Professor Wright

October 31, 2018 3:01 PM
“Hello, everyone,” said Gray, giving up on finding what he was looking for in his bag before the bell rang and letting the flap fall closed as he faced his Advanced class instead. “Has everyone put their Protean Charm papers in the basket? If you haven’t, please do so at the end of class – I’ll only mark them late if I catch you still writing them in class today.”

This was the sort of thing it was proper for teachers to say, though Gray was undecided what he would do if he really caught a student doing that. He had done it a few times in his own student days, after all, and so far as he was aware, it had done little to impugn the dignity of Sonora Academy or the efficacy of his education. Hopefully the warning would nudge anyone who was planning to do it to be discreet about it so they could all go forward happily together. Insofar as was possible for Advanced students to go along happily with a professor in the last few months before the RATS, anyway. He suspected that if he and his colleagues were not already seen as monsters by the Advanced students, then it was only a matter of very little time, now.

“Good news first,” he said. “Since we just finished that one, I’m not going to make you write a research paper on magically binding agreements.” But. There was always a ‘but’. It was practically a genre convention. He would be in violation of audience expectations if there was not, and while the students would probably enjoy the plot twist, he suspected more critical audiences would not. “Bad news, that mostly means you’re going to have to write a larger number of lower-stakes assignments on the subject,” he confessed, figuring it was best to be honest with them up front about this.

“More good news, though – you won’t have to write one today.” He knew most people disliked writing, after all, and however strange the general idea seemed to him, he hadn’t much enjoyed writing school assignments in his day either. Teachers had an odd tendency to disapprove of simile, metaphor, and dialogue in them. “Though you will need to take notes.”

On the board were the words, underlined, Magically Binding Agreements. “Magically binding agreements are an old form of magic,” he informed the class. “One way we know this is through ancient religious practices – attempts people made to make binding agreements with the gods, sacrifices and curse tablets and the like. The early ritual forms were clunky and time consuming, but surprisingly effective - violating an oath could kill you or turn you just as charming a shade of chartreuse as it could today.” If they knew their American history at all, they would likely know about the regrettable incident of the Mad Weather-Witch of West Kansas, who had somehow, in the early twentieth century, survived multiple attempts to Obliviate her out of folk memory; after being turned green as a consequence of breaking such an oath, she had been nearly killed by an angry mob and, initially seemingly intending only to escape by creating whirlwinds to assault her attackers with, had destroyed an entire village before the Aurors apprehended her during her attempts to murder the witch who had been on the other end of the violated oath. Officially it had all been a natural disaster, but now there were apparently many Muggles who thought all witches were elderly and green-faced and associated with tornadoes.

“Today, of course, these are much simpler - so much so that there are documented cases of plaintiffs bringing suit because they had been tricked into making one. So here is the part of the lesson where I remind you that you’ll quite possibly be expelled and may face other consequences if you attempt any form of this magic,” he added. “And where I remind you to ask very careful questions before you ever sign your full name to anything - naming objects is a powerful amplifier in Charms in general, and some will only operate when naming is part of the spell, as it is in signing magically binding contracts.

“As you can imagine, this subject has a lot of overlap with Defense Against the Dark Arts,” he continued. “The fuzziest area, if you will, is the Unbreakable Vow - a remarkably simple spell to cast, which will kill the person who breaks it. That is almost always considered Dark Magic. Don’t do that. A less destructive, though far more difficult, spell that falls more in our class is the Fidelius Charm - the charm where a piece of information is hidden in a single mind and cannot be discovered by anyone else until such time as the Secret-Keeper chooses to reveal it. Which brings us to your assignment today.”

He had always wanted to write something with this in it someday, as he found the concept fascinating. In a way, then, he supposed this lesson was a bit self-indulgent, but he doubted many of them would know that, so no harm, no foul. “Your essential question for today is: should there be strict legal restrictions on who has knowledge of how to perform the Fidelius Charm? You will divide into pairs. All the people to the left of my desk - “ he pointed his wand at the first desk he considered left of his desk, making it flash colors for a moment to make clear the line of demarcation - “will take the position ‘yes, there should be.’ All the people right of this line will take the position ‘no, there shouldn’t be.’ You have five minutes to write a quick outline of arguments for your position. After that, you will pair up with someone from the other side of the room and debate. Use situations which could occur to back up your position. Take notes on your debate and who you are debating with and hand them in to me at the end of class. Don’t worry too much about winning today - I’ll give you feedback on your arguments, but as long as you complete the exercise, you get full credit for today. We’ll repeat this exercise at the end of the unit, once you’ve had time to learn more theory about the Fidelius Charm and other magically binding agreements and legal requirements which are in place. For now, though, if there are no questions...start drafting.”

