She'd probably said the incantation a dozen times by now and her brain was slowly shutting from the monotony so it was time to get this show on the road before her wand went to sleep as well.

Lex glanced up at the cloud she was meant to be manipulating. One way or another she was going to get it to snow. Most likely there'd only be that one way, sure, but it hardly sounded as determined and try-hard when you only had one road you could take. The Gryffindor reached up and swished her wand around a few times in the cloud to check the density. It was gonna need to get thicker and start sprouting snow, yes?

Alright then. Intent....concentration...had to imagine the composition of the cloud changing into what she wanted it to be. Granted she didn't know what something like that would look like but she'd manage. The important thing was that it changed, yeah? And that when it changed...it wasn't to rain because this cloud was following her. One wrong spell and she'd be soaked. No thanks.

"Stiricidium Nubila!" Nothing. Or no, not nothing because the colour had darkened but in terms of falling, yeah, that was a nothing. Lex squinted up at the cloud, wondering if it might have been a matter of waiting.

Okay, now she was ready to start practicing the spell.

DEEP BREATH.

"Stiricidium Nubila!" She did the counter clock-wise swirling motion with her wand pointed up at the cloud. She waited. Waited. And waited. NOTHING. Nothing happened. "Stiricidium Nubila!" She tried it once more and still nothing. Her cloud just still looked the same. Sigh. Man, this one was difficult.

Concentration, Candice! "Stiricidium Nubila!" She did the correct wand movement and whatnot. Still nothing. YIKES. "Stiricidium Nubila!" Oh looked something happened to her cloud. It started to change. Ooohhhh.....Ohhhhhh...Ooohhhh...Her cloud started to grew. She diiiiiiiiiiiiid.....WHAT? When she thought she finally managed to get her cloud change, it went back to its normal size. What a bummer.

Okay ending spell. "Finite" Cris called out and was relieved to see that the hailing had stopped. The cloud grew less dark and returned to its normal size. Breathing a sigh of relief, Cris quickly banished the hail stones. He definitely didn't want a puddle of water on the floor.

Deciding to try again, Cris raised his wand up and pointed it at the cloud. Waving it in a counter clockwise swirling motion in a counter clockwise direction, he called out "Stiricidium Nubila"....and then waited.

He watched as the cloud grew vertically upwards and start to grow dark. ...and then it began to....

....do nothing.

Aye aye aye!

She had anticipated that some hiccups would occur, as it always did when spells were being performed, but jeez. She was beginning to think that hogwartians students were just prone to die or have near death experiences.

She pointed her wand at his cloud. "Finite. Focus, steady wrist, clear incantation. Try it again."

"If you are not seeing a reaction from the cloud, just attempt the spell again."

"I decided to start you off with a cumulus cloud because they are small and would be easier to transfigure. Naturally if you start off with a larger cloud the spell would need more skills and have a bigger outcome."

Sophia frowned and pointed her wand at the cloud hovering over the child's head. "Finite. Steady wrists and clear incantations please."

Sophia raised her brow and pointed her wand at the cloud." Finite. Concentrate and keep your wrist steady."

Mhm, they would need more practice. She pointed her wand at Ethan's cloud and muttered Finite. "You need to concentrate."


--------------------------------------

"Students, remember we have a project we need to start. We can't have an ice menagerie garden if we don't have snow and lots of it. Please concentrate and keep your wrists steady and the incantations clear."

She began walking through the students and inspecting their wand techniques.

When Professor Bellaire began to speak, Cris quickly ended his spell, non-verbally. Then he listened as she first replied to his earlier question and to the questions the other students had posed.

Focus, Steady Wrist, Clear incantation. Keeping that in mind, Cris looked up at the cloud overhead. He briefly closed his eyes to cleared his mind before focussing all his concentration on making his cumulus cloud into a cumulusnimbus snow producing cloud.

He first brought up the image of the cloud as it grew larger and darker. Then he visualized snow slowly falling down over his head. Concentrating as hard as he could to maintain that image in his mind, Cris opened his eyes, took a deep breath and slowly released it.

With that snow cloud image still strong in his mind, Cris raised his wand and pointed it at his cloud. Keeping his wrist steady, Cris waved his wand in a swirling counter clockwise direction and said the words to the incantation, clearly and with determination, "Stiricidium Nubila!"

He watched as the cloud above him began to grow vertically up and start to get darker. Cris hoped that he didn't end up creating a lightning storm instead because that would be a very bad thing. At first nothing happened, and then....

