What was HE doing??

Isidora eyed him speculatively, then followed his gaze to a girl who... looked to be having issues with this project. The prefects and captains really should have put out instructions of some kind. For students who didn't know how to build a kite - especially not muggle style - or care to learn, and just wanted to fly.

Or just, you know, given them kites to fly.

"Yeah?" She grinned. Birthdays were the best. "Happy belated birthday! When was it?" For future references.

She nodded her head, giving her shades a push back up into her hair with one finger. "You draw. I'll build once you get that done." This plan was so good!

The third year smiled at her friend reassuringly. "SuperGlue is easy to work with, Blue, just stay calm. Mmkay??" Alice held the girl's hands in place as she said a spell. "Aguamenti." Warm water should take care of the glue; the lioness just hoped the water was warm enough. Quite soon, though, Blue's tiny hands un-stuck themselves and the third year dried them on a piece of fabric. "You good, Blue?" 'Cause there was no need to hate the glue. The glue was awesome. Yepyep.

With that, Alice turned back to her sticks and started cutting and pasting little squares of green and lime and magenta onto the blue fabric of her kite, and then added some coloured streamers on the end. She was trying to fashion in to kind of resemble a stain-glass window, but her attempt failed, so she turned it into a turtle kite. She kind of liked turtles.

They were awesometastical.

He gave Mr.Merdog a big smile when the Groundskeeper thanked him. This was the first time he didn't correct Oakey, so perhaps Merdog was his true name. He looked at Merdog's kite and was surprised at how skilled he was with kite making. Oakey was able to make a simple diamond shaped kite. At least he was showing off house pride with it.

Then his favorite guy in all of Hogwarts accused him of copying! Oakey looked again at Merdog's Duck Kite then down at his yellow kite and back at Merdog's. I don't see how I could? Our kites look nothing alike. He peeked down at the crumbled kite he previously worked on. That one did have some brown on it so maybe that's what he meant. Oooooh you mean that one? the Hufflepuff pointed his finger down at the reject kite. I tossed that one because some jerk left a half empty bottle on the table and the rest of the glue spilled all over it.

Oh? Thank You Professor Romanos He picked up the glue bottle she set down and proceeded to complete his kite by gluing the sticks onto the back of it.

SIIIGH.

'Course he'd wanna know about the whole hand thing. She raised them up, so that he could see properly, gave them and obviously tug to show that they were stuck together, jerked her head to the super glue and shrugged at her bestie.

Not her biggest Ravenclaw moment.

Darn that super gluuuuuue.



She couldn't allow herself to be too sad. Eve wouldn't allow want her to be so sad. And it wasn't like she'd have no one after Eve left. ...Just no sister. Sigh. She perked up a bit and smiled though it wasn't the same as a BEAM. "'Course we will! Sisters for life." She corrected, with a bigger smile playing at her lips. "I'd like a brother...they sound coooool!" Yush they did. "...even if they're a bit mean." They still sounded awesome.

Yup.

Blue sighed and dropped her hands and wrinkled her nose. Twas so annoying. She glanced at Alice, hoping her look was begging her to ya know...free her? Pah. Stupid super glue. Grrr.

The eleven-year-old thought for a moment before deciding, "Not ALL of them are totally gross. Like, 98 percent are yucky but the other two percent are like...80 percent gross." Lotta maths there. 'Cause she had to make up for gluing her hands together.



Blue perked up immediately and BEAMed. "I promise my most EXCELLENT promise not to tell ANYONE. I won't even tell Theoooo." That was something. She was about to hold out her pinky till she remembered. For Merlin's Sake. *narrowed eyes*



WATER.

EXCELLENT IDEAAA.

Blue BEAMed a huge BEAM at Alice and pulled her hands away from eachother and when she found she could she grinned and flexed her fingers. "Thanks, fellow world dominatorrrrr." YUSH. ...No more super glue for her. She hugged Alice ('cause she could now) and gave Ella and West a thumbs up.

