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Jaime Davies ([info]monologuinghero) wrote in [info]expresslogs,
@ 2012-08-22 21:55:00

Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend!  Next Entry
Entry tags:jaime dorny, {james potter

To Learn a Lesson
Characters: Jaime, James
When: 8:00 AM
Location: chance car
Warnings/Rating: None anticipated
Summary: Jaime is taking lessons
Status: Closed ongoing




Sometimes she wondered if Lily would take issue with her hanging out with James, but she guessed Lily wasn't really like that. Not that she'd have a leg to stand on if she did. Mostly, Jaime was trying to ignore that whole side of things. Lily didn't bring it up, and Jaime was content to let sleeping dogs lie. It was weird, and she could get it. If she got married in her future, and her husband (whoever he was) showed up to find her with Ray ... well, it'd be awkward. It wasn't the same, she knew that -- whoever her husband would be, wouldn't be Ray's rival. Or whatever. But the point was, it was close enough, and she could get it.

Shaking off those thoughts and finishing off her breakfast of PopTarts snagged on her way through the kitchen, Jaime leaned on the door of the back car. She really wished there was a way to just make it be what they wanted it to be on the first go, but she guessed she wouldn't be too picky. Anything that looked biggish, mostly empty, and without a lot of things she could break would be fine.

Wondering if she should wait for him or just get started, Jaime listened to what she could hear between the cars before she turned to open the door. What met her eyes was something not unlike what she guessed the training rooms from Panem to look like. "Pass," she muttered as she closed the door again. Half a dozen tries later, she'd lit on a suitable room. It was vaguely dungeony or cave-like, but there was light, and it was cool, and she figured it was as good a place as any to start. She guessed if it didn't suit James, she'd let him have a go at trying to make the room work.

Propping the door open behind herself, Jaime wandered in (stifling a yawn) to wait for James to show up.


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[info]monologuinghero
2012-08-26 02:43 am UTC (link)
"Yeah. It ... actually took us a disturbingly long time to work that out. Then you have your token asshole who decides to close the door, even when there's a sign on it to leave it open, so they still had to play with it." Jaime regarded him a little when he mentioned the war, but ... she wasn't going to get into that. She'd had her fill of war-stories -- telling and hearing -- and she'd rather focus on why they were really here.

"I went through a phase in seventh year where I messed around with my hair, yeah. I don't look good as a blonde, and only all right with black hair. I couldn't really get a decent shade of red though. It always came out too orange or closer to purple." But as she'd never been particularly interested in make-up, she hadn't ever messed with those sorts of charms.

"So I should start by given myself a nose job or something?" Her brows lifted, but the way he was explaining it, that's where she was taking it.

Lord, if she tried that and something got stuck inappropriately, there would be words. "And you can undo whatever I manage to fuck up about myself if I try?"

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[info]mapmaker
2012-08-27 08:18 am UTC (link)
A nose job? James thought that one through for a second, chose to banish the image of Jaime with a beak, and gave a slow nod of confirmation because that seemed as good a place as any to start. He knew that it was at least a way for her to start getting comfortable with feeling her body's matter rearranging to suit her will.

"Yeah, that's a good place to start. You'll need to focus on what it is you'd like to change on yourself, the nose, and see it in your mind as it really is, its exact shape, and then? Think on exactly how that shape can slide away to reveal the shape you want. It'll work best if you're not thinking on creating something from nothing. Think rather that you're clearing the way from the something that is visible to show the other something that's hidden only underneath. A reveal rather than a recreation."

James considered her face himself for a moment before sending a silent request through Peter's wand to the wall opposite them. It shifted away from the dungeon-like look it currently had to become a clear, utterly flawless mirror. He looked quickly away from his own disheveled appearance to Jaime's reflection to smile at her in the glass.

Shrugging slightly, he explained, "I thought it'd be good to let you have a way to not need to precisely visualize everything. Now you can get a good look before you try to change it up and I do guarantee if you manage something you can't---err, un-manage? I can right you around again. Easy."

He'd done a lot of righting with Peter and Sirius both in the beginning of their attempts at animagus work. The only time they'd had to go to the hospital wing for outside help had been when somehow Peter had conjured himself a whip-like rat tail that had thwarted all attempts to banish it or transfigure it away by striking them. It hadn't helped that the buggering thing had somehow been secreting a poison. That was definitely not on James's list of favorite anecdotes and he had a feeling it wouldn't be very reassuring to Jaime to hear about it.

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[info]monologuinghero
2012-08-27 11:13 pm UTC (link)
Okay, that netted a stare. She'd seriously been kidding about that. Oh, sure, she knew she had to start somewhere, but ... she liked her nose. Come to that, she liked her face. She understood the idea behind it, and she got the concept of it, but suddenly the idea of possibly mangling her face was very, very prevalent in her mind.

So she watched as he set up the mirror, and she shook her head slightly. "Right, okay, since I was kind of just fucking around about rearranging my face with my wand ..." Jaime cleared her throat. "Is there an alternate starting point? And am I going to be able to do this with a wand? Wandless magic and I have agreed to disagree in regard to having a working relationship." It wasn't for lack of trying, either. She just lacked whatever it was that made it easy for people to cast without a wand. Even Lily had her out-done there.

Pale blue eyes flicked toward the mirror, and she wondered if there was any way he could start her off, and she could see how it felt before she tried it herself. Not that she mistrusted her own magic, but if she was going to screw up something on her first go at a spell, she'd really rather it not be her face. She could live with mangling her hair, but not really her nose or eyes or ...

... well, maybe her ears. "I could start with my ears," she speculated. That wouldn't be quite the disaster that mangling her nose would be.

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[info]mapmaker
2012-08-29 08:23 am UTC (link)
"You can start with anything you like," James encouraged with a light laugh, "It's honestly a bit easier to start without the wand than you'd think, but if you'd rather do your ears, think on something simple. Pointed tips or something. It's easiest to do a small change, feel it out, and then try something radically different."

