Professor Wright
February 17, 2018 11:46 AM
Stop what that’s doing, Beginners (1st and 2nd years) by Professor Wright
Magic, it seemed, was in the air this year, and not in a cliched or customary way. Instead, all the students were trying - completely inadvertently, but nevertheless - to kill them. One was part-veela – though if she had been projecting in his class, he had not noticed, which would be a relief, and it seemed the precautionary measures Daniel and Selina had come up with were working so far, for all except possibly alleviating Cleo’s apparent misery – and Jozua Sparks was living up to his name. Of course, accidental magic was just a fact of life, particularly in a school, but this year it did seem to catch the attention more, at least with the Intermediate class.The Beginners, however, did their bit for the purpose of keeping the teachers on their toes. For one thing, four students, now, who were not overly skilled in English was a small number on paper, but quite a larger one in practice. Dorian Montoir was improving, but Tatiana Vorontsov – she signed her own name a bewildering number of ways, all of which made her surname end in an ‘a’, but ‘Tatiana Vorontsov’ was the name on the rosters – had the unfortunate combination of a mother tongue at a substantial remove from English, a certain lack of patience, and a certain type of stubbornness that Gray thought more common in his House than in hers, and the new ones, Masha Adin and Heinrich Hexenmeister, actually were Aladrens. Gray had already made a mental note to watch out for Heinrich in particular – Aladren males could be like Gray himself, of course, and therefore mostly harmless, but they had a certain reputation for competitiveness, and one who couldn’t even enunciate the incantations properly was a situation to keep an eye on. Not a prejudicial eye, of course, but…an eye. Good thing he had four of those, too, really.
Another good thing was that the standard way to handle magic gone wrong was a simple spell the first and second years studied. It was one they would need often in their lives, for a wide variety of purposes, but until they had wizard kids of their own, they were never likely to use it so often as when they were in the class where they were learning it.
“Hello everyone,” he said, with the slight wave which was his standard greeting to students. “Today’s a day when our second years are going to revise and strengthen an old skill while the first years learn it. That skill is how to make a spell stop working.”
One advantage, he supposed, which the international students did have with him was that he had learned over the past two years to speak slowly, enunciating a bit much here and there, when lecturing – otherwise, he might stumble over his words or get lost in tangents. He still suspected he used more words than were necessary, because – well – words had been his business before this job, he had even had assignments where he’d been paid by the word, and he was just that way, but he tried to pare it down for this class a bit besides the effort it took to ensure he was speaking clearly to all the classes.
“Second years, you already know the spell finite incantatem,” he continued, gesturing toward where those words were written on the portion of the board which was to his left. “In Latin, that literally means ‘end spell.’ Who can tell me a kind of spell it won’t work on?”
Gray took answers, the nodded when he got the right one. “Good job, five points to your House. Dark magic and very complex charms don’t always response to this spell. That’s something you’ll study more in Intermediate and Advanced classes. Almost any spell you learn in Beginners, though, should respond to this.
“To keep things interesting, second years are going to practice today with just half the incantation,” he continued. “You’re each going to get an inanimate object out of this box – “ he pointed to the box on his left – “and have two jobs. First, you will make this object dance across your desk using the Dancing Feet Spell, which we also studied last year in our Charms of Motion unit.” The objects were all deliberately foot-less objects such as those they’d had in their exams, as this required more focus to make it move in something resembling a dance instead of simply spinning madly off the desk. He expected a few mad spins off desks today despite their previous familiarity. “Then you will stop the dancing by casting finite incantatem, but only using finite as your incantation.”
Finite was, of course, a double-edged sword: on one hand, it was faster, only saying one, shorter word. On the other hand, however, not specifying incantatem required more concentration, focus, or sheer magical power, so this would be something of a challenge for the second years – and give him an opportunity to get some idea of how they stood relative to each other, if the first years didn’t have a truly disastrous time with their own, simpler, tasks, which he turned to next.
“First years, your task will be a little easier. You will each get an object out of this box.” He pointed to the box on his right. “These objects already have spells on them.” Mostly color-change charms, though there were flashing charms and size charms and a few other non-motion charms in the mix as well. “Your job is to use finite incantatem until you think you have the original object. Then you raise your hand so I can tell you if you do.
