"Me too. It really sucks not knowing things." It made her struggle in lessons, and there was so much to learn. The whole finding out that she is a witch thing was cool, but she didn't exactly realize just how much work it was going to be for her. "Hopefully next year we will be all smart and stuff." Maybe then they could do wand work like pros.

"Good. I couldn't imagine being all princessy." Yup, she made that word up. Her sisters liked to dress up and wear make-up, but that just wasn't her thing. "You definitely don't seem that way to me now."

"It is. We are never bored. Of course it they can be annoying." But, she was sure that's how it was with anybody who had siblings. "Is it lonely by yourself?" AJ couldn't imagine how that would be. It was always so loud and crazy at her house, but it was cool. She really wouldn't have it any other way. "Yeah her name is Abby, and she is one of sisters too. We are triplets." Aj laughed at her next question. "She doesn't share our face, Angel and I are the identical ones." Face wise. Their personalities couldn't be any more different.

"It's fast. It catches birds and squirrels all the time," Mo settled himself on the ground well out of the reach of the tree, pulling his legs up into a lotus position. Yoga, since he'd stopped running. Y'know.

Did everyone at Hogwarts want to dare the tree at one time or another? Mo was a daredevil and constantly getting himself into scrapes, and he'd still never done anything like facing off against the Whomping Willow. Maybe that made him an oddity, though. "I wouldn't. You'll die. And I don't have time for that." He grinned a bit and folded himself forward over his legs.

But he wasn't a bird or a squirrel. Cris thought to himself. He believed that he was way faster than both creatures. But maybe this Ravenclaw made sense. Was it worth it? Trying to prove who was faster? The Whomping Willow or him?

Taking one last longing look at the branches of the Whomping Willow, he chuckled when Mo grinned and told him he didn't have time for him to die today. Gesturing down at the grass next to where Mo was sitting, Cris sat down next to him.

"I guess you're right. Besides if my father ever found out that I did something like this, he'd ground me seven lifetimes or more, and I don't have time to be grounded," Cris chuckled.

Nope, he had lots of things to do, plans to fulfill, places to go.

"I see you're an athlete too? Quidditch?" Cris hazarded a guess.

Dylan made his way down to the whomping willow with his cat Ginger in his arms, the wind whipping against him as he went, causing his long hair to fly behind him. It was quite windy today, he had noticed, but that didn't stop him from visiting one of his favorite places on the grounds. The willow was so interesting, yet really frightening at the same time. He would never dare go near it, no matter how very curious he would get. That thing could seriously injure him, or worse...

He shuddered at the thought as he took a seat on the grass, placing Ginger on his lap and fixed his windswept hair before beginning to stroke her ears. She seemed a bit chilly so he held her close and smiled down at her. "The wind will pass soon, it's not too crazy." he told her, patting her head.

"Lets promise each other once we know all the big spells were going to come back and really climb this tree!" Because if they knew the spells it would be a lot easier. Arista flashed a smile as the two of them reached the tree. "We better be all smart, we would be here for a year."

"Its only fun if you pick the clothes, when I was little I created a princess pant set, so it was pretty much just jeans and a frilly top. It was fun... My mum hated it." she let out more laughter, she still remembered how mad her mum was. "Thanks, it used to be that way though. I was a horrid little girl at one point."

"That is good! I bet." For one thing she wanted to have siblings but that was the downer about it as well. "Sometimes, especially when its just me, my parents leave me alone sometimes." And then she was stuck with Ms.Evans... The old lady that slept all day and smelt like feet!! "Triplets? Dang!!" Wow. How did she not share the same face?? That was so odd.

Despite the winter that seemed to have come early, Sophie was out for a run, as bundled up as she could be without overheating. She was in great shape, but because it was so much colder outside than normal, she tried to push her speed so she could return to the castle as soon as possible.

Not without heading all the way out to the whomping willow first, of course, the halfway point on her route.

She wasn't used to anyone being by the tree, though, and was considerably baffled when she approached and found a tough-looking kid in her year sitting a safe distance from it... with a ball of fur in his lap. Why would he bring his pet all the way out here on a brisk, windy day like this? Sophie eyed him, judging him a little as she ran - for such a tough-looking guy, it seemed very sensitive of him to be coddling a cat like that. Precious, really, but Sophie couldn't get over how funny it looked. This kid was a great example of why one shouldn't judge a book by its cover, wasn't he?

