Professor Skies
September 28, 2012 11:58 AM
Intermediate Class - Hedgebrushes and hairhogs. by Professor Skies
Selina liked all her classes for different reasons. The beginners class were just starting out and she got to see them make their first steps with the subject. In the advanced class, she got to teach really interesting material, and knew that the majority of the students actively wanted to be there. People sometimes regarded intermediate classes as the wilderness in between; the novelty had worn off for the students but they weren't yet the elite, dedicated group. She didn't feel this. This class had got through the baby steps and was able to progress onto some interesting topics, including their first ventures into animate transfigurations. The fifth years were also the same age as her eldest daughter, which gave her a certain fondness for them, and for seeing them achieving things. She could then imagine similar sorts of things going on in her daughter's class. She tried not to notice the girls falling out with each other, or the kinds of looks the boys were giving them. She preferred not to imagine parallel events of those kind taking place in Krisalyn's school, although she wasn't so naïve as to assume that they didn't.“Good morning, class,” she smiled, as they filed in. “I am Professor Skies and I will be teaching you Transfiguration this term.” She went through the usual routine of calling the register, trying not to stare too hard at those whose names she recognised, and definitely trying to block the part of her brain that went into calculating whether these could be children of her former students. She wasn't wholly successful on either count. She followed this with the rest of the house-keeping, such as handing out schedules and going over rules before getting stuck into the class proper.
“I see from the previous class notes that some of you have begun inanimate to animate transfigurations. I hope you will humour me whilst I introduce it to those who have not and try to reassure them, and those of you who might have been nervous about it, that it is nothing to worry about. It is complex magic and you will not be perfect at it to start with. However, one of the concerns I have frequently heard from students is a worry over causing pain or suffering. This is very rarely the case. When you bring forth an incomplete animal, its other half continues to exist elsewhere. It is difficult to explain without going into a lot of complex theory, but the animal is still connected to the rest of itself, although you can't see it. Therefore it is not going to bleed to death, and it's unlikely it feels pain as it hasn't been cut or severed in any way. For example, your lesson today is going to involve hairbrushes and hedgehogs,” she picked up a hairbrush from her desk, “If I only transfigure the front half...” she cast the spell over the brush, consciously holding back some of her energy. Paws and a face appeared, the little nose twitching, whilst his back end remained a handle, which Professor Skies held him by. “Now, I'm not saying he'd do well in the wild. But if I had left half of his insides somewhere else, he would not last very long,” she placed him down on her desk, “I guarantee that he will still be twitching his nose when I'm done talking. If anyone has more questions about the theory or still has ethical concerns, please see me.
“We will be looking at two different spells today. Third years will be getting a hedgehog and trying to make it into a hairbrush. Fifth years will be doing the opposite. Fourth years may choose, depending on where they feel they currently are. You may choose to swap half way through the lesson if you feel you chose the wrong option.
“Those of you attempting to make the hedgehog into a hairbrush, your spell is 'capillius', and involves and upward sweeping wand motion,” she levitated a hedgehog from a box on the opposite side of her desk and demonstrated, before returning him to his original form and repeating the demonstration of the wand movement in slow motion. “I have placed fencing charms around your desks, so they should not be able to get away from you. I recommend wearing your gloves if you need to nudge them back to starting position, but you shouldn't have too much need to handle them. Call me if you need them levitating. I am sure you are all competent at the Charm but it can be a little more difficult when used on a live target and I do not want the poor things being bounced off the ceiling.
“For those of you attempting the brush to hedgehog transfiguration, your spell is 'Erinaceinae,' and you are required to do a circular motion with a flick,” she demonstrated this, both with a brush and in slow motion, before putting both spells up on the board.
“As is always the case with Transfiguration, both your source – that is the item in front of you – and your target – the item you are aiming to end up with – will have some similarities and some differences. Focussing on what you need to alter will help you to channel your energy more effectively. I assume by now that most of you are well practised at making notes on the similarities and differences between your source and your target. Third years may make notes if they wish but over the course of this term, I will expect you to begin to internalise these thoughts. Older years, you should be able to hold the differences you are aiming to alter in your head. If anyone still has difficulties with this method, or has queries about it, feel free to ask,” she invited. She wasn't sure that this specific style had been used by her predecessor, although in her mind there were a limited number of ways to approach the subject, and so she found herself assuming that, at the very least, something similar would have been used. She waved her wand and a list of categories appeared on the board to prompt any of them who might be struggling to think of ways in which to compare their objects.
