A real dilemma on Defense Against the Dark Arts

Professor O'Leary

April 28, 2007 8:14 PM

Second/Third Years: Lesson Two by Professor O'Leary

Upon entering the classroom, each student would find on their desk a bowl, about the size one would use for soup or cereal, filled with water in addition to a glass container with three small black spiders. Today, they would be learning one of Drake's favorite spells, not that anyone needed to know that, but it was nonetheless for it was associated with fond memories.

At the front of the room, where Drake stood, was a rather large vessel of water measuring five feet by five feet, but shallow at a height of about two feet. Undoubtedly, a little odd, but then he was a little odd. Then, again, when most people found you to be rather asocial, and in extreme cases rumored to be a vampire, the title of normal didn't stick.

Of course, the rumors weren't completely unfounded for Drake had the stereotypical appearance of one. He was fairly tall and extraordinarily gaunt with blood-red crimson hair and liked to wear dark flowing robes that swished when he moved. The saving grace was that his skin wasn't deathly pale. If it were, he might have been worried about himself.

He couldn't completely blame it on his appearance for he had
undoubtedly flamed the rumors with his stalking in the shadows, a fondness, which now lacked any punch. He supposed most had realized that for the most part he was all bark and no bite...at least in the classroom. As such, Drake stayed in plain site, leaning on his desk, a comfortable without being vulnerable position.

While he could perform some level of wandless magic, he preferred his wand, always hidden in his sleeve, for it allowed for spells to be at their most powerful, and this stance proved to be best for quickly maneuvering into a defensive or an offensive position. One could never be to careful, even if the school was heavily protected. Then, again, most of it was probably his paranoia due to previous experiences talking.

Staying perfectly still this way, Drake waited until the last student had arrived before beginning class in his deep baritone voice that echoed off of the chamber walls, "Good afternoon, class." Standard greeting, before, "Today, you will be learning the Glacius spell, which is used to freeze enemies and can be used on water, as well." The important part there was enemies. Why they were learning the spell in this class. "On each desk there is a container of spiders to practice on. For those, who feel this is unethical," slight sneer, "there is also a bowl of water in order to practice on. Repeat after me, Glacius," pronouncing as Gla-c-us. The wand now in his hand and pointed at the enormous container, "Your wand movement should reflect, as such, and firmly state," with a slight jerk of the arm and a semi-circle, shouted, "Glacius!"

The water now turned to ice, creating a small ice skating rink. The sport was a secret passion of Drake's, which was shared by his daughter

"Now, then, if performed properly, the spider should be frozen solidly, or if you are working with the water, a solid mass of ice. The more skilled one becomes, the larger the amount of enemies or water that can be frozen in addition to how long it will last," he lectured while stepping on the block and skating around slightly to demonstrate before stepping back down. "You may come up here to view or test out the homemade rink in small groups. For anyone not doing this, you should be attempting the spell on your spiders or bowl of water in front of you. Begin."\r\n\r\nOOC: Have fun, because creativity counts! Ten sentence minimum.\r\n\r\n

Subthreads:

A real dilemma by Saul Pierce with Briony, Elly Eriksson

Spiders! Rock. On. by Matt and Josh Santoro with Meredith Lail, Matt and Josh

Trying to blend in. by Adam Brockert with Morgaine Carey

Skating! by Eavan Valentine with Amber Carey, Eavan

A bit evil (and a bit late putting up) by Caedence Redoak with Echo Elms, Caedene

0 Professor O'Leary Second/Third Years: Lesson Two 0 Professor O'Leary 1 5

Saul Pierce

May 01, 2007 6:50 PM

A real dilemma by Saul Pierce

Saul was looking forward to DADA. Last class they got to draw - no, wait, that was what he did after the lesson. What did they do for the actual class part? He sat down next to Briony in an attempt to jog his memory. "Hi," he said, with a grin of greeting for the girl.

Boxes? his mental train of thought continued distractedly, Did it have something to do with boxes? He remembered the enchanted prince-chicken who was sacrificed to the dragon while the princess escaped a lot better. Well, there were still a couple of months before the final exam, it probably didn't matter right now.

Looking around, he noticed Echo and Elly and said, "huh," quietly, because he was pretty sure they hadn't been sharing a DADA class with the second years before midterm. He shrugged and dismissed the thought as mostly irrelevant. He'd just need to remember to say hi to Echo and Elly and Meredith after class, or - he caught the attention of one of them and waved. That ought to cover it.

Turning back to Briony, he was about to ask how her break had gone and ask if she'd gone home or stayed around the school when her father started the lesson. Saul scrambled to get a quill and parchment out and took sporadic notes and tried to pay attention. He even mostly succeeded for a change.

As the lecture was winding down, though, the spiders in front of Saul moved and caught his focus. A part of the lecture he'd half-missed due to trying to sound out 'Glacius' so he could write it in his notes came back to him and he was torn.

On the one hand, they were spiders. Saul had no love for spiders. They were creepy and crawly and scared the bejuices out of him when they got into his sleeping bag at home. On the other hand, family conditioning told him that they were living creatures and absolutely essential for the balance of the world's ecosystems. Even when they got into his sleeping bag, they were chased out with banishing charms, not stomped on. His ears still rang sometimes when he thought about the one single time he had tried to kill a spider.

With a sigh, he reached for the bowl of water and pulled it closer. People were going to think he was a total wimp. It couldn't be helped, though. It was bad enough he actually brewed potions with animal ingredients and didn't keep to a strict vegan diet. If Uncle Harvey found out he'd frozen spiders, too . . . well, Saul didn't know what would happen, but he doubted he'd like it. It would probably involve tofu. Or possibly a tour of a meat packaging facility. As much as Saul loved pepperoni, he just didn't care to watch it get made.

Holding the wand as Professor O'Leary had, Saul pointed it at the water and cast, "Glacius."

Slivers of ice crisscrossed the water surface, but it was far from a complete freeze. Saul thought colder thoughts and tried again, "Glacius!"

Better. He poked at the frozen lump with his finger and it dipped a little and some liquid water oozed up along the edges of the bowl. "Okay, one more time," he told the bowl of iced water, and did as he said, "Glacius!"

This time, poking proved that it had finally frozen all the way through. He sat back in his chair, pleased with himself. Wondering if Briony had finished yet and whether she'd gone after spiders or plain old H20, he looked over to see how she was progressing.

1 Saul Pierce A real dilemma 82 Saul Pierce 0 5

Briony

May 01, 2007 11:14 PM

Seems to be solved >^^< by Briony

Ready for class, Briony had allowed her mind to drift into the world of daydreams, and as most thirteen year old girls went, her fantasies revolved around romance. Lost in thought, she nearly missed that another body had sat down next to her. It was Saul, a boy she had gotten to talk to last term. Still flushed from her thoughts, she managed to return the smile, before turning her attention to her father who had begun talking. He had been performing the spell Glacius before she could walk. It might have been a defensive spell, but it also had the perk of allowing one to ice skate.

When the spiders were mentioned, she wrinkled her slightly freckled nose and shot a glance at her father. If he thought, she was going to be freezing spiders, he was sorely mistaken, especially since she was being nice enough to help him out with his first year class. She gave a small shudder. She hated getting up in front of people, worse that they would be seeing her performing spells. Besides, she already knew this spell, so why hurt defenseless creatures for no reason?

With this in mind, she pulled took the bowl of water and said softly, but firmly, "Glacius."

Easily enough due to the small amount of water, it was turned to ice. With a small smile and another look to her dad with a slight eyebrow raise of 'You can't make me,' she pulled out a book and began reading.

0 Briony Seems to be solved >^^< 0 Briony 0 5

Elly Eriksson

May 02, 2007 4:05 PM

smirk by Elly Eriksson

Professor O’Leary was still a bit of an unexplained entity to Elly. Last year she had spent a pleasant enough lesson working with Briony, and earlier this year she had spent a most enjoyable lesson working with Mere and Echo in the gardens. Yet Professor O’Leary was still regarded as one of the least approachable teachers, often referred to as a vampire by many of the students. Elly didn’t believe a word of it – he was obviously a good father and a good teacher, and she didn’t have any reason whatsoever to be the least bit intimidated by him. In addition, his lessons were so varied it was impossible to guess what they would be doing each subsequent class. Therefore, Elly was quite excited as she headed into the vamp’s class.

She headed for a seat the far side of the classroom. As she was just setting her bag down though, Saul waved in her direction across the class. Elly grinned back and was halfway to waving when she thought about how she hadn’t really spoken much to Saul recently. Aborting the wave, Elly slung her bag back over her shoulder and trekked over. Saying 'hi' to Briony as she passed, Elly took up the seat next to Saul instead.

Elly listened diligently to the professor’s lecture, doodling occasionally with her marvellous pink quill in pretence of note-taking. They were doing a spell that froze stuff, blah blah blah. So there was the option of spiders or water. Huh. Elly quite liked spiders – they were pretty cool when you thought about it. They could make webs to live in and catch their food, they could squeeze through the tiniest of cracks, they could move at super-speed and if you pulled a leg off (by accident, obviously) they could still continue with life quite happily. But freezing them? That sounded a bit cruel, far more so than transfiguration – Elly hadn’t done any animal transfigurations as yet but she had been assured that the creatures weren’t in pain throughout the process. Either way, if they had the option of using water, Elly decided she would go with the water, and let the spiders alone to live peacefully another day.

