Yay, notepad! He placed it in his bag, since it didn't seem like they would be actually using them in class and resumed paying attention.

At first, Ronan was slightly confused by the activity. But after watching some of his classmates perform the task, he was ready. He placed his red plane in the center of his desk pointed his wand at it. "Alarte Ascendare!" With a bang, the plane took off and hit a target. "Wingardium Leviosa!" and a swish and flick of his wand, and the plane was flying through the first and second hoops. But once he got to the third hoop, something happened and someone had hit the floor. It distracted him enough that his plane took a not-so-elegant dip. He managed to save it before it joined the person on the floor, but now he had to make his plane circle back around to that third hoop.

Levitation Charm. Sigh. Try as he might, Derf could never quite get a handle on this one and it wasn't even because of the 's' sounds in the incantation that had previously crippled him. He was honestly more keen on practicing the Rocket Charm simply because it sounded more exciting...and he wasn't a stranger to paper airplanes and charms - although he tended to see a certain Gryffindor second year tossing them and then shooting a Hot Air Charm their direction to keep them afloat and push them in certain directions...so in THEORY he should be able to do this.

In theory.

Turning his yellow paper airplane over in his hand a few times, Derf decided to take one for his team of one and start with the more familiar charm first - Levitation Charm. "Swish and flick," he reminded himself, taking a deeeeeeeeeeeeeeep breath before giving the incantation a go. "Wingardium Leviosa!" And then his bright blues were focusing keening on his paper airplane for aaaaaaaaaany sort of movement.

Anything.

Any moment now.

.......please?

It WAS subtle, but soon his little yellow paper airplane WAS lifting up off the table. It was only about three centimeters or so...but it was SOMETHING which brought a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge grin to the Hufflepuff's face.
And, perhaps, a bit of misplaced confidence. "ALARTE ASCENDARE!"

Yeah...just a little too much misplaced confidence.

One excessively loud BANG later (loud enough that the third year was left with his ears ringing), the little yellow paper airplane SHOT off the Hufflepuff's desk and FLEW across the room. Really, this was a health hazard in the making and it was all the Hufflepuff could HOPE that his paper airplane did not poke anyone's eye out. Especially since...er...it seemed his enthusiasm had created a more lifelike rocket experience than intended...and was actually ON FIRE.

An obstacle course? Etta sighed dramatically as she pulled her wand out, wishing class to be over already. Not that she wasn’t enjoying the lesson, she actually was, but she was also kind of exhausted. She was feeling way too stressed over what had been happening recently.. meh. She also didn’t want to be thinking about that right now. The girl finished listening to what the professor said, watching the yellow airplane on her desk. The spells seemed simple enough. The levitation charm, she knew. Obviously. And the rocket charm.. well, it didn’t look to be too difficult.

The girl took a deep breath as she tried to focus, trying not to get distracted with other thoughts and pointed her wand at the airplane. “Alarte Ascendare.” She almost stepped back in alarm as the airplane flew upwards with a loud noise. Sheesh. She’d been expecting that but still, that was a little scary. Ahem. Hopefully, no one noticed.

With a swish and flick of her wand, she casted a Wingardium Leviosa. She gently moved the plane through a couple of hoops.. before guiding it around a cone. Hey, this was actually quite fun and distracting enough. It seemed like she could finish the obstacle race soon enough. Heheheh.

"Thanks Professor!" In truth, the Ravenclaw hadn't been aware of the man taking note of her spell work, much too busy concentrating on getting the airplane through the hoops and other obstacles. At first, she couldn't imagine why he'd have been impressed, but then remembered she'd opted to try the spell non-verbally. Right. That made sense.

He wouldn't have been nearly as impressed with the second. While she DID know how to cast it, it wasn't one of those that she would have been able to do non-verbally. It wouldn't even be for a lack of trying either!

Jessa saw the plane approaching the target and knew this was the moment she was meant to be switching up the spells it didn't translate as well to her wand that wasn't used to casting the rocket charm without a verbal command. The Ravenclaw's heart did a funny sort of dip when the spell turned up nothing and instead of rising at a suddenly accelerated pace, the airplane simply sank to the floor.

