Advanced transfiguration - vanishing act on Transfiguration

Professor Skies

June 05, 2016 12:12 AM

Advanced transfiguration - vanishing act by Professor Skies

The Advanced class had been working on vanishing for a number of weeks. They had started out with objects, with size and complexity being used to differentiate between the grades. As the spell remained the same throughout, it was merely a case of practise, practise, practise, like building muscles via exercise. Selina was sure she had been fascinated by her own power at that age, but surely the shine wore off after a while… She certainly found it on the boring side to teach, although it gave her plenty of time to catch up grading and planning other lessons, as she didn’t tend to be needed much.

“Good afternoon,” she greeted her class. A pleasing number of students had decided to continue with her subject, which was always nice. “Today, we’re continuing with vanishing but moving on to some more complex things,” she smiled, trying to make the prospect sound exciting. As they had several classes a week, they weren’t covering vanishing all the time, which was a plus.

“Sixth years, you’re going to start your work on natural objects, that is plants, picked flowers, wood etc, with a view to working up to living plants by the end of the term. Seventh years, you will be starting from potted plants and working your way up through molluscs and small mammals,” she recapped. The syllabus had been described in general at the start of the term. Today, she had picked or potted pansies for each group, with plenty of spares so that the students could practise the spell multiple times if they desired.

“Whilst you work, please consider why the picked plants are simpler to work with and hand in some short notes on this at the end of class. If you finish all your class work, you can work on your essays.” This term, the long essay was entitled ‘Where do vanished objects go?’ Selina had set several specific theory readings to guide the students, and also given a list of useful additional sources. Whilst it probably seemed like a bit of a headache, the question in some form or other almost always came up on the RATS, and so it was worth investing their time and energy now in having a solid answer.

“You may begin.”

OOC - points will be awarded based on length, relevance

Subthreads:

I don't think I'm cut out for a career on stage. by Lionel Layne, Pecari

But I want to be seen. by Isaac Douglas, Crotalus

13 Professor Skies Advanced transfiguration - vanishing act 26 Professor Skies 1 5

Lionel Layne, Pecari

June 08, 2016 4:07 PM

I don't think I'm cut out for a career on stage. by Lionel Layne, Pecari

Lionel had known, intellectually, that he was insane when he had decided that not disappointing his grandfather was more important than acting in his own best interests and dropping Transfiguration like a hot potato after his CATS, but it was only since he had joined the class proper that he had come to truly understand the depths of his youthful arrogance and folly. He was doing okay theoretically – he thought, anyway, so far; he didn’t feel like he really understood most of what he’d heard, but he apparently faked it on paper well enough that he hadn’t failed anything yet – but the practical work somehow pulled off the admittedly pretty neat trick of being both brutally difficult and, after the first couple of weeks, mind-numbingly boring at the same time. Lionel understood why there was supposed to be prestige in finishing the course. He had a bare hint of an advantage that some others might not because his godmother was a Transfiguration researcher who wasn’t hard to get talking, but this was still going to take character to get done.

The task of the day was a cut flower. Lionel looked it over, trying to figure out why it was more difficult than any other inanimate object. Was it because plants had been alive, this one apparently in the recent past? Lionel knew that plants were…sort of complicated, they had these processes for drawing water and nutrients from the ground and doing something with sunlight and zipping energy around to different parts of themselves, so that explained why Isaac’s assignment was harder than his, he guessed. As for why Lionel’s assignment today was harder than the last one…he guessed a rock was just a rock through and through, but the plant obviously had its bits that he could see and whatever bits on the inside that distributed and used food and all that. The book had said that the more bits something had, and the more things those bits were made of, the harder it was to Vanish it….

That made enough sense to write down for the notes Professor Skies wanted at the end of class, so there was one assignment he could assume he was going to get a passing mark on. Now came the ones he was less sure about: Vanishing the flower and working on his long essay.

