Why is it always birds? on Transfiguration

Professor Lilac Brockert

January 20, 2012 11:59 PM

Love birds [Third, fourth, and fifth years!] by Professor Lilac Brockert

Professor Brockert was very, very pleased to be able to call herself such. Her classes probably grew tired of hearing it; in her excitement, she had probably re-introduced herself to each of her classes two or three times. She tended to be an excitable person, as all of her students had to know by now, and this was no exception. She was also a very big fan of the Mrs. that now accompanied her name, but Professor was what she was supposed to use for this situation.

For today’s intermediate class, Professor Brockert made sure to place plastic bottles on each of the desks, one for every student if she counted correctly. It wasn’t hard to count on normal standards, but her mind continually swam with happiness. She was sure, at least, that there would be enough. There just might have been a few extras that could easily be disregarded.

As her students eventually trickled in, she smiled good-naturedly, unable to help herself from thinking about how some of them--the ones that were related to Seth--were not her own relatives as well. It was interesting, and there was a good number of them, however distantly, although none thus far so close as Ryan. Likewise, she wondered if her husband Seth had such thoughts when he saw his new niece Sally about the grounds.

“Good day, class!” grinned Professor Brockert. “Today we’re going to turn these bottles into birds.” The incantation scribbled itself upon the board behind her. “Avifors is our spell. Keep in mind that this spell will work on other objects, not just these bottles.” The bottles were simply an easy sample to find. “Consider this recycling, if you’d like.”

“There isn’t really a wand movement to accompany the incantation, just point at your bottle. The light produced should be a bright blue, and the bottle will take the form of whatever bird you imagine in your head.” A lot of Transfiguration seemed based on imagination; many took the form as imagined in the mind of the witch or wizard performing the spell. “And please, no birds of prey.” She didn’t want to see any large, carnivorous birds swooping up gentler songbirds or something.

“Don’t confuse this spell with Avis, which is a Conjuration spell.” The two were very close, but there was a sufficiently noticeable difference. Personally, she had made the mistake more than once in her history. “Now, watch me, if you will.” Professor Brockert aimed her wand at the bottle sitting on her own desk. “Avifors.” The blue light shot from the tip of her wand and lit the bottle momentarily before the bottle was replaced by a green love bird, which flew off the desk and landed on her outstretched arm. “Get the idea?” She sat the bird back on the desk and Untransfigured it. “If no one’s got any questions, feel free to get started.”

OOC: Welcome to class, third through fifth years. Let’s see some nice, long, creative posts with a bunch of descriptions. Those would make me very happy. If you need Lilac, go ahead and tag her. If not, just post with your neighbor, compared birds or bottles (or whatever happens in-between), or just do your own thing. Happy posting!

Subthreads:

Playful birds. by Renée Errant {Crotalus} with Kate Bauer, Teppenpaw, Renée

Beware the Bottlebirds by Daisy Thorpe, Crotalus

Not my usual choice of flying object, but okay by Arnold Carey, Aladren with Josephine Owen, Josephine

Those are not my cup of tea at all. by Arthur Carey, Aladren

Why is it always birds? by Fae Sinclair (Crotalus) with Topher Calhoun, Crotalus, Fae

Wasn't there a movie about those? by David Wilkes, Aladren with James Owen

Not quite by Autumn Collins, Crotalus

*hopes to be one someday* by Hope Brockert, Teppenpaw with Addison Thornton

You sure you don't mean love beetles ? by Kirstenna Melcher, Teppenpaw

Um...not sure that really fits in this case. by Ryan O'Malley, Crotalus

Class closed (nm) by Prof. B.

0 Professor Lilac Brockert Love birds [Third, fourth, and fifth years!] 0 Professor Lilac Brockert 1 5

Renée Errant {Crotalus}

January 22, 2012 5:01 AM

Playful birds. by Renée Errant {Crotalus}

It was strange not having Quidditch. Renée hadn’t cried yet, hadn’t thrown a tantrum, tried to hang herself or Arnold Carey who’d dared capture the snitch or Marissa who’d dared not to. She couldn’t tell what she was feeling, she was torn between deciding that it was like waking up from a dream, or feeling like she was falling into one. The classes, at least, seemed more real. She sat there now, in Transfiguation, blinking a little at the Professor, knowing that she’d been in the class every week without fail, every class just like the rest of the intermediates, learning the same spells and mastering them. But without Quidditch occupying her mind, and Sophia to help pass the time away, the classroom seemed sharper, the words clearer in her mind. Minty fresh. The instructions resonating, and Renée shifted a little in her seat, suddenly aware of the class itself, the people in it.

“Avifors.” Her voice came out lower than she’d expected it to. “Avifors.” The bottle in front of her did not change. “Avifors.” She hadn’t even been thinking of a bird. “Avifors.” She paused, the tip of her wand pressed against the glass, a reel of colorful images flitting through her mind. Guatamala, a few years ago, when Gabriel was just getting ready for college and she hadn’t even yet gotten her letter from Sonora. Marianna dressed in sunglasses and a shawl, her dress one of soft turquoise and even after ten or so years of being around her mother, Renée felt awed by her beauty, her scent, and needed to be close to her. There were birds, singing a chorus on the branches of the trees they passed through, wind coursing through their hair, cooling their heated skins as they flew on the carpet-taxi.

“Avifors!” A flash of blue and Renée leaned forward a little, eyes wide at the indistinguishable bundle of color that sat on her desk. The brightest blues, greens, reds and yelllows. She reached out a hand, and at one light stroke the bundle of color shook and a soft almost purring sound rumbled from it. It began to grow, straighten, and finally stand, a pair of dark eyes boring into her own. A Quetzal though Renée couldn’t remember the name of the creature now staring at her, feeling herself hypnotized by its color. Magical and yet decreed by her world as not. “... Buenas dias.” The Quetzal gave a slow blink, and Renée was reminded of a Hippogriff as it bowed its head. She stretched out a hand, slowly, and began to pet it. Warmth, pure warmth, as beautiful and as comforting as affection could be. Animals had always loved her, understood her, accepted her.

The Quetzal began to make sounds, cooing as she twisted her fingers in its proud mane, rising to thread through the mohawk, playing with the blended tie-dye colors. “Eres tan hermosa.” It inched closer to the desk at her compliment, she smiled, leaning in, and one wing brushed against her chin, sweeping across her chest. She pulled away only to pull out some parchment paper in her bag, her quill and an ink bottle, beginning to take down some notes, questions she had for later. Avifors - bottle to bird, is this creation of life? Can bottles be turned to humans? What are these birds? Are they real? Can they be given real lives, can they mate? Have love? Can they love me? What does this mean if any object can produce life? What does it mean that glass can become something that breathes, that is soft and warm and so beautiful?

She set her quill down at the sudden nip against her ear, stiffening and tilting her face away, a light giggle at the Quetzal’s insistence to play. “Usted debe dejar de mí.” She translated as best she could. She’d never needed to learn the spanish to tell a bird to release her ear from its beak. It released her briefly only to discover the endless fascination her long dark curls could provide. Renée winced slightly at the new tugs on her hair, her palms pressing against the edge of the desk to stay straight. She didn’t feel like telling it off or drawing attention to herself in this situation. She simply scooted a little closer on her seat, able to now comfortably sit straight while the Quetzal discovered her, picking up her quill again and trying not to giggle at the vibrantly colored bird’s sounds. She didn’t want to create another bird with another bottle, instead devoting her future time to taking down notes. Her eyes traveled as best as her tilted head was allowed, ready to write down any interesting performances her classmates and their birds were showing.

0 Renée Errant {Crotalus} Playful birds. 0 Renée Errant {Crotalus} 0 5

Daisy Thorpe, Crotalus

January 22, 2012 7:18 PM

Beware the Bottlebirds by Daisy Thorpe, Crotalus

Coming into the Transfiguration classroom and taking a seat, Daisy watched Professor Brockert warily until she was satisfied that the woman was not about to introduce herself to them again. Once she was sure of that, she nodded slightly and sat back in her seat, toying with the end of her single black-brown braid and looking intently on as her free hand copied down a few notes about what they were to do in class.

- Turn bottles into birds

- Avifors – more generally applicable.

(Why? Decoration? Birds docile?)

Not the same as Avis. We are to remember this.

And so Daisy would, though she saw no reason to conjure birds, or Transfigure things into them. There were plenty of birds about, at least at home, without her getting into it. It was just a matter of what she needed to know for her exam, which was her main interest in school right now. She wanted to have the best marks in the year, just to see if she could, though she couldn’t deny that she’d kind of like to outscore James Owen. He seemed far more likely to be able to challenge her for that than Wilkes did, and she found herself thinking of that occasionally.

She supposed she saw him as competition, though she wasn’t really sure. It wasn’t an antagonistic feeling, of that she was sure, just sort of an…interest, one tinged, unlike most of her interests in the classmates she found interesting, with respect rather than disdain. Was that competition? She didn’t know.

What she did know, as Crosby finished up her lesson, was that she did, quite suddenly, as a stray thought about her mother crossed through some back channel of her mind, have an idea about how the spell they were learning today might actually be useful. She went back up to the line about ‘why’ and added Got it later – need to write, but have no owl? Easy. Not in this class, since she said no prey birds, plus training, but it might work.

