Grayson Wright
January 04, 2023 7:40 PM
Intermediate Charms I by Grayson Wright
Ah, the Intermediates. The group was at a...delicate stage, both in life and in their education. The third years were transitioning out of Beginners, the fifth years needed to be at Advanced level by the end of the year, and the fourth years were in their own limbo, poised between the two other years and at constant risk of falling through the cracks. Teaching them was a perpetual balancing act, and one that Professor Wright could only hope he generally did an adequate job of."Hello, everyone," he said to the group, glancing around to see where various faces had located themselves. Occasionally, specific years would be assigned to work with specific years, very occasionally so the fifth years could learn by instructing the younger students, but much of the class material involved each student's individual mastery of the charm. If a seating arrangement caused too much of an obstacle to learning, he'd intervene, but otherwise the students were generally allowed to organize themselves, as they were also at the place in their development where they needed to learn responsibility for creating their own work environments. "Welcome back. Hope everyone had an enjoyable summer, and that you're all ready to get back to work."
'Prepared' might have been a better word to use, compared to 'ready'; he made a note of that for future occasions before he continued. "We'll start out with something simple, since you're probably all a bit out of practice over the summer." Third years weren't quite as bad as second years for seemingly forgetting everything they'd learned before the summer, but anyone who simply didn't cast a spell for two months was going to be a tad rusty upon their return, and technically, legally speaking, no-one here should have had much of an opportunity for spell-casting over the summer. Or at least, he very much hoped none of his students had had any opportunities over the summer to legally use magic, considering what the law defined as acceptable occasions for this age group in that time period.... "As some of you already know, Intermediate classes are where you begin learning some charms that can be - and are - used on people. Fifth years, by the time you leave us this year, you'll know several basic healing charms and the basic memory charm - things that you'll need to know as adult witches and wizards if you choose not to continue on to the Advanced classes. Third years, by the end of the year, you'll have started your foray into basic mood-altering charms - cheering charms, sleep-easing enchantments, that sort of thing. Fourth years - more advanced versions of the charms the third years work with and that you learned last year, and you'll begin on the healing charms, though not quite at the same level as the fifth years. For today, we'll all look at some cleaning charms that fall into the healing family, at least to the extent that they're safe to use on living things."
He tapped the board, revealing the incantations. "As you may have all had occasion to learn in some of your other classes - " he took a certain amount of pride in how it was rare for anyone to cut themselves in Charms; it wasn't impossible, it happened, but it was rarer than in some classes, especially, he imagined, Care of Magical Creatures, Potions, and perhaps Herbology - "one of the first things you want to do if you have a skin-breaking injury, once you've evaluated how serious it is, is to clean the affected area. If you're ever in a position where you can't access help immediately, usually if you're not comfortable trying to work on yourself or another person, then that's especially important. However, I'm sure you can imagine the reasons why you might not want to use the same spells on yourself that you'd use on your cauldron. Scourgify is a very useful charm, much like reparo, but they're both harsher than you usually want a spell you're using on something alive to be. The repairing charm, if you attempt to cast it on a person, will produce severe scarring; overly harsh cleaning charms will at best cause the patient a lot of pain, and at worst might make any bleeding worse. That's usually undesirable.
"A better - if more difficult - spell to use in such a situation would be emaculo. Instead of scouring what it's aimed at fairly indiscriminately, it works to lift substances - like dirt - that shouldn't be in an area more gently. Now, one of the issues about this class which may have already occurred to you, third years, is who or what you're going to cast these spells on. It would be very much against both my personal morals and the administrative guidelines for me to instruct you to deliberately harm yourselves, each other, or animals so you can practice healing them, and I imagine Healer Willow wouldn't thank me for conducting classes in her infirmary even on a day bad enough to allow you all to practice. As your older classmates can tell you - there's a variety of alternatives we'll make use of. Today, we're going to work on some very badly-potted - to the point it's injured a few of their tentacles - flitterblooms - you'll find them in pots at the back. For anyone who isn't familiar with them, they look very similar to Devil's Snare, but are much safer - they sway, but they react minimally to touch and aren't aggressive, so they cannot harm you.
