Professor Pye
November 28, 2015 2:53 PM
Beginner's Defense (Years I & II) by Professor Pye
Defense class had been a wake-up call for anyone who thought that just because he didn’t assign homework didn’t mean his class wouldn’t be challenging. After a conversation with Tallec, Alfie had decided to change the daily quizzes to weekly ones (at least for the beginner students). By now all of his students had learned that his quizzes weren’t difficult as he just asked the students to write a paragraph on what they had learned from the previous week’s class. He would give an extra point to those who wanted to write down something extra they had learned outside of class on the subject. However, he strategically gave the quizzes on Mondays to ensure that his students were looking at the subject matter over the weekends. Since that day was Monday he started the class by passing out blank pieces of parchment that had the question written neatly at the top in his clearest handwriting.Last week we discussed the various ways outcomes of a werewolf bite. Please summarize in full sentences what would happen should a werewolf bite you in their human form and what you have to do to treat the bite (or scratch).
It was a fairly easy question, but since they’d had five classes and only covered werewolves in two, he hoped that the students had gone over all their notes so that they could properly answer the singular question he had asked. It was important to Alfie that his students were able to protect themselves against the darker forces at work in the world and he had reiterated this each time a student asked him why it was he was so insistent they stay alert in his class. He had been an auror before starting his position at Sonora and his students knew this so he was sure they attributed his odd habits to the profession. However, that was not the only thing that could be held accountable for his general suspicion and careful guard.
Though his women-slaying behaviours indicated otherwise, Alfie was a rather private person. He was outgoing and always ready for a good laugh—telling many jokes throughout his lessons to keep the students paying attention, but he rarely shared details of his private life with anyone. In fact, he had not even told anyone that Barnaby was his little brother. People had just figured it out on their own—the staff knew since Barnaby’s enrollment papers had not indicated Alfie as the little brat’s father. It was family, in the end, that kept Alfie on his guard. He had known for almost a whole year now the near full extent of the Pye-horrors that Cecily and her team of highly skilled aurors had tracked down over the years. It was still very much a departmental secret—no hard evidence anywhere, just suspicion and word of mouth and he knew the general population had only heard whispers which were generally quelled whenever his father made a generous donation to St. Mungo’s or some other do-gooding association.
However that past summer he and Cecily had been on the tail of something huge, something that involved Alfie himself when he was younger and he was only just starting to learn details of his own childhood and adolescence that he hadn’t known. Cecily had last parted from him giving him these sad, doe eyes that drove Alfie crazy but left him unable to do anything. At first he had been in denial—he had been ready to accept all the other things Cecily told him but when she had said she’d reason to believe that some of Alden’s atrocities had been committed against his own son he had been unable to believe. He had thrown a fit, asker her to leave, gotten completely smashed and slept with three sisters. And then Ceciliy had left an envelope under his doormat (she had obviously been nearby watching to make sure no one took it since it held sensitive information and he knew her well enough to know she wouldn’t just leave an envelope of case information around) and he had gotten his proof. There had been nothing he could do then other than to wait and see what else she could dig up which had resulted in a long summer of unofficial investigative service all of which they worked off-the-clock.
Alfie cleared his throat in an attempt to clear his mind as the last quiz was turned in and tucked the papers away into his satchel—he wasn’t going to look at this at his desk unles he could help it. He much preferred going over his student’s papers with a nice glass of firewhiskey to sip on in the comfort of his Head of House apartment in his nice chair. “Today we will be going over the Curse of the Bogies, not a very dangerous spell but an unpleasant one to be sure.” He had wanted to cover something more exciting but now that they were headed into cold and flu season he wanted his students to be able to tell the difference between actually being sick and a silly schoolchild prank. He didn’t want students missing class unless it was for a real reason.
He wrote the name of the curse on the board. “This curse will render the victim with an awful case of the sniffles, a cold, a runny nose, sneezing, whatever you want to call it. The incantation is Mucus ad Nauseam and the wand movement is like so.” He made a careful ‘u-shape’ with his wand, a sort of inverted horseshoe movement like how someone might draw a raindrop in the air with their finger, taking care not to close the loop at the top. “When you cast the spell the light should be a dark, olive green. Like a real cold, the pepper-up potion should work to cure it, and I have some on hand for those of you who are unable to get the counter curse working properly.” He gestured the vials sitting to his left. He had brought more than enough just in case because with young students it was almost impossible to fully gauge the potency of a spell.
“Tomorrow we will learn the countercurse but for now we are going to use finite incantatem which is much more useful for your day-to-day uses. It is a general counter-curse that works against most unfriendly hexes, jinxes, and curses. The light colour here are red sparks. So please, partner up and take turns with each spell. Raise your hand if you have any questions and I’ll be walking around, monitoring the progress.”
OOC: Welcome to Defense Against the Dark Arts. Like your other classes, posts are graded on realism and creativity. In addition to these two things, posts are also marked on length and abiding to the site rules. Tag me in the subject line if your character has any questions or is having difficulties. The link for the werewolves can be found here, the link for the bogies curse here, and finite incantatem here.
