Grayson Wright
February 11, 2022 7:23 PM
Beginner Charms - Cardinatus. by Grayson Wright
"Good morning, everyone. First thing - did anyone have any problems with your homework over the weekend?"So began another meeting of Beginner's Charms. Professor Wright did his best to look as mild-natured and non-judgmental as possible as he asked the question. He'd just assigned them their first proper short essay of the year, which was quite possibly the first proper essay of any kind that some of the first years had ever tackled. It was only an opinion piece about the chapter of the textbook they had just finished, but he had asked for about four hundred words, and for them to include quotes from their textbook to support their opinions. He'd held off on making them acknowledge and answer counter-arguments for now, but hoped some of them had tried it anyway; having done so was not only a path to being a student after his own heart, but also carried with it a decent chance of bonus points, assuming the effort wasn't unspeakably bizarrely poorly done.
"Now that we're done with that, I'm sure some of you, at least, will be glad to hear that today you're in for a mostly practical lesson," he continued, once the subject of the homework had exhausted itself. "Since we've pretty well gotten the hang of Hover Charms now, we're going to look at another charm of motion today. This one makes two objects behave as though they were connected by a hinge, even though no physical hinge exists. The incantation is cardinatus, and the wand movement is the combination of swish and circle. You know the drill by now, wands out, let's all practice that one together again before anyone makes an attempt...."
He went through the wand motion practice with the students, ensuring that everyone at least had a clear point of reference for what it looked like. Besides, practice in general never hurt anyone; going back to basics was often a good way, he'd discovered, to problem-solve, either because it reminded him of the simple things he could overlook too easily, or perhaps just because it kept his conscious mind busy and allowed the rest of his brain to work on the problem uninterrupted, though he hadn't mentioned that sort of thing to the Beginners. The Beginners heard, at least twice a week, about how a firm foundation was the only kind they should build on, and that to have a firm foundation, they had to work on its construction as attentively as they did the more visually impressive parts of the 'building' made up of their magical skills.
"Very good," he said, when reasonably confident nobody was going to blow things up from a wrong wand movement. "Now - your materials. You'll put together trinket boxes for this exercise." He had brought a variety of boxes in different styles, decorations, and materials for them to pick from. "Each of these needs its lid attached, and you're going to use this charm to attach the lid of the box you pick. The most successful version of this spell would let me pick the box up by the lid, and not have the rest of the box fall down to your desk; the expectation for today is that the lid can be raised and lowered without coming apart. As always, be patient with yourselves and each other, and focus on performing each movement and incantation as well as you can. Take your time, and let me know if you have questions or if something seems to be going wrong. Everyone understand? Good. You may begin."
OOC: Welcome to Beginner's Charms! This is a class for first and second year students. All standard site rules apply, so all replies should be at least two hundred words and should only control the actions of your own character. Be realistic - a detailed post where your character, who has been using magic for a month or two at this point if they're a first year, fails realistically is better than one where they're unrealistically perfect.
As for the spell, I made this one up myself.
Subthreads: Magic time! by Fortune Ardovini with Yaniel Ayala Velez
How charming by Verdillia Scurlock with Christopher Brockert
Making boxes/friends by Leviosa Scurlock with Eris Ryan
Cardinatus? More like falling-offus... by Xander Faro with Gwendolyn Brockert
Humph by Freya Curtis
16
Grayson Wright
Beginner Charms - Cardinatus.
113
1
5
Leviosa Scurlock
February 18, 2022 11:25 PM
Making boxes/friends by Leviosa Scurlock
Levi made her way to Charms. She was definitely leaning towards shortening her name after hearing a whole class of people chanting it for nearly a week—that had been a weird feeling, both emotionally, and because she could swear she’d started to feel a bit floaty by the end of class, though that might have been purely psychological. She was still fluctuating between lee-vee or leh-vi for the abbreviation’s pronunciation though.Her main priority in choosing a seat was as far away from her sister as possible. Verdillia was being so overbearing. It was like she expected Levi to get everything perfect—every spell, every homework assignment, every friendship, every hairstyle. Other people probably thought Verdillia was being a sweet big sister, trying to take care of her, but Levi was convinced she just wanted to make her live up to expectations—Verdillia and mother’s, which tended to dominate opinions.
