The Sound of Silence (Advanced) on Charms

Grayson Wright

May 22, 2020 11:27 AM

The Sound of Silence (Advanced) by Grayson Wright

The Advanced class involved some of the most difficult spells, the most complex theories, and the most potentially destructive accidents, and yet, it was something of a favorite of Gray's. For one thing, he preferred interesting things to dull ones, so long as they weren't so interesting that he was in physical danger, and that exception was not something he usually had to worry about very much in class. For another thing, he had been at Sonora long enough now that he had known all these students since they were hardly old enough to know which end of their wands to grip, and their presence in his classroom was not altogether disagreeable, as they were mostly past the worst bit of adolescence - the one where they were hostile to all authority and were utterly convinced they knew all the essentials of magic and therefore didn't need to pay more attention to their teachers than their love lives...the Advanced kids, he thought approvingly, were usually smarter than that; they paid at least as much attention to their teachers as to their love lives.

"Hello everyone," he said to open the first class of the new year. "I hope you all found some time to enjoy yourselves this summer, despite the amount of homework I set the seventh years - those essays on my desk before you start today's work, please," he added. "Though don't worry, sixth years - you'll catch up with them soon enough," he said in a deliberately reassuring tone and with a deliberately bland smile. At her desk, Tatiana Vorontsova (who, for some reason, had unpinned her hair as soon as she'd sat down) did not pause in brushing her nearly waist-length brown locks out as she said something in what he was fairly sure was Russian and pretty confident was a decidedly uncomplimentary tone. Without missing a beat, he inclined his head to her. "Thank you, Tatiana, for helping me reassure your classmates about that," he said, his face mostly straight but his eyes showing amusement. Tatiana laughed and said something else in Russian, which ended in the word 'professor' and sounded more agreeable.

"On that note," he said, moving on. "Welcome to all the new members of our Advanced class. I think you all know who I am, if you didn't run afoul of any memory charms this summer. As always, my expectations for you in class are that you all stay reasonably safe, learn as much as you can, don't interrupt other people's learning, and preferably pass your exams. Beyond that - some of you are already adults in the eyes of the law, and the rest of you aren't far from it. If you find it easier to work your charms standing up instead of sitting at your desk, or to turn your chair the other way while you're participating in group discussions, that's entirely your business - do what you need to do to meet the expectations we just went over, and we should get along.

"For the learning part, this class is designed so that after two years of study, you'll have a reasonably solid grasp of the major areas of charm theory and be proficient in casting a variety of charms. You'll all do some projects and essays this year, and a good bit of the same supplemental reading, but day-to-day homework assignments may be set individually to address your specific needs. It's all of us together against the RATS, and my job is to help you prepare to pounce on them even more confidently than you took your CATS - " he expected a few groans once the pun caught up to them, and proceeded unperturbed - "in any way that I can. So - let's get to it."

His posture shifted slightly, from that of someone giving a speech to that of someone teaching a lesson. Or at least, the posture he used when teaching a lesson. "Let's start with something easy," he said. "Can someone tell me why we use wands? What's the purpose? What do they accomplish?"

Enchanted chalk wrote on the blackboard behind him as he took answers. "Very good, very good," he said when he thought the main points had been adequately touched on. The chalk paused in midair, awaiting further direction. "A wand is a tool, first and foremost, for focusing magic in specific ways, so we can more reliably predict the effects. A wand also amplifies our magic in some ways, since it contains magical substances that have powers of their own. Very good. Now, here's another one for you - what is the purpose of an incantation?"

His chalk resumed taking notes on student responses. Finally, he nodded, and the chalk floated gently down through the air to rest in its place at the bottom of the board. "Good answers," he said. "As those of you who had particularly strong experiences with accidental magic when you were younger may already know, neither a wand nor an incantation is absolutely necessary to achieve even very specific outcomes with magic. I once read about a case where a Muggleborn boy caused a bit of a stir - he was being bullied by another child, and on one occasion this caused him to Apparate a short distance onto a roof. Another time, he performed an accidental Vanishing Spell in a zoo. Vanishing Spells, as I'm sure you all remember, are some of the most difficult magic taught on the CATS level, even with verbal incantations and a wand, and it's not at all uncommon to take several tries to pass your Apparition test. You can probably all imagine how difficult it would be to perform the Vanishing Spell deliberately without any aid, or to spontaneously Apparate without an effort - but the odds are that the potential is there, if you were under enough stress and those spells were solutions to your problems."

