OOC: For those unfamiliar with my lessons, please post as if you have been present from the beginning, unless you have a valid, and pre-discussed plot reason for announcing a late arrival.

PMing me is encouraged if you'd like me to be aware of something character significant for the lesson, ta. I don't deduct housepoints for non attendance, I do add them for participation, interesting, plot furthering or amusing IC reactions, and especially for balanced character abilities. If you can't join us, may be to your advantage to drop me a quick note.

Second lesson of the day at 9 o'clock on a Wednesday morning, straight after Charms.

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It was strange to think that the first years were more than half way through their first year at Hogwarts, and now closer to their second year than their arrival. Under the combined tutelage of the Hogwarts staff they could now string enough sentences together to form an essay, knew for sure which hand they preferred to hold their wand in, and could cast a repertoire of simple charms and other matters.

The first years were taking a moment to read over the comments on their last essay, on Edgar Stroulger, an 18th century wizard an a prolific inventor of several devices, including the sneakoscope, which was a dark detector popular with wizarding famlies. The previous lesson had been filled with whistling from the very devices as the students tested out the boundaries of 'sneaky' in comparison to its detection.

"Roll your essays up and tuck them away, we have today's lesson to be getting on with." The Professor addressed them all after a minute of quiet where the students had been trying to decode his scratchy handwriting and raft of comments and corrections. Owing to their atrocious spelling, the lesson had started with a spelling test, which now lay on his desk to be marked. Anyone with less than 8/10 would be sitting a detention to write lines. He had little tolerance for sloppy spelling.

"You studied the Verdimilious charm in late January," his eyes ran along the rows of students and preyed upon someone who made unwitting eye contact, "explain one of the uses of this charm."

A nearby student reached for their textbook, hastily anticipating the next use would be coming their way. A snap of the Professor's wand trapped their fingers tightly between the pages.

"Without books and notes, from memory." He looked back to the student he had posed the question to, pausing for an answer to one of the uses.

'Drat. There went that solution.' Aoife thought to herself as she winced. Her fingers were caught tightly in-between the textbook and they were starting to ache.

Wait, he's looking at me...He wants me to answer? While Aoife did well enough on the practical portions of the class, she sadly fell behind in anything that she considered boring or unnecessary. Just getting out of Charms class probably wouldn't help her as her mind was filled with simple charms. As far as Aoife knew, none of them had anything to do with the Dark Arts.

"Well...The Verdimilious Charm..." Aoife coughed as she begin to rack her brain for an answer. Suddenly, a memory of her attempting to duel with Aunt Maeve hit her.

"It's a dueling spell!" She said in a raised voice. "I mean, that's one of the uses. It shoots out these green sparks and they burn sort of..." Feeling stupid, Aoife then sunk into her seat.

Even after someone else had been picked on, Dorothy kept her eyes downcast; she didn't want Professor Storm to have any reason to pick on her - she might have known the answer, but even so - answering questions in class, especially after presenting the Professor with such a dismal piece of writing was beyond humiliating.  Instead, she kept her ears pricked up as the other girl struggled through her answer.  She didn't feel the slightest bit of sympathy when she trailed off, but despite the slight boost to her ego, Dorothy didn't look up.

Looking up meant looking up at the spelling tests, and that was a reminder of a test that she didn't want to see ever again.  She thought about that for a second, then realised that not wanting to see a test ever again meant that she probably would be seeing it again.  She tensed up, jaw tightening, hands curling into fists on the table in front of her.  She flicked her eyes over to the left and down - just a bit; she made sure not to move her head at all - to see if she could get a glimpse of the mark on anybody's rolled up essay.

Ever since her less than perfect mark in Defense she took this class so serious sometimes it hurt. She didn't speak with any of her friends, or even look at other students. However, when Aoife gave her less than confident answer Sophia had lifted a perfectly shaped brow in her direction as if to ask ....really?

Sophia Knight, who sat like a perfect portrait in the front row, whose uniform was without a flaw and hair held back from her face in a completely pristine bow lifted her hand to answer,

"It's also used to identify objects that are hidden with dark arts," Her voice held the same confidence that her eyes had as she met the man head on, and made eye contact. She breezed through the spelling, her essay would no doubt have fine marks, but still Sophia worried of her mark having made a commitment after the holiday break to do much better. However, it would be over her dead body that anyone outside of her family would know of her 'not perfect' mark, even if that grade was still a lot better than half the class.

"In my opinion it's one of the more  vivid charms as well, green and I find that very interesting."

So now she was starting off the class with her fingers trapped in her textbook. Lexi sighed as she attempted to tug them free. Without books and notes, she thought silently to herself. From memory...

