Beginner’s transfiguration (1st & 2nd years) by Professor Jacob Carter
Jacob Carter entered his classroom wearing his dark maroon robes and set down his books. He smiled glad that he had time to set up the classroom before. There where tables all over the room with four chairs two on each side. He wrote Duro and Lentesco on the chalkboard before sitting down and watching as the first and second year students filed in.Once they were all in their seats he stood up and smiled. “Welcome to Transfiguration, I am your Transfiguration Professor, Jacob Carter. You may call me Professor Carter.” He said with a nod of his head. “Now to forewarn you all I will not allow foolish behavior as Transfiguration is a highly dangerous class, one slip up and someone has a third arm. It’s not pretty and I wish to never see anything like that again. Understood?” He waited a minute for a few nods before turning to his book and opening it.
“With Transfiguration you can turn desks into horses.” He said as he tapped his desk and a large black steed appeared where the desk was. “You can turn a horse to a doll.” Once again a doll appeared where the steed had been. “And Back again.” He finished as he tapped the doll and his cherry desk appeared he smiled at the awed faces of his students. “Yet in order to do this we must start small.”
“To begin our time together will be starting we will begin with Duro and Lentesco.” He pointed his wand at the board and in his loopy handwriting by Duro he wrote Hardens objects to stone , and by Lentesco he wrote Makes objects soft .
“Duro will harden an object so its stone while lentesco does the opposite. He picked up an aluminum can he has saved over the summer by drinking soda. They were all white as he had charmed them that color. “Watch closely.” He said as he flicked his wand and then tapped the can three times. “Duro.” The can turned grey and into a hardened stone. “Remember when you cast Duro it’s flick and three taps then the spell, it’s very important.”
He paused until the scribbling has subsided and then he nodded. “Once again watch closely.” He said as he tapped the can twice, and then flicked the wand. “Lentesco.” The can turned from stone to a jelly like can shaped substance. “When you cast Lentesco you first tap the can twice then flick your wand before saying Lentesco.” He waited until the writing had stopped before he sent a two cans to each table.
“You will work in pairs, one will cast Duro the other will cast Lentesco after that you will switch spells.” He said with a nod. “The person sitting next to you is your partner; there will be no switching seats. Everyone is to stay seated until the lesson is over. If you need me please raise your hand and I will be along in a few moments.” With that he nodded and sat down at his desk thankful he could see the whole classroom, if anyone was fooling around he would see it.
OOC: Normal posting length be creative and have fun
Subthreads: Time for some fun by Andrew Duell with Demelza Eagle, Demelza
Rocks and Jell-O. Crazy day! by Jude Normandy with Starbuck Gregory, Jude
Here we go again... by Marissa Stephenson with Tobar Brishen, Tobar
I'm just here for the accolades. by Rachel Bauer with Delilah Kerrigan, Pecari
Failing to see the point. by Veronica Kerrigan, Aladren with Raines Bradley, Veronica
So it begins by Jose Hernandez (Pecari) with Jethro Smythe, Jose Hernandez
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Professor Jacob Carter
Beginner’s transfiguration (1st & 2nd years)
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Professor Jacob Carter
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Andrew Duell
November 27, 2009 9:34 PM
Time for some fun by Andrew Duell
Andrew walked into transfigurations as early as he was able. This was undoubtedly his favorite class, mainly because it was the only one at which he seemed to be any good. Potions and Charms were okay, he could usually struggle through them, but nothing ever seemed to work out like he thought it should. Care of Magical Creatures just didn't hold that much interest for him, and History of Magic was down right horrible. DADA was probably his second favorite, but it was nothing compared to transfiguation. He was excited to be back.Finding a seat near the front of the class he sat down and pulled out his note taking equipment and book. As Professor Carter began speaking, he began scribbling down notes. Wait, did he just say transfiguration could give you a thrid arm? That would be pretty neat, right? Sometimes in potions class he wished he had another arm of his own. Professor Carter seemed to think that it wasn't such a great thing, so Andrew nodded to him. Professor knows best. Andrew's eyes opened wide as Professor Carter demonstrated on his desk. That was cool. He did it with nothing more than a tap as well.
Andrew watched with a smile as the professor demonstrated Duro and Lentesco. These two were ones he had read about in his book over the summer. Now he was actually going to get to do them, excellent. He copied down notes of the gestures and pronunciation of the words.
Once the professor said that they could begin, he eagerly looked at the cans before turning to the person sitting next to him. "Looks like you're my partner, do you want to go first, or should I?"
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Andrew Duell
Time for some fun
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Andrew Duell
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Demelza Eagle
November 28, 2009 9:04 AM
But first I will have to understand this by Demelza Eagle
After thoroughly enjoying every class she's had so far, Demelza walked excitedly into her next class: Transfiguration. Her brother Jamie said that when he was in school, transfiguration was his worst subject. Maybe she could break his record. However, she also knew that with transfiguration you had to focus and concentrate. Wow, two things that Demelza is horrible with! Well, this is just perfect, she thought sarcastically. She took a seat next to someone she didn't recognized and guessed that he was a second year. Which was all he better for Demelza. Maybe he could help her with this?But too soon the class started, and Demelza saw the boy next to her taking notes. Disgusted, she figured she should take notes too. She took out a peice of paper, quill, and ink, and scribbled down a few notes. Her mouth dropped as Professor Carter demonstrated transfiguration on his desk. Demelza doubted whether she could ever do that once he stated explaining their lesson. She didn't think she could turn something to stone or jello already!
She was slightly relieved when the Professor said they had to work with the person next to them. The second year boy clearly seemed to be excited about this class, so he must know what he is doing.
"Looks like you're my partner, do you want to go first, or should I?" He asked her.
"Defiantly you. I don't think I can understand this until pigs can fly! However, I suppose if you put them on a broomstick, then they can fly. I'm Demelza Eagle, just first year, by the way. So, I'm defiantly knew to this." She said, clearly showing that she hardly had any idea about what she was to do. I'm going to need help, she thought as she got ready to watch the boy demonstrate his transfiguration skills.
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Demelza Eagle
But first I will have to understand this
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Demelza Eagle
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It is only as difficult as you make it by Andrew
Andrew smiled at the girl sitting next to him. "Don't worry about a thing. I was a first year as well, just last year." He grinned, "I'm Andrew Duell. Let's get started." He quickly turned back to his book and scanned over what it had to say about Duro, mainly to refresh his memory and see if he had forgotten anything from when he had looked at it over the summer. Nope, everything seemed straightforward enough."Okay, the first thing I like to do is know exactly what we are working with." He picked up a can and inspected it from all angles. It was a soda can, turned white. He didn't see anything unusual about it. He set it down in front of him, and glanced back at Demelza. "Next I try to imagine what I'm turning the thing into, then cast the spell. Simple." He closed his eyes and pictured the can in his head just as he had seen it. He then pictured the same can, but made of stone just like the professor's had been. He focused on the changes that had to be made, the differences between the two along with the similarities.
He then opened his eyes, completely focused on the can, picked up his wand and cast the spell. The change started off slow from the point that he had tapped the can, but the stone quickly spread until the metal was no more. Andrew relaxed back into his seat and smiled once again at Demelza, "See, easy. Your turn."
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Andrew
It is only as difficult as you make it
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Andrew
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If you say so by Demelza
After only a few seconds of talking o him, Demelza had inferred that Andrew is a Transfiguration fanatic/genius. He seemed to know everything he was doing and even checked his book to make sure. He was obviously more responsible than Demelza. She listened intently to every word he said, and she found he was more helpful than Professor Carter. He ought to be Transfiguration Professor, she thought.Still holding on to Andrew's advise, she watched, amazed, as her turned the cup into stone. It seemed like he did it as easily as snapping fingers, but Demelza could tell that he has also put a lot of work into it.
