She copied down more of Romanos' notes as the woman spoke, idly listening to her classmates debate about spell types. Charms? "Can't some Charms alter the behavior of a creature, though? Their inherent qualities? Capabilities?" Plus, Alice figured a Bombarda Maximus would be very effective.

Besides, Charms weren't a type of magic, they were a type of spell. Did Romanos mean spell or...?

Just going to sit this one out, too. Yep.

Freaking Hellz yes!!! It was all hairy and dark and perhaps sensing a kindred creature, Cutty loved it! He made mental note of the Chort's migration, but did take a moment to note the particular problems they seemed to bring with them wherever they may roam. And then Professor Romanos asked of them a kvestCHUUUUUUNNNN! So his filthy hand went up. "If these creatures have the ability to bring ice and disease with them, then I would guess that there have been trials and failures of trying to curb their destructive habits with healing and weather spells. Am I right?" Well, was he? Unless she meant on the creature itself? Wait, did she? Cutty had yet to figure Medea's labyrinth-like mind out. How did she get here?

Alex didn't know anything about a Chort except the information she had just learned in class.. The picture that the Professor had shared with them made her hope she'd never encounter a Chort in her travels. As for what kind of magic would be useless against them........well why did Alex have a feeling that the answer was, the very kind of magic that they would be likely to use? Noting that some of the younger students and some older ones too seemed a little frightened by the picture, she kept her thoughts to herself.

Oh.

Well. That picture was disappointing. Rhodes had been expecting something so horrifying that she was going to get nightmares over, but glancing down at the picture, all she could imagine was how warm a coat would be if she used that thing's fur to make one. If everyone had a coat made out of its fur, they wouldn't be so concerned with all the ice the Chort would bring, right?

The destruction and disease, though.. yeah. She doubted a coat would protect them from that.

But onto the question asked. She raised her hand. "I guess since people assume it's a demon, dark magic would be out of the question." Because who would want to try and use one of those spells on that thing and fail, right?

Michael glanced down at the parchment that had floated onto his desk and he was rather unimpressed by the picture. It wasn't that scary looking at all.

He was just about to raise his hand to have a go at the Professor's question when he heard some of the responses from the other students and he couldn't help but raise his eyebrows. "Why would you think that Charms wouldn't work? Or that they are not powerful enough?" He wasn't going to call out to those students, they would know who he was talking to.

"I do believe the Patronus Charm is strong enough to defeat Dementors. And the Shield Charm is able to block pretty much every spell out there except for the Killing Curse. And it can be used offensively." He paused for a moment and dropped his hand because it was starting to get tired.

"If you can think outside the box, even the most simplest of spells can be used in attack or defense." He was happy to give examples but for now. "I'm not sure what the answer is because I think all magic is effective." No matter what form it is.

The image of the Chort was totally cool! Its coat almost reminded her of Midnight. Except his mane was way glossier due to stellar care and grooming.

She caught that bit, the one where the Chort hasn't been sighted until now. Why? What brought it out of hiding? There was no time to think of that. As the professor kept talking, Beverly decided she would never attempt to seek one of these creatures. Ever. She enjoyed being healthy and alive, thank you very much.

As for what type of magic is useless against them, she wasn't sure, but she had a guess. "Since it's a demon, light would affect it, no? And maybe...maybe even fire as a counter to its freezing abilities." Almost like Devil's Snare, it recoils from light or heat. But that was herbology, not a massive demon.

Bart was almost listening, he liked the sound of demon something, but he didn't know the story of it so he kept quiet. Or he did until there was a parchment on his desk and he looked down at the picture, "Whoa this thing is so cool. Professor are we going to go hunting for these things? Is that why you are showing them to us?" Maybe they were going to learn spells to fight him off or something before they went looking for it.

His excitement grew and he was ready to learn and try to fully listen, but his attention kept going back to the picture and thoughts of meeting this thing head on. How cool would that be. Bart would totally rock at finding it or at least in his mind he would.

Lucas was finding all of this FASCINATING. But.. unfortunately he didn't know much about magic in totality and thus the specifics of useless magic against Chorts was limited too. Instead, he used the parchment Romanos had asked them to pull out and carefully jotted down some of the answers the students had given like healing charms.

Maybe they'd get to see one. PET IT. Exciting.

The Chort was an intimidating looking thing, that was for sure. The eighteen year old stared at the picture, eyes widening considerably when Professor Romanos mentioned them being spotted closer to their part of the world recently where they hadn't been before. That...was unsettling, yeah?

