The piddliest of piddles. on Charms

Professor Perrault

July 17, 2016 1:37 PM

Water-Making Spell by Professor Perrault

Edward was aware that the CATS and RATS exams were getting nearer now that midterm was over and done but he was an organised person and his classes were scheduled to be on track for plenty of revision time for the students. He expected the fifth and seventh years to also be thinking more about their exams now but did not want them to be caught up worrying about them. There were the usual handful of students who could do with buckling down if they wanted to achieve their targets grades at the end of the year.

At the end of the first week back at Sonora following the midterm break, Edward had arranged a test for his Advanced students on everything that had been covered. The test paper he had made up for the sixth years had been marginally different to that of the seventh years but overall they were fairly similar. Today he was giving them back their test papers which he had marked, scored, and graded.

Edward had given all of his students target grades which he expected them to be reaching by the end of the year. He was willing to adjust these throughout the course of the year where he saw fit but lowering a target grade was something he wanted to avoid at all costs. If anyone was struggling, he would rather push them than lower their sights from something they were actually capable of achieving with hard work and determination. In any event, he ultimately hoped for all his students to do the best they possibly could and did not believe they should be limited by a target grade. There were probably a handful that could exceed such a goal should they work hard enough. Edward found target grades useful for himself, to make sure that the students stayed on track so it was easier to identify those that needed extra help but wouldn’t come to him for it of their own accord, and also so they had something to aim for which hopefully gave them a source of motivation.

The professor did think that seventh years, however, should have their own aims because they should know what grades they needed to get in their RATS to go on to do whatever it was they wanted and that in itself should motivate them. Nonetheless target grades did not hurt, so long as they didn’t encourage students to set their sights lower than they would otherwise do.

“Good afternoon,” Edward greeted the class warmly once they were all seated.

“I have marked your test papers,” he told them without giving away whether he had been pleased by the results or disappointed. “I will hand them out whilst I take roll call so you may look through them but please be quiet about it.” Many students would inevitably chat about the test but Edward did not want to actively encourage the comparing of results. He did not literally ‘hand them out’ but instead waved his wand and the papers distributed themselves to the correct students.

Once he finished taking roll call, he ordered the class to put their test papers away. “Please put them in your bags so you won’t be distracted.” He had not given the students a great deal of time to go through their papers as roll call did not take long but they would at least have seen their grade. “You may look through your answers in your own time and come and see me if you have any questions or concerns. For those of you who have scored two or more grades below your target grade, you must join me for Intervention tomorrow evening. Be here for six o’clock. I would also advise those who didn’t quite achieve their target grade to come along, and even if you did and have questions, you are still welcome to pop in.”

“Now, we shall commence with today’s lesson,” Edward moved on swiftly. “As promised we will be practising the Water-Making Spell which we have done plenty of theory work and background research for in the past few lessons. Can you quickly tell me the purpose, incantation and wand movement for this charm?” Edward didn’t require students to put their hands up to answer questions in Advanced Class but for those who knew just to tell him the answer. They were old enough now to be polite and not just shout out answers over other people so he felt it was easier to have a more relaxed classroom environment with them where they should feel comfortable to interrupt him to ask relevant questions and such.

He paused briefly for the students to run through the basics of the spell, expecting all of them to know the answer but only three to respond, before giving a demonstration. Edward held his wand in front of him and cast the spell at the shallow bowl purposefully placed on his desk for the lesson so that the students could see it filled with water.

“I’d like you all to have a go now,” Edward instructed the class, waving his wand and distributing bowls around the class so that there was one on each students desks. “Seventh years, if you are already confident with the spell, practise it nonverbally. Sixth years, you may do the same if you feel ready but don’t rush into it - practise it verbally until you feel in control. Everyone please remember that control is the key - we are just filling the bowls with water, not sending jets of water around the room and soaking all of my books. Make sure you take notes if you notice anything interesting about casting this charm. You could write down tips for yourself to refer back to. Once you feel well practised with the spell, please start writing an essay on uses of it - without using any textbooks; we have done a lot of research on this already so you should have plenty of ideas - and you may also talk about its effect, including the advantages and disadvantages. Finishing this essay will be your homework.”

