Grayson Wright
June 13, 2020 11:47 AM
Stick With It (Beginners Charms) by Grayson Wright
It was, Grayson Wright thought, only a matter of time. Any day now, he was going to wake up one morning and find he had started developing grey hair.It could, of course, be worse. He could not recall, for instance, a time when his father had ever had as much hair to turn grey as Gray did now. The remainder of the elder Wright's hair had still been dark in his son's earlier recollections (indeed, he couldn't exactly say when it had ceased to be so; it must have happened very gradually), but there had never been much of it either way. So it could have been worse, the no doubt imminent impact of stress upon his hair, but he was still not terribly keen on the idea of aging like a Muggle. He was forty, for Merlin's sake. still within the prime of his life. He would not consider himself vain, but he thought there were several positions between hopeless vanity and indifference to whether he appeared to be an old man when he wasn't.
As a rule, he kept these thoughts separate, in their own little cupboard, when he was teaching, but the Advanced class was going to work with mirrors in the afternoon, with the regrettable result that the subject of reflections was somewhat on his mind even now, hours before Advanced Charms met, as the Beginners came in. This he regarded as unfortunate, as he could not do anything about or for the sources of stress he had while he was teaching, and if he didn't teach well, he didn't get paid, plus it was then his fault if the students didn't learn how to do Charms properly and thus became Uncontrolled Menaces To Society. He did not want that on his conscience, so he needed to concentrate on his lesson and only his lesson for the duration of the Beginners' class.
He thought Charms was reasonably popular as a subject on the whole, but doubted very much that this was currently the case with the Beginners' class. He knew there were theories of magical education which simply threw the children right in and let them do their best, but he was too cautious by nature to embrace those with any enthusiasm when rejecting them was still an option. Charms were not, in general, as dangerous as, say, Transfiguration, but that didn't mean things couldn't go dangerously wrong, or else just wreak chaos. Gray took a certain amusement in writing his protagonists into chaos in his fiction (Charlotte Ayleward was presently dealing with a class which had somehow gotten all the students adhered to the ceiling by the soles of their shoes, the ensuing mayhem of which had distracted her from a crucial piece of paper being lifted from her desk by an invisible intruder) but he did not like chaos to occur around his actual person in real life. As a result, even the second years had spent almost all the first week rehearsing the basics along with their colleagues in the first year, reinforcing information they had doubtless lost no small part of over the summers: basic theory, practicing wand movements, chanting the most common sounds found in charm incantations so that the room sounded vaguely like what he thought Muggle ideas about what spellcasting sounded like, learning or reviewing definitions....
After the first week, the second years had gotten more advanced material and the first years had started on some of the very simplest charms - lumos and nox, unlocking, and, most importantly, learning finite incantatem. That one had at least broken up the monotony a bit; until they had gotten the hang of it, dancing figurines had often managed to escape them, resulting in a degree of chaos, if not one high enough to require worry. All of these lessons had included practicing the different components of the spell individually and together before attempting the spell on an object, and sometimes between attempts. Now, though, as the first month of school drew near its end, he was preparing to start the process of granting them a bit more independence. He rather expected class to get even more interesting than it had when he'd taught them Finite Incantatem, at least for a few days, but it couldn't be helped: sooner or later, they had to take command of their magic themselves. Accordingly, he tried to banish all thoughts from his mind that didn't involve sleepy eleven- and twelve-year-olds as the first class gathered after breakfast.
"Good morning everyone," he said. "And welcome to the first day of our unit on charms of movement."
"From now until your midterm holidays, we're going to study a series of charms tied to either making objects move or preventing them from moving. When we finish this unit, you will be able - among other things - to make your teacup dance, or your pillow fly - a useful skill if you're ever in a pillow fight," he added blandly. "Those exercises, though, will take just about all the focus and power most of you have got to put behind them, and the more complex the movements you try to create are, the more difficult the charms will be, both to initiate and to sustain. We'll work our way up to those. In the meantime, we'll begin with how to stop an object from being moved.
"You might think that you already learned this, with our old friend finite incantatem," he acknowledged. "Today's spell is a bit different, however. This isn't a spell to make a moving object become still. That, depending on what the object is and why and how it's moving - is either a case for finite incantatem, or else for spells you're more likely to learn in Defense Against the Dark Arts. Today's charm works to prevent an object from being moved in the first place. When you're older, it's possible some of you will be able to use more advanced forms of this, which can cause a stolen object to become frozen where it is at a distance - but for today, we'll just work on sticking ink bottles to your desks."
The classroom desks were, of course, made with slots in their tops for holding student ink bottles in place so their owners could take notes without worrying too much about spilling ink all over the place. He had no intention of either forcing the students not to make notes on their progress or of risking their entire ink supplies (something the rest of the staff might not thank him for). Therefore, he indicated a collection of empty ink bottles in a box on his desk. The box rose into the air and began moving around the room, pausing before each student. "Everyone will need one of these," he instructed them. "You're going to work with the incantation defigito - deh-fee-gee-toe," he repeated, slowing the syllables down. "Everyone repeat that, please." That done, he continued, "and the wand movement is a simple circle around your inkwell, like this." He held up an ink bottle in one hand and his wand in the other, the tip of his wand pointing toward the palm of his hand where the ink bottle sat, and moved it in a circular motion. "A few centuries ago, of course, the procedure would have involved much more complicated circles, but in this form, it should make the ink bottles stick to your desks when combined with the incantation." And now for the extra bit. "You may practice the incantation and wand movement until you feel comfortable with them, and then attempt the spell. As always, raise your hand if you need assistance, unless the assistance you need involves putting out a fire. If there is fire, move away from it as quickly as possible and I'll extinguish it as quickly as possible. We'll discuss homework at the end of class, after I see how you're all doing. If no-one has any questions right now, you may begin."
OOC: Welcome to Beginner Charms! This lesson takes place several weeks into the year, so your character has some knowledge of a few simple charms and some Charms theory; it’s not their first time holding a wand or meeting Professor Wright. However, creativity and realism will get you more points than simply posting a perfect IC performance. All posting rules apply. If you have questions IC, tag Professor Wright; if you have them OOC, ask on the OOC board or catch me (usually as Tatiana) in Chatzy. And, last but not least, have fun!
For the curious, the incantation is made up from a Latin word indicating 'to fasten' (originally in the sense of 'nail down,' and was associated with the creation of 'tablets' - thin pieces of lead into which incantations were inscribed, then had a nail driven into them. Fun fact, these tablets generally contained curses, and there's a closely related word that essentially means 'to put a curse on'...so enunciate carefully!
