Apparating Lessons
January 5th, 1996
Seventh Year
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"Now, remember the three d's of apparition, Destination, Determination and Deliberation. One must be completely determined to reach one's destination and move not with haste, but with deliberation." Wilkie Twycross, Apparition instructor and Ministry of Magic official reminded the small group in front of him. It was their second lesson and they were going to try to actually Apparate this time instead of sitting around listening to their teacher, whom Leili had said looked like an Albino, do to his white hair, blue eyes, and colorless eyelashes, Jo'd had to agree.
Leili was up first, "All a lot of chickens, they are," she mumbled; mostly to herself since the other students in the class had collectively taken a step back leaving her and Jo in the front. Considering that this was her first attempt at Apparating, Leili did well, she moved with a small pop of displaced and then replaced air, she didn't even splinch herself. Of course, she did launch herself halfway across the grounds instead of the neatly drawn circle three feet in front of her. Instead of Apparating back and risking running into something, like a wall, she decided to walk. "Fair warning: that was like a really bad rollercoaster."
"A what?" Official Twycross asked, he looked like he'd never heard of a rollercoaster before, but then being a wizard he probably hadn't.
"A rollercoaster," Jo repeated, when he just looked more confused she added, "It's a muggle thing."
"Oh. Is it a mode of transportation?"
"Um. I guess? But it's more for amusement than anything so functional as transport."
"Interesting," then he shook his head and went back to teaching, "please proceed." Jo took a breath, focused and then 'Pop' as she vanished and then again as she landed about a foot outside the circle.
"Woah," Jo said as she recovered.
"Well done! Very well done! That's better then I'd hoped for!" Twycross exclaimed, clapping. Jo was determined to succeed, so she tried again, she wound up on the other side of the circle.
In the weeks to come, this would become common, Leili launching herself 50 feet away while Jo would be within a foot of where she was aiming but would always end up going around the circle, then one day, they got the idea to aim where they were landing and see if they could figure out what was going wrong, when they wound up where the other typically landed. Official Twycross decide to try side-along Apparition, in the hope that it would help, and it did, sort of.
The girls landed in the circle, but, for the next few weeks, they could only Apparate and land where they were aiming when they Apparated together. This was very perplexing for Twycross and a mix of amusing and vexing for the girls.
Then, a week from the first test, Jo Apparated and landed in the dead bang center of the circle, she Apparated back to Leili's side successfully and whispered the solution in her ear. Leili closed her eyes, relaxed and imagined herself just appearing in the circle and then 'pop'.
When Leili opened her eyes, she was standing in the center of the stupid circle that had come to be the bane of her existence and she threw both fists in the air and cried, "HA!"