Welcome to Gaia! ::

Astronomy: While Linsey didn’t mind the subject matter, she very much minded the hour at which it was being taught. While it was interesting, and her aunt stressed the implications of ‘archeoastronomy’ had in Cursebreaking, she found that when it came time for OWL prep she couldn’t justify putting in as much of her effort here when she was planning to drop the class after Fifth Year. That said, she also refused to tank the class and the OWL, and kill her grade point ~ Exceeds Expectations

Charms: Besides being the basic building blocks of all things learned at Hogwarts, Linsey inherited her mother’s talent for the subject, which became apparent when she started taking the class as a First Year. The magic comes almost as easily to her as breathing. When it came time for the exam, Linsey took as much of it wandless as the examiners would allow her to, because she was so comfortable with the subject matter. Needless to say, she aced this OWL ~ Outstanding.

Defense Against the Dark Arts: This was a subject with which Linsey was particularly squeamish, being she didn’t like inflicting harm upon others, even if it might someday save her life. Her godmother explained to her what happened at the train station at Hogsmeade when she was a student, and how she’d been unable to cast a spell to save her own life, and how narrowly she avoided death. When it came to the OWL, Linsey aced the written portion, the practical exam proved she could cast defensive charms with her usual level of facility, however when it came to casting offensive hexes and curses, her natural squeamishness showed through and ensured they weren’t as a close to the mark as they honestly should or could have been. It was the boggart test that nearly did her in, as it took the form of a black box which engulfed the Fifth Year Ravenclaw and started slowly crushing her as all the sides contracted around her. While she managed to drive the boggart off, the experience landed her in Hospital Wing overnight ~ Exceeds Expectations

Herbology: Being friends with Tam has given Linsey an appreciation for plants she might never have had otherwise, and while at first she thought she might not have appreciated the class, she found she rather liked getting her hands dirty, and the feeling of having accomplished something by the end of a project. She tackled her classes with her usual level of detail, and her class notes were liberally decorated with illustrations of the plants as well as the procedures used in handling them. The written exam was a breeze for the Fifth Year, and she handled the practical portion with the level of care she did her Healing Arts exam ~ Outstanding

History of Magic: As with Art History, Linsey found the subject of the history of magic to be very interesting, though she was found wishing the two subjects could dovetail more, as she wondered how the two fields interacted with and perhaps influenced each other. It also helped her having Professor Powell as her teacher here as well as in her Ancient Runes class, as she rather liked him and appreciated his approach to handling the classes. When she wrote this OWL, Linsey’s memory for dates and names held her in good stead, allowing her to comfortably polish off the exam itself and the extra credit essay ~ Outstanding

Potions: Linsey approaches Potions as being a glorified cooking class, and as anybody who knows her can attest, she knows how to cook. For her, learning and following the recipes to fabricate various potions, with the more difficult ones viewed simply as a challenge for her to work out. The Ministry examiner watching her work saw her assembling a Draught of Peace with as much comfort and ease as if she were making a batch of shortbread cookies. She had little issue with either the written or practical exam ~ Outstanding

Transfiguration: This was one of those classes where Linsey did quite well with the written side of the material, but had distaste for the practical, owing to the amount of spells requiring dire things being done to living creatures. Linsey resolved this by doing her utmost to do as little harm as possible, and being able to undo what harm she might cause as quickly as possible. As a result, she became quite proficient with the class exercises. The final OWL exercise of Vanishing the Kitten was one she found especially repugnant, and she took good care to bring the kitten back quickly and unharmed. She has since found a forever home for the lucky kitten with one of her younger Housemates ~ Outstanding



Art: Linsey is an artist, and has always been so. She tried sneaking into Professor Hawthorne’s class when she was a First Year, giving proof to how much she wanted to be there. She found art theory and history an endlessly fascinating subject, but where she truly flourished was with the level of artistic expression and the passion she put into her assignments. Aside from studying things like names and dates, the rest of this OWL was an easy ~ Outstanding

Cursebreaking: Core of the cluster of classes Linsey started with when she was studying to be a Cursebreaker, this class challenged her, and she answered the proverbial bell. Figuring out how to unravel various enchantments pushed the Fifth Year to be more creative in her application of her skills and talents. Even though she has since decided this was not a career path she wished to pursue, Linsey was determined not to either tank the class or her grade point, and so she devoted more time and attention to this OWL than she might otherwise ~ Exceeds Expectations

Healing Arts: This was taken as part of a troika of classes she was taking when Linsey was planning to be a Cursebreaker. Since her Third Year, her career plans changed, so while it wasn’t a priority, she had no plans to sluff off either. This proved to be a difficult class for Linsey owing to the amount of knowledge she needed to have along with the spellwork required to succeed. She did well on the written portion of the OWL, and her natural compassion for others helped raise her grade on the practical exam ~ Outstanding

