Professor Lilac Crosby
February 11, 2011 2:59 PM
Mad-Hatter theory! [Third, fourth, and fifth years!] by Professor Lilac Crosby
A single question had been ravaging Lilac’s thoughts. She had gained the question from a book she read recently for the first time. Being that it was Muggle literature, she knew very little about it, and though it was a child’s story, she enjoyed it very much. Maybe because she was a bit childish at heart.As her intermediate students--third, forth, and fifth years--began to enter the room, Lilac was not in her typical greeting position by the door. Instead, the brunette sat at her desk, her head resting in her hand, propped up by her elbow, and her grey eyes scanning what seemed to be the ceiling. She wore a particularly quizzical look on her face.
Lilac waited until it seemed like all of the students were sitting before she even stirred. Looking to one student in the front row in particular, she inquired, “Why’s a raven like a writing desk?” After a pause, her head dropped curiously to a small degree, her child-like tilt to further show her puzzled feeling. To another student, she added, “Do you know?”
Addressing the full class now, the twenty-seven year old said, “Does anyone know? Why is a raven like a writing desk?” She assumed all of the minds of those who had read the novel of which she was thinking were at ease, but those who didn’t--probably purebloods--were possibly dizzy with confusion.
“There is no answer to the riddle, or at least none Lewis Caroll has provided for us.” His work was the origin of the question, of course, but he never penned an solution. “This question has possibly puzzled minds of readers since his book, Alice in Wonderland, was written. Today, we’re going to make our own solution.”
The professor made her way across the front of the classroom, sashaying somewhat as her bright orange robes flowed around her, reaching just down to her orange leopard-print slippers. She had taken to wearing them to class last term; they were just so comfortable! She hurried to a desk, smiled at the student there, and whipped the cover off the top, knocking down the Please Do Not Remove The Cover sign, identical to the one on each desk in the classroom. “Behold!” she exclaimed.
In the cage was a raven, which, startled by the quickly removed cover, began to squawk. “Shh, quiet now,” she soothed. Turning her attention back to the class, she announced, “We’re going to turn ravens into writing desks!” Gentle enough to not harm the bird but firm enough to keep a hold, Lilac withdrew the raven from its cage with her left hand as her right positioned her wand. “It’s okay to sit them on the desks to Transfigure them; the new writing desks will be miniature, only about the same size as the raven was.”
Carefully, she allowed the bird to sit on the desk by itself. She had taken the precaution of eliminating the birds’ ability to fly; another simple spell would return their flight after the lesson was done. “The incantation is this, so listen clearly: Corvus Scrinium!” Lilac demonstrated the proper wand movement--a swift flick left, and then up--and the bird was replaced by a small desk. She held it up for the class to see. “This should be the final result.”
Lowering the desk, Lilac uttered a non-verbal spell, reversed her wand movement, and a squawking raven returned. She handed it back to the student in the (actual-sized) desk. “That’s all you need to know,” the half-Russian grinned. “If you have any questions, you know where I’ll be. Also, feel free to partner up! Other than that, begin!”
OOC: I would think at this point, you all know the rules. Lots of words, lots of creativity, lots of good children. No exploding, no god-modding, and no other bad things. Also, please do not injure the ravens. It would make Lilac so very sad! Other than that, happy posting!
Subthreads: I'm falling through the looking glass. by Raines Bradley, Crotalus with Delilah Kerrigan, Pecari, Raines
I'll ask Alice, when she's ten feet tall? by Jose Hernandez, Pecari with Jethro Smythe, Jose, Jose Hernandez, Andrew Duell, Teppenpaw, Andrew Duell
And now though we're all here, we're not all there! by Nicodemus Sawyer, Crotalus with Cooper Abramson
You need to be as mad as a hatter by Dulce Garcia (Teppenpaw) with Samantha Hamilton, Dulce
0
Professor Lilac Crosby
Mad-Hatter theory! [Third, fourth, and fifth years!]
0
Professor Lilac Crosby
1
5
Raines Bradley, Crotalus
February 12, 2011 10:55 PM
I'm falling through the looking glass. by Raines Bradley, Crotalus
There was at least one advantage to Anna’s disownment that Raines could think of, and while it was a meager thing indeed since he really had loved his sister even if he didn’t like her most of the time, he had grown up in the household of David and Ellen Bradley, which meant learning to take whatever advantages he could find that his family offered. The advantage here was that he could now say with certainty that there was one place he would be less happy to visit than the Transfiguration classroom, and it was his house. He had never been able to decide which was less pleasant and more dangerous before, and it was good to have these things settled.Still, he refused to hide at the back of the room. For one thing, he didn’t want to look cowardly in front of Miss Veronica. For another, he didn’t wear them often, but he did have reading glasses for a reason, and the best way to stay safe in any situation was to pay attention to every little detail. That was true whether he was here, in other classes, in Illinois with his sane relatives, or even at home. So he took a seat reasonably near the front and tried not to look as worried as he was about the professor staring off into space as though she had taken too much of Mother’s nerve potion.