...'where did that small cotton ball come from?' were Cris' first thoughts. But as the cotton fell and touched the tip of his nose, he realized that it what he was seeing wasn't a cotton ball, mainly because that wouldn't have felt icy cold at all. However, this one did...and it also melted upon touching his nose.

As Cris watched, more snow flurries fell from his cloud and his eyes opened wide in wonder. He had actually made a snow cloud. Finally. Could he just keep that one up there or keep on practicing?

Cris decided that he would continue to practice. Pointing his wand up at the cloud, he ended the spell, saying,"Finite" Cris watched sadly as the snow stopped falling and the cloud returned to its previous shape.

"Stiricidium Nubila!" Sophie said a third time. Okay, so she should pretty much have the incantation down pat by now. She should give her a wand a whirl or two in the right way before really trying the spell. She raised her wand and turned it in a counter-clockwise swirling motion. That didn't seem too hard. She did the same motion again just for good measure before deciding that she was ready to put it all together and really try the spell.

Sophie positioned herself under the cloud and raised her wand. "Stiricidium Nubila!" she said. She turned her wand in a counter-clockwise swirling motion. She paused a few seconds waiting to see what would happen. A few seconds later, she felt a very soft, fluffy substance land on her nose. Then another and another after that. Wait. Was it raining cotton balls?

Rocks continuing to rain down from her cloud, Lux ended the spell with a simple, "Finite." It was time to try again, and fingers crossed she wouldn't cause it to rain rocks a second time. Or birds; the image of them swooping down on her was not particularly pleasant.

Listening as Professor Bellaire instructed them to watch their wrist work, speak clearly, and focus, she figured it was best to try harder. This project rested on her being able to do this first task successfully. Picturing a snow cloud in her head, she pointed her wand towards her little cumulus, swirling it in counter-clockwise motions. "Stiricidium Nubila." Watching, the cloud began to get bigger and darker before....doing nothing.

Well, at least it wasn't rocks or birds.

OK, she had seen rain and hail so far. Snow had to be next. Clearly Jasmine had been doing something wrong, but what? Hearing the Professor as she made her comments, Jasmine took note. She thought her visualizing was good. Were her wrists steady, was her incantation clear? She would do her best to make sure that they were this time.

Starting from scratch Jasmine went back to visualizing. Cloud..... darkening ....cold..... light snow. Check. She could see all of those things in front of her when she closed her eyes. Now if she could only transfer that to the real world.

Concentration.......

Taking a deep breath, Jasmine focused on her mental image. She pointed her wand upward toward the cloud and took one more deep breath. With a steady wrist, Jasmine waved her wand with a counterclockwise swirl and clearly said, "Stiricidium Nubila". Jasmine looked up with her eyes this time, not her head. When she saw the cloud darkening, she was almost afraid to hope. Shortly thereafter, she saw a few light white flakes falling from the cloud. They were sparse, but it was snow. Elated, Jasmine watched for a few moments more. She was excited, but even more anxious to try again. She would do it right the next time. Jasmine was sure of it.

Adi watched AJ have her shot at the cloud. Giant raindrop? Where? He squinted up at her cloud just as the blob fell and hit her squarely on her forehead. Resisting the urge to laugh, Adi asked, ''Are you hurt?'' Allowing himself to smile, he added, ''Better get out of the way before another rock comes for you.''

Now it was his turn again. "Striricidicidum Nubila!" And cue the wand movement! Adi waited patiently, standing a few steps away from his cloud just in case stones or something decided to come pelting out. But what did you know? Snow was falling! Adi stared in surprise. Was he improving at Transfiguration?

But the universe conspired against him and the flakes ceased as quickly as the had started. "Well, at least I made snow happen,'' Adi told AJ.

"You can laugh." Yes, she noticed that he was trying to hold it in. "I'm fine." She wasn't made of glass, and she was anxious to get right back at it. It would be nice if she could have some kind of success with this charm. "Good idea." She moved over a bit just in case the cloud decided to drop anything else on her head.

"Your turn." Hey eyes moved to Adi's cloud. Before her very eyes she saw the snow fall. "Wow!" Then it stopped almost as quickly as it started. "You're doing much better than me." That was the understatement of the century.

Ready to give it ago once more she pointed her wand at the cloud while doing the proper wand movement. "Striricidicidum Nubila!" The frst year looked on as cotton balls fell from the cloud. "It looks like snow." So she was getting better, maybe?

As Professor Bellaire spoke up Kyroh's eyes left his cloud and trailed to the woman. Uh-oh. They couldn't start the project unless they got this started. And he didn't want to be behind.

THIS time he would try for real.

