Olly was a little bit nervous for this challenge. He was only a third year, so his knowledge of charms was not super extensive. But he did feel a little bit better because he was sure that the judges would take it into account. He was sure the challenge would be set up so that someone his age would be able to solve it. They wouldn't get the same challenge as, say, a seventh year, would they? No he thought probably not. Olly opened the door and stepped into the room.

The practice room did not smell so pleasant. He wrinkled his nose and looked around at the sight before him. What had happened? It looked like someone had trashed the place and left without even considering cleaning it up. Was that his job? To clean it up? That seemed like something he could easily do by hand, the muggle way, but of course that probably wasn't the point of the charms challenge. He spotted the directions and went over to quickly read over them. He had to charm the cleaning supplies to get them to work. That seemed easy enough.

First things first, he wanted to clean the stuff off the table. If he brushed all the dust and stuff off and onto the floor, he could sweep it all up at once. He studied the dust rag first. He knew this spell, he knew he did. He just had to take a second to remember the incantation and the wand movement. He knew he had to say the name of the object he was charming after the incantation. And the wand movement was a swish and then a wand twirl. What was the incantation again? Oh yeah, it was Liberum Arbitrium. He held his wand up toward the dust rag.

"Liberum arbitrium rag." He swished his wand and then twirled it clockwise. The rag gave a little twitch, and it seemed to him like it was ready at his command. Okay, he pointed with his wand over to the table and it followed. He was concentrating on what he wanted it to do, and it obeyed. It took care of dusting the surface of the table, knocking anything more solid to the ground as it did so. He watched for a few more moments to make sure it was continuing to do its job, and turned his attention to the broom.

"Liberum arbitrium broom." He swished his wand and twirled it clockwise again. This spell was not too difficult. He just had to make sure he was really concentrating on what exactly he wanted the broom to do. It snapped to attention and began sweeping. Good. He looked back at the rag and saw that it had finished his job. So he grabbed it and put it back where it went. That was acceptable to do without magic, right? Oh well, he'd already done it.

The broom was doing it's work, but all that could do was make a pile of dirt on the ground. He needed the dust pan to get the dirt and stuff into the garbage. He wasn't sure if he needed to do the same charm for a third time. He supposed he could but there was another way to do it too that he thought might be a little easier. He pointed at the dust pan. "Locomotor." He directed the dust pan over to where the broom had been piling up the dirt. It brushed the garbage into the dust pan. Olly moved his wand, directing the dust pan over to the garbage and dumping it in. That was a pretty easy spell too.

What was left? There was a half dried puddle of spilled milk on the ground over there. He needed the broom for that. There was a bucket too, which needed some water in it so he could mop up the milk. "Aguamenti." The only problem was that there was no soap, but that couldn't be helped. The water should be enough to clean up the spill. Olly looked at the mop and held up his wand. "Liberum arbitrium mop." Another swish and another clockwise twirl. The mop snapped to it, using the bucket of water to mop up the milk. It worked as well as he'd hoped.

The floor was looking pretty good to him, but there was still a big issue. That litterbox. It was a big source of what was left of that bad smell he'd noticed when he first walked in. He had to think about the best way to take care of it. It would be easiest if he could just vanish it. But while he knew the incantation, he had never been able to pull it off. It was too complicated for him yet. So he would have to do something different. Would the liberum arbitrium charm work on that litter box scoop? Maybe he should just to locomotor again. Yeah, he was going to do that.

"Locomotor." He lifted his wand, lifting the scoop off the hook. He motioned it down to the box and scooped up a piece of poop, and then lifted it back up to dump it in the garbage. He repeated the action until he had fully emptied the litter box.

