As if the incantation wasn't complicated enough, the wand movement was just as complicated. Adi peered at his notes. ''Counter clock-wise swirling motion with the wand pointing up at the cloud,'' he read. Really, who had thought up such a movement?

He focused on mastering it. Adi moved his wand in the counter clockwise swirling motion all the while keeping his wand pointing upward at his cloud. He practiced it again. And again. And again. Until he got it.

Now it was time to practice on his cloud!

What kind of spell was THIS? Whoever invented it needed to go sit in time out and think about what they'd done because that incantation was a mouthful. Sophie was grateful when Bellaire repeated it and immediately set to repeating it in her head as many times as she could to make it stick. Stiricidium Nubila. Stiricidium Nubila. Stiricidium Nubila.

"Sti-ri-ci-di-um Nu-bi-la?" She tried that aloud first, then other variations, "Stir-ic-id-ium Nub-il-a. Sti-ric-id-i-um Nu-bi-la." Merlin. Was Bellaire certain this wasn't some joke? Apparently it was real, as others started making things happen with their own clouds already.

Practicing the counter-clockwise swirling of her wand, Sophie took her time, listening for the other students' pronunciations and viewing their progress. Rain? Hail? Were those birds and rocks falling from some clouds?

Now it was time for the real deal. Jasmine had to put the incantation and the wand movement together to hopefully make a new cloud. Concentration was key. She tried to visualize the cloud that she wanted to end up with and picture snow falling. Jasmine tried hard to concentrate on her desired result.

Jasmine pointed her wand at her fluffy cloud and gave it a counterclockwise swirl. At the same time, she said, "Stiricidium Nubila". She looked up, hoping to see her cloud turning black. It started to turn black alright, but instead of snow........rain started to fall......on Jasmine.......and it wasn't a drizzle. "Oh man", she said in very wet frustration. "Finite", mercifully ended the spell. Jasmine tried to quickly repair the damage she had caused. Using the hot air charm, she tried to dry herself off the best she could. Of course she had to try again, but minus the rain next time........hopefully.

This was a pretty awesome spell and one Nigel had never heard of. Which made it awesomely awesome. The wand motion and incantation were a bit different so practice was most definitely needed. Like the motion was a counter clock-wise swirling motion with the wand pointing up at the cloud. Straight forward enough. No need to ask questions or anything.

"Stiricidium.......Nubila" "Stiricidium Nubila". "Stiricidium Nubila".

Practice Makes Perfect,

Sophie followed along as the professor detailed the difference in the types of clouds they'd be working with. Hmm...okay. Sounded easy enough. Of course, that would all depend on what happened when she actually cast the spell. Sophie watched the demonstration and made a good mental note of the incantation and wand movement. Of course she knew to have intent. She'd gotten that down pat in first year.

Sooo, time to try that spell.

First, the incantation by itself. "Stiricidium Nubila!" she said aloud. Deciding to try again for good measure, she said, "Stiricidium Nubila!"

Beverly observed Bellaire critically, taking in everything from the wand movement to the incantation, and made mental notes. Since this was a complicated spell, she wanted to make sure she understood the visual of how it's done. Once the demonstration was done, Beverly turned toward her little puff of cloud.

She eyed it. Then tapped her wand against her chin. It was going to listen and do as she say. There was no other way. Simply wasn't.

The Slytherin decided to start with getting a grip of the incantation first. No need to produce a tornado or hurricane. "Stiri-ci-dium...Nu-bi-la..." She felt like a freaking five year old. But she MUST get it right. "Sti-ri-ci-dium...Nu-bi-la."

