Minerva walked closer to the Hippogriffe since it bowed to her. She walked slowly keeping eye contact. "Ok are you hungry?" Minerva offered the bag of insects to the Hippogriffe. The creature looked at it as if he was checking it out. Then the hippogriffe reached out and ate the insects.

Ira fearfully but smiling, looked up and met the hippogriff's eyes. Gosh! They seemed so large and were orange-ish. She offered him the ferret which evidently it was interested in.

Please...please..don't eat my whole hand!!! Thinking like that, Ira waited for the hippogriff to come nearer and accept the food. It seemed good. Thankfully the hippogriff bowed down again and took the dead ferret offered only, leaving Ira's hand intact! Then Ira extended her other hand and offered the dead insects too. The hippogriff seemed happy on being offered both ferret and insects now.

Then Ira tried to pet it... "Will you let me caress you...please?" Ira asked timidly the hippogriff. It did not seem angered at all. Instead surprisingly, it bowed and sat down near Ira, willing to be caressed.

Zhenya was listening excitedly to Atticus who was explaining how to interact with the Hippogriffs. She got quite excited, and shoved her gloves on and walked briskly to the bin with the insects in it. She took a giant handful and looked around at the Hippogriffs. One stood out to her, which was a slightly smaller creature. She liked that! She walked slowly towards it so there was an appropriate distance between them. She looked at it, waiting for it to look up at her, then she slowly bowed, trying hard not to blink which was getting quite hard. Pretty quickly the hippogriff bowed at her, and she slowly approached it, smiling and holding out her hand, whilst maintaining eye contact.

Ira continued to softly caress the hippogriff's head. "Would you like to have a name?" Ira asked, "Or do you already have one? Anyways, can I give you a new name?"

Talking to it softly, Ira thought about the name Shadow! Yeah thats it. She would name him Shadow. "Do you like the name Shadow?" Ira asked the hippogriff softly. Amazingly, it seemed to nod slightly. Ira was really happy. She softly put her hands around it or as far as she could and hugged it. "I love you, Shadow! You are so sweet!"

Once Zhenya had got trust from her Hippogriff, she held her hand out for it to eat. "You're so pretty," she said admiring its feathers. She slowly reached her other hand up and patted its feathers, and they were nice and soft. She felt at ease patting this beautiful creature, she didn't feel at all threatened or threatening. It ate a little bit of the bugs slowly from her hands, and Zhenya had the impression she was being cautious, but then when she must have sensed that Zhenya was no threat.

"Hey, do you want some more food, maybe?" Ira asked Shadow, as she had named the hippogriff. She continued running her hand over him and caressing it. It too seemed to relax and put down its guard with her.

Ira wanted to go flying. On a hippogriff. But she couldn't muster up enough courage to actually ask the hippogriff to take her flying. So she thought, why not some more cheesing? She asked Shadow to stay where he was and she ran back to get some more ferrets.

Bringing back more ferrets, she showed them to the hippogriff. It eyed them with interest. She offered them and it gulped all down with a flick of its head. Now Ira hoped she had satisfied it enough... She caressed it a bit more and gathered more courage to ask it to take her flying on its back...

Well... What will she do next?

Raven was brave enough to rubbed the hippogriff head. Now it was tamed enough.
Oh, she need to feed the hippogriff, right??
Raven took a ferret from the bucket and offered it to hippogriff.

"Hey, wanna this?" The Hippogriff looked hungry. It wanted to munch the ferret.

She threw the ferret to it's mouth and The hippogriff munched it happily.

With only one ferret left in his hands, Jonathan began to come even closer to the creature. It seems really harmless and it's a beautiful magical creature. How can someone learn to hate this? Not that he knows anyone who hates the creature. And it seems to be quite the eater too. Who knew four ferrets weren't enough for this creature.

Jonathan then tossed the last ferret for it to catch and eat. This is quite a good activity. Jonathan hasn't been outdoors with a magical creature before. He watched the hippogriff eat the last ferret and raised his hand... well, he wanted to feel the feathers of the hippogriff and besides, it's not going to hurt him right? He reached his hand and slowly touched the hippogriff.

Soft.

Jonathan began to pat it and smiled at the hippogriff. It's a good thing that the hippogriff was a cooperative one. It didn't see Jonathan as a threat to him, so that was really nice. "good hippogriff" he said smiling while patting the neck and watching him eat the ferret with it's majestic beak.

"Good Boy!!!" said Raven glad. She rubbed the hippogriff's head. She took a big ferret from the bucket.

"Hey, wanna this again, buddy??" asked Raven. The hippogriff was nodding enthusiast. She threw the ferret then it caught it and munched it.

"Well done, buddy!!"

