Text Cut: Emmeline

Text Cut: Emmeline

Quote:

Originally Posted by NifflerFan

The Gryffindor shot Professor Hirsch a small smile when he seemed to like her answer okay. Her smile was super doubly short-lived though, 'cause then he started talking a LOT. Annd even though fighting trolls was pretty interesting, it was still way too many words for Emmeline to actually, y'know, pay attention to all of them. She glanced over at Derf and then turned to Stasya to see if either of her best friends was having any better luck when the professor made stuff appear on the board! Thank Merlin for professors who did stuff like that. She had managed to catch the "invisible hand punching a target" thing too, so she at least sort of knew what they were doing. She had to admit that a spell that could punch bullies things for a wizard was pretty super cool. They learned the beesst spells in DADA! Except for when they learned the best ones in Charms. Or that dagger thing in Transfiguration. But this spell was definitely going to be up there with alll her favorite new spells, for sure.

Except that, as she scanned the spell's information on the board, her brain skidded to a halt at the words "fourth year spell." Oh no! It wasn't likely that this spell would work for her at ALL then, 'cause it always took her ages to learn spells. Even the ones on the first years list for dueling club; they took loads and loads of practice to get right. Still, she wasn't just going to give up without a fight.

Emmeline trudged up to the front of the room and looked through the rocks for AGES until she found the teeny, tiniest rock of the lot. Or she thought it was anyway. She tried to shove away thoughts about...other stuff as she headed back to her spot and deposited the big pebble fun-sized rock on the floor and took a few steps back.

She always practiced wand movements first, so Emmeline made a few lazy clockwise circle motions around the rock with a short flick at the end. Good enough. Next, she stared at the board and sounded out, "LAH-beh-FACK-toom" like THREE whole times. Okay, she was ready to smash the rock to pieces now, yup!

The first year gave her rock a death stare for about 30 seconds just to kind of get in the smashing mindset. She performed the wand movement and muttered, "Labefactum!" AND nothing happened as usual. Five tries later, still nothing had happened at all.

Emmeline frowned and glared at the rock. The board said more determination was better, but she REALLY wanted to break it for being so ughh and it hadn't happened yet. Which was making her frustrated and slightly bored and her thoughts wander to later today. Later today was NOT a good thing to think about in lessons, but she couldn't really help it. In fact, thoughts of later were making her more and more mad, 'cause she already knew Professor Stewart was going into an ugly court thing because of her, and it was so unfair they even had to convince some stupid Mr. Judge to do the right thing in the first place! She thought of her parents' likely -- and then less likely, but totally possible -- reactions to this thing later, and her chest practically swole up super big with anger and she just wanted to --

Smash things. The Gryffindor pictured the rock as her father's stupid face in a scary expression, advancing on Professor Stewart with his wand outstretched and, before she'd even decided to do it, her wand was making the right movement and she screamed: "LABEFACTUM!"

The pebble-rock exploded! Tiny pieces of it scattered across the classroom floor, and Emmeline was breathing EXTRA, extra heavily and feeling like she'd run a LOT. Like up a hill or something, or from the grounds allll the way to Gryffindor Tower. Her heart was hammering in her chest, and she was shaking a little, especially her wand hand. She wished someone would invent a spell or something to go forward in time, and kind of dropped to the floor to just sort of sit there and calm down. She was still way too mad and sad and scared of a pretend situation, and Professor Stewart had even told her it wouldn't go down like that.

At least she'd blown up the rock?

And then this happened.

And Hirsch? Hirsch stood there, eyebrows raised, at the clear sign of extra determination that was displayed here. Was this because of rage? Hormones? Whatever it was, it seemed to have worked and the man was impressed.

Instead of saying all of this, he simply approached her and asked, "Emmeline? Are you okay?"

While the students practised, Hirsch took a moment out of watching each of them to gather up something else for the main activity. A simple box, that had been sitting behind the rocks and out of sight, was brought forward. A box that would be explained when it was the right time.

Which was in three..... two...... one........

The man brought a finger and a thumb up to his lips and let out a low whistle, calling for attention. "Okay! That was a good attempt but there's no use learning a spell without putting it into good practice first." It just wasn't how he planned his lessons. "So, I want everyone to take their rocks and back up against the wall. Clear out the space in the middle entirely." He waited for a minute or two for the students to do just that. There was an odd sort of smile on his face and a jittery feeling of wanting to get things started.