"You should've tied your hair back," she remarked conversationally, slowing to a walk as she neared the boy and brought a hand up to her own ponytail to further make her point. HER long hair wasn't blowing all over in the wind, did he see? "Y'want a tie?" She slid her sleeve up to let him see the spare hair tie around her wrist. "D'make your life a whole lot easier." Unless he liked combing through a mess later.

Dylan looked up suddenly as a voice spoke from behind him. Turning around, he chuckled. She was right; he should have tied his hair back. But sadly, he had no hair ties on him at the moment. They were back in the dorm and he hadn't been prepared for such a windy day. Fixing his hair quickly as best as he could in embarrassment, he nodded. "Yeah, I kind of realized that." he said with a laugh, raising an eyebrow when she offered him one. "Really? Yeah that'd be great, thank you so much," he said, holding his hand out for the tie. That was really nice of this girl to do, she seemed really sweet. Looking up, he recognized her from around the school. But he didn't remember ever meeting her. He should probably introduce himself then, yeah? "I'm Dylan, by the way," he added, smiling again.

Sliding the hair tie off her wrist, Sophie lazily extended it out to the boy and, as he went on to introduce himself, she sat down next to him. If they were going to chat and be all buddy-buddy, she would take the break from her run seriously and embrace it for all it was worth. "No problem. Nice to meet you properly, Dylan. M'Sophie. Sophie Brown." In case he'd heard of the horrid Sophie Newell and wasn't friends with her, she wanted to make sure he knew she wasn't that Sophie.

No. This was the cool, less obnoxious third year Sophie.

"You're a... Hufflepuff third year, yeah?" She was certain they were in the same year, as they shared classes, but she wasn't sure if he was a Gryffindor or Hufflepuff - seemed more like a Hufflepuff, though. "What're you doing all the way out here?" Strange place to come hang out on his own. Or, rather, with his cat.

Dylan took the tie and quickly pulled his hair into a ponytail. Pushing a few hairs that fell out behind his ears, he watched as the girl sat next to him. Relief swept over him, he had been hoping for some company.

He began to stroke Ginger again, smiling as she introduced herself. "Nice to meet you too, Sophie," he said to her. "I like that name, by the way." he added with a small nod. He looked at her for a second. Yeah, it seemed to fit her quite well. She looked like a Sophie.

"Yeah, I am." he nodded, blushing slightly as he racked his brain to remember what house she was in. Suddenly, he remembered seeing her with the Ravenclaw table quite a bit wearing Ravenclaw robes. Good save, Dylan. At least he had a really good memory for some things. "Ravenclaw, right?" he had to make sure. He could be thinking of a different girl for all he knew.

Oh. It probably seemed odd to her that he was all the way out at the Whomping Willow in this not too great weather, with a kitten. That made sense. "Oh, I dunno. I felt like visiting it today, maybe sketching it," he explained, gesturing to his bag that had all his art things in it. "What about you?" he asked, cocking his head slightly and looking at the girl. From what she was wearing, she was probably running or off to do an exercise of some sort.

He liked her name? Well. That was cute of him. She liked it, too. Hehe. "Thanks." For a moment, she thought about being polite and saying she liked his name, too, but... it probably wouldn't sound genuine and he'd know she was saying it just because he had said something nice first. She wasn't going to do that.

His blushing unnoticed, Sophie busied herself with fixing her own ponytail and wiping some sweat off her neck. She touched a hand to her cheek to check how hot they were as she replied, "Yep. Could've been Gryffindor, really, but Ravenclaw was my choice. S'the best." No offense, Hufflepuff boy.

Sketching? She perked up at that and eyed his bag. "Oh yeah? You're an artist?" Or was it just for fun? Or a stress-reliever? "Show me?" Pretty pleeeease? "I go for a run out here every day. Unless there's, like, a really bad storm or something." Or if she turned into an old person, like last term. But none of those were a factor today. "Gotta have some way to burn off energy now that there's no Quidditch."

Relief swept over the third year when she said she was in Ravenclaw. So he was right. He did have some pretty good memory after all. If only he had memory like this for some of his classes... "Oh, yeah," he said with a laugh. "It does seem like a nice house." They all did, really. He was positive he would have been truly satisfied with any house he had.

Dylan nodded. "Yeah, I do lots of art," he said as he carefully placed Ginger on the ground so that he could pull out his things to put on his lap. He took out both sketchbooks, handing one to her so that she could look in it. "Here's one of my sketchbooks from last year, I kind of went around everywhere throughout the year and drew as much as I could," he explained as he opened to a fresh new page in his other one. Thankfully, the wind had started to die down so it wasn't flipping his papers and things all over.

