Professor Olivers
March 21, 2014 12:56 AM
Beginners Charms by Professor Olivers
Only once in the four years of her teaching career at Sonora had Florence ever been late. Her students should have known well by now that when the clock struck the hour, silence was required and she would begin to teach. She had become a little more lenient the year before, but never, ever had she been late to a class. So for those who knew of their professor’s almost manic obsession with punctuality, the fact that it was two minutes after with no sight of even a hat that might give some indication of her presence was to be disconcerting. The beginner students were, of course, varied in their concerns; some could be looking anxiously around, wondering what on earth was going on; others could be unaware of the time, mindlessly doodling or passing time before class; still others, perhaps the younger ones, could be chatting with no mind of the clock. It was the first day of classes and such was expected of first-year students.
The ticking of the clock continued and a tense air hung about the room, the air of anticipation of what was to come with the next minute. It was almost unbearable. Yet, as the minutes ticked by, it seemed unlikely that anyone was coming, much less the ever-punctual Florence herself. Even for theatricality’s sake she would never have left her class alone for this long. But would any outlandish behavior be worth risking the chance of getting caught if a professor did end up arriving? That was up to the students to decide.
Subthreads: Freedom? by Ji-Won "Jamie" Park, Pecari with Ariel Thornton, Crotalus, Ariel Thornton
Perhaps we should alert someone? by Katherine Procter with Brandon Carey, Pecari, Brandon Carey, Jay Carey, Kitty Procter
It's not paranoia if they really are out to get me. by Clark Dill with Atlas Primred, Pecari
A sixth year to the rescue! by James Carey
Please give me something to do. by Liliana Bannister, Pecari
Everyone Look Here! Important! by Aria Yale with Lionel Layne, Oliver Ferguson II, Aladren
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Professor Olivers
Beginners Charms
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Professor Olivers
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Katherine Procter
March 23, 2014 10:34 PM
Perhaps we should alert someone? by Katherine Procter
Kitty awoke earlier than she had intended in her nervous excitement over her first day of lessons: Beginners' Charms. Stretching in a manner rather similar to her calico cat, Rhiannon, she climbed out of bed to freshen up for breakfast. Treading lightly as to not disturb her roommates, she took refuge in the bathroom braiding her hair into pigtails and taking care to pin them meticulously into a bundle at the nape of her neck, as was her usual way. When she felt presentable, she collected her satchel with her supplies and text book and left the dormitory to made her way to the Cascade Hall for breakfast (seeing as she had plenty of time to spare!).She stopped short after glancing out a window. The clouds were purple. Owls were flyings about, and everything seemed hazy. Was that normal here? Feeling her composure slip slightly, she hitched her satchel higher on her shoulder and hurried along, avoiding eye contact with any students in the hall. The Cascade Hall seemed odd, as well. The prairie elves, creatures that Kitty only recognized from a photo in a book, were searching under tables and any (and every) nook and cranny; and the Head Girl was giving some explanations from the front of the hall, but Kitty barely comprehended her words. There were prairie elves searching the corridors, she recalled, and that did not seem right. Didn't the books say they tended to remain unnoticed? Deciding that she would rather just get out of there, she quickly drank some orange juice, ate some wheat toast with blackberry preserves, and left to get a head start to Charms.
Hopefully, things would be more normal there.
Kitty took a seat in the second row at the end nearest the door. It wasn't in the front, so she was not as likely to be called on, but it was close enough for her to take it all in. She placed her notebook and textbook on her desk, and waited for the professor to arrive. And she waited, and waited, and continued to wait, her nerves growing tighter and tighter as she did.
What is going on? she thought. Did I misread my schedule? Kitty looked around her at the other first and second years in her class. Well, it was obvious that she was not mistaken as to the time for class (she thought herself silly for thinking so for even a moment). Grabbing the lock of hair that usually came loose behind her left ear (her dark brown hair was angled in front, resulting in loose bits around her face, it was just the section behind her left ear that bared the assault of her nervous habit), she began to twirl it around her index finger while worrying her lower lip.
"Should we call for someone?" she whispered to no one in particular, keeping one eye on the door in case their teacher came in. "Something could be wrong."
What was going on?
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Katherine Procter
Perhaps we should alert someone?
