Quinn... may have still been decorating while the professor was talking. But he still knew what was going on! He was good at listening! All in all, after he was done he had a cat (very similar to his own costume), a T-rex (perhaps inspired by some rowdy twins) and a doggie (because why not?) by folding the paper and sticking it to the skulls.

Quinn practiced the wand movement—one of the most complex he'd learned so far, actually, which was weird given that it was such a novelty spell. He was a bit confused about the transition from big stroke to small, but he got it down after a moment. He pointed his want at the kitty skull, envisioning a white, squat pumpkin. He did the wand movement, reciting "Melofors!" A white pumpkin popped up around the skull, similar to the one he envisioned, but it was all mushy like it was overripe and sunk into itself. Quinn grimaced.

As the students practiced, Norman made his rounds about the room, taking care not to step in any glitter that may have fallen to the floor. So far, he didn’t see any problems… a few odd-looking pumpkins here and there, but that was to be expected. One such pumpkin that caught his eye was the orange and white one on Mr. Nam’s desk. “Good start, Mr. Nam,” he encouraged. “The important thing is that you conjured a pumpkin.” That was an accomplishment in and of itself, regardless of what the pumpkin looked like.

He saw that the younger Nam had also produced a pumpkin. He was impressed! Conjuration was a difficult branch of magic, especially for a first year. “Great job, Miss Nam!” he said. “Keep at it.” Elsewhere, Blackthorne and O’Hanlan-Draven appeared to be having some success with the spell, and they too received words of praise. “Nicely done, Miss Blackthorne! You too, Miss O’Hanlan-Draven!”

Norman overheard the two first years (Gaeltheos and Burke) practicing the pronunciation...well, kind of. That wasn’t the only thing he heard in the conversation. “Nice pronunciation, ladies,” he said. “Keep practicing.” In other words, spell now; chat later.

He paused behind Blaze’s desk, watching her take her time with the wand movement before attempting the spell. “Great wand movements, Miss Blaze,” he said, keeping his eyes on the skull to see if her spell would succeed, and with such precise wand movements, he didn't see any reason why it wouldn't.

Out of the corner of his eye, Norman spotted Kingsley’s mushy pumpkin. “Good first attempt, Mr. Kingsley,” he encouraged. “You can do it!”

Making his way back to the front, Norman gave some words of encouragement to the class as a whole, “You’re doing great so far! Keep working, and remember concentration and visualization are key.”

OOC: I love these pumpkin designs! There’s still 12-24 HOURS until we move on.

That was fair enough. Not many kids her age delved in make up, her included, apart from a pallet of expired eyeshadows she got from her sister. "I have some eyeshadow colours in my trunk, if you wanted to try those with me." Remy replied with a helpful smile, acting like she was a highbrow makeup artist.

"Melofors. Melofors. Melofors." Was Ollie not having a go at practising pronunciation? Maybe she had done this spell before, which only inspired Remy to work extra hard to get it right, to avoid embarrassing herself. "I think I've got it. She hoped. It wasn't the most difficult incantation she had heard. Remy used her finger to practise the wand movement, just one time, before picking up her wand to give it a go.

She pictured the pumpkin that she wanted to create, did the correct wand movement, and said, "Melofors!" Remy wanted to close her eyes as she was scared of the result. But there it was - an orange flash appeared and her skull started to transform. Her eyes were GLISTENING with pride and excitement, but the smile started to fall as she saw the results.

The pumpkin was quite small, green with BRIGHT RED pimples all over. "Uhhh...." She turned to Ollie, "That was NOT what I was picturing in my head." But at least she transfigured something, she supposed.

Anyway - Ollie's turn.

Noah was hard at work decorating his skulls, trying his best to resemble each one of it to look like his three siblings, almost missing out on the professor's next instruction. He'd been bothered by the fact that the skulls in front of him were in 3's... triggering his mild OCD to odd numbers. It wasn't a full on attack, since 3s looked balanced, unlike...7s.

Anyway.

The Gryffindor looked up just in time to see Professor Carton demonstrate the conjuration spell. He'd sat back as he kept an eye on the demonstration, stowing away the information amongst the offensive spells he could use during a duel. It wasn't necessarily practical, but it could prove highly effective, and hilarious. His opponent would have to bash their head to get out of it. Cool, cool.

"Melofors. MEL-oh-fors." the incantation was pretty easy, and the wand movement was straightforward too. "Melofors..." he uttered under his breath as he loosened his wand wrist before doing the wand movement. If there was anything he'd learned from his mum and dad, a good wrist technique offered better results. His dad was most adept at Transfiguration, just like the rest of his family.