Norah screwed up her face and stared down that little cloud. As cute as it was, it was proving to be very annoying. Cute things tended to do that, apparently. She pointed her wand again and said, "Stiricidium Nubila! imitating professor Bellaire's wand motion. And for the bazillionth time in a row, nothing happened. With a frustrated huff she flicked a strand of hair that had made it's way into her field of vision and pointed her wand at the cloud again. She could swear it looked smug. As smug as clouds can look, anyway. "Stiricidium Nubila! she cried again. And something...happened. Instead of snow, her cloud was sending down...birds? Whaaaat? She glared at her cloud. It was a cloud not an egg, why was it sending down birds? SIGH. She flicked her wand at the cloud and muttered, "Finite," ending the downpour of birds immediately. So THAT spell decided to work? And anyway, why birds? Couldn't it rain candy or something? That'd be much better motivation.

Stiricidium Nubila. Merlin. It was a mouthful. Ethan gave his cloud the stink eye and imagined it to be producing snow. That’s how it’s supposed to be right? The Slytherin got distracted with his other classmates, whose clouds began producing…well…weird stuff.

Right. Right. FOCUS. “Stiricidium Nubila.” Welp, looks like he got it already. The wand movement—counter-clockwise movement of the wand while pointing upwards. Check.

The game is on! Ethan stood up straight, gave his cloud a look and pointed his wand upward. “Stiricidium…” Counter… “Nubila!” Clockwise! The Slytherin waited and watched his cloud grow bigger and darker…looking like it was getting mad or something…then…HAIL???! Ethan ducked and covered his head as his cloud began to shower him with hail. “Ouch. Ouch. Ouch.” Really, hail? The curious Slytherin crouched and picked up a piece and placed it inside his mouth. “It is hail!” Ethan made a squirmy face afterwards. “Brain freeze...” More hail came down and Ethan pointed at his cloud. “Finite. FINITE!” Merlin.

oh wow everything was right to the point *faints* things were moving so fast now.. okay he couldn't write down the incantation so he had to remember it and not to mention it was a long one and he was bad enough at pronunciation… great.. just…great.. should he just fake sick and get out of the class he wished he brought some of his prank sweets with him to class… ughhhhhh… maybe he could fake a stomach ache? but he highly doubted that this Professor would let him leave.

thinking about the spell he tried to say it out loud "Stir-ice-dam Nib-ila" it sounded right ish… he was just having such a bad day. he did the correct wand movement though, a counter clockwise turn and pointed it up at the sky. So now that those were practiced well he thought they were, he decided to give it a try he was already full of snow flakes from the Professor's demonstration.

he swished his wand and said what he thought was correct "Stiricedam Nibila" and then bam instead of snow he was getting BIRDS??? O_o……. why was he getting birds.. did he not do something right? if it was anything it was the spell. Bay wished he could hit his head off his desk but only if he knew if he wasn't going to get into trouble for it.. Birds kept swooping around aiming for his head as he put up his wand and used the ending spell to stop the birds from scratching his face. looks like he will have to keep trying.

Kace was listening to the professor talk and understood what was going on. He took notes on this stuff. I mean he needed to. So apparently the spell was Stiricidium Nubila. This might be difficult to pronounce but he will get to that bridge when he came to it. He saw the snowflakes and stood there in awe. Now THAT was cool! He copied down the wand movement which was a counter clock-wise swirling motion. He got it now onto practicing saying the spell.

He began saying the spell, "Stir-ic-id-ium...Nub-ila." he said. Then he began to repeat it. "Stir-ic-id-ium...Nub-ila......Stir-ic-id-ium...Nub-ila.....Stir-ic-id-ium...Nub-ila....Stir-ic-id-ium...Nub-ila....." He nodded his head while repeating it.

Then he put it all together. "Stiricidium Nubila.....Stiricidium Nubila....Stiricidium Nubila...Stiricidium Nubila...Stiricidium Nubila...Stiricidium Nubila." He got the hang of it. Now onto doing the wand movement.