When the space in the middle was clear enough, the Defence Professor raised his wand at the largest rock that had been sitting behind him, on one side of the room. The rock was levitated a few inches off the ground and moved towards the centre of the room where it met the ground again with a soft FLOMP! Another flick of his wand and the purple cloth at the top flew off and landed on the floor by Hirsch's feet, revealing a large picnic basket.

"Now! For the main activity, we're going to put the spell you've learnt to use by rock climbing!" Excited? He certainly was. "I want you all to split up into four teams and pick a side of the rock. At the very top of the rock is a prize: sweet treats, gift cards, coupons for Hogsmeade, you name it. Your aim is to get to the top of the rock before the other teams do."

Pause.

"But, as you might notice, there's a problem. The rock is very smooth and doesn't have any footholds in it. So! I want you to use the Bludgeoning Hex to create footholds in the rock. No other spells can be used, especially not Accio. The only person that doesn't have to cast spells is the person who'll be climbing up the rock. The climber needs to wear a helmet and gloves which can be found in this box by my feet." He gave the box a small nudge with his foot.

"So get into teams, work out who's going to do the climbing and start creating those footholds. Remember: accuracy and control is key here! You don't want to be breaking the entire rock apart." A cheeky smile was flashed towards Emmeline. "And if you fall, the floor should cushion your fall." Not to mention that he'll be watching.

"You have....." He glanced down at his watch, "twenty minutes. Ready? GO!"


OOC: MAIN ACTIVITY TIME!

So the activity stands as thus: get into four groups, pick a side of the rock and pick who's going to be climbing. Spell casters need to use the Bludgeoning Hex OR the Gouging Spell to create the footholds. Climbers need to wear a helmet and gloves and use the footholds to climb to the top and get the basket.

Quote:

Labefactum
Bludgeoning Hex

Incantation: LAH-beh-FACK-toom
Wand movement: clockwise circular motion around the target and a flick at the end
Light: n/a
Difficulty: fourth year spell
Other: more determination = greater impact

Things to remember:
- Label the top of your post saying which group you're in (I don't mind whatever creative title you come up with)
- The floor is cushioned
- Remember to work together on this - this is a team effort
- Please keep your charrie's age and ability in mind when casting the spell
- Please make sure to keep things realistic - it's okay if your charrie falls or if they don't get the spell right the first time

You have until 21st July at 11:59pm GMT+1 to make as many posts as you wish.

Have fun! Let me know if you need anything

So they were going to splitting rocks? Cool. That didn't sound so difficult, thought Kitty as she went to retrieve a small rock just a little bigger than her hand mirror. Then she took out her wand and thought, Labefactum! Nothing so far. Okay try again. Labefactum! Still nothing. She closed her eyes and thought once more, Labefactum! Opening her eyes, she smiled happily as she noticed a small crack appear down the side of the rock that hadn't been there before. She closed her eyes and thought it again. Labefactum! Opening her eyes, she couldn't tell any difference between the rock this time. But at least she'd gotten it right once.

Kitty listened with increasing excitement (and a little unease) as Hirsch explained the rules of the game they were about to play. It reminded her a lot of some of the other epic games they'd played in this class. But no matter what, she wasn't going to be the one climbing. Her nails had just been painted and she wasn't really that strong.

"I'll join anyone's team," she said loud enough to be heard by people standing around. "Just beware, I can't be your rock climber."

Skylar had been busy note-taking and playing catch up, with underlining certain points of emphasis on the long winded spiel that Hirsch was giving about trolls and the hex they would be learning today. Uh .... uh... why ... how was people done writing already? She glanced up from her notes to find they were moving on to rock climbing?

Setting her quill down, she frowned. She wanted to be the rock climber, but she had yet to practice the spell. Verbally, because she hadn't even considered attempting non-verbals for another year. Not to mention this hex would be fairly difficult given that she was a fourth year and it required enough determination as it was.