After a good run with the wand movement, it was time to put everything together. The first design that came to mind was a Stormtrooper's helmet, and Noah had no trouble envisioning it. He was obsessed with anything Starwars. Feeling confident, he got his skull!Scarlett off the table and imagined it encased in the pumpkin he'd designed in his head. "Melofors!" an orange blast erupted from the tip of his wand, and with the correct wand movement, his first skull was now encased in a yellow classic Stormtrooper pumpkin helmet. "NICE!" Noah's eyes sparkled, totally pleased with himself. Maybe there was hope for him to get at least an E in his OWLs later in the term. The next one, he conjured another Stormtrooper helmet with an antenna in green for skull!Nugget, and finally, dun dun dun duuuuun, a Darth Vader pumpkin in black for skull!Catherine. Of course, she had to be the baddie. Yep.

The pumpkin that Claudine envisioned for her glittery skull was supposed to be bright orange, slightly wider and taller than the skull and with no stem. But like it was mentioned before, she sucked at conjuration so absolutely nothing happened. On the plus side, Carton had noticed her wand work. “Thanks, Professor,’’ Claudine responded with half a smile. “I think you’d notice by now but Conjuration spells are the most difficult for me.” Still… this girl wasn’t about to give up.

Keeping the same image of the pumpkin in mind, Claudine tried once more. “Melofors!” Carefully, the wand movement was traced out again and something was happening. Look at the pumpkin! Claudine struggled not to let her concentration slip in her happiness. And it didn’t for there was a perfect pumpkin encasing the glittery skull.

Success!

It seemed to take Violet a couple of tries on each one, but she'd finally managed to get three more-or-less pumpkiny things to materialize on the table. None of them looked exactly how she had visualized them, but they did look like pumpkins. Sort of.

Lisa appreciated the Professor’s words of encouragement GREATLY. It made her sit up a little straighter and offer him a perky smile. She would get this. She stared at the two skulls left in front of her and nodded, readying herself. “MEL OH FOURS! MEL OH FOUR MEL OH FOR MELOFORS....” she repeated narrowing her eyes to focus on the next skull.

....Ducky #2 it was your turn...

Same wand movement as before with more determination and eye narrowing and lip biting (cause it obviously helped with the determined energy), Lisa moved her wand in the half crescent moon plus the cursive, wiggly ‘w’ bubble letter shape (AND OH DIDNT THAT BUBBLE W.... wouldn’t that look nice in light pink) and said, “Melofors!”

Orange light and...... All she saw was pink and white polka dots.

The melon was the right shape but was COMPLETELY THE WRONG COLOUR!!! It wasn’t white, yellow, or orange. Instead it was a light shade of pink! And the stem had poka dolts. Huh .... she had gotten distracted. She frowned, slumping her shoulders, and then placed her wand down. Maybe... she needed a break? Standing up, she decided to stretch a little to get her focus back.

As she took her left arm over her head and leeeeeaned in the same direction as the first pumpkin, she spotted a BEAUTIFUL MASTERPIECE. Was that Darth Vader?!? HER EYES WIDENED AS WIDE AS SAUCERS AND SHE RUSHED TO Noah Mordaunt’s desk to learn all. “Is that Darth Vader?” she asked excitedly. Was Noah Mordaunt a fan of Star Wars too? Were they going to be Star Wars besties now?!? This was a lot for her to take in.

“You’re good at this.... can you help me with mine please?” She flashed him the cruppy eyes. Next she’d offer him to use her lightsaber AND she RARELY never shared it.

Evan nodded his head hearing Professor Carton's encouragement, but he was still staring frustratingly at the failed pumpkin. He knew his Professor was right, it was impressive there was a pumpkin at all, but this class seemed to be about creativity in Transfiguration and his creative portion had FAILED.

He had two more pumpkins though. Two more chances to get at least one right. So he concentrated on his second pumpkin, this time envisioning the pumpkin clearly before he even reached for his wand again. He wanted it WHITE. He didn't mind if it was perfectly round - actually no, he preferred it slightly misshapen so it looked more like a realistic pumpkin. A couple of bumps was okay, and he wanted a stem only about an inch long.

He reached again for his wand, picturing his pumpkin, and moving his wand in the correct pattern before adding, "Melofors!"

... well... the pumpkin was white this time. But it hardly looked like a pumpkin it had so many bumps on it. And the stem was all long and wonky and still not at all what he'd been envisioning. He sighed in frustration under his breath before turning to the last pumpkin.

