I'm more reminded of chemistry, really. on Charms

Professor Aaron McKindy

April 24, 2010 8:01 AM

Physics, but better [Lesson 1, Years 6&7] by Professor Aaron McKindy

As usual, Aaron McKindy was leaning against the oaken desk on the dais, waiting for students to open the heavy wooden door and enter his classroom. It seemed as though a fair amount of the rising sixth years had been interested in continuing his class, a fact that the Italian man had absorbed with a distinct sense of pride. He loved Charms, and he loved teaching, and the combination of the two was positively fantastic. Of course, he had seen a huge influx of responsibility in the past two years since returning to Sonora, but he had more-or-less adjusted. It was still odd to be a Head of House, and odder still to realise that a child he was actually responsible for in a non-academic environment (even if the arrangement was not necessarily permanent) was somewhere at Sonora at that very moment.

For the first time, Aaron had realised that he was an actual adult. It was an odd feeling, although not one he was distinctly opposed to. But the wedding ring he wore was just as much a symbol of that theoretical maturity as the comfortable jeans and dragon-bedecked t-shirt he wore weren’t—although Jessie, the biological child who was living with him, had gotten him the t-shirt on her two-week-long Romanian ‘adventure’ that had resulted in her informing the lot of them that she was dropping out of school to become a dragonkeeper.

With Garen’s help, Aaron had managed to convinced Jessie to at least attend Muggle community college for a few years before dashing off to the middle of nowhere to take care of dragons. He got the uncomfortable feeling that the only reason the headstrong seventeen-year-old had agreed to wait that long was because she wanted to drag Jera Valson with her.

It looked as though all of his advanced students had arrived and were in various states of preparedness for class at the moment, varying from those standing and chatting to those seated primly in their desks and staring straight ahead. Aaron chuckled.

“Right guys, let’s start,” the black-haired man began, although he left the door propped open in case there were students yet to arrive. The class settled into a vaguely teachable mass and Aaron continued. “What we haven’t been teaching you for the past several years is that magic isn’t actually neatly split into the subjects you take. As you may have noticed, our subjects overlap with greater frequency as you get into the higher levels of learning.

“Some of you may have heard of Gamp’s Law of Elemental Transfiguration?” A few nods, presumably from the kids actually taking the class at a higher level, mostly seventh years. “What are the five Principal Exceptions? Talitha?” After the seventh year had given a satisfactory answer, Aaron nodded. “So we can’t conjure food, okay. And how many of you have used the Aguamenti charm?” Hands shot up around the room. “How many of you have used your wands to emit some sort of other drink, like wine or soda pop? Butterbeer?” Fewer hands, but still hands.

“Awesome. As it happens, drinks can be one of the few exceptions to Gamp’s Law, as detailed in one of the many advanced Charms laws that we have not yet learned. So today, I want you all to experiment with what you can and what you can’t make come out of your wands. And for homework, I want you to write a one-page essay on your findings and their possible significance. Please clean up whatever messes you make, and just shout if you need help. You can work in pairs, if you’d like.” the man paused, grey-green eyes focused vaguely near the ceiling as he thought through his lecture to see if he’d missed anything. Nope. “Okay go ahead,” he added with a friendly grin.

|OOC| Minimum 10 sentences, house points, blah blah blah. Your characters shouldn’t be able to make very viscous liquids (potions, for example) or liquids with a complicated composition appear. Homework can be turned in at the Homework Bin for extra House Points—a one page (~400 words) essay on your character(s)’ findings and their possible significance. Have fun, tag me if you need help, the usual.

Subthreads:

Preparing for consistent failure. by Ian Grimm

I'm more reminded of chemistry, really. by Thomas Fitzgerald

Physics is really more an Aladren thing, isn't it? by Holly Greer with Chelsea Brockert

0 Professor Aaron McKindy Physics, but better [Lesson 1, Years 6&7] 0 Professor Aaron McKindy 1 5

Ian Grimm

April 26, 2010 2:33 PM

Preparing for consistent failure. by Ian Grimm

Ian Grimm felt an unusual pang of concern when he stalked into the Charms classroom and found it rather crowded-- not to mention, he was once again one of the youngest in the room. He had never doubted his intelligence, and thus far in his scholastic career, mere guess-work and applied logic had taken him through his classes with fair-to-middling results. For the lessons he considered relevant to his future goals, his practical results were almost always above-average; when it came to what he deemed busy-work for those same lessons, his turned in parchments and class outlines fell significantly below average.

