Getting Your Grade
This test is graded in one of two ways.

Reply to this thread.

The first is to reply to this thread with a role played post of your student taking the test. Based on that post, I will determine their grade for the class. This is based on the 'surprise me' idea of grading.

Send Georg Kirchlehner a PM.

Your PM needs to follow these guidelines:

• Needs to have the title format of "Year / Student Name" (3rd Year / Jane Doe)
• You need to state what grade you want your student to have.
• You need to explain what they have done in the class to receive that grade.
If I feel it is necessary, I may question your reasoning, especially if your requested grade is sharp contrast to your student's performance in past class threads and on the board as a whole. 

Code for Personal Messages
[b]Student Name: [/b]
[b]Requested Grade: [/b]
[b]What Have They Done to Earn This Grade?:[/b]


---

Name: ______Jane Doe____
House: ______Hufflepuff___

Do not write on this paper below the dotted line. This paper is for examination and instruction purposes only, and therefore only your professor will fill out the lower half. A student found attempting to falsify the professor's notes will automatically receive a failing grade.

Your desks are assigned. If you are sitting at a desk with another student's name on it, move.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Complete each spell to the best of your ability

*   *   *   *   *

Accio		Incendio
A group of Blue Marbles is waiting for you not at your desk, but at the podium. Your task is to simply summon one of these marbles to your desk. If a student knocks them to the floor, then the others must summon from the floor.		You can been provided with a set of Candles. You must simply light all 3 of them without melting them significantly.
Diffindo		Evanesco
On your desk is a simple wooden rod, marked in one-inch and one centimeter units. Your task is to cut the rod at every marker, without damaging your desk. Keep yourself safe and do not cut near your fingers.		On your desk is a small pail, filled with water. You must simply Vanish this water until the bucket is completely empty and, ideally, dry.
Impervius
You have a piece of Normal Parchment on your desk. Using the Impervius charm, you need to make this parchment repell ink. When you feel you have performed the spell well enough, attempt to write on the parchment.

---

HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDY will not be held responsible for student injuries, death or distress caused during the normal course of their examinations. All students are expected to obey the rules laid out by the Professor.

---

Georg stood at the podium, arms folded neatly behind his back, wand gripped. The student's desk were littered with objects, and on each desk sat a simple name plate - just as all the non-Ministry ministered classes had seen. He'd arranged the seats different for this group, however, and several problem students found themselves as few seats away from everyone else...

"Take your places, quickly," he instructed. "You have only 45 minutes to complete this test and many of you will need that time!" Encouraging as ever, he immediately added, "Because this test will require precision as well as basic spell casting ability. You must control as well as cast."

"When the clock strikes, you will have 45 minutes to complete this examination," he added, routinely. "Begin as soon as you hear it - no delays!"

(godmodding approved by Armiece)

Winifred was surprised that her assigned seat was in the back, away from the others. She walked toward the desk, setting down her bag and resting her wand on the desktop. She looked around- to see where others were seated- noticing large buckets were charmed to float above her desk and the one that had Ambrose's name on it. That was... odd.

She was nervous about the exam, but had been doing a lot of practicing. She had gotten tutoring from the older students, and had even been practicing on her own in the empty classrooms throughout Hogwarts. She was a little disappointed that the growing charm wasn't listed- since she had worked extra hard on it- and when she read that there was a fire charm, she looked up at Georg with wide, terrified eyes. This was it. She was going to burn down Hogwarts... So she would save that for last.

The first charm she decided to work with was the accio charm. It was one that she considered to be least dangerous, and hopefully one of the easiest to do. A single blue marble- Winnie could totally do this! She stood up to get a better look at the marbles. With the most confidence she could muster- the Hufflepuff raised her wand and pointed it at the stack of marbles. (Was that an eyebrow twitch from Kirchlehner?) "Accio blue marble!" she called out clearly. Much to Winifred's surprise, one of the marbles twitched, and then jumped off the table. But- instead of flying directly toward her- it simply rolled lazily along the floor, stopping a meter short of where she was sitting. But at least it had not been a total failure. And she hadn't blown up the marbles! She had renewed confidence then, and pointed her wand at the marble which had been rolling toward her. "Accio blue marble!" she called out again, and it slowly rolled, closing the distance, bouncing off of her shoe. Winifred beamed in response. Her practice was paying off!

