Emma glanced up when Professor Carton noticed her whispering and at first thought she was in trouble. She was about to apologize profusely and that she was just asking for help, when she instead of reprimanding he offered to help. Welll durrr that would have made more sense to ask the professor clarifying questions, but sometimes adults could be intimidating!!

Before she could speak though she was distracted by Aryan who seemed to be struggling as well judging from the fact that he still had a snow white feather in front of him. She would have offered to help but well, she wasn't sure herself. Right, back to Professor Carton who was probably waiting for her to speak.

"Ah .. yea.. My ... the incantation. I don't think I'm saying it right?" She chewed her lower lip. "It's not ... the enunciation isn't right." But maybe she was overthinking it?

There were plenty of other things that could have been mentioned when it came to Medusa, like how she was supposedly mortal while her sisters were not. Giselle wasn’t quite as into cursebreaking and therefore various mythologies as her sister was, due to Aunt Bella’s influence, but she’d learned a few things. Plus, it was obvious even before Professor Carton verified that his earlier ‘maybe’ to her earlier question was actually in the affirmative. The statue of Medusa was there simply because of her affinity for turning things into stone with her gaze. Kind of like a basilisk, but not exactly. Basilisks didn’t turn people into stone.

When they had been released to practice the spell, she had stood and approached the boxes to collect a few feathers, marbles and buttons. For variety mostly, and she had returned to her desk to practice before something had occurred to her.

“Professor, does the spell always turn objects into a regular stone, or could it transfigure a feather into a stone feather?”, she asked, momentarily raising her hand before applying herself to murmuring the spell over and over in her head. She wanted to know before she ultimately tried and failed at retaining the shape. Obviously marbles were already stone-shaped, and buttons. But, like the stories of Medusa, she thought the feather ought to remain in some way. As a statue of a feather.

Until then, she’d focus on the stone-shaped objects. “Duro.”

Norman stood to one side, waiting patiently for Montmorency to answer his question. Was it just him or did the girl seem a bit distracted? Ah, the enunciation. That could be tricky at first! “You’re on the right track with the enunciation, Miss Montmorency,” he said with an encouraging smile. “Remember to make the “DYOO-” part nice and long.”

Elsewhere he saw Barrington’s hand in the air. “That’s a good question, Miss Barrington,” he replied. “The spell can do either, depending on the caster’s visualization.”

As he circled back the other way, he noticed the Atreyu-Rehmans making excellent progress. Nadia’s successful transformation got an approving smile from the professor. “Nicely done, Miss Atreyu-Rehman!” Ary’s attempt likewise got a smile. The boy had already done the spell once; Norman had no doubt he could do it again. “Keep at it, Mr. Atreyu-Rehman!”


Reaching the font of the room again, Norman checked his watch and saw that it was time to move on to the next part of the lesson. “Find a stopping place, please!” He addressed the class, pausing to allow time for the students to refocus on him.

“For the rest of class, you’ll be making a mosaic with the stones you transfigured. All the materials you’ll need are in the box on my desk. First, select your base. There are several types to choose from. We have flat tiles like these -” He held up a large square tile in one hand and an oval tile of a similar size in the other. “There’s also mugs and picture frames.” He replaced the two tiles and held up a plain white mug and an unpainted wood picture frame. “You’ll attach your stones onto your base so that they form a picture, like this -”

With a wave of his wand, he attached the red stone he’d produced in the earlier spell demonstration to one side of the mug. He reached into the box, pulling out several small yellow and orange stones, and attached them in a circle around the red stone to form a sun. It was a simple sun shape, just detailed enough to show the students what they were supposed to do. “Use magic or the glue in the box up front to attach your stones, your choice.. There’s a bag full of extra stones if you need more -” He held up a clear bag of colorful stones briefly before placing it back in the box. “You may also use this time to transfigure more stones if you prefer. You have the rest of class, starting NOW!”

OOC: Sorry for the slight delay! We’ve reached the mini activity. For this, your student needs to create a mosaic with the stones they transfigured in the main activity. It can be as simple or as detailed as you like. All materials (bases, glue, extra stones, etc.) are in the box on Prof. Carton’s desk. You’ll have AT LEAST 48 HOURS for this activity. As always, catchup is allowed/encouraged.

