Between a rock and a hard place. on Defense Against the Dark Arts

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]

10 Professor Pye Beginner's Defense (Years I & II) 30 Professor Pye 1 5

Laila Kennedy, Crotalus

November 29, 2015 5:41 PM

Between a rock and a hard place. by Laila Kennedy, Crotalus

This year Laila was a second year. She was used to the wizarding world now and proud to be a witch. Remembering her first few weeks where she had erroneously believed she was a wizard still made her blush, but she had quickly learned from her mistake—though she hadn’t told her mother that she was technically called a witch and not a wizard. Wizard seemed less derogatory, somehow, less provocative. Her mother had already been on edge about the whole magical boarding school situation, but she had slowly come around after meeting the Donovans and seeing how kind the people in the wizarding world were—and, of course, after Laila had taken her to the nearby church so that she could see that her daughter really was continuing her faith education while away learning spells and enchantments.

And, also because she was a second year, Laila had her weekly schedule down pat. She woke early to take a walk before breakfast, sometimes in the Gardens, sometimes in the water room where she always pictured the beautiful coastal area of Washington, and went to class. She ate lunch quickly and either went to the library to study until it was time for class to start. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays she had a small one hour break in the afternoon between Potions and Defense which she spent in the Gardens while Tuesdays and Thursdays she finished at 2:30, having not opted to take flying lessons and so went down to the Gardens to see Mr. Xavier or to the library to study some more if it was a particularly rainy day.

The result of all her studying was that she made nearly perfect marks, however it was also anti-sociable and so she did not have many opportunities to get to know her peers. She went to church Sunday mornings and to all the Quidditch games since watching sports with her family had always been a huge part of her life, but watching these without them just wasn’t the same. One day she hoped to take her brother to a professional game, but she wasn’t sure what the regulations on Muggles in the wizarding world were. It seemed unfair to her that her family might be completely blocked from such a large part of her life—wizards walked freely in the Muggle world, after all.

She did understand why it was so—the history of Muggles when they learned about magic wasn’t always in favor of the non-magical folk, but she still disliked not being able to show her family what she learned at school. Gabe got to bring home his strange science projects and macaroni arts and crafts, she would have liked to shrink one of her toys or change water into rum. Well, perhaps not the last one since it was too close to home and her mother would probably have a minor freak out regarding the similarities to the miracle at the Wedding in Cana. But it still would have been a nice thing for her to do.

Her current train of thoughts were interrupted as she realized it was time to take the now weekly quiz Professor Pye had just passed out. Her forehead scrunched as she thought about what she wanted to put down as an answer to the question. Werewolves were a dark creature that had always frightened her as a child. They were right up there with vampires and witches—the kind with green skin an a wart on their noses. As such, she had tried to learn as much about them as they could in the small unit they had done the previous week, thinking that it was important that she know how to protect herself and her friends in the event she had to, so she had quite a bit to write down.

In the end, she went with simply explaining that bites from a werewolf in human form did not transmit the disease, however bites and scratches would be permanent. The only way to heal these, she wrote, is a paste made from powdered silver and dittany. This mixture seals the wound and also is what helps a victim of a werewolf in their transitioned form live on as a werewolf. Muggles do not generally survive werewolf attacks, but those who are attacked by a werewolf in human form will only gain wolf-like habits like they might enjoy rare cooked meat when they hadn’t before. Additional fact: Lots of times a witch or wizard will beg for death rather than become a werewolf.

The response was satisfactory enough and so she turned in the quiz, confident that it would result in a passing grade, especially since she had done more reading about werewolves outside the lesson Professor Pye had taught and the book they used. The additional fact she included puzzled Laila. Though scared of werewolves she didn’t think she would rather die than become one. Though as she weighed the thoughts around in her head, she started to become unsure. She was already uncomfortable not being able to show them everything in the wizarding world, the idea of having to hide who she had become from them for the rest of her life.

