"Nice!" Logan said. "So whatcha think about Hogwarts so far? It's pretty neat isn't it?" he said with a smile.

Alec grinned. "You know what we should do one day?" he said, "We should have a picnic. You bring your kitty lunchbox and i'll bring superman along!" As for Asher... he could come along if he had a cool lunchbox with him.

Alec let out a small snort of laughter. "So would i," he said, "I want to see the look on their faces when we win." Yes, fine, that was enough. But they were pretty good! You had to be a mega kite flier to beat them!

... To feed the ducks? What? "No, i mean flying kites," he said, smiling, "Imagine if others suddenly want to join in." They could start a competition. Or even a sport! It can go side by side with Quidditch.

Hogwarts, Darwin had decided, was THE most amazing place in the whole wide world.

Okay, second to the Abandoned Playground, but that wasn't here, that was all the way back in Croydon, around the corner from his house. Which was very far from here, if the train journey was anything to go on. He wasn't homesick, but the thought of it made the eleven year old think of his Mum, and how odd it was not seeing her everyday. He was used to missing his Dad as he was away all of the time, but this... was different.

Deciding that the best thing to do would be to not think about it, Darwin had taken it upon himself to go on an 'adventure' around the Castle. Starting with the grounds, he thought, and working his way up. His odd, jaunty step bounced him out of the Castle and down towards the Lake, until he spotted someone he thought he recognised in the distance.

Out of new habit, he clutched his wand in his pocket, as if he could have lost it, and waved to the older boy as he approached. "Nateeeee?! It is Nate, right?" he added as he reached him, suddenly concious that he might have gotten his name wrong.

Shoot.

Jen walked on over to the duck pound. She took her shoes and socks off and sat on the rocks. She put her feet in the water and looked around. "Sure is peaceful over here" she said outloud

Zayden just watched as she splashed around but he was thankful that the weather was warm because, if it wasn't, she could catch a cold if she was soaking wet with water! He cared deeply about her health. "I think some people are trying to enjoy the ducks, beautiful, so don't scare the poor little things away." He winked at her before pulling out his Star Wars book that he had been attempting to read. Even if he's seen ALL the movies about 100 times each, he was just now cracking open the novel. He was a little scared, though, because this was new written material for him and he never did good with reading new material.

"Party pooper? Amelia, the party comes to ME!" He didn't even know the word 'party pooper'. It was NOT in his vocabulary. After he casually rolled his eyes, he opened up his book from where he left off at (which had been page two) and slowly started trying to read.

Sooo many bigs words and his brain kept wanting to change some of the lets around. He hated when he mistook a 'b' for a 'd' or even a 'p' for a 'b'! It was all rather confusing in his head and that's why it took him minutes among minutes just to read one page.

"I think I'm --" OH NO! He saw her coming towards him when he had looked up for a brief second. Once he closed his book and sat it down, he used his hands to slowly push himself backwards and away from her.

Maaaaybe kicking wasn't that good an idea in hindsight, because now she was shivering a little even if it was still summer. Meh. "But ducks love me." She pouted as she thought that it wouldn't be fair for them to run away from her when all she wanted to do was love them and play with them. :3

"That makes no sense, Zayden. Parties don't come to you. They come to ME." And she did a little dance move in the water the best that she could seeing as she was up to her knees in a pond.

Note: The old Amelia would NEVER be knee-deep in pond scum. This was what happens when she dates Zayden for over two years.

She held her arms out in front of her as she advanced on him now. "I'm the pond monster, and I'm going to eat you. RWAR!"

Anya beamed. "That. Would be brilliant!" she exclaimed. "It will be JUST like the park back home!" Minus... the fact that they weren't anywhere near home.

She giggled. "Oh, we will." she said rolling over to get a look at him. "Now that we're in school together, we can practice and come up with new tricks all the time."

Or just hang out together. That was also a benefit.

She probably would be inside crying her eyes out had they not been both here at Hogwarts together. It was still incredible that they were BOTH magic.

She thought for a moment. "I guess it would depend. Do you think anyone here would be out to steal our secrets?" she asked. She didn't know if they were the only two Hogwarts students that enjoyed competitive kite flying.

"Definately!"Cardigan replied.She had no doubts that this place would be one of the best places she had been in her life.Mainly because she was away from her parents.You`d understand.But there are more important things to Hogwarts than being away from your parents.MUCH more.

Lana wasn't sure what Laura was doing, but she did know that she wasn't about to get herself into any kind of trouble the first few days they were there. She just got there and she didn't want to go home just yet. There was still so much to see and she fully intended to explore more.

