Worried on Charms

Grayson Wright

June 20, 2021 4:59 PM

Counter-charms (Intermediates) by Grayson Wright

"Counter-charms," said Professor Wright to the Intermediate class. "Can anyone give me a good definition of counter-charms?"

He took an answer or two, nodding along with them as they came in, before continuing. "One of the first spells you ever learned as Beginners was finite incantatem - the general way to terminate the effects of an enchantment. As I told you back then, it's extremely useful, and it's applicable to most spells you might need to terminate while you're in school, for practical purposes. You've probably deduced from learning about anti-jinxes and countercurses in Defense Against the Dark Arts, though, and maybe specific antivenoms and antidotes in Potions, there are some cases where a more specific solution is called for. There are also some cases where finite incantatem could work, but remembering or devising a more specific counter-charm for the situation could give you an edge in undoing a charm that's a little more powerful than you're used to, or when you want to make a process quicker, or just save yourself energy, in the case of remembering counter-charms you've already learned."

Gray adjusted his glasses and looked around at the fifth years in the room. "Fifth years, this topic may be particularly important to you. Not only are you likely to see a few of these on your Charms CATS, but proficiency in counter-charming is also important for a number of careers, so that's something to keep in mind while selecting your classes for your Advanced years. Apart from careers in research, counter-charming is absolutely an essential for any work in Healing or mediwizardry, treasure-hunting, law enforcement, reversal of poorly performed or accidental magic and the occasional catastrophic magical event - you get the picture," he concluded.

He wrote three sets of spells on the blackboard: Engorgio-Reducio. Accio-Depulso. Sonorus-Quietus. "Third years, you'll be working with the first pair - the Engorgement Charm and its counter, the reduction charm. Fourth years - well, I did tell you Summoning Charms weren't going anywhere. Summon and Banish. Fifth years, you've been working with the Silencing Charm, so this follows the theme of working with sound - instead of cutting it off entirely, you're making it more or less of something, so it's a bit more subtle." Which was a very strange thing to say about the Sonorus charm, considering how loud it could make a human voice, among other sounds...he silently apologized to the third and fourth years for the racket the fifth years were apt to make if they succeeded in half the work and hoped that they had gotten used to tuning out some extra noise while the fifth years had been learning to silence things.

"Third years, you'll be working with beetles - it's not likely that any of you will be able to have a dramatic enough effect to endanger the room, but I'll keep an eye out and step in if it looks like anyone might," he added. "Fourth years, you'll use cushions again, and when you're Banishing, aim for a wall, not at any of your classmates." It would have been one thing had they been in the room alone, but the third and fifth years had their own work and therefore couldn't really engage in pillow fights with the fourth years on fair terms. "Fifth years - you really do have my sincerest apologies for the thing I'm about to ask you to do," he said with a slight grimace. "Under those covers over there - " he gestured toward what looked like small bird cages under sheets - "are pixies - annoying things, but amplifying their buzzing won't be as disruptive to your classmates as amplifying your own voices or most animal voices would be. Mind your fingers, though, until you succeed in casting an immobilizing charm on them." That would certainly set off some noises of indignation which would be useful for the purposes of getting the exercise done.

"We'll discuss your homework at the end of class," he added to the room in general again, giving them something extra to look forward to. "For now - collect your subjects and begin."

Subthreads:

I will collect first! Try and stop me! by Theo Spurn with Morgan Garrett

Worried by Jasper Brockert with Graham Osbrook

I've worked with these things before [Bertie] by Valentine Duell with Bertie Jackson

16 Grayson Wright Counter-charms (Intermediates) 113 1 5

Theo Spurn

June 24, 2021 5:27 AM

I will collect first! Try and stop me! by Theo Spurn

Theo raised his hand when Professor Wright took a poll of who could give a good definition of counter-charms. Luckily, that was not put to the test, as even though he full well knew what they were and could have explained it, he would have been rather surprised to be called on.

There was some blah blah blah at the fifth years, and eventually the words ‘fourth years’ and the fact that summoning charms weren’t going anywhere.

“They’re incorporeal abstract concpets,” Theo muttered to himself with a frown. They could no more go somewhere than a- well… ideas could go places. Ideas could go very nice places, or scary places, or all the feelingsy places. Thoughts could get away from you. He kept trying to think of abstract things that couldn’t go somewhere, finding it was harder than he had originally anticipated, until a very important word caught his attention again.

Cushions!

They got to play with cushions!

They were to demonstrate the concept of counter-charms by banishing. A counter-charm was something that acted against another charm, as he had already known and as his classmates had so helpfully pointed out (probably). If something was moving, you stopped it. If something was embiggened you debiggened it. A counter charm acted against a movement that was occurring or an effect that was ongoing. Otherwise, it was just another spell that happened to do the opposite of a thing that had previously been done. But if there was no present or lasting effect, you weren’t countering anything. You had to counter a verb or an adjective, in effect. Otherwise you were just spelling.