In the end, she thought to herself, she would have to be selfish and complete the transition. She couldn’t lose her family, they were just too important to her. She felt really horrible about wanting to be so selfish—both of her parents probably would have chosen death, wanting to keep their children safe and knowing that they each had large, loving families who would take Laila and Gabe in. And the, she remembered that potion that Professor Pye had mentioned on before, the too-good-to-be-true one that people could take which basically made them not dangerous anymore as long as they kept up with it or something. That sounded like a pretty good deal to Laila, a nice little loophole to allow her to keep see her family even after the transition and Laila had been all about the loopholes recently.

“The curse of the bogies seems kind of out of place compared to what we did last week,” she said to the student sitting next to her, hoping they would be the friendly sort who would like a conversation in addition to the schoolwork. “But useful to know how to counter-curse it, I suppose. Would you like to defend first or shall I?”

OOC: Approval to mention her meetings with Mr. Xavier in the Gardens approved by his author.

10 Laila Kennedy, Crotalus Between a rock and a hard place. 318 Laila Kennedy, Crotalus 0 5

Wu Peizhi [Teppenpaw]

December 02, 2015 2:16 AM

That seems redundant. by Wu Peizhi [Teppenpaw]

Summarize: verb. To give a somewhat shorten version of something. To explain. Wu’s English was not the best, but this was a word she had learned very early into her schooling, particularly from the little quizzes Professor Pye provided. She was glad at least this year they were apparently only going to be weekly as opposed to daily. They weren’t very hard, really, but Peizhi disliked having to translate and write her thoughts that much.

After their quiz, Professor Pye spoke about the curse of the bogies, a rather abrupt switch in things. She wasn’t even fully sure what the word “bogies” meant until he mentioned the illness simulated by the curse. And, assuming she was understanding correctly, it sounded awful. Who thought these things up? Also, while she was sure a pepper-up potion and/or finite incantatem would do, she wished the professor would just give them the countercurse. Not having it made her rather nervous.

A neighbor started speaking, and Peizhi was glad to see it was Laila Kennedy, who, while unsuitably bred, was actually a very nice girl. She never pressured her into anything, unlike a lot of people in the Teppenpaw’s life. And because she was a Muggleborn, there was no external, unavoidable pressure associated with their interactions. It almost felt comfortable.

“I thought that as well,” she commented lightly regarding the subject change. Laila also asked if Wu wanted to defend or cast first, and she paused to consider her options. On one hand, she didn’t really want to feel her sinuses plug up and be gross, but on the other, she didn’t think she could very well cast such a curse on Laila. “Um,” she said nervously, “I will defend, if you do not mind.” As gross as it was sure to be, the other option would have just made her feel gross in a whole different way.

0 Wu Peizhi [Teppenpaw] That seems redundant. 0 Wu Peizhi [Teppenpaw] 0 5

Joe Umland, Teppenpaw

December 09, 2015 7:12 PM

At least it's not Curse of the Sinus Congestion. by Joe Umland, Teppenpaw

He had more or less given up any real hope of success, but every class, at least for a minute or two, Joe still tried to detect a way that Professor Pye resembled a similarly-named baked good besides his failure to issue homework to Sonora’s students. He was sure there was some play on the words in the idea of the man being hard to analyze for pie-like qualities that would allow him to compare the professor specifically to a pecan pie, but he couldn’t quite get the words into an order that didn’t feel ridiculously contrived and wouldn’t involve so much explanation that it completely defeated the point of making the comparison in the first place. If a funny one-liner required explanation, then it was either directed to the wrong audience or was just plain not that funny.

Joe gave up his latest attempt when the quiz question went up in favor of writing out his quiz answer, trying not to dwell on the topic he was writing about. There were a lot of downsides to living in a city – the big one was how it hindered their social lives; they all got along with people, but it was hard to make close friends when those friends could only visit with advance notice and one’s family was the weird one that rarely welcomed visitors and didn’t have computers or telephones – but it had its advantages. The one his parents talked about was their independence from the wealthy landowners of their own world, but being isolated from their own people also meant isolation from many of the dangers of the magical world. A werewolf would, short of a really weird coincidence, have to be specifically looking for his family to have much of a chance of getting anywhere near it, and even then, either the wolf form probably ran afoul of animal control or the human form of a neighborhood watch curious about that guy who was trying to break into the Umlands’ house before the – creature – person – whatever – could get to them.

