Discovering a secret? on Defense Against the Dark Arts

Substitute Professor Thomas Belfast

November 03, 2014 9:48 AM

Advanced Lesson (6-7): Scrying by Substitute Professor Thomas Belfast

As the RATS level students entered the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom for their usual lesson, they would not be surprised to find Thomas Belfast standing at the front of the room, his back turned to the class as he manually used the chalk to write key information out on the board. He had been handling the Advanced Class of DADA since midterm. Jera Valson had been quite competent covering it since Professor Levy left, but she must have requested a break from covering the whole DADA spectrum from Beginner to RATS-level because the school had hired him to cover the most advanced classes in the subject for the remainder of the year. Ms. Valson had, after all, been hired as substitute, not a full time professor.

He was quite pleased to have been chosen to ready the school's oldest students for their RATS. As a newly-retired Auror captain, he found the part-time job a good transition out of the Auror force. It kept him busy enough that he didn't get bored, engaged enough that he didn't feel like he was being useless, and free enough that he didn't get yelled at by his wife for starting up a new career the minute he finished off his old one.

He finished writing as the clock struck the quarter hour (the class began at 10:15), the board behind him reading:

SCRYING

(1) Foretelling the future, often by use of a crystal ball

(2) Observing distant events without being physically present

"Good morning class," he greeted them, giving them time to take their seats and settle down. "Today we are going to start the last new topic before we begin to review your last seven years in preparation for your RATS. As you can read on the board behind me, witches and wizards have two definitions for the word Scrying. I'll give you one guess which one we're covering." He did not bother to actually call on anyone to make that guess because he assumed they all realized this was not a Divinations class.

"There are any number of reasons a person may need to scry upon distant events in the context of Defense Against the Dark Arts. These can be anything from just an additional pair of eyes when a person goes into a dangerous situation to actually doing surveillance on a Dark Creature or Wizard. For your homework tonight, I would like you to each write out at least five circumstances where it may be useful to know what is going on somewhere else."

He gave them all a moment to jot down the assignment so they didn't forget it, then continued with the lesson. "The easiest scrying spell of this form is signum revelare. It does have several drawbacks, however, that do make it difficult to use in the field. The first is that it requires a token, or a scrying anchor, to exist where you want to scry. This could be problem if you don't have the ability to get the anchor there - such as when the school was cut off last year - or if the person you want to carry it may get searched."

He held up a small amulet with an eye of Horus carved into it. "Most scrying anchors look something like this. They are required to have an image of an eye on it to work correctly, so they are fairly easy to identify if someone knows what they are looking for." He put the amulet on the desk of the nearest student. "You may pass that around."

"The advantage to this kind of scrying, of course, is that if you can have someone carry it safely, the scry will automatically follow this person and you don't need to keep refocusing your target. A few years ago, I had occassion to use this specific scrying technique when one of my Aurors went to visit one of her family, with whom she was feuding. This allowed us to keep tabs on the situation in case it broke out in violence, but also allowed her to carry out her business there without having extra people adding to the tension."

He clasped his hands together and took a breath. "On your end, you will have a mirror that has been previously attuned to your particular anchor. Casting the spell is fairly simple. You just wave your want in one counter-clockwise circle around the mirror and say signum revelare." He turned back to the chalkboard and wrote out the incantation beneath the definition he'd written before. "At that point, you should be able to see where your token is in the mirror."

He flicked his wand toward a box sitting on his desk and mirrors began to fly out of it onto the desks in front of each student. "This morning I distributed enough anchors around the school for you each to try scrying. I gave some to prairie elves to carry about, or left them in busy parts of the building or grounds that might have things going on. I'd like you to each cast the spell and observe what you can see in your mirror. Once the spell is cast, you can circle your wand clock-wise to zoom out or counter-clockwise to zoom in closer to the anchor. See if you can figure out where your anchor is and what is going on around it."

"Play around with it and get accustomed to how to change your views. You will also notice that you can hear what is going on if you are zoomed in close enough. To end the spell, just use a finite incantium. After ending the spell, you may trade mirrors with your neighbor and try again, if you'd like to see a different part of the school."

OOC: You all know how this works, so have fun spying on students and teachers in other classes, people hanging out in the library during a free period, or seeing what the elves and ghosts of the school are up to. Feel free to write for the elves and ghosts, but be wary of God-Modding other characters. If you do spy on other people, either use your own other characters, be vague about either who is there or what they are doing, or spy on a posted thread that could be taking place at the same time as this class.