Subthreads: Wait... fire? [Bonny] by Valentine Duell with Bonabelle Row
Slowly by Sadie-Lake Chalmers with Morgan Garrett, Grayson Wright
Stick it to the man by Bertie Jackson with Quincy Wright
16
Grayson Wright
Stick With It (Beginners Charms)
113
Grayson Wright
1
5
Valentine Duell
June 22, 2020 6:03 PM
Wait... fire? [Bonny] by Valentine Duell
Charms class was going relatively well so far for Valentine. At least it was going better than transfiguration or DADA. Potions was going pretty well, but that was because she had made it a habit to sit with Bonny a lot. Bonny was smart and really good at remembering those complicated recipes. So, purely as an experiment, Val had decided to find Bonny for charms class and see if that made any sort of a difference. Unfortunately that meant that she should get to class with or shortly after Bonny. With her new project however, she was planning on using some of that between class time to work on it. Which meant she had to get to the classroom as fast as she could.The easiest solution was naturally to simply ask Bonny beforehand to find her in class. However, since this plan had not occurred to her until she was nearly finished with breakfast, and Charms was the first class, that hadn't happened. So, she took the next easiest solution. She got to class early, picked a seat in the vicinity of where Bonny normally sat, pulled out her materials, scribbled on a piece of paper, placed it on the seat next to her and plunged into her project.
The sign read Reserved for Miss Bonabelle Row.
As the other students began to enter the class, Val put swapped out her materials for those used for the class. She gave Bonny a big smile and greeted her warmly. Once the professor began to talk though, she paid strict attention to him. There was a slight chance that she let out a giggle at his mention of using magic for a pillow fight. That would work a lot better though if she actually had a roommate. She took an ink bottle and repeated the incantation as requested. She even wrote down the pronunciation of the word and a quick diagram of the wand motion. That looked a little silly, since it was just a circle, but notes were notes.
She was about to get started as he was adding his comment about needing help. She'd figured that was about the last thing they said before the professors cut them loose to work on their assignment. When her attention was jerked back to Professor Grey. Fire!? What part of making an ink bottle stick to a desk had to do with fire?
"Fire?" She asked Bonny, with a bit of nervousness in her voice and expression, "What part of this will cause fire when I get it wrong?"
2
Valentine Duell
Wait... fire? [Bonny]
1490
0
5
Bonabelle Row
June 22, 2020 10:51 PM
You're on it. by Bonabelle Row
Bonny was surprised that she had somehow accidentally acquired a friend. She had been sure that she was too boring or too dry or too something to really have any friends before. Sure, she was clever, and she had a great array of big bows to wear in her hair - today's selection was made of lavender lace - but that was it. Valentine, especially, seemed like she could do better, and that wasn't even Bonny's self-esteem getting in the way. It was much more a matter of finding their personalities generally incompatible, even if she liked the combination. Valentine made her braver, funnier, and happier. It was easier to do her homework and be all the things that she was when she knew she had someone by her side, and she was happy to help remind Valentine to do those things as well.She was more surprised that "Miss Bonabelle Row" had a reserved seat next to Valentine. They nearly always sat together in potions, but that wasn't a guarantee in all of their classes. Since they worked together on homework fairly often, it wasn't usually a big deal, although Bonny would much prefer to sit with Val than most of their other classmates.
"I like that," she smiled when Val offered the gesture first, and she took a seat. "My dad always calls me Bonny, but I think I like Bonabelle better. Makes me sound more grown up." She pulled a face and took out her things in time for class to begin. This was an interesting lesson, although most Charms lessons were. Charms felt like quintessential magic class and it was this sort of magic she saw her father use most. She had several lines of neat notes when Valentine turned to her, panicking some over the idea of fire. "I think fire just sort of happens a lot when magic goes wrong," she reassured her friend. "Blowing stuff up is way easier than sticking things together probably." She made another face, thinking over Val's words. "'When' you get it wrong? You've go this, Val."
22
Bonabelle Row
You're on it.
1488
0
5
Valentine Duell
June 26, 2020 3:53 PM
Put it out! Put it out! by Valentine Duell
Valentine smiled as Bonny sat next to her and commented on her sign. "Well, I'm happy to oblige you if that's your wish Bonabelle." She responded in a cheerful tone. Val was a little under the impression that her friend was already grown up quite a bit. She was a lot better at keeping track of things than Val was, she was much more level-headed as well.Val was on the fence on that front. She felt like she was right about that age where she was going to loose the ability to choose whether or not she wanted to be a 'grown-up'. Coming to school had already started that process. Mama and Papa hadn't allowed her to have a completely care-free childhood, but at the same time they hadn't exactly made her shoulder a lot of extra responsibilities. Now, she was learning about dealing with those things as well as the classwork. Homework, reports, club schedules, all of those things had to be kept track of and dealt with, and it was only the beginning!
She was very thankful that Bonny.... Bonabelle wanted to be her friend and was willing to help keep her on track until she figured all this out for herself. She felt bad for imposing, and hoped Bonabelle didn't mind terribly much, she'd get better at it, and then find some way to pay her friend back for all her help.
See, there was a great example of Bonabelle's level-headedness. There wasn't anything specifically fire special about this spell... they all could explode into a fiery inferno. Great. Val's dubious expression melted away to an embarrassed smile at Bonabelle's encouragement. "I hope so, I'd really rather not set the school on fire." She looked back at her ink bottle, glanced at her 'notes' and then picked up her wand. "Okay, so the motion is like this, right?" She asked while she traced a circle around the bottle doing her best not to start a fire. She hoped not saying the word would help.
"Then," she continued, "The incantation is," she paused to look at her 'notes' again, "deh-fi-geh-tow, right?" That hadn't quite sounded right, she gave Bonabelle a questioning look. "Maybe you should put them together first. Just in case."
2
Valentine Duell
Put it out! Put it out!
1490
0
5
Bonabelle Row
June 27, 2020 2:23 PM
*flomps onto Val* by Bonabelle Row
Bonabelle's mouth tweaked with amusement at Val's instant acceptance of this new preference. "You still prefer 'Val'?" she confirmed, not wanting her friend to feel like she was stuck with the name she'd started with. "I feel like 'Valentine and Bonabelle' would be a book about two stodgy old women drinking tea in the countryside," she laughed, putting her hand up over her nose when she snorted.When it was time to begin working and Bonabelle had had the chance to reassure her friend that fire was unlikely, she smiled and waved a hand dismissively. "Stucco and terracotta aren't terribly likely to burst into flames," she promised, smiling.