Subthreads:

Just keep charming, just keep charming... by Brandon Carey, Pecari

The piddliest of piddles. by Jake Manger [Teppenpaw] with Clark Dill, Aladren

Splish-splash. by Isaac Douglas, Crotalus

Cool, clear water. by Lionel Layne, Pecari

Tedious Matters by Oliver Ferguson II, Aladren

8 Professor Perrault Water-Making Spell 0 Professor Perrault 1 5

Brandon Carey, Pecari

July 17, 2016 10:51 PM

Just keep charming, just keep charming... by Brandon Carey, Pecari

Professor Perrault always seemed to speak pleasantly, even warmly, and usually pretty evenly. He seemed like a calm and steady kind of wizard, someone like Brandon’s uncle Anthony. There were only two key differences, really, and they were that Perrault couldn’t dictate the entire course of Brandon’s life on a whim and that Uncle Anthony nevertheless made Brandon feel just a little bit sick to his stomach just by speaking far less often than his new Charms professor did.

Brandon’s reading and writing had improved a lot over the past six years, but he still didn’t enjoy doing either thing or find either thing easy to do and the pressure of Perrault’s ‘target grades’ made the written exams even worse for him. Just meeting them wasn’t enough, not when he was afraid they had been set lower than other people’s because Professor Skies’ experts had written it down that Brandon wasn’t good at words – Brandon’s father had meant well when he had blackmailed Anthony the Sixth into allowing Brandon to have the special teachers, and Brandon loved him for it, but it had shamed the family, so Brandon hated to think of shaming them further by being held to a lower standard than Muggleborns, half-bloods, and members of lesser families – but it was hard to even meet them and he didn’t always do it. Add on top of that the pressure of knowing that what kind of life his family would allow him to have after he left this place hinged on how well he did…He didn’t want to be like his sister Theresa, still treated like a child years after he left school, or given the worst jobs because they didn’t think he was smart enough for anything else, or...or anything like that. He wanted….

…He didn’t really know yet, but he wanted to do something that would allow him some respect and be interesting. Diana said he was talking above his station and that he’d be knocked back into his place if he didn’t keep it on his own, but what did Diana know? She was good at words, yes, and what he had read of the yearbook last year said she was considered the best witch in her year, so she might have respect of her own someday, but right now she was just a girl. They had always been told that they would be rewarded according to their worth, and he was still part of the family even if there were those bad papers about him. There were more important things than words.

His paper flew to him and Brandon made no attempt to read any comments on it during the roll call, knowing he didn’t have time to puzzle out the professor’s handwriting. All he bothered with was the grade, which was…acceptable. He didn’t have to go to yet another intervention if he didn’t want to, though he knew he probably should, especially if he discovered that some of the comments indicated he didn’t understand something instead of that he just hadn’t shown that he understood very clearly when he deciphered them later. Just a few more months of this….

Brandon seized the opportunity to look smart when Perrault asked them for information he could deliver in a non-written way – “it’s, uh, a spell to conjure up water, Professor, the incantation is aguamenti, and the wand movement goes like this” – but didn’t get to feel satisfied with himself for long. Non-verbal magic was rapidly becoming the bane of his existence, even more than written words; just as he had to move his lips even now when he read, he found it extremely difficult, past the point where he thought everyone found it difficult, to cast spells without hearing himself invoke the word. Saying it in his head didn’t work as well, and moving his lips silently only helped a little even when he didn’t get called out for it.

He pressed his lips together, though deliberately not too tightly because he didn’t want to look like he might be sick, and picked up his wand when Perrault let them start work. Aguamenti, he thought firmly. Aguamenti. Aguamenti… His thought had slowly started to drift from firm to a little annoyed and desperate, the latter emotion fueled even further by the lurking thought of another writing assignment - one he was supposed to start in class, without his dictation quill, on top of that - before the finest of mists drifted down to his desk.

Well, it was a start. There had been worse days. He had been right not to quit school after CATS. He could do this. Just a few more months….

0 Brandon Carey, Pecari Just keep charming, just keep charming... 0 Brandon Carey, Pecari 0 5

Jake Manger [Teppenpaw]

July 19, 2016 3:39 PM

The piddliest of piddles. by Jake Manger [Teppenpaw]

Jake was pretty fond of Charms. If anybody asked, he probably would have said Potions was his favorite class--mostly to avoid hurt feelings, since the professor was his sister-in-law--but Charms definitely ranked up there. This professor seemed pretty nice, this Professor Perrault, although in comparison he was still relatively new to the school. Not the newest anymore, since an Astronomy professor had been picked up, but still. By nature, Jake was pretty open and trusting person, but he’d been trying to keep his heart in his chest instead of his sleeve a bit since the stuff about his dad, so he was subconsciously a bit afraid to really commit any impression on new people, particularly adult men.