“If no-one has any questions, you may line up to collect your objects and begin once you’re back to your desks,” he concluded.
OOC: Welcome to Beginner Charms! Glad to have you all. All the site rules apply to your posts here, and you earn extra points for length, creativity, and realism – a character who describes his or her object and spell-casting process really clearly and creatively but writes about the character failing to perform the spell correctly may get a higher point score than one who writes about performing the spell perfectly on the first try, for example. Remember that your characters are first and second years and that most students are not magical prodigies. If you have questions for me out of character, please tag me on the OOC board or catch me in Chatzy (usually these days as Tatiana Vorontsova), and if you have something to ask Professor Wright or which Professor Wright should logically notice (such as explosions, fights, etc.), please tag me in the subject line of your post and I’ll respond as soon as possible. Have fun!
Subthreads: I think I can handle that by Michael DiCaprio, Pecari with Jasmine Delachene, Crotalus
Of siblings, fate, and dancing forks by Dorian Montoir, Teppenpaw with Ruby Brockert,Teppenpaw
I...technically followed directions? by Nathaniel Mordue, Teppenpaw with Parker Fitzgerald, Professor Wright
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Professor Wright
Stop what that’s doing, Beginners (1st and 2nd years)
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Professor Wright
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Nathaniel Mordue, Teppenpaw
February 22, 2018 9:22 PM
I...technically followed directions? by Nathaniel Mordue, Teppenpaw
Nathaniel had had more than one tutor over the course of his education, of course, but that had done little to prepare him for the variety he found in the teachers at Sonora. It was a slightly dazing number of personalities to get used to adjusting himself to – and all in one day. It was almost enough to make him glad not to have roommates, for all that other people would have been a distraction from the unfamiliarity that clung to the room even now that Nathaniel had all his things unpacked and arranged as close to the way they would be in his own room at home as he could.He had refrained from doing this for several days because of Sylvia’s belief that she could somehow get him transferred to Crotalus, though he had not been at all surprised when it had become quite apparent the situation was going to be permanent. Now, he just tried to stick with his cousin as much as possible during meals and to avoid Simon. Sylvia had been genuinely surprised that Simon hadn’t just fixed it, and so Nathaniel doubted she would like it if she saw Nathaniel being too chummy with him even if he had the opportunity – which he didn’t really. He supposed it was the difference in Beginner and Intermediate schedules, but it had occurred to him that he didn’t really see that much of his cousin at all even at distances.
This was a bit of a letdown. They all lived in the same building now, even had the same teachers, so Nathaniel had expected to spend more time together as a family and to have more to say to each other when they did this. For instance, did Professor Wright greet all the classes with that awkward little half-wave and did he always speak that slowly? He had never really thought about it before his father – did what he’d done – but since then, it had occurred to Nathaniel that it must be awfully lonely, being Simon. Nathaniel found it lonely enough just having to be a good example to Jeremy sometimes, wanting to throw fits himself and not doing so, so he imagined Simon’s responsibility to be a good heir was even harder to carry.
Of course, it wasn’t that Nathaniel had anything like a lack of things to do besides worry about his cousins. He also had classes to contend with. His tutors had warned him before he left that he would rarely know such a mix of boredom and failure again, and he hoped they were right, because magic was hard. One had to practice over and over and over again, incrementally, and then even once one got it down, had to practice some more in a slightly harder way, as Professor Wright told the second years to do today.
For Nathaniel’s class, at least, the lesson was…well, probably not very interesting, but useful. Being able to end a spell was definitely useful, even if, to his disappointment, apparently it wouldn’t always work. That made sense – if a spell a first year could learn could end any magic, nothing would be safe – but it was still a bit of a disappointment.
He picked a block which was flashing colors out of the box, reasoning it would be fairly easy to tell when this was no longer enchanted so he didn’t look foolish calling Professor Wright over too soon. He put it in front of him and tried the spell for the first time.
Nothing happened.
Mix of boredom and frustration. This was not unusual, but it was always just a little disappointing nevertheless. He tried again, feeling his wand swish a little - ever so slightly swishy, the wandmaker had called it. Nathaniel couldn’t say he liked that quality of the instrument; it made him worry about not making the movements Just So and ending up with a buffalo in the room when he did not want one (if there even was a set of circumstances under which he would want one, he had no idea, but he suspected not). He stopped midway through as a result, tried again, and –
Tssseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!
