Advanced Transfiguration - now you see it, now you don't on Transfiguration

Professor Skies

August 31, 2014 4:55 AM

Advanced Transfiguration - now you see it, now you don't by Professor Skies

“Good afternoon,” Professor Skies greeted the advanced class, “Today, we will be continuing our work on vanishing and conjuring,” one the surface of it, advanced transfiguration could seem awfully simple. For the sixth years, who were working predominantly on vanishing, they had needed the same spell throughout the term. The seventh years had slightly more of a challenge, as their spells varied with each task. Both type of spell, however, were difficult to master and, as an advanced class, the work was about quality not quantity. They needed to learn the art of vanishing thoroughly, including the theory. Now that each student was only focussed on a few subjects, much greater depth of knowledge was required.

“We'll be beginning work on animate subjects today, starting fairly simply with molluscs,” up until now, the class had been working on inanimate objects. A small box with a snail floated out to all the sixth years, whilst nature books made their way over to the seventh years. Ordinarily, Professor Skies set two different levels and let her students choose but over the years she'd found this was the best way to teach these two subjects. The theories went hand it hand, and it was easier to teach them together than apart but students needed to work up to complex vanishing spells before starting to conjure. There was some overlap, but as a general rule even simple conjuring was much harder than complex vanishing, so it didn't make sense to let the sixth years tackle the seventh year project.

By now, the sixth years knew what spell they would be using. The seventh years could look it up in their textbooks, though she encouraged them to make educated guesses about what it might be. All the students were currently working on spell structure for homework, looking at the derivations of the words and the most common ways of structuring them to create spells.

“If you finish, you can write a summary of the chapter you read for homework as essay practise.” By now, she trusted them to do the reading without her having to check up but, as she had explained to them at the start of term, nothing showed you how much you understood better than trying to explain it to someone else. It was also good practise at putting the theories into their own words, and so this was a common end of class task for them.

OOC – You know the drill. 200 words minimum, with points for creativity, realism, relevance and length. No running, no diving, no petting, no exploding the classroom. Put your house in the author line and tag me if you need me.

Subthreads:

(Hopefully) a good day. by Amity Brockert, Aladren

I'd prefer not to see it. by Carrie O'Malley,Crotalus

13 Professor Skies Advanced Transfiguration - now you see it, now you don't 26 Professor Skies 1 5

Amity Brockert, Aladren

September 19, 2014 2:50 PM

(Hopefully) a good day. by Amity Brockert, Aladren

Today was a special day for Amity. It was her seventeenth birthday! This was an especially important birthday too, because it meant that she was an adult and her mother would never have a say in her life again. Even when she got betrothed, the Aladren didn't think Mother would have much control. It was ultimately up to Uncle Clifford, a man she didn't know at all, but still trusted more than that woman.

She would have rather not had classes today at all as it was her day and for once she wanted to spend it doing as she liked. However, she supposed it wasn't that bad, since Transfiguration came to her naturally. It was something she'd never had to struggle with and that was a good thing. Amity didn't like struggling. She didn't like challenges, she just didn't have it in her and hadn't for a long time.

And of course, nobody in her class other than Effie knew it was her birthday either. She didn't want to think about it at a time when she should be happy, but the Aladren really wondered if anyone else would even care that much if they did. She had worried quite a bit in the last few years if anyone else really liked her at all. It bothered her greatly, all she wanted, aside from free time, was to be at least seen as respectable by her peers.

It wasn't her who wasn't. She felt she was good deal more so than some of her classmates including some of the purebloods. This also irritated her given that that made them not marriage material after all. It meant Amity was going to end up betrothed to someone she'd never met. It meant having to impress someone when she just wanted to be liked. She'd always been the disappointment, the "bad" daughter in her mother's eyes. The one who was disobedient. It wasn't the main reason she'd left, which was feeling overworked and burnt out, but it was a part of it. Amity couldn't reach those expectations even if she had wanted to. Nobody could.

Her sister wouldn't ever be able to either and she tried so hard. It was really sad to see Chaslyn like that. The Crotalus seemed more nervous than ever since she'd been at school, trying to do way too much. Not that they hadn't always had to but as Chaslyn tried to keep up with what Mother wanted her to do as well as schoolwork, Amity predicted disasterous results.

The sixth year pushed these thoughts away. She especially didn't want to feel unhappy right now. Transfiguration was not depressing . Besides, she didn't mind learning if it was something useful or that she was interested in. She just liked-and needed-a lot of down time. Years of excessive work, being busy every second of the day, had worn her down.

This year would of course be different. Just schoolwork and less of it. Amity was only taking Transfiguration and Charms. She had no need to know how to care for magical creatures and could buy potions and stay away from the darkest creature she knew, Carrie. Even though the seventh year was in both her classes. Truth be told, Amity rather hoped that her cousin forgot or didn't know in the first place that it was her birthday, because she'd only seek to ruin it.

Really, other than the fact that Carrie was a miserable, horrible, nasty person, the Aladren didn't know why she got singled out by her. She didn't do anything, because it wasn't worth the trouble and effort. The only reason the Aladren could figure out was that it would get at Arabella.

Approriately enough, they were continuing their work on vanishing and conjuring. Amity just wished it worked on people. Making certain people disappear would be beneficial and it might actually be worth it for once. She did know that there were vanishing cabinets where the person would just turn up elsewhere and she assumed that it would be the same if you vanished an actual person-and quite frankly, Amity, who really didn't normally wish anything bad to happen to anyone, didn't care where they ended up. The further away the better.