She huffed, not entirely discouraged as she was used to this by now, but at the same time wishing she could become smoother with her non-verbals already. The girl was already so far ahead with her charms work that this was the next logical step....and she kinda needed it for Valko to teach her the curse. He wouldn't teach her if she still kept making silly little mistakes like this.

Skylar had been taking notes AND listening, because even though she tended to excel with charm work, the extra notes wouldn't hurt anything. She'd still been finishing some tidying on her notes, when she heard Professor Marchand call a five minute warning and lots of bangs throughout the classroom. Oops, well, she might as well get started with the obstacle course of the activity now then? Also, did they have something else after this? Because an obstacle course already seemed like it was a fair amount of activity work.

And how was Jessa Cambridge doing non-verbals already? For the most part, Skylar felt competent with where she was in her training, but seeing the younger Ravenclaw casting spells non-verbally, did make her feel insecure. She'd tried before, with Valko, but to no avail... the levitation charm was one she'd cast before though, so perhaps trying that one would be of success? Just, focus on the little green plane that Marchand had handed to her, swish and flick. She could do this... Only, nothing happened. "Wingardium leviosa," she finally said, in a low whisper, figuring if it was quiet, than maybe it'd be closer to a non-verbal? Her low voice though conveyed enough conviction to send the plan through the hoops and zig-zag its way through the cones. See, verbal incantations she had no issues with, but why could she not focus enough for non-verbal? Did she even NEED to be able to use non-verbal spells? It wasn't as if she wanted to be an auror or anything; working with creatures or whatever else she could use verbal spells without caution.

Her stress and insecurities with non-verbal spells, however, caused a lapse in her concentration as the green plane nose-dived toward the ground, when she was three-quarters way complete with the course. So close. "Wingardium leviosa" she thought fiercely instead of saying of the words aloud, and the plane floated up to the air. And then back down as quickly as it went up. Well, that was progress, wasn't it?

Well well, Juni was feeling rather proud of herself now. She felt like some kind of charms expert. It was no wonder, her dad was the charms Professor before Marchand. Charms skills were in her blood but so was being pretty, fashion wise and able to design clothing. But obviously she didn’t get those genes. sigh

•••••

For the love of Merlin, she had been hit. And it wasn’t like it was a midair collision between her plane and someone else’s. It hit her in the back of the head. The rocket charm was suppose to shoot up not sideways into the back of her head. Ugh Now she was laying on the floor staring up at the ceiling. GREAT! This was just what she wanted.... a scene. And to be right in the center of it.

She just laid there, blinking up at the ceiling she was fine. Just a little shocked. She did not see that coming. She nodded to the professor ”Yeah. I’m fine.” Not really but she didn’t want to cause a scene nor have to leave class to see the healer.

Sitting up slowly, she still looked a bit stunned. Who had done it? She savagely looked around. Finally she got back on her feet and went to get her plane off the floor. She was determined to finish this course in the now less than five minutes she had left.

Natalie stared at her toy plane that was now on the floor. Well, she had sort of succeeded. And the teacher was giving her praise, so... maybe she wasn't so bad at this. "Thanks, professor," she said with a proud chirp before picking up her plane again.

Back to work. She only had five minutes to master these spells before class was over and she did NOT want to have to practice them outside of class when she COULD be napping. Naps took priority over all.

"Alarte Ascendare!" she said again with fervor, and to her pleasant surprise, her plane shot up. She was almost too pleased to remember that she needed to do something with that plane now that it WAS in the air. "Windardium Leviosa!" she said quickly, pointing her wand at the plane. Thankfully, that spell wasn't too hard and Natalie was able to float her little plane up.

Navigating and aim were the hard parts. She made her plane fly around SOME of the obstacles, but it ran into quite a few of them aaaannnd it sort of looked like one of the wings was about to fall off...

Also, did somebody just pass out, orrr...??

He would have just left it go and laughed,
but then the Professor had to be right there. Did the man have eyes on the back of his head? So instead of just pretending it wasn't him he got up and went over. "Ah, it got away from me. Sorry about that." Giving Juni a nice smile to play it off in front of the professor.

He picked up the rocket and headed back to his area and placed it down to be ready again. This time instead of just rocketing right away he decided to levitate it up for awhile. "Windardium Leviosa" The rocket raised up and he moved it through the course a bit. This was so boring though,
he liked the speed of the rocket when it went after Juni, this was for babies.
The first years should be doing this not the others.