Subthreads:

I scry with my little eye.... by Effie Arbon, Crotalus

Discovering a secret? by Rupert Princeton, Pecari

0 Substitute Professor Thomas Belfast Advanced Lesson (6-7): Scrying 0 Substitute Professor Thomas Belfast 1 5

Effie Arbon, Crotalus

November 07, 2014 9:53 AM

I scry with my little eye.... by Effie Arbon, Crotalus

Effie was not sure what people made of her for continuing to take Defence Against the Dark Arts. She supposed it suggested either an interest in the blacker side of the arts (when learning to defend against, one usually also learnt a little of how to attack) or that she was extremely paranoid. Neither was especially true, though the latter was definitely more of a reason than the former. Whilst she hoped to have a strong, brave husband to defend her in the event of a crisis, one never knew what calamities might happen. Loyal and loving husbands could be imperiused or jinxed in an otherwise incapacitating manner. Whilst she expected her future husband to fend off common or garden intruders, those situations where he was most likely to be compromised as a fighter, leaving her to defend herself, were likely to need more than a well placed stinging hex or turning her opponent very temporarily into a canary. She had been brought up to be worth her salt as a witch and to be mildly suspicious of what others would do for money and status, so the thought that it might, at some point, be of actual practical use to her had occurred and formed part of her reasoning. However, for the most part, it was that three seemed a decent number of subjects to take and she preferred wand-work.

She listened with interest to the subject at hand, her mind fleeting briefly over the eyed-objects that might be looking down on different members of her family. Although Professor Belfast didn't specify how to create the anchor she supposed it required some kind of incantation of its own – possibly also using signum revelare. She made a mental note to read around this and to possibly write to Delphine about it. Not that she wanted to spy on her sister, of course, but she always missed her and this sounded so much more fulfilling than letters. Perhaps if they had an anchor and a scrying glass each, and they magnified the views, they could conduct a conversation as if they were using the Floo network. She was surprised that sets of such instruments were not, to her knowledge, readily available. She supposed it could be due to their possible misuses, or maybe the whole thing was much more complicated than she imagined. She was keen to look into it – perhaps she had just stumbled upon the idea of the century. Imagine the convenience of having a device by which one could conduct a real time conversation but which was small enough to carry in one's pocket! It would be quite the thing (and, she thought smugly, she would like to see Muggles come up with something to rival that!) She was brought back to the present by the amulet as it was passed around, feeling a little uneasy as she took it and wondered what things it had witnessed... This was followed by the box of mirrors and she took one, resigned to the fact that Delphine would have to wait, as she would be following a prairie elf in its daily chores for the time being.

“Signum revelare,” she cast, moving her wand in an anti-clockwise circle over the looking glass. The movement was always more awkward than a clockwise one, that being the natural way one moved, but she'd met enough exceptions to the rule over the years to be able to make a passably neat circle. An image rose to the surface of the mirror but then seemed to fall away again. It came in and out of focus; blue, brown and grey rippling over the surface before fading out completely.

“Signum revelare,” she tried again, making sure to encircle the mirror completely whilst trying to keep the movement clean and steady. At first she thought she had failed again, as she could see nothing but a brown blur flicking across her screen. However, just as she was about to cancel the spell, it moved, revealing itself to have been an obstruction in front of the lens rather than a fault with her casting. The shiny wooden surface of a table appeared, occupying most of her vision, with the top of a bookshelf peering up behind it. She hadn't automatically assumed that she would recognise the location, as she was sure the elves had business in many parts of the school that she never saw, such as the kitchen or the linen store, and this didn't really give her a lot to go on. Before she could try to work it out further, the brown object reappeared and she turned her attention to that puzzle instead. She had a bit more time to make sense of it, and this time made out that it was comprised of feathers. Owls didn't move that way though, the thing was flicking back and forth. It moved further across the table and she saw a little elfen hand on the very edge of the mirror, grasping a handle. A feather duster! Now the only mystery was where the elf was dusting... Obligingly, it finished the table it was on at that point and turned away, revealing a grand room lined with bookshelves and housing many plush sofas and a fireplace. She gave a little gasp of excitement. Given the blue and black colour scheme, she thought she knew exactly where she was looking.

“So, this is the Aladren Common Room,” she smiled, rather pleased that her elf was allowing her to see in somewhere normally forbidden to her.

13 Effie Arbon, Crotalus I scry with my little eye.... 238 Effie Arbon, Crotalus 0 5

Rupert Princeton, Pecari

November 24, 2014 2:29 PM

Discovering a secret? by Rupert Princeton, Pecari

Rupert was feeling terrible. He’d let his team down as captain and all the practises and preparation he’d put into it hadn’t blossomed into anything. There was still next year for him to redeem himself, but what good was another year if he could hardly do his best now? He would have to work harder, but before he started drawing out a summer schedule to follow, he allowed himself a mourning period. It was disappointing, losing, but he had learnt a valuable lesson. Being confident in one’s abilities and one’s team did not always mean one would win. It was a humbling experience as captain, a mistake he would not make again, and he had been granted another year to prove it. Though he was down now, he would eventually rise out of his slump. After all, he still had the ball to look forward to.