Maybe. So far, the wizarding world didn’t seem all that bad to him, though Professor Pye did his best to make it sound like Mom was right and that everything was trying to kill them. The ability to inspire optimism about life was definitely not a common trait between Professor Pye and actual pie. A slice of berry pie and a cup of cocoa made everything that was wrong with life seem easier to deal with. Discussion of werewolves…maybe more practical than pie and cocoa, but not nearly as pleasant.

The spell Professor Pye taught them after the quiz was also not so pleasant, though Joe guessed he could see how it could be used for comedy. Maybe. He knew the phrase ad nauseam from his reading and composition lessons at home and winced at the thought of mucus repeating over and over again until the target…what? When Mom talked about it, it meant someone trying to win an argument by saying the same thing over and over again until everyone else gave up because they’d talked about it so long they had become disgusted by the topic. Maybe the spell was a little more literal – maybe it literally meant ‘snot to the point of nausea’ – and terminated when the person it was put on puked….?

Joe really, really hoped his classmates were all nice people. He didn’t want to puke in public. Or at all, really. But in public would be worse. Luckily, they were also learning a spell-ending…spell and had potions on hand, so he guessed he wouldn’t find out in class. He smiled at a person, still pleased with the chances classes gave him to get to know people or know the ones he'd already met better even if some of them involved a phrase he really wished he didn't know the meaning of.

“Hi,” he said. “Want to work together? You can pick who goes first.”

16 Joe Umland, Teppenpaw At least it's not Curse of the Sinus Congestion. 329 Joe Umland, Teppenpaw 0 5

Kira Spaulding, Crotalus

December 11, 2015 8:48 AM

Or worse by Kira Spaulding, Crotalus

Despite not being at all athletic-in fact she was quite clumsy with anything other than magic-Kira didn't mind DADA that much. She had yet to not pick up any spell done in any of her classes pretty much within the first few tries. Her biggest issue here was that she sometimes misfired or overshot her spells but even she realized that it was a classroom setting and no malice was intended so she really didn't need to feel backed into a corner so long as she worked with someone she didn't find otherwise threatening. However, in a real world setting, with real danger, Kira had a feeling she would panic. Oh, something would inevitably happen, it wasn't as if her spell would ever fail to work. It was just that things would well, probably go a bit overboard. She had a tendency to lose control if she felt under attack in some way, usually displaying accidental magic rather than actually physically or verbally or even purposely magically attacking the person.

And that was bad. Ladies were supposed to control themselves. Kelsey was never ever out of control. The third year even tried to keep her disdain in check around non purebloods by not saying out and out nasty things to them. Kira could handle doing that okay, but she always felt incredibly awkward when she spoke with them. Or for that matter when she spoke with other purebloods. In the latter case, she was painfully aware of that she was probably making some sort of social mistake and if they'd ever spoken to Kelsey, that she was most likely being compared unfavorably. As for the former, well, she wasn't quite sure if she should be speaking to them at all or if it would reflect unfavorably on her in comparison to her cousin, especially if she was too nice. Not to mention that if Kelsey knew, she'd lecture Kira on spending her time with the right people and the younger Crotalus didn't take criticism well. She never spoke back to the person giving it, but she tended to internalize it in a pretty big way.

Anyway, Kira could see the point to Defense, sort of. Granted, the fact that it was something her brother was good at was off-putting for her, because it meant that she'd never ever measure up to him in it. Not to mention that Scarlett's opinions of the professor didn't really help much. She knew , however, that it was a class meant to defend her from enemies and dark creatures that would attack her, but the thing was that it was to be able defend from magical attacks and it wasn't really anyone magical that Kira felt was a threat to her. Other magical folk weren't the ones wanting to kill her or use her powers to kill their enemies during some war. Ever since finding out someone had broken the Statute of Secrecy-someone she felt far more animosity towards than the Satori itself, even though she didn't know who specifically it was- she'd had recurring nightmares where the Muggle government took them all prisoner, and used those most gifted witches and wizards to destroy their enemies under threat of killing them and their families if they didn't cooperate. Those were the nights that Kira woke up in a cold sweat with things in her room-and not just her own belongings-seriously altered.