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Katherine Procter
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Brandon Carey, Pecari
March 24, 2014 12:24 AM
I'd rather not by Brandon Carey, Pecari
Lessons were always hard for Brandon – there was always the need to pay attention to the instructor, which was even worse here than it was at home since there were so many other people around to distract him, and often the teachers wanted him to write; that had been getting a little better after more than half a year of work with the evil reading tutors, but he still found it easier to draw the teachers a diagram than to write them the wordy explanations they actually wanted – but as far as they went, Brandon thought Charms wasn’t half-bad. He was not bad in anything except Potions, which required more attention to detail than he had to give, but Charms felt brighter, somehow, than his other classes. Defense was as good for flashing lights and fun things, but there was always the sense that you were supposed to be serious there, that it was all important, and in Transfiguration there was always the emphasis on how it was all dangerous. The attitude of Charms, Professor Olivers with her hats and all, was preferable to those, though Brandon thought he actually liked Deputy Headmistress Professor Skies a little better, personally. She was nice and gave cookies, and while Brandon knew he was, now that he was twelve, supposed to be too old to like someone just because of that, he liked her for it anyway.Today, though, he was almost eager to get to any class, because he wanted someone to explain what was up with the purple sky. He had been asking his brothers and sister all morning, and had even tried Alex in desperation right after breakfast, but they had all just brushed him off and hurried about their business except Henry, who’d muttered something about not wandering off before running off after Anthony. That was not nearly enough to ease his curiosity, and he was sure the teachers would have a better explanation.
The only problem was, Professor Olivers wasn’t in class.
Brandon frowned at her empty desk for a minute, wondering if she was going to jump out from behind it – now that he thought about it, he thought he remembered someone at breakfast talking about a joke, the teachers playing a joke, or something like that. He didn’t know; he knew some adults had kind of a bad sense of humor, so maybe teachers could, too, though it didn’t really make sense to him that they would bother pulling a joke on first and second years. Jokes were fun when they were on someone far above you, someone who could make your life misera – well, he guessed that would make them fair targets, since students could definitely make a teacher’s life miserable, but still, they were small enough, and the teachers strong enough compared to them, for him not to see what the point of the joke was.
Besides, Professor Olivers might have a sense of humor, but time was not something she had it about. The woman was crazy when it came to punctuality. Maybe not as bad as Professor Meade had been, he’d actually locked Brandon out once, but bad. As if the first few minutes were ever anything but business, anyway, and how much effort did it take to change the mark beside his name from ‘absent’ to ‘present?’ None, Brandon was sure. Teachers were just needlessly uptight about some things….
He realized he had gotten distracted from his own chain of thought when a sound caught his ear, a voice beside him. He looked, blinking, at the girl he didn’t know and so assumed was a first year, or else really, really boring.
“Yeah, but if we leave class, we’ll get in trouble,” he said, prim as a Crotalus himself for one moment before elaborating, with a grin, that “Jay’ll take my ears for polish rags if I leave class without permission.” Not really, of course, but Jay would be silently disapproving, again, and Brandon hated that almost as much as he thought he would having his ears cut off to polish shoes with. “Somebody’ll come soon – they don’t trust us not to blow the place up,” he added confidently, as he knew the staff had good reason to think that. He made a small bow in his seat, which sent a lock of brown hair falling into his square face; he pushed it back as he straightened up again. "I'm Brandon Carey - South Carolina Careys," he said, though he failed, as usual, to give the family name the grave intonantion and phrasing he knew the family would really prefer. "And Pecari. Are you new? And has anyone told you why the sky's purple?"
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Brandon Carey, Pecari
I'd rather not
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Brandon Carey, Pecari
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Katherine Procter
March 24, 2014 9:09 AM
Hopefully, someone will come soon. by Katherine Procter
When the dark haired boy beside her replied to her quiet musings, Kitty brought her gold eyes around to him. His voice was formal and serious when he mentioned the likelihood of getting into trouble (she did not like the sound of that), but then, a smile spread across his lips when he added, "Jay’ll take my ears for polish rags if I leave class without permission."Kitty ducked her head, using the shorter sections of hair framing her face to shield her smile from view. She didn't reply, as she was not sure how one should reply to that, especially as she did not know who "Jay" was or if he was likely to literally do what the boy implied, but her neighbor continued with, "Somebody’ll come soon – they don’t trust us not to blow the place up."
Blow the place up? thought Kitty, beginning to grow alarmed. She was grateful her hair obscured any view of her widening eyes. Is that what Charms class is like?
She looked at him through the veil of her hair as he introduced himself as Brandon Carey of the South Carolina Careys (Were all magical people so formal with their introductions? she wondered. He had even bowed!) "And Pecari," he added, "Are you new? And has anyone told you why the sky's purple?"
