Cassidy gave Barlow a big grin as he commented on her trick. "Thanks professor. And I'll give it a try." She wasn't too sure how Barlow had done that at the beginning of class, but it had to be fairly similar to what she was just doing or he wouldn't have suggested it to her.

She looked down at the coin and began to study it, moving it back and forth between her hands. It had to do again with distraction and moving the coin without the person you were showing not noticing the coin moving. She held out the coin in one hand and then rubbed the two together. She opened both hands keeping the coin wedged between the fingers on the back side only showing the palms outward. Then she moved that hand back behind her ear and let the coin slip into her palm. There. She made a coin appear from her ear.

Cassidy wasn't sure if that was how it was supposed to be done, but it seemed to work. So she practice it a couple more times, until she got the motion down more. Then she looked around for Barlow and raised her hand. She wanted to know if she was doing it right since he had done the trick at the beginning of the class.

Tina was worried she might’ve gone too far off topic by explaining how the “magic” cabinet worked, but Professor Barlow’s beam put her mind at ease. She nodded in reply, even smiling a little - one of the only times she’d smiled at all this term. She blinked confusedly at the next set of instructions. So wands were banned for now? Okay, now she was really curious how this was going to tie back to transfiguration! Were they going to be learning some spell that would achieve the same effect as these non-magic methods? If so, which one? She could already think of a couple off the top of her head.

Tina walked to the front of the room, closely examining the props on the table. She was looking for something simple that she could do by herself. Sorry, people, but Tina Dantes did not do group work! She eventually decided on a coin, There were a lot of things she could do with it, aside from a rehash of the coin-behind-the-ear trick, of course. Nope, she was going to try something different. As she went back to her desk, an idea came to her. She was going to try to make the coin disappear. The real question was how to do it. She’d seen a disappearing coin trick that used a scarf before, but she didn’t have a scarf. Besides, she didn’t know exactly how the scarf trick was done.

She thought for a few minutes, looking down at the coin in her hand. What if…? What if there was a way to hide the coin in her sleeve? That would sort of make it disappear, right? She decided to give it a try, though it might be hard to get her sleeve in the right position. Tina was tall and gangly with disproportionately long limbs, so her sleeves usually sat a good couple of inches above her wrists. Hmm… maybe that could work to her advantage? She was always tugging at her sleeves anyway, so it probably wouldn’t be too much of a giveaway. So how should she go about this?

Tina tugged her sleeves down so that they covered part of her hands. She had to sort of scrunch her arms up to get them to stay, but she managed. Moving carefully, she transferred the coin from her right palm to her left. S far so good… now she just had to think of a subtle way to flick the coin up her sleeve. With her dominant hand, she snapped her fingers a couple of times, inching closer to the coin each time until… she flicked it on the third snap. Did that work? She looked around and found the coin on the floor beside her desk. She must've misjudged the angle of her snap. Oh well, no big deal, she supposed. She could always try it again.

She repeated the process, this time changing the angle of her snap slightly, and she felt the coin drop into her sleeve. She did it! Now all that was left was the part about thinking how transfiguration could make the trick easier. Well, that was obvious. Just use a vanishing spell on the coin… or she supposed if you wanted to get fancy with it, you could always turn the coin into something instead of vanishing it.

Wait, Houdini was a wizard? Huh. One of those 'the more you know' moments.

Archer fetched one of the pound notes, since those tricks were ones she could do by herself. They could work by themselves, right? Oh well, she was doing it, okay?

Holding the note up, she folded the top of the note down towards herself. Then...wait. Which way was the fold again? It had been so long since she'd done the trick. Was it out towards the 'audience'? Well, that's what she was going with, anyway. She folded the right side of the note over the left side, folding towards the 'audience'. The next fold was a repeat of the previous one. Then, she unfolded the last fold she did towards herself, following it up with unfolding the bottom......wait, she'd messed up.

