Selina Skies

December 30, 2022 9:35 PM
“Welcome back,” Selina smiled at the assembled sixth (how were these people sixth years already???) and seventh years.

“One of our first units will be medical transfiguration. As you might expect, this is a largely theoretical unit. Our practicals will focus on first aid, as that is something you can be expected to do, but the majority of the healing spells we look at will be covered in theory only. Today is a rare exception, to give you some hands-on experience, to practise your precision vanishment skills, and understand one real world application of that.” Such things often came up in theory papers, and some students would be more likely to remember the things they’d tried themselves rather than just those that they’d read in a book. “That does not mean you should ever attempt this on a live human or animal, unless you become qualified in one of those fields of medicine. Go to a healer. Always.

“Today, we will be working on Grindylow bones. Due to the number of breaks they sustain in their fingers, Grindylow bones often have extra bony growths. This makes them useful practice for the technique of specific and controlled vanishing. You will receive a bone, and should try to remove the growths slowly and steadily. If you go too far and take a chunk out of the bone, you’ll need to come and get a new one. Regrowing bones by magic is a much more complex process than removing them. For your homework, or once you complete two Grindylow bones, you need to research two different magical methods of putting bones back in, and how much they hurt.” The homework assignment, whilst useful in itself, was also designed to curtail any residual enthusiasm for trying these spells out on friends on pets.

“The usual vanishment spell of Evanesco applies. If you want to make it more specific you can add the word ossis but beware that this applies to the bone as well as the extra growth, so it may be a hinderance more than a help.” Different people’s brains worked in different ways, so some of them might find it easier with, some of them might not.

“You may begin.”
Subthreads:
13 Selina Skies Advanced - Don't try this at home 26 1 5

Rosalynn Tellerman

February 11, 2023 8:49 AM
Rosalynn was a sixth year, which meant advanced classes. She was looking forward to the step up in difficulty - and the absence of CATS review, though now she supposed RATS would become the frequent topic of encouragement to try harder.

It had been a tough choice, deciding which classes to keep and which to drop. She had enjoyed all of her classes during her intermediate years, and none of them were ones she particularly wanted to abandon, but she knew the importance of not overloading herself. It was one of the reasons she was handing off the Visual Arts club, and it was now also why she was dropping Astronomy, Divinations and Herbology. Divinations was the hardest of those to give up, and she debated dropping Potions instead, but ultimately decided Potions would probably be more relevant to her future life.

She wasn't quite sure what she was going to do with her future life yet, but Potions was a core subject for a reason, so she'd held onto it just in case what she decided to study needed a RATS in it as a prerequisite.

She'd never considered dropping Transfiguration. Not only was it obviously useful if you ever found yourself with the wrong supplies on hand, and also a core subject that was needed for a lot of future careers, but it was one she had a bit of natural talent for. She was hardly a Brockert, but Dad was good at the subject, too, and it just made sense to her. Of course, she'd grown up with a father who dramatically turned things into other things, or made them vanish all together (often with a puff of smoke - which was a more difficult effect to add to a vanishing than you might think), for a living, so . . . it just felt natural and normal to her that things could and should transition between different states of being.

Whatever she ended up doing though, she was reasonably certain medical uses of transfiguration would not be called for. She much preferred the more showy kinds of magic, and medical healers were, as a rule, far too serious and practical for her taste. Declaring "Ta-Da!" as you vanished a bone growth with a puff of smoke would be not only unprofessional but probably dangerous and she wanted no part in it.

Rosalynn did enjoy the extra precision of helper words in the incantation, and the warning that it might be a hinderance more than a help as there was bone that needed to stay where it was only made her feel she was being challenged in a way that made her more determined to try it and succeed.

