This seems like the safest option (tag Nathaniel) on Defense Against the Dark Arts

Professor Daniel Nash

March 03, 2018 10:15 PM

Beginners, on your guard by Professor Daniel Nash

Daniel looked out over the Beginner class sternly. He had several reasons to be concerned. The first was that the rumors of the troublemakers in Intermediates were growing rampant and he'd begun to hear from some of his co-workers there was apparently a copycat prankster in Beginners now. This was not a good class for people to be goofing off in, and he hoped whoever it was understood that.

The second concern was sitting in the third row back, wearing a tiara of all things on her head today. He was not looking forward to having his half-sister yell at him later for letting other kids shoot disgusting curses at her baby, but defending yourself from bad things was kind of the definition of the class he was teaching.

And thirdly, there was going to be a lot of nastiness in today's classroom if the second years weren't good at their shielding charms.

"Alright," he began, once the trickle of students into the room eased off and everyone had settled into a seat. "Today we start the dueling unit. As some of you may know, Sonora does have a Dueling club, so if you enjoy this sort of spell casting, check your House bulletin board for the next meeting date and come to join us in the MARS Sports Room. I am the adviser for it, and so you will get to learn additional techniques and spells not covered in the base curriculum, as well as reinforce the ones that are."

He took a breath and paused a moment, allowing a moment for transition as he moved from advertising to teaching. "For today, we will begin very basically." He paused again, this time for the foreign students, as he forced his verbose nature to take a step back and state the plan in a very straightforward manner. "First years will do a simple jinx. Second years will defend."

He pointed his wand at the board and the chalk rose up and began to write: First Years: Nasal Mucus Jinx, colloquially known as "Curse of the Boogers" or "Curse of the Bogeys" The last phrase was only rarely used on this side of the Atlantic, but the Europeans who were taking the class might need to know it in the future by that term, so he included it.

At the same time, he repeated what the chalk was writing aloud. "First years will be casting the Nasal Mucus Jinx. This is a very easy attack spell that causes your target to sneeze once and eject a lot of nasal mucus from their nose. As it simulates a function the human body is perfectly capable of doing on its own, it does not require a lot of magical power to achieve, so your wand motion is nothing more than pointing the tip in the direction of the person you wish to curse. The incantation is," he paused a moment, this time in regret that this was a thing he was required to teach people. Clearly it had been invented as a prank by some precocious teenager who was looking for a laugh. If it had been Latin, or even pseudo Latin, that would be one thing; even something in English like the 'point me' spell would have been fine. But no, Daniel was not that lucky. He sighed, and began the sentence over with deeply harbored resentment and a little bit of embarrassment. "The incantation is 'achoo.'" If it wasn't such an easy curse to master, he was sure it would have never made it onto the curriculum, but it was, and so it was the primer for offensive magic for beginners.

"Second years, you will attempt to protect yourself from being forced to sneeze. In case you are not able to do so," he waved his wand again and send small travel packages of tissues to each desk where a second year was sitting. "There are more at the front if you need them," he added in a tone the strongly implied that he dearly hoped they wouldn't. "Your spell," he continued, as the chalk rose up and added, Second Years: The Shield Charm, Protego to the board beneath the spell for the first years, "is the Shield Charm, also known by its incantation, Protego. This spell creates a magical barrier that can deflect most jinxes and hexes, including the Nasal Mucus Jinx. Protego is actually an intermediate level spell, but if you say the name of the spell you are protecting against, it does become much simpler to cast effectively, so you will be casting 'Protego Achoo' today." He flinched slightly at the verbal indignity of this lesson. "You also just need to point your wand in front of you. The barrier will spread out in front of where the tip is pointing, with that as its center point. I recommend holding it high enough that you know it will protect your nose. As you get older and better at this, the radius will grow and may even cause your opponent to get thrown backwards if they are standing close enough when their hex is repelled. At this level, however, I don't expect anything like that to happen. Still, be sure to have some distance between you as you practice."

"All right, pair off first years with second years. If there is an uneven number, some of you may work in teams of three and take turns. First years, point at your partner and say Achoo. Second years, point your wand in front of you and say Protego Achoo. Begin."

OOC: The Curse of the Bogeys was mentioned in Philosopher's Stone, but no details were given, so I have made them up. The lesser form of Protego is also made up, and builds off the theory that shorter forms of spells are more difficult postulated in Charms. Remember to follow site rules: no writing for other characters, 3rd person past tense, 200 word minimum, pg rating. For those new to the site, remember fuzzy time is in effect and all classes posted take place at different times in your character's life, so you may post at all of them if you wish (though you don't have to). Your House earns house points for your posts in class, though, so it's recommended to at least make it to some. As a rule of thumb, it can usually be assumed that classes posted after other classes take place later in the year if it's not specifically declared otherwise. Any questions, post them on the OOC board or catch me in Chatzy (I've been going by Jozua Sparks lately). Tag Daniel if anything dangerous occurs in your post. He will attempt to defuse it before anyone gets seriously hurt.

