Mo needed a partner and since he was doing his best not to appear desperate or whatever, he had to think outside the box. And who was farther out of the box than Essex. He stepped up to stand beside the other boy and gauged the poster he'd hung on the wall.

"Looks like a poster, dunnit? How far down can you read without any help?" And because he wasn't going to be a cheater, Mo didn't even consider putting on his glasses for this part. Not that he needed them, but... y'know. They existed. In theory.

"Don't you sort of wonder if they don't stand for something and the poster-makers are laughing at us all. Like... E, F, P, T, O, Z... that could totally be an anagram or an acrostic." Maybe he was overthinking it because the bottom line was totally blurry.

Yeah, yeah. This was all going very fine and well, the reading of the poster and such, and Ascanius' ego was inflating by the minute. It was all going so very well for him because he had awesome eyesight. Let's be real, how could these eyes NOT be anything short of perfect?

But on the second to last line of reading, he heard someone approach him and Ascanius smirked. Well, well, well. If it wasn't Marcus. "I can ready the whole ruddy thing," he remarked with pride. Yeah, this face was not just for show. It had practical application as well.

Blink. Sigh. Jeez. "No," he said with a bored expression, "I don't think it stands for anything." He was more then welcome to try though, if he wanted.

While Marcus figured that out, he drew out his wand and said, "Is there a wand movement for this spell?" Ascanius hadn't been paying attention. Obviously. That was what the point loss was for. And then Ascanius started to repeat over and over in his head Oculo Focalis, Oculo Focalis, Oculo Focalis.

Another spell. Meh. Penelope got tired of learning learning these things in so many classes sometimes. Yeah, it was a magic school but...still. It was tiring.

But she grabbed a poster anyway and pulled out her wand. Practice first before casting, of course. She set those down on her desk for the moment while she practiced the incantation. "Oculus Focalo. No. Oculus... OculO... Oculo Focalus. No, Fo...cal...is? Focalis. Oculo Focalis. Yeah, that. Oculo Focalis. Oculo Focalis." Wasn't too bad once she got the hang of it. "Oculo Focalis." Yeah, she was pretty sure she had it now. And the wand movement was just a swish and then a tap on her closed eyes... Yeah, that wasn't hard at all.

Now to put the poster up on the wall so she could practice.

"Well, it would be interesting," Mo offered a shrug and half-grin to Essex. "Don't you think that conspiracy theorists lead much more fulfilling lives because they know to distrust EVERYone? It's too bad we're too sensible for it." Mo covered one eye and then the other and decided he couldn't see either of the bottom lines. Ish. But he was not putting on glasses so they could just stay blurry if they wanted.

He turned to watch Essex poke himself in the eye. "I think you just point it at your eyelid and be careful not to blind yourself." He did so, very carefully since once his eye was closed it was hard to gauge where his wand was pointing. Maybe they should cast on each other?

He wasn't asking, though. "I'll go first. Oculo Focalis." He hoped he was pointing at his eyelid and not making his nose REALLY REALLY sharp-sighted.

Grabbing the poster and her wand, Penelope left her seat at her desk and headed for a blank spot on the wall. Finding one, she placed the poster there and then took a few steps back. However many seemed good.

And then she just...looked at it? And felt like she could read most of it just fine. The ones toward the bottom were a little more difficult than the others, but the third from it she felt was still easy to read. So was that it? Should she just practice the spell now?

Yeah, that was what she was gonna do.

After muttering the incantation a few times under her breath, she gave her wand a swish, said, "Oculo Focalis," closed her eyes, and carefully tapped each of her closed eye lids with the tip of her wand.