Elly pulled the dish closer to her, spilling a little over the side and onto the desk. She wiped up the spill with the end of her sleeve before brandishing her wand and giving the spell a go. “Glacius,” she said strongly. The water didn’t look any different. Forever hopeful, Elly dipped her finger in to gauge the temperature. Well, the water was very cold, but she had no idea how cold it had been to begin with. Glancing up at Saul, Elly noticed that he wasn’t concentrating on his own work, but looking over at Briony. Elly smirked – did Saul have a thing for Briony? Her mischievous side taking over, Elly scooped a couple of fingers into the cold water and flicked it at Saul, sincerely hoping that some chilly drops would land on the back of his neck.

0 Elly Eriksson *smirk* 92 Elly Eriksson 0 5

Matt and Josh Santoro

May 02, 2007 8:04 PM

Spiders! Rock. On. by Matt and Josh Santoro

Matt and Josh left Cascase Hall together after lunch to head towards Defense Against the Dark Arts class. It was strange that they were together so often when before entering Sonora they had both decided it was time to move apart and greet new people. But, since their roommates seemed content on hanging out with others, and neither boy had made more than an aquaintence with others, they had gradually, unconsciously, begun to walk to classes together and eat their meals together and spend their leisurely time together. They still didn't like to work together in class, but had no issue sitting next to one another during the class lesson.

Both their faces lit up at the site of the creatures on their desks. Both boys eager to play with their new pets. "Cool." Matt stated, his face grinning from ear to ear. Josh's head bobbed his head in agreement, his own grin rivalring his brothers. They had used spiders in the past to upset their sisters, so if they could just get one of these creatures out of the classroom, they could do so much with it.

They both tried to listen to the actual lesson, Josh being better at it than Matt, but it seemed as though the spiders had more of their attention than Professor Dreary did. Of course, the purpose of the lesson did catch their attention. They were freezing the spiders? As in, they were going to be in a frozen cocoon and will be awaken later once the ice melts away? Or, as in, once frozen, they were lost forever?

But they wanted to keep their spiders!

Grumbling, the twins pulled their containers closer and watched the spiders scuttle around for a moment. The boys worked quietly on their own spiders for most of the lesson. Josh was able to make a spider rather cold, while Matt was able to completely freeze two of them.

"You're doing it wrong." Matt told his brother as he watched his wand work.

"Shut up. I can do it just fine."

"But you're wrong." Josh glared at his brother, but Matt only shrugged the look off. "Just saying. Your wandwork is off."

Josh may have been the smarter of the two, but Matt had the most talent with a wand. He had always been able to grasp things faster than Josh and that had always caused a riff between the brothers. Which is why they never worked together.

Eventually, though, Josh was successful in freezing one spider. Granted, it wasn't as frozen as Matt's seemed to be, but he was just happy that he was able to do the spell at all. He didn't need his brother feeling smug next to him.

The two continued to bicker for a bit longer before slowly turning the conversation around and trying to find good ideas for use of these spiders. They only paused in their conversations when they thought someone was listening in.

0 Matt and Josh Santoro Spiders! Rock. On. 0 Matt and Josh Santoro 0 5

Saul Pierce

May 03, 2007 9:30 AM

meanie by Saul Pierce

Saul hadn't been able to do anything more than grin at Elly when she took the seat on Saul's other side just before the lesson began. And Saul was perfectly well aware that if he didn't do the class activity immediately after it was assigned, he wouldn't ever get around to it. Consequently, he'd nearly forgotten Elly was even next to him when he'd turned to check out Briony's progress.

His yearmate had also frozen her water bowl and was already reading a book, having completed the task before Saul had. So, no spiders for her either. That made him feel a little better. At least, Professor O'Leary probably wouldn't hold it against him anyway. He was about interrupt her reading to ask her if she wanted to join him up on the large bowl of ice that her dad had frozen at the beginning of class when he squeaked (it had originally begun as a shriek, but his changing voice got caught in his throat and it squeaked instead) and grabbed the back of his neck.

"Cold!" he yelped, turning around to find Elly on his other side with fingers poised and shiny-wet. Understanding flashed bright and clear and his expression changed from startled surprise to mock threatening, "Oh, you're gonna pay for that, Girl EE," he warned.

Reaching over, he dunked his own fingers into her bowl of still unfrozen water and flicked some droplets back at her.

1 Saul Pierce meanie 82 Saul Pierce 0 5

Elly

May 03, 2007 1:55 PM

Mean? Moi? by Elly

Elly was delighted with result of her water flicking. Saul made a thoroughly hilarious noise, somewhere between a squeal and a hiccup, when the cold water had successfully hit its target. He span round to face her, and Elly had to clamp a hand firmly over her mouth to stop her from giggling rather loudly and uncontrollably. “Oh, you’re gonna pay for that, Girl EE,” he threatened. Elly instinctively leant back as Saul darted towards her desk, almost falling backwards off her chair. The hand covering her mouth darted to grip the desk to steady her. Hence Elly was completely unprepared for Saul’s return fire, which spattered over her freckled face. It was beyond cold, it was icy. Elly recovered enough to suck in a sharp gasp of air, and blinked the water out of her eyes.

“I’m gonna freeze you, Pierce,” she said in mock menace, wiping her already-damp sleeve over her face to clear the remaining drips. The threat was rather empty, though, as she hadn’t yet succeeded in freezing the water, and she assumed that the whole body of Saul was going to present a substantially greater hurdle. Instead, Elly used the only weapon she had at her disposal, and flicked some more water at him. She giggled – she wasn’t going to have any water left for the class at this rate, not to mention O’Leary probably wouldn’t be impressed if he saw the miniature water-fight occurring in his class.

0 Elly Mean? Moi? 0 Elly 0 5

Briony

May 03, 2007 4:29 PM

I'll just leave you two... by Briony

Startled from her book by a high pitch squeak, Briony looked over in curiosity as to why Saul had. When he teasingly threatened Elly, she figured it must have been due to her, especially when Saul flicked drops of water at her. She wondered if he liked her. Everything she had read would suggest yes, as boys were supposed to pick on the girls that they liked.

Smiling slightly, she decided to leave the two alone and go view the ice rink. If she was right and they did like each other, she didn't want to interrupt them since they seemed to be having so much fun. Besides which, she didn't want to get yelled at in her dad's class. Undoubtedly, he would be harder on her than anyone else, because she was his daughter and should have been setting an example.

Before she went up to the front of the room, Briony put her book away to make sure it wouldn't get damaged by any stray water. After she did that, she got up from her seat and headed to the front of the room where no one was yet. Glancing around to make sure no one was paying attention, she tentatively stepped onto the ice. Closing her blue eyes, she slowly spun herself in a circle, pretending that she was really ice skating. She adored ice skating - the feel of the wind slashing at her face, her red hair flying out, as she went faster and faster. It was enough to almost make her forget she was in a classroom.

0 Briony I'll just leave you two... 0 Briony 0 5

Saul Pierce

May 04, 2007 5:04 PM

now look what you did, you scared her away by Saul Pierce

Saul was not particularly impressed by Elly's vow to freeze him. He did, however, take the threat of more freezing cold water flicked at him seriously. Raising an arm up sheild his face, he blindly reached for the bowl of water again. Unfortunately, he missed by about half a centimeter which meant he hit the rim and spilled the whole thing.

He yelped as his arm and sleeve were doused by the icy cold water, though the majority seemed to be proving the desk had a downward tilt toward where Elly sat. "Watch it!" he warned, taking his own advice by pushing his own chair away from the spill. Had Briony still been in her chair, he would have bumped right into her, but when he turned to apologize, he found her seat empty.

"Hey! Where'd Briony go?" he blurted out in his surprise at not finding her there. It never even remotely crossed his mind that she would have left so he could spend some alone time with Elly and, consequently, he felt a bit abandoned that she'd leave without so much as saying bye. It also never occurred to him that Elly might have similiar thoughts about his interest in Briony.

1 Saul Pierce now look what you did, you scared her away 82 Saul Pierce 0 5

Elly

May 05, 2007 12:14 PM

So go follow her! (and it was you anyway) by Elly

This time Elly was ready, and raised her damp arm up to shield her face from Saul’s impending water attack, but it never came. Instead he shouted for her to watch out, and Elly moved her arm to see the empty dish and a desk covered with water that was travelling rapidly towards her. She pushed her chair back hastily, smacking into the desk of the person behind her, but she didn’t even consider turning to apologise as her knees were doused in icy cold liquid, which then proceeded to continue down her legs and into her shoes.

“Cold!” Elly gasped, drawing her feet under her chair to keep them away from the still-dripping desk. The parchment she had been pretending to make notes on was soaked through, and her quill was lying in a puddle. That Saul Pierce had it coming.

“Hey! Where’d Briony go?” he said.

Elly stared at him for just a moment with her mouth open. He had just spilled her water over what could have been her notes, and onto both of them, and now the floor, and he was worrying about Briony? Well that just about clarified things for Elly – he was obviously besotted with her. Deciding that a crush was probably a good excuse for not noticing you had soaked someone, Elly let him alone. For now.

