Once again, Jude found himself nearly running down the pathway, excited to go have a play-date afternoon with Aubrey. He skidded around a corner to find her hopping up and down squawking, looking pretty flustered. He gave a small gasp and hurried to her, "Aubreh wha's wrong, geerl?" he asked, opening up her cage, expecting her to crawl into his hand or onto his arm like usual.

Instead, Aubrey squawked one more time and flew out of the cage, directly into Jude's face. "Augh!" he squealed and let his instincts take over. His hands flew up to try and protect his face, and sort of batted Aubrey away from him, who seemed to get more agitated and finally flew outside.

Panting a little, from his sudden scare, Jude ran outside after her, to find her strutting around chasing bugs like usual. "Wha' theh," he started, and she stared up at him, almost mockingly. Had his charge just scared him on purpose? All signs were leading to a 'Yes!' from her, as he sat down and watched her jump around.

"T's no' funneh, Aubs," he said, smiling at her, his tone completely disobeying his meaning of a slight reprimand. Deep down, he, too, agreed that what Aubrey had just done was, indeed, amusing.

Just like always, after a while, Jude would whistle, and start heading back to the Nursery Cages. Aubrey looked curious, and flew up to his shoulder. She was still lighter than she looked, but was at least as tall as Jude's head. He smiled at her and she gently pecked at his fingers, which held a little treat for her. With that bribe on her mind, Jude placed her back in her cage, made sure she had food and water, and left again.

"Silleh bird... trickin' meh loike tha'..." he mumbled to himself as he walked back up to the castle.

Evangeline had figured the nursery would be full of people in the first couple of days, due to the fact everybody would be excited to meet and take care of their new magical pets. But Evangeline's pet was a Clabbert, which meant they were scared of humans since silly humans had capture them in the past. So the bonding time she hoped this first meeting would represent would not happen if her baby Clabbert was too scared. Nuh huh.

Glad to see that the nursery was almost empty except for a few students around taking care of their pets, Evangeline hastily made her way through the cages with the animals, looking for the C section. Surely, that was where her Clabbert would be. Yup, yup.

A beam extended itself to her lips when she saw the green, grinning Clabberts, and she finally found the cage with the tag that said ‘Evangeline Green’. EEEEE! “Hewwo, Greenie.” She cooed her magical creature, leaning over to look at him closer and letting him look at her properly. That probably was important, it had to make him feel more secure and such. So far, it seemed to be working for the red pustule on Greenie’s forehead wasn’t flashing yet. YAY! “I’m Evangeline, sweetie, and I’m gonna come and visit you a lot this year, aye?” If that was okay by him, anyway.

Deciding it was time to some real contact, the Slytherin girl slowly opened the door of the cage that kept Greenie in and extended her arms. The Clabbert stared at her first but after a few moments, it practically jumped onto her arms, throwing his green arms around her neck. EEP! And she could've sworn his grin was wider too! YAY! "There, love. We're gonna have loads of fun, yes?" She softly told him, moving her hands to hold him tight against her. EEEE!! His skin was so soft.

She sat down on the floor with the Clabbert still on her lap for a while, softly telling him stories and feeding him cookies (he was especially keen on the chocolate ones), before realising she had to go and do some homework. Awww. "I'll be back soon, yes, love?" She giggled softly, nuzzling her nose on the Clabbert's face, who made a low sound of happiness. So cute! Reluctantly, she led him inside his cage once more and closed the door. She wished she could take it with her to the dormitories. "See you, Greenie.." She beamed at him and got her things, heading for the exit.

Cela stopped moving her arms and legs and looked up at Copernicus.This was a strange angle. The world looked totally different from way down on the ground. She sniffed a few more times and tentatively reached out her hand, taking Cope's and pulling herself to her feet. "You don't have to apologise, I should have brought Tiberius out with us in the first place."