This spell was really great! She re-read the poster again and… she suddenly had a idea, if she wanted to have a cheat sheet then she needed to write the answers on a parchment, but she needed to do it so that she only could read it while her eyes were under this spell, she was sure that the teachers weren’t able to see it then! It would look like a pencil scratch and nothing more! Yes, she definitely would do that! But first she needed to make sure that the teacher wouldn’t see it, she needed to test it! The second year quickly grabbed her parchment and wrote simply her name Sonea Duvessa. She needed to use a spell to help her so that she could write her name in such a small letters but it worked and now she only needed to wait if somebody would see it. She was not sure is she would test it during this lesson or if she would wait. But she concluded that it would be better to wait until the professor himself had his own eye sight back. Maybe she could try it when she deliver her homework! Yes, that would be a good idea! And if the professor would not see it she could use it for real during some lessons like Ancient Runes or Arithmancy, both lessons were difficult and she really could use a cheat sheet!

The young girl looked one last time at the poster to make sure that she still could read everything and sat down in her seat and waited until the professor would speak again.

Laura didn't know why but she was craving ice-cream and thankfully she had some in her bag, she took it out and handed it to Daichi. "Cool, I'd love you to be my partner." Laura couldn't wait to start the task with her new partner but first here was her chance to be the good girl she always was. "Here's your ice-cream as promise." Laura was going to be nice and keep to the promise that she made when she asked for a partner.

After she proposed an answer to his question, the Professor seemed to get really, really, really, REALLY excited. Why was he so excited? wondered Jo. Totally unprepared for his reaction, Jo couldn't help but stare blankly at him for a second, wondering whether or not she should simply nod, smile, or give him a thumb's up symbol. Instead of choosing one of these options, she but her lip and just did nothing. She figured that would work. A few seconds later, the blonde decided that she'd give the Professor a smile. He seemed cool and enthusiastic about the subject which was a refreshing change from the Professors at her previous school.

Alrighty then...Merlin, he must really love that constellation, she thought as she gave the Professor a smile before jotting down some more notes. Her eyebrows shot up when boy asked about Internet in the classroom. The blonde Snake couldn't help but roll her eyes at the question.

Pfft.. People and their Internet these days.. To Jo, it seemed as if the Internet always came up in polite conversation or any conversation.

Right. Focus.

Jo's eyebrows raised as the Professor gave them the next set of instructions. They were going to turn their eyes into telescopes? This class was getting weirder and weirder by the second but it was still pretty cool. At least the charm wouldn't be permanent. "Awesome!" she muttered enthusiastically before looking around the room. Work by yourself or as partners? Well since Jo didn't really know anyone that well, she decided to work alone. Jojo liked working by herself because then no one could mess up her idea of how things should be done.

Without another thought, Jo got up from her seat with wand in hand, grabbed a poster, and retreated back into the back of the classroom where there was some open space. She placed the poster on the wall and took a few steps back.. Pursing her lips, she tried to recall the incantation. Oculo Focalis, she thought.

"Oculo Focal-is, Oculo Focalis, Oculo Focalis," she began at a slow speed. Jo paused and smirked. "Say that three times fast.." she added quietly as she chuckled to herself.

Oculo Focalis? She blinked a few times in bewilderment as she thought about casting an eye focusing charm on her own eyes. That was just – strange yeah? And Flamsteed still seemed to be all sour – which was only making her want to laugh again.

And seriously; she didn’t want to have bags under her eyes. Nope not at all.

The glanced at the first row of letters and just smirked.

She did glance over to Mo and Ascanius as they worked near her. She did send Odessa a quick smile before beginning to read the poster in front of all of them. Hey! She could still see the sign – well, most of it without glasses or a spell. "Oculus Focalo."

“E F P T O Z…” she frowned because this was rather too easy – yes? Way too easy? Like maybe see the letters from space? That would be cool and challenging. “Hey, Odessa you want to work together on this half?” She asked mainly because he seemed to be the Astro!Golden-boy and well…maybe if she teamed up with a well liked person then Flamsteed would put some ice into those briches of his and stop shooting her daggers.

She...she..SHE HAD ICECREAM IN HER BAG!

This was not good... What if the Professor saw and took away points? Well, he wouldn't really care if SHE lost points because she was a Hufflepuff and they have far to many points...But Slytherin?! No, no he could not accept the icecream...he couldn't..

