Professor Olivers
June 25, 2015 10:52 PM
Honey, I shrunk the [fill in the blank]! [I & II years] by Professor Olivers
Two weeks had already passed since the start of the term and Florence was having a harder time this year remembering all of the names of her students. That usually meant she called on those whom she did know or had to ask them to state their name before letting them ask their question. Today was a little harder for her than most, and before preparing herself for class she wrote a letter to no one before crumpling it up and throwing it away. It was usually around this time of year when Florence felt that pang of loss most significantly. No matter how many men she fell in love with during the course of her life, none could take Terry’s place. He’d been her first husband; someone she would not easily forget.During class, however, she put on a brave face and when the beginners came in she knew she could mask her emotions until later tonight when she was alone in her bedroom. Her normally eccentric attire was quite dull and drab today, something only her older students would probably notice. “Good morning everyone,” she said. “I hope you all did your assignment from last week. Turn it into the basket as it comes to you.” With a flick of her wrist, the metal wire-basket floated around to the students’ desks, giving them a few seconds to whip it out of their bags and place it inside.
“While that’s going around, please turn to page 12 of your textbook. Last we practiced the Enlargement Charm. Today we’ll be going over Shrinking Charms. The Enlargement Charm goes hand-in-hand with this one, so I’m sure you’ll all catch onto it fairly quickly. The incantation is Reducio. Let’s say it together once: Reducio. Now together, with the wand movement. Reducio. Very good.
“On your desk is an oversized object that you need to reduce. For first-years, you will be reducing large fruit on this side of the room. For second-years, you need to reduce the moving toys that are scurrying around the opposite side of the room. They are charmed to stay on your side and run away from humans, so you have to be sure of your aim. Remember to use Engorgio if you hit something else as a countercurse. And no purposely shrinking each other.”
Florence plucked the wire basket out of the air as it returned to her and put it down on her desk. “If you need any help for today’s assignment, come ask me. I’ll be here reading your essays and keeping an eye out for all of you. Once you’re finished, come show me your finished product and work quietly on other homework or reading the next chapter.”
OOC: Welcome to Charms! Please write 200 words minimum. Creative, realistic posts are worth more points. Florence will be keeping an eye out for any serious mishaps, and shrinking people would be difficult for first-years (though clothing would be less difficult...). Any questions, tag Professor Olivers on the OOC board or in the tagline. Remember, points are awarded for how well you write, not how well your character does in a lesson.
Subthreads: Pear by Kira Spaulding, Crotalus with Emilia-Louise Scott, Aladren
You'll never catch me, I'm the gingerbread man! by Ginger Pierce, Teppenpaw with Alistair Johnson, Crotalus
Mouse. by Caelia Lucan, Crotalus with Andrew Carey, Teppenpaw
You didn't need that book, did you? by Jax Donovan, Aladren with Laila Kennedy, Crotalus
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Professor Olivers
Honey, I shrunk the [fill in the blank]! [I & II years]
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Professor Olivers
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Jax Donovan, Aladren
July 16, 2015 7:15 PM
You didn't need that book, did you? by Jax Donovan, Aladren
Jax always completed his homework the same day it was assigned unless it was a complicated project that he needed time to review and research. However, he didn’t have to worry about that for the moment. Their homework in charms had been a rather simple essay and Jax had managed to complete the work in about a half hour. Gia had been doing her homework alongside him, which was normal, and she had ended up completing hers not long after he had. Working on homework with someone made it so much easier than when he did it alone. He wasn’t really sure why that was and he didn’t know if it was just with Gia or with someone else, but he didn’t really care to know.Well, that was only partly true. Jax didn’t necessarily enjoy being alone it was just something he felt was necessary in order to keep his family safe and his secret secured. There were times when Jax saw other people in his house having a good time together or even his sister with her friends enjoying a meal together while he awkwardly sat next to her. He wanted to join in. He wanted to have fun with his roommates (okay, maybe not so much with Barnaby as Jax was certain that guy did not know what a laugh was), but he did wish that he was included in things. It was a desire he’d had even as a kid, after everything had happened. But every time he had gotten involved with others, his secret came out and everyone became his enemy. Whatever relationships they had shared were meaningless. Jax really wasn’t sure if he could handle that happening again while at Sonora or risk his sister losing all of her friends because of him.
