[charms] stock and barrel [september]

Wini had been taking diligent notes from the start, with her favorite color-changing ink quill that alternated between pink and purple, but at some point during the question and response part had started drawing doodles in the side margins. Hearts with her initials and Rupert Hartwoord's initials were filling the extra space on her parchment. She saw @Phillip Donnelly's glance at her paper and roll of his eyes and she stuck her tongue out at him childishly and tried to reach over and doodle in pink on his notes but he snatched them away before she could write anything.

She perked up, however, and tried to act like she was paying complete attention when the professor started handing out the padlocks. Wini smiled at the professor as she slid her textbook over her notes, hiding her doodles and then grabbed her wand as she pulled the lock towards herself. "What are the chances we got a difficult lock?" she asked with a smile, knowing the professor probably gave them one layered with charms since they were NEWT students. Charms had always been a class that Wini loved and usually excelled in, but the professor certainly came up with new and interesting ways to challenge her.

Wini pointed her wand at the lock to start with the Specialus Revelio charm as the professor suggested, but nothing happened. She glanced at Lip with a frown. "Did I do it wrong?"

Éilís had debated up until almost the last moment whether she wanted to continue in Charms. The subject had always had some appeal to her; it was intricate and quiet, deceptively complex. But having earned only an “Acceptable” on her O.W.L., even after a year of dedicated preparation, she was not sure she was meant to continue. Following encouragement from Eir, however (It’ll do no harm to keep trying now will it?), Éilís had decided she should try. It was her only properly magic course at all, and the handle of her wand felt oddly unfamiliar as she placed it in her bag in preparation for the first class session.

She had followed Jacq into the room, but sat behind her rather than next to her as she had often done in years past. Éilís knew Jacq would want Andy to sit with her, and she could not blame her. It was sweet to see her friend so excited about the boy. She missed her friend’s attention in some ways, but it was also nice to know that if she did something horrid in class, Jacq would be less likely to see.

As the other students volunteered answers to Flitwick’s questions, Éilís diligently noted their responses in her Charms journal. Alohomora was a charm that Éilís could usually work with success--not that she made a habit of entering rooms where she didn’t belong. Unlocking padlocks that were designed not to be unlocked, however, was beyond Éilís’ skill level, she knew. Even with Flitwick’s assurance that their resistance would be benign, Éilís couldn’t help looking skeptically at the lock that had landed on the table between Jacq and Andy. Flitwick hadn’t sent one to the table she was seated at alone, meaning she would have to choose between her friend and the pair of second years to her right.

Resignedly, Éilís stood up and carried her chair carefully so that she could sit with the two seventh years. “I don’t have a padlock with me,” she admitted.

The professor was busy with one of her housemates, so Donna chewed her bottom lip, frowning down at her padlock, which sat (deceptively, innocuously, perfectly still) in front of her. She shot a look at the person next to her -- “Well,” she said grimly, but didn’t have anything to add to it, so she prodded it with her wand and caused it to emit a short puff of pink, sweet-smelling smoke, obscuring both hers and her partner’s vision. She flapped her hands over it until the cloud dissipated, and sniffed with dissatisfaction.

Why had she taken Charms? Aside from the fact it was the fourth easiest class in the school, and the fact she thought Professor Flitwick was funny, she really didn’t like the subject very much. Much less the side effects -- at her practical O.W.L. exam her egg cup had rocketed off three walls and then deposited scrambled eggs in her hair. She was pretty sure she’d have gotten ‘outstanding’ otherwise.

At least the smoke smelled better than the eggs had.

Donna said, “Salvio Hexia” as impressively as she could -- that was a defense thing but surely it’d do her some good now -- and prodded her padlock again: “Alohomora.” It shot sparks into her face, where they were dissolved by her protective enchantment, and seemed to lock itself even tighter. She prodded it -- “Finite,” she tried, and it vibrated in place, giving her the distinct feeling it’d just blown the lock equivalent of a raspberry.

She looked at her classmate -- “You have a go,” she said crossly, but he was busy carving his initials into the desk; Donna scowled and turned her attention back to her lock.

