Starting Tuesday morning with History of Magic turned out to be a blessing and a curse.
On the one hand, I saw my Slytherin friends and told them to spread the study word first thing in the morning. I also got to spend the period making a few more Jeopardys, Quizlets, and Kahoots for after dinner.
On the other hand, class bored the hell out of everyone and put us in a discouraged, brain-dead mood.
Nothing managed to bring us back before lunch time. I relaxed a little in Herbology, but we went to Potions right after which took me right back to brain-dead and exhausted. The one bright spot was being with Hufflepuff, since I got to invite all of them to study night.
We headed to lunch after Potions, and I tried to rest up as much as possible. The heaviness hanging over the entire school was starting to feel suffocating, and tonight couldn't come fast enough.
My post-lunch schedule started with Arithmancy, and it gave me the chance to see David and tell him to spread the study word to his friends. After making it through a double period of Charms, we only had a few hours left before some insane competition mixed up our mundane schedules.
I ran back to the dorms before dinner to get all my many, many electronics for the night. We needed projectors and devices for everybody to play from, but thankfully Ana kicked ass and could easily handle making a wizard-friendly interface for a few competitive quiz games. I knew not to expect 100% turnout, but I had enough devices for everybody anyway, just in case the stress of finals drove some of the nastier Slytherins to finally make peace.
I plopped down at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall next to all my friends as dinner started, dropping a massive bag of all the things I needed on the floor with a thud.
"Good God Alexa, what is in that bag?" asked Angelina, leaning over the table to peek at everything I'd just dumped on the floor.
"Literally so many different electronics, it's ridiculous. You have no idea." Angelina raised an eyebrow as she sat back down, and I could already tell she was more excited for this study session than she had been before.
Ah, the power of mystical muggle technology.
"So, when is this happening then?" asked Fred as he chowed down on a roll.
"As soon as everyone's done with dinner. That's when the stressed out upperclassmen take over."
"Can't wait," Fred and George chorused.
I split my attention between eating and double and triple checking that everything was in order on my laptop. I wanted to be productive, but if I actively tried to study for another second then I would go insane. Skimming through everything for the games one last time was my compromise.
It took everyone a long time to file out of the Great Hall. I don't think anyone really wanted to get back to studying, which is what everyone had to do when they left, even if they weren't getting ready for O.W.L.s or N.E.W.T.s. Finally though, the last second-year straggler wandered out of the dining hall. All the teachers were long gone, and the fifth and seventh years were the only ones left in the room.
Not everyone stayed, but most did. Adrian and Myrah were the only Slytherins, and there were only five Ravenclaws including Penelope and David, but it was honestly a better turnout than I expected.
Every person in the room was looking at me with exhaustion written all over their faces.
"Alright guys," I said, standing and climbing onto the table so everyone could see and hear me. I needed to breathe some life into this crowd, and I couldn't do that by sitting down. "We're all stressed and we need a little fun in our lives, but we also can't waste even a single second not studying. So, we're going to study with games. I'll show you how it works, and it'll be super easy, so don't even worry about it. First thing's first through: we need to move these tables."
It took a little effort, but I eventually got everyone up and moving. We stacked the tables against the wall so they formed a nice flat surface for me to project our games onto. Reading Jeopardy questions off a vertical table was way easier than trying to read a projection on brick.
"Okay, next! Practice some Transfiguration and conjure up your favorite thing to sit on! Beanbag chair, magical floating hammock, whatever!" A few of the seventh years rolled their eyes at me, but everyone listened. Once they were done, I stood in the middle of the room facing the vertical tables with the seventh years spread out on one side of me and the fifth years on the other.
"Perfect! Good job guys," I called, proud of how well this was going already. "Alright, now I'm going to give you everything you need to play. Don't worry about how it all works yet, I'll explain that in a minute. And I promise it'll be easy."