Because that was a reliable source of information. They'd studied that charm in January? How was she supposed to remember something all the way from January?! This was probably going to get her a second detention, along with writing lines for the utter failure of a spelling test that she had just handed in. She gripped the book harder and yanked at her fingers one last time before just letting it be. She didn't know a charm or spell to unstick her fingers, so she would just have to let it be until... well forever.

She was thinking maybe just until Professor Storm showed mercy, but when did he ever show mercy? This was Storm! He was so scary he probably never got sick because even germs were scared of him.

Lexi pursed her lips as Sophia chirped out the perfect little answer like the perfect little student she was. It wasn't that Lexi had any misgivings or bad feelings towards Sophia, but knowing that she was one of the ones to know the answer irritated her a little bit.

She yanked at her hand and the book again. It was official. Lexi was going to fail DADA if she couldn't even get her fingers out of a book!

Paetyn sat gloomily in his seat, head bent low over his desk and body slumped down in his chair. It had been the young Hufflepuff’s goal in Defense to make as small a target as possible for the professor. He tried very hard to understand Professor Storm, even though the man was Hades incarnate, because he understood that the professor was extremely knowledgeable. That was something Paetyn never could understand… why did the meanies get to be mean and smart? It just wasn’t fair!

When Paetyn tucked his dreadful paper (marked aptly with a large ‘D’) into his bag, he almost missed Ignan’s question, one that Paetyn knew quite well. He wasn’t very good at the actual demonstration of the spell, but the theory came easily, especially when the spell in question was so wicked cool!

For a moment, Paetyn forgot completely about trying to hide from the professor and sat straight up in his desk, arm waving enthusiastically in the air. “Professor! I know, I know! You can use it to go BAM and it’ll show like hidden doors and stuff. Like, that way no one can jump out of a trap hole and brain you with some other wicked spell, right?”

Once he’d finished speaking, the young Huffler remembered that he was supposed to be playing a low profile and glanced around quickly, hoping no one was staring at him for his outburst and then he sank quickly back down into his seat.

Moffet's fingers were encased in the paper pages of Trimble, one of the most widely published Defences text book in Britain - The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection.

To her credit however, she managed to muster some memory of Verdimilious.

"Well...The Verdimilious Charm.. It's a duelling spell! I mean, that's one of the uses. It shoots out these green sparks and they burn sort of…"

The chalk leapt up from the bottom of the board and began to scrawl upon the surface: Green sparks, duelling

"Sort of?" The Professor queried scathingly, "they either do or don't, Moffet, but somewhat on the mark."

His eyes skimmed the surrounding students, Mytchell was keeping her eyes firmly down. He would let her cook a moment more, call on her when the pickings were even slimmer.

Knight's hand went up - Sophia this time, and he gave a slight nod to her to speak.

"It's also used to identify objects that are hidden with the dark arts," behind the chalk was lurching into action again, scrawling that onto the blackboard, and the Professor paused in his slow pacing before the class to maintain the eye contact Sophia offered.

"In my opinion it's one of the more vivid charms as well, green and I find that very interesting." His silver eyebrow quirked at her comment.

"Your opinion is not part of the answer to the question, and will offer you no marks," the Professor explained smoothly, if only to try and keep Sophia's arrogance of knowing the answer in check, "but otherwise, another use provided."

Suddenly Harper's hand was waggling in the air too.
"Professor! I know, I know! You can use it to go BAM and it'll show like hidden doors and stuff. Like, that way no one can jump out of a trap hole and brain you with some other wicked spell, right?"

There was an awkward pause after the enthusiastic outburst.

"A reiteration of Knight's point, Harper, but yes, hidden doors." The Professor agreed, rather less enthusiastically than his pupil.

Professor Storm glanced back to the board to check it had detailed enough for that moment, surprised to see it scrawling show hidden doors a- almost verbatim from Harper, and flicked his wand to make it clatter back into the tray below before it could write and stuff.

"For all those of you staring at your desks in the futile hope I won't demand an answer of you, you would do more admirably taking notes from the discussion."

There was a bang and attention was briefly drawn to several of the students who were still encased in their text books, including McGee. With a tut their teacher raised his wand and released them, though the books snapped shut once more.

"And the wand movement for each use?" His eyes picked out heads amongst the crowd before calling out names.[1]

1.	Please have the Professor call out your character's surname

Teddy, through a bit of luck and quick reflexes, managed to avoid getting his fingers trapped in the books and offerred Lexi -- the nearest victim to his right -- and sympathetic grin. He certainly wasn't chomping at the bit to answer questions, though. While Defense was still his best class in terms of subject matter, he'd learned to keep his head down after the broken fingers incident. Even his hair had been muted today, taking on a dark-ish cinnamon red he'd picked up from a certain Astronomy teacher.

Still, he couldn't avoid being called on forever, not in Storm's lessons. When his name was called, Ted glanced up with blue eyes and, without thinking, blurted the first thing that came to mind. "Demonstration or description?"

