To be honest, Dot didn't mind so much that the professor had given them a task to do immediately upon entering the room. Not only was it dead easy, but it saved them from annoying ice breakers, or the favorite of all professors - 'what do you already know' lectures. They could prove what they already knew, right here and now.

And Dot knew how to open a darn cabinet. She actually took her time looking over the glass cabinet fronts that were remaining before choosing one that was fairly high up but well within her reach. Let the ickles have the floor cabinets that they could reach. And this one didn't have any smudged prints, suggesting no one else had tried to break into it yet.

Now, then... the casting part. "Alohomora." Like she'd thought... easy. The door swung open, and the box inside begged to be released. She glanced around to see if anyone needed help before tugging the box out of the cabinet.

Tory. Good to know another name which hopefully she would remember; considering how many first years she saw sorted this year, it was going be a challenge. But she was Head Girl, so it felt only right that she should at least make an attempt at known the students.

Watching after she finished her explanations, she listened as he sounded out the incantation and then made an attempt, with SUCCESS!

Beaming, "well done and yes, same basic stuff for any charm. Sound it out, then pronounce it clearly with the wand movement." But good, good, he was a stubborn Gryffindor determined to figure the rest out on his own, so good on him. "No problem, let me know if you need anything else." You know, charms help or whatever.

Sam. Alright then. She nodded and listened as the young ravenclaw tried to best pronounce the words, finally getting it right on the third or fourth try. Tough words, but Tia reckoned they had to be tough because it made magic more special to learn.

"Of course. Just hold your wand tight enough that you won't lose your grip on it, but you don't want to suffocate it either," she demonstrated with her own wand. "Give it a bit of a flick and concentrate on the lock opening, then add the pronunciation." With a careful flick of her wrist, she demonstrated on her small box that she'd already removed from cabinet, "Alohomora!" And watched as the box clicked unlock ... again.

And there was another first year, whom she recognized from the feast as needing assistance. At least he looked perplexed enough.

"Hey there," Tia smiled warmly over at him. "You look lost. What are you stuck on?" Like did he get the unlocking part down or was he totally lost?

Once Austin was certain most of the firsties had a partner, or were doing fine on their own, he decided to head towards the door.

"1, 2, 3, 5." He said to the door. Was it strange to be talking to a door? Even if it was code. Normally wouldn't there be a keypad? Or maybe draw out the numbers with their wands? But nope, speaking the words did the trick.

"Hey Azura, let's move on." And with that he headed in the door.

Azura nearly glowed herself as she saw the numbers start to glow and she followed Ausrin and said her numbers to the door! "2, 2, 3,4!" and with that the door opened and she walked in!

Eeek!!! So exciting!!

Julia had entered the room with about as much confidence as anyone else, but when she saw the complete lack of professor, she couldn’t help but feel the creeping beginnings of nerves. Then his voice floated around the room:



He was talking about the feast, wasn’t he? Julia pouted. She hadn’t done anything wrong. She even helped clean up after, and got mushy bread under her fingernails for it too! But she did want to learn, and she would try and work hard, so she turned to the instructions on the board and gave them a read.

…

Confidence levels were taking a nose dive. Julia stared around the room at the other students, stunned at the speed with which so many of them got to work. How did they all just do that like that?

Because they’re witches and wizards, that’s how. And she was too. Julia sucked in a determined break and took out her second-hand wand. There were already lots of opened cabinets, but quite a few at kneecap level were still unclaimed so she selected one of those. Next, she had to actually do magic.



With what she thought was great subtlety (it wasn’t), she peeked at how one of the older students was doing the spell. Well. It certainly seemed easy enough.

”Aloe-hommer-a.”

…

Nothing. She scrunched up her nose and, confident no one was watching, gave the cabinet a teensy little boot before trying again. Because maybe the lock was jammed, right?

”Aloe-hommer-a.”

Arista gave a smile as the boy turned around and woot he wanted help. It was his lucky day she happened to be very good at the spell, only because she had to work on it so much during her own first year.

"Awesome, I mean not awesome?..." It was awesome to her but maybe it wasn't awesome to him. Jasper, cool name as well. "Pleasure to meet you Jasper, I am Arista Royal" with that she gave a small curtsey and looked over at his cabinet, so it was being difficult for him. Nodding in understanding she watched as the boy attempted the spell.

"No worries! I had quite the trouble with the spell my first year." Stepping over to him so she wasn't yelling across the space she said "Try without the wand, just pronounce it first. The pronunciation is al-LOH-ha-MOR-ah, putting emphasis on both the LOH and the MOR. Once you think you got it you can try again with the wand. And remember no one gets it on the first try."

A test on their first class? This was new. But no complain from this girl. The truth is she kinda like this. No prep talk or something boring like that just go with the show. She decided she like this new Charms Professor. So she just need to pick a cabinet and unlock it. Sounds easy enough.