Words were fun.

Cushions were more fun.

“Accio!” he cast, snatching a cushion off the table in front of someone else. Summoning charms, after all, had not gone anywhere. He supposed they were probably supposed to swap roles or something at some point, but he would wait until that became absolutely necessary. Though if he was banishing something away from an accio-er, then it would still come back towards him. That was exciting! In all versions of this task, he got cushions to fly towards him! He liked the version best where he got to be king of the cushions though, collecting them all whilst his classmates tried to countercharm him. “Accio,” he cast again, deciding it wasn’t cheating to hold on firmly to the first cushion whilst creating another opportunity for someone else to oppose him.

13 Theo Spurn I will collect first! Try and stop me! 1476 0 5

Jasper Brockert

July 21, 2021 9:29 AM

Worried by Jasper Brockert

As the year wore on, Jasper was getting more and more worried about Sapphire. The fifth year seemed to be on the verge of having a nervous breakdown as the end of the year and CATS got closer. He was trying his best to help her any way he that he could but it was kind of hard when he was two years younger than she was. Most of it seemed to be falling on Allegra-who had her own tests at the end of the year-and Esme.

Of course, for reasons that Jasper understood very well, Sapphire seemed to prefer to study-and otherwise remain as much as possible- within her own house where, obviously, the Teppenpaw could not go. That wasn't his fault or hers or anyone's other than Topaz's.

Still, Jasper was frustrated. Even if the Aladren hadn't been a monster that they all lived in fear of to varying degrees, it would have been hard for him to help the fifth year. Despite being in the same classes, he didn't know enough magical theory to help her study. Being that he didn't have any particular interest in it, he wasn't all that inclined to go look up advanced CATS level material. Not that he was completely unwilling to try if it would have done Sapphire any good.

Anyway, what Jasper was really worried about was his sister's health and well-being, both physical and mental. He could tell that she was having trouble sleeping, more so than usual. She was pale and had dark circles under her eyes. Plus, she always seemed like she was on the verge of breaking down in tears at any moment.

And Sapphire really needed to take care of herself too, because of her epilepsy. Stress tended to make most medical conditions worse and he was worried she was going to have a seizure. Or that she'd been having them. Since hers weren't the sort where she fell to the ground convulsing, he could never tell if she was having one. The kind Sapphire had were the sort that didn't last very long so they were hard to notice. Jasper supposed he should give his parents a break for not doing so. He did try to be as fair as possible

It still bothered him that he couldn't make her feel better. The third year could make all the suggestions in the world about Sapphire needing to rest or help her study but that didn't mean it truly helped or solved anything. He generally wanted to fix it when others, especially those he cared about, had problems. So right now, Jasper felt pretty helpless.

And today it looked like it was going to be a class where they were split up by year groups so he couldn't go work with his sister if she needed help. Fortunately, it was a practical lesson so the Crotalus would likely be fine. She didn't have any problems in that department, at least not in Charms.

Jasper got his beetle. He pointed his wand at it and did the correct motions. "Engorgio " He said. It grew a little bit larger. "Reducio" He shrunk it back to size. After doing this a few more times, getting the beetle a little larger each time, he turned to the person next to him "How's it going?" He asked, slightly bored of the repetitive process and hoping that talking to his classmate would make the time go faster.

11 Jasper Brockert Worried 1496 0 5

Morgan Garrett

July 21, 2021 10:29 PM

I challenge thee to cushion war! by Morgan Garrett

Morgan liked Charms sometimes, and at other times, she…made the best of it. Today, she thought, was probably supposed to be one of the days for making the best of it, at least for the fourth years. Summon to – Banish back. Nice, smooth lines, murmured incantations, all perfectly serene and decorous.

In theory, at least, she was pretty sure it was supposed to be that way. In reality…well, things were almost sure to go wrong, which meant there was a good chance that the lesson was going to turn out to be fun! They could have a pillow fight in class and get good grades for it. That would definitely be fun, even if (as was unfortunately likely) none of the third years managed to blow up any beetles big enough to go on the rampage and knock over all the desks. As long as they could all avoid knocking over any of the pixie cages, of course. If they had pixies flying around, things might get a mite too chaotic to remain fun.

For a moment, two synapses fired somewhere in Morgan’s brain and made a connection and presented her with a thought. Specifically, how could they avoid eventually freeing the pixies if the rest of them were wreaking chaos? Cause and effect. For one situation in the room to remain under control, would they all need to remain under control?

Then, though, she saw stuff start moving around her and mostly forgot about such abstract matters. Then, after she successfully Summoned a pillow to herself, it suddenly shot away toward Theo Spurn, and that shoved the rest of her concerns about relative degrees of chaos out of her attention span.

