Yep. on Defense Against the Dark Arts

Professor Hawthorne

October 19, 2018 11:10 AM

Beginners, do you feel cursed? by Professor Hawthorne

Tabitha had mixed feelings about being back at Sonora after the Christmas break. On the one hand, she was filled with complete happiness. She was sort-of-but-not-really engaged to a wonderful woman, had a wonderfully warm tan from her time in Greece and, of course, had been excited to bring Ailuros to Sonora who appeared to be rather like Tabitha in that she enjoyed exploring the school and had a curiosity for everything. Of course, she also seemed to have a friendliness like Mary in that she enjoyed going up to any of the students that roamed the halls and ‘making friends’.

Tabitha had had few ideas of the break as to fill her time with something to do and had come up with an idea of a special session of sorts to do in collaboration with the Dueling Club. It was extracurricular and therefore, not mandatory so only the students who wanted to take part could do so. It would take a few more days but hopefully, she’d be prepared by the end of the first week.

On the other hand, she felt the unmistakable itchiness that indicated that she had been in one place too long. The holiday with Mary in Greece had been wonderful but it had reminded Tabitha of just how much she enjoyed travelling and then, subsequently, how much she missed it. While she enjoyed working at Sonora, it lacked the excitement of discovering a new creature or trekking through the wilderness. It was a tame and settled life and Tabitha felt like she was experiencing withdrawal symptoms. She needed to do something.

It was with these thoughts in mind that she had created the day’s lesson for her Beginners. She was bouncing lightly on the balls of her feet as her class started to trickle in to the classroom. All desks and chairs had been pushed to the walls at the back of the class, leaving the rest of the room free. She greeted her students with a grin, “Good afternoon, class! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas break and are well rested and eager to return to learning. Please get out your wands and leave everything else at the back of the room. Then, please form two straight lines, facing each other.”

There was a lot of movement as the Beginners followed her instructions and she waited patiently, rocking slightly on her feet. She was filled with energy and hoped that the practical lesson would help to dispel it. When everybody was ready and listening, she began to explain the lesson.

“Today, we’re going to be looking at your first set of curses and their counter-curses. The three curses I’m going to teach you today all serve in harmlessly immobilising your opponent. Not every advantage in a duel has to be gained by extreme needs. These would help you to sufficiently gain the upper hand and, in many cases, help you win a duel. They do, however, take a fair amount of concentration and you have to get your wand movements and incantations absolutely perfect. So, the first one, is the Leg-Locker Curse.”

Tabitha flicked her wand in the direction of the board behind her, making the chalk rise and begin to write. She would’ve done it herself but she needed her hands for demonstration. “In a duel, you need to be quick and agile. It is one of your best defences. If you can move quickly, you can dodge many spells thrown at you and then throw one back in return. Knowing this fact, then the logical thing to do is to remove your opponent’s ability to use their legs, hence the Leg-Locker Curse. The incantation for this is Locomotor Mortis and is a quick series of flicks. Like so…”

As her chalk wrote the phonetic version of the incantation (Loh-cah-moh-tor Mor-tiss) on the board, Tabitha moved to demonstrate the wand movement with a flick downwards, a slight one to the left, down again and then ended with a longer flick to the right. She did this once slowly at first which caused nothing to happen before doing it again, much faster and adding the incantation. A jet of purple light shot from the end of her wand and hit the back wall harmlessly.

“Having your legs immobilised will likely cause you to fall as your balance will be lost. This would allow your opponent to gain an advantage and give them the opportunity to cast an additional spell. If you are quick enough, however, as you still have the use of your hands and your mouths, you can cast the counter-curse which is Locomotor Liberari and you move your wand once from up to down and then flick it across, almost as if drawing a cross.”

Tabitha performed this as her chalk wrote Loh-cah-moh-tor Lih-ber-are-ee on the board. After this, she looked at her gathered students, making sure that they looked like they understood and nodded, satisfied. “Next, we have the Tongue-Tying Curse. This is effective in that if you can stop your opponent from saying anything, unless they are skilled in non-verbal magic, they will be unable to cast a spell in return as this curse causes your tongue to curl backwards. There are some side-effects to this as afterwards, you might develop a stammer or feel a bit sick. It’s a rather uncomfortable sensation but again, harmless. The incantation for this is Mimblewimble and is one continuous movement, almost looking as if you’re tying a knot in the air.”

