Looking on the bright side on Defense Against the Dark Arts

Professor Levy

September 14, 2012 11:54 PM

Intermediate Level: Lesson I by Professor Levy

The past year had been both a blessing and a curse. Erika loved her babies. She really did. Every time they smiled at her or held her finger, she just melted. Unfortunately, that was only half the time. Spencer was especially fussy and didn’t want to sleep ever. In the rare moments when she did, were the moments that Parker didn’t. Adding in to the fact that both Torra and she worked, they had been absolutely exhausted. Erika had never in her life missed a day of work, but this year she had called in absent more than her share. Thankfully, Kiva had understood. She had a few familial changes of her own.

Now that they were a little over a year, they were finally on a sleep schedule, which meant that, at least during the night, she could get some rest. During the day was another matter. Both babies were on the go. She worried more about Parker than Spencer, because he was already walking without the help of furniture and he tried to get into everything! She knew Spencer wouldn’t be far behind. Whatever Parker did, Spencer did. Though, the same wasn’t true for Parker. Already, Spencer could hold a conversation. Granted, half of it was gibberish, but there was no doubt she was going to be a talker. Parker had yet to try. Her mother had told her not to worry cause some babies took longer than others, so she tried not to worry too much.

Aside from that, with the babies having a set routine, she was able to focus her attention into teaching. Sitting behind her desk, she straightened the pile of papers she intended to pass out, which included the syllabus and their first assignment. Soon enough, students began filing into the classroom. Before class officially began, she gestured for one of the students in the front to hand out the papers.

After all the handouts had been passed out and everyone was situated, Erika began her lesson. “Welcome to Intermediate Defense Against the Dark Arts. I am Professor Levy for anyone that may not know or may have forgotten.” The last part was said jokingly for her absences last year. Speaking of which, “When I call your name, please say here. Adair, Alice…” She knew most of them by name already, so it was more a formality than anything else. Of course, occasionally, there were transfers.

Once attendance had been taken, Erika went over the rules. Again, mostly formality, but it never hurt to remind them that there was no fooling around. After all, learning defense was a serious business. It could be the difference between life and death. Not that most students thought about that fact, but it was there nonetheless. How many people had lost a perfectly good limb on the account of someone else not following the rules? It was a lesson that she had learned on account of a dimwitted partner. Though, she couldn’t say nothing good came from it. She got to see her babies more than she would have if she were still in the Auror field.

“If you’ll take a look at your syllabus, you will see that we will be focusing on the mind for the next couple of weeks. Many of you many not think that the mind is an important part of defense, because of how much emphasis is places on spell casting and deflection. Yet, the mind is probably the most valuable and most vulnerable asset we have in defense. For example, many of you may have heard of the Unforgivable Curse – the Imperius Curse. Just a quick side note for anyone who doesn’t. There are three Unforgivable Curses – the Imperius Curse, the Cruciatus Curse, and the Killing Curse. We won’t go into details today on all three, but needless to say, they are so named, because they are Unforgivable. No one in here should even be attempting these spells. They are a severely punishable offense. Got it?” She gave them all a stern look.

“That said, we are going to touch on the theory of the Imperius Curse. The Imperius Curse is a spell that causes the victim to be completely controlled by the castor. If a person’s mind is weak and susceptible, they are more likely to fall under this curse. But it is possible to resist, if one’s mind and will are strong. What we are going to focus on the different mindsets as well as the basics on what to do and not do to prevent yourself from becoming susceptible. A mindset by definition is a mental attitude or disposition that determines how a person responds or interprets situations. Everyone in here has a fixed mindset, which is the behavior to which you are born with and the most difficult to overcome. What we want to develop is the growth mindset, which are the qualities that we choose to develop.”

With a flick of her wrist, the following appeared on the board:

Negative mindset

Energy is focused on what is wrong in one’s life. Reasons are given for why the individual will never succeed – too sickly, too sad, no energy, don’t have anything, etc. Thus, the individual gives up before they can succeed creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure.

Has an attitude of ‘I can’t.’

Positive mindset

Energy is focused on what is right in one’s life. The individual is focused on being grateful for what they have. The individual sets goals and strives to meet their goals.

Has an attitude of ‘I can.’

“Everyone has days when they are up or down. We all have traits that fall into a positive or negative mindset. Maybe you feel that you can do well at Potions, but feel hopeless about Charms. Maybe certain things make you feel nervous. Or maybe other things like teasing can trigger a negative mindset. What we want to focus on is learning to control what causes a negative mindset and working towards a positive mindset. When we are in a negative mindset, we are susceptible to poor performance and consequently, poor defense. That said, I want everyone to answer the provided questionnaire to help determine your fixed mindset and ways we can work on our growth mindset.”

Page 1 - Mindset Questionaire

1) You do well on a test, because:
a) I’m smart.
b) I was lucky.

2) You do poorly on a test.
a) I’ll do better next time.
b) I’m a failure.

3) You join your friends, who have suddenly stopped talking, you think:
a) Nothing of it.
b) They were talking about you.

4) Your boyfriend/girlfriend dumps you:
a) There are other fish in the sea.
b) Your life is over.

5) Being myself guarantees people will:
a) Like me.
b) Dislike me.

“If you answered mostly a’s, then you have a positive mindset and if you answered mostly b’s, then you have a negative mindset. Knowing where your mindset lies, you can work towards improving or overcoming initial barriers that cause us to fail. All right, I want everyone to break up into groups of two. Using the next page of this packet, I want you to think of how you would react in the following scenarios and what might be a better way to react. Please discuss this part with each other. If you have any questions, please raise your hand and I’ll be around. For those who finish early, you can start on tomorrow’s assignment, which is listed on the third page.”

Page 2 – Scenarios

1) You are walking down the hall when some kids corner you. They start calling you names and teasing you. Eventually, one pulls out a wand and attempts to hex you with the Jelly Legs Jinx. What is your initial reaction? What is a good way to handle the situation?

2) You are walking through the Labyrinth Gardens and come across a creature you have never seen before. It looks rather dangerous. How would you feel about the situation? How would you handle the situation? Are there any ways to handle the situation that would be more appropriate?

Page 3 – Overcoming Obstacles – Using Expelliarmus with a positive mindset

With a partner, practice the Disarming Charm (or other previously learned spells) while trying to remain positive. ‘I can disarm my opponent’ or ‘I will not be disarmed.’ Does the spell feel easier to perform in the positive mindset? Were more positive results shown?

Subthreads:

Well...this may be interesting. by Brianna Japos, Crotalus with Sullivan Quincy, Pecari, Michael Grosvenor, Brianna, Sully

I'm fine with mentally gray, myself by Paul Bennett, Crotalus with Eris Ackart, Paul

Looking on the bright side by Derry Four, Teppenpaw with Hope Brockert, Teppenpaw

It just had to be girlfriends, didn't it? by Arnold Carey, Aladren with Josephine Owen, Josephine

I'm totally positive on this. by Regina Parker, Teppenpaw with Phoenix Lucore, Crotalus

Everything looks good from here by Thaddeus Pierce, Aladren with Henny B-F-R

Oh, this should be a bundle of laughs.... by Theresa Carey, Pecari with Nora Dobson, Aladren, Theresa

Well, parts of this are interesting, anyway.... by Alicia Bauer, Aladren with Arabella Brockert, Pecari

Too rigid for my tastes. by Evan Brockert, Aladren

Apparently negative. by Valerie Lennox, Crotalus

Everything in moderation, that's my motto. by Russell Layne, Aladren with Arthur Carey, Aladren

0 Professor Levy Intermediate Level: Lesson I 0 Professor Levy 1 5

Brianna Japos, Crotalus

September 15, 2012 4:08 PM

Well...this may be interesting. by Brianna Japos, Crotalus

Brianna sometimes really liked Defense Against the Dark Arts and then sometimes she didn’t. She liked the idea of growing stronger and being able to really take care of herself, but she wasn’t very good on her feet and not a fast thinker, plus they had to throw spells at one another and it was all just far too chaotic. She wanted to learn how to protect herself, not make a fool of herself. It was all so complicated. She just didn’t want to be a victim anymore, but it never really seemed to matter. You either were one or you weren’t. And she was one.

She answered roll call and then sat quietly as Professor Levy went over the rules of the classroom. Now that she was in intermediate classes, everything was much more dangerous and having Fifth years in the class with her meant that they were also meant to have CATS level courses. She wasn’t sure if she could handle them, but she made it through last year by some miracle and since her confidence was up a bit, Brianna felt that she might be okay in these lessons. Or, at least, not fail completely at them.

When the lesson finally began, Brianna jotted down the notes. She wasn’t sure what exactly the lesson was on… the Unforgivable Curses? Or maybe just the Imperius Curse. Or a variation of it. Brianna wasn’t exactly sure how to overcome something in which they were born with or what the difference is between a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. Neither sound all that appealing.

And then things appeared on the board and Brianna began to get nervous. Positives and Negatives. Scenarios. It felt like this whole lesson was directed at her. She was too low on herself. She allowed for people to pick on her. It was her fault for how things were. Did this mean that she was permanently with a negative mindset? If she knew she could just change everything she had ever thought over the course of her lifetime, she would have done so ages ago.

Brianna looked over the questionnaire on the board and found herself answering mostly b for all of them. Oh no. She was permanently negative. Fantastic.

The scenarios weren’t much better.

The first scenario had Brianna wanting to crawl into a hole and not come out. How often had that happened to her? So often that she couldn’t ever count. That was her life. To be cornered, picked on, bullied, pushed around, etc. There was nothing she could do about it either because if she fought back and hurt one of them, her parents would get into trouble and lose their jobs. It wasn’t as though Brianna wanted to just sit there and take it or have a negative mindset, but, what else was she supposed to do? Maybe in other circumstances where her parents’ livelihood wasn’t at stake, she could have been different. She would never really know. And now she would have to discuss these scenarios with someone else.

Turning to the person beside her, Brianna tried to give a smile, but she was relatively nervous so she might have looked worried. “Would you like to work on this with me?” She asked them, she never really knew what she would do if they said no and she was hoping to never find out.

0 Brianna Japos, Crotalus Well...this may be interesting. 0 Brianna Japos, Crotalus 0 5

Sullivan Quincy, Pecari

September 15, 2012 5:02 PM

Can we call the negative mindset something less negative? by Sullivan Quincy, Pecari

Sullivan looked forward to each Defense lesson with something like dread. He was no worse at it than he was any of his other classes (which meant he was bad at everything about equally rather than he was good at everything about equally) but he just had this gut feeling that DADA was a class that might actually beat him up for a merely mediocre performance in lessons. So far he had managed to avoid direct injury or mental breakdown, but he did not count on that kind of luck continuing now that CATS were looming in less than two years' time.

He answered to his name when it came up during roll, and felt kind of proud of himself for having paid attention all the way to the Qs.

He felt less pleased when an assumption was made about having heard of the Unforgivable Curses. As a fourth year muggleborn who had a tendency to forget what he wasn't directly being graded on (and even a fair amount of that), he had no idea what she was talking about. He was reminded again that he was being compared to people who knew this kind of stuff like he knew George Washington had been the first president while he hadn't known magic was real until he'd turned eleven. It was a tough gulf to cross and Sully had never been the smartest cookie in his muggle school even when his class there had all started on semi-equal footing.

The one good thing he could see in regards to the Unforgivable Curses was that nobody seemed to expect him to attempt casting them, never mind pull them off. That was one - well, three, he supposed - spells that he didn't have to worry about getting down in time for the exams.

As she explained positive and negative mindsets, he couldn't help but feel she was missing some middle ground. He could not say that he really had an "I can" attitude, but he was sure he wasn't so pessimistic as to have an "I can't" outlook on life. He knew Yoda would disapprove but he felt his mental attitude fell more in line with "I can try but don't expect miracles."

As he worked through the questionaire, though, he began to feel depressed. For question one, he answered b) I got lucky, and he didn't like either choice for question two, as he knew from experience that when he did badly on a test he did not consider it a failure but that he had tried his best and that was what mattered. Now, he was suddenly concerned that his best meant he was a failure. His ego, however, refused to accept that and he left the question blank because there was no right answer to that one and the test was biased against dumb people.

For question three, he answered b) They were talking about me. For question four, he again had a problem with the question's multiple choice answers because, really, he needed choice c) You're assuming I had a boyfriend/girlfriend to start with, in order to accurately answer it. Frankly, he doubted he'd ever be able to work up the guts to ask a girl out in the first place. This, unfortunately, seemed to fall solidly into the negative mindset alley even if it wasn't the depressive over-reliance on other people for self-worth that the question was actually trying to identify.

Question five was just baffling. Being himself guaranteed nothing. It depended on other people whether or not they liked him for himself. That was how opinions worked. Nobody was universally loved or hated (except maybe Hitler or other really really bad people). Everybody had different tastes and personalities that they clicked with. He decided he should answer this one with the positive mindset answer just so he'd have one (a) on his answer sheet.

What he was left with at the end, then, was one (a), two (b)s, and two (c)s, with both (c)s being relatively negative answers compared to the (a)s. This was clearly not the positive outlook the professor was hoping for. However, neither did he feel the test was entirely fair, because he had never really thought of himself as a negative person. Maybe a little below average, but fifty percent of the population was below average. That was what average meant. It was the middle. Not everyone could be a weirdo genius like Arthur Carey, and he resented the implication that knowing that he was not likely to do well on tests meant he had a negative attitude. He was perfectly happy with his solid A grades. A stood for Acceptable, and Acceptable was, well, acceptable.

He checked over the scenarios to support this opinion that the questionnaire was unduly focused on testing ability and saw nothing wrong with his initial response to the situations presented. He felt 'Run like Heck' was a perfection rational response to both a group of bullies and an unknown monster in the gardens. Not particularly brave for a Pecari, perhaps, but totally rational and completely not-negative.

When the girl sitting next to him asked to be partners, he nodded in agreement. "Sure." He wasn't sure under what circumstances anyone would say no, but right now he felt doing so would be enforcing an undeserved negative mindset even if he'd been inclined to.

"So the correct response is to run away, right?" he asked, sure of himself. "Trying to take on people who outnumber you and will beat you up or a monster with giant teeth that probably wants to eat you is just stupid." After questions one and two, he felt he had some authority on stupid.

0 Sullivan Quincy, Pecari Can we call the negative mindset something less negative? 0 Sullivan Quincy, Pecari 0 5

Michael Grosvenor

September 15, 2012 5:40 PM

Positivity Impaired? by Michael Grosvenor

Self-examination was not something Michael really needed right now, if ever. He had learnt during Charms that when pushed beyond his comfort zone he had a tendency to just fall apart, internally if not also externally. He'd thought he'd changed. He'd thought he'd gained confidence. But he knew now that all the confidence he felt came from the people around him, not from within himself. He felt good around his friends, he felt like he was worth something because they treated him like he was. When faced with strangers, his expectations of how they would react to him returned to zero. And now he was being told that that would reduce his ability to perform well in certain classes, with the implication in this case, that it would be easier for people to hurt him, as well as the academic implication that he'd probably do badly on his exams because he believed he would. Fantastic.

He pulled Professor Levy's quiz towards him. He didn't mark his answers down on the sheet because he didn't want his neighbours to see his lack of confidence in himself. It would be easy to lie – it was so transparent what each question was getting at – but when it was just to himself, what was the point? Questions one, two and three all got definite 'b' responses. Question four was harder because he couldn't imagine anyone wanting to go out with him in the first place. He figured, given the slant of the activity, that was as good an answer; he scored negative for that too. Five was the hardest. That was the one that depended more on other people. If they were nice, friendly people, they'd probably try to include him. If they were stuck up Purebloods, they would hate him based on something he couldn't even help. Ditto if they were the kids at his old school, although for a different, equally intrinsic aspect of his self. It didn't really matter. It wasn't like his score was teetering somewhere around the ambiguous middle. He wanted to screw the stupid test up and throw it at Professor Levy, like it was somehow her fault that he hated himself so much. He guessed it wasn't but she'd forced him to think about it, which he'd rather not have done.

She also wanted them to go and discuss their feelings in groups. Michael wondered whether she'd specifically designed this lesson to torment people with self-esteem issues. As if making them think about it in their own heads wasn't bad enough, he was now supposed to go and tell other people about what a useless loser he was. He was sure that was a way to win friends and influence people, or to maintain good relationships with the ones he already had. His go to response for a partner was Mellie but Mellie was.... Mellie. She was really cool and chirpy and, ok she could be kind of clumsy or slack in class, but she seemed really confident. And he was always confident when he was around her because of it. He couldn't stand the thought of admitting to her that he was this funny, cool guy that he seemed, somehow, amazingly, to have given her the impression he was. Brianna was his other frequent choice for partner. She was also someone who knew he wasn't perfect already. She knew the idea of what other people thought terrified him. He glanced down the list of scenarios they were meant to discuss. They probably weren't going to sit well with her either. They could rescue each other. He would only have to hope that Mellie didn't hate him for going off with someone else, especially when they hadn't been able to work together in Charms. He made a note to himself to make it up to her in Potions, or COMC.

