He nodded slightly and crumpled the paper, "Alarte Ascendare..." The first year practiced the saying one more time. He glanced over at the professor... No answering his question? He gave a slight sigh and looked around the room, trying to see what others would do... Okay, so he thought he caught on to what others were doing. He nodded and turned to look at his crumbled up paper.

He did the movement the best he could, "Alarte Ascendare!" ... And then the paper jumped maybe a centimeter off the ground... Well, that was disappointing.

Dot was more than aware of the victory dance happening beside her, and she gave Toby That Boy a playfully disapproving wiggle of her eyebrows. He was so distracting, did he know? He wasn't being at all conducive to her learning environment. "You're so weird, Toby. Keep it up, okay?"

Especially because she'd finally learned the incantation. THANK YOU, THAT BOY. Ahem, ahem. She pointed her wand and gave it very serious eyebrows. "Alarte Ascendare." She'd done it right, obviously, since the ball of paper popped immediately into the air. Perhaps she'd done it right, but not VERY right, since it only popped a metre or so before drifting back to the ground. She wanted it to zoom WAY up in the air like Toby's had.

Rowan was so happy that she was doing magic that she almost didn't mind the spell not being strong enough. She almost wanted to turn the incantation into a little song, but she didn't know if that would work or anything and she didn't want to undo any of the progress she made so she didn't.

"Alarte Ascendare. Alarte Ascendare. Alarte Ascendare." Brandish, brandish, brandish. Bounce, bounce, bounce. The little ball was hopping up and down as fast as she could say the words - and that wasn't very fast, it was like a tongue twister - but it wasn't going any higher.

How could she make it go higher? Was she saying it so frequently that she was losing effectiveness or concentration or something. Okay, let's concentrate on doing it once and doing it well.

Breeeaaaaathe...

Rusty focused in on the little ball of parchment, envisioned it hitting the ceiling, then cast the spell. "Alarte Ascendare." The ball of parchment flew into the air, and Rusty's face broke out into a huge smile. "I did it!" she exclaimed, catching the ball as it came back down.

Ethan enjoyed the answers, really. Maybe the gossip paper was right after all. Hogwarts School of Wizardy and Weirdness. The fact that he enjoyed the responses, meant he’s a weird one too, yes? Ugh, no. He is NOT going to analyze that theory. Not when they are going to do actual magic stuff.

The Slytherin got the gossip paper out of his pocket, and happily crumpled it up for the activity. He won’t mind setting it on fire too. Well, he just might. After class, just to be safe. Ethan got his wand out, and murmured the incantation under his breath. “Alarte Ascendare.” He continued to murmur it while doing the wand movement, until he was almost whispering the words. Wait...he really should practice doing non-verbal spells now, yeah?

Ethan stared at the crumpled parchment in front of him, did the wand movement, and the balled up, ridiculous gossip paper rolled away from him.

Well. At least there was movement.

It was time to get to work and Janelle was ready. She was always glad to add a new spell to her arsenal. First though, she reached into her bag and took out a piece of parchment. Then she crumpled it up as instructed. Now it was time to practice the spell......incantation first.

"A-lar-te As-cen-da-re, A-lar-te As-cen-da-re, Alarte Ascendare", Janelle repeated. This one didn't seem to bad, as far as pronunciation went. She repeated the incantation a few more times, making sure to speak clearly and correctly. Once Janelle had the hang of it, she practiced "brandishing" her wand. That was the fun part, to her anyway. Now it was time to put it all together and make that parchment fly.

The Slytherin impatiently poked the balled up parchment, and looked around him if people were making progress. Well, some of them were successful alright, and that didn’t help his concentration. Ethan picked his parchment, turned his back away from everyone else and started to practice the spell again. The Slytherin was successful in tuning out the sound around him, and he was able to see the task before him clearly.

