Intermediate Charms: Cast it out, then reel it back in. on Charms

Professor Wright

December 05, 2017 5:31 PM

Intermediate Charms: Cast it out, then reel it back in. by Professor Wright

Intermediates were always a challenging group, the one which probably most often made Gray vaguely want to flee, but he had come to an interesting discovery about them this year. It was that they had been significantly less difficult to deal with in the first half of the year than they were right now, at the time when he had entered the school last year.

That had been pleasant enough in the first part of the year, but now it was after Easter break and things were getting hectic. The third years most likely had the Bonfire on their minds, the fourth years might have their exams on their minds, and the fifth years were either focused on CATS or else serious headaches for the staff because of their lack of focus on the CATS. Three years, three different levels of focus, maturity, and ability…when he was in school, this had all seemed perfectly ordinary. Now, it seemed clinically insane, and reminding himself that at least the Scary Teppenpaws would no longer be in the same class next year was of minimal comfort.

“Hello, everyone,” he said, remaining externally chipper. He had realized quickly, in his old life, that showing any sign of weakness among other scriptwriters was an extremely bad idea and had gotten comfortable enough with his new life over the course of a year to draw on old skills. “Glad to see you all, and even moreso if you’ve done your homework.” It had been a fairly simple assignment comparing a couple of charms. He expected a variety of responses he never would have come up with for one reason or another.

“As beginners, you all learned some of the basic charms of motion,” he said matter-of-factly. “How to make objects fly, how to move them at deliberate speeds, how to control their trajectories. Now we’re going to work on the more complex charms of motion – those that involve distance.”

He tapped the board to reveal words he’d written on it before class, which were Summoning and Banishing. “These spells do, as those of you in the upper classes and those of you who read ahead probably already know, exactly what they sound like they do,” he informed them. “The Summoning Charm brings an object to you, and a Banishing Charm sends it away.

“Why, I assume some of you are thinking, is this any different from making a feather fly up above your heads? The key difference here is that these charms work on objects you can’t actually see as well as those you can. So I can summon a book from that shelf – “ Gray did so, catching it and, thanks to some practice last night, to not fumble or drop it – “or a quill from inside my desk drawer – “ the drawer flew open to allow a quill to fly out – “or, if you have the knack for it, your cloak from the other side or even outside of the building, though I’m not going to demonstrate that in case I alarm or injure anyone in the hallways.

“The spell for Summoning is accio, and the spell for Banishing is depulso. Both require a simple swish for their wand movements, and both are charms that require you to concentrate. That’s why we’re beginning our work on these spells with small, understuffed cushions like this one – “ he held up a maroon exemplar. “Some of you are going to get whacked in the head before the end of class, and I’m sure the medic would prefer not to have you all come in with broken noses at one time.

“Third and fourth years, you’re going to come get cushions in a minute. Third years, today you’re going to concentrate on Banishing them back to this bin. Fourth years, I want you to work on Banishing your cushion and then Summoning the same cushion back to you. Fifth years – “ he assumed they were already anticipating the worst, though he didn’t think it was that bad this time – “you will not get a cushion when you come up here. You will each get a slip of paper with a picture of a cushion which is hidden somewhere in this room on it. You need to Summon it and bring both your slip of paper and the correct cushion up to me.” He would, of course, be keeping an eye out for anyone attempting to swap papers, but it would be ungracious to say that before any of them proved they were thinking of it. “Your homework will be more practicing, and I am specifically ordering you to do this in environments and with objects that won’t result in harm to yourself, other students, the staff, the elves, the buildings, or the grounds.” He thought that covered the major possibilities. “Any deliberate attempt to damage any of those things will land you in detention, so don’t do that. Do, however, come up here and collect your supplies.”

OOC: Welcome back to Charms! Usual rules apply, tag me here or on the OOC, or catch me in Chatzy (currently generally as Tatiana), if you have any questions.

Subthreads:

Be gone, inferior interior design! by Kir McLeod, Teppenpaw

16 Professor Wright Intermediate Charms: Cast it out, then reel it back in. 113 Professor Wright 1 5

Kir McLeod, Teppenpaw

December 15, 2017 11:07 AM

Be gone, inferior interior design! by Kir McLeod, Teppenpaw

Kir was rather enjoying his third year, academically anyway. It felt exciting to step up, and be in the middle group - a group that stretched all the way up to the impossibly big and grown up fifth years, who would actually be sitting national exams at the end of the year. This was a national exam level class! Even though the work was usually differentiated down by quite a lot, it still made him feel quite grown up to be here, rubbing shoulders. Socially, it wasn’t a totally loss either. He was sad that he’d lost his roommate, and it had left quite a big hole, as he tended to be the kind of person who valued having a few close friends, rather than a big circle with less intimacy. In spite of this though, he was very easy socially. His upbringing, all the charity functions, had seen to it that he could happily chat away to anyone who was put in front of him. He thus saw it as not having a new close friend yet, and he’d had enjoyable interactions with a couple of people he hadn’t known particularly well until now, such as his snowball fight with Amelia and his duet with Georgia. Kir was an optimist by nature. Things were on the up, and would work out.

Charms helped maintain this upbeat mood. Charms was an upbeat kind of class. Charms were usually the little flourishes that made life more brilliant, or more convenient. Transfiguration was exciting, and was easily his favourite, because it was hard and required focus and understanding. Potions could be gloomy, and Defence always was. Care of Magical Creatures was usually pleasant and fun. Today’s charm seemed to fall into the convenience category, and Kir had to say he was looking forward to learning this one. The thought of long lazy mornings in bed, especially in winter, not having to brave that sting of cold air if he needed a new book, or wanted to fetch his robe and slippers to get up. Maybe he could even summon himself some tea or cocoa, although he could see how that would need extra finesse not to get messy…

Why, I assume some of you are thinking, is this any different from making a feather fly up above your heads?

Kir’s hand was half-raised before it became apparent that this was a rhetorical question. He pushed his hair back to try to make it look like that was what he’d been intending to do all along, even though his hair was not really long enough to be likely to be bothering him, nor to be successfully tucked back. The soft mousy waves fell back into their habitual position almost immediately.

When they were set their task, he went to collect the pillow - the understuffed pillow. For all that Professor Gray had predicted that several of them would be hit in the head by the end of class, it did not exactly seem like a worthy and terrible foe.

“Somehow, it’s lacking a little drama, isn’t it?” he commented to a classmate. “Be gone, foul and flimsy pillow! I guess if you take your interior decorating seriously, you might be mortally offended by the very sight of it, but it doesn’t exactly seem very threatening, does it?” he added, poking the limp form.

“Oh well… Depulso” he cast, trying to feel…. Forceful. It was hard. ‘Forceful’ wasn’t a word people would readily use to describe Kir. Nessa, his tiny terror of a sister, certainly. He could picture her banishing like nobody’s business. She could already do that quite effectively with just a stare - Nessa had a very definite ‘Get Out Of My Way’ stare. But he wasn’t really a pushy person. His pillow limped a couple of paces before running out of steam. The understuffed quality, combined with the lack of fluid motion on his part, made it seem more like some pathetic animal that was suffering some injury and had finally succumbed.

13 Kir McLeod, Teppenpaw Be gone, inferior interior design! 366 Kir McLeod, Teppenpaw 0 5