I'm homesick... on Charms

Professor Olivers

August 03, 2013 1:19 AM

What will you reveal...? [I & II years] by Professor Olivers

This winter break was the beginning of Florence's full recovery after her husband had passed away four years ago. Well, as full of a recovery as she could ever muster. She had spent Christmas with her brother and his family and spent the New Year with her fellow thespians. It reminded her of the years before she had married, back when she had been carefree and the theatre had been her life. Now she was a professor and teaching was her life, but she still looked back on those days fondly. Now she was looking forward to overseeing the development of the Drama Club. Though her lifestyle had changed drastically from seventeen years ago, the theatre was still close to her heart.

It was only a week since her students had returned from the break and she was sure she could feel the post-holiday mood lingering. It was always difficult to break through that the first couple of weeks, but Florence herself was feeling a little more lighthearted today. She supposed it had something to do with getting a letter from her grandniece at breakfast and having no extra grading to do.

The door closed at eight o'clock sharp and she stood at her desk with a smile. "Good morning everyone and happy Monday." The winter sun was shining through the windows today and she was grateful. Hopefully the extra light would wake her especially sleepy students up. "Today we're going to learn how to turn invisible ink visible. There is a quill on your desk already filled with invisible ink and you may use it to take your notes, if you wish." She smiled. It would make messy notes, but if her students preferred, she didn't mind it. "The Revealing Charm reveals invisible ink and basic concealing charms. Depending on a person's skill, this charm could even make other invisible things reveal themselves. However, we are only going to be working on revealing invisible ink for today.

"The incantation for this charm is Aparecium. You simply tap the parchment three times and the words should appear. However, you must stay focused on the incantation and pronounce the spell correctly. It is pronounced AH-par-EH-see-um." She waved her hand and the chalk wrote the incantation on the blackboard and the pronunciation underneath. Pronunciation was always the first step in the beginner classes. Florence didn't think her second-years would have too much trouble with this one, but the first-years might.

"On a scrap of paper I want you to write a message with the quill provided, something you wouldn't be embarrassed to have your professor read. You will exchange your parchment with your neighbor then practice the charm on your neighbor's invisible message until you can clearly read what your partner wrote. Then I want you and your partner to come up to my desk and show me the parchment and I will mark you on how clear the ink is. Don't forget the essay on the Color-Changing Charm I assigned last week. It's due this Friday. Once you have completed the spell, you may work on your essay quietly." She gave them all a serious look. "And I expect you all to be above cheating." It didn't matter if they did cheat. She would know by the charm she had placed on the quills carrying the invisible ink on their desk. "You may begin."

OOC: Lengthy, creative, and realistic posts will earn you more points!

Subthreads:

Oh, Merlin! by Emrys Lucan, Aladren with Ji-Eun Park, Pecari

I'm homesick... by Jude Butler, Pecari with Adam Spencer, Pecari, Jude

Revealing a secret message. by Emery Kijewski-Jareau, Aladren with Dimitri Porter. Teppenpaw, Ava Fletcher, Aladren

Not much, I suppose. by Leo Princeton, Crotalus with Irina Volkov, Aladren, Leo Princeton

Only the best partner will do. by Eleanor Vandenberg - Crotalus with Tristan Spaulding, Crotalus, Nellie Vandenberg

Attitudes and opinions, perhaps by Francesca Wolseithcrafte, Aladren with Malcolm Carey, Pecari

Back to the grindthtone by Analea Thornton, Aladren with Chloe Jareau, Pecari, Analea , Chloe Jareau

I am my own special creation by Charlie B-F-R, Teppenpaw with Darina Porter, Tepp, Rina

Not much, I'm afraid. by Julian Umland, Teppenpaw with Willow Collins,Teppenpaw

0 Professor Olivers What will you reveal...? [I & II years] 0 Professor Olivers 1 5

Emrys Lucan, Aladren

August 03, 2013 7:31 PM

Oh, Merlin! by Emrys Lucan, Aladren

Emrys lie in bed, pouting. Winter break had been, for the most part, miserable. His aunt and uncle had decided to stay in Wales for Christmas and then his grandmother had been too ill to travel so his grandfather had made an executive decision saying that the family would not be able to go to Wales to see Emrys' aunt and uncle and cousin. He and Wesley had owled back and forth and Welsey had sent him pictures of their dog, Lio, but Emrys missed being able to pet and play with Lio and talk with Wesley. He hadn't even had anyone to write to from Sonora, Charlotte being the only person he'd really had a productive conversation with. Unfortunately he had not been able to see her again before going back home nor had he gotten her address to keep in touch. He sighed glumly and forced himself to get out of bed for breakfast and then Charms. He really did not want to go, he'd barely talked to the boys in his dorm nor any of his classmates preferring instead to hole up in the MARS room and play his violin, or curl up on his bed and read- after he finished his homework at a secluded table in the library, of course.

By the time he had eaten by himself and gotten to the Charms room he was in a particularly foul mood. Why did Wesley have to move? If he hadn't then Emrys would have had a ready made friend at Sonora and would not have had all this trouble finding someone somewhat decent to talk to. He took a seat in the corner and huffed, placing his bag on top of the desk in front of him so he had something to lie his head and folded arms on. Everything was starting to make him angry, even Caelia and his mother. Over break his mother had not stopped going on and on and on about King Arthur and it was starting to drive Emrys nuts. Granted he loved the stuff, but that break he just wanted to be left alone and hang out with his cousin and their dog. Wesley and Lio were in Wales however, so that was not possible. He'd considered stealing some floo powder and surprising Wesley but then he had realized the punishment he would have been awarded in his grandfather caught him doing that and decided that sticking with owling Wesley would probably be a safer bet.

He didn't register it when someone took a seat next to him, and just listlessly stared at Professor Olivers as she began the day's lesson. He didn't feel like participating or working with a partner, so this lesson did not particularly make him happy. However, he cooperated because he knew that if he didn't it would call more attention to himself than he wanted and he preferred to stay under the radar. He'd never really been around kids his own age until he started Sonora as he'd been home schooled for most of his life, and he didn't really get what the big deal was either. So, he picked up the invisible ink quill and scribbled notes knowing that they'd probably turn out messy but he didn't care much- his handwriting was messy as it was so not being able to see what he was writing probably wouldn't make that much of a difference. When Professor Olivers told them that she expected they were all above cheating he had to refrain from rolling his eyes. How could they possibly cheat? It was invisible ink. Aside from writing the message in real ink, he couldn't think of a single way to cheat and besides, Olivers would probably notice if one pair wasn't practicing the spell. He supposed though that if anyone wanted to cheat they'd probably find a way. Emrys himself didn't see a point. They'd be in the classroom until the period was over and it was a useful spell, but that, he supposed, was why he had been placed in Aladren.

Once Professor Olivers turned them loose, he tore a piece of paper out of his notebook and thought hard about what to write. He wanted to write more than just the standard name and introduction, so instead he took out his ruler and made lines across the paper and pressed hard enough so that he could just faintly make out scratches on it from the quill. Then, pressing lighter so that the actual message wouldn't be able to be detected without use of the spell, he wrote out the name of the first song he'd ever learned on the violin followed by the first few measures. He knew that he probably placed notes in the wrong place or too close to each other, but that came with writing with invisible ink. He waited a moment to let it dry then put his quill down. He turned to his neighbor and held out his scrap of paper. "Ready to trade, he asked?"

10 Emrys Lucan, Aladren Oh, Merlin! 260 Emrys Lucan, Aladren 0 5

Ji-Eun Park, Pecari

August 04, 2013 1:54 PM

Don't worry - be happy by Ji-Eun Park, Pecari

Ji-Eun's break had been somewhat pressurised but really rather nice. Her mother had kept her busy assisting her with some of the simpler Potions she made for themselves and friends. Even though Mrs Park was glad Ji-Eun was going to a good school and would – so long as she applied herself properly and got top grades – be able to go to a good university, she didn't approve of her knowing only Western magic. There was a limit to what she could do on the wand magic side whilst her daughter was underage, other than constantly nag her to pay attention to the spells she was casting and repeat the words, but Potions was something she could start at any age. It being the family business, Ji-Eun had done it for as long as she could remember, even if it was only at the level of passing ingredients to her mother, or helping to weigh and measure. So, although her break had been crammed full of work, it seemed pretty much like normal life to her. She'd enjoyed being home, having familiar food and having people to speak Korean with again.

Now though, she was back to school, and trying her best to concentrate and not let homesickness get in the way of her lessons. As she slid into a seat in Charms next to a boy with his head on the desk, she rather thought she might be succeeding better than some people... He seemed to pull himself together for the lesson, in that she was aware of him scribbling away beside her, although she was too focussed on her own note taking to do much more than register the movement and sound of his writing. She had opted to use her regular quill, as having detailed and legible notes was important to her. She wrote the spell down in English but added a few Korean letters around it to help her remember how to pronounce it. Sometimes she felt sounds were more obvious with their English letters, sometimes more so with Hangul and so she often used a mix, or at least some annotations. There were more symbols for vowels in Hangul, and so she often felt those fitted the vowel sounds more closely than the choice of five from English, which could be pronounced in such a range of ways.

Once they were set to practise the spell, she turned her mind to thinking of something to write. She wanted to write something interesting but not keep her neighbour waiting too long. Glancing over, he too seemed deep in thought and thus she thought she could afford some thinking time. Her first mischievous instinct was to write something in Hangul. The thought that, even once visible, her words would remain impossible to read was rather amusing. However, she didn't want to stress the boy out, making him think he hadn't managed the spell. And Professor Olivers would have trouble with her grading, which would make her cross. Ji-Eun tried to think about the particular boy she was next to, and what she might say to him. She didn't really know him, other than knowing his name and face from him being in her class. She could introduce herself but that seemed boring... As she thought of how he had seemed at the start of the class, an idea came to her. Smiling to herself, she pulled out a scrap of parchment and wrote 'Think happy thoughts.

Turning to give it to him, her smile wavered, as she saw him scribbling a large and detailed-looking message onto his parchment. She nodded nervously as he asked if she was ready to trade, swapping her simple sentence for whatever he had been writing.

“AH-PAR, no – AH-par-EE- EH-see-um,” she read carefully, taking in all her notes. She practised a couple more times until the word flowed more easily off her tongue.

“AH-par-EH-see-um,” she cast, trying to sound firm. She had found Charms were less demanding about your tone of voice than things like Defence Against the Dark Arts or commanding a broom. They seemed somehow to appreciate one's own character more, and thus being delicate or flourishing could be just as effective. A scattering of black marks appeared across the paper but they didn't seem particularly connected. None of them linked up with each other or into letters.

“AH-par-EH-see-um,” she tried again. A few of the blobs grew lines, both up and down. “d d... something p.... o?” she began. It wasn't coming together or making sense, and she wondered for a moment whether he had just written a random selection of letters.

“AH-par-EH-see-um,” she tried, one last time. More ps and ds appeared, all sitting neatly on lines. “It's music!” she declared, as she suddenly realised. “It's funny, I thought about writing in a foreign language but decided that was too unfair on you,” she smiled at him.

13 Ji-Eun Park, Pecari Don't worry - be happy 268 Ji-Eun Park, Pecari 0 5

Jude Butler, Pecari

August 05, 2013 7:20 PM

I'm homesick... by Jude Butler, Pecari

There was no doubt in the twelve year old’s mind. Jude was homesick. There was something about her family that made her feel comfortable and together, only one person here did that, Angel. She wasn’t in classes with the older boy, she didn’t even have the Challenges to look forward to in order to be with him. He hadn’t really spoken to her the whole first half, but then again she’d barely seen him so it was almost impossible to talk to someone she hadn’t seen.

Jude still went to her classes, worked mostly by herself, even though she wanted to make friends and everything. Dane and Seanan had both taken her aside before coming back and told her that they expected at least one new friend from her this year. They’d grown tired of hearing that she wanted to come home and as much as they love her, they told her they wanted her to be happy both at home and at school and it was up to her to help herself.

She’d made up her mind that she would talk to other people, other than Angel that was, and she would do as they asked. What better place to start that then in classes? Jude walked into Charms Class, determined to sit next to someone she’d never spoken to and hopefully make a friend. The Professor welcomed them and told them that they were going to be turning invisible ink visible and Jude smiled. Nice! Now I can have some fun with the boys when they write messages to each other… she thought with a smile as she picked up the quill that their professor had been speaking about and took her notes with it.

Taking her notes for the incantation in the regular ink, however, just in case, she smiled as she finished writing down the notes and looked up at her teacher when she said that they needed to use a bit of scrap paper to write a message down that their neighbor would read as well as her. She thought, wondering what she could write on her paper. That’s it! she thought and she wrote, WE SHOULD GET TO KNOW EACHOTHER AND BE FRIENDS! down on her bit of paper once they were told they could begin.

“Are you ready to switch papers?” she asked her neighbor, only then noticing who it was.

0 Jude Butler, Pecari I'm homesick... 0 Jude Butler, Pecari 0 5

Emrys Lucan, Aladren

August 07, 2013 2:34 AM

In every life we have some trouble by Emrys Lucan, Aladren

The girl who sat next to him he somewhat recognized, he'd seen her around in class, in the hallways and at dinner. He had never spoken to her before but he was almost certain her knew her name. He also knew that he wasn't too sure how to pronounce it. After the two switched papers, he focused on the task at hand. The sooner he could figure out how to do this, the more time he would have to perfect it and be able to move onto the next lesson more sure of himself. He stared at the sheet in front of him and gritted his teeth. He looked up at the board and carefully read of the pronunciation of the spell.

"AH-par-EH-see-um," he said slowly and then again with more determination. His grandfather had instructed him that confidence was key to getting things done. "AH-par-EH-see-um," he repeated. He tapped the parchment three times with each of the pronunciations and slowly but surely a message began to appear. Once the letters were clear enough to read he put down his wand and read it in his head once and then aloud. "Think happy thoughts," he said incredulously. He didn't think he had looked that glum. Certainly his grandfather wouldn't have approved of his face so easily betraying his emotions. Just that in part made him want to pout more, but he listened to the tern voice in his head and wiped his face of emotion. He was only 12 years old for Merlin's sake, but he had been trained too well by his grandfather. Despite his constant resisting, he'd still absorbed his grandfather's teachings.

Emrys turned to the girl who was saying something to him. “It's funny, I thought about writing in a foreign language but decided that was too unfair on you,” she smiled at him.

He smiled back, uncertainly. "Sorry, I guess I figured it didn't really matter what I wrote so long as there was something there." He shrugged. "I wouldn't have minded if you'd done a foreign language. You'd have to tell me what it said though so I could understand." He found himself kind of wishing that she had written in a foreign language, he loved learning new things and a phrase in another language was just the thing to add to his collection. "What language, if you wouldn't mind me asking?"

OOC: Sorry this is so short, but I've been having brain blocks all day, I just wanted to get a post out to try and stop the block. I'm so blocked I can't even think of the correct term for it!

