| Details for First Year Transfiguration: Holiday Banners |
| Summary: | Fiona and Finley are paired together in transfiguration. The task: to create artful and colourful banners for the feast. They have complete mastery of the spell (no really!). |
| Date: | 30 October 1938 |
| Location: | Transfiguration Classroom |
| Related: | — |
| Characters |
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The last lesson of the day on Wednesday for some of the first years is Transfiguration with Professor Dumbledore. Today finds Fiona Donnelly paired with Finley Higgins. It isn't exactly a pairing Fiona is too sure about especially as Finley's brother has a reputation for being dim and lazy. After weeks of theory they are finally getting to practice magic using the colour changing charm to transfigure the colour of material. The students are helping prepare the decorations for the festivities and each have been given a banner to decorate. "What shall we put on it?"
"No bloody idea." Finley says muttering a little bit under his breath. Truth was that he doesn't have much of a reputation for things. Mostly he's just known for being quite silly. He considers the material,"What do we need to do such a silly thing for? I mean come on." He says idly tapping a thin finger on the surface before him. Big blue gray eyes go down towards the banner as he considers it. "Quite silly really. Maybe we should make a snake being eaten by a lion or something… Definitely something not green."
Fiona picks up one of the pencils they have been given and starts to draw a ghostly shape on the banner. "That's not what you want for All Hallow's Eve." She rolls her eyes at Finley, yes rolls her eyes! "Just draw jack o'lanterns and ghosts or black cats or something."
"Why not? I wouldn't mind a lion eating a snake. Great little lesson!" Finley says grinning and picking up one of the pencils in front of him and twirling it for a moment. "Alright. I'll try." He says as he bites his lower lip and beginning to try and draw something that looks like a cat… well somewhat but it's pretty clear that Finley does NOT have artistic talents like that. "Oiy. Why are we doing this sort of thing anyway?"
"We're doing it because they're cheap and want us to decorate the hall like elves," says Fiona with more wit than an eleven year old ought to have. She finishes drawing her spooky specter and looks over at Finley, "And because then we have to decide what colours to make different parts of the banner. "Two objectives completed with one stone - er banner." Swapping for a different coloured pencil she decides to go for a jack o'lantern. "You don't sound as funny as other pikies I've met." She doesn't bat an eye about using the derogatory term for gypsies.
"If ye gonna call me somethin' call me a tinker. Not pikie. Although I prefer being called Finley, or Fin." Finley says wrinkling his nose,"How did ye expect me to sound eh? I speak how I want ta speak." He says trying not to sound annoyed. Tinker is ok to him though. They do tend to tinker in his family. Once the cat is drawn he moves on to make a silly looking ghost,"I think it's just because they want to get the bloody house elves a break."
Fiona swings her legs underneath her chair as she draws, she is just that bit smaller than Finley, together they must look like a pair of leprechauns. "Well the ones I've met before are from down south like Galloway or Cork and have those really silly accents. Some of them are so hard to understand you can't understand them at all." Not like her much silkier, smoother northern Irish accent. She leans over to peer at Finley's drawing. "To be sure that is a nice cat it is." The Gryffindor gets a pat on the back, "Well done Finley. Well done."
"It's a ghost." Finley mutters as he was done drawing the cat,"I ain't an artist." He says in his accent, his eyes look over this. "Maybe should stick to pumpkins then ain't no one gonna laugh." He says in a bit of drawl before the scowl fades,"Oh well, not like I can be good at everything!" Nevermind he has a laundry list of thing he's poor at and one of those is a class here at Hogwarts.
"Hey now, don't be like that Finley." Fiona sets her coloured pencil down and turns to look at her transfiguration partner. "When you put yourself down like that you've got nobody else to life you up," she sounds like some kind of Irish fortune cookie. "So chin up. Chest out. Face it head on." Her gaze drops to his drawing and then drifts to her own and Fiona laughs. "We're both as bad as each other anyway." She points to her wonky ghost. "Look, what do you think that is meant to be?"
"Hey! I ain't puttin' meself down! I'm registerin' me faults! I got plenty of good things that I can do!" Finley says rolling his eyes a little bit,"Yeah. I think they'll probably be regrettin' havin' the pair of us be the ones doin' any sort of work here." He says laughing as he goes back to drawing another ghost,"And it's a ghost. Plain as the nose on my face! And a right good one too!" He says merrily as he begins sketching a pumpkin.
As the professor walks amongst the tables looking at the work he tells students they can begin using the spell. Reminding them that the incantation is, "Multicorfors." Fiona and Finely are not quite ready but he tells them they can begin when they are. Fiona nods her dark head and picks up her pencil so she can also finish her pumpkin. "Do you have any elves at home? We do. They get some days off. One a week. Usually Thursday as that's when we floo to my gran's for tea. She's pretty old."
"Nope. Don't really have a House for a House Elf ta work in." Finley says as he considers that for a moment,"I guess we should be trying the incantation now." Yep. He doesn't always seem like it but sometimes he says words like that and instead of sounding a bit dim, actually sounds like he might have a real brain in that skull of his. "Not sure what we'd do with them. Don't stay much in one place really. House Elves wouldn't be as useful."
"Do you live in one of them caravan things?" Fiona sounds a little envious. "It must be fun to travel all the time. I love travelling. We tend to use port keys or the floo network." She reaches towards the front of the table to pick up her wand. "You want to go first?"
"Yeah." Finley says nodding his head,"All of us do. It's not bad. Ne'er knew another way to live. Although I know Colton hates being here because it's so… Settled." Finley says wrinkling his nose as if he just said a nasty word. "Multicorfors." Finley says trying to get the spell to work and really not having too much luck, at doing so. His blue eyes settle most intently upon the banner as he tries to get it to work and barely even nudging the banner in the direction of a colour.
Fiona watches Finley have a go at it and notice a mottled colour change but not much else. "That doesn't look right Fin." She gets up on her knees on her chair. "Maybe we need to be up higher." With a flick of her wand she tries the spell, "Multicorfors!" But her's doesn't turn out any better. "Well ghosts aren't very colourful," she says trying to make it better than it is."
"Yeah. Maybe I should try again…" Finley says as he makes another attempt at the spell, only to be met with no real discernible change. "Hope they don't deduct points for not being successful or we're so going to be losing them." He says laughing a little bit as they just managed to get a tiny colour change so far. "Good thing we have ghosts on here." He says nodding his head as if this made sense.
"We've worked hard, it's just a tricky spell is all," Fiona says in both their defense. She tries once more, wand flicking just so, making herself sound more confident and what is more, thinking about the colours she wants and where. "Oooh! Look Fin! Look!" She quickly drops down onto her bottom and leans over to peer at the banner. "It worked. You just have to think hard and visualise the colour you want." Fiona turns to look at Finley and grins broadly, having coloured in both their jack o'lanterns a nice bright orange with yellow in the cut outs.
"It is a tricky spell. Mostly because most of us don't have any trainin'. Bet the second years could get it in a split second." Finley says shrugging a little bit not seeming to care about it any more. He doesn't let his failures bog him down,"Told ye that ye could do it! Right splendid job too! Perfect shade of orange!" He says merrily as he looks at the banner one more time.
Fiona offers Finley her hand to shake. "It has been fine workin' with ye Finley Higgins, you be alright for sure." She grins, letting her accent slip a little. "I'll take it up to the professor if you want to get going."