Once he had deposited his homework into the floating bin, Jax took the moment to open his book and flip to the page that the Professor had indicated. The most difficult part of this lesson would be the fact that the object was moving. Enlarging or shrinking spells really weren’t difficult and Jax could easily do them on inanimate objects, but the idea of accidentally hitting something instead of his object because it was moving was a bit unnerving.
Jax looked at his train as it rolled around his area, keeping its distance from him. He would have enjoyed this toy when he was a kid. He felt like if his father had lived, this was something he would have given him as a present. Just thinking about his father always made him feel a little sick to his stomach. Jax tried not to think about the whole incident that had led to his father’s death. He remembered some of it. Usually it came to him when he least expected it. It was remembering the screaming that made it so terrifying.
He took aim at the train and tried to pin point a spot just before it to shoot for, “Reducio”, Jax stated, only to watch the train turn on him and the spell hit the textbook of the person sitting next to him. “Oh, I’m so sorry.” Jax exclaimed, feeling embarrassed by the miss. “Engorgio” Jax said hurriedly to correct his mistake.
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Jax Donovan, Aladren
You didn't need that book, did you?
296
Jax Donovan, Aladren
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5
Laila Kennedy, Crotalus
July 17, 2015 1:40 AM
No, I didn't, thanks for asking though. by Laila Kennedy, Crotalus
Ever since Laila’s discovering that she was a wizard not a witch she had been feeling better about her newly classified powers. There was no devil worshiping going on at Sonora and the school had even been nice enough to permit Professor Tallec to take her to church when he was able and Sundays where that didn’t work she simply took herself to the MARS room where she had discovered portraits could talk and conversed with a portrait of St. Paschal Baylon, who though he sometimes berated her for skipping out on the Eucharist really turned out to be an excellent conversation partner as he provided an interesting outlook on life. In the back of her mind Laila wondered what a portrait of a Catholic saint was doing on the wall of a wizarding school, however she had vaguely cottoned on that the MARS room provided students with whatever it was that they needed at the moment and didn’t ask any questions short of assuming it was likely a miracle that made all of that possible.However, sometimes, when she was sitting in a class like Charms in which they were learning how to change the size of objects or multiply them, or even worse in classes like Transfiguration in which they had to turn water into rum at one point (half of the spells she was worried about were rumors or things she had seen older students practicing) she found it had to believe that just anyone could do this. Weren’t those things that God alone was allowed to do? The whole concept was very troubling to Laila who though she knew rum and wine to be two different substances figured they were close enough to count as the miracle of the Wedding at Cana. Today, though, she didn’t have much time to think about her moral dilemma of the spell they were learning as the boy sitting next to her—someone in the older level, she believed, still not totally able to come to terms with having classes with students older than herself as even though Turner’s Point was a small town everyone had still been broken up into year groups, shrunk her textbook.
“Oh,” she said as he apologized and grew it back to it’s proper size like it was nothing. She blinked. He hadn’t even hesitated in his spellwork like she might have done. Though Laila had not been shy when she knew how to do something back in what the wizards called Muggle school, here she felt as though one wrong spell could send her home where her mother would ask her endless questions about Sonora and the witches. “That’s quite alright, thank you.” She stared at his wand a moment longer before realizing that staring at someone’s wand was likely just as rude as staring at someone. She looked away quickly, shifting her gaze to the large peach sitting in front of her. She hadn’t even begun to try and shrink it. Although she was clear now that she was not, in fact, a hated witch but rather a wizard (which really was a much more glamorous picture after all) she was still sometimes hesitant when it came to actually altering the natural state of something.
