That sounds tricky on Defense Against the Dark Arts

Giselle Duell

November 06, 2020 11:01 AM

Attacking the Darkness [Beginners] by Giselle Duell

Giselle had been asked to lend her expertise to a Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson. This had caught her a little off guard, especially with past being what it was, but she was not about to say ‘no’ to her new boss and probably not all of the details of her past had come out. Although, not saying ‘no’ to her previous deputy-headmistress had been the thing that had led her into some of those past experiences. She was pretty certain that Deputy-Headmistress Selina Skies was nothing like Deputy-Headmistress Lia Persefoni, at least she really, really hoped. Professor Skies had been extremely nice so far, but so had Lia.

Regardless, she had said yes, she would be delighted to lend her expertise. However, then she just had to figure out what she could teach that would somehow relate to the subject of Defense Against the Dark Arts. Her specialty was Divination, the collection of knowledge, which was good to have when you were dealing with dark threats… but it tended to be more of a forethought thing when you had time for planning and were more on the offensive side of things instead of the defensive. Plus, it was DADA, she didn’t just want to teach a Divination lesson. Also the class was a beginner class, which meant at least two things. One, Valentine would be in it and two, Divinations was a tricky discipline. Eleven and twelve year olds just, in general, didn’t have the magical control and finesse for it. Many older witches and wizards didn’t either. Where had that left her? Well, it was naturally obvious so she hadn't really thought of it until after chatting with some of the other professors.

“Welcome class,” Professor Duell greeted the students as she heard them entering the room and finding their seats. Any murmuring she heard about her presence in the room she mostly ignored. However, there was one particular fairly high pitched excited squeal of delight that she recognized and gave a slight nod in acknowledgement to her niece. “Now I am assuming you all realize that we will be doing something a little bit different for class today,” she paused just a moment, mainly for effect, “However, I don’t think you will find it as different as you may think. For that, you may come see me in my normal class once you have reached your third year.” She smiled, wondering how many of these students she might actually elect to take her class next year. She knew of at least one.

She had propped herself against the teacher’s desk in the front of the room and now she stood and waved her wand not so inconspicuously over the room to get a good image of the students in her mind. “I have been asked to share some of my ‘expertise’ with you, and I have decided on something that will be practical and fitting for the subject matter.” With that, she waved her wand in a different motion and the room fell into utter, pitch blackness. At least she assumed it did from the reactions coming from the students. “Tell me now,” her voice moved as she strolled unconcerned about the room, “how do you deal with a threat that you cannot see? Feel free to put your hands up to answer.”

At one point when they had been sorting through her clothing and buying some new things for teaching, Valentine had told her that the dress she was wearing now was a very odd olive green color that didn’t match anything else in her wardrobe. However, it didn’t make much noise at all as she walked, it was also long enough to just barely touch the floor so no one could see she wasn’t wearing shoes. As such, she could move around the room in near silence. As she strolled about, she called on students to answer her question. ‘Lumos’ was the most obvious answer. To which she was prepared to point out that Lumos was an excellent way to become a target in a dark room. “Also, she added, “it may not be a lack of light at all that is the problem. I am sure that Professor Brooding-Hawthorne and Professor Carter-Xavier have plenty of examples of threats that could render your eyes unusable one way or another.”

Once she had finished taking answers, she was back in the front of the room again and turned the lights back on. Again, she assumed it worked. “Good answers all. As you probably have figured out by now, I have some experience on this subject.” She smiled gently at them while adjusting her mirrored glasses. “So, I am here to teach you about the spell I use to ‘see’. It takes the area indicated by your wand and gives you an adequate mental picture. There are no colors and transparent things appear opaque, but it is better than being blind.”

She gestured her wand in the general direction of the blackboard and set the chalk to work. “The wand motion is a simple loop defining the area you wish to observe.” She demonstrated once again, casting it again non-vocally just to refresh her picture of the room again while she was at it. “The incantation is ‘mentis imago’.” The chalk finished the notes on the board and settled back into place. “Now, I should mention that this is not a common use spell and it may not work for everyone. It is one of those spells you develop after you finish school and begin your own independent research into what it means to be a witch or wizard. In this case it was originally developed by my brother for his transfiguration work after he graduated here, and was redesigned a bit once I started at school for this purpose.”

Waving her wand about, with a few muttered incantations, a box drifted through the room with supplies for each student. “In the box are bundles of three small objects wrapped in a piece of cloth, please take one and then find a partner. You will be taking turns blindfolding yourselves with your cloth while your partner arranges the items for you to identify.” The objects were simple wooden shapes; cubes, cylinders, pyramids and such. “You may begin whenever you are ready. Please don’t hesitate to ask if you need assistance.” Giselle was quite curious to see how this experiment would play out. As far as she knew, she and Andrew were the only ones to have used this spell, would anyone else be able to make it work?