Subthreads:

This seems like the safest option (tag Nathaniel) by Dorian Montoir, Teppenpaw with Nathaniel Mordue, Teppenpaw, Professor Daniel Nash

Here's to childishness. by Tatiana Vorontsova, Pecari with Heinrich Hexenmeister, Aladren

Defenses up! by Gary Harper, Aladren with Michael DiCaprio - Pecari

1 Professor Daniel Nash Beginners, on your guard 130 Professor Daniel Nash 1 5

Dorian Montoir, Teppenpaw

March 03, 2018 10:59 PM

This seems like the safest option (tag Nathaniel) by Dorian Montoir, Teppenpaw

Dorian took a seat in defence with a heavy heart, which more or less how he always felt in this class. He hated it. It was violent and scary and full of things that he did not want to happen to him. However, it was doubly depressing because he regarded it very much as a practical life skills course. Matthieu rarely used magic on him in his bullying, because he knew that it increased the likelihood that Dorian would have to go to their parents to sort out the results, and that would get him in trouble, not only for picking on his little brother but also because it was, technically, illegal. Purebloods often had a rather more casual attitude to magic in the home, but Matthieu knew not to push his luck too far. Dorian was dreading the year after next, when his brother would be of age.

He always tried to sit with his friends to mitigate the horror, although sometimes when they had to do spellwork they were required to pair with older students. Or, he supposed now that they were the second years, younger ones. He was the type of person who stuck closely to those he knew anyway, but he didn’t mind branching out so much in other classes. In Defence, or if he sensed Charms was going to involve doing things to another person, he only ever sat with Jehan, Vlad, Ruby, or Tatya, in that order of preference. Jehan first because… well, he was Jehan. Vlad and Ruby were pretty much a joint second. They were both nice and gentle, and he couldn’t imagine either of them ever wanting to hurt someone else. He had a slight preference for Vlad both because he knew him better and because he felt somewhat worse about shooting hexes as girls, as it seemed very ungallant behaviour - the one general downside of his strategy was having to jinx his friends, which he really didn’t like. Tatya was last because, whilst he knew she would never hurt him on purpose, she could get carried away and over-enthusiastic about things. In most cases, this was a quality he valued in her - it was hard not to fall for her infectious enthuasiasm when she was in a good mood - but it could be a bit much when the context was being on the receiving end of a jinx. He tried to sit with her more in other classes to make up, so that she wouldn’t feel unloved.

The day’s lesson did not thrill him. The curse sounded less than painful, at least, though a little on the embarrassing side, but that was not the main issue. Today was one of Those Sorts of Days, where they had to mix grades and pair up with first years, which meant working with a complete stranger. He gave a woebegone look to the friend next to him, sliding out of his seat to look for a new partner. Some people might have told him it was silly to be scared of the first years, but he was pretty sure Matthieu had been an absolute c*****d since… well, as long as Dorian could remember. He didn’t remember a time when Matthieu hadn’t picked on him. The closest he came were vague recollections of Matthieu coming home in a temper from nursery school and kicking all of Dorian’s crayons across the room and feeling surprised about it, whereas now he’d regard that as getting off lightly…. Anyway, the point was that the fact they were first years, and it was only a minor sounding hex, didn’t mean that whoever he partnered wasn’t going to be a vile little toerag who tried to find a way to make this a painful or humiliating experience.

He decided to hedge his bets by going for a Teppenpaw. He had been tempted last year to give a free pass on ‘probably not dangerous’ to everyone in his house, until he had found out that the boy who ran the duelling club was a Teppenpaw. That had rather put him off. Between this and the fact that Jehan, an Aladren, was the kindest and sweetest person he knew, Dorian realised that you couldn’t fully rely on house trends to guide you to what a person was like. However, as he was having to pick blind - and as he was sure that Jehan was really something rather special and unique - his own house seemed the safest place to start. He had been meaning to get to know his and Vlad’s next door neighbour too. He had noticed that he didn’t have a roommate. Some could see that as an advantage, of course, but perhaps the boy was lonely. And, assuming that he was the right sort, and nice enough, Dorian couldn’t see any issue with encouraging him to come and hang out with him and Vlad, if that was the case. He made his way over and smiled politely.

“Good afternoon,” he greeted the other boy. “I am Dorian. Uh, Dorian Montoir of the Quebec Montoirs,” he added. It had been a while since he’d needed to introduce himself properly. “Would you like to be partners?”

13 Dorian Montoir, Teppenpaw This seems like the safest option (tag Nathaniel) 1401 Dorian Montoir, Teppenpaw 0 5

Nathaniel Mordue, Teppenpaw

March 05, 2018 10:37 PM

I take it you aren't a legilimens. by Nathaniel Mordue, Teppenpaw

Defense Against the Dark Arts should not, Nathaniel thought, have been a class anyone liked. For one thing, Professor Nash was kind of strict - though as much could be said of Professor Skies, and Professor Wright, though less intimidating than either of his colleagues, had not seemed very amused by whatever it was Parker Fitzgerald had done to Nathaniel’s cube in the finite incantatem lesson - and for another, the subject matter was terrifying. Was the outside world really so full of Dark witches and wizards that every single person needed to have a whole class dedicated, for at least five years, to learning to defend oneself against them? Nathaniel knew there were bad people in the world - his father was one of them - but there was a difference between just being a selfish horrible person and being the subject of this class.