He hadn't had the same issue with his transformation that his friends had while in school. For James, the act of changing himself, changing anything really, was as easy as breathing. The only thing that had been hard? It'd been letting go enough of himself to go all in. Shift completely. No longer James Potter, wizard, but James Potter, animagus stag. That had been really bloody hard.

There was this hesitancy in him to share too much with Jaime about his own experience that he knew he'd have to get over if he was going to do her any good. She likely knew enough embarrassing stories about him to have sent him into an apoplectic fit all the same. The witch was from his future and she knew Lily. Well, it'd seemed. That had to mean she'd have heard some terrible stories on him by now.

Looking at her speculatively, James asked, "Do you know what I started with? When I did the change? It's not precisely the sort of story I go blathering on about, but I imagine it's one you might've heard since you're from the future and you've known my---well, you've known Lily some time already."

It occurred to him that he ought to have a plan in mind for what he'd do if she said no. Should she say yes, that would give them something to relate to, but no? That would mean he'd either have to throw it in and tell her or push it off and hope she'd let it go.

His face flushed slightly as it dawned on him that he'd be very unlikely to get Jaime to let it go. She seemed the type of witch to want to push the envelope with a bloke.

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[info]monologuinghero
2012-08-29 10:00 pm UTC (link)
“No, see, I’ve been trying to do wandless since sixth year. It’s kind of like teaching a drunk rhino to surf. It’s not going to happen. I don’t know what it is, but there’s something in my brain that keeps me from doing wandless magic.”

Crossing to the mirror, Jaime pulled her hair back and charmed it in place as she studied her ears. She’d never really thought much of her ears before, and she frowned. “You should probably come have a look at them, so you know how they were after I screw them up.” Though she guessed if she kept up with the negative thoughts, she really was going to screw them up.

She shook her head to James’ question, glancing over to him briefly. “We didn’t … really talk about you. I mean, the first time you were here, a little, since … you were here and it would have been weird not to talk about you. But Lily’s not really the type to tell embarrassing stories. Unless they’re about her and she’s trying to make you feel better.” Well, Jaime assumed it was an embarrassing story, given the way he’d phrased it and the blush that followed. But she guessed she should know better than to assume things.

Wondering if he’d share or not, she twirled her wand absently as she continued to regard her ears. Maybe if she just started with one, and then worked on making the other one match … that could be a way to go. And if she sucked at changing her ears, she’d give very serious consideration to scrapping the entire idea of trying to be an animal. Maybe she just wasn’t the sort who could manage it.

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[info]mapmaker
2012-08-30 08:08 am UTC (link)
He was an absolute, utter idiot, James thought as he obediently moved to follow Jaime to the mirror. It was absolutely, utterly not in his best interests to share a potentially mortifying story with this girl who didn't know him, not really, all because she fancied she'd like to become an animagus seeing as she'd what? The time for it aboard the runaway train from Hell?

James folded his arms over his chest and leaned into the mirrored wall. He focused his attention on the shape of her ears, fascinated by how intricate the ear could really be. What would it do to her if he couldn't get them exactly right? It was enough to take his mind off the potential threat of whatever Jaime might do with his tales of youthful misadventures and loosen up his tongue.

Half to himself, he started talking, voice low and quiet in the stillness of the room, "I wanted to do something about my eyes. I've loathed wearing specs my entire life and I have literally charmed my eyes more than can possibly be healthy for a fellow. The only charm I'm decent at is for my eyes really and even then it gives me a headache for hours afterward as it wears off. When I was in school, I'd thought that worth it. The headaches, I mean. I'm a bit older now and Lily---well, she didn't seem to mind the eyeglasses as much so I've left off with the charmwork for a bit."

It had been something they'd never really spoken on that James could recall, but it had been obvious to him after the third time he'd given himself a throbbing headache to meet Lily without the glasses that he'd noticed she really, truly didn't seemed fussed either way he showed up to see her. There wasn't any difference in how she greeted him. Not at all. If she, the only girl he was interested in impressing, couldn't be arsed to care one way or the other, why should he suffer through the headaches for it?

He'd stopped after that epiphany had struck.

"When we started up with all this, I was charming my eyes fairly regular. It seemed easy enough to lay the wand down and focus on changing something simple. Oh nothing hard like how well they worked, but color? There's not much really to be done to change the color of one's eyes. It's as easy as changing the color of one's hair if you work out that trick. Me? I closed my eyes and I thought of someone else's in my head. I focused on their shape first until I could push that thought out of the way and then all I focused on was their shade. It was the strangest feeling. Warming. As if my eyes were heating up from the inside and, as the shade became crystal clear for me in my head? I had this moment where I could almost feel a clicking like all the pieces had fallen into place in the puzzle. It worked exactly as I expected it to, but turning back? That was a bit harder. I had green eyes for three whole days and it was the first time in my life I was glad for the specs since they kept people from noticing as much. Funny the things we notice about people, isn't it? I'd never really realized that I looked at Lily all that much up to the point that I realized I could close my eyes and see hers as clearly as if she were standing in front of me. That? That was magic to me. You though. You think on something fun to do with your ears. I've got them in my mind now. I'll right you if you manage it wrong and you're welcome to try it first with the wand, but you will have to do the animagus transformation without. That's a must since you can't very well use a wand as whatever you shift into. You won't be guaranteed hands, eh?"

His face felt hot and he couldn't look at her, but maybe it'd helped. It was possible. A good description could reach far.

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[info]monologuinghero
2012-08-31 02:20 am UTC (link)
"Yeah, she's not really hung up on looks," Jaime replied absently. She did manage to catch herself before she added 'I mean, look who she's shagging' because that was entirely inappropriate on so very many levels. Still, there was a tell-tale shift to her eyes before she returned to studying her ears. Ears, she thought, had an awful lot of folds and protrusions and shape. "But I get it. I think if my vision was bad, I'd ... yeah. I'd try things, too." Though in her case, it wasn't so much vanity as the risk of glasses shattering back into her eyes during a firefight.

