The Gryffindor smiled at the older girl because she was obviously only saying that to make him feel better about his failed experience. And it did... Somewhat. It honestly wouldn't have been such a big deal if Hadley didn't have to end up eating it... Because that was not fun to think about. Poor Professor probably had to brush her teeth for a day straight. But anyways, "Hopefully it'll be easier because um you're here to help me? He didn't have her the first time so hopefully this time would be different? He'd just have to pay extra attention incase. Extra supplies? No wonder they had so much to carry! But wait, did that mean O__O He had to make his own batch!? He nodded obediently, but his eyes were showing a look of absolute

As he messed up with the tie-- Was she watching him? Naaah. Must've just been imagining things or something. Nevertheless, his cheeks did redden a bit. Stupid light complexion. Stupid. Stupid. He waited for her to tie the apron and was he ready? "Um ready as I'll ever be, I guess," So that was a kinda. But yeah, he was ready. He wasn't going to be readier anytime soon if that was her question.

They must have cross half this side of the track by now with the crup bolting like there was no tomorrow. Hard to tell if he was letting it out or legit trying to run away but he was going hard at it until even Lex figured that catching him was going to take more than two dedicated marathon runners. Man that thing could run and they'd forgotten the crup treats they could bribe him with to stop.

How was it she hadn't noticed the leash trailing until he mentioned it? Oh right because she was too busy noticing the crup getting further and further, or were they slowing down? Merlin's beard!

Lex locked in on the leash, figuring how much more she'd have to put in when Dima came up with an even better idea--who said Ravenclaws were good for nothing? Well she still did but not right this second. "Brilliant!" Lex drew her wand but cracking whip motions were hard when you were running at top speed after a crup that didn't believe in long lines. After DADA class she'd gotten better at the silent cast for the spell and watched the rope shoot from her wand ...and miss over and over again as the crup darted this way and that. Evidently this would get them nowhere unless he stopped.

Mmmmm. She conjured a net, nothing big or fancy but it was recgonizable then tossed it to him. "Cut across the field. When he gets close enough, you know what to do." RIGHT?? Ravenclaw brain and all. She expected him to dive if he had to....without hurting himself of course.

Either Feo was a REALLY fast crup, or Lex was awful at the seize-and-pull charm. Not that Dima cared very much at that moment, 'cause SHE HAD JUST called him BRILLIANT. Even though no one was there to hear, it was pretty important! It wasn't every day you got a compliment from her, okay?

He was still reveling in the praise when she tossed a net at him. Catch a crup... with a net? Would it hurt the little guy? Maybe it wouldn't, especially 'cause HE was doing the dirty work. If it was her... well, let's just say Dima doubted that the creature would live to see another day.

Taking the roundabout way, the first year ran towards Feo. Looked like the pet was happy to see him too, because he bounded on over happily.

And as soon as he was in range, Dima dove. Did Lex know she owed him for this?

After handing the net to Dima she felt she had all the right in the world to stop running and she did. For all the knew, the 12 year old was bursting with energy out of his ears, just look at him cut across like. He was MADE for this and she was not...or wasn't but now was thanks to Felix but still not inclined to run any further after a crup when she had a Dima on hand.

Almost there...almost there...

YES!

"G'job!" She said, giving him a thumbs up before jogging over to him and the captured crup. "You didn't squish him right? We kinda need him alive or the Professor might not be too happy about it." Dima didn't look that heavy in truth, but the crup was even less heavy, and he was tiny and spritely and ALL OVER. The Ravenclaw could have landed wrong, so wrong the poor thing didn't have time to scream.

Aw man, she wasn't liking the sound of that.

What excuses could one even come up with that would let the old man forgive them? There weren't that many.

"Nope. He's completely unsquished." Or so he looked. Feo was still all tail waggles and jumps and licks underneath the net, and Dima made haste to latch onto the leash again so he could let the crup out. See? Fine. Botros wouldn't know a THING had happened.

Unless he had that weird sense where professors knew if you'd goofed off while doing homework and stuff. Did this count?

But... he was already exhausted. "How much longer do we have to walk him for?"

Okay, maybe SURFBOARD abs. Flat. Yes. Either way, this method of transporting tea leaves was working out juuust fine.

So, his accent. It was..... oh. Russian? Oops. A little off from Indian. She smiled. "Either you're bad at accents or I'm bad at identifying them."

But on with their actual mission here: the drying of the tea leaves. Her head was on a slow swivel as she looked around the room. It WAS very sunny in here. "I should have brought sunglasses." She squinted a little, then raised one hand to use it as a visor. "Yeah, I think so... just set them out in the sun." That's really all there was to it. Her eyes landed upon a random boulder in the room. "..Maybe we should put them on a rock, though?" Those things absorbed heat pretty well and might speed up the process a bit.

Right. She wiped her palms on her apron she had suddenly became very nervous with teaching Zander. Why was she nervous though? Besides the obvious.. ya know it was a boy and she was alone in a room with him... so yeah deep breaths.. "First thing we need to melt the butter and brown sugar so let's measure out one cup of brown sugar" The blonde demonstrated for him and dumped the brown sugar into a spare bowl "also take the wrapper from your butter" She deposited the butter into a sauce pan and waited for him to follow suit.

She also turned the oven on so that it would be getting hot. "All I did there was preheat the oven... cold ovens don't work well" Mackenzie giggles remembering her first batch of cookies.

Nigel would bet that his accents were probably just horrible. Her English accent was actually not terrible. That was enough about accent and which horrible one Nigel could try next.

