Was anyone... watching him? Any particular one? West wanted to peek and check but kept his eyes carefully on the gargoyle, which, because he was having a moment of not focusing, stopped suddenly at the edge of the desk mid-movement. He took it as an opportunity to casually look around.

Y'know, at nobody in particular.

Right. Back to it. Maybe. After one more look. Subtle. Sort of. Mostly.

Yeah. Gargoyle. "Piertotum Locomotor!" he waved his wand just enough, eyes on the gargoyle again and mind... mostly on the gargoyle. On the gargoyle enough, at least. Maybe. It didn't seem to have worked. "Piertotum Locomotor!" More firmly this time, and with better enunciation and focus. This time... "Back flip, gargoyle!" It did three in quick succession and West quietly congratulated himself, making a mental note to tell his dad he had it down now.

... was the desk getting little dents in it?

"A little more gentle, Gargoyle."

It was hard to figure maths in one's head when there were no variables to stick into the equation. Not that he absolutely needed variables, but Mo wanted to know how his weight and the hardness of his wand specifically interacted with the casting of this spell.

Maybe he'd go to the library after class to read up on the subject.

For now, though, his gargoyle demanded attention. Mo pulled the stone creature to the middle of his desk and propped his chin up on his hands. "Hello, Gargoyle. We're going to have a bit of fun today, but you're going to have to do your part," he whispered, tilting his head back and forth until the shadows on the gargoyle made it look like it was nodding along. Very agreeable little thing, wasn't it.

Now then, what was the incantation? "Piertotum Locomotor. Piertotum Locomotor." He repeated the incantation until it rolled easily off his tongue. Now then... what should he have his little gargoyle friend do? "Piertotum Locomotor," he directed the spell at the gargoyle this time. Something simple to start. "Yawn." Mo mimed yawning, and the gargoyle's tiny mouth opened and closed too. "Good. Jump. Jump again. Do a circle."

His gargoyle was a genius.

Once Jory was comfortable with the incantation, he took out his wand to start practicing on the gargoyle. With it in front of him, the Puffer thought of what he would make it do.On second thought, he'd figure it out as he went along.

Right. Time to get started. He raised his wand over the gargoyle and waved it a bit just like Professor Bellaire had done. "Piertotum Locomotor!" Did it work? Only one way to find out!

"Okay, Mr. Gargoyle. Can you open and close your moth like a fish out of water?'' Jory waited. Sure enough, the gargoyle did as was told. "Awesome!'' Jory was very pleased. "Can you do three hops to the left and a sort of wiggle to the right?'' He watched in amusement as it did just that. "Excellent!'' He was very pleased with himself and the gargoyle.

Awesome. Oakey felt good with the incantation. He picked his wand up, and gave the mini Gargoyle a smile. He looked to the side and noticed the box. Right, need to put it down on the floor. He picked up the box and set it down beside his desk, then turned to his attention back to the mini-Gargoyle.
Oakey waved his wand just enough and said "Piertotum Locomotor"
He looked down at the Gargoyle and it did not seem to do anything. "Piertotum Locomotor!" Oakey repeated with a bit more of a wave to his wand. The Gargoyle seemed to inch itself out of the normal pose it was standing in. Perfect, now he just needed to command it to do something, but what?

You know, he has been in a really good mood as of late, and Professor Bellaire said no high-fiving each other. What was the rule on their Gargoyles. "Give me a High Five." Oakey spoke to the stone figure...nothing happened. "Come on, give me five." Oakey said kneeling down to the the Gargoyles level on the the desk. Still nothing. "Wave."
The small statue picked it's hand up and waved it back and forth at him. Maybe it needed simple commands first?

For a minute there, Kendall had thought that she’d actually posed a good question, since it had appeared that she’d made Professor Bellaire think. However, once the professor had finally come to a conclusion and spoken, she’d inwardly sighed. It kind of seemed like her meaning had been misunderstood, and even that she was being reprimanded for not listening when she had been. She had definitely been listening, she’d just been pointing out that the formula couldn’t exactly explain non-wand-based transfiguration like her own abilities. She wasn’t going to correct the professor now, though, not after the woman was already irritated by the Gryffindor firsties she’d been choosing to ignore. She’d just speak to her later, on her own, provided she remembered to. Obviously she still hadn’t gotten around to asking Professor Romanos about baby dementors.