She was still wary about playing with the cutting or the fire charms- so she decided to work on making the parchment impervious to ink instead. Winifred sat back down, and looked at the parchment. Parchment was flammable. She knew that. But after doing so well on her Accio charm- she had a feeling this wouldn't be too awful. Winifred pointed her crooked wand at the parchment. "Impervius!" she called out. The parchment flew into the air, then floated back down. She poked it, and it still felt like normal parchment. She would try again- Winifred was pretty certain it hadn't worked. Adjusting her wand movement, Winifred tried again. "Impervius!" she commanded her parchment. It shivered, and then fell still again. Winifred picked it up, and tried to bend it. It felt... a little stronger than normal parchment, and decided that ought to do well enough. So she picked up her quill, and dipped it into an ink well. Winifred wrote her name on the parchment. She frowned when it seemed the parchment soaked up the ink business as usual- but after she set the quill aside, the parchment shivered again and then spat the ink back out- splattering it across the front of her uniform. Her name remained, although it was very, very faint.

That put a big dent in Winifred's confidence. She had thought it would go well after she did accio with apparent ease- but Winnie should have known better. "Drat," she muttered, pushing the parchment away in disgust and focusing on her next spell. Vanishing water. Right then.

Winifred pulled the bucket of water toward her, and stood up again so that she could look down into the bucket. Hopefully the water wouldn't spit out of the bucket into her face like the ink had wanted to do. She looked around the room again at her classmates and the professor, then turned back to the task at hand. Winifred was working really hard to keep her attention focused and not to let her mind wander too much.

The Hufflepuff's wand was pointed directly at the water. "Evenesgo!"[1] She watched the bucket as it shook, and the water sloshed a little. The next thing that Winifred knew the bucket was empty, the water, however, had gathered in a puddle under her desk which promptly began to spread across the room. Oh no! "EVENESGO EVENESGO EVENESGO!" Winifred hollered, pointing her wand at the water that was spreading across the classroom- not even aware she was pronouncing the spell wrong. The water, instead of vanishing, simply continued to spread at a much faster rate. "That's enough Oliver, move on." Winifred looked at Professor Kirchlehner and blushed. "Sorry professor!"

Right then. Move on! Winifred didn't really want to tackle either of the last two charms. She was worried she would chop her desk in half, impairing her ability to do the candle lighting charm- or, if she lit the candles, set her desk on fire and then the rod wouldn't be there for her to cut. Decisions decisions!

Diffindo won. Winifred stepped to the side, shoes squishing in the water, and she picked up the rod and looked at it. Those were awfully precise lines. She pointed her wand at the rod. "Diffindo!" she called out. The rod- instead of cutting at the line she was focusing on- simply splintered into pieces. The lines were no longer there to be seen. Winnie groaned again. She was just doing an awful job!!

Right then. Incendio was left. That was it. And the time was almost up. She had to light all three candles without melting any of them significantly. But apparently Winifred's wand sensed her hesitation. When she called out the incantation the first time, nothing happened. The second time, nothing happened. The third time, nothing happened... Winifred frowned and shook her wand and tried again. "Incendio!" .... A small lick of flame came out of her wand, went out, and then a large puff of smoke floated from the end of the wand and floated across the classroom. She looked around the room again, seeing others light their candles with little difficulty.

"Incendio!" she said again, with more force, and a large flame jumped from one of her candles, rising about a foot in the air, the heat melted the candle quickly and before she had a chance to freak out or react, the fire winked out. Well- apparently that spell wasn't going to work well for her.

Time was called before Winnie had the chance to try again. She had truly tried her hardest though, and performed better than she had expected (even if it had not been a stellar performance.) Apparently all of that study and practice paid off.