Her handwriting became smaller toward the end, cramped in to fit around the note below that one while both remained distinct enough to read. She hated for bits of her notes to run together so she couldn’t easily distinguish points from each other. She was trying to train herself to write without looking very much at the paper, but a disadvantage was that it could be harder to space things out very well and evenly. She frowned a little at it, then ignored it, looking instead at the bottle on her desk.

Birds. What kind of birds, other than owls, was she familiar with? The only thing she could picture right now was the canary at her grandmother’s, a thing she’d always felt something like pity for, but she supposed it would do. She tried to picture it as clearly as she could, closing her eyes as she pointed her wand at the bottle and said, “Avifors.”

The result was…interesting. It was bird-shaped, and the head and feet moved a little, but by and large, it still seemed to have the texture of the bottle it had come from. Daisy blinked for a moment before hastily cancelling the spell, thinking that was kind of wrong to just leave there even for the little time it would take it to turn back. She had no idea what it would feel like, but if it felt anything, she could only imagine that thing would be unpleasant. It wasn’t its fault it got to be her Transfigurations practice, after all.

“Hm,” she said under her breath, trying to banish her little scruples from her mind and focus back on the work. Next time, it would come out right. There was plenty of time for the next time. First, though, she just had to think through what hadn’t gone quite right this time, so she wouldn’t repeat the same mistakes next time, as she thought was the problem many people ran into in classes. It was more support, if support a little removed, for her theory that the best people at Transfiguration probably had, at the least, something very like eidetic memories.

0 Daisy Thorpe, Crotalus Beware the Bottlebirds 0 Daisy Thorpe, Crotalus 0 5

Kate Bauer, Teppenpaw

January 22, 2012 7:33 PM

That sounds painful. by Kate Bauer, Teppenpaw

Kate smiled brightly at her Transfiguration teacher and Head of House as she came into the classroom, greeting her with a “Hi, Professor Brockert,” which she guessed would take her straight to the professor’s heart for at least the duration of the lesson. She wasn’t totally sure, but she kind of had the feeling that the former Professor Crosby really, really liked her shiny new married name; she guessed it was just some idea she’d gotten from the way she’d reminded them of it a few times since they all came back to school.

It was still kind of weird, to think of two members of the staff being married. Fawcett was married, she was pretty sure, but his wife lived in whatever shadowy netherworld teachers resided in when school wasn’t in session; Professor Fawcett didn’t run the Potions room while Medic Fawcett handled the hospital wing, or anything like that, not like Professor Brockert now took the Transfiguration classes while Mr. Brockert kept the grounds. She had always been aware that the staff were in fact real people who had their own lives going independent of their subjects, she wasn’t that stupid or insensitive, but it was…kind of different, seeing that play out practically. The logistics of it!

Remembering her New Year’s resolution to return to her New School Year’s resolution to be a better student, she took down a few notes during the speech on Avifors, repeating to herself a few times that it could be used on things besides bottles and that it wasn’t the same thing as Avis, which was a conjuring spell and therefore something she was pretty unlikely to be able to pull off anyway, but it was probably a good idea not to get the two incantations mixed up. Though now that she’d heard them, it was pretty likely that she was going to do just that. She just hoped it didn’t end in total disaster for herself or anyone else; she did seem to have some luck when it came to that. Things got all turned around in ways they weren’t supposed to be sometimes, but she seldom had a complete disaster for herself or anyone else.

She took out her wand, trying to cheer herself up with the thought that at least there wasn’t a long and complicated cast sequence to worry about, and gave it her best shot. “Avifors,” she tried, but the bottle just wobbled when the blue light touched it and then fell over. “Okay,” she muttered.

She kept trying, knowing she’d get it eventually, but becoming increasingly convinced as she did that her neighbor muttering in some other language she couldn’t understand was not making the process any quicker. She couldn’t help it; it was easy to get distracted during class anyway, and not knowing what was being said half a foot away from her even when she listened was really, really distracting. What if it was a whole spiel on how Kate Bauer was such an idiot or something?

Okay, not likely, she knew, but possible. Especially since the other girl was another Quidditch player. People did not think too much of the Teppenpaw Quidditch team generally, and she knew this particular yearmate was on the Crotalus team. One of the two teams which had finally driven the coach to have to upset the usual order of play in order to make the same two teams stop getting to the finals each and every year. Kind of a thing there; she wouldn’t be surprised, being less competitive than many Pecaris and even other Teppenpaws, if she was only one of a good number with a bit of a complex about Crotalus and Aladren now. Really, though, she just didn’t like not knowing what was being said.

Finally, she gave up on the bird thing for a while and just looked over at the other girl’s bird, which appeared to be eating her hair. Okay, she was not that into her hair, not like her sisters – somehow, though she was aware that most in the family would think she’d cracked over both characterizations and most outside it would still think she had over the second, she saw Rachel screaming at the top of her lungs if something like that happened to her, and Alicia committing a bloody, bloody, and possibly literally explosive act of first-degree bird-icide – but still, she had trouble seeing just sitting there letting a bird get in it, even if it was a bird she’d conjured into being. It didn’t seem to be bothering Renée any, though.

“Doesn’t that hurt?” she asked curiously, finally, tugging the end of her pale brown ponytail as she watched. She never bothered doing much with her hair if her mother didn’t make her, and her mother was nowhere around at the moment. She could wear all the undignified, unladylike ponytails she wanted until summer, though she guessed it was the programming which kept them at least neat. Her hair might not be in an approved format, but it wasn’t messy; she had a vague paranoid thought that her mother might walk out of the mirror to come and get her before she had a chance to go through with it if she ever tried to go in public knowing full well that she looked messy and not taking steps to correct that. Neatness was praiseworthy in her house.

16 Kate Bauer, Teppenpaw That sounds painful. 170 Kate Bauer, Teppenpaw 0 5

Arnold Carey, Aladren

January 23, 2012 5:48 PM

Not my usual choice of flying object, but okay by Arnold Carey, Aladren

Arnold kept his reaction to the events of the past minute to looking kind of red in the face around his good-natured smile until he was actually seated, but once he was in a desk and cheerfully greeting his neighbor, he did take a second to rub his right side, which had recently had an unfortunate collision with Arthur’s left elbow, in what he hoped was an at least halfway-stealthy manner. Sure, he regularly collided with other things with significantly more force, and it had been pretty stupid to start to say, “Hey, Professor Cros – “ before he remembered she was married now and had told them about it fifty-some-odd-times, but had Art really needed to hit him that hard to shut him up? That had actually kind of hurt.

He didn’t think about it long, though, because he was distracted by the lesson. He was a little confused about what Professor Cros – Brockert, darn it, Brockert - said about considering the work they were doing ‘recycling,’ but wasn’t too worried about that, either, because it was cool to think about turning something that was just about as inanimate as it got, being generally one of the more personality-free things associated with eating now that he thought about it, into something alive.

It was a cool idea, but for some reason, thinking about it made him almost…uneasy, somehow. He didn’t know why, didn’t even really know that was why he was feeling uneasy, just that he suddenly did, just a little. Since he couldn’t place the feeling, though, he tried to just ignore it and try to picture a bird in his head.

That wasn’t easy, either. Visualization was kind of difficult for him for some reason, at least when it came to Transfiguration; he got through in the end because he did have imagination, just not one which applied itself well to Transfiguration, and Arthur spent a good portion of each Saturday explaining the theory behind it all until Arnold was pretty sure he didn’t so much understand as he got confused on such a higher plane that he just imagined he understood and that worked well enough, but he usually had a little trouble in the beginning phases. Arthur thought part of the problem might be that he was trying to picture whatever it was he was supposed to be making perfectly, but Arnold read that more as Arthur projecting his own tendency toward perfectionism onto his brother than anything real. He cared about his lessons, of course – he would fall into enough hot water for both of them at home if he did not – but not that much.

His bottle loomed in front of him, challenging him to make it a bird. He looked back at it, determined. By the end of class, one way or another, it was going to bear at least a pretty strong resemblance to a bird. He pointed his wand at it and said the incantation with that thought firmly in mind.

When he lifted the wand again, it…well, it no longer looked like a bottle. That was the part Arthur said to focus on when he was working on spells. Progress was progress; of course instant completion was preferable, but not everyone could be Arthur and Alice. Everyone else had to take their progress wherever they could get it.

“Well, it’s something,” he said aloud, reinforcing this idea to himself as he looked at his neighbor again, looking over their work as he did. He wasn’t being nosy, just evaluating how he was doing so far. “How’s it going for you?”

0 Arnold Carey, Aladren Not my usual choice of flying object, but okay 181 Arnold Carey, Aladren 0 5

Arthur Carey, Aladren

January 23, 2012 7:56 PM

Those are not my cup of tea at all. by Arthur Carey, Aladren

Arthur had occasionally been accused, if often in slightly different language due to the accuser probably not knowing the word, of being a complete and utter misanthrope. Generally, he denied this. It was not, after all, precisely a desirable characteristic to have attributed to him, and besides, it generally wasn’t true anyway. He was frequently annoyed by people, but he often found them interesting, too, and he seldom wished real harm on many of them.

