like you can help it when you're poorly,” she added, as her own ears gave a gentle puff of smoke, “And I wouldn't blame you in the slightest if you didn't want to take the cold potion,” she grimaced.

13 Ji-Eun Park, Pecari Peppered up but not pepped up 268 Ji-Eun Park, Pecari 0 5

Dimitri Porter

July 20, 2013 4:11 PM

Here's to your success by Dimitri Porter

Dimitri watched the boy next to him try to do the spell without much success. He looked like he might be frustrated about not getting it to work. Dimitri grinned a bit, completely understanding his frustration since he himself had suffered the same fate just moments before he had gotten the spell to work for him. He waved away Julian’s apology for missing introductions. “Its no big deal,” he offered friendly. “It happens to everyone. We would have gotten to it eventually.” He tried to sound as upbeat about it as possible. It really wasn’t something he was dreadfully worried about. “We could always do it now if you’d like,” he offered cheerfully. “I’m Dimitri. Its great to meet you,” he introduced himself lightly. He smiled friendly when Julian asked if Dimitri could give him some pointers with the spell. Dimitri nodded. “Absolutely. If I can help.” He put his wand down on his desk and raised his pointer finger in its place. He figured he’d use it to mimic the wand movements to show them to Julian until he felt comfortable with casting the spell using the wand. He reasoned it was safer that way then trying with the wands and goofing it up royally.

“Okay…lets start by practicing the wand movements with our fingers,” he suggested. “I know it sounds kind-of lame, but it might help get the movements right. Besides, if we do it with our fingers before the wands it may cut the amount of flub ups down to a minimum.” He figured it couldn’t hurt. “Once we practice those a couple times til you’re comfortable with it then you could try practicing saying the spell. I found that it worked better when I put more emphasis on the end of the spell word then on the front,” he offered. He wasn’t sure if that had been Julian’s problem to begin with, but it didn’t hurt to at least have him try it. For all they knew that could have been his only issue. Once he was sure that Julian seemed to have the wand movements down, he suggested he try saying the spell the way he said to do it. “Okay that looks good. Why don’t you try saying the spell now with the emphasis I suggested a few times?” He listened for Julian’s attempts (if he actually tried them) and then suggested that he try the spell with his wand and see if the spell worked for him then. “You appear to be ready to try it again with your wand,” Dimitri said encouragingly. “Why don’t you give it a whack? We can toast our success with whatever is in the beakers,” he suggested. He watched Julian’s next spell attempt with anticipation. If he was right, Julian should have no trouble with the spell now. If he was right.

0 Dimitri Porter Here's to your success 0 Dimitri Porter 0 5