Professor Flitwick had started out the first lesson of her fifth year with an awful speech about their O.W.L.s -- I’m afraid you’ll all have to be working extra hard this year and You’re bound to see some more difficult material in all your classes and Please come to my office hours if you fall behind, among other horrific things; since then, Barbara had been rather miserable during most of her Charms classes. She wasn’t a bad hand at Charms, but they intimidated her -- charmwork was, after all, the basis of both defensive and practical magic, and if she did poorly at it she imagined she’d do poorly at everything else as well, and that was a prospect well worth fearing.

The seventh years on her other side were waving their wands in minute circles over their padlocks, not even incanting -- though Barbara had always been impressed with nonverbal magic, now it seemed rather a right pain. She looked at the older students for too long, with her eyes wide and reproachful, before deciding they weren’t all too likely to say anything that would help her, and sighed, pushing the sleeves of her robes up and glancing mournfully at Rowen Reinhardt. “I’m hopeless at this,” she said, “It shouldn’t be too difficult -- right? We’re not even N.E.W.T.s students.” But she braced herself anyway before she gave their padlock a little jab with her wand.

“Specialis Revelio,” she said, and the padlock disappeared, reappearing on the other side of the desk. Barbara grabbed it up in her fist, and repeated the procedure doubtfully; her hand, clutched tightly around the padlock, closed on empty air and reappeared in front of Rowen. “Well,” said Barbara, “I guess that is one way to resist being opened. Do you reckon we can permanently stick it to the desk, or will that damage it?”

If there was one thing Ben always enjoyed it was a good puzzle. He supposed it didn’t hurt any that Charms was, perhaps, one of his favorite classes. He’d probably be even more engaged if he didn’t have a major headache clawing up his temples in protest to his rather late night.

Still that didn’t mean he was going to slack off any. He eyed the lock thoughtfully, going through some options in his head before leaving just a bit closer and examining it carefully. He couldn’t see any obvious signs of it being tampered with and it wasn’t letting off any glow of any kind. It just looked like a regular old lock... that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Especially with verbal confirmation from the professor that it was, in fact, charmed against opening in various ways.

Curiously he figured he’d just go with Flitwicks advice and cast Specialus Revelio.

"Flitwick probably gave us more complex ones on purpose," Rowen stated simply, unclipping her quill from where it was bound to her notebook and opening the book to a fresh page. Rowen went about every assignment in a very organized and strategic sort of way. She could have just went on trying every spell she knew, including the one the professor had told them to try, without a second thought, but she felt like taking notes was far more prudent. Each attempt needed to be recorded to be sure not to try the same thing twice. "Because he knows we can handle it, surely," The Ravenclaw wasn't as naturally gifted with Charms magic as she was Transfiguration. Still, the little overachiever was far from falling behind on the coursework.

When Barbara made the first attempt, Rowen watched carefully, noting how the charmed thing seemed to jump away from her magic, and silently the wheels in her mind began to turn. "Do you think it might have a repelling charm blanketed on top of the locking charm?" The teenage witch offered as she made little tallies in columns on her notes each time Barbara tried, and the lock disappeared and returned.

"I don't see why not; the Professor didn't say anything about returning the lock in working order, did he?" Rowen went back over her notes just to make sure they weren't instructed to damage the lock. She wasn't about to get a failing grade on the assignment because she'd missed one single detail, oh no, certainly not. Rowen moved her textbook to the middle of the girl's table and kept it open to Appendix B for reference.

"Let me try the revealing spell, and if it disapparates again, will you cast a binding charm on it?" Rowen asked, finding that collaborating with Barbara was always so much more fun than some of their other less-than-intelligent classmates. When she had an answer, the dark-haired witch cleared her throat delicately, pulled out her ornate pale wand, and focussed on the beastly little lock. "Specialis Revelio," she incanted clearly, tapping the lock once, and it began to quiver slightly before disappearing once more. This time it resurfaced behind them, with a loud clunk, as it landed on Horus Heyward the Third's desk, and the wizard stared at it disapprovingly.

Aase felt a small thrill of excitement when Professor Flitwick announced they’d be pairing off: she liked group work, and was looking forward to being paired with Freddie specifically. Every time she looked at him she was reminded of their ‘date’ by the lake in Stowe, and of the thoughtful effort he’d put into making the evening so pleasant.

She laughed softly at his comment.
“Thanks. I can give it a try, I think – but get ready to catch it if it tries to shoot across the room,” she warned him with a small smile. “Would be bad form for me to accidentally knock someone out with it.”