"I don't think they are related. They don't look like each other much." she shrugged. "But if you want to ask you can by all means. Well, maybe they are like cousins or something?" Yes, it was possible, but she really didn't care all that much either way.

Looking at her sister, she shook her head and crossed her arms. "Laura, you can't just go around doing that. I backed away because like daddy and mummy told us, you have to know which battles to pick in life." She wasn't about to get in trouble for something like what she just saw. "You know I love the ducks but do you think the groundskeeper would allow them to be hurt in anyway?" She was pretty sure whomever this groundskeeper was, they were watching them and making sure that they didn't do anything bad. "Ducks bite and you know if they were being hurt, they would have fought back. They don't need us to protect them all the time."

Why was her sister being so strange?

Butterfly went and sat near the pond and relaxed feeling truely at peace in the area.

"Awesome!" Logan said. "Same here, it's real great!" he said smiling. It felt amazing to be at a place where there were people that liked you. Back at Logan's home or school, he was treated terribly...ugh...but now, he had a whole bunch of new friends. Cardigan, Sammy, Taylor, Jezz, Hannah, Aki and a ton more...he loved them all.

Zayden frowned when she noticed his girlfriend shivering from where he was sitting now. HOW was she cold when it was hot outside? Either the water was freezing or she was sick and he didn't know about it. "They love you if you break bread for them," he commented with a chuckle. "They're like me. I'm rather willing to casually go to people when they have food." He had a FOOD RADAR and wherever food was, he was.

"... and how does that make sense? Hmm?" He slowly shook his head when she did a little dance in the pond. Merlin, she could be so freakin' adorable at times! He had found such a perfect woman.

He stood up off the ground now and met one wet Amelia halfway. "You look like you're cold, Miss Pond Monster." Slowly, he unbuttoned his shirt and handed it to her. It was a dry nice shirt that would surely keep her warm until she dried. "Put that on until the sun warms you up." He smiled at her before picking up his book, which he hoped wasn't wet from where Amelia was dripping water.

The mad dash for the dismembered chocolate frog was over rather quickly, and Nate was easily bored, being as he was. He turned around, looking for any sign of life. Besides ducks, of course. "Nobody? Really? That's odd..." he said, shaking his head. The grounds usually held more students than the castle did, unless everyone was in the hospital wing, which Nate doubted because he hadn't done anything. Yet.

Back to watching the ducks try to eat flowers. It was rather serene out in this new part of the grounds, farther from the castle than most other parts like the lake and the swimming pond. No wonder nobody else had found it. But then there was a voice. And it called his name. Certain of his own moderate sanity, Nate spun at the sound, expecting to see somebody else finally there. The voice had sounded young, and unsure almost. Must be a first year, he thought, squinting his eyes to try to recognize the silhouette. "Yup, that's me! And you are? Sorry, it's just that I can't see you from here, sun and all," he greeted bluntly. How nice and polite it was to make it seem like you have no idea who somebody is...

As the shadow approached, however, Nate could make out the face. "Ah, Damon, nice to see you again!" His eyes darted to the boy's hand, which seemed to be gripping at a wand, and then back to his face. Did I really look that small last year? he wondered, pulling out his own wand casually. "If you want to duel, I'm capable..." Nate hinted, nodding towards Damon's poised hand.

Jen looked up and noticed Logan.
"Hey Logan. How are your classes going?:

"They love it when I dance for them." Besides where the heck would she get bread right now? o_O It didn't grow on trees or sprout from the ground. BLEH. Next time she'd remember to bring some with her. And a towel. A towel would be nice.

She did another little dance move, knowing that he was loving this. "It makes all the sense in the world, Zaydehpooooh." She winked at him now, using a name that he hated.

ZOMG!!! SHIRTLESSNESS.

When instead of running away from her, he handed her a shirt she went mellow faced. That wasn't the plan! The plan had been to attack and eat him. Shirt safely on her, she watched him start reading again, and pounced.

"RWAAAAAAR!"

Zayden furrowed his blonde eyebrows now at his tall blonde haired beauty. "Amelia, darling, you just make the water wave-y when you dance IN THE POND for them. It scares them, dear." No matter how much she wanted to believe the ducks loved her dancing, in reality, the ducks were scared of it. It was like a moving tiger in a Forrest that scared everything in viewing distance. Amelia was the tiger and the ducks were the poor little animals that got scared by the sudden movement.

"Amelia, why don't you get out of there before you give the poor little ducklings a heart attack?" He shook his head slowly at his girlfriend. No matter how much he loved her, she could still be crazy! "Zadeypooh?" Um, no. "It doesn't make sense because I'm the party person, especially birthday parties." He just looooooved getting presents and eating CUPCAKES! His mum made the best cupcakes for his birthday (which is on January 1st in case anybody wanted to make him any).