"Alarte Ascendare!" The rocket took off again off course and at the wall, but it wasn't just moving in slow motion so Eddie decided it was a win.

And she had the rocket charm to attempt now; Skylar knew that would be foolish to try that one non-verbally, because she could barely do the levitation charm or a simple summoning charm.

Glancing at her fallen green plane, she only had a few moments left and while she had successfully navigated it through most of the obstacle course, she'd yet to hit any targets. And then, that girl ... Juniper, who's in the play with her, got hit in the head and was on the floor? Oh, but she was alright, and yet her blue-gray eyes searched the classroom in light of who's plane went wayward. It got away from me? It wasn't really her business, but that apologize did not really sound genuine and who was she kidding? This was Eddie Blaze. But he was making another attempt and she wasn't to judge ... too much.

She had a target to hit, after all.

"Alarte Ascendare," she cast, verbally this time, on her green plane, sending it shooting into the air with a BANG! where it hit the target and then crashed back down with the momentum ... "Wingardium Leviosa," she thought fervently, swishing and flicking her wand, and somehow, miraculously the plane's fall slowed to a gentle hovering ... it wasn't propelled forward at all, but it was just there. In the air. Not moving. Not free-falling.

Jessa scowled down at the paper airplane, but even then, she wouldn't let her disappointment cloud her concentration. Having been practising non-verbals for months now, she knew that getting frustrated would be the end of any progress she'd made for the day.

Once again, the Ravenclaw got the paper airplane into the air with a non-verbal flick and swish and brought it back to the target she'd just missed.

How hard was it really? The spell rocketed things into the sky. She could very clearly see the thing rocketing into the air and knew that intent carried a much greater weight once you removed the incantation. Only thing was...sometimes it just took a little more time for a connection between her intent and the wand's action to come together.

Once the thing was in place, she re-settled her nerves and drew on all her concentration. To her simultaneous shock and dismay, it did a funny sort of jumping motion before making a beeline for the floor.

Of course. Sigh.

Once again then. She would keep at it til it worked. The young girl could already cast the spell verbally. It wouldn't benefit her to practice something she was already good at.

Patrick wasn't ready for this course. Sure he could fly up and down the field pretty well but that was when he was on a broom himself. He grabbed his green airplane and readied his wand. It was time to try and get something else to go through a course. He swished and flicked his wand, "Wingardium Leviosa" his airplane began to float in the air. He was surprised by how easy this part of the activity seemed to be going.

With a swish of his wrist the plane began to move to the left and then back to the right as he moved his wrist back the other way. Patrick raised his wand a bit and began moving his wrist back and forth, left and right in order to try and get it through the hoop. The plane hit the pole and fell. "Well I guess its not as easy as it looks." He muttered under his breath. Swishing and flicking, boldly stating, "Wingardium Leviosa" the plane began to rise.

Finally, after two tries he successfully got the airplane to go through two hoops before coming up to the target that he was supposed to hit. He readied his wand. Taking in a big deep breath, Patrick let the words fall out, "Alarte Ascendare!" The plane took off so fast that Patrick nearly fell of his chair from fear that he would loose control of the paper. He was a bit surprised that he successfully handled each part of the activity. Going so far as to dance a little in his seat because he was so happy that the plane flew so well.

Gaston had been worried when he saw Miss Primeaux hit the floor, but luckily, she didn't seem hurt... or at least she said she wasn't anyway. He started to offer her a hand to help her up, but she was already getting to her feet herself. "I'm glad you're alright," he said with a small smile, though he eyed her with concern.

Then a unexpected voice caught his attention, and he turned to Mr. Blaze, just as the boy picked up the plane that had just hit Miss Primeaux. "It's okay, Mr. Blaze," he said. After all, no lasting harm was done, and he had no reason to believe it had been anything but an accident. "Just please try to be a bit more careful with your aim."

He had only finished dealing with that minor crisis when a loud BANG caused his head to whip around just in time to see FIRE. His heart dropped and the color drained from his face. Jarring himself into motion he quickly drew his wand and extinguished the fire, leaving the remains of a yellow airplane. No need to ask who that belonged to... He pulled another yellow plane out of the box on his desk and gave it to Mr. Ashbury-Hawthorne. "Great attempt, Mr. Ashbury-Hawthorne," he said with an encouraging smile, "but try saying the spell a bit quieter; that should keep it from igniting."