OOC: Welcome to DADA... which is being taught by the divinations professor for this one class, Professor Carter-Xavier is the normal professor for this term. As with all classes, posts will be scored on length, relevance, and creativity, along with adhering to all site rules. Have fun, and tag Professor Duell if you need her.

Subthreads:

Bring it on by Tommy Jamison with Graham Osbrook

I got you, bro (tag Henry) by Oz Spellman with Henry Spellman

That sounds tricky by Billy Cobb with Lorena Abernathy

This is great! by Valentine Duell with Bertie Jackson

Meh, light is overrated. by Quincy Wright

2 Giselle Duell Attacking the Darkness [Beginners] 1517 1 5

Tommy Jamison

November 08, 2020 5:25 PM

Bring it on by Tommy Jamison

Tommy thought it was sorta weird how there kinda just… wasn’t a Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor right now. Sometimes that happened, he figured, based on staff hiring and stuff like that, but Sonora did kinda have one, she just wasn’t here. So instead, Professor Carter-Xavier had to fill in.

But today, it was somebody else, which was even weirder. Tommy hadn’t been here very long yet, but he was starting to get the vibe that sometimes, stuff happened at school that you just kinda had to roll with. When Professor Duell explained the lesson, though, it made a lot more sense why she was here. And, also, how flippin’ cool was it that she had basically her own spell to help her get around? Tommy thought that was awesome! Although her mention of her brother did inspire a little pang of homesickness in his chest. He missed his sister. Tommy couldn’t really talk about that with Stanley and Wally, because that was their mom so it was a little weird how different the dynamic could be. But he could talk about it with Theo. Sophie was Theo’s sister too, sort of. His dad was one of Sophie’s godfathers, so that made him their god-brother. It definitely counted, so maybe he would talk to Theo about it later, if the feeling didn’t go away soon.

Tommy glanced around for a partner, but Stanley and Wally were sitting next to each other today so he figured they would probably work together. His girlfriend Rosalynn wasn’t especially close by, so he just turned good-naturedly to the neighbor seated nearest to him. “Hi, I’m Tommy,” he introduced. The school year was still pretty fresh, with people still learning names, so he figured it couldn’t hurt. “Wanna be partners?”

12 Tommy Jamison Bring it on 1518 0 5

Graham Osbrook

November 09, 2020 6:23 PM

My mom would say we should try to understand it and negotiate instead of attacking. by Graham Osbrook

In a way, Graham guessed it was kind of appropriate that Defense Against the Dart Arts was the class that kept turning up surprises – wasn’t the purpose of Defense Against the Dark Arts as much to teach them to be alert and respond quickly to all the problems they were supposed to have in life (he had never had noticed his parents having any personally, nor his grandparents, but he doubted his mother would use her maiden name professionally and urge him to study as hard as possible in this class if there really was no danger in the world. Mom was…not really the sort of mom who fussed and worried a lot when it didn’t make sense. If anything, she was almost painfully rational; there were times when Graham knew there was really no reason for her to be fussed about whatever was going on with him or Claire, but he kind of wished she would anyway) as it was to teach them the actual Defense part? He doubted this was really why a sub was covering for their, well, sub right now, but it did fit, kind of, even if the sub covering for the sub was…wasn’t that the same lady who had been at the Opening Feast? The new Divination teacher?

From what she said about them maybe taking her class next year, that seemed to be the case. Were they actually going to learn about how to predict danger? That would be –

His line of thought cut off as abruptly as the room plunged into pitch blackness. He didn’t think he gasped, but he definitely flinched, his shoulders rising toward his ears and his head ducking down before he caught himself. Stupid, of course – it was dark, not something being thrown at his face – but here he was. He jumped a little, too, at the unconcerned voice of Professor Duell, coming – he thought? – from a different place than before, though he was finally distracted from being unnerved by the last thing she said. They should feel free to raise their hands to answer? They were in an unnaturally pitch-black room! He put his fingers just beneath his eyebrows and pushed the skin up, just to make sure his eyes really were open, but nope, they were open, and it really was that dark.

