The charms we learned this week are
certainly interesting. I definitely managed to solve my "How to get my
school trunk on the train without too much work" problem done - the
Locomotor Charm is way more handy than the Levitation Charm in that
aspect. And making fire is simply cool - well, not in the literal sense
of the world, but it's fun nonetheless.

We
started with the Fire-Making Charm this week. Incendio. And it's really
dangerous, meaning we cannot practice wherever and whenever we want.
Too bad. It had been a horrid week already, and now I wouldn't even be
able to revise all spells. What if I didn't get it right, and be the
only person to fail the assignment? Then I would have to be singled out,
just to find somewhere to practice. Not a good idea. To top it all,
some idiot in my year managed to tear my latest essay so that I would
have to rewrite it during lunch, not that I have anything else to do.
And coming into the classroom, I tripped, causing my ink bottle to break
and ruining all that day's notes. Brilliant. This didn't actually help
in me being motivated to listen to some theory before we started the
practical work. I wanted to do something, now! And the spells we were
learning today were just the right thing for my mood. Especially the
first one. Making fire. Burning, destroying, getting rid of everything.
My temper will get me in trouble one day, I'm sure of it. We were giving
a candle and told to look up the spell in our textbook. Well, at least
it wasn't splashed with ink too badly.

The Fire-Making Charm

• Incantation: Incendio (‘in-SEN-dee-oh’)
• Wand Movement:Curved flick up and down (as a flame)
• Focus:The target to be ignited
• Willpower:Low to very high, depending on the distance of the target and the difficulty of igniting the target.
• Concentration:None for a simple ignition; moderate concentration on the target should be maintained for a continuous stream.

Concentrating,
I reread the abstract several times. If not dealt with correctly, this
could be quite dangerous (yay!, yelled the anger in me) and it wouldn't
do to make a major mistake. Not now. Knowing my luck, I'd set my hair on
fire. So, focussing on the candle. It was going to burn, painfully. Was
it too bad to imagine it burn, disappearing into nothingness, screaming
in agony on the way? Well, candles don't feel pain, so I should be
okay. Aiming my wand carefully at the candle (double-checking that it
wasn't pointed at me, you never know at these days), I saw it burn, I
wanted it to burn, I said the incantation. And I was covered in an
immense cloud of thick, black smoke, coughing my mind to the heavens.
Combining this with the fact that my wand became increadibly hot, I'd
call it a day. This wasn't supposed to happened. Just my luck. A little
puff of smoke, ha! I wanted nothing more than to hide within the depths
of my table, never resurfacing again. This was so embarassing! I
could almost see how horrid I must look, all red in the face with tears
in my eyes due to the coughing fit (and maybe a bit of frustration, not
that I'd admit to it), spots of ink still all over my hands from when
the ink bottle broke, and totally and utterly annoyed with myself,
Hogwarts and the whole world. Staring into space defiantly, I just hoped
that no one would dare talking to me now. I would either explode, or
break down into a crying fit. None of these sound to appealing in the
middle of a class.

After a few calming breaths, I looked at the candle
again. The stupid thing hadn't even gotten a scratch, it was just as white, just as annoying. Well, when lighting a fire at home, we only had a smoke problem when the wood was too wet (not a problem with a freaking candle), the fire got to little air (nope) or there wasn't enough energy to make a flame. That was the only thing that could make sense, so I would have to focus into putting a little bit more energy into the flame thrower. Thinking of it with all possible power, I tried to ignite the candle again. If it was the last thing I was doing today, but the candle would be burning. Soon. I hope. Starting to cast, I was again faced with a little smoke. At least I wasn't the only one with that specific problem, but just my luck that it is blown in my face. Suppressing the urge to cough, I focussed my now increased anger on the candle again. Burn! Incendio! ... Just to be covered in smoke again. But as it cleared away quickly (probably the professor noticed me being a magnet for any smoke), the candle was burning slightly. It would probably only need a butterfly's wing to extinguish the fire, but - hey - fire! And it got even better with the next tries! (Though I should probably replace the candle, it was kind of ... disfigured, holey, broken... but hey, it burned!)

Though I wouldn't have believed it possible, this did kind of help to calm me down. And when we started with the Locomotor Charm, at least I got rid of all the coughing due to the effing smoke. And it's quite handy as well. If all goes well, I'll leviosa the trunk up the stairs, then use locomotor to move it to its destination. That could be working! Anyways...

The Locomotion Charm

• Incantation: Locomotor (‘LOH-koh-moh-tor’)
• Wand Movement: Full circle with an upward flick toward the target at the end, then pointed where the object should go.
• Focus: The target object
• Willpower: Moderate to very high, depending on the distance and weight of the object.
• Concentration: Minimal concentration should be maintained on the object.

Of course, we were working with feathers again. Luckily. Cause at least three of them hit me. But the charm works pretty well, I'd say. The feather is still wobbly when moving to its destination, and I'm not too sure about heavier objects yet. But at least I can practice this later. Much later. I won't be able to work at all today. this is definitely not my kind of day. Thankfully it'll be over soon.

Excerpts about the Charms are taken from Quintessential Magic: An Introduction to Charms (2nd Ed.), Chapter 14.