"See, easy. Your turn." He said to her. Easy? Ha, maybe for him, but it didn't seem so easy for her! But she wouldn't know until she tried.
"Alright," she said with a sigh. She drew he wand and examined the aluminum soda cup. She wondered if it used to be a coke soda. No, she had to tell herself, you aren't supposed to be thinking about that. She got so unfocused easily...
She tried to imagine the cup melting just like the professor demonstrated. It was easy to picture, it had only happened a couple of minuets ago. Concentrating hard, she flicked her wand, tapped the white can twice, and spoke clearly, "Lentesco," and to her great surprise, the can turned to jello!
"Wow!," Demelza exclaimed, turning to Andrew, "You must be some kind of Transfiguration genius! I would never have been able to do that without your tutoring! Thank you! Now, I guess you have to try the spell, 'course, that should be easy for you," She smiled at him. Really, she couldn't have done it without him. She would have been so lost. She was very grateful!
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Demelza
If you say so
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Demelza
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Rocks and Jell-O. Crazy day! by Jude Normandy
Being a wizard, Jude Normandy had decided, was rather complicated. First, there were all new classes to adjust to. Even though he’d never attended ‘real’ school—his parents had homeschooled him—and tended to do his lessons on the roof, in trees, or wherever else he felt inclined to do them, he’d still learned normal subjects like English, maths, Spanish, and science. Now, he had to learn things like Charms, Transfigurations, and Care of Magical Creatures. And while it was definitely cool that he could move things around using only his mind and a stick, it was also kind of confusing. Also, there were new sports to adjust to. Jude had never been a sportsy kind of guy, but the Pecari felt kind of compelled to at least think about Quidditch, since all the other first years seemed to be doing it.But now it was time for Transfigurations, which seemed to Jude to be the weirdest part of magic. Charms made sense. Care of Magical Creatures was just about, well, different sorts of animals. But turning something into something else? Jude wasn’t sure how that was going to jive with him. Time to find out!
The first year walked into the classroom, picked a desk, and sat down at it. He didn’t particularly seek someone out; Jude figured that if someone wanted to sit with him, they would. Thus far he hadn’t had much trouble making friends, so why restrict himself to just a few people or just one group? Que será será he nodded to himself as the Professor began speaking.
Professor Carter, right. Things were going swimmingly until the Professor mentioned growing a third arm, and Jude’s blue eyes went very big, very fast. Nobody had mentioned that part of this class! The eleven year old was fairly certain that human beings were only supposed to have two arms. Two arms, two legs, two eyes...there was definitely some sort of divine pattern here that Jude was not particularly inclined to mess up. In order to make sure that didn’t happen, he paid strict attention to the next words that Professor Carter spoke. Three arms....
The horse was cool, although surprising, and the doll was equally shocking, but the desk was nice and normal. Jude was fairly relieved when the class was instructed to ‘start small’ and informed that they would just be hardening and softening things for that class. That was weird. In Jude’s world, that seemed more like a Charms type of thing, but he supposed the teacher would know best. Maybe the Pecari had to re-think some of the hopeful barriers he had put up in his mind between subjects.
“So, partners it is,” Jude said with a grin, turning to the person next to him. “Rocks or gelatin?”
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Jude Normandy
Rocks and Jell-O. Crazy day!
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Jude Normandy
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Too bad it's not Jell-O we could eat! by Starbuck Gregory
Starbuck wasn’t sure about this new Professor he seemed kind of strict and she disliked strict Professors. She was amazed as he turned the desk into all sorts of things. Would she be able to do that one day? She wondered to herself as he began lecturing. She took out a pen and a notebook not caring if she was an outcast because of her muggle notebook and pen. She had her mother send her some after the first couple of days and losing her notes over and over again.She swept her hair behind her ear and smiled at the boy next to her. She knew him by sight as Jude the only first year boy in Pecari with her. Yet they had never interacted before now. She smiled as Professor Carter released them to work in their pairs. “Rocks or gelatin?” Jude said before she could even open her mouth to say something.
“I’ll take gelatin, so you could go first.” She said with a smile. Though the real reason was to not make a fool of herself by blowing something up. So far in the other classes she had done well but this one seemed tough. “I’m Starbuck we are in the same house just haven’t had a chance to talk yet.”
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Starbuck Gregory
Too bad it's not Jell-O we could eat!
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Starbuck Gregory
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Marissa Stephenson
November 28, 2009 11:53 PM
Here we go again... by Marissa Stephenson
Transfiguration wasn’t quite as bad as Charms, but that was because nothing short of cold-blooded torture was ever going to be quite as bad as Charms for Marissa. Both had a similar tendency to end in quiet failure at best, and in public humiliation at worst. Both had, the year before, driven her to tears more than once. The only difference was that she had a slightly higher grade in Transfiguration, as she understood the theory of it a bit better and had more of a knack for Professor Fawcett’s essays than she had for Professor Taylor’s.It was a new year, though, and new professors to boot. Marissa still wasn’t sure how good her chances of surviving Professor McKindy was, but from his speech, Professor Carter seemed like her sort of teacher. He was firm, the rules were clear, and he didn’t seem unpleasant.
Now she just had to make sure he didn’t end up totally and completely despising her for life because something went horribly wrong five minutes into their first class session together.
She tried to shake that thought off. This lesson didn’t sound too hard, really. Making things harder or softer had to be easier than completely altering their forms and, sometimes, chemical composition. She could do this. Sure. And she’d have help, assuming the person sitting with her wasn’t even worse at the subject than she was. Since that took some doing, at least on initial attempts, Marissa thought she was fairly safe in that.
“Looks like we’re working together,” she said brightly to the person in the next desk. Since she hadn’t been too bad about blowing things up since, say, the first nine weeks of first year, and had mostly just been unable to make things do much of anything for the rest of it, Marissa doubted she had a reputation as a disaster magnet, but it never hurt to be more cheerful than she felt. “Do you want to start?”
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Marissa Stephenson
Here we go again...
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Marissa Stephenson
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Rachel Bauer
November 28, 2009 11:56 PM
I'm just here for the accolades. by Rachel Bauer
Though it was not exactly encouraged, and even she sometimes felt it was a little incongruous in the larger picture of her personality, Rachel had a deep fondness for books. She couldn’t leave a new one unopened; the things would give her no peace until she’d at least started them, and the better ones refused to let go until after she’d finished their indexes. Textbooks, by rights, should have been different, but that wasn’t how it had worked out; though she hadn’t read them all cover to cover before she ever arrived at Sonora, they’d all had at least a few chapters taken out of them during the four weeks of August.Her Transfiguration textbook was a special case. It had been bought new with the others, but already showed definite signs of wear as she put it in her lap and laid out her parchment and quill to take notes with at the beginning of her first Transfiguration class. Rachel hadn’t had time to finish it, not with the Defense text catching her attention as often as it had, but she’d come closer with it than she had with any of the others. She hadn’t understood everything, but she’d gotten enough to be looking forward to the class.
Defensive – or rather, offensive, but the class was called ‘defense’ – spells were, she had discovered, easy for her. The subject seemed to her inherently straightforward, with a clearly defined goal and usually a clear opponent to fight against. Rachel liked that about it. Transfiguration, though, was another animal entirely. Its complexity, its fabled difficulty, the dangers the foreword of the book warned of so adamantly – they made it into a challenge, a perfect challenge, which would test both her powers and her mind. It was a subject, or so it seemed to her limited knowledge, which relied on pure reason rather than on force. She needed to prove that she was capable of that.