But....icecream in a bag!

This made Daichi HAPPY! Yep, he had lost his inner battle. Besides , now he thought about it. It were JUST POINTS. Nothing special! Now, what IS special was icecream..in a bag! It took all of his will power to not snatch the icecream out of the girls hand... "You, are officially THE greatest icecream in the UNIVERSE!" get it, universe...Astro... He said to the icecream now in his hand. "Who's a squishy icecream, you are~"

Oh right, they still needed to do that chart reading thing... The Slytherin took a bite from the icecream , shivered and then focused his eyes on the chart that he had sticked to the wall earlier.

But as he tried to focus, he realized that his mind kept wandering off to the icecream in his hand and he didn't even knew why. It was just icecream! seriously!

Focus Daichi, Focus!

He already knew till where he could read the letters. And it was till the sixth row... well, his doctor had said that when he had to get his eyes checked in his third year. "I can read the first till fourth lines" he told Laura whom he assumed was standing near him. "And the fifth line..." He squinted his eyes as he tried to the fifth line but his eyesight was blurry. "Funny blurry letters!" he giggled and took another manly bite from his icecream.

"You try reading the chart now and i'll practise that spell"

Goblins. Ugh.

Lottie wanted the telescopes back as much as Airey did. Trust us. And she wasn't particularly thrilled about this eyesight thing. Though, it was pretty cool to try and stargaze without a telescope.

Like, to do some serious stargazing, not just looking at the stars, yeah? Because those were two entirely different things. Otherwise this will be pointless.

"Oculo Focalis, Oculo Focalis," hey, the spells they used while taking care of their star were even more difficult to pronounce, but she still wanted to make sure she spoke clearly. Even if there was no chance of getting their eyesight messed up. Enough practice. She went and stood in front of a poster...and...she could see ALL the letters.

So, she needed to back away some more. And more, and more.

Errr...... she still wasn't quite sure about this spell, despite Professor Airey's reassurances. Because she'd always been taught that the only things that should go near the eyes are glasses, contacts, make-up and eye drops. Most definitely NOT spells. But she knew that if she wanted a good grade, she did have to practice. So she started with practicing the pronunciation. "Oculo Focalis. Oc-u-lo Foc-alis. Oc-u-lo Foc-alis. Oculo Foc-alis. Oculo Focalis." Then came the wand movement, sans spell of course.

Oculo Focalis and swish and tap. Oculo Focalis and swish and tap. He could do this... and he'd still have his usual eyesight back after all of this.

Breaaaaaaaaathe.................

"Oculo Focalis!" Swish and tap on his closed eyelids. ... Did it work? Had he said it properly?

...

He opened his eyes slowly and blinked. Everything was in such a clear focus! It was as if his eyesight had been blurry before and someone just handed him a pair of glasses and he had put it on and... and... WOAH! It was as if he had some sort of super power. Super vision. And it was only now that the power was kicking into gear. ... Yeah, he could go along with that.

The Hufflepuff blinked a couple more times before looking at the chart again. The bottom two lines were MUCH easier to read! And the top one? The top one stood out so sharply, the boy was almost taken aback. Because... he was standing quite far away from it. Sort of. A grin spread across his face as he looked around at the class. So. Much. FOCUS!

... So... what were they meant to do now?

Once she had the wand movement down, she approached one of the eye charts around the room. Standing the appropriate distance away, Sky covered one eye with a hand and recited the chart. Then, she switched eyes and read it again. And then it was time to try the spell. She raised her wand with a good healthy amount of nervousness. "Oculo Focalis."

Ouch! Her nervousness must have affected the spell, because now her eyes felt like they had sand or something in them. Not cool.

Well casting on his own eyes was a bit nerve-racking, but West was comforted by the reassurance that they wouldn't be able to hurt themselves with it, not unless they succeeded and used it for too long and strained their eyes yeah?

Aaaaand he had to wonder what effect there would be on someone like him who had reading glasses?

