The class had some amazing answers. Today they were making valentines with sound effects.

Text Cut: Notes

Origami has been a time-consuming activity, so today we'll be using a simple folding charm... To cast, point your wand at the area you want to fold and move it directed to the intended fold; the incantation is Plico.

The professor handed out instructions to all the students. She wanted to create Cupid streamers. She was practicing the folding charm. Origami was cool! She was excited to see her classmates' activity.

She'd been going about folding....and trashing several papers but finally she felt she was on the right track with this heart. It was always about thinking a couple steps ahead, especially with something that wasn't entirely symmetrical.

"Plico!" And over here too..."Plico!"

If only she could tell what this would look like before it was done. Folding blindly like this was the perfect way to build her anxiety. Like, what if it didn't work? Or it turned out to be another heap of nothing but folds and weird dimensions? There were already three crumpled pieces of paper sitting there on her desk and she didn't fancy having a fourth added.

"Plico!"

A few more folds here and there then the Ravenclaw lowered her wand to assess her handiwork. When she realized it only vaguely resembled a functioning human heart, she placed it down neatly and considered herself done. Chances were, it wouldn't get any closer than that and the Professor had just said they only had five minutes left. No chance she'd get a whole other one done in time.

This would, unfortunately, have to do.

Ah, so it seemed her guess about origami hearts was a good one, because it earned her one of those revealers. How interesting... but Skylar was still curious about it because what did it do? What was the purpose of it? Setting it on the corner of her desk, she would investigate it more later because they were moving on to learning some origami folds, with a spell. Well that would be convenient, because the only thing close to origami she knew how to make was a paper fortune teller. So perhaps a charm would make it good because origami was actually really cool .... just time consuming as the Professor said.

Glancing at the options, Skylar decided she wanted to make swans. Three of them, to be precise. One for each of her favorite snake girls, because swans were so graceful and pretty and it seemed appropriate enough.

"Plico," she said confidently, practicing the incantation first. Easy enough. "Plico," she said again, just testing it out on the corner of her parchment. It was clear that charms was actually one of the fourth year's best subjects, given the way the corner just folded up like she intended.

Taking a fresh sheet from her stack, the fourth year cast again, "Plico", the paper folding so effortlessly on its diagonal, a feat that had she been making manually, would have taken forever to align the edges perfectly. Unfolding, she cast plico again and again, to have the right and left edges meet the central crease. And then repeated turning the paper over.

Casting plico again, the model folded in half so the sharp point met the corner on the opposite side. And plico again, the sharp point folded back just a bit. Using plico a last time, she folded the model in half vertically and rotated quarter turn. Now using her fingers, she pulled the neck and head away from the body.

Now just time to repeat two more times, which she might have to do after lecture.

And she just needed two more folds and then she'd have her heart. Pointing her wand at the bottom left edge, she drew a line from there to the centre crease. Pilco. And then she repeated that for the right edge. Pilco. And finally now she took her wand and traced the top and side corners back. Pilco. Pilco.

And done! Perfect!

Gaston glanced at his watch again. The five minutes had passed; it was time to move on to the next activity. He rose from his seat and took his place at the front of the room. "Excellent job, everyone!" he addressed the group. "If you haven't finished your creation, you'll have more time to do so later, but for now we must move on."

He paused a moment to give the class time to find a stopping place and turn their attention to him. When he felt confident that most of the students were listening, he continued, "Earlier, a few of you mentioned Howlers. This was an excellent guess, as the spell we'll be using is essentially a simplified version of the spell used to make a Howler speak. Although similar in that both Howlers and out finished products today are messages with sound magically added, there are quite a few differences too. Can anyone guess what these differences might be?"

OOC: You have 20-24 HOURS to answer this question!

Folded paper…origami valentines. Oh it was that time of year already. Not that Cassie really dealt with Valentines given she hadn’t experience in the boyfriend department and giving them to friends could be weird, especially the friends that were boys. Still, she supposed a folding charm had far more useful uses so she paid apt attention to Professor Marchant as he went over the spell. Pretty simple all around, the incantation and a movement in the direction of the fold was easy as the man demonstrated for the class. The Ravenclaw kept an eye on the papers as each of them were left on her desk.

But first…

“Plico... Plico… Plico,” she practiced, getting her tongue around the word the best she could. Heart, swan, dove or teddy bear? Plico…Plico…Plico…Plico…Plico. Looking over the options and the corresponding instructions, Cass opted for the swan, figuring a bird wasn’t too bad of an image and it wasn’t quite as complicated as the dove. “Plico!” she cast, motioning for it to fold on the diagonal before she unfolded it with her hand. The fifth year then cast the spell twice to fold the front and another two times for the opposite side. Step four was a tad tricky but she managed it, however her search for perfection cost her and Marchand was already moving on.

“Volume would be a difference,” she suggested after raising her hand to get permission. “And tone. You don’t want to yell at your Valentine.”

The difference between a howler and an origami with sound magically added.. Hm. Mainly what Cassandra had mentioned. The difference in tone.. the intent. But, Etta didn't want to repeat what was already mentioned so she gave it some thought before finally raising a hand.

"Well, professor. A howler is used to express displeasure of the author.. just like she mentioned. But once the message has been delivered to the recipient, the envelope bursts into flames.. doesn't it? And obviously, origami with magically added sound messages doesn't do that." That was a difference, wasn't it? Etta quickly noted that down in her parchment before leaning back against her seat, listening to others give their answers.

