Ain't it a shame on Elective Hall

Mia

April 23, 2005 9:40 AM

Ain't it a shame by Mia

Mia sat straight up when she felt a hand on her arm. She instantly felt that that was a bad idea and held back a cringe. She saw the Professor standing in front of her and telling her she could go to the Hospital Wing if she needed to. As lovely as that sounded, having a head ache couldn't be that big a deal. She could go after class.

Mia didn't like having other people's notes anyway. If she was ever absent from her other school (which was very rare) and had to borrow notes, she always double checked with the teacher to make sure she didn't miss anything. She just prefered her own words to what other students wrote. If she didn't need to miss class than she wouldn't. She could thank her father for that.

"No thanks, I'm fine Professor." Mia said simply, running her fingers through her hair to make it a bit more decent.

She wasn't about to make a big deal over something little like a head ache, though it didn't seem so little to her. She didn't like the unwanted attention. Hoping Professor Dione would move on, Mia turned from the professor to her boots and began slowly lacing them up properly. She always felt a bit awkward talking to the teachers. It was probably becuse she had been deemed the teachers' pet for getting near perfect grades at her other school. What ever the reason, Mia avoided looking up again until she knew the professor had moved on.

At least she seemed somewhat nicer than before.\n\n

0 Mia Ain't it a shame 0 Mia 0 5

Juliet Lee

April 23, 2005 9:46 AM

First star I see tonight... by Juliet Lee

Before Juliet could compose herself any further, Dalila immediately shoved her hand a few inches from her petite nose. Juliet opened and closed her mouth as if she were a fish out of water.

"I'm Dalila Bastet, first year, Teppenpaw, half-blood. If there's anything else you wanna know, I'll be happy to spill my heart out. Did you finish already too?"

The first thing Juliet thought was, "This girl's an awful lot like Asher." Meaning that she was outgoing and spontaneous, all the things that Juliet didn't possess and envied severely. However, Dalila seemed like pretty decent girl and might prove to be a good friend in the future.

"I'm Juliet Lee and a first year. I'm in Teppenpaw as well." Her grin widened.

"It's nice to meet a fellow housemate."\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

0 Juliet Lee First star I see tonight... 0 Juliet Lee 0 5

Robbie

April 23, 2005 11:11 AM

it's fun to quote jkr by Robbie

"Maybe we could throw this at someone...got any targets?"

Robbie looked around the room. He had only met three or four people, and all of them had seemed pretty nice. He guessed it was pretty lucky that he hadn't met anyone who he really had a problem with yet. But still, it left him with no clue as to who to make their target.

"I don't know," he shrugged, "Your pick, I guess. Or we could just throw it at any random person." Robbie slunk back in his chair. He had to admit, now that he had finished the questions, science was extra boring. At least before he had something to do. He wondered if all the classes would be like this, finish the questions, then free time.\n\n

0 Robbie it's fun to quote jkr 0 Robbie 0 5

Connor

January 15, 2007 5:31 PM

But what did we do to make them want revenge? by Connor

"Good," Connor said, more brusquely than he normally would have, when Anne denied his involvement with Gwen being any of her business. "Glad we agree on that point." It was only a moment before he realized how it had sounded. Gwen was driving him crazy, for him to talk to a girl like that. "Sorry, Miss Anne," he said, lapsing back into old habits out of instinct. "Didn't mean to snap at you." He hadn't called anyone 'Miss' since some time around the end of his first year. He should have known better than to talk to Gwen's cousin.

He wondered what Gwen would think of Anne's assertment that they weren't friends. There wasn't really any telling; with her, opinions changed from day to day, and he could rarely predict what side of any issue she was going to take. There were definitely times he thought they had somehow wound up in the House meant for the other one. Except, of course, for Gwen's preoccupation with money and blood and the age of families and influence and all that other rich-folks stuff he didn't understand and never would.