“There are tests that I can perform to see the history of your transfigurations, for anyone who was thinking of trying to swap objects with their neighbour when I'm not looking. I will be extremely disappointed if I catch anyone attempting this and penalties will apply,” she informed them, sternly. She hoped that the fifth years, especially, would realise that it would benefit them little to cheat, as they needed all the practise they could get for their CATS, but it was only fair and sensible to give warning.
“If you are stuck, you have several choices. You may talk with your neighbours or, if you are a younger year, I hope those in the classes above will be willing to offer their expertise. Older years, it should not be at the cost of completing your own class work, and you may refuse if you have too many things to get done, but you will find it will benefit your theory and your understanding of your own casting ability to try to explain it to someone else. Finally you can, of course, call on me. Fifth years and fourth years working with brushes may come and get one from the front. Hands up if you are a third year or want to start with a hedgehog and I will levitate one over to you. Oh, and look,” she indicated the hedgebrush on her desk, who still looked as happy and healthy as when they had begun. She countered the spell that she had performed, returning the brush to its box.
OOC – normal posting rules apply. You may assume that Professor Skies gives you a hedgehog if you request one or swaps your brush/hedgehog part way through the lesson if you ask her to. Otherwise, tag if you need me.
Subthreads: Sonic is cuter than I thought. by Fae Sinclair, Crotalus with Russell Layne, Aladren
Well, it's better than if a lorry hit it... by Henny B-F-R with Evan Brockert, Aladren
Trying not to kill something. by Cepheus Princeton, Crotalus with Michael Grosvenor
I wonder which this qualifies as. by Arabella Brockert, Pecari with Theresa Carey, Pecari
I want them both. by Alicia Bauer, Aladren with Arthur Carey, Aladren
13
Professor Skies
Intermediate Class - Hedgebrushes and hairhogs.
26
Professor Skies
1
5
Alicia Bauer, Aladren
October 18, 2012 8:11 PM
I want them both. by Alicia Bauer, Aladren
As she filed past her new Transfiguration teacher, Alicia was careful to return Professor Skies’ smile with the most winning version of her own before she went to find a seat near the front and get out her parchment and quill and wand for the class. The first two items, she left lying quietly on her desk, but the third she kept in her hands, balanced between her two sets of long fingers, which she used to turn it around and around as she waited for class to begin, despite knowing this was not very good manners.Twelve and a half inches long and made of walnut, it was nearly uniformly thin, only tapering to a point near one end and having only two bands of thicker handle-carving at the other before its rounded pommel. She treated it regularly, keeping it polished and checking it for any sign of damage even during the long, stifling summer months when she was not technically allowed to use it, and so it shone like new as she looked over it admiringly. Her wandmaker had applauded when it had first sent forth a long stream of gold and red sparks when she had lifted it from its box and swept it up over her head, saying that great things could be expected from the wielder of a walnut wand. She suspected, of course, that he said as much to everyone – she was a suspicious person, and it seemed like the best way to keep business in families – but she meant for it to be true in her case, and she had sometimes imagined that, over the past two fairly dull years, she had been able to feel her wand waiting along with her, waiting quietly for the day when they would be able to do some real magic and reach all that potential.
Transfiguration was one of the classes she had been looking forward to trying out Intermediate spells in the most, and she was finding it hard to hide her excitement as the roll was called and they got closer and closer to the actual class. When finally they did – the upside of the class structure was that having three years in let her work with the fifth years; the downside of the class structure was that having three years meant everything took forever to get through – she put her wand down almost at once, though she kept her left hand resting on it as her right took up her quill and began to copy down nearly every word that came out of Professor Skies’ mouth. She felt a sort of warm contentment as some of the theory of the transfiguration of the day came out, and she smiled again at the professor, this time much more sincerely.
The expression faded, though, into her customary ingratiating one when she heard that the third years were supposed to stick with the third year spell, and not attempt the fifth year one. The look she gave the back of the nearest fourth year head was not friendly. There were maybe three people in that year worth considering; why should they get a chance which was denied to her?
