Soup? Ella giggled and shook her head at the older badger. Soup did sound good, though. Maybe she'd try and find some when she headed back inside. It was definitely something to think about.

Now that she'd done the spell, Ella was just waiting and watching as the ray of sunshine hit the water. Had she thought ahead, she could have timed how long it took to boil and added that to her notes but she didn't think of it until now. Too bad. Instead she hummed to herself and willed the water to get hot.

Eventually it did start to steam and Ella's eyes widened a bit, a small smile playing on her lips. Was it working?! WAS IT?!

And then...AND THEN...BUBBLES! First tiny ones around the edge of the pot and then bigger ones all around. GRIN! The seventeen year old let this continue for a few minutes before ending the spell, eager to take down some notes on what had happened.

Scribble. Scribble. Scribble.

So far so good!

No she couldn't agree more. Or at least that was what she would have said a few weeks ago. It WAS getting a lot better though. Staying at Hogwarts had turned out to be...well, not as bad as she'd expected it to be. Yes she still missed her sister and everything but there were a few people here who she'd grown quite attached to. And it had surprised her more than anyone.

So instead of saying anything Olly just shrugged her shoulders. It wasn't like she was in a sharing mood. Especially not with the girl next to her. She hardly knew her. Plus she was talkative. The Hufflepuff even considered ignoring the question directed at her. With an annoyed sigh she looked back at the other girl. "Since September." She was talking about Hogwarts yeah?

And Hogsmeade again. More questions about Hogsmeade. "How would I know?" Hadn't they just talked about how neither of them had been there yet? So why would she know what kinds of shops the town had.

Minerva was focused on her cauldron hoping that the chocolate would melt. As of now they were still frogs and it looked like any minute they were going to be Chocolate jumping frogs.. Nooooo she didn't think that through now did she. But they looked to be not jumping Minerva looked closer to see that it was melting.. Melting was good, but she felt kind of sad for the frogs even if they weren't real frogs. She didn't like seeing them melting like that.


Oh well she moved on quickly trying not to think of them as frogs, but as just chocolate. Going to her bag she pulled out the pretzels and that's when she saw Ella's water steaming. "Ella that's great. You did such an awesome job." but that wasn't a surprise she always knew Ella was a great witch.

Turning back to her cauldron she scooped a pretzel into the cauldron and pulled it out with the chocolate all over. Taking a bite, "Owwww that's a bit warm." She had just melted it, what was she thinking. Looking back at Ella she offered a pretzel, "Want some?" Who wouldn't want chocolate covered pretzels.

First test DONE! Ella was all beamy faced as she pulled on some gloves and carefully set the pot of hot water aside. She could use that for watering plants or something later, yeah? She didn't want it to go to waste.

Then Minnie was complimenting her and the blonde shrugged, a smile still playing on her lips. "It was luck, really. I'm just glad the sun was hot enough to get it boiling." It really was all about catching it at just the right angle. Oh and melted chocolate, eh? That meant Minnie's test had gone well too. "It looks amazing but I'll pass for now. Thank you, though." She wanted to get this next part done with and soon.

Removing her gloves and reaching into her bag again, the blonde got out the container with the buttered bread slices and cheese. Heh. Time for some food.

Placing a plate that wouldn't melt on the rock where the pot had been, the blonde set the cheese sandwich down and smiled. If all went to plan, she'd be having a tasty snack in no time.

Now to find the right sunlight with her magnifying glass. Hmmm.

"Alright well if you want any help yourself." Minerva watched for a second as she saw Ella bring out bread. That was an interesting idea. Min loved cooking and how great was it that she was using bread and bowing water. Great things to have for this project.

Turning back to her own she dipped another pretzel before the chocolate cooled to much and started to harden again. It was so good she would remember this. Even though unless they weren't keeping the magnifier. That would be a pity if they didn't get to keep it. What was the point of learning this if they didn't have one to use.

Oh well not something to think about now. Minerva started crumpling parchment from her bag. Some could be seen as possible Arithmancy and scribbling about beards. Not getting out frustration with this homework at all nope. As she crumpled more of the paper she put it in a pile. This was going to be fun if it worked.