Pointing her wand at the Grindlylow bone she'd been given to start with, Rosalynn cast, "Evanesco ossis!" and imagined one of the bumps smoothing out. The bone growth did vanish in it entirety, and she picked up the bone to inspect it closer, using her finger to prod at it and make sure she hadn't taken too much. It felt like there might be a slight indent in the bone now, and she frowned, and held it out to her neighbor. "Does that feel like I took too much to you, or is it okay?" She rubbed the spot in question. "Right here." It wasn't a deep depression, but she was pretty sure it was not entirely as straight as it could be. She just wasn't sure if it was bad enough to be considered a failed attempt.
1 Rosalynn Tellerman Noted and understood. 1520 0 5

Isla Brockert

February 14, 2023 1:31 AM
Last year had been amazing for Isla. She’d really enjoyed the Challenges and bonding with most of her teammates. Winning had felt pretty good too. Plus, at the end of the year, there had been the Concert which, of course, meant doing a puppet show with the Performing Arts club. Both of these events had involved successful group collaborations and had been immensely satisfying

It was just unfortunate that it was over now. Isla was pretty sure she wouldn’t be spending much time with her Challenge teammates now. The two closest to age were Bonabelle and Hans, the former of whom didn’t seem to think anyone other than Val was worth her time-actually, all three of the seventh year Aladrens seemed to think they were better than everyone, she had to admit-and while maybe Hans would, Isla would feel weird about doing so without Liesl, and sort of like a third wheel hanging out with the two Tepps together.

Still, it wasn’t as if she didn’t have anyone else to hang out with. In fact, now that the Challenges were over, she could resume spending time with Rosalynn and Lorena. As much as she’d had fun and been proud of herself last year, she had missed hanging out with them as much as she usually did. And while it wasn’t quite the same as putting on a puppet show-or a production with both human and puppet parts-the Bonfire was pretty fun too. At least Isla wouldn’t have to worry about finding people to share a tent with, something she knew could be difficult for some. She doubted Olaf would have an especially easy time with it, for example. Although, that would be more due to the second year’s misanthropic ways than rejection by others.

Besides, Isla only had two more years at Sonora with her friends before she went off to the dreary dull world of society parties which had been every bit as boring as she had expected them to be. Regardless of whether or not this year had been as good as last year-and she would do all she could for it not to be a let down-it was an improvement over summer break. Okay, there were nice parts of vacation too, like seeing family that wasn’t at school with her-although that also unfortunately meant seeing Topaz and Uncle Eustace-the parties had been…mind numbingly uninteresting. Isla didn’t have quite the same loathing and impatience for small talk as Olaf or Grandfather, but she still felt like, in addition to being exceedingly dull, was much too superficial for her liking.

And some of the people were so… mean , being catty and gossiping behind people’s backs. The Aladren knew people would not dare say things to her face, but she couldn’t help but wonder what they were saying about her behind her back or even just thinking about her. Maybe, much like a few people here at Sonora that were not that nice, she did not need their approval, but she didn’t want to be around them either.

Plus, Isla was sort of…alone at these parties. Esme and Amethyst actually liked these things. Allegra didn’t, but she had Josh now. Maybe when Liesl attended them, they could just be miserable together. At the same time, the sixth year was afraid it would be even worse for her cousin than it was for her. She was currently picturing the younger girl being forced into attire that did not suit her. The Teppenpaw’s parents, her mother in particular, were not especially understanding people.

Anyway, for now, Isla was at Sonora, determined to enjoy and appreciate it while she could.Currently, she listened to Professor Skies give them their lesson for the day. While medical transfig was not something that she felt particularly enthused about, not, for example, how Ian seemed to be, it was interesting enough and a lot more so than small talk at parties. Today, they were even having a practical lesson. Isla was unlikely to ever need to remove growths from a grindylow bone specifically, but she was pretty sure that this was a way of practicing vanishing skills more generally. Which was one of those things that was probably considered a life skill even if it wasn’t readily apparent how.

She received her bone and looked it over. There were two fairly large growths on it and one pretty small one that she almost did not spot at first. Isla decided to start with the biggest of the three and pictured it disappearing. “ Evanesco ”. It appeared to vanish, or at significantly shrink. She ran a finger over the spot where it had been, feeling just a small bump now.

Isla was just about to start on the next one, when Rosalynn spoke. She looked at her friend’s bone. “I mean, it’s not perfect,but it’s not a complete failure. Mine is sort of the opposite, I didn’t take quite enough.” Almost, but she was not going to brag.

After all, people bragging was another thing she didn’t like about attending parties.
11 Isla Brockert Indeed 1521 0 5