... on Care of Magical Creatures

Professor Spencer Morgan

April 27, 2012 2:35 PM

Beginner CoMC! by Professor Spencer Morgan

Spencer Morgan smiled at his beginner students began to gather around him. As always his class was in the large clearing, the logs he had set up for sitting still held the cushioning charm. Spencer loved teaching and he had not even been doing it long. He loved introducing new animals to the young witches and wizards. He hoped he like his old Care of Magical Creatures Professor had for him, he inspired just one student to follow the noble path of Creature Healer.

Once everyone was seated, Spencer smiled. The students had a few classes with him by now so they knew to call him Professor Spencer and that he tended to be lack on the rules in his class. "Good afternoon class! Please turn in your essays on Bowtruckles and we'll get started!" once the flurry of shuffling paper was finished Spencer was ready to introduce the next creature to his students.

"The Clabbert is what we are going to be studying today!" he said cheerfully. Spencer himself had kept a few Clabberts as a child they were fascinating. "The Clabbert looks like a cross between a monkey and a frog. It has smooth green skin, short horns and a wide mouth full of razor sharp teeth. It has long arms and webbed hands and feet allow it to move gracefully through the tress." As the green eyed man spoke the case holding the Clabberts opened exposing the creature.

"Now as you see they have a large pustule on its forehead. This flashes red when the Clabbert senses danger. Because of this in the past witches and wizards used to keep them as an early warning sign for approaching Muggles, and unknown wizards. Though the International Confederation of Wizards were forced to introduce fines to stop this because Muggle neighbors thought they were Christmas lights and often wondered why they were up in the middle of summer."

"The Clabbert lives in nests up high in the trees, and it feeds on small lizards and birds. It's a social animal and often lives in nests up to twenty Clabbert."

"Now for today's lesson you'll pair up and grab a Clabbert. You will try and get the pustule to pulse red. They won't just pulse red with you guys being near him. Please use the dragon hide gloves and try not to get near their mouths. Their teeth are fairly sharp."

Subthreads:

Beginning again by Theresa Carey, Pecari with Sairahiniel Light, Pecari, Theresa, Sayre Light

In search of a partner by Lucille Carey, Teppenpaw with Clara Abernathy, Lucille

Scrolls and Smiles by Alexandra Devereux, Crotalus with Melanie Lennox, Teppenpaw, Alexandra Devereux

What sharp teeth you have! by Waverly Canterbury - Pecari with Cepheus Princeton, Crotalus, Waverly

A subject by Thad Pierce with Aria Yale, Teppenpaw

... by Angel Shield - Teppenpaw with Andrina Thornton, Aladren, Angel

That doesn’t look friendly by Gareth Whitebriar - Crotalus

0 Professor Spencer Morgan Beginner CoMC! 0 Professor Spencer Morgan 1 5

Theresa Carey, Pecari

April 27, 2012 10:40 PM

Beginning again by Theresa Carey, Pecari

Try as she would, Theresa found she simply couldn’t understand what it was about the Care of Magical Creatures professors that made them so…casual. The one last year had wanted to be called just Kerry, and now this one was only slightly better with ‘Professor Spencer,’ when she knew that wasn’t his last name. It was a last name sometimes – it had been the North Carolina widow’s maiden name – but not in his case, so it all but canceled out his willingness to at least use his title. She just didn’t understand. Why, exactly, did people in this subject have such an antipathy toward doing things the right way? Positions were defined for a reason; without the structure of superior and subordinates intact, the world would collapse into chaos.

The professors, however, seemed not to grasp this very simple point of logic which Theresa had been instructed in when she was tiny and learning about her family, and so she smiled as she handed in her essay and greeted the professor without using a name for him at all, as she had gotten in the habit of doing with his predecessor. ‘Professor’ would do if she felt she absolutely had to use a name, and in general, she just avoided it, since she wasn’t sure how these types would react to the family-standard ‘sir,’ either. Then, that done, she went to find a seat again, carefully arranging her dark gray skirt so there was no chance of embarrassment as she sat down to wait for the newest lesson.

It turned out to be something she was not completely unfamiliar with; clabberts were native to the southern United States, and she had seen them visiting Uncle Adam, who lived in the most remote of the family’s homes, before, and again when she visited Alexandra’s family in Louisiana. It wasn’t, though, a completely positive sort of familiarity Brandon, as she recalled, had nearly lost a couple of fingers one time to one; it was just Brandon’s unusual luck that made them be at Uncle Adam’s that time, so he could fix them up right away and Mother not have to make a special trip to have him look at it to make sure it was done right, as she would have if any other member of the family had been responsible for making her youngest son’s small joints were completely functional again.

That memory did not make her hugely eager to play with one, but she put on her dragonhide gloves anyway. One of the things that sadist had especially emphasized during Theresa’s remedial etiquette lessons was how a proper lady had to simply endure things a lot of the time, while maneuvering to make them as painless as possible without it being obvious that she was doing that. Being a lady was worse than playing chess with Arthur even when Arthur was cheating, or so Theresa thought, but she had to do it anyway. Life, as her mother so often said, just wasn’t fair.

Still, the part about trying to make things as not bad as she could was easy enough to remember, if sometimes hard to implement. She smiled as she caught someone’s eye. “Would you like to work together?” she said in her sweetest voice. She had been warned that if the grapevine was not a bit kinder about her this year than it had been last year, it would be back to remedial etiquette no matter how many tales she carried about other children, both in and out of her family.

…Which was a good thing, of course. She hated always being the one who ended up giving things up that she hadn’t meant to and causing trouble for people. It made her feel terrible, and if it was Arthur she got in trouble, there was always the off chance that he might decide to poison her or something. Arthur could be peculiar sometimes; he thought he was an adult, and tried to act like the adults, but he didn’t do a very good job of it, just an exaggerated pantomime. Theresa expected it to get him in real trouble someday, but she didn’t want to be the one to start it.

0 Theresa Carey, Pecari Beginning again 0 Theresa Carey, Pecari 0 5

Lucille Carey, Teppenpaw

April 28, 2012 12:56 AM

In search of a partner by Lucille Carey, Teppenpaw

Care of Magical Creatures had, even more than flying lessons, been an adjustment for Lucille; in fact, she wasn’t sure she was used to it yet. At home, she had rarely been allowed outside without someone there to specifically watch her; riding was more or less the only time when she’d been allowed outside of the small gardens, and she had never been where she couldn’t see the walls around the property before. She had also never sat on a log, even if it did have a cushioning charm on it, or been allowed near anything which wasn’t fully domesticated.

The world, after all, was dangerous. She was not the real reason they had to be so very careful at home, because she was only a girl, but she was in her own way a valuable asset – to have a chance of rebuilding what they had lost when her father died, her branch would need powerful friends, and a girl was a good way to get some. If another branch tried to kidnap someone, it would, of course, be her brother, but if they could not get to Malcolm, then she or Baby might do in a pinch. And as for the sitting on the ground, she could not be permitted to be less than perfect at any time, because then she might develop bad habits; her bloodline, her mother said, had a weakness in that way, so it was better to never even present the opportunity for bad habits to form. If an opportunity was there, the habits would develop, and then Lucille would become bad.

Plus, logs were icky, and it was a bother to change clothes as much as Mother said she had to anyway, to always be appropriate for the situation she was in at any given moment. Staining her clothes wasn’t something she wanted to do. She could, though, only hope for the best, because disobedience was unthinkable.

She looked warily at the clabbert, wondering about what the professor said about warnings; she had never met anyone who did not live in areas designed in such a way that Muggles could barely perceive that they were there, if they could at all with the larger houses, and certainly, she had been assured, could not enter. And as for other wizards, well…she wondered about that, really. Mother assured her they were protected somehow, but the more powerful members of the rest of the family seemed to come and go. She was not sure what would happen if, say, Theresa’s father – or, better yet, Alexandra’s – tried to come to her house without an invitation; she didn’t think she really wanted to know.

She looked at it even more warily, though, when it was mentioned that it had sharp teeth. Oh, yes, a partner sounded very nice. She could stand well back, away from the sharp teeth on a creature she didn’t know, if she had a partner. Now just to get one, without either having to be the one to ask or staring blatantly at someone to get their attention and being pushy and not a proper lady at all….

0 Lucille Carey, Teppenpaw In search of a partner 0 Lucille Carey, Teppenpaw 0 5

Alexandra Devereux, Crotalus

April 28, 2012 1:26 AM

Scrolls and Smiles by Alexandra Devereux, Crotalus

Alex frowned slightly as she came into the Care of Magical Creatures clearing, walking more slowly than usual because she was moving while she was also looking over her essay one more time for any errors she might have missed the last two times she’d read it back over. She was no Aladren, of course, nor a boy, but she didn’t see that as a reason to not do her best on everything she had before her to do. She was supposed to be the test of how a Louisiana girl would do in school if the Careys proper decided to send her younger cousins to school; she saw this as a good way to go about it.

Once she reached the clearing, she stopped completely to go over the final two paragraphs, and then she looked up and shrugged, consigning it now to the hands of Fate. As she looked around, blinking a few times to clear her head after reading like that, she saw Theresa and Lucille and offered them each her customary very slight smile, which didn’t emphasize her bold nose and too-wide mouth as much as a full smile did. It was still a little strange, having so much family around all the time, but she had been gradually getting used to it since the last Reunion and had been with the South Carolina cousins and Jane – and, then, Edmond, though she had never actually spoken to him, since he had an odd habit of vanishing whenever he saw her or Theresa starting to curtsy – all last year, so she supposed she’d stop noticing that she was in classes with her mother’s cousins by next year. Suppressing as usual the urge to go pat Lucille on the head like a kitten, she found a log and folded her hands, waiting for Professor Spencer, as he’d apparently decided he’d like to be called, to get things started.

Who knew, she thought as he began. Maybe next year, they’d work their way up to a Care of Magical Creatures teacher who used his last name. Would they go straight to Professor So-and-So, or would it just be a last name, and then one who did things the traditional way in fourth year? Alex was curious about that, honestly. She sort of hoped they didn’t get an old-fashioned one until fourth year; the oddballs were good for variety.

“Huh,” she said to herself, under her breath, when she saw a clabbert. They were in the trees at home, and it could make for a show at night, though she had never gotten too close to one before. Her mother, at least, always remembered that she wasn’t an Alexander and wouldn’t let her go rambling or climbing trees or other things that might lead to her having much direct contact with wildlife. She leaned forward a little, noting how it did look sort of like the pet monkey one of her great-aunts on the Devereux side owned, only…not. And their assignment was to make it light up. It would have been more impressive it were dark, but they’d have to do the best they could, she supposed.

She stood up, straightening her maroon skirt as she did and looking around for a partner. She gave someone a wider smile than she had her cousins. “Shall we?” she asked, tilting her head toward the professor a little to indicate what she meant by that.

0 Alexandra Devereux, Crotalus Scrolls and Smiles 0 Alexandra Devereux, Crotalus 0 5

Sairahiniel Light, Pecari

April 28, 2012 1:31 AM

Beginnings are good by Sairahiniel Light, Pecari

Sairahiniel strode into the small glen of trees, the only one that she could see in the vast expanse of desert, on time for once. And, for the first time, also prepared, so when Professor Spencer asked for the essay that was due, she handed it over right away. She loved that she didn't have to be cooped up in a classroom for a while - already, she could tell that she and Car of Magical Creatures were going to get along. That, and the professor seemed really cool.