Jaime quirked a brow slightly as he went on with his story. She thought she must have been missing the point because ... well, who hadn't charmed part of themselves the wrong color at some point? She'd once attempted to charm stripes into her hair for a quidditch match, and she'd wound up with dandelions sprouting there instead. Though when he mentioned green, and Lily's eyes ... "You were stuck with Lily's eye color?" A grin quirked her lips at that. If she thought about it, she'd have to ask Lily if she'd noticed that. That, she guessed, had the potential to be embarrassing in the wrong hands.

Or the right ones, depending.

"I'm pretty much guaranteed not to have hands, aren't I?" She frowned. "Unless I'm a monkey." Which did prompt another question. "So ... what does happen to your wand and clothes and whatever when you change? Do they just ... go with you, or ... hide out in ..." Jaime trailed off. She'd been about to say 'trainspace' because that had become a term for inexplicably hidden things, at least in the circle she ran in. "Um. Limbo?" There. That worked.

Not that she was attempting to delay the actuality of tinkering with her ears, or anything like that. Heavens no. Regarding herself in the mirror, Jaime twisted her lips up slightly, scrunching her face as she squinted at her reflection. Blowing out a sigh, she pointed her wand at herself, half-closed one eye, and went to work tapering the tip of her left ear toward a point.

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[info]mapmaker
2012-08-31 08:55 am UTC (link)
"Oh, go on, have a laugh about it. You can believe Sirius did. He called me 'Mister Evans' for at least a sodding week after I managed to right my eyes. It wasn't that I had been watching her all that closely even. It was only she was the only one what made me want to try to chat with her at all. I've never cared for chasing bir---girls," James corrected himself, trying to force away the redness from his face by sheer will alone.

It was a crime to be able to get completely red over nothing more than a conversation with a member of the female persuasion. He absolutely loathed it. James would rather all women think him a prat than that he were too much of a stuttering idiot to manage to speak with them. Prats were at least considered vile while idiots were merely pitied.

James despised the concept, the very thought of being pitied.

He cleared his throat as he tried to focus on a way to explain what he thought to happen when one transformed fully. That was a bit more involved than telling her how to change up her ears or her eyes. It wasn't as simple when it was something external to a body's own personage.

"I've no idea if you're likely to turn into a primate of any form whatsoever, but I do know that as I see it, when you change your form, you can either choose to move your belongings with you, absorb them into your new body, or you can leave them behind and trust they'll still be there when you transform back. I've never felt comfortable enough leaving my wand behind so mine has always changed with me. It becomes a real part of myself and when I change back, I simply remember to pull that part away from me, separate it out again."

It wasn't the easiest explanation or likely the most sound, but it was the best that James could manage under the circumstances. He hadn't ever been given formal training on all of this. The Marauders had taught themselves the change from forbidden books and exhaustive research and mad trials and errors galore.

He wondered if she realized that as he watched her painstakingly shaping at her ear with her wand.

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[info]monologuinghero
2012-08-31 12:11 pm UTC (link)
Jaime glanced over to him curiously, but wasn't really sure what to say. She'd been friends with Lily nearly since the start, and close friends for a good half a year, but Lily really hadn't ever talked about James that much. It was ... interesting, meeting him and hearing what was essentially the other side of things. "She's pretty special," she settled on. "I mean ... the way she's been handling things on the train ..." She shrugged a little before she returned to studying her reflection. "I dunno. I don't think ... things would be the same here without her." Jaime herself knew she wouldn't be the same. Lily had had an influence on her, and she knew the more positive changes in her were due to the younger witch.

But that was an entirely too awkward conversation to be having with the man Lily was supposed to have married, so she let it go.

Jaime listened as he explained, and that was not a very comforting explanation. What if she changed back, and her wand didn't pull away? What if she was human with a wand lodged in her gut or something? Cripes. "So," Jaime sucked in her cheeks, because it wasn't funny, but it was one of those things -- the more she thought about how it shouldn't be funny, the funnier it got.

"Sorry," she apologized once she had a handle on herself. "I just ... imagine you as a stag, with one of your antlers being a wand ..." She trailed off and cleared her throat before she rolled her shoulders. But ... she got it. Wasn't it the reason some animagi had markings on them? Like spectacles or necklaces or whatever? The things that had moved with them for the transformation?

That was a little creepy to think about.

And while she didn't fancy the idea of leaving her wand behind, she couldn't decide if she liked the idea of it maybe accidentally getting trapped in her more or less.

Deciding to worry about that later, she reverted her attention to the task at hand -- shaping her ear. She thought she should have dragged the dragon-elf-whatever person in here and used her ears for an example.

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[info]mapmaker
2012-09-02 01:40 am UTC (link)
Lily was more than special. She was entirely unique. To James anyway since he'd never met any other girl who had ever made him want to change himself for her, be better for her, be worthy to be with her. Come to that. James Potter hadn't met another girl in his whole life that made him even want to be with her since girls were always too much of an enigma to him to make them worthwhile. He'd found other things to occupy his time---not all of them the most by-the-rules things, true enough, but something other than girls for definite.

He laughed at little at the thought Jaime proposed, choosing to ignore further talk of Lily at present, "I don't ever think about any place specific when I'm absorbing it, but that's one thought to keep in mind, isn't it? I tend to keep all my focus on what I'll wind up as rather than what I'm starting with which seems to be why it's likely easier for me."

It was true that the entire transformation was easier for him than it had been for his friends, but James really wasn't certain why that might have been. He had theories. That was all they were though. Theories.

Watching Jaime work at her ear, James thought she did a fairly good job with her wand even if she did look as if she were sincerely concerned she'd wind up with wings coming out the side of her head rather than pointy tips to her ears. He snickered quietly as she seemed to be managing it. She had looked so concerned and it really was a simple shift. He could have righted it if she'd buggered it all up. He was pretty sure. Mostly certain for definite.