Candice stood in front of the cabinet, wand at the ready. But before she opened the cabinet, the Sixth year looked around the classroom just in case someone need her help but it seem like everyone did a good job so she just process with the task. "Alohomora!" And VOILA! It open. She pulled out the small box from the cabinet before she closed it and locked it "Colloportus!" She heard a soft click sound from the cabinet indicate that she had successfully locking the cabinet.

Jasper had listened intently as Arista explained it to him again. Focus on the pronunciation. Try to do it properly this time.

"Al-LOH-ho-MOR-ah," he repeated, following her own probably over exaggerated pronunciation of the incantation. Was that right? He hoped so, she said to emphasise the 'loh' and 'mor' parts of the spell. Glancing to the side, watching the way that the swish was done by another student he repeated the motion with his own wand.

Nodding, he readied himself to try again.

"Alohomora" he said, swishing the wand as he did so.

Click.

It opened.

It actually opened!

He beamed at the older student as he looked at the cabinet that was in front of him.

Now to try to do the next one...

FOCUS!!

HA!!

That was easy for the older girl to say, she was a Hufflepuff. They were hard working and conscientious. Focus would come easy to her. Trixie had like a thousand things going on in her mind, that it was extremely hard to focus on just one thing.

"Okay I'll try." The focus thing that is. She practised the wand movement again trying to make it a more fluid motion instead of a jerky one. "Alohomora." She said while trying her hardest to focus on the lock.

There was a rattling sound in the lock but it did not open. Trixie looked at the Hufflepuff. "I swear I am trying to focus." She blew out an air of frustration. "Okay this time."

She took a deep breath and stared hard at the lock willing it to open when she did the wand movement and said the incantation. "Alohomora." There was a split second of silence and then a definite click of the lock as it sprang open.

"I DID IT!" She punched the air in triumph.

Kaycee made an audible hmmph sound. It wasn't really fair that the professor could just decide when to show up. After all, she showed up on time. And she didn't ask for the Professor's credentials.

Apparently she needed to though. You know, to make things even.

This whole exercise seemed silly to her. Wasn't everything worth breaking into Alohomora-proof? Since like, the 1600s?

She pointed her wand lazily at the cabinet and said "Alohomora." The cabinet clicked open. Step one done. She successfully knew a first year spell. Good for her.

This would be more fun if she could pick the locks with a hairpin. Maybe she'd try. It's not like the Professor would know. He wasn't even there.

As the girl tried to get the cabinet unlocked, Esme waited patiently, watching. "You're almost there," she said. She knew how hard it was to focus sometimes, but she could hear the determination in her voice and knew that she was building up to it.

So it was no surprise when she heard the click of a lock shortly after.

Esme gave a smile and a thumbs up. "Way to go! I knew you could do it." Sometimes it just took some practice and hard work was all. "If you need more help, just let me know!" She was right here and didn't mind helping others.

Pointing her wand at the cabinet she had opened earlier, Esme used Colloportus to lock it again.

Now she just needed to open the little box and extract the code.

Holding the little box from the cabinet in his hand, Jasper took a deep breath as he prepared himself to lock the cabinet again.

"Colloportus," he muttered to himself, focussing on his pronunciation this time. He knew that he could cast magic. He'd just succeeded in unlocking the cabinet. Now he just needed to make sure that he did all the other elements perfectly. "Colloportus, colloportus, colloportus, colloportus."

Glancing at another, older student he watched the movement with his head tilted to the side. It was like a five. Only... not complete. And also without a curve. Copying the movement he nodded, finally ready to do this again!

"Colloportus," he said again, this time coupled with the wand movement.

Click.

First time this time!

He made a mental note to make sure to do everything exactly. Precision seemed to be important for charms.

Grabbing his notebook, he quickly wrote down both incantations, what they did and did a quick sketch of the associated movements for later.

There was nothing wrong with awkwardly watching the older kids and trying to imitate them. After all, wasn't imitation the sincerest form of flattey? Sincerest and the creepiest for sure. Definitely both. However, patience wasn't exactly her thing, and Ryland wanted to get through the first room as soon as possible. Failing a test, even a casual one like this, was not allowed. The brunette held herself to higher standards than that, and the standards required her to know a spell that everyone older than her seemed to be understanding. There had to be a trick or something. Some kind of special thing she was missing that was the key to understanding.

..........
.......

She heard another student somewhere say about saying it in a commanding tone. It might have been like slight ease dropping, but it was helpful in this case, so it was okay. Was that how it worked? Probably not, and Ryland really did not care in the least. Rolling up her sleeves and tucking her wavy brunette hair behind her ears, she cleared her throat and began. It was going to work this time. She would will it to, if that was an actual thing that could happen.