“So, um, you’re no stranger to this wizarding stuff, are you?” she asked, certain her cheeks were bright red. Sonora was doing something to her, she realized. Where she had once been an overly confident, bubbly young girl who liked to make new friends and chatter endlessly about nonsensical things and run about, she was now a bundle of nerves, excited and worried and confused all at the same time, too afraid of making a wrong move to make any move at all and it frustrated her. She didn’t understand why she wasn’t working properly—it just didn’t make sense. She wasn’t used to having to be the one behind in lessons, the one who needed to ask help from Arne Reinhardt who, back in Turner’s Point, had been just about the last person anyone wanted to ask help from.
“Does it—does it get easier as it goes on?” Her forehead wrinkled together as she imagined seven long years of jumping at things that went bump in the night, cringing every time she was asked to do something that in her faith she didn’t think she really was allowed to do. “You um, you wouldn’t happen to have any tips, would you?”
OOC: Mention of Professor Tallec approved by author at an earlier time.
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Laila Kennedy, Crotalus
No, I didn't, thanks for asking though.
318
Laila Kennedy, Crotalus
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Jax
July 19, 2015 9:39 PM
I'm glad it didn't bother you any. by Jax
The girl was not upset with him for having accidentally shrunken her test book, that was definitely a good thing. Jax really didn’t want to have to deal with a girl who would get angry over a small mishap and then be demanding of some sort of collateral for the accident.Jax hated girls who thought they were on pedestals. The sort who thought every male should bow to them because they were growing up like pretty princesses where things were handed down to them instead of like human beings like the rest of them.
Jax had to be better about pre-judging people. He knew it wasn’t fair, but life wasn’t fair and Jax felt like his first instincts on people were usually always the correct one. So far, Sonora seemed to be full of people (not necessarily girls) who fit the described description. He was only observing of course and didn’t really know these people at all, but sometimes a person could learn enough just by general observation.
This girl was not familiar, which made her a first year. Jax hadn’t really given much through to the first years accept for the ones in his own house only because they shared space. He would eventually figure out all of the new students once he’s had time to evaluate them, but it just hasn’t happened yet. Today though, today Jax was getting the chance to interact with one of the new girls. He didn’t immediately place her into a house, but he knew she wasn’t in his.
She thanked him and Jax gave a nod to politely acknowledge the exchange before returning to his work. Or he tried to at least. He felt someone staring and when he looked up, he found the girl looking in his direction. He thought maybe she wasn’t happy with what had happened and was going to tell him off for it, but she wasn’t saying anything and Jax wasn’t sure what she wanted him to say.
“So, um, you’re no stranger to this wizarding stuff, are you?”
Jax had not been expecting that to come out of her mouth. Did that mean she was a Muggleborn? Jax had been around Muggles as much as he was around Magical folk, so talking to her didn’t make him nervous as it might someone else, plus Jax had been eating meals with Gia and her rowdy bunch and he knew that Sammy was a Muggleborn too. “Both of my parents are Magical, if that’s what you are asking.” Jax answered her, his usual cool personality making its rounds.
“I think so, as long as you put in the work for it.” Jax advised. “We can’t do magic before we begin school, although I think some Magical families break the law with this and allow them to.” Jax shrugged. When a family had the money to pay off the authorities, they could do whatever they wanted. It wasn’t very fair for the rest of them, but very little was done to change that. “Some get tutored in the general knowledge of Magic before they start school as well. But we all should be starting out at the same level of actually casting spells when we start as first years.” He wasn’t really sure why he was explaining all of this to her, but he felt that Gia had been asked a bunch of questions from Sammy, so there was a chance that this girl needed someone to ask things too as well and Jax didn’t see the harm in answering them.