She watched as Val tried the motion of the spell and got it down and then said . . . oof. It wasn't quite right. It wasn't wrong necessarily and Bonabelle wasn't sure whether it would make anything go horribly awry, but she wasn't sure it wouldn't either. "It'll sound different when I say it anyway," she pointed out, not sure that was necessarily the case for this sort of spell but not wanting to make this too easy for Val either. "Hey, look at me." She put her hands on Val's shoulders and turned, pulling the girl towards her so they were squared up. "You can absolutely do this. You don't need me to go first. Defigito," she added, figuring she could at least help with that part. "You can do this. Put 'em together."
Releasing Val's shoulders, Bonabelle didn't turn away, wanting to give all her love and support to someone who had been nice to her right from the start. She put her chin on Val's shoulder and looked up at her playfully. "Is it better or worse if I watch from like... a centimeter away?" she grinned.
22
Bonabelle Row
*flomps onto Val*
1488
0
5
Valentine Duell
June 27, 2020 5:39 PM
*Is smothered* by Valentine Duell
Valentine bobbled her head back and forth noncommittally at Bonabelle's question. "I don't really mind either way," she responded with a smile, "which ever you prefer you may use." Then she paused with a glint of mischievousness in her eyes. "However, if you shout my full name, I may think I'm in trouble and run and hide." Valentine giggled at Bonabelle's joke, then a thought struck her. "Lavender could join in as well!" Val glanced around the room to spot their other classmate. "Bonabelle, Valentine, and Lavender would all work sitting around drinking tea!" She giggled some more.Valentine gave her friend a little bit of a sideways glance, "True," she said slowly, "but an ink bottle isn't terribly likely to stick to a desk either, and yet here we are." Then she gave Bonabelle a wink and focused back on her bottle. Well, she tried to anyway. Bonabelle pulled her around to face her. Bonny was a good friend, and Val's stomach twisted a bit as Bonabelle told her that she could do it. It felt really good to know that Bonabelle believed in her and her ability to not set the school on fire. She hope she could live up to her friend's expectations.
Taking a deep breath, she repeated the word after Bonabelle, "Deh-fee-ge-tow." Then she turned back to face her bottle as Bonabelle released her hold. She started to move her wand into position when she jerked to the side with a reflexive squeal as Bonabelle's breath tickled her ear. "Sorry," she said with a friendly simile. "It's fine, but you'd better warn me next time."
Once more taking a deep breath, she positioned her wand. Then she tried to picture what she wanted to happen. It turns out, that part was really easy this time. She was already looking at it. She wanted the ink bottle to not move, and it wasn't. "Defigito!" She spoke out as she moved her wand around the bottle. There were sparks, she was sure she had seen some sparks at the tip of her wand as she traced the circle. She didn't see any burn marks on the desk though, maybe she had imagined them?
"I can't do it," She spoke to Bonabelle without looking away from her bottle. "You try to move it. See if it worked."
2
Valentine Duell
*Is smothered*
1490
0
5
Bonabelle Row
June 29, 2020 2:52 PM
The good kind or . . .? by Bonabelle Row
Bonabelle grimaced, pulling back upon realising she'd startled her friend. Physical affection wasn't something she was terribly familiar with - her dad wasn't absent exactly but he wasn't particularly demonstrative either, and when he was, it was with his words - and she'd been trying to do better at it but hadn't yet proven to be doing a great job about it. So she pulled back, offered a small, awkward smile, and watched as Valentine tried really really hard.She frowned when Valentine gave up on herself before even trying to see if it worked. Why was she so convinced she couldn't do it? That was a completely foreign concept to Bonabelle. If you had to do something, you did it. It didn't matter what you thought of your own abilities because they were irrelevant. You made it so you could do it. You figured it out. So what was going on in Valentine's head that she couldn't do that? Or didn't? Had she never had to before? Did she just not know how? Well, Bonabelle could help with that.
Bonabelle didn't want to be short with her, even though a verbal glass of cold water to the face would have been helpful for her had their positions been reversed (which they never would be), so she didn't say anything at first. When she reached across the table to the ink bottle, she had half a mind to act like it was stuck to the table even if it wasn't really, but she was saved from the deceit by finding that it was indeed stuck there.
"See!" Bonabelle said excitedly, hoping the relief didn't make its way into her voice. The bottle popped off with only a little effort but enough effort that it was obvious Bonabelle hadn't done the trick herself. "You can do it. It's literally just a matter of believing in yourself. If magic comes from you and you're stopping it before it gets out, you're not going to get anywhere." She thought for a moment, trying to think of how to get through to her friend. "Like flying," she decided, remembering Valentine's great love. "If your broom knows that you're hesitant, it won't come up to you, right? And if you don't control it and guide it, it'll get away from you. You have to do the same. Think of your wand as a tiny, clipped broom. Except don't ride on it." A smirk played on her lips and she hoped that her tone was what she was going for. She wanted to be firm and strong and hold Valentine's head above water, but she also wanted the girl to swim. It was a tough balance and not one that Bonabelle knew how to do well. Usually, she was in this position because her father was hungover and still had to go to work the next day, not because her peer was struggling with a charm. There were bigger things to worry about that than that, so Valentine would have to stop worrying. But Bonabelle could be patient with that, too. Valentine was definitely more pleasant than a hungover father.
22
Bonabelle Row
The good kind or . . .?
1488
0
5
Valentine Duell
June 30, 2020 5:01 PM
Is there any other... Oh, right, there is. by Valentine Duell
Bonabelle wasn't happy with her. Valentine could tell. She was making a mess of this all, what was wrong with her? Bonabelle was going to get frustrated and not want to hang out with her anymore and then... Bonabelle reached over and tested her ink bottle. It was stuck! Slightly, but it had been stuck, and she hadn't caused a fire!She smiled along with Bonabelle and breathed a sigh of relief. "I wasn't sure," She said a little quietly after Bonabelle's first statement of encouragement, "I just wanted you to test it for me. I'm sorry for being silly. Transfigurations has me..." doubting herself? Questioning her abilities? So far that class had not been a great one and it's failures have been weighing on her. "I don't know," she ended lamely.
Valentine perked up a bit as Bonny started to talk about flying. The girl had a point there, if they worked similarly. She looked at her wand, "You may be right..." Valentine started slowly, "It's much to small to ride on." She returned her friend's smirk. "Alright, I've whined enough. Now it's your turn, I want to watch the master at work," She gave a mischievous grin and moved her head just as close as Bonabelle had done to her, "How's this?" She said, deliberately trying to recreated that ear tickling sensation with her breath.
