Glimmers in the gloom

[Elle Silvertongue]

Elle sat cross legged on the sofa with an ugly-looking book perched on her lap,her eyes squinting in the dim light to read the tiny script and make sense of it.So far in her studies,Elle had never encountered a subject that was totally out of her capability but Dark Arts was looking like it could fit easily in that category.Elle couldn't do one single curse right and it made her feel hopeless.Even though she didn't really fancy the subject she knew that she had to make her best effort not to fail.But it seemed inevitable to her at that moment.

With a glum mood to match the gloomy place that she was in,Elle put the book aside and stretched her legs,placing them on the table in front of her.She checked the big wall clock which read 11.09 pm and sighed,wishing that she had some speck of darkness in her which would help her to be better at Dark Arts,but the wish was a wasted one.Elle had always been a kind and gentle person,who was always optimistic and had faith in herself and others,but this school looked like it was either going to torment Elle until she left or make her change into a dark person who belonged to it.And Elle felt that it was going to be change that came her way.

The dark castle was literally weighting down her spirits and the Dark Arts lessons were so bad Elle felt like she would need remedial classes.She had never felt so glum in her life and now it was her constant mood.However,Elle knew that at sometime her mood would definitely look up because she was never the kind of person who could stay in a bad mood for a long time.She could easily smile at something and become happy in an instant.All the negative feelings like anger,sadness,vengeance and hatred did not come to her easily and if she ever felt them,they disappeared quickly,leaving her with her positiveness.

So she sat there thinking about anything good that was likely to happen to her in these three years at Durmstrang and she came up with only a few.She might be able to make some lasting friends because after all school was the best place to look for friends but her shyness did not help her in making friends at all.She could also brush up on her flying skills which weren't very good since she was home-schooled and lived in a city so she couldn't fly her broom in her back yard without being spotted,but at school she could spend much of her free time on it.She smiled at the thought and laid back her head,closing her eyes and breathing in and out,slowly and deeply,which helped her get positive vibes.

 

[Ivana Kalforovich]

Ivana skipped through the halls of the school. It was gloomy place, designed to break the spirit of any student trying to be happy or nice, but she liked it. The school reminded her of home so she was happier in it than outside. It was cold out there.

Ivana, while skipping, kept her ears out for any teachers. After talking with Shaylah she had determined the teachers here were a lot meaner here than there. Luckily for her, she made it back to the room outside the girls dorms without running into trouble.

Teachers were the only real problem for Ivana at the school. Most people knew her brother and most of them knew well enough to leave him, and her by extension, alone. If they didn't, she really just had to scream and he would find out eventually. That or one of his mates would. She was well protected.

As Ivana turned the corner she saw a girl, possibly her year or older, sat cross legged, reading a book. She recognised the book as one of the Dark Arts books. Though Ivana was a nice person, she did well at the dark arts. Her theory was she was too much like her mother not to. Ivana would never actually use them though.

The girl looked frustrated. A lot of transfer students or nicer students couldn't get a hang of the subject. It did require you to want to cause damage and harm to someone or something. There were only a few people who could do them on people in the school but a lot of people worked well thinking about bad things or pretending the object was something they didn't like at the moment. "Do you need help?"

 

[Elle Silvertongue]

Out of Character:

Sorry for the late reply

After a few minutes of relaxing Elle opened her eyes and got back to work.The best she could do was get her essay done on Evocation-How to Summon Spirits with help from the big book.If she couldn't do the curses right then she could at least do the theory part for a good grade.She took out her quill and a long piece of parchment exactly twelve inches as instructed by the Professor.She unscrewed her ink bottle and dipped her quill in it and started writing.

Evocation-How to Summon Spirits
Throughout the history of magic and wizardry,the Art of Evocation has been used as a medium of communication with the Spirit-world.In the olden days evocation was used to summon spirits deities out of the city they guarded so that dark wizards could attack it.The spirits were promised future worship by the attackers.