Pulling his wand out again, Kyroh pointed it up to his cloud. He could be like Storm from X-Men making snow and stuff if he got this right!

It wasn't hard. A swirling counter clock-wise motion.

Stiricidium Nubila.

He took a deep breath. "Stiricidium Nubila!" Kyroh's wrist flicked counter clock-wise, exactly like Bellaire had shown then if not BETTER and-nothing.Had he said the incantation wrong? Shaking his head the first year tried again.

"Stiricidium Nubila!" His voice was clear and loud as his wand swirled and then something happened. His cloud had turned grey, first a light colour at first and then a darker one. And then it started to expand. And suddenly little white pieces began to fall from the cloud.

Kyroh grinned until one of the pieces hit his face. It felt like a rock but it didn't look like one. And then another. And then another. It wasn't a rock or snow, it was HAIL. He was being HAILED on. "CLOOUD! NOO DON'T DO THAT!!" THEY WERE SUPPOSE TO BE FRIENDS! Kyroh pulled his robe over his head and started running around. "MAKE IT STOP! IT HURTS! MAKE IT STOP!"

How did the professor make it stop?! "Finishate! Finishbay! FINISHHAILINGEH!" He couldn't remember.

Someone help?

Cutty looked up at the cloud. It was so small, and with this spell being what it was it would take some practice before it reached the level it would need to be in order to produce snow. "Nubila....Nubila." He said uttering the last bit of the incantation quietly. His hand joined, as it almost permanently was whilst at school, to the hilt of his rapier-like wand and he lifted it upward toward the tiny tuft. "Stiri..Stiricidium. Stiricidium." That word he did not recognize the latin word for, but deduced it must've been the part of the spell that specified the mechanism as Nubila obviously dealt with the object.

"Stiricidium Nubila." He said calmly and almost without any inflection at all as he practiced the wand movement and incantation together. "Stiricidium Nubila!" This time with feeling and the cloud seemed to respond to passion and grew a little at the base.

Well, now was the time to actually put this practice into reality. See if he could transfigure a cloud into a different category of cloud. Simple enough in theory. But what wasn't.

Nigel poked his cloud with his wand just for no apparent reason before getting started. Alright. "Stiricidium Nubila" Nigel cast doing the swirling counter clock-wise motion.

Ah, something was happening....and then it stopped. Not enough concentrate. Yeah, that was it. There were less important things to think about like Kyroh running around shouting his own made up language. It would have been entertained except for the hail coming down on him.

Yeah someone should put a stop to that. He looked around to see if anyone would do it right now. But alas, no. So that left him with the responsibility. Nigel pointed his wand at Kyroh's cloud waiting for him to stop running so he won't miss. Not like he was going to ask him to stop. He was getting hailed on. Then the Claw Prefect cast "Finite" at Kyroh's cloud. There that should do it.

Back to his lazy cloud or him being lazy. Concentrate. Concentrate. "Stiricidium Nubila" Nigel cast again with correct wand movement and all.

Look at that, it was growing darker and was that snow he spies coming down from it. Yes, it was. He did it. Pretty awesome that was.

Steady wrist, clear incantation, got it. Okay once more Zander looked at his little puffball, of a cloud. But this time he decided to practice before going for the real deal. He didn't need any more birds, or hail for that matter. Transfiguration is such a doozy. "Stiriririricidium Noooobeeeeahhh?" That did not sound right...? "Ahem, um, Stir-icid-ium Noo-bila?...... Stir-icid-ium Nu-bila....... Stir-icid-ium Nu-bila...." That sounded much better.

Then lifting his wand once more he began the counterclockwise movement. It's all in the wrist. A steady wrist. All this concentrating was making Zander really hungry. And tired. Ugh transfiguration is way too much work. After a few movements Zander decided that he'd be ready for action.

"Stir-icid-ium Nu-bila!" he announced this time, carefully enunciating every syllable and trying his hardest to keep his wrist steady. His cloud started to grow and WOW! Was that snow? Or were his eyes deceiving him?

Oops. So AJ had noticed he was trying his best not to laugh. "I'm sorry but it looked funny. But I'm good now.'' Yep, he didn't want to laugh anymore.

"This time around I just might beat you,'' the Puffer said, also eyeing his cloud. Why couldn't the spell have lasted? Sigh. He watched AJ have her turn. "Good job, AJ!'' The stuff did look like snow.

"Stiricidium Nubila!" Adi said, concentrating hard on the spell and doing the counter clockwise swirling motion with his wand. Again, snow began to descend from his cloud.

Okay good to know. Also good to know that the professor was using a spell to stop the other students' clouds from freaking out. Finite. Okay, that would probably be very useful in the future. Maybe the very near future.