OOC: Happy Halloween, everyone, and welcome to Professor Wright’s Classroom of Horrors! Gasp in either delight or horror, as you please, at being trapped in his experiment! Either way, though, follow the posting rules and be creative. To get you started, a few scenarios in which a Fidelius Charm might occur: hiding the locations of people in witness protection. Identity thieves hiding knowledge of their true identities. Spies. Run with these or in any other directions you can think of, since your characters are supposed to be new to this, too. Catch me in Chatzy or on the OOC Board if you have any questions and enjoy!
Subthreads:
16 Professor Wright Secrets and Lies (Advanced Charms). 113 Professor Wright 1 5


Ben Pierce, Pecari

November 06, 2018 3:02 PM
Ben chortled into his hand as Professor Wright introduced the class to the wizarding world’s side of The Wizard of Oz. To be truthful, Ben hadn’t know wizardkind had a side on that story, but somehow it just made the muggle’s side all that much better. The Mad Weather Witch of West Kansas. He muffled another gaffaw into his sleeve. That was awesome.

He wanted a cool name like that. Though, preferably, without the Dark Magic Infamy to go along with it.

The Crazy Cool Quidditch Player of East Massachusetts? No, see, ‘Massachusetts’ just didn’t have the same kind of ring to it. ‘Boston’ was even worse. He might need to ask Tess what she thought of moving to Kansas.

Eh, maybe not. Or, at least, not for that reason. Kansas would be a better place to work with magical creatures than a major muggle city would be, if that was what he ended up doing for a living, but there were closer places to home than Kansas where he could do that.

The Great Nerf Herder of North Vermont! Well, that was an improvement, he supposed. The Mad Weather Witch of West Kansas still had him beat hands down though. And he wasn’t sure Nerfs existed outside of Star Wars.

The Maine Man of Summer Quidditch Camp. Could work. Not bad. It lacked the drama and peril of the Mad Witch though.

He realized Professor Wright stopped talking. What had he been talking about? Magically binding charms. Right. Don’t sign things. Unbreakable vow bad. Something about Fidelius. Debate legality of Secret-Keeping. Yada yada, see, he had been paying attention even as his mind wandered. Just . . . which position had he been assigned to argue?

He pushed up to lean forward across his desk and peer over Zevalyn Ives’ shoulder to her notes. She sensed his proximity and turned to frown at him. He smiled mildly back, having gleaned what he needed to know from the papers her desk. He settled back into his seat and titled his own blank parchment the same as hers: Reasons There Should Be Strict Legal Restrictions on the Knowledge of How to Perform the Fidelius Charm.

He started to chew on the end of his pen, but aborted that with an expression of disgust when he realized he was using a quill today. Instead, he used it to tickle the underside of his chin as he thought.

He didn’t have a strong opinion on this topic either way, nor did he know if there actually were any legal restrictions on the Fidelius Charm already. But okay, why were things restricted? Because they weren’t safe. So how was the Fidelius Charm not safe?

He made a bullet point under his title and wrote, Untrained users might cast it wrong and hide too much or too little information and either not safeguard their secret at all or cause confusion and mayhem when details not closely related to the secret are also concealed.

On that note, and while he admittedly didn’t understand how the Fidelius worked entirely so he wasn’t sure what its limits were for secret keeping something a lot of people already knew, but if someone thought it would be funny to lock the knowledge of where a hospital was behind a Fidelius, that could be really dangerous to the people needing to find one. He made another bullet point It could be dangerously misused either negligently or intentionally.

He figured that was a good starting point to work off of, and went in search of a debate partner from the other side of the room.

