Monday, February 22
4:00 - 5:00 AM
Fourth Year Roster
OOC Note: To answer the question below, you can reference actual Runes or any other kind of written magic. Aileen will post her comments to your questions as if she's grading them later. I don't have one definite answer in mind - multiple answers may be correct!

---

It's a dreary, gray afternoon, and the windows are streaked with rain. On each desk, a pop quiz lays in wait. It's a strange pop quiz, with several questions referencing old children's tales and unlikely situations. The professor is mysteriously absent.

Professor Reid's pet dog, Kneph, stands watch over the room with an eerie gaze. The occasional thunder clap doesn't faze him. Any signs of trouble or misbehavior will cause Kneph to glare at the student, and if the trouble continues, he will exit the classroom to find the nearest authority figure - be it house elf (in hopes of dinner scraps) or Headmistress (whose office is right down the hall).

Below is one of the ten questions on the quiz. Answer concisely or with lots of detail, it's up to you!:

3. The Tower

You have been trapped in a tall stone tower with one locked door and one open window. Your wand has been broken into two pieces, and the last of its magic is fading fast. Your friend is also trapped in the tower with you, and has lost his/her wand somewhere along this disastrous journey.

You have at your disposal: a bit of extra fabric (not enough to climb down the tower with - nice try!), a pair of sharp heeled shoes, and your wits.

Using runes and the last of your magic, how would the two of you attempt to escape?

"Isn't anyone else wondering why a dog is giving us a quiz?" Gloria Gibbon had asked at the start of the hour but that earned her a rebuking muffled "woof" and she focused on her quiz parchment. She supposed it wasn't anything out of place really around Hogwarts. There were the numerous horses by the Hospital Hut and now the Greenhouses, a lion caretaker patrolling the halls. If Professor Reid was previously an animagus or hired one as a substitute who was Gloria to question?

3. The Tower

You have been trapped in a tall stone tower with one locked door and one open window. Your wand has been broken into two pieces, and the last of its magic is fading fast. Your friend is also trapped in the tower with you, and has lost his/her wand somewhere along this disastrous journey.

The real question was in what circumstances would this fictional version of Gloria and Addison Rockwell (being Gloria's go-to friend for hypothetical examples) have been doing to get trapped in a tower with snapped heels and a dress scrap. Luckily they still had their wits so the punch at the hypothetical ball prior had not been spiked with a bad potion.

Maybe Gloria was dreaming too much into this scenario but it was a rainy long day after all her classes and only a dog was present for disciplinary watch, she could dwaddle a bit on the problem.

If her wand wasn't completley snapped trying to summon Addison's wand would be helpful but sounded a bit much for the last exasperated magic.

A Burglar's Glyph could be carved into the door with the sharp end of the shoe but as that requires a specification spell incantation as well it doesn't sound viable as an option. Legal mess that it would be anyways if aurors on hand decide to arrest me for tresspassing instead of rescue.

With such limited resources I think it would be better to try scratching Explosive Glyphs on the door or possible from the window if the tower isn't too high (or if rocks are needed to pelt at supposed attackers that have stranded myself and my friend in this tower).

While Explosive Glyphs are longer and more complex characters than the ones in a Burglar's Glyph it only takes a spark of magic to set them off, even a broken wand could do it. A smaller explosion could also be triggered if the glyphs are malformed or incorrectly applied but I think I have good enough reflexes to dodge that if it happens.

Gloria sighed, listened to the rain pelt the windows. Then she continued on with the quiz wondering how many more were going to remind her of Divination and tarot.

Alvis chuckled when Gibbons asked about the dog, but kept his head down enough that he didn't end up receiving one of the creature's growls. All in all, he'd seen much, much stranger thing at Hogwarts. He soon forgot about the pet altogether and lost himself in the comforting familiarity of the written quiz. He felt it a nice break to exercise the problem-solving parts of his mind rather than the memorization.

3. The Tower


Answer:
My wand contains a phoenix feather at its core.