The Gryffindor trio seemed to be getting on fairly well, and Barlow clapped loudly when Maeve successfully pulled off the old coin out of ear trick on a very enthusiastic Mr Willard. "BRAVO, BRAVO!!"

As for the metal hoops? "Of course I know how it's done!" It was one of his favourites in fact. "I'll tell you what, I'll let you keep them and you can keep practicing." Because as fun as this was, they were going to have to move on shortly.



“I hope everything is okay, Miss Awning.” Was she practicing? Wasn’t she practicing? He wasn’t really sure to be honest.

He carried on shuffling around the room, stopping to applaud or exclaim obnoxiously loud when someone got close to pulling off a trick with their chosen props. He was so caught up in the activity that a couple of the quieter kiddos went unnoticed. He still remained completely and utterly oblivious to any discomfort Eniola may have been feeling and any pointed looks or pouting coming from Nina’s way went right over his disheveled head. Oops?

He did however, stop very briefly by Miss Fairfield to admire her shuffling skills. It was nice to see her taking part and not causing chaos! “Keep it up, Eloise!”

And then there was Archer who was doing something that required folding. Whatever it was, it didn’t seem she’d quite pulled it off first go around but he offered her an encouraging grin. Practice makes perfect, right!?



“Vanishment, yes!” Barlow nodded his approval. “A number of muggle magic tricks involve aspects of vanishing be it vanishing props or even people. Would be a lot easier with the use of magic.” Good, good, good.



………. say what?

What was that sound coming out of Miss Winklebleck’s mouth.

Was that her attempt at an Abra Cadabra or an Alakazam? The task had been simply to practice, not to go inventing their own incantations but O for effort!



If he was giving grades for effort, Lucas would also receive an O. Yes, he had caught glimpses of that awkward attempt at shuffling and YES, he had noticed that the Gryffindor had picked out the completely wrong card but Barlow appreciated the effort all the same.

“Not bad for a first attempt, Mr Dakest! All the best magicians had to start out somewhere!”



He’d spotted her practice attempts and would you look at that… she had basically pulled it off! “That’s it, Cassidy! If I hadn’t known any better, you would’ve fooled me!”



MORE clapping happened, because Barlow had just spotted Tina put on quite the fantastic display! “...and don’t forget,” he exclaimed with an enthusiastic bounce, “the power of distraction! While pulling off something like this, most magicians will talk and question their audience to keep them distracted.” And then they were less likely to notice any sleeve tricks.

---

“You’ve all done BRILLIANTLY,” he said, making his way once more to the front of the classroom. “And if you struggled, don’t let that discourage you. Most magicians practice for years before they become truly successful. And speaking of magicians!” He had another question for them. “Most magicians will fashion themselves a stage name. Something snazzy, something catchy… something that will inspire mystery and intrigue! If you had to give yourselves a magicians name, what would it be?”

OOC: Question 2 is up! We’ll move on in another 24 hours or so. THANK YOU for playing <3

Stage names? Seriously? What did any of this have to do with transfiguration? And anyway, how did muggle magicians come up with so-called stage names? Analiese decided she'd keep quite for this one. She noticed the egg again and picked it up. However, she had been trying to pick it up while looking at Professor Barlow and consequently pushed it over the edge of the table. CRACK! She turned her head towards the source of the noise and found that the egg has fallen off the desk and cracked. Analiese gulped. That was worthy of a detention - in her opinion, at least. Hopefully she didn't get one.

Cassidy smiled really wide. She was really happy that she'd gotten the trick right. "Thanks Professor Barlow."

What would her stage name be? That was a hard question. Cassidy never had thought about coming up with a name like that for herself before. Most magicians were something like marvelous or magnificent, but that didn't seem right. But what else was there? She bit her lip as she thought about her name a little bit. She raised her hand. "Maybe 'The Astounding Cassidy' or something like that." That still didn't feel a hundred percent right though. But she couldn't think of anything else.

Lucas jumped at the sudden sound of a voice and glanced up to see Barlow standing right there. Looking at him. He looked between him and the cards and then back again. Uh, how long had he been standing there? How much had he seen? All of it? Please don't tell him he'd seen all of that.