All that made it logical to want to be somewhere else, but Nathaniel didn’t. At first, he had eyed the subject matter with uneasy fascination, but then the uneasiness had gradually started to fade, to the point where he sat up a little straighter in interest when Professor Nash announced that they were starting the dueling unit today. Dueling was a useful skill - he couldn’t imagine anyone casting a slight on Sylvia’s or his mother’s honor, of course, which would be the traditional use for the skill, but if the legions of all evil were on the loose in America the way the existence of this class implied they were, it was just practical to know how to protect his family better than other people knew how to attack them.

Because of this, he made note of Professor Nash’s advertisement for the dueling club. Additional techniques sounded like things to learn, plus they would help him make better marks.

After that lead-in, he had to admit that the Curse of the Boogers sounded...slightly anticlimactic, though he couldn’t deny that he was also glad he was the one who was going to try to put it on someone and not the person the receiving end. Sneezing would slow someone down for a minute even if there wasn’t the issue of what…’a lot’ of of snot was. It sounded like something that would make someone at least look very foolish.

The Shield Charm was not meant for first years, even in its easier form, but Nathaniel carefully wrote down what Professor Nash had to say about it anyway. Maybe he could practice later in his room - though where would he get the jinx from? Still, knowing couldn’t hurt anything, so he finished writing down his note anyway, and as a result, finished writing just after Professor Nash instructed them to pair off in first and second year teams. This helped spare him finding a partner, as he was still busy with capping his ink bottle and cleaning his quill tip and getting everything neatly put away when one of his next-door neighbors approached him.

His neighbors had posed something of a problem for Nathaniel. On one hand, much of the point of school was getting to know people and make connections and whatnot. On the other hand, it seemed somehow disrespectful to approach the older students and address them before they addressed him. Therefore, Dorian Montoir taking the initiative and proposing to partner with him suited Nathaniel well, and he smiled as he stood.

“Yes, thank you,” he said, a more or less automatic response to an invitation. “I’m Nathaniel Mordue, of the Oregon Mordues - nice to meet you.” He smiled again as he recognized the incongruity of saying he was pleased to meet someone who he was about to place a hex on, or try to. “Though it might be nicer somewhere else,” he added. “I’ve never done this before - are there any rules about how we stand, or when we start?” he asked, thinking it would also be rude to just start hexing an older student without so much as trying to show a little deference to Dorian’s superior experience here.

Once that was settled, Nathaniel had to try not to laugh at the slightly ridiculous feel of the situation - here they were, total strangers, and he was about to try to hex the other person! His mouth twitched noticeably and he gave Dorian an apologetic glance. "Sorry," he said. "It just - seems really strange to try to curse someone when we've just been saying hello. Ready?" Here went nothing. "Achoo," he said, pointing his wand straight at Dorian and trying to focus his whole mind on just that word.

16 Nathaniel Mordue, Teppenpaw I take it you aren't a legilimens. 1412 Nathaniel Mordue, Teppenpaw 0 5

Tatiana Vorontsova, Pecari

March 06, 2018 12:00 AM

Here's to childishness. by Tatiana Vorontsova, Pecari

Dueling was not, at home, something Tatiana thought she would ever use. She was, after all, a girl, which meant that someday she would be a woman, which meant she would never get to do much of anything interesting enough to end in a duel at all.

Over the summer, Mama had gone to some pains to talk a lot about this - not about dueling specifically, or even about Tatiana specifically, but about the duties and obligations of a proper grown-up Russian lady. Tatiana blamed Rodya. Anya was already seventeen, but a young man was a much more significant step toward adulthood. If she married him, Anya would in an instant lose the right to be Anya in private and only a proper grown-up Russian lady in public - as a wife, she would be expected to devote her life to her husband and, later, to their children. The more Mama talked about how love for the family must mean giving up giving up one’s own interests, the more Tatiana had really hoped never to grow up.

This, of course, was impossible, unless she died, which she did not really want to do either. She tried to take what comfort she could in the thought that she did not have to grow up just yet. At Sonora, she might not even ever have to grow up - she could hardly, after all, marry any of the boys here, they were not Russian, so what did it matter if they thought her unladylike? She was pleased, in a way, to hear it was the start of the dueling unit just because it was such an unladylike thing to do, and yet the girls were expected to do it right alongside and as well as the boys.

Pr - oh - oh - tay - go ahchoo, Tatiana sounded out in her head. She was not overly pleased with having to take the passive role - this was something Mama would probably approve of a girl knowing, and plus, she couldn’t say she’d rather have a snotty nose if the choice was between having one and giving one. Still, the idea of performing a spell almost as well as an Intermediate student now, when it wasn’t even midterm, appealed to her, too - she still had bursts of accidental magic from sheer frustration with how hard it was to enunciate some of the incantations, though not so bad as it had been in her first year. Now, though, it was imperative that she get it right, lest she look incompetent in front of one of the first years.

