Professor Levy
October 04, 2010 10:56 PM
Advanced Level (Seventh Years): Lesson I by Professor Levy
Erika was sitting on the massive desk left behind by her predecessor as the students began to enter the room. While she didn’t want to admit it her leg was bothering her a bit more than usual today. She was hoping by staying off of it, the annoying spasm that seemed to be occurring would stop. Oh, she could have sat at her desk, however, being so short, she was afraid that some of the students wouldn’t be able to see her as well, even if it was a small class and today was a rather important lesson. Not that they all weren’t, but this one she had found to be one of the most useful in her former career.“Before coming to Sonora, how many of you had something really odd and at the time maybe unexplainable happen to you?” Erika began. She didn’t bother to tell the students to quiet down or to stop talking. She wasn’t their babysitter. By this age, she thought they were responsible for their education and if they didn’t pay attention, then they would have to face the consequences, such as not being able to pass their RATS. Either way, she would continue on with her responsibility of presenting the material to them.
After calling on a couple of students to share their stories, she went on, “As children, we have no control over our magic and it stems completely from our emotions. This is why it’s necessary to be taught to have control over our magic. Emotions always guide our magic. The more you feel a certain way, the more intense the spell can be. Have you ever noticed that when your passionate about a class, your spells are more powerful in that class? Or a classic example for our class lies in the Unforgivables. Only with intense emotion, usually hate, though there have been some insane wizards who have taken great pleasure in it, is it possible to cast Avada Kadavera.”
She allowed that to sink in a moment. “Most young wizards and witches come to school to learn to direct their magic through wands and incantations. If they didn’t, then their magic would be unguided and could end up causing a world of destruction. Think about it. As teenagers, everything probably seems like the end of the world. You get a zit right before some big date or the boy you’re crushing out asks out someone else. And there’s nothing you can do about how you feel, because your hormones are all over the place. It’s perfectly normal, but from the perspective of magic, it could be really dangerous. Here you are a teenager, you break up with your boyfriend, your emotions, and consequently your magic, are spinning out of control, and the next thing you know, the ex ends up permanently as a frog. Not a good thing.”
Erika brushed back an annoying strand of dark brown hair while she let them process. It was always good to take a pause between thoughts so as not to overwhelm anyone. “So, you’re probably wondering what this has to do with defense. Obviously, we’re going to be learning to protect ourselves from exes so as not to turn up as frogs.” She smiled slightly at some of the reactions, but waved her hand to wash away any such thoughts. “No, we’re going to be concentrating on the very form of magic that we’re taught not to use. Nonverbal magic. When we’re very young, this, in conjuction with wandless magic, is the type that we use without conscious thought. Everyone is capable of performing this type of magic. It’s just a matter of getting in touch with one’s inner child.”
Pulling out her wand, Erika produced Lumos with no words. Slowly, her wand tip became brighter and brighter as she cycled through each derivative of the charm. “This is just a simple demonstration of the spell, but it can be used with any spell. All right, then, I want you to break up into groups of two and practice silently casting hexes, jinxes, and their counters since they’ll probably turn up on your RATS. Before you leave, don’t forget to come pick up the homework.” She gestured to a pile of papers on her desk.
Subthreads: Off to work.... by Thomas Fitzgerald, Aladren
0
Professor Levy
Advanced Level (Seventh Years): Lesson I
0
Professor Levy
1
5
Thomas Fitzgerald, Aladren
October 11, 2010 10:56 PM
Off to work.... by Thomas Fitzgerald, Aladren
Thomas winced and cursed silently to himself as Professor Levy began to speak, but still scribbled the end of the sentence he was on in his Sociology essay before he pushed that aside and pulled his Defense notes to the center of his desk. Between them, she and Professor Fawcett were as likely as not to put him in the wacko ward before the end of the year, but until they succeeded, he would take every half-opportunity to clear something out of the way that he got.He had bitten off too much. He knew that. He had seen every other Aladren of reasonable prominence in his school career bite off too much around seventh year, had sworn he'd never be that stupid, and he'd done it anyway. It had seemed easy enough to carry off in the beginning, but the closer they got to midterms...Thomas thought he was at least keeping Gray and Jera from noticing, and they were the people he interacted with most, but he was starting to feel the strain. Midterm would be busy, too, but at least he'd just be working, not learning or at least having hours of his day eaten up by classes and practices as well.
He didn't contribute much to the conversation about their childhoods, as his brain was still racing from the essay and it took a moment to slow into the rhythms of the conversation. Professor Levy was unusually pensive - but that wasn't the word. But it was a slower, more thoughtful lesson than he was accustomed to these days. He didn't feel the knife's edge of urgency at his throat for once.
He did, though, feel something like confusion. Why it was usually negative emotions fueling Unforgivables was easy enough - he could see how warped people could like it, there were psychopaths in the Muggle world who had... odd tastes that involved basically the same things except for actual mind control, but thought it was uncommon enough here, too, maybe even more for a few reasons - but the dating thing was another issue. All of the issues she was bringing up were things he was familiar with the theory of in Muggle culture, but he was struck by the thought that, in a way, it didn't apply to them. They couldn't go out. Grope in a corner, maybe, but that wasn't really the same thing.
There were couples at the school, if surprisingly few. It was probably Fawcett melting his brain, but he thought it was a social matter. Witches were socialized to be, by Muggle standards, very...pure, he guessed, and both sexes to engage primarily in theoretically serious relationships instead of the standard teenage flings. Of course, that could be a product of boarding school culture; when going to dinner meant eating in the dining hall just like every other night, only together and with her dressed up a bit, and with no reasonable excuse for not eating together a great deal, it seemed theoretically easy to assume the air of an old married couple in no time flat.
...But he was in Defense. And besides, hormones. He didn't feel all that comfortable with the subject, but it was what it was, and he had, at some point around third or fourth year, noticed, even if he had never seen fit to do anything with the knowledge, that Sonora was a large building with lots of attractive girls in it. And while his childhood had been Muggle enough for them not to follow the protocols he thought of for relationships, the same drama could ensue.
Yet another good reason to avoid entanglements until other business was out of the way: he didn't think even the perfect splicing of Pecari and Crotalus personality traits could produce someone good enough to twist being turned permanently into a frog to their benefit.
Smart to avoid entanglements. Though it was occasionally lonely.
But they weren't - to his intense relief - actually in some session mandated by the headmistress where they talked over their feelings, though he still couldn't say he liked the thought of the whole 'inner child' business. They were dealing with nonverbal magic. Useful stuff; one of the main problems with defense was the opponent often being able to figure out what you were up to halfway through the spell and counter accordingly. There was still a delay, time to counter, but at least there was nothing to go on with this but the color of the light. By the time that was processed, it was usually too late for a better counter measure than jumping out of the way.
"Shall we?" he offered to a person once, having been let go and collected his homework sheet before it slipped under everything else in his mind and come back to the class as it separated into pairs.
0
Thomas Fitzgerald, Aladren
Off to work....
0
Thomas Fitzgerald, Aladren
0
5