Putting on a Show [Lesson I, Years 3&4] on Charms

Professor Aaron McKindy

May 16, 2010 9:44 AM

Putting on a Show [Lesson I, Years 3&4] by Professor Aaron McKindy

As it turned out, Aaron McKindy was actually aging. He had known it for awhile, vaguely, at the back of his mind, but for the first time he had been forced to realise that he was actually an adult. It wasn’t just because he would be turning 39 in less than a month in order to spend a year trying to avoid his fortieth birthday; it wasn’t just because Garen was still in his mid-thirties and several comfortable years away from being officially Middle Aged. There was also the few strands of silver beginning to work their way in at his temples and Aaron’s own feeling of being settled. It was unnerving.

Fortunately, the Italian had a lesson to teach, and despite feeling woefully old he had managed to pull himself out of bed, Transfigure his frogs into their customary pink-bubble-top-hat form, pull on a pair of jeans and a Potions X t-shirt of an interesting green colour that Jessie had given him, and make his way to his classroom. Heavy wooden door propped open, Aaron yawned and conjured himself a cup of coffee and waited for his students to arrive. Today’s lesson would be fun; a sort of pre-Midterm long-term project.

Kids began to arrive and Aaron greeted them with a friendly smile, chatting with a few about the recent goings-on in their lives. For all that Aaron was always at a loss when dealing with his own children, biological or otherwise, he enjoyed teaching and it had always seemed as though his students enjoyed his classes. Moreover, he had always been able to connect to his students in a way that evaded him with his own. The Charms professor didn’t understand, but he supposed he didn’t need to. After all, Jessie was an adult now and more than willing to continue on her own way with making his life very interesting. He would have to ask Sadi if Jera could stay over once they moved out of their overcrowded apartment. His friend’s daughter seemed to be a calming influence on the headstrong young witch that was Aaron’s.

“Right, so let’s get started,” Aaron stood, grey-green eyes sweeping the room. It seemed like most of the class was accounted for and sitting in the desks that were somewhat uncharacteristically arranged in Normal Classroom Fashion. “Please take notes.” With that, he sat down. The room took on a somewhat confused silence for a few moments before he adjusted the lighting charms with a few flicks of his wand; the room was now dark, save for one wall.

The next several minutes went by very quickly for Aaron as he spent the time muttering spells under his breath and manipulating the illusory figures that staged a brief, silent play against the backdrop of the illuminated wall. It was actually the play-within-a-play from Hamlet—probably a statement on Garen’s influence, if anything—and therefore fairly short, but by the time Aaron was done, he had the beginnings of a splitting headache. He wasn’t very good with illusions to begin with, and managing the entire thing by himself had probably been a bit of a bad idea. He took a sip of coffee before he raised the lights again, then stood carefully. His head spun a little, but he continued the lesson regardless and the room settled after a brief moment.

“You will be working in groups of two or three to perform brief ‘puppet shows’ with your magic,” Aaron informed the class. “This will be a long project, so you should probably work with your friends—not that I think any of you need to be encouraged to do that,” the man grinned at his class. “Illusions are somewhat complicated and a bit hard to teach exactly, but with the help of the books on the back wall you should be able to figure something out. As always, just raise your hand or come get me if you need help. This project will probably be a bit difficult for you, which is why I’m giving you all the resources I can, so use them!” With a nod and a shooing motion, he dismissed their attentions and sat down behind his oaken desk. His head throbbed and the Head of Pecari resisted the urge to put it down on the desk, instead taking another sip of coffee and watching the class.

|OOC| Minimum 10 sentences, be creative, form groups, make friends. Tag me if you need me. Remember, the better your posts, the more House Points your House gets!

Subthreads:

How fun by Dmitry Talsky (Crotalus) with Daniel Nash II, Aladren, Dmitry

Well, I'm certainly up for the challenge by James Anthony [Aladren] with Charlotte Abbott

0 Professor Aaron McKindy Putting on a Show [Lesson I, Years 3&4] 0 Professor Aaron McKindy 1 5

Dmitry Talsky (Crotalus)

May 16, 2010 12:08 PM

How fun by Dmitry Talsky (Crotalus)

Dmitry entered Charms with a neutral face, he liked Professor McKindy but the guy was crazy. At least he didn’t try to hide it like his old Professor used to, maybe it was Charms thing all the Professors were crazy. He sat in his usual seat, in the middle of the classroom and took out his books and parchment. He swept his black hair to the side as the Professor asked them to take notes, it also surprised him when the Professors asked them to do something, at Durmstrang they had told them not asked.

