Advanced Level (Years 6 and 7): Lesson I on Defense Against the Dark Arts

Professor Levy

November 08, 2013 9:10 AM

Advanced Level (Years 6 and 7): Lesson I by Professor Levy

“Good afternoon class,” Erika briskly welcomed the students. She straightened out the test papers from last week’s exam. From the way some were looking at them, she was sure that quite a few were a little anxious to find out their results. She remembered that feeling and she wasn’t going to make them wait longer than necessary. “The review of jinxes and hexes went very well as evidenced by most of your test papers.” Up until now all the material had been review, but even so, there was always the occasional poor grade. For the most part, however, everyone had done well. She expected no less of her advanced class students.

Glancing over to one of the students, she gave a warm smile, which probably looked odd with her dark lipstick and pale complexion. “Will you please hand these back?” She asked holding out the papers. “If anyone would like to discuss their exam, please see me after class.” Once the papers were taken, she continued on to what they would be doing. “Today we’ll be starting on curses. As you probably already know, most spells are only considered dark if the caster’s intent was harmful. Curses, though, are more often than not considered dark. This is because they’re not normally used without the intent to harm. Someone that merely wants to tease or prank is more likely to use a jinx or lesser spell.”

She waited a moment to allow the students taking notes to catch up, before going on. “Curses are the most dangerous spells and when cast even destroy things around the target. It is extremely important for anyone planning to continue in this area outside of school to know the various curses, what they do and how they work, as well as how to defend against them and when it’s ethical and legal to cast them, because, yes, in some fields, they are necessary to use, such as for Aurors. Even the Unforgiveables have exceptions to when they can be used, but this requires special training and licensing. For obvious reasons, we will only be covering the Unforgivables in theory and will get to them more towards the end of the year. Today, we’ll be covering the following curses.”

With a wave of her wand, the following appeared on the board:

Level One Curses

Body-Bind Curse: the body of the victim turns rigid

Impediment Curse: stops or slows down the target

Jelly-Fingers Curse: makes the target’s fingers like jelly, so they are unable to grasp anything properly

Leg-Locker Curse: locks the victim’s legs together making it impossible to walk

Sponge-Knees Curse: turns the target’s knees spongy making it difficult to walk

“These curses are considered level one curses, because though still dangerous, they are the least harmful curses and can be used with good intent, such as stopping someone seeking to harm. These are the ones that are safest for both you and them. They are also the ones that do not normally require a Healer to remedy. Any questions?” Erika took a moment to answer any questions before giving out before announcing the practical for the day. “All right, then, I want everyone to break up into groups of two to practice the spells and counter spells. If there are any questions or problems, just call out and I’ll be around.”

She normally said to raise their hand, but with higher-level spells, it was best to get her attention quickly in case there was a problem. “Oh, and before you leave, don’t forget to pick up a copy of the homework. Due next class!” She waved a piece of paper from a stack on her desk.

OOC: The Body-Bind Curse uses the incantation Petrificus Totalus, the Impediment Curse uses Impedimenta, and the Leg-Locker Curse is Locomotor Mortis. The other curses and the counters may be made up at the discretion of the author and count towards creativity.

Please remember that all posting rules apply. Posts should be at least ten sentences, but more is better. Points will be rewarded based on detail, grammar, creativity, etc. Most importantly, have fun!

Subthreads:

Advanced and loving it. by Alicia Bauer, Aladren

0 Professor Levy Advanced Level (Years 6 and 7): Lesson I 0 Professor Levy 1 5

Alicia Bauer, Aladren

November 13, 2013 4:46 PM

Advanced and loving it. by Alicia Bauer, Aladren

Passing out the papers was a task Alicia preferred to leave to others, since it meant there was always a chance they would catch a glimpse of her grade and then spread that information around, but today, the job was assigned to her and she tried to make the best of it. The chances were lower that her intelligence and accomplishments would be verified in the public mind by the jinx and hex review, but the day she couldn’t ace a review was the day she went to live in a cave far from humanity anyway, and this way, a few times, she was able to catch a glimpse of a few other papers, the ones which didn’t belong to people she liked, as she handed them back and thus get an idea of the competition.

Once the last was back with its owner, she went back to her desk, where she flipped over her own paper and smiled in satisfaction at the mark revealed there, though she had pretty much known how it would go from the start, before putting it away and taking out her quill to take notes on curses.

