So why does everything feel so strange? on Transfiguration

Professor Skies

January 23, 2015 11:48 PM

Advanced class - we've been here before by Professor Skies

The advanced class was part way through a quick module on animate to animate transfiguration. It involved many of the skills and even spells that they had learnt previously though it involved applying them to increasingly complex targets. Still, it wasn't very new or exciting, and so they quickly dispensed with it in the first few weeks, before moving onto the stranger and more interesting areas offered by the subject.

“Good afternoon,” she greeted the students. By this point in the term she had just about got over the shock of who was in her advanced class, certain as she was that they could not possibly have grown up so quickly. It probably seemed like a lifetime to them, but it seemed to go by so fast for her. It was especially noticeable this year, as her first group of first were now going to be sitting their RATS at the end of the year and graduating...

“Today we will be revisiting Lepidoptera only this time you will be starting with another living thing. You have the choice of a caterpillar or a slug, though I would like all seventh years to be attempting the second task. As usual, you will be marked on the complexity of the wing patterns,” by this stage in their education, there shouldn't have been anyone in the class who couldn't create a fully functioning butterfly within a few tries.

“In case you have forgotten, the wand movement is a deceptively simple looking one. It is a gentle downwards stroke but the lightness with which you do it is essential. Homework for both groups will be to write about the differences and similarities between using this and an ageing potion on a caterpillar and you may begin this if you finish your practical work.

“Please collect a box from the front and begin,” as usual, there were nature books at the back to give them ideas if they weren't familiar with a range of beautifully patterned butterflies off the tops off their heads.

OOC – 200 words minimum. Posts will be marked on length, realism, creativity and relevance.

Subthreads:

So why does everything feel so strange? by Effie Arbon, Crotalus with Amity Brockert, Aladren

It's not such a bad place to be. by Julian Umland, Teppenpaw with Annette Pierce, Pecari

Not a fan, really. [tag Francesca & Ginny] by Adam Spencer, Pecari with Virginia Bellrose, Crotalus, Francesca Wolseithcrafte, Aladren, Adam, Ginny

13 Professor Skies Advanced class - we've been here before 26 Professor Skies 1 5

Effie Arbon, Crotalus

February 08, 2015 4:51 AM

So why does everything feel so strange? by Effie Arbon, Crotalus

Effie took her seat in Transfiguration, taking out her parchment and quill. As she did so, the letter she’d received that morning caught her eye. Something about it had bothered her, though she couldn’t put her finger on it… It was from Delphine but somehow it didn’t read right. It felt… flat. Delphine recounted her news in her elegant, sloping hand - so similar to Effie’s own writing, just a little bigger - her characteristic doodles filling the margins but it didn’t seem like Delphine was really engaged in the events she described. She always had been so sorry at missing out on coming to school. Perhaps now with both sisters away, and with all the happy gossiping her family had done about Anthony Carey, Delphine was starting to feel more left out… However, short of finding a nice boy for her sister (and there wasn’t exactly a surplus here) she wasn’t sure there was a lot she could do. Her sisters did seem to specialise in having fantastically unsolveable problems, she mused, as she turned her focus to the lesson.

The module was a fairly easy one, for which she was grateful as she had enough else to occupy her mind. Araceli was still being…. her new happy and confident self, magically supplied from a little bottle. She wanted to reach out and talk to her about it but she hardly saw her. Maybe that was natural, given the gaps in their ages, and given that her sister didn’t need her so much now she was doing so well socially. However, she almost felt a little avoided, or like Araceli was being secretive. Effie knew that she had tried to hide her medication from her when they’d been on the wagon ride, and didn’t know that she had noticed nonetheless…. Maybe that was she continued to keep a distance.

She collected a slug, remembering the ugly brooch she’d had to Transfigure when she was an intermediate student. She knew it was silly, that all things would revert to type, but it was rather nice to feel that she was improving the world - one ugly-thing-to-butterfly at a time. She remembered well the creature she’d created - a White Admiral, something she had seen often when walking around the grounds at home. She was sure a small sketch of one had appeared in one of her letters to Anthony over the summer.

“Lepidoptera,” she cast, fluttering her wand gently over the slug, and thinking of the wing pattern and the light, delicate body of the butterfly she wished to create. The slug morphed, like a strange and speeded up parody of a caterpillar, and a butterfly, as she had pictured, was flapping around the box in front of her. It seemed perfect, until it alighted briefly on the side of the box, whereupon it left several tiny, but noticeable, slimy footprints.