Nathaniel dropped his wand and covered his ears as the cube inexplicably began to whistle like a teakettle. Realizing this wasn’t helping, he reached for his wand again to stop it, figuring he must have removed one charm without realizing it and that this had made it start whistling, but before he could scoop the wand back up off his desk, the cube started dancing, whirling in circles on one corner, then lurching to another, then back again, spinning until it went over the edge of his desk and crashed onto the floor, still shrieking as though it were full of boiling water.
Red-faced, Nathaniel picked it up and put it firmly back on his desk. When it began attempting to dance again, he grabbed it and, ignoring its attempts to get away, snapped, in the sharpest tone he’d used all year, “Finite incantatem!”
The whistling and dancing stopped abruptly, but the flashing colors remained. Nathaniel smiled wanly at his neighbor. “I wonder if that counts for partial credit?” he asked, hoping to make it funny, rather than just humiliating, that he seemed to have somehow messed up the enchanted object and had then only succeeded in undoing whatever it was he’d done to it.
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Nathaniel Mordue, Teppenpaw
I...technically followed directions?
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Nathaniel Mordue, Teppenpaw
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Parker Fitzgerald
February 27, 2018 12:46 PM
Sorry what? There's a buzzing in my ear. by Parker Fitzgerald
Parker had started to receive letters back from old friends and his sister, and it was weird. He'd always known they had lives without him there, but when he'd been home last, it seemed like nothing had changed. But there was his sister talking about how she was taking an advanced maths class in the middle school, and one of his friends wrote Parker about her girlfriend. She had a girlfriend, how did that happen?His friends from home all seemed to assume he had been sent away to a military school like his older brother, and each stated that they thought that was unfair, as John Jr. was definitely the dangerous one. Seeing some of the things that sometimes happened at Sonora though and reading about the animals that Cleo had mentioned in her letter, Parker wasn't entirely sure.
So as Parker wondered into Charms he was lost in thinking about what his friends were doing. He'd seen that some of the garden had been taken care of, so he was sure that Cleo was out and about, even if he hadn't seen her. He wondered about his sister and how she was able to actually learn.
When Professor Right started speaking Parker was mid thought trying to work out how his sister was able to study. As the Professors voice filtered in he realized that he was missing the class, and that was definitely not how his sister did so well.
Parker reached into the box for second years and came up with, a vase. The first year next to him pulled out a flashing cube, which looked like a fun thing, even before it was charmed. Parker looked at it, and back at his vase. It was slightly boring by comparison. He turned around to see if the box was still there to change out the object, but it had moved on. So Parker took out his wand.
Parker remembered this from last year, and remembered how much he hated doing it. Last year he had a spoon, which was fun, cause he made it spin a bit like a top, and then bend like in the movie The Matrix his dad liked to watch, then finally it had danced a bit like it was in Beauty and the Beast. It was fun to watch, but it had danced as if it had a peg leg of a pirate.
Waving his wand Parker got the vase to move a bit, spinning really. Concentrating Parker tried to get it to move more like a dance in some way, but instead it kept spinnning like a top across the table. Parker had to move quickly to grab the vase before it went crashing to the floor.
As he sat back into his seat holding a still moving vase, the box next to him started to whistle really loudly. Parker tried to cover the ear closest to the box with one hand and hold onto his vase with the other.
The box was going crazy now, and Parker wanted to help the first year who seemed to be about as dazed as he was with the sheer noise, but holding onto his vase made it difficult to raise his wand. Suddenly the boy was able to say Finite incantatem and everything stopped except the flashing lights.
Parker shook his head a bit to get the ringing out of his ears the vase still moving around in his lap. Parker laughed at the boy next to him, "I think you get 1 1/2 credits. You did more than asked. Though next time, maybe make it a little bit softer."
Parker put the vase down on the table, and without missing a beat it started spinning again. This time a bit faster. Parker flicked his wand and shouted, "Finite". He hadn't meant to shout, but his ears were still ringing.
As the vase came to a stand still Parker turned to the boy sitting next to him reaching out his hand.
"Hi, I'm Parker and apparently I can't make things dance. You are?"