The subject was one she had done a good bit of reading about over the past few years, including some theory of the Unforgivables when they had first come up back in third year, so she hoped Professor Levy had something impressive planned for the end of the year. For now, though, it seemed the class was going to be boring, but practical – disabling the opponent, presumably giving oneself either time to get away or time to do something more complicated to him. It didn’t fascinate her, as some of the more advanced spells she knew at least the theory of did, but it was information she could see how today’s lesson could be a useful one to know.

It wasn’t…completely devoid of interest, either, anyway. Why, for instance, was Jelly-Fingers a curse while Jelly-Legs was just a jinx? Did the smaller joints and bones in the fingers take more of an effort to put right than the larger ones of the legs, or were they more likely to not go right again? Why were there multiple spells which essentially had the same effect? Body-Bind and Leg-Locker seemed to work very similarly, from what she had read and based on trying Leg-Locker out on herself and a body-bind on a jarvey she’d spotted in the Gardens, but Body-Bind had the advantage of shutting the target up, so why use Leg-Locker – did it, despite belonging to the same category, take less power and concentration to perform, even though the incantation was actually rather more forbidding than that of the Body-Bind? Merlin knew she had not been enthusiastic about putting anything with the word mortis in it on her legs, even knowing the spell was basically safe and that that muscle death was only likely to occur if she somehow got it stuck that way for ages on end, which wasn’t likely in a mansion full of people who could help her if for some reason she became unable to help herself.

She wrote her questions down, luxuriating in the knowledge that she could now, as an Advanced student, research almost anything she wanted without anyone raising an eyebrow. And practice some of it, too, more than she had been able to, even with her friends, now, that would be fun….These classes were not the pure intellectual delight she had hoped for, the review unit here was proof enough of that, but Advanced classes were still an enormous improvement over what had come before, and she expected them to get better yet as they went along. For the first time, she had access, the ability to explore more, on her own and with her friends, than the class could, to not be held back as much as she had been by the others in previous years. She felt as close to free as she thought she could at school.

She looked at someone else with a smile, still enjoying these thoughts. “Shall we work together?” she invited, taking out her wand and twirling it between her long fingers.

16 Alicia Bauer, Aladren Advanced and loving it. 210 Alicia Bauer, Aladren 0 5

Jade Owen

November 19, 2013 5:09 PM

Here to spoil you fun! by Jade Owen

If pressed for honesty, Jade would have to admit that she preferred practicing the Dark Arts spells more than their defensive counterparts, but her intentions for them were purely innocent beyond a little mischief. She therefore much preferred the classes where the students got to jinx each other (and least enjoyed those that were purely theoretical, naturally), and it seemed that today might be one of those joyful occasions. The Pecari tried not to let the fact that she was sure Alicia Bauer actually had the audacity to look at her grade while passing the papers back mar her good mood; in fact, Jade proudly displayed her Acceptable mark on the desk before her, easy accessible for viewing for anyone so insecure in themselves to need to know the grades of others.

As she took half-hearted notes on the subject, Jade thought she disagreed with the differentiation of some of the spells, whether they were called curses or jinxes. In her humble and utterly uninformed opinion, Jade thought it depended partly on the time in which the spells were invented (for example, in a strict governmental regime, an innocent jinx might have been classed as a Level Two curse), partly on the predominant use of the spell at its invention (if it was mostly popular with school-goers, Jade doubted it would be considered as a dangerous curse), and partly on what sounded best... Jelly-Legs Jinx just had a pleasing ring to it.

When told they would have to pair up and practice on each other, Jade assumed she would have to wait to see who has left, or challenge someone to get them to work with her (or just accost Jorge, but even he deserved a day off every so often). She was quite surprised - so much so that she raised both her her eyebrows, today marginally neater than usual as they were still in their post-Hallowe'en party presentability - when Alicia, of all people, asked if Jade wanted to work together. She was also smiling, so Jade assumed this could only be the outcome of three possible scenarios: the first was that Alicia had mistaken her for someone else. The second was that it was a dare or bet, or some other such silliness. The third was that Alicia was simply high on some illicit substance, and really, that would explain so much about her.

"Um, sure," Jade said, thinking that Alicia had made her bed so she might as well sleep in it, and it also saved Jade the trouble of finding another partner. Cursing someone who seemed to have that high and mighty sort of attitude instilled since birth was a further perk of her situation. "Do you know the counter spells already or would you like me to introduce you to them?" she asked in a would-be polite manner, if it weren't for the underlying hints of insolence hidden between the carefully-selected words of her question.

