Bay raised his hand..



he wasn't sure if he was right but he gave it a shot.

Tora plopped down into her seat and kicked her bag a bit out of the way. This proved to be a bad idea as she now had to stretch to reach the strap and tug the bag into its proper positioning beside her desk. She flipped it open and rooted around for her parchment and quill. Now that she had all her notes out, she really thought about what the words meant. She was Ravenclaw. This shouldn't be too too hard. She raised her hand and took a stab at what they might do, paying attention to what her other classmates had said and building her own ideas.

SPOILER!!: if Tora is called on (copying your idea... :) it really is a good one)

"Lignum navicula... does that have something to do with navigating?" she asked. Navicula sounded a bit like navigate, and one certainly needed to be able to find your way around the jungle. She remembered something one of the other students had said. "Possibly navigating towards water or in a boat specifically," she mused.

What about the other spell though? She could only guess that it had something to do with vines and creating or destroying them which had already been said, so she remained quiet on the matter and just aired her ideas about the one spell.

Sophie inwardly cringed when she heard the professor speak to that Slytherin boy that way. They weren't crups, and Bellaire wasn't the Minister! Why on Earth were they made to stand and then sit on command? It made no sense at all.

Whatever. It wasn't like Sophie was even getting along with that Sytherin boy anyway.

She turned her attention to the two spells on the board.

Sophie had studied a little Latin to help her with her spells, so she stared at the words and tried to translate them the best she could. Finally, she raised her hand. "If I've translated the right way," which it was a good possibility she hadn't, "the first one means to either build a boat from wood or...help navigating a boat. Maybe one of those." Then the second one? "The second one...means to maybe make a rope out of a vine." Ehh...something like that.

She watched in subdued amusement as Bellaire encountered beards and messy students before taking a look at the board. It wasn't like Alice was knowledgeable about Latin, unlike some other students who seemed to be, given their answers. But she knew some weird science stuff that could help.

"Navicula is the genus name for boat-shaped algae, professor, so I'm guessing it turns something into a boat." Or something. Next spell. "Dunno what vinea means, but it looks like the word vine. Are we transfiguring vines into, like, spaghetti?"

Mm. Could totally go for some spaghetti right now. And food helped you survive. Win spell, Bellaire.

Oh, GOOD!

They were finally allowed to sit. Rhodes didn't hesitate to plop herself right down into her seat, as if she had been standing for HOURS, when really it had only been a few minutes, before letting her eyes roam over the words on the board.

She.. had absolutely no idea what any of those things said. And she must've been one of those people who hadn't guessed that the lesson was going to be about surviving a jungle. She just thought the shrubbery were decorations. Ehh.. Her eyes moved over the board once more, and deciding to just take a guess, since everyone else was doing it, because how could they all possibly know THAT stuff, she raised her hand.

"Camouflage. One of them is about camouflage."

They could sit now? Gwen glanced around to make sure other students were sitting before taking her seat. Good. That standing thing was getting pretty old. Her eyes drifted to the door that the boy had just been kicked out of. That was really mean. She guessed this teacher was pretty strict. Gwen wasn't against the occasional in-class nap. But she would have to remember not to get on the bad side of this teacher.

Surviving in the jungle. Like camping? Because Gwen's family went camping all the time in the woods, and the jungle was sort of like the woods. When the Latin words were written up on the board, all Presley could do was stare in confusion. She had attended a school in Kindergarten and first grade where they had been required to learn latin, but honestly all she remembered was how to count to ten and say "My name is Gwen, I am a girl." Not exaclty super-helpful for figuring out these strange words.

She was supposed to make an educated guess though. An older student had told her that answering questions could win you House Points, even if you were wrong, and since Ravenclaw was already in the negative, Gwen raised her hand.

Surviving the jungle, as if she'd ever get lost in a jungle in the first place. But you never know, especially with someone's promise of taking her traveling after the term was over. Maybe they would get lost in a jungle and Bev would be the hero if she learned ALL of this today.

It was worth a try.

Squinting her eyes at the blackboard, she made sense of the words. She wasn't a big fan on languages -- it had been one of her favorite lessons to nap in -- but she did understand the basics of Latin. Sort of. A tiny bit. The first one, Lignum Navicula, had something to do with wooden boat, yeah? And the second, Vinea Funiculus, something with vines.

Yeah. Oh look. Others were answering. Great. She didn't have to.

Brynn's eyes nearly popped out of her head when the professor yelled at the boy for sleeping in her class and ordered him to leave. Not that she thought there was any injustice there, it was just that she was loud and sorta scary and it had really startled her. But good.. they could finally sit down now and the redhead gave Bellaire careful eyes as she tentatively took her seat.