1.	Winifred mispronounced her charm! Oh no!

Alvis trailed into the classroom behind a small mob of his fellow students, hanging back where their nervous conversations couldn’t reach him. He himself was not particularly nervous, nor, like some of his fellow Ravenclaws, was he excited. For Alvis, tests were neither a source of anxiety nor a chance to show off his skills; they simply were.

Besides, it was only Charms – a class he was neither bad at nor particularly enamored with. Charms were useful, but only if you know how to apply them properly. It was like the shop class his Muggle neighbor in Adderley taught and, like the saws and screwdrivers he’d seen there, he knew he would probably use all of these things eventually. They just weren’t all that interesting to think about otherwise.

The desk bearing his name was located near the center of the room, neither close to the teacher’s desk nor stuck in the back with the magical buckets. Alvis sat down, careful not to disrupt the things waiting there, and set his wand at the top of the page like a pencil waiting to be used. He wouldn’t touch it again until he’d read all of the instructions at least twice. The clock struck while he was going through it the second time and, by the time he was done, the rest of the class had already begun their work.

Still, Alvis didn’t pick up his wand just yet. Instead, he set the test paper on the ground and went about arranging the items on his desk. First he set the bucket of water onto the floor, where it would be out of the way for a moment. Then, he carefully lined up the three candles, starting with one on the far right corner of his desk and using the edge to line the other two with it precisely. After tweaking their wicks to make sure they were straight, he lay the parchment flat in front of him, directly in the desk’s center. Then he placed the bucket on the far-left corner of his desk and balanced the rod precariously on its edge.

The final step, due in no small part to the chaos of his classmate’s various spells, summonings, and misfires, took longer than the rest put together. By the time he had it finally all set up the way he wanted, there was thirty minutes left for the actual casting.

And yet, Alvis didn’t look or feel the least bit worried. With a smile, he finally picked up his wand, pushed back in his chair, and pointed at the first marker. “Diffindo,” he said with confidence, giving the wand a flick before moving down to the next line. “Diffindo, diffindo, diffindo…diffindo.”

The rod shuddered, but it did not fall. Once each of the lines had been brushed over with the spell, Alvis leaned over the desk and gave the rod a tap. It fell to pieces like a stack of cards, inch- and centimeter-length pieces scattering over the parchment piece. Alvis allowed himself a bit of a grin. Of all the spells he’d learned this year, the Severing Charm had proven to be one of the most useful in his – ahem – personal experiments, and after using it on live explosives, a piece of wood had been cinch.

Satisfied, he brushed the wood away and turned his attention to the parchment, laying it flat against the table and pressing his wand tip into its fibers. He spent almost five solid minutes muttering the spell over and over until he was willing to give it a shot. He dipped his quill into the ink and tried to write.

It bounced back. Alvis paused. He was rather certain that wasn’t supposed to happen.

He tried again. The quill leapt away from the page this time, rebounding so hard he could feel it in his wrist. When he picked the page up, it didn’t bend. It was as rigid and flat as a piece of thin steel off the Muggle assembly line. When he tapped it against the desk, it bounced on a cushion of air, like a magnet pushing away from its opposing pole.

It was about that time that water started to pour into the room from Winifred Oliver’s desk. It pooled lazily around Alvis’s shoes. Out of curiosity, he leaned down and lay the parchment in it, pushing it under the surface. The water rolled off it like a duck’s back and, when he touched it again, it felt perfectly dry.

“Huh,” he thought. “Wonder how I did that.”

With a shrug, Alvis set the unusually stiff parchment aside and turned his attention to his own pail of water. He pulled it in front of him, pointed his wand straight down like a cauldron stirring-stick, and took care to pronounce “Evanesco” exactly as it was meant to be said. The water lazily dried up in a quiet spiral, as though going up a drain rather than down it. When it seemed empty, he turned it upside-down to check. A single drop fell from it to join the puddle on the floor, and he decided it was good enough.

There was fifteen minutes left to the test after all that, and Alvis turned his attention to the final set-up, the three candles on the end of his desk. He peered at them, making sure they were lined up perfectly straight, and held his wand to match that line perfectly. “Incendio.”