Get that thing flicked way up in the air. With a huff, Ethan brandished his wand and did a non-verbal. “Alarte Ascendare!” The balled up parchment ‘jumped’ from the ground, and immediately descended on the same spot.

Woot. Progress.

Snort. Nope, she didn't need glasses. Her vision was just fine thank you very much! "I think out of the two of us, you need them more. You better hang on to them just to be safe." What a caring and sweet girlfriend she was.

Suuuuure he would have. Honestly, AJ didn't know whether or not he had been getting the spell done correctly on the first go round because she had been focusing on getting her own wad of paper to do something. "Showoff." More neener.

AJ raised her hand and quickly moved it away. "Too slow," she teased as a huge smile spread across her face. Would their teasing ever get old? This chick seriously doubted it. "Maybe not that time, but I bet it does this time." She wasn't going to stop until she had beaten him... or until the professor moved them along. Either way.

"Alarte Ascendare!" Her paper flew into the air and this time it went higher than her previous attempts. This time she meant business and it showed. Man, this was a good feeling. "How do you like that?" It was hard to tell whether or not her paper had gotten higher than Adi's, but either way it was AJ's best attempt.

Okay. Good.

A few inches away from the ground was good. At least it went vertical, yes? With newfound confidence, The Slytherin rolled his shoulders, and pointed his wand dangerously at the balled up parchment. There might be some sort of...fire of determination from his eyes too as he did so. “Alarte Ascendare!” With a wave of his wand, the parchment ‘jumped’ higher from the ground this time, and fell rapidly downwards. The soon to be seventeen year old did another round verbally, and it went higher than the first.

Okay. Time to do non-verbals. The Slytherin pointed his wand at the parchment once more and echoed the incantation in his head. “Alarte Ascendare!” It went higher than what he expected, but the teenager wasn’t satisfied. Another brandish of the wand and “Alarte Ascendare!” echoed inside his brain, and the balled up paper darted up in the air, and descended with a dull sound almost instantly.

Janelle took her piece of parchment and held it in her hand. Staring at it she tried to picture it going high into the air. Since it was light, she knew that it was possible to send it high......if she could do the spell correctly. Concentration was always key, so Janelle did her best to focus on what she wanted to do.

When she thought that she was ready, Janelle brandished her wand and said, "Alarte Ascendare". Her piece of parchment went up, but not very far and not very fast. Definitely room for improvement. For some reason, Janelle always thought she had that concentration thing down. Apparently that was not the case.

"If at first you don't succeed", Janelle thought. Now it was time to try, try again. This time she intended to really concentrate and she began to work on her focus.

Alright. Time to get started and whatnot.

Rolling up the sleeves of his robes, the child man -- he was a MAN yo -- crumpled up the parchment in front of him and pointed his wand at it. "Alarte Ascendare!" he called, brandishing his wand as he did so. C'mon! Fly, you little crumpled up piece of parchment, FLY!

........... And it wiggled as if it was doing the hula.

Grayson deadpanned. That was NOT what it was meant to do, mkay? "Alarte Ascendare!" he called again, with a bit more confidence than last time, which was saying something since he was a VERY confident fellow.

The wand brandishing had happened too. Because he wanted it to zoom up into the air.

Which it didn't. All the piece of parchment did was fly up a little before landing on the table once again, as if it was just jumping in the air.

Deadpan. Again.

Trying to keep her mind from wandering, Janelle focused on her crumpled parchment. She pictured it shooting into the air like a flair. That was her goal, high and fast. Concentrate, concentrate. That was all Janelle could think about. She had to be confident. She could do this, she could. She took a deep breath and pictured her parchment flying one more time. Now it was time to give it a go.

Janelle brandished her wand and spoke as clearly as she could. "Alarte Ascendare". She said it with authority, hoping that that would help the spell to work. This time her parchment did shoot upward much faster, but it didn't go as high as she had hoped. Nontheless, Janelle considered her trial a mini success. The spell had worked fairly well, but she could still get better at it. She definitely needed more practice.