“She’s ice-skating,” Elly said, after a quick glance towards the front of the class. “Why don’t you go skate with her?” she added, the shadow of a grin creeping onto her face. She was considering asking what she was supposed to do now since there wasn’t any water left for her to work with, but there were always the spiders, which had remained unscathed in their pot sitting on the back of her desk.

0 Elly So go follow her! (and it was you anyway) 0 Elly 0 5

Saul

May 09, 2007 5:54 PM

I think I will (And it was totally you. You started it) by Saul

Saul looked back at Elly as she answered his mostly rhetorical question and realized she was kinda wet now. "Oops," he winced a little as he saw what a mess he'd made. "I'm really sorry about all that, Elly," he said, waving his hand to indicate the mess. He grinned suddenly at her as a bright idea occurred to him and he picked up his wand again. "But I can dry to right up if I can just remember what the word for that spell is. We learned it last year."

It took a long moment - which probably did very little for Elly's confidence in his ability to perform it, but Saul was oblivious to that - before he finally recalled how to do it. "Oh, right, now I remember," he said just before casting it.

The spilled water evaporated (mostly) from the desk and their clothes, though both her papers and their robes were still somewhat damp. Saul counted it as a relative success and prided himself on his ability to perform the spell at all this long after he'd last used it.

Only then did he look up to the front of the classroom where Briony was. "That looks fun," he said, already fully distracted and standing up. "C'mon, let's go skating!" he invited Elly along, but he was already making his way up toward the frozen mini-rink and Briony by the time he finished saying the last word. If Elly wanted to decline, she was just going to have to stand him up.

"Hey, Briony," Saul said as he climbed up to join her. "If I fall, don't laugh," he warned. "I'm from California and we follow the warm weather." He didn't even manage to fully get onto the ice before he was flat on his face. "Oof. Okay, you can laugh if you really have to."

1 Saul I think I will (And it was totally you. You started it) 82 Saul 0 5

Briony

May 09, 2007 10:41 PM

You're both insane >^^< by Briony

Hearing a voice say her name, Briony opened her blue eyes in surprise. It was Saul. A look of confusion passed over her features. Why wasn't he still with Elly? Was she mistaken? Didn't he like her? Didn't he want to be alone with her? They had appeared to be having such fun together.

She wasn't sure she should ask him about it. They weren't exactly what one would call bosom buddies, though she hoped they would become better friends. Saul seemed like a cool guy and making up the chicken story had been a lot of fun. She wanted to know what other stories they could come up with.

She didn't get an opportunity to ponder asking him about Elly much longer, as he crashed down on the ice. "Maybe we should get you some training skates," she joked, a bemused smile crossed her rosy lips. Her crimson hair creating a veil around her face, as she leaned down to offer a hand.

0 Briony You're both insane >^^< 0 Briony 0 5

Adam Brockert

May 09, 2007 11:49 PM

Trying to blend in. by Adam Brockert

Adam took a seat in the back of the Defense classroom. He wrinkled his nose when he saw the jar of spiders. It wasn't as though he was deathly afraid of them the way he was of people or flying, but after the incident with his cousin getting bit by a poisonous one, they sure weren't his favorite creature. Adam could deal with them though, so long as they were non-poisonous and stayed safely in that container.

There were far bigger threats in the room. He warily eyed his classmates. The second years were there too and most of them were the kind of people who made Adam anxious because they were the type who seemed to be all outgoing, the complete opposite of him. Eaven had been somewhat nice to him and he'd been surprised. Still, Adam was sure that he'd probably do something to screw that up and make her not like him either. He couldn't help it, he was an inferior person especially in the department of social skills. He wouldn't blame her-or Pepper either-if they never again wanted anything to do with him.

He listened carefully to Professor O'Leary. Adam always paid attention in class the best he could for being a nervous wreck the entire time. After all the closer attention he paid to the lesson, the less likely he was to screw up and make big mistakes. Not to mention, the less likely he was to be yelled at by Professor O'Leary. Adam knew the man hated him.

Adam reached for his wand, and pointed it over the bowl of water. There was no way he was dealing with those spiders though he didn't see it as unethical at all. He'd have actually much preferred them to be encased in ice. Adam would have just rather deal with something that could get away from him before he could get the spell right.

Nor he was he getting anywhere near that ice rink. Adam ice skating would equal falling down which would equal public humiliation which would make him more anxious not only in this class but everywhere he went in the school. Adam really didn't need that kind of problem.

So he would concentrate solely on the assignment and be very careful not to draw any attention to himself whatsoever.

This went on for about 15 minutes before a shadow fell over him. Adam jerked up, dropping his wand in the bowl of water. His knees hit the bottom of the desk and the container with the spiders fell to the ground. The lid popped off and the spiders crawled out.

His face flushed. So much for not getting noticed.

11 Adam Brockert Trying to blend in. 78 Adam Brockert 0 5

Eavan Valentine

May 10, 2007 11:05 PM

Skating! by Eavan Valentine

Eavan went to her usual desk, sat down and promptly stared off into space. That is, until creepy Vampire professor began his lecture. Eavan jerked into reality. She pulled out a quill, ink and a piece of paper and wrote the wrote the word "Glacius" in big letters at the top. Then she took out her wand and repeated the movements that O'Leary had shown. She was deciding whether to try the spell on the water or the spiders first when something Professor O'Leary said made Eavan head jerk up in attention.

"Ice Skating?" Eavan whispered excitedly. Screw the lesson! She could always learn it on her own time. Or Earl could teach her.

Eavan looked around for a second before rising from her chair and making her way to the ice rink. There were no skates that she could see, so she gingerly stepped onto the ice in her regular shoes. After a few timid steps, she promptly slipped and fell right on her butt. She winced and decided that skating without ice skates was not going to work. She tried to get up, but fell again.

"This is harder than I thought," she muttered as she struggled off the ice.

0 Eavan Valentine Skating! 86 Eavan Valentine 0 5

Elly

May 11, 2007 2:27 PM

Us? Nah. by Elly

To his credit, Saul did apologise, but he was grinning so Elly wasn’t convinced of the depth of his apology. Still, it was rather funny, and she knew that if it had been the other way round and she’d soaked Saul then she would have apologised whilst laughing, too. It was just one of those things. He also offered to dry it all up, but his hesitation in the spell made Elly feel distinctly uncomfortable. She’d know from the off that Saul didn’t always know what he was talking about, and having him aim a wand at her was unnerving to say the least.

Luckily, he apparently did remember the spell, because an awful lot of the water did clear up. “Thanks,” Elly said, mildly impressed. Her feet were still cold and damp and her quill was looking rather sorry for itself, but it certainly was an improvement.

“C’mon, let’s go skating!” Saul suggested, apparently over the water spilling incident already. Elly strongly suspected it was Briony rather than the skating itself which held Saul’s appeal, and so she declined his invitation to join them. She liked Briony well enough but didn’t fancy being a third wheel.

“You go ahead,” she called after his rapidly retreating back. “I’ll give this spell another go.” Sighing, she turned her attention back to the lesson. She really should get a grip on the spell before skating, after all.

Elly took one of the spiders from the pot. It seemed more than eager to make its way up her sleeve. “Oh no you don’t,” she told it, and placed it back on the desk. It didn’t want to stay there either, and tried to scuttle its way off the desk. “Just stay still, will you?” Elly pleaded with it. She placed the spider once more in the centre of her desk and the creature was obedient this time round. “Thank you,” Elly said. She picked up her wand and aimed it at the leggy little chap. “I’m sorry if you don’t like this, but I need to practise so I can get Saul later. Glacius!”

The spider was immobile. Elly was impressed – her spells hardly ever were that successful on second attempt. To make sure, she prodded it with her wand tip. Taking the hint, the spider ran off, moving so fast that Elly couldn’t stop it from escaping from her desk and onto the floor. Elly sighed again; even the spiders were mocking her inability now. She looked up the front of the class to see Saul flat on his face on the ice. She couldn’t help but laugh as she reached for another spider, determined to get this spell to work.

0 Elly Us? Nah. 0 Elly 0 5

Meredith Lail

May 11, 2007 6:32 PM

Ready to rock. pulls out electric guitar by Meredith Lail

Meredith leaned in closely until her nose nearly touched the jar on her desk with the scuttling spiders in it. And then, for what felt like the billionth time that day, Meredith pushed her hair out of her face with a short groan of annoyance. Her hair tie popped earlier. She tried making a knot so it would stay, but that defeated the purpose of the elastic in the band. If she stretched it any, it just popped again. So Mere sat in Defense Against the Dark Arts, pushing her longer than usual hair behind her ears and listening to Professor O’Leary tell them about the neat spiders, the bowl of water and the spell that connected the two otherwise totally random items on her desk.

Mere watched the giant water tub in the front of the room turn to ice as the professor cast the spell. She stretched her neck just a bit to see clearly. She made a note that she might want to go over there later. When they were left to do the spell on their own, Meredith pulled her wand from the green pouch Elly made her, which was where she had kept her wand since. She looked between the bowl of water and the spiders, deciding which to try the spell on first. She decided on the water in case her shoddy spell work turned one of them into an acromantula for all she knew. Using a wand wasn’t Mere’s strongest point. She wasn’t a complete wreck. It just took her a little longer to get the hang of some spells. And though it would be pretty cool to see an acromantula, she decided against it.