Labefactum, Labefactum, she mentally stated, thinking that the pronunciations always sounded better in one's head. That might actually make non-verbals easier, wouldn't it? Jotting that down as a question for Hirsch when the time came, she switched to practicing the wand movement for a moment. Clockwise circular motion with a flick. Not too difficult, Sky decided, figuring it best to now practice the incantation aloud. "Lah beh fact um" Wait, that didn't sound right; the end had a more of a BOOM effect to it. "Lah beh fack TOOM" she said again, carefully enunciating, especially on the last syllable. Made sense, because she wanted there to be a boom impact.

Time to put it to effect. Fetching an averaged sized rock, maybe about the size of a quaffle, Skylar took a deep breath, focusing. "Labehfactum!" she said, careful enunciation, wand encircling the rock clockwise and flicking on it.

Uh, was it beginner's luck? Or just tribute to her skills as a beater? Either way, the rock had a sizable crack in it, right down the middle. Not enough that it broke the rock apart completely, but there was definitely a crack.

Feeling pleased with herself, the fourth year glanced around now for the teams. Huh, four teams? Was that meant to be by houses or did it not matter? Hirsch hadn't exactly specified by houses and usually if it was a house race, well, he'd have said so.... All she knew was that she kind of really wanted to climb the rock. And fall, on purpose, for the thrill of it. Also, how did cracks create footholds? Maybe she should just start working on a particular side ...

It was slightly disappointing to Henry to know that stunning spells would not work against trolls. He thought of it as an instinctive kind of spell to get out of serious danger, and it worked for him in that sort of situation before, even if it wasn't against any trolls and it didn't work perfectly. What was important was that he escaped safely.

He had thought if he was ever in that situation that he'd use some sort of spell like that and then get the heck out of there, but this new spell that Hirsch was teaching them sounded awfully cool. Henry wasn't sure there would be any reason to use anything so destructive in dueling or in his everyday life that he'd find a whole lot of use for it, but he was eager to learn this spell. Maybe there would be some sort of situation one day where he'd have to break up large rocks - because he wasn't exactly eager to face a troll.

And today he would do just that as he practiced and learned this spell. He was a NEWT student, of course, so he would try it non-verbally too like Professor Hirsch suggested, though he was still working on those and had some measure of difficulty. But before he did anything else, Henry practiced the wand movement a few times and also repeated the incantation in his head before speaking it aloud. Once he figured he had a pretty good handle on both, he wandered over to the rock pile and selected several fist-sized rocks, carrying them in his arm as he found an empty part of the room to begin practicing.

Verbally, Henry had little trouble making cracks in the rocks. It was definitely a cool spell and it seemed to work better the more he tried it. But then to try it non-verbally as well. Henry had just started to focus when Hirsch's voice brought him out of his concentration. Oh, moving on already? He dropped his rocks back into the pile and headed over to the far wall.

But what he said next had the prefect really excited. Rock climbing? "Oh sweet!" Oops, he hadn't meant to blurt that out quite so loudly, but he was excited, okay? He had actually hoped that when he walked in and saw the larger rocks, but he wasn't even sure that was a possibility.

Okay.. groups? Henry felt like he could work well with almost anyone so it didn't matter too much who he worked with. But when he heard Kitty's words, he thought that might be a good choice because he really wanted to be the one who climbed. "Do you want to work together?" he asked his fellow prefect, looking in her direction. "I really want to be the climber," he added with a grin. So that would work out well since she didn't.

Katy didn't feel like milling around and waiting for teams to join, not when it was a CONTEST. And she didn't want to be in that bigoted Ravenclaw prefect's group... so. Skylar. Fellow Slytherin, although a year younger.

"How about you climb, since you're smaller and I didn't wear the shoes for it?" Katy waved her wand at the rock face in front of them, taking in the smooth surface. "I'll start blasting footholds... probably no need to go lower than two feet from the ground, since you can lift your legs that high. Go on, then. Get your helmet."

Was it time for the Slytherins to unite? Snake power and all that? Hmm. Oliver was clearly teaming up with Katy and Skylar. He'd have volunteered to climb but Katy seemed to have quickly delegated that job to Skylar sooo he would help make footholds.

It was probably better this way, they were older and more experienced with magic.. Well, he assumed so but assumptions about people's abilities were often dangerous. Not the point, Lupin. His thoughts often ran off without him.

