Tabitha Brooding-Hawthorne
March 26, 2020 3:16 AM
Intermediate DADA - Let's learn about our slithering friends. by Tabitha Brooding-Hawthorne
Tabitha stifled a yawn and then ran a hand over her face, almost as if trying to rub the tiredness away. She blinked and looked down at the papers on her desk and sighed heavily as she first noticed that her normally neat, cursive writing was looking very sloppy and then the glaring mistake in what she’d written - Snallygasters were native to the US, not the UK. With a frown, she scratched out the mistake and corrected it. She was going to have to pull herself together. In moments, her Intermediate class was going to walk through the doors and it wouldn’t do to have them find their Defence teacher slumped over her desk and making mistakes. She would have to ask if Mary could brew her some Wit-Sharpening Potion. Just one bottle - to avoid glaring errors like the one she’d just made.Clumsily, Tabitha got up from her chair, several bones cracking as they tried to get rid of their stiffness. She’d been sitting in her desk chair all morning, even having skipped breakfast to catch up on her work, evidenced by the disarray of all her papers. Slowly and with more concentration than she should’ve needed, she flicked her wand in the direction of the desk and her papers rose to stack themselves. They didn’t end up in the tidiest of piles that they normally would’ve done but Tabitha supposed she was just lucky that they didn’t end up all over the room instead - at least today’s lesson plan was now easily found. What was it anyway?
“Oh, yes… Snakes.”
Tabitha wasn’t the biggest fan of the creatures. She wasn’t scared of them exactly, she just found them somewhat creepy and she’d never forgotten the Runespoor she’d encountered. She shuddered a little. A normal snake was disturbing, a Runespoor with its three heads was worse.
She’d chosen snakes as a topic for a reason and it was a rather lazy decision. There were many species of snakes and once she’d covered the general subject matter, she was going to let the students for their homework, choose one and research it for an essay. No practical magic was needed which, in her current state, seemed like the right decision. She didn’t need a stray curse hitting a student and for her to be unable to cast the counter curse safely. It was better, it seemed, to put her wand down for the moment.
The door to her classroom opened as her Intermediates started to trickle in. She waited until they were all seated with their things ready on the desk before she greeted them, trying not to let another yawn slip out.
“Hello, class,” she started, managing to pull a tired smile onto her face. “Today, we’re going to be looking at snakes. Now, you will all be familiar with the muggle version of snakes, the boa constrictors, the vipers and so on, yes?”
She waited for some murmurs of agreement before carrying on. “Well, in the Wizarding World, there are even more species, unseen by the muggles and they can be infinitely more dangerous too. They exist on every continent, except for Antarctica and, as you will know from your Potions lessons, they are frequently hunted down and harvested for their eggs, skin or even their fangs to create many of the potions we use today.”
She paused to stifle a yawn behind her hand before carrying on. “Excuse me,” she apologised before turning to the chalkboard. “So, the types of snakes that exist are as follows…”
Instead of using her wand to control the chalk, she decided that the traditional handheld method of writing was better at the moment. “There is the Ashwinder, born from magical fires that is left to burn forever. They have very short lifespans, living for only an hour before disintegrating into ash.”
“The Runespoor, native to Africa, specifically Burkina Faso. Easy to recognise as it has three heads which also makes it extremely dangerous - each head does something different and thinks independently. As a result of this, it is not uncommon to see a Runespoor with a head missing, bitten off by the other two.”
“The Horned Serpent, a giant snake that lives in the water. There are many species of this particular one that exist worldwide. As suggested by its name, it has horns on its head and some, usually those found in North America, have a jewel in their head, which grants them the powers of invisibility or flight.”
“Another water snake is simply called The Sea Serpent and is found in many of the world’s seas, including the Meditteranean and the Pacific. Doesn’t have a tendency to harm humans, despite its fearsome size and a horse-like head but do like to eat Selmas, which is a human flesh eating and ferocious water serpent, native to the freshwater lakes of Norway.”
“And finally, the biggest and the most feared, is the Basilisk. Much like the lion is known as the ‘King of the Jungle’, the Basilisk is considered to be the King of the Serpents. A beast of extraordinary dark magic, a direct stare from it can kill you stone dead and an indirect stare through means of reflection or the suchlike, results in petrification. Created by dark wizards through the illegal breeding practice of hatching chicken eggs beneath toads.”
Tabitha finished writing and stepped back, eyeing her work for a moment. Her handwriting was a little scruffy but still legible. She written short bullet points for each snake, in a list.
“The reason I am teaching you about snakes and that you are not only learning about them in your Care of Magical Creatures classes is because snakes are generally associated with the Dark Arts, a fact that is both true and untrue. Like wizards, they can be nasty or dark but also, they can simply exist in peace. You need to be taught how to defend yourselves against them.”
“One method is the snake-vanishing spell, which will certainly take care of snakes such as the Ashwinder. Pronounced ‘Vipera Evanesca’, it’ll vanish the snake in a thick puff of black smoke. Some of the bigger snakes such as the Runespoor are much more difficult and require the use of destructive spells such as ‘bombarda’ to repel them. Though, remember, snakes are magical creatures, their skin has defensive properties against magic. Sometimes, all you will be able to do is create a distraction in order to buy time to turn and run.”