"Thanks Min, will do." And the older badger got a smile before the younger one continued on with her work.

Now that she was all set up, Ella was in search of the perfect angle so that her grilled cheese could cook. The blonde was sitting cross-legged next to the rock, carefully moving the magnifying glass in hopes that she would find a particularly strong ray of sunshine. She figured the best way to test that out would be to give it a go and so that's what she did.

"Solis Focus!"

... ... ... Yeah, not strong enough. Ella frowned slightly and decided to move her seat, thinking this might be helpful. When she was settled, the seventeen year old fiddled with the magnifying glass again, trying out different angles.

OH, oh this was good. The sun was shining strong and Ella had a good feeling so she held her magnifying glass steady as she said, "Solis Focus!" She then watched and waited with curiosity, wondering if this would work.

After some time, the bread started to turn a golden color and the blonde let out a SQUEAK, knowing this was a sign that it was working. Now to see if the cheese was melting too. Tilting her head to the side, Ella hoped to see some oozing out of the middle of the sandwich but none was just yet. That meant it needed to cook longer.

More time went by and the cheese did melt, though it had taken longer than she'd hoped. She did eventually flip the sandwich over too to toast the other side. By the time she was done, it was decided that using a stove to cook would be MUCH faster. Plus her arm wouldn't feel like it was going to fall off right now. That was important too.

"I did it!" She informed Minnie, holding up her grilled cheese with a grin. Then she nommed because she was hungry and why not, right? Notes could wait.

NOM. NOM. NOM.

Tast assignment.

After getting the lovely fire started by the lake she felt it was time to blast a 'meteor'. She just...needed to find one first. Of course there were none at Hogwarts...or any hurtling towards the earth for that matter but that wasn't going to be an issue. There were a few giant rocks by the front gate that she could easily use to get the same effect...okay not completely true considering space rocks were bigger and denser but you got the idea and the Professor would get it too.

"Try to keep up Felix, I don't want to lose sight of you right before making something go boom." The worst thing ever would be having him caught up in the explosion. Her poor baby. She didn't even want to THINK about it.

As Lex walked, she tried to find a suitable rock for the job.

Too small...too jagged--it could take someone's eye out after it exploded--....ah! Perfect! Lex glanced over at Felix again, watching him plopped down by her foot. "You like that one, boy? We're gonna blow it up."

For homework reasons.

Gosh, why couldn't she have this excuse every time she came onto the grounds????

It was hard, actually, lugging all these things around. What was even harder was that he had to come back here, of all places. On his own. The memories were practically threatening to spill and fill up his thoughts, which would make him forget about anything else he had to do in the meantime.

Like stargaze. He was meant to be doing that.

Trying to keep his mind in the subject field of Astronomy, Alec headed down towards the Front Gate, his hand clutched onto the strap of his bag. Reaching a spot that he thought would be perfect for this, the boy set his bag down gently and started pulling out his things. Years and years of doing Astronomy hadn't gone to waste, it seemed, since the boy was able to set up the telescope without much of a fuss. The only problem with this, though, was that he wanted hot chocolate. Badly. Because it was COLD. BRRRR.

Once the telescope was set up, he aimed it up at the sky and started looking around. He knew what he needed to find, more or less; one of the two constellations, one of the two planets or a star. But the specific ones that had been put up in that notice in the common room. He searched around the sky, a small frown forming on his face the longer and longer he looked. What if nothing was up there? And this was just. a fruitless attempt at doing some stargazing? What if he was doing it all wrong, too?

... FROWN.

Alec moved away and reached inside his bag instead. He pulled out his star chart and held it up before looking through the telescope again.

... And... that was when he saw it. Some brighter stars. Maybe this was a constellation, then? He looked over towards his star chart and tried to match up what he had seen up there. Except... this was hard. And probably required a lot of imagination and guesswork; both of these things weren't exactly things Alec was good at doing. He gazed through the lens once more and then back at the book and--

...