He scanned over his returned test briefly, the grade not quite what he’d been hoping for but still pretty acceptable. The Teppenpaw debated for a moment if he would go see Professor Perrault about it later, but he didn’t have enough time to make a solid decision before they were instructed to put their tests away so they could get down to business. And that was fine, Jake supposed . Better to do work than to dwell on something as stupid as a grade. (His mother had instilled in him the notion that the letter didn’t matter as much as his comprehension, so as long as he felt like he’d done decently and tried his hardest, that would be okay.)

The clattering of the magically-placed bowls made him jump slightly, a hot wash of embarrassment flooding him. He had spent his full almost-seventeen years of life around magic, and still things like this could make him jar. Maybe he was just skittish today; it didn’t happen too terribly often. But he just felt silly and hoped nobody was looking at him.

At least the work for the day wasn’t too bad. The essay was a bit unsettling since there weren’t really many clear instructions. Somehow Professor Perrault’s sentence had turned from “Take notes if you feel like it” to “and write an essay on the topic”. Jake wasn’t altogether a bad writer, but he wasn’t terribly creative that way and the more instructions he could get, the better. Length in particular was the factor, so without it specified, he assumed that meant as long or short as necessary. If he could manage the succinctness with which he usually wrote--a fairly strong contrast from his manner of verbal communication--then maybe he could crank it out that night. He’d try, at least. It’d be a lot easier with textbooks, and while Professor Perrault would technically have no way to know if they used them, the idea of disobeying never even crossed Jake’s mind. Cheating was not in his vocabulary.

So instead he just aimed his wand at his bowl and incanted, “Augamenti.” The stream his wand generated was a piddly one, like a child’s squirt gun, and so he immediately jetted forward to hold his wand over the bowl, afraid of dripping on the floor and making a slippery mess. Jake glanced around nervously and happened to make eye contact with a neighbor. “I mean,” he said weakly, “I assume the strength of the water must be related to how much you sound like you mean it, but I’m so afraid of making too big a jet and getting everything wet.” He gave a sheepish smile. “So I guess this is what I get. Are you having any more luck?”

12 Jake Manger [Teppenpaw] The piddliest of piddles. 280 Jake Manger [Teppenpaw] 0 5

Clark Dill, Aladren

July 21, 2016 5:03 PM

Let it all out by Clark Dill, Aladren

Clark caught his test as it flew bad to him and frowned at the grade. He'd only gotten an E this time. Clearly the study time he'd cut to make room for his date with Lena had caught up to him, but not so bad that he'd need to go to the intervention class. He was only down one letter grade from his target and unless the comments on the test suggested he'd actually misunderstood something instead of just not expanding upon the finer details that pushed a paper from an E to an O, he knew his problem was simply one of failure to study sufficiently. Next time (because there would be a next time as he still needed more dance practice and spending extra time with Lena was a thing he wanted to add more of to his schedule not less), he promised himself, he would spread what study time he did have left more equitably between his classes instead of just assuming that he didn't need to study for Charms simply because it wasn't regarded as academic as some of the others.

For the long term, though, and heading into his RATS next year, if this having-a-girlfriend thing continued, he was definitely dropping Care of Magical Creatures to release some of the strain on his schedule, though honestly, he was really enjoying it now with such a small class size. It just didn't fit into his future plans as much as most of the others did and so was the easiest to justify dropping. Plus Tallec had left, so he didn't feel like he was deserting a teacher.

Arguably, he could drop being a library monitor and let John take over as Head Monitor. That would clear up *a lot* of time. If he could bring himself to abandon the post.

But that was not today's concern. Today's concern was putting away the test and not analyzing what he missed while Professor Perrault tried to teach him something new. This became more difficult when the 'new' thing turned out to be the water making spell, which had looked so useful the first time he'd seen an advanced student using it, he had gone and looked it up and taught it to himself months ago.

So he put himself on the seventh year lesson and tried to do it non-verbally. Clark was unusually bad at non verbal spells, and it wasn't because he had skimped on time commitments. It was because he was a talker. He often did his thinking out-loud so trying to put something that was supposed to be outside his head inside of it was both counterintuitive and extremely difficult for him. He had lost Aladren points last term for casting out loud during the first nonverbal lesson, not on purpose, but because he hadn't been able to keep his words under wraps and his tongue spoke them without permission from his brain.

By now, he was marginally better at the whole not-speaking part of it, but he was still running only about 50% success rate even on early intermediate spells, so he wasn't expecting much going into augamenti nonverbally.

