Wait, rafts? Were they doing something with constructing rafts? Dang! How off was she? But what were they constructing the rafts out of. She heard something about vines earlier -or, she thought she did-. Were they making rafts out of vines? Cause that wasn't happening.

She could barely construct an excuse for her laziness let alone a raft. She WANTED to be handy, but so far it wasn't working. She was more of a magic user than a construction worker.

Not that she was overly girly. She just couldn't figure out how to put construction thingies together. It was just one of those skills she didn't have, like nail polish application, or taxes.

Kevin had not seen the eyes following him though he had felt this weird sensation like he was being watched the moment he had come in the room. The hairs on the back of his neck had stood up at the feeling and he knew that the Professor had been watching him. Probably wanted to catch him breaking the rules or something.

As they were allowed to sit down, the first year did so by leaning back in his chair and watched as the Professor wrote on the black board. Latin words. Or so he thought. He had no idea what they could mean though so he listened to the students around him. Just listening.

Haruka listened to her classmates, taking down notes as she did. She didn't really know much Latin, (she figured it was Latin, since most spells are. And this was Transfiguration class, after all. So yeah, spells.) so she decided to keep quiet rather than take a guess and risk embarrassing herself.

Katarina stared at the board a little nervously. Of course, her first class of Transfiguration at this new school, and they were dealing with plants. She didn't usually have too many difficulties with Transfiguration, but plants? Katarina liked to think that plants had a tendency to die around her, rather than that she had the tendency to kill plants.

Regardless, the Latin looked a little familiar, and Katarina went through the mental dictionary imprinted into her brain after years of studying Latin at school. "Well," She started after raising her hand, "Both spells have something to do with wood or vines." Katarina spoke confidently, even though she was worried people wouldn't understand her heavy German accent.

Nope. Tag didn't really have any ideas. He needed to brush up on his reading for this subject. Nod. One of the words that was on the board did look like the word "vine". The boy was going to say something about it but it seemed some of his classmates had already brought that up so there was no point to it. So the blonde merely sat at his seat and watched everyone. He should be taking notes but effort. Hopefully his memory was good.

With a sigh of relief, Adrienne sat down. The chairs weren't particularly comfortable or anything (actually, she found them far too small and rather uncomfortable), but it was still a welcome change from being up on her feet. And now that the professor had oh-so-kindly allowed them to actually rest their weary legs - it was way too early in the morning for this - she was able to cross both her legs and arms and rearrange herself into a more comfortable position. She blinked up at the writing in the board, shaking her head slightly to try to wake herself up.

lignum... funiculus... vinea... navicula... if she hadn't known they were incantations, Adrienne would have assumed the words were gibberish, and not particularly exciting gibberish at that. Halfheartedly, she raised her hand and gave an answer that she was pretty sure that some other people had already said. "Vinea has the word vine in it, and funiculus kinda reminds me of fungus." Plants. Not exactly her strong point.

Raven wrote down the two words on her open notebook so that she could examine them closer and determine what English words they sounded most like. Lignum navicula and vinea funiculus. Hmmmm...

"Well professor, navicula sounds to me lots like navigating, and Lignum like linguistics or leg. I don't know how that makes sense. Vinea sounds like vine and funiculus sounds like fudge or fungus."

Now that other people were giving their two cents, Caelen wanted to supply hers. But what if she was totally wrong? A shot in the dark couldn't hurt, right? Transfiguration was never exactly her best subject anyway, so it wasn't like she was going to get every question right.

"Profesor? Could Lignum be light? It has the first three letters of light. And Navicula looks like navigating, so could it be navigating towards light?" And people kept saying something about vines and boats. She should probably add that in too. "And people keep mentioning boats. So what if its to like build a boat and find some light if youre stranded? That seems like a good survival skill"

Okay, so she never was stranded. But it seemed like a good skill. Light was incredibly useful. You try navigating through the woods in the dark. And finding light might be like finding land, because light used to be equated with land, riiiight? Or even, if not land, maybe the spell helped control light or fire and that seemed pretty useful.

She shrugged. It sounded legitimate to her. Which might not be a good thing. Sometimes the seemingly best anwsers are the worst ones.

Surviving the elements? That would explain the plants all over the place. Lex glanced around the room again, now understanding the setting and being better able to appreciate it. They were doing jungle stuff today. Was she the only one hoping the Professor had something dangerous planned while being simultaneously put out at the fact that she'd bothered to brush her hair?

When the spells were mentioned the Gryffindor looked to the board. Neither really looked familiar but it wouldn't have hurt to hazard an educated guess. She was getting better at making those, you know.

"That one that looks like vines, I'm definitely willing to bet a chocolate frog or two that it has something to do with vines and 'funiculus'...that's got something to do with rope right? So rope vines?" Wait, rope vines! "Does that spell make rope vines? Are we going to be taking turns having a good swing while learning the hard way what happens when you don't get a spell right out in the wild?" That would kinda suck for the Firsties but she was so ready right about now.

Just a matter of transfiguring some trees to get this vine swinging party started.