“I’m fairly sure they don’t normally do that…” she muttered to herself.

13 Effie Arbon, Crotalus So why does everything feel so strange? 238 Effie Arbon, Crotalus 0 5

Julian Umland, Teppenpaw

February 09, 2015 8:22 AM

It's not such a bad place to be. by Julian Umland, Teppenpaw

She was sure she was the only one who felt that way, but Julian was privately relieved that they had started Advanced Transfiguration off slowly this year. When selecting her classes, she had dithered longer and worried more about this one than she thought she ever had about anything before in her life, except maybe whether or not it was a good idea to meet her biological mother and what would be the worst way to go when the school had been cut off from the outside world for a few months in her fourth year.

The stakes felt about as high, now, as they ever had, or at least as high as the ones involved in meeting Sallie. Dying was about as high-stakes as anything got, but in a way there had been no stakes at all in her specific situation because of how unlikely it was that she ever would have had any control over which horrible thing happened first, and even if there had still been stakes, at least dying just happened and then it was over. She might, depending on how she stacked up, have had other problems then, but the problems that had made her not want to make a decision would’ve been resolved. She was stuck with Sallie and her RATS decisions and the things about them that had made her so reluctant to make up her mind about them for the rest of her life, now. Both of them had been kind enough not to rush her too much, though, and for that, she was profoundly grateful.

Even the ‘easy’ version of Advanced Transfiguration, though, was nothing to sneeze at. Julian thought, after the opening module, that she was going to make it through the class, but also that she was going to have to work extremely hard for it.

Well, game on. She was not going to be the only one in the family who did not have at least seven years of Transfiguration experience. Well - besides Paul and Mom’s family, anyway, but they couldn’t help it. John and Joe also lacked the credential right now, but since she was sure that only severe head trauma would keep John from attaining it in a few years - he, weirdo that he was, loved Transfiguration; he got nearly as animated rambling about it as he did about the probability that he’d spotted birds rare to their region - that left her gambling on Joe to keep her company among the magical members of the family that she knew about, so she was really back where she started. She would complete this class and she would do tolerably well in it, both to make her family proud and just to prove to herself that she could do it. Charms and Potions were sure to be of more use to her as well as easier for her to pick up, but she would pick up Transfiguration as well, no matter how abstract it got when she was really much better at dealing with solid, practical realities in front of her. She didn’t think it was possible to live in the same house as Alison Umland for more than a month without getting at least a basic grasp on the kind of thinking and ideas necessary for that part of the course, after all, and she’d been there for sixteen years.

As she considered the problem of revisiting Lepidoptera, though, she found another member of the family hindering her instead of Mom helping her. The problem with being the nice one in the family was that she felt bad if she ever tried to brush the younger boys off, with the result that she had listened to far more of John’s ramblings than she thought had been good for her over the years and now found herself wondering how turning a caterpillar into a butterfly was Transfiguration. It didn’t seem so much like turning one thing into another as just...speeding up a process. Unless they were supposed to turn it into a different species of butterfly? But surely they weren’t supposed to study the nature books long enough to identify the species of caterpillar….

”Homework for both groups will be to write about the differences and similarities between using this and an ageing potion on a caterpillar,” said Professor Skies. Well, at least she guessed she was thinking in the right direction. She collected a caterpillar and went to study the nature books for pattern ideas.

They were beautiful. She didn't think she was going to take up insect hunting or anything - one of the things she'd never understood about naturalists was their enthusiasm for their ventures when plenty of the expeditions were going to be fruitless, though that wasn't even as difficult to understand as their comfort with the things they studied after said things were dead - but decorating with some of the images if she ever had a chance might be an option. She flipped through a few pages, waiting for something to really catch her eye. "I'm not sure I ever thought about how many species of butterfly there are before I took this class," she remarked to a neighbor with a smile.

16 Julian Umland, Teppenpaw It's not such a bad place to be. 254 Julian Umland, Teppenpaw 0 5

Amity Brockert, Aladren

February 13, 2015 4:25 PM

At least I dislike all the same people as always? by Amity Brockert, Aladren

Amity's mind wasn't exactly on Transfiguration when she arrived for class. While she'd away visiting Effie over the summer, Uncle Robert had met with his former roommate's older brother Roderick Tremont, who was looking for a match for his older son, the Tremont family heir, Phillip. She'd been very cautious at first, unsure. On the one hand, Amity very much wanted to get married and within the next few years. She did not want to be anything close to approaching an old maid and there weren't just slim pickings, there were pretty much no pickings at Sonora. That meant looking elsewhere.