His cheeks tinged pink slightly but he soon found a smile forming on his face. All the best magicians had to start out somewhere. That was true. That was very true. They probably failed a bunch of times before getting the trick right, didn't they? But he wasn't going to be a grand magician....... on a big stage......... in front of so many people.........

.............

No. No no.

He shook his head and forced himself to focus on whatever it was Barlow was saying. Something..... about stage names? Lucas inwardly groaned. Oh Merlin, they were going to have to put on an act, weren't they? In front of everyone? No. No no no. Don't make them do that. Don't make him do that.

He wasn't even thinking of a stage name right now. No, he was only thinking about how much he'd rather be the audience person who got hypnotised instead of the one doing muggle magic tricks. Anything but that.

Stage names? Really?

When were they going to learn about Transfiguration? You know, the subject they were all in here to learn? He wondered what a bunch of muggle magic tricks had to do with the subject. Unless he was missing something?

Was he missing something?

He wanted to ask him what the point in all this was in relation with transfiguration but he kept his mouth shut for now. They should be glad that he thought before he spoke and that he had respect for the Professors. But if this kept up...

"Declan" he said, using the name Rylee always called him as part of an inner joke. He leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms over each other. "The magnificent" he added.

A little egg never hurt anybody, and Barlow wasn’t about to let that put a dampener on things. The egg that fell from Analiese’s desk was cleaned up in a flash thanks to a nifty scouring charm.

Luckily he wasn’t gifted in the art of Legilimency or else he would’ve been less than happy that there were a number of kiddos who didn’t seem too impressed with the direction of the class. Honestly, he would’ve been THRILLED to have learnt this stuff back in the day…

He was however, none the wiser and therefore he was still sporting the goofiest of grins. “The Astounding Cassidy… Declan The Magnificent.... Good, good! Now we already briefly mentioned the legend that was Harry Houdini.” Whom Barlow was still convinced was a wizard. “But there are plenty of ‘magicians’ out there who aren’t exactly what they seem and will swindle innocent muggles into believing their tricks are genuine when IN FACT, they’re of magical blood and they’re using a bunch of non-verbals. It’s a serious breach of the Statute of Secrecy.” And it wouldn’t take much research to find out that this is exactly the trouble he’d landed himself in once upon a time.

“But enough of all that serious stuff, for the next part of the lesson we’ll be putting our own spin on one of the most famous muggle magic tricks -- the top hat and the rabbit!” A trick that had been mentioned a couple of times already and was another one of his favourites. “You’re going to need to get your wands back out for this part.”

He flicked his own, and two incantations appeared on the blackboard in scruffy handwriting.

Quote:

Originally Posted by blackboard

Pileus Turritus --- (conjures a top hat)
Lapifors --- (turns object into rabbit)

The Transfiguration professor then went on to perform another very enthusiastic, over the top demonstration, conjuring a top hat and then transfiguring it into a white bunny rabbit which hopped about his desk. He finished his performance with a bow.

And just as a disclaimer for all the animal lovers out there. “When transfiguring objects into animals, it’s important to remember that these animals are NOT sentient. They do not have their own free-will and the length of time they’re able to exist entirely depends on the skill and focus of the caster.” In other words, he expected the first years’ rabbits to last a mere 30 seconds if they were successful. “Nobody is going to be leaving class today with a pet rabbit, comprende? Now off you go!”

OOC: Here’s the main activity! Conjure a top hat and then transfigure it into a rabbit! Any questions, give me or Barlow a shout. This activity will be open till roughly this time on June 11th.

Indigo was finding this whole lesson pretty interesting, to be honest. The idea that some muggle magicians were actual wizards had kind of shifted his entire perspective. What was the likelihood of that? Were a lot of supposed muggle magicians actually wizards? Or was that only a few outliers, and most of them were actually muggles? He assumed there were still a lot of actual muggle magicians doing magic tricks that seemed like actual magic but weren't. He was wondering now if he had ever seen an actual wizard and assumed they were just a muggle magician.