He had to go over what Anne said twice, then a third time omitting the last bit about his name, before he got what she was saying. "Gwen wasn't my girlfriend," he said bluntly. "She never was. We were just friends." And now they were enemies, which seemed to be the way most of Gwen's friendships turned out. "We don't, to quote one of my mom's stories, spin in the same social circles too often." Who would have guessed that one of the stupid lines from his mother's stupid soaps would come in useful one day? "And my name's Connor, now that you've got an excuse to remember it." The sarcasm was unmissable to anyone with half a brain, which he suspected Anne possessed. "Connor Pierce."\n\n

0 Connor But what did we do to make them want revenge? 68 Connor 0 5

Anne

January 15, 2007 6:11 PM

Dunno, haven't worked that part out yet. by Anne

Anne was more surprised by the apology than the snapping - she would have been snapping worse than he had if someone started sticking their nose into her business - but didn't show it. "I'll forgive you on one condition," she said, not noticing that it sounded an awful lot like she was flirting. "Never refer to me as 'Miss Anne' again in this or any other life. It's Anne, Wright, or anything you can get out of that except Annie or Anna. Got that?" Anna was what John called her. Annie was her aunt. Miss Anne had been her mother's name for her.

She shook her head disbelievingly when he informed her of the nature of his and Gwen's relationship. "Everyone says that," she informed him. "The only reason I'm even half-willing to believe you is because my best friend's a guy and I've been accused of dating him before." She wished she knew something, other than staging a huge fight and never speaking to Geoff again, that she could do to get rid of those rumors; it was inappropriate for a team captain to have romantic relationships with subordinates, and might lead to her losing her position. Besides, all they would do would be to start sneaking around, and that would make things worse.

"I know it sucks," she said frankly, hitting the Forward button on the CD player to skip a piece she wasn't too fond of. "Wave the hairdryer around a little so you look like you're doing something. Anyway, if you try to tell anyone else what you just told me, you'd better be ready to have them start laughing in your face. It's because Gwen tried so hard to keep it all under the table or whatever. When girls like her do stuff like that and anyone notices, it sounds all the more scandalous when people whisper about it behind her back."

That was why, Anne thought, she'd never been interested in joining the glittering circles of the St. Martins. She knew they talked about her as much and worse than they did about Gwen, but she had the luxury of getting to think it was funny instead of a disaster set to ruin the rest of her respectable pureblooded life. Her eyes narrowed at Connor's sarcasm, but the retort on the tip of her tongue died with his surname. She stared at him for a long moment, her mouth hanging open like an idiot's, and then began laughing, slapping the desktop and accidentally dislodging the headphones.

"Please tell me you're joking," she begged, straightening them and still chuckling. This was the part where the whole affair turned into a comic opera, one of the low-rent variety. Of all the crazy reasons she might have expected to be presented with for Gwen's odd taste in a not-boyfriend, this would have been the very last one she would have seen coming. "Please tell me you are not seriously telling me that you're a Muggleborn named Pierce. You have got to be kidding. Oh, Merlin, my grandmother would fall over if she ever heard that one!"\n\n

16 Anne Dunno, haven't worked that part out yet. 59 Anne 0 5

Connor

January 15, 2007 6:30 PM

Some help you are... by Connor

Connor blinked a few times, looking at Anne uncertainly. Was she flirting with him? He couldn't recall anyone trying to do that before in his life, but he'd seen it on his mother's soaps and some of Kris' movies. The follow-up made him think she had just worded what she was trying to say wrong, or that she was (sort of) teasing, but it was hard to be sure. "Uh, sure," he said. "Got it. No problem." The whole 'Miss Anne' thing he could understand - it made her sound like a second daughter from the Jane Austen period - and maybe Annie - she was the farthest thing possible from a tap-dancing redhead - but what was the deal with Anna?

Waving the hairdryer as instructed, he went on to start flipping the switch that controlled the speed. He was guessing the best friend she'd been accused of dating was the third year, but had better sense than to ask. Girls were weird, but there were some things he knew about that guys just couldn't ask about safely, not that he really wanted to know. He thought about defending Gwen, even opened his mouth to do so, then changed his mind. For one thing, he didn't owe her anything, now. For another, Anne had already (sort of) that she believed him when he'd said nothing had been going on; saying more would sound defensive, like he was hiding something.