And she wasn't all that crazy about that idea but she didn't have a choice now. Effie was interested in Anthony and besides Amity's distant cousin had married his anyway, the latter of which also eliminated Henry. Rupert Princeton was a big no . He'd offended her deeply way back during the Challenges her second year, seemingly preferring that parasite and her cousin to the Aladren. Now she'd even heard a rumor that he was actually dating Wendy Canterbury. Amity would rather marry a total stranger.

However, she'd been nervous about what Phillip might be like. After all he could be well...like Rupert. Or an ill mannered brute of a man. Or worst of all, he might be a male version of her mother or Ryan's. Amity couldn't live with that .

So far, though, Phillip was none of those things and she had-tentatively, after both she and her father had met him and her father had approved, after what was colloquially called grilling Phillip-agreed to get betrothed to him. Once Uncle Clifford had had his say, it was a done deal.

She wasn't in love with him, not now, but that was okay, she didn't think Arabella and Paul loved each other and they certainly hadn't when they'd first gotten betrothed. And her parents certainly didn't love each other. At least Amity sincerely hoped her father didn't love her mother, or she was going to be absolutely worried about his judgement and sanity and reconsider her own betrothal immediately . As for Mother, the Aladren didn't think she was capable of love. Maybe she'd loved that Father had the last name Brockert, but Amity couldn't imagine her loving anything else. Why, she assumed even the Headmaster was more capable of love than Mother!

At least she liked Phillip though. He was actually quite...charming. In a way that was genuine and not...slimy.

Today she'd received a letter from her betrothed, formally asking her and her father-Mother had been left off the invitation because Phillip remembered that Amity didn't get along with her, not because Uncle Robert had told him-to visit the Tremonts in Mississippi this midterm and get to know each other more and even that his mother would have their party planners put together an engagement party if she liked. Amity figured she was going to be visiting either way and Phillip was just trying to make it look like she had an option. The party, she had a feeling was her choice, and she was going to say okay, if she could also invite her cousins and Effie and if Chaslyn could stay the whole time with her and Father too. Also if Amity didn't have to do any of the work herself.

She took a seat next to Effie, planning to ask her friend if she would like to attend the party once Professor Skies released them to do the lesson.

The Aladren wrinkled her nose. Slugs into butterflies. Talk about slimy. And not just slimy, genuinely slimy without even the fakest bit of charm. Well, she could appreciate the honesty of a slug then, she supposed. And the fact that they were associated with laziness, like her. Other than that quality, Amity would rather not be compared to a slug. She'd rather be a butterfly. They were pretty.

What else? Butterflies had wings that came in different colors depending on the type of butterfly. Honestly, a few years ago, as an intermediate, Amity had tried to transfigure a broach into one, and she hadn't learned much about them since. Nature was not something she spent time reading about, focusing on fiction with intriguing plots and characters instead. Some were still used in potions, some were still poisonous to eat, including monarchs, which were still the only species she could name off the top of her head. And they still didn't stay still and were difficult to catch.

One could say, Amity supposed, that a genuinely slimy non charming slug was a bit more honest than a pretty but poisonous butterfly. She'd still rather be a butterfly though. Even if she did move more like a slug.

So those were the differences. What did the two creatures have in common? A slug's body was similar to that of a butterfly in shape but bigger and heavier though neither were very big. They were both lower life forms but higher ones than Carrie was.

Amity looked at her slug. She envisioned it changing, it's body thinning and lengthening. It would sprout beautiful blue wings, closer to that of her eyes-which Phillip had said were beautiful-than Aladren blue. It's body would be black. “Lepidoptera,” .

She grinned. So the sluggerfly's body was still chubby and slimy, though longer and darker. It's wings were just the right shade of blue she'd imagined and better yet, it wasn't in her shoe, like the mollusk body last year. "Hey." She turned to Effie. "How are you doing?" Amity knew her friend had had a rather odd and lonely summer with little time spent with her sisters. She herself hadn't seen Chaslyn very much-which wasn't all that surprising really-but had been nearly inseperable from Kira, other than her trip to visit Effie and stuff involving Phillip. Amity was a bit concerned about what was going on with her best friend and her friend's family though.