He held his wand over his bowl and thought the incantation at it forcefully, but nothing happened. His next two attempts worked no better, and his fourth produced a few drops but nothing near the stream of what he knew he could do if he just spoke.

"Gah!" he exclaimed when Jake asked how his luck was going, grateful for the chance to release his tongue. "Got a few drops," he said, showing the tiny splatter at the bottom of his bowl, "but I'm trying it nonverbally and I seriously think I use my words as my focus more than my wand. It's just not working! The sound of your intent is definitely a factor, and I haven't figured out how to get around it when there is no sound!"

He sat back and huffed out a breath, trying to curb his frustration
before continuing, forcing a grin that became more genuine as he advised, "We know cleaning and drying charms, so I wouldn't worry about overdoing your water output. Just go for it."

1 Clark Dill, Aladren Let it all out 277 Clark Dill, Aladren 0 5

Jake

July 24, 2016 4:19 AM

I'll do my best. by Jake

Clark Dill was not someone Jake was particularly close to, although he did consider him a friend because that was generally the Teppenpaw’s default opinion: friend until proven otherwise. Clark was in the same House as Arnold had been, so they’d talked about him a little bit, both brothers agreeing that he was a decent person. Like, he sort of had to be if the school was willing to give him both Assistant Captain (and eventually Captain) for the Quidditch team and a Prefect’s badge. Indeed, he had to be a decent person at the very least, so Jake had decided from afar that he liked him.

He nodded attentively along as Clark explained his dilemma. “Well, good on you for trying nonverbally,” he said with a smile. “I’m not anywhere near that level yet, so I’m really glad we didn’t have to do it that way today.” His blue eyes fell into Clark’s bowl, noting, as Clark said, just a touch of splatter. It wasn’t a whole lot less than what Jake had produced thus far, and he was trying the spell verbally, so he was still pretty impressed. “Can you try thinking it louder? Is that a thing? Or like, think it stronger at least?” He wasn’t sure if it was possible to change the volume of thoughts, but some thoughts definitely felt louder, or at least more intense, than others.

“Yeah,” he conceded to Clark’s remark on drying spells. “I mean, I know, but I just hate to need them, you know? Sometimes even with magic, papers don’t quite dry right. It’s really finicky, or at least when I cast it. I guess I can’t report for others.” Jake was fairly decent with his magic, but he wasn’t truly exceptional. He had to work for spells the same way he had to work for written grades. Really, without Arnold here to help him, his grades were kinda up in the air this year. He wasn’t failing anything, so he figured he was okay for now, but he was using this year as a sort of test run to decide if he needed to sign up for the academic support thing next year to prepare for his exams. Thus far, he didn’t think it would be necessary, but he’d know for sure when finals were closer.

“I guess I better give it a try though, right?” he added before repositioning his wand at the bowl. “Augamenti!” he called, this time with much more intensity. And, as somewhat kinda expected, the stream’s pressure increased--maybe a little too much, honestly, as a decent amount splashed onto the desk, but he’d cleared it off enough that nothing was at risk. “Hey, look at that!” he cried happily. In celebration, though, his focus broke, and the spell ended. “That was pretty good,” he grinned, turning to Clark. “Your turn.”

12 Jake I'll do my best. 280 Jake 0 5

Isaac Douglas, Crotalus

July 28, 2016 3:23 PM

Splish-splash. by Isaac Douglas, Crotalus

When Isaac had caught wind of Perrault’s target-grade scheme, he had known at once that he had three options:

1. Lie, without shame or remorse, to his father about what his target grade was actually supposed to be.

2. Dispute it like a man and swear to himself to aim five points higher so he could be proud to show his work to his father.

3. All of the above.

His first inclination had honestly been Option Three, so that scoring five points above his target would look even more impressive than it was, but two things had stilled his pen. One was the vague fear that the professor had told the parents what grades he expected their offspring to make, in which case his father would call him an idiot for not making his lies watertight before he told them. The other was the fact that the lower the target grade, the lower his teacher’s implied opinion of him was; even doing well would not save him from being called a disappointment if his father thought he was failing to make a good impression. Option Two – an option which, he had discovered in the first half of the year, had made the target grade itself go up, forcing him to push himself even harder in Charms to keep appearing to look good – was his only option, and even then, he was afraid of his father saying the professor’s opinion of him clearly wasn’t high enough.