"Alohamora!" The tone of voice and the determination apparently worked, because the charm worked and the cabinet opened! Awesome! She did it! Ryland managed the spell, and was able to get further! Not even counting the class activity, she had just completed her first charm! How cool was this? She could've jumped up and down in excitement if she wasn't awkward and in class. There was still more to be done. And she was understanding that her entire body and mind had to be into doing the charm, which meant excitement could wait. Seriously though, she had to tell Jay. First charm, first successful thing done at Hogwarts.

Biting her bottom lip, Ryland reached inside and pulled out the small box, using the oppurtunity to inspect her pink candy colored nails. Still perfect. She was lucky for that. Anyway, the box. There was something inside. There was an a billion percent chance that there was something inside, and to find it was to get further ahead.

Arista listened as Jasper spoke, good that was it!! He must have realized that she over exaggerated a tad on the pronunciation but it was always funner to do that, plus it hadn't messed with the spell one bit. "There you have it! Good job!!" She clapped her hands some and then looked at the small box in his cabinet and the one on her desk. Next step now? Before returning to her box she said "Let me know if you need anymore help!" With that the redhead walked back to her own box.

Once reaching her desk she made sure that the cabinet was closed before taking out her wand again and looking up at the spell on the board for verification. She pointed the wand at the cabinet and said "Colloportus!" While saying the spell she made a five kind of shape but leaving off the curved bottom.

With a click the cabinet was locked, just to make sure the redhead reached forward trying to yank it open. No surprise, it didn't open. Smiling she looked down at the small box, now time for you!

Ailsa nodded to Rachel in acknowledgement and then turned back to her Charms textbook. The author had helpfully listed Colloportus in succession with Alohomora which saved the girl some page turning.

Having learnt from the last time, she practiced the motion first, allowing herself unpressured time to get the gesture into muscle memory. Then, she removed the box from the cabinet, closed the door, and...

"colloPORtus!"

The unhurried practice had paid off and there was a soft but very certain 'thunk' from the cabinet. It was actually rather inconsistent with the small lock on the cabinet - it almost sounded more like a bolt falling into place in the door of a safe. Odd.

Still, the door was firmly closed and she couldn't so much as budge it with her hands to she supposed it was good.

That done, she picked up the small box she'd retrieved and walked over to Rachel, Haddie, and the two new folks she hadn't met before.

"Hi," she said as she arrived at the group, "Oh! You got yours open all the way already! Really good Rachel!"

She turned to the two new people as Haddie rejoined the group too. "Hi, I don't think we've met. I'm Ailsa."

Kaycee looked around. She was mildly curious as to how other students were doing. She wasn't a student leader, but she was older and had totally mastered beginner spells. Not that that was something to brag about, but she figured she'd help if anyone asked.

No? Okay. Good.

She took the box out of the cabinet. She held it against her hip and shut the door to the cabinet. Next step. Lock it up!

Penelope was surprised to find that the professor was not there when she entered the classroom. It seemed that the professor wasn't the only thing that wasn't there. There were not any desks or chairs in the room. After hearing the voice recording, she looked at the board for instructions. Oooh, it was a test of charms skills! Looked fun. Penelope found a cabinet that had not already been taken. She aimed her wand at the cabinet. "Alohomora." The cabinet clicked open. That was easy. Maybe she should try casting the spell nonverbally on the box. Penelope had never actually tried casting any spells nonverbally before, but she was a sixth year now so she would need to learn how to do nonverbal magic.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ashwinder

With what she thought was great subtlety (it wasn’t), she peeked at how one of the older students was doing the spell. Well. It certainly seemed easy enough.

”Aloe-hommer-a.”

…

Nothing. She scrunched up her nose and, confident no one was watching, gave the cabinet a teensy little boot before trying again. Because maybe the lock was jammed, right?

”Aloe-hommer-a.”

One of the first year eagles - could she call them eaglets?- seemed to be having trouble with the incantation for alohomora. "Do you need help? The incantation is alohomora. Al-LOH-ho-MOR-ah." This would be hard for the first years because they didn't know a lot of charms yet, but there were older students who could teach the younger students.

Now she just need to open the box.

She pointed her wand at the box and made the appropriate wand movement "Alohomora!" And just like the cabinet, she heard a soft click sound from the box indicate that its open. The instruction said there will be number code inside this box so no biting animals will jump out from the box right? Kay. Moment of truth.

Now all she had to do was perform Alohomora on the box, and possibly some other stuff but right now she was focusing on that step.

Arista pointed her wand at the box and said "Alohmora!" making sure to do the wand movement. Like before the box opened up. Smiling she pulled it closer and looked up at the instructions again. Okay so there's going to be a number code inside of it, well that was interesting. She looked inside the box to find...

Curiosity was tingling in his fingers, it wasn't so much the contents of the box he was curious about - because it was a code, right? No, what he was curious about... was what was in the next room.