Volume, tone, and explosions.... Differences indeed. What else was different between a Howler and a magical recorded sound.

Was magic applied differently to both objects perhaps? Were similar Charms used to gain the same affect? She bit her lip as she glanced down at the purple origami heart in front of her. She had no clue what other differences there could be as she agreed with both the previous students' answers. "Is the application of the sound to the letters different? Are different charms used?" she asked curiously. It was only a guess after all.

The first year quietly drummed her fingers on her desk. She was doubly super careful to do this quietly because she didn't want to interrupt people answering the professor or practicing the charm. The truth was that her focus was half on Derf and waiting impatiently for him to write back, and half on what the professor was saying.

Other people had already said most of the stuff that she thought would make these valentines different from Howlers, but she raised her hand anyway: "Howlers go up in BIG flames and tear themselves up into tiny pieces!" Which was SUPER cool by the way! But: "That might not be very nice for a valentine's thing." Although she thought James some people would like the explosions. Maybe she could make one that exploded and one that was all nice to look at.

"Intention is another difference. You send howlers when you're really mad at someone but these regular talking messages--especially valentine ones are for admiration and that sort of stuff." So kinda like what Etta said.

She'd never gotten a howler before, but she could bet it was the last thing you'd want to send to your valentine...unless of course you were angry at them and wanted to make this perfectly clear.

Of course....telling them you were upset probably worked just as well.

She couldn't understand the need for a howler. How did anyone ever get that angry? Sending exploding parchments and messages to others just seemed a bit extreme for the Ravenclaw. Surely there were more civilized means of letting someone know that you were quite put off by whatever it was they'd done. Not everything had to be a yelling match. Sometimes, the scariest conversations were the ones you could scarcely hear.

It was weird. People were weird.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MadMadamMalfoy

Miss Summers very nearly guessed the activity, and her answer earned her a smile from the professor and a revealer sent her way. “Not exactly like a Howler, Miss Summers,” he replied, “but you’re on to something!”

And it seemed Miss Swynford was thinking along the same lines. “Not quite, Miss Swynford, but the thing we’re making today is similar to a Howler,” Gaston said, levitating another revealer toward the girl.

Mr. Ashbury-Hawthorne also mentioned Howlers; that was turning into quite a popular answer! Gaston smiled. A nice Howler? Now that was an oxymoron, wasn’t it? “Good guess, Mr. Ashbury-Hawthorne; you’re on the right track!” he said, and another flick of his wand sent a revealer to the Hufflepuff.

And another one for Howlers. Gaston listened to Miss Sorin-Ward’s answer and smiled a bit at the mention of notes flying to their recipients. Now that was a fun idea! “Excellent guess, Miss Sorin-Ward,” he said, levitating a revealer to her.

NICE HOWLERS EXISTED! His mum had told them about them. Or maybe it was Alexa that had told him about them because her Head of House had done them at the time. He couldn't remember details - not creature talk so like...why would he? - but THEY WERE POSSIBLE! In a way...weren't Howlers sorta like Dark magic? It was all about the INTENT behind them whether or not things were BAD?

It was this thought that kept the second year preoccupied until there was a revealer hovering in front of his face. Um...UM...WHAT DID HE DO?! He knew FOOD was not okay to accept from professors...but what about these sorts of things?! WHERE WAS DORA BECAUSE HE NEEDED GUIDANCE!!

Wand out, Derf simply poked the thing as it hovered in front of his face. Yeah...maybe...yeah...it could just stay there...um....UUUUUUUUUUUUM...

Quote:

Originally Posted by MadMadamMalfoy

He paused for a moment before continuing, "Origami can be a time-consuming activity, so today we'll be using a simple folding charm...." He picked up a red square paper. "To cast, point your wand at the area you want to fold and move it in the direction of the intended fold; the incantation is Plico." He repeated the incantation and traced his wand in a diagonal line from one corner of the paper to the other; the paper folded in half. He repeated the process a few more times until the paper had formed a heart.

"I'm passing out instructions for a few origami shapes; you may choose one of these or create one of your own," he went on. "It doesn't have to be a valentine..." Because he knew some people didn't like Valentine's Day. "You can make a paper airplane-" Sidelong glance at Miss Spinnet. "-a lantern or a fan, anything you can come up with. The point of this exercise is to practice the folding charm. I'll give you a few minutes to experiment; let's see what you can make!"

Gaston aimed his wand at a stack of papers on his desk. The stack levitated and traveled around the room, dropping a sheet of paper with detailed instructions on each student's desk. They read:

Text Cut: ”Origami heart instructions”

Step 1: Start with a square piece of paper in the color of your choice.

Step 2: Fold the paper in half by folding the top corner to the bottom corner, then unfold.

Step 3: Fold the left corner to the right corner, then unfold.

Step 4: Fold the top corner to the center.

Step 5: Fold the bottom corner to the top edge.

Step 6: Fold the bottom left and right edges to the center crease.

Step 7: Fold the top and side corners back.

Text Cut: “Origami swan instructions”

Step 1: Start with a square sheet of paper. Fold in half on the diagonal. Unfold.

Step 2: Fold the left and right edges of the paper to meet the central crease made above.

Step 3: Turn the paper over and repeat: fold the left and right edges to meet the central crease.

Step 4: Fold the model in half so the sharp point meets the corner on the opposite side (align the red dots).

Step 5: Fold the sharp point back again about a third of the way; exact distance not important.

