This sounds suspicious on Charms

Grayson Wright

January 25, 2021 1:23 PM

Now you see it, now you don't (Beginners) by Grayson Wright

Logically speaking, Selina’s absences should not have had a great impact on Gray’s life in the mansion. He had not, after all (to his relief – in theory, they should have been the most similar to members of his own House, but in practice, he found many of them a bit unfathomable), been among those deputized to shepherd the Crotali, and he was largely self-sufficient on a day-to-day basis, not one inclined to lean too heavily on the administrators. Even in past years, when he had been far less even remotely certain of what in the world he was doing as a teacher, he had been temperamentally, or at least habitually, more inclined to bluff on his own than to bother anyone. Now, after all these years and an extended failure to die due to critical mismanagement of Aladren, it would have seemed strange and presumptuous to indicate an interest in assistance, and so he didn’t do that either.

Practically speaking, he was not sure why, exactly, but he had been feeling more stressed than usual, and this in his mind was linked with the recurring absences of the Deputy Headmistress. Even an Aladren, perhaps, liked to know there was a single steady hand on the tiller, even if he preferred to avoid being steered where he could – and with four people doing Selina’s job and Mortimer being as detached as ever, it was painfully clear that the steady hand was hers.

More practically speaking yet, he tried not to think about it too much. Thinking was, after all, a road that led directly to being aware of stress, or at least of the avoidable kinds of stress. The unavoidable stuff was quite enough to get on with.

“Hello, students,” he said, fairly loudly, to get everyone’s attention, or at least as close to ‘everyone’s’ as he could reasonably hope for in a room full of eleven-to-thirteen-year-olds.

“Let’s get to work. As we’ve discussed before,” he began, “our people are required by law to conceal our true nature, as well as the natures of certain animals and some of our possessions, from people who are neither part of the community nor parts of our immediate families.” Better to use the broad phrase over a specific term here; there was, after all, more than one way to lack magical ability. His mother had looked somehow distinctly frail the last time he had snatched a couple of hours from his duties to drop in on her, though she insisted she was as well as ever… “By the time you leave school, you’ll know several spells and a few potions which will help you do your parts in maintaining secrecy. Today, though, we’re going to work on what to do when you want to stop concealing something.

“The incantation you’ll use today is aparecium,” he told them. A piece of chalk scribbled the word out fully on the board, then hopped down a line and began to write it again, this time breaking it down into its syllables. “All together now – no wands, please – ap-ar-ee-see-um. ap-ar-ee-see-um. ap-ar-ee-see-um. Very good. As for the wand movement, this is one of the simplest: you tap the concealed object twice while you say the incantation.

“You probably see a limitation to this spell right away,” he acknowledged. “You have to know where the object is in order to tap it. You also probably realize that since you’re learning this charm in beginners, it’s not going to break every concealing enchantment there is – so I’m afraid that any adult witches and wizards you know will still be able to keep things hidden from you for a while. Once you master this charm, though, you will be able to break a standard concealment charm, and be able to read invisible ink. We’ll start working on mastery with invisible ink.”

He pointed his wand at a stack of seemingly blank papers, which began floating around the room, pausing in front of each student until a sheet was removed from the pile. “I’ve written a unique message on each of these papers,” he informed them. It had taken him a while to do that; apart from the difficulty of coming up with so many unique encouraging and congratulatory messages, in the interests of keeping the task fair, he had also had to keep all the messages close to the same length, a single sentence without parenthetical statements or semicolons or any of those things he usually had a weakness for. It had taken some creativity. “Your task is to reveal the message on the piece of paper you have. Once you’ve accomplished that, you can begin reviewing finite incantatem, to see if you can return the ink to an invisible state.”

That would be more of a challenge than they might think up-front, considering that finite incantatem was one of the very first spells he taught first years, and which they used regularly in class. In general, though, the spell simply terminated the operation of another spell; here, it was working on what was essentially a potion, altering the internal workings of the structure of the ink. In order to revert the ink to invisibility, it had to restore that structure, along with terminating the spell preventing subterfuges from operating on the paper. It was easier than Transfiguring the ink to make it invisible when it had not begun that way might be, perhaps, but this was an area where the two subjects started to blur their lines a bit. Those who drew this conclusion for themselves would probably give him more interesting responses to the homework he was going to set at the end of class, but that was for the future; one of the bits of wisdom he had more or less picked up along the way in this job was that it was usually best not to clutter their heads with too many directions at once.

OOC: Welcome again to Beginner’s Charms. Same rules and regulations as always; enjoy!

Subthreads:

What did we see? by Billy Cobb with Isla Brockert

Fancy seeing you here, Tommy by Rosalynn Tellerman with Tommy Jamison

This sounds suspicious by Valentine Duell with Lavender Brockert

16 Grayson Wright Now you see it, now you don't (Beginners) 113 1 5

Billy Cobb

January 30, 2021 5:36 PM

What did we see? by Billy Cobb

As usual, Billy entered the classroom as late as he possibly could while still being on time. He didn't like being late for stuff, and he certainly didn't like missing out on things. However, he also really, really didn't like sitting around in these classrooms all the time. Still, he was learning to put up with it. Ever once in a while they had a really neat lesson about how do do some really cool stuff. Although he still much preferred Care of Magical Creatures and Herbology to Charms. He dropped his things and flopped down into his seat as Professor Wright began to talk.

