Freya made her way up to the Observatory in the Astronomy Tower. She wondered how many constellation she could find tonight. She really loved star gazing and she was more than eager to do this Astronomy assignment. The weather was kinda cool so she pulled her robes around her tighter. Freya looked around to find a perfect spot for her star gazing activity. After she found one, she put down her bag on the ground and made her way yo retrieve her now cleaned telescope. She set up the telescope not so far away from where she laid her bag. Finally after she finished setting up the telescope, she took out some parchment and a quill from her bag.

Let's the stargazing begin!

Sticking her eye to the telescope she surveyed the night sky. First, she pointed her telescope to north and she could easily spotted the Big Dipper (Ursa Major). The blonde haired Slytherin girl gazed the Big Dipper for another few minutes before she took her parchment and quill to make some notes.

Samira looked up at the stars through her newly cleaned telescope, ready to discover some new constellations to write in her journal. "Ooh!" Samira got very excited as she spotted a desired constellation- Cassiopeia. Whipping out her favorite green quill, she started to write.

Quote:

Journal entry #2
Samira Spinks
First Year
March 21, 2011

Tonight i saw Cassiopeia. It looked kind of like a zigzag or a W. Cassiopeia is a constellation in the northern sky. In the sky Cassiopeia sits with Andromeda on the South side, Perseus on the South East and Cepheus to the North. She is opposite the Big Dipper, and can be seen the clearest in early November.

Satisfied with her entry, Samira was content to just sit back and gaze at the beautiful night sky.

"How cool is that!" Patroclus laughed gesturing to the story of the Fox and the Goose! "It seems that we are not the only hungry ones!" He smiled as he lifted out of the basket, a water cracker and cut some cheese and placed it on top, "Yum!"

Listening to Sophie's question, he waited till he had swallowed and then replied, "Maybe, considering it is a very rare constellation, she maybe quite impressed by our skills!" nodded with a grin.

"What would be super cool would be if we made up our Own Constellation!" He bounced on his knees, "We should find a few more real ones, and then try and look for a section of stars that are un-charted!" It was probably a hard task, but once they had completed the required assignment, looking for a unique star system would be fun!

"Your turn!"

Sure. Living at the time would be completely different from the life they were experiencing now. First of all they would not have been sitting here, well, maybe star gazing again but not sitting in a tower of a huge castle. Castles were medieval stuff, were not they? Ancient times had palaces as far as he was concerned. However he doubted they would be sitting in a palace either unless they were the king and the queen. Hehe. The thought of that was not bad. The king and the queen. However instead of sitting in a throne, Josh preferred to wander around and get some of those adventures so possibly he would not be a king. ''And i think it would be cool. Having all those gods and goddesses stuff and legendary stuff and whatever. I think we could live through it well....together'' he smiled as the image of himself and Evelyn trying to fight against one of those mythical beasts came to his mind in a sudden.

And he was going to mention this to the girl when she asked that question. What if they had become muggles at that time? Well...there was nothing wrong with being a muggle. She did not say there was something wrong with it but her words had sounded like it was something to worry about. ''I'm sure it'd be fine. We wouldn't know how wizarding life is anyway if we were muggles so we should have had no trouble with it.'' Plus his father seemed to be happy with his life though he, now, knew about the wizarding life. Eh. This was probably not a good topic to discuss with a pureblood witch raised by a wealthy pureblood family. So he was happy when they were talking about Hercules again though it was too much Hercules.

''Yes'' so he said agreeing to the first part she stated about the hero but the other part...hmmm...''Maybe he had a fan club. Sure. It's still unfair, though. He cannot have all the ladies! All ladies should not be loving him!'' he laughed and glanced at the sky again for a moment before turning back to her ''If he lived right now, would you love him? Hmm?'' All ladies included her, too. And Josh was sure she happened to love him, too he would surely complete the thirteenth and hardest task which was beating the Hercules himself. Oh, yes he would do that.

*ehem*

Back to the star gazing. Just like Evelyn did, he needed to gaze at some new point too so he started to look up at the right side this time. Yes, there were many stars as expected! Hehehe. Wait! He was looking for the Serpent. Serpent. Snake. Hiss. What kind of a snake was Evelyn? He had no idea how this question had appeared in his mind yet it was something he had started to wonder now, so he was just about to ask it when Evelyn said the Evelyn-Rose Constellation should have been Joshua Carter Constellation. *smirk* ''No. No. No. I have not completed twelve quests yet'' he said with a light laughter then he fell silent at her next sentence. Huh? Wow! It was not like always he got a compliment from her. That was a compliment right? Saying it was the brightest so he'd be the brightest, right? ''Thank you. But i think, then, it should be OUR star. I have no idea what the name should be though. Hmmm...'' As he was thinking of a new name for their star, Josh continued to stare at the sky and fortunately his eyes spotted a very familiar constellation : The Great Bear! ''Rose, i found one'' he said happily and took his quill to note it.