Kitty tucked her dark brown hair behind her ear to reveal her face, but she kept her eyes downcast, her usual shyness shining through. "Yes, I'm a first year in Crotalus. My name is Kitty Proctor," she answered, her voice low, but clear. "Unfortunately, I don't know why the sky is purple. Magic is so very new to me, and I have never seen anything like it before. The clouds, that is. I'm sorry that I do not know more."
Biting her lower lip once more, Kitty stole a glance at the door again, in hopes that a professor (or some figure of authority) would arrive and regain a sense of normalcy to the world once more.
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Katherine Procter
Hopefully, someone will come soon.
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Katherine Procter
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Brandon Carey
March 24, 2014 5:36 PM
We'll just wait and see, I guess by Brandon Carey
Kitty Procter of Crotalus didn’t know what was going on, either, but Brandon only shrugged when he found that out. “I haven’t, either – that’s why I’m asking everybody. I don’t think anybody else knows, either, but they won’t admit it.”He hadn’t realized that until he said it, and he sort of wished he had done neither once he did. The thought that they all just thought he was annoying and not important enough to tell things, or that it was all so unimportant that he was stupid even for asking, had, it turned out, been nicer than that one. But it made sense. As far as he had ever heard, his siblings had never seen clouds like the ones outside now or classrooms without professors, either, so how would they be any surer than he was what was going on? They might have a glimmer of an idea, because they knew more about magic, but not that much.
He grinned again, a little manically, trying to stay cheerful. He was probably wrong. He usually as. Everyone knew that, good at magic and understanding concepts he couldn’t write well about or not, Brandon was not the brains of the operation which was his immediate family – he didn’t think enough about things that sounded fun at the time before he did them to have a chance at that. That was Jay’s job, and Brandon was sure that even if something was somehow very wrong at Sonora today, his brother would look after him, so there was really nothing for him, personally, to worry about. The older students, the ones with badges, would also take care of things if the teachers were too busy to, just like the other branch heads took care of things in parts of the family Brandon’s great-great-grandfather, Anthony Carey IV, didn’t have time to, even though he was always above all of them. The prefects would take care of everybody, and Jay and Alex, the ones in charge of the Careys at Sonora this year, would take care of him
“So, Crotalus,” he said, leaping wireless stations without a pause. “I have a brother in Crotalus. Henry. He’s in fifth year. And your Head of House is awesome. Professor Olivers is good, too, but I really like the DHPS.” He abbreviated the long name out loud, the way some people did the name of the Defense class.
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Brandon Carey
We'll just wait and see, I guess
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Brandon Carey
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Katherine Procter
March 28, 2014 4:18 PM
I don't know if this is what we had in mind. by Katherine Procter
Brandon Carey changed subjects faster than Kitty could keep up. Her mind was spinning with his rapid fire topics. She was still mentally coming to terms with the curiosities of the morning and how no one had an inkling concerning what was going on, when he changed gears again and starting talking about her House. Apparently, he had a brother in Crotalus. She wondered if she would cross paths with him at some point and if he was in any way like his outgoing younger brother.He moved on to singing the praises of the "DHPS." Kitty pondered that. DHPS? The only thing she could think of for that one was "Deputy Headmistress Professor Skies," so she ran with it.
She was about to open her mouth to confirm or deny this suspicion when the door opened. Thinking it may finally be their missing professor, Kitty turned her full attention to the visitor. As it turned out, it was a student, probably a fifth or sixth year (Kitty couldn't be sure) with curly hair.
"Hello, everyone. I'm James," greeted the mystery boy.
Beside her, Brandon said, "Hi, Jay!" Ah, so this was the Jay-of-the-polish-rags, she thought. James/Jay just nodded at Brandon.
“As I’m, uh, guessing you’ve noticed, Professor Olivers isn’t here right now. She’ll…probably be back soon. But for now, you can talk, as long as you keep it quiet – and I’ll tell you if you’re getting too loud – or read in your seats. For now. We'll see if we can come up with something interesting to do in a few minutes, if we need to," continued James from the front of the room.
Kitty, knowing she looked as puzzled as she felt, glanced around the room at the seated first and second years. They were all chatting more or less quietly, so she was confused as to his instructions (considering they were pretty much doing what he had asked them to do, already). Shrugging, she turned back to Brandon.
"So, it looks as though he won't have any excuse to use your ears for polish rags," she quipped dryly. She began to twirl her hair again. "But, now what do we do?"
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Katherine Procter
I don't know if this is what we had in mind.
