Learning a Little Help.

[Lianna Maylorn]

The offer had been placed on the table, well, bed, perhaps a week ago, and after two required showers and a good bath in one week, Lianna came a knocking to see if it was worth it. Her knock wasn't much mind, you, and some of the other professors hadn't heard it before apparently when she needed them, so she just walked away and tried again later.

But she was at the door, and knocked a second time, a little louder than her normal knock. She was determined to find some way to help herself. "Please be there...." She murmured to herself in a near whisper as she looked hopefully upward at the door, that any non-magic person would open manually. She was too used to that.

[roxanneashford]

It was a rare thing to see Roxanne's office halfway uncluttered.

Papers were in stacks, and even that was a huge improvement for Roxy. No papers were in the air, and they all seemed to flow chronologically around the room; her old term papers by the door, working it's way around the room to the other side of the door, more recent files.

One might even suggest she was organized....well, for as much as Miss Ashford could possibly be, of course.

The sun was shining through her window ever so slightly, even though it was dead winter and she knew that it was incredibly freezing outdoors.. She hadn't seen much of her Hufflepuffs that day...classes, as it was in the middle of the week, and activities like Quidditch kept the kids out of the commons, for the most part. Roxanne had an inkling that some thought she would bite, or something...which was crazy, of course. A little rough around the edges and insane, but she certainly didn't have fangs.

In the midst of her thoughts, she heard a small noise...she didn't quite know what it was, and she pushed it off as nothing important. A moment later, she heard the noise again...on her door. Why was her door making strange noises?

Furrowing her eyebrows, she stood up and walked carefully over to the door. There it was, again! That..tapping..noise. Carefully, Roxanne reached her hand forward and tapped back on the door, just as the noise was made that she had heard.

It sounded almost too like the noise she made, and it hit her. Someone was there! Temporary Insanity, anyone?

She turned the doorknob, and grinned at the girl. A student comming to see her! Aw...how special.

"Lianna! Hello, dear...would you like to come inside?" she asked, moving aside to allow the girl to step in.

[Lianna Maylorn]

She heard rustling from beyond the door, papers being moved and finally after a moment of eerie quiet the door opened, the way it was designed to, by hand and she was looking up into the smiling face of Professor Ashford, Roxy.

Nodding to the woman's question she entered and took a seat. "I um...I was curious about that offer..." She said after a moment's pause. She could still feel some of the syrup-y mess or whatever it was in her hair in spots, and that meant it would be harder to get out, not to mention painful, later, but, that mattered not.

Of all the times to have crap happen it had to be when there wasn't one of the Prefect's around...though that was opportunity, and, she could run, and ran she had, to here.

[roxanneashford]

"Offer? Hmm...what offer?" she considered for a moment, as she watched Lianna come inside. "Ah, yes...stupid older students being mean again? Tisk Tisk..." she shook her head. Roxanne hated that the older students found it funny to tourment the younger ones. Surely they had been tourmented, so why did they insist on carrying on the tradition? Roxy was puzzled.

"Icky...." she commented, as she touched her head with the syrup. "That's going to be awful to get out the non-magical way, isn't it? Lemme see. I have something around here, I'm sure...." she commented, as she went over to her bookshelf and pulled a random book off of the shelf.

After a moment's pause, she spoke up. "Ah yes, here we go...." as she went over to the girl, and pointed at her head. "Finite Incantatem!!"...she smiled, as the spell seemed to have taken effect. "Well yes, a very handy little charm to help end effects of any spell." she nodded matter-of-factly.

"Ah, yes. At your age level, I don't believe you could be able to perform difficult spells as Finite Incatatem, but I can teach you a shielding charm if you are willing to learn..." she smiled a little, as she sat in the chair next to Lianna.

[Lianna Maylorn]

"Thought I'd gotten most of it out..." She claimed with a small frown as the woman corrected a good deal more than what she'd thought was left. It was growing tiresome, and she'd probably just triggered another random booby trapped prank. But if it was some targeting only her, she had a stalker, a stalker at age eleven. Lovely.

