Transfiguration Lesson 2: Life Lessons

[Nikita Long]

Nikita wasn't nervous, she never got nervous and when you grew up with her life there was a lot ot get nervous about. She didn't care what her students thought about her, and she wasn't even sure if she cared about her students, that was probably a bad thing, but this was temporary, just something to settle into. After all, how many planes could you jump out of, bar halls could you fight in, dance clubs could you party in, and lives could you really live in the fast lane? It was time to try something, dare she say it, sedatary. She was only 22, she felt fifty, but life was like that sometimes.

She sat on her desk, leaning forward, waiting for her students to arrive. There were no seats in the class in fact it looked quite bare. She smiled.

[Rebecca "Bek" Caldwell]

Bak walked into class and noticed that se was the first one there. She looked around and saw a new teacher at her desk.

"Hello, I'm Rebecca Caldwell, Gryffindor 7th year," Bek introduced. "But please call me Bek."

[Maxi Borale]

Maxi walked in gracefully to Transfiguration class and looked around. She saw another new professor, her best friend Bek, and absolutely no seats what so ever.

"Um, Professor..." Maxi walked over and stood by Bek. "Why aren't there any seats?"

[Nikita Long]

Nikita nodded plesantly to the first girl and, summoning her roster from thin air, she marked the girl's attendance. "That's fine, thank you Bek."

When Maxi walked in and asked about the seats Nikita smiled a little wider, "We'll get to that in a moment. Name?"

[Samantha Montgomery]

Sam entered the room just after Maxi and took a glance around. She was surprised that the room was empty, but it didn't show on her face. Neither would she ask if she was in the right classroom, she was much too proud to even think she had gotten lost. Instead she waited for Maxi to give her name and then gave her own along with the note excusing previous absenses and explaining her transfer. She too wanted to know why there were no seats, but wouldn't ask.

[Severus Snape]

Severus walked into class, he saw there were no desks. He knew what the professor was planning. 'How Sadistic' he thought viciously as he walked to where his usual seat would be and sat cross legged on the floor. He wanted to rage against the injustice of it, Most students in his year couldn't transfigure toothpicks into needles! his ire wasn't soothed that other students were actually asking WHY there were no desks. Lousy upstart professors, there seemed to be a lot of young and inexperienced Professors, all of them not much older than the oldest of students and all of them seemed cheeky and unprofessional in his opinion. His head of house might be fat and bumbling, but he at least knew who to do his job and spot talent, This professor looked to be far more concerned about fashion, MUGGLE fashion.

[Nikita Long]

Nikita eyed the student who just entered and raised an amused eyebrow, "Name?" she asked. It was almost a challenge the way she tried to look directly in his eyes.

Severus had accurately thought of the student's first assignment, and perhaps life lesson number one, nothing is freely given, we have to make our own way, and in this instance students were to make their own seats.

[Samantha Montgomery]

Samantha crossed over to where Severus had sat, "Do you mind?" she asked softly setting her things down beside her. If her mother ever knew she intended to sit on the floor of a classroom she'd roll over in her grave. The thought gave Samantha a peverse sort of glee.

She knew who she was asking to sit by, she knew everyone in her house, though she didn't know if he knew her yet. By next week she would know everyone in all of her classes, by the end of the month she would know everyone in the school, and before then, everyone would know who she was.

[Severus Snape]

Severus raised an eyebrow, as if she didn't know. "Severus Snape" What she failed to realize is that some people actually already knew the lesson, how arrogant of her to assume that everyone came from a happy world where suffering is a monster at the end of a story, that furry grizzled hearts could beat within corrupt felsh and make people eat souls. No one had to teach him the lesson, it was burned on the back of his eyes every time since the first time he had seen his parents. Of course he looked her back in the eyes, he wasn't going to be cowed by this cow. Arrogant,she was and she probably didn't even know it. He was happy Natalie wasn't here, she wouldn't have to feel the comtempt pouring out his eyes.

[Nikita Long]

Nikita nodded, marking him in her attendance and waited on the rest of the class to appear. Students could sit on the floor, if they didn't like it, they could summon a chair, a seventh year should have been able to do so, but the whole point of this class was to learn, and she didn't think she should waste the student's time by teaching them how to make their pencil dance, she'd teach them things that they might actually appreciate knowing.