Step 6: Fold the model in half vertically (mountain fold to create left and right side of swan). Rotate quarter turn.

Step 7: Gently pull the neck and head of the origami swan away from the body. Done.

Text Cut: “Origami dove instructions”

Step 1: Start with a square piece of paper.

Step 2: Fold in half by folding the bottom corner to the top corner.

Step 3: Fold in half again by folding the left corner to the right corner. Unfold.

Step 4: Fold the left corner to the top corner.

Step 5: Fold the right corner to the top corner.

Step 6: Take the left flap and fold it in half by folding its top corner to the bottom corner. Unfold the left flap.

Step 7: Fold the right flap in half by folding the top corner to the bottom corner. Unfold.

Step 8: Fold both left and right corners to meet at the center. This is to prepare for an inverted fold in Step 10. Unfold both.

Step 9: Open the left flap.

Step 10: Do an inverted fold by denting the corner in, using the creases you made in Step 11 to guide you.Once the corner is inverted, fold the left corner to the top corner.

Step 11: To repeat on the other side, open the right flap.

Step 12: Do an inverted fold using the creases as a guide. Once the middle corner is inverted, fold the right corner to the top corner to close the flap.

Step 13: Fold the figure in half by folding the left side under the right.

Step 14: Fold the top flap diagonally down to the left. Turn the figure over.

Step 15: Fold the top flap diagonally down to the right.

Step 16: fold the wing diagonall down to the left. The crease must run from the upper left corner to the corner where the wing and body meets. Turn the figure over.

Step 17: Now we'll repeat the fold on this side. Again, fold the crease diagonally.

Step 18: Fold the top piece (which is the tail) to the right, along the lines you created with the wing. Unfold the tail.

Step 19: Take the right side of the figure and open it up to the left.

Step 20: Using the creases as guide, do an inside reverse fold on the tail. Once the tail is tucked inside, fold the dove back together.

Step 21: Take the top wing and fold it diagonally left. Turn the figure over.

Step 22 Fold the left wing diagonally to the right.

Step 23: Now on to the head. Take a small portion of the corner at the bottom of the figure and fold it up. Unfold again.

Step 24: Open the figure from the left side so we can invert the head.

Step 25: Now invert the the corner so it's tucked inside the other way. Crease the left and right sides so the head remains that way.

Step 26: That's it! Rotate the dove so the head is on top and you're done!

Text Cut: ”Origami teddy bear instructions”

Step 1: Start with a square sheet of paper in the color of your choice.

Step 2: fold the paper in half so it’s a triangle.

Step 3: once your paper is a triangle, fold it in half again.

Step 4: lay your paper flat on a table and get ready to fold some more!

Step 5: place your triangle so it’s pointed downward. Fold the left tip and the right tip towards each other.

Step 6: take each the right tip and the left tip and fold each outwards.

Step 7: at the end of each tip fold the paper back slightly.

Step 8: turn your paper over.

Step 9: fold the bottom tip up slightly to create a triangle.

Step 10: fold again upwards to make a face.

Step 11: use your quill to make your bear’s eyes, nose and mouth.

OOC: Mini activity time! As Gaston said, all you have to do is use the folding charm to create something. Use the instructions provided or come up with your own design, your choice. Try as many shapes as you like! There is no minimum post requirement, but you must make at least one thing to get full credit. If you have a question, please indicate in the title of your post. You have 30-36 HOURS to do this activity!

Okay...so again there was a lot of talking going on aaaaaaaand no offense to the professor but Derf's thoughts were SUPER distracted. Mostly until all instructions had been given and people were shuffling around and starting to practice the charm really. Which he hadn't heard...so he wasn't reeeally sure what was going on. Again.

Listening to those close by, the Hufflepuff managed to get the incantation based on sound alone. Sort of. "Pickle!" he chirped, totally practicing confidently. "Pickle. Pickle Pickle PICKLE!"

Nailed it.

NO stutter. No hesitation. He was ACTUALLY going to be able to do this task today!

Quote:

Originally Posted by NifflerFan

....
The first year listened intently to the professor's instructions, but she had to take care of something before she started the activity. She had noticed Derf staring at her Head of House and then examining bits of parchment on his desk. She realllly wanted to know what was going on, and if he'd learned something that could help Professor Marchand not feel so sad a lot, so she pulled a pink piece of parchment towards her and wrote: Did you find something out about the professor? across it. She could wait until after the lesson to ask him, but she wasn't sure she had the patience for that. Not when Professor Marchand looked all tired and stuff. The Gryffindor was small for her age, so she figured it wouldn't be too hard to take her note a few seats down to Derf.
Emmeline slipped out of her seat quietly and crouched down so that students sitting in front of her almost completely hid her from the professor's view. She scuttled past Stasya and Miss Olivia to get to Derf's desk and promptly dropped her note on his desk in front of him before scampering back to her seat as fast as possible.
....

Once he dealt with this huh?

Picking up the piece of paper and glancing over at Emmeline, Derf carefully unfolded it and read the note with a grin. Immediately looking up to find the Gryffindor - ugh she was kindra far awaaaaay - Derf turned her note over and scribbled on the back of it something ("This week is a fullmoon") and then wadded it up into a ball so he could THROW it across to her. Totally inconspicuous like. Mmhmm. He also figured that was MORE than enough for Emmeline to figure out what he was thinking.

And yeah...still side-eyeing you floating revealer thing. Not sure what to make of you.