"So we make the footholds, do we make them while she gears up? Seems dangerous to make them while she's climbing?" He asked Katy but of course if Skylar had ideas he wanted to hear them since she was the one doing the climbing.

"Thanks, babe." She grinned as Noelle complimented her spellwork. That girl had taught her how to do spells non-verbally so obviously she was glad to see her could succeed the spell. Ava was determined to do more non-verbal practice but then Professor Hirsch announced that it was time for the main activity.

A rock climbing? Merlin, this was sooooo interesting!

"We have to be a team!" She beamed and claimed the Gryffindor prefect to join her by wrapping her arms around her. Everyone else would welcome to be on their team, obviously. Unless a certain someone who didn't want to even though they were on the same house, ahem. "Do you want to climb the rock or shall I?" Deep down, Ava really wanted to be the climber because rock-climbing was on her bucket list but she offered her partner first.

Just as Zoryn went to try again, she noticed Jonas approaching her... With an offer to help and WAS HE GRINNING? Zoryn gave him a frown. "I'm plenty capable, Jonas," did he think she couldn't do it on her own?!? Zoryn was VERY embarrassed. She crossed her arms and shook her head. "So thanks, but no thanks." She wanted to do it all by herself.

And with that she picked her tiny rock up and moved it to another corner of the room far away from Jonas Emery.

Her tiny rock still had zero dents in it and Zoryn was very unhappy. "Labefactum!" she tried again, taking note that NOTHING HAPPENED (x3). This was SO not fair. Zoryn could NEVER get spells to work right in class. It was like she was cursed or something!!! Or maybe it's because focusing on doing one thing was not her strong suit and therefore she never got spells to work properly. But it was probably the former because YEAH!!!!!

She tried a couple more times, "Labefactum!!" AND again "Labefactum!!!" Before lowering her wand to hear the newest set of instructions. Well, it was time for the practical portion of the lesson and Zoryn made 0 dents in her little rock.

So before moving to group up, she quickly took another rock from the pile and began smashing it against her own. La la la nothing to see here.... Just making a couple of dents the old fashion way. La la la la la. This definitely wasn't cheating. La La La La. Just using her resources. The second year took a step back, considering her rock carefully. Hmmm. It kind of look dinged up? Sort of. Meh. Whatever.

OH NO SHE NEEDED A GROUP!!!! Like a deer in headlights, she looked around the room at the groups that had already formed. There was Skylar and some other snakes... But Zoryn would rather do anything than be on a team with that meanie-pants. Then there were the two badge-heads and... Zoryn didn't know either of them. BUT OH LOOK! Noelle!!!!!!

Yes. Perfect.

Zoryn ran to THAT team. "Hi, Noelle!" And the other girl (Ava) Could she join? Because Zor wasn't taking no for an answer. The Second year would be a GREAT addition. She climbed on things ALL the time / alternatively, she could point her wand and shout the spell too!!! As for actually making the foot-holes... That was definitely not happening. But she was happy to pretend???

Still trying to decide if that teeny tiny crack in her chosen rock was in fact caused by her spell, Stasya had thankfully avoided most of the chaos caused by Emmeline exploding her own rock. In fact, she’d only noticed it when she’d looked over to check on her best friend and saw the bits and pieces of rock, and her eyes had widened noticeably. Now she felt like her baby crack wasn’t anything at all, and it was kind of frustrating. She really had wanted to do good with the spell, wanted to prove she could cast it right. But, before she could raise her wand to try again, Professor Hirsch had spoken again and announced the lesson was moving on.

She’d moved herself and her rock over to the edge of the classroom, frowning at it and the lack of real evidence that she’d cast the spell on it. The purple cloth falling at the professor’s feet had caught her attention though. Between the explanation of the activity and looking up at the top of the big rock, she’d found out what had been up there. It was one question answered, but she still felt like she’d failed at the spell. Because of that, she’d hung back when people started making teams, not really seeing how she could contribute when she hadn’t managed real damage to her littler rock. Plus, she was massively conflicted. Part of her wanted to be on a team with Emmeline and Derf and everyone, but another part of her thought maybe it’d be better to join a team with older students. Even then, though, she couldn’t pick. There was Henry on one side, but Noelle and Ava and her house on the other.

And also, she just kind of wanted to be like Dobby and scamper up the rock.