Today, he was still convinced he was short of full-blown hatred for all mankind, but he did find the newly-minted Professor Brockert’s unending cheerfulness a little more grating than usual. His back felt sore, his hand was bothering him, and there was a dull throb of pain going on without a moment’s relief behind both of his eyes, and while he blamed all of this on the previous evening’s Quidditch practice rather than anything directly involving the Transfiguration teacher or her class – he had gotten…overenthusiastic at practice, and then about his studying after, and was feeling it today, as he’d known he would but had somehow convinced himself he wouldn’t mind; he was going to have to work on that, because it was the kind of fundamental flaw in his psychology he could foresee having all kinds of unpleasant consequences if it expanded to apply to too many fields of his life – he still found it easier to focus his negative feelings on the things provoking them at the moment, rather than the past event, which he could do nothing about, which had triggered the circumstances that made him find those things so very negative. It was not, after all, as though Professor Brockert regularly displayed any demeanor other than her current one. She was the Head of Teppenpaw; it was probably in her contract that she had to be cheerful enough to rot his teeth each and every day of her life.

He knew it was unkind, and probably one of the things that stemmed from characteristics that made his grandfather think he was not quite right in the head, but he hoped it was an act – that there were lots of days when she came in with a headache, or after an especially nasty fight with Mister, or just in a bad mood for no reason and acted like she normally did anyway. There were not many people Arthur was willing to not grudge an endless supply of happiness, and a professor he felt no special attachment to was not on that very short list.

The lesson began. He wrote down what he needed to know, committing the facts to memory. He’d go over them a few times later. For now, there was just the work: simple, direct, make the movement and say the word and then it would happen. He enjoyed it more than almost anything – maybe just second to learning. Sometimes, it was hard to tell the two apart, but he thought learning generally won.

He pointed his wand at the bottle in front of him. “Avifors.”

There was a confusion of feathers and flapping wings; Arthur put up his free arm automatically to shield his eyes, but even so, he could tell the body wasn’t quite right. Grimacing, he repeated the spell again, and this time, it went still.

The world was not bending today. He rubbed his temple. He so preferred it when it wasn’t like this, when things went smoothly, though he thought simple occasions when things didn’t do much were better than the ones where it almost went right. That bothered him for some reason; it felt somehow more personal than a more total failure did. Irrational, he knew, but that was one reason he tried not to voice his thoughts. That way, they could be as irrational as he wanted them to be and no one had to know and he did not have to justify it.

0 Arthur Carey, Aladren Those are not my cup of tea at all. 0 Arthur Carey, Aladren 0 5

Fae Sinclair (Crotalus)

January 23, 2012 9:16 PM

Why is it always birds? by Fae Sinclair (Crotalus)

Fae was absolutely tired of all this wedding talk. She was over it over the summer and she was ever more so now. First, Shelby was betrothed to a guy she actually enjoyed spending time with. All summer Victor had been prowling around their property and taking Shelby away. Shelby hadn’t even wanted to go shopping with her to get clothes. Her mother ended up making her go because she hadn’t wanted to make multiple trips and told her she could see Victor another time. The entire trip had Shelby sulking. And that was just summer.

Over break, it had been announced that Jaiden was to be betrothed to the Thomas’ daughter, Eleanor. It was like every horror Fae could imagine came true with that announcement. She had lost her sister and now she had lost her brother. At least Jaiden still stayed around the house without the betrothed woman at his side. Of course, that could have been because she lived in England. But Fae was not thinking rationally like that. No, instead she simply thought about how in a couple of years, neither of her siblings would be around any longer. And then she would be alone or betrothed to someone herself.

She didn’t know which was worse.

What wasn’t helping her mood at all was Professor Brockert’s constant reminder of her new name. When will she learn that no one cared! She was an adult, adults get married. In the Pureblood world, this was a standard. Actually, Professor Brockert was practically an old maid for someone to only just married. Fae thought for sure if she wasn’t married by the time she was twenty-five, her family would be ashamed of her. She wouldn’t be the perfect, respectable girl she tried hard to be. Fae and her family had been invited to the wedding, but the adult Sinclairs had all agreed that they did not feel comfortable going to a wedding where a family celebrated a prominent member being a servant to a school. If the member had been another professor, like (unmarried) Crosby, but working on the grounds and keeping the school clean was much lower on the career level and unacceptable for a proper member of society. On top of that, Fae had heard through the grapevine that Halfbloods had been invited. Her Great Grandfather was far more appalled by that than anything else. In the end, they had to prepare for Jaiden’s betrothal and the annual New Year’s Eve party that they opted not to go to Fae’s teacher’s wedding.

Fae was okay with that. And now she wished Professor Brockert would get over it and stop introducing herself. That was becoming more annoying that her awful old slippers used to be.

Of course, there was no more time to dwell on all of this because she was finally starting the lesson. Fae will never understand why they always had to turn things either from animals or to animals. She didn’t have animals. She wasn’t sure she even cared to have an animal and certainly would never be around animals (or birds in this case) in order to transfigure them in the first place. Shouldn’t they be learning practical things? She wasn’t sure what was practical for their lives when it came to transfiguring, but she couldn’t see any purpose in having a bottle turn into a bird.

Fae took notes like a good little girl and then practiced the spell by mimicking the way the wand moved. Fae briefly wondered what sort of bird they transfigured into, unless they all turned into the same bird… shrugging to herself, Fae took a breath pointed her wand and said, “Avifors.” The bottle transformed into something Fae couldn’t say for sure was a bird, although feathers were involved and a squawk loudly interrupted Fae’s inspection, startling her so much that she waved her wand in disgust and watched as the thing became a bottle a bottle again.

“Yuck. That was not at all pleasant.” She commented more to herself, but she was embarrassed enough to believe the people around her had both seen her mishap and heard it to know what she meant.

0 Fae Sinclair (Crotalus) Why is it always birds? 0 Fae Sinclair (Crotalus) 0 5

Renée

January 23, 2012 9:53 PM

Maybe for the weak. by Renée

A few more birds began to materialize within the room. Renée took notes on the varied appearances, trying her best to identify them from memory. “Don’t worry.” She smiled at her bird. “Sigues siendo mi favorito.” The Quetzal’s colors were so rich and vibrant. She couldn’t help but feel flattered that any feature on her body could be found so fascinating to such a beautiful creature. A strangled SQUAWK came from the other end of the room. Renée looked around for the source but another insistent tug on her curls prevented a clear view of whose bird was being tortured. “Doesn’t that hurt?” Renée shifted her body so that the Quetzal was tugging on the curls on the back of her head to see Kate Bauer asking her, looking worried, her hands tugging on her ponytail.

“No.” She smiled without showing teeth, just her lips lifted politely. “It’s like a baby tugging on you.” Or a teasing older brother and father constantly tugging at her curls, a mother and grandmother jerking them hard to prove a point, making sure she was paying attention. Renée was used to roughhousing; being tackled to the floor over the last piece of pumpkin pie, playing Aurors & Thieves with her friends back in Brooklyn which involved dodging and bumping into trees and firehydrants and largely oblivious muggles. She’d taken trips through the rainforests of Costa Rica and Guatamala, had explored ruins in Tikal. A pretty bird tugging greedily on her hair was a relief.

Her eyes landed on Kate’s glass bottle before rising to Kate again. “What kind of bird are you going to conjure?” She was interested to know, her tanned fingers stroking the length of the quill she held relaxed on the parchment. Her next question was if a bird could be indicative of anything in the person conjuring it. Divinations had called on her to question everything about life, and Renée enjoyed that never ending, never truly satisfying process of questioning the details around her. She knew relatively nothing about Kate (decent seeker even if she hadn’t won for Teppenpaw in a while and was related to Sam in some way) but even knowing her own self she couldn’t yet determine what conjuring a Quetzal would indicate about her. ‘Colorful personality, I guess.’ She waited patiently to try and judge what Kate’s meant, her free hand resuming its petting of her bird, calming it down though the tugging did not cease.

0 Renée Maybe for the weak. 0 Renée 0 5

Kate

January 25, 2012 7:35 PM

...Okay, then. by Kate

Kate concluded that she was either ridiculously tenderheaded, Reneee had never actually been anywhere near a baby, or that the members of the two big teams really did have an increased tolerance for pain. Maybe not as dramatic a one as she might have imagined, but a little could go a long way in Quidditch. “You must have met some weaker babies than my half-brother was,” she remarked. “I thought we’d all be bald before he outgrew that.”

That she would be, anyway; her sisters had been less pleased about there being a baby when Isaac came along, or at least less willing to make the best of it despite not liking it, and her mother had seemed to thoroughly enjoy getting to avoid the messier aspects of having a small child in the house the fourth time around. Maybe that was why Isaac was such a weird little brat, because he hadn’t gotten enough family time when he was a baby. It made a certain amount of sense to Kate; Alicia seemed to her to be more like Isaac than the rest of them, and she had been three when their mother remarried to Kate’s six and Rachel’s eight. They’d had plenty of time to get used to being normal before they suddenly weren’t.