Oh, by the way, could the she-snake borrow his book? OF COURSE! Picking up the textbook, Josh placed it next to her. ''All yours''

Nika walked up to the Astronomy tower. She was having a hard time keeping her eyes from closing and her body had to be forced to move. She dragged her feet up the stairs and walked into the room at a very slow pace. When she got there she found somewhere to sit and quickly looked through her telescope. Tonight is not her night. She slapped her notebook on the table and jotted down something in there. She put down her permission slip next to her things. And started to scrible lightly.



Nika shut her notebook close without a second glance at her entry. It did sound very lazy and her label was very pathetic. Nika wasn't worried so much about what she wrote because she was more worried about how she wrote it. Hopefully her professor could make out the tiny chicken scratch handwriting. Nika collected her things and made her way back down the stairs in the same manor as she came up them. All she wants now is sleep.

Caroline giggled and stuck out her tongue. hehee She found it first. She was just picking around about finding it. She looked again for a constellation. When Helena said that she found another one. Wow she could work fast. She stopped to watch her write in her notebook.

She went back to work on her quest to find constellations. She had one down and four more to go. She looked there for a minute she was sure she seen a UFO or maybe it was a shooting star. She liked the UFO theory better. She looked some more. Oh theres Orion. Thank merlin, She wasn't looking over far enough.



"I found Orion." she said pulling her notebook over and flipping the pages of Helena's book. She looked up for a moment to speak to her."Yor wasn't looking for Orion too, were you?" she picked and giggled. She was having way to much fun for assignment. She wrote in her notebook.

Helena grinned when Caroline asked her about Orion. "No, I wasn't looking for that one." But she was still looking for Scorpius. That one seemed to run away from Helena, or something like that. Hmph.

The girl scanned again the sky, but she couldn't find anything for quite a few minutes. It was slightly getting late and she was tired. But she'll stay up for as long as it takes to look for the fifth constellation.

And there it was! A small, tiny cross. That was definitely Crux. "I found Crux," she said happily, then noted this one down as well.



"So... that would be my fifth constellation." Soooo her assignment was done. "But I think I'll stay a little bit more to look for Scorpius." Yes, she's going to stay there alllll night if needed.

It was dark, up here. No illumination, except for the soft sprinkling of starlight - faint but sure - that streamed inside. Jared, easily climbing up the last flight of stairs and slipping into the observatory, found it a relief that the place had no students inside. He could do with some peace and quiet.

The universe seemed like a black sheet, punctuated by tiny pricks of light. Leaning against the edge of the parapet, his back to the view, Jared stood there, his manner a tad detached, a tad lazy.

As she'd peeked out of her office after the students should have been all inside their common rooms, if not even asleep in their dormitories, Renée thought she saw movement down the corridor near the Astronomy tower. Unsure if it was a student out after curfew or someone doing something nefarious, especially given everything that had happened over the course of the term, she found herself stepping out into the corridor before she even really considered how dangerous it could be. Besides, she was hoping it was just a student or two restless with the end of term coming up full speed.

Heading down the corridor, she paused for a moment as she heard a noise behind her, only to turn back and see Bowie padding along, apparently having slipped out behind her before she'd shut her office door. Sighing, she scooped him up and thought about turning around to deposit him back inside her office, but instead gave up. The pleading cruppy eyes were too convincing, and she still figured it was just innocent movement. Continuing on her original pathway, she shifted the puppy to one arm as she opened the door to the observatory quietly and crept up. Obviously whoever she'd seen must have gone up there, and she didn't blame them. A bemused grin blossomed on her face as she saw who was up there, though. Definitely not a student out past curfew, and also only dangerous if she let them. "You really shouldn't go skulking around the towers after curfew, you know?," she said just above a whisper, teasing tone still there as she stopped just inside the door and set Bowie down again. He wouldn't get too far from her up here.

Rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, Emily persevered. It was getting late again, but she was almost done... almost complete... she just..... needed.... to....
WAKE UP!, yelled her subconscious.
...She just needed to finish off her last recordings.