“Hey!” she exclaimed. “Accio again!” It shot back toward her and, as soon as she caught it, she exclaimed “Depulso!” to send it back at him.

16 Morgan Garrett I challenge thee to cushion war! 1470 0 5

Graham Osbrook

July 22, 2021 7:08 PM

Hi, Worried, I'm A Bit Frustrated. by Graham Osbrook

Charms, in Graham's opinion, was a hard class to really describe in the usual terms people used to describe classes. He had never really thought about this at any length before in his life, but Claire had started badgering him more and more about school lately, which had led to some reflection on how it was hard to really say if Charms was Easy or Hard, Interesting or Boring, and so forth. It depended too entirely, he had tried to explain to Claire, on the day in Charms, in a way that he had initially written that it did not in other classes - initially, that was. He had then gone into a tangent about how, well, actually some of the other classes could do that too, he'd just mostly been thinking in terms of Potions, which he liked, and Transfiguration, which was hard, but maybe the other other classes just didn't contrast quite as actively, unless they did....

You are really bad at describing things, Claire had informed him, which he guessed was a fair point. It was also one that made him worry a little. When he was writing, it was easy to just keep scribbling down his thoughts as fast as they came to him, so he didn't lose any. On regular essays he could rewrite it a little, but on the CATS, he knew himself too well to imagine he'd have time for that. And it was important to be sort of coherent on the CATS, or so he imagined.

Luckily, those were another day, while Charms was right now, and classes here fell at diverse points on a spectrum. Or maybe even more than one. Today, for example, seemed poised to be Easy, but not necessarily Interesting, at least as long as things went well....

Not, of course, that things going well was a given. He was more worried about what might happen if the fourth and fifth years messed up their stuff, but the third year lesson had its own complications. Graham, for instance, was having trouble actually hitting his stupid bug with any spells; for some reason, the bug seemed very perturbed by being trapped in a dish and having some kid try to shoot sparks at it. So far, he had slightly oversized the lid and inadvertently made his inkwell double in size, but the beetle remained infuriatingly unchanged.

He had just gotten his hopes up about his latest attempt to hit the beetle when Jasper Brockert spoke, and his mood plummeted abruptly from that to frustration when the spell bounced off the inside of the jar again. "Be still, won't you!" he snapped at the beetle, having opened his mouth to say some polite reply to Jasper. He winced as he realized what he'd just done. "Not you, sorry - my stupid hyperactive beetle. I think Professor Wright must have given it coffee before class or something."

16 Graham Osbrook Hi, Worried, I'm A Bit Frustrated. 1498 0 5

Valentine Duell

July 22, 2021 8:44 PM

I've worked with these things before [Bertie] by Valentine Duell

Valentine put away her game planning notebook as usual as Professor Wright began talking. She did not raise her hand to answer the professor's initial question to the class. She knew well enough what a counter-charm was, but he wanted a 'good definition' and she thought that perhaps other people in the class could provide such a thing better than she could. Hers would most likely be a 'long-rambly-maybe-get-there-eventually type of definition.

She was also very glad that she had some time before CATS came around to her. They kept getting mentioned in these intermediate classes, and she already wasn't much of a fan of them. He also went on to mention future careers, and that sent a cold chill down her spine. She was only a little third-year student yet, surely she didn't need to worry about that yet? She had plenty of other things to worry about at the moment. Bonabelle would probably say otherwise, but she was probably being unduly and nefariously influenced by her uncle whose job it was to find them all jobs. Once she was ready for that, she'd just go ask Aunt Giselle what job she'd get and that would be that. Simple.

Professor Wright finally got around to the lesson for the day and she was thrilled and saddened at the same time. She'd have to work with another third year, which was fine but that meant she couldn't work with any of the others. However, they were going to be making giant beetles! She'd just been planning on using some of them in the adventure she'd been working on. Giant beetles were and excellent staple for low level adventurers who didn't want to kill sentient beings like kobalds or goblins. She looked to see who was next to her and was delighted to discover Bertie!

"Hi Bertie! Isn't this great?" She exclaimed joyfully. "How big do you think we'll be able to get a beetled? Small? Maybe medium sized?"

2 Valentine Duell I've worked with these things before [Bertie] 1490 0 5

Jasper Brockert

July 23, 2021 10:02 AM

Sorry to hear that by Jasper Brockert

For a moment, Jasper was taken aback by Graham's response. Not only was it rude, the Teppenpaw hadn't really done anything to warrant it. He wasn't even moving around all that much. Then the other boy apologized and said he was talking to his beetle. "It's all right." Jasper reassured him, laughing a little at the other boy's joke.