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Katherine Procter
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Brandon Carey
April 02, 2014 6:52 PM
Better than nothing, though by Brandon Carey
Brandon laughed when Kitty said Jay wouldn’t get to cut his ears off after all. “Nothing, I guess,” he said. “Or – I don’t know. Do you know any charms yet?”There was always something to do, if you knew some charms. Brandon had paid special attention in this class last year, so much that it was the one Jay had to tutor him in least for him to keep up with the others, because there was a lot of time at school when no one seemed to be doing much at all and he had, without Diana here and with his brothers studying in their own common rooms a lot, to entertain himself. He took out his wand.
“Watch this,” he said, and said the spell which made his wand produce a stream of bubbles, which began to float away and over the room at once. He started trying to catch one before the wand even stopped, causing it to angle downward, sending some bubbles toward his feet as well. Diana had enjoyed it when he managed to demonstrate this one for her over the summer, and Brandon was pretty sure it could keep anyone occupied for a long time. “Charms is awesome,” he said distantly, trying to step on one and catch another at the same time. “You can’t do stuff at home, unless they’re not watching you right then, but when you’re here you never have to be bored.”
Not being able to do spells over the summer, after learning so many he’d enjoyed or which just made things easier last year, had been hard. Brandon thought it was stupid, at least for families like his. Some tried to live in towns or cities, where they might be seen, but his family protected the family land even from other wizards they didn't want around, or at least not at a particular time. He was sure Muggles, who knew nothing about anything at all, could never find them or bother them however they tried.
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Brandon Carey
Better than nothing, though
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Brandon Carey
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Katherine Procter
April 06, 2014 7:39 PM
This is always true. [TAG: James Carey] by Katherine Procter
Brandon then waved his wand, producing bubbles from the end. Kitty watched with wide eyes as the bubbles floated around them, and at one point even being fired towards their feet (Kitty suspected that it wasn't intentional, but she was too distracted by the bubbles in front of her to notice if it was, in fact, a mistake). Her gold eyes crossed as a bubble popped against the tip of her nose, enticing a giggle to rise in her throat."Charms is awesome. You can’t do stuff at home, unless they’re not watching you right then, but when you’re here you never have to be bored," Brandon was saying. Kitty thought of the wand in her bag, a long piece of willow with a unicorn hair core (she recalled, with a light smile, her wonderment at the knowledge that unicorns existed) and a clear quartz inset in one end. She wondered when she would be able to perform as Brandon was here. So far, the only thing she had done with her wand was the emitting of gold sparks when she chose it, or rather when it had chosen her.
"I have yet to perform any spells," she replied, quiet in her distraction of trying to catch a bubble on her fingertip without having it pop (and her disappointment at not being able to obtain such a goal). "I know the theories, of course, I've read all my textbooks and pamphlets leading up to my coming here, but I have not been exposed to real magic before the flying covered wagon arrived. I was looking forward to actually learning in a practical setting."
Kitty had spoken without thinking. It was true, though. She did know the theories. She had read each of her textbooks from cover to cover, and each of the silly pamphlets given to her by the magical representative sent to guide her. Pamphlets with silly titles like, So, You're Magical Among Muggles, but You Aren't Really Alone! and Magic is as Natural as Breathing. Even with the resources, she still felt lost. The books confused her, and she had looked forward to being able to ask questions. The fact that the teacher did not show up, added to the strange clouds and the bizarre behavior of the prairie elves, really upset her.
She blinked back sudden tears, successfully hiding the surge of emotion, and moved to make the boldest move she had yet to make since arriving at school (and, quite possibly, the boldest move she had ever made), she looked straight ahead, all bubbles quite forgotten, and raised her hand.
Knowing she was going to possibly be the center of attention, she could not fight the blush that rose on her neck and heated her cheeks as she addressed the sixth year at the front of the classroom. "James, what has happened with the professors? You said that Professor Olivers was detained, but I did not see any professors at breakfast. Is there something wrong?"
Kitty swallowed hard after such an uncharacteristic speech. She knew she still blushed from a mix of embarrassment at challenging an older student (in a manner of speaking) and her fear that something was wrong with the adults at he school. She already regretted her outburst, because she was afraid of the answer.
[OOC: I wasn't sure if I should split the reply between two different threads or tag James in this one and keep them together, so I opted for the latter. I hope that is all right!]
