Professor Lilac Crosby
August 22, 2011 10:33 PM
Happy Halloween! [Third, fourth, and fifth years!] by Professor Lilac Crosby
December had certainly felt like none that Lilac had ever experienced before, different to say the least. It wasn’t as if she was unused to a large family gathering on Christmas--just that every other year, it had been her family. This year had been different, but she’d had fun.Now, however, was not time for that kind of fun. Her intermediate class would be coming soon. In front of each seat was a small beach ball, a hopeful sight in January, hope that one day summer would come again. Even with magic, it had taken her a while to get the balls to sit without rolling off the desks. She was just a bit of a perfectionist in that way.
“Come on in, ladies and gentlemen,” she beamed as the class started to enter. “Please don’t knock the balls off the desks.” She waited until everyone was seated before flicking her wand at the board. The following word appeared in her own curly hand-writing: Cucurbita.
“The spell with which we will be working today,” began the brown-haired professor, “is pronounced koo-koor-BEE-tah.” As she said it, the spelled-out pronunciation materialized on the board. “And it will do the following.” Lilac aimed her wand at the ball balanced on her desk. “Cucurbita!” Where the ball once was now sat a pumpkin, but as she turned it around for the other side to face the class, it was visible that it was carved and hollow.
“Happy Halloween, ladies and gents.” Yes, she knew it was winter and not October at all, but jack-o-lanterns were fun all the time. “As you’ve just observed, this spell will turn a beach ball into a pumpkin, much like the transition from summer to autumn every year. It may be easier to focus first on the beach ball to pumpkin aspect and then attempt the carving and the hollowing aspect.”
Her grey eyes glanced around at the third, fourth, and fifth years briefly. “If no one has any questions, you can get to work. Feel free to work together. If you need me, you know where I’ll be.” With that, Lilac sat behind her desk, scanning over some paperwork, although not intently enough to not hear her name being called if she was needed. A particular paper was missing, and she glanced around for it, a brown curl flopping in front of her eyes. It had to be there somewhere.
OOC: Welcome to Transfig! Long, quality-filled posts mean lots of points for your House, so get right on that! Tag Lilac if she’s needed, try not to blow things up, et cetera. Happy posting!
Subthreads: Summertime fun! by David Wilkes, Aladren with Samantha Hamilton, Samantha
Um, Trick or Treat? by Jordan Adair, Crotalus with Sara Raines, Pecari, Jordan
I prefer it to New Year's. by Daisy Thorpe, Crotalus with James Owen, Daisy
You have your holidays confused. by Dulce Garcia (Teppenpaw)
I prefer holidays where I get presents. by Veronica Kerrigan, Aladren
Shame by Ryan O'Malley, Crotalus with Arista Thornton, Teppenpaw
CLASS CLOSED (nm) by Prof. C.
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Professor Lilac Crosby
Happy Halloween! [Third, fourth, and fifth years!]
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Professor Lilac Crosby
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David Wilkes, Aladren
August 24, 2011 3:36 PM
Summertime fun! by David Wilkes, Aladren
There was a beach ball on his desk.David noticed this in the way he imagined philosophers noticed that the senses could not be strictly relied upon, wondering – if less seriously than the philosophers were supposed to, though he had occasionally wondered if those guys from the Enlightenment had really just been setting up a colossal practical joke on history that had kind of gone wrong with that whole French Revolution thing – if it held the meaning of life. He put his face into an expression of seriousness as he sat down.
That lasted about as long as it took Professor Crosby to ask them not to knock the beach balls off the desk, because he then had to start trying to resist the temptation to do so. His expression moved into a smile, wondering what the crazy teacher had come up with that involved beach balls in January, hoping he was right to smile in anticipation instead of worry about the possibility of being doused with cold water somehow. He couldn’t think of any way the beach ball could be central instead of just a prop if cold water started coming into it, but the professors were professors and he was not because they were cleverer than him. They might be able to come up with something he missed. Goodness knew McKindy was good enough at it.
Crosby, too, as was demonstrated when the nature of the spell came out. He couldn’t make sense of it as anything but a whim of fancy, but since he was pretty sure he could pull it off, he wasn’t too worried about that. Doing so made him feel a little guilty, a little like he wasn’t a real Aladren somehow, but he had learned to take whatever he could get however he could get it when it came to pulling out the good grades he was going to need to get anywhere in this still-strange world.
