An unexpected challenge. on Herbology

Nathan Xavier

February 05, 2023 5:27 PM

Intermediates: Wand Woods by Nathan Xavier

As was his habit, Professor Nathan Xavier stood at the door to his greenhouse and greeted each student as they arrived and returned the graded homework assignment they had turned in last week. Once everyone had arrived and taken seats around the central worktable, he greeted them as a group. "Welcome back, today we'll be starting our unit on wand woods." It was a unit that he repeated every three years so they only had to go through it once during their stint as an intermediate student, as there wasn't a lot of doing in the unit, just information, though he'd touch upon it again over the next two years during the CATS review sessions he set up for fifth years, as it would be something that got tested on, and he didn't want the younger students to forget about it by the time their tests came around, but this was the first time anyone in the class was getting the subject in depth - at least from him - so hopefully they'd be on about equal footing regardless of which year they were in.

"As you know, wands are perhaps the most important magical implement witches and wizards of our culture have. Professor Wright, I believe, also does a unit on how they work from a magical theory perspective. Here, in Herbology, we learn specifically about the traits of many of the wood types used in wand making and, to a lesser degree, about the trees that produce them."

"Wands can be make from nearly any kind of wood, but similar to how only a minority of people can produce magic, only a minority of trees have wood that can conduct magic. It is very difficult to tell the difference between a mundane tree and a magical tree, as they are outwardly very much alike, just as wizards and muggles are very much outwardly alike, but there are a few clues wand makers can use. The easiest is bowtruckles. If there's a bowtruckle nest in a tree, it's a wand quality tree. They don't nest in mundane trees. Other markers are much more subtle and take years of experience to really learn to recognize with consistency. Unless you go into wand-making, nobody is going to expect you to learn those methods."

"What you will be expected to know are some of the characteristics of wands made from most of the common wood types. But first, I want you each to consider your own wand. How long is it? Is it springy or unyielding? Do you know what wood it is made from? Please write a short paragraph describing it and note what kinds of spells it seems to do best with and which kinds it has trouble casting. For a wand to choose you, you probably have similar strengths and weaknesses in spell casting. Note this is for practical spell casting, not the understanding of theory. Some people are just naturally intuitive with some branches of magic, and your wand will more reflect your practical talent more than your ability to write essays explaining what's happening, and even then individual wands vary. This isn't for a grade, just a quick write up before you're influenced by what should-be."

He gave them some time to write that up, and then collected the papers before continuing. "Now we're going to go over what the different wand woods are known for and you can check to see if your wand matches up to its hype or if your wand chose you for a different reason than your natural spellcrafting talents. Wand cores can have just as much influence as the wood, so that may have been your more compatible match if your strengths are different from those of your wood."

"There are a lot of different woods used by wandmakers around the world, so I'm going to pass around a handout with a quick explanation of each type." He waved his own wand, and a pile of papers flew around the room, one sheet landing in front of each student. "I want you to spend some time reading these over, especially the one corresponding to your own wand. If you don't know your wand wood, raise your hand and I'll try to identify it, or you can try to figure it out yourself based on these descriptions. For homework, I expect a research report using your text and the library to get more information about your wand's wood. Your essay should cover the common traits for your wand's wood and how well you feel your wand meets - or doesn't meet - those expectations."

"For today, though, I want you look to see which other woods on this list you think might be compatible with you. If a witch or wizard has to replace their wand for any reason, their second one is not always the same wood as their first, so you do not have to consider the one you currently have as the only one appropriate for you. You may talk amongst yourselves, considering the possibilities presented by all of these wood types. On Thursday, we'll start talking about the properties of each wood more individually and comprehensively. Today is just for familiarizing yourself with the ones most likely to be drawn to you."

"On the side tables, I have some retired wands made from many of these different wood types. You may try casting some simple spells with them, to see how they might different from each other and the wand you normally use. Don't be too concerned if some of them don't work for you at all, as some wands remain loyal to their past owner, and others simply won't work for people they find too different from their ideal owner." Each wand was labeled with a small adhesive tag wrapped around its base so it was easily identifiable.