Of course, had Graham been talking to him, he would have probably been a little offended, but he would have just backed off, continued his work and avoided the Crotalus from then on, rather than get into it and chew the other boy out for being rude. He didn't really like fighting with people. Plus, getting into an argument in the classroom would have attracted the attention of Professor Wright and possibly have gotten him in trouble. Not to mention the fact that his classmates would notice and possibly think less of him. Jasper didn't think he could necessarily count on people to be on his side. Fortunately, it was a moot point.

He glanced down at the offending creature, briefly envisioning a classroom full of giant hyperactive beetles. The thought was, quite frankly, terrifying. The third year, while maybe not fitting his uncle's idea of what a boy should be, did not consider himself to be squeamish, but that didn't mean he liked the idea of giant bugs. In fact, he was even trying to limit the size of his own.

Especially considering that Sapphire and Esme were in the class and were not especially fond of insects. The last thing that Jasper wanted to do was have his sister be further upset when she was already quite fragile-and he especially did not want to be the one to cause it. He was not Topaz. And he didn't really want to cross his cousin either. He generally did not like to make people feel bad in anyway whether that meant they were sad, scared or angry. Or anything else

Not that the Teppenpaw really believed that he or anyone else could make their beetles to be that large in the first place, thankfully.

Still, while he might not be able to solve his sister's problem with CATS or her epilepsy or any of the myriad of issues anyone in his family had that were caused by Topaz or Uncle Eustace, maybe he could help Graham. "Maybe you could put the full body bind on it. Then it won't move." Jasper suggested. Then he realized if the other boy couldn't hit his beetle with one spell, he might have trouble with another. "You could shrink the dish,so the beetle has less room to move, then hit it with Petrificus Totalus, and then practice growing and shrinking the beetle."

Honestly, why did this have to be on live creatures in the first place? It would have been easier to counter-charms on stationary objects since counter-charms were the point of the lesson. Why make things more difficult on people?

11 Jasper Brockert Sorry to hear that 1496 0 5

Graham Osbrook

July 27, 2021 11:04 PM

Sorry for your problems, too. by Graham Osbrook

Graham was deeply relieved to hear Jasper sort of laugh at his weak attempt at a joke about the stupid beetle. Offending anyone was generally something he tried to avoid. All doing that would do was make unnecessary enemies, and it was just sort of...not nice, he guessed, though he wouldn't exactly put that into words anymore because it felt vaguely like the kind of statement to put him on an equal footing with Claire, which felt like a position that would earn mockery (at home, he liked his sister, but he wouldn't exactly like to hang out with her in front of his classmates). Offending people who probably, just based on sheer statistics, had at least one relative who at least knew someone who employed his mom even if none of them did, though...that would be worse.

"I meant to say something else," he explained, "but then I realized that last spell still hadn't worked."

Jasper's plan involved a lot of steps, but it was actually pretty practical. "Good idea," he replied. "I'll try that - and then look through the glossary in the book to see if there's any...slow-down spells, instead of just freezing in it place - it feels kind of like cheating to only work on this thing while it's inanimate." He assumed the reason they were using the scurrying things was because it was harder to hit a moving target. They were intermediates, they were supposed to do hard stuff just to prove they could just in case it came up on the CATS, and to prove they could succeed in the RATS, and so forth. "Not that I think it is cheating exactly - it's actually using the spells even more," he reasoned. "But with teachers it's usually best to avoid giving long explanations if you can, I think." Professor Wright wasn't the worst about swooping down on one like a dragon on a tourist - he thought that might be a tie between Professor Brooding-Hawthorne-DADA, when she was around, and Professor Skies; the Headmaster wasn't a teacher, but he looked like if one ever did draw his attention, he'd just have a body decapitated - but he wasn't the easiest grader in the world, either.

"Reducio," he tried, putting the tip of his wand on the edge of the dish. It began to shrink and he smiled, relieved he could at least do the spell. "Now just not to squash it...." Or make it boing out as though it were on a spring. That would be funny to see but a mess to deal with. "Now I guess the original spell will be the counter-charm for this one. Is this how you got yours to cooperate?" he asked Jasper, deeming the beetle sufficiently penned in and lifting his wand for a moment.

16 Graham Osbrook Sorry for your problems, too. 1498 0 5

Bertie Jackson

July 28, 2021 11:25 PM

But have you worked in this way? by Bertie Jackson

OOC: I'm no longer typing Bertie's stammer out, as much like typing out an accent, it seems a bit laboured and insensitive. Itcan be assumed he always speaks with some degree of dysfluency unless specifically mentioned otherwise. BIC:

As usual, when Professor Wright asked aquestion, Bertie knew the answer. Unusually, he actually raised his hand to give it. Partially, it was because he felt that he met the requirements of this question better than many people, as Professor Wright wanted a good definition. Whilst most of the time, teachers would want that, the fact that he had specified implied he wanted a definition that differed from the ordinary.