Her fingers were like icicles. "I should have worn gloves," Cela berated herself, ignoring the fact that she would have taken them off to make tree-climbing easier anyhow. She looked back down at the snow angel she had made, a folorn little epression on her face. And EEeeeeep! her neck was still cold and wet. Cela looked about for her scarf and her eyes widened as she saw the two Abraxans playing tug of war with it.

Cela took off towards them and Tiberius took off with her scarf, Cassiopeia took off too, nickering in excitement. "My neck is cold!" Celandine called after the Abraxans. Wow they really were starting to get bigger and stronger. She watched how their wings worked; occassionally flapping to help with cornering and speed. It was pretty cool... but Cela wanted her SCARF!

He had to laugh as the Abraxans played a rousing round of keep away with Cela and her scarf. Perhaps it was better manners to help her out, but he was certainly enjoying watching them all scamper about. Finally, he shook his head and hurried after Tiberius. With one of them on each Abraxan, it would be easy to get the scarf back. Except... he got whacked upside the head with a wing, causing him to fall back into a bank of snow with an 'oomph.' Powerful little things.

He scrambled toward Tiberius on his knees and grabbed the foal gently at the jaw. Inserting his finger behind the teeth, he forced Tiberius to open his mouth and drop the scarf. Tiberius seemed to take offense to being forced from his game as he stopped capering after Cassipea and tackled Copernicus instead.

"Hey!" he inched out from under the Abraxan and scooted for the fence again. "If you don't settle down, you're going right back into your stall." It seemed improbable, but Tiberius slowed his attack and set to running by himself this time.

Cela stopped running and walked over to pick up her scarf, making a face at the Abraxan slobber and its general state of dampness. She walked over to the fence and climbed up on it, shooting Copernicus a tentative smile before using her wand to cast a hot air charm and dry her scarf. Cela wrapped it around her neck, sneezed once, and used the hot air charm in an attempt to thaw her frozen fingers.

"Did you see how they use their wings even on the ground? It looks like their centre of balance is different to a horse too." Cela noted, now successfully distracted from her little snow-drift-kicking tantrum. Tucking her wand behind her ear, she noted down her observations and shivered slightly as she reread them critically, "And I increased the mash to butterbeer ratio." Cela shot Cope a smile, glad he had shown up and stopped her from thinking so much about things that confused her and made her cry.

Copernicus weighed her words as he pulled off his gloves and handed them to her. "I think you're right, although it shouldn't really be any big surprise to us. If you consider the extra weight and where the muscles lay to power those wings, I can imagine they require their wings all the time, even for balance. They probably make them a bit top-heavy, as well as forward-heavy."

"I increased the ratio last week as well, so it sounds like we're on the same page," he added before turning to her with all his attention. "Tiberius has also been given the corn-barley mash mixture, and he prefers that as much as the barley-only mash mixture. I think I'll try to give him rye again next time just to rule it out for good."

Cela's eyes widened as Copernicus gave her his gloves. She balanced her abraxan journal on her knee and slid her fingers into them. Oooh they were warm. And big. She wriggled her fingers about experimentally, sneezed again and smiled brightly at Copernicus. Should she say thank you? Oh but she didn't want to interrupt him; he was making so many good points. Cela opened her journal again and managed to make a few more notes even with the gloves that diminished her ability to grip the quill and write legibly.

But her hands were warm.

"We should try them on just corn too, compare that and see if barley versus corn changes their behaviour or anything like that." Cela suggested, turning to watch the foals frolic about, clearly they were finding the bracing temperature exhilerating.

"I am concerned about the aggression," Copernicus turned back to watch them. "But part of me thinks it's just that they're so big and strong and they don't know how bit or strong. They're certainly soon to be a danger to us, which means we'll have to watch more carefully. If Tiberius had trampled over you being how big he'll be even in a month or so..." He shook his head. He'd never forgive himself if she got hurt by his lack of focus.

"You keep sneezing. Do you need some Pepper Up from the infirmary?"

"It's normal." Celandine noted, "We just have to start taking a firmer hand now is all." Cela wriggled her fingers inside the gloves, amusing herself at how little the gloves themselves appeared to move. She sneezed again and shivered slightly, "Maybe I shouldn't have made a snow angel." Cela agreed, "I don't want to get sick and not be able to go to class." That would be a disaster.

