Lessons One – Seven
Alasdair McCandlish
Third Year Ravenclaw
Lesson One: Write a short roleplay of the lesson (max. 300 words) (describing your thoughts on the lecture, on your new professor, what you were doing instead of listening, etc) I award house points for the most creative RP’s.
First lesson of the year, and it would be Defense Against the Dark Arts. With, apparently, a woman! Oh goodness. Alasdair was particularly prejudiced against women teachers (except for McAmis, of course) because, well, they just weren’t that smart most of the time. I mean, look at his older sister, Trudy. Her brain was about as capable as her name implied.
Alasdair dubiously sat in his seat, watching as the Professor introduced herself, called on Juliet Rosier, and all sorts of fantastic things. He was fully planning on hating her guts, until she basically gave the young boy a step-by-step process in which he could become the next dark wizard to bring terror to the lives of the United Kingdom.
Perhaps this class, would, in fact, be promising. “Phee? Did you take notes?” Alasdair asked as they left the classroom together. “This is USEFUL.”
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Alasdair McCandlish
Third Year Ravenclaw
Lesson Two: Homework: You have a few options.
1. RP being pranked by one of your classmates.
2. RP pranking one of your classmates.
3. RP your utter failure to trick anybody.
Alasdair wasn’t quite sure what Professor Denton was doing, encouraging miscreants to prank people even more than they usually did. As a shy, relatively loner sort of fellow, Dair could easily imagine himself picked on by a lot of people. The guy was fortunate to have made such good friends with Phoebus so early on before Hogwarts had started. Not only was the Slytherin better than Dair’s own blood brothers, Phoebus could also theoretically be exceedingly effective as a body guard. All the Phees in the world couldn’t make sure that there would be no canary creams melted into his hot chocolate, no singing sweets crushed into tiny little bits and put on top of a cupcake, no grammar drops switched for cough drops, or nose-biting tea cups instead of the normal, nose-ignoring variety.
At the end of the lesson, Dair settled for picking up a pair of grammar drops. He’d make Phoebus eat them before he wrote his essay for this week’s History of Magic homework. Maybe then Alasdair wouldn’t have to correct quite so much of it. Because, obviously, it was so juvenile to place one’s prepositions at the end of one’s sentence.
Alasdair also wondered if he could get points from Professor Denton for 'pranking' the English Language instead of, you know, an actual person.
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Alasdair McCandlish
Third Year Ravenclaw
Lesson Three: For homework, do one of the following:
1. Partner with a fellow student (it can be an imaginary student if you don’t have the time to organize with a real one) and RP playing hide and seek using the tracking spell.
2. Alternatively, write an essay about a famous incident of treachery, trickery, fraud, etc. For example, Barty Crouch Jr.’s impersonation of Alastor Moody - but don't use that one. This may be from the Harry Potter books, an actual historical event, or something you make up entirely. 300 words minimum.
Attended only.
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Alasdair McCandlish
Third Year Ravenclaw
Lesson Four: OOC: TWO people may post asking a question of Mr. Magee. Preferably, the question should be about banshees, but it doesn’t have to be. (As usual, do not post attendance until the lesson is finished. You’ve read the rules by now, right? )
Alasdair wasn’t really one for cute little magical animals, but well, this wasn’t so worthless as far as field trips went. So much better than first year Herbology. This place though? It was filled with danger. You could feel it in your bones. Alasdair appreciated a place that could properly intimidate you without doing much.
When the students were prompted to ask questions, however, Dair cast a disgusted glance at Clementine who asked if her brain would explode if she heard the banshee scream. It was a good enough question, really, but did she have to phrase it quite so idiotically? She was doing the house of Ravenclaw no favors.
Alasdair did something quite unprecedented: he raised his hand. Once Mr. Magee finished answering Clementine’s question, Dair was prompted to ask his question. He dropped his hand by his side, and then spoke up in a clear voice. “I’ve read that banshee hair has been used for dark magic wand cores. Is this true?” I mean, Dair was pleased enough with his ash wand, a wand made of a tree that sounded like the dead remains of a tree burned. That was creepy-crawly enough. But to have a banshee hair core? That would be even more superb.