He smiled slightly at them. "Don't worry - I don't plan to put you under that kind of stress. I'll leave that to Professor Brooding-Hawthorne - the Defense one - if she wants to try it. In this class, the plan is for you to test the limits of what you can do intentionally while you're calm and know exactly what you plan to do. By the time you take your RATS, some of you will probably be able to perform a few simple charms through gestures or spoken incantations alone - good for an extra point or two on your Charms RATS - and I hope you will all be able to perform a variety of charms with your wands but without speaking. Since these are skills that take a lot of practice to acquire, though, we're going to go straight into nonverbal spells today."

He tapped a box with his wand and it began to move around the room, pausing before each student. "Everyone choose one rock from this box," he instructed them. "Sixth years, I want you to perform a simple color-change charm on your rocks. Choose any color you like, and turn the entire rock that color, all without speaking. Seventh years, since you were introduced to nonverbal spells last year, I want you to aim a little higher - try to make your rocks flash through at least three colors.

"There are several ways you can approach these tasks," he explained, "and I encourage you to experiment with them. Some people focus on the incantation word in their head without saying it out loud. Others focus on what the end result should look like. Some find it helpful to perform meditative exercises, to empty themselves of thought and emotion, while others find it more helpful to tap into their emotions as fuel for spellcasting. Homework tonight for everyone is to write a summary of the approaches you used today and how well they worked for you, and to practice your charm more if you aren't successful today." Which many would not be, especially among the sixth years, but he didn't want to discourage them before they even began. "Also, before you leave today, sixth years, make sure you pick up a copy of this book," he said, reaching into a crate and holding up a worn copy of The Silent Sorcerer: A Beginner's Guide To Nonverbal Magic. "Please read it and write me at least three sentences to summarize each chapter before Monday. Seventh years, there are enough copies for you to take them as well if you want to review. For now, though - everyone may begin working."

OOC: Standard rules about length, mechanics, creativity, and ratings (unless marked) apply. Tatiana is one of the author's other characters, to explain her interjection. As usual, if you have a question, tag me here or the OOC, or grab me in Chatzy. Also as usual, if your character creates a dangerous situation, assume Gray would intervene before it got too far out of hand. Gray's examples of solution-oriented accidental magic are, er, remarkably similar to those experienced by this British kid called Harry, who doesn't exist in our timeline.

As far as realism goes, you have some wriggle room here. Hermione performed her first nonverbal spell after ten minutes of practice; Harry didn't accomplish his until much later, and never developed any real skill for nonverbal spellcasting. Creatively-written and realistic failure will get you more points than just effortless brilliance on the part of your character, as always. Have fun!

16 Grayson Wright The Sound of Silence (Advanced) 113 Grayson Wright 1 5

Gary Harper

May 24, 2020 6:14 AM

Do I need to be more charming? [Heinrich] by Gary Harper

As was his tradition, Gary arrived at Charms class early. However, instead of going inside, finding a seat and scribbling in one of his notebooks until class officially started, he waited in the hall by the door. He was pretty sure Heinrich was continuing with charms this year and he smiled as he saw his fellow Aladren prefect coming down the hall towards the classroom. "Ho and well met my stalwart companion." Gary greeted him as they entered the classroom together and found seats. "Are we ready to forge ahead again on this grand learning adventure?"

He got out his class notebooks, books, writing utensil and the essay that had been assigned over the summer. By the time he was finished Professor Wright had begun speaking. Upon the request, he sent his essay up to the professor's desk to land neatly at the indicated location. He rolled his eyes at Tatiana's interruption and grinned at Wright's terrible pun. It was an old one and it was bad, but Gary couldn't help it, the professor had some buried humor after all.