On to folding clothes! He had no idea why, if someone had trashed the place like this, they would have done a load of laundry and then left the clean clothes there but not folded. Obviously it wasn't meant to make sense, it was just a challenge. He had been thinking of the folding charm since he first saw the laundry, since that was obviously what he was supposed to do. He took each of the pieces of clothing on the table he had cleaned. He tapped each piece of clothing in turn, saying "Plic Vestimenta" each time he did so. And as he did, each piece of clothing folded itself. To be honest, the job got neater as he went along, as he performed it more. He went back and redid the first couple, where the arms of the shirts had folded over a bit but the rest remained mainly unchanged. When he was satisfied with how folded the clothes were, he stacked them in a pile on top of each other. He did it by hand because he was afraid trying to use magic to lift them would mess up the fold.

That was it, right? Except before Olly left, he had an idea. He found an empty glass and set it on the clean table. "Scourgify," he said for good measure, even though it was pretty clean already. Then he said, "Orchideous." And left the flowers in the glass on the table. For aesthetic purposes. He was pretty proud of his work as he left the room.

Rooney loooooooved charms. He did, really. The things he had seen older students do with their wands had been stuff he could only dream to be as good at in a few years. And if he worked harder for all of his subjects, then maybe his duelling would improve. It was only a hope and he had no proof that it would work like that for him, but it was worth it. Right? Besides, he had convinced himself that this was going to be SO fun. Especially with a panel of judges. It would be like an audition. And he was GREAT at those. So he was going to treat this as one.

………. Clearly an audition for Cinderella.

”Gross…” He muttered under his breath, checking the room out properly and feeling more sick as time passed. What was that smell? Actually, no. What was that smell and what was it mixed with? What were those SMELLS?! He considered if he knew a smell that would prevent him breathing in this foul smell, and decided to just man up. If Cinderella could do it, then so could he. First of all, though. He was going to get that window open in the back. He wasn’t sure whether he was supposed to use magic for stuff like this, but he didn’t want to mess it up, so he pointed his wand towards the window and spoke clearly. ”Alohamora!” OH THANK YOU. FRESH AIR. FRESH AIR. That was definitely his first success for the day.

His job was clearly to get this room into a spotless beauty in the time frame, and by GOLLY was there a lot of work to do! He cleared it out in his mind about what there was specifically… Definitely sweeping and mopping. Completely clearing out whatever was in that litter tray. That was probably the smell that was making his stomach turn. It didn’t smell anything like Pomegranate’s and his cat was an absolute disgusting animal. Ah., And then the clothes… He gave them a look and scoffed. How dare they clean clothes and then leave them in a room like this?! This was… Oh, this was awful. Those poor clothes. Those poor, poor pieces of fabric left in disgusting conditions. Repulsive. It sickened him. AND SO.. he was adding it to his list of things to do, that he needed to rewash them when he was done with his cleaning. It was fine. He’d been working on his hot air charm a lot lately, enough that he could get the clothes dry ridiculously quickly if he put his mind to it. Perfect!

Now to start. Where..was the actual question he should have been asking. Probably the closest place and that was the paper strewn on the table beside him. A quick swish and flick of his wand, accompanied by ”Wingardium Leviosa!” took the papers into the air and the fourth year had them dance a little up and down as he moved his arm direction towards the bin in the room. When he was certain they were generally above it, he released his casting by lowering his wand and watched them fall in perfectly. Maybe it was better for him to be creative with this? He was a creative person, so it made sense for him to make the most of this. ESPECIALLY when he was pretending it was an audition. He’d sing and turn his way around this room like he had the starring role in a fairytale.

He started with a simple singing of ‘Whistle While You Work’ from Snow White as he stretched up up up in the air and down down down to touch his toes. Then he shoooooook it alllllll out and set his sights on the broom. A swish and a clockwise twirl with his wand and a pause in his song for a confident casting of ”Liberum Arbitrium broom!” set the broom to work as he guided it around the room to clean. ”And as you sweep the room, imagine that the broom is someone that you love and soooon you’ll find you’re dancing to the tuuuuune.” To complete his goings on, Roo went alongside the path of the broom, in a repetitive triple turn and leap. Once then twice. Three times then four. Five and then six. It was evident that the Ravenclaw had been practicing the transition between a turn to a leap for his actual audition in December, and that was all thanks to Miss Olivia. His BEST FRIEND!!

