DADA: Lesson Three (Years 1-4)

The Banishing Charm wasn't one Mimosa had any personal experience with. Well she had heard that some people scolded naughty children by threatening to banish them but those were probably just stories. Mimosa couldn't imagine anyone ever wanting to banish her.

She wasn't surprised one bit when it was her Gaspard who answered first. He was the smartest person ever and knew everything so it was natural he got to go first. Then the girl on Mercy's other side raised her hand and added her own information, information that was new to Mimosa.

Not to be outdone, the American child model raised her hand, still mulling over what she was supposed to say now that she had offered to speak up. "Umm, sometimes people Banish things wrong..." She began carefully, trying to remember something Clara always liked to say in defense of not using her wand as much as other people. "Or send them away wrong, as Gaspard put it. Like, you can try to send a cup away but sometimes you only send half of it away and so the cup gets broken. I imagine if that happened to a person, they would get broken too."

Wrinkling her nose slightly at the idea of a broken person, she continued on. "If you use the banishing spell on someone in a duel, I think... it works right whether you perform it correctly or not. The aim is to just, like, make them go away and if you make even a bit of them go away, it leaves the rest of them unable to duel right?"

Sterling greeted his class softly before looking to Jake as he started the lesson. He listened as the man greeted him and asked his routine seven-million questions to start off the lesson. The boy thought about the questions, letting a couple first years go first, including one who seemed to have no idea what she was talking about. He let it go, however, though he couldn't help but chuckle softly at her explanation.

Sterling raised his hand, eager to contribute if only to earn points for his house, which never seemed to win. He waited to be called on, continuing when he was. "The banishing charm is actually called Depulso, and it is cast with a sweeping motion of the wand." He demonstrated the motion, making sure not to accidentally cast the spell. He nodded when he was finished and awaited the actual practicing of the spell with anticipation.

If Mimosa was honest, she had stopped listening to Jake somewhere around him correcting Sterling on something or other. The explanations were always the boring parts of a lesson and she was much more interested in looking at everyone else around the room. Her attention was reeled back in however when the notion of smashing things came up. If she had heard correctly - and she was sure she had, she always did - Jake said it was okay to hurl things at each other and break them from the spell.

That sounded very much like Beater practice to the child, except not with her heavy bat but her easily manageable wand. "I call Mercy!" she yelled, reaching to hold on to the Gryffindor witch's arm and raising their joint hands up together in a "dibs" fashion. When the others had either paired off or gone on their own, Mimosa giggled, leading her friend to the pile of rubbish dominating the center of the classroom.

"Okay, let me go first," she offered, letting go of Mercy's hand and retrieving her wand. Pointing it at a family of rubber duckies that must have been stolen from a very old bath, the child spoke out the incantation.

"Depulso," The rubber ducky gave a sad wiggle but did not move.

"Depluso!" this time, Mimosa spoke louder, with more intent. The yellow bath toy bounced once.

"Depulso, Depulso, Depulso," Mimosa commanded in frustration, expecting it to not work again but lo and behold, three rubber duckies were now up in the air and heading straight for Mercy, making the young Slytherin gasp.

"Mercy, duck!" she warned, referring both to the action of avoiding the incoming yellow birds and the actual ducks heading the Gryffindor's way.

Sterling frowned but nodded as he was told his answer was wrong. Well, not completely wrong, but not right. So he supposed if it wasn't right it had to be wrong. He didn't respond to the teacher, having nodded to show he understood.

At the instruction to basically smash things at will Sterling grinned, retrieving a couple ceramic vases and a couple metal pots from the center pile and retreating to one corner of the room to practice. He set his load down in a line and aimed his wand at the first vase.

"Depulso," he said, to which the vase simply shuddered in response. He growled and said the incantation again, with more force this time, the vase responding to simply slide across the floor to tap the wall. Not the reaction he'd hoped for, but not horrible. He retrieved it and placed it back in its line, narrowing his eyes at the stupid vase.

"Depulso," he demanded strictly and finally the vase complied, launching itself to break into many pieces against the wall. He grinned. He finally did it! He moved down the line, breaking the other vases and sending the pots flying to smash more of the vase pieces.

Mercy nodded along as people gave their answers. She had nothing to add--she just wanted to get to the part where they blasted things. Finally, Jake released them to begin. Just as she was turning towards Mimosa, the younger girl seemed to read her mind, grabbing her arm and claiming her immediately. Mercy grinned and followed Mimosa towards the random objects littering the floor.

She stood back respectfully, letting Minosa have the first go. As her friend's first two attempts were less than successful, Mercy opened her mouth to give her some pointers. It turned out to be unnecessary. She let out a short yelp as three rubber ducks shot toward her, jumping aside and throwing her arms up reflexively to block herself. She managed to avoid two of them, and the third bounced harmlessly off her arm. She giggled.

"My turn!" she beamed, looking down at the floor for something suitable to hit. Her eyes fell on a shoe close by. With an enthusiastic slash of her wand, she shouted "Depulso!" with gusto, putting as much force behind the word as she could muster. She was never one to go halfway.

The shoe shot across the room and bounced off the wall. Her eyes lit up. This was fun.