Pop, pop, pop! Three cheery flames popped into existence as though lighting a match. The one closest to him flared a bit at first, melting a bit of the candle away; but it was barely a centimeter before it calmed. The other two burned normally, much to Alvis’s satisfaction. After a moment of thought, he picked up the Impervius’ed parchment and held it in the flames. It didn’t burn, and the flames did not go out. Instead, the two substances simply ignored each other, with the fire burning against the page rather than through it, and the page staying stubbornly as it had been since his spell first took hold.

Hm. That was interesting, too.

There was only five minutes left to test now. Alvis stood and gathered his things, though he couldn’t help the nagging suspicion that he was forgetting something. A glimpse of his own house robes sent it bounding back into his mind, and he snapped his fingers.

“Ah, that’s right! Accio marble!” He jabbed his wand at the teacher’s desk, where a marble had rolled onto the floor in all the chaos. It hopped from under the Professor’s feet like a rubber ball and bounded through the air in a lazy arch, bouncing once against the floor before landing in Alvis’s hand. Alvis beamed, set it on the table, and traded it for his rubbery parchment.

“Professor?” he called, holding up the Impervius'ed sheet. “Might I keep this?”

Casey was not happy.

Dour, frustrated moods were common to the young Slytherin’s aura. Grumpiness comprised of failed attempts at high-level magic and the chronic symptoms of spell fatigue and other illnesses. This, however, was a distinct, channeled aggression as opposed to a tonal mood definition. This aggression was not directed at anyone in the castle but rather a certain bloated drunk old codger.

The euphoria from yesterday’s examinations was short lived. After an impressive Defense final in the late afternoon, Casey was preparing for the Astronomy Practical that night when Dingy arrived with the worse news possible: his grandfather, Ainbheartach O’Doherty, demanded the ancestral wand back for use in a duel. Casey was livid. This spectacular wand – a 9in inflexible Hornbeam shaft with Leprechaun hair core – was the perfect medium for Casey’s willpower and immense magical efforts. True, the wand was technically not his. As the family wand, it was supposed to belong to the current head of the family. But wandlore, Casey had learned, was a fickle thing especially for a wand as grand as this one, unlike the common core and wood combinations one saw at Olivander’s. For all purposes this was Casey’s wand. From the moment he first cast with it, a connection was made as deep as one between a young witch or wizard and their first wand. The decades of previous ownership should have made the wand temperamental. But the immense power of the wand synchronized harmoniously with Casey’s utter determination. He had entered his first year with this wand and with it had succeeded with his classes. His only failures being the taxation of his body and, perhaps, the fact that he had set the bar for himself a little too high.

It was an unwritten rule that during summers and holidays Casey did not have exclusive access to the wand. A minor annoyance but Casey respected that. However, a demand for the wand in the MIDDLE of finals week was appalling. Casey was furious. He sent Dingy back to the manor with every complaint, argument and appeal he could come up with. He had a Charms practical tomorrow! And he had yet to take Transfiguration. Casey didn’t say that it was on the 11th but Ainbheartach was surprisingly knowledgeable of the finals schedule and sent the reply that Casey “should” be able to expect the wand back by then. Casey demanded to know why the wand was to be needed right now. Ainbheartach explained that he wanted to familiarize himself with the wand again as it had been out of his touch for so long. Then the ultimate argument, when Casey sent Dingy back home the last time: How was he supposed to complete a practical final with no wand?

Dingy returned with an unsatisfactory result. A grayish foot long stick that was once well kept but the polish had started to strip away. A puny unicorn hair core. His father’s wand…

Ultimately Casey’s magical marvels of his past school years were working against him. Ainbheartach said that Casey should be able to manage with this substitute wand. Casey had the urge to throw his alarm clock at Dingy’s head until he hesitated, realizing that his anger was at his stupid grandfather and his stupid family and the utter pollution they were to the earth.


Casey entered the Charms classroom and found his seat. He was only half listening to Professor Kirchlehner’s instructions. He was still fiddling with his father’s inferior wand. For one, it was much too swishy, making aim and control imprecise. Also it was three inches longer than what he was used to, meaning he could strike the targets or his fingers at inopportune times.

