A ‘Branch’ of Law PV Cypresse Lian Closed

"Class dismissed! Don't forget your homework or I'll smite you!" Cy called after the stampede of students fleeing her classroom, chuckling at her own exaggeration. At this point, the kids she taught had long been acquainted with her unbelievable level of sarcasm - she could now threaten to turn someone into a bright pink peacock, in jest, of course, and not get told off. Which was nice, but then again, she was pretty sure that if she actually said that they would immediately understand that she was joking, because she was nowhere near capable of turning someone bright pink yet. Blue, maybe, and green to yellow, but red and violet were harder to imagine.

As the last of the lingering students started out the door, a couple still trying their best to stuff their rolls of parchment into their poor, overloaded bookbags, Cy considered whether she should retreat into her office or stay to work at her desk. A pile of poorly stacked pieces of parchment, several with terrible, crookedly ripped-off ends, teetered precariously off the edge of her desk. This she solved with a quick wave of her wand, the sound of paper crackling and shifting to arrange itself neatly filling the high ceiling with echoes.

Parchment sucked. She seriously needed to start giving people notebooks. It might even be worth the outrage that the traditionalists would probably try to grill her with. Grill 'em back, of course, would be her usual solution, but unfortunately she had these alien dumbbells called responsibilities on her shoulders now.

The witch settled in her office chair, made up of mesh and plastic, sweeping her long skirt under her. The contraption had perplexed some of her less Muggle-world-integrated students at first, but, well, it was a thing that she could sit on, much more comfortably than the hard wooden chairs that she had originally been supplied with. And maybe the students weren't used to hearing a chair squeak very quietly when she seated herself on the elastic mesh, but they saved her pelvis from bruising or whatever else, so good enough.

The first piece of parchment floated gently down form the top of the pile at the jurisdiction of her wand. Cy's fingers accepted it a few inches before it landed fully on the table, smoothing over its folded edges against the table, and prepared to wave her wand, about to let Morgan Freeman's voice read out the paper to her with the insanely useful charm that she'd needed to learn as soon as she entered Hogwarts. Before she could roll the incantation off of her tongue, though, someone's footsteps trotted over to her, the sound of shoes lightly padding against the floor easily heard once the paper stopped crackling.

Cy set the raised wand down, opting instead to fiddle with it in one hand and spin it idly as she waited for the student to start speaking. Her hearing might have been great, but it certainly did not allow her to identify someone by footsteps. Certainly, this person was not her sister, but she knew that because of context, and he or she was certainly not someone who belonged to the other side of the classroom, but only because that wouldn't make sense.

Well, apparently he or she was a he. Cy set her wand on the desk and leaned back in her chair, folding her fingers against the back of her neck as she recognized the boy's introduction. Piérre Marchonné - yes, she remembered grading his homework. A very nice homework it was, too. It had earned him an O, and O's were difficult to get in her class unless you were interested. An A, easy, an E, fine, but O's were rarely awarded to those who had no interest. And before anyone asked - yes, she could tell. Quite easily, actually.

"Hey, Piérre," she greeted with a smile. He seemed nervous at first - understandable, she was that way once - but recovered soon, his words becoming more confident. Way less shy than some of the others who had approached her out of pure, grudging necessity; that was for sure. "I remember you. I'm assuming you mean on the Branches? Great job on that, by the way; it was fun to read. Ask away."

The homework in question had been a difficult one to complete for a lot of students, but most of them did a lot better on it than the previous homework, which had served as a sort of wake-up call to a lot of them. Still, though, a lot of student had trouble getting an O. For that, she didn't blame them,  but they'd get used to the workload soon. After all, there were plenty of other assignments to make up for the grade in just two sets of homework.

Piérre, though, had been one of the few who had gotten full points. Yes, she remembered, his argument had been well-developed and showed clear effort of his own. It was the kind of work that made her more confident in her own teaching abilities, and the fact that he had approached her to ask about the other point of view reinforced that even more so.

"I guess I can see why you'd get confused," Cy muttered, tilting her head to remember what she'd written for the opposite argument. "I did a project on this in my Fifth Year... well, the main argument against including Untransfiguration as a last branch is that most of the Untransfiguration spells' literal function can be classified as one of the other branches. If you reparifarge something, for example, you could count that as transformation, and if you vipera evanesca a snake that someone had just conjured, that would be counted as vanishment.  Make sense?"

