Just as he cast the spell on the wall, Sander heard someone join them and turned to see that it was the Gryffindor Quidditch Captain. Ah...he was glad to see another smart person join their group. Yep...now they had three smart people working with him. Alec, Ella and Alice.

Wait was she asking for an explanation as to why he had cast the spell? Was he wrong to have done so? Sander sheepishly replied. "Well I figured that the runic wards would most likely be hidden by the caster, so that no one would be able to break it that easily. This spell should hopefully reveal the runic wards to us."

And he really hoped that the spell worked....or he'd look really dumb for casting it.

.....or worse yet....the spell could rebound and make the curse even stronger.


Please....please work...Sander thought to himself.

Text Cut: TEAM!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Felixir

More squinting.

Squiiiiiiiiiint.

Toby even shuffled a few inches closer, still squinting and all. He knew runes could be pretty easily hidden, but... nope... he couldn't see any.

"I don't see any runes," he piped up to Botros and the rest of his group, and started patting down at his pockets, looking for his wand, which he was constantly losing these days. Although, Tobias hadn't been quite so good at this curse stuff as he usually was with Ancient Runes things, so who was he to really make a call? Maybe the others could see better than him.

Hmmm... maybe if when he found his wand, Tobias could use that Eye Focusing charm again. This seemed as good a time as any.

"Can you guys see any?"

That's right, children. Be my eyes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FearlessLeader19

They were starting! Awesome! Adi turned to listen to Professor Botros speak. Inspect the wall. Right! "Come on, guys!'' he said and followed their Professor towards the wall. Time to start looking for those runes!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Holmesian Feline

Soon enough it looked as if all the older students had disappeared to their respective tasks and Professor Botros called his group to their own. Benny listened to what was being said, not sure how to take the issue of having to rush before the willow woke up. Um...why wasn't it just kept frozen in some way? Surely it wouldn't be safe once the tree limbs moved and they would have to stop.

As they were instructed to move closer to the wall, the Gryffindor was tentative in his movements. Both because of his aches and the worry over the other things...maybe more for the former. He had to agree the first boy who spoke up once he was closer, he didn't see any runes anywhere on the wall. "Nope...no runes. Just carvings of people and animals."

So they would be using the spell...right?"

Quote:

Originally Posted by Squishy

Awesome! It was time for them to start.

Wandering closer to the wall while making sure she didn't get zapped, Lux looked it over carefully. It was a good thing that she was not suffering from any eye problems like some of the other students seemed to be.

No one on her team seemed to be having any luck either. "I don't see any Runes either. Maybe we need to use the spell." Now how did it go again? She had a feeling she could remember it. Something with Revelio? Or was she wrong?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Expecto-Penguin

Kace was joining the group for the first wall. He was a third year. So he joined with Adi and Lux and Ben. From what he knew in the group. He smiled towards them and nodded. Then as he approached, he heard the professor ask them a question. So he needed to examine the wall.

He stepped up and examined it. Kace looked and looked and pointed out, "Professor i do not see any curses but i do see pictures of like egyptians and dogs..." he said just looking at the wall. He agreed with Ben on this.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anna Banana

OHHH! The professor was going to be their partner?! Awesome stuff! That was like...the easiest form of cheating ever! You just work with the person who has all the answers! WIN.

Sophie gathered close to the first wall and began inspecting it.



"All I see is a bunch of carvings of people doing everyday activities," she said. "No runes. I think we need to do that spell to reveal them." They WOULD get the hard one. She just bet those seventh years had a wall full of visible runes!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Edward Penguin

Ian listened as the professor spoke and seemed excited. He wondered a little why the professor seemed to look younger and everyone else that was different was looking older. Maybe he had a magical rune that helped him.

He was broken from his thoughts by the question. He listened to the other students and agreed. Yes professor, just like my classmates, I only see the images. Will we reveal them as we did in the previous lesson?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lissy Longbottom

There were RUNES hidden on that? Nah, Caleb didn't think so. This seemed like a trick. He shrugged and then squinted like he was looking REALLY hard.

"Are they over the Egyptians head's?" he asked. "Unless..it's a trick. They're hidden, maybe? And we have to do a spell to reveal it?" he suggested. Maybe Botros really WAS tricking them...

"Oh yes, I don't see no runes either." He feigned being surprised and rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Deezerz

"I don't see anything. Permission to use the spell on it, professor?" she asked. Bev also turned to her classmates. Were they okay with that? It was evident that's what they needed to do. Duh. She just wasn't sure if she needed permission to do it.