"When the clock strikes, you will have 45 minutes to complete this examination," the professor finished. "Begin as soon as you hear it - no delays!"

No matter. Even if his father’s wand was cracked and splintered by the end of the exam, Casey was going to perform as optimal as he would have otherwise.

Although planning to tackle the spells not in the order listed, Casey began with the ACCIO charm. This would give him a feel for how well the wand was going to work with him. His practice of summoning gold and cracking the barrier for instantaneous summoning was going to pay off. He focused on a blue marble, scrutinized it, then non-verbally summoned it to him.[1] The marble shot from the podium like a stone from a sling. By habit Casey snapped his fingers but the timing was off between this wand and his muscle memory. The marble struck his knuckles and bounced off. Casey just managed to catch it. He frowned, massaging his fingers. The sheer number of repetitions of this coin-summoning trick had at least made it a universal skill for Casey.

He gazed at the instruction sheet for another spell, selecting INCENDIO to tackle next. Casey had an instinctive nature with the starting of fire.[2] He aimed the wand at the first candle. “Incendio!” A fireball erupted from the wand the size of the cantaloupe and vanished in the next second. This angered Casey. He began to sweat, not from the heat of the blast but from dangerous feedback. With his proper wand, Casey’s advanced spell fatigue was from trying to soar before he could jump. Now this disharmonious common wand of his father’s was triggering the condition sooner. Getting a feel for the discrepancies from this wand, Casey’s next two lightings were proper. Two perfectly lit candles and one that looked like a stick of butter attacked by dragon’s breath.

What next? DIFFINDO could be as destructive as Incendio in the wrong hands. Casey analyzed the marks on the wooden rod. He tried to keep his own power in check, given the irregularities with the unfamiliar wand. A repetition of “Dinffindos” later and Casey had inch and centimeter long wooden pegs with no discernable damage to the desk. Although closer examination revealed some of the charcoal lines were still visible, the cuts on some a millimeter off. For a spell perfectionist like Casey this was infuriating.

As Casey began an attempt at EVANESCO he felt the ends of his trouser legs get wet. What was this? He hadn’t even waved the stupid wand yet! A short investigation revealed that this puddle had made its way all the way to the Slytherin quarter of the classroom from the Hufflepuff section. That dumbbell of a Hufflepuff, Winifred Oliver, had managed to pour the contents of her bucket about the floor. At least Casey wasn’t failing as obviously as that. His own Vanishing Charm was successful though the bottom of his bucket was a bit too moist for Casey’s liking. Once again, a degree shy of perfection. Stupid wand.

What was left? IMPERVIUS. Casey cast this on his parchment. It snapped once. Casey poked it with a finger. It seemed firm. He uncorked a bottle of ink and wrote his name with curvy signature. The ink didn’t appear to be getting dry. Casey lifted the parchment and was pleased to see his name blur as the ink flowed off the paper onto the desk. This quick smile faded when he noticed a slight stain like a phantom watermark. Visible at just the right angle were a tan residue of his signature and the path of the trickle of ink off the side of the parchment. Not close enough.

Casey huffed grumpily, leading to the stifling of a series of coughs. He felt like he could hack up a kidney. His exam was completed in record time but this did not gratify his drive. If he hand been allowed his proper wand instead of this stick his exam would have been finished even sooner and better.

Even though complaining had not rescued his wand from the clutches of his grandfather, it couldn’t hurt to try once more. With the evidence of his testing, Casey marched over to Professor Kirchlehner, presenting the exam materials and wand. “I have completed my exam, professor, but I feel my mistakes should not be held against me. You see, this is not my usual wand.”

1.	I refer you to this thread
2.	I refer you to this Pensieve

A soon as the clock chimed Nikolas reached over and grabbed his assigned candles, arranging them in front of him in a row. He was feeling very confident in himself as he had actually studied this time around unlike the previous years where he was just content to get by on natural talent alone. No this time would be different, he would get that O and hopefully his Mom would ignore A that he would be getting in History of Magic (and he feverently hoped he wouldn't get a second one in Herbology).

