  DMACFirecrab
Join Date: Apr 2017
Posts: 739
|  Gryffindor for life Notorious Niffler
SPOILER!!: ”Individual replies” Celestia smiled gently at the first year. She had been expecting objections from this corner, and was rather proud of the young Gryffindor for standing up for his beliefs -- even if he was mistaken. ”Well, Mr. Yoon, I would agree with you if conjured animals were alive, but they are not. They are physical manifestations of magic if they are “conjured from thin air” or they are simply objects animated by magic. I can assure you that animals created by magic cannot feel any pain -- or anything at all.” She would go more into detail when addressing the rest of the class, as she was sure that other students would have similar concerns. Ah, already another first year with similar concerns! Celestia couldn’t stop the smile from stretching further across her face at Shera’s last comment. She sighed softly and replied, ”They are quite cute, yes, Miss Ben-Ari. I can assure you, however, they are NOT alive and do not feel any pain. Additionally, even if an animation spell lasts for a very long time, they will eventually turn back into what they were before on their own. Spells like that don’t last forever.” She tried to make her tone as gentle as possible, and offered the young girl a smile to soften her words. SPOILER!!: ”Kye”
Okay, if Kye had one wish right now it was for Professor Grimsbane to learn how to close a door without trying to break it into a billion pieces. Having gotten a bit more comfortable, this time Kye jumped a little bit higher than she had last time. She should have seen that slam coming, but she was a bit preoccupied with eating a marshmallow off the top of her cup. And what was tha…. Oh. Lovely. She had spilled hot chocolate on her front. Like, a little puddle had formed. With an agitated expression, she took her wand out and cleaned the spot.
“Scourgify,” she muttered grumpily. Luckily it wasn’t burn your tongue hot, or she may have let out an involuntary shout. Perhaps this would slip by relatively unnoticed? One could only hope. Feeling a bit as though she was owed this, she went and refilled her cup. She was going to enjoy this, darn it! She sipped some and placed the cup on her desk, so that she could take notes.
The difference between natural and conjured animals? Kind of like the mouse pet that she now owned from that one Charms lesson? Aww her little purple guy was up in her dorm right now, with Edie. “Well, real animals can breed…? Conjured ones probably don’t need to eat either… even though they can.”
Ethical problems involved when performing spells on animals? “Well, I mean, I don’t go around casting spells on humans… so typically, we treat animals the same way I’d hope. I’ve never understood how conjured animals, such as toy mice that come to life, develop thought though… Like, do they have a working brain? Or just as far as the spell limits?” Was she going to make them feel bad morally and then have them cast weird spells on these poor creatures?!
Celestia’s lips thinned slightly as the Slytherin left her seat after the door had been closed, but she said nothing. She had closed the door rather loudly -- a technique used to wake the sleepier members of the class -- and so she felt the girl was justified in refilling her drink. A few moments later, however, she was smiling at the Slytherin and answered: ”Well done, Miss Atwater! That’s right, conjured animals can’t breed and don’t need to eat, because they’re not properly alive. They don’t have a working brain so to speak… Your mouse doesn’t think, it simply reacts according to the habits and behaviors that Professor Marchand put into it when he cast it.” She was happy to see that Gaston’s efforts in his class had resulted in students developing at least somewhat of an interest in this topic. ”That’s correct, Miss McKinley! Conjured animals do not feel pain or anything at all, “ Celestia confirmed happily. She was glad to see that some of the older students had this fundamental understanding already. ”Very good, Mr. Carden! You’re quite correct,”[/b] Celestia told him with a bright smile. It was good to know that she wouldn’t be fighting for the entire class’s cooperation today out of a sense of misguided ethics. Celestia noticed that Skyler was rather quiet today. That was fine; she didn’t mind as long as the girl didn’t burst out with objections and disrupt the lesson later. Not that she minded having those discussions with students, but she was really hoping to get all of this over with at the beginning of the lesson. She gave the first year a warm smile, just in case, and moved on. Celestia raised her eyebrows as Zita burst in to the room, quite obviously late. The professor wasn’t a Legilimens, but she wasn’t born yesterday, either. Zita had a reputation among the staff for dramatics, and Celestia had to admit that the reputation was