“Need somebody to argue in favor of restrictions?” he asked an unpaired person who looked to be done taking notes.
1 Ben Pierce, Pecari Yes-Man looking for No-Folk 339 Ben Pierce, Pecari 0 5


Georgia Kirkly, Teppenpaw

November 07, 2018 8:09 AM
Georgia took a seat in Charms. Her essay on Protean Charms was ninety percent done and she did a decent job of keeping her face neutral when Professor Wright mentioned them. She wasn't sure whether it would be better to try to sneakily finish it in class or just hand it in without it really having a conclusion. She guessed that, on balance, the former was a slightly better bet. Professor Wright had to catch her for her to be in trouble there, whereas it seemed pretty guaranteed that he would notice how her essay just sort of... stopped abruptly. Though the consequences were less disastrous there too - a little red pen vs being publicly called out, especially as she was a prefect and supposed to be a good example. Perhaps she would only risk it if she thought of something super profound and brilliant to write. The odds on that seemed slim. The previous night, all she'd been able to cudgel her brain into giving her was 'In conclusion, protean charms are weird but kinda cool.' She could probably parse that into something vaguely more academic sounding but she wasn't convinced of her ability to come up with anything she hadn't already said (most probably several times, in quite large writing) in her essay so far, and thus it was unlikely to improve her grade much. Maybe she wouldn’t risk it after all.

Good news first. That implied bad news was to follow. Georgia braced herself for the words 'pop quiz' or 'presentation' but they didn't come. She felt that, on this occasion, the good outweighed the bad easily. Heck, at least there was some good, and not just unrelenting horror. She bet advanced Transfiguration was one hundred percent composed of unrelenting horror.

The fact that today was note based even looked more promising when the introduction involved mention of sacrifices. Georgia definitely did not want a practical on that. She took some vague notes about not signing and that certain agreements could kill you, feeling like today was just destined to be one of those days where the magical world creeped her out a bit. Then they were talking about the keeping secrets charm, which Georgia had come across in her textbook and found intriguing. The actual class looked to be ok too, as far as a theory lesson went. They basically had to have opinions, and having opinions was much easier than explaining facts. Well, actually Professor Wright was assigning them their opinions, then they had to come up with plausible reasons. Georgia was apparently pro. Wait, the argument was about restricting it. So, she was pro restriction which meant she was anti the Charm itself. Ugh, why did he have to phrase everything backwards and complicatedly?

Still, this was probably her preferred position. Georgia was not the biggest fan of secrets. Essentially, they had been what destroyed her parents' marriage. Her mom had really struggled to find the right time to tell her dad about the whole magic thing. And it hadn't been the whole magic thing itself, as Georgia had thought for over a year (he found out they were literal witches and bailed, what else was she supposed to have thought?) but the fact of being secretive about it. That he had gone into a marriage with someone who hadn't been honest with him, and was keeping something from him that would affect their child's whole life too - having to go off to some boarding school, away from home... So, generally, secrets were bad in her book. Not that she could imagine her mom signing some fidelius register to keep this from her dad, it seemed like it had been more… passive on her mom’s part. A bad case of cold-feet and putting it off. Not that Georgia had much sympathy. Once she had realised her dad hadn’t bailed on her for being a witch, she’d kind of been on his side. But the secrets charm… She was pretty sure this would only be useful for extreme circumstances, like witness protection. Then you would have a bunch of official people and agencies involved anyway. She couldn’t think of a situation where it would be necessary but like… not a big, official deal already. She noted this down, and pondered some more.

One of the things that scared her about her RATS, followed by the big bad world that came after it, was the fear of messing up. Any time ‘complicated’ was mentioned, she worried about the damage she might do. She was sure she wasn’t alone in that.

If it's super complicated, ordinary people might mess it up. That would be bad if it had messy side effects. It would also be bad if you thought it had worked and it hadn't, went into her debate prep.

It can kill you. That always seemed a pretty good reason for restricting anything. She had forgotten that Professor Wright had actually been talking about a different spell when he mentioned that.

Five minutes wasn’t very long to get all that thought through and down on paper. She was a little nervous about pairing and debating, because she wasn’t sure she’d be any good at it, but she thoughts her points were sensible enough. When Professor Wright declared their time up, she approached someone from the other side, trying to smile in a friendly way, and hoping they were also seeing this as a nice chat about the pros and cons and not some kind of intellectual fight to the death.

“Hey, so what have you got?” she asked.