Eyes set back to his piece of origami paper, Derf quickly decided that all these were too...complicated. Like SUPER complicated and he needed something more simply to start...SO HE WAS GOING TO FOLD A DOG! YEEEEEEEEES. HEH.

Want pointed to the paper, Derf spoke as clearly as possible. "Pickle!" Aaaaaaaaaand...nothing. What? "P i c k l e." Still nothing and if his brain were actually focusing on the class it may have put together that the name of a food was not proper for a spell and sought clarification. But...not today. "PICKLE." Nope. "P I C K L EEEEEEEE!"

He really was going to poke someone's eye out with his flourishing. Oops.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MadMadamMalfoy

Gaston glanced at his watch again. The five minutes had passed; it was time to move on to the next activity. He rose from his seat and took his place at the front of the room. "Excellent job, everyone!" he addressed the group. "If you haven't finished your creation, you'll have more time to do so later, but for now we must move on."

He paused a moment to give the class time to find a stopping place and turn their attention to him. When he felt confident that most of the students were listening, he continued, "Earlier, a few of you mentioned Howlers. This was an excellent guess, as the spell we'll be using is essentially a simplified version of the spell used to make a Howler speak. Although similar in that both Howlers and out finished products today are messages with sound magically added, there are quite a few differences too. Can anyone guess what these differences might be?"

OOC: You have 20-24 HOURS to answer this question!

Oh. They had to stop now. Okay.

FROWNING at his piece of parchment that was refusing to fold - but heeeeeeeey at least it hadn't caught fire? - Derf crossed his arms one over the other and tried his best not to pout. WHY wasn't it working? UGH.
He had finally figured out his wand was good for Charms work so SHOULDN'T he be able to do this?

As for the question itself...um...Derf wasn't really sure what to make of it honestly. What was the difference between...a Howler and other paper products? Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh. "Howlers-s-s don't need any magic to activate? Just open?" he half answered half asked. Like...if you never opened it up it couldn't yell at you. He had about five of those up in his room right now. No big deal. "S-S-Some recording charms-s need you to do magic to make them s-speak."

Trying to neatly straighten and flatten her newly folded heart origami, Vivian came to a decision that she did not want to make another one. It was awful, trying to make sure her work was neat. But then it was a good thing she was disrupted before she could lose her patience. SIGHS. The Slytherin look up at Professor Marchand and nodded when he said they'd be given more time later to finish things up. She wasn't sure that was a good idea considering her origami heart was a little messy, but she sort of pushed that away for now.

So they were going to be charming the origamis into NICE howlers? Vivian couldn't help but giggle. That sounded really fun and cute. She quietly considered the thought that maaaaybe she should send a couple of those for her friends and dorm mates for Valentines, because why not? Anyway, to answer the Professor's question, the Slytherin raised her hand. "The nice howler will most likely say nice things to the receiver of the message. It's kinda similar to the actual howler, just minus the being aggressive part." Who wanted to receive an angry letter for Valentines? Not this girl, definitely.

This time was good because Vivienne was finished her Cupid creation. The professor pushed on.

We were discussing howlers. Plico is used to charm howlers? Wow!

Well, she had finished one swan before the Professor was continuing on, but she had three roommates and she was determined to make them EACH their own. But he was continuing on and said more time would be given later to finish their creations, which meant time to re-focus her attention for now.

Which apparently the topic was on howlers and the differences they presented to these messages, which were going to be with sound added? Everyone pretty much already stated exactly what the fourth year was thinking, but surely there had to be some overlooked difference, right? Except, big flames could be nice for a sweet message if the recipient appreciated fire or if the giver just didn't want to the message out there after it was heard once. But that wasn't really a difference. There must be something, right? Rubbing her temple, she sighed, thinking way too much too into this.

Uh, was Derf saying pickle? Why was he saying pickle again? At least though, it got Skylar's mind distracted for a moment off of the differences, but still.

Also, aggression didn't have to be perceived as negative. But differences, not similarities.

"Howlers aren't usually done in a fancy shape, but just signified by the classic red envelope." There, that was something.

Ok so the spell they would be doing... is some kind of anti-Howler? That was the biggest difference he'd care for right now. "Its a kind of positive magic Professor? Instead of a howler which be a kind of harsh or negative magic."

Miss McNally’s hand was the first Gaston saw in the air. He nodded, and the bit about not wanting to yell at one’s valentine got a slight chuckle from him. “No, you certainly wouldn’t!” he said. “Excellent, Miss McNally. Volume and tone are two very important differences.” With a flick of his wand, he levitated a heart-shaped revealer toward the Ravenclaw.



Miss Kramer spoke up next, and Gaston listened intently to her answer. “Indeed a howler does burst into flames,” he replied, “and no, you would need to cast a separate spell to make a message explode like that. Great guess, Miss Kramer!”

It seemed Miss Sparkes had the same idea. Gaston nodded, smiling slightly. “No, that wouldn’t be a nice valentine at all!” he said. Especially not for someone who was afraid of fire, like him for example! “Very good, Miss Sparkes.”



Now here was a good answer! Gaston was impressed. “Well, yes and no,” he replied. “The charms used to record the messages are the same for both howlers and out projects today, though the application is slightly different for a howler in that it requires an additional charm to amplify the voice. Good point, Miss Holden!”



The answer Miss Cambridge gave was more an emotional difference than a magical one, but no less accurate. Gaston nodded, smiling slightly. “Very true, Miss Cambridge,” he replied. “The intent behind the message makes a big difference.”