Seeing Professor Carter’s demonstration only increased her desire to do so. To go from a desk to a horse to a doll was to change everything about each thing; the doll was twice removed from its original form, and yet looked perfectly doll-like; Rachel was sure that, if she handed it to Alicia, her sister wouldn’t be able to tell it from a doll that had spent its entire existence as one. Her eyes fixed on the doll, she started slightly when it reverted to a desk and covered for it awkwardly by touching her hair, a nervous habit she’d developed since Professor McKindy had nearly turned her into a Yeti. It still seemed to be in the long, perfect curls that reflected her most recent achievement in Charming, though, so she let her hand fall and took up her quill.
The assignment wasn’t really what she’d expected. She couldn’t tell if they were actually turning soda cans to stone – if that was the case, what were they turning them into with the softening spell? – or if they were just making the aluminum stone-hard, which she thought was another thing entirely. In either case, though, the end product still looked the same. Of course, considering that half the class had been using a wand – at least legally – for less than half a week, maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. Momma had talked a lot about turning beetles into buttons; Rachel didn’t want to see a mutant plastic beetle with rat legs or something. She liked to think she was fairly tough, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t be scarred for life.
She turned just enough to look properly at her neighbor and, apparently, partner. What was it with this school and friendly cooperation? The only lesson she’d had that allowed an activity to have a formal winner had been Charms, and since they had worked together to break all the enchantments, the winning had been decided by chance and the dice, not skill. She didn’t like that. “I’d be pleased to go first, if you don’t mind,” she said, taking out her long, thin wand and turning it experimentally in her hand, letting it stop being a separate entity and become a perfectly natural extension of her arm. That was, according to some of her other readings, important.
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Rachel Bauer
I'm just here for the accolades.
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Rachel Bauer
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Tobar Brishen
November 29, 2009 2:57 AM
going down the only road we've ever known by Tobar Brishen
Tobar had almost been late for Transfiguration and he once he hear Professor Carter’s lecture he had figured that he would be the strictest Professor of them all… so far . He settled down and smiled at the Professor’s display of desk transfiguration. He had seen many transfigurations so he wasn’t all that impressed.He took notes diligently though, he wanted to prove to his tribe that a school taught wizard was just as good, if not better then the homeschooled ones. He was going to lead the gypsies one day and if things went well here at Sonora all the children would be taught here. Finally they were allowed to begin the turn of cans into stone or Jell-O.
The girl next to him seemed to have a bright personality which was a better step up from Rachel who seemed to always be in a bad mood. “Sure I’ll start, but I’m Tobar by the way.” He said with a smile. He pulled out his wand read over his notes once and then smiled. Hopefully he did this right, if he didn’t there was always next time.
He flicked his wand tapped the can three times and said. “Duro!” From the point where his wand touched the can began to turn grey and harden into stone but it stopped only after covering the very top of the can. He frowned and looked up at his partner. “Alright what did I do wrong?” He asked hoping she would know what was going on.
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Tobar Brishen
going down the only road we've ever known
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Tobar Brishen
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I'm just here. by Delilah Kerrigan, Pecari
As with the rest of the class, Delilah was in awe of what the professor had done with the desk to the horse to the doll. Though, she could have thought of better things to turn a horse into rather than a doll. She had absolutely no patience for dolls, even when she was younger. She had only been able to tolerate so much of things like playing house and, consequently, dolls, because Veronica had begged her to and she hated saying no to her sister. She always hated saying no, because she felt guilty afterwards like she was betraying her sister somehow. But it wasn’t as if she could change who she was for one person and she wasn’t really sure she would want to when it meant being completely miserable as Veronica was every time they saw their grandmother.Thinking of Mrs. Kerrigan merged into the current lesson and she couldn’t help giggling over the idea of her grandmother with a third arm. Knowing her, she probably would have ignored the oddity of it and used it, instead, to give further orders to the staff. Her grandmother was all about being efficient, something she dearly lacked, but then it wasn’t high on her list of priorities. Actually, it wasn’t on her list at all. Oh, it wasn’t that she wouldn’t have minded being efficient, she just wasn’t going to waste time trying to be since it seemed more efficient just to get something done than try to be efficient about it. Or at least that’s how she saw it.
Another thought occurred to her as she looked at the realism of the doll. What if someone gave something like that to someone else? If it turned into a horse, that might be a bit mean, but if it turned into something else, say a bunch of water balloons, so that when the person was hugging the doll real tight, it would change at just the right moment, and the person would end up completely soaked! Yes, that would be an awesome prank! She would have to consider trying it out Veronica if she ever got to the point of being able to transform something like that, but she wasn’t sure if she would be able to. Maybe she would be able to find something like it in a catalog and send away for it. She could only imagine the expression on her twin’s face.
Guilt began to seep in again and she ran her fingers through her brown hair. Veronica would get super mad at her for doing such a thing, but Delilah was sure that she would laugh about it later. Besides, she could always partner with her now as a future payment to her karma for such a prank. Well, that was until the professor announced that they were to partner with the person next to them. As if on cue, the girl next to her spoke. Delilah blinked a little stupidly at her. It was the wording. Very formal. Very Veronica. Recovering, she gestured with her hand, “No, go right ahead.” She bit back the addition of ‘princess’ as that was something she sometimes called Veronica in jest when she was trying to be a perfect lady. Didn’t she know that they were only eleven?
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Delilah Kerrigan, Pecari
I'm just here.
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Delilah Kerrigan, Pecari
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I dunno, we might turn into Hippogriffs or something by Jude
It was pretty cool that the girl next to him was one of his Housemates. Jude recognised her by sight, but couldn’t recall having talked to her before. That was cool, though. The brown-haired first year enjoyed making new friends, especially new friends in his House. So far he’d met Delilah-with-the-shoes and Mel-with-the-voice and Jose, his roommate. Looking down at his own feet, Jude wiggled his toes a little bit and grinned. The first day of school he’d swapped shoes with Jose, mostly because Jose wanted new shoes and Jude wanted no shoes. Apparently it was school policy or something about wearing shoes to class, but Jude spent most of his time barefoot anyway, so he didn’t mind wearing Jose’s decades-old shoes with inscriptions from people he didn’t know about people he didn’t know.If the eleven-year-old had to wear shoes, they should at least have some character to them.
The girl next to him hadn’t introduced herself before responding with her preference of spell, so for a few seconds Jude scrambled for her name. Thankfully, she introduced herself. The eleven-year-old grinned in response. Starbuck sounded like that coffee shop Jude’s dad enjoyed cussing about. Jude sincerely hoped for his partner’s sake that her parents weren’t consumerist enough to name her after a successful corporation that made its money by disregarding human rights. His own parents had named him after the Beatles song, though, so he supposed that he was predisposed to care about things like that and reminded himself that not every first year had the sort of open-minded upbringing that he had.
“Yeah, cool!” Jude responded. “I’m Jude, I recognise you from the Commonroom. You play Quidditch too, right?” That was kind of unfortunate. The boy had been looking forward to a Quidditch-free conversation. Maybe he should’ve joined the team instead of making a face and moving on. It seemed like the one really social activity around Sonora.