As he began to draw, he listened to Sophie tell how she went out running here everyday. That was cool, he liked to run too. Just not everyday. But he did when he could, running was certainly a fun thing to do. But not as fun as swimming! Ahh, swimming. The lake here was so fun. He couldn't wait until spring so he could swim again. "Yeah, that whole Quidditch thing..." he said when she mentioned it. "Bit of a bummer, isn't it?" he sighed. He had been looking forward to trying out for the team this year. Although if it was for the best and for the school's safety, it was what it was. He supposed.

Of coooourse it was a nice house, Sophie thought. She couldn't think of one rude or annoying member of Ravenclaw house. Nope. They were all too cool to believe, really. She lucked out in her life choices.

Soph eyed the kid's cat curiously as he set it aside, wondering for a moment if it would wander off and get pummeled by the tree - hey, it could happen - before accepting one of his sketchbooks excitedly. She flipped through slowly, her eyes scanning and processing the entirety of each page before moving onto the next one, a smile growing upon her lips. "These are good. You some kinda aspiring artist?" Is that what he wanted to do with the rest of his life? Seemed like a pretty cool profession to her. Of course, she could never do something like that. No artistic talent whatsoever, really.

And there he went, showing off his craft. The smile stayed put on her face and she watched him, intrigued as she replied distractedly, "Mhm. A bit." She was focused on what he was doing, but then processed their conversation enough to add, "'specially for one of my best friends, Mo. He's a seventh year and was captain, y'know? And now on his last term he can't even play Quidditch and they took his badge and it's all really sad. Wish it hadn't happened like this. S'cool to have, like, Aurors all over the school and stuff, though. It's kinda exciting." The threat of danger wasn't anything to be taken lightly, but that didn't make her find the fun and excitement in it any less.

A smile spread across AJ's face. "I like that idea. I promise!" Now she would have to make sure that she learned everything so she wouldn't be the one to bring their tree climbing adventure down. She laughed at her friend's next comment. "Right. I'm sure my parents would want their money back." Not that they would know much about the wizarding world considering that they were muggles.

"I hate shopping, but I do like to be able to pick my clothes." If her mum or even her sisters had their choice, she would be looking like a dressed up mess. A horrid little girl? It still sounded like she talked proper, but some things were hard to let go of. "We've all sucked at one point in our life." There were somethings that AJ wasn't particularly proud of either.

"Yeah, I wish I had a brother though." The first year loved her sisters, but she was sure that she would have more in common with a guy, which is most likely why she normally had more guy friends than girls. "That sounds peaceful. We could always change lives for a little while." AJ would most likely get bored after a while, but she thought it would be cool to see what it was like to be by herself for once. She NEVER got alone time. "Yup. It's just us though... no other siblings." Although wasn't three enough?

Kace agreed with Grayson. It was always good to have one parent to be on your side. "Yeah my dad can try to convince my mother but she is soo stubborn. She will think she is always right underneath all the nice exterior.." he shrugged and began to shade some more. Kace nodded and agreed, "Girls always like humor, do you know why that is? I mean if your are funny you are golden in their book." That is probably how he won Emmy's heart. She fell for his sense of humor.

"Oh I can surprise people.." he winked when Grayson commented on his smirkyness. Grayson was the only one who knew he was a graffiti artist. He tried to keep it on the down low. He didn't wanna be caught. "Well then we need to do more awesome things, hey possibly we can like skateboard. Do you skateboard mate? I have been itching to grind some of the staircases.." he grinned. Kace smiled when he said his teacher wasn't that bad. "I guess I can teach.." he said examining his work. "Next you might be able to do cartoon characters. That is more complicated but you will like the results after.."

Arista smiled she pictured the two of them causing trouble it would be fun. She would make sure that she would actually pay attention in class than. "I can picture it now, Headmistress Truebridge, how DARE you not teach my daughter correctly!" She giggled it was fun picturing her mum yelling at someone other than her.

"I hate to admit but I love shopping..But only when I get to pick my clothes!" When she got to at least. Thats when she looked like herself. "Yeah." She wasn't very proud of her childhood.

"I wish I had a sibling." She smiled she had never really told anyone that she wanted a sibling. Whenever she got on the sibling talk she was always told how lucky she was to not have a sibling. "Haha its rather boring. We could... Especially since we have magic!!" She giggled, it sure would be funny to look like AJ and for AJ to look like her. They should do it, she could teach her how to be prim and proper..LIKE THAT SONG!! "Ah no others fun." She looked over at the Forbidden Forest...She should ask her.

