Zhenya had finished with her practicing, and it was time to practice on her jar. She pointed her wand at the jar and said "Diminuendo," and waited. Nothing.

She shook her head to clear it of worries and stresses that were BUZZING through her head.

"Diminuendo," she said and pointed at her jar.

Still NOTHING.

Big fat nothing!

"Scourgify," she said pointing her wand at her jar and then moving it in the S shape, the wand movement which she had learned properly now. Maybe that did have a difference?

"Diminuendo," she said firmly, pointing her wand at the jar. "Diminuendo," again.

AND IT WORKED!

At least she thought it did… it wasn't THAT much smaller, actually. She wasn't sure how much smaller it should have become. But she knew it would be about a sixth of a size smaller than it was before.

So they were to practice on what they would be doing. Easy peasy since that tended to be what they did any time. Best to get the incantation and the wand movement right before putting it all together lest you run the risk of setting up a completely unrelated that problematic reaction by your mistakes. First the incantation since the movement was a simple point at the object...Diminuendo by what he had written in his notes, the break down of the pronunciation added beneath it since it had been given on the board.

"Diminuendo...Di-min-u-en-do...Diminuendo...Di-min-u-en-do." Not quite a tongue-twister but close.

"eeepp, that was my first ever bit of magic.. now im going to be cleaning everything" she could just see it now, everything in her dorm room is going to be spotless by the weekend. "oh!! yay!! really!!! im so happy that i have such a great helper!" she smiled at the older girl. "okay so its Dim-in-u-en-do"

She said it a few times over in her head. "Diminuendo" her eyes were all on Lux, she hoped it sounded right and that she said it correctly.. "is that it?? did i get it?" she hoped she did. Echo being a bit of a perfectionist she wanted to get it at least by the second try. Over achiever of here.

Yeahhh... this would take some time.

Point! "Diminuendo!"... or not. This time he was more successful, the glass jar rapidly shrunk until it was at a size where he could fit it onto the tip of his finger. Cool beans.

He didn't get the opportunity to revel in his success too long before a voice pulled him out of his own little world.

KATE!

SPOILER!!: Kate

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anna Banana

Kate looked at her jar in disappointment. Why had it just wobbled? She'd practiced the incantation a few times and was sure she was saying it right. The wand movement definitely wasn't the problem. A point toward the object was just about the easiest wand movement out there. There had to be something else she wasn't doing right.

She picked up her jar for no reason at all, almost as if she thought something might come to mind. That was when she heard a voice that was kind of familiar. She glanced over to see the boy she'd rode the train with. The second year. What was his name again? ... Zeke! She hadn't seen Zeke since the train, so she smiled and waved. "Hey, Zeke! What was that incantation again? I'm not having much luck," she said. She put the jar back down and frowned at it. "I just got a little wobble out of it.

He smiled kindly, "Hey Kate, that's okay, happened to me too... it's a tricky one." For sure. Like, how many syllables did it even have?! He was sure it was LOTS.

"If you break it down it's a little easier to get the hang of. Try repeating after me... Dim-in-u-en-do," he stated as clearly as this Gryffindor could. "Dim-in-uendo... Diminuendo!" See! "Concentrate on the jar, point at it and give it another go, I'll watch." Cause he'd done his, so he had time to do some observation now.

Now then.

All Gregoire had to do, to finish this up was combine the simple incantion, with the even simpler wand movement. This should be easy enough. All he had to do was concentrate. Deep breath in. Hold it. Then deep breath out. Deep breath in. Wait a few seconds to keep it in. Then let it all out again. He was ready. He could do this!

Pointing his wand at the jar, the Slytherin exclaimed "Diminuendo!" Closing his eyes he waited a few seconds before opening them again. When he did...he saw nothing. The jar was still the same size...WHAT DID HE DO WRONG!?!? He had everything perfect! It was just a simple point and then saying Diminuendo! How was that so hard!? That shouldn't be complicated!

Breathing in deep again, Gregoire closed his eyes. Putting his mind at ease, he slowly pointed his wand at the jar. Another deep breath. Opening his eyes he said with great power and emphasis "Diminuendo!" Before his very eyes, white light came out of the tip of his wand and spiraled around the object. When the spiral got lower, the jar did as well! Now he had completed this activity. Which...couldn't be the actual one right?

I mean, this was just to easy. There had to be something more to this. There had to be some sort of creature they were going to try to shrink. Or maybe it was just a dummy that would come at them? Who knows. Though, this couldn't have been the real thing. Sighing with relief, Gregoire stood there with his now, miniaturized jar.

Cilla cringed. She had said the incantation incorrectly.

