Professor Lilac Crosby
November 26, 2010 12:07 AM
<i>Oink</i>! [Intermediate lesson] by Professor Lilac Crosby
Eager as always, Lilac had a super-special lesson planned for her intermediate class. She knew her kiddies would love it, particularly at the times they were the ones casting the spell, and probably less when it was cast on them. She tousled her brown hair; it wasn’t as messy today as it usually was, and she had to keep her appearance constant, Even if it’s constantly bad.Lilac slid into her slippers, not really in the mood for real shoes. After all, they were so constricting! Sometimes her feet felt like they were being suffocated in real shoes, and high heels? Yea, those were definitely invented by men just to make women suffer for their enjoyment, those monsters. She wiggled her toes in the orange leopard-print slippers and, smiling, headed down to her classroom.
As expected, it was empty. Her class wasn’t for a little longer, so she began to set up. The brunette flicked out her wand and began rearranging the desks and things. At first she piled everything in the rear of the classroom, but then she had a fun idea and directed a few desks to either side of the door, gently shifting them to make a sort of archway around the door. Purposely she made it seem like the desks could fall at any moment, but a spell was cast on them to hold them in place. Worrying about being crushed ought to wake her students up!
The half-Russian returned to her seat behind her desk, propping her slipper-wearing feet up on the desk itself, pushing around a few papers scattered across it. She let her head rest on the back of the chair and thought, Ah, I love this job.
Her peaceful half-slumber was interrupted by feet patting down on the ground; her class was in the hallway, on the way. With a swish of her wand, the door to the classroom flew open, and the class soon came pouring in. “Mind your heads, kids!” she teased merrily. “Those desks may or may not possibly be stable!” She enjoyed the panicked looks on some of the faces as they came in, reveling how well her stunt had been executed.
“Sit on the floor, kiddies,” Lilac instructed after what seemed like the last student had entered, and she manually shut the door. “Or stand. After I’m done talking, you’ll all be standing to practice the lovely spell I’m teaching you.” She paused to allow the kids who were going to sit to sit.
“Today, we’re going to work on a branch of human transfigurations!” Lilac enthused. “That’s right! You get to perform magic on each other! I know you kids love that stuff!” She paused again, beaming brightly at the definitely enthusiastic class. The ones who weren’t showing it just… had good poker faces! Yea! That was it! They were totally excited!
“To properly demonstrate, I need a volunteer!” Lilac chimed. She saw a hand go up --though it may not have been a volunteering hand, simply and untimely stretch-- and grinned. “Yes! You!” She pointed at the student whose hand had risen. “Thank you for volunteering! Come on up here!”
Once the student had came up to the front --was that reluctance? If so, Lilac didn’t notice-- Lilac continued. “All right, so we’re going to be transforming each other. The spell we’re using, Susificate, will, if executed completely, turn the subject into a pig. However, complete transformations take a lot of practice and effort. For those of us who would be capable of this advanced magic, we’re going to practice a thing called restraint.”
“Today,” she went on, “we will be practicing only on the ears. I want you to make your partner, after you pair up, have a set of pig ears, okay? To do so, you focus on her ears, nothing else. Now, allow me to demonstrate.” She turned her attention back to the volunteer and said, “Please don’t be worried. It won’t hurt, and I can’t possibly screw this up. Well, I could… but that’s very unlikely.” Flipping her wand into her hand, she said clearly, “Susificate!”.
Being a transfigurations expert, there really was no way for the spell to go wrong, and the volunteer sprouted a nice pair of swine ears. “See class? Notice that I changed the subject's ears into the pig ears, not adding a new set.”
“Partner up, my dears!” Lilac concluded. “Try the spell out for yourselves. Remember, it’s nice and clear. Susificate. Just like that, okay? And remember restraint. Nothing more than ears… Wait, that’s a lie. If you seem to have the ears mastered, go on to trying noses to snouts. It’s a bit trickier. I’ll be around if any of you need me, and when it’s time to leave, make a line by the door, and I’ll set you all normal again. Okay? Ready, set, learn!”
OOC: Standard rules, lots of words, lots of sentences, the lot. It’s also super-convenient for me if you put your house with your name in the author box. Be creative, and be detailed! Creativity + Detail = Lots of points = Happy campers all around. So get going! Oh, and please don’t kill each other. Thanks.
Subthreads: Who wants to be my piggy? by Dulce Garcia (Teppenpaw) with Rachel Bauer (Crotalus), Dulce
This little piggy went to the market by Adelita Garcia (Crotalus) with Daniel Nash II, Aladren, Lita, Adelita
Quack? by Jose Hernandez, Pecari with Marissa Stephenson, Crotalus, Jose Hernandez, Edmond Carey, Aladren
How fun... by Tawny Brockert, Pecari with Juri Dahlgren, Aladren
This isn't down on the farm. (Tag: Professor Crosby) by Veronica Kerrigan, Aladren with Prof. C.
0
Professor Lilac Crosby
<i>Oink</i>! [Intermediate lesson]
0
Professor Lilac Crosby
1
5
Dulce Garcia (Teppenpaw)
December 13, 2010 9:00 PM
Who wants to be my piggy? by Dulce Garcia (Teppenpaw)
There were times when Dulce wondered if being a teacher was really worth it because the amount of new professors they received every told her that teaching really wasn’t worth it. Maybe it was the school that provided horrible benefits that had the professors running away by the end of the year, Dulce didn’t know because she had no idea what would be good benefits, let alone bad ones. Or, maybe it was that her classmates and all around peers were so horrible and immature that sent the adults running in abundance. Dulce liked to say the latter was the case, but only because her classmates and peers made her want to run screaming from the school.It was a bit strange that she could master a piano at age 3, violin by 4, and the drums by age 8, but she couldn’t master the social etiquette needed to get through her years at Sonora. She had no idea how her parents, sister, or brother could smile with ease to anyone, have the energy to care, and still manage to be civil at all times. Sometimes she wondered if she was really related to any of them at all. Of course, she looked so much like her father that there really wasn’t any reason for her to question her bloodline.
Standing at the door looking into the Transfiguration classroom, Dulce sighed. From where she was standing, she could see the desks decorating the frame of the door. Rolling her eyes, she walked into the classroom without fear. Honestly, a professor would be really stupid to purposefully put desks dangerously above the students head without securing them. She would lose her job right on the spot if the desks toppled on top of any of the students, seriously harming them. If any of her classmates actually believed that the professor would purposely put them in harms way deserved to have a desk fall on them.
What is the point of having done that in the first place anyway? Scare the crap out of them so that they never trusted her again? Score one for her then. Dulce cringed when the professor called them ‘kids’ repeatedly and didn’t hide her disgust when she even went so far as saying ‘kiddos’. Honestly, they weren’t five. A third of the class were sixteen. Dulce was fourteen and did not like to be called a ‘kid’ in any way shape or form. Her eight year old brother was a kid. She was not and she absolutely hated adults who felt the need to talk down to them simply because they weren’t fully adults yet. Dulce could have gotten into the lesson because it would be sort of amusing to see a half pig, but the enthusiasm of the professor and the condescending manner of which she spoke to the class grated every nerve of Dulce’s body. The woman was probably nice, but she needed to be taught on how to actually communicate properly to teenagers. Maybe then Dulce would like and respect her.
