Besides Transfiguration, Charms was Cordova's second favorite class. He strolled into the room quietly, nodded at a few familiar faces and transitioned towards the back of the room. It was in the back that you went unnoticed and didn’t need to participate entirely to much. Although he loved his school work, he didn’t feel the need to perform magic in front of the entire classroom. Cordova was the type of student that got embarrassed easily if something went wrong or if he said something that made him sound unintelligent. To his understanding it was the best and safest seat in the room. He placed his bag on top of the table and slid his thin frame into the chair without really having to move the chair outward a lot. Not knowing whether he would need to take notes or not, he placed his hands on the top of his bag and waited for more instructions.

Professor Ashby was out of his mind. There was no other explanation; Dominic convinced himself as he wandered into the charms classroom amidst quills and ink wells and other supplies. Though he continued with the subject because as insane as Ashby was, the sixth year had done extraordinarily well on his OWL exams last term.

Golden eyes scanned the classroom for an open spot, preferably around the middle of the room. Upon spotting Willow, Dominic was about to sidle his way over to the seat next to her when some other girl - younger Ravenclaw and clear friend of Willow's - took the spot to her right. Sighing, he then half smiled when the seat to her left was still available. As if waiting for him.

Quickly strolling over to the seat on her left, he plopped his bag down next to the seat and then slipped into the chair and awaited to see what this lesson of insanities would bring.

"Hello, young miss," Ian said, smiling at the girl. The look on his face was rather vacant, for he was bedazzled by the light glinting off the bottles of ink.

"Hi there," Ian exclaimed. He watched the boy almost pull out something from his bag and then return it, instead opting for his wand. "A fine choice, lad," Ian muttered to the boy.

"Hello, Clifford! You know, I don't think I've had the chance to congratulate you on being chosen as the Head Boy, so congratulations!" He sat up straight from leaning backwards on his hands and offered a hand to shake.

"As for our surroundings, you might say that..."

"Good evening? Miss, don't you see the sun is out?" Ian chuckled as he pointed to his window. It may not have been the brightest of sunny days, as it was Winter, but at least there was some light.

"Good day," Ian said smirking. It seemed the students were rather astute today!

"You may ask, but I might not answer..." Ian said, trailing off. "Things will be made clear, soon enough."

"Hi there, Cameron!" Ian said to the boy. This kid had always been one who was incredibly enthusiastic about Charms, which was very encouraging to the still rookie professor. "It's good to see you again!"

"Yes, you are seeing things clearly, young lady," Ian said. "And hello to you!"

"Hello there, Reese," Ian said.

Ian couldn't help but chuckle at the reactions his classroom was getting. This was Hogwarts! Did they honestly expect to not see things like this during their days?

"Hello!" Ian returned, equally as cheery.

"Ma'am," Ian said, greeting the young girl with a nod.

"Oh, do watch your way," Ian warned as the girl almost bumped into a floating vial.

"Hello there, Elizabeth," Ian said, watching the girl dodge and weave her way through the classroom. Immediately, he began composing spy theme-music...in his head.

"Hello there, Captain Kovac," Ian said. "I'm doing quite well, thank you. Yourself?"

"Hello!" Ian exclaimed.

"I'm quite well, thank you. How are you? Are you liking your year so far?"

"Good day, young man," Ian said.

"Greetings!" Greetings? Ian shrugged and posed his hand with the live long and prosper sign for added effect.

"Hello," Ian said to the girl.

"What, no 'hello,' Head Girl?" Ian questioned, chuckling. "Congratulations on your new position, Miss Greingoth. It's very fitting."

"Oh, thank you!" Ian chimed. "I've been reading magazines, and I think this is really going to help increase the positive energy of this classroom. Tell me, have you heard of feng shui?"

Ian took notice of the girls puzzled look and smirked. "You'll figure it out soon enough."

Perhaps Ian should have hung the quills point side up?

"Hello there, young man." Ian smiled at the boy who seemed somewhat quiet. He hoped he would be able to make the boy feel comfortable in Charms.

When Dominic Denton entered the room and took a seat, Ian spoke up, taking it as his queue to start, since there seemed to be no one behind him.

"Class, attention please!" he shouted, attempting to quell the loud murmur of the room. "We will begin."

He used his arms to push himself off of his desk and attempted to kick his legs so he could make a smooth hop down. Unfortunately, his wife had been a lovely chef over the summer break and had fed him well. You know what that means.

THUD!

Instead of sticking the landing...or even launching himself, Ian managed to instead roll off the desk and hit the floor. But it was no matter. Ian was able to make fun of himself, and chuckled as he stood up and brushed himself off.

