Seventh Years, Lesson Two

"Morning class!" Misha smiled at his students as he took a small sip of the tea and then placed it upon the table that he, as usual stood in front of. "Now class, time to get your brains into action, can anyone tell me, what spell you used in fifth year to blast an object out of your path? Or more notably a hole in a bush?" Misha glanced at his students, hoping they knew exactly what he was asking. He didn't however delay the lesson, he called upon the first student with their hand raised, "Reducto," The student said, and Misha smiled at them happily, "Exactly, now class get ready for this, because I'm about to blow you away, what if I were to tell you that there are spells much more powerful than Reducto? Spells far more powerful, and more dangerous to handle, than Reducto" He stopped, leaving the question and statement hanging in the air, while he took this moment to drink from his slowly cooling tea.

"Seventh years, you all are NEWT level students; if you thought the spells you covered in fifth year were dangerous, I urge you to think again. We are dealing with much more than futile blasting Charms here, and we have taken a step up from Conjuring. Today, students, I will be teaching you a spell that is on a monumentally different scale than Reducto. If you would follow me outside, we can begin the real thing." Misha took one final drink of his tea, before ushering the class out of the door. They seemed a little excited. He could only hope for more.

For this lesson, Professor Haden had sectioned off a large part of the lawn, which he had of course requested in advance. In the middle sat an old muggle car, which had definitely seen better days. It was much less of a car, more the skeleton of it. Behind them were several tables, with different car parts, for the students to practice once he'd shown them what to do. He turn to face the class, the usual charming smile on his face. "Expulso is the spell we will be exploring today. It causes an object to violently explode on impact. Your concentration must be top notch, your wand movements and pronunciation precise. Providing that everything is in order, you carry something incredibly dangerous beyond your wand hand. Let me demonstrate as so."


With a flick of his wand, Misha very clearly spoke, "Expulso!" A jet of magical light swirled towards the target object. The car exploded as if from the inside, rupturing and sending debris flying everywhere. Misha was quick to cast Protego Totalum about all of them, as soon as the spell had been cast. It amused him greatly as some students appeared to duck out of the way, though the debris was bouncing off the barrier and falling onto the grass. They didn't actually think he'd let him get hurt now did they? He turned towards his students, motioning them to observe the debris. The metal that had not been sent flying was twisted and contorted into a pile of nothing, rendering the car unidentifiable. The parts that had been inside it were charred and still smoking.


"Expulso is extremely destructive and has the potential to be incredibly harmful, so it goes without saying, do not use this spell on first years. Today Seventh years, you are going to be working on much smaller objects." He motioned to tables that he had placed far apart from one another. On each of the tables he had placed a small car part. "Today, I would like you to practice this charm on the part provided for you. You will not get it right away; it will take a while to get the hang of the spell itself. But by the end of today's lesson, you should be able to render something so small unidentifiable. Use the Shield Charm to protect yourself if anything flies your way; and remember, be on your guard. We don't want any casualties today." He smiled at his students and then let them get down to some practicing. Once, he felt everyone had practiced enough he dismissed the class.

---

rp the lesson (attendance post length is fine), someone answer the question for points.

 

[Aurora Archer]

Aurora was worried. She wasn’t sure what was going on with Rosie, but her sister wasn’t well, and it was difficult to concentrate on her classes and everything else when she wasn’t doing well. More than anything Aurora just wanted things to be fine with them. The gryffindor was trying to balance everything, her excitement over spending valentines with Soren, but also with her exams, quidditch and worrying about Rosie. But the girl was just worried. She came in from the quidditch pitch, and tried to help Rosie get ready while doing the same. She headed out of the dorm when they could.

Aurora walked into the charms classroom and took her usual spot in the room. She was quite eager for whatever they’d end up doing in this class and she wasn’t quick enough to raise her hand to answer the question, though she certainly had tried to be. The teen nodded along with what the professor said, but thought it was interesting that they were advised about the level of magic that they could now do. How dangerous it could be. She stood up with the rest of the class and went outside where the professor demonstrated the spell, and showed the real power of it. She nodded along in awe, but was glad when they were allowed to give it a try. She did the spell, and after a few attempts had managed to get pretty good at it. She packed up and headed back into the castle.