So did the assignment. She'd been playing around with fire all day long, so Sayre had a pretty good idea of how she could get the weird toady-monkey things.

"Would you like to work together?" The girl next to her asked, her voice silky-sweet. Sayre eyed her distrustfully. The girl seemed too nice. She didn't trust people as a general rule, but it was always the super-nice ones that you had to look out for.

"'Lo," she said, blue eyes sizing the girl up. "Love to. M'name's Sairahiniel, and you are?" Sayre pulled on her dragon skin gloves and reached for one of the clabberts, its slimy skin feeling weird, even against the scales.

0 Sairahiniel Light, Pecari Beginnings are good 0 Sairahiniel Light, Pecari 0 5

Clara Abernathy

April 28, 2012 2:32 AM

Need a partner? by Clara Abernathy

Clara reached the clearing with the other beginning students and seated herself happily on one of the logs. It reminded her of the tree stumps she alwasy sat upon back home in Napa around the vineyard. When asked to turn in her essay, Clara dug around her bag for it and after finally locating it passed it forward with the rest of her classmates. She listened carefully and very intriguedly to Professor Spencer as he decribed their next creature. Clara frowned slightly when he came to the part about the clabbart...or whatever he had called it having very sharp teeth. That part could be a problem the little Pecari fretted on slightly. She then shrugged her shoulders. Can't be any worse than when my horse bit me on my tush she thought matter-of-factly.

Clara frowned a little more when she realized that Professor Spencer might actually mean for them to maybe anger these sharp toothed little creatures just to make their pustule glow. Clara wasn't at all certain she liked the idea of that. She could almost hear her cousin Addi telling her to be nice to it and leave it be. Clara was almost inclined to agree with her cousin's voice in her head, but another voice took its place. "You can do this," she heard the new voice tell her, "All you have to do is watch out for the teeth." Clara squared up her shoulders and went in search of a partner and a pair of gloves. If she was gonna do this then by golly she was going to at least try to not lose a finger in the process!

Clara approached one of the other girls in her class and asked her seriously, "So... how in the world are we supposed to catch one of these and make it light up without it biting one of our fingers off?"

0 Clara Abernathy Need a partner? 232 Clara Abernathy 0 5

Melanie Lennox, Teppenpaw

April 28, 2012 7:26 AM

Not sure about scrolls, but smiles are nice. by Melanie Lennox, Teppenpaw

Melanie was not a girl who had spent much time outdoors. Outside were germs and if she were outside she bring those germs indoors with her and infect her sister. She had to be careful about that. Any time that Melanie caught a cold or something, Valerie would catch it from her and got much sicker than she did even if the younger girl kept away from the older one.

In fact, that was how the third year had caught pneumonia the year before coming to Sonora. The Teppenpaw had had a cold, which Valerie had caught and then it turned into pneumonia for the older girl. She'd been so sick that she'd nearly died, been in the hospital nearly a month, followed by a really long recovery. Melanie still hadn't forgiven herself for it even though nobody else had ever blamed her. She probably never would.

Also, it wasn't the most ladylike thing to play outside either. Melanie had been raised from birth to be an indoor girl. She'd preferred playing with dolls to running around or climbing trees, which would have been difficult in a skirt anyway. The Teppenpaw was also a city girl. There wasn't a lot of nature in St. Louis. Maybe in the park or something, but Melanie really didn't go there.

So she didn't really look forward to Care of Magical Creatures much. She was not fond of being out with all the dirt and bugs. Melanie just plain did not care for any sort of insects, living or dead. Admittedly, the first year was a girly girl who liked nice and pretty things.

Furthermore, animals were not something that she was used to either. In theory, the Teppenpaw liked things like unicorns-in fact, Melanie had a whole collection of unicorns, toys and figurines and stuff-and kittens, but obviously, she'd never been allowed to have a pet. The only animals that the first year had experience with were stuffed or cooked.

She turned in her essay on bowtruckles-a gross species, but Melanie generally didn't have a problem with writing essays, in fact she'd had practice with research helping Valerie-and eyed the clabberts warily. The idea of angering something with sharp teeth did not thrill her. Was the professor completely insane? She knew very well that Sonora had a well trained medic who could surely fix a clabbert bite, but that didn't mean Melanie wanted one.

The girl next to her, one of the second years she thought turned to her and asked,

“Shall we?”

Melanie smiled back at the girl. The idea of being partners was acceptable, even if the activity sounded relatively unpleasant. "Certainly." The first year replied. "I'm Melanie Lennox, of the St. Louis Lennoxes." She introduced herself, curtsying towards the other girl, which she hadn't done when meeting Lucille or Gareth because she had been sitting down at the time.

11 Melanie Lennox, Teppenpaw Not sure about scrolls, but smiles are nice. 226 Melanie Lennox, Teppenpaw 0 5

Theresa

April 28, 2012 10:58 AM

They can be by Theresa

The first clue Theresa thought she had that she might not have made a good decision was how the other girl didn’t even say the whole word ‘hello,’ and sort of slurred everything together and didn’t use very good grammar. Old money meant being able to bend certain rules, but usually only after you were grown up, anyway, and, better yet, powerful; she and this girl, though, were just children whose status in real life had yet to be decided. They had to make a good impression, if they ever wanted to get old and important enough to not care so much what everyone thought of them personally.

The second clue she thought she had was the girl’s name. Her tongue-twister of a first name was not important unless she gave Theresa permission to use it, but her last name was the same as that of a teacher, and an unusual teacher at that. How many ways that could go wrong, Theresa didn’t even want to think.

She nervously removed one of her gloves before she noticed what she was doing and put it back on, irritated with herself for not being more in control of her reactions, and kept smiling.

“I am Theresa Carey, of the South Carolina Careys,” she said, her very dark eyes summing the other girl up in turn. The point of school was to get them used to dealing with a wide society of people who might not be like the Careys, after all, or understand them, so she was going to have to get good at that anyway. “Careful!” she added sharply as the other girl touched the clabbert. Blood and screaming didn’t particularly faze her, she had three brothers and Arnold for a first cousin and that meant she would have been a complete nervous wreck by now if people getting themselves hurt minorly to moderately bothered her too much in and of itself beyond it bothering her when it was people she cared about, but she wasn’t even indifferent to it, never mind someone who liked it.

A second later, the missed opportunity hit her. If the other girl was holding it, Theresa could have just jumped into its line of sight and yelled from a safe distance, the pustule would have most likely lit up, and the whole thing would have been done. Maybe speaking sharply while it was being touched would work anyway; if not, she supposed she could always send a few spells flying around its head. If they both did that, the lights would probably be enough to startle it. Merlin knew she was often a little alarmed by all the spells flying around in, say, Defense, or even other classes if something was especially big or not going right for someone that day, and she was sentient and knew perfectly well what was going on and why all those lights were there and that most of them weren’t aimed at her. If she were a monkey thing….

0 Theresa They can be 0 Theresa 0 5

Lucille

April 28, 2012 11:21 AM

I think so by Lucille

Lucille had learned, by now, to recognize the other first years by their faces, but most of the names still eluded her. This was the case with the girl who did walk up to her and just begin talking on the assumption they were going to be partners, and Lucille could only assume that the other girl didn’t know who she was, either, since she was talking as though she expected Lucille to be the one who knew how to handle this situation. Lucille had been told time and time again that things didn’t look as bad as they felt to her except in the case of her father’s death, and rationally she knew that she hadn’t done enough at school to really give anyone, except maybe her own roommates, a firm impression of her, but she still felt that there ought to be a banner over her head announcing that she was not very competent.

Apparently, though, if there was, this girl couldn’t read the language it was in. Lucille folded her hands at her waist and smiled. “I have no idea,” she said promptly and honestly. “I’ve never been around any animals except a cat or two in my life before I came here.” She took her dragonhide gloves out. “I suppose this is a good first step, though, since he told us about it,” she added as she put them on. They were very good ones, made to fit her and charmed to be soft on the inside and flexible enough to not impair her fingers too much, but they were still very different from the thin white ones she was used to on other occasions.

So many things were different at school. They had to use these gloves sometimes in Potions, too. Would she be used to them by Christmas and have her gloves at home feel strange and a little uncomfortable? It didn’t matter, of course, she would wear what she was told to wear and wear it when she was told to wear it, her mother had laid out her outfits for the day for her since she was born and even now did the best job she could by making sure Lucille knew which outfits could be worn on which days and on what occasions, but she did wonder.

One very important thing, though, had to be done no matter how gloves worked out, or even if they ever got the lesson to work out right. “Oh! I haven’t introduced myself,” she said, more than a little apologetically as she got her second glove settled around her wrist and wriggled her fingers in it to get them in as right and comfortably as possible. “I am Lucille Carey, of the North Carolina Careys.” She offered a small curtsy. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance,” she added, because that was part of the formula, and she did like meeting new people. At this point, it was true, and that would do for now.

0 Lucille I think so 0 Lucille 0 5

Alexandra Devereux

April 28, 2012 12:26 PM

Scrolls can be okay, too by Alexandra Devereux

Alex returned the curtsy almost reflexively, not even thinking about it. Half of being an auxiliary member of her mother’s family, and one of its patriarch’s great-great-grandchildren, was in knowing when to bob up and down, and how deeply, and to whom, and the rule for just meeting another pureblood of her own age and sex was one of the simplest she had ever had to learn. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Lennox,” she said, inclining her head slightly. “I am Alexandra Devereux, of the Louisiana Devereuxs.” She did not use the Carey name; she thought her mother would have encouraged it, and that the Louisiana Careys would have permitted it, but Alex had never wanted to, even beyond more than suspecting that it would upset her father.

St. Louis. She had never been there, but she knew from her geography lessons that it was in Missouri – or at least, she was pretty confident it was. Alex had studied American geography without as much interest as that of some other places, which seemed more exotic simply by virtue of not being places she would most likely spend some part of her adult life attending a party in, depending on whom she married. She thought of it as the Midwest – big, flat, sort of golden-brown, though she didn’t remember enough to know if that was exactly true. It was just a general impression.

She would have to read more about all that, she supposed, brush up on lessons which had never enthralled her even when they had been interesting, in the next year or two; she would, she knew, soon be old enough to have to attend parties and meet people, and it would be helpful to know what the place they were from was like if they weren’t other southerners. It would make it easier to not insult someone too egregiously. People might be a little more forgiving of a thirteen-year-old, but by the time she was fifteen, they would expect her to be all but an adult, in that aspect at least. So she would need to work on it. It was her duty, and not something she could just blame on Mother’s family; Father’s had tried, once, to be the same, and they still expected things from her, too.

“Are you related to Miss Valerie Lennox in third year?” she asked, remembering that name from last year, and from her own House. The other girl did, she knew, unnerve Theresa a little; whatever else you could say about their family, they were usually a sturdy bunch.