The first thing the man started talking about was yet another reminder that they couldn't tell no one about all this stuff. That had made things really kinda awkward at home over break. To say he lived in a bit of a close-knit community with all his extended family was a bit of an understatement. Plus, to the best of his recollection, he's the first one to have gone away off the mountain for any sort of schoolin'. Ma and Pa were having a hard enough time trying to figure out what to tell everyone, and he'd learned that they weren't all satisfied with the answers they'd been gettin'. So he'd had tons of questions asked over the holidays by aunts, uncles, cousins, second-cousins, everyone about what was going on and what was he doing. He weren't really one for lyin' either.

So he told everyone that he was going off to school for some fancy learning to become a famous world-explorer. He was learning all about weird cultures and strange critters and odd plants. Since he couldn't really go into specifics, he wasn't sure how many of 'em were happy with them answers, but that was what he had to give 'em.

This class seemed almost like a nice change of pace, unhiding stuff instead of hiding it. He grinned and repeated the word along with the professor. These classes and their funny words. He was about to ask about the whole 'tapping the invisible thing' when the professor brought that up himself. He wondered if they'd learn a way to find invisible things so that they could use this trick on them later.

Catching the paper that had come his way, he looked at it to make sure it was actually blank. It was, both sides. He wondered which side of the paper held the message. But that was probably part of the lesson. He leaned over to the person next to him, "Which side do ya think the message is on?" He asked, curious to see what they would say.

2 Billy Cobb What did we see? 1519 0 5

Rosalynn Tellerman

January 30, 2021 6:38 PM

Fancy seeing you here, Tommy by Rosalynn Tellerman

Before she'd known she was dating Tommy, she'd gone out of her way to sit with him during class at quite frequently. Not every class, of course, she had her two roommates to hang out with as well, and she did want to make some other friends among the other Beginners students, but at least twice a week she'd make sure she got a seat next to Tommy's.

Now that she knew they were an item, she had increased that frequency to once a day. Usually. Some days she missed him for one reason or another, but most days she sat with him at least once. Today, it was in Charms.

She slid into the seat next to his with a smile and a "Hi, Tommy." From her bag, she pulled out some parchment for taking notes, and her quill, and her textbook, and set them out in their usual arrangement on her desk. She kept her wand in its arm holster until she needed it. It was safer there, less prone to rolling onto the floor, and it was plenty easy to get to there. She'd noticed that not every one had an arm holster, which had kind of surprised her given how adamant her father had been that she needed one, but she liked hers. It was very convenient and she always knew where her wand was.

And she could pretend she was a Fairy Godmother pulling it out of her sleeve.

She took dutiful notes as Professor Wright began the lesson, and chanted the incantation along with everyone else, which was quite helpful in teaching her how to pronounce it. She noted down both its proper spelling and how they'd said it onto her parchment. Rosalynn continued to record the lesson's key points as it continued on, up to and including the goal targets for today's practical.

Once she put her quill down, she regarded the blank paper that she'd been given and put aside earlier. With a shrug to say that they may as well get started, she slid her wand out of her sleeve with a bit more dramatic flair than was entirely necessary, but which was quite fun to do, then turned the tip on her page.

"Ap-ar-ee-see-um!" she cast with confidence and a double tap on the paper.

Faint words appeared, almost too light to read, but if she squinted and held it close enough to her face she could just barely make them out. "You are a fantastic person," she read aloud haltingly, having some trouble with 'fantastic' as it sort of faded out in the middle of the word. She grinned and held the sheet out to Tommy. "Here, I think this one is supposed to be yours, boyfriend."

1 Rosalynn Tellerman Fancy seeing you here, Tommy 1520 0 5

Isla Brockert

January 31, 2021 5:01 PM

Only a little so far by Isla Brockert

OOC: CW- Paragraoh about Eustace including minor implied homophobia BIC:

Isla generally enjoyed her classes, for the most part although she was certain there would be DADA lessons she wouldn't like, based on what her sisters and cousins had said as she wasn't all that into or skilled at anything athletic. She wouldn't have a near breakdown like Allegra or be completely disgusted and offended over being asked to do such things like Esme, but she wouldn't enjoy them either. Everything else, all the academic and magical stuff, however, was fascinating.

Charms was no exception. While Professor Wright sometimes went on and on, Isla was usually was into it. She could usually find at least some bit of it interesting. Some bit of it made her think.

Today, that bit was that about people hiding their natures. For the most part, people Isla knew didn't seem to hide much of who they were even when they really should. Like Topaz did seem to try to hide who she was from authority figures so she would get away with the things she did but on the other hand, Uncle Eustace did not. Isla was unsure whether that was because he wasn't a good enough actor-indeed, her uncle was exactly the sort to think certain things about men who became actors and have a huge problem with them-or because he didn't think he needed to, which was normally a good thing, not to be ashamed of who you were, but again, he really should be and it came across as just plain arrogant since he also belittled males who weren't like him and women in general. Or it was because there were no good parts of him to show instead. Topaz at least was brilliant.

Of course, Professor Wright seemed to be more referring to Statute of Secrecy type stuff than people hiding bits of themselves they were ashamed of, like Sapphire not wanting to tell people she was epileptic or things they needed to keep to themselves in order for survival. LIke, Topaz wasn't ashamed of being a psychopath, but she knew that if she was caught doing something terrible, she'd face consequences for it and everyone else knew that if they said anything, they would.