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Jude
I dunno, we might turn into Hippogriffs or something
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Jude
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Veronica Kerrigan, Aladren
November 29, 2009 3:19 PM
Failing to see the point. by Veronica Kerrigan, Aladren
Entering the Transfiguration classroom (finally decent seating!), she looked around for Rachel. She had an idea that she wanted to share with her. Well, it wasn’t just sharing so much as it required her. Unfortunately, she was disappointed to see that Delilah was already in the seat next to Rachel. She supposed that she would have to catch up with Rachel later. If this class held like the others, then she would be able to soon enough as the class broke into partners. So, for the moment, she found an empty seat at another table and took out the materials she would need for the class as the lecture began.Veornica rolled her eyes at the mention of someone getting a third arm. Granted, she wouldn’t want a third arm and she did agree that there shouldn’t be foolish behavior, but to think that a third arm would be the worst thing? Seriously? She could think of a lot worse things such as being turned into the thing that she saw in Charms, because of that game. That would certainly be much worse than simply having a third arm. Of course, having a third arm wouldn’t be good, because then she wouldn’t have a single thing to wear and that would be an absolute punishment.
While she had been surprised over suddenly seeing a horse in the room in place of a desk, she also didn’t understand the point of being able to do that. How often was a person going to need to turn a desk into a horse or a horse into a doll? It’s not as if it could be given to someone or would even make sense to. First, buying a doll to start with would be less expensive than buying a horse and then transfiguring it. Heck, a doll would be cheaper than the desk even. Second, it wasn’t as if the spell would last. According to the text, transfiguration spells last only so long based on the skill of the wizard (or witch) casting the spell. That would be a nasty surprise to be hugging a doll and have it turn into a horse or a desk.
Further, she didn’t understand the point of turning a can into something hard or soft, but she supposed these were the building blocks to whatever else they were going to be learning. She wished they could learn to transfigure their clothes into other clothes, then she would have even more clothes, but no, they were learning this and did he just say? No, he couldn’t have. It just wasn’t fair. She had wanted to work with Rachel and now the wonderfulness of having seats had turned to awfulness as it determined her partner. Looking over to the other person, and remembering this time to be polite, she asked, “Would you like to go first?”
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Veronica Kerrigan, Aladren
Failing to see the point.
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Veronica Kerrigan, Aladren
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Raines Bradley
November 30, 2009 6:58 PM
I'm sure it's in there somewhere. by Raines Bradley
Raines hadn’t known exactly what to expect from Sonora, but in any case, it hadn’t been what he’d gotten. A Boston Pierce was his Head of House, most of the staff was new, and he spent more time on the ground than he’d spent there before he knew how to walk. It was most distressing; he’d expressed his complaints so eloquently in his letters that his parents actually seemed to agree that he had legitimate cause for them, which was rare beyond belief. His parents never agreed about anything, and part of the reason he and his sisters always, despite their father’s paranoia about money, got everything they wanted was because they’d learned how to play David and Ellen against each other at early ages.Or so they assumed. There were times when Raines almost thought his mother knew exactly what they were doing…and encouraged it. It was impossible to be sure, though; he revered his mother, but he thought he’d never be quite sure of where he stood with her, or what she was doing. He also thought she preferred it that way.
Such slightly disturbing thoughts were almost driven out of his head by the Transfiguration class, though. He’d heard that Transfiguration was difficult, and didn’t doubt that it was, but it was going to be taught with structure. They had desks and rules and a real lecture and everything, just like it had been with his tutors. That had to make it easier at once.
He was not overly bothered by the order to stick to the person sitting next to them for the partnering up phase. While it would be preferable to give candidates a proper look-over first, anyone could point a wand at a…whatever that thing was, and it was his goal to attain some level of familiarity with everyone in the year. One thing his mother did say flat-out was that you never could tell when anyone would come in useful.
Happily, however, the girl he was sitting beside looked perfectly respectable. One of the Aladrens, he thought; he’d had an uncle in Aladren who’d died years and years before he was born and who his mother still spoke fondly of. He didn’t really want to go first, as the one who went first had the first chance to look like an idiot, but it would hardly be polite (or, well, good for his public relations) to ask a lady to take that fall in his place.
“I’d be pleased to,” he said formally. “Almost as pleased as I am to make your acquaintance.” His mother said he was good with words; Raines liked to believe it. Words were powerful – in the right circumstances, they could do more than spells. He took out his wand. “Duro!”
The thingymajig fell over with a thud. Raines righted it, trying to look like he’d expected that to happen. It felt heavier than it had, so perhaps it had actually worked, more or less. That was the problem with school; he spent his whole life only being able to practice magic in secret, as part of training in how to do what was necessary without getting caught, and then was asked to do it and do it right all at once. Repetitions and failures and mistakes were unworthy of his family. “Would you like to attempt the softening spell now, Miss…?” He cursed himself mildly for having neglected, up to this point, to catch her name.
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Raines Bradley
I'm sure it's in there somewhere.
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Raines Bradley
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5
Indeed I do, but I'm far from the expert. by Andrew
"Alright! Great job." Andrew cheered as Demelza's can turned into jello. He then promptly turned red at her praise. A genius? Hardly. He grinned and scratched the back of his neck, trying to cover up his embarrassment. "Nah, I'm sure you would have gotten it, you did great with that change. As crazy as it sounds, this class has always just kinda made sense. I'm not sure why... Anyway, I guess it is my turn."He looked at his can again. His stone can. "Hmmm... are we supposed to change it back before we change it again, or change it right from this state? Well, let's see what happens like this." He closed his eyes and focused once more, pulling up the mental image of the stone can once again, this time he pictured the jello can for his desired result and started mentally figuring out the differences between the two.
Opening his eyes, he cast the spell, and watched his can change once more. This time the color seemed to fade out from the stone's gray to the whitish shade the can had been. Andrew touched it, and the sides gave way to the pressure, and jiggled back into place when he pulled his hand back. "Cool, looks like that worked." He smiled at his partner, "Give it a shot."
2
Andrew
Indeed I do, but I'm far from the expert.
145
Andrew
0
5
Are you quiet sure? by Demelza
As Demelza praised Andrew's transfiguration skills, she found it very hard to conceal the giggle sneaking behind her. His face was turning red in embarrassment, and it was so funny. Then, it was her turn to feel embarrassed as he praised her. She grinned her thanks at him as her turned back to the cup. She hardly noticed her was saying something, and when she heard him, his words went into one ear, and out the other. Simple as that. Oh no.What was she going to do? By now, she didn't even remember the process of turning the can into stone. Oh no, oh no, oh no. She might as well say hello to that third arm now, or she could be packing her bags, saying goodbye to Sonora because she just wasn't cut out for magic. But she did turn the other cup into stone. Maybe she could do it? Hopefully.
Once again, she watched amazed as Andrew turned the stone cup into jello. Impressive! But how was Demelza even going to remember the process of the piece of transfiguration? Her eyes darted around for answers she knew she would not find.
But there it was! Her heart skipped as she sat the paper of notes on the table. Hey, note taking actually does help you after all, she thought, relieved. And she hated taking notes. Giving a mental note to herself to take notes more often, she read her hardly legible handwriting to find the process.
Duro- Three taps, one flick, then say spell.
Well, then, that wasn't to hard after all! It was already a few moments before Demelza realized that Andrew told her to give a shot at the spell that she actually tried it. Closing her eyes so that she could picture the stone cup that Andrew previously had, she opened her eyes, Flicked her wand-
"Oh no!" She whispered, realizing she had immediately done something wrong. This time it was flick last. Getting herself back in the zone, she tapped the cup, thrice, and then flicked, and then said "Duro!" And it worked!
The cupped turned to grey stone, and Demelza couldn't have been happier. She wouldn't need to leave after all! And she wasn't that bad at transfiguration! It was just a mental thing!
"Wow, I can't believe I got that," She said to Andrew. Then picking up the cup, she said, "I'm going to have to brag in my brothers face that I am better at transfiguration then him. 'Cause he is Awful at it." She smiled at Andrew, "You are really good. Oh, and note taking is a genius idea. One more thing you helped me with, I never take notes. You are smart," she said, nodding at him.
0
Demelza
Are you quiet sure?
