Dance beetle, Dance

[Fyona Richards]

The Slytherin was in the middle of the hallway trying to practice some of her spells and hexes and jinxs. Being assaulted by that one cat put her up to this. She was going to try and make an effort in this...At least for the time being. "Engorgio," she said in order to make the beetle she found outside to grow to the size of a small dog. Then she looked at the nasty bug hoping that it would come towards her. Her want was met as the large blue beetle started to come towards her on its skinny little stick legs. "Flipendo," she said with the same amount of gusto as she had said her first spell. The jinx hit the beetle square on the head and sent the bug flying back down the hall. Only unlike the cat situation it went flying back a few feet. "Wingardium Leviosa" She floated the beetle closer towards her again in order to once again shoot it back. She practiced the jinx a few more times until she was able to send the thing flying back all the way to the next corridor.

The auburn haired placed a satisfied smile on her face and then once again floated the beetle back. Now she was going to try something else out. "Tarantallegra." She said it just as he books told her to and her hand motions mimicked that of the ones describe in the books. However, only being a second year the beetle did nothing but twitch its legs. "Tarantallegra," she said again only with more force. This time the legs twitched one moved slightly. The Slytherin tried again and again only to have the same results. After trying out numerous other spells, jinxs, and a few hexes she went back to the same one. She wanted to get this. She wanted to make the beetle dance. So whoever came down the hall at that moment would see the girl with a determined look on her face trying to make a beetle dance. The same word flying out of her mouth over and over. Whenever the beetle got to close then Fyona would repel it far enough to make another attempt at making it dance. She was patient when it came to learning new thing; she was also determined and would have spent all night doing this if she could.

((Shari/Open-ish))

[mehra1993]

Shari walked through the hall. Didi was nowhere to be found, and after she had gone through the trouble of locating her wand, she figured she would go through the trouble of finding the cat before she performed the Accio spell to do the job for her. 'Didi wouldn't like to be magically plucked from wherever she is and flown through the air to me, I imagine.' The Ravengirl mused. It was an amusing thought, though. Shari could recall a time, back in Jhansi, when she was learning Hindi spells from Sharay Vyapari (her grandmother) and she had accidentally performed the Karna spell on a young kitten Didiana (it was a binding spell). Didi did not appreciate being bound together by papyrus reeds. She had done a little frantic kitten dance before falling on her face. Grandmama Sharay and Sharivah had shared a good laugh at the eager kitten before Grandmama Sharay had reversed the spell with the Cohra Dena Charm (an unbinding charm). From then on, whenever Didi was acting up, Shari only had to point her wand at the cat to calm her down.

Sharivah rounded the corner and saw Fyona, the girl she had met at the Masquerade, practising a spell on a beetle. "Tarantallegra." The auburn haired girl said forcefully. 'I wonder what that spell does,' Shari thought. She watched keenly as the girl practised. Maybe she needed more studying time? Shari made a mental note of the spell and made a promise to herself that she would know it by heart and have it down perfectly before the next Charms class. Knowing her determination, she would have it perfected or she wouldn't show up to class.

Shari ventured a step forward. "Could I have a try?"

[Fyona Richards]

After what felt to be her thousandth try Fyona had only managed to get the spider to move its legs. They no longer twitched which was a mile stone in her opinion. Now all they had to do was move and dance. "Tarantallegra," she said again only to have the spider move its legs again. The spider was halfway down the hall. She had to push it back again about three tries ago in order to give her the room she wanted. The beetle kept moving closer, and sometimes it had even tried to get away. Fyona shook her head at this time as a voice spoke up from behind her. Turning around Fyona smiled for it was the Indian girl whom she had met at the dance. The girl had recognized the accent too which was not Welsh, British, nor European for that matter. There were a few American students attending the school and the girl had sounded like none of them. Fyona liked her accent very much mostly because she had not heard anything like it. "Of course you can. I don't know how much better you can do than me though." Turning back around to see the dog sized beetle again Fyona demonstrated the movements of the wand for the spell to work, "Just wave your arms just so, and say Tarantallegra." The spell shot from the end of her wand and hit the spider again. Only this time the legs stayed moving for some time. They were not coordinated into any kind of dance movements, but at least they stayed moving.