"Third and fourth years should work together in groups or two or three to a plant. Fifth years, you can warm up by practicing this spell, but by the end of class, I'd like you to also attempt a second charm - confervo. It closes minor cuts and abrasions - it may be sufficient for very minor ones, though a deeper cut would require additional healing later. For homework, everyone should look up both spells in the encyclopedia of Charms and make notes on their common uses and mechanics. As usual, I'll walk around the room and observe as you're working, let me know if you have any questions or need assistance. All clear? Excellent. Let's get to work!"
OOC: Welcome to Charms! For the record, neither of these charms is canonical - I made them up. All the usual posting rules and conventions apply. Have fun!
Subthreads: Am I going forwards or backwards? by Xavier Lundstrom
Monsters! [Hansel] by Iris Cobb with Hansel Hexenmeister
Just ignore me by Yaniel Ayala Velez with Fortune Ardovini
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Grayson Wright
Intermediate Charms I
113
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Iris Cobb
January 06, 2023 7:46 PM
Monsters! [Hansel] by Iris Cobb
Iris entered the charms classroom and surveyed those who had arrived before her. She had two objectives to accomplish this year… well, three if one counted passing their CATS, but that one was significantly lower on the priority list. The first was to finish that assignment from Ulrich, and the second was… Iris smiled as she found what she was looking for.The Crotalus girl slid into the seat next to Hansel Hexenmeister with the best and friendliest smile she could manage. "Hi Hans." She said in almost, but not quite, a purr before setting out her books, notebooks and getting ready for class. It wasn't long before Professor Wright started the lesson.
As usual, he talked a lot. They were starting off with review things, which was good. She wasn't feeling to bad about the task at hand until he unveiled their practice subjects. The first thing that went through her mind was 'What happened to those poor plants!?'. The leader of the gardening club couldn't help but stare at the poor plants in near abject horror. Had they been potted by the first years? She was pretty sure that Professor Xavier's daughter could do better.
Momentarily forgetting her primary objective that she had set for the lesson, she rushed to the plants and picked the one that looked like it was in the worst shape. Iris carefully brought it back to her seat with a concerned look. "How could anyone do this to an innocent plant?"
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Iris Cobb
Monsters! [Hansel]
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5
Hansel Hexenmeister
January 24, 2023 5:06 PM
How . . . terrible. by Hansel Hexenmeister
Hansel had arrived early to class today, more by accident than design, though he had intentionally added a little bit of buffer to his travelling times today just because it had been a couple months since he last had to find his way around the school. It came back easier than usual this time, now that he was in his fifth year and he was moving into his third year of following the Intermediate schedule, so the extra time hadn't been necessary, so here he was. He'd picked a seat near the middle, a row closer to the front than the exact center, figuring his friends would find him easily if he was right in the middle.It wasn't one of his close friends, though, who slid into the seat next to his not long after. Iris. She was in his year, and seemed nice enough. He returned her friendly smile with one of his own, and echoed back, "Hi, Iris." She set out her books and supplies and he decided to follow suit since it looked like an efficient arrangement should he need any of those items.
Professor Wright then began the lesson, going on for quite a long time, as he was prone to do, though he suspected lectures would get even longer next year once they moved up to Advanced and the concepts became even more complex.
Iris rushed off to the plant for them to work on - he guessed the fifth years were supposed to work in teams, too, but that hadn't been explicitly specified. Third and Fourth year were working in pairs or trios. Fifth years . . . could work on the cleaning spell first, but should then try the healing charm, but he hadn't said to work alone.
Anyway, Iris brought back a plant with multiple injuries, so there was plenty of work for them both to do on it. She seemed outraged that the plant would be allowed to exist in this condition.
Hansel had never given a whole lot of thought to the well being of plants. Obviously, leaving one with broken stems and battered leaves like this one had wasn't great, but he wasn't sure he would have given it much more than a second look if he'd seen it out in the gardens. Or really known what to do about it before this lesson, even if he'd thought it needed treatment.
Professor Wright had said they were badly potted, so presumably the damage had come from the potting process. "I guess someone didn't know what they were doing?" he ventured. "I doubt it was on purpose," he added, because he tended to believe in the best of people.
1
Hansel Hexenmeister
How . . . terrible.
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