0
Demelza
0
5
OOC by Demelza
Sorry, I sorta made a few mistakes with that. Accidentally posted it before I could review it. Sorry! :/
0
Demelza
OOC
0
Demelza
0
5
That could be cool too by Starbuck
Starbuck smiled when he said he recognized her from the common room she nodded when he asked about Quidditch. “I tired out for it but I’m not sure how well it went.” She frowned and then shrugged. “If I didn’t make it though I’ll have fun being in the cheering section.” She brushed her red hair out of her face and smiled.“So do you like school so far? I do, it’s very different from my home.” She said with a smile as she began to read over her notes. She pulled out her wand and picked up the can looking all around it. “All this is, is a soda can.” She frowned and then shrugged. She was nervous about doing the spell but knew she had to try or no grade. She briefly wondered what would happen if she flunked a subject in wizarding school, would they kick her out?
She picked up the wand pursed her lips together. Gripping the wand loosely she tapped the can twice, and then flicked the wand. “Lentesco.” She said and to her surprise the very tip of the can began to turn into jello it only went half way down. She frowned at Jude and rubbed her head. “I must have done that wrong.”
0
Starbuck
That could be cool too
0
Starbuck
0
5
Princess Rachel of Crotalus
December 03, 2009 5:13 PM
No particular reason why? by Princess Rachel of Crotalus
Though she personally found the Crotalus stereotype to be somewhat inaccurate for her, Rachel had already developed a habit of checking the House badges of others even before a formal introduction was made. She thought she knew all the Crotali and Aladrens on sight, now, even where she was not yet sure of a name, but the Teppenpaws and Pecaris she had yet to meet blended together with the older students.Her current partner was definitely a Pecari and probably a first year, though Rachel wouldn't swear to the latter. It was hard to keep up with everyone when classes were always two and often three years lumped together. She seemed like she was willing to be agreeable in any case, though, which was good. Rachel figured she was likely enough to make her mother and stepfather want to kill her by Christmas in the best of circumstances; she didn't need a bad partnership in the early days to give them any more reasons to consider that course of action. Her favorite cousins often claimed she had a death wish, but they were wrong. She would do a lot to win, including something really stupid, but she did not actively want to cause trouble for herself or others.
"Great," she said with a smile. The thought of Momma and Jeremy recalled her to her assumed manners. "I'm Rachel. Rachel Bauer, of the Arizona Bauers." The introduction was almost natural, now.
Wondering vaguely where a mess of white soda cans had come from, she pointed her wand at the can and took a very deep breath, trying to block out the rest of the room and other tangential thoughts about soda, her hair, blood, and what-have-you. She imagined the silvery particles of can reforming, stiffening, becoming hard and solid…Reality, bending into what she wanted it to be.
That was the general idea, anyway. What actually happened when she performed the spell was that the can turned into an ice sculpture. She refused absolutely to blink, though she could tell her fair complexion was betraying her; unless she was very much mistaken, she had turned an unattractive shade of red.
Maybe she’d overdone the visuals a little.
“Well,” she said, “At least it’s harder now.” She thought an ice can would be harder to crush with one’s fist than an aluminum one, though that could have something to do with how hard it was to use a hand when it was exposed to even a small amount of ice. At least it was hard to use her hand when she tried to handle ice on a dare, but she did have thin fingers. Momma had used that as an excuse to put her through piano lessons when she was younger; she enjoyed it, sort of, but was still no Beethoven. Gymnastics had been kinder to her. “Yeah, I’m going to try that again. Hang on a second.” Dad and his Muggle homeschool books had done this to her; if he had never introduced her to the Water Cycle, she never would have had images of crystallization going. "Duro."
After a moment, during which it did not appear to have any thoughts of moving further through the water cycle, Rachel rapped a cautious fingernail against it. It was harder, but the sound was definitely still metallic; it was like tapping a pot of some kind instead of a soda can. Still not stone, though. "I don't know why it's not working right," she said. The look she gave it was not kind. She had enough restraint left, though, to make sure not to send a similar look at her partner. She hadn't done anything to warrant that...yet. Most people did, sooner or later. "I'm supposed to be good at this. See if you can soften it from that while I try to make it work on - " she stuck her hand into her bag at random - "this." She had pulled out her compact mirror.
In a few years, her judgment facilities would be developed enough for her to realize that a beginning magician should not play with glass, especially when a wand was involved and the magician in question had a temper and a superiority complex that was being threatened. At the moment, though, she just came to the conclusion that the back of it was some kind of metal, which was as close as she was going to get to another soda can.
16
Princess Rachel of Crotalus
No particular reason why?
154
Princess Rachel of Crotalus
0
5
Marissa
December 03, 2009 5:33 PM
Now far ahead the road has gone by Marissa
Tobar. Marissa filed it away, idly wondering if she and David and Andrew were the only people in the Wizarding World with names that would fit in at her old school. She'd thought her name was a bit odd at home, but it was nothing to some of the ones she'd heard here. The only ones that weren't completely unfamiliar were terribly old-fashioned; a Quentin was likely as not to get made fun of, and she'd hate to be an Edmond or a Jethro. Elementary schoolers (and presumably middle schoolers; she'd just never gotten to be a middle schooler to confirm things) were mean.Of course, if the accent was anything to go by, Tobar was from outside the States. That would explain things nicely. He'd probably think 'Marissa Stephenson' was a weird name. She remembered what Jose's father had said at the parent dinner last year about Sonora being well-respected, and the impression she'd gotten, from reading, that magical schools large enough to warrant the name weren't all that common. International students at a well-respected one made sense.
Bully for subtle cultural education, then. "I'm Marissa," she said, touching her chest slightly and tugging on the drop bead on her flowered necklace for a moment. "Nice meeting you."
She watched, impressed, as he managed to turn the top of the can into what looked, to her, a lot like stone. When he asked what he was doing wrong, she couldn't help but laugh a little. "I'm sorry," she said. "It's just...you're already doing way better than I could. I'm really horrible with a wand." She laid a hand on hers, half-rolling it twice on the desk before she stopped. "I don't think you're doing anything wrong in particular, it's just that it takes time to work up to being able to do much of anything. Almost nobody gets a Transfiguration right on the first try. Some of us don't even make anything happen."
16
Marissa
Now far ahead the road has gone
147
Marissa
0
5
Maybe under the can. by Veronica
Oh. My. She didn’t like what they were being taught, but in being forced to have partners, Veronica felt she had certainly lucked out. She could have ended up with one of those uncouth boys. They were the kind that had absolutely no manners and certainly didn’t know how to speak to a lady such as herself. But this boy was without a doubt not one of those and he was deserving of the coy smile she rewarded him with. She was determined to make the best impression on this boy as possible as he seemed well bred.Now to see how intelligent he was. She observed him discreetly under a veil of long lashes to see how he did. It was an odd double standard of sorts that she wanted to appear less intelligent, but wanted a boy that was intelligent. She worried that if she appeared too smart, the boy would think she wanted to do something with her brains like being a Healer or similar. There was also the problem that if she were smarter than the boy, he would feel undermined. Yet, she wanted him to be intelligent so that he would do well and be able to take care of her. Not to mention, others would admire him. Was that really so much to ask?
When he did accomplish something, Veronica resisted the urge to congratulate him, even though her insides were doing cheers that he was intelligent or was, at least, in this class. Outside, she tried to look unimpressed, as her grandmother had taught her to do, and appear instead as if she expected it as girls of substance did. Her perky nose held up slightly in such manner, she replied, “Kerrigan. Veronica Kerrigan.” She drew out her wand with an air of confidence. “Certainly, Mr…?” It was only polite to find out her possible future last name, because that was another thing on the checklist. Last name. If he had one of those terrible last names like Smurnofken, then obviously, he would be completely unacceptable.
