Study - Study - Study
Author: Logan Hendrickson
Date: 02-22-04 01:06
Logan had felt he had been studying forever. He had sat looking out the window wishing he could spare some time to just run around outside. But he was well aware of how much he parents had spent to send him to Hogwarts and he was bound and determined to make them proud. Here it was November and the winter months would be setting in shortly. Maybe...just maybe he could take a bit of time and do some exploring around the castle grounds.
That cheered him up considerably. But first, let's get the lessons done.
He settled right down in front of the fire and started studying again...
Right after lunch, he thought to himself, I'll take some time right after lunch.
Homework, Distraction, Homework
Author: Orieliah McCoi
Date: 02-22-04 12:14
Orei sat curled up in a corner of the common room, after her classes had finished for the day. She sat with her History of Magic book open on her lap, attempting to pay attention to the words written on the pages, as well as take notes for her essay that was due on Tuesday.
Concentration was hard enough given the blandness of the subject, though there were probably students who absolutely LOVED history and class with Professor Binns, though she couldn't think of one right off the top of her head. She quickly scribbled down notes on the date and location of a Goblin battle, the names of the leaders of both sides as well as a few minor details. She'd add more in the paper later.
Finally she couldn't take much more of her History of Magic text book and closed it setting it a side. Her gaze drifted to the parchment she had written her homework on for her classes. She still had the new stuff for DADA as well as Charms to do. Not to mention Potions and Transfiguration to finish for tomorrow. Also there was the quidditch game on Saturday to think about, it was that event she was truly looking forward to!
She snagged her potions notes and started looking over them, no sooner had she gotten through the first list of ingredients for a Truth Serum, did her thoughts drift again. Though this time it wasn't to quidditch or anything like that it was to Brett, a soft smile played on her lips. She missed spending time with him, though its true their age difference was something that was keeping them from a closer relationship, but still they were close enough and held on to that closeness.
She was lost in thought staring at her notes, that she didn't even hear Jared calling her. "Orei...Orei...Earth to Orei!" He chuckled when she finally snapped from her thoughts, a goofy grin on her features.
"Hey Jared...just attempting to study." She grinned. "What's up?"
"Nothin' much, just wondering if you could help me with some potions stuff..." He said taking a seat across from her at the table.
"Sure no problem!" she grinned and shifted the HoM homework out of the way, and set her potions notes on the table. And soon enough the two second years were deep in conversation and thought working out the potions problems from today's class and then finally moving to look over the information for Herbology tomorrow.
Have a Go?
Author: Kairi
Date: 02-22-04 15:54
"Hey Kairi!" Sora was running down the hall to catch up with her. He was running a little late today. "Well Alooooooha! Look who finally decided to grace us with his presence, yeah!" Kairi, Logan and the other girls laughed as Sora's cheeks turned a little red. "Sorry..." He said.
"Hey, it's all good Kiwi. At least you caught up." Kairi winked. Once in the Potions class they took their seats and prepared for Snape's sneers for the day. Fortunately the class went by pretty fast and before they knew it was over.
"Is anyone up for a little Wizard's Chess?" Sora asked as the bunch headed back to the common room. "I'll have a go, dude." Kairi offered.
"Great! I've only ever played once, but I found it pretty fun. Mind you I don't know all the rules and moves though." Sora and Kairi walked together at the end of the line of friends.
"Well that's ok. I don't either, yeah.." She laughed.
Kairi and Sora ran their things up to their rooms before breaking out the chess pieces and board for a quick round.
Wizard's Chess, Interesting
Author: Logan Hendrickson
Date: 02-22-04 22:36
Logan followed Kairi and Sora over to the table as they set up the board to start the game. He had heard of Wizards Chess but had never actually seen the game before. At home he and his father had played all the time so he was interested in any differences here.
When the first chess piece actually got up and destroyed the opponent, he almost fell off his chair.
"Good grief," he said, "I have never seen this before. My dad would love it."
He watched the two play a couple of games and then looked the game over carefully as they started putting the pieces away.
"Maybe I will take a set home for my dad for Christmas. He would laugh himself silly over this one. Do you think it will work for him too? Even though he is a muggle??" Logan wondered.
The Faraway Quidditch Match
Author: Sebastian Sjoblom
Date: 02-24-04 20:32
Noon arrives without fanfare on a grey Friday, and Professor Miller dismisses the Muggle Studies class to lunch. Sebastian shoulders his black bookbag and leans against the doorjamb of the classroom, waiting for Bronwyn. Students make muted conversation as they filter out into the hallway, and for once Sebastian doesn't wear a smile.
"Hej," he says as he and Bronwyn step into the emptying stone hall, his voice conspiratorially low and a little anxious.
"What's wrong?" she asks, giving him a queer frown.