O______________________________O

He got POUNCED on!

"I'm wet now with pond water."

Meh. Luckily, he had brought a clean Slytherin robe to have in case of an emergency. This was an emergency.

"Baby, I need to dry off now." He gave her a kiss on her cheek before he began digging in his messenger bag for a dry robe to put on. Unlike her, he didn't want to end up shivering and having to sunbathe out under the sun until he got dry. GUYS did not sunbathe so, no, he would not be doing that.

Aaand there it was again. "Yes, but I don't really do stuff like that anymore," she replied with a smile. Especially after the detention that followed… Yikes. She watched as he bowed. That was odd (to her anyway)… "I'm Sky, a second year." Yep, no need to add the Slytherin part, since he knew about the stinkbombing.

Amelia shivered again then sneezed. She was glad to be out of the water now. "I don't scare them." She didn't want to believe that she scared the ducks, because they were supposed to be her friends. Friends didn't run away from friends unless they were mean.

"I'm still cold, Zayden." She sneezed again, managing to do it away from him so that he didn't get hit. "Zayden... I love parties. And we have the SAME birthday." Like hello.

She kissed him back but pouted as he moved away from her in order to get in his bag. "Zayden. We can warm each other up. With hugs!

Zhenya walked carefully down to the duck pond with a few pieces of bread. She took a seat on the ledge and put her feet in the water. It was cool but lovely. A few little ducks came up to her, and she held out her hand with the bread in it, which they gobbled up. They were so sweet, and she smiled at them.

Too bad they can't bring none Hufflepuff into their common room. Hmph.

"No, I haven't." Messer shook his head. He really want to visit it but he's not looking forward to meet the house elves. "Really?" Okay that's really tempting, maybe he could go there when the elves weren't at the kitchen, they not always wonder off around the kitchen aren't they? "Have you ever visit the kitchen?" And did you see any house elves?

"Yes. I have." he nodded his head. "By the way Ellie, what position do you play?" All he know that Ellie plays Quidditch and she's the Ravenclaw capytain.

DUCKS?!

Hogwarts had ducks too?! Cornelius, wide-eyed and grinning, walked down towards the duck pond with obvious amazement in his features. It would seem as though the Hogwarts grounds never ended, and instead just continued on and on, showing off new and impressive attractions; in this case...a duck pond! He had just settled down at the edge of it, leaning back onto his palms and watching the ducks float around the water, when he saw bread crumbs. Just as he was wishing he had brought something to feed them with, he suddenly found bread crumbs in his line of vision! The odds! Someone was throwing bread crumbs for the ducks!

As he looked over to his side, he saw a student around his age throwing in...muffin crumbs! "Got any to spare?" Cornelius asked with a friendly grin.

Taylor was walking along the duck pond when she saw a girl about her age.... a slytherin but slytherins are nice. "Hey." sHe waved at the girl.

Due to the mutterings around the common room, Matt had been rather curious as to the idea if there was actually a duck pond on the grounds; he certainly hoped it wasn't mere rumors since that would have been cool if there was one. After seemingly wandering the grounds for about ten minutes, he finally stumbled upon the pond and couldn't help but just watch the ducks swim around; now that would have made a perfect sketch.. too bad that he hadn't had brought his sketch book up from the dorm but there was always another time. Dude.. you could try to sketch from memory again.. like you did for the Great Hall on the train and over the summer. Hmm that wasn't exactly a bad idea, but the question remained if there was going to be anything that made him forget the scene in front of his blue eyes; regardless of that thought.. he took a couple of mental photographs and proceeding to walk a bit closer to the water.

That was fine. Messer had all year to visit the kitchens. No rush, really.

Ellie nodded, "Yeah. You can give special orders to the House Elves and they run off and make it for you." It was pretty neat. Handy, those Elves were.

"Good," she grinned, "Here's to hoping you'll make it." She sincerely meant that. She felt Messer would have a good chance. And she wanted him as competition. "Seeker's my favorite." And so that was what she played.

It was....cute. August didn't really use that word to describe things very often but it was exactly what it was that Tayrn wanted to do something that she knew was silly for her best friend. That was a best friend.

"Hmm, those seem like ok places." He made a mental list and decided to ask a guy, maybe Gideon, where to the best place to take a girl in Hogsmeade would be.

"Taryn, you want to go ahead up to the Owlery, and stop by Gryffindor tower now?" It was getting close to dinner soon, and they didn't even have anything to feed the ducks at the moment.