accio [fifth years]

[Deleted]

Imogen was beginning to think that she should just Banish the desks from her classroom altogether - she liked it so much better when the students were allowed to move around and practice their skills. A hands on classroom was simply a better design, especially for a subject that was meant to be practiced. In any case, she had kept the desks in the room, but they were pushed to the walls, as seemed to be the theme for the day. Imogen had finished cleaning up the mess that she had made with the fourth year's parchment slips by Transfiguring a few of them into pillows, and Banishing the rest of them. The pillows were soft and large, which was exactly what was needed when students were practicing the Summoning Charm. Imogen had colored some of the stones on the floor to mark different distances. Everyone would start at one meter, to get the hang of the incantation and build confidence, but Imogen had also marked stones at five meters and ten meters, which had the students with their backs pressed against the walls. She had considered taking them out into the corridor so they could practice at even longer distances, but Imogen didn't think the ghosts would appreciate pillows flying through them. She didn't expect the students to be able to do anything further than ten meters in their first practice session, anyways.

@atreyu
@eglantine
maxima ruqayyah greyback
@tatiana
@georgiana
@caerwyn

(Five posts each; one entering, one at one meter, one at five meters, one at ten meters, one exiting; Imogen will be around offering encouragement or help as needed)

[Deleted]

Mathias made their way to class, a little ahead of the other fifth years. They walked with pointed purpose, but couldn't help but bounce a little every other step. Charms was a fun class and useful subject. The teacher was kind and alternative, and the other students weren't mean at least. They swung their arms in large excited arcs and picked up the pace just thinking about what was possibly their favorite class.

They stopped in the doorway of the room. Their surprised face scanned the room, taking in the pile of pillows, the stones and the desks at the back wall. A bright grin broke onto their face and their hands came together in joy. Mathias, already knowing the summoning charm, would get to show off today.

(Edit: @eglantine is next)

[Deleted]

Charms weren't the most challenging magical art, but they were pretty useful in every day life, and Ellie thoroughly enjoyed the class. She trailed in behind another student, sneering at his eagerness. Her eyes turned to the classroom, surveying it carefully. Stones, pillows, lots and lots of room. She deduced that things would probably be flying today.

Ellie looked at the professor. Professor Zhu was one of Ellie's favorite teachers and her edginess and vibrant hair colors never failed to make Ellie smile. Professor Zhu just exuded likability. It was one of the reasons that Ellie enjoyed Charms as much as she did. The professor made the class fun, employing practical application instead of simply lecturing on theory. Ellie withdrew her hand hand from her robes and let it fall to her side, waiting for the lesson to begin.
 

[[OOC: I'm aware that Mathias uses "they" pronouns, but Ellie doesn't know that.]]

(SUZIE EDIT: maxima ruqayyah greyback skipped, @tatiana due the 30th!)

[Deleted]

Walking into the Charms classroom to see that all of the desks had been pushed against the walls, Tania gasped. She wasn't sure what Professor Zhu was going to be teaching them, but it appeared to involve pillows. She looked to her classmates, wondering if any of them knew what they were in for. “Miss,” she asked, “where are we supposed to sit?”

Of everything that their Charms lesson had the potential to involve, anything cushioned was probably the best. She could handle Bludgers on the Quidditch pitch without a problem, but she didn't want to risk accidentally injuring herself or one of her peers. They were at the O.W.L. level now; they were learning some of the most difficult material that they had ever covered.

Standing away from what had been set up on the floor before them, Tania waited for further instructions. Professor Zhu was young and generally more interesting than most of the other teachers they had, so she had hope that the lesson would be enjoyable.

@georgiana's turn!

[Deleted]

There were many things that were probably best done when not angry, and Charms class was one of those things. But Georgie couldn't miss class every time she was angry - which, she had to admit, was more often than the average person - so there she was, practically stalking through the corridors, fuming under her breath. Her letters with her mother were civil enough, but there were some days where it hit her all over again that her parents had been alive for five years and didn't tell her, and today was one of them. Sometimes she ended up curled into a ball underneath her bed sheets, but other times, like this one, she was just spectacularly pissed off. She was trying her best to cool her temper, but that wasn't easy when she had to go stomping off to class.

Georgie was momentarily shocked when she walked into the Charms classroom, almost shocked enough that she forgot her anger. The Hufflepuff had always been better at the practical side of magic, so to see that the desks were pushed to the sides of the room was exciting. Maybe she'd get to punch one of the pillows that were piled lopsidedly on the opposite end of the room from the door. "Cool." She muttered underneath her breath.