She jumped off the fence and looked up at Copernicus, "Will you come with me?" She asked uncertainly, jumping a little in surprise as Cassiopeia came up and nuzzled her, eliminating the need for her to chase the foal down. Cassiopeia sniffed at Cela's hands and promptly began to nibble at them. Cela giggled, "Oh look, she likes the way you smell too!" Cela shoved her hands under her armpits, playing keep away from the foal.

She sneezed again.

Copernicus whistled at Tiberius and was totally shocked when the foal trotted over and butted against him. "Well, that's a new one. I didn't know he would respond to me whistling at him." He put his hand into Tiberius's mane and directed the Abraxan into the nursery. Tiberius took off at a shot toward the stall. He knew what it meant... being done playing meant it was feeding time.

"I'll walk you up to the infirmary," Copernicus turned to tell Cela over his shoulder. "I have something for you anyway. For Christmas," he grinned.

Cale walked down to the Magical Creatures Nursery, ready to meet his new Clabbert, Zippy. He felt bad that he hadn't gotten a chance to get down there since the place had opened, but he had been so busy...he was sure his Clabbert was ok. Zippy would understand--his daddy was a prefect and he had to stop all the bad kids in the hallways from tearing Hogwarts apart.

He walked over to where the little monkey-like creatures were kept and found Zippy there, hanging from a miniature tree branch inside his cage.

"Hey there Zippyyyyy," Cale cooed, using the same voice he used when he talked to his dog Belle. The red bulb thingy in his head wasn't flashing, which was a good thing. That meant he wasn't scared of him. He pulled a piece of chicken meat out of his pocket--he had figured out that Clabbert's ate small birds, but since canary meat wasn't exactly accessible (or humane, in Cale's opinion) another bird would have to do. The Clabbert swung off of his branch and landed with a small thud near the edge of the cage, creeping forward slightly to the edge of the cage. He took the piece of chicken with one webbed hand and sniffed it before taking a bite. He seemed a bit satisfied and ate half of the thing before he resumed to playing once again. Cale sighed and watched his Clabbert swing from the tiny tree. He looked around at all the other people having conversations around him before deciding that the cold was definitely getting to him. He tightened his scarf around his face, waved goodbye to Zippy and hurried off towards the castle.

Cela followed happily enough, leading Cassiopeia to the stall. Hmm. They were getting to the point where they'd need to be put in seperate stalls soon, they were getting that big.

"Thank you." Cela sniffed and her eyes widened in surprise a his words, "Really? Usually I only get presents from..." Cela trailed off uneasily before shaking herself and adding, "I got you a present too."

She settled Cassiopeia and checked the hay in the stall was fresh and dry so the foals would have a warm bed. Cela sneezed again and made sure everything was as it should be, stroking Cassiopeia and Tiberius before hovering at the door and wriggling her fingers in Cope's giant gloves while she waited for him.

Copernicus took a moment to curry Tiberius's coat and to make sure all the ice and snow was clear of their little stall. He also checked all four hooves before heading over to Cela. "I think they'll be fine for a couple more weeks in these digs before we spread them out. It might break Tiberius's heart to be separated from his best little friend."

He shut the door tightly and shook her gloved hand. "It's something small. I just saw it and it reminded me of you." They headed for the door.

Mariel brought some fresh bedding from the supply shelf over to Felix's cage and thought for a moment at the best way to clean out his cage. Shrugging softly, the young Ravenclaw pulled her wand out of her robe pocket and cast a few cleaning charms on the cage, then, gently scooping up Felix in her left hand, she stowed her wand and disposed of the old bedding with her right hand, replacing it with some new bedding. As she absentmindedly stroked her Jarvey's fur, the thirteen year old contemplated Nathaniel's words.

