For her first Charms class at Ilvermorny, it seems like Nurcan’s section has 4 of the exchange students herded into one section, and all other exchange students are in different sections.

  “We have newcomers to this class. For the next six months, we will have four exchange students in this section. I want you to be nice to them for the next six months!” Atateken then turns to the foursome before they can get seated. “I’m Atateken, and I will be your Charms instructor for the next six months. Please introduce yourselves along with your nationality and institution of origin!”

  “Jace Bascom, British, from Hogwarts!”

  “Vaidilute Marcinkeviciute, Lithuanian, from Durmstrang. But you may call me Vaidi!”

  “Nurcan Topkara, Ottoman, from Karakalem!” Nurcan seems to omit that she’s actually on exchange from another exchange.

  “Emmanuelle Rictus, French, from Beauxbatons!”

  The four get seated wherever space is available, which seems to be mostly at the back. Once they get seated again:

  “You will have the opportunity to ask them anything you want after class. However, it has come to my attention that our newcomers have not learned wandless magic. For everyone else, it will be a review. But first, you must realize that Native American magical practices are wandless and, as such, magic is an extension of the self. The newcomers might struggle in the beginning, so please don’t make fun of them as they practice. One word of caution: wandless magic isn’t as precise as magic cast with a wand, and requires greater focus, but, usually, the hand gesture in a wandless spell would be the same as if you used a wand!”

  Oh boy: that’s the same precaution as if we were using nonverbal magic! Spells won’t have the same power if we do it wandlessly vs with the wand… Nurcan starts thinking of how would spellcasting be affected when learning to cast wandless magic.

  “The most important thing for those used to using a wand who want to start using wandless magic is to instead consider the finger you use to point as if it was your wand. So let’s start with a basic spell, Lumos!”

  Nurcan, while focusing on her index, finds herself a little uncomfortable having to treat her index as if it was a wand. And a much, much shorter one at that, made of human flesh with a bone core.

  “Lumos!” Nurcan shouts after a somewhat clumsy attempt at using her fingertip as a wand.

  With that said, she finds herself with a flickering fingertip, which doesn’t have the same luminosity as what she could usually conjure when casting Lumos.

  Meanwhile, Emmanuelle seems to be the one who struggle most out of the 4 in the room: the Quidditch keeper seems to only manage a few seconds of lighting before her fingertip goes dark, and the spell fizzles.

  Just as I expected. Emmanuelle isn’t the brightest Quidditch player, nor is she anywhere near the academic level of even Alejandra, who in my mind, is representative of what to expect of someone who had a realistic shot at being taken by the Goblet… Nurcan reflects on how Emmanuelle differs from Jace and Vaidilute, who also seem to feel a little discomfort. But it feels like I was brought back to the pre-cahier days, just not in the way I wished for it: using wandless magic feels as if I was casting spells using my first cornel wand again. How unwieldy, how underpowered I felt using it back then…

  And yet both Jace and Vaidi appear to make their fingertips shine for longer. But it’s painfully obvious that everyone else in that class seem to have gotten the hang of wandless magic, given how uncomfortable the newcomers seem to be when casting it.

  After a few more rounds of practice, they get more comfortable with using their fingertips as if they were wands. However, it’s then that Atateken gets into the wandlore portion of learning wandless magic:

  “To truly get the most out of wandless magic, you must understand that human flesh is, by wandlore standards, very, very squidgy. And human bone, not a very good wand core!” Atateken tells the whole class. “One of the major challenges of wandless magic is keeping your finger straight while casting a spell: often wandless spells can fizzle because your finger bent while casting it!”

  Now I have a better idea of why I struggle with wandless magic: it just doesn’t feel the same using my hand as a wand vs using a proper wand! Emmanuelle starts getting a better idea of how she could cast wandless magic.

  “One point to Wampus for effort!” Atateken announces.

  “J’ai fait quoi pour donner un point à Wampus?” (How did I earn Wampus a point?)

  “N’oublie pas: ici il y a des points de maison!” (Don’t forget: here, there are those things called house points!) Nurcan tells Emmanuelle about something that wasn’t covered in Mélisande’s ELL lessons back home.

  “Points de maison? Comment on gagne ou perd ?a, des points de maison?” (House points? How do we earn or lose house points?) Emmanuelle asks her.

  Nurcan whips out an old reading exercise she used to learn English so that she could maybe compete at the Triwizard Tournament, which is about house points at Hogwarts. Which, based on everything she heard about Ilvermorny, is very similar.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  The foursome keeps practicing wandless magic using spells whose failure is relatively harmless for the rest of the period.

  At the end of it, the exchange students get bombarded with advice given by the regular students:

  “Students, if you have any tips to give to help our newcomers get more out of their stay, now is the time!” Atateken pleads with them. “Because you seem a little out of the loop, no homework this week!”

  “If you want to make the most out of your stay, I strongly advise you to join a club or two, but no more than that!” a student advises all 4. “Just pay attention to your interests!”

  “Who should I ask about Quidditch? I play it!” Emmanuelle asks that student.

  “Each house common room has a board with all the upcoming club activities, including Quidditch practices and the points of contact!”

  Hopefully I can tell them about how such-and-such pro team is interested in me, like the Zhanjiang Bain-Maries, even though they might not even know about Zhanjiang to begin with! But of course! Maybe I could ask Gen about Quidditch! Emmanuelle starts thinking about how she could get her foot in the door, playing Quidditch here at Ilvermorny on her way to the Wampus common room.