"A counter-charm functions like an analogue dial. It has an infinite number of points that allow for fine adjustment." He didn't break this down any further, feeling that this definition was both sufficient and generous. This partly stemmed from the passive-aggressive tendency that enjoyed confusing other people with his own intellect, but also because it involved more talking than he found strictly necessary. He was already stammering noticeably in the sentences he had given. Another reason that he had been willing to raise his hand was that he doubted his stammer was a secret from anyone at this point, and if they made fun of him, he was now proficient enough in several hexes to make them regret it. "Finite incantatem and its equivalents in other languages and spell casting systems functions as a binary on/off."

As Professor Wright continued the class, he received the disappointing news that he wouldn't be able to work with Mara and find out what she had thought of his answer. Still, at least speaking up at all had given him a chance to impress her, even though he wouldn't be able to interact with her this class. It helped even further that 'digital' was a refence point with them, which meant that, by extension, analogue ought to be too.

Once he had collected his beetle, he took a seat next to Valentine. She was overly chirpy to degrees that he couldn't fathom, but she was at least familiar and a friend. Her initial comment struck him as strange, as they were trying to un-small the beetles, but then he realised that it was a game references. He gave a grin to show he understood and appreciated the joke, assuming it was just that, as Valentine's suggestion was inherently inaccurate and impractical for several reasons.

"I think we'd have a lot to do to even reach small." It also didn't really fit with the spirit of the lesson, which was less about sheer fire power and more about fine adjustment. Bertie wasn't against going against the actual stated purpose of the lesson if a teacher was being stupid and he could think of something better, but having supplied such a good answer, he was in favour of following it. Of course, Professor Wright had not been terribly specific about the way they were supposed to practise. Bertie wondered whether that was an oversight on his part, or because it ought to be inherently obvious (Bertie agreed with him if that was the case, but some people needed things pointing out). He drew a selection of lines on a piece of paper. All were larger than the original beetle, but they jumped up and down in size, getting alternately bigger and smaller. "Here, you can use this to practise," he informed Valentine.

13 Bertie Jackson But have you worked in this way? 1497 0 5

Jasper Brockert

July 30, 2021 2:22 PM

Thanks by Jasper Brockert

Jasper nodded. "No problem." To be honest, even if he had been taken aback for a second before Graham explained, he probably would have figured it out because it didn't really make sense for the Crotalus to tell him be still as he pretty much already was. Maybe not perfectly so, but more or less. Plus, Graham was not trying to use the charm on Jasper and even if that had been the case, the Teppenpaw was a much bigger target than a beetle.

He smiled, pleased that the other third year liked his idea. "Thanks" He replied automatically to the compliment. Jasper hoped that it solved the problem. He wanted to be able to at least help someone since he could only help Sapphire so much, something that made him feel frustrated and useless. Which was something he felt a lot more than he would like, given the magnitude of problems some of the people around him had. Jasper could not cure epilepsy or allergies or the complexes some of his relatives had developed. Nor could he get rid of Topaz and Uncle Eustace, who were the cause of said complexes. And he couldn't really even help Sapphire with CATS preparation all that much because he was too young. So at least being able to come up with a solution for his fellow third year sort of made his day.

Still, Graham had a point about one part of Jasper's suggestion."I suppose you're right about just slowing it down. Obviously Professor Wright wants us to use animate targets or he wouldn't have given them to us." Which, again, seemed a little excessive if the point was to do counter-charms and not spells on animate creatures. Generally speaking though, Jasper did not do things that might get him in trouble or disobey authority figures. Well, unless they asked him to do something that made him truly uncomfortable. And not always then either since he was uncomfortable with flying and he'd done that. However, that wasn't an inherently immoral act either, it was just something that Jasper had issues around.

Of course, it was entirely possible that Professor Wright would be impressed with their ingenuity and problem solving abilities and award them each house points but on the other hand, he could also take them away for not following instructions. Not that that was the end of the world, but others might not like it if Jasper lost them house points. And he wouldn't want people to get mad at Graham for that either.

"Actually, mine wasn't so hyperactive." The Teppenpaw replied. "It was moving a little and I guess I just got lucky that I was able to cast the spell on it." Maybe Jasper was good at being able to hit a target with accuracy, for some reason. However, he wouldn't say that to Graham because it sounded too much like bragging. Besides, it was true that he'd been lucky enough to receive a less annoying beetle than his classmate.

11 Jasper Brockert Thanks 1496 0 5

Valentine Duell

July 31, 2021 10:02 AM

Not really, no. You? by Valentine Duell

Yes! She'd gotten Bertie to smile! Or at least maybe convinced him to. He was one of those people that always seemed more on the serious side, not that she hadn't ever seen him smile before, but it was always a good day when she help someone else smile. She did enjoy making people happy. As such, her smile in return to his grin was fairly radiant.