She grinned, nodding at Piérre's counterarguments - glad to see that someone had been interested enough to keep trying to rebut the opposing side. Cy unsheathed her wand as she continued, fiddling with it: an ill-advised habit, but one she had yet to get rid of. "The Snake-Vanishing Spell is one of the spells that teeters in between the two categories Vanishment and Untransfiguration, purely because of this debate. Some people think of it as a counter to Serpensortia, the Snake-Conjuring Spell, but since it can also vanish nonmagical snakes, it's usually just a Vanishment spell.

"A lot of people who support Untransfiguration being a fourth branch like to classify it as an Untransfiguration spell, if only because otherwise there would be a pretty sad number of Untransfiguration spells out there. I mean, there are only so many counterspells you can classify - a lot of spells, like conmutocus, are counterspells to themselves." She flicked her wand as she spoke, absentmindedly turning the needle on her desk to a match and back within a few heartbeats. The sound of metal hitting wood ringed before it gave way to the duller, blunt thud of its untransfiguration.

At the sound of his questions, one shot off after the other, Cy grinned again, raising her elbow off of the desk to beckon with her wand, tugging open a drawer to her right. "Let me just show you." The low rattle of wood on metal rails followed by the crinkle of parchment being raised out of the pile belied her magic, old piece of homework floating towards her until she took hold of it and smoothed it down on her desk. "Legere."

Immediately the spell took affect, the sonorous, fluid voice of one Morgan Freeman reading out the writing in front of her with perfect enunciation. "In my opinion, Untransfiguration should not be counted as a fourth branch, despite my understanding of why scholars included it. Spells belonging in the branch range far and wide. The main Untransfiguration spell, Reparifarge, is not the most difficult spell to master, and yet many Transfiguration spells hold their own counter-spells. Often, the pairs are taught alongside one another, for convenience and common sense. For example, the spell Vipera Evanesca corresponds directly to Serpensortia, and Revelio is often used to uncover deceptive transfigurations. Furthermore..."

With a twist of her wand, she shut the spell off, his voice cutting off mid-sentence. "So you see, there's no need for translating it to braille, or enchanted parchment and quills. You all buy your own materials, anyway; there's no way for me to charm them all from over here. There's another spell that translates my spoken words into writing.

"That was an old student's homework, by the way; I have permission to show that to you. Most people, like you, argue for Untransfiguration being a part of the branches, but that one's one of the only essays that tries to say otherwise. Do you want to read the rest of it?"

Cy snickered at the student’s reaction, propping her feet on an unoccupied corner of her desk. The wheels of her chair squeaked as her seat rotate with her, and she shrugged, crossing her ankles. “Hey, don’t apologize. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t appreciate enthusiasm, but I’m sure you already know that. Having it read out loud is a lot slower than actually reading it; well, at least I think so, but it also means that I don’t have to deal with the messy handwriting that my sister does. Sometimes my assistant - she’s a House Elf, I’m sure you’ve seen Ceta around - helps me grade them too. I will very, very occasionally write feedback by hand, so if you ever get my comments back in chicken scratch, that’s my handwriting.”

She put the butt of her wand to her chin and pursed her lips at Piérre’s next question, staying silent for a moment as she considered it, the fabric of her usual colorful skirt rustling with her movement. “It’s an interesting idea, but consider linguistics. Un- is only a Latin prefix, just like dis- or in- or most of the other modifiers that you’d be able to think of.

“However, you also have to consider the fact that not all of the spell incantations come from Latin roots, although most do. Alohomora, for example, the Unlocking Spell, has an incantation that I think comes from some part of Africa, even though its countercharm, Colloportus, or the Locking Spell, does have Latin roots. It’s fair to say that I haven’t researched this, so I can’t say for sure, but that’s just my best guess for why it logically might not work.”

“Go ahead!” With a flick of her wand and a nod, she levitated the parchment into the air, removing it from Piérre’s fingers gently so as to not rip the delicate fibers, and spun it into a roll, the sound of crinkling paper filling the air. “Just try not to lose it or spill coffee on it,” the young professor advised, wrapping up the roll with a slip of red ribbon, then letting it drop onto the desk with a small thud. Really, it was nice to see someone who didn’t view her class as nothing but work.