Later, Miss Fairfield said something along the same lines, and she too earned a smile and a nod from the professor. “I should say they would!” he said. “It wouldn’t make much sense to send an aggressive valentine, would it? Good guess, Miss Fairfield.”



Gaston couldn’t help but notice that Mr. Ashbury-Hawthorne was having quite a bit of trouble with the folding charm. Goodness, did he really think the spell was “pickle”? Had he not pronounced the incarnation clearly when he demonstrated or was the boy just not paying attention? He approached the boy’s desk. “The spell is Plico, not pickle, Mr. Ashbury-Hawthorne,” he said, careful to keep his voice down so as not to embarrass the boy. “I’ll show you again.” He picked up a piece of paper and repeated the spell and wand movement. “Move your wand over the area you want to fold in the direction of the fold.”

Out of the corner of his eye, the professor saw a ball of paper sail through the air toward Miss Sparkes and assumed that was a note. He wasn’t going to do the cliché teacher thing of making the student read the note out loud; he had more important things to worry about. Instead, he simply said, “Passing notes in class is not allowed, Mr. Ashbury-Hawthorne – and please don’t throw things.”

Gaston wasn’t quite sure he followed Mr. Ashbury-Hawthorne’s train of thought as he answered the question and paused a moment to think of the right way to answer. “You’re saying that some messages take a separate charm to play back the recorded message, yes?” he said. “If so, then yes, that’s true. Howlers don’t need a spell to play the message, but neither do our projects today.”



Again it seemed Miss Awning has nothing to say. Gaston was beginning to worry that she might not understand the lesson. Oh well, maybe she was just shy? Or having an off day?



Gaston was impressed and a bit surprised when Miss Diggory gave an answer that hadn’t already been said. The answer earned her a beam from the professor. “Very good, Miss Diggory,” he said, smiling. “Howlers do have a much simpler design than our origami.”



And here was another unique answer! Gaston gave Mr. Salander an approving smile. “Not exactly, though you make a good point, Mr. Salander,” he said. “The spell itself isn’t positive or negative; it’s the intent behind the spell that gives it a positive or negative connotation.”

The professor paused a few moments to give the students more time to answer. When no one else spoke up, he addressed the group, “Well done, everyone! You came up with some very creative answers. Just to recap…” With a wave of his wand, a diagram appeared on the board.

“Now a howler typically uses four charms: one to record the message, one to amplify the voice, one to make the letter explode after relaying its message, and one to silence the howler until the envelope is opened. That last one is very important – without it, the howler would repeat its message at the wrong time.”
He gave the class a few moments to process the information before going on, “Now today, we’ll only be focusing on one of those charms: the recording charm. I’m going to show you a couple of different variations of the spell. First, you’ll write your message on the origami shape you made earlier – this step is the same for every variation of the spell…” He picked up a quill and jotted something down on the back of the origami heart he’d made earlier.

“If you want your creation to simply speak its message, trace your wand in the shape of a speech bubble and use the incantation Nuntium dico, like so…” He made the speech bubble shape with his wand and repeated the spell. The origami heart called out, “Happy Valentines Day!”

“If you want to record a singing message, the spell is a little different,” he continued. “After you’ve written your message, you’ll make a musical note shape with your wand and say Nuntium cantabo…” He performed the spell on a paper bear he’d made before class, and it sang, “La la la la la!”

“The last spell is more of an add-on than a variation,” he said. “If you want your shape to say its message only once, you won’t need to use this spell. If you want your message to repeat itself, follow the steps for either the speaking or singing recording charm, then you’ll use the spell Repeto; the wand movement is a figure eight.” He demonstrated the spell on a paper dove. “Coo, coo coo!” it said; it was silent for a moment then said, “Coo, coo, coo!” again.

Gaston clapped his hands as he looked out at the class. “You have the rest of the class to add sound to your creations. You don’t have to do all three versions of the recording spell, but I expect you to try at least one. If you still haven’t finished your origami, you may use this time to do so. I have a stack of envelopes with a silencing charm already placed on them, should you want to use them for your finished product.” He jerked his head toward a stack of white envelopes on his desk. “Let’s get started!”

OOC: You have ABOUT 60 HOURS to do this activity! As Gaston said, you’re welcome to try all the spells, but you only have to practice one for full credit. There is no minimum post requirement. If you have a question, please indicate in the title of your post. Gaston and I will be checking back in periodically to answer.

Zoryn was still preoccupied by the papers in front of her. And while the class was moving on from folding things, she wasn’t quite ready to do so yet. Because the more she looked at her folded object, the less it looked like a paper airplane. So instead, she tried to VERY QUIETLY fold one with her hands as Professor Marchand addressed the class.

And boy did he have loads of words to say. Zoryn maybe absorbed like three of them. Oops? She was really trying here though, okay???? Sort of. Well, she was trying to make a paper airplane… Which she SUCCEEDED AT!!! And she made a point to share that with the class by jumping into the air with her fist (and airplane) thrown up. ”BOOYA!”

UM Professor say WHAT?

Man, she wished he had written all the relevant stuff on a blackboard or something. ‘Cause Zoryn couldn’t remember any of it. She was SO lost. Instead of doing anything, she just sat and stared into space. BLINK. BLINK. BLINK.

As if she stared long enough, maybe then the instructions would present themselves once again.

