Professor Wright
June 14, 2018 2:12 PM
Find it if you can, Intermediates (III-V Years). by Professor Wright
The lack of the holidays had not affected Gray, who lacked a really substantial circle outside the school, as much as it had some students and faculty members, but it had still disoriented him even aside from probably triggering his bout of writing at the beginning of the year. One moment, it seemed, it had been December, and now they were fast careening toward the end of the school year – or at least where the end of the school year was supposed to be. He was not sure if they would get to go home then, either, but he refrained from thinking too much about this, or how violently the students might revolt if they were told the new year was beginning right after the Ball, or what they would even do with the seventh years in that case….For now, he was greatly assisted in ignoring these questions by the necessity of continuing with the same old, same old – teach, teach, teach. Even those destined to be rich idiots without jobs or the emptiest-headed of empty-headed pureblood housewives, after all, would require Charms to function at all. So he taught them as well as he could and tried not to get too stir-crazy.
“Hello, everyone. As I’m sure you all know by now, though being under quarantine has caused us all a lot of inconveniences, it has not inconvenienced us enough for your exams to be cancelled, unfortunately – and that includes you, third and fourth years. So, in lieu of an automatic pass for the year, I’m going to teach you a trick today that should make studying for your exams a little easier.”
He picked up a heavy book which had been lying on his desk, then took out his wand. “This book is over a thousand pages long,” he informed the students. “You can see why I might have trouble finding any one thing in it. However, if I have some idea what I’m looking for – locvenio chapter twenty-seven.” He tapped the edges of the pages of the closed book with his wand, and the book fell open to the beginning of chapter twenty-seven.
“The trick to this is specificity,” he informed them. “If I asked it to find the word ‘and,’ it would – well, see for yourselves.” He repeated the spell with ‘and’ as the keyword, and the pages of his book began fluttering wildly, so much so that he nearly dropped the book. “The more specific you are, the quicker the spell will take you to what you want. So for today’s lesson, you’ll each take a book from this shelf. In the front covers, there’s a slip of paper with a vague description of something in the book. Keep trying ways to phrase your request until you find it – you’ll know you’re in the right place when you get there.” This was because Gray had charmed the correct pages to show streamers floating along their surfaces when the student opened the book to that point, leaving him to hope no-one opened it at random and got lucky. This lesson had not taken him much time to come up with an idea for, but had taken him a long time to prepare for; by the time he’d realized there was an easier way, he had been three-quarters done and so had persevered with this plan, reserving the other for next time. “Happy hunting, and you know the drill – raise your hands if you need anything, and begin.”
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Find it if you can, Intermediates (III-V Years).
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Zevalyn Ives, Aladren
June 16, 2018 10:27 AM
You are lucky I have been cured by Zevalyn Ives, Aladren
As a rule, Zevalyn had found Charms to be one of the most immediately practical classes of the Sonora curriculum. They were generally straightforward with little need for extra supplies beyond the wand all witches and wizards carried around with them all the time anyway. Most were even useful, or could be.Today’s lesson was no exception but Zevalyn couldn’t help sitting there for a moment in stunned silence for the first few seconds after they were told to begin work. Even her notes lay neglected and unfinished from the moment she realized the full impact of what Professor Grayson Wright was teaching them.
Slowly the unnatural silence and stillness ebbed, starting with a blink and then a deeper breath as her lungs tried to catch up from the moments of held breath.
“Oh, my, God,” she said, breaking the phrase into its individual words. It wasn’t even one she used often. She wasn’t deeply religious or anything, but she attended Church when she was home, and tried to at least avoid breaking the commandments most of the time. Today, she felt it was necessary. Taking the Lord’s name in vain was probably preferable to committing murder. Because she kind of wanted to go up to the front of the room and wring the professor’s neck.
“You people have a search engine spell,” she began, not really addressing anybody in particular, as she was still staring at Professor Wright, “and you didn’t think to teach it to us until now?” Now being after three years of nearly perpetual study and research and cross referencing as she tried to catch up from two missed years. Now being only a few weeks until their CATS, after most of a year flipping through her notes trying to find that one notation she knew she had made when learning a point of theory the first time.
Now being after she had already resigned herself to existing in a school without access to Google.
It still wasn’t perfect. The spell only worked on one book at time, and you had to know exactly what you were looking for, but it was better than nothing.
She scowled and delivered her judgment. “Wizards really need to work on their priorities.” And Professor Wright was supposed to be an Aladren.
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Zevalyn Ives, Aladren
You are lucky I have been cured
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