“And finally, there is Parseltongue which is the language of snakes. Some people can speak it without any effort at all, an innate ability that they have no need to learn, allowing them to communicate effortlessly with snakes. It can be learnt but such a thing is very difficult that, even after years of practice, you might only be able to understand what a snake is saying and not be able to speak back to it. Still, for those of you interested in learning Parseltongue, I would not discourage you. Even a few simple words in your arsenal could make the difference between surviving and not.”
Tabitha stifled another yawn and shook her head. Her legs were aching from standing, a side effect of being tired, no doubt. She needed to wrap this lecture up and set her students to work.
“For your work today as well as your homework, you are to pick one of the snakes listed on the board and research it. Find out everything you can about your chosen one, and I would like to see some original ideas for defence. All essays are to be turned in in a week’s time. I would like to see at least two pages, preferably more. You are to work individually on this but I do not mind you conversing quietly. You may begin.”
OOC - all information pulled from the Harry Potter wiki. Normal class rules apply.
Subthreads: This is hilarious. by Hilda Hexenmeister
Ew by Caitlin Pierce
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Tabitha Brooding-Hawthorne
Intermediate DADA - Let's learn about our slithering friends.
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Hilda Hexenmeister
April 13, 2020 7:21 PM
This is hilarious. by Hilda Hexenmeister
"Heute lernen wir etwas über Schlangen," Heinrich translated, his expression changing just a little bit to take on a slightly wry cast, and Hilda burst out laughing. Snakes? They were learning about snakes? Oh, this was going to be her best class ever. She made a dismissive wave to make people stop looking at her because laughing was usually not the normal response to this topic, but her expression remained supremely amused and she occasionally let out another muffled chortle. She felt a little bad, because the teacher probably thought Heinrich was joking with her instead of just dutifully translating like a good brother.(Though, Heinrich being Heinrich, maybe she wouldn't think that at all because Hilda didn't think the school had a bigger stickler for the rules outside of Crotalus, and possibly within Crotalus than her brother.)
She still did not offer any verbal participation to the discussion because English, but she certainly could have if she'd been willing to attempt to speak the class language.
Uncle Karl didn't have any Great Horned Serpents, Sea Serpents, or Selmas on his snake ranch in the badlands of Utah of course (there not being much in the way of water in literal deserts), but he had some Ashwinder colonies, and even a Runespoor, though they were clearly told not to go too near to that one, as well as more varieties of non-magical snakes than she could name. She didn't think he had a basilisk, but frankly, she really wouldn't be surprised if he kept one out on the far reaches of his property. He wasn't Dark (to her knowledge), but he was a Hexenmeister, so maybe her Dad had given him one for his birthday or something.
Though, honestly, she was kind of baffled about why hatching chicken eggs under toads was such a bad thing. Bizarre, certainly, but it hardly seemed Dark. There had to be more to it than just that.
"Uncle Karl will kill us if we Vanish his Ashwinders, or attack Futhark," Hilda remarked in a low whisper to her brother after the lecture was finished, speaking, of course, in German.
"We would not use these spells on Uncle Karl's snakes," Heinrich told her in the same language. "His are not evil."
Hilda frowned, considering this. Professor Hawthorne had said snakes could be dark, or they could be peaceful, so she supposed it was likely Uncle Karl only kept the later kind.
Well, at least they wouldn't need to tell Uncle Karl they were practicing such spells today. They were just writing papers about snakes, even if there was a focus on fighting them that Uncle Karl would not approve of. Maybe she should work on one of the water snakes so she could not be perceived as having terrible intentions toward his snakes. "It was the Selmas that eat people?" she checked, and Heinrich nodded. "I will do my paper on them," she decided.
"Good idea," Heinrich approved, speaking this time in English. "I think I will do that, too." He was careful in his enunciation and paused between each word. She nodded, to show she had understood him.
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Hilda Hexenmeister
This is hilarious.
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Caitlin Pierce
April 17, 2020 2:47 PM
Ew by Caitlin Pierce
Caitlin honestly really disliked Defense Against the Dark Arts. Even if Professor Hawthorne had not been generally promoting ideals that were disagreeable-she still remembered how Winston had said the professor had allowed Kir McLeod to derail a class into utter nonsense and how they'd looked into dueling as a sport which had zero place in a class that was supposed to be about protecting oneself from dark creatures and dark wizards-it was still not an appropriate subject for proper ladies such as herself.And the Crotalus was simply not going to be in a situation where it would be necessary to defend herself. Things which involved danger were also things that were most unladylike. The only use Caitlin had for this class would be to prove herself an adequate magical user-because being good at magic, even magic one was not going to use often was important- or if Thaddeus and the Other Alicia came after her in retaliation-and she was sure they'd go after her brother first. Besides, in that situation,Caitlin would be able to hire someone to defend her.
Professor Hawthorne began the lesson and the fifth year wrinkled her nose. This was pretty much what she meant by distasteful subjects. Snakes definitely had their place in the magical world, as potions ingredients and whatnot, but Caitlin was generally not a fan of them.
And considering their associations with dark magic, it was highly insulting that the Crotalus mascot was a rattlesnake. To her, that said that the founders of Sonora associated the proper and respectable with evil. As far as Caitlin was concerned, both Topaz and the Other Alicia were far more likely to be practitioners of the Dark Arts than any Crotali that she knew and they were Aladrens.
Still, at least this wasn't a lesson where she had to do something... athletic and get all sweaty and gross. Snakes were not a fun or even that interesting a topic but at least Caitlin was fairly good at writing essays and other papers. She picked out a snake and got down to work.
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Caitlin Pierce
Ew
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