She was satisfied with that effort. Fyona moved off to the side where she had placed her knapsack. On top of the black school bag was a book open to the page with the spell written on the inside. Fyona skimmed it over to make sure she was doing it right. Then said, "The name's Fyona in case you forgot. Yours?" She sat down, neatly laying her blue skirt around her. She wore her white hooded jacket to go along with it. Her grey-green eyes watched the girl to see how she would fair with the spell. If she didn't get it, was highly likely given that this was not something they taught in school, then they could take turns practicing.

[mehra1993]

Shari watched Fyona as she made the specific wand gestures. It all seemed so different to her from the way Grandmama Sharay had taught her in India. There was one simple gesture for the Hindi spells and that was a flick of the wand as the caster spoke the words. Simple, This looked to be a little more of a challenge, but Sharivah was an eager learner, and no challenge was too daunting for her...or so she thought. She stepped forward as Fyona stepped away from the dog sized beetle.

"The name's Fyona in case you forgot. What's yours?" Fyona had asked. Shari smiled. "My name is Sharivah Jhansi Niampari Mehra...but you can call me either Sharivah or Shari." She liked using her full name. It seemed to impress these Westerners to hear a name like hers.

"So it's just a swish, snap and flick of the wand? And the spell is called Tarantallegra?" She asked as a reassurance. Fyona was reading a book of spells which intrigued Shari. She was destined to be a Library rat...never leaving the Library until she would have to be dragged from it by the Deputy Headmistress or even the Minister of Magic himself!!!

[Fyona Richards]

Sharivah Jhansi Niampari Mehra. It was long and sounded complicated to say. It would take some time before she could say all that, but Sharivah or Shari she could say easily. She did think it was a pretty name though. "Yep, just like that. Just don't let the beetle try to wander away or get too close to you to do something. Repel him when you need to and bring him back when you need to." Fyona leaned forward a bit so she could see exactly how good this witch would be. Fyona did not know how things were done where she came from so she thought that this would be interesting. She wished she had the cat to practice this on. It would be a nice revenge for biting her. She wouldn't hurt it, she wasn't hurting the beetle, but the cat would have to stay here for a long time. Basically until she had gotten the spell down, and it would not be able to go anywhere. Yes, a small break to use the bathroom and another to eat. Other than that the cat was all hers to do as she pleased.

Fyona liked all animals and she had an owl here at the school and guinea pig of her own. She would think about bringing the guinea pig here, but it was not the biggest creature. It might get lost among all the students. There was no way on earth she was going to bring a rat! None. Rats were disgusting things and she did not count them among the animal population. They were rodents which infested one's personal space until there was none left. That's how she felt about those things. As long as they stayed away from her there would be no problem. No problem at all.

She had to concentrate. She had to stop thinking about rats and concentrate on getting this spell right. It wasn't a terribly important spell, but she just wanted to get it right. It would amuse her very much to make this beetle dance.

[mehra1993]

Shari sensed she was being watched by the Slytherin girl. 'I wonder if she doubts whether I can do this or not?' She thought. It felt like a little bit of a challenge. 'Just because I'm from the other side of the world doesn't mean I can't do this!' She had to focus now. 'Swish, snap and flick; swish, snap and flick.' She practised the motion before saying anything. "Okay...I think I've got it." the Indian girl said. She took a breath.

"TARANTALLEGRA!" Was it too forceful? The beetle, which looked like it was grazing on stone, jumped in the air, wiggled it's legs and then fell to the floor and lay almost motionless. The Indian girl cursed under her breath. 'What did I do wrong?' she thought. Swish, snap and flick. Check. Tarantallegra. Check. Moving beetle... no. Dead beetle...possibly. Shari walked, cautiously, over to the beetle. It was still breathing. That was a good sign, however it wasn't moving to get up. She looked back at the Slytherin, who was reading a book.

"Fyona...I might have broken it's legs. Is the beetle supposed to rise up in the air?" She asked.