Dulce was as good with her wand as she was with the keys of a piano. She could never explain why. Things just were easy that way for her. Rarely things were challenging. Sometimes she came across something that made her stomach leap in excitement. Usually it was a piece of music that could jump start her heart like that, but occasionally a spell could too. She didn’t really understand why they would ever need to learn how to transform a person into an animal, but she was sure there was some sort of logical explanation for it. Until then, she would just find some twisted enjoyment out of changing a person’s ears and hopefully nose.
Turning to the person beside her, Dulce arched an eyebrow, “Do you want to work together? I’m good with my wand.”
0
Dulce Garcia (Teppenpaw)
Who wants to be my piggy?
0
Dulce Garcia (Teppenpaw)
0
5
Adelita Garcia (Crotalus)
December 14, 2010 7:46 PM
This little piggy went to the market by Adelita Garcia (Crotalus)
Adelita didn’t know how to feel about the Transfiguration professor. Not because the woman didn’t make an impression or anything such as that, but because she had been one of the many professors to walk into Adelita’s life. At this point in her life, Adelita felt it best not to make any sort of relationship with any professor because they weren’t likely to stay for very long. That probably wasn’t the best position to have, but Lita felt that if she did become close to a professor and then they suddenly left the school, she would be hurt and devastated. Lita already had a complicated life with the people in it, she didn’t want to expose herself to anything further for no real reason.Following the rest of the class into the room, Lita’s dark brown eyes went up to follow the gaze of many others in front of her. Confusion overcame her Hispanic features, turning her full lips down while her eyebrows shot up and furrowed. That was definitely unusual, but from the way the professor kept up her appearance, Lita probably shouldn’t be surprised by the unusual with her. The woman was in complete disarray. She wasn’t sure if the Professor purposely did it (and if she did, what reason could she possibly want to do that for) or if the day just caused her to end up like that. Either way, if Adelita was supposed to help teach a person something, she’d want to look her best. After all, impressions are everything.
Deciding to stand because, as usual whenever there was a lesson that had people on the floor, Adelita was wearing a skirt today. That was her luck. The first week of school in her first year, Adelita had worn skirts or dresses and almost every class had her seated on the floor. She had learned her lesson from that week. Although she still liked to dress nicely, she kept the dresses and skirts to a minimum.
She listened to the professor discuss what their lesson would be today. Okay, so they would start human transfiguration. That was all well and good, but they were doing this lesson with third years? That was a scary thought. The only third year that Adelita trusted with a wand pointed at her was her sister, Dulce. And that was only because Dulce was a genius with her wand. She never seemed to get anything wrong.
Taking a breath, a very long deep breath, Adelita looked for someone she relatively trusted with a wand. She was hoping for a friend, but she supposed it really wasn’t up to her if they wanted to trust her or not. Smiling brightly despite the panic at the idea of someone changing her ears to pig ears, Lita approached the person closest to her, “Hey, want to be partners?”
0
Adelita Garcia (Crotalus)
This little piggy went to the market
0
Adelita Garcia (Crotalus)
0
5
Rachel Bauer (Crotalus)
December 14, 2010 9:03 PM
I can't say I really <i>want</i> to, but... by Rachel Bauer (Crotalus)
One day, Rachel swore, she was going to hex Professor Crosby. She would absolutely love for it to be the same day she beat the stuffing out of Raines Bradley, since that would make that day pretty much the best day ever, but she was going to do it sometime even if she couldn’t do it then. Even if she had to do it from the back.Her father acknowledged that she was closer to being a young woman than a little girl at this point. As far as she was concerned, once a girl’s father started acknowledging that fact, even if it was after she acted on intelligence gained from her little sister, which she didn’t tell him the source of, to discover that he was seeing someone he hadn’t bothered to tell them all about yet, only people very close to her had any business ever making ‘kiddo’ comments, and even then only affectionately and briefly. Crosby had been bad about speaking to them like that from day one, and Rachel had found it annoying since day one. And the over-the-top cheerfulness just came across as…wrong. People did not act like that. Sane people didn’t, anyway, but then, they also didn’t wear their slippers to class.
Wasn’t there some kind of dress code for the staff? The students had one, so why shouldn’t the teachers? They were supposed to be setting an example or something.
The spell they were learning had some potential – turning Raines into a pig wouldn’t settle the score between them, but it would make her happy, maybe even enough for her to give Crosby a pass – but again, it wasn’t something anyone sane was going to give a bunch of teenagers. She was kind of being blackmailed, therefore ensuring her personal headache’s safety, but jeeze, the potential this would have for wannabe bullies who had any talent with a wand. Like Raines. That was a little overt for him, she thought, but she could still just see her nose looking like a pig’s for a substantive period of time…
Oh, yes, she was going to spend so much more time practicing Defense, at least for a few days. She hated Crosby.
She was considering finding Veronica, figuring that her friend wouldn’t have enough will behind it to actually do any damage to her, when, to her surprise, Dulce Garcia spoke to her. Rachel had no problem with Dulce – they were both not on good terms with Raines, and an enemy of his was at least a potential friendly of Rachel’s – but she couldn’t remember a single time they had actually interacted beyond the extremely casual, and not much then. Dulce kept to herself, and for the most part, the rest of the year was okay with letting her do that.
“So am I,” Rachel said. She reached up to touch her face, wondering if it would ever feel the same again. “But I want you to promise that if you get – stuck, or something – your family won’t sue mine. If you do, I’ll promise the same. Momma will send all her lawyers after Crosby if something goes wrong.”
16
Rachel Bauer (Crotalus)
I can't say I really <i>want</i> to, but...
154
Rachel Bauer (Crotalus)
0
5
Daniel Nash II, Aladren
December 16, 2010 1:14 PM
This little piggy wished he stayed home by Daniel Nash II, Aladren
Daniel tried not to hate Lilac Crosby. He was an Aladren so he wanted to like his teachers, and he was a Head Boy hopeful so he wanted the staff to like him, and he was a generally social person who wanted everyone to like him so he couldn't go around hating people or they'd hate him back. (Take James, for example.)But Professor Crosby made it really hard not to hate her.
He could have dealt with the hair and the slippers. He was OCD enough that it bothered him, but he could have gotten over it. He was an excellent actor; he could have at least pretended it didn't bother him.
He could have dealt with the weird tricks like putting all the desks up in a precarious looking arch around the doorway, and making them sit on the floor. She was hardly the first professor to make them sit on the ground or do strange things to her classroom. He could cope with that.
He could manage to forgive the ridiculous nature of some of her lessons. Just because he was an Aladren and liked to portray himself as a genius, he wasn't. He was smart but not especially imaginative. It was possible there were times when one of these spells might actually prove useful. He couldn't imagine why anyone would ever need to turn another person into a pig, but that didn't mean there wasn't some very strange circumstance in which it may save someone's life.
He could even, with a lot of effort, overlook the fact that Crosby had offered a no-homework pass as a reward just for being the random person to have been lucky enough to get a parrot or something as their animal of the day. He had several issues with that, starting with 'how do you learn if you don't do the homework?' and ending with 'it was completely random and unfair!' But he could get over it.
What he couldn't stand, what grated on his nerves, what made even his own prodigious acting skill inadequate to cover his gritted teeth and physical flinches, was when she called them 'kids' or 'kiddos' or, worst of all, 'dears'. 'Dears' sometimes even forced a low growl in the back of his throat and made his molars ache from clenching his jaw so hard.