13 Georgia Kirkly, Teppenpaw I think honesty is the best policy 346 Georgia Kirkly, Teppenpaw 0 5


Kyte Collindale, Pecari

December 06, 2018 8:23 AM
Kyte kicked back, not paying much attention to Professor Wright’s threats about essays or his little game of good news-bad news. Kyte no longer had to do written work. Professor Skies had made vague suggestions that he at least try some of the homeworks because they were bound to aid his practical understanding but he didn’t really think even the essay-loving Deputy Headmistress had really meant that, or thought that he would take the suggestion on board. Kyte did not do written work. He was academically incapable, and he only hurt himself and others when he tried.

There was a lot of talking today. Kyte let the lecture wash over him. He ran through broom tricks for a bit in his head - he’d been having trouble with the landing on this particular stunt for a while, but he couldn’t see where he was going wrong… Still, it was hard to tell from just going over the trick in his head. It was hard enough to tell even when he was doing it. He probably needed someone else to watch him and give him some feedback… Given that he couldn’t really fix the trick just by thinking about it (if only!) he let his mind wander onto mentally undressing the nearest attractive classmate instead.

His mind mostly returned to the lesson when Professor Wright uttered the key phrase ‘Which brings us onto your assignment today.’ Right, cool. Time to learn some…. Something. Probably about… secrets? But then Professor Wright wasn’t explaining a spell, he was assigning them sides. And Kyte was apparently ‘no - there should not be legal restrictions’ on some kind of secretsing magic. Damn. It had finally happened. He had wandered into a theory class by mistake. He considered just standing up and walking out. The Professor would get it. He was not meant to be here. But he was also pretty sure that the instruction he’d just been given (based on the limited amount he’d understood) was ‘rail against the government’ and Kyte was pretty ace at that. It was like Defence class again, where he’d been asked to like… define the nature of the self or something (he’d already kinda forgotten) and had been pretty on it. Theory had finally got so random it was within his skillset. Hotdamn. Why had no one told him this was a possibility? Not that he actually wanted to sit theory papers, nor regretted the hours of extra free time he’d had. This way - where it occasionally came up as a pleasant surprise - was much better than trying to do it properly.

Professor Wright had only given them five minutes, which wasn’t really a long time when you had to work through the fact that you were accidentally in a theory class but, even more surprisingly, were kind of okay with this revelation, and so Kyte hadn’t really got as far as making any actual notes when they were called on to debate. Still, that wasn’t really a big deal. Notes weren’t important.

Ben approached him and he gave him a grin that fully acknowledged how funny it was that he, Kyte, was here right now.

“No one needs restrictions, man,” he replied when Ben asked about arguing for them, “Restrictions are whack. Who’s gonna put them in place? The government,” he said, in a tone that suggested that settled the point that it was a thoroughly bad idea. “This is just a scam to put The Trace back on adults. They’ve been angling for that for years.”
13 Kyte Collindale, Pecari I am thoroughly against restriction 335 Kyte Collindale, Pecari 0 5

Angelique Brockert,Crotalus

December 22, 2018 7:39 PM
There were still way too many days left until Angelique graduated. Of course, at the point she was at, one more day was one too many but still. Each second felt like minutes, each minute felt like an hour each hour felt like a day and so on. She very much did not want to be here anymore. In fact, Angelique had stopped wanting to be here some time within her first year.

So she looked at Professor Wright with a bored expression on her face. It wasn't really his fault nor was she any more bored by his class than any other. Many people, if they were friendless and alone at boarding school, would use the extra time to put extra effort into their studies but that wasn't really Angelique's thing. She simply wasn't that interested.

What was her thing ,what she needed desperately, was to socialize with others. Angelique was a really outgoing person and thrived being around people. Plus, she really did have a need to be well-liked and popular. And she wasn't popular. Not here anyway.

Okay, so the Crotalus had found substitutes such as writing to her friends who didn't go to school at Sonora-she really lived for Devin's letters especially-and talking to portraits and whatnot but it wasn't the same. And it wasn't enough.