Standing up and closing the distance to her telescope she began to search the night sky for yet another constellation. Her concentration was breifly disrupted by the arrival of Professor Descoteux and Professor Bishop... interesting.
CONSTELLATIONS! yelled the voice in her head again...

"Ursa Major", she said returning to her seat after identifying the group of stars. After flicking through her text book Emily grabbed her quill and perched her notebook on her lap.



If Emily was going to be completely honest with herself, she didn't think that Ursa Major made a very good bear... perhaps a stick insect would have been more appropriate.

One more... though Emily as she looked at the half page of her notebook/journal remaining.

Returning her attention to the night sky and her telescope Emily thought about returning to bed.... yes bed... in her nice warm dormitory...
But alas she knew she was almost done, and that way she wouldn't have to come back up here for some time.

Looking through the lense of the very nicely cleaned telescope- she had done a good job- she looked for Cassiopeia. Ajusting the bearings on her telescope she tried again.

"Cassiopeia", she murmered to herself- yawning as she did so.



Emily closed her notebook. Finally content with the work she had done. She then proceeded to pack up her things and went to put her telescope away.

After Freya was finished taking a note, she back to her telescope. She put her eye to the telescope for the second time that night.

The sky was quite clear tonight so she was sure it won't be long till she found another constellations. Her telescope was still pointing to the Big Dipper then she remembered how to locate Leo easily, slowly she used the stars of it’s bowl and look downward toward the horizon and there find the bright star, Regulus. Regulus is the the heart of Leo the Lion. She drew a few lines of stars with her finger until she got Leo.

Jared heard the footsteps before he saw her, even recognized them a second or two before she entered the observatory, Renée's footsteps having a certain light quality that he had come to know, by now. It seemed she had brought the adorable Bowie along again or, what he knew of the little crup's nature considered, the adorable Bowie had brought her along again. Speaking of Bowie, it seemed the crup remembered him, because he bounded, or at least semi-bounded up to Jared, eyes all hopeful.

"At least I skulk in style," he drawled, her remark causing the corners of his lips to lift up in a grin. He straightened up, then looked down at the expectant-looking crup. "Hey there, little critter. You like breaking the rules too, do you?" The little critter in question being out after curfew and all.

Ellie wandered her way from the Common Room to the observatory where she said she would meet Chandler. Chanchan. Chan-the-Man. French boy. Fench. Fence. Yep, good ol' Chandler. Today was her first French lesson! And she was stoked. Pff, she'd be a fluent Frencher in no time.

So, she made her way to the lookout deck and looked across the grounds of Hogwarts. She saw little tiny dots of people playing around the lake, the Whomping Willow was twitching in the wind. And she waited.

Samira walked up to the Astronomy tower for the third time that week. It was getting a bit tiring, but it was worth the extra credit points and being able to look at the beautiful stars.


Samira shut her journal and leaned back in her chair, closing her eyes.

It hadn't even occurred to Renée that Jared might have heard her coming, but then, he hadn't seemed surprised to see her once she had. Of course, it wasn't like she'd exactly snuck up behind him either. It seemed she wouldn't have been able to sneak up to him anyway, seeing as apparently her cruppy had decided he was good people. A wry grin crept onto her face as she watched Bowie bounding over to skid to a stop near his feet, but then she glanced up at him. "Okay, I can't deny that," she replied with a quiet laugh. Just because they appeared to be alone didn't mean they couldn't be overheard, and with all the gossip around, she'd rather keep under the radar.

It was hard to manage when he looked down to speak to Bowie, still sitting semi-patiently at his feet. She could tell the little cruppy wanted to continue bouncing, anything to get attention, just as she could tell the invisible tail was wagging manically as he was spoken to. "Never leave a door open too long, or he'll wiggle through," she said idly, answering the question. "You know he's going to expect at least a pet now, right?," she continued, stepping forward a little, further into the observatory.

Yawwnnn. Finlay's idea of homework didn't really happen at night. Mainly because Finlay liked his sleep, but Marie had asked him to come do this Astronomy thing with her, so here he was, wandering up from the common room to come find her. Finlay really wasn't that good at Astronomy. Yeah, he scrapped by, but he wasn't too good at it. Maybe Marie would be better than he was, and be able to help him.
When he got to the obervatory he glanced around, and when he couldn't see her, he went and found a empty spot, placing his telescope out, and sat down next to it. He did have to admit to himself that he was kind of looking forward to this. He did like looking at the stars, even if he didn't really get them. Pulling out a piece of parchment he began to write the date on it as he waited for Marie to arrive.