As the students began reading and then moving toward the sample wands, Nathan took a position near where he'd placed the more volatile woods that were likely to protest the wrong handler with fire or other disasters, his own wand ready to set his greenhouse back to rights or protect the other students if necessary.

OOC: Most information used in this lesson comes from the hp wiki: http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Wand_wood
Another good source is: https://www.wizardingworld.com/writing-by-jk-rowling/wand-woods
In the case of sparks or other violent reaction to a mismatched wand, you have permission to have Nathan step in and avert a disaster, or you can tag me.

Subthreads:

An unexpected challenge. by Alexei Vorontsov with Xavier Lundstrom

Nothing new by Gwendolyn Brockert

1 Nathan Xavier Intermediates: Wand Woods 28 1 5

Alexei Vorontsov

February 07, 2023 7:01 PM

An unexpected challenge. by Alexei Vorontsov

Sometimes, it amused Alexei to think about how, exactly, bits of language became easier or more difficult. He knew the words hello, Professor from lessons and experience, but he was pretty sure that Professor Xavier’s habit of greeting everyone day after day had something to do with why he could repeat that phrase with, at this point, almost no accent. Hearing everyone who came in say it, over and over again, gave him lots of examples to mimic and compare his own pronunciation to, and so, as long as he merely addressed the man as ‘Professor’ (‘Xavier’ was still not the easiest word in the world for him, despite having a professor and a roommate called that; seeing it written down could make it either better or worse, since he’d discovered there was no predicting how his brain would interpret any given x-shaped mark: would he think ‘kh,’ as in the very similar-looking Cyrillic letter, or would he think ‘English letter that is sort of like S and Z sounds rammed together’?), he’d put his ability to respond to basic greetings up against anyone’s, any time.

As Professor Xavier began speaking to the whole group after everyone had been greeted and handed a paper, Alexei thought the subject sounded interesting. The initial assignment was also deemed…doable, though without taking the time to look it up in a bilingual dictionary, he could only really call the wand wood by his best transliteration of its Russian name and hope for the best:

My wand has 12 inches of ryabina (sorry, I don’t know the English word). It is flexy. I find charms easier than transfigurations. Most defense magic is also easy. It is light-brown in color, I think it has unicorn hair in it. I was told this wood comes from trees which make bitter berries in other places, but where this wood is from, the berries are not so bitter.

At that point, he ran out of things to say in either language – there was, after all, only so much to be said in context, at least with only his current supply of knowledge to work from - and so scrawled his name on it in English letters and passed it in to the professor before leaning in to listen to the next part of the lesson…and ran right into the problem he’d just encountered when trying to write his paragraph. Ah, well. It seemed it was one for the bilingual dictionary after all…assuming, of course, that he had the thing with him right now…

Oh. Of course, the first time he’d needed it in quite a while now, he didn’t have it with him. Ty genni, Lyosha, he thought at himself. This was just great.

He bit his lip and looked over the page of information they were given, hoping a word would strike a chord somewhere. It didn’t immediately do so. Should he just ask, or should he try to narrow it down from the list? The professor had said some of them might do that, so he wouldn’t be the only one – just, most likely, the only one who knew the name of the thing he needed to compare himself to, just in the wrong language….

…Or he could go look at the retired wands, compare them to his wand, and then cross-compare that with the list – wouldn’t that narrow it down further? That sounded about right. Accordingly, he went over and looked at them, searching for one the same color as his own and holding his down near the retirees to make sure he got it right.

“I have a puzzle to solve,” he explained when he noticed someone observing this behavior. “I know a word for this wood – but we haven’t used the English word for this tree enough to remember what it is!”

16 Alexei Vorontsov An unexpected challenge. 1531 0 5

Xavier Lundstrom

February 09, 2023 3:14 PM

Not that unexpected by Xavier Lundstrom

As was his habit, student Xavier walked into the greenhouse, muttering a forced 'hi' with all the enthusiasm of an average teenager, and took his homework with no more than a cursory glance. It was a far cry from the boy who had cheerfully joked about 'Professor Me' but that boy had been absent for a very long time.