"Professor, what happens if you have reading glasses? Should you still use the charm? If I use the charm and mess about with my vision, will I have to change my glasses to compensate? And also, should you test your vision with or without glasses..?" Look, they were just important questionsssss okay?

He looked at the sign and as he was without his reading glasses.... yeah. By the time he got to the sixth line his vision started to blur, the seventh was... maybe there was one or two letters? and the last parts he couldn't see at all. It was just a blurrrrr down there.

... Mika was being real friendly today. He looked over at her when she addressed him, brows up. Odessa was it?

"Sure. I'm not messing with the spell yet on account of I wear reading glasses, but I'll help you if you want."

Laura looked at the Slytherin boy, well he seemed happy now, all she had to do was figure something out to get this thing going, maybe she could sort of see how she could do with her eye-test. "I so wonder what would happen if you went for your eyes testing and read the last line, you know the made in whatever country bit." Laura thought it would be wicked but probably a bit scary.

Laura decided that she would try her best, she read the first 4 lines no problem and then she read the fifth, she got to the next line and squinted her eyes, she was struggling with this one. "I can sort of making it out but in some cases the letters are a bit weird and hard to tell, but other letters are easier, this is strange." Laura sighed.

Once she was having difficulty reading the last couple of lines, she decided she'd backed away enough. And it was probably time her wand got involved in the spellwork, right? Right.

She did wonder, though, about those with glasses...surely, some of the alignment could be corrected by a simple spell, sooo why wear glasses? Because the spell was bound to wear off? Because it didn't actually treat what was wrong? A career as Healer could be useful, no?

LOL. No, dealing with people, just no.

"Oculo Focalis," she said, eyes closed, swish, tap on eyelids. Done? Lottie only needs to open her eyes and see for herself, literally. So they were open, but she was having issues with the last line.

So, she kept on practicing the spell until she saw the last line. P E Z O L C F T D.

Well, okay....maybe they were just doing the eye test the Flamsteed way. That was so much easier anyway. But for the sake of it, Beezus did still measure twenty feet away from the chart and there she stood as she voluntarily squinted and blinked her eyes a few times as though to give it some sort of warm up before she starts the test.

And then....she began to read the letters on each row to herself. First row, "E.." Just a single letter. Next, "F...P.." Third row, "T...O...Z.." Her eye sight wasn't failing her just yet. "L...P...E...D.." ...On to the fifth row, "P..E..C...F...D" A little bit of squinting now...the letters were becoming too small, "E...D...F...." What was that next letter? ....MORE squinting..."...C? ...C.....Z...Z..Z...P..Right, P." It was getting kind of difficult. She couldn't quite make out the letters anymore, it was starting to get blurry. But on to the seventh line, yes? "...D...E..F......." Was that a P next or a D? or...B? ...Ugh. She couldn't tell anymore. That was her limit...seventh row and she only got until the third letter.

Oh, well.

After taking note of that, she pulled out her wand....but didn't cast anything yet. She practiced the incantation on her tongue for a while, "Oculo Focalis....Oculo Focalis...." And she would just have to close her eyes, swish her wand and tap her eyelids for it, yes?

She was ready to cast the charm on herself then.

Penelope opened her eyes...and didn't really see much change. Everything looked the same as it had before she closed her eyes, even the readability of the poster with the giant E on it.

So...the spell hadn't worked?

Of course not. None of these spells could ever just be easy and work the first time for her. Meh.

"Oculo Focalis," she repeated with another swish and tap- "OW." Her hand went up to the eye she'd tapped a little too hard on, rubbing it gently. Merlin, that hurt. Poking yourself in the eye with your wand was no joke. She grumbled incoherently under her breath until her eye stopped hurting and she could drop her hand.

MEH. Okay. No getting frustrated, no eye poking. Deeeep breath. Okay. Try again.

Swish. "Oculo Focalis." LIGHT, careful tap on each closed eye. Then...open.

"Whoa." It worked? She was pretty sure. Those last two lines were as clear as day now. Was that gonna enough for her to see constellations or whatever they were doing? Well, she hoped so.