So he tried not to hate Professor Crosby. Tried and refused to admit to himself that he failed.
Fortunately, he managed to hold perfectly still when she was looking for her demonstration victim and avoided that particular torture.
If he could have avoided doing the lesson without a hit to his grades or his completely detention-free record, he might have tried, but that wasn't the case. So he looked around, hoping to find someone who wouldn't take too much pleasure in turning his ears into pig ears, and noticed Adelita approaching.
He smiled at her in relief, glad to find someone who held no ill-will toward him, but also greatly comforted by the fact that she was in his own grade and not a Pecari. "Hey, Adelita," he greeted. "I would love to be your partner." Realizing how that might sound, his eyes widened a little and he was quick to add, "Because you're competent, not because I want to turn your ears into a pig's. Where does she come up with these things?" The 'she' of that sentence was identified by a narrowed eyed look of distaste toward the professor.
1
Daniel Nash II, Aladren
This little piggy wished he stayed home
130
Daniel Nash II, Aladren
0
5
Jose Hernandez, Pecari
December 16, 2010 3:29 PM
Quack? by Jose Hernandez, Pecari
Now that Saul had graduated a handful of years ago and a fair portion of the professors had never met his cousin, Jose felt more mellow about his classwork. Sure there was Potions which he had to work extra hard at because he wanted to make vegan versions of all their assignments. And he'd probably get disowned or something if he didn't do well in Divinations but, overall, he was coasting in his classes now. The teachers that had known Saul had already been given ample evidence Jose was not also a moron, and the ones who hadn't known Saul had no reason to think so in the first place.So he was happy to drift along on his cloud of mediocrity. He had enough good habits from his first two or three years to remember to do all his homework and score decently on tests, but he didn't try to excel at his studies. There was a reason he was a Pecari and not an Aladren. He was happy with A's and E's and though he liked seeing O's on his report card, he didn't feel like a failure if he didn't get any.
Transfiguration was one of those classes where even an A pleased him. His mind just didn't really work in a way that made it easy to pick up. The school's inability to hold the same professor for more than a year at a time didn't help either.
Of course, Saul had passed it, had even earned a RAT in it, so there was some pressure to do better than just an A, but if he didn't, he wasn't going to beat himself up about it.
Today, Jose entered the classroom and gave the arch of desks a wary look before hurrying through and took a seat on the floor and braced himself for the upcoming lesson.
He was a California Pierce. He was used to people being over-the-top. Professor Crosby put even his relatives to shame. He'd learned a long time ago how to grin and bear it with people like that, though, so he took the woman's enthusiasm with better ease than many of his classmates.
For that reason, he raised his hand when she asked for a volunteer for the demonstration. He thought the other Intermediate students would appreciate the reprieve. He almost regretted it when she declared the chances of her messing up as 'unlikely' instead of, say, not mentioning the possibility of things going wrong, but consoled himself with the thought that she was far less likely to do something drastically wrong than his partner in the day's lesson.
Which was reassuring at the moment, but not in the long-term, really.
Still, she turned his ears piggy-style, which felt kind of odd but kind of neat, and he turned his head toward the class, grinned a little, and waggled his altered feature as best he could. He had more success than he normally did with his human ears, which was way cool.
After a bit, she turned them back, and he returned to his seat and went about trying to find a partner. "Hey, you paired up yet?" he asked the first person who met his eyes and didn't immediately look away and pretend that the fourth year Pecari who was doing little better than passing the class had noticed them.
0
Jose Hernandez, Pecari
Quack?
0
Jose Hernandez, Pecari
0
5
Dulce
December 16, 2010 7:10 PM
You have to for the grade? by Dulce
Well, Dulce was a little surprised to find that she had asked Rachel Bauer to be her partner. Dulce had nothing against the girl. Actually, she knew nothing about the girl to really think anything bad of her. All she did know was that Rachel was best friends with Veronica and Veronica walked around the school as though everyone owed her some sort of gratitude for her being there at all. Of course, this was only Dulce’s opinion from what she gathered in the three years that they have all been in school together. Veronica could very well be a nice person who had low self-esteem and really secretly hated herself.Dulce highly doubted that though.
Her opinion of Rachel was different though. Perhaps it was because Rachel was the second in command in their friendship, much like Adelita was in her friendship with Charlie, that made Dulce see her different? It was hard to say. But to Dulce, Rachel was just another girl in the class. More popular, sure, but not stuck up. At least, not directly in the way that Veronica was.
Dulce was aware that it probably wasn’t right for her to be so judgmental about her peers. She didn’t know them and she knew very little about them aside from how they interact with one another. She was sure that either they didn’t think anything of her or they thought the worst of her because she was so anti-social. She had tried a couple of times to talk to people, but those had been utter failures. She blamed herself. No one else seemed to have trouble chatting with others. It must be a flaw of hers.
“To Crosby? Wouldn’t it be to the school?” Dulce wasn’t trying to argue, she just assumed it would be the school who was at fault rather than the professor. Although, Dulce had no idea if the school had any sort of say in what the professors taught or how they taught it. In which case, the lawyers could probably go after both the school and the professor. “Anyway, I promise I won’t sue you. I’m pretty sure they have ways of fixing bad transfiguration. If not, well, maybe people will start to notice me.” Dulce joked, giving her a smile to show that she was doing just that. “Of course, being known for having pig ears isn’t what I want, but I suppose it’s better than being ignored entirely.” Dulce shrugged and lifted up her wand. “Do you want to do my ears first or would you like me to do yours first?”
0
Dulce
You have to for the grade?
0
Dulce
0
5
Lita
December 16, 2010 8:36 PM
But then the piggy won't get roast beef! by Lita
Adelita laughed when Daniel corrected himself on the whys of his agreement to be her partner. She hadn’t taken his response in a negative way. Actually, she was rather relieved that he had agreed at all. Adelita was aware that people thought she was an idiot. Ever since she first met Daniel, she assumed he felt this about her as well. But, Daniel was Daniel. She was sure that he probably felt that was for 90 percent of their class.Sometimes she could be spacey and she was often times oblivious to the things going on around her. Her mind was usually on something else entirely, so it was to be expected that she would get this sort of reputation. But, the truth was, Adelita was good at charms and transfiguration. She was doing well in Care of Magical Creatures and Defense Against the Dark Arts, and passing Potions. Her worst class had always been History, but now that that was no longer being taught at the school, Adelita’s grades improved greatly. She certainly was never going to graduate at the top of the class, but she wasn’t a horrible student either.
“You know…” Lita dropped her voice and leaned in a little closer to him so that she wasn’t overheard by anyone else. “You probably shouldn’t glare so openly to the professor. She has complete control over whether or not your ears return to their normal appearance.” She was surprised that Daniel had such a look on him for regards to a professor. She was surprised anyone would be so open about their feelings to an authority figure. “What would your acting friends think you suddenly showed up with pig ears and a snout?” She smiled at him to lighten the mood. There was no reason to be angry over something they could not control. The school hired whoever they wanted. Good, bad, and the horrible.
