Practice and stuff. Right. Yeah sure. Kat wasn't in the mood to practice at all right now, but she sort of forced herself to grab her wand and do stuff. Starting off with the incantation, because it looked complicated and whatever. Too much for her to handle, maybe? But obviously, there is nothing a Slytherin can't do. "Obiectum Verto..." Okay, so it wasn't that bad. Sort of easy, even. She managed the hand movement too... an unfinished infinity sign. Heh, okay?

Kat practiced the incantation a bit, with the hand movement this time. That was cool. Okay. Still easy. Mhm. She thought that she should practice a bit more for now, and get to the real thing later. Easy spell, but she needed to concentrate and more intent, you know. She kept that in mind.

Obiectum Verto... Obiectum Verto... Obiectum Verto...

after practicing the incantation over and over again as well as the hand movement, Ascanius was ready to leave. Ahem, finish. He meant finish. Practical part of the lesson by doing it or whatever.

So he eyed his ugly, fat toad and narrowed his eyes. S'not like he wanted to deal with the toad as much as the toad wanted to be ugly. Might as well just get it over with.

Performing the hand motion to near perfection he said lowly, but clearly, "Obiectum Verto."

Bam! Horn to leaf.

Now what was the point again?

Practicing yeah? West spent a few minutes on the almost infinity sign wand movement until it felt natural and made sense in his head. Since they were switching things, it made sense that the wand movement matched and all that.

Obiectum Verto?

He practiced that next, just saying it until it felt smooth and he didn't stumble on any of the syllables. "Obiectum Verto."

West glanced at Theo to see how his mate was doing.

Bart the toad had one leaf. Something told Ella that Bellaire would be less than enthused about this so she decided to go for more. How about a nice number six? Six leaves was a good goal for right now.

Focusing completely on the task at hand, Ella practicced the wand movement again several times and then started to work on the toad. Concentration was key, yeah? "Obiectum Verto!" Leaf! Leafy horned toad. If all went to plan, pretty soon Bart would just be a leafy toad. "Obiectum Verto!" Lucky number three. Still more horned than anything else but it was definitely progress.

Was Bart upset by this? Ella was trying not to get distracted but it was hard because horned toads weren't the cute sort, were they? Bart also looked sort of grumpy at the moment and Ella wasn't sure if this was a usual thing or if it was because she was messing with his equipment. Poor little guy. She was sorry, y'know. She was also trying not to fail. Le sigh.

"Obiectum Verto!"

Time to get practicing. Blair decided upon practicing the incantation and wand movements separately before actually performing the spell. She looked up at the board and wrote down the incantation before drawing the wand movement. I sort of looked like a fish without the tail being finished.

She began saying the incantation a couple of times, "Obi-ect-um Verto.. Obi-ect-um Verto.. Obi-ect-um Verto..Obiectum Verto" Blair decided that she had got that covered. Time to move on to the next step.

Blair grabbed her wand and looked at the sketch she had draw on her parchment. She began making the wand movements, yeah definitely fish like she thought. Blair loved fish. Enough about fish Blair, concentrate on the wand movements. She practiced a few more times before deciding that was enough.

Transfiguration. Charlie could do this.

Her dad had taught her this only last year, and she paused before standing up to think about everything she knew about them. Understanding a spell was key to correct performance, after all. She knew she needed to see the initial object and not the second, but it made it easier, concentration wise, to be able to see both.

Which was good, seeing as she had both the plant and the toad in front of her. She gazed at them for a moment, before looking back up at the board.

The wand movement. Charlie pulled out her wand, brushed her hair over her shoulder, and then raised it. Squarish, unfinished infinity sign. She practiced that a few times without the words. Lowering her eyes to the toad again, she examined the horns, and then turned her attention to the leaves. One at a time seemed simple enough.

"Obiectum verto." She paused to look down, and wasn't surprised to see that one of the leaves had switched. "Obiectum verto," she repeated with another wave of the wand. This time, when she observed the objects, she noticed that she'd actually switched two leaves. Biting her lip and inwardly hitting herself, she took a deep breath, and tried to concentrated harder.

And she did. "Obiectum verto." Another leaf. SINGLE LEAF. On the toad. And A SINGLE HORN on the plant. Phew.

She wondered if the glass affected the spell. Hmm.

Sophia walked around the class room checking on the progress of everyone, if they were indeed making progress. A few got approving nods, some reassuring ones (or well as reassuring a look as Professor Bellaire was capable of giving).

"Don't be afraid to say if you're having problems if you are. Those who play hero usually end up with zero." Mhm wise words. She floated around the class...looking..eying...judging.

Adi was so pleased with himself. Such progress! He had gotten even more horns and leaves swapped. Kermit was almost completely covered in leaves and the toad did look rather weird.