He simply didn't see the point, and if it weren't for his parents' threat of another withdrawal for more private study, Ian would have continued with this same practice of selective application.

As it was, he was rather lucky that Professor McKindy had allowed him to continue with Charms despite his CATS scores.

Ian seated himself toward the back, bound parchment withdrawn and his self-inking quill ready. He really needn't have bothered, though; the lecture was a short one and spent mostly in the Socratic method of teaching. Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration; Ian dimly remembered the law having something to do with equivalent exchange and alchemists and the such. And then the five exceptions-- those also struck a dim recollection. Ian recalled an attempt by his father after drinking far too much wine to pour forth a particular vintage he claimed to have never tasted the equal of; the end result had been a vinegar-like substance that left Ian's father retching and his mother frowning.

Ian sighed, already feeling stressed, and cleared his desk of everything but his textbook and a blotter. He quickly transfigured the blotter into a shallow receptacle and then stood, his wand poised. He lifted his wrist, began the requisite motion, and then found himself jarred backward, his wand shooting something soot-like and chalky into the transfigured blotter.

Annoyed that his attempt at making cocoa had been foiled entirely, Ian spun around. "Attempt to learn how to walk, would you?"

0 Ian Grimm Preparing for consistent failure. 110 Ian Grimm 0 5

Thomas Fitzgerald

April 26, 2010 3:18 PM

I'm more reminded of chemistry, really. by Thomas Fitzgerald

Charms wasn't a field Thomas held any special affection for after five years of study, but there was no denying that it was extremely useful. Charms wiped away a lot of the little problems that would have otherwise required Muggle tech - a thing any half-witted would-be person of import here in the modern magical United States would try to avoid - to handle anything like effectively. It was a pity, especially since he'd been around his father's family enough to realize how much simpler life would be if wizards had access to phones and the Internet, but being too liberal was career suicide.

He supposed that was life for half-bloods. They got to see the best and worst of both sides, but instead of pulling them together to make an even better composite lifestyle, most were forced, eventually, to pick one side or the other. That it was usually the wizarding side was, in Thomas' opinion, more of a testament to an educational system that unabashedly favored the magical culture than to any specific virtues of the magical world. Muggles had their social problems, but he thought, overall, that they weren't nearly as bad on account of at least more than a token minority of people realizing they were problems and not the proper way to run things.

The charm Professor McKindy had for them this day fell in the middle of Thomas' spectrum of spell usefulness. On one hand, it could be very convenient, but on the other, there were perfectly mundane ways even in the magical world to access drinks. He wondered, too, how 'real' the drinks they would produce would be; he knew that when food was transfigured, it was usually a matter of taste and shape, not actual substance. A brownie from celery still had all the calories of a brownie, but it was less clear whether soda produced from thin air would still have sugar and caffeine in it, or if the spell would even last long enough for anything in the drink to get into the blood.

Something for his essay, perhaps, and his limitless free time. For now, he had to worry more about the practical issue of making the spell work.

The mention of soda during the lecture made him want Coca-Cola for no particular reason, but since he was fairly sure a lot of different things went into that, he decided that it would work better to start with something a little less complicated, like milk. Milk was basically one thing, wasn't it? A bunch of protein? Curse whoever had decided they didn't need to incorporate twentieth-century biology into the magical curriculum. Turning his spare inkwell into a temporary large bowl - he didn't know how long he could rely on the spell to hold, but it was better than making a total mess without trying to prevent it - Thomas began work and, within a few minutes, managed to produce what looked like milk.

'Looked like' were the key words, there. Tasting it didn't go so well. "Guess I just color-changed water, then," he said to no one in particular, then looked at the desk next door. "Having better luck?"