Well, at least she hoped that's what the last line had as letters. Which probably meant she was still having issues with it? One more spell cast on her eyelids and...No, no, she'd been right, those had been the letters.

This was going to be so difficult without telescopes. But...pffft, who cared? Airey was awesome enough to come up with this!

Still, the stars were farther away than that poster, so she leaned against the wall, because that's as farther away as you can get from the poster while being in here, and decided this was it. She could barely see the first 'E'.

Eyes closed, completely focused Lottie. "Oculo Focalis." Swish, tap. OH LOOK THERE WAS THE E! But, ugh, her eyes were itching, sort of, so she blinked a few times, trying to readjust her eyesight, and well, she could see half that poster. Evidently, she used her wand again, and the spell, until she was able to see it whole.

Beezus closed her eyes, took a deep breath before swishing her wand in front of her and gently tapped it on her left eye first. GENTLY, yes. She didn't want to poke her eye with her own wand. That wasn't going to be pretty. "Oculo Focalis!" Then her right eyelid. Light tap. She didn't feel anything change, nor when she opened her eyes....there was nothing so she pocketed her wand and went ahead to the best device that could help her determine if the spell really did work or not.

Her eyes fleeted to the eye chart as she took a huge step back.....her normal eyes could only read up to the seventh line, right? Pssh, she didn't even get to finish that line. Sixth line then....she silently went over the letters again....then to the seventh row.....D...E...F....P....O....T...E...C.. She took another step back... Whoa, she could still see the letters on that row quite CLEARLY. More whoa...she took a few more steps and she could read over the last two lines no matter how far and small they were now.

Super magnified vision? Yes, yes, yes. This was just so cool.

Can they use it on the stars now?

SPOILER!!: WEST!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tegz

Well casting on his own eyes was a bit nerve-racking, but West was comforted by the reassurance that they wouldn't be able to hurt themselves with it, not unless they succeeded and used it for too long and strained their eyes yeah?

Aaaaand he had to wonder what effect there would be on someone like him who had reading glasses?

"Professor, what happens if you have reading glasses? Should you still use the charm? If I use the charm and mess about with my vision, will I have to change my glasses to compensate? And also, should you test your vision with or without glasses..?" Look, they were just important questionsssss okay?

He looked at the sign and as he was without his reading glasses.... yeah. By the time he got to the sixth line his vision started to blur, the seventh was... maybe there was one or two letters? and the last parts he couldn't see at all. It was just a blurrrrr down there.

... Mika was being real friendly today. He looked over at her when she addressed him, brows up. Odessa was it?

"Sure. I'm not messing with the spell yet on account of I wear reading glasses, but I'll help you if you want."

Awww, he didn’t mind working with her. That made this easier yeah? So she got a weird look…what? It wasn’t strange to call him by his last name right? It might have been (it was) but she didn’t care really. ”Oh, cool” she beamed inwardly – you see that? No of course you didn’t. No one saw the beaming or the flash of mischief in the girls eyes.

”Oh, of course I get that – and hey if you see me mess the letter order up just um, give me a nudge?” she sent him a sideways glance and tried to remember what the easiest step from that…article was. Probably the one to show how good at spells she was; she was a Ravenclaw, that was inevitable right?

As she glanced at the next line of the poster she just beamed. ”You know – I bet if you had to do this with your glasses on – you’d probably use a derivative spell – like, say maybe the Lens Focalis charm since…glasses have lenses” she suggested to West as she stood there and glanced at the poster. ”Atleast, that’s what I would think – I could be a million miles away in this though…but, I have to say glasses are nice” yeah she wasn’t flirting really…(she was practicing more like it), and well, it was also a hint to someone else who had glasses; that this little short-thing liked glasses.

After the weird attempt she turned her attention back to the poster and sighed. She didn’t like this – it made her realize that she herself might need glasses at times – but she’d go for those muggle contact lenses more like it. They seemed easier – and she wasn’t opposed to pressing her finger against her eye. Nope, not at all.