"Oh! Go ahead. Everyone pay attention to what spell our friend here will use." He gestured for her to move closer and go for it.

ooc: - For other groups: those of you who cast the spell, check your posts again.

Ian giggled a little as the professor rubbed his chin. That was kind of funny. Of course the professor knew the runes were hidden and his poor grammar added to the funniness of the situation.

Ian looked at the girl who wanted to perform the spell and watched. He didn't anticipate she'd be able to reveal them all, but it would be cool if she did. Ian's mind then wandered. If we free the tree, does that mean it's going to start attacking us?

Ian raised his hand and posed the question. Professor, if the tree is no longer in the box, will it start beating us?

Aha! So his eyes weren't deceiving him. That was always a good start.

Wand, wand, whERE WAS HIS WA- oh. There. In his hand.

Ahem.

Before he did anything runes related, Tobias raised his wand and pointed it at his creased face, or, more specifically, his eyes. There was only a brief pause while he attempted to remember the spell, but it wasn't long before he had it.

"Oculo Focalis."

And just like that, the world was a whole lot clearer, and Tobias was pleased with himself. He turned his attention to the wall yet, ready to cast the spell that would reveal the runes, when he realised... he, errr... couldn't remember it.

Huh.

Toby wrinkled his nose slightly and turned to inform Botros about this development, and that was the first time he properly noticed that Botros was... young.

O_____O

Ella had stepped up close to the wall, just enough so that she could get a good view of the images that had been carved there. She agreed with Sander about the heiroglyphics and so she stepped back again, trying to decide what the next move would be. It seemed he had the answer for that too, though. So she stood by Alec and watched.

Hidden, yeah. That's what Ella would have done. Why leave something like that right in the open where curse breakers could find it easily? "Hopefully that does the trick." The spell. And look, there was Hulk. She knew that the Gryffindor would be coming along so no worries, Alice. No conspiracies here.

"Hey." Small smile for you, Captain Lioness. And while Sander explained his actions, Ella's eyes were on the wall again. Watching and waiting.

"Oh! I um...right there." The blonde pointed to their wall, just to the left of the woman. "Looks like a Double Runic Ward." Maybe. "What do you guys think?" Because teamwork meant team approval before anyone did anything and Ella definitely wasn't the expert on curse breaking. She wanted some back up on her guess work.

Oh and because Alice seemed confused as to what they'd be doing, "Careful of the wall, Hulk. It zaps."

Sander stared at the wall waiting for something to happen. His eyes were beginning to water as the surface of the wall started meld all into one. The figures and hieroglyphics blurring.

So much so that he almost didn't notice the appearance of something on the wall. Sander rubbed his eyes to refocus.

Wait!! It was the rune Fehu!! Soon others followed. The spell had worked!!

"Everyone!! Look!! The spell worked!" Sander excitedly told the members in his group. Yes he knew they had seen the runes too but he couldn't help pointing the runes out to them.

.....and sure enough Ella confirmed that she too had seen the runes appearing.



He leaned closer to the wall, his nose almost touching...yet not because he didn't want to end up minus a nose, since the curse was still up. Sander studied each one, and first identified the type of rune ward. It was a double ward.

"Yes I agree with you, Ella. There are two rows meeting in the middle. So it is a double ward," Sander agreed with the Head Girl.

Sander looked back at the wall. The runes were now clearly visible so Sander quickly scribbled them down in his journal.

"Do we want to identify each rune or go immediately to find the weakest spot?" Sander asked the rest of his group.

Yes group agreement would be a good thing since they were indeed working as a group.

Grey-blue eyes stayed on the wall. Mainly because a spell had been cast and he was watching out for some sign of a rune popping up. His eyes were good at noticing things like that right? The small details? ... Maybe. Really, he didn't know at this point.

And girlfriend got smiles since she was right there. Standing next to him. HEY! And he wasn't going to hold her hand because distractions. And because they weren't the only seventh years here.

Speaking of seventh years... "Hey Hulk!" he said, smiling in the Gryffindor's direction when she had joined them. "... And... we get to break the wall. Smash it using runes. Save the tree!" Gryffindor language, this was. He was sure of it. And speaking of Gryffindorness, the girl wouldn't feel... left out, right? They could all, you know, roar later or whatever else it was that Gryffindors do.