He thought about what she had just asked him. Any tips… He wasn’t sure if anything he said would really be all that helpful for someone who has never been around magic before. “It’s about confidence. You have to believe that you can do it in order to do it.” Jax stated. “Mistakes are okay, but you can’t get frustrated by it because that’ll only make it worse.” He advised. “Your accuracy will get better with practice.”
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Jax
I'm glad it didn't bother you any.
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Jax
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Laila
July 20, 2015 11:47 PM
It takes a lot to get on my nerves. by Laila
It appeared, Laila thought as her neighbor nodded back to her, that she had chosen a rather quiet person to sit next to. Which, while normally would have caused her to pester the person into opening up and talking with her, this time around had allowed her to breath a sigh of relief that this meant she didn’t have to do more than minimal interactions. It was weird and off-putting moving from a place where she was well-known and well-liked to somewhere that she was a relative nobody, but putting up a fuss really wouldn’t do much for anybody and so she was determined to try and get over the shyness she was feeling and put herself out there again.So, when the older boy began to respond to her questions and, what’s more, embellish on his answers, she was pleasantly surprised and she felt a little more of her old-self returning to her, the old-self that made friends easily. Perhaps, she thought to herself now, this would be a new opportunity, one of those doors or windows her father was always talking about. A door to a friend other than Arne which would be a welcome change. It drove her nuts how her housemate thought it was perfectly alright to just take food off her plate during dinner and interrupt her studying. Sure, at first, his first response about both his parents being magical was off-putting as his tone had been a bit chilly, but the rest of his responses were encouraging to her and so Laila just smiled in response and shrugged off any perceived coolness she had received.
“Both, one, doesn’t matter really,” she responded in a cheery manner choosing not to take offense. “You grew up around magic. Is it weird having to mesh? Or did you grow up around…Muggles?” She had to search for the correct term, slightly hesitant in saying it as though it was a term she had heard a lot and sometimes thought, it wasn’t one she had ever really said out loud being unfamiliar with it. However, it was one that was necessary for her to say because she was curious what the varying backgrounds of her classmates were—all the Reinhardts had grown up understanding Muggle things, for instance, what with Arne and Tobi living in Turner’s Point and Liac being halfblood, but she wasn’t sure about everyone else. The discovery of a wizarding world had really turned everything on it’s head for Laila.
“Either way I plan on working hard,” she didn’t know if the boy was the kind of person who had no time for lazy people or not, but Laila certainly didn’t want to give the wrong impression if this was, indeed, one of those doors or windows. And besides that, it wasn’t the working hard part that would end up troubling Laila, it would be the believing in herself because she was still finding magic a hard concept to believe in. She saw it at work right in front of her eyes, but part of it felt so surreal. She had grown up being reassured that the sort of person who could turn you into a toad was make believe, that the only magic there was, was Santa Claus and the tooth fairy. At least she hadn’t come from an evangelical background like Nora from up the way. If Nora’d had problems dealing with the Riley boys’…different uncle then Laila really didn’t know how her friend would have been able to come to terms with finding out she was a wizard.
“So where do you get your confidence from?” Laila asked, genuinely curious. Her desk partner had so easily performed both the reducio and the engorgio spells that she figured he had to be one of the most confident people she had ever met before. If she was stalling, she didn’t notice that she was now because she was now completely engrossed in the conversation. She put an elbow on the desk next to the giant peach and leaned into her hand, her ponytail swinging gently into the gap between her forearm and her upper arm, the dark hair tickling her skin. Laila’s nose wrinkled in response and using her other hand she moved her hair behind her back so it didn’t bother her anymore.
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Laila
It takes a lot to get on my nerves.