10 Emrys Lucan, Aladren In every life we have some trouble 260 Emrys Lucan, Aladren 0 5

Emery Kijewski-Jareau, Aladren

August 07, 2013 7:40 PM

Revealing a secret message. by Emery Kijewski-Jareau, Aladren

Emery really wasn’t sure how his first half of the year was going. It seemed that Chloe was making all of the friends and he wasn’t. He knew that his sister was far more outgoing than he was, so he wasn’t really surprised that she had made friends so quickly. He was just surprised that he hadn’t really made any yet. He had even joined a club in hopes of meeting people. It hadn’t helped. Emery thought he and his roommate had gotten along pretty well at the first official feast, but then, after the feast, Emrys stopped really talking to him and spent most of his time not in the dorm room. Emery wasn’t sure what he had said to make his roommate dislike him so much, unless he didn’t enjoy the less than enthusiastic response for the Arthur Legend stuff, or he found out that the Headmistress was his mother and didn’t want to be in any way involved with that.

He tried not to let it bother him too much, but it was hard to do when he shared the same room as him. Maybe this half of term would be better though. If he actively sought out people, he would have a better chance of making friends. Classes were usually the best time to get to know someone, but Emery had a hard time with wanting to have a conversation while wanting to make sure he did well for a grade. Emery needed to do well in class. He was the Headmistress’s son. It would look terrible on her if he did not pass his lessons with the top grades. He really needed to figure out a way to balance being social and getting his school work done.

Emery took efficient notes while Professor Olivers conducted her lesson. He was still meandering on the line when it came to his feelings regarding her style of teaching. Professor Fawcett and Professor Skies were both strict with their work, but it was also laid out in front of them, so they knew what was to come. Professor Olivers seemed like an enigma to Emery. His mother says she had a theatrical background, but her Charms skills were superb. He trusted his mother’s judgment, he just wished she was a little more predictable.

The lesson for today didn’t seem all that bad. He just didn’t know what he was supposed to write on the piece of parchment. He could try for witty, but Emery was not naturally witty. He could just write something stupid, but then someone else had to read it and he didn’t want to look like a fool. So, he opted for something simple and wrote Can you read this yet? He couldn’t see it, but hoped it looked okay.

Feeling okay with it, Emery turned to the person beside him and pushed the parchment in their direction. “Are you okay to start?” Emery asked politely.

0 Emery Kijewski-Jareau, Aladren Revealing a secret message. 0 Emery Kijewski-Jareau, Aladren 0 5

Ji-Eun Park, Pecari

August 08, 2013 3:00 PM

And how do you propose we deal with it? by Ji-Eun Park, Pecari

Judging by the boy's tone of voice, he was unimpressed with Ji-Eun's sentiments on thinking positive. She felt like it was good advice and, judging by the way he'd been slumped over at the start of class, some that he could do with following. She was only trying to be cheerful and helpful, and why was that a bad thing? However, rather than convey any of this to him, she merely bent her head over her notes, pretending to examine them. Her hair was in two small buns today, meaning it didn't have the remotest chance of swinging forward and hiding her face, nor the very slight blush that was colouring it.

The topic of his parchment, however, seemed somewhat more profitable, as far as conversation went.

“That's ok,” she smiled, as he apologised over his trickery. “I don't mind - I just thought that it was a funny coincidence.” She considered sharing what she had considered writing but the evidence so far suggested that she and this boy didn't seem to think the same, and he might have thought her little joke was silly. Or perhaps even mean, seeing as it would have been at his expense.

“It would have been Korean,” she answered his question. Picking up the invisible ink quill, she carefully inscribed a few words “If you want to see how it looks...?” she questioned a little shyly, holding out the parchment.

Once it was visible again, the parchment showed three small squares made up of clustered symbols.

박 지 은

“That's my name,” she explained, once the letters were visible. “My surname first because that's how we do it in Asian countries. P – ar – k,” she explained, pointing in turn to each of the three symbols that made up the first small square. “Ji,” she pointed to the two in the second square, “Eun.” She felt a little self conscious going into so much detail, but it took time to explain when people had never seen Hangul before. They often assumed it would be like Chinese, and have symbols stand for whole words. However, it was an alphabet, like English, only the way of arranging letters on the page was very different.

“Your name is.. Emerys?” she questioned, not sure she'd pronounced it very well. She was a confident native speaker of English, having been born in America, but his name wasn't one she knew. It had stuck in her head rather reluctantly but was proving just as awkward to get out again.

OOC - I hope it's ok to assume that he would take the second paper and make the letters visible. The rule of thumb for 'when is it writing for someone else's character' is to stop if you think they would need to act or change the direction, and I didn't think that was likely, plus it moved it on a bit quicker (and, you'll note, I didn't actually write him taking it or doing the spell – just sort of assumed it happened. I am right in thinking you're new, aren't I? Which is why I'm bothering to explain...)

As for the writer's block, glad you worked through it. I'm sure I've seen worse and have definitely written it!

13 Ji-Eun Park, Pecari And how do you propose we deal with it? 268 Ji-Eun Park, Pecari 0 5

Emrys Lucan

August 08, 2013 6:26 PM

I dunno, I was just finishing the song lyric... by Emrys Lucan

Korean? That was interesting! Emrys immediately perked up. This had nothing to do with anything he'd ever been taught before and he was glad to learn something new. He just felt as if everything he'd been learning lately was stale. With all the King Arthur that had been pounded into his head over winter break by his mother, he was slowly starting to get disillusioned to it, but that having been his main passion for all of his life except for music, he didn't know what to fill the void with. More recently he'd tried to find new books to read in the library but for the most part his search had been fruitless, and he desperately wished to find a new hobby.

"That's really neat!" He exclaimed as he watched her scratch something out on the parchment. He accepted the paper and cast the spell until the characters showed up. He tilted it towards her so that she could read it and tell him how it worked and what it said. He tried to pronounce her name correctly as he asked her the question he'd come up with, but wasn't entirely sure if he got it correct. "So, if you went to a Korean school, for example, instead of being called 'Gee-E-uhn Park' like you are here, you'd be called 'Park Gee-E-uhn'?" He was confident he'd messed up her name and so apologized. "I'm sure I messed that up, any advice on how to pronounce it?"

Emrys smiled when Ji-Eun tried to say his name. "Close, it's Emrys, so you just say 'M' like the letter, then '-rys', my mother's a Camelot nut so it's Welsh and comes from one of Merlin's supposed names." He shrugged. "It's kinda cool, she named my sister Caelia like the Faerie Queen." He thought about his mom who worked so hard to properly educate her children in her field of study. He felt a little bit of guilt acting as if he didn't share her love for the subject, but it had just gotten to be too much for him over winter break. He felt certain that the children in the neighboring houses were always staring at their family and laughing when his parent called for him with his full name. He didn't like that feeling and knew from experience that they hadn't liked it much when he tried to talk to them about the specifics of Camelot. After one fateful afternoon a few years ago when he'd been stuffed in a snowbank by some of the older kids, he hadn't talked to them much, but that was more from his grandfather than his own wishes. Myrddin Lucan had been furious to know that not only had his grandson been playing with Muggles but that he had been on the loosing end of a fight with them. Emrys could still hear his words echoing in his head no matter how hard he tried to forget them.

OOC: Yeah, that's fine! And thanks! It's slowly starting to wear off... I just have all this writing I have to get done for work (I work at a newspaper) so it's time and brain consuming! haha

10 Emrys Lucan I dunno, I was just finishing the song lyric... 260 Emrys Lucan 0 5

Dimitri Porter. Teppenpaw

August 08, 2013 7:02 PM

Messaged received by Dimitri Porter. Teppenpaw

Dimitri woke up the morning of Charms class and found himself wondering what the professor had in store for them that day. He rubbed his hand over his face trying to wake up and yawned. He groaned aloud and pushed aside his covers. He put his bare feet onto the floor and on his way to the bathroom scratched his bottom. He glanced into the mirror while in the bathroom and almost laughed at his own reflection. His hair was all over place and looked like a rat’s nest. “I hate my hair,” he grumbled as he turned from the mirror and turned on the water for the shower. He grabbed a towel and after ditching his pajamas, climbed into the hoping it would help him wake up and do something with his curly mess of a head. He dried off after his shower and pulled on his clothes. His black khaki pants with the pleats in the front and a white button up dress shirt. He pulled on a v-neck sleeveless sweater vest over the button-up. He slipped on his school robes and grabbed his book bag. He headed out of the Tepp dorms to the Charms room. He walked into the classroom and took a seat next to one of the other first years that he recognized slightly. If he was certain, the boy he was sitting next to was Emery the headmistress’ son. Dimitri didn’t hold that against the guy. You couldn’t help who your parents were.

He smiled friendly towards Emery and was about to say hello to him when Professor Olivers shut the door to the room and began telling them about their assignment for class. The Revealing Charm sounded interesting. He wasn’t entirely certain how he was going to write a message on a piece of paper legible enough for himself or anyone to read. He figured he would write something simple and hope that it turned out legible enough to read. He picked up the pen with the invisible ink already inside it and wrote out a simple sentence. Since he wasn’t entirely sure what to write he wrote exactly that, I’m not sure what I’m supposed to write so I‘ll write my name, Dimitri. Hi I‘m Dimitri. the sentence said. He was about to turn towards Emery and ask him if he wanted to trade papers when Emery beat him to it. Emery had stuck the paper on his desk and asked if he minded going first. Dimitri grinned and shrugged. “Sure. I don’t mind taking the first whack at it,” he said jokingly. He laced his fingers together and pressed his fingers together until his knuckles cracked. He shook out his hands and glancing up at the board for the pronunciation, he picked up his wand and took his first attempt.

“Ah-par-eh-see-um,” he said to himself a couple of times, getting a feel for the wording. When he was finally ready to tackle the spell, he lifted his wand and gave it a shot. “Ah-par-eh-see-um,” he cast, tapping Emery’s piece of paper three times. He watched carefully as the words began to faintly appear. The only problem he found with it was that while it began to show up, it looked more like small, faded blurs then letters. He frowned slightly glancing towards Emery. “I guess I didn’t give it enough umph,” he smiled slightly. “Let’s hope I get it this time.” He cast the spell again, tapping the paper again. The words became a little clearer and a little sharper, but he still couldn’t quite make it out. “I guess third times the charm,” he joked, laughing slightly at his own unintentional pun. He cast the spell one last time and silently prayed that the third time was actually the charm. “Ah-par-eh-see-um,” he cast, tapping the paper again three times. After the final tap he watched the paper closely. Finally the letters came in clear enough to read. He grinned openly and glanced up at Emery. “I can this time,” he answered the question posted on the page. “You ready for your turn partner?” he asked friendly still grinning as he handed over his own paper to Emery.

0 Dimitri Porter. Teppenpaw Messaged received 0 Dimitri Porter. Teppenpaw 0 5

Ava Fletcher, Aladren

August 08, 2013 7:08 PM

Ooh, secrets, fun! by Ava Fletcher, Aladren

Seeing and hanging out with Dimitri that first night back had really boosted Ava's confidence. She now felt as if the other students really did like her and she was excited to meet some more. She felt a bounce in her step that morning when she made her way to breakfast and then the Charms classroom afterwards. She found a seat with an empty one beside it in case Dimitri wanted to sit with her, and then took out her notebook and a self-inking quill prepared to take notes. She wanted to use the invisible ink quill but knew that should she not be able to manage the spell correctly then her notes would be lost forever. Plus she wouldn't be able to say the spell the first time without the use of her notes. Satisfied with her decision, she started to write down what Professor Olivers told the class about the spell and it's use. She made a tiny guide on pronunciation next to the spell and then ripped a piece of paper out of her notebook to write a message to her partner.

"Mermaids," she wrote. "Are totally fantastic. Do you like them?"

Just when she was about to ask the person to her right to be her partner, the boy to her left gave her his paper and asked her if she was ready to start. A little bit startled, and hoping to have been partnered with Dimitri, it took Ava a moment to answer. "Um, yes! Of course!" She switched papers with him think that meeting new people was a good idea and she could always use another friend. She bent over his paper and took a deep breath, trying to remember what Dimitri had told her about getting over being nervous. She looked around the classroom for his face to see if he was making a silly one like he'd promised to do if they ever had a quiz, but realized that practicing a spell probably didn't count as one. She thought of something funny and then read over her notes. "AH-par-EH-see-um," she pronounced, tapping the paper three times. "AH-par-EH-see-um." She continued to do so until the letters that were once invisible slowly came forth and she could read what he had written.

"Can you read this?" She had to stifle a laugh. She thought the question was kind of funny and witty. "Yes," she said, turning to answer the boy. She recognized him from classes and as one of the boys in her year and house. He had a name that was similar to another boy in their year and house but she couldn't remember if this boy was Emrys or Emery. "What's your name again?" Ava asked, tilting her head to the side a bit. "There are two of you with really similar names, I can just never keep them straight..." She trailed off feeling slightly awkward, realizing that it was only in her head that she could never keep them straight. She hadn't ever talked to either one of them if her memory served her correctly, but the one in front of her wasn't to know if she hadn't talked to the other unless they were friends. Which she was almost certain they were not, never having seen them together before. But maybe she was just oblivious to how friendships worked with boys.

0 Ava Fletcher, Aladren Ooh, secrets, fun! 0 Ava Fletcher, Aladren 0 5

Leo Princeton, Crotalus

August 09, 2013 12:33 PM

Not much, I suppose. by Leo Princeton, Crotalus

By the first minute and a half, Leo was in a complete slumber. His head was propped up by his hand and his elbow was slowly on its way to slipping off the table, but he took no notice of that. One of Leo’s charms was, besides his cherubic facial features and quick tongue, was his uncanny ability to fall asleep under almost any circumstance. Cool weather, warm weather, morning classes, libraries and family dinners triggered this ability the best. He was doing well solely under Rupert’s tutelage. Leo and Cepheus weren’t talking now after that Quidditch fiasco—which they hadn’t even won—, but Rupert had been kind enough to tutor him on the side. Without him, Leo would most surely fail.

He had read up on the Revealing Charm beforehand, though, in truth, he’d really had Nellie read it out loud to him over the holiday, so he felt adequately prepared for today’s lesson. Ergo, no reason to pay attention to the lecture. The dream Leo was having was quite pleasant. It consisted of long-tailed unicorns that were leading him somewhere special. His professor was in there as well, telling him that all the lessons he had missed didn’t matter and he had received an O for being such an outstanding wizard. He was on his broom flying forward, his golden hair being blown in the wind and time slowed as he reached a thick of trees. The unicorns prodded him forward and one of them was about to touch the shrubbery with its horn when he twitched awake.

Leo’s elbow slipped and he nearly bashed his chin against the table, but he caught himself in time. His hand had clenched into a fist and his wrist had hit the table, saving him, but he hadn’t made a sound. He looked over at Professor Olivers, wondering if she had noticed, but said nothing as he sighed. It did well to sit in the back of the classroom and be unnoticed by most, if not all. He leant back in his seat and peeked over at his neighbour’s textbook to see which page they were on. Olivers was going on about some charm and he looked at the board for reference. Right; the Revealing Charm.

It was time for their attempts on the charm and Leo was glad he had woken when he had though it had been a very inconvenient time in his dream. If only he’d had a few more seconds…

Leo was very tempted to merely write with his own quill in big letters and give it to Olivers to mark, but he had caught the last bit of her lecture. No cheating. Those words wouldn’t have stopped Leo normally, but the professors here were much more serious about that sort of thing. She had even provided her own quill. That had to mean enchantment of some sort on that quill. Leo could have gotten away with cheating perfectly fine back with his tutors, but here he had his classmates who could be on the professor’s side. It would do to make friends with the right sort. Until then, he ought to stick to the rules. He wrote down his note in the quill provided: Someone should open a window in here.