well deserved. Perhaps she would have believed the story if a more, err, truth-prone student had come in with it. As it was, she said sternly: ”Miss Valla, that is certainly nothing to joke about! Ten points from Slytherin! Now, if I receive a Patronus from another member of staff corroborating your story, I’ll be happy to give you those points back. In the meantime, if you could sit down, please.” She folded her arms across her chest and frowned severely at the Slytherin. If the girl’s story was true, she was sure to hear about it later that day and would return the House points then. A disappointing, yet correct answer from Zoryn Spinnet had Celestia frowning again. She thought that Zoryn had a lot of potential for success if she would only apply herself more in lessons; the young girl was undoubtedly an effective leader and had good instincts. ”Well, yes, Miss Spinnet. It takes a lot of concentration and willpower to make conjured animals behave like their natural counterparts,” she answered smoothly. No need to let her disappointment show in her tone this time. Ronan Carter was rather quiet, but this was not altogether surprising. Celestia had not expected this discussion to be a popular one among the older students in the class, who surely already knew that casting spells on conjured animals was not unethical in the least. She gave the Gryffindor a vague smile and turned to the next raised hand. Celestia gave Emmalyn an encouraging smile as soon as she noticed the girl’s blush. She appreciated that the first year was willing to speak up in her class, and she did have a good answer. ”That’s correct, Miss Walsh, you should not be able to tell the difference by the animals’ appearance. And you are right that we must exercise caution when performing spells on real animals. I’ll get into more detail on this subject in a few minutes.” Hopefully, Emmalyn and the other apprehensive students would feel better about the day’s work by the end of the class discussion. ”Experimentation is often necessary, Miss Dixon, yes. You are quite correct, as conjured creatures are not capable of feeling pain at all,” she replied. She hoped that Miss Dixon’s answer got her classmates thinking of instances where they would be comfortable with experimentation despite their ethical qualms. While Celestia understood that many of her students were sensitive to such things, she appreciated those who took context into account as well. ”Correct, Miss LeFrique. That’s an interesting point. It is rather difficult to conjure an animal that will last for years, and to conjure one that lasted the caster’s entire life would be quite an achievement. Perhaps if it was a small animal like a fish…”, Celestia trailed off, lost in thought for a moment. She eventually shook herself out of wondering how long she could make a conjured animal last and how complex of an animal she could maintain for years, and moved on to the next student. As Celestia had expected, Stasya brought up the main ethical problem with casting spells on animals. ”Conjured animals are real in the sense that they physically exist, but they are not alive. You are quite correct that they cannot breed. You also bring up important ethical points, Miss Dalgaard-Volkova. The issue of natural animals’ pain is certainly one of the main problems with casting potentially harmful spells on them,” Celestia agreed. She was careful not to steer the conversation into further controversial waters. Since she wouldn’t be allowing students to cast spells on natural animals during this lesson, there wasn’t much point in upsetting the students further. ”Excellent, Miss Prichard! I couldn’t have said it better myself,” Celestia told the first year. She positively beamed at the Gryffindor; she had been hoping that, in the course of this discussion, students would understand these concepts if they were put into words that they could relate to better -- and Rylee Prichard had done just that. ”Very good point, Mr. Forsfelle! That charm certainly helps bridge some ethical gaps and trust issues with animals,” Celestia replied with a warm smile. She was glad to see that students were putting quite a bit of thought into their answers. Jessa’s nudging had finally elicited a reaction from the concealed creatures. One let out a high pitched squeal, followed by the clicking noise of many claws retreating as quickly as possible towards the far side of the cage. Celestia whirled at the sound and frowned at Jessa. She raised an eyebrow and said sternly, ”I warned you not to do that, Miss Cambridge. Please listen in future.” Of course, the cage closest to the prefect contained only conjured animals that rarely reacted in such a way, but Celestia had been sure to include those particular reactions to unseen stimuli to make them more realistic. If they had been the real animals in the room, Jessa would have certainly faced loss of points.