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Laila
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Jax
July 24, 2015 11:50 PM
It takes very little to get on my nerves. by Jax
Jax thought about her question carefully. He had lived around many people; they never really gave it much thought. To his family, as long as they found a safe place to stay for a little while, that was all that mattered. Being Pureblood, he understood the necessity to only be around those of a currently stature, but due to his predicament, his family sacrificed quite a bit of their traditions and values. However, it was also his predicament that kept them from merging too far into the Muggle world. Jax couldn’t go through the change while anywhere near those who were incapable of protecting themselves or understanding what it was exactly that they were encountering.“I’ve mostly been around Magical people.” Jax explained, “But Muggles are not foreign to me.” He added. “I know some people may have a harder time acquainting themselves with those of different blood status than themselves, but I would think that was more out of misunderstanding than anything else.” Jax said for conversational purposes. There were always going to be people who were prejudice against Muggles or Muggleborns and Halfbloods. Jax felt no need to say any of this to her though. There were prejudices in the Muggle world too.
Jax nodded as the girl declared that she planned on working hard for her studies. He could respect someone who put in the effort for their work. Jax found just a low tolerance for those who just glided through life with the expectation that things were done for them by others or that just because of their name that they wouldn’t have to do any work. He knew those types of people existed, even if he hadn’t yet come across any himself. At least not at Sonora. He had met plenty of them during his years as a Nomad. People who put down his mother for being a single mother of two children who had little to support them with. People who put Jax down for being what he was. People who talked poorly of his father, a man whom they had never met.
They were despicable.
“I read.” Jax answered her as plainly as though she had asked him what color his eyes were. Reading the chapters, studying the content, Jax had a sense of understanding of the spells he was going to cast. He knew what to do, how to wave his wand, what to say, and what the end result would be. Having that knowledge gave him the confidence that he needed. Whether or not they actually worked correctly was another matter. “Also, we learned these spells last year, so I already know how to do them. The only difference this year is that we have to do them on moving objects, which is what makes them challenging.” Jax explained, indicating her once shrunken textbook. “It took some practice to get it perfected last year.” He didn’t want her to think that just knowing what a spell was would be enough to have perfect spell casting.
“You’d be a Magical Prodigy if you could get every spell you cast to perform perfectly. When I mess up, I just review the steps again and start over.” Jax advised. “Every failed attempted just brings me one step closer to success.”
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Jax
It takes very little to get on my nerves.
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Jax
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Laila
July 27, 2015 12:29 AM
I'm sorry, I just find it exhausting to be annoyed. by Laila
All of the information her classmate was giving her was useful and Laila found herself nodding along as he talked. Most of what he said regarding schoolwork echoed sentiments her father had given her when she’d been frustrated over an assignment in elementary school. This boy was easier to talk to than Arne as she didn’t feel like she was going to be made fun of at any given moment. He was also easier to access than Tobi since they were in the same class and, additionally, he wasn’t Tobi so there was no way Arne could scowl about her talking to him. Laila really didn’t know what was up with the Reinhardt brothers, only that something had happened over the past year that had separated the two who had once been so close.“You sound like my dad,” she said to him once he was done talking. “He’s a very wise man, I think. He tells me the same sorts of things, and tries to reassure me that when I mess up to always try again because I won’t get anywhere if I just give up.” Laila looked away, suddenly feeling an onslaught of homesickness. Coming to Sonora had been a little bit of an ordeal not only for her family but also for the town. Almost no one except the strange Reinhardts ever really left Turner’s Point and if they did leave it was generally just to go on vacation and then they’d come right back home again.
The no one that left town most definitely included the Kennedy family. Laila’s father had been a basketball start back in his day, her whole family on her dad’s side was deeply rooted in the community and as such the idea that she would be sent to the same boarding school that the Reinhardt boys attended was practically blaspheme. It had been expected that she would either attend Turner High School like her father or Our Lady of the Lake which was the near by Catholic school. Now all those plans were in the trash and she was sure her poor mother was wringing her hands trying to come up with a way to save face.
