Let's change the colors of the wind together! on Charms

Sub Professor Nicchi

September 10, 2015 10:13 PM

Let's change the colors of the wind together! by Sub Professor Nicchi

Amelle was nervous. She had never taught a class before. She was only doing this because Florence was ill or dealing with personal stuff or something and with Isis now teaching Potions, they needed someone at the last minute and so Amelle stepped up to take the reins just for this lesson. Thankfully, it was just the beginners. Amelle might hold some weight with them as she wasn’t quite sure the Seventh years would put much stock in her.

She had made sure that her curls looked proper instead of wildly strewn about her head, she wore minimal makeup to look more like an adult creature rather than just a young staff member hanging around, and wore a lovely outfit of a fitted grey skirt and a snug blue blouse. She even had one of her better robes on (not actually done up as Amelle hated wearing robes, but at least it was on like a coat of sorts) and her pair of blue heels that went well with her blouse. She felt that she looked very professional even if she didn’t necessarily feel it in her nerves.

Besides, with all the issues happening around the school, Amelle wanted to present herself in the best of light to everyone so that they felt comfortable around her and for them to know that they were doing their best to figure all of this out. She wasn’t sure if dressing professionally would pull that off, but she hoped it helped in some way.

She smiled at everyone from her spot at the front of the room. “Hello everyone! As you can see, Professor Olivers is not in today and I was asked to fill in for her.” Amelle explained. “For those of you who have never visited the library, which is utter nonsense because the library is a wonderful place to spend your time in, I am the Librarian, Ms. Nicchi.” She was only half serious with her comment. She could totally understand why a twelve year old wouldn’t want to spend his or her time in a room full of books.

“So, today’s lesson we will be learning the color changing charm.” Amelle had gone through the notes that Professor Olivers left from her previous lessons and this seemed to be the next step. Hopefully Amelle wasn’t completely ruining the plans Professor Olivers had with her class. “Second years would have learned this last year, but the incantation for the charm is Multicorfors.” Amelle flicked her wrist and a box full of random stuffed toys began to make its way around to each student.

“When you say the incantation, you flick your wrist to the left, like so.” Amelle aimed her wand at a book on the desk and flicked her wrist to the left, “Multicorfors” She stated confidently and watched the book change from red to green. “Make sure you think of a color when using the spell. Everyone should have a stuffed toy on their desk to practice on.” Amelle looked around to make sure someone wasn’t missing one before continuing. “First years, please attempted to change the color of your item at least five different colors. Second years, your job is to change the color of only one part of your item. You have to focus who attention on only the part you wish to change as you do your spell. It’ll take practice, but I have faith that you’ll all master it by the end of the lesson.” Amelle smiled happily at them feeling that she had done a somewhat decent job of explaining the lesson.

“You can talk quietly with others, but if I see anyone only chatting and not working, I’ll have to separate you. If no one has any questions, please begin your tasks.”

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6 Sub Professor Nicchi Let's change the colors of the wind together! 32 Sub Professor Nicchi 1 5

Jemima Wolseithcrafte, Teppenpaw

September 12, 2015 2:54 AM

Finally tagging Andrew! by Jemima Wolseithcrafte, Teppenpaw

It felt a little as if fate had been conspiring against her since the message was posted in the Teppenpaw Common Room. She was really desperate to make more of an effort with Andrew Carey but was finding chances surprisingly limited, given that they shared classes and house. If she arrived before Andrew to class, someone else invariably sat next to her, and if she arrived later, someone always seemed to manage to be sitting next to him already. She almost tripped over as she entered Charms and saw that the seat next to him was still free, hastily scooting to sit in it. In fact, she had been so focussed on her mission, that she hadn’t even noticed it was Ms. Nicchi in front of the class instead of Professor Olivers, until after she’d settled down, said ‘hello’ to Andrew and got out her supplies for the day.

She listened carefully to Ms. Nicchi (who looked very nice today, she thought), giving her just as much attention and respect as she did the regular professor. For all that Ms. Nicchi was one of the younger staff members, and perhaps perilously close to the ages of the upper years to get their full respect, to Jemima she was very clearly An Adult, which undoubtedly meant she knew a great many things and was to be listened to carefully.