The dark-haired Trickett drew her wand, not-so-subtly watching some of her peers to remind herself of the proper wand movement. Ah, that’s right: it was like knocking on a door, but with more wrist movement and less whole-arm movement.

“Specialis Revelio.”
The padlock glowed a dazzling gold color and spun violently like a top, making quite a lot of noise against the wooden desktop. Aase’s eyes widened and she froze, tempted to reach out and grab it but also appropriately wary of how safe it was to do that. Before she could execute the appropriate spell to reverse it (‘Finite’), it stopped on its edge, wobbled – and tipped over onto the desktop with a definitive dull clunk, making Aase flinch.

“Well… I'm not sure how informative that was,” she laughed, shaking her head slightly. “Suppose it would help to know what the ‘results’ of the spell mean, for starters…”
She ducked below the desk for a moment to extract her book from her bag, opening it on the table between them and thumbing through its pages until she reached Appendix B. She briefly glanced up at her friend, nibbling her lower lip absently in thought.
“Any ideas?”

She'd got an answer right! Pixie beamed delightedly, her good intentions still very much to the fore. If she could get house points, there was no reason why she couldn't get a decent grade too, right? Even if there was a lot of complicated talk about how to unlock a padlock and she wasn't sure she understood everything that was being said.

Wait, they were doing practical work? Excellent! Pixie let out a little squeak of excitement as a fairly large, ornate padmock soared in her direction, landing just to the left of her. She started to reach out to grab and examine it but stopped herself just in time. Specialis revelio wasn't something she'd cast with any success before and it was quite likely that her partner was going to have a better chance at getting it right than she did. Anyway, she could just try Alohomora in a minute, that would make it look like she was doing something useful. Maybe she should even get her book out and check the appendix that Professor Flitwick had mentioned before...

Oh help, he was coming in their direction! Pixie looked to one side them the other quickly before assuming - out of habit - an expression of absolute innocence. She hadn't done anything wrong, had she? The fourth year was already thinking of questions she could ask by means of distraction but apparently Flitwick wanted to talk to her about spells in other languages. Pixie considered the question for a couple of seconds. She actually was interested in spells around the world and how they differed, just a bit worried that she might be expected to research something and write a long essay if she sounded too interested. 

"Uh...yeah! I was just wondering...you know, if a spell was the same all over the world or if someone in Australia had invented a different spell to do the same thing...or if something would still work if it had been translated from another language?" Bother! She'd sounded far more interested than she'd intended. It would be a trip to the library for her for sure! Pixie just hoped she wasn't going to be set extra homework as a result of her curiosity.

How refreshing to talk about spell transliteration, among the most fascinating properties of magical incantation. This, thought Filius, was the reason he taught, the reason he loved to teach. (Even after years, he surprised himself how much he’d grown into this job.)

“Quite alright,” he said, to Pixie, “As I said, it’s really a fascinating topic -- I have a wonderful book I could lend you if you’re interested…” he gave her a hopeful look, then moved on. “Most spells are translated from other languages -- the spells we’re used to here in Europe are largely derived from Greek and Latin, although some -- such as Alohomora -- are more exotic in origin, and some -- such as pack -- we’ll cover in sixth year with other simple English loan spells. Quite a lot of the field is focused on ensuring that, for instance, wizards with different alphabets are able to use the same spells. And -- of course -- some spells popular in some countries have gained less momentum here due to difficulties with the pronunciation.”

(Filius himself had suffered quite a few magical misfires before he’d accepted that he could not, and probably could never, speak Mandarin.)

He gave her a quick squint to see whether she was following, before he added, “If somebody in Australia were to invent another spell, though, I’ve no doubt it would be quite practical here, as they speak the same language. But f you are further interested in this, I would recommend bringing up the Committee of Experimental Charms to your Head of House in career counselling -- she should be able to point you to some resources.”

Simple curiosity didn’t necessarily translate into a career, he knew -- he’d seen plenty of brilliant students with aspirations of Curse-Breaking wind up brokers instead -- but if he had any chance to encourage excellence, Filius liked to take it. Not many wizards were enthusiastic about what he considered the most beautiful part of magic -- the enigma.

Filius cast his gaze around -- one of the Ravenclaws was vandalising his desk. “Feel free to bring me any further questions in my office hours! But pardon me,” he squeaked hastily, before hurrying off to protect his classroom.