She pressed her lips together. Once she mastered the first spell – without resorting to making notes – she’d try the second, and that would be that. Professor Skies had said there was no harm done to anything through bungled attempts, so there was nothing to stop her even if she’d had an ethical objection, which she didn’t. Alicia would rather see most people – in other words, any people who were not herself, Thad, or Cepheus, and maybe Evan or Henny on a good day – in pain than small, cute animals, but it was easy enough to attain a level of dissociation with Transfiguration projects, and she didn’t expect to have any problems at all with those which were just Transfigured from an inanimate object and, as such, were not real.
For the meantime….
“Capillius,” she exclaimed, sweeping her wand as directed over the hedgehog which had been floated over to her.
There was a flash of light, and the hedgehog elongated strangely, its spiny back moving toward the front, over its head, while its legs bent backwards, flattening out, the front ones bending inward, as though to form the rounded wooden back of a hairbrush around the spines. Fascinated, Alicia bent forward to study it for a moment, her thick hair falling forward as she did; she reached up absently, impatiently, to brush it back. She bit her bottom lip, imagining the process which had just gone on, so much more vivid like this than it was when things just moved smoothly from form to form….
Then she sat back in her seat, impatient with herself, and performed the sweeping movement again – “Capillius!” – and though the prickly back did not move, the legs finished fusing together into the back and rudimentary handle of a hairbrush. She tapped it with a fingernail and made a face at the strange feeling, which was somewhere between flesh and wood.
“I’ve never felt anything like that before,” she remarked to her neighbor, her half-lidded dark eyes bright with the near success. It was not coming along at one swoop, as she should have liked, but Transfiguration was one of the things she could get away with practicing a little in her bedroom late at night at home, and she confidently expected to be in top form inside two weeks at the most, now that she didn’t have to whisper and make sure only to use spells she knew wouldn’t produce a bang or too bright of a flash of light, which might draw attention to her. By the end of class, she wanted to be able to get the hedgehog as far as it was now at one swoop; that was her goal for today. “This new professor – she’s throwing us right into it, isn’t she? I think I’m going to like her.”
16
Alicia Bauer, Aladren
I want them both.
210
Alicia Bauer, Aladren
0
5
Arthur Carey, Aladren
October 19, 2012 7:53 PM
Greed is a sin, you know by Arthur Carey, Aladren
A new professor in his CATS year was not, unless she represented a dramatic improvement over their last one, something Arthur necessarily saw as a good thing, but as he took a seat, he smiled politely and offered her a slight bow before sitting down. Whatever was or wasn’t best, this was what was, and she was going to be giving him his marks and possibly answering his questions, which meant it was best for him to be in her good graces, not in her bad.He watched with interest as she began the class, his quill in his hand to take notes as he heard what they were going to do and was pleased with it. It was an assignment he expected would be challenging for the first day back, and though he almost envied the third years, since a success for them as they started with animate Transfigurations would be more significant than one for him after two years of some familiarity with the topic, he wasn’t displeased with his assignment, either. Making a hedgehog – funny looking little creatures; for some reason, Arthur decided he liked them – out of a hairbrush was not unreasonable for a fifth year, but neither was it too easy, especially after the summer, so he was comfortable with the lesson.
He was also aware that his approval wasn’t required and might not even be welcome – some tutors, he had learned when he was small, had not liked it if he expressed that kind of thought – but he decided not to think about that. Arthur had found there were a lot of things where his opinion was not really necessary, but he’d also discovered that he couldn’t help having one, and that was the best solution he’d found to resolving that particular near-daily conflict.
He took out his wand, which he thought he might have finally grown into, and smiled thinly at the sight of the girl in the next seat – one of the third years, he recognized her; she was the one who was particular friends with Thaddeus, if he wasn’t mistaken, and who he’d seen talking with Russell before, too – toying with her wand. The wood was darker than his elm wand’s, but that could have just been the stain used; he thought the grain looked a bit different, but didn’t know enough about the matter to say for sure. He put his down to hear the rest of the instructions, memorizing the incantation he’d need to use to produce a hedgehog from a hairbrush and then, once the class was set to work, attempted it for the first time.