"Welcome to Charms lesson one, everyone!" He allowed time for applause, but none came.

"For you first years, my name is Ian Ashby, but please call me Professor Ashby. For you older students, welcome back! I'm happy to see you all returning.

"Now then, I'm sure you've all noticed my choice of interior decoration. I have two questions for you: One - What do you think of it? And two - why do you think I've chosen quills and ink bottles for this particular lesson?"

Victoria put her hand up "I think it is great professor, are we floating them?"

Lucy blushed a little realesing she had said the wrong time of day...again. What was with her lately? But she smiled and listened to the professor ask two questions about the decor. Lucy looked around observing it a little. She had no clue what she though the lesson was about but she raised her hand to answer the first question. "It reminds me of essay's." She said. Lucy decided to take a shot at the first question and spoke again. "Are we going to learn the sticking charm? Or perhaps how to levitate items?" She asked.

To be quite and perfectly honest, Issy had no idea. Her lips pursed in contemplation and brows fell down, furrowing together. Finally, after a moment, she reached her hand in the air.

"Honestly, Professor? I have no idea? For all we know, you're awfully into the abstract decorating style? Perhaps you've a fondness for quills and ink? Are you, by chance, a writer in your free time? A sketcher? Or..." Hmm... that was an idea. "Has it anything to do with the stickying charm that you must've used to hold them up?"

Paris raised her hand. "Are we working with invisible ink? And if we are you could be teaching us the revealing charm." she said not having a clue if she was right. With Professor Ashby you could get anything on any given day. "I think its very you by the way." she said answering his first question.

Reese looked back up at the quills hanging above her head. She looked back at Professor Ashby when he started to speak. She raised her hand when the Professor asked the class two question. "First- I like the decoration. It's unique. Two- I think you've chosen quills and ink bottles, because, well, you need quills and ink to write notes, right? So, are you implying that we will be taking a lot of notes today?"

Roland had to suppress a laugh at the sight of the old charms teacher falling off of his desk. He had respect for him but there was no chance of Roland not laughing at something like that.
As Professor Ashby was his professor he had respect for him but he knew Ashby wouldn't blow his top at someone finding this sort of thing amusing. Roland glanced up at the ink bottles on strings and levitating. Looking back at Professor Ashby Roland raised his hand and said "Well its a nice change for the classroom.Plus for the Hufflepuffs and us Slytherins the quills and ink will come in handy thanks to the flood....". He paused slightly as he realised what purpose these could have, "sir, is this a way to prevent people's possession's being damaged like ours was?".

Emiliano raised his hand. "Professor...the decoration you gave to this classroom is great, unique...surprising...And as for the second question, I could guess by the unlabeled ink bottles...we might be working with invisible ink, perhaps?" He answered, questioning himself as well.

Lucas heard the Professor carefully. Ah! He's beginning with questions. He'd always known teacher's do that to get the attention of the pupil. So that they could blend in. Feel easy.

He really had no idea what they'd be doing with the inkbottles and the quills but he raised his hand. " Let's see...... free inks and quills for everyone." Lucas said smiling. " No seriously, I think the decoration's nice. Tough I seriously doubt that they're JUST decorations, sir."

Lyra smiled a bit, the professor seemed like nice person. Also very clumsy when she saw him falling off the desk, tyring not to laugh she tried to hear the question. "well, i would say that the decoration is eh....very fascinating ......" she said her eyes not blinking and looked at the quills and ink. And as for the second part. She had no idea.

What did he think of it? Well he thought a lot of it. Cam raised his hand and let his imaginative miiind to take over. "Professahh, I honestly think it's an AWESOME decoration you put up here 'cause I find quills and ink bottles to be AWESOME. Yeah," he said and proceeded to answer the next question, "oh oh oh and we could possibly be erm..." He had no idea. "We could uuuummmm... write stuff! Like... stuff!"

Daniel looked around and thought of one thing, Yes, it is very Ashby. The corky and weird one. He raised his hand and said, "Professor, the decoration reminds me of you, sir." he said and smiled at the direction of the Professor. "And as for the lesson, will we be learning the revealing charm? or perhaps the anti-cheat charm?" but the second one will not be thought because students will know how to counter it... he thought

Aaron saw all his friends with him. Okay, it's time for charms. Don't screw up. Don't screw up. Aaron raised his hand. "Professor, I like it. It's like, all vintage, and cool. And could we be writing or learning about old charms?" Aaron did not know. He thought that they would be using simple charms, but perhaps they were learning theory first.