Because her hands weren't stuck together any more.



YAAAAAAY.

There was a moment where Stella had actually wondered if Vickers was laughing at her. As in, that he thought her surprised question was ridiculous enough to deserve laughter, but then as he'd gone on to simply verify that the book in fact did help one learn how to construct kites of all skill levels, she decided it hadn't been cruel laughter. Possibly she'd just surprised him as well with the question in the first place, and she found herself craning her neck again to get a look at the book before she realized he'd continued speaking. Not only that, but he'd actually expressed sympathy for her, and she looked at him with another slight shrug. "Exactly. I should have expected it to be stressful, too, since I helped Matt study for his last term," she replied, most likely explaining a bit more than she really had needed to, but she could always blame that on study stress later on. "Well, I'll try to relax it. Between the exams and just regular classes and such it's a bit difficult getting my brain to really relax, but I'm certainly hoping fresh air helps. At least." It was Hogwarts, after all. Even when academics weren't going on, there were always distractions.

The kite idea didn't seem to qualify as the dangerous kind, though. Except for possibly that station for the kite-propelled sledding, but she didn't have to try that if she didn't want to. She had to make a kite first either way, and she'd followed Vickers' gaze as he'd spoken about Spike doing a demonstration. That looked simple, but part of herself wanted to know she actually created a kite on her own. Like it would prove that somewhere inside her there was a bit of her mother and all her artistic qualities weren't just theater-related, and she'd smiled as he'd offered to let her look at the book as well. Even showing her the pattern he wanted to follow, and she took the moment of distraction as he'd looked away to quickly flip through a few pages to look at some of the other ideas. There were a couple she thought she could manage, with the supplies she'd collected and maybe a bit of simple charms with her wand.

She'd managed to get back to the pages her fellow Claw had been using before he'd glanced back to start working on his own kite again, however. Maybe she could use the glimpses she'd gotten and create something on her own, and she started looking over the supports she'd brought over. Hmm, she thought, experimenting with a few different configurations, wondering if she could curve the wood. A kite needed to be aerodynamic, though, and finally she went with a semi-traditional kite structure, taking her wand out to cast a stickigncharm where the supports crossed one another and then strengthening those spots with a bit of the string she'd brought along. She'd looked up again as she heard another question, in any case, and nodded. "I have. Not lately, though," she replied, taking a moment to test the sturdiness of her frame before worrying about adding the fabric. Maybe she'd have to keep her kite for later, if she had free time over the summer.

Just after showing off her finished kite, she noticed one of the prefects were giving a demonstration. Well, goodness, that would have been helpful if she noticed earlier. No matter. She was certain her kite would get up in the air anyhow.

If she knew how to fly one that is...

Hearing her name being called, Medea looked around to find the source. Oh, Ella. Standing up, she took her kite with her and headed over to the young Hufflepuff and her friend. She leaned down next to the pair with a warm smile.

"Vot can I help vith?" she asked. Hopefully it wasn't too kite related.

As Chelle stepped out into the Hogwarts Grounds, she was caught by surprise when she saw a long table in front of her. There was... a LOT of stuff on it. She went over to examine the stuff. There were lots of colourful fabrics, and papers, and... spools and spools of thread. There was stuff that she had never seen before, and stuff that intrigued her.

What on earth is this?

She spotted the Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor, and a bunch of other kids. Should she go and ask her what this was all about? Or should she just wait in the corner and spy on them for a while till she figured it out on her own.

"Maybe the sticks do make then heavier but the tail will help balance it out,'' Jory said unrolling some yellow string. He tied a good length to the base of the kite.

"That's creative,'' he said as he watched Janice stick a badger on. "I'm going to copy you and do something Huffie too,'' he added. He took some black and yellow paper and cut half of each so that when they were put together they formed a shield. Like the Hogwarts crest. Then, the Puff stuck the two pieces on using glue.

"There! Two Huffie kites.''