The handle of the brush bent inward, the back stretched and the bristles arched upward, but he did not get a complete shape from it. Before he could try again, the girl – Miss Bauer, he corrected himself; she was part of that family, though not, oddly enough, considering her looks, Mr. Bauer’s sister, but rather the Teppenpaw Seeker’s – spoke up, initiating conversation.
“I agree,” he said pleasantly, after a moment of surprise at a third year just striking up conversation with a fifth year. Aladrens were not known for being timid, after all; that wasn’t their House’s way. He had not seen himself as very inferior to the fifth years when he was a third year, if his memory was true, at least not by midterm. “A worthy addition to the faculty – as you are to the intermediate class, Miss Bauer,” he added politely. “You seem to be progressing well with your Transfiguration.” That, of course, was their House’s way, traditionally speaking, anyway. Of course there were exceptions, but not too many in general.
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Arthur Carey, Aladren
Greed is a sin, you know
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Arthur Carey, Aladren
0
5
Alicia
October 19, 2012 9:13 PM
Who says so? by Alicia
Alicia supposed it was a little bold, speaking to a fifth year, especially one who happened to be a Carey as well, but those in the old families who were not her friends – the ones who would never have to be spoken to like imbeciles by people with less intelligence than flobberworms, who’d never have to hold back a shudder as they were forced to pretend affection for the kind of filth they shouldn’t have had to look at, who didn’t have to suppress the urge to shatter every mirror they looked into, who had something, anything, outside of this building and who would gladly exile her back to that hell of having nothing for the rest of her life the moment she left this school if they found out what she was – just seemed to bring it out in her. She couldn’t help it. When she was around them, she had to prove she was as good as they were, if not better. She had to pretend to step up to their level.“Thank you,” she said, flushing with pleasure at the compliment and hoping to cover for it with a smile. “Though I already knew that,” she added.
After she said it, she was afraid that she might have gone just a little too far with that one, but feeling confident, she thought for a moment that she could ignore that. That was the great thing about school; no one could really do anything to her – except expose her, of course. Tell her friends. People from the East Coast didn’t worry her nearly as much as, say, the Bennetts or the Brockerts did, but it still was a risk. The feeling sure of herself faded away quickly.
“I’m guessing you know you’re doing well, too,” she said, lowering her gaze to her work again, then glancing up for a moment before trying her spell for the third time. The construct on her desk twisted further, then began to resemble a hairbrush more than it had. She looked at it with pleasure greater than that she’d felt at the compliment, sure that she would get it in order and still have plenty of class time left for practicing further, refining what she was doing. A moment’s reflection had let her realize she probably couldn’t get away with practicing the other spell in class, but she had more than one hairbrush back in her room in Aladren. One could be spared to the cause of at least trying the spell, even if she couldn't work it at all. Just the practice, and reading up on theory once she found it, would be good for her, and speed up the process of learning it. "Still, there's always room for improvement, isn't there?"
16
Alicia
Who says so?
210
Alicia
0
5
Arthur
October 20, 2012 4:21 PM
The goblins, for one by Arthur
Arthur raised an eyebrow when Miss Bauer claimed she had already known she was doing well. Definitely one of the Aladrens, he thought, who would have gone into Pecari if their House had not existed, one of the ones like his brother; he was more of a Crotalus type himself, he thought, but was fond enough of some of his otherwise-inclined classmates. Regardless of what they might have been, they were all Aladrens together, and better suited to that than they would have been to their second-best Houses.“I did,” he said when she softened enough to return the compliment. “But thank you anyway.”
He was not sure how to interpret the remark about improvement. “In theory,” he said, looking down at his work and attempting the spell again, “I don’t think so, no. I believe one can – hypothetically – eventually perform a spell perfectly, execute a Transfiguration just as planned. Then there would not be room for improvement.” His attempt at a hedgehog did not much improve, and he grimaced slightly as he prodded it with the tip of his wand, something which did not help it along, either. “However, we both still have plenty of room for it, I’ll agree with you about that.”