Jonas sighed and rolled his eyes. She was such a child. He shook his head and went over to find a team. Seeing nobody, he went to Zoryn's team.
"It seems to me we are going to have to at least tolerate eachother." He said. "Okay. Let me rephrase that. You have yo tolerate me."

Noelle rubbed her cracked rock in her hands and looked up when the professor whistled like that. Oh hello Hirsch. Now they were going to be rock climbing?? How awesome was that??

Noelle moved to the outskirts like the professor asked. They were to get into teams and she didn't even have to say anything when Ava was grabbing her. Yep, she'd been claimed. She giggled. "Okay okay. L-" She didn't get the words out before Zoryn or Little Z was coming over. "Hey Z! Wanna be on our team??" She asked wiggling in Ava's arms since she was still grabbed.

Then out of the corner of her eye, she saw the face of a particular lioness. Stasya. "Hey, Stasya, wanna join us??" She asked. She figured her being the smaller of the bunch, she could scurry up the rock while the rest of them made rock holes for them.

And Jonas was joining their team as well! He didn't look exactly thrilled about it either.

"I have a plan. Z, how good at you at this spell?? Ava, Z, Jonas, and I can make the holes. Ava.. you can do the left foot holes, Z, you can do the right foot holes. I can do her right hand holes. Jonas, you can do her left hand holes. What do you all think? " Noelle was competitive so they needed to start something and get up that rock!

She knew that Noelle would not refuse to join her in a team together because they always stick together! "Okay! So...." Then Ava noticed Zoryn Spinnet wanted to join them which she didn't mind at all. The more the merrier, right? Hehe. "Welcome to the team, Zoryn." She welcomed the young lioness and that made them all Gryffindor female team.

#teamLioness.

Or maybe she should change the name since there was a Slytherin young boy joining them. Huh, that was weird. Ava had no idea why on earth he joined them but well... Professor had stated that there's no particular criteria about the team so... Why not. "Okay, but you have to follow our rules. No exception." The Gryffindor said to him. Sorry not sorry if she became a little bit bossy here, but she (and two of others) were Gryffindors so what did he expect?

Noelle then asked Stasya to be on their team. Okay, so she thought that there were enough people. Then the Gryffindor prefect spoke up about their plan and Ava nodded slightly on her words because it's not really a bad idea. "But we still haven't decided who's going up there." She glanced at Zoryn and Stasya. Well, considering how dangerous it is perhaps it would be better if neither of them should climb even though the floor was squishy. "I think it should be either you or I to be the climber." She didn't really trust the Slytherin guy to be honest so Ava didn't really suggest him to go up there.

Also, if the climber was down could they cast Aresto Momentum?

Obviously, when it came to group activities, Vivian had an automatic friend she wanted to work with. She wouldn't mind partnering up with others, of course, but since they were given the freedom to choose, she just went for the obvious choice. Standing up and sort of bouncing on the cushioned floor, the blonde went over to join Sky, who was with a group of older Slytherins she had seen in their common room before. She didn't personally know them, though, but she didn't mind working with her fellow house mates.

Vivian beamed at the three of them. "Hi, guys! May I join, too?" She asked. Perhaps they didn't mind, but she assumed they'd allow her to join because... duh. Besides, Vivian wouldn't have went anywhere else since Sky was in their group. Kind of like a get one, take the another thing.

And well, she didn't mind climbing up the rock. In fact, she would have LOVED too. The tiny Gryffindor side of her just wanted to get out there and do her thing. As for the falling, Vivian didn't mind. After all, the floor was comfortable and she'd probably just giggle the ache on her back away if it ever happened.

Then Henry joined her team as the rock climber, which was great. "Welcome aboard," she said with a smile to the Hufflepuff prefect as he joined her. "Sure, you can be the rock climber." Seeing as he was the first one to join her team and she most certainly wasn't a rock climber.

She looked around at the other teams. "Would you like to pick a name for our team? The others are naming themselves after house mascots, so..." Lion and Sneak team already existed; that left Badger and Raven (if they were going to do this) which were their two houses. "I don't mind if you want to call us Team Badger."

As she talked she looked around to see if anyone else would their team.