His eyebrows rose again, this time in a more natural fashion, when the answers came. There were two interesting things there. One, this…was a thing. Two, for another, her brother had made her up a spell that worked? And was presumably approved and everything by the government (there had to be some kind of office for that, he imagined, even if it would be kinda easy to ignore if you wanted most of the time), for her to teach it to kids? That was…that was just cool. He had spent a whole year hearing about how he could blow up the building if he fiddled with spells at all, so apparently Professor Duell – and probably that Valentine girl, now that he thought about it; that had sounded kind of like her who had squealed when Professor Duell showed up – was related to someone pretty epic. Not that that was related to class, of course, but still.

He couldn’t help but notice one small problem – wouldn’t saying the incantation out loud risk drawing attention to them in a dark room just like lumos would, if maybe not quite as blindingly obviously so? – but the class was breaking up into pairs already, so he shelved the issue for now. He was sitting beside a first year, who he smiled politely at when the younger boy suggested they partner up. “Sure,” he said agreeably. “I’m Graham. Second year,” he added. “This is pretty cool stuff, huh? Do you want to go first?” he asked. “Or pick what to do first?” he corrected himself, realizing that both parties in this game would need to do something.

16 Graham Osbrook My mom would say we should try to understand it and negotiate instead of attacking. 1498 0 5

Oz Spellman

November 10, 2020 7:13 AM

I got you, bro (tag Henry) by Oz Spellman

Oz made his way to Defence class. It was a class that confused him a bit. Mostly in a ‘the heck was up with this world?’ kinda way. It was weird, cos on the surface of it, this world seemed safer than his old one but apparently there was a bunch of stuff ready enough to kill him that he needed lessons in not dying. It was just weird. There were a bunch of things that were bad for you back home and… well, he guessed they did kind of lectures on not smoking or getting into any of the various pitfalls that life in a less than affluent area presented, but those had only been occasional lectures in assembly or home room, not a class he had to take all the time. And it was weird because he’d been able to see those threats. They’d been visible on street corners, or were why you didn’t go out after dark, or why Mom would rather he batted in the arcade even though it cost money than using the cages at the park. So far, nothing had swooped at him here. He’d been more comfortable and more well fed and just… safer than he’d been in his life, and yet he had to take a whole class about how dangerous this world was. It didn’t really stack up.

At the moment, Ms. Carter-Xavier was mostly teaching this class, cos the regular lady was off. Someone had said she and the potions teacher were lesbians together, which was okay. It was sort of weird, because he was pretty sure teachers at his old school wouldn’t have admitted that kind of thing, but it was one of those things Mom had taught him not to be a butt about even if other people were. But anyway, she wasn’t there. And today, Ms. Carter-Xavier wasn’t there either and the mega dramatic teacher who always wore sunglasses was there instead.

That would have been like, whatever, except she started being seriously freaky right off the bat. She plunged them all into darkness and went around talking like this was a horror movie and they were all about to die. Oz had watched way too many eighteen plus things on Netflix for this not to be sending very real and visceral chills down his spine. He was really, really tempted to light his wand, and was pretty sure that wasn’t a wimpy response because being able to do magic was cool and important here, but then she pointed out that would get them attacked. What the freaking heck?! He managed, for once, to keep his narrative of swear words internal because he was pretty sure that cussing in the dark was a way to sound like you were a massive wiener who was freaking out about this – and in the dark, his voice was indistinguishable from Henry’s.

He was very relieved when Freaky Lady turned the lights back on, though he hoped there wasn’t an obvious shine of sweat on his face. The spell word and stuff sort of went over his head, because everything she was saying was still really mind-blowing. They were going to beam pictures right into their own heads? That was freaky. Was that even safe? He had time to just about wonder that before she mentioned pairing up and being fricking blind folded. Nope. Nope, nope, nope. Did she not know what [redacted]s kids could be? Like heck he was being blindfolded by or in proximity to anyone. Except one.

He’d figured he and Henry would end up working together sometimes. Partly, he thought that Henry was just going to butt in far too much and not be able to leave him alone. He had figured this class might be one where it happened more though – of course, that had been because he’d assumed they’d be throwing jinxes around, and like heck he was letting anyone fricking jinx Henry. As such, he had tended to sit a little nearer to him here than he had in other classes. Not like, so he was directly with him, but so that he was close enough, if they had to pair up and do messed up stuff, that he could get to his brother before anyone else did.

“Yo,” he called over to him, “Pair up?”

13 Oz Spellman I got you, bro (tag Henry) 1514 0 5

Henry Spellman

November 10, 2020 9:47 PM

I got you too, bro. by Henry Spellman

Something about Defense class was immensely validating. It was probably the fact that everything always seemed too big and too scary and now there was MAGIC so at least now they were going to learn something actually useful. He always sort of wondered why their old school hadn't taught self-defense classes or something, except it would probably just make the bullies and the jerks more aware of the best ways to hurt other kids, so maybe that was why. In the grand scheme of things, the risk of bullies being more aware of jinxes and defense spells seemed less problematic than failing to arm literal children with anything to keep them alive in a world that apparently wanted to kill them, so that was a good checks and balances sort of thing. Plus now they were in the dark and definitely going to die so that was great.