2
Valentine Duell
Is there any other... Oh, right, there is.
1490
0
5
Sadie-Lake Chalmers
July 01, 2020 4:02 AM
Slowly by Sadie-Lake Chalmers
Sadie took a seat in Charms, pushing her long blonde hair back behind her ear. She had been a bit unsure at first of wearing her hair loose both because basically every class was a practical and also because straighteners didn't work here, but a year in the magical world had helped her adjust to both those problems. Firstly, other girls wore their hair loose and didn't get told off so it seemed like it wasn't a set rule, except for Potions. If they were working on anything particularly risky, the teachers tended to remind them to tie it back, so clearly they didn't expect it in every scenario. She had also got better at using a straightening charm to make it sleeker and more presentable. She preferred having it loose. She had found that last year she kept reaching for it only to find that it wasn't there. She guessed that proved that most of her fiddling was an unneccessary nervous habit and maybe that meant she should try to overcome it, but it was just nicer to have it where she could play with it.Professor Wright began the lecture. Sadie was not particularly familiar with deadpan humour, so she was somewhat perplexed by him talking about magical pillow fighting like it was an essential life skill. But she liked Professor Wright enough not to really be bothered when he didn't make much sense. After all, if that was something she was going to start holding against people here, she was going to wind up pretty isolated. Well... moreso.
On the plus side, she could actually see the use of today's spell. Sticking things was pretty useful. She would not have thought of it as a way to stop things spilling because no equivalent really existed for that in her own world - things just got spilt and it was a pain. It was a really good problem not to have though. Her mind had moved instead to putting up pictures. That was an activity fraught with difficulty in the non-magical world, given that there was no stciking substance that didn't stain or pull off paintwork, not to mention actually finding the bluetac or tape or nails or whatever. With your wand, you kind of always had it to hand. She wondered whether these charms left marks on surfaces but she wasn't about to ask in front of everyone, cos it would probably seem really stupid or weird to everyone who had grown up with magic.
The spell word made her think of a certain pop song. A Latin/Latino pop song... Books and teachers and stuff often talked about spells being Latin, and people talked about Mexicans and other Spanish people as being Latino, so was it kind of the same thing? Was what they were saying in class just like an every day word if you spoke Spanish? That was probably real cool and helpful and all but the main thing she could think was that darn song was gonna be stuck in her head for weeks. Her classmates chanted the spell again and again she couldn't help but hear it fall into the same rhythm.
Defigito,
Something something something despocito,
Lalalalalalalalito,
Sube sube, sube!
They were then left to practise the spell. Sadie aimed carefully at her empty inkwell, trying to imitate the wand movement.
"Despacito," she cast, not even realising that she'd switched the word.
13
Sadie-Lake Chalmers
Slowly
1480
0
5
Bertie Jackson
July 03, 2020 9:47 PM
Stick it to the man by Bertie Jackson
Bertie was pretty sure he was getting a reputation as a loner, if anyone was noticing him at all. Ideally, they weren’t. He was fairly good at just tucking himself away into a quiet corner behind a book, working slowly, methodically and what other people regarded as boringly through his tasks. He avoided partners unless they were mandatory.He was perfectly sociable in his dorm room, so long as conversations about the microscope and messages written in code counted as social interactions, and he was pretty sure they did, at least for him. He’d sort of hoped he and Quincy might find some sort of quiet working solidarity in class where they kept their heads down and didn’t bother each other or other people but his room-mate seemed to be either more chatty than Bertie was or just had worse luck. He kept getting stuck with talkative girls. Maybe it was the hair. It was a difficult colour to blend in with…
On the whole, Bertie was pretty pleased with how classes were going. The theory was easy even if he never showed off what he knew by putting his hand up. His teachers knew he was smart because they graded his homework, and he didn’t need his classmates’ approval. He didn’t. He really, really, really didn’t. He was fine. And if he was going to make a bid for impressing them, it would be once he had carefully constructed it to be to his greatest advantage.
To that end, he had done his best to keep the ace up his sleeve. Working alone allowed him to go unobserved. The teachers, he knew, had been warned that he might sometimes do things a little differently, and as he hadn’t heard anything back, he presumed that was acceptable. Even if they did say things like ‘you will say the spell’ when that might not be universally true. He appreciated them being covert. And technically, he was meant to say the spells most of the time (as much as he could manage anyway) alongside signing. He wasn’t speaking sign language, he was using Sign Supported Spellcasting and it was different. It was there to help enhance and clarify the message, or to get it across and give him some shot at results if he got totally stuck. Sometimes, if he got totally blocked on a word, he would end up signing without speaking. It didn’t count as non-verbal magic because what people actually meant when they said that was magic without an incantation, and he had one of those, it was just that his hand was doing it. He still thought it probably looked kind of like that was what he was doing and totally cool though.
He chanted along in chorus with his classmates. That was easy, everyone was speaking together.
Once they were released to work on the spell, he did his own incantation practise. He had memorised all the signs for first year Charms over the holidays. Still, it took a bit of practise to get his fingers moving through those only semi-familiar patterns again. Combined with that, he now had a wand to juggle. Apparently, there was a whole variety of signed spells that incorporated the sign for the spell into the wand movement. Learning full signed spellcasting was like… learning a whole other language, and a whole other set of wand movements. Some things were similar-ish, but there were some where… Well, the way that the signs worked didn’t cross over well with the way the wand movement worked, or vice versa, and it ended up being something totally different. You could not pick the sign for ‘fly’ and the wand movement for ‘Wingardium Leviosa’ out of what Deaf magical people did to make stuff fly, it was just its own whole thing - but others were more obviously related. Much like English and much like spellwork, it was something that had evolved over time. It sounded cool. He wished he could learn it, but for now, he was just lending himself some support.