Now, the string tying jogged something in Jory's head. "I just remembered something. First, you tie the string to the top left, right and center and then join then where the sticks meet.'' It was a good thing he remembered or else he would probably have not even gotten the kite more than a few feet off the ground.

Kites?
Daisy grinned, looking at the people and the tables of stuff. More pointless, amazingly fun stuff that'd had already been organised by Hogwarts. There couldn't be a better school if it tried. Grinning and running over to the tables, she grabbed a bit of everything. And more than a couple of sweets, slipping a couple into her mouth as she dumped the stuff on the floor and sat to start making her kite, in the Hufflepuff colours. Sure, it might not fly, but even if it didn't, it would look pretty awesome, she thought, beaming.
'Can anyone help me make this thing actually fly?' She looked up hopefully.

Chelle turned as another Hufflepuff girl walked up beside her. She seemed pretty happy with the stuff- grinning and all. That meant she actually knew what it all was for. So Chelle decided to talk to her. "These things fly? What are they?" she asked, walking up to the girl.

Ella smiled at Blue, glad that she didn't seem too upset about Evelyn anymore. She totally believed that the older girl would keep in touch with Blue, too. Eve just seemed like the kind of person to keep her promises.

The second year felt quite bad that Blue was struggling so much with her hands but she didn't dare attempt anything on her own, not wanting to hurt the first year. Hopefully Professor Romans would finish her kite soon and head over to help them. Then they could start building THE BEST KITES EVAHH!

Ella approved of the math logic. Very scientific and totally true. "You're right. I believe that we're friends with the other two percent...lucky us." Even though their friends...that were boys...showed their 80 percent grossness a lot more than was necessary. At least in Ella's opinion.

The change in Blue's emotions once Ella agreed to share her secret was clear. The first year seemed quite pleased to be trusted with something like that and she wouldn't even tell Theo?! That was brilliant. And made Ella feel quite special cause Theo was Blue's bestie and all. She smiled at the girl and nodded, satisfied. "Don't worry about the pinky thing...I trust you." And she was about to share when Blue's friend...Alice was it?...Well when Alice decided to free Blue bird from her gluey cage. AND it worked! Cool.

"Nice thinking." She said to the girl, smiling. At least now Blue could get to work on her naked skeleton kite!




Ella felt quite bad that Professor Romanos came over for nothing. She smiled at the woman, hoping she wouldn't be too mad. "I'm sorry to bother you, Professor. My friend Blue..." And she nodded at the first year with a smile. "Well her hands were stuck together with A LOT of glue and we didn't really know what to do..." Nope. AND they didn't want to damage her hands by trying anything either. "But right before you came over, her friend tried water and they were able to get them unglued." Yup. Like just before the professor arrived. "Sorry if we took you away from your kite making." Cue sheepish smile and a shrug. "Is that a...a bat, Professor?" Ella asked then, eyeing the professor's creation.

Blue's little girl face could have a million ore expressions than Alice's could. Sad, Happy, Frowny, Angry, Chocolate Frog Mode.. she could go on and on and on. "You're welcome, fellow world dominator." The lioness grinned as she hugged her back. She felt the urge to pat Blue's head, but then realized she couldn't, since the 'Claw was the same height as hers.

Hmph. Problem.

After that, she started to work on refurnishing her turtle kite with a strengthening tube of glue and sucking on a jellybean. Nom.

Her hands were stuck together with glue?

Medea chuckled. It was a rather amusing story. Blame the creators of glue for making it too fun to play with.

"Oh, that is no problem....And it sure is." she grinned, holding up her kite a little. At least it was easy to tell and no one had to guess what it was. "Nice vork fixing the problem yourselves. If you need me again, I'll be over there." She pointed to where others were flying their kite.

More than likely trying to get hers out of a tree though.

Anya did her best not to notice the hair ruffle. Why did he keep doing that anyway? Not... that she was counting how many times he did it or anything.

She shrugged lightly as she looked at the jelly beans. "Maybe? Or maybe they're just there for a snack?" she suggested. She wasn't planning on using them on the kite.