When the Professor began, Dmitry wondered what they were supposed to be taking notes on. McKindy was putting on a puppet show for a bunch of third and fourth years. Didn’t he know that most of them had grown out of silly things like this, years before? He shook his head and picked up his quill instead of taking notes he began to sketch. The one thing Dmitry loved to do was draw, and he liked to think he was rather good at it. The shape of a girl’s face took shape on the paper and he smirked to himself. He was only half-finished when the Professor brought up the lights again.

“You will be working in groups of two or three to perform brief ‘puppet shows’ with your magic this will be a long project, so you should probably work with your friends The Professor said causing Dmitry to groan. He didn’t like the idea of performing a puppet show he found it a bit too childish for his taste nor did he really have any friends at this stupid school. Charlie, he guessed would be considered a friend but she was girl and he had other plans for the dark haired girl then just friends.

He shook his head and then turned to the person next to him. “Would you mind if we paired up?” He asked in his accented English.

0 Dmitry Talsky (Crotalus) How fun 0 Dmitry Talsky (Crotalus) 0 5

Daniel Nash II, Aladren

May 17, 2010 12:39 PM

My thoughts precisely by Daniel Nash II, Aladren

Daniel had taken one of his normal seats in the middle of the room (not that McKindy's classroom was always arranged in such a traditional manner, but today he'd found a spot only one row back from the equivalent to his preferred spot in Transfiguration). His notebook was out and his quill waited at the ready long before the professor told them to take notes (which was also a little unusual for the Charms professor, but Daniel supposed even the less strict teachers occasionally found it nice to have their students do academic things like taking notes).

He recognized the Hamlet play almost immediately and noted this down in his notebook, but he doubted that was the focus of the lesson. This was Charms, not English Lit. So he spent more time looking back and forth between the professor and the little illusory figures acting out the Mousetrap. Daniel was unable to make out what words McKindy was saying, but he watched the wand and its effect on the illusions, and recorded all of the correlations he could find into his notes.

A few minutes later, when the lights came up again, Daniel stole a look at his neighbor's notes to see if he had found anything Daniel had missed, but was surprised to find a drawn portrait of a girl who was almost certainly Charlie Abbott. Daniel blinked and looked at his classmate, half expecting to find he'd taken a seat next to James without noticing, but it wasn't James. He was one of the new transfers; Dmitry or something equally Russian.

The guy must have noticed Daniel looking at him, because the other fourth year seemed to take it as an invitation to partner up for the assignment. Not having a better option - well, Taylor might have been a good choice for something like this since they'd acted together before, but she was sitting further away and now it would just be rude to find someone else, so Daniel just shrugged and nodded assent, "Fine with me."

"I am Daniel Nash the Second," he added, in case the transfer hadn't caught his name yet. From what he'd heard of the guy originally from Durmstrang, Daniel felt it was safe to assume he was one of the people who didn't know what a television was, so he wasn't worried about being recognized. Instead, he was a little concerned what a former Durmstrang wizard might make of him if he found out Daniel was muggleborn, so he was sure to up-play his good posture, his best enunciation, and the numeral at the end of his name.

He had nothing to be worried about with his appearance, of course. His robes were as well-tailored as any pureblood's, his nails were manicured, his chin was shaved twice daily (which Daniel knew was overkill, but he already showered twice daily, so he figured he'd do the whole routine as long as he was taking over the bathroom anyway), and his hair was trimmed impeccably. He looked every bit as wealthy as his bank account said he was. In the wizarding world, that seemed to translate to pureblooded, which Daniel wasn't going to argue against too strongly.

Of course, his Charms notes were taken in a five subject college ruled spiral bound notebook that completely defeated the impression he was trying to project. With an internal sigh of defeat, he gave up the pretense and pushed the book closer so Dmitry could read it. Maybe being an Aladren would save him.

"This is what I noticed during the demonstration," he explained. "It looked a lot like manipulating marionettes; calling it a puppet show appears to be an accurate comparison."

His eye drifted back to the unfinished but still unmistakable drawing of Charlie that Dmitry had made in lieu of taking notes of his own. "That's a good likeness of Charlie, by the way," he said. He was a little surprised that he didn't feel so much as a twinge of jealousy. Clearly, their ill-fated ambiguous relationship had been as doomed as his parents' marriage. "You should finish it and give it to her. I think she'd like it."