@caerwyn due the 6th

[Deleted]

Ellie made her way to the one-foot marker and stared at the pillow in front of her. It was large and plush. If she Summoned it with too much force, it wouldn't hurt. She raised her wand and pointed it directly at the pillow. "Accio," she said quietly. The pillow shuddered for a moment, but otherwise remained still. She frowned. Charms were easy. This should be, too. She raised her wand again, focusing intently on the pillow. "Accio," she said with a slightly stronger voice, silently willing the object to zoom into her free hand. The pillow slowly floated into the air and toward her, landing neatly in her unoccupied hand. She smiled to herself. The next two markers would be a piece of cake.

maxima ruqayyah greyback or @tatiana due the 13th

[maxima ruqayyah greyback]

Maxima had been surprised by the lack of seating when she had entered the Charms classroom, though she wasn't bothered by it and went along with Professor Zhu's instructions. She kept an eye on the pillows and walked over to the first set of markers, watching as Ellie Bainbridge went before her.

“Accio. Accio.” It had taken the Ravenclaw two tries to get her pillow to reach her successfully, but she had done it.

The first marker was just one meter. How difficult could it be? Summoning Charms were one of the oldest in existence. Max took up her position at the marker then, holding her wand out and pointing it in the direction of the pile of pillows. “Accio pillow!”

The pillow being a pillow, she wasn't expecting it to put up much resistance, and it didn't, whizzing towards Maxima at a considerable speed. She caught it in her arms, having to use both her free arm and her wand arm. Perhaps she had been a bit too determined…

@tatiana skipped, @georgiana due the 23rd

[Deleted]

When Georgie saw that both the Ravenclaw girl and Max succeeded at Summoning their pillow, she knew that she could do it, too. She refused to be second-best to Maxima Greyback. Georgie took her wand out of her robe pocket, staring at the pillow in front of her. Maybe doing magic when angry wasn't the best idea, because Georgie felt a buzz all the way down her arm. Still, she couldn't let Max win, and if Max saw that she was better than Georgie in any way there was going to be a fight, Georgie was sure, because Max would make it all about how their broken friendship had ruined Georgie, and...ugh! "Accio!" Georgie said, perhaps a bit more harshly than was necessary. She brandished her wand in the appropriate configuration, and found herself with a pillow flying towards her face. It had only been a meter away, but the pillow seemed to have gathered a lot of momentum very quickly, and it was coming at Georgie's face extremely quickly. It hit her full on, and Georgie made a soft groaning noise. Her nose hurt, and...oh, Merlin. As if the day hadn't been made bad enough by seeing Max - now her nose was bleeding.

@imogen will go next~

[Deleted]

Imogen was pleased beyond belief with how well her students were doing with their attempts at a Summoning spell. It had taken them, at most, two tries to get the pillow to come flying towards them, and Imogen was about to announce that they could all step back to the next marking on the floor when she realized that one of her students might have succeeded a bit too much on the Summoning Charm. Imogen hadn't realized that there was any way that a pillow could cause harm, but apparently at high velocities, it was capable of inducing nosebleeds. "The rest of you can move back." Imogen told them, trying to keep calm despite the panic that was rising inside of her. This was the first injury she had had in her class - what if she handled it wrong, and the girl died of blood loss or something? Imogen swallowed, before approaching the injured girl, who was already pinching her nose. "Well then, let's see what we have here..." Imogen said softly. The good thing about her best friend working in a hospital - even if Ophelia was nothing more than a Welcome Witch - was that Imogen knew quite a few healing spells. She cast a quick charm that stopped the nosebleed well enough (there were still a few drips of blood, but that wasn't as bad as it had been), and then another cleaning spell. That hadn't been as hard as she had expected! The only bad thing was that Imogen had been focused so much on fixing the minor medical emergency that she hadn't been paying attention to the rest of the class...