Actually, the Statute of Secrecy, was similar to Topaz manipulating people in order to get away with things, only with far more noble purposes. Because it was also about survival, only instead of a psychopath not wanting to get in trouble, it was a group of people not being persecuted for their differences. There were more Muggles than there were witches and wizards and back before the Statute, magic had been often seen as evil. Exploitation, such as forcing magical people to be slaves or soldiers-a sort of slavery when not a choice considering you could actually die-would also be a possibility.

And yes, Isla's family used house-elves, but they liked serving wizards. It was a fact of their species. However, it was important to treat them well, which pretty much most of her family, except, of course, for Topaz and Uncle Eustace, who didn't really treat anyone well anyway.

However, the lesson wasn't about whether or not one agreed with the Statute-which Isla did- it was about aparecium and learning how to use it. Awesome. It was always cool to learn a new spell. Any spell. Even ones that didn't have an obvious use, which was sometimes the case. It was just cool to know how to do them.

This was one of those that, however, that she could. Of course, it was an "evil" use. Evil was a strong word, in this case, but it was a definitely a negative purpose. While Isla was not generally a devious person, she had a cousin who was. Therefore, she had to think of ways one could be in order to stay ahead of Topaz. Not that she was always successful.

As Professor Wright said, aparecium was about stopping concealment. Therefore, the first use one could find for such a spell would be to pry into someone else's business, like reading someone's diary. Although, Isla supposed one could use it to thwart someone's evil plans. Of course, she only knew one person who actually made evil plans and she was pretty sure that if she read something private of Topaz's, it would not go well for her. The older Aladren would talk her way out of trouble and then mutilate Isla's puppets. Or Isla.

Also, Topaz was older than her and knew more magic so that would lessen the first year's chances of success.

It was still cool to learn a new spell though. She received her piece of paper. "Aparecium" . Some of the letters in the sentence appeared, in varying degrees of clarity, but not all of them. Isla could make out a th- and further down a lower case a and a few es.

"Which side do ya think the message is on?"

Isla took in her neighbor, Billy, someone she really hadn't interacted with much before though Jasper had talked to him earlier in the year and been surprised when he'd mirrored back the standard pureblood introduction as the Teppenpaw hadn't heard of the Cobb family. Jasper had wondered why more people didn't, given they were technically correct. Certainly there were people who would have responded less than kindly to Billy doing that but the second year had thought it was a good deal better than assuming the worst about the person who'd introduced themselves how they'd been taught their whole lives and for whom it was habitual.

Much like her cousin, Isla was surprised by the Pecari. "I...don't know. I assumed it was the side that was face up when it was handed out. That's a really could question. You could try both sides."

11 Isla Brockert Only a little so far 1521 0 5

Billy Cobb

February 04, 2021 4:49 PM

You think there's a lot more? by Billy Cobb

Billy glanced at the girl's paper and saw it had some faint marks on it, the beginnings of words. Then he looked back at his own and flipped it over. If the girl was right, he probably should have payed more attention to how it'd been oriented when he grabbed it. Oh well. He gave her a friendly grin, "Well, I guess we'll see what happens on the one side. Maybe I'll just get lucky." He nodded towards her own paper, "Looks like yer assumption was 'bout right." He turned back to his own paper and examined it to see if he could see any indication that one side of it had any sort of writing on it. He didn't see any.

"Alrigh' then, let's see what happens." He gripped his wand and rolled up his sleeve. Then, tapping the paper twice as instructed he said the magical word with his standard drawl, "Apa'ecium". Nothing happened. Hmm, he muttered to himself. "Well... I guess the writin' mus' be on the other side." He commented more to himself than to his neighbor and flipped the paper over. He repeated the process with the same results.

"Well, if that jus don' beat all." he said while looking at his paper with a mixture of disbelief and mild disappointment. He turned back to the girl next to him, showing her the still blank paper. "I think he gave me one he ain't wrote on at all by mistake."

2 Billy Cobb You think there's a lot more? 1519 0 5

Valentine Duell

February 04, 2021 6:11 PM

This sounds suspicious by Valentine Duell

Valentine hobbled into class early, well as early as she could. She had gotten released from the hospital wing, but things still hurt at times. Ordinarily she liked to get a seat in the middle of the room where she could be surrounded by people, but today maybe a seat not that far from the door would be okay. She unloaded her supplies with a sigh of relief and sank into the chair. She debated about pulling out her game notebook to jot down some more of the things she had thought out while she'd been laying around without anyone to talk to, but the thought of getting that out then putting it away to get out class stuff seemed like more effort than she wanted to expend just at this moment. So she settled with getting her class things out and watching the other students trickle into the room.

She smiled and waved to all her friends as they entered, and then Professor Wright began class. She nodded along with his introduction and repeated the word of the day along with the other students. When the papers came around the room she took hers and glanced over the blank sheet. What secrets did it hold? One way to find out, she picked up her wand which had thankfully survived the incident, and tapped the paper twice. "Aparecium!" she said while trying to focus her will on making those words visible. It worked a bit, a few letters appeared, scattered about the page. Only one of them faded back out a moment later. She sighed, which made her wince. Oww... She turned to her neighbor, "I've gotten a few letters to show up, how are you doing?"