And to her question, he had told her both yes and no. Huh? Olivia tilted her head slightly, intrigued by how it could be both and then listened to Professor Marchand's comments. The charms used were the same but the application was different. And then he complimented her on her thought! She blushed a slight shade of pink because she was still working on taking compliments... She was getting slightly better at it.

A howler typically used four charms: one to record the message, one to amplify the voice, one to make the letter explode after relaying its message, and one to silence the howler until the envelope is opened. Merlin. If she didn't have the fourth charm to silence the howler then it would just keep on playing over and over again. It wouldn't STOP. And then Professor Marchand said that they could do a singing message if they wanted too. Now that was really cool.

She'd start with the speaking one. The singing one was awesome but she'd do that only if she had more time. Then she'd make another origami shape and have it sing a message. Yes, that was a good plan. In the meantime, Olivia needed to practice both wand movement and incantation.

What was the incantation? Nuntium dico. "Nuntium dico. Nun-tium. Di-co. Nuntium Dico. Nuntium Dico." She repeated that three more times and said it one more time for good luck. Then she practiced tracing a speech bubble with her wand. Once. Twice. Three times. And once more for a fourth time just for good luck. And now Olivia just had to figure out what to write on the origami purple heart in front of her.

Hmm.....

The first year had actually managed to catch Derf's note when he threw it at her! Usually, she didn't catch things because she wasn't really paying attention and the flying things took her by total surprise. But she'd had an eye on Derf ever since she sent the note over, so she was ready. Emmeline grinned when the professor said she had a good answer, but quickly frowned when Derf got in trouble for returning her note. Oops. She shot the Hufflepuff an apologetic look, but she was super glad that the professor hadn't tried to read it out loud. Especially after she read what Derf had written and realized: Professor Marchand is a werewolf!!!![

This revelation made SO much sense. It totally explained why her Head of House was super sad all the time, and tired sometimes -- every month, maybe?! She remembered her conversation with the Charms professor from before the Christmas break and she felt so horrible for him. The poor man had to deal with family problems AND being a werewolf! But..she had just the thing to cheer him up!!

Emmeline pulled a new red piece of paper towards her and wrote a plain old message: Dear Professor Marchand, You are super awesome! I hope you like this on the next full moon. I don't want to hurt your feelings but the crups REALLY like these, so they must be so yummy! She waved her wand in the correct direction and cast: "Plico!" to fold the paper in half. Grinning, the first year dove for her bag and dug around inside it for the perfect Valentine's Day present for a werewolf. She had bought a brand new box of dog treats by owl order and it had just come in at breakfast! So it was still in its brown parcel wrappings and everything!

She definitely didn't want to expose the professor's secret with her gift. Sirius and the other cruppies LOVED these things, and she was super sure that Professor Marchand as a wolf would be really, really happy to have them!

Emmeline was half-listening to Professor Marchand's lecture on all the new spells. She'd ask Stasya and Miss Olivia for help in a minute, since they were sitting by her. Maybe Jessa too. For now, though, she waited until Professor Marchand had finished speaking and everyone was busy working on their spells. She didn't want anyone to notice, but they totally wouldn't because she was little and sneaky!

The Gryffindor grabbed up her gift of dog biscuits and her note for Professor Marchand and marched quietly and SUPER sneakily up to his desk. She plopped the gift down on the professor's desk and scurried back to her seat with her heart pounding like mad. She didn't regret giving the professor something to hopefully improve his next full moon experience, but she hoped he wouldn't be too mad at her (and Derf, if he figured out what that note meant) for knowing his secret.

After she sat down, she tried to catch Derf's eye and give him a BIG grin. This was the best Charms lesson ever!

Now, uhh, what were they supposed to be doing again?

Surprisingly, Althea actually had fun making the paper heart (even though she really wanted to rip it up, but still it was fun more or less.) She did her best to keep up with all of the information that Marchand gave them. Using spells to make the origami objects produce sound was interesting, to say the least. And while she didn't exactly care for receiving howlers during the school year, she could appreciate the work that went into their creation.

Out of all the spells he'd listed, Althea felt that the first one was the more appropriate one. But, what message to write? The fifth year sat there, deep in thought, flipping the origami heart around with her fingers. After a few minutes, she grabbed her quill and wrote a message down onto the back of the heart. It was very short, and not exactly sweet, but it would do. Placing her quill down on the table, Althea pulled her wand out and practiced saying the incantation a few times. "Nuntium dico,.... Nuntium dico." When she felt confident enough in her pronunciation of the spell, she used her wand to trace a speech bubble shape while saying "Nuntium dico," in a clear voice. Satisfied with her work, the Hufflepuff made her way over to Professor Marchand's desk and procured and envelope. Once she was back at her seat, she glanced around to see what sorts of shapes the others had made before tucking the origami heart into the envelope.

Rula was such a fan of Valentine's Day and Valentine's themed lessons, so she was definitely on board with this lesson so far, even if she'd mostly stayed quiet and taken notes. When it came time to fold the paper into a shape, she'd chosen to follow the guidelines for the swan (for a very particular reason, hehe). She hadn't quite finished it yet when they moved on, but that was okay. Just a couple more steps to finish once they got a chance.

And after a little bit more note-taking, it seemed like that time was now! Though she needed to think of something to write on it too in order for one of these new spells to work. Hmm...but what to write? Something short and simple sounded best since she didn't want to unfold her swan and redo it all again. But maybe not just a generic "Happy Valentine's Day" message. She wanted something a little bit better than that!

