With great power... on Charms

Professor Grayson Wright

June 24, 2017 12:09 AM

Unlocking your potential (Charms I-II). by Professor Grayson Wright

In most ways, the Advanced classes were proving the hardest for Gray to adjust to teaching. For one thing, he was to some extent bluffing when he spoke confidently on the more, well, highly advanced aspects of the theory, and for another, the Advanced classes were the ones where he knew he was being compared directly with Daniel Nash, who had always been a much more…Aladren-y…Aladren than Gray had. Daniel Nash had been covered up in badges and glory when they had been in school together. Grayson Wright’s adolescent version of a good day had been not being covered in grass stains because either the guy who was his cousin Anne’s childhood best friend/other surrogate brother/occasional stalker or the guy who, unbeknownst to them all, had been said cousin Anne’s future husband had knocked him off his broom with a Bludger at Quidditch practice again.

In other ways, though, the Beginners were the most difficult group, and this was mostly because of the students themselves. Quite apart from a teenaged first year Aladren, a number of Pecaris, his new suspicion of Teppenpaws in general after what he’d heard about two perfectly innocuous-looking intermediates after conversing with other professors, and the general havoc that eleven-year-olds with wands could wreak, there were two students who knew people who knew him. Gray himself had even seen one of them a few times before. If Winston Pierce and Amelia Layne ever found these facts out, he was pretty sure they would react with such a total lack of respect for his authority that they’d cause the whole class to implode faster than his general thoughts on Teppenpaws had in his first week here.

So far, however, Amelia and Winston had failed to turn the class against him, and so Gray got to call the class to order at least one more time. He was not sure being a grown-up at Sonora was ever going to feel quite natural, especially not with two of his former classmates running around here as well, but it was already becoming less weird than it had been when he’d first arrived, an early-spring replacement for a long-term substitute replacing a professor who’d left at midterm.

“Morning, everyone,” he said. The Beginners were his first class of the day. He supposed this was preferable to other options; he didn’t think Beginners were old enough yet to drink coffee and therefore be properly awake at 8:00 a.m. “I hope no-one forgot, but your notes over chapter fifteen are due today, so drop them in the homework basket on your way out if you didn’t do that before class.”

Gray did not plan to be overly demanding about the notes he asked them to take over new chapters. Testing their handwriting, sentence formation, and such wasn’t his goal, and the books he’d read about teaching large numbers of people said that one had to focus on the educational goal. In this case, the educational goal was threefold: first to ensure they studied, or at least copied off someone who did, second to have them write information from the text down in their own words because this was supposed to make it stick in their heads better, and third to allow him to see if they understood the concepts. There was also a fourth goal, technically – giving homework that let him make all the marks he needed to make in the gradebook and which required less effort on his part than cooking up large numbers of novel worksheets and essay topics on the short notice of a first year teacher – but this wasn’t strictly speaking an educational objective and so Gray carefully avoided mentioning it to anyone.

“If you did that, you, uh, probably suspect we’re going to work on the charms which lock and unlock doors today,” continued Gray. “If you do suspect that, you’re right. These two spells are easy to learn, but the locking charm is one you can build up strength in casting. Today, you might be able to lock a door for five minutes before the spell fades. By the time you leave Sonora, a first year’s unlocking charm shouldn’t work against a door you lock.”

He raised his wand and drew a shape, like a rectangle with the side pointing left still open. Instead of rising to meet his first line, the end dropped sharply downward. This same shape appeared on the blackboard. “This is Colloportus,” he said. “The locking charm. Everyone say that together with no wands in three – two – one. Col-lo-por-tus.” Inability to clearly articulate words had caused Gray more than his fair share of difficulties in class when he’d been a student. “Its counter-charm is alohomora. Three-two-one - alow – ho – more – ah. Good. This counter-charm has a very easy wand movement, easier than Colloportus - it’s just like you’re drawing a backwards ‘s’ in the air.” He demonstrated and a drawing of this appeared on the board, too.