Loretta Kennedy was an immigrant to Turner’s Point, a small town girl from Italy who had gotten stranded in Turner’s Point one winter while on her way from Seattle, Washington to Fremont, California. Laila’s father had been on break from college, working on cars for fun in the garage when Laila’s mother had walked in desperate for any help she could get and it had pretty much been love at first sight and long story short she never left. It was a cute story in Laila’s opinion, but being an outsider also meant that her mom had to work extra hard to earn and retain the respect of the town’s people.
It was then that Laila realized she didn’t even know the name of the boy she was talking to and since names were a crucial step to moving from stranger to acquaintance, she offered him a small smile that was still slightly tinged with the bout of homesickness and told him that she was Laila by the way and what was his name? She didn’t bother with her last name because she honestly hadn’t even thought to share it.
"So do you know any magical prodigies?" she asked after the second year replied. The way he had brought up that subject kind of made it sound like he knew one or had at least heard of one and she was interested to know about that. She already spent a great deal of time trying to play catch up and inform herself and the sorts of things her classmates who would have grown up with magic around likely already knew, but she hadn't realized that different wizards had different levels of magic in them. That wasn't really something that had been covered in the books she had read so far—unless Arne knew and was purposely withholding the information from her to make her look stupid. It was the sort of thing that she wouldn't have put past Turner's Point Arne as he had done something similar to George Tailer in Mrs. Kunes' class.
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Laila
I'm sorry, I just find it exhausting to be annoyed.
318
Laila
0
5
Jax
July 30, 2015 7:52 PM
To each their own by Jax
Jax wasn’t sure if her comment should be taken as an insult or not. He sounded like her father? Was her father an intelligent man? Was he mean or cold? Did she hate him? But she continued on with the thought and Jax took it to be more of a positive than a negative. What he felt he said, he figured most people would consider to be common sense when attempting to learn something new. But, there were quite a few people who expected things to work out the first time and gave up in frustration if they didn’t. Plus, if she were a Muggleborn, this was all probably confusing in general and hard to understand where to begin.His vibrant blue eyes that were a lovely contrast to his coloring and dark hair, returned to the moving object in front of him while he tried to concentrate at the task once more. He had to work on his aim. The spell was fine, it was his predictions to where the toy would go that was the problem. Jax needed to work out the pattern that the toy was moving in in order to be able to predict the exact location to send his spell to without missing the toy this time.
What little concentration he had didn’t last long as the girl introduced herself to him. “Jax.” He replied back. In this world, if someone didn’t reply with their full name, they were likely to be Muggleborns. But since she hadn’t provided him with hers, Jax found no reason to give her his own surname. It wouldn’t mean much to her anyway. Donovan was a name that had meaning in Ireland but not much anywhere else. His mother was Greek. Her name had status in Greece but not anywhere else. Here, in America, they had anonymity and that was what they were hoping for.
“Not personally.” Jax replied. “I’ve read about them in books though. “ He explained. “They have this to hone their magic and just by watching someone else do it, they can cast a spell perfectly the first time and remember it from then on. But I wouldn’t bet on ever meeting one. There aren’t many.” Jax was envious of those sorts of people, but they were extremely rare. Some believed that it was all about the genetics. His mother was a great Witch and Jax would fight anyone who said differently, but she was not a prodigy. His father, a man whose face Jax was starting to forget, probably wasn’t one either. It was really quite a shame. Jax wouldn’t even need school if that were the case. He could just read a book with demonstrations in it and be all set.
Returning to his work, Jax watched the toy again. Feeling like he had an idea of what the pattern was, Jax shot the spell once again towards the toy, but ended up hitting his quill instead. He was barely a miss, but he hadn’t been quick enough with casting the spell to hit the toy. Jax sighed, his timing was still off. He returned his quill to its original size and made a note. He would have to work out the steps to the time so that he would have time to cast the spell.
Looking over to the girl, Jax checked on her progress. “Did you manage to cast it yet?” He asked her.
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Jax
To each their own
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Jax
0
5