It's Just Fire PV Artemis Closed

He popped another gummy bear into his mouth as he sat up in the tree near the lake, watching the boy beneath him pace back and forth before settling down with a textbook. From his vantage point, Artemis could see that it wasn't a Charms textbook that the child was looking through. He thought it would be wiser for the boy to look over the charm that he was having difficulty casting, but it must have been a bit too much to expect that much from Mr. Vanes. Honestly, Artemis didn't expect much from his students these days. They had proven this Spring that they dont have a lick of good sense.

The man sighed in the shade of the leaves he was sitting in and tossed another gummy bear into his mouth before putting the small bag of candy into his pocket."You would think that since I called you out here to practice a spell that you are struggling with that you would consider looking that particular spell over thoroughly before meeting with me," he called from the tree branches before jumping down to land in a crouch behind the young student. Strolling up to the boy, he stared at him firmly before opening his mouth again.

"We'll be going over Incendio once again today. It's been close to a year, maybe a little bit more than a year now since we last practiced this spell and from what I've gathered, you haven't practiced it at all since that day, which means that you haven't perfected this spell either. This is an essential spell that you need to have under your belt and I promise you, Mr. Vanes, that you will learn the fire making spell today."

With some amount of focus on his face that sometimes tend to drift away as Alan took a dive into his world of thoughts, the third year kept reading the popular encyclopedia on magical creatures and how and possibly where to find them. He had not expected someone to find him like this even though he knew that the professor would be arriving eventually. So when all of the sudden he heard his voice from somewhere, Alan flinched and slammed the covers of the book together. As he tried to place a hand on the cover to hide the books content and topic one might have caught a glimpse on the title if they were paying attention as the book would reveal itself for mere moments as a issue of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

He would look around as if to find the source of the voice but when he saw now one the drift of his gaze became more frantic as he tried to locate the professor only to be surprised by the man once again when he jumped down from a nearby tree. So that is where he had been hiding. Since when had he been there to watch the third year read? Had he been there for long? Alan was still staring so he forced himself to blink and lose the focused gaze he had held on the professor.

As he had dreaded the professor planned to go over the Incendio spell with him and the third year climbed to his feet quickly. "Sir, is th-that really going t-to be necessary? I did fine without th-the spell so far!", he tried to argue, weakly against the very good points made by the Charms professor. Images of the burning classroom flash in his mind as he clasp his arms around his chest protectively as if to keep danger away even though you could not protect yourself from your own memories. He gave a small glance at the professor because he quickly adverted his worried eyes with petulance. "I don't want t-to...", he admitted the obvious but left out the reason that was clear in both of their minds; Alan was scared. Some Gryffindor he was...

My apologies for the late reply.

When the professor started to reprimand him, the third years eyes narrowed as his lips pressed together in defiance. His hands clenched into fists at his sides, the right one gripping his cherry wood wand tightly. This could have seemed threatening or insolent if it wasn't just completely against Alan's nature to act out like this. This wasn't a kid that wanted to rebel against their professor, this was a young boy terrified to make use of a spell, scared to watch it backfire in a way it did the last few times Alan had used it. But Alan also did not verbally fight the words of the man he had grown to respect a lot, something within the Gryffindor perhaps knew that the professor was right and that running away from this would not solve anything and was quite untypical for a lion and Alan was one; a third year even. He got this far already and they were outside, it couldn't hurt to try again, right? So by the time the professor was done talking the brunette forced his hands to relax as he glanced at the professor, searching for an easy way out of this situation but he found none. Finally Alan would give a tight nod as his unsure eyes trailed over the target boats that were placed in the grass.

"If I hurt you again, professor, I will not be using th-this spell again," he muttered in a last attempt of defiance even though he already knew that Vernatis would not let him head inside the castle until he had managed to hit each and every one of the targets. After a bit more of a mental pep talk the third year would raise his right hand as he pointed it at the first target boat, but something within him seemed to block any movement as his lightly shaking hand pointed the wand on its target and his eyes were seemingly glued to it. But his posture was tense and was not allowing for any spell-casting. 'Breathe, just breathe'

My apologies for the extremely late reply.