His plan to be Brianna's Knight in Equally Pitiful Armour was somewhat dashed by the fact that she seemed to be talking to the person next to her about the assignment. Maybe she had more confidence than he'd given her credit for. Whilst that would be a positive thing for her, and one which he knew he should be happy about, it did also have the flipside of meaning that he was even lower in the confidence stakes than he'd suspected, and that nobody needed him for anything. He caught Brianna's eye as he approached, pulling a face which he hoped she would be able to interpret as 'Well, isn't this just what you wanted to be discussing with your classmates?'

“Hi,” he said, a little awkwardly, as he didn't really know Sully. He was sure he was a nice enough guy but that didn't really place him into the column of 'people I want to discuss my feelings with.' Michael didn't think there was really anyone in that column. Brianna was in the 'if forced to discuss my feelings, I would choose...' column but he wasn't sure there had ever been a time when he wanted to talk about his feelings. Natalie was probably in that column too, or possibly even held a privileged position in column a, but she was very, very far away and couldn't have seen Sonora if she'd walked right up to it, so she wasn't really an option. “Mind if join you?” he asked, adding – because class usually involved pair work and he was currently the main residence of self-doubt - “She did say groups were ok, right?”

13 Michael Grosvenor Positivity Impaired? 199 Michael Grosvenor 0 5

Paul Bennett, Crotalus

September 15, 2012 9:14 PM

I'm fine with mentally gray, myself by Paul Bennett, Crotalus

Work was never one of the things Paul found especially amenable, but there were different levels of unpleasant within the ‘work’ category, and if he had to choose something to do, there were, much to his surprise, many days when it would be Defense Against the Dark Arts. It wasn’t a subject he had come to Sonora expecting to like, but he had discovered over the past three years that he had a certain affinity for it. At any rate, it was often the form of exercise he least minded having to participate in.

Of course, in the melee classes, he thought it did help that he didn’t look like he should be good at DADA. He had grown a few inches over the past year or so, but he was still not what anyone would call tall or in anything too closely resembling good shape, as he far preferred his desserts to his vegetables and meals in general to vigorous physical activity and did not have a particularly high metabolism. He could move quickly when he wanted to, but he just didn’t look the part, and so, when the class demanded that they all hex each other or whatever, he could usually get in a few good jinxes without anyone quite realizing where they had come from, or so he thought. Paul viewed this as an accomplishment of his, as something to take pride in. In his mind, standing in front of the person who wanted to harm him and engaging that person in a fair fight was for idiots who liked duels, not someone trying to defend himself. Defense was about being sneaky.

Soon after the roll call, though, it became apparent that this was not going to be that kind of class. Instead, it all sounded more abstract and difficult to pin down – and, most regrettably in his opinion, like they were going to have to talk a lot about magic instead of really doing much, because he had trouble imagining some of the families in this room being thrilled about it if their kids were put under Imperius. Who knew what they could get the Careys to confess to if they did that? Not that he was going to try it, uncle or no uncle, he liked living and not being in the crazy house himself too much to ever willingly raise his wand to a Carey, but still, it was a pleasant mental image, the one he had of Arthur Carey telling the whole group about – well, something foul, anyway.

Paul thought for a moment, going over what he knew about his family. There was nothing exactly criminal there, at least that he knew about, but there were some things he didn’t think he would like the professor to ask him about when he had an irresistible compulsion to do as he was told and what he was told was to tell the truth. His aunt’s girlfriend, his crazy sister, his crazier mother…Yeah, it was definitely better that they didn’t drink Truth Potions with Fawcett or go under Imperius in here. Better dull than ruined, that was the ticket.

He looked blankly on the quiz questions. Tests. Well, he didn’t do well because he was smart or because he was lucky, he did well because he studied. He guessed the second answer was closer to the truth for the second question, since he couldn’t look into the future and know he’d do better next time, but Paul didn’t think his feelings were as dramatic as the question implied. Plus, saying he would do better next time in no way negated the fact that he’d failed this hypothetical time, so the answers didn’t seem balanced to him. What if he thought both answers to the third one? That they were talking about him, but that he just didn’t really care that much? The fourth question was easy, of course there was always someone else, if he was rich enough, but the fifth one made him draw another blank, as he thought most people were just as neutral toward him as he was toward them. Paul preferred to walk the earth without an excess of strong attachments, and so far, he was doing wonderfully.

Shrugging, he marked down the answers he knew she wanted to hear and then flipped over to the second sheet, looking through the scenarios they were supposed to discuss. Once he was through the first one, though, Paul just frowned, not sure where the lesson had wandered off to and how that place related to its starting point. These were answers that involved common sense, not self-respect or whatever it was they were working for, and he really didn’t see what it had to do with the Imperius Curse. “Well," he said, looking at the person next to him. "We can work together if you want, but I'll go ahead and tell you that I don’t get it.”

0 Paul Bennett, Crotalus I'm fine with mentally gray, myself 201 Paul Bennett, Crotalus 0 5

Derry Four, Teppenpaw

September 15, 2012 10:21 PM

Looking on the bright side by Derry Four, Teppenpaw

Derry could not say that DADA was his favoritest class at Sonora, but he did not dislike it, and he did better at it than he did in Potions so it wasn't his least favorite class either. He was really kind of looking forward to the end of the year so he could stop writing essays for Professor Fawcett. Whether or not he'd be dropping DADA as well was something he was still trying to figure out. He supposed it probably came down to what he ended up getting on his CATS. He'd heard a rumor that you needed an E to continue with it, but he wasn't sure if that was true or not. Either way, it was supposed to get tougher in RATS level and he wasn't sure he wanted to keep with it if he didn't manage an E at CATS level.

He thought he could probably get Es in Charms and Divinations, and probably CoMC and maybe (if he was really lucky that day) Transfigurations. Potions, though, was almost a lost cause, and DADA was about on par with Transfig.

He arrived in class in a good mood and waved at Thad who was already sitting in the front row as he moved to his usual seat in the middle of the room. Thad didn't seem to notice, but Derry wasn't too surprised by that. Thad probably had other things on his mind, like trying to figure out complex Defense theories that didn't come up in class until sixth year that he'd read about over the summer in preparation for joining the intermediate class.

Sitting down with his friends, Derry whispered greetings to them (he always felt weird talking at a normal volume in Defense class, which was kind of weird, but the place somehow reminded him of a library or something; he had no idea why, he didn't have this problem in Fawcett's class and that guy really did cover his walls in books). He got his wand out, but didn't bother with his books or quill until he knew they weren't about to leap into battle or something. After he answered to his name in the roll, and getting handed a syllabus and a packet of other papers, he decided he should probably get out the book and quill.

In listening to the descriptions of the two attitudes, he could see that the positive one was quite obviously the better and decided he probably had that, since he was sure he had never felt much negativity about anything. Well, maybe his parents' divorce had been kind of negative, but who wanted that to happen?

Turning to the questionnaire he found the questions easier than most tests.
1) B (He could not, after growing up with Thaddeus, describe himself as smart with a clear conscience, even if he had earned the good grade fairly and honestly.)
2) A (Clearly, if he did badly, he hadn't studied as much as he should have, and he'd get Hamlet to tell him what he'd done wrong so he'd do better if the topic came up again on the end of year test or the CATS.)
3) A (Even if they had been talking about him, he was sure it wouldn't have been anything bad, and the previous conversation had just reached its natural conclusion. He trusted his friends.)
4) A (Breaking up with a girlfriend would be awful, but it surely wasn't the end of the world.)
5) A (He had never had a problem with people not liking him so he must be likeable.)

Feeling good about his answers, he turned to his nearest friend and asked, "Ready to work on the scenarios?"

He read over the first one, frowning at the behavior described by the group of people cornering him. "Well, that's not nice at all. It's Protego to shield against a jelly-legs curse, right? That's what we're supposed to use?"

1 Derry Four, Teppenpaw Looking on the bright side 189 Derry Four, Teppenpaw 0 5

Brianna

September 15, 2012 10:50 PM

That does sound a little better by Brianna

Brianna wasn’t sure if it was a good thing or a bad thing to be paired up with Sullivan Quincy. She didn’t know him and he didn’t know her, so she could lie to him about everything if she wanted to and he could do the same. But, since she has started Sonora, Brianna felt that there were so many lessons aimed at getting her to confront or at least admit to the wrongdoings of her life at home. She had no idea why the school was trying so hard to get her to admit anything, but it really felt that way. She had at least stopped pretending to be rich and snobby the way Attoria had wanted her to. It had just become too exhausting to pretend to be the thing she hated most. Not to say she would say the truth to him or anything, but she wouldn’t spew out an entire backstory of a lie either.

His response to the scenario made her giggle, which was surprising. She rarely giggled and usually never with a stranger. But, she had been quite surprised by what he had said. “You know, I would say that it is the correct answer. Merlin knows that I definitely could not win a fight against anyone or anything, but I’m pretty sure the point of the exercise is to find a way around it.” Brianna commented. “I think running is what is considered a negative mindset.” Brianna stated, looking up to see Michael approaching. She smiled at him and then gave a ‘well, what can you do?’ look and half shrug. Michael was a good guy and he had once been picked on for being different like she had. Although, he admitted it and she had not. Still, there was a connection there and she felt comfortable around him.

“Of course you can.” She replied without hesitation. She was getting used to working with boys; maybe they were just easier to deal with than girls were. “Sully and I were just discussing the first scenario. We both agree that running away would be the smart thing to do, but I’m fairly certain that’s not what the professor was aiming for. What do you think? Run from bullies or figure out a way to make everyone happy with the possibility of being knocked around?” Brianna still felt that running and surviving was a ‘positive’ thing, but looking at it from the Professor’s view, she could see why it would be a negative. Feeling confident and believing that you can do it, would be probably what she wanted to hear. Brianna had none of that.

Brianna looked over the other scenarios on the page and really felt that no matter what, getting out of there was the best solution. “I mean, I suppose if I were older and had more skills, standing up for myself would be best, but I’m fourteen and can barely stay on my feet with a tickle spell, how would I be able to fight or whatever?”

0 Brianna That does sound a little better 0 Brianna 0 5

Arnold Carey, Aladren

September 16, 2012 6:24 PM

It just had to be girlfriends, didn't it? by Arnold Carey, Aladren

He had never thought he would say it, not as long as he lived, but after only a very short time back at Sonora, Arnold thought he might be looking forward to Advanced Transfiguration more than he had ever looked forward to anything in his life. Since the walls and floors of Sonora seemed unlikely to change their policy of being completely unmoved to pity every time his better half walked into a room – something she did quite a lot, now that he noticed it; he wasn’t sure how he’d missed that their year had all its classes and its lunch period together for four years – and he willed them to swallow him whole, and Disillusionment Charms required the user to stand a lot stiller than Arnold ordinarily did, very advanced Vanishing Spells seemed like the only way to go.

In the meantime, though, the best he could do was find what he hoped was the least obtrusive seat in the room, earning himself a disgusted look from Arthur in the process, and hope that things weren’t too awkward at any point during this specific hour. Honestly, he thought that if there were places where they were going to be all right, they were in Defense and Magical Creatures, where he sometimes played the very minor-league hero for her, but still. Constant vigilance seemed like the way to go. If he tried very hard not to be an idiot, about this or in general, then maybe….

It probably, he concluded glumly, wouldn’t make much of a difference in the end, but at least he would be able to say he’d tried. Fae had seemed so nice about it all at her brother’s wedding, but he couldn’t believe, somehow, that she wasn’t a little disappointed anyway. He didn’t think the fact that he didn’t think she’d made eye contact with him once since they got to school was helping him with that.

Professor Levy began to speak, giving him something more interesting and less personal to focus on, at least for a moment. He hesitated for the moment at the idea of spending a few weeks on the mind – that sounded…hard, not like something where they just ran around throwing hexes and counter-curses at each other, which was the kind of thing he was good at – and winced at the mention of the Unforgivable Curses even though he didn’t remember what the Cruciatus one did, exactly, but was interested and taking notes right up through the quiz, when he winced for a different reason entirely and glanced at Fae for about three seconds before he caught himself and felt his forehead turning red and wondered if the whole world really was out to get him.

When he took a test and did well, he was lucky, when it wasn’t up to par, he’d do better next time, if his friends stopped talking just as he got there he would – normally; he wasn’t sure at the moment, since this was the first time in his life he’d really been involved in anything gossip-worthy – assume it was just a lull in the conversation most of the time, and none of that bothered him at all, but Professor Levy had just had to ask about girlfriends.

Arnold looked down at his desk, tapping the end of his quill against his parchment and willing himself not to be flushing as hard as he sometimes willed himself to disappear, and with as much success. It was, he knew, stupid – it wasn’t like she really could dump him, at least in the casual way that the question implied; of course her parents or his parents could end things if they really wanted to, someone got offended or got a really better offer or something, or Fae could just elope with someone, if she didn’t mind the possibility of getting disowned as much as she did the thought of marrying him, but in all likelihood, they were in things for the possibly very long haul, now – but the question was bringing up all the stuff he had been trying very hard since he got back not to think about, and now he was trying to sort through all that to come up with a good answer to the question and really did not want to.

What would he feel if Fae somehow broke things off, anyway? If he forgot for a moment about how he didn’t even know what ‘things’ were, really, or how either of them felt, and about political repercussions and families and all of that, and just about how they were supposed to get married and, he was guessing, be rather like his parents…then what? And did it matter to him if it was personal, the thing that hypothetically stopped the wedding, or if it wasn’t?

That one came easy to him. Yes, yes it would. How could it not? Even if he had been betrothed to a girl he knew for an absolute fact that he didn’t want to marry, he couldn’t imagine finding out she was prepared to go to some lengths to not have to marry him and not having it sting just a little, even if he was relieved at the same time. It would be a blow to his pride, no matter what else was going on. Of course Arnold knew he wasn’t that much of a catch, but…well, he wasn’t that bad, was he? He wasn’t very smart, handsome, refined, or anything like that, but he wasn’t an utter moron or completely hideous or inclined to criminal activity, if he did say so himself, and he was a Carey, which had to count for something. And since Fae was a friend at least, someone he liked, being rejected by her would probably hurt more than if it was just some girl he didn’t know. But would his life be over?

No, he decided. Probably not. If it all came unstuck, he didn’t think he’d jump off the roof of her house or anything melodramatic like that; he’d be upset, but he would fake-grin his way through any sympathy he got, if it didn’t end because he’d somehow gotten disowned or disinherited or something like that, and then he would get on with it. So he could safely go with A for that question. It made him feel a little better, even if he was still very aware that it didn’t answer a lot of questions. Being sure he wouldn’t die without her wasn’t, after all, the same as knowing whether he really like-liked her or if he was just sometimes having random thoughts about her now that it was almost okay for him to; his father’s first wife had died, which was a long step past just leaving him in a more general way, and Father seemed to have bounced back pretty well, all things, including Arnold’s existence, considered. He didn’t like to talk about it, Arnold guessed he was still sad about it sometimes, but he’d survived. Clearly, there was room between not liking someone like that at all and having no choice but to lie down and die if you no longer had them.

Though it embarrassed him, because it felt a little arrogant, he picked A for the last one, too, then looked back at Fae, wondering what she had thought about question four, and again about what she thought in general, and whether or not he was a creep for, well, noticing her, what she looked like, more now that he didn’t have to keep in the back of his mind that she might get another fiancé who would break his head open for doing so and on and on until he missed the summary of what their answers meant, along with all the rest of the lesson except for the part about what to do if they finished something early.

Great. Arnold flushed again, this time as annoyed with himself as he was embarrassed. He had to make an E on his Defense CATS, anything less than that was unacceptable, but this was not the way to go about it. He had to get this sorted out before he went completely mental, or just failed out of school.

At the moment, though, the best he could do was try to look at his neighbor’s desk without being too obvious about what he was doing until he noticed the group was breaking into smaller groups and he switched tactics, grinning and hoping he didn’t all but have the fact that he had no idea what they were doing written all over his face. “Hi,” he said. “Do you want to work together on this?” And now, the question out of his mouth, he thought a second more and really hoped he hadn’t just asked something that would lead to him being hit with a spell he hadn’t noticed he was being taught before he was enough back on the ball to be ready for it.

0 Arnold Carey, Aladren It just had to be girlfriends, didn't it? 181 Arnold Carey, Aladren 0 5

Regina Parker, Teppenpaw

September 16, 2012 7:57 PM

I'm totally positive on this. by Regina Parker, Teppenpaw

Reggie did alright in Defense Against the Dark Arts. It wasn’t her best class, but it wasn’t her worst either. One would assume she might have been better at it because of her mother’s career, but since Reggie had no inclination to go off and fight bad guys, she really had no desire to learn Defense either. She did it, of course, because she had to, but she didn’t think she would continue with it after CATS. She knew she wanted to work in Potions like her father; there would be no real reason why she would need to take this class when it was no longer required of her. Of course, she thought this now but who knew what she would do next years.

Sitting beside her friends, Reggie took out her parchment and self ink quill and waited for class to begin. She was rather surprised that they would have to listen to the rules again, they were fifth years and the youngest ones in here were third years who had already heard it for at least two years. Professors were strange. Of course, Reggie supposed it never hurt to hear them over again since this was such a dangerous class, but still, boring.