He took a seat, shuffling a deck of tarot cards while he waited for class to start. He was well past caring about the impact such actions had on his social life, seeing as he didn't have one, and the action was both reassuring and less risky than the trance-like state required for crystal gazing. He was using single card pulls to predict how lessons would go. Sometimes, he could only see the link in hindsight but it was useful info to file away for the future.

The card he drew was the two of swords, reversed. He frowned. That would have been an unusually negative draw for herbology either way up. When upright, the card represented weighing all your options carefully before jumping in or seeking clarity. It usually applied to things much more complex than 'please repot this plant.' Reversed, the card meant a lack of decision making, or lacking the information or insight to continue - all of swords were to do with thoughts and communication. How hard was herbology going to be today?

As Professor Xavier started the class, it didn't seem particularly daunting... The first bump in the road he hit was the fact they had to describe their relationship with their wand. The honest answer to that was painful and personal, though nothing that wasn't already fairly common knowledge, and the alternative was handing in a blank piece of paper. Was this the weighing up that the card had mentioned? He lacked any other information than the truths he didn't want to share... But there were cards that more directly dealt with feelings and keeping things locked away inside you. This felt like him imposing himself on the cards, like trying to force a jigsaw puzzle piece in where it didn't belong, just so you could feel like you were making progress. He'd been getting better at recognising that.

He took a paper and quill, resigning himself to write down what he knew.

My wand is made of linden and dragon heartstring. It is eleven inches, not very flexible, and I think the wood has a pleasing appearance. He wasn't sure that was terribly relevant, but it was one of the few nice things he could say about the darn thing, which had otherwise been an endless source of frustration. I am a Seer, so divination is the type of magic that comes to me easiest, which does not require a wand. All other magics seem equally challenging. Even when struggling with all other spells, I was reasonably able to produce defensive spells but I suspect that is more related to a sense of self-preservation than wand wood. He tapped his quill, wondering what else he could say, but it all felt like speculation. Like how he felt his wand was probably sorry it had got stuck with him. My practical magic has been improving as I develop my divination powers, more or less evenly across subjects. Because his divination powers were apparently greedy, dramatic divas who were spiteful to the rest of him when they didn’t get channelled properly, but that wasn’t wand related.

He turned his paper in, and took a wand wood list in return, skimming it for linden… and not finding it. He remembered a similar experience when he’d started lessons with Professor Wright. The Charms master had suggested Xavier look into his wand composition to help them, but he’d hit the same brick wall, and hadn’t made many efforts to get around it. There had been breathing exercises, and arguing his family’s innocence—plenty of other areas for them to focus on, so that hitting a dead in one area had been enough to just shift their focus to things that did bear fruit. That wasn’t an option here… There, perhaps, was his ‘two of swords’ moment for the day, seeing as he was definitely stuck now. He tried to remember the wand maker’s comments, but it had been years ago and hadn’t seemed super important at the time. He hadn’t known he needed to pay attention, and had been more excited about the fact he could do actual magic. It seemed strange now how thrilling that had all been…

He was considering the lazy option of just asking Professor Xavier, when Alexei caught his eye. His roommate was going through all the old wands. Was he at that part of the assignment already? Xavier tried to stifle irritation at the possibility. Theory was not usually an area where he fell behind, though usually he wasn’t at the disadvantage of being excluded from using the same resource as anyone else… Even so, it seemed quick. But as Alexei looked up, it seemed like he was at a more similar stage to Xavier.

“Ah,” Xavier sympathised. Another person hitting an information barrier. Interesting. At least his interpretation of the card was proving quite accurate, even if nothing else was going his way. “Mine’s not on the list,” he said. He flicked to the index of his herbology book, but it wasn’t listed there either. Given that Professor Xavier had had to provide a handout with common wand woods to supplement the book, and given that Xavier’s was apparently uncommon that wasn’t surprising. “I guess I could try a tree book or something?” he pondered out loud. Asking Professor Xavier still sounded more appealing. “Did you just skip onto the next bit?” If the information wasn’t there, he wasn’t sure how much they could really do.

13 Xavier Lundstrom Not that unexpected 1529 0 5

Alexei Vorontsov

February 10, 2023 1:43 PM

In the abstract, you mean? by Alexei Vorontsov

Alexei was surprised to hear of Xavier’s problem. Xavier, he thought, had many problems, most of which Alexei was only vaguely aware of, but this was not one he’d have expected his roommate to have. So Xavier had an unusual wand wood?