And deciding to sit and take even LONGER to think about his pumpkin.

The Starwars pumpkins were not as polished as those that one would see in the muggle world, but Noah was nonetheless happy with the result. It did resemble one of his favourite characters in the franchise, even if they couldn't shoot straight for the life of them. He actually found that very hilarious, but it has been an inspiration to do target practice at the Duelling Arena.

With his task done, Noah sat back on his chair admiring his handy work when a kid in a Stitch costume came barrelling towards him. The Gryffindor sailor literally hadn't got a second to prepare for the onslaught of questions. Noah's jaw had gone slack, and an amused smile lit up his face. Ah. A fellow fan, yes? "The one and only Lord Vader, Stitch Trooper." he said, showing the young Ravenclaw his Vader pumpkin. "Do you--" he was about to start a conversation with the kid, but she'd gone to beg him to teach her too.

Ravenclaws, right?

"Uh... sure. I can help you with yours," he said, giving Professor Carton a quick glance, and then back to the Ravenclaw. Noah was certain the professor wouldn't mind...right? Right. "Why don't you get your skulls then, so we can get started."

Should be easy... or not.

She wasn’t done decorating her skull!!

Much like any dance performance, this took time. There needed to be a LOT of glitter, a lot of pink, a lot of dazzle and excitement. Next time, she’d have to ask the Professor to allow her extra time before classes started to get in any necessary decoration prep because even with the Professor trying to move them on to the spell, Emmerson was still there gluing and adding ribbons like it was nobody’s business.

The Third Year may have continued on like that but then Professor Carton was walking around checking their progress and if she didn’t have a pumpkin on her skull by the time he got to her he would think she was having d i f f i c u l t i e s~

Not the image she was trying to give off, thanks.

Emmerson concentrated on the skull, trying to envision the perfect pumpkin to essentially...hide her work. All that hard work she’d done a moment ago. Maybe...maybe she didn’t wanna get this spell right after all...

But there was the Professor!!!

Breathe, Emm.

“Melofors! What came next? A pumpkin, stout at the sides with a short stem and no colour at all, just a transparent exterior that allowed anyone a view of what sat inside. A mistake you say? Hardly.

Wow! Ollie wasn't super surprised to hear that Remy had a makeup palate. But the invitation to use it sure seemed like fun. "Yeah! I'll let you do mine and show me how its done!" Based on how her pumpkins looked, she knew she'd need a few lessons.

She listened as Remy practiced her pronunciation. She was getting there but it wasn't exactly right. Then watched as she tried the spell out on her pumpkin. Ummm... It was exactly what Ollie thought Remy was going to do, but hey it was a pumpkin nonetheless. She was glad when Remy told her this was not what she had in mind.

Okay Ollie's turn. She pictured a pumpkin in her head, a nice, plump, orange pumpkin. Mmmm, she could go for some pumpkin bread. Readied her wand, but before she said the magic words she had a thought. Ollie knew she could cast this spell well. She had done it before. But, should she mess it up to make Remy feel better about her mistake? It would be a nice thing to do... but she really wanted to impress the professor. After all, she didn't practice this spell for nothing! Okay she had a plan! "Melofors!" and flicked her wand in the perfect movements.

Now right in front of her was perfect pumpkin. Nice and perfectly round, with a nice short stem. Ollie had done the spell just as she wished, conjuring the perfect pumpkin... with a very nice white color. Perfect! There were white pumpkins too, so Ollie would still impress the professor, buuuttt she could tell Remy that she wanted an orange pumpkin instead of white!

"Oh man, I wanted a pretty orange pumpkin." She crossed her arms in front her chest, hoping to appear upset.

Norman liked what he saw as he made a second trip around the room. His head turned toward the two first years (Gaeltheos and Burke) as he overheard their comments about their pumpkins. “That’s okay,” he said with a small encouraging smile. “Getting the exact pumpkin you visualized takes time and lots of practice. The main thing is that you made any pumpkin appear.” Impressive feat itself, especially for one so young!

Mr. Nam’s progress was proof of that point. While Norman could tell from the frustrated sigh that the result was still not what the boy envisioned, it was a significant improvement. Better proportions, nice consistent color… He was going to point that out, but the boy appeared lost in thought. Rather than break his concentration by speaking, he offered a smile and a thumbs-up instead.