“I don’t really understand the point of the lesson.” Adelita continued, twirling her wand delicately in her hands, avoiding having to actually do the lesson. “Why would anyone want to be turned into a pig? Or any animal for that matter. It just seems like a cruel game a person would do to someone else. No real reason for it.” Adelita was looking at the professor as she spoke, not in hostility, but with curiosity. “What I want to know is why we would be doing this lesson with the third years. Isn’t it too advanced for them?” She wasn’t sure if she could have pulled of transfiguring a person at thirteen, but she could be wrong.
She stopped twirling her wand and looked directly at Daniel again, “I am actually good at spells. I’m atrocious at making potions, but really good with my wand, so you don’t have to worry.” She said this in all seriousness. The last thing she wanted was for him to be anxious about her ruining his perfect ears. “You can go first if you want.” Lita suggested, tucking her hair behind her ears so that he had better access to them.
0
Lita
But then the piggy won't get roast beef!
0
Lita
0
5
Tawny Brockert, Pecari
December 17, 2010 8:34 AM
How fun... by Tawny Brockert, Pecari
Generally speaking, Transfiguration was not one of Tawny's better subjects. It wasn't that she was necessarily bad at it but she was way better at Potions. That was because Potions were sort of the Pecari's passion in life-well, that and revenge. They were an art form of their own. Any idiot could point a wand-and the third year class was full of idiots, particularly in her own house-but Potions took skill.Still, she didn't really mind Transfiguration that much. Truthfully, Tawny actually liked schoolwork. It didn't hurt that Professor Crosby was kind of dumb either. She talked to them like they were five. That meant she was either the trusting sort who had little experience with teenagers-a weakness Tawny was dying to exploit the way she had in Pippa for years-or or she understood that the average level of maturity in some of Tawny's classmates-again, mainly the Twerp Brigade-was about that.
Therefore, the Pecari-surprisingly-didn't even take the "kiddos" comments too personally. Oh, she didn't necessarily appreciate it and had been mad at first. However, after carefully thinking about the situation, (on her grandfather's advice) she could see where Professor Crosby was coming from. Tawny knew if she were a professor, she would probably be just as condescending though more purposely, particularly with this class. Half the students were immature idiots and the other half needed to be knocked down a peg. Besides, Tawny thought everyone younger than herself was a child anyway. She even treated Alessa that way and she liked Alessa.
She also had to appreciate the woman's sense of dress, or lack thereof. Tawny herself tried to look presentable-she was a Brockert, after all, and her parents were the uptight sort. Or rather Grandmother Royce was, Tawny's parents were useless stupid puppets with no minds of their own, especially her mother. However, she thought it was frivolous to dote too much one's appearance like some of the girls in the surrounding years. Miss Crosby could focus more on teaching them like she was supposed to.
Though quite obviously, there was room for improvement. The woman probably had some deep seated mental issues and the lessons often seemed quite disorganized for Tawny's liking. She more preferred Fawcett's straightforward approach but then he did teach Tawny's favorite subject so she was definitely a bit biased.
Nor was Tawny too happy about having to sit on the floor. That was no place for a Brockert!
However, upon hearing today's lesson, a malicious smile crept onto Tawny's face. Although she far preferred Potions, there were things in other classes that she wanted to learn. This happened to be one of them. She was being given the opportunity to give her classmates pig ears! How terrific! Most of them deserved the disfigurement so much . Particularly the Twerps.
She turned to the person next to her, making sure it was neither Jose nor Alessa whom she normally preferred. "Partners?" Tawny asked in such a way that was really not asking at all and more ordering. If they refused to work with her, she'd practice the spell on them anyway, later.
11
Tawny Brockert, Pecari
How fun...
148
Tawny Brockert, Pecari
0
5
Daniel
December 17, 2010 11:20 AM
True, the little piggy will have none. by Daniel
Relieved Adelita hadn't taken his quick and enthusiastic agreement to be her partner the wrong way, he was only a little dismayed by her rebuke that he shouldn't be glaring at the teacher. Which she was completely right about and he corrected it immediately.I don't hate her, Daniel reminded himself, not for the first time that lesson. I am a model student and I am fond of all of my teachers. With his motivation for not hating the woman firmly in mind, he even managed to look sheepish. "Right, sorry."
"I'm sure there must be some kind of use for it," he shared his own rationalization when she questioned the lesson's usefulness, as he had done earlier. "Maybe an auror might need to go undercover as a pig to look into dark magic being committed at a pig farm or something." If there were magic in real life, he could almost see something like that happening on Street Beat. It was in its seventh season, after all. The writers were stretching a little with some of the cases Matthew had to solve.
Which meant it wasn't really a likely scenario, but that would be a use for the spell.
"And I guess it's okay for third years to do it since we're only changing ears, not the whole person." The difference between pig ears and human ears were largely cosmetic, right? That made sense to him, even if he didn't really know much about pig anatomy - or human ear physiology for that matter. "How different can two types of mammal ears be, anyway?"
When she invited him to go first, he nodded and took out his wand. Before he started though, he felt it was necessary to cover his bases. "I don't actually want to do this, you understand. I think you have very pretty ears." Then, in sudden alarm that she might think he meant he thought only her ears were pretty, he added, "You look very lovely today and pig ears will completely clash with your nice skirt."
He shook his head, and hoped he hadn't sounded like a complete idiot and made things worse. Why didn't people get scripts for potentially awkward conversations like these? "Anyway." He lifted his wand, and cast, "Susificate," and flipped his wand as the teacher had done.
He had always had a knack for mimicry - a side-effect of his acting childhood, he supposed - so his inflections and wand motions were usually, if not flawless, then at least adequate to get the job done. He had a clear understanding of how transfiguration was supposed to work, and his entire world view was one that fit perfectly into the theory, so he wasn't surprised when her ears changed for him as easily as Jose's had for the professor. He was tied for the head of the class in this subject, after all, and it was one of the ones he didn't have to kill himself to stay even with James Anthony, either.
He regarded Adelita's new look and reassured her, "They look . . . cute?" Okay, maybe 'reassured' was the wrong word. Seriously, he should have been able to make that sound more convincing.
1
Daniel
True, the little piggy will have none.
130
Daniel
0
5
Veronica Kerrigan, Aladren
December 18, 2010 1:53 AM
This isn't down on the farm. (Tag: Professor Crosby) by Veronica Kerrigan, Aladren
The day had started off well enough. She was having a great hair day. It lay perfectly along her shoulders and curled softly at the ends. She was wearing one of her brand new dresses. Unfortunately, it was mostly covered up by the ugly school robes that they were required to wear. Really, she didn’t see why it was necessary to wear them. She guessed that somehow it was to promote a sense of unity and conformity, no individuality, nothing to place anyone above someone else. But it didn’t work. There was always going to be people that were better than others. People that were from the right families, the right blood purities and there were those that weren’t.Luckily, she was from the former rather than the latter, but would it be different without the robes? Would blood purity be less of a factor or more of a factor? It would be more apparent that certain people were muggle affiliated like her stepbrother, but would it matter as much so long as they were from the right family? Here someone could be from a wealthy, notable family and it meant nothing, because they weren’t pure. Would she end up being friends with someone that she would never have given the time of day to before? Sigh. She hated when her mind went all philosophical like this. It wasn’t very ladylike.