Shaking his head to dismiss any thoughts of Charlie and get his mind back on the class, Daniel flipped open his textbook to the chapter on illusions and began looking over how to do them. "I haven't worked with puppets professionally before," Daniel added distractedly as he skimmed through the chapter, "but this doesn't look quite as complicated as manipulating all those strings just right. We should be able to handle this without puppeteer training as long as we don't have too many illusions to control all at once."

1 Daniel Nash II, Aladren My thoughts precisely 130 Daniel Nash II, Aladren 0 5

James Anthony [Aladren]

May 17, 2010 5:26 PM

Well, I'm certainly up for the challenge by James Anthony [Aladren]

To be quite frank, James was more than a tad disappointed with the caliber of education at Sonora, particularly since Professor Taylor had departed the institution. He had been particularly fond of the former Charms professor, preferring greatly her no-nonsense, practical style over McKindy’s somewhat frivolous tendency to focus on the inconsequential in order to cater to the less academically-minded of his peers. However, James supposed that he should merely do his best in class in order to procure the best grade possible, while focusing in other areas in order to achieve the level of excellence he expected of himself when it came to CATs. To his knowledge, no Sonora student had achieved all O’s on their examinations; he intended to be the first.

Yet, to his great surprise James was confronted with a potentially useful lesson upon seating himself, pen and quill to parchment, at one of the desks and observing the illusionist show that McKindy put on for them. It was a scene from Hamlet, of course, and therefore rather uninspired and trite but c’est la vie. James did know that on former exams, illusions had factored in as a fairly large portion; therefore, he saw this opportunity as valuable.

It was with that in mind that the brown-haired, blue-green eyed boy stood, folded his parchment carefully, and went on the search for a proper person to work with. However, after a very short amount of time he came to the annoyed realisation that nobody in his year or the year below was quite bright enough to be truly useful as a partner. Therefore, there was really no point in being picky about partner material. With a sigh, James tucked his parchment into his bag and approached the first person he saw that was partnerless. With any luck, he would be working with a hidden genius.

In all reality, James expected the usual doltish behaviour of his unintellectual yearmates. Again, the French phrase came to mind as the fourth year steeled himself for the step down on the intellectual ladder.

“Hello,” he greeted the person with a smile, pushing his brown-rimmed glasses up his nose. “Would you like to be my partner for this exercise?”

0 James Anthony [Aladren] Well, I'm certainly up for the challenge 0 James Anthony [Aladren] 0 5

Dmitry

May 17, 2010 6:20 PM

I was being sarcastic... by Dmitry

Dmitry had been lucky so far with his partners here at Sonora, none of them had looked like a mudblood, and it seemed like his lucky streak had continued with Daniel Nash. He had added the second to his name and Dmitry almost scowled. His father had chosen to break with Talsky tradition and not name him, Vladimir like all first-born sons for the last seven generations had been. He should have been Vladimir Dmitry Talsky the eighth; instead, he was Dmitry Vladimir Talsky.

He forced himself to resume his neutral look, as Daniel pointed out what he had observed during the puppet show. He looked over the notes and nodded slowly "That's a good likeness of Charlie, by the way. You should finish it and give it to her. I think she'd like it." Dmitry heard the other boy say and he looked up confused for a moment. He had not meant to draw Charlie and yet he had. Usually he would hate someone looking at his art without his offering to show them but Daniel had complimented that. “It’s not a bad likeness; I could do much better if she had modeled for it instead of drawing by memory.” He said with a nod.

Dmitry flipped open his own book and sighed. They had studied illusions at Durmstrang last term and he had been horrid at them. Figuring it would be best if he did not tell his partner he nodded in agreement. “It shouldn’t be too hard, what do you think we should use as our story?” He asked as he ran his hand through his hair.

0 Dmitry I was being sarcastic... 0 Dmitry 0 5

Daniel

May 18, 2010 1:30 PM

I was being ambiguous... by Daniel

The story, Daniel figured, was going to be the hardest part. Once they had a script the rest was just practice until they got it right. Choosing story actually required thought, fore-planning, and discussion. He nodded, and frowned thoughtfully. "We obviously don't want anything with too many characters. And the Professor said it didn't have to be very long, so we're not looking at a full-length play or anything. A short would work."

Considering the option intently, Daniel got as far as asking, "Have you seen," before he remembered that Dmitry Talsky could not have seen anything Daniel was about to suggest. He shook his head, "Nevermind. Okay, I have a couple of ideas."