Miss Nam was also making good progress. While Norman couldn’t be sure if the white and pink polka-dot color scheme was a deliberate choice, it was certainly an eye-catching one! Nice shape too! “Very nice, Miss Nam,” he said. His blue-green eyes followed the girl to Mordaunt’s desk, and he saw the Star Wars pumpkins. There was no way those could’ve been an accident! “Creative designs, Mr. Mordaunt!” he praised, giving the boy a knowing look. Yes, he knew what Star Wars was! “Keep at it, you two!”

Blaze’s words got a shake of the head. “That’s because you’re still learning,” he replied. “The more you practice, the less difficult it gets.” She should’ve seen his first attempt at Melofors! It was all bumpy and shriveled and looked more like a shrunken head than a pumpkin! He watched with a smile as a perfect pumpkin appeared. “See? Great job, Miss Blaze!”’

For the record, Norman wouldn’t have thought Cambridge was having trouble if he saw her still decorating her skull. He would’ve thought she was simply taking her time with the details. As it was, there was a transparent pumpkin sitting on the girl’s desk as he walked by. He was almost certain that was a deliberate choice. One would have to try to get a transparent pumpkin! “Excellent work, Miss Cambridge!”

Someone else who had nice pumpkins? Blackthorne. Her work earned an approving nod and words of praise. “Very good, Miss Blackthorne!”


Glancing at his watch, Norman saw it was time to move on and made his way to the front once more. “Last step, everyone!” he addressed the class, pausing to allow time for them to find a stoping place and pay attention. “After you’ve finished conjuring your pumpkins, you’ll need to carve them. I have plastic knifes up front for you to use -” He reached behind his desk for a small box containing the knifes. “-or you can use the Severing Charm.”

He demonstrated each method by carving silly faces on the two pumpkins he conjured earlier, using the knife on the tall red-orange one and magic on the smaller bumpy one. “You can carve a simple hole to show the decorations on the skull inside, silly faces, any design you want. The point is to make a gap for light to shine through.” It wasn’t a true jack-o-lantern without light! Speaking of which…

“These skulls are charmed to light up and cackle. To make them start, tap the top of of your pumpkin once,” he continued, picking up the nearest pumpkin. He tapped it once, and light shone through the carved face as it cackled. “To stop it, tap twice,” he said, this time a little louder to be heard over the cackling, and tapped the top of the pumpkin twice. “Keep up the good work, and be very careful with the knives!”

OOC: For the final part of the main activity, your student needs to carve their pumpkins using either magic or one of the plastic knives provided. Feel free to use this time to catch up on the previous steps as well! To recap:

Step 1: decorate the three plastic skulls on your student's desk
Step 2: Conjure pumpkins around the skulls using Melofors.
Step 3: Carve a design into the pumpkin.
Step 4: Make the jack-o-lantern light up by tapping the top of the pumpkin with your wand. Tap twice to make it stop.

We’ll move on to the mini activity in ABOUT 22 HOURS!

Hehehe.... Remy grinned at the possibilities of practising makeup on Ollie. "Sure. We should, like, coordinate our eyeshadows. Different colours for days of the week." Although, it was possible that students weren't allowed to wear makeup at Hogwarts. She made a mental note to ask Anya to send some more makeup with her next owl.

She spent a few moments completely wrapped up in her own pumpkin creation, tapping her chin and wondering why it went wrong. Had she said it wrong? Did she do the wrong wand movement? Had she not thought of the exact image she wanted to create? Remy jumped when Professor Carton spoke to them, but felt a lot of comfort with it. In fact, it sounded like it was good that she even caused a change at all. She beamed at this.

Her attention returned to Ollie and her skull!pumpkin, but she decided to keep quiet to try and not distract her. Was it bad that a part of her was hoping that Ollie wouldn't do it completely correct, like she hadn't?

Ooooh. Her pumpkin looked great! She gave her a soft smile, "Ahhh, that's okay, at least we both changed the pumpkin a little how we wanted." Remy encouraged. And just as you'd expect Remy to respond, she decided to offer Ollie some advice. "I think I've figured out that we need to really visualise what we want, so how about we try and close our eyes for a few seconds before casting to really concentrate." It was a pretty good idea, since there were so many different pumpkins and skulls all over the room to cloud her thoughts.

Right on cue, Remy steadied her wand and cleared her throat. She closed her eyes and thought about every detail of the pumkin she wanted to create. With that, she opened her eyes and said, "Melofors," quite confidently.