"You know if you want some real adventure, you could go with me to the Forbidden Forest?" Hopefully the word forbidden didn't frighten her.

"Tell him to keep trying. He'll get there eventually." AND Kace will more likely to get what he wants. Everybody wins and whatnot. "You sure there's nothing that can get her to agree?" Like making her breakfast. See, that ALWAYS worked for Grayson when he wanted something from his mum. Or, nearly always. And why did girls like the funny guy? "Well think about it: girls probably want someone who can make them laugh. They want the humour. And not just any old humour; they want one that's along their lines." Which meant that you had to be sneaky about it. Or that's what he was going to take from it. "Is that what made you golden in your girlfriend's book?" SMIRK.

"Not a bad surprise." It wasn't. Not many people could pull off a good smirk. It was a good skill to have, mkay? And they did need to do some more awesome things, which included skateboarding. Heh. "I've always wanted to go skateboarding buuuuuut I've never given it a shot." His mum thought it was too dangerous but he wasn't about to admit that to Kace. "You should. Think about how great it'd be if you were skateboarding and the staircase changed." It was about the thrill, man. "Cartoon characters are more complicated to draw than trees and landscapes?" Grayson could not see that logic at all.

AJ laughed at Arista's comment. "That would be awesome. I think my mum would rather me be home anyways, and go to muggle school." At first she was against them going so far away to learn magic. She was afraid of them not learning the right things. Her dad stepped in and told her mum that they would be fine. After being here she couldn't imagine them never being apart of this awesome world.

She liked shopping? UGH! Everybody was different though, and she could respect that. "Nothing to be ashamed of. I like shopping for sport stuff." Angel was the one that like clothes shopping.

If she really wanted a sibling, AJ could help her out with that. "You can have one of mine." No, for real. "You could always come to my house over the summer and get to experience it first hand." Then she could decided for herself if having a sibling was all it was cracked up to be.
"Wait, we could really change appearances?" Like, she knew they had magic, but could it do that?

Th forbidden forest? Her eyes lit up. So far everybody that she met had't been down for anything that may get them in trouble. Of course you could only get in trouble if you were caught. "I'm so down."

Kace chuckled, "I am sure. If I try to persuade her, I will get grounded or get something taken away from me for a week. I mean one time I stood up to her and I got my twitter privileges taken away. Which wasn't much of a punishment because I just played sports the whole time. My friends were frustrated though because they couldn't keep in touch with him." he grinned.

The Slytherin did have a point. Girls wanted humor on their lines. It made sense. He chuckled, "I couldn't agree with you any more mate. When did you suddenly get so advised in the way a woman thinks?" he asked him with raised eyebrows. His questioned even made him chuckle harder. "Yeah that is totally what got me golden in Emmy's book. Or it could have been my country boy charm too." he winked. Oh? He wanted to skateboard. "Well mate if you wanna give it a shot, I can always teach you. That is not a big task.." Kace shrugged. "Just give me a time and day and I will put you in my schedule." he grinned. He wasn't a really busy dude but he had people to meet up sometimes. But maybe Grayson was busy flirting with girls ya never know.

Grayson did have a point. What happened if he skateboarded and the staircases changed. That would be soo cool! But anyways, "Yeah cartoon charries are kind of complicated. But tree drawing is the basic basic start to drawing." he grinned. "But you seem to be doing pretty well. I mean it just take practice and time dedication." That is all it was.

"What? Ew...Muggle School... I had to go to a private muggle school when I was little. Hogwarts is soooo much better!" The Private School was chosen by her mother her dad wanted her to go to a public school but mother knows best.

"Oh yes especially quidditch. Sucks that we weren't able to play it this year. Next year hopefully this psycho will be gone." She liked sport shopping especially with her dad!

"REALLY!!!" No not really. She giggled. "Omg yes! And then for quite time you can over to mine!" It would be perf!! "Yeah at least thats what my Aunt did. I had to mums it was crazy!!" That day was wicked. "It might be a potion or something.....Maybe she used that one Polyjuice Potion?" That's what it was called right.

So far everyone had cowered at hearing Forbidden Forest she was glad that AJ was different. "Awesome!!!When?" Or they could just go now. She had wanted to go for a while but she didn't want to go alone where was the fun in that!!

