Professor Tabitha Hawthorne
February 24, 2019 5:54 AM
Advanced Class, can you smell burning? by Professor Tabitha Hawthorne
In the free hour that would follow the teaching of her Intermediate Class, Tabitha would prepare for her lesson with the Advanced students. This preparation did not involve last minute note making or the hurried flipping of pages through books and journals. All it simply involved was a strong and fortifying cup of tea (today’s tea break was also accompanied by a box of chocolate balls) and a quiet hour of contemplation and organisation of her thoughts. The start of the new school year had been busy for Tabitha as on top of having all her lessons to plan, prepare and teach and homework to note on and mark, there was also wedding planning with Mary that was being undertaken and numerous letters being written to Darius and Evangeline in Greece and long chats with Rory - who had, to Tabitha’s absolute delight and relief, agreed to be her best man - and Tabitha certainly couldn’t forget the delightful nights that she spent with Mary. Her schedule and her life had suddenly become rather full and busy and it was the quiet moments, the short hours between classes, that Tabitha appreciated the chance to simply sit and drink tea.She sat comfortably in her chair behind her desk and took a few deep and calming breaths. The hand that didn’t have the duty of lifting Tabitha’s teacup to her lips was busy tickling Ailuros behind her ears, the kneazle purring affectionately, pleased at the attention from her mistress. Tabitha regarded the animal for a moment, taking note that she was quickly growing from the small fluffy kitten she had been into a sleek and elegant looking creature. There was still some ways to go yet as her ears hadn’t quite grown to their full size, she was still small and hadn’t quite developed the lion-like features that defined an adult kneazle. Still, Ailuros was growing and she was a clear indication of time passing by. It was hard to ignore such a thing when there was evidence right in front of your face.
Her hand moved to scratch Ailuros underneath her chin and the feline closed her eyes and let out an appreciative noise causing the corner of Tabitha’s lips to twitch upwards in an amused smirk. It seemed like only yesterday that she had been begging Darius to help find a tabby kneazle, determined to give Mary the perfect Christmas gift.
By the time that Tabitha’s Advanced students started filing into the classroom, she had finished her tea and felt ready to teach today’s particularly grim subject material. She was quite certain that she’d manage to put at least a few of her students off their lunches.
“Good morning, class,” she greeted, though given the way that her lips were pressed into a thin and unhappy line indicated the lack of genuine feeling behind the greeting. “Take your seats and get out your writing materials, parchment for notes and your textbook - turn to page 213.”
Tabitha flicked her wand in the direction of the chalkboard and the piece of chalk lying there obediently rose and began scribbling the headline of Inferi at the top of the board. “Today’s lesson focuses on one of the more gruesome dark creatures in the Wizarding World, Inferi. Who can tell me what an Inferius is?”
She nodded when she received the correct answer. “Correct. An Inferius is a corpse that has been reanimated, through the use of a branch of Dark Magic known as Necromancy - the art of raising the dead. They are not living and do not hold any trace of the humanity they once had - they are simply a puppet to be controlled. To create an Inferius is not an easy thing to do, the rituals and magic surrounding the act are complex and difficult and also highly illegal - even impersonating one of these creatures guarantees imprisonment as they are considered to be and are terrifying.”
Tabitha’s voice clearly conveyed the seriousness of the subject matter, as did her posture. She stood stiffly in front of her desk, feet shoulder-width apart and with her arms folded, her wand gripped in one of her hands. It rather seemed like she was preparing to do battle.
“Inferi all look different as all corpses look different, their very nature is inconsistent. For example, some may have hair while others have none - their appearance very much relies on the age of the human at the time of death and how much their body has decayed. The most obvious sign that you are dealing with an Inferius rather than a living human being is that Inferi have white and cloudy eyes, indicating the lack of any form of life.”
With a slight flick of her wand, the chalk behind her began to sketch an Inferius. Even as a drawing on a chalkboard, the creature was gruesome - skeletal and gaunt, mouth open in a snarl revealing sharp teeth. Tabitha hoped that none of her students were prone to nightmares. Even Ailuros didn’t like the appearance of the creature on the board, as she hissed and her fur stood on end.
“So, why create an Inferius? As they are already dead, killing them is no easy feat which makes them formidable warriors. They kill indiscriminately, have superior strength and can move very quickly and are extraordinarily dangerous en masse, a perfect army. They can also be used to guard something or an area, lying in wait until they are disturbed, at which point they can respond lethally. They do, however, have their weakness. They cannot think for themselves which makes unforeseen trouble difficult to get out of. Being spontaneous when fighting these creatures will help you massively.”
