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The classroom was neat and tidy again  - well, as neat and tidy as one so crowded with knick-knacks could be. On each student's desk sat a small leather pouch and a jar of marbles.

Georg's habit of smoking between his classes and during them was beginning to take its toll on the room - the warm, smoky smell of his pipe was beginning to take hold in the room. The candles added to the light smoky haze that permeated the room and gave it a warm glow from the sunlight that filtered in through the ancient windows.

Sitting at the podium, Georg sighed. Whoever had decided an hour was good enough for the 7th year class? Given how well the other years were doing, he wondered how much he could challenge this lot with the time given to him - some of these harder spells took more than an hour to introduce, and he wasn't comfortable with them practicing some of these without supervision.

Still, he'd heard some good things about this group and was rather looking forward to meeting them. 4 of them were Prefects, one was Head Girl and two were Animagi; they'd better be competent and hardworking, bygod - and if they weren't he'd certainly change that.

When the students filtered in, he stood up with  a muffled 'oof' and took up his walking stick. "To your seats, everyone! We have an hour to work on this spell and it's one you'll fine quite useful, I imagine."

When Fauna entered the classroom, the smell of pipe smoke lingered in the air, reminding her they had a new professor - one who was from Durmstrang, like Storm. This could be good or bad, and she tried not to worry over it too much yet. She took her seat without greeting anyone, looked over the leather pouch and jar of marbles at her desk, and then read the board.

One sentence amused her and she turned towards the Fayette twins. "No horsing around," she repeated in a whisper, smirking at them. Fauna wondered if the professor knew that the two boys were horse animagi. She had a feeling that Dax, at least, would do the complete opposite of what the instructions on the board advised, just because he could.

"No promises," was Dax's reply to Fauna. "Besides, we could get points for the visualpun."

"But I doubt it."

"Shaddap Dion." Dax pulled out his ornamented wand and eyed the small bag and the jar of marbles suspiciously. The smell in the room was making him want to cough, but he restrained the urge as he looked up at the dragon that hung from the rafters above them.

"Think he killed that on his own?" Dion asked, following Dax's gaze.

Dax grinned. "I dunno. Maybe he can pull his mustache off and use it like a shuriken," he said, glancing at Kiirchlehner and imitating the gesture. "Sha-bang! Dead dragon. Then he just puts it back on like noting happened."

"You're in a good mood for someone with detention, you idiot," was Dion's reply.

Where the twins curdled their noses & her half-sister thought of new professorage (new made up word, +2 she thought), Addie felt as though she was either in parlor at the chateau in Calais or was sitting in the very lap of Granda Jimmy. Addie giggled loudly as she sat by Fauna, listening intently to Dax. "You're bloody awful, Dax, shame on you!" she said as flicked his nose with one of her hands before looking back to Fauna with a grin. Who said Hufflepuffs couldn't find humor in the littlest of scenarios?

Her eyes soon went back to the marbles, staring at the various sizes, colors, designs, the whole shebang about these fine little balls of glass. They weren't as cool as gobstones in the sense they could explode (or spurt ink) & whatnot, but she valued the sentimental value they had. After all, her dad had collected them as a child.

Looking at the professor, she gave a small wave & a grin. He looked like something out of a Victorian novella or telly special that somehow made her tough as nails mother melt like some .... well, some schoolgirl. Unlike Professor Storm, Addie seemed less tense, more at ease with him. Where Storm was a grizzly, this one seemed a lot less....feral. Or so she hoped.

The Hufflepuffs seemed to have banded together and sat there giggling - even the identical boys. Upon seeing the two of them, his fears of not being able to tell them apart vanished - aside from the shiny Prefect's badge, the dour one looked smarter than the other one.

"Tuck your tie in, Mister Fayette," he said sternly, and was somewhat amused that both of them looked down at their ties at his words. The giggler fixed his tie as Georg continued.

"I'm sure whatever is so funny, Huffles," Georg said, and became the only teacher on record to call them 'Huffles' with a dead serious tone, "You can find amusing on your own time. Now then, wands out, books away! Today's spell is the Undetectable Extension Charm." Another snort of laughter from the Messy Twin.

"5 points from Hufflepuff, Fayette, for what you were just thinking," Georg said calmly - and part of his own mind laughed too. Damn. "And yes I know what you were thinking, do not lie."