Finding one, she smiled. Diamond stud earrings sparkled in her ears, but she had removed her usual necklaces in anticipation of a vigorous class. “Hello,” she said, her English clearly Russian-accented even on a single word. “I am Tatiana, a second year. You are a first year? You need partner?”

16 Tatiana Vorontsova, Pecari Here's to childishness. 1396 Tatiana Vorontsova, Pecari 0 5

Dorian

March 06, 2018 7:21 AM

No, and I hope never to meet one by Dorian

“Nice to meet you,” he echoed politely and reflexively. That bit was simple enough. There was a pause a fraction longer than might have been considered normal before he smiled at Nathaniel’s subsequent comment, and added, “Yes, probably.” He took it that Nathaniel also was not a fan of cursing people, which was definitely an encouraging sign. He was acutely aware of taking time to process the other boy’s remarks and wondered whether to apologise for his English, but reassured himself that he was managing, and he should probably save that for the point at which he was truly messing up.

“Uh… I suppose… as if we duel?” he stated vaguely. “Enough space to both make spells, and for having… time. I have time to do once I see that you say it. I can say ‘time of reaction’?” he queried, translating literally and pretty sure that wasn’t correct. “Sorry, I have bad English sometimes,” he added, giving into the impulse to apologise for himself. Even though it was self-evident that he was not a native speaker, he felt the need to get it out of the way, almost as an introductory remark. He would apologise, the other person would reassure that it was fine really, and then they could go about their interaction with a lot less self-consciousness on his part, because he knew he had apologised and been forgiven for his inevitable linguistic clumsiness. “And then, when we feel ready,” he shrugged.

He stepped back, putting an appropriate distance between himself and Nathaniel, catching the other boy’s smile and returning it.

“Yes,” he agreed, “I not sure they covered how to do this politely in my etiquette class,” he smiled. “I suppose at least I don’t try to curse you, so there is no need for me to feel ungallant. Nor you really - you only follow orders.”

He tried to think through what he was doing so it felt clear in his head… Protego ashoo- no, achoo, his brain naturally wanted to turn the ‘ch’ into a ‘sh’ sound. ‘Ch’ was a tricky one for him, because it didn’t exist in French. It… sort of existed in Chinese. It was subtly different to the English ‘ch’ but close enough that he could pronounce the sound well when he concentrated. He was just more used to letting his accent soften it. It normally didn’t matter. But it did now, and so he tried to think as much in English or Chinese, and as little in French as possible. It was easier, it being an English word, he just had to focus…

He took a tissue out of the pack and tucked it into his sleeve so it was easily available, should he need it.

“Ready,” he confirmed. He watched Nathaniel closely, keeping an eye out for when he was about to cast, because he wasn’t sure he could keep a shield up for very long even if he did manage one.

“Protego achoo!” he cast, as the other boy’s wand came up, holding his own high so that anything he produced would be in line with the attack. It was the sort of spell that suited him, much more than something like finite which had required an authoritative air that he simply could not manage. He very genuinely, however, wanted to shield himself from harm and embarrassment, and thus this spell played to his strengths. A wisp of a shield formed itself. It scattered like smoke in wind the second Nathaniel’s spell hit it, and Dorian even sniffed slightly, but he seemed to have saved himself from the worst of it.

“Good aim,” he complimented, because for all that he’d managed to fend him off, he thought Nathaniel had done the spell well, and Dorian was the kind to naturally try to boost others’ confidence.

13 Dorian No, and I hope never to meet one 1401 Dorian 0 5

Gary Harper, Aladren

March 06, 2018 9:39 PM

Defenses up! by Gary Harper, Aladren

Gary still liked Defense the best out of all of his classes. It felt the most like he was training to be a true adventuring wizard, ready to go smite evil and save the day. As usual, he arrived early and began working once more in his campaign notebook while waiting for the class to start. His D&D experiment was going... interestingly. Hopefully everyone else was having fun so far. That notebook was packed away quickly once Professor Nash began talking. He had heard about the dueling club, but was on the fence about checking it out. However, if it meant learning more spells for vanquishing evil, he may just have to check it out.

Once Professor Nash began the lecture, Gary found he had a difficult time keeping a straight face. He hadn't run across that particular spell in any source book he had ever read. Wait, that wasn't true now that he thought about it. There had been that third-party supplement that had come out on April 1st a few years ago. That had a similar sounding spell in it, it actually had quite a few along these lines. Dad had seemed about as enthusiastic about allowing them into his game as Professor Nash was about teaching this spell. He did have to admit, it didn't sound like a particularly useful spell; but if all you needed was a quick moment of distraction, it could be a viable option. Not many would expect it.

The spell he was to practice, did sound much more useful. Truth be told, it sounded like the good 'ol 'Shield' spell, mixed with a bit of 'Counterspell'. Both spells very nice to have in your arsenal. Now he just needed to find a partner. This was usually the hardest part of the class. He looked around to see which of the first years hadn't already paired up with someone else. It didn't take to long to find one, then it was just a matter of going up to them and talking to them. He sighed, why was this so difficult? Finally he screwed up his courage, picked up the tissues that had landed on his desk, and approached.