((sorry about that ))

[Fyona Richards]

((she never said what the spell was to make the beetle dance )

Fyona placed the book back in its proper place with a small laugh. It was a good natured laugh though and to show it Fyona put a small smile on her face. The girl was good; Fyona had to hand it to her. She had managed to make the thing jump in the air and move its legs on the first try. Fyona walked over to Sharivah and looked closely at the beetle. Two of its legs were bent in a way that a beetle’s legs were not supposed to be bent. "No, it was not supposed to go in the air like that. What the spell is supposed to do is make the thing dance.....I guess we'll just have to get another beetle." Fyona pointed her wand at the beetle again only this time it was not to make it dance. "Reducio," she said making the beetle return to normal size. She then picked the thing up in her hands and set it on the nearest window ledge. If it could fly then it would fly away. "Don't worry about it. I'll just get another beetle and then we can try this again."

Fyona leaned out the same window and then summoned another beetle. "Accio beetle," she said and within a few moments there was another beetle in her hand. This beetle was not blue but instead it was greyish brown. She set the thing on the ground. "Engorio," she then followed it with, "Wingardium leviosa." She hovered the insect back to Sharivah. "Go on and give it another try."

[mehra1993]

'It's supposed to dance?' Shari mused. Hmmm. Dance beetle...dance! She thought that might help. Swish, snap and flick. Don't be so forceful either. Swish, snap and flick. Tarantallegra. Swish, snap and flick. Shari took a deep breath.

"Tarantallegra!" She said, less forceful than the first time. The beetle looked up at her and wobbled a little. It's legs looked like they were going to give out beneath it. Suddenly afraid that she'd cripple another poor beetle, Shari put her hand out. "Oh! Don't fall!" She meant it, but as she said it, the beetle began to rotate slowly. It didn't look like a dance, but it was moving. It twisted like a washing machine. Then, suddenly, it began to shimmy and shake. Shari laughed. It looked ridiculous. In her bliss, Shari didn't notice the beetle beginning to charge her. She turned and saw the creature making a charge at her moments before he would have run her over. In defense she resorted to a Hindi spell. With a swish of her wand, she spoke the word. "Karna!" The beetle was pulled from it's feet by an invisible vine and it's legs were bound almost instantly. The poor thing struggled to no avail. Feeling somewhat sorry for it, Shari flicked her wand and undid the bind. "Cohra Dena." The beetle lay there, looking defeated.

[Fyona Richards]

It was only her second try and the girl had gotten the beetle to do something . That was really good and only had Fyona wanting to work harder than before. "Good job. That’s more than I could do the whole time." The beetle had charged at Shari and while Fyona was suddenly starting to think that she had found an aggressive beetle, she was also quite impressed by the girl's knowledge. That and the ability to get a spell down on only the second try, or somewhat down. At least it had done more than move its leg in an uncoordinated fashion. The beetle had stopped its shaking when Sharivah had bound it so now it just was standing there. A little confused as to what had just happened to it. "Tarantallegra!" she shouted and pointed her own wand at the beetle. It had better do something more than just move its legs. While it still did not dance, it managed to move its legs a little more this time. If it had been a drunk trying to dance, then yeah, Fyona would have accomplished what she had wanted. However, she wanted it to look like a sober person dancing. A sober person who knew how to dance.

Not what she was looking at. She sighed and then turned to Shari. "So do you know a lot of spells from.....where you come from?" She didn't know if Shari was Hindu, Muslim, or what. She knew the girl came from India, and that was about it. Just like her first name sounded Irish but that didn't make her so. Though the flaming hair did kind of suggest so, but no. She was completely Welsh.

[mehra1993]

Shari smiled, shyly. She nodded. "I wouldn't say a lot...there's only a few things you can enchant in India. And on top of that, spells aren't very well known throughout the entire country, so the Ministry branch in Mumbai..." She corrected herself. "Bombay...they have given up universality in India and now magic and spells are passed down by family, from mother to daughter. We don't write down the spells because it is believed to take away from the mystery and the magical aspect of them. But basically the spells are all in Sanskrit or Hindi so they are safe from abuse by Muggles and any foreigners." It was a longer explanation than she figured Fyona wanted to hear, but it was the truth. She would, someday, pass these spells on to her daughters, should she have any, and they would pass them on to their children and so on. It was the Ancient Indian way; Tradition.