Jane had chastised him before – as tutors and his parents, and even a few times Arnold, had all done before her – about lacking patience. About not wanting to go through the process of things, but rather to jump straight to the favorable result. Arthur was honestly baffled by this. He did not think feeling that way made him any different from anyone else on the planet; he could wait, that was showing patience, in his book, and showing more patience than someone who didn’t mind doing so. Most people did want to get to the part where they had what they wanted, didn’t they? It seemed to him far more unnatural to enjoy struggling, though that meant acknowledging that his brother was a little bit abnormal, since he did enjoy it so very much on the Quidditch Pitch, at least generally speaking….
Still, he would get there someday, and that it was someday sooner than his classmates was a great consolation for him. He attempted the spell again and thought the nose on the half-formed thing he got twitched for a moment after it settled down. “Bit by bit, I suppose,” he said, more to himself than to her.
0
Arthur
The goblins, for one
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Arthur
0
5
Alicia
October 21, 2012 2:42 PM
Never mind them. by Alicia
"You're welcome," Alicia said, striving to remain civil this time, feeling that she'd gotten a bit of a pass with that and should take it. She almost liked to push the line, to make it creak and bend near its limit, but she knew it wasn't good for her, and she thought she usually knew where the line was, and that it was closer with some people than others. Arthur Carey was probably one of the people it was better not to push things with; he was from a certain kind of family, but beyond that, he was very intelligent. She had always felt an attraction to the fifth and sixth year group, with all that talent and all those connections, but she also knew they were perhaps the worst possible group in the school to get on the wrong side of.She had done what she could about that, establishing a friendly relationship with Russell, but she hadn't tried to go any further. For one thing, she knew the majority of them weren't likely to take her seriously, just as a third year who wasn't even on the Quidditch team, and for another...She knew, being best friends with Thad and friendly with Cepheus, that she was already walking a thin line, and the prospect of it getting so much thinner too quickly was one to make even her nervous. She didn't lack nerve, she would play the times and take any opportunities that presented themselves to her, but it made her nervous.
Sooner or later, of course, she knew she would have to get over her nervousness and make big moves, because she needed a patron. She would like nothing better than to have Thad's parents fill that role - she found the apparent relationship between them baffling, she couldn't quite believe in it, but the way it seemed was one of the things she couldn't help but envy even him - but she knew she would have to take at least an intermediate step up before she had any chance of that. Right now, her stepfather would do, but she didn't trust Jeremy to remain loyal to her if there were any hitches. She needed something more, but right now, she wasn't in a position to acquire anyone, so all she could really do was try not to alienate anyone potentially useful or dangerous.
"I don't believe you can ever do anything fully right," she said anyway when Arthur explained his theory, drawn to intellectual conversation however it came about. "Nothing's ever really perfect."
Taking the opposite position would have been fun anyway, but this time, it was true, true enough to bring a massive wave of bitterness in her, making her press her lips together for a moment before, her wand movement more forceful than was strictly necessary, trying the spell again and looking, at once angry and satisfied, at the hairbrush which rattled into existence before her. Poking it revealed it still wasn't hard enough, not really, but it looked entirely like a hairbrush, at least on this side. She glanced at Arthur's work and twisted her wand between her fingers again. She had to work more to manipulate her wand than most people, because hers had almost no bend to it at all. "Two more tries, and I'll be ready to try that," she added lightly, gesturing toward the fifth year's assignment.
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Alicia
Never mind them.
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Alicia
0
5
Arthur
October 21, 2012 10:07 PM
That doesn't sound wise to me by Arthur
Arthur did not, as a rule, put a great deal of thought into conversations with third years, generally making pleasant small talk while at least a small part of his mind was on something more interesting, and he was mildly surprised when Miss Bauer decided to contest his point about spellwork.“Certainly not for most people,” he said, still pleasantly. “But we must try to reach it, however we may.”
Deep down, Arthur wasn’t sure he believed what he was saying at all, but he had assumed the position now, anyway, and would argue it until the end. Revising his point in front of a third year was not really something he thought he wanted to do today, especially one he suspected might decide it was a brilliant excuse to try to badger him into a corner and then declare herself the victor. He did think he was right on the essentials, anyway – that there was an ideal state, it was just that only a very few people, if any people at all, could reach it. Perhaps it was not perfection, but it was the best that could be done, so he thought it was a bit academic to argue whether or not there was a difference….