"Don't try to force it. You're looking to allow a change to take place, not make one occur. There are some witches and wizards what are born able to do this effortlessly. It'll never be that easy for you to change a single thing, ears or eyes or nose, but it does get that easy for the shift to your animal form. No idea what that's to be for you," he shrugged, rolled to let his head fall against the glass as he pressed his back to it, "That'll be a surprise most likely, but it will be easy if you manage it the first time. Once you've done it once? It's easy from then on out. Least it has seemed to be for all of us who've managed. We weren't actually trained for this, you realize?"

He hadn't meant to say anything on that, but it seemed only fair considering how worried she already looked over a simple feature change.

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[info]monologuinghero
2012-09-02 02:25 am UTC (link)
Jaime giggled. She couldn't help it; some days, she had the mentality of a fifteen year old boy. When James mentioned he didn't think about where he was absorbing his wand, Jaime's mind flit to obvious places to absorb it to. Which led to jokes about getting wood, and then to wand euphemisms. None of which was remotely conducive to focusing on what she was trying to do. "I'm just going to ... give you a blanket apology now, because ... I am apparently more immature than usual today." Well, she was a little more stressed than usual, and apparently her outlet was going to be giggling over her immature thoughts.

Everyone needed something, right?

While she did understand his explanations (she was pretty sure), it was one of those things that was easier said than done. She grasped the difference, but putting it into action might require a mindset she'd have to work harder to achieve. "I'd heard," she replied when he mentioned they weren't trained. It stood to reason though -- if they were doing it in school, before their seventh year, it wasn't likely at all that anyone had been coaching them.

"So hey. You know how when you apparate without focus, you can splinch yourself? Am I looking at anything like that with ... the whole transformation thing? I mean, you guys had accidents, right? Anything that's going to make me wish I was dead instead of suffering through whatever pain I'm going through?"

Even as she spoke, she finished up on her ear. It was definitely a different shape, and she shifted to the other side to work on getting the other one to match.

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[info]mapmaker
2012-09-03 04:01 am UTC (link)
"If you're about to start making quips about the size of my wand, I'll have you know that I am utterly shameless when provoked. It's a trait of associating with Sirius for one's entire adult life. A survival instinct more than anything really."

James shot her an evil grin as he thought of some of the things that he'd wound up doing for no other reason than that he wasn't about to let Padfoot have one up on him. The bloody dog had a tendency to insist on being a prat to try to prove something. It was never really clear what he was trying to prove, but he was trying it. Often. The only reason James had gotten to the point at which he could talk to any of the female members of their student populace had been due to constant sniping from Sirius Black on it.

He was beginning to look on Jaime as more of one of the fellows than a girl sort though. She was a bit much for a regular girl as he saw it. It was her confidence, the way she spoke, and a bit of her humor as she could make him laugh which was never a bad trait in anyone.

Eyeing her ear, he decided, "I think you're not going to have to worry on it. If you really want to know, we did have a few accidents here or there. Peter getting a poisonous tail was the most amusing and horrifying as it took an era to get rid of the damned thing and it constantly kept lashing us when we tried to work at it. That was the only time we had to get treatment in the hospital wing and I think it was only on account that they loved me as much as they did that we got away with my half-arsed excuses. Your ears look fine! I think you should try to change them back without the wand. See what you manage. If you can't do it, the wand's still there. It might be easier for you to go back than forward, you think?"

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[info]monologuinghero
2012-09-03 04:34 am UTC (link)
"I would never. I think Ray might have something to say if I went about asking blokes about the size of their wands," Jaime replied with as straight a face as she could manage -- and it was actually almost serious enough to pass muster. Only the crinkles at the corners of her lips and eyes were a give-away that she was fighting a smile.

He was fun though, and she thought it was a shame that Lily had wound up with Snape. James would've been more fun to have as a suitemate than her former professor. Oh, well. What would be would be, and all that. She'd no more dream of trying to interfere with Lily's relationship than she imagined the other witch would think about touching hers.

"A poisonous tail," she echoed. "I want the story behind that one," she prompted as she glanced over to him, her brows lifting. "Because if I somehow wound up giving myself poisonous ears? You and I are going to have words, Potter." She didn't reason it was likely, but she guessed anything was possible. At least she hadn't accidentally given herself a tail while working on her ears.

Jaime heaved an exaggerated sigh as he mentioned trying it without the wand. It wasn't going to work because she was short-bus special when it came to wandless magic. But she guessed if she had to learn wandless to do the transformation she'd ... probably give it up before it went much past this. Not trusting the car to not abuse her wand while she wasn't looking, Jaime hesitated before she glanced back to James. She was so not in a rush to surrender it, ever, because she hated being without a wand, but she didn't want to set it down, either. Sure, she had a spare from the resort, but that was all the way back in her room and if that became her primary, with Peter's leant out, she had no spares.

Still, she offered him the handle of her wand so he could keep it for her while she tried to make some magic happen without it. "You may as well have your wand ready," she warned him. "Because unless this is some sort of exception to the general theory of wandless magic, it's not happening."

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[info]mapmaker
2012-09-03 06:01 am UTC (link)
Stories of his foolish misadventures as a boy playing at being a genius wizard were easier than other things they could discuss. James had few real regrets in his life. There weren't a lot of things he'd done that he wouldn't be willing to confess to if asked on them. He'd been cruel, crazy, and a bit of an idiot in his life. It was all a part of who he was as he saw it.

James made a sound at her response, "I'm sure he wouldn't. In his defense, I've no desire to have anyone share the size of another bloke's wand with me either. It's not on my list of top conversational priorities."

It was nice to laugh with her about something normal. There had been a time when he'd nearly lost his mind over one of the female prefects going on about how the prefects' bath was co-ed and she'd be coming to join him sometime when he least expected it. James had literally spent weeks agonizing over what he'd do if some bird showed up in the bath while he was in. He wasn't shy in the least, but not being shy and having a female person staring at his male person was hardly the same at all.

Flushing suddenly, James realized that it was hardly in his better interests to continue in that vein of conversation because there was no way he was going to swap notes on experiences there. He'd talk about any measure of idiocy when it came to magic, but the rest of it? The intimate, personal bits? They'd best let that alone if he weren't to expire from apoplexy.