Her hilarity seemed all out of proportion with anything he'd said. There was nothing funny that he could recognize about the name 'Pierce', which meant there was no reason for her to have gaped at him before starting to laugh like a loon. The look he gave her was careful and considering. If craziness really did run in both sides of Gwen's family...

"Nope," he said, trying to keep sounding casual. "No joke. No kidding. No lie. It's my name. Only one I've ever had. What's funny about it? It's a normal name." That was said defensively, but he didn't care. There was nothing funny about his name, even if you did come from a family where storybook names like 'Gwenhwyfar' or 'Morgaine' and old-fashioned ones like 'Anne' and 'Edmond' were apparently in frequent usage. "Why would your grandmother think my name's funny? I don't even know your grandmother." \n\n

0 Connor Some help you are... 68 Connor 0 5

Jose Hernandez

September 17, 2010 5:03 PM

Oh! I know this one! by Jose Hernandez

As far as California Pierces go, Jose's parents were among the more normal people in the family. His mom was a back-up singer and dancer. His dad played a few obscure instruments. They were more support than performers and they often had more duties off stage than they did on. The most noticeable thing about Jorge Hernandez was that he spoke with a Mexican accent and cursed in Spanish - which, in Southern California, wasn't really all that noticeable. Frances Hernandez's most notable attribute was that she made the best vegan cookies in the whole caravan.

Fran and Jorge Hernandez were pleasant, friendly people who did not seek the limelight, dressed like normal people when not on stage or working a Rennfaire, could carry on civil conversations on a variety of common topics with both muggles and wizardkind alike without inciting revolution or strong reactionary force, and aside from a few liberal ideas they weren't too unlike most mixed blood parents the world over.

Under ordinary circumstances, this may have given Jose a fighting chance of being normal, but the California Pierces were not ordinary circumstances. Fran's Uncle Bo - her real, actual, biological uncle as in her mother's brother; not just 'Uncle Bo' like everyone else except his son and wife called him - was a real, honest-to-Merlin divinator. Bo's wife Lois was a real, honest-to-Merlin charlatan. Between then, they'd taught all of Jose's generation most of what the world knew about basic divinations by the time they were sent off to kindergarten.

Tarot had been one of Lois's lessons. Actually, most of the lessons had been Lois's. Bo's kind of divination wasn't terribly useful unless one actually had the Sight.

Jose . . . had more than his muggle/squib/non-magical cousins. Karen and Jason and Sam could get accurate readings sometimes (Karen more so than Jason and Sam but Karen could see ghosts and they couldn't, and Sam more so than Jason for no clear reason that Jose could understand), but Jose was at least two or three times as likely to come up with a truth as Karen was. Lois - who was the next closest thing to a squib herself - could get an accurate reading almost every time, but she cheated and told fortunes professionally, so Jose wasn't sure if that counted.

In any case, his own success - spotty as it was - was convincing enough that he believed there was something to divinations and he'd begun taking the class at Sonora confident of an easy O, which he'd achieved handily last year and he hoped to continue with this year.

He'd even seen improvement after Professor Linn criticized that he was taking things too literally, and now he was up to almost a 50% accuracy on most reads. That was almost as good as Karen was doing now that she was learning how to cheat like Lois did. Seers did run in Jed Pierce's line, so maybe he did have a hereditary advantage over the other kids in the class, though he'd never really considered himself one. But then, neither had Saul, and Bo was training him as a family gambler now.

Given his family's teachings, Jose decided he'd try the more complicated Celtic Cross reading for the day's lesson. He grinned at his tablemate as he started shuffling, "Going for the hard one," he commented, then looked down at his deck of cards as he concentrated on the question 'How's this year going?'