Nika walked up to the tower no less tired than the previous day. All of this school work and to top it off she had to come up to the Astronomy tower late at night to find constellations. Nika was starting to get the feeling that Astronomy would be a lot more work than she thought. Nika carried her notebook and telescope to a near by table and she grabbed a chair as well. "Eh" Nika saw Samira, but she didn't even feel like talking. All she wanted was a goodnights sleep. Nika took her telescope and looked through it indolently. She really wanted to pass out just about now. Nika looked through the skies praying that she could find a constellation and get this assignment over with. "Eh" What Nika meant to say was something along the lines of, "Oh I found one." But her sleepiness had started to take over her mind.



And with that she was off to bed to get some needed sleep.

Caroline giggled. She didn't want to copy anything that she had. "Okay good I didn't want to steal any of the ones you have" She went back to work looking for her third constellation. How was it that Helena was done?

Oh yeah She actually started her's before she came to get her. She sighed. It had been about ten minutes and she still couldn't connect any of the stars to a constellartion.

"Oh, it's between Libra and Sagittarius." She told her matter of factly. She hoped that gave her an idea of where to look. She read that fact off of her notes that's the only reason why she knew where Scorpius was. She had an idea of where to find another constellation. She looked back at Scorpius Sagittarius? Sagittarius? Ah there it was Sagittarius.

"I found Sagittarius." She checked her book. That was Sagittarius. She grabbed her notebook and added The acher to her list of constellations. She was half way done. Just two more to go.

Spotting Leo constellation wasn't really hard as Freya thought it'd be, she hardly missed it because of it brightest star, Regulus. The night getting late and she only spotted two constellation? Ugh!

The blonde haired Slytherin back to her telescope hoping she'd find another constellation. She already got the Big Dipper and Leo, so now she determine to find Bootes, the Kite. She followed the handle of the Big Dipper across the sky until she saw another bright star. There she found Arcturus, the fourth brightest star in the night sky. She draw few stars line from Arcturus until she got what she looking for, Bootes.



Okay, now she already got Bog Dipper, Leo, and Bootes. So the next easily spotted constellation was Virgo. She put her quill down and made her way back to her telescope. Sticking her eye back to the telescope she surveyed the night sky for the third times that night.

To find virgo, the first things she has to do is to find Spica first. Spica was the brightest star in Virgo constellation. To find it, she followed the curve of Big Dipper to Arcturus in Bootes and continuing from there in the same curve. "Ah there you're Spica." she mumbled to herself. After she found Spica, she located the Maiden’s hand and her head is toward Leo. "And now I got the Virgo." she grinned.

... steal? Naaaah. "That's not called stealing," Helena said, a grin spreading over her face. Not even close to stealing. You could steal many things, but definitely not a constellation. Heh.

Between Libra and Sagittarius. Got it. "Thanks," the girl said with a slight nod. But... maybe she had been close. The day before when she found Aquarius and Pisces. So she tried to look again for THOSE two. Maybe it would help her find that stubborn Scorpius. "I think it's running away from me," Helena muttered, pouting. She turned back to her telescope and began to scan the sky.

Again and again.

... and again.

His previous remark had been semi-teasing, a response to the impishness in her tones really, and Jared could not help but smile at her answer. "I'll hope that's a good thing," he said, the faint smile still lurking around his lips. It seemed both of them had unconsciously lowered their voices, at least a notch. There was something about quiet corners and classrooms in Hogwarts that made one do that. Bowie, however, seemed either oblivious or currently indifferent to this, eyes still full of that half expectant, half fun-seeking look.

"I can imagine," he said, grinning at her comment. The crup's actions foretold as much. "It would seem," he said, looking down at Bowie as Renée took another step inside. "He believes being admired is his natural right." Then again, given the crup's behaviour, Jared didn't find it hard to believe that most people took a near-instant liking to Bowie. Renée had been right about the crup expecting at least a pet, if the said crup's gaze was any indication. He bent down, one knee on the ground, grinning at how ready the crup seemed to be to jump right into his lap as he petted it. There was a shimmer of movement then, just the slightest, almost imperceptible, the kind of movement that would have gone unnoticed if he hadn't studied charms as closely and in as much detail as he had, and Jared frowned, more at the memory of a certain look Renée had given her crup when they had discussed a certain charm, than anything else. Then he looked up at her, holding her gaze, half-surprised, half-amused.

"I suppose I should have expected this from you?" It wasn't a question, though; it was a statement.

