Professor O'Leary
April 28, 2007 8:14 PM
Second/Third Years: Lesson Two by Professor O'Leary
Upon entering the classroom, each student would find on their desk a bowl, about the size one would use for soup or cereal, filled with water in addition to a glass container with three small black spiders. Today, they would be learning one of Drake's favorite spells, not that anyone needed to know that, but it was nonetheless for it was associated with fond memories.At the front of the room, where Drake stood, was a rather large vessel of water measuring five feet by five feet, but shallow at a height of about two feet. Undoubtedly, a little odd, but then he was a little odd. Then, again, when most people found you to be rather asocial, and in extreme cases rumored to be a vampire, the title of normal didn't stick.
Of course, the rumors weren't completely unfounded for Drake had the stereotypical appearance of one. He was fairly tall and extraordinarily gaunt with blood-red crimson hair and liked to wear dark flowing robes that swished when he moved. The saving grace was that his skin wasn't deathly pale. If it were, he might have been worried about himself.
He couldn't completely blame it on his appearance for he had
undoubtedly flamed the rumors with his stalking in the shadows, a fondness, which now lacked any punch. He supposed most had realized that for the most part he was all bark and no bite...at least in the classroom. As such, Drake stayed in plain site, leaning on his desk, a comfortable without being vulnerable position.
While he could perform some level of wandless magic, he preferred his wand, always hidden in his sleeve, for it allowed for spells to be at their most powerful, and this stance proved to be best for quickly maneuvering into a defensive or an offensive position. One could never be to careful, even if the school was heavily protected. Then, again, most of it was probably his paranoia due to previous experiences talking.
Staying perfectly still this way, Drake waited until the last student had arrived before beginning class in his deep baritone voice that echoed off of the chamber walls, "Good afternoon, class." Standard greeting, before, "Today, you will be learning the Glacius spell, which is used to freeze enemies and can be used on water, as well." The important part there was enemies. Why they were learning the spell in this class. "On each desk there is a container of spiders to practice on. For those, who feel this is unethical," slight sneer, "there is also a bowl of water in order to practice on. Repeat after me, Glacius," pronouncing as Gla-c-us. The wand now in his hand and pointed at the enormous container, "Your wand movement should reflect, as such, and firmly state," with a slight jerk of the arm and a semi-circle, shouted, "Glacius!"
The water now turned to ice, creating a small ice skating rink. The sport was a secret passion of Drake's, which was shared by his daughter
"Now, then, if performed properly, the spider should be frozen solidly, or if you are working with the water, a solid mass of ice. The more skilled one becomes, the larger the amount of enemies or water that can be frozen in addition to how long it will last," he lectured while stepping on the block and skating around slightly to demonstrate before stepping back down. "You may come up here to view or test out the homemade rink in small groups. For anyone not doing this, you should be attempting the spell on your spiders or bowl of water in front of you. Begin."\r\n\r\nOOC: Have fun, because creativity counts! Ten sentence minimum.\r\n\r\n
Subthreads: A real dilemma by Saul Pierce with Briony, Elly Eriksson
Spiders! Rock. On. by Matt and Josh Santoro with Meredith Lail, Matt and Josh
Trying to blend in. by Adam Brockert with Morgaine Carey
Skating! by Eavan Valentine with Amber Carey, Eavan
A bit evil (and a bit late putting up) by Caedence Redoak with Echo Elms, Caedene
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Professor O'Leary
Second/Third Years: Lesson Two
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Professor O'Leary
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Adam Brockert
May 09, 2007 11:49 PM
Trying to blend in. by Adam Brockert
Adam took a seat in the back of the Defense classroom. He wrinkled his nose when he saw the jar of spiders. It wasn't as though he was deathly afraid of them the way he was of people or flying, but after the incident with his cousin getting bit by a poisonous one, they sure weren't his favorite creature. Adam could deal with them though, so long as they were non-poisonous and stayed safely in that container.There were far bigger threats in the room. He warily eyed his classmates. The second years were there too and most of them were the kind of people who made Adam anxious because they were the type who seemed to be all outgoing, the complete opposite of him. Eaven had been somewhat nice to him and he'd been surprised. Still, Adam was sure that he'd probably do something to screw that up and make her not like him either. He couldn't help it, he was an inferior person especially in the department of social skills. He wouldn't blame her-or Pepper either-if they never again wanted anything to do with him.
He listened carefully to Professor O'Leary. Adam always paid attention in class the best he could for being a nervous wreck the entire time. After all the closer attention he paid to the lesson, the less likely he was to screw up and make big mistakes. Not to mention, the less likely he was to be yelled at by Professor O'Leary. Adam knew the man hated him.