As for his magician name, Indigo was coming up blank. He wasn't really the most creative person, so he was having trouble with this. Alliteration seemed to be a good way to go, so what adjective started with I that he could put in front of his name? Oh, what about the Incredible Indigo? Yeah, that seemed good enough.

On to the actual magic. This would probably be much easier if they could just start out with a top hat and turn it into a rabbit. Indigo could probably do that. Conjuring a top hat would be the hard part. He usually had some trouble with conjuring. It was pretty advanced. But if everyone in the class was expected to do the spell then it couldn't be too difficult, right? There were first years here, after all. Before trying the spells, Indigo copied them both down into his notes. Then it was time to actually try the spell. He took out his wand and tried to act very confident. The magic would know if he wasn't.

"Pileus Turritus." He said the incantation with all the confidence he could muster, all the while concentrating on a top hat. But one did not appear in front of him, which was unfortunate. He tried it again, and again, to no avail. He was trying not to get frustrated, which was all too easy to do when the magic didn't work on the first or third time, but he knew that wouldn't help at all. So he took a deep breath to focus himself and tried again. "Pileus Turritus" And there it was, a top hat on the desk in front of him. Indigo smiled at his success and turned to the next spell. "Lapifors." The top hat was gone, and in its place was a rabbit. It hopped once, and then disappeared. So that hadn't been great, but he had done it. But yes, he would try again.

Thank Merlin Analiese didn't get a detention for dropping the egg. When Professor Barlow wrote the two spells they were expected to cast, she squinted at the blackboard trying to work out what he had wrote in his scruffy handwriting. Was that double n or double r? She pulled out her ebony wand and attempted to cast the spells. "Pileus Turritus!"" She jumped a bit when a top hat appeared on her desk. She grinned at her success and cast the next spell. "Lapifors!" The top hat remained the same. She frowned and tried again. "Lapifors!" The top hat was still a top hat. And she tried again, louder. "Lapifors!" The hat turned into a small, white bunny. However, it disappeared in about 10 seconds. So she repeated the process.

Cassidy giggled lightly at Professor Barlow's excitement. It was clear he was passionate about everything they were going over in this lesson. She made a note of that because Transfiguration was becoming one of her favorite subjects. She kind of wanted to get him something. Maybe some sweets.

Ooooo. Now they were actually going to get to do real magic. Cassidy was enjoying the muggle magic quite a lot but she really wanted to practice the real deal. She pulled out her wand and took a deep breath before she tried the first incantation. "Pileus Turritus." She said with a definitive tone. Sure enough a top hat appeared in front of her. She grinned from ear to ear, proud to have it appear after the first try. Now onto the cute adorable bunny part of the activity.

Cassidy took another deep breath. "Lapifors." Nothing. She pouted a bit. Then again, it was a new spell so she shouldn't expect to get it on the first try. Again. "Lapifors." This time the top hat wiggled a bit. Promising but nothing. "Lapifors." Oooo. This time the top hat grew some ears. "Lapifors." She said once more with as much force as she could muster. And voila. A white rabbit! It only stayed that way for a few seconds but she did it.

Cassidy kept repeating the process, each time getting the top hat to stay a rabbit a little longer each time until it stayed that way about 20 seconds or so. She couldn't get it to stay much longer than that, but she was still proud of what she was able to accomplish being a first year and all.

It was news to Jó that animals conjured weren't fully real, for want of a better word. He'd thought his whole life that they just lived and breathed and existed like every other animal, and it was kind of disappointing that he wouldn't be able to turn cushions into dogs when he was older.

Except he'd probably forget that that was a thing in a few weeks time. But for now, he was pulling his wand out and he was ready to create a hat. AND a rabbit.

The hat had to come first, though, so Józef cleared his throat. "Pileus Turritus," he said, stumbling slightly over the latter word. It was frustrating that, like most spells, it didn't work straight away. HONESTLY. Magic (or rather, his lack of skill with it) was annoying sometimes, and it caused a few more frustrated attempts.