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Parker Fitzgerald
Sorry what? There's a buzzing in my ear.
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Parker Fitzgerald
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Nathaniel
February 27, 2018 3:44 PM
Sorry, sorry, sorry about that. by Nathaniel
Nathaniel half-smiled when his neighbor said he thought Nathaniel ought to get extra credit for his...display. “I’ll try,” he said when advised to make it ‘softer’ next time. He decided not to admit that he had not meant to make it do anything at all, just to make it stop doing something. He knew that accidental magic was probably not something completely unexpected in first years who were still as new as he was, but he was still embarrassed by the noisy outburst. Drawing attention to himself was almost the exact opposite of what he wanted to do, and he doubted his neighbor was the only person currently very aware of where Nathaniel was.He flinched slightly as his neighbor got back a little of his own by shouting at his vase to stop spinning, but recovered by the time it stopped moving. “Nicely done,” he complimented the older boy, hoping this would help make up for making a stir.
Shaking hands sitting down at desks was a bit awkward, but Nathaniel made the best of it so as not to be rude. “Nathaniel,” he said when asked who he was. “Nathaniel Mordue, of the Oregon Mordues. You’re a second year, I see?” he said, looking at the vase and remembering that he had heard Parker use the shorter form of the incantation.
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Nathaniel
Sorry, sorry, sorry about that.
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Parker
February 28, 2018 11:43 AM
No need. I am not quite myself either.(Tag Professor Wright) by Parker
It worked! Parker had made it stop on the first try. Though not necessarily a minor miracle, it made him feel more accomplished with this magic stuff then he had since the last time he had been on a broom."Thank you," Parker said a bit pleased with himself.
As Nathaniel introduced himself Parker stretched his brain trying to remember other students that might be Mordues and came up empty. He usually tried to remember peoples first names, and still didn't understand why people put such a high price on their last names and familial location.
"Nice to meet you Nathaniel. I am a second year, though not a very good one I'm afraid," he said pointing to his vase.
"Sorry, but I am terrible at the family names, but it is nice to meet you. I enjoyed the dance you made the box do," Parker said pointing his wand at the box casually.
Suddenly Parker felt weird. It felt almost like there was a fog inside him coming out down his wand. Before he could move his wand or do anything at all the box he was pointing at started vibrating.
"Oh god...I don't know what I.." was all Parker could say before the box sprouted wings and started to fly off the table. Then shaking in the front a shape began to push out from the changing colors. Parker sat transfixed as a fish head sprouted from the box, with multicolored gills and scales changing like the box. As it changed from a green color to a blue color the whole thing seemed to explode from the inside raining down multicolored bits onto the table.
"A Bird-Fish..." was all Parker could say.
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Parker
No need. I am not quite myself either.(Tag Professor Wright)
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Professor Wright
February 28, 2018 7:56 PM
I really hope you both get back to normal now. by Professor Wright
Gray looked up when he heard something begin whistling like a teakettle - very distinctly like a teakettle - because he knew that he had not put any spells on anything to make that happen. Loud noises were not one of his favorite things, particularly in class; for one thing it was just annoying and for another, more practical, reason, it might make it difficult to notice if there was a problem somewhere else in the room. Before he had to get up and go address the situation, however, the first year who seemed responsible - Mordue, he thought; there were two of them in the class now - managed to get the situation back under control, or at least quiet it down, so he chalked it up to Beginner’s errors and went back to reading over some tickets-out-the-door from the Intermediate class.A moment later, however, another noise from the same part of the room drew his attention again, and this one seemed like a significantly larger error than whatever Nathaniel had done. It involved confetti. Gray rose from his desk and walked quickly toward the source of trouble, where he found Parker Fitzgerald with…something...on the desk in front of him, something Gray very definitely had not put in the box. He also was sitting next to Mr. Mordue. Oh, this was just fabulous….
”A Bird-Fish”, said Parker.
“I...suppose that is one way to describe it,” replied Gray, more than a little dryly. He tried not to use too much sarcasm with or even around students, he really did, but sometimes it just slipped out, and sometimes it was just the only possible response. “Finite incantatem,” he said, using the full incantation himself because of just how radical the transformation of the object was. It occurred to him that this was a teachable moment for the class, but first, he had to deal with the two boys.
