Sander looked up when he heard Tessa's voice. Even though the other students were talking amongst themselves, her voice seemed to stand out among all of them. He smiled and waved at her.

"Would you like to join me and work on polishing the broom handles?" Sander suggested to Tessa. Of course, Professor Tyner could assign to another task instead, but he hoped she would allow Tessa to work with him.

Marigold was trrrryyyyyyying to pay attention to what West<3 was saaaayinnng... but his face distracted her. Sigh. She got the gist of the whole broomcleaning process, though.

She moved towards the bucket to soak stuff in when she noticed the Quidditch person. She didn't notice her before! With a nod and smile, she said, "Hello! How are you?"

"You're doing it wrong, Cambridge. The polishing." She had glanced away from Sophie to see two more players of hers enter. There were definitely notes being made about which of her teammates were actively helping out, like Bart and Lex. Tessa too, Alice offered her a wave as she entered before directing her attention back to the broom.

She decided her polish was warm enough now, which would make it easier to apply, so Alice stopped working it into her rag. Moving on to rubbing the stuff onto the broom in circular motions, she beckoned over Alexa with her free hand. Did the Prefect need to be shown how to polish right?

Of course she did. And the self-proclaimed broom expert was here to help.

Toby had a hat on. He had a hat on and he was wearing his Hufflepuff scarf. Impressive! Cunning, even. Build up your female fanbase while they were both still...young? Cutty appreciated his sense of style too when it came to clothing. He'd noticed it that day on the lake as well but hadn't really thought about it until he'd gotten back to his common room. Tobias was a sharp dresser. So sharp, in fact, that the thought occured to Cutty that if he hadn't been a boy, he might have fallen for Tobias himself. HAHahahaha! Wayo!!!


Did Tobias just say he'd been to every tryout? Like, every, every one?!

Djajdikalfjalall! Wot'nell was he doing trying to get Odessa's attention fer, then?!! His brief lapse into frustration didn't last long for the mercurial boy however because that was when he noticed Bart and his beard...as Professor Tyner had addressed the Gryffindor somewhat sternly.

Cutty moved over to where the supplies were kept and drew out two pairs of twig trimmers one for himself and one for Bart. Then finding a spot over by him handed over a pair before taking his own and starting to trim away at stray twigs that looked like they might be detrimental to the aerodynamic design of a flying broom. "Your beard's coomin' in nicely! What are you doing to it?"

Adelaide made her way down to the broomshed. Might as well go earn some easy house points. Not to mention West had kind of said that he wanted everyone on the team to do it and she was on the team so yeah. Here she was.

The place was pretty packed with people cleaning and what not. But there was West right in the middle of everyone. "Hey West."

So. Polishing Brooms. Grace had never polished a broom before. She didn't even own one. So obviously she had no idea what to do. She figured it was the best time to learn though. Especially when the quidditch team were going to do it too? She wanted to look good for her Captain. Grace smiled to herself as she wandered down to the broom shed. Hopefully there would be some slytherins there. So at least she wouldn't be on her own.

Ahh. There was addi! The first year made a bee line to the girl she knew was on the team. "Hi Addi...." Oh and West was there too. She smiled at him. Seeee. She wanted to help too. Someone just...had to tell her what to do.

So... how long had these brooms been left unattended for?

Lucas eyed the blunt clippers and made a face at the broom in front of him. "I'm sorry," he whispered to it. Poor thing.

But in any case, there was only one thing to do for this situation. A lot of tender love and care.

"Professor, is Hogwarts ever going to upgrade the school brooms?" Because these were all older than his Mum. And that was OLD.

Two more. West ticked them off on his mental list, smiling at Addi but honestly just a LITTLE put at that Ascanius, Derry, and Theo were amongst the no shows. And that Rhodes girl, but the other three bothered him more since they were close mates of his and all. Pshh. Trying to take advantage of their friendship with him were they?

He was unimpressed.

"Hey Adds. Grace." He nodded at the firstie too. "Know how to clean tail twigs? We're prepping them so that people over there can trim them, and those guys can polish them." He nodded at various 'stations'.

Adelaide smiled down at the first year. Thankfully she remembered her name. That would have been kind of awkward with Grace knowing her's and all that. "Hey Grace."

She looked over at West and nodded. "Yep. Read everything I could on broom upkeep last term." Because she had to know everything about anything that had to do with quidditch so she wouldn't feel stupid.

