Apparently saying please in one's mind did not make a spell work. Adi eyed his still deflated balloon. This was just like in Transfiguration classes where he always seemed to have a difficult time. No matter, though. He'd try again.

"Helic umtus!'' Adi flicked his wand a bit. Argh! Still frustratingly nothing. "Helic umtus!'' Oh look! Finally! The balloon was swelling. Awesome. But...noooo. Not awesome, yo. For some reason the balloon quit inflating.

The Puffer officially hated this spell.

"Helic umtus," By now, she had repeated the spell countless times and wasn't even aware of it. She sort of got stuck on repeat as she twirled the balloon in her hand and watched those around her. You'd think she'd have been able to solve the problem where she got distracted easily by now. But nope, still got distracted easily like a five year old.

She saw the snake making his way towards her. Better! She was in no hurry to finish and sit doing nothing. So might as well those who were younger and had less experience with conjuring spells. "Hey, Ethan," she smiled back at Ethan. "Sure thing," Nodding she took his pack of balloons and ripped it open. Yeah, he probably was capable of doing that.

"I'm gonna need you to help me hold the balloon as I fill it up," Let's make sure she didn't soar up into the air while she lost her grip. Not that it was the only thing that could go wrong. Why was she thinking like that again? Dismissing the pessimistic thoughts, she focused on the fact that she knew she could do this spell. Mhhm.


Another someone! Cassia smiled at the lil' girl. "Of course," she answered with a nod. She'd seen the Hufflepuff try and do the spell just a bit ago. And it was impressive that the girl wanted to make sure she could not do it herself before asking for help. Showed potential, this one did.

"Pick a balloon, and I'll fill it up and show you how it's done," She might not be able to do it just this year but it hopefully would be helpful to see someone preform it for the future. "I'm Cassia, by the way," Because names were important and all.

She just stared at Ian. He was sounding like a professor himself. Ah, it was something that his dad had said. That made sense even if she personally wouldn't go around repeating it. "I guess, but I still don't have a completed balloon." So what good did that do her really?

More staring. Were they 5? "I don't want to keep your bloody balloon." She only wanted to suck some helium out of it so she could make cool voices. It wasn't too much to ask in her opinion. That was when Ian started muttering something that sounded to her like an insult. Did he want to get his toes stomped on? Because she was just the one to do it. She didn't remember Ian being so cheeky. She wasn't really bothered by it though. AJ could handle her own.

Ignoring his little comment she decided to show him what was up by getting the spell right this time. For what felt like the fifteenth time she placed the balloon on her wand. "Helic umtus." She flicked her wrist. The balloon started to inflate, and it kept going beyond the point of where it previously went. It was happening. Then all of a sudden without any warning the balloon flew off and smacked Ian right in the cheek. See... her balloon didn't appreciate the snarkiness either.

"Helic umtus!'' Adi tried again and flicked his wand. "Helic umtus! Helic umtus! Helic umtus!'' Flick. Flick. Flick. The balloon stubbornly remained half inflated. The Hufflepuff was seriously getting annoyed now. He knew Professor Airey said it was advanced magic but it was very frustrating to be trying without achieving proper results.

Okay. Adi needed to calm down and re-focus. ''Helic umtus!'' Flick. Much to his surprise and relief, the object continued to swell. And this time it didn't stop. Great! So...Airey said something about a watermelon size? Yeah, the balloon was there. "Finite!''

Too bad he hadn't mastered the spell because it took him numerous duds and twice with the spell working to fill the balloon. But on the bright side, he had accomplished the task.

Practical portion? Brilliant!

No really, it was. And MUCH better than jogging, thank you.

And he had NEVER heard of a radiosonde before. Not even once. It was probably because of this that curious Grayson straightened up a little and craned his neck to see the special little device. It looked.......... complicated. Great. Just freaking great. This was exactly what he needed. Something that was complicated and something he didn't know how to use.