The other good thing about the lesson was that, well, they were continuing something that they'd already been doing and that she was doing quite well on. Not learning something new. That would be more difficult.

Amity received a mollusc and looked it over. What she knew about them was that they had shells. Yeah, nature wasn't something she had much interest in. It wasn't even something she'd really been that forced to learn about suprisingly. Just Care of Magical Creatures, which had been required until this year-and she'd only gotten an A in it on CATS. Mother had been furious enough to send her a Howler. Not that she'd never gotten one before. Or at least nagging letters.

She could, however, imagine things disappearing. She did it all the time. The thing about vanishing though, was instead of imagining the differences and similarities about something, Amity had to imagine it not being there anymore. The really difficult thing would be imagining the mollusc which she had nothing against, it didn't even really gross her out, disappearing rather than her cousin. The Aladren knew the mollusk would be easier and more likely to vanish completely, rather than having Carrie's hand crawling around the classroom,continuing to exist separately from the rest of her, or something.

Come to think of it, Arabella probably would have actually tried it and Amity herself was sorely tempted. After all, it was for the good of everyone and she couldn't imagine a better birthday present.

Instead though, the sixth year turned to the mollusc, which happened to be a snail A rather nice one with a pretty shell that in another situation, Amity might have wanted to keep, she did like seashells.It would however after all be less difficult-and possible. She pictured it not being there, her desk looking pretty much like it did a moment ago, before the mollusc had arrived. " Evanesco " The result was that there was nothing but a shell left, she must have wanted it more than she thought, even if it wasn't the be all end all of things she had to have. Even if it was her birthday.

She turned to the person next to her-she always made sure to sit by someone she liked that was prope, preferably Effie-and asked "Do you think it counts if I do it piece by piece? I mean, I don't know when or if the rest of the snail is coming back." Amity didn't really want to try conjuring it yet.

That's when she felt something...squishy in her shoe. "Oh ick". Plus for one thing, she'd have to take her shoes off to remove whatever it was and she had a feeling she knew. "I think I found it-and I'm going to need new shoes." Like any wealthy pureblood girl though, Amity had plenty of them and she was going to have to go straight back to her room and change them after class. Sighing, she quickly removed her shoe and removed the snail body. Thankfully, it was still alive, but her socks were just as ruined as the shoe. Amity did a quick cleaning charm, to make it some what more bearable and picked the creature up. "Hopefully next time, it'll end up somewhere...better. Somewhere not on me ."

11 Amity Brockert, Aladren (Hopefully) a good day. 233 Amity Brockert, Aladren 0 5

Carrie O'Malley,Crotalus

October 05, 2014 12:26 AM

I'd prefer not to see it. by Carrie O'Malley,Crotalus

It was only one more year that Carrie had to endure being at Sonora, surrounded by these idiots. Obviously, wherever she went she was going to be stuck around a bunch of inferiors as just about everyone short of her mother was inferior to her. Still, students and staff here at school were especially bad. Never mind the halfbloods and mudbloods, even the other purebloods seemed to not get the basics. Some of them weren't at all selective about who they associated with.

Worse than that, nobody seemed to get the concept that Carrie was better than them, that they should be trying to get on her good side, pander to her. Why, she hadn't even been on the Head Girl ballot! One would think with her mother's cousin as Headmaster, she would have gotten on, and of course, being the best person in all of Sonora, she would have won. In fact, Carrie should have just been handed the badge, no election necessary. Mother had been rather furious with Mortimer and had made sure to let him know too.

At least there was that, the Crotalus was now able to live with her mother when not at school. She no longer had to live with her imbecile brother, that woman, and her wretched spawn. They too failed to dote on her like she deserved. Why, they all even seemed to prefer Ryan and he and her stepmother had done nothing but turn her father against Carrie too. He'd only proved that he too was an idiot by listening to them. Also that he generally had poor taste and no common sense.

Now though, she was just biding her time. Going through the motions of going to class, hoping that eventually the professors would eventually realize how wonderful she was and just give her an O without her having to do anything. It wasn't so much that she was lazy, like Amity, it was just that the seventh year was special and deserved to be treated as such, while her cousin should work and toil like everyone else.

The blonde examined her manicure as Professor Skies prattled on about vanishing and conjuration. She yawned. Really, she didn't need to be taught Transfiguration, it was in her blood and not only that Carrie was the sort who should be able to just make things happen.

And she certainly didn't want to conjure a mollusc. They were gross and she wasn't about to touch one. Nor would she ever be able to understand why anyone would want to conjure a slimy, disgusting creature. Why didn't they just try conjuring Ryan while they were at it?

No, Carrie was not going to do this. She was going to find something prettier to conjure, which was hard because she really hated animals. The only thing she could see that was attractive enough was a mirror image of herself but she wasn't even sure that was possible to do. Besides, great as Carrie was, she didn't think she'd ever be able to copy the beauty of the original her.

Still, she supposed she had to do something . What would be acceptable? Butterflies were prettier than most insects, but they were still insects. A bird maybe? Yes, a pure white dove, pure as she was in all ways. At least it was something that was representative or something wonderful. Purity was the best quality one could have and that was Carrie.

The Crotalus pictured a white bird in her head. It might not have been an exact dove, with her lack of fondness towards animals in general, she didn't know precisely what one looked like. Still, being who she was, she expected it to materialize perfectly the way she had imagined it. Carrie said the spell and looked at her desk. She narrowed her eyes to see that there was nothing there but a small feathered wing.

11 Carrie O'Malley,Crotalus I'd prefer not to see it. 230 Carrie O'Malley,Crotalus 0 5