Lesson 1; Year 3-4; Term 9

Andre wants his beret to be lime green today, but when he casts a color changing charm on it, it stubbornly refuses to change colors. And Andre simply can NOT wear a purple beret today, because the urge to wear green is too strong. So he will be along once he and his beret sort out their differences. In the meantime, take a seat and mingle amongst yourselves.

Charms. Nadia wasn't fond of the class, but she didn't hate it. She always thought Charms was a study for people like mudbloods just to show to their parents that they had magic, which would have their filthy muggle parents making them do things for the family. She had found herself attending the class, which was the first time. The teenage Slytherin hoped the professor could keep her interested, or else she'd leave at any given moment. Except, when Nadia opened the door to the classroom, the professor wasn't there. Was she early or something? Nadia was never early.

Nadia decided to take this extra time to her advantage, since there was no one here. She sat at a desk in the back, put her feet up, and continued to read her Divination novel. At least Divination was next. Divination, without a doubt, was her best subject. But, the professor was a Hufflepuff. Her parents had told her Hufflepuffs were good for nothing people.

Lyra did like Professor Leblanc and usually had fun in Charms class, but sometimes she did wish he actually taught them some useful charms. When she was a powerful successful witch, very few of his basic spells would be useful. She wanted to learn some more advanced stuff that would really help her in the future, rather than just look flashy and funny. Those ones were pretty but pointless.

When she got there perfectly on time, it wasn't a surprise to find the professor wasn't there. There was only one student there already, a Slytherin girl she didn't know so could ignore. She shook her head and took a seat at the front where she got out her stuff and put her head on the desk. Maybe everyone would be late and she could use this time to catch up on her sleep.

Charms, the greatest class at Hogwarts and the only one with a Frenchman who gave out sweets to the students. Aoife was beaming as she skipped happily along the corridor towards the classroom. When she arrived, there were only two students there, that horrible Nadia girl and Lyra. Deciding the latter was the preferable person, she ignored the Slytherin and went to take a seat next to Lyra.

"Hi!" she grinned. The two girls had already exchanged pleasantries in the dormitory and common room since the start of term and had talked a lot since, so there wasn't much news to share.

Hunter was in a good mood. He wasn't sure why - maybe it was just being back at Hogwarts. Or maybe it was because of how awesome, albeit slightly confusing, this year was starting off. He was once again surrounded by his friends, it at least felt like he had Aoife back, things were going great with Seren, and to top it all off he was headed to Charms which was by far the most awesome class because of Professor Leblanc. So there were plenty of reasons to be in a good mood.

Hunter pushed the door to the classroom open and took in who was already there. Nadia was sitting in the back, and Hunter smiled at her as he walked past her. He, of course, was headed for the front where his sister and Aoife sat. "Why do you guys always have to pick the front?" he complained, choosing to hop up onto Lyra's desk invasively instead of taking a chair for himself like a normal person. He kicked his feet up onto Aoife's desk, which was right next to Lyra's, and grinned at her. "I wonder what kind of sweets he's bringing this time."

Aoife smiled at Hunter when he came in. Before even greeting them, he was complaining about them sitting at the front. She shrugged and looked at Lyra, because she had only come to sit next to her. "Because we can't all be cool, rebel gangsters who sit at the back with the cool crowd," she heard Lyra reply sarcastically. "We're more likely to get hit with water or something here!" she added. "And we get first pick of the sweets!" So the front was the best place to sit.

Speaking of sweets, he wanted to know what the professor was bringing. "He brings Bertie Botts a lot," she pointed out. "But he could be mixing it up a bit." She rolled her eyes when he made himself comfortable and put his feet up on her desk. She elbowed him in the ankle in a feeble attempt to get him to move his stupid stinking feet off her desk.

Seren was very skeptical of charms class, to say the least. Of course, even SHE enjoyed the eccentricities of their excitable french professor. But Seren thought that learning proper spells was far more important that eccentric professors and the candy that they handed out. So she hoped that this year, since they were older, the professor might have a more interesting task for them than in the past. It seemed to be a good sign that the classes were broken down into smaller groups than the year previous.

However, when Seren arrived to the classroom, the professor wasn't there. But Hunter was! But Seren's excitement quickly fell as she realized that he was up front with Sheep Freak O'Donnell. With a huff, Seren joined the group at the front of the classroom and took a seat just behind the two Gryffindor girls. She smiled at Hunter and his sister, but ignored the blue-haired girl. "Hello Hunter! And Lyra!" Trying to ignore how comfortable the interaction between Hunter and Aoife seemed, Seren opened her bag and collected her things, placing them neatly before her on her desk.