He looked up at his neighbour and handed the parchment over. “Hello, you finished?”

0 Leo Princeton, Crotalus Not much, I suppose. 0 Leo Princeton, Crotalus 0 5

Adam Spencer, Pecari

August 09, 2013 12:35 PM

Let's change that. by Adam Spencer, Pecari

The winter holiday had been everything Adam could have wanted and more. He had been more than happy to see his family again, particularly his younger siblings. The youngest seemed to grow quicker the less he saw of her. Charlotte had been bursting with news to tell everyone after her first term away from home, but she was soft-spoken and continually turned to him to fill in the blanks. He knew she was talkative underneath her shy demeanour, but he had never seen her really break out of her shell even at home. Only when they were alone together did she ever truly speak her mind. It was both a blessing and a curse, having such a shy sister.

As comforting as home was, Adam was glad to be back. He liked his house, he liked the courses and he enjoyed learning. He was nervous about his first Quidditch match coming up, but he really couldn’t do anything about that but train. He had made a handful of mates his first year here and half of his second, but he was a naturally social person and wanted to make more. He had tried to make it a habit to sit with someone else every day unless Charlotte was being particularly clingy that hour.

Morning classes were always the most difficult to pay attention in; that and classes after lunch. He was not a morning person at all like Charlotte was, but he had woken up and come to class a bit earlier than usual. He sat down and rubbed his eye, doing his best to keep awake. Professor Olivers was lecturing again and he tried writing a bit to keep awake, but he began to doze a bit. The sunlight was not helping in the slightest. It made him even drowsier. His letters were beginning to blur and he smudged a bit with his hand without noticing. His head drooped, but he quickly raised it once more. Adam tugged on his earlobe, trying to do something inconspicuous to keep awake. He had heard most of the lesson and he stretched his legs down to his toes in his shoes when Olivers dismissed them to work in partners. He began scribbling down his message with the invisible inked quill.

What goes up

“Sorry?” His neighbour had spoken to him and Adam turned his head, only then realising he was sitting next to his house-mate. “Oh, hi Jude,” he said with a smile. He knew of her; they were in the same year and in the same house, but that was the extent. He wasn’t quite sure what to call her, seeing as they were peers yet were hardly on acquaintance terms. His peers had seemed to be slightly less formal here than back home, so he thought he’d be safer going with her first name than her last. “I’m almost ready.”

What goes up and down the stairs without moving?

His riddle was finished and he passed it over to Jude. “All right, here you are.” Now the key was to pronounce the spell correctly on the first try. He was about to try it himself when he thought it would be better manners if he allowed Jude to try first. It wouldn’t do if they both attempted the spell at the same time. What if they knocked elbows or something? His dad had always told him it was ‘witches first’ in most situations. It was only proper during lessons too, wasn’t it? “You can have a go first,” he said with a smile as he gestured at the parchment he had handed to her.

0 Adam Spencer, Pecari Let's change that. 0 Adam Spencer, Pecari 0 5

Jude

August 10, 2013 11:31 PM

Really?! That would be great!) by Jude

Jude felt quite conflicted. She wanted home, but she wanted to make her brothers proud of her too. I will make friends… she told herself as she wrote out what she decided to put onto her scrap paper. Sure, she’d spoken to people in classes and whatnot, but she hadn’t really talked to them like she’d spoken to Angel during the Challenges. She enjoyed the time with the older boy and wished it could continue. But he’s older, what does he want to go hanging around someone this much younger than him? she thought to herself.

At least in classes I’m around people my own age… she thought, as she finished writing her sentence onto the paper before looking to see who had sat next to her. Jude wondered why she hadn’t even looked to see that before, but she didn’t worry about that. There were bigger fish to fry here. She asked him, realizing that it was Adam, her house and year mate, who had sat next to her, if he was ready to switch. When he’d said hello to her, she smiled meekly and said, “Hey Adam.“ He didn’t really know her just like she didn’t really know him, but that didn’t mean that they wouldn’t be able to. He seemed like a good person to get to know and maybe he was where she should start after all? He answered that he was almost ready and Jude waited patiently for him to finish.

He handed Jude his paper and she gave him hers, feeling sort of nervous with what she’d written on her paper now that it was all over and done with. Adam told her that she could have her go first and she glanced down at her notes to be sure that it was done right for a second before she started, “AH-par-EH-see-um” she said, tapping the parchment three times. She watched carefully at his bit of paper as vowels started to show up on the page. a oe u a o e ai I ou o I? She looked at it curiously and tapped three times again, saying the incantation once more. Maybe I didn’t say it right? she thought as she said it a little bit more forceful. “AH-par-EH-see-um” she said, and more letters showed up too.

What goes up and down the stairs without moving?

“Ooo!! A riddle! I LOVE riddles!” she exclaimed with a huge grin on her face. “I’ll think about the answer if you want to try your turn?” she asked him, happy that Adam had sat next to her and hopeful that maybe they could indeed be friends like her paper said!

0 Jude Really?! That would be great!) 0 Jude 0 5

Irina Volkov, Aladren

August 11, 2013 12:57 AM

You never know. by Irina Volkov, Aladren

How had this happen? Irina pushed back the hair that had come loose from her messy ponytail. She was never late. If anything, she was always early. She was always in the first seat and ready to take notes. With a disappointed sigh, she plopped down into the nearest chair and dropped her pile of books onto the desk. Thankfully, the professor hadn’t started the lecture yet, but even so, it wasn’t enough time to make it to any sort of preferred seating without drawing attention.

Taking a breath, she turned her attention to what she could do, such as organizing herself a bit better. Pulling out a folder from her bag, she took the stray papers from her book and placed them neatly in. Much better than them sticking out everywhere. She wanted to fix her blonde hair too, but there was no time as Professor Olivers started the lecture. Oh, well, she was somewhat satisfied with the state of things since she was now a bit more organized. Using her quill, she took notes on what they were to be doing even though she had already read the assignment.

When the boy next to her made noise, Irina looked over in disgust. He should have been paying attention like she was. Or at the very least not distract others that were attempting to. It was rather rude. It was one thing if he didn’t care about what sort of grade he received, but she had no desire to get anything less than an O. Shaking her head, she turned back towards the professor who was explaining how they would be putting the spell into practice. It actually didn’t sound that bad. She just hated the fact that they had to work in groups. She much preferred to work alone, mostly so she knew that it was one hundred percent correct. Others just preferred to get by on the bare minimum. She preferred to get extra points whenever possible.

Staring at her paper, she pondered what to write. There were just so many things to choose from, however, she doubted that any of her classmates would appreciate any of them. Instead, she decided on something that would benefit herself. She had begun to learn French over the holiday. She wanted to be fluent in five languages by the time she graduated from Sonora. The Aladren had picked French since it was one of the romance languages, which would give her a basis if she wanted to learn Spanish or Italian. On her parchment, she put: Je ne suis pas amusé par les gens de s'endormir.

She was about to look for someone to exchange with when she heard a voice speak. No! Why was it the boy who was sleeping? He was clearly not going to take this lesson seriously. Biting down her frustration, she turned to him. “Of course, I am,” she said, taking the paper and giving him hers. This was going to be easy. She tapped the parchment three times, hoping there were no incidents of wands flying out of hands, and stated clearly, “Aparcium.” She smirked when his message appeared. Easy. “I don’t think most people would like you opening a window. Did you get the charm to work yet?”

0 Irina Volkov, Aladren You never know. 0 Irina Volkov, Aladren 0 5

Leo Princeton

August 11, 2013 4:04 AM

Oh look, introductions already. by Leo Princeton

Some of the reading Leo had done over the holiday would help particularly with this spell. Practising his pronunciation was much easier than sticking his nose into a book so it was the wand movements he had the most trouble with. However, in beginner lessons, he had learnt it wasn't really the wand movements that made a significant difference as much as the pronunciation itself. It made practical lessons much easier to receive high marks on.

The witch didn't seem pleased to have him as a partner and Leo made a note to change that later. He waved his wand, pronouncing, "Aparecium," with gusto, but the text came out a bit spotty. From the looks of the letters, he recognised the language and he smirked. He'd be able to show off some of his knowledge here. Leo had always picked up languages quickly and, with loads of tutors, a mum who was half-French and frequent trips to visit relatives in France as a child, he had mastered much of the language. There was very little in the academic world that interested Leo very much, but the art of language was one that he, if he considered language to be academic, was very interested in. His interest came on the most part because it was so easy for him.

The requirement for being a Princeton, it seemed, was to master at least three languages before the age of eighteen. His eldest brother was most likely not going to reach that 'requirement' by that time, but Cepheus had more things to worry about. Leo, on the other hand, had absolutely nothing to worry about and he wanted to keep it that way. As the youngest, he had everything handed down to him and, coming from a wealthy and prestigious family, all he had to do was look good, marry a pretty witch and plan to live comfortably in the English countryside for the rest of his life. It was just all this schooling he had to get through first that was an absolute drag.

His partner had finished the spell on her first try. Good for her. Her comment was foreseeable and he nodded. "You're probably right, with it being winter and all. Aparecium." The second try of the spell revealed the witch's message and he smirked. "Neither am I," he replied to her written comment, "unless I am the person falling asleep." He bowed. It was obvious this witch was not amused by him and he needed to make quick amends. He didn't want any enemies this early in the game. "Mes excuses, mademoiselle." When he rose, he stuck out a hand. "Je m'appelle Leo Princeton, de Surrey. Et vous?" If nothing else, he hoped helping her practise her French would get him on her good side.

40 Leo Princeton Oh look, introductions already. 263 Leo Princeton 0 5

Adam

August 11, 2013 4:24 AM

I was hoping you'd say that. by Adam

Jude did quite well on her attempt. It had only taken her twice and Adam thought that was quite good. He was better at Transfiguration than he was at Charms, meaning he hardly got a spell right on the first try. But he hoped, this being his second year in the beginner's class, to excel a bit faster. Adam didn't know Jude very well and he had found it a bit funny that his current mates were all in different houses. He hadn't paid much attention to the house-mates he lived with and competed alongside. Joining Quidditch would solve a few of those problems, but not all. His hope for a new friend in his house was fuelled by her excitement at the riddle he had written down. "Really?" he asked, a smile spreading on his face. "Me too. All right, I'll have a go."

Adam turned to the parchment he had and concentrated on getting the spell right. For simpler spells it usually took him two tries, but today he wanted to do it in one. Adam had practised the spells they'd learnt last term the first few days back at Sonora and he hoped that re-acquaintance with magic would help him a bit more. "AH-par-EH-see-um," he said, being careful to pronounce each syllable, and Jude's ink appeared like a dark stone emerging from a murky river. "Brilliant," he said, grinning. Her parchment was much more excited than his had been, but he refrained from teasing her for it. He didn't know her that well yet.

"Why not?" he said with a smile. "If you did mean me in particular, that is. Have you figured it out yet?" Adam and his sister loved riddles. He wasn't quite sure where the love had sprouted from, but they had loved them ever since either of them could remember. During dinner they would throw out a riddle and, depending on its difficulty, it would take all evening for their parents to figure it out. It was fun, riddles, and it was something he had bonded over with Charlotte. They shared many of the same interests, but it was unfortunate that he made more mates than she did. If she were just a bit more outgoing, she would be immensely popular.

Adam didn't want to worry over his sister again, especially in class. She seemed to be doing fine and if her one mysterious friend decided to contact her this term, then she would have at least one person. He needed to remember to focus on his own life as well. "Once you've got the answer, would you like to go up to Professor Olivers and show her our parchments? These both look like high marks to me."

0 Adam I was hoping you'd say that. 0 Adam 0 5

Eleanor Vandenberg - Crotalus

August 12, 2013 6:42 PM

Only the best partner will do. by Eleanor Vandenberg - Crotalus

The whole winter holidays had been pretty fun. She had spent it dominantly at the Princeton residence while her parents had worked. Her dad had no qualms about working on major holidays and her mom wanted Nellie to get to know the Princetons better anyway. Nell knew Leo's mom pretty well now since she had practically grown up next to Leo, but the other family members, besides Leo, she didn't really know. It was kind of fun. She had tried to convince Leo to study more for the upcoming term as her parents wanted her to, but she hadn't had much luck. She mostly just read out loud to him.

As she walked into class that morning, she hoped her studying over the break would help. Nellie went and sat down near the front. She knew Leo usually liked the back, but he also liked to be late while Nellie was always punctual. It was supposed to be like that, though; according to her mom, boys weren't responsible till they were adults and she would just have to wait till Leo grew up. Nellie would just have to wait some more and then they could fall happily in love and get married and whatever.

Today she was wearing her new robes and her dark hair was straight and loose around her shoulders. She liked to look pretty just for her own sake and she felt it made her look a little wealthier too especially when she wore newer, expensive-looking clothes. Nellie took out her textbook and turned to the page they were on for today. Sometimes she wondered how this professor had gotten a job as a professor. Hadn't she been an actress before? Well, as long as Professor Olivers had credentials and taught them well, Nellie didn't really care. So far she wasn't turned off by any of Prof Olivers's lessons.

The Revealing Charm was one of the spells Eleanor had read up on during the break and she was happy to be ahead of the game this time. She took her notes half in invisible ink and the other half, the important half, with her regular quill. The ink she was using was purple which made the important tidbits stand out. Nellie wanted to work with Leo, but when she turned to look at him, he was already talking to another girl. Nellie felt jealousy rage up in her, but she quieted it down a little. He was her future betrothed, not that girl's. Hmph.

Nellie turned back around and wrote down her message. My name is Eleanor Vandenberg. I am from England. That would be a good introduction if someone she didn't know took the parchment from her. She turned to someone and smiled. "Would you like to trade parchments with me?" she asked politely.

0 Eleanor Vandenberg - Crotalus Only the best partner will do. 0 Eleanor Vandenberg - Crotalus 0 5

Ji-Eun Park, Pecari

August 13, 2013 12:47 PM

Ah, that'll teach me to quote songs I don't know well by Ji-Eun Park, Pecari

Ji-Eun was relieved that her classmate seemed interested in the subject that she'd been rambling on about. She didn't always have the easiest time thinking up things to say but this was something she could be confident that she knew a lot about, so long as he was happy to listen.

“Right,” she nodded, when he asked her to clarify the name order thing. “That's not too bad,” she smiled, when he asked about his pronunciation. However mangled people got it, she was always polite and positive. She knew it was strange sounding to people who weren't used to it and appreciated their efforts. “Gee like the letter. Or like 'Oh gee, it's Monday again.' And Eun like... uh,” Well, Eun was just like itself really. She grinned a little sheepishly. “Two syllables – Ji-Eun,” she added, as he'd put an extra one in, probably as a result of her spelling out all the letters that were on the page. “All Korean surnames are one syllable and given names are two syllables. And if you find it easier, you can just call me Jane,” she offered.