Still, ultimately, it didn't matter if this class helped her defend herself from those she really felt threatened by, she was still good at the wandwork involved, which in turn made her feel good, and that's what mattered. The Crotalus didn't get to feel that way very often. As in outside of classes that used wandwork.

After the quiz about werewolves, where Kira wrote down about how a bite from one while in human form would leave a victim with werewolf like tendencies such as a taste for raw meat and permanent scars and that a wound could be treated with silver and dittany.

Then it was time for the main event, today's new lesson and despite Kira being all too enthused about being able to do something she was good at so she didn't look ridiculous next to everyone else as she did in everyday life, she couldn't help but be inherently a little disgusted by the Curse of the Bogies. Which was a good thing. If she found something gross to be so, that meant for all her social awkwardness, at least she was at least something of lady.

The person next to her, a first year Teppenpaw spoke.

“Hi,” he said. “Want to work together? You can pick who goes first.”

"All right." Kira agreed cautiously. She had to pick who went first? She didn't really want to be on the giving or receiving end of this and certainly didn't want to seem like she was showing off if she went first. On the other hand, it was very possible that the first year might feel inadequate if she upstaged him after his attempt. As someone who felt inadequate in all other aspects of life, she never wanted to make others feel that way because it was really dreadful. "I, uh, guess I will then. Oh I'm Kira Spaulding of the Colorado Spauldings, by the way." She had to add the proper greeting, just in case this first year was part of society....or someone who was part of society was listening.

Kira drew her wand and pointed it the boy, almost feeling apologetic about having to do this, but it was the class instructions and even if she had misgivings about basically cursing him with a cold, something inevitably would happen. Whether or not it hit him or someone or something else, her spell was not likely to fail. There would be results, it just might not be him who was hit with bogies seeing as her only issue was ever misaiming in her spell, and she'd hit the wrong person with a hex on more than one occasion. She mimicked Professor Pye's movements, said "Mucus ad Nauseam " and fired, hoping her spell would hit her intended target if only for the purposes of this lesson. As he was a Teppenpaw, odds were that he probably didn't actually deserve to be cursed with bogies.

11 Kira Spaulding, Crotalus Or worse 320 Kira Spaulding, Crotalus 0 5

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!

9 Tess Whittaker So how did someone invent this curse?! 338 Tess Whittaker 0 5

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.

0 Artemis Leithan, Crotalus 1st year Nice to meet you! 0 Artemis Leithan, Crotalus 1st year 0 5

Arthur Leithan (Tep 1st year)

December 12, 2015 11:01 PM

I'm Game if You Are! by Arthur Leithan (Tep 1st year)

Arthur Leithan quickly and thoroughly answered the query about werewolves for his DADA master. He hoped to do well in this class, and was careful to include all of the information requested: that bites from a werewolf in its human form did not lead to full-fledged lycanthropy, merely to wolf-like tendencies and permanent scars, although the wounds could be sealed with a combination of powdered silver and ditmer.

Arthur listened to the new lesson quietly, taking careful notes on how the spells were pronounced. He had been excited to be learning DADA, but this example of dark arts, “Mucus ad nauseum” was hardly the kind of curse he had hoped to learn to deflect. Then again, Arthur was aware that he was a novice, and fighting off something more potent might not be within his repertoire soon. Certainly, the unforgivable curses were matters only the most advanced students would be taught, and he was only a first year student. He wondered how the second years felt about starting with such a simple curse, but decided that the protection of the innocent first years was probably the more important priority. He decided to feel privileged to have second year students as classmates this year, while reserving disdain for being kept with first years for next year. Maybe next year Sonora would respect the attainments of his classmates and decide to teach them separately from the neophytes of next year. Arthur hoped so.

Arthur gazed over at Artemis, his twin sister, and gave her a hopeful smile. He and Artemis were attempting to be very independent in their first year, and were seated a respectful distance from one another. Arthur felt this was an appropriate solution and was particularly happy that they were going to be paired off with other people for this class. He would not enjoy hexing Artemis, not that he wanted to hex anyone at all. But his sister was someone he felt he should protect from others, not hex, even in this setting.