"Di-min-u-en-do." Cilla said, slowly and clearly three times until she was confident enough to try the spell again.

She watched carefully as Professor Quigley demonstrated the spell on her jar and then returning it to its normal size. Taking a deep breath in, Cilla picked up her wand and pointed it at the jar.

"Diminuendo," Cilla said firmly and clearly, silently willing for her jar to shrink.

Soon the jar had become very minuscule. Cilla beamed. "Thank you so much, sir,"

Hayden went up to the front of the room and grabbed a dirty jar. Why did it have to be clean? They were just practicing with it, they weren't drinking from it or making a potion in it. But professor cat has told them to clean it so that's what she was going to do. Hayden made an S shape above the jar with her wand. "Scourgify." She was very comfortable with that spell and everything went fine. The next step was trying the real spell.

She wasn't even going to try and cast the spell yet. First, she had to make sure she was able to pronounce it correctly. "Dimininuendo?" She said quietly to herself when she read the board. No, that wasn't quote right. She'd been adding extra letters. "Dimininendo." No that was even worse. Hayden paused for a moment and listened to the people around her. Some of them had even cast the spell correctly so they were obviously saying it right. She tried again.

"Dimiendo. Diminendo. Dimuendo. Diminuendo." WAIT! That sounded right. She stopped and said it again, just like she had before. "Diminuendo. Diminuendo." Hayden smiled proudly because she'd gotten it right. The next step was being able to actually cast the spell.

Awww, Echo was so precious. Lux had to laugh at the young girl's excitement. "You will get to use it a lot in Potions since everything has to be kept very clean." So loads of practice there. Hopefully Echo would enjoy Potions since it was the best class in her opinion.

Listening carefully, she nodded as Echo managed to get the pronunciation correct. "Yep, that's exactly it. Very good." This First Year was a very fast learner which was awesome. Spell work could be very hard partly when difficult incantations were involved. Pronunciation could be difficult.

Pointing her wand at her jar, Lux concentrated on what she wanted to happen and said, "Diminuendo." Awesome! It worked. One tiny jar. Time for Echo to try when she was ready.

Ah. Practice. The dreaded bit of class. Okay, actually it wasn't really all too bad, just boring. Still, the Gryffindor set down his wand and just stared at his newly cleaned jar for a bit. Was this shrinking stuff really all that necessary? And.... What were they going to use the jars for exactly? The Professor hadn't said, had he?

Taking his head off his hands, he let out a small sigh before writing down the incantation on his piece of parchment. For OWL reasons, you know? Diminuendo. He could do that, easily. "Dimindo." No. That didn't sound quite right... "Dimundo!"..... No. That wasn't quite right either. This one was a tricky one. Yup. "Di....min....u....en...do?" Well when you said it quite slowly, it worked out? But... Would a spell work if you chopped it off so much? Probably not. Magic wasn't actually that clever, he'd learned that the hard way, several times.

"Di-min-u-en-do," Slow and steady. Until he got the hang of things. It was a tongue twister of a word, really. Dimininininuendo. Was that right?

The next step in casting a spell was the wand movement. Luckily, this one was easy. All she had to do was point her wand at the thing she was trying to shrink. In this case, the jar. But, that did lead Hayden to think of something. So she raised her hand and asked a question. "Professor, what if the thing you're trying to shrink is far away so it's harder to point directly at it? Could you accidentally shrink something else? Or if your target jumped behind something, would you shrink that? What if a bird flew in front of you as you were trying to cast the spell?" Okay, that last one was a little far fetched but hey, it could happen.

Alright this time she would get this thing to shrink as small as the Professor had demonstrated to that other student.

Bleu took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She blocked out all the sound going on around her. She opened her eyes pointed her want at the jar with all the passion she could must said, "Diminuendo!" She watched as the jar shrank to the size of galleon. She smiled with delight. She had done it! She bounced a little in her seat. It was perfectly miniature!

"MY TURN!" she said after watching Lux make a tiny jar and d'awww it was so cute! Echo was so excited to have a tiny jar, she wondered if she got to keep it. She'd love a tiny jar for Klein to play in and her pet being a mouse would totally have a fun time playing.

Taking out her wand she said "Diminuendo" and watched her medium sized jar transform into a tiny jar. Her mouth hung open. No way..... if cleaning her jar shocked her this totally just blew her mind. Picking it up immediately she turned it over and started to stare at it. "WOW..... its so cute and tiny!! do you think we get to keep them?" she hoped so a trophy for her first real stab at magic.

Okay, time to try again. This time he had to be confident, and maybe even keep his eyes open this time. He hoped this time it would work, but at least he wasn't afraid of the jar breaking. He had already tried the charm once without it working, and nothing happened. So that was a relief at least. He looked around, and saw that a few others had made their jars shrink, but no one had caused a giant explosion. Yay.