Ilia wasn't sure how this would go, but she crumpled up a piece of her paper into a ball and placed it at her feet."Alarte Ascendare" She started whispering the spell to herself, trying to make sure that she got the wording right. Unfortunately her wand seemed to take the whisper as an incantation and her little paper ball rolled sideways, getting stepped on somewhere in the classroom. *Sigh* Why it went sideways she had no idea. She turned and got another piece of paper, crumpling it into a sphere. Lets try this again Hopefully it would go a little more in her favor this time.

Grayson practiced over and over again, only causing the balled up piece of parchment to jump up and down again. Was he brandishing his wand in the wrong way or what? Jeez, why was this not working?

Grumble grumble grumble.

"Alarte Ascendare!" Brandish!

HOLY FREAKING MERLIN!

The seventh year watched as, this time, the ball of crumpled parchment flew up in the air. And not just a small jump either, it practically shot up as if he had thrown it up in the air. SWEET! That was EXACTLY what he was going for, not the weird jump or wiggle that it was doing before.

............... Uh oh.

Something that Quigley had said about the object heading straight back to, roughly, where it had been launched from came back to the Slytherin. Widening his eyes, the boy darted off to one side, right as the ball of parchment landed on his seat and rolled before hitting the ground.

JEEZ.

Ilia rolled up her sleeves and took a deep breath. Maybe all she needed was a little concentration. She recited the words in her mind, careful not to say anything aloud this time. Alarte Ascendare, Alarte Ascendare Think aerial thoughts, up, up, up......and hopefully not immediately down.

After mental preparation, she started at the little ball of paper. It was.....not as round as she had hoped.....but the round one had gotten squashed and she was not about to rescue it. It wasn't the shape, it was all about the ascension, or so she hoped.

Game time. "Alarte Ascendare." It was going............barely up then right back down. What was that!? A hop!? She sighed again and took a deep breath.

AH!

Things were happening.

Yo, Hughbert was not equipped to deal with things right now. His stomach was still too full of food in an uncomfortable way for him to move or stand or crumple paper or even speak.

If such a thing as eternal torture existed...this was probably akin to it. And yes, he was being dramatic but he couldn't MOVE.

Hugh eventually rolly pollied over on his stomach--OOF--and started to mutter the incantation, A-lar-te As-cen-da-re....Alarte Ascendare....Alarte Ascendare.....Alart-aayyyyyyy....Ascendare."

He even managed to crumple up some paper. Not well. It was less of a crumple and more of a patted down parchment.

Okay, little paper ball.....you are going to fly! She breathed in deep and concentrated all of her energy at the little ball. If her will power was what controlled the ball.....it probably would have exploded."Alarte Ascendare!" She cast firmly intent on that little ball of papery annoyance. The ball did go upwards......rapidly.....forcefully..........Ooops.... She heard it smack the ceiling and come hurtling back down at her. She quickly backed up, almost over her desk and barely missed getting knocked in the head with it. Well, paper couldn't have hurt that much....right? Note to self.......don't do that with harder things....... She was pretty sure if it was more than paper it would hurt.....a lot.....

On the brighter side, she did it, yay! At least she had gotten it right, even.....if she did hit the roof. Hopefully the professor wouldn't notice.....or at least wouldn't care. Yup, she was going to need to deposit that apple on his desk once class was over.

It was nice to see them getting it....for the most part. The concept was there and he could see the bits of parchment rising but it was time to move the class into the main activity for the morning before they called it a day.

Once again he clapped to get their attention, waiting for them to settle before he went on to give any instructions. "That will be enough practising, we're ready to move on." Checking to be sure there was no one on the desks, Maddox vanished them completely to get them out of the way, his own included. Another wave of his wand and the once hard floor began to sink and sag until it resembled the feel of a muggle trampoline--one that covered the entire floor.