Until, after a decent amount of trying, Józef finally managed to conjure a top hat.

There was only one problem. Said top hat was clearly designed for a DOLL or a BABY and Józef was completely annoyed. It wasn't much bigger than his fist and he was SURE it looked ridiculous on.

Because of course he'd put it on.

Oh, so we needed stage names? What had he gotten himself into signing up for transfiguration this term. Biting the proverbial bullet he wrote on a piece of paper THE GREAT PATRICK he needed to at least try and seem like he was enjoying the lesson and he was not going to be that student who checked out.

Watching as the lesson was spelled out for them. Now this he could get behind. He was all about conjuring up a hat and actually changing it into a rabbit. Quickly he wrote down what the spells were onto his paper:
Pileus Turritus --- (conjures a top hat)
Lapifors --- (turns object into rabbit)

Nodding his head at the lesson he was ready to actually achieve the task he had been working toward earlier. He was going to get a hat and a rabbit at some point today. Readying his wand he began to imagine the top hat in his head, he had gotten better at silent spells and really hoped that he could do this one without shouting the spell. With a movement of his wand and a "Pileus Turritus" in his head and his lips moving he waited for the hat to appear. He was fairly certain he was going to end up like Kowalski and have a baby hat.

Waiting.... and waiting.... finally he had the hat, a full size hat. He smiled feeling like he had done something right for the first time in this what felt like ridiculous class.

The Enigmatic Eloise worked. that's all she could come up with See what she wanted to do was go over to one Nina Castillo (not that Eloise was obsessed with her or anything. She was just looking for ways to break her out of well being typical no fun Nina. Oh, she got sidetracked. She wanted to have her pick a card then tell her it wasn't her card being correct and then giving Nina the patented Nina face. Oh, how she would laugh.

Was too late for that and even too late for her to set her deck of cards on fire.

Now that would be a magic trick!

Tho...rabbits works too. Now all she wanted to do was bring a rabbit back to the dorm. She could try and get Afrika to take care of it. She was nice.

"Hey Hey Professor Barlow. Can we name the rabbit?"

Step One before leaving with one.

Step Two was doing the exercise like nothing was going to happen

Pileus Turritus sounds like the name of an old fashion nerd and Lapifors sounds like some medication her aunt could use. She brought out her wand just to practice the pronunciation

"Lapifors"

Nina pulled on the metallic hoops, growing more and more agitated as they clearly did not want to disconnect from one another. How was she meant to do the trick if she didn’t know how it worked? This was such a wasted lesson. Her frustration only grew further when Professor Barlow began to address the class once again, surely to ask them to do something nonsensical yet again. Typically Nina enjoyed her lessons, but today she wanted nothing more than to leave. Her headache was also growing slightly more severe and her only real solace was the fact that they were not reading off of a board.

…… Stage name?

No. Nina was not doing this, sorry. It was ridiculous and an absolute waste of her time. Not only were muggle magicians rehearsed con artists, but they were also all WIZARDS here. Magic was not a performance. Magic was a means to make life easier, to acquire more knowledge, and to get ahead. So no, no stage names were needed. Nina chose a hard pass on this one. And she showed her displeasure by keeping the look of mild distaste on her features. She was also hardcore judging her classmates who seemed to be eating all of this up. Clearly no one else was taking transfiguration seriously in this classroom. It was then that she started to consider dropping the class and teaching herself the subject with a textbook. Truthfully she would be able to move at a far faster pace than Professor Barlow was able to offer.

Nina only began to find herself interested when he brought up the topic of the Statute of Secrecy. A topic which he quickly shut down as ‘all that serious stuff’.

……………………

WHAT?????? This was a LESSON. It was meant to be SERIOUS!!!!

Nina was VERY upset. And squinting to read the board because without her contacts, she was in a bit of a doozy. And unfortunately, in her quick judgments and thorough musings, she had missed the incantations they were using today. Oh geez.

