The gorgeous girl that he was talking to, the one with the red tie which AUTOMATICALLY made him hesitant because everyone who sported them were certifiably insane, seemed a little anxious. Like extremely anxious. To the point where he wanted to grab her by the shoulders and tell her to knock it off. He didn't need anyone getting all insane on him. Unless it was about his looks. THEN, by all means, she was free to go as crazy over him as she liked. Wink.

Oh, right. The school and budget cuts and stuff. Honestly, he didn't see the HUGE deal. Everyone was acting like a chicken with their heads cut off. It wasn't like the world was ending, chicken little. They all needed to seriously go and lie down. He had lived in worse conditions for reasons. Yeah.

So he just shrugged and added on, "Pity." 'Cause apparently it was and stuff.

LOTS OF QUESTIONS. Mmk, he got this. Hair flip. "I walked out here. No I'm not, no I'm not. And that is also a no." Just having an adventure and NOT being lost.

The shrug was taken into serious consideration. She would have questioned it but then she remembered he was the same guy who didn't eat a lot of candy. See, this wouldn't have been such a bad thing and in fact she knew a lot of people who didn't eat a lot of candy, the problem came with him not seeing it as a big deal despite the fact that no one bought him any. Personally that would have had her curled up in a corner. How did one go without sugar? Was it even possible????

Obviously since he was standing right there, winking like that world wasn't in danger of tilting off it's axis at any minute, given a disruption in candy affairs. Maybe he just didn't know....

The next thing to not were his answers. "I don't think I've ever heard so many no's before in once sentence." She said with a smile bordering on a grin. The statement, however, was VERY true. How did he even manage to pull out so many no's??? Where did they come from???

"Should I take it you were just bored then? Found nothing inside the castle but homework and walked outside hoping to see a dragon crashing into the side of the castle, some idiot being eaten by a rogue acromantula or perhaps someone getting blown up?" Or were those all no as well?

As Kace was done at the lake, he decided to visit the butterfly garden. It seemed so peaceful and majestic, he could not pass it off. Kace had his gargoyle walking by his side and asked him, "Do you wanna check this place out?" and it nodded and smiled. It ran over and plopped into the flowers. Kace chuckled a little bit. "Alright we need to do one more trick before we finish the lesson." Kace told him.

It stood in an attentive state. It was ready to do his last tricks. "Alright since we did basic ones it is time to do complicated ones. You ready?" he asked him. It nodded and was ready to do whatever Kace dished out.

"Alright do...A cartwheel." he asked him. It smiled and stretched its arms and legs out and ended up on his two feet. Kace said, "Wooahh nice job dude!" and he gave him a high five. He was going to miss this guy when he returned him.

"Let's do two more...how about a somersault?" Kace asked and it gave him a quizzical look. Kace had to demonstrate. Kace told him to watch and then he did a roll. It nodded and copied him. He did a better job than Kace did.

"Alright last one, let's do a back and front handspring." Kace said and the gargoyle knew this one. He put his arms up and then flipped over and landed on his feet and then did it reverse for the back handspring.

"We are done here." Kace said and said "Finite!" and the gargoyle turned to stone and Kace walked back with him in his hand to the lake to get his back and return him.

Journey from Gryffindor Common Room to the Butterfly Garden take quite long time considering their common room is located on the highest floor. When she arrived, Aphrodite find a seat located in the middle of the park that is quite beautiful and .. where are the butterflies?

"It seems like there should be butterflies in here, where do ..,"

she didn't continue her words as she read a small sign posted to the side of the path .. Okay .. what happens to Hogwarts nowadays..

Troy was having a decent time with his new friend, he's made several new acquaintances upon his short arrival here at Hogwarts. Despite the economic situation the school was going through, the Kid was actually having a good time.

He walked alongside Aphrodite and ended up in the Butterfly Garden, he was a fan of insects so this should be fun.

"I think they got sad that Hogwarts is poor, and left?" making a clear assumption of something he thought about and even wrote about to his Sister, that he wanted to do.

He was a rich little boy in what suppose to be a rich school. But nope, it wasn't seeming that way. Other than that, he had not issues so he kept on smiling. Typical Troy.

