Awww, fun. "Hi Bart," Sophie offered, her eyebrows lowering slightly in concern at the boy's facial hair. It was just getting worse and worse for him, wasn't it? Absentmindedly running a hand through her own long brown hair, the Ravenclaw bounced on the spot when Tobes arrived and brushed a few stray hairs out from between her fingertips. "Sup Tobes." She accompanied her greeting with a 'sup' nod, too, and beamed at him.

He was so cool.

While Sophie didn't care too much that the first years had problems with their brooms, she did feel badly at the thought of Hope or Leah getting stuck with a less-than-acceptable broom. Listening to what Tyner told Bart, Sophie instinctively gravitated toward the bucket and plucked out a clean cloth and a tin that had the word 'polishing' on it. Polishing seemed like the easiest and simplest of jobs so far, so she could do that. Wordlessly moving over to a far corner, she took a seat and laid a broomstick across her lap, curiously examining it in its entirety. How were kids even allowed to USE these things? Sophie busied herself using the rag to dust the whole handle clean and kept an eye on the doorway as more and more people shuffled into the shed.

Where was the Ravenclaw team? Why weren't they there to help her earn more points, hmm?

Looking up from the broom tail she was working on, she saw another Hufflepuff walk in. Oh yes, she recognized this one from the decorating party. What was his name again? Oh Tiara, you need to do some memory exercises. Fortunately, the boy gave her name. "Yes Ian, I believe we met when we were decorating your dormitory for Tobias's birthday." She smiled at him. "There are plenty of tasks to do, so just find a spot and get to it! If you need help, either myself or one of the students would be happy to give you some pointers." She knew that younger students often felt intimidated by asking professors for help, so she was giving the option of asking classmates.


Excellent, another Slytherin! She had been wondering if she had forgotten their noticeboard. West was here, true, but.. he spent lots of time down at the Pitch, so that could just be a coincidence. "Good afternoon. We are working on washing tail twigs, polishing handles, and trimming up the tails a bit. Plus anything else you see that needs touch ups, of course." There were likely plenty of those.


So the two had met before. "Good good. Tobias is an excellent student, I'm glad you two have interacted before." And she chuckled at Sander's enthusiasm. "That sounds perfect, thank you."

Great. Another place for her to see the fine lines that were starting to appear on her face.

Ian nodded as he was given some instructions. He looked around at what the other students were doing. He'd seen Bart and decided it was best to stay away from him. They seemed to get in some measure of trouble when in close proximity.

He went and saw one of the brooms which appeared scratched up rather badly and decided he could polish a broom. He grabbed a rag and some polish and found a spot to sit. He began to examine the broom's shaft and found the worst spots. He put some of the polish on the broom and slowly applied the polish to the handle, filling in the scratches.

Overhearing the three tasks that they were meant to be doing, Sophie nodded to herself then went to collect a broom, some polish, and a rag. She couldn't understand why the school just didn't invest in some brand new brooms from time to time. These were the brooms her mother and father probably used, right? Maybe even her grandparents.

Oh, well.

Sophie sat down in an area with a good amount of room and laid the broom before her. She then applied a bit of polish to the rag then began wiping down the broom. "Err, Professor? Or, Ma'am?" she asked. Whatever they called Quidditch Officials. "What's the best way to wash and trim the tails?" She could think of a few spells, but was there a spell she preferred?

Caelen hung in the back of the broom shed. When she said she would get into everything this year. She apparently meant EVERYTHING. Including clean up activities. Because she was here, ready to help refurbish brooms. The same brooms that she JUST became comfortable riding.

"Um.. Professor? Ma'am?" Broom person. She noticed someone else had issues with figuring out what to call the person. Seriously, how did you address them? One of the great mysteries of life.

And their were a lot of Ravenclaws here. A helpful bunch they were apparently. That or diligent. Something like that.

Right. She had to complete her sentence, yeah?