Thinking about Gryffindor behaviour wasn't going to get him anywhere so... Alec glanced back at the wall right as the Head Girl spoke. Double ward? "Yeah... yeah, it is! Good find, Ells!" GRIN. Smart girl was smart. "So... we just... find the weak spot and cast the opposite rune over it, right?" Right? Yeah? No?

After Bay turned around from talking to Alex and giving her Chocolate, to see that the rune appeared on the right hand side of their wall.. "Look Alex!! it work!!.. i guess I was wrong….*squint* we have a Simple Ward" he said as he almost jumped up and down.. but he knew that if he did he would pop out again.. and that would not be good.

quickly taking out his parchment he wrote down the runes that he saw before they flashed away..

"Okay Alex I wrote them down for us.." he said showing her their notes.. "so now I guess we need to figure out where the weak spot is??" he asked her while starring at their parchment...

Kace was glad that he was in the group with all the others. He felt confident and safe. Also the professor noticed there wasn't any runes there, so they were on the right track. At least he hoped. Plus he needed to get reminders on the spell to use. He looked around and saw that Toby was doing the spell. That spell sounded familiar. He nodded and tried to do the exact same spell.

He got his wand out of his robes and remembered the spell they used. He tapped his wand onto his eyes and said, "Oculo Focalis!" and then BAM! He could see everything MUCH clearer. It was like he had like magna vision glasses or something.

As he began to observe the wall, he really couldn't find any runes yet. Maybe he was looking on the wrong side?

Okay, she was working with a group. They had to find runes on the tree. Or not find runes. They were basically looking for runes and then doing something when they found or didn't find them. First things first. Spell. SOmething to make her young eyes be able to see better. Do it for the runes.

"Oculo Focalis!" Holy eyeballs Batman! She never considered that she needed glasses, but she would rather see like that for the rest of her life. Anyway, eyes. Runes. Find them. Or not find them.

The redhead trained her deep blue eyes at the tree and looked around for the runes. Nope. No runes here. Was she doing something wrong? Because she was following the lead of the older students. That usually helped things. Ummm.

"I don't think there's any runes here." To whom it may concern of course. Because it was important to be able to see these things.

Also, young Botros. She was starting to get another theory, though she needed to look around before she mentioned it to anyone. It was a liiiiitle crazy. And by little she meant that she would get institutionalized. But young Botros. Whenever someone told her about Botros, they explained the word old. Now he wasn't. He kind of looked like her dad. Which was weird. And she didn't want to think about it.

Adi didn't see any runes either. It was obvious that there weren't any visible ones. Plus he was sure Botros knew that. He was just humouring them, wasn't he? The Puffer turned his attention to the young Slytherin girl. What spell did they have to use again? His memory was still foggy to some things. Anyway, this girl knew what it was so he would just copy her.

Ready when you are, girly. In the meanwhile, Adi eyed Kace. Why was his friend still searching the wall? Hmmm. Maybe he didn't trust that they had all searched properly for any visible runes.

Beverly was sort of regretting volunteering because that meant eyes on her or on what she was doing. If she failed it'd be embarrassing. But she had this. Believe in yourself, Wayne. M'hm!

"W-Well I'm going to use the spell we were taught in the last lesson," she said, hobbling closer to the wall, but with space of distance between her and it. With a tap of her wand on it, she cast: "SpeRevelio."

Beverly glanced at Botros and then back at the team. "Um...you guys might want to get closer to see if any runes appear," she suggested. Just don't touch her, yeah?

Runes where you at?

The runes started materializing subtly when the spell was cast.

SPOILER!!: The Wall

"Yeah! Yeah! Do it, Wayne!" Came Cutty's reply of encouragement toward Wayne. He'd've done it himself, but again intended group activity. And besides, she was more than her fair share of competent. It would be done correctly the first time in her hands and she wouldn't waste their time. He didn't understand her shyness. Unless Wayne was just a weirdo.

Oh, he only could've hoped.



What a cute lil 'Puff. Why hadn't Cutty noticed her before.

It seemed that she really wasn't the only person who was having trouble seeing anything in the Runes. Even after improving their eyesight,her team members were still as lost as ever. That meant she wasn't slow in the head. Yaaay.

