Open Like a House on Fire

[Kasim Safir]

A month into school and Kas had to admit magic was harder than he'd thought. It looked so easy watching adults do it back home, but now that he had his own wand to wave around, things weren't quite working out. The lady at the shop had mentioned his wand might take a little while to warm up to him, but Kas had had it for awhile now and the stupid thing was still playing up and making him look useless in class. Retreating to the students lounge, Kas was trying to see if he could get some practice in before the teachers wrote him off as a complete lost cause.

To ease himself into it, Kas tried casting lumos, figuring the bare minimum of spell casting wasn't too much to ask for, but it didn't take long for the spell to sputter out, and Kas dump his wand onto the table in front of him in frustration. That had to prove his wand just out to spite him now. "Look, you don't like me, I don't like you. But we gotta make this work," He muttered to it, getting down so his eyes were level with the table surface to glare at the wand. "Let's try this again," Kas said after what he hoped was some intimidating eye contact, scooping the wand back up before leveling it at the match stick he'd slipped out of transfiguration to practice on. "Flammeus Tailora," Kas said, squinting at his notes next to him. There was a pause, as if the wand and the match were both considering whether they wanted to cooperate, before the match head caught fire with a sputter of sparks. "Oh great." Kas huffed as the sparking continued. A few seconds later there was a pop and Kas had to duck under the table to avoid the shower of sparks as the match exploded.

 

[Roxy Coltsfoot]

Roxy sat watching the entire thing go down between the wand and owner. She didn’t know whether to laugh or let him continue with his one-sided dialogue. Then it got really pathetic with the notes and the magic he was trying to conjure. Roxy felt pity for the boy, enough pity to make the small girl snap the gum she was chewing on purposely to get his attention.”Hmm, try any harder and you might just end up sh!tting your pants,” Roxy spoke up, most of her words coming across humming as she carried on chewing her gum. “I think it’s broken, or whatever. Someone sold you a defective wand, mate, get your galleons back.”

 

[Kasim Safir]

Kas peered up from where he'd ungracefully dropped to the floor, propping his chin up on his hand to look at the girl who'd spoken. He wasn't thrilled about there being witnesses to this, but at least she seemed kind of sympathetic to his plight. "At the rate this is going you're probably not wrong," Kas said sourly, groaning when the match continued to smoke. "It's supposed to 'warm up to me', but that might be wandseller speak for 'it's a dud'," He said, loath to admit the girl might be onto something. It was a bit late now though, he couldn't exactly swap it out now. Kas flinched when there was a muffled noise from the table, seeing as the small fire from the match slowly spread to the table. "Oh. Great." He said flatly.

 

[Roxy Coltsfoot]

Roxy jumps onto her bare feet, this was only going to get worse with the unfit wand wielder sparking fires at random like that. “Are ya asking for a death wish, mate? Keep it up and you’re going to burn the student lounge to the ground. And I don’t know about you, but this fireplace is much better than the one in the dungeons,” Roxy may just be overreacting, though the flames dances across the table increasing to still, tamable fire. “If there was any cowpie around it’d be put out in a second, hmmm, let me think,” Roxy pulled out her wand, she spoke some mumble jumble spell her siblings may or may have taught her. A little advance magic and it might not work, but she tried. It’s the opposite she would like to be doing right now. Though, the silly lad gave her no choice here if she wanted to keep visiting the student lounge.

 

[Kasim Safir]

"It's not me, it's the wand!" Kas said indignantly when the girl implied he was purposely setting things on fire, waving his hand from the small fire to the wand, immediately dropping it when the motion caused it to sputter out more smoke from the tip. "Maybe it's cursed or something," He said sourly. Then the girl said something about cowpies and Kas looked at her, suddenly rethinking the idea that she might be able to help him out here. "Why would we- you know what I don't wanna know." He said slowly, scooting back half a metre when she pulled out her own wand and muttered some random spell. Her wand probably didn't have a vendetta against him like his did, but Kas wasn't going to take any chances that might get his eyebrows singed off today.