A thought occurred to him, though, as they were told to get started. “How d’you think we’re supposed to work together on these if we want to?” he asked the person next to him once he established that person didn’t look too likely to hit him. Let Aladren vagueness be his cover for coming out of nowhere with things only marginally related to the subject matter. “Like, what would happen if we really did and both tried the spell on one of the balls at the exact same time? Would it work faster, maybe, since it usually takes a few tries to pull things off right?”
Dimly, he realized that the presence of beach balls, with their association with carefree summer, right after a vacation was possibly impairing his good sense. Experimenting with magic wasn’t something a smart person usually did. Mainly, though, he was just interested about that, and he didn’t retract the question.
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David Wilkes, Aladren
Summertime fun!
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David Wilkes, Aladren
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Samantha Hamilton
August 25, 2011 3:54 AM
Summertime in winter? by Samantha Hamilton
The more she learned about transfiguration, the more Samantha found herself enjoying the subject. It was hard, but she liked that about it; one of the reasons she was sorted into Aladren, she was sure. The fourth year liked the feeling of accomplishment when she overcame a challenge, and transfiguration classes were full of challenges. Today, for example, her first obstacle to overcome was to figure out why there were beach balls on the desks in January. As the professor 'explained' the class, this point actually did not become more apparent. In fact it became even further inexplicable as they were instructed to turn it into a pumpkin. Although both items were wholly inappropriate for the time of year, that wasn't actually what struck Samantha first about the class. She thought it sounded, well, too easy. Admittedly, turning an item that had very little to it other than air and a thin layer of plastic into a vegetable, potentially already carved and with illumintaion, was more difficult that other inanimate to inanimate transfigurations, but any such spell was at a fairly basic level compared to what Samantha would have liked to study. Surely they should be turning animate objects inanimate by this stage.Regardless, Samantha supposed that at least she would have an easy class, and hopefully an easy grade, before her. She was just collecting together her thoughts and her wand in preparation for the spell, when the person at the next desk, David, said, "How d’you think we’re supposed to work together on these if we want to?". Samantha looked at him with her head tilted a little to the side in contemplation. She had naturally just assumed they would, if working with a partner, just take turns on their own beach balls, working together in the sense that they could offer each other support and advice. But then he said, "Like, what would happen if we really did and both tried the spell on one of the balls at the exact same time? Would it work faster, maybe, since it usually takes a few tries to pull things off right?"
Samantha smiled at his interesting perspective. "I don't know," she said truthfully. "But we could find out, if you like." It did seem to her that the worst that could happen was that they exploded a pumpkin and the class got covered in seeds and bits of pulp, but at least it would be a talking point for the rest of the year. She had taken the time - as was normal these days - to tie her sleeked light brown hair up into a neat twist, and she would rather not have bits of pumpkin in it by choice, but it wouldn't cause any lasting damage. As for her outift, she'd run with plain jeans and a star-patterned t-shirt today, so it wasn't like she'd be ruining her wardrobe. She was even willing to bet that they wouldn't get into a whole lot of trouble with Crosby - she didn't seem the sort to hand out detentions just for one spell gone awry. All in all, Samantha was willing to test David's theory.
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Samantha Hamilton
Summertime in winter?
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Samantha Hamilton
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David
August 25, 2011 3:18 PM
Yeah, I guess fall in winter is a little closer. by David
Another Aladren was always theoretically a plus when it came to working in pairs, but sometimes a downside for David was that many of his Housemates were as serious as Crotali. More serious than some Crotali, even. He took his work seriously, he guessed, but he didn’t see a point in being serious about it all the time.As far as that went, Samantha Hamilton seemed, to him, all right. He knew that was another conclusion without logic, since they mostly knew each other through Quidditch and most of the guys on the team were some of the most uptight individuals he’d ever met, but there it was, and she gave him a scrap of evidence for it when she took his thought about doubling the spell in stride instead of devolving into a technical analysis or otherwise severely telling him to go about the work he had been set.
A little voice in the back of his head was doing that in her place, though, going on about how Professor Crosby, especially in her still new-seeming professional mode, might react to things like a pair of beach balls becoming fused together, or melting, or blowing up. Sure, it might be great fun for a moment, but was it really worth being punished for? Plus, last year, he had been a beginner, as he very well knew, since with two professors he still was. Surely someone smarter had thought of the idea of two trying a spell at once before, and there was a good reason why it wasn’t standard practice besides the likelihood, from the histories he’d read, that a wizard might find himself alone with a wand and not much else many times over the course of his life….