As Professor Botros told Beverly to try out the spell, Lux moved to the side a bit. They were working as a team and it would be mean of her to try the spell if it was Beverly that was supposed to. As she waited eagerly for the Runes to be exposed, Lux smiled at all of her fellow team mates before turning her attention back to the wal as the spell was castl.

Fingers crossed this would be a simple ward, but at least they had the Professor on their team to help if needed.

Okay, it was pretty agreed upon that there was no runes immediately visible within the wall they were assigned. The professor acting as if it was a surprise and playing along. Benny looked as one of the Slytherin girls volunteered to use the spell, Botros approving of the move. Good thing because he couldn't remember it for the life of him. Another failure of his memory should he have actually caught it at the last lesson after all.

SpeRevelio...that was the spell!

Now all they had to do was wait to see what was going to develop as the spell took effect. Come out, come out wherever you are runes. The Gryffindor glanced at his friend to silently see what Adi thought of it all, the Hufflepuff far more into it it seemed.

Okay, great. So this girl right here was going to cast the spell. That was perfect because one, Sophie didn't know the spell, and two, she liked hanging back and letting everybody else do the work for her. WOOT and stuff.

Sophie craned her neck over the small crowd in order to get a better look at what was going on. Beverly was casting now, she could see. After the spell was said and done, Sophie stepped a bit further up to see if she could spot any runes.

...

Why did she sort of also fear that the willow was going to start whomping soon?

Caelen was kind of discouraged. No one in their group was finding runes! But that also meant that the Ravenclaw wasn't just really bad at this. It was a group thing. Which raised the question if there actually WERE any runes. Again, fishy Botros. Veeeery fishy. She scratched her chin in thought. Or maybe he was trying to teach them a lesson in things. Like an after-school special, or like in potions. Which she was still sort of angry about by the way. But she was keeping quiet about that. That was something else entirely.

Also, this improved eyesight was really, really cool. The kid felt like she could see all the way to her actual house and catch Rockwell shirking his cleaning responsibility. Or maybe she could see the garden gnomes that Rockwell and her charmed to move; right before she left for Hogwarts. Of course, he did most -all- of the charming, but the deep blue eyed girl got to watch and learn something quickly. Now their yard had a bunch of hopping garden gnomes that liked to steal food from your hands. Mom was not pleased.

Caelen watched as Beverly was told to do the spell. Maybe this would help. Because... helpful!Botros. hopefully. But she still stuck around. Because the shorter girl needed to continue looking for Runes, see? If the spell worked, there would probably be Runes all over the place. Not that she really knew how to read the language well, but she still could help find them and have a third year figure it out.

And she was still excited. Because they were helping a tree! Even if it was a tree that could pound you into mince meat. Wow, she was violent. Maybe the redhead needed to see someone about that. Probably, yeah. Maybe after her first year.

Botros took a step back when he saw the runes materializing, though he did not indicate where they were, he allowed more students of his group to move closer and search the wall. "Come on now, search the wall. I'm going to hang in the back and hear what you all think of the runes.... when you find them. Remember that first we need to know what kind of curse is it, is it a simple single line? A double ward? A complex one? Also it helps if we can recognize the runes that form the lines." He crossed his arms and glanced up at the paralyzed whomping willow.

How much time have they got?

Ian must not have been heard, but that was ok, because he decided to just walk up to the wall. He looked around and over the wall's cutouts searching for the runes. His eyesight was still a bit hazy, but he was hesitant to perform the spell that the astronomy professor had talked about.

Just as he got above the head of the Egyptian ahead of the cows, he saw 5 characters that looked like runes. He looked back at the professor and yelled (so he'd be heard this time) LOOKS LIKE THERE'S A SINGLE LINE OF RUNES OVER HERE!

Moving in a little closer, Lux scanned the wall. She was not seeing anything? Why was she not seeing anything?

It took her a minute or so for her to notice. "I see them there!" She pointed to the spot where the Runes had formed. "They are right above the man in the second row of pictures. They look like they are a single line." That was good, right?

Now what were the actual Runes? Lux tried to remember. She really wished she could work it out without using her textbook.

Okay, so the spell was cast. It was time to search for Runes. Caelen looked at the tree with her eyes, standing back a bit to allow anyone who wanted to to come and look closer. Not that they'd need to with the awesome enhanced sight and all, but the shorter girl wanted to let other people in front. Which basically meant that she wasn't sure if she was going to find the Runes and wanted to let other -more advanced people- find them for the group. Because she didn't want this to go wrong.

