Grayson Wright
March 22, 2023 1:38 AM
Intermediate Charms II by Grayson Wright
"For at least two years," Professor Wright informed the Intermediates once the attendance was taken and the homework passed in, "you all heard me tell you again and again how important it was to perform your spells as precisely as possible - all those endless motion drills, chanting syllables, all that was to give you a better chance of getting each spell down just the way it was in the book. Now...." He adjusted his glasses and suppressed the desire to sigh. "Well, now, I'm going to start teaching you to modify them on purpose.""I believe you've all had your wand wood unit with Professor Xavier, so you'll have heard about how different wand woods have...something like personality," he continued, aware this probably sounded like one of the tangents he was occasionally known to wander off into and thus speaking a little faster than usual to get to the point. "Especially if combined with this core or that. One of the things we've noticed patterns in, is which wands are more likely than not to perform well in one subject and not another. People have also used up enough ink to fill an inland sea to explain that we really don't know why that is."
He did not even want to think about the paper he'd...attempted to read in preparation for this class, where someone with far too much time on his hands had tried to establish if the stereotypes held true across different continents and thus, different specific species of tree - Brazilian Walnut, it seemed, was a considerably harder wood than Black Walnut or North American Walnut, and Peruvian Walnut fell somewhere between the two. Then there was the difference between Cherry and Brazilian Cherry, which was just...bizarre, really. And so on. And so on. For forty pages.
"One thing that we do know, though, is that Charms and Transfiguration...behave differently in a lot of ways, so wands that are especially adept at Transfiguration are frequently weaker in Charms." Ebony, fir, mahogany, and such. What business did fir have being in company with ebony? That was the question which seemed to have set off the researcher - fir was barely harder than most of the pines. Apparently. "Luckily, charms is the more...flexible of the two subjects - while I would suggest trying to know all the information about arithmancy and the phases of the moon and so forth if you go into spell development someday, many preexisting charms can be lightly customized to the user. Of course, in all subjects, everyone has a slightly different style of magic, but the more...adaptable wands tend to lean more toward charms than transfiguration. There's a certain room for creativity and technique that would, ah, probably get you killed if you attempted it in Transfiguration." Spontaneity was probably a better word, but he'd gotten this far already. "Which is where we get to today's lesson.
"Some people find that adding a spoken object to the incantations in Charms makes the charm easier to work, while others find it a distraction that they can't bear. Some of you may, when you reach your Advanced classes, find that learning nonverbal spellcasting is either the best or worst skill you've ever been asked to tackle. For now, though, we're going to stick to some very basic tasks. You'll be using the Summoning Charm again." That probably either pleased or horrified them; the summoning classes always tended to get chaotic, and thus could either provide a release for tension or simply drive someone on edge up the wall. "Everyone in pairs, and you work with the cabinet that's closer to your desk." He had arranged the desks into three sections, each having several rows of two desks put together and each section divided from the others in a way that should minimize misunderstandings. "There's five shelves in each, so match your row to the shelf number." Helpfully, the shelves had large numbers affixed to them. "First row has shelf one, second shelf two, you get the idea. There's two of each object. Either you can both summon one at once with the standard accio, or you can take turns, where one of you summons the first object that way and the second object with the object name after the spell - accio potholder, for example." For obvious reasons, even objects that looked solid had been charmed to reduce the impact they'd have on a human skull, but for the most part he'd stuck to objects which were not in and of themselves hazardous. "And then return both potholders for your partner to work with. Make yourselves charts and make notes on which version you found easier, or if you noticed a difference at all. Remember that anyone who appears to deliberately try to hit someone else with a flying object will get detention and it will not be pleasant." He preferred to reason with the students, but violence was unreasonable enough that punitive measures seemed like the only logical response to it. "And hand those charts in at the end of class. Everyone should do the questions at the end of chapter 16 for homework, and fifth years, you have an extra task - in appendix C, you'll find a list of common Latin nouns used in charms. Try out a few of those and add a note to your paper about the results; some people find it easier and safer to divorce the spells entirely from everyday language, and I trust you all with the pronunciation after the past four years of listening to me and Professor Skies drill the sounds into your heads." Or at least he mostly trusted them to seek intervention before the school burned down if something went wrong, anyway. "For now, though, just let me get out of the way - " he was in tolerable danger from cabinet two's contents, if he stayed where he was until they started flying - "and begin."
OOC: For the curious, here's the page I got all that stuff about the various hardnesses of woods from.
Subthreads: Let's get to work [Hans] by Iris Cobb
Wait, what? by Xavier Lundstrom
16
Grayson Wright
Intermediate Charms II
113
1
5
Iris Cobb
March 22, 2023 1:02 PM
Let's get to work [Hans] by Iris Cobb
Iris got to charms class and sat down next to Hans. This looked like it would be an excellent class period just because of that. She greeted him warmly and super friendly before getting her things ready for class. That included the homework that was due, she wasn't a fan of homework, but it was how the system worked so she did it as well as she was able.She settled in as the professor began to talk as this usually took a while. He began with precision, and that was definitely something that Iris struggled with. It was much better now, after five years, but her accent still got in the way of her spell pronunciation on occasion. He seemed to go off on some tangent about wand woods before getting to the point. Adding or subtracting speaking parts to their spells. The thought of nonverbal spell casting sent a thrill of excitement through her.