Wasting no time, Adi pointed his wand to his assigned cloud. "Stiricidium Nubila!'' Cue the wand movement- counter clockwise swirling motion while pointing upwards as the cloud. Waaait! Something was actually happening! Transfiguration stuff don't usually work for him on the first try. The cloud turned darker and...rain happened. Go figure. The first time something happened on the first try, it was the wrong thing.

Just at that moment, Adi happened to glance over at AJ. Had anything happened to her cloud? "Hey, AJ,'' he said. "Did the spell work for you?''

Toby was getting all of this down... barely. His handwriting was a bit dodgy when he was trying to use his own knee as a desk, but he figured that maybe Soph would lend him her notes if his were too... impossible to read.

But yep, PRACTICAL PORTION. Although, first he'd try the incantation and the wand movement WITHOUT the spell, because he could tell that this was gonna be a tricky one. And Tobias Tempus did not find Transfiguration easy on a GOOD day, not at all.

He did the wand movement first, because that seemed like the easiest thing. Just... a swirling motion with his wand pointed up at the clouds. And in a... wait, what direction?Oh yeah, anti-clockwise. Cool.

Toby practiced just that for a moment, trying to mirror Bellaire's movements exactly as he aimed his wand up at the cloud about him. Dududuuuuuuuuuu.

And of course he also needed that tricky incantation.

"Striricidicidum Nubila." Nailed it. "Wait, no... Striric- no. Sti-ri-ci-di-um Nu-bi-la. Sti-ri-ci-di-um Nubila. Stiricidium Nubila." Over and over again Toby repeated it to himself. Yeah, this was something that was pretty important to get right. Only once he had this down was it a good idea to properly practice the spell.

So Adi managed to make his cloud do something too, and she was starting to wonder what was wrong with her. She said the spell right, well... pretty close to what it was supposed to be, and she did the swirly movement and everything.

"Hey Adi. I got a big fat nothing." Not a thing. "I think I did everything right...watch." Maybe he could tell her what she was doing wrong. Striricidicidum Nubila!" She made sure her wand was pointed up at her cloud and did the counter clockwise swirly motion, and this time her cloud looked like it was swelling, and then it went right back to it's original state. "See."

"Stiricidium Nubila."" The incantation rolled off her tongue without a hitch. Beverly knew that wasn't going to be enough. According to the professor it took concentration and practice; something she wasn't all that enthused about because she liked getting things on the first try--but if it was so she could get better, then be it. She'd practice until she got the spell down.

As for what she was going to do next was give the wand movement a go. That one she wasn't too worried about, or at all. It was a clock-wise swirled. Beverly did just that. Swiiiirl. Easy, yeah?

Her eyes flitted over to the cloud. It was time. Time to practice and transform this piece of fluff. "Stiricidium Nubila!""

Mo was ready to try the spell out on his cloud. Sort of. He really DID wish that he could keep it fluffy and white and happy looking, but that was sort of not the point, right? He eyed up the cloud briefly before opting to just DO it already, and Mo made the circular motion with his wand.

"Stiricidium Nubila," he spoke clearly, and continued to crank his wand in a circle as that little white cloud grew and darkened and flattened and became increasingly ominous. Merlin, what if it turned into a thunderstorm instead of a snowstorm? Were his shoes rubber-souled?

He paused to check his shoes, and the lack of wand motion with the spoken incantation caused his growing dark cloud to deflate and de-darken. At least he had his fluffy white cloud again, right? Merlin... time to start over.

Stiricidium Nubila. Now that was a tough word to pronounce. "Stiri-cu-ci-dium." Nope. He repeated a few times in his head until he was confident he could pronounce it out loud. "Stiricidium Nubila." Boom, there we go.

Okay. Declan pointed his wand at his pet cloud. Okay, cloudie. Time to change. He swirled it counter clockwise, "Stiricidium Nubila." He watched his cloud grow a bit darker, but the hail bombarding his head was obviously not rain. Uggghh. No. Trial two...