Henry watched a lot of true crime shows, and he knew enough about murdering people to know that the dark wasn't really necessary. You could kill people in broad daylight if you did it right and most of the time, that's exactly what people did. Literal darkness wasn't half so important as 'the darkness within' and what not, and sometimes the only darkness an attacker needed was whatever made sure no one else was looking. The dark also came with advantages; if he couldn't see the bad guy, the bad guy couldn't see him. Henry was smaller than most bad guys and could hide easier, so that was probably more of an advantage for him than any sorts of murderers. That was more relevant at home, because if someone was going to break in or something, he was smaller, could hide, and also knew the layout of the apartment better than a sketchy burglar dude. Or lady. He didn't want to discriminate; ladies could be crazy murderers too.

All the logic in the world couldn't really make him like the dark though, and he had the distinct feeling that he wasn't alone in that. He and Oz, for example, had always slept in the same room, sometimes even the same bed; the dark seemed much less frightening when you weren't alone in it. Unless you were supposed to be alone in it and you weren't, and then it was way worse. In this case though, the only person who could 'see' in the dark was the only one probably capable of murdering him, and also the one who was supposed to make sure that didn't happen. He figured he'd try to count on the second half, because at least if the whole class died, she'd probably get fired. That was a losing situation for her. Probably.

The lights came on and Henry was really really glad that Oz wanted to work together, because there was literally no one else he'd trust to be blindfolded with. He didn't necessarily totally trust Oz either, but it was in the sort of playful way that Oz was a butt, not like he was literally going to stab him or something. Oz might tie his shoelaces together or steal something from his backpack or something, but he wasn't going to do something more malicious than that. In the whole world, there was only one person he could trust, and he was sitting in the room with him. Even when their mom didn't show up on time, or wasn't there, or couldn't make things work, Oz always could. There was a good chance Henry literally wouldn't be around if not for Oz keeping an eye on him even in the worst of times, and vice versa. He wouldn't want the other half of every sandwich if it meant he didn't have his brother.

"Yeah," he said, nodding decisively and arranging himself so that he was more directly lined up with Oz. He lowered his voice, not wanting others to hear him; although he wasn't usually willing to share his anxieties, knowing that Oz probably expected it of him anyway meant that at least he couldn't disappoint. "This is insanity, right? Not this this. Although this too. But everything?"

22 Henry Spellman I got you too, bro. 1513 0 5

Billy Cobb

November 11, 2020 6:08 PM

That sounds tricky by Billy Cobb

Billy sauntered into class, this was by far one of his favorites. It certainly wasn't one of his best, but he liked it a lot. It felt a little more like home... no, that wasn't right. It felt more like what he wanted to do than a lot of the other classes. They were just sitting around and learning stuff and practicing stuff. This class was about doing stuff. Charms taught him how to make something float up off the ground, this class taught him when and why to do it. Occasionally they got to get up and run around and learn how to survive... that, that was why it felt a bit like home. It was like Pa teaching him how to deal with the critters in the woods or Ma making sure he knew what plants were okay to eat and such. This class also kept you on your toes.

Like now, Professor Carter-Xavier wasn't at the front of the room. It was one of the other teachers, one he hadn't had yet. He wondered what they'd be fighting today. This professor didn't really look like a dangerous beast wrangler, but you never knew... Oh. Billy sucked in a deep breath when the room went dark. It seemed like his hearing kicked up just a bit as he became more aware of the noises the other students were making around him. The professor's voice came from a different direction, she had moved? He hadn't heard that. She'd asked them to raise their hands... in this pitch blackness? He did, she called on him and he stammered out something about using his ears. How...? Did those glasses let her see in the dark?

When the lights came back on, the teacher... professor was standing back up front as though nothing had happened. She then began to explain how she did that. He was going to need to learn this one. This would be a good spell to know. He turned to the kid next to him with eager anticipation. "That's pretty great! You wanna go first, or should I?"

2 Billy Cobb That sounds tricky 1519 0 5

Valentine Duell

November 13, 2020 7:28 PM

This is great! by Valentine Duell

Valentine let out a squeal of delight as she got to the DADA classroom. This was ordinarily not her favorite class. It was all about the dark and creepy things in the magical world, things she would really rather not think about. Unfortunately, not thinking about things did not make them not exist. Well, that was actually good, otherwise she wouldn't have an aunt, an aunt that was standing in front of the class which was going to make this the best class ever! She swiftly made her way to an open seat in the front of the room, unable to stop smiling from ear to ear.