She smiled as Emrys explained his name, finding it funny that they both had used a letter name to explain the pronunciation, and had both accidentally added an extra syllable to each other.

“That's a pretty name,” she said, of his sister's. It was exotic and sort of... floaty sounding. She wasn't at all surprised that it was the name of a fairy queen. If his sister was anything like her name, she sounded like a very sweet person whom Ji-Eun would like. “Will she come here too? My brother will be here the year after next,” she added. She did not sound abundantly enthusiastic about the prospect.

“Would you like to practise the revealing Charm one more time, then maybe we could set to work on our essays?” she queried.

OOC – my turn to be slow! Sorry – really long week at work. Also, is the vowel in the 'rys' part of Emrys' name pronounced to rhyme with 'hiss' or with 'peace'?

13 Ji-Eun Park, Pecari Ah, that'll teach me to quote songs I don't know well 268 Ji-Eun Park, Pecari 0 5

Emery Kijewski-Jareau

August 15, 2013 12:09 AM

Trying to mesh the posts together. by Emery Kijewski-Jareau

OOC: I tried my best to mesh the two posts together. Since they both couldn’t have read Emery’s parchment, I wrote it as Emery switched with Ava first then with Dimitri, so that Dimitri has Ava’s, Ava has Emery’s and Emery has Dimitri. It seemed like Dimitri’s response could sort of go with Ava’s too. Hopefully that’s alright. I figure, posting order would go Emery, DiMitri, Ava? BIC:

Emery had intended to work and get to know only one of his classmates, but found himself working with two. He wasn’t sure how that happened or why but he figured there couldn’t be anything too terribly wrong with it. As long as all three of them went up to the Professor when they were done and showed their work, he didn’t think it would be an issue. Unless the Professor didn’t like the idea of them working in threes or someone was left out and didn’t have a partner at all. He’d worry about that later.

The person who took his parchment was Ava Fletcher. He recognized her from class, but also from his house. It was strange to him that they had never really spoken before, but Emery didn’t really talk to anyone other than his siblings and the book club. He was doing his best though to make up for his lack of social commitments he had made during the first half of the school year. The second person who switched parchments with him (which was technically Ava’s parchment) was one of the new Teppenpaws. He couldn’t remember off the top of his head his name, but knew him as one of the Porters. There was another Porter, but Emery wasn’t sure if they were siblings, cousins, vaguely related, or not related at all. Considering he saw them together, he opted to believe they were related, but he wasn’t going to make assumptions that they were closely related. His mother said there were large families that attended the school, so to assume something could very well lead him to being incorrect.

While his neighbors/partners started work on their parchments, Emery reviewed his notes and tried to remember exactly how the professor had performed the spell on her own. Porter seemed to enjoy talking to himself as he worked, but that didn’t bother Emery too much. Chloe talked a person’s ear off whenever she wanted and his father wasn’t too far behind that. The only reason why any of the rest of the were noticed is because of how different they were. Ayita was Native and strange, Angel was Albino with medical issues and strange, Harper was a baby, and well, Emery was his mother’s first and made from a test tube baby. Or however donor things were made. Emery never asked for the details.

As Porter spoke to himself, Ava worked quietly beside him. Maybe that was an Aladren thing. Emery shrugged to himself and attempted the spell himself, being sure that his phonetics of the spell were correct and watched as words began to appear on the blank parchment. They were faded, almost a little smudged, but they were definitely there. For a first try, he didn’t find it all too terrible of a result. Not the best though. He set to work again and discovered the full sentence, clear this time to appear. He wasn’t sure if it was the complete amount of ink visible, but considering he could read it well and clear, he should pass without issue. Plus, he learned the name of one of his partners. DiMitri. The sentence was long and redundant, but that was okay.

Before Emery could move on, he heard Ava giggle and figured she had read his message. Looking at her, she asked him his name. Emrys and Emery were ridiculously close together and might have more confusing if they were actually close in friendship. “Emery. I’m Emery. Emrys will talk about King Arthur a lot and Merlin, so once you’ve had a conversation with him, I’m sure you won’t forget his name.” He said this lightheartedly but also with knowledge and did not mean it to say anything negative about his roommate. It was just a point of reference to help her in the future. “You’re Ava, right? I’ve seen you around the commons.” Emery commented with a polite smile.

“I’ve already completed it.” Emery told DiMitri. “It’s good to meet you, DiMitri. Can I ask what Ava wrote on her’s?”

6 Emery Kijewski-Jareau Trying to mesh the posts together. 259 Emery Kijewski-Jareau 0 5

Jude

August 15, 2013 3:14 AM

You were? by Jude

Jude’s love for riddles sparked her energy for the first time in a year and a half, and that Adam had given it to her made him one of her favorite people ever! The grin on her face never faded as Adam took his turn and she thought of the possible answers to his riddle. What goes up and down the stairs without moving? she thought, as Adam mentioned that he liked riddles too. Her smile widened both as he tried his turn and discovering they liked riddles. She hoped it would help her desire to be friends with Adam. He smiled too, and Jude hoped that was a good thing!

Adam had managed to get her writing to come out on the first try. “Good job!” she praised his skill and when he said ‘brilliant!’ her already large grin got broader. Her smile widened again when he remarked ‘why not!’ “I did mean you.” she said, even though she hadn’t meant him specifically at the start. Jude certainly meant it now.

He asked if she’d figured it out and she looked at him and said, “Is it the railing?” she asked. “At first that’s what I thought, but it seemed too easy… And that works for me…” she added the last bit as an afterthought.

“I agree, I really do. And I’m looking forward to getting to know you!” she said as she picked up his paper and waited for him to make the next move. She wasn’t sure if he was ready to go up to the professor yet, or if he wanted to talk more, but she was hoping that he’d tell her that she was right about his riddle. Maybe he had more for her? Or maybe she could think of one for him? Either way, she watched him, smile on her face as she waited for him.

0 Jude You were? 0 Jude 0 5

Dimitri Porter

August 15, 2013 10:47 PM

Its a good meshing I think by Dimitri Porter

Dimitri grinned when he realized that both he and Ava seemed to have the same idea when it came to working together in class. Somehow in the confusion of everything, he Ava and Emery ended up with each other’s papers. She ended up reading Emery’s, he had Ava’s and Emery had his. That part he figured out from Emery’s reaction to the introduction he had written on the paper. He was halfway listening in on Emery’s reply to Ava on which one he was since apparently there were two people with similar names, him and Emrys. Dimitri hadn’t had the chance to speak to either of them until now and decided he liked Emery and Emrys sounded like an interesting person to talk to as well. He would have to talk to him the next time he saw him. Dimitri had been watching the two of them attempting the spell and had been trying to get a good idea of how to do it. Since they both seemed to have figured it out he concluded that he should be able to as well. He glanced over towards Emery’s page that Ava had watched curiously as the she made the words appear on the page. When Ava laughed and replied that she could indeed read what was there, Dimitri nodded that he could as well.

Dimitri stared at the seemingly blank page knowing that Ava’s message was waiting for him to cast his spell. Dimitri lifted his wand and took his turn at the spell. He let out a breath as he took his turn. “Ah-par-eh-see-um!” he cast, tapping the paper three times as they were shown. He watched intently as the words on the page began to appear, but they were extremely blurry. He frowned slightly as he got prepared to try again. As he was getting ready to cast it again he heard Emery ask a question. He turned towards him away from the paper and heard the question fully. “What does Ava’s say?” Emery asked. Dimitri grinned slightly as he replied. “I’m not quite sure yet,” he replied. “Its still a little blurry. Let me try again.” He turned back towards the paper and cast the spell again. “Ah-par-eh-see-um,” he cast again and again tapped the paper three times. He crossed his fingers lightly as he watched the letters become readable. “Hallelujah,” he whispered to himself as he was now able to read the words on the paper. He grinned as he read her question. He turned towards the two of them and was able to finally answer Emery’s question. “She says that she thinks mermaids are fantastic. She wants to know if we like them too,” he told Emery. Dimitri knew that Ava would be expecting an answer to her question and really didn’t know what to say. Mermaids had never really been something he had ever worried about. If anyone would have worried about that, it would have been his twin sister.

They sold all kinds of knick knacks and things at his parents’ store which included little statuettes of unicorns, fairies, dragons and a few mermaids. They also sold posters of fantasy creatures as well and the few posters that he saw where there was a mermaid in it looked pretty neat. Girly, but neat. Dimitri shrugged at Ava’s question. “I’m really the wrong person to ask that question to,” he replied honestly. “They look like they could be neat…I guess, but my twin sister is the one that would be better to ask that question to.” He chuckled slightly. “If it weren’t for my mother, sister and all my female cousins, I would probably have no idea what it was in the first place.” He laughed at his own comment.

0 Dimitri Porter Its a good meshing I think 0 Dimitri Porter 0 5

Francesca Wolseithcrafte, Aladren

August 17, 2013 1:35 PM

Attitudes and opinions, perhaps by Francesca Wolseithcrafte, Aladren

Francesca could not help but feel slightly prickly as she returned to school. Her family home in Chicago was a little sanctuary, the one place that the members of her family could relax and be themselves, without fear of being judged. True, when she was invited to events like the Princetons' Christmas party, she could feel relatively safe for the evening, knowing that she had been, to some degree, wanted and welcomed. But as she returned to school she was forced to put her guard back up. Forced to be suspicious of others, and what they might think of her. It was tiring, and it made one sit a little uncomfortably in one's own skin. At least, following the next break, she would be able to bring back a little oasis of calm with her, as Teddy would be starting school. She fervently hoped he would join her in Aladren and could not really see many reasons as to why he would not. Besides being family, he was a quiet, steady sort of a person, which made him relaxing to be around. Perhaps, if she had been sent to school with Barnabus, she would be closer to him – as she was between her two brothers in age – but as it was she looked up to her older brother but was closer to her younger one.

She entered Charms and took a seat at the front, as was habitual for her. The Charm they would be learning today seemed more amusing than terribly useful, unless one planned on a career in espionage. Even then, this was probably the least secure method of secret communication and much better alternatives existed. No, it was the stuff of children's games and parlour tricks. Still, it was flexing the magical muscles, practising channelling to effect. All exercise in that area was good exercise.

She considered what to write. The thought of secret messages and subterfuge amused her and, though it was not exactly going to remain secret or subtle for very long, she liked the idea of slipping a controversial message to her neighbour. Flying is a traditional part of being a witch, she wrote.

Whilst she waited for her partner to be ready, she drew a couple of lines on a spare scrap of parchment. Once she was confident that she had the pronunciation correct, she turned her attention to these. It threw her a little that it was three taps for two stressed syllables. It did not seem to flow nicely together, which was the key to good spell casting. She decided to place it on the last syllable, so that they were evenly spaced. She would just have to remember not to emphasise the final syllable, which tapping on it would naturally incline her to do.

“AH-par-EH-see-um,” she cast. The lines she'd drawn appeared in a fairly pale shade of blue which she was sure was not the final target colour. She continued to practise, occasionally losing her focus and over-stressing, the last syllable, until her neighbour was ready to trade papers.

13 Francesca Wolseithcrafte, Aladren Attitudes and opinions, perhaps 250 Francesca Wolseithcrafte, Aladren 0 5

Analea Thornton, Aladren

August 17, 2013 1:42 PM

Back to the grindthtone by Analea Thornton, Aladren

Analea wasn’t ready to leave England and home when Midterm was over. There was something about dressing up like a princess (and spending time with her best friend over New Years) that made the second year not want to stop. The only thing she was looking forward to was spending more time with her best friend and roommate when they got back to school. Arista’s wedding had been fun, but New Years was much more fun! She got to spend it with Rory and her family and they even got to see both sides of Rory’s family. Ana thought Rory had a fun family to begin with, but the fact that they included her in all their fun made it even better. Both Kris and Al were more like fathers to her than her own had been and she loved that especially. All Rory’s siblings loved their scarves and Ana had gotten presents for everyone and loved giving them.

But all that being over along with Winter Break, it was time to get back to the grindstone. Charms class was one that she generally wasn’t fond of, but it wasn’t because of the professor, she adored Professor Olivers and the idea of the class. It was just that she’d have to speak aloud for it to get the charm to work. Ana hated her lisp more than anything in the world and she was very self conscious about it. Annette knew it, so did Rory and any of her sisters or cousins but she wasn’t sure if anyone else did. Now, the second year knew that it wasn’t going to be possible to work with her roommate and best friend every class through seven years, but she could hope, right?

Walking into Charms class, she looked around the room for her best friend. When she didn’t see her right away, Ana chose a seat with two open next to her so that Rory could come sit with her and set her bag down on one of the chairs in the hopes that if someone took the other, they wouldn’t take the one with her bag on it. Rory had done that before for her and she hoped it worked this time too. Especially in classes that she’d have to talk in, she wanted either a sister, cousin or Rory next to her (until perhaps she could work with Annette again).

When the door closed and Professor Olivers started talking, Ana didn’t look to see if someone had sat next to her, she was sort of hoping that if someone had done so that it was either a cousin or Rory, but she wouldn’t hold her breath to it. She knew they were going to have to talk, she just hoped that there was no ‘s’ or ’s’ sound involved in the word. No luck… she thought when their professor told them what the charm was. Oh bother… she added to herself with a small sigh. She took her notes in her real ink, knowing that she wasn’t going to be able to reveal it right if she used the invisible ink in its place.

Tapping the parchment three times wasn’t going to be a problem, saying the charm would be and Analea knew it. She even said it had to be pronounced right… I’m going to fail… she thought to herself as she listened to the rest of the directions, heart thumping inside her chest.

Analea swallowed a lump of saliva and coughed just briefly as she tried to decide what to write on her slip of paper. She’d be able to get hers read, but her partner wouldn’t… She couldn’t say the spell right as hard as she tried. She wrote, What did you do for New Years Eve? it was a question that perhaps could get a fun answer, and she wouldn’t be able to ask it out loud. But there was the chance that they would answer her question on paper.

Only when her slip was finished she turned to see who had sat next to her. “Ready?” she said, practically in a whispered tone.

0 Analea Thornton, Aladren Back to the grindthtone 0 Analea Thornton, Aladren 0 5

Chloe Jareau, Pecari

August 17, 2013 2:42 PM

Grindstone. Unless Grindthtone is a thing. by Chloe Jareau, Pecari

Chloe was happy to be back in school. She hadn’t necessarily made a lot of friends, but she had met a lot of new people and that was super fun. She was even able to spend more time with Ayita since they were in the same house! Plus, with the fair happening at the end of term and Chloe being determined to be a part of it, she knew it was going to be the best second half of her first year ever! Now, if only she could get Ji-Eun to like her just a little bit. She didn’t think her roommate liked her at all. They didn’t have much in common, Ji-Eun seemed really quiet and liked her books, while Chloe jumped around a lot and had so much to say and ask questions about that it seemed endless. Ji-Eun reminded Chloe of her brother, who was also super quiet and very studious. Chloe thought they should become the best of friends. But, Chloe and Emery got on just fine, so she didn’t know why they couldn’t too.

Not that this mattered currently. Ji-Eun was already sitting with people and Emery was too. She would just have to sit next to someone else and hope that they could get on just fine. Chloe had managed to get along okay with Viktor and Malcolm, she would do perfectly well with someone knew. Besides, she didn’t want to interfere with her brother making some new friends.