He couldn’t help but look slightly chagrined, though, when she began asking questions that had no logical answer. Was she taking something inappropriately, or been injured recently and not received treatment? Raines had gotten a concussion, once, when he’d crashed a broom, and Anna swore to this – would have sworn to this day, if she’d still been alive, that he had looked straight at their father and said ‘I love you, Father,’ before the Healer patched him up, and Mother had verified the story, so he knew injuries and pain potions and that kind of thing could make someone say a strange, nonsensical thing. But if that was the case, why were they letting her teach?
Raines blinked when she told them it was a riddle, and one the author, whoever he was, had not provided the answer to. What was the point of that? Plus, a riddle was only a riddle if it had a solution. To offer a riddle without a solution was to break the rules of the game. Only a dirty cheat would do that. And Transfiguring a raven into a writing desk did not provide a solution, because it wasn’t a similarity between a raven and a writing desk, it was turning a raven into a writing desk. A thing was itself, not something similar to itself; that was quibbling, and now how the argument worked.
It was all wrong. Why couldn’t people do things right? Was that really too much to ask from the world, that they not screw everything up and make it difficult and –
He saw that one of his hands, thankfully hidden beneath his desk where it had been resting on his knee, was clenched into a fist, and he was sure he was starting to look red in the face. That wasn’t good. That wasn’t right. He had to calm down. It was all right. One old maid who had to teach because no family would take her because she was too much of an eccentric to function in society was not a reason for him to lose his temper and do something regrettable. Very few things were a reason to do that; he couldn’t think of one, actually, short of someone insulting his mother very badly that would justify such a thing. He had to be reasonable, or he would be no better than Father.
He was reasonable. He was all right. It was all right.
He still felt a little reluctant to pick up his wand, thereby handling a weapon when the part of him that was like Father had so recently reared its unwelcome head, but he did it anyway. He could not show hesitation or irresolution.
“Corvus scrinium,” he said, ignoring the slight shake of his voice. He felt strange for a moment, almost lightheaded, like he couldn’t breathe – and then, there was a miniature writing desk.
He was all right. Everything was all right. He’d done the assignment, pointless and grounded in the nonsensical as it was, and now it was all right. It would help, though, to act it out instead of just telling himself the line, so he turned to his neighbor and, once he confirmed that he hadn’t taken a seat near someone completely intolerable in his mild concern about the professor’s absent expression, smiled. “How are you doing?” he asked politely.
0
Raines Bradley, Crotalus
I'm falling through the looking glass.
0
Raines Bradley, Crotalus
0
5
Delilah Kerrigan, Pecari
February 16, 2011 11:43 AM
Off with her head! by Delilah Kerrigan, Pecari
Delilah had not been herself lately and if anyone knew why, they wouldn’t have been able to blame her. Confusion tormented her on a daily basis. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. How could it have happened? Since she and her sisters were younger, the plan, which Veronica talked about most, had been simple. It had been society’s plan, the world’s plan, and there was no Plan B, especially in a world of purebloods, especially not to her sister. She was supposed to become interested in boys. She was supposed to pick a proper boy. She was supposed to be courted by the boy. She was supposed to marry the boy. She was supposed to have children with the boy. She was then supposed to send her children to school to repeat the things that she did in school.But a wrench had been thrown into the works. She didn’t want the things that she was supposed to want. So, how did she fix it? Could she fix it? She chewed on her fingernails, a bad habit that she had begun in correlation to her anxiety. Veronica would hate her forever if she knew and she couldn’t fathom that. No, she had to make every effort to become the sister that Veronica wanted her to be. Yes, she would try very, very hard. She would become like Veronica. Her sister had everything lined up in a neat little row. She knew exactly what she wanted and how to get what she wanted. There was no Plan B. There was only Plan A. She would be like that. She would only focus on Plan A. There were no other options, but oh, how her mind couldn’t seem to stop thinking about the Teppenpaw.