Surviving the elements. Hm. Brynn wasn't sure what to think about that so she figured she'd have to wait and see. Turning her eyes to the board, she stared at the very foreign words and tried to mouth the pronunciations. Gosh they were weird looking and no, she had no guesses what they would mean. She wasn't sure she could even pronounce them. But other people were answering anyway so she supposed she didn't have to offer anything. She wondered which guesses might be correct and she pulled out her parchment notebook and self-inking quill but waited to write until the professor told her the correct meaning.

How to survive in the jungle...
Robin was interested in the topic and immediatly her mind went to her 2nd grade classroom when they had talked about this and survival skills, she tried to remember some.
Cocunuts where hard to open but if cracked provided milk
try to make a bowl and fill it with sea water, put a leaf on top and wait for evaporation to make the water un-salty.. that was more for deserted island though.
Oh wait...magic? spells? How was she supposed to know? She gulped she had to say something at least.. she timidly raised her hand

"Maybe a fire spell or a scent disguising spell to scare or hide from animals?"
She tried to make her voice quiet as she could while still being heard by the teacher, praying she hadn't made a fool of herself.

Tora wasn't as dumb as she looked, Cutty had to remind himself. And her answer was actually a pretty good one as were the others given beforehand. It seemed they all more or less knew their Latin, but incantation interpretation still seemed up for grabs. He put his hand in the air.

Self sacrificing Hufflepuff? That was him.

Alice Fischer had decided to sit next to him today. He glanced over at the girl and gave her a grin. Was she good at handling plants? He hoped so because Alec... knew nothing about them. Didn't even take Herbology. But if it turned out that they both weren't good at dealing with plants... this... was going to be an interesting lesson.

... One in which they could sit down now. Alec did so and glanced over at Bellaire again... and then the board. Did he know what the spells were? No. Educated guesses. That meant knowing a bit of latin and working things out from there, yeah? Or hoping that the word 'vinea' really did mean vine and not... something entirely different.

Educated guesses. He was going to make one. After a couple of seconds, the eighteen year old tentatively put his hand up in the air. "Professor? Erm... lignum means woody tissue so I guess you could transfigure actual woody plants or the stems of plants into..."

... Pause.

"... a boat?!" ... That... didn't make a lot of sense to the seventh year. Plants. Plants were confusing.

Tobias kept on grinning as he took his seat. You know. Super good mood and all.

He looked around at the plants and then up at the wood at the front of the classroom, but straight back to Professor Bellaire when she began teaching. The words on the board, presumably Latin or something, like a lot of (but not all) spells, weren't familiar to him at all. Still, worth a shot, right?

Toby stared at them for a moment, before putting his hand up. "Vinea looks like vine... but I mean it could translate to something different, but there are looooaaaads of vines in the jungle, right?" Maybe? "I dunno what the second word means but if it's about surviving in the the elements, maybe that spell is a way of transfiguring vines into a shelter?" He had originally thought that it might be a spell that would sort of thread the vines together, but that would be a charm, and this was Transfiguration.

The third year lowered his hands again and copied the spells from the board down onto his parchment, as well as what Professor Bellaire had said was the focus of the lesson. Notes were important, this was something he'd learnt last year.

He could sit down now, right? Yeah.

Lucky for Asher he knew a lot of Italian, it was kind of like latin but still. He could figure this out. Hopefully. The first word that he could make any sense of was Vinea....Vines? Vines. As the professor said just before the focus for the lesson was surviving in the jungle. So Yeah, that could work. He raised his hand."Vinea.... means Vines. Are we Transfiguring the vines?" Into what? He squinted at the board. Navicula? It looked familiar. Water? Alge? Navigate? No wait Boat shaped alge? Navicula? BOAT. Thank you cousin, Vinny. "into boats?"

BLLIIIIIIIINNNK.

What was that on the board? Lignum...how did you even pronounce that?

Abbi was never one to know spells immediately when given their names. She didn't read too much about them and considering she was muggle school and lessons were usually the only places she heard of them.

Pitty. Cause she wanted to answer. She LOVED talking. But nobody said she couldn't try or steal other people's answers. COUUGH. She eyed the answers and waited.

After her hand raise she spoke."What everyone said Professor. The first one is to do with boats and wood and second one is that vine rope thingy."

UGH. THAT was what Caleb should have been doing this summer. Studying some Latin! These words were total gibberish to him, so he had to take out his book and flip through all the pages until he found mentions of them, or at least part of the word in the spell. He scribbled it down in his notes and then raised his hand.

SPOILER!!: Answer if called

Vinea Funiculus has something to do with vines, and I think funiculus has to do with nerves so it probably does something to animate them or change the structure of the vine into something useful for surviving the elements.

Laura just, what even with the beard? Ella tried her hardest not to frown at her fellow badger but she couldn't help it. It was one thing to accept a dare but to carry it out in Bellaire's class, of all places? Not a good idea at all. The blonde just hoped that her dorm mate could come up with some kind of feasible excuse before they lost any house points. Yeah.