Bertie’s signing was… Was like someone had, as far as possible, disentangled the sign parts of things from those combined movements, occasionally bolstered or complimented by things with more direct relation to the spoken spells, like finger spelling or signs relating to the meaning. There were a lot of things in the way he had been taught to sign that would not have been the norm in Deaf culture. For one, he was using his non-dominant hand. Seeing as his signs were separated out from his wand use, he had to learn one or other of those skills left handed. The lady at CACMA had, with gently raised eyebrows, asked him why it necessarily needed to be his wand skills that went with his right hand, seeing as he hadn’t handled a wand until now and learning signing was actually technically preceding it. But he had grown up learning to expect to hold a wand in that hand, playing pretend with sticks and things. Signing was new and, to him, arbitrary. Hand dominance only mattered in so far as he did it consistently, as so it seemed logical to him to pick it up with his left hand. He wasn’t any clumsier at signing or finger spelling with it seeing as he was learning it from scratch. (She had not pushed the point further, fairly used to encountering the attitude that the wand was the ‘main skill,’ and for Bertie, heading into a mainstream school, it probably would be easiest to use his wand like the majority of his peers, if he had a choice - but still, she always liked to plant a little seed of an ability to look at things differently).
He practisedthe sticking charm motions, both wand and sign. The tricky thing about separating out the hands was that it became a bit like patting your head and rubbing your stomach. His left had to sign one thing whilst his right did the wand motion. It usually took a few repetitions to get that flowing nicely. He mouthed the word too.
Once he’d practised long enough, he hunched over his inkwell, keeping himself and his project turned away from his nearest neighbour. He took a deep breath, trying to focus on keeping everything co-ordinated.
“De-fi-fi-fi-gi-to,” he cast. But he kept his sign and his wand movement smooth. He poked the inkwell experimentally. It was decidedly not stuck down. But it was also not on fire or hitting him over the head or whatever other consequences he’d been lead to believe would result from mispronunciation. If those were even true.
13
Bertie Jackson
Stick it to the man
1497
0
5
Morgan Garrett
July 03, 2020 9:58 PM
Noooo! by Morgan Garrett
Morgan could never decide if she liked Charms or not. On one hand, the spells they learned in here were often as fun as the strange things created in Transfiguration, but the magic itself was easier to work with, at least for Morgan. Professor Wright, for all his difficult exams and habit of using big words, also seemed basically like good folks - not a riot of fun, maybe, but he sometimes show hints of personality that suggested he might be okay if one met him as A Dude instead of as a professor. On the other hand, though, Morgan only knew him as a professor, and more than that, as the professor who happened to be her head of House. It had never happened to Morgan or, as far as she knew, to any of her friends, but she could never help imagining that Aladrens who didn't live up to expectations might end up lectured about it, the way a brain parent might lecture in the same circumstances. Morgan's mom was a teacher, so she knew what she was talking about when it came to what such conversations looked like: they, to use the technical term, sucked.Today, though, she thought she should get through class without doing anything that might put her in danger of finding out whether a very disappointed Professor Wright really would strongly resemble a very disappointed Amanda Garrett. Sticking things down was not the coolest-sounding thing on the surface of the Earth (though she could think, just offhand, of a several amusing ways it might be applied) but it was definitely practical. Morgan had upended more than one bottle of ink in the past year - a time or two in this very class due to over-enthusiastic wand movements - and there were always times when there were too many things and too few hands, when it would be super convenient to stick a few of the things together. At least as long as she could then unstick them when she got where she needed to be, but from what she understood, it would be much more likely that she wouldn't keep the things stuck together long enough than it was that she would somehow accidentally produce a permanent sticking charm.
That didn't, of course, mean it was impossible. The theory textbook they had to study talked about how little kids could sometimes, under the right circumstances, instinctively produce magic which the same person would struggle to do on purpose later in life. Morgan found the ideas involved just a little too dry to sink all the way in, but there seemed to be a debate among people who...for some reason...wanted to debate about this stuff. As far as Morgan could tell, Professor Wright seemed to fall on the side of the debate which felt understanding how spells worked was important for working out one's full potential. Morgan was not sure if she was actually smart enough to have an opinion, but she thought that the part in the book about what children could do unconsciously didn't seem to fit with the understanding-necessary idea. Even kids who grew up in the wizarding world didn't know tons of theory when they were five, did they? That almost made it seemed like they would be more powerful if they simply knew what they wanted to see happen, without cluttering their heads up with all the other stuff.
Since she knew Professor Wright's style, though, she knew too that she would need to think about how it worked if she wanted to do well on the inevitable written exam.
Glue would hold things down, but made a mess, and was supposed to be at least semi-permanent. From her memories of stuff she had heard men in her family talk about, there were some glues that were basically just...permanent-permanent, too, so glue probably wasn't quite what she aiming to replicate here. Would velcro work better for a comparison? Did it turn the bottom of the thing and the surface the thing was standing on into...bunches of little surfaces that locked together somehow, like a bunch of tiny tiny microscopic Legoes? Or was it more like turning them into magnets? Magnetism only worked with metal, though...were there other things that had attractions comparable to magnets? Static worked that way, didn't it? It could make pieces of cloth stick together - but pieces of cloth were usually more alike to begin with than the wooden surface of her desk and the glass surface of the bottom of her inkwell were. She didn't think glass worked with that at all - did it? Could someone get a 'shock' from touching something else before touching glass? And was any of this relevant, considering that one got 'shocks' from something called 'static electricity' and that electricity and magic didn't work together at all?
She started jotting these ideas down so she could test the end result against them whenever she she mastered the spell, be that in class or in extra practice later. It wasn't, after all, uncommon for her to need extra practice to get a spell down, and she didn't want to forget what passed for smart thoughts with her. That done, she picked up her wand and glanced around at her neighbors, mainly out of nosiness, to see how they were doing. She paused on Sadie Chalmers, who looked like she was just about to make an attempt from the top...and then felt her eyes widen in horror as she realized Sadie was saying the incantation all wrong. It wasn't just inflection or stress patterns - which would probably just make the charm not work - but the whole word.
That, she knew, was bad. The teachers occasionally horrified them with reminders of how bad that could be. She didn't really think about what she did next, just reacting instinctively.
"Expelliarmus!" she said, waving her wand toward Sadie, and then realized what she had just done. She then ducked with a yelp, hoping to avoid having Sadie's hopefully-not-too-badly-malfunctioning wand smack her upside the head.
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Morgan Garrett
Noooo!