The orange flashed in front of her and the skull turned into a large pumpkin, with rainbow colours all over. Remy placed her wand down and scanned every detail closely, "See. It worked!!!!" She was SO happy. Was it time to carve the pumpkins now?

He did manage to catch Professor Carton's thumbs up, and Evan offered a small smile in response before turning back to the last pumpkin. He WOULD get this one right. It would match what he wanted. After all, third time was the charm, right? He concentrated, he pictured white, leaning slightly to the left, stem 1 inch tall, SOME bumps. And he sat there and just THOUGHT on that for a little bit.

Once he was done with that, he tried the spell again. "Melofors!"

... well, it was at least the closest. Stem was two inches, and the pumpkin was leaning to the left but.. the color and the bumps were right and they were moving on anyways so he'd have to just be pleased he'd managed to be successful at all. After all, Professor Carton had told them all it was impressive the younger years had managed to successfully conjure at all. And he'd done it three times, even if they weren't perfect.

So he'd stop perfectioning and let it go. For now. Maybe he could keep a skull later and try some more. He'd have to ask.

Paying attention for the next instructions, he was tempted to go the good old fashioned muggle way and use the plastic knives but... well he could distinctly remember the pain that usually caused in his wrists so he opted for the severing charm instead. Faster, less painful, most efficient. He considered trying to do elaborate designs on the pumpkins but... he decided he was happy with how the skulls looked so simple was best. Two of them just got a wide oval in the front so that the skull inside was clearly visible, and the third got polka dots all the way around so the colors could be seen peeping through quite clearly.

He pulled out his wand, unsure if it was needed for the tap but decided even if it wasn't it should still work, and tapped each pumpkin once so that they lit up. And all finished up and put together... he had to say, he rather liked how they had all turned out.

Claudine did know that practice helped a great deal. It was just difficult to remember when she was busy failing at the spell work. But Carton’s words of encouragement were welcomed. They had helped her a great deal. Perhaps that was why after a few more tries, she was successfully able to have two additional reasonable looking pumpkins. One was slightly lopsided but whatever.

Now to get started on the final steps.

The Snakette opted to use magic for her carvings, a decision she regretted on her very first pumpkin as said pumpkin looked rather sad that scary. Its mouth sort of drooped at the ends. Needless to say Claudine was disappointed. Call it being stubborn or benign resilient, she decided to carry on using magic. The second pumpkin actually fared better but it was the third that was the most scary. Practice did make perfect.

The three were lined up neatly on her desk before she used her wand to tap once on each. Look at the pumpkins light up!

Should she salute at that comment? And ZOMG! HE CALLED HER A STITCH TROOPER. swooooon. Ew. No not like THAT swooning... more like fangirling! She offered him a BIIIIG GRIN. Eyes all sparkly and wide, knees bouncy, and arms flailing. “Its brilliant.”

HE AGREED TO HELP HER TOO. Which was oh so nice! So Lisa turn around, spinning on her left heel before bounding back to her desk to procure her last skull and pumpkin. Aaaand yes, she hadn’t even bothered to loop back to ask him what his question was. She’d ask in a jiffy. She even grabbed her chair and began draaaagging it over and then she proceeded to plop down with skull in hand and offered him a BIG grin.

“Okay so my first two specimens are over there!” she said as she pointed to the leaning pumpkin duck with a top hat and the duck with polkadots. “How do I focus just right?!”

She was all ears.

And then the Professor was moving on with instructions so she ran to get her other pumpkin so she could quickly carve one as she watched Master Noah work his magic. She returned and plopped once more in the chair and placed the pumpkin and carving kit to the side of it before flashing Noah a BRIGHT EARNEST GRIN. “Soo what about Star Wars before, Master Noah?”

The excitement was not missed, as it was rather infectious. Sure, Noah's got younger siblings, in fact Scarlett was in Lisa's year but the latter's disposition was relatively calmer than his sister's. At least with the little Ravenclaw, he could actually talk to her without having to shout. "Thank you, Padawan." Noah gave her a grin, and just then, caught the Professor's compliment. "Will do, sir." it was actually nice to get a compliment once in a while, especially in Transfiguration wherein he felt he lacked.

The next thing he knew, the little Ravenclaw had taken space with him, and so Noah moved his skulls to the side to give Lisa the space she needed. He was about to ask her progress, but soon enough, he was supplied with an answer without even asking. Merlin, he forgot that most of them firsties are on a strict sugar diet. The Gryffindor leaned to his side to take a look at her desk, and nodded his head in understanding. For a first year, he was impressed with her work. "The thing is, you can conjure something, so... you're pretty much halfway there." And she's right about her question. She seemed to lack on focus.