I got mixed reactions as I handed out my hastily modified high-tech whiteboards. Basically it was going to work like a touch screen, where you could hit the color of your answer for Kahoot or click the vocab word you got in Quizlet Live. It worked just like a phone screen without all the functions or complexities of a phone.
A few of the wizards seemed interested in the new technology, and I guessed they were either Ravenclaws or people who already knew a little bit about muggle stuff. Everyone else already looked confused and frustrated, so I knew I had to explain things fast.
"Okay, does everybody have one?" I called. People nodded, so I continued. "Great, then here's how it works. We have three games, and you will only need your answer machine for two."
From there, I explained the rules of Jeopardy, Kahoot, and Quizlet Live as well as I could. Some things were just hard to get across without examples, so I recruited Cedric, Fred, and George to help me demonstrate a few practice rounds of each game.
"Are there any questions?" I asked once I'd finished my demo. No one said anything, and a few people shook their heads, which I took as a good sign. "Alright, then let's get started! Percy's going to lead the seventh years and I'll take the fifth years, but if you have any trouble or questions just let me know! I'm here to make this as relaxing, fun, and un-stressful as possible."
I gave everyone a beaming smile, and a few people actually returned my gesture. They didn't have quite the same energy as me, but I understood. At least I was making progress.
"Okay fifth years, we're starting with Transfiguration Jeopardy." With Ana's help, I launched the game and our muggle study session officially began.
****************
"I'll take... types of transfiguration for 200," said Kenneth Towler, my Gryffindor classmate. He was laser focused on the board in front of him, and all his teammates were squirming in their seats as they waited for me to turn the board.
"Okay Kenneth, your answer is the opposite of conjuration," I said, swinging my legs back and forth from my perch on a desk I'd set up in the middle of the fifth and seventh years. I needed a work space for all the things I had set up, and I liked sitting on desks anyway.
"What is... Vanishment?"
"Is that your final answer?"
"Yes."
"Congratulations! That's correct. Ana, add two hundred points to team Awesomesauce please." Kenneth pumped his fist as Cedric, David, and Adrian patted him on the back. I decided to mix up the teams outside of the usual house groupings as an added bonus to our fun study session.
"And... I think that's game folks. The tenth board goes to Team Awesomesauce in their second win in a row after a dead-last finish on the eighth board earlier tonight."
Everyone else groaned as Kenneth and the boys cheered. I laughed, then turned to my computer to click into Kahoot.
"Alright guys, we're switching things up. Jeopardy was great, but now we're going to a no-holds-barred, everyone-for-themselves class favorite: Kahoot."
Everyone sat up taller in their chairs, clearly excited to get started. Amazing how a little competition really re-energized a crowd.
"Okay, for this game you all get to choose your own usernames, so think up some good ones while I go check on the seventh years."
I turned to Percy's group, and I was happy to see that they were just finishing up Jeopardy too. All the seventh years looked noticeably more awake and in better moods. Oliver was grinning from ear to ear and bouncing up and down in his seat, so I assumed his team had won. Even Percy had a slight smile on his face as he turned to me.
"Alexa, I have to say, that really was a wonderful idea. What's next?" he asked.
"Well, I'm moving my group to Charms Kahoot, but you can do whatever you want."
"I think that sounds like an excellent idea. What do I need to do to set it up?" Percy came over to the desk and I showed him how to make usernames and how to get Ana to handle everything else. He went back to his group with an actual, full smile on his face, and that honestly felt like one of my biggest accomplishments this year.
"Alright guys, let's see what you came up with," I said, turning back to my own group. All the Kahoot usernames were up, but pretty much everybody put boring ones. Most people had their real names, while a few had things like "GryffGuy" (Kenneth). Based on the giggling, I was pretty sure Fred and George had put each other's names, but that wasn't really anything new or funny.
I pulled up my device and thought for a second. I needed to introduce these people to the spirit of Kahoot names.