"Is there anything you need me to do?" Because she was going to be a good citizen and help. Something like that.

Ooh, yeah, Toby recognised that Sander kid! He was the tall one who Toby assumed must be a transfer; no first year was that tall, and a kid that forthcoming with answers in class would have been noticed before, even by someone as unobservant as Toby, right?

Right.

Tobias gave the taller kid a grin and a cheerful wave, happy to properly meet someone whom he only knew from their answers in lessons. He paused for a minute, actually considering whether or not he should correct him, or to pretend like he would need help, just because he wasn't comfortable correcting people he didn't know. Especially older people with more authority than him, roles which, in his opinion, were both filled by all seventh years. In the end he opted for truth, though. "Oh, you won't need to help me out, this is my hobby!" he grinned, eyes twinkling. "I can give you some tips though, if you need them." He was still grinning. A grin that hopefully said 'I'm joking, this is friendly banter, just messin', hey bro, I'm cool, see look at my cool sass, banter, yeah'. Whether a grin could say all that was something he did not know.

Right now, Toby looked over to his bestie again. "'Sup Soph!" His greeting was way less cool. Was it possible to be cool AND enthusiastic? Probably not.

Now Toby had a slight dilemma, and that was the dilemma of choosing between people. He wanted to go and sit with Sophie, really. For bestie reasons. But this also seemed like the perfect opportunity to get to know this Sander kid and maybe work out how he was so good at lessons. Tobias did love to make new friends after all.

Even as he thought this, Toby's eyes gaze fell upon the Slytherin Captain, West, who was already here, and then at the others who were arriving. Tobias knew them all by name, apart from one, and... was that Sophie? And Caleb? Like, Newell. Wow, he hadn't spoken to either of them in ages. Like since Diagon Alley a whole year and a half ago. They got grins too. Tobias then looked back at West for just another second, then picked up the broom he was nearest and turned to properly look at Professor Tyner.

"Professor, d'you need us to do a proper soak of the tail twigs before we trim them?" Toby asked. He assumed so; these brooms looked kind of worse for wear.

Also, when Toby paused his grinning in favour of talking, one might be able to make out faint lines on his face that stayed, almost as a reminder of his excessive grinning.

Sander grinned, "Great. I'm more than happy for any tips you can provide." Sander told the younger boy.

Wait were they supposed to trim the tail twigs or polish the brooms like Professor Tyner had asked them to do? Sander was confused. He didn't want to sound stupid and ask the boy, so he tried to verbalize his question in another way.

"So I know the Professor asked us to polish the brooms. Can we do that first before we trim the twigs or after?" Sander asked the younger Puff. He already had the tin of polish in front of him and was about to scoop out a glob to apply to the broomstick handle.

Adi tried to decide which of the tasks he should pursue when Professor Tyner was finished talking. He could pretty much handle all of them. He glanced at the others and that's when he noticed Ian. Ian had already gotten started. "I think I'll do some polishing, Professor,'' he told the woman. He grinned and shuffled off towards his fellow second year badger.

Adi grabbed a rather faded broomstick, a piece of cloth and some polish. "Hi, Ian,'' he greeted. Feeling very glad to finally sit, he plopped down next to his friend. "What's up? How's that left side?'' He did remember the cane and Ian saying something was wrong with his left side earlier.

The Puffer dipped the cloth into the polish and to smear it bit by bit over the handle of the old broom. Rub, rub, rub. Got to make it look as good as new.

Ian was slowly filling in the scratches with color when he sensed the presence of someone else sit by him. He smiled as Adi sat down. When Adi asked about him, Ian shrugged. Not much. Just here trying to help since I lost those ten points at the tree house a while back. The left is ok. My right hip is what hurts. It comes and goes. It's weird. I thought about heading to the healer sometime. But I figured if it doesn't keep me from moving, I'm ok. How are you? Ian was grateful that Adi had come to sit with him. It gave him a chance maybe to bond with one of his housemates.