  At this point, Emmanuelle comes across Gen, who’s going to her office to prepare a seventh-years’ course, this afternoon:

  “à qui demander chez les Wampus pour le Quidditch?” (Who to ask among Wampus for Quidditch?) Emmanuelle asks her Divination instructor.

  “Landon!” Gen then adds a caution. “Je dois t’avertir: le Quidditch ici n’est pas comme le Quidditch à Beauxbatons!” (I must warn you: Quidditch here is nothing like Quidditch at Beauxbatons!)

  “En quoi?” (How so?)

  “Les équipes ont de la misère à rester en place, et aussi le fameux ? no-pass, no-play ? en vigueur ici!” (Teams struggle to stay together, and also the “no-pass, no-play” in force here!)

  Got it, the level of play won’t be anywhere near what I’m used to, Emmanuelle starts searching for one Landon in the Wampus common room. But no-pass, no-play sounds the same as at Beauxbatons: your grades must be Acceptables, or, here, Cs, at a minimum, to play.

  Once in the common room, Emmanuelle frantically starts looking for Landon, looking for more information about Wampus Quidditch, and telling him about her as a player.

  When she finally locates him, she finds him eating lunch:

  “Hi Landon, I’m Emmanuelle… I’m a Keeper…” Emmanuelle seems a little nervous.

  “You said you’re a Keeper?” Landon asks her. “Can you please tell me about your previous experience of the position?”

  “At my previous school, I was the best Keeper, so much so that, unless an AQL team makes a better offer to me, I will be playing for the Zhanjiang Bain-Maries next season!”

  That sounds a little suspicious. I never heard of the Zhanjiang Bain-Maries, so maybe I should put her on a tryout first. If she legitimately has the skill to go pro, she starts for sure; our current Keeper isn’t good enough to go pro, Landon starts rolling his eyes upon hearing about how Emmanuelle is seemingly a pro Quidditch prospect. Then again, not many players grow up wanting to become Keepers, and our Keeper was thrust into the position, basically had to play keeper to keep playing.

  “Today after class, is that good for you?”

  “I mean… Yes!”

  Meanwhile, in Horned Serpent’s common room, Nurcan looks at the board for various after-school clubs, along with their schedules, and look for whether one of these could appeal to her. Maybe I could join the Arithmancy club, and to keep my Arithmancy fresh… they might be interested in how I went around predicting the length and effectiveness of the Estates-General, even though, to Revolutionary French wizards, they are but a distant memory. That said, I know better than to take for granted foreign wizards will know about Muggle events that are distant to them.

  When the Arithmancy club meeting arrives, Nurcan gets to a room with only a handful of Horned Serpent students across multiple grade levels. Most of them seem, to her eyes, to fit the archetypal description of an arithmancer: lots of brains, but little power.

  “So we have a newcomer here today?” Elias, the Arithmancy club president, asks her. “Please introduce yourselves!”

  “Nurcan, sixth-year exchange student…”

  “Ishkode!”

  The Arithmancy club members seem to be wondering where Nurcan comes from. However, the last one to introduce herself carries some resemblance to Gen, or at least what Nurcan believes Gen’s sixth-year student self to have been like, i.e. when Montreal fell:

  “Anne de la Pérade!” Anne introduces herself with a Mauricie accent.

  “You sound like one of the Divination profs!” Nurcan points out, not yet telling who.

  Nurcan… my mom did mention her once or twice in passing a few years back, but that was before Dorcus graduated, Anne starts thinking upon seeing Nurcan’s face. A Dorcus whom everyone knew acted like a No-Maj socialite; how she even managed to scrape a C on a Divination EAGLE, and hence graduate, is beyond me, and probably even beyond herself. Graduating requires one passing grade on one EAGLE, which is harder than it sounds, or at least to Dorcus.

  “Today, Nurcan, you’re responsible for the problem to be solved in this meeting!” Elias announces to her.

  “As bizarre as it might sound, you can even use Arithmancy to predict how Muggle, erm, No-Maj events occur!”

  Nurcan then turns the predicted duration of the 1789 Estates-General into an arithmancy problem, but leaves out the year they occurred in the problem statement.

  “What are the Estates-General?” Elias rolls his eyes.

  “I’d never thought that I’d even hear about the Estates-General here!” Anne exclaims as they start solving the first part of the problem.

  “You may ask anything you want about the Estates-General after the meeting ends…” Nurcan sighs.

  Damn… that’s one application of Arithmancy that feels so outlandish to me! Ishkode, a male Ojibwe, as well as the youngest member of the Arithmancy club, starts thinking when he starts attempting to solve the problem. The new White witch feels pretty good at the more applied aspect of Arithmancy… He then raises his hands to get Nurcan to help him.

  Yet, Anne and Elias seem less troubled by the problem presented. At the end of the first part:

  “I think, with Nurcan, we have a much better chance to get the Arithmancy Achievement Accolade this year!” Anne comments on Nurcan’s prowess in Arithmancy.

  Nurcan’s eyes then perk up. “Arithmancy Achievement Accolade?”

  “You see, Nurcan, several subjects have house competitions here. Arithmancy, Charms, Transfiguration, Potions, Runes, and you also have Gobstone, Quodpot and Quidditch!” Elias explains to her.

  Elias then shows her the current standings in the Charms Chalice, the Excellence in Potions and Runes Cups, Gobstone Goblet, Quidditch and Quodpot Cups, Arithmancy Achievement Accolade and finally, the Transfiguration Tournament. And, obviously, the House Cup.

  And then they continue to the second part, which totally bewilders the other 3, who feel like effectiveness is a little arbitrarily defined for the purpose of the problem, but, from a purely arithmantic standpoint, works just fine.