He spent the next couple of minutes wandering between the rows of desks, offering praise and advice as he went. "Excellent, Mr. Dooley!" "You too, Miss Kramer!" "Now you've got it, MIss McKinley!"

He saw Mr. Carter pull his plane out of a dip just before hitting the floor and smiled at him. "Excellent recovery, Mr. Carter!" Miss Diggory made a similar recovery, and she had managed to cast the spell nonverbally too. "Great work, Miss Diggory, and congratulations on doing the spell nonverbally!" he said, beaming. Miss Cambridge was also attempting to cast nonverbally, this time with the rocket charm, and was having trouble. "Keep trying, Miss Cambridge; I know you can do it!" he encouraged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~

He looked at his watch again; it was time to move on. "TIME IS UP!" he called, moving back to his usual place at the center of the room. "Great job, everyone; I'm so pleased with your progress! If you still need more practice, you'll have more time to do so in a moment, but for now we must move on..."

He drew his wand and removed the barrier he'd placed over the bubbles earlier. "For today's main activity, we'll be playing a little game of bubble pop," he explained. "It's exactly what it sounds like; simply aim your toy planes at a group of TWO OR MORE bubbles in the matching color, like so..." He picked up a red airplane and aimed a nonverbal Alarte Ascendare. It took off with a BANG and collided with a line of red bubbles on the bottom row. POP! POP! POP! POP!

"These planes are charmed to only pop bubbles of the same color, so don't worry if you hit the wrong color," he continued. He aimed the toy plane at a series of blue bubbles next, and... nothing happened. The bubbles remained intact, and the plane gently floated back down. "Use either of the spells we've practiced today, but a quick word of advise: Alatre Ascendare is more useful for bubbles along the bottom row, while Wingardum Leviosa helps aim more precisely for bubbles at the sides or top." To demonstrate his point, he cast a nonverbal levitation charm and aimed his plane at a cluster of red bubbles near the top.

With a wave of his wand, more red bubbles appeared to replace the ones he'd popped. "It's possible to pop up to FIVE bubbles at a time and be sure to keep track of how many you've hit. The house with the most bubbles popped will win ten points. You may begin... NOW!"

OOC: Main activity time! The rules are pretty straightforward: pop bubbles in your house color. Decide which spell works best for you,, but you must use the rocket charm AND the levitation charm at least once for full credit. There is no minimum post count, but please title your post with the number of bubbles you pop (between 2-5) so I can keep track of the score. If you have questions, indicate in the title of your post; Gaston and I will be checking back in. You have ABOUT 4 DAYS (4:30 AM EST [GMT -5] Nov. 11) to do the activity!

Ooooh, this activity sounded fun! Natalie was excited, since she seemed to be doing OKAY at these charms. She even got praised by the professor again, which made her optimistic and excited to keep trying. She had to try both spells, though. She was alright at the rocket charm, but her aim was a bit off. Well, it wouldn't hurt to keep practicing. Natalie brandished her wand and stood by the bubbles with her plane in her hand, ready to WIN.

"Alarte Ascendare!" she said, shooting her plane up to the bubbles.

Or not.

Well, the plane went up, but it hit some red bubbles, bounced off them and came floating back down to her hand. Well.. at least she tried, right?

Ummm yeah.

Juni was NOT impressed, at all by the attack on her head. So when Blaze approached her to get his plane and apologize she casually shrugged it off. She didn’t have time to deal with… that. She was doing good with the activity until that happened.

Anyway she went back to her plane. But right before she was about to point and send her plant rocketing back above their heads. WHAT? That was all just a try to be more careful that was all he got. His aim was totally off. Like what part of going up was remotely close to the back of her head. She rolled her eyes and muttered under her breath about being A LOT more careful with his aim.

Once she was finally ready to take off again to finish the course when the professor said that time was up. And they were moving on to the next part of the lesson. Which sounded even better than the current course the were trying to get through.