0 Jade Owen Here to spoil you fun! 221 Jade Owen 0 5

Alicia

November 20, 2013 2:16 PM

Take your best shot. by Alicia

Alicia continued to smile cheerily as Jade Owen accepted her offer, in spite of the insult Jade attempted with her next breath. Jade was crude and unkempt, and as far as Alicia could tell, had no goals beyond winning the next Quidditch game and a record which suggested she wasn’t even up to accomplishing that. Even in Pecari, their year was good enough that Jade might have tried to build something for herself, but she let the world pick her place for her, which Alicia found equal parts baffling and contemptible. She’d have to do a lot better than implying Alicia might not know the necessary counter-curses to really get under her skin.

“Oh, no thank you,” she said brightly. “That’s sweet of you, but I think I’ve got them down.”

Sweet like wormwood, she thought, but did not imagine that Jade knew about the occasional bouts of insecurity where she was convinced that the whole school saw her as the intellectual weak link between herself, Thad, and Henny. Sometimes, someone just hit a target without meaning to; the sheer dumb luck of the nobody. It was not significant. Besides, if Jade though she had missed the attempted offense, then it might throw her off her game, especially since she didn’t interact with Jade much and doubted the other girl had ever paid much attention to her in class. If Jade thought she was dim, so much, possibly, the better.

She didn’t really want to work with Jade Owen, in class or in general. She just didn’t see how it could be enjoyable or really rewarding. Her stepfather, however, had pounded it into her head that anyone could be useful someday, and today was probably Jade's day. Alicia had a mild general distaste for Jade and how she seemed to live her life, but lacked personal feelings for her either way, which was for the best with this kind of assignment. If things became a little more fun than just standing across from each other and taking turns, one of her friends could easily curse her by pretending to be hurt and taking advantage of her lowering her wand to run and help them, and it was probably for the best that she wasn’t dealing with someone she really felt the need to prove a point to, either.

“I’ll let you try one first, if you like, though,” she said, carefully picking her words and taking her stance, feet apart and knees unlocked, willing herself to not dodge or do any of several other things which would come a lot more naturally than standing still. It was prudent to do so today, but that didn't mean she necessarily liked someone she didn't trust pointing a wand at her.

16 Alicia Take your best shot. 210 Alicia 0 5

Jade

November 26, 2013 4:37 PM

Your consent is superfluous. by Jade

"That’s sweet of you, but I think I’ve got them down," Alicia replied without faltering, and Jade bit back a smile. Either Bauer had more bite than Jade had ever given her credit for, or she was dumber than she looked, and that didn't seem to be likely, firstly on the grounds of the company she kept, and secondly on the assumption that it would be harder for anyone to actually be dumber than Alicia tended to look. "I’ll let you try one first, if you like, though," the opposition offered, and Jade noticed the stance her opponent had already taken up. Not hesitating to manoeuvre herself in a similar position, the Pecari considered whether the invitation was to curse first, as seemed more normal, or to counter first, as was implied by the syntax (and, Good Merlin, she only knew anything at all about that sort of thing because she'd grown up living in a house with James and Josephine).

"Well if I curse you first then we'll know if you've got the right counters, yeah?" Jade suggested, being deliberately inarticulate by habit of wanting to distance herself as far as possible from those society types who spoke as though the revolution had never even happened. She didn't know what she found more infuriating: the obsession with blood purity, or the continual strive for power. Her families could be traced back as far as most with no Muggle interjections, but she didn't brag and boast about it. Actually, Jade thought the mixed families were more interesting, anyway. She doubted she would ever be likely to marry a Muggle herself (if she ever even got married at all) simply because she was ignorant of that world, and had no care to inform herself. She was perfectly content being a witch, and had no desire to go off in search of another life. That didn't mean to say that if any of her friends or family married a Muggle that she would bat an eyelid; Jade just didn't think things like that mattered very much. As for the power... well, she could understand how a little more money than her own family had would be helpful, but she genuinely wouldn't know what to do with the vast incomes of some of her peers. Let alone the politics she avoided with sharp ruthlessness.

"Are you ready?" While Jade acknowledged it was not normal practice for someone to ready her opponent before casting a curse, this was just a classroom exercise, and this was just their first volley; she wasn't completely devoid of manners. When she received the requisite acknowledgement, however, Jade didn't hesitate in casting an especially strong leg-locking curse, one of the favourites in her arsenal. She liked the challenge of her victim still being able to use her wand, while particularly enjoying the sudden randomness of the movements of a person no longer able to use her legs.