"Hi, got a partner yet? I'd like to know what I'm defending against, so cast away at me until you get it. I'm not going to try and counter it until then, alright?" He waved the pack of tissues with a smile, "I'll be ready for it."

2 Gary Harper, Aladren Defenses up! 1404 Gary Harper, Aladren 0 5

Nathaniel

March 07, 2018 3:40 PM

We're on the same page there. by Nathaniel

Nathaniel had noticed Dorian’s accent from the start, but couldn’t say that prepared him for the rather difficult sentence his question was answered with. It took him a moment too long, he feared, for politeness to realize that he was being asked a question in return about what it was okay to say - or how it was okay to say something - or something. He wasn’t exactly sure, which did not make him feel any less awkward about it.

“It’s all right,” he assured the older boy. “I don’t have the best...French, I’m guessing?” He’d had tutoring in modern languages, but did not think he could have gone to school in any of them. He wondered, as with Heinrich at Orientation, why it was someone from somewhere else would come to school here, but knew questions could be delicate things….

He was then surprised again by how smoothly Dorian’s sentences on the subject of etiquette and gallantry came in English, but supposed etiquette itself was a French word. He vaguely thought ‘gallant’ might be as well, actually. A lot of manners went back to France, along with food and dress and dances and many other things important to being a gentleman. Therefore it made sense that someone who spoke French more than English would have fewer troubles with the etiquette words.

“That’s so,” agreed Nathaniel when it was pointed out that he was just following orders, though it still felt peculiar. Not that feelings mattered that much. If they had, then that would have excused his father’s decision to leave them - Nathaniel assumed feelings, wanting something instead of them, had been involved in that - and the occasions when Jeremy was awful to their mother and even deviations from good manners. Plus, here, the orders did have a reason - teaching him useful things. These thoughts were enough to sober him, and he cast the spell.

Dorian’s response was swift and somewhat successful, but Nathaniel still felt a thrill of satisfaction when his shield shattered and the older boy sniffed a bit. He then felt a thrill of feeling bad about himself for the satisfaction - but not enough that he didn’t smile when Dorian complimented his aim.

“Thank you,” he said. “Good shield.” Now came a more delicate part. “Do you think we should keep practicing?” he asked. “So we can both get better at our spells?”

16 Nathaniel We're on the same page there. 1412 Nathaniel 0 5

Dorian

March 08, 2018 7:20 AM

I like to choose who I entrust my thoughts to by Dorian

“Yes,” Dorian confirmed hesitantly, when Nathaniel effectively asked if his home language was French. He was always torn when people said that kind of thing. He didn’t want to pretend that he didn’t speak any other languages, because that was both untruthful but, more importantly, because it felt disloyal to his mother. However, when the question was ‘Do you speak French at home?’ or some other similar phrasing then saying ‘yes’ was true, and it felt a little bit like showing off to say ‘and Chinese,’ even though he knew it wasn’t really - he wasn’t quite sure why people insisted on being surprised and impressed by something that was basically just an accidental byproduct of who his parents were. As they had a whole other task at hand, he decided to just leave it there, and let Nathaniel figure it out at the point at which he, Dorian, started muttering in What Sounds Like Not French, or he came across him reading a page of Really Obviously Not French at the breakfast table.

“Thank you,” he returned, “And yes,” he confirmed, when Nathaniel asked if they should keep practising. “I suppose perhaps we try to be faster? For example, not wait so much to see if the other is ready. In the real duel, I suppose you just keep firing until the other person is hit,” he proposed, sounding rather morose at that as a prospect. “Well, in the real duel, I suppose you maybe then keep going, but please stop if you do hit me.” It would be bad enough dealing with one unpleasant jinx sneeze, let alone having them constantly fired without hope of rearming one’s defences. “Ok…” he offered, resuming the stance of someone ready to fight off the inbound attack.

13 Dorian I like to choose who I entrust my thoughts to 1401 Dorian 0 5

Heinrich Hexenmeister, Aladren

March 12, 2018 10:22 PM

I am not so sure I like this by Heinrich Hexenmeister, Aladren

Heinrich was undecided on his opinion of Professor Nash. On the one hand, he talked too much and was very very wordy, with many of the things he said going completely past Heinrich's ability to understand them. On the other, he did, usually once or twice a lesson, slow down and speak simply enough to condense the entire lesson (at least so far as Heinrich could tell) into its simplest concisest form. For that, he was grateful, even as he resented all the other high level talking with the big unnecessary words.

If nothing else, Heinrich was able to grasp what he was supposed to do most days though, which wasn't something he took for granted anymore. So that was good.

What was bad was the particulars of what he was supposed to be doing today. Oh, dueling itself was fine. He was good at dueling. Or, at least, he would have been, in Germany, where the spells his parents had taught him (illegally) would have actually been taught. He'd been going to Dueling Club anyway, and struggling through the simplest American English jinxes Professor Nash and Mr. Sparks taught the youngest duelists, but he'd been doing all right. Not as good as he would have liked, of course, but not terrible.

