Miranda chuckled at how Sarah was so close and eyeing the invisible creature. She was kind of glad that she couldn't see it either. Having friends who had seen death was not something she wished upon them.

But now they walked back to the paddock, the Captain was a bit sad to have stepped out of the forest. IT was mysterious and...dark. An Auror to-be should know all of the dark secrets of a forest, she thought.


Oh for the love of chocolate frogs...

Miranda eyed the box and could only imagine what they would do. But being half muggle did give her an idea as to what people could expect with a creature that looked like a HORSE.

The Captain glanced at Sarah with a worried expression, and then raised her hand tentatively. "Sir...Are we going to... mount the horse- I mean Thestrals?"

OOEEEHeHeHeheheeeeeeeeeeee!

Crud.

Destiny was not able to spot even the tiniest spider in the forest. That useless, useless forest. That gave her another reason why she didn't like it. She would just have to go somewhere else to find a spider.

Muggle sports..pffft. Why did they have to play sports? They are exhausting! Destiny didn't know any sport that involved horse type creature animal things anyway, so she would have to make up her own, 'Are we going to wrestle thestrals?'

Heehee, that rhymed.

Oh Merlin, this couldn't be happening, he really wasn't going to expect the students to get on those things and ride them. How were they supposed to do that if they couldn't even see them? This was just crazy.

Marie just stood there and listened, how was she supposed to answer a question about something she couldn't even see?

Carter was about to respond when he was saved by Man Lawson giving the rest of the lesson. He was a muggle... well... raised muggle anyway... and had no idea what on earth they would be doing with helmets and invisible animals. Well... invisible to most people anyway.

He occupied his time by continuing to pet the strange creature. He looked around as everyone else gave responses. Destiny's answer rhymed. Fun.

Looking from the invisble creature as she continued to stroke him/her, Arya's eyes narrowed on the box as thought ran through her head. No...could'nt be...couldn't hurt to ask though. Looking up to Sir Lawson with bright eyes she hesitanlty asked her question."Are we riding them?" How awesome would that be, riding invisible flying horses. Arya was excited just by the thought.

"Oh you were?" He was going to ask them that? She should have known, really.Professor's always start a lesson with a question.Mind you Sarah wasn't sure she liked the sort of smile he gave her...it was - sly.Hmmm.She eyed up the box and it's contents, trying to think of an answer to give the man.

Some students had already come up with polo, and quite honestly, that was the best she could think of - given their look, and the fact it was a muggle sport. "If it is Polo, I never knew they had so much padding...you know - other than a helmet, of course," Sarah said, going on tippy toe to get a better look in the box.

Sidling back over to Miranda, Sarah kept an eye on the still empty-full paddock.She knew the things were in it, but for the life of her she couldn't see them, or how they were meant to work with such things, let alone play a sport on them.

MOUNT THEM?! OMG, they actually were, weren't they?! Sarah's head snapped from the box, to the paddock, then back to Miranda.She mirrored the girl's worried look, and began chewing her bottom lip. "I don't think I should.I'll probably knee it somewhere I shouldn't and get thrown off, resulting in a broken leg....It could happen!" She said, slightly louder than intended, as she turned her head to face the two Professor's.

Sarah, Miranda, and Oliver?
 

So, Wesley was pretty sure no ticks had fallen on her head.

The Wrackspurts however...?


Wesley'd never heard about them before. But before she could question Miranda as to what exactly Wrackspurts were, the older girl had run off to feed the Thestrals. The invisible, meat eating Thestrals! Wesley thought nice horsies ate oats.

The Hufflepuff had moved into the empty spot left by the captain, closing the space between her and Sarah, and watched in horror as the meat vanished from Miranda's open hand. And then, when the Captain started petting the Thestral - that was when Wesley closed her eyes. Didn't Miranda know she was made up of meat too?

Luckily, however, after all the meat had been eaten, all the students were still alive, and it was time to proceed onto the Muggle Studdies portion of the class. Wesley, immensely relieved, had walked back with the older kids, a little bit behind them, just to make sure nothing bad happened.

As the class stood at the edge of the forest, the Hufflepuff had anxiously waved in front of her face, trying to blow away any Wrackspurts that may have accumulated on the short trip.

It was while she was swatting that Professor Lawson (the man) asked what Muggle Studdies and Thestrals had in common.

And that was when Miranda said they were all going to ride the horses.

"AEH!" The Hufflepuff exclaimed, horrified, moving her waving hands to cover her mouth. It was just - she couldn't see - they ate - she'd never - Thestrals were too scary!

"Yes, thank you Dylan and Evelyn. We will be learning about Polo today."


Marcus stifled a small chuckle at Miranda's question and then nodded. "Yes Miranda and Arya we will eventually be riding the thestrals."

At Destiny's answer, he could not contain the burst of laughter that left his mouth, "I would pay very good money to see you wrestle a thestral, Destiny but that is not what we're doing today."

Marcus looked at Miranda and gave her a smile, "Oh it's always better to be safe than sorry and I'm sure after we go over the details of the sport I think you'll see why the padding is necessary."

He sat down on one of the boxes and clapped his hands together, "Okay so does anyone here know the object of the game of Polo?"

Dylan raised his hand, "The point is to put the ball in the opponent's goal." Oh how he loved polo. He was due to play during the summer, but chose to get ready for Hogwarts instead.