“Hm? Oh, I haven’t really yet,” she said, twitching her wand. A few sparks fell from the end, to no visible effect on anything. “Tried to transfigure it, I mean. I can’t concentrate today. I keep trying to figure out what you’re talking about.” She smiled, feeling almost a little embarrassed. “Trace amounts of Aladren tendencies, I guess. The family had to rub off a little on me. Can’t see things without being a little curious.” Or rather, hearing them, but…whatever.

16 Kate ...Okay, then. 170 Kate 0 5

Topher Calhoun, Crotalus

January 25, 2012 9:01 PM

Better birds than bugs, yeah? by Topher Calhoun, Crotalus

It didn’t help him as much in classes as he might have liked, with those requiring some effort on his part where real life stuff less often did, but Topher thought he had a pretty good memory. He almost never wrote the wrong year on dates in January, usually brought everything he needed wherever he happened to go, and had absolutely no trouble remembering to call his Transfiguration teacher by her new name.

Because of this and a happy accident of timing, he got to have a quiet laugh at Arnold Carey’s expense as, just ahead of Topher in entering the classroom, the Aladren nearly got it wrong. Small payback for that defeat before Christmas, but it amused him nevertheless, even if he did resist the temptation to greet her correctly and just a little louder than was strictly necessary. That would have sweetened it a little, but he decided to be a bit bigger than that.

A few minutes later, he became glad he had not drawn attention to himself for another reason, and it was because he had a horrible thought, after all the emphasis on Professor Brockert’s feelings about being Professor Brockert now instead of good old Professor Crosby and having his attention drawn to that by Arnold if not by the professor herself, about the phrase “love birds” as soon as he heard what they were doing in class today. He tried to tell himself he was just being paranoid, and that it didn’t really matter either way, if he was or if he wasn’t. He wouldn’t be producing any; he didn’t know what such a thing would look like, and there wasn’t much point in just one, and he could probably only make one bird from one bottle. He wasn’t sure it was possible to make two things from one, not two kind of complicated and specific things like birds, but if it was, his skills, he was pretty sure, were not yet up to it.

Picturing a pretty generic bird shape in his head – round-bodied, black beak, funny three-toed feet, dull blue-gray color – he tried the spell. It partially transformed, with flapping wings and an opening-and-closing but silent beak sticking out of the front just beneath the lid and a suggestion of black feet at the bottom. Topher looked at it with interest for a moment before a squawk nearby startled him out of his study.

“Got to love the live Transfigurations, huh?” he replied to Fae’s comment, now watching hers go back to its original state. “Especially the noisy ones.” It hadn’t occurred to him until he said it, but this room was going to be full of all kinds of rackets by the time they were dismissed, he was sure enough to bet on it.

0 Topher Calhoun, Crotalus Better birds than bugs, yeah? 0 Topher Calhoun, Crotalus 0 5

David Wilkes, Aladren

January 25, 2012 9:09 PM

Wasn't there a movie about those? by David Wilkes, Aladren

David arrived in the Transfiguration classroom with less composure than usual, dropping into a seat at the same time he dropped his bag to the floor and ran a hand through his hair, feeling tired way too early in the day for it. He hadn’t done it yet, but he kept thinking he was running late and hurrying to avoid that, then feeling foolish when he got everywhere early, as well as tiereder.

It was getting annoying, especially since he could think of nothing to blame it on but a poor night’s sleep, which was itself something he didn’t know what to blame for. He liked his causes and effects. It made problem-solving easier, and so sorting out the world. Stuff without a reason could bother him, sometimes, here and there.

He rubbed his left eye as the lesson began, abstract thoughts about rationale far from his mind, as the lesson began, willing himself to concentrate. Transfiguration wasn’t the class to not pay attention in; he couldn’t really, now that he thought of it, think of a class at Sonora where it was safe or prudent to let his mind wander – he even had his qualms about Divination – but it was usually Potions and Transfiguration which seemed to have the most tales about people dying in horrible accidents. Oddly, Charms development also seemed to have its fair share of horror stories, but Charms class didn’t seem quite as menacing as the others.

Today’s lesson in Transfiguration, though, didn’t seem too dangerous. The worst thing he could think of was bird…insides on the ceiling or someone getting hit with bits of plastic if a bottle exploded, and those weren’t the kinds of things he imagined would phase the wizard-born very much. He still had trouble a lot of the time believing just how dangerous this world was. They took classes where they could, at the very least, be seriously injured any old day if their attention wandered, they played a game with Bludgers in it, they had been known to play it in pretty foul weather without missing a beat, despite being on brooms very high in the air and visibility for the Coach not being much better than for them probably…it was mad, even knowing wizards were apparently tougher than Muggles. Hard to believe so much of it was still allowed, though he had to admit, it did lend a certain intensity to his classes he’d never seen in the Muggle world and which he sometimes kind of liked. He just…liked it better when his teacher wasn’t a little absent-minded with the lovey-dovey feelings about her new husband, thus possibly being slower to react to a crisis. He’d never seen a real crisis, and he did not want to start, but if he had to, it would rather it was with someone whose sole interest in life was that classroom.

Some world. Still, it did keep ticking along pretty well, so he wasn’t going to complain too much. At least, unlike in his old life in the Muggle world, he was very seldom bored.

He pointed his wand at the bottle and repeated the incantation he’d just been taught, picturing the fat little brown birds that sat all over the parking lot of the Wal-Mart back home, and it did not end in horrible tragedy. He could see how what looked like a bird in mid-flight, weird as that was when it wasn’t at all what he’d been picturing, made of plastic could be used, with appropriate wailing background music, as something tragic in a commercial, but no one got injured or spattered at this place and this day, so he was just going to count this one as a win. A half-win, anyway.

“It’s too bad it won’t stick,” he remarked, seeing his neighbor looking in that direction. It was possibly not at his work, but better safe than stared at. “I could submit it to the Fair if it did.”

16 David Wilkes, Aladren Wasn't there a movie about those? 169 David Wilkes, Aladren 0 5

Renée

January 26, 2012 1:17 AM

Did I shock you? by Renée

“Um,” Renée’s lips lifted a bit out of its bland polite streak across her mouth. “Maybe. Tiny fists tugging at my hair are far more enjoyable than bludgers cracking my skull.” She liked being close to babies, anyway. It was her secret pleasure to be so close to them. She didn’t want a baby of her own, or anything. She didn’t really want a husband, or a child to raise, or any sort of family other than the one she had now. She saw the future as one everlasting year of being fourteen; forever a home where her brother came and went as he pleased, stopping only to kiss her cheeks and regale her with stories of the islands he was mapping and exploring, a home too where her father stopped in from time to time to squeeze her neck and teach her a new fact about a new civilization he’d discovered, and a home where her mother relaxed on the futon in the sun room, patting the place next to her and stroking her daughter’s hair and telling her about a new idea she’d had for a dress. When it wasn’t her family, her home was filled with artisans and craftsmen and chefs and philosophers and academics and poets and struggling writers (everyone seemed to struggle and everyone seemed to have enough time to party at the home of Marianna Errant), and cigar smoke that smelled nice even when it made her cough, made her dizzy. Music, always. And sunlight.

She liked all that, but her secret pleasure was sitting in a garden or in the playroom, a relative’s nursery, kneeling on the ground or on the floor, a baby entrusted to her, cradled in her arms. They had a smell about them, almost a foul stench except it was sweeter than that, even though it was a little bitter. The grownups in her life always smelled like a spice, Marianna was cinnamon, but babies smelled cleaner, fresher, like basil or like lemons had been squeezed over their skin, the tangy juice dribbling all along their bodies. She liked to bury her nose in their neck, forgetting every time until it was too late, and their hands would reach for her dangling curls, grab tight and squeeze and tug until she was tipping forward with them, giggling with them, holding them close to her breast even though it meant that pain. The world slowed down and kept her there. Not dizzy, fully there, even as she tipped a little forward. Babies were a little like animals. Pure instinct; they understood her. Renée took her pleasure in that as well. Babies never cried when they were with her.

Renée laughed, a little startled by Kate’s comment. “I was just... I was just saying that um, sorry.” She shook her head a little, as much as the Quetzal would again allow. “It’s hard to translate back sometimes. Some words I only seem to know in Spanish, others only in English.” She stroked the Quetzal’s chest, her index finger experimentally wiggling in between brightly turquoise colored feathers and a startled coo indicated the bird’s ticklish surprise. Its beak opened and Renée was allowed a brief respite. “The bird is native to Guatamala so I was speaking to it in Spanish. Just telling it - ” She hesitated. It was only a bird, but it was still a conversation between her and it. She felt the odd need to beg permission. “Just telling it compliments.” She smiled again, a little more fully, the hint of white teeth. “Asking it nicely to please let me go.”