[Rebecca "Bek" Caldwell]

Bek looked around. It seemed to be one of those lessons she wasn't very good at, the ones that you dont learn from books. She saw Severus Snape take a seat on the floor and saw Samantha sit next to him. She shrugged and looked at Maxi.

"Sit by the door? Wait for the boys?" She asked.

[Maxi Borale]

"Sure, why not?" Maxi agreed and the girls took a seat by the door. They sat in silence for a moment before speaking. "I don't get it..." she said, wishing that their smart Ravenclaw buddy was there...

[Samantha Montgomery]

Samantha had other things on her mind, that's not to say that she would have known what the teacher was expecting the way Severus immediately had, but she was catching on. It was a transfiguration class after all. She lifted her arm to raise her hand, and even that action was graceful.

[Nikita Long]

Nikita glanced up when Samantha raised her hand, a half smile appeared on her face as she set the roster down, and crossed her arms over her legs. She nodded "Yes?"

She saw the light go on in Severus' eyes almost immediately, and it would appear that Sam had just had the same revelation.

[Samantha Montgomery]

"Is the absence of desks perhaps to inspire us to create our own seating?" she asked lowering her hand and looking inquisitive. Her other hand held loosely around her wand, she was almost positive that was the teacher's goal and was ready to perform, not solely for performance sake, but also because her bum didn't agree with the cool floor.

[Nikita Long]

"What a marvelous idea Miss Montgomery." she said smoothly. "You've just earned ten points for your house, twenty if you can summon something worth sitting in." she challenged with a smirk forming on her lips.

Samantha was a fifth year, she should have been able to summon a seat for herself. She caught the twinkle of confidence in the girl's eye and was eager to see where she might place herself in the class.

[Samantha Montgomery]

Samantha rolled her eyes inwardly at the smile that was plastered on her face for her "accomplishement". Though she didn't mind the points, she was eager for anything she could do to raise the opinion her classmates had of her, she wasn't completely certain why, perhaps it was a lifetime of "being the best" or "doing the best" or facing the consequences, which had just turned into a habit she couldn't break.

Standing, she shook out her robes, held her wand lightly, but firmly rotated her wrist in the correct fashion while clearly dictating a spell that not only brought out a seat, but a couch that had armbars between coushions to seat four. She thought of summoning a high back leather seat and a cherry oak desk, like the one her father had, but didn't want to create a desk that looked better than the teacher's.

[Nikita Long]

Nikita waited for her student to perform and was impressed with the thought, not so much the ability of her student, how long ,after all, would Samantha be able to hold that spell? There in lied the trouble with summoning grand things, they weren't permanent. Perhaps that was another life lesson.

"Very good Miss Montgomery." she said with a nod. Then glanced at her other students, "You're welcome to create your own seats, or Your classmate has been generous enough to transfigure seats for those of you already present if you would like to take one of those."

[Natalie St. Clare]

Natalie walked quietly to Transfiguration class, lost in her thoughts. This had been her uncle's class last year. Now he was gone, possibly even dead. Where ever he was, he was too far away to sense him anymore. It made her ache inside with a pain that she knew, for once, to be her own. Was she to lose everyone she loved? Now she had her father and her aunt... as well as Voltaire and Isabella and Severus. Would she lose each of them, one by one, as she had with her mother, her sister, and now her aunt?

These thoughts weighed heavily on her mind as she entered the classroom. A sense of melancholy hung over her like a wet blanket. So when she noticed that there were no desks, only a sofa and a few students standing around helplessly, she wasn't sure how to react.

Most of the students were radiating confusion, one a certain sense of smug self-satisfaction, and another.... open hostility. She glanced over at the source of the hostility and saw Severus, sitting cross-legged on the floor, looking extremely sour.

Her first instinct was to soothe him, but with her own state of mind so fragile, she wasn't sure how. Still she moved toward him and sat down on the floor unashamedly. "Are you OK?" she whispered, knowing full well that he was not.

[Nikita Long]

Nikita eyed the girl who just entered her class, she parted her lips to ask for the girl's name, but she carried such a meloncholy aura that Nikita paused.

She checked her roster for who the girl was, but who was she kidding? She wasn't a mind reader, "Excuse me? Name Miss?" she asked politely.