With a flick of his wrist and clear voice, Niko confidently cast the Incendio charm at the candles and was rewarded with two of the candlewicks igniting without melting any of the wax. The third one was somewhat melted at the top but only around the base of the wick thankfully. At Professor Kirchlehner's nod, Niko snuffed out the flames on the candles and put them aside.

Moving on, Niko picked up the wooden rod. He glanced at the instructions and then carefully aimed his wand at the first marker before uttering the spell. He slowly moved through the increments, paranoidly checking to make sure he hadn't cut the desk in the process. He had to cast the charm a couple of times on a couple of increments when he didn't use enough force with the spell. At the end he had, for the most part, neatly split the  rod into the desired parts and was fairly sure that he hadn't marked the desk.

After placing the rod peices to the side he picked up the parchment and laid it flat in front of him. He tapped the parchment several times, calmly casting the impervious charm with each tap. After ten castings he figured that was good enough and stopped. Niko dug out  his ink pot and drizzled a little ink on the paper. Much to his delight the ink beaded up and when he tilted the paper the ink slid down the paper sheet, leaving only smaller ink droplets in it's wake, like rain running down a car window.

Nikolas dabbed away the ink and placed the paper with the rest of his finished tasks and grabbed the water bucket. Cockily he cast the Evanesco spell but was quickly deflated when the water level barely changed. Frustrated Niko rapidly cast the spell in succession causing the water level to drop but, much to his irritation, not as quickly as he desired. Finally the water was all gone and he made sure the bucket was bone dry before shoving it aside.

Turning his attention to the podium, Niko pointed his wand at the pile of marbles, "Accio Marble." The marble zoomed over to his desk and he reached out and snagged it from the air. He opened his hand and smiled smugly at the small blue marble sitting in his palm. He then glanced over at the clock and grinned widely when he saw that despite his issues with the Evanesco charm he had finished with twenty five minutes to spare. 'This one's in the bag.'

Ayla was completely focused when she entered the Charms classroom for their exam. She was determined to not be distracted by anything going on around her, afterall this was the one exam she was actually looking forward to. The one she was convinced she would get an O on. Charms was her best class, the one type of magic she naturally excelled at and she was eager to show Professor Mustache what she could do.

Stationed at her desk her eyes focused on her parchment instead of whatever disaster it was Winnie was sure to be causing, she read the instructions and removed her maple wand to get to work. She lifted her head to the podium and her wand in turn, "Accio Marbles!" A set of beautiful blue marbles zoomed towards her desk at her command. She snatched them out of the air and placed them gently at the top of her desk taking care to make sure they didn't roll away while she continued on with her exam.

Ayla changed position on her wand, holding it as one might a quill as she hovered it over the rod she was supposed to cut. In her own mind she was holding it the way her Uncle Jason would hold a box cutter. It was better for her mental visualization of the spell and still gave her room to do the proper movement required, "Diffindo." The first marker was cleanly cut. With a large smile on her face Ayla repeated the spell a few more times until all of the markers on the rod had been just as cleanly cut.

Before she was able to move onto her next spell there was a bit of a ruckus around her, as much as Ayla was determined to stay focused she couldn't help herself. She glanced up from her desk and around the room. To be honest she wasn't surprised to see that Winnie was struggling at the back of the room and instead of vanishing the water in her pail she had caused it to expand over the floor of the classroom - and Ayla was wearing her favourite shoes!

Without a second thought Ayla waved her wand at her feet, "Impervius!" Her shoes suddenly took on a slight shine to them and the wave of inch deep water was easily repelled. Without even thinking that she had already performed the next spell on her list she turned back to the blank piece of parchment in front of her, "Impervius!" She called out again, this time the parchment obtained a gentle shine. She dipped her quill in ink and leaned over to scribble out, 'Blake Knight is a complete dolt' and was happy to see that none of the words stuck.

Her nasty comment pooled into a small puddle of ink and her shoes properly protected from Winnie's attempt at Charms Ayla twirled her wand in a little flare before pointing it at the candles at the top of her desk, "Incendio!" A small lighter tip of a flame erupted from her wand and she gently ran it over the tip of the wick on each candle until they ignited.