It often surprised her to learn that people didn’t speak Spanish. Especially when they lived in the southern states, so close to Mexico, on land that Mexico once owned. To speak only one language was so limiting, Renée couldn’t imagine how frustrating it must be to not know what is said, how boring it must be to only express oneself in one way. Marianna grew up speaking her father’s Spanish and learned from her mother several west African dialects including Arabic. Marianna had taught Gabriel and was continuing to teach Renée French, Italian, and Portuguese though so far Renée only paid much attention to French which fit naturally around her tongue. Thick and heavy and tight like a sweater. Both Mariana and Gabriel had mastered most of the Romance languages but David had them both beat. Renée could lay for hours on the windowsill, curled with her face pressed against the window, gazing at the Manhattan skyline from her Brooklyn oasis, the glass cold to her skin but her father’s chest warm, his heartbeat steady and soothing as he recited all the languages he knew; the romance languages, yes, but mermish too, those garbled sounds that made her giggle and left no room to understand before David was off, his voice singing in the language of fairies.

The Quetzal gave another coo and she continued tickling it with her finger, it seemed to enjoy that as well as keep it away from her hair so she could lean back a little in her seat and look properly at Kate and her still as of yet transfigured bottle. “Hmmm, I don’t know how Aladren that is of you.” A slight teasing tone, though Renée didn’t run too far with it. She didn’t know Kate that well. “You’d be working overtime to transfigure that bottle if you were.” It struck her only now, more fully, that Kate had been claiming it was Renée’s murmured Spanish that had distracted her (as opposed to the shouts of “Avifors!” resounding the room) and she felt a little disappointed that she hadn’t realized that sooner and come up with a retort to that politely veiled accusation. ‘Learn to deal with distractions, you idiot. Suck it up.’ She pushed some stray strands of hair behind her ears and let go of the grudge, resuming her tickling and stroking, fingers gently massaging. “It’s pretty easy for me to block out the world when I need to. It helps for concentrating on casting spells when all this,” She waved her free hand in their fellow students’ general directions. “is going on. I imagine that’s what it’s like when you’re seeking?” If it wasn’t, then Renée was pretty sure that was why Kate had been losing her games and couldn’t concentrate now.

“Do you like seeking by the way?” She paused, smiling as the Quetzal ducked its head and nibbled painlessly on her finger. “I suppose that seems a stupid question to you - obviously you like it. But, I mean, what is it like? I’ve never asked or heard anyone speak about it really. Like, chasers have two other people to depend on. But the seeker is alone. Unless you... unless you can concentrate now.” Her eyes drifted to the bottle and then back to Kate. “Do you mind talking about it?” She gazed at Kate, openly curious. Grabbing onto Quidditch talk out of nostalgia (she was going to have to wait a whole damn YEAR until she was back up in the air) but also because she had nothing else to do and Quidditch talk was the only common ground she thought she had with Kate. Well, she was a little curious about the half-brother thing (Renée had always referred to Gabriel as just her brother, “half” didn’t mean anything to her, they loved each other and that’s what mattered) but was tamed enough by her abuela to not ask so directly about it. For now.

0 Renée Did I shock you? 0 Renée 0 5

Josephine Owen

January 26, 2012 4:13 PM

Not my usual choice of partner by Josephine Owen

Sharing classes with the fourth and fifth years was always infitely preferable to sharing classes with the first and second years. Jospehine had already been an academic opponent to her brother when just in her second year, and James was in Aladren. The lead that he managed to maintain on her performance was due only in part to his being older; the rest was down to Josephine's insurmountable laziness. She could knock out an essay in an hour, and cast charms of an acceptable standard without really researching or rehearsing them, and so she didn't see the need to put herself under unnecessary pressure. She tested well, too, and had an uncanny memory for useless facts, a skill which often lent itself well to cue-dependent recall.

Transfiguration was usually one of the classes at which Josephine excelled. She was sufficiently smart to understand the theory, and sufficiently creative to construct a acceptable representation of their object for the class. The ony trouble she had was adjusting to the difficulty of the spell whenever they made a jump in material. She suspected today might be one of those jump days, as Professor Brockert was asking them to create a living creature from an inanimate object. Josephine didn't doubt her capability of such as spell, but knew that, as a third year with very little animate transfiguration experience, she wasn't likely to perform especially well at least for the first few attempts.

Resigned, therefore, to practise, Josephine concentrated hard on her empty bottle and the image of a magpie. She thought the lack of differentiation in its monochrome coloring might present a more accomplishable challenge for her initial attempts, and it just seemed easier to produce a relatively small bird compared to something like an eagle. The first time she cast the spell, the Pecari succeeded in a bird-shaped bottle with a black feathery exterior. She chewed her lip while she contemplated what needed to be improved upon, and even scribbled down a couple of notes. The bird-creation was nowhere near alive, no matter which way she looked at it, and that was a pretty crucial factor in identifying a bird. Unless the bird was declared dead, of course.

Right then, another go. This time, the bottle was shaped yet more like a bird, and tilted its eyeless head a little as Josephine stared at it. The feathers were dull and not the glossy look she'd been going for, and it lacked the white streaks that identified a magpie from a blackbird at distance. It did, however, have a beak, and feet, and it was moving a little. She doubted it would pass, muster, though. Again, she made a few notes, and only looked up as the boy seated next to her said, "How's it going for you?"

Josephine blinked at Arnold Carey a couple of times. Why was he speaking to her? He never spoke to her. She tried not to make the same mistake she'd made when talking to Fae Sinclair for the first time, however, and resolved to be pleasant. "It's going okay," she answered, with an optimistic nod, which her pseudo-magpie tried to mimic. She snuck a glance at Arnold's work, and tried not to feel too superior. "How about you?"

0 Josephine Owen Not my usual choice of partner 196 Josephine Owen 0 5

James Owen

January 28, 2012 5:40 PM

Remind me to not watch that one by James Owen

It was frustrating that the teaching professor seemed to have such a profound effect on the degree to which a student enjoyed the subject. James thought that transifguration had the potential to be one of his best classes, with its roots in logic and its many practical applications. his enthusiasm was curbed, however, by the nutcase professor he'd had to endure since his first year at Sonora. Professor Crosby-turned-Brockert was a fruit loop. She went through phases of being more and less insane, and today seemed to be one of the less obviously insane days, coupled with a distinctly floaty attitude as though she weren't really there with them. not all that comforting, if he was honest.

Luckily, the professor gave a relatively short introduction, and left the student alone to get on with their work, which was how James liked it. The prospect of a classroom filled with flying feathers and sporadic squarking was not an appealling one, but maybe he'd somehow get through it with his own sanity in tact if he could just settled down and focus on his own.

This worked reasonably well for a few minutes as James read up on the spell, practised the incantation, and then made a very passable breed of sparrow, life-like in many ways, except for actually moving or being alive in any discernable fashion. The fourth year frowned, and looked up at his neighbor's progress for comparison. Being competetive with his peers, particularly other Aladrens, was part of what spurred him on to do better. David's current creation was artistic, but not as finely executed as James' own attempt.

"I'm not convinced it would win any prizes," James replied to David's comment, hoping his roomate would interpret the poorly conveyed humor, rather than taking it as a direct criticism of his work. They had been sharing quarters long enough that it was a conceivable scenario. "Unless you made a whole collection," he suggested. "That might be more impressive."

0 James Owen Remind me to not watch that one 168 James Owen 0 5

Arnold

January 28, 2012 6:11 PM

Change can be good by Arnold

He had never been much good at keeping track of who was in his year and who was not – he had only really realized that most of the current fourth years were not when they weren’t in some of his classes last year – but when Arnold did take the time to sort through people, he thought of his year in terms of Quidditch and that big group of Teppenpaws, which was also directly linked to Quidditch since the Teppenpaw Beaters were part of it. He and all his roommates played Quidditch, those guys played Quidditch, Topher Calhoun played Quidditch and his roommate had – that was virtually every guy in the year, and the girls were notable for other reasons, the Crotalus ones for being Fae and Alice and the Teppenpaw ones for being part of the big group of Teppenpaws.

Pecari, however, had only turned out one third-year Quidditch player, who he forgot was in the year as often as not, and so he tended to associate the Pecaris immediately around him with other things. Sara was older than him, he was always half-convinced Demetra was, too, and he kept having the vague idea that Josephine Owen was a Teppenpaw, or possibly an Aladren in the year below his. It was, then, with some surprise that he noticed her robes just now. She was a Pecari? Weird.

“It could be worse,” he said, gesturing to his oddly-shaped blob of plastic. “It could have blown up or something. I’ll get it down in a few more tries.” He managed to say that with only a trace of defensiveness. He was sure of it, for one thing, and he had learned early in life not to get very tense when it came to other people doing better than he did at things. His brothers were altogether too fond of it. They did it all the time. He sometimes did envy Arthur and Anthony the amount of time they spent with their parents that didn’t involve being told how idiotic what they’d just done was, but he had learned to get his attention in other ways and be okay with that.

“Besides,” he added, “I don’t think she’s really going to notice, anyway.” He nodded toward Professor Crosby. “She doesn’t look like she’s really paying a lot of attention to anything.” He really hoped that wasn’t a universal result of getting married, because he was inevitably going to have to at some vaguely-defined point in the future, and he liked being able to pay attention to even as many things as he did. Lack of focus was already one of the things he got called down for fairly often at home, he didn’t want that to get any worse.