Study of Ancient Runes: This was the last of the classes Linsey picked up when she was planning to be a Cursebreaker, and one of the more interesting ones. The Norse runes they were studying were actually rather similar to the Ogham runes she was already familiar with, so this helped her studies immensely. For her the study of language was another art to be embraced, as it expressed concepts and intents the writer was seeking to communicate. She enjoyed figuring out lines of script and found the writing assignments to be fun. For Linsey, this OWL was another easy ~ Outstanding

Wandless Magic Practice: Linsey was surprised at how easily and quickly she was able to become used to not needing a wand to cast magic; in some cases it was easier for her to shape spells to her intent with the deft gesture of a finger than it was a wand. At the end of the exam, she said the examiner, “Well, that was a nice review of the material, so when’s the actual exam?” ~ Outstanding

Wizard Law: This was a class Linsey took at the insistence of her father, who wanted to make sure she took classes allowing her to earn a living if all her other plans failed. It is also a class where her magical talents have no impact upon her final grade. She worked hard to do well in this class, and her raw intelligence and problem-solving ability served her well, remembering precedents, points of order, and other legal principles. While her OWL legal case was well-written and well-presented, the panel of examiners were not swayed by her passionate plea for clemency for her fictitious client ~ Exceeds Expectations

Charms: Linsey inherited her mother’s gift for Charms, and she proved it in this class. For this teenaged witch, Charms were as easy to cast as it was for her to draw breath, so much so she would cast most of them Wandless, using her wand only to deal with the most advanced of her spellwork, until it too was second-nature. Though this bread-and-butter magic was easy, Linsey took good care to study hard for the NEWT; this showed as she aced the written exam, and performed all the required elements for the practical using her wand, and then Wandless as proof of mastery. ~ Outstanding

Defense Against the Dark Arts: It was hard for Linsey to reconcile possibly inflicting harm upon others while being one of Marni’s helpers in the Hospital Wing, though she was swayed by having it pointed out to her that if she did her due diligence she wouldn’t be one of the ones needing Marni’s ministrations afterwards. Her godmother took it upon herself to teach Linsey how to duel (and more to the point, how to survive), putting in training sessions on Hogsmeade weekends, and during school holidays. While she took care of the written portion with her usual efficiency, she showed a marked improvement on her practical scores over her OWLs from two years previous. The final test with the boggart was nearly her undoing, despite all her preparations, and needing a night in Hospital Wing to recover afterwards, as she did previously. Though the thing all but enveloped her in a crushing darkness, Linsey drove off her boggart. Unfortunately, she missed her desired score by a couple percentage points, and had to settle for an ~ Exceeds Expectations

Herbology: This was one of those classes Linsey actually enjoyed, as it gave her a chance to get her hands dirty and muck about with soil, and have something to show for her efforts by the end of a class. Being friends with Tam, and by extension Nic, gave her insights, and somebody she could go to if she were to get stuck. Her class notes were liberally augmented with illustrations and diagrams, which helped her prepare for this NEWT. As was her wont, the written portion was aced with ease, and falling back on what she learned from her friends, she was able to do a very credible job on the final practical~ Outstanding

History of Magic: Having Professor Powell there throughout her school career helped Linsey as she rather liked her history teacher. The history of the Wizarding World was quite interesting to her, and as stated previously stated, she continued to wish the class would tie in with Art History, as taught by Professor Hawthorne. Being a student with a good mind for numbers and dates and the like, she found the NEWT to be a walkover, and she completed the extra credit essay with time to spare. Her only irritation was the essay pertaining to great Gryffindors through history (as if the other Houses, Ravenclaw first among them, of course didn’t play their part in the annals of history), as it struck her as unnecessary ego-stroking for whomever wrote it up. Ah, well. ~ Outstanding

Potions: This was one of those classes Linsey found to be rather easy for her, no matter how complex the potions she was called upon to make got. Oddly, her study of Cooking helped her understand what she was doing, making it that much easier for her. Linsey also offered to tutor others who needed the help, which aided her studies for this NEWT. The written exam was almost laughably easy in her estimation, and she unnerved her examiner as she was assembling the required potions as much by eye and feel than anything else, and more like she was preparing a stew for dinner than something potential dangerous. Her Draught of the Living Death was such that the test subject (poor Gus) barely needed to touch his tongue to it to be affected. ~ Outstanding

