When I reached my first class of the day, I did not expect to see what I saw. Indeed, I was expecting a nice, tidy classroom with an old professor with many years of experience teaching excited youths, one with a white beard of some sort, perhaps a suit of long flowing robes of some sort. Instead, I stepped into a classroom that looked like it was decorated for Halloween a month early. There was a blanket of fog, perhaps dry ice, covering the floor. The fog only went a little past my ankles, but it was still unexpected. To make the room feel creepier, there were candles with the outer appearance of spines, which were really the candles holders containing them, and to add on to that, there was an army of skeletons lining the bookshelves, along with Ivy creeping along what appeared to be non-maintained walls, adding all the more to the established theme. The skeletons weren’t only on the bookshelves either, as there was a broken one lying on each desk, completing the creepy look, and probably a sign that we were going to learn how to use magic to repair things.
Speaking of the desks, they were spaced in such a way as to make a crescent shape, which looked pretty neat, and there were vases containing various purple flowers spaced out throughout the classroom, which was another welcome sight. There was a podium in the centre of the classroom from where I assumed the professor would be teaching, and resting near the wall behind that was a desk which contained a number of weird looking pastries whose features I could not quite identify. Their smell was quite distinct, but I could not tell with certainly what they were. If I had to guess what they were, I’d say they were some kind treat from France.
What stood out the most from the rest of the room however, was the professor. She was giving a warm and inviting smile, which was not quite the gesture I would expect from a professor greeting their students on their first lesson. I didn’t venture far into the classroom, taking a seat towards the back where I’d be able to observe everyone in the classroom and everything that happened in it. The room was filled quickly by other students eager to learn one of their first spells, and it was pleasing to see the mix of eagerness and nervousness illuminating every face. I myself was quite eager to learn some spells, so I was no exception.
Once everyone settled in, the professor greeted us with a loud “BONJOUR!” that shocked even me, who definitely was not expecting such a loud greeting. She then introduced herself a Professor Fresnel before asking to make sure that each of us had completed our “required summer readings”. I raised an eyebrow in surprise, one of the calmer responses to the query, before the professor revealed that it was indeed, a fluke. Phew. I was never one to miss any requirements for anything, so I glad to know that my skepticism of the request was valid. With each passing moment, I could tell that the professor wasn’t a very serious person, or at least, liked to have a bit of fun in situations where others would be act in a more respectable way.
She asked us to state our names, and as each person did so, a pastry floated from her desk, accompanied by a napkin, before setting itself down in front of the student who had just introduced themselves. This was clearly a very efficient approach, given that it made all of the students all the more excited to share their names. When it came my turn, I stood up and said “Hello, my name is Theodore Ashbourne.” before sitting back down. A pastry floated over to me as well, and it was a nice treat to have, especially given that it cost me absolutely nothing.
The professor introduced Charms as the class in which we would learn the fundamentals in learning magic, and she warned us in advance that learning charms could take a significant amount of time and effort, terms I was quite fine with. I hoped to be one of the smarter students when it came to casting spells. Writing essays was easy enough, but actually learning to cast a spell, that was the part everyone struggled with. After introducing the two main things we’d need in class, our wands and our textbooks, the professor introduced the three main rules of casting charms: concentration on your intentions, clear and proper pronunciation of the given spell’s incantation, and precise wand movements.
And after all of that, it was finally time to learn the spells of the day, of which there were two to my pleasant surprise. The first was, wouldn’t you know, the Mending Charm. Well what did I say? The most important thing to remember was that it could be used on most everything so long as the target was not alive since doing so would cause permanent scarring. If that was true, it’d probably make for a decent torture method that I would never wish to experience. The rest was exactly what you’d expect, a wand movement that we all had to rehearse with our own wands, and the incantation which was simply Reparo.
From here, I was expecting for Professor Fresnel to have us start practicing the spell, but no, she decided to instead teach the second one before we got to practice what we learned. The next spell was the Dancing Feet Spell whose incantation was Tarantallegra, and after we as a class traced the wand movements with our wands a few times, the professor finally said that it was now time for some practice. This was the part that I had been waiting for. Our goal was of course, to repair the skeletons before making them dance, a task they would do to some fast-paced music played by the skeletons lining the bookshelves. Watching the professor enchant them to do so was really quite a sight, and I was glad that I was going to be instructed by her. She may not have been old, but she was certainly experienced, and with the way she taught, it was abundantly clear that the class would like her very much.
Everyone turned to their broken skeletons and begin practicing the first spell, and I too, began to practice. I quickly came to realize that all that I had heard about the difficulty of spell-casting was indeed true, as I struggled quite a bit on casting the spell. I seemed to do all three tasks, concentrating on my intended outcome, pronouncing Reparo correctly, and doing the correct wand movement, or was I? After checking my text book, I seemed to be doing everything correctly, though perhaps my wand movement was slightly off. However, the biggest culprit was likely my concentration. After all, I had never cast a spell before, so there was a nonzero chance that I may have been concentrating incorrectly. But I had plenty of time to perfect myself and that gave my soul immense comfort.
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date✧.* 02.09.25