“Maybe,” he agreed when Xavier speculated about the usefulness of looking into a ‘tree book’ for information. “Sometimes plants have more than one name in English, yes? Or maybe you can find a relative of the tree, put them together that way.” He looked at his own wand. “I have a book with both Russian and English in it, but I did not bring it today,” he admitted. “Usually I don’t need to do puzzles like this in class, so sometimes I don’t bring all the books. It makes everything so heavy. But I don’t know ryabina in English.”

He shook his head when Xavier asked if he had moved on to the next part. “Not…quite. See, these have names on them. I am trying to see if they are the same color as my wand, the wood grain the same, and maybe guess from there. It is not…perfect, wood looks like wood sometimes, but - ” He smiled ruefully and admitted, “I would be embarrassed to ask the professor if I don’t try first – he might ask ‘but Alexei, why do you not have the extra book?’”

Though that was far from the only embarrassing thing about it, of course. There was also the possibility of being told to go get said book, which would draw everyone’s attention to his issue here. Pecari wouldn’t be as bad as he assumed the other three Houses would be, but….He shook his head. “Sometimes I think – oh, there is no problem now, I know the words like everyone else. Then these things happen again.” He wanted to ask if Xavier still had the same problem with wizard words compared to Muggle words, but worried it might be rude, and might therefore make Xavier angry. Alexei liked getting along with people as a rule, for their sakes and his own, and especially people he had to live with.

16 Alexei Vorontsov In the abstract, you mean? 1531 0 5

Xavier Lundstrom

February 11, 2023 12:07 AM

More like in the ether by Xavier Lundstrom

“Yeah,” Xavier agreed, both with Alexei’s assertion that plants could have more than one name (though he’d rarely heard of that with trees—more with flowers having a bunch of folknames, which ‘alder’ didn’t seem like. It wasn’t like he was calling it pillwiggle or old-man-in-the-lane or whatever), and that there might be some like… tree genealogy or something. He still would have rather just asked, but the bookshelf was right by Alexei, and his roommate proved to be being both industrious and reluctant to ask the teacher, which might make Xavier look bad if he did—especially when he himself had such a ready source of printed help available.

“It’s Professor Xavier…” he said, when Alexei mentioned that he might receive a light chastisement, in a tone that suggested he thought even words that strong to be very unlikely. He suspected Professor Xavier was more likely to feel bad at tripping Alexei up with complex vocabulary than to make him bear the blame.

“That’s rough, I’m sorry,” he said, making a face (Alexei had, early on, expressed a wish to be exposed to slang, which had saved Xavier the need to modify to a very great extent how he spoke - he could slow down or expand as needed, but he didn’t tend to do it by default). He could relate a little to that, he still felt out of his depth at times in this world, but that wasn’t a safe or comfortable thought to express, so he kept it to himself. In spite of their shared room, he and Alexei still only knew each other in the superficial way that two people forced into each other’s company would do so. He could talk with him. He had an impression of his impressions of things around him, and could have come up with a description of how Alexei approached his work and the world, but they had never lifted the lids off those boxes and intentionally shown each other the contents. Alexei even had either a natural gift or a healthy enough dose of not wanting to stick his nose in that he’d never walked in on Xavier having a total breakdown in their shared space. Admittedly, he had more of those in Professor Wright’s office than anywhere else, but him crying into his pillow wasn’t unheard of.

“I could try to check up on it more for you—help you predict which classes you might hit issues in,” he offered. Given the amount of time he spent staring into crystal balls or shuffling tarot decks, that part of his life wasn’t a secret, though Alexei probably thought him a regular but enthusiastic member of the divination class rather than what he actually was. Though, as his roommate, he’d probably seen Xavier deeply in his crystal ball trance or passed out from the effort more than once… It was hard to say, seeing as he wasn’t exactly aware of his surroundings when it happened. He didn’t know whether or not Alexei had witnessed the evening when Oz had had to fireman’s lift him from the fifth year boys’ dorm to his own room. If he had, he’d been too polite to mention it. Unlike Oz, who’d been kinda pissy about the incident…

He retrieved a book from the bookcase, which promised him more detail about trees than anyone could reasonably want to know, and flicked to the index. Linden. It was there at least.