Picking a random seat, Chloe waited for the class to begin. Professor Olivers was okay. Her mother said that she used to be an actress or something, but other than being a little dramatic from time to time, Chloe hadn’t seen anything too spectacular to really like or dislike the professor. She wanted to see a show, but figured, in this atmosphere, that wasn’t going to happen. None of these Professors seemed to be any fun and that was causing Chloe a great misfortune on her studies. She needed to be interested. They were not interesting.

Sometimes the lessons were okay or fun, like the Potions first lesson, but then sometimes they were just dull and boring. This lesson, with invisible ink was average. Chloe and her dad played with invisible ink when she was a kid and her dad would reveal the secret messages for her at the very end. It was fun when she was six and didn’t know what was happening. Now, she didn’t really need to have secret messages. It would be nice to know the spell though so that she could someday play the same game with someone else.

She took out a scrap of parchment and thought long and hard with what she wanted to say. This was a test to the person beside her to see what they thought about everything in general. But Chloe was not good with thinking on her feet and so, she couldn’t think of anything fun to say. So, instead she wrote, This charm is only useful when unwanted people do not know the spell to reveal it.

Chloe slipped the parchment towards the girl beside her once the girl had indicated she was ready and took ahold of the one being offered. Chloe stretched out her arms and picked up her wand. With a deep, excited breath, Chloe stated firmly, “Aparecium” and tapped the parchment three times as advised by the professor. She frowned when nothing appeared immediately.

Thinking back on it, she was certain she had said the first part of the word incorrectly. Instead of AH, she had said AA. A hard ‘A’ instead of a soft one. Trying again, she was more successful than before and found faint words scrawled across the parchment. Feeling confident, it only took her a couple more before the entire question was fully visible. “I celebrated with my family, of course.” Chloe said, answering the question. “How’s your work coming along?” She asked the girl with her parchment.

6 Chloe Jareau, Pecari Grindstone. Unless Grindthtone is a thing. 0 Chloe Jareau, Pecari 0 5

Charlie B-F-R, Teppenpaw

August 18, 2013 12:25 PM

I am my own special creation by Charlie B-F-R, Teppenpaw

Charlie loved show tunes. Show tunes captured the whole range of human emotion, expressing it beautifully, painfully, funnily – whichever was appropriate. Every feeling had a show tune that expressed it or, more importantly, healed it. Nasty comments were just comments. They could drag you down but only if you let them. And, if he felt he had a force that was more powerful than that, then he thought that was amazing and well worth having, regardless of how 'appropriate' anyone felt it was for him to enjoy it. He was thus feeling relatively buoyed as he headed to Charms Class. When life handed you lemons, you just had to make one of those crazy fruit head-dresses and dance.

He took a seat, smiling at those around him, and prepared to listen to Professor Olivers. Invisible ink and revealing Charms! Cool! He picked up the special quill and tried taking notes, sure they would come out all wobbly and horrible, but it was a super fun idea. Professor Olivers was always fun and he loved her for it. Apparently she had previously been an actress and he thought that showed. She taught with theatricality, and life was always improved by a bit of that.

When it came to writing a secret message, he had no trouble. The song he'd been humming all morning was perfect. People who loved musicals tended to love them with passion, and often come from less conventional walks of life. Thus those who were Muggleborn were readily able to share their shows with people of a wizarding background, and everyone just enjoyed it for what it was – a great story with some fabulous music. There was a lot of cross-over, and thus Charlie was as familiar with The Sound of Music as he was with Phoenix! and their respective soundtracks. Today's selection was from La Cage aux Folles.

'Life's not worth a damn 'til you can say I am what I am.' he scribbled. He wondered if Professor Olivers would recognise the show tune (he wasn't sure how she felt about musicals, or whether she had been rather more serious than that. He thought she might well have been as, theatrical as she was, she was also very strict).

“Hey partner,” he grinned at the person next to him, “Ready to swap?”

13 Charlie B-F-R, Teppenpaw I am my own special creation 252 Charlie B-F-R, Teppenpaw 0 5

Emrys Lucan

August 18, 2013 3:57 PM

Eh, everybody makes mistakes- everybody has those days. by Emrys Lucan

Emrys listened as Ji-Eun explained just how to pronounce her name. "Thanks but no thanks," he smiled at her. "Unless you mind if I mispronounce your name the next few times I think I'd rather call you Ji-Eun." He tried to say her name again, and looked at her face to see if he'd gotten it right or not. "That's your actual name- unless you want me to call you Jane, in which case I can." He smiled again, hoping she'd say yes because it would mean that he'd succeeded in his attempt at her name.

He smiled when Ji-Eun complimented his sister's name. For all the complaining he did about Caelia in his head, he really did love her and anyone else who did immediately went up in his books, but he supposed that was due to general big brother-ly tendencies rather than Caelia's general charm and cuteness. He nodded. "Yes, my whole family's magical so she should be here soon, in a few years, I should think. She's a lot younger than me." He frowned slightly when Ji-Eun didn't sound too happy about her brother coming too. "Do you not get along with your brother?" He questioned. In case it made Ji-Eun feel more comfortable, he offered up some information about his and Caelia's relationship. "Caelia and I get along but that's mostly because she's so much younger than me. Other times I get frustrated with her because I think she's too slow." Caelia really was slow. Emrys felt as if he had understood things much quicker when he was her age than Caelia did now. He wasn't sure if it was because she was coddled so much or if it was because she was a girl. But he guessed it was probably a mix of the first one and that she herself wasn't very smart. After having met a few girls at Sonora he realized that his sister was not actually an accurate representation of the general population (he'd never counted his mom or grandmothers as girls, mainly because they were his mom and grandmothers). But Caelia's simple-headedness only made Emrys feel as if he had to protect her more, which pleased him as it reminded him of being a knight in one of the many tales his mother told them about King Arthur. He shook his head as if to get rid of the thought. He was supposed to be banning thoughts of King Arthur and his knights, not thinking happily about them! But then again, he figured, Camelot had been his whole upbringing. He would never be able to totally rid himself of the tales.

Ji-Eun interrupted his frustrating, conflicting thoughts with her question of continuing to work on the class assignment and he welcomed the interruption greatly. "Yes!" He said, "that would be lovely, it would be definitely preferable to master this spell by the end of class!" He grinned. "Should we write out another message and swap again until we can each do it after one try?"

OOC: No problem, seems as if we're both a bit busy!

10 Emrys Lucan Eh, everybody makes mistakes- everybody has those days. 260 Emrys Lucan 0 5

Ji-Eun Park, Pecari

August 18, 2013 5:30 PM

My characters seem to have a lyrical theme this lesson by Ji-Eun Park, Pecari

“I like being called Ji-Eun,” she confirmed, appreciating his sentiment about it being her actual name. That was how she felt about the matter, even if both were on her birth certificate. It was the one she'd predominantly used and which resonated most strongly with her. It was also a chance to bring a little bit of home, and all its traditions, with her to Sonora. She had text books of her mother's, and wrote and received letters in Korean, but all of those things were very much in her own personal bubble. If people called her Ji-Eun, it meant the bubble expanded to include others, even if it was only by the tiniest bit.

“You could say that...” she said, with a slightly weary smile when he asked about her brother. It was a little odd trying to explain it to someone outside of her own culture, she suddenly realised. She'd never had to really explain it before full stop. Her Korean friends at home who had younger brothers all just... knew. They would sigh sympathetically, or share examples of particular incidents but you didn't have to explain. She wasn't really sure how to tell Emrhys that the male child was inherently the most important and that thus, when they weren't the eldest, it created this weird sort of tension. As the eldest, she was the flag bearer, in some senses. In the sense that, if she did badly, the fact that she was the eldest and should be setting an example and forging her way in the world – didn't she know how much they had sacrificed to give her a better future? - was brought down against her. But any time she was good or did well, it barely seemed to matter because they were all waiting with baited breath to see how Ji-Won would do when he did it. His achievements mattered more than hers but her failures were held against her. That wasn't to say that his weren't, or wouldn't be. But that had to involve him failing. And, whereas any kind of slip in her grades, and she had failed, a slip in his, and the subject was rubbish anyway, or his teacher was clearly inferior. The worst part of all of that was that it wasn't even his fault so she couldn't hate him for it, although he definitely managed to be a brat on top of, or possibly because of, it.

“He's my brother and I love him,” she stated, in a tone that very much suggested that a fitting tail end to that sentence would have been 'because I have to.' “But my parents let him get away with murder,” she summarised. She didn't think that was entirely true. Ji-Won was probably under even more pressure than her to make something of himself but he did definitely get away with things that she wouldn't. It was like their parents had started with the default assumption he was perfect, and that it would take an awful lot to disabuse them of this notion. “And he really bugs me. I was sort of relying on being able to get some peace from him in my Common Room but it doesn't look like it. I mean, I always assumed he would go into Pecari, I just never thought I would,” she explained.

“That sounds good,” she nodded when he agreed to go back to the spell. Even with the abbreviated version, that was probably far too much information – she didn't want him to think she was whingy. She took up the strange quill again, trying to let the ink catch the light so that she could see what she was writing.

Your name in Korean is... she wrote, switching to the characters of Hangul to write out Emrhys' name. Or at least, an approximation of it. If she handed it to a Korean person and asked them to read it, it would probably sound like a complete mess. Instead, hopefully it would amuse, and she handed it to him, accepting the piece of paper he offered her in return.

OOC – sorry, font issues mean that I can't actually write out what she put on the paper.

13 Ji-Eun Park, Pecari My characters seem to have a lyrical theme this lesson 268 Ji-Eun Park, Pecari 0 5

Darina Porter, Tepp

August 19, 2013 2:54 AM

It's the best way to be! by Darina Porter, Tepp

Darina had been very excited when Teppenpaw won the game at the end of the last half term. Her excitement mounted when she got to be in Arista’s Wedding over Midterm and now it sort of felt, to the first year, that her high was going downwards, and she didn’t want anything like that to happen! So she walked into Charms the week after she came back to school and glanced around the room, looking for someone she knew, someone like…

Rina spotted Charlie and grinned. PERFECT! she thought to herself as she walked right up to him and sat herself in the empty seat next to him. Professor Olivers was the teacher that was going to be helping Bri out for her Drama Club, and Rina had proudly signed up to be a member. Rina was more interested in the writing aspect than much else, but she’d see what she could do at it and she would do her best at whatever that was, as always.

Professor Olivers closed the door right on time. It was a Monday morning, 8am, and even Darina (who didn’t particularly hate mornings) was yawning. She hated the fact that she had been yawning, but sleep the night before was sort of scarce. She’d had another one of her weird nightmares that made her want her mother or her brother, but she didn’t have either one and so sat up most of the night, curled up tightly within her blanket and feeling awfully paranoid. She was hoping to see Dimitri walk into the room and steal him fast to ask him to meet her for lunch, but when that didn’t happen she sighed and hoped to catch him at the end of class instead. Professor Olivers went on to tell them what they’d be doing that day and Rina smiled larger than she had when she’d seen Charlie without a partner right away. This will be fun… she thought to herself as she inwardly giggled. Darina took her notes with the invisible ink quill (with the exception of the charm and directions for the charm) and mouthed the word right after the professor had done the pronunciation. I got this. she added to herself as she thought of what to write on her slip of paper.

Since she was working with Charlie, she thought it would work to say something about his Makeover Booth on her paper and nodding, she wrote, I’m so excited to help you with your booth! I have a few ideas, but we can chat about it whenever you want! she smiled at him when he asked her if she was ready to swap. She put her exclamation mark at the end of her sentence and nodded to him.

“Sure am! I guess that means you are too?” she said, handing him her paper and waiting for him to give her his.

0 Darina Porter, Tepp It's the best way to be! 0 Darina Porter, Tepp 0 5

Analea

August 19, 2013 2:56 AM

Grindthtone is how I’d say it… by Analea

Analea had whispered to her neighbor one word. It didn’t have a dratted ‘s’ in it, thankfully, but that didn’t mean that the twelve year old wasn’t going to be anything but quiet about it. Ana was very self conscious about her lisp and she hated it with every fiber of her being. It wasn’t that she hadn’t been trying to get rid of it. They’d tried many different speech teachers, many sayings with the most hated letter in the alphabet to the girl and other things to boot. None of which had any luck. Analea was beginning to wonder if her stupid lisp would ever be gone from her life. She’d known other people who’s lisps had disappeared mostly with practice and speech therapy and stuff like that, but she just couldn’t seem to do the same thing.

The problem she was having as well though was that with all the therapies that had to go on within her family, she just felt wrong having to do it herself. Aislynn’s health, Addison’s Health, Audi and Ashling’s ability to communicate; those were things that were much more important. So Ana had a little lisp, it wasn’t something that could kill her, or even get her hurt. She may be laughed at, like she had been at her other school, but it wasn’t going to kill her. It was as her mother had always said, “Whatever doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.”. She hated the fact that some of the family’s money was being used to try to rid her of the lisped beast inside of her instead of trying to help cure Aislynn or Addison, or helping to find ways for Audi to hear and Ashling to see, but her mother wouldn’t hear anything of it.

It seemed that her mother wanted to find something to help Analea get rid of her lisp and she’d been trying for years to find the one thing that would work. The one thing that Ana knew though, was that her mother would never give up. That was one of the things Analea loved about her mother.

The girl, a first year who she thought was named Chloe, but Ana could be wrong, was sitting next to her and the girls swapped papers. Ana watched as her partner tried the first time. Nothing happened. Did I write it correctly? she asked herself as Chloe tried again. The words started to faintly pop up on the page and Ana smiled at the progress. She tried a few more times and all of Analea’s words were right there in black and white. The Aladren gave her partner the thumbs up with both her hands and hoped that she wouldn’t have to do it herself now.

Chloe answered Analea’s written question and Ana smiled back at her with a nod of her head. Her wand was in her hand and her heart thumped against her chest, knowing both that she’d have to talk, both to the girl and to say a charm that she couldn’t’ pronounce right if she had both hands tied behind her back. She whispered, “That sounds wonderful…” she said, cheeks blushing a bright shade of red, brighter than her red hair. “And my work… could be better…” she swallowed a large lump of saliva and looked at Chloe. “I have a lisp and I’ll never get that charm out right…” Everything was so quiet that she wasn’t even sure if Chloe, who was sitting next to her, could even hear her. But her cheeks reddened just the same both with the embarrassment and the hope that Chloe wouldn’t laugh at her.

0 Analea Grindthtone is how I’d say it… 0 Analea 0 5

Adam

August 19, 2013 5:46 PM

Friends make the world go round. by Adam

Though Adam had enough common sense to know that she hadn’t meant him in particular at the beginning—unless she had—, he appreciated her enthusiasm. Adam wanted to make more friends as well, but he wouldn’t have been half as enthusiastic as Jude. It was refreshing. Though he was not from a family who expected their wizards to hide their every emotion from the world, he naturally acted a bit cooler with strangers and acquaintances. His ‘cool’ image changed completely when he was with his mates and even his parents knew how silly he could be. His relationship with Jude, however, was not quite there yet, though he had high hopes for them by her reaction to the riddle.