Walking into the Transfiguration room, her heels making tapping noises against the floor, Veronica’s mind was cleared pretty quickly when she saw the chairs hanging over her head. Was the professor absolutely insane? Of course, none of the chairs were going to actually fall. The professor was obviously testing them by some ridiculous means, but the mere idea of…of…threatening students like this. Well, it was means for dismissal immediately. It was child endangerment! And even if the school thought the woman to be harmless, which Veronica didn’t, it was like the woman had the mind of a child and was not fit for teaching. She should be padlocked in a room somewhere not to do any harm.
The idea was further reinforced when Veronica saw the orange leopard print slippers. Seriously? That was just a crime in and of itself. Who wore such things? Orange and leopard print. Both things were ghastly by themselves, but together, it was like being trapped in a nightmare. For one thing, orange would never be in style. Absolutely never! No one looked good in the color. Oh, sure, they acted like they did, but the truth was, no one did. It was hideous on absolutely everyone. There was a reason that it was a Halloween color after all. Didn’t this professor know how to read a fashion magazine?
Then, there was that leopard print. She seriously hoped it wasn’t real fur. Being fashionable wasn’t a need to kill innocent animals when faux fur was available. Not many people might have known this about the blonde, but she had a soft spot for animals. She actually liked them. But that wasn’t the point. The point was it was leopard print. Leopard print was for the lower class, the type that lived in hovels or did inappropriate things to earn a living. It was not for ladies of breeding. Honestly, was she going to have to take this woman aside and have some sort of heart to heart with her about professional appearances? She rolled her eyes towards the ceiling feeling like she had to do everything around here.
Crazy professor say what? They were seriously expected to sit on the floor? The floor was dirty. She could ruin her dress. Not to mention, it was very hard to sit properly in a dress at all on the floor. Her hand fluttered to her face. She could feel that she was getting hot, which meant her face was getting pink. Not a very attractive quality or at least she didn’t think so. She needed to calm down. This wasn’t entirely unmanageable. She would just have to stand as was suggested. Annoying, but not fully unreasonable. Though, it did mean having to hold on to her cappuccino colored bag. There was no way she was going to let it get dirty. It cost a small fortune and she wasn’t ready to dispose of it yet. Maybe come summer.
The blonde narrowed her eyes at being called a kid. She wasn’t a kid. She was a young lady. There was a major difference. Oh, she was sure that some of the people in the room deserved to still be called kid, but she wasn’t one of them. It had nothing to do with age since there were quite a few people in the room that were older than her, but it was all about attitude and perception. Take for example, her sister, Delilah. They were the same age. Twins, after all, but she was clearly not a kid while she felt like she was leaving her sister behind in that world. It was really quite sad and she didn’t know what to do about it, especially now they were living completely different lives.
Narrowed eyes were joined by a raised eyebrow. Human transfigurations? She had to be kidding. No, apparently not as she called a victim up to the front of the room. She was certainly glad it wasn’t her, because there was absolutely no way she would have agreed to it. Absolutely none. And the confidence the woman had in her abilities was incredibly reassuring. Did she treat the first years this way? If she did, they would probably be more terrified of this class than Defense, which was really sad. Of course, there was no fear of being turned into some pig either. And they were expected to give each other pig ears and possibly snouts? Uh, no.
“Excuse me!” Veronica said, raising her hand to get the professor’s attention. “I object to having to have pig ears.” She was wise enough not to mention her fears of having a classmate perform such a thing on her. What if she ended up with something worse or the magic went so wrong that not even the professor could fix it? However, that didn’t mean she couldn’t voice said opinion another way. “I very much like the ears that I currently have. Why would one want to mess with perfection? “
Changing her tactic slightly, she gave the professor her award winning smile. “I’m sure that you have an excellent reason for wanting to teach students how to change human ears to pig ones and I respect that, I really do, however, it very much concerns me and really I would like to keep my grade up in this class. Isn’t there some other assignment I could do?” She gave her best ‘I’m really trying to learn’ look. Then, just for good measure added, “Oh, and I just love your slippers. Orange is so in right now. Where did you get them?” So, I can make sure never to shop there.
0
Veronica Kerrigan, Aladren
This isn't down on the farm. (Tag: Professor Crosby)
0
Veronica Kerrigan, Aladren
0
5
Adelita
December 18, 2010 4:24 PM
Will the little piggy cry wee wee? by Adelita
Adelita pouted as she thought about what Daniel had said. She still didn’t think that knowing how to turn someone into a pig could be helpful in the everyday sense, but perhaps it could be useful in a strange scheme of things for a person who had a career that required unusual… spells. “I suppose…” She said after some consideration. It really wasn’t the professor’s fault that they had to learn this. There must a curriculum for her to follow regarding what they would need to know on their CATS examinations. The woman was just doing her job. That didn’t make her lesson any less dumb though. Adelita did not want pig ears or a pig snout. She was already self conscious about her looks as it was, she didn’t need the added worry that she’ll have pig ears for the rest of her life.Not that she thought Daniel would screw this up.
She would prefer Daniel, Taylor, or Juri to work with because she trusted them and their wand casting abilities. Probably more so than they did with her, but that was fine too. She still wasn’t quite convinced that human transfiguration should be done by third years, she was fairly certain they had been still doing inanimate to animate transfigurations. But again, it must be on the curriculum for the professor to teach such a lesson to all three years.
“If nothing else is learned in this lesson, I could always use this spell on my brother.” Lita mused. “The hog that he is.” She said this insult with absolute love. Her brother annoyed every fiber of her being. She had to constantly remind herself that he was only eight and that was what eight year olds did. But even the reminder didn’t help. She wanted to pull her hair out during the summer. Still, that didn’t mean she didn’t love him. “I think he’s the only person I know who could pull of a snout.” Adelita joked.
Adelita prepared herself for the change in her ears, but Daniel’s attitude and awkwardness really confused her. She had never seen him act this way at all before, so she didn’t know exactly how to respond to it. “Uh…thank you?” She said regarding her ears. Thinking back on it, she wasn’t sure if anyone had said she looked nice or had pretty ears, so the compliment was a nice one even if it was said in a haphazard manner.
Without any hesitation, Daniel cast the spell onto her ears. To say it was a pleasant experience would be a lie. IT wasn’t unpleasant either. It was just… strange. She could feel her ears changing. Extending. Turning. When it was finally done doing the transforming, Lita raised her hand to touch them, but stopped before she actually did. She was scared to actually see or feel her new ears. Merlin, she must look like an absolute fool with porky the pig ears.
What a truly horrible lesson for a teacher to do on young women! Like trying to be perfect in anyone eyes wasn’t hard enough, now they’re adding in animal parts too. Adelita must have had a look of horror on her face with her hand posed halfway to her hand because Daniel spoke about her new ears. Although the words were nice, the way he spoke was not at all helpful. Still, Adelita gave a small laugh while lowering her hand. “Still clash with my skirt though, right?”
Shrugging off the weird feeling her ears gave her, Adelita raised her wand to him. “Sorry Daniel, but I have to make a small change to that handsome look of yours.” Adelita closed her eyes for a moment, picturing Daniel with pig ears. She always pictured everything before she tried it. It was easier that way. Picturing him with the ears brought out an amused look, but it did the trick. Opening her eyes, Adelita did not hesitate to do the spell and spoke with confidence, “Susificate” Copying the same wand movement that the professor and Daniel had done before her.
Now that she didn’t have to worry about doing the spell any more, Adelita took a moment to look at her work, tilting her head slightly as she looked at him. “I think you can totally pull them off.” She commented. “How do you feel?”
