Time for a Power-Up (Advanced) on Charms

Grayson Wright

December 20, 2021 1:00 PM

Time for a Power-Up (Advanced) by Grayson Wright

It was subtle - enough so that he wasn't entirely sure it was real - but Gray thought he had spotted a couple of grey hairs in recent days. This was an idea he found far more disturbing than he would have expected to. He rarely found his appearance a subject of much interest; he'd always hoped he would retain more of his hair than his father had (so far, so good), but other than that, he'd always regarded his age and the details of what he looked like as something as unimportant as the rest of his personal traits. There was no real reason to find the thought that he probably wouldn't make it another hundred years a particularly interesting thought - it wasn't, after all, as though it was all that much less than a century to go, yet....

"Hello again, everyone," he said to the revoltingly young adults of the Advanced class. "Today, we're going to start one of the most dangerous units of your Charms education - which of course you can say about any of our Advanced units, but this one's at least on par with Healing charms, and I'd say a bit more serious. Today, we're going to start looking at spells which can, at least temporarily, give you additional powers beyond your inherent abilities."

He paused to give them his best approximation of a stern, no-nonsense look. "Some of you may remember that some of the theory of this was covered when you were preparing for your CATS. A lot of this unit will also be, be purely theoretical, not least because most of the more potent forms of this kind of magic are at best unstable and, and generally dangerous - not to mention often illegal."

That felt like a slightly insignificant note to end on compared to the first two, especially the first one. He knew there were a few government departments and extremely secretive private firms which researched that kind of thing, hoping to discover new forms of magic or to find new ways to control those which were already known but which were not, to the best of current knowledge, stable enough to regulate. Gray had the impression that such studies were the kinds of things where the serious researcher was apt to lose limbs at about the same rate as a none-too-talented magizoologist, and that therefore, it was most likely a field where most of the researchers probably didn't really believe they would ever find anything. He didn't know, though; he'd never had the ambition, talent, steady character, or rock-solid pronunciation to even consider such a career. Would anyone in this class? If they did, he'd probably never know it.

"However, we will do some practical lessons and we'll begin with one of those. Supersensory Charms - which are, of course, banned in all examinations, sporting events, competitions, and so forth. Don't try it on your RATS. It's also recommended that you not use spells like this on yourself too often even in legal contexts - like with the Cheering Charms you learned in Intermediates, some people can find they get too fond of the feeling. Fair warning, though, others find it unpleasant to, to one degree or another, or disorienting, so be prepared for that possibility, too.

"It's possible to cast the charm on yourself - in most contexts you'd ever use one, you'd probably need to cast it on yourself - but to begin, again as with Cheering Charms, you'll start by trying them on each other since most people find it easier to cast spells on other people. If you were casting it on yourself, you'd do so by turning in a circle with your wand held out and inclined toward yourself - like so." He demonstrated without actually casting the spell. "To do so on each other - here, will you help me for a moment, please?" he asked a student in the first row. Once he had obtained an assistant, he walked in a circle around the other person, his wand pointed toward their feet, again without casting any incantations.

Simple enough, just make sure you have plenty of room to move around freely - once I've finished talking, we'll push the desks against the walls so you can spread out in pairs. The incantation is benesto sensum - take your time to get comfortable with it before you try casting it verbally. If you have a knack for this, you may eventually advance to casting the spell nonverbally, but nobody try that without permission and supervision. It'll be a few weeks before I'll consider giving anyone those, if at all," he briefed them. "For now - take your time, be careful, and stop immediately if you even think something might have gone wrong." He waited for them to get out of their desks and then magically moved all the desks to the walls. "Begin."

16 Grayson Wright Time for a Power-Up (Advanced) 113 1 5

Anya Delachene

December 20, 2021 2:10 PM

Ooh! Can I get the feather that lets me fly? (or Yes, I'm a Pecari!) by Anya Delachene

Anya entered the charms room and made her way to the back of the classroom like she normally did. She picked the desk farthest form the windows so she wouldn't get distracted staring at the outside where she'd rather be, and sat on its surface. Professor Wright was one of the professors who chose not to fight this battle so, in return, she always tried to make sure she wasn't blocking anybody's line of sight and was actually trying to pay attention. That worked better some days than it did other days, but the intention was there.

Today was feeling like a good day. She'd eaten a good lunch and she'd had a free period afterwards where she'd gotten to run around in the lovely still-cool-but-definitely-warming-up weather. Charms was good to her like that. It was her first class back after a long mid-day break and the two that followed were ones she really liked, so her Advanced class schedule was really working out for her. Not having Transfiguration or Potions was awesome. That made Charms her hard class, and it was so nicely placed in her day that she could usually pay attention to somewhere between 75 and 90 percent of the words coming out of Professor Wright's mouth.