...

His classroom was a little worse for the wear by the end of the lesson, but not in such a way Filius couldn’t set it right in a few minutes once the students had all left for the evening; he climbed back up to his desk again, waved his hands and said, “Class, class…” until they’d all quieted down (one of the padlocks gave a sound like a quack and hopped off its desk.) “For homework, to my O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s students, please write me six inches on creative use of protective Charms -- for the rest of you, simply practise! I will see you all on Thursday.”

With that, he climbed back down, hoping to speed some of his students along -- some of the Hufflepuffs tended to dawdle, and there was a steak and kidney pie waiting for Filius at lunch.


[ooc: class is concluded! you may all continue to post as much more or as little as you want, prof flitwick will still be here to manically screw with my own thread timeline, but feel free to start posting closers and wrapping up <33 i will award points, like, eventually]

“That’s so like him,” said Barbara dolefully. She sighed -- “Alright, let’s have at it, I suppose.” She cast a jealous look at Pixie’s padlock, not far away -- it was much more handsome than the one she and Rowen had gotten, which put her rather in mind of a barnacle-encrusted, disgusting old lighthouse -- rusted, grimy, and heavy. She looked up at her roommate, her lips pursed with frustration, and felt a jump of gratitude in her stomach (a little envy, too) that the other witch seemed to have an idea what to do.

She nodded quickly -- “Right -- a repelling charm,” she said. “Must be triggered by added enchantment… I wonder if we could undo it without setting it off.” Surely?

It didn’t seem quite right to permanently damage it, she thought, but -- she glanced over at the professor -- he would probably be able to fix it. She nodded: “I’m sure it’s fine,” she said. “Still -- maybe better not to do a permanent sticking charm.” The enchantment couldn’t have been that sophisticated; they weren’t even N.E.W.T.s students yet.

Their next attempt sent the lock onto the desk behind them -- Barbara peered over her shoulder to spot where it had gone, and leaned closer to Rowen -- “Horus got it -- you ask for it back.”

Donna’s classmate gave her an unimpressed look, then gave the padlock an uninspired prod with his wand -- Alohomora. It shot sparks out again, and her partner gave her a shrug and returned to his desk carving.

Boys were useless -- Donna shot a desperately jealous look at her roommates sitting together, then pulled the padlock closer; she supposed it was up to her now. She opened her textbook and searched through it for anything that might produce a pink cloud, then gave the padlock another little jab with her wand -- “Finite incantatem,” she said, then, “Surgito surripo.” This time the padlock shrank back -- taking this as some encouragement, she said forcefully, “Alohomora duo.” That did it -- it clicked open, though it released another wisp of pink smoke as it did so, and was sticky to the touch.

She was resting on her laurels, doodling absently on the title page of her textbook, when Professor Flitwick came by to tell her deskmate off for the vandalism; he plucked up her padlock and gave it an approving once-over, then asked her if she could identify what spells had been protecting it before moving on to a group of first years fretting nearby.

There was homework -- blast -- but only six inches -- brilliant -- Donna snatched her things into her bag, and gave her deskmate a filthy glare as she left.

[out]

Of all the desks that the blasted lock could have fallen on too of course, it landed on Horus'. Rowen rolled her eyes as the wizard behind them made an annoyed sound, pushing the lock toward them and scraping the metal against the slate desktop irritatingly. Barbie wanted her to get it back, and while the Ravenclaw loathed being told what to do, she took any chance she could to hassle Heyward.

"Give it back," She demanded, spinning around in her stool abruptly and folding her arms across her chest, wand in hand. Pretending like Horus hadn't been trying to give it back since the moment, it crashed onto his desk Rowen scowled at him. "Professor! Horus stole our lock and won't give it back," She shouted, doing everything in her power to hold back the smirk that pulled at the corners of her lying mouth.

Reveling in the panicked look on their housemate's face. Rowen shot Barbie a look and plucked the lock from his desk. Returning the object to the desk the girls were sharing, the witch waited for Barbara to start the next set of enchantments.

“I’m ready,” Freddie said with a small grin as Aase told him to get ready to catch the padlock if it shot across the room.

He watched quite carefully as Aase performed the spell. Truth be told, it was interesting to see the padlock glowing and spinning but Freddie had absolutely no idea what it meant. Neither did his friend, though. It was both disappointing and reassuring that the Hufflepuff didn’t know it either.