Unfortunately, it was none of those jinxes that Nash was leading with. What was the point of going to a teacher's extracurricular club if it didn't give you a leg up on the rest of the class? No, no, no, instead of doing something cool, they were making people sneeze. By saying Achoo.

He was going to school halfway around the world for this?

Grudgingly, he looked about for a second year to partner with, and one found him pretty quickly. Fortunately, she spoke in clear easy sentences that were deeply accented, very similarly to Masha's, but infinitely easier to understand than, say, the American boy who had rattled on at him during Flying Lessons, and used all kinds of English idioms that Heinrich didn't understand.

"I need partner," he agreed, mirroring her sentence structure, though he was quite sure there should at least be an indefinite article in there. English was very forgiving in that respect; their nouns weren't gendered so everything used the same article, except a few who changed the 'a' to an 'an' and that was determined solely by the first letter of the noun, if it was a vowel, it got the N, otherwise it wasn't necessary. It was one of the few rules that English seemed to not have a lot of exceptions to. The definite article was even easier. That was just always 'the' with no exceptions at all, even when it was an accusative object rather than the sentence's subject. It had been kind of a weird thing to wrap his head around when German had so different articles depending on noun gender and usage within the sentence, but once he got that through his skull, he kind of appreciated the sheer simplicity of it. Especially since English seemed to want to complicate everything else.

"I am Heinrich," he introduced himself in return, his own Germanic accent just as heavy as her Russian one, "A first year." As much as he wanted to impress a second year, her imperfect English made him feel more comfortable in his own, so he did not feel compelled to attempt harder sentence structures that he would probably just get wrong anyway. He held up his wand and tilted his head in question. "You ready, Fräulein Tatiana?"

1 Heinrich Hexenmeister, Aladren I am not so sure I like this 1414 Heinrich Hexenmeister, Aladren 0 5

Nathaniel

March 14, 2018 8:07 PM

I wish I could control my reputation a bit better... by Nathaniel

Nathaniel found Dorian’s suggestions on how to proceed a little easier to understand than his earlier remarks and nodded in agreement. “Right,” he said. A coup de grace would, he thought, be somewhat ungentlemanly even outside of class, but maybe Dorian wasn’t talking about formalized contests, but, like...what Aurors and Dark wizards did or something. Real fighting, which was not gentlemanly and which Nathaniel therefore hoped to avoid ever doing. It was important to know how, but unless it was absolutely necessary, he did not want to lower himself in any way, ever.

When he had first started his etiquette classes as a little boy, he had regarded all the behaviors he was being taught as essential, just like learning how to feed himself was essential and necessary. Then, however, it had become apparent that not everyone felt that way about the proper way to behave - that being a gentleman was a choice. He was still stuck on one point about this - if one could just choose to follow the rules or not, then how was it that people not born to it couldn’t just...learn? - but overall, it gave him something to stand on - that he was a gentleman, an honorable person. He would do everything right - always keeping his word, avoiding lying, treating others with courtesy, defending the women in his family, being loyal.

The only thing in that list that really applied to Dorian, however, was the requirement that he be courteous, so Nathaniel made a point to remember to bow to his opponent this time, bending until the top of his curly head showed to prove he trusted Dorian to be a gentleman, too, and not hex him while his eyes were averted - a safe bet, as they weren’t angry with each other and Dorian’s role was to defend today, but still. Gestures meant a lot. Then he straightened, and they began sparring.

Going faster was a bit more of a challenge, but Nathaniel was still a bit irritated by the repetitiveness of the thing. If they kept doing this, back and forth, then no-one could clearly win, which was the whole point of sparring, wasn’t it? But no - the point here was to follow orders, not win. The conflict annoyed him -

“Achoo!” he said again, and that flash of light proceeded as he expected. The immediately-following red one, however, was not something he expected - or had asked his wand to do - at all. “What?” he said sharply, alarmed, nearly dropping his wand in surprise, and then looked at Dorian in the same emotion. “Did you see that - are you okay?

16 Nathaniel I wish I could control my reputation a bit better... 1412 Nathaniel 0 5

Dorian

March 16, 2018 10:56 AM

Aaaaand I'm bleeding by Dorian

Dorian wouldn’t have thought to bow, not spending any more time than he could help on the concept of duelling. Still, he was familiar with its customs, having grown up in a magical household, and he bowed back, only just resisting bringing his hands together as he did so, because bowing was something he was much more used to doing when in his Chinese mindset.

His first shield was the sloppiest, having been distracted by the bowing, and drifting slightly into the wrong culture and language, and having to sharply bring himself back on course. However, it turned out his desire to not be humiliated was potent enough that he was able to continually parry Nathaniel’s spells. He felt almost bad for it – it was probably rather frustrating to keep firing out the hex and never get the results, although he was sure Nathaniel would still get the credit because his spell was no worse than anyone else’s – the flashes of light, which he was tracking keenly, proved that perfectly well - Dorian’s shields were just decent, and it wasn’t really fair if Nathaniel was graded based on his partner’s level and not purely his own.