Mere pulled the bowl nearer to her and aimed her wand. She doubted she had the motion right, but did her best to copy what she saw from memory.

“Glacius.” She said with the wand gesture that she could feel was wrong, but didn’t know how to correct.

The water didn’t seem to have changed. She stuck her finger into it and broke a thin, cold film that had formed over it. Well that couldn’t be right. She did the spell again with a different twist of her hand leaving the bottom of the bowl freezing cold, but the water on top was only a little chilled. Mere frowned and tilted her head, causing her hair to flop back into her face. She held it back with her right hand while tapping her wand against her forehead with her left as she thought of another motion that seemed familiar. One last try landed her with a bowl full of cold, watery slush.

Blue eyes drifted over to her neighbor’s bowl and spiders. She had taken a seat next to Matt and Josh Santoro. Maybe they had the spell right. They were arguing with each other over something Mere hadn’t caught. She was eyeing the frozen spiders. She wanted to do that. Hers were moving about just as they had been when she walked into the room. She hadn’t tried the spell on them yet though, but if she had, she didn’t think they’d be frozen like theirs. The background mumble of their conversation paused and Mere only looked up after another few moments thinking they thought she was snooping on whatever they were talking about. She gave them a little grin, not having the slightest idea of what they were talking about, only that their spiders were frozen and her water wasn’t.

“You think you could show me how you did that? All I got was this.” She motioned towards the wet slush in her bowl.

0 Meredith Lail Ready to rock. *pulls out electric guitar* 0 Meredith Lail 0 5

Matt and Josh

May 12, 2007 4:22 PM

Sorry, that's our sister's forte by Matt and Josh

The twins discovered it was Meredith who was listening in, or whatever it was she was doing and they were both surprised to find that they weren't all that terribly upset about it. Though, they doubted they would have really been upset if it were anyone besides the Professor. Meredith, however, was cool, so that gave her an advantage. Plus, Matt thought she was cute. Well, Josh did too, but Josh was less likely to be vocal about it.

The boys looked at the results of her wandwork. Josh was looking sympathetic having had a hard time with the spell himself, while Matt grinned at Meredith and shuffled closer to the girl. Matt wasn't the best sort of person to teach anyone anything, but he was better with his wand, so Josh remained where he was and decided to try freezing another spider.

"You've got a great start." Matt complimented and meaning it. He was lucky to be able to get charms and spells rather quickly, which was funny since his brother was the one who got everything specifically about the spell long before Matt ever could. "Whenever I do a spell, I picture what I want to happen as I do it. I concentrate real hard on that image and it usually works. Maybe not completely, but within a couple of tries."

Josh listened quietly to his brother and decided it wasn't terrible advice. Visualizing something was a good way of accomplishing the work.

"Come on, Meredith, let's see what you've got and we'll go from there." Matt suggested. He only had one spider left, so he was going to hold off on having to use the spell against it. Although, he could always use the bowl of water.

0 Matt and Josh Sorry, that's our sister's forte 0 Matt and Josh 0 5

Amber Carey

May 12, 2007 8:19 PM

Whoo-hoo! by Amber Carey

Her grades weren't brilliant and her wandwork had a way of leaving something to be desired, but Amber was a very long way from being stupid. Any time the second and third years had classes together, she kept her head down and her mouth shut and willed Morgaine to forget that she was there. The older girl seemed to like conflict and drama more than the younger hated them, and there was never much obvious rhyme or reason to why she did and didn't start things. Morgaine lived in her own world and by her own rules, just like all the other Savannah Careys Amber had met.

There were times when Amber honestly wondered if every last person in her family was crazy. Such times usually occurred every single time she was in a room with another Carey, but they had been known to happen at random when she was alone, too.

She took a seat in the back, where the odds of being seen by Morgaine or Professor O'Leary were at their lowest. It was usually a better strategy to stay near the professor, just in case Morgaine decided to hex her or something(she was starting to wonder if she was paranoid), but having a teacher like O'Leary see her getting the willies over the spiders didn't seem like the hottest idea, either. People who didn't like spiders were pretty common, but she had a bit of trouble seeing O'Leary caring for that. Better for her to keep out of everyone's way today.

Amber's eyes darted once towards her cousin when using the spell on enemies was mentioned, but Morgaine was gazing at the spiders absently, not looking at anyone. She went over the usual point of Morgaine only being a year older again; even if the Pecari did get ideas, the odds were against an attempt to freeze Amber solid working. Her humor got a bit of a boost when O'Leary started skimming around on his new ice rink - it just wasn't the kind of thing she saw anyone like him doing. He had to be either insane or acting a lot meaner than he was most of the time. When they were let to work, she began on her water. Ethical issues didn't figure too much into it; she just didn't want to touch spiders.

Glancing at Morgaine a few unsuccessful minutes later, she got to catch the exact moment where the older girl managed to immobilize a spider. Morgaine didn't appear to react to her own triumph; she just started on another one. For four seconds, Amber was sure she was going to throw up. She was definitely being irrational, but...yeah. That ice rink was looking more and more interesting by the second. There was safety in numbers and congregations.

She hung about the edge of it, uncertain about whether or not she should try talking to people. She kept to herself so much because of Morgaine and the(bad) Carey reputation at Sonora that she didn't really have any friends besides Gwen, if she even counted, and she had never outgrown her tendency to babble when she tried to talk to someone. She really needed to work on that...Putting out a hand, Amber rapped her knuckles against the ice to test it. It felt a bit like an ice cube, which she supposed was probably the way it was supposed to. She'd never been skating before - her town was too warm for natural freezing and too out of the way for novelties like indoor rinks - so that was all she had to go on.

The sound of someone falling made her look around and see her roommate, Eavan. Amber started to ask if she needed a hand, but hesitated. Eavan seemed like a nice girl, but they had never been particularly close, which again went back to details of Amber’s family. Her cousin Gwen and Eavan’s brother Earl sort of, well, hated each other’s guts, and any mention of the name ‘Valentine’ was enough to make Gwen start biting her nails, something she only did when she was really upset because it ruined them. Crotali, from all Amber could put together, publicly looked down on everyone else and privately spent all their time snipping at each other and holding grudges; whether or not those grudges held from House to House in families more conventional than hers was the part she hadn’t worked out yet. She didn’t want to make any more enemies, because Morgaine was more than enough for anyone in their right mind.

Finally, because it just didn’t seem right to not at least make sure her roommate was okay, she went over to the edge closest to Eavan. “You all right, Eavan?” she asked, smiling to show that she came in peace. Dratted family grudges and personal grudges and nutty relatives and…and…stuff. Then, glancing at the ice rink again and gesturing towards it, “This is cool, isn’t it? Think we’ll ever be able to do it well enough to make something this big?”

0 Amber Carey Whoo-hoo! 84 Amber Carey 0 5

Eavan

May 14, 2007 2:14 AM

You said it! by Eavan

Eavan looked up at her roommate. She and Amber hadn't spoken much inthe two years they'd lived together, and not for the first time, she wondered why. Earl had said all Careys were crazy and that she should stay as far from Amber as humanly possible, but Eavan had never seen anything that would make her think Amber was crazy.

So Eavan grinned. "I'm fine. It's just so slippery, it's hard to stand." Eavan crawled on her hands and knewes to the edge of the rink where Amber was and slid off landing right next to her roommate. Eavan brushed her hands off on her robes and shivered slightly.

"I sometimes forget how cold ice can be," Eavan smiled at Amber again.

"I hope we can do this. I'd love to make a ice rink out of somebody's pool. Or freeze people in their tracks." Eavan glanced at her desk where the spiders and bowl of water sat untouched.

"I guess it would help if we actually practiced. Wanna partner up? We could help each other."

0 Eavan You said it! 0 Eavan 0 5

Amber

May 14, 2007 4:13 PM

Partner time! by Amber

"Looks like it," Amber said, looking at the ice cube Eavan had been trying to navigate. "I probably wouldn't have any bones left to break if I tried that - Huge klutz." She was talking too much again. She'd never really picked up on it until Sonora, but she always felt it here. She'd mentioned it to Gwen one time, but she hoped that Gwen's mood of the day had influenced her answer for the worst. The very last thing she needed was to get even more self-conscious.

She grinned, too, when Eavan mentioned what she'd like to do with the spell, keeping herself from glancing a bit to the left of them and back through sheer willpower. It was no fault of Morgaine's that it suddenly felt a bit cooler in the room - it was just that she was so close to such a big block of ice. Yeah, sure. Eavan's comment didn't have any similiarities whatsoever to anything Amber had had go through her mind this class period. "That would be cool," she said. "No pun intended."

Maybe there was something about the spell that kept the ice from melting like normal ice did. It would make sense, in a warm-weather place like Arizona or North Carolina or pretty much anywhere southerly. She thought about saying something about it, but remembered she was trying to lay low and work on her babbling problem. Eavan's offer precluded any theory hashing, anyway. "Sure," she said. "Just let me run and get my stuff." A - very short - moment later, she was back with her bowl of water. "I don't like spiders," she said, by way of explanation for why she hadn't brought the jar, too. "Or scorpions."

0 Amber Partner time! 0 Amber 0 5

Eavan

May 14, 2007 4:29 PM

Hmm...I thought it was 1:30 by Eavan

Eavan grinned as she watched Amber literally run off to get her things. She got back to her desk at almost the same time Amber did. Eavan glanced at the bowl of water. No spiders. Then Amber explained.