"Finite!'' The cloud stopped raining and returned to normal before turning back to AJ. "Well, that's not unusual, you know,'' he said. "Stop being so impatient.'' He grinned. Adi surely knew all about being impatient to getting his spells right. "It takes a while before something happens for me in this class but the rain coming from this cloud was unexpected.'' Meh. Had he concentrated on rain instead? O_O

"Let's try again. See who gets it first?'' The Puffer grinned. He knew AJ liked competition so this might motivate her? "Remember to concentrate fully on the spell.'' And with that bit of info, Adi said, ''Striricidicidum Nubila!" and did the wand movement.

The result? Not a darn thing fell from the cloud.

Her impatient? Yeah, he had a point, but she wanted results yesterday, and could you blame her really? HA! I guess I'll try that." She had the urge to smack him with her parchment in a joking manner of course, but she was sure the professor would most likely freak, and she was not in the mood for a punishment. This lesson was punishment enough for her at the moment, thank you very much. "I see that." Yup, they were back to their joyful, playful ways, but when weren't they really?

Her eyes lit up when he mentioned seeing who would get the spell to work first. "Okay, you're on." She watched as he didn't get any results at all. "Bummer." It was her turn now. "Striricidicidum Nubila!" she cried while making the proper wand movement. At first it looked like she was getting nothing again when she noticed that a blob was forming. "Is that one giant raindrop?" She squinted above her, and at that very moment is when it fell and smacked her on the forehead. It was a rock... just one rock.

Sophie wasn't at all confident in this spell already simply due to the weird incantation. She was straining to hear for the pronunciations and stresses of syllables of people who were at least having mild success, and settled with one of those. "Stiricidium Nubila," she said slowly, then again, "Stiricidium Nubila." Also very slowly.

She was totally going to mess this one up, and it wasn't any more encouraging to see the failures of the other students. So... maybe she could just accept her forthcoming failure and give it a shot. Whatever.

Facing the cute little cloud that had assigned itself to her, Sophie gave it a little curtsy as if she was about to go on a date with it rather than make it into a menacing cumulonimbi or whatever cloud. She tried to envision what she wanted it to look like and she wanted it to change properly, "Stiricidium Nubila!" She was rotating her wand in a counter-clockwise movement at the cloud with big, eager eyes, anticipating... something... anything... and then a single cotton ball drifted to the floor below the cloud, and she lowered her wand in resignation.

Well. There was a start.

Angel was watching and dodging like crazy she didn't want to get hit by a single rock, suddenly she had an idea If she said the spell again surely that would work.

"Stiricidium Nubila" Angel did the wand movement and prayed that the rocks would go but then seemed to be coming down faster, "HELP!" Angel saw a rock heading straight for her so she did the only thing that she could think of and dived out of the way,

She just hoped she didn't hit anyone, she had no choice though it had been dive or get hit by the rocks and Angel thought that being hit by a rock would hurt so she had made up her mind as soon as she saw the rock coming.

Snow clouds? Penelope didn't know any spells, so how was she supposed to do a complicated spell like this? Stiricidium Nubila would be hard to pronounce. "Stiricidium Nubila," nothing. This might take a few tries. Carefully doing the wand movements, Penelope tried again, "Stiricidium Nubila!" This time, birds surrounded Penelope, swooping around her and pecking at her clothes. Great, now her uniform had feathers all over it. Penelope didn't know how to make the birds stop. "How do I make it stop?"

Still trying to figure out what to do about the birds, Penelope was not really paying attention to everything around her. Angel came from somewhere and bumped into Penelope. Falling down, Penelope was now stuck in a mess of falling rocks and swooping birds. "I don't know how to make it stop! The rocks were still falling, and the birds were still flying around her. [b]"Do you have any idea what to do, Angel?"]