11 Amity Brockert, Aladren At least I dislike all the same people as always? 233 Amity Brockert, Aladren 0 5

Adam Spencer, Pecari

February 14, 2015 2:17 PM

Not a fan, really. [tag Francesca & Ginny] by Adam Spencer, Pecari

Since the year had started, Adam had been busy with Prefect duties, Quidditch try-outs and schoolwork. He didn’t have important exams this year, but he felt the pressure to decide whether or not he wanted to pursue university. If he decided to work in Magical Law Enforcement, he would have to do very well on his exams. But if he didn’t decide to do so, he was lost. The only other option he could think of was becoming a mediwizard, but he couldn’t admit to his father that the sight of blood and injuries made him feel ill. The term had hardly begun and already Adam was feeling incredible pressure to make these big life decisions. He was the eldest of his siblings; he was supposed to be the one who had it all together. Clearly, at this point, he did not, though not even Charlotte knew that.

As for his friendships, Adam had greeted Ginny as warmly as possible when he saw her or sat with her and/or Francesca during meals. He knew they would never agree on what had caused such a misunderstanding between them last year, but he wanted it to be over with. He’d done his best to reach out and apologise for what he’d done, and he was tired of apologising. From now on he was going to be a friend to her again, having not forgotten what he’d written to her in his letter over the summer. Ginny was difficult to deal for him to understand completely, but he was learning slowly. He was glad that he had Francesca at least to rely on as he trudged through his decisions and difficulties.

With his sixth year, Adam was able to drop courses and pursue the ones he really enjoyed. That, however, was not an easy decision given that, depending on his future career choice, he would have to keep on some classes and earn high marks in them. As a result, the only course Adam had dropped was COMC, certain that he would never work with magical creatures in any capacity. His favourite class was Transfiguration, and Adam slid into a seat next to Francesca and Ginny.

“Hi,” he said, smiling at them both, his dark eyes particularly gauging Ginny’s reaction. He didn’t want to feel like he was on thin ice around her anymore, but it was difficult to completely forget how she’d treated him last year. Still, he did his best to push down those feelings of uncertainty and hurt to be friendly and amicable towards her. All he wanted were his best mates again.

It was a remedial lesson today, and working on live creatures always made Adam nervous. Charlotte, who felt the same way, had once told him that transfiguring living creatures didn’t harm them a bit, but despite her reassurance, Adam still didn’t feel right changing a creature into another object. The introduction to the lesson was short since the class had already learnt Lepidoptera earlier. He stood with the rest of the class and went to the front to reluctantly choose a caterpillar from the box. It was a small, green thing that didn’t look ready for its metamorphosis quite yet. He picked up a nature book on his way back to his desk and sat down, pushing the box a little ways away from him so he didn’t have to watch the caterpillar squirm in its cage.

“I’m a sixth year and transfiguring live creatures still makes me squirm,” he said, shaking his head at himself. “Do either of you feel that way, or am I the only one?” He opened the book to begin looking through the photographs. “Want to have a look with me,” he asked them, “or do you want to have a go first?”

0 Adam Spencer, Pecari Not a fan, really. [tag Francesca & Ginny] 0 Adam Spencer, Pecari 0 5

Virginia Bellrose, Crotalus

February 17, 2015 8:39 PM

It's not so terrible. by Virginia Bellrose, Crotalus

Since entering into her Advance courses, Ginny had dropped Defense Against the Dark Arts and Potions. These were the two courses that she struggled with the most and didn’t see a point in continuing with. As a result, her mornings were completely free. When she wasn’t finishing her homework or studying for something, Ginny spent a lot of her free time in the MARS dance room. She was getting her strength back up and needed as much practice as she could get. So far, her Sixth year was looking up.

At the end of her Fifth year, Ginny was bones. She had been pale and rather sickly looking. Her hair had started to fall off and she had several dizzy spells. She had been so consumed with keeping control over certain things in her life that she had ended up losing control over everything else. She and Francesca had spoken over everything that happened, but Adam and her had only done so over a letter. Ginny knew that eventually, she and Francesca would get back to where they had once been but she couldn’t say for sure about Adam. He had emotionally crushed her. Granted, he hadn’t known her feelings, but they were real to her and he stomped on them and made her feel worthless. It was not something she could easily get over. She was at the point where the hurt was a throb in her chest whenever she accidentally made eye contact with him, but otherwise, it was slowly fading away. Perhaps when it no longer reared its head whenever she looked at him, she could move forward, but for now, she would keep her distance emotionally.