"Course I'm willing to learn. Anything to help make this stop." She countered, her frown turning to a small but thankful smile. Thankful only in the sense the offer was still present. Her hair still felt sticky in small spots here and there, but it wouldn't be anything another shower wouldn't fix.

[roxanneashford]

She looked simpathetically at Lianna. The girl really reminded her of an eleven year old version of herself, and many of the little tricks that had been played on her were coming back to mind as she watched the young girl.

"Alright, what I'm going to try to teach you today is a simple shielding charm. Now for this, it should block most..if not all...incantations muttered towards you by the older students. It depends on how well and how strongly you cast it."

She nodded, as she stood up, gesturing for the young girl to do the same. "Did you bring your wand with you?" she asked, as she surveyed the room to find something to practice with.

[Lianna Maylorn]

If there was anything she'd learned lately it was that anything deemed simple, generally wasn't simple. Like making a snowball out of powder. That was darn near impossible. Running a hand through her hair she smiled when she felt no major, nor painful obstruction.

When asked if she brought her wand she merely nodded and withdrew it from her robes pocket. "Right here!" She chirped with a small smile. She wasn't a Ravenclaw, but she wanted to learn this.

[roxanneashford]

"Alright, wonderful...." she smiled a little, as she took a few steps back. She took a book off one of her shelves, and examined it. Something about magical molerats...something not important and something that would possibly put on the best demonstration.

....or...not.

Hmm. As she sat the book down, she decided that maybe she may go another route. But there was also the issue that this was a first year student, and she probably did not know any defensive charms.

She picked the book up again. Roxanne was truly indecisive on these matters. Finally, she smiled, comming out of her thoughts, and handed the book to Lianna.

"Alright, we're going to practice with a book...now I want you to throw the book at me, as if you really mean it, and watch as I cast the Contegno over it. The book should bounce off of a brief shield that will appear over me." she said, as she watched her.

"So yes, we will practice with lighter things on you...like pillows. I don't think that you'd be able to nail it the first time. But yes, now, throw the book at me, and observe." she said, awaiting to see a flying book coming at her.

[Lianna Maylorn]

Her Head of House was most repetitive in her instructions, and she now felt as though she was a muggle third grader and not a...first year...she sounded younger with the latter title. There was now something else she could mentally taker her anger out on.

Throw the book at her, simple enough, very simple in fact. But there was one problem. She didn't want to throw the book at her. She had no cause to, and she didn't like doing anything for no reason, she was supposed to learn a spell yes, but, that wasn't reason to risk injuring someone. Book corners can be most sharp.

"Umm..." She started as she took the book and looked at it for a moment. Molerats...what in the wolrd were ... molerats?

[roxanneashford]

"Lianna...it's alright. The whole point to this is to show you how it can be deflected...the book will not hit me."

She sighed ever so slightly. She should have assumed that a young girl like herself might have a problem with throwing a book at her superior. Well...it was a book on the magical molerat, for Merlin's sake, the same old book that she had used to write that dumb essay in her sixth year at Hogwarts that Samantha had so graciously found flying about her office the other day when she had come and visited her.

[Lianna Maylorn]

Her saying it was alright didn't really change the fact that what she was doing was technically still wrong. Nor did it change that her morals were completely against it, but, it did make it alittle easier.

"Al-alright..I...it just doesn't seem right though..." She claimed, sighing lightly. It just didn't make sense, why did learning such a 'simple' charm have to be made so complicated?

It wasn't fair...

[roxanneashford]

"Lianna...do you not want to do this?"

Roxanne knew it wasn't wrong and it had an eduational purpose to it...but she also knew where the young girl must be coming from. Ah, well. Roxy wouldn't make her do it unless she wanted to...she would simply have to come up with another way to effectively teach the charm.

Hmmm...think. This might be slightly hard.