Oh. Did she know stuff about broom cleaning? Well. No. She bit her lip a little as she looked up at West. The sixth year kind of intimidated her. He was the Captain and everything. But then she was only a first year. So maybe it was okay that she didn't know broom care? She wasn't even allowed her own broom. To be honest...she had no idea what Wet was even talking about.

She bit her lip again before talking. "Erm....No?" She blushed a little. At least she could learn now right?

She was here! She was here! She'd had a bit of a hair disaster when she was trying to cut it and hadn't wanted to come out with it looking so... Butchered. She'd only just managed to charm it back into something acceptable and shoved it under a hat, she could fix it later.

'Okay hi...' she said as she reached people. 'Sorry ...'

Theo was here... reluctantly. Only because West reeeeeally wanted the team to show up, of course. He toddled on down to the broomshed and was munching on some fizzy muggle sweets that he had found sitting at the bottom of his trunk. They were so chewy that his teeth were getting super sore, but hey ho, he didn't care.

He nodded at West and stood idly next to him. Wasn't late, was he? "Ite?" He said finally after swallowing his mouthful of sugar.

This was so boring already...

AHH... Theo could feel a fever coming on.

"Great. Grab what you need." He smiled at Adelaide again, pleased that she'd come along, and indicated the seat next to him. She could sit there if she wanted yeah?

... and then aaaaafter maybe she had some browwwwwwwnies lying around?

"Alright, no sweat. Here is what you do. Take one of these buckets here." He nudged one over, he'd filled it already with water and the cleaning solution so that would save time for her. "have a couple of these towels handy, they've all been charmed warm, but they won't burn you its just for the brooms for when you're done." West indicated the pile of towels and then looked at Grace to see if she was paying attention.

"So then we take a broom and we dunk the twig-end in the solution gently. Let it soak for about a minute, then we stir it gently clockwise ten times. Then let it soak another minute, and stir counter-clockwise ten times." Got that? Yes?

"Once you do that, take it out, let the liquid drip off, and then pat them down with the towels, and wrap them in the towels and put them aside so the people at the next station can grab them. Okay? If you get stuck watch someone else." Since there were a few others working at it now too.




Oh HERE they were. Two of them.

West squinted at Derry and Theo. Yeahh not off entirely scott free. K? Late.

"You guys are late. But whatever. You can choose what you want to help with... cleaning tail twigs," With him, "Trimming them." Over there with Tyner, "Or polishing." He pointed at the polishing group and then eyed Theo. What was he eating?

Adelaide nodded, setting her bag down next to the bench. She grabbed a bucket before sitting down next to West. He had left her some room after all. She grabbed her first broom and dunked it in the water.

She looked up at Derry and Theo. "Hey guys." After looking around the shed again it seemed almost everyone was here. Which was good because West had said he wanted everyone here to help.

"Almost forgot." She held the broom with one hand and reached down into her bag with others. Things clanked around for a bit as she fished around for a container. All right. This was one time an undetectable extension charm was not good. Ah. There it was.

Addi pulled out the container of brownies and set them down. "Take some if you want." Obviously that went for everyone there, not just her fellow Snakes.

Ian was still in the midst of scratching the stubble when Adi exclaimed about his own facial hair. Yeah. I suppose so. I hadn't really paid attention to it. I mean, I came to school smooth skinned, but dad is kind of hairy and I assumed it was the time for me to begin growing it too. Granted, his stubble was white as opposed to red, but as he spent little time gazing in the mirror, he didn't pay it any mind.

Ian listened with interest as Adi spoke of the other things he was dealing with and then the new kid, Adi met. From time to time he would look down at the broom to make sure his polish was being applied evenly and the sheen was coming to the top coat. I don't think I met any of the durmstrang people last year. He added a question So who did you meet?

Oh, she would know that voice anywhere. She turned and smiled brightly at Sander, shooting him a small wave. It seemed that the Professor was busy, so she wandered over to sit down next to Sander.

"Polish broom handles? Sure," she said. "Professor, if you need me to do something else, just let me know!" she called, in case the Professor did need help. But, that done, she picked up a broom and began expertly cleaning the wood, that way once the polish was added, it would look as good as new.

"So, how many brooms have you done so far?" Tessa asked Sander with a smile before looking along the length of the broom to make sure she hadn't missed any spots.



It seemed a lot of people had come to help with the broomshed, which warmed Tessa's heart. She was sure there would be a lot of fellow Quidditch enthusiasts here, people she could really talk the sport with. And, speaking of which...

She saw their Quidditch captain and she shot the girl a smile and wave. "Let me know if you need anything else done," she called over with a warm smile before she went back to polishing broom handles with Sander. She was also just fine with this job.