Lifting the lid to his box, Zeke spied the numbers, smiling to himself.

Brilliant.

There was no hesitation and without a second to spare Zeke approached the door to the next room, the box still in his hand. They were supposed to bring it with them, right?

"Five, seven, six, nine," he spoke to the door, excited when it opened for him.

Whooop!

And off he went, through the door... to whatever waited on the other side.

Henric raised an eyebrow at llia,"Its a basic spell, llia...did it plenty of times before...uh.. for good,of course." Okay, that was a white lie. He used it to open plenty of locked and old cabinets in his common room. Hey...you never know if you could find lost treasure in there.

Henric shook his head a little at Rachel,"Aww come on...Rach, she's always been kind and helpful. I'm just happy you guys are getting along wel-...umm...we'll get there eventually, right girls?" he implied. Man...he shouldn't push his luck. Alright...time to figure out what are the numbers on this parchment meant. Mhmm...he should just stick with llia on this. Henric wasn't much of codebreaker anyway. "Let me get your box and I locked it back for you,"he offered kindly to llia. Henric put the boxes in their respective place and gently closed the cabinet lid. He then proceed to lock it with a locking charm. “Colloportus!”

"Any idea what the code means? Where should we go from here again?" he asked the both of them.

Bella was really getting the hang of this. So what if the first three times didn't work, but she had a good feeling about the next one. She loosened her grip on her wand just a bit as she really prepared herself mentally and physically.

"Alohomora!"

CLICK!!

YES!! IT WORKED!!!

Finally, she was able to get her box out. Bella beamed, very proud of herself as she prepared to walk away with her prize, but stopped when she remembered she had to lock the cabinet back. That nearly got a groan out of her because it felt like she spent so much time trying to open it and now had to lock it back with a different spell.

"Colloportus!" She said, pointing her wand at the cabinet yet again. The first time she didn't hear another click indicating that it was locked back, so she tried it again. It took another two tired before she was able to lock the cabinet back. She turned her attention back to the box happy to be going back to the unlocking spell she felt a lot more confident doing now. Just a little more practice and she'll have them down packed.

Fully aware of the eyes on her even before the girl had cleared her throat, Brooklyn had continued her own spellcasting. Before she applied her attention to the box in her hand, she had to re-lock the cabinet after all. “Colloportus,” she cast, tracing the appropriate wand movement out as she aimed her wand back at the cabinet lock. It was only after she’d heard the click indicating the lock was engaged again that she deigned to turn to look at the girl. A Hufflepuff. Of course. It always seemed to be one of those who chose to bother her, except for Frankie.

“It’s a backwards S,” she said idly, feeling as if that should’ve been obvious. She’d known the girl had been watching her, after all. As if she was demonstrating, she laid the box out on the palm of her hand and pointed her wand at it. Tracing out the shape, she spoke yet again. “Alohomora!” As the lock on the box made a soft click to indicate it was opened, she looked back at the girl. Pouting didn’t work on her, so if she hadn’t been watching she wasn’t about to repeat herself.

Instead, she merely opened up her box, pulling the small slip of paper out and then murmuring a quick “Colloportus” to relock the box. She had the paper already, and the extra practice never hurt. Now she just had to get into the other room and hopefully away from people who expected her to help. It took a lot to get her to bother expending her energy in helping anyone. The little Puff ought to be glad she bothered.

The young lioness then checked the cabinet if she had locked it properly. Check check... Yas!!! She did it! She did it! Hoorrraaaayyyy!!! EHm, you can stop being so happy, Burton! Okay, she still had another task, right?

Moving on....

And now she needed to unlock the box that she had pulled out from the cabinet. Ava had successfully unlocked the cabinet. So unlocking the box must not be that hard for her since the box was smaller than the cabinet. She pointed her wand and cast the spell. "Alohomora!"

Carl thought hard, his brows furrowed. What had gone wrong? He knew for one thing that he did not say the word right. "Alohomora, Alohomora, Alohomora." He repeated under his breath, making sure that he said every syllable clearly.

Then, he saw an older girl make her way to a cabinet near him. Carl smiled back at her, wondering if she saw his weak attempt at the unlocking charm. Apparently she did, for she shook her head gave him more advice. Stepping back from the cabinet immediately, he listened carefully to everything she said and watched her demonstration.

Aaand her cabinet was unlocked! "Wow. I mean, thank you." He said and turned to his own task. He pointed his wand at the lock and said, "Alohomora." There was movement at the lock! Or ... maybe it was just a trick of the light. The cabinet was still shut tight. Carl cleared his throat for another try. "Alohomora!" He said clearly, pointing his wand firmly at the lock.

With a click, the cabinet opened up. The Hufflepuff grinned properly for the first time since the door to the charms room shut. He pulled out the small box inside and closed the cabinet door again. "Uh, could you teach me the locking charm too?" He asked, looking at the girl.