What kind of answer was that? They couldn't hire new house elves because they wouldn't learn anything? What a lot of tosh. Seemed to Michael that the students were being used for cheap labour. They could easily learn how to do spells without having to run around cleaning the castle.

He supposed pointing that out was just going to fall on deaf ears so Michael released his wand from its holster and pointed it at the desk. "Scourgify." The table was instantly clean and he gave a satisfied smile.

Too easy.

Now on to the next part which also seemed pretty easy but he wanted to make sure that he got it right first time. He moved his wand over the table in an 'S' figuration and practiced saying the incantation, 'Poh-lee-OH-tuss.' When he felt confident that he had the wording correct, he decided to give the charm a go.

With his wand at the ready, Michael drew an 'S' shape over his desk and then said the incantation clearly. "Poliotus." Seconds later he had a nice shiny desk in front of him.

Easy peasy.

Waaaaaaaiiiit. He had to clean? Again? Was he learning how to be a house wife now? Well. Typical. At least he would be able to clean now. He rolled his eyes a little. Maybe they should've known this already, so that they could clean the common room better. Oh well. He was going to do it. Practice made perfect after all? He really hoped their homework wasn't going to be cleaning. Because he had enough of cleaning. He was here to learn, not clean the castle. He wasn't an house elf. He was a boy.

Anyway. Back to cleaning his desk. Pulling his wand out, he pointed it at his desk, before muttering "Scourgify." The table was clean pretty instantly, and actually it made Clement a bit happier. The table was obviously cleaner, which was a good thing. He just hoped it wouldn't get messy again before the next lesson. He really did not like cleaning.

Okay. Onto polishing his table. He hadn't used this spell before, so he spent a few seconds practicing the wand movement, creating the S shape. It was pretty easy. After 2 or 3 attempts at practicing the spell, he decided to go onto actually doing the spell. As he created the S shape over his desk for the fourth time he murmured "Poliotus." and then his desk was nice and shiny. Ooh. He liked this. Maybe it wasn't too bad actually. Clement still didn't like cleaning though.

Yeah he did. West perked up both at the mention and at the opportunity to learn something new. Scourgify wasn't a problem, he'd learned that ages ago -who hadn't?- it was the new one he was more interested in.

Poliotus. I polish...? West rubbed at his eye thanks to the dust (and imagine if he'd got some to the face. It was bad enough when he hadn't) and then looked at his desk. Right.

Scourgify first then.

He pointed his wand at the wooden surface. "Scourgify!" It cleaned like a charm.

... hah.

Funny West is funny.

But the desk did need a bit of a polish after all that. Y'know, if one felt like being fussy about such things. West practiced the wand movement a few times, tracing the s shape until it felt natural and not stilted. It started out more... zedish than essish, but soon enough he got it good and that meant incantation.

"Poliotus." He repeated, feeling it on his tongue. Not TOO much of a tongue twister, thankfully. "Poliotus."

Poooooooolioooooooooooooootus.

Okay. Put it together.

The S shape and the incantation.

He focused on his desk. "Poliotus!" S shape and.... hey wow, he could almost style his hair reflected in the resulting sheen of the wood. He reached out to touch it. Nice. Smooth.

Which made him wonder so he stuck his hand up, "Professor, could you use Glisseo to polish things too? I mean it smooths stuff and makes them slick and slippery..." Like stairs to girls dorms for instance.

Or so he'd heard.

A smile covered the first year's face, the girl feeling somewhat proud that she'd managed to answer the first ever charms question she ever got, though she already had a feeling that the feeling might be a bit premature.

And that just proved it.

A new spell, in fact two new spells for the first year. Biting her lip she held her wand in her hand, looking around the classroom to see what some of the older student were doing to try to understand what to do to cast the 'scourigifie' spell or whatever it was.

"Scourifigy" she tried, blushing as nothing happened. Thinking it over she wondered whether or not she'd gotten the spell wrong and again her blue eyes wandered around the class room, biting harder on her lip as she strained her ear to hear what some of the older students were saying.

O______o

She had been wrong...

An even darker blush grew on her face, worse than what had happened when just nothing had happened on her first go because that could've possibly been excused with being a naive first year!