Her deep blue eyes were trained at the tree from a bit of distance, looking around for any more Runes. There was probably Runes all over the place, but she kind of wanted someone else to do her work for her for just this one time. Again, the whole failing at reading Runes thing came into play here.

"Awesome." That was kind of a congratulations for Beverly and a reaction to the spell as a whole. Because the spell was probably going to uncover Runes and Caelen found that awesome. Something to reveal ancient writing. Ya know, if more wizards were archeologists, someone cold probably decode a BUNCH of ancient things. Really put history over the top.

And the Ravenclaw still hadn't forgotten about the theory. That thing that she was compiling in the back of her mind and then planning to write down in her notebook after class. The thing that she was planning on honing until it made sense. Because something at Hogwarts was fishy, and now there was a Daily Prophet article about it. Which meant that it was reeeeally fishy. And things THAT fishy need to be discovered. And little redheads -read: her- were good at discovering things.

She would have to thank her brother for mailing select articles to her every day. Without him, she wouldn't be able to figure out that the time thief -whoever that was- had escaped and that other people had wondered what she wondered. Because, what happened when they got too old? She really didn't -and kind of did, just to see- want to know.

Sure enough, suddenly there were runes visible within the carvings of the people and animals he had seen before hand. Benny finally inched closer as both the girl and Botros suggested it, careful not to totally block the area he had noticed from the others. Listening to the professor ask a few questions about the wall, the Gryffindor made a face of concentration as he examined the area.

"I think...I think its a simple line," he mused, tilting his head to try for another angle. It might be just a guess but maybe he was right for there was a chance of it. As for identifying them, Ben moved to retrieve his textbook from his bag upon his aching shoulder, flipping to find the page where the aetts and their meanings were written out. Only to be interrupted in his search from the yelling of a teammate causing him to winch.

"Could you be quieter...." the Gryffindor sent back to the Hufflepuff.

Ian was trying to figure out the recently revealed runes when he heard something from one of his Gryffindor teammates. He turned to look at him and gave him a bit of a stare.

Wouldn't have to yell if I could speak more clearly at lower volume. 'Parently, the professor didn't hear me and I just wanted to be heard. Don't get ur knickers in a bunch, mate. I'll try to tone it down a little. Ian had really come out of his shell since he'd met Bart. He also had become less accepting of criticism from fellow students.

With this handy dandy spell working on his eyes, Tobias could see much better now, so when the girl (who, by the way, he recognised as his dance partner for those lessons back in the day) cast that neat spell, he didn't even have to squint to look at the wall. Someone else saw them first, and pointed out where they were, and Tobias looked over. Ahhh yeah. "Oh cool, it's symmetrical." All the cool kids are symmetrical these days.

"Okay," he croaked in that elderly way of his. "Looks like Raidho, Othala, Algiz, Othala and... is that... a backwards Raidho?"

The third year squinted at the walll, and then glanced over at Botros again... but not for too long, because the young-old-man's uncreased face in high definition was kind of disconcerting when Tobias was so used to that other face of his. So he looked back at his classmates.

"That could mean that it breaks the pattern and is a weak spot?" But... what had Botros said about that stuff? That it was more advanced? "Though maybe we should just go for the middle one." Seeing as that was like standard protocol.

It was just as she'd figured. There was gonna need to be a spell cast before they could get to blasting the walls off this thing. She was about to cast the spell but he beat her to it...well then....she didn't really mind. No. In fact it was good he did. "Since you went and revealed the curse I think it's only fair I make the wall explode." She said with a very solemn look that said she meant business. That was the only part of this class she was interested in, the BOOM.

Wait what? Lex did a double take. He was offering her chocolate frogs?? And she didn't even have to threaten him first? NEAT! "I'd love one!--or two...two if you have that many...and you know if by some weird coincidence you happened to have a third one, I wouldn't mind at all." Nope, no complaints here.

She took the frog and was in the middle of unwrapping when something curious caught her attention. He'd called her Alex. Not a very common variation of her actual name. Lex and Lexa, yeah, otherwise it was usually Alexa. How very curious.

"You can just call me Lex." She offered, biting the head off her chocolate frog. Oh and would you look at that, the runes were appearing! She took a step forward to get a better look.

"Yup. Looks like one of those simple ones. Lucky us, huh? We got five so it shouldn't be too hard. Teiwaz. Yup. Do you disagree?" Had to keep this a demorcracy afterall.