Chaos is my middle name. [tag Jozua] on Defense Against the Dark Arts

Professor Daniel Nash

September 07, 2017 1:56 PM

Intermediates: A lesson in chaos by Professor Daniel Nash

Daniel Nash stood at the front of the DADA classroom. For the new year, he had taken over all three levels of instruction in Defense, which basically made him a full time professor, though he was technically still just substituting until someone more permanent could be found or Daniel himself landed his dream job at the college level. In the meantime, secondary education in Defense Against the Dark Arts was growing on him, and he had spent more time than he would really like to admit thinking of new and interesting lessons for the students of Sonora.

Of course, there were course standards that couldn't be avoided, and on this third Friday of the new school year, Daniel found himself writing "Dark Magic Spells" onto the chalk board at the front of the room once everyone had arrived and the roll had been called. (Having taken mostly magical courses for both of his college degrees, he did consider chalk to be the proper medium of instructional note-taking, but when the chalk snapped partway through the 'g' he did find himself idly wishing for the dry erase boards of his muggle courses.)

He absently summoned back the snapped off piece of chalk as he turned back to face the intermediate class. "Who here can tell me what the three levels of dark spells are?" He picked on someone other than Jozua Sparks, figuring the Dueling Club president had probably learned such things in his cradle.

"Yes," he reiterated after receiving a correct answer, "Jinxes are the most mild of the dark spells. Hexes cause moderately negative effects in their victims, and curses are the most severe." He added Jinx Hex Curse to the board.

"There are perfectly valid and legal reasons why good people might cast any of these, starting with dueling," he gave a nod toward Jozua in acknowledgment that this unit was doubtless going to be review for anyone who regularly attended his club, "and moving out into self defense and law enforcement. A wand is a very powerful weapon and these kinds of spells are exactly why it is considered so."

"Jinxes, on the low calibur end, tend to be mostly inconvenient rather than damaging, but anyone who's been hit with a jelly legs jinx knows that, while it doesn't hurt, you're not going anywhere under your own power until it is lifted. Others, like the biting jinx, can legitimately hurt in their own right, which does make the distinction between jinx and hex a bit blurry. Which is why this is really more of a continuum," he drew a chalk line under the three types of dark spells and ended it with an arrowhead under the word curse, "rather than discreet boxes. What they all have in common us that the do something negative to their target, though what that is can vary widely from simply repelling intruders," he tapped his chalk on the word jinx, "like every dormitory staircase here at Sonora can do if anyone tries to go up the one corresponding to their opposite gender, to actually taking someone's life, in the case of the Killing Curse." His chalk tapped on the last word as he said it.

"So what do you do if someone is shooting these kinds of spells at you? You've got a few options. First, you can dodge. Most of these kinds of spells are carried on visible streaks of light that you can see and try to get out of the way of them. They can only go in straight lines, and they will follow the trajectory of their caster's wand when the spell is released, so if they have bad aim, you may not need to do anything at all. But you should never count on that." He wrote dodge & counterattack on the board.

"A good follow-up to dodging would be a counter attack. Shoot your own jinxes and hexes right back at them, trying to disable them so you can get away and find help. If they need to tend to their own defense, that's less effort they are putting into their own attack, and if you can get their wand hand with a finger removing jinx, that's just as good as disarming them."

"Which brings us to your next option: disarming. We're going to spend a few weeks practicing the disarming charm, and there's a good reason why this is often the endpoint sought in a duel. Once your opponent looses their wand, they have usually lost the battle. This is not always the case, and you should never put your guard down just because your opponent has lost their most obvious weapon, but that's a lecture for another day." He wrote disarm beneath dodge.

"A third option is a shield charm. That will physically put up a barrier between you an negative magic coming your way, and it is a very effective measure of defense." He wrote shield beneath the others on the board. "We'll be practicing shield charms just as long as we will be working on disarming charms."

"Your fourth option is an anti jinx. This is different from a counter jinx. A counter jinx is what you use if all of this fails and you get hit anyway. The counter jinx will reverse the effects of the jinx. We'll get to counters later in this unit, but they're more of a clean up action than a defense. An anti-jinx, by contrast, prevents a jinx from having any effect in the first place. It effectively gives its target immunity to jinxes. There are limitations to that, of course, one of the more obvious being that it can only protect from jinxes not hexes or curses. And like I said, it's a continuum, so even some jinxes may get through depending on the strength of the anti-jinx. Other jinxes are specifically designed to get around anti jinxes. An anti jinx is a bit like a finite incantatum; it works for cutting off most spells, but there are exceptions. We'll learn a few of those after we cover the shield charm." He added anti-jinx to the list on the chalk board.