There was an enclosed play area outside, wasn't there? She thought it would be okay to take Felix out there for a little while to get some exercise. "You'd like to go outside for a bit, wouldn't you?" she said softly to Felix. Still holding him, she walked over to Nathaniel who was still tending to Aimirgin. "Alright, I'll take him to the play area for a little while," she said. Of course it would probably be best if the two animals didn't play together though. She was pretty sure Jarveys liked to eat Augureys.

Mariel couldn't do anything without magic... or so it seemed to Nathaniel. He'd have to teach her how muggles live.. and not let her father find out.He watched her "clean" and play with her Jarvey. Ugly little creature is what it was. He wasn't gonna tell Mariel that but he whispered it to Aimirgin and chuckled. "Well, how about we talk your Jarvey out for a bit and then I come back and take Aimirgin out?" he said standing up. "I mean I know that he'd not eat Aimirgin.. but you seem worried." he said said looking at her.

Jude wasn't as quick to come down to the Nursery today. He had a stuffy nose and didn't have the energy to run. He meandered on down, kicking at the snow as he went. Today was cold, and he didn't want to leave the warmth of Hogwarts, but he couldn't just abandoned Aubrey like that. Even tho, he was sure, she would still be fine and healthy the next day, he didn't want to hurt her feelings.

And perhaps, he'd go to the Nurse and see if they could magic his cold away, when he went back inside.

Shrugging away the unimportant thoughts, Jude reached the nursery and smiled. He entered and immediately Aubrey was waiting for him, waiting to get let out. She waited much more patiently than a few days ago, and he was glad for this. "'Ey dere Aubreh's..." he hummed to her as her cage door flew open. She had returned to her old habit of riding on his shoulder until they were outside, only this time, Jude wasn't taking her outside.

"Yeh smell a li'l funneh..." he told her, and instead put her next to a little tub of water. "Oi knowr, Oi knurr, i's cold ou'. Oi ain' gonna put yeh in dere, silleh..." he said, holding onto her foot and rubbing a little rag over her feathers to get out the winter gunk and make her smell considerably better.

Aubrey's voice was dropping, he thought. Odd to think that, but it was true. Her squawks were much less chick-ish and way more sorrowful, which made him sorry for withholding the great outdoors from her. "Oh alroigh'," he finally said and took her out to a play area. This time, he didn't sit down and play with her, but simply sniffled and watched her fly about and stretch her wings.

Several long minutes later, he whistled and his ever-growing Augurey flew towards him to claim a perch on his shoulder. Before she could fly away again, Jude smiled at her and carried her inside, one hand protectively hovering above her toes.

"Oi go'a go, girl... Oi ain' feelin' too aweful good t'day..." he told her as he locked the gate. "See ya t'morrah" he said with a wave, and fled back up to the castle.

Set walked in to play with his extremly cute Imp, Katara. By now, the fuzz on her head had had grown to a length that now Set could braid it! He combed it then procceded braiding! They had so much fun together!

As she wandered down the grounds in her way to the Nursery of animals, Willow wondered if Professor Morgan's mental health was something she -and the rest of the Hogwarts population, too, for that matter- should be worried about. The woman had, after all, left under her care a baby. . . something. No one in their right mind left a living creature under Willow Kovac's care.

She had already forgotten what kind of animal she was supposed to take care of, for crying out loud. Shaking her head, dark hair bouncing as she did so, Willow's pale hand reached for the doorknob and turned on it.

Upon taking in the scenary around her, the girl could only gasp.

Sure this was a Nursery place for creatures, but the fifth year had not been expecting to see so many animals in one place. And not only was the place packed with the chaos creators that animals were, but it was also very loud.

How did the things manage to sleep at night so much noise? Surely, with so many creatures packed in one place, it was impossible to have them sleeping at the same time. And then another question ocurred to her. . . Did Creatures sleep at all? As far as she knew, they did, but that meant little; it wasn't like Willow was some kind of expert when it came to animals. She was not Juniper Goodwin, after all.

