Confused and bewildered on Defense Against the Dark Arts

Professor O'Leary

January 23, 2007 12:04 AM

Fifth Years: Lesson One by Professor O'Leary

Drake no longer bothered to try and scare the students. Being fifth years now, they were used to his scare tactics, after having him as a professor for the last three. Rather he waited patiently in the front of the room until each had entered the classroom. Now, they were nearing adulthood, he felt that they should be able to handle more complicated spells that required more trust in a partner.

"Today, you will be learning two spells in one lesson," he stated in his deep baritone voice that carried a slight rasp to it now. "They will be Levicorpus and Liberacorpus. The Levicorpus spell when performed properly will dangle a person upside down by their ankle. The other spell, Liberacorpus, is the counterspell."

Drake showed the students the wand movements for each spell, before continuing, "Please partner into groups of two. There are pillows over in the corner to use for the person Levicorpus is being cast on. I want you to take turns practicing Levicorpus on each other. For the person that has Levicorpus cast on them, I want you to practice Liberacorpus on yourself. If you start to experience any dizziness and cannot get out of the Levicorpus spell, have your partner come get me and I will come release you. Begin."

OOC: Be creative and have fun. Remember, at least ten sentences.\n\n

Subthreads:

Ooh, how fun! by Lily Collins with Zack Dill

Confused and bewildered by Kaylie Brockert

0 Professor O'Leary Fifth Years: Lesson One 0 Professor O'Leary 1 5

Lily Collins

February 07, 2007 6:13 PM

Ooh, how fun! by Lily Collins

Defense against the Dark Arts was without a doubt, Lily's absolute favorite class. She'd even grown to like Professor O' Leary. He was stern but he seemed fair. Defense in general was great because she got to learn about how to protect herself from enemies, something Lily assumed she'd make, even if she wasn't very high profile. Making enemies was in fact one of Lily's greatest skills. She could probably make an entire Bible-belt state hate her within a few weeks if she didn't keep a low enough profile. Religious zealots weren't the only type of people that annoyed her either, there were lots of others.

Her eyes lit up with absolute delight when Lily heard today's lesson plans. Now they were getting into the good stuff. High-powered, serious spells. She'd dreamed of this day, ironically. If she'd been in muggle school, she couldn't imagine where she'd be. Most likely in the bottom third of the class, doing the bare minimum to get by and hating every second of life, rebelling harder then she had as a child because of course teens could. She might even be on drugs. Instead, here Lily was, trying her best, working hard and having a full course load.

This lesson also included the great fun of hanging a classmate upside-down by the ankles, not to mention seeing others in the same position. No matter whether Lily worked with someone she liked or not, she couldn't lose. Either she worked with someone she liked or was indifferent too or she got to hang someone she didn't like upside-down. It almost made Lily wish they had this class with the fourth years. \n\n

11 Lily Collins Ooh, how fun! 45 Lily Collins 0 5

Zack Dill

March 06, 2007 5:24 PM

This can't be good by Zack Dill

Zack really did not like DADA. It fluctuated with Care of Magical Creatures for his least favorite class. CoMC at least had a teacher who wasn't terrifying, though DADA had the advantage of having normal lectures sometimes. CoMC had a clawed, sharp toothed, or taloned creature on display almost every lesson, plus it was outside and Zack had an automatic dislike for anything out-of-doors. If it weren't for the aliens in Quidditch he would never voluntarily leave the school building.

Usually, DADA lessons without a dangerous monster were considered lesser evils and therefore preferable to dangerous monster lessons, but Zack was going to make an exception today. He folded his arms over his binder, and laid his head down on them. Surely, ostriches did the head-in-the-sand thing for a reason. They weren't extinct yet so it must help somewhat, right?

He listened carefully anyway because he was an Alderaanian to his bones and he couldn't just ignore a Professor while he was lecturing. He even began to translate out how he was going to write his notes once he lifted his head, but for right now, he wasn't yet ready to bring his head out of the sand.

Not even in his Detroit school had a teacher ever taught a lesson where point was to hang kids upside down by their ankles. That was usually relegated the the bathrooms or side halls. He'd lost more lunch money that way . . .

With a quiet sigh he sat up and began to write quickly, trying to catch up to where Professor O'Leary was before they had to break into groups. He didn't quite make it - he'd blanked on both the Sindarin and Klingon words for 'ankle' but had eventually realized he knew it in Orkish, so he used that one.

By the time he had wrestled his wand out of the pencil pocket in his backpack, he was anxious to find a partner while there were still partners to be had and happened upon Lily Collins first. He froze, a deer-like expression in his eyes very much as if he had come into sudden and unexpected confrontation with headlights. She was a Beater. Everyone knew she was a Beater. She was really good at Beating.