“There is only one way to kill an Inferius, given that they are preserved indefinitely by Dark Magic. As no spell has been found to render flesh impervious to burning, fire is the only method by which they can be destroyed. It is also extremely dangerous as fire is volatile and difficult to control. With this in mind, your task for today is to learn how to control it, aim it, guide it where you want it to go.”
A wave of her wand summoned three targets that came to float obediently in a row at the front of the classroom.
“There are many spells that can be used to create fire. Incendio. Firestorm. Fiendfyre. These would all be effective in destroying an Inferius but all have varying levels of difficulty, Firestorm and Fiendfyre being notoriously hard to control. Today, I would like you focus on Incendio. Your job is an obvious one but perhaps, not necessarily easy. Hit the target as close to the centre as possible.”
She made the statement casually, as if such a thing was no big deal. “In a duel or a fight, when there are spells flying everywhere, introducing fire can make things even more dangerous. You need to be sure that when using it, it will benefit you and aid you, rather than make things worse. This is why learning to control it is so important.”
She strode confidently to the back of the classroom and turned to face the middle target. She raised her wand, stood in a firm and strong stance with her feet shoulder-width apart. “With Incendio, you can be a bit creative. Do you want to produce a fireball or a thin jet of flames? Picture what you want clearly in your mind. There are pros and cons to using both. A fireball would probably kill an Inferius more successfully, given that when the ball hits, it will explode and engulf more of them. A thin jet of flames, however, is easier to aim and control.”
She fixed her eyes on the target. “Incendio.”
A jet of flames burst from the tip of her wand and went sailing through the very middle of the classroom and hit the middle of the target squarely in the centre and, after a moment of burning, left a scorch mark perfectly in the target’s bullseye. A moment later, the scorch mark also disappeared.
Tabitha talked as she walked back to the front of the classroom. “Now, it’s your turn. Push your desks and chairs to the back of the classroom to keep them out of the way and then form three lines, one in front of each target. I shall erect some shields to make sure that any stray fires don’t set fire to my desk, your belongings or, most importantly, those who are waiting for their turn. When you are ready, you may begin… Also, some incentive.”
She grinned at this last part. “Those who hit the centre of the target will be allowed to help themselves to some chocolate from the box on my desk.”
Subthreads: Fun times by Kir McLeod, Teppenpaw
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Professor Tabitha Hawthorne
Advanced Class, can you smell burning?
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Professor Tabitha Hawthorne
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Kir McLeod, Teppenpaw
March 02, 2019 4:45 AM
Fun times by Kir McLeod, Teppenpaw
Kir had decided that Advanced Defence Against the Dark Arts probably wasn’t a bad class for him to take, given how frequently opening his mouth led to people wanting to jinx him. Essentially, he kind of pegged it as self-defence class, perhaps with some home security thrown in, though that probably overlapped with Charms quite a lot (which he was also taking). Flippancy aside, those were are all startlingly relevant areas for him. Fighting the system didn’t exactly come without the system fighting back…Professor Hawthorne seemed kinda grim as she greeted them. Kir wondered whether it was because she was in a bad mood or because she had something particularly grizzly to tell them. The latter, apparently. Or rather, at least the latter. It did not rule out the possibility that she was in a bad mood for personal reasons too. But grim class time was to be had. Inferi. Ick.
He raised his hand when she asked about for a definition but she called on someone else. He wondered whether she was deliberately avoiding him or whether she just happened not to have chosen him this time. He lowered his hand and tried to look as little like he was about to disrupt the class with awkward questions about human sexuality as it was possible to look. To be fair, he had only done that once, and really had no plans to repeat it (and no idea how he even would link it to the subject of inferi), but he suspected the incident had stuck in his teacher’s mind.
The class felt like it wasn’t that relevant to him. It was hard to imagine himself ever ending up in a situation where he was facing off against an inferus. In theory, he was less afraid of random monsters and more afraid of other humans. Still, it wasn’t a very fun subject, and its (hopeful) lack of relevance was not the only reason Kir really wished he wasn’t in this class. He repressed a shudder as the chalk sketched unseeing dead eyes staring out at all of them. It was all kinds of horrible imagining the kind of person who would do that, and the rituals involved, let alone actually coming face to face with a creepy, moving corpse.
At least they were only facing off against dummies. And the task was to play with fire, which had a few applications (though, as she pointed out, most of them a bit of a risky move). And they got chocolate if they did well. It was so incongruous that Kir almost laughed. Still, the image on the board leered behind Professor Hawthorne, and the little prickly back of the neck feeling was still there, like there was something behind him. Kir was not sure he wanted to win any chocolate right now. He thought that a better prize might be being allowed to retreat to a blanket fort.
He lined up, pondering types of fire as he did so, and feeling that neat and precise was more his style. Being able to produce mini fireballs on command would be cool if he was ever dressing up as a dragon for some reason. But mini ones weren’t going to work here, and he didn’t fancy just throwing an uncontained amount of fire around a room, however well protected they all were. It was too aggressive for him.
