Applied Magic: Lesson 1

The bright smile on her face fell, replaced by scowling bewilderment. All the pride for her display of magic puffed out, shoulders sagging a little as Maevie watched Arlo's tantrum unfold.

How the fixing of his broken toy elicited anything but joy was beyond her. Her first impression of the boy had been one of quiet eagerness, gentle, playful. That illusion plopped like a bubble though the longer he went on about his brother and how he'd made a real car out of a toy car.

Maevie highly doubted that. Said brother had probably played some trick on Arlo to make him believe in magic; there was no way a transfiguration like what was possible.

Wordlessly Maevie knelt beside the boy as he broke more toys apart, the one she had fixed still held in her hand. Professor Blackwood crouched beside them and she briefly glanced at him, considering his words, watching him move to the next student.

Well, she sure wasn't going to play with Arlo anymore, regardless whether he wanted to or not. When the kid was finally done with his destruction, Maevie continued to scowl at him for a moment, her usual cheerful demeanour dulled and overcast by sulky soreness.

"It's not stupid!", she returned with vigour, slamming the toy car to the floor and pointing an admonishing finger at him. "You should be grateful for what you have and not destroy it all. Now no one can play with it anymore!" It was a thing her mother had taught her early on, as war had spread and thing got scarce. Never would she have dared to purposefully break a toy.

Arlo huffed and crossed his arms, face contorted with unreasonable anger as he blew a scornful raspberry at her. Without missing a beat Maevie blew one right back.

She would have left him there to stew in his own anger if it weren't for Professor Blackwood and his announcement to continue playing with their child.

Maevie hmph-ed, returning her gaze to Arlo who had slumped to his butt in obstinacy, angrily pushing his feet through the rubble that used to be his toys. "You're being rude," she scolded, reaching for the two halves of a whole figurine. She fixed the thing with the same spell as before. "What's your favourite colour?", she asked Arlo.

He didn't answer at first, just continued to pout and Maevie ignored him, repairing more of the toys he had ripped apart. After a moment he spoke after all, still sounding grumpy. "Orange."

Maevie nodded to herself, pointing her wand at one of the figurines. "Colovaria," she cast, and the little man's shirt changed colours. Silently, she offered the toy to Arlo. He regarded it for a second before reaching out to grab it from her hand. It seemed to ease his temper, thankfully.

Suddenly, he pointed across the room. "I wanna play with that one."

Maevie followed his finger towards a different car sitting atop a shelf. She pressed her lips thin, displeased with the ungratefulness Arlo kept displaying. But she kept her thoughts to herself, just wanting this to end smoothly without another tantrum and so she pointed her wand at the new toy and said, "Wingardium Leviosa," concentrating as she made it float right into the boy's hands.

He ignored her after that and she him, each going about their business in equally silent malcontent.

Sophie was thrilled, and it set a satisfied grin across Rae's face. She'd once been the little girl, alone but not beaten down. Still eager to see everything, with a fiery...somewhat bossy spirit.

It wasn't some form of unspoken camaraderie – Rae wouldn't go that far – but it did endear the little girl to her. It wasn't too hard, in truth. In a turn that had surprised even herself when she'd first noticed, the Slytherin found she had a special affection for children that she didn't share for the wider public.

They were still so small, so innocent, so vulnerable. Rae was by no means a born again Gryffindor, but it opened up a small spot for them. It was the five-year-old girl she didn't think she'd really stopped being, the one that had been desperate for someone to show her that the world wasn't all a bad place.

However she could, she wanted to do the same for them.

As Sophie bounced around the room, begging to have more things changed, a better idea popped into her mind. "Would you like to see something delightful?" Rae asked. It was an unnecessary question. The little girl could barely contain herself, bouncing on the balls of her feet while her eyes sparkled with new wonder.

"Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!"

"Consider it done." Rae turned her wand to the small chest of toys. There was a pair of dolls near the top. Focusing her intent in order to get it just right, she cast, "Locomotor!" Both dolls sprang to 'life', climbing their way from the chest before skipping over – much to the five-year-old's absolute glee. The dolls pranced and danced around Sophie, animated by the simple charm.

Seeing how much she enjoyed having little dancing friends, Rae cast a second spell. Again, she focused her intent, not wanting it to spiral, as her spells sometimes had a habit of doing.

"Engorgio!"

The small dolls grew until they were roughly the little girl's height. That garnered another delighted squeal as Sophie joined them in their merry skipping. It was a bit uncanny, but her small friend didn't seem to mind, so she supposed she'd leave her to her fun.