0
Adelita
Will the little piggy cry wee wee?
0
Adelita
0
5
Juri Dahlgren, Aladren
December 20, 2010 12:43 PM
I tend to think so. by Juri Dahlgren, Aladren
Going under an arch of desks wasn’t really the way Juri wanted to start a class, but he supposed there were worse ways. Admittedly, the reason he probably hated it was because he had been startled. There were few things that startled him, but how could a person not be when they walked into a class with such an archway, one that the professor threatened may or may not hold? He seriously doubted that it wouldn’t. If it actually toppled, there would be a whole bunch of angry parents. Plus, as a general rule professors weren’t that irresponsible. No, it had just taken him by surprise.However, the fact that the desks were there meant not having to sit in one and that put him in a better mood. The fifth year didn’t mind desks so much, but he liked the freedom of something different, something less restrictive. Often, the school was far too restrictive for his taste, but he dealt with it so long as he wasn’t expected to be some perfect little businessman. In all honesty, it surprised him that Daniel was like that at all. He was supposedly some great actor. Juri would have thought that his roommate would have thrived on a bit more self expression, but maybe the kid was just too OCD for his own good.
When he was finally settled on the floor was when he noticed the orange leopard print slippers. A smile of amusement flitted across his lips. The orange leopard print was horrible, but it definitely didn’t follow the rules and for that he could applaud Professor Crosby. Who wanted to be so boring that they had to conform to everyone else? All that lead to was one’s mind becoming lazy, because they never needed to think for themselves. Original thoughts would eventually die and nothing new would ever come. How could a society progress if not for people like this woman? They were the ones that elevated society to entirely new levels.
Hearing the lesson plan, Juri raised an eyebrow in question. Human transfigurations? That had quite a potential to go horribly wrong. Not that he minded, but he wasn’t sure that the third years were quite up to handling such a task. Though, he wasn’t about to argue it either. He loved the idea that people would be having pig ears and possibly even snouts. It reminded him of the movie Penelope, which he had watched once with his mom when he had been bored. It hadn’t actually been that bad for a chick-flick. Green eyes wondered over to Lita imagining what she would look like. She had dark hair like Penelope.
His eyes narrowed when he saw whom she was working with. Figured. His attention was diverted though when some girl talked to him. Wait. He knew her. She was somehow related to Pippa, which was the only reason he didn’t immediately say no. He probably should have though with her attitude, but whatever. He needed a partner and she would do. “Yeah, sure,” he answered before his attention was taken once more by the annoying voice of one of his stepsisters. Was she really refusing to do the lesson? Huh. He didn’t think she had it in her even if it meant having pig ears. He bet this would put her in detention. Yup, this day wasn’t so bad at all minus a couple incidents.
Giving his attention back to the girl, he said, “Do you want to go first or should I?” He didn’t really care either way so long as she didn’t make him into some truly horrible monster where the effects couldn’t be reversed. If that happened, then he would certainly have a hard time ever getting another date and at the moment, he quite enjoyed that even if it was guarantee not to ever lead to a substantial relationship.
0
Juri Dahlgren, Aladren
I tend to think so.
0
Juri Dahlgren, Aladren
0
5
Rachel
December 20, 2010 3:50 PM
Your deductive skills are only surpassed by your summarizing by Rachel
“Whoever,” Rachel said, unperturbed by the legal hairs that would be split over whether or not it should be Crosby or Powell or the Board of Directors who paid her lots of money and possibly went to jail for disfiguring her. She would prefer for it to be Crosby, because she was annoying, but if the school was behind her, then they needed punishing for anything that went wrong, too. Maybe, if all else failed, Rachel could bring down some of the desks on her own head and say it had been faulty spellcasting on the professor’s part; she was sure the administration wasn’t condoning that particular safety hazard, and a concussion – or even a few broken bones – would be more than worth it if it helped take Crosby down. She was pretty sure she’d become Sonora’s most popular student overnight. “But thanks.”Of course, the only way to be totally safe would be to have Dulce’s parents sign something saying they wouldn’t sue her for any permanent damage done to their daughter in this lesson, but even she could see that would be going over the top, and drawing all the wrong kinds of attention to herself, so she was going to have to take the Teppenpaw at her word and pray that they were both as good at Transfiguration as they thought they were and that, if one of them wasn’t good enough, the evil little woman responsible for all this would be both able to set it right and be the one held responsible for all the damage. She was not going to spend the rest of her life, or even a substantial portion of a year, in some hospital, going through daily treatments to try to return to full human form, not being able to talk or shop or…
She shuddered slightly at the images and forced herself to concentrate on Dulce. She smiled back at the girl’s joke, but felt strangely bad for her. She seemed pretty cool, so why was it that no one noticed her? “I’ll try first,” she said, selfishly relishing the thought of a few more minutes with her own appearance guaranteed to last. “But if you don’t totally hate me after this class, you should have lunch with me and Veronica sometime.” She took a deep breath, tentatively pointing her wand at the other girl. It was easier in Defense, but for some reason, it felt like assault – like she was doing something wrong – here. “Here I go, all right? Susificate.”
For a moment, she wasn’t sure anything was happening, but then she saw it: Dulce’s ears were stretching to points, and her nose looked a little larger and more upturned than it had. It wasn’t a complete job, but it was moving in the right direction. Rachel could only assume, with a little irritation, that her reluctance was behind her failure to complete. “It’s not too bad,” she assured her yearmate. “Nothing went all the way, but that’s third year magic levels combined with me not wanting to do this, not me doing it wrong.” At least, she hoped so, and she had long since learned the trick of speaking confidently so other people would go along with her. She lowered her wand reluctantly, and then put it back in her robes entirely to resist the temptation to try to defend herself. It was definitely a moment where she wished she wasn’t quite so good at Defense Against the Dark Arts; the reflex to hex someone who was pointing a wand at her with instructions to do something unpleasant to her was deeply ingrained, now. “Your turn,” she said, pleased to hear her voice was steady.
16
Rachel
Your deductive skills are only surpassed by your summarizing
154
Rachel
0
5
Marissa Stephenson, Crotalus
December 20, 2010 4:27 PM
Aflak! by Marissa Stephenson, Crotalus
When Marissa saw the desks hovering precariously over the doorway, followed by the professor’s comment about them being unstable, she immediately took out her wand and pointed it over her head before proceeding. “Protego,” she said.She knew that her Shield Charm was probably not strong enough to actually keep her from getting hurt at all if those desks did come down just as she got through, but it would do some good – Defense was her best wand-based subject – and it gave her a kind of grim satisfaction to have found a way around whatever mildly sociopathic plan the professor had in mind. She didn’t mind Professor Crosby’s mannerisms as much as some seemed to, she had long since gotten used to the idea that being in the magical world meant, between her blood and her lack of skill with a wand, having basically no respect anywhere except in Professor Fawcett’s room and occasionally on the Quidditch Pitch, but things like this put her teeth on edge. It was by no choice of her own that she was coming through this doorway, and child endangerment was a serious crime. If she’d had an ounce more courage, Marissa would have already made a formal complaint. If one of those desks came down, even if it didn’t hit her, she was going to do it.