If it hadn't been for Certain People, then maybe Angelique could have adjusted and tried to befriend people who were different than she was, but Those People-one person really-had insisted on taking over, hogging up everyone as their friend so there was nobody left for Angelique. Since everyone else-except Tasha and Daniel-had been friends with this person who was just too different from the Crotalus for her to have ever befriended, and had indeed not wanted her anyway, Angelique was alone. It had been cemented for sure at the bonfire her first year when the other girls in their year group aside from her and Tasha shared a tent. Lines had been drawn then about who was and wasn't part of the group with herself firmly not.

Then That Person had left, but the damage had been done. Angelique just hoped that wherever That Person had gone, she was an outcast. It would serve her right.

The seventh year was, however, happy when Professor Wright mentioned that they would not have to write a big paper on magically binding agreements. She did not like writing research papers at all. They were seriously boring.

However, Angelique didn't really like what they were doing today either. How could she be expected to think of clear and convincing arguments in five minutes? Thankfully, she was on the side of the room that was doing the opinion she agreed with, which was that no, there shouldn't be restrictions.

She wrote down. It is wrong to restrict all but the most dangerous magic. Some things need to be kept secret for people's safety Of course, Angelique also believed that these things should be entered into willingly instead of people being tricked.

Georgia Kirkly approached her smiling and the Crotalus smiled back warmly, happy to see a friendly face for once. She knew the younger girl a little from choir and generally did think fairly well of her even though they weren't close by any means. "Oh, I have that I'm basically against restricting magic in all but the most extreme situations and that some secrets need to be kept for the sake of people's safety such as the Statute of Secrecy. I mean, some people aren't very tolerant of magical folk. They think we're evil."

Angelique paused. "Actually I don't feel very passionate about this topic either way. I'm just doing this because it's the assignment. And we didn't have nearly enough time to come up with reasons for what we're arguing. Like, I don't think we should restrict it but I don't think people should be tricked into these agreements either."
11 Angelique Brockert,Crotalus It depends on the situation 332 Angelique Brockert,Crotalus 0 5


Georgia

December 24, 2018 3:00 PM
Angelique wasn’t her first choice of partner, but it had never seemed like she was really awful, and she was returning her smile at least. Georgia took a seat, trying not to feel nervous or fat, two feelings that being anywhere near the Pureblood girls was naturally inclined to produce. From the impression Georgia had gathered in class, Angelique wasn’t exactly an intellectual heavy weight. There was no reason why Georgia shouldn’t manage well enough in the actual class activity. And Angelique had always been decent enough to her at choir.

“Right, same,” Georgia admitted, as Angelique told her that she wasn’t super into the topic. Georgia found herself relaxing a little more at that. It really feel like they could just chat a bit about the pros and cons, maybe even gripe about their classes, and get the credit. “He said we don’t have to like… win or whatever. Just so long as we’re discussing the pros and cons. So, I guess if either of us come up with things for either side, it’s ok really.

“Um, I was “in favour” of restriction,” she added, doing air quotes to show her opinion was just as prescribed as Angelique’s, “Because… okay, like all the reasons I could think of for needing this spell would involve really complex situations where a bunch of.. Um… officials,” she hesitated, always feeling slightly off kilter when she had to get into technical words about the wizarding world. Not that she was sure she’d be any better at describing Muggle politics and government agencies. She just did not have her finger on those kinds of pulses, “would already be involved. Like… uh, do you use the phrase ‘witness protection’? Like, when you need to hide someone cos they know something. Surely like there’s already going to be a bunch of… people involved in that. So making sure the secret spell casting wizard is one of them just seems to make sense. It also means you know the spell’s been done properly. I mean, it’s super hard and it’s basically like a life or death thing if you mess it up, so wouldn’t you want to know someone competent is casting it?” She wasn't sure she was doing much to counter or address Angelique's points. She was more just... saying the stuff she had thought up. But she was pretty sure they'd both just agreed that was kind of ok. They just had to say vaguely coherent stuff and they'd be good.
13 Georgia Yeah... I guess? 346 Georgia 0 5

Angelique

December 27, 2018 1:05 AM
Oh good, Georgia didn't seem to really care any more about the topic than Angelique did. That meant she wouldn't have to argue and get defensive and worry about being wrong. It often seemed like everyone thought she was the one in the wrong.