She immediately followed suit to everyone around her once the Professor had told them they could take their seats. Sitting in a rather hastened fashion, her eyes immediately were planted on the Professor as she began the lesson. But her mouth was glued shut at the sight of unfamiliar words in front of her on the board. She had NO idea what those words meant up there, but apparently several others around her knew.

Josette wished she had some knowledge about this kind of stuff like them, unfortunately her father hadn't gotten the chance to teach her much about Transfiguration back home. But she tried not to let that discourage her, the best thing she could do was just listen to each answer & write them down in her parchment as the class went along.

Ben like the rest of the class, receieved a pleasant enough greeting in return for his own. Far better than the boy who was thrown out for his untidiness. Served him right but then the newbies tended to have to learn at least once he supposed, though he had seemed to just go a bit too far.

Soon enough the class started and the second year didn't need any more distractions, so he focused on the professor and the two-word phrases that were written upon the board. He took a seat as directed and finally allowed, opening up his belongings for a quill and paper. Surviving the elements?! That was saying something. Ben copied them down onto a piece of parchment, leaving enough room for further notes between them but couldn't answer. He had no clue as to what they were other then possibly guessing at the translations.

Vinea could mean vine...right?

Instead he simply listened to what the other students came up with. Perhaps there might be more clues in their own words. At least the older students seemed to have a better grasp on the spells' latin roots.

Laura jumped when the Professor asked her the Question. "Well I was testing out a potion and well this happened and I would have gone to the healer miss but well I realised your class was starting and I didn't want to be late." Like the good student she was she couldn't bare to miss anything.

Laura just hoped the professor was buying this, and wasn't going to ask her what potion she was testing out. "Tessa can vouch for me, she was there as well." Laura so was going to let Tessa explain the beard. She was too nervous to answer the next question. She was more afraid of losing points.

Oh good, Leah and Hawthorne had joined her! It was nice to see them again and diffused some of Sophie's tension over being in the same room as Bellaire. She offered the two Hufflepuffs a smile before taking a seat when instructed.

Solid. It didn't seem as though any Ravenclaws had sat down early or gotten on the professor's bad side yet. Didn't seem that Hufflepuff nor Slytherin had been so lucky, with their bearded girl and uncleanly boy respectively, though they had brought it upon themselves.

The spells on the board? Nah, Sophie had no clue. Except for maybe that vinea funiculus was a spell to make vines more fun. Hah. Hahahah. But there was no way she was going to say that aloud. Maybe in Herbology - she trusted Bentley to appreciate her humor - but not in this class. No way. So Sophie stayed silent, but copied the spells onto a sheet of parchment in the meantime.

Bri sat down quietly and pulled out the stuff she needed for the day. She watched as the professor wrote on the chalk board. She copied down the words, but she didn't raise her hand to answer the question, for she had no idea what they meant. She planned on going to the library next time and try to find a book on Latin words, which may help her.

For the time being she listen to the other students give out answers, and waited for the professor to tell them the correct ones..

Spells. Marigold could sometimes tell what they were, sometimes not. But either way, these two spells she had never seen before. ARGH. Latin was so FRUSTRATING sometimes! Why couldn't the spells be turnathingintothis or something, huh? But she should probably guess anyway.

"It kinda looks like vine," she ventured.

Delilah stared at the two spells written on the board. She had absolutely no idea what those words meant so she couldn't really come up with an educated guess as what those spells are. She could, maybe, come with a few vague answers but people beat her to it. There was no point in just repeating what others already said. So, she just remained quiet and started taking notes.


.... Were they allowed to eat chocolate frogs in class? Just wondering.

Mo sat very still as he listened to the professor introduce the lesson, although he was watching both the professor AND the plants nearest to him. He kinda thought they were moving, and he really hoped they were NOT moving. Just dealing with plants... that he could handle, but if there were creatures in there and he had to do something horrible to them...

He'd leave.

Erm, what was the question? Mo raised his hand and made a grimace face that was as close to a smile as he could manage. "Professor, I'm not fluent in Latin, as it is not a course we study at Hogwarts, but based on your suggestion that we are creating tools for survival in the jungle, I would suspect we will be making something multi-functional for trapping food and making shelter. Or perhaps a navigation tool." So so so sooo polite.

Seeing as he hadn't been pulled aside, Brad quickly took his seat and focused his attention on the board. And they were being asked what they thought the spells were for. He knew he recognized the end of the second one from somewhere, and the first word looked a lot like the word vine, so it had to be something with vines. Now, if only he could remember what the second word did......

"The second one could be used to unravel tangled vines, allowing you to get through, or release your leg if one happened to wrap around it." Sounded sensible to him.

So it had something to do with Vines? She wrote the words on her journal and listened to the classroom discussion, knowing that she already contributed her stupid two cents. So she had nothing else useful to work with. Unless someone opened up with a radical new idea or she became a random genius. Which probably wasn't going to happen.

And so the redhead played with her red, straight across bangs, doing what she habitually did with her hair. She started spacing out, thinkiing of going to the library after class and trying to start learning Latin. Because it was becoming clear that this was needed. Especially at Hogwarts.

She was going to have to plead for Latin flashcards and actually read her trasnfiguration book. And she knew the perfect place to do all of this. The tree where she hid things in the pathways. It was peaceful there, and no one could watch her weird study habits.