"Err, it seemed as if Peter were to get it, right? He'd managed to turn himself into a rat -which was quite amusing- and he goes to turn back only to realize he's still got whiskers and a bit of a tail. We encourage him to think harder on his native shape. Sirius tells him something about being true to his nature. He gets this insanely stuffy look on his face which doesn't look good at all with the whiskers. Those go away and then there comes the tail! Suddenly it's gone from this bit of a thing to yards of it! Whipping about! I'm telling him to hold still so I can banish it only to take a strike right on my face that swells my eye closed, breaks my lenses, and leaves Sirius yelping for cover as he gets more than a handful of hits. All the while Peter keeps squeaking at us how he's sorry, terribly sorry, can't possibly be more sorry. I have never laughed at my own certain death as much."

James shook his head as he took Jaime's wand to hold carefully as she went to work at trying to set herself back to rights.

"I tell you, I really wasn't sure we'd come out of that one. I couldn't speak by the time we hit the hospital wing and Sirius was a leaking mess from it. They worked fast to where we could start talking, I made something up that was half truth and we were---we were fine. You'll be fine from this too. Close your eyes. Picture how you are, how your ears look regular like, and keep thinking on it until you feel the change stirring. It'll feel warm, maybe? Hot even."

He watched her carefully to try to see if he should offer to help, but if she were as bad as she claimed, it was possible she might not manage anything at all.

"If Peter Pettigrew, one of the most hopeless blokes I've ever met when it comes to magic, can learn this. You can learn this, Jaime. It's all in trusting yourself. Have a little faith."

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[info]monologuinghero
2012-09-03 02:36 pm UTC (link)
"Really? And here I thought that was all that went on in the boys' locker room," Jaime teased. And she was sure, in some locker rooms somewhere, there were size comparisons. She grinned and tried to cut her thoughts off before she started thinking about pricks and somehow managed to turn her ears into one. Because with her luck, she'd manage just that. Biting down on her lower lip, Jaime focused on other things until she could manage to chase away the thoughts of pricks in general from her mind. The grin remained, though at least the threatening giggles had backed off.

Though when he started talking about Peter, her expression sobered quick enough. Had anyone told him? She didn't think Lily had. Harry, maybe? She wasn't inclined to share; she'd told entirely too many people already about how they'd died, or how their friends had. She wasn't in a rush to spout out that the guy James thought was one of his best friends was the dick that sold him out and got him murdered.

She tried to drum up a smile for the story, but him mentioning Peter and certain death in the same breath ... it wasn't easy. Lily was easily one of her best friends on board, and Jaime thought if Peter ever did show up on the train, there was going to be a long line of people ready to fuck him up. While she usually didn't support punishing people for past crimes (or in some cases, crimes not yet committed), she thought she might make an exception there, if only because it was personal. Well, now it was personal. Given that she would have been five at the time it was all going down ... it was hardly personal then.

Shaking her head, she tried to push off all the distracting thoughts to put herself back to rights. She listened to James' coaching and tried to summon up the way she'd looked in the mirror. Exhaling softly, she continued to think about it, wondering if there was some particular pattern of thought she should be relying on to find the way to the spell, to round out her pointy ears.

"Yeah, I got nothing," Jaime replied as she opened her eyes after a couple of minutes of trying to make her ears go normal again. "Maybe if I do the hokey-pokey first and turn myself about, that'll kick it off." Well, whatever. There was a reason there were only a handful of animagi, right? Not everyone was going to be able to be one. Maybe she'd try working on it in private. If nothing else, she figured Snape could undo whatever she did to herself, if Lily couldn't.

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[info]mapmaker
2012-09-04 03:01 am UTC (link)
Evidently Jaime hadn't been kidding when she'd said she couldn't do anything without a wand because her ears stubbornly refused to change shape at all. James couldn't remember how long it had taken him to get his eyes to change shade. The only thing he could remember clearly -other than being teased continuously afterward- had been how his eyes had felt painfully hot for more than a quarter-hour after he'd gotten them done. He'd really worried over that feeling, but it had turned out fine.


Handing over her wand, he said, "It might take you a bit longer then. I don't recall how long it took me. The time wasn't as much what I was focusing on as the result. You know, have you ever tried Polyjuice? Disgusting stuff, but it has the same feel to it as it works on you that you'll have when you shift yourself in parts. Sometimes it's easier if someone is working on recreating a feeling than trying to force it with no reference. It is possible though. You know we've metamorphmagus types who can do it without even thinking. It's possible."


James believed that nearly anything could be done if one put enough effort and ingenuity into it. He'd done plenty he had been told couldn't ever be possible. Possibility was only a factor when one believed that there were impossible things in existence. Possibility and plausibility were different; James knew that there were more than a handful of things that were implausible even if they weren't impossible.


It was possible for him to forget about what he might have had with Lily Evans. Forget all the things he'd wanted with her. Move on from the possibility of being her lover to simply being her friend. It was simply implausible as he wasn't quite certain he was enough of a decent man for that. The best he could hope for was civility. His family had always been the civil sort. James wasn't about to degenerate back to being a schoolboy with no respect for others when he finally felt as though he might have become someone his parents would have had a right to be proud to call their son.


"You think something else might work better to start with for you?" he asked suddenly, shaking free of his thoughts to try to focus on something a bit brighter, "I could always shift you myself and see if you could turn yourself back."


He was only half-joking about that as well. James was likely to do it for no other reason than to see if he could.

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[info]monologuinghero
2012-09-04 09:43 pm UTC (link)
“Have used. I think I still have some,” she reflected. “I showed up with some stuff in my pockets. Pretty sure I had a dose of polyjuice there.” The question was, what had she done with the things in her pockets? Dresser drawer was her best guess -- unless she’d shoved it into the nightstand with the spare wands. “If it doesn’t have an expiration date, it’s probably useable still,” she continued. And for a moment, she very seriously considered using it to turn herself into Ray, just for shits and giggles. Except that would be weird. Way weird. So she shook that thought off as she used her wand to right her ears. Going backward was easier than going forward, and in no time at all, they were proper ears again. Her ears. Still, she’d have Ray check to see if he noticed anything off.