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Katherine Procter
This is always true. [TAG: James Carey]
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Katherine Procter
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Jay Carey
April 06, 2014 11:42 PM
I suspect it is by Jay Carey
The sight of the bubbles confirmed what Jay had feared from the first. Everyone, he imagined, was glad to be able to use their wands again after the summer, but first and second years could be especially impatient, since they hadn’t had years to get used to dull assignments and everyday uses, the things which made being able to do magic for yourself a normal part of life instead of something indescribably awesome.Sometimes, Jay sort of missed that feeling. Sixth year was when they really began to learn what they could do with their powers, now that they were old enough to be trusted with such information, but from what Jay had read in his books over the summer, that was going to be closer to terrifying more often than it was purely exhilarating. The introduction to his latest Defense Against the Dark Arts textbook had been enough to induce a degree of paranoia, the secret fear that the perfectly normal-looking person sitting beside him, taking notes just as he did, could become a Dark Lord someday. A thought he wished he hadn’t had; if someone was going to snap, present circumstances seemed like a good time to do it. Not a good thing for a Carey, of all people, to say, but….
Brandon, he noticed, was staring at the girl beside him, who put her hand up. Jay was nearly to them when his brother began talking again, sounding very excited: “Never? You mean you’re Muggleborn, then?”
Jay thought several words Professor Olivers would have given him detention for using aloud, if he had done so or she been present to give detentions. He never ceased to curse the luck which had given him at least two siblings who were simply too innocent and scatter-brained to pay attention to blood politics, or anything actually useful, and Brandon was worse than Theresa. At least some of her…interests…might pay off somehow, someday, if she could keep them in line long enough.
“Brandon,” he said warningly, stepping up to them. “Be polite.” There were some things which were just not to be discussed, not in public. Especially not the way Brandon would. “Yes, Miss…?” he asked the girl, smiling politely himself, trying to emulate Professor Skies’ manner, as best he could. He thought of her as one of the best of the professors, firm but fair and approachable as well, even though she was the one who’d caused him no end of trouble by meddling in Carey business and getting Brandon diagnosed with the reading thing. It was not her fault, after all, that Jay and the rest of the family had not handled that well enough before it could come to her attention. They had been too focused on Henry, Theresa, Arnold, then Mother had had Peter, and….
Well, no use thinking on it now.
The question was just about the worst one the first year could ask, and he thought he might even include queries about Brandon’s sanity and academic ability in that thought. He bit his lip before speaking, trying to word it as carefully as he could in a very short time. He really should, he thought, have figured out an answer for this before now.
“I don’t know exactly what’s going on,” he said. “Or exactly why the professors haven’t arrived in classes yet.” Exactly? He didn’t have the first clue. “However, the Head Boy and Girl are meeting with some of the prefects right now, and everything is going to be all right.” He said that very firmly. “We’ll know more very soon, and everything will be taken care of.”
The first and second years would be taken care of, anyway. The prefects would see the logic of that, or some of them, anyway. If necessary, he thought he and Alex might be able to set up a colony inside the school to manage them with some help from Anthony and maybe Aria if anarchy started to set in before the teachers got back, though it would involve locking everyone else out of one of the common rooms. That, though, was a ludicrous thought, one he chalked up to stress. The teachers would be back, with a logical explanation for all this, within the hour, making setting up his own commune of beginning students a very unlikely prospect.
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Jay Carey
I suspect it is
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Jay Carey
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Kitty Procter
April 29, 2014 11:09 PM
Hopefully, things will turn around soon. by Kitty Procter
Brandon's reply in regards to her blood status went unheard as Kitty stared at the older student ahead of her, concentrating on keeping her breathing steady and showing no signs at the nerves gnawing away at her insides. James sent him a quick "be quiet" before giving her his full attentions."Yes, Miss…?" he prompted.
"Procter. Kitty Procter, Crotalus House," she replied with only the faintest stammer, hoping that was the right way of answering. She then inquired about the professors' mysterious absences.
His answer was honest and candid, he admitted to not really knowing more than any of them (Kitty assumed the Head Students and Prefects had their theories, which were likely more realistic than anything she could think up), and he was reassuring that the older students will see that they were taken care of appropriately. She was satisfied with the response, and it calmed her nerves slightly.
Only slightly, but with strange purple clouds filling the sky, it would be a bit silly for Kitty to expect them to go away completely.
A red-headed girl came in then, and introduced herself as "Aria Yale, Teppenpaw Prefect" before making suggestions concerning a course of actions. Kitty felt that the idea of going to back to the Common Rooms was the best option, as she would really prefer her first lesson using magic was under he supervision of a professor. However, she was not comfortable with the notion of voicing her opinion twice to two complete strangers.
So she sat back, valiantly ignored the blush burning her cheeks, and hoped it would be the option that received the winning vote.
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Kitty Procter
Hopefully, things will turn around soon.
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Kitty Procter
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5