Since he had done fairly well, she could do well too. The key was to appear only less intelligent than the boy, but it wouldn’t work to appear to be an absolute airhead either. One day she’ll have to do everything that she’s seen her grandmother do and an absolute harebrain would definitely not be able to do those things. So, with her turn to be judged, she was determined to do well, but not better than him, which he made easier. She cleared her throat slightly and with sharp gestures of her wand, two taps and a flick, commanded, “Lentesco.”
Satisfaction was written over her face when she got the result she had wanted. Realizing that might look awful, she quickly wiped it away to something more modest and smiled at him. “I think we have the first ones we tried done, so maybe we should switch. I can go first this time since I need to do duro and the…” Had the professor said what it was called? She didn’t think so, but didn’t want to seem inept so she finished with, “the target.” There that sounded like she knew what she was talking about. Sort of.
Veronica brushed a bit of blonde hair out of her eye as she brandished her wand once more. Flick. Two taps. “Duro.” She wasn’t surprised when it didn’t do anything since she had purposely said two instead of three. She was worried that she might look better than him if he had any trouble with his second spell, but she figured that since he hadn’t had any trouble with duro, he would only need another attempt if he did. The second time, she flicked her wand and did three taps with a repeat, “Duro.” The object hardened immediately. She slid it over to him. “Your turn.”
0
Veronica
Maybe under the can.
0
Veronica
0
5
Because I'm supposed to be? by Delilah
“Oh, um, I’m Delilah Kerrigan,” she answered. Delilah purposely left off where her family was from, which would probably be to the disappointment of her grandmother and Veronica. At least, her grandmother wasn’t here to share the fact even if her sister was. Honestly, she didn’t see the point of all of this nonsense about familial branches. What did it really matter if her family was of importance or not? She knew for Veronica it was important, because she wanted to marry into some influential family. Delilah couldn’t fathom why. She never wanted to get married, let alone worry about marrying some ‘right’ person.She was vastly tempted to ask Rachel if she was also looking for proper, pureblood boys, but decided it was better to leave it alone for now. She didn’t know the other girl even vaguely enough to whether she had a short fuse or not and she didn’t really feel like having herself possibly turned to stone rather than their object. Besides, Rachel had continued on to actually trying the spell, which judging by her red complexion and the state of the item was not going so well. “Take your time,” was all she said with a wave of the hand as she decided to concentrate on a shoe. This one she drew a can with a bit of snow hanging off of it to commemorate the moment.
Her attention was drawn back to Rachel when she said that she was supposed to be good at this. Delilah raised an eyebrow in question. “If you were good at this, you wouldn’t be in this class, because you would have already learned it,” she pointed out as she pulled out her wand. “But if it makes you feel better, I guarantee you can’t be worse than me.” The words she spoke were truth. It wasn’t that she was horrible at magic per se, but she generally had difficulty with English let alone having to learn the language of spells. It was completely different!
“Okay, here goes nothing.” She glanced up at the board to check what she was supposed to be saying. “Lendseo!” Nothing happened. What was she doing wrong? She had tapped the can twice and flicked her wand just as they were supposed to. “Lendseo!” She said again. She even used her most commanding voice, which probably still sounded like a mouse, but Veronica had said confidence was the key to all spells. She had been confident, but now she felt it wavering. One more time “Lendseo!” Absolutely nothing. She looked over to Rachel with a look that said, ‘See what I mean?’ before her gaze drifted down to the compact. “So, how are you doing?”
0
Delilah
Because I'm supposed to be?
0
Delilah
0
5
Absolutely by Andrew
Andrew looked at Demelza, perplexed. Never taken notes? He tried to figure out how that worked, the he realized the state the girl must have been in and realized that not taking notes really hadn't, or wouldn't work. "You've never taken notes before? How do you remember things?" Andrew shifted his notebook around so that she could see it. Here's what I jotted down for today's lesson.On the page was a brief summary of the professor's opening speech, the spells they were learning, the phonetic spelling for pronunciation, arrows and symbols representing the motions the wand needs to make, and a few odd comments to clarify. "See, this is how I keep track of things. Without this, I'd be lost. Granted that is only a part of it though. From what I've figured out, this is only the mechanical side of casting spells." He pointed to her head, "The rest is pretty much all up here. You've got to use what's up there to guide and direct the magic, to visualize what you want done. That," he grinned, "is the tricky part."
2
Andrew
Absolutely
145
Andrew
0
5
Ah yes yes by Tobar
Tobar smiled when she introduced herself. “Pretty name, I have a cousin named Marissa I’ve always liked it.” He said with a smile. When she explained that she had no clue what he was doing wrong Tobar’s smile faded and then he shrugged. “Well I’m glad to know almost nobody gets it on the first try.”He paused reread what he was suppose to be doing once again took his wand in his hand and cast the spell. This time not only the top turned into stone but the whole can. Tobar grinned madly. “Wow, I guess it just took a bit more concentration.” He said happily as he picked up the can and twisted it in his hands to see the finished product.
He set it back down and nodded. “Time for you to make my stone jell-o think you’re up to the task?” He asked with a wide grin. “I’m sure you are better with a want then you say you are.” He hoped that the girl could get more confidence; girls who were confident were girls he got along with. The ones who seemed to doubt everything confused him and he hated it.
0
Tobar
Ah yes yes
0
Tobar
0
5
Cool Ice, man by Jude
“I’m sure you were super,” Jude grinned, pushing his long-ish brown hair out of his eyes. He was going to have to figure out some way to get it cut soon or he wouldn’t be able to see, and that wouldn’t go too well. It was awesome rooming with Jose and even cooler being in Pecari House (because he was pretty sure all the rest of the Houses were boring), but he kind of wondered some days if he was going to wake up to a dorm room right out of The Parent Trap. The first year wouldn’t have put it past most of his Housemates to do something like that. Except magical. Which was probably worse, because magical shaving cream probably stuck better, or sang, or turned different colours or something like that. True story.“School is pretty cool,” the Pecari answered, with an amused smile at his accidental rhyme. “Soooo different, yeah. Like, if I were at home I would totally be in a tree right now or something. Or helping my dad in the studio. Or like, studying science or math. Probably not turning cans into jelly,” of course, if that was some new environmental thing his mother probably would take him on a field trip to do just that, but that was fine by Jude. He enjoyed the field trips that his mother, who worked for the National Park Service, occasionally took him on. They were usually pretty interesting and definitely enviromentally friendly. That was good, because Jude liked the environment. Some of his best friends were trees.
Jude couldn’t help but laugh when Starbuck tried to turn the can to Jell-O like Professor Carter had done, and only got it half-way down. He poked the top half with a finger, making a face at the cool, almost slimy texture of it.
“Grossssss,” he laughed, now poking the bottom of the can which was still steadfastly aluminum. “I wonder if it’s better to turn cans into jelly, or recycle them. Did you know that making new cans out of recycled aluminum only uses 5% of the energy you would use normally to make a can? Isn’t that cool? I mean like, just think of how much energy we could save if we all recycled and stuff!” The boy’s eyes lit up in excitement. He was totally into the whole environmental thing, and his brain was now rotating around what could maybe be done with magic. If they could just use magic cans or something then the whole problem would be solved, right?
“Whoops,” Jude realised he was supposed to try the spell now too. “Uhm. Lentesco,” the brown-haired boy tried, doing the requisite wand-motion, albeit tentatively. This time, instead of turning into Jell-O, the can melted into a sickly green puddle onto the desk. Jude looked at it with one eyebrow cocked. “I don’t think it likes us,” he decided.