Aphrodite actually do not understand about any money or financial or problems on Hogwarts, but when the butterflies just left Hogwarts, obviously there is a problem faced by Hogwarts, but she decided to enjoy her first year at Hogwarts, she has her brothers and her friends, she just have to enjoy it. When she invited Troy to sit on the bench, she turned her attention back to Troy, "Troy, what you bring there?" she asked the boy in front of her who was smiling.

Tora had made sure that she had a winged gargoyle to practice on. Wings just made everything so much more fun! Now all she had to do was find a good place to practice. She figured the butterfly garden would be a good enough place as it was out of the way and it wasn't too too popular since there weren't actually any butterfies anymore.

Tora sat down on the ground to the side of the walkway, making sure that she was out of the way of other pedestrians, and pulled out her gargoyle. She held her wand in one hand while ruffling her way through her notebook to find that stone transformation spell. Ahhhh. Here it was! She gave a slight wave and said, [b]"Piertotum Locomotor."[b] The gargoyle moved a bit stiffly, then stretched its wings, shaking his head and blinking one eye after the other. Tora noticed he was still a bit slow as if he was waking up from a long long sleep, and made a mental note to concentrate more the next time she cast the spell. Actually that next time should be now. "Finite!" She said and the gargoyle froze right back up. She concentrated, gripping her Ebony and Pheonix feather a tad harder as she said "Piertotum Locomotor!" with another small wave.

This time the gargoyle's movements were smooth and she laughed with delight. "Hello there!" She said with a big smile. The gargoyle klacked his front paws together. Klack. Maybe that could be his name? "Well you're going to be called Klack. And you will respond to Klack, ok?" Tora said firmly giving her first command. Klack klacked his paws together again. "OK, awesome! Klack, I would like you to try flying to the top of that stone bench please." Klack cocked his head to the side and klacked his paws. He blinked slowly and turned around so he faced the bench. Two steps and a leap before he was off the ground raggedly flying to land in a heap on the top of the bench. Cool. It actually worked! Tora beamed.

Haruka took a deep breath before setting her gargoyle down to work on her Transfiguration homework. The air was clean and fresh, which make Haruka wonder about the severe lack of butterflies in the Butterfly Garden. She allowed a moment of disappointment before shaking off her worry and starting her homework.

She faced her gargoyle, which she had named 'Rose', and pointed her wand at it. "Piertotum Locomotor!" She waited a moment for a response, and sure enough, Rose started to move. Delighted, Haruka smiled brightly. "Alright Rose, my job is to teach you a few tricks, so let's start with you in the air." The gargoyle looked up before slowly flapping it's stone wings and becoming airborne. "Great!" Haruka nodded approvingly. "Now, fly up high and then fly back down doing a corkscrew." She spun her finger around to show Rose what a corkscrew is.

Rose floated in the air a bit, as if contemplating, before flapping it's wings quickly to gain speed. Then Rose shot up into the air, made a U-turn and, upside down, spun like a corkscrew. Before hitting the ground head-first, Rose swooped until it was rightside up, and gently landed.

Haruka clapped when the gargoyle was done performing the trick. "Great job, Rose!" Deciding that was enough for now, Haruka pointed her wand at Rose, "Finite!"

She brought him here? Hmm I guess she forgot?

"You brought me here?" Troy raised a brow "To eat remember?" he tilted his head to the side, was she okay?

He let his eyes roam around as he was soaking in the view from the butterfly garden. He didn't understand why girls were so fascinated by these bugs? Eh. He's a boy, he's never gonna understand.

"So are we gonna eat? Or what?" Troy was so ready to start biting into food!

Sunshine and fresh had been calling her name all day, so Eliza took a little walk to the Butterfly Gardens. They were nice and peaceful to be in and it seemed like the perfect place to practice with her gargoyle for Professor Bellaire's class. It was still weird to think of it as Bellaire's since she was so used her being in Charms. She wondered what the Charms professor would be like. Hopefully nice and extremely helpful, she thought. I'd love to learn more Charms...but Transfig is cool too. Just more...technical I guess.