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Quincy Wright
July 03, 2020 10:10 PM
Which one? by Quincy Wright
Quincy was more than a bit exhausted. He'd met lots of people in classes and kept getting paired up with people who talked a lot. They were all nice so far, on the whole, and he enjoyed their conversations, but he would have been perfectly happy to not talk to anyone during classes most of the time. Plus, he couldn't remember any of their names anyway. So he was excited when he got to Charms and managed to grab a seat next to his roommate. He might've preferred potions or something because then they could talk about cell structure or something, but this was cool too. Plus, magic theory was scientific by nature, and they could talk about that. Or they could not talk at all, which would also be perfectly satisfying. Although it would be a bit of a bummer to get through almost every class talking to people and then finally get to sit with his roommate and they not talk. It would be bittersweet either way.As class went on, however, Quincy realised that what he'd thought he'd glimpsed before but written off was actually fact: Bertie wasn't necessarily talking anyway. He seemed to be concentrating very hard and moving his hands both at the same time which Quincy thought was mind-blowing, but he wasn't sure why he was doing it. Since he'd been quiet until this point, not wanting to interrupt the blissful silence that could envelop them when they were together, Quincy was hesitant to say anything now. At some point, though, when Bertie checked the inkwell and found it not stuck, despite apparently expecting it to be, Quincy couldn't help himself.
"What're you doing with your hands?" he asked directly, albeit not necessarily bluntly. "Does that make it easier for you to do the spells?"
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Quincy Wright
Which one?
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Sadie-Lake Chalmers
July 03, 2020 10:44 PM
Agreed by Sadie-Lake Chalmers
Nothing was really happening with the despacito spell. Sadie was about to try it again when suddenly her wand yeeted itself out of her hand. She followed its progress with dismay as it arched over Morgan’s head, causing the other girl to screech and duck.Everyone was looking at them.
She was sure of it, even without looking around, but surely that kind of disturbance had every pair of eyeballs on them, which was like… just about the worst thing Sadie could imagine.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly to Morgan. The room was (or had been) noisy with the sounds of everyone casting and she hadn’t really noticed Morgan’s spell against all the other sounds. She’d been concentrating on her own work. She’d been trying. She’d really really been trying and now she’d… She didn’t even know. She wasn’t sure what had happened.
“I… I didn’t do that?” she stated hesitantly to Professor Wright, clearly unsure herself of the situation. “I didn’t mean to do that,” she knew that she had had accidental magic before coming to school but that was supposed to be under control now, wasn’t it? And it wasn’t like she’d wanted to throw her wand across the room. She had just been minding her own business. “I didn’t throw my wand at her,” she stated desperately, because she was pretty sure that was what that must have looked like and throwing things at other people was always considered pretty bad but she thought it might actually be worse when it was a wand because they were sort of dangerous, or could be. “It… it was like it just flew out of my own hand by itself,” she said.
That in itself, might have been enough to prompt her to think about disarming spells. She knew those. She should have known what they felt like and been able to recognise one. But she was too busy panicking about how she was about to be yelled at probably and in front of everyone and for something she hadn’t even done because she’d never do anything to get in trouble - and she also wasn’t expecting her classmates to start randomly disarming her when she was minding her own business.
Her cheeks were glowing bright red and she was pretty sure that if Professor Wright told her off she was going to burst into tears.
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Sadie-Lake Chalmers
Agreed
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Grayson Wright
July 04, 2020 9:39 PM
I'd like a few more details. by Grayson Wright
In theory, it should have been possible for the professor to sit down and wait to be needed once the students were put to work. They had been given very clear instructions, after all, and following them, consistently and with effort, should have predicable results. That was the pleasant thing about Beginner magic, really: the theories were rather solid, the spells themselves predictable and rarely capable of doing real damage if mishandled, at least ninety times out of a hundred. It should have been a relatively restful class for Professor Wright, one where he could get a bit of grading done, or reviewing lesson plans for the other classes.In reality, he spent almost all of the Beginner’s class on his feet, circulating around the room, correcting a wand movement here, making a suggestion for how to improve technique there, and generally ensuring – if nothing else – that they stayed on task. He supposed he couldn’t hold the natural tendency of eleven- and twelve-year-olds to get off-task against them, because he had spent more than his fair share of his school years scribbling stories when he should have been focusing on his work. It was just the nature of things.
On some days, nothing particularly interesting happened. Indeed, he thought that if he tracked the data, there were probably more days when nothing happened than days when anything in particular happened. Keeping vigilant, however, was probably part of the reason why class was often uneventful, so he tried to keep vigilant.
On this particular day, he was close enough to Morgan Garrett to hear her suddenly use the Disarming Charm. Alarmed – why on earth would she spontaneously decide to disarm one of her classmates? – he turned around quickly, just in time to see her duck as a wand – Sadie Chalmers’ – went soaring through the air.
Drawing level with the situation did not make it clearer. He had been baffled by the thought of Sadie Chalmers, of all students, doing something that would inspire someone to disarm her – the most assertive thing he could recall Sadie ever doing had been asking if he could arrange for the teachers not to use the second, slightly absurd half of her hyphenated name – and Sadie seemed not to even know exactly what had happened.
“I know you didn’t throw your wand,” he informed Sadie, and then looked around at the gawkers. “Back to work, everyone,” he added in a carrying voice for all the first and second years before he looked back at Morgan.
“Morgan, can you explain why you used a Disarming Charm against Sadie?” he asked, trying to sound neutral and actually give the girl a chance to explain herself, if she could. He couldn’t really imagine there was a good explanation, but fairness demanded she have a chance to try. Morgan was a bit flighty, by Aladren standards (he suspected she occupied the same sort of social niche in the House that he had in his day), but she wasn’t a bad child, as far as he had observed last year or this year so far, so he was rather curious what had brought this on.
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Grayson Wright
I'd like a few more details.
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Morgan Garrett
July 04, 2020 10:01 PM
I...well, uh, I kinda, you know... by Morgan Garrett
Morgan knew she was red-faced before she even came back from out from under her desk, but she turned even redder when she heard Sadie whispering apologies to her. She didn’t know exactly why she was more embarrassed by that – maybe just because it was sort of unexpected. If someone suddenly made her wand fly out of her hand when disarming wasn’t the point of the lesson, after all, she was pretty sure that her response would have involved the phrase ‘what the hell,’ possibly at volume. She would have been okay once it was explained, but she would have been mad until it was explained, not apologetic.“No, no,” she whispered back frantically, shaking her head. “You didn’t – I mean – it wasn’t really – “
She had no idea where she was trying to go with that sentence, but it turned out not to matter, because Professor Wright had picked up on the situation. After the way Morgan had made a noise with her throat and then made another one when her desk and her chair had scraped against the floor when she ducked, Morgan supposed this was not entirely surprising, though she was surprised how quickly he appeared on the scene. Could he Apparate inside the school? Would he bother, just for this, since they weren’t, like, trying to knock each other’s brains in? How much trouble was Morgan about to be in?