0 Arnold Change can be good 181 Arnold 0 5

Fae

January 28, 2012 11:53 PM

You are very right on that one. by Fae

Fae was looking unhappily at her bottle after just transfiguring it back from the feathered mess when she heard a familiar voice beside her. Her blue eyes turned to look and found Topher looking at her awful work. She gave him a smile, although she wasn’t sure if the smile was as genuine as it usually was. She was just having a hard time adjusting to everything and even though she knew it was something that she needed to work out on her own, she also knew that she would have to work hard to make sure her emotions weren’t forced onto someone else.

“I would like it better if it didn’t always involve birds… or bugs.” She added. There were three subjects in this school where she felt that what she was learning things that actually matter; Charms, Potions, and Defense Against the Dark Arts. In those lessons, she felt like everything that was taught in those lessons had a legitimate reason and were likely to be of use to her in the future. Since Fae didn’t care much for creatures, she found that class absolutely useless. And, thus far, she found Transfiguration just as useless to her. None of it made sense to her and she doubted she would ever find herself in situations where she would need to actually use these sorts of transfiguration. Then again, she wasn’t sure if she would ever need to do it at all. She never saw her parents do transfiguration, but they must at some point have to do it because they wouldn’t make this class so important.

“Tell me, Topher,” Fae began, looking around the classroom for a moment before returning her gaze to her glass bottle, “What is the point of this? Why would I ever need to know how to transfigure a bottle into a bird?” She asked him. “I don’t even like birds.” Fae sighed, resigning herself to the lesson because what else could she really do about it? She raised her wand again and repeated the spell. The bird was better than her last one, but it still wasn’t perfect. She left this one alone for a bit though to let it return to it’s natural state on its own. At least it wasn’t squawking like the last one.

“Wouldn’t it be better to teach us how to transfigure a stiff uncomfortable chair into a nice plush sofa?” Fae thought that would be more suitable than teaching them how to transfigure bugs into buttons.

0 Fae You are very right on that one. 0 Fae 0 5

Topher

January 31, 2012 12:05 PM

It seems that way now.... by Topher

Topher grinned at the thought of Transfiguration without the birds and bugs and stuff. “It would have some advantages,” he said, deciding not to add that it might also be considerably less interesting. That could be a bad thing or a good thing, depending on the day and his mood and just how interesting things got, to him, but he got the feeling that for Fae, it was probably just bad a lot more often than it was good.

The way she chose to go on did nothing to contradict this impression in his mind. “I have no idea,” he admitted frankly when she asked if he knew what the point of this was, especially since she didn’t like birds. He nodded when she said learning to make furniture more comfortable wouldn’t be a more practical use of most people’s time than what they were doing right here and now. “I guess they think they have to focus on, you know, the future Aurors and people,” he hazarded a guess. “Maybe the idea is that the rest of us can use Charms or something, or figure it out ourselves.”

He knew there were softening charms, anyway, and Cushioning Charms like the ones on the brooms – he guessed that could be used on an uncomfortable chair as well as on a broom, though he’d never tried it out. Most of the furniture he came across was comfortable enough, or at least not so uncomfortable that he really noticed it. School desks, he guessed, and the seats in the Hall, were about as bad as it got, and they weren’t that bad.

“And maybe it’s more, you know, useful stuff in the Advanced classes,” he offered, hoping to offer her some hope. “Right now, you know they don’t think too much about us. We’re third years. No idea which ones of us are going to take which classes, what we’re going to do in life….” Well, maybe Fae wasn’t the person to talk to about that, since she was almost surely going to get married about the time they hit the real world and have a bunch of kids and that be all, but you never knew. “So they just teach us the basics, so we can transfigure anything at all, like, and then they teach us how to generalize if we stick around through the Advanced classes.”

He shrugged. “Though I just made that up with some help from something my dad said a while ago, so I don’t know. Maybe it’s just useless for people in general.”

0 Topher It seems that way now.... 0 Topher 0 5

Autumn Collins, Crotalus

February 01, 2012 4:09 PM

Not quite by Autumn Collins, Crotalus

Autumn had not attended the wedding of her distant cousin to her Transfiguration teacher. Her mother had decided that since the Crotalus had been "sick" she should stay home and rest. Autumn really hadn't minded. She'd never been the most outgoing of people anyway and the idea of eating in front of so many people made her feel sick for real.

She never ate in front of people anymore-that is when she ate all. Autumn hadn't today and didn't plan to. She was losing weight yet but it still wasn't enough. The fifth year still felt huge and when she did eat something, it always felt like too much. If she weighed herself-which Autumn did compulsively, every time she passed the scale-and it wasn't less than the time before-especially if it were a pound or so more than before-she would have to eat less.

Still, the Crotalus felt guilty. And anxious. What if Professor Brockert had been offended by Autumn not coming to her wedding? What if she took it out on the fifth year in terms of her grades? The Crotalus needed perfect scores both in classes and on her CATS. Even the slightest mistake was unacceptable to her. Every score had to be one hundred percent.

Autumn did nothing but study now. She hadn't painted anything in weeks. Still, when she tried to study, she found her concentration lacking. Most of the time, all she could think about was food and calories and dieting. Plus, Autumn was having trouble sleeping at times and so she felt extremely tired. Sometimes she even got dizzy. Last night, she'd even fainted in the bathroom. How utterly embarrassing. Fainting was for sick people and Autumn wasn't sick. She was just overtired from studying so much that was all.

She willed herself to pay attention to Professor Brockert now. If the fifth year didn't focus on the lesson, it wouldn't matter if the professor was biased against her or not. Autumn wouldn't know what to do and if she didn't know what to do, she couldn't be perfect. And she had to be perfect. Especially in this subject. Her grandmother had been a Brockert. It was in Autumn's blood , even if none of them would ever be as talented in it as Marshall was.

The Crotalus looked at the bottle and pointed her wand at it. She just had to get this right on the first try, she just had too. " Avifors " Autumn said and the bottle sprouted wings and began to rise up and fly.

Not good enough. It wasn't a complete bird. Plus now it was flying towards her neighbor and landed on the neighbor's desk. Autumn had no choice but to go over and get it before it flew away again. She really didn't have the energy to go chasing after this stupid flying bottle now and felt a twinge of annoyance. Autumn pulled out her wand, pointed it at the bottle and stunned it. She walked over to her neighbor and said "I'm sorry about that" as she picked up the offending creature. She was dreadfully embarrassed about the whole situation.

11 Autumn Collins, Crotalus Not quite 164 Autumn Collins, Crotalus 0 5

Fae

February 01, 2012 9:17 PM

Only because its this class. by Fae

Fae rested her chin in her hand and watched Topher while he spoke. She knew that he was trying to make her feel better and being rather patient with her. She ought not to complain so much. Her mother said such things made a girl look ugly and gave her wrinkles. Fae was exhausted from all the stress life at home was giving to her. She should be excited for her siblings, especially with Shelby, who was honestly happy with her betrothal. She knew Jaiden’s had been a bit of a surprise, but he was always so resilient that he would bounce back without a second thought. But, as much as she tried to be happy for them, she still saw this as a farewell to them too.

Her not quite a bird nibbled on a blonde wave while she listened to her housemate discuss his feelings on Transfiguration. Fae wasn’t so sure she would take Transfiguration after her CATS examinations (it would really depend on what her family wanted), but she could only hope that the Advance lessons for all her classes felt like they had meaning to them. Of course, it probably was a somewhat biased feeling she had because she was far better at Charms than she had ever been at Transfiguration. Then again, she might just always hate Transfiguration because they had to use bugs and birds.

Fae laughed when Topher ended his argument by admitting he really had no idea what he was talking about. “I think I would be more okay with Transfiguration if we were transfiguring things into kittens or puppies. Those I can enjoy any day, but birds that seem to like to eat my hair-“ As she said, she pushed the bird lightly away from her because it was starting to tug on her. Just as she did it, the spell ended and she had a bottle again.

“Topher, I have to tell you though, that you’re wrong about the cushioning charms being the same as transfiguring a chair.” Fae commented lightly. “A cushioning char will just soften something, but transfiguring a chair into a sofa can make it go from rough and uncomfortable to soft and beautiful. Transfiguration can make anything beautiful and possibly long lasting if you’re good at it. Charms seems more like a temporary fix of things.”

She was smiling and felt more like herself than she has a moment before. She could thank Topher for that. “How is your bottle coming, Topher?”

0 Fae Only because its this class. 0 Fae 0 5

Josephine

February 02, 2012 11:36 AM

We fear change by Josephine

Arnold was right - his creation blowing up definitely would have been worse. Josephine had never managed to blow anything up, or even set anything on fire, but the first week that her sister had possessed a wand had indicated to her quite strongly that these results were very possible when a person tried too hard, or did not focus sufficiently. Neither did she doubt that Arnold would acheive a better result with a few more tries, so she simply nodded her response.

She'd just turned back to her own, far superior, work when Arnold's 'Besides,' drew her attention back again to her yearmate. She was entertained by his comments on the professor, and allowed an amused smile to grace her lips. "When does she ever?" Josephine quipped about Professor Brockert's inability to pay attention. It wasn't the pointof the class to impress the professor, though, obviously. Not that Josephine would mind occasionally being in the good books of a professor or two, but it wasn't an aim of hers. They seemed to take umbridge when she interpreted the directions for an assignment n a creative manner, or had punctuality issues with her homework. Sheer standard of work was never sufficient to draw positive attention to oneself (in her experience, anyway), but she could comfort herself that in the long run, performance was all that mattered. The professors didn't grade their external exams, and Josephine would have no time then to alienate the examiners, whow would judge her based purely on knowledge and skill, at which point she would come out a winner.