She found a patch of grass unclaimed by anyone else and pulled out her gargoyle's box, opened the lid, and sat the creature on the ground. She stretched her arms up and around as if she herself were about to be the one getting a work out. "All right Goylie. Can I call you that? Sort of sounds like girly...from Boston or something. Anyway." She cast the spell on the gargoyle to allow it to move. "Piertotum Locomotor!" And just like a charm...except it was a transfiguration spell...the thing came to life.

"Right, so. Hello again!" she said, waving to it. "A bit simpler than before, so that's good news for you." She checked around to be sure they wouldn't get in anyone's way and gave the command. "Somersault," she said, showing her fingers spinning in a circle to indicate he was meant to go end over end. She pictured what a somersault was in her mind very clearly and said it again. "Somersault!"

And the little beast flopped onto its face.

"Well then. Um...try again." She picked it back up and said, "Somersault." This time it sort of hopped up in the air first and tried to barrel roll into it, and consequentially, still fell over. "Ermm...no. Put your hands out." And it did. "Bend your head down." And it did. "Roll forward using your hands." And it did, kind of, and fell on its side.

She sighed. "Okay now do all that but faster...and all together like one movement, not all choppy." She took a deep breath and said, "Somersault." And bless its heart, Goylie tipped and rolled right over like she'd said, only she'd forgotten to explain the ending. The part where you stop. So, Goylie just kept rolling. Hopefully no one would trip over him...

"Finite! Stop stop stop!" she cried. She walked over to retrieve him, brushed him off and thought, Well, that will do.

Ethan leaned back against the bench, his fingers lightly stroking Minerva's hand, as he looked around at the scenery. It was sad that one of his favorite places at Hogwarts had turned a bit drab, but the conjured butterflies did help some and perhaps he could do some work in his spare time (provided he could find it), pruning and weeding the garden. "Oh, its not too difficult a spell," he said as he released her hand again to grasp his wand. "Just a flourish," he added as he demonstrated. "Then... Papilio!" Another trail of butterflies emerged from his wand and they mingled with the previously cast ones. "Oh, that reminds me," he said with a grin. "I've been secretly working on another spell all summer. I finally mastered it.. I wanted to surprise you."

Ethan gave Minerva a small smile. He figured she would protest him giving her any money and he shook his head. "I know you'll be fine, but this will help. I want you to have it. I want to take care of you." Really, how could he hold on to his money like that when he knew he had more than her - he didn't want her to struggle at all. Besides, it was only one galleon. He raised an eyebrow as she mentioned something about larger denominations. "Oh.. really? Well, that would make things more convenient," he said, pondering this rumored information. That would be really smart.. why hadn't he thought of that as a possibility?

He nodded a bit as she talked about what she had been doing in the dorms. That was what he thought.. brightening up the place. Seemed like all of Hogwarts needed some cheering of the paint or something.. Chuckling a bit, he said, "That would be fun to change things up.. especially around Quidditch time. You could have rally messages to bring about some house spirit." Hmm.. not a bad idea. He gave a little shrug as they talked about his prefect duties. He really hated being the bad guy, but if it was what he really had to do, he supposed he could deal with it. They'd learn soon enough. Then he turned and faced her more fully. "I do have a lot going on.. but I always want to make time for you. Maybe sometimes we'll just have to spend some of that time a little more creatively," he chuckled. "Like studying together.. You really helped me with my OWLs, I could use that help again." And things like that.. they could practice for Quidditch together too or take walks together when he had patrols. He would make sure they had time together.. and not just productive time either.. time for fun as well.

The weather was PERFECT for a day outside the castle. Kat had decided to take a walk around, since she didn't have any OWLs to study and NEWTs were still next term. Mhm, there wasn't much to do but enjoy the term while she still didn't have any major wizard examinations. She had her gargoyle, Gary, with her so maybe she could teach him a trick or two.

When the Slytherin reached the Butterfly Garden, she decided to take a seat in there. Probably take time to admire the little creatures as they fly around. That was when she realised she had dropped her pendant somewhere. Well, it was a gift from her mum for her 16th birthday and it was small anyway. A tiny serpent pendant charm whatever. Can Gary find it for her? Hmm... she'll test that out. It would be interesting.