Starting from the lower right, Tabitha moved her wand slowly in an upwards curve to the left before looping it down and around to the right before looping it again to the left and ending it slightly above her starting point. She did it again, much quicker and with the incantation (Mim-bull-whim-bull) and a jet of blue light rebounded off the back wall and disappeared.

“Your counter-curse for this is Libera Lingua (Lee-ber-ah Leen-gwah) and you need to move your wand in a circular motion around your opponent’s mouth. If you yourself are hit with this, you will likely need someone to undo it for you. Now, for your last curse. This will be the hardest for you to perform as it immobilises your opponent’s whole body and therefore requires more of your concentration. This will, more often than not, win a duel for you as your opponent will be petrified and therefore, completely motionless. It’s the Full Body-Bind Curse and the incantation for this is Petrificus Totalus.”

She demonstrated the wand movement, moving it in three-quarters of a circle before swishing it to the right and then flicking it downwards. She did it again, faster and with the incantation (Peh-tri-fi-cus Toh-tah-lus) and this time, a jet of white light hit the back wall.

“Despite it being harder than the others, its counter-curse is the simple general counter-spell that covers a vast majority of other curses, excluding those that have their own specific counter-curse. I have already taught you this in previous lessons, can anybody tell me which spell I am referring to?”

Tabitha smiled when she got the right answer, “Correct. Finite Incantatum. Wonderful!”

She turned, briefly, to check on where her chalk was up to in writing and was satisfied when she saw it completing the final ‘m’ of the counter-curse and turned back. “Now, I’d like you to pair up and practice these on each other. You have nothing to fear from each other as all of these do not hurt. I will be wandering around so if you need any help, please ask.”

OOC - I have included visual representations of the wand movements for the curses just in case my descriptions aren’t clear enough. Thank you to Harry Potter Wiki and Hogwarts Is Here for all the information used to help create this lesson. Have fun!

Subthreads:

Yep. by Evelyn Stones, Pecari with Heinrich

You have no idea (what you're doing) by Caitlin Pierce, Crotalus

20 Professor Hawthorne Beginners, do you feel cursed? 1417 Professor Hawthorne 1 5

Evelyn Stones, Pecari

October 20, 2018 1:58 AM

Yep. by Evelyn Stones, Pecari

Evelyn stared at Professor Hawthorne for what felt like a very long time when she stopped talking. Then she stared at the board. She had known the answer to the professor's question, but "finite incantatum" had drifted through her head only briefly as panic set in.

She looked around the room, trying to decide who she was least terrified of working with. Ness was certainly out of the question, although at least the Aladren would probably succeed in not doing something worse by accident. Perhaps it wasn't fair to conflate brains with abilities, but Ness certainly deserved a more competent partner than Evelyn for these things, and she was sure her friend would understand.

However, that didn't solve her problem, as she still had to find someone else. Was anyone else in class equally terrible at magic? Who was the least likely to succeed? Other than herself, of course. She hated the question. She hated the class. In that moment, she even sort of hated Professor Hawthorne.

Evelyn swore under her breath before turning directly around in her seat to face the student behind her, hoping random luck would get better results and avoid any hurt feelings from being chosen or not amongst her immediate friends.

"Do you have a partner?" she asked as she turned, not having seen who it was yet and hoping desperately they wouldn't mind not being cursed today.

22 Evelyn Stones, Pecari Yep. 1422 Evelyn Stones, Pecari 0 5

Heinrich

October 23, 2018 3:54 PM

It wasn’t me! by Heinrich

Heinrich dreaded DADA these days. It wasn’t that he didn’t know the subject material - he did. If anything, he knew it too well. Last year he hadn’t thought much of it, and had just been glad that once he got through the English, the rest of it was pretty easy. Now that he knew with certainty that his parents were guilty of dark magic practice, though, his own skill in the class suddenly looked a lot more ominous.

Only the language barrier kept his test results from coming back perfect. When his wrong answers were explained, it was always because he misunderstood the question, or failed to communicate his answer clearly, rather than any fault in his grasp of the material. He wasn’t sure if he should curse the difficulty of English or be grateful that it kept him from standing out as being far too knowledgeable in this area.

Because he got it. He hardly had to study DADA at all. Most of it seemed so ordinary and commonplace, he hadn’t realized most people didn’t get taught this stuff with their letters and numbers and colors. The fact that his parents didn’t use Latin based incantations was the only reason the offensive and defensive spells gave him any trouble at all.

