What's brown and sticky?

Smiling in anticipation, Damon entered his classroom. He'd had a simply smashing idea about how to decorate the currently dull charms room and teach his NEWT class simultaneously.

Hovering ahead of him were several boxes full of pictures. Some of the pictures were framed, some of them were not. Some of them were old, while others were more recent. These he unceremoniously dumped on several desks in the front row.

Satisfied with his work, Damon retired to his desk leaned back in his chair until it tipped onto the back legs and wondered if he could get one of those wheely-bottomed muggle chairs delivered to Hogwarts. He quite enjoyed zooming around on them. Perhaps he could pass it off to the principal as a business expense.


OOC: Hello NEWT students and welcome to new charms!

We have a special activity today. Feel free to say hello to Damon or talk amongst yourselves as you take your seats.

Shelby walked into charms and took a seat. she noticed a new teacher. "another teacher," her mumbled to her self as she took out her wand and laid it on the desk in front of her. "why do they have such a hard time keeping a charms teacher," he asked aloud though she wasn't talking to anyone besides herself. she saw the pictures on the desks towards the front of their room and picked up her wand then set it back down. she thought it best that she didn't do anything that would make the new professor to mad.

Becca carried herself and her books to her Charms classroom. She had missed quite a few classes already, and couldn't afford to miss any more. She was used to skipping classes with her friends or boys, but she only had a few more months left of school, so she figured to make the best of the time she had left. She didn't want to fail and have to repeat her year, that would be simply devastating. She used to be a great student: never late for classes, did every homework assignment, payed attention in class (rather than touching up her makeup or flirting with cute male students), and was your average teacher's pet. She entered the classroom and saw an unfamiliar face sitting at the teacher's desk. She looked up at the board, searching for some form of identification, and saw the words "PROFESSOR AMBROJZE" written on the chalk board. Rebecca also noticed a various amount of pictures scattered across the front row of desks. She wondered what the new teacher's intentions were, while she walked over to a desk in the front row, her heels clicking loudly with each step she took.

Becca took a look around the room, only seeing one other student. A girl, Suzannah's little sister to be precise. "Hello Shelby" She greeted with a little wave. "Fancy seeing you here" Turning back to her seat, Rebecca studied the teacher.He's not half bad looking, either, She noticed, I wonder how old he is... While she was waiting for the other students to arrive, Becca stood up from her seat, and walked over to the professor's desk. "Hello, sir. My name is Rebecca Mulloy, but you can call me Becca" She said lightly, smiling sweetly to the man. "Are you new here? I'm sure we'll have a great time together. I've noticed the pictures you've put on the desks, what do they all mean? Surely, they have something to do with today's lesson..?" Becca couldn't help her talking, she was always a chatterbox, especially when she felt attraction to something. She wondered if she could get some "extra credit" after class, while waiting for a reply from Mister Ambrojze.

"I'm sure we'll have a fantastic time, Rebecca," Damon replied, pretending he hadn't noticed her implication.

After what he considered was more than enough time to allow the rest of the class to arrive, Damon shut the door behind her. He affixed a message to it for the benefit of any latecomers instructing them to enter quietly.

Damon moved out from behind his desk to half lean, half sit on it. He needed a mug of something to make him look properly urbane. He'd have to obtain one. Perhaps with the Hufflepuff coat of arms on it?

"Please sit down, Rebecca," he gestured to one of the desks near Shelby.

"As you've probably both noticed, this room is pretty stark. I'm told the teacher you had before me had no opportunity to settle in properly so I thought this lesson we'd make a start on fixing it up by practising the permanent sticking charm."

He gestured to the boxes on the front desks.

"I'd like to get most of these up by the end of the lesson. I trust you both have good taste?" he asked.

Charms had turned into what Defence against the Dark Arts had been. The school had a stable teacher – one that still had his sanity – for DADA and to compensate for that, Charms was lagging. After the disappearance of Delacour and the appearance of a Death Eater for a teacher, Trowa was beginning to wonder if they were ever going to get someone sensible in to teach them. Sensible, to his surprise, came in the form of Professor Ambrojze. Finally there was someone who actually looked like they were going to teach them something useful. Trowa wasn’t sure what as of yet but he was confident that whatever it was – it was going to be good.

Stepping inside the classroom, Trowa realised he’d made it just as the sign had gone up. Trowa took his bag off of his shoulder as he eyed the desk. He looked around and offered the Slytherin girls each their own smile before taking his seat. Trowa pursed his lips and opened his mouth to voice his concerns. “Sir? Don’t you think using a permanent sticking charm is a bit much? I mean...if you’re going to have that then you may as well put something ridiculous on the walls for the next Professor to endure.” Trowa grinned and took his wand out of his pocket. “How about miss-matching border patterns around the windows?” he suggested helpfully.

"What? No!" Damon yelped like something had bitten him.

"It would, uh, ruin your concentration," he added.

Not to mention that it would reduce him to a blithering mess within minutes. There was a reason Damon had asked the girls if they had taste. He'd have to keep a close eye on this boy, he could tell.

"Now, the incantation for the permanent sticking charm is Aeternus Necto," he told them. "That's ee-TER-nus NEC-to. Try saying it for yourselves. I don't want any holes in the walls when we start."