Instead, she’d stayed quiet and sat when they’d been instructed to, watching the little mini gargoyle on her desk as the lecture had gone on to talk about what they’d be learning. At least that was sort of cool, getting to make their little charges move around and do stuff, so after she’d scribbled down the information on the spell, she’d returned her attention to the little statue. “I think I’ll name you Dagda, because you’re going to be awesome, right?,” she said quietly, before repeating the incantation in her head several times. Pronunciation was just as important as all the precision and concentration after all. She didn’t want to accidentally hurt Dagda by saying the spell wrong, or letting her accent come through and confuse things. Piertotum Locomotor , Piertotum Locomotor , Piertotum Locomotor … Once she was fairly sure that she had that down, she took her wand out and waved it over the little gargoyle silently before deciding to put it all together. “Piertotum Locomotor,” she said, waving her wand slightly over Dagda’s back before pulling her hand back as the gargoyle almost stood at attention. Once she got over being startled,she watched the statue watch her expectantly. “Okay Dagda. What should we have you do?,” she mused aloud, just to get it used to her voice. “Salute.”

She grinned slightly as the gargoyle’s tiny hand came up and saluted her slowly. It probably should be faster, but maybe it was just waking up. She’d give it time. “Okay, now march,” she continued, sitting back as Dagda started stiffly marching around in circles on her desk. Eventually she’d have to work up to circus tricks, but for now she’d just go slowly. It was like gargoyle calisthenics, in a way. She was letting it stretch its legs before she moved up to more complicated things, and at least she wasn’t losing control of it. All she had to do was move her arm to block it if it got too close to the edge of her desk, and it would turn around and move back toward the center. It seemed like a pretty successful casting right now, and she had time to think of what else she wanted Dagda to do.

Copy. Copy down. Copy down all the words..... DONE!

She took her wand out with a flourish, like a boss. Her lips twisted into a smug and wide grin. Her first lesson....her first use of THE wand!

Right. First things first. After admiring her wand for a few seconds, she trained it towards the gargoyle. Ugly ducking. Heh.

Okay. Here goesssss....

"Piertotum Locomotor!"

Come on gargoyle, spring to life!

And..... nothing happened. What? Wait..!

"Piertotum Locomotor! Piertotum Locomotor!" she repeated pointing the wand at the gargoyle.

Not even an inch. "PROFESSSA!" she called, raising her hand. This one wasn't one to mess with.

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

The Prefects had to do extra work. Michael looked out over the class and although he couldn't see said Prefects, he gave a thumbs up signal.


He was NOT dumb!!

Michael reached out and pinched her nose between his thumb and forefinger."You tell her." Although she already had with all that dancing around that she was doing.

And then Lady Professor was explaining what they were supposed to be doing today and Michael managed to sit down and stay still so that he could listen to the instructions. He even managed to write down stuff.

When Lady Professor was finished, Michael took out his wand. FINALLY!! He had been waiting FOREVER to use the thing. He glanced over at Z and grinned. "Get ready for that chest bump." Because he was gonna do something cool.

Hopefully.

"Piertotum Locomotor." The gargoyle made a slight movement, but that was about it. Oh right. The wand movement. "Piertotum Locomotor." This time he waved his wand over the Gargoyle. Again it made a small movement but otherwise it just sat there.

Michael refused to look at Zahra because he knew that she would be laughing at him so instead he tried again. Only this time he waved his wand in big circle, kinda like a windmill. "Piertotum Locomotor. Piertotum Locomotor. Piertotum Locomotor."

WHY WAS IT NOT WORKING????????

Now that he had practised speaking the incantation, Daichi thought it was time for the real deal. He flicked his wrist and his phoenix feather wand fell out of its holster. He looked around him for a moment to see how the others were doing and found out that some already were trying to teach their gargoyles little tricks like high fives or black flips.