"For today, we're working on the first option." He jabbed his chalk at dodge/counterattack. "For third years, I've got some dummies set up along the back of the classroom and you can just work on your casting without worrying too much about dodging yet. Just keep a wary eye out from stray spells coming your way from your older classmates. Fourth and fifth years, you should all pair off and shoot fairly harmless hexes at each other and try not to let any of them hit you. I recommend jelly legs or pullus jinxes, as relatively painless options, but anything in your book is fair game as long as it's fairly painless. We're going to have a lot a jinxes flying wildly around the room, so let's keep them away from the hex side of the spectrum, all right? I don't want to be sending people up to the hospital wing. Get too it. Raise your hand if you need help with a counter jinx."

Subthreads:

Chaos is my middle name. [tag Jozua] by Lily Spencer, Pecari

Eep! (Tag Finn) by Juniper Brockert, Teppenpaw with Finn Scott, Teppenpaw

1 Professor Daniel Nash Intermediates: A lesson in chaos 130 Professor Daniel Nash 1 5

Lily Spencer, Pecari

September 19, 2017 9:15 PM

Chaos is my middle name. [tag Jozua] by Lily Spencer, Pecari

Having longer hair again was going to take some getting used to. It required brushing and some styling to keep it from looking like a rat's nest, but overall Lily didn't mind it. It was nice looking in the mirror and appreciating the more feminine look she'd been sporting recently. Looking just like her brothers had been getting old. Skirts and dresses, however, were still very much out of the question.

DADA had become one of Lily's favourite classes mostly because of Jozua's Dueling Club. She paid strict attention there because he was her best friend and best friends supported each other always. The classes themselves were interesting as well, and the practical portion always kept her on her toes. No one really talked about the dark side of magic either; the adults knew of it but never chatted about it to their children. Charms and Herbology were dull for different reasons, but also because she'd grown up with basic knowledge of those two subjects. Potions was just too difficult.

Lily walked into class and took her usual seat in the back. She knew Jozua and Professor Nash got on well, so she didn't always try to sit with him in this class lest she distracted him or, Merlin forbid, had to sit in the front.

Professor Nash's question, however, was easy and Lily found her hand up in the air. "Jinxes, hexes and curses," she replied confidently. Any pure-blood or half-blood ought to have known that from infancy simply being in the magical environment.

The rest of his lecture was surprisingly remedial for her, so she rested her head against her hand, zoning in and out. Anti-jinxes would be a helpful thing to look up later, but for now it seemed like they were simply going to be dueling.

She straightened suddenly, eyes bright. They were going to be dueling in class. Professor Nash was now her favourite prof at Sonora. Her eyes searched immediately for Jozua, and as soon as they were released to find partners, she jumped out of her seat and shot towards him before anyone else could ask. "Partners?" she asked, slightly breathless, with a big smile.

"We get to duel in class! This is so cool, isn't it?" Lily led them to a relatively open space, though it was narrow with all the desks, and readied herself. "You can go first, if you'd like," she said, grinning at him. "I'll beat you this time for sure."

40 Lily Spencer, Pecari Chaos is my middle name. [tag Jozua] 357 Lily Spencer, Pecari 0 5

Juniper Brockert, Teppenpaw

September 23, 2017 5:37 PM

Eep! (Tag Finn) by Juniper Brockert, Teppenpaw

Just because she was now a fourth year did not mean that Juniper was any more comfortable in classes full of people. She rarely went to any class but COMC without feeling sick with anxiety and Intermediates were the worst group to be in as it contained three years versus two like Beginner and Advanced. Advanced also had the advantage of not everyone taking a particular class. Plus, COMC, the class Juniper most wanted to continue usually tended to be one of the smaller ones. Transfig usually had a bit more people keeping it but the Teppenpaw needed it if she wanted to be an animagus. Plus, a Brockert dropping Transfig was pretty much unheard of.

She was also thinking of keeping Herbology, despite resenting it at first due to it taking time away from COMC her first year. Not many people continued that one either, which was the main attraction.

Defense, on the other hand, was not a class that Juniper was particularly fond of. Okay, last year when they'd wrote stories, she hadn't minded too much given that she could just sit there working on it and not interact with anyone. Of course, it had had to be done in class and even when they didn't have to interact with anyone else, Juniper always felt self-conscious so it was hard to concentrate on any in class work.

Still, it was better than what Professor Nash had planned for today. Dueling. The last thing the fourth year wanted was to have some of her classmates firing jinxes at her! What if they did harsh ones just to pick on her?

There was only one option for her and that was to work with Finn. Well, or Tasha, she supposed, but while Juniper was fond of her cousin, she liked Finn more. He wouldn't laugh at her or try to hurt her. He was the best possible person for her to work with. Juniper turned to her friend and asked. "Will you partner with me on this?"