Dorian just managed to fend off a particularly strong hit from Nate, when the other boy’s wand flashed red. Dorian instinctively went to throw up a shield but didn’t have time. Nathaniel’s questions of whether or not Dorian had noticed that, and whether he was okay, were rather overshadowed by the sharp cry of pain that probably answered both of those questions decently well. The second spell had had been like being hit in the nose. He fumbled for a tissue, feeling something wet on his face and assuming he was now streaming snot in a decidedly unattractive manner. He wiped his nose, but as he lowered the tissue, he saw it was stained red.

“Maugris!” he muttered, reapplying the tissue and pinching his nose. He hadn’t seen Nathaniel utter a second spell it had just… sort of happened. And he knew that accidents sometimes did. But still, this accident had been like a punch in the nose, which really was not pleasant. He regarded Nathaniel with a mixture of confusion and mild fear.

(OOC - permission for the spell effect discussed with Nate's author. As this is part of the 'accidental magic' plot around the site, such an occurrence is unusual and would not be happening to most first years).

13 Dorian Aaaaand I'm bleeding 1401 Dorian 0 5

Professor Daniel Nash

March 17, 2018 10:14 PM

Aaaand now you're not by Professor Daniel Nash

Things were going about as well as could be expected when the assigned curse of the day involved snot. The second years were not doing awful, though enough snotty sneezes were going on around the room that Daniel concluded a thorough disinfection of the whole place was going to be absolutely necessary once this class was over. With a bad fever circulating around the school, this was probably not the ideal lesson to be teaching right now, but he was doing his best to shoot out quick cleaning spells when he noticed any snot getting on desks or other surfaces that might see higher than average amounts of people touching them.

He was just sorting out one such mess when he hear a sharp cry of pain, and spun toward the sound in time to see a bloody nose instead of snotty one on one of the second years. The damage didn't look serious - the nose appeared fine other than the blood - and Daniel's course of study at college (the second time, anyway) had drifted close enough to a medical degree that he could stop a simple nosebleed. His wand pointed toward Dorian, and a soft white flash of light flashed toward the boy, ending the bleeding, and hopefully most of the pain as well, though he wasn't a licensed medical professional with a lot of field practice, so he wasn't quite sure if he'd managed the full spell effects or not. He was just a guy who studied how medical charms worked so he could see if he could use that knowledge to help develop treatments for more psychological problems.

And even that wasn't what he ended up getting a job for. He really needed to start getting more resumes out to more research colleges again.

But that wasn't the most immediate problem on his plate right this moment. The most immediate problem was a first year Teppenpaw. Seriously, they just didn't make Teppenpaws like they used to. He frowned seriously at this particular one and crossed his arms sternly. "Ten points from Teppenpaw for being so irresponsible as to harm another student with what should have been a harmless spell." This spell should not have caused any actual physical harm. There was a miniscule chance of it causing a nosebleed as a side effect, but with the way Dorian had cried out, that wasn't what this was. It shouldn't have hurt. Which meant Nathaniel had either done it deliberately by casting a more dangerous hex on purpose, or he had done the spell seriously wrong in a way that must qualify as either incompetent (which seemed unlikely as he'd seen Nathaniel casting it just fine earlier) or reckless (if he was doing something idiotic like adding untested embellishments to it).

And with blood getting spilled, Daniel was going to have to write up an incident report about this. He hated that kind of paperwork. He supposed a few injuries were more or less expected in DADA, every now and then, but he always felt like he'd failed somehow by not preventing them. And the form was long and tedious and basically a punishment in and of itself for any teacher who got so unlucky as to have a student bleed in their class.

"Tell me what happened," he instructed, looking at Nathaniel first, but including Dorian as well, since he'd need to write out both sides of the story for the bloody incident report.

1 Professor Daniel Nash Aaaand now you're not 130 Professor Daniel Nash 0 5

Nathaniel

March 19, 2018 7:49 AM

That's the one good thing about this situation. by Nathaniel

That he had just asked a stupid question was something Nathaniel realized quickly. He didn’t recognize the word Dorian used - something-grey? Wasn’t that what ‘gris’ meant in French? - but he recognized a nosebleed clearly enough and so could draw some fairly simple conclusions about the nature of whatever it was Dorian had just said. He had even less difficulty interpreting the expression on the older Teppenpaw’s face.

“Oh no,” he said automatically. “Oh, no - oh, no, I’m so sorry - I didn’t mean to - “

He didn’t mean to what? He hadn’t done anything! His wand had just - done that itself. But how could he explain that at all, much less without sounding stupid or like a particularly useless sort of first year? But was that really worse than being thought the kind of person who went around giving people nosebleeds? Before he could make up his mind, though, there was another flash of light - this one nothing to do with his wand - and the bleeding stopped and...Professor Nash came over.