Closing the door behind her, so the little beasts would not escape -it was bad enough to have so many of them stuck in this place, and the last thing she wanted was to have them running around the school- the Nursery, the brunette wandered down the little corridor, flinching at the sight of any excrement that belonged to the animals, and wrinkling her nose at all the little things locked inside cages. Good thing they were locked, for Willow did not want to imagine what those little devils would do to her if they weren’t. Delicately, she shuddered.

It was bad enough to be in this place, which meant that there was no need to even think about what could happen if the things were released. No doubt they would torture her, before having her as their next meal.

Yes, because in her mind, Kneazles, Puffskeins, Clabberts, and all those defenseless creatures enjoyed eating perfectly healthy human beings such as herself. Snort. Well, she didn’t know any better. Not to mention that it was Willow Kovac, the girl that was scared of animals could not stand animals to save her life, and was an ignorant when it came to them.

After having spent a lot of time (not really, but she felt like it had been hours) looking for her. . . animal, the tag on a not-so-particularly-large cage caught the brunette’s attention at last. Wrinking her nose for the tenth time in less than twenty minutes, the girl made her way towards it; the cage, as she had previously noticed, was not very large, and on top of it, there was a tag that read, ‘Willow Kovac – Puffskein.’ A Puffksein. And what on earth was a Puffskein? Something dangerous, surely, for Willow was certain that this Nursery home was her own personal hell, sent directly from all the Gods in the Sky that enjoyed making her life terrible. Really, she would not be surprise if a Puffskein ended up being the most—

As soon as her eyes caught the sight of the creature—her creature, inside the cage, all the ranting that was going on inside her head instantly stopped.

This was. . . a Puffskein? This tiny furball, that she could most likely put inside her pocket was a Puffskein? Huh. To be honest, Willow was not sure what to make of it. Granted, the thing was so small and cuddly, that it looked far from being dangerous, venomous, or anything that could potentially assassinate her in a blink of an eye. But then. . . this was an animal, and animals were dangerous by nature. Except for Adolphus, but that hardly counted as an animal. Speaking of which, when was the last time she had seen her ferret? Eh—nevermind.

Without taking her eyes from the Puffskein, that was staring at her with its big eyes, Willow reached for her messenger bag, and took out a heavy book about Magical Creatures that she had found in the library earlier that day. Once she found the page where the definition of Puffskeins was, the girl read it outloud, as if expecting the little creature to respond to her. “A Puffskein is a docile creature, spherical in shape and covered in soft, custard-coloured fur. Puffskeins are popular as wizarding pets. Puffskeins are docile, as said before, and they don't mind anything. When happy, they emit a low humming noise. They aren't anywhere near being picky eaters; they'll eat anything from leftovers to spiders. Puffskeins also enjoy sticking their long tongues up the noses of wizards and eating their bogeys, strangely." Once she was done reading about Puffskein, Willow's dark, long eyebrows raised at the Puffskein, that continued to eye her wondernigly with its big eyes.

Eating bogeys, spiders. . . tiny disgusting creatures, Puffskeins were.

Though she would never admit it, not in a million years, the fifth year had to admit that the thing she was supposed to take care of didn’t look dangerous. And tha book had agreed with her on that. Maybe Professor Morgan was not completely insane, after all. She hadn’t given her a complex dangerous thing to look after!

“Do you have a name?” Asked the girl to the Puffskein, using a tone of voice that clearly indicated she was expecting an answer from it. However, after five seconds, Willow realized that animals could not speak, which meant that her question had been rather stupid.

She smacked her forehead. What had she gotten herself into?

Freya clomped off her boots to rid them of the wet snow that was on the grounds outside. She wasn't in very good spirits today, so hopefully Noor would brighten her up.

She walked inside and immediately removed her heavy cloak, it was much too warm for it indoors. Freya spotted Noor sniffing around in one corner of her cage and walked slowly over, putting on her gloves as she did so. "Hey there." Freya said softly to the animal, and stroked her gloved finger along the knarl's tough spines. 'She sure has grown quickly.' She reached in and took Noor out of her cage. "I see you've come to like your new box, I told you that you would like it..." Freya sat down on a chair that was nearby, keeping Noor in her lap and letting the little/big critter sniff around and attempt to dig at the pockets. The student didn't say anything, she rather just moved the knarl away from what she was doing, refocussing her attention into doing something else. The knarl looked up at it's caretaker with a curious look and nudged her small head into the girl's hand.