She knew that neither of her friends would ever truly understand her, she was just too different, but what was done was done. She was, however, tired of them seeing her as the bad guy though. Her emotions at the time felt right, it didn’t make her a bad person or wrong, they were just things they didn’t understand. But these were things she would keep to herself lest they think poorly of her once again.

Ginny’s attention was on her wet hair when Adam joined them in Transfiguration. She had danced that morning and showered just before class, making her hair a mess. Ginny had lost track of time and was running a little late, so she had to finish her hair before class started. With pins in her mouth and her hands rapidly braiding her hair, she could only manage a mumbled greeting to him when he took a seat. Once her hair was neatly tucked into a french braid with pins keeping it in place, Ginny pulled out her quill and wand just as the lesson started.

The lesson had Ginny frowning. Transfiguration was her most difficult class now and although she could do animate to inanimate or inanimate to animate without too much difficulty now, she was not so sure of her skills at animate to animate. She would start with the caterpillar for now. She wondered if the type of caterpillar mattered for how she wanted her butterfly to look…

Ginny had a larger caterpillar that was a little fuzzy and a lovely white/yellow color. It was crawling over her hand while she thought of what she wanted to do. “I think it’s normal to be a little apprehensive.” She commented lightly while she watched it crawl over her. “I don’t think I need the book. I’m thinking of trying to transfigure this into a Cloudless Orange Sulfur Butterfly.” Ginny said thoughtfully. It was one of the types of butterflies she had worked on the past. It was just different enough to be a challenge from the coloring of the caterpillar but not so different to overwhelm her. “Thank you for the offer though.” Ginny added, remembering that he had asked her something and not just made a suggestion.

6 Virginia Bellrose, Crotalus It's not so terrible. 0 Virginia Bellrose, Crotalus 0 5

Annette Pierce, Pecari

February 24, 2015 9:52 AM

There are certainly worse ones by Annette Pierce, Pecari

Despite the trauma of her CATS, Annabelle's scheming, and the re-take she'd had to take to prove minimum competency to continue into the RATS level when her CATS came back with a P, Annette was doing pretty well in the class. She was by no means the top student in the class, but she was right on par with Annabelle and averaging a low E.

Now in her seventh year, she felt comfortable with her place in the class - dearly hoping she didn't get Nanette Langdon for her RATS at the end of the year again, obviously, but she no longer felt like she was unworthy to take Transfiguration. She'd done reasonably well for the last year and change and hadn't struggled with the material any more than most of her classmates did, so that went a long way to reassuring her that the poor CATS score had been a terrible fluke rather than a true assessment of her talent and skill.

Still, she was grateful for the unit of review they were currently finishing up, both because she was sure Professor Skies wouldn't be beating them over the heads with it if it wasn't important for her upcoming RATS, and because she appreciated the bump to her grades before things became difficult and it started to sag again with the more complex assignments.

Annette collected a slug from the front and a nature book from the back and returned to her seat. As she was flipping through the pages of A Naturalist's Guide to Insects to the section on butterflies, she was slightly surprised when girl next to her, who was doing the same thing, spoke. Annette looked over at her, recognizing Julian Umland firstly as a Teppenpaw sixth year who did not play Quidditch, secondly as one of the Library Monitors who sometimes helped her find the books she needed for class assignments, and thirdly as someone not in her social class. The latter did not bother her at all, but it was something that she couldn't entirely ignore.

She nodded in agreement. "I know, right? If it wasn't for this class, I'd only know about the three kinds we have on our mountain." She flipped through the next few pages in her book, and turned it so Julian could see her current page clearly which showed a summary of the Blue subgroup, "But apparently there are nineteen kinds alone that are blue." She flipped another page to the Adonis Blue butterfly, and decided that one would be both pretty and fairly simple to replicate as it was mostly solid with just a bit of a white border around the wing edges.

"I think I'll do this one."