2 Valentine Duell This sounds suspicious 1490 0 5

Lavender Brockert

February 05, 2021 7:52 PM

Seems like a straight forward kind of spell to me. by Lavender Brockert

Lavender's eyes lit up as she walked into Charms and saw Val sitting there. Of course, she'd been concerned about her friend, who had been in the Hospital Wing. Not only had the Teppenpaw gotten hurt but she had to have been lonely too. Especially someone like Val who enjoyed socializing so much. Lavender had made sure to go and visit her as much as possible.

After all, that's what she would want if she was in the Hospital Wing . She would want to know that the people she cared about also cared about her. Assuming she wasn't there with something contagious, of course, because she also wouldn't want to get anyone else sick. She would feel super guilty about making someone else suffer.

So, Lavender was very happy to see that Val was back in class because it meant she was feeling better. Unfortunately, she didn't have enough time to do more than greet her friend quickly and take a seat next to her before Professor Wright began the lesson.

Secrecy was not something she'd ever really given much thought to. She really hadn't ever had to worry about the Statute much, even though Lavender knew her cousin Kira worried about it a lot. Kira could quote it backward and forward, more or less literally. Which in terms on unusual talents was honestly really pretty impressive, and less gross than Daddy being able to burp the alphabet.

Still, Lavender didn't have Kira's other, even more impressive talent, which was basically being extraordinary at magic. Not that the second year wasn't good at it, she did just fine, better than some, but her cousin was really amazing. Which was why Kira had to be more cautious about it.

Anyway, it wasn't as if the second year spent any time around Muggles or had to deal with the smaller scale sorts of issues involving secrecy. She had nothing to hide from people and not really anyone to hide things from. Lavender wondered if the former made her boring or just childish.

Professor Wright handed out the papers that had the invisible ink on them. "Aparecium " Lavender said, tapping her paper. Some letters appeared albeit not all of them. She was just about to give it another try when Val spoke to her. "About the same." She replied.

11 Lavender Brockert Seems like a straight forward kind of spell to me. 1504 0 5

Valentine Duell

February 06, 2021 5:35 AM

That's just what they want you to think. by Valentine Duell

Valentine was overjoyed that Lavender had taken the seat next to her. The Crotalus girl had come to see her a few times during her stay in the hospital wing, and that had been a life saver. Medic Willow was a nice and wonderful person whom Val liked and appreciated very much, but... that was her job. Her friends and family that visited had taken time out of their own schedules to come and visit her, to see how she was doing. That made her feel all fuzzy, warm and loved. It also made her really want to get out of that hospital bed.

She looked at the paper Lavender was working on and smiled, thankfully it didn't hurt much to do that anymore. "Thank-you again for coming to visit me, I really appreciated it." Valentine moved to embrace her friend in a hug, but paused half way there with a wince as some pain shot through her back and arm muscles. She grimaced, and pushed through. She was going to give Lavender a hug if it killed her. She kinda hoped it didn't though.

As she pulled back she gave Lavender a serious look, "A word of advise, if you're every flying a broom and need to dodge a lightning bolt, I suggest pulling up not down." She couldn't hold the straight face for long before she giggled, which still kinda hurt a little as well.

2 Valentine Duell That's just what they want you to think. 1490 0 5

Isla Brockert

February 06, 2021 4:03 PM

Yes by Isla Brockert

Instead of going back to her own work, Isla watched as Billy tried the spell again. She wanted to be able to help him if he needed it and if she was capable of doing so. He tried it on one side and then the other. As he did, she noted something which was that he had a very thick accent. Obviously, in itself that should not be a problem, since there were students of different nationalities at Sonora and he shouldn't have to force himself to talk differently.

The thing was, though, that to do a spell you had to pronounce the words correctly. Which he wasn't. Billy was not pronouncing the R in aparecium. Which lead to dilemma for Isla. How did she tell him that without coming across condescending and snooty. She didn't really care how he talked in his day to day life, although there were probably those among them at Sonora that would look down on him. Like, Topaz, who would probably make fun of him for sounding uneducated or something. Plus, the older Aladren had a tendency to give people derogatory nicknames and Isla was sure she'd come up with one for Billy super easily, if she knew his existence. Fortunately, for the other first year, unrelated much younger people in different houses were beneath Topaz's notice.

Of course, Isla's cousin had also signed up to be the stage manager for the concert but she didn't think Billy was involved with it.

However, the fact that the Pecari hadn't gotten results yet could also just be that it sometimes took people a few times to have any success at all. " I don't think that's the case." Professor Wright had always struck Isla as fairly meticulous and detail oriented. "Not everyone always gets results right away." She reassured him. "The one thing I can see that might help you is that, well, you're not saying the spell right. It's a-pa-re -ci-um. I don't want to like, insult how you talk, because it's fine to talk however in everyday conversation, even though some people might give you a hard time, but spells are picky. You have to speak very precisely and to do the wand motions exactly right. At least at this point. Non-verbal magic is harder and we'll get into it in later years. Like in Advanced classes, which is sixth and seventh year."

Of course, now that Billy had been flipping around his paper, presumably without keeping track of which side was which, there was another problem. "I suppose you could also try doing it on mine now, because we already know that there are words on this side." Isla suggested.