He ignored it. “Sure, why not?” he asked rhetorically. He started to talk a little faster, but once more ignored the danger signal that he was doing something he had a very good reason not to do. “Count of three? One, two, three…Cucerbita.”
Now, to see if they had gotten the timing close enough to see what happened, if anything had happened…Maybe two spells could cancel each other out? He guessed he could have just looked all this up in the library, but it seemed quicker this way. And if that, him liking experimenting more than books, wouldn’t have happened in his old life, he didn’t know what wouldn’t.
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David
Yeah, I guess fall in winter is a little closer.
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David
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Samantha
September 01, 2011 3:36 PM
It's all wrong, anyway. by Samantha
So apparently they were experimenting with spells. Samantha didn't object, and while it had been David's idea to try the spell together, she was still sort of surprised that they'd both agreed to it. Aladren students were hardly notorious for spontaneity, though perhaps they could view this endeavour as an experiment of sorts, for educational benefit, and then it would suit their House traits with greater efficiency. Not that Samantha cared all that much; she wasn't actually as naturally smart as people seemed to think based on her House affiliation, neither did she believe she was baren of traits associated with the other Houses. She liked being in Aladren (in fact if she could choose her House now, she would probably stay put, and not just because it guaranteed her own room) - she just was simply as easily lead by the generalisations as her peers, and had to consciously be careful to keep in mind that House stereotypes could be misleading."Cucerbita," Samantha casted in unison with David, their wands both aimed at the ball on his desk. On some rebellious elevl that didn't emerge a great deal, Samantha almost wanted something horrific to happen. A loud or messy result would certainly draw attention to them both, and though it might not really be in a positive way, there was an old saying that any publicity was good publicity, and, translated into a school scenario, drawing attention to herself might not hurt. She could probably stand to draw a little more attention to herself at Sonora. Rachel's help with her outfits was definitely a step in the right direction, but Samantha thought most people probably still knew her as the girl who had been Aladren's Keeper, and if that was her whole school legacy then that was pretty lame.
As luck, fate, or fortune would have it, however, there was no explosion, no smell of burning plastic, or anything to really draw attention in any way. In fact they had produced what could be best described as a pumpkin, but it seemed to be very confused in itself, trying simultaneously to be too big and too small, with carving and without - and that was just its outer appearance. Samantha was equal parts curious and reluctant to see what its insides looked like.
"I think we made a pumpkin," she concluded to David, "but our images weren't especially intuned." That might be an understatement. She suppoed it sort of made sense - two students could make an object float higher by both casting the same charm, but as getting the object higher was all that was in their minds there wasn't really much room for creative differences. A pumpkin, on the other hand, was apparently more subjective.
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Samantha
It's all wrong, anyway.
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Samantha
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David
September 06, 2011 5:39 PM
Want to bring in Easter Eggs for the sake of completeness? by David
When the spell died down and the ball was transformed, David couldn’t help but feel a flash of disappointment at just seeing a messed-up pumpkin instead of a mess. It was completely wrong on every level, but he had been kind of hoping that it would go boom. He had what his grandmother would have called “the devilment” in him today, somehow, and the outcome that should have been best-case was just a little lacking in the drama that bits of plastic and pumpkin hitting the ceiling in the midst of a plume of smoke.Still, what it had done wasn’t exactly boring. He looked at it with interest, trying to make out which bits came from Samantha’s imagination and which came from his. David nodded quickly when she commented on how their images weren’t exactly in tune with each other.
“Yeah,” he said. “I wonder what would happen if we both looked at, you know, the same picture of a pumpkin then tried it, then looked at the same real pumpkin for a while and tried it. You know, if they’d come together better.” He smiled to take some of the serious edge off of it – though he wasn’t sure that was strictly necessary. They were talking about turning beach balls into pumpkins – into Jak-o-Lanterns! – in January. There was just something inherently funny about that. “Not that we can, but it would be cool. Unless you’ve got a picture of a pumpkin somewhere.”
Speculating was just something to do, he guessed. They’d get into the principle behind this later, and the spell itself wasn’t very practical – unless the pumpkins would be both natural and non-rotting? That could be good, he guessed, especially since some wizards seemed to put some stock into Halloween – so speculating and experimenting was something to do to pass the time and entertain themselves, he guessed, and maybe even get some eventually useful thoughts from. Or at least entertaining ones. That was, he considered, a useful thing itself. Entertainment was a valuable part of life.