And he could do that too! He didn't get an Outstanding OWL for Transfiguration for nothing. He just needed to concentrate and believe in himself... which were two of his weak points because he had difficult with that sometimes. Especially when things did not go his way.

He breathed in calmly to calm himself and tried to focus on the spell and only the spell as he pointed his wand at the little gargoyle on his desk. He waved it and said "Piertotum Locomotor". The gargoyle shuddered a bit as if it was trying to *come alive* and then stood there again. Silent and unmoving. Siiiiiigh!

He was not giving up so quickly though, he remembered what Professor Magnus had told him that he should try and try again until it worked. With this determination in his mind, the Slytherin Prefect waved his wand again, said the incantation and watched in slight surprise how the little gargoyle suddenly stood up. "Woah" he mumbled as a bright smile stretched on his face. Now he should command the gargoyle what to do right? "Hmm...Gargoyle, jump!"

It took a few seconds , a few seconds too long in Daichi's mind until the gargoyle understood his command and jumped up and down the table but it wasn't high enough. It more like it was crouching and then standing upright, crouching, upright. "I said jump Gargoyle"....

Black board... copy... right.

Juliet took out her parchment, ink and quill and started writing the first spell for the lesson. After copying the notes, Professor Bellaire started explaining the first activity. Juliet took out her wand after finishing copying the notes on the board. So they need this gargoyle to back flip, eh? Juliet looked at it for some time before doing it. Putting her wand aside for awhile, Juliet then started with practicing the incantation. "Pier-to-tum-lo-co-mo-tor.... Piertotum Locomotor... Pier-totum locomotor" she kinda got it correctly.

She then took her wand and pointed it onto the gargoyle, with the wand movement she then uttered "Piertotum Locomotor" putting her concentration into it "jump!" she added and it worked. The gargoyle did as it was told. Juliet smiled at the now jumping gargoyle on her desk.

Cute.

Eh... no effect.

Gargoyle didn't kick. It just twitch its leg. Honestly, is it that hard to move if you're turned into stone? Hmm, explains a lot. They must be having some sort of cramps already. Kat petted the gargoyle's head because reasons. So, maybe it will finally kick. Or she should just try a little bit harder.

Okay, gargoyle, you better stretch those legs.

Second attempt, here we come. "Piertotum Locomotor..." Wave. "Kick." With that said, Kat eyed her gargoyle. Was it moving? Kicking even? Oi.

MOVE IT.

And... oh. OH! It kicked. Her gargoyle kicked. Kat petted its head again. "Good boy... girl." Genderless? Neutral? Another question she needed an answer to, but she'll find that out later. Yep.

It still needed a name though. Still out of clues though. Boo.

Okay, either her Gargoyle was being lazy or she just hadn't got the spell quite right... Derry scowled at the little statue and poked it with her finger, "Come on, Gollum." she said, then waved her wand at it again. "Piertotum Locomotor."

OH HEY! LOOK! IT STRETCHED! Hmmm... "Run." she told it firmly, and the little fella set off around her desk... but he wasn't running, just walking... maybe she really needed to get the spell to be stronger. "Stop..." she told the gargoyle with a little sigh.

"Come on, we'll do it properly this time, Gollum. Piertotum Locomotor." She watched Gollum stretch his legs out and waited for a second before saying "Run."
...
Oh! He did it!! He was running! Derry's eyes lit up as she watched the stone creature run around her desk. "Back flip." she told it, and it did! Except it stumbled upon landing... maybe they should keep trying...

Then Sarah decided to try Piertotum Locomoto. First she had to practice the incantaion. "Piertotum Locomoto" she said, the words felt strange to her tongue. "Piertotum Locomoto" she repeated. She wondered when she would ever get the pronunciation right the first time. Maybe it was because the spells were rarely in English, which was her first language. Piertotum Locomoto she repeated again. . Then she realised that she had been saying it wrong the whole time Piertotum Locomotor she said. the poor r had gotten left out! Piertotum Locomotor she said, again. She hoped she had the incantation down pat now

Now that she was convinced her lovely little gargoyle had a brain she could get to the real training, they had a show to put on after all.