0 Thomas Fitzgerald I'm more reminded of chemistry, really. 109 Thomas Fitzgerald 0 5

Holly Greer

April 29, 2010 3:33 PM

Physics is really more an Aladren thing, isn't it? by Holly Greer

Holly Thistle of the Hollywood Thistles just blinked and stared uncomprehendingly at Professor McKindy as he randomly started speaking in tongues right after saying 'Right, guys, let's start.' Well, no, she was pretty sure those were English words, but over the next handful of sentences, as far as Holly could tell, only McKindy - and apparently Talitha - could understand the meaning behind them. Gimp's who's a what? Elemental something? Five Principles of how? What were they talking about?

Holly had a sudden very bad feeling coalesce in her stomach. She was glad she hadn't yet broken the habit of carrying around a supply of anti-anxiety potions and fished one out of her pocket to swallow a good sized gulp.

This was Charms, she was supposed to be good at Charms. It was the only class she scored better than an A on in her CATS. If she could not understand the first class lesson in Charms, she was fairly sure the rest of her RATS level classes were doomed.

She managed to put together that the key point he was trying to make was that food couldn't be conjured but water and some other simple liquids could be. Hopefully, that was as much as she needed to know.

In any event, she folded a piece of paper into an origami cup, pulled out her wand and cast an Aguamenti charm to fill the paper container, proving once more that, yes, she could, in fact, conjure water.

As she sipped at that - she wasn't quite sure what else to do with it, and the anti-anxiety potion did leave an aftertaste she was just as glad to wash away - she turned toward her friend sitting beside her and asked, "Have you ever conjured anything besides water? I wouldn't know where to begin." She did not go out of her way to learn anything that was not specifically taught in class and wondered if she was alone in that.

1 Holly Greer Physics is really more an Aladren thing, isn't it? 123 Holly Greer 0 5

Chelsea Brockert

May 25, 2010 7:00 PM

Not this Aladren by Chelsea Brockert

Even though Professor Mckindy seemed to be certifiably insane and his fashion sense was atrocious, Chelsea had decided to continue on with Charms anyway. It was a subject that did not involve being outside like COMC or touching revolting things like Potions or performing unladylike activities like in DADA. Professor Levy seemed to like doing such things even more than her predecessor had.

Besides, despite his dreadful taste in hats, Professor McKindy was an improvement over Professor Taylor, who was Chelsea's second least favorite professor ever aside from Old Flatt of course. She probably would have dropped Charms then. That woman had seemed to want them to all be muggles. Besides, she'd been so boring that Chelsea could barely stand to listen to her.

Although, right now, what Professor McKindy was saying was not terribly interesting to Chelsea either. She rolled her eyes when her brother's girlfriend answered the question. Of course, Adam would have to date someone as nerdy as himself. The best thing Chelsea could say about Talitha was that she was a pureblood.

Apparently, today they were going to be making liquids come out of their wand. Chelsea supposed that wasn't too terrible. She had known that was possible, of course. Having grown up with magic, Chelsea had seen most of her relatives use such spells quite often. Marshall, naturally, had often demonstrated the different types of booze that could come out of his, though being especially gifted at Transfiguration, he tended to prefer to turn water into alcohol.

That was not, however, what Chelsea was going to do. It was one thing to drink champagne or wine at parties, but it was inappropriate for a classroom setting and inappropriate at this time of day. She was not like her cousin. Chelsea was going to try for pumpkin juice first, as she already knew she could make water come out of her wand.

"Have you ever conjured anything besides water? I wouldn't know where to begin."

Chelsea looked at her friend. "So far, just pumpkin juice. I've never really tried to do this before now." Even though she was an Aladren, Chelsea was not any more inclined than Holly to do extra work. All she needed to do was pass her classes and do better than Nina. Though academics had little importance in Chelsea's life and would have even less in the future, she would not be outdone by her younger sister.

11 Chelsea Brockert Not this Aladren 108 Chelsea Brockert 0 5