With this in mind, I would begin by extracting this core as carefully as possible while my friend set about tearing up two pieces of wood roughly a meter in length -- these could come from the tower floorboards, the wall panels, the locked door, wherever it would be possible to pry it off using one of the shoes for leverage.

Once the materials were prepared, I would place the phoenix feather between the two planks and use the cloth to bind them together, paying special attention to keeping the feather secure in the center between them. Using the other sharp heel, I would then inscribe the following runic glyph:

...which originates from the early 11th century, back when broomsticks were created with bird-feather cores to allow for flight.[1] Of course, phoenix feathers are not well-suited to broom-making -- sooner or later they tend to catch fire -- and it's impossible to create even the most basic broom without the stabilizing twigs. Despite this, the combination of wood, runes, and core should still be able to produce a sort of psuedo-levitation charm.

Provided that it doesn't spontaneously combust and that it creates enough lift to counteract the weight of a teenage boy, I would then be able to exit the open window while balanced on the wood as one would a broom. The levitation spell should be strong enough to slow my fall to a non-fatal speed. Upon reaching the ground, I would release the wood beneath the window, letting it float back up to my friend, who would then descend in a smilar matter.

1.	As previously referenced here.

He hummed to himself, pleased with his solution to the problem. Granddad would no doubt be happy to hear that the rambling lectures he delivered over tea were being put to good use.

Juni smirked a little, and wrote:

I would push my acquaintance out the window and use his body to break the fall.

She quickly crossed it out. No, she felt like Reid didn’t take too well to jokes on tests.She sat and thought—she had just been studying Egyption hieroglyphic spells. She could use multiple ones. There were so many! She nibbled on the end of the quill. Though, she regretted that decision almost immediately as pieces of feather got stuck in her teeth and there was a fuzzy bit that got stuck in the back of her throat.

Great, that was going to bother her all day.

She also thought back to ones her father had bought her a book on for her birthday—on Siglas Poveiras. The basic marks showed ownership of the runes while the siglas themselves had magical properties. Muggles liked to use them to label their possessions and property, but when wizards used them…

There were also those that were specific to her father’s culture. Those that were a mix of the Portuguese and some Romani runes, as well as very common runes from around the world. They tended to mix runes together with binding runes in order to create two different effects. Some in the middle, some all around it.

In the small text, Runic Magic of the Ciganos, there are certain runes that they use in order to make certain effects. If you do certain runes within a circle, those runes interact only within that circle. If it is outside of the circle, those runes will work in a certain radius outside of the circle. The binding rune must be in the middle. In order to escape, my acquaintance and I will carve the rune into the floor with the shoes. The marks don’t need to be deep. We will place ourselves in the middle of the rune and tap it with the remaining pieces of our wand three times. That, combined with our natural magical abilities should activate.

The runes on the outside of the circle are a combination of two different destruction runes in order to make it more powerful. The large circle is a symbol of protection and life depending on how it is used, and the three circles together in the middle are a binding rune commonly used by the cigano and other romani cultures. The seven protection runes within the circle are meant to protect and shield multiple people (myself and the acquaintance).

If it is successful, we should be fully protected while the area around us crumbles. We may come out of this injured, but it’s a way to escape when the building is unstable.

Upon entering the room, Addison couldn't help but to giggle at the sight of Professor Reid's dog sitting on top of her desk. Having done so once before[1], she pet him lightly with a smile on her face. She would have to remember to ask Professor Reid if she ever named the dog. Turning back to the class at hand, she headed off to her seat. Apparently, it was a quiz day.

Addison made sure to re-read each question before attempting to answer them. More importantly, she tried not to let her mind wander with further questions based on the hypothetical ones. It seemed to be a common theme in both muggle and magical education, that hypothetical questions raised more unanswered questions than they answer.

3. The Tower

Taking one of the heels, I would first carve the hagalaz[2] rune into the door. Using the remains of my broken wand, I would imbue the rune with magic to cause an explosion. A small explosion in this case would suffice, considering that I am only blowing off the door. This should completely destroy the door, allowing my friend and I to escape the tower.