When they were given the okay, Ella tore her attention away from the bearded badger and took her seat. She was intrigued about the whole surviving in the jungle thing and she sat up a little straighter, ready to take notes on the subject.

After raising her hand and waiting her turn, the blonde spoke up, "Funiculus is like a cord, I believe. So perhaps we'll be turning the vines into...a bundle that we could climb up...or that could help us swing across to somewhere else?"

Adelaide had enjoyed transfiguration and she hadn't done too awful on the OWL so she was keeping this class, but she had no idea what the words could possibly mean. It wasn't like she spoke Latin or whatever language that was in. So she just sat and listened to what everyone else was suggesting.

Bart was listening kind of, but he heard sit down which was the best thing he had heard yet in the lesson. Finding his seat he waited to get ready to use his wand. He should have it out then, right.. right yep of course. So pulling it out it slipped out of his hand and tumbled to the floor with some clatter. Scooting around in his chair he reached for it before picking it back up.

Eyes snapping up and holding in a snicker as another kid got yelled at, well it wasn't him. See he could go without being the first in trouble. Now he looked at the words and started to practice saying them, because others could do the lecture part he just wanted to do the doing part.

Something in her words made him pay attention, doing something with survival in a jungle. Without really looking at the board his hand shot up. "Professor.. professor could one of them be to transfigure a Gorilla that is attacking you? That would be so cool. Or maybe.. maybe it is to transfigure a tree limb into a vine so we can swing with the monkeys?" That would be so cool wouldn't it!

Surviving in the jungle?! COOL... Professor Bellaire always set cool subjects for her classes. Theo had been thinking about her a lot over the past few weeks, and for that reason, he was sat at the very front. Though, that was where he ALWAYS sat for Transfiguration.

As for the spells on the board... well... Theo didn't have a clue.

But as she said, educated guesses were welcome, so... "The first word of the second spell kind of looks like vines." He said after raising his hand high. Perfectly logical guess since Theo couldn't read Latin. It was Latin, right? It could very well have meant vinegar, too, he just did not know.

Surviving the elements?

Supposedly that could be fun, Lux thought as she cast her eyes along the people she was surrounded by. If anything happened, at least she had her friends and the Professor there. But then, they probably wouldn't let anything happen to the students at Hogwarts anyway. Right?

Staring at the board, she had no idea what the strange words could possibly mean, so instead of raising her hand and giving out an answer, she took her notebook out. Writing down the spells, she waited for the Professor to explain what exactly they did.

Surviving out in the wilderness. IT does help when you can sleep anywhere. But then there it shelter and food. But with a wand those should not be too hard. So spell meanings and the such. Hmm. probably has something to do with making ropes out of vines. Nigel raised his hand

"Is vinea funiculus used to make rope out of vines?"

It was just a guess and Nigel had no idea about the other one.

Kace nodded. Surviving in the elements was an interesting topic. Kace wondered if he could survive. Let's find out today shall we? He took his seat and then squinted his eyes at the board. He wondered what the spell on the board were. He could make a guess.

He raised his hand timidly, "Professor does the second spell have something to do with vines and how we use them...like help make a house for instance?" he said giving an example.

The first one he was kind of stumped on. He had NO clue what it could be.

Emma had absolutely no idea what either of those spells were for, but maybe if she dissected the word, she could find the meaning behind them.

She raised her hand slowly, smiling nervously up at the professor when called upon. "Lignum Navicula appears so have something to do with wood, and the other spell has something to do with vines, perhaps it is about turning plants into wood and rope so one could construct a river raft, or hut for living in the jungle?" It sounded like it could make sense...

What the spells on the board were? Caelen had like half an idea. Shouldn't she have SOME idea? She read a bunch of Hogwarts related books and such before she came, why wasn't she knowing things? A soft, almost inaudible huff escaped her mouth.

Well, she thought, there had to be some kind of connection here. Teachers loved making connections. They were like power lines in that way. So they had to be survival spells? Riggght?

Now she just had to figure our their actual use. And that was the hard part. Of the two languages she knew, Latin wasn't one of them. But lig sounded like log, and Navicula sounded like a cool word for navigate. So maybe it was used to navigate logs that were good for campfires?

Wait, that was wrong. She just didn't know HOW wrong. Start at the beginning. Lig sounded like log, but also like light. And Navicula sounded like a soft drink but also navigate. So it was either light navigate or log navigate.

But she swore she heard the word for lights, or at least turning them on. And neither of those words were being used. Okkkay, so maybe like it had nothing to do with what it sounded like.

The eleven year old bit her lip in thought.

It seemed like everybody had already beaten her to the punch but that wasn't going to stop her from putting in her two cents. She raised her hand and waited to be called on. "Professor, I too agree that we will be using those two spells to construct a raft of some sort." I mean even if you didn't know what the spells were you could take an educated guess.