...Merliness? on Charms

Professor Olivers

September 09, 2014 10:37 PM

Cleanliness is next to... [I & II years] by Professor Olivers

When looking into the Charms classroom before today's beginner class, one might easily mistake it for the Potions classroom. There were various sizes of cauldrons sitting at the front of the room, some of copper, others of iron, some collapsible and others unyielding. The only thing the cauldrons all shared in common, besides their general shape, was their level of cleanliness, or lack thereof. They were all filthy.

Florence had been preparing each cauldron with some disdain. She poured the last remnants of failed potions into some; the larger ones had some mold growing in them; the smaller ones reeked of oil and dirt. She had gotten the cauldrons from Diana, though she didn't think the Potions professor would have been as happy to hand them over if she saw what Florence was doing. Once the lesson was finished, Florence would clean them all out herself before returning them, of course, but for now they had to be as dirty as she could make them. One would think dirtying cauldrons was easier than cleaning them, but for Florence it was not enjoyable in the slightest. It was disgusting work, but it was all for a good cause.

The cauldrons were nicely filthy before the beginner students arrived and Florence washed her hands thoroughly before opening the door to her classroom and sitting back at her desk to find the stack of graded essays to hand back to them. Her desk was usually orderly, but it was even more so today in response to the dirty work she'd had to do. She was carefully setting the folders and others stacks of essays back in place as the students arrived and placed her unfinished letter to Nicholas in her desk drawer. It was nice having a significant other again at her age, but as time passed she found it easier to transition from writing love letters to grading essays and teaching classes.

The minute the clock struck, indicating class to begin, Florence closed the doors with a wave of her hand as she stood. The beginners by now would know how much she cared about punctuality, though the first-years perhaps were not yet aware of her previous career as an actress unless they were familiar with American theatre. “Good morning everyone,” she said with a smile as she moved in front of the cauldrons with the stack of essays in hand, her navy blue robe giving the impression that the white stars scattered across the fabric were moving with her. The odor coming from the cauldrons sitting in front of her desk was making her slightly nauseous. “I have your essays to hand back to you. Can someone please come and hand them out for me? Thank you.” Once someone had volunteered, Florence handed them the stack. “If you have any questions about your grade, please see me after class. Now, as those are being passed out, does anyone remember what we learned about last week?”

She chose someone with their hand raised, and once she had gotten the right answer, she nodded. “Yes, we learned the Scouring Charm last class. Now take note of this for your midterm exam. The etymology of the incantation is Scourgify. It is related to the English word ‘scour,’ that is, ‘to clean,’ and the suffix, ‘-ify,’ means ‘to make.’ Therefore the incantation Scourgify means ‘to make clean.’ As I said in the last class, this charm is one in a serious of Cleaning Charms, another being Tergeo. The Scouring Charm is used to clean any substance while Tergeo siphons any liquid, including dust or grease. For the more difficult liquids, Tergeo will do a much more thorough job.

“The wand movement for the Scouring Charm is to make an ‘S’ in the air in front of the object you want to clean. There is no light to indicate if you’ve done it correctly, but you will be able to tell by the result. The only hand movement necessary for Tergeo is to point your wand at the object and to say the incantation correctly. It is important to practice saying this spells carefully as pronunciation will become more and more important with harder charms. Let’s practice saying it now; after me: Scourgify.” She waited a moment before beginning again. “Now the next one. Tergeo.” She waited for them to repeat it after her before picking up her wand from her desk.

“For our exercise today, if you haven’t guessed yet, you will be cleaning cauldrons for the gracious Professor Yu.” With her wand she moved the cauldrons one by one and placed them in front of each student. The first-years would have a smaller one placed in front of them while the second-years would have a larger one. Once the cauldrons were all passed out, she smiled, glad the fumes emanating from the cauldrons were now dispersed in front of her students throughout the room instead of all piled at her desk. “Use the Scouring Charm to begin with a general cleaning, but with tougher liquids use Tergeo. If you have any trouble, please come to me.” Generally Florence liked the Advanced class better because they were more independent, but she was finding she didn’t mind the first and second-years nearly as much as before. Maybe she was becoming more lenient with age. “Go ahead and begin.”