The charm they were doing today was sort of weird. Most things that needed a hinged lid already had one. People tended to think that sort of thing through when making things. And there were physical hinges to do that job. Okay, you could also do it with magic but it didn’t feel like something she’d ever really need. She thought about little trinket boxes, sold in souvenir shops, and wondered whether this was someone’s job, just constantly sticking lids to things. That sounded sad. Though maybe if you got to work in the shop and just do it in between serving customers it wouldn’t be so bad. You could spend half your life socialising and half making pretty things… That sounded nice. Still, whether or not she had a future career in a quaint little souvenir shop (she almost definitely did not, mother would absolutely not approve), she had to work on the spell today. The fact that Professor Wright was the teacher and he had said so was enough reason to find it necessary. She had only ever been in trouble with her tutors by accident, for asking awkward questions or being a bit daydreamy. She had never openly rebelled against completing a task.
She took a brightly painted wooden box, a purple one with sparkly stars, and placed the lid carefully on top. She felt like she should make some other preparation, and nudged the lid about a bit under the pretext of checking it was straight, but it almost definitely was, because of the little lip that held it in place on top of the box.
“Cardinatus?” she cast, then realised she’d accidentally made it a question. She kept doing that on her first tries. It wasn’t at all a surprise when she lifted the lid and it came away fully. She settled it back on, trying to iron the doubt out of her voice. “Cardinatus,” she cast more decisively, though when she lifted the lid, it didn’t seem to do more than catch slightly, in a way that could have been it snagging as she lifted it.
“How’s it going?” she asked her neighbour, deciding that making a friend was just as worthy a goal as making a hinged box. “Mine’s still very much a work in progress,” she added, just in case they thought she was breaking off because she was doing well and then felt bad if they weren’t.
13
Leviosa Scurlock
Making boxes/friends
1545
0
5
Eris Ryan
February 19, 2022 1:10 AM
Boxes could be friends? by Eris Ryan
Eris was trying really hard to pay attention to the feedback that Professor Wright was giving on their first homework assignment. She had begrudgingly realized that she did consider them professors despite their apparent like of completion of a doctoral program, simply in that they were so much more educated on a billion different things that she had never even considered before. For example, the need to attach a lid to a box by magic. Was this easier than carpentry? Just as complicated? Take less time to master? Who knew. But she did know that her essay was probably one of the better ones in the class. Without any magic in muggle-school, she was well versed in how to argue with authority figures, even in writing.She may not like to admit to paying attention to teachers, hoping that her disinterested expression and vague responses would lead them to leave her alone and not draw attention to her during class. Though she did want to be accepted and better here. She was trying really really hard to pay attention without looking like she was paying attention. Professor Wright was going over the proper wand movements for the lid fastening spell and she made careful note of his gestures. Outwardly, she swung her wand with a reckless abandon—careful not to do that at the same time that she said anything. The pronunciation of the incantation “cardinatus” was probably the most difficult part. Tongue-tied on the best of occasions, to speak with authority and conviction had proved challenging. It had taken her longer than the other students to master the hover charm…. Maybe she should actually pay attention rather than paying attention while focusing on appearing like she wasn’t paying attention when she was in fact… paying attention. It only resulted in a divided attention.
Things to consider for another time apparently, as it was time to select her trinket box. Like so many instances at this school, there were so many choices to be had. Did she want a plain wooden one? A round silver filigree box? A square tortoise shell incrusted container?
Settling on a small, red-wood box with Celtic inspired engravings of knots and twists, Eris returned to her seat and prepared to attempt the charm when she heard her desk mate ask her a question.
“Oh, I haven’t actually started. I have only managed to pick out my box. Do you think it matters which type we choose? Does it make a difference?”
60
Eris Ryan
Boxes could be friends?
1552
0
5
Leviosa Scurlock
February 24, 2022 5:20 AM
Absolutely! by Leviosa Scurlock
The witch with purple hair was sitting next to her. Levi had definitely noticed her, because it was hard not to. She wondered whether she had coloured it, or was a metamorphmagus, though either way purple was an…unusual choice. But then, her year group seemed to be full of unusual people. There was Lenny, was wore sparkly hairclips but was still a boy, and now this person who seemed to be deliberately purple. Whereas Levi was, so far, very much just Levi. Perhaps she should have kept her name long… Maybe it was the only interesting thing about her. She certainly didn’t feel very bright or bold next to the people she’d met so far. Though her goal had been to meet all kinds of interesting people, so she could hardly complain. Sonora was definitely living up to that so far; everyone was very different to how she was.“It was hard to choose. There were a lot of pretty ones,” she agreed, when the girl commented about only just getting a box. “Uh… Probably?” she ventured a guess about whether it made a difference. “I mean, if it’s something really heavy, it’s going to have to be charmed more strongly for Professor Wright to be able to hold it up, right? Though if it was really fragile, I wonder if you could charm it so hard you broke it… Also, how much you like it might affect how good you are at casting the spell.” Those were just off the top of her head, based off what she knew of magic, but they sounded about right.
13
Leviosa Scurlock
Absolutely!
1545
0
5