"Are there any spells unique to where you are from?" She asked, thinking Ireland should have plenty of unique and complicated magical spells.

[Fyona Richards]

Fyona thought that sounded pretty neat. They passed on their spells and enchantments on to the next generation. They did things like that here in the United Kingdom only it was more with magical items and heirlooms than with spells. If they needed a spell then all they had to do was dig in to a book and there it would be. Fyona liked how magic ran in the family, and if your family didn't know their spells or anything, then you were screwed. The screwed part didn't sound so good but everything else did. "Things in Wales are done the same way as anywhere else in the United Kingdom. At least the magic part anyway. We look through the spell books and when we see a spell we want to learn, we learn it. There are magical items that we might pass down from one generation to the next, but that's all I really know about. I'm a half-blood so my parents have pretty much integrated us into muggle life as well." She didn't know if her parents had any magical heirlooms. Her father was the son of half-bloods, and her mother was the daughter of two muggles. Great bloodlines, eh? Whatever, she was glad of her background anyway. At least she was magical at all, and Raithe had been showing magic traits too.

"Are you half-blood too? I hope you don't find this rude but you look pure-blood to me," she laughed. "You sound like your a pure-blood. From what you told me anyway." She may not have been. If she was wrong then she was wrong. There was nothing wrong with that. Fyona took one look at the beetle and saw that it was trying to crawl up the wall. At least this one was not trying to get away like the last one. Just wait until after they've had a few more rounds at it.

[mehra1993]

Sharivah shook her head. "I'm a pure-blood. But in Uttar Pradesh, the state I lived in, we are a dying breed." She began to reminisce about how some of her pure-blooded friends took to disregarding their powers and the spells they were taught, ancient wisdom passed down through more than two hundred years...and this generation was the one that sought, single handedly, to end that cycle. Her own brother, Kumaran, would not sit still to hear the wisdom of his male ancestors, and Shari knew that he would never value the gift they had so long as he had rock music and soft serve ice cream at his disposal. She frowned.

"My brother is the only one in the family whom is not magical. His life river broke from that path many years ago. Now no one wants to sail on his waters...no one cares to look upon his barren shores." She realized she was using the old Hindu imagery for life, and perhaps Fyona was a little bit lost in translation. She decided to clarify. "In India, we are so devoid of inland water sources that we take it as a gift to be able to drink from the few inland streams and brooks there are. It is nothing like here in the United Kingdom, an island. India is a desert. Therefore it is ancient practise to refer to the life of a healthy child as though it were a river or stream. The strongest children come to be referred to as any body of water that matches their character." She paused remembering her father's naming ceremony. "My own father was recently named for his body of water. It's a matter of social status for Wizard families. My father is now at the level of the Indian Ocean...he is strong in character, and still he can be temper-mental...much like the Indian Ocean. It also shows that he is deep in his wisdom and that he will live again for only a few more cycles before he returns to the Brahma...the Creator. Then he'll have to wait until the ending of this age, when all the souls of India are reunited with the Brahma. That is when the great puzzle is finished, all it's pieces are fit together." It was old Hindu beliefs she was sharing now. Once the soul of India has been put together, it shatters like a fragile pain of glass and the souls are dispersed about the land of the Brahma, in an eternal search for true and complete enlightenment. That was the heart beat of India.

[Fyona Richards]

Fyona nodded every now and then at what Sharivah said. Not to her surprise she had understood the water metaphors quite clearly. She did not know the reason behind that particular way to explain that his family was ashamed that he chose not to divulge in his family's right. When Shari started to talk about how India was a desert the reason became clear to her. Although why anyone would want to talk about something that they could not have was beyond her. Why talk about flowing streams of water that you lack? Would that not make you long for it even more than you already are? Wouldn’t that make the need to have more water stronger, until getting water from a well was no longer enough? Enough questions. That's simply what her culture is, and that is what they do in the part of India that she is from. Except it. So she did, and there were no more questions following the thought. Shari then launched into an explanation of what her father was considered to be. It didn't sound very complicated to her, but the whole ranking thing.....That was something that would divide a people in her opinion. She then could not help the next set of questions from passing through her mind. Why rank people? Does that make someone who is like a stream less of a wizard than someone like a lake? Would a lake even be considered as a high ranking body of water?