“I just never really paid much attention to the feel. Too busy spitting about the taste, I guess,” she reflected.

Jaime regarded James for a moment at his suggestion, half-considering it before she shrugged. “Wouldn’t that be a bias though? I mean, if you shifted me into a turtle, and my real form should be a tiger or something?” Could they even be tigers? That might be cool. “How much …” Jaime trailed off as she tried to consider how she wanted to phrase what she was trying to say. “How many animagi have the same patronus as they do animal shape? I mean, if my patronus is a dove, which it is, shut up, does that mean I’m going to be a dove? Or that the odds are good I’ll be a dove? Or is it completely irrelevant?” Well, she didn’t know, and it seemed like a valid question.

Either way, she studied herself in the mirror as she tried to consider whether or not she’d really let him do it if he was serious. She guessed if James couldn’t undo it, maybe Snape could, and she was sure Lily would strongly suggest he do so if he could. And if not, well, it had to wear off eventually right? Ray would probably understand. Maybe that was the only way she’d get this.

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[info]mapmaker
2012-09-05 07:51 am UTC (link)
"Mhm, it is a bit foul to the taste, I'll grant you that. I've forgotten how utterly vile it is for the most part since I've blocked it from my memory as a method of self-preservation, but it was the first thing to come to mind. I've never used it what you might call legally myself. I'm thinking you're more likely to've needed it, yeah?"

James wasn't entirely sure about Jaime, but she seemed the type to be decent about the rules at home. She didn't strike him as the kind of witch who'd walked any line she liked with no regard for others. There wasn't a lot of malevolence in her presence, more a sense of irony or snark really. He quite enjoyed her company on the whole.

Thinking on the question, he coughed to cover a laugh as he realized he did know one specific example that wasn't at all to par with the theory that all animagi had the same form as their own patronus. It wasn't the kind of example he was sharing instantly, but it was a little funny to think on.

"I can honestly say that's not as relevant as you might think. It's likely you will become a dove since you've come to associate that animal with a part of yourself as it's your protector, your patronus. That doesn't mean it's a 100% guarantee though. After all, a person's patronus can take the form of---well, let's put it this way, you're unlikely to swap around your gender in your animagi form now aren't you? I've never heard of that myself."

James kicked off from the mirrored wall as he started to really think about how much he actually didn't know about the whole process. It seemed strange to think that he'd taught himself something from bits and pieces of information that should have been taught to him by the highest minds in wizardry. He'd taken it for granted mostly. The fact that he could actually get Jaime hurt, could really harm her, didn't sit right with him all of a sudden and he wished more than anything that he had someone who might have the answers around to ask.

Giving her an apologetic smile, James said, "I'm sorry if I'm a shite teacher. I really did learn all this hand-to-mouth you might say. It wasn't something I did easily, by any means, but I did manage it with no one more than Sirius to help. Peter was all but useless in the process. If I changed you, it would be unlikely I'd get your exact form right. I'd only be testing to see if you could follow it by feel the next go about. I tend to do things---without thinking. If you're over there thinking about what might happen to you, if you're worried or scared, it could be something we tested later. I don't know if I want to think I've pressured you into being a test subject for my misadventures in experimental magic, yeah?"

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[info]monologuinghero
2012-09-06 01:39 am UTC (link)
"I ... wouldn't exactly say need, but ... yeah," Jaime replied. "I mean, I've used it on the job. It helps if you're ... um. Tracking someone. Change up how you look, so they'll see a tiny brunette following them, and then an old grey man, and then a hot blonde. You know." She grinned, then laughed faintly.

Her lips pursed slightly as she tried to decide how much it actually mattered what her shape was. Would she not want to do it if she was going to wind up a dove? Though ... why couldn't she be something awesome like a hawk or an eagle? Though she guessed that was putting the cart before the horse. Who knew if what he turned her into would be what stuck? If she actually let him try it. She wasn't sure her shape was something she was interested in him messing with. Yet, anyway. "I wouldn't know," she replied. "I mean, have you met every animagus? Maybe somewhere ... there's totally a ... gender swap ... witch or something." Her brow furrowed and she was pretty sure that wasn't remotely the proper phrasing, but there it was.

But ... she didn't know. Maybe it was one of the rules of animagi-ism. "Maybe the train'll drop off a book about it," she reflected. "It does that, sometimes. I mean, Lily got a whole trunk of potions stuff once. People have had their wands show up. I mean, I've had spares to loan out, but. You know. It's nice to have your own." Or if they ever went back to the resort, there might be a book there.

She waved off the apology. "You're fine," she replied. "I'm just as bad at being a student. And ... yeah, maybe we can save you changing me as a last resort. I'll ... practice doing some things without a wand. Maybe I'll get lucky and something will click." She doubted that, but ... she'd see. Regarding herself in the mirror, Jaime decided her ears looked fine. Uncharming her hair, she let it fall around her face again.

Sliding her wand into her back pocket, she shifted to face him before she shrugged. "Either way. It's not like we have anything pressing to do here, right?" They could just ... keep working at this until she got up the nerve to let him change her, or she worked it out herself. Whichever came first.

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[info]mapmaker
2012-09-06 05:41 am UTC (link)
There was something really humorous in the idea of Jaime lurking around as a tiny old man while stalking some random, faceless bloke. James didn't laugh, but he did manage a smile at it. He had a feeling that she was a lot more fearless than most witches if she was the type to polyjuice herself to hunt criminals and actually go about doing it rather than merely talking on it in principle.

"I've not met many animagi at all," James admitted, "I have read their registry. It wasn't acquired through the proper channels, but it was up-to-date and I did get a chance to read it over to see what sorts of creatures were on file. There were some you'd not imagine, too. Did you know that someone can actually turn themselves into a turtle? You were joking before, but truly! There was one on file! I'm almost positive."