Once the usual pureblood small talk was concluded, though, there was still the task of the clabbert before them. “I suppose the trick is to startle it without touching it,” she said. “Do you have any ideas about how to do that? I don’t think they’d let us work with it if it would jump to attack us.” She hoped her logic there was sound, but it sounded good, anyway.

0 Alexandra Devereux Scrolls can be okay, too 0 Alexandra Devereux 0 5

Clara Abernathy

April 28, 2012 5:26 PM

Re: I think so by Clara Abernathy

Clara smiled back at the girl and watched curiously as the girl actually curtsied. Clara herself had never curtsied a day in her life. Not one that she recalled anyway. She wasn't certain if she should curtsy back or if she should just offer the girl a handshake like her father had always taught her to do. She opted to just go with her gut and gave Lucille her friendliest smile. "Its a pleasure to meet you Lucille," she replied cheerfully. "I'm Clara Abernathy of the Napa Valley Abernathys." She was quite sure why she kept saying the last part...it just seemed like the proper way of responding and until someone corrected her she would continue to do so.

Clara was a little surprised to discover that Lucille had never really encountered any other animals except cats before, but she supposed there was nothing wrong with that. Not everyone has been lucky like she had to have several different types. "I like cats," she told Lucille cheerily. "I have 3 of them at home. My favorite is my tortoise shell tabby named Gizmo," she told the other girl. "I also have a couple of horses as well..." she continued absently. "Sorry..." she grinned sheepishly. "Didn't mean to ramble." Clara offered Lucille an apologetic smile and began pulling on her own dragonhide gloves.

She was hoping Lucille might of had an idea where to begin, but she wasn't at all worried that she didn't. She appreciated greatly that Lucille had been honest with her. The red head touched a finger to her lips while wearing the gloves and thought over the situation. How in the world do you catch something that is half monkey half frog? she wondered aloud, asking herself the question. A slow, sly smile began to spread across her freckled face.

"Okay," she said quietly excited to Lucille. "I have an idea! I'm gonna try to get it to come down out of the tree towards me. Do you think if I can distract it that you can grab it from behind?" she asked Lucille seriously.

0 Clara Abernathy Re: I think so 232 Clara Abernathy 0 5

Waverly Canterbury - Pecari

April 28, 2012 6:37 PM

What sharp teeth you have! by Waverly Canterbury - Pecari

Waverly had always wondered where the old COMC professor had gone from last year. Though this professor seemed really enthusiastic about COMC, she had gotten to know the other professor a little bit better. Oh well! Things moved on, she supposed. And besides, he had green eyes like her! A kindred spirit already. She had worked hard on her essay on Bowtruckles, entranced by the strange creatures. Care of Magical Creatures was easily becoming her favorite class. Taking care of animals was one thing, but learning about the different magical creatures that existed was quite another.

After turning in her essay, she sat down in the clearing, comfortable now with having class outside, and waited for class to start. When Professor Morgan said that the creature they were studying today was a cross between a monkey and a frog, she frowned, trying to understand what they might look like. Even when the professor revealed the creature, she had to blink a few times to make sure she wasn't seeing things. Though she should have been used to seeing weird-looking creatures, it still surprised her how weird they could look.

The teeth looked really scary, she had to admit, but if they were going to interact with the Clabbert in a beginner's class, it couldn't be that dangerous. Right?

Waverly had tied back her brown hair beforehand and was quick to get a pair of dragon-hide gloves to put on. They were a little bulky, but it would protect her hands. That's all that really mattered anyway. As in every class, she had to look for a partner, but first she went to get a Clabbert. When she looked at it, it seemed friendly enough. She picked it up and smiled at it. "Hello, Clabbert." The Clabbert looked up at her, its long arms nestled into itself as she held it like a baby. She touched its arm and it made as to bite her, but she pulled back quickly. "No!" she said, talking to it as she would talking to a pet. "Bad Clabbert."

Waverly carried the Clabbert, slightly wary of it now, back to her spot on the log and sat it down. It sat there watching her and she looked at the pustule on its forehead. It was weird-looking, but she probably looked weird to the Clabbert too. "First thing's first: I've got to name you."

It was then that someone approached and she looked up. "Hi," she said. "Do you want to be partners? I was just about to name the Clabbert. What do you think we should name it?" Waverly always got way too attached to the magical creatures they worked with in this class, dangerous or not.

0 Waverly Canterbury - Pecari What sharp teeth you have! 0 Waverly Canterbury - Pecari 0 5

Cepheus Princeton, Crotalus

April 29, 2012 12:34 AM

And what large eyes. by Cepheus Princeton, Crotalus

Cepheus had never liked having class outside. It was abnormal, against what he was used to. However, it did keep him from falling asleep in his least favourite class. He had his own sensible pets at home, like his crup Montgomery. He had cats, birds, and peacocks at home as well, but crups were the only pets that he was really interested in, his own especially. Of course, owls were necessary as well, and the eagle-owl he had had trouble naming last year finally had grown a bit and had a name: Roscoe. Cepheus was rubbish at naming his pets, which was why he only owned two. He wasn't a big animal person anyway.

Cepheus went into the clearing where class was to be held and put down his book bag. He kept on his outer robes, preferring not to be vulnerable in case the animal the beast they were studying today was dangerous. He didn't bother unpacking his things yet, watching instead, bored, as the professor began class. He did have to ruffle through his bag in order to hand in his essay, which he had slaved over. There was nothing in his mind that was interesting about bowtruckles, for Merlin's sake.

After handing in his essay, he listened halfheartedly to the lecture, preferring to stare at the clabbert and make it start pulsating just by looking at it. It didn't work, surprisingly enough, and the lecture was over soon enough. Cepheus got up lazily, not wanting to get near one of those animals. He'd have to see someone who already had one of those creatures. As his blue eyes scanned the area, he caught sight of the muggle-born who had talked to him last year. Since then, they hadn't interacted, but perhaps with her the clabbert's pustule would pulse red quicker.

He sauntered over to her with all the English schoolboy pride he had in him with his book bag over his shoulder. She noticed him and was quick to engage him in conversation, not surprising him at all. She had seemed rather talkative the last time they'd met. "I'm surprised its thing hasn't pulsed red yet with you here," he said casually, as if he wasn't insulting her. He placed his bag down on the floor and sat on the other side of the clabbert. "And I didn't walk over here to just stare at your clabbert."

Cepheus's nose wrinkled. Why bother naming such a creature? "I'm rubbish at names," he told her, still in that haughty way of his. "It took me nearly six months to name my owl." He never understood why people enjoyed pets and naming them so much. Perhaps it was a female thing. His mother loved getting cats and naming them all sorts of strange names, and his best friend Emma, who went to Hogwarts, was like that too. Georgina and Dorian liked the single pet they owned the same way Cepheus liked the one crup he owned. His owl he could care less about, though it was a good companion to have when he was here at school missing Monty.

"All right, I suppose we'd better start, then. I say someone creeps up behind it with their wand out." He didn't know how one could fool a clabbert into making the thing on its head pulse red. They'd know the difference between real danger and fake danger, couldn't they? Shouldn't they, for Merlin's sake? What else could they be good for than that?

0 Cepheus Princeton, Crotalus And what large eyes. 0 Cepheus Princeton, Crotalus 0 5

Lucille

April 29, 2012 3:08 PM

You might want another one, though... by Lucille

Lucille blinked, then returned the friendly smile. “How nice,” she said. She had not heard of the Napa Valley Abernathys before, but that, she thought, could be in part because she was not sure she had ever heard of Napa Valley before. “You have a lovely name,” she said instead of anything about that, because she couldn’t think of anything else to go with. It was a very pretty name, much better than Lucille Elizabeth Carey. Lucille had never really liked her own name, though she didn’t know that the other option, Lucilla, would have been as much better as it sometimes seemed if she’d had to live with it.

Did it really, she wondered, sound old, as Aria had said their first night at Sonora? She had never liked the name, but she had never thought of it like that, either. That was a particularly silly thing to worry about, or even think about, because the only change her name was ever likely to undergo was a change of last name when she married, but the thought had come from nowhere and then decided to stick around for a moment.

She pushed it aside since she needed to concentrate. Names weren’t important, not in that way, anyway. They were who their parents had decided they would be, and if she thought that Miss Abernathy’s name sounded better than hers, well, maybe the same was true the other way around. Lucille had always wondered if other people were really as confident as they seemed, since even her close family only knew some of how nervous she was about…well, everything, really. Showing as much as she did was unseemly; to display the whole thing, ever, would be a terrible disgrace. It would be an embarrassment for her and whomever she did it in front of, and she was sure it was the kind of thing that she would never be able to live down or forgive herself for.

“Oh, it’s all right,” she said when the other girl apologized for rambling. Lucille hadn’t noticed; she was, when she rambled, much worse about it. “I didn’t think you were rambling.” She smiled. “Though – “ oh, that wasn’t the right word, somehow – “I do ride, sometimes – horses, I mean. I didn’t think of that the same way.” Why that was, she didn’t know, either, but her mind had somehow sorted the categories differently, or else she had simply blanked everything out in conversation. She was a terrible excuse for a lady.

When Clara proposed her plan, Lucille’s immediate instinct was to run, then to throw up, but she exerted all the self-control she had to lie with. “I can try,” she said firmly, even though she was sure she was going to fail. To simply refuse flat-out would be cowardly, though, and she had been taught that Careys weren’t that, and she had a terrible suspicion that it would somehow also be rude, which was, for a girl, worse than being a coward.

0 Lucille You might want another one, though... 0 Lucille 0 5

Clara

April 29, 2012 6:09 PM

Okay...sorry..new plan by Clara

Clara was delightfully surprised to hear Lucille compliment her name. It was one of the nicest things anyone had said to her (outside of her cousins) since she arrived here at Sonora. "Thank you," she replied awkwardly, smiling at Lucille. "I like your name too," she told the other girl. "It sounds very regal." It did too. It also reminded Clara of her nanny Lucy back home in Napa. Her name was Lucille too, but she preferred being called Lucy for short. She had let Clara call her Lucy since it had always been easier for Clara to say when she was much younger. She had been with Clara since her birth. Outside of her cousins, The Thorntons, Lucy was the closest thing to a best friend Clara ever had.

Clara was very glad that Lucille was at least willing to give her plan a try and she was about to enact it when something occurred to the 11 year old. When Professor Spencer had introduced them to the Clabberts, he had opened a case that had contained the creature. Therefore, retrieving it from any tree was horribly unnecessary. All they simply had to do was carefully approach the case and carefully pluck one out. Leave it to me to do things the hard way she half scolded herself. Clara immediately shared her epiphany with Lucille. "Forgive me...okay...new plan," she began, smiling apologetically. "I won't need you to grab it like I had originally stated. It seems in my excitement to get started I missed a small detail. We won't have to get it from any tree," she explained. "I will simply get it from the case the professor brought them in." She grinned, incredibly embarrassed with herself for missing that factor. Her freckled face burned red from embarrassment. Way to go Clara! she mentally kicked herself as she left Lucille for a moment and approached the case with the funny looking creatures in it.