Ella wasn't sure that Charms would be all together unhelpful in defeating the creature and agreed that surely some Charms would be successful. To discredit the whole lot of them seemed off to her.

And the dark magic suggestion, that could count out a whole bunch of spells that Ella wouldn't ever want to use and she would definitely fear anything that could survive the Killing Curse.

She just wasn't really sure and so she kept at her notes, glancing down at the picture occasionally with a frown on her face. She didn't like the look of it, the Chort.

Hayley blinked, not really understanding anything that was going on about spells and charms that might possibly work on a Chort. She didn't know that she was required to know such a wide range of spells to be able to survive Defense Against the Dark Arts. Her brain probably didn't even have enough space to do that.

Shuddering a little at the thought of the amount of mugging that was necessary, she decided that taking notes on her classmates' answers was probably a good idea. Especially since she knew practically nothing.

WHAT. That picture. Delilah stared at it for a moment and shuddered slightly. SO. SCARY. She couldn't believe these creatures actually existed and from what the professor said.. and shuddered a little more before she started to take notes on her parchment. She crinkled her nose a little as she considered the answer to the professor's question.

"Charms, maybe? Not all but yeah, a few of them would definitely be unhelpful. " Demons. Ughhhh.

Could they please talk about puppies instead?

Ian looked at the picture on the parchment which had appeared. It was not the terrifying, demonic creature he had expected, but it didn't look like something you'd wish to run into on a pleasant evening stroll. Ian scribbled bits and pieces of notes here and there when his hand wasn't shaking and tried to listen to the odd speaking professor. It was really hard for him to understand all she was saying. He did understand what she asked at the end of her monologue.

Ian listened to the other answers and wondered what it might be that would be ineffective. He ran through the different types of magic he knew of and the word patronus sparked in him a thought. Ian raised his hand and added with a semi-wheezy voice, I would think a patronus ineffective. While they work against the soul-stealing magic of the dementors, those are shadow creatures where this is 'flesh and blood'. Ian finished his answer and sat back in the chair to listen more.

That thing kind of looked like it could be mistaken for a Yeti. IF you had never seen one before. Which Nigel hasn't. But still.

If Nigel was faced with a Chort, he would definitely not chortled. He would only use a patronus and not worry about what other types of magic worked or not. Better safe then sorry and if it works against a Lethifold it would work against mostly everything.

Though only answer Nigel could think of was almost very type sounded good. It was a demon after all. Probably not easy to subdue. But what did Nigel know.

Astrid was not, and will not, talk in this class. EVER AGAIN. Because demons. THOSE were scary. It might even be as scary as the horns of a unicorn. So no, she wasn't going to speak up. She was clutching to Lily's small mirror, which she had used to check if she had greying hair. Which, by the way, was NOT on her head. HA HA HA. She was not old.

But still. Nope. Demons. Mythology. Whatever this stuff was. Noooo.

Just gonna take notes and try to ignore how creepy the subject was.

O_________________O

Look at the size of it's horn. ITS HUGE! Romanos said the creature is not a myth and they're heading west? Why they migrate? Wasn't the Professor said they're territorial beasts? He was about to ask that question but a younger looking Gryffindor boy beat him to it. Darn!

And for type of magic is useless against these creatures, Charms seems pretty useless against if you're up against the Chort but most of his classmate already point that out so there's no used repeating the same answer, right?

O_o.

Err...was she accidentally taking some advanced class for sixth and seventh years or something? Sophie was LOST. She knew she was class and all, but...lost as in, she had no idea what they were talking about.

Then there was a picture of an awful looking creature before her, and she made a face at it. She glanced up as the description of the creature continued.

Ohhh, that sounded good!

Sophie raised her hand. "I'm not sure, but THAT sounds like a good answer," she said. "I'm on her team."

... BLINK. What...?

Alec STARED down at the image of the Chort. It... reminded the boy of a Yeti. Maybe. A Yeti with horns on its head that looked really dangerous, actually. He made a face as he stared down at the image some more. This creature was coming? WHY?! If it was territorial, couldn't it stay in its homeland? Did it really want to go on holiday? And the Professor said that it was seen in Western Europe. ... Western. Europe. How far west?

One thing he could hold on to was the fact that the progress was slow. He liked that word in this case. Slow.

He was also glad that they didn't have any telepathic abilities.