“Oculo Focalis” she blinked a few times as her eyes felt a little tired from the focusing – but the nice thing was that she could see things in such detail. The curve on the P was almost majestic at this vision level. ”L, P, E, D…” a bit of blinking away the tiredness of her eyes. ”P, E, C, F, D!” She had almost squealed the last D out so happily – besides she had only about four lines of letters left.

"If I can tell that you've messed it up." He'd got his glasses out of his bag, opened the case, and he held them up at her, making the point that... he might not even know it.

"I was thinking that. About Lens Focalis." He beamed at Mika, suddenly relaxing. Because that was smart and smart was good and better than crazy, which was her normal M.O. He put his glasses on and eyed the list thing again. Eye tests. Sigh. Used to those and all.

And he had no clue if she'd messed any up. Just saying.

SPOILER!!: West!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tegz

"If I can tell that you've messed it up." He'd got his glasses out of his bag, opened the case, and he held them up at her, making the point that... he might not even know it.

"I was thinking that. About Lens Focalis." He beamed at Mika, suddenly relaxing. Because that was smart and smart was good and better than crazy, which was her normal M.O. He put his glasses on and eyed the list thing again. Eye tests. Sigh. Used to those and all.

And he had no clue if she'd messed any up. Just saying.

”Oh, yeah good point” she did send him a quick smile. ”Reading glasses eh? Are they bothersome?” she asked as she stood there her own eyes beginning to be a little bit tired – but not enough to be crazily painful or anything…just she’d have bags under her eyes tomorrow.

”Yeah I think that makes sense – given everything,” she then beamed a bit and turned to look him in the eye a bit more. ”It would be great if that were the case because you’d never have to pay for new lenses really – you can always fix or extend the frames and then a touch of lens focusing and the glasses are good as new!” she beamed at this – because well, she had a feeling that glasses were something she might need to invest in. What with the fact her sister had them – and both of her brothers.

”Oculo Focalis” she finally said as she closed her eyes and tapped her wand against them both in turn. Making it so she was practically like a bat. Her eyesight picking up things she hadn’t thought she could even see before. Like the last line.

”E….D” this was still a little harder as her eyes were growing more and more tired from the strain of it all. ”F, C….Z… P?” confusion over the letters was beginning to set in as the lines were becoming watery – no, wait her eyes were watering.

Wiping the water from her eyes she tried again. ”Oculo Focalis!” she tried again and tapping of the eyes. ”D…E…F?...P…O…E-wait, T, E, C” and watering again. ”L – E…F?” she chuckled as she thought about how funny it would be if the next one were a T that would have been great – but it didn’t look like one. ”O…D, really should have been a T, P…C, T” and beaming she only had one row to go!

”P! E…Z? Pez?” wasn’t that a candy or were her eyes just watering again. Yeah they were but that wasn’t a big deal. ”O, L, C, F…T…D?” rubbing her eye with the palm of her hand she just sat there. "That is not a fun spell - it kind of...hurts? Not really, hurt-hurt but the burny-tired hurt you get when reading too long - like that..." or like it feels when you are reading a book sans glasses when you obviously need them.

Minerva was okay being corrected, honestly she didn't seem to mind at all. She knew she had screwed up so she just smiled. Then listening to the next things Minerva sat thinking about how that spell worked. It was actually pretty cool. To be able to see that far with your own eyes. This was super exciting and sounded fun..

Now they were going to practice. Minerva almost jumped up ready to move. After such a horrible experience before class she was ready for something that was more in her element and spells were.

Taking one of the posters, Minerva went and stuck it to the wall. She stood back just looking at it. She had great eye sight as it was, so she needed to find where to stand that it started getting blurry. Standing back a few feet she easily read the bottom line [b] P E Z O L C F T D[/]

Jumping backwards more Minerva checked again, then stepped backwards more until it was finally blurry. Now time for the spell which she said in her head a few times first, Oculo Focalis, Oculo Focalis, Oculo Focalis.