So, finding relief that that didn't happen, Austin was happy to try again. He stood up this time, hoping that would give his charm the little push it needed. Pointing his wand at the jar, he took a deep breath. In, Out He thought to himself. He was going to get it this time. This was the time the jar was going to shrink. "Diminuendo!" He said confidently. Happily, the jar shrunk right before Austin's eyes. He sat back down proudly, and picked up the little jar. It really seemed to be a jar for a mouse, or pixie.

Marigold had collected her jar, but hadn't cleaned it yet because she was making sure the firsties near her were mostly helped out. Quiglez got to most of them first, unfortunately for her to show her Prefect-ness, but then all she needed to do was offer them a helpful smile, so it was all good. "Scourgify," she said, with an 'S' shape of her wand, and then she had her clean and shiny jar.

Okay. Practicing the incantation first, obviously. Because she had NO idea how to shape her mouth to pronounce it that way.

"…DMINDUEONDO!" Oops. The words kinda got all jumbled in her mouth. She tried again. "Diminindo. Dinmodo? Dim-in-u-en-do."

Kate smiled again when she saw that Zeke remembered her, too. She liked Zeke. He was really nice and always had something good to say. "I had it first, but then I forgot it, I guess," she admitted. She wasn't starting out on the right foot with her first charm, was she? A quick look around the room told her a lot of people weren't, though, and Zeke said he hadn't either. "Dim-in-u-en-do," she repeated after Zeke. "Dim-in-u-endo!" She gripped her wand a little tighter then started to raise it.

"Okay, I think I have it," she told him. Before she could forget it again, she pointed toward the jar with her wand, her eyes narrowing in thought as she focused on the jar shrinking. She could almost see it happening now! "Diminuendo!" she said. After that, she squeezed her eyes shut, not wanting to look just yet. "Is it working, Zeke?" Kate couldn't see the jar, but it was starting to shrink just a little. Then in one quick second, it had shrunk to the same size as Zeke's. So little and so cute!

Eden took another bite of Professor Hottie Quigley's apple. Delicious and juicy. And sweet in a fruit way. Since she had mastered the sooooooo very difficult wand movement (snort), she decided to go for the....incantation.

Which seemed vey difficult. Diggilemfieffeghg. No. That wasn't right, and she knew it, so she just chewed on her apple in bliss as she listened to others butcher the incantation--and then others get it right. It was entertaining. Who needed movies? This making her chuckle. A lot.

Finally, hmm.

"D-nintendo--" she said at firstly, snorting to herself because she just thought--oh. The spell sounded like NINTENDO and she loved....Nintendo. And video games. IN general. Half-blood FOR THE WIN. "Di-mi-u-endo--" she said it slowly. It was definitely a tongue-twister. A big one. "Dimiuendo...dimiuendo...diiiiimiuenddoooo--" she said it until she could say it without thinking. Where it just...slipped off her tongue.

All right.

Time for the practical part.

"I wouldn't recommend casting at a distance that would compromise your accuracy Miss Malone." He said, turning to the Hufflepuff who'd brought up something he probably should have mentioned while he was going on about the charm. "Simply because it could accidentally shrink something else or someone else." Which would be a complete waste of a good cast if you ask him. "It's best you ensure you have a clear shot before proceeding."

...

"And I don't suggest casting around birds." Took care of that problem too because again, the bird would get it and either the object would be missed or the opponent would be positioned to get you. Not the best conditions to be under.

Okay so now he could actually say the incantation slowly... Though, really that wasn't even the hard part. The hard part was saying it all together real quickly and adding in wand movements AND on top of that having to visualize exactly what you wanted. Man, charms was actually kind of harder than expected. And he was a fifth year. AND he was trying to impress the Caretaker!!! WHY WAS THIS SO MUCH WORK!?

"Diminuenenendo?" No. Too many syllables. "Dimindo," No. Not enough syllables.

Sighing, just a little he read over the incantation one more time. "Diminuendo!" THERE HE DID IT!! Could he take a break now? No?... Okay, okay. Just kidding. Zander Adair didn't need breaks. Pft. Okay, yes. Yes, he really did need breaks and one right now would be way more than appreciated but uh. No he could carry on. Trying to be impressive here, remember?

"Diminuendo....... Diminuendo...... Diminuendo!" Pft. Easy.

SPOILER!!: Stuff I missed

Oliver went up to pick up his jar and went back to his seat to practice the cleaning thing the professor asked them to do. Didn't he know Ollie knew, like, nothing about anything when it came to using his wand and whatnot? Either way, he didn't want to fall behind in class so he took out his wand from his back, pointed it at the jar and muttered "Scourgify" under his breath.