Clara carefully plucked one up out of the case and took it back to where Lucille appeared to be waiting for her, all the while making very sure she didn't do anything to cause it to use its scary looking teeth on her. She stopped in front of Lucille with the Clabbert. "If you're still willing, I could use some help getting this weird little guy to light up," she told her sheepishly.

0 Clara Okay...sorry..new plan 232 Clara 0 5

Lucille

April 29, 2012 8:24 PM

Trying to think... by Lucille

Of all the things Lucille thought she might have heard about her name, that it was regal was not one of them. She had always thought of it as plain, sort of yellow – which was, as it turned out, appropriate even beyond her mother insisting that she looked nice in light yellow, even though Lucille herself thought it made her look washed out. She smiled hesitantly in return. “Thank you,” she said.

Lucille had thought that having to get things out of the trees hadn’t sounded quite right, somehow, but she hadn’t thought to say that out loud. If someone else seemed to know what they were doing, they almost certainly knew better than she did what was going on. Clara saying she had gotten it wrong made Lucille wonder a little about just going along when she announced that she was going to go get the clabbert from the much easier-to-access box, but she kept her peace again – it wasn’t, after all, like she wanted to touch the thing – and, not sure whether she should follow or stay where she was, stood where she was a second too long after Clara went off for the clabbert and so, after taking one step before she realized she’d left it a little too long, stood there more, twisting her hands and feeling completely useless and sure that the professor was going to see this and fail her for that.

Clara came back as Lucille was starting to bite her lips, and the pressure of her teeth on the bottom one increased when it was pointed out that she could still help. She had to try, but she couldn’t think of anything except….

“Maybe I could throw something at it?” she said. “Except that might hit you, too, and it’s – not nice.” Nothing about this lesson was nice, so she didn’t know why she was bothered by a little thing like that, but still. It didn’t look like something that should have things thrown at it, and there were the teeth to consider. “Do you think it would run away – “ or attack, but she wasn’t going to mention that – “if you put it down?” She was still racking her brains for anything that might work; if she knew more spells, she was sure she could startle it without hurting anyone, but she didn’t even know that many incantations, much less how to use them. She might just kill them by mistake instead of startling the clabbert; that wasn’t likely, from what she understood, but it might. North Carolina Careys had never been known for lasting luck, and Lucille couldn’t see that she had ever had any at all. First her father had had a half-blood daughter, then he’d taken in one of the family’s most infamously bad girls, and then he’d divorced her mother, and then he’d died…..

All his luck, of course, but his luck was her luck, too, and it was bad. Lucille didn’t want to trust to her luck.

0 Lucille Trying to think... 0 Lucille 0 5

Waverly

April 30, 2012 12:45 AM

I dub thee...Scooter! by Waverly

Waverly smiled at Cepheus, glad it was someone she hadn't talked to in awhile. His first statement confused her for a moment, but he quickly said something else which made her forget it. "Right." She looked back at the Clabbert. She had forgotten just a little that Cepheus was pretentious. Oh well. If she had to deal with him, she'd deal with him. Besides, he seemed pretty smart and nice when he wanted to be.

"You have an owl? What's its name?" she asked, green eyes blinking up at him. She had really wanted a pet to bring to school, but her parents didn't believe in pets. First of all, because her dad was allergic to cats, and second because her mom owned a bakery and didn't want a shedding pet around that smelled bad. Waverly and her sister had begged and pleaded once, but to no avail. Even now, her mom had asked her where exactly she was going to keep an owl if she got one, and Waverly hadn't had an answer for that. So no owl. It was a sad life.

Waverly looked at the Clabbert again who was staring at Cepheus. "I think I'll name it Scooter." She smiled. "Scooter," she repeated. "I like it." She stood up and brushed off her bottom and looked at her partner.

"Okay, your call. I don't know how to get the pustule pulsing red." She thought for a moment. "Suspicious activity. That's what we need." Her eyes brightened with a sudden idea. "I know! We can have one of us 'sneak up' on the other and perform a jinx on them. Just a little one, not a harmful one." She looked at her partner sternly. "Okay? Now the question is, do you want to be the one jinxed or the attacker?" She really hoped Cepheus didn't know really mean jinxes because she had a feeling she was going to be the one getting jinxed.

0 Waverly I dub thee...Scooter! 0 Waverly 0 5

Melanie

April 30, 2012 7:40 AM

I suppose it depends on what they say. by Melanie

"It's a pleasure to meet you too, Miss Devereaux." Melanie replied. "You may call me Melanie." She didn't know a lot about the Devereaux family, just that they were a family that was starting to diminish and that she believed that they were also connected to the Careys if the Teppenpaw remembered correctly from genealogy and recent gossip. Mother had tried to drill into her which families were and were not important, especially ones that had children around Melanie's age.

It was as if Mother had put all her hopes and ambitions, the future of their family on the first year's shoulders. Not that there weren't other Lennoxes around. Her father was an only child but her grandfather had brothers and they had children and grandchildren. The family name would be around for years to come but it as far as Mother seemed to be concerned, it was Melanie who had to make connections among the current batch of students.

In some ways, it was a freedom that Valerie had that the first year didn't, but it was such a small thing and the Teppenpaw wouldn't trade places with her sister for anything. She knew how much the older girl suffered, how bad she felt most of the time. Melanie was rather glad that nobody put pressure on Valerie, she simply couldn't handle it and the first year could.

Actually, she probably would have been even angrier with her mother had she done so to the older girl. It was just that Melanie didn't like how Mother acted like Valerie was completely useless as anything but a tool for her to get sympathy and attention. The Teppenpaw hated when her mother did that It was disgusting and hypocritical, given how little attention she normally paid to Valerie. Mother could express concern, but she was hardly a hands on mother.

Melanie nodded. "She's my sister." The first year replied. "Do you know her?" She couldn't really recall Valerie mentioning Miss Devereaux at all but at least she hadn't had anything bad to say. The only person Valerie had ever mentioned that she thought didn't like her was a boy in her class named David who didn't seem to be around anymore. Melanie couldn't help but be happy about that even though she hadn't met him. She didn't want people being nasty to her sister.

She looked back at the clabbert. "I'm not sure." The Teppenpaw admitted. "I'm not really used to startling anything or dealing with animals of any kind." She had always supposed to be quiet and not disturb Valerie when the older girl wasn't feeling well. Plus, Melanie didn't especially want conflict, so trying to anger or annoy something was not in her nature. "Maybe get behind it and make a lot of noise?" The first year suggested. That would startle her if she was too deep in thought or something.

11 Melanie I suppose it depends on what they say. 226 Melanie 0 5

Clara

April 30, 2012 8:37 PM

Not bad....I like it by Clara

"“Maybe I could throw something at it?” she said. “Except that might hit you, too, and it’s – not nice.” “Do you think it would run away if you put it down?”

Clara took Lucille's suggestion and question into serious consideration. She hadn't really thought of the possibility of putting it down and wondered just what exactly it might do if she did. She also found herself partially agreeing with Lucille's statement that throwing something at them wasn't nice, however if it got the job done, Clara might be willing to take the risk. The only hitch she could see at the moment was figuring out how to throw something at them without scaring it too badly and causing it to bite one or both of them. She mulled over their options in her head until finally a great idea came to mind (at least she hoped it was a great idea). Okay...to be truthful Clara had two ideas bouncing around in her weird little mind at the moment. She only hoped that when she voiced them she didn't scare the wits out of her partner.

She licked her lips nervously and began telling Lucille about her ideas. She figured she would be met by one of two responses: either A) Lucille would think she was completely mad and run away from her screaming or B) she would actually help her with her crazy little schemes and at least one of them would pan out without getting one or both of them seriously hurt. Here goes nothing she thought and began talking.

"Okay, I like the idea of throwing something at us to try and startle it," she began, still cradling the creature to her chest. "However, I was thinking maybe we could tweak that plan just a little bit. I'll hold on to it tightly while you throw a rock near us. That should be enough to startle it into pulsing without attacking." She threw in the last part for added encouragement. "If that doesn't work, we could always try putting it down and seeing if we can sneak up on it with an incantation my dad taught me that we use sometimes to corral the horses." She was blatantly leaving out the part that the incantation created a very loud BANG which could more than startle the creature into attacking. She figured the other parts might worry Lucille enough without adding that tidbit.

"Which one sounds better to you?" she asked, encouraging her partner to partake in the experiment as it were.

0 Clara Not bad....I like it 232 Clara 0 5

Sayre Light

April 30, 2012 10:14 PM

And usually are, if you make the best of them by Sayre Light

"Hi there, Theresa Carey of the South Carolina Careys." Sayre said, a small, sardonic smile quirking her lips up in the corners. "Glad we'll be working together." Sayre was trying a different tactic from Potions class. This one was called "being nice" and had gotten glowing reviews before.

Sayre noticed Theresa nervously plucking at her dragon-skin gloves and cut in smoothly, as if she hadn't noticed and was just making a casual suggestion. "All right, so I got the little bugger, why don't you make some sort of noise - maybe a bang with your wand, yes? That ought to scare him." Sayre quickly offered another solution in case the girl wanted to hold the clabbert instead. "Or I can scare him, if you want." Sayre smiled tiredly. She really wanted this class to be better - and Theresa seemed like a nice girl, even if she was very formal. Well, Sayre was very informal. Maybe opposites attracted.

0 Sayre Light And usually are, if you make the best of them 0 Sayre Light 0 5

Alex

April 30, 2012 10:22 PM

Good point, good point by Alex

“Melanie,” Alex repeated with another small smile. “Thank you. You may use my name as well.”

She supposed that would be translated as calling her Alexandra, at least unless they reached the point of acquaintance where it was normal to drop a syllable or two casually from time to time. That was another thing about school which was unusual to her; at home, even her father, who was normally very formal, called her Alex. Her full name was only used on formal occasions, she thought since it was easy enough, speaking casually, to slur ‘Alexander’ and ‘Alexandra’ so they sounded too much alike, when Alexander was her grandfather and that was probably why Mother called her Lexie instead of either of the more common names.

Not so at school. Here, she was usually Alexandra. Even Theresa and Lucille, who she hadn’t grown up with, exactly, usually called her Alexandra more than they called her Alex.

“Not well,” she said about Valerie, “but we are in the same House.” She glanced at Melanie’s robes to confirm something and then added, “I hope she’s well. You know a relative of mine, too, I think. Lucille’s…my cousin, sort of.”

That was, Alex thought, exposition enough for someone not currently engaged or married to a Carey or seeming actively interested in genealogy. Alex’s great-great-grandfather’s father had been Lucille’s great-great-grandfather’s mother’s older brother; Alex didn’t even know if there was a word for that relationship. In Carey terms, they were cousins because they had hung out together during the last Reunion and had visited each other’s houses a few times since then.

“I’ve seen clabberts before,” Alex remarked when Melanie said she’d never dealt with animals before, “but never this close. Just as lights in the trees, usually.” She nodded to the suggestion about how to startle it. “That’s a good idea,” she said. “Then we run if it turns.” She said this lightly, but she would seriously consider it as an actual option if that did happen. There was just one problem before they got to that possibility. “Who’s going to get one out of the box?” she asked. “I’ll do it if you don’t want to,” she added generously, figuring it was her obligation as an older student. She wasn’t really afraid, but if Melanie wanted a chance to interact with an animal for once, then Alex would never be the one to deprive her of it.