All they have to was pop a cluster of bubbles. That was easy enough. The third year aimed her plane at a cluster of blue bubbles. Pointing her wand at the airplane and saying ”Alarte Ascendare.”

BANG!!!

Sending her blue plane right toward the blue bubbles And one by one they started popping. Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Yes! That was five points for Ravenclaw. If they won that would be so cool.

Alright, this time she would have to try harder to get her aim better. The rocket charm was proving to be harder to master than she would have liked, but that's how it went with her. Not all spells came easy to Natalie.

She took a deep breath and focused on where she wanted the plane to go. "Alarte Ascendare!" she said again, sending her plane shooting up to the bubbles. And to her surprise, she actually got her plane to go in the right place! "Yes!" she whisper shouted to herself as two green bubbles popped.

Now she would try the levitation charm. She held her plane again and said "Windardium Leviosa," as she moved her wand to where she wanted the plane to fly. She moved her plane to the left a bit more and... Pop! She hit a cluster of three!

Okay, this activity? Actually seemed rather exciting and different from the usual obstacle courses that professors seemed to have an obsession with these days. Not to mention she'd been semi-successful with her non-verbal levitation charm, for the first time! It was just hovering, wasn't floating with the precision it would have had she cast it verbally, but it was a start at least.

But now was the time to focus, because she had a competition to win. And even if the hourglasses weren't in Slytherin's favorite at present, her competitive and ambitious streak was still determined to not let it get her down. She beamed when Natalie popped five green bubbles, mentally applauding her, as she set her focus on bubbles of her own. She did have more precision when she verbally cast charms, although she'd probably try to get rid of the bottom row first, using the rocket charm as Professor Marchand suggested would be more useful. And the rocket charm she'd only cast verbally thus far, which meant,

"Alarte Ascendare," she cast on her green plane, sending it shooting into the air.

Pop. Pop. Pop.

Three bubbles. Okay, she was okay with that. For now.

Patrick figured now was as good of time as any to try popping a few of the bubbles. He watched as a few of the other students missed or got a few the first try. The course they tried first wasn't so bad because it was a bit of both and you had a second to think about it. This one felt like it would become a huge race here shortly since he figured everyone would want the extra ten points.

Taking a deep breath he pointed his wand at his airplane, he got it in the air first before stating, "Alarte Ascendare" He didn't get any on that attempt. well then...

Trying agin, he got the plane in the air and aimed toward the bubbles, confidently he said, "Alarte Ascendare" He watched as the plane shot forward and began to burst one bubble, "One, two three, sweet." He mumbled to himself as he got three bubbles to pop. He looked around to see if any of his housemates had gotten any popped.

Okay, so this activity was interesting, a fun way to practice and it definitely seemed easy enough. She pulled out her wand once again, eyeing the bubbles for a moment before her gaze turned towards the airplane sitting on her desk. Yeah, she could do this. Trying to focus, she decided to try the spell non-verbally. She really needed to practice casting spells non-verbally and this was a pretty good opportunity, yes?

Alarte Ascendare. She watched as the airplane zoomed upwards. It headed straight towards the yellow bubbles and popped a few of them. Four, to be precise. Niiiice. She decided to pop the bubbles using the levitation charm now, which would require a little more focus. Taking a deep breath, she cast the levitation charm non-verbally. Wingardium Leviosa. .. and slowly directed the airplane upwards.

After sending her paper aeroplane through the obstacle course with a quick Alarte Ascendare to gain the right altitude and then followed by the occasional Wingardium Leviosa to slowly push her plane in the right direction away from danger, Professor Marchand presented the main activity for their lesson today.

They had to hit a couple of bubbles that were the same colour. Okay... Now how would she do this? Vi paused her train of thought and then..... AHA. She saw how she could get three red bubbles in a row. With a quick flick of her wand, she thought Alarte Ascendare and watched as her plane soared up towards three red bubbles. Pop! Pop! Pop.

That seemed really easy to accomplish. Now what was next. Ah she saw three more red bubbles a little bit above. It was just a little bit higher. Though if she cast Alarte Ascendare, it could pop a different coloured balloon nearby. She just couldn't hit the blue balloon next to it. She just had to be careful. Okay.... Careful. So then she cast Wingardium Leviosa to gently push her plane towards the three balloons. Pop! Pop. The plane stopped before it touched the next one.