Bart gave a smile to Sophie, "Hey we have never went on any adventures yet, you said you'd show me the cool places." He hadn't forgotten that. He looked as she spoke to someone else. Oh he had seen that boy in classes, didn't look like a happy bloke, but Bart wasn't one to think to long on that, "Sup" He nodded and greeted that boy as Sophie seemed super happy to see him.

Turning not to interrupt their well whatever their thing was he listened to the professor in front of them. He had done trimming at his old school that he could do. "I'll trim the twigs they taught us that at Urelic" He announced to whomever cared to listen and then turned to his captain as the professor lady told them to listen to her, "Is that alright Cap?" Just to make sure before he he took off and got started on things.

As he waited on an answer he noticed some of the others around, big mouth and bookworm did they even know how to ride brooms. Probably not... He thought about going over and saying something to Ian, he still owed him a nice something after that ten points in class, but he'd wait until later. It would be better if he waited, plus he saw a broom and his brain changed as quickly as that to the broom and well that longer piece of grass on the ground. He bent down and plucked it. That's better.

Now what was he doing?

The first person who arrived after her was that little one with mad Chaser skills. Alice couldn't recall much about her, let alone a name. Safira? So... Sofia? So....... fie? Was that it?

Whatever her name was, the captain gave her a playful two fingered salute back and turned her attention back to Tyner for more instructions.

Everything? Did that mean she could choose, then? Nodding to the professor, Alice tugged a tie off her wrist and pulled her hair up, ready to get to work. Seemed like some people were washing, and others were clipping and all, but she felt like joining that first Ravenclaw girl who'd appeared. The one who was attached to Mo and Cat at the hip, yeah?

She was kind of creepy cute.

Since the Sophie girl had already grabbed a polishing tin, she just grabbed another rag and a broom, heading over to the corner where the 'Claw had seated herself. Alice dropped down next to her and proceeded to give the broom a light scrub over with the rag first. Best have it dust free before moving on to polishing, yeah?

"Sure thing." Alice gave him a thumbs up and mentally prayed he wouldn't break anything in the process. But then again, the kid was a Quidditch nut, and she liked to think he'd have some tact around brooms, yes?

'Cause they were lovely. She reached out stroked the one she was working on with a finger, giving it an affectionate look. So lovely.

Ooooh, that was the Gryffindor kid that Toby had found himself getting all annoyed with. Thinking back to those lessons, especially now he was around his beloved brooms which always had a super calming effect on Toby, the boy felt super bad. Incredibly guilty. He resolved to make it up to the boy, even though he'd never said anything out loud about anything.

Soooooooo Tobias put on his friendly grin and raised a hand in greeting. "'Sup."

He didn't know why he kept saying that word. He'd literally never said it before today. But apparently Toby was trying to be cool now.

And then Sander was speaking and Toby looked back. This seemed as good a place as any to sit, after all. Tobias looked around and found a stool nearby. He hooked his foot around it a dragged it a little closer so he could sit with Sander. As he lowered himself to sit, Tobias felt another twinged in his lower back, and made a mental note of himself to use more of that awesome pain relief stuff there as well. Though at this rate, he'd be running out very soon.

But for now, brooms.

"Technically, we can do either first. The only time order really matters is when dealing with the tail twigs, after all, 'cause you gotta soak or clean them clipping," Tobias said laying the broom over his knees and unzipping his jacket, as it had gone all bunched up. He loosened his scarf to take it off, and set it down beside him. "We can do the broom handles first, I always have a tendency to start with the tail twigs."

But yes. Polish. Sander had already picked up some polish, so Tobias reached back to the broom servicing stuff with a little wince as he stretched, and picked up two rags for polishing. One to put the polish on, one to take it back off.

Wax on, wax off.

He turned back to Sander and smiled, as was his custom. The older Hufflepuff had retrieved the polish to Toby would wait until he'd used it before asking to share.