"Scourgify" she tried again, pointing her wand at her desk, the fingers of her right hand crossed under the desk as she cast the spell letting out a sigh of relief as the spell worked. "Okay breathe Moriarty, one spell down, one to go" she murmured to herself, narrowing her eyes as she tried to focus herself again.

"So poliotus" she murmured, trying the words out and seeing how it rolled off her tongue, causing her nose to scrunch up slightly in concentration. Still she could deal with the sound and the feel... it still felt somewhat normal! Alright, now to actually try it out.

"Poliotus" she tried, her eyes closing themselves shortly after she cast the spell before she tentatively looked back, her head rolling back in relief. The spell worked first time this time.

She felt extremely lucky, a weight truly lifted off her shoulders now that she'd succeeded.

Excellent job? Okay, maybe Professor Knox wasn't too bad after all. She was doing a good job at boosting the Ravenclaw's confidence.

Moreover, the woman knew how to say 'thank you'. Heh. Beezus actually thought she would only use those words with out of sarcasm. Turns out, she was being proved wrong. Little by little, she was discovering what an Ivy Knox was like and she oddly doesn't disapprove. So far.

First activity, hmm? They were to clean and polish their desks with Scourgify and this new guy, Poliotus.

As soon as the writing had appeared on the board, Beezus immediately began to practice the incantation by muttering it to herself. It was easy but she wanted to make sure. There was no room for mistakes, that was another unspoken rule she felt like Professor Knox's eyes were saying. The charm wand movement was an S motion towards the target. Right. She got that. She watched first as the woman provided their class with a brief demonstration before unholstering her wand and practicing the wand movement at least three times.

"Time to clean." She mumbled to herself as she pointed her wand at the surface. "Scourgify!" Zing. Zing. Dust-free. The brunette ran her index and middle finger across her desk and held it up to see if it would get dusty. And got none. Gotta love being magical, no? They were such a special breed.

However, her desk still didn't look spick-and-span. It lacked the shine. And whatever was the way to change that and have an immaculately clean desk? Uh huh. The new charm.

With a smile, Beezus readied her wand and, "Poliotus." An almost invisible layer seemed to have peeled off from the desk, leaving it with a shiny look. It now appeared very different from when she had first occupied it earlier. A very good different at that. Spotless desk was spotless. Huzzah!

Will they be learning more cleaning charms today? She hoped so.

Daichi had been leaning back in his chair, looking bored. No, he wasn't bored he just really didn't want to clean and he was pretty sure that if he did not have a Prefect badge he would refuse. Stupid badge...

His head whipped to the side when he heard the answer that Eliza was giving and this time his eyes were wide open. Use FIRE to clean?! WASSHECRAZEH?! His terrified gaze went to the Professor and he prayed that she wouldn't think it was a good idea. Because then, Badge or not , he was leaving if they were going to do that!

Luckily, they weren't going to use fire but just a simple scourgify and a polishing charm. He let out a breath of relief and relaxed in his chair again.

He never realise how much he missed the house elves at Hogwarts until now. And he never would have thought that his final year was the most horrible year ever. Who ever freed the elves (he did not believe the Headmistress speech at all because elves dont just walk off on their own, they needed to be freed) was going to get a punch from Daichi. He had punched a professor three years ago so who says he can't do it again?

With a loud, exaggerating sigh, he grabbed his wand and pointed it at his own desk. "Scourgify!" he said and watched how the desk cleaned itself in no time. What now? The Slytherins gaze went to the blackboard. Poliotus?

With another sigh, this time in a lower volume, he watched the professor perform the spell on her own desk and concentrated on watching the movement she was using.

That shouldn't be so difficult... But first he wanted to practise saying the incantation without a wand. So he placed his wand down and looked at the pronouncation under the spell. "poh-lee-OH-tuss." "poh-lee-OH-tuss" The O had to be pronounced a little louder right? "poh-lee-OH-tuss"

Thinking he had practised the incantation enough, the Slytherin grabbed his wand and pointed it at his desk. "Poliotus!" he said and made a firm S shaped symbol on the surface of the desk. A few seconds past and Daichi noted that the desk was being polished smoothly. Not as good as how the Professor had done but he certainly didn't broke the table this time.