The lesson sounded simple enough, more summoning, but with some adjustments. Best of all though, Partners! Once they were permitted, she turned to Hans with a smile. "Looks like you've got me today for this. What do you think will work better, more or less words?" She winked at him and let her accent go more than normal, "I'm hopin' for less words myself."
2
Iris Cobb
Let's get to work [Hans]
1526
0
5
Xavier Lundstrom
March 31, 2023 11:55 PM
Wait, what? by Xavier Lundstrom
Charms was probably Xavier’s favourite wand-wavy class. Admittedly, that wasn’t saying much because there were only three that relied on that particular skill all the time, and Defence was just repeat trauma triggers, and Transfiguration was really hard. But, like, it was more than the other two just sucking. It was also that charms could be sort of fun, and he could actually see himself using the magic, and it had Professor Wright, who made him feel calm and safe. Like, sometimes to the point of sleepy, if he chose to go on one of his really long rambles about physics and Latin roots, but at least sleepy was a calm feeling. Xav didn’t often feel calm in school. Not even in Divination, which he was good at. Knowing it was meant to be such a part of him was like a foot to the gas pedal—he had to dive deeper, know more, and he was rapidly discovering that he didn’t always like what he found, but that didn’t mean he knew how to slow down. Other than literally knocking himself out.The intro to today’s class did not inspire him with confidence. The idea of Professor Wright mixing things up was like hearing the words ‘the prairie elves are experimenting with new flavour combinations.’ Xav, more than anyone, had drilled, drilled, drilled—each word and each wand movement, down to precision, in tune with his breath. He had to, because there was no leeway. If he wasn’t perfect and precise, his capricious bloody powers would stick in the end of his fingertips, not making the leap to his capricious bloody wand! And yes, he had learnt all about it in herbology.
Linden.
Not in most of the books.
Unless you looked under its other name, Silver Lime.
A wood that preferred Seers.
That fact still had him having to conscientiously relax his jaw so that he didn’t grind his teeth together every time he thought of it. If he’d just found that missing link when Professor Wright first suggested looking into his wand wood… Would it have helped? It was an untested belief about a rare ability which manifested itself in an unusual way in his case… Logic said that they wouldn’t have put that clue in place, even if they’d had it. And he’d been told to look into his wand wood after the Summer of Dreadful, so it wasn’t like it would have stopped it from happening. It could have brought about closure a little quicker. But it probably wouldn’t have.
Thankfully, the ‘modifying’ they were doing didn’t sound too horrific. Adding an object name barely seemed like a modification at all. Even if it did offend The Almighty Charms Gods, at least he was more likely to stall than explode. That was his ongoing problem with summoning anyway… Like many things, he could do it, ish. He could use his magic to move things, but he wasn’t about to receive any prizes for distance. In fact, his objects usually ran out of steam well before reaching him, though he had improved a lot, and had been reliably catching small sponge balls for a few lessons.
He repressed a sigh as they were told they had to have a partner. At least he only had to measure himself against himself, regardless of which way they did the task. Which begged the question why he had to be with anyone, given that it invited comparison whether or not that was an official part of the methodology… He cast around for someone bearable to be forcibly compared to. Hans was sadly busy, as he always seemed to be these days, with a girl. Xavier couldn’t say he saw the appeal but hopefully that was working out for him…
Once he’d found a partner and a space, and they’d decided which way to approach the task, there was nothing left to do than fail at making objects fly any impressive distance, no matter what method he used. At least there were some paper planes on their shelf, which he suspected were aimed at him…
Xavier dug deep, not exactly straining for his power because straining was bad… But, like, there was a certain amount of effort he had to put in. Magic, all wand magic except panicked defensive reflexes, was like lifting heavy furniture. He had to throw his strength at it, it was just the difference between doing it in a way that hurt him or was the magical equivalent of lifting with his legs not his back.
“Accio,” he called, deciding to do the most basic and familiar version first. The plane lifted, zipping towards his outstretched hand. And straight past it. Picking up speed until it hit the back wall hard enough to crumple.
“I… What?” he asked his partner, like they’d be able to explain it. Because someone needed to explain it. That was impossible. Yes, he probably had thrown roughly the force required to smash it through a wall at the thing. But only because doing so was the bare minimum he needed to bring himself up to everyone else’s range. “I can’t do that,” he clarified, though he doubted they’d missed the fact that he was always trailing way down at the bottom end of the bell curve.
13
Xavier Lundstrom
Wait, what?
1529
0
5