The spirits were summoned by using wands, staves, incense and fire, daggers and complex diagrams drawn on parchment or upon the ground. In Enochian wizardry, spirits are evoked into a crystal ball or mirror, in which a Seer is used to be able to see the spirit and hear its voice, passing the words on to the evoker. Sometimes the Seer might be an actual medium, speaking as the spirit, not just for it. In other cases the spirit might be 'housed' in a symbolic image, or conjuring into a diagram from which it cannot escape without the wizard's permission.

Later,Dark Wizards were known to use these methods to make a pact with the Evil Spirits to create havoc and destruction in return for sacrifices and worship.In this way,many doors were opened which could not be closed and the evil spirits were out of control.And so Evocation which was not entirely a form of Dark Art became classified as one.It was banned by many Magical Ministries all over the world.

One of the famous wizards who practiced and wrote about evocation was Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa who also appears on chocolate frog cards and is said to be executed due to his practice of magic by the muggles.In his text-

Completely consumed by her essay,Elle jumped slightly as she heard someone address her.It had been so quite for a long time accept for the scratching of her quill that Elle was bound to be startled.Her movement had caused her ink bottle to topple side ways and dark green ink was now staining the sofa.Elle pulled out her wand and muttered "Scourgify" pointing at the stains.Her spell did the job and the sofa was stain-free.Elle put her ink bottle on the table and turned her head to see who it had been.

It was a girl,probably a year younger than Elle and she looked like she was genuinely concerned when she asked if Elle needed help.Elle wouldn't turn down such an offer especially when it meant that she could catch up on the basic dark curses which were taught to lower classes since she hadn't been taught dark arts by Miss Weiss."I am truly desperate."Elle replied sincerely as she put aside some books to make space for the girl to sit.

 

[Ivana Kalforovich]

Out of Character:

It's fine

Ivana smiled and sat besides the girl when she was asked for help. "The trick is to really want to be able to do them. And mean them, you have to mean it as well." She could tell immediately that the girl was too nice to mean it on a person. "You can, however, fool the spell. Focus on how much you want to do them to get the grades, ignore the person or object you're pointing them at, just focus on the part that wants to be able to do the spell." That was the way her mother had taught her when she was too traumatised to even try being evil towards a pillow. Once she had grasped that the pillow had been blown up quite spectacularly.

Ivana held her hand out towards the girl, still smiling sweetly. "Ivana." She looked down at the essay and smiled. Summoning spirits was a topic that interested her, she liked to wonder what happened once you died and being able to summon spirits would help her with that. Unfortunately she hadn't perfected it yet. She often managed part of them or them without a voice, hopefully once she reached the next year she'd have it down to pat.

 

[Elle Silvertongue]

Elle took in what the girl said and tried to grasp it.Being as desperate as she was,Elle thought that she would make her best effort to use the trick but right now she was not ready to take out her practice rat's inside's out of him.She shivered at the thought of using an entrail-expelling curse on anyone no matter what they had done to her.

"Thanks alot for the advice,I am sure it will be useful enough to get me good grades."she told the girl who introduced herself as Ivana,"I'm Elle,nice to meet you."she said returning her smile as she shook her hand."That foul Dark Arts teacher told me that I needed better incentive so he made the rat bite me."she told Ivana with a frown and then showed her the side of her left palm which had healed bite marks on it."But honestly I couldn't be angry with the rat for having acted under the imperious curse,could I?"she explained.But Elle was sure that she could have cursed the professor and there would have been at least a better result.

 

[Ivana Kalforovich]

Ivana shook her head. "No, the rat did nothing on. Be annoyed with the teacher. He's a nasty man, reminds me a lot of my dad." She smiled and placed her hands back in her lap. "Nice to meet you too. What year are you in?" She was surprised that the girl didn't recognise her, it was nice though. Most people just stayed away or were fake towards her, after all, why would you get close to Markov's sister? Everyone knew he was willing to hurt anyone who even looked at her funny.

Ivana looked at the bite marks, though they had healed there was still a mark. She wondered if the girl, Elle, had let it heal by itself or if it was just a healing spell that didn't work fully. Either way, there were ways of making the marks go away. Ivana insisted that, if she had to learn the many ways to hurt or maim someone, she would also learn the many ways to heal them.