Forrest was funny. He had the cutest reactions to the things she said and his last incredulous look had her giggling. It was like he thought there was a rule against using your wand outside of class and practice. Pffft, she used her for almost everything; hitting people, examining stains, hitting people, poking things, hitting people...you got the idea.

She leaned back, resting on her elbows and watched him pick the safer way of checking the butterfly. Okay, she'd allow it. He was still a First Year, probably had caution running through his head at fifty million miles per second. Make no mistake, she'd be fixing that. He couldn't leave here in the same shell he arrived in. NOPE.

Her eyebrow raised with interest. Had the spell....worked...? Yes and no. "Interesting..." Reaching forward, she got into a seated position again to get a better look. "Good news is, you got the spell. Not as good news is, you might have needed a bit more power behind it. Try again. Add a bit more determination to it." She drew her wand. "Finite." All yours Forrest.

Interesting? Forrest's heart leaped. Had he managed something that no one could do? He watched in silence--was he holding his breath?!--as Alexa examined and commented. He was also fascinated by how she got into the mood of teaching. He was fascinated by everything she did, actually.

Would he ever be able to pay her back?

He didn't want to try it again, actually, but just because she wanted him to, he raised his wand. He might even succeed, who knew?

"Petrificus Totalus." He gave it a second's silence, and poked it with his finger again. It wasn't as solid as Alexa had managed, but there was progress. He wanted to think there was progress. Glancing over her, he let himself grin genuinely at last.

It wasn't that hard, after all.

In all her explaining to him she was careful to leave the word intent OUT. It wasn't the most encouraging word out there and she herself only liked it because she'd learned to control it...only sometimes...maybe mostly with defensive spells. Other spells still gave her problems.

She almost beamed when he got to trying the spell again without even a scowl. See that? That was him not letting the fear of failing stop him from giving it a shot. This in and of itself was progress but there was more progress to come. A frozen butterfly. So it wasn't as rigid as on her casting, didn't matter, she was a Third Year, he was a rising First Year who she would one day make so scary good at spells that the Headmistress would come banging at her dormitory asking what in merlin's beard she was thinking.

That thought had her grinning and seeing his grin caused hers to widen. "Brilliant! You're well on your way with this spell. Just think. One day you'll be able to aim it at others!"

And you know...this kinda reminded her of her first year when everyone kept shooting silencing spells at her and Vivi taught her how to cast it back as well as how to defend herself. She wondered if Vivi had felt as proud of her as she was feeling of Forrest for his good work.

Forrest grinned somewhat shyly and nodded once at the idea of aiming it to others. Yeah, maybe he could catch Sonea on her endevours to kill him... would she try getting back at him again? He had to have Alexa nearby then. But what if Alexa got in detention too? How would he look at her face again?

...

"Finite," he said, feeling light, and surprisingly it worked again. Finite had instantly became his favourite spell. Hehe. He eyed Alexa. "Shall we head back to the castle?" He wanted that book, y'know.

Lookit!

He got the Finite spell right again. Proof that it wasn't luck the first time. There was always that one spell that came super easy at first. For her it had be Reverto because none of the transfiguration spells she tried worked, ahem, not that she was still bitter. Nah, she'd improved at that subject.

Alexa was positively satisfied with him. He'd wanted to give up but he still tried when she asked him. "Sure thing!" She hopped up. "And thanks, you know, for trying even though you didn't want to." His face had told her he'd rather not but his earlier excitement and been enough to let her refuse to accept it.

"Would you like the one on hexes, jinxes or curses to start off with?" Important questions, mhm, mhm, mhm.

Forrest grinned shyly again. Yeah. He might actually reconsider his reluctancy about spells... he decided to think about it tonight, before bed, after he'd written the daily letter to his mother.

"Thanks to you," he breathed, because honestly, he would have quit ever trying again if it hadn't been for HER encouragement. He was ready to get up when she asked him another question.

A question he didn't even get. What was the difference between those three things? Weren't they all sort of malice?

He acted as if he was thinking it over for a moment as he looked at some distant point on the dock. Hmm. He couldn't come up with a legitimate difference between them, so he decided to go with the one that sounded the best.

"Jinksss," he tried the word out, "I'd like the one with jinksss."