Arthur turned to the student next to him. “I'm game if you are!” he announced in friendly tones.

0 Arthur Leithan (Tep 1st year) I'm Game if You Are! 0 Arthur Leithan (Tep 1st year) 0 5

Gabe Valenti [Teppenpaw]

December 13, 2015 11:03 PM

I love games! (nm) by Gabe Valenti [Teppenpaw]

0 Gabe Valenti [Teppenpaw] I love games! (nm) 330 Gabe Valenti [Teppenpaw] 0 5

Gabe Valenti [Teppenpaw]

December 13, 2015 11:32 PM

...and content by Gabe Valenti [Teppenpaw]

Okay, so even though Gabe would never admit it in his nightly letters home, going to class at wizard school was actually pretty awesome. Gone were bores like English and Science - although sometimes in Potions they got to chop up weird stuff and mix it all together. But that was kind of awesome, like cooking but grosser. Yeah, he almost missed Math. But then he remembered he got to go flying on a regular basis instead of pretend he could hold a tune in Music class, and that made everything great again.

And now the dark-haired New Yorker took a seat in perhaps his favorite class of all - Defense Against the Dark Arts. Defense was basically a class where you learned about cool monsters. When you weren't learning about cool monsters, you were learning how to wizard-battle, more commonly referred to as dueling. This was something that had made its way multiple times into his letters to his older siblings, and deliberately left out of his letters to his parents. If Ma and Dad knew that wizard school actively encouraged other new wizard kids to throw spells at their youngest child, well, Gabe didn't care how good at wizard-battle they were; Ma would destroy them.

Gabe almost didn't mind the quizzes at the beginning of every week, since this was just about the only class where he hadn't had to study too much so far. Everything was just so cool, he was eager to write about it. His letters to his brother, Mattie, often contained plenty of gross and gruesome facts that Gabe had learned earlier in the week. Outside of his many sports and activities, Mattie, was kind of a nerd, so Gabe knew his brother wouldn't make fun of him. On the other hand, his letters to his sister, Ems, were mostly related to his progress in flying, and updates on her middle school baseball team.

Spinning a blue quill around in his left hand, Gabe's tan face stretched into a wide grin as Professor Pye announced that they got to write about werewolves today. Excellent! Gabe had been very excited to report that werewolves were a Real Thing to his older siblings the previous week. He could write plenty about those.

"It would be pretty weird if a werewolf bit you in human form. But if they did, you would get a really cool scar forever, and start craving raw meat. Craving raw meat isn't all that weird, because sushi and carpaccio are delicious. To treat a bit or scratch, you should go to a Healer, or just put ground up silver and a plant on it. This is probably why non-magical people think silver kills werewolves in the movies."

Fussing with his short dark curls, he could not for the life of him remember what the name of that plant was. And, given that he did no outside reading for class, he didn't have any cool facts either, other than his last observation. Since there was some time until the quiz was up, he scribbled a quick and relevant drawing on the page under his answer. Given that he was a pretty terrible artist, he decided to clear up any confusion with a quick caption.

Werewolf with chopsticks and sushi.

Pleased with his response, he handed his quiz in and took out his black notebook, casually flipping to the next blank page. Once again, Professor Pye - probably the coolest guy ever - did not disappoint. Today they were learning about some booger curse. Gross! His siblings would be so impressed. Well, maybe Mattie less so, given that he was a freshman in high school, practically a grown up. But Ems was just a year older than Gabe, and still cool. The first year took a couple of notes, his left hand smudging the ink slightly as he wrote across the page. It was unlikely he'd pay much attention to them until the next big exam, anyway.

Gabe grinned when the boy next to him turned his way. Though they hadn't really gotten to talk yet, he recognized the kid as one of his roommates. Gross magic curses sounded like an excellent start to what would hopefully be a long friendship.