Adi raised his wand again. He was very much getting used to the spell. "Obiectum Verto!'' Half of an infinity sign shaped wand movement. Swap! "Obiectum Verto! Obiectum Verto! Obiectum Verto!' Obiectum Verto!'' Yaaaaay! Two out of four swaps but hey! It was better than nothing, right?

Er....so, was this enough swapping? Or did he have to do more? The firstie eyed the other students' progress and Professor Bellaire. Were they gonna move on soon?

Time to actually practice properly, it seemed. Yeah. This wasn't going to be hard, right?

... Erm...

... Alec shook his head before looking down at the toad and the Alihotsy plant. Concentrate. That's what he needed to do; concentrate on switching the horns with the leaves. Bellaire said it wouldn't hurt the toad, yeah? She'd also said other things such as using animal parts in other subjects. And she was saying something now! ... Something... about... playing the hero and ending up with zero.

... Okay.

The boy ruffled his hair and tried to concentrate on the horns of his toad, more specifically, the horn right near the top of the toad's head. Concentrating on one horn at a time might help, yeah? Concentrate... concentrate... "Obiectum Verto!" he cried, moving his wand in that fish-like shape but... without the line at the end.

... And now it was time to wait...

... And wait...

... And-- ... OH HEY! Was that... Alec leant closer, his grey-blue eyes flicking between the horn he had been concentrating on and the Alihotsy plant. LEAF! HORN! SWITCH! Grinning, he reached over a hand and was about to touch the horn that was now on the Alihotsy plant when... he stopped. No. He'd just admire his work from afar.

EEK! They were running out of time! Caleb looked at his toad and cleared his throat. Alright, time to get practicing...

"Obiectum verto!" he exclaimed, moving his wand in the X pattern as described. Huh. Nothing happened, unless the leaf was so tiny similar looking to the horns that he just totally missed it, which Caleb knew wasn't the case. UGH. So disappointing.

"Obiectum verto!" he cried again, and this time, after he did the X movement, he saw that two of the horns had been replaced with leaves. Nice!

What was so funny? Her first instinct was the hex the boy. That would surely show him, but she knew that she would be in big time trouble with Bellaire so she would wait for another time when she would be able to possibly deny it. She shot the puffer a dirty look as if to clearly let him know that he was about to cross a line with her. "I think you ought to worry about your own frog." Hannah could at least do the spell with her eyes open so PFFT!

Ignoring Adi, Hannah went straight back to practicing. She figured that she would get it another go before she asked the professor to check her work. She made the weird eight figure movement in the air "Obiectum Verto!'' She watched as yet another leaf took the place of a horn. Oh yeah, she was going to get the professor to check her next time.

Were they going to be going at this pace for the rest of the lesson? One leaf at a time? That would get them nowhere real quickly and she was sure the toad wanted to get it all over with as soon as possible. Having someone point a wand at you was a terrifying thing. Never knowing when they'll mess up and you'll suddenly go BOOM. Not to worry Toad, she was a COMPETENT wizard. Not a Firstie anymore. Back then there would have been cause for concern. Mhm.

"Let's try a couple more then we'll see if the Professor will let me do this more than one leaf thing. You'll like that, won't you?" Of course he would. Rhetorical question. Didn't need to answer because she was the new toad whisperer, obviously.

"Obiectum Verto!" And another leaf for a horn. This was surprizingly easy...but then...shouldn't it have been? If her wand work was still at the level it was when she'd first gotten here...it'd be bad. Improvement was expected, it shouldn't have surprized her so much but it DID. Getting spells right was still a little new to her. Hexes and jinxes, yes, but outside of that, it was kinda weird. Who knew if her wand would suddenly go back to it's old ways??

"Obiectum Verto!" Had to get this in as much as possible before such a thing to happen so there was another leaf for you Mr. Toad, you as most welcome and she accepted payment in the form of most sugary goods.

Alright time to let the professor check his work before he could move on. He said the spell, "Obiectum Verto!" and he got that down by now. If he didn't....well he would worry. Anyways the spell movement was tricky for him but he did the half loop sort of thing and then said the spell with confidence, "Obiectum Verto!" and then the horns turned into leafs.

He raised his hand and asked unsure..."Um Professor how does my toad look?" He hoped it look right but deep in his gut he didn't know for sure.

Okay time to help this lil guy out. West stroked the lizard with one finger, avoiding the horny parts. Horned Toad. Not a toad and all. Mmphh...

Right. Wand. He practiced the wand movement one more time while examining both leaves and Horned toad, and then focused on the lizard again. Switching spell. They would switch... so... there'd be horns on the plant instead of leaves too yeah? That'd be... interesting.

"Obiectum Verto!" He did the incomplete infinity shaped wand movement and focused on just one horn... and it switched. There! Leaf! And where the leaf was, horn! Yesss.