OOC: As usual, creative and realistic posts will earn more points! Don't forget to include your house. If you have any questions, tag Florence in the subject line or on the OOC board.

Subthreads:

...Merliness? by Tobias Reinhardt II, Teppenpaw with Scarlett Brockert, Pecari

Well, that's just vile! [Tag: Professor Olivers] by Katherine Procter, Crotalus

Incentive. by Joella Curtis, Pecari

0 Professor Olivers Cleanliness is next to... [I & II years] 0 Professor Olivers 1 5

Tobias Reinhardt II, Teppenpaw

September 30, 2014 8:01 PM

...Merliness? by Tobias Reinhardt II, Teppenpaw

Upon Tobi's entrance to the Charms classroom, he saw the disgusting looking cauldrons that were at the front of the room and were also emitting a rather distinct odor. He found a desk that was just outside the reaches of the noisy smell before taking a seat and placing his textbook and notebook on top of his desk in preparation for class. Professor Olivers was strict about timeliness and part of this, Tobi felt, was being fully prepared by the time class started. Even though the class was Charms had not his favorite, he also knew he would have to pay close attention to it, this class in particular (along with Transfiguration) that would matter most once it came time to take over the family business. He was only eleven, but he also knew that as the first-born it was his duty to do so, especially since he'd overheard his father talking about it to his acquaintances in Germany.

“Good morning everyone,” Professor Olivers said, closing the door with magic and moving to the front of her desk. “I have your essays to hand back to you. Can someone please come and hand them out for me?" Tobi didn't particularly feel like raising his hand, never liking to be one in the spotlight, but his feeling of duty to respect elders and comply with their wishes over took him so he got up to collect them from her and pass them out to the other students. As he passed them out, Professor Olivers started the lesson by going over what they had learned during the previous class.

Just as he found his seat once more, Professor Olivers asked them to take note of a particular fact for their midterm exam. Tobi scrambled to find a pencil as the he'd pulled out earlier had broken when it had been knocked to the ground as he took his seat. "Scourgify" he wrote in his scrawling script. " -> English -> 'to scour' -> 'to clean' | scourgify = 'to make clean' | Scouring Charm- for anything; tergeo for sifoning liquids (& dust/grease). If mean liquid, tergeo = better." He moved his hand further down the paper and wrote the two spells down. Under scourgify, he drew a little wand with an arrowed 'S' coming out of it to demonstrate the movement. "No light", he wrote next to it before moving to the right, underlining the word tergeo, and writing "point" next to it.

After Professor Olivers distributed their cauldrons and dismissed them to work he set to work diligently. He really hated having to help his father clean up the workshop though he knew it was necessary to be done and now that he knew these two cleaning spells perhaps they would help to make his job go faster. Though he didn't particularly love Charms as it made him think of his inevitable future in the Metal Charming world, he was glad for this class as it seemed to be useful in getting rid of dreaded tasks. The tergeo spell would especially come in handy with grease, something that was often present in the workshop of a Metal Charmer.

Under his breath, Tobi began to hum a favorite tune of his mother's to distract him and he proceeded to go about the cauldron the way he tackled most of his spells in Transfiguration-- starting with one portion and slowly moving on to the next as the area got to a point that he was satisfied. First, he decided, he would use scourgify to get the general cleaning out of the way, then he would move on to tergeo to fine tune the job, and finally he would use scourgify again just to make sure he had gotten everything. Though Tobi was not normally such a perfectionist, it was Charms class and he knew his father would expect an O and not accept anything lower than an E. "Stupid legacy," he muttered under his breath as he set to work.