Strictum Nebula. No that was wrong. Strircium Nibilia. No the was also wrong. Why was that incantation so confusing. Hayden listened carefully to what the other students were saying. It seemed to be working for them. Well, some of them. Stiricidium Nubila. Stir-i-cidium Nu-bila. Okay, she was sure she had it down. The next step was the wand movement. Hayden gripped her wand and drew several counterclockwise circles. She reminded herself to contain the movement to her wrist. Precise, but smooth movements. Okay, she was ready.

The fluffy white cloud floated in front of her. "Stiricidium Nubila." She swished her wand counterclockwise and spoke confidently. The cloud got darker, it was grayer than the original white, but it wasn't as dark as it was supposed to be. And it wasn't snowing. So she should try it again, yes? But was she supposed to end the first spell or try it again on the same cloud? She figured she should just keep going, maybe it would be easier since it was closer to what it was supposed to be. Or maybe it would be harder, like Professor Bellaire had said. Whatever, she was just going to try again.

"Stiricidium Nubila." She drew another counterclockwise circle with her wand. Nothing happened. Hayden took a deep breath and really concentrated on what she wanted to happen. Storm cloud. Snow. "Stiricidium Nubila." She moved her wand in a counterclockwise circle while concentrating. This time the cloud got darker and snow began to fall lightly. Whoa, she'd done that and it had only taken a couple tries. Beginners luck, probably.

Okay so the wand movement was harder then the incantation it seemed. Or Benny's concentration was off because he kept wanting to turn the wand in the wrong direction as he practiced, correcting himself the next time but still falling into the trap later on. It was getting frustrating and the professor pushing them and reminding them they had to work on the project wasn't helping all that much.

"Stiricidium Nubila!" he finally cast on his little cloud hanging above his head, using the incantation and the wand movement together for the first time aloud. He awaited a reaction and thankful something appeared to be happening. It was getting bigger than it had been....or was it just him?

Nope....nope.....it was growing!

His excitement was short lived as it only grew to a certain point and darkened to a medium gray with no precipitation. Seemed like he had more focus and control to work on.

Jasmine was so close. She was determined to get the spell right this time. She would do it. "Watch your wrist, speak clearly" she told herself. Looking up at her cloud, Jasmine pictured it turning dark again with snow showering down. She had that vision frozen in her mind and while it was, she started the spell.

Wand pointing up, Jasmine gave it a counterclockwise swirl and said, "Stiricidium Nubila" Yes, yes, the cloud was turning darker. Good so far. No rain or hail, even better. At last, snow flakes started to fall from Jasmine's cloud. Whew. That one had been really hard, but she had done it. Jasmine knew that if she could do it once, she could do it every time. She would just need practice and lots of it.

Alright he got the hang of saying the spell now. Now he needed to do the wand movements. It was just a counter clock-wise swirling motion. He did that a couple of times. Then he began to do it all together.

He said, "Stiricidium Nubila!" and then the clouds began to rain down cotton? He gave the cloud a quizzical look. Maybe he didn't say the spell right or he did the wand motion wrong. He shrugged and then said, "Infinite!" to stop the spell. Now it wasn't raining cotton and the cloud was gone. He needed more concentration.

Now he redid the spell, "Stiricidium Nubila!" and then the cloud appeared and he did the clockwise swirling motion and then the cloud was raining rocks? It was dropping and doing the pin...pin...pin...pin...sound on the floor. Kace gave the cloud a quizzical look and he raised his hand. "Professor can you help me? I do not know what I am doing wrong."

Having allowed his cloud to return to its cumulus formation, Cris attempted the spell again. Now knowing what he had to do, he looked up at the cloud overhead and visualized it transforming into an nasty looking cumulonimbus cloud, all swollen and dark grey in color. He visualized snow flakes falling from the cloud and falling all over him.

Cris concentrated as hard as he could to maintaing the image of that in his mind, and focussing all his energy into directing his spell correctly, Cris raised his wand and pointed up at the cloud floating overhead him. Keeping his wrist steady, he began to wave his wand in a counter clockwise swirl, while saying the incantation as clearly as possible.

"Stiricidum Nubila!" he called out and then waited to see whether he had cast the spell correctly. He watched as the cloud begin to swell and grow vertically. What was once a nice fluffy white cloud was a mean looking, big and darkish grey one.

Cris could practically see it swirling and forming and then....

it began to fall apart...or so it seemed. Small fluffy stuff began falling down. Cris reached up and let one fall into the palm of his hand. Upon contact it began to melt. Cris smiled. Now this is what he was familiar with. Snow flakes. Lots of them.