"Piertotum Locomotor!" she casted with a wave on her gargoyle. Then Gary started to move and Kat nodded in approval. Okay... let's try this thing. She could see her serpent pendant shining over there, under a bush. "Bring my pendant back to me." Alright. Fly now, Gary, FLYYY.

...

And there he was. WITH HER PENDANT! Kat beamed and stuff. "Good boy, Gary!" she said while petting her gargoyle and sliding her pendant inside her pocket. To be safe. Mhm.

Minerva watched as he pulled his wand again and studied his movements and words. This time to lock it in her memory. Pulling out her own wand, Minerva copied his movements to practice. Then she did it once, “Papilio” and smiled as the butterflies emerged. “I like that one. I think it could come in handy days that I am thinking of mom.” She placed her wand back in its holster and smiled watched the butterflies. She then turned and looked at him curiously, a spell? That was interesting, she wondered what he was up to and why he would hide it, she could have practiced and helped him. Then her curiosity grew when he said it was a surprise for her. “For me? What on earth have you been up too?”

Minerva’s eyes shifted from Ethan to her hand, the one with the galleon in it. His words registering in her head. Wanted to take care of her.. Wanted.. An odd feeling went over her. She felt like her heart might just burst from emotion. Since her parents she really felt people were just forced to take care of her, no one really seemed overly excited to actually do it. So she was just use to taking care of herself. Not asking for much from anyone and figuring it out on her own, but he wanted to take care of her. She knew to anyone else this was not that big of a deal it was just a galleon, but her emotion wasn’t about the money at all. Biting her lip to try and control the emotional rollercoaster going on inside her head, Minerva finally looked up at Ethan and gave a loving smile. Leaning in she gave him a soft kiss then rested her head on his shoulder. “I.. umm.. thanks..” was all she could get out with a bit of a shaky tone. She shrugged at his comment about the larger coins, “It was just something I overheard probably could ask Oakey next time I see him.”

The thought had crossed her mind to do the walls for quidditch matches, but Ethan looked as if he thought it was a good idea as well. “That could be a plan, it’s such an easy charm to do.” She thought for a moment at what she could put on the wall during those days. “It might be good for the common room walls as well as the dorm.” She was just speaking her thoughts now, but it was an interesting idea. Turning to face him she listened to as he talked about being more creative and different ways to spend time together. “I wouldn’t mind doing any of that. As long as I’m getting to see you.” She was okay if there were times she couldn’t see him though and she didn’t want him to think he had to spend time with her. She didn’t want to be a pest or anything. Shaking her head and smiled she knew he didn’t need her to help him do well on his N.E.W.T exams. “Ethan you’re a seventh year Ravenclaw, your smarter than I am, you are going to do just fine on the exams, but of course I would love to help you study if you want.” She wasn’t going to say no to extra studying herself, it would benefit her as much as him.

How could she forget .. she was the one who invites him to eat here.. Aphrodite attention seemed distracted by the "butterfly things" ..

"Sorry Troy, I just got distracted," she said as she took a breath and tried to smile at the boy in front of her, "Of course, Troy .. let's eat," she said, trying to be more cheerful..

Elise made her way down to the butterfly garden, originally planning on taking Puppy out for a walk but figuring that some homework could get done and she could use whatever extra time she had to get a bit of sleep. Totally ignoring the twisted ankle, she sat down onto the bright green grass with a semi-loud thud.

Whoopsie.

Putting the box that contained the small stone gargoyle and her rabbit on the ground, she bit her lip. What would she make it do, this time? She'd already made it march earlier so that was out of the question.

Circus, wasn't it? "Piertotum Locomotor," she said quickly, a gentle flourish of her wand, Elise smiled. The fact that they were making a circus was really quits helpful, since they could decide what they wanted the gargoyle to do.
"Somersault," she said firmly, watching the stone gargoyle intently.

And it did a simple flip. Disappointing.

Sophie brought the little gargoyle to the Butterfly Garden for a couple of reasons.

