First Years Lesson Five

Mallory was as surprised as she always was that the semester was almost over. She had two more lessons and an exam; it felt surreal. She was always surprised by the support she’d find at school, really. She felt like she had made good friends, and she enjoyed the time she spent here. With or without her fathers' approval, Mallory hoped she was able to continue teaching here at the school for a good while.

Mallory smiled happily at her students, standing and smoothing her deep red robes, small rosebuds dotting her chocolate braid. There was a pile of pillows in the classroom again, all different than the ones from before. Peter wasn't with them today, having gone for a few days with his father. “Good morning, my dears,” Mallory greeted. “Last week we covered the spell Accio, which you need to be very specific in using. Today, we will be doing the opposite, the Banishing Charm, which you'll know all about if you've done the reading for the week," She usually did a small review, but had decided to see if anyone had actually done the reading this week. "Can anyone tell me the incantation for this?" She asked, calling on a student that didn’t usually answer. “Depulso! Very good, five points.” she smiled.

Mallory took out her wand, pointing it to one of the cushions. “Depulso,” she spoke clearly, and the cushion shot across the floor, only stopping when it hit the wall. She used Accio to summon it back. She moved to her desk, fluffing out the burgundy pillow and setting it down. Almost immediately Amara jumped out from under Mallory’s desk and climbed onto it, kneading it with her paws a few moments before curling up on top of it. Mallory smiled, rubbing the Sphynx cat behind the ears.

She turned to the students again, a warm smile on her face. "Use the spell from last week to summon a cushion, and then I want you to try the Banishing Charm to get rid of it again. This time you don't need to specify the name of the cushion when you push it away from you," Mallory sat in her desk chair, running her hand lightly over Amara’s back. She motioned for them to begin, waiting until the lesson was halfway over before standing again. “All right, darlings, summon back your cushions. You may keep these if you like, I saw great improvements from all of you. We have one more spell that I’d like to show you today,” Mallory informed them, moving back to the front of the class.

This spell was more defensive, and she could think of a few students who would probably be happy to learn it. "Now that we have this spell down, I want to move on to the Disarming Charm. Can anyone tell me what this is?" she asked, pointing to another student that didn’t normally answer, "Well done! Yes, Expelliarmus is the disarming spell," she confirmed, motioning for the students to stand. "Alright my dears, I want you to find a partner and practice on each other, and then once you've managed to disarm one another at least once you may leave. If anyone needs any help, I will be right here," she added with a grin, letting them get on with their charms.
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-Two points to answer a question, please only answer if you haven't done so in a previous lesson.​

 

[Henri Fontaine]

Henri walked into the charms classroom, shrugging out of the hold of his sister as he did so. He hadn’t needed to be brought to this class, he liked charms enough to always go along to it. He glanced about the room as he took his seat noticing that the pillows were back. He looked at the professor as the woman then explained what they would be doing. He was surprised they hadn’t just covered this in the week before, that felt like it would be better. But he didn’t mind, he summoned a pillow to him with an accio and then pointed his wand at it again. ”Depulso,” he said. The professor then had them practice expelliamrus with others, which he did quickly. He liked the spells, was able to do them with ease.

 

[Finley Mackintosh Baros]

Finley didn’t mean to be late, but sometimes he just didn’t have the option - well, that was a lie, he supposed he might have the option of an alarm, but they were harsh and disorienting and he didn’t want to have to deal with that. Waking up so early in the morning was cruel enough with out the added use of a loud and piercing noise to guide it. He would rather do without them, though it could be more detrimental the more that was going on, as it turned out. He creaked open the door just as the professor was finishing off an explanation of the banishing charm and he quickly stumbled in, his robes slightly askew and his face flushed from what was clearly a hurried jog. He didn’t even bother apologising this time because it just felt disingenuous. and so he just slipped into an available seat instead. As the lesson progressed, Finley tried to make up for his tardiness with extra enthusiasm, summoning his cushion with Accio so forcefully it nearly collided with another student. His attempt at Depulso was less successful, sending the cushion spinning lazily a few feet away. When the professor introduced the Disarming Charm, Finley eagerly partnered up, struggling to disarm his opponent until finally succeeding with an excited shout of "Expelliarmus!" His partner's wand clattered to the floor, and Finley grinned. "Guess all that practice paid off!" he declared, clearly proud, even as he braced for the professor’s inevitable teasing about his timing.

Mallory sighed as Finley came in late. "Mr. Baros, we really need to figure something out. I can't in good faith give you the grades you deserve if you insist on being so late to every class." She drummed her nails over the wood of her desk. "I won't take points this time but if this continues I'm afraid I'll have to next time." She sighed, trying to think of a better way to handle his tardiness.​

 

[Miles Flynn]

Another day and another charms lesson where, once again, they were actually performing magic. Miles was never going to complain about that, grinned as he settled into his seat and listened to the Professor. It seemed as though they were practicing the opposite of the summoning charm, which he supposed was just as useful to know. He was quick to get to work, summoning the cushion to his desk with only a few attempts. Then came the practice to try to banish it again. Unfortunately, he didn't get the hang of that one so quickly, growing more and more frustrated until, finally, he managed to send the cushion rocketing away from his desk, almost with enough force to send it straight into the head of the person sitting in front of him. Sniggering, Miles tried to see innocent about the whole thing before standing up once the class had moved onto practicing Expelliarmus. Thankfully, that spell was a lot easier for him to master and he smiled as he practiced it a few times with his partner. Then, returned to his desk and gathered his things once they had all been dismissed from the classroom.

 

[Angelo Dela Cruz]

Angelo stepped into the Charms classroom, cheering at the pile of cushions scattered around the room. Another practical! As the teacher began the lesson, he focused on what she was saying. He'd barely done the reading but he was perfectly happy to answer the question himself as he raised his hand. "Depulso ma'am!" he said with a grin that grew even wider as he earned points. When it was time to practice, he followed Miss Grayveson's instructions step by step. It was a relief that summoning the cushion was going more smoothly than last class. He was improving! Wasn't that something?! Now for the opposite spell. "Depulso!" It took a couple more tries before the cushion shot across the floor. It didn't go as far as he'd hoped which made him click his tongue so he summoned the cushion back and tried again. And again. And again. Until he finally had the cushion fly towards the wall with a satisfying thud - on the sixth attempt. He was quite proud of that. And then they were suddenly learning Defensive magic apparently which was so cool. He managed to partner up with @Finley Mackintosh Baros which was awesome. The Gryffindor managed to disarm him first which didn't deter Angelo at all. "My turn!" he said because he really wanted to succeed too "Expelliarmus!" he said with a force that he hadn't had before. Which seemed to have made work. "Yooooown! I did iiiiit!" he said excitedly, riding on the high of successfully casting spells until class ended.​