In my element on Defense Against the Dark Arts

Professor Pye

January 23, 2017 9:26 PM

Don’t make a sound. (Adv Defence, Years VI-VII) by Professor Pye

The sixth and seventh years in Alfie’s Defence Against the Dark Arts class had been studying non-verbal spells for a few days. He had started them off with rather simple spells which they had learned in their first years at Sonora, and had slowly graduated them to learning how to cast harder, more challenging spells silently. Today was going to be their first practical exam of sorts. It was a duelling day, and so the tables were cleared when they arrived. This was usual. What was unusual, however, was that Alfie had cast a silencing spell on the duelling area. There was still a perimeter around the centre which is where he stood to explain the day’s lesson, and he knew that the silencing spell was not the best way to catch if students were cheating, but it was good to keep their classmates off-guard. Part of knowing when and how to deflect a spell was knowing what spell was coming at you. With a silencing charm cast over them, the students (even if their partners attemped to say the spell) would be unable to know exactly what they were dealing with unless they were an expert at reading lips.

“Today we’ll be duelling with non-verbal spells,” Alfie said once the whole class had arrived. “You have all more or less mastered the task of spelling without saying anything, now I would like you to cast a jinx on your partner who will then deflect it. I have cast a silencing spell on the dulling area, if you are hurt, please send up sparks with your wand (non-verbal sparks were among some of the first non-verbal lessons he had taught) and I’ll come get you so you can go to the Hospital Wing. There is, of course, no way for me to know if you’re saying the spell or doing it properly the way the lesson is prescribed, but this is a practice for your RATs where you will be tested on your ability to cast and repeal non-verbal spells, well, non-verbally, so it only harms your RATs mark if you choose to slack off today.”

He dearly hoped all his students would behave properly. He would be leaving soon, but at lest he would be leaving them with as much knowledge as he had to impart so that they could take care of themselves in the cruel world. “You may begin.” As the students began to pair up, he hastily added. “Please remember to partner yourself with someone you haven’t worked with in awhile. If you’re used to someone’s duelling patterns it defeats the point of the exercise.” Alfie started to walk around the classroom, observing for those who would still try to say the spell and also those who successfully cast and/or deflected a spell. It would all go in that dreaded gradebook.

OOC: Regular class posting rules apply, 200 word minimum, creativity and realism gets points!

Subthreads:

Like silent raindrops fell (tag Oliver) by Clark Dill, Aladren with Oliver Ferguson II, Aladren

In my element by Araceli Arbon, Crotalus

Can I not make a sound by opting out? by Aiden O'Neil

10 Professor Pye Don’t make a sound. (Adv Defence, Years VI-VII) 30 Professor Pye 1 5

Clark Dill, Aladren

January 26, 2017 9:38 PM

Like silent raindrops fell (tag Oliver) by Clark Dill, Aladren

Clark was enjoying the silent casting unit that Professor Pye had them working on. As a second generation muggle born, or a half-blood, or whatever the heck Clark was supposed to be classified as, he was a bit limited in his casting opportunities at home, even though he was no longer subject to the restrictions against underage magic. Even something a simple as a warming spell as he walked down the street or sat in a park would make him look odd. Granted, even non-verbal spells were still going to need his wand, and that was probably the oddest bit, but it was decidedly less odd than holding a wand while speaking Latin.

Today's lesson was short on lecture, which wasn't surprising given that there wasn't much more to tell them; the class mostly just needed practice at this point to strengthen their new skill. Dueling upped the stakes from the rote repetition they'd done previously, and Pye did seem to like throwing them into duels on a regular basis. Clark started to gravitate toward John, but then the Professor specified partnering criteria. There was no way Clark could claim he wasn't very familiar with John's dueling patterns, or Lena's for that matter.

Even with this restriction, though, there were any number of other people in the class that Clark could work with that he actually liked. He'd deemed Jake a friend as of the Aladren-Pecari match at the beginning of the year, though they didn't work together much in class. Chaslyn was like . . . he wasn't sure what Chaslyn was like, but they had a lot of overlap in their activities and classes, both being in quite a lot of them, and he liked her well enough, and worried about her some even though they were not officially friends as Jake now was. Araceli, too, had become something of a Person He Thought Highly of But Wasn't Actually Friends With. He respected Joella as a fellow captain, and Makenzie was sort of maybe Lena's friend so he liked her by default and Scarlett was nice to him on the occasions when they ended up sitting next to each other. He knew Aiden from being Prefects together, and he was a nice guy. Then there was Olivier, who was his girlfriend's brother, which might have been awkward (and had been, a bit, right after they started dating), but Olivier was always perfectly nice to Clark now, and spending a lesson working with him for a change instead of his twin might be a good thing.