Now to see about doing all the rest. Maybe all at once?

Still a bit irritated with the first year Hufflepuff, Hannah tried her best to put all of her attention back on the task at hand. She had already successfully swapped five horns for five leaves and she knew that she would have no problems with continuing just doing one at a time. She was ready to move on. Thinking that the number six would prove lucky to her for some reason Hannah decided to give it another go.


Ahem, she cleared her throat and stared down the frog. She had to let him know that he threat still stood. If there was any funny business at all, he was getting it. Then maybe she could accidentally hex Adi in the process.

With her wand firmly in place in her wand hand she made the required movement while saying "Obiectum Verto!" Swap! Yet another success. She was ready to get the professor to check her work so she could move on to something a bit more challenging. She raised her hand in the air and waited for the professor to make her way over to the sixth year.

Sophie wasn't a fan of this task. First of all, these horned toads were kind of gross. She didn't normally mind little creatures like this one, but it looked so grumpy. And looking around... ALL of them kind of did. Maybe it was their nature, but... did they know what was being asked of the students? Did hers know she was going to try to replace its horns with LEAVES? How silly would that look? The poor thing was probably incredibly embarrassed. If Sophie wasn't worried it'd snap at her or something, she probably would've tried to pet it a little bit to comfort it.

Eyeing the board at the front of the classroom, Sophie read the spell over a few times. Obiectum Verto. Obiectum Verto. Obiectum Verto. That was kind of strange. Obiectum both looked weird and sounded weird when she listened to a few others nearby speak it aloud, then she followed suit with caution, "Obi-ec-tum... Obi-ect-um... Ver-to..." Hmm. She murmured various pronunciations a few times before matching what the older students were saying and gave it a nod of approval, then spoke it fluidly with confidence, "Obiiiiiiectum Verrrrto." She rolled the 'R' extra long for fun. "Obiectum Verto."

Boom. Mastered.

Minerva was working on her own frog. She really wasn't paying attention to much of what was going on with the rest of the class. Still doing the movement, "Obiectum Verto!" She watched another leaf pop up. Obiectum Verto!" This swapping thing was simple really. "Obiectum Verto!" Now should she get the professor to see her work or should she do it a little more. Min wasn't really sure.

Looking around she figured a few more times couldn't hurt since she gave her a hard time the first time. "Obiectum Verto!" she watched it swap again. Now that most of her toad was covered she put her hand up, "Professor could you look at my toad?" She hoped she had done enough to move on but if not she could keep making her leafy toad more leafy.

Adi playfully wriggled his brows at Hannah. Why would he need to worry about Kermit? He was making fine progress.

Okay, so maybe he would try a few more swaps before he got Professor Bellaire's attention. ''Obiectum Verto!'' Annnnd trace out the wand movement. Swap! ''Obiectum Verto! Obiectum Verto! Obiectum Verto!'' Heh. Two out of three. So maybe he didn't mastered the spell but at least he could still do it.

"Professor, Kermit...I mean my toad, I think he's ready for inspection.'' Yep, yep! Because Bellaire had to comment on his progress.

As for the wand-movement... Sophie eyed the others for guidance. Some of them did a bigger loop around then others, but it all seemed to be efficient, so Sophie tried various sizes of the wand movement. What kind of shape was that anyway? It kind of looked like she was drawing a wonky fish in the air, when she did it really swiftly, but without closing off the tail part of it. Or maybe it was just more of an infinity sign without the final movement to close it off, she thought, but... the fish was a cooler thought. It was a pretty simple motion, all-in-all, and Sophie settled upon a quickly-paced wand movement in a short, snapping motion that looked similar to some of the students who had already succeeded nearby.

Okay. Wand movement down. Right? She waved her Hermione!wand one more time to be sure, then set it down and spoke the incantation clearly once more to be sure of that, too. "Obiectum Verto. Right. Okay."

The little Ravenclaw gave her horned toad a remorseful frown and leaned in close to it.

"Sorry, buddy," she whispered to it. She wasn't sure what she was sorry for just yet, but she was sure hoping she wouldn't mess this up. What if she changed something other than the horn? What if something went wrong? What if it DIED?

Using animals as experimental objects in class was no fun. And mean. Sophie felt mean already and she hadn't even done anything yet.

On her other side sat Broni, and when the other Durmstrang girl appeared to be annoyed with the boys from their school (one of them being Mischa, Karina did not fail to notice), Karina exchanged a glance with her best friend. "They certainly aren't doing anything for our reputation..."