Was this for me?
Hearing a call of greeting, Tessa turned to see a girl looking at her. "Hello!" she called back with a warm smile. "I'm doing just fine, and yourself?" she asked. "Nothing like polishing broom handles to put a smile on my face," she joked as she began polishing the broom she was holding.



As soon as the brownie container was open, Tessa smelled it. There was something about chocolate that always caught her nose, and brownies were pure chocolate. She looked over to see a girl holding the container.

"May I?" she asked, she raised her want in question. She didn't want to get up and disturb the work she was doing, so she was simply going to levitate the brownie over. If the girl allowed, of couse.

He was late.

And not a fashionable amount, but properly and probably intentionally late. The idea of cleaning the broomshed was unappealing to Ascanius and doing it with a ton of people in a tiny space outside of his team was even more so, yeah? 'Cause he could deal with Slytherin high strung...Hufflepuff and co. not so much.

Anyway, he eventually made it down there and slipped in the door shooting West a smirk, "M'here."

See? He came. Ish.

Believe it or not, Dora didn't care about the condition of the school brooms.

Not even a little bit.

Why? When her own broom was in prime condition, and not crap like these school brooms where. She didn't even have any intention of coming out to this even though it was her free time what with all the classes she'd dropped, but the sixth year was here anyway. Part because of the stupid badge pinned to her chest, but mostly because almost all of her friends where here as well. And if she wanted them time, she had to care for brooms.

Entering the broom shed, she instantly regretted the decision however. Too crowded. But there was no turning back noooow, so she gave a small distracted salute to the professor and moved further into the shed. They seemed to be working in groups, and the most noticeable one was the Slytherin group surrounding it's captain. They seemed like the group to join, but for reasons she decided against it, greeting her snake friends instead and moving over to a much more appealing group.

The polishing group, or really Alice and Sophie. The other people just went seemingly unnoticed by the prefect. Snatching up the needed supplies and a broom, she went over and dropped down in a seat next to the pair.

"Of course she's doing it wrong. She's using a kneazle as her partner. Not wise." Because it was a kneazle. And Alice knew how she felt about those. Though right now she was simply jesting. She tossed a wink over at Sophie in greeting, and glanced at her broom looking ready to start. "You really should do something about your lions and their pets."

Yes, I'm aware... Derry thought, frowning to herself and reajusting her hat. She wasn't in the best of moods today... in fact, she'd rather be flying the brooms than tending to them, but she knew they probably needed it. She thought of her own broom - clean and incredibly well looked after - and it made her feel a bit sorry for these less fortunate ones. Sure, it was mental to be thinking about brooms as though they had souls... but it was probably a little left over imagination from writing that story... anyway, broom things.

"Yeah, okay, I'm doing it..." Derry brushed a bit of cut-hair from the front of her jacket, shot West a little apologetic smile for her bad mood, and walked over to help trim twigs. She could do this, it was far easier than cutting her own hair, she had realised, and she was going to look after these poor little motherless brooms.

Ooooooooooooooookay, touchy touchy...

Theo blinked a few times as he sucked on another fizzy sweet. "Sorry." He said sarcastically. Yes, gosh, cleaning brooms was so important. "I'll polish." He even tucked the rest of his sweets away in his pocket so that the polishing could get his full attention.

Well, he would start RIGHT after nabbing one of those brownies. "Hey, Adelaide." Theo smiled at Adelaide and then made his way over to her box of treats. "Thanks!"

Now...

What was he about to do?

Awesome.. The boy did play that was totally cool in Bart's mind. "Cool what position? I'm Bart by the way." In case the boy didn't know, but they were in classes together so he might know though Bart wasn't sure of his name. He probably said it in class, but his mind didn't focus in class, because most of the classes were so boring and lecture.. Merlin the lectures around here. "So do they only hire long winded people to teach classes?" Maybe the boy knew the answer, Bart really wanted to know it.

He was working on his next broom and pointed his wand when he heard his name. Now what did he do. He looked at the twigs thinking he did an awesome job. One thing he wouldn't screw up was a broom. Goodness no they were to amazingly awesome to do that, but the woman was saying not to use magic. He blinked at her, was she joking? This was a wizard school, right? He hadn't found himself in a muggle school some how did he? He glanced around and felt appalled that she wanted him to trim the muggle way. She did realize that would mean by hand didn't she? Which meant more option for error.