"But yeah, she does seem to be even less grounded than usual." (If that was a side effect of being married to the school's groundskeeper then Josephine didn't want to think about that too much at all. Grown ups falling in love was not romantic in the slightest, especially when it applied to teachers. They should know better by their age.) The class could probably take advantage of this and laze around in class, and while she was always tempted by the prospect of procrastination, Josephine knew she'd much rather get her classwork out of the way in class, and leave as much time to herself out of class hours as was humanly possible. Then she could dither and procrastinate to her heart's content. For this reason, she turned back to her bottle and took a third attempt at turning it into a magpie.

0 Josephine We fear change 0 Josephine 0 5

Hope Brockert, Teppenpaw

February 02, 2012 5:01 PM

hopes to be one someday by Hope Brockert, Teppenpaw

As Hope walked into Transfiguration, she could tell how absolutely delighted her professor was to be married now. The Teppenpaw couldn't blame her. She had dreamed of her own wedding for years. She just hoped that it would be to somebody that she actually liked, like Seth and Professor Brockert's had been. Though Hope didn't want to wait until she was well, as old as they were. It was unlikely she would have to but on the other hand, maybe it was worth it for true love.

And the pool of guys she was likely to get married off to was even smaller now. Hope had heard rumors of something happening with the Pierce family over break. Other than just Alicia Pierce-her cousin Marshall's sister-in-law-being ready to give birth at anytime now. Something about Derry and his mother and the Boston branch. Hope didn't care much for gossip but this possibly could affect her personally. Not that she'd ever really felt that way about her fellow Teppenpaw.

She sat smiling now. When someone was happy, it tended to be infectious for Hope. Even though she'd been less than thrilled to find out that Addison and her sisters had been invited to said wedding, and Russell's family had not been. Not that she personally had anything against her roommate or half-bloods as a whole, it just wasn't fair that they were deemed good enough and the Laynes hadn't been.

Hope knew it wasn't her own side of the family that had made that particular decision. In fact, Great-Grandfather had been quite displeased. It was one thing in his mind for Seth to invite their cousin Jethro and his wife and child-who due to performance schedules had been unable to attend in the first place-and they hid Lily's real mother's identity the best they could anyway but half-bloods being invited because the bride felt some sort of affection for them? To Clifford Brockert, that was just unthinkable.

The Teppenpaw had personally just wanted to hang out with her friend. That was all. Plus, well, she didn't think it was right for Professor Brockert to only invite some students and not all. It showed favoritism and that wasn't right. Even if a person did have favorites, they shouldn't show it when they were supposed to be in a position of being impartial. Hope would expect them maybe to favor blood relatives but that was it.

She turned and focused on the lesson now. The third year didn't worry much about Transfiguration. Hope wasn't necessarily one of the best out there even within her own family but she was certainly pretty decent. "Avifors " The Teppenpaw said, pointed her wand at the bottle, which quickly sprouted a few feathers. Hope smiled. It wasn't perfect, but she didn't expect it to be the first time around. She just expected partial results.

The third year turned to her neighbor. "So how is this going for you?" Maybe if it wasn't going well, she could help them out.

11 Hope Brockert, Teppenpaw *hopes to be one someday* 186 Hope Brockert, Teppenpaw 0 5

David

February 02, 2012 5:29 PM

You are reminded not to watch that one. by David

David contemplated his bird for a moment, then shook his head. “Not worth it to try to learn permanent, er, botched Transfiguration by then,” he determined, more interested in whether or not that could even work than in his violation of the proper Aladren spirit. He could get as competitive as anyone when a challenge was directly put to him, but he rarely exerted the effort to go looking for a hurdle to jump over. Though his grades were good enough that his parents, those all-important sources of approval and money, had never noticed, he honestly didn’t care that much.

Sheer laziness, he knew. He only had room in his life for a few interests without exerting himself mentally, and he still had the whole Wizarding World to learn largely on his own. That took supremacy as an interest, rather than an obligation, and so his schoolwork was just done accurately, without a lot of feeling going into it. He didn’t know quite how to express it; his classwork was interesting, there was no doubt about that, but there was something about it which just made him think of how much more there was, rather than of how interesting it was….

“Maybe you should go for it, though,” he suggested to James. “Get into the – “ he didn’t know if a pureblood would know what the Smithsonian was, or what the name was of the magical equivalent, if there was one – “natural history museum with those.”

He looked at James’ bird-thing again. It did look pretty good. He couldn’t say with real conviction that it was good enough to pass for an actual stuffed bird, since that wasn’t remotely the area of his expertise, but it was a lot closer to real-looking than his was. Which still might not mean James was that much further along than he was. It probably did, and thinking otherwise was most likely some latent fighting-spirit genes trying to force their way into expression, but it might not. Magic was funny that way. He wished reading the theory didn’t confuse him so much most of the time, since it seemed really interesting, but hey, he now had the idea that if he ever got it down, he could then get rich quick writing a For Dummies version. If it had been all easy for him, he might not have seen the need in the market for that kind of thing.

"Either way, it's probably more use to us than a real bird," he said. He guessed that might be a Muggle thing, and so a pattern of thought that he needed to break, but wasn't sure. There were wizards who were just weird wizards, too, he guessed, and it did work for teaching them to move inanimate to animate in Transfiguration - or would if he worked on it.

Also probably as a way to increase their caution. There were enough Aladrens here that there were probably gonna be enough birds for droppings by the end of class. No one was going to be happy if that happened, but he was willing to bet some of the girls were going to be vocal about it.

16 David You are reminded not to watch that one. 169 David 0 5

Kirstenna Melcher, Teppenpaw

February 07, 2012 2:13 PM

You sure you don't mean love beetles ? by Kirstenna Melcher, Teppenpaw

Kirstenna sat in Transfiguration warily. She usually was in this class. After the Imposter and her minions, the Beetle Lady was the greatest threat to the students at Sonora and now she was married to Kirstenna's cousin as she was not letting them forget.

The Teppenpaw felt a little sick about this. She might not know Seth or the relatives more closely related to him that well, but they were still family and they were being threatened. Kirstenna cared about her family, whether they cared about her or not.

In Seth's case, she wasn't entirely sure about things, however. If he was under the Beetle Lady's control, Imperius or a love potion or something, it was one thing, and he needed to be saved from her diabolical plots. But what if he was a willing accomplice? Kirstenna shuddered at the thought. She didn't want to believe that about anyone she was even remotely related to, but the fifth year had to admit that her relatives were not always the nicest people.

Also, the Beetle Lady constantly reminding them of her new last name almost felt she was trying to goad Kirstenna. In a "I'm-part-of-your-family-and-you-can-do-nothing-about-it" way-and she was right. The fifth year couldn't do anything about it. For all the Teppenpaw's magical powers, which growing up, she'd believed could do anything, she felt utterly powerless these days. She couldn't do anything about the Beetle Lady being part of her family now, she couldn't do anything about the Quidditch game that they'd lost and she couldn't do anything to help Sophia.

Kirstenna was now utterly convinced the fifth year was completely under Renee's evil power. She took just a second away from watching the Beetle Lady to glare at the fourth year. She doubted the Crotalus even noticed. The creature quite frankly seemed to think way too highly of itself to pay attention to others. Which would technically work in Kirstenna's favor if she had it in her to do something to destroy her actually.

She turned back to the lesson. It was never good to take one's eyes of one's enemies for too long. After all, the Beetle Lady could be well, turning them into beetles! Instead though, she was demonstrating how to turn a bottle into a bird. Kirstenna wasn't entirely sure the purpose of this exercise, other than to do magic shows like her father did, but then, if she didn't find a job singing, the Teppenpaw would want to be an acrobat or magician's assistant.

Kirstenna took out her wand and pictured a beautiful canary. "Avifors" . The result was a bottle with one eye, one feathered wing and some yellow feathers towards the bottom. She looked at it with some disgust and...and pity. "Half-transfigured things are kind of sad aren't they?" She remarked to the person sitting next to her.

11 Kirstenna Melcher, Teppenpaw You sure you don't mean love beetles ? 161 Kirstenna Melcher, Teppenpaw 0 5

Ryan O'Malley, Crotalus

February 14, 2012 5:05 AM

Um...not sure that really fits in this case. by Ryan O'Malley, Crotalus

Ever since the end of midterm, Ryan had ran into a problem that really wasn't an issue for anyone else except for possibly Arabella and that was the issue of how to address his Transfiguration professor. Obviously he couldn't call her Professor Crosby anymore and he'd already had to switch back and forth between that and her first name. However, it was sort of difficult to get used to calling someone one thing, and then having to change that in your brain. Now Ryan had to adjust that to Professor Brockert and go back and forth between that and Aunt Lilac.