The desks continued to cling to the frame after she cleared them, though, and Marissa stopped holding the Shield Charm over herself. She had to resist the temptation to re-cast it in front of her, and was half-sure the only reason she did was because she knew upholding the charm would tire her out so she’d do even worse at whatever special torment the professor had planned for them today than she would anyway. Since she was wearing a skirt, and didn’t entirely trust the professor not to dump paint on them all or something equally absurd, she chose to remain standing.
She had a standard pleasant, eager-to-learn expression she used, and it was very well-practiced, but she felt it freeze and slide off her face at the mention of doing magic on each other. Only an insane woman, crazier than Marissa believed even Professor Crosby to be, could have mistaken the total horror of her expression for either pleasure or a poker face. She looked like she’d been told she had five weeks to live.
The problem was more along the lines of either her GPA – pathetic as it was these days – or one of her classmates having more like five minutes to live. Her father was a doctor, and while he specialized in oncology, his general knowledge allowed him to discuss a great many topics, including why it was a bad idea to ever hit someone in the nose. The nose and ears were both close to the brain. If something happened to the brain, then the person was likely to die or be permanently damaged. She had worked her way up, magically, to making something happen virtually every time she used her wand. If she made something happen today, and it went just that far wrong…
She heard the snide comment about those with the skill to complete the spell in its full, person-to-pig form showing restraint as from a distance, barely registering any implications. She had occasionally felt personally mocked, somehow, but that wasn’t even on her mind at the moment. If that was the case, then she was sure Professor Crosby hadn’t thought further than how funny it would be to see Marissa and a few others humiliate themselves in public, not about how someone could actually die. And – dear Lord, she’d read about human-to-animal Transfiguration in Quidditch Through The Ages while she was researching what Helena Layne had bullied her into, that was two years ago. If it worked, then the person had the mind of whatever they were turned into. It wasn’t like being an Animagus. If one of the really good fifth years…
That, of course, was never going to be relevant to her. Strange thoughts stuck in a person’s head in moments like this, presumably to distract her from the death possibilities and major decisions to be made.
She wasn’t going to do it.
The moment Marissa made that decision, she felt better, and her eyes came back into focus just in time to catch Jose’s. “No,” she said, then said it. “You can practice on me if you want - " probably not the smartest permission she'd ever offered, but once she failed this lesson, she might be better off in the hospital than explaining it to her mom - "but I’m not doing it to you. Someone will probably get hurt if I try, and I’m not going to maybe kill somebody just because she’s not smart enough to consider the abilities of her students when she plans her amusing lessons.”
16
Marissa Stephenson, Crotalus
Aflak!
147
Marissa Stephenson, Crotalus
0
5
Dulce
December 21, 2010 9:38 PM
Yes, I'm a real Sherlock Holmes. by Dulce
“Oh, okay.” Dulce answered her when Rachel invited her to lunch with herself and Veronica. That was a very unexpected request and Dulce wasn’t sure how to handle it. Veronica was someone that Dulce didn’t quite want to have any run-ins with. They were a small class, but thus far, Dulce had been able to keep her distance. And by the way Veronica was acting regarding the lesson, Dulce was happy to not have to put up with her. Could she really handle an entire meal with the blonde?Dulce had been expecting to feel something going on with her ears. She had been silently preparing herself for the emotional turmoil that was probably supposed to happen in her at the very idea of a physical change occurring to her body. She had not been expecting to feel anything in her nose just yet. The feeling surprised her and the surprise probably showed wildly on her face. Having always been so stoic on school grounds, any show of emotion was bound to be over exaggerated.
The feeling wasn’t unpleasant, but it wasn’t really rewarding either. She could feel the cartilage of her ears strain and stretch, pulling upward as though some invisible string was trying to pull her up off her feet by her ears. The cartilage of her nose twist and turned, forcing the tip upward and rounding out the base more. Dulce wanted to cry out. Not in pain, but something more than that. She wasn’t sure what she was feeling. It was different and foreign and she didn’t like it at all.
The transfiguration stopped altogether before it had been completed. She didn’t know if she should be grateful or not. Probably not because it just meant that she would have to go through it all again when Rachel tried the spell on her to complete the job. There was nothing Dulce could do about that. Still, she couldn’t really help feeling discontent as her hand gently rubbed her nose.
She had thought they were only supposed to do the ears first and if they accomplished that, then move onto the snout. Not that she was going to point that out. If it had been Raines, Dulce would have gladly pointed out his flaws in listening, but Rachel was still new territory and Dulce really did not want to make an enemy out of her. “Well, it’s still a good try even if it was incomplete. You at least managed to only get my ears and eyes and not my entire face. I appreciate that, by the way.” Dulce added, trying to smile. “I may not be the best looking of our class, but I don’t mind the looks I have and if I have a pig face, I might be as ugly as Rai-“ Dulce stopped herself, realizing that joking with Rachel about a class mate was not the same as joking with Adelita. For one, Adelita wouldn’t say anything and has never met Raines for it to be an issue. And two, Rachel might like Raines or worse yet, Veronica, and then Dulce would still have made an enemy out of the both of them.
“I’m going to just start with the ears. That way, my concentration is only on one part of your body and not mixed between two, if that’s alright?” Dulce explained to her in a sort of rhetorical question sort of way. Without waiting for any sort of answer that would prevent Rachel from having to be the victim (so to speak) of this spell, Dulce lifted her wand, “Susificate” Dulce chimed in almost a bored tone of voice. It was her normal tone of voice, of course, but it still held that monotone way of it. Usually, that tone only lifted when Dulce was singing. Rare as that was, it did happen.
It took a moment before the spell took effect. Dulce was good with her wand, but human transfiguration was a new level for her, so although Rachel’s ear did change, it wasn’t complete. That irritated Dulce, but she remained blank faced. “You look a bit like an elf with too long of ears.” Dulce mused.
0
Dulce
Yes, I'm a real Sherlock Holmes.
0
Dulce
0
5
Jose Hernandez
December 22, 2010 5:53 PM
So what sound does a gecko make? by Jose Hernandez
Jose raised his eyebrows in honest surprise that Marissa was willing to let Jose give the spell a go on her but had no intention of returning the favor (er, poor choice of word there - of trying the lesson herself). They were in the same year and she wasn't doing any worse in the class than Jose was. Even Jose knew she would never compete for top spellcaster of their year, but she made up for it in effort. Honestly, Jose would sooner let her try to turn his ears into a pig's than Saul, who was both really good with a wand and done with all his RATS-level lessons.Marissa, in Jose's understanding of the other girl, would not get distracted at a crucial moment by some passing pretty red-haired girl (or whatever type of person Marissa actually found attractive), or forget what she was doing halfway through.
But she sounded very certain of her decision, so Jose just shrugged and said, "Well, if you change your mind, I trust you."
Then he readied his wand, took a deep breath, . . . and chickened out. Had Marissa said a miscasting might kill somebody? He must have heard that wrong or she was exaggerating, surely... but still... "Are you sure you trust me?"
He was decent with a wand, but this was not an intuitive class for him. Nothing ever went drastically wrong for him, but sometimes he got . . . unexpected results. Like the time he was trying to turn an egg into a pincushion and somehow got a semi-metalic cushion shaped like a pin.
1
Jose Hernandez
So what sound does a gecko make?