The lesson itself was a bit strange. They were doing theory today while learning about one of the Unforgivables. Or, sort of learning them. She did find it interesting though, that it’s one’s own personality or mindset that really affected everything in their life, including whether or not they can perform a spell at their best. Although, thinking about it now, she supposed that shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise. Everything mattered when it came to how you felt. If you knew you could do it, then you did it and if you were confident enough in your abilities, you did it well. But, if you were hesitant or didn’t think you could do it, then you would probably fail at doing it. It was a pretty simple theory really, but probably extremely difficult to overcome. Reggie really thought she was a positive thinking person, but that was probably for specific things and not for the whole of it all.

1) B (Reggie was smart in Potions, but the rest of it took work)
2) A
3) A
4) A (There were loads of boys around here that she enjoyed looking at, after all)
5) A

Since she had mostly As for her answers, Reggie was quite pleased by the results. Not that it was much of a surprise. It was rare for Reggie to be negative about something and usually it was more emotional things than anything else. Like her father lying, or meeting the family that snubbed her for her whole life, or even when Addison decided to make her her mentor. But, most of the time, Reggie was happy and positive about things. Of course, the scenarios were a little different for her to think on what was positive and rational.

Turning to the nearest person, Reggie gave them a look, “Okay, so… we’re supposed to answer these in a positive manner, right? I’ve never been cornered by anyone or teased, but I would think, either throwing up a shield to protect myself would be the best solution rather than fight a group of people all on my own or run away.” Reggie commented, not even hesitating to think that maybe they didn’t want to work with her on this. “What do you think?”

6 Regina Parker, Teppenpaw I'm totally positive on this. 187 Regina Parker, Teppenpaw 0 5

Thaddeus Pierce, Aladren

September 16, 2012 10:08 PM

Everything looks good from here by Thaddeus Pierce, Aladren

Thaddeus was excited about moving up to intermediate DADA. He and Cepheus had performed a choreographed duel for part of their concert act, and that had been awesome. They had researched some intermediate level spells for that, and he was eager to learn more to further expand his repertoire.

He saw Derry when he came in but pretended not to, just in case sitting in the front row wasn't quite enough to deter him from feeling obligated to work with his cousin now that Thad had opened that can of worms in Charms. It wasn't that he didn't like Derry - Derry was a great guy outside of class - but Thad really did not want to work with him often, or really at all in DADA, which was traditionally more difficult than Charms was.

He was mildly disappointed when the lesson was not one about a new spell or dark creature, but the mind was certainly a fascinating subject and he wouldn't mind studying it for a few weeks, especially when she pointed out how much it affected a person's ability to succeed in general and defend against the Imperius in particular. He thought it very likely that he already had the optimum mindset for doing well in both areas, but he addressed the questionnaire with due seriousness and rigid honesty.

The first was easy. He was smart.

The second was harder because it hadn't happened to him before. However, one incident could not classify him as a failure when it was clearly an anomaly. Should it happen, he would certainly have a very long discussion with the professor of the test's origin to determine exactly what he had misunderstood so terribly.

The third was easy again. If his friends stopped talking as he arrived, it would be to greet and include him. That was well and proper.

The fourth was harder again, albeit only relatively. He was not currently dating Alicia, so the situation presented was merely theoretical, however, he had suggested to his family that she would make a fine Mrs. Thaddeus Pierce someday, so he decided to consider the possibility that her family turned down the offer as his nearest potential experience with a 'break-up'. If that was the case, he would need to figure out who else might be interested in a betrothal arrangement. He did not like that idea, but there was little doubt in his mind that he would do so. That was how these things worked if the first negotiation fell through. He answered A, but felt a little guilty for considering the possibility of considering other girls before Alicia actually turned him down.

The fifth was illogical. Who else was he supposed to be if he wasn't himself? Despite this point of confusion, he went through a brief poll of people he knew and found that he couldn't think of anyone who actually disliked him (aside from Wesley who disliked most people so therefore that was Wesley's fault and not Thaddeus's). He was not convinced that the sample size was large enough for a bonafide guarantee and Wesley did prove there were exceptions that merely Being Thaddeus could not overcome some people's natural demeanor, but the poll clearly disproved the second option, so he went with A again.

He was initially concerned that he had marked down A for every answer because that was not within reasonable standard distributions that every answer would be the same, but when Professor Levy explained the grading criteria, he felt better about it. He had merely been consistently positive, which was the result he had wanted to see. Perhaps that was merely another manifestation of a positive mindset producing positive results.

Already feeling good about his results and the rest of lesson, he glanced over the two scenarios and turned to the person sitting next to him. "Shall we work together?" he asked politely, not wanting to make assumptions.

0 Thaddeus Pierce, Aladren Everything looks good from here 0 Thaddeus Pierce, Aladren 0 5

Henny B-F-R

September 17, 2012 3:50 PM

It's all sunshine and roses in the front row by Henny B-F-R

Defence Against the Dark Arts was Henny's second least favourite subject after COMC, owing to its very real potential for dangerous situations to arise. She had to remind herself that this was a carefully controlled situation, where only beginner – or now, intermediate – danger would be flying around. The application of this logic was much more effective for DADA than it was COMC. Nonetheless, she was still relieved to find that they would be having a theoretical class, although examining her inner thoughts wasn't something she really wanted to spend class time doing, as she rather got enough of that sort of thing in her psychologist's office.

She cast her eyes down Professor Levy's quiz, preparing herself for the worst. For question one, she answered a. Question b was harder, as she hadn't ever failed a test. She tried to think how she would feel. It was something that would be incredibly unexpected, and academics were important to her, so she couldn't imagine that she would take it in her stride. However, that did not preclude stiffening her resolve and vowing to do better in the future. They seemed equally likely and, as they were not mutually exclusive, she wrote 'Both' next to that question. She tried to think whether the third one had happened to her recently enough for her to have an idea of how she would react. People didn't tend to stop talking very suddenly for no reason. She would presume, therefore, that it was something that she was not supposed to be privy to. That didn't mean it was a negative thing. They could have been talking about something private. They could have been, if T.V. was to be believed, planning a surprise birthday party for her. It depended really on who the people were. If it was her parents, she would trust that whatever they were saying needed to be kept from her for the time being, even if it was about her. She supposed what the question was really asking was whether she would have a positive or negative reaction to the situation. She was sure there were times when she would feel a little paranoia but she would try to let her rational side talk her out of it. She decided to go with the positive answer, as she hoped she would be largely positive or indifferent to the situation, even if the exact wording didn't describe what her reaction would be. Question four was pretty easy. She didn't have any particular boy she was crazy about right now. A boyfriend would be nice but it wasn't essential to her happiness. The last one was a little ridiculous as not everyone could get along, and being herself was bound to result in both outcomes. She generally saw herself as a likeable person, which she supposed was what it was after but it felt too arrogant to tick 'a' so she wrote 'It depends on them. I don't feel the need to change to please people who don't like me though.' She was pleasantly surprised looking over her results. For someone who had a 'risk-adverse personality' and 'tendency to catastrophise' she didn't come out half badly. She trusted her psychologist's analysis more than a five question, binary choice handout but it still made her feel good about herself. She did think of herself as a generally positive person when she wasn't worrying that things were going to kill her. Unfortunately, she tended to think that that was true of a great deal more things than the average person.

“That would be nice,” she smiled, when Thad asked her if she wanted to work together. Between their conversation about the concert last year and the fact that he had joined her book club, Thad was gradually working his way into the category of people that Henny actually liked. She was sure they would never be bosom chums and that any semblance of friendship that they had was unlikely to extend beyond their time at Sonora but he was a good person, with a nice manners and a decent brain. She had got beyond the fear that he was so prejudiced as to not to want to speak with her, or to call her names. Any fear that their cordial situation might have been compromised by his increased knowledge of her family (via the concert) had been allayed by the fact that he had joined the book club. He was clearly still willing to conduct civil conversations with her in controlled circumstances. And the civil conversations that they had were usually enjoyable.

“In the first situation, I would cast a counter charm. Assuming I let things get that far in the first place. I don't tend to let myself get shoved into corners,” she mused. If the situation arose where people were attempting to bully her, she would either reason with them if that seemed possible or walk away. “Is there any more to it than that?” she queried, “That seems far too simple...” She was aware that, as an Aladren, she was prone to overcomplicating things and that it wasn't unusual for her to arrive at the correct answer straight away but, as the lowest level in an intermediate class, she had expected the questions to stretch her a little.

13 Henny B-F-R It's all sunshine and roses in the front row 211 Henny B-F-R 0 5

Theresa Carey, Pecari

September 20, 2012 1:25 AM

Oh, this should be a bundle of laughs.... by Theresa Carey, Pecari

Some, if asked, would have most likely ventured to speculate that the Careys taught all of their children the Dark Arts at an early age, but this, as far as Theresa knew, was uniformly untrue. Her part of the family was a little different than the others because her maternal grandfather and all his male relatives had been Aurors at one time or another, but she knew for a fact that all the questionable spells Arthur knew, he had taught himself, and that Arnold probably still didn’t even know any. That was something he should definitely correct if he was planning to get married, in her opinion, but it was his business, and the point stood that while they all knew where certain kinds of books and artifacts were, they had all also been strictly forbidden from touching or even looking too closely at them for all their lives. Her family did not officially condone a mastery of black magic and had not done so for at least twenty years, or some ridiculous figure that predated her birth like that.

In general, this wasn’t something Theresa thought too much about, but at Sonora, she had slowly come to realize that some of the jokes the adults made about the family reputation weren’t just jokes, and so, walking into the Intermediate class, she felt almost defensive, as though the more advanced material was somehow going to mean more looks sent her way, or her cousins’, in this class. She was never sure she had seen one sent to any of them before which was unambiguously hostile and which she could safely say paranoia was playing no role in her interpretation of, but she was always waiting for it to happen. Taking care to find a seat well away from that of the very strange fourth year she had met in Charms, Theresa arranged her desk as though preparing for war.

Her name came at the end of the list of Careys in the class, all of which she thought were moved past without any unnecessary pauses or anything like that. Well. That was good. A little deflating, but good. She adjusted the position of her inkwell slightly, making the desk a little less militant. It seemed that Defense Against the Dark Arts was going to stay Defense Against the Dark Arts as usual, even if she was in the Intermediate class now.

When it came time to answer the questions, Theresa was in two minds about the first one, believing both answers simultaneously and then hesitating because it sounded arrogant to an unladylike degree to assert that she was smart, but other than that, she only had a little trouble with the one about boyfriends and girlfriends, because she didn’t plan to ever have one of either. She intended to secure a good betrothal, which was significantly less susceptible to change and had nothing to do with her or the other person even if it did change. She had raged for a bit at Arthur when he told her two days ago to stop staring at the back of Cepheus’ head, there was no point, and planned to do something deeply unpleasant to that Teppenpaw girl he was betrothed to the first chance she got just on general principle, but she would hardly say her life was over; she had never stopped considering other options, and though she’d happily pick Cepheus up if the Teppenpaw idiot dropped him, she was already seriously considering, after an offhand comment of her cousin’s, her options as far as the weird Charms guy’s roommate went. Laurie Stratford wasn’t pretty, and she really doubted he would appreciate her dresses, but his father was a second son like hers, which made it much more likely that she’d be deemed an acceptable match for him in spite of her three brothers.

Mr. Stratford – the one who was Lawrence’s father, not the one who was on the Aladren Quidditch team, or his father – had, she had heard, been a Quidditch player. Quidditch players made a lot of money. Money meant clothes, meant pretty clothes, not the barely-functional things they wore at home and which kept getting altered to fit her younger siblings because the family felt it was being generous enough to keep the three of them who had to go out in public clothed well enough that – though they were obviously not even as well off as the twins were, much less the Fourth – they didn’t actually look as poor as Mother said they were. Some would have objected to a Quidditch player father-in-law, but it was better than an incompetent smuggler father and would have been even if she hadn’t expected her cousin to follow the same path, and Theresa did not care where the money came from as long as she had it. She could get used to red hair and chirpiness, and unlike her first choice, he didn’t seem to have a line forming to marry him. If she could prompt her father, or maybe even Uncle Anthony, then that could work out well.

Her first thought, on reading the first scenario after Professor Levy finished saying a lot of things that didn’t make sense, was that her reaction would be to hex the would-be jinxer until they looked like they’d had a Jelly-Legs Jinx applied to every portion of their anatomy, but that it would be smarter not to tell anyone that. Actually using her Defense lessons was not something that a proper lady should do, and besides, while she was busy with the first one, one of his buddies would – if there were really people stupid enough to taunt a Carey – curse her in the back, so it wouldn’t work that well, anyway. Catching someone’s eye, she decided to buy herself a moment to try to come up with an acceptable response. “Would you like to work together?” she asked, smiling nicely. That, like curtsying, had been practiced in front of a mirror.

0 Theresa Carey, Pecari Oh, this should be a bundle of laughs.... 0 Theresa Carey, Pecari 0 5

Phoenix Lucore, Crotalus

September 20, 2012 2:00 AM

I'm neutral. by Phoenix Lucore, Crotalus

Phoenix was running a bit late to class and entered the classroom just as the papers were being handed out. He slipped easily into a seat, hoping that he would go unnoticed. He hated being late and he hated worse when the professor decided to call him out on his lateness. It was embarrassing, especially when everyone was looking at you. It was awful enough that he ended up with attention that he didn’t want without even trying. He didn’t need any extra.

Thankfully, he got his wish. Relaxing a bit, he shifted down a bit in his seat to listen to the lecture. The first part was all the usual boring stuff, which just led to doodling on the syllabus. The mention of Unforgivables made him look up. What? Why was she mentioning those with third years in the class? Though, he had always thought it was weird that fifth years were in classes with third years, even when he was a third year. It was just completely different learning levels.

Oh, wait. They weren’t actually learning the Unforgivables. It was just an example for the lesson, which was about…the mind? Okay, that sounded kind of cool. Phoenix looked over the first question and tried to answer it. He did well on a test, because…he guessed cause he was smart. He didn’t really think luck had anything to do with it. Either you knew the material or you didn’t. After circling A, he went on to the second. He frowned at the question. Saying that you would just do better next time seemed like a copout cause you could just keep saying that you would do better, but never actually take the time to study. Being a failure was a bit harsh, but technically you would have failed the test. He wished there was an option that said ‘you will study more to be better prepared for next time’ cause then he would pick it. As it stood, he went with B.

Third question. Hmm, that was kind of a tough one. Everyone talked about everyone else. It was just a given. But he was pretty relaxed about it for the most part so he guessed he would have to go with A. The next one was awful though. He was going to have enough trouble finding a girlfriend as it was. He couldn’t imagine what he would do if the girl dumped him. Of course, he could always work the veela magic and just get her to stay forever, but that wasn’t really fair. He really wanted someone that wanted to be with him for him and no other reason. Finding that person would be an enormous task and if she dumped him, it would be horrendous to have to start all over again. Sigh. A or B? B. He like either option, but he didn’t think he would go through all the hassle again to find some other “fish.”

Right now, he was running two and two. That meant the last question would determine whether he was positive or negative. Seriously? He read the question again. Did the question even apply to him? If he were himself, then yes, everyone would like him, but not really for himself. It didn’t make any sense, but it was the truth. If he was himself, then he had to be all of himself, which included being part veela and that meant people automatically liking him. However, by having people like him, then they only liked that part of him so they didn’t really know him, but how could they get to know him when it included that? He knew he should answer it, but he opted to skip it. He decided he was a neutral mindset and that was that.

He wasn’t sure how that was going to work with the scenarios, but he guessed he would just have to figure something out. He was about to try and work on them when he heard a voice near to him. Looking up, he couldn’t help the grin that came across his face. It only lasted a few seconds before he realized what he was doing and pretended to clear his throat. “Oh, yeah, uh, I guess that would be a good way to handle it. But to do that you have to believe that you can. I think that’s the idea?”

0 Phoenix Lucore, Crotalus I'm neutral. 0 Phoenix Lucore, Crotalus 0 5

Sully

September 21, 2012 10:18 PM

The name is the thing by Sully

Sully was a little surprised when a third joined them, but he had no objection to either an additional brain working on these scenarios or Michael in particular. "I think groups are okay," he confirmed, though he honestly wasn't sure. "Pull up a chair." He and Michael were in the same year, so he more or less knew who the guy was. Sully knew (or did not know him) about as well as he knew (or did not know) Brianna, so that seemed fair all around. After a seeing them exchange expressions with each other, though, he wondered if maybe he was the outsider here.

Determined not to not be negatively set in mind - as was the point of today's class - he told himself not to worry about it and reassured his irrational paranoia they didn't actually want him to go away so they could work together on their own. That was just his own latent negativity rearing its head.

Despite that acknowledgement of his own fallibility, he was still surprised when Brianna suggested running away wasn't the positive mindset response the professor wanted, or, indeed, the only feasible response possible. "Eh?" he said in eloquent confusion. "Wait. Running's not the right thing to do?" he asked, genuinely baffled by this turn of events. He was sure that was what his mom and the afternoon tv shows had always told him to do in that kind of situation. Get away. Tell a teacher. With emphasis on the get away part.