Once he was satisfied that the dirt in here was all collected into one pile, he returned the broom back to where he had found it and finished his song. The judges were most welcome.

What next? Well.. he needed to get the rubbish pile into the bin and also get rid of alllll of this disgusting poop and whatnot, too. The scoop! That would be woooondeful for the dirt pile too. In the midst of a leap, Rooney cast ”Wingardium Leviosa!” at the shovel to get it off that hook it was chilling on and then as he landed.. he shot a ”Locomotor shovel!” at the same object. A leap was all he needed to fly into his confident persona and he KNEW he had this in the bag already. No one could fault him on being boring with anything. He wasn’t boring. He had fun in ways different to other people. He wasn’t dysfunctional or antisocial. He was Rooney. And Rooney was guiding the shovel into the litter tray to scoop and then dump into the rubbish bin. Again and again, often swapping to collect the dirt from the pile in the same way. After one or two tries, he carried on singing. This time with a new song, of course. ”Ciiinderelly, Cinderelly! Night and day it’s Cinderelly!” Because HE was Cinderella today. Woe is he. He even shuffled three times to the left and three times to the right continuously. ”Make the fire! Fix the breakfast! Wash the dishes, do the moppin’! Aaaaand the sweepin’ and the dustin’… They always keep her hoppin’!” He had even adjusted his moves to everything, a circle hand motion with his non-wand hand for the dishes, a sweeping gesture AND a whole hop!

When he stopped, he let the shovel sit beside the broom and took a quick bow. NO, NO. He wasn’t done, though! With an ‘s’ motion, his wand cast a perfect ”Scourgify!” at the empty litter tray, thanks to his months of practice at that one in his first year. It was a necessary, every day spell to him and he knew it would haunt him if he hadn’t got it perfect early on. He needed to finish the cleaning part of this song so he could move on so he took centre stage a stand on the table in the room – albeit a little wobbly, hm. And span around. ”She go around in circles, till she very very dizzy. Still they holler, keep a busy, Cinderelly!” AND JUMPED OFF THE TABLE. Landing on his two feet without any broken bones. See! He HAD been practicing his leaps and lands with perfect results. Little perfectionist, he was.

”Accio bucket!” As he would need it to mop, and wasn’t sure if he was allowed to use his hands for those little things. Not that he thought there would be a time he didn’t have his hands, because if he could hold his wand with one…then he could use it to pick up an empty bucket. Empty, no more! ”Aguamenti!” And now for the mop, oooooh. He also needed to decide on what song he was going to sing next, without repeating them. He just had an urge to practice his audition songs and the more difficult parts of his routines, but…he was on a time limit and he had given enough of a performance for now. And there was still SO much to do. Mopping AND dusting and the darn clothes! No singing. That was his decision. ”Liberum Arbitium mop!” Instead of following the mop around the room in leaps, he sat himself on the table to that the floor could fully be cleaned and he wouldn’t be in the way or slipping anywhere. PLUS it meant that he had a better view of the entire room and could spin on his bottom should he need to. Perfect.

… Clean floors! Oh, yes! First off, he cast a hot air charm over the immediate floor area around him so he could at least tread there. He needed to get a move on though. Maybe putting on a performance had been too much a focus for him and he’d gone way into his time with a whole lot of things to do still. Unfair… Maybe? He HAD had a lot of fun with it. His turns had surely improved with this impromptu rehearsal, also. Tergeo!” He cast, wand pointed directly at the table to clean off the dust there. Perfect. He cast that spell again over a piece of floor that seemed to have stains on it that the mop hadn’t been able to get rid of, before wiping the sweat from his palms onto his trousers.

