Charms Class - Group One

Despite being a Professor Amelia too had a timetable and hadn't learnt it off by heart. It was almost the end of lunch and Amelia gazed down at her timetable propped up against her jug of pumpkin juice. It appeared she was set to teach after lunch, well there was no use simply sitting here - she already had finished her meal!

Pocketing the timetable in her robes she raised from the staff table and walked down the Great Hall and through the two front doors, a true smile escaping her lips. She hadn't smiled like that in ages, granted it was only small, but being back at Hogwarts as a Professor! Now that was something to smile about. 

Within five minutes Amelia was at the door of her classroom, a classroom she had adored as a student. After all you don't become a charms professor if you don't have a love for the subject. Her meeting with the Ravenclaws had gone well and hopefully her lesson would go just a well, she was eager to inspire the students the way she had been inspired by Professor Flitwick. Her lesson plan had be Combed over multiple times the night before by her grey eyes and she was confident it was ready. She was sure of it! 

The sound of the booming bell ranging around the castle. Students would be arriving soon and Amelia thought it only polite to wait for them at the open door of her classroom.

Softly, the silence of night gave way to day.

To this statement, Leah grunted. It would be nice to actually be able to sleep in for one in his life. But apparently that wasn't in his cards today, so the sunlight hit his bed to find it well and truly empty save for tussled sheets and an oddly crumpled pillowcase.

His expression of amusement came from a balcony window- having a small break from studying. His candle in dire need of replacement and for all it's benefits, lumos never really seemed to provide enough light to read without damaging his eyes. Maybe he should spend some more time practising his charms to see if he could raise his 'output' or 'efficiency' with them. It wasn't his greatest subject in terms of working hours spent on it despite his natural attitude for it.

Glancing down the schedual he had picked up from his Head of House's office during the opening hours of the term (always an option for early rises) Leah spied the subject currently giving him some grief as one of his first daily subjects. Which, depending on your opinion was good or bad. Leah was going to be fairly fresh for the lessons, but also somewhat hardwired as he had gotten his caffeine levels to about five hundred parts in a million. Didn't sound like much (and his math was totally inaccurate) but if you accounted for everything else in the bloodstream it was a reasonable portion to be contending with.

Smiling somewhat to himself, Leah checked the time outside his head (which felt it was some hour in late morning, early afternoon now) and decided that it wouldn't be a bad idea to rock up with some time to spare for a class. Wouldn't be the first time he'd done it- but he wasn't known for rushing himself to avoid loosing House Points either.

Strolling through the corridors of Hogwarts, Leah briefly considered whether or not an accurate map could be made of Hogwarts. It seemed far too 'alive' and malleable to actually be the subject of being pinned down and recorded. It'd certainly make getting to classes easier, and while he knew some people who had an almost intuitive grasp of the various shortcuts to take across Hogwarts (walking through a wall, scratching a statue's right nostril) Leah had never picked up the knack for it.

Leah blinked as he approached someone who stood outside the door of the classroom he was supposed to enter to take the class. Odd, usually other students generally just entered and sat down. Had there been a mention of some new rule to be abided in future that he hadn't noticed? All too possible unfortunately, was his mental answer to himself. The bell sounded somewhere in the nether of Hogwarts, he wasn't all that early by the sounds he was hearing.

Approaching the female figure -he could detect the gender now and had something of a rough estimate about her age from her height and her rough physical appearance matched up with the one he had seen at the Head Table.
"Good morning Professor Cooper, are we to wait outside 'til the rest of the class arrives?"

Amelia watched as a boy in Ravenclaw robes made his way to the classroom door. She was estimating a fourth year and he only fourth year Ravenclaw on her register was a male named: Leah Valentai. This would be without a doubt him, unless of course it was a student who had come to her for advice before their next class.

'Good morning.' She replied, 'You can go straight in if you like or line up outside. I'll let you decide.' Amelia smiled slightly, not sure whether Leah would be delighted about being the one to choose or just wish they could all go in and sit down. Amelia would have liked to talk to Leah before the class, purely to get to know one of her Ravenclaw's but was open to him sitting down. After all no doubt a quarter the way through their conversation the other students would have all turned up.

Amelia groaned as she entered the class. She had a feeling she was going to be the only sixth year. This year was going to suck not that it wasn’t going to suck anyways. I hope this professor wasn’t expecting a lot out of because nothing was going to happen. She couldn’t even focus on her own thoughts half the time anymore. She was so mixed with anger and sadness her magic just wasn’t working right. She also felt forced to take this class. She wasn’t going to get anywhere without it.

She sat down and opened up the cover of her Charms Book, actually her mother’s old textbook. She looked down at the picture of her mother and father at Hogwarts as teenagers and almost broke down into tears. She refused to use her own textbook. She refused to forget her mother. She swore on her every breath that they were going to pay for this, whoever they was. She knew that the only way she was going to get payback was if she learned. She knew a lot being a sixth year but there was always more to learn. She was going to bring anyone she could find to blame for her mother’s death burning to the ground. But first she had to learn all she could. But that was her big plan.

Leonara Lynwood, bouncing on the balls of her feet, skipped down the hallway. She hadn't slept a wink - Leo had been far too excited for nonsense such as sleeping. There were just too many things running through her mind. Would she do well in classes? Would she make friends? Would the trees be just as nice here as they were at home?

Of course, the other students in Hufflepuff had gladly answered her questions. According to them, Leo would do well in class, make lots of friends, and spend as much time outside as she wished. And as her housemates had never given her reason to disbelieve them, Leo took their words as gospel.