Turning her attention to the toad on her desk, Karina got to work performing the relatively easy switching spell. "Obiectum Verto," she said a little bit off hand as she pointed her wand at a nub of horn. It disappeared and in its place grew a little green leaf. Hurrah, she switched the leaf and the horn. She did it again and again and again and again until she was so bored she couldn't help but think of ways to disrupt class. Not that she didn't respect the professor, in fact because she was so much like the professors at Durmstrang Karina greatly respected her. It was just that this particular activity was really incredibly dull. She forced her thoughts on the task at hand. If there was time for havoc now then there would be time later too. When the professor had turned her back, Karina did the last quarter of the toad quickly and raise her hand.

"I've finished Professor," she said quietly while displaying her toad in a gloved hand. Can you look it over and agree that I can move one please? she silently plead the professor in her mind. Not that any of it showed on her face, and if any did show, the Professor wouldn't be able to see as Karina had ducked her head to stare at the floor.

There were people raising their hands and asking for the Professor's help. She glanced down at the toad, sinking til she was in line with him and gave a small tap at his glass. "Hey....hey toad....you think we're ready for the next step? More than one?" There was the one eye then the next opening and closing thing again. This was a yes. This was obviously a yes.

Alexa stuck her hand in the air.

"We're ready for the next step thing too Professor." We being her and the toad. This was a team effort. Consideration about his feelings was probably expected.

Was she meant to just wait to be approached now? Ew. Waiting.

Professor Bellaire walked over and checked Hannah's toad. Ah so it looked like she was making some progress after all. Good good. She got a nod of approval from the professor.

"Carry on."

Professor Bellaire walked over to Minerva's toad and inspected it carefully...very carefully. She was a prefect after all and one of the top students here so she expected a certain quality of work from the young Puffer.

She tapped the toad reverting the leaves and horns back. "Very good Miss Wheatborn, now start over."

Professor B raised an eyebrow here and walked around the frog and raised her eyebrow again...hmmmm.....hmmm. She could tell he was still a bit shaky with the spell..did those leaves look thorny? They did..but maybe he was just nervous. SHe gave him the benefit of the doubt.

"Carry on."

Aha a Durmstranger, one who had bothered to show up on time for her class. She was so polite and respectful too. Ah yes, she had no regrets about sending Tyler there and was sure the others were lovely students too separate and apart from them showing up late for her class.

"Very good. You may continue."

Yeeeeeeeeeeeah.....this one just did not have her head screwed on right, did she? Did she just walk in on a conversation between Alexa Cambridge and a frog. She got a disapproving tsk, from the professor.

"Don't talk to the frog Cambridge....it doesn't talk back and if you think it does then maybe Mungos is the place for you." She inspected her work. "Nice work though, carry on."

Maybe the little guy wasn't even going to feel a thing. She had to be confident that she would succeed to actually do it, right? Any anxieties would just get in the way and muddle her mind and make her fail. She knew that. So Sophie took a long moment to clear her mind, take a few cleansing breaths, and envisioned herself successfully performing the switching spell. Simple. Easy peasy. She could do it.

But she lifted her wand and practiced the wand movement one more time just to be sure.

Good. She could do this. Mo had done it. Some of the other first years had done it. This was going to be simple. She gave both the leaves and the toad's horns long, hard stares. Concentration. Right. Without further hesitation, the Ravenclaw confidently performed the wand movement and cast, "Obiectum Verto!"

BLOOP.

Though no noise had been made quite like the 'bloop' sound effect that happened in her mind, ONE OF THE HORNS HAD SWITCHED AND THERE WAS A LEAF IN ITS PLACE. Sophie almost leapt into the air with joy. She hadn't messed it up too badly! On her first try! There... were still more tries that could ruin it, but ONE SUCCESS. ONE. That was all she was aiming for, really.

She'd fallen behind. Really behind. It wasn't Alice's fault, though, that her lizard had really captivating eyes. The sixth year had been competing in an intense staring contest with the horned toad on her desk for the last ten or so minutes before she realized Bellaire was expecting her to do spellwork. But how could she focus when that thing was WATCHING her?

Alice would show it. Hmph. Lizard toad thing would feel less stare-y and weird when it was covered in leaves, she bet.

Across and around and across and over again. The lioness began drawing the shape out with her wand, making a sort of infinite sign without closing the last loop. Did the horned toad reptile thing see? Leaves were coming. Alice looked at it some more.

Marigold prepared to do the spell properly this time. Raising her wand, she drew the little fishy shape in the air. GOOD FISHY.

"Obiectum Verto!" Huh huh did it work did it work? Marigold looked CLOOOOOOOOSEEEELY on her toadie and noticed that a horn had been turned into a leeeeeettle leaf! Hooray! "Obiectum Verto! Obiectum Verto!" Only one more leaf appeared. Humph. She repeated the incantation and the wand movement a few more times, and slowly but surely her toad was becoming more of a bush, teehee.