Sixth Years: Lesson Five

Professor Styx had a feeling that today would end up loud. He honestly dreaded it, but it must be done. The room was dark, as per usual. He preferred it that way. He waved his hand to allow the students in that were early. He kept leaning against the desk, with his onyx eyes looming over each student that came in. He had no qualms if it bothered them. It should since often, it was said his stare could look into someone's very soul. He once heard that some others thought that a dementor would starve to death around him. Styx doubted that was the case, but he was not about to test that theory. He made sure it was time to start, and gestured toward the door again, where it shut. Anyone late would just be faced with a door that would not open.

"There will be another conjuring spell today. One moment," Professor Styx took out his wand and waved it to conjure each student a bird cage. At least he didn't drop them - or else he would have a migraine from the metal clangs. "The cages will house the bird that you will be conjuring today." He tapped the blackboard behind him with his wand, and the word 'Avis' appeared. "That is the incantation for conjuring birds. It is pronounced just like it looks. I will demonstrate." He conjured a cage behind him, and stepped around so that he was behind it, but still facing the students. He tapped the cage three times, and intoned the spell clearly. A flock of small canaries appeared inside the cage, and started chirping. He fixed that with a quick silencing spell.

"The lesson will become loud, so I will ask you to silence your birds when you have correctly conjured them, after you make sure they are chirping. If they start barking like a dog, or making other animal sounds, vanish them and try again. And, absolutely do not let them out to fly around the room." Styx would not tolerate that since birds often got on his nerves anyway. He vanished the canaries that he conjured. He motioned toward the shelf on the wall in the classroom. "If you need inspiration or images, there are books over there with birds you may use. Once you conjure what you want, you can take the cage and release them into the wild. I cannot guarantee if they will survive long, but that depends on how well you can conjure them with their survival instincts." Styx made sure that they all understood the concept.

"Remember, three tap method, visualize your bird, and make sure to give it the intelligence of a bird, or it will fall prey to a predator in the wild. No pressure," Styx subtly smirked. "You may begin. Once you are done, you may leave with the bird and the cage. Set it free, vanish it, let your cat have some fun with it, it does not matter." Styx sent them off to do as he said, and opened the door once the first student was done. So long as the room did not become unnecessarily loud, he didn't care what they did with the conjured animal. One might argue that it was alive, but another might say conjured animals did not have souls. Styx didn't have an opinion on that.

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Assignment: RP the lesson.

 

[Elio Boneheart]

Having focused on his studies for most of this week, mostly out of an effort to get Mikael to crack open a gods damned book, and with Hinata in the same boat, there wasn't much going on for this week, other than just generally spending time with his friends or going back over a lot of the material they'd been learning for the year. It's a bit weird for him now, mostly because he hadn't learned it with everyone else in the school, and most of what he knew was self taught, but he generally looked forward to it anyway, and with the duelling coming to an end, (he was pleasantly surprised by the results even if he hadn't beaten Anisha) there wasn't much more he had to look out for. He couldn't believe the end of the school year was fast approaching and it was nearing the time he'd have to start making decisions, like what the heck he wanted to do with the rest of his life. The answer of course was that he had no idea, though he did sort of think he wanted to stay in New Zealand - he supposed he would see soon enough depending on his NEWT results. Maybe they would tell him what he should do.

Elio's body filled with dread once again, as he listened to Styx announce they'd be conjuring birds. Live animals through conjuring was cool and all, but also kind of terrifying because what if he got it wrong? Would he conjure some demonic looking bird? Or would it not show up at all? Merlin, he was almost anxious to find out. Taking a breath, he focuses on conjuring a small sparrow, the bespeckled beak clear in his mind. He carefully tapped his wand three times on the cage. "Avis," and tried to urge the picture out of his head and into reality. There was a tiny flicker of movement in the care, followed up a small, weak chirp, and Elio grinned. He looked into the cage, admiring the birds small hops about the cage and the way it fluffed its feathers. It wasn't making any noise though so he spent a few seconds trying to make it chirp, only it seemed he'd conjured the bird voiceless. He frowned and vanished it, trying again - this time the bird chirped happily and he silenced it quickly, trying to avoid any unnecessary noise. He picked up the cage as they were told to go and went in search of Mikael, determined to provide him with a little gift for being such a great boyfriend.​

 

[Anisha Khatri]

Anisha felt her gloomy mood only increase when she entered the dark classroom for Transfiguration. She liked the subject, but she didn't get why Professor Styx was so dark and gloomy. She guessed that was one of those weird Hogwarts secrets no one would ever find out, like how many secret corridors there were.

The professor told them they would learn another conjuring spell today. She raised her eyebrows when he conjured a bird cage for each of them. She guessed where this was going and was excited, conjuring something as lively as a bird seemed difficult. Professor Styx demonstrated the spell. Then he told them to silence the birds once they conjured them. She could understand that, Anisha guessed it would cause a headache to be in the middle of that bird chatter for long. She was surprised they were allowed to release their birds into the wild, wondering if that couldn't mess with the ecosystem. Just to be safe, Anisha picked a common bird. Keeping everything the professor had said, Anisha focused on the spell. She managed to conjure a small flock of Grey Warblers, which were native to New Zealand. They looked, acted and sounded like the regular bird. At least until she silenced it. She was glad she had managed the assignment for today's lesson and only felt a small pang of regret and worry as she released the bird into the wild.