“Which is good to know, but you need practice if you’re going to be able to use these spells for anything. Since it’s probably not good for the doors and windows for twenty people to charm them in one day, we’re going to use some substitutes. When I stop talking, everyone needs to come up and get one of these boxes.” He pointed to the small, rough wooden boxes on a side table. “Inside them, you’ve got a piece of cardboard which has a little doorway flap cut into it and a little cloth bag. Take turns with a partner – one person seals them, the other person tries to open them. Do that to the cardboard, the bag, and the box each at least three times and make some notes about your observations. Those and a theory – this can be as long as you want, as long as it’s at least a sentence – about why we teach you colloportus when it’s counter-charm is so widely known are your homework assignments for this class. If you finish them by the end of class, though, hold on to them until next class so you can study your notes.” He peered at them through the glasses in the hopes this would make them feel he’d Know if they didn’t study. He doubted it worked. He had finally outgrown being laughably short and distinctly rotund in his late teens, but his mild, round face, similarly-disposed dark eyes, and glasses all combined, he suspected, to make him look something distinctly less than intimidating even when he was forced to wear proper office-style robes instead of the t-shirts and jeans he’d have really, despite his all-magical background, have been much more comfortable in. “Raise your hands if you have any questions and I’ll come answer them, but if you don’t have any right now, come get your supplies,” he invited them.

OOC: Welcome to Charms! You may assume Professor Wright has been teaching you for a few weeks at this point. All site rules (minimum word count 200 words, or about eight sentences, good spelling and grammar, no writing for each other’s characters without permission, keep it PG, and keep it realistic) need to be followed for points. Tag Gray in your post title if you need to ask him something in character and ask on the OOC board or in Chatzy (I’m usually Amelia Layne these days) if you have any questions out of character. Have fun!

Subthreads:

It's too early for that kind of talk by Isaac Song - Pecari with Zevalyn Ives, Aladren

With great power... by Jennifer White with Connor Priory,Crotalus

16 Professor Grayson Wright Unlocking your potential (Charms I-II). 113 Professor Grayson Wright 1 5

Isaac Song - Pecari

June 24, 2017 9:36 PM

It's too early for that kind of talk by Isaac Song - Pecari

Isaac hated Charms, but it wasn't because it was boring or he hated Professor Wright or couldn't understand the material. It was because it was so incredibly early. Isaac and his whole family knew he was not a morning person. His sister Lauren had always been super patient waking him up for school back home and let him throw tantrums while she drank her milk or orange juice or tea (depending on the weather). His mom was less patient, usually telling him to shut up or threatening to throw him out of the house in his pajamas if he didn't behave.

Luckily, those days were behind him, but his hatred for mornings were not. Just like everyday, Isaac walked into Charms like a zombie, with his almond eyes half-lidded and his feet dragging on the floor. He collapsed into his usual seat and put his head down on the desk. As usual, he had skipped breakfast in order to sleep a little more, but he didn't even feel hungry. Once lunch came around he would be ravenous, but for now he just wanted to go back to bed and stay there for the next four hours.

Isaac stifled a yawn as Professor Wright started the class and shook his leg to keep himself occupied with at least something. He hoped against hope that he wouldn't make a fool of himself and fall out of his chair or something equally embarrassing. The practical lesson was pretty easy and Isaac thought it would be a good one to remember to keep his younger sister out of his room.

Once the professor had finished talking, Isaac rubbed his cheeks and opened his eyes wide to look a little more alive before he obediently went up to grab a box. He returned to his desk and curiously looked at the objects inside. He couldn't imagine what it would feel like to be unable to open a bag, but if it worked he'd find out.

"Wanna be partners?" he asked, glad to be talking to someone instead of listening to a boring sleep-inducing lecture. "You can go first if you'd like."

19 Isaac Song - Pecari It's too early for that kind of talk 375 Isaac Song - Pecari 0 5

Zevalyn Ives, Aladren

June 29, 2017 10:20 AM

You don't find it motivational? by Zevalyn Ives, Aladren

Charms held a comfortable place among Zevalyn's classes. It was satisfying. You said a word or two, did a specific action with the wand, and magic! Something happened. It was the closest thing to instant gratification she had yet found in the magical world. The theory was pretty straightforward and it was a simple matter of memorization to get a good Charms vocabulary. She expected to test well in it at the end of the year.

That said, it wasn't her favorite class. This was partly because they were already on their third teacher of the year, but mostly she thought that it was a just bit too easy for her. Not that she minded not having to struggle with one of her classes - especially when she was trying to finish all of her beginner courses in a single year - but she found it harder to respect a class that wasn't trying to trip its students up on the underlying complexities. Charms, so far as she had seen so far (which admittedly consisted only of beginner level spells), didn't have underlying hidden complexities. And that kind of bothered her. She felt like she was missing something.

As she had finished her notes on Chapter 15 and turned them in as she arrived, she was again not burdened by hidden complexities when Professor Wright predictably announced the day's lesson was on the locking and unlocking charms. She was glad to hear that the same charms got stronger with age and practice, which at least implied there was something more to them the surface incantation and wand motion, though she supposed that could just be caused by nothing more that a strengthening of the caster's magical potential. She wondered, if that was the case, did being fourteen give her an advantage over the eleven, twelve, and thirteen year olds who made up the rest of the beginner class?