It was only after the words left his mouth that he realized how insubordinate they could sound. He cleared his throat and backpedaled as fast as he could. "I mean...for the one with the emerald light and the room and hidden doors, you do a big circle-like thing over your head. Kind of like this."

He lifted his empty hand as though holding a wand and turned the wrist a few times over his head. Then he got the ridiculous image of being about to lasso them little doggies on the open plains and quickly dropped his arm before the giggles could take hold. As a afterthought, he tacked a final, "Sir," onto the end of his answer and quickly looked away.

The ghosts of a slight - very, very slight - smirk from seeing what was unmistakably a large red 'D' on the paper in her schoolmate's bag were scrubbed off her face when her name was called.  Dorothy swallowed and the four fingers that were curled into a fist around her thumb seemed to be actively trying to force their way through it to her palm.  That Lupin boy had managed it, and other people had presented the Professor with answers - even people who were struggling.  She shifted slightly in her seat.

"You..." she started, but nothing arose.  She squeezed her eyelids together, hoping that perhaps the dark would help her think more than the wood of her desk.  It didn't, but she didn't open them.  Somewhere, during her train of thought - or her lack thereof, her lip had traveled into the void between her teeth, and the void had shut and had her lip in a vice grip.  She couldn't keep her mouth clamped shut forever, though - she had to say something.

"Do you, I mean..." she stopped.  Duelling. Duelling.  Something was making sense, in a quiet way that told Dorothy that she was probably much too late to give an answer, even if it was right. She allowed her eyes to flicker up to the Professor.  "Do you have to be pointing at someone?"

Immediately, she brought her gaze back down and - very slowly - took out a piece of parchment and her quill.  Her teeth were working furiously at her lip.  So much for being magic.

"Sort of?" "They either do or don't, Moffet, but somewhat on the mark."

Aoife gave a small smile, but inside she was cheering.

'Yes! I got it right! Sort of...But don't think about that part right now. All I need to do is ace a practical part and that cat will be mine!' Aoife's smile got bigger as she began to daydream of the cat that her mother would give to her if she had gotten nothing but E's and O's. Well, that and if they had enough money. But with Aoife's cooking classes generating a small but good amount for a first year, she was well on her way! At least, Aoife hoped so.

Aoife's thoughts were then interrupted.

"And the wand movement for each use?"

Luckily for Aoife, Lupin and Mytchell seemed to be answering. Aoife looked at Lupin, a bit disappointed that he had chosen to have his hair be so bland today. She didn't know him well, but he was pretty interesting to her. She had to hold back the giggles as he made his awkward answer.

Mytchell, on the other hand, just confused Aoife. There weren't many Slytherins in Aoife's year, but Dorothy seemed the complete opposite of the only Slytherin that she knew, Maeve Selwyn. As Mytchell stumbled through her answer, Aoife couldn't help but feel sorry for her.

"Lupin." The first year with traffic lights for hair raised his head at his name being called.

"Demonstration or description?" The Professor declined to answer, and let his level stare convey a sense of work it out. The rest of the class glanced between them and a few uncomfortably shuffled, not keen to be called on either.

"I mean, for the one with the emerald light and the room and hidden doors, you do a big circle-like thing over your head. Kind of like this." His empty hand turned over his head, "Sir."

"Correct in the end, Lupin. Mytchell, the other?"

"You…" The girl pressed her eyes closed, trying to recall. "Do you, I mean… Do you have to be pointing at someone?"

The Professor took a step back in Dorothy's direction, his boot making a thud on the floor in the silent pause. They were first years, this mistake was easily made, but a habit could easily be broken.

"I'm asking you, Mytchell, this is an assessment of your knowledge. Mine is perfectly sound." He raised his voice to the rest of the class, "Is Mytchell right?"

The basework established, it took a gentle wave of his wand to clear the board. He picked up the chalk by hand this time to write Verdimilious Duo.

"A step on from the Verdimilous, we have Verdimilious Duo. Two different effects again - marked by a change in colour. Turn to page seventy-four in your books." He dropped the chalk back and tapped his wand twice in the air, where the book pages were released on the desks across the classroom.

"Used by several people on one target, it can quell a large animal, or werewolf, enough to make a retreat, but by an individual, it has improved results to Verdimilious. Above the head, a red light."

He raised his own wand above his head in a loop a little more defined than Lupin had showed before, and spoke aloud the incantation quietly. Above his head rose a red flare of magic, which floated upwards and then burst out across the room, illuminating the room. Several items on the shelves around them were suddenly visible, and it lingered with green light outlining the hidden objects for a while longer.

"What do you observe to be different this time round?" He asked the first years.