He’d had to be careful last term, not to use anything his parents taught him in the little mini-duels. He hadn’t wanted a detention, of course, but more than that, he hadn’t wanted to make Professor Hawthorne look too deeply into how he might have learned them. So far, he thought he’d been spared anyone at the school knowing about his parents’ situation. To the best of his knowledge, even the school administration only knew him as Karl Hexenmeister’s ward. Uncle Karl had gotten full legal custody before Heinrich even applied as a student.

The last thing he wanted to do was out himself as the eldest son a dark wizard and a dark witch, especially to the DADA teacher. Not only was she professionally inclined to disapprove of dark magic, her accent suggested she was European originally. It probably wouldn’t take her too long to put Heinrich Hexenmeister together with the Hexenmeister Assassins if she did any research into German dark wizards at all.

He felt nothing but sympathy for that older girl they’d been told about last year who had a veela for one parent. He dearly hoped a school wide announcement wouldn’t be required if anyone found out about his own parentage. He guessed it was different. That girl couldn’t control the abilities she’d inherited. He could. But a veela had an excuse for her behavior. That was just their nature.

Dark wizards were actually and actively evil.

Heinrich clenched his jaw and pushed the thought away, unable to reconcile the thought with the two examples he knew personally. Mom and Dad.

He tried to focus on the lesson, and it helped some. The spells were as foreign as the tongue they were taught in, but he could see the similarities between these and the ones his parents illegally taught him and his sister, in case they needed to protect themselves ‘from the dangers of the Dark Forest,’ as they had claimed. Now Heinrich wasn’t so sure that had been their motive. He was no longer convinced some unnamed forest denizens - however wild and untamed they might have been - were the really biggest danger his parents had feared might threaten their children, but it hardly mattered anymore. They lived on the other side of the world now, and their ability to defend themselves had been ingrained since they were tiny. Even Hans knew one or two spells and he’d only been four when they were taken away.

He sighed quietly to himself, and practiced the wand motions, glad these were at least more dignified than the Achoo spell they’d had to learn last year. Not that falling flat on his face as his legs locked up under him was going to be all that dignified, but the spell didn’t sound ridiculous casting it, so that was improvement anyway. As he was a second year, and a member of the dueling club, they weren’t even completely unknown to him. He’d seen older students use them before. So there was that. He was acclimating, he guessed, adjusting and slowly becoming more accustomed to his new country.

Even English was starting to come easier. When the girl in front of him turned around and asked if he had a partner, he understood her.

And he could answer her with only slightly halting words. “Not yet.” He still spoke with an unmistakable German accent, but he ought to be understandable. “We can partners be.”

He grimaced suddenly in self-irritation. No. English kept their verbs together. He shook his head, making a wiping gesture as if erasing something written before him in chalk, then tried again. “We can be partners,” he enunciated clearly and carefully.

He paused a moment then second guessed himself and had to ask,”Is that right grammar?”

1 Heinrich It wasn’t me! 1414 Heinrich 0 5

Evelyn Stones

October 24, 2018 11:27 PM

Oh, someone interesting! by Evelyn Stones

Evelyn stifled a grin, afraid the older boy would think she was making fun of him, and just nodded. She was still not excited to do this stupid classwork, but at least if she was partnering with someone for whom English was not their first language, there would be something interesting to talk about. Who knew, maybe she'd even make a friend.

"Yes," she smiled, "We can be partners."

Evelyn turned around more completely, pulling her legs over the seat so she could stand up and face the boy. She wasn't actually sure if that was the best choice, but it seemed silly to shout at him from the next table.

"I'm Evelyn," she said, doing her best to speak clearly without speaking too slowly. He'd made it this far, he probably didn't need her help to get by, and he'd already proven he was willing to ask if he did. "You're a second year, right?"

She took the opportunity to get to know him before outing herself as a lousy witch. Hopefully he'd say something like "yes, and a squib" or "yes, but I can't do magic for religious reasons" or "no, you just haven't noticed me because I'm shy and try to avoid using magic so no one notices me" and she could move on from there. Somehow, she doubted that was the case.

"It's nice to meet you."