Then she spoke of Brahma. The creator. Whoa! Fyona smiled at her new.....friend? Should she even dare call her that? Fyona smiled at her new acquaintance. "That was all a little much. I understood it all on some levels, but the Brahma thing," she made a motion to show that it went kind of over her head. "That's okay though, just give me some time with it and I will have it all down." She turned back to the beetle and saw it trying to make its escape out the nearest window. She levitated it back to a spot somewhere in the hall, and turned back to her friend. Eh, acquaintance. "Really though it sounds like a great tradition. My sister, Raithe, has showed some promising signs of being a witch. As for my baby brother....he can't stop flinging food and toys around long enough so we can find out. That's okay though. We have plenty of time to find out what he is all about. If he isn't magically inclined then I don't think my parents will think any less of him. My mom is muggle born after all. I think my grandparents on that side of the family would be happy to have a grandchild from their daughter who isn't capable of turning them into birds.

[mehra1993]

Sharivah realized, as Fyona made the motion of the idea of Brahma going over her head, that she had been rambling again. "I'm sorry. It's just something that is ingrained in our heads...Brahma. I guess all you have to do is push the right buttons and off we go!" She swung her arm out into the air. She felt a little ashamed about it. The whole culture of India was blindsided in some regards. When it came to Wizards and Magicians of any sort, the country was very conservative. Anyone could be a wizard or witch but some tried and did not succeed, and others had the potential to succeed and never tried (as was the case with Kumaran). "It isn't that we don't accept the fact that my brother has chosen a different life than ours, it's just that my father doesn't understand it...that's all." She explained as simply as she could. Perhaps too much information detracted from her personality. She hoped she would still be friends with this girl, but maybe she had fed too much of herself into the situation for this particular meeting. She watched the beetle as Fyona relocated it, and suddenly a sense of sadness overwhelmed her. The United Kingdom was nothing like home. The rituals people practised here were nothing like at home. The mindset was much different as well. She thought perhaps she should join Didi in hiding from people for a little while, at least until she could assimilate herself into this culture...this new atmosphere.
She turned to Fyona, a girl she had thought of as friend potential. "So...people here aren't all capable of being magical?" It was a start.

[Fyona Richards]

At Shari's last statement Fyona laughed a little and shook her head. "Nope. If you're a squib then you're a squib. You're incapable of any active magic. If you're a muggle then you're not able to do magic at all. Then if you are like you or me then of course we can do things that we don't really mean to do sometimes, Magic wise of course, and even then it's until you are able to control it. Honestly I could never understand how a whole country is able to produce magic people of all sorts," she smiled. "There must be something in the water there." Here in the United Kingdom magic had to be hidden from muggles, because if they ever knew then that would mean the end of life as they knew it. Fyona had seen tv shows where aliens were poked and prodded to figure out what made them tick. She figured that if the muggles knew of them then it would be pretty much the same thing. Then there were those books that were in the library back home, that told of witches being burned at the stake. Magic here had to be hidden or something catastrophic could happen to their wizarding community. Those people in India had to be very understanding. Unless she was still not grasping the concept. "Plus not everyone knows people like you and me exist. This whole school is but a dream to some. The Ministry makes sure that there are no 'magical leaks' so to speak. The muggles must never know." She may not have known much about the Deva, but she did know about the Ministry.

"How can muggles and wizards alike know about magic there? Isn't there a Ministry in India to prevent that?" This was not including muggles who were parents of wizards and witches though. Like her own mother's parents. She remembered her mother telling her that her grandparents had nearly freaked out when they saw what their daughter could do. They practically forced her to attend normal school, but then her powers became something that could no longer be ignored. When they got the letter asking her to attend Hogwarts they were frantic. Finally they made a decision to send her to see if the magic would wear off. No such luck, It was a good thing both her parents were capable of magic, she didn't know where she would be if they weren't.