Jory scribbled down the new spell and it's wand movement in his book. So, they were going to clean their desks. He had brushed some off of his when he came in but it wasn't clean as he would like it to be.

He took out his wand. Scourgify was one of the spells he had used countless times, so this should be no problem. After removing his belonging form the desk, the badger pointed his wand to it. "Scourgify!" He was with fascination, as all the dust vanished. That never got old. Time for the next spell.

Maybe a bit of practice first? "Poh-lee-OH-tuss...Poh-lee-OH-tuss...Poh-lee-oh-tuss...'' Jory muttered. Now, he practiced the wand movement. A shape like an S. Easy enough.

"Poliotus!'' Jory said while slowly moving his wand in the shape of an S over his desk. The desk suddenly getting polished. It was if watch an invisible hand polishing it. Moments later, the Puffer was looking at a completely shiny desk.

Minerva listened as the others talked about different spells and she turned her head eyeing the mood of Ethan next to her as he spoke. She had never heard him this annoyed in class, or maybe she had and didn't remember. Looking back at the professor Minerva listened until she said what they would be doing today. Oh well those seemed pretty easy. She was getting a bit tired of cleaning topics, but at the same time, they would need to know this stuff for future use.

Now it was their turn, alright.. Min took out her wand and pointed at her dirty desk, "Scourgify" Her desk became clean and dust free, thank goodness because it was making her eyes itchy. Now that that was taken care of time to move on. Polishing charm.. got it.. Looking up at the board for the word, Minerva said it in her head a few times, Poliotus Poliotus

Now looking at her desk, Minerva did the S with her wand along with the words, "Poliotus" watching as her desk looks as good as if it were brand new, Min smiled to herself and then looked up. Time to wait for the next thing..

Lex looked disappointed, but only for a fraction of a second before her expression picked up again and she was back to bouncing around in her seat while she listened. They'd be doing something in this lesson, that was clear so no big deal. She still wanted to know how the woman did it though. It'd help her rig stuff at home which would come in VERY handy for her. Heh.

Just as she thought.

Really this lesson wasn't all that new. It seemed like all they'd been doing since they got here was clean. Couldn't someone be more original, you know, have them make a mess instead?

It'd get cleaned. Yup. All the Professor could just pool together and get it done. No skin off her back.

But onto the first spell. Waaaaait. The last time she tried this there was a boom. Not a big or impressive one but one none the less. Lex gave the desk a skeptical look then proceeded to poke at it with her wand. Just making sure there were no more booby traps that she had to work around. It was already decided a long time ago, she could never go exploring around in ruins because she'd trip just about every one. Yeah...

Poke. Poke. Poke.

Nothing spectacular happened so she figured it was safe. "Scourgify!" That got rid of the dust quite nicely. Mhm. It wasn't done yet though. She needed to see her face shining in this thing!!! Nodnodnod.

The next spell...

Poliotus...Poh-lee-OH-tuss...Poliotussss....

Not something she'd attempted before but it seemed simple enough. She did the S shape for a bit then turned her wand to the desk once more. "Poliotus!"

Ooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!

Just look at that shine!!!! Hehe, it actually cast a bit of a reflection if you looked at it right. Pardon her while she made faces at the desk and giggled to herself. Hehehe!!!

Garrick, who had been seated near Lotus the entire time had gotten a good chuckle out of watching the others blatantly break rules by using magic before instructed to do so. HEHEHE. It had made his day, actually. Bam!

Once Professor Knox had instructed them to use the two spells he nodded to himself and removed his wand from its holster. Scourgify first. Okay. Pointing his wand at the surface of the desk he said, "Scourgify!" Bam! Lovely. Now that annoying Prefect had seen that, right? She could SEE that he did indeed clean, yeah? Just not vacuuming. SMUG!

Now the other incantation he had never heard since his mum didn't do much cleaning. Heh. But it seemed simple enough. Moving his wand in the S motion as instructed he recited the incantation, "Poliotus." Ooooh! It was SO shiny! He could see his reflection in the newly polished desk. If he were vain like OTHERS he would have a go at fixing his hair or some other ridiculous thing. Heh.