"Oh, that's fine. I don't like spiders all that much myself." Eavan pulled out her wand. and pointed it at her own bowl, shoving the jar of spiders over to one side.

"Now what was the spell again?" Eavan pulled the sheet of paper out form underneath the water bowl and read the word scribbled across the top a few times.

"Glacius. Okay. Ready? on the count of three, we'll do it together. One...Two...Three! Glacius!" Eavan stated, but the water remained perfectly still and watery, but then she noticed her wand. The tip had an icy look about it. Eavan flicked her wand, trying to get the ice off, but it wouldn't budge. So she swirled it in the water, thinking maybe the water would melt it. Instead, tiny swirls of ice covered the top of the water for a few seconds before melting away.

"Cool. Amber, look what I can do!" She showed the swirls t oAmber for a few more seconds before the ice on the tip of Eavan's wand melted away and the swirls were no longer possible.

"Oh well...how did you do?"

0 Eavan Hmm...I thought it was 1:30 0 Eavan 0 5

Meredith

May 14, 2007 9:32 PM

So what's yours? by Meredith

Mere was glad to hear she was on the right track anyhow. She wasn’t a prodigy with her wand, but there was potential in there somewhere. At least that was what Matt said. Then again, he did have two of his spiders frozen already. He must have known what he was doing. She listened as he told her what he did to make a spell work. Visualize it. That made sense. She had to visualize the frozen bowl of water. Alright, she could do that.

"Come on, Meredith, let's see what you've got and we'll go from there."

“Sure.” Mere nodded. She looked at the bowl of slush that was quickly melting back to water, trying to make it frozen in her mental image of it. She couldn’t think on it too seriously without feeling a little silly, but she didn’t let that distract her. There were plenty of other things that she had to stop from distracting her as her mind could wander easily if the subject wasn’t something incredibly interesting to her, and this was supposed to help her do the spell. She kept that in mind and made herself interested. She was going to get the spell right. There. Determination was a perfect attention grabber. When she had the picture in her head as clearly as she thought she could get it, she pointed her wand again.

“Glacius”

Just as she spoke the incantation, she lost her concentration because her stupid hair fell into her face again. She shut her eyes, knowing she screwed up again and held her hair out of her face for the billionth and first time, not letting it leave her right hand. She squinted one eye open slowly followed by the other. It looked like it worked anyway. She touched what looked like iced-over water. It sunk into the bowl at her touch. When she lifted her finger, it floated back to the top, bobbing a little.

Iced-over was the right word. The top of it was ice, but it was a thick, sheet of ice floating over the water still at the bottom and in the shape of the round bowl. She made a large ice cube…disk. That wasn’t bad at all if she did say so herself. She smiled and looked back at Matt.

“How’s that? Any hope for me?” She joked.

0 Meredith So what's yours? 0 Meredith 0 5

Saul Pierce

May 15, 2007 1:30 PM

We are perfectly well adjusted. by Saul Pierce

She wasn't laughing. Saul took some small comfort in that. He needed comfort. His chin hurt. So did his knees and elbows. "Maybe we should get you some training skates," Briony joked, clearly amused even if she wasn't actually laughing.

"Yeah," Saul agreed, accepting her offered hand. Together, they managed to get him up onto his feet, but he was sure that if he just breathed too deeply he would end up on his rear end. "I can ride a unicycle for almost seven seconds," he told her, hoping that accomplishment would cancel out his complete inability to ice skate. Assuming she believed him.

"Of course," he added, unable to leave it there, "on the seventh second, I fall just as spectacularly." He windmilled his arms around as he nearly lost his balance again, but he managed to keep from crashing again. "So is there a trick to this or is it all about practice?"

1 Saul Pierce We are perfectly well adjusted. 82 Saul Pierce 0 5

Briony

May 15, 2007 4:50 PM

Not sure I believe you :P by Briony

“Seven seconds is better than I'd be able to do,” she assured him, noticing he had a stray hair. Her hand, nearly of its own accord went to brush it back, but then he spun around. Immediately, she withdrew, mortified. What had she been about to do? Blushing slightly, she took her own turn to spin, hoping he hadn't noticed.

While doing so, she replied, “Um, the key is to not fall. If all else fails, get a fire breathing chicken to melt the ice.” Pretty sure the blush was gone, she turned to face him, her blue eyes sparkling in humor at remembrance of the story. “Though, this is nothing like real ice skating. My dad and I go every year at Christmastime.”

Briony knew it would probably be hard for anyone to picture him ice skating, but that's what came with her father's dual personality. Of course, like father, like daughter. She was generally shy and reserved until getting to know someone, then the internal extrovert shined through. As though to prove the point, she began to perform a few fancier moves on the ice, such as spinning on one foot and switching to glide on the other, limited due to the size of the rink. She wasn't worrying about if anyone was watching anymore.

Stopping, she asked Saul suddenly, “Do you want to learn?” She wasn't sure if he said yes how she would teach him, but she was sure her dad would be able to help.

0 Briony Not sure I believe you :P 0 Briony 0 5

Amber

May 18, 2007 10:46 PM

Picky, picky by Amber

Amber tried not to look at Eavan's spiders in their jar as the other second year pushed them out of the way. They had always creeped her out a little, but she could never place the reason why, exactly. Seeing her cousin freeze one made them a little scarier than usual; it wasn't like she had a lot of personal experience to go on or anything, but Amber didn't see herself taking very well to having it happen to her. Morgaine was mean enough, when the mood took her, and she was probably the smartest of the Careys at Sonora. She could learn how, if she wanted to.

"Gla - " Amber began when Eavan asked what the spell was, but cut herself off when her roommate produced a sheet of notes. No need to feel stupid; Eavan had asked, and there hadn't really been much way of telling that it had been a self-directed question. She felt a bit dumb anyway. Amber mouthed the word to herself a few times, hoping luck was, for once, on her side and that if doing it right wasn't a possibility, that at least she wouldn't blow anything up. That would be beyond embarrassing.

Raising her wand as the count began, she made herself think that it could work. Her wand looked like a fragile, useless bit of wood, but she'd seen it do things before. Amber made herself stop thinking altogether as the count ended and she and Eavan said the spell almost simultaneously. There was a tiny amount of paper-thin ice around the edges of the bowl, but nothing at all like what Professor O'Leary had done. It was just to be expected, though; O'Leary had been using his wand longer than Amber had been alive, most likely.

She looked over at Eavan's exclamation, watching the swirls of ice emanating from her frosty wand. "Neat-o," Amber said as the last one dissolved. She glanced back down at her own bowl. It was more transparent than it had been, but her ice hadn't completely melted yet. "I got a little ice, but it's not worth a flip." She inclined the bowl towards Eavan just enough to show off the wafers of ice breaking up around the edges of the bowl.

0 Amber Picky, picky 0 Amber 0 5

Matt and Josh

May 21, 2007 9:29 PM

It's a secret ;P by Matt and Josh

Josh had listened carefully to Matt as Matt explained to Meredith how exactly he did the spells. It seemed ridiculous that visualizing something to happen would actually make it happen. That was almost like saying if you wanted something bad enough, it was yours. Yet, Meredith seemed to take the instructions to heart and closed her eyes as if thinking.

Josh shrugged. He concentrated hard on his spider, staring hard at it as it scrambled around the container. Josh was glad that Matt's attention was completely on Meredith. Matt, who had always enjoyed being around girls, looked even more pleased with himself as he watched Meredith with interest.

It was no wonder she was best friends with Elly. They looked nothing alike, but their personalities were quite the same. It made him wonder why they were so close with Echo since he seemed to be their exact opposite. Of course, girls were silly with a lot of things and Echo was a nice guy. Plus, he was one of the girls, right? Elly denied it, but why else would he be only so close to them and then suddenly to this blonde hair kid?

Matt shook his head and removed all those thoughts as Meredith said that spell. He was completely oblivious to his brother saying the exact spell directly beside him shortly after the girl had. Matt was too focused on the the hair that fell into Meredith's face than anything else. He only returned his focus elsewhere when she asked him a direct question.

He looked hard at her ice. Josh, who was doing his own celebrating as his spider had frozen solid on his second try with the spell. He would never admit it, but his brother's advice actually hadn't been all that bad. Matt's grin grew even wider.

"Not half bad. I think you lost concentration towards the end, but seriously. This is your best work yet. It may not be the entire bowl, but you've still got a large chunk that's solid." Matt boosted, encouraging Meredith and being sincere in his words. "We'll make a witch out of you yet, Meredith." Matt joked.

0 Matt and Josh It's a secret ;P 0 Matt and Josh 0 5

Morgaine Carey

May 26, 2007 12:32 AM

I'm never able to do that, somehow. by Morgaine Carey

Morgaine sat still at her desk, looking from her spiders to her bowl of water and back again. The two objects seemed as different as possible, so unless they were drowning spiders (something she thought very unlikely), she had no idea what the lesson was going to be about. Having clues she couldn't put together never failed to annoy her, which made her not-cousin's decision to sit far away from her a good thing for Amber, though she was a plain idiot if she thought Morgaine didn't see her sneaking in. Whether or not she acknowledged it was another story, but she didn't miss much that went on around her.