"Okay, here's what we're going to do," Noah started as he got a piece of parchment from his bag, and drew a big, red, solid dot in the middle, "Master Qui Gon Jinn once said: 'Keep your concentration here and now where it belongs', so taking the cue from the great master, I'd like you to stare at this red dot while picturing the form of the pumpkin that you like. This'll help you focus on the shape, the colour, and the details of your pumpkin. Don't think of anything else, and keep the picture as clear as possible in your head." it was always the first step to a good conjuration, yes? "Once you get the solid picture, you can switch to your skull, and imagine that mental picture of your pumpkin design as if it's already encasing it." he said pointing at her remaining skull. "Then perform the spell. The key is to relax, and keep your wrist loose. You don't want to be all tense because tension keeps your focus away." he said as he pushed the parchment with the red dot toward her, "Also, keep in mind what Master Yoda said, 'concentrate... feel the Force flow,'" Noah hoped the explanation helped, as he leaned back and gave Lisa all the space she needed.

"I'll let you work on your last skull, let me know if you need more help, Padawan." Noah gave her a reassuring grin as he got up to collect his plastic knife, and began to carve out his Starwars pumpkins.

No way was she choosing a carving knife when the spell would be another opportunity to prove her competence to the Professor. It was all apart of a very elaborate plan, one not as il-advised as most of the other ones she tended to have and so far it was working. Transfiguration...may well have been the only class she was consistently praised in and it did many lovely things for her ego.

For now ignoring the other two skulls, Emmerson got to carving and caring for this one work of art she’d been putting so much effort and energy into. It already being transparent, she didn’t have to worry that her carving would make or break however much of the skull could be seen and that gave her the liberty to go a little crazy.

While she was no diffindo expert, she knew enough not to hurt herself or anyone in the vicinity and that counted for a lot.

Carefully and with much concentration, Emm began working in a pattern of bats. They were...admittedly a little crudely cut. She wasn’t exactly a surgical master like her aunt Jessa, but you could still FOR SURE tell they were bats. Emm turned the pumpkin each time she finished a cut, making her way all the way around. In all honesty, given the transparent nature of the pumpkin, it was a little harder to see the cuts, but that worked to her benefit until she could get better at it.

Only after she was satisfied til she even begin to consider the other two skulls.

Hmm.

Hmmmm... She wasn't so sure about different colors for different days, but she didn't want to ruin Remy's spirit. So, for now, she just smiled and nodded. Though, she did think about it for a moment and maybe getting in trouble would make her father pay more attention to her. Maybe she'd have Remy do a really colorful look for her the day she leaves for Christmas break.That would show him.

Okay, that irritated Ollie. She could do the spell perfectly, she was just messing it up slightly to make Remy feel better! But it didn't seem to effect her either way so... before Remy could do her other two skulls, Ollie quickly repeated her words and whipped up two more perfectly ORANGE pumpkins. Now these were the best pumpkins she had ever seen. There, now her professor could see all the hardwork she had been putting into the class, out of class. She did all this while Remy had her eyes shut "really envisioning" her pumpkins.

Make no mistake, Ollie was happy that Remy had gotten the spell. She was proud of her friend! She just didn't like being treated like she was incapable. She was very capable, probably more capable then Remy but she didn't like to put her friends below her either. "Good job, Remy. Those are some colorful pumpkins." She wasn't sure that Professor Carton was looking for rainbow pumpkins, so thats why she did orange, but Remy didn't really seem to care about what the professor wanted. That was something Ollie truly liked about Remy.

"It is time to carve!" She normally carved pumpkins with her grandmother for Halloween, so she was happy that she had a friend to do it with this year.

Norman resumed walking around the classroom, keeping an eye out for any potential problems, So far, magic appeared to be the more popular option for carving, so he wasn’t overly concerned about anyone injuring themselves with the knives. Still, he would keep an eye out. Once again, he was impressed with his students’ creativity. Mr. Nam’s simple designs got an approving smile. “Very nice, Mr. Nam,” he said.

Cambridge’s bats also earned a smile. A little crudely cut, but Norman wasn’t expecting perfection. He was looking for effort and imagination. “A very festive design! Great job, Miss Cambridge!”

He didn’t notice any mistakes with Blaze’s work. In fact, he thought the sad face on one of the pumpkins was a creative choice, and he appreciated the range of expressions on the pumpkins. “Good work, Miss Blaze!” he said. “Very spooky!”