When nothing happened, he looked around the room and saw that, luckily, he wasn't the only person struggling with it. Perfect. He had considered going up to someone, anyone really, and asking for help but everyone already seemed so busy so he didn't want to bother them at all. After watching and eavesdropping on what Quigley told several other students (mostly first years), Oliver moved his wand in an "S" shape and quietly said "Scourgify" again. This time, the jar was clean! Maybe Ollie wouldn't be so bad at this magic stuff!

Now that his jar was clean, Ollie stared down his jar and tried using his telepathy or whatever to get the jar to understand that he was going to get the jar to shrink on the first try. He had faith in himself this time! HE COULD DO IT IF HE BELIEVED IN HIMSELF.

Pointing his wand straight at the jar, he said, "Diminudo" a bit louder than he had managed to say Scourify -- new found courage and all. Sadly, nothing happened. Was he saying it wrong or something???? He looked back up at the board that had the correct pronunciation and practiced saying it under his breath one more time. He was determined to get this right!

The incantation was pretty fine, right? Marigold took out her wand and rubbed the grime off of it. Just point it, right? Marigold swished it at her jar a few times for practice, thinking through the fact speed and wrist movement in her head. Yes. Quick, swish, point, the end.

*Alright, so he had practiced then word and then practiced the movement... pointing... Now on to giving a go. Right... point and,

Diminuendo!

...Nothing...

Diminuendo!!!

Nothing... Now he was staring to get a little frustrated. Forget the fact that he was a first year and not been casting spells all that much. Taking a deep sigh he pointed at the stupid jar.

Diminuendo!!!
The jar looked like it wobbled. Did that mean it shrunk?!*

.... Ravenclaws were sassy to the point where their intelligence turned into stupidity. She gathered that from watching her housemate sass the professor which in turn lost him points. Lost THEM points. Super.

Evie moved on. She took hold of her wand again and focused on the jar. "Diminuendo," she said quickly, pointing her wand at the jar... but nothing happened. Glancing around, she saw that others (mostly younger others) were having the same problem, so she didn't feel too bad. She just didn't want anyone to see her fail.

Puck was feeling slightly better now that the cat hair wasn’t floating in her face, and maybe the fact that she had reached into her bag and taken the small bit of allergy meds that she had forgotten were there. Tomorrow, she would make more of the allergy potions.

So she sat there, practicing pointing her wand at people for a bit, before putting it down and practicing the wording. “Di-min-u-en-do.” She practiced and sigh.

Bored.

She wanted more than this.

She got her jar pointed her wand at it and thought the word “Scourgify”, nothing. “Scourgify” she tried again and it did it, the jar was clean! And all with her mind, heck yeah she was excited.

"...Diminuendo...Di-min-u-en-do."

That seemed about right, not the mismatch of words that he seemed to be hearing around him. Benny was doing his best to focus on his own work which wasn't an easy task In any case, the fifth year figured he'd give the full spell a try, picking up his wand once more to put it all together. "Diminuendo!" he cast, focusing on the jar on his desk as he said and spell and pointed his wand at it.

Nothing happened.

So much for his first shot. "Diminuendo!" Ben cast a second time, taking that first time as a warm up. But still nothing occured. Well not, totally anything, for as he looked closer, he noticed it was ever so slightly smaller then the jar had been previously.

Attention was all on you Quigley. Kyroh bunched his robes up in his fist as he continued to focus in on the man.

Technically he hadn't stated that it was the charm they would be learning. He had only sort of implied it. The man also hadn't used the word spell. He had said charm. Which could have easily meant that the word had a certain charm to it, even if it was a bit of a stretch. Kyroh would have pointed BOTH of these facts out if....Quigley hadn't taken points...and given him detention?

...

The loud sound of glass crashing to the ground brought him out of his daze and Kyroh's eyes flickered to Toby for a second.

....He had never gotten detention before. The one time he had come close Flamsteed had said he was joking and then let him sit in his spinny chair because he made him cry. But Kyroh was not going to let Quigley make him cry. Especially since everything was HIS fault for calling him out and trying to embarrass him.

He really ought to pick on someone his own size.

Eyes falling to the parchment in front of him he was momentarily in his own world until the chair shuffling brought him out of it. Gabe. Bay's boyfriend. His prefect. He wasn't even sure if Gabe was even his friend. Catching sight of the other boy made Kyroh sink down in his seat. Obviously he was only here because he thought he'd lose more points for Ravenclaw. "I'm not doing it."