Uh....stage name? No thank you, Archer was a perfect name all on its own. Stage name unneeded. Nor was she planning on swindling muggles out of their mostly hard earned money. Not that one would make much doing that anyway, not unless they really made a name for themselves, like that Copperfield dude or those Penn and Teller guys.

The ol' rabbit-in-the-hat. Honestly, she should've known that's where this class was going. Unfortunately, she had hoped for something more interesting, especially since she'd learned these spells back in fourth year. Though, she guessed she could try them nonverbally. You know, since she'd never felt the need to do them that way before. Seriously, when was she ever going to need to know how to conjure a rabbit? Anyway, here it went. Performing the correct wand movements and thinking Pileus Turritus, she had a top hat on her desk in seconds. Now for the rabbit.......

Keep the metal rings?!

Rylee smiled brightly at Barlow. "That would be amazing! Once I figure out the secret to separating them I'll make sure to show you." And she would too. Only first she would have to actually figure out how to do it when she had the time.

The lesson was moving on and she set the metal rings down on the edge of her desk. A magician's name? That would take some thought. Hearing Dorian's reply she couldn't help but giggle and give him a wide grin. Using their nicknames as part of a stage name was a brilliant idea! It also gave her an idea for her own name. Rosie the Radical. Or something like that. Maybe.

They were going to be putting a spin on the rabbit in the hat trick. This shouldn't be a problem. Conjuring items was something she had been working on for quite awhile. Pileus Turritus she began by repeating it in her head several times. Once she was ready she pulled her wand out from the holster on wrist. "Pileus Turritu," she cast confidently while preforming the movement with her wand, the picture of a top hat clear in her head. When it didn't appear after the first try it most certainly did appear for the second. There on her desk was a slightly smaller than average top hat but a top hat nonetheless.

Jade found the entire lesson highly amusing. Muggle magic tricks and Transfiguration - one of the hardest branches of REAL magic - who would have thought this would work?

After taking down relevant notes (not too much of those), it was time to practise the spells. The second year took out her wand and pointed it at the air in front of her. That was the difficult bit about conjuration - with transformation you could at least concentrate on one specific point, but with conjuration spells you just had to SOMEHOW produce things out of thin air. Jade obviously thought she was a very competent witch for her age, but she still struggled with conjuration. She was going to try her best, though. "Pileus Turritus," she said calmly. Nothing happened. "Pileus Turritus, Pileus Turritus, Pileus Turritus," she repeated, with more confidence in her voice and making sure to pronounce the incantation correctly. Still, she did not succeed in conjuring a top hat.

Come on, focus! Visualising a simple black Muggle magician's top hat in her mind, Jade inhaled deeply, performed the wand movement and said, "Pileus Turritus!" And... tada! A battered old top hat appeared on the desk in front of her. It wasn't exactly what she was imagining, but she did it! Woohoo!

Stage names? As if muggle magic couldn't get any more embarrassing! Why did they need to add a silly title to assert themselves as a magician? The whole thing seemed incredibly odd to Avalon. She had no idea that some wizards pretended to be muggle magicians, though. What a strange endeavor. Why any witch or wizard would willingly want to pretend to be one of them, Avalon didn't know.

She listened and jotted down a few notes as Professor Barlow relayed the instructions for the activity, paying careful attention to the spelling of the incantations. With transfiguration being one of the trickiest forms of magic, she knew that the pronunciation of the spell was key.

Thank goodness they could use their wands again for this part of the activity. Avalon felt ten times better and more confident with her wand in her hand. Lessons where wand use was prohibited weren't exactly her favorites. She cleared her throat and recited the first spell. "Pileus Turritus!" Nothing. Remembering that Transfiguration dependent just as much on the mental image of the desired object as it did on the spell pronunciation, she tried to imagine a top hat before speaking the incantation again. "Pileus Turritus," she said firmly. To her surprise, the hat appeared. Now for the rabbit.