“Well,” Freddie began and shrugged a little helplessly, “I suppose the fact that it showed such a reaction means that a simple Alohomora won’t open it. It’s probably protected in a way. We should check the textbook…” He opened his book and flipped through the pages.

It seemed as though the lesson was coming to an end before they had figured out which charms had been used on the padlock and Freddie had to admit that he would have liked to find out more. With his O.W.L.s coming up he felt he needed to know more than he did. However, he was not (yet) desperate enough to hang back and ask professor Flitwick. Maybe the six inches homework on the creative use of protective Charms would answer his questions anyway.

“Okay,” Freddie said, smiling at Aase. “Do you have a free period now too? We could start working on that homework together if you like.” He hoped that she’d agree. It was definitely more fun to work on this with a friend than to sit there late at night the day before the next class and feverishly try to write enough lines down.

“Goodbye professor,” Freddie said as he passed the small teacher and stepped out into the corridor.

[out]

It had taken Trudy three attempts to cast the charm correctly. Only when she had tried specialis revelio a third time, her padlock had started to glow in a faint red colour and the girl had spent the rest  of the lesson, trying to figure out what that meant, skimming several pages of her textbook. Since the reaction hadn’t been very strong, she assumed that the protection on the padlock wasn’t really strong or hard to lift either. However, she was still trying to figure out what it exactly was when professor Flitwick announced the end of the lesson.

Trudy frowned a little, having just read about a spell that might have been used on her padlock and thinking that five more minutes would have led to the correct answer. She was glad to hear that her sole homework was to practice the spell which obviously still needed work as she hadn’t done it quite right the first two times.

The second year closed her textbook after placing a bookmark in where she had just stopped reading, and shoved it into her school bag. Then she put her wand away and got to her feet. For a moment she stood there, glancing at Brendan  and wondering if she should ask him if he wanted to practise the spell with her. In the end, though, the girl bit her lips and spun around. It might seem odd if she asked a boy, a boy who wasn’t even a housemate, to work with her. She decided to either practise alone or work with one of her housemates in the common room.

“Goodbye professor Flitwick!” she said brightly as she walked past the Charms teacher and made her way out into the corridor.

[out]

Pixie's heart sank. A book. Of course there was a book, and now she was going to have to say yes, because that was the polite thing to do when a professor offered to lend something...but then Flitwick continued as if he knew Pixie hated reading, and she found herself listening. Not only that, but she was interested, and what he described only led to more questions.

"Different alphabets?" she asked, and then "oh, you mean like runes and stuff like that!" While the Gryffindor knew about different languages, her difficulties with reading meant that she had assumed everyone just used the same letters. Although she didn't realise it, a smile was beginning to creep across her face. Behind her, there was a loud sigh and she realised her partner was starting to decipher the lock without her assistance. She glanced across briefly, but they were getting on just fine alone.

"Experimental Charms? You mean like at the Ministry?" Pixie was positively animated now "That's like... an actual job people can really do?" It sounded amazing and...exciting! Until this moment, she had always assumed people just did whatever job seemed the least depressing, but the thought of doing something that was fun and even getting paid for the privilege was an entirely new one. But the another thought struck her "I guess you need to have loads of NEWTs for that, huh?" But she didn't get an answer, because Flitwick had to scurry off to stop someone misbehaving.

For the first time in her life, Pixie felt irritated at the miscreant. She'd really wanted an answer! Reluctantly, she turned her attention to the padlock, which was now glowing green and shivering as if cold. "Should we...stop it?" she asked uncertainly, and then cast "Finite incantatem" as her partner looked in their textbook. Apparently Pixie was going to be the assistant for this, and that worked nicely for her. She had a lot to think about.

It didn't seem long before the lesson was concluded. Their padlock had a shrinking charm that was activated when anyone tried to open it, but once that had been countered, a simple Alohomora had opened it. Pixie didn't even mind the suggestion of homework - although she was only a fourth year, she supposed she ought to at least write down the spells they'd used and how they worked - and was thoughtful as she packed her belongings away. As she passed Flitwick's desk she paused, but he had hurried off to chivvy a group of students along, and the moment was lost.

Maybe she would visit his office sometime though. Experimental charms sounded interesting.

[out]