She nodded and pointed off in the direction of the sleds. "Doesn't that look like fun?" Of course, she was a fan of sledding in general. So kite sledding was even better!

"Ermm... big enough to get enough wind to pull us..." she said. She tilted her head to the side as she looked over Alec's design. She smiled. Anddddd there was the cute word again...

She moving his hands and the sticks toward the table. He wasn't going to be able to hold it up AND tie the pieces together. "The middle piece is supposed to be higher." she said taking the liberty of going again and moving his hands and the sticks to the right place. "And don't forget the center vertical one." Otherwise their kite would collapse in on itself.

Alec could feel himself becoming slightly more and more nervous as time ticked by. And his nervous state meant that he was bound to ruffle his hair a lot more. But... someone had said that he shouldn't ruffle it too much because that wasn't meant to be good. And it could make his hair seem messier than normal. Why if Anya didn't like that?

Did Anya even like hair ruffles? That was the main question here.

Snacks. Interesting! They could... share... a bowl of jelly beans. That would be pretty nice neat. "Do you... want some?" She hadn't mentioned anything about eating but if she was hungry... Actually, ice cream would be a better treat, wouldn't it? Maybe some ice cream with gummy bears? Yeah, that sounded about right.

Oh, she was pointing! Alec reluctantly looked away from her face to the place she was pointing at. The idea of kite sledding didn't seem to be as great as looking at the girl standing next to him but he was still going to bring himself to look excited about it. It could be a lot of fun... kite sledding. And it would mean that they would be pretty close together. As if they were hugging for a good minute or so...

And she'd be happy, like she was now. Yeah. That was always good; seeing Anya smile and be happy.

"Yeah, it looks great! I bet it'll be lots of fun!" he said, grinning from the event to Anya. She had... nice eyes. Like, really nice eyes. Alec looked away and down at the base he had just made. What... was he doing?! This didn't look like the right kite shape! He shook his head and tried to concentrate on the kite shape again. "So a bit like a mini sail?" He could not concentrate on this! Why did she have to look so beautiful?

Another head shake and.... what was this? He stared at her hand that was on top of his. An odd sort of warmth spread from that spot to the rest of his body. "That's... soft. ... I mean smart! That's... that's smart!" Breathe in... breathe out... Alec took hold of another base stick and held it up vertically. "So that's right, yeah?" Way to make a fool of yourself, Summers!

"No thanks. I'm good. I just ate a little while ago." Anya said. In all actuality, she scarfed down some food and raced out here to play with the kites.

Yeah. She was a little excited.

If he had gummy bears on ice cream sundaes on him... she would have said yes. She was always hungry for those two things.

She blinked. Was Alec alright? He looked a bit distracted. Did she... did she freeze again? Or maybe she had something on her face?! "Yeah. A bit like a mini sail..."

She blinked again. Soft?! She quickly turned her face to hide a little blush. "Yeah. Yeah. That looks perfect." she said without turning to look at the kite design. "Just tie it all together. And I'll get the uh... the uh..." Brain freeze. It seriously took all her effort not to turn around and look. But she couldn't let Alec see her like that.

"kite sail... er... sail."

And with that she busied herself looking at various fabrics. She wanted one about the same thickness as a garbage bag. Of course, being the kite expert that she was, she had her eye on a certain bit of material since she first arrived at the table. But she was determined to flip through the different materials until the heat in her cheeks disappeared.

Oh... So she had ate just a bit ago. That was... cool. But it meant that he couldn't have any otherwise it might make him seem a bit greedy. And anyways, ice cream might be better. Ice cream with Anya might be the best, actually.

Unless she distracted him and he somehow managed to spill ice cream all over himself. That would be embarrassing! But... if it made her laugh...

What was he thinking?!

"Yeah? What did you have?" He was going to be... you know... cool. Like Treyen would have been at a time like this. Treyen... and Keefer. Why couldn't he be that cool already? He wouldn't be having this problem right now. He would not be embarrassing himself in front of Anya. But... since when had Anya, his best friend, turned into... Anya, the girl who distracted him just by being near him? This was confusing!

