Tarquin Fox-Reynolds
March 07, 2022 4:12 AM
Intermediates - An Impossible Task by Tarquin Fox-Reynolds
There was a particularly vicious cold that was doing the rounds, and Tarquin wouldn't be surprised if he was its next victim, given how frequently it was forcing him out of his office and into contact with the students, and the germ-coated teaching environments of its previous victims.Today, he was standing at the front of the Charms classroom, and feeling a lot less confident than when he'd covered for Killian. Firstly, he had expected to be doing half of Killian's study hall anyway, and the second half was just supervising the students whilst they did homework - here, they were supposed to be actually learning something. Secondly, Gray's note keeping system and handwriting were... esoteric, to say the least. To put it another way, they were only marginally better than Tarquin's own, which meant he definitely couldn't criticise but also had no idea what they were really supposed to be doing today. It seemed to involve impossible charms, which Gray had then made extensive notes on the physics of. Tarquin had taken that central concept and librarianed the heck out of it. Hopefully Gray would be grateful that, when he returned, he could just reuse his existing lesson plan, rather than being annoyed that Tarquin hadn't stuck to it. It had looked like a theory class, and Tarquin was definitely keeping it that way. Which also solved problem number three - that the stunted magical danger child was in this class. Tarquin had a lot of sympathy for the kid, sure, and wanted the best for him, but he didn't particularly want to be responsible for him. Especially not in a situation that required him waving his wand, whilst having his routine be disrupted by his most trusted teacher being absent. That didn't sound like a particularly safe class for anyone.
"Alright, settle down," he called, once it seemed like everyone was there. He did a roll call to make sure everyone was there, and that he was ascribing the right names to the right faces in the cases of those in between kids who were neither library regualrs nor notorious enough for him to simply know via staff room osmosis.
"Today, you are going to be looking at impossible charms. These are sometimes bound by actual rules of magic, sometimes they are possible but illegal, and sometimes they are theoretically possible, but haven't been discovered or invented yet. It is quite common for the exams to present you with a fictitious charm, and to ask you which category you think it belongs in, and why.
"Today, you are going to start thinking about that by coming up with something you would love a charm to be able to do. Remember, it must be a charm - anything that involves conjuring things up is most likely a transfiguration. I'd then like you to research, and see... How close does magic already come to having that effect? Is there a charm that does something similar, or does part of what you wished for? Is there another branch of magic, such as potions, that already has a similar effect? You can talk quietly to your neighbours whilst you research, but we will also be having a whole class discussion of this in about twenty minutes, so make sure you're also staying on task." He figured that generating a lot of paperwork that someone would have to mark would not ingratiate him, especially if it wasn't exactly on what Gray had planned.
"If you have any questions, let me know. Otherwise, begin."
OOC: As usual, posts will be marked on length, quality, relevance, and realism.
Subthreads: I don't know about this by Iris Cobb
Bad habits by Oz Spellman
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Tarquin Fox-Reynolds
Intermediates - An Impossible Task
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Iris Cobb
March 07, 2022 7:43 PM
I don't know about this by Iris Cobb
Why was the librarian in Charms class? The question ran through Iris' head as she entered the room and found her seat. She pulled out her things for class and waited patiently, he would explain once he began. He didn't and then Iris really began to wonder. Either it was something commonplace enough, like the cold that was going around, or it was on the far other side of the spectrum. Iris didn't have anything against Professor Gray, so she hoped it was just the cold.She listened to the librarian's lesson, and was immediately worried about needing to do impossible things. The feeling calmed a bit as he kept talking, but she still wasn't to sure about this. When they were released to work, she set about the task.
According to Mr. Fox-Reynolds, step one was to think of a charm she would like to know. That was tricky, what did she want a charm to do? Carry her books for her? No, she technically already knew a levitation spell. Make Billy less…. Billy? That wasn't very well defined and probably fit into that 'illegal' category. Altering her attire so it was closer to what everyone else wore? That was Transig, not a Charm.
Iris sighed, what she really wanted was to figure out more of what they'd found at the end of summer. Maybe a charm that would lead her to the right book in the library? The one that had the answers she wanted? That sounded like an impossible, legal charm. It would also be really nice to have right now. She open her book and began flipping through it for anything that slightly resembled her idea.
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Iris Cobb
I don't know about this
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Oz Spellman
March 09, 2022 3:06 AM
Bad habits by Oz Spellman
How had this gone so wrong, so fast? Xavier was supposed to be his good influence friend, who kept him out of trouble. Oz wasn't totally sure what the consequences would be if they were found out, but he couldn't rule out expulsion. And yet, he was going along with it. He had a few theories as to why. The first was that he was an idiot. The second was that he was just doomed to be in trouble, and with moving house over the summer, the universe had needed to come up with a creative new way to drop him in it. The third was that Henry's theory about what was right not always being the same as what was good was happening. It was awfully hard to tell that apart from stupidity though, which was concerning.He took a seat in Charms, away from Xavier, up near the front so he wouldn't even have to look at him. Not that he didn't want to be around him just... He really needed a break. He needed to push down the multiple ways in which Xavier was stressing him out. He couldn’t be weird though. Partly because teachers might notice, but also because Xavier didn’t even know what he’d done. Sure, he knew The Thing He’d Asked, and how that might stress Oz out, but not The Other Thing He’d Asked, which weirded Oz out, so the pressure was on Oz to act like nothing was wrong.
Acting like everything was not entirely normal would also freak Henry out. Had Henry already sensed it? Fricking twin telepathy. Had Henry woken up in the middle of the night because Oz had had a hideous dream? Could he read the signals under the surface that Oz was not fine? The two of them had said no more secrets. Oz had promised him that. Did it count, if they were other people's secrets and he'd just got mixed up in them by mistake? Except it wasn't by mistake... He didn’t want to gossip, or to TMI Henry, but wanted counted as avoiding that versus keeping a secret? Why wasn't any of it easy to work out?
He took a seat in Charms. Professor Wright was off, and the librarian was setting them busy work. They were gonna research and discuss. And what? If he didn't do it, what would happen? A big fat nothing, because this wasn't a real assignment, and Mr. Fox- Reynolds wasn't a real teacher. And yeah, Oz was actively trying not to draw attention right now, so he probably wasn't going to lay his head down on the table and blatantly refuse. Sometimes the path of least resistance was actually doing the work, but he didn't need to do it well or try hard. Plus the librarian had set them the task of thinking. So, if he did sit here, staring off into space, he could claim he was thinking.
He tried it for a minute, before finding that his brain kept going to places he didn't want it to.
"This is stupid," he complained to his neighbour. "I don't know all the spells. How are we meant to think of one that doesn’t exist when we don’t know all the ones that do?" Picking holes in the work was often easier than doing it, and at least he was ‘engaged in discussion with his neighbour’ which was probably part of it. He hadn’t really been listening.
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Oz Spellman
Bad habits
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