He wasn't sure what it said about him that he was relieved to think that they could wait on testing his skills at people shifting. Transfiguration was nearly as natural to him as breathing, yet it wasn't at all the same when it came to shifting a sentient being rather than an animal or an object. James had done it, but he hadn't really tried to push himself and he hadn't pushed for much of anything except defensive magic since leaving school. The war effort took most of his energies simply trying to come up with things that could help keep his friends alive.

James thought fondly of his own wand back on his nightstand, "I do hope I get mind some day. It's back on my bedside table. Patiently waiting on me to wake up to remember it's there. I keep hoping I'll have a lie down on the train and wake up to find it next to me as if I'd only forgotten I had it with me the whole time. Silly, but isn't this entire place? We're all little off around here, as I see it. It's a survival instinct."

It was something to think on. He hadn't yet checked out a lot of the offerings in the library. For all he knew, there might well be some books he could actually use to help Jaime with her transformation process.

"You know, I think I will check out the library some time. I've not looked about in there as yet. There could be something to help. You're right enough we've time to think it over. We could work at this for a bit. It'll pass the time. Want to say we'll try for something new once a week or so? Set up a regular thing to keep on track? We worked every day in school, but we were held at wandpoint there. Every day we waited was another that Moony was out there alone. Here, there's no real rush except my intense curiosity to see how you'll look as a wee white bird of peace," he teased softly.

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[info]monologuinghero
2012-09-06 10:19 pm UTC (link)
“I wouldn’t want to be one, but … I’m not surprised. I wonder if there’s anything you can’t be. Like, can you turn yourself into a unicorn? A real one? Or a dragon? It would kind of suck if you turned yourself into a goldfish …” She turned to regard him. “Were there goldfish?” She was a little curious how they’d gotten ahold of the registry, but … maybe it was best she didn’t know.

She shook her head. “Wouldn’t surprise me. Just like I wouldn’t be surprised to find one of my actual spares from home under my pillow or something.” She shrugged. Most people did get their wands who’d shown up without. Sooner or later. “Then again, Hermione had one of my spares for months before hers deigned to show,” she reflected. “Wasn’t even a decently fair trade. That was how I got Bellatrix’s wand. The wand that bit me,” Jaime added before heaving an exaggerated sigh.

“There’s a girl here. Juliet St. Laurent. If there’s a book on this train about that, she’ll find it. That’s her … um. Mutation. She finds things, And she really doesn’t mind being asked. We even escorted her out into zombies to find weapons. So finding a book on a train will be a cakewalk.” And if there wasn’t one, no harm, no foul.

Jaime nodded. “I can probably manage an hour a week,” she agreed with a slight grin. Why not? It wasn’t like she had any self-appointed duties like some of the others. She just … hung out with Ray or wandered the train or read. So why not do something that might end up being useful? She did, however, stick her tongue out at his teasing. “Blah blah, Potter. If I’m a bird, I’m so perching on your antlers,” she playfully threatened him.

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[info]mapmaker
2012-09-10 09:17 pm UTC (link)
The idea of Jaime as a tiny bird perching on his antlers was enough to have James laughing as he shook his head at her. She was incorrigible. He had a feeling that fellow of hers had his work cut out with him simply keeping up and that was a thought wasn't it? James had never been with a girl long enough to have to worry about seeing to her needs as much as his own or ensuring she wasn't mad enough to agree to let rogue wizards turn her into whatever animals they could manage on the fly with a borrowed wand. That was a definite plus to think on as a single bloke: he'd only himself to worry over, didn't he?


"You'd find yourself with a very unsteady ground to be clinging to if you perched on my head. I can't hardly keep still when I change. The world seems too much larger. Everything seems to be waiting on me and I do hate waiting. All I want to do is run. You'd wind up having to hang on tight with your little feet if you were to catch a ride with me," he teased back, knowing good and well he'd likely let her get away with it without a fuss anyway.


James had grown used to the idea that there were others on the train who were different from wizardkind, but a mutation that let someone find things? What sort of mutation was that? Who even had mutations? The idea seemed bizarre to him as the only "mutations" he'd ever read over had been in Muggle novels that Sirius had brought in to annoy his family. The Blacks had such a blatant hatred of anything Muggle-made that it had become Sirius's favorite thing in the world to immerse himself in Muggle culture to the point at which he had spread it about all of Gryffindor Tower. James had read more Muggle novels and listened to more Muggle music than he had wizarding since he was in first year.


Cocking his head at Jaime, he asked her, "Are you sure that Juliet won't mind helping me comb the library over for a book ? It's not as if I'm asking her to brave zombies like you lot did. Which was likely quite cruel of you. I'll have you know I went out into that mess and it was all I could do not to worry for my own safety much less imagine going out into it without the benefit of a wand to defend myself with. I'm trying not to overly bother the folk about here even though I am about to lose my mind with boredom some days and it's all I can do not to simply transfigure legs onto every piece of furniture about to see which of them are the quickest in a foot race."


That idea had actually taken James a solid day to shake off because it had been funny enough to set him grinning idiotically at nothing. In spite of all the circumstances he'd encountered on the train to date, James really wasn't too bothered by the entire experience of being aboard. It was safer than the war. Lily was safe. Sirius was safe. Harry---Harry existed. That was enough there. He could say that he was fine with being aboard under the circumstances.


"At any rate, I'm thinking we'll set ourselves up to see one another on Wednesdays perhaps? It's midweek. Gives you time to recover from me either direction, yeah?"

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[info]monologuinghero
2012-09-10 11:23 pm UTC (link)
"I could do it," Jaime replied, her lips pursing before she grinned. "Geeze, now I almost want to turn into a bird just to prove I could do it." Except ... not quite that badly. Not enough to want to commit to a bird-shape, anyway. Not that there was anything wrong with being a bird ... but she was already ridiculously small and she'd rather be something ... larger as an animal.