Skylar was honestly a bit surprised when Katy approached her as part of her group, but nonetheless here she was along with another Slytherin from her year, Oliver. And they were suggesting that she be the climber, not that she minded except that she had half wanted to purposefully fall but now with the two fifth years in the group she had the sense they would be disappointed if she fell on purpose and caused them to lose. Maybe she could jump down when she got to the top; it wasn't that high and the floor was cushioned....

Didn't bring the shoes for it? Glancing down at her sneakers, she smiled, "Sure, sure, I can climb." And as she was going over to get her helmet and glove she heard a voice of a familiar friend and turned to see Vivian by Katy and Oliver.

"She's with me," so yes, Vivi, you may join the group, but apparently she'd already been voted to climb though you could be our backup if we did lose our footing or didn't have a hole close enough to grab onto.

Gloves. Check. Helmet. Check.

"Let's make sure they're not too far away," cause her wingspan wasn't that wide yet for her five foot one self.

Was she meant to help make a crack in the rock while she was waiting? "Labehfactum," she said at a point around the highest she could reach from the ground. The first hand hold.

Clockwise circular motion around the rock and flick! Kirk repeated the mantra. It was all in the wrist as he figured out. Seeing the firstie girl nearly keel over exploding a tiny pebble did get his attention, after he saw one of the bits flew past him.. Okay. He thought, seeing as she was already being taken care of.

Back to the rock, Kirk sealed off the room's distractions to focus on it. Break the rock.. You are one rock.. Now be less than one..He then repeated the clockwise circular motion around the rock and flick! "Labefactum!" He could feel a slight warmth before as the rock shook a bit, keeping his concentration cracks finally began to form before part of it broke off one by one... before sighing. That wasn't so bad, not as explosive but it did the job.. Oh groups.. okay, cool.

SPOILER!!: Le Blue/Yellow Prefects

Quote:

Originally Posted by emjay

It was slightly disappointing to Henry to know that stunning spells would not work against trolls. He thought of it as an instinctive kind of spell to get out of serious danger, and it worked for him in that sort of situation before, even if it wasn't against any trolls and it didn't work perfectly. What was important was that he escaped safely.

He had thought if he was ever in that situation that he'd use some sort of spell like that and then get the heck out of there, but this new spell that Hirsch was teaching them sounded awfully cool. Henry wasn't sure there would be any reason to use anything so destructive in dueling or in his everyday life that he'd find a whole lot of use for it, but he was eager to learn this spell. Maybe there would be some sort of situation one day where he'd have to break up large rocks - because he wasn't exactly eager to face a troll.

And today he would do just that as he practiced and learned this spell. He was a NEWT student, of course, so he would try it non-verbally too like Professor Hirsch suggested, though he was still working on those and had some measure of difficulty. But before he did anything else, Henry practiced the wand movement a few times and also repeated the incantation in his head before speaking it aloud. Once he figured he had a pretty good handle on both, he wandered over to the rock pile and selected several fist-sized rocks, carrying them in his arm as he found an empty part of the room to begin practicing.

Verbally, Henry had little trouble making cracks in the rocks. It was definitely a cool spell and it seemed to work better the more he tried it. But then to try it non-verbally as well. Henry had just started to focus when Hirsch's voice brought him out of his concentration. Oh, moving on already? He dropped his rocks back into the pile and headed over to the far wall.

But what he said next had the prefect really excited. Rock climbing? "Oh sweet!" Oops, he hadn't meant to blurt that out quite so loudly, but he was excited, okay? He had actually hoped that when he walked in and saw the larger rocks, but he wasn't even sure that was a possibility.

Okay.. groups? Henry felt like he could work well with almost anyone so it didn't matter too much who he worked with. But when he heard Kitty's words, he thought that might be a good choice because he really wanted to be the one who climbed. "Do you want to work together?" he asked his fellow prefect, looking in her direction. "I really want to be the climber," he added with a grin. So that would work out well since she didn't.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Goblinfrog

Then Henry joined her team as the rock climber, which was great. "Welcome aboard," she said with a smile to the Hufflepuff prefect as he joined her. "Sure, you can be the rock climber." Seeing as he was the first one to join her team and she most certainly wasn't a rock climber.

She looked around at the other teams. "Would you like to pick a name for our team? The others are naming themselves after house mascots, so..." Lion and Sneak team already existed; that left Badger and Raven (if they were going to do this) which were their two houses. "I don't mind if you want to call us Team Badger."