Dad was extra-likely to be that way this term, but Isaac found it strangely less concerning than usual as the latest test was handed back to them. Right now, after all, everything was going pretty well in Isaac’s life. He had met his own academic goals so far, he didn’t have to get trounced by Aladren in Quidditch one last time before he left, and – most cheeringly of all – he’d gotten a date to the Ball with no difficulty whatsoever. The more he thought back on it, the more convinced Isaac was that Makenzie might have accepted even had they not been in the common bind of needing a partner for the prefects’ dance….

Not that Isaac let himself get out of hand. It couldn’t go much of anywhere, not when he was leaving at the end of the year. He strongly suspected her family was at least one jump higher than his socially – his father had, after all, married his mother without getting disowned for it, as he surely would have at that time in many families, and his brother-in-law’s social standing had decreased because said brother-in-law had evidently been too sentimental to marry pragmatically and quietly rent a nice flat in a city a decent distance from Mt. Pierce to keep Alicia on the side in. Makenzie’s parents might not mind their current arrangement, or even them being friendly if they did run into each other socially after Sonora, but they’d probably fall over laughing if Isaac expressed any interest in anything more than that. He still, though, felt distinctly accomplished and better about himself than usual, particularly since his father hadn’t had one single disparaging remark to make in the reply to the letter he’d sent home with the news about the Ball. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d gotten a letter that was that polite from his father.

Who knew? If he mastered non-verbal spellcasting before June, really mastered it completely, and didn’t spill anything down the front of Makenzie’s dress at the Ball, his father might even compliment him to his face without any addenda about his failings when he got home. Anything was possible.

The difficulty with non-verbal magic was, though, the balance between the sheer greater exertion of will necessary to perform it and the requirement not to douse the professor’s books. Isaac had difficulty with that balancing act. To be anything more than laconic and reserved, to simultaneously will something with all his energy and to try to control it, was to feel like he was losing some control, not a feeling he liked at all. Frowning grimly at the bowl, he tried the spell and muttered sharply under his breath when the small bit of water that came out of his wand hit the bowl more violently than he’d meant it to. When he realized his mutter had drawn attention, he smiled awkwardly.

“If I ever need to get water without an incantation,” he said lightly, “I think I'll look first to see if there’s a well nearby.”

16 Isaac Douglas, Crotalus Splish-splash. 273 Isaac Douglas, Crotalus 0 5

Lionel Layne, Pecari

July 28, 2016 5:42 PM

Cool, clear water. by Lionel Layne, Pecari

Lionel made a face when he saw his grade on the latest test, but folded the papers in half and stuck them into the front of his textbook quickly to hide his results from his classmates instead of going through it during roll call. Rationally he knew that being in Advanced classes not in and of itself the mark of an overachiever - everyone above the level of borderline Squib had to take some – but he felt a lot dumber, somehow, in Advanced classes than he had back in Intermediates, a lot more like he’d had to compete just to get in the door, and he often felt like an impostor among his classmates. He couldn’t really see a class even entirely otherwise comprised of Aladrens ritually sacrificing a sub-par student to expunge the shame from their gathering, but he didn’t like feeling like he was risking it, either.

After a few days of rather frustrating theory work on the subject, he wasn’t surprised that the magic they were called upon to perform was the Water-Making Spell. He did, however, thank his lucky stars that he was in sixth year and not seventh. Seventh years had to do non-verbal, and while Lionel had tried that in classes and didn’t think he found it quite as fiendishly hard as some people seemed to – Isaac seemed, to the limited extent Lionel knew about his cousin’s emotions or opinions on anything and, truly, to the limited extent Isaac appeared to usually have strong opinions or emotions about anything, to utterly loathe non-verbal spellwork; he looked sometimes like he was trying to move a wall with his bare hands – he didn’t find it easy, either. He was definitely going to stick in Camp Vocalization for a while.

“Aguamenti,” he cast at the bowl in front of him, focusing on control. Making something appear from, as far as he could tell, nothing (the theory, according to his book and his godmother, was that things didn’t appear from nothing, actually, but said theory gave Lionel a headache when he considered it even before he got into why this was a Charm but conjuring a cup to put the water in was Transfiguration. He could never decide what was worse, dull theory work or frustrating theory work) was still difficult enough for him, though, that he wasn’t too worried about super-powerful jets of water shooting across the room and visiting violence upon Perrault’s books. Sure enough, approximately one sip of water appeared, only doing anything that could reasonably be called ‘flowing’ for about three seconds before it was reduced to dribbling.

“Well, it’s a start,” he remarked, more pleased with it than he let on. Not bad for a first try, that, even at this stage in his education.

