Sometimes things just disappear (Advanced

Professor Grayson Wright

July 10, 2017 11:59 PM

Sometimes things just disappear (Advanced - VI-VII Years) by Professor Grayson Wright

Advanced Charms had been, if he remembered correctly, the largest Advanced class at Sonora in Gray’s day, and it didn’t seem to have changed much. It was seen by some as a practical course and by some as a soft option – this, in all honesty, might have been what had made Gray study it in university, as he’d seen his education as something of a distraction from the real work of building up a portfolio so he could dedicate his adult life to his writing. Anne had often teased him about it, saying Charms lacked all elegance and precision compared to Transfiguration, but Gray had found it less simple and straightforward than he and his cousin had liked to think before he began his studies in the field.

Naturally, there was only one thing for an old Aladren who’d had to fall back on his back-up plan to do, and that was to use this hard-won wisdom to try to raise the general opinion, at least in the localized area of the Sonora Charms classes, of the whole subject. Pebbles started avalanches and all that, after all.

Not that he thought of the Advanced Charms students as mere pebbles, of course. Some of them were actually a little scary in terms of talent and ambition, at least if level of involvement in classes and around the school was a good marker for ambition. He expected they would go far in the world and that at this point, they could probably manage themselves just as well with a mannequin with a sign reading ‘Charms professor’ pinned to its chest to supervise. Since he did have some ability to interact, however, he thought it would be best not to actually let the inmates run the asylum.

“One of the first things you probably all learned in Charms,” he therefore told them one day, “is that you have to be very careful how you pronounce words. We have a lot of explosions in this class with the first and second years because of that – and I kept having them even after that when I was a student because I stuttered some in school.” And still did if he didn’t concentrate, but he had made doing so into something of a habit over the years. “Of course, the older you get, the worse any mistakes you make are going to get. That’s also something that’s probably not news to you.

“Here’s the question, then – how does this relate to the non-verbal magic you’ve been working on all year? We use visualization to project these charms, but an error in imagining doesn’t usually give you the kind of bad results mispronouncing a letter does. Your ticket out the door today is a few sentences speculating about how that might work.” He knew this probably seemed tedious to students, but it was good practice for responding to out-there essay topics on the RATS while keeping the number of actual practice essays they did in class to a reasonable number. “Your homework will be a two-foot research paper about the connections and differences between Charms visualization and Transfiguration visualization – I know not all of you are in Advanced Transfiguration, but the library has a lot of good books just about the relationship between these subjects and I’ll accept as much as you should know from passing Intermediates.

“For your class assignment, we’re going to work on non-verbally changing the properties of an object. It’s more challenging than charms of motion, so we’ll start small – a concealing charm on a note. You can write what you like, then try to conceal it. I encourage you all to start practicing other small charms after class, too. If there aren’t any questions, you can begin.”

OOC: You should all know by now to follow site rules and posting minimums, but here’s your warning for the sake of good form. Creativity and detail are the routes to maximum points, and feel free to speculate about theory and come up with an incantation for the Concealing Charm (just not to use it out loud where Gray can hear). Tag me here or on OOC if you have any questions and have fun!

16 Professor Grayson Wright Sometimes things just disappear (Advanced - VI-VII Years) 113 Professor Grayson Wright 1 5

Savannah Brockert, Teppenpaw

July 14, 2017 7:44 PM

Gee, thanks for reminding me. by Savannah Brockert, Teppenpaw

Graduation would be approaching soon, and Savannah was getting nervous. Her sister would be getting married and she...would be stuck at home with her parents until she was too. She knew that this was different than just being unwanted. She had had someone, someone she really cared about and now she didn't. It didn't make her feel better.

And over midterm, Savannah had had to attend balls and try to find a betrothal while her sister got engaged. She didn't begrudge Scarlett her happiness but she wanted to be happy again too. It was just...she hadn't been ready over midterm, not over Aiden. She wasn't sure was ready now either. She quite frankly didn't know when she would be, but it had to be soon. The only one of her cousins who hadn't gotten married shortly after graduation was Arabella and that was only because her betrothed had wanted to wait. Oh, and Carrie but she didn't count.

So the balls had been utter torture for her. She'd spent some of the time with Kira who was as miserable as she was at them albeit for different reasons and some of the time crying softly in the bathroom. Savannah tried not to, but sometimes she couldn't help it. Not long ago, she'd left Potions when they were talking about amortentia because she'd been upset. Love and anything having to do with it were the last things she wanted to think of or talk about.

And this summer, she'd be maid of honor in her sister's wedding. She'd smile and pretend everything was okay when afterwards she'd be alone, no Aiden, no Scarlett, nothing.

It wasn't as if Savannah felt nobody else would ever want her either, it was just that right now she didn't want them. She'd had someone she really cared for and that couldn't be easily replaced. Except that she had to. Society expected it. Not that she wanted to be alone her whole life, it would be ridiculous to pine that long. It was just that she'd really liked Aiden and having had that, she couldn't be satisified with anything short of the same feelings and as she still had them for him, she wasn't sure she could have them right now for anyone else.

As it was, Savannah felt pushed to move on before she was ready so people wouldn't whisper under their breath that she was going to end up a spinster. But if she wasn't ready, if she still had feelings for someone else, how would that be fair to not only her but whomever she ended up betrothed to?

She stared dully up at Professor Wright. The Teppenpaw had always been a good student but this year,she wasn't doing quite as well. While she didn't really skip assignments-and was still doing better than her sister, as Scarlett encouragingly reminded her-she was basically going through the motions on things, not putting forth her previous levels of effort.

Once the instructions were given, Savannah took out a piece of parchment and frowned. What in Merlin's name was she going to write? None of her thoughts this year were anything she wanted to put down on paper and try to use a non-verbal concealing spell on. She gazed from Scarlett to Kelsey and even to Owen to see if they were having this issue, only to see them all scribbling things down. Figures she should know better than to look over at a someone who was likely never at a loss for words to write. Finally, she just settled on putting down her name and allowed the words to the concealment charm repeat themselves in her mind until her name started to disappear. Unfortunately, a few letters remained and Savannah sighed. Why couldn't she have a short name like Ivy? Then she could be done with this.

11 Savannah Brockert, Teppenpaw Gee, thanks for reminding me. 286 Savannah Brockert, Teppenpaw 0 5