Instead he just smiled real big at the Professor and set his wand on his desk. Yep.

Least the good thing about learning these cleaning spells, was how much easier it will be cleaning his room during the winter break once his birthday passes. Hmm. Oh, were they allowed to clean the desks now? He nearly missed that through his brief day dreaming.

Drawing his wand out, he aimed his wand at the dusty and dirty top of the desk, "Scourgify!" Washing the bubble suds work it's magic around the desk before vanishing and revealing the now clean desk. Now let's see that new spell. Yes?

Alright. Poliotus. It had a kind of funny ring to it. Silently he moved his lips to get the smooth feeling in his tongue for when he said it. Poh-lee-OH-tuss. Now Wade could give it a try. Slowly making the 'S' shape over his desk with his wand, Wade carefully pronounced, "Poliotus!" Ah.. Not bad, he then peered at the top of his desk to see his reflection smirking back. The desk had become shiny, smooth, and crystal clear.

Even if Kat wasn't exactly talking and stuff, the prefect was still paying attention to the discussion. She could definitely OBVIOUSLY tell that Professor Knox was, uhm, strict. Cleaning charms, yes. Something useful even if it did require more effort and cleaning. Merlin they had to know that Kat hated cleaning, but she'd do it anyway so that Hogwarts would be cleaner and better. SIGHS. Katrina Hudson did NOT want to live in dirt forever.

Activity. Okay, finally she can participate.

"Scourgify!" she casted on her desk and it became clean. Now, she was expected to polish it. 'Kay then. Kat practiced the incantation a few times. "Poliotus... Poliotus... Poh-Lee-OH-Tuss..." She pronunciated-ish it even.

And the big S wand movement. Not a problem. "Poliotus!" Kat said while drawing a big S over her desk. Tada! Polished and clean. She had done her job, and she was done practicing.

The young girl nodded slowly, she already knew the first spell so this was no problem at all! Sonea pointed her wand at her desk and spoke the spell: “Scourgify” The spell worked and a few death spiders, dust and some sand disappeared from her desk! Sonea smiled now that she saw the result, even now that she already had used the spell a few times and had seen it for almost a hundred time before. But the fact that the spell had worked was not the best part, no, the best part was now that her desk was CLEAN! Sonea liked clean and she HATED dirt and dust, so this was really a good thing!

Now it was time for the next step, she needed to polish her desk with the charm she never had used before. But she had seen how the professor had used it and it didn’t looked difficult. Sonea pointed again her wand at her desk and made slowly a s above it while she spoke the spell, “PohleeOHtus” said Sonea slowly and watched with delight how her desk was now good looking and almost as new! “It worked!” Laughed Sonea and clapped in her hands. She wanted to use this spell more when she was back in her common room.

Nigel was more of a mess maker. But that usually meant he had to clean up afterwards. So he thought he was pretty proficient at scourgify. He was a little sad that he blew all the dust off his desk because now he could have just used the cleaning charm on it.

"Scourgify!" Nigel cast pointing at his desk. Well his desk was looking a lot cleaner now.

Now onto the new spell Poliotus or whatever it was called. Nigel made the S motion with his wand and cast "Poliotus!". Pointing his wand at his desk wondering what will happen to it now.

Shiny! His desk was all nice a shiny now. It hurt Nigel's eyes a little. But at least it was clean.

Mack really was excited about learning new cleaning spells, it would help her and the other members of the cleaning club a lot around the castle. Hanging onto every odd the professor said regarding this lesson e scribbled the two spells they would be working with first into her notes.

SPOILER!!: notes

Charms:
Lesson #1:
Cleaning Spells:
Scourgify
Tergeo
Excolo
Evanesco
Depluso

Standing the blonde pulled out her wand and pointed it at her desk, speaking carefully, even though she had performed the spell before. "Scourgify" Mackenzie smiled inwardly as most of the dust and dirt was instantly gone from the surface of her desk.


Practicing what the professor told them was the correct wand motion for the second spell, she created an s pattern a few times to make sure she remembered, then again speaking slowly she repeated the incantation "Poliotus" and instantly her desk was spotless. The girl jumped up and down QUIETLY with excitement. Like seriously, it worked, the blonde couldn't believe it.