The lecture made it all make sense. Though she wasn't very fond of them - funny-looking things, spiders were, and the associations weren't too pleasant, either - there wasn't a way out of freezing them without losing whatever pretenses of dignity she had. O'Leary had made his feelings about it pretty clear, and while seeking to please teachers was not very high on Morgaine's to-do list, looking weak or stupid in front of them was even further down the line. There was a difference between being a problem child - assuming that really was how they thought of her - and being an idiot.

Reaching for the jar, she gave the ice rink a curious look from underneath her lashes. Ice and snow and the like held something not unlike a fascination for her, mostly because they weren't too common where she came from. In a bit more than thirteen years, now, she had never seen a hunk of ice as large as that...rink? Checking it out, though, wasn't a possibility. She had to learn the spell before class ended according to her own rules, and it would come across as an effort at being sociable, anyway. Her reputation would lie on the floor in tattered rags if people thought she wanted to have something to do with them.

She was a fair hand with immobilization spells, so long as what she was working with wasn't very large, which made it easier to work on the spiders. Being bitten somehow failed to appeal to her, and she didn't want the thing to run off while she was trying to freeze it. Thankfully, people only really noticed her when she was doing something stupid, so no one was likely to notice any initial failures. Stilling one of the arachnids, she set to work.

Spells weren't really all that difficult to learn, most of the time. It all came down to concentration and precision. Pronounce the word correctly, move the wand correctly, and focus on the desired outcome, and it usually worked within a try or two. A matter, she thought, of outlook; she could never understand why Allie and sometimes even Gwen took so long to get things in classes. It took a few tries to make the spider turn first icy, then a few more to solidify it, but the second and third ones proved much easier. Each was put back in the jar as she finished with it; the idea that she had gotten from O'Leary's speech was that there was no telling how long the spiders would stay frozen.

The water looked trickier, and she suspected that would, by her own way of working with things, make it trickier for her to master. If there was a professor at Sonora that she didn't want to lose her temper in front of, it was the one whose class she was in, which meant that it was better for her to stay happy with her success. That meant, if she could find someone to steal some from, that she should try to freeze some more spiders, since she didn't want O'Leary to see her sitting around looking useless.

Her eye fell on Adam Brockert. She had never really talked to the Crotalus - she avoided the Crotali in her year, not to mention Crotali in general, for the most part - but she had eyes and ears, and both told her that she was watching the coward of the class, the kid who made Allie seem brave every now and then. People like Adam Brockert just did not object to people like Morgaine Carey doing as they pleased when it pleased them to do it, and it didn't hurt that, in all probability, he was scared of the spiders anyway. With those thoughts in mind, Morgaine walked over and retreated quickly when he dropped his wand and freed his spiders.

Muttering something uncomplimentary, she immobilized the three creatures and used the tip of her wand to push them back into their jar before the spell wore off. "Better be more careful," she told him, returning the jar to its old location. "You wouldn't want to see Lila within a mile of your spiders. She'd raise the ceiling screaming." No real effort was made to keep her disdain for the Crotalus half of the St. Martin twins out of her voice. "It would serve her right, but I don't want to hear all the screaming. If you're not going to use these, I want them to practice on while mine thaw."

0 Morgaine Carey I'm never able to do that, somehow. 81 Morgaine Carey 0 5

Adam B.

May 26, 2007 5:37 AM

I think it might be what I'm good at. by Adam B.

Oh of all the people it had to be standing over him, it just had to be Morgaine Carey. Adam hadn't ever spoke to her of course, given his fear of talking to most people, but her reputation was that she was hardly pleasant. Even though she didn't seem the type who necessarily tried to kill people with bludgers, she was likely to say something nasty to him. He feverently wished it could have been Pepper or Eaven standing over him. Adam wouldn't have really minded talking to Allie again either. He wasn't entirely sure she liked him much but she'd been fairly nice in COMC. Even Briony or his roommate would have been okay. Morgaine, however, was in about the same category as Lily. People that Adam preferred to not anger more than usual.

He felt even more embarassed about jumping and knocking over his spiders. Morgaine would probably make fun of him now. Adam was nearly certain she'd said something under her breath. He was also fairly certain it was about him and not very nice. Granted he should have expected that, as she wasn't very nice and there was hardly anything good about him anyway.

Adam couldn't help but feel a little bit relieved when she got the spiders back in the jar for him. It had probably saved him from getting in trouble and worse, being the focus of the whole class. He'd had enough problems in this class last year with the malevolent pumpkin without letting spiders loose too. (Though, unless they were poisonous or you were Marshall, the pumpkin was much worse than a spider which could actually be stepped on and done away with quite easily.) "Um, sure, take them." Adam replied, never meeting her eyes. He wasn't quite sure whether or not to thank her. It would have been polite but she'd probably interpret it wrong and she'd think he was an even bigger freak.

11 Adam B. I think it might be what I'm good at. 78 Adam B. 0 5

Morgaine Carey

May 29, 2007 9:36 PM

There's something for everyone, I guess. by Morgaine Carey

Morgaine confidently expected to set off one of the attacks she'd heard of Adam having. She and the maybe one person in the school who knew her at all knew she was harmless unless someone did something as stupid as insult her family to her face, but Adam Brockert didn't know her, and letting the spiders out like that made him look a bit idiotic. When he kept his head and even managed to sound semi-normal, she didn't know if she should be impressed or worried. Maybe he was just feeling brave, but maybe her reputation was losing its kick.

If people thought she wouldn't hurt them, they might talk to her.

If people talked to her, she would have to be nice to them, because Father had said so.

Oh, Merlin...

"Thank you," she said, resisting the urge to snap that he'd better remember to call her 'Miss Carey' in future. She had been told, directly, that she had to be nicer, for the sake of her family. The family couldn't afford to have two girls in one generation turn out worthless - recovery would still be in the works when her grandchildren had grandkids of their own. Even if that hadn't been a consideration, she was going to have to spend the entire summer at Bellevue or Magnolia Grove or somewhere as easy for her father to reach as they were. He didn't like it when direct orders were let to fall by the wayside.

It was frustrating, but that was what it was. She couldn't get in any more trouble. She couldn't play the crazy card. She couldn't do anything she was naturally inclined toward doing. "Look at people when you talk to them," she said to him, seizing on the first present thing that irritated her about the scenario. "You look like you're up to something, or something." Without further ado, as it would just serve to make things worse, she took the extra spiders and began making her way back to her own desk, half-sure her spiders would have started to thaw by the time she got there.

0 Morgaine Carey There's something for everyone, I guess. 81 Morgaine Carey 0 5

Caedence Redoak

May 30, 2007 10:38 PM

A bit evil (and a bit late putting up) by Caedence Redoak

Caedence was looking forward to Drake O’Leary’s class. He was the most interesting teacher, even if he tried to appear tougher than he was. He always had new and cool spells to learn, and his class was always fun. She had dressed simply under her robes; a black t-shirt and jeans shorts. For a change of pace, she wore white flip-flops. She wasn’t really in a good mood, as she hadn’t for the most part since midterm, but Aaron McKindy’s prying, paired with Kamiya’s and Elly’s set her nerves on edge and her temper shortened.

She sat in the middle row, near the left side. She was surprised to see a bowl of water and a jar with spiders in it. She grinned wickedly. Would they be trying to learn how to breath underwater? In that case, she’d just let the spiders die. She looked up as Professor O’Leary began to speak.

So they’d be freezing the spiders! Even better! She hoped to get better at this spell, using it on people. This was going to be great! She smirked at the bowl of water, mimicking the teacher’s wand movements. The ice froze on the surface, but the freeze didn’t make it to the bottom. Oh well, she didn’t have to get it right away. That’s why she practiced on something that didn’t move. “Glacius“ she said firmly. She heard a slight sound, like the water was squeezing all its molecules together, and the bowl froze completely. She poked it with her new wand, hard, but it didn’t chip or crack. Cool!

She turned to the jar of spiders. Her face lit in an evil grin as she unscrewed the lid, removing a struggling arachnid. It scampered off as soon as she let it go, but with a quick spell, it froze on the desk. She wondered if it was dead…

She repeated the process with another spider, watching with a sort of sick glee as it curled up in a frozen lump. She looked towards the last one. Her face lit in a predatory grin. “Hello, little friend…” she said, “I think I’ll try and frost the glass with you in it, what do you think?” She looked at the bowl, with a slight annoyance; it was already melting. “Glacius“ She said, almost lazily. The spider too succumbed to the spell. She laughed at it, the sound a cold noise. She refreshed the spell on the first spider before placing them all back in the jar.

She turned to the person next to her, “So, how are you doing?” She asked tilting her head to one side. \n

0 Caedence Redoak A bit evil (and a bit late putting up) 94 Caedence Redoak 0 5

Adam B.

June 02, 2007 1:30 PM

Relieved by Adam B.

A giant sigh of relief escaped from Adam when Morgaine retreated. He'd thought he'd done okay, but the fact that she'd criticized him for not looking at her embarassed him. Of course the idea of him being up to something was completely ridiculous. Adam wouldn't hurt anyone or plot against them. The only things he was ever up to was doing the best he could in class and thinking of ways to avoid people, goals which unfortunately often in conflict, given that to do well, he had to go to class and class was full of people.