As she talked she looked around to see if anyone else would their team.

Well, it looked like the snakes were forming up and oh.. he knew just who. Remembering his prefect's idea, he decided to go with the two prefects. Dusting himself off after getting up he walked over to the two older ones talking. Team Badgers? "Hey, how about Team Avengers? Has parts of 'Ravens' and 'Badgers' in the name." Spelling-wise of course. Oh wait, duh he should ask before barging in, "Is it cool if I join?" He could do whatever's needed. Climb, charm, help from below, whatever.

Jonas looked around and bit his lip. There was too much going on at once. Too many instructions.
"Okay, who was doing what now? I'm supposed to be the one making footholds right?" He asked dumbly blushing.

Another younger Snake joined them. "Of course, the more the merrier!" It was a group challenge and how could they go wrong with Snake Power? "Labehfactum!" He started to make footholds on the way up the rock.

Even trying wordless magic also but it wasn't he speciality. It needed more work clearly so he went back to saying the incantation.

"Alright, that'd be awesome," Henry grinned at Kitty as she agreed that he could be the climber of their group. But of course they would probably need a few more people to be a proper group.

Team Badger sounded okay to him, he supposed, and he was about to say something about it when another Ravenclaw came over to join them. "Oh.. yeah, that's a cool name." Henry nodded to Kirk first then to Kitty to see what she thought of it. But as far as he was concerned, they were Team Avengers.

"Of course. Join us." The more, the merrier is what Henry thought, plus they needed a bunch of people to cast spells for him to climb. "Are you any good at the spell? I'm going to climb, if you don't mind." He had already established that with Kitty. And they'd probably get started soon so he went over to the box and gloves and a helmet for himself while hopefully Kirk and Kitty were talking strategy.

….. OF COURSE HE (Jonas) FOLLOWED HER. Geez. Didn’t he understand that Zoryn was still holding a grudge, thank you very much!!! Hmph. “Um yeah, okay, whatever,” she rolled her eyes, turning her attention right back to her Prefect.

“Mhm,” she nodded LOADS. Zoryn definitely wanted to be on her team. The girl was basically a DADA GENIUS!!! There was no way they’d lose the competition now!!! Well, except for the fact that Noelle’s plan involved Zoryn taking on a lot of responsibility… But when Noelle asked her about how well she could do the spell, the little Gryffindor was too embarrassed to admit that she couldn’t do it at all. “I’m like, really good at it,” so she lied instead. Naturally. But it wasn’t lying per say…. She was just gonna ACT like she was really good at it. And acting wasn’t lying. It was talent.

The second year grinned at Ava and listened as she spoke. But her attention was quickly drawn to the boy once again. What nowwwww?

Oh. He just didn’t understand the strategy. Well, this was perfect! “You’re doing right foot holes and left hand holes,” she informed him. So technically he was only responsible for doing the hand holes… And technically Zoryn was responsible for the right foot holes. Buuuuuuuuuuut. Pffffffft. Technicalities.

LAH-beh-FACK-toom.

As per usual, it was the incantation that was giving Sam the most issues, not the intent. She closed her eyes gently and tried to visualise the words and the outcome together, trying to get the rhythm and phonetics right. Labefactum. Labefactum. Labefactum!

Perhaps she should more seriously think about trying non-verbals first.

Regardless, when she re-opened her eyes, she turned her attention to the rock she'd been previously lent against. She made a circular motion around the tip of it with her wand, finishing with a flick. "Labefactum!"

A small fissure had appeared down the length of the stone, and her lips curled upwards. It wasn't a huge break, but it wasn't bad for a first try. And honestly, if she'd thought about wanted a more dramatic breakage, she should have aimed the hex at a weaker bit of rock. Aiming at the centre was always going to be harder, with more pressure required to shatter the rock.

And that snippet of information seemed like it'd be useful in the next activity. They'd only want to focus their attention on the surface of the rock to create foot and handholds, not any deeper. But of course, now she was torn. An adept climber, that was what Sam really wanted to do. She'd been shimmying up and down drainpipes since she'd been knee high to a a billywig. She wouldn't even need all that many footholds to get to the top. A handful, at most. Practice was probably more important though, especially when some of the younger students present would probably struggle with the spell work.