1 Annette Pierce, Pecari There are certainly worse ones 247 Annette Pierce, Pecari 0 5

Francesca Wolseithcrafte, Aladren

March 03, 2015 8:23 AM

On the fence by Francesca Wolseithcrafte, Aladren

Quidditch was probably the only thing keeping her sane right now. The rift between her and Ginny, and Ginny and Adam was healing but it was still… complicated, especially given what Ginny had confessed to her in the gardens, and her own mixed feelings on the matter. Whilst she didn’t have a problem with Ginny liking Adam like that, she still felt anxious at the idea of being third wheel. Ginny seemed like she wanted to put those feelings behind her, and like she didn’t feel she could forgive Adam enough for that to work out but Francesca wasn’t entirely convinced. On top of that, her classes were complex and headache-inducing but at the same time, she still felt the frustration at only being a sixth year. She knew what she wanted to do with her life, and she wanted to skip ahead and get on with it, instead of being stuck here as a teenager. No one listened to or respected you when you were sixteen. Even though she would be of age before midterm, she wasn’t sure anything would change. Jay’s letters didn’t exactly inspire her with optimism. Next to Quidditch, they were probably her favourite thing about the year so far but she wasn’t sure they went hand in hand with sanity, seeing as they constantly taunted her with the fact that he was out there and she was in here. Still, he didn’t seem to have forgotten her. But, whenever the optimistic part of her brain reminded her of this, the more vocal pessimistic part added ‘yet.’

She took a seat in Transfiguration between her two friends, remembering that everything was supposed to be nice and normal now. Although Transfiguration was supposed to be very difficult, she had always enjoyed it, and the fact that they were almost doing a recap unit made it probably the most relaxed of her current three classes. Of course, that was a relative term, and it was ‘relaxing’ in much that same way that having an icy bucket of water thrown in your face is, in comparison to being thrown bodily into a lake.

“Depends how much they do,” she replied to Adam’s question of whether live creatures made her squirm, “The worse it’s going, the worse I feel,” she clarified. She suspected she might be a bit better at rationalising what she was doing but she didn’t want to come off as cold and detached.

“That sounds pretty,” she commented about Ginny’s butterfly, “I’ll take a look though,” she added to Adam because she wasn’t sure she could name many butterflies off the top of her head, much less picture them. She couldn’t help but wonder whether Ginny really didn’t need the book or was just rejecting it to keep a barrier between her and Adam - and then couldn’t also help but wonder whether her accepting it was going to divide them back into a two and a one, and whether she was ever going to be able to stop analysing their interactions from now on and constantly questioning the secret, underlying meaning to every act, or what people might read into it. She couldn’t help but notice that she was sat in the middle and hoped that accidental choice wasn’t somehow deeply symbolic. It would probably take time for things to feel natural again but, she consoled herself, at least everyone was speaking to each other….

“I guess I’ll do that one?” she shrugged, pointing to a plainish black butterfly. “You?” she asked Adam, “And what does yours look like?” she asked Ginny, feeling a little like a spectator in a Quidditch match where the Quaffle was being wrestled back and forth, first turning to one friend, then the other, trying to make sure she kept it even (and wondering whether she would have genuinely bothered with the question under normal circumstances or was just doing it to keep a fair score, and when it would stop feeling like it might be that, regardless of whether it was or not). “Apart from presumably orange?”

13 Francesca Wolseithcrafte, Aladren On the fence 250 Francesca Wolseithcrafte, Aladren 0 5

Adam

March 04, 2015 11:59 AM

Everything is completely normal. by Adam

Transfiguration was delightful when it came to some practical work, but anything with creatures made Adam just a bit squeamish. He was supposed to be a strong wizard, confident as a male and undaunted by anything, but this, he supposed, was his weakness. One of the few. Whilst Ginny replied with a vague, impersonal answer, Francesca’s reply felt friendlier and a bit more real. “I think that’s exactly it,” he said, shaking his head. “I wish I could shake off this feeling. But it’ll pass, right? Tell me everything will be all right.” He was teasing a bit at the end, pretending to grasp for false assurance, pretending that nothing had changed. Ginny passed on his offer to peruse the nature book, but Francesca accepted and Adam tried not to put too much significance to that. “Yes, sounds lovely,” agreed Adam, turning to the book to figure out what exactly a Cloudless Orange Sulfur butterfly looked like.

Perhaps Ginny really did know what she wanted to do; after all, though she had proclaimed last year that she was not very skilled in the subject, she was probably better in COMC and probably had a better understanding of these creatures and insects. She’d probably even studied butterflies during her spare time over the summer. She’d be an expert at it by now.

