History of Magic 3:00PM, Wednesday March 31st, 2010 Classroom

OOC Reminders:
>>Assume your character is on time and present. If you have story reasons for a character being late, alert the instructor via PM.

>>If you are a new member/student, assume your character has been present in classes. Don't be afraid to post!

>>There are NPC students but YOU are the stars of the show!

>>Be courteous to everyone's availability.

>>Above all, FUN!! (and don't destroy the classroom)

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A History of Magic class where Prof Jowd hadn't planned some elaborate classroom demonstration or field trip?

Shocking, yet true.

And Professor Jowd seemed less animated than usual, or at the very least distracted by an issue of the Daily Prophet as he leaned against the lectern, busy reading. It sure made for a quieter atmosphere as the students took to their seats.

Finally, a minute into when class usually began, Sissel folded up his paper to put away. "A riddle for you, though you can take it as an open ended question: what is a place you know of but would never wish to go to?"

History of magic lessons, unlike the subject matter at times, could be rather unpredictable and erratic in terms of how it took place. Still, anything to beat monotony, being told off by other Professors for dodgy magic or blowing up potions was good. It was almost the Easter holiday too, so Ambrose's mind was already wandering to what he might get up to...

"... what is a place you know of but would never wish to go to?" Ambrose's head snapped round at the Professor's question, whereas he'd been looking towards the windows and thinking of summer. An answer sprung to mind:

"Professor Di Luca's office, Sir. When she's in a reallllllly bad mood. Which is like, always, but, you know... Sir."

He grinned broadly.

If there was one thing that set Alvis on edge, it was professors acting not as they should. Not in some stuffy, academic, "this is the proper way to run a classroom" sense, but in terms of personality. There were few stable touchstones at Hogwarts, and the professor's individual eccentricities were among them. Professor Kesali had his mood swings. Professors Storm and Di Luca had their varying levels of frightening grimness. And Professor Jowd had his good cheer and somewhat over-the-top teaching style.

So to see him so at odds with himself made Alvis nervous. It was as though Jowd were restraining the lecture in order to maintain a sense of order that his mind could not currently sustain. And the fact that he knew that so readily while everyone else focused on the coming holidays annoyed Alvis to no end.

Still, Pepper's answer made him chuckle. A fair bit of the class seemed to echo his sentiments, though some at least tried to hide it. Alvis muffled his with one hand and half-raised its partner to add his own contribution.

"Exo-planet Gliese 581-c." Someone nearby gave him a strange look. "What? It's habitable. It's just got a red sky and black plants and it doesn't rotate anymore so unless you stay in a specific planar intersection you'll either burn up or freeze. So it's a bit nasty."

"Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm." Professor Jowd's words replayed in Duce's mind as she blanked out.

History of Magic was Duce's least favorite subject. She hated all the questions and the facts about history. In fact, none of those things made any sense to her. She dreaded every single day that she had to take the class, but she sucked it up because she had no choice but to go to the class. This class drained all of the happiness out of Duce.

She silently tapped on her desk, not even listening to Professor Jowd. She didn't even respond to the dim-witted comments her classmates blurted out, which was unusual. Normally she would make a short reply to these comments or a slight smirk, but today she really wasn't in the mood. However, her mood changed when a note flew upon her desk. She opened the note slowly and recognized the sloppy, boyish handwriting. The note was from her best friend Ivan.

The note gingerly said "Meet me in the common room tonight. I have something exciting to show you!"

Duce smiled to herself and took a quick glance at Ivan who was "pretending" to write down notes as Professor Jowd droned on and on about who knows what. Duce folded the little piece of paper up and put it away. She keep smiling to herself, not giving a care to the world.

This class might have some excitement to it after all.

Kelvin did his best to not laugh at Ambrose's response to the professor's question.  He certainly agreed with the sentiment, he wouldn't want to end up in Di Luca's office ever regardless of her mood.  Truthfully, he preferred to avoid the office of any potions master, since it rarely meant good things for him.  He was much happier in Charms, or History of Magic.  Though this was one of Professor Jowd's more enigmatic beginnings of a lesson.

Thinking for a moment, Kelvin raised his hand before speaking, "The arctic, even with warming charms I don't think robes would ever be warm enough."

As if from the mouths of babes, of which Sissel never really got that expression because he had seen that movie and no teenage student wanted to be compared to a talking pig. But it was the ingenuity of phrase from his students that had made past tutoring and now a professorship all the more enjoyable.

Some of the responses were starting to warm his mood, elevated to a dryer humor than typically known to Prof. Jowd but humor nonetheless.

"I should probably be nipping buds of ill will spread towards other professors," Sissel began, with a look towards Ambrose of 'I won't say more at the next staff meeting if you say no more' as he continued, "but Potions is known for attracting a more..." Hard nosed? Lethal? What could he professionally say as a teacher? "...strict disciplined aura of authority given the risks of the subject, after Defense Against the Dark Arts." He found di Luca cold company too but that was left to the unprofessionalism.

Sissel didn't know what was more bewildering, the looks Alvis got from his example or that he had an idea what the space obsessed Ravenclaw was talking about. "Speaking of words to send to other professors, we should save that one for Tapendra. He might get a kick out of it." And a kicking lesson plan Sissel had the sudden notion to pen for the Astronomy prof later, one requiring specific charms and more Herbology than usual. "For those of you unaware 581-c is the muggle scientific community classification for the planet as we wizards haven't gotten a broom that far enough to notice the place."

Being a frequent sending of paper airplane memos himself, Sissel blinked at what he could have sworn was movement towards the table Duce Alyx sat at, the Hufflepuff with her ever changing paper size of note taking. Though he was further distracted by Kelvin's example of the arctic, and chancing on the inspiration for a new exercise.

"Tell you what, everybody take a moment to write about the worst place you could be, yes Casey," Sissel interjected before the darkening expression of the Slytherin fourth year turned into a rebuttal, "it can be as literal or abstract as you want but by no means does it have to be factual, I'm not fielding detention ideas for the other professors. Back to it: Think about the worst place you could be. Now add just one thing to make it marginally better, but still bad. Be ready to share."

Well, what a joyous little task Professor Jowd had set them, Ambrose thought as the class were given their topic to write about. Still the Easter holiday was only hours away now, so if he could survive this lesson, he'd be closer to it still.

Sitting back on his chair, he tilted the front legs up a moment as he considered, a leg looped round the desk leg, and quill between his fingers, fingers stroking at the feather.

And then it came to him. He knew exactly the worst place to be, and it probably did fall under that whole 'abstract' phrase that the Professor had pointed out to Casey a moment before.

The front two legs of his chair hit the floor soundly and he reached for his parchment, quill beginning to scribble across his page. This had to be one of the first history tasks he'd been given in the past term that he was one of the first few to begin writing!

The worst place you can be is trapped in your own mind.

Ambrose began, the feeling of pride at being quick to begin working on the task fell away almost immediately, as if a dementor had crept up behind him.