"UM, WHAT, were gonna ride those invisible things, don't they fly, are'nt they dangerous", Herminny said starting to freak out thinking this class turned from moderately strange yo crazy in 0.5 secconds.

Blink.

They Were going to RIDE the HORSIES! Woot wooooot! Miranda grinned at the Professor, feeling quite excited about this new plan Mr. Lawson had. Oh boy!

She turned to Sarah and patted the girl gently on her back. She seemed all but happy about riding something invisible. And Miranda didn't blame her, it was both scary and thrilling...guess the adrenaline was starting to make itself present. Knee it somewhere? Haha! Miranda put a hand to her mouth as laughter rippled through them. Oh, Sarah, she was funny.

But Wesleys little exclamation...of something made her stop and turn to her. Her brow furrowed in worry and she put a reassuring arm around the girl. She gave her another wink, hopefully to make her realise it was allright and that nothing bad would happen while she had a Prefect a Captain and two- THREE adults watching over them.


Oh, Polo. Pffft, it was probably boring. What could be more funner than Quidditch? Er...

"Sir?" Miranda raised her hand, "Is Polo all about riding a horse and trying to hit a tiny ball with a weird looking bat?" She asked, one eyebrow arched, looking like...confused.

"Erm, if I remember right the object og the game of polo is scoring by driving a small white plastic or wooden ball into the opposing team's goal using a long-handled mallet".

This was true.Safe was ALOT better than sorry.Sarah nodded her understanding at the answer to her query.Mind you, she still wasn't sure she actually wanted to PLAY the game.Not on the invisible ponies.

The object of it? Raising her hand in the air slowly, Sarah said, "To hit the ball with a mallet and score goals?" She was pretty sure they were called goals anyway.

Destiny would rather wrestle those thestral than actually sit on one. How silly would she look sitting on a horse that only like five people can see? Actually, she would probably look sillier wrestling the invisible horse..

A regular horse was scary and Lawson expected her to sit on an invisible one? He was crazy. There was no way she would ride one of those. She didn't care how much padding she would wear, she was not getting on one and playing a game that sounded like a dessert.

This class made Destiny hungry..

Hide me Carter, hehe
 

There was no way Marie was going to ride on something she couldn't see. What if she fell off, she wouldn't even know where the silly creature was at.... then it might step on her.

Nope, she was definately not getting on that thing.

She moved behimd Carter. Maybe if Lawson couldn't see her he wouldn't remember that she was there.

Kay thought if she knew anything about Polo. No, She didn' think so. But as she listened to everyone talking about it she wondered about the Thestrals wings. "Sir, if the game is to hit the ball into the other team goal by swinging the mallet. Wouldnt that be hard on the Thestrals? Their wings I mean. I wouldn't want to hit their wings by mistake." Kay said think that would be not good. She patted her Thestral and talk to him. "It's ok."

Nicoletta stood back up and walked back over to the group. The thestrals tried to follow her. She shook her head at it. Apparently it got the message cuz it backed off and walked back over to its mother. Nicoletta stood back over by the Hufflepuff boy.

As soon as Jake felt the tug on his sleeve, he followed Tibi, who was obviously there. Forget going to the back of the group. Heck, he'd be going to the castle as soon as both Lawsons looked the other way.

Gold raised a hand. "To score against the rival team," she said politely. "You have to hit a plastic or wooden ball, into the rival goal, using a mallet. Though in arena polo they use an inflatable leather ball."

She lowered her hand, shrugged.

Evelyn listened to what the game was about, not finding it very appealing at the moment. They had to ride horses to hit a ball around? Eh, didn't sound like much fun. She would rather play quidditch than that.

But hearing someone mention riding unicorns instead of the thestrals, she snorted and shook her head. "Yea I'd like to see you try and catch one of those." she mumbled, crossing her arms. "Plus I'd like to see the guys just try to ride them."

Bahaha! That would be funny to witness.

"Well because Mrs Lawson here had already planned her class on thestrals and I just thought it would be fun to combine the class and besides the thestrals don't need to fly."

Marcus looked around at the rest of the students and could see that they didn't look very thrilled with the idea of playing polo on the back of thestrals either.

"Okay, okay it's almost the end of term and it's a nice sunny day so I will can the polo idea. Instead we can have some fun racing on the thestrals and I can set up an obstacle course if you like." He looked expectantly at the students, too bad if they didn't like this idea because that's what they were going to do.

"For those who can't see the thestrals I suggest you ride with someone that can. I still want you all to wear the helmets that are provided in the boxes. I will place a cushioning charm on the grounds so it will be padded and won't hurt if you happen to fall off."

Marcus stood up from the box he had been sitting on so that the kids could get to the helmets. "Oh and one more thing, if I see any of you mistreating the thestrals or trying to push someone off or being stupid in anyway, you will lose points and find yourself in detention with me and believe me it won't be pretty. Any questions?"


ooc: Okay please bear with me, I will be on sporadically over the next few days. Mrs Lawson and Mr Masterton are still here so please don't hesitate to go to them if I am not around. Also there will be no homework so there is points up for participation in this part of the class.

Oh thank Merlin. Lawsguini was actually being really cool right now. Still though, racing on Thestrals? While that was so much better than actually playing a muggle sport, she couldn't help but ask something.

"Professor? Can we fly on them?" she said after raising her hand. They could race in the sky! Plus he said the ground would be padded and they had helmets so it would be safe right? It would be fun! And her...having fun in Muggle Studies class, is like a huge miracle.