 

[Roxy Coltsfoot]

Roxy shouted out a spell that did not react in her favor. Like the pitful wand wielder here, it didn’t want to cooperate with Roxy. Not for the same reason, Roxy didn’t have the level experience to get the spell working. She might as well be speaking in gibberish, she might as well admit to speaking in gibberish. “Maybe you’re cursed or something,” Roxy retorts, then one spell came to mind and it was just the spell she should have cast from the beginning. “Finite!” Like a switch that was turned off, the fire decreased by a considerable amount. Then it was no more. Roxy turns back to Kasim, without another word utter the small witch sat her behind comfortably on the nearest armchair closes to the fireplace. Roxy snaps her gum, lazily resuming her favorite hobby. Being an otiose little sh!t.

 

[Kasim Safir]

Kas still wasn't sure if the girl was here to help or hinder him with the fire, but considering Kas' next best idea was running away very quickly, he wasn't about to stop her from trying. "If I'm going to be cursed I'd prefer a cooler one than this," Kas shot back bitterly, flinching when the girl tried a different spell. Finite seemed a lot more affective than whatever she'd done before though, and Kas watched the smoldering patch on the table for a few more seconds just to confirm it was well and truly out before turning over to where the girl had settled down somewhat unceremoniously. "Uh. Thanks for saving me from a fiery death, I guess," He said a bit lamely. Kas was pretty sure he'd seen her around in class before but he had to admit he was a bit useless with names so far, he was pretty sure he'd called one of his roommates the wrong name the other night and had to pretend it was on purpose. It seemed like the girl was content to pretend the fire had never happened, or that she really was just that nonplussed about it, something Kas could get behind either way. "I'm Kas, by the way, wand failure extraordinaire," He added, scooping up his wand dubiously. "Hey, you wanna swap?"

 

[Roxy Coltsfoot]

Roxy lounge back, getting a good look at the useless wielder. She snapped her gum, then strung it from her mouth out of boredom. Roxy chews it up like spaghetti, and proceed to annoyingly snapped her gum again. “Mhm, sure, sure. Ya really need to get ya galleons back for that wand, someone stiff ya,” Roxy repeats herself for the second time, a snap came as she points at the thing they sold him. “Ya better off using a twizzler for ya wand in the meantime, cause that’s not working for ya,” Roxy kept pushing to convince him or wouldn’t consider herself a top-notch conversationalist. By her family, she is known for chewing through a pack of gum or taffy and messing around whatever that was in her mouth. She likes to wander barefooted wherever she goes and would opt out wearing clothes if allowed. She likes to laze around on her small little bum, adapting that behavior from her Irish Terrier back home. Roxy blows and snaps the gum, looking the boyo sideways. “Roxy, ya think ya funny? Why would I trade ya wand with mines?”

 

[Kasim Safir]

Kas tried not to make a face when the girl started playing with her gum, focusing instead on sweeping the sad remains of the match he'd been practicing on onto the carpet. "Rest in pieces, match, you were no help," He muttered, dusting off his hands. "It's a bit late to ask for a swap now," Kas said sourly in response to the girl. "Is there like couples counseling for wands? Is that a thing?" Kas figured he was stuck with this wand until at least the semester ended, and it had already done its best to damage his grades in the meantime. Not that he was trying particularly hard, to be fair, but at least he had a good excuse when his parents were pissed later.
The girl, Roxy, seemed unimpressed with his trade offer though, clearly missing out on a good deal here. "Some people like spontaneity," Kas shrugged. "Never a dull moment. Makes even homework exciting," He added, waggling the wand temptingly before dropping it back on his backpack nearby. He had serious doubts Roxy was going to buy his sales pitch, though maybe she just had a really good poker face. Kas kinda envied her disinterested vibe, though the gum chewing set his nerves on end. "Your accent is weird." He added, too tired after the excitement earlier to worry about tact.