"Okay, watch and learn guys. This is how we do it." I typed in my username, and after a second it showed up on the board:
PerfectPrefectPercy
Fred and George started cackling, and I got a few laughs from the rest of the group too.
"How do I change my username?" Angelina called, raising her hand like we were really in class.
"You wait until the next round!" I called back. "We have studying to do, and a round of Kahoot will give you time to think up some good names."
She rolled her eyes playfully, then sat up in her seat and stared intently at the screen. Everyone was ready to go for the most intense quiz game of their lives.
Names were out of the way, so I quickly started the game. The first question came across the screen, and everyone kept glancing between that and their devices, each wanting to be the first person to click the answer.
As soon as the choices came up on screen, everyone started slamming their device with their fingers as hard as possible. I started easy, with a review question from everyone's first year, so they all knew it. It just came down to speed.
To absolutely no one's surprise, Angelina jumped to the top of the leader board. She was very competitive, and it showed. Everyone else in the room shifted in their chairs, clearly trying to sit in the best possible way to help with their answer speed. Angelina might normally be the most competitive, but right now, everyone in the room was gunning for her throne.
To my immense delight, it didn't take people longer than one game to start doing all the things my muggle classmates and I would normally do. David freaked out about how he "clicked the other one!" after the third question, and Alicia kept smashing the screen on her device over and over because "it wasn't clicking!" after the fifth. My favorite was Adrian, who got to the point most of us take a few games to get to in just eight questions.
"Was I too fast? No. Go fuck yourself," I heard him grumble to his screen.
Ah, the best parts of muggle school just picked up and dropped into the middle of wizard school. Excellent.
My group was just winding down our final game of Kahoot and looking ready to head to bed when we got a shot of adrenaline from one of the seventh years standing up and screaming.
"NO! I WAS IN FIRST THE WHOLE TIME!" I looked over to see Oliver yelling at the top of his lungs, shaking his device around angrily and gesturing to the screen. "ONE QUESTION! I ONLY MISSED THE LAST QUESTION!"
"That's part of the game, and it's exactly how things will be on the test," said Percy very matter-of-factly. He looked smug, and I glanced at the board and saw that Oliver's mistake had put Percy in first place. I decided that was my cue to step in.
"Oliver! Dude, I get it. I've literally been in your shoes so many times I can't even believe it. That's just the nature of the beast of Kahoot I guess," I sighed. "Sometimes you love it, but it just doesn't love you back."
Oliver huffed and crossed his arms. He hated losing, but this was good for him. The drive to win would make him study like a crazy person, and a few losses in competitions that didn't mean much would hopefully help teach him how to handle losing in a more normal way.
Hopefully.
"Come on Oliver, you can get them next time. You can't win every Kahoot, no matter how hard you try."
"Well we'll just have to see about that, won't we?" The fire of determination burned bright in his eyes, and I decided I didn't want to deal with it tonight.
"Aaaaand on that note, I think it's time for bed. Good study session everyone, but now you need to get some sleep or else you won't remember anything you did! We'll meet back here tomorrow night for another round if you're up for it!"
Everyone smiled and waved to me as they headed off to bed, and the overall mood in the room felt lighter. Although everyone felt competitive stress in games, I think in the long run it helped release some of the tension that had been hanging around since we got back from break.
"Alright, give me all the devices. I'm packing this shit up and then I'm going the fuck to sleep."
"Alexa! Watch your language!"
"Yeah, yeah, Perce. I know. I'll work on it."
With the help of my Gryffindor friends I quickly rounded up all my electronics, and then we trudged up the stairs to the tower together as one tired (but slightly less stressed) blob.
"I'll see you guys in the morning," I called as I headed up the stairs with Angelina and Alicia. "Oliver, try not to kill Percy before then. And Perce, same goes for you."
Both boys rolled their eyes at me, and I smiled to myself. This was a successful first night of studying, and if we kept it up until test time, we might actually have a chance at passing these things.