Soft candlelight warmed her desk as the small Hufflepuff pulled her pail of water down onto of the Impervius paper. She pointed her now extinguished wand tip in to the bucket and began to moved it clockwise around the outer edge of the pail, "Evanesco!" She continued her clockwise motion until all the water in the bucket had disappeared.

Ayla slipped her wand back into her pocket and a large smile spread across her lips.

---

I decided to write Ayla's exam afterall since I needed to write one for each character

"Complete each spell to the best of your ability" ... yeah, thanks for that, Ambrose Pepper thought as he studied his exam paper. That was the kind way of saying "I doubt you'll be able to do these, Pepper."

Was that.. was that really a bucket of water hanging over his head too? Oh Merlin, this day couldn't get any worse could it?

Looking back at his exam paper, Ambrose let out a sigh. Everything made sense, and yes he knew the incantations for them, but whether he could correctly pronounce them and co-ordinate with his wand was the more difficult element.

Ambrose decided to start at the top, if he got knocked out by some marbles, then at least the pain would not be for long.

"Acheeoo." Ambrose incanted with his wand raised. A marble rolled at the front, but he couldn't be sure if that was due to another classmate, or the marble was merely mocking him.
"Ackcheoo!" Ambrose tried again, and made a face at the marbles.

Looking back down at the paper, he told himself the spell a few times more by reading it, and then looked up.
"Aaahseeeoooh!"

To his surprise, a marble hopped up into the air and clattered to the floor in his direction. Encouraged, Ambrose flicked his wand again with vigour, "Aaahkseeooh."

The marble cracked and split in two. Ambrose was dismayed.

Well, in for a penny, in for a pound. Seizing the stick, Ambrose went at it without removing the bucket of water from his desk. Determined to slice it up, and not let this get the better of him, he began chopping pieces at odd angles, not quite getting through so having to recast.

With a splinter, the rod both snapped but also the bucket beside it split and water gushed across his desk, sweeping the paper he was yet to attempt to make waterproof onto the floor where it soaked up and would later tear as he tried to peel it off. So much for evanesco.

Scowling, Ambrose examined his sodden examination paper. He could still have a crack at incendio in the time and resources he had available. As he was wet he was less likely to set anything alight apart from the candles, he figured.

"Hinkendeeoot." Ambrose sounded like he sneezed as he cast, and the candle drooped sideways like a wilting flower. Propping it back up again with his hands, the candle now an unusual shape like a banana, he attempted again.
"Hin... Hincendeeyo." The end of his wand spluttered.

Consulting his parchment again, Ambrose read aloud the spell, eyes fixed on the text, and wand pointed in the direction of the candles. As he concentrated his wand moved.
"In-cen-dee-oh." Ambrose spelt out as he read the word.

As soon as his wand flared like a torch, the bucket above him emptied itself over his head.

Sopping wet, Ambrose Pepper tucked away his wand, folded his exam paper, wiped his fringe from out his eyes where it was plastered and sat down, arms crossed. Across the way he could see Freddie getting on well with her exam.

With any luck he was soaked enough for the fact he was about to cry with frustration to be covered.

Pepper and Oliver were, of course, failing miserably. Who didn't see that one coming? The Professor had even anticipated it - he'd put buckets over their heads! Smart move. Bilius was glad to not be a failure at magic, at times like this. He might have crashed through every branch of the ugly tree, but at least he was still a competent wizard. The way these two acted they wouldn't have impressed a muggle if they tried!

Yes. He was definetly better than them. No one would doubt that. So why wouldn't this stupid marble move?

Bilius glared death at the small blue orb. The rod had cut beautifully, the bucket was empty - but damp, much to his annoyance - but halfway through the test and he messed up. Figures! At least he could light the candles for sure. That, he had no doubts about.

"Accio!" He said again. The marble shot into the air and rocketed towards him...for about a foot. Then it fell to the floor with a pathetic thunk.

He didn't think marbles could laugh. But Bilius still got the sense this one was laughing at him. The little -

"Accio!" he said, loudly, and tried to ignore the pointed glare he got from Mustache-face. The marble floundered into the air and came towards him slowly; he leaned forward and caught it as it thumped against the edge of his desk. Stupid thing.