Easy peasy, Theo scourgified things all the time. He pulled out his wand with a smug grin all over his face. "Scourgify." He said coolly as he pointed the wand at his desk. The mess cleared up with no problems at all, but as for the next spell, Theo had never heard of that one before.

He looked over at the board and it did actually help that the professor added the actual pronounciation at the bottom.

poh-lee-OH-tuss

Pohlee-OHtuss.

"Poleeeotus!" Theo tried, but nothing happened. Too much 'ee' maybe. Not to mention that he forgot to do the wand movement completely. Darn it. The boy practiced the S shape first, then had another go. "Poliotus!" Nope. "Poliotus." He did a perfect S shape aaaaand...

SHINY.

There were way more cleaning spells than Eliza had ever realized. The list seemed to go on and on, so much so that she wondered how anyone could remember all of the incantations and wand movements for everything. She was already starting to get a few spell details confused and she was only a third year. Well, at least she didn't say no to the fire idea. Knew it was a stretch but...oh? Suddenly she felt someone watching her. She turned her head slowly until she saw who was boring holes into the back of her head. Daichi! Shoot and I said FIRE! She hadn't really thought that through, but at least they weren't going to be doing what she'd suggested. She looked at him and mouthed the word "sorry" silently, and raised her shoulders.

Facing her desk again, she pulled out her wand to clean the desk. "Scourgify!" A just like magic...snicker the desk was clean. She knew that spell wouldn't be any trouble though. The new spell was interesting though.

She practiced the word a few times, quietly and with her head down. "Poe-lee-oh-tussss" Maybe that was where the S shape came into play. Why an S shape, she wondered. "Poliotus, poliotus, poliotus." It reminded her of polio and a lotus flower, easy train of thought there.

Now she practiced the S she with her wand in her left wand. Not like that was hard though. If she couldn't write an S by now, she had bigger problems than a unpolished desk. She felt confident that the spell would work, so she gave it a shot.

"Poliotus!" said firmly along with an easy, large S over her desk, and she watched as the matte finish began to buff, gleam, and reflect. Nice! she thought, and wondered what else she could shine up around the school. Hearing West's question about the Glisseo spell, she couldn't see why you'd want things to be so smooth they were slippery. Except maybe for silverware, but still you wouldn't want your food to get away... Maybe for the gems in jewelry?

Easy enough. Zeke grinned as he remembered doing the exact same spell on Amara before. He took his wand out and aimed it at his desk but then a thought came to mind. Err, those exploding dust in their faces. The Gryffindor hesitated for a moment and watched as the others attempted. Thankfully, no more of that morning dust face wash. Safe.

Again, he pointed his wand at the desk. "Scourgify!" Smuuug faaace. Now his desk was as good as the Professor's. Or not yet. One more. Okay next please. Poli....something...sss.

He stared at the board. Poliotus. Poh-lee-oh-tuss?

Before he continued, he saw the Gryffindor girl give him a thumbs up. Why? He eyed her desk. OHH. She'd done Scourgify. Well done, little girl. Zeke gave her a thumbs up back. That was his apprentice...somehow.

'Back to polishing. Errr, an S shape right? Why an S though? Why not a Z? Z looks better. B'sides Zeke starts with Z.'

For fun, he just traced out a Z in the air with his wand about five times. Just because. Back to work Zeke. Get this over with so you can get your ice cream.

After about a couple of practicing the wand movement along with reciting the incantation in his head, time to get real. YEAH.

"Poliotus!" The Gryffindor traced the S above his desk, and TADA! Good 'ol shiny wood. Good enough to eat ice cream over. I scream for ice cream.

Done. He sat back down in his CLEAN desk, satisfied with the work he's done.

AMUSING. Because Lex had said Aguamenti, and Lottie had pretty much pointed out the spell that was useful against it. Ha! See? This is why they were best friends. They could solve everything together.

Also: 'Perfect'.

Why, thank you, Ivy Knox, we do our best.

OHTHANKMERLIN, they could clean their desks. Lottie smiled at Garrick, for some inexplicable reason, and focused on the spells, wand and cleaning. And no one was getting dust throw back at them, which meant they were more than free to begin with spellwork. Apparently, that's why she'd smiled at Garrick, so he could go first and see if the desk didn't behave like before.