 

[Rosie Archer]

Rosie was being sick every morning. It had gone from just feeling a bit sick, to being sick. It was awful and she wasn’t quite sure what was causing it. Certainly nothing in her diet had changed over the last couple of months. She had done nothing different. The Gryffindor wasn’t sure what the cause was, but Aurora had made her promise to go to the healer if she was still being constantly sick after valentines. Rosie agreed since she didn’t really like being sick. Especially when she couldn’t then just be held by Xinyi. She was getting ready for the day, trying her best to be okay and headed to class.

Rosie walked into the charms classroom and sat with her sister as the professor got started. She frowned a little at what they would be doing, having never really been someone who enjoyed destruction of things, certainly not with magic. She was trying to be focused, but followed the class outside and frowned immediately as she watched what the spell could do. Rosie tried to do the spell, but really could never manage anything more than something small and weak. She did try her best, but it really wasn’t something she could do. The teen headed back into the castle when she could, feeling a little sick again.

 

[Demetrius Wagner]

Demetrius entered the classroom, taking a seat near the middle. He got out his notebook to take notes and listened as the professor started to speak. It sounded like an interesting lesson - honestly though, he could have done with the more destructive lessons last semester when he was still trying to get over his whole thing with Veronique. Demetrius gave the spell a go, having to use the shield charm once or twice to stop himself getting hit by small pieces of metal. He thought he got the general gist of it by the time the lesson was over, though he probably couldn't have exploded the car like the professor had (though Demetrius had to admit - it had looked quite cool).

 

[Monday Weeks]

The second week came around and Monday Weeks was all here for it. He was ready for classes and wanted to get things underway so that he could stay on top of the game. He had his badge on, his hair perfect, teeth brushed, the whole nine yards. He put on his school uniform and wondered how it would feel to not have to wear these things again. He shrugged his shoulders as he gathered his class supplies. He knew where he was due, and he was sure that the professors would not miss him when he left. He already had a good start on his head boy speech.

Monday was having a bit of a hard time, and now, he was in the Charms classroom, tired, and they had to learn another spell - one that was particularly powerful. They were soon led outside, where Professor Haden demonstrated the Expulso spell on the old muggle car. Monday flinched at it, even though they were protected. When Professor Haden instructed them to practice the spell on smaller objects, Monday felt a knot of anxiety tighten in his stomach. He approached the table with a small car part cautiously, his wand held in slightly wavering grip. He focused on the small car part in front of him but instead of a controlled burst, his spell came out uneven and weak. He took a deep breath and tried again, but his second attempt was no better than the first.

Some were already making progress, causing small explosions that effectively obliterated their targets. Meanwhile, he struggled to even make a dent in his assigned object. As time passed, Monday persisted, determined not to give up despite his initial struggles. He cast the spell repeatedly, each attempt marginally improving in control and power. Eventually, after what felt like an eternity of trial and error, he managed to produce a more satisfactory explosion that left the car part visibly damaged. Monday felt a mixture of relief and disappointment. He knew he hadn't performed as well as he had hoped, but he also understood that mastering such advanced magic would take time and practice.​

 

[Aine Thompson]

Aine didn't tend to enjoy the more destructive less helpful spells. That being said, however, finding out they would be blowing stuff up in Charms felt extremely cathartic and she couldn't help but be intrigued by the idea of it. Getting closer to NEWTs was putting a bit of stress on her shoulders, compounded with having some work to do to be able to get enough of a ranking to realistically be able to go to university, Aine had a lot on her plate. Sometimes you just needed to blow sh*t up.

In practice, however, it was a little more terrifying than she expected. Aine couldn't help but flinch at the explosion, even though they were well and truly safe. It was just an involuntary reaction. Like when a classmate's parent got one of those cups that had water in the sides of it and kept acting like they were trying to throw their drink on her to make her flinch (a very specific example that was totally not the writer projecting). They were actually set to it, and Aine had a small part to work with. It took her a couple of goes to get it right, perhaps mostly initially worried about any damage or knockback to anyone, but was able to push past it to just blow something up to let off steam. She put all her frustration and stress into the spell and while she didn't explode it as well as Professor Haden did. It did disintegrate a fair bit of the part, and she gave a nervous laugh as managing to do it really did let off a fair bit of steam.