Ary intended to keep at it, Professor. Even though it took him about half a dozen attempts to transfigure his second second. Whew! This was hard work. He seriously hoped that the subject would get easier for him at some point. He hadn’t made any progress at all with his third stone when Carton asked them to pause, which Ary did by setting down his wand.

What a thrilling activity! But what to make? The boy pondered on the question. In the end, he decided to go with a mooncalf {possibly a representation of his own mooncalf, Artax} hanging out at the Atreyu-Rehman Reserve under the setting sun. So, after collecting the materials, he got to work on the picture frame.

Deciding it would be much better and quicker if glue was used, the Slytherin got to work by sticking the small square tiles to the frame. He couldn’t help but be pleased with himself as he was making good progress and in no time, the frame was properly tiled. Next, the jagged red stone was smeared at the back with a liberal amount of glue and expertly fastened it to the top left of the frame.

The lime green one? Ary used that as the top half of a tree - to represent the leaves and branches. But he needed at least two more of these so that meant… it was back to transfiguring he went!

The actual casting part of her practice hadn’t begun quite as she had expected, but Giselle had managed to turn one of her marbles into a shiny ruby-colored stone by the time her question had been answered. Okay, it wasn’t exactly the answer she’d wanted, but it worked. Either way, she had set her feathers aside until she’d managed a few more transfigurations.

And then Professor Carton had asked them to pause, and she had turned blue eyes up to him as she set her wand down next to the button she had been attempting to cast the spell on. A mosaic. Now she thought she understood why he had focused on the more abstract aspects of the transfiguration, but deep down she still wanted to turn the feathers on her desk into feather statues. Stone feathers didn’t work quite as well in a mosaic, as far as she knew. Unless she was trying to make a bird, but honestly she was more torn between attempting to create a dragon or just flames.

The red stone she’d already managed would work for either, but she definitely needed more. Once she had collected a tile and some glue from the front, along with a few more buttons and marbles, she set about making more stones. Hopefully.

The word ‘Duro’ can be heard many times as Ary determinedly world on transfiguring those two lime green stones he wanted. He was actually afraid that the lesson time would run out but his stubbornness about ensuring his trees matched perfectly kept him going. Eventually {and thankfully} after dozens of attempts, Ary had the stones he required.

Moving quickly since he wanted to complete his masterpiece, the stones were stuck at strategic points. Using brown stones he had gotten from Carton’s supplies, the trunk of the trees were established. Artax the mooncalf comprised of white stones: a round one for his belly, a slightly smaller one for his head and small rectangular shaped stones for his neck and limbs. Black stones were naturally used for his eyes.

Bright green stones were then used to create a green pasture in which Artax stood. To complete this scenery, blue stones were glued around the sun to show what a beautiful, sunny day it was. With the last of the stones glued, Ary set down the glue. Uh huh. He thought he did a good job. Would they be getting to keep their mosaic? He certainly hoped so!

So engrossed was Aurora in completing her own spell work that she barely heard the first year whispering in her direction until the Professor offered his help and she realised that it was her that the question was intended for. Oops. She gave the Hufflepuff a smile but it seemed that Carton was on top of it and therefore her help as a third year student was likely not required.

She was about to proceed onto the next object when the lesson was halted again and they were instructed to use their pebbles to decorate something else. The Ravenclaw glanced around at the work the other students had achieved which seemed to be a little more colourful than here. It would teach her not to get distracted by everything and actually listen to the steps verbally instead of relying on the blackboard but it was too late now and who was to say that she hadn’t decided to go the rustic look.

She headed to the front of the classroom and picked up a photo frame from the selection and carried it back to her desk. Once there she arranged a design, selecting the smallest pebbles for the lower third of the frame. Deciding that it would be too plain with just the ordinary boring rocks she attempted the spell again.