Tiffany was getting more and more excited as she heard that Atticus allow them to interact with hippogriffs. She went and took a pair of gloves and took a handful of insects in her hand. Heading to one hippogriff which was the closest to her, she started to get a bit nervous. She told herself to be calm and remembered all those that Atticus had taught them to do when they were interacting with the hippogriffs.

She stood in front of it and bowed, almost in a straight angle, maintaining with a good eye contact with it also.

Maddy lead her Hippogriff over to the containers, one with Ferrets and the other with flies. She dug into her bag to reach for her ever useful dragon hide gloves. To her surpise, they weren't there! I must have left them in the student garden Maddy thought. She turned to her Hippogriff "I'll let you choose", she said as she gestured to the barrals. She guided her Hippogriff infront and it paused, and sniffed at the barrals one at a time.

It chose the flies, it started eating mouthfulls of them out of the barral! Stop! Maddy instructed. And she pulled on it to get it to listen, careful not to insult it. But it got insulted anyway and rose up on it's hind legs and went **brak brak**. Maddy looked arround for the teacher but she couldn't see him from where she was standing. calm down she told the Hippogriff it's ok. And she took a handful of flies out of the bin and held it out for it while making eye contact. It snapped at her, Maddy jumped with fright. But she diddn't loose her cool, come have some more flies...and a ferret she said and grabbed a dead ferret out of the other container. This time the Hippogriff obeyed.

Good boy she said and stroked it's feathers (without pulling them this time).

It seemed they were all doing well in following instructions. The students and the hippogriffs all seemed to be having a good time, so Atticus was glad. Even the ones he had thought appeared a little uneasy at first were interacting well with the herd. Apparently he needn't have brought Aquila at all.

The hippogriff was looking at him expectantly though, and Atticus knew what he was asking for. So he put on his own gloves and grabbed a couple ferrets from the bin. He turned to Aquila and bowed, the hippogriff bowing back almost immediately. Atticus took a few steps toward the creature before tossing one of the ferrets toward him. "There you are." The hippogriff caught it effortlessly and ate quickly. Atticus took the last few steps to close the distance between himself and Aquila and simply held out the second ferret, which Aquila snatched up.

As the hippogriff ate, Atticus turned his attention to his students, scanning the paddock to make sure they were still doing okay. They were doing better than expected - he even noticed a few whose hippogriff had allowed them to climb on their back. Hm... Should he allow it? They were doing so well.

"If your hippogriff trusts you and allows you do to so, you all may ride your hippogriff," he said, raising his voice just enough to be heard all across the paddock, "but only if your hippogriff allows it. Don't go climbing on one's back just because you want to fly around. Follow my instructions from before, and then maybe your hippogriff will trust you enough to allow you on. Also, there are several charms and spells in place to keep you all in the paddock. You will be able to fly as high as the hippogriff takes you, but only as long as it is inside the paddock boundaries - there will be no flying around the Hogwarts grounds or anywhere else." Of course, the hippogriffs themselves already knew about the limits around the paddock and had grown used to them, but Atticus wanted to make sure none of the students tried to lead them out or anything.

OOC: This is just for a bit of fun if you've completed all of the other instructions in my previous post. As such, this won't give you any extra points, so make sure you have your other five posts completed before trying to RP your character riding/flying on their hippogriff.

Also, I'm probably going to be posting the homework on the notice board some time today since I'm going to be gone for most of the day tomorrow, and I want to give you all enough time to do your homework since the end of term is fast approaching. I don't know what time I'll be able to get on tomorrow, so I figured posting it early would be better. So be on the look-out for that

Hmm, there seemed to be a bit of trouble over there near the food bins. Atticus headed over to the girl and the hippogriff, though still kept a bit of distance between them so as not to offend the hippogriff. "Everything okay?" The girl seemed to be handling the situation well, but he wanted to make sure. It was then that she noticed she wasn't wearing any gloves. "Forgot your gloves?" Or perhaps she was just one of the few who didn't care about touching dead insects and ferrets.

"Everything seems to be going fine now, this Hippogriff is just really stubborn" Maddy replied, she had forgotten to ask about borrowing gloves. But Maddy was brave and diddn't care too much about touching dead things, she could always wash her hands. "Ya I thought I brought them" Maddy said, about the gloves.

Maddy stroked her hippogriff's feathers, and told her Hippogriff how awesome it was. Maybe it would let her ride it soon, hopefully it wouldn't get mad in the air and buck her off, as long as Maddy diddn't do anything stupid unlikelyThought Maddy.

Alyssa continued to whisper to the Hippogriff and stroke and pat it. Then Alyssa wondered if it had a name. So she whispered in it's ear. "Do you have a name? Would you like one? Do you like the name Wingbolt?" For some reason the Hippogriff seemed to understand her and nodded it's head. "Okay, Wingbolt it is," Alyssa smiled and patted it's head.