Oh? Thanks to her? He needed to stop being so precious because she was BEAMing now! This whole conversation had been rising and dipping but finally she managed to convince him of something.

And just look at him thinking about it. He must have wanted to make sure he picked the right one. This was another proud moment for her. "Jinxes it is! Personally I prefer Hexes, they're more harmful but Jinxes will do you some good and you're less likely to get hurt." When she thought about it, she probably wouldn't have offered him the curse book either...

"Now let's go, I bet you can't wait to start learning them!" GRIN.

She was eager to see the results.

Oh, so the difference was how much harm they made? And apparently jinksssses was the lightest one. Good. Baby steps. He still had problems in casting Wingardium Leviosa, no need to jump to the hardest spells. He nodded at her as if to say 'That's what I thought.' Could Alexa read minds? The Professor had said it was hard... just how hard was it?

He got up and offered her his hand to pick her up too. "Yes," was all he could muster out of his enthusiasm.

Gringringrin.

Laura giggled as she waited until Nerida hand was hurting. "Oh look you can't keep it up all day." Laura smirked and dived under the water and snuck around until she was behind Nerida and started splashing her like crazy. "This is awesome." Laura giggled.

Nerida giggled as she saw Laura disappear underneath the water. As Laura resurfaced, she quickly said before Laura started pelting her with water, "I can keep it up all day!" Its just she hit the water very fast and hurt herself... After being pelted with water for five minutes Nerida dove into the water and grabbed onto Laura's leg and pulled her down. She swam up to the surface, laughing as soon as she hit the water she looked around her waiting for Laura to resurface.

Laura decided to trick Nerida, she resurfaced just behind Nerida, so that Nerida couldn't see her, she wanted Nerida to panic for a little bit before she pulled Nerida hair and started to splash her with water again. "I can keep going all week if I have to." Laura smirked.

Nerida was about to start freaking, how long had she been under there!!!!!!!!!! Just as Nerida was about to dive down to see if maybe a scary monster got her, she felt a tug of the hair. She quickly turned around to see Laura for a split second and then a faceful of water hit her right all over. She splashed Laura, "I can keep this up forever!" When she realized the splashing wasn't working she made a jump and tackled Laura until they were looking like cats in water.

Laura giggled as she looked at Nerida. "You look like a cat." Laura smirked as she pushed Nerida off her. "Your not really good at water fighting are you." Laura decided it was time to pretend to yawn. "I thought you said you were, if I had known it would be this easy I would have told you not to bother." Laura giggled, she knew that Nerida would know she was messing with her.

Nerida giggled "That was the point." She swam around for a couple seconds getting into a good position. As Laura talked she got ready to splash her. "I am too." Just as Laura 'yawned' she sent a splash over to her hopefully landing the water in her mouth. "What are you talking about I'm going easy on you." She laughed, and started to pelt Laura with water, only moments after Laura had finished talking.

The hand was taken when it was offered and she watched the butterfly flying off before turning to him and his enthusiasm again. She'd only ever seen this in herself. It was so beautiful to watch. Soon he'd be wanting to learn the hexes and if he was good at those....maybe one curse...a VERY SIMPLE one to start.

"Alright, let's go!" She linked her arm with his and started walking back. Best start trying to remember where she left the book last. Not down in the Common Room, probably by the small table next to her bed...no wait, that was the book of hexes. The one on Jinxes was in her trunk. She hadn't looked at it in a week.

Mhm, she knew where it was. He could get to borrow it.

Messer was exhausted. Why didn't someone tell him that studying for OWLs was tiring? The older students should have warn him that. He could feel his head gonna explode any seconds so to avoid that, the fifth year decided to talk a walk around the Hogwarts ground. His first destination was the Courtyard but then in the last second he decided to go to the swimming dock instead. He hasn't had a chance to check it out.

Now here he was. In the dock. He took off his shoes before he sat by the docks and soak his feet in the lake.

Sigh.

Swimming. Alice didn't do it. It wasn't just the fact that she didn't know how to swim and could most probably die (hello? Gryffindor here, almost death happened daily), but it didn't even look like fun. Splashing around in water didn't seem like her thing.