16 Lionel Layne, Pecari Cool, clear water. 283 Lionel Layne, Pecari 0 5

Oliver Ferguson II, Aladren

August 12, 2016 11:50 PM

Tedious Matters by Oliver Ferguson II, Aladren

Lately, Oliver had found the other students at Sonora more insufferable than usual. All anyone seemed to care about was the stupid ball and finding dates. How very trivial . He had better things to think about than ball dates or clothing.For his part, he wasn't asking anyone because most girls around his age were annoying, related to him or both.

As for fashion....well, Oliver used to care quite a bit about it, and on some level he still did. He cared what he looked like and always made the effort to look neat and stylish when not in school robes. Other than probably Louis Valois, he was likely the most fashionable guy in school. However, it was an interest largely associated with men like his father, so the Aladren needed to stuff down that part of him, the part of him that cared about that. Oliver didn't want to be like his father-he didn't think he was, as he definitely found girls to pleasant to look at even though they were mostly irritating, given to too much emotion and drama, and intellectually inferior-but he didn't want to even appear as being such.

Not only that his family was going on about betrothals recently. Oliver knew it was necessary to make connections and whatnot but quite frankly, he felt his father had an awful lot of gall to be on him about women ! The hypocrisy was astounding to him. Mother, for her part, wanted him with someone he liked and got on with because she blamed herself for Father's disinterest in her and wanted better for him. Oliver hated Father even more for it and actually regretted the years where he partially blamed her too-and he rarely felt bad about anything he did or said. In turn, that made him resent Father even more for making him feel that way.

The result of this was that he'd been forced to many many balls over midterm, being introduced to girl after girl. Part of him did want to just let his parents make the decision about his betrothal, so Oliver could just get on with more important things such as fixing his father. However, he also didn't trust his father-asking his father's opinions on women was like asking a Teppenpaw for advice on how to get revenge on someone-and Mother wasn't going to make such decisions both because she felt his opinion was paramount and because her gender made her voice non-existent in such matters and she firmly believed as such.

Besides, Oliver wanted someone with a tolerable personality, whom knew her place like Mother did but was as smart as was possible for one of her inferior gender. Also, he wanted someone attractive because he didn't want to chance average or downright ugly looking kids.

Anyway, he was sick and tired of parties, of inane small talk. Most people had little of interest to say at these events, women even less so. The last thing Oliver really wanted was to attend a ball and deal with more. His classmates weren't interesting to begin with, they weren't going to be more so on such an occasion. He'd probably just eat dinner and leave early.

After all, what better time to work on some of the spells he'd gotten from Grandfather's books then when everyone was occupied with frivolous nonsense?

Now, however, Oliver was in Charms and his recent test was being given back. He was pleased to note that he'd made his target grade of O. It was important for him to get O's, as his cousin Nora had gotten all O's and while he couldn't best that, he had to equal it. Nora had always been annoyingly smug about the whole thing and he couldn't let anyone think she was smarter than him. Even though he was sure he managed it with far less effort that she must have, getting lower grades made it look as if she was better and he just couldn't have that.

He put his test away and listened as Professor Perrault gave the instructions for the day. Oliver had mastered this particular spell, of course, as spell mastery was crucial not only for maintaining his grade average, but for being a successful wizard.

However, he had not mastered the art of nonverbal spell casting yet though he certainly would. It was necessary for his ultimate goal of using mental magic. If you were going to mess with someone's head, usually it was probably better to be sneaky and not let them know you were doing it. That way they couldn't do the counter-curse.

Granted, a Water-Making spell was not exactly what Oliver was shooting for, though he could certainly imagine practical application of the spell, albeit probably not for him personally. What would he do with it? Drench Clark's homework so it would be ruined when he had to turn it in or use it to make it look like he wet himself? Though a part of him did delight in the thought of making people think that the beloved Aladren seeker had wet himself-or at least making Clark himself wonder if he'd been wetting the bed which might be the easier trick to play given it was easier to attack him in his sleep given the nature of the Water Making spell- Oliver generally considered himself above such childish pranks.

He held his wand over the bowl as he did the motions of the spell and thought, Auguamenti . Unfortunately, only a few drops came out and Oliver tried not to scowl as he tried once more to similar results.He sighed and said out loud. "Auguamenti" This time, a clear jet of water filled the bowl

11 Oliver Ferguson II, Aladren Tedious Matters 278 Oliver Ferguson II, Aladren 0 5