A few moments later, however, Celestia was positively beaming at the Ravenclaw prefect. ”Excellent, Miss Cambridge! You’re right on all counts, of course!” Celestia was particularly glad that the girl had seen fit to declare the ethical issues centered around conjured creatures to be nonsense -- in more polite terms, of course. Another great answer! This was exactly what Celestia had been hoping for! She hoped that the creature lovers in her class would be feeling much better about the whole exercise after listening to their classmates. [b]”Very good, Miss Diggory! That was well said!”, Celestia told her with a warm smile. ”I’m glad that you agree with Stasya, Miss Carraro,” Celestia began gently, ”but perhaps in future you could tell us why. Your opinion matters in this class as much as Stasya’s does.” Perhaps she was reading too much into the girl’s answer, but Celestia tried to encourage her students to speak up as much as possible. She certainly hoped that Zarina wasn’t suffering from a lack of confidence. SPOILER!!: ”Conjured vs real animals” ”Very good insights overall, everyone! Today we will be changing hedgehogs into pincushions,” Celestia informed them matter-of-factly. ”Now, before you all get, errr, upset, I would like to emphasize a couple of points. We will not be working with hedgehogs plucked out of nature, but with creatures conjured by magic. As several of you have already pointed out, these creatures are NOT and never have been alive. One of the most fundamental laws of magic is that it cannot create life, and Transfiguration spells are no exception. Although I have done my best to, err, instill as many of the habits of the real animals as possible into these conjurations, they do not have free will or self-awareness. They merely mimic the habits and instincts that the caster -- in this case, I -- will them to have.” Celestia looked pointedly at the many creature loving students in the room before ending this part of the discussion with, ”They cannot feel pain, or indeed, anything at all.” She hoped that that was quite clear and that it would set those students’ minds at ease. Now that she’d gotten those rather unpleasant aspects of the lesson over with, it was finally time to turn to the mini activity. This part of the lesson would be far less controversial, thank Merlin. Additionally, many of the students with ethical qualms were on the younger side and would be more likely to spend most of the lesson working on this spell instead of the hedgehog one.
Celestia clapped her hands together twice -- mostly to wake some of the more sleepy students up -- and continued, ”We will get into the particulars of that spell in a few minutes. Now, I must warn you that the hedgehog spell is classified as fourth year level, though I expect third years to attempt it as well. First and second years will be contibruting to the day’s project with a different spell, which we’ll go over now. I realize that this spell will be a review for most of the class, but we do have all years in here so there we are…”
She moved over to her desk and plucked one of the thin, silver metal pins off its surface. Celestia held it up for the class to see before replacing it on the desk and withdrawing her ebony wand from its wrist holster. She then brought her wand straight down before turning it in a sharp 90 degree angle so that it made a backwards “L” shape and said loudly, ”Mutatis Insigne!” As the class (hopefully) watched, she kept her wand pointed determinedly at the pin, which began to grow longer and thicker. The majority of the pin then seemed to spread out over the desk’s surface as it formed a distinct shape. With a final flick of her wand, colors bloomed over the now-changed part of the pin until it had formed what was quite clearly a Gryffindor flag. Celestia held up the thicker, longer Gryffindor flag pin and showed it to the class.
”I thought we would make some House Quidditch pins to decorate our pincushions today! I’m sure you all want to support your House teams in the rest of the season, and I must congratulate those of you on the House teams for a spectacular season so far!”, she explained as she beamed at the various Quidditch players in the room. ”However, you do not have to make your pins Quidditch-themed. You will probably need to focus most of your, err, mental energy on the design that you would like to produce and on strengthening and thickening the pin’s weight. They are very slight at the moment.”
Celestia set her Gryffindor pin back down on the desk, then tapped the blackboard behind her with her wand; at once, words spanned across the board with key information about the spell.
She made sure to say all of these instructions out loud as they appeared on the board behind her. Once everything of importance was on the board, she smiled and told the class brightly: ”Well everyone, you have 15 minutes to change at least one pin! First and second years, you’ll have more time after that, so don’t rush please. Come up and get a pin and then off you go!” OOC:[color=black]You guys are doing great! I’m so sorry that this is so long! I split the lecture into different sections to make it easier to read. For example, if your charrie already knows the difference between conjured and real animals, you probably don’t need to read that part. If your charrie doesn’t care why they’re learning the spell, you can skip that part, etc. I did it this way to try to accommodate all of the students and their skill levels. We will be moving on in 72 hours, so on January 21 at approx. 12 AM. I summarized the mini activity directions below. Feel free to join in at any point! I’ll be posting periodically, but if your student wants Celestia’s attention specifically, please put “prof” or something in the post subject line so that we don’t miss anyone! If you guys need anything or have any questions, feel free to PM me, DM me on Twitter, etc. |