"Alright sure." West responded to Tyner agreeably and began half-filling a couple of buckets with warm water, and then he measured a cleaning solution into the buckets too. Was that Toby kid going to join him then? Based on his question.. yeah? No? Whichever.

"Okay anyone who wants to help out over here, make sure you follow the steps right, okay? We can start a chain, pass the clean ones down to the clippers and polishers." He took a seat with a bucket in front of him between his feet, and two towels over his knee. West picked a broom up and submerged the twigs in the solution.

"Let it soak for a minute and then gently stir the broom in the solution clockwise ten times." He said. "Dirt effects how brooms fly. Its the first thing you should do if you're cleaning or maintaining your own broom too." Even before clipping or polishing. "Try not to slosh it too much either." He started stirring gently, counting in his head to ten times.

"Then we let it sit another minute and stir counter-clockwise ten times. Then we lift it out and let the solution drip back into the bucket. Once that is done we wrap the towels around the twigs. We do that so that the liquid remaining gets soaked up from the twigs, and also to keep outside gunk off the twigs while they dry. Then we can give them to polish people, and they can do the handles."

HOPEFULLY people doing polish knew what they were doing and all. West would just focus on this side of things.

Good they would be polishing the brooms handles after all. Sander picked up a rag and was going to stick in in the container before he realized that the younger
boy was waiting for something. He looked enquiringly at the boy before he realized that Toby was most likely waiting politely to start using the wax first. Sander returned his smile and moved the tin of polish closer to Toby.

"Here dig in," Sander encouraged the boy as he removed the lid of the tin, scooped up a Knut's size glob of polish and waited for the boy to do the same before quickly closing the lid. Then he began working the polish into the rag for about a minute or two to allow the polish to warm up, which would make it easier to apply. this action will warm up the polish and make it easier to apply.

Then he gently rubbed the polish onto the broom handle in a small circular pattern, making sure that he overlapped the areas as he moved along. Sander took his time,as he rubbed the polish in. He even began to hum a song. Once he was sure he had completely polished all over the handle, he paused and waited for five minutes. As he waited, he could see the polish beginning to dry and leaving a hazy finish on the wood. He then grabbed a clean towel and began gently buffing off the dried polish in a small circular pattern. He worked all the way up and down the handle.

Then he repeated the polishing steps again. When he had finished, he started another round of buffing the broom handle after the second polish application. This time he continued buffing until he began to see a fuzzing reflection of himself on it. Sander could have stopped but he had promised the Professor that he would make it so shiny that she could see her face in it, so he continued to buff and buff until his reflection in the broom handle became clearer and clearer.

Satisfied with his work, he placed the broom leaning against the wall where he was seated.

"How's it going at your end, Toby?" Sander asked his friend as he waited for the Slytherin Captain to hand him the next cleaned broom.

Ma'am? When was the last time a student had addressed her in that way? Wait.. don't try to remember. It's not worth it. "An excellent question. I believe West was going to work on getting some water. He can go into detail on the actual process." It was quite lengthy, actually. "Really the twigs just need a light soak so the built-up debris rinses off. Then some people give it a good hot air charm so the twigs don't get soggy. As for trimming, there are several pairs of clippers in the box here," she indicated the cardboard box on her right, "and just trim off anything that sticks out of the curves that are already present." Not too hard, right?


She smiled internally, proud that Tobias was jumping right in and giving Sander tips. "Good question. I've never noticed much of a difference between soaking first and trimming first, honestly. Professional opinion would say soaking first is best, and perhaps on a professional rider's broom I would do that. But given the circumstances, I think we can afford either order, don't you?"


Another student calling her ma'am! That was what you used when you were talking to an old person! Tiara deflated slightly. Maybe she shouldn't have brushed aside Bellaire's panic at gray hair so easily. "You may choose which task you'd like. We have several people working on polishing handles, soaking tail twigs, and clipping tail twigs." She looked around; people were about evenly dispersed amongst the tasks. "Pick whichever you feel most comfortable doing, and thank you for your assistance!"