She needed to practice spells. Which was awesome and she loved doing. It was a beautiful day outside aaaaaand flowers. They were pretty and lovely, so there was the perfect place to practice and get her homework done!

Placing the tiny lion-like sculpture in front of her after she sat down, the fifth year pulled out her wand and stared at the gargoyle for a few moments. She hadn't been able to get the spell perfectly working in class, so maybe she should start directly trying to make the thing do... tricks and complex stuff.

"Piertotum Locomotor!" Sophie said firmly, pointing her wand at the gargoyle. "Sniff that flower!" She added, gesturing to the beautiful flowers right next to them.

The lion-like thing turned its head towards the flower, just like it had looked sideways during the Transfiguration class. The Hufflepuff tilted her head and watched the gargoyle for a while. Was it sniffing the flower or was it just staring at it?? "Sniff it!" She poked it with her wand.

....What as it doing??? Sophie blinked a few times and... was confused. The gargoyle did seem to be moving still, though. But... was it even sniffing the flowers?? Or was it just... watching them or something??

The girl could definitely not tell...

She had scurried off to the Butterfly Garden as fast as she could, sat her bag down and opened it up. She knew she had been here earlier with her gargoyle, but she hadn't thought of doing anything that might actually be useful with it like, cleaning!

So now that she was back in the garden, she plopped down on the grass. It was the gargoyle that was doing the work after all, not her. She sat the gargoyle on the ground next to herself and cast the spell. "Piertotum Locomotor!"She watched the gargoyle come to life and she looked around the garden. There were a few weeds that could stand plucking, so she started there. She pointed at them and ordered, "Pull those weeds." And the gargoyle flew off and began pulling them out, one at a time.


After a few minutes, she saw the gargoyle had a decent sized pile started, so she called over to it. "Bring those here!" Point and point. She smiled as it flew over with them in his arms. Sure, some might've fallen out of his grasp, but he arrived with most of them, and dropped them to the ground. Now, she'd just put them in this bag she'd brought with her and add them to the compost bin for Herbology later.

Seeing that her bag wasn't nearly as full as it should be, and that there were still a lot of weeds, she sent her little foraging Goylie back into the great beyond. "Go pull those weeds over there," she said with another point. She stared up at the clouds while it worked. Funny how they seem to look like things that are on your mind, when really if you weren't thinking about it already you might not've seen that shape at all... For instance, ice cream cones and broomsticks. Two topics heavily on her mind.

Again the gargoyle had done as she asked, and she collected that pile of pulled weeds as well. Things were looking a lot better already. She sent it to get the last few patches of weeds with her simple commands, and gathered the remnants. Once she was done, she ended the spell. "Finite!" She placed the gargoyle into her bag and started to make her way back to Mr. Firth to tell him about the weeding she'd done.

Theo wondered, as he entered the butterfly garden, if an actual butterfly could be counted as an ingredient. Theo personally hated the creatures, because they always got in your face when you were doing things and it was annoying! After a moment of consideration, Theo decided against butterfly nabbing, because he would probably look like a nutter if he was caught by anyone.

Instead, he looked over at the flowers. He didn't need anything fancy, just a couple of daisy roots.

He remembered from a few terms ago that they were used occasionally.

It took ages to skip past all of the fancy flowers, but he eventually approached a nice and neat patch of daisies. Now, all he had to do was pull these guys out with such force, that he'd get the roots, too.

Theo pulled out his gloves, because dirt, and then prepared himself for the pull.

HEEEEEEEEEEEEEAVE.

A few squashed daisies lay in his hand, and only one root. He placed that into a container and tried again, this time going a little more gentle. 1, 2, 3... he pulled them carefully, pushing his fingers a little deeper into the soil for extra grippage, and viola... two more roots came up with it. That would be enough. Three daisy roots.

Chamomile...

Yeah...that flower could surely be used in potions and it was a pretty common flower to find around. So Rich simply started to wander the grounds to find some. As he walked, his mind half busy with other things, the Slytherin found himself in the Butterfly Garden where it was full of flowers yet he could not see any butterflies enjoying themselves around. Strange. Why was this place called the Butterfly Garden then? His question was answered though when he saw the sign near the path.