In any case, she'd already done some practice alongside her reading, so she could handle the instruction for second years if they differed. It was the same lesson for both years though, so she just contented herself with the self assurance that at least she wouldn't make a fool of herself in front of her partner.

She returned to her seat with her box of things to lock and turned to the boy sitting beside her. Issac, she thought his name was. Now more than halfway through the year, she was pretty sure on most of the names of the other beginners, but she didn't want to use it without confirmation first, just in case she was wrong.

So instead of addressing him by name, she got right to business. "Works for me. Since everyone got boxes, it might work best to each lock our own then trade them to do the unlocking. Boxes first?" she suggested, mostly because that was what was right in front of her at the moment.

1 Zevalyn Ives, Aladren You don't find it motivational? 380 Zevalyn Ives, Aladren 0 5

Jennifer White

June 29, 2017 11:37 AM

With great power... by Jennifer White

Jen struggled to take Professor Wright seriously. He didn’t seem to have much self-belief, and she wondered how she was supposed to have faith in him when he couldn’t do that himself. Still his classes had so far been informative and not too taxing so she wasn’t complaining loudly. Or at all, in fact, as she made notes on the class and the homework assignment, and then joined the other students in beginning the practical aspect of the lesson. She scraped her chair legs back against the floor, pushing on the desk for leverage and causing that to shift forward half an inch, too. The tattered hems of her wide-bottomed jeans dragged across the floor as Jen trudged, shoulders hunched, to retrieve one of the wooden boxes. She took it back to her desk and stared at it for a bit.

The whole concept of magical locking and unlocking was odd, which the professor had sort of drawn attention to but not properly explained. Like, a witch could lock something with magic to keep Muggles out, and maybe could unlock non-magical fastenings with a spell, so those were suitable uses for the spells. It was just when both locking and unlocking spells were presented together, as they just had been, they did give the impression of making each other redundant. Also if magic Muggle safes redundant; a witch or wizard could just break right in, right? A catchphrase about power and responsibility drifted through Jen’s mind as she shook herself from her stupor of moral conflict and looked at the person next to her. “Partners?”

0 Jennifer White With great power... 388 Jennifer White 0 5

Connor Priory,Crotalus

June 30, 2017 3:23 AM

...comes lots of money? by Connor Priory,Crotalus

Even though he hadn't made any close friends yet, Connor was liking school a lot...if he focused on that and not worrying about how his family was getting on without him. He had gone home for midterm of course and so far, nothing catostrophic seemed to have happened. Still, Connor was often concerned that it was too much for his mother to have a bad back and take care of a small child who had been a preemie which was a never end of worry, stress and anxiety for his parents. Mom fussed over Lydia more than she had ever over himself or Sophia and neither of them could really complain about the amount of attention they'd gotten from her. Dad, of course, was always worried about something happening to his youngest child.

On top of that were two eight year olds.Well,okay, Sophia wasn't quite eight and Bridget was actually with her own parents right now but the point was basically still there.

Connor could not worry right now though, he had to focus on Charms. Doing well in school was fairly important to him as he didn't want to make his parents worried about him too. Dad, in particular, would worry that he had done something wrong to make Connor do poorly.

Luckily, he enjoyed his classes even though he didn't have a favorite. Charms was overall pretty cool though he didn't really like that the teachers kept changing. He had enjoyed their substitute very much. Professor Davison had been a year ahead of his mother in school and they had been prefects together,so that was cool. Plus, he rarely had rarely given them homework and who, outside perhaps the most hardcore Aladrens, really liked homework?

Still, Professor Wright, who interestingly enough had been in the same year and house as Aunt Chelsea, seemed pretty nice too and Connor was more than willing to give him a fair chance too though he was less than sure Arianna would do the same. She tended to be generally harder on people than he was. Professor Wright was likely too awkward for his cousin's tastes

So, as the professor began to talk about locking and unlocking charms. The homework assignment, he felt, seemed to make a good point. Why lock something when someone could easily unlock it? One could lock away things from younger siblings but not from parents. Not that Connor was the sort who had anything to hide. Maybe this spell was more useful to Muggleborns who wanted to hide things if they did it before they left school since no Muggle could undo it. Of course, a first year spell wouldn't survive the travel time.

He was brought out of his thoughts when Jen spoke to him. "Sure." Connor agreed. "So what do you think of the homework assignment? I mean, not like whether or not it's enjoyable, but like, what he asked? Because I'm not all that sure."