Survival Trasfiguration... others had already voiced their thoughts on the things on the board... but Sarah had more to say. She had not taken medicine this morning, and thus was as talkitive as ever "ooh.. I loved reading Survival books, usually the muggle kind like Robinson Crusoe and Swiss Family Robinson. Anyways... being magical things would be easier for us and much more fun. Like we can cast water to drink from our wands and therefor not need to camp near a water source. Although we could use a water source for fishing... I remember we transfigure coracles a while back. I think they are a usefull sailing craft, especially because you only need one to row and besides you can use it to carry coconuts or whatever... Could we summon coconuts?" Sarah lapsed into silence. SHe would let the others voice their opinions on the spells. She was feeling too creative today to do that. "oh and about the ropes.. can't we just use the rope conjuring spell?"

Survival..... would this be necsesary for after school? james wondered

Astrid stared at the spell stuff on the board.

OMG she didn't know what those spells were. The sound of JUNGLE SURVIVAL was soooo exciting but then the actual spells were so... eh. Maybe because she's never learned them or something? She continued to stare because she just didn't know what to answer, but she had to try at least to get it right. STARE. More staring. She didn't have Latin class in Beauxbatons or anything. She had no clue at all.

But... she needed to try. Whatever. Astrid raised her hand, testing her luck. "Vinea is really close to the word vine, Professor, so I'm guessing that spell has something to do with vines. But funiculus... " she paused for a while and pondered. "Isn't it related to some kind of cord thing?" Rope. Cord. Line. Whatever. Somehow the same thing.

So yeah, that was her answer. Enlighten me, nameless Transfiguration Professor.

Leah sat down quickly. She did not enjoy standing for a long time. Her eyes jolted back to the front as two spells appeared on the board. She had no idea whatsoever what they were, although what other people said about vines made absolute sense to her.

Christmas listened to what her fellow classmates were saying and took down notes of what they said it would help her study later in the year

Professor Bellaire looked at the boy and waited.....

Yes, well while he thought about his answer she would move on to the next person.

ooc: next time just post your charrie raising his hands then reply in one go.

"Testing potions my hide." Sophia had dealt with Laura before and it was never just as it seemed with her. Hmmmm. She would certainly investigate this but not during her class time. "I'll address you and your beard after class Miss Hyde."

No, that wasn't exactly correct but he had a general idea, sort of and that was better than being completely wrong.

"Not exactly but it has to do with vines definitely."


Close, very close and half right. He got a semi nod. "Well it has nothing to do with navigation but the spell does strengthen and lengthen the vines before turning it into rope."

So they were thinking but they was thinking along the wrong lines. She shook her head slowly.

"The spell has nothing to do with navigation or hut building but at least you're thinking."

Though the raft was very close..very close but a raft was not a boat.


O____________________O Spaghetti? "Really Miss Fischer? No. Maybe if you had breakfast your mind would be out of the kitchen. And while you're at it familiarize yourself with Gamps Law. You don't transfigure food, but you did at least recognize the boat bit."

Sophia shook her head. "No that is what the disillusionment charm is for."

Sophia shook her head." No there are fire spells." Lots and lots of fire spells. "Also simply rubbing mud on yourself will disguise your scent."


This sounded like something that would come from Bentley. A lot of imagination. "There will be no swinging with monkeys Bartholomew. Please pay attention."


Blink Blink. He could a smile though because he was Theodore Kingley, even if he was not exactly the brightest spark in her class.

"Very good Theodore."

Biased.


"No we are not navigating with this spell." She wasn't ure if she should address the whole leg bit because it was just sooo far off...so was fudge nd fungus. But thinking was happening.

She was doing okay, a little more than okay actually until she starting talking about what other people were saying. She frowned slightly.

"You had me until you started telling me what everybody else are saying but your first attempt was good."



"Though coconuts are my favourites we will not be conjuring coconuts, especially since coconuts would fall under food." She heard what she said to Miss Fischer right?

"We could but note how the vine becomes an automatic swing and wraps tight on the plant? You'd conjure the robe but then you'd have to string it to swing and why go the muggle route?" Muggle..meh...




It made her quite happy to know that at least some students had done some reading over the holiday and hadn't come back blank slates. It certainly made her job easier...in some respect.

"Right on the mark students. Lignum Navicula transfigures fallen tree trunks, wood etc into small boats and vinea funiculus transfigures vines into ropes." Exciting wasn't it?

"Because of the nature of these spells, no fancy wand work will be needed a simple point and tap will do. You point at the vines and tap the wood." Clear enough?

"Notice that the wood pieces aren't quite big and that was on purpose. When we do part two of this lesson we will make the wood bigger and do bigger boats and longer vines."

She moved over to the wood and took one from the pile then put it at the front of the class and tapped it, clearly saying Lignum Navicula, then watched as the wood transfigured into a small boat, perhaps big enough to hold her grandson but no one much bigger. As for the vines, she took one up and hung it across two plants then pointed at it and the frail vines became fortified rope. Did they all see that?

"And that is all we'll be doing today. Please come forward and take a piece of wood and vine."