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David
Want to bring in Easter Eggs for the sake of completeness?
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David
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Samantha
September 29, 2011 11:36 AM
Chocolate is good any time of year by Samantha
Samantha thought she perceived some disappointment in David's reaction to the... well, to the lack of reaction they'd caused by casting the spell together. "If we had a more in tune view of what we were supposed to be creating then I guess it would look more like that," she agreed with his theory in principle. What she was more interested in, however, was what would happen if one of them had tried to make a pumpkin, and the other had tried to make a carriage, and whether they would create anything like Cinderella's pumpkin carriage. She shook her head at not having a picture of a pumpkin. Se tought they might be able to find one in a textbook somewhere, but a black and white illustration might not be any more useful than their separate imaginations."I wonder what would happen," she said slowly, as the idea was still forming in her head, "if we tried to make different objects." Her brain was tending towards more volatile combinations. "Like if one of us tried to make magnesium and the other tried to make hyrdocholric acid." Potential a bad example, because she didn't known whether chemical properties could be accurately reproduced with magic, but David should have encountered sufficient chemistry to understand the general direction in which her thoughts were tending. "Or, you know, some things that would go kabloom," she simplified the whole thought process down to its barest form with a smile.
"Possibly not something we should try in a transfigurations classroom," she added as an afterthought. If the pumpkin experiment had gone badly then at least they could defend their actions because they were still trying - in a roundabout way - to do the assigned work. If they began to deviate substantially then even curiosity wouldn't defend them, she was sure.
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Samantha
Chocolate is good any time of year
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Samantha
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David
September 29, 2011 6:30 PM
Your words on this subject are indisputable. by David
Chemistry wasn’t something David had gotten around to studying in elementary school – making volcano models that resulted in red stuff getting on the industrial carpeting when his teacher wasn’t bright enough to realize some kid was going to put too much eruption stuff in theirs and hadn’t moved the demonstrations outside was about as much as ten-year-olds in his town were permitted, and his older sister Annabeth’s main comments about her classes had been to mention a running joke in which one of her classmates pretended to be stupid enough to eat the chemical mixtures they came up with, including the result of when some ninth graders didn’t wash a test tube and an iodine test ended up magenta when Anna’s unsuspecting AP Bio class tried to work with them – but ‘stuff that goes kabloom’ was a phrase that he could understand. “I like the way you think,” he informed Samantha.Though, she did bring up a valid but less fun point a minute later. “Yeah,” he agreed again, a little regretfully. “Pretty sure our classmates would rather we didn’t blow them up along with the beach ball.”
That, he suspected, was one of the truer statements he’d ever made. It followed that wizards must not have minded as much as normal people, because there was some risk of being blown up that just went with coming to classes here, but he was still pretty sure that the average student even in Pecari wouldn’t list “having something blow up in my face” too highly on the daily goal list. “Indoors in general probably isn’t the best idea for kabloom,” he said.
And part of the fun was, after all, an audience. Finding out if chemicals would blow up when they were brought about by him trying to transfigure a single object into one of them while Samantha tried to transfigure the same object into the other would, done in the comparative safety of the Gardens while wearing goggles and without an audience would be interesting, but slightly less fun. He still liked it well enough, as this conversation would make decent evidence for, was past the stage Selena was just starting to leave, where performing any kind of sciency-stuff was the coolest thing ever. Selena was still hanging out there a little, but he thought Mom’s roses were safe from being dissected anymore. Aunt Mary’s would be in danger in a few more years if her grandkids went through that, but lacking the books which had originally been Annabeth’s with the interesting diagrams of floral anatomy, he wasn’t sure they would.
“Maybe…start smaller,” he said. “One of us focuses on a pumpkin, a Jak-‘O-Lantern, and the other one on – I don’t know – a huge tomato, or a melon or something. It’s in the same kind of category, but it’s not the same thing, see what happens.” He considered that they were Aladrens and their grades might not work out so well if their kinda-correct work wasn’t marked before they started experimenting. This was not the Aladren Way. Curious they were, solution-seeking they were, but bold when it came to things that could really hurt their grades even the more relaxed members of the House, such as himself, were not. “Or possibly practice on something that’s not going to be graded,” he added. “That might be a little smarter on our parts.” Especially since Samantha was in fourth year and close to fifth, which was kind of important. He expected to either go through his fifth year as a total nervous wreck or ruin his life being too cavalier about it.
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David
Your words on this subject are indisputable.
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David
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