The wind blew strong across the grounds leaving a person chilled to the bone. The snow was falling heavily and the icicles hung from all the trees but one. The Whomping Willow seemed to shiver forcefully ever so often sending any snow from it's branches to the ground.

The animals of the forest had been fleeing or a while now and smaller creatures had just recently scattered through the area searching for a warmer place for their little paws.

Be careful being out too long, one could end up with frostbite very easily.

Cassie made her way out to the grounds. It was bitter cold and she was hoping to find any prints in this snow. Making sure her scarf was tight and her gloves her on nicely she turned back to the class and smiled. "Now I know it's cold and I know it's not the best temperature to be out, but this is very important and I need all my fabtastic SNACaniators to go out and read some animals prints." She beamed and tried to snap with her gloves.

"Now the snow is coming down so I'm hoping we can still find some. It's important we help these animals big and small to make sure they are alright in this weather." She wished their chatter would calm so she could focus on just one to see if she could sense more. Though she had all the faith in the world that her SNAC would get to the bottom of this!

She glanced around just as the Willow shivered snow to the ground. "I'd avoid getting too close to the Willow. The animals have stayed clear of it's branches, so should you." Just a thought, the branches hurt in normal weather with a freezing tree they were sure to be worse. "Let's get started so we can get in and get some hot chocolate and cookies from the kitchen. Spread out over the area and work together if you'd like. Please let me know if you need any help. I'll be looking for prints as well." She was going to be working right along with them, so it was going to be fun!


OOC: Alright go forth find and read prints. You can decide the creature, but please be realistic about it. There isn't going to be any huge monster creatures. It's snowing heavy so if your charrie cant find any prints that's alright too, just have fun that is the main purpose!! Cassie/and I are around playing and having fun too! Three posts by Friday at 11 p.m. EST! Since we are just in a grounds thread please title so I can see them!! HAVE FUN!!

Cris couldn't believe how cold it was outside. The wind was blowing so strong that Cris could already feel his nose starting to get cold. He pulled his scarf up to partly cover his face as he listened to the Professor's instructions.

Too bad they couldn't go near the Whomping Willow. Oh well maybe next time, Cris thought to himself as he looked down at the ground around them. Besides human footprints which was to be expected, Cris could see that there were smaller prints in the snow. Once the Divination Professor told them they could start identifying them, Cris immediately walked over to the prints he had seen earlier. Getting down on his knees...yes on the freezing snow!!...Cris studied the first one he came across.

Frowning he got down on his hands to get a closer look at each imprint.

Gosh, it was COLD! For the millionth time since winter started, Adi shivered. Maybe it would have been a good idea to put on two jackets. Meh. He turned his attention to Professor Morgan who was speaking again. Right. Go find prints and read them. This wasn't going to be so bad. As long as he could find them, things would be fine. Better get started because it was snowing.

So, Adi started off, wandering away from the SNAC group. He headed about two dozen steps away from them as he carefully scanned the ground. Plenty of prints made by them which were fastly being covered by the fresh coat of snow.

Now, where were those animal prints?

Cris closely examined the prints carefully. From what he could see, this animal had four feet, because the two front prints looked different from the hind two.

Having established that he looked at all four prints at the same time. The smaller ones at the back looked more round, while the two in front looked more long and those always seemed to be equidistant apart and aligned. While the ones at the back seemed to look like the animal would first land on one and then on the other.

Next, he studied the depth of each print. The thickness in depth of the front ones seemed to be evenly balanced out while the ones at the back, seemed to be thicker at the back of each paw.

Cris wondered what kind of animal would make such a print. An animal that had longer front feet and smaller back feet. As he continued to stare at the print, Cris recalled the discussion they had back at the Room of Serenity about the raccoon, and that how the prints that were visibly in front didn't necessarily have to be the animal's forefeet.

It was then Cris realized what he was looking at.

The snow was coming down and in short while the prints, any that had been made that morning, were likely to be covered or at least indiscernible. After Professor Morgan had done her ...Well, Cutty thought of it more like a tick, like Tobias and Charlie had, the way she had to snap her fingers so much. He found it interesting. Was it a disease?

Cutty took out his wand in his gloved hand and lit it. "Lumos!" then held it close to the ground and proceeded to cover the area. But not at random. Hardly ever anything at random. He looked for bushes and shrubs that might serve as shelter or home and headed for them. A strategy that proved useful as he soon came about little clover-like prints in the snow. Were they an animal's or something that belong to a wizard-made tool. "Professor Morgan?" He called to the Divie-expert.