Freya looked down and saw what Noor was doing, and she gently rubbed the animals delicate head. Being here was indeed relaxing her a little bit, at least she was able to feel useful while doing something. Noor started to whine after a few minutes of not doing anything and Freya stared down at her again and sighed, "You know, you really got a good system going on here...". She picked her knarl up carefully and allowed her to remain in the pouch pocket that was on the front of her top.
Freya cleaned out the cage again and gave some fresh shavings and food, this time making sure the water was well out of harms way. 'If she keeps on dumping it over like this she'll be swimming in her cage soon.' After giving a thorough check of the cage, Freya made to take Noor out of her pouch pocket, only to discover that she had fallen asleep. 'I guess she can stay there for a little while longer...'.
The girl walked back over to the chair and sat down, taking out a smaller book to read for a while, seeing as her animal had practically imprisoned her.

Mariel raised an eyebrow as Nathaniel started whispering and laughing to his Augurey, like one would do with a co-conspirator. She watched him suspiciously for a moment to see if the boy thought his Augurey would whisper and laugh back. If she hadn't had reason to question the Gryffindor's mental status before - which she thought she did anyway - she certainly had cause to question it now.

Again she looked at him strangely as he now addressed her instead of the animal. First she thought, why make two trips, then she thought the second part was an awful lot like what she had just been thinking - although she really wasn't worried about it and certainly didn't think she portrayed that. Was he trying to use Legilimency against her? She eyed him suspiciously again.

Mariel shook her head as she said, "I'm not worried and I don't see the point in going out twice. There's plenty of room for us both to take our animals out. Felix is still small and probably wouldn't eat your Augurey at this point in his life, but we can keep them somewhat apart to be on the safe side. Is Aimirgin flying yet?"

Shrugging softly, she added, "M'kay, Imma go out now." Felix was still curled up in her hand, and adjusting her scarf, Mariel headed towards the enclosed play area. Nathaniel could decide if he wanted to go with his Augurey or not.

Becca slipped into the nursery while she had some free time. She probably should have been working on her Muggle Studies homework since she was getting close to the deadline, but she figured her cute little niffler needed some care.

After carefully choosing a clean brush and picking a few apple slices from a container, she headed over to her niffler's cage. "Hey Daisy," she greeted, bending down on one knee to peer into the dark cage. "Hungry?" She took one of the apple slices and gently pushed it inside, smiling with satisfaction as Daisy made her way over and began chomping on the apple slice cheerfully without much hesitation.

"You're not looking very clean. Oh the filthiness of it all!" Very cautiously, Becca pulled the niffler from its home and brushed her in gentle strokes. The little baby continued to munch on the apple slice, and Becca took special care to take a small little tangle out of its fur. "Hey... I think you've gotten a little bigger, buddy!"

Grinning, the Ravenclaw replaced the niffler in its cage, locked it, shoved another piece of apple inside, and brought herself to her feet. "You stay safe and take care, okay? I'll come check on you again soon." And with that, she slowly began her departure from the nursery, her intentions to go do her homework.

As soon as Ili heard the word 'yes' leave his lips, she sprung up fast and offered her hand to pull him up as well. "Alright then, follow me. I know the perfect place." She whispered. "Where no one will find us. "

"Okay," he mumbled, getting up off the floor. "Where are we going?

Iliana reached up and whispered in his ear. "The Bamboo Forest. Do you know it?" She asked, surveying the room to make sure that no one was listening in. "Just follow me. Ro- uhh... I mean Sasha will love it there."

Constantine looked at her a little confusedly, "Hogwarts has a Bamboo Forest? Sasha will!?" he repeated happily. "Where is it?" he asked looking for the exit out of this place.