She was going to have to remind Aunt Giselle that the dress she was wearing was the ugly green colored one. It was fine, but... she had nicer ones. Maybe she could help Aunt Giselle mark them somehow the next time she went to go see her. The train of thought was cut off as Professor Duell began class. Val was determined to be a perfect student and help out any way she could.

Aunt Giselle didn't talk long before she plunged the room into utter darkness. It was dark. Val could see her hand fight in front of her face. She could however hear some of the other student's reactions to the sudden darkness. She wasn't a fan of the dark, but this was coming from Aunt Giselle, so it was fine. This is what it was like for her all of the time, which was quickly confirmed as Professor Duell continued to wander about the room and talk.

When the lights came back on, she smiled with a bit of relief. It might have gotten difficult to do the whole class in the dark. Valentine started scribbling notes like a good student, then paused. This was a spell Papa had come up with? Awesome! She hasn't really thought about where Aunt Giselle had learned her 'seeing' spell. The idea that Papa had made it for his Transfigurations work worried her a little, Papa had been really good at that… she was less so.

When their supplies arrived, she looked at her partner with a bit of a nervous smile, "I hope Papa didn't link this spell to closely to transfigurations, or I'll be terrible at it." She picked up the bandana, "Would you like to go first, or should I?"

2 Valentine Duell This is great! 1490 0 5

Bertie Jackson

November 14, 2020 2:05 AM

It's pretty cool by Bertie Jackson

Defence Against the Dark Arts was both Bertie’s favourite and least favourite class. On the one hand, it involved smacking things upside the head and was the closest that school got to offering an experience to rival shooting zombies on a games console. It was actually the closest life in general got that a lot of the time because Mom was annoyingly strict about not letting him play ‘inappropriate’ games. However, Defence often involved quick reactions, and he didn’t like the associated pressure that came with that.

He took a seat at the front. He wasn’t always a ‘front row’ kind of guy in spite of being an Aladren because he didn’t like to draw attention or get called on too much. Just because he knew more than most people didn’t mean he felt the need to show it off. However, most of the other open seats were next to people he felt were undesirable to sit with (either because they were potentially stuck up or because they were that new kid who ran his mouth), so the front row was the lesser of two evils. The open seat was next to Valentine Duell, who he had observed to be overly talkative. However, that had the potential advantage of not expecting him to say much. Plus she was best friends with an Aladren, so unless Bonabelle was another outlier like Josie, Valentine was presumably capable of opening her mouth (repeatedly and perhaps excessively) without being annoying. Plus she was a Teppenpaw, so she would at least probably be nice.

It also hadn’t escaped his notice that the new professor shared her last name, and was currently at the front of the room. It was unlikely that this would give Valentine many advantages but it probably wasn’t a bad time to get to know her.

The lesson got off to an atmospheric start. Rationally, there was nothing to be afraid of. And Bertie was an Aladren and therefore rational and logical and not scared. He was, however, pretty glad when the lights came back on. The lesson itself really was excellent on all fronts. It was well designed and it made sense as a defensive skill. He also liked the stealth element and could see it being very useful in spying. It was also just downright cool that Giselle’s brother had invented a spell, and he sort of very much wanted to go around to the Duells’ house and hang out with him and talk about that. There was just one flaw with working on a niche spell such as this, and that was that he had no idea what the signs for it were. Over his summer camp programs over at CASCMA he had learnt the signs for all the most common spells that would be likely to come up during his beginners courses. This was clearly an uncommon spell. His signing was nowhere near fluent enough to make educated guesses at how he could sign it - he had learnt lists by rote, not learnt to put blocks together himself. He could finger spell, and use that as a back up for things he really didn’t know and where the words got stuck, but he was mostly just going to have to stumble his way through this one, and he couldn’t see it going particularly well.

“Your d-dad sssounds c-c-c---- awesome,” Bertie stated when Valentine brought up the fact that he’d invented the spell, his feeling that he had chosen the right partner for this class solidly reaffirmed, even if it didn’t seem like she knew that much about it.

“Uhh-ladies first,” he suggested when she asked which of them ought to begin. “Do-does he invent a-a-a lot of things?” he asked, his curiosity overcoming his dislike of small talk. Inventing stuff wasn’t small talk anyway. It was big and interesting and cool talk.

13 Bertie Jackson It's pretty cool 1497 0 5