Laura was the weirdest person ever. If Bliss had ranted like that to anyone else, they'd have gotten angry, thrown it back in her face or gotten upset. Not smile. Weird. Though, she could tell Laura was holding back tears. Bliss' expression softened slightly and she almost felt bad for being so tough of her. ALMOST. Not quite.

Right, Laura was just repeating EXACTLY what she's said. At least it had sunk in, right? "Exactly." Wait, Muggle Studies? That was a genuine surprise. Laura's family were very, what was the word .. wizardy? She didn't think that Laura would have learnt all that much from them. "See? Focus on them and ace them and then focus on a few that you aren't as good as. Don't overwork yourself, then you'll just do badly." Pretty much. "No problem," she whispered and wrapped an arm around her cousin, giving her a squeeze. "I'm not them, so I can't predict what they'd do. They are family, but you don't chose family, they aren't required to NOT react like that."

Um ... not helpful, Bliss.

"Just wait and see how it pans out, maybe?"

Laura looked at Bliss and gave a small smile. "I know, isn't it strange that I like Muggle studies more than I like History of Magic." Laura gave a small giggled and then her cuz was hugging her, she wasn't sure what to say to that. "Thanks Cuz I needed that." Laura looked at Bliss and decided that she would ask the one question she didn't know if she wanted to know the answer to. "Cuz, would you hate me if I failed?" Laura looked straight at her cousin, she wanted a straight answer.

Bliss quickly returned the smile and shrugged. "Not really, History of Magic sucks." Truth. No offense to the Professor, she just didn't like History of anything. It was quite a pointless subject in her opinion. Who needed to know when and why things happened in the past? They just did, and as a result, they had the world today. It wasn't that complicated or important. Oh, and .. "muggle studies is easy if you know the basics." Muggles' technology was so .. non-advanced in comparison to MAGIC.

"No problem," she said and opened her mouth to say something else, but Laura beat her to it.

Beat her with a ridiculous question.

The fourth year bashed her head against her textbook once - just once, this time - and looked at Laura, appalled. "Merlin, Laura. Why would I hate you if you failed? It's not like it would affect me in anyway, is it?"

Laura looked at Bliss and smiled. "I know it does, I don't really care about the past, the past is the past in my opinion." Laura said truthfully. "There is one thing I do want to know and I might ask the Professor about the two world wars and what they did it in." Laura wondered if some of the inventions were by wizards. "You see the German Minister of Magic and the British Minister of Magic, couldn't really be seen together could they." Laura giggled as she thought about it.

Laura sighed. "I thought.. I don't know what I though" Laura looked at her cousin. "You don't want to do that too much cuz, you might get a headache." Laura didn't want her cousin to get hurt.

"Some past is good to remember. Some isn't. The key is to know which stuff to let go of, and which to hold onto." That was what she'd learnt so far from life, at least. "I'm pretty sure both wars were solely muggle wars, though wizards would have gotten involved." Bliss didn't know all that much about muggle studies, having grown up in a pure blood family. Bliss frowned at this. "Do you mean nowadays? Or back then?" .. It was all in the past now, surely.

Silly, petty muggles.

"Clearly not," she mumbled, shaking her head at her cousin. Bliss raised her eyebrow, and gave the girl a I'm-not-that-stupid look. "Thank you SO much for the advice." Because she totally couldn't deal with a headache. If she got a headache, it wouldn't be from the head-banging.

Laura looked at her cousin and smiled. "I mean back then when they were at war, it wouldn't have been good for the British to be seen with the Germans would it really." Laura had no idea what to say next so she stopped on that subject.

"I'm sorry cuz." Laura put her books away, she would study later. "Thanks for helping me study cuz." Laura was enjoying spending time with Bliss. "Want to go and grab a bite to eat together, I have mars bars and smarties and twixes and things like that in my trunk, if you want to share with me?" Laura whispered to Bliss.

Bliss was kinda getting tired now. This was beyond boring - ahem, no offence, Laura. "That's what good old rebellion is and star-crossed lovers and all," she joked and nudged her cousin gently, before getting serious. "I don't get your point, though. Why would the British be seen with the Germans, anyway, given what was going on." In other words, the wars. Besides, it was impractical and improbable. Not to put Laura down, but she hadn't really thought this through very well.

"Sorry for what? Having emotions or asking stupid questions?" She asked, eyebrows raised. Or both. Wait, come again. She was done already? "Um .. no problem," Bliss replied, flashing a smile. Well, that was a quick study session if she'd ever seen one. "That sounds healthy." Actually, it didn't, but that was kinda the point. Honestly, she didn't want to spend MORE time with her, but .. it wasn't like she had better things to do.