Alyssa continued whispering to it and telling it how one day she would love to fly with him, when suddenly Wingbolt moved. It not only moved to change positions, it started to gallop. Alyssa put both of her arms around it's neck and held on for dear life. 'Oh Merlin, Oh Merlin what is happening?' Alyssa thought to herself. She saw the ground racing past under her and closed her eyes. As Wingbolt continued to pick up speed, he spread both his wings and his hind legs kicked off from the ground. Both Wingbolt and Alyssa took off into the air.

Alyssa felt the wind rushing by and dared to open her eyes. She saw that the ground was a lot further now below her. They were flying!! Alyssa was so excited. She was actually flying with a Hippogriff. She relaxed her death hold around the Wingbolt and leaned back a little. The scenery was so beautiful. Wingbolt flew over the other students down on the ground and then headed up higher. Alyssa wasn't afraid of heights or flying. How could she be. This was like Quidditch only without a bat and a broomstick. She laughed out loud and yelled out with exhilaration " YES!! WHOO HOO!! WE'RE FLYING!!". Alyssa dared to release her hold around Wingbolt's neck, making sure that both her legs were gripping on tightly to it's sides, and spread out her arms, arched her back and bent her head back. 'THIS IS AWESOME!!' she yelled out.

Alyssa loved the way the wind rushed through her hair and blew by her face. She loved the freedom. " I can see you love flying too, Wingbolt. You're amazing" Alyssa told Wingbolt. They flew high up in the air flying over the paddock area. The people on the ground were like little dots. Alyssa wished that they could fly forever but knew that this moment would have to end soon. She could sense that Wingbolt knew that too because he started to fly lower. So Alyssa put her arms back around his neck as they slowly circled the paddock getting closer to the ground. She could see the ground getting closer and closer and then 'touchdown' they were back on the ground. Wingbolt galloped slowly slowing down and then it came to a complete stop. It then bent is front legs and then it's hind legs until it lying down. 'This is my cue to get off' Alyssa told herself. So she slowly dismounted and once she was off Wingbolt stood back up.

" You must be hungry from all that flying, Wingbolt. Is it okay if I go get some food for you?"Alyssa asked the Hippogriff. Again, it seemed that it understood what she was saying because he nodded his head. So Alyssa quickly walked to the food bin, making very sure that she didn't disturb the other students with their Hippogriffs, grabbed hold of three ferrets and a handful of bugs and went back to Wingbolt who was waiting patiently for her. She flung one ferret towards him which was immediately gobbled up. She then flung the other two at separate intervals, so that Wingbolt would have the chance to chew and swallow one before grabbing for the next one. Alyssa then stood beside him as he finished chewing and swallowing the ferrets and then fed him the bugs out if her hand. Windbolt took the bugs out of her hand slowly, like it knew that he could hurt her with it's sharp beak. While he ate, Alyssa patted and stroked his head and whispered," Thank you for allowing me to fly with you. It was truly an honor. I hope that we will get to fly together again someday soon." Alyssa thanked the majestic creature.

Nervously Angelina walked up to the hippogriff slowly and bowed while she kept her eyes in contact with it as hard as she could. By the second she seemed to get a little bit nervouser then before. She was scared something was going to happen.

Now that the Hippogriff had bowed to him showing a positive response to his approach, Gideon figured he should try and move closer. He did need to try and feed his partner and seeing that he kind of felt just tossing from the distance he was in was cowardly, it meant becoming more familiar with the creature in his charge. The Gryffindor slowly lifted his head and back up slightly, still doing his best to keep eye contact.

"Hey..." he said as he tentatively moved a couple of steps closer, his position still not straight so he remained submissive. "Who wants a nice ferret?" Gideon asked holding out the small dead animal, a gesture that clealry got the hippogriff excited as it too straightened up from its bow. The fourth year could only hope it was a good excited and the animal wasn't going to go crazy in response to him. He took a few more steps closer, still holding out the ferret and when he was just a few feet away he tossed it to the hippogriff, who gladly snatched it in his mouth greedily.

"There you go. A nice dead ferret to eat."

Kennedy was about to say WHATEVER to the rude creature. It had ignored him...like plain out IGNORED him. It was true what he'd read in books about them. They were too proud and arrogant. He frowned. He couldn't possibly go up to it and tell it to play nice.

Nope.

It'd probably just end up biting his head off.

He took a deep breath and calmed himself. It wasn't the first time he's been ignored. He should be used to it by now. Kennedy straightened his shoulders and gave two steps forward, then bowed. He heard the scratching stop. That meant he had somehow gotten the Hippogriff's attention.