Right, so, the marble was a bust, if Kirchlehner's annoyed note taking was any indication. At least he had two,no, three down...so the paper was next, right?

He looked at it critically, flicking the edge of the parchment. What was the incantation again? Imperialis?

Thankfully, he didn't need to try to recall, did he? Did this count as cheating, though...? But Bilius wasn't stupid - it was only cheating if you got caught. Without raising his head, his large eyes scanned the room, listening to the other students. A girl across the central aisle was working on her parchment, and he strained his ears. What a Slytherin he was, he thought. Cheating without seeming to be. The girl seemed to succeed, so he was in the clear.

"Imperveeus!" he said, confidently. The paper did a whole lot of nothing, at first. Maybe that was the point, Bilius thought. Now he needed to write on it. He picked up his quill, and started to write his name -

His quill ripped through the parchment. He stared at it in horror, then tried to pick it up; the paper, brittle and deliate, ripped again. Bilius said something under his breath that would have gotten him thrown from the exam on the spot. This was just...spirit breaking.

He had only one chance to save his grade from being a failure; lighting the candles. He looked at them, and couldn't help the glance at Oliver and Pepper. How odd, he thought; for a moment, he could understand the look of frustrated rage of Pepper's face.

But he was not going to end up like them. This incantation he knew. "Incendio!" he said, and a small, match-sized flame lit the end of his wand. He lit the candles, feeling a tad underwhelmed; for something that saved his grade, it was rather...undramatic.

He let the wand-flame go out, and smiled to himself. He might have done worse than he'd expected - maybe he should have actually studied - but he wasn't Oliver, and as long as that was the case, he would be a happy boy.

Naomi decided to complete the exam fairly quickly, choosing to start with the marble before Pepper or Oliver sent them flying around the room. She raised her wand and quietly and tersely said, "Accio," and a blue marble, perched at the top of the pyramid, darted into her free hand.

She placed the marble on her desk and turned her wand to her bucket of water, while, unbeknownst to her, Winnie was having her own malfunction with the water that had moved across the floor and lapped around Naomi's feet as she cast, "Evanesco," on her own bucket. The water in her bucket disappeared, drop for drop, but as the spilled water circled her bucket, it seemed to retreat into itself and disappear, reacting to Naomi's spell; she overdid it.

The witch just turned her green eyes over to the Hufflepuff, choosing to glare on with irritation rather than voice her frustration, but hopefully the teacher wouldn't notice.

Naomi sighed and slipped into her desk for the remainder of the test, noticing the remaining mayhem Pepper and Oliver were causing, and was happy to have avoided it. "Impervius," Naomi casted, and then admired her paper suspiciously. She had never done that spell on paper before and wasn't quite sure what it was suppose to look like, so she folded it and pulled it before she put it down and admired it again; not even a crease mark on it. The Slytherin shrugged and dipped her quill in ink and dragged it over her Impervius-ed paper to quickly draw a very grumpy smiley-face with a very thick and stylish mustache.

Luckily, and just as quickly, the whole drawing became runny and moved off her paper, and Naomi quickly wiped any stray ink from her desk. After inspecting the paper, it looked just as it did before she charmed it, and she very happily set it aside with a conspiratorial smile.

For Diffindo, Naomi took special care to properly pronounce and preform the spell, as it wasn't a spell that she used on little things more often than a knife. She carefully, mostly lazily, cut the rod at the marks and each piece fell to the desk like a chopped cylinder of carrot. But, after finishing, she grumpily rubbed her finger on her desk, where a few shallow cut marks had appeared--this is what cutting boards were for.

The witch gave a short sigh of disappointment before she said, "Incendio," and waved a strong flame from her wand over the candle wicks as a gentle line of fire. Each candle caught a flame and began to gently burn and the wax hadn't melted in half either. With Naomi's issues with being gentle with fire, she was quite happy that she hadn't overdone this spell.  Then she extinguished her wand and lazily watched Pepper and Oliver as she waited for the 3rd years to be excused.