"What the heck, why not?"

She shrugged and packed her own books away.

"There'd better be jelly beans, as well, mind you .... or else."

Laura looked at Bliss and smiled. "Well think of it this way, what if the German Minister of Magic needed something from the British Minister, they might be accidently spotted together, I know they try not to get spotted but it could happen you know, like the day after Harry survived the killer curse strange things were happening and the muggles noticed." Laura said truthfully.

Laura looked at Bliss again, but didn't say anything she had this strange sense Bliss wanted away from her, but she wouldn't say anything. "Come on then." Laura gave Bliss a gentle nudge. "I think I have a full box of jelly beans, and you can have them all Bliss."

"I'm not sure where you're going with this," Bliss ventured slowly, frowning in confusion. "First of all - it wouldn't have been that weird to see them out together, because they'd be with other people. At meetings. Or agreement signings and whatnot. They were hardly buddies, they weren't going to hang together in the park, were they?" Laura hadn't seemed to grasp that they were mortal enemies from different countries, but that they had to meet sometimes to get things done. "Oh and two - you're forgetting the fact that this was a war and they probably had target and price attached to their heads. Like I said, hardly going to go for a stroll in the park, much less together. Sure they would've attended meetings and so on, but not in public." Bliss paused while she let it sink in, and finished with, "get real."

Smug!Bliss is smug.

"All of them!?" Bliss squealed, bouncing in her seat, all pretense of a calm and collected four year was gone. "Are you serious?" Because joking about food - namely jelly beans - was a sick and twisted and should never, ever be done. EVER. "I'll have a few," she allowed, once again putting on her I'm-better-than-that mask on. Jelly beans, however amazing they were, could not be used to buy her friendship, but nice try. 9 points for effort and effect. 0 for originality. Shame.

"Jelly beans, here I coooooome," the hungry badger said, jumping up from her seat.

Laura looked at Bliss and blushed. "Oh I didn't think about all that." Laura decided that she would stop before Bliss thought that she was a total nutter, she really didn't want her cousin to think of her like that, it made her sad but she knew she had to earn her cousin trust again.

Laura looked at Bliss and smiled. "Yeah you can have the box to yourself." Laura promised, she had like 4 boxes so giving Bliss one box wasn't such a big deal. "I like cola-bottles better anyway, I have a box of them for myself." Laura giggled.

"I can see that," Bliss mumbled, quietly, so Laura would hopefully not be able to hear. Nothing see/hear here. Ahem. "Don't worry about it; it's just simple logic," she said and shrugged like it was nothing. That might have been a bit mean of her, but her cousin was used to it by now, or at least, she should be. Besides, anyone dumb enough to think that the two rival Prime Ministers would be seen together much, honestly, deserved what they got.

All's fair is ... lettuce and war.

Or however that saying goes. HEHE.

Well, seen as she insisted. "Fine by me," she nodded and beamed. More for her, there was no way she could turn it down again. That would be ridiculous. "Cola-bottles?" Blink, blink. "Do you have no taste at all?" Bliss gave a resigned sigh and shook her head. There was truly no hope for poor Laura. Jelly beans are where it's AT, yo.

Asher sat quietly and opened his Ancient Runes assignment. He knew he needed to start with finding what kind of wood he wanted. He leaned over and pulled out his text book to the appropriate pages and studied the list of trees.

"Hmm, Birch. That sounds interesting" he said in a whisper. Although, Asher didn't care much for spring, so the though he would keep looking.

"There is the Willow. Seems like such a sad tree. I think I would rather look for a stronger minded wood." Asher looked further into the woods available.

"That's it!" Asher said a bit too loud for the library, but he hoped no one minded. "Now I need to find a bit more information out on this tree."

Yes, as of matter of fact he did have cupcakes. Though he was still undecided if they should eat them now or later. Nigel thought about it as they walked over to the study area and grabbed an empty table.

"I guess we could have them now. Since it might be too distracting thinking about them." Nigel took out all he had. Which was four cupcakes and put them in the middle of the table. They even had little giraffes on them. Nigel did not really know why. Weird.

"Okay, first what do you know about Mermaids." It was an open ended question. But Nigel had enough background knowledge. He first wanted to know how much Cat knew.. The only thing he really had to study was mermish.

Cupcakes were very distracting.