10 Tobias Reinhardt II, Teppenpaw ...Merliness? 289 Tobias Reinhardt II, Teppenpaw 0 5

Scarlett Brockert, Pecari

October 01, 2014 5:38 PM

I suppose that would be the correct by Scarlett Brockert, Pecari

Although Scarlett didn't enjoy classes nearly as much as her twin, she had to admit they were at least somewhat interesting, at least initally. Still, they weren't enough to keep her interest for long. She wasn't stupid but she didn't have a very good attention span. The Pecari was usually bored half way through a lecture if not sooner. Doing spells themselves was at least somewhat fun. Scarlett dreaded the days when they did theory assignments, and usually did her homework last minute, unless she did it with Savannah.

Plus, some of the professors were so uptight! Professor Olivers seemed to have a real thing about punctuality and they were mostly rather stuffy in general. Sometimes, the first year was tempted to come to class late again, though partially to miss the boring lecture part and just do the spell. However, the one time that she'd attempted this, Scarlett had gotten locked out. She'd used that time exploring the school as she had planned, looking for secret passages and other hidden surprises. She'd continued to do this all term and would next term too. The student population might not be huge, but Sonora was and she was determined to explore every nook and cranny inside and out. It was the one thing that kept Scarlett truly interested for a long period of time.

So she arrived just before the class started, like usual. This was one of those things where the Pecari liked to be fashionably late, instead of leading. She'd let classes be Savannah's domain-and Chaslyn's. Having smart and disciplined relatives came in handy, though naturally her sister was more help than her cousin. The Crotalus never seemed to have much time. She needed to learn to relax and have fun, like Scarlett. Sometimes, she wanted the second year to just loosen up for her own good. Even if Scarlett had to force her.

Hmmm....it looked like today's lesson was going to be one of those that Scarlett personally would never really need. Oh, sure, she could see how it would be practical, except that, well, her family had house elves to do the cleaning. If anything, this was a useful spell to help muggleborns. Muggles had to work so much harder at boring manual labor than wizards could if they had to in the first place.

And doing other people's chores? How unfair could one get! Scarlett was pretty sure Professor Yu could do this full well on her own.

Not to mention that it was also kind of boring. The Pecari was looking down at the disgusting thing, wondering how to make the lesson more interesting, when the person next to her spoke. "Pardon?" Scarlett asked, not quite catching what Tobias said. Something about eggs. Which sounded good. She turned to the Teppenpaw, she would rather socialize with her classmates than clean cauldrons any.

11 Scarlett Brockert, Pecari I suppose that would be the correct 293 Scarlett Brockert, Pecari 0 5

Tobias Reinhardt II

October 03, 2014 2:57 PM

What is correct isn't always what is wanted. by Tobias Reinhardt II

Since his mutterance hadn’t been for anyone else to hear, Tobi didn’t really know what to say back to Scarlett who seemed to have taken an interest in what he’d said. Not one to enjoy long conversations with others, Tobi also didn’t really want to respond especially since it had been his family that he’d been complaining about. If it were Liac saying “pardon”, he’d have perhaps let his frustrations out, but Scarlett wasn’t his cousin and as a fellow pureblood she might have heard of his family. Her parents might even have been a customer of his parents or grandparents once upon a time and Tobi couldn’t risk anything getting back to his family about his unhappiness.

His younger brother loved the Metal Charming life. Matti and Lukas, who weren’t allowed in the workshop yet because of their age, loved the Metal Charming life. Matti was turning five that year and Tobi was looking forward to his return to the little cabin to hear her excited shrieks over being allowed into the workshop at long last. Even Baby, who wasn’t born yet, would love the Metal Charming life, because that’s what Reinhardts loved.

Tobi, however, the only one out of the all of them that was going to be have to stay with the life did not love it. It was fun, and when he was younger, the days during which he was allowed to spend time with his father in the workshop had always been exciting. Something forbidden, just within his grasp. At first it had been great to have time alone with his father, and then Aarne had also turned five and joined him and it had made the time alone with his father even more fun because not only did he have a playmate but he also was no longer the youngest which had given him a little bit of jurisdiction. Now, however, he realized that it wasn’t for him. What Tobi liked was to be alone, in the woods, hiking or climbing trees, observing the different shy creatures that passed by him. He enjoyed watching his father create beautiful works and sometimes did dream of creating equally beautiful works alongside him, but it was never as a partner, never as the head of the shop. It was always as an assistant, be it to his father, Aarne, or even Matti.