That wasn't the only thing on the fourth year's mind either. As had been the case for quite sometime now, he kept thinking about girls something like obsessively. It caused Ryan nothing but distress-well, for the most part, sometimes there were more pleasurable feelings, but mostly there was just a lot of frustration and disgust for himself.

The problem was too, that Ryan didn't even know what girl to go after. He thought Kate Bauer and Alice Adair were just beautiful but to go after both would be just unfair. Ryan wanted to be a gentleman, that was how he'd been raised. (Or rather tried to be so to compensate for what his mother said was disgusting behavior among men- some of which he was now so, so, very guilty of.) He did not want to lead anyone on or for anyone to get hurt. After all, the Crotalus didn't think he'd like it very much if someone couldn't make up their mind between him and another guy-and the other guy would always win.

Of course, that would mean someone would happen have to actually be attracted to Ryan in the first place and he seriously doubted that would happen. Even if Sophie did think he was attractive and caring and sweet and loyal and not fake, Ryan had no idea if that was what other girls wanted. He knew his own mother had wanted money and bloodlines and connections and a daughter to mold into a miniature version of herself. Of course, Ryan didn't want a woman like his mother. Didn't want to be like his father, didn't want his sons treated the way he'd been treated. Bad enough that his nephews probably would be.

Further complicating things was the fact that Sophie, his best friend, had kissed him . Of course, Ryan had to admit that he enjoyed it and that it had felt very good. He sincerely hoped his reaction to it hadn't put Sophie off too much. The last thing Ryan ever wanted to do was lose his best friend. Still, he was just plain confused about his feelings for a lot of things right now. Switching back and forth between what he was calling his aunt was the least of his worries.

On the other hand, paying attention to what she was saying should be a top priority. If Ryan didn't behave, it was certain it would cause problems across the board. He didn't need anymore right now. So he forced himself to focus rather than sneaking glances at Kate or Alice. Or anyone else. Even though Li-er, Aunt Lil-er Professor Cro-Brockert seemed a little bit spacey herself. Was that love or serious attraction did to someone?

He took a look at his bottle. " Avifors " Ryan pointed his wand at it, envisioning a fairly simple sparrow. The Crotalus might have been good at Transfiguration but he'd rather get it exactly right or as close as possible in case certain people-and he certainly didn't mean the professor-were watching. Ryan was pleased to see his bottle turn into a glass bottle that looked pretty much exactly like a sparrow with flapping feathered wings. Its beak and one of the eyes appeared to be that of a real sparrow as well. It actually made Ryan feel pretty good, it seemed like Transfiguration was the only area of his life he could take pride in.

11 Ryan O'Malley, Crotalus Um...not sure that really fits in this case. 176 Ryan O'Malley, Crotalus 0 5

Arnold

February 15, 2012 10:55 PM

Sometimes, anyway by Arnold

Arnold had to bow to Josephine’s logic. “That’s a good point,” he admitted, thinking about the professor just in general terms. If she’d been born a Carey instead of a Crosby, he was pretty sure she would have been disowned by the time she was his age for excessive and unseemly good humor. He had spent, he thought, at least half of his life being told to calm down and he thought she would beat him any day of the week.

His point, too, though, was acknowledged. She was further out of it than usual, and while he knew he wasn’t much of an Aladren, the kind who could safely make correlations or whatever word Arthur would use for it, he associated her introducing herself to them so often with the rest of it. The one was because she was married, so if they did go together, then so was the other, but that was…weird.

Mr. Brockert, he concluded, must have been a widower, like Arnold’s father had been when he married Arnold’s mother. Widowers could get away with marrying because they just wanted to more than other people could; he supposed widows probably could, too, but Grandmother had spoken enough about what a scandal it was for an old maid from a family to work at the school that he was pretty sure this was Professor Crosby’s first marriage. Which made her just like his mother – reasonably prosperous families, but ones liberal enough to let her get away with working. Though that did make him wonder, now, what Professor Brockert was doing here now….

He was distracted from attempts to reason out his Transfiguration teacher’s behavior in terms he could work with, though, by his neighbor attempting again to do their Transfiguration assignment. He should probably follow her example and do that, too. Turning back to his own bottle, he tried the spell again, and this time, he ended up with a cloud of feathers, which fell to the desk to reveal something which actually did look kind of bird-like. Not alive, but bird-like. That was progress.

0 Arnold Sometimes, anyway 181 Arnold 0 5

Addison Thornton

March 02, 2012 7:20 PM

Hopes to be one day too by Addison Thornton

Addison wasn’t a fan of going to classes. Sure, she liked to learn, but she wasn’t a fan of being places with a lot of people. She knew that was one of the things she’d have to get over if she wanted to change herself, but it was one of the hardest things for her to do. Arista didn’t even have to beg her to go to Lilac’s class. It was her head of house after all, perhaps the best class to start her ‘not having to beg to go’ world.

In any case, Addi wanted to change who she was and she was determined to start right then.

Addi walked into Transfiguration class, smiled at Lilac (who was now Professor Brockert) and sat down in her seat. The plastic bottle on her desk confused the redhead for mere moments before the rest of the class trickled in including her sister and the rest of her housemates.

Lilac started class and told them exactly what they were going to do with the bottles in front of them. Addi wasn’t very good in any of the classes this year, though part of her knew that it was because she desperately wanted change but wasn’t sure if she could do it on her own. She knew better than to ask Arista for help and Amira wouldn’t be of use either in her current state. Then the idea was planted in her head. I can ask Reggie for help! She‘d know what to do! she thought as Addi shook her head to bring herself back to Lilac’s class and the task ahead. Avifors she wrote down and copied how Lilac said it inside her mind. turns an object in front of you into a bird. she finished writing and nodded to Professor Brockert. No wand movement, just point at object. Light should be a bright blue and the object should take the form of whatever bird you imagine. she noted as Lilac went on about the Avis spell before she performed Avifors in front of them.

Professor Brockert had made a green lovebird out of her bottle before transfiguring it back into the bottle again. Addi smiled at her, knowing that if Reggie couldn’t help her, Lilac could. Addison, Arista and the other Thornton kids were all invited to Lilac and Seth’s wedding. Arista, Addi, Amira, Andri and Audi were in attendance and it was a lovely affair. Andri had been thrilled to show Audi off to Lilac (who her oldest sisters had deemed their favorite professor). Addi remembered thinking how cute it was that Andri had learned as much sign as she had learned and could teach it to Audi. And even though they’d been at school Audi still remembered it!

A smile crept up Addi’s face as she thought about it as she heard a voice beside her speak the spell. Ooops. I’m supposed to be making my bottle into a bird! she thought to herself as she frantically thought of a little white dove in her mind just as she heard,

"So how is this going for you?"

“Uhm.” Addi said with a pause, realizing that it was her roommate Hope who’d spoken to her. “It’ll be okay when I start to try it, I think. I hope.” she said, trying to ease her mind from the unexpected question.

0 Addison Thornton *Hopes to be one day too* 190 Addison Thornton 0 5

Prof. B.

March 09, 2012 6:14 PM

Class closed (nm) by Prof. B.

0 Prof. B. Class closed (nm) 0 Prof. B. 0 5

Professor Lilac Brockert

Love birds [Third, fourth, and fifth years!] by Professor Lilac Brockert

Renée Errant {Crotalus}

Playful birds. by Renée Errant {Crotalus}

Daisy Thorpe, Crotalus

Beware the Bottlebirds by Daisy Thorpe, Crotalus

Kate Bauer, Teppenpaw

That sounds painful. by Kate Bauer, Teppenpaw

Arnold Carey, Aladren

Not my usual choice of flying object, but okay by Arnold Carey, Aladren

Arthur Carey, Aladren

Those are not my cup of tea at all. by Arthur Carey, Aladren

Fae Sinclair (Crotalus)

Why is it always birds? by Fae Sinclair (Crotalus)

Renée

Maybe for the weak. by Renée

Kate

...Okay, then. by Kate

Topher Calhoun, Crotalus

Better birds than bugs, yeah? by Topher Calhoun, Crotalus

David Wilkes, Aladren

Wasn't there a movie about those? by David Wilkes, Aladren

Renée

Did I shock you? by Renée

Josephine Owen

Not my usual choice of partner by Josephine Owen

James Owen

Remind me to not watch that one by James Owen

Arnold

Change can be good by Arnold

Fae

You are very right on that one. by Fae

Topher

It seems that way now.... by Topher

Autumn Collins, Crotalus

Not quite by Autumn Collins, Crotalus

Fae

Only because its this class. by Fae

Josephine

We fear change by Josephine

Hope Brockert, Teppenpaw

*hopes to be one someday* by Hope Brockert, Teppenpaw

David

You are reminded not to watch that one. by David

Kirstenna Melcher, Teppenpaw

You sure you don't mean love <i> beetles </i>? by Kirstenna Melcher, Teppenpaw

Ryan O'Malley, Crotalus

Um...not sure that really fits in this case. by Ryan O'Malley, Crotalus

Arnold

Sometimes, anyway by Arnold

Addison Thornton

*Hopes to be one day too* by Addison Thornton

Prof. B.

Class closed (nm) by Prof. B.

hopes to be one someday by Hope Brockert, Teppenpaw

Hopes to be one day too by Addison Thornton