First Year DADA: Lesson 13, Monday Oct 3 2:50

[Professor Isidora Fee]

Years of teaching and she still couldn't get over how jumpy these little things were. She couldn't get the shrieks they'd given when she'd cursed off that one kid's ears out of her head, which was stupid since she'd told them his ears were going to drop off. Ok, so maybe she had suggested they might ... whatever, they had still all squealed like hamsters being eaten by piglets and it was right annoying. (Though the first year thing had always paid off in the long run; she had sent one to do detention with poor Liz, just because, and hadn't she had a talking to!)

But she had toned it down a little since the first few classes and now the lot was moving smoothly through introductory jinxes and hexes and the like. Usually it was encouraged that firsties learn more defensive magic, but where was the fun in that, though Isidora; it was much more entertaining to observe them misfire and end up with their friends having rats running up their robes. Of course, that's not to say she hadn't gone over certain need-to-know basics -- all the students could perform a decent light charm, and she had made quite sure that they were all very efficient at ducking. But the rest of what she'd done for the month was mostly silly things to make your friends look like idiots: jelly-legs, body-bind, a really weak babbling curse. Now, though, it was October, and she had to teach them stuff.

So she'd settled on a kind of simplified Reductor curse, which rather than exploding things to bits (which she really liked, actually, and planned on demonstrating) would just push the target back some. This was sort of useless in most situations, unless running from something, but it was really fun.

So she awaited her flock of first years while fiddling with her wand. She'd already conjured up a blackboard, though she was not planning on writing it but rather exploding it.

[Willoughby Arimori]

Defense Against the Dark Arts? Really cool. Like, adult cool, 'cause you learned to protect yourself and be independent and stuff even though you were only eleven. And their teacher was an auror! She was crazy! It was so neat.

But Willoughby had learned pretty quickly that he preferred Transfiguration and Potions, because they didn't have to have a lesson in ducking and not getting sent to the hospital. Getting hurt was less cool than he had expected it to be, even if it was magical hurt.

Willoughby really thought that Professor Fee was the neatest teacher ever, because, like he said, she was an auror and she knew stuff and she treated them like adults because she said that "no one cares if you're a kid, they'll still turn your guts into linguine al dente unless you can defend yourself." Which had made the girl next to him turn almost completely white, it was really weird. Professor Fee had taught them all sorts of useful stuff, since now he could read at night and not have to turn on a lamp which made all the other boys really ticked off. She was cool.

But she was also really scary.

Once a boy came to class and was reading a muggle comic book instead of paying attention and all the sudden Professor Fee was right behind him and she just snatched the book out of his hands. Which didn't sound too impressive until they all remembered she was like blind and by then she had set the thing on fire and given it back. It was crazy!

So Willoughby had learned to be pretty careful in her class, long story short, and that was why he was like the first one there because he didn't want her to turn him into a newt or something. Could she do that? He bet she could.

He slipped into a seat and readied a bit of paper for note-taking because that was important. He didn't say hi because he didn't want to draw too much attention to himself and end up with snakes for hair.

[Silas Rivulet]

Jinxes and hexes were the entire point of wands. Okay, so some charms and transfigurations were cool, too, but that was only because they could have functions as funny as a jinx or hex, and he wasn't allowed to use transfigurations on other people yet. Professor Darling would probably transfigure him into a blood spatter if he tried, but he could hex people without consequence! Well there were consequences sometimes, but only when he got caught. And sometimes he was even instructed to do it.

So, DADA was the best class. Sandra agreed with him and Nico said it sounded cool and Kirsten said something about a snorkack or snorlax or something which was probably an agreement, which meant he was right objectively.

He didn't even mind everyone's fear that they'd be melted and turned into candles, mostly because he always just happened to be in a group and never the first one to go through the door. And not the last, either. The group did their best to chorus a, "Hi, Professor Fee," because one of them had mentioned at one point that they didn't want to seem like they were sneaking in even though sneaking in seemed like a good idea. Professor Fee would probably know, anyway. Silas was betting ten galleons on Professor Fee's blindness giving her superpowers, but no one had come up with a safe way to test that or ask yet.

Silas plopped into a chair next to a Wentworth who'd been here first, and he swore the others were glancing at him to make sure the chair didn't explode before they sat down, too. Which was mean. He should've thought of it first.

[Olivier Desbois]

Olivier had mixed feelings about Defense Against the Dark Arts. On the one hand it was pretty cool. They got to do a lot of magic in this class and he felt that in some ways he learned the most about what it's really like to be a wizard in this class. Professor Fee didn't hold back much when telling them what magic was capable of and it was a little scary sometimes. He'd realized early on not to get on her bad side and mostly kept his mouth shut during class. It wasn't all that effective, though, because he was usually one of the last, if not the last, person to manage a spell. He was good at ducking though, at least.

Olivier slipped in with a couple other students and joined in their chorus of a greeting. He then sat down near another Jackson boy. Everyone was being pretty quiet and Olivier didn't say anything either. Instead he took a chocolate frog card out of his pocket and nervously twirled it in his right hand. He'd just discovered chocolate frog cards and was slowly but surely building his collection. He glanced around the room, trying to find any hints for what they might be doing that lesson.

[Workwizards]

The workwizards had been working hard (or at least sometimes, because they seemed to spend a huge amount of time simply drinking tea) and it had paid off. They were very nearly finished, but they still had one last thing to do.

It was both a good thing and a bad thing, and the reason they had left this particular job until nearly last was because of what it involved. Two of the workwizards had already been berated and intimidated by one of the teachers and none of them wanted to experience that, and the last teacher they had to impose upon was none other than Isidora Fee.

They had been hearing stories about Isidora Fee since they had got to the school, and hardly any of them had been good. She was a terror, apparently, and they had drawn straws to see who would ask her what they needed to ask.

The leader had drawn the short straw, and naturally it was the leader who could be found rapping against the classroom's window, which until a few moments ago hadn't existed at all. Rather than enter the room with a known lunatic, the work wizards had reached into the building's spell foundations and had created a window where they needed it. After a few moments he stuck his head inside.

"Excuse me, Miss Fee," he said, his Welsh accent in contrast to the Canadian buzz of the room's voices, "we have to ask you if you won't use magic for the rest of the day. Sorry to ask, but the spells won't set on the windows if you do, see."

There. He had said his piece, and now he simply waited in fear of the result.