"Or a hat"

Though both would probably be the best. But why need those when Hogwarts is basically a freezer. So set them out on the grass or rocks, got it. Not too difficult. Nigel just dumped them all on the ground. He could use magic to move them if he wanted. Only the strong will get dry. Sounded fun.

"Why put them on a rock. When this is so much easier....You know if these tea leaves are any good. Seems like we have more than enough for yourselves also."

Nigel flicked his wand at a couple tea leaves that were right on top of each other. That's a start.

Completely unsquished was just what she wanted to hear and no doubt what the Professor would have liked to hear if they ever told him but pfft, they weren't that forthcoming. Correction, she wasn't that forthcoming. Dima was more of an open book. You didn't even have to try too hard to hear the story of his entire young life. Just a 'hello' could suffce. "Good, be sure he doesn't run away again."

As for how much longer they'd walk him...? The Professor said two hours...but that run had to have covered at least at hour and a half in energy burning so....

"We'll just walk him to the fountain, let him have some water then we can take him back to Botros and be done with it. Sound good.?"

The crup was cute but he was also tiring.

First thing butter. Got it. Breathe in breathe out. He could totally do this. AH what was he kidding this was terrifying! Not only was he going to attempt baking his OWN batch of brownies, but he was also learning from a very pretty girl alone in a room with just the two of them alone just the two by themselves. And alone. Right. Okay no totally got this under control. Yeah totally brave Gryffindor over here nothing to see move along people... Right okay back to the butter. "Okay.. One cup of brown sugar. Got it." He waited for Mackenzie to finish her demonstration, before reaching out for the measuring cup himself. With only the utmost caution he poured around what looked like a cup. Okay. So far, so good. Nothing was on fire yet, that was comforting.

He then brought his own bowl closer to himself and poured it in. PHEW that was great! Pft this baking stuff wasn't all that bad. HA! Totally under control. Now uh, butter? He threw away the wrapper, and took hers with him as he did. Then he walked back to the pan and threw in his block of butter. "So far so good?" You know... Just checking. In case. He looked up at her once again as she explained the oven bit. Cold ovens don't work well, hehe he couldn't help but let out a chuckle at this. Maybe it wasn't even that funny, just the tone she used to lighten up this most stressful situation. It was relieving. "Ha yeah I bet!" Okay so oven preheated? Check. Butter put in pan? Check. Brown sugar in bowl? Also check. "So what next, chef?"

Closing her eyes as she took another deep breath she ran through the instructions that any other time she wouldn't even be second guessing. Mackenzie could feel the color returning to her cheeks as he took her trash with him when he threw his away. "Focus Jones" She had played quidditch with Alice why was she nervous about this?! Merlin!! Seriously, She didn't understand where this was coming from, sure he was cute but she barely knew the boy.. she scolded herself. "you don't even know each other and please there are way pretty girls here than you Mackenzie.. no need to be nervous you're just teaching him to bake brownies. "

"Okay, next we have to melt the butter so we need to actually use the stove" Carefully she turned on her burner to high so that the butter would melt faster. "And once its almost fully melted pour in the sugar so that it melts in with the butter" The Gryffindor grabbed her bowl of brown sugar and took it close to her by the stove. She watched as he followed suit and then smiled "Once that's done we need to put it in the refrigerator so that it can cool" She hoped she wasn't moving to fast.. "You'll stop me if we are going to fast for you to really get it yeah?" Mack arched an eyebrow at the other Gryffindor because she didn't want to confuse him.

Alright so things weren't going as terribly as he imagined they would be. The room was still intact. And so was he. And so Mackenzie. So this was good right? And he hadn't managed to make a complete and utter fool of himself... yet. Alright okay things were going smoothly he could breathe. He was doing just fine. Mackenzie hadn't said otherwise, so that must've been a sign. Speaking of the older Gryffindor, he looked up just as she started speaking agin. Melt the butter. That sounded complicated. And like it needed heat. Which could get real messy real fast. So uh. Uhum. This should be fun? "Oh... Ohkay," actually using the stove. Well this was a step up from pouring sugar.

Right. With that scary thought in mind, the Gryffindor followed suit and turned the burner to a mediumish because the high notch looked too high and like it could burn something yep. He also took a wooden spoon and poked the butter around a little bit, y'know to check to make sure it was actually and melting and all. Because this was a sloooow process okay? Alright. It looked melty enough..... Right, Mackenzie? Grabbing the bowl of brown sugar he "Woaaaah," This was difficult. But he managed to get the hang of the pouring and balancing thing eventually so all was well... for now. "Refrigerator? Alright!" That'd be easy. He watched Mackenzie and smiled, "No, no it's not fast I'm okay."

Running over the checklist in her mind she huffs to herself WHY didn't i write this down?! I knew this would be distracting She didn't blame Zander.. but ya know boy and all... and he was CUTE!!! Concentrate! she admonished herself internally. "Dry ingredients: 1 and 1/4 cup flour, 1/2 teaspoon baking powder, 1/8 teaspoon baking soda, 1/4 teaspoon salt The blonde began repeating them over and over mumbling to herself.

"Okay now we get to do the dry ingredients... we will start with the flour. We need one and one fourth cup of flour. grab your mixing bowl and just measure it into there" She again showed him and waited until he had finished before moving on the the next "then a half teaspoon of baking powder" Again waiting on him to finish each task before moving on to the next.. As she watched him she thought it would be so unfair of her to keep this task clean.. what fun was the kitchen if you didn't get a little dirty?! While Zander wasn't paying attention she grabbed a handful of flour and threw it at the blonde haired boy laughing as she did so.

The Gryffindor followed suit and put his melty butter away in the refrigerator. When he walked back to the counter, he swore he could hear her mumbling about something... What was she even saying