Somehow, she was pretty sure she turned even redder when Professor Wright asked her why she had done that. Her face felt so hot that she thought the back of her neck might be starting to sweat; it was like she had tried to run outside at home in July. She found herself focusing on Professor Wright’s nose as she tried to explain.
“Um – it was – there was – it sounded like Sadie was making a mistake with the incantation?” Why was she speaking up, as though it were a question? It wasn’t a question. It was, well, why she had done that – why it had made sense at the time. “And I, well – “ her accent was rarely thinner than peanut butter, but she was pretty sure she was drawling even more than usual by this point – “I remembered what all y’all, y’all the professors, what y’all told us about how we might blow all up if we say it wrong, and I – I guess I kinda panicked.” She drooped her head for a moment, then looked at Sadie. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
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Morgan Garrett
I...well, uh, I kinda, you know...
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Sadie-Lake Chalmers
July 06, 2020 2:37 AM
It's my fault by Sadie-Lake Chalmers
Professor Wright was not shouting. In fact, as he spoke, she realised that had maybe been a ridiculous thing to think cos she couldn’t really imagine him shouting. He was often serious but he wasn’t ever mean. He didn’t even sound like he was disappointed in her. Maybe because he believed that she hadn’t done that on purpose, and she managed to swallow without it feeling like an entire golf ball was going down.Disarming charm? She turned to Morgan, her mouth dropping open in a little ‘o’ of surprise. But there wasn’t much time to form the theory that Morgan hated her, or dismiss this as being a really illogical prank to play if she did, because Morgan was looking just about as red-faced as Sadie felt. She knew that feeling, and she couldn’t help but feel a little bad for Morgan, who clearly didn’t want to be in this situation any more than she did. Professor Wright had told everyone to go back to work, but Sadie doubted they all had done, or that they weren’t all still listening in even if they were pretending to get on with their own tasks.
Morgan’s explanation was sort of hard to follow. Partly because the facts of the matter themselves were confusing, and partly because of Morgan stopping and starting, but also partly because of her accent, which was thick and unfamiliar to Sadie’s ears. She’d said the spell wrong? She’d…
She became acutely aware that the first, and in fact only, word that sprung to her mind for what she’d been doing was ‘despacito’ and that that was indeed not the word. Her eyes slid to the board, rounding slightly in horror, in a way that at least confirmed that Morgan was telling the truth.
“I’m sorry,” she said again, this time to Morgan as well as Professor Wright. Heck, to anyone who was still eavesdropping too, given that she had apparently nearly blown them all up. Had she really done that? Didn’t people make mistakes all the time? Maybe they didn’t. Maybe she was the only one who was that stupid. “I… I did mess it up,” she confirmed, really, really hoping that the word she’d used instead wasn’t going to come up. The people with magical heritage were probably already laughing at her but that was bound to set off the ones like her as well, because they’d get the reference, and realise just how ridiculous her mistake had been. “Is it as bad as she said?” she asked anxiously. She knew all the professors gave them very strict lectures on minding their incantations and that there could be Serious Consequences if they didn’t. She had thought maybe like… getting an ‘F.’ Or perhaps melting what was in front of her, twisting or breaking it. She hadn’t thought that she had the power to hurt everybody if she got one teeny little letter wrong. She didn’t want that to be true.
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Sadie-Lake Chalmers
It's my fault
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Bertie Jackson
July 06, 2020 3:20 AM
EDHHXQAN EGDUTHHDG LGXVWI by Bertie Jackson
As a Noticer Of Things, Bertie had, of course, observed that his luck had changed and that this lesson had brought him his roommate as a neighbour. That made him feel comfortable and pleased, but didn’t necessarily mean he was likely to change his behaviour much. The benefit he had seen to Quincy’s presence was, after all companionable side-by-side work in their own little worlds.He looked up when Quincy spoke, smiling slightly at the questions. Quincy had cracked every puzzle Bertie had given him so far, so it was not surprising that he had noticed this - he also seemed to work out for himself what it meant, in spite of his slightly more open first question.
“I’m signing,” Bertie replied. “---And yes,” he nodded, regarding the second question.
Questions answered, he focussed his attention on his inkwell again. Though he was maybe a little less hunched over it than before, and he shot a glance or two Quincy’s way between tries, in case there was anything he wanted to ask. This was interesting, and asking about interesting things was perfectly valid after all. He also kept an eye on Quincy in case anything about what he was doing was interesting too. When you looked at it like that - like keeping a mutual eye out for interestingness - pair work was alright. He just thought most people went with things like ‘Isn’t this fun/difficult?’ which wasn’t really worth talking about.
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Bertie Jackson
EDHHXQAN EGDUTHHDG LGXVWI
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Grayson Wright
July 09, 2020 11:15 AM
Multiple mistakes seem to have been made. by Grayson Wright
Gray sighed to himself and tried to look on the bright side: at least Morgan hadn’t abruptly lost her mind. That was always a plus, when the students showed some vague signs of being able to reason and respond in a way where…even if it wasn’t rational, he could at least follow the train of thought which had led from Point A to Point B. It was far preferable to the alternative.It still, however, left him in a bit of a bind now. All the teachers emphasized the dangers of bungling a spell, but apparently, he or someone had gone far enough with it that Morgan had gotten it into her head that she was saving the class by making a fool of herself and Sadie. Now he had to walk a fine, fine line between gently correcting this impression, and making the warnings seem irrelevant and thus increasing the chance that either or both girls would become a menace to society that way….
“I very much doubt you would have blown up the classroom, Sadie,” he said. “It would be very, very rare for a second year to have the power to do that. You could have hurt yourself, though, depending on exactly what you said – or just gotten no result at all. That’s one of the tricky things about magic – it’s not always consistent, exactly what happens when we make mistakes with it.
“I’m glad you’ve paid attention to the safety lectures, Morgan,” he said, “but sending a wand flying across the room is rarely a good idea. It could have done more damage hitting someone, depending on who it hit and what it was doing before you moved it, than it could have with a mispronounced incantation. Since you’re the closest person, you could have just cast a shield charm instead – that might have been more useful. It’s good that you’re alert, but you need to think through how you respond a little more next time, all right?”
He looked between the two red-faced girls. “Luckily, however, nothing bad happened this time, so Morgan, if you could give Sadie her wand back, I hope you two can get back to work, all right?”
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Grayson Wright
Multiple mistakes seem to have been made.