A mini sail! So he had gotten it right! That can be added to the list of things he had done right today. Phew! "Yeah..." he said, keeping the his eyes on the base and off of the girl standing next to him, "We haven't made one this big before, have we?" Had they?

Alec gulped. She was turning away! Why was she doing that? Had he... said something? His mind cast back to the last things he had said. No, he hadn't insulted gummy bears and he hadn't said anything about kite flying. And he was pretty sure that he hadn't said anything bad about her! It would all be false, anyways. So... why was she turning away? "Thanks!" Something else was going right today! Score!

... It was her turn to sound... weird... "Erm... yeah! The design and... yeah!" he said, "Do you... know what you want to do on it?" If he just kept on asking weird questions... will that make all this awkwardness go faster? But if they took long with making this kite, that meant that they'd be spending a lot of time just standing near each other. That would be nice too.

No! It was time to think of ice cream and Quidditch and other things that didn't distract him. Alec grabbed some yarn and started tying it around the joint. His eyes wandered over to Anya's hands as she... Wow! Look at her go! It was good that she wasn't as distracted as him otherwise they would never get this done in time.

With his paint painted and his sticks stuck, the only thing left he needed to do was add the string so the kite would fly.

Waylon decided not to add streamers and ribbon, though. He didn't think having some ribbon flowing out of the end of a duck would look appropriate. So, grabbing some plain, regular string, alot of it, too, and giving the Ravenclaw Prefect who was looking at him a salute, he tied the end of it to the middle of the sticks. With a small tug on the string, to see if it would hold up against the wind, he deemed his duck kite completely finished!

That meant he could go fly it now, right?

What was the piñata thing? He wanted to go check that out. Tearing his gaze away from that, he turned towards Medea once she held her kite up for everyone to see. He wanted to tell her that the bat was very fitting for her, but decided not to. "Very nice!" he beamed right back, before sliding his kite closer for her to see. In case she hadn't already. "Mine is a duck!"

And then Medea was gone, and Waylon was left with..

.. Oakey.

Oakey who was not copying off him apparently. Blinking a few times, Waylon glanced towards the crumpled up kite that the boy pointed at. Why.. that was a waste of supplies! Of course, the thought of him wasting all that glue did not cross his mind. Until Oakey mentioned it, and he gave him a look. "It's not nice to call names." Especially when that name was directed for HIM. Not that he would say that he was the one who left that glue bottle there. Nope.

Maybe he could clean up all that extra glue that could be seen on his kite? So no one would know..

Pulling out his wand all sneaky-like, Waylon cleaned up the glue and acting like he didn't do anything at all, he reholstered his wand and picked up his kite. To the piñatas.. maybe.. "You think those piñatas have candy inside of them?" Yup, ask a kid. They would know those answers.

Was she late?!? She probably was, but no matter Jezzabelle was certain she could still make a splendid kite even with the lack of materials she's like to use. Gathering around the kite decorating station she fumbled with the supplies....

How exactly did one make a kite?

Grabbing a sheet of bright pink paper she attached a few sticks and strung it up nice and neat. With some quick work and a marker she scribbled her name in HUGE letters all the way across the kite. People would know then exactly who was flying it. Finally she decided to attach red and yellow jelly beans adding to it a sense of house pride. Yes, despite her tardiness she had successfully made a kite....

Now...where to go to fly it?

Daisy smiled looking up at the girl who had just walked over.
'They're kites,' she explained, 'Muggles sometimes have them. They fly in the sky. Well, not technically fly, float on the end of their string, but they look pretty when they do it,' she smiled, applying more decoration to the colourful half finished kite, 'do you want to make one, or help me finish this?'