It definitely appeared that the Slytherin Captain had the tail twig soakers organized. While she wasn't sure that she agreed with some of the finer points, she recognized that those were just her personal preferences, so she said nothing. Tiara was impressed with his ability to take charge and organize. "I think an assembly line of sorts is a great idea, West. Go for it." She did have one thing she wanted to add, however. "I'd prefer if you heat up the towels when you wrap them around after soaking, if you wouldn't mind, Captain." She gave him a salute. She was sure West knew how to heat things.

Oh. That explained where those points went. But Adi was curious so, as he continued to polish, he asked ''What happened?'' He couldn't imagine Ian getting into trouble much less causing any trouble.

Poor Ian. One side got better and the other one just took off. "But if it doesn't get better then it's best you see the healer,'' Adi muttered as he pressed down hard over some particularly stubborn stains and tried to cover them with the polish. "I've been good. Just being slow for some reason. And I've gotten grey hair and I grew a beard in one night!'' But he had shaved the stupid thing out so no one would see. The Puff shook his head. All this was all so crazy.

Wondering what on earth could have cause these things, Adi continued his work with more enthusiasm now that that he had gotten the stubborn stains all nice and shiny. Almost done with this broom stick now.

Yes he had seen the memo.
Yes he had wanted to help.
Yes he had decided to head down to see what he could do to help.

However those stairs were beginning to get really hard to travel down. Ben had even taken them slowly and tried to give himself enough time and all but still he was tired and his body ached and when he finally got the the broomshed not only was the professor there but a whole bunch of students already including Alice and Adi. "Hi captain...Adi," he greeted politely with a soft smile before turning his full attention to the flying professor.

"Hello professor, sorry I'm late. I'm here to help whereever I can." Hopefully nothing that bothered whatever already was.

"Sure." West was cool with that. Heating up the towels was no problem. He gave the professor a grin and went ahead and used a heating charm on several towels, warming them up ready. They'd retain the heat just fine thanks to the charms.

Honestly he didn't mind doing this stuff... though he had noted so far only the Newells had shown up from his own team. That had better just mean the others were held up, since he'd told all of them they needed to come along.

He started working through brooms, and obviously putting them aside when done, so that the others could work on their steps.

Cutty entered the broomshed hearing the sounds of clippers and chatter from outside of it. Would Professor Tyner, whom Cutty had never met, mind a late-comer? She seemed pretty fair on the pitch. Glancing around at the inside it was the norm. The Slytherins were outnumbered again. He wasn't on the team, but he didn't mind putting in some effort for a point or two. They'd already had so many deducted and by their own Head of House no less.

Finding Tyner amongst the crowd he approached taking notice, but trying not to say anything about fine lines a wrinkles. How different people look up close vs. on the pitch. "Though you could use an extra set of hands, Professor."

Another student? They certainly were spacing out their arrivals to this party, weren't they? "Hello there. Don't worry, we're just getting started." Would West appreciate some help? Most likely. "And I think Mr. Odessa would appreciate some help." She nodded towards the Slytherin Captain.

...and what was his name, anyways? She should know this, shouldn't she? "Pardon me, but before you get started.. I'm afraid I've forgotten your name." If she had known it in the first place, that is.


Now here was a student she was sure she had never met before. "You thought correctly, young man. What might your name be?"

So they were going to work down the chain line. Meaning that once West was done with the brooms and put it aside, meant that they were ready to have their broom handles polished. So Sander walked over, picked one up and returned to where he was working with Toby.

Sitting down he placed, the broom across his knees, wiped off any dust on the broom handle, before picking up a clean cloth. He then opened up the tin containing the polish, scooped up a knut size of polish and applied to the broom before closing the lid. Then he began all over again the process of polishing and buffing the broom handle.