Angel looked at the girl, she had knocked over. "I'm really sorry." Angel hoped that the girl would forgive her but at the minute they had bigger problems, they were in a classroom that had rocks falling and birds attacking, she had a feeling her friend was about as good as her at making this spell work,

"I've got an idea." Angel beamed as she got up and looked at the cloud. "I command you to stop!! Seize!! holt!!" Angel looked at the clouds as nothing happens. "Well it normally works on Television." Angel pouted as she looked at the clouds they just wasn't playing nice today. She was just a firstie and hadn't mastered spell yet, why they were doing such a tricky spell at her age was beyond her.

It looked like Angel didn't know what to do either. "It's okay. Things... happen sometimes." There just couldn't be a single class activity without something bad happening, could there. Why did all of the teachers have activities where people got hurt? Some of those rocks looked like they would hurt if they fell on her. "I don't think we can stop the rocks and birds! There is a spell that should stop it, but I don't know the spell!" Dodging rocks, Penelope tried to figure out what to do. There was no way that she and Angel would be able to stop this by themselves. They would have to get help from someone. "We could duck and cover to try to avoid the rocks, but one of the older students will probably know the spell to fix this," Birds were flying around Penelope, obstructing her vision. Finding an older student to ask for help might be harder than she thought. "Do you have any other ideas?"

Jasmine was finally dry and ready to try again. She couldn't help but notice that her fellow Claw Penelope and another girl seemed to be having a bit of trouble with the spell. They were being pelted by rocks and pecked by birds. Hearing Penelope say that she didn't know how to end the spell, Jasmine went over to give the girls a hand. "If you need to end the spell, all you have to do is say Finite." Then she demonstrated the wand movement for them. "Once you do that you'll be in good shape."

Going back to her practice area, Jasmine began to clear her mind and try to focus on the task at hand. She did not fancy another rain shower so she really needed to concentrate hard. Jasmine tried her visualization technique again, picturing her white cloud turning black with gentle snowflakes falling from it. The picture was clear in her mind so she hoped that it would work this time.

Saying, "Stiricidium Nubila", she pointed her wand at the cloud using the counterclockwise swirling motion. Looking up, Jasmine waited expectantly for the snowflakes. Bad move because this time she didn't get rain it was.......hail. "Ow", Jasmine said as a hailstone hit her right in the middle of her forehead. She quickly said, "Finite" and stopped the hail before too much damage could be done. Jasmine let out a big sigh. "Well at least I'm getting closer. At least it was frozen precipitation this time." Third time's the charm?

Staring at her cloud happened. Maddie's eyes were narrowed and she was observing the shape and size of it with mild interest. Really she was just stalling because she was sort of afraid of not being able to perform the spell. Transfiguration was difficult and she didn't want to fail in front of her fellow Claws. WHAT if they thought she was dumb and KICKED her out? Could they DO that? Her eyes widened at the thought and she shook her head. No way that was happening. If she practiced, she'd get better and then be able to do this for sure. Possibly. Yeah.

"Stiricidium Nubila...Stiricidium Nubila..Stiricidium Nubila..."

Taking a deep breath, Maddie raised her wand and concentrated. That was important, yeah? Concentrating on what was supposed to happen. Well she WAS doing that and she was eyeing the cloud and THEN she said clearly, "Stiricidium Nubila." A correct wand movement later and... ... ...

Nothing.

SIGH.

She wasn't giving up. Future leaders of the WORLD didn't give up. NOPE. She just needed to work harder or something. YEAH. She could DO this. GO TEAM MADDIE! MHM! So eyeing the cloud AGAIN, Maddie focused ALL her attention and energy on changing it! She was going to do SOMETHING to this cloud before class was up. She HAD to.

"Stiricidium Nubila!" After she'd done the wand movement, the first year STARED at her cloud because something WAS happening. Maybe not something BIG but SOMETHING. It looked like it was changing shape...sort of. AND it wasn't so WHITE anymore. It was more GRAYISH and YEAH. But... no snow. NO SNOW. That meant THIS was still a fail. SIGH. SIGH. EH.