It seemed as though his brother wasn’t having the best of luck with dates. Poor Leo had decided not to go, convincing everyone that he didn’t enjoy balls despite how the wizard had seemed to look forward to going with Nellie. It was too bad for Leo that she’d been asked by someone else. Adam had the opposite problem according to what Rup had heard, but he’d eventually asked someone on the team. Rupert didn’t know what Adam’s intentions were, but he was nevertheless glad to see some amiable relationships on the team at the very least. He just hoped it wouldn’t become a distraction next year or cause any rifts, particularly on Annette’s end. It was no secret that the twins were exceptionally attached.

Now that one dream was dashed, Rupert dreamt often of the ball. More nightmares, really, where he would arrive and find Wendy dancing with Carter, or discover his tangerine-coloured suit jacket was attached to his hanger, or he’d suddenly forget how to dance and embarrass himself and Wendy on the dance floor. It left him with unpleasant feelings in the morning and Rupert had taken to doing some exercises and stretches before class to shake those thoughts away.

Defence was the sort of class Rupert hadn’t expected to enjoy, but he was glad he had decided to stay. The Advanced class was much more interesting than the others despite his reservations toward theory. DADA at Sonora, it seemed, was causing professors to re-examine their career paths as so many had come in and out during Rupert’s six years at the school. Professor Belfast was new, and had only just come in during the midterm. It was unfortunate that DADA seemed to suffer so, but Rup hoped his former professors were finding something more worthwhile than teaching.

Today’s class seemed geared more towards the seventh years, but it was only understandable with their RATS to prepare for. Rupert was initially confused by the words on the board, this being a Defence class and not Divinations, but Professor Belfast made it clear quickly. He wrote down the assignment to do later today in the library after his exercises. Though the Quidditch season was over, he couldn’t allow himself to become lazy. When the amulet came around, Rupert regarded it curiously, wondering if these sorts of objects were popular among the pure-bloods. He had never seen his parents handle one, and there had never really been a reason for them. There were enough protection spells guarding the estate that scrying wasn’t necessary. However, one could possibly be hiding up in the attic for all he knew.

He took the mirror eagerly, curious to see where his amulet was stationed. He pointed his wand at it, hoping the anchor was at a solid position and hadn’t fallen to the ground. “Signum revelare.” An image appeared, but it was blurry. He turned his wand clockwise and counter-clockwise, attempting to make the image clearer. It took several attempts turning his wand this way and that, but eventually he could make out familiar students and blank walls. It was a corridor, a busy but unexciting location for an amulet, with doors leading somewhere in the corner of the mirror. He kept his eyes on the doors, waiting for someone to go through or come out of them, and when they finally did he caught a glimpse of books and warm light. This was the corridor leading to the library. He was somewhat disappointed, however, having hoped for a bit more exciting venue.

The corridor emptied out and it was dull watching walls. He would have liked to see the pitch even if there weren’t any practises currently on, or another class or one of the MARS room. After a minute, Rupert got his wish for movement when a house-elf came into view, walking with arms full of cleaning supplies. A ghost leapt out of the wall then and screamed in the house-elf’s face before cackling as it disappeared. The poor creature dropped all of the supplies he had been holding and shrieked simultaneously, an unholy sound that Rupert never wanted to hear again. He shivered, unable to decide whether he was amused by the house-elf’s priceless reaction, or angry at seeing a ghost frighten the harmless creature. The house-elf quickly gathered the supplies once again and scuttled away just as another student came by with books in his arms, this one blonde and familiar.

Rupert grinned at the sight of his brother and he zoomed in to see clearly. “Leo?” he said under his breath in surprise. He was quite certain Leo was supposed to be in class right now, but it looked as though he was skipping class to go to the library. Odd. Rup hadn’t imagined his brother ever going to the library of his own accord, much less studying. Leo looked very much alone despite the haughty look on his cherubic face and his confident stance. He dropped a book that clattered onto the floor and Rupert zoomed in to see what it was. He saw a heart scribbled out in the corner of the inside of the open textbook, with letters that had been scribbled out as well. Rupert's jaw dropped without him realising. Did Leo secretly fancy someone? If so, he hid it extremely well, but Rupert couldn't outright ask him about it without admitting he'd accidentally spied on him. Leo slipped through the library doors and the corridor was empty once again.

0 Rupert Princeton, Pecari Discovering a secret? 0 Rupert Princeton, Pecari 0 5