He shuffled first by the simple lift-and-drop method and then he switched to the more professional corner flip weave for the last few times (it was a little tougher with the thicker and longer tarot deck than with a standard playing card deck, but he had practice) and then turned over the Present card.

Jose laughed when he saw the Magician staring back at him, upright. He decided he was looking at the meaning 'willingness to take risks' and repeated, pleased, "Trying out the hard one. That's pretty Present." It might also be referring to his Plan in potions, but he was going to go with his first thought. Those were usually best not second-guessed.

He flipped his second card and laid it crosswise over the Magician to see what his Challenge was. Ten of Wands, upright. "Dang," he grimaced. It wasn't a bad sign, exactly, but it definitely qualified as a challenge. He really hoped it was his current reading that was going to prove more difficult than initially anticipated and not the Plan. "Something's gonna get harder." He was still confident though. It didn't say he was going to fail, it just said it was going to be demanding or time consuming. Obviously, doing a ten card spread was going to take longer than a three card spread. That might be all it meant.

"Okay, foundation," he said and put the next card down to the right of the Present and Challenge cross. Five of pentacle, reversed. "Cripes, it is about potions," he grumbled. It shouldn't be surprising. He'd asked about the year in general and that was his biggest Plan going. "Lack of success. I'm trying to rise above a lack of success." Or maybe it was Quidditch. Last year was the second year in a row Pecari lost the Cup in the final match.

He looked over at his tablemate. "How are you doing over there? Anything more promising than what I'm getting?"

1 Jose Hernandez Oh! I know this one! 149 Jose Hernandez 0 5

Demelza Eagle

September 21, 2010 3:56 PM

Oh! I don't! by Demelza Eagle

Haha... classes. Yeaaah those totally weren't going well for the Pecari third year. It was a mighty good thing that her parents weren't the type of parents to kill their kids if they got a "Acceptable" in a class. In fact, Demelza was doing so bad that she would be thrilled if she got an acceptable! Honestly, though, it wasn't her fault that she was doing so badly. She tried, she really did, but it was so hard trying to remember everything. If it weren't for class work, Demelza would probably have the chance to be held back a year or two. She did fairly well when it came to class work because the lesson was still fresh in her mind. But when it came to homework and testing... ouch. Those were not her strong points. She was glad that she hadn't done any review stuff yet, because she would surely fail those. Oh, how she wished she didn't have to deal with the frustration that was amnesia. Hey, at least she remembered that that was what caused her to be so forgetful. She wasn't a total lunatic. Sorta.

Demelza was already half-way insane before she fell off her broom, so now she was like 7/8 insane. The 1/8 of her brain that wasn't complete craziness allowed her to act like a normal person at times. "Praise the Lord," Her father would surely tease. Demelza's daddy was the awesomest man she knew! He prayed so much for his daughter to get better and get her memory back, and he was very encouraging whenever Demelza remembered something prior to her fall. He was also the one that encouraged her to take divinations.

Her mom also thought it would be a good idea to tell the future and not linger on the past, even if she was a horrible seer. But her dad thought it would be good exercise for her brain and whatnot. Mel didn’t really care if she took divinations or not: it was really her little sister Kat who convinced her. Kat, even though she was younger and had a slight mental/physical disability, was a very intelligent witch. Demelza listened to her more than she listened to her older sister’s advice, but that wasn’t that surprising. Luna was way too down-to-earth, and Beth was always in some predicament with a boy or fighting with Jamie about something. Demelza never understood why her siblings argued, for she certainly didn’t spend much time arguing with them. Well, she might have, but she didn’t this summer.

Demelza walked into the Divinations classroom, surprised to see that the medic, of all people, was teaching it. She was pretty sure that she wasn’t their permanent teacher, and she was right.

“So, obviously I’m not Professor Linn. I’m Professor— Rocamboli, but Professor Rock or Cleo is fine if that’s too hard to say.” The medic introduced herself. Yep, Demelza would definitely call her Rock or Cleo, not because Rocam-whatever was too hard to say, but that it was too hard to remember!