"YES!" Adromeda was FOUND. ... Or... that was what those brighter stars seemed to look like when you matched it up to form a constellation. Yeah. Okay. He could tick this off the list, right?

Alexa had to be sure that she could feel her kneazle brushing against her foot before she decided to start blowing anything up. Going with this whole theme of safety, she was going to cast an efficient protego spell to keep them from getting hit by any debris. Taking a look around, she was careful to note that no one was walking by at this time. This made it the most appropriate time. No need to wait until someone happened to show up. Unless she could absolutely get away with saying she never saw them.

Alright, all this safety stuff was getting boring. It really was. She was ready to see something go BOOM. Funny how this was the first place she'd learned and used the expulso charm that exploded things as well.

Ahem.

"Solis Focalis!" And a hard jab toward the rock for good measure. Had to pretend this was a meteor headed to earth afterall. Everyone's live's in danger...that kind of thing.

BOOM!

So since he had found Andromeda and he was outside, it was okay if he just... lay here, right? Just for a minute? Looking up at the stars and taking a breather? He lay down on a patch of grass and folded his arms so that they rested behind his head. There. His eyes wandered around the sky while one song in particular floated into his brain.

... Yeah... this just made him miss his girlfriend. Because Chasing Cars. And he had hummed that out loud for the first time in front of her ages ago when they were laying down and cloud watching after practice. Or was it before practice? He... didn't really know. That wasn't the important part so it was okay to not remember that particular piece of information, right? Yeah? AWESOME.

... What... wasn't awesome was the fact that it was starting to get cold. Really really cold. After a couple of minutes, the boy got up and packed up his things. There was no use staying out here, right? Yeah? Taking extra care to pack away his telescope, the boy swung his bag over his shoulder before heading up towards the castle. Girlfriend and hot chocolate, he was coming!

The boom was all she needed to hear. "Protego!" And instantly they were surrounded by a shield. She watched bits and pieces of space rock bounce off the shield and hit the floor, glad that even though she failed at most shield charms, she had this one down pat. No doubt Felix was happy about this as well, some of the smaller chunks were almost as big as HE was. Squashed kneazle? No thank you!

As the last of the debris landed the shield slowly dissolved.

"Would you look at that Felix, we just saved humanity from what could have been the worst collision since the dinosaurs!!" GRIN. And if anyone asked she would tell them just that. The rock was a danger to them all. In another life it could have been a massive meteor set on destroying them and being the BRAVE Gryffindor she was, she took it head on and destroyed it, thus saving the world.

Could she get paid in chocolate frogs now?

No?

Okay, nothing wrong with late payment, so long as it happened. For now, back to her Common Room to get this all written down.

Minerva was just about to do the spell when she heard Ella and put her wand down. "Wait, you did grilled cheese with that spell?" That was all forms of amazing. "What a great thing to have." Grilled cheese anywhere and the more Min thought about it the hungrier she was getting. She would be heading to the kitchen right after this attempt.

Turning back to her own project she crumpled a few more parchments and stacked them up. This had to work right, of course it would. It was paper and paper caught fire. Yes it would work.

She pointed her wand and made sure it was aimed correctly. " Solis Focus" She watched as the paper just sat there doing nothing. No it had to do something soon right. Just as she was about to do the spell over she saw it smoking and then a little fire started. She jumped up and down excited that it worked.

To her surprise once it had caught it quickly started getting bigger. "Oh no" She pointed her wand and non verbally sent water to the flames to put them out. Breathing a bit heavy from seeing the fire as well as the adrenalin from thinking she was about to burn the front gate area down Min decided to take a seat on the ground for a few minutes.

Their walk had taken her even further than she had originally planned on going but Lex didn't particularly mind. The night air was refreshing and if she was right, it wasn't all that late. You know how some people can look at up the sky and tell the time? Yeah...she wasn't one of those people AT ALL but that didn't mean she couldn't look up and get an idea....no actually that IS what that meant. Eh, not like her prefects would rat her out. Jake just told her not to get caught while he was around and Alice would probably just haul her back inside no questions asked.