0 Jade Your consent is superfluous. 0 Jade 0 5

Alicia

November 27, 2013 12:53 PM

I feel it has some symbolic value. by Alicia

“We will,” Alicia agreed pleasantly. “And how well you know the curses.”

Being pleasant like this, when waiting to be cursed and not knowing what her opponent was going to try to do to her, was not the easiest of things. She was tensed, expectant, looking forward to playing it out, knowing what she most and least hoped her opponent’s first move would be, and it was hard to maintain this bland, mostly polite, ladylike cheerfulness instead of giving in to the impulse to show higher spirits, as she might have if one of her friends, particularly Cepheus, had been the person standing across from her. Instead, though, she nodded as Jade asked for permission to get on with it. “Whenever you are,” she said, spreading her hands slightly, momentarily, in invitation.

Come on, do what I want you to do, come on, come on…There you go.

The Leg-Locker Curse was a good one; Alicia made the mistake of moving her torso just the wrong way as it hit, part of her left leg deciding at the last moment that her brain belonged to a crazy woman and that it wanted no part of this, and was sent tumbling to the floor. Jerking her wand hand back just in time to protect the wand still in it, she broke her fall instead partially with her other hand and a bit more with her right hip, the impact on both making her wince before she flipped herself back over, her wand coming up to point at Jade without her even thinking about it, an instinctual response to the vulnerability of her position.

Then, though, she caught herself and lowered it slightly and laughed. “Very nice,” she said, smiling, her tone genuinely complimentary.

It was a nice piece of wandwork, if with a spell Alicia didn't think very much of. The curses involving the legs were, she thought, the least useful of the level one curses they were allowed to try out on each other because it didn’t take legs to operate a wand. At most, they could slow an opponent down, though only for perhaps half a minute if he or she was any kind of wizard, and make aiming harder, but the opponent would still have the ability and the motivation to use a wand. Personally, she wouldn’t use any of them except as distractions, to make it harder for an opponent to dodge the real spell she planned to cast as soon as she finished the first incantation, or even nonverbally if she ever had the chance once she got a better handle on nonverbal incantations, for that one reason: they didn’t take away, or even substantially enough for her taste impair, the victim’s ability to curse her back. Jelly fingers would make it harder, but the only Level One curse Alicia would trust to ensure that her opponent was not going to hit her, especially an opponent facing her as directly as she was facing Jade, again was a Full-Body Bind.

However, Professor Levy said they had to practice it, so she supposed they might as well get these over with. Should she mirror Jade's spells for a bit and then switch it up, just to mess with her, or go for making the point about counter-curses quicker? She thought on this as she pointed her wand at her own legs, despite the thought of throwing two or three curses at Jade in quick succession and then unlocking her legs at her leisure once the other girl was on the floor feeling far more natural to her. Alicia Bauer was the kind of nice girl who wouldn't pull a dirty trick like that in a dull classroom exercise, not unprovoked, anyway, and her reputation, sadly, was more important than the minor satisfaction she'd get from the look on Jade's face if she did that.

"Crura renovo," she said, then got up, moving first one and then the other leg around a bit to make sure everything was in working order, her smile becoming just a little satisfied when it all seemed to bend normally. "Let's switch roles this time, shall we?" she said, and pointed her wand at Jade again. "Digigeletus,” she said, the Jelly Fingers Curse.

This was one she had never practiced on a human, though a few immobilized gnomes had experienced it in the gardens. In theory, Alicia thought it should be possible to grip her wand between her teeth and work a nonverbal counter-curse, but she had never yet tried it since she had only really started nonverbal incantations with the class this year and was still building her fluency with them, making trying this spell out on herself a bad option. She might have practiced on Isaac instead, but he had refused to cooperate and threatened to tell Momma if she proceeded anyway, and unfortunately, she expected he could by now probably convince Momma to view her as at least a reasonably big person picking on a little kid, which would give him the satisfaction of both getting her in trouble and making her look petty, something she refused to allow.

One day, he'd get his, though, she thought. For now, though, she would play by the rules, just focusing on how amusing, how satisfying and entertaining, it would be to see Jade dropping her wand and needing to ask Alicia to perform the counter-curse for her. It wouldn't be as much fun as it might have been with someone she really did dislike and want to embarrass, but as her stepfather might have said, who had ever claimed life was supposed to be fun? It was only the sheer dumb luck of being academically inclined and getting a rich stepfather early on which let her enjoy anything in life at all.

16 Alicia I feel it has some symbolic value. 210 Alicia 0 5