"For sure, I'm Gabe, by the way," he added, in case his roommate didn't know, "Do you wanna go first, or should I?" He got his wand out of his pocket as he asked, making sure to be extra careful. Had the Valentis been more experienced with magic, Gabe's parents might have not been so agreeable to the wand that had chosen him. The combination of alder wood and dragon heartstring made it simultaneously stubborn, and prone to random bursts of power. But the wand had taken to Gabe right away. And somehow, even though the idea of wands had been such a ridiculous notion when Gabe first enterred the wandshop, holding this wand just felt natural. Even if it did cause the occasional small (but awesome) class explosions.

0 Gabe Valenti [Teppenpaw] ...and content 330 Gabe Valenti [Teppenpaw] 0 5

Joe

December 16, 2015 3:45 PM

Let's not even consider that. by Joe

Joe had no idea who the Colorado Spauldings were. In fact, Joe was not entirely clear on what Colorado was – he was pretty sure it was an American province, not one of their cities, but not one hundred percent. They had too much of everything, Americans – he’d heard that even most of them didn’t know what all their political units were called, so he really didn’t think it was reasonable to expect him to. As for Colorado’s location, he hadn’t a clue, Colorado not featuring prominently in the American history Mom had taught him. All he could say with certainty about it was that it was not one of the original thirteen rebellious colonies.

His ability to comment on the form of Kira Spaulding’s introduction was about as limited. He knew what it probably meant about her social standing, at least relative to his, and that was it.

“Nice to meet you,” he said, still smiling. “Joe Umland. I’m from Calgary.” He hoped he sounded more nonchalant than he really felt.

The very word pureblood could, if he was in the wrong mood to start with, infuriate Joe’s brother John. They had no right, John would snap in such moods, to speak so – even those who made a show of not using explicit slurs right to the faces of ordinary people made their real thoughts clear just by the epithet they used for themselves, etc. etc. etc. (Joe didn’t really pay much attention to his brother’s diatribes on that or any other subject). The rest of the family didn’t have much warmer feelings toward the ruling class, either. Dad, wizard-born, was the most tolerant of them, but even he muttered sometimes that it wasn’t right that he could lose his entire livelihood because one guy didn’t like the way he phrased something during a broadcast. They were, he’d always gathered, powerful, often possessors of secret magic they passed down through their own families independent of the education system, and corrupt to the bone. Now, one of them was pointing a wand at him.

Joe was not as angry as his brothers or as afraid as he thought his mother was, but he still couldn’t say he was as okay with Kira pointing a wand at him as he thought he would have been if he hadn’t had a guess about what she was. He wasn’t sure he would be that comfortable with this class at all, actually (it just felt weird, knowing something was about to hit him and not trying to dodge it or even hit back), but…well, since he’d turned yellow instead of blue at the Feast, he’d sort of assumed that he wouldn’t run into people like her often and that they would just snub him and go on their merry way when he did. This wasn’t the case, though, and he hoped she just kept it to the assigned curse. He caught himself pulling his bottom lip between his teeth and pushed it out again.

The spell made contact (Joe made a heroic, if he did say so himself, effort not to flinch when he saw the flash of light coming, an effort which only just barely failed) and for a few seconds, he thought it might not have worked. Then, though, his head slowly began to feel more and more abnormally heavy, the way it did when he had a head cold or allergies. He made an unpleasant “aaguh” sort of noise as drainage began running down his throat and out his nose, making him feel as though he couldn’t breathe even though he knew he still could, and fumbled automatically toward his pocket for a handkerchief.

“Id worked,” he noted, as enthusiastically as he could manage while feeling as though he’d just gone waltzing through a stand of oak trees in spring. “I gueb youra segund ear?” he managed, finding his handkerchief and blowing his nose. He cleared his throat. “Segand year, I mean,” he said, a little more clearly, looking at her hopefully as he felt things filling up again, hoping she would now try the countercurse out instead of waiting to see just how long the mucus could keep repeating its flawed argument. Since blowing his nose had given him a moment’s relief, he hoped her curse wasn’t as powerful as it could be, but he’d really rather not stand here dripping long enough to find out.