Her answer made Adam raise his eyebrows. “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever thought of that. The answer is the rug, but maybe the railing would be better. It was one of the easier and shorter riddles I could think of.” He smiled. “Good job at figuring it out so quickly. I look forward to getting to know you too.”

Jude was much more honest than other witches he had met and Adam wasn’t certain how to take it at first. She had to be either a pure-blood from a less renowned family or of another blood. Adam hadn’t yet figured out how to tell a muggle-born from a half-blood since muggle-borns had the capability to perform magic like any other wizard, but then a muggle-born was very different from a Muggle.

Not that any of that mattered with Jude. She was magical; therefore her blood status did not matter as a friend. She looked ready to make her way over to Professor Olivers’s desk so Adam took the initiative to lead the way. “Professor Olivers,” he greeted her before handing over their scraps. Once they had turned their parchments in, Adam went back to his seat. “Now for the essay?” he sighed. “Or we can keep thinking up riddles. Have you any good ones?” Adam hadn’t started his essay yet, but writing on the Colour-Changing Charm couldn’t be that difficult.

0 Adam Friends make the world go round. 0 Adam 0 5

Ava Fletcher

August 21, 2013 3:11 PM

Agreed although I do apologize for the mess! by Ava Fletcher

OOC: Sorry guys! Didn't mean to cause a confusion- didn't realize Dimitri had already replied until after I posted mine! (My internet can be a little slow at times)

BIC:

Ava nodded. “Yep, Ava Fletcher! I’ve seen you around the commons too!” She thought that Emery seemed nice and didn’t know why they hadn’t talked before- probably because she’d been busy holed up in her girls only dorm or in the library. Or writing letters home to Papa and her mother hoping that Charlotte would actually be home to receive them. It was an interesting relationship she had with her mom. She always called her mom to her face, or a derivative of the word anyhow, but for some reason in Ava’s head she generally referred to her as ‘Charlotte’. Probably because once the fishing boat incident had happened, her mother had thrown herself into her work and slowly became more and more absent in Ava’s life.

“I’ve already completed it.” Emery told Dimitri. “It’s good to meet you, Dimitri. Can I ask what Ava wrote on her’s?”

Ava waited with baited breath for Dimitri’s answer. She knew that liking mermaids were a bit babyish but she couldn’t help it. She’d been fascinated with them since she’d first learned about them and she thought that it was really odd that the Muggle idea of what a mermaid was differed from the wizard idea. As they did exist, technically speaking anyway, in both worlds, then why did the Muggles have such a glamourized view of what they were? That was a question she desperately wanted to know the answer to. She let herself linger on the thought as Dimitri worked on her paper and responded to Emery's question.

Unfortunately for her though, Dimitri took a little longer to say what he thought about her paper so she had awhile to wonder if the two boys would find her too young for them and if Dimitri would abandon her after finding out she still liked mermaids. She understood Dimitri’s answer when it did come and was glad to know that his twin sister liked them too. It made her feel better about her love of the creature. “I suppose so,” she admitted. “But you know, there are different kinds, you might like Selkies better. The Scottish kind? They’re really fearsome!” Her eyes twinkled a little at the thought- Selkies always gave her a slight shiver down her spine but she still loved to read and look at them in books her mom brought home for her. She looked between Emery and Dimitri wondering if mentioning Selkies might interest them more.

10 Ava Fletcher Agreed although I do apologize for the mess! 258 Ava Fletcher 0 5

Tristan Spaulding, Crotalus

August 21, 2013 6:11 PM

Well, that would be me by Tristan Spaulding, Crotalus

The holidays as usual were amazing for Tristan. They'd always been great for him, full of gifts and attention, and he was pleased to see that being at Sonora had not changed that. Not that he'd been expecting it to. He was the same person he'd been before he'd began here last September basically and was glad of it. There had been nothing wrong with whom Tristan had been before and there was nothing wrong with who he was now. Therefore, there was no reason for anyone to treat him any different than they had before.

In fact, his parents were pretty proud of him. His grades had been rather good, especially Defense where he'd achieved an O. Tristan apparently had something of a knack for it. Of course, he'd gotten an O in Transfiguration too, but that was to be expected. Plus, he really enjoyed Defense more. It just seemed so much cooler, so much more... him . What girl wouldn't want to be betrothed to a tough guy who could defend them against dark wizards and creatures? Especially if they were also an heir.

That was part of the appeal of playing Quidditch too. It wasn't just fun, it was manly and girls liked for their men to act like men. Not that he was honestly that interested in girls in their own right yet, he just knew that he was expected to get betrothed and married and continue his family line and thus had to appeal to them. The first year had to be the best and attract the best. He knew that he was impressive and needed to let others see that, as well as continue to be so. He was doing pretty well with fencing too, though Arabella still always beat him. Because she'd been doing it longer. Amity would possibly be able to do so too but he knew he'd bypass her, because she never practiced at school. She never did any of what she considered "extra" stuff that Aunt Jillian wanted her to do and Tristan knew she wasn't going to improve in any of it because she simply did not care.

At the moment, though, he was more concerned with Quidditch in general. It rather annoyed Tristan that Crotalus had lost. Not with either the Crotalus or Teppenpaw teams, but with his parents for not allowing him to play. If Tristan had been on the team, they would have won ! Not that Crotalus was a bad team, it was just that he would have made them unstoppable. It wasn't fair to him or the House for him not to play. He could have been the big House hero. The one who saved the day, a real up and coming school Quidditch star waiting in the wings with Arnold Carey about to graduate. Then Crotalus would have been the team that everyone wanted to beat instead of the team that actually was.

Tristan didn't even understand why he wasn't allowed to join the team, when he'd been allowed to join the Fencing Club. One needed parental permission and he'd gotten it. He'd thought his parents had wanted him to focus on his studies and getting to know the right people. Though he'd done more of the former than the latter, at first trying to figure out who those people were. There weren't really that many in his eyes, just the other Crotali, Portia, Viktor's cousin Irina, Ryan's step-brother Arnold and Emrys Lucan. And Tristan wasn't really all that sure about the Aladrens in his year, they seemed a little odd. Still, they were part of the right crowd.

Still, given he was allowed to join one thing, he figured he should be allowed to join Quidditch as well. Tristan had proven he could handle a school club along with maintaining his grades and he should have been allowed to do what he wanted. Of course, now it was too late. Crotalus had its team and lost. To Teppenpaw, a House not exactly known for being good at Quidditch. He was certain if he'd been on the team, that would not have happened.

Professor Olivers began her lecture after locking out any possible late comers. In general, Tristan didn't have much of a problem with his professors, but they seemed to be a rather uptight lot. And none of them were in his social class. This was not so much a judgement of them for that, it was to be expected, but the thing was, it was always something people that were members of society were criticized for, being too stuffy. Well, Tristan felt the important purebloods he'd met seemed to enjoy life much more than his professors did, that was for sure. Possibly because they had more in life to enjoy.

Still, the spell seemed fairly simple and straight forward, one that was pretty commonly taught at this level. One any competent wizard would be able to master easily. It wasn't a particularly useful spell, but one had to learn the basics. Tristan quickly scribbled down a message Denver Wolves rule! and looked up to find Eleanor Vandeburg smiling at him. "Certainly, Miss Vandeburg." He replied, handing her his paper and taking hers.

" Apareciun" The first year said, going through the motions with his wand. He frowned slightly. Tristan had not necessarily expected perfection the first time, but he'd hoped to do more than he had. Only one word, am , had become clear to him. "How are you getting along?" He asked, deciding to make conversation while they worked. Eleanor was someone he should get to know better, after all. She might not have been as rich as other purebloods, but she was one of the more important people in their (rather disappointing) year group.

11 Tristan Spaulding, Crotalus Well, that would be me 264 Tristan Spaulding, Crotalus 0 5

Chloe Jareau

August 24, 2013 4:35 PM

Then just say 'Grind'. by Chloe Jareau

Chloe had worked hard on the Charm like she was supposed to. Her parents would be proud of her. She hadn’t been able to do it on the first try, but at least she had done it and she thought she would get a decent grade out of it. Academically, Chloe was not going to be at the top and she knew it. Her parents knew it too. But they supported her and expected her to try her best. If she had to, she could ask for help from any one of her siblings. Angel was amazing with spells. Not so good with Theory. Emery was great at Theory but only semi-above average for spells (Chloe felt he spent more time studying because of his mother’s position more so than the love for learning, but she would never testify to that thought), and Ayita was perfect at being an older sister. Chloe had a lot of people to turn too, but she also wasn’t going to allow herself to become upset if she didn’t get something right.

She was, however, miffed that the girl beside her hadn’t even attempted the spell while Chloe had worked diligently on hers. Chloe hoped that her grade wasn’t affected because the girl didn’t want to do the work too. It was clear that Chloe had at least attempted it. It wasn’t perfect, but it was done and she could be proud of it.

The girl, Ana something or other if Chloe remembered roll-call, started speaking, but she was so quiet that Chloe had to lean towards her just to hear what she said. It didn’t help all that much, so Chloe pulled away and shook her head at the other girl. “You talk funny, I have no idea what you just said.” She stated casually. There wasn’t any malice or teasing in her voice when she said it. She was just stating a fact just as she would state she had four siblings and two parents. Just facts.

“The charms isn’t as difficult as it may seem to be. Just go for it. At least trying it is better than not at all.” Maybe what she said would be motivating and maybe it wouldn’t be, but she felt that what she spoke was the honest truth and either the Ana girl would follow through with it or she wouldn’t. It was her choice. Chloe just did what she could to help.

6 Chloe Jareau Then just say 'Grind'. 267 Chloe Jareau 0 5

Emery Kijewski-Jareau

August 24, 2013 10:50 PM

No worries, it happens. by Emery Kijewski-Jareau

Ava confirmed who she was and Emery gave a nod of the more formal introductions to one another. He always thought it was weird to be in a small school, living with people, and never really knowing who they were. Ava was someone he should know because they shared a common room on top of being in the same house, but they did not share similar friends, so it made it difficult to really know someone. Not that Emery had a crowd of friends or anything. His own roommate barely spoke to him. But he was a part of the Book Club and he had gotten to know at least a handful of people. “It’s nice to officially meet you.” He said politely. His mother had raised him with manners, after all.

Emery waited patiently for Dimitri to have the words clear enough to read. He was not sure what he should have expected, but mermaids were not at the top of his list. Of course, thinking on his sister, he was likely to say something equally as silly, so maybe it was a girl thing? Either way, Emery didn’t really think much of anything regarding mermaids. More than that, he thought that they were sort of creepy. At least Dimitri admitted to knowing very little on the subject, although, to admit to having no idea if it weren’t for the females in his family seemed a little extreme. Emery was certain that the Porters were a Magical family from what he gathered, especially from their extreme Quidditch playing for first years where Muggleborns would barely be able to stay on their brooms, but even so, Muggles do have their own version of Mermaids. It would be impossible to have never known what they were. He took this to mean Dimitri was exaggerating.

Finding that it was probably his turn to answer and this was a topic that Ava seemed relatively interested in, he didn’t want to hold her up any further. “Merpeople are creepy. Since you like the Selkies for being… the more aggressive kind of Merpeople due to their scary appearance and what have you, I take that to mean you enjoy the fear that they bring upon you?” Emery asked, just to be certain he was understanding her joy in them.

Emery’s mother was a Half-blood. Her father had raised her to have an understanding of the Muggle world and so, in her love for him, she had raised Emery to have knowledge in the Muggle world as well. This meant, knowing of their fairytales that had a lot of Magical influences in them. “Did you know that the Muggles’ have mermaids in their stories. They have the Sirens though. Everything is beautiful in their stories except for those who are innately evil. It’s kind of amusing to think about.” Emery commented lightly. “To answer your question, I don’t really think much about Merpeople other than I hope I never encounter one. I don’t think they are fond of our kind.”

Moving on from seeming too serious, Emery continued, "My Mom is a Magizoologist when she isn't the Headmistress, so she taught me a lot about the living creatures of the world."

6 Emery Kijewski-Jareau No worries, it happens. 259 Emery Kijewski-Jareau 0 5

Emrys Lucan, Aladren

August 25, 2013 11:34 PM

That must be fun- the subject line is always the hardest :P by Emrys Lucan, Aladren

Emrys frowned while Ji-Eun tried to explain her feelings towards her brother. He got the feeling that she wasn't being completely honest, especially by the way that she said the part about loving him. But he knew that they'd only just met so he didn't expect her to open up immediately like that- she didn't seem the type and to be honest, he probably would have been uncomfortable should that have happened. Instead, he thought about what she said and then realized something. "If you never thought you'd get into Pecari, then isn't it possible he would get into a different house?" He hoped that might put her mind at ease a little bit. It seemed like a good solution to him- if Ji-Eun wasn't supposed to get into Pecari and did, if her brother was supposed to, then it could be highly likely that her assumptions were off and he wouldn't. "If Caelia gets into Aladren, I would be very surprised," Emrys admitted, trying to steer the conversation in a different direction in case all this talk about Ji-Eun and her brother was starting to embarrass her. "But then again, it could be possible. Honestly, I think she'll be in either Crotalus or Teppenpaw but I couldn't really say. Once she drinks the potion then we'll know for sure, but only until then."

After Ji-Eun and he decided to go back to working on the spell, he was stumped as to what to write. He'd already exhausted his brain by being angry at his entire family and he didn't want to make Ji-Eun uncomfortable by mentioning anything else family related. He settled for something simple. "So, how do you feel about this spell?"

He took out his wand again and attempted the spell until the words began to appear. "Cool!" He exclaimed. "Would it really?" He couldn't stop looking at the paper, Korean was so cool! He really wished he could speak something other than English and French. "Do you think you could teach me maybe?"

OOC: It's okay, I can imagine it haha. Well...maybe not since I'm Chinese, not Korean :P

10 Emrys Lucan, Aladren That must be fun- the subject line is always the hardest :P 260 Emrys Lucan, Aladren 0 5

Julian Umland, Teppenpaw

August 26, 2013 10:41 AM

Not much, I'm afraid. by Julian Umland, Teppenpaw

Coming back to school after midterm was always a little disorienting, and it took a while for the effects to totally fade. After a week, Julian still felt restless, wanting to get up and do something with her brothers during class and to lie in bed and sleep during the mornings. The littlest things were more annoying than usual, and focusing was just plain impossible at times.

So far, she was resisting all of those temptations, and knew they would fade in a few days, but that didn’t do much to make the everyday hustle and bustle of life stop feeling like either nails on a chalkboard or like she was looking at it through a bunch of downy pillows in the meantime. As Professor Olivers cheerfully began their Charms lesson, Julian had to prop her hand up on her chin, and had disdained the closest seat to the front she had spotted when she wandered in because she had known it was going to be hard to keep her eyes open. She was awake enough to listen, even to take notes, but not to do that and put forth the effort to keep her eyelids raised at the same time. Truly, she didn’t think she was ever a morning person, but especially not this soon after the holidays and definitely not when the sun was falling so warmly on her back and the side of her face, quietly crooning for her to just put her head down and go…back…to sleep….

With an effort, she straightened her spine a little, adjusted the way her left hand was sitting under her chin, and wrote down which spell they were going to work on in her notes. Revealing charms. Well, that was interesting. Julian was sure there was nothing hidden in her house, at least not by magic, but this kind of thing, it couldn’t help but make her wonder – was there really not?