A new spell, too. Which meant that practice was necessary. "Helic umtus........... helic....... helic......... helic......... helic.......... umtus..... umtus........... umtus.......... umtus......... umtus...... umtus......." While he chanted this, Grayson grabbed a balloon and attached it to the end of his wand. Flicking was dead easy so he only tried to flick his wand in the balloon once he had finished chanting. Only once. Uh huh.

Here went nothing: "Helic umtus!" he called, flicking his wand with one hand while the other hand held onto the end of the balloon.

And what happened?

Nothing, that's what.

Lame.

Angel decided that she would try this spell. "Helic Umtus!!" Angel had no idea how she was going to do this spell she'd never heard it before so had no idea what to do. "Helic Umtus." Angel had the spell down and she practiced the wand movement.

Angel grabbed a balloon and decided to try and fill the balloon up. "Helic Umtus." Angel said as she did the wand movement and was happy when the balloon started to go until.

*BANG!!!!!*

Angel jump a bit as the balloon popped on her. "I'm a school girl, not a scientific engineer." Angel giggled as she thought about what she had said, seriously she used to love watching star trek and it was true she wasn't a scientific engineer.

So not wanting to over-think and be the obvious claw that he is. He did the thing with the balloon. Stick the wand in the balloon and hope the spell worked and filled it up. He practice it and did not know if it worked because of previous thoughts. So time to see if it actually works on a balloon. He had faith since he was not doing this non-verbal.

"Helic Umtus"

Nigel cast with the flick......Look at that his balloon was filling up like magic. Since that was settled and Nigel did not want to get up. He summoned that thing he needed from Airey's desk. It was a tangled mess, when he caught it. But it was better than getting up to get it and nobody was running around the room to get hit in the face with one.

All that was left was put the balloon in this....or on this. Hwo did this thing work. It looked like you could whip at someone and it would cause some damage.

It was finally time for the practical part. The best part about classes if Kevin had to be honest. He didn't have the attention span to listen to Professors talk on and on about theories. He had completely blocked out the HAT STEALING Professor' voice while he had been talking and only began to pay attention again when he started to explain the activity.

So they had to puff magical air in to a balloon?. PFFFT HOW EASY WAS THAT?! Kevin had actually let out a laugh. Yes, he heard that it was a very difficult and advanced magic ...But he was Kevin , he could do E-VE-RY-THING. He flicked his wrist and grabbed his phoenix feather wand out of his wrist holster. Just a flick right? Wait, what was the incantation?

The kid listened and when he knew it he teared the package from the table and picked out a balloon. Then he flicked his wand and shouted "Helic umtus!" .............Of course, nothing happened so he tried again. "Helic umtus!" WOOOOOOSH! The balloon in his hand caught fire and Kevin shrieked before he dropped it on the floor and stomped on the fire-balloon, effectively putting out the small fire. He hadn't even thought of using Aguamenti...

The balloon stuck under his shoe now and Kevin made a face as he tried to take it off by scraping his shoe over the floor. Like a gum sticking under his shoe. Picking another balloon, Kevin took a deep breath and flicked his wand. "Helic umtus!" again ..nothing happened. Not even a small puff of air.

Did this mean he had to ASK for an older student for help? UUUUGH. The boy looked around , searching for someone he could command in helping him out.

Carefully Adi retrieved his wand before tying the end of the balloon. What was next? Oh yeah! Get that thingy from Professor Flamsteed's desk. Adi did just that

Now, here he was attaching the radiosonde's string to the inflated, watermelon sized balloon. That didn't take too long to do and soon he was done with this part of the activity. Soooo. What's next, Professor?

This class was on her list of least favourites ever. She was beginning to get hungry, and despite walking when they were supposed to be running and notably ignoring the bumping thing in favour of rubbing her arms and trying to keep herself warm instead of getting up and close and personal with dead annoying rugrats. Emphasis on the annoying. Once given a task to do though, she was a little happier. Something to do and not want to hit every living human.