16 Joe Let's not even consider that. 329 Joe 0 5

Laila

December 18, 2015 3:35 PM

It seems painful to me. by Laila

In her few years at Sonora Laila had made two friends in the Donovans even if Jax could be on the quiet, terse side and she ate enough meals with Arne’s family since they were familiar faces from back home that she felt as though she had a community, yet none of them were her particular friend—each had someone they were closer to, and as such she had lingering feelings of loneliness. Her roommate was fine—she was quiet and polite but they hadn’t bonded in the way Laila had imagined they would have in the days leading up to her first year there. She had hoped for a room full of friendly, talkative girls like the friends she had back home but instead she had a cordial relationship which was better than an unfriendly one but she still wished for something more.

Wu though was someone who Laila really liked. She could see in her face that Wu was comfortable around her—Laila had always been one for reading people’s faces well. The other girl was shy but really adorable. Laila just wanted to wrap her up in a safety blanket and protect her from the world. Unfortunately, Wu was not the sort of girl who seemed like she would accept hugs—whether it was a cultural thing, a shyness thing, or a blood thing Laila didn’t know. Besides, she knew Jillian Chong who even though she wasn’t from China, her grandparents were so that counted, right? But these were things that Laila didn’t really think about or consider often since she had rarely been in a position of being discriminated against. Her mother was a newcomer to Turner’s Point and so in that vein she was under scrutiny but she was also a Kennedy and so nothing was ever said to her face and mostly she had to live up to that name.

“No, I don’t mind,” Laila said gently, really trying her hardest not to overwhelm Wu with her excitement. She thought casting spells was fun and she loved to see how her control improved with each passing day. But she was also really excited that Wu seemed to be more comfortable talking with her this year than she had seemed in the past and so Laila was also feeling some excitement from that. However making sure Wu continued to feel comfortable around her was also something that Laila wanted to ensure. “I’m really sorry about how this spell is going to make you feel, by the way. Hopefully the finite incantatem helps get rid of it though after I cast it!” She did feel quite awful to cast the spell, especially since it produced kind of horrid effects and Wu hadn’t done anything to deserve the spell.

“Let me know when you’re ready and I’ll start,” Laila said and waited for Wu to give the okay. When she had gotten it, she took a deep breath and cast: “Mucus ad Nauseam,” trying her hardest to aim it properly at Wu, wincing slightly as she saw the olive colored light nearing her innocent classmate’s face “I’m sorry!” she threw in as she stepped back a little, hoping on one hand that the spell had hit because it would have meant that she was starting to improve, but also hoping she had missed because she didn’t want to give Wu a nasty head cold even if it was just magical and not real.

10 Laila It seems painful to me. 318 Laila 0 5

Wu Peizhi

December 27, 2015 5:24 AM

Also that. by Wu Peizhi

Wu was glad to receive Laila’s agreement to go first. While she was definitely dreading the result of Laila’s spell, it was better than doing it to her. Perhaps it was just a part of her nature, the general kindness that had resulted in her Sorting into Teppenpaw, a House famous for being gentle. Or perhaps she was weak. Both were quite good options: gentleness and weakness. Both were things that she had been told, though not always in so many words, from varying sources.

She appreciated Laila’s advanced apology; while it seemed like a fairly common decency, the second year didn’t really think a lot of people would actually say it aloud. Most might imagine it was simply understood that one was generally unwilling to cast an unfavorable spell at one’s peer. Wu also appreciated Laila waiting for her word to start, giving her a chance to prepare herself mentally for the unpleasant stuffiness that was surely in her future.

“Go ahead,” Peizhi said after a moment of squeezing her eyes shut, not reopening them until after the curse had been cast. Her eyelids parted and left a contingent of tears in their wake. The watery eyes were the first symptom of a cold that Wu noticed, followed immediately by a developing stuffiness in her nose. She registered Laila’s apology, though she offered no verbal reaction.

In fact, before any sort of verbal reaction could be mustered, a dainty, squeaky sneeze interrupted. Wu sniffled. “I think your sbell worked,” she said quietly, the pseudo-cold damaging her words worse than her fairly familiar accent did at this point. “Would you have tissue?”

12 Wu Peizhi Also that. 316 Wu Peizhi 0 5

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?”

9 Tess Whittaker Here goes! 338 Tess Whittaker 0 5