Adam reached for his wand, and pointed it over the bowl of water. There was no way he was dealing with those spiders though he didn't see it as unethical at all. He'd have actually much preferred them to be encased in ice. Adam would have just rather deal with something that could get away from him before he could get the spell right.
Nor he was he getting anywhere near that ice rink. Adam ice skating would equal falling down which would equal public humiliation which would make him more anxious not only in this class but everywhere he went in the school. Adam really didn't need that kind of problem.
So he would concentrate solely on the assignment and be very careful not to draw any attention to himself whatsoever.
This went on for about 15 minutes before a shadow fell over him. Adam jerked up, dropping his wand in the bowl of water. His knees hit the bottom of the desk and the container with the spiders fell to the ground. The lid popped off and the spiders crawled out.
His face flushed. So much for not getting noticed.
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Adam Brockert
Trying to blend in.
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Adam Brockert
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Morgaine Carey
May 26, 2007 12:32 AM
I'm never able to do that, somehow. by Morgaine Carey
Morgaine sat still at her desk, looking from her spiders to her bowl of water and back again. The two objects seemed as different as possible, so unless they were drowning spiders (something she thought very unlikely), she had no idea what the lesson was going to be about. Having clues she couldn't put together never failed to annoy her, which made her not-cousin's decision to sit far away from her a good thing for Amber, though she was a plain idiot if she thought Morgaine didn't see her sneaking in. Whether or not she acknowledged it was another story, but she didn't miss much that went on around her.The lecture made it all make sense. Though she wasn't very fond of them - funny-looking things, spiders were, and the associations weren't too pleasant, either - there wasn't a way out of freezing them without losing whatever pretenses of dignity she had. O'Leary had made his feelings about it pretty clear, and while seeking to please teachers was not very high on Morgaine's to-do list, looking weak or stupid in front of them was even further down the line. There was a difference between being a problem child - assuming that really was how they thought of her - and being an idiot.
Reaching for the jar, she gave the ice rink a curious look from underneath her lashes. Ice and snow and the like held something not unlike a fascination for her, mostly because they weren't too common where she came from. In a bit more than thirteen years, now, she had never seen a hunk of ice as large as that...rink? Checking it out, though, wasn't a possibility. She had to learn the spell before class ended according to her own rules, and it would come across as an effort at being sociable, anyway. Her reputation would lie on the floor in tattered rags if people thought she wanted to have something to do with them.
She was a fair hand with immobilization spells, so long as what she was working with wasn't very large, which made it easier to work on the spiders. Being bitten somehow failed to appeal to her, and she didn't want the thing to run off while she was trying to freeze it. Thankfully, people only really noticed her when she was doing something stupid, so no one was likely to notice any initial failures. Stilling one of the arachnids, she set to work.
Spells weren't really all that difficult to learn, most of the time. It all came down to concentration and precision. Pronounce the word correctly, move the wand correctly, and focus on the desired outcome, and it usually worked within a try or two. A matter, she thought, of outlook; she could never understand why Allie and sometimes even Gwen took so long to get things in classes. It took a few tries to make the spider turn first icy, then a few more to solidify it, but the second and third ones proved much easier. Each was put back in the jar as she finished with it; the idea that she had gotten from O'Leary's speech was that there was no telling how long the spiders would stay frozen.
The water looked trickier, and she suspected that would, by her own way of working with things, make it trickier for her to master. If there was a professor at Sonora that she didn't want to lose her temper in front of, it was the one whose class she was in, which meant that it was better for her to stay happy with her success. That meant, if she could find someone to steal some from, that she should try to freeze some more spiders, since she didn't want O'Leary to see her sitting around looking useless.
Her eye fell on Adam Brockert. She had never really talked to the Crotalus - she avoided the Crotali in her year, not to mention Crotali in general, for the most part - but she had eyes and ears, and both told her that she was watching the coward of the class, the kid who made Allie seem brave every now and then. People like Adam Brockert just did not object to people like Morgaine Carey doing as they pleased when it pleased them to do it, and it didn't hurt that, in all probability, he was scared of the spiders anyway. With those thoughts in mind, Morgaine walked over and retreated quickly when he dropped his wand and freed his spiders.
Muttering something uncomplimentary, she immobilized the three creatures and used the tip of her wand to push them back into their jar before the spell wore off. "Better be more careful," she told him, returning the jar to its old location. "You wouldn't want to see Lila within a mile of your spiders. She'd raise the ceiling screaming." No real effort was made to keep her disdain for the Crotalus half of the St. Martin twins out of her voice. "It would serve her right, but I don't want to hear all the screaming. If you're not going to use these, I want them to practice on while mine thaw."
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Morgaine Carey
I'm never able to do that, somehow.
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Morgaine Carey
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Adam B.
May 26, 2007 5:37 AM
I think it might be what I'm good at. by Adam B.