She didn't know about Ira...but from what she did know the girl was alright so no need to worry there either.

She came to a stop as she hit the front gate and looked up, just getting an idea of how tall it was. It wasn't exactly something she'd thought to do before. While looking up, her brows furrowed. "Felix...?" The kneazle gave no response but she knew he was listening. "Wouldn't you say...that kinda looks like Andromeda?"

Lex squinted, completely forgetting about the telescope in her pocket and somehow ended up on the tips of her toes, hands holding on to the gate for support.

It was...She was positive. Yup. Andromeda right there.

It was a bit cold outside but it still was good to go out and stroll around inhaling the chilly breeze. It had such an effect on her, the cold did. Had she been drowsy or restless, she was now fully awake and pensive. Sitting by the fire place bundled up was no way to try and study. She'd been just falling asleep which was exactly the opposite of what she needed.

The fifth-year marched up all the way to the gate. She hadn't been that far for a while and she regularly liked to visit every part of the castle. Just 'cause. And while she did go out and walk, she had snacks, textbooks and other stuff tucked inside her bag. No one knows what she might need, yeah? Always at the ready.

She leaned against the wooden gate and tipped her chin looking up at the vast cloudy sky. Her eyes searched the sky until they settled on something. Hmmm. Look what we have here. Reaching for her bag that hung from her shoulder, she retrieved the telescope she's conveniently been keeping it there, and held it up to her eyes. Just to be sure, she retrieved the textbook and flipped to the page she was looking for.

Yup. Totally. Andromeda was right above her. Well, not exactly.

Stargazing.

Ella was bundled up and had her telescope with her, eager to get out under the stars. This was her favorite thing to do. Or well, it was one of them. It was always better when the boyfriend was involved but as she was trying to find particular things for class, it was probably best she was alone. Maybe.

Settling down under a particularly clear sky, the seventeen year old got to work assembling her telescope and cleaning the lens. After some time, she deemed it ready for use and got to work.

It made you feel small, the sitting under the stars thing. Ella couldn't help but feel like if they were watching her, the stars would think she was quite insignificant. Not nearly as pretty as they were, too. She was just this...little thing. Yeah.

Anyways, wasn't that...Andromeda? Yeah, the chained maiden. Ella closed one eye and tried to get a better look, glancing into her telescope and then into the sky and back again.

Yup, definitely Andromeda.

The blonde recorded some information on a small pocket notebook she had and looked up again, a small smile on her face. Nicely spotted, Bishop.

Time for some Herbology homework! Tora was standing by the front gate, not because she wanted to escape Herbology requirements, but because she wanted a place to practice hot air charms without everyone else getting in the way. She had been hoping to practice with Adrienne, but had sort of spontaneously sent her best friend an owl saying to meet her here and wasn't sure it had gotten to the other Ravenclaw in time. So while she waited she practiced her "Aguamenti!" charm which she would undoubtedly need for this assignment.

She eventually got bored and started shooting water jets everywhere as if she was the center of a mini fountain. Swoooott. SWOOOOT. Swoooootttttt. (Jets of water sound like that, ya know?)

Adrienne headed down towards the front gate grumpily. She loved being in Ravenclaw, honestly, but did their common room really have to be on the top freaking floor of the castle? Merlin. Just walking down all of those stairs had her winded, and she didn't even want to think about going up all of them again when she was going to have to go back upstairs. Honestly, if this hadn't been for homework she would have just brushed Tora off and told her she hadn't gotten her owl. It would have been easier, and less stair-filled, but she did have to do this Herbology stuff anyway at some point, so better now than later, yeah?

She noticed Tora's back as she strolled along under the creepy winged boars and sneaked up behind her- what was she even doing? She was turning weirdly and pointing her wand places and... "OH!" Adrienne squeaked as she found herself suddenly drenched with freezing cold water. She blinked the water out of her eyes and glared at Tora, water dripping from a few clumps of hair that were now plastered to her face. This. Was. War.

She cursed at her friend in French for a few moments before drawing her wand angrily. "Aguamenti!" she said, pointing her wand directly at Tora's head.