Zack wanted nothing to do with her. Not on the Pitch and certainly not in this lesson.

Instead of doing anything sane, though, like turning tail and fleeing - Zoey would be a good partner, or maybe one of the girly girls, or anyone really who wasn't a Beater - but what he actually did was stand there, feeling tiny and fragile because that's what he was, and said only, "Eep."\n\n

1 Zack Dill This can't be good 40 Zack Dill 0 5

Lily

March 06, 2007 6:26 PM

Aw, I promise not to drop you on your head. by Lily

Lily tried hard not to laugh at the expression on Zack's face. It was priceless. The boy truly amused her. It also amazed her that she could go to a whole other school, in a whole other world and still terrify people. In elementary, people thought Lily was scary and would beat them up if they looked at her the wrong way. Now, at Sonora, it was pretty much the same thing. It wasn't just Adam, who was scared of everyone, this was because of her .

It didn't bother Lily though. If people weren't going to like her-and she knew there were those who did anyway-the next best thing was to have them fear her. In fact, that had pretty much been her motto back in Ohio. It was just that, here at Sonora, Lily wasn't trying to scare everyone on purpose.

She pulled out her wand and twirled it between her fingers. Lily glanced up at Zack, and said "So, you want me to do the spell first, or do you want to?" This was kind of fun. She knew he was scared of her. Perhaps this was why Lily still had people thinking of her this way. Maybe it was an addiction, something she couldn't help. Something that had become part of her personality.

Not that Lily was incapable of being nice. Earlier in the year she'd helped Jenna to the Infirmary when she was sick. She'd listened to Jennifer when she was upset. It was just that when there was someone who was acting as so terribly afraid of her as Zack was, it kind of encouraged her to keep up the behavior.\n\n

11 Lily Aw, I promise not to drop you on your head. 45 Lily 0 5

Zack Dill

March 07, 2007 9:14 AM

Is this some kind of trick question? by Zack Dill

Apparently, to Lily's way of thinking 'eep' meant 'Hey, will you be my partner?' He wasn't entirely sure in which language those statements sounded remotely similar, but he wasn't sure which would be more dangerous - to be her partner or to refuse to be her partner after she'd already assumed he was. Basing the decision on the fact that he hadn't heard of her attacking anybody off the Pitch, he thought it was probably safer not to make her angry at him. Maybe she'd go easy on him.

Except, of course, the very nature of the class excercise did not leave a lot of room for 'going easy'. In fact, it was probably best to pick somebody who would be good at it because at least then the spell probably wouldn't fizzle unexpectedly and drop him on his head.

Then she did the strangest thing. She asked if he wanted to go first. Going first meant being the one who hung the other up by their ankle. He'd just assumed that he'd be the hangee. It had to be a trick question.

As much as he did not want to be the one hanging upside down, a deeper, more absolute terror welled up at the thought of being the one to do that to somebody else. Fighting back had never gone well for him. It usually made things worse. Nick went away faster when Zack just quietly took they bullying. If he really needed revenge, that's what their parents were there for. Tattling worked so much better than physical confrontation.

"Uh, you go," Zack told her because the very thought of trying an offensive spell like the day's lesson made his stomach twist in dread and nausea. He could deal with hanging upside down much easier.\n\n

1 Zack Dill Is this some kind of trick question? 40 Zack Dill 0 5

Kaylie Brockert

March 10, 2007 6:37 PM

Confused and bewildered by Kaylie Brockert

It was odd. Professor O'Leary wasn't acting scary. He wasn't acting overly nice either, but he was different. Did that mean the scariness was all an act? Kaylie felt relieved, yet a bit stupid, like he'd put one over on her. That in and of itself didn't bother her, it was just that she wondered if she was the only one. Adam was scared of him, sure, but her little brother seemed afraid of most people (which worried Kaylie to no end). Lily wasn't afraid of him, but she didn't seem to be scared of much, so the whole issue was very confusing to Kaylie. Which made her feel stupider.

She listened carefully to the lesson as she usually did in Defense. Her stomach dropped. Kaylie didn't think she could do this. Hanging someone upside down by their ankles certainly didn't sound like something very nice to do, of course and was probably something more up Lily's alley than her own. That wasn't the problem though. Kaylie just didn't feel capable of such an advanced spell. While her magic was as strong as anyone's, her powers of concentration on anything academic were not, though she didn't do quite as bad as wand work as she did on stuff like potions.

At least this class was only her own year and they had to work in pairs. That would give Kaylie a chance to make friends with the people in her class before they graduated. She turned to the person next to her and asked "Will you work with me?"

\n\n

11 Kaylie Brockert Confused and bewildered 43 Kaylie Brockert 0 5