Cy looked around the room in awe of all the quills and ink bottles. This Professor was INSANE, and Cy liked his style. In response to the mans question, the first year had some answers.

“I KNOW SAH’!” The young Aussie exclaimed, “I think the flying pens are ace.” He said, nodding. “An’ it’s pretty obvious that you have them floating around in case someone gets on yah’ bad side. You could pour some ink on em’ or stab em’ with a quill.”

The first years brown eyes eyed the quills expectantly, and he whipped out his wand in defense… just incase one tried to fly at him. CONSTANT VIGILENCE!

Upon hearing her name, Anna turned her attention from the newly decorated classroom to the professor. She smiled at him and then answered all that he'd addressed both her and the class with. "Hello, Professor Ashby. I'm terribly sorry for not greeting you. I was a bit distracted by the new decorations you've put up," she said, with a smile. "Oh, and thank you for the congratulations and for the compliment." Should she raise her hand to answer his questions for the class, though? Probably not, as she was already responding to his greeting. Did people in the midst of the conversation typically stop to raise their hands? Ahhh, well, who knew. She'd just raise her hand anyway.

"As for what I think of your decorations, they're lovely and unique. You could use a bit more pink in here...and quite possibly a mixture of purple, as well. Outside of that, I think you've done a lovely job of putting normal, everyday objects to use in your decorating," she commented, her hand in the air. "Maybe you've chosen quill and ink bottles, because there's a severe lack of those here at the school ever since that disastrous flood occurred. I know some Slytherins and Hufflepuffs who would be mighty glad to take them. Other than that, though, there's Anti-Cheating spells, Aparecium, Color-Changing charms, Refilling Charms, or spells to make ink appear, too."

Lettie calmly raised her hand, "I think having all these vials and quills floating around is rather fun. As for the lesson, are we going to be attempting to write with only the aid of our wands, or magical powers and concentration?" Perhaps they were going to learn how to write without using a set of hands...and having the quill do the work on it's own....

Diane raised her hand out of sheer interest. "Because we will be writing throughout the class, which means this is a theorical lesson. Or we are charming the quills and inks, perhaps quick-notes quill charming?"

She looked around at the decoration, having lowered her hand, "Quite interesting. I hope you are not planning to prank us showering us with ink. Black doesn't really suit me."

Chris looked around with wide eyes and raised his hand. "I think all this stuff is Awesome!" he said smiling. "Perhaps we will be maybe having them disappear and then reappear them later?" He said thoughtfully.

Lyra wanted to jump, clap, YAY her way through class as Professor Ashby was here! He was really here and she'd missed his crazy ways. The fun ways of course. She admired the things he did with the quills and ink bottles. "Either you are going to teach us another sticking charm or we are going to learn how to create Quick Quotes Quills!" Now that would just be awesome!

Demetria raised her hand. "I like the decorations. They're a bit....different." she smiled. "Will we be learning how to bring them towards us, then send them back?" she asked.

Raine raised her hand to answer. "I find your decorations rather intresting. If they are just there for decoration only I say it is very creative and I absolutley love it! Now, the quills on the walls would suggest that we are to practice a sticking charm today. But I think the opposite. I think you put the quills on the walls so that we can try and remove them. As to the quills and ink on our desks I'm not sure." She stopped there alowing a long silence while she thought. "But then, maybe the quills are on the walls with sticking charms because that might be todays theme, you could want to show us all the different things we can make objects, such as these quills do. We could very well be learning how to make the quils levitate or put some spell on it to make a quick-quotes quill. Yes, that would explain the ink." After she said this she stopped in ordder to let others speak their opinion.

Choosing not to voice her thoughts about Ashby's choice of decoration out loud, Daphne tackled his latter question. Sticking Charms had been discussed and practiced, last term, weren't they? Daphne was pretty sure she recalled that class. She had made paper cranes with Celandine--and attached one to Kettleburn's backside. It was quite fun while it lasted. The ink bottles were unlabeled, which was probably done on purpose to create confusion. "Invisible ink," she repeated even though several of her classmates had already introduced the idea. "Or perhaps we're supposed to seek out the matching quill to the matching ink bottle? A specific quill will only work for a specific ink." Something tricky, possibly? The idea was far-fetched but at least she wasn't just becoming everyone's echo. "Just a thought."

Fallon looked at Professor Ashby quizically. She thought about the two questions he asked. She raised her hand to answer. "I think it's rather...different Professor Ashby. And maybe we are going to do something to try and get them down." She knew she probably didn't sound to sure of herself. She was just taking a stab at the question.