22 Evelyn Stones Oh, someone interesting! 1422 Evelyn Stones 0 5

Heinrich

October 30, 2018 1:57 PM

I like to think so. But not too interesting by Heinrich

Yes, we can be partners. The sentence was clean, clear, succinct. Heinrich was grateful. His listening comprehension was actually getting quite good by now, but it was always helpful when the English didn’t start getting too convoluted.

“I am second year, yes,” he confirmed in answer to her question. He didn’t need to ask if she was in first year. He might have had trouble understanding most of his classmates last year, but he could at least recognize who had and hadn’t been there. He was less sure if this difference in age meant she was expecting him to be a skilled caster or not, especially given his House designation (Aladrens did seem to be held to slightly higher academic standards) but he figured he could do well enough to not disappointment whatever expectations she might hold. It was DADA after all.

“I am Heinrich,” he offered by way of his own introduction, declining the use of his last name as had become his habit this year. No use drawing attention to it. “It is nice to meet you, Evelyn,” he continued, no longer certain that this was actually the normal response or just what his Practical English Conversations lessons thought was normal American discourse. But she had said it, too, so it couldn’t be too wrong, could it?

“Ready you - no. Warte mal.” The German for wait a moment slipped out unheeded and unnoticed as he held up a finger and thought about his words for a few seconds, his front teeth lightly biting his lower lip as he concentrated, before slowly and carefully trying out an English sentence. “Are you ready to begin?”

He stood up and moved away from his desk, pushing it a couple feet to the side to make room. The spells themselves might not hurt, but if your legs locked under you and you banged your head on a desk on the way down, that wasn’t going to feel good. “Have space,” he suggested, “I want that we not fall and run head into desk.”

Once the nearby desks were arranged to his satisfaction, he asked, “Who starts? Which spell?” If he kept his questions excessively short, he didn’t have to think too hard about their grammar.

1 Heinrich I like to think so. But not too interesting 1414 Heinrich 0 5

Evelyn Stones

November 04, 2018 8:41 PM

Is anybody too interesting? by Evelyn Stones

Evelyn nodded, giving Heinrich time to formulate his thoughts without pretending she didn't understand. The advantage of native fluency was the ability to guess pretty well at what he meant. Besides, there were only a few things he was likely to say that involved the word "ready", so it wasn't hard to go along with.

"That's a good plan," she laughed, grateful he thought to move the desk. She was likely to either produce nothing at all, or to produce something terribly odd and she didn't want him to hit his head in either case, out of laughter or attack.

"You start," Evelyn blurted, hoping she could somehow get him to work long enough that she wouldn't have to do anything at all. Maybe if he was really good, she get 'injured' and be excused from the rest of classes. "Any of the spells is fine with me. Just...let me know which one in advance." She wasn't sure how she would prepare herself but at least she wouldn't be surprised that way.

She stood opposite Heinrich with her legs apart and one slightly in front of the other. She kept her elbows bent slightly so that she'd be less likely to catch herself on her wrists if she did fall. Hopefully, it would be clear that she was preparing for the spell and not to duke it out with him, but she wasn't too concerned about that. Again, there were only so many likely responses.

"Ready when you are," she said.

22 Evelyn Stones Is anybody too interesting? 1422 Evelyn Stones 0 5

Heinrich

November 09, 2018 7:02 PM

Yes. I wish I was less interesting. by Heinrich

Heinrich nodded in agreement as Evelyn told him he could start. He was fine with that. Maybe she wanted to see how he did them before trying them herself. He was the older student after all. "I start with Leg Locker Curse," he informed her, because she had requested that information and he had understood her request and saw no reason not to comply. This was the first one Professor Hawthorne had gone over today, so it seemed logical to him that it was a good one to try first. "I practice saying it first. You can, too," he added, because it might take a while and he didn't want her to get bored.

"Locomotor Mortis," he said, without moving his wand, just practicing his pronounciation, which was easily the hardest part of any spell. It came out much more German sounding than it had when Professor Hawthorne said it. He tried again. And again. And again.

When he was satisfied that he sounded at least a little bit less German than normal, he practiced the way the want was supposed to move. He reach an acceptable level of competency on that part much faster, but not immediately.

Now having both parts practiced as well as he thought he needed for a successful casting, he said, "I am now ready. Are you?"

Once she indicated she was, and she was positioned safely in the middle of their cleared area, he put the two pieces together, saying "Locomotor Mortis," while making an upside down question mark with his wand tip and committing his magical will to the curse.