Subthreads: Between a rock and a hard place. by Laila Kennedy, Crotalus with Wu Peizhi [Teppenpaw], Wu Peizhi
At least it's not Curse of the Sinus Congestion. by Joe Umland, Teppenpaw with Kira Spaulding, Crotalus
So how did someone invent this curse?! by Tess Whittaker with Artemis Leithan, Crotalus 1st year
I'm Game if You Are! by Arthur Leithan (Tep 1st year) with Gabe Valenti [Teppenpaw]
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Professor Pye
Beginner's Defense (Years I & II)
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Professor Pye
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Tess Whittaker
December 11, 2015 12:21 PM
So how did someone invent this curse?! by Tess Whittaker
Luckily for Tess, she hadn't been at Sonora long enough that magical schoolwork had become boring. Everything was still so new and exciting that to find out more about magic wasn't a chore. She was sure at some point she’d go back to finding homework dull and tedious (as she had in primary school), but for the moment she had fully revised last week’s work and so was fully equipped to write about werewolves.She quickly jotted down a few sentences, writing about how werewolves in human form cannot actually infect anyone with lycanthropy. Idly, she wondered if her Uncle Peter’s scars were actually from a werewolf attack but, somewhat disappointedly, decided that his story of a traffic accident was probably true. As far as she was aware, werewolves in Britain weren't that big of a danger, especially to Muggles.
The Curse of the Bogies sounded like a pretty good spell, definitely one to remember in case anyone was being particularly annoying (Tess wasn't really a mean person, but she figured that as Professor Pye had said the curse wasn't too dangerous, it could be a bit of fun). Finite incantatem sounded quite useful too.
After practising the wand movements a couple of times, Tess turned to the person next to her. “Want to pair up?” she asked, a friendly smile on her face. “I can’t promise I’ll be any good – although I suppose that’d be ideal for you!”
Amusingly, it probably would be quite relieving for her partner if Tess was awful at the curse. She for one didn’t particularly like the idea of suddenly having a cold. Then again, it could be that an incorrect curse would do more damage, as opposed to doing nothing. Now that was an interesting idea – if somewhat concerning!
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Tess Whittaker
So how did someone invent this curse?!
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Artemis Leithan, Crotalus 1st year
December 12, 2015 10:44 PM
Nice to meet you! by Artemis Leithan, Crotalus 1st year
Artemis looked forward to DADA classes. She was concerned with being able to protect herself in the event of any untoward acquaintances hexing her in any way. She remembered her lesson on the bites of werewolves clearly, and responded that being bitten by one, even in human form, could render one most unladylike, developing a taste for raw meat and other unfortunate behaviors. Her family would be appalled! Of course, although a mixture including powdered silver and ditmer was helpful in healing the bite, it would leave scars, and make a suitable betrothal almost impossible. Although secretly, Artemis was afraid that a suitable betrothal might not be the best outcome if she disliked the person her family chose for her. She wondered if it would be possible to befriend someone with lycanthropy in order to be assured of having a way out of a badly arranged alliance. All she would need to do was encourage this person to bite her while untransformed! Of course, her family would never permit her to openly befriend someone stricken with lycanthropy, but they might not know. In Artemis' eyes, her family always seemed to know too much. Too much for her to have the level of freedom of a non-pureblood or even a muggle-born! There were times when Artemis regretted this, as much as she had come to enjoy the privilege that came with being from an old pureblood family.Artemis did not enjoy the prospect of being rendered into a sneezing, infectious mess, particularly as she had neglected to bring a handkerchief for this eventuality. She hoped to succeed as little as possible in hexing her partner, whom she hoped would be similarly restrained in casting against her. Of course, if her partner held back, she might not learn the cure as well as she might otherwise. She decided to hope that the spell was sufficiently strong to exercise her ability to fight it off successfully to its greatest extent. The girl next to her invited her to participate. Artemis returned her greeting with, “Nice to meet you! I am Artemis Leithan, of the Maryland Leithans. I'm a first year, are you?” Artemis continued, “In any case, we need to practice our skills as well as we can. I'm not sure I'll do this well, either! We can always keep trying until we get it right.” Artemis prepared to receive the first spell from her new partner.
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Artemis Leithan, Crotalus 1st year
Nice to meet you!
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Artemis Leithan, Crotalus 1st year
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Tess Whittaker
December 30, 2015 10:26 AM
Here goes! by Tess Whittaker
Tess smiled back at her new partner. “I'm Tess, from Britain,” she replied, not really understanding how Maryland Leithans differed from other types of Leithan, but assuming it was some wizarding or American way of introducing oneself. “Yes, I'm a first year too,” she added, somewhat glad to be partnered with another beginner – at least this way they could be inexperienced together! “What house are you in? ” she asked curiously. "I'm in Pecari." She was glad that all the houses had classes together – it was a nice way to meet people from the other houses, and also from the year above!Grimacing slightly, Tess thought over Professor Pye’s instructions. Hopefully she’d get this right first try – she didn't think having the spell being cast on you multiple times would be very nice. Once she thought she had correctly remembered the incantation, mucus ad nauseam, and had practised the wand movements, she prepared to cast the spell. “Sorry about this!” she said, before waving her wand in the U shape and saying the incantation. A green coloured light burst out of her wand.
“How did that work?” she asked Artemis. “Do you want me to try using finite incantantem on you, or would you like to do it?”
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Tess Whittaker
Here goes!
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Tess Whittaker
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