“Gentlemen, I know it’s fun to play around with Charms sometimes, but if you could both do your assignments first, I’d appreciate it,” he said. “I hadn’t noticed either of you showing your objects to me to see if you’d removed all the enchantments, and I can see that you haven’t finished yet, Mr. Mordue.” Of course, Parker’s was now useless due to an adult having cancelled all its enchantments, so he’d have to get another one for the second year to use. He Summoned the box wordlessly and put it on the desk in front of Parker, assuming that the order to take a new object from the limited supply remaining would speak for itself. Once Parker had something, Gray carried the box and the vase back to the front of the room.
He wanted to take Parker’s wand and run priori incantatem on it, because now that he thought of it, it was...not normal. A second year managing, apparently off the top of his head, a Transfiguration of that scale? Accidental magic could have dramatic results, but Parker should have had that well under control by now, plus nothing had happened in class that should have produced undue stress for the boy. So what had happened there? He thought he might tell Selina about this incident in more than passing, unlike the thing with Jozua and Lily - she was the Transfiguration teacher and could tell him if it was as odd as he thought it was. Hopefully she wouldn’t regard it as a waste of her time, because to him it looked like something that might want an eye on it - whether it was that Parker was a superwizard or that the mischief which had infected the Intermediate class was possibly spreading down to the Beginners as well.
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Professor Wright
I really hope you both get back to normal now.
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Professor Wright
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Professor Wright
February 28, 2018 9:39 PM
Edit: Misreading on my part. by Professor Wright
OOC: Sorry, Parker, I misread your original post and thought it was your vase which transformed. The last two paragraphs should have read:“Gentlemen, I know it’s fun to play around with Charms sometimes, but if you could both do your assignments first, I’d appreciate it,” he said. “I hadn’t noticed either of you showing your objects to me to see if you’d removed all the enchantments.” Of course, Nathaniel's object - the arrangement of objects around the two boys made it seem Parker had transformed Nathaniel's object rather than his own - was now useless due to an adult having cancelled all its enchantments, so he’d have to get another one for the first year to use. He Summoned the box wordlessly and put it on the desk in front of Nathaniel, assuming that the order to take a new object from the limited supply remaining would speak for itself. Once Parker had something, Gray carried the box and the box back to the front of the room.
He wanted to take Parker’s wand and run priori incantatem on it, because now that he thought of it, it was...not normal. A second year managing, apparently off the top of his head, a Transfiguration of that scale? Accidental magic could have dramatic results, but Parker should have had that well under control by now, plus nothing had happened in class that should have produced undue stress for the boy. So what had happened there? He thought he might tell Selina about this incident in more than passing, unlike the thing with Jozua and Lily - she was the Transfiguration teacher and could tell him if it was as odd as he thought it was. Hopefully she wouldn’t regard it as a waste of her time, because to him it looked like something that might want an eye on it - whether it was that Parker was a superwizard or that the mischief which had infected the Intermediate class was possibly spreading down to the Beginners as well.
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Professor Wright
Edit: Misreading on my part.
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Professor Wright
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Parker
March 15, 2018 2:29 PM
Normal is relative, but yes, everything back to "normal" by Parker
As Professor Right walked up Parker could feel his stomach tighten. He knew when he was in trouble. The fight or flight mechanism in the back of his brain was kicking in, and he took a deep breath and held it counting to three. He had just made something explode into confetti, he didn't want to get into more trouble, or get Nathaniel into any trouble.Parker raised his hands to point at the vase that was sitting, not moving, in front of him when Professor Right mentioned not calling him to see if he'd removed the enchantments. Parker wasn't sure if he had or had not removed them, but he'd at least tried to complete the assignment.
"Vase should be done. I don't know what happened with the box. Sorry Professor. All my fault. Still a newbie with the wand I guess." Parker wasn't sure why he had said it was all his fault. The last part had been, but not the whistling. He was experiencing a bit of an energy rush right now and was talking without fully thinking through what he was saying. He could feel his leg start to jitter a bit under the table, and realized he had not really done anything too physical in a while.
Maybe all of this is just pent up energy. Parker made a vow to go to MARS and use the athletics room later to help release the tension.
“So is the vase done?”
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Parker
Normal is relative, but yes, everything back to "normal"
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Parker
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