So the school's financial issues even killed the butterflies here?

That was kind of sad. Anyway...shrugging at himself a bit, he looked down and looked for chamomiles. There they were!!! Bending down a bit, he picked up a couple of the white flowers and put them into another container that he took out his bag. And once he was done, he left the place to look for another ingredient.

The last ingredient....Kace was enjoying this assignment. He liked exploring the castle and finding random ingredients that would work in the potion. He was walking through the Butterfly garden and was thinking what to use.

He did not want to use a butterfly because they were innocent little creatures and plus Kace did not want to kill animals well insects for that matter. As he was walking around, he found a beautiful flower. Well it looked like a flower then when he got closer there were more!

Kace went over and smelled them. He loved the smell of Lilly of the Valley. Plus it was pretty to look at. He picked some up. He picked out 4 of them and thought it was enough. He was even smelling them as he was walking.

Alright that is enough....then he smiled and went back to the potions classroom ready to start the lesson.

Sophie walked down to the Butterfly Garden for the Nth time that week. This time, she was there during class time! Oooooo! Hehehe! That felt weird.

Nonetheless, there she was, looking at the pretty flowers. Oh lookie there! Some lovely, lovely lavenders. Those were oh so beautiful and the sure smelled nice.

Lavenders it was, then!

Sophie was reminded of the Pygmy Puff she had to take care of during her first year at Hogwarts. N'aw! Lavender was sure a nice Pygmy Puff. A quiet one, which was good.

Anyhow! She plucked up a few lavenders and smiled at the purdy garden. It was surely very purdy. And the flowers she was now holding were just as purdyyy.

Spinning on her heels, the girl skipped off somewhere else to get the next ingredient.

Nigel next went to the butterfly gardens and looked around. He could not see any butterflys and that was pretty weird. But he will dwell on that later. He was looking for something he could use as an ingredient and anything would do. He looked around and spotted some lilies. Those were perfect.

He went over, picked them up, and was surprised as to how well he was doing. He only had one more ingredient left to find. Nigel did not even know what they would do with these ingredients.

So much for butterfly garden.

But Ezra had come to understand that things at Hogwarts weren't what they used to be. Nothing was really a surprise anymore. Except for the moths flying around him, which were proving to be an annoyance. The boy kept trying to avoid them, by moving around, but eventually gave up and began to swat them away with his hands. He even squished one, by accident, and made a face that was part disgust and part guilt. He'd meant for them to get away from him, not to kill them.

Ezra bent down, grabbed the first leaf he could find, and palmed it, using it to get rid off whatever was left the moth on his hand. There was a particular smell coming from it, which he noted, as he lowered his face to sniff it, was mint. Enthusiastically, the boy squatted and opened is bag to retrieve the triangle shaped container, which he used to store six peppermint leafs. It sounded like a reasonable amount to him, so he closed the container, stored it back in his bag, and considered his next destination. A frog didn't sound like a bad idea, at all, and he had some experience catching those, back home.

Not a bad idea at all, he thought with a small grin, a light skip to his step as he left the former home of the butterflies.

Jeez, what was with everyone going to same places?! This time, though, Sky ignored her classmates completely and hurried over to where she remembered the lavender being planted last year. Thankfully it was still there. Slightly crazy that all the plants hadn't been sold off instead of the plates and stuff, but there was no time to think of that. According to her watch, she only had thirty minutes left and two ingredients to find still. Sky pulled out her scissors and gently pulled on one of the plants right under the flower, cutting it right under where her fingers were. Hmm, that was enough for two pinches, right? She cut one more just in case, folding a parchment the same way that she had for the chamomile and placing the two flowers inside.

Two down.....

Susan ran frantically towards the butterfly garden. Flowers were used in a lot of ingredients right? Well Sue guess she would find out. Sue saw a bunch of her other classmates headed in the same direction so she figured she was doing something right.

Sue entered the garden and looked at the flowers and didn't see any butterflies...just a few moths. Since all the other students head towards the flowers Sue went over to the moths. Were dead moths used as an ingredient. Sure why not. Susan capture three of them in her hand and placed them in her bag, they would be dead by the time she got back to class.