"Do you know how to beg?" She asked, tilting her head and giving it a curious look. "Like, bending on your knees, wibbling then casually making demands, how's about playing dead? Can you do that??" They could be useful even after the circus in her opinion. The question was however, whether he could do either or not. The gargoyle stared over at her, seemingly confused. "Alright, we'll start with something simple, but you're learning those as well."

Lex pushed away from her desk and hopped to her feet. There was a brief glance around the room, just to see what gargoyles were typically supposed to be doing. Might as well start him off small.

"Fly up and gimme three loops."

She watched and waited patiently, yeah there was a smile on her face too, so what? The gargoyle rose and gave her three loop de loops before landing with a short bow that had her squealing. "Neat! Do that at the end of the presentation too, mmkay??" BEAM.

Maybe it need more movement from his wand. Nigel was basically just pointing his wand at the gargoyle and saying Piertotum Locomotor. Nigel raised his point and with some movement pointed it at the gargoyle. He did not want to know what would happen if he did this to a person. Now the spell. "Piertotum Locomotor". Nigel said confidently.

Well it appeared that it worked. Due to the gargoyle moving a tiny bit and now all he need to do was command it. "Do some jumping jacks". Well that did not seem to work even though it would have been awesome to see. Maybe it need something simpler. "Jump". and that was all it took for it to jump.

Nigel was impressed. This spell was awesome. But he did not really want to be part of a circus with these gargoyles.

Oakey stayed at eye level with his Gargoyle constantly making sure that the little thing was still moving. Simple Commands, and slowly move up to more difficult ones. Maybe by the end of the class, he could have a secrete handshake with the stone figure. "Wave again." and it did just that. Good, maybe something a little more difficult now."Wave to Katrina Hudson." Oakey pointed in the direction of the Slythern Prefect. The Gargoyle inched itself to the edge of the desk that was facing the Blonde Slytherin Leader, and started it's hand waving motion.

Ha!

So the waving command had gotten a little better now, and he could tell who to wave to. What would be the next best thing to make the Gargoyle do?

Bellaire said they could take their seats. Gah. FINALLY! She was starting to get dizzy standing there for over ten minutes now.

Once seated, Beezus immediately fished out her notebook and quill and jotted down was was written on the board. Piertotum Locomotor! Anyone hear the echoing awesome? Anyone? Anyone? It was probably one of the most epic spells ever in existence, for her at least. It played a very great deal in the Battle of Hogwarts and for someone like Beezus, who was a Ravenclaw and a big fan of the Hogwarts, A History book...well, that was worth saying something.

But of course, the practical portion of things, especially lessons were the awesomer part. And for this lesson, they were going to play with their new toys. Uh huh. She had a stoned toy and she was going to make that stone move according to her command.

Talk about awesomest.

The only thing that wasn't awesome though was when Professor Bellaire mentioned that they will be putting on a gargoyle circus by the end of the term for the Professors and the BoG members. Excuse her, but it pretty much sounded as if the students were the ones to be doing the hardwork to retain the amount of money that's been lost to the school. And they weren't even being sufficiently informed why the school had lost such an amount in the first place? Why, that was beginning to really annoy her off.

Snort.

Reining her thoughts in because she didn't want to get pissy this early in the day, the Ravenclaw just decided to focus on practicing the spell. Although, she satisfied herself with watching her peers first. It was amusing. Especially Alice, who commanded her gargoyle to split.

Beezus grinned a bit as she shook her head then she grabbed the box and placed it on the floor. Her turn to make her gargoyle split. "Piertotum Locomotor......Piertotum Locomotor." A quick glance at the board told her that she was saying the incantation correctly.

Say what? People were moving around and doing stuff... and just how long exactly had Hannah been daydreaming? She quickly snapped back to attention and copied down notes and tried to see what everybody else was doing. It couldn't be that hard right? Wait did she hear something about a circus? Ugh! She was going to have to pay more attention, that much was for sure.