He flicked to the page it was mentioned on, which was headed Tilia.

“Urgh, it’s from a genus of over thirty trees and listen to this… ‘The tree is known as linden for the European species, and basswood for North American species. In Britain and Ireland they are commonly called lime trees, although they are not related to the citrus lime.’” He read the last line with particular incredulity. Why would you call something a lime when it wasn’t a lime??? Like, hello, British people? That word was already taken. “Sometimes Herbology makes me feel like I will never be able to speak English, and I speak English.” He rolled his eyes. “I mean, so do you, but you know what I mean - as my home language,” he added quickly. “And hey, guess what, basswood and lime aren’t on this stupid list either!” he said, checking under ‘b’ and ‘l.’ “Why is this so hard? Any progress?”

13 Xavier Lundstrom More like in the ether 1529 0 5

Gwendolyn Brockert

February 12, 2023 4:39 PM

Nothing new by Gwendolyn Brockert

Gwendolyn was really excited about today’s Herbology lesson. As she was an Aladren, this was not terribly unusual, but today was a lesson on wand wood which was something that she was especially interested in. Her dad was a wandmaker and she had grown up learning all about the trade, the different woods and cores and length and what these different factors meant about the witch or wizard selected by them.

Which arguably meant that Gwendolyn might not actually be learning anything new today and she did like learning new things. Still, it was an interesting branch-no pun intended-of Herbology and magic as a whole and arguably more important than any other individual subject because of how essential wands were to all witches and wizards. Maybe Professor Xavier could give her a more advanced book on the subject to look at? Of course, Dad probably already had them, but Gwendolyn could still do extra credit or something on it. Or just take the easy O. It wasn’t as if she actually needed extra credit anyway. Although, it would also be easy extra credit. Huh, she’d have to think about it.

In the meantime, she would just do as instructed. After all, one shouldn’t forgo what they were assigned and do extra credit instead and besides, it was a fascinating subject anyway. The Aladren wrote down.

My wand is cedar with a raven feather core, 10 ½ inches. Cedar is a wand for those who are perceptive and shrewd and ravens are a bird that while representing ill omens and loss also can be about insight and prophecy. While I’m not a seer, the wood and the core of my wand work very well together. Cedar wands also choose witches and wizards who tend to be formidable enemies. Being that it’s on the shorter side it tends to produce more elegant and refined magic, as opposed to longer ones which are drawn to more flamboyant, dramatic personalities. It’s neither too springy nor too rigid. I don’t really have an issue performing any particular kind of magic with it.

Honestly, Gwendolyn was pretty sure her wand was pretty well suited to her. She didn’t know if she was perceptive or shrewd or full of insight, though she liked to think she was. However, she did know that she was a formidable person when it came to arguing. The third year didn’t look for fights or even want to have them but nor would she put up with certain things.She was definitely not a flamboyant, boisterous sort and she did not think she was either super rigid or totally wishy-washy.

Next, Professor Xavier handed out a sheet that talked about the different types of woods that were commonly used for wand making. As Gwendolyn had expected, none of it was really new information to her. She also had already tried other wands to see what other woods that she got results with including elm and ebony as well as some minor results with chestnut if it was paired with unicorn hair, but only then. The Aladren wasn’t exceptionally gifted at flying, COMC or Herbology-although she did well enough at these things-but she was interested in matters of justice.

Anyway, even though none of this was new to Gwendolyn, she understood why it was important to have the lesson anyway. Not everyone was the child of a wand maker. Although whomever sold them their wands would do them a great disservice by not telling them something about their wand. Even though Dad didn’t deal with customers and Cory didn’t make the wands, the latter knew enough on the topic to tell people a little about them by now.

She supposed she could help her classmates if need be. Besides, Gwendolyn knew about her own wand but she was admittedly curious about other people’s. She turned to the person next to her. “What kind of wand do you have?” She inquired.

11 Gwendolyn Brockert Nothing new 1555 0 5