"I really don't think a teacher - even the DADA teacher - wants us to start punching other students in the face - or," he frowned and shook his head, realizing he'd made a muggle biased statement, "whatever the magical equivalent is - even in self-defense. You're supposed to get away and tell a teacher." He repeated this with the surety of a well-learned lesson. He knew this like he knew smoking was bad and to say no to drugs.

0 Sully The name is the thing 0 Sully 0 5

Michael Grosvenor

September 22, 2012 2:28 PM

Though it means I'm running up a list of impairments.... by Michael Grosvenor

Michael smiled at Sully's remark about 'whatever the magical equivalent.' It felt good to know that he was in the kind of company that thought that way, especially after the whole Charms fiasco. He studiously avoided looking anywhere near the Carey girl as doing so still wanted to make him melt into the ground, which was not really conducive to the lesson aim. Or to getting any lesson completed, really, but it would be especially unhelpful here.

Sully's answer of running away struck him as right. The telling a teacher bit... Well, that was always what they told you to do. It didn't work of course, and Sully's fervent declaration that that was just what you did suggested to Michael that he'd never actually been forced to try it. It didn't really change anything. Or, if it did, it wasn't usually for the better.

“I don't think they'd want us to beat each other up, and getting away seems like a good idea in both cases,” he nodded, trying to be diplomatic. “But maybe it's trying to ask what you could do if that wasn't an option? Like, if they had you surrounded, you couldn't really just walk away and get help. I'd say defending yourself is a better thing to do than attacking back,” he nearly said 'plus I'd lose' but then realised that wasn't very positive thinking. It was true though. You couldn't win against bullies. In the Muggle world, he was physically weaker and couldn't use his best defences – how he would have loved to hex some of the kids from his old school. Even if he did it weakly it would be far worse than anything they could do to him. And it could be done from a safe distance. In the magical world though, he was likely to be weaker than anyone attacking him. For some strange, unknown reason, kids who were small and weak didn't tend to pick on those who were bigger and stronger than them, which meant that the victim was always at a disadvantage. Unless you could be faster or smarter. That almost sounded reasonable.

“Maybe... I don't know... I'm not really sure how but,” when Michael was nervous about presenting an idea he tended to prefix it with a few disclaimers, “Maybe it's about other things than strength. Cos, strength against strength, a bully is always likely to be bigger than you. Maybe it's trying to ask us to think about what we're good at and whether we could use those things. Like if we could dodge or be clever. Or run fast,” he added, smiling at Sully. Maybe, if phrased right, Sully was answering it how they were supposed to, “So long as you feel good about doing it,” he added.

13 Michael Grosvenor Though it means I'm running up a list of impairments.... 199 Michael Grosvenor 0 5

Hope Brockert, Teppenpaw

September 23, 2012 12:46 AM

It is a lovely place. by Hope Brockert, Teppenpaw

So far, unless something ignited a previously unknown passion in Hope, she was not planning to continue with Defense. It wasn't that she didn't like the class but there were others that she liked far better. Charms was the most useful branch of magic there was, she had more talent in Transfiguration than other classes, and she just plain liked COMC and Divinations. Hope supposed that DADA was pretty useful for some as well, if they worked in a dangerous field, but she didn't have any plans to. She was a pureblood girl and therefore, the closest thing she was going to get to adventure was to travel around like Nina was with her new husband.

Which actually sounded like a lot of fun, not that Hope hadn't been to quite a few places, but hearing about her sister's journeys made her wonder what it would be like to travel with one's husband, though unlike Nina, she would prefer to know hers a bit better before they got married. The Teppenpaw knew her sister was a bit anxious about having been married to a total stranger and that she was relieved not to have to go right into having children. Nina seemed to struggle with being a proper pureblood woman more than any of the rest of them.

Maybe that was why Great Grandfather had betrothed the Pecari alumna to someone she didn't know. He hadn't trusted her to make a good match on her own, the way Kaylie and Chelsea had and due to Nina's sorting, he felt that he had to take what he could get. Great Grandfather thought that Pecaris did not possess the traits that were desirable in pureblood ladies. Sara Raines was something of an anomaly.

She found an empty seat next to Derry, took out her notes and began to doodle in the margins, girlish things mostly, while she waited for class to start. Once the lecture began, Hope snapped to attention. Professor Levy was not one to tolerate a lack of focus. It was a critical part of defense and whether she planned to continue the class or not, she appreciated that fact and didn't really want trouble anyway.

Hope scribbled down what was written on the board about the two types of mindsets. Interesting. She tended to think of herself as a more positive person than some she knew but less so than others. The Teppenpaw felt that she was more so than Adam or Addison, but less so than say, Derry. Or their old Transfiguration professor, who seemed overly cheerful at least before she was pregnant.

Her eyes scanned the questionnaire. Hope supposed if she had to pick between the choices on question one, she would have to pick A. The Teppenpaw knew she wasn't the smartest person out there, many in her class were more intelligent than she was but she felt did decent enough in classes. Hope hadn't actually ever failed a test, but if she did, she thought she would study hard to improve and so marked A for that one.

What would she do if her friends stopped talking when she joined them? Hope would just assume they stopped talking to welcome her and it interrupted the flow of the conversation they'd been having or perhaps they had something private that they wanted to keep just between them. She put A for that one as well.

The fourth question caught her eye and her gaze drifted briefly before she replied. Well, Hope was probably going to end up betrothed and it would not be pleasant if the betrothal was broken, but that wasn't what she thought of first. What would she do if she were dating Russell and he broke up with her? The Teppenpaw imagined that she'd be upset but eventually she'd get over it and hope they could remain friends. Plus, if they were dating the most likely scenario for breaking up would be Hope getting betrothed. Which would still be kind of upsetting but she chose A yet again.

Selecting A one last time, Hope looked up as Derry spoke to her. "Well, yes. I mean, I suppose if they put the jelly-legs curse on you, you couldn't run away." She replied. "Of course, it would depend on how well they cast the spell, but if them failing at it or you blocking it didn't make them stop teasing you because they felt embarrassed themselves, then you could also use a Silencing Spell on them."

11 Hope Brockert, Teppenpaw It is a lovely place. 186 Hope Brockert, Teppenpaw 0 5

Reggie

September 23, 2012 9:23 PM

Is that a good position to be in? by Reggie

The instant that Phoenix smiled at her, Reggie felt her face flush and her brain feel suddenly fuzzy. She was smiling but she didn’t remember doing so. She knew that she had thought Phoenix was cute; she had noticed him a couple of terms ago, but she had never really noticed him before. Not like this and she had no idea why she was suddenly behaving like an idiot or smiling goofy like she was at him. He was just a boy, after all.

And then he was talking and like a blink of the eye, Reggie was herself again. Confused and slightly mortified, but still just herself. She felt herself blush a little bit, which was a rarity for her considering she was hardly ever embarrassed, but she felt the heat in her cheeks and couldn’t figure out what the heck had just happened. Even with liking a boy, Reggie had never felt anything like that and it was a bit disturbing. It was almost as though there was a pull and a spell. She just felt very warm and all she could think about was being with him. It was like she was her but not her. In the moment, she enjoyed it, but the feeling of confusion that followed was not pleasant.

“Of course.” She commented, giving him her genuine smile again. Reggie was confident in her abilities and she knew the shield spell perfectly well after having to do it so often in past lessons. Even under pressure, she was sure that she could do it. But, considering she had never been bullied or picked on or any number of negative things, she wasn’t so sure if protecting herself would be what she would think to do instead of just hexing them back, but she couldn’t very well say that she’d fight them because she had always been taught that two wrongs do not make a right.

“I’m very good with my spell work and I think I do well under pressure. At least, I’ve rocked out all my pop quizzes the professors like to surprise us with.” Reggie commented rather easily. “So, what do you think you would do in that situation? Is there a different solution that you can think of that might be more appropriate and what the professor is looking for? Honestly, besides running away, I’m not really sure what else to do except fight back and I’m totally a lover, not a fighter, so I’d lose that one.”

6 Reggie Is that a good position to be in? 187 Reggie 0 5

Brianna

September 24, 2012 1:33 AM

That's okay, I have a list of those too. by Brianna

Brianna tried not to look abashed when Sully seemed to not appreciate what she was saying, but she quickly looked down at her parchment and tried to not move. This is why working with people was so much more difficult for her to do. She was always going to say something wrong that would upset someone else. She had started off saying that she whole-heartedly agreed with him about the running away. Merlin knew that she had always chosen to run over stand up for herself (although, that usually just ended with a hex to her back), but he seemed to have missed that part of her comment.

She was almost positive she never mentioned fighting the other students, which was the last thing she would ever consider to be a positive thing. She simply said that running away probably wasn’t what the Professor was looking for and that she wouldn’t win in a fight, so fighting wasn’t worth it either. She didn’t know what to say though because she had no other ideas and since Sully was really upset about her last suggestion, she doubted he would have appreciated anything else she would have contributed.

Brianna listened to Michael answer and felt that he at least understood what she was getting at. That made her feel a little bit better. “Right, that’s what I meant. Instead of running away, we find a solution that doesn’t involve violence.” She commented quietly. “Besides, running away doesn’t stop them from coming back and telling adults will only make it worse.” Brianna advised. How often had she told her parents and they could do nothing to help? How often had a parent come around the corner and seen them pushing her around and they simply kept on walking or blamed her for it? Adults were no better than the bullies most of the time.

“Violence isn’t the answer and if we’re supposed to be thinking positive, than we have to realize that there is a better solution that would end the bullying for good.” Brianna commented, finally looking up from the parchment. “Michael is right, a workaround sort of thing. Talking them out of it and having the confidence to know that you can do it. Or something like that.” Brianna added, trying not to feel insecure and sound like an idiot with the two of them there. Maybe it was going to be harder working with guys than girls after all?

0 Brianna That's okay, I have a list of those too. 0 Brianna 0 5

Eris Ackart

September 24, 2012 10:03 AM

A different shade of grey by Eris Ackart

Eris was glad when the boy sitting next to her offered to work with her, and slightly relieved that she wasn’t the only one who wasn’t quite sure what was going on. She was nervous to begin with; this was her first class at Sonora, and the first time in her life that she started something without the comforting presence of a familiar face. When she’d started her magical education, she’d been sorted into the same house as her older brother who looked out for her for the most part. Plus, Eris had become fast friends with a boy in her year, so she always had a partner. She was starting to recognize a few of the people from her new house, which was something, but they all seemed to have partners already.

To top that off, she’d expected to jump right in to spells. The third year knew there was something to be said for defensive theory; that to be successful with any spell you had to have intent, the proper mind set and all that, but she’d never really stopped to consider that how she felt about herself might somehow affect her abilities. The Teppenpaw girl tried to keep up with the lesson by taking notes, and only paused for a moment when the professor mentioned the Imperius curse. She knew she’d come to this lesson at some point during her schooling, she just didn’t realize it’d be so soon.

Eris also found it a bit curious that the professor seemed to warn the class not to use the Unforgivable Curses on each other. She didn’t know her classmates very well, but the warning bothered her. Were there actually students here who would think to use such spells on their peers? The young girl hoped her partner wasn’t one of them.
“That’d be lovely, thanks,” She started, in response to her neighbors offer to work together, “I took notes and even I’m not sure I completely understand either.” Eris added, flipping through the pages of her hand out. She’d made it through the questionnaire with one extra A, despite not feeling all that positive things, and started reading through the scenarios.

They seemed pretty easy, but what bulling and lack of animal control had to do with having a strong mind was beyond her. If you weren’t fast on your feet, the strength of your mind wasn’t going to prevent a wild animal from attacking you. Eris sighed, deciding it was better to get this part over with and get on with the wand work, regardless of whether the subject matter correlated or not.

“I figure we just muddle through this bit, and get on to the practice?” She said, looking to the older student for some sort of approval. “I’m Eris, by the way.”

0 Eris Ackart A different shade of grey 0 Eris Ackart 0 5

Alicia Bauer, Aladren

September 25, 2012 5:03 PM

Well, parts of this are interesting, anyway.... by Alicia Bauer, Aladren

As she entered the Defense classroom, Alicia paused ever so slightly when she saw Henny sitting on her chair, but she had never really seen her roommate, despite her prettiness and intellectual gifts, as a rival any more than she had ever seen her as a friend because of what Alicia perceived as a lack of fighting spirit, so she picked a nearby one without fuss and began getting her things ready for whatever the lesson might hold. Intermediate-level Defense Against the Dark Arts was one of the things she had been most looking forward to this year, and a minor incident on the first day wasn’t going to put her off it if the class itself was any good.

As Professor Levy began to speak, she reminded herself again, sternly, not to get her hopes up. The first two years of her Sonora education had been the happiest time of Alicia’s life to date, at least of all the years she could remember, but the frustration that had always characterized her existence as much as anger did had not gone away. If anything, as she became happier in every other way, it had gotten worse. As much as it disgusted her to know anything about them at all, she knew enough about Muggles to know that wizards had not become the superior beings they were just through a knowledge of the parlor tricks and household helpers they had studied in the beginners’ classes. America didn’t have the kind of resources there were in other places, older societies – she cared nothing about her mother’s half-sister as a person, but could have happily cursed half her family for antagonizing Aunt Helena so much that she hadn’t spoken to them since she was married into one of those – but there still had to be more to it than had even been hinted at to them so far. The question was just if they would ever be able to learn any of it, and if so, if they would start in the Intermediate classes.

Alicia had always favored Defense Against the Dark Arts because it was a class where they did sometimes hint at those things they wouldn’t tell her about yet, where she got some idea of how massive the possibilities of magic might be. She honestly wasn’t sure if the subject really still had a lot of applications in the real world, where things these days were all about who had the most money and connections, rather than the most real power, a fact which made her nearly as furious as her family but which she couldn’t do anything about from where she was right now, but if it could give her something to go on, anything that could help…She knew from reading about Potions that things could be changed, and if there was magic that could help her slip through a side door of the oligarchy, she thought her best chance of learning it, or at least learning about it, was here, so if it turned out that she was going to spend three more years learning the kind of simple jinxes that idiot boys used to pick on each other, she thought she might have to find a quiet place after class where she could scream. There was so much to know, and she wanted it all, and she wanted it all right now. She didn’t have time to wait around until seventh year to start learning anything real.

“Present,” she said clearly when “Bauer, Alicia,” was called off the roll, smiling at the professor as she did and folding her hands in her lap to wait as Levy moved on. The effort was rewarded when the lesson was presented to them. Alicia’s eyes lit up at the mention of what the unit was going to be about, though her expression did move into puzzlement for a moment when Professor Levy said that she knew some of them might not think the mind was important for defense. Of course it was. They were their minds; if someone could do something to control those, then they controlled everything else. How to keep other people out of her head seemed like a very appropriate topic for a Defense unit to Alicia.

Her eyes narrowed, though, at the mention of the curses. Imperius - well, that was straightforward enough, it was what it sounded like, and obviously the Killing Curse was, too. Cruciatus – Alicia started, blinked. ‘Excruciating’ was the first thing that came to mind, followed quickly by her Latin, which she took as all but confirmation. Pain. She would look it up when she had time, since she wasn’t going to start flipping through the textbook while Professor Levy was talking, but she was pretty sure she knew exactly what that one did – and did impressively, for it to be considered Unforgivable, considering she could think of jinxes and hexes off the top of her head that also caused some pain. That was….

She glanced over the mindset classifications, immediately deemed them overly simplistic, and fixed her features into a blandly attentive mask as she thought more about the interesting part they were moving away from. Total control, was it? She tried to imagine what that would feel like. Killing and causing pain were scenarios she could at least imagine, even if it did make her stomach churn to do it, but having total control over something, or having someone have total control over her…Alicia had no idea, could not begin to guess, what that might feel like. She had never been powerful, but neither had she ever been powerless.

She wondered. She couldn’t help but wonder. What did complete control even mean, anyway? That someone could act against their conscience? That they could be ordered to stop breathing? Why did they always stop short of actually learning anything?

Reluctantly, she looked at the questionnaire they had been given, since that was what she was going to be graded on. The first one was easy. She did well on tests because she was smart. The second was completely irrelevant; she didn’t do poorly on tests. She would be upset if she did, but there were maybe two possible circumstances where it wouldn’t be because something was wrong with the test, and neither of them were likely. As for the third one, why would all conversation suddenly cease if it hadn’t been about her, and not in the good way? That was a fact. The fourth….

Her eyes moved over, for just a moment, to Thad. He wasn’t her boyfriend, of course, but just the thought of him dumping her as a friend, of it being the way it had been before Sonora again, of being alone again –

Alicia pressed her lips together. That wasn’t going to happen. If it did, she would get rid of whatever or whomever had made it happen and then get back on her feet and soon it would be like nothing had ever happened. There was always a way. The things wrong in her life far outweighed those that were right in her life, but that just meant she had all the more reason to do whatever she had to do to keep the good things.