He was not at all surprised to realize he was now curious about whether or not there was a difference. Try as he would, Arthur could never quite manage to stick to purely practical concerns. He had a terrible weakness for theater and abstraction, it was going to be the death of him someday, he was sure, and so on and so forth. It was like impatience, in that it was something he had simply accepted about himself and the universe and did not see as changeable; some things simply weren’t. By and large, people tended to stay themselves, it was only that some of them eventually became more so, to good or terrible effect, depending on which traits were magnified. Or at least, they did if he was right, and he was in the habit of thinking that he was, in fact, right.
However, whether perfection was possible or not, Arthur’s practical side did know that reaching it wasn’t his top priority. He didn’t feel the real need, deep and intrinsic and inescapable, to be perfect, without flaws of any kind. He just felt the need to be better than everyone else.
He laughed when Miss Bauer asserted that she was nearly ready to skip fourth year altogether and jump straight into his work. “I wish you luck,” he said, trying to suppress the amusement in his voice. He didn’t, after all, think it was impossible that she should do exactly what she said she was going to do – Jane had done as much, as a third year, studying with Edmond – even if he did think it was more than a little unlikely. “This assignment is an ambitious undertaking even for many of us in the year it was assigned to.”
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Arthur
That doesn't sound wise to me
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Arthur
0
5
Alicia
October 23, 2012 2:57 PM
I laugh in the face of danger! Hahahahaha! by Alicia
Perfection was, of course, something Alicia wanted, if there was such a thing, it was never going to happen for her. Even if everything went right – if her father and his entire family just disappeared, if she never had to see her mother again, if every trace of her real background were wiped off the face of the earth and she was able to replace it with a story everyone would believe - she would still know the truth, and that would keep things from being perfect.She had seen Anne in a play*, once, during midterm of her first year; a Muggle production, but she had smiled anyway, because she liked her tutor, and then an image from it had all but seized her by the throat. Anne had been playing a woman who talked her husband into killing and then gone mad, trying in her sleep to wash the blood off her hands every night. Alicia remembered that one moment as clearly as she did her routine this morning, because she knew how that woman had felt. She’d become a queen, risen as high as she could go, but she had never been able to make herself clean. Blood was permanent. It never went away as long as a person lived. A little luck would cover it up, but it would still be there, underneath. It wouldn’t go away.
Alicia fiddled with her wand again, the smooth wood beneath her fingers reminding her of how much greater her power was than that of any queen, ever, through the great long march of human history. I’m better than that, anyway, she assured herself. And there could be a way. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Thus comforted, she returned her attention to her conversation.
“However we may,” she agreed, suppressing the thought that he didn’t need perfection because he had a family. It did not help to think like that. There was no point to thinking like that, when she could control it.
She could tell Arthur found her amusing, and her teeth clenched together for a moment before she forced her jaw to relax again. She could not break her teeth just because of a boy who underestimated her. That would not help anything. “I’m an ambitious person,” she said coolly instead, working the third year spell again, refusing to let up until she had a perfect hairbrush. She would have to start over as soon as she did, to get one faster, to get one better, but she didn’t think about that now. The trick, she had discovered, was to get through one thing at a time, then worry about what came after; when she tried anything else, that was when it became overwhelming, and she thought that she might drown.
OOC: The play Alicia alludes to is, as a matter of record, Shakespeare’s Macbeth, specifically Act V, Scene i. The post title is a quote from memory from Disney's Lion King, specifically, I think, from the beginning of the 'elephant graveyard' sequence.
16
Alicia
I laugh in the face of danger! Hahahahaha!