Pulling herself back into the world, the brunette looked around in a panic. Everyone was working on an assignment. Oh, no! She had completely missed what they were doing today. Not good. Not good at all. She couldn’t let her grades get any worse than they already were. She wasn’t sure what would happen if they did, but she certainly didn’t want to find out. What if they pulled her out of school and made her finish at home? Then, she would never ever see…no, better not to think about it. She wouldn’t think about it. She would just figure out what they were doing and she would get it right. She had to get it right. It wasn’t an option. Looking over to her neighbor, which happened to be The Raines Bradley, she was able to deduce that they were turning ravens into writing desks. Ravens into writing desks? What?
Never mind. There had to be a spell for it. She looked around for a spell. Where was the spell? Why wasn’t it written up on the board? Panic clutched at her chest. No, this wasn’t happening! This wasn’t happening at all. She had to do well this term. She had to start working within Plan A. Everything had to click. Everything had to work. No other option. No other option. Her mantra was interrupted by the sound of a voice. Looking she saw that Raines Bradley was talking to her. She took a breath in. It was fine. She would just ask about the assignment. It would be fine. And in the meantime, she could try to figure out one very important thing. Why her sister liked him. If she could figure that out, maybe she could figure everything else out.
“Um, actually not so well. Could you help me? I think I have the spell wrong,” she answered. She figured that this was better than admitting that she didn’t know what the spell was at all and it seemed helpless. Veronica would be so proud of her. It also lent itself to the opportunity that having a somewhat conversation with him would give her the chance to look at him without it seeming creepy. Why did Veronica like him so much? His hair coloring certainly left something to be desired. His features seemed all wrong. And he was lanky. She didn’t like any of it. She didn’t understand why Veronica liked him. Okay, she sort of understood small parts like that he came from a good family and that he was intelligent, but should that be enough? She wasn’t sure and really wished she had someone to talk to about the feelings that were swarming inside of her. Maybe she was just mistaking something being there that wasn’t there at all.
0
Delilah Kerrigan, Pecari
Off with her head!
0
Delilah Kerrigan, Pecari
0
5
Raines
February 17, 2011 1:00 AM
And then we may have tea, just never today. by Raines
On her own, Delilah was not someone Raines would have noticed except in passing, and at Pecari-Crotalus Quidditch games - someone to shake his head at in disinterested disapproval, maybe with a thought about how there had to be one bad apple in every batch but it was still a shame that she would be what she was when her twin was a perfect lady and their older sister seemed well on her way to landing one of the better matches Sonora had to offer, but not someone he thought of when she didn't happen to be right in his line of sight.To their no doubt mutual displeasure, though, she wasn't on her own. Her twin sister, the only one of those Kerrigan girls to turn out quite right, was Miss Veronica, which meant Raines had no choice but to register Delilah's existence. She played Quidditch, she did odd things to her shoes, she did not dress particularly well, just generally did not behave in a way reflective of the fine upbringing her sisters' conditions suggested she must have had, and there was a decent chance, if she were not disowned by her grandmother, that she might be his sister-in-law. That option had seemed closed when her father - did what he did, but Miss Veronica had very wisely distanced herself from all that, and the Anna situation made it unlikely that his parents would be able to arrange anything higher for him when it had always been a slim chance at best. Besides, the next best option was Jane Carey, and while he thought his family wouldn't suit hers now, Raines planned to do all he could to discredit her if Father decided she was the best option over Miss Veronica. Not only was that family strange, so that Delilah Kerrigan was a better bet for a direct in-law than Jane's brother and his biological sister, but Jane didn't suit him. He couldn't put his finger on what it was, but something about her struck him as more than half boy.
So not only did he have to acknowledge and routinely remember that Miss Delilah existed, he also had to be somewhat polite to her without appearing so friendly that his good pureblood status was threatened. It was a delicate balance, but the year before Prefect selections, he was sure he could get away with helping her in class. So he smiled magnanimously as she explained that she wasn't doing so well.
"Animate to inanimate transfigurations can be difficult," he sympathized. Raines himself had been known to dedicate extra private practice time to them so he could look quicker on the uptake than he really was in class. It was important that his classmates see him as serious, intelligent, powerful, and talented. "The wand movement is like this - " he demonstrated, slowly and precisely, with a quill for safety's sake - "and the incantation is corvis scrinium." Again, he was very careful with his pronunciation, so she would get it right and so not blow them both up. "Do you think you have it now, Miss Delilah?"
0
Raines
And then we may have tea, just never today.
0
Raines
0
5