She looked up at the classifications again. Maybe she did fit in with the first one, if not remotely in the way she was dead sure that Professor Levy had intended it. But then, that was why fine print existed on contracts. The devil was in the details, as Jeremy often said. Levy hadn’t closed the loopholes. She turned back to the quiz and had to work hard not to roll her eyes at the last question, the ‘correct’ answer to which was painfully obvious and utterly stupid. She was not going to get anywhere in the world walking around with her heart on her sleeve, letting every stray thought she had spill out of her mouth for general consumption. She listened blankly as she was informed that she was a pathetic, grubby whiner who was going to sit around and never try to achieve even where she didn’t deserve to – which was as far from the truth as possible – and flipped without interest to the third page, the scenarios, which she read over before summoning up a bright and enthusiastic smile. “Would you like to work with me?” she asked.

16 Alicia Bauer, Aladren Well, parts of this are interesting, anyway.... 210 Alicia Bauer, Aladren 0 5

Paul

September 25, 2012 7:41 PM

A new one, even by Paul

Paul didn’t recognize the girl he had spoken to, which he found a little unusual. Merlin knew that he wasn’t acquainted with everyone in three years – that would require more networking than he thought even Eliza would put into something – but he had been around enough to at least recognize faces, and this one didn’t ring a single bell. Neither did the name she provided; he thought he had heard of an Eris in the simplified myths he’d learned to read with, but he was sure he hadn’t met a person named that.

“That sounds like a plan,” he said agreeably. Maybe later, he’d see about figuring out if she was new, if he decided he was that interested, or at least that worried about whether or not his observational skills were vanishing. First, though, they had the lesson, and he didn’t see how when she had arrived at Sonora really mattered as far as that went. A first year could have participated well enough in the question-response part, which was all they technically, according to the packet, had to do today. “I’m Paul.”

He looked over the first scenario. “Well, my first thought for this one is that it would be dumb for anyone to do that at all,” he said, since even the Careys and Brockerts and such did usually recognize that doing things to antagonize other pureblood families was a bad idea, even when they were considerably above his family in the rankings, “but that if they did, I’d get my back against a wall, toss out a Shield Charm, and then try to hex the ringleader before he could jinx me.”

Normally, Paul was not a person who was eager to tell anyone about himself, but that just seemed obvious to him. What was he supposed to do, stand there and get jinxed and then have to wobble to find a teacher? Or else, find his sister and then set her on them? Maybe Lize would do that for Gemma or Richard, but he had the feeling she’d expect him and Leo to be able to take care of themselves. Maybe, if he was really ganged up on, she’d help with the revenge attacks, but by and large…

“You think?” he asked, though he didn’t see why she would disagree. The idea was that they were here to learn defense, right? Defense implied action, not passivity. He couldn’t see the teachers having a lot of respect for someone who didn’t stand up for himself if he was dumb enough to get into that kind of position. He knew he wouldn’t, anyway, and Paul hardly considered himself an emblem of a warrior culture. He was interested first and foremost in self-preservation, both in general and in terms of preserving his physical comforts, but even he had some standards about that kind of thing. There were things that were just Done and Not Done, and not using a wand when attacked if you had one was Not Done.

0 Paul A new one, even 0 Paul 0 5

Josephine Owen

September 28, 2012 4:07 PM

At least you have someone by Josephine Owen

By the time she reached Defense class, Josephine was seriously regretting her choice in footwear. Several of the better dressed girls in her yeargroup and the year above - the girls that Josephine idolised in a manner apparently not as subtle as she would have preferred - had begun to wear cute heeled ankle boots as the weather cooled a little, and Josephine just so happened to own a pair of her own. Well, they weren't current season, obviously, and patches around the heels had been so badly scuffed that she'd had to ink them in, and both of the laces had been tied back together after being broken, but under her uniform robes she thought they looked okay. Unfortunately, the thrift shop from which they had been purchased didn't exactly have a wide range of sizes, so the budget-savvy shooper had simply been grateful they stayed on her feet. As it turned out, they weren't really all that comfortable, and even with an extra pair of socks she felt crippled after making a long trek from one class to another.

Trying not to wince too obviously, the Pecari took refuge in the first seat available, paying no attention at all to those surrounding her, having been eager merely to relieve her aching feet. She conducted a silent prayer to remain seated for the duration of the class, and took her mind off her pain by re-braiding her hair - now waist-length and prone to tangling itself round anything in its path - as she waited for class to begin. When Professor Levy explained the next topic to be studied, Josephine sat a little starighter in her seat. She had always been fascinated by what makes people tick, and the thought processes that influence actions. In depth research into the Imperius Curse sounded like a quality weekend. For the team being, however, she was more than content to consider positive and negative mindsets. She considered that, in her own personal opinion, her mindset greatly depended on the gioven scenario, and her mindset test further supported her notion. For the first question she marked A without hesitating; she was easily one of the smartest people in the room, and she tested well, too. She always excelled in examinations, so it couldn't be down to luck. On the other hand, on the rare occasions she hadn't done as well as she'd imagined, she had wallowed in her failure, obsessing over every tiny detail. If a crowd stopped talking when she arrived, she would be completely convinced she had been the subject of their conversation, yet if any hypothetical boyfriends were to cast her aside, she knew her pride would prevent her from caring a greadt deal: if he was stupid enough to let her get away then he wasn't worth her time anyway, right?

The final question she didn't answer, because it was dumb. Obvoiusly nobody was their true self all the time, because people were clumsy, emotional, and opinionated, and if everyone was like that all the time then the world would be a shambles. On the other hand, when she was being as genuine as possible, Josephine wasn't sufficiently naive to believe that everyone could like a person, nor that everyone would dislike them. Every person was different, which was part of why the second stage of their packet would provide such stumulating conversation.

As her attention turned to the next stage of the assignment, Josephine was distracted almost instantly as her neighbor spoke and requested partnership. She hesitated for the minutest moment, during which she wished it had been Arthur asking rather than Arnold, but then smiled and nodded her head. "We can work together," she replied cheerfully, pleased that at least she wasn't being snubbed or having to beg and plead with people to work with her, so that was all for the best. There she went again, almost simultaneously in a positive mindset as she satisfied herself that Arnold would present no academic challenge, and a negative mindset, wondering why anyone would want to talk to her anyway. Not that being quixotic ought to be surprising; she was smart, but poor and fat and short and why would people talk to her when they could talk to people like Fae Sinclair? Regardless, Arnold was talking to her, and if he was wishing that he was working with fae instead, then it was only fair, because Josephine had already desired to work with Arnold's brother instead. From the little she knew of Arthur, she found him intruiging. He was smart but peculiar, and although from the right family he sort of stuck out as an outsider. If they could tolerate each others' company she thought they could possibly have some enlightening discussions.

Evidently, now wasn't the time. She was due some fascinating conversation with Arnold on this occasion, and Josephine leapt in with both feet. "Okay, so for the first scenario I'd probably act really haughty and like the people who'd cast the spell were really immature, and make out that they hadn't bothered me at all," she said. Admittedly, she would later then go and cry in her dormitory, possibly leading to a miniature mental meltdown in which she identified and criticised all her faults, but she didn't know Arnold well enough to share that particular aspect of her negative mindset.

0 Josephine Owen At least you have someone 196 Josephine Owen 0 5

Arnold

September 28, 2012 11:34 PM

Yeah, but it'd be better if I knew where I stand with her by Arnold

“Great,” Arnold said, hoping it was, when Josephine agreed to work with him. He would really rather not look like a complete moron in front of a prefect at all, much less one his brother seemed to think was mildly interesting because she kept showing up in places that she wasn’t supposed to, or something like that, he couldn’t say he exactly followed everything Arthur said when he went into long, monotone speeches about politics and academic subjects, but he usually got the gist, anyway. At the moment, it seemed much more relevant that she wasn’t pointing a wand at him and that he now had a much easier time seeing that she was on the third page of the packet they’d been given, where there was…stuff, which it seemed they were to discuss.

I guess it’s my lucky day, he thought, flipping his own packet over. He couldn’t count on that happening too often, he knew, but he always liked it when luck was on his side. Arnold wasn’t quite as happy and relieved about this as he had been when his parents had agreed with him that it was a good idea to have Fae and her family around for lunch a few weeks after her brother’s wedding – he didn’t know or anything, but he thought getting caught flat-out lying to extract himself from an awkward situation before the betrothal was even formally announced would not have been a good start to the relationship – but he was relieved nevertheless. He finished reading the first scenario and got halfway through a thought about it just as Josephine started offering her solution to the problem.

“Haughty might be hard to do with jelly legs,” he pointed out, then shook his head, dropping his packet back down to the top of his desk. “I honestly don’t know what I’d do. I just can’t picture that happening here.”

Maybe he was just oblivious – he had been accused of that often enough at home, and not even always by Arthur; even his cousins seemed to find his habit of not noticing things they read into situations a little comical – but he really couldn’t. Not to him for sure, but not really to anyone else, either. Sonora, as far as he could tell, was usually a happy place. People got along here, or if they didn’t, like he suspected the others in his room didn’t sometimes, they at least stayed civil most of the time. He couldn’t picture a group just ganging up on one person, much less someone trying to jinx someone else right out in the hallway, not unless tempers were running high and they both attacked each other at the same time because something big had happened. He hadn’t even seen that before, he could just imagine it, unlike the actual scenario in the packet.

“I guess, though, if someone did pull a wand on me,” he added, “I’d get mine, too, if they were stupid enough not to have one of their buddies disarm me first.” If he were going to attack someone – not that he ever planned to, but they were in a Defense class, which encouraged a certain way of thinking, and his grandfather had insisted on teaching him dueling tactics because it was traditional – then the first thing he thought he ought to do, if it wasn’t just a friendly match, was take away the other person’s means of defending himself. It would make the fight much quicker and cleaner to win. Of course, against a mob, he’d have all the rest cursing him in the back after he disarmed the first, so…. He frowned at his packet, deciding he didn't like this question. It was a no-win scenario, as far as he could tell.

0 Arnold Yeah, but it'd be better if I knew where I stand with her 181 Arnold 0 5

Josephine

September 29, 2012 4:06 PM

You people always want more by Josephine

"It says 'attempts to hex you'," Josephine countered Arnold's original comment.She agreed that it would be difficult to pull off haughty with no control of one's lower limbs, but she hadn't anticipated that eventuality. Had the hex been successful then she supposed she would have to cancel it before she contemplated haughty, or any other negative attitude. Of course, as Arnold didn't hesitate to point out, it seemed unlikely that this hypothetical scenario would ever occur. She nodded when he said he couldn't picture it happening at Sonora.

"I'm not very good at confrontation," Josephine admitted. She was generally mild mannered, unless pushed right to her limits. If she was on her own against a group then she would fake confidence for as short a period as possible before running away to hide (and then probably to cry). If a sinlge individual turned a wand on her, she would inevitably try to talk them out of using it before she even thought about defending herself, which, she could admit to herself, would probably not work out very well for her. Luckily, she considered herself unlikely to ever be in such a scenario. As Arnold evidently agreed, squabbles amongst students here rarely occured past heated discussions so far as Josephine was aware. besides, she didn't think anyone here really disliked her; she would be more likely to be more subtly attacked by James or Jade than violently apprehended by another student or group of students. "I'm okay in classes," she understated, "but I'd be useless if I was put on the spot in a real duel." She felt comfortable admitting this to Arnold, as she hardly believed, even for a second, that her yearmate would rally against her. As she understood it, that sort of thing was more suited to the year above theirs.

"Anyway," she said with a sigh, resigning herself to completing the assignment, no matter how inapplicable to her own life experiences, "we need to answer what we think would be a good way to handle the situation. Incidently," she side-tracked for a moment as her eyes flicked over the previous page in their packet, "did you test are more positive or negative minded?" She hoped he wouldn't mind her asking. If she'd had to guess, Josephine would have pegged him as a positive minded person. Cheerful people usually were optimistic, and she doubted there was much for Arnold Carey, good student and star Quidditch player, successfully betrothed to Fae Sinclair, to feel negative about. She tried not to feel too bitter about that.

0 Josephine You people always want more 0 Josephine 0 5

Arnold

September 29, 2012 9:00 PM

Doesn't everyone? by Arnold

Arnold looked back at the exact wording of the example. “I read that as ‘has said the incantation,’” he explained. If that wasn’t the case, then how would he know it was the Jelly-Legs Jinx that the random crazy person was trying to use on him? If there was a way to guess just by the way someone was holding his wand, Arnold didn’t know it, and he was pretty sure Arthur didn’t, either, which would be much more remarkable.

He was surprised when Josephine said she didn’t think she would do much good in a duel. It wasn’t that he had ever thought about her, specifically, being good or not good in such a situation, just that he had never really thought of anyone not being at least competent at this kind of thing. Arnold thought he might be slightly better at it than Arthur, he had beaten his twin in practice just a few more times than Arthur had beaten him, but as their marks in this class clearly demonstrated, that didn’t mean Arthur wasn’t good at it. Defense usually seemed natural enough to him that he hadn’t thought of it maybe being difficult for anyone but maybe very shy people – which he didn’t think Josephine was – or ones like Valerie Lennox, who had physical problems, unless he was looking right at them while they were having trouble with it.

“I hope I’d be okay at it,” he said. “If I had to. I’m not planning to get into any duels just to find out.” His grandfather might not mind, but his mother would kill him. The one thing that might get him into more trouble with his mother than starting a fight was not finishing one that someone else started with him, but in general, the best thing to do was just avoid fights.

“Positive, I guess,” he said when Josephine asked about what kind of mindset the previous page had given him. He would be more worried now if people stopped talking when he walked up to them than he thought he would have been before everything else happened, but he could live through that, too, and there were no questions about feelings of profound inadequacy when it came to his future spouse, so by the test's standards, he was doing well. “How about you?” If her first answer to the prompt was anything to go by, she didn’t lack confidence, so he expected to get pretty much the same answer he had given.

0 Arnold Doesn't everyone? 181 Arnold 0 5

Evan Brockert, Aladren

September 30, 2012 12:56 AM

Too rigid for my tastes. by Evan Brockert, Aladren

If there was one class that Evan had an easier time paying attention than any other, it was Defense. This was not because Professor Levy seemed the sort that wouldn't tolerate inattention or that focus could mean the difference between life and death. Nor did he want to become an Auror or have any special interest in the subject. No, it boiled down to one thing. There was simply nothing about it that inspired him artistically.

Like, in Charms, there were spells that could help Evan, such as the color changing charm. In Transfiguration and Potions, he often wanted to use the materials that were part of their lessons in different ways and got distracting imagining what he'd do with them instead. In COMC, Evan was always tempted to go look for art materials-his definition of which was extremely broad-or bugs. There was none of this in DADA.

So when Professor Levy passed around the handouts and began to lecture, the third year's attention was solely on her words. Which were pretty interesting, actually. He didn't approve of the Unforgivables being used, of course, but that didn't mean that they didn't pique Evan's curiosity. The Imperius Curse, which they were going to be studying today, seemed extremely awful, the idea of someone controlling his mind was a dreadful one. Not only was there the common thought that it could be used to make crimes be committed by the victim on the behalf of the caster but it could also be used to make people be something they weren't if someone just didn't they acted correctly.

Which Evan found to be one of the worst things that could happen to someone. Worse than pain or death. He'd honestly rather die than not be allowed to be himself. Losing his creativity, being forced to fit into a perfect little mold that was just like everyone else. There was propriety and manners of course, but that didn't mean everyone had to be the same, the world would be awfully boring if that was the case.

He marked down A for the first and second questions. Evan was an Aladren, and Aladrens were smart and he didn't think he'd ever actually fail a test. If his friends stopped talking when he approached, he probably wouldn't really even notice because his mind was elsewhere so he put A for that too. Question four was a bit different. Evan sincerely doubted that be actually dating anyone, that just caused too many issues when he inevitably ended up betrothed. Whether or not his life would be over if said betrothal was broken depended on whose fault it was. The Aladren decided to write something in instead.

I'm highly unlikely to date. If I have a broken betrothal whether or not my life is over depends on whose fault it is. If it's mine, my life will be over because my great-grandfather will kill me.

The last question also deserved more than just a simple either/or answer. That was the problem with this test, such narrow choices and so little data to decide whether or not he had a positive mindset. For this one he put, Some people will, and some people won't and I really do not care about the former. . Evan thought that was still pretty positive.

The questionnaire finished, he turned to the person next to him. "What do you think about question one? I'd try to ignore the teasing," not much got to him anyway, "and probably draw my wand on them before they got to the point where they could hex me." If someone did cross a line, Evan also supposed that, depending on who it was, there could be revenge later, though he'd prefer it not come to that.

11 Evan Brockert, Aladren Too rigid for my tastes. 212 Evan Brockert, Aladren 0 5

Eris Ackart

September 30, 2012 6:24 PM

It's definitely not the brightest shade by Eris Ackart

“Pleasure to meet you, Paul.” Eris said with a smile as her partner introduced himself. She quickly turned her attention back to their assignment, however, and was anxious to get this part over with. She was glad that Paul was on board with her idea—now to get through these scenarios. She agreed with his answer for the most part; she didn’t know much about the dynamics between the different families in the school, but picking fights for no reason seemed a silly thing to do regardless. Eris definitely wasn’t a fighter, but if cornered, she couldn’t promise that she wouldn’t send a hex or two flying in the direction of her assailant. She had a feeling that the assignment wanted them to go in a different direction though. Wasn’t there a disarming lesson lying here somewhere, after all?