Oh of all the people it had to be standing over him, it just had to be Morgaine Carey. Adam hadn't ever spoke to her of course, given his fear of talking to most people, but her reputation was that she was hardly pleasant. Even though she didn't seem the type who necessarily tried to kill people with bludgers, she was likely to say something nasty to him. He feverently wished it could have been Pepper or Eaven standing over him. Adam wouldn't have really minded talking to Allie again either. He wasn't entirely sure she liked him much but she'd been fairly nice in COMC. Even Briony or his roommate would have been okay. Morgaine, however, was in about the same category as Lily. People that Adam preferred to not anger more than usual.He felt even more embarassed about jumping and knocking over his spiders. Morgaine would probably make fun of him now. Adam was nearly certain she'd said something under her breath. He was also fairly certain it was about him and not very nice. Granted he should have expected that, as she wasn't very nice and there was hardly anything good about him anyway.
Adam couldn't help but feel a little bit relieved when she got the spiders back in the jar for him. It had probably saved him from getting in trouble and worse, being the focus of the whole class. He'd had enough problems in this class last year with the malevolent pumpkin without letting spiders loose too. (Though, unless they were poisonous or you were Marshall, the pumpkin was much worse than a spider which could actually be stepped on and done away with quite easily.) "Um, sure, take them." Adam replied, never meeting her eyes. He wasn't quite sure whether or not to thank her. It would have been polite but she'd probably interpret it wrong and she'd think he was an even bigger freak.
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Adam B.
I think it might be what I'm good at.
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Adam B.
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Morgaine Carey
May 29, 2007 9:36 PM
There's something for everyone, I guess. by Morgaine Carey
Morgaine confidently expected to set off one of the attacks she'd heard of Adam having. She and the maybe one person in the school who knew her at all knew she was harmless unless someone did something as stupid as insult her family to her face, but Adam Brockert didn't know her, and letting the spiders out like that made him look a bit idiotic. When he kept his head and even managed to sound semi-normal, she didn't know if she should be impressed or worried. Maybe he was just feeling brave, but maybe her reputation was losing its kick.If people thought she wouldn't hurt them, they might talk to her.
If people talked to her, she would have to be nice to them, because Father had said so.
Oh, Merlin...
"Thank you," she said, resisting the urge to snap that he'd better remember to call her 'Miss Carey' in future. She had been told, directly, that she had to be nicer, for the sake of her family. The family couldn't afford to have two girls in one generation turn out worthless - recovery would still be in the works when her grandchildren had grandkids of their own. Even if that hadn't been a consideration, she was going to have to spend the entire summer at Bellevue or Magnolia Grove or somewhere as easy for her father to reach as they were. He didn't like it when direct orders were let to fall by the wayside.
It was frustrating, but that was what it was. She couldn't get in any more trouble. She couldn't play the crazy card. She couldn't do anything she was naturally inclined toward doing. "Look at people when you talk to them," she said to him, seizing on the first present thing that irritated her about the scenario. "You look like you're up to something, or something." Without further ado, as it would just serve to make things worse, she took the extra spiders and began making her way back to her own desk, half-sure her spiders would have started to thaw by the time she got there.
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Morgaine Carey
There's something for everyone, I guess.
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Morgaine Carey
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Adam B.
June 02, 2007 1:30 PM
Relieved by Adam B.
A giant sigh of relief escaped from Adam when Morgaine retreated. He'd thought he'd done okay, but the fact that she'd criticized him for not looking at her embarassed him. Of course the idea of him being up to something was completely ridiculous. Adam wouldn't hurt anyone or plot against them. The only things he was ever up to was doing the best he could in class and thinking of ways to avoid people, goals which unfortunately often in conflict, given that to do well, he had to go to class and class was full of people.Still, even the slightest criticism, even from a source who most likely never had a nice thing to say about anyone, made Adam feel horrid. He'd long outgrown crying, fortunately. (For one thing, it would attract attention, and the last thing he wanted was for Professor O'Leary to see him doing that.) He still wanted to escape though and get as far away from Morgaine as possible. Adam longed for the safety of his room, where only a few other people could even get to at all and the ones who could (aside from his roommate of course) had no interest in being there, to the best of his knowledge.
Adam sighed again and looked down at the bowl of water that part of his wand was still submerged in. This class had been rather hazardous to it. Last year it had been chomped on by the pumpkin and now it was all wet. He withdrew it from the bowl and lacking any better options, dried it on his robes. He hoped nobody noticed that, just in case it was the wrong thing to do.
" Glacius !" Adam said, quietly, of course. There was no way that he was going to let himself talk loud enough to be heard. A small smile of pleasure came to his face as he noticed the water begin to turn hard and icy.
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Adam B.
Relieved
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Adam B.
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