Elsewhere, Norman saw Gaeltheos and Burke finishing up their conjuring. For the record, it didn’t matter to him what color the pumpkins were. The point of the activity was to learn the conjuring spell and think outside the box. “Keep up the good work, girls,” he encouraged.

He paused for a moment behind Mordaunt’s desk, watching him and Miss Nam work. Only when the Gryffindor had finished with his admittedly eloquent explanation, did Norman speak. “Mr. Mordaunt, I’m awarding five points to Gryffindor for your sound advice to a younger student.” To Miss Nam, he added, “Keep that in mind, and you’ll have this spell down in no time!”



Merlin, was that the time?! When Norman looked at his watch, he saw it was past time to move on and quickly crossed the room. “You may choose one of your jack-o-lanterns to keep,” he said to the class as a whole. “The other two will be used to decorate the school. When you’re done carving, please write your name somewhere on two of your pumpkins. Then you may leave the classroom to place your jack-o-lanterns in other areas of the school, anywhere you think could use a little Halloween decoration.” Merlin, he hoped they’d use their common sense in placing the pumpkins! “If you don’t have two pumpkins, pair up with someone else. You will be coming back here when you’re done -" Hear that, kids? This wasn't a get out of jail class free card! "-so leave your things. You have the rest of class time starting NOW!”

OOC: We’ve reached the mini activity! For this, you’ll need to post your student decorating with their jack-o-lanterns in TWO (2) different threads around the school, Then post in this thread with the links to your posts. Partner/group work is allowed, but each person must post their own links. You may also use this time for catch-up if necessary. You have until 11:59 PM EDT May 28 (about 60 hours) for this activity.

Remy was...... confused as to how Ollie managed to conjure up two perfectly orange pumpkins while her eyes were closed. "How did you do that?" She had questions. How did she do it so fast? So quietly? So perfectly? She suddenly felt bad about her big, rainbow pumpkin and wondered if she was doing the activity wrong. She decided to have another go. This time, focussing on a perfect, orange pumpkin. "Melofors." She cast, with her eyes OPEN this time. She was feeling silly, okay?

Uhhh...

There was a pumpkin, that's for sure. But it wasn't as orange as she'd like. Instead, it was a pale yellow colour, and looked a little saggy and sad. Remy sighed, side eyed Ollie, and pushed it aside to focus on her rainbow pumpkin. "Yes, let's carve." The Gryffindor stood up and grabbed herself and Ollie a plastic knife each to use. "Here." She said, placing them on the table.

Her family always went all out for Halloween, so Remy knew how to carve a good pumpkin. She worked carefully and quietly, before creating a kitty cat pumpkin. She felt pretty pleased with it. Remy looked over to Ollie, who probably carved a tiger, or something.

Remy carved something quick out of her sad looking pumpkin, but her heart wasn't really in that one. She then wrote her name on both of them, in a much smaller font on the sad pumpkin. Aaaaaaaand... she was ready to plant them around the castle.

Honestly, Ollie was pretty happy that Remy was impressed with her quick pumpkin conjuring skills. It felt really nice that her hard work outside the class wasn't going unnoticed. She decided not to tell Remy that she had already perfected it so her original white pumpkin didn't reveal its original natural. She watched as Remy made her next pumpkin which didn't look bad, but looked more pumpkin colored than the last. She smiled at her friend "Good job! These look good" then returned her attention to her own as Remy got them knives.

Hmmm what did she want to carve? It didn't really matter, whatever she tried won't look good, she simply wasn't artistically inclined. She settled on a cat, like Remy. She tried to resemble it to look like Pepper butt it looked like an alley cat. Now it was time to light this baby up! She tapped the top of her cat pumpkins setting them off and leaned back to enjoy her work. Well not really enjoy but whatever. She signed her name on them and they were ready for decoration!

Hearing Professor Carton's commentary on his pumpkins, the Ravenclaw turned to smile at him, giving a small, "Thank you, sir." Even if the pumpkins hadn't been perfect, he was pretty happy with the end result.

And then they were moving on again. He was both pleased and nearly upset to find this class period going by so quickly, but supposed it was good to have some classes fly by every once in awhile. Once the next part of the lesson had been explained, Evan put away what he'd pulled out from his own items, standing and stretching real quick before placing his bag on the chair he'd been occupying and selecting two of his pumpkins to go place around. He wanted to keep the one that he'd put holes in to see the black and neon skull inside, quickly deciding that had been his favorite, but grabbed the two with the holes in the front to show the skull designs and headed out to the class to go place them as instructed, considering as he went where he should display them.