11 Isla Brockert Yes 1521 0 5

Tommy Jamison

February 07, 2021 11:41 AM

Fancy seeing, indeed! by Tommy Jamison

The two sides of Tommy - the sensible one and the eleven-year-old one - had two simultaneous reactions to the lesson today. His more mature and intellectual side wondered how often this disappearing ink stuff came up in his parents’ work. Both lawyers, it seemed like something people might try to use to sneak by the law, only to have it discovered when their spells weren’t quite as good as they thought they were. Tommy’s youthful side had a much more straightforward thought: they could totally play super spies with this.

And if he knew anything from bingeing James Bond movies at Sophie’s house, it was that every good spy needed his girl, so he was very happy to report that he and Rosalynn were sitting together today. She looked really cute in her uniform, and he also liked working with her in class because she was pretty darn smart. He had really gotten lucky dating an Aladren, although Tommy himself was no dummy either. He knew a lot of smart people in other Houses, too, but Aladrens were sort of guaranteed to have something going on upstairs.

He watched Rosalynn try first, both to learn from her if she got it right and to support her if she didn’t and was upset by it. It was a light faint, but she got it eventually, and after reading it aloud shifted the compliment his way. “Aww, thanks,” he grinned. “I bet mine’s for you, then. Let’s see what it says!”

After a few attempts, though, Tommy couldn’t quite make anything legible manifest on the page. “Wait, I got it,” he promised. Then he quickly switched out his wand for his quill and scribbled down his own message on top of whatever invisible secrets were already there. You are cute, he scribbled, his penmanship a chicken scratch almost as illegible as the invisible ink. He held it up for her to read herself. “There we go!” he declared.

12 Tommy Jamison Fancy seeing, indeed! 1518 0 5

Billy Cobb

February 07, 2021 1:33 PM

You seem very convinced by Billy Cobb

Billy gave the girl, he was going to have to think of a way to get her to reveal her name somehow but that could wait for the moment, a surprised look. She was right of course, the professors had kept saying stuff like that, and even as Professor Wright was showin' them how to do this one, he'd made them all pronounce it. The look of surprise shifted to one of muddled confusion. "I didn' say it right?" he paused as if trying to remember, "Apa'ecium" he said again faintly. "Sounds right ta me." He said with a shrug.

He looked back up to the board up front where the word had been written out by the sounds. "Ap ar ee see um." He sounded out, maybe there was a little difference there. "Ap ar ee see um." Yeah, "Apa'ecium". Hmm.. no... He looked down at his paper again, assuming the professor didn't actually make a mistake, he was going to have to do this right.

When the girl offered him her paper he gave her a grin, "Thanks miss, I appr'ciate the ges'ure, but that's yer challenge and I got mine." He was gunna have to figure this out, and finishing off someone else's work didn't quite seem right. "I'm certainly not agains' your advise though." She was one of them Aladrens and they were supposed to know what they were doin. Looking back at the board up front, he tapped the paper twice and carefully sounded out "Apareeseeum!" A faint hint of something appeared on the page. "Lookie, there is somethin' there!"

2 Billy Cobb You seem very convinced 1519 0 5

Lavender Brockert

February 07, 2021 5:31 PM

They are sneaky like that. by Lavender Brockert

Lavender looked at her friend. "Of course. "She replied. "It was no problem at all." She frowned as Val winced in pain as she started to get up. It didn't seem like the other second year was completely healed. Surely, though, the medic knew what she was doing when she released the Teppenpaw. Lavender very much had confidence that qualified people were being hired at Sonora.

Still, she was about to tell Val to sit down and not hurt herself further when the other girl hugged her. Lavender returned the hug. Gently. "Are you sure you're okay?"" She asked. "Did you take your medication? I mean, I assume you were released with medication if you're still in pain."

"Noted." She replied. Actually, Lavender wasn't going to get on a broom when there was lightning period. Or even better, she was not going to get on a broom at all if she could avoid doing so. She was not a sporty type of girl and had really not enjoyed flying lessons all that much last year. The Crotalus would rather do...almost anything else than fly. Val's accident had only reinforced those feelings. She didn't even really like watching Quidditch that much though she did go to school games because her friend was on the team and she wanted to be supportive of her. Still, Lavender didn't find the sport in general all that interesting or fun. She hadn't even liked how flying felt much last year. It hadn't been thrilling or exciting, it had been terrifying, being up in the air with nothing but a small piece of wood supporting her.

However, Val was giggling so that was a plus. To Lavender, it looked like she was in lots of pain but maybe she was doing okay. Honestly, the Crotalus really admired her friend's bravery. If an accident happened to Lavender, she would probably never want to go near any of the elements involved in said accident ever again.

11 Lavender Brockert They are sneaky like that. 1504 0 5

Valentine Duell

February 07, 2021 6:30 PM

Very true, one must be very careful by Valentine Duell

"I'm okay," Valentine nodded with a smile and only a minor wince. She shuddered mildly as Lavender reminded her about that medicine. That stuff tasted horrible, she made a face to show her displeasure with the medications. "Yes Mother," she replied with a playful smile. "But," she continued, "That first thing this morning, I'm probably due for another dose again soon." She sighed. When was potions again? Maybe professor Brooding-Hawthorne could suggest something to make it taste better.