As for Romanos's question... Alec paused. Spells? Spells that are useless against the creature? Frowning a little, the eighteen year old leaned REALLY close to his picture to try and make out as much as he can about this Chort creature. Looking for clues, he was. There had to be something in the picture that could give away the creature's weaknesses but all he could see was a giant creature with lots of... hair. Fur.

Yeah... he had no useful suggestions. Mainly because he was... a bit confused about the question. Type of magic. So things like Divination or... the type of spells? And apart from a way of making the environment so hot that the creature would have to leave. Which then meant that making the environment cold would only work in the creature's favour. Cutty had a point. Nodnod. And so did the girl who said that using dark magic wouldn't work.

... If they brought disease with them, would healing spells work?

Questions.

What??? A chort is real. I hope to Merlin I never come in contact with one. Oichi felt a bit freaked but soon heard the next question and had an idea of an answer and attempted to answer it. She raised her hand, "Well a chort is a very powerful demon creature of pure evil. Thus it probably equates to big and powerful magical creatures in that it would be immune to most charms and hexes. And yeah, since it's completely evil dark magic is likely not to work on it".

Ugh! Gwen shuddered at the picture. That thing was freaky! And magic couldn't work against it? No, she'd misheard apparently. Only certain types of magic couldn't work.

The class consensus seemed to be charms, but Gwen agreed with the boy who'd talked about shield charms and things. Charms were good.

"Um, transfiguration?" she tried. One, because it was different than all of the other answers, and two because she couldn't imagine being very successful trying to transfigure a demon into something else. Especially that demon.

Ummm... hi? She was totally lost. Like accidentally stumbling into a class for seventh years who were totally advanced lost. A chort was a demon thing. That's pretty much all she got from the lesson. A really scary demon creature that you never wanted to get in contact with. With black fur.

And what kinds of magic wouldn't work? Well, she imagined potions wouldn't work. How would that even happen? You'd need a bucket and some skillllllls. A lot of skills. Intense skills.

RIGHT! She actually had to SAY the idea.

"Well, potions wouldn't work! I mean, could you imagine?" She mimed pouring a bucket over and shrugged. Though did potions count as magic or were they something different all together? These were the important questions.

Sophie was having a hard time not feeling offended by all those saying 'Charms'. As if Charms weren't powerful enough to-- dsjkfsdnjkfsdnf!

Kay, breathe, Sophie. It's all good. Breeeeeeathe.

They were probably thinking of simple Charms. Hoepfully they were. Good thing a few people were already stepping up and defending the precious subject. Thank you, Alice. Thank you, other Gryffindor kid as well. Sophie truly appreciated that and even smiled brightly after they spoke.

Yeeeeah, as if a Legilimency Spell wasn't powerful, hmmm?? It was a Charm, too. And the Patronus, of course. And SO many others. So. Many.

Anyway, this was no time to get passionate about it, was it? Sophie was calm, really. She almost replied saying some Charms she thought would be useful against such creature - which wasn't a myth and that was quite... gah -, but professor Romanos had asked the opposite. Okay, Sophie wasn't the stubborn type, but she would NOT name any Charms right now, because she felt the need to protect her beloved subject from any more attacks. Hm.

"I don't think Alchemy would be very useful." .........Random. And she didn't even know if it was truly useless against a Chort, because she knew nothing about the creature. But well; at least it wasn't 'Charms'.

Tessa finished scribbling down notes about the creature and listened carefully to some of the answers. "Perhaps any magic used up close- you would probably want something that could be used at a distance. For example, you probably wouldn't want to use any potion on the creature, unless you could deliver it from afar." It sounded like the closer you got to this creature, the worse your fate could be.

SIGHS at the people criticising his answer.

Tobias was already cranky, and all the tension that had already occured in this class had amped him up, and made him agitated. Having anything other than happy energy wasn't fun, and not understanding it was making him feel even worse. A few people had vocally criticised his answer, and for some reason Tobias couldn't stomach criticism today, even though usually it never bothered him. So he piped up again, sticking his hand up at the last second.

"I wasn't talking about all Charms. Just some. Like I said, a colour-changing charm isn't exactly gonna be much use."

GOSH.

The boy didn't look at anyone but Romanic when he said this, and his brow was furrowed into what was ALMOST a frown. This was possibly the first time ever he'd found himself in a bad mood while around other people. All because of...? Why? Where did it come from? Because the tension at the start of class wouldn't have usually put him in this state.

He couldn't drag himself out of it now. He could feel the stinginess in his eyes that always threatened him when he had emotions that he didn't understand. So, to distract him from this, Tobias just forced a neutral expression, bowed his head so nobody could see his face anyway and played around with the feathered end of his quill. If he couldn't force happiness to happen, he could just distract himself from other emotions, right?