He had read through – well, intently skimmed through – the first couple of theory readings for the essay, but neither they nor the riddle his godmother had sent him (where do conjured objects come from?) had yet given him a clue what he should write on the long essay. He wished they had, since he had a feeling that knowing the answer would make doing the work a little easier. No point in crying over dead flowers, though. He took out his wand, pushed his robe sleeves back, and focused on not seeing a cut flower in front of him. “Evanesco!”

There was still a flower in front of him. He tried to cheer himself up with the thought that the petals looked a little more translucent than he thought they had before as he got ready to try again.

16 Lionel Layne, Pecari I don't think I'm cut out for a career on stage. 283 Lionel Layne, Pecari 0 5

Isaac Douglas, Crotalus

June 08, 2016 4:13 PM

But I want to be seen. by Isaac Douglas, Crotalus

Isaac had looked forward to Advanced Transfiguration for a long time, and not for any love of hard work or theory. Unfortunately, it took a lot of both to get to the part where he felt powerful in the moment and in retrospect thought that he might at least make his father say ‘good enough’ even if he refused on principle to outright shut up about Isaac’s magical inferiority to Alicia and Rachel. He bit the inside of his mouth instead of groaning when Professor Skies informed them that they were Vanishing things, again, and more complex ones at that. Every time they moved to something more complex, it was almost like starting over. Only almost, of course, it was never as difficult as the first vanishments had been, but it was still Not Fun.

Life isn’t fun, Dad and Alicia chorused in his head, the one curt and disappointed and the other chipper and not quite openly condescending. He picked up his wand and stared down a pretty flower in a pot.

Wait, was he supposed to Vanish the pot and the soil in it, too, or just the pansy? He decided to assume the pansy was his only objective. He assumed it was possible to Vanish multiple objects within a certain proximity to each other all at once and that he would be able to do it when he took his RATS, but for now, he was going to keep the task as simple as possible, as it wasn’t really that simple even at its best. Plants were complex by virtue of being alive, flower petals were usually loose enough fits that it would be easy to leave some behind, and the root structure was out of his sight. Things that were out of sight (and were not also difficult relatives, of course) were hard to keep in mind; it was similar to Summoning an object in another room. He had read a little about the relationship between magic and space, so he knew it was more complex than just the difficulties of not knowing the exact location of an object and projecting one’s will onto something that couldn’t be seen as part of one’s sphere of influence, he also knew that not being able to see everything he was doing was going to make the trick harder. Isaac had finally mastered the trick with Summoning by practicing first with a nearby object with his eyes closed, after slightly moving the object and then walking around the desk after he shut them, to break the mental link between Summoning and exact locations, but he wasn’t sure how well that was going to generalize to something he had only the vaguest ideas about the true appearance of. He’d never exactly been a gardener.

He went ahead and made a short note on why picked plants were easier to Vanish, though – a picked flower was one he could see all the components of, so he wasn’t Vanishing in the dark, plus a picked flower had fewer parts because it didn’t have roots. That was one thing done. The essay was nowhere near done, as that involved metaphysics and metaphysics were not things Isaac liked or understood. He liked things he could see, things that were solid. Metaphysics was one of those subjects he found it hard to even pretend he cared about. What did it matter what first principles were? Things were what they were and had to be dealt with on those terms. Professor Skies, though, seemed to see the problem differently, or if she was practical, assumed the RATS examiners saw things differently, so Isaac was going to have to pretend to care for the length of a long essay. At least the prospect of working on that that made the prospect of another class of long, dull practice sound not so bad by comparison.

With that cheerful thought in mind, he adjusted his grip on his wand and made his first attempt. “Evanesco,” he incanted, and the flower petals and leaves disappeared.

“Well, it’s a start,” muttered Isaac. He leaned closer to look at where the missing appendages had been and look for signs of damage, since that sounded like something that could be used at some point to support a point in the dreaded essay. The plant looked undamaged, as though it was supposed to be that way. He frowned, wondering for a moment, before his neighbor spoke and Isaac looked up to listen instead of trying to reason out what he was sure he could just look up in a book tomorrow.

16 Isaac Douglas, Crotalus But I want to be seen. 273 Isaac Douglas, Crotalus 0 5