Amelia was very rarely late, or at least she could say that before these last few weeks. In the very recent past, however, something always seemed to stand in the way of Amelia getting to class on time. Usually, Amelia could blame Peeves or first years or pranksters for her tardiness, but today... Amelia was just late.

Raoul would be so proud, her subconscious intoned, mocking her from the back of her own mind. While Amelia loved her brother dearly, making him proud wasn't exactly in keeping with living up to the expectations of everyone else in her life.

Lateness always made Amelia panicky, so when she reached the charms classroom and saw the sign on the door, she had to take a moment to compose herself before stepping through the door. Looking up, she saw that the new professor that had been introduced at dinner a few days ago was standing at the front amongst piles of framed pictures. Amelia gathered from his overt pronunciation of the permanent sticking charm that today's lesson would involve the photographs on the desks in front of him.

Not wishing to draw additional attention to herself, Amelia moved further into the room and saw Trowa, a fellow Ravenclaw, with a seat next to him open. Amelia had never spoken to the boy, but she had observed him often enough in the common room sewing something or another, so she felt comfortable enough to be in his immediate vicinity.

"Is this seat taken?" Amelia whispered discreetly, pointing at the desk next to Trowa's. Usually, she would have introduced herself to a new professor, but with it being the middle of the lesson, Amelia didn't want to be disruptive. For now, she would just wait to see if her assumptions on the lesson had been correct and then try her own hand at interior decorating.

None of the students had done as he asked and now Damon understood why others, better than him, had been so put out by the task of trying to get anything to remain inside these empty minds.

He stared at them wonderingly and they stared at him vacantly, all except the late girl who was trying not to cause a scene as she took the spare seat next to the troublemaker in blue.

"ee-TER-nus NEC-to," he repeated, louder, in case the problem was with their hearing, or with the bad acoustics of the room.

"Say it."

There was really not much more here he could do.

oooooohhhh-KKKKKAAAAAAYYYY Amelia's subconscious echoed in a mocking tone as the professor repeated his over-enunciation of the permanent sticking charm, louder this time as though everyone in the classroom had failed to move because their auditory cortex was malfunctioning, rather than the more parsimonious reason that they simply didn't care.

Amelia didn't make this comment aloud, of course, as she usually tried to keep her quips to herself while in situations in which she was not the highest authority (which was almost all situations considering she was a 17-year-old still attending school and living in her parents' home).

Trowa seemed distracted by something and hadn't answered her question - or perhaps there really was a lesion to his auditory cortex - but in any event, Amelia took his silence for acceptance and dropped her bag to the floor next to the empty chair. The professor was already expressing his impatience, so there was really no need to sit down. She would just end up having to go fetch one of the photos immediately afterward, so she may as well skip ahead to that.

"ee-TER-nus NEC-to," Amelia echoed, placing the same emphasis as the professor had, though being careful not to sound as though she was mocking him (her subconscious had already done enough of that.)

"Seems simple enough," the Ravenclaw girl shrugged and pulled her wand from her bag. Amelia moved to the front of the room and picked up the first picture she came to. It was a quidditch scene from what she could tell, and she immediately tossed this aside. She didn't need to be tormented by that in the classroom as well as everywhere else. The next two were more palatable, though.

"What do you think?" Amelia asked, picking one picture up with each hand and turning to show them to the student nearest her, trying not to make the task sound as trivial as it seemed to her, "Black and white country scene or Gustave Courbert self-portrait?"

((Whoever sees this first can decide to be the student closest to Amelia. I am just trying to keep the thread moving by keeping it open ended as to whom she is speaking.))

Trowa sighed in response to the Professor’s aversion. He was better off making dresses. Interior design was definitely his sister’s bag. She did the bedrooms, he made the dresses she wore while directing people around as they did up the bedrooms. With that thought in mind, Trowa withdrew his sketchbook from his bag and took a pencil from his trouser pocket. His attention was immediately placed on the book before him and he decided to first work on the last design he’d made before progressing on to do another. The last one needed the skirt to be taken up and the lines needed to be redefined.

Trowa was half tempted to rub it out but he daren’t for fear of being reprimanded when he got into the shop on Saturday. The owner liked to see his designs but she never liked to see mistakes. She hated the marks that remained where an eraser hadn’t quite gotten rid of the lines. He’d start again and give her different designs. Merlin knew that that was much preferred.

His emersion in the designing made sure that he missed Amelia’s query although when she did take her seat, he did turn to look at her. Trowa flashed a smile in her direction and looked up at the professor who was explaining how to say the spell. Trowa pursed his lips a little and took his wand out from behind his ear. He dropped the book onto the table and repeated the spell with a mumble. When the room fell silent again, Trowa put his wand down and bent over his sketch book, picking up his pencil once more. He drew out a quick outline of a torso, not sparing the time to draw a head or arms just yet. His sketching was quick and rough as he would spare time to doing it properly once the outline was done.

Trowa looked up when Amelia spoke again and he chewed on his bottom lip. She’d have a preference no doubt. He personally liked the portrait. It portrayed a rather handsome individual. It was a self-portrait – that was what Amelia had said. Trowa was not familiar with the artist’s work. He smiled again and pointed the end of his pencil towards the portrait. “It is inspiring. Of the self-portraits I have seen...this is perhaps the most animated. Put that one up.”