“Shield charm, definitely. You could try and disarm the leader, too.” The Teppenpaw girl replied with a shrug. “It’s probably the more school appropriate reaction.” She offered. The assignment did want the initial response, and then a better one, right? She knew from having three older brothers that running did little good in situations like this, plus you didn’t want to turn your back on your enemy. There was also the option of taking whatever punishment was laid before you and telling some sort of authority figure later, but from a defensive stance, shield and disarm felt proper.

“Any final thoughts before we move on to number two?” She asked, looking over the second scenario once more before her dark brown eyes settled on Paul.

0 Eris Ackart It's definitely not the brightest shade 0 Eris Ackart 0 5

Nora Dobson, Aladren

September 30, 2012 7:31 PM

If you have a twisted sense of humor it is. by Nora Dobson, Aladren

At the mention of the Unforgivables, Nora's eyes lit up, not that she wasn't normally interested in all her classes. This, however, was just the sort of thing that appealed to her. The dark side of magic fascinated the fourth year along with the minds of people who'd use such. Of course, the best model for the sort of person who was doing so, her grandfather, was a person she'd never been allowed to get near. Mother would even scold Nora for asking questions about him, saying that it wasn't a proper subject for a young lady to talk about and that it would scare Portia even though the younger girl never seemed all that afraid.

It was much more likely that talking about Grandfather upset Mother, even though he'd mostly ignored her for being just a girl instead of actively mistreating her the way he had Grandmother and Uncle Marshall. Nora supposed that was rough too and that, along with seeing how her mother and brother were being treated,probably had quite an effect on Mother's psyche.

Obviously, the first question was an A and in the unlikely event that the second question ever happened-which was an unfathomable thought for Nora-it would be a total fluke so she would certainly do better on the next one though she couldn't imagine a circumstance under which she'd fail a test so she marked A for that too as well as the last three questions.

Apparently, the Aladren had a positive mindset. She hadn't ever thought otherwise, but she couldn't help but question the validity of the test. Oh, yes, the As were positive and the Bs negative but there was gray area in between. For example, question four had asked about dating when a good many people in the room would end up with betrothals such as she had. Plus, how could an entire aspect of a person's mindset be assessed in five narrowly defined questions. Psychology was very complex subject.

Nora glanced at the person who had spoken to her. Theresa Carey. She would be a satisfactory partner, she was a Pecari but not the sort of Pecari that had the attention span of gnat, and seemed reasonably intelligent. Furthermore, she was a Carey and thus the fourth year could hardly be rude even if she wanted to. "Certainly." Nora replied. "What do you think of the first situation?"

11 Nora Dobson, Aladren If you have a twisted sense of humor it is. 197 Nora Dobson, Aladren 0 5

Theresa

September 30, 2012 8:56 PM

I wasn't being serious, but you have a point by Theresa

Having secured Nora Dobson’s agreement to partner up, Theresa reread the first scenario, looking for what her answer to that exact moment would be. The Aladren girl was someone she’d heard Arthur speak approvingly of, so she was not likely to be very interesting, but she would also not do anything that would get them in trouble during the lesson and would be smart, so Theresa supposed she could have done far worse as far as partners went. The main problem was just that she had to seem smart and competent now, too, and this question wasn’t helping her out with that.

“I think I’d yell and then Arnold and Arthur would curse whoever was bothering me,” she said finally, since that was more ladylike than saying she’d do it all by herself, and it was probably true, too. She would help her cousins, if she could get her hands on her wand in this situation, but she thought the boys would do their fair share to show the outsiders why it was a bad idea to bother a Carey girl, The good thing about having a very large and close-knit – well, for a certain value of the phrase, anyway; they didn’t always like each other, but everyone would band together against a threat – family was that she didn’t have to face anything by herself, ever. The family was always there to offer support, protection if necessary, whatever was needed. That was what they all did for each other, and that was what made it better to be a Carey than any other kind of person.

If she didn’t have that resource…well, she didn’t know what she’d do, really, except yell for the staff and try to take as many to the hospital wing with her as she could, even though she knew that was a very…Arnold kind of thing, an Arnold and Brandon kind of thing, to think. She knew there should be a better answer, but she couldn’t think what it was. If someone was trying to use a jinx on her, then she doubted they were going to stop halfway through because she asked politely, or because she cried. Really, she thought that might make them just want to attack her more, since they’d see her as a weakling they could treat that way.

“What would you do?” she asked. Maybe Nora knew the other answer. Theresa hoped so, anyway, as much as she hoped that Nora would offer her opinion for the second scenario before Theresa had to say what she thought, so she could just agree and not worry about saying something her partner would be sure was improper. She wanted to finally get things right this year, not stumble her way through ineptly again and get called out on it at home.

0 Theresa I wasn't being serious, but you have a point 0 Theresa 0 5

Paul

September 30, 2012 9:27 PM

Is it the darkest? by Paul

“And you,” Paul replied politely when Eris said it was a pleasure to meet him. These formalities were things he had had imbedded in his brain at such an early age that he could use them as easily as he could walk across a room, if not more easily, and there was no reason why he shouldn’t be pleased to meet her. She was being pleasant enough and he had to have someone to work with for this assignment, and those two facts added up to a meeting which had so far been completely satisfactory for him.

“That’s a good idea,” he agreed when she suggested disarming the leader. “A good start, anyway. Though you’d have to be really good at it to disarm the whole group at the same time.” The leader wouldn’t like being disarmed, after all, and his group would be defensive about following a leader who could get disarmed by someone they’d assumed they could pick on. He thought that would lead to things getting a lot worse a lot faster, really, unless they were all disarmed at the same time. A group against one was always really bad unless the one was a very skilled wizard who didn’t have to worry too much about the rules.

Paul did not really put himself into either of those categories. His family was not old or proud enough to be able to flout law, rule, and convention with even a reasonably-sized amount of impunity, and though he would not say he was bad with a wand, he was not going to win any competitions any time soon, either. He would do the best he could to hold his ground – getting his back against a wall would be an important first step, since that would be one more direction that he couldn’t be cursed from – but he’d really be looking forward to the glorious moment when a teacher materialized to break it up.

“Nope,” he said, looking a little further down on his handout. “Next question.” He frowned as he read it over, trying to imagine that one. No teachers there, and maybe no one else anywhere nearby at all. He wouldn’t be able to depend on intervention. “Er – shield charm or stunner, then run?” he tried, since he did not think any number of positive mindset exercises could make him much of an on-the-spot competent wild animal tamer. That just wasn't him, he thought.

0 Paul Is it the darkest? 0 Paul 0 5

Josephine

October 01, 2012 3:58 PM

We were focused on you, not everyone else by Josephine

Arnold's comment that he wasn't getting into any duels to find out how he would react sent Josephine's imagination on a brief journey of its own. Duelling was generally considered an archaic practice these days, with only louts or more traditional families keeping still bothering to teach it. She wouldn't call him a lout off the Quidditch pitch, but Arnold was indisputably from one of the families that Josephine would have bet several of her second-hand possessions on being the sort that encouraged wand-to-wand combat. She could, however, understand that learning a skill set in controlled circumstances was an entirely different kettle of fish from hexing peers out in the open, so perhaps this was the distinction Arnold was making. Josephine sort of wanted to ask him whether he or his relatives did actually still receive duelling tuition, but her nerves wouldn't permit her to be quite so bold. Instead she regained her focus on their current conversation.

"I didn't really come up as being much swayed in either direction," she replied with a shrug. "Or maybe I'm both. I just seem to be positive in positive situations, and negative otherwise. I find it equally easy to see the good and bad sides," she rambled a little as she tried to convince herself as much as Arnold that her reponse was perfectly normal, and that periodically hating herself interspersed with frequent delusions of grandeur and an occasional superiority complex was a totally healthy way to exist.

"I'm not sure there would be a good way to handle this," she hurriedly directed them back to the assignment, to prevent herself from becoming further flustered by something so basic as her lack of a positive outlook on life (in her defense, perhaps positive-minded people wouldn't be so keen to be optimistic if they had her circumstances instead of their own). "Maybe to take it on the chin and be happy that it wasn't a stinging hex or something." She absent-mindedly wound the end of her braid around her fingers. They seemed to be wasting valuable time, and Josephine would always prefer to get her work finished in class than to give up her allotted free time to complete any work still unfinished by the end of the lesson. "What about the next one?" she said as she read the second and final scenario up for discussion.

0 Josephine We were focused on you, not everyone else 0 Josephine 0 5

Arabella Brockert, Pecari

October 02, 2012 1:19 AM

This tends to be an interesting class by Arabella Brockert, Pecari

Defense was probably Arabella's favorite class. She very much understood the necessity of it. There were dark creatures and bad people out there. Admittedly, the former was not that big of a threat to anyone that she cared about but the latter was more of a concern. Of course, Arabella didn't really believe Carrie was capable of being a dark witch,though it was still fun to learn spells that she could use against the younger girl if she deemed it necessary to do so, which the Pecari inevitably would. The second year was just an unbearable brat. Not necessarily evil in the potential dark wizard sense, but the meanest, cruelest person the third year could have ever imagined, though she probably wouldn't have been able to do so had she not known her.

Still, Arabella never knew when her cousin would strike out at someone she cared about in order to hurt her. Her younger siblings and Ryan-even though he was older than her, she still viewed him as more vulnerable, especially given that he was the one Carrie would seek to hurt most-in particular were her weak spot and it was very hard for her to control herself and be a lady when they were threatened. Alexandra was another one. Even though Arabella didn't view her friend as particularly in need of protection, she'd still seek revenge on anyone who messed with her. With the rest of her cousins, it was the same as with the other third year.

She sat with interest as Professor Levy began to talk about the Unforgivables. Her younger sister Serena always seemed frightened at the thought of them, but Arabella was less squeamish in general. Though she could understand where her sister was coming from. The idea of being killed, tortured or having someone control your mind was pretty terrifying, it was just that Arabella didn't ever think she'd meet someone who would use them. Even the very worst people she knew or knew of cared enough about not having their wand snapped. Using magic was just too important.

The Pecari quickly filled out the questionnaire. The interesting thing about it was the one question that she'd replied B was a more imaginable situation than the next three. She wasn't a great student, especially when it came to theory and written work, though she was pretty good with a wand, but nor was Arabella stupid so while she might get mediocre grades on tests, she wouldn't fail. Nor could she imagine her friends saying anything bad about her or her dating someone when purebloods just really didn't do that.

As for the last question, well, in general, it sort of depended on the other person. Some personalities just clashed, especially if the people in question had opposite values or no common ground. Nobody was going to be liked or hated by everyone. Even Carrie and Aunt Pearl who were universally disliked by everyone else, liked each other. Probably because the former had been molded in the latter's image.

"All right." Arabella replied, when Alicia Bauer addressed her. She didn't know the Aladren well, they moved in different circles but the other girl had always seemed rather intense and ambitious, in contrast with Arabella's more laid back attitude. The Pecari had never seen much point in being ambitious when her family was already at the top but she could rather see why Alicia might be, given that her family didn't share the Brockerts' social position.

She just hoped the Aladren wouldn't be too difficult to work with.

11 Arabella Brockert, Pecari This tends to be an interesting class 217 Arabella Brockert, Pecari 0 5

Alicia

October 02, 2012 11:42 AM

True, but this is especially intriguing, don't you think? by Alicia

When she had first come to Sonora, Alicia had planned to make well-connected, no doubt one day to be important, friends wherever she could, and she could honestly say that was the only goal she’d had for her school years which she had already been in a position to accomplish and hadn’t. She had done well with the boys in her year, but when it came to the girls, she hadn’t, and after the first month of school, she hadn’t really been able to find it in her to care, either. She just didn’t like other girls ninety percent of the time, and the prominent ones in her year were, for a variety of reasons, not people who had ever or were likely to ever find their way into the remaining ten percent.

If one of them ever did, though, she doubted it was going to be Arabella Brockert. The Brockerts would make her grind her teeth together if she thought about them too much in an unguarded moment anyway, just because of their assurance of place, but them being from her side of the continent made their presence at Sonora a potential disaster for her. There were people in this room she would rather work with a Brockert than speak to, but not many. Not many at all.

“Excellent,” she said brightly, as though nothing could have pleased her more. Compared to getting through an entire summer with her family without starting any trouble, lying to Arabella wasn’t hard at all. Even if she was offering no help whatsoever. Alicia thought it helped that whether this went badly or well, it would be over in an hour, unlike the holidays, which sometimes felt as inescapable as Hell. The light sparkled off her magically-reinforced back-to-school French manicure as she straightened her packet on the desk in front of her. The small things weren’t satisfying, really, but they did have their uses when she was stranded miles away from the nearest salon. “Let’s look at this first one.”

She read it out loud, thinking anew that this was pointless. She was not going to tell some Brockert girl that she would do her best to follow the ringleader into the Gardens one day, disarm him from behind, and then, preferably with her friends but alone if necessary, which was more likely, demonstrate to him why – aside from, if the rest of her House saw things her way, the rest of them immediately descending on the whole gang’s head; to her, Aladren was something to be loyal to, and if such a thing really happened, she’d even help out Evan Brockert or one of the Muggleborns, at least as things stood now – it was foolish to bother an Aladren. The most interesting thing she could get out of this was an attempt at analyzing Professor Levy’s psychology; was she so far removed from Alicia’s mindset that she thought people would be honest, or did she expect them to lie and not care? Either way, Alicia found it interesting from an academic stance, because she couldn’t imagine really doing either of those things.

“I guess I would ask them to stop,” she said, after finishing the recitation of the question and pausing for breath, in her best good-student voice. “And then, if they wouldn’t, I’d report the incident to a professor. Don’t you think that would be the right thing to do?”

Alicia lightly bit the inside of her lip for a second, thinking that she might be smart to actually do that, if she thought of it, before the part where the offender was hexed into unrecognizability. It would make her denials of involvement later seem more plausible. All of it, though, hinged on her being able to control herself when actually attacked; Alicia had forced herself not to react to a lot of things, but never to an actual physical attack. How she would handle that was another of those things she couldn't help but be curious about, if maybe not so much as she was about the things they weren't taught.

16 Alicia True, but this is especially intriguing, don't you think? 210 Alicia 0 5

Phoenix

October 03, 2012 1:29 PM

It's better than negative. by Phoenix

The side of Phoenix’s lips quirked upwards when Reggie said she was a lover, not a fighter. It was a good place to be in life, in his opinion. So many people wanted to fight rather than opt for any other solution. He didn’t really understand it other than to know that people could be downright mean for absolutely no good reason. There were people that hated his parents just for who they were. It was why he didn’t tell anyone what he was. They would judge him without bothering to know who he was, just on what.

It was part of what made answering the question of what he would do so difficult. Some would lose themselves around him so teasing wouldn’t really be an issue and those that sought to harm him because of who he was would try much worse than teasing. He tapped his pencil against the desk. Such a difficult question to answer. “Being in a positive mindset, I would believe that I could change the circumstances, so I would then charm them into stopping.” He left it at that not saying really how he would charm them, but he was thinking more of relying on his veela-ness. Of course, it was only a chance. “If that didn’t work, I guess I would have to rely on my ability to fight and just believe that I could win.”

Phoenix read the next question.

2) You are walking through the Labyrinth Gardens and come across a creature you have never seen before. It looks rather dangerous. How would you feel about the situation? Hw would you handle the situations? Are there any ways to handle the situation that would be more appropriate?

“Hmm. If I ran across a dangerous creature, I would probably just back up slowly. If I run, it will most likely think I pose a problem and come chasing after me, but I don’t really want to fight it either. Any creature can be dangerous, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it is and the question doesn’t state that it’s a dark creature. So, for all I know the creature could just be protecting its babies or something. I wouldn’t really want to fight the animal cause I could end up hurting or killing it and I don’t really believe in that. Plus, I don’t want it doing damage to me either. What about you?”

0 Phoenix It's better than negative. 0 Phoenix 0 5

Nora

October 03, 2012 7:59 PM

Thanks, I often do. by Nora

Theresa's answer was satisfactory one, a proper one. One that she might just be giving to look good. Or she could really be that proper which she very well might be despite being a Pecari. It was possible. "Well," Nora considered. "I suppose I could ask Evan for help." Granted, that would more likely deflect the teasing onto him, which the fourth year knew wasn't right, but honestly, her cousin was... weird . Interesting, but weird.

"More likely, though, I'd stand my ground and try to block the hexes and possibly find a way to get back at them later." The Brockert family had that ability. Like that dreadful woman that tried to blackmail them after they had her fired for mistreating Autumn the first time she was in treatment. Nora wasn't necessarily supposed to know stuff like that, but she had ways of finding out about them. Mostly eavesdropping.

Sometimes, the Aladren felt her parents treated her like a baby. They never wanted her to hear or read interesting things, saying that they were too 'dark' for her to know about, but Nora did anyway. She couldn't resist the quest for knowledge about things that she was interested in. If she did, her life would be so boring. Besides, she was betrothed already, and if she was old enough for that, Nora should be treated like an adult.