Val nearly giggled again as Lavender 'noted' her suggestion. She knew her friend wasn't one for flying around and that was fine. Everyone had their own interests and hobbies. Valentine liked a lot of things not necessarily because the activities were great and fun, but because they let her hang out with people, and that was what she really liked to do. Flying and gaming were some of the things she liked to do just for the sake of doing them... although it was really hard to separate gaming from hanging out with people, so that made it all the better.

"So, what do we think about this lesson?" She asked, deciding that they had better get down to things before the professor wandered this way and they hadn't gotten very far yet. She looked down at her own paper, "Do you think we just keep casting it over and over until everything is revealed?"

2 Valentine Duell Very true, one must be very careful 1490 0 5

Isla Brockert

February 08, 2021 6:39 PM

I am by Isla Brockert

Billy looked surprised when Isla told him he wasn't saying the spell right and she felt kind of bad about it. Because she was basically saying that the way he talked was not going to be acceptable in order to be successful as a wizard. Even though that might be factually correct. After all, Professor Wright had made them speak it correctly before they got started and had the syllables all written down on the board.

And it was still better for the problem to be something that there was a solution to then it would be for the problem to be something like just not being that good at magic. Still, Isla felt mean for saying it anyway. Of course Billy had thought it sounded right because to him, that was the way people around him had normally talked. However, spells just plain were not going to work if you didn't say the words right regardless of how it sounded to you. This was not unique to someone from...whereever he was from. Somewhere in the South, she knew he'd told Jasper but Isla didn't think he'd mentioned it because it wasn't something that they'd talked about for long. The Teppenpaw had only said that Billy mirrored back his introduction not where the other boy was from.

Isla nodded. "Okay." She was sort of glad that he was taking her advice rather than getting mad at her as some people might have. Some people did not take well to being told they were doing something wrong-and it was not a trait unique to Aladrens either. Uncle Eustace did not take any more kindly to being told he was wrong than Topaz did. Of course, he was also inclined to put down anything he was not good at as something not worthy of being good at which, as far as she could tell, was anything that wasn't Quidditch or practical magic. He was quick to denounce it all as too feminine or too nerdy or too...whatever he considered insulting and unacceptable. Billy, despite being in the same house, seemed to be of a different temperament. One that was polite and pleasant.

It turned out though that Isla's advice to her classmate had worked. Words had started to appear on his paper. "Good job!" She told her classmate and turned back to her own paper. "Aparecium " She tapped the paper and a few more letters showed up. "Sometimes, it takes awhile to get the entire message."

11 Isla Brockert I am 1521 0 5

Lavender Brockert

February 08, 2021 8:18 PM

I usually try to be by Lavender Brockert

"I know, most potions generally don't taste very good at all." Lavender replied. Which was not all that surprising when one considered what was in them. They were full of ingredients such as beetle eyes and bat spleens and armadillo bile, none of which sounded at all appealing. She could understand why Val would not be all that excited about ingesting them.

Granted, they were effective and necessary when one was in pain or sick or had some other problem that, well, could be solved by a potion and the second year had never known anything different.Still, that did not make the potions taste any better or the ingredients in them seem any more appetizing. Of course, if things were added to make a potion taste better then they might not be as effective. Or effective at all. Or downright poisonous. That was the thing, potions had to be done very precisely or it could spell disaster. Lavender tended to be fairly good at making them as she generally wanted to avoid disaster as well as bad grades.

Of course, the second year supposed that having to take unpleasant tasting potions that were full of disgusting things was a very good reason to avoid doing things that were dangerous in the first place. Not that pain and injury were not good enough reasons to avoid them to begin with. Or the fact that Lavender just plain did not like doing the sorts of things that could get one hurt and having to take said potions at all.

She really hoped that did not make people think she was boring. Of course, one could say that the sort of people who would think that made her boring were the sorts of people whose opinions she should not care about. That did not make Lavender feel better though. It was one thing to think that, but it was quite another thing in practice and she generally wanted to be liked or at least not disliked. She was just glad that the people she knew like Val and Stanley who did like things like flying liked her anyway because they didn't have to even if Stanley was her cousin. People did not have to like their family.After all, her dad absolutely hated Stanley's biological grandmother who was her dad's sister. Actually, come to think of it, most people hated Stanley's biological grandmother.

"It's a pretty good one." Lavender replied. After all, it was one with low danger-though she supposed someone could somehow set their paper on fire, some people could always find a way-a low amount of physical challenge, a low possibility of being personally humiliated in front of her peers and a chance to add to her magical skills, what wasn't to like? Granted, she couldn't readily see a reason to use it either since even if Lavender had been inclined to pry into someone's private communications or writings, most people she knew could do higher levels of magic that aparecium did not respond to. "I think that's exactly what we're supposed to do. Unless you have an idea that would make it more interesting or go more quickly." Her tone suggested she would not be opposed to such things. So long as they weren't going to possibly injure Val further or her at all. Or get them into trouble.

11 Lavender Brockert I usually try to be 1504 0 5

Billy Cobb

February 10, 2021 5:42 PM

That's good, I'm not so sure about me by Billy Cobb

Billy grinned at the girl. She weren't half bad to talk to, unlike his sister. Next year he was going to be having classes with her. He just hoped she got into one of the other houses at least, if he was gunna be sharing classrooms with her, hopefully he could at least keep his own common room. He'd gotten used to not having her around all the time. When he'd gone home for break, it'd actually felt kinda weird. The house had felt smaller than he remembered. Oh well.