Gary tossed some answers out about wands and incantations. This was good, he was going to get some more practice and learning on this front. He had been hoping that was coming. After he had turned seventeen, he had been practicing on silent casting as much as he could at home. One of the reasons was pure vindictive retribution against Jeremy. His step-brother had tried to make Gary's summer as miserable as possible without actually crossing any lines that would get him into trouble.

Up until his birthday, Gary had only mildly returned his aggravations. Afterwards, such appearances had to continue. It was just odd that Jeremy's obnoxious stereo just stopped working for some strange reason. Technical problems probably. And that time he had that big date, the one tire on his car somehow went completely flat with no one around. Strange thing that.

However, the main reason that Gary had been wanting to truly master non-verbal spell casting was to up his gaming. Being able to create minor effects; sounds, lights, moving bits, without needing to interrupt the narrative with incantations was fantastic! It was a bit of a shame he wasn't going to be able to actually make use of those abilities to much this year. Hopefully his plan for the game club panned out. He still wasn't entirely sure what was going to happen after the opening feast interaction.

Anyway, now he had a rock. A rock that was apparently the wrong color for the professor's liking, and not exciting enough. He snagged a copy of the book from the professor's crate while debating how to tackle this terrible rock problem that the professor had. He waved his wand without speaking, and the rock turned blue. That was easy enough by now. He wave his wand again and it turned red. He'd figured this out last year, now how to make it change on it's own though? This may take some thinking.

He turned to see how Heinrich was doing, "How goes your rock?" He had another reasons for sitting with Heinrich, namely to see if he was aware of any unattached young ladies that might be interested in some attention from him. He thought a slow approach to the topic might work better than a more blunt one.

2 Gary Harper Do I need to be more charming? [Heinrich] 1404 Gary Harper 0 5

Heinrich Hexenmeister

May 25, 2020 7:32 PM

Does it fit with your character concept? by Heinrich Hexenmeister

Heinrich was only dropping two classes as he went into his Advanced classes. At the Intermediate level, Astronomy and Herbology had both provided him with all the subject related information he felt a wizard not going into those fields was going to need in his adult life, so he saw little purpose in continuing them further when advanced classes, by all reports, required significantly more investment of time to do well in them as compared to CATS level courses, and Heinrich would not tolerate a backward slide in his grades when they had been climbing so nicely ever since his unimpressive first year. He'd pulled Os in more than half of his CATS, and his goal was to get solid Os on his RATS. Also, he didn't want to die from over-extension, so dropping Herbology and Astronomy all together was the only reasonable choice. (Herbology being one of the Es had nothing to do with his selections.)

Charms was the other E. Charms was easy to underestimate. There was a lot of theory there, at least as much as with Transfiguration, but Transfiguration was well-known as a tough class, so he'd put in the extra time to study it, whereas he hadn't thought he needed to in Charms, and look what happened. He would not make that mistake again. The Head of Aladren was the Charms professor. He really should have realized sooner that it needed just as much attention as Transfiguration.

Though they were explicitly told not to worry about the seventh year homework he hadn't been assigned as he was only a newly minted sixth year, he worried anyway. He was good at worrying. He was likewise kind of worried about why Gary had greeted him like they were about to head off into an adventure. Well, a learning adventure had been specified, and Heinrich was generally agreeable to those, but he was kind of waiting for another shoe to fall anyway. Had he been imagining that Gary had pounced on him like he'd been waiting for Heinrich specifically?

Hopefully, it was just prefect stuff, or even gaming stuff as long it was wasn't 'hey, you're the guy who's next oldest in the club and I won't be here next year' gaming stuff. Heinrich was not okay with that kind of gaming stuff. He'd joined to make friends with Ness and Gary, not steal the succession.

But after Professor Wright explained the lesson, and they'd had a few quiet minutes to attempt the tasks set to them, Gary's remarks were strictly learning adventure related, so that was all right.

Heinrich held up his rock, with looked like it had been brushed over with a very watery coat of red paint. It was not nearly as vibrant a shade of Quaffle Red as the rock he'd charmed for Evelyn. The original color and texture of the rock was still very apparent, but neither was it completely grey anymore either.