She imagined John laughing at her and decided to stop thinking like that. It was just the kind of thing her brother would love to tease her about, how paranoid they really ought to be or something. Honestly, she didn’t think Mom and Dad had gotten him quite early enough in life or something, though that would leave her to try to explain how Paul didn’t have that problem even though he was older than John or Julian and was at least John’s blood half-brother. She shook her head and went back to copying down what Professor Olivers was talking about.

Aparecium, she mouthed to herself as she wrote it down, trying to get it right. She really ought to get Mom to teach her some Latin this summer, she thought, it might make pronunciation so much easier….

What to write on the parchment, though, was more of a dilemma than pronunciation or whether or not her house was secretly full of objects she couldn’t see. After some silent debate with herself on the topic, Julian just wrote Hi!. That, she thought, was safe for pretty much any audience - not that she really had anything that wasn't, of course, but just the professor mentioning that had made her feel self-conscious about what she wrote down. Not much, though, was safer than a basic greeting. Smiling, she turned a little in her seat and asked the person next to her, "Ready to swap?"

16 Julian Umland, Teppenpaw Not much, I'm afraid. 254 Julian Umland, Teppenpaw 0 5

Nellie Vandenberg

August 26, 2013 6:09 PM

You'd be my second choice, actually by Nellie Vandenberg

Tristan Spaulding was the only Crotalus boy in their year that hadn't joined the Quidditch team. Even Leo had joined and Nellie had been quite impressed with his daring. There had to be a reason, Nellie was sure, but she had expected all the proper wizards to join the Quidditch team. The Crotalus team had to be overflowing with them! Alas, it didn't seem to be so; either that or some of the proper Crotalus boys were just too delicate. Or Crotalus wasn't made up of all the proper kind.

Either way, Nellie didn't know much about Tristan except that he was supposed to be proper. He would make a good acquaintance especially if he was filthy rich. Though she didn't come from a dirt poor family, her job was to woo Leo Princeton and align her family with his because of all the power and prestige and money that would come with it. If anything, she could maybe use the other boys to make Leo jealous. She wasn't ugly and, though she was of mixed race, her blood was just as pure as anyone else's.

Her paper seemed really trivial now since she knew of Tristan and he knew of her, but nevertheless she handed it over with a smile. He went to work straight away and Nellie turned to hers. "Aparecium." The invisible ink on the parchment began to show Tristan's letters, but it was spotted. There was something about "D...Wol...", but the rest Nellie couldn't see.

Tristan seemed to want to start a conversation and Nellie was more than happy to oblige. It was important to align herself with the right kind of people and Tristan definitely fit into that category. She wanted to befriend all the Crotali in her year and possibly the years above her. "Well enough, I think. What about you?" She peered over at his. "At least your 'am' is clearer than all of the letters on my parchment."

Hers were spotty, though they were clear. "I didn't know a wrong spell could make letters spotty. Maybe I'm pronouncing it wrong." She raised her wand again. "ah-PAR-EH-see-um." The spell didn't work and just seemed to make it even splotchier. She frowned. "ah-par-eh-SEE-UM." That seemed even worse and she shook her head. "I've got to be pronouncing it wrong. Are you doing any better?"

0 Nellie Vandenberg You'd be my second choice, actually 0 Nellie Vandenberg 0 5

Ji-Eun Park, Pecari

August 28, 2013 11:56 AM

Yes, though I do feel bad now for the one who was left out by Ji-Eun Park, Pecari

“Yes, I suppose,” she nodded, when Emrys suggested that Ji-Won might end up in a different house to her. In truth, it was already something that had occurred to her, or rather worried her. If he ended up in Crotalus or Aladren, he would have got a better house placement than her, in her parents' eyes. She wasn't sure whether having to endlessly hear that from them cancelled out the respite it would gain her from her brother. She supposed it meant either option – him ending up in Pecari with her, or in one of the 'better' houses – at least had a silver lining. She would be granted both if he went into Teppenpaw but, even with all the open mindedness she could muster, that did not seem like a realistic possibility.

“AH-par-EH-see-um,” she cast, tapping the parchment he had handed her. The words sprang onto it much more easily and clearly this time, though she supposed it helped that they really were words. She could just about make out the message, although it was faint and there was an ascender or descender missing here and there.

“I think it's sort of neat,” she smiled, once she had tidied up the message with another shot at the spell. “I mean, everyone knows it now, so it's not like it would keep our secrets very safe but it's still fun. What about you?” she asked.

“More or less,” she admitted, when he asked if it really said his name in Korean. “It might get a little lost in translation, especially the 'r' sound, so you might get a few variations that don't sound quite how you would expect if you asked Korean people to read it,” she explained. She had been encouraged by his interest in the subject and it helped put her at ease, confident that she could talk and write about it without him being bored. She was a little taken aback by the level of enthusiasm that his next remark revealed though.

“I... I don't know. I mean, I could try. I've never taught anyone before though,” she added. She wasn't sure she'd really know where to begin. She had grown up speaking both Korean and English, so she didn't know what it was like to be sat down and formally instructed in either, or what sort of thing would be useful. Lest Emrys took this as a 'no,' she quickly added, “But I do like the idea of trying.” She tried not to get carried away and imagine being able to have long conversations in Korean with someone at school – it was, surely, very difficult to pick up a new language. But even having someone who was interested, or who could say a few words to her was a fun idea.

OOC – sorry for keeping on putting an 'h' in your name. I have seen the error of my ways!

13 Ji-Eun Park, Pecari Yes, though I do feel bad now for the one who was left out 268 Ji-Eun Park, Pecari 0 5

Dimitri Porter

August 31, 2013 1:39 PM

Its not a mess if you're making new friends by Dimitri Porter

Dimitri found himself slightly chuckling over Emery’s comment about Merpeople. He had to admit he agreed with him in a way. “I don’t know about how creepy Mermaids or Merpeople might be, but I do agree that they may or may not like us too much,” he agreed. “However, since I’ve never really met a Merperson before I can’t really say for certain,” he commented diplomatically. “You do make a good point though that Muggles do have their own version of Mermaids and from what I’ve read about them (thanks to my sister) is that they are both nice and evil. Tragic too if I remember correctly. I think it was a story by a Muggle named Hans Christian Anderson that painted them in a tragic light. If memory serves me his mermaid died, having killed herself. I didn’t like that book much,” he admitted openly. He was fascinated with the idea of there being Scottish mermaids and he was sure that the curiosity showed.

“There’s actually a Scottish type?” he asked. Then was more intrigued when both Emery and Ava described them similarly. He had to admit he kinda liked the idea of a “boyish” kind of Mermaid. One that was fierce and menacing. Hearing that made them seem like less of a girly thing. He didn’t fault Ava one bit for liking them, he was just glad there seemed to be an equal-ish footing on the subject. “That sounds neat,” he nodded with approval. He listened to Emery talk about the Greek Sirens and nodded at his comments about them being evil. At least he was pretty sure that was what Emery had been saying about them. He nodded his agreement at Emery’s question. “Very true,” he agreed. “It is rather amusing if you think about it.” Dimitri’s mind wandered back to Emery’s question for Ava and found himself a little curious about it himself. He couldn’t help wondering himself if it was the fear they seemed to invoke that fascinated her soo much. He had been fascinated with idea of them for the fact that they seemed to be the boy version of the mermaids, but he couldn’t help wondering what drew her to them. He waited for her answer with Emery for that one.

Dimitri’s eyes widened a bit when Emery told them his mom was a Magizoologist outside of being the headmistress. He had to admit that sounded pretty cool. “That’s pretty cool. I can only imagine what kind of creatures exist out in the world. To have somebody living in your own house who can teach you that kind of stuff must be neat and maddening all at the same time,” he commented, joking lightly. He just hoped that Emery didn’t take what he said as an insult. “Your mom sounds like she’s pretty cool…when she’s not being headmistress and all I mean,” Dimitri commented friendly. He turned his attention back to Ava. “What do you think? Do you think the Merpeople like us at all?” he asked her. “You haven’t actually met one before, have you?” he found himself asking. He wasn’t sure why he asked that question, but now that it was out there it would be really interesting to know.

0 Dimitri Porter Its not a mess if you're making new friends 0 Dimitri Porter 0 5

Malcolm Carey, Pecari

August 31, 2013 10:15 PM

Risky business, that by Malcolm Carey, Pecari

Mal Carey was in no way above cheating, and just the professor’s saying she was sure he would be such a thing was enough to make him want to try it, just for spite. The only problem was, he couldn’t figure out how. The rest of the class started, like good little lemmings, to write in the invisible ink while he frowned at first his inkwell, then his parchment, then the quill, then the inkwell again, trying to figure out what the catch was. She wouldn’t have mentioned it if there wasn’t some way; he might have done so, just to mess with people’s heads and get a good laugh out of seeing the people like him try to figure out what the cheat was when there wasn’t one, but he didn’t generally credit adults with that much imagination unless they were Analysts, which Professor Olivers obviously was not.

Come on, he silently willed the equipment. Give me a hint, I might not even do it, you know, I just want to know how….

Was the trick just dipping the quill first in the invisible ink, then in real ink over that? It had to be; the only other thing he could think of was attempting the Revealing Charm on the whole bottle of ink, which would actually be harder than just revealing a message written with much less ink. There was no point to that. Of course, there was no point to the other, either; someone would just rat you out, or something, and he was sure it would be obvious that the ink didn’t match when the professor checked them anyway, since surely the double load of ink would mix together, making the message runny and patchy. So that couldn’t be it, either. What could it be….

He saw, out of the corner of his eye, Francesca folding her paper and picked up the quill with a grimace, giving it up for now. He was not going to have one of the Aladrens thinking he couldn’t do something because he was sitting here trying to figure out a riddle.

Charms is a good class, he wrote on the paper, then looked toward Francesca properly and found she was already practicing the spell on just some lines.

“Oh, that’s a good idea,” he said. “Wish I'd thought of it.” Just lines was brilliant; either it got around the requirement that they write something the teacher wouldn't find objectionable without them having to make some attempt at reading her mind - Mal could see his being seen as sarcastic, which his intent was, at least a little, though he had no objection to Charms, just to that comment - or it would make Olivers paranoid, wondering what it was code for. "Swap?" he added, wondering if she had figured out how to cheat and if this was it, practicing the spell on her own before swapping. If so, he was going to hit himself for being an idiot and overlooking the no doubt painfully obvious.

0 Malcolm Carey, Pecari Risky business, that 0 Malcolm Carey, Pecari 0 5

Charlie B-F-R

September 02, 2013 12:07 PM

Glad you agree by Charlie B-F-R

Charlie smiled at Darina as he handed him her paper. He didn't know her very well yet but, so far, she seemed fun. He recapped the notes in the book, seeing as his own were currently rather useless for that... It was a bit of a fault of having written in the invisible ink, he now couldn't see the instructions to make it uninivisible... oops. He was a little disappointed by the wand movement, if it could be called that. Tap, tap, tap. How dull! He liked that Charms responded well to flourishes – that pouring your personality into it was usually all for the better, as he had plenty of that to spare. Tap, tap, tap didn't leave much room for creativity.

He carefully smoothed out Darina's paper to ensure that it was flat. He visualised himself as a spy, trying to keep his movements small and discreet. He stretched out his wand, tapping the parchment gently.

“AH-par-EH-see-um,” he cast, tapping a steady rhythm with his wand. The letters glimmered, like someone had written with water across the parchment. He probably could make it out if he tried but the point was to practise the spell, so he decided that he should make it as clear as possible.

“AH-par-EH-see-um,” he tried again. This time, he managed a little more fluidity. Not that there was much required for the movement, but the word rolled out more smoothly, the taps accompanying it neatly, and then Darina's message gleamed before him. Or at least, the first half did. I'm so excited to help with your booth! Although there was a bit of space left, that was a full message, so Charlie assumed that to be it.

“Me too!” he grinned at Darina.

13 Charlie B-F-R Glad you agree 252 Charlie B-F-R 0 5

Ana

September 04, 2013 3:46 PM

Okay... Then 'Back to the GRIND' by Ana

Ana was terrified that she’d end up hurting someone. She was a second year now, sure, but she’d not been able to get anything right that had the dratted letter ‘s’ in it yet! Ana knew that until she lost her lisp she wouldn’t be able to do anything of the sort. Ana had learned last year that if you said a spell wrong it could mean something else, sometimes things like that could harm someone and that was the last thing she wanted to do!

It wasn’t that Analea didn’t want to do the work, in fact, she LOVED to learn. It was the speaking out loud that she didn’t like… When Chloe said that she talked funny, Ana’s face fell. Here it comes… She’s going to make fun of me… she thought to herself as she braced herself to be laughed at.

But Chloe didn’t have any malice in her voice when she added that charms wasn’t as difficult as it may seem. Analea let out the breath that she‘d been holding in for fear that she was going to be made fun of again. “It’s not that I think its hard… I just can’t say the letter ‘s’ sound…” she said softly to Chloe. She wasn’t sure if the first year understood her or not, but she glanced around the room for some help from her cousins or from Rory at her little problem.

0 Ana Okay... Then 'Back to the GRIND' 0 Ana 0 5

Jude

September 04, 2013 3:47 PM

Then let the world turn! by Jude

Jude was glad that Adam had sat next to her. There was something about the boy that woke her up. It wasn’t like he was an older brother or anything like that either, he was actually friend material, who may actually want to be her friend right back!

When Adam mentioned the fact that he’d never thought of that as an answer to his riddle, and she shrugged her shoulders, but smiled when he told her the answer was the rug. “Well, I can see that works too… I hadn’t thought of that either…” she said to him, grinning from ear to ear. “Thanks for that. I do love riddles, and I look forward to getting to know you better.” she added to him.

Adam took the initiative to lead the way to Professor Olivers’ desk and Jude followed him happily. She’d finally made a friend (she hoped) that she could write to Dane and Seanan about! The year was turning around, as was her whole school career! They turned in their parchments to the professor, and Jude followed Adam back to their seats. “As fun as it might be to do the essay now, I do have a riddle for you…” she said to him.

She waited to see that he was ready for her before speaking again, and with a grin on her face from ear to ear she said, “What is it that you can keep after giving it to someone else?” she asked. Waiting patiently to see either the look of dawning on his face or a look of confusion, she watched him as she waited to see.

0 Jude Then let the world turn! 0 Jude 0 5

Rina

September 04, 2013 3:48 PM

I do! by Rina

Darina liked Charlie. There was something about the boy who made her smile. Maybe it was because he was actually sort of a friend, maybe it was because they seemed very similar in personality, or maybe it was something else entirely. She had no idea. Charlie smiled at her when she handed him her paper and he tapped her paper to try to get the words to come onto the page.

She did the same thing with his paper at the same time, hoping that she wouldn’t bother him by trying when he did. Tapping three times on the paper with her wand, Rina said, “AH-par-EH-see-um” and saw a little bit of what he’d written. The Teppenpaw tried hard to make it out, but figured that she’d better try it again. Maybe it will make it darker? she thought to herself, hoping that was accurate!