@atreyu due the 28th
@eglantine due the 7th
maxima ruqayyah greyback due the 10th

[Deleted]

Ellie looked up in surprise when the blonde was smacked in the face by her test pillow. She recoiled in disgust when the girl's nose began gushing blood, turning away while the professor took care of the situation. More power to those that wanted to be healers in the future. She wasn't really sure what she wanted to do, but it certainly wasn't that. Instead, she focused on stepping back to the five meter mark and focused on her pillow. She struggled with the one meter pillow, and she wouldn't let it happen again. She raised her wand daintily, pointed it at the pillow, and calmly intoned, "Accio." The pillow rose slowly into the air and floated toward her. As it bobbed as if under a terrible weight, Ellie grimaced. Again? But the pillow landed in her hands, light as a feather. She smiled with satisfaction. Piece of cake.

maxima ruqayyah greyback due the 12th
@tatiana due the 15th

[maxima ruqayyah greyback]

Prepared to move along to the next of Professor Zhu’s markers, Max wasn’t too concerned about the fact that it was—little by little—becoming more difficult. She hadn’t done what Georgie had and made her nose bleed, so she took that as a sign of victory over her, not that anyone was keeping score. Being held up by her possibly-still-best friend’s mistake was frustrating, though there wasn’t much that she could do while she waited for the professor to clean up.

Once Maxima saw that Ellie Bainbridge had moved to the next marker, she did, too. Stepping up to it and holding her wand out, she made the mistake of looking over at Georgiana while she tried to command the pillow. “Accio,” she said, though it did nothing but stir slightly.

With more force, she spoke again, focusing on the pillow again out of frustration with the thing. “ACCIO!” The pillow then sped into her arms, though Max was shocked to find that it hadn’t burst into a mess of feathers.

@tatiana

[Deleted]

Georgie was more than a little embarrassed to have her teacher fix her nosebleed like she was some sort of first year, but she had to admit that she felt a lot better after Professor Zhu cleaned her up. Dried blood was never a fun experience, and the cleaning spells made it so Georgie didn't even have to use water to clean herself. When that whole debacle was over, Georgie followed the rest of her classmates to the next marker. She didn't want to be too zealous this time - getting a nosebleed twice in one class would be beyond embarrassing. "Accio." She said, softly and somewhat confidently. The pillow twitched, but didn't fly towards her. Max appeared to have the same problem as Georgie did, and the Hufflepuff felt a stab of self-satisfaction. Max seemed to have success with saying it louder, so Georgie did the same thing. "Accio!" The pillow lurched towards her, but only made it halfway through before flopping to the floor. Obviously Georgie needed to tap into some anger...just not as much as before. It would be easy either way now that the pillow was closer, though, and so when Georgie said the spell a third time, she wasn't surprised that the pillow leaped straight into her arms.

@imogen next

[Deleted]

Imogen knew she ought to be pleased when all of her students eventually got their pillows into their arms from the larger distance, but she was more than a bit worried with the methods they had been using to do it. The Slytherin girl and the Hufflepuff who had gotten the nosebleed certainly seemed to be tapping into a lot of emotions to get the spell to work for them, and that was far from the ideal situation. "Try to use a speaking tone when you're performing spells." She suggested, attempting to be helpful without being too abrasive. She hoped it was working. "If you're yelling the spells, you're probably not focusing your magic enough. It is better to use less power and be more focused, especially if you end up in a line of work where precision is demanded." The fact that they were bullying their way through the spells didn't matter as much now, but technique was important for more advanced spells, and if any of the students wanted to get into medicine or law enforcement, they wouldn't be much liked for their brute force. "You can move back again." Imogen added, indicating that the students could move to the third and final mark.

@eglantine due the 21st
maxima ruqayyah greyback due the 24th if Ellie can't post

[maxima ruqayyah greyback]

“Try to use a speaking tone when you're performing spells,” Max heard Professor Zhu say. It wasn't long after she and Georgie had gone through the five-meter point that the professor had offered that word of advice, and Max felt as though she had been scolded. “If you're yelling the spells, you're probably not focusing your magic enough. It is better to use less power and be more focused, especially if you end up in a line of work where precision is demanded.”

“Yes, Professor Zhu,” she nodded, not once looking at Georgiana. When they were on better terms, she probably would have looked in her direction immediately, giving a silent glance that spoke where words might not have been appropriate.

“You can move back again.”

Max nodded at the cue and moved back to the final mark at ten meters. Keeping the professor's words in mind, she held her wand out in the direction of the pillow. Her back was practically against the classroom wall. She would focus on the pillow and only the pillow. Georgie had already made her nose bleed, so anything else that she did at the final marker would just be a distraction.

“Accio!” she cast, her tone as normal as she could make it. The pillow rose up from the floor and reached her arms, and it hadn't felt so forced. Max smiled almost smugly as she looked to see how Georgie had done.

@tatiana

[SUZIE]

@tatiana