But...linoleum? She was not going to clean floors, okay? Okay, well, this was easy. "Scourgify." Tap. Bye dust! She's done this over a thousand times thanks to Lafay and Airey Flamsteed. Now off to the polishing spell...hey, here's a thought, do you reckon that this was the sort of spell Milton used on his head so it was all shiny-like? Worth considering.

"Poliotus." First came practice, right? Incantation practice, anyway. The worst that could happen was that she manages to make her desk disappear, and that wasn't really a bad thing. Still, practice.

With a slow S motion over her desk, the girl spoke up, "Poliotus!" And...OHMERLINITWASSOSHINY! BEAM! She wanted to hug the desk right there and now and everything. It was oh-so-perfect. And shiny! Shiny like Milton's head. THAT shiny.

Well, now, she was happy.

If he were lazy.. snort. Well, maybe he was being lazy about this class right now with his current attitude, but he really didn't think his answer was all that off. Levitation was useful for heavier objects in high places, not just for lazy people. And the toxin thing she said too.. But whatever.. he participated and provided a halfway decent answer once everyone had mentioned near everything else, right? Moving on..

Scourgify.. of course. He knew that one well and was actually a bit relieved that they weren't going to spend much time discussing it or simply learning it today. That would be too much of a review for the boy. Instead they would be learning a charm that he wasn't quite as familiar with.

A polishing charm.. hmm. Ethan wasn't quite sure why he would really care to use it. Cleaning with Scourgify or Tergeo seemed to sufficient enough for the boy,, but maybe he could use them on his shoes? He glanced down at them. Yeah, they could probably use some polishing.. But for now, apparently, they;d be polishing desks. Well, good they needed a good cleaning and polishing might make them look decent again.

The Ravenclaw listened to the instructions and watched the demonstration. Seemed easy enough.. He lazily pointed his wand at the surface of the desk.. but not before eyeing up the professor first. He did not need another face full of dirt, thank you very much. But others were doing it without incident so he figured it was alright. "Scourgify!" And of course the top of his desk was clean now. Now to polish it..

He pointed his wand at the desk again, this time waving it in a confident S shape as he commanded, "Poliotus!" The surface seemed a little shinier.. he figured that was good enough. So now what? More cleaning spells or more practice with this one? He eyed up his shoes..

Kace's answer wasn't what the professor expected but at least he thought outside the box. Once she said it was a nice effort he felt happy. Then he heard the professor move on.

So they were going to learn Scourgify and Piliotus? Wait a minute...his mom used those spells at home. Why didn't he think of that before? Ah well.. now he was going to do an activity that was cool.

So the incantation was Scourgify. All he had to do was point his wand? That seemed easy enough. Kace was pointing his wand at the desk. It did seem quite dirty and grimy. He was quite glad he was cleaning it. Kace said the incantation, "Scourgify!" and then it was cleaned off and nice and clean. Just the way he liked it.

Now he had to learn Poliotus. So this was the polishing charm huh? Seemed like it could be useful when he goes back home. The wand movement was an S shape. He practiced the S shape first and once he got the hang of it, he was saying the incantation. "Poliotus...Poliotus...Poliotus..." once he got the hang of it...he was going to polish his desk.

"Poliotus!" he said with the S shape wand movement and then his desk looked shiny. It didn't look all the way shiny but it was good enough. He was happy he got the hang of the spell.

Wooahh now that looked nice. He could make his mom and sister use this spell that is for sure.

Aidan wasn't all very happy at walking into a dusty classroom. ...At first. But then, they were going to learn to CLEAN it! And just THINK about it! He could go home and tell him mom that he could CLEAN NOW!!! She would be so excited, right?! Because then he could clean his own room and it wouldn't even have to be the muggle way and then she wouldn't have to do it herself or yell at him to do it cause he'd want to cause MAGIC!!

"Scourgify!" he cleaned his desk once they were allowed to. About that, too, it CLEANED cause he was like an EXPERT on that spell now!