Merlin....

Gaston kept a watchful eye on his class as they went about their new activity. He was pleased; everything appeared to be running smoothly. Slytherin was clearly dominating the game so far! He saw Miss McKinley try and fail to send her plane up using Alarte Ascendare. he half-expected her to get discouraged, but she succeeded on her next attempt and earned a smile from the professor. "Nicely done, Miss McKinley!" Mr. Dooley and Miss Diggory were also doing well so far. "Excellent job, you two!"

Oh, good. The other three houses were getting in on the game too. Now things were going to get interesting! He watched as Miss Primeaux and Miss Holden each popped five bubbles for their respective houses and gave each of them a beam. "That's the ticket, Miss Primeaux! I like your precision, Miss Holden!" Miss Kramer wasn't far behind with her four bubbles, and she had managed to do the spells nonverbally. "Great nonverbal spellwork, Miss Kramer!"

OOC: You still have ABOUT 45 HOURS for this activity!

Now.

Harriet wanted to win. Of course she did! They could get some points, and that was always a bonus. She wanted to make sure that hufflepuff would keep their lead. It was very important that they would win. They had to show everyone why they were the best house. Winning the house cup would help. Therefore it was very important that they got lots of bubbles popped. So she better get on with it! She couldn't let another house win. That would just not help at all!

She looked for some bubbles, finding a few yellows ones together. "Alarte Ascendare. " She said, getting her plane in the air. It wasn't quite high enough, so she used the levitation charm too, so that she could control where the plane was going. Hattie then directed it towards the balloons.

Pop. Pop. Pop

Perfect. Now to work on the next lot!

Popping bubbles, really? All the wonderful evil things you could do with charms and this was what they were doing? Eddie looked up at the bubbles and was not amused at all. He sat watching everyone bored for a bit before he lifted his wand and looked around the room for the color he was to get.

He pointed at one and thought about what he was supposed to be saying. Yes, he could do this and he knew he could, the problem was did he really want to? He was making decent points this term, which wasn't something he liked, but it kept his mother off his back. He didn't have to hear why don't you have your sister help you anymore.

""Alarte Ascendare"

Pop goes the bubble.

Bubble popping.....

While Jessa could have allowed another bout of disappointment to sink in, the Ravenclaw ultimately decided against it for the fact it might have been a good way to develop her precision with both spells. Technically, there wasn't much you could do with the rocket charm, it sent things....up but the levitation charm was one that couldn't hurt to be more precise with.

Granted, through daily use of it back in her lab, she WAS pretty precise with it but.....more precision? She didn't know. At this point the girl was just trying to maintain a positive outlook because it helped with her casting.

The fact she hadn't gotten the rocket charm done non-verbally meant she would be needing all the help to her mood that she could take.

A non-verbal swish and a flick saw the paper airplane rising in the air. This was the easy part. If only she could show Valko this charm in particular and convince him she was as flawless with the others. No doubt he'd probably pick a spell and tell her to perform it non-verbally making this idea impractical at best but a girl could dream.

Jessa led her airplane about, knocking through three bubbles in quick succession. There had been a forth but it was a yellow one attached at the end and true to the Professor's words, it hadn't popped when the other three did.

It was official. She liked this professor. He was recognizing all her achievements and telling her she was doing a GOOD job and it made her feel GOOD. She liked being recognized for her good work and it made her want to work harder to do better. Natalie beamed at the professor before looking back up at the bubbles.

"Windardium Leviosa!" she said again, directing her plane toward a cluster of green balloons....

Pop! Three more down!

Okay, so many of the bottom layer bubbles were popped, except a few staggered of the non-green variety, which meant to try her luck with the levitation charm ... She had successfully gotten it to work somewhat non-verbally, so why not try it again? Even if her precision was more acute with verbal spells, one wouldn't continue to learn and enhance their knowledge without practice, right?

With a slightly more confident swish and flick motion of her wand, Skylar sent the green plane into the air, watching as it levitated so gracefully toward a cluster of balloons -- blue ones. No, no, no she whispered, yet somehow, due to the nature of the balloons and her plane, it had found its way to a lone two green ones mixed in before it lost momentum.

Pop. Pop.

Well, two was better than nothing?