He'd been focusing on the desired end result rather than the spell word, because the spell word was often what messed him up in verbal casting anyway, so the further he could get from that, the better he thought he'd do, but it did take a different set of magical muscles, so to speak, and it was going to take a great deal practice before he became adept at it. From what he could see of the other sixth year, he did seem to be doing above average in getting any kind of effect already.

"There is some red," he stated, neither boasting nor underplaying his achievement.

"What was the summer essay about?" he questioned, hoping to settle at least one of his immediate worries right away. "A follow-up to last year's topics or something related to non-verbal magic?" If the later, he was definitely going to need to write his own essay, to try to reduce the gap between himself and the older half of the class. He was the sixth years' only Aladren. There were expectations to fulfill.

1 Heinrich Hexenmeister Does it fit with your character concept? 1414 0 5

Gary Harper

May 26, 2020 7:01 PM

Only if I branch out from 'hopeless gamer' by Gary Harper

Gary examined Heinrich's rock. "Looks pretty good for a first try." He wanted to add some words of advise to go along with it, but Heinrich might was to figure it out on his own without any help. He hadn't asked for any yet, so Gary let it go with just the encouraging observation. "The essay was the standard 'What have you learned so far in class and what are your plans with your life going forward? In excruciating detail please explain how you think charms will be useful and list any things that you think you may want to learn before you leave Sonora for your future.'"

He had been glad to have finally settled upon magical architecture as a career choice, otherwise that essay would have been really tricky. The future, that would make a good segue into the topic he actually wanted to discuss with Heinrich. It was nice to have someone to talk to in class again. Last year when he had moved up to to the advanced classes he had left Ness behind in the intermediate level.

That wasn't entirely fair, he had Conner and Parker in classes last year... and Jasmine. Somehow he never seemed to connect with Conner or Parker as well. Maybe because they weren't Aladrens? The discussions never quite felt the same. As for Jasmine... well, that was a whole different story. He felt a little depressed when he looked over his friend group at Sonora. There wasn't really anyone in it. The only people he could get remotely close to it was the gaming group.

They all had their own lives though, that he wasn't sure he was really a part of. They came to the game club, they played games and had fun, and then they went about their lives. He went back to work on the next game for them. Sure, they occasionally ate together and sometimes did some other things, but if he was honest, he always felt like a fifth wheel. They'd be just as fine without him there. Was that why the game club was so important to him? His only real connection to other people? Had it really been important enough to tear down the closest thing he had around here to an actual friend?

Jasmine had been different, she wanted him for one thing. To be her prince at the ball. He had become essential and he had done everything he could to keep it that way. It looked like things may have gone from there as well, but they didn't. He couldn't blame her. But that line of thinking brought him back around to the topic on hand. How to start it though...

Gary waved his wand over his rock again a few times. Red, blue, orange. Hmm... maybe if he could work out so that each color charm had a different duration, it would look like it was changing colors on it's own as each charm layer wore off.

"Anyway," he turned back to Heinrich, "I don't suppose you know of any..." his voice trailed off. That already sounded pathetic in his head, how much worse would it sound out loud? Maybe he should just take the same route he had with Ness on this front. "It doesn't look like Jasmine and I are going to work out in the long run. She's fine with dating through the year, but that'll be the end of it." He sighed, "I just don't know if it's better to do that, or try to find another option that might at least have the potential to go somewhere." He sighed again staring at his rock. "I'm open to suggestions."

2 Gary Harper Only if I branch out from 'hopeless gamer' 1404 0 5

Heinrich Hexenmeister

May 27, 2020 10:34 AM

Dropping "hopeless" from your character concept seems like a good idea by Heinrich Hexenmeister

Heinrich nodded, pleased that Gary also thought he was doing well for a first try. He nodded again as Gary explained the contents of the essay, and now it made more sense why the sixth years didn't need to worry about it yet. He supposed he should have a general idea for his life moving forward past Sonora, from a professional point of view, and he made another mental note to remember to talk to Mr. Row as soon as he'd had a chance to talk to Evelyn about less professional but equally important plans for his future. Plans that may affect what he can do professionally, or at least what he could do right away.