0 Alex Good point, good point 0 Alex 0 5

Theresa

April 30, 2012 11:47 PM

It's always best to make the best of things by Theresa

Theresa looked at Miss Light with a trace of suspicion in her eyes as the other girl repeated her full introduction at her. Was she being mocking? And, if so, what should Theresa do about that? She'd have to do something, Grandfather always said that the Careys would quickly become nothing if they let people walk around disrespecting them, but girls weren't supposed to fight - her remedial etiquette tutor had been insistent enough about that fact of life that Theresa couldn't even think about it without the extra emphasis - and what she'd seen of the other girl's face suggested Miss Light might not have learned that very important lesson in a timely fashion from a hard teacher.

How much easier, she thought, not for the first time, in many ways to be a man. Yes, it was often more dangerous, but there were enough freedoms that Theresa thought it would be worth the price, enpven considering men's clothes. Being able to make your own way, not to have to play these exasperating games to get anywhere....

"Of course, Miss Light," she said politely.

Oh, yes. It would be so much easier to be a man, and just be able to bulldoze her way through life with things falling into her lap because women had to think in this confounded unnatural way and always do as they were told, except when la-do-da, she still didn't understand even half of it even after her remedial etiquette tutor. Absolutely the only thing Theresa would miss about being a girl was the clothes.

"I'll scare it," Theresa volunteered promptly. Wrestling with the creature would be undignified, and she had to avoid that at almost all costs this year. "On three? One, two...."

The bang wasn't as impressive as she'd hoped, but the harmless sparks turned out well, she thought. She would have been surprised to suddenly, while outdoors in class, have seen and heard that, especially so close to her, she was sure of it. She didn't know, though, if it would be enough to frighten the clabbert into flashing a warning....

0 Theresa It's always best to make the best of things 0 Theresa 0 5

Lucille

May 01, 2012 8:58 PM

But did the plan survive first contact with the enemy? by Lucille

The nail of Lucille’s ring finger pressed into the heel of her hand for a moment as she considered Clara’s plans. It was inappropriate to consider her own interests first, of course, but she couldn’t help thinking that the first one sounded the safest for her. Being safe was thinking of the family, wasn’t it? She couldn’t be of any use to them hurt, could she? At least not right away. The last thing Mother had said to her before she got on the wagon was to be safe, too; it was the thing Mother had worried about more than anything else in sending her to school at all, Being bitten by a clabbert was not what Mother had had in mind, but the same general idea worked, she thought. So maybe it wasn’t too inappropriate.

“I…think the first one might work,” she said when she was asked for her opinion. She felt a flutter of shame for partially liking that one, too, because it didn’t mean doing a new spell right here in front of everyone, since she was a witch and should be proud of that and very skilled at it, but they had barely been in school any time at all, and she had never had the nerve to use her mother’s wand secretly when she was little, so she could barely get spells to work right half the time so far and that was when she went into the class knowing she needed to perform magic and thinking about it. Just trying a new one without preparation, one learned from another first year…Oh, that didn’t sound so good, not at all.

Lucille looked for a rock, feeling nervous and flustered because she knew Clara was waiting. If the other girl was bitten while Lucille was dithering over rocks…! But she had to make a good choice; if it was too small, then it wouldn’t do what she wanted it to do, and if it was too large, then she wouldn’t be able to life it, or worse – only be able to throw it far enough for it to land on her own foot. That would be painfully embarrassing in more ways than one, and none of them were good, and it still wouldn’t do much good, and since Lucille knew she wasn’t very strong at all….

Finally, she took one up and then took a deep breath. If she hit Clara, or hit a random bystander, or had any number of other things she could just think of without even trying go wrong, she would be ruined for life. She knew that so deeply that she could barely think of anything else at all. One mistake was all it could take; a single error, and no one good would want to associate with her, and she’d end up like that girl. She would fail her family, she would fail her mother, she would….

Focus. She smiled at Clara. “Ready?” she asked, and threw the rock hard toward the ground, toward Clara’s feet but – she thought and hoped – far enough to the side not to hit her. Then she squeezed her eyes shut. “Did it work?”

0 Lucille But did the plan survive first contact with the enemy? 0 Lucille 0 5

Thad Pierce

May 01, 2012 9:12 PM

A subject by Thad Pierce

Thad turned in his homework when prompted to do so, feeling quite confident that his research on bowtruckles had been thorough and his essay comprehensive. He had cross-referenced eight books, (one of which was from the collection of old ones he'd rescued from The Purge last year, so he could explain the changing viewpoints on the creatures over the last two hundred years), and he thought he'd done a good job with it. His handwriting was, as always, impeccable and he'd even used a new spell he'd recently learned to check it over for spelling and grammar.

He sat on his usual log, near the front but to the side so that he could see the creatures and hear everything, but without risking blocking line of sight for the smaller first years who might sit behind him. He wasn't large for a twelve year old, but he wasn't tiny either; he did have a height advantage over most of the younger students.

Thaddeus sort of wished he'd taken a seat farther back as the clabbert was introduced. He didn't have anything against monkeys or frogs, but he wasn't sure he approved of the combination that Clabberts represented. It was the teeth, he thought. He didn't really even have a problem with sharp teeth, either, but frogs didn't have any teeth at all, and monkeys had flat teeth like people did, so sharp teeth just looked creepy with the rest of its appearance.

It was almost to be expected that they would be pairing up, so that part of the day's assignment came as no surprise. It was the rest that left him feeling somewhat concerned. Turning to the person seated on the log next to his own, he asked, wondering if it was just him, "Does it seem blatantly unwise to you to attempt to trigger a defensive mechanism in a creature with razor sharp teeth?"

1 Thad Pierce A subject 213 Thad Pierce 0 5

Aria Yale, Teppenpaw

May 01, 2012 9:22 PM

Is not a subject at all? by Aria Yale, Teppenpaw

Aria had yet to decide on what she thought of the professors or various staff members here at Sonora. Back home, they had one woman who taught all of the children basic educations. It didn’t matter their ages or anything, but their experience level grouped them differently. It was not the same for this school. The school went by age and not experience. For now, Aria could understand. At Eleven, there wasn’t much they would know more so than another eleven year old. But, as they grew up, surely there would be some who would outshine others and need to be in a separate group? But, she didn’t think that was how it worked here.

Plus, all the professors taught so different and demanded respect in different ways, Aria didn’t think there was any rhyme or reason for the way half of the staff taught. Aria was used to a free structure of teaching, but there was still respect. She wasn’t sure what Professor Spencer was getting at, but it was clear since their first lesson that he didn’t care much for the rules. The professors were strange beings. Some were strict and to the point, others were lax and carefree, and some were a little scary. But none of their methods were really quite the same. If Aria wasn’t such a good listener and observer, who was to say if she were able to pick up anything considering how different everything was?

Still, she enjoyed Care of Magical Creatures, but part of her felt like that because it was held outside and Aria missed the outdoors far more than anything else back home. Sure she missed her family and her friends, but the freedom of the outside world (within the community walls, of course) was not at Sonora and she could feel it tugging at her throughout the day. She had spent her waking hours outside back home and here, most of her waking hours were spent in dusty classrooms. At least this one gave her a sense of freedom even if it really wasn’t.

Handing in her homework, Aria sat herself down in the grass, not caring too much for the logs and listened as the Professor began the lesson with Clabberts. She knew of them because they lived in the trees around the community, but had never been near one because her parents said that they could be dangerous if threatened. She grew up seeing the glow during the nights when she was too awake to sleep and had found them to be beautiful. She found out a couple of years ago that the community kept the Clabberts around because they were a natural defense system just in case some outsiders felt a need to enter into their domain to do them harm. Although that had never happened while Aria was alive, a few years after the community had forms, a group of non-believers had barged into the community and destroyed most of what they had. After that, the community locked their doors to the outside world and only opened it many years later when the outside world forgot of their existence.

All of this was taught in her history lessons and was often included in children stories. Folklore as they say, but the proof was around the community and Aria knew it to be true. Those stories were partly why some children never went off to school. They were scared of ‘Outsiders’. Aria didn’t blame them. She was still having a hard time with it.

She was about to get up when the boy… oh, did she know his name? No, she couldn’t remember it, asked her a question. “Yes.” She said after a moment. “We’re talk to treat creatures with respect. Agitating them for no purpose seems rather disrespectful and unnecessary.” She replied, looking some what put out at the thought.

0 Aria Yale, Teppenpaw Is not a subject at all? 0 Aria Yale, Teppenpaw 0 5

Melanie

May 03, 2012 8:26 AM

Thank you, thank you. by Melanie

The Teppenpaw nodded, smiling. Melanie would never ever use Valerie's condition to gain sympathy the way their mother did, would never play the martyr while basically doing nothing with the elder girl, so she didn't discuss her sister's condition with others but she did appreciate Alexandra asking after her. That was kind. "She seems to be doing fine." Melanie replied. "Thank you for asking."

Fine for Valerie, anyway. The older girl never seemed to truly be well. This morning when the Teppenpaw had seen her at breakfast, she'd thought the Crotalus looked a bit more tired,weak and pale than she usually did, and Melanie had urged her to go see the medic. Still, the first year didn't want to bog Alexandra down with that, when neither Lennox girl was close to the second year. Airing one's problems with virtual strangers wasn't polite or proper. Plus, it might make Alexandra uncomfortable and the first year didn't want that either.

"Oh, I know Lucille." Melanie replied. She completely understood what was meant by sort of cousin. The Teppenpaw only had cousins on her mother's side by the normal definition. Her father was an only child but he was the one with relatives here. Most of her mother's relatives went to school in New Orleans. "She's my roommate. She seems like a very nice girl so far, I mean, I don't know her that well yet." She looked at the second year. "Do you know Arabella or Evan Brockert? They're my cousins-sort of-and in your year."

Melanie went on. "Oh and Ryan O'Malley and Autumn Collins are my cousins too. In your house, I mean." She didn't mention Carrie. The Teppenpaw wasn't very quick to want to own her as a relative, given how unimpressed she was with the girl's behavior thus far, between her argument with one of the Pecaris in Potions and her attempt to leave in flying. Honestly, it was doubtful that a lot of the pureblood girls wanted to be in flying, but the amount of entitlement and gall that Carrie seemed to have astonished her.

The Teppenpaw looked doubtfully at the clabbert. "Thank you." Melanie said. She felt a tiny bit guilty about making the other girl do it, but the truth was, she wasn't comfortable with getting out of the box at all. In fact, nothing about Care of Magical Creatures made Melanie feel comfortable. She thought she could handle the dirt and the logs and whatnot-so long as she washed up and changed before going anywhere near Valerie-but something with sharp teeth was another matter. "I'll make it up to you." Melanie promised. "Somehow." She felt she owed Alexandra now.

11 Melanie Thank you, thank you. 226 Melanie 0 5

Clara

May 03, 2012 10:24 PM

Partial success! It didn't bite us...yay! by Clara

Clara stood craddling the half monkey half frog creature and nodded in agreement as Lucille chose her first plan as their course of action. She was honestly a little releaved when Lucille went along with her idea instead of running away screaming. She didn't even call me crazy like my cousins might have she thought happily, as she watched Lucille search for the rock to be thrown. She talked to the Clabbert as Lucille hunted around for the right rock (or what she hoped would be the right rock) hoping that doing so would distract it so it wouldn't see Lucille throw the rock.