Whenever Angelique got assignments where she had to work with someone, she was always worried that she was going to end up disagreeing with them because she was different than they were, with different interests and probably different values and in some cases, they weren't going to agree with the Crotalus no matter what. Obviously, certain people over-valued both sports themselves and those who were good at them. This was especially true of those who had any sort of exposure to the muggle world. There were purebloods like that too but with those who weren't of her social class and blood status, very few of them were like her.

Which would have been fine, except that Angelique ended up in a year group full of that sort and she was the one who was alone. She needed to get out of here badly, to be around people whom she understood and whom understood her. The seventh year felt like a major misfit and she wasn't supposed to ever feel that way. It was like she was trapped in some bizzare alternate universe.

Georgia, however, wasn't too bad even though Angelique thought she might have played Quidditch one year. Actually, she felt a bit of sympathy for the other girl, it couldn't have been easy being overweight in any sort of society. Pureblood society wanted girls who were pretty-and Angelique supposed Georgia was cute enough despite her size, but their society could be really harsh on people who didn't fit the mold, it was just that Angelique happened to fit it very well-and muggle society wanted jocks which, unless they were beaters maybe, wasn't something that really went with being overweight.

She guessed it wasn't easy to be different no matter what. Okay, the lesson had been learned and Angelique had had enough. Still, she would remember to be kind to those who were different in the future. Unless, of course, said person who was different was a jock and then they'd get no sympathy from her, period.

"I get the idea of what you mean by witness protection" Angelique replied. ""And you're correct, I think. I don't know a lot about that kind of stuff." She continued "However, if more people know how to cast it right then it shouldn't be a problem. I think the biggest problem is when people trick others into making a magically binding contract."
11 Angelique You don't sound very sure 332 Angelique 0 5


Georgia

December 29, 2018 2:53 PM
“Right. That would be… bad,” Georgia nodded, as Angelique brought up magically binding contracts, or rather being tricked into them, again. Clearly she thought that point was super important. And Georgia… agreed. She tried to bully her brain into doing something more than stating that yeah, that sounded bad, because that seemed really obvious. She wasn’t even sure that magically binding contracts were the same as what they were meant to be discussing, which had sounded more like a spell but Professor Wright had also mentioned the contract thingies and maybe they were part of this? She didn’t want to risk sounding ignorant about the magical world, and therefore didn’t really feel super comfortable asking for clarification. But, even without being sure about whether they were part of this or not, surely saying that trickery was bad was an argument for her side, not Angelique’s?

“But… um…. Wouldn’t that be an argument for restrictions? Because if you’re controlling who can do these spells and making sure they’re only done through official channels, then there’s less risk of them being done in any way that’s wrong - either the magic of the spell itself going wrong or a way that’s like… morally wrong. Like tricking someone.”
13 Georgia Yeah, well... nor do you 346 Georgia 0 5

Angelique

December 30, 2018 6:46 PM
Oh, crud, she'd made a point for the side she was supposed to be arguing against. Angelique had always thought of herself as a very convincing person until she got to Sonora. She'd spent her childhood getting what she wanted. Of course, there was a difference in a-supposedly-intellectual debate about a charm and giving her father puppy dog eyes and cuddling up to him to get a new toy or dress. Those were not tactics that the Crotalus wanted to apply or thought would work on Georgia.

"Well, that's because I don't care enough about the topic, I guess." Angelique replied. "But what I meant was that if you're getting someone to do a magically binding contract, you should tell them and make sure they're okay with it. I don't think we should be teaching everyone to do, say, the Unbreakable Vow because there are some really unscrupulous people out there." Topaz "But with the Fidelius Charm....I mean, I'm not the most into studying and learning but I don't really like the idea of there being lines drawn between people because certain people can do a kind of magic and others can't. It's just going to lead to more divisions between people and there are plenty of those already whether along blood lines or house lines." Or between athletes and non-athletes.

She continued. "I know there are things like occlumency and legilimency that are restricted but legilimency is something that actually goes into someone's mind and is invasive. I certainly wouldn't want people knowing my thoughts. However, the Fidelius Charm isn't the same thing. Also, there's no point in restricting something so long and complicated anyway, because those factors might be enough to dissuade people."

"Besides," Angelique went on. "It's a slippery slope and before too long all sorts of magic are being restricted and we can barely do anything."
11 Angelique Because I'm really not 332 Angelique 0 5