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Morgan Garrett
July 09, 2020 12:04 PM
I think I did the worst. by Morgan Garrett
Now she’d done it. Now she’d done gone done it. Morgan tried not to well up crying as she waited for some kind of reaction to the statements she had just mumbled her way through. Her face was still too red, and she felt as though her hands were starting to sweat, too, as she waited to hear how much trouble she was in….She blinked, though, when instead of beginning to scold her straightaway, Professor Wright began talking to Sadie about…spellcasting protocol and safety? What was this, was torture going to be part of her punishment for disrupting class, too? Surely that could have been a yes or no answer, before laying into her?
Her thought that the speech was part of the punishment increased as she actually listened to the mini-lesson, which was, in effect, about exactly why her reaction had been a totally unnecessary overreaction. She wasn’t sure if it was possible to blush more, but she sort of wanted to anyway. She looked like such an idiot. They would be within rights to kick her out of Aladren for this, though she wasn’t sure where else they could possibly put her instead…none of the other Houses were likely to want someone who acted this stupid in public amongst their ranks, either. What had she been thinking?!
“I’m glad you’ve paid attention to the safety lectures, Morgan, but…”
And here it was, the part where she got in trouble. Or…just told what she should have done instead? She was definitely being corrected, however mildly, but he wasn’t saying words like ‘detention’ or ‘writing to your parents’ or anything horrific like that. Just…telling her not to do that again, which was an easy thing to swear she’d never do, after all this.
“Yes, sir,” she whispered.
She repeated the whisper a moment later when she and Sadie were asked if they could get back to work, all the while scrambling out of her seat to find where Sadie’s wand had landed, ducking to the floor with a muttered ‘sorry’ to another student in order to retrieve it. Returning to her own desk area, she carefully laid the wand back down on Sadie’s desk.
“So sorry,” she whispered again. “I don’t know what I’s thinking. That was pro’lly the stupidest thing I gone done since I got here last year.”
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Morgan Garrett
I think I did the worst.
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Sadie-Lake Chalmers
July 10, 2020 8:13 AM
But now we... move on? by Sadie-Lake Chalmers
Sadie nodded stiffly as Professor Wright reminded her of the dangers in messing up a spell word - or rather clarified them. It wasn't like the teachers would ever let them really forget that fact, and that was why she tried hard to get it right… Not hard enough apparently. Though luckily it seemed like Morgan’s fears might have been a bit overblown. Professor Wright was using words like ‘very, very rare’ instead of ‘impossible’ but Sadie would have had to have been incredibly powerful for that to be the result of one of her accidents, and she was reassured enough in that she doubted she was that. As far as she could see, her mistake had had no effect. Well, other than creating this whole awkward situation, which was probably worse than blowing them all up.“Yes sir, sorry sir,” Sadie nodded, trusting herself to squeak out that much but not much more both in response to the speech and the hope that she would get back to work. She wanted to assure him and Morgan that she’d try really hard and be careful and she took it seriously and everything but she still didn’t trust herself not to cry if she spoke more than the bare minimum.
Morgan returned her wand, and Sadie looked at it. It still looked like the funny little stick that it always had done. When she thought the sentence ‘I am the owner of a magic wand’ it still sounded strange and ridiculous, but on the day to day hearing ‘get your wands out’ had just become normal, as had having it in her hand. She had never thought of it as dangerous or destructive outside of Defence class, where it was meant to be those things. She picked it up slightly gingerly.
“It’s okay,” she whispered, as she realised Morgan’s apology seemed focussed on her rather than Professor Wright. Morgan, for all her dramatic reaction, didn’t actually seem like she’d been any more comfortable with ending up in the spotlight than Sadie had, and she didn’t want her to feel any worse than she had to. “Me too,” she added, grimacing over the stupid mistake she’d made and the consequnces they might have had - even if they might not have been as bad as Morgan had feared. “Hey, thanks for not… actually saying out loud what I’d been saying,” she added. She had no idea whether Morgan realised how ridiculous and potentially ‘hilarious’ Sadie’s mistake was - she was also taking a gamble on the idea that drawing attention to it wouldn’t come back to bite her but she hoped Morgan wasn’t going to do that - but either way it was a small silver lining, and perhaps sharing it would help Morgan feel better too.
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Sadie-Lake Chalmers
But now we... move on?
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Quincy Wright
July 14, 2020 8:44 AM
DRKD SC KVWYCD WI XKWO! by Quincy Wright
Quincy nodded. He had heard of signing before because his mom sometimes worked with kids or families who did it. For a little while, they thought that maybe they would teach Deidre, because she had a hard time communicating when she was little. However, her current blabbermouth state indicated she'd gotten through that just fine and they hadn't gone ahead with it. It didn't look like signing and casting a spell would be easy at all though, because Bertie had to do so many things at the same time. Quincy cocked his head to watch for another moment before getting back to his own task. This was something that was going to have to stew in his mind for a bit before he was exactly sure what else to ask, and he suspected that it would boil down to asking of Bertie would let him watch in their dorm sometime, where asking questions and openly watching what was happening wouldn't mean he fell behind in his own practice.So now he had to stick an ink bottle to the table. That was interesting on its own. Would it leave residue? If not, was it because there was no residue to leave, or because it just didn't leave any? Did it work because of the addition of something magical to stick the two things together, like a strip of thin magic glue, or did it alter the chemical properties of the objects so they stuck together without modifying them otherwise? Or perhaps it was something else. Maybe the effect was that the two things stuck together, but the actual process was something like the bottle became ridiculously heavy and the table ridiculously strong. Probably not, but maybe something else. Maybe a tiny vacuum in space was created in just such a way that the bottle could not be moved. That seemed unlikely too since Professor Wright didn't seem terribly concerned about the probability of one of them creating a black hole by accident.
Quincy had been maintaining a list of spells they learned in classes and categorizing them by what he suspected was actually happening behind-the-scenes, and he pulled it out now to add defigito to "just magic." Other categories included "adds magic," "chemical change," "adds chemical" and a few blank columns with question marks where he had grouped spells that seemed to function similarly but he wasn't sure what that similarity was. Draft titles for these columns were written in small letters where he'd come up with any, and included things like "space-time flux."
Satisfied, Quincy decided to give it a shot. Swirling his wand the way he'd seen, he cast: "Defigito!" The bottle, to his great surprise, stuck. But only for a moment. With just a little force, it popped back off. He starred the spell on his chart, more convinced it was "just magic." Of course . . . what that meant . . .
"I don't think I could do all that at once," he told Bertie.
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Quincy Wright
DRKD SC KVWYCD WI XKWO!
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