Chelle widened her eyes. "This stuff is for kites?" she exclaimed, surprised that she had not been able to understand it so far. Now that the Huffie had pointed it out, everything fell into place. They could make their own kites! Any way they wanted. And there was so much of cool stuff over here. She bit back a laugh as the girl explained what they were. "I know, I know. I'm a Muggleborn, you see," she replied. "I just didn't realise what these fabrics and threads were for. I get it now." She looked at the girl's half-finished kite. Hmm, it did look pretty. Chelle was sure it would be stunning when it was all done. "Sure, I'll help you with yours. I'm Chelle, by the way," she said, grinning, and extended her hand.

"The tail would balance it," Janice repeated. She was never much of a Physics person, so she just listen and do whatever those physics people think is right.

Janice smiled. "Thanks," she said. "Yours is also nice." She pointed at the crest. "We could reuse them for the upcoming Quidditch matches and support Hufflepuff by flying our kites!"

"Top right, left and center..." Janice mused. "My kite doesn't have top right and left, so I'll just tie it to these left and right sticks." She took some strings and tied it about 2 inches from the right and left end. "And I think I saw my cousin making stuff like this, and he put the last string at the bottom." She did what she just said and tied the 3 strings to a long, long, string, coiled around a Dr. Pepper can.

"That should do, right?" She asked Jory.

"Erm... lunch..." Anya replied. Oh gosh Anya. That was the world's worst answer. "Just a sandwich. Nothing too exciting."

Anddddd he was looking at her. Which gave her the insane urge to giggle. And she couldn't do that. That would be weird, right? And embarrassing.

She smiled still keeping herself busy with looking at the different fabrics. "No. We've never had a need to make a big one before."

Her hands ran over the garbage bag-like fabric she'd spotted earlier. She couldn't really put off looking anymore. She then got to work cutting a kite-like bit.

Hmm... a design? She hadn't really thought about it. She looked at the sky blue partially cut piece in her hand. "Maybe we can cut out some white and make it look like there's a cloud on our kite." she suggested. That would be... fun... right? It would probably look pretty good up in the sky at least.

Alec nodded slowly at Anya's answer. Yeah, she had to have had lunch before coming here. It was lunch time just a bit ago. It was silly of him to ask, really, but at least it kept the conversation going. And now she wasn't going to think that he was being all nervous around her. Because he wasn't!

... Except, he totally was.

"A sandwich... can be exciting!" He was probably just embarrassing himself with this reply now. Quick! Time to make up for it! "I mean..." How exactly can sandwiches be exciting? "If you had... erm... lots of vegetables! Or... some... some meat? Or if there were a sweet-filled sandwiches..." Great! He was going to be known as the Hufflepuff who thought that sandwiches were exciting. He wasn't going to live this down, was he?

Cue internal groan.

It was at that moment that a thought just entered his brain. Was she looking at him? He didn't know why she would but... if she was looking at him... he had to be extra careful, right? Right. If only he had a mirror! He could see if she was looking at him. ... Wait, was that why girls carried around mirrors wherever they went? To see if boys were looking at them?

So he wasn't forgetting things! Yes! "This can be our challenge!" Because... it would be boring if they made the same ones over and over again, wouldn't it? Yeah. Alec continued to tie the yarn around the middle joint as tightly as possible. And then... "What do you think?" And for extra measure, he tried to balance it on his nose.

Alec listened as she talked about... white clouds? On the kite? "That sounds pretty good!" Had they made one with clouds on it before? ... He wasn't sure. "Hey! It can blend in with the sky!" Yeah! Because the sky was blue and- "On second thoughts..." The sky was grey... they couldn't make a grey kite! That was stupid. "I think it's a brilliant idea!"

John had materials scattered around him, as he cautiously and oh so artistically designed his kite. Yes, it was certainly gonna fly high since it had his number one super hero. He finished the last touches and began to slowly launch it in the air. He had the biggest child-like smile on his face.

"Is it a bird? No. Is it a plane? Nope. It's the oh-so-mighty Captain America!" John chanted as he began to whistle the theme song,of his super hero.

The kite had Captain America front and center, big enough to be seen a mile away... according to Johnathan of course!