"aaa alright." He was still giving weird confused looks when he put down his wand. This was dumb, he wasn't a muggle and shouldn't have to do muggle labor. Sighing he started doing the twigs the manual way which was just awkward and now he wasn't sure if he was trimming them right. Good thing these were not his brooms.



Oh it was cool name boy and he had those weird trimmer things for Bart. "Thanks" He said in an annoyed ton as he started trimming his broom the borrrrring way. Leaning closer to the slytherin he nodded towards the offical, "Think she's not aware that the spell would make these more prefect and not as hacked?" It was so foreign to him to see manual labor things. He didn't even know muggle things until his step family moved in on him and his mother. Not that he minded the TV, games, and surfing. No those could stay but this work thing needed to go.

His annoyed looked left as he grinned and touched his face, "Nothin at all actually. It just started growin one day. Isn't it awesome. I'm not trimming it or anything. I'm going to see how far I can get it to go." He had never seen anyone his age have a full long beard, maybe he could get himself into the World Record books or something. He was sure of it with this awesomely Epic beard.


That's when his nose started sniffing.. It sniffed out something that smelled good. One thing that never failed him was his stomach. Someone really close to him had food. His brown eyes searched until "BROWNIES" It was brownie girl and her awesome and amazing goodies. "Can I have one.." Oh what was the snakes name again. She had given it to him when he was near her common room and got his first brownie from her. "Addi" That's it wasn't it?

Adelaide looked up as she heard one of the other girls (Tessa) ask if she could have one. "Of course." She had made extra so everyone could have some anyways.

She turned her attention back to Theo. "You're welcome." Obviously she would continue making them for the team throughout the year. It was kind of her thing.

Oh look. There was Bart. Addi learned names quicker when she gave people food for some reason. Made it stick a bit easier. She gave him a smile as he seemed to remember her name. "Yep. That's me. Take a couple if you want, Bart."

Adelaide then turned her attention to her fellow ginger (Derry). "I like the hat Derry." It was nice, but it wasn't normally something Derry wore. Definitely more something up her alley.

The twelve year old looked up when the Flying Lady addressed him and Ian. "Thanks, Professor!'' he said, glad that she had noticed their hard work.

Adi looked a bit closer and saw that Ian's beard was white. That meant he too was being affected by...whatever they all were being affected by. "So I take it you don't mind beards?''

Adi was now finishing up on this second broomstick. He was giving the second half of the handle the second coat. He was feeling mighty pleased with his work.

"I didn't actually meet with them,'' the Puffer continued, now examining the completed broomstick. "I stayed away from them. They reeked of trouble and they all seemed so serious. You remember the trouble they caused in classes and around the castle.'' Right. This stick was done. Adi braced it next to the others and grabbed another one. "So, Ian. What happened at the Tree House.'' He wasn't going to let that go.

Ian had been so immersed in his work, he hadn't noticed the professor until Adi spoke. He looked up smiling, Thank you, ma'am.

Ian inspected the broom handle and was pleased with how it had turned out. It gleamed like nearly new and only slightly used. It reminded him of working on his dad's fishing boat whenever it returned to shore. Those wooden railings were a booger to get right up to his dad's standards, but he'd learned.

Ian shrugged. Never gave it much thought until you said something about beards. Quite honestly, the whiskers don't bother me now. Maybe they will later.

He listened to Adi as he spoke. Seemed he did recall some trouble. Aye. I remember some. I never got into it much. Kind of kept to myself a lot last year. After that, Adi brought up the tree again. He wasn't going to let it go obviously and so Ian should probably get it out of the way. He reached up with a rag covered hand and gestured to Bart. We were out there helping the groundskeeper and I wasn't paying as close attention as I should have when performing a spell and it hit Bart square in the chest and I levitated him. The groundskeeper took 10 points from me for carelessness. Ian chuckled a little and added Didn't make Bart very happy. He kind of squalled like a little kid while he was in the air.

Alexa had only just taken the rag from her kneazle when she heard Alice...correcting her broom polishing....what? Lex scooped Felix up then looked to her. What did she mean she was doing it wrong? She was removing the dust then getting it done. There wasn't much more to it so thanks but no thanks Cap'n.

She thought of just ignoring Alice...and maybe doing something else since she was doing this wrong but then she was being called over and figured maybe it wouldn't be so bad letting Alice feel like she was right and in charge. It would certainly end better for her.

"Hey Dora and 'Claw person." She said, settling in next to them, with Felix slung over her shoulder again. Lex had seen the girl around and she'd seen her playing Quidditch before but she'd never actually gotten around to intros.

Alright, she was here. Make with the showing how to properly polish the broom so she could get back to it.