Declan shielded himself from the hail the size of golf balls coming down at him, pointing his wand at his wild, pet cloud. "Finite!"One more hit him on the head, before it completely stopped. He was facing his normal cloud again. "Okay, let's do this one more, yes?"

The Hufflepuff pointed his wand again with the counter-clockwise swirling motion, "Stiricidum Nubila." The cloud grew bigger and turned into a shade of gray. Unfortunately, snow didn't fall. Rain did. "Finite!" He ended the spell as fast he could before getting drenched.

Now, this was getting ridiculous! Focus, Declan, focus. He stared intently at his cloud, "Stiricidum Nubila!" His cloud grew bigger and darker than before. What was going to come down next?

SNOW!!! Yes! Finally. He can deal with snow.

It seemed liked he'd have to start over, now that his cloud had completely deflated, and Mo gave a great dramatic sigh over that. And maybe rubbed his hands together and jogged in place to get his blood flowing again. He supposed it HAD to be this cold, since the upper atmosphere was, but Mo was awfully chilly.

Not too cold to press on, though, and Mo lifted his wand and made another circle. Or a continuous circle, really, since that was where he'd gone wrong last time. Mo frowned lightly at the little while cloud as he spoke the incantation clear, "Stiricidum Nubila." Once again, the cloud flattened and darkened and spread, and Mo didn't let it fall apart this time. He kept ALL his attention on that little dark cloud.

Snow, please.

Alexa waited for as long as her patience would allow, which admittedly wasn't all that long, before coming to the conclusion that there would be no snow, there would be no anything coming from this cloud except the change in colour. If she simply casted again, would she push it closer to doing something or would she have to 'finite' it first as some sort of safety measure. She could ask the Professor, sure, but it was easier to just cast and learn from her mistakes--that might not actually be mistakes anyway!

"Stiricidium Nubila!"

This time there came a low rumbling from the inside of her cloud that had her staring up at it in disbelief. "Don't. Even. Think about it." She warned, remembering all too well what had happened during Astronomy class when the cloud inside her bubble had done that thunder thing too. "I mean it. I'd rather you do nothi--"

But it was much too late by then. After another brief rumble and some light action going on up in her cloud she felt a heavy downpour drenching her in seconds.

Perhaps the cloud was daft. Did this look like snow?????

No way would she wait until she was soaked to the bone before she tried remedying this otherwise she'd need a drying charm....in Transfiguration class....and that just didn't seem like such a good idea..."Finite!" A spell that actually worked right when she asked it to. Merlin!

"I'm sure it did," she said with a smile. At least he was attempting not to laugh so she would let it slide, not that it really bothered her either way. "You may actually be right this time." It was not looking good for AJ, but she was not going to admit that to Adi. "Thanks, maybe I can get snow sometime this year." Her ears perked up when the professor said that they would be moving on soon. Buuut she was so not ready for that.

"You did it!" The first year was impressed. Maybe she would be able to master it too, and tie them up. "Stiricidium Nubila!" Wand movement was perfect. Blink, blink. Please do something cloud. All of a sudden it started raining. Really?

Kyroh had stopped yelling out possible spells. He instead had taken to just running around blindly but that didn't work too well either considering that the cloud was FOLLOWING him everywhere. Just when he thought it would probably be best to get down and roll into a ball, the hailing stopped.

Huh?

Blinking, Kyroh pulled his robe down to its normal position and started at his cloud. Just like that? Looking around he spotted Nigel wand pointed right at his cloud.

........

HIS BUDDY WAS SO AWESOME!!!!!!!!

He had the best buddy ever. Kyroh was sure of it. He would have given Nigel a HUG...if Bellaire had said no hugs in the classroom "Thank you Nigel!" Kyroh called out, still in slight awe.

He looked up at his own cloud. It was white and puffy again and Kyroh was slightly nervous to try again. ....He wasn't even sure where he had messed up! But he had to at least try! Not really because of class, but so Nigel cool see that he was a cool buddy back and that he knew how to do stuff too!

Once more Kyroh held his wand straight up. He wanted to make snow. Snow. Concentrate. Snow. "Stiricidium Nubila." He said as clearly as he could, flicking his wrist as he made the swirling motion, counter clock-wise. One again his cloud slowly started to grow darker as it did the last time. Light grey and then slightly darker. As something white looking fell from the cloud, Kyroh held his breath and-SNOW! He had made SNOW this time. The Ravenclaw could do nothing but grin as it lightly fell around him.