For some reason, Demelza was paying more attention than usual. Maybe she was thirstier for new knowledge? Actually, she was pretty sure it was because she wanted to know the future. The way Kat described it, knowing the future could do great things for her.

She jotted down a few notes about Tarot cards, and then paid her attention back to The Rock. Slowly, however, she was starting to focus on other things, as usual. Taking some ADD potion probably would have been a good idea.

But when The Rock mentioned that the cards could tell her past, Demelza paid more attention. Getting to know more about her own past would be very nice.

Demelza opened her book to chapter five, and then set to work. Right… suffle the cards. She did so, thinking about what she could ask it. Will I regain my memory?” she though at first, but then realized that was lame. Who really cared? She was fine with how she was now. She could ask something more for the gain of other people like—

”Going for the hard one.”

Jose was sitting next to her. Quidditch! She continued shuffling the cards, and then stopped promptly, a grin tugging at her lips on her skinny face, for she knew exactly what she was going to ask.

“Ha, I’m not,” She replied, shrugging.

How will Pecari do in Quidditch this year? She though. She hoped that there would be positive signs! She spread out three cards. Past, present, and future.

She glanced at past, and then consulted her textbook. How coincidental: a fool. Since it was reversed, it meant she wasted energy and stuff. She frowning, wondering if this was good or bad. She shrugged at she glanced at present. It was upright and showed two lovers. She raised her eyebrows as she read what it meant. What was she contradicting? The harmony and union part sounded promising, though. Maybe it had something to do with her friends on the Quidditch team? Yet again, she shrugged and the looked at the third card of the spread: The devil reversed.

“Uhh,” she replied to Jose’s question, and then tried to shake it off. This fortune telling stuff was a load of inaccurate crap. She decided to take a sarcastic view on it. “ I think this card is telling me that either you or I are gonna be “true evil and abusers of authority.” She giggled, and added, “That’s not good for the Pecari Quidditch team, is it?” This class was pointless. She would have to advise Kat not to take it at her school.

0 Demelza Eagle Oh! I don't! 157 Demelza Eagle 0 5

Jose Hernandez

September 21, 2010 5:45 PM

Then we can probably disregard your reading. by Jose Hernandez

Jose grinned at Mel as she turned over three cards in quick succession and turned over his own 'Recent Past' card while she looked hers up. He could have told her what the three cards meant without need of the book, but that wasn't really the point. He let her do her own thing and checked out his own card - Five of cups, upright.

In the context of Jose's recent past - this was definitely a re-ordering of priorities, an adjustment to overcome a failure that would be impossible to recover from without changing the rules. End of civil disobedience because that just wasn't working for his grades, his learning, or in getting anybody else to convert to veganism. So . . . new Plan. A positive twist to the whole issue, working together with both his family and his teachers. Union.

Clearly, this was about Potions and there was no longer any denying it.

He put out the fifth card in his spread, laying down the 'Immediate Future' to the left of his challenge cross. Strength. Which would be excellent - an indication of determination, resolve, and optimism - if only it weren't reversed. Jose looked around to see if anyone was looking and quickly turned it right side up. Much better. He wasn't going to let himself fail on this. It meant too much. The cards would not convince him to concede or admit inadequacy. He was the opposite of defeat and no stupid Reversed Strength card was going to tell him otherwise.

And then Demelza spoke and reminded him of her presence. He looked over at her three card spread and his eyes widened at the cards she'd drawn. The Devil Reversed? Seriously?

Then he looked back down at his Strength card and then grinned at her. "Okay, either you just predicted me blatantly cheating on my 'Immediate Future' card, I just accurately predicted," he returned the Strength card back to its original reversed orientation, "your total defeat in tarot card reading - it was reversed before, I swear, but I thought it was wrong so I flipped it - or we're all doomed to incompetent tyranny."

1 Jose Hernandez Then we can probably disregard your reading. 149 Jose Hernandez 0 5