He did have a point though. In gaming terms, a 'small' sized beetle would be somewhere around the size of a medium to large dog, a 'medium' sized beetle would be the size of a full grown person. Val was pretty sure she was okay with not encountering an actual beetle that size. Although, after this class she should be ready to deal with one if she did run across one. This was probably a good lesson, even if the chances of running across an actual 'medium' sized beetle was unlikely.

"We would," she agreed trying her best to keep her voice neutral in inflection of whether or not that was a statement meaning that they shouldn't try it, or that they should. Though there was something of that mischievous 'game master' glint in her eyes that the gaming group commented upon from time to time.

Ooo, Bertie had thought up a way to make this fun without making rampaging giant beetles. A game. She accepted the paper from Bertie and looked at the lines, then slid them under the glass container that held her beetle. She could, try and match the size of the beetle to the line and then slide to the next line. Neat. She pulled out a sheet of paper as well and marked off some lines for Bertie to match. "Okay, here's your challenge!" She said as she handed it to him. Bertie was probably going to be really good at this, so while a bunch of the lines followed a progression of increasing or decreasing in size, there were notably quite a few sizeable jumps in one direction or the other. She grinned at him, "If you miss your target, you've gotta start over at the beginning again."

2 Valentine Duell Not really, no. You? 1490 0 5

Theo Spurn

August 02, 2021 6:50 PM

Do you have any idea of the force you are up against? by Theo Spurn

Yes! He was going to have two pillows! Then three, then four, then a whole pillow empire! However, just before he could get a grip on the newly incoming pillow, it sailed away from him.

"Nooo," he shrieked, flailing a hand after it, but it was too late. Apparently Morgan, who had summoned it, seemed to feel bad about this because she then banished it back towards him. Right at the moment Theo tried to accio it back towards himself. It hit his chest with absolute maximum force possible for a pillow - which was a decided and almost painful thump but it was still a soft thing and it was now his again. Theo clamped an arm around it triumphantly, giggling with happiness but also nervous, adrenaline-fuelled energy at the way the fight was escalating.

"Accio!" he cast, summoning a third pillow towards himself, even whilst the first one tried to tug itself from his grip. He caught the incoming pillow against his chest, wrapping both his already-pillow-laden arms around it. He had more capacity for pillows, but he was rapidly losing the ability to both hold onto all of them and wave his wand. He placed one of them on the floor, sitting on it firmly, squeezing the other two with one arm in order to free up his wand.

13 Theo Spurn Do you have any idea of the force you are up against? 1476 0 5

Graham Osbrook

August 03, 2021 1:05 AM

Poor us. by Graham Osbrook

Graham nodded. "Unless part of the assignment was for us to figure out the best way to do the assignment," he observed. "Like - there might be secret bonus points if you think yourself into practicing more charms along the way to getting this one done." He considered this thoughtfully for a moment, but then shook his head. "That kind of assumes Professor Wright has an imagination, though - " it was possible, of course, for the blandest-seeming people to have another side to them, a sense of humor that didn't quite fit with their professional personas at all, his own mother was...sort of like that, but it was hard to imagine Wright exhibiting any form of creative thought whatsoever, even to imagine the man doodling with crayons as a child - "and...I haven't noticed any evidence he does, anyway, have you?" It was possible, too, that evidence existed which Graham had missed. He paid enough attention to Professor Wright's speeches, but wouldn't even try to claim that he felt that 'enough' attention fell anywhere near the mark of 'attention to all of it.'

"Plus, we're in here with the big guys now, it might be hard just for the sake of making us work harder," he added. Professor Wright had often, in Beginners, lectured them about how they needed to have their minds focused on their work when they did magic, but had noted that one didn't have to try as hard to reach that state as an adult, or even necessarily notice one was in it with enough practice. This would be the practice, and besides - making things hard just for the sake of them being hard did seem like the kind of characteristic someone would look for when picking a Head of Aladren.

Graham grinned when Jasper said he had gotten lucky with his beetle, suspecting false modesty and half-appreciating the courtesy, assuming it was one. "Or you just have better hand-eye coordination than I do with beetle-sized things," he acknowledged. He thought his hand-eye coordination was decent enough as a rule, but there was a lot of difference between tracking and reacting to something, say, Quaffle-sized versus something beetle-sized, even without the other differences created by the adrenaline of flight and competition to factor in. "You'd probably make a pretty good Seeker - ever tried that?" he asked, figuring Quidditch was almost sure to be a decent enough topic of casual chat with another guy his own age.