Nathaniel knew he turned red to his hairline when the professor began scolding him, equally mortified and upset by both being held in the wrong - again - and the dishonor of having lost the House points. This was not doing it right. This was all wrong. It wasn’t supposed to be like this -

“I don’t know,” he protested when asked what had happened. “I didn’t do anything - I used the spell like we were supposed to, I did that - “ he added quickly, lest he be accused of shirking his work on top of everything else - “but I didn’t do anything else! This - “ he waved his wand before realizing this was probably not helping him make his case for not being Irresponsible - of course Professor Nash would have to use the one word Nathaniel hated more than any other - and he just held it out stiffly away from himself instead, hoping the professor would just take it away from him. “It just - it just went off by itself!”

16 Nathaniel That's the one good thing about this situation. 1412 Nathaniel 0 5

Dorian

March 19, 2018 8:25 PM

Everything else is pretty awful by Dorian

Dorian nodded, as Nathaniel apologised. He seemed genuinely startled and sorry by what had happened, and Dorian was willing to chalk it up to being an accident. A small part of his mind tried to wander down the path of ‘but underlyingly what kind of person must you be when your accidents involve hitting other people in the face?’ but he quieted it down with excuses about working under speed and stress. He was about to graciously accept Nathaniel’s apology when another flash of light came speeding towards him. He flinched but he wasn’t quick enough to block it. The effect, however, seemed to be that his nose hurt considerably less, and when he looked up to trace it to the source, he saw that Professor Nash was pointing his wand at him.

“Thank you,” he said, a little awkwardly, quite conscious that there were probably a lot of people looking at him now, and that they had probably seen him flinch like a sissy. Maybe they thought he was a sissy anyway for being delicate enough to get nosebleed, or for crying out in pain over it. Proper tough wizards probably carried on duelling through that sort of minor thing. He lowered the tissue, and checked by dabbing a fresh bit against his nose. He was no longer bleeding.

He was upset that Professor Nash took ten points from Teppenpaw - seeing as that was also his house and he was the wronged party here, that just added insult to injury. He also thought it was quite unfair to do so before hearing Nathaniel’s explanation. Still, he thought, even if he had fluent English, he probably wouldn’t be able to explain any of that in a way that convinced Professor Nash. Once teachers had decided on a punishment, they tended to insist on sticking to it.

He tried to shoot Nathaniel a sympathetic look as he turned bright red and stammered his way through an explanation. Poor boy… Now that Dorian was no longer in pain, he thought the situation was probably actually worse for his classmate, who was getting pulled up by a teacher in front of everyone, although Dorian was still worried about being laughed at for being weak.

“Yes, this is true,” he backed Nathaniel up. He felt nervous enough having to speak up knowing that other people were probably listening in, and with feeling the weight of responsibility over how Nathaniel’s character would be judged resting on him. His mouth felt kind of dry and he wasn’t sure he knew the English words for anything that he wanted to say. “He is practise well. And then his wand…” Professor Nash had never given him the same permission as Jehan had, of just slipping into French when he lacked the English word, and he thought it might not be appropriate in front of a teacher. “I don’t know the word,” he mumbled, he hated ever having to admit that particular problem, however frequently it occurred, “But it’s just an accident. It not even hurt a lot. Just… surprising,” he added, trying to take advantage of any easedroppers and add a bit to the narrative that suggested he wasn’t as much of a wimp as they might be assuming.

13 Dorian Everything else is pretty awful 1401 Dorian 0 5

Michael DiCaprio - Pecari

April 05, 2018 9:13 PM

This feels a little silly... by Michael DiCaprio - Pecari

DADA was fun except for the lecture part, but Mikey felt that way about pretty much all of his classes. He didn't really have a favorite yet, but this class seemed the most useful. Well, at least if he was ever to go into battle or something. Mikey thought it would be cool to be an Auror someday, but it was also a scary job. Healing people, like his dad, was his second option, but honestly he felt more inclined to deal with trouble. At least, trouble that wouldn't get him killed.

Mikey was pretty nervous about shooting jinxes at someone else and having someone shoot jinxes at him. The Dueling Club sounded pretty cool though. He was pretty sure his brother would hate to join something like that, so that meant Mikey had to be interested in it. He wanted to join all the clubs, but also do nothing and focus on learning. It was a hard line to walk sometimes.

He covered his mouth with his hand to stop from giggling out loud at the incantation. Achoo? That was just silly. He couldn't imagine saying the spell without laughing at himself or feeling ridiculous. Mikey imagined it in his mind first and almost rolled his eyes at the vision. Maybe if he said it to himself enough it would sound more normal than it did currently.

One of his classmates approached him and Mikey felt relieved that he didn't have to search for an older student to talk to. He liked Jasmine a lot even though they didn't really talk much outside of class, but she probably had her own friends.

"Are you sure?" This guy actually wanted to experience the jinx. That was weird. "Um, okay then. Here I go." Mikey felt uncomfortable with this whole situation, but he pointed his wand at Gary and said, "Achoo," tentatively. Unsurprisingly, nothing happened. Mikey cleared his throat before trying again. "Achoo." He really hated saying this jinx. "Achoo." It was embarrassing that he had to say it so many times, so finally he said it with more confidence: "Achoo!" Something finally came out of his wand and he watched to see what Gary's reaction would be.

19 Michael DiCaprio - Pecari This feels a little silly... 1406 Michael DiCaprio - Pecari 0 5