Depending on how much of my magic is left in my wand, I would quickly pry up a few pieces of the floorboard with the remaining heel. Ideally two. Each piece would have hagalaz carved into it as well. This way, if the staircase down the tower is blocked for any reason, I could still cause another explosion to let my friend and I pass.

2.	Hagalaz meaning

Addison read over her simplistic answer a few times, while not being able to help biting a fingernail. Believing that she was satisfied with her answer, she continued on with the quiz.

1.	linked here

In the back of the room, the lone sixth year in the class[1] eyed the dog with vague interest, and briefly debated snatching the wand from the kid in front of him and tossing it to see if he'd play fetch, but he thought better of it. This time.

Okay, first of all, no friend of mine would be flobberbrained enough to lose their wand and if they did, sorry, but they’re SOL and can chill in the tower. But for the sake of playing along, let’s say they’re a muggle or something and can be forgive for not having a wand or being otherwise useful in this exercise. Anyway, the shoes are cute, so I’ll tell the muggle to put them on and use the fabric to blindfold them because you know, rules, regulations, can’t let the mundane few witness maaaaaagic. Bam.

Okay. Looking at that…Prof Reid, were you trying to go somewhere with this? Because where it looks like this is going is really not appropriate for fourth years.

Anyway--muggle incapacitated by shoes and blindfold, time for magic. Getting stuck in an enclosed space of stone has apparently been a thing for wizardkind for pretty much ever, and way I see it you don’t bust what’s not broken, so I’d whip out some Native American petroglyphs. They’re a heck of a lot fussy about the particulars than Nordic runes, and I don’t have enough magic left to risk them getting all uppity about me telling them to do something they don’t want to. (Look, Prof. I’m being all cultural here. You can report the TWT successfully broadened my horizons to the sponsors so they may continue to shower us with galleons) Besides, the explosive glyphs would probably draw more attention than I wanna face wandless, and if they REALLY wanted us locked up there it’d probably be warded with classic runes all over anyway, which would decrease the effectiveness of mine. But chances are me and this mysterty muggle aren’t important enough for them to have gone all multinational on us. So--

Six-layered opposing water currents, centered through rock. Water beats rock every time by just sliding through the openings, wearing them down and forcing them apart. Magic, obviously, quickens the pace. As the rocks pull away, we’ll have outselves an escape route. Yeehaw. 

Okay, being honest? I wouldn’t do any of that.

I’d cast Portus on one of the shoes to take me to the nearest wand shop, and  hash it out with the Ministry later. I was rescuing a muggle! That’s got to fall under some fair use clause. We can tell the muggle it was “all a dream” or something.

1.	Deus has not taken runes in his prior 5 years, he only approached Aileen about enrolling at the start of his sixth year, so I figured he wouldn't exactly be at NEWT level, despite his informal...extracirricular education in the subject? If that's not okay, I'll move him.

What was it with Hogwarts classes and the obvious lack of an instructor to teach them this past year? Or the presence of their familiars in so many of them? And a dog to add insult to injury. Dogs were ridiculous creatures... She'd take Di Luca's poisonous snake over it any day. Amara eyed the quiz skeptically and when she finished reading she sighed exasperatedly. Well, this was rather anticlimactic.

I'll use the high heeled shoes to inscribe a transportation rune, most probably Ehwaz - as in this situation its association with a certain feathered cloak will certainly aid me more - in the soles of my own shoes, use the little bit of magic left in the broken wand to activate them and then I'll jump off the window, having my engraved shoes to soften the landing.

I'll assume that this friend of mine is most certainly an incompetent individual, having managed to misplace his or her wand - regardless of the circumstances - so she or he can remain in the tower with the fabric and a useless pair of footwear for company. Once I reach the ground, in a perfectly fine ruined pair of shoes, I'll make my way seeking help to retrieve my inept friend.

Alternatively, since this friend might very well injure him or herself in its incompetence, hence leaving him or her alone could be frowned upon and have unpleasant consequences... I'll use the heels to inscribe Kano in the door, and the bit of magic left in the wand to activate it, thus unlocking the door. Hopefully, that leads to an escape from this most disastrous journey.