He pulled out a loose sheet of parchment from his bag and began sketching (in a very rudimentary way; his creative talent was acting, not art) a tree with a long thin branch hanging about parallel with the ground. "This one is very simple. We just have a tree, and some birds." Pixar had done it on a telephone wire, but Daniel thought the population of Sonora would get it better if the setting was a little more natural and less muggle.

He continued, "No dialogue, which is good, because even Professor McKindy's was silent." On the parchment, he drew first one bird (which more resembled a lump with two eyes and a beak than anything that was capable of unassisted flight), and then started adding more. The larger bird he added last was just a taller and skinnier lump that looked like it would have difficulty sitting upright and supporting its extra large beak, never mind fly.

Aloud, he gave an abridged version of the plot. "It's basically just a group of birds sitting on a branch, and then a larger bird they don't like comes along and perches next to them, making the whole branch sag. They snip at him until he almost falls off and is just hanging by a couple of talons. The littler ones peck at him, and he falls, but just before that happens, they realize it's a really bad idea, but it's too late. The big bird falls and the branch catapults the little guys violently up into the air when it suddenly doesn't have the big guy's weight keeping it bent down. We could close the scene with a shower of feathers like a curtain."

He frowned a little. "But that might be two many moving parts. Do you have any better ideas?" The short had seemed like a much simpler thing to accomplish when he was just watching it in the theatre rather than when he contemplating how to recreate it with illusion magics. "My next best plan is to forgo a plot entirely and just have a illusionary puppet tennis match or something."

1 Daniel I was being ambiguous... 130 Daniel 0 5

Dmitry

May 20, 2010 12:51 AM

If you say so. by Dmitry

Dmitry ran a hand through his hair as he shoved his drawing into his bag not caring if it was ruined, he would be able to draw it again if he really want to, which he didn’t seem himself wanting to do. When Daniel began to sketch out what he wanted the plot of the play to be about Dmitry smirked a bit. He wished he had taken over the boy’s sketches wasn’t very good, he was glad they didn’t have to turn it in because Dmitry would not have signed his name on that paper in a million years. He did like the idea it had made him smirk and it sounded way better then the tennis match.

He sighed and stretched for a moment and nodded slowly. “I like the birds and it wouldn’t be too bad. We could cast a moving charm on the birds so we could just deal with the illusions.” Dmitry suggested as he reached into his bag and pulled out a little green dragon that his little sister had given to him before leaving for school. “It’s really simple,” He said with a smile. “Usually we would cast the Draconis Charm on a dragon but for now I’ll use the Aves Charm.” He flicked his wand and said ‘Aves’ springing the little dragon to life, chirping like a bird as it flapped it’s wings.

“Then we’d just have to find a memory movement charm and focus on the illusions.” He said with a nod. He was glad that all the time in the nursery for Sasha, it had come in handy. Though he would never tell anyone, he loved his little half-sister more then life, it was weakness and he knew it. Dorian was a pain, and Dmitry made sure his half-brother knew how much he disliked him, but Sasha had stolen his heart the moment she was born. He shook his head and looked over at his partner. “So what do you think?” He asked.

0 Dmitry If you say so. 0 Dmitry 0 5

Charlotte Abbott

May 25, 2010 1:31 PM

Sure, if it passes the time by Charlotte Abbott

Charlie usually enjoyed charms classes, and she knew that was because Professor McKindy was teh Awesomest of Them All. Today was no exception; they sat and watched a really cool magic show at the start of the class, and then had to create their own illusion in partners. Charlotte was a tad daunted by this prospect; it looked like the professor had been putting some real hard work into those spells, and despite sharing this class with third years, Charlie felt she might not be particularly adept at its content. If she was going to be successful in this lesson, it would probably to help to work with one of those smart types. You know, Aladrens. Thankfully Charlie knew several of those.

She turned to see which brainiac would be the best option, and James Anthony was approaching her as if he'd read her mind. "I'd love to be your partner for this exercise," Charlotte replied, her non-verbal communication exactly matching the verbalized sentiment. She still held a fancy for her well-spoken yearmmate (though was still sure she'd scared him off by kissing him at the end of the ball. She hadn't heard a great deal from him since).

"Did you have any story ideas in mind?" Charlie asked as she started flicking through her textbook to find the sections they would require for the assignment. The only thought she'd had on the matter was The Nutcracker, her favorite story, but it was quite long and complex, particularly for someone as new to illusions as herself. They could always do a section from it, she supposed - that would probably qualify for not failing the class.

0 Charlotte Abbott Sure, if it passes the time 135 Charlotte Abbott 0 5