Cat pointed at her glasses, "The only reason I wear these is so I can read about mermaids." That meant it was time to put her Ravenclaw hat on and pay attention to books. But then Nigel took the cupcakes out of his bag and distracted her even further. These cupcakes had GIRAFFES on them. Cat gasped, forgetting her library voice just for a moment before whisper!shouting. "Where did you get cupcakes with giraffes on them?" She certainly had not made them, so where did they come from, hmmmmmmmmmmm?

MERMAIDS. Okay. "Well. I know they live under water and they have tails and I like them and they're like... mysterious and cool." Yep. Basics. "I still want to know if they lay eggs or not but I don't know if we'll find that in a book." She selected one from the pile and opened it up.

"Okay". Nigel did not ask about her glasses. He just thought she need them to read. Which turned out to be true. Nigel passed her a cupcake and opened a book on the Black Lake Merpeople colony.

"I got them from home." Nigel said shrugging. Nigel did not know if she like giraffes or not. But cupcakes were always nice. "I can't cook. So if i made cupcakes they would be horrible."

Nigel was nodding along to what she knew about mermaids. Which was basically nothing and the obvious. But her question did need to be researched. "I think we could find out if they lay eggs or not. Seems like a simple enough question to find in a book."

Nigel started speed reading through his book in front of him looking for valuable information.

There were only so many places to go when one wanted to get some homework done. Usually this place would have been her last choice but right now the Common Room was LOUD, much louder than usual and she was finding it hard to stay focused on palm reading. This was where having a short attention span most certainly did not pay off.

She plopped down at a table and got out her things, parchment and quill plus the text to tell her what exactly her hands were trying to say. Seeing as she'd already started this set of readings she would use the same parchment to continue before getting out a new sheet. That way her notes could stay in one place...they'd be easier to find that way.



The only two left to be read on this hand were her life line and her fate line. Well then, these would be interesting. This all kinda reminded her of the tea leaf reading. She'd been interested in knowing those but didn't like half of them.

First things first, the life line. Hmmmmm....well it wasn't very straight now was it? Curvy then...? She squinted at her hand before finally nodding. Curvy, mhm, now what else. It was kinda long too but she didn't know if this was what one classified as deep. Was there supposed to be some kind of measurement? Eeeehhhh, nah, that was effort and it'd take longer. Kinda deep, she'd go with that. So now it was on to her fate hand.

This line started somewhere by the base of the thumb and crossed the life line. Oooo, what'd that mean? After scribbling that down she went through reading the meanings. She guessed these weren't so bad.



Just then, she was joined by people she didn't really know or care to know. Lex nodded at them, hoping they'd note the silence and keep it but no such luck. With a heavy sigh she snatched up her things and went to find somewhere better.

Asher arrived at the library with his wand, gandr, and instructions from the professor. He carefully read the next steps, not wanting to make any mistakes. He had come so far and really wanted to finish correctly.

Pulling out his wand and aiming it at his Gandr, he commanded "Intaglio" after he had said "EIWAZ, you say things will turn out just fine. You turn obstacles into instruments to test patients, but all is well in the end." He could feel where the rune would be carved as he spoke.

Next came PERTH, OTHILA, BERKANA, MANAZ, and GEBO. He spoke of each rune, their powers and felt where they should be carved.

"It's probably a good idea that you don't bake them, then. I think it might be a crime to make horrible cupcakes." In Cat's world, anyway. Catland.

Well, those were the important things to Cat, anyway. She pulled her legs up and planted her feet on her chair. Then, she propped her book on her knees and began to leaf through it. Hmm. Lots of words. This wasn't going to be boring, was it? Cat had a short attention span and required interesting things or else she would catnap.

She glanced at Nigel over her book, "Find anything?"

Well that book was not as interesting as Nigel thought it was. Informative. Just not interesting. Crime to make horrible cupcakes. Thank Merlin Nigel could not bake then. Plus he would probably destroy the kitchen anyway. Eh.

"So do you have rules as to how to make the best cupcakes?"

Nigel was curious. He did like cupcakes. But back to mermaids. "All i found out is that the earliest merpeople lived in Greece, and were known as sirens."

Now Nigel had to ask what she researched. Which Nigel guessed as close to nothing. Since it seemed she got easily distracted.

"Did you find anything in that book?"

Cat lifted her eyes in Nigel's direction and grinned, "I have rules, sure, but they're a secret. Secret family recipes and such." Plus, Cat was particular about things, especially when it came to cooking and baking. She had certain traditions.

"Oh yeah, I know about sirens and luring sailors to their deaths and such." Cat nodded and flipped another page in her book. Silly men, getting all distracted by beautiful women. You didn't see any women being lured to their deaths, did you? Nope. She squinted back at her book again, "According to this, mermaids are immortal." Huh. Now was that TRUE or not? Just because one book claimed it didn't mean it was true. They could also apparently hypnotize which basically tied into the whole siren thing, right?