Until the magic wore off, her young almost-charge also had the option of swapping clothes. They'd fit, albeit a little loosely with the girl's slight frame, but a girl who loved dress-up certainly wouldn't care about such a small detail when she'd been presented all this.

Her hands waved in front of her, trying to shush the child who looked scared out of her mind. Tilly was out of her depth on this one. Big fat tears rolled down Maya’s cheeks, breaking Tilly’s heart wide open.

“I’m sorry. SO sorry. It’s ok, I don’t have to do magic if it’s scary. Here, see,” Tilly took her wand and put it behind her out of sight. “See, it’s gone! No more of that silly magic.”

Maya whimpered and hiccuped as the crying came to a halt. Thank Merlin! “I’m sorry sweet girl, I didn’t mean to scare you. Is there something I can do to make it better?”

Little Maya still hadn’t uttered a word, unless you counted screaming at the top of your lungs. Tilly took the small teddy bear she had summoned and pet its soft fur. Avoiding eye contact with the little girl, letting her calm down a bit on her own, Tilly took the teddy bear and made it dance… with her hands, not with magic, because holy shit that would be a horrible idea. Humming a little tune, she made the bear bounce around the small area where the two girls were sitting. Bouncing it on her own knee, then hopping it to Maya’s, Tilly watched carefully to see Maya’s reaction.

Her bright blue eyes calmed and a small sound of happiness could be heard… Progress. Taking the little brown bear, Tilly hopped it on Maya’s head, booped it on her nose, then sat it on her own head. “Wait! Where did it go? Maya! Where’s the bear?”

A giggle escaped her throat, music to Tilly’s ears. Maya wiped her tears away and reached out to the bear, grabby hands signaling that she wanted to hold it. Taking the bear off her head, Tilly exclaimed, “OH THERE IT IS!” Making Maya laugh once again.

Scooting a little closer, since they were obviously besties now, Tilly quietly asked Maya a simple yes or no question, since talking seemed to be off the table. “Miss Marvelous Maya, did you know, I can make the Teddy bear fly. Would you like me to show you?” With a violent shake to her head, Maya got her point across. The death grip on the poor bears neck also gave her the answer.

“Ok, no bear flying. Would you like me to change the color of something?” Maya’s eyes grew wide, but not with fear. “That could be fun huh? What should we change the color of?” Maya didn’t hesitate. Standing up, she ran to a shelf and grabbed a very dirty stuffed green dragon. Well, it looked green, but with all the dirt it was closer to black.”


“OH YES! Lets see. What color should we do? Hmmm, Maybe Blue?” Maya shook her head. “Purple?” Another shake. “Pink?” Maya nodded her little head so hard that her curly hair shook all over.

“Ok, pink it is! But first, I think we should clean it. He looks a bit dirty. Is that ok?” Maya looked leary, but nodded slowly.

Pointing her wand at the small dirty dragon, Tilly said “Scourgify!” The once filthy stuffed animal was now a vivid green color, causing Maya’s mouth to fall open in shock. At least she wasn’t screaming. “Ok, now let's do some pink! Multicorfors!”

It seemed the way to the little girl's heart was a pink dragon’s Grabbing the dragon with the hand not clutching the bear, Maya hugged the little toys tight. Tilly smiled, happy that she was able to make Maya even the slightest bit happy.

“OH MY GOODNESS, That was TOTALLY AWESOME! Can I do it? Let me do it? I’ll trade ya a biscuit. Let me try just once, pleeeeeeeeeas!”

Benji grinned, admiring the excitement in the kid's eyes as he found himself reasonably clean and groomed without the need for a bath. A bath was always better of course - soap did things even magic couldn't manage, but it worked well enough and the little boy was happy.

"Well uh," he certainly wasn't going to hand his wand over to the tiny boy who would likely set the place on fire with one wrong swish. Young, uncontrolled magic was a wild thing. "I have an idea," he said, crouching down so he was eye-level with Toby.

"I'll hold the wand, since it can be really dangerous, and you hold onto my hand. Say what you want to do and we'll try to make it happen." A good, easy compromise with the boy who had as much energy as Benji once had. The little boy nodded, easily appeased, and took hold of Benji's wand hand.

"Can we make more mud?"

More...mud? Benji stared at the enormous mud-puddle the little guy had just come from but gave a slight shrug of his shoulders. More mud it was. "Aguamenti," Benji said, and together they whipped his wand towards the only patch of dry dirt in the vicinity." A small stream of water shot out the tip of his wand, drenching the patch as Toby crowed with delight.