She was pleased to find the lesson was a charm she already knew well - in fact, she’d had a lot of fun with it in her free time, trying to find how it could be used to decorate things. Transfiguration was always going to be better for fine detail but she’d been curious about what she could achieve with Charms, which she liked much more. She selected a stuffed duck when the box came round, slightly sad that she wouldn’t be able to keep it at the end of the lesson as a friend for Puddleduck, the stuffed toy she’d had since her third birthday, and which resided on her bed in the Teppenpaw dormitory.

“I hope Professor Olivers is okay…” she commented to Andrew, when they were released to work. Minding Ms. Nicchi’s warning that they needed to get on with their work whilst talking, she began drawing an outline of the toy duck whilst she spoke, intending to plan out her colour scheme before starting. She thought it might be a fun challenge to try to make it look like a realistic mallard duck, although that would be very difficult as the sections that were different colours didn’t match the obviously different sections of the toy. The beak and feet would be easiest, as they were separated out with rows of stitches, but on a real mallard, the brown breast faded into the grey body, and that was going to be more challenging.

“And how are you?” she asked. “It’s funny, I feel like I don’t get that many chances to talk to you, even though it seems like it should be easy to find them,” she added.

13 Jemima Wolseithcrafte, Teppenpaw Finally tagging Andrew! 304 Jemima Wolseithcrafte, Teppenpaw 0 5

Andrew Carey, Teppenpaw

September 14, 2015 12:37 AM

Hi! by Andrew Carey, Teppenpaw

Andrew did not spend a lot of time in the library, just enough to study before exams or maybe do an especially difficult piece of homework that it would be easy to push aside if he had someone to talk to in his dorm or common room, so Miss Nicci’s professional attire threw him off enough that he had to look twice before he realized who it was. He smiled cheerfully back at her, though, when she introduced herself and included a pitch for the library in her introduction. It was good, he thought, if she liked where she worked and what she worked with, even if it wasn’t really to his taste.

He wondered if she had chosen to become a librarian or if someone had picked the job for her. Andrew had been thinking about careers a lot more since it had become the second half of second year, because that meant it was close to time for him to start Intermediates, which could be very important for the rest of his life. If he was exceptionally good at something, after all, he might get to pick his own career, and even if he wasn’t, what he liked and what he was best at would usually at least be something that his elders thought about when they decided what he was going to be when he grew up. Sometimes it wasn’t – his sister had been married off before she had even realized they were seriously thinking about it, never mind been asked if she happened to hate the very ground on which Evan Brockert stood before she was put in a position where she could either marry him or severely offend a family even bigger than theirs – but usually, he had always been told, it was, especially for boys, and Andrew was a second son. That was not as important as being the eldest son, but it meant Andrew would always be at least a little important, because until Mal had a son Andrew would his brother’s heir, and even after that he would be his nephew’s until he had a great-nephew and so on.

He shook aside those pointless and, by the end, not very happy thoughts, though, when Miss Nicci showed them the spell. He already knew the color changing charm, but it was sort of fun to watch it being cast on something by someone else anyway, plus his year had its own assignment. He looked at the stuffed toy, a dog with bunny ears on a headband on its head, he had found on his desk, and discovered to his relief that it did have easily-distinguished parts. They were sewn together to make the toy, but they were still parts of a larger whole and had been themselves before they were part of the stuffed dog. He thought just coloring one of the stitched-on glass eyes might be cheating since that was both very small and so obviously separate, but if the legs were sewn on, too, instead of part of a smooth piece of fabric, he didn't think it would be too hard.

”I hope Professor Olivers is okay” Jemima said in the seat beside him, and Andrew nodded, distracted again by the thought that she might be sick or something. He guessed he’d thought she must be on vacation, but for one thing, he thought teachers got vacations when they did, and for another, she would have told them she was going to be gone because of that, wouldn’t she?

“Me, too,” he agreed.