11 Connor Priory,Crotalus ...comes lots of money? 395 Connor Priory,Crotalus 0 5

Jen White

July 06, 2017 3:47 PM

Depends on the power, I suppose by Jen White

Jen had begun to unpack the box, taking out the fabric bag and the piece of card with a door cut into it (because it seemed to her like the card would be easiest to work with, then the fabric, and lastly the box; size and density of objects did seem to have some bearing on the success of her spellcasting, she had noticed) when Connor agreed to be partners. She hadn’t really expected him to decline her question, because nobody had ever yet refused to be her accomplice in class, and she had no reason to believe that Connor disliked her. Jen didn’t know her classmate well enough to have created much of an opinion on him. Perhaps this class would give her the opportunity to do so.

“Um,” Jen began, less than eloquently. It seemed she wasn’t the only one whose mind wasn’t completely on the task at hand. “I suppose colloportus will still work against Muggles,” Jen suggested the idea that she had been contemplating, “or underage witches and wizards, or maybe someone without a wand.” Although she had heard that accomplished witches and wizards could do magic without a wand. In fact there were a couple of spells her Mom did without using a wand, things like closing the cupboards doors in the kitchen, and other basic spells that she had done so many hundreds of times in her life that she could probably do them in her sleep.

“Why, what did you think?” she asked Connor, while she reached for her wand with one hand, and habitually pushed the black plastic of her rectangular framed glass up her nose with the other. Her question didn’t, she hoped, sound confrontational, but simply curious; she wanted to know how Connor might have interpreted the assignment, and whether his idea differed from her own.

0 Jen White Depends on the power, I suppose 388 Jen White 0 5

Connor

July 17, 2017 7:43 PM

I suppose you're right, now that I think about it. by Connor

"I was sort of thinking along the same lines." Connor replied, nodding enthusiastically. "Like it would keep out any younger siblings but not parents or older siblings. Unless you really have a lot of talent in which case it might work against people older than you that are supposed to be stronger. Also, that Muggleborns could use it against their non-magical family, but like at this point, would any of our spells last long enough to make it home to be worthwhile? I mean, yes, it's worth learning in that it's learning how to strengthen and control our magic in general and to get the basics down for later, but is there really any practical application for right now? Maybe keeping out roommates but I don't have any."

Connor briefly wondered what a roommate would be like. He hadn't really spent any time with Brett or Ryder but they both seemed cool enough. Would he be friends with them then? His mom hadn't ended up being real close with her roommate. Mom never really talked about anyone she went to school with actually, let alone keep in touch with them, other than Lily who was her cousin.

Of course, one didn't have to be roommates to be friends. After all, that meant anyone without one, like him, was doomed to be friendless and anyway, Aunt Chelsea's friends had been in other houses. The one of his mom's siblings that he knew was friends with their roommate was Uncle Evan. So, there was hope for Connor too.

It dawned on him then. "Maybe that's it. What I said about strengthening and controlling magic both in general and so we'll be better at it later?" The Crotalus suggested.

11 Connor I suppose you're right, now that I think about it. 395 Connor 0 5

Jen

July 25, 2017 3:30 PM

It happens sometimes by Jen

It was sort of reassuring that Connor had the same ideas about the homework assignment, but at the same time disappointing; if he’d have had an alternative viewpoint then it would have given Jen something else to write about. He also talked a lot. She wouldn’t have applied this to Connor as a general rule, although she couldn’t admit to really knowing him well enough to make that judgment. Maybe he did talk all the time and Jen had never noticed before. Regardless, he was talking a lot now.

“Yeah,” Jen said when he was done. At least he was making valid points and not just spouting off pointless nonsense.”I guess that makes sense.” Building their magical strength had to be one of the goals of the school, otherwise there would just be loads of grown witches and wizards with lots of spell knowledge but poor competence. Seemed an unhelpfully unlikely scenario. “Seems spells that can combat each other would make for competitive learning, too,” she suggested. She’d heard that was a thing, like when the smart students in a class always tried to get the top grades in a pop quiz, or whatever. Jen knew she was smart, but she wasn’t going to brag about it. There were plenty more traits worth having than intelligence, something most people were either born with or weren’t, and most couldn’t do a thing about it. Generosity and patience were probably much more valuable qualities, but people rarely bragged about those. Jen didn’t have a great deal of either. She was only competitive when it suited her; she was too lazy to fight to win all the time.

“If there’s more to it then I’m missing the point,” she said, with the hint of a smile. Done with discussing the homework, she picked up her wand and put the cardboard centrally on the desk in front of her. “So are you ready to try giving these spells your best shot?”

0 Jen It happens sometimes 388 Jen 0 5