"Thanks!" He responded to the girl's accolades, "Yer doin' better than me though. You've got actual letters." He certainly wasn't jealous or envious or anything, but this girl was doing better than him and he wasn't sure how he felt about that. He kinda wanted to be the best at stuff, but he'd figured out that he had a bunch to learn that some of these folks had known for a long time now. Apparently pronounciating things was one of them. Well, he'd just learn it all and be the bestest.

As such, he watched as Isla cast the spell again and more letters showed up on her page. "Hot dog! That's dope!" he told her grinning. Gus had been teaching him some new words and he was excited to get to use them to show off his new vocabulary a bit. "Lemme give it another try." He refocused on his paper and repeated his previous efforts. This time there were a few letters that became entirely visible.

"Hmm... still not sure what mine suppost' ta say, how 'bout yours?" He asked her.

OOC: Gus' teaching has been author approved.

2 Billy Cobb That's good, I'm not so sure about me 1519 0 5

Valentine Duell

February 10, 2021 6:05 PM

You are better at that than me by Valentine Duell

"It is nasty stuff," Valentine confirmed for her friend. "I think it's half Flobberworm Mucus." she said twisting her face up into a good disgusted expression. "There are some little crunchy bits as well. I don't know what they are, but I've just taken to swallowing them down. Breaking them open makes things even worse." She faked gagging then sighed. Her next dose was in her bag and potions was until after lunch. She would need to take it before then, and she wasn't sure she had enough time to get over to the potions room and find Professor Brooding-Hawthorne and convince her to fix the potion in time either. Assuming she could fix the potion. After class, she thought. I'll chug it down after class. Maybe she could swing by the hall for a glass of water to go with it at least.

Val nodded at Lavender's assessment. It was a pretty good one but.... "I think it'd be better if we learned the other half as well." She gave her friend a mischievous smile, "We can reveal secret notes we pass in class, but we can't actually make them." She looked at her own paper while considering Lavender's suggestion. Was there a way to make this more interesting or faster? She couldn't think of anything for faster, but more interesting? Hmm... "We could turn it into a guessing game." she suggested. I've got a few letters scattered about as do you, can you guess what your message says yet? We could write down our guesses then reveal a few more letters, we could see how good we are at figuring out hidden messages before they're revealed?"

2 Valentine Duell You are better at that than me 1490 0 5

Isla Brockert

February 11, 2021 7:28 PM

I'm a little concerned too by Isla Brockert

"You're welcome." Isla replied. "And thank you. Yeah, like I said, sometimes it takes awhile. Some day, though it won't. Like my older sisters can cast this all in one sitting and Esme is only two years older than us so it really won't be that long. Still, though, it can be quite tedious at this point."

Isla looked at Billy with a bit of confusion when he appeared to spout out some nonsense words. Well, okay, they were actual words and he even pronounced them clearly, not that it mattered given they were not part of a spell, but they did not make sense in context. She did not know what hot dogs-either the food or warm canines-had to do with anything and making progress was clearly not a dopey act nor did Billy seem to be calling her stupid.Isla would think he had been hit by a spell gone horribly awry-or one on purpose as a prank or with otherwise malicious intent, but nobody would know such an advanced level spell other than Professor Wright and a professor just wouldn't do such a thing and if they did, they should be fired or at least be examined by a psychiatrist-but then he went right back to talking the same way he had before.

Maybe Billy had just had a small seizure. Except that as Sapphire was epileptic, Isla knew a quite a bit about the condition and her cousin usually spaced out during seizures and didn't say anything at all. And with grande mal seizures, people dropped to the floor and started shaking violently. The Pecari was doing neither of those things so presumably he had not had a seizure.

However, there was another condition that she'd heard of called Tourette's Syndrome which made people....spout out random words and that was what Billy had done, though Isla had mostly heard about people uttering profanities. She considered what to do as he tried the spell again. You did not just randomly ask someone if they had a medical problem especially when you didn't really know them. Sapphire would be mortified if someone asked her that and Isla's mother would be mortified if she found out that Isla had asked someone else that.

Still, she did want to show compassion. It was what separated decent people from, well, Topaz and besides, she was concerned."No, not yet." The Aladren replied "Are you okay?" She asked. "I mean you mentioned hot dogs and then said what I was doing was dope, so I'm slightly confused."

11 Isla Brockert I'm a little concerned too 1521 0 5

Lavender Brockert

February 12, 2021 8:06 PM

Thanks. It's nice to know I have a talent. by Lavender Brockert

"Ewww!" Lavender replied. "I mean, I know that's normal and stuff but I wouldn't even want to drink the mucus of something nicer than a flobberworm, like a kitten or a puffskien or a unicorn. And crunchy bits....that is so so icky." She made a disgusted face. The thought was actually nauseating but at least she didn't gag. That would have been slightly embarrassing though only Val would have seen and while Lavender sometimes worried that the other second year liked Bonabelle better than her,she still had confidence in their friendship as a whole. Val didn't judge for not liking flying and she didn't think she would judge her for gagging about crunchy bits either.