She was just putting her first balloon over the end of her wand when a sense of warmth caught her from somewhere to her left, and like a bug she flocked towards it. But it was just that annoying brat from potions setting fire to his balloon like an idiot. Instead of testing the spell on her own balloon, she folded her arms and watched. Another try and he was a fail. Bravo, kid. Bravo.

"You got something to ask, rugrat?" Ask it. Use your words.

Definitely not your wand..because he was a joke.

Rugrat?!

Kevin turned his head to see who was calling him that and saw the Hufflepuff Prefect standing near him , watching with her arms folded. The second year narrowed his eyes and sent a glare in the girl's direction. "First of all, do NOT call me that, got that?" he had pointed his wand at her face "and second, i can do this perfectly fine!" he then moved his wand away from her flicked his wand again, saying the incantation. For the nth time, the spell hadn't worked and the Gryffindor was starting to lose his almost-non-excisting patients. With a loud and annoyed huff, he turned back to her.

MWEEEEH! this was stupid. And he demonstrated that it was stupid by throwing the balloon on the floor out of frustration and then grabbed another one. "Help me out here, NOW" it hadn't been a question. The words were spoken in his commanding voice. It worked on Zander.....he doubted it would work on her but it was worth the try.

Once the balloon had flown around the room a couple of times. It landed somewhere far, far away. Where had it gone? He set off to look for this pesky balloon. Seriously? Who thought balloons could be so evil? Simon didn't think so. Perhaps all balloons had a vendetta against him?

Simon eventually found it on the opposite side of the classroom. Picking it up again, he held it in his right hand and then cast the spell with a subtle flick of his left hand, "Helic umtus!" The balloon started to grow again; however, Simon kept his eyes focused and his hands firmly grasped on the balloon. Once it was to the size of a nice juicy watermelon, he cast, "Finite" Then he quickly tied the balloon.

Finally.

Then he went up to grab a radiosonde from Professor Airey. He gave the Professor a nod as if to say 'Don't mind the flying balloons, sir. All is going well.' Then he headed back to his own space. The radiosonde was an interesting little thing with a temperature sensor and an antenna sticking out from somewhere. He found the string and then carefully tied it around his balloon.
Perfect.

Now.. What was next?

Oh.

That was how it was. With her arms already crossed, Elodie raised her eyebrow at the wand pointed at her face and considered snapping it in half or hexing him herself. Instead of listening to what he had to say though, she talked over him. "That arm you so love to elongate with your wand will be gone in ten seconds if you don't get it out of my face, child." Oh, he'd picked one of the worst people to glare at and threaten. For a moment, she was sure she was close to her face being the receiving end of a rugrats rage, but his wand was gone before anything seriously happened and he demonstrated how much inferior he was with his wand afterwards.

NOW? Really? "Okay, toddler boy, you want help? Say please." Because he sure as heck wasn't getting anywhere demanding things with her. And to prove her point, she was going to blow her own balloon up. "Helic umtus," and a flick of her wand caused her balloon to explode into little confetti sized pieces. Crap.

"That was my impression of you, and now I'll show you how it's done." Now it just had to go right or she was going to have to hex the kid until she could escape and pretend she hadn't even been there. Repeating the wand movement and the incantation, Elodie watched as her balloon started to inflate and glanced at him as smug as she could. See? Genius. She cast a Finite and tied the end into a knot.

"Now, do you have something to ask?" Or was he going to continue to be a brat and tempt her to toss him out of the tower?

Activity time...check.
Making a weather balloon...check.
Must inflate the balloon...double check.
Harder conjuration spell to do just that...?

Sigh.

Ben wasn't one to go crawling for help right off the bat. Or even that easily after not getting it right away. The third year prefered to try it all on his own if he could which was what he was going to do. For now. He took out his wand, the most important item needed at the moment. Then with the balloon that had been made available in his other hand, the third year slipped it's opening over the wand tip. Securing it as directed with the grasp on his hand.
Set-up complete, now there was the complicated spellwork. Not that either the incantation or the wand work seemed all too hard. It had to be in the concentration and the actual magic involved. Benny took a deep breath and counted to three inside his head as he tried to envision blowing up the balloon.