"I've been rolling it around in my head for the past few days," he says with the calculated cadence of someone who's been working out what to say for the last ten minutes of class, "and decided that you were the best person to consultate."
"Consultate?" Bronwyn asks bemusedly, forcing a straight face.
"Yes. You see," Sebastian says quietly, "quite by accident, I found out about a secret, about a girl, and I don't know what to do." He isn't naming names, but Bronwyn's ears prick up nonetheless.
"Go on," she says.
Sebastian lowers his voice to a hiss of a whisper, speaking behind his hand.
"She is anorexic."
Bronwyn makes a surprised little gasping sound.
"And I tried to speak with her about it, but she grew very angry with me," he says, "and I understand that but I don't quite know what to do to help her."
"Who is she?"
"I shouldn't say."
"Then what year's she in?"
"Second, or third," he says, and pauses. "I think it must be third." They reach the main hall, and descend the stairs to the Hufflepuff common room.
"Hmm..." the painting mumbles groggily, "Passwo'd."
"You seem tired," Sebastian comments, and answers, "Fiddlesticks." The painting swings lazily out in response, and they step through the portrait hole.
"Well, I suppose--" Bron begins, but as they step into the common room, Sebastian interrupts.
"Later," he whispers. "Keep a mum?"
"Yeah, I'll keep mum," she says.
Arley is stretched out across an armchair, reading the American magazine "Wizarding Today" with narrowed eyes. The front cover declares, "Stonewall Stormers Star Chaser Fallon Montgomery" with the tagline: "on life, Quidditch, and cooking." A smiling brunette witch in blue and grey Quidditch uniform, leaning against Firebolt, tosses a Quaffle up in the air and catches it, crowding the glossy cover with her charisma.
He "hmph"s, rolling the magazine up and slipping it into his robe pocket as Bronwyn and Sebastian approach.
"Hey," he says, standing up. "I'm starving. Feel like lunch?"
"Desi's got Ancient Runes, but we'll come," Bronwyn offers.
"Just let me get something," Sebastian says mysteriously, and ascends the stairs to the boys' dorm. He bounds down again, toting a clean white metal briefcase with a silver broom logo emblazoned on the side. Beneath it, three circles, one red, one black, and one gold, are lined up, embossed with the letters "S," "Q," and "F," respectively.
"What is it?" Bronwyn asks.
"I'll show you," he replies, "but we eat lunch outside today."
"So, what's SQF stand for?" Arley asks, examining the briefcase logo as they stroll out into the nippy November air of the grounds. He shivers involuntarily, and wraps his yellow and black scarf around his nose.
"Svensk Quidditch Förbund," he explains. "The Swedish Quidditch League." He eyeballs a broad stretch of grass, and kneels. It's a little wet, and his robe soaks through at the knees, but he unlatches the briefcase anyway. He gingerly lays it out flat on the grass, revealing two rows of seven little action figures, padded with foam. Each one holds a broom to its chest, as neat and detailed as can be.
Sebastian removes six goalposts from the case and sticks them into the ground about three feet apart, laying them out for a game of Quidditch. Bronwyn and Arley sit down beside him.
"It's a little Quidditch game!" Bronwyn says, delighted. Sebastian nods, and finally grins again in earnest. As he plucks each player from the foam, they take on lives of their own, circling ostentatiously around the dollhouse-scale pitch on their brooms. One team wears navy and white striped uniforms, while the other is dressed in light grey robes with a simple white "GG" logo on the backs.
"These--" he points to one of the navy and white players with a fond smile-- "these are the Skånska Sjörövare. The pirates. The others are the Gengångare, the--" he scoffs-- "the ghosts, from Gällivare."
"Do they suck?" Arley asks, sitting down beside him.
"Of course," he responds soberly. "We're for the Sjörövare." He says this as though it's a given that his friends will follow his preference.
"What do they do?" Bronwyn asks, craning her neck this way and that to see the little players from all angles.
"I pulled out the set just for the game today," he explains, dropping the Bludgers and Quaffles down above the pitch. They cluster in the center. "The little figures act out the game as it is going on, and as I can't be there...." The players alight one by one to the grass like dragonflies, preparing to begin the game.
"It's starting," Bronwyn says, filling the pause, and settles herself cross-legged with her bag lunch in her lap. Just as Sebastian is dropping a Snitch the size of a grain of rice, the tweet of a whistle sounds, and the balls leap into the air. The teams follow, and the Sjörövare quickly gain possession of the Quaffle. Sebastian cries out delightedly. The Chasers fall into a Hawkshead formation, tossing the Quaffle back and forth. A Gällivare Keeper attempts to lunge at the foremost Chaser, who deftly dodges to the side and passes it to his teammate.
"You should be taking notes," Bronwyn tells him.
Bronwyn and Sebastian both cheer as the Sjörövare sink the Quaffle through the hoop. Arley, however, munches his sandwich, examining its contents with half-closed eyes.
"What's wrong?" Sebastian asks, missing the Gengångare Seeker's suggestive dive.
"Well... see, I've already lost a siblin' to Quidditch," he says, looking away, "and now you're a Chaser, just like her." The Seeker's dive was only a clever feint, as it turns out. Sebastian returns his attention to the game.
"I apologize," he says, unsure what else there is to say and desperately wanting to find out what will happen next, besides. He winces as a Bludger knocks aside the pirates' Keeper. As he clambers to regain his seating and defensive position, a grey-robed Chaser claims the Quaffle from right under the Sjörövare's Chasers' noses. She weaves to the side of the pitch, Quaffle clutched to her chest, and as the Keeper is wrapping his knees around his broom again, the ball strikes the inside rim of the hoop and just barely goes through. Sebastian sighs dejectedly.
"This is going on in Sweden, right now?" Bronwyn asks, leaning to the side to watch the two Seekers make wide circles around the pitch, both scanning for the telltale glimmer of gold.
Sebastian nods. The grey-robed Chaser who scored before sends the Quaffle through the hoop again, much to Sebastian's chagrin, and her teammate makes another goal after it. The Sjörövare Beater redirects a Bludger toward the Gengångare Seeker, who seems to be speeding up as though in sight of the Snitch, but he dodges it deftly. Sebastian's shoulders sink.
The Sjörövare only make a few more goals, while the opposition keeps racking them up. As the sky goes dark and the game slogs on, with the Gengångare in a 110-point lead, Sebastian watches with less interest, only making the occasional comment, and Bronwyn's attention is flagging as well. Just then, the contrasting stripes of the Skånska Seeker's robes billow as he makes a sharp ascent from near the pitch floor. A Bludger trails him, but he outpaces it, and it ends up knocking aside the oblivious Beater blocking his path. He makes a beeline for some invisible point overhead, and the other Seeker, getting the picture, falls in after him. They fly neck in neck, swirling and ducking around each other like birds in some elaborate mating dance.
Suddenly, the Sjörövare Seeker's arms are windmilling; his broom has come out from under him. A smug grin is just barely visible on the tiny mouth of his opponent Seeker. From the corner of his eye, Sebastian glimpses Arley: he's finally watching the game.
"That other bloke blatched! He grabbed the pirate guy's broom tail!" Bronwyn cries, outraged. No foul is called, and Gällivare's Seeker darts back and forth, looking for the Snitch.
"Wasn't a blatch," Arley pipes up, pulling his scarf out of his face. "It was a blag. A blatch is trying to bump into someone. A blag is grabbing their broom tail."
"What?" Bronwyn says. The unseated Seeker has his arms wrapped around his broom handle now, and his head snaps up. He turns clumsily to the right, reaching for something with one arm and trying to get back on his broom with the other.
"You can't live your whole life in the same house as a star Quidditch player," Arley says, while the Seeker scrabbles at the air with both hands, allowing his broom to slip out from beneath him, "without knowi--"
Arley is interrupted by Sebastian's and Bronwyn's thunderous victory cry as the Seeker from Skånska cages the Snitch in both hands. He is falling through the air, broomless, as the whistle sounds, and a Chaser swiftly dives beneath him to scoop his plummeting body up. Sebastian impulsively throws his arms around Arley in a tight victory hug, laughing, as the Chaser flies a no-hands victory lap around the pitch. The miniature Seeker in his arms waves to a crowd that they can't see.
"The Sjörövare won!" Sebastian cries.
"Well," Arley admits in his Texan drawl, smiling, "that was pretty damn good." The players dismount and file to either end of the pitch, and Sebastian sets to returning them to the case with a wide grin on his face.
They return to the common room as the dusk gathers around the castle. Bronwyn and Desi settle into the routine of homework, and Arley follows Sebastian to the dorm to put away his briefcase.
"Who is your star Quidditch player?" Sebastian asks conversationally, bending to slip the slim case (much too slim for its contents, in fact, but wizarding briefcases are capable of a lot) under his bed. He stands, the residual grin faded to a friendly smile, and scratches his cheek, weaving elaborate tales in his head about perhaps Arley is related to Jaspér, the brilliant Sjörövare Seeker who had won the game today. Maybe Arley could introduce them, and they'd be fast friends, and Jaspér would realize Sebastian's Quidditch prowess and get him a place on the team, and he'd fly figure eights around the pitch like the Chaser today, winning game after game and showing his parents he was cut out to be more than just a dragon keeper--
Arley's voice derails his train of thought, and he looks up, blinking dumbly.
"Did ya hear me?" Arley is asking politely.