11 Juniper Brockert, Teppenpaw Eep! (Tag Finn) 345 Juniper Brockert, Teppenpaw 0 5

Finn Scott, Teppenpaw

September 26, 2017 12:36 PM

Thinking along similar lines by Finn Scott, Teppenpaw

Finn’s summer had been largely unremarkable. He’d spent his time doing the usual things: riding with his cousins, playing with his dogs (hopefully enough to make up for going away to school so much), and attending balls. The latter was a larger part of his summer than it had been back in first year, but that too was normal. As Finn got older, his father and grandfather expected more of him. After all, he was the heir to their particular branch of the Scott family, and was almost 15.

In seemingly no time at all, the summer had been over, and it had been time to return to Sonora. That was always a mixture of excitement and sadness. As much as Finn enjoyed being at school, he was very family-oriented, and one of the ways in which this presented itself was, at times, homesickness. He often wished there was some way of staying at boarding school but still being involved in everyday family life.

However, Finn found himself mildly rethinking his ‘glad-to-be-back’ feeling when, not long into the term, he walked into the DADA classroom to find the words ‘Dark Magic Spells’ written on the board. No doubt Jozua was thrilled, but Finn couldn’t help but feel mildly alarmed. Still, it would be useful to know how to defend oneself against them. Besides, there was no way that students would be allowed to perform dark magic. Right?

Wrong. Apparently, Professor Nash thought the older students should actually practise the spells. He breathed a sigh of relief when they were told to keep to the fairly harmless hexes. That was nothing he hadn’t come across at duelling club. So long as no curses were flying about, this could actually be quite fun. Talking of Jozua, Finn decided the other Teppenpaw boy would be a good partner, and was just looking around when another partner presented herself.

This was quite a dilemma. Juniper was far from the ideal partner for this project. Finn was most definitely averse to the idea of hurling hexes at her. The thought of Juniper duelling at all wasn’t one he liked. Still, he couldn’t actually turn her down, as that would be too rude, and could hurt her feelings. At least this way he could be gentle with her, and be reassured that no one would hurt her.

“I…I suppose so?” he replied, still feeling a little torn, and then realised how that probably came across. “It’s not that I don’t like working with you,” he hastened to add. “I’d just rather not aim jinxes at you. I promise not to use nasty ones, though.”

9 Finn Scott, Teppenpaw Thinking along similar lines 347 Finn Scott, Teppenpaw 0 5

Juniper

October 08, 2017 11:37 PM

I was so not meant to do this. by Juniper

Juniper's breath got caught in her throat and her heart started to pound when Finn didn't seem all that thrilled to work with her even though he'd agreed to it. Was she losing her best-and okay, only-friend? That would make school unbearable . Their friendship and COMC were literally the only things that sustained her here. Otherwise, she didn't know if she could take it.

And who would she work with next year when Tasha was in Advanced? Tasha and Finn were literally the only people she would trust in dueling. Okay, there were probably others who were really bad at or morally objected to it but that didn't make her any more comfortable. She couldn't even say that she felt safe working with all the Teppenpaws, considering Jozua, who might otherwise be nice enough, liked dueling well enough that he'd started a Dueling club! Plus, there were the other classes to worry about too and having to work with anyone else made her stomach knot up bad enough that she wanted to vomit.

What had she done? Whatever it was, she was sorry!

So Juniper breathed a huge sigh of relief when Finn explained. Actually had she not just been internally freaking out, she might have been elated. He didn't want to hurt her and that was good especially as she was afraid others might whether it be out of being super competitive or not liking her and thus wanting to get a chance to pick on her. Some people savored the chance to make someone else miserable.

"Well, that was kind of the point. Not that I don't like working with you normally." Juniper added, just in case he would have felt like that was the only reason she wanted to work with him

"I guess we should get started." Juniper stated unenthusiastically. She didn't really like dueling and hurting people. "I don't really want to hurl jinxes at you either but this is the assignment and we have to do it. " She considered using the ducklifors jinx, because that would turn Finn into a duck and the fourth year generally didn't consider being an animal a bad thing. However, whatever she thought, others probably didn't agree.

Then there was cantis which made people sing. That sounded fairly harmless, but what if Finn didn't want to sing in public and was really embarrassed about it? Juniper would hate to be the cause of that. As being publically humiliated was one of her worst fears, she certainly wouldn't want to take a chance of being the cause of it happening to someone else, especially not Finn.

Okay, the impediment jinx. All that would do was slow him down. " Impedimenta

11 Juniper I was so not meant to do this. 345 Juniper 0 5