Roland was always humbly subdued in his class participation. As he was instructed to do, he wasn't taking attention or asking for it and instead keeping his head down and letting others do the talking. As such, he didn't answer Professor Storm's question regarding the uses of the Verdimilious charm, though he could have and wouldn't have needed to risk having his fingers squashed by the professor's admonition. Indeed, when Aoife was rewarded with sore fingers for attempting to use her book to answer Professor Storm's question, Rou, seated at her side, quick to raise an eyebrow and give an ever-so-slight smirk toward her hand, which quickly vanished when he turned to Sophia, who was seated at his other side, giving Aoife an interesting look before giving, of all things, her answer followed by her opinion on the spell, which Professor Storm quickly and expectantly shot her down for.

Rou knew of the Storm family a bit. Grandpa Roland's instructions on the lineage of certain magical bloodlines mentioned them as being cousins to the Dylanis family from the ancient family country of Germany, back before the Dylanis family emigrated to America in the 1850s. And this particular Professor Storm, from Rou's earlier attendance of his lessons, did not care a tick what a students opinion on a spell was, especially one so petty as "it's pretty." Rou looked over at Ted during his little demonstration of the wand movement for the charm and then the boy looked down and sank into his chair a bit before observing Professor Storm's demonstration of the next charm, Verdimillious Duo.

This spell Rou was not familiar with, but his familiarity with its predecessor meant that he was able to quickly figure out the difference between the two spells, aside from the sparks versus the ball of light, in any case. When the professor inquired the class to point out the differences, Rou looked up and ever-so-slightly raised his hand, which was rather uncharacteristic of the boy who normally preferred not to be called on. Almost as fast, however, he put the hand down and hoped that the professor hadn't noticed or called on him.

"The illumination is a lingering effect," Rou said softly should Professor Storm have called upon him, averting his eyes but speaking loudly enough that the professor would hear.

Aoife watched Professor Storm in amazement. She admired the red coloring of the spell before her eyes squinted even further as the light burst across the room. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a necklace suddenly appear, causing her to turn her head towards the necklace, but it was soon gone again. Aoife frowned, that looked like a nice necklace, maybe if she remembered the design, she could try to transfigure that piece of amber and Aunt Aoife's chain into that sort of necklace.

'Wait, what were we doing again?' Aoife thought to herself before Rou raised his hand slightly. She looked at him in confusion as he then gave an answer that was so quiet, Aoife could barely hear him.

'Rou, you're weird sometimes...Okay, a lot of the time.' She thought once again. He was smart, at least he seemed smart, but he was always so quiet and hardly spoke in class. Aoife then looked at Professor Storm before giving her answer.

"The first part of the spell is red, and the part that shows the things is green." Aoife said before thinking again. "Is that why it has duo in its name?"

Class moved quickly forward but Frank Sellaphix of Ravenclaw was distracted.  He'd barely had time to get through the comments scribbled onto what he thought had been a brilliant research paper, but it did seem apparent that Professor Storm had been less impressed than Frank was hoping.  He'd imagined walking in and receiving anything from a gold star, to a class-wide round of applause, to a hug and pat on the back with words like, 'my dear boy.' 

Frank knew better than to defy even the simplest commands from Professor Storm, so he tucked away the essay and could scrutinize it no more.  He then gazed thoughtfully a few feet in front of him with a slightly furrowed brow and look of concentration and earnestness as he couldn't stop thinking about the essay.

But his head jerked up and his eyes focused when a brilliant plume of red magic lit up the room. "Verdimilious Duo..." he whispered to himself, getting caught up with class now.  Upon hearing Roland and Aoife's responses, he shot his hand up with urgency.

Professor Storm called on him. "Sellaphix."  Why did he always say it like that, Frank wondered... 

"Actually, it's more complicated than that," he said.  "Duo's magic is so good that anything hidden stays unhidden.  Whatever spell is hiding the Dark Magic things is cleared off.  The colors don't really matter."

All around them on shelves, some things were flickering green.  Forgetting the usual decorum of Defense class for his own curiousity, he blabbed, "is that a Hand of Glory!"

When Professor Storm shot the Verdmilious Duo into the air, Dorothy had flinched as though someone invisible had walked up to her and raised their fist.  What was supposed to say 'Verdimilious Duo' said 'Verdimilous D-' and, from the entry of the U, a long black line was cut across the page.  Dorothy sighed, dropped her pen onto the page, and stared at Professor Storm as Moffett, Dylandis and Sellaphix answered his question.  Dorothy thought - perhaps - that Moffett's answer was the better one of the three, as it was an easier one to comprehend.

'Red,' she thought, 'and green.'  She paused, before murmuring it to herself. "Red and green."

Sellaphix's voice cut across the room once more. 'Is that a Hand of Glory?' Dorothy turned to look in the same direction.  The Ravenclaw seemed to be looking at something shriveled that she supposed might be a charcoal-y colour without the tinge of green - on the shelf.  Dorothy shifted away slightly. Glory? She didn't think so.