One...two...three.

"Helic umtus!" The balloon stretched a little, forming a small rounded shape in his grasp but stopped.

Angel was totally lost about what she was doing, the spell wasn't working that well at the minute, she had already destroyed a balloon. "Helic umtus!" Angel thought really hard about the spell, she wanted to make sure she was saying it right. "Helic umtus!" Angel beamed, she was sure she was saying it right, okay now she could try again.

Angel got a new balloon and then she concentrated really hard. "Helic umtus!" Angel did the wand movement and sighed, as nothing happened, this was getting really hard.

Angel was getting ready to throw her wand anywhere she could because the spell just wouldn't work, if she did get it to work then it work to well because once the balloon had gone bang and the next time it had just not worked.

"Helic umtus!" Angel did the wand movement again but nothing happened, maybe she did need someone to help.

"HELP!!!!" Angel was really struggling now, she wished her sister would tell her what was going wrong.

She could handle this. Marigold got her balloon and carefully wrapped it around her wand tip. She decided she would just go for the spell and see if it worked. "Helic umptus!" she said, and was quite pleased to see the balloon slowly inflate. She tapped her feet on the ground under the table as she waited for the balloon to inflate. A couple minutes went by until the balloon was watermelon sized. She carefully tried to remove her wand from the balloon…

BRZST!

She looked on with horror as her balloon whirred off the wand and sailed around the classroom. Cheeks glowing with embarrassment, she turned back to her desk and grabbed another balloon. Maybe no one would notice.

"Helic umptus," she murmured, then watched carefully until her balloon was the proper size. She removed it slowly, tied the end, and only then was she able to relax.

WOOT!

The spell had worked, and Sophie had ended it just in time to have a nice, watermelon-sized balloon. Sophie grinned at her success then made her way to the professor's desk. They were meant to pick up some radio-something had had over there. She knew what she was looking for. She just didn't remember what to call it.

Oh, well.

Sophie collected a radio-something then brought it back to where she'd been working before. One more step, and she'd be all done.

Kace understood the concept. They were learning a new spell. It was called Helic umptus. Hmm how do you pronounce it? He wrote it out first in his notebook and did it this way. Hel-ic Ump-tus. Alright he got it now once he sounded it out. Now to practice a little saying it out loud.

"Helic umptus.......Helic umptus.....Helic umptus...Helic Umptus....Helic Umptus!"

Now he got the hang of it. He got the balloon from his desk and put it over his wand. He held it around so it wouldn't move. He needed to blow it up to like a size of a watermelon. He can accomplish that. He said the incantation, "Helic Umptus!" and then it started to blow up and then.....

BURST!!!!!!

AGHH!! It popped! Woaahhh he did not expect that! Welp time to try it again!

Hope the Gryffindor had hope.

Did no one else see the thumbs up? They'd be going up in balloons in no time. That was how she'd read into things anyway. Like, Airey wouldn't just crush all her hopes and dreams like that. He knew how easily she filled up with hope and how hard it was for her to deflate from that hope after.

Yes, this was totally a thing. It was happening.

Lex nicked a balloon from the packet on her table and pulled her wand from it's holster. Sure she'd heard the Professor say they should help the younger ones but they seemed to be doing just fine--WHOOOOSH!!

What the kneazle? If she hadn't ducked that might have thwacked her right in the face. Rubber had the potential to sting, you know. So maybe they didn't have it as much as she thought they did. A glance around told her Kevin definitely didn't and was having a grand time bothering Elodie about it. In truth, it was better her than Lex. "Helic umtus!" After conjuring snow flowers, conjuring something something as light as Helium didn't seem so hard.

Thanks Bellaire!!