Renée couldn't help but pick up on the fact that Jared had continued the teasing aspect of the conversation, and there was enough light that she could see the smile playing on his face. Both of which seemed to be why she kept enjoying running into him in random spots around the castle, and this seemed to be yet another instance. The way they seemed to be able to relax around each other, even when they were trying to keep quiet. "It should be," she replied, still impishly. It was a challenge, keeping her tones low and still conveying that quality, but she knew he knew it was there. And the attention on her cruppy helped, as she could simply wander the observatory while she listened to him continue to speak.

"That's one way of looking at it," she said with a wry smile, running her fingers along the stones before turning back to man and crup. "It certainly sounds better than saying he's spoiled." She didn't feel guilty for that, though. Bowie was still a baby, so he deserved a bit of spoiling. Watching Jared kneel to appease the puppy was amusing, though, and she found herself watching them for a moment before another thought had occurred. Charms professor, and technically illegal cruppy . . . Taking a breath, she went back to her idle wandering simply to calm herself down, reminding herself that she trusted Jared before she heard him speak yet again and turned back. Dark eyes locking on his green ones, she feigned a shrug. "Expected what?," she asked, knowing exactly what he was referring to but wanting to play things out a little to see if her trust was warranted.

It certainly hadn't really been tested before now, but then this would be the first real secret he'd become privy to. Her ability didn't really count.

Astro assignment # 4

Following Sophie took a sandwich from Patroclus the basket her friend had brought which had chicken in it. "Yummy, I guess not." Munching on her sandwich since she was actually quite hungry the brunette sat down on the floor next to her friend. As Patroclus commented on what he thought about getting extra points for finding a faint constellation. Shrugging her shoulder's Sophie said "We'll see. It's up to her to decide. It's pretty cool that she could just step in and teach an astronomy class like that. Think there are other professor's here that can tech more than one subject?"

Finishing her sandwich Sophie too bounded to her feet to return to her telescope. Smiling wide she agreed "Finding our own constellation would be so cool but let's focus on the ones who astronomers know about first." Sticking her eye to the lens Sophie moved her telescope from the left to the right until she spotted a constellation with a distincitve double v form.

Searching in her textbook for a moment she matched what she saw to a constellation. Beaming she called out "Patroclus come and see i've found Cassiopeia."

Waiting for him to take a look she asked "Wasn't Cassiopeia a queen in greek mythology?"

Her response resulted in a grin and a bit of a nod. Jared supposed that could be counted as fine, at least in this case. Remarks of that sort - he had learned, for the first time, since arriving at Hogwarts - could make him uneasy, depending upon the person that made them. It seemed she had taken to exploring the observatory and, his own attention being divided between her and the crup, that was fine.

"Is he spoiled?" His lips quirked into a smile at her statement. Renée didn't seem the pet-spoiling type though, with a pet as adorable as Bowie, one could never say. Speaking of pets... "Would it interest you to know Ellie has forced me to -" Keep? No, not keep. Keep didn't express half of it. "- adopt a kitten?" Not that he could have gotten rid of that kitten anyway, at least not without resorting to magic. It [her, he reminded herself. He needed to stop referring to the feline as an it] seemed to have made following him around, the sole purpose of its [her] life.

Her feigned incomprehension wasn't exactly hard to see through. The crup, oblivious to the situation, continued to wag its tail. Jared looked down at Bowie, for a moment. "This," he said, a bit of amusement still lingering in his eyes. The fact that the whole thing didn't adhere to the rules and regulations in place didn't bother him. He hadn't always stuck to the right side of the law, after all. But that Renée had done it, did surprise him. Though, now that he thought of it, it seemed like the kind of thing she'd do.

It was getting late and Freya little bit hungry, she took a sandwich from her bag which she brought with her. "Thank Merlin I decided to bring this." if not she must be starving right now. She ate the ate slowly. After finished eating, she went back to her telescope.

Her telescope was still pointed to Virgo. She moved it a little bit further from Virgo, she thought she found Hercules. "Oh better check it first." she grabbed her Astronomy book and found what she looking for, Hercules and its the same shape of constellation which she found before. "I guess I found Hercules then." she smiled.



Well, now she already found Hercules, she could found Draco more easily. She remembered her father said to her that the easiest way to find Draco is by finding his head. She moved her telescope north from where she found Hercules. She spotted Draco's head, it consists of four stars in a trapezoid, burning brightly. From there, she found the tail slithers through the sky, ending between the Big and Little Dippers. The end of the constellation is held by Thuban. "And there's Draco." she smiled while her eye still sticking to the telescope.