Area 51

Charms

It hadn't occured to Helena before that that she had never really been in a classroom before. The only schooling she had had up to that point was the preschool, and that hadn't really been a classroom. It was like a church basement a couple blocks from their house and Salazar had taken her there everyday during the summer. And they taught her how to read and do basic math and the like, but beyond that, Helena didn't know much.

So, needless to say, she was pretty nervous about her first ever real class. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad, but she didn't have a good feeling about Professor Drake.

Either way, all she could do was wait to find out. Helena pulled out her ordinary wand from her bag, along with a quill, a roll of parchmen,  and her bottle of regular black ink, for notetaking.

She looked over at Connor with a smile. He immediately raced to get his own supplies out to try and look prepared. He almost fell over in his attempt, making the rest of the class burst out laughing.

Professor Drake looked up from where he was reading off of a scroll and glared at the class, causing silence to take over the classroom.

"Settle down class," Drake said, then noting the quills and parchment out shook his head. "Put those away. There won't be note taking today. You're all at your highest energy from your summers. Now is the time where you have the most magical potential. Today is the time for a hands on lesson."

"What spell do you think he's gonna teach us?" Phillip asked the both of them.

"I don't know," Helena said. "Maybe he'll teach us spells based on our elements or maybe he'll teach us a spell that isn't any element."

Before any of them could think of a spell that was neutral to any element, Professor Drake glared again causing silence to once again reign.

"Now, I have all of your names written on this scroll, and in a moment I will randomly select one of you to come up and draw a spell from this hat," he explained, then took a breathe before continuing. "Inside of this hat, there are a variety of basic spells, some that conform to a specific element and some that do not. You are only allowed to draw once and you are not allowed to trade with anyone."

Everyone around her generally seemed shocked, but Helena wasn't really. It made sense now that she thought about it that the charms teacher couldn't only teach all of them spells of their element.

There were some spells that weren't fire related that were too useful to ignore. The levitation spell was most likely air based, and the water spell could be useful in so many situations that it couldn't be disregarded, even if it was difficult for a fire based magic user.

So, when Professor Drake called them to get in line, Helena was somehow the first one in line, prepared to accept her fate.

He held out the hat to her, giving her a friendly wink, as if they were old friends, which immediately made Helena grind her teeth. She snatched a small piece of folded parchment from the hat and moved quickly back to her seat without even looking at it.

Once she was sitting down, Helena unfolded the sheet of paper, reading it through a few times before the information finally got to her brain.

Confringo
The blasting charm.
Causes targeted object to burst into flames

She couldn't believe her luck of getting a fire based charm. She betted nearly no one else would get that lucky. And watching the rest of her classmates stomp angrilly back to their seats, it seemed she was right.

"Of all things I just had to get Alohomora." Connor complained as he got back.

"I don't get it," Helena said, confused. "Why would unlocking a door be that bad?"

"Basically," Phillip said stepping in to explain, "Doors are made of wood which is from trees which grow on the ground, and the metal from the locks is harvested from the earth. And earth is the opposite of air. So he's screwed."

"I mean I guess that makes sense, but I never would've thought about that. Where did you learn that?" Helena asked him.

He shrugged. "I guess because some of the older Caelis warned us about wood last night a little bit. Apparently it's our big weakness, but that's the lamest thing I've ever heard"

"You think that's bad?" Helena questioned, laughing to herself. "I feel like passing out after just taking a shower."

They all laughed a bit at that.

"So what did you get Phil?" Helena asked. He held it up for her to see.

Engorgio
Enlargement charm
Causes objects to increase in size

"Hmm," Helena mused. "I guess that's one of the ones that isn't really related to any of the four elements."

"I guess," Phillip said with a shrug. "What spell did you-" He was interrupted by Professor Drake bringing everyone's attention to the front of the room.

"Now that you've all read through your assigned spells, I'll give you your assignments. I'll give you all a minute to get out a quill and parchment to write this down."

He waited a few minutes as everyone scrambled for writing supplies.

"Now your assignment is to write a research paper on your assigned spell. This should include when it was created and who it was created by as well as what it's used for, and at least one situation in which your spell would be of use. This paper, along with mastery of your spell should be ready by the first of October."

There were a few groans from students, as well as some mutterings about having to do a spell that didn't align with their element. Helena smiled to herself, counting herself lucky the she had gotten an easy one. Or at least, she hoped it was easy. She had never heard of the blasting charm and just hoped it wasn't too difficult.

She had often seen that what other people considered "basic" or "easy" was difficult for her. What if she just couldn't live up to even the smallest of expectations set for her?