She placed the box down on the floor where eerybody else seemed to have theirs. Ok so now all she needed to do was practice. You couldn't really practice wrong. She wasn't bad enough that anything was likely to blow up so this should be a piece of cake.

The incantation was Piertotum Locomotor. Right. So all she really needed to do with that was get that down first without a wand. "Piertotum Locomotor." Ahem. "Piertotum Locomotor!" Easy enough. What was next?

Then Sarah practiced the wave of the wand. It was easy and soon she was able to put the spell together. She flicked her wand pointing to the gargolye and said "Piertotum Locomotorr" She put extra strength on the R so she hoped it still worked.

"do a piroette" she said, yet the gargolye did not budge. She then realized that she was aiming to high and decided to do something more simpler. "jump" she said and the gargolye jump. "spin Gregory" she said and Gregory spinned and from that time onwards his name was Gregory.

"now Greg, pretend you are at an aweful mean muggle dentist, open your mouth wide, say ahhh". Greg did open his mouth wide yet it did not say ahh, just stared at her with his mouth open. "close your mouth" was Sarah's next command and Greg did it. Sarah was really proud of him

Minerva sighed.. It wasn't the spell, no that she did completely fine and she knew it. The dumb gargoyle moved once she had done the spell, it was the command it wasn't listening to. Leave it to her to get the stubborn statue if that was even possible. Hearing hesitation next to her she looked to Ethan and frowned in her head, he was so good at this stuff, but didn't think so for some reason. Making eye contact with him she gave him a you can do this smile then turned her head back to her own gargoyle.

Deciding to give it another go she made sure it was back in it's statue form before putting her wand above it again. Waving it above the Gargoyle she spoke, "Piertotum Locomotor" The gargoyle looked up again and she could have sworn it had a smirk, but maybe her mind was just playing games with her.

Now it was going to listen to her. "Sit" She said sternly and the gargoyle hesitated to the point she was about to say it again, when it sat. Min smiled and wanted to jump up in down herself, but kept calm not wanting to put attention on her after her little yell earlier. Okay.. Okay she wanted to try another thing, "Stand" The gargoyle stood up. Finally it was listening.

So she had the spell down and the wand movement was a piece of cake... so all that was left was to demand the statue to do something that Hannah wanted. This was not only going to be easy for her personality, it was going to be fun. Hannah rather enjoyed bossing things around and she was sure that she would have no problem getting the gargoyle to do anything that she wanted. In fact she was so confident that she was sure that she could get it to make her a sandwich. Heh. No need to show off in the first lesson.

She cleared her throat and said "Piertotum Locomotor" while she waved her wand at the gargoyle. She thought that she would try something simple at first. "Jump." and the gargoyle did nothing! Hannah was completely shocked. First of all the gargoyle had no idea who it was messing with. When Hannah told somebody or something to jump, she expected results. She cleared her throat and put on her serious face. If the gargoyle did not want to get kicked in his little gargoyle face it had better listen to her. She told it once more to "jump!" It was a command, not a question. Hannah had a accomplished smile spread across her face as she watched the gargoyle jump, as it was commanded to do so. She was liking this. What should she it do next she wondered?

Then Sarah decided to make Greg do things more circus related. She had never been to circus before, she was waiting until the women put on more clothes for that. Yet she had read about it and also circus was a kind of showbiz so there was one thing it needed definately - a bow.

"bow" she commanded it. It bowed its head. Sarah shook hers in return and said "bow to the waist." to her relief it did this time. Sarah clapped for it, which gave her an idea of what to do next, "clap" it clapped once, "no Greg, I mean a round of applause". Greg did that too which made Sarah happy.

Now for the tricks, "jump in the air while turning" she thought she should rephrase it, yet Greg knew what she meant. "somersault" was her next command and Greg did it better then Sarah could

The prefect was going down her creative pit of possible names for her gargoyle. Picking a name was apparently a struggle. She was OUT of names and creative juice and ideas. Just when she needed them for useful purposes, they bail her. Boo. Kat sticked to the 'Untitled' name for the moment until she found a better name for the gargoyle. A COOL name.