He already had plans to meet with Evelyn after classes today, so he'd just make sure to meet up with Mr. Row tomorrow maybe. He had more free periods now that he was down two courses, though truthfully Astronomy was late enough it had interfered with clubs more than it did other academic pursuits. It made perfect logical sense to hold a class that studied the stars when it was, well, dark outside, but it was such an awkward time slot that he was kind of glad to be done with it.

Gary turned his attention back to his rock, so Heinrich did the same. He moved his wand, and tried thinking the spell at it this time, and that actually did seem to improve the color opacity. Curious, he tried it again, but this time just thinking 'Red' at it, first in German, then English. It seemed equally as effective as the spell word, as far as he could tell, as it was mostly serving as a mental focus for what he wanted to happen rather than a formal incantation.

He was wondering if he could turn it red by thinking 'green' at it when Gary spoke again, and Heinrich turned to look at him with a faint expression of disbelief on his face. Was he . . . he was asking Heinrich for dating advice?

Karl's dating advice started and ended at 'do not reproduce' but that did not seem to be what Gary was looking for, so he was at a loss as to what kind of suggestion the seventh year was trying to elicit.

"Do you want to date Jasmine through the year?" he asked in lieu of actually having appropriate wisdom to share.

1 Heinrich Hexenmeister Dropping "hopeless" from your character concept seems like a good idea 1414 0 5

Gary Harper

May 28, 2020 5:37 PM

Admittedly that would be nice, but what to replace it with? by Gary Harper

Gary sighed. He poked his boring rock with his wand. "I'm not sure." was his best response at the moment. A brief moment of mirth assaulted him, brought forth by the brief expression on Heinrich's face. "How are things going with Evelyn?" He asked wryly, giving his friend a look from the corner of his eye. Were his suspicions correct? Did they like each other? Gary was reasonably certain that they did... and that would make Heinrich more of an expert then him on the dating front.

A wave of his wand made the rock change blue again for a just a few seconds. After reverting back to grey, another wave turned it orange for a shorter length of time. A quick double wave of the wand changed it blue then orange. After a few moments it was back to orange, then blue, then grey again. He glanced Heinrich's way again, "Well, that sort of works, but I don't think that's what Professor Wright wants us to do. Yours is looking better. Nice."

He sighed again, "As for Jasmine... it sounds terrible, but if there aren't any better options, I wouldn't mind. The as far as I'm concerned the point of dating is to find someone you're compatible with and can spend the rest of your life with. Jasmine and I have come to the conclusion that isn't the case for us. So the logical thing to do is to find someone else and try again." He shrugged, "Unfortunately, this is my last year in this pool of potential candidates, next year I'll be starting all over again. Maybe I'll do better next time around." 'But I doubt it', almost slipped out.

"We could keep dating this year, and it might be beneficial to get the experience of interacting with a girl on that level. But if we already know that we're not compatible, would that experience really benefit either of us? We wouldn't be looking to be with someone like that in the long run." He flipped through his book examining the sections on color changes while he continued to ramble on. "If there is someone here that could be compatible for either of us, dating each other would prevent us from finding that person as well. Hmmmmm..."

Studying the text more intently for a moment he swished his wand over his rock again and it began to pulse between blue and grey. "Huh. Anyway, it's to late to go from 'Hi I'm Gary' to dating with anyone here, it would have to be someone I already know, and who knows me at some level. Unfortunately, thanks to my careful anti-social behavior so far, that is pretty much just the D&D group. So, I'm out of luck unless you know of some desperate girl around the school that's just dying for someone like me."

He poised his wand over the rock and paused just a moment before he waved it over the rock again at just the right moment while it was pulsing. Now it pulsed blue, red, grey. Gary grinned, "That's some tricky timing to get down... getting that grey bit now is going to be interesting."

2 Gary Harper Admittedly that would be nice, but what to replace it with? 1404 0 5