Wand at the clothes pile, aaaand…. SWISH AND FLICK. And this was all so well on its way. ”Wingardium Leviosa!” Perfect. Carefully, he set them onto the now clean table and inspected them. Yeah.. that dust was definitely imbedded in the fabrics. They needed another wash. He wasn’t the greatest at cleaning clothes. He HAD been cleaning his in the bathroom sink once and Professor Draper had deemed him literally insane. (Which, he probably was a bit) But he could do something, right? Leaving the clothes in the basket, Roo made them all suffer through multiple castings of ”Scourgify!” Multiple, being four. And then he lay them out on the table with well-placed levitation charms.

This was the time to show off his hot air charm talent, spending half a minute switching his wand direction between three items of clothing. Ten seconds for each. And then he moved straight onto the next trio. No time wasted here!! And he surely had time to still fold them…

The time was up and even though the Ravenclaw Prefect was putting on a good show, he had his time that he had to have this accomplished by and that had just ended. Julien got up and made his way into the charmed room. "Excuse me Rooney, but I'm afraid your time here is up." He did value the effort the boy put in and he would be award the score based on what he did accomplish. Creativity was always nice and his singing was going to help with that.


Stepping to the side he opened the door for the Ravenclaw to leave. "Thank you for coming in and working through the challenge. We will have the final scores up at some point this week." They did have to finish the rest of the challenges first and all.

He had three more shirts to dry off and then he could fold them and that wouldn't take long at all! That was the beauty of magic. He was actually mid incantation when his attention was drawn to Professor Primeaux and his face fell. "What? What do you mean? No, no. My time isn't up! It said half an hour. I have a few minutes left!" Everything in his body was failing right then. His brain first, clearly. His heart next. And his song. He wasn't going to sing when cleaning ever again...

Roo took a couple of steps from the table and towards the Charms teacher, before stopping and frowning. "It's not a challenge if it doesn't change me, Sir. And not finishing it isn't changing anything for me, so can you call it a challenge really?" His head took it's natural tilt and he held his wand beside his leg, tapping the wood nervously between his fingers. "Let me finish. Give me five minutes. Three minutes, even!" He could probably do it in two, but he wanted to make sure he could fix anything that went wrong.

Magic was temperamental sometimes. Like this Ravenclaw when things didn't go his way.

"Let me finish, Professor. No one can clean a room, wash, dry and fold clothes in half an hour." And that was what he needed to do. The clothes were not clean. No one would want to wear them. They needed to be clean.

He shook his head at the fourth year. The boy was giving a great argument, but the next person was already there and ready. So it was time to move on and unfortunately that meant not getting to finish. "I'm sorry Rooney, but the time was in the directions and the time is now up. The clothes were clean and only needed to be folded." He had cleaned them himself actually.


"So if you could please gather yourself and head out that would be great. Your effort was fantastic and you have learned something. You have learned how to be quick in all these charms as well as following directions when it says to do something so that you aren't putting yourself through more work then needed.'


Primeaux headed out of the room knowing Rooney would be heading there right behind him.

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

What?

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

It hadn't worked? Rooney was torn between leaving or completing a sit in so that no one else could do this after him until he was allowed to FINISH. It was a reasonable ask. There was nothing really riding on this. No glory title that would make him Minister of Magic immediately. Nothing that guaranteed his badge until he graduated. Whatever had happened to Thornton may happen to him too. It could have been a curse with the position. He didn't know! He'd only had it for a short time.

He had decided. "Screw your challenge." It was true that he had practiced his spells quickly in it, but he hadn't learned anything. And CLEARLY Professor Primeaux had no intention of letting him actually finish. So he'd just help set the room up again. Helpful, as always, was Rooney Bronwyn. With whatever might and anger he had...probably a lot of upset too, honestly.. Roo gave the table a shove and knocked it over onto it's side, letting the clothes and the basket fall to the floor.

For good measure, he gave the full bucket of water a kick as he stormed out past the Professor.

Ewww.