Somehow, though, it was none of these people that Clark found himself addressing.

"Oliver," he said to his roommate tersely. He was already holding his wand, and his knuckles were white with the effort of not pointing it at the other Aladren yet. "Shall we duel?" It was maybe the first voluntary sentence he'd shared with his roommate since first year.

Clark really wanted to hex him, though, so it was unavoidable.

1 Clark Dill, Aladren Like silent raindrops fell (tag Oliver) 277 Clark Dill, Aladren 0 5

Araceli Arbon, Crotalus

January 27, 2017 7:59 AM

In my element by Araceli Arbon, Crotalus

Araceli was acing this module. Two and a half years at a school for those suffering with speech and language disorders would do that for you. Non-verbal spells were a core part of CASSMA curriculum, studied from year one, as for some students they were the most viable way of casting any kind of magic. In every wandwork class they studied the verbal, the signed and the non-verbal spell. Sure, she mostly hadn’t needed them, but they were all encouraged to try all the variants, and she’d practised both signed and non-verbal spells diligently, easily able to picture herself freezing up in stressful situations. When she’d first come back, she’d sometimes used the signs under the table, for any spells where she knew it. It had been comforting.

She had tried to sit with Makenzie as much as possible in this class, and towards the back, so as to be less noticeable. These behaviours weren’t unusual for her, so it probably hadn’t attracted extra attention. The first few times they’d done each new spell, she’d pretended not to be able to. But she found that, unlike Delphine, she couldn’t half do it. Her sister had been able to do deliberately weak attempts at the spells, to pass for someone just learning them, but she found she was either on or off. At least, when it came to spells she already knew. Should they come to work on spells that she’d never done non-verbally, she was sure she’d be appropriately bad.

She didn’t really relish the thought of the duel, for all sorts of reasons. It wasn’t something that was not naturally very like her to do, and it was also a public performance of a sort. She weighed up her options… She could ace it with an easy spell, fake it and take the hit, or try a spell above their current difficulty level, at which point she probably would produce a suitably weak result. She was fairly sure that when someone tried to hex her, she’d put a shield up almost as a reflex, and there was no real point fighting that.

She waited for someone to find her, seeing as she couldn’t really get away with partnering Makenzie, and entered the ring when it was their turn, wand drawn and ready. She bowed to her partner - just because she didn’t like duelling didn’t mean she didn’t know how to do it properly and politely - and levelled her wand taking a defensive stance, eyes trained on their hand. It didn’t really matter what they sent her way. The basic shield charm was the same for everything at this level, and her reflex on seeing them aim at her was probably going to be faster than her ability to analyse which particular movement they’d made. As soon as she saw them move to cast something, she did likewise.

Protego. Subconsciously, she definitely thought of it as casting not thinking the spell and perhaps that was a key difference, along with having had the chance to practise from a much earlier age than some other students. Her shield spread in front of her before their spell hit.

She had her counter-spell in mind, ready to flick it across as a single, quick extension of the movement she made to dispel her shield. She had known, stepping in, that she was not going to let someone beat her down just for the sake of keeping a low profile. For one thing, after her poor performance in Care of Magical Creatures, her reputation probably needed a little bit of management, lest people start saying she wasn’t a good enough witch. But really, deep down, she was hungry for the chance to actually win for once. To come out on top. She couldn’t think of a single time in life when she’d felt that she had the chance to do that.

Flipendo, she cast, focussing on the feeling that magic gave her. Magic, to her, had never been something you said, it was something you were and something you did. Words were a sort of conduit. One that she had never sat particularly comfortably with. She liked her wand. She trusted it, the way she would few people. All she had to do was make the magic flow through it.

She had chosen the knockback jinx for a number of reasons. Firstly, it was a low enough level spell that it was reasonable for it to be within her capacity. Certainly, the fact that she was most likely doing it flawlessly might surprise a few people, but at least she was only casting basic jinxes without her voice. Secondly, it wasn’t too painful without being too silly. She didn’t actually like inflicting pain on others, but things like the bat bogey hex or jelly legs were just childish, and she would have felt stupid producing such things in an advanced class. The knockback jinx was simple but also clean and effective. She held her wand ready, just in case they came back at her with something else, but she wasn’t particularly expecting them to stay on their feet, unless they were very good at jumping out of the way.