16 Graham Osbrook Poor us. 1498 0 5

Jasper Brockert

August 03, 2021 4:00 PM

I'm sure it'll be okay by Jasper Brockert

"I mean, problem solving skills are likely something they want us to develop along with our magical abilities." Jasper replied. "Sort of as a secondary goal." Admittedly, they were something that he personally very much wanted to develop as he generally wanted to help people the best that he could, more so than he even wanted to solve his own issues. There was nothing in the world that made the Teppenpaw feel more powerless than seeing someone, especially someone he cared about such as his family, suffer and not being able to help them. It was a feeling that Jasper truly despised.

He considered what Graham asked. "I've heard rumors that he used to write for children's programs on the wireless." Jasper replied. His cousin Owen did something similar, writing children's books so the third year knew that doing so took creativity. "However, I've seen very little evidence of him having that imagination here in class. Maybe that's why he teaches now?" He felt a little bad saying so, because it felt a bit disrespectful but it seemed like a logical conclusion to make.

Jasper continued. "Or he just might have decided he had a passion for education instead. After all, he is the head of Aladren." Although creative types...tended not to want to do other things. Owen seemed to find Professor Wright's career path horrifying and the third year couldn't imagine his cousin teaching or doing anything else but writing. Of course, Owen hadn't been an Aladren so he probably didn't find academia as appealing. However, he could have gone into the more Teppenpaw-ish field like healing or social work if writing hadn't worked out. However, Owen definitely didn't seem to like the idea of doing anything but being a writer and Jasper was sure that his cousin would be successful.

Although, now that he thought about it, maybe being a social worker would be a good career for Jasper himself. He did like to help people so maybe that would be a way to make a difference and he was going to need to come up with something to do for a career sooner or later although it was hardly a big problem if he didn't know at this age.

"I suppose that could also be the case." In Jasper's mind, making things hard for the sake of making things hard was not a nice thing to do but he also realized that they needed to do more difficult forms of magic in order to learn and it wasn't just some bit of sadism that made Professor Wright give them moving targets.

Then Graham brought up something that for Jasper was sort of...a touchy subject. Oh crud . How did the Teppenpaw answer this without the other boy potentially judging him for his reply. He had no intention of ever doing anything Quidditch-related at all! However, he had to find a way to answer the other boy without Graham thinking less of him for his distate for the sport.

Still, what Graham asked was if he'd ever tried this. Which arguably, he had. However, Jasper really didn't want to think about all the terrible Quidditch-like activities with Uncle Eustace. Saying that his uncle did Quidditch drills with him made it sound like a positive thing, that his uncle was a kind man who took an interest in him which was definitely not the case and for many reasons, not least of which was not wanting to make his uncle look good, he was not about to discuss this source of great trauma with his classmate.It was actually better to tell a harmless white lie in this case.v Jasper shook his head."I've never really had the inclination to play. I'm not that competitive." He replied. "Besides, there's a difference between hitting a beetle in a dish while I'm sitting still and chasing after a snitch while flying around on a broom while someone is trying to hit me with metal balls."

11 Jasper Brockert I'm sure it'll be okay 1496 0 5

Bertie Jackson

August 03, 2021 7:24 PM

A little by Bertie Jackson

Bertie had not expected guidelines in return; after all, he understood the assignment. Still, when Valentine slid the paper towards him, he took it politely. His expression changed, his eyes lighting up, when she proposed a challenge.

"You're on!" he grinned, placing his beetle at the top of the sheet. Whilst Valentine had been drawing his gridlines, he had already been practising, and his beetle was several times bigger than it had started out. He had not known they were going to be in competition (well, more so than he was by default with everyone in the class) but he didn't think it was sneaking a head start - after all, he still had to hit a new, precise size. In fact, it might have been harder, because Valentine's first line was only a fraction bigger than his current beetle, and he suspected that an adjustment that minor was going to be challenging.

Sure enough, after his fingers had worked the spell, his beetle was over the line, even considering the fact that you could give yourself a little leeway to account for scuttling and how hard that made to observe the beetle precisely next to its line. He cast a finite, and it shrunk dramatically, back to its original size. He took aim, and tried again, feeling it landed within acceptable parametres on this occasion.

As he worked his way forward, he hoped that Valentine either had high enough perception checks or was trusting enough (he suspected definitely the latter but quite possibly the former too, seeing as gaming was quite a detail-oriented passtime) to notice that he was doing three different spells, not just shrinking his beetle when he overshot. He used the verbal incantations sometimes, or there were times they were there in a whisper alongside his signs. So perhaps he was actually using six different spells, rather than three. Anyway, the point was, he wasn't cheating.

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Graham Osbrook

August 04, 2021 5:33 PM

Hopefully. by Graham Osbrook

"Fair point," Graham agreed about the idea that maybe lessons were developed so that they would develop problem solving skills as a secondary goal to developing magical skill. "Makes a lot of sense, magic's a lot more useful if you can think of how to use it better."