Oh good...he wasn't out of the loop due to his arrival later then the rest. Ben turned where Professor Tyner nodded, spotting the Slytherin captain standing there working on brooms. Right...Mr. Odessa was his name, the second year matching up all mentions to put a face to a name. He was about to move towards him when he was asked his name.

"Ben...Benjamin Atreyu," he supplied before moving to help where he had been placed.

Ben watched what was being done, to try and get a feel for what he was to do. Nothing had actually been said to him after all, perhaps something had come up before he had gotten there. They appeared to be washing the twigs of the broom tails. "So I take a broom and dip it inside the water mixture?" he questioned, taking one such broom carefully in his hands and tentatively holding it over a bucket. The Gryffindor slowly lowering it towards the liquid but giving time to protest if he was wrong.

She watched as his gaze followed hers. It seemed he knew to whom she was referring. West was a fairly popular figure around the school, she imagined, so she would have been surprised if the young Lion had never heard of the Captain. "Excellent. It's a pleasure to meet you, Benjamin. Thank you for coming."

Ian nodded as Adi suggested he go to the healer. He'd been thinking the same because things hadn't appeared to get better, but seemed to be getting worse. He had finished filling in the scratches and began to actually polish the handle. He was pretty proud of his work. He liked to take care of the brooms. He had remembered using them last year and while they weren't the best brooms, they certainly should look as good as they could for all the new students.

Of course he was proud of his new broom. It had been a gift from a relative he hadn't met yet. When his parents had gotten the letter, they sat him down and told him about a distant cousin in Edinburgh who had been able to do things they didn't understand. This cousin had sent him a letter after he'd completed his first year at Hogwarts and offered to purchase the broom so his parents didn't have to. His father had written Sean back and allowed the purchase. The day he'd gotten it was a very joyous day, but he hadn't had a chance to try it out until he'd gotten back to school. It was magnificent and he wanted the other students to feel the joy of flying good looking brooms.

Ian looked up at is friend and said, What happened to your beard?

"Yeah, I know, I owe ya one. But I've seen you around - you seem to be keen on gettin' into all kinds of fun yourself. Nice facial hair, by the way." There was no teasing in her voice - Sophie meant it. It was FUNNY that he had it, but... it actually kind of suited him, she thought. The randomness of him having it matched the quirkiness of the boy's personality.

Text Cut: Alice

Quote:

Originally Posted by lemon

The first person who arrived after her was that little one with mad Chaser skills. Alice couldn't recall much about her, let alone a name. Safira? So... Sofia? So....... fie? Was that it?

Whatever her name was, the captain gave her a playful two fingered salute back and turned her attention back to Tyner for more instructions.

Everything? Did that mean she could choose, then? Nodding to the professor, Alice tugged a tie off her wrist and pulled her hair up, ready to get to work. Seemed like some people were washing, and others were clipping and all, but she felt like joining that first Ravenclaw girl who'd appeared. The one who was attached to Mo and Cat at the hip, yeah?

She was kind of creepy cute.

Since the Sophie girl had already grabbed a polishing tin, she just grabbed another rag and a broom, heading over to the corner where the 'Claw had seated herself. Alice dropped down next to her and proceeded to give the broom a light scrub over with the rag first. Best have it dust free before moving on to polishing, yeah?

Looking up as the Gryffindor Captain joined her, Sophie tried to play it cool. She did, really. Buuut... she couldn't help herself and started talking before she could stop herself. "Hey. You're good friends with Mo, right? I see you guys talk in class and stuff," she noted, still busying herself with dusting the broom handle clean of dust and dirt with her rag. It was already pretty clean, but she hardly noticed as her gaze had drifted up to Alice. "He's like my big brother. He's kinda a dork, but he's cool in his own way, y'know?"

Pause. "I'm Sophie, by the way," the second year offered a hand to the girl. "I'm a big fan of your Quidditch skills. I hope to be as good as you when I grow up." Just so she knew.