So he moved on to this NEW spell that would let him CLEAN EVERYTHING!! Or...dust...but CLEAN stuff FROM dust!! He cleared his throat all proper-like and pointed his wand at his desk again. "Poliotus, poliotus, poliotus," he first muttered to himself, making sure he got the pronunciation right, though soon it just got FUN to say! POLIOTUS! "POLIOTUS!" he half-shouted, tracing an 'S' over his desk.

...It got a little cleaner, didn't it? IT DID! He could TELL it did!

"POLIOTUS!" he shouted again, waving his wand over his desk. Then tried the spell over and over again and then on the six-is-the-charm time, it cleaned TOTALLY. COMPLETELY. CLEAN DESK!!

Aidan BEAMED up at the professor. Just wait til he told his mom!!

Cleaning time.

Thank goodness because Ella's nose was starting to wrinkle and she knew she'd have a sneezing fit if she didn't clean the dust off her desk soon. Pointing her wand at her desk, the blonde said clearly, "Scourgify!" There. Looking much better already.

Now it was time for the new charm, the one she hadn't used before. First she'd need to practice the incantation, yeah? Yeah.

"Poliotus...Poliotus....Poliotus..." Seemed like she was saying it correctly, right? She thought so. Now she'd just need to say that and make the s shape with her wand over the object she wanted to polish.

Focusing on what she was doing, the sixteen year old made the slow S shape over her desk and said, "Poliotus!" BEAM.

Shiny desk was shiny.

'Yes...' Nothing. Forrest preferred not to ccomplete his sentence, because he hadn't really seen any house elf magic. He smiled somewhat insecurely at the professor instead, and took down some notes as people mentioned spells. He kept his notebook on his lap, of course, so his writing was shaky and he couldn't keep up with everyone. He stopped writing completely in the end, because it was pointless. He could probably get a book or something from the library about cleaning after class.

Leaning forward as long as he dared to until he touched the table, he watched intently the professor's entire show, and he was left open-mouthed sliiiightly to see the table all clean and shining. Looking around though, he saw that no one looked that surprised, so he lowered his head and leaned back. He drew his wand from his bag and tried to remember Eliza's instructions.

'Try to imagine it clean...'

"Scourgify!"

Nothing happened like before.

Taking a deep breath, he pointed his wand from a different angle as if that would change the outcome.

"Scourgify!"

...some part of it was gone? Maybe? No? He was pretty sure there had been some dirt over there... he sighed, slapping his forehead as he shook his head to himself. Who was he kidding? He failed in the spell again. One last time, and he was done trying.

"SCOURGIFY!" he shouted, not caring whether he disturbed other people. The outcome? Success. "HA!" He kept beaming and looked around to maybe find someone to congratulate him, but no one was paying any heed to his success. His beam froze on his face. That was a little disheartening. Oh well.

Moving on.

Taking a deep breath, now that he was expert on scourgify, he drew a laaaaarge S as he said "Poliotus!" While it didn't shine like professor's, it looked better. Maybe it was the Sun's angle, maybe it was really the spell, maybe his eyes played games. Whatever the reason, it looked brighter to him and elicited another beam from the little boy, though he contained his voice level this time.

"Poliotus!" he exclaimed again as his wand drew an S, and got the full effect he wanted. His grin got wider, and he leaned back comfortably watching other people to see how they performed magic.

Sophie smiiiled. That was easy! They used Scourgify aaaaall the time in Potions and whatnot. And honestly, due to the latest events, Sophie was pretty sure everybody in the Castle had gotten a hang of it.

"Scourgify." She said as soon as she pulled out her wand, gesturing to the desk in front of her. Tadah! All the dust was gone. Though it was most certainly not a shiny desk like it used to be when... well, when the elves cleaned it.

The new spell sounded useful enough! See! Charms were always awesome and useful! ALWAYS!! Alright, not always useful, but they were most certainly always awesome.

The Hufflepuff did the S shape wand movement once on the desk without saying the incantation to make sure it was the right size. Yep, seemed good enough. "Poliotus!" She said, repeating the wand movement across the desk.

Shiny shiny! The fifth year smiled and admired the sparkling clean desk in front of her. Clever professor was clever teaching them these cleaning Charms that term.