210
Alicia
0
5
Arthur
October 25, 2012 10:18 PM
*Backs away slowly* by Arthur
Arthur was not precisely surprised when Miss Bauer didn’t bother to deny being an ambitious person, but her claiming the label so freely was at least mildly interesting to him. Ambition, after all, was not precisely a quality which was smiled on in all quarters; it did imply a certain lack of contentment with the place you had been born to, and in many cases a desire to take someone else’s. Not something, he thought dryly, that many people would approve of, particularly those who already had places.His family…He thought they held an utterly ridiculous stance on the matter. Officially, they disapproved of it, saying that everyone had a place and should be in their place, but at the same time, they had all heard, from the time they were very small children, about how they should be their best, which to him couldn’t help but imply that some ambition was expected. No one, after all, started off at their best; it was something to work toward, something to climb up to, and as far as he could tell, there was no one in the family who disagreed with him about that. So they were to be ambitious and unambitious, content in their place and looking to better themselves…The only conclusion he could come to was that the family didn’t really know what it wanted, and so it was up to them to decide for themselves and hope they did so in such a way that pleased their immediate superiors and didn’t anger the rest of society too much.
It was not, he thought, a very efficient way to run so large an organization as the Carey family, and it was probably part of why they were not more successful than they were. That was a shame, he thought, but maybe it was inevitable, as divided as they were. Everyone had his own scheme; Great-Great-Grandfather, like his twin brother before him, gave them a public face, and kept them together well enough to keep the other families from exploiting the divisions, but they were still closer to five families than one, each aiming always to become first among them.
“Well, I wish you luck with that, too,” he said cordially, attempting his own transfiguration again and getting it animated, even if its footsteps on the desk were curiously wooden-sounding and its bristles still looked more like those of a hairbrush than anything.
Everything, after all, came along eventually; it was just a matter of making himself persist, instead of giving into frustration. He knew this, and was proud to think that he had gotten better at persisting over time, and at knowing when and when not to wait. He hoped he was right about that, anyway.
0
Arthur
*Backs away slowly*
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Arthur
0
5
Alicia
October 26, 2012 11:00 AM
*Has no idea why you'd want to do that....* by Alicia
Alicia could not tell if Arthur Carey was mocking her, with his wish of luck for her ambitions, but she bowed her head anyway. Her heavy hair fell forward on the right side, the ends falling over her shoulder. “Thank you,” she said simply, and turned her attention back to her Transfiguration.Whether he was mocking her or not, he didn’t really mean it. Of that, Alicia was absolutely sure. Even not knowing what she was, and the implications that came with her becoming someone, she didn’t think he could. He was from a family which could be spoken of as a unit – “the Careys” – and he had no personal reason to want to see her succeed, no ties to or affection for her, and that was a combination which equaled him wanting her to stay where she was or else sink below that place.
She didn’t even resent it, much; she was, she thought, fully in support of those who didn’t deserve what they had – the stupid ones who had just been born to the right people, the lazy ones who took it all for granted, the arrogant ones who laughed at her for even trying, all of those types and all of their fellows – having it taken away from them, but not for large-scale social climbing, and would certainly want to stomp on anything that threatened such a place as she did have or the one she hoped to obtain. She understood. She just…didn’t care.
She wasn’t like the others – the others with her unfortunate birth. She knew that, knew it in her bones. Through something – luck, or fate, or a random quirk of genetics, she didn’t know, and didn’t care about that, much, either – she was better than them, smarter, more talented, but none of that mattered if anyone ever found out she was one of them. All anyone would ever remember about her was that she’d been descended from Muggles, had been a credit to her kind, but still not quite a person, not really. Just a mixed-blood. Not a threat, certainly. A trained dog. Look how clever she is.
She didn’t like the purebloods any better than she liked her own kind, as a general rule, since that they were whole angered her and the fixation on boys was, in her opinion, utterly stupid and ridiculous, but they had the power, which meant being accepted by them was the way clear to not being remembered that way. People could compliment her without even an unspoken but; she could be spoken to with respect, because people would think she deserved it completely, rather than in half-measures. At least, anyone who mattered would; her cousin Sam would disagree, she was sure, but who was he? Oh, yes. A half-blood and a bastard to boot. He couldn’t even do as well as his blood entitled him to because no one could be really sure of it, since his father had never even acknowledged him, never mind gone so far as to marry Aunt Hannah.
She began performing the spell again, but without any particular conviction for a try or two, just enjoying the sweeping wand movement, the flashes of light that accompanied each word. Sweeping wand movements were among her favorites, if having preferences in that even worked; certainly, she found it easier than swishes, and anything circular drove her crazy since she could never make a perfect circle.
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*Has no idea why you'd want to do that....*
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