But she did pass the dock one afternoon and was glad she did, because Messer was there. Messer! She hadn't seen him in ages. "Hi." Alice sat down next to him but kept her legs out of the water, because wetness and stuff. "What're you doing?"

Sticking his feet in water and stuff, yeah. But why?

Messer thought the water not going to be so cold but when his feet touched the water its COLD. Oh well his feet will get use to it so he just shrugged it off and it worked after a while he didn't feel cold anymore.

He was splashing the water around with his feet when he heard someone was walking toward him. His eyes went from the water to where the sound came from, when he looked up he saw Alice. What's the first thing you need to say to your friend who you haven't seen in a very long time? Fortunately for him Alice already got it covered. "Hi." He greeted her as he saw her sat down next to him.

What're you doing?

"I'm trying to cool my head off." More like cooling his feet off. "How are you, Alice?"

Finally!!! She thought she'd never be free of that castle!! Obviously she'd left there in a hurry, there was no way she was gonna wait to be escorted around the grounds like some little kid. She was a Third Year, that had to count for something, if only a little.

Alexa walked cautiously but quickly. Drawing attention to herself might have gotten her sent back or even worse, followed by a bloody know-it-all of an older kid. NO THANKS! She could take care of herself. It was really easy and she had her wand with her. What's the worse that could happen? Couldn't think of anything? Well neither could she. This would all be fiiiiine.

She walked to the edge of the dock on the side closer to the lake and looked up again. Surely enough there was Ursa Minor. Gosh she loved that constellation but she imagined it might have been annoying to Polaris, always being found out because of that one constellation that won't leave you alone.

Maybe it was use to it.

Whatever the case was the kept following the pattern of stars until she ran right into the one she was looking for. "There you are." Sextant time, yeah?

BREAKIN' DA LAW, BREAKIN' DA LAW

BREAKIN' DA LAW, BREAKIN' DA LAW

Okay, so Tobias had heard what Professor Starman had said about being accompanied outside, but there were a few problems with that. 1. He'd hurried out and forgotten to find an older student to go with him on the grounds. 2. He now couldn't find an older student ANYWHERE even though he'd looked for a whole MINUTE. And 3. He still wanted to go outside and felt sneaky enough to manage it. It was just a case of note getting caught. Tobias could manage that.

The castle grounds were very different in the dark, and Tobias wasn't ENTIRELY sure about where he was, but like... at least he was somewhere? His feet found wood and the floor around him was all shiny. This had to be the dock, right? And way down there was a someone staring into the sky. A someone taller. Awesome, and older student!

"Hi!" Tobias greeted enthusiastically, hoping he had made enough noise on his approach to not startle the person. He looked up into the sky too and peered through the sextant in the general direction that he thought it might be. There was some kind of method, he knew that... with constellations and such. But it was much harder to do it in practi- WAAAIIIT. THAT CONSTELLATION THERE. It was bright and obvious and looked kind of like a frying pan and that was it... it was somewhere nearby. "You're an older student right?" Hint hint.

No point beating around the bush after all.

GOTCHA POLARIS.

Now for the tricky bit.

It was kinda hard not to hear the footsteps getting closer to her on the wooden dock. The night was quiet, she felt like she could hear everything, but of course she couldn't. Now, seeing as she'd snuck out, she probably should have been worried about someone approaching but she wasn't. Know whhhyyyyy? Footsteps weren't heavy, it wasn't anyone who could take points. She no longer cared.

Or well...she didn't until she heard the voice and whipped around immediately with a grin.

"Kitty!Tobias!!!" She practically squealed rigth before slapping both hands over her mouth. They were meant to be sneaky and she was yelling. Lex looked around in the dim lighting but couldn't make out anyone else. Good.

"I am an older student...older than you." Pause. "But not old enough to be out on my own so shhhhhh." Kitty was good at following instructions, right?? "You can come sneaking with me if you want, we can just casually not get caught together--it'll be epic!" And MUCH better than the stuffy castle thank you very much.

While she waited on an answer to her proposition she got to taking the degress and stuff. Right now the sextant was saying 76. It probably wasn't very accurate but she wasn't going to question it and instead began scribbling her calculations.



She could live with that. Was he ready to go be sneaky somewhere else?

Kitty!Tobias?