Alasdair McCandlish
Third Year Ravenclaw
Lesson Four (Part Two) : For an O: Do the RP and write an essay answering the questions of your classmates from this lesson. Obviously you will have to make up whatever you write. House points for the most creative essay!
Mr. Magee answered Dair’s question in a way that didn’t really answer his question. Which was reasonable, Dair supposed. He didn’t expect adults to be overwhelmingly knowledgeable or anything of the sort. The fellow was a magical creature zoo keeper, as well. Not Mr. Ollivander. The young Ravenclaw gave the man a short nod as thanks for the ten points that he was awarded, and as Professor Denton allowed the points to be given, and then rounded up the students for leaving, Dair’s mind paused on the idea of using banshee hair in anything exciting. Perhaps he could convince that new potions teacher to give him a pass to the restricted section of the library so he could conduct some independent study on the usage of banshee hair in potions. He bet that they could be used for sanity potions, and maybe even potions that affected hearing…
Dair jotted down the homework from the blackboard, and quietly followed his chums out of the classroom, musing all the while.
Will Clementine’s brain explode?
No, her brain wouldn’t explode, as there’d be no logical rationale for a brain –exploding-. There are no caustic reactions that would occur, nor is there an ability of a banshee’s scream to put explosives into the head of anybody. What I think could happen as a result of a banshee’s scream is much more like a stroke: there is something in the scream that either overloads the mind to a tremendous extent, or somehow, a pseudo-thrombosis/embolism can occur, and blood flow to the brain can be obstructed or halted.I’ve watched way too much House.
Can a banshee hair be used as a wand core?
I don’t see why not. It is part of a magical creature, and thusly has magical properties. If one harnessed that in a wand, there’s no reason that it couldn’t provide the same type of results as a wand made of phoenix feather or unicorn tail.
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Alasdair McCandlish
Third Year Ravenclaw
Lesson Five: Roleplay practicing the Dampening Spell. The wand movement should be rather difficult to accomplish (or even understand).
Attended only.
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Alasdair McCandlish
Third Year Ravenclaw
Lesson Six: RP the lesson practicing the spell on your chosen item.
Two seconds into the lesson and Susan and Alasdair were already on Phee-drool Patrol. With a loving poke and a snuggly jab to his side and shoulder, the Slytherin was kept awake by the two Ravenclaws, which was a good thing, given that Phoebus was quickly called on by the DADA professor. Dair and Susan were good friends, they were.
Phoebus gave some garbled, but decent answer, and Alasdair partially zoned out for the rest of the lesson, choosing to read his latest dueling theory book that he had tucked oh so cleverly into the pages of his DADA textbook. Seriously, Denton would never discover him. Muwhaha.
The students were instructed to try out their new spell on an assortment of objects that were collected at the front of the room. Dair fingered the pocketwatch in his pants pocket that he had pilfered from Charms a week or two ago. He could duplicate that, but, given what Denton had mentioned about the integrity of the reproduced object, maybe the idea of duplicating a watch was a bad idea. The Ravenclaw had already decided that he didn’t want to get up and go all the way to the front of the room to grab stuff, so he eyed the objects around him.
Grinning, Dair slipped Phoebus’ wand from his pocket and placed it on his desk. Pointing his own wand, he then practiced the charm on his best friend’s wand. Switching a functioning wand with just a stick of wood that looked an awful lot like Phee’s wand would make for serious luls.
+ Phee’s post.
Excellent, copying things was exactly what he wanted to learn, especially if they were valuable or made of jewels. Phoebus rubbed his hands together excitedly and glanced around for something worth copying, because even if they were significantly less convincing jewels, slightly misshapen, they were still jewels. Of course, it would so happen that nobody had fistfuls of gems just lying around or stuffed into their pockets. Exasperated sigh. Phoebus turned to the girl next to him, who he vaguely recognized as Juliet Rosier, and she was wearing a GOLD LOCKET with a J on it!
Forget the initials though, they were focusing on material. "Can I borrow that?" he asked, holding his hand out. "The necklace, I mean." When she shrugged and handed it to him, because she probably had a zillion more just like it that were authentic (she looked rich, anyway, and James wouldn't hang out with her otherwise, probably) so she didn't care much.