"Pretty cool huh?" Benji asked with a grin. "One day you'll be able to do the same." The little boy nodded, rushing for the new patch of mud before launching himself and faceplanting right into it. His feet stuck out the end, little toes wiggling with excitement before the boy popped back up, newly baptized.

"Can you make me fly?!"

He...could, but imagined he probably shouldn't. Benji didn't think the house lady here - nice as she was - would appreciate her old ward catapulting her newer one into space. Not that Toby would go that high, but the Hufflepuff wasn't taking any chances. Benji clicked his tongue in resignation. "Sorry mate. It's a no-fly zone. But," he grinned, flicking his wand towards the boy again, "I can make you dance!"

Huh? Confusion came across the little guy's face. "Tarantallegra." Just like that, the little boy was jigging and dancing as well as Benji usually did, arms flailing and legs kicking in joy. Toby squealed and laughed as his little body took him on a journey through various dance moves while Benji dropped himself to sit, smiling that even in places like this some kids were able to be happy.

Gideon walked around the room some more, thankful that some of the screaming had stopped. There were students that fully thrived in this environment, others did not. Children were innately unpredictable. One minute happiness oozed out of their pores, the next they were screaming over who touched their juice. While the lesson was about working with magic at a low power level, appropriate for children, they were also learning how to adapt and change directions when life tossed you a curve ball. Or a toddler tossed a toy at your head.

---

Watching Maevie with little Arlo made Gideon smirk, both blowing raspberries at each other. That was one way to deal with the kid. Soon after he had settled and they were able to work together. There were just some kids that hated everything at first glance. If it wasn’t on their terms, it was wrong.

Rae was doing fabulously with her friend, playing with dolls and changing colors. Gideon stood off to the side, watching them interact. Smiles and happiness radiated off the young child, which was exactly why they were visiting. Gideon hoped to bring some joy to the kids, and thankfully most were achieving this.

Next he carefully walked over to Matilda and Maya. The screaming had stopped, saving his ears. For a child so quiet she could scream louder than a banshee. Matilda was making headway, asking her simple questions and getting nods for yes and shakes for no. There was no groundbreaking magic happening, but at least Maya had a smile on her face.

The same could be said for Benji with little Toby. Stars were in the little boy's eyes, Benji could do no wrong. Gideon stood back and watched as they interacted, happy with how Benji responded to Toby wanting a go with the wand. Making more mud would probably anger the care giver, but what the little boy wanted, he got.

---

Standing in the center of the classroom, dodging toys flying around the room with practiced precision, Gideon was happy to see so many smiling faces. Clapping his hands together to get their attention, he waited for the voices to stop and attention to be on him.

“My class, I would like you to start wrapping up. We need to get back to the castle so that you are not late to your next class. Please finish up any magic that you are working on with your friend, then work together to clean up any messes made. You have fifteen minutes before we need to assemble in the hall to take your portkeys back to the castle.”

The sounds of little voices groaning with dismay made him wish that class was longer. Luckily, they would be returning in weeks to come. “Don’t worry, we will be back in a few weeks to play some more. So kids, your job in the next few weeks is to come up with new ideas for your friends to show you.”

A few cheers could be heard, making the gruff man smile. Eyes on the clock, he watched to make sure they were in fact wrapping things up. They needed to be back in no less than 20 minutes, the clock was ticking.

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OOC: This is the last update, I will post a closing of the post in a few days. Please respond to the directions and say goodbye to your friend. Again, feel free to powerplay the kiddo. Also, respond to hearing this is not the first time we will be visiting the Children’s home. Does this excite your student, or fill them with existential dread? If you missed an update, you can still jump in to get points!

He looked around and it seemed like everyone was paired up and talking more than him. He admittedly had little clue what to say to the girl in front of him. However she did like twirling. Apparently she liked twirling too much as the little girl threw up.

All he could say is “ Sorry. “ Then after a pause he said “ Spinning plates are pretty easy to make so build up a bit. “ Probably wasn’t good to encourage the girl. However, if one found a carpeted floor a spinning plate would be easy measure to make as a unique toy. The girl did appear to like spinning.

Even if she got so dizzy she puked.

As for his shoes he didn’t care much. He mostly felt bad for the girl.

“Tough luck on that one, but it’ll be a good chance to practice your cleaning spells.”

With a shrug he said to Professor Blackwood “ It happens. “ His hope was if he downplayed it hopefully it wouldn’t be a big deal. Or worse a letter home.

He pointed his wand at his shoes and said “Tergeo” twice cleaning them off. Not that he was going to admit the only reason he knew that charm was helping in the Hospital Wing so much. After all, he was currently claiming that they should let him do more interesting things there.