The magic of a moderately well-cast leg locking curse shot out toward the first year.

1 Heinrich Yes. I wish I was less interesting. 1414 Heinrich 0 5

Evelyn Stones

November 15, 2018 9:09 PM

Well, let's share some interesting because I'm desperate. by Evelyn Stones

Evelyn was surprised by Heinrich's suggestion that they practice. She supposed she shouldn't be. It did make sense and if she were working with Ness, she likely would have heard the same suggestion from the ever-practical Aladren. Still, it caught her off guard. She hadn't ever practiced spells this way, just one piece at a time. It was usually the Thinking part and the Doing part, not the words and then the movement and then the magic. She wondered if this would help her at all and by the time Heinrich said he was ready to go, she actually thought she might stand a chance.

Nodding to him, indicating she was ready for his attempt, she swallowed hard and prepared herself as much as she could figure out how to do. When he cast it though, she found that she was entirely not ready. It wasn't the first time anyone had put a curse on her, although she avoided thinking about that as much as possible, but the sensation here was odd. The fact that Heinrich was a decent wizard was as obvious as the fact that he didn't actually want to cause her harm.

The leg-locking curse effectively bound her legs, joining them in an almost-painful spread of magic, but she didn't fall over. The spell hadn't quite been enough to knock her off her feet, and she smiled gratefully at Heinrich for it.

"Good job!" she said, impressed.

When he cleared the spell and it was her turn, she swallowed again.

"I should warn you that I haven't practiced with magic much or had very good luck. It's not usually anything weird but just a fair warning." It seemed unfair not to say anything. "You ready?"

When he indicated that he was, she took a deep breath and imagined the sensation she'd just experienced. That was her goal. That was what she was willing to happen. And when she released the spell, pronouncing the words and moving her wand in as close a mimic to Professor Hawthorne's demonstration as she could, she was immensely relieved to feel the telling sign of a spell leaving her wand. Or her body. Or wherever magic came from. It felt . . . wrong . . . but that was probably fine right?

OOC - I don't mind whether it feels wrong because the spell goes wrong or whether it feels wrong because she's not used to it, or whatever else. :)

22 Evelyn Stones Well, let's share some interesting because I'm desperate. 1422 Evelyn Stones 0 5

Caitlin Pierce, Crotalus

December 21, 2018 2:52 AM

You have no idea (what you're doing) by Caitlin Pierce, Crotalus

As far as Caitlin was concerned, classes really varied. Sometimes they were interesting and useful and others teachers droned on about irrelevant things. Apparently, Professor Hawthorne had done just that in the lesson regarding veelas after the beginner and advanced students had left, thanks to Kir McLeod. Winston hadn't told her what the topic had been but Caitlin had some ideas considering who it was that had asked the question that derailed the lesson for a bit.

Defense Against the Dark Arts was not a favorite of hers anyway. She had been taught to be a proper young lady and the subject was inherently too rough for her liking. If what her brother had said about Professor Hawthorne wasn't bad enough, prior to midterm, the Defense teacher had had them look at dueling as a sport. Caitlin did not do sports.

Plus, well, it wasn't necessary. It wasn't really Defense. Yes, if you had to duel or otherwise protect yourself from attackers, that was necessary and generally good to know. However, it was Defense Against the Dark Arts not a class on sports. So that's what they should learn. Honestly, between that and what Winston said about what happened in his class, Caitlin was beginning to wonder if Professor Hawthorne knew what she was doing.

The Crotalus walked into the classroom and eyed the set up warily. This did not look good. She had the sinking feeling that they were going to do something that she would not like.

Professor Hawthorne began to speak and it turned out that Caitlin's assumption was correct. She didn't like this. More dueling! Yech!

She scanned the room looking for an appropriate partner when she noticed Allegra Brockert looking rather pale. The second year didn't know if the other girl was sick or just hated dueling but she was very tempted to go over to the younger Crotalus and offer to take her to the medic whether she was sick or not just to get out of class. And Allegra would probably thank her for rescuing her from having to duel too.

And the more Caitlin got on the Brockerts' good side, the better. Having any of them think well of her was important.

She was just about to go over to Allegra when someone approached her.

11 Caitlin Pierce, Crotalus You have no idea (what you're doing) 1415 Caitlin Pierce, Crotalus 0 5