So, after Scarlett said “pardon,” Tobi lifted his head from his cauldron after waiting as long as he could without sacrificing politesse, and gave her a blank look. “Yes?” He asked, as though Scarlett had said “pardon” in a tone implying that she was going to ask him a question and not like he had said something she wanted clarified. No one aside from Liac was to know how he felt about the workshop. Aarne had guessed as much, Tobi was sure, but his little brother was only nine and already wanted to take over the shop. And Tobi didn’t want to deal with that just yet.

10 Tobias Reinhardt II What is correct isn't always what is wanted. 289 Tobias Reinhardt II 0 5

Katherine Procter, Crotalus

October 04, 2014 11:45 PM

Well, that's just vile! [Tag: Professor Olivers] by Katherine Procter, Crotalus

Kitty arrived at the classroom early, as usual, and took her usual place near the door in the second row, and immediately regretted her decision. The pile of cauldrons hidden behind layers of their own filth was emitting a stench quite beyond anything Kitty could remember experiencing in her 12 years on this planet. Holding her sleeve to her nose, she carefully breathed though her mouth in hopes that she would avoid the odor (it was making her eyes water).

It did not really work, but Kitty thought it helped a little bit.

Okay, so maybe it didn’t, she thought wryly as she pressed her sleeve closer to her nose as Professor Olivers discussed the lesson on cleaning charms. Luckily, Kitty was able to focus well enough to retain the information and write down some quick notes, switching hands so that her left hand held her sleeve to free her right for her notes.

The professor magicked the cauldrons amongst the students, then, and told them to begin. She could not help the chuckle that rose in her throat at the thought of her prim and proper mother’s reaction had she seen these cauldrons. At first, she would be scandalized at the magical tool in her presence, then she would have probably fainted at the mess. Kitty could not think of a time that she had seen her mother hold a mop, let alone use one.

Still clutching her sleeve to her nose, she took a cautious look inside to scope out the damage, careful not to let the red ribbons hanging from the coiled braids at the nape of her neck touch the filth. The cauldron in front of her was probably once made of copper, but was mostly black with a thick sludge covering most of the surface area. At the bottom, there was something that reminded Kitty of the last time Rhiannon, her cat, was sick, and it smelled like a mix of spoiled milk and tar.

“Urgh,” she groaned involuntarily, pulling out her wand. The sooner her cleaned this disaster, the better. Mentally weighing the merits between starting with Scourgify over Tergeo, she cautiously lowered her hand holding the sleeve to make sure her voice was clear.

It would not do to do the charm wrong and make it worse, now, would it?

She pointed her wand at the offensive object on her desk, drew an ‘S’ in the air and said, “Scourgify.” An area about the circumference of a baseball shone copped before her.

Kitty did a little hop in victory before aiming her wand at another point, repeating the charm with larger wand movements. This cleaned more area, but not as well. She pushed a lock of hair behind her ear, contemplating this. Shrugging off the setback, she used the siphoning charm to clear out the liquid part of the mess inside the cauldron, lessening the intensity of the smell.

She used the scouring charm several more times, changing the size of the ‘S’ each time with varying results. Sometimes, a large ‘S’ warranted similar results as her first attempts, but the next (with a small ‘S’) would barely do anything.

Feeling the beginnings of frustration simmering in the back of her mind, she raised her hand to gain the professor’s attention. “Professor Olivers? Does the size of the ‘S’ wand movement affect the results of the charm?” Kitty cleared her throat nervously, feeling as though she had gained the attentions of some of her classmates, as well as the professor’s. She refused to look away from Professor Olivers, though, to avoid confirming the feeling. “My Tergeo is effective, but my Scourgify is inconsistent.”