Artemis words left more or less a deep impression in the boy and he would try to force himself to calm down again. The third year would force himself to take a couple of deep breaths like the charms professor had taught him to do about a year ago but still the boy was not exactly calming down. Or whenever he did calm down for a moment or two, the thought of practicing incendio made his heart pump faster and worry to cloud all logical thoughts. Alan would bite his lip as he glanced at the professor and he knew that the man was correct. That his fear of the spell was most likely not bound to any logic because after all it had been over a year since he had failed the spell and since then he had grown a lot and gotten a lot better at magic. So clearly he should be able to cast spells better than he did back then but still. Incendio was something else and the memory of his previous attempts to cast this particular spell were horrifying.

"Okay," he muttered but to utter this single word it had taken him about a minute of heavy breathing and what seemed like a oncoming panic attack that he had been able to avoid by sheer luck or the little control he actually had over himself. His hair had turned into a fiery red rather than the rust color of his natural hair. Perhaps this was a sign and Alan while aware of this change had not the mind and focus to do much about it. This is why he was just hoping that none of his other school mates were around to see the display of what were his metamorph abilities that he usually tried to keep hidden under any circumstances. Did the professor know even? Alan was not actually sure about that because he had never transformed in front of the man, but then again he was a professor so the chances were high that the professor already knew just because he was a professor. After all the professors would also know which of the students were werewolves, right? Perhaps that was the case but perhaps it wasn't. Alan's mind and thoughts were currently not making any sense at all and he had to pull himself together after all professor Vernatis was still calmly waiting for him. However Alan was still in his thoughts and with every passing second he would get lost deeper and deeper within him as one thought after the other would rush through his brain and distract him once again. Only when he heard a branch snap, he would be pulled out of his thoughts; eyes wide as he was looking around wildly to see who had suddenly appeared only to find a familiar face. A sigh of relief flooded through his senses as he dropped to the ground and scooped up his cat and pressed the feline against himself. The soft fur tickling his nose as he buried his face within the cat's coat.

From that position on he would glance up at the professor again as he rose to his feet, his cat still firmly hugged to his chest as a sense of calmness overcame him. Tiger in this very moment was his anchor to reality and he would hate to let go of the cat but he knew that eventually he would have to do so if he wanted to be able to cast the spell. But he knew that Tiger was still there and that he was only a step away. He could do this, right? Tiger was there after all and all he had to do was cast a spell he had learned in his first grade. He was in the third grade now so why was this even so difficult? Alan would sigh, unsure about all of this and after pressing Tiger close to himself one more time, he gave a firm nod and handed the tom cat to the professor with a unsure expression but a little bit more confident than he had been moments before this.

"Okay-" he muttered again and gripped his wand as he would turn to look at the first of the figures he could see. He bit his cheek for a moment, concentrating on the target as he took a deep breath. Another unsure glance towards the professor, before he would turn to face back to the target in front of him and after taking about a few more seconds, the third year would finally move. "Incendio!" he would cast and watch as a successful string of flame would shoot from his wand and just barely hit the target. It was only a small flame so it did not do all that much. It flickered and scorched the surface for a few moments before it extinguished itself. But Alan staggered back just in case but when he saw that he had actually been successful his arm dropped to his side uselessly and he could only stare at the big target in disbelief, his eyes glued to where now only a scorch mark was to be seen, as the third year had cast the spell. He was frozen in some weird kind of shock, but he had done it. But perhaps he had been lucky, has he not been? How could he know? Just because the spell had been easy this time it wouldn't have to mean that the spell would be successful at all times. Alan was a little scared the more he thought about that. But the professor has said that they would continue to practice until he would understand and be able to cast the spell, had he not? Finally the third year would glance over at the professor, still a look of disbelief on his own face as he just stared at him with wide eyes like a doe caught in the headlights of those muggle things. It was a saying he had heard others use...

Considering how long it took me to reply, I apologize for the shortness of this reply.