Oh! Adrienne was here! And she was SQUIRT. Tora squeezed her eyes shut as a blast of water hit her face. "What was that for!" she coughed, sputtering from the stream of water and wiping her eyes. Once she could see, and notice Adrienne and how soaked her friend really was, understanding dawned and the second year let out a soft "Oh."

"Sorry, I didn't mean to hit you with my fountain, Adrienne," Tora said cautiously. Really, she hadn't meant it at all. On the bright side...."Hey, at least you can practice that spell for Herbology now!" Her face flipped from Slightly Concerned and Embarrassed Tora to Pleased That She Came Up With an Idea Tora. And so she pointed her wand at herself and, moving her wand in clockwise circles, clearly said "Siccus Aerous".

She knew a different, probably easier, hot air charm for getting dry, but she had to do this one for homework. Besides, this one most likely was stronger or worked better anyway. That didn't mean she got any less wet though. Yup. Definitely practice this one!

Also, just because she was sorry for shooting Adrienne earlier with water didn't mean she wasn't prepared for an old fashioned water war later. *evil grin*

What was that for? "What d'you think?" Adrienne called back, nodding emphatically at Tora's little 'oh'. Yeah, now she was covered in water and her robes were going to take forever to dry out. Thanks a lot, human fountain of water. She grabbed her ponytail and wrung it out, letting the water drip into a small puddle on the stone beneath her, and then moved on to wiping off her face with the sleeve of her robe, not that it made it much better. At this point she realised that she wasn't really soaked, per se, but her friend's 'fountain' had sprayed water all over her, so no part of her was completely dry.

"Yeah, yeah, it's okay," she said begrudgingly, though she wasn't quite sure Tora was forgiven yet. At least one more face full of water and then they'd be even, because Tora had started it and therefore deserved... more wettenings. Yes.

Adrienne sighed. Right, they were here for homework. Herbology homework. What did this even have to do with Herbology? Wouldn't it be closer to Charms homework, given that they were actually doing charms? "Siccus Aerous," she said, or something rather like it, and pointed her wand cautiously at her arm, making small circles to the left. To her chagrin, nothing was happening, so she said the spell louder and more firmly- and also more incorrectly. "Seecus Ayrous!" Still nothing. She frowned and glared at her wand. Stupid spell.

Looking over at her friend trying to dry herself, she noticed that Adrienne was performing the wand movement incorrectly. Either that or Tora herself was doing it incorrectly; seeing as neither of them had had any luck yet she wasn't quite sure. Maybe she would do better if she practiced on someone else first before herself.

She decided that Adrienne, being waterlogged, the only other person in the area, and having just forgiven Tora, would be the perfect person to practice on. She stepped up to her friend and asked somewhat rhetorically, "Can I practice on you?" before circling her wand clockwise twice while saying "Seecus Aurous!" As Tora was fairly certain she was performing the correct wand movement, she had decided that Adrienne most likely had the correct pronunciation and so had copied the other girl's incantation. It made sense that her spell hadn't worked the first time if she had been saying the incorrect words!

After failing at several attempts at drying Adrienne in this manner Tora became frustrated and went to go bang her fist against the nearby gate at which time she was given a slight shock by some protective enchantment guarding it.

Adrienne was trying not to be annoyed, really, but it was difficult. Here she was, dripping wet, and she didn't even know if she was doing the spell right. With a sigh, she lowered her wand and gave up. At least Tora didn't seem to be faring any better than she was, which was good to see, but didn't actually help with her Herbology homework.

She rolled her eyes. "If you must," she said dramatically, spreading out her arms to make her waterlogged robes easier to access. She was patient for the first few moments as Tora circled and incanted, but when nothing happened she quickly grew antsy. "Look, you're clearly doing something wrong." Possibly the incantation, not that she'd admit it, given that it seemed like Tora had copied the pronunciation from her, and Adrienne was always right. Yeah... definitely. She pulled out her wand again, figuring she'd try once more before following suit and banging her fist against things pointlessly.