[OOC: I am not saying that students were looking at her when she asked her question, only that it felt like it to her. Kitty is very shy, but trying to overcome it. :)]

0 Katherine Procter, Crotalus Well, that's just vile! [Tag: Professor Olivers] 0 Katherine Procter, Crotalus 0 5

Joella Curtis, Pecari

October 06, 2014 2:09 PM

Incentive. by Joella Curtis, Pecari

Joella had very quickly picked up that tardiness was not appreciated by the Sonora professors in any way, shape or form. This was of course to be expected but Joella had by now found herself a few subjects that she was in no rush to attend. Charms, however, was not among these.

The class had at first been an undeniable struggle for the first year Pecari. Arguments with her wand had become somewhat habitual at one point. Nonetheless, a great deal of persistence, determination, concentration, and the use of her ears during lessons, had resulted in a brand new Joella Curtis. In Charms class at least. This breakthrough was likely a result of the fact that Joella found Charms a much easier subject to practise... and a much less boring one too.

It was true that the eleven year old never really hurried to class but she did always make sure of the time before she allowed to herself to explore on her way to Charms.

Whether it was because Professor Olivers was also Joella's Head of House or because she was the Quidditch Coach or merely due to her teaching style, it appeared that she had already won herself a position as one of the young Pecari's favourites whether she liked it or not. It was maybe to do with this or perhaps to do with Joella's rocky start to the subject but of late the first year had uncovered a particular keenness to do well in the subject.

On entering the Charms classroom, Joella became quickly aware of the smell emanating from the collection of dirty cauldrons sitting in front of Professor Oliver's desk. It was far from pleasant and she wrinkled her noise. She said nothing, however, and took a seat in the middle row.

Her essay grade was not brilliant but she hadn't really expected it to be. Joella shrugged it off and put it down to inexperience with the thought of how much worse it could have been in mind - essay writing was not something she particularly enjoyed.

Only ever eager for practicals, Joella tended to forget all else but her wand. At the mention of note-taking, she delved back into her bag and pulled out a disparaged quill-pen and some parchment. Professor Oliver's words were quickly scrawled down and then Joella found herself picking up her wand and silently tracing a small 'S' shape in front of her as though she needed reminding what the letter looked like.

Since her first Charms lesson proved a failure, Joella had taken to mumbling any incantations that the class repeated together with a little enthusiasm as possible. However, several lessons on Joella had realized how important it was to get the incantation right and since then she had much improved. This being said, there are other possible reasons for her earlier problems. "Scourgify," repeated Joella. "Tergeo." As far as Joella was concerned, Tergeo sounded the more difficult spell of the two. But this no longer meant that she wasn't going to try it. Sonora was predominantly a place to learn so Joella figured that she'd better do some learning if she wanted to stay.

Professor Olivers gave the go ahead and Joella picked up her wand once more. "Scourify" she produced an 'S' in the air. The foul smell radiating from the cauldron in front of her only gave her more of an incentive to get this job done.

Although it was highly unlikely that the eleven year old would ever need to use the charm in her own home due to the kind of family from which she came, it wasn't completely lost on her. Joella's family (in the wider sense of the word) were Pureblood by name but perhaps only partly by nature. Their social image was untarnished and respected as any other, of course, but it was what occurred behind the curtains that singled them out so from many other families. The Tennessee Curtises were farmers at heart and found manual labour a satisfying job. Hard work but rewarding. House elves were for the house. Not for the farm. And it was this belief that perhaps encouraged many of them to do the mucking out and all those hands-on, mucky jobs. Until now Joella had not known how to use magic and so her help had always been limited to that of her own physical abilities. The Curtises had their own way of doing things on their farm, cut off from much of society. Their California home was a place in which they became much more ordinary but in Franklin even Joella's father, who like all Purebloods had that ingrained view of Muggles, would actually take pleasure in tearing around on his magically-tampered-with Muggle vehicle which he claimed was called a "quad bike". Joella still had no idea where he had found it.

8 Joella Curtis, Pecari Incentive. 295 Joella Curtis, Pecari 0 5