Today, those words included 'unstable, dangerous, and also often illegal' which caught her attention pretty good. She'd lost the thread after 'theory' and 'CATS prep' had come up in the same sentence, but this brought her back quite handily. Unstable and dangerous were good. She liked those attributes. 'Illegal' less so, but she trusted Professor Wright wouldn't be having them do anything to dubious in class itself. She couldn't even imagine Professor Wright jaywalking. (Honestly, though, she wasn't sure what 'jaywalking' meant. It was a term she'd mostly heard people use to describe something almost inconsequentially illegal. But Professor Wright didn't seem the type to do any kind of weird illegal walking regardless.)

In her attempts to picture him doing the jay-walk, she almost missed what the unstable, dangerous, and possibly illegal charm they were studying today was, but she tuned back in just in time. Supersensory. Huh. Was that like Superman vision or something? Or was more like Theo with his sensitivity to textures? She looked around to catch his eye, but remembered belatedly that Theo was still in Intermediates. Right.

As Professor Wright continued explaining she gathered it could manifest either way. 'Unpleasant' and 'disorienting' could definitely be the Theo sensory-ness, from what she understood. But if it was good enough of a boost for sports an stuff that they made it illegal, then yeah, there was probably some Superman stuff going on there, too. Ah, so that's where the illegal came into it. Cool. That was fine. She wasn't planning to use it in Quidditch or her RATS (unless, of course, the examiner asked her to cast it as part of the practical) so no problem.

She took note of the way to hold her wand when casting it on herself, though she wasn't sure she was going to be one of the people who liked the feeling. She'd never been formally diagnosed with ADHD, but she was pretty sure that's what she had, and she wasn't convinced it was a condition that would work well in conjunction with super-senses.

She did like the opportunity to have a desk free assignment, though, and she boldly approached another student once she had finished helping move the desks aside (because that was fun as much as because she was a helpful prefect). "Hi," she greeting her potential partner. "just want to you to know, I do have a problem with hyperactivity, so . . . this might not go well. Or it might be totally awesome. Let's try! You want to cast first?"

1 Anya Delachene Ooh! Can I get the feather that lets me fly? (or Yes, I'm a Pecari!) 1453 0 5

Zara Jackson

December 21, 2021 1:58 AM

Let's start with a tune up first by Zara Jackson

Zara made her way to Charms, trying to keep her mind on her classes instead of her future. She and Felipe hadn't done anything about setting a date for their wedding, and she was assuming this was going to be a relatively long engagement. Step one had been telling her parents. They had waited until break to do so, as it was the sort of thing that was better done in person. Her parents had been... smiley. After a moment of shock. And in a way that said they were being smiley because they knew she wouldn't take it well if they were critical. Her mom hadn't outright said she was too young, but there had been some questions along the lines of whether she had thought it through, which she was certain she wouldn't have got if she was older. She had been sulky and stroppy with her parents, until she caught them exchanging glances that told her that every pout was proving their point, in their minds at least. She'd tried to be better behaved after that, even though she still resented the lack of support/perfectly reasonable questions (depending on whose side you took).

The part that she was avoiding was that being married did sound like a scary big grown up responsibility, and she wasn’t really sure how she felt about that, but she definitely couldn’t say so to the parents who were already doubting her choices. And, in the meantime, there were other choices to make. Like whether she wanted to go to any of the colleges who were gradually getting back to her to offer her places. She guessed so…? But it was definitely easier to just think about today’s Charms class than any of that. Especially as it was kind of an interesting topic. Superpowers, eh? It was funny - magic was, to non-magical people, basically the definition of superpowers. And yet, here magical people were wanting to supercharge their superpowers. People never could just be happy with what nature gave them, huh?

Once the desks were pushed aside, she looked for a partner. Anya approached her. Her opening statement was a little surprising. Not the announcement that she had hyperactivity issues, because well duh, who could have not noticed that? But the fact that Anya herself was actually aware and taking them into consideration was sort of surprising. Zara wouldn’t have claimed to know her well, but she didn’t exactly seem the most reflective. Still, her inherent Anya-ness had also never been terribly off-putting to Zara either. They weren’t friends more through lack of it ever happening rather than because of some deep-seated dislike. At least, from her perspective.

“Sure,” she agreed, to the idea of casting it on Anya first. It felt a little bit more concerning than usual, given that it had been prefixed with ‘this might be incompatible with my brain chemistry!!!!’ but… well, Anya seemed game, and it was a class assignment, and there was only one real way to find out. She tried to shake off the doubts in favour of yoloing it, because the former wasn’t conducive to good casting. Keeping her attention on the task at hand, she walked carefully around Anya, wand pointed at her feet, casting the spell as Professor Wright had shown them. She was usually pretty good at charms. She had a fairly decisive nature, and that worked well with the wand that had chosen her. She wasn’t quite as good at artsy things as she was at being direct and practical, but this spell seemed to fall more into the latter. Plus she was a seventh year, so getting at least some result consistently was pretty normal for her, even if she’d likely do better with repeated practice. “How’s that?” she asked Anya.

13 Zara Jackson Let's start with a tune up first 1444 0 5