Which of course meant she was going to land up as a bunny or chipmunk or something. Pulling a slight face at her thoughts, Jaime rolled her shoulders. There probably wasn't any point in worrying about it, anyway. At the rate she was going, it was years down the line.

"Hah," Jaime replied when he commented about Juliet. "I'm sure she'd prefer tracking down a book on the train to tracking down weapons in a land full of demonic zombies when she's almost the only one in the group that can't pop off on her own." Ray couldn't, of course, but there was absolutely no question who would have a hand on him to escape when danger popped up. "It really was. We're very abusive when it comes to using people for the good of the population on the train." Though she grinned like she was teasing, there was a kernel of truth. Oh, they wouldn't have made her if she really didn't want to go, or if Alex had had extreme protests.

"She took off in Nebraska to go ... rescue a kidnap victim. Just with John, so pretty much on her own, but all we were contending with there were ... um. Corpses. Or a virus. Depending on how you looked at it."

Jaime grinned at his comment. "Sirius and I -- the first one -- set things on the train to singing. Then we're pretty sure the train took over because things we hadn't charmed were singing songs we didn't know." Jaime shrugged, but ... it had been mostly fun. Not quite as fun when people were getting irritated with it and looking for people to blame, but ... still mostly fun.

She laughed quietly at his suggestion. "I see my fake calendar system has caught on," Jaime teased. But that was why they'd done it to begin with, wasn't it? So people could have days. Sure, there was no year, and people's birthdays could be off by real!months, but ... it was some solid point of reference. Maybe the next time they landed somewhere safe, she'd get a bunch more calendars to charm to stick in the baggage car. "But sure. Fake Wednesdays work for me."

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[info]mapmaker
2012-09-11 12:15 am UTC (link)
"Oy! I like our fake days. Train time is quite nice. For all I know, today is actually a Monday and I'm only thinking it's a Wednesday so it's changed my entire perception about to where I quite enjoy the day as I wouldn't normally. Have always hated Mondays, myself, nothing good ever happens on a Monday. At least not in my experience."


Some people might not have been as amused by the idea of having no definite timeline for anything. James thought it was all a bit of a lark really since he had no reason to worry over what he was missing at home or how long it'd take him to get there. As far as he knew, the time that he spent on the train was negligible. Everyone who had spoken with him on the topic had told him that the ones who'd left and returned had no memories of being missing or of being on the train in some cases. It seemed as if the train were its own world with its own rules: an unplottable fixed in a stranger's pensieve where time was happening for those inside the bowl yet not changing or happening outside it wherever the pensieve happened to actually exist.


It didn't worry him in the least that they might be meeting up on a Monday when they were calling it a Wednesday; the idea of getting to walk about in the future filled him with nothing more than excitement. James was trying to make the most of the strange circumstances he'd landed himself in. There was no reason to think on what wouldn't happen for him here or what might not ever happen for him as he'd been here. He knew there were things -death and love, for example- that made their own rules outside the control of man no matter how much a man might want to be able to convince them to go along with his own desires.


James scrubbed a hand over his head, tousling his hair out of habit more than anything else, as he offered her a smile to go along with his agreement, "I seem to have no problem believing you'd have gotten Sirius to go along with something of that sort. He's the type to have done it to drive everyone mad as much as for his own amusement. He's worse than I am when it comes to being easily distracted. I swear to you, Jaime, the longer I talk to you, the more out of my element I feel. I've always been a bit of an off thinker. I suppose it's the only real skill I've got to offer. I keep thinking eventually I'll be of use around here. So. As it stands. I suppose that for now, it's animagus lessons with you of a Fake Wednesday and hopefully I'm going to be able to convince the doubtlessly lovely Juliet to lend me a hand finding some texts to help in that process along the way. Between you and I, I'm personally hoping you turn into something dead useful like a homing pigeon. You could simply sense our way along or something. I don't recall anyone turning into anything wildly out of the ordinary such as a unicorn or a dragon, but I don't recall any goldfish either. I imagine whatever you wind up as will be some use to you, but think on how nice it would be to have built in sonar as it were. "


He couldn't quite keep back a quiet snicker at the thought of that. It had honestly surprised James himself that he hadn't turned into something with wings on his own. He'd always loved to fly and he was very good at it. Flight had come naturally to him, but, evidently, that hadn't mattered much in the end because he'd landed up as a large animal whose four hooves were always planted quite firmly on the ground. That hadn't stopped James from trying to race fast enough to feel like he was flying, of course, yet it was never the same as actual flight. He already envied Jaime the possibility of wings though he knew that it was a toss-up as to whether she'd wind up with them or not.


"Thanks, Jaime. For the distraction. And I suppose for the purpose, eh? It's nice to feel I'm somewhat useful even if it's only to you."

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[info]monologuinghero
2012-09-11 12:40 am UTC (link)
"It's a Monday for someone in some reality," Jaime assured him solemnly before she grinned and shook her head. "Tuesdays are it for me. Mondays ... I never had a problem with Mondays. But Tuesdays?" She arched her brows and exhaled softly. "Well, I guess my week was just on a lag and I got all the leftover Monday gunk on Tuesday." She paused reflectively. "Or maybe it was my tendency to sleep through Monday that got me in so much hot water on Tuesday ..."

She arched her brows at his comment. "What makes you think it was my idea?" In all honesty, she couldn't really remember which of them had started it. The odds were good it had been something born mutually between them out of a combination of boredom and a desire to stir things up on the train. "It was so small back then," she reflected. "When we did that, there were maybe thirty people all together. We've got like, four times that now."

A soft snort escaped her as he mentioned her turning into something useful. But ... it wasn't like she disagreed. Well, she disagreed about the pigeon part, but ... other animals could be useful. And it might not be horrible to be a bat ... But if she ever got that far, she guessed she'd just be pleased she'd managed the transformation at all. At least now she had something to work toward.

"Sure thing," she replied. "And thanks for the teaching," she added, sucking in her cheeks to curb the worst of her grin.

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