"Who needs an extra person?" she asked, looking between the people already finding groups. "Happy to bludgeon footholds or to climb."

A younger girl joined them while Skylar was suiting up, and Katy gave her a nod. Vivi. Well met, young snake. She turned her attention back to Skylar as she returned to them, stepping back in surprise when the girl started blasting at the rock. No, no, no. There needed to be some pattern to this, some structure and form. And Skylar was their climber.

"You focus on climbing, Skylar, or you'll end up getting in our way and we'll take off some toes or something." Not really, but she wanted the girl to be careful. "Vivi, why don't you work on some footholds starting about two feet off the ground. Um... Lupin, you work at the middle, and I'll start right above your spot."

She pointed her wand about mid-way up. "Labehfactum."

Miss Noelle and Professor Hirsch had both seemed to think that blowing up the pebble fun-sized rock was a good thing, but Emmeline wasn't so sure. It took forever to get her breathing under control again, and she felt all light headed and weak. Like when she'd practiced one of the second year dueling spells for ages by accident, except that time the spell never worked. But it was the same exhausted feeling she had now. Plus, she wasn't really sure blowing something up when she'd only meant to crack it and stuff was a good thing. It kinda reminded her of the magic she'd done as a little kid by accident when she was super scared, 'cause she'd blown a vase up like that one time. At least the itty bitty rock pieces wouldn't hurt anyone.

The first year looked up at Professor Hirsch uncertainly when he asked if she was okay. The truth was: no, definitely not. But she was in Gryffindor, so she wasn't gonna say that. Nope. Instead, she flashed him a bright, fake smile and replied in a determinedly calm tone of voice: "Uh huh. Sorry about that, Professor."

Except all this thinking about whether exploding fun sized rocks was good or not had totally distracted Emmeline to the point that everyone else, even Stasya, had already formed teams and were working out how to climb the rock. She stood up on slightly shaky legs and looked around for a team uncertainly.

Jonas grinned at Zoryn's stubborness and lack of willingness to stop holding a grudge.
"Okay team! Let's do this!" He laughed. She told him the instructions. He narrowed his eyes slightly. He knew that that wasn't the actual instructions. But, he shrugged and started with the hand holds. Pointing his wand, he concentrated at the rocks. He half wondered why they didn't use defindo. But he shook his head. He needed to focous.

At first, her only thought had been wanting to pretend she was a squirrel. It kept Stasya from dwelling on her conflict over how she sort of wanted to be on all the teams. She really did kind of think it was mean that she was being forced to choose, and then there was also the conflict over feeling like she’d failed to successfully cast the spell in the first place. She didn’t see how she could contribute when she pretty much hadn’t been able to make a decent crack in her other rock. Little baby cracks weren’t good foot or hand holds, so maybe she ought to just sit the activity out. She could ask Professor Hirsch if there was something else she could do. She could hang out with Liv…but she really sort of wanted to get to try to climb the rock.

And then she’d heard her name and looked over at Noelle. “Okay,” she said, walking over to where the prefect was, along with Ava, Zoryn and the Slytherin boy she didn’t know. Maybe she should tell her that she’d failed at cracking her other rock. Except then maybe they wouldn’t want her on their team and that was sad to think about. She didn’t like failing at things, and she really didn’t like failing at competition-like things.

Listening to Noelle’s plan, she’d just quietly nodded. That sounded like a good plan, since she figured the prefect and Ava could manage the spell and Zoryn had promised she could too. She didn’t know anything about the Slytherin boy, except he already looked like he was ready to cast the spell too. Maybe that left her to climb, and she knew she could. Even if, now that she thought about it, the rock was awfully big and it kind of reminded her of the tree in the forest Emmeline had fallen off.

Except the floor here was bouncy and she totally trusted that Professor Hirsch wouldn’t let her fall. Maybe. “I can climb. Really,” she tried to say when Ava had doubted it. She could. Even if technically she’d never tried before. “And Professor Hirsch said he has helmets and stuff.” She’d be okay. She was determined. And she had squirrel knowledge and squirrels were really good at climbing.

But there might’ve been a quick glance in Emmeline’s direction too. Maybe she remembered the forest too.