What. A. Mess.

Esme made a face as she stepped inside the room and saw what she was faced with. Despite reading the directions on the door, she somehow was taken aback by how messy and gross everything was. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that she had inherited her mother's tenancy to be a bit of a neat freak. She was definitely more organized than her sister though of course Juno was nothing like this... The smell of the cat litter was enough to turn her stomach slightly.

No matter because it was time to get started.

First things first she would address everything that was on the table since it made more sense to work downwards. That was what Esme always did because that way any dust, crumbs, whatever that ended up on the floor could be cleaned up with the rest as opposed to having to do the floors TWICE. It was rather unnecessary in her opinion even if she had magic on her side. Speaking of magic, she needed to remember the spell that would get the rag to do what she wanted. Recalling a previous Charms lesson, she knew that the spell to bring a cleaning object to life was Liberum Arbitrium.

With a swish and clockwise twirl, she called out, "Liberum Arbitrium rag!" The table began to be dusted thoroughly by the rag working its magic, though she did let the pieces of paper fall to the floor. They would be placed in the garbage can though really they SHOULD be broken down and returned to the environment. Recycling was an important thing because the earth had only so many resources and people were eating them up. Whatever. This was not a time to get into a debate even though she disagreed. That would be a discussion for later. At least the table was becoming dust free. Satisfied that the job was being carried out effectively, she moved on to her other tasks.

It was a good idea to take care of the milk before it got spread any further. Besides she didn't want to accidentally step in it or something... Her attention was turned to the mop as well as a bucket. "Aguamenti!" Esme said, filling the bucket with water. She would need to perform the same spell as she had with the rag; a second swish of her wand followed by a clockwise twirl. "Liberum Arbitrium mop!" This would make short work of the milk. It would take less time than cleaning the table too, though that was being carried out VERY efficiently she could see upon glancing upwards. She would be done in no time though she was still far from finished. Obviously. As the mop and bucket did its thing she set about working on the litter box problem because she really couldn't stand the smell anymore.

"Locomotor!" she said as she pointed her wand at the cat litter shovel, lifting it off of the hook. Using her wand, she guided the scoop so that it lifted up all the bits of poop and emptied them in the trash one at a time. Bleh. She made a face. THIS was why no matter how much she liked cats she wasn't about to get one. At least dogs did their business outside...

Now on to sweeping!

Focusing on all the mess that she wanted to have cleaned up - and really it was A LOT - she said, "Liberum Arbitrium broom!" As it sprang to life and began sweeping the dirt and papers (was that confetti mixed in?) that littered the floor, she smiled. The dustpan would be needed because otherwise there would be a mountain in the floor and she wouldn't know what to do with it. "Locomotor!" she called out, sending the dustpan over to where the broom was gathering everything that it had swept up. Once it was all contained, she sent it over to the garbage can. Now she would just need to repeat everything until the floor was spotless. At least the table was clean, the litter was taken care of, and the milk was dealt with. All and all she was doing a good job.

Repeatedly she used Locomotor to gather everything that was littered onto the floor into the dustpan and then dump it into the garbage can. After a few minutes the floor was spotless. All that was left to do was fold the laundry.

Fortunately for Esme she knew the spell to fold laundry; her mother had taught it to her ages ago though she obviously couldn't use it at home until she was of age. No matter because she had practiced it at school and used it to fold up her clothes and keep them in her trunk. It saved a lot of time compared to doing things manually so she could definitely see where Professor Primeaux was coming from with saying how much easier charms made everything. They were a beautiful thing.

The first item of clothing was placed before her on the table and she tapped it with her wand. "Plic Vestimenta." This process was repeated over and over again until all the clothing was neatly folded and laid out across the table surface. Worried that she would damage her work by piling the clothes by hand, she opted to leave everything as it was. Didn't really matter because she had organized like with like and made sure that the result was as neat as possible.

Pleased by how well she had done, Esme left the room.