0
Jude
Cool Ice, man
0
Jude
0
5
So it begins by Jose Hernandez (Pecari)
Jose had pulled a reasonably good grade in transfigurations last year. Nothing to write home about (there were far more interesting things going on in the school to tell the rest of his family about than his grades), but good enough that he didn't feel too worried about the class this year. He'd pull an easy A, or maybe put in a bit of effort and manage an E, and everyone would be happy. His transfiguration skill was middle of the road and he saw little need to change that.Saul had gotten a U on his RATS, so Jose just needed to do better than that when his time came. There wasn't much pressure beyond matching his cousin's standard, such as it was, seeing as how that U made Saul the second best transfigurer in the family.
Of course, he had no illusions that he'd be able to cast transfigurations better than Saul. He was just looking to grade better. He figured doing his homework and paying attention in class ought to be enough.
To that end, he took down a few key notes into his notebook as Professor Carter explained the day's lesson. Oh, he was in no danger of being mistaken for an Aladren, but he was on a mission to prove - even in these classes taught by professors who had never met his cousin - that all California Pierces were not illiterate morons. It felt like an uphill battle sometimes; if nothing else, Saul knew how to leave a lasting impression.
Transfiguration lets people:
desk -> horse
horses -> doll
doll -> desk
(pretty neat, huh?)
Start basic. Hafta stand before you can dance. Today's Box Step:
Duro: harden to stone - flick, three taps
Lentesco: Make soft - two taps, flick
Once the notes were taken and the professor stopped talking, Jose took out his wand and regarded the aluminum can in front of him. For some reason, he was inclined to believe it had once been branded with a Sierra Mist logo, but he had no basis for that; it looked uniformly white now. It was kind of sad, really.
Well, he had his assignment. "Alright, Sierra, ready? You're about to be turned to stone, which is at least a textured gray and little more interesting, right?"
He flicked his wand and mentally counted out three taps as he cast, "Duro!"
Though this particular spell was new to him, it was pretty basic, just a material change instead of material and shape change, like he'd been doing by the end of last year, so it hardened and turned a cool mottled gray obligingly.
Jose picked it up with a satisfied grin and tapped it lightly against his desk. His ears picked out a slight tinny reverberation, but there was enough of a stone-like thunk that he felt reasonably pleased by his result. He grinned at the person sitting beside him and deposited the stone can in front of his new partner.
"Your turn," he cheerfully announced.
0
Jose Hernandez (Pecari)
So it begins
0
Jose Hernandez (Pecari)
0
5
*flips it over* Looks like a desk to me. by Raines
Kerrigan. Raines filed the name away for further study. It sounded vaguely familiar, but in the excitement over being able to come to Sonora at all, he'd neglected to brush his Magical Geography back up last month as planned. He had as much of the materials his parents had given him on all the various families as he'd been able to carry, and if he ran into a dead end, he'd just write to his mother. If, as her appearance and demeanor suggested, Miss Veronica came from people of substance, his mother would know, and if she did not, his mother would still know, or at least find out."Bradley," Raines supplied when prompted. "Raines Bradley, of the Louisiana Bradleys." And here was the part where he figured out if she was suitable for getting to know better or not. If she ignored his first name, or even simply kept her inquiries about it polite, she passed. If she made the slightest allusion to the weather, she failed. Saying that was the stupidest name she'd ever heard of also qualified, in his opinion, as an automatic fail; other comments would be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
She appeared to get the spell right in one go, which either meant she was very good at this or that she, like he and his sisters, hadn't exactly obeyed the letter or spirit of the Reasonable Restrictions over the years. Since magics performed in a grown wizard's house couldn't be detected as such anyway, he'd justified that to himself as a loophole a prudent lawmaker had deliberately inserted so the law would only really apply to Muggleborns. Because of their constant contact with the Muggle world, they were the most likely to break the Statute of Secrecy by accident and bring about an end to magical society altogether.
"An excellent suggestion, Miss Kerrigan," he said formally, softening it a bit with a brief return smile. Raines didn't smile much on his own, and when he did, it was usually in a businesslike manner, but he knew it was the polite thing to do. That it always seemed a little odd to him didn't matter much.
She had a little more trouble with this one than she'd done with Lentesco, but still set a decently high standard to be met. Concentrating, Raines executed the wand movements very precisely (an unforseen advantage of musical training!) and said, in a very even tone of voice, "Lentesco". He'd studied basic theory at home, and it indicated that a calm, firm manner was better for controlled magic than were great fits of emotion.
He could tell it had sort-of worked, but hadn't gone completely wobbly, so he cleared his throat, didn't admit a partial failure, and merely performed the spell again. This time, it finished what the first spell had started, leading to a properly mushy Unidentified Metallic Object before him on the desk. While jellies were one of several things which Raines liked to keep as much distance from as possible, the accomplishment was almost enough to make up for it. "I must say, this class doesn't seem nearly as difficult as certain individuals had lead me to believe it would be," he said, a note of satisfaction in his voice.
0
Raines
*flips it over* Looks like a desk to me.
0
Raines
0
5
Marissa
December 09, 2009 7:36 PM
So merrily, merrily, and onward we go. by Marissa
"Thank you," Marissa said, flushing slightly because of the compliment. Apart from one on television, she'd never heard of another Marissa; one of the things that had first drawn her and her Muggle friends together in first grade had been the shared trait of having names that were not often seen where they lived. Briana, whose name was dime-a-dozen and who had spent half her life called 'Briana Three', had only joined them later. "I've never met another Tobar, but it's a nice name, too." She had, however, once known a Tobias, but that wasn't really a story for casual repetition.She wondered about Tobar as he lost some of his enthusiasm upon hearing that no one really got this straight off. The past year of Sonora had knocked a lot of the arrogance out of her, but once, Marissa had been one of those kids who'd never had any difficulty picking up anything in her life. Finding out that her skills with a book could only take her so far here had been a real blow to her, and she hoped, for his sake, that Tobar didn't have to go through the same sort of thing. The ease with which he turned the can into what appeared to be solid rock on his second try suggested he wouldn't, though.
"That's nice of you," she said, with a trace of amusement, when Tobar assured her that her skill was greater than she thought it was, "but you've never seen me explode whatever I'm supposed to be Charming before." Since that might make him a bit too concerned for his safety, she quickly added, "It's the first lesson of the year, though, so you probably don't have to worry. I'll just not be able to do anything."
That was exactly what happened. She couldn't help but touch her necklace again, but Marissa was able to smile it off in a 'what did I tell you?' sort of good humor. It still never failed to surprise her when she was able to do that, but it was true that she'd had a lot of practice; if she'd kept on getting upset every time things didn't go her way here, she would have gone crazy before the end of her first month. It was also starting to dawn on her that she might just not be as competitive as the rest of her family; while she greatly enjoyed it when she was the best at something, all she felt impelled to do was meet her own standards, which wasn't the same thing. She tried the spell two more times without any result, and it finally reverted back to aluminum on its own.
"I'll be working on this for a week," she said matter-of-factly. "I can try to turn it to stone for you, but you might want to duck this time." She performed the wand movement with her usual precision, enunciating the spell word clearly. "Duro."
To her relief, nothing happened.
16
Marissa
So merrily, merrily, and onward we go.