“Duro” she spoke clearly, this time envisioning a smooth ocean blue pebble with white marbling running throughout. She repeated the spell several times over until she had enough to fill in the next third of her frame and finally used the spell to produce a paler shade of blue for the top half and a single topaz yellow rock which she placed in the top right corner. Once satisfied that it was to her liking, she glued down all the rocks resulting in a slightly sticky situation between her fingers which she would be sure to peel off in the middle of whatever lesson she had next instead of listening fully again.

She stood up to admire the beach scene she had created, her head angled to the left side a little as she took it all in. It was a shame there were no coloured markers around or she’d be drawing those V shaped cartoon seagulls in the sky.

Phoebe was SO relieved that she didn't have to turn her shiny rocks back. Even though she felt icky about dooming their souls to an eternity of being transfigured into a rock, she really liked shiny rocks. She liked her bluey-purpley rock best of all, so she pocketed it instead of using it for the activity. Then she grabbed a wooden picture frame and got to work. First, she glued the feather-patterned rock in the middle to represent a bird. She made the cracked white stone into the ground, and borrowed some elongated white stones to form wings. Little yellow pebbles (also borrowed) made a beak and legs. She made her blue flat rock into the sky- the yellow one was the sun- the red one with a hole was an abstract volcano- and... there! Phoebe made a bird flying over a volcano.

She felt like an artist as she admired her own handiwork, at least until she was reminded of all the art projects they sent to her mom when she was a little kid. Her heart sunk a little. She frowned at the mosaic and pulled it closer to herself. She wanted to keep it, and she didn't want anyone else to keep it, and she didn't want to show it to anybody, and she wanted it all to herself, and- Phoebe sighed heavily, and turned her attention from her mosaic to doodling angry people in her notebook.

Oh. So she was sounding it correctly. The double O sound was confusing to her. Emma nodded graciously at Professor Carton. "Thank you," okay back to the drawing board of trying to transfigure some stones because it seemed as if they were meant to make a mosaic. Which brought her to another thought that she raised her hand, "Transfiguration ... is temporary though, isn't it? Or is it more permanent than charms? I'm just wondering about the viability of this mosaic. Like would it last or eventually revert back to being a mosaic of feathers?" Or did it depending on the skill level of the wizard in how permanent transfigurations could be?

With her finger, she traced a D in the air - upward line and downward curve, just to get a feel for the movement. "D-YOO Row" she said carefully envisioning a seagreen stone

And there, she did one. But goodness this was a lot of effort for this first year, so perhaps completing her mosaic using the bag of extra stones provided might be smarter since she'd probably be here all day.

Norman once again roamed the room as the students worked. While he wasn’t particularly artistic himself, he was eager to see what the students would come up with. He paused behind Barrington’s desk, observing her work. So far the collection of stones provided no clue to the finished product. “Nice start, Miss Barrington!” he said, nodding approvingly.

Elsewhere, the younger Atreyu-Rehman’s mosaic was coming along quite nicely. When Norman looked the first time, he saw only a few stones attached to the frame, but when he passed again several minutes later, a mooncalf scene had come together. “Excellent mooncalf, Mr. Atreyu-Rehman!” he said with a slight smile.

Ackerly’s beach scene likewise got a smile from the professor. Honestly, these kids’ creativity impressed him! “Lovely beach scene, Miss Ackerly!”

Norman made his way around the room, passing by Calypso’s desk. He could tell she’d been working, but the mosaic was too close to her for him to get a good look at it. “Great work, Miss Calypso!” he said. “May I see?” He wasn’t going to push it if she said no, however.

While he waited, he noticed Montmorency’s hand in the air again. “Good question, Miss Montmorency,” he replied. “Transfiguration is more permanent than charms. Unless one reverses the spell, transfigurations can last for many years, sometimes even centuries. So you’ll have your mosaic for a long time.” He watched her cast the spell and produce a sea-green stone, and her success earned a smile.


As Norman returned to the front of the room, he checked his watch and saw that the lesson time was winding down. “That’s our time, everyone!” he addressed the group. “If you’re not finished with your mosaic, you may take your supplies with you to finish on your own time. Your homework: write a 500 word essay on the practical uses of Duro, due Monday. Class dismissed!”

OOC: Thanks for participating! I’ll leave the thread open for another 18-24 HOURS for anyone who wants to finish up and/or post their student leaving.