Breakfast had been an affair - where did all the food come from? It was lovely to be excited all night, then wake to promise of delicious things and a full stomach. But then, of course, she had been so excited that she couldn't bring herself to eat a thing. While the others ate, Leo chatted and asked questions - so by the time breakfast was over, Leo had gorged herself on new knowledge about Hogwarts, yet starved her stomach. She wasn't dishearted, though, because how could one be sad at Hogwarts?

Leo walked towards the classroom door, and stepped inside. Looking nervously around, she smiled and waved to the teacher. "Hi, Professor. This... this is Charms, correct?"

Soon more students had begun to arrive, one just walking straight in, which must be the norm. Things sure had changed since her time at Hogwarts when the students had to line upside. It was a more relaxed feel. 

'Yes, this is charms Miss Lynwood.' Amelia smiled, remembering Leonara's sorting from a night or so ago. 'I hope you're enjoying Hogwarts.' She added with a smile that had a tone of mystery to it. Little did Leonara know what kind of adventures she would have, even if she was quiet and reserve there were adventures for everyone at Hogwarts. That was the magic of it.

Entering the classroom Amelia walked to her desk and pulled out the register. Now that most of the students had arrived it seemed silly to wait for the remanding students to arrive. 

'Bradley Lander?' No answer. Amelia looked up and around the room before marking a ring of absence beside his name.  

'Leonara Lynwood?'

'Amelia Macmillan?'

'Leah Valentai?' 

Once the last student had confirmed their attendance Amelia rose from her seat and stood in front of the desk. She never did like to sit down when she was teaching a class, she felt lazy. 

'Now today I thought that we'd do something to cheer us up because I think we all need a bit more happiness in our lives.' Her eyes cast across the glum expression on Miss Macmillan's face. She had heard what had happened to her Mother, it had been in the paper. Amelia knew her loss. She had lost a husband, a child and her parents too. About ten years ago she had seen Hallie go through the same stages as Amelia Macmillen, her daughter had lost a Father. 

'Cheering Charms.' Amelia announced, flicking her wand at a stick of chalk that began to write the words on the blackboard behind her. 

"Great!Bradley,Great!"He murmured to himself he hadn't noticed the time."This is what happens when you play quidditch with Logan."He knew he was late and he was totally pissed with his brother for not telling him that luch had finished.The last thing Bradley wanted was to be late to the first class with the head of house.She surely didn't care if he was in her house he would be the first cause for Ravenclaw to go into the negatives.Well the only thing he could do was apologize and hope she actually wanted to win.

"I'm so so so sorry I got carried away and didn't know the time professor Cooper."He felt ashamed because there was another Ravenclaw and definitely would get angry at him because he was the first  Ravenclaw student to get a deduction for being late.

Amelia grumbled and swore under her breath. She wasn’t stupid but knew it was directed towards her somewhat. She didn’t want anyone’s help cheering up. No one understands. She kept thinking about the innocent unborn child her mum had been carrying and it fueled Amelia’s anger. She hated being so angry but she couldn’t help it.

She knew what a cheering charm was but didn’t speak. She kept flipping through her mum’s textbook reading the notes in between the paragraphs and the side of the page. She wasn’t fond of this class despite being pretty good at it. She ignored the world around her like she did every single year in this class. She’d bug Alex or Lance for help if she didn’t understand the homework.

(sayyy whhhaaattt, Bradley imma find you and wrek u thought I'd rage somewhat ooc because Leah ain't gonna do it IC)

As people approached and filed into the classroom, Leah nodded simply to the teacher- slightly tilting his lips as he did so. He'd enjoyed talking to her, no real reason to pretend otherwise.
Some teenagers were automatically predisposed to being alienated against adults, either from their upbringing or because they felt that they did not want to mature into that particular 'stuffy, proper and stuck up' form and mindset.
Which was actually still upbringing when Leah thought about it as he moved into the classroom, headed towards one of the remaining desks, as he proceeded to unpack his stuff, pulling out his stationary materials.

Glancing up, Leah saw another Ravenclaw boy enter the room at a pace that said he'd been moving relatively fast for a relatively long time. Leah could sympathise, Ravenclaws tended to idle towards two extremes. Super organised, tended to pre-plan and schedule everything in advance and were annoyed if something violated those plans.

And then you had people who didn't really seem to be using one hemisphere of their brain to actually pay attention to the world around them and only brought it out of the clouds to get from place to place when prompted. People like Leah, in other words. He offered the kid (he looked fairly young and if you weren't two years older then Leah you were a kid) a smile but focused mainly on briefly organising his file on Charms so that today's topic was allocating in the rough 'area of interest' of bewitchment. A sub-section if you would.
"Present," Leah murmured when he name was asked for the attendance role.

CHEERING CHARMS, ejected the ball point pen as it's ink scrawled across the top of the page in capital letters for easy legibility. If he was flicking through his files, he wanted to be able to get the immediate gist of his notes. Short hand was useful as well, but it seemed like it was going to be prior knowledge at this point in time.

Cheering Charms. That was sort of cheering-spell, no doubt? Leo laughed softly at herself. Of course it was. It seemed that all spells and charms names either made no sense or were completely obvious.

Cheering Charms. What a lovely idea. The idea that anyone could become happy at the flick of a wand - how wonderful was that! Why, anyone could be having an absolutely horrid day, then some good-will from another wizard and bam! Cheery as a cherry.

Leo let her fingers run down the inside spine of her book. The touch was cool to her fingertips, and the pages pulsed with the magic contained inside. Cautiously, Leo wrote Leo's on the inside cover. She looked up, and continued to watch the teacher.