She flipped another page. "Can't you just imagine how ADORABLE a little baby merperson would be? Little bitty tail." Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. She was getting off track now.

"Oh, Secret Recipes. Okay." Probably had certain traditions. Cupcakes must be in her blood or something. Not sure about the mustaches though. Maybe Mo would know. Nigel set the finished book to the side and picked up another one. Quickly looked through it. Not finding much. Then he heard a mermaid myth from Cat.

"Did not know that. I would assume they live normal human life spans. They are not gods are anything." Just part fish and part human. Maybe if he learned mermish he could ask them this question. Though first he would have to word it correctly or it would be quite rude.

"You know if we learn mermish. We could ask them these questions" Though that depended on a lot of factors. Them learning mermish and the Merpeople wanting to answer.

"A merperson baby would be cute." Nigel thought about it and wonder if this was the reason Cat wanted to know about eggs. Did she want to see a mer baby. "Ah is this the reason you wanted to know if mermaids laid eggs. Mer babies?"

"Maybe they live longer than the average human, I mean, powerful wizards can live a long time, but they're not immortal." So now Cat was sort of confused, like... what WAS right? Was ANYTHING right? Were they just going to be reading in circles?

"Did you find any books on that? We need like a 'Learn Mermish two shakes of a crup's tail' book or something." Cause Cat didn't pay attention for very long and she didn't want to sit in the library forever. She had things to do, cupcakes to make, boys to kiss, a life to live, ya know? And then she got completely distracted with thinking about baby mermaids and merboys and the CUTENESS. If she ever ever ever saw an actual mermaid (or managed to learn Mermish) she would ask about babies and MAYBE she'd see one too. That was on a list somewhere, see baby merperson. "Well yeah, but also like... I have no idea HOW."

You know. Tails.

With a LARGE book before her Sonea sat on the table inside the library, and this time she wasn’t studying a spell to break a rule or to know how she could reflect something, like mud… No, this time she wanted to know if there was a spell to change the colors from everything you wanted! She knew that there were spells like that, Daichi, the male prefect from Slytherin had given her pink highlights while using such a spell, but now she wanted to learn how she could use the spell for herself! Her rat, Little princess, was also colored with a color changing spell, her originally color was brown, and that was a REALLY boring color! Little princess was more prettier now when she was pink!

She looked AGAIN at her boring school uniform she had laid on the table next to her book, black was such a bad color! She didn’t liked it to wear it and she wanted to make her school uniform cute and pink! She didn’t knew it it was allowed or not to change the color from her school uniform, but she could try it! And if she wasn’t allowed to wear in inside the lessons than she could wear it OUTSIDE the lessons, in her free time! Yes, she wanted to do that…

Finally she had found where she was looking for, the spell to change colors! She quickly sat upright and read what she needed to do… “Colovaria” said Sonea slowly while she read the spell. She grabbed her own wand and pointed it at her boring school uniform, she had decided that it would be wise to NOT wear it when she wanted to try the spell, she liked pink, but she was not sure if she wanted to be pink herself, over her whole body! The second year old read one last time if she was doing it good and made sure that she pointed her wand at her school uniform and spoke the spell: “Co-loh-VA-ree-ah” But… Nothing happened!

Nigel nodded in agreement. That did make the most sense. They were merpeople after all. Normal human logic probably did not apply. But who knows. It will remain a mystery until they can learn mermish.

So books on mermish. "Yeah, This one i am reading right now. It has some extremely basic things like saying hello and such.It is like a Dumm...Beginner's Guide to Mermish." Nigel opened the book to the page and passed it to her.

Nigel opened another book. Reading through it thinking about all the other animals in the lake. How did the Giant Squid co-exist with the Merpeople. It would be interesting to think or observe. Though having to deal with Grindylows did not sound like fun. Nigel closed the book. Now was a perfect time for a break

"So want another cupcake?"

Now water-proof cupcakes was a good idea.

Ella was really thankful that Minnie had agree to let her read her future hand. The blonde knew that the older badger was having a tough term but it was nice of her to try to help out the other students with everything going on. Minnie was really great like that.

The blonde settled down in the study area of the library, text book open and notes out on the table. She was going to make this as quick and easy as possible and then Minnie could go back to relaxing...or trying to. Ella would even bring her some sweets if she wanted. Anything she could do.

Now to wait. Min would be here any minute, yeah?