He lined himself up, feeling that the dummy was pretty far away… He’d targetted spells before, but usually at something that was much closer. Or, if he was firing a jinx across a large distance, it just had to hit the person somewhere. He supposed, for practical purposes, that was true here too. Heck, even being able to cast a fire in front of himself would keep an inferus at bay. But they were supposed to also be getting in target practise.
He shot the firespell out and… well, neat and controlled was what he had been aiming for, and it was definitely that. It was kind of a spindly jet and rather than knock the dummy right on its target it more… nudged it politely on the shoulder. Well, he’d produced some fire, the fire had reached the target and he had been in control… Those were all good things. He returned to the back of the line. He supposed he'd have to work a bit on making more fire, and on getting it on the target, though more in case it came up in an exam than his real life, he hoped.
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Kir McLeod, Teppenpaw
Fun times
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Jozua Sparks
March 07, 2019 12:29 PM
I think so by Jozua Sparks
Jozua loved DADA. He couldn’t think of a single unit over the past seven years he hadn’t enjoyed. The curses and hexes were mostly all applicable to dueling, and the rest, well, the rest proved there was bad in the world, but the world wouldn’t need heroes if there was no evil to battle. As Jozua planned to be a hero, he paid particular attention to those lessons so he would know how to fight the evil.Today’s lesson was especially enticing. Inferi had to be put down. There was no moral quandary involved in fighting those things. Fighting werewolves was problematic because most of the time they were just normal people. Killing them was a last resort.
Inferi, not so much. They lacked sentience and could therefore just burn. Which was Jozua’s favorite and best kind of offensive magic, in point of fact. Brockerts as a family might be naturally talented at Transfiguration, but Sparks had fire magic going for them. Grandad Sparks was arguably the world’s premier expert in that class of spell, having been studying them and inventing new ones for something like sixty years.
The class exercise as stated was way below Jozua’s level. Even better, Professor Hawthorne post-dated his early fire related escapades, so there was little danger of her realizing his fire bursts as a beginner and intermediate had been entirely intentional. There was no need to downplay his abilities.
Granted, the other students would probably notice and possibly make conclusions but they had already deemed him a bad choice for Head Boy so he felt no inclination to cater to their opinions of him.
Of course casting something really volatile like fiendfyre inside an enclosed flammable space like the classroom was just asking for trouble, so that was off the table. But Jozua had mastered a simple incendio back in fifth year, when he’d been infected by the plague and thought his magic was going dangerously wild, and so had spent most of his time in the dueling arena practicing his control. He could even cast Incendio non-verbally without too much trouble if he wanted to.
He lined up with the other students to “practice” and decided to just do a straight-up verbal incendio the first time through, to show he could handle that much, before he started to get fancy.
As Kir finished, Jozua stepped up, pointed his wand, and stated the incantation. A steady streak of flame crossed directly to the dummy’s center of mass, perfectly mimicking Professor Hawthorne’s demonstration. Jozua kept his wand aimed steady, holding it for a few extra seconds as an extra flourish, and then ended the casting.
A good sized scorch mark covered a fair portion of the dummy’s torso before the enchantments on it cleared away the damage for the next person. Satisfied that he had shown his own competence, he collected his piece of chocolate and returned to the back of the line to decide how he was going to improve of that for his next go.
Maybe stick with incendio (as that was what they’d been told to focus on today) but shape it as a fireball this time. And do it nonverbally. That ought to get him extra points.
Not that he needed them in this class.
But more chocolate was always delicious.
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Jozua Sparks
I think so
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Kir
March 09, 2019 10:56 PM
You would by Kir
Kir watched Jozua take his turn. Jozua was captain of the duelling club and had offered to do pyromagics for their concert performance, so it was pretty unsurprising to see a powerful belt of flame hit the dummy square in the chest.“Nice one,” he grinned, as the older boy joined him at the back of the line. “Almost like this class suits you,” he added. There wasn’t any hint of danger in that remark. Kir got that Jozua liked fire and things going bang. He was not sure which had come first… Jozua having a tendency for explosions and learning to love and to wrangle them, or Jozua loving explosions so having a tendency to make them, with perhaps a degree of purposefulness. The latter had been somewhat hinted at their concert meeting. But Kir wasn’t going to shop him. Even if he had known for certain, and had proof, there was the bigger sticking point that there was really no good reason to do so. Whichever way round it was, Jozua had just demonstrated that he was in pretty good control of it all. It didn’t really matter which came first, the phoenix or the fire, Jozua was a good guy who wasn’t going to hurt anybody. And so the words were a genuine compliment.
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Kir
You would
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Kir
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