And she heard her name.

...?

Kat turned around and saw Oakey. The new head boy you know. He had commanded his gargoyle to wave at her. Uh... awesome. Kat nodded (kind of impressed...?!?!) at Oakey and his gargoyle and a thumbs up. That was cool, really. Maybe she could make her gargoyle do that too? It would be nice.

...

Now in dedication to Garrett, the head boy last term, she decided to name her gargoyle 'Gary'. Hehehehe. Anyway, Kat tried another action. "Piertotum Locomotor..." Another wave. "Dance." Gary danced some sort of weird and random dance steps.

But hey, IT DANCED. Awesome gargoyle was awesome.

So then time to actually perform the spell?Deep breathe in and deep breathe out. She had this!

The young, Dixon practiced the wand movement once more then eyed her stone gargoyle after moving it's box to the ground. The gargoyle was the lion-looking one. It's face was a little frightening and the thought of making it move and look alive scared Ness just a little, but this was magic and SHE would be in control.

"Piertotum Locomotor!" She waved her wand over the stone and then just like that it came to life. Strange thing. "Um...." she pouted not too sure what action to give it first. Hmmm..she looked around and everyone else's and noticed that someone's was twirling. Giggle. That was a good idea. "Twirl." She said and watched it do exactly that. Cuuuute.

Waait...that girl whom she copied, with the twirl..she looked new and had [i]red hair[/s]. DID ANYONE KNOW WHAT THIS MEANT? FELLOW FLAWLESS GINGER ALERT! But no she would not scream that in Bellaire's classroom, she had a little more brains than that.

"Hey!" She neared the newbie as she kept an eye on her gargoyle twirling. She wanted to actually name it, come to think of it...but later. "I'm Nessie." Red head code, like Selina always used to say. It was VITAL she made this girl feel welcome.

Right.. Time to give it another go.

Even though it didn't jump off, at least did some form of movement for Wade. Maybe jumping was more difficult than making it walk.. There's not as much concentrating on its weight for walking, after all.

Okay, Wade was going to make it walk this time. Doing the slight wave over the gargoyle's head, he carefully pronounced, "Pierotum Locomotor." and now.. Ah, the gargoyle sprung to life, flexing. That was different than his first attempt. Maybe now he could command it to.."Walk." A grin appeared on Wade's face when the gargoyle started walking, stopping at the edge of the desk. Cool. Now will it jump for Wade?

"Turn around." Wade commanded. First thing, he wasn't going to have it jump off the desk when it was already at the edge. So now he had to direct it back in the safer part. "Walk two steps." Watching the gargoyle take two steps to where it was first stationed on the desk.. Now was it safe to jump? "Jump." This time, the gargoyle obeyed Wade, as it jumped. Cool, it worked.

Right, so she had the incantation down...she supposed she could try it out now. And she really hoped it worked. It seemed like most everyone else was getting it after all...

With a wave of her wand over the little gargoyle, Penelope spoke the incantation. "Piertotum Locomotor."

...

Nothing.

She eyed the statue thing for a moment, searching for any sign of movement, but nothing happened.

Okay. Okay. Focus. That was what she needed to do. Focus. Concentrate. Wasn't that part of that formula thing that she didn't really understand? Yeah. Concentration.

Penelope concentrated for several moments, just sitting there staring at the statue, before she waved her wand once more, still concentrating hard, and said again, "Piertotum Locomotor."

And the little statue twitched.

She grinned instantly, but her excitement caused her concentration to falter for a moment, and the statue was still once more.

"Piertotum Locomotor," she said with another wave, forcing herself to calm down and focus once more. The statue twitched again. The corners of her lips flickered briefly upward in a smile, but she kept her focus on the little gargoyle. "Walk." Slowly, it started walking around her desk. A little stiffly, almost robotic, but it was moving.

Thank Merlin.