147
Marissa
0
5
Rachel
December 09, 2009 8:50 PM
That is a perfectly legitimate reason. by Rachel
Rachel had never really gotten the hang of controlling her every reaction, which was in large part why she looked up, surprised, when her partner introduced herself. She didn't see much of a resemblance to the girl she took meals with, but Kerrigan was Veronica's last name. The Wizarding World was not a large place; for a name to be shared, there was, probably, some kind of connection. The shoes told a very different story, as did the hair, but Rachel knew she looked nothing like any of her cousins; they were all dark like Naomi, and she had gotten Gramma Claire's blonde hair and fair skin. The clothes choices on some of them, Rachel wasn't going to think much about. She'd liked Sam far more than she did her sisters when they'd been little, but Aunt Hannah did a serious disservice to the poor boy in letting him pick his own t-shirts.Of course, considering the disservice Aunt Hannah had done to Sam by having him, letting him dress the way he did was practically a misdemeanor...
She decided to act as if she hadn't recognized Delilah's surname. It was simpler for everyone that way, and since she'd left off a family branch, Rachel couldn't be truly sure they were even the same kind of Kerrigan. Getting a pair of family branches mixed up could be cause for very serious offense with some families.
"You don't get it," she said, dismissing the notion of a failure on Delilah's part acting as a counter to her own. If someone did worse than her, well and good; that was no reason to let her guard down, because they might come out on top next time. Everyone won some, everyone lost some, and the idea was just to come out on top as much as humanely possible. "I'm supposed to be good at everything. My mother was Head Girl."
And a Quidditch captain, and married to a former Head Boy, and the sister of another Head Boy. Who'd also been a Quidditch captain, and had a half-sister who still was a Quidditch captain. Her grandmothers had both been heads of their years in school academically, too. It was downright daunting to think of everything she had to accomplish just to be as good as most of her relatives, never mind to do better than them all.
That, however, didn't stay on her mind for long as another, more immediate, problem presented itself. She hadn't thought of the possiblity that her partner might get the spell itself wrong instead of just not being able to perform it, and her eyes were wide as, that thought very much occuring to her now, she turned her head back in Delilah's direction.
The directions had been perfectly clear. How hard was it to follow directions? They were not complicated, and they were all there for a reason. If there had not been a good reason for an item, the item wouldn't have been there. There were, of course, exceptions, areas for playing around with theory in magic, but they were firsties. Beginners. For now, their job was to follow directions, at least during class. Sometimes out of it, too, though Rachel would admit to more exceptions there. No one could be good all the time; it was important to pick one's battles.
She didn't answer the question. "It's Lentesco," she said faintly. "The spell. You said it wrong." Putting down her wand, she took out her lip gloss and reapplied it nervously. "Don't do that again, okay? They haven't even made us prefects yet."
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Rachel
That is a perfectly legitimate reason.
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Rachel
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Jethro Smythe
December 10, 2009 8:33 AM
It does? by Jethro Smythe
Jethro had found transfiguration quite difficult last year. Quite often the spells didn't do what he wanted them to do, but the main problem was that his attention span didn't last long enough to take in the incantation, wand movement and what it was they were aiming for as a completed transfiguration. Besides, he didn't have a very good imagination, and that was apparently essential in achieveing a good transfiguration.His parents hadn't been much surprised by Jethro's grades following his first year. They hadn't said as much to Jethro, of course, but they still were set in the habit of speaking about him when he was present, sure he wouldn't take on board what had been said. For the most part, this was true, but hearing his sister making excuses for him had let Jethro put two and two together. He hadn't passed every class - in fact he had failed most of them. Luckily Sonora didn't require him to retake grades, otherwise Jethro would graduate in his thrities. As it was, he just wanted to pass as many classes as he was able. Transfiguration might not be one of them.
Jethro took a seat a did his best to pay attention. He watched the desk change into a horse then a doll then a desk and that confused him enough that when cans were thrown into the occasion as well he found it much simpler to just watch a dustball that was dancing around in the corner of the room. So when the person next to him - Jose, a boy in Jethro's year who he knew a little - said it was his turn, Jethro was completely befuddled. "My turn for what?" he asked.
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Jethro Smythe
It does?
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Jethro Smythe
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Jose Hernandez
December 10, 2009 9:42 AM
Yeah, I'm pretty sure. It begins. by Jose Hernandez
Though 'my turn for what?' had not been the response Jose had been expecting, upon further consideration of his partner, it should have been. If Saul flirted with the edge of ADD, Jose was pretty sure Jethro had wandered well beyond that line. Of course, it wasn't like half his family wasn't easily given to distraction. He was used to needing to work to maintain people's attention. Jose accepted the challenge of getting not only himself but also Jethro to pass the day's assignment."We're turning cans," he lifted Jethro's still-aluminum one and put it back down. "Into stone," he picked up his own mostly-stone can and thumped in back into place. "Then we trade off and make them soft. Here," he shifted his notebook over so Jethro could read what Jose had written down. His handwriting was reasonably legible, so he wasn't too concerned that that might pose a problem. "Those are the spells." He tapped his finger against the last two lines.
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Jose Hernandez
Yeah, I'm pretty sure. It begins.
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Jose Hernandez
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Okay. You lead, I'll follow. by Jethro
Exasperated sighs, rolling eyes and expressed disappointment were the sorts of things Jethro expected from conversations with others, particularly concerning classwork. What he hadn't been expecting Jose to re-explain the class to him, and even pass over some notes. "Thank you," Jethro said, sounding mildly surprised by the turn of events. "I sometimes need to be told things more than once," he said, and it was repetition of something he'd frequently been told rather than a modest excuse."That's a good stone can," he told Jose, pointing at the transfiguration his classmate had already completed. Then he looked back at Jose's notes, because they were there for his benefit so it would be quite rude to ignore them "Duro," Jethro said, reading the word aloud. "A flick and three taps - oh, with your wand." Looking at the white can in front of him, Jethro picked up his wand (which he had at least remembered to take from his bag at the start of the lesson), flicked it from his wrist and tapped the wand three times, and then he incanted the spell. It was easier than usual to imagine the outcome because he could see Jose's stone can sitting right on the desk before him. Therefore his surprise was less than it otherwise would have been when his can did turn grey in color and adopt a grainy texture. "Oh wow," Jethro said, because although the transfiguration was probably just visual, it was better than he usually managed on his first attempt. "Thank you," he said again to Jose, sounding effusive, and yet still a little surprised.
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Jethro
Okay. You lead, I'll follow.
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Jethro
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I think I can handle that by Jose
Jose quirked a quick grin at Jethro's admission that he sometimes needed to be told things more than once. "Don't worry about it. My whole family would never get anything done if we weren't told what to do in triplicate." He suspected that was part of why the Matriarch/Aunt-and-Uncle/Cousin system had evolved. The cousins weren't responsible to just one set of parents, but to every set of parents, because, presumably, one of them would eventually get across whatever message needed to be imparted to the kids under their charge.Merlin only knew how many times Regina or Maria or Joshua or whoever was in charge now had to say something to get the aunts and uncles in line. Bo Pierce was an Uncle, after all. Jethro was downright focused in comparison to Saul's father.
Jethro had even gotten the duro spell to work. "Great!" Jose congratulated and picked up the can to bring it over to his desk. Though it looked stone-like, it dented in at the sides like an empty aluminum can would. He decided not to mention it. Jethro probably needed the confidence, and it wasn't going to hinder Jose's ability to use the softening spell on it.
He put it down directly in front of him, and cast, "Lentesco!" Jose gave the faux-stone can a double tap of his wand and then flicked the length of cedar wood over it. In his mind, he pictured a cylinder of store-bought cranberry sauce, still indented with its can's ribbing and jiggling a little as it stood on end.
It almost worked. It turned a cranberry color and jiggled. And then it collapsed in on itself and made a pile of goo.
"Huh." Jose poked at it with the tip of his wand. It jiggled some more. "Well, it got soft," he commented, deciding to look on the bright side and count the attempt as a success.
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Jose
I think I can handle that
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Jose
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5