13 Araceli Arbon, Crotalus In my element 290 Araceli Arbon, Crotalus 0 5

Aiden O'Neil

January 28, 2017 10:54 AM

Can I not make a sound by opting out? by Aiden O'Neil

Aiden really wasn’t sure why he had joined Defense Against the Dark Arts for his Sixth year. He really hated this class. He hated dueling and throwing spells at people for no real purpose. Why couldn’t they just use dummies? Why did he have to go against his upbringing and morality to prove to his professor that he could throw spells? He had decided after a long discussion over his classes with his parents during the break that he would not be taking Defense Against the Dark Arts in his Seventh year. He just didn’t like to do it. He had already dropped Potions because he was terrible at it and although he wasn’t terrible at Defense, it was causing him a moral dilemma regarding dueling.

Considering Aiden was a Pureblood and he knew several other Purebloods who actually found sport in Dueling, he took this to mean that is was simply his Teppenpaw traits that were keeping him from really enjoying something that others seemed to have no issue with what so ever.

Aiden anxiously looked around at his classmates to figure out who would be the best person to work with on this lesson. He didn’t want a partner that would do their worst to him because he would only be spending his time deflecting and nothing else. His obvious choice would have been Lena because he knew her, but if they weren’t supposed to work with people they worked with before, he wasn’t sure if she was an option. It looked like Oliver and Clark were partners (thankfully), so those two were out. He thought Joella was too competitive, so he wasn’t inclined to be her partner. John was too smart for Aiden… This left the girls. Araceli was a no, ever since second year, she rubbed him the wrong way and he avoided her. Makenzie was a mystery and so, she could have been as ruthless as Oliver was likely to be. That left his girlfriend’s twin and other relation.

Could he just quit now? He’d much rather do that than have to duel anyone.

He was contemplating his next move when someone decided to approach him first. He went into panic mode because this definitely meant that he was going to have to have a partner for dueling in the lesson and it wasn’t one that he was prepared to duel. This could end very badly for him. What if he hurt them? Then Aiden would be a jerk for hurting them. But what if Aiden became hurt? Then Aiden would look weak in front of people and also look as though he didn’t know how to properly send off spells. He just didn’t want to do this at all!

Although he was panicking on the inside, Aiden gave his classmate a smile, “We’re having to do another duel.” He said to make conversation. “It feels like that’s all we do these days, doesn’t it?”

((OOC:I took my class list from the OOC board under the sign ups. Araceli wasn’t there, but she posted. If there are others who are not signed up and posted, Aiden would have an internal struggle with having to duel them as well))

6 Aiden O'Neil Can I not make a sound by opting out? 287 Aiden O'Neil 0 5

Oliver Ferguson II, Aladren

January 28, 2017 3:49 PM

Stinging rain that is. by Oliver Ferguson II, Aladren

Despite his love of learning, Oliver was ready to graduate. He felt he had gone just about as far as he could at Sonora and was squeezing any last drop dry. Any other learning he needed or wanted to do, he would have to do on his own, with access to resources he didn't have at Sonora. Especially given current emphasis on reviewing material for RATS which the Aladren was pretty sure he didn't need. He spent most of his time learning all material backwards and forwards, not wasting time with things like socializing and joining clubs. Doing what mattered rather than frivolous things.

It didn't help that he was smarter than all of his classmates. They needed to review, he didn't and he wasn't exactly the most patient about it all.

Oliver perked up slightly, though he didn't show it of course, when Professor Pye mentioned non-verabal dueling. First of all, the fact that it would be silent and he wouldn't have to deal with the irritating sounds of his classmates existing. Second of all, it was something that was at least a little new and different as they'd been working on non-verbal spells for only a few days. Oliver of course had been practicing though.

Of course, the drawback of dueling was having to actually interact with one of his classmates instead of working alone. One could not duel themselves which meant Oliver had to decide who to work with. He quickly eliminated the girls, as he had just enough chivalry in him to think dueling a female was wrong. Honestly, they had no business even being in this class even if he wasn't sure how much of a lady some of these girls really were despite their last names. Makenzie played Quidditch-and had a bit of the criminal element in her family-Scarlett was a Pecari, and Joella was a Quidditch playing Pecari.

He was also faced with a challenge to find someone whose dueling style he didn't know at all, as while Oliver didn't work with certain people much, he made an effort to learn this about everyone as much as possible.

Before he could make a choice, however, he found himself approached by his roommate. Oliver was about to tell Clark to shove off, but then realized exactly what an opportunity he'd been given.

"Certainly." The seventh year replied, giving his roommate a smile devoid of anything resembling warmth or friendliness. Oliver quickly threw up a shield and preceded to aim a Stinging Hex at Clark.

This was going to be the most fun he'd had in years.

0 Oliver Ferguson II, Aladren Stinging rain that is. 0 Oliver Ferguson II, Aladren 0 5