"You are just the weirdest/coolest looking thing I have ever seen, yes you are.." she cooed at the creature softly. "I'd take you home with me if I had any idea what to do with you," she told the Clabbert. The creature contiued to sit docily in her arms and blinked curiously at her. She almost missed Lucille's call of "Ready? and glanced up briefly to look at the other girl. She nooded briefly and braced herself as Lucille procceeded to throw said rock in their general direction. Clara watched the rock sail towards them and gave off a startled squeak as the rock hit the ground near her feet and bounced up over her head. She heard Lucille call out "Did it work?" and opened her eyes which she had squeezed shut. She glanced gingerly down at the Clabbert who was darting its head around trying to find the source of the noise the rock made hitting the ground and then the tree behind us.

It was definately startled, but not enough so that it had attacked us. The pustule on its forehead flashed red a couple of times before it seemed to calm down somewhat. The pustule had ceased flashing red. "I think so..." Clara called back. "It flashed a few times...its not anymore. Do you think we made it flash enough or should we ask the professor if we should make it flash some more?" she asked curiously, not sure of how best to procceed from here.

0 Clara Partial success! It didn't bite us...yay! 232 Clara 0 5

Alex

May 04, 2012 6:41 PM

You're welcome, welcome by Alex

Alex noticed that Melanie said only that Valerie seemed to be doing fine at the moment, but she just smiled again and didn’t call the younger girl out on it. It was really none of her business, especially with neither girl especially close to her, and she couldn’t say that she really wanted to know all the gory details of someone else’s health problems. The topic was depressing enough even when it didn’t involve people who were just their age, or just a little older.

She nodded her understanding, too, that Melanie didn’t know Lucille very well yet. There had been a little time for getting acquainted so far, but most likely not for the girls to become close. That took longer, though she had always had the idea it was easier for Teppenpaws than for other people – something about their disposition, about the things they had to be in order to be Teppenpaws. She of all people, though, should have known that stereotypes were nothing to go by, and that no two people in a House were going to be exactly alike. Alexandra felt safe in saying that she had little in common with those of her own blood, even up to and including her own mother, who had been Crotali, never mind with the likes of Eliza Bennett, or Renee Errant, or that O’Malley brat – who would have been, Alex was convinced, either dead or a broken reed after one month in the Careys; her mother’s family was fervent in its support of the idea that everyone ought to offer at least a skin-deep curtsy to authority until the day a plot against it succeeded – in first year.

“She is,” she said of Lucille. And too nervous and eager to please by half, but if Lucy’s roommates hadn’t noticed, Alex wouldn’t be the one to tell them. She had been thinking more of her grandparents than of Meredith when she imagined how Carrie O’Malley would do in the Careys, but Lucille’s mother, too, had done an excellent job of stamping out any stores of independence and pride her only daughter might have been born with. Part of the reason she thought she and Theresa and Lissy let Lucille follow them around was pity for the younger girl seeming to live not so much in a gilded cage as in a very lightly gilded hell.

She was brought to more pleasant thoughts, though, by the mention of Arabella. “I do,” she said. “I don’t know Evan very well, but Arabella – “ she felt a flutter of something like nervousness at using the term to a relative of the other girl’s when she had no idea what Arabella might have said to her family over the summer, but she ignored it – “is a friend.”

She noticed the O’Malley brat was not mentioned as a relative when the fifth year O’Malley was, but perhaps they were relatives through only one side that didn’t include Carrie. Carrie and Ryan, after all, seemed to her to look nothing alike. Or perhaps Melanie merely recognized that Carrie had not made a very good impression on anyone so far and didn’t wish to be linked with her reputation, though in that case, Alex wouldn’t have mentioned Ryan O’Malley, either, if it had been her. It hadn’t been, though, so she just nodded and said, “I’d recognize them if I saw them, but I don’t really know either of them. Jane Carey – one of your prefects – is a very distant relative of mine, and Arabella’s roommate Theresa is another sort of cousin of mine. I know the Careys in Aladren, too – I guess they and Theresa are my closest relatives here, our great-great-grandfathers are identical twins.”

Arthur had once said he thought that made them somewhat more related than his great-great-grandchildren would be to his twin’s, but Alex didn’t know. That sort of thing didn’t interest her too much; genealogy had never been her strongest subject, if she’d had one. She had performed adequately in the lessons, but she hadn’t retained much of it. It just hadn’t seemed terribly important. Not like figuring out how to grab a clabbert without getting hurt.

“Don’t be silly,” she said absently about Melanie owing her as she contemplated the problem. “I’ll grab it from behind. If that doesn’t make it flash, then jump toward it and yell at it, please.” She added the ‘please’ just in time. “And stay on your toes,” she added further. “In case it gets away from me.” Alex had no idea how strong she was, after all; this was not exactly what she did every day.

She grabbed the clabbert, and her eyes were nearly closed, but she thought she saw a flashing red light. Whether it was hers or someone else’s, though, was the question. Another was why on earth it had toes; she could feel them against her arm, and she nearly threw the thing before she got a grip on herself and remembered she’d be throwing it at a first year. A problem with this arrangement occurred to her for the first time, and that was that now that she had it up, how exactly was she supposed to get the clabbert back down? Unless they were far gentler creatures than cats, anyway, she didn’t see how this story could end well, at least for her, and while in principle caring for others was all well and good…well, she didn’t have to sleep in their skins.

0 Alex You're welcome, welcome 0 Alex 0 5

Lucille

May 04, 2012 8:18 PM

That is definitely a reason to cheer by Lucille

Lucille kept her face composed except for a momentary wide smile when she heard the pustule – dear goodness, but that was a repellant word; she thought she would have thought so even under different circumstances, but it seemed especially bad just now – had flashed, but she could feel her hands trembling a little as she took out a handkerchief to wipe her gloves after handling a rock. For once in her life, or at least one of only a very few times, she felt relief over being consulted about something, or at least felt something that wasn’t the gut-clenching fear she associated with being asked so much as her opinion on a dress normally.

“No,” she said, as firmly as she could. “I think that’s enough. It’s warned us. It will probably bite if we bother it more.”

How true this was, she had no idea, but she had read a bit of a book one time that mentioned animal warnings, and maybe, if she sounded certain, Clara would go along with her. Her teachers had always said that to seem uncertain was to seem weak, after all. The world out here was so different that she didn’t know what would work with people who weren’t immediately and obviously like her – or maybe even with those who were – but what she knew was all that she knew. She couldn’t do any more than that, because she didn’t know anything else to do.

The thought of how little all her lessons had done to really get her ready for this had occurred to her more than once since she came to Sonora, but she dismissed it as being a product of her stupidity. The others seemed to do well enough, and her whole upbringing had been centered on not allowing her to make a mistake; if she wasn’t following, then it was her fault, not anyone else’s. The family had done the best they could with what they had to work with, which, as she knew, was not much….

“I suppose you can put it back now, then,” she finished, though she wasn’t entirely sure about how Clara was supposed to do that, either. Hopefully, the question wouldn’t be asked; if it was, Lucille was sure any appearance of knowing what she was doing that she might have would vanish in a blink. Or less.

0 Lucille That is definitely a reason to cheer 0 Lucille 0 5

Melanie

May 05, 2012 9:54 AM

Perhaps we should run... by Melanie

Melanie realized, perhaps a moment too late, that mentioning Ryan as a relative was possibly a mistake if she wanted to deny Carrie as one. They had the same last name and all, so people might assume that if she was related to one, she was related to the other.

Not that there was anything wrong with being related to the fifth year. He had been nothing but kind and compassionate towards Valerie and to the Teppenpaw, that mattered much more than anything else. From what Melanie understood, he was a perfect gentleman in the true sense of the word. It was just that from everything she'd seen so far, his little sister was an absolute monster.

"I think Ryan, Arabella," she still didn't want to call attention to having Carrie O'Malley as a relative so she still didn't mention the other first year "and Alessa Hinckley are my closest relatives here, aside from Valerie, of course. Ryan's mother and Arabella's father are brother and sister and they're my father's first cousins and then Alessa's mother is their first cousin also."

Melanie admitted. "I don't really know any of them." Because of Valerie's medical condition, they really didn't attend many family functions. Her parents had attended Ryan and Arabella's uncle Seth's wedding to their Transfiguration professor, because the third year had been reasonably well at the time, at least well enough that them going wouldn't look bad, but they'd insisted on Valerie staying home and Melanie had chosen to stay with her instead.

"My sister has talked to Ryan some and she says he's really nice though. She says he helps her out when she needs it." The Teppenpaw added. "I don't think she's talked much to any of our other cousins though." Melanie assumed that if Alexandra was friends with Arabella, that she probably knew who else the first year's relatives were. After all, she and the Pecari had pretty much the same ones here at school, given that Melanie's mother's family and the grandchildren of Grandfather Lennox's siblings didn't go to Sonora.

She braced herself for the Clabbert's...liberation from it's box. The first year let out a yelp as Alexandra nearly threw it towards her. Melanie knew it wasn't the most proper thing to do in the world, but that... thing made her a bit anxious. It had sharp teeth and they were trying to startle it. The Teppenpaw knew that if it were her that they were trying to scare into a display, she would not react well. Or well, she'd try to act like a lady, but then Melanie was able to control herself, an animal was not.

She saw the creature light up."It's red!" The younger girl called out. "I'd put it down and run." The brunette was ready to speed away if it came towards her.

11 Melanie Perhaps we should run... 226 Melanie 0 5

Cepheus

May 06, 2012 11:08 PM

I veto the name. It's as bad as "Rainbow." by Cepheus

Cepheus felt smug when she asked him what the name of his owl was. She definitely seemed interested which he blamed on her muggle upbringing. He was proud of his eagle owl. The other owl he'd received his very first year for his eleventh birthday had been a tawny owl, but he'd thrown such a fit the summer before his second year that his father had finally relented and bought him the owl he'd wanted originally. The tawny went to Rupert who liked it quite a lot. He would. Rupert had a soft spot for misfits.

"My owl's name is Roscoe," he said proudly. "He's an eagle owl." That last part probably wouldn't make a difference to her, but he was proud of it anyway. Even if the eagle owl was heavier than he'd first expected and sometimes bit him when he was unhappy, Cepheus liked him well-enough. As much as one could like an owl who carried mail, anyway. He'd have much preferred his crup here with him.

The muggle-born named the clabbert "Scooter," which Cepheus thought sounded lame. But he didn't know how exactly to name creatures he didn't care about so he went with it. Getting the pustle or whatever it was called to pulse red was going to be difficult. At least she was spot on concerning that bit. She fell silent and Cepheus thought for a moment himself. What exactly could count as "danger?" Merlin, this lesson was lame.