Still, it wasn't about her. Lavender didn't need the potion and it only reinforced her decision not to do dangerous things that could lead to injury and pain that would make her need to take mucus-y potions with disgusting crunchy bits. She felt even worse for Val though and for the Crotalus to gag at the thought of taking something so repulsive might be making it about herself. Though she thought gagging might be a reflexive thing.

"I agree." Lavender replied, happy to move on from the conversation about potions with mucus and crunchy bits. " I mean, I could see myself using that even just for the fun of it. I don't really want to like read other people's private things." After all, she would not want them reading hers. Plus, she might learn things that she really would not want to know by prying. "Of course, even if we could do the other half of this, pretty much everyone we know could use this spell to decipher what we wrote. I mean, it's not like either of us has younger siblings that couldn't." The only people that Lavender thought that she could keep out of her things by doing this were Gabriel's sister, Piper and Wally and Stanley's sister Charlotte and Val was an only child. And even if they had younger siblings, the younger siblings would not be at Sonora and would quickly learn it once they arrived.

"That sounds fun." Lavender replied to Val's suggestion. That was exactly the kind of thing that she was talking about. Something that would make the lesson more fun but would not cause them to get injured and/or in trouble. The Crotalus turned back to her paper. " Aparecium . She tapped it twice as instructed. "I think that word is "the" and then there's an a by itself, so I'm going to guess that word is a."

11 Lavender Brockert Thanks. It's nice to know I have a talent. 1504 0 5

Valentine Duell

February 13, 2021 11:58 AM

You have many talents by Valentine Duell

Valentine did her level best to not giggle while Lavender was reacting to her description of the potion. Her friend was absolutely, one hundred percent right in everything she was saying. Still there was something about voicing it in such a manner that just made Val want to smile, and that she couldn't resist. "I agree wholeheartedly." She replied, then asked aloud her other thoughts on the subject. "Do you think Professor Brooding-Hawthorne has any way to make it better?"

She thought about Lavender's statements on the lesson. "That is true," she said slowly while her mind worked on the problem. "If we were just passing a seemingly blank piece of paper back and forth, it would be rather obvious. We would need to obfuscate the fact that there was anything secret there at all." She brightened, "Aha! We could write a normal letter about nothing really at all, and then between the lines of writing we could write the secret message and make that disappear. It's just like the Professor said, this only works if you know where something is that needs to be revealed." She winked at Lavender conspiratorially. "We'll just need to figure out our own system for hiding the hidden bits."

Val nodded as Lavender made her predictions, then examined her own sheet again. She didn't have any good groupings of letters yet, they were all spread out. This may be trickier than she'd thought. "Hmm... this is probably 'you'?" she indicated an 'ou' cluster. "But I guess it could also be 'about' or something like that?" She tapped her wand and cast the spell again. Nothing appeared in that section of the paper, but a few others were revealed. "That says 'on'!"

2 Valentine Duell You have many talents 1490 0 5

Rosalynn Tellerman

February 13, 2021 12:50 PM

That may not be perfectly fancy. by Rosalynn Tellerman

Rosalynn grinned back at him as he accepted the message she had read off of her page. Eager and curious to see what kind of remark was on Tommy's page, she settled in to watch him attempt the spell . . . and not get. And still not get it. And . . . nope again. She felt a little bad, and hoped she wasn't making it harder for him.

She was about to make a suggestion about turning the page over and seeing if the message was on the other side, or maybe adjusting the angle of his wand to see if that helped, when he decided to take a different approach.

The girlfriend part of her was flattered and smiled at his handwritten message. The Aladren part of her was mildly horrified and gasped, "You're terrible!" while still smiling and trying not to laugh. "I don't think that's a message Professor Wright would have written," she pointed out, "but thank you."

She pointed at the page, "Now you better try the spell again before you get in trouble. Maybe try the other side of the page? Maybe it got flipped over by mistake?" Tommy had gotten a few marks to show through the concealment, but they were indistinct enough that it could just be whatever ink had been able to bleed through the parchment. Or maybe it was the message still almost completely concealed. It was hard to tell.

1 Rosalynn Tellerman That may not be perfectly fancy. 1520 0 5

Tommy Jamison

February 13, 2021 5:51 PM

Fanciness is in the eye of the beholder. by Tommy Jamison

“You’re terrible!”

Tommy’s grin did not fade, and instead even split into a laugh. It was clear from Rosalynn’s tone and smile that she didn’t mean it literally, and he was quite proud of his little display for her. Although she did have a solid point that he, in his hopeless romanticness, had not considered: it would be super weird of that was the actual message Professor Wright had written on the parchment. Sometimes adults called you cute, even when you were eleven years old and practically a man now, Aunt Cecily, but it wasn’t really something a professor was likely to do, especially not in this context.

“Okay, okay,” he laughed again at her insistence. Tommy flipped the parchment over, just in case she was right and it had gotten turned at some point by accident, before making a few more failed attempts. “Hm,” he uttered, surprised. His practical work wasn’t the best in the class, but he usually found a bit more success than this. “Maybe this one just doesn’t like me,” he commented. “Do you want to try it out on my parchment, and then if it works for you, we’ll do Finite Incantatem to make it invisible again and I’ll keep trying?”

12 Tommy Jamison Fanciness is in the eye of the beholder. 1518 0 5