Prof. Will Lestrange

While the Disarming Charm is useful for its goals, I think there are situations where it’s not the best strategy. The five-syllable incantation name gives my target plenty of time to anticipate the spell from the moment I begin speaking. And if I’m dueling against someone who can cast wandlessly, Expelliarmus might not give me that much of an advantage at all! While it’s relatively useful for disarming an opponent without harming them - my goal in most duels is to act quickly, not leave my opponent in a position to react! “Stupefy” is two syllables shorter and takes down an opponent just as well, for example…

My patronus, as determined by the Patronus 101 class I took last year, is an anaconda. I call her “Anne”, but her Parseltongue name is “Ana” (both vowels as in “father”). She can support people by wrapping around them multiple times for great hugs - and her size, strength, and speed are great for dealing with Dementors! She can understand Parseltongue instructions, and give warnings in both English and Parseltongue as necessary.

The sounds that irritate me are any sudden sounds that occur without warning, especially if they're at a medium to high volume. (This can be anything from a beeping noise to someone speaking or singing to an animal barking or even a Muggle vacuum cleaner). These are particularly bad if I'm trying to concentrate, think, or remember something: then it seems like they go into my head and mess everything up. A preemptive Silencing Charm would work wonders on them!

Getting out of bed is normally something I need to do in a very quick motion to be able to successfully complete it at all. But for the purpose of the Impediment Jinx I decided to try it slowly. I tried opening my eyes and lifting my body, and... my head sunk back down into the bed. After a few more tries the same thing happened. I was able to obtain a cobra position on the third or fourth try, but even that would have me collapsing back, face down. Finally I tried something different: grabbing the bed with one hand, I willed myself to rotate over so I was lying on my back. That was finally some progress! From there I could force myself to sit up with effort, though then I was dizzy and had to recover a bit... but at least I didn't fall back towards lying down. For the final step I grabbed the bed with both hands as I pulled myself to a standing position... my body was swaying for a while and I had to walk a few steps to reset it, but eventually... I was up and about. This exercise made it clear why I normally get out of bed with swift, not slow, movements!

I would use the Confundus Charm on someone who was attacking me in order to distract them and buy me time to stay. The functionality seems like a weaker version of the Imperius Curse (it replaces others' thoughts, but unlike with Imperius you can't control the replacement thoughts) and might be easier to cast than an actual Imperius. Maybe it's not a traditional battle spell, but it definitely has its uses!

The first time I tried the Switching Spell on my own, I tried to change the quill in front of me. But I forgot to set up a second object to switch the quill with, so the Switching Spell took the nearest quill-like object as the target, which was my wand. Just like that, my wand had a point like a quill, my quill had the handle of my wand, and neither of the two were useable! The only way I was able to recover either object was by grabbing a different wand to cast Finite on the wand and quill; from then on, I remembered that Switching Spells require two objects, not one!

I needed to write my Parseltongue notes so that I could incorporate revisions into teaching the class in the new term. I grabbed my quill, and then... Fred Weasley decided to have fun with me. "Piertotum Locomotor", he said on the quill and I watched, helplessly, as the quill walked out of my hand and started dancing around the table. I tried a few times to grab it; while one of those was successful, the quill still refused to write for me. But since I knew magic, I countered it: "Finite Incantatem" made the quill stop its motion and allowed me to write my class notes with it again!

I had just made an amazing discovery: moving my wand in a specific nonstandard motion while saying "Alohomora" would make it effective against all locks, even ones that had been magically locked with a counterspell. I did not use this discovery yet; I needed to wait for the right time - after all, if others knew that I had the power they would use different security methods that I couldn't bypass! But if it became a life-and-death situation, either to rescue someone I cared about, break myself free from a dungeon, or retrieve something that was necessary for the life of someone I cared about... then I'd use the trick!

Let us begin with a bright red rose On green grass; try to smell both with your nose. Up above, there is the sky, it's so blue... A yellow sun will shine down on us true!

Ahh, such a deceptive spell... one letter off from one of my favorite spells to teach! But never mind that: as much as I love being in water, I hate the feeling of wet clothes against my skin. And so, I’ll Impervius my clothes so that I don’t have to experience the feeling of damp wet clothes on my skin!

The snowshoe hare is an animal whose fur changes colour with the seasons to blend in with its surroundings. In the summer it is reddish brown, so it can hide in the local soil. But as fall turns to winter and the snow covers the ground, the hare’s fur becomes white so it does not stand out against the snow on the ground! Then as the snow melts the fur returns to reddish brown...

At the moment I’m feeling like it would be very nice to summon a glass of ice cold water to wash away the chocolate I’m drinking now. But in general the thing I most want to summon is whatever I misplaced most recently!

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Guilty Have you ever overslept by 12 hours?