THIRD YEAR! Oliver had clearly made progress in his charms studies. He no longer destroyed things or set them on fire. He'd been studying all summer, really. Therefore, he was very excited to attend this first lesson of charms, especially because the professor was awesome. He reminded him of Aoife, but he didn't want to say that out loud. Oliver walked in as casually as he could, but his attempt at normalness disappeared when he saw Aoife.

"WHOA." Ollie gasped when he saw her. "YOUR HAIR IS AWESOME!" He walked up to her, surrounded by all of her cool friends and all. "Did you do it yourself?" he was really too busy admiring the uniqueness of it that he forgot to greet the rest of the people. "Oh. HI!" he said, smiling brightly at all of them. He was thirteen now, so he should be acting like a teenager and be mature and cool, but he couldn't do that just yet.

The first thing Ariel saw as she walked into the classroom was a lonely-looking Slytherin girl. And then she entered and saw the entire room and figured the Slytherin seemed much more lonely than she had initially thought. Because on the other side of the room, up front, Hunter, Oliver, Lyra, Aoife and Seren were casually hanging out. Ariel raised an eyebrow but she smiled.

Getting back to classes and the daily life had been easier than she'd thought, and the homework got her mind off her father, and Hunter was helping a lot by simply being himself as well. She had also gotten off on a good start with Seren, and Oliver was awesome as usual, since he was so ready to prank with her. Aoife was Aoife, and Aoife was cool, so no worries there. And Lyra was her epic roommate. So Ariel felt the people in the room were giving off awesome vibes that made her feel happy.

The Slytherin didn't seem quite as happy, but Ariel decided that if the girl wanted to, she seemed much more confident than to shy away from a crowd, so Ariel decided that the girl had chosen that. So she walked over to the group of people, but sat down on the second row, on a seat behind Aofie and Lyra. "Hey guys," she said happily as she ducked beneath the table to fetch her book. "What's up?" she asked them, as they all seemed pretty joyous for some weird reason. After all; it was class. Leblanc or no Leblanc. Class was class.

"Zis is preposterous behavior!" Andre was saying to his beret, his eyes rolled up to the very top of his head to look at it as he walked. "Never before 'ave you given me such trouble, and I do not see ze reason for you to do so now! 'ave I not treated you with ze utmost respect? And yet you defy me when I ask for a simple change of color!" But in the end, Andre and his beret had managed to settle their differences, and when Andre rushed into his classroom, his beret was a shocking, lime green.

And his class was full! How wonderful! Andre beamed around at them as he made his way to the front of the clasroom, towing a large canvas sack behind him that bustled around of it's own accord as though there was something moving around inside of it. He plopped it down on the ground by his desk, greeted his desk briefly, and then turned around to smile at his class. "Mademoiselle O'Donnell!" he squeaked happily. "Your 'air is marvelous! Everyone look at ze flawless way zat Mademoiselle O'Donnell has used ze color changing charm! Five points to Gryffindor, Mademoiselle!"

Giving points already! This was going to be an awesome year! "Now, I am sure zat you are all wondering where ze candy is, but I 'ave decided to incorporate ze candy into ze lesson today! We will be working with Accio and Depulso today! can anyone tell me what ze purpose of zese charms are?"

Of course, Seren didn’t bother to greet Aoife as she did the VanDerbergs. Maybe she had run out of insults. Sheep Freak did get a bit boring and repetitive after a while. The bluehead ignored her and stared at the wall instead. This was not the time or place for a squabble with her archenemy. The next arrival was more welcome in her eyes. “Thanks Ollie! Yeah, I did!” she beamed. Then she gave Hunter a pointed look. “See, OLLIE LIKES IT.” She wasn’t quite sure why, though. Then Ariel. “Hey!” she smiled.

Before she could start some sort of awkward, stilted conversation or answer Ariel’s question, Monsieur Leblanc came in with his dramatic entrance, like usual. She grinned when he complimented her hair. “Hunter!” she smirked, indicating that Leblanc liked it too. And she got house points, even though it was a lie. She couldn’t use the colour changing charm because she wasn’t at school, so it was muggle hair dye. That wasn’t going to make her confess though because she was amazing at the charm anyway.

Her hand shot up to answer the question. Well, part of it, because she thought it would be nice to let someone else answer the second bit. Not because she didn’t know the answer or anything. “Accio is the summoning charm! So it… well, it summons things. From a distance. Into the person’s arms,” she nodded, sounding very smart.