She was about to try again, when Charlie spoke to her, saying he was too. And she smiled towards him. He must have gotten her message to come up! “So you got my message to come up, did you?” she asked him with a grin on her face.

“I’ve almost got yours… Its still kinda hard to see… I’m gonna try again right now though.” she added to him as she tapped her wand on his page once more, repeating the words, “AH-par-EH-see-um” and she smiled when the letters got so much darker and she read what words she saw out loud.

“Life's not worth a damn 'til you can say I am what I am.” she smiled at him, she’d heard that before and she wracked her brain to figure out where… “I’ve heard that before… I can’t remember what its from though…” she said to him, hoping maybe he’d fill her in before it drove her NUTS!

0 Rina I do! 0 Rina 0 5

Chloe

September 07, 2013 8:56 PM

See? Much easier. by Chloe

Chloe was not a stupid girl. Sometimes, okay most of the time, she was oblivious to things right away, but eventually they caught up to her and she understood them just fine. She knew that Ana had a lisp. By saying ‘she talked funny’ was acknowledging this to the other girl. Ana did not have to go and explain to her what a lisp was. Chloe knew a few kids from back home that had speech problems. One had it because he had too many ear infections as a baby/toddler had as a result, could not form words properly for the longest of times. The other just couldn’t figure out his ‘L’s and his ‘S’s. But they managed to get help and fix the problems before they got too far along in their tutoring. Chloe did not care that she had one. She did care, however, that she was using it as an excuse to not do the work.

“I’m not deaf.” Chloe told the girl, still without any sort of malice or annoyance in her words. The girl might of thought her daft enough to state the obvious, but that didn’t mean Chloe thought any less of her. “What I am saying that it’s all mind over matter. Your putting your tongue in the wrong spot when you say your ‘s’ sounds, which is causing your lisp.” She explained. “My friend back home told us that when he was having trouble with his lisp, his speech person told him to train his mind to rework his tongue. Seemed to help.” She shrugged. Maybe this girl’s family didn’t think there was a problem to get her help.

“But not doing the work isn’t going to solve your problem. There are a lot of spells that we have to learn and do that have ‘s’ in them. It’s one of the most popular letters of the alphabet.” She didn’t know if that statement was true, but it felt true and that was why she had said it. “Besides, I think as long as you attempt the spell, you’ll get credit. Better to have some sort of grade than no grade at all.” Chloe smiled at the girl. Her mother said she had too much in her head and no filter to understand when she might upset someone. Chloe didn’t really know what she meant by that. Most people figured her out right away and learned to adjust to her. If she ended up offended someone, it was completely by accident.

6 Chloe See? Much easier. 0 Chloe 0 5

Ava Fletcher

September 08, 2013 4:02 AM

New friends? I like the sound of that! by Ava Fletcher

Ava nodded when Emery asked her about her delight with the Selkies then tilted her head and squinted her eyes a little. He almost had it right but she wasn’t sure how to explain it. “They’re not my favorite type, per say. I only mentioned them because I thought they’d be of more interest to you, really,” she said. “But I still like them, they’re really interesting to read about and I like the tingling I get when I look at pictures of them. All sorts of goose bumps everywhere.” She thought about it for a minute. “That’s not to say that I like being scared. I don’t mind looking at scary pictures but I can’t handle scary stories or films or anything else of the sort.”

She found it difficult to listen while Emery talked about Muggle mermaids and sirens because to jump right in as soon as he started describing them. Once he stopped speaking, she jumped in. “Yes! I live with my grandfather and he’s a Muggle so those are the first kinds of mermaids I grew up with. My mom introduced me to the Selkies and the others later on once she thought I was old enough.” She smiled.

As Dimitri began to agree with Emery about Muggle fairytales whole beautiful equals good idea, Ava found herself not completely with it. “I can see what you mean but I do think that it isn’t totally true. In one of our children’s fairy tales the evil Queen is a beautiful woman who wants to kill her step daughter for being prettier than she is. Before her step daughter grew up the evil Queen was considered to be the most beautiful being in all the land. Also, Sirens were beautiful women who sang to sailors hoping to crash their ships and drown them.” Ava shrugged a little. “I do see what you mean though as the good characters are never ugly. My grandfather says it’s a metaphor. He believes that this beautiful versus ugly thing is actually meant to talk about the inside, not the outside appearance. Like they’re only ugly because their attitude is ugly.”

Feeling a bit awkward for almost challenging the two boys, Ava kept to herself, listening while they talked about how Emery’s mom was a Magizoologist. She thought it was really cool too so nodded throughout their discussion until Dimitri addressed her directly. “I don’t know, the Selkies at least seem quite territorial, but at the same time, I feel like if we ever encountered one they wouldn’t hate us on principal unless we showed aggression or hate towards them. They may have preconceived notions and all that but if it came down to an individual basis, I don’t think so.” She bit her lip and thought about what she’d said, hoping it made sense. “I’ve never actually met one though my mother has treated a Mami Wata while on trip to Africa,” she realized how farfetched that sounded so she further explained it. “She’s a traveling Healer, that’s why I live with my grandfather.”

OOC: So sorry for not replying sooner, I got behind in my schoolwork after getting sick and had to catch up!

10 Ava Fletcher New friends? I like the sound of that! 258 Ava Fletcher 0 5

Adam

September 10, 2013 11:57 AM

Turn! Turn! Turn! by Adam

Jude loved riddles. Adam thought he’d made good friends in Ginny and Francesca, but Jude was gladly added to that list. Anyone who loved riddles as much as he had to make a lovely friend. After showing Professor Olivers their work, they went back to their seats and as Adam brought out the parchment to begin his essay on, he listened to Jude’s riddle and paused.

The words turned in his head. He’d heard this one before, but he had to remember what the answer was. His brows furrowed as they always did when he was thinking hard about something. The answer was completely gone, apparently. Adam had so many riddles in his head that some did end up getting lost along the way.

“Let me figure it out,” he told her, determined. What could one keep after giving it to someone else? It couldn’t be anything physical. A riddle? A joke? Conversations? Sentences? Words? The answer dawned on Adam and he grinned. “My word,” he told her. His father used that expression often and Adam should have guessed that one quicker.

“That was a good one,” he said, glad they had a mutual interest in riddles. “Where do you find good riddles around here?” Most of the riddles Adam knew were not passed on by word of mouth, but books of riddles that Dad and Charlotte gave him every Christmas or birthday.

Replying with a riddle only seemed fit and Adam thought getting started on this essay could wait until they riddled themselves out. “I’ve got another for you: What always works with something in its eye?” This had Mum in stitches after she heard the answer and Charlotte absolutely loved it. Adam thought it was a bit bland himself, but perhaps it pertained more to witches than lads like himself.

0 Adam Turn! Turn! Turn! 0 Adam 0 5

Emery

September 12, 2013 9:17 PM

Everyone is always so eager. by Emery

It was good that Dimitri was agreeing with him, so he had to think that his opinion was somewhat accurate when it came to Merpeople. Although his knowledge in them was limited. Obviously, the best way to obtain knowledge in something is to study it himself, but that wasn’t likely to ever happen. He didn’t really understand what Ava was saying in regards to her feelings towards them. He did admit that the Scottish Selkies were better than the Siren Merpeople of Greece. They were just too pretty. “You have read dark stories.” Emery stated, seeming impressed by this notion.

Emery wanted to correct Ava in her thoughts of Sirens in fairytales. Unless he was mistaken (and there was a chance as he didn’t read too many fairytales), Sirens were in Mythology, not fairytales. Mythology, there was no telling who was innately good and evil based on looks alone. “True, I’m assuming you are talking about Snow White. But, her evil came out so easily that I think its twists your imagination to see her as ugly right off the bat. I mean, Snow White was only like 14 in the fairytale and the Queen’s hatred of her for being so pretty was disturbing. So, I think your grandfather is right in that way.” The stories behind fairytales were brutal, but most people didn’t read that far into them.

Emery did not know how to take Dimitri’s comment. He didn’t find it at all maddening that his mother enjoyed her career choice (both of them) and often tried to inspire her children to enjoy them as well. Animals were something that she had the pleasure of experiencing with her father. They gave her warm memories of him. Emery never met him, he died before he was born, and his mother became too sad when discussing his last months on this Earth. He had passed away from terminal cancer. It was her father’s illness that had his mother leave her career studying animals to start a new one working with students in school. Her love of animals, she raised in Emery and, by default, Chloe. The zoos, safari runs, happening to cross a deer, all these moments, they were held dearly to his family. They were sentimental and never something he’d admit too because that was too ‘emotional’ but he was grateful for them. “She is cool. My dad too, but he’s a marketing advertiser, so we don’t get to do as many fun things for his job.” He stated with a shrug. He figured most people had parents with cool jobs.

“A traveling Healer?” Emery asked her, surprised. “That sounds stressful. But also kind of cool because she gets to travel everywhere. When my mom was first out of University, she traveled with a Research team around the world to study animals. I want to travel the world once I graduate. Just to see everything at least once.”

6 Emery Everyone is always so eager. 0 Emery 0 5

Francesca Wolseithcrafte, Aladren

September 16, 2013 8:32 AM

Oh, would you prefer to stick to the bland pleasantries? by Francesca Wolseithcrafte, Aladren

Malcolm Carey was one of the first people at Sonora whom Francesca had met, having helped him learn to fly during their lesson with Coach Pierce. A Pureblood who lacked that skill was incredibly unusual, and he had piqued her interest. Even though he lacked a father, it could be scarcely said that he lacked male relatives, or the money for a tutor. Nor, in all probability, did his mother lack the skills to do it herself, if only women were prepared to admit to that sort of thing. She had enjoyed their initial meeting but nothing much had come of it. That was not particularly unusual, especially once one factored in their different houses, potentially her family politics and the fact that not every person one encountered was going to result in a blossoming friendship. Pleasant as she'd found his company, she had not given him a great deal of thought since, especially not since becoming friends with Ginny and Adam. Still, it was pleasant to find herself working with him.

“Well, you can always do some for practise before or after attempting the message,” she reasoned, pleased that he thought her idea good. She prided herself on her intelligence and, as it was something she felt so central to her idea of self, ardently wanted for others to recognise this trait in her. She had first place in the challenges last year and crop of excellent grades to help foster this image, and a year of breaking her wand and herself in meant that practical skills were coming more easily than they had before. It was still something that she had to work hard at, and always a case of self-disciplined practise, but she felt much less in danger of humiliating herself in a spellwork class these days.

“AH-par-EH-see-um,” she cast, the taps following in synchronicity with the word, as she had rehearsed on the lines. She wondered whether it would be more complex with real words whose nature she did not know but reasoned that it should not make a great deal of difference. After all, the spell had, presumably, been designed with such a situation in mind. The message appeared, more or less in tact. It was singularly quotidian but then what had she really expected? A Charms exercise was probably not the place most people would choose to bear their souls or plum deep emotional depths. She bit back a remark along the lines of 'I see we both chose bold, controversial statements.' She enjoyed friendly teasing, such as her banter with Adam about the house championship, but friendly teasing had to be just that... between friends. She really could not consider Malcolm that and she did not want him to think she was being waspish or cruel, and such remarks could easily be misinterpreted as such.

“How are you getting along?” she asked mildly.

13 Francesca Wolseithcrafte, Aladren Oh, would you prefer to stick to the bland pleasantries? 250 Francesca Wolseithcrafte, Aladren 0 5

Willow Collins,Teppenpaw

September 16, 2013 10:36 PM

More than I'm willing to. by Willow Collins,Teppenpaw

Willow sat in Charms, feeling every bit as apathetic as usual. Midterm had been pretty much what she expected-with one exception. Apparently, Lily had eloped with her long term boyfriend Anthony back in September and never told any of them until the holidays. Surprisingly, this didn't bother the second year that much. She was getting used to not being told anything about anything.

She had,however, found out-by stooping to eavesdropping again, which was the only way it seemed that she could find anything out-their reasons. It was because of Autumn and her illness, of course. Most things seemed to be and she wasn't resentful, she was just starting to accept this as fact. At least, Willow tried not to be resentful. Her sister was extremely fragile and she could easily relapse. Most of the second year's resentment tended be more towards her parents anyway and the fact that they never seemed to think she needed to know what was going on than her poor sister. Autumn clearly needed to be watched and taken care of and tiptoed around.

In fact, the reason Lily and Anthony eloped in the first place was because if her parents were distracted by planning a big fancy wedding, they would be distracted from making sure Autumn ate and she would relapse again. Anthony, as a Healer, was very aware of these things and showed Autumn an awful lot of concern and he and Lily would have both felt terribly guilty if she got so sick again because the focus had been on them-and Willow's oldest sister had enough guilt over Kaylie's back injury. Plus, a big family event might put even more extra stress on Autumn and she'd probably definitely relapse, especially having to deal with a wedding when Willow was sure that was something Autumn wanted for herself.

Were they all going to have to elope to avoid this though? She didn't know if she cared for herself, or even just having a small wedding someday. It was hardly something she thought about very often, if ever, just accepted that it would happen someday. However,Willow couldn't imagine that working for Evan and Lucille. A Brockert-Carey wedding was bound to be huge. Just the two families alone had to be in the hundreds. And that was before all of pureblood society was invited. She really didn't know how her sister would handle that, but that was one thing genuinely not about Autumn and it would be wrong for anyone to ask Lucille to sacrifice anything about her wedding. Willow was certain her sister wouldn't want it that way anyway and would probably just stay home. It was a few years before anyone had to worry about that though the Teppenpaw certainly didn't expect Autumn to be well. Ever again.

And she wasn't. Prior to midterm, in fact most of the month of December, the Crotalus alumna had had a very serious kidney infection-which was actually mentioned in front of Willow, possibly because they'd forgotten she was there-and that she'd actually been hospitalized for it. That she could have possibly died from. This part was found out by eavesdropping, of course.

It always seemed like that. That whatever Autumn got sick with, could possibly kill her. Even if she wasn't dangerously underweight, there was still damage to her kidneys and infections could send her into failure. Though this time it seemed like she'd had a really high fever from the bits and pieces Willow picked up-and this was why she sincerely believed Autumn was not well and never going to be whether she kept the weight on or not. And she still looked very skinny as far the Teppenpaw could tell.

Honestly, Willow did not want to obsess about this. She wanted to focus on her grades and making friends. Maybe that was why her parents didn't tell her stuff, but she loved her sister and worried about her. Plus, when it was the focal point of just about everything that went on at home, it was a little difficult not to think about it quite a bit especially when she was first back at school after midterm or summer.

The Teppenpaw looked dully up at Professor Olivers and listened half heartedly as her professor spoke. The Revealing Charm. How ironic, first a transfiguration used to fix mistakes and now a charm to reveal things. The second thing that wouldn't work in her case.

Nor did she really want to write anything for others to discover. She must have came by it naturally. She couldn't even really think of anything to write. Instead, she drew a simple flower. Just a circle with petals around it, a straight line for a stem and some leaves. What did it matter if one drew or wrote something? They were still going to be doing the same spell and that was the important part.

"Ready to swap?"

Willow looked up at her roommate, Julian. "Sure." She replied, handing over her paper.

11 Willow Collins,Teppenpaw More than I'm willing to. 253 Willow Collins,Teppenpaw 0 5