Cepheus raised his blonde eyebrows at her suggestion. Jinx her? A smirk grew on his face. "That sounds like a fine suggestion," he said, leaning his head back a little. "I'll be the attacker." What did she expect he'd pick, really? He had to think carefully about the jinx he was going to administer. It couldn't be too harmful or he'd get into trouble. He didn't think there were any sissy jinxes either, so it would have to be a moderate one. Even if the pustule pulsed red before he actually jinxed her, it would still be fun to do it anyway. Who actually asked someone to jinx them?

Whatever. It wasn't his business. "All right," he said carefully. "You have your back on me and talk to the clabbert or whatever and I'll sneak up on you." He wouldn't tell her what jinx, or that'd give the surprise away. His smirk was wide at this point and it was difficult to tone it down. Jelly-legs jinx. That's what he'd use. Harmless, yet hilarious to watch. "Turn around, now," he told her, and walked outside of the "classroom area" and watched Waverly behind the bushes. He waited until she was ready and then a few minutes more before sneakily creeping out and silently raising his wand. He whispered the incantation and watched the light shoot out and wrap itself around her legs before disappearing. Score.

0 Cepheus I veto the name. It's as bad as "Rainbow." 0 Cepheus 0 5

Clara

May 07, 2012 12:58 AM

Back to the box with the Clabbert by Clara

“No,” she said, as firmly as she could. “I think that’s enough. It’s warned us. It will probably bite if we bother it more.”

Clara found herself pondering Lucille's comment for a moment. She begrudgingly had to admit that Lucille might have been right. They had managed to make it light up (sort-of) and it probably was unwise to provoke the weird looking creature any further. The whole It could tear our faces off thing came to mind. She had gotten lucky with the booger potion, she might not be soo lucky if she distressed the little Clabbert any further. She glanced down at her little burden and grinned. "Perhaps shes right," she told her funny little friend, as she held him against her chest.

Clara walked back towards Lucille carrying the Clabbert with her and stopped a few steps from her partner. "I think you might be right," the Pecari admitted reluctantly. "Perhaps that was enough and to try anymore might provoke it into actually hurting us. I'll go put him back into the case the professor brought him in. Hopefully he'll be just as docile going in as he did coming out." She smiled at Lucille and headed back to the case where she had obtained their little friend. She placed him carefully back into the container and sighed gratefully when it didn't move to bite her. Clara gave the Clabbert one final pat before turning away from the case.

As she returned to where Lucille waited she removed the gloves. "I guess we won't need these anymore," she told Lucille. "Seeings how the monkey/frog thing is back in the box now." She gave Lucille her best smile. "Thank you soo much for working with me," she told her pleasantly. "I think we work well together" she told Lucille cheerfully hoping the other girl felt the same.

0 Clara Back to the box with the Clabbert 232 Clara 0 5

Waverly

May 07, 2012 9:03 PM

Too bad! I like it. by Waverly

Waverly was jealous. She wanted an owl and by the looks of her partner, he probably had lots of them. He dressed like a rich wizard. Maybe, if they became good enough friends, he'd give her an owl for free and then her parents would have to allow her to keep it. Or else the poor little owl would have no home! She wondered if Cepheus treated his owl well. He didn't seem to have much of an interest in magical creatures.

She did not like the smirk on Cepheus's face when he agreed to jinx her. Waverly was a little wary, but thoughts of getting an A on this was enough to sacrifice her dignity. Just a little bit, of course. She followed his directions and turned her back on him. She was a little scared of what jinx he was going to use, but focused on soothing Scooter.

"Hey there, Scooter. That's your name, you know," she whispered to the Clabbert soothingly. The Clabbert was watching her with its big eyes and she smiled. Its razor sharp teeth were a little disconcerting, but other than that the creature seemed really nice! She put a gloved finger on its arm and Scooter reached over, opening its jaws and she quickly pulled back. "Noooo, bad Scooter! Don't bite me! I'm your friend!" Scooter blinked at her and she smiled at him. Suddenly, Scooter's pustule started pulsing red and Waverly was about to turn around when she felt the spell on her legs. It was like something had wrapped around her legs and was controlling them. She couldn't stand and fell unceremoniously on her butt, legs wiggling in front of her without her permission.

Her legs felt really wobbly, but she was relieved that it hadn't been a harmful jinx. "Whoa," she said. "I think I'll sit here for a little while." She hated this feeling, but at least Scooter's pustule had pulsed red! She looked up at Cepheus from the ground. "His pustule turned red, so good job, I guess." She smiled. "Do you want to take him back?" she asked. "I can't really walk." Scooter was staring at Cepheus distrustfully, pustule still pulsing red. "You can borrow my gloves if you want," she added, taking them off and handing them to him.

0 Waverly Too bad! I like it. 0 Waverly 0 5

Alex

May 07, 2012 9:11 PM

That might make something chase us, though by Alex

Alex tried for a moment to work out exactly how Melanie was related to the people she cited as her closest relations here – aside from her sister, of course. Ryan and Arabella were first cousins to each other, but they each had a parent who was a first cousin to both Melanie’s father and to Alessa Hinckley’s mother. So they would be…the child of your first cousin was your second cousin, so Melanie was their parents’ second cousin, so she was their third cousin? She thought that scanned, though she wasn’t sure. She didn’t think it mattered, since in any case they were all definitely more closely related than she was to anyone at this school, but now that she had thought about it she wanted to know. It irritated her to not be sure about something.

She was not, however, an Aladren, so she didn’t risk being impolite by asking about it any further at the moment. She could, if it bothered her that much, look it up later, or ask one of her own cousins; the family would be delighted to see her taking an interest, if she wasn’t completely wrong. She was not an unsatisfactory daughter, not by any means, she had never thought that in her life or had any reason to, but nor was she perfect. Nobody was, except maybe Lissy.

She smiled slightly at the thought of her favorite cousin. It would have been easy to hate Lissy for being such a goody two-shoes, but she didn’t, no more than she’d initially understood why she had been chosen instead of Lissy to be the one who got to leave Louisiana. Thinking about why her father said she had been picked, though, wasn’t something she wanted to do, so she didn’t dwell on it.

“That’s understandable,” she said. “I don’t know half the Careys here very well. I’ve met Arthur before, and I’ve spent time with Theresa and Lucille, but the others are more distant.” Despite the fact that James was Theresa’s brother, and Arnold was Arthur’s twin. So it went in the family. She could see that it was unusual, but it was what she was accustomed to, so it didn’t bother her very much.

When she heard that it was red, Alex felt relief spreading through her, weakening her arms – which wasn’t really the best thing when she was holding something which was alive and had teeth. She couldn’t help but laugh anyway at Melanie’s advice to put it down and run. “I’m not sure there’s anywhere to go,” she said. One of the things about a boarding school in the desert was that while it might bloom, it didn’t offer students many opportunities to run away. If you had a problem with being at Sonora, then you’d better work out how to deal with it in some other way, because there was no way out without magic.

Taking a chance, she got the box in her sights and aimed for that as she began to maneuver the clabbert. It was bending its head, as though it wanted to sink its teeth into her wrist, but she got to the box in time and jumped back, only just catching her footing. She supposed it was hardly a sign of how much of a lady she was, but this mainly concerned her because of how she might need to move fast to get away if it came after her, not because of how undignified it would be to fall to the ground.

“Well,” she said, only a little breathlessly, a few wisps of straight brown hair loose around her face, “you can’t say the new professor is dull, can you?” She put her hands up to fix her hair, or at least smooth it out a bit. Alex wasn’t so preoccupied with her appearance as Theresa, who in her opinion took it a bit too far, she thought that was more than a little ridiculous, but neither was she a farm wife with messy hair and her sleeves pushed up over her elbows. She had to keep neat, at least, when it was reasonably practical to spend some of her time worrying about that.

0 Alex That might make something chase us, though 0 Alex 0 5

Angel Shield - Teppenpaw

May 08, 2012 5:58 PM

... by Angel Shield - Teppenpaw

The pale boy wandered into the clearing, the gentle blades of grass tickled between his toes with each step, causing him to hum softly. Dark glasses hid his ruby gaze from the harsh light of the sun, as well as from the curious eyes of his fellow students. He always felt a little bit bolder when he wore the sunglasses, and tended to look more directly at people instead of down at the ground. The parchment he handed in was slightly crumpled along the edges from his frustrated fingers, there were scratched out words, smudges, and blotches of ink, but overall it was more or less coherent and remained mostly on topic. It was better than his first few attempts at assignments last term, though still far below his peers.

In Care of Magical Creatures, Angel tried hard to make up for his poorly done assignments by paying careful attention and doing all the hands on work to the best of his ability. The class was an interesting one, and he enjoyed working with all the different animals. Some of them were easier to work with than others, and listening to the description of the task they were to compete, Angel thought this might be one of the more difficult ones. Seeing the Clabbert and its rather frightful teeth, the Teppenpaw hid his fingers in the overly large sleeves of his robes.

After he found the gloves in his bag and slipped them on, the albino glanced around to see if anyone needed a partner. This was always the hard part, the shy boy found it difficult to just walk up and ask if someone wanted to work with him. In classrooms it was different seems the students usually just worked with their desk partner. Students began pairing off, and Angel stood awkwardly waiting for someone to choose him.

0 Angel Shield - Teppenpaw ... 0 Angel Shield - Teppenpaw 0 5

Gareth Whitebriar - Crotalus

May 08, 2012 6:24 PM

That doesn’t look friendly by Gareth Whitebriar - Crotalus

Gareth stumbled on a bit of nothing just as he entered the clearing and fell to his knees, and was grateful that he hadn’t fallen all the way to his face. “Darn feet! Can’t you stop growing already?” he huffed as he scrambled back up to his impressive height. Bright almost cheerful green stains now decorated the knees of his robes and Gareth gave them a dark scowl. Really, was it too much to ask for his body to function in a proper manner? He hadn’t been nearly so clumsy last term, but then again he’d grown again over the summer and most of it had happened within the last month, so he was still adjusting.

That didn’t mean it wasn’t still embarrassing to be tromping around like an ungainly hunting hound that’s all ears and too big paws. The blush that burned his cheeks also didn’t help his image what so ever, seems his light complexion showed every nuance of embarrassment like a sign over his head. He feebly hoped that no one would notice his little mishap. Over the summer his sibs had found his predicament to be the height of humor and teased him endlessly any time he stumbled.

Ducking his head to hide the blush, Gareth took a seat and began digging though his bag to find his assignment. Finally he found it, for some reason it was stuck between the pages of his Transfiguration book, rolling his eyes at the strange magic of book bags that could make even the most organized people disorganized, he handed in the assignment. The Crotalus had never heard of a Clabbert before, which was the case with a lot of the creatures they studied in this class, but the description sounded rather unpleasant. If hearing about it was bad, seeing it was worse. Gareth gave the little beast a hard look, silently warning it not to even think about trying to bite his hand off as he stood.

“Want to be partners?” He asked the person standing a short ways away while he put on his dragon hide gloves.