Tobias wished he'd stayed in bed today. Or, even better, under his bed.

Oh good, questions. Perhaps the others won't be afraid to ask, now that someone has spoken up with their confusion. "Don't be sorry for asking questions, Miss Brown." They were ENCOURAGED! "Truth be told, their purpose hasn't exactly been...discovered. Yet. It's, difficult, to pinpoint just how they vork. They, in our belief, enjoy contradicting their actions. For example, coming back to their good versus evil nature. This stems from the observation that while they have been completely hostile tovards humans and animals by first glance, they haff also been noted to sometimes flee vithout any particular reason."

"They disappear vithout a trace for days or veeks on end vith no real time structure, only to reappear in sight for years vithout a proper reasoning from vot ve can tell. They are also, 'flamboyant', in a vay, vhere they tend to leave their victim's bodies in intricate patterns in plain sight, yet they haff been seen burying them far beneath the ground. Vot is troubling the team of scientists studying these creatures, is despite their size, they are very fast creatures, and smart too, very smart...yet their unexpected migration pattern has been extremely sluggish. Granted, studies of them haff proved to be...just as slow."

She paused for a moment to think. "Apart from their undiscovered purpose, ve can only assume, in theory, it's just in their nature to be destructive."

"Actually... It may very vell be useful for a few seconds." she nodded slowly. "A few seconds may seem little, but it could very vell mean the difference between life and death for you."

"You are rather right, yes." she nodded encouragingly. Lots of trials and failures.

"It's not so much a demon as it is a dark or possibly just an incredibly dangerous creature. It vos stamped vith the term 'demon' through muggle mythology. I vill not lie, dark magic has had it's uses against the creatures, though ve vill not be learning about those spells today." Or ever. Unless they decided to go look it up somewhere.

....

There were always one or two in the class....

Raising an eyebrow, she stared at the Gryffindor. "No, Mister Maroon. I vould not let you or anyone in this school near one of these creatures if I had any say in the matter." Which she did. SERIOUSNESS. She was being seriooous.

"Nooo, not exactly Miss Jensen. Good guess though." It was a general branch of magic after all, Transfiguration. What she was basically looking for in the student's answers instead of specific spell titles.

"Potions and alchemy are actually very useful." The professor smiled a little. "In the right vay of course. Though Miss Hedge is right. It's preferable if you are further avay from the creature but, potions and alchemy...not useless."


Oh dear, a lot of charms answers, and some more specifics. In this case, the specifics were nice to hear. "You all are right in some vay or another." Except Mister Strand who was against the idea of charms altogether. "Nothing is impossible ven it comes to charms. Some of the charms that vere mentioned, such as the color changing charm and the patronus charm, vould indeed haff no use ven battling against a Chort. Though you should not rule out the branch of magic altogether, or think it not strong enough. Charms can be, very powerful."



"There vere some good answers, but vot I vos looking for vos...fire magic. Fire spells literally haff no use ven dealing vith a Chort. The story in mythology of them being born of flame comes from this. Perhaps it's something in their fur or skin but...they just absorbed the flame like nothing." Folding the picture she held in half, she glanced to her watch before continuing.

"They somehow produce coldness vherever they go, bringing great vinter storms vith them, though vot you'll vont to really votch out for is their horns and bite. They haff a very deadly venom vithin their system that seeps through their saliva and horns, vhich causes an extreme and lethal similar to that of Tuberculosis that, rapidly spreads, to other parts of your body and bones...usually, ending...vith death." Ahem. "VITH that in mind..."

"Vot spells do you think vill vork best against the creature? Please don't rule anything out, even if you think it may not be 'strong' enough. Keep in mind, as I said to Miss Brown, they are very quick creatures. Very quick and very smart."

Fire magic doesn't work on them. Hm. Ella nodded and scribbled a few things down, interested. If they absorb the flames then..."Professor, is that why you think the coldness arrives when they do? They absorb all the warmth from any sort of heat sorce?" Curious Ella was curious.

Death. ... ... ... Yeah, Ella didn't want to think about it or talk about it or even consider being so sick that you...yeah. For reasons. Sad Ella was suddenly quite sad. She needed to shake it off, though. She could sort it out later.

"The Freezing Charm, Professor. If you could stop it in its tracks, you could prevent the spread of...well, lots of those bad things as well as get away."