With the floor taken care of, he aimed at the ceiling and it too vanished like the one back in the first lesson of last term to reveal an even higher ceiling further up. Only difference now was a large hoop that encircled the entire wall closer to the top.

"I'll need you all to place your parchments into this box," the one he'd taken off the table before vanishing it, "unless you have better need of it." Which reminded him. "That will be 2 points from Ravenclaw for yelling, Miss McGee. I will not tolerate loud noises in my class." The activities were a bit....different....given he tended to go all out with that but certainly not while they were practising. It was uncalled for.

"I'll need everyone to grab a partner," Which also also reminded him, "Aubrey, Adi, I don't want you two working together." They were far too much a distraction, as evidenced by reports he got back from the Examiner on the boy's OWL practical. "The aim of this activity will be--you guessed it--shooting each other up into the air. Try to get your partner at least waist high through that hoop up there otherwise it won't light up. If there are no questions, you may begin. Don't worry too much about hitting the ceiling, it's been padded down with extra soft, plushy material for just this occasion."

OOC: Final activity guys! You'll need five posts to get full credit for this activity. Just have your charries practising the spell on each other to get at least half way through the hoop. I'll close this class on Friday morning at around 10 am GMT -5 ^^

Marsha had practised and her consistency was lacking. Severely.

She had managed a few feet off the ground.. and that had been after a lot of tries. The actual pronunciation hadn’t been that complicated but she couldn’t seem to get her wrist to do the motion just SO, which meant that sometimes the parchment had flown straight up to her head and back, others it had wiggled teasingly at her, sometimes it hadn’t budged but mostly it had reached her waist. Now she just had to try and get it so that every time it would reach her head. That would be good.

With a sigh, she stopped and turned back to Professor Quigley. She was happy she was standing as her desk was GONE. And then her balance went as the floor chang- OH MY GRIFFIN! WAS THAT A TRAMPOLINE. Testing her theory, she bounced a little on the spot and a HUGE grin spread over her face as she realised she was right. TOO COOL. Staring upwards, she gasped as the ceiling disappeared. Though, her stomach dropped as she realised what the Professor wanted them to do.

THAT WAS SO HIGH!

Oh great. They needed partners too!

Sigh.

How was she supposed to make her partner get all the way UP there when she couldn’t even get a piece of parchment five feet in the air. Sigh. Sigh. SIGHH.

Looking around the room, she wondered if it would be considered cheating to find the shortest, smallest person in the room. Maybe it wouldn’t be? Surely bigger, taller students should help bigger, taller students and she could hi-jack Lance or Rusty or…. she paused and looked around the room looking for someone else without a partner.

SHE WAS GOING TO HAVE TO SHOOT A PERSON IN THE AIR????

Rowan's grew as wide as dinner plates as she listened to the task... but she'd only just managed to make the ball fly up! This was going to be difficult...

Then after a few seconds of thought her face resolved into a determined expression, and she gripped her wand a little tighter. It was going to be difficult, yes, but she was going to do it.

She flicked a little hair over her shoulder and looked around the room for a partner... "Does anyone wanna pair up?" she announced. No use waiting for someone to approach her, things would get done much quicker if she started looking.

She had thought about being lazy and just trying to float her parchment ball over to the box as Professor Quigley had instructed, once he’d said the first activity was finished. Brooklyn had almost felt like the desk she was perched on was her throne, after all. It definitely gave her height over sitting in a normal chair. Except she didn’t, sliding off to scoop up the dented ball from the floor and heading for the professor’s desk and the box. Which was a good thing, since as she’d turned back, the desk had vanished and she sent a narrow-eyed look toward the man. She could have been sitting on that. Maybe he could have vanished her too, which would be bad. She was pretty sure people wouldn’t appreciate her accidentally being vanished.