"Anyway! The Undetectable Extension Charm allows us to make the interior of a container of any sort larger than the outside. Like so -" he pointed his wand to the pile of canvas in the center of the room. "Erecto!"

He thought he heard a muffled 'oof!' as Messy Twin was  elbowed in the ribs. He ignored it.

The tent put itself together and, when he revealed the inside, showed a fully furnished stateroom inside of the tiny A-frame tent. "This spell is one, should you master it, that you will find amazingly convenient. However. This is a difficult spell to master. Now - the bags on your desks can hold exactly 10 marbles. Try, by the end of class, to enchant the bag so it can hold the entire jar. The spell's invokation is Dilato Constituo." He mimicked the wand movement as he spoke. "The wand movement is a quick double-tap on the object in question. Give it a try."

Right now, Fauna was very happy to be in the Hufflepuff House (even if Dax did lose them points). She struggled to keep a straight face as she heard Dax snickering, Dion scolding, Addie giggling, and the professor actually admitting that the name of the charm was hilarious.

The tent and the room inside it impressed her enough to pay attention, so she listened to the Mustache Man's instructions and repeated the words in her head.

She'd learned a while ago that approaching things one step at a time yielded better results for her, even if it meant she achieved those results more slowly. So rather than try expanding the bag all at once, she imagined it holding about 12 marbles, and tapped the bag twice.

"Dilato Constituo."

Fauna peeked inside, put one extra marble into the bag, then another, and smiled a little when they both fit.

Now she just had to keep doing what she was doing, without being interrupted, or getting distracted, or... hmm. Maybe this wouldn't be as easy as she'd hoped!

Dion let Dax slump from the elbow to the ribs and picked his wand up, sighing. "Why do you always embarrass me, Dax?" He asked his brother, scowling darkly.

Dax just grinned at him, his own wand already out. "'cause it's easy, that's why. And you've got a broomstick up your arse."

The two then turned to their work - a sharp look from the Professor have squeltched the harsh reply that Dion had prepared for his brother.

"Dilato Constituo," Dion said, tapping the bag with his wand. On inspection of the results, he got fourteen marbles in - not even close to the jar. He stemmed his temptation to pout, especially when he saw Dax pouring a handful of marbles into his bag.

Dax looked at him and leered. "Want some help?"

"Shut up, Dax."

Zack walked in and sat down, and quickly got to work on the lesson at hand. Not too difficult.  And certainly could be useful, as the professor had said--he'd certainly like to make his schoolbag bigger, for one. One could only fit so many books and papers within a bag until they started to protest, usually by ripping the bag's seams. Zack was hopelessly disorganized when it came to his schoolbag--he was always afraid he would need something from within it, and so never took anything out.

 He thought he'd try to double the capacity for now. Ten extra marbles should do it for a first try. "Dilato Constituo." He tapped the bag twice with his wand as he said it. Hopefully it'd worked. He added in the first ten marbles, happy that there now appeared to be extra space. Then the next ten. One...two...three...four...five...six...seven...eight...nine... The last marble was a tight fit, but it went in. Zack mentally praised himself. Next time he'd try...well...were there enough to go for twenty more? He couldn't count the marbles accurately without taking them out of the jar, and he wanted to focus on the spellwork and didn't want to accidentally drop or break anything, so he put down his wand and raised his hand.

"Professor Kirchlehner, how many marbles are there in the jar?"

As the class had set to their task, Georg took up his usual habit; pacing the rows, eying  their work. Occationally he would sieze a hand and correct a student's wandwork.

He walked over to Zack when the boy piped up, giving his wand technique critical look before he replied. "Two hundred and fifty, Zhang," he said. "May sound a decent amount, but it's not, so keep it up-"

He was cut off as a loud BANG! echoed through the room, and Georg ducked a marble with surprising agility, given his age. The marble shot past his head and broke one of the window panes.

"Oops," said Dax Fayette, who was looking sheepish. The bag he had was ruptured and smoking.

"Ah, yes," Georg said. "That happens sometimes - but rarely, Mister Fayette, so please do pay attention to your work. Sometimes if the spell backfires or does not apply properly the space will collaspe to its original size." He scowled at Dax as he raised his wand and repaired the bag.

"Continue! Remember to focus on proper pronunciation!"