Hm.

So she should be proud that she could conjure something? That didn’t seem like enough to her so she gave Noah a pair of surprised, widened eyes in shock that it was such an accomplishment. Perhaps she was a little too tough on herself? She didn’t want to be too lax on herself if she wanted to be good then she needed to be hard on herself and practice.

Lisa removed her hands from her third skull and focused her attention on the red dot that Noah drew on a piece of parchment. She bit her lip, watching and listening to him draw it. A smile appeared on her lips and then a giggle when he mentioned Qui Gon Jinn from Star Wars. She loved Star Wars so much.... No focus... She heeded his advice, narrowing her eyes, and then watching Noah explain more. As she listened, she found herself dropping her jaw in awe at the realization around the dot and focusing on the image. Ohhhhhhhh....

It made sense NOW. She did beam when Professor Carton gave Noah points. She thought Noah could do a good job teaching one day ... he was good at explaining things.

“Feel the force flow...” she repeated and then looked up to Noah and offered him a confident nod. “Okay!” She closed her eyes and focused on picturing the pumpkin clearly in her min. White, round, about eight inches wide, seven inches tall, smooth, short tan stem. Lisa could picture it vividly in her mind. Picking up her wand, she opened her eyes and then cast, “Melofors!”

A bright flash of orange and the spell had taken effect.

Before her sat an almost picture perfect pumpkin save for the slight lean to the left. Heh. Oops buuuut she was still excited nonetheless. She turned to Noah and then patted his arm gently. “Noah. Noah. No,” she said slipping into calling the boy by her nickname that she had given her brother. This Noah was just as helpful as her brother if not more. He was Master Jedi Noah to her. “I did it!” and it was all thanks to him for HELPING HER!

And then she began quickly carving her pumpkins to catch up. Lisa decided to carve a spiral into the pumpkins just enough to look really awesome. The carving part of this lesson was much easier than the spell because she had done it before at home with her parents and siblings. Moving to the States had forced them to embrace some of the holidays over there like Halloween and Thanksgiving and more. It was very different from their harvest festival and celebration.

The Professor was mentioning they had to go hide these? Where should they put them? “Umm Master Noah... how do we turn these on again?” she whispered.

Well to be honest, Noah took a chance at the fact that Lisa was from Ravenclaw, and that his own twin was in the same house. They were not solely just academically smart, but they also tend to be the artsy/creative/visual people. Catherine liked to paint... Catherine liked aesthetics, and Noah simply took his cue from there.

As he left Lisa to work on her own pumpkin, Noah focused on carving his pumpkins carefully. It's sad that they don't have the same Halloween tradition as their American counterparts, but it was great fun to dabble on their tradition, nonetheless. Thankfully, he wasn't completely alien to the American tradition, all thanks to the early muggle schooling he'd had. And so, with his plastic knife, the Gryffindor began to poke and slice through the eye parts of the pumpkin helmets, and used his wand to carve out the tinier details like the vents and such. It was a good thing to that the Severing Charm was one of the basic spells he'd learned to cast non-verbally.

Halfway through his carving, he'd paused and sat up straight, turning behind him to see the Professor standing to give him an extra five points. Noah grinned and gave Professor Carton a nod of thanks at the recognition, and continued with his carving. Catherine would be so jealous. aNyWaY.

Almost done with his last skull, Noah paused again to divert his attention to the little Padawan sat across her, and gave her pumpkin a good look. "Knew you could do it. The Force is strong with you, Padawan. Well done." It still wasn't perfect, but it sure looked way better than her other two, and the red dot trick actually worked. It was an accomplishment in and of itself. Lisa should be very proud. It wouldn't be much of a surprise if she started acing the subject... like, tomorrow.

Done with carving, Noah tidied up his table by vanishing the excess pumpkin skins and flesh, as he listened to Professor Carton's next instructions. So... they get to keep one? Nice! While Noah listed the possible places in his head to plant his jack-o-lantern, the Gryffindor looked at his Padawan and turned to his Vader Pumpkin. "One tap should do the trick." he replied tapping his pumpkin and watched it come to life. The cackling though... haha! "Think I should place one of the Troopers by your Dormitory entrance?" Noah asked as he inscribed his name at the back of the first stormtrooper pumpkin. "I heard Heath's also a fan?" he said looking towards the older Ravenclaw's table.

"This is not the pumpkin you're looking for." ~ Jedi Master Noah Mordaunt