He stared at Jasper for a long moment when the other guy relayed the rumor he had heard about Professor Wright's past, wondering for a second if he was being wound up to end up on the end of a joke. Wright, making up stories to entertain children. Wright, who could barely hold an audience of children (well, of Graham, at least, but he seriously doubted that he was the only one) in person. He glanced toward the professor, trying to imagine this.

"New goal," he joked. "Figure out how to trick Wright into confirming or denying this rumor that he used to do something at least vaguely interesting." He wasn't sure that 'being a writer' counted as having a life, but it was at least interesting. "Maybe I could see him doing scripts for one of those - like - really super-boring old people programs about what the weather this season is going to be like if you're trying to grow fancy honking daffodils or fanged geraniums, but..." He shook his head, just struggling to envision it, not quite realizing that he had no idea what he would assume someone who wrote anything other than school assignments might look like or how such a person might comport himself.

Graham nodded, not thinking much of it, when Jasper said he wasn't inclined to play. "That's cool," he said. "I'm not super-competitive, either. I'm not sure I would have joined the team if my parents hadn't gotten me my own broom right before I started here." It was possible Jasper would find this odd as a motivating factor; Graham had the impression all the Brockerts were rather rich, and so that probably wasn't a particularly noteworthy acquisition in their books. "I did always like listening to it, though, so I guess seeing other people being competitive? If that's a thing. Plus I do like flying. What do you do for fun?" he added conversationally.

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Jasper Brockert

August 05, 2021 6:56 PM

Indeed by Jasper Brockert

"Indeed." Jasper replied "But you're right too. We're in Intermediate classes now so we're going to be challenged more. And also, doing harder magic means learning how to use it better and of course, that's the main goal." Anything else came second to that, when it came to education that was. The Teppenpaw felt that there were more important things in life than being good at magic, such as being a good person. And definitely, that was more important than one's intellectual capacity seeing as Topaz, admittedly, was quite brilliant-something Jasper was unlikely to compliment her on seeing as her head didn't need to get any bigger-but she was an absolute monster.

This belief was something that the third year was trying to reassure Sapphire of. That it was more important to be good and kind than to be smart. Of course, he was also trying to reassure that she was not at all stupid and that she shouldn't let Topaz get to her although it was probably too late for that. And so far, his reassurances did not seem to be working anyway. Nor did evidence of her actually being successful to his own chagrin.

Jasper laughed at Graham's new idea."I think that would be quite a challenge." He responded. As much as the Teppenpaw tried to be respectful of authority figures within reason, he did actually have to admit that the idea of Professor Wright doing something that imaginative was quite difficult. Probably mostly, because Jasper was comparing him to Owen and finding them to be very different people. His cousin tended to talk a lot about his stories whereas Professor Wright...tended to talk about facts and history and theory, which Jasper supposed at their place in books that weren't specifically about those things, because if your setting was realistic, you might need to do research, which Owen didn't seem to care about since he had a recurring character who was a polar bear from Great Britain and in one story, featured his villain controlling weather from a volcano in Canada. Jasper was pretty sure those were not things that really existed and that the only polar bears in Britain were in zoos.

There was also the fact that Professor Wright was a teacher and an Aladren, which might have accounted for the sometimes irrelevant information he provided. Which Jasper wished he wouldn't so much because of how much it freaked Sapphire out. The fifth year was always worried that they'd be tested on it and having to retain the absolute deluge of information that Professor Wright and some of the other teachers provided.

Jasper nearly sighed with relief when Graham said that it was cool in response to his own disinterest in Quidditch. Well, okay, it was more than disinterest that he truly felt in the game but that was what he wanted to portray to his classmate. The important thing was that the other boy wasn't judging him for even that. He knew-from experience-that some people would. Obviously, Uncle Eustace thought that there was something wrong with that and mocked him and his male cousins and called them names. J asper tried to apply the same things he said to Sapphire about Topaz to himself, that the opinions of people like Uncle Eustace didn't matter, but he was only somewhat successful and also, he did want to make friends and for his classmates to like him.

He nodded. "I can see why those things would make you decide to play." Nothing short of the Imperius Curse would make Jasper play Quidditch but it was fine that Graham did since he didn't seem to be judging others for not doing so.

The Teppenpaw thought for a second. "I know I said I wasn't very competitive, but I do like playing board games and card games. Most people don't usually take those as seriously though. I suppose I also like to read, do puzzles and listen to the wireless and sometimes, go swimming in the water room." Admittedly, Jasper didn't really have a passion like Isla's puppets and Topaz's taxidermy (and torture). He supposed he was passionate about helping others but that wasn't really a hobby.

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