Still, even the slightest criticism, even from a source who most likely never had a nice thing to say about anyone, made Adam feel horrid. He'd long outgrown crying, fortunately. (For one thing, it would attract attention, and the last thing he wanted was for Professor O'Leary to see him doing that.) He still wanted to escape though and get as far away from Morgaine as possible. Adam longed for the safety of his room, where only a few other people could even get to at all and the ones who could (aside from his roommate of course) had no interest in being there, to the best of his knowledge.

Adam sighed again and looked down at the bowl of water that part of his wand was still submerged in. This class had been rather hazardous to it. Last year it had been chomped on by the pumpkin and now it was all wet. He withdrew it from the bowl and lacking any better options, dried it on his robes. He hoped nobody noticed that, just in case it was the wrong thing to do.

" Glacius !" Adam said, quietly, of course. There was no way that he was going to let himself talk loud enough to be heard. A small smile of pleasure came to his face as he noticed the water begin to turn hard and icy.

11 Adam B. Relieved 78 Adam B. 0 5

Echo Elms

June 02, 2007 7:57 PM

If you didn't scare me before... (also a bit late) by Echo Elms

When Echo arrived he had two options for a seat. He could sit in the center of the room towards the front--and have to trip over and bump elbows with everyone on his way to the seat--or he could sit off to the side with Caedence Redoak.

Right, so it wasn't a real choice.

Echo generally tried not to have much to do with Caedence. It wasn't that he didn't like her; it was just that she was so unpredictable. Elly and Meredith he could trust to always be nice to him. Caedence... well, sometimes she was nice but most of the time she was in a mood. Is she felt like it, she'd try to make him squirm.

And it was going to be one of those days. He could tell by the awful look she was giving the spiders.

"Hey," he greeted her hesitantly when he sat down. He reminded himself that Caedence was one of his novellers and that meant they had some sort of bond... or something. At least... at least she wouldn't try to hug him or anything weird. Caedence was predictably contact-free. That was something.

Echo took out his hipster reading glasses (he was wearing his regular glasses -- new over midterms) and textbook and studiously opened up to the most recent homework assignment just in case. He didn't end up needing any of that, though, since Professor O'Leary only did a demonstration.

"Glacius," he repeated to himself. He wasn't sure about the ethicalness, as O'Leary put it, of freezing spiders. He opted for the bowl of water. After a couple of attempts, he had the bowl mostly frozen, but Caedence was... um... opening her jar of spiders with a meniacal glee. Echo pretended not to see that.

He also pretended not to see her freeze a swift moving spider on the desk. He was facing forward, but she had his complete attention. His eyes flicked in her direction and he couldn't tear them away as she froze all the spiders in her jar, one of them multiple times. It was like... something out of a Tim Burton film. Disturbing, surreal.

“So, how are you doing?” she asked him, probably catching him watching her. Well, for starters, he had dropped his wand and it was rolling toward the edge of the desk. He stopped it with a jerky movement.

"Uh," he said. At first it was like a flashback to first year with the not being able to talk right, "I'm, uh, it's almost froze...en. Practically? I mean... You're scary, you know that, right? You're all like with the sitting there with the freezing and the laughing. That's like, it's crazy weirdo scary. I'm mean, like whoa. I'm sitting here watching you and I'm just freakin out. Freakin. Out."

Was it bad to tell the crazy scary girl that she's scary? With Caedence, you could never tell. She might even take it as a compliment.

21 Echo Elms If you didn't scare me before... (also a bit late) 93 Echo Elms 0 5

Caedence

June 02, 2007 11:08 PM

But did, so no worries! ^^ by Caedence

Caedence turned to the person who turned out next to her. Echo? You’d think the kid would avoid her like the plague with how twitchy he was around normal people! But he was sitting next to her. And he was babbling.

"Uh," he said. At first it was like a flashback to first year with the not being able to talk right, "I'm, uh, it's almost froze...en. Practically? I mean... You're scary, you know that, right? You're all like with the sitting there with the freezing and the laughing. That's like, it's crazy weirdo scary. I'm mean, like whoa. I'm sitting here watching you and I'm just freakin out. Freakin. Out."

Caedence couldn’t help but let a smile grace her face. Need she repeat the part about ‘twitchy’? Man, if the kid had only caught me on a worse day… she thought wistfully. She had been annoyingly tame over the past year. Hitting a classmate wouldn’t be too bad an idea. As it was, all her rage had been used on the helpless spiders. She resisted re-freezing one.

“Thank you Echo, I try hard,” She said with a mock bow. “No need to be so… well, twitchy. I’m on a good day… no I’m not, but I won’t kill you. Spiders work oh so much better. And they don’t scream. Just don’t get on any of my nerves, huh?” She tilted her head to one side, resisting the urge to glare. It was fun to mess with Echo. She recalled her first conversation with Elly, once volunteering to be a lookout for them while they went and got into trouble.

The bowl was still melting. “Echo, you know it might be easier to try the spell on my ice. It isn’t all froze up, but it’s halfway.” She pushed the bowl over to him. She tapped the jar of spiders in front of her, stopping herself from chuckling at their predicament. “It would help not to let the wand run away,” she added, with a smirk noticing how it was stopped at the edge of the table.

“Oh and I already have a novel idea for your club. I think this year I might make the word mark. I hope so at least. Will Elly be joining this year? I missed the first meeting. Who all is in it? Is it a small group?” She didn’t know why, but writing was fun, and she was glad Echo had a club up for it.\n

0 Caedence But did, so no worries! ^^ 94 Caedence 0 5

Echo Elms

June 03, 2007 9:46 AM

Woohoo! by Echo Elms

“Thank you Echo, I try hard,” She said with a mock bow. “No need to be so… well, twitchy. I’m on a good day… no I’m not, but I won’t kill you. Spiders work oh so much better. And they don’t scream. Just don’t get on any of my nerves, huh?”

Well, she took it as sort of a compliment. A backhanded compliment. Or something. Her promise not to kill him if he wasn't annoying was less than reassuring. And twitchy? You bet he was twitchy. Anyone would be twitchy sitting next to her when she got her mad evil on. Whatever was behind the smile she gave him was something he did not want to know about. And then she started being nice in her Caedencey sort of way -- nice but edgey all at the same time which could be nice or could be mean and he wasn't sure which one it was. He pretended it was nice and accepted her bowl warily. It still had a spider frozen to the top of it.

"Thanks," he said. Man, she was right about the twitchy. His brain was darting around some wigged out caged creature, and his hand and arm muscles spazzed out when he moved them. He pressed his fingertips of his left hand against the desk and picked up his wand with the right.

“Oh and I already have a novel idea for your club," Caedence said. He put the wand back down -- no way was he going to be able to concentrate on the spell right now anyway. She continued, "I think this year I might make the word mark. I hope so at least. Will Elly be joining this year? I missed the first meeting. Who all is in it? Is it a small group?”

Echo nodded, "Yeah, Elly's was there. Uh... we had a lot of people: Saul was there; Zack Dill; Stephen Baxter is thinking about it. Um. Hyana. Gwen Carey. Oliver. Amber Carey. And Hikaru. Brett. Lot's of people this year. We'll start on February 1st and we'll be writing all day in Labryrinth Gardens." He was so psyched about it. And just this morning he'd gotten word back that the House Elves would provide a plate of cookies for his kickoff event. That was awesome.

"I haven't come up with a plot yet. It's weird, last year I knew exactly what I was doing by now; this year I don't have a clue." He abruptly remembered about his very useful novelling spell and went digging through his bag for an extra copy. When he found he, he slid it onto Caedence's side of the desk.

"This," he declared, "is a wordcount spell. You can use it to enchant your notebook into displaying your wordcount on the cover so you don't have count all the time." He was so proud of this find. He hadn't even been looking for it when he stumbled across it in the library back in October. It was intended for papers where a certain wordcount was necessary and then he had found variations on it in another book, including a wordcount for a journal. Having Novelled last year, he was sure Caedence would appreciate how useful this spell was going to be come February. Assuming she didn't freeze another student before then and get herself expelled.

21 Echo Elms Woohoo! 93 Echo Elms 0 5

Caedence

June 07, 2007 6:55 PM

And I keep the surprises going by Caedence

OOC: Just to let you know, Echo, all three spiders are in the jar…

BIC: Caedence smirked. Well, this was going to be a good year then. Last year, it was just her, Saul, Zach and Echo. This year it was like a paragraph of people. She had hoped as much. After all, it wasn’t too awful fun if no one wanted to do it. She gave the spell a quick look over. Hmm… that would be useful. She had no idea the number of times she had lost count on her words. It was frustrating, to say the least. So, needless to say, she wasn’t sure how far she got, but just that she didn’t make the count. This year, she would.

“Well, Echo, you could do like… an autobiography of yourself and, like, mix it up so it’s more of a fiction.” She left out that she did just that last year. “I was planning on something like, oh I don’t know… just something about a girl pretending to be a witch, but she’s a muggle, or a girl trying to be a guy….” she sighed. Okay, so she had two completely different plots, but ideas for each. It would work out.