0 Gareth Whitebriar - Crotalus That doesn’t look friendly 0 Gareth Whitebriar - Crotalus 0 5

Cepheus

May 10, 2012 11:34 AM

Thank Merlin this is over. by Cepheus

Cepheus had a good laugh watching her fall, legs jiggling uncontrollably. He was glad that Dorian had taught it to him earlier this summer before Cepheus had been whisked off to India. It was highly entertaining and apparently a jinx loads of students at Hogwarts enjoyed. He stood up from behind the bushes and went to her, still chuckling a little. When he saw her facial expression, he laughed again. "Sorry, sorry," he said, trying to calm himself, but the image of her falling continued to play in his head and he had to press a knuckle to his mouth.

He looked distrustfully at the clabbert. "Is this how I'll atone for my jinx? By taking the clabbert back?" He sighed, though he really didn't mean it. It was fair enough. She couldn't walk so that would prove highly difficult. He tried not to laugh again. Instead, he plucked the gloves out of her hand and put them on before reaching for the clabbert. "How do you hold one of these things?" he asked, wrinkling his pale nose. He awkwardly grabbed it by its arms, to which the clabbert writhed uncomfortably, but it was the best he could do. He marched it over as the clabbert glared at him and leant over to bite his finger. He succeeded, but it was only a prick through the thick glove. "Ouch!" Cepheus shouted, dropping the clabbert. The clabbert screeched at him.

He examined the glove, looking for a hole, and he narrowed his blue eyes at the creature. "Why you--!" He picked up the creature by one arm and marched it the rest of the way to the front of the class, the clabbert attempting to bite his fingers some more. He finally dropped the clabbert at the front and glared at it. "Go climb some trees or something," he told it and took off the gloves and put them back where Waverly had first got them. Then he marched back to the muggle-born.

"That's the worst creature we've had to study in this class," he said, annoyed. "And I thought bowtruckles were bad." He threw his head back and brushed a hand across his forehead, feeling his short blonde hair lying there lightly. "I hate this class." He held out a hand to Waverly unconsciously once he saw her legs stop shivering. "I don't know how you can make friends with creatures like that," he added in disgust. He examined his finger again. There was a somewhat deep prick in his forefinger and he scowled. "That blooming clabbert made me bleed!"

0 Cepheus Thank Merlin this is over. 0 Cepheus 0 5

Waverly

May 12, 2012 10:33 PM

It's not over yet! by Waverly

Not being able to use her legs made Waverly feel vulnerable as she watched Cepheus leave her to take the Clabbert back. Of course, he didn't exactly have a worry-free trip. He even dropped Scooter once and Waverly wanted to yell at him, "Be careful!" Scooter was still a creature too! Cepheus was angry at the hybrid and he was quick to show it when he came back. "Bowtruckles aren't too bad," she replied as he hoisted her back up on her feet. It was nice that he'd noticed her legs stop shaking. "Where'd you learn that jinx?" she asked.

Waverly wasn't very good at jinxes, but that was only because she wasn't interested in them. To her, jinxes were what bullies used and she didn't think they were helpful to the magical society. They were just mean-spirited "prank" spells. Unhelpful.

Apparently Scooter had bit Cepheus, and she gasped and grabbed his finger, ignoring his funny British slang. "Aw, bad Scooter," she sighed, and took her wand out of her pocket. "Hold still now, okay? I can heal it!" She knew very basic healing spells now along with basic cleaning spells. Those spells were helpful unlike the jinxes. She pointed her wand at the wound and said the incantation.

Immediately the wound started to close and in a few seconds, it was gone save for a tiny dot of red on his finger where the wound had been. "There," she said as-a-matter-of-fact. "All gone!" The blood was still there, but that could easily be wiped off. She let go of his hand and took a step back and smiled.

0 Waverly It's not over yet! 0 Waverly 0 5

Andrina Thornton, Aladren

May 16, 2012 8:47 PM

Promises to keep by Andrina Thornton, Aladren

Andri remembered her promise to Abigail before she left home better than anything else walking into Care of Magical Creatures class. Abi loved animals and Andri had promised her to tell her all about the class she knew her sister would love the most. So far she’d taken notes in each of her classes to show her sister, but it was Care of Magical Creatures she knew would interest Abi the most. Abi loved animals and therefore out of all the sisters and cousins Abi talked to the most was Clara. After all, Clara had two Appaloosa’s at home in Napa Valley and that made Abi smile every time they visited Clara and Uncle Bryan. Andri knew that and used that as a base of what to tell Abi in her letters home. Either way, her notebook slapped against her back inside her backpack as she walked to the clearing.

Professor Morgan smiled at them and Andri sat down on one of the cushioned logs in the clearing and smiled back at him. She knew he liked being called Professor Spencer, but Andri herself had a bit of trouble doing that still. In her old school before Sonora she wasn’t allowed to call her teachers by their first names and she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to do it whether she knew the names or not. Professor Morgan asked for their essays on Bowtruckles and Andri dug into her bag for her own essay of that title. She fished it out and uncrumpled it from the little folds it got from sitting in her bag. She handed in her essay and the other students did the same. Once they’d all finished digging for their papers the professor went on to tell them what they’d be studying that day.

‘The Clabbert looks like a cross between a monkey and a frog,’ Andri wrote and kept writing as Professor Morgan told them about the green skinned creature. He took one of the Clabberts out of the case and Andri looked at it curiously. Abi would like this frog-monkey thing… she thought to herself as the Clabbert showed its razor sharp teeth. Erm… Maybe not… she thought, second guessing herself. The postule on its forehead looked really icky to the second year, and she cringed at it. ‘Used as a warning sign for approaching Muggles and unknown wizards by their postule flashing red.’ she added to her notes. “Eew…” she said softly, but still loud enough for someone sitting next to her to hear her.

Andri kept taking her notes about where the Clabbert lives and what it eats from Professor Morgan. When he said that they were going to pair up and grab a Clabbert, she stared at him with something of a look of horror on her face. “We have to try to get it to change its postule’s color to pulse red?” she asked the student next to her, color draining in her face almost to match his. That was when she realized that she'd been sitting next to Angel all this time. This helped her to feel better. She liked the albino boy and would do anything to help him, even if that meant getting bit by this thing... “That means we’ll need to scare it, but not get eaten in the process…” she said, wondering if anyone would be able to actually do what he’d been asking them to do without getting eaten! She looked at Angel and said, "Will you work with me?"

0 Andrina Thornton, Aladren Promises to keep 0 Andrina Thornton, Aladren 0 5

Cepheus

May 17, 2012 1:27 AM

Merlin's beard... by Cepheus

Cepheus didn't concern himself with the muggle-born's idea of what creature was "not bad." Bowtruckles were pretty bloody bad in his mind and he was right. His family had been magical for longer so they would know better. Their knowledge, being passed down to him, made him know better, and therefore he was right. Obviously his logic wouldn't suffice Waverly's logic, so he said nothing. She was interested, however, in how he'd learnt the jinx, and he smirked smugly.

"My cousin taught it to me," he said. Dorian technically was his second cousin, but no one really cared until family reunions. Cepheus himself didn't keep track. Dorian was one of his best friends back in England. He just liked Dorian's immediate family, to keep it simple. They were usually the ones he socialised with during family gatherings. "He goes to Hogwarts," he continued. "It's a magical school in Scotland." He assumed she'd never heard of it, being of muggle birth and all. Cepheus could never imagine not knowing magic and his way of life.

Cepheus's first instinct was to pull his hand back when Waverly grabbed his finger. She shouldn't be touching him! She was of filthy blood! If she thought she was going to try and heal him, she was wrong. However, this time Cepheus seemed to be wrong. He was about to shout at her for touching him and yank his hand away, but she'd already said the incantation. Cepheus winced, expecting the worst from a muggle-born, but after a moment of squeezing his eyes shut and bracing himself for something horrible, he felt stupid and opened his blue eyes again.

Surprisingly, his wound was closed then and her simple spell had been successful. It was, for lack of a better word, shocking. Cepheus wished then that he had a handkerchief that his father had always told him to carry around just in case. He'd need it to wipe off the blood. He had a wild notion suddenly of wiping the blood off of his finger on Waverly, but it was quenched as the other mad notions that sometimes came into his brain. Instead, he left the blood there, unsure of where to wipe it off. "Obviously those dragon hide gloves aren't fully clabbert-proof," he said instead, looking at his finger and trying to hide his awkwardness. He didn't know exactly what to say to Waverly now.

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Angel

May 21, 2012 5:50 PM

... by Angel

At first Angel wasn’t sure that Andrina was talking to him. But a quick glance showed that she was indeed looking at him and not at another student so he gave a small nod of agreement. The assignment was more than a little strange in Angel’s mind. After all, there wasn’t much threat that school children could pose, and none of them were muggles. How did the Clabbert’s decide what comprised a threat or not? They were kept by wizards, so it was reasonable that the creatures did not by nature assume that wizards were threats just by being in the same area.

“How we make it flashes?” Angel murmured, his voice just loud enough to carry over the sound of the other children as they began to gather up the creatures to compete the assignment. This sort of class work, though hands on, wasn’t something Angel excelled at. He functioned much better when given direct instructions to follow. Being given an objective without the steps needed to achieve the objective made the Teppenpaw uncomfortable. They were still better than written assignments, and far better than tests. At least with work like this he could follow another student’s lead and hopefully they knew how to compete the assignment and could walk Angel though it without too much difficulty.

Angel followed Andrina to where the creatures were contained. Tilting his head slightly, he studied the large mawed Clabbert with an eye to the details his fingers itched to sketch. Drawing them would be far easier than trying to inspire fear in them. Reaching out, Angel gently touched one webbed foot and pulled his hand back swiftly enough to avoid the sharp snapping teeth.

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Andri

May 23, 2012 8:40 PM

Well... uhm... by Andri

Andri guessed that at first Angel wasn’t too sure that she’d actually been talking to him. But once he realized she was, indeed, talking to him, he nodded towards her. “Good.” she said to him with a soft smile on her face. There was something about this boy that made the now twelve year old wonder about him. Sure, he was albino, but that wasn’t it, she was sure. There was something else about the boy that fascinated her. Perhaps it was his amazing ability to draw, perhaps it was something else. But whatever it was, this boy was on her mind more and more as the year went on. Sure, she was interested in the things he did the year before in their first year, but this year… This year there was something else there.

“How we make it flashes?” Angel murmured just loud enough for her to hear him over the other boys and girls in the room around them.

“Uhm… Well… I think we’re supposed to scare the Clabbert, but not scare it to the point of it hurting us.” she started to say to him. When the partners walked up to the Clabberts, Andri saw that Angel studied it. As he tilted his head she guessed what thoughts were entering his mind. She knew he totally wanted to draw the strange creature and she smiled at him. “Maybe after we’re done with the assignment, maybe you can borrow one to draw? I’d like to see you draw it, if you can…” she said to him softly so as not to scare him.

He held out his hand and touched one webbed foot of the creature, but then pulled his hand back so fast that he only narrowly avoided the sharp snapping teeth. “Wow…”

Andri wondered how in the world to scare this creature without allowing it to bite or maul either Angel or herself. Other students around them were doing okay, she glanced around and spotted Clara with one of the first year Teppenpaws. It seemed whatever they’d done had worked as their Clabbert was lighting up from its postule.

“Interesting… See, my cousin got it to work, but I’m not sure what she did…” Andri said, biting her lips with her teeth and tilted her own head to see if she could figure it out.

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