Running her fingers over the metal curved around her wrist, she trailed her fingers over the raised bumps as they shifted position, frowning a little. “Hey, dove, as much as I love answering questions, it’s not exactly lunch or the end of the day right now. Don’t you have another class after this? ‘Caus if you do, you’re late…” Her expression turned sly again, as it usually was. “Need a note?”

@Cypresse Lian

Piérre nodded along with Miss Cypress' argument. He actually had not given much thought to the idea that perhaps the magic language was written in more than one script. He had been most familiar with Latin and Italian for sure, but the news that one spell in particular was based in African came as no little shock to him. Even though he was no Ravenclaw, he was intrigued by in, and he would no doubt be doing a little more research in the future about this oddity in the magical language.

"Okay.." He murmured, loud enough to let Miss Lian know that he had heard and acknowledged her argument.

When Miss Lian allowed Piérre to take the parchment, he smiled again, watching as the red ribbon wrapped around the parchment and cinched tight with a brilliant knot. The parchment fell upon the desk, and before it had time to settle, Piérre had already taken it into both hands, slipping the ribbon off and attempting to find the spot he had been reading.

Miss Lian, however broke through his thoughts, reminding the eccentric Gryffindor that he did indeed have another class after this. Potions, if he remembered correctly. Piérre bit his lip. It wasn't that he didn't like the class at all or anything, it was just the fact that he hadn't completed any of his homework in that class and was doing rather poorly in that class at the moment. Miss Lian reminded him that he was late and Piérre only responded with a nervous laugh.

"Ah, yes, well... potions is just throwing together things and making them work, isn't it? Explosions are just an added bonus." He was, of course, jesting, because he was, in actuality a little nervous to be late now that Miss Lian was grilling him. He wasn't used to a teacher being as clever as she was, and yes, while it was refreshing, it was a little nerve-wracking as well. He wanted to make her happy, after all... but dangit, his trickster nature was screaming again.

In response, he slipped the ribbon on the parchment again, tucking it into his satchel and pulling out his yew wand, playing with it between his hands. He was rather a dummy for remembering and executing his spells. He would have to practice them sometime. It made this implement seem a lot more useless than it actually was, and Piérre was itching to make something happen. He sighed.

"Yeah... I should probably go to class. After all, the dungeons need a little life in them, don't they?" He joked lightly again, tightening the strap on his bag and beginning to turn. At the mention of a note, Pierre's eyes twinkled mischievously. "Naw, I show up late there everyday. Besides, Mister Price doesn't notice me much anyways, and honestly, I think he would be relieved if I called a raincheck on class every once in a while." Of course, Piérre had never spoken to the professor of Potions face to face, but if he had, it probably would have been about something like pouring a mixture into a handheld vial and then trying to shake it until something happened like an explosion or a rapid change in the potion's color, or... um... attempting to drink the Forgetfulness Potions... for... reasons?

Actually, he couldn't remember why he wanted to drink it in the first place...

Speaking of forgetfulness, Piérre suddenly jumped, remembering something Miss Lian had mentioned in her previous lecture. "Miss Lian?" He asked, nearly jumping with excitement, "So... you said that you're an Animagus. I wanna be an Animagus when I get old enough to learn the potion. Could you show me your animal form? Please? Please?"

It was unlike Piérre to beg, but the idea of becoming an Animagus was just to exciting for him. He just thought it was the coolest thing, and he had never seen one himself. It was his ambition to become one himself eventually, but with the advanced potion and the ritual associated with it, unless he was intrepid enough to attempt stealing the potion from the Restricted Section of the Library or steal it from under Mister Price's nose, he would have to wait. But knowing now that Miss Lian was herself an Animagus only fueled Pierre's resolve. If he couldn't become one now, he wanted to at least see one in action. "I've never seen an Animagus, or even seen one shift before, and I really want to be one when I get older... Please Miss Cy?"

He would have engaged puppy eyes, but it appeared that Miss Cypress would be more than immune to its effects, and so Piérre resorted to trying to keep his tone as pleading as possible.