But before she got a chance to decide-

Quote:

Originally Posted by ArianaBlack

Zoryn was still preoccupied by the papers in front of her. And while the class was moving on from folding things, she wasn’t quite ready to do so yet. Because the more she looked at her folded object, the less it looked like a paper airplane. So instead, she tried to VERY QUIETLY fold one with her hands as Professor Marchand addressed the class.

And boy did he have loads of words to say. Zoryn maybe absorbed like three of them. Oops? She was really trying here though, okay???? Sort of. Well, she was trying to make a paper airplane… Which she SUCCEEDED AT!!! And she made a point to share that with the class by jumping into the air with her fist (and airplane) thrown up. ”BOOYA!”

UM Professor say WHAT?

Man, she wished he had written all the relevant stuff on a blackboard or something. ‘Cause Zoryn couldn’t remember any of it. She was SO lost. Instead of doing anything, she just sat and stared into space. BLINK. BLINK. BLINK.

As if she stared long enough, maybe then the instructions would present themselves once again.

-there was a loud "BOOYA", and Rula's attention was drawn to the younger Gryffindor girl who looked really proud of her work one minute and then...went completely blank staring into space. Maybe she was just thinking of what to write too? Didn't hurt to ask, right? And maybe it'd help Rula decide on something too.

So she got up and walked over to her. "Hey, nice airplane you made there." She grinned. "Need any help with what message you want it to say or anything?"

Gaston kept an eye on his students' work as he moved through the rows of desks, handing out revealers to the students who hadn't received one already. He was pleased with the progress he was seeing! "Great work, Miss Kenning!" he said, beaming at the Hufflepuff as he passed her desk.

He was similarly impressed with the other students' work. "Nice practice, Miss Holden!" he said, and the Gryffindor girl also earned a beam from the professor.

He noticed that Miss Spinnet seemed to be struggling, but before he could offer to help, Miss Botros stepped in. He gave the SLytherin a very appreciative smile. "Thank you, Miss Botros," he said. "Two points to Slytherin for helping another student." And an encouraging smile for Miss Spinnet. "You can do it, Miss Spinnet!"

He returned to the front of the room just in time to see Miss Sparkes sneak a valentine onto his desk. And there was a parcel with it too! Merlin, this girl was going to kill him with kindness! All he could do was stare for a moment, too touched to speak. When he finally found his voice, he smiled and said, "Excellent job, Miss Sparkes. And thank you! I'll open these a bit later." The entire class didn't need to know the contents of that valentine and package, did they?

After a few more minutes, Gaston looked at his watch. It was almost time for class to end! "You have about ten minutes left, class!" he addressed the group.

OOC: You still have AT LEAST 20 HOURS to finish the activity!

Nuntium Dico... okay. After Etta had finally finished noting down what the professor said, she decided to go ahead and practice the spell that he had mentioned. So this charm was for the origami to only speak the message. Right. After giving her neatly-written notes a look, she started to practice the incantation. What was it again? "Nuntium Dico. Nuntium Dico. Nuntium Dico." She repeated it a few more times until the words flowed easily out of her mouth. It was always important to get the pronounciation right, yeah? Once that was done, she went on to practice the wand movement.. which was tracing a speech bubble with her wand. Hmm. It was easy enough. She practiced it a few more times until she felt like she was reasonably ready to try it out.

Wait. What message did she want to write first? Hmmm. After spending more time than necessary, since they were celebrating Valentines Day after all, she finally wrote down Happy Valentines Day on the origami. Hm. Now, to try out the incantation. "Nuntium Dico." Etta said clearly, accompanying it with the appropriate wand movement, which was to make a speech bubble with her wand. .. and it worked. The girl almost jumped out of her seat when the origami called out what she had written! Uh. The girl smiled.. almost beaming, really. This was super exciting. Now, she wanted to try the other two spells too. EEEP!

Quote:

Originally Posted by MadMadamMalfoy

Gaston couldn’t help but notice that Mr. Ashbury-Hawthorne was having quite a bit of trouble with the folding charm. Goodness, did he really think the spell was “pickle”? Had he not pronounced the incarnation clearly when he demonstrated or was the boy just not paying attention? He approached the boy’s desk. “The spell is Plico, not pickle, Mr. Ashbury-Hawthorne,” he said, careful to keep his voice down so as not to embarrass the boy. “I’ll show you again.” He picked up a piece of paper and repeated the spell and wand movement. “Move your wand over the area you want to fold in the direction of the fold.”

Out of the corner of his eye, the professor saw a ball of paper sail through the air toward Miss Sparkes and assumed that was a note. He wasn’t going to do the cliché teacher thing of making the student read the note out loud; he had more important things to worry about. Instead, he simply said, “Passing notes in class is not allowed, Mr. Ashbury-Hawthorne – and please don’t throw things.”

Gaston wasn’t quite sure he followed Mr. Ashbury-Hawthorne’s train of thought as he answered the question and paused a moment to think of the right way to answer. “You’re saying that some messages take a separate charm to play back the recorded message, yes?” he said. “If so, then yes, that’s true. Howlers don’t need a spell to play the message, but neither do our projects today.”

...........oh.