While her balloon filled up she kept her eyes peeled for any strugglers.

This freaking spell was more difficult than it looked. Sure, the man had said advanced but, being the teen that he was, Grayson had taken no note of it. He had always thought that those words were merely said to make people feel better about failing the first time round. He wouldn't have been surprised if it was mentioned in those staff training days that had happened in Muggle schools.

Try again, Whitty. "Helic umtus!" he called, a little louder this time, while flicking his wand. The Slytherin's eyes widened as the balloon seemed to swell up. He even let out a small gasp as watched intently as it swelled slowly to the size of............

............... an average doorknob.

Deadpan.

"We're not going to get very far with this spell if you're not going to cooperate, balloon." Because it was the balloon's fault. Entirely. "We're going to try that again, mkay?" Good. And here's hoping nobody had seen him talking to a balloon. Just like he was going to pretend that he didn't notice a balloon flying around. LOL.

"Helic umtus!" Flick!

"Thank you," Hayden said brightly, even though she hadn't done anything yet. Maybe she shouldn't be so quick with her praise, but she was sure that this girl would do great. Hayden chose the balloon she wanted, a yellow one, and held it toward the girl. She pinched the balloon around the opening so the balloon wouldn't fly away when it was filled. "I'm Hayden," she said in return, yay for introductions.

Hold the balloon. Got it! Ethan grinned at the Head Girl and got himself a nice green coloured deflated balloon from the packet and showed it to Cassia. Oh and thanks for opening the bag of balloons too! That was kinda unexpected, but Ethan took note of it. More sheepish smile from this boy. Hehe. “I can help you too, yeah? I think that’s just fair.” Ethan’s pretty sure that Cassia can handle this easy peasy task, but it didn’t hurt to offer help, especially she’s his dorm mate after all.

Oh and hello little person! “Haaai!” Hayden, yeah? Noted. A grin for you too! "The name's Ethan, just in case you're wondering."

Jasmine had been furiously taking notes as the Professor was talking. Trying to keep up, she was a bit on information overload. This exercise seemed a bit complicated or at the least, labor intensive. Listening to all of he details about the spell they would cast, Jasmine decided to practice the incantation first.

Glancing briefly at her notes, Jasmine began to say, "Helic umtus" It was pretty straightforward, but she continued to practice the incantation several more times. Feeling fairly comfortable with the words, Jasmine thought that she was more than capable of giving her wand a small flick. Just to be sure though, she practiced a few flicks before moving on.

Picking up the package of balloons fom the table, Jasmine opened it and carefully took out one balloon. Then she placed it over the tip of her wand and held the balloon securely in place with her fingers. Jasmine tried very hard to concentrate on the task at hand and visualize her balloon growing in size. Finally she said, "Helic umtus", while giving her wand a slight flick. Jasmine breathed a big sigh of relief as she watched her balloon start to expand. When it seemed to have grown to the proper size, she said, "Finite". Thankful that she got lucky on the first try, Jasmine checked her notes for the next step.

Alright time to do the spell again. He will be more cautious this time. He didn't want to pop another ballon. He got one and put it over his wand. He did it carefully to prevent rips and then he said the incantation, "Helic Umtus!" then it was blowing up till the size of a watermelon and then he said "Finite!" and the balloon seemed good. It was in tip top shape. He was proud of himself. Now onto the next activity. He waited patiently and tied the end of his balloon to prevent it from flying around.

Radiosonde!

That's what the instrument was called! As Sophie reached her desk again, she suddenly remembered the whole word for the object she was now carrying in her hands. Well. Now that that was settled, she needed to move on to the next step.

Sophie stared at the instrument and recalled how to attached it to the balloon. Or...attach the balloon to it rather. She untied the string on one end and began the process of tying the balloon to that end. That was what she was supposed to do, right?

Well, she guessed Flamsteed would stop her if it wasn't. When it was done, she just glanced around the room and waited to be told what to do next.