Transfigurations: Tender-hearted as Linsey is, she found the horrible things one did to living creatures for a grade to be repugnant (even rats and insects don’t deserve to be treated so shoddily), but she used this as an excuse to be very proficient in her classwork, particularly being able to undo the harm she might inflict upon the subjects in her care (this would hold her in good stead in her Cursebreaking classwork). Her post-OWLs class with its focus on the disciplines of Self-Transfiguration, she found to be an interesting subject in its own right. When the NEWT came around, she polished the written exam off with comparative ease. For her practical exam, she chose to transform her lower extremities into that of a centaur. As a demonstration of how good a job she did, she attached two sets of taps upon her four new hooves, and with a bit of work was able to perform a rather mind-bending version of Irish step-dancing. While she couldn’t manage a stage show equal to Micheal Flatley, she did score an ~ Outstanding




Art: To say this was Linsey’s favourite class would be an understatement, owing how she smuggled herself into Professor Hawthorne’s class as a First Year because she wanted to be in it so badly. As Captain of the Art Club, she felt it incumbent upon her to post the top grade in the class, and so she put a lot of effort into this NEWT, more so than most would think she ought to. She was quite conversant in Art History, and could discuss the efforts of ancient artists almost as though they were old friends. Her final, year-long special art project for the class was inspired by Professor Hawthorne’s lecture on ‘The Company of captain Frans Banning Cocq and lieutenant Willem van Ruytenburch preparing to march out’, where she created an almost life-size mural, depicting Professor Hawthorne and as many of her present and past students as she could reasonably get to fit, with any of her students who she knew to be dead portrayed as though they were a patronus (as it required happy memories to manifest one). The twenty-foot-long mural was presented to her teacher as a thank you gift. Linsey polished off the written Art History NEWT along with the extra credit essay on Romantic period artists comfortably, while her practical NEWT project was the collection of clothes that she was designing for the international competition in New York City that summer. She drew out all the designs for the NEWT, and created six out of the ten actual outfits, modeling five of them for the Ministry examiners, as the last one was Ella-sized. ~ Outstanding

Cursebreaking: Even though she wasn’t working towards being a Cursebreaker anymore, Linsey stuck with the class, hoping to be an inspiration to her younger sister, and because the advanced Charms class provided her with a challenge, which she found she needed. As things worked out, she devoted a fair amount of time and energy to a class and a NEWT prep than she really should have, however, she was darned if she was going to do anything to ruin her grade point. She had little issue with the written exam, but then she always did well at those sorts of tests, while she found the practical exercise easier than the ones her godmother, a veteran Cursebreaker, posed to her while studying at her place. ~ Outstanding

Healing Arts: While this class wasn’t a priority in Linsey’s career plans, becoming one of Marni’s trusted healers spurred her to continue this class through its end, and put in the effort to truly excel. This was a challenging class, and she found that she rather liked the classwork, and having the chance to help out others. There were occasions where she had the chance to use her skills in a practical fashion, outside of Hospital Wing, giving her some real-life experience. The written NEWT was comparatively easy for Linsey, and she performed her practical NEWT wandless, using lessons learned from being with Marni and her innate empathy to secure an ~ Outstanding

Study of Ancient Runes: While she picked up this class as part of the package she needed when she planned to be a Cursebreaker, Linsey hung on through to the NEWT, as she found the study of ancient writing to be fascinating. The study of the old Norse runes, being similar to Ogham runes from back home, was a relatively simple exercise for a student used to figuring out puzzles in the Cursebreaking class, and so the NEWT was an easy ~ Outstanding

Wandless Magic Practice: Once she likened casting Wandless magic to using her air brush at home, as a Third Year shortly before Christmas break, Linsey found casting magic without a wand to be easy becoming almost second-nature for the young witch, as she could weave spells with a thought and a few gestures of her hands. The only obstacle to what could have been a walkover Outstanding, was the amount of effort devoted in class to dueling, a subject which Linsey was uncomfortable with. To prepare for this NEWT, Linsey’s godmother began training her in how to duel, and Linsey put in appearances at Dueling Club, after enlisting her rival’s help. When the time came, she fought her opponent in the NEWT using illusions and glamours, forcing her opponent to commit the first unforced error, giving her the opening to simply knock them out, rather than inflict actual harm. ~ Outstanding

Wizard Law: Even though Linsey had different career plans, she continued in this class partly because of her father’s advice to keep her options open, partially because she knew the skill set might serve her well later on, and also because she enjoyed the challenge it offered. She and her rival, Brianna Quinn Smith, would as often as not be pitted against each other in class, as they would team up on a case. Linsey was good at research, and her problem-solving ability held her in good stead in a class she worked hard to do well in. Her NEWT exam had her defending a client before a tribunal of Ministry examiners, and this time she reinforced her argument with legal precedent rather than passion to earn an acquittal, and an ~ Outstanding