"Awesome," said Phee, reaching blindly to the desk and picking up his wand. He tried the spell about eighty times with massive fail before he looked down and realized that this wand didn't really look like his, and it was actually just a stick. Turning to Dair, who looked quite proud of himself, Phoebus got out of his chair, stomped over to the boy, and smacked him on the head with the stick-wand, before retrieving his own and returning to Juliet. "I can do magic I swear," he grumbled.
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Alasdair McCandlish
Third Year Ravenclaw
Lesson Seven: Roleplay practicing Petrificus Totalus.
Alasdair McCandlish
Third Year Ravenclaw
Ryuichiro Takeda
Third Year Gryffindor
The third years were supposed to practice petrifying their classmates, and there was nobody on earth Alasdair would more prefer to have permanently petrified…. underground… a thousand feet…and possibly incinerated…than Ryuichiro Takeda. With a sinister smile on the Ravenclaw’s lips, Alasdair poked Ryu’s back with his wand. “Bet you I can petrify you before you can petrify me.”
Finally, the last lesson of the year, and Defense Against the Dark Arts wasn't completely sucking. Ironic, really. Even more ironic was the fact that here he was, practically being given permission by Alasdair McCandlish to petrify him. It was like Christmas come early.
"You're on," said the Gryffindor, smirking and wondering why he'd earned such a pleasure. Probably because Phee and Susan were off doing their own thing. While he would have normally partnered up with MIles, this was an opportunity too good to waste.
…Well that had been easy. Dair blinked slowly, twice, before being, well, thrilled. Dair was confident in his ability to handle a spell like this…and even if he wasn’t confident in his own ability, he was sure that Ryu was certainly lacking. Alasdair led Ryu over to a small island of un-used space in the DADA classroom, and was about to lay out pillows before he thought better of it. Why make the inevitable fall of Ryu Takeda hurt less? “I don’t think I’ll need the pillows,” he remarked. “We can use them if you want, though.” Which Ryu wouldn’t.
"No pillows is just fine with me," Ryu shot back. He eyed the space around them and had the excellent vision of Alasdair toppling to the ground, frozen like a statue. He couldn't wait. "So, how're we doing this? 3 paces and then a draw?" He grinned despite himself.
“Excellent.” This was just going entirely too easily. He had expected at least some resistance from the Gryffindumb. Dair glanced around the room, wondering if anybody was watching their showdown. They’d best be ready for Ryu, flat on his back, and Dair’s foot pressing down on Gryffindor’s ‘Golden Boy’. Ugh. Revolting. “That sounds about right,” Alasdair replied, pulling his wand out of his pocket. He ran through the spell quickly once in his mind. He needed to get this on the first try. He raised his wand, and began the count off. “1…2…”
The Gryffindor removed his wand from his robes' pocket and turned, a bit hesitant to turn his back to his opponent, but despite the fact that he thought Alasdair was a stuck-up prig, he was no Juliet Rosier. As he took his first pace, Ryu took his wand out of the pocket of his robes, clenching it tightly. At the second, he repeated the jinx in his head. And on the third....the 14-year-old whirled on his heel and fired of his spell (Petrificus Totalus!)....and then promptly fell backwards onto the awfully solid ground after being hit in the chest by Alasdair's jinx. And, of course, the suffering didn't stop there. Even as he lay on the ground, frozen in place, he knew he'd have Phoebus' annoyingly raucous laughter to contend with. He would get McCandlish back for this.
The count of “three” was implied, and Alasdair whipped his wand and his incantation out in a hurry. As Alasdair’s spell went sailing through the air, Ryu’s own catapulted towards the Ravenclaw. Mimicking each other’s motions so unwillingly, Alasdair fell on his back, the thud of his body doubled by the sound of Ryu’s body falling. The Ravenclaw inwardly groaned in disappointment, anger, and the knowledge that anybody who had seen this little “showdown” would be forever mimicking the boys. How truly horrible.
(Ryuchirio Takeda would pay for this humiliation.)