"Siccus Aerous," she said, circling her wand counterclockwise and trying the pronunciation a different way. To her chagrin, there was no apparent hot air coming out of her wand and drying her off, especially as she was beginning to shiver. It was cold out here!

So she was right before! It was "Siccus Aerous", not whatever mangled pronunciation she had copied off of Adrienne before. What probably happened before was she was circling her wand the wrong direction. Sometimes Tora didn't pay attention to little details like that and look what happened: she couldn't perform the spell. She sighed a bit and shook off some excess water that was dripping from her hair and into her eyes. Time to see if this new version of the spell really worked. She shut her eyes and pointed her wand at her hair. "Siccus Aerous!" she said clearly whilst moving her wand in counterclockwise circles as best as she could. WHOOOSHH. Her hair whipped in the strong gust of hot air and her eyes teared up. Well. At least it worked.

Now she would have to work on controlling it better since it would be really annoying to have blasts of hot air come from her wand whenever she said the spell. Yes, that was the point, but she didn't think they should be quite so... strong. She glanced over at Adrienne and her strands of hot air and decided that maybe she should try modeling her spell off of Adrienne's again. Her friend seemed to be having a better time of it than Tora.

Adrienne was about to give up on the spell entirely and fudge it when class came along when success struck. Aha! She turned her wand once the wrong way- well, what she thought was the wrong way, actually, which was clockwise- and said the incantation again, and voila!

She slowly moved the wand up and down her arm, letting it gently dry her off until the amount of air slowly petered out. She frowned and shook her wand, but to her chagrin no more air came out of it, and while the right sleeve of her robe was now resting, warm and dry, against her arm, the rest of her was still unfortunately wet. "Siccus Aerous!" Adrienne said again, circling her wand in front of her chest area, and her eyes closed reflexively as warm air blasted out of the tip of her wand, making her hair fly out behind her.

She focused for a moment and slowed down the flow of air, directing it towards her dripping ponytail and the water slowly drying on her face.

Well just drying off was nice and all, but a bit boring. She had been looking foreward to some great epic water battle, but had been sorrily disappointed. Maybe she could sneak attack Adrienne? Hmmm, the other Ravenclaw was unlikely to fall for any of Tora's shenanigans, but it was worth a shot. Tora spared a glance towards where Adrienne had been drying off to see if her friend was mostly dry yet. Finding that she was, Tora made it look like she was going to dry herself again when "Aguamenti," she whispered as a jet of water shot out of her wand straight towards her now dry but soon to be soaked again friend. Evil grin.

In the process though, she had caught her own arm in the water jet and so now her left sleeve was soaked through. Might as well practice that charm again. "Siccus Aerous," she said clearly, moving the wand in counterclockwise circles once more. She stopped partway through though to throw up a quick "Protego" charm incase Adrienne decided to fight back with a water jet of her own. Certain she was safe on her half of the protected area, Tora continued drying her sleeve.

Annabeth approached the front gates of the school. She had to pick up some part of an animal to Potions. She didn't know why, exactly, she had walked towards the front gates instead of the Magical Creatures Nursery or the Black Lake or even the courtyard. She shook her head. It was obvious why she was there. She wanted to leave. She had wakened up early this morning with a terrible headache and a feeling of sorrow she couldn't explain. It was ridiculous wanting to get out; outside of Hogwarts she had no one, just some friends and they should be busy right now. She sighed, staring through the gates.

Suddenly a beautiful black-and-yellow big butterfly flight towards her. She smiled sadly.

"A Hufflepuff butterfly!"

Then she pointed her wand to the butterfly.

"Immobulus!"

Her wand had never disappointed her, the freezing charm worked as it had to do and the butterfly fell on the ground. Anna picked up it cautiously and stared at the fragile insect lying in the palm of her hand. Then she took a cotton swab from her bag and rubbed it on a small area of the butterfly's wing. Anna checked it and the tip of the cotton swab was yellow. It should be enough for the potion and still the insect was fine to fly again. Smiling at the yellow tip, she headed back to the castle.