Then he made his way first to the side of the room hoping to go unnoticed for the rest of the class, then followed the others back to Hogwarts as soon as he was dismissed. Hopefully no one would bring up the fact he made his kid puke.

When Professor Blackwood announced it was time to wrap up, the wave of relief washed over her instantaneously. She didn't mind playing with children at all -- she had been rather excited for that actually. But Arlo's wavering temper made the ordeal a balancing act that Maevie hadn't signed up for.

He grew bored quickly, demanding a different toy after having played with the one he held for mere minutes, pointing a chubby finger at whatever had caught his interest next. At first she had tried to make him understand that he could simply go and get what he wanted to play with, as long as no one else currently claimed it.

That logic did not go over well with Arlo though. The way his face grew redder the longer she argued with him, threatening a tantrum attack, had been enough for her to give in and just magic all sorts of toys over to their corner. All she needed to do was to keep him happy until the lesson ended.

Working together to clean up any messes made was a sheer impossibility. Maevie didn't even try and instead put away toys that Arlo had discarded already, as quickly as she could. Fifteen minutes was about twelve more than she needed.

"Bye Arlo," was all she said, patting the kid on the head and hurriedly making her retreat. Next time she would definitely choose someone else to play with, no doubt about that. Someone else could try and entertain that boy and his wilfulness.

"Erm...need the loo before going back to school," she fibbed, squeezing past the professor, much earlier than any of her peers. She smiled innocently, breathing a sigh of relief once she found herself in the entrance way again. With a groan she plopped herself down on a couch, waiting for the rest of class to gather.

Who would have thought playing with a five-year-old could be this exhausting?

Sophie's groans were some of the loudest.

When the professor announced that it was time for them to begin wrapping up, the chorus was in agreement that the news wasn't very welcomed. She didn't mind, though. Cute as the kid was, Rae was still ready to return to the castle and...

Wait...what was the next class?

It was her turn to groan, her voice joining the symphony of sorrow at the realisation that it was potions. There were a handful of classes that Rae wouldn't have minded skipping – wouldn't have lost sleep over skipping either. Julia's...wasn't one of them. Never mind that she adored the woman enough to not disrespect her in that way, but she'd see her at some point for library duty and knew the woman wouldn't let her get away with whatever story she managed to spin by then.

Ugh. There was nothing for it. The girl would simply have to soldier through for another hour and then pray to Merlin that she hadn't caught her second wind by Astronomy. If her fatigue persisted, it was certainly not a class she'd trouble herself with attending.

For now, she focused on the task at hand.

The clean-up.

First, Rae shrank the dolls back down to size, then with another, silent, 'locomotor', she commanded them back into the toy box.

She patted the five-year-old's back when she clung to her, begging her not to go, but chose to ignore the professor's warning that they'd be back. In truth, Rae didn't think she'd have minded coming back to see little Sophie again, but she prayed it wouldn't be for another 7 AM lesson when she truly didn't want to be bothered, not even by a cute smile and big brown eyes. The Slytherin had very clear and consistent limits.

"There, there. Hear that, sweet thing? We'll be back soon. It'll be alright."

For now, her mess was cleaned, and she was ready to get back to dying while she waited for her astronomy nap.

The goodbyes were a mixed bag of pure relief, genuine sadness and everything in between. At least a few of the children seemed to have a good time, he would call this one a win. His students didn’t factor into this equation, fun or not, they were required to be here.

“Alright,” Gideon called, getting the attention of his students. “Let's meet in the hall where we will take the portkey back to class.”

Gideon made his way to the spot where they arrived a couple of hours ago, and waited for everyone to assemble.

“Most of you, good job today. We will be coming back here in a few short weeks, so there will be more opportunities to visit the children. Whether you wanted to or not. When you get back to the castle, please gather your belongings and head to your next class. Class Dismissed."

Gideon opened the box of trinkets, small brass figures depicting different childhood toys. He held the box in front of him, allowing the students to take their pick and be whisked back to the castle.

“Alice, if you don’t mind. I would like to accompany Everleigh back to the castle. I don’t want her to panic during transport and cause an issue. We can depart at the same time, so that we can arrive back together.”

Leaning down, to make eye contact with the young, traumatized girl he sighed. It was tragic what had happened, and even more that nothing was being done to help her.

Taking Everleigh’s hand in his, holding on tight, they took the portkey and were quickly deposited back in the classroom, thankfully, Ever didn’t freak out that time.

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Thanks for your participation in our first ever Applied Magic class! If you still want to post to get points, feel free. Otherwise I will see you soon in lesson 2! I will close the lesson on 01/29. Lesson 2 will go up this weekend!