Well THAT made loads more sense now didn't it? "Thanks-s, profes-s-sor," the Hufflepuff chirped warily. "Plico." Well, he supposed that did roll off the tongue a BIT easier. And since he had the professor right HERE he decided to give this a go and thrust his wand at the yellow piece of paper on his desk. "Plico!" And low and behold, the paper folded itself in half to make a triangle. "Oooo neat!" HIS SPELL HAD ACTUALLY WORKED AND NOTHING HAD BLOWN UP! IT WAS A CHRISTMAS VALENTINE'S DAY MIRACLE! Repeating things and folding one of the corners down to make an ear, Derf looked back to the professor a bit sheepishly. "S-Sorry," he murmured. Mostly that that had been seen but he was relieved that Emmeline's note passing had gone unnoticed. At least she wasn't in trouble too.

Both ends bent now for the ears - one kinda sorta looked longer than the other - his attention was once more on the Charms professor. "Yeah! Mum uses this one...uuuuuuuuuuum...she always does it nonverbally s-so I'm not sure of the incantation but it needs-s-s ANOTHER charm to play the mess-sssssage."

And now he was sidetracked and wondering WHAT that charm was sooooooo....he got his textbook out and attempted to flip through and find it. He had recently learned about something called an 'index' so he went aaaaaall the way to the back and looked under V. "Voice voice voice voice voice..."

Quote:

Originally Posted by MadMadamMalfoy

“If you want your creation to simply speak its message, trace your wand in the shape of a speech bubble and use the incantation Nuntium dico, like so…” He made the speech bubble shape with his wand and repeated the spell. The origami heart called out, “Happy Valentines Day!”

“If you want to record a singing message, the spell is a little different,” he continued. “After you’ve written your message, you’ll make a musical note shape with your wand and say Nuntium cantabo…” He performed the spell on a paper bear he’d made before class, and it sang, “La la la la la!”

“The last spell is more of an add-on than a variation,” he said. “If you want your shape to say its message only once, you won’t need to use this spell. If you want your message to repeat itself, follow the steps for either the speaking or singing recording charm, then you’ll use the spell Repeto; the wand movement is a figure eight.” He demonstrated the spell on a paper dove. “Coo, coo coo!” it said; it was silent for a moment then said, “Coo, coo, coo!” again.

Gaston clapped his hands as he looked out at the class. “You have the rest of the class to add sound to your creations. You don’t have to do all three versions of the recording spell, but I expect you to try at least one. If you still haven’t finished your origami, you may use this time to do so. I have a stack of envelopes with a silencing charm already placed on them, should you want to use them for your finished product.” He jerked his head toward a stack of white envelopes on his desk. “Let’s get started!”

"AHA!" he chirped triumphantly when he found it. "Intonio! Profess-sor!"

Uuuuuuuuuh...he had missed things again. He really needed to learn how to multitask better. Sure, he could chew gum and walk at the same time just fine without tripping - mostly - but listening while trying to do something else was not so much a thing.

Repeating the NOT 'pickle' spell once more to fold up the bottom of the paper to make the chin area, Derf grabbed his quill to draw eyes, a nose, and outline the mouth in blank ink. He also wrote D.A.H for his initials on the right ear. Or was it the left ear? He supposed that was all a matter of perspective though. The paper where the nose was opened up too SO when he hopefully got this origami dog to talk the paper could flap in the breeze as though the dog were ACTUALLY talking. What could he say, the Hufflepuff was optimistic.

And this spell had a LOT of variations...although he caught the bit about SINGING so he decided to try that. His paper dog could sing, yes. So with his quill back out, Derf flipped the origami dog over and scribbled down some lyrics. Only he forgot how the last line went to he just sort of wrote some na na na's and hoped that would cover things.

Howling in shadows
Living in a lunar spell
He finds his heaven
.....naa naa naa naaa naaa

"Nuntium .....cantaloupe?" Okay. Maybe he was just hungry and that was why he kept thinking about food items. "Nuntium cantabo," he corrected himself, giving his wand a bit of a wave in...wait..."PROFES-SSOR! Which mus-sical note? Beamed note? Quarter note? OH OH! AND! What if we want it to be LOUD?"

Because there was singing and then there was SINGING, you know?

So they can make their creations talk or sing? On repeat even. Thats so cool! The Curly Top watched the Professor demo the three spells.... ok its just making the written words have a voice as it were. Hopefully nothing that would ruin his creations like what the folding spell did earlier.

He practiced the spells first, scribbling a few silly words on an extra sheet of paper, doing the musical note wand cast and barely uttering Nuntium cantabo before hearing the words skipping along to a random melody. This non-verbal spell casting is pretty neat he gotta admit, but this ability actually working as flawless as it does is still catching himself by surprise.

Now, he had two origami creations that he combined to make this one special thing, and Tenacius was trying to figure out what to write and which origami to write it on. Wait a minute... why not make both of these sing eh?

It took him a while, but he decided on a couple of lines from a classic Stevie Wonder song. Yeah cheesy as heck, but it fits towards the end.

He scribbled the first phrase on the back of the origami bear, then traced the musical note over it, thinking Nuntium cantabo. The bear suddenly began to sing. Oh oh oh oh it works! He then grabbed the origami heart and scribbled the second phrase, then repeated the casting the spell over it. It too began to sing shortly thereafter.

SPOILER!!: Singing Origami-gram xD

SPOILER!!: Bear origami song

I just called to say I love you....

SPOILER!!: Heart origami song

... And I mean it from the bottom of my heart.

He fixed the heart origami at the center of the bear, like it was presenting its heart. The bear began to sing again, followed by the heart. And that got him to smile that notable Tenacius smile.