He flipped through the book with Francesca, humming over a few that looked promising – not too simple, not too difficult. She chose one some pages later, and Adam flipped a few more before returning to the middle section. “I think I’ll go with this one,” he said, pointing at the blue butterfly with black edges. “It’ll be a good beginning; then I could try for something a little more difficult. Once I’ve succeeded in transfiguring my caterpillar to a butterfly in one piece, that is.” He felt more like himself with Francesca around, though she seemed to be a bit off as well this year. He couldn’t really understand it, but he didn’t want to jump to conclusions and assume that she was in a slump all because of a wizard or a dance.

Adam curiously looked over at Ginny’s caterpillar, wanting to hear her answer to Francesca’s question. The exact butterfly she’d described hadn’t been in the textbook, but he wondered if she’d been brave enough to try to tackle a more complicated design and challenge herself. Transfiguring a green caterpillar into a blue-and-black butterfly would be difficult in itself for Adam who already lacked the confidence in his abilities simply with an animated creature in his box. It wasn’t as though he’d failed before, but it was the thought of failure that made him nervous every time. He hoped Ginny would succeed, and genuinely hoped she would continue to improve in this subject, knowing that it was her most difficult.

0 Adam Everything is completely normal. 0 Adam 0 5

Ginny

March 04, 2015 7:26 PM

The new 'normal' for you. by Ginny

Ginny off handedly shrugged when Francesca commented about the possible beauty of the butterfly Ginny had chosen to do. She didn’t offer any response though while the two of them reviewed the book to figure out which ones they wanted to look at. She didn’t know how at this point of time when butterflies were used in lessons in the past that even if they didn’t have a title to the species of butterfly, they ought to know what one looked like. Or had, at least, seen some flying around their grounds while at home or at school to use as a reference to their work. But maybe Ginny was the only one who paid any attention to that sort of thing. She always took her time with Transfiguration since detail was everything. This trait was something she had learned over time with the subject and not something she had ever equated with Potions. Perhaps if she had focused more on the details of the making of the potions, she wouldn’t have been so terrible at the lessons. Oh well, it wasn’t her problem anymore.

At the direct question that Francesca posed to her, Ginny paused in her examination of the caterpillar to think over how to respond to her. “It was a butterfly I’ve used in the past in this class, so I chose it because it was familiar rather than anything else and because its light color might work easier with the coloring of the caterpillar. But, it is definitely a pretty butterfly. It’s like a translucent orange with sometimes spots of purple or green.” Ginny explained, trying to get the coloring of the butterfly correct. “I don’t think I’ll be able to get the spots, but if I can at least get the basics of the wings down with the color, I’ll declare that a good start.” Ginny commented with a small grin.

“Here goes nothing.” Ginny stated more to herself then to the two of them. She picked up her wand from the desk “Lepidoptera.” She said firmly, knowing the wand movement by heart now having done it so often in past lessons when they did inanimate to animate. She felt that having finally mastered the spell for those lessons and having succeeded with it on the CATS exams, she had more confidence for it for this lesson. Her caterpillar shrank and thinned out while sprouting what would normally been wings, but they had the same skin as the caterpillar instead of the fragile translucent wings that she had been attempting. Ginny sighed. “Still can’t manage the first try, but at least it did something.”

6 Ginny The new 'normal' for you. 0 Ginny 0 5

Effie

March 08, 2015 12:01 AM

How reassuring by Effie

“It was reasonably successful,” she nodded, taking Amity’s question to mean her work, rather than her general state of being. The phrasing somewhat implied it and Effie was naturally inclined to interpret any question as the least personal possible, even from her best friend.

“Yours looks like its coming along nicely too” she commented. Amity’s butterfly was a little behind her own but it would have been impolite to say so. She waved her wand, reverting her butterfly to its previous state. She also cast a scourgify to clean its footprints from the sides of the box, so as to be able to better check her next attempt.

She switched her focus back to her work. It was hard to mentally block out Amity because on some fundamental level it felt incredibly rude to try to forget that she was sitting there. But it was a skill Effie had cultivated over the years as a necessary part of focussing her magic. Amity understood the process and would have to be tuning her out just as much in order to succeed.

“Lepidoptera,” she cast, fluttering her wand gently. A perfectly butterflyish butterfly, with no hint of slime to its feet, fluttered around the box. The only problem this time was the pattern, which had large, haphazard streaks of blue through it. Apparently she hadn’t been tuning out as much as she should have done.

“Well, at least it isn’t exuding slime. Though I think accidentally inventing new species tends to lose one marks,” she sighed.

13 Effie How reassuring 238 Effie 0 5