Avalon looked down at her parchment to study the spell before her first attempt. She swished her wand gently toward the top hat as she firmly recited the spell. "Lapifors!" The top hat dissolved into a rabbit. But Avalon barely had time to appreciate her success before it morphed back into the hat. She glanced over to her left, where Analiese seemed to be having the same trouble - although Analiese's rabbit had lasted for a bit longer.

Perhaps she just needed a bit more focus. She closed her eyes, picturing the rabbit in her mind before trying again.

Wow. Stage names? Vivienne thought hard about this one.

But transfiguration was one hard subject. She listened to all the instruction that barlow said.

The rabbit. Was that a magic act?

Those two needed more concentration. "Hey Avalon, maybe some more concentration."

She got it perfect. Now it was Vivienne's turn.

Okay, so the mini top hat was kind of annoying in the sense that he hadn't meant to make it mini, but wearing it for a few minutes - tipping it to the ladies and offering Lucas a wink - had Józef very much amused. It had also occurred to him that a mini hat might mean a mini rabbit.

And how funny would that be? And also cute, but cool people didn't use such terms.

So, with a deep breath - and a couple of spins of the hat - Jó put the top hat he'd conjoured (a feat that he had to admit was impressive in and of itself) down onto the desk. Then he flipped it over.

And then he flipped it over again.

Which way up did people have it? Like you'd wear it? Or like one of these muggle-magic-whatchamacallits? After a quick glance around the classroom, he decided on the latter. Now, for his rabbit - after lots of dramatic throat clearing. "Lapifors."

Professor Barlow was great. Really. Lucas was practically beaming - and maybe chuckling - when the man went on to perform the spells with about as much flourish as a performer. And the bow? The bow earned him a small applause from the second year.

Was he a performer before coming to Hogwarts? He wanted to know.

Needless to say, Lucas was very happy to hear that they were going to be using wands again. It didn't even matter what they were doing but it had to be better - and easier - than trying to make magic happen without using his wand, right?

Wrong.

Something he found out soon enough.

Whipping out his wand, he muttered the incantation under his breath as best as he could. "Pileus Turritus. Pileeeeeeeeus Turritus." Was that how you pronounce it? Pileus Turritus...... Pileus Turritus...... Pileus Turritus..... How long was he mumbling for? He didn't know. It might've been a few seconds or it might've been a few minutes. He wasn't really paying attention to the time at all.

Soon enough, he started to use his wand because, uh, that's what this activity was about. "Pi.....leus? Pileus Turritus."

Nothing.

"Pileus Turritus?"

Again, nothing.

"Pileus Turritus!"

......

Was that dust? No, it was nothing.

Glancing around the room at other peoples progress he wanted to know if anyone had successfully transfigured the hat into a rabbit. He looked away a bit more concerened with transfiguring for himself. Setting the hat on his desk he grabbed his wand again.

Deep breath Dooley.

Envisioning a black rabbit.... because why not go for flair. He moved his wand the way they were told to do so and said aloud this time just to make sure it actually turned out the way it was supposed to. “Lapifors.” He closed his eyes, afraid to open them. Cracking one open his chest expanded and let his held breath out. Perched on his desk he had a black.... well mostly black rabbit sitting on his desk. He wondered what transfigured creatures thought or if they had any thoughts at all? These were probably questions he should ask but, not today.

And now to turn this hat into a rabbit. That was actually going to be reeeally interesting. Jade directed her wand at her old shabby hat and said, “Lapifors!” Nothing happened (unsurprisingly?). Again, either she was doing something wrong or she wasn’t focusing enough.

“Lapifors,” she repeated clearly, concentrating on the image of a live rabbit. She even slightly imitated Professor Barlow’s elaborate wand movement. And… oh! It worked! The top hat was transformed into a small white rabbit. Jade watched excitedly as the rabbit hopped twice on the spot… and immediately transformed back into the mangy hat. Did everyone see that? She turned her hat into a rabbit! She was definitely going to try this again, and hopefully make the rabbit stay a bit longer.