“Listen, Echo, when you get the spell, I dunno…” she shrugged, “Wanna go over there and ice skate? It looks like fun, I guess. If you like that stuff..” She also conveniently left out the part where she’s never ice skated in her life. Ever. She hoped Echo knew how, since she offered for them to go ice skate.\n

0 Caedence And I keep the surprises going 94 Caedence 0 5

Echo Elms

June 08, 2007 12:54 PM

Shocked and amazed by Echo Elms

OOC: I guess I got confuzzled about that part. Ah well...
BIC:

Echo blinked at Caedence. He was trying to keep up but Caedence defied the keeping up thing thusly:

Beginning of lesson
Observation: Caedence is scary.
Evidence: Maniacal laughter; Torturing spiders; threatening classmates (namely: me).

Now
Observation: Caedence is friendly.
Evidence: Interest in Novelling Fury!; Offering plot suggestions; Inviting me to ice skate.

This was exactly why he tried to avoid her. He'd swear the girl had to have some kind of multi-personality thing going on, except that it was all Caedance all the time--just Nice!Caedence and Scary!Caedence.

So, did he want to go ice skating after? Well, you didn't turn down nice Caedence or you got mean Caedence. "Okay," he said. He'd done lots of skating since ice hockey was a big thing in the winter back home -- of course, usually he was wearing snowpants so it didn't hurt when he fell, but he should be okay.

"Glacius," he tried again. The ice in his bowl froze over to sport a nice thick layer of ice at the top. "Glacius," he tried again. The water turned nice opaque and when he picked it up nothing sloshed. Solid enough. He'd have to try the spell a couple more times on his own time (when he could focus for real), but he was pretty sure that was the best he was going to do with Caedence right there.

"Okay, let's go."

21 Echo Elms Shocked and amazed 93 Echo Elms 0 5

Mere

June 10, 2007 11:12 AM

Aw. Tell me yours, I'll tell you mine. by Mere

Meredith smiled at the compliment to her spell. Not many came her way when it came to working spells. She knew she would’ve gotten the spell right if it hadn’t been for her hair. She was sure of it. It was still held back with her right hand. She was going to have to do something about that as soon as she could. Maybe that night if she could last until then without just tearing it out. Mere let her hand down to show her point and her hair flopped back to its distracting position by her eyes.

“Yeah. It was my hair. It’s been getting in the way since the tie broke earlier. I haven’t had time to go get another one. I guess it’d be dumb to ask you for one. I don’t know many boys that have to tie their hair back…unless you do have something I could tie my hair with.” She shrugged, but smiled. It was an open suggestion. By that point she’d make do with just about anything to keep the blonde strands out of her face. She held her hair back again.

“We'll make a witch out of you yet, Meredith.” Matt said and Mere laughed.

“I’m glad someone else has some faith in me.” As she spoke, she used her wand to poke the ice and bob it in the bowl another time. If she got it on the next go, she could move on to the spiders without concern of accidentally turning them into acromantulas. “I think my parents are none too confident in my wand work. Probably since I have a broom in my hand more than a wand.” She knew what she was good at. If only she could show everyone like Elly could. But she was sure she’d get a chance one day. In the mean time she got to sit with Irene and watch Elly up in the sky.

Meredith’s arm was tiring so she put it down and let her hair fall hopelessly by her cheek, only pushing a few pieces behind her ear.

0 Mere Aw. Tell me yours, I'll tell you mine. 0 Mere 0 5

Caedene

June 14, 2007 9:07 PM

Not so graceful... by Caedene

OOC: S’okay, but you made me get a stitch in my side from laugher….

BIC: Caedence watched Echo try his spell. Well, it sorta froze over solidly. At least it didn’t move around or anything. Maybe Echo was one of those guys that couldn’t do a spell in front of everyone. Or maybe she just made him nervous? She had a habit of doing that. On the plus side? Her mood improved about 200% by messing with his mind. It always put her in a good mood.

“Well, good enough,” She murmured. Okay, let’s go Caedence nodded. She motioned for him to follow and waited until the ice was clear before carefully getting on. She promptly slid and landed hard on her butt. “Ow…” she muttered, trying to get up again. She slipped several more times before finally getting to her feet. She stood stock still, not wanting to fall again.

“How do you do this stupid thing?” She growled, glaring at the ice under her feet, as if that would help her stay level. She tried to take a step forward on the ice, but found herself tripping again. She barely regained balance and straightened up again. She frowned at Echo, not at all liking her inability to skate. \n

0 Caedene Not so graceful... 0 Caedene 0 5

Saul

June 17, 2007 12:11 PM

I didn't forget about you, honest. by Saul

"Not fall," Saul repeated, nodding sagely, "Excellent plan." The movement was a bad idea because it sent him into another spin that he was only barely able to recover from. Briony was also spinning when he managed to regain his balance, but it looked like she was doing it on purpose. She looked really graceful. Saul was totally impressed.

And as much trouble as he was having following said advice, he didn't think he was going to need the fire-breathing chicken. That would take all the fun out of it.

Saul had a mental mindfreeze trying to picture Professor O'Leary ice-skating, but he didn't think Briony would lie to him about it, so he just tried not to think too closely about it. This was made easier by her next question.

"Really?" he asked with genuine interest, "You'd teach me to skate? That would be fantastic!"

1 Saul I didn't forget about you, honest. 82 Saul 0 5

Briony

June 17, 2007 10:30 PM

Good to know by Briony

OOC: It's no problem. I figured you were probably busy or something. I'll be busy mid-July when I move. O_o

BIC:

Briony looked surprised for a moment, but it was quickly changed to a grin. She hadn't actually expected him to take her up on the offer, but she was really happy that he did. It'd be fun to spend some time with Saul and even better that it would be doing one of her favorite activities.

"Really," she told him. She made a mental note to talk to her dad about it. Maybe they could get a bigger rink to work with. "We can meet here, as long as my dad doesn't have a class. When is good for you? I'm fairly free after dinner."

Spinning around again, "In no time, we'll have you doing this."

0 Briony Good to know 0 Briony 0 5

Saul

June 20, 2007 2:04 PM

Absolutely. by Saul

"Excellent," Saul enthused when she confirmed that she really meant it. Learning to ice skate was going to be so cool. Cold, even, probably. He'd have to remember to dress warm. He was pretty sure Michael had a pair of gloves. School robes were probably good enough for a coat. They were long sleeved.

"Um," he tried to remember the Pecari Quidditch Team practice schedule, as she did a neat little spin thingie. "Mondays and Thursdays after dinner, and Tuesdays after class are bad, but I think I could make most other nights, unless the twins decide we need emergency practices right before a game. And I have dinner with Simon at least once a week, which usually means I'll spend a few hours with him, but I can do that any time but Tuesdays because he's got his Vegas show on Tuesdays. So, um, how does this Friday work for you?"

He tried to move forward a little bit and was very proud of himself when he did not end up on his face or behind. "Ha!" he laughed in triumph, "I didn't fall!" Okay, so he'd moved maybe six inches, if that, but progress was progress, right?

1 Saul Absolutely. 82 Saul 0 5

Professor O'Leary

Second/Third Years: Lesson Two by Professor O'Leary

Saul Pierce

A real dilemma by Saul Pierce

Briony

Seems to be solved >^^< by Briony

Elly Eriksson

*smirk* by Elly Eriksson

Matt and Josh Santoro

Spiders! Rock. On. by Matt and Josh Santoro

Saul Pierce

meanie by Saul Pierce

Elly

Mean? Moi? by Elly

Briony

I'll just leave you two... by Briony

Saul Pierce

now look what you did, you scared her away by Saul Pierce

Elly

So go follow her! (and it was you anyway) by Elly

Saul

I think I will (And it was totally you. You started it) by Saul

Briony

You're both insane >^^< by Briony

Adam Brockert

Trying to blend in. by Adam Brockert

Eavan Valentine

Skating! by Eavan Valentine

Elly

Us? Nah. by Elly

Meredith Lail

Ready to rock. *pulls out electric guitar* by Meredith Lail

Matt and Josh

Sorry, that's our sister's forte by Matt and Josh

Amber Carey

Whoo-hoo! by Amber Carey

Eavan

You said it! by Eavan

Amber

Partner time! by Amber

Eavan

Hmm...I thought it was 1:30 by Eavan

Meredith

So what's yours? by Meredith

Saul Pierce

We are perfectly well adjusted. by Saul Pierce

Briony

Not sure I believe you :P by Briony

Amber

Picky, picky by Amber

Matt and Josh

It's a secret ;P by Matt and Josh

Morgaine Carey

I'm never able to do that, somehow. by Morgaine Carey

Adam B.

I think it might be what I'm good at. by Adam B.

Morgaine Carey

There's something for everyone, I guess. by Morgaine Carey

Caedence Redoak

A bit evil (and a bit late putting up) by Caedence Redoak

Adam B.

Relieved by Adam B.

Echo Elms

If you didn't scare me before... (also a bit late) by Echo Elms

Caedence

But did, so no worries! ^^ by Caedence

Echo Elms

Woohoo! by Echo Elms

Caedence

And I keep the surprises going by Caedence

Echo Elms

Shocked and amazed by Echo Elms

Mere

Aw. Tell me yours, I'll tell you mine. by Mere

Caedene

Not so graceful... by Caedene

Saul

I didn't forget about you, honest. by Saul

Briony

Good to know by Briony

smirk by Elly Eriksson

Ready to rock. pulls out electric guitar by Meredith Lail