He was a little surprised by how Jemima continued the conversation. He had never really thought about that before – Jemima was just one of the classmates who was neither his roommate or on the Quidditch team, so while he saw her and would smile and greet her, he didn’t think he’d really spent a lot of time with Jemima one on one at all. “That is funny,” he acknowledged. “Especially since we both talk more to Owen and Ginger.” During the Quidditch season he thought he might exchange more words with Ginger than Owen some days, though he did try to check that his roommate was doing okay even after practices or games where all he really wanted to do was gripe. He was always a little worried about doing something that might upset Owen or accidentally hurt him and make him have one of his attacks. “Still, here we are now,” he pointed out cheerily, accentuating the positive. “And I’m well, thank you,” he added as he turned the toy so one leg was facing him and took out his wand. “How are you?”

0 Andrew Carey, Teppenpaw Hi! 0 Andrew Carey, Teppenpaw 0 5

Jemima

September 22, 2015 8:17 AM

I like exclamation marks! by Jemima

Andrew certainly didn’t seem like someone who was mad at her. In fact, it seemed like he really hadn’t thought about this until she pointed it out. She might have worried that he was just doing a really good job of hiding it but her own nature tended to be so openly friendly that she more or less equated the two things as coming in a pair, especially in Teppenpaws. Pretending your feelings were different than they were was sort of like lying, which wasn’t a nice thing to do.

“Yeah, I guess that sort of thing…. just happens sometimes,” she added a little lamely to his comment that they each spent more time with Owen and Ginger. It didn’t really explain it, and - perhaps it was the case that her Aladren siblings had rubbed off a little on her over the years - not being able to explain it bothered her, at least when it came to why some people were better friends than others. “But not on purpose or anything. Perhaps we should do something with all of us - I mean, and Lauren too. I wouldn’t want anybody to feel left out. Especially after what it said on the notice board. Perhaps we should have a picnic?” she suggested.

Feeling pleased with her progress towards making things right, she turned to her work. If Professor-Librarian Nicchi thought she and Andrew weren’t working well together she might make them sit apart, and that would rather dampen her attempts to make up to him.

“Multicofors,” she cast confidently, focussing on making the legs prange, as this was the easiest section to separate out in her mind. The beak was also fairly distinct but had the detailing of the little… duck nostrils or whatever the black dots were to work around. She smiled as she succeeded with the legs. “I’ve practised this a few times because I like doing arty things,” she explained to Andrew, “So I’m going to try to colour some bits different even though they’re the same piece of fabric, so that it looks like a real mallard,” she said, sliding her drawing over so he could see. “What about you?”

13 Jemima I like exclamation marks! 304 Jemima 0 5

Andrew

September 26, 2015 10:58 PM

They make us sound so upbeat and enthusiastic! by Andrew

Jemima seemed to accept what he’d said, but Andrew wasn’t sure about how she said so. He hoped she didn't think he disliked her or was avoiding her or something, especially since he did like her. Not as much as Owen seemed to, but, well, he didn’t think he and Owen were supposed to be equally close to the same girl unless it was because they were equally distant from her. It would make Jemima look bad if they were all really close as they got older – people talked about girls who had too many guy friends, he knew because he’d heard Lucille and Theresa do it – and he didn’t want that to happen or to end up in a bunch of duels because of it.

A group picnic, though, sounded like pretty much the opposite of where a duel would break out even if they had already been of marriageable age. His mother said someone totally unrelated to the situation at hand would read something into it that he never meant whether he accepted or declined every invitation he got for his whole life, but he couldn’t see any way that shooting down Jemima’s suggestion could look good or that accepting it could look bad.

“Sure,” he said. “That could be fun. Definitely more fun than exam review parties or writing nasty things about people on the walls.” He made a face. “My brother’s in Pecari and he said they had one even worse than ours in there. It said somebody hated somebody.” The opinions were, of course, his own, not Mal’s. Mentioning…just about anything Mal said that wasn’t in public didn’t seem like the way to uphold the family name or make his classmates like him.

He looked admiringly at Jemima’s drawing. “That’s neat,” he said. “I haven’t practiced this one in a while, but I’m – going to try to change all the spots on this dog,” he said. He had just meant to turn one leg a color to fulfill the assignment, but he didn’t want to look stupid in front of anyone, much less a girl who had just invited him to a party, even if it was just a hypothetical party that might never happen. "I don't think it will look like any real ones, because I don't know what a lot of specific ones look like," he added, "but it'll look different, anyway."

0 Andrew They make us sound so upbeat and enthusiastic! 0 Andrew 0 5