Waaaaait a second, he recognised that voice. He'd SEEN her in classes and heard her voice loads but it was only when she said that that he realised who he was talking to. "You're that commentator! Awesome!"

Okay, so she was older... that was KIND of following the instructions, right? He wasn't meant to be doing this with an older student. This girl was older. All was fiiiiiiiine. Just as long as Professor Starman didn't frolick by them and notice that they were being rebels without a cause.

"I'd like to not get caught together," Tobias agreed with a grin, even as he found the horizon through the sextant. Press clamp, find Polaris, release clamp. He supposed as well that he should adjust it this time, because they weren't just practicing now. Then he kinda swung it to check it was cool (but that bit was still confusing) and peeeeeeered at the number the angle was at.

Hm... quite dark.

Eventually he managed to read it (it said 80) and then crouched down so he could use the dock as a desk and write some notes.



It didn't even register with Tobias that it was all that different to the one in the classroom. He was just ready to do some night exploring and not-getting-caught. "Okay, I'm done. Lead on!" 'Cause the dark meant that Tobias knew even less about where he was going.

Kace decided to go to the Swimming Dock. He wouldn't have any trees or bushes blocking his way to see Polairs. He loved seeing the clear skies. Alright so all he had to do was find Polaris. That shouldn't be SO hard. He was gonna do this assignment by himself. He could do this....

He looked up at the sky with his sextant in his hand. He squinted at the sky and then he remembered he could use the charm. Ughhh what was it called? He opened his backpack to check the spell. It was Occulus Foculais? Yup that was it! But he didn't need to use it.

He FOUND IT. He saw it at the end of the constellation. He was blanking on it but he knew it was Polaris. He had a GUT feeling. He was jumping up with glee and was dancing because he found it!

Then he looked at his sextant reflecting back on how he used it in his previous class lesson. He could do this!

Eyeing her watch and seeing that half of the time passed, Cassia picked up her pace and decided to head OUT. Seriously she'd be doing fine,what could go wrong? Nothing. Arriving near the swimming dock she decided it was a good spot.She could see the sky clearly and that was the entire purpose. The fourth-year looked up at the sky. What was she going to do again? Oh yeah, Polaris. Finding it really was a piece of cake now. It was great that they got to practice locating it many times. They now were able to do it if ever needed. It was impossible that someone might still not be able to find it.

Looking up at the clear pretty sky, the blond' brown eyes started searching for the big dipper. Always easily found and recognized. Heeere it was. Just like a bowl. Then her eyes trailed to the tip of it where Polaris is always found, pretty easy. And it made her good and satisfied, succeeding in something or perfecting it.

Now, it was time for the latitude. She might have not perfected it yet but she wasn't hard plus it was enjoyable.

Reaching for her bag to retrieve the sextant, Cassia spotted a little hufflepuff kid a couple of feet away. What was he doing alone? Hmmm.

SPOILER!!: Cassia :D!

Quote:

Originally Posted by the fastest seeker

Eyeing her watch and seeing that half of the time passed, Cassia picked up her pace and decided to head OUT. Seriously she'd be doing fine,what could go wrong? Nothing. Arriving near the swimming dock she decided it was a good spot.She could see the sky clearly and that was the entire purpose. The fourth-year looked up at the sky. What was she going to do again? Oh yeah, Polaris. Finding it really was a piece of cake now. It was great that they got to practice locating it many times. They now were able to do it if ever needed. It was impossible that someone might still not be able to find it.

Looking up at the clear pretty sky, the blond' brown eyes started searching for the big dipper. Always easily found and recognized. Heeere it was. Just like a bowl. Then her eyes trailed to the tip of it where Polaris is always found, pretty easy. And it made her good and satisfied, succeeding in something or perfecting it.

Now, it was time for the latitude. She might have not perfected it yet but she wasn't hard plus it was enjoyable.

Reaching for her bag to retrieve the sextant, Cassia spotted a little hufflepuff kid a couple of feet away. What was he doing alone? Hmmm.

As Kace was finding Polaris he noticed a slytherin looking his way. He smiled and waved. He saw the equipment and knew she was working on the same thing he was. He went over to her and asked, "Are you doing the assignment for Flamsteed's class like i am trying to?" he grinned while pointing at his sextant.