149
Jose Hernandez
0
5
Edmond Carey, Aladren
December 22, 2010 11:26 PM
"Fifteenminutesorless" by Edmond Carey, Aladren
Entering the Transfiguration classroom just behind Marissa, Edmond heard her saying the incantation for a Shield Charm before going under the wobbly arc of desks and, impressed, took out his wand to steal the idea before attempting the same feat. Though he made it safely through, and without the fear of the spell not holding that his classmate had experienced, he still gave Professor Crosby a cross, disapproving look before he put his wand away again.Though he still did not like to do it, Edmond had become sufficiently accustomed to sitting on the floor over the past four years that he wasn’t surprised by the instruction to do so, and merely made a mental note to remember to cast a quick cleaning charm on his robes and trousers at some point between being allowed to get up and when they left the room. The prairie elves did their best, of course, but floors were still dirty, and it wouldn’t do for him to walk around dusty from the waist down for the rest of the day. The pureblood community seemed prepared to write him off as a bit of an absent scholar, but there were still limits.
He listened to the lesson for the day without much expression, taking out the pocket notebook he carried to write down the spell and a note on its pronunciation. The situation didn’t allow for ready use of his actual Transfiguration notebook, so he’d have to fill in the details there later. It was just as well; he could organize in the theoretical information he researched on his own in a more logical fashion than he did when he just took the practical notes in class and then filled in the rest later.
At least he wouldn’t be very bored during this lesson. Human Transfiguration was complicated; even if he mastered the physical aspect, he would have to spend hours in the library working on the principles behind it. He was fairly sure it wasn’t normally covered, in fact, until the Advanced level, and even then it wasn’t common to be able to affect a full human Transfiguration. That was one reason why Edmond was determined to, by the time he left school, have at least the theoretical knowledge and magical strength to do so, if not the actual experience.
After the demonstration, they were set to working in pairs. Edmond took a moment to perform that cleaning charm before seeking out a partner, which was how he happened to hear Jose and Marissa’s conversation a little way off.
He quite liked them both, and fully expected Marissa to make prefect next year – Jose versus Tawny Brockert was not one he was prepared to predict, rather as he had no idea if Aladren would go to him or Cassie, if for different reasons – but it made him shake his head a little. It was true that power potentials were different, but he’d always thought that part of Marissa’s problem was that she’d accepted failure as the default result of her efforts in class. He’d had several tutors who believed belief in one’s own powers was an important part of success, and he had no reason not to believe what they’d said. He tended to believe he was going to succeed, and lack of success wasn’t something he had really encountered very often yet. And now Jose seemed to be doubting his talents, too.
“You’ll both be fine,” he said matter of factly, approaching the two. “I’m quite sure of it.” He was a bald-faced liar. “You ought to at least give it a try, Marissa. I’m reasonably sure none of us can be held legally accountable for accidental damage we do on a professor’s orders in class while we’re minors – “ another lie, though he thought this was likely to be at least somewhat true – “and you’re both perfectly competent wizards.”
0
Edmond Carey, Aladren
"Fifteenminutesorless"
0
Edmond Carey, Aladren
0
5
Prof. C.
December 25, 2010 5:58 PM
Of course not! A farm has cows and chickens, too. by Prof. C.
Lilac felt her plump lips curl upwards in a smile when she saw a hand soon in the air. Questions were always a good thing, for if there were no questions, there would be no answers. That philosophical thought had occurred to her sometime during the school year, and since then, it had been ringing in her ears.“I object to having pig ears.” the source of the hand, Veronica Kerrigan, spoke. Well, that wasn’t a question at all. The smile Lilac had originally formed dissipated quickly when the girl went on about not messing with perfect like her face and some other narcissistic garbage. Lilac knew that attitude too well, being a pureblood herself, the daughter of one of the famous Russian family, the Tupolovs. However, she said nothing. It seemed that Miss Kerrigan had more to say.
The brunette professor felt her smile return when Veronica seemed to have a change of heart, mentioning how she really did respect Lilac’s lesson planning. The girl may have been vain, but at least she seemed to know to respect her professors. That, or she was good at sucking up. Lilac decided to go with the first to make herself feel better.
". . . Isn’t there some other assignment I could do?” Veronica asked with a sweet smile. This girl really did seem to want to learn, and the twenty-six year old respected the girl in return for the respect she was being issued. “Well…” she began, but again, this girl seemed to have more to say.
Her grey eyes lit up. Veronica liked her slippers? Lilac humbly looked down at her feet, a blush lightly decorating her pale cheeks. “Why, thank you! You really like them? My mother gave them to me for my birthday last year, actually. She said they reminded her of me. I suppose they’re just my style.” It flattered her that the young girl, who seemed to be very fashionable, now that she thought about it, was impressed by her orange leopard print slippers. A young thing like Veronica admiring her wardrobe made Lilac feel young again and less out of touch with today’s students.
“I suppose I could give you an alternate assignment,” Lilac offered, “but only this once. If you could prove to me that you are sufficient with the spell, preferably in the form of a written assignment, I will excuse you from performing the spell and having it in turn performed upon you today. Are you willing to write me an essay by… next Tuesday, Miss Kerrigan? That would give you the weekend to work on the assignment.” Now that the girl was being cooperative and polite, the Teppenpaw Head of House was perfectly willing to work with her.
0
Prof. C.
Of course not! A farm has cows and chickens, too.
0
Prof. C.
0
5
Tawny
December 26, 2010 2:16 PM
I don't, but in this case... by Tawny
It turned out that the person she'd asked was Juri Dahlgren. It could have been better, while Tawny normally wouldn't mind working with him, this was a lesson where she wanted to work with someone she generally couldn't stand. It would have delighted Tawny to no end to give pretty much any of the third year girls other than Alessa and most of the fifth year girls pig ears.The thing was, she did not hate Juri. Tawny just didn't have much respect for him-which, actually, had him on par with the rest of the school-after he had kissed Pippa . Ew. That had to be like kissing something sickingly poisonously sweet. Tawny certainly wouldn't know and no desire to. Pippa was her sister and a girl and her mortal enemy.
On the other hand, Tawny had to admit she wouldn't mind knowing what it was like to kiss Juri. Or maybe Jose. Just someone. She knew she was going to be betrothed one of these days but that just wasn't the same. Tawny wanted more than anything to have someone genuinely like her. Pippa did, after all, Juri had kissed her, so he must like her.
Too bad for him that Pippa was betrothed to Justin Kendrick. And Pippa was such a good girl that she would never do anything with someone now that she was betrothed.
Tawny, however, might. If she really liked someone and they really liked her. She didn't know who she'd end up betrothed to but she had little faith in her parents to pick her out someone she really liked. Actually, Tawny had doubts her parents would be much involved at all. Everyone knew it was Grandmother who had all the power and everyone but Tawny and Melora was afraid to cross her.
"I'll go first." The Pecari was really really eager to give someone pig ears. Unfortunately, it wasn't one of the Twerps but to Tawny's way of thinking, she could practice on Juri-because she had to for her grade anyway-and then maybe do the spell well enough to give the Twerps pig ears later. " Susificate. " The fourth year even liked the way this spell sounded. It sounded quite like the word suffocate.
Unfortunately, Transfiguration was not one of Tawny's best subjects and Juri's ears merely flickered. Still, that was better than she usually did on her first try. Part of getting a spell right was wanting to cast it and this was a spell Tawny really wanted to master. "I guess you can try it now, but I wanna go again after that." Tawny said enthusiastically.
11
Tawny
I don't, but in this case...
148
Tawny
0
5