She hadn’t been, though, and neither had her bag, thankfully. Just the desk, and apparently the floor as she’d suddenly found herself bouncing slightly as it had transformed into a trampoline. It was going to be awfully hard concentrating if she was worried about falling over. Oh well. At least her partner wouldn’t end up dented like her parchment ball. Hopefully. If she found a partner. She wasn’t about to advertise for one, of course. She had better things to do than yell in the classroom and hope someone chose to answer.

Oh! Rusty was here! Perfect!

”I don’t know if I’m going to manage this… but I’m going to give it a good shot!” She told her friend, a firm determined look on her face. Besides, they wouldn’t have been given this task if they couldn’t do it… right? Right.

”Do you want to go first or will I?” Once Rusty gave her her answer, she took a long deep breath trying to recenter herself as she kept feeling the trampoline moving from everyone else … well moving. With her concentration on Rusty and the charm, she said ”Alarte Ascendare!” Just like she had when they were practising and she had finally managed to get her parchment ball into the air. With a flourish to match the intent of her charm.

OH! OH OH OH!!!!

Rusty was in the air! Well, not very far in the air. Only a foot or so, but she had done it!

With a huge grin, she jumped from the trampoline. ”I did it! Well, not anywhere near high enough, but … I did it regardless!” Still giggly and grinning, she took a small step-backwards.

Aww...Natalia was slightly disappointed that the activity ended; she still had a lot to improve on! Taking her parchment pall, Natalia tossed it into the box two feet away (and made it, yay!) and walked back to her location.

So, the reason why they had such a short time for practicing was because THERE WAS GOING TO BE A LOT MORE EXCITING ONE. SHOOTING PEOPLE IN THE AIR!

Thank Merlin the ceiling was high enough - Natalia assumed no one would be able to propel a person more than a couple inches high. The fourth year started fussing over the safety of this activity... what if she was tossed, fell down on the hard ground, and broke her bones? Well, the more risky the better! *BEAM* Worrying is for the weak! No, Natalia really didn't mean that.

Partner. Partner. Natalia saw no one familiar in sight, so she would have to grab a random classmate and 'claim' him/her as her partner. Sounded like a good plan.

"Hallo, let's be partners." Natalia approached the nearest non-taken classmate, a girl possibly slightly younger than herself.

Eeeep, activity time!!!

Lux knew this part was coming up soon, and it always beat the theoretical potion of classes because fuuuuuun. What WASN'T fun was the prospect of being shot into the air because hello??? She had told Quigley about her extreme fear of heights last term. This was so not fair and she wanted to cry. If she didn't do the activity she would fail the lesson. She wished Bay was here but he wasn't.

"Partners?" she asked shakily. Ugggggh, she was terrified and it was hard not to cry.

Weren't they just been taught that shooting humans up in the air wasn't a good idea? And,did the room just turned into a trampoline arena too?! Now that was really cool!

Henric thought of asking Adi to be his partner but then again,it wouldn't be a good idea too. That huffie prefect no doubt had every intention to get him back and tossing him up like a pancake was a great opportunity to do so.

He slipped quietly away from Adi so he could find a partner with a much gentler intention to practice with , oh goody goody! He saw llia standing not too far from where he stood. He walked right up behind her and tapped her shoulder,"Need a partner?"he grinned.

Huh? No whiny little comments? No snark? He was already impressed. The activity started and no one was getting ruefully sick or sorry for themselves. This was a brilliant sign in his book. To be out of the way, the man slipped back into the form of a cat and walked to the far corner where he would watch in case he was needed

OOC: Wow I absolutely suck and knew I was missing something. Okay, just a bit of clarification. YOU can decide if the charries get shot into the air or not as it is within your charrie's magical ability and the other person would otherwise have control of what your charrie can and can't do but you can not determine what happens after that. it's like the charm, you have no control once the object is in the air so yeah. If you have questions or want me to clarify further, I can. It's also okay if they don't really get their partners very high. Not everyone's a born charms star and messing up can be just as fun ^^