That was good.

He heard the creature huff? Why was it huffing? Did he do something wrong? Was he in trouble now? Eeeeek!

Kennedy felt his felt his glasses begin to slide off his nose. This was bad. According the steps of how to interact with a hippogriff he couldn't move until the thing bowed back. Kennedy shut eyes briefly and then opened them. He heard shuffling, but wasn't sure if the hippogriff was bowing. He didn't dare try to make a mistake. Then he noticed a reflection on his glasses since they were at the tip of his nose. He could see the hippogriff and...

...It was BOWING!

IT WAS BOWING!

He wasn't going to die. WOOOT!

Presley stepped forward again, more hesitantly, but trying not to be afraid. She was pretty sure she'd read somewhere that most animals can smell fear. She reached out her hand and the hippogriff stepped toward her. Involuntarily she inhaled sharply, and stepped backward. She squeezed her eyes shut, and opened them again. Taking a deep breath, Presley walked toward the animal again this time petting it's feathers. It really was a sweet hippogriff, and just her size. The smallest one of the batch.

It pressed into her hand and Presley leane closer unconsciously. Nervous as she was, she was pretty sure the animal wouldn't hurt her if she didn't give it cause. "Such a beautiful Hippogriff," she murmured as she stroked it's grey feathers. If she flattered it's vanity, it might like her just a little more though, and that would be good for Presley.

Once the hippogriff trusted Angelina she walked slowly up to it and somewhat at the same pase started to pet the hippogriff. She really didn't know what to say so she let out, "Hi," she smiled a little and let out a half giggle and half chuckle and said, "I'm Angelina." As she said this she still began to pet the Hippogriff

The hippogriff looked at Presley expectantly, and Pres wasn't sure what to do. Until it started nudging her hand. It was still hungry? She walked with it over to the barrel, and picked up another ferret, easier this time, she handed the dead rodent to the hippogriff. she didn't look away this time as the bird-horse gobbled up the ferret. She could recall once reading something about a teacher turning a student into a hippogriff, but she was sure the teacher got in trouble for it, and she wasn't feeding a student to this beautiful creature.

Minerva watched the Hippogriffe as he ate the insects. She was feeling less stressed and scared of the creature. She reached her hand out to pet the hippogriffe, but it moved away. "Oh I'm sorry" she said quickly heart racing again. She reached the food out and he came slowly back to eating.

Zhenya stroked her beak and giggled as it nuzzled her. She went to get a dead ferret for it, because it kept nudging her hand expectantly. She got one and walked back over to the Hippogriff before stopping half way there. She wasn't sure if she needed to keep bowing to her or if she would remember her. So she bowed again and the Hippogriff immediately bowed to her and walked over to her quickly and ate the Ferret from her hand. She was very hungry! "Oh you poor thing, don't they give you enough food?" she asked.

He was BOWING!

Kennedy slowly straightened his body until he was back to full height. This was so freaking AWESOME! He gripped the ferret a little tighter. He was so excited he wanted to do a victory jump, but if he that it might startle the hippogriff and get it angry. Yeah, he didn't want that.

He took a slow step forward and stopped when the creature clawed the ground. He took another step and the hippogriff did the same thing again. When he didn't move, the hippogriff clawed the ground and...

Did it just roll its eyes at him?

Ohohohooo!

It was hurrying Kennedy up. Well, if it wanted to be petted by Kennedy, they boy didn't need anymore signals. He was more than delighted to do so. "Hey," he whispered lifting his hand to pet him.

Best thing to do was to probably wait for the hippogriff to walk towards him.

Keefer waited for the other students to go first. He knew he would get a turn eventually, so he didn't mind letting the eager people have a go. But after about ten minutes, he decided to start the process of meeting a hippogriff. He had been watching the creatures and thus knew which one he wanted to approach. It was a taller, grayish-brown hippogriff and appeared to be more agreeable than the others. Two students had already offered it a ferret, so he thought the beast might enjoy an after-dinner snack of bugs.

Keefer pulled out his gloves from his bag. Touching dead things doesn't sound appealing right now. On goes the protection! He walked over to the bug bin, taking care to give everyone a wide berth so the hippogriffs wouldn't feel threatened. Reaching down, he grabbed a small handful of insects. He walked over to the hippogriff he had selected and waited his turn until the girl in front of him was done.

Minerva watched as the hippogriffe ate his insects. She really wanted to pet the creature. "Please can I pet you?" She asked. The hippogriffe just kept eating. She reached out and pet him. This time the hippogriffe let her touch him. She was thrilled to get this far. She saw some flying with theirs, but Minerva did not like to be off the ground so she felt fine just petting him.