"I can't really figure out why anyone would be teasing me in the first place." The fourth year added. There would be no reason to. She was smart, reasonably attractive and from a powerful family that nobody with any sense would want to mess with. The people who were picked on were generally the more vulnerable, emotional sort and that wasn't Nora. If anything, she was considered to be detached and somewhat cold and unfeeling. That's what Hope and Evan seemed to think.

That was the problem with these hypotheticals, they just seemed so unlikely and like the questions, just seemed not to apply to her. "I can't imagine why I'd be in a place to be attacked by a dangerous creature either. To put oneself in such a situation is rather idiotic. However, in that unlikely event, I'd try to get away before the creature saw me or stand perfectly still not to attract it's attention and hope it moved on."

11 Nora Thanks, I often do. 197 Nora 0 5

Eris Ackart

October 03, 2012 10:28 PM

Is there such a thing as medium grey? by Eris Ackart

Paul made a good point about having to disarm the entire group. That would take a pretty big spell or some quick shooting in order to get all of them. Eris felt pretty confident that she would never find herself in that kind of situation. At least she hoped that she wouldn’t. Eris was never the kind to start trouble, and had yet to meet someone she didn’t get along with on some level. If she were to be cornered, she imagined it would have to do with her father—or at the very least her family. It wasn’t a secret that her parents supported Muggle Equality; and while Eris was steadily taking a more aggressive stand on it, she’d never really felt threatened for her beliefs.

Eris jotted down their joint answer as the other student proposed his answer for number two.

“I’d be nervous and probably a bit scared. I honestly don’t think I’d even bother with the shield charm unless it was a dragon or something. I’d stun it, or use incarcerus on it, and, like you said, run. I don’t think there is a better way to handle it, really. You can’t disarm or attempt to reason with an animal, particularly if it smells fear.”
The third year shuddered a little at the idea of facing a ferocious beast in the labyrinth. Most likely she’d be lost in there, and depending on how tall the hedges were, she’d also likely be suffering from claustrophobia. Add the unpredictability of a dangerous looking animal, and you had the recipe for disaster.

“There aren’t actually dangerous animals in the gardens here, are there?” She asked, her brow furrowed slightly in concern.

0 Eris Ackart Is there such a thing as medium grey? 0 Eris Ackart 0 5

Arnold

October 04, 2012 7:43 PM

I thought we'd moved to 'you people.' by Arnold

“That makes sense,” Arnold said when Josephine said she was positive in positive situations and negative in negative situations. He thought most people were, more or less, sometimes. Things were what they were a lot. “I don’t think many things are just good or bad.”

Privately, he thought that if there were things which were purely good and purely bad, the purely bad ones probably outnumbered the others, but that was too gloomy of a thought for him to want to say it in class. Arnold was aware that there were plenty of things wrong in the world, but he found it better to try to look at the good side of things, and if he really couldn’t do that, to at least remind himself that they could be much worse. The situation with Fae was a good example – it was horribly awkward, and he wasn’t sure if he believed anything she’d actually said about it, and when he was around her he thought for the first time in his life that he might understand what the phrase ‘nervous wreck’ meant because he was so worried about doing something inappropriate or offensive, but when the issue came to mind and she wasn’t around, he was sure that somehow, they’d eventually calm down enough to work out a solution they could both at least live with. That was much better than the thought of a situation where he couldn’t have felt that way.

“I don’t know, either,” he admitted about the second scenario. “I don’t think I could just stand around and let someone jinx me, though.” He might, if it was him or someone else, particularly if it were one of his brothers or a girl someone else, but that wasn’t part of the question. For some reason, in this scenario, he was supposed to be alone and they were bothering him because they had a problem with him. In that case, if they were that obviously unwilling to let it go, fighting it out seemed like the only way to go. Even if the staff stepped in at that exact moment, the problem would still be there and would come up again sometime. The system couldn’t resolve everyone’s issues forever.

He read over the second scenario. “Well, the first thing I’d think is that this isn’t good,” he said. “And then…” he shrugged. “I guess it if looked Stunnable – “ he wasn’t sure that was a word, but did know there were some things it was really hard to Stun, so the distinction had to be made somehow – that might be an option, but maybe a Shield Charm and then running really fast in the opposite direction and taking a lot of turns would work better.” The turns were the important part; if it followed, maybe changing direction a lot would help. Assuming that magic of any kind didn’t set the thing off, but that was, he guessed, why they had Care of Magical Creatures. “What would you do?”

0 Arnold I thought we'd moved to 'you people.' 181 Arnold 0 5

Valerie Lennox, Crotalus

October 05, 2012 2:27 AM

Apparently negative. by Valerie Lennox, Crotalus

Valerie trudged wearily into Defense. She was still getting over her bout with bronchitis and she was rather tired yet but then she usually was. Hopefully, today's lesson was going to be one that she was capable of doing, one that didn't involve a lot of running around. Valerie didn't necessarily mind doing essays but she always hated having attention called to her medical issues and felt very self-conscious when she had to sit out whether she'd really wanted to do the lesson or not.

It was something of relief when Professor Levy started talking about the Unforgivables. It was highly unlikely that they would be practicing them given that they were spells not allowed to be cast in the first place. Actually, Valerie couldn't quite understand why they'd even been invented. What was the point of having a spell that nobody could-or should-use? There wasn't even a good reason to do the things that these spells caused in the first place. What kind of person would even want to come with a spell to control someone's mind or torture them or kill them?

Still, at least this meant the lesson would likely be a theoretical one, which Valerie much preferred in this class. She was never able to do anything that would make her sick again, especially when she was recovering from something-which was often-but to not have people remember it was always a plus. All the Crotalus wanted to was blend in, she didn't even want a class discussion unless she could just listen. It was rare that Valerie would have felt comfortable giving an opinion when she missed class so much. People would just say she didn't know what she was talking about because she wasn't there and she'd be embarrassed.

So, when Professor Levy put the definitions of positive and negative mindsets up, Valerie's face flushed. Too sickly . That had to be aimed at her and even if it wasn't specifically, everyone would think of her when they saw it-and she genuinely was . She didn't just have a negative mindset. It was the truth.

Oh, the fourth year knew that she would, in any situation where Defense was needed, be completely doomed. She missed a good portion of her classes and couldn't do all that many of them when she was present. Valerie's practical applications in this class were almost non-existent and any skill that one would possess in it depended on a certain physical prowess that she most definitely did not have. That was why she needed to keep out of any situation where she would need it and odds were that she would. Valerie often didn't have the energy to get herself into dangerous situations in the first place and was deliberately kept from them anyway. Her parents tried to even keep her out of things where she would get upset, let alone under immediate threat from anything other than viruses and bacteria and besides, it wasn't proper to go looking for such things anyway.

She quickly filled out the survey (B,A,B,B,B)and found out her mindset ( negative. Valerie looked over the two scenarios, though she was certain that the second would never happen, as she never went in the Gardens, unless she was supposed to during class or something. There was too much risk of getting lost or hurt and exacerbating her issues and she legitimately didn't have the energy for that either. The first one was more likely, and thus more upsetting and Valerie had no idea what she would do, but it would likely end up with her having to be rescued by someone else.

The Crotalus looked up. She noticed Brianna and Michael were working with each other, along with Sullivan Quincy, another boy she'd met once when he'd helped her out in this class but they were on the other side of the room and Valerie wasn't one hundred percent comfortable joining the three of them. She wasn't sure she was a very good partner in classes, and she doubted she would be on this one. Yet, she had to work with someone and before she could get up to look, she was approached.

11 Valerie Lennox, Crotalus Apparently negative. 204 Valerie Lennox, Crotalus 0 5

Arabella

October 05, 2012 5:26 AM

I have to agree on that one. by Arabella

Arabella considered the Aladren's reply. "I'm not really sure how well asking them to stop would work." There were, after all, some people who didn't respond well to that. They'd just laugh in your face and keep doing it. In fact, there were people who no matter what you did, were going to hurt you and the only way to make them stop was to get them out of your lives. Like with Ryan and Aunt Pearl. Except, the idea of a restraining order on some kids that teased you was kind of ridiculous.

"And tattling on them might make things worse for you later on." Arabella added. She did know a few things about bullies, with a cousin like hers. No matter what you did to them, they always found a way to come back with something worse later. They seized on any weakness they could find, hitting a person where they knew it would hurt the worst. Carrie had a special talent in this, inherited from her mother. The Pecari could fight back, but in the end, she'd end up coming away looking unladylike and for some reason, her mother cared more about that than any harm Arabella would do to the second year. She guessed that just went to show how little her mother thought of Carrie as well.

She knew it wasn't right to gang up on one person, normally. This, however, was a case of safety in numbers, loyalty, having each others back. Being united against a common deserving enemy who had started the whole thing, or rather kept up what her mother had. None of them would have to act as they did towards her if not in retaliation and nothing they did was as bad as anything she would come up with to do back.

It was frustrating, really really frustrating. Arabella might have loved the bonds their mutual distaste for Carrie deepened between her and her cousins. It was just that, well, she couldn't do anything to stop her. If Uncle Jeffrey-the third year had grown up calling him uncle and the habit was hard to break-or another of the adults caught her, Carrie would surely be punished, of course, but that didn't mean the Crotalus wouldn't strike back later, worse, and most likely toward Ryan, whose spirit had been long ago broken by his mother. Who didn't have it in him to fight back and who didn't think it was right to just use the fact that he was bigger, older and knew more magic to do so. Because he didn't want to stoop to their mother's level.

Honestly though, Arabella wasn't exactly sure how to deal with the situation in a way that didn't get her in trouble for unladylike behavior and that wouldn't start a war of sorts. Certain people didn't stop. "I've been told you're supposed to ignore it and not let them see that it gets to you and it takes the fun out of it for them." Which had also not really worked. "And that it's okay to block a hex and defend yourself. I think that's what the professor is going for. Like, she wants us to remain positive and not get upset by the teasing so we can deflect the hex and fight back." The trouble was when people went too far, that's when you ended up looking bad.

11 Arabella I have to agree on that one. 217 Arabella 0 5

Reggie

October 06, 2012 10:31 PM

That is a true statement. by Reggie

Reggie arched an eyebrow at his response. That was a strange thing to say. “How would you charm them?” She asked, curiously. Hex them was one thing, but charm them? How does one charm them and with what charm? “Are you going to Imperius their behinds or something?” Reggie joked, thinking that was really one of the only spells she could think of that could alter a person’s mind enough to get them to stop doing something and instead, do what the castor tells them to do. “Are you really a bad guy, Phoenix? The type of guy my mom warns me about?” She was completely kidding, of course. He was too pretty to be evil.

“Are you a fighter then?” Reggie asked him when he mentioned it. “Instead of a lover like me?” She pouted at him in a joking manner and then wondered where that had come from. She was pretty certain this might constitute as flirting, which Reggie had no idea how to do and felt a little weird and silly for having done so. She found herself leaning close to him as they spoke, but couldn’t fathom a reason as to why that was needed. Oh well. She didn’t mind the nearness so long as he didn’t.

Having now moved onto the next scenario, Reggie found these all very strange. Never had she heard of anyone being bullied at Sonora any more than she had heard of dangerous critters in the gardens. It was a school. They couldn’t put the students into any sort of potential dangers by allowing dangerous creatures to wander freely through the gardens. Reggie found herself giggling a little with Phoenix’s answer. Not because it was funny or anything, but she found it so cute. “You are so much more concerned for that animal in the second scenario than yourself in the first. It’s very cute.” Reggie commented.

She took a breath and tried to think of how she would react. “How could we react and feel positive in this situation. It’s an unknown animal that must look potentially dangerous… If I can’t stun it and run… it will probably end up attacking and eating me. I don’t really see how you can get out of this one without either harming the animal or possibly yourself. And I don’t think that’s really positive.” She knew that she liked to think of the positive, always be light about everything, but there were going to be times when Reggie can’t get past the situation in front of her with a smile on her face.

6 Reggie That is a true statement. 187 Reggie 0 5

Theresa

October 07, 2012 12:59 AM

No self-esteem problems for you, I see by Theresa

Theresa just looked at Nora for a long moment, surprised by her answer. Of course it was more or less what Theresa would do, too, if the situation really came up, but this was a class exercise, which was all about giving the right answer. Theresa was very clear about what right and wrong answers were, and how they were to be used regardless of what the truth was. She’d had to go through all those awful remedial etiquette courses until she was very clear about that kind of thing indeed. She could only assume that Nora didn’t normally say these things, that she was in for an unpleasant winter break, or that the head of her family didn’t care for her development into a proper young lady.

She wished her lessons had worked well enough for her not to feel a little jealous if the last one was really the case.

“I…I see,” she said faintly.

She felt on firmer footing with the next thing Nora said, more able to agree with it without getting into trouble. She nodded emphatically. “I know what you mean,” she said. Why would anyone attack her? Even if they didn’t care for her, personally, they would have to know her family name. A Carey was Head Girl, she was surrounded by male relatives, two of them were nearly in the upper years and not known for being weak wizards, and then there was her family outside of this place…It would be the stupidest thing that a person could do, really. She was not someone it would be smart to treat that way. It might happen inside her family, but they would, among other things, keep it out of the corridors. If they had problems, they could work them out without the interference of others, as they always had.

“That makes sense as well,” she said, glad to hear an answer she could agree with without worrying. “I suppose that just leaves us with the last page.” She smiled slightly, always glad to get her wand out. It was so much more straightforward than things she had to talk about, something she could do without worrying too much about what was and wasn’t proper and correct. No one was going to fault her for completing her lessons, even in a manly subject; they knew that she needed to know these things, since the family ideal of a lady did involve being able to defend her family if - and only if - it was absolutely necessary, and that she had to know them in order to pass her CATS and make a good impression on people.

0 Theresa No self-esteem problems for you, I see 0 Theresa 0 5

Paul

October 07, 2012 1:35 AM

Well, there's dark and light, so there must be medium, too by Paul

The thought of some crazy animal knowing he was afraid of it was not one Paul had thought of, nor was it one he liked. Staying away from them was one of his agendas. “I think if you see a dragon, you may as well make your peace with your maker,” he said dryly, writing on his sheet. “I’m pretty sure a shield charm isn’t going to work if it feels like eating you today.” It was just…a dragon. There was nothing that could be done about it. Either you got away very quickly, you got very lucky and it didn’t notice you, or you were barbeque. There wasn’t really a fourth option.

He paused as he wrote. Maybe, if the fire just brushed you…Paul shuddered and banished that thought, fixing his mind on how Eris’ statement had been metaphorical. No, there was no fourth option, and they weren’t really discussing dragons anyway. That wasn’t even on the table. It was safe to move on.

“I’ve never seen any,” Paul said with a shrug when Eris asked about dangerous animals in the Gardens. “But then, I only go out there for Creatures lessons, usually, so I’m probably not the best person to ask. There’s always rumors about what’s out there, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s just a school legend, you know, something to scare the firsties.” He looked at her, deciding that he was probably right. “Or the transfers,” he added with a small smile. “Where are you from? I’m about ninety-nine percent sure you haven’t been here all along – I think I’d remember.”

Was he attempting to flirt? Paul considered this. He didn’t think so, at least not seriously. The idea of going through the lengthy process of attracting someone and then dating them wasn’t one he found appealing, though he guessed he might have to someday. He didn’t really know what his parents’ plans were regarding him and Lize and his other siblings and marriage. They had sorted things out for themselves, gotten married because it suited them both at the time, even if he wondered sometimes if it didn’t suit Father, at least, anymore, but they were a little higher up than either of them had been before that, so who knew. It would have been easier, anyway, if Uncle Vic really had made a good marriage instead of going to the madhouse, but that wasn't something there was much of a point to thinking about anymore.

0 Paul Well, there's dark and light, so there must be medium, too 0 Paul 0 5

Eris Ackart

October 07, 2012 11:17 PM

A happy medium by Eris Ackart

“You’re right.” Eris hadn’t really considered all of the technicalities that came with being attacked by a dragon, and now felt a little silly for even mentioning it. There was so way a shield charm could save you from dragon fire—let alone one cast by a third year. She was glad when Paul decided not to discuss it further, saving her from actually having to defend or attempt to explain the words she’d so mindlessly uttered. She scratched a line through a sentence on her handout and rewrote it quickly before turning her attention back to her partner.

She was slightly relieved to hear that Paul wasn’t certain of any highly dangerous animals lurking about the gardens. If he’d only been out there for Care of Magical creatures classes, maybe those were the dangerous animals from the school legend. After all, every school had its own brand of lore and mythology created by students from years passed that somehow still lingered throughout the ages.

Eris laughed when Paul finally called her out on being a transfer. It wasn’t that she was trying to hide it, really, she’d just been so anxious to get to the meat of the Defense lesson that she’d neglected to really take a moment to get to know her classmate.

“You think so?” Eris said with a smile. “You’re absolutely right, I am indeed a transfer. I’m from a place called Upper Flagley, which is in Northern England--Yorkshire to be exact, not that this is a lesson in geography of course.”

She found his statement a little curious. He was right, she hadn’t been there all along, but what did he mean when he said he thought he’d remember? Sure, Sonora was a little smaller than her old school, but even there she felt like she saw new faces every day. Classes were structured a little differently, of course, but she certainly couldn’t remember everyone. She was a little better at remembering those she shared a house with, but according to his robes, Paul was in Crotalus.

“What year are you?” She asked, in an attempt to quell her curiosity.

0 Eris Ackart A happy medium 0 Eris Ackart 0 5

Phoenix

October 08, 2012 1:23 AM

Would I give a false one? by Phoenix

Phoenix paused at the question. He hadn’t really been expecting her to ask how he would do such a thing. Most would probably just brush it off as a joke rather than expecting him to actually explain anything. How was he to explain that the reason he could possibly charm them was that he wasn’t quite a wizard, but something a little different? Though, her theory, which he knew was not really a theory at all, was intriguing. “What if I said I was?” He smirked a little since he was just playing in turn. His fingers brushed a bit of her hair. Where had that come from? Maybe he really was the bad guy. Good guys should not behave like this, especially ones like him.

Just as quickly, he pulled away. Perhaps, he could just play it off as though it never happened, but it wasn’t that easy when her lips turned down into such a pretty pout. He knew he was playing with fire, but he had always thought her to be cute and at this age, it was hard to ignore. “Can’t a person be both a lover and a fighter? There are causes that are worth fighting for. Sometimes, love is one of them.” He was thinking of his parents when he said that. Life wasn’t easy for them. It never would be when their worlds were intermingled, yet divided. He overheard people say that his mother was only using his father, using her charms on him, but they never saw what went on in their home, how much she tried just for his father. They never saw that and he doubted they ever would. He didn’t want to end up like that.

The blonde blushed a bit when Reggie said he was cute. Okay, she said that his concern was cute, but still, it secretly pleased him that she would think this way about him. Actually, it was better this way, because cute was his concern. It wasn’t the way he looked, meaning she liked something about him that was just him and not something he had been born with and couldn’t change. Turning away, he shrugged and mumbled a bit. “Animals have feelings too.” After all, how many ‘animals’ were thinking and feelings and simply not classified as ‘beings’ either by their choice or by others? Some thought that they shouldn’t be classified as beings, that they were the dangerous creatures. It was very sad really.

Thinking a bit on Reggie’s answer, he said, “I think that the idea is just to be positive that you can get out of the situation. I guess that would require some general knowledge about creatures. Or maybe observing the situation to see how the creature is behaving? If it’s ignoring you, then it’s plausible to just go along your merry way, right?” He really wasn’t sure if he was anywhere on the ‘positive’ track, but he figured that it would be fairly difficult to fail the assignment completely since it was based on what they thought they should do, not what they should actually do.

0 Phoenix Would I give a false one? 0 Phoenix 0 5

Reggie

October 08, 2012 12:18 PM

I don't know, would you? by Reggie

Reggie felt his fingers against her hair and was surprised by it, although not offended. She had really nice hair and it was only natural for someone to want to touch it. Then again, it might be in his way and he was trying to tell her that politely. Reggie took her hand and swiped her hair to the opposing shoulder so that it was not obstructing her view of him. “Well, then I guess I would be a bad girl for not following my mother’s advice.” She was hit with another wave of whatever it was that had hit her earlier and she felt herself go dumb when she looked at him again.

All she wanted to do was touch him, kiss him, run her hands all in his hair. She never wanted to leave his side. She just wanted to make him happy and be happy in return. Reggie was leaning hard to her side to be closer to him and the ache in her side that occurred due to this strange position brought her back to her sense. She had to close her eyes and shake her head a couple of times before the feeling went away and she was left utterly confused for a moment. She inched her way back over to her side of things and tried to act like nothing just happened.

Reggie gave a thoughtful look to his inquiry. She agreed that there were some really great causes to fight for. Slavery being one of them. All men and women shall be equal. She felt that way about Muggles and Muggleborns with Witches and Wizards. Of course, Muggles were likely to outcast Magical just as it was likely in the reversal. Not that she was going to rage war over any of that any time soon. But she sometimes thought about what it would be like if her Father’s family could be involved in magic. “You should very romantic.” Reggie said after a moment. She wasn’t always a fan of romance. Would she like it for herself? Of course, she didn’t know a girl who wouldn’t. But movies lie about romance way too much and, honestly, what guy or girl would sit there and wait for a person to choose them? If she was pitted against another girl for a guy, she’d say ‘good riddance’ because if he was playing two girls before they were dating, he’s a cheater. That was her opinion on the matter anyway.

“I guess I don’t really understand why you would have to fight for it. If both parties wanted it, really wanted it, there would need to be a fight, right?” Unless he was meaning it in some other way, which was quite possible. Reggie had a tendency to assume movie base plots on things. Heck, even in her Zombie movie, there was romance and they fought. Of course, she fought for her love to stay with her, while he (Derry) wanted to save her and sacrificed his life. That was romantic and technically fighting for love. “Unless you meant fighting to save the love of your life’s life. I can get behind that.”

This time, instead of a giggle, Reggie actually laughed. He was embarrassed and his response only further made her think it was cute. “Sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it. It’s just that most guys, I think, would try to act all macho about it and you clearly just love the animal. I like that. It’s different and real.” Derry probably wouldn’t try to act all macho and would more than likely want to pet the animal than run from it, but that was Derry being Derry. Phoenix, she had always assumed, was a pretty boy who wanted to act tough. She had no basis for the acting tough part (he was a pretty boy, there was no denying that), but since he was so quiet and semi-standoffish, she had automatically thought the second part. Hearing him say something about animals in such a loving way, had her looking at him differently. There was no other way to describe it other than ‘cute’.

“You’re right. The scenario is too vague to really know how to handle the situation. Looking dangerous doesn’t really mean that it is. If the creature is minding its own business, walking away from it shouldn’t be an issue and I would be positively delightful in walking away. Plus, if the creature was dangerous, I would need to know the type of creature in order to positively know how to handle the situation.”

She found herself leaning too close to him again, but caught herself for she found herself going dumb again. There seriously was something wrong. "Okay, I'm embarrassing myself here. You are apparently some sort of magnet and I am being drawn to you." She could have said a lot more about this, but out of sheer face-save, she kept her mouth closed.

6 Reggie I don't know, would you? 187 Reggie 0 5

Alicia

October 08, 2012 5:47 PM

Will we agree on anything else? by Alicia

Alicia wanted, more than anything, to take what she perceived as that condescending tone right out of Arabella’s voice as she made her reply. Preferably by a demonstration of her skill in the area of offensive magic. Instead, though, she forced her face into a false smile.

“You’re right,” she said brightly. “Let’s ignore people when that’s just going to make them work that much harder to get a response, and then duel five people at once.” Alicia would put herself against two fourth years at once, no more, and that was only because the fourth years weren’t one of the more intelligent and dangerous classes around, at least in her estimation. Against a good portion of fifth year, she thought she would have trouble holding her own even one-on-one, at least for now. As for ignoring…she had spent her whole life ignoring a thousand insults and offenses a day and knew that ignoring a problem didn’t solve it; it just made it sit there and fester, made her think about it and how she couldn’t do anything about it, at least not for years yet, until the slightest reminder drove her blood pressure up.

One day, she reminded herself. One day, I’ll get away, and I’ll never have to see any of them ever again. Aunt Helena did it, and so can I. Her aunt had the advantage of not having the kind of complete dirt in her background that Alicia did, but had only ever amounted to a Quidditch captain in school, which made Alicia think she hadn’t been that bright, which was why she’d had to permanently emigrate to make something of herself. Alicia, on the other hand, was very bright, which she thought would balance things out.

“If you’re against a group, the only thing you can do is come back with a bigger or a more powerful group,” she said. “If you do, then the other group will eventually get punished until they get the point.” It wouldn’t be, she thought, half as satisfying, she would want to break them herself, but it would be more effective and be less likely to get her in trouble. “Of course you deflect the jinx they’re sending at you, but if you try to leave it there, the rest of them will tear you to pieces if you’re standing alone.”

And then, at least in the very controlled conditions of a school, they would still fall to the system. Even the real world, they most likely would, too. There was always someone bigger, or who had something stronger behind him, there to step in. Each of them had, by the time they left school, the powers described in the interesting part of the lesson, and yet they were constantly ground down by the system, bound by society and family and blood until, by the time they had a chance, they were too old and tired and used to going through the motions to do anything with it. She wasn't going to live that way, but just knowing that it was so common, that almost everyone did...it disgusted her. It made her sick. How could the vast majority of people in the world stand to wake up every morning? She would sooner die than accept the portion the world had tried to assign her at birth.

16 Alicia Will we agree on anything else? 210 Alicia 0 5

Paul

October 17, 2012 8:45 PM

That's what I prefer to reach by Paul

Paul nodded when his suspicion that he was dealing with a transfer was confirmed. “Just a feeling,” he said, then listened as she began to talk about where she was from. “Of course,” he agreed when she said she wasn’t giving him a geography lesson. He now knew Yorkshire was in the north of England, something he had not previously been aware of, since he had only heard of the place, not its general location relative to other parts of England, but that hardly constituted a whole lesson. Just a handy fact, really.

“It’s interesting to know, though,” he said. “I’m from California – it’s on the far west coast and the last one north of Mexico.” He thought that was an adequate summary of his location, since there were a few states which bordered the Pacific Ocean, but he didn’t think there was another which both touched the Pacific and touched Mexico. It did not matter much, which was why his tone had been more than a little joking as he said it, but if she cared to know, he guessed it would be easy enough now for her to find on an unlabeled map.

Assuming, of course, that he had a good mental picture of the matter himself. Either way, though, he thought she’d have a better chance of finding it from that description than from any he could have offered of where Illinois was. An unexpected advantage to their move back!

“Fourth,” he said when she asked what year he was in. “Though I keep forgetting about it.” He didn’t know why he kept thinking he was in third year, considering how pleased he’d been, at the end of last year, to think of no longer being one of the youngest in the class. “Which are you in?” He was no good at judging ages from faces; he could tell a first year from a fifth, obviously, but the fine distinctions between third and fourth year, or second and third, eluded him.

0 Paul That's what I prefer to reach 0 Paul 0 5

Russell Layne, Aladren

October 18, 2012 10:59 PM

Everything in moderation, that's my motto. by Russell Layne, Aladren

Russell thought he was more likely than not to keep on with Defense Against the Dark Arts after his CATS, but had yet to decide, despite four full years of study, whether or not he actually liked it. It was at times challenging, at times strange, and at times alarming, all of which added up to a class he should have enjoyed thoroughly, but yet, he could never quite make up his mind about it. He wasn’t sure why that was.

It was, though, something it seemed better to have and not need than need and not have, and they did sometimes get some…interesting artifacts in the family antiques shop, which he was set to inherit someday. His family’s store was not known for dealing in that kind of thing, but in a way, that made it all the better when some of the older families needed to both raise cash quick and get rid of things which could incriminate them if, for some reason, they felt unduly stressed about the law; if by some chance they were seen entering the place, it was respectable enough for their purposes not to be immediately apparent, and his father and grandfather and great-grandfather had managed to secure the modest level of influence their family had, at least in their immediate area, by being discreet about that kind of thing, hence the need for their heir (if he dared presume to use such a word for himself) to know his Defense. There were only a few times when it would be better to hand something suspicious over to the Aurors instead of doing their best to remove the offensive enchantments or, if that wasn’t possible, just make the offensive item disappear, either destroying it or trading it to an establishment which did deal in the…unique.

He didn’t think that made them bad people, just pragmatic. He didn’t talk about such things, though, and had known not to as long as he had known about them. There were always things which were just better off not said.

He smiled at Professor Levy’s little joke about them not remembering who she was, responded to his name off the roll call, and began to take notes once she was finished, raising his eyebrows when she mentioned the Unforgivable Curses. That was rough stuff; he wasn’t sure his parents would have been exactly thrilled if he’d heard about that in third year…but then it seemed they weren’t going to talk about that, a thing which Russell found was more than a bit of a relief to him, too. He didn’t bother trying to pretend he’d been that concerned for his poor cousin in third year and her nightmares, either; the truth was, he didn’t really want to hear more about the worst things wizards could do to each other, either. At least not today.

Instead, they were on mindsets. He wasn’t sure what to do with the last question on the list, but the rest revealed, he thought, that he was reasonably – but not overly – positive. That was good enough for him, he thought; just as long as he wasn’t depressingly negative, he was okay. Reading over the two scenarios they were to discuss, he looked to his neighbor with a polite smile. “Want to work together?” he offered, expecting an answer in the affirmative enough that he was already thinking through the first one – so, what would he do if the guys suddenly became vocally opposed to him being their prefect? – even as he asked the obligatory question, rather than paying much attention to the answer.

16 Russell Layne, Aladren Everything in moderation, that's my motto. 183 Russell Layne, Aladren 0 5

Arthur Carey, Aladren

October 25, 2012 10:22 PM

That's a safe philosophy by Arthur Carey, Aladren

He enjoyed all of his classes, at one time or another, but Arthur did have to admit a special fondness for the ones with a syllabus. He liked being able to look ahead, to prepare for what was coming, and to then arrive in class already possessed of the skills he’d need to excel in the lesson. Learning was one of the most pleasurable experiences of his life, one of the activities he loved most, but he liked best to do it in private, or at least very nearly. In front of so large a group as he encountered in Intermediate classes, he preferred, as often as possible, to just sweep in and appear as though he had become brilliant and informed with minimal effort.

The Defense class was one of those which, it seemed, was going to oblige him this year, and he looked over the list of topics for the coming weeks with interest once it was handed out to him, wishing he had prepared, too, for today’s lesson but content to have the lessons for the next few weeks concentrating in some of the same territory, so that he could catch up quickly, rather than possibly seeming deficient in a given area.

And an intriguing area it was, too. He thought that he spent more time in thought that most people did – certainly his mother and his twin agreed with that theory, and his father seemed to have a similar angle, too – and he read a great deal, especially in the area of Defense Against the Dark Arts, but mental defense really wasn’t something he had thought too much about before. The inside of his head, after all, felt like a very secure place, one untouched by the rest of the world. The idea of someone else getting into it was something he hadn’t worried about before.

Now, he was not worried about it, precisely, but he was intrigued. He paid careful attention as Professor Levy began to speak at length, and showed them the two mindsets.

Overall, Arthur thought he fell into the second category. There were not many things he thought of himself as unable to do, after all, and though his grandfather and a few other things could – to use her phrase – ‘trigger’ less happy thoughts, he did well in general, and she did say occasional deviations from the norm were not a real problem. Well, said something close to that, anyway. He began to answer questions, though he wasn’t sure what to think of the one about doing poorly on a test. When he was done, he listened politely to the confirmation about what it all meant, then looked over the scenarios.

“Certainly,” he said when Russell offered partnership for the exercise. He glanced at his roommate’s badge and added, “And may I offer my congratulations? Also my apologies for not offering them before.” He should have, but this year had been unusually hectic so far. He hoped to get a better grip on the world around him soon.

0 Arthur Carey, Aladren That's a safe philosophy 0 Arthur Carey, Aladren 0 5

Russell

October 26, 2012 11:52 AM

Better safe than sorry. by Russell

Russell wasn’t quite sure where he stood with any of his roommates at the moment, which was – when he thought about it, and wasn’t feeling especially pleased with himself for the thing that was the reason why at that moment as well – not the most comfortable of experiences, if he had to tell the truth about it. He wasn’t afraid of them, but he couldn’t say he liked the thought of a lot of animosities boiling just under the surface in the room he had to sleep in, either, just waiting for someone to explode.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t something he saw much of a way to do anything about, if it was the case, either, so he had been happy with the thought of just not talking about it. Arthur offering congratulations put an end to that plan. So he shrugged, a little uncomfortable.

“Thanks,” he said. “But don’t worry about it. I think everyone was a little surprised by that.”

He hadn’t been, but he knew he was in a minority there, and it was definitely the diplomatic thing to say to one of the other two who’d been, in his mind, reasonably strong contenders, either of whom might have, he guessed, gotten it instead if they had decided to work in the library too. He still thought he would have been a strong contender even if they had, since he was not as…eccentric as they were and thus was a safer bet to make when it came to positions that could involve dealing with other people, but he was being diplomatic here. That involved not pointing out such unpalatable (to some) truths, but rather assuring everyone that it had been a close thing, since he flatly refused to consider his raising a fluke.

“So…these scenarios,” he said, looking at the first one and taking a moment to be grateful that he lived in a nice school where they didn’t have many people who’d try to do that to each other. He had long half-expected the Aladren and Crotalus Quidditch teams to devolve into something little better than gangs that hexed each other in the corridors, but thus far, it hadn’t happened – probably Crotalus caution at work; he was glad the Rival wasn’t Pecari, some of whose members might have decided to be more assertive about it, if it came to that – and so he didn’t think he would get jinxed any time soon. If he did, though, he wasn’t sure how he would react at all. “What would you do if someone tried to jinx you?” he asked Arthur.

Somehow, he imagined it might be more violent than his own response would be, but he knew he could just be stereotyping there. Despite living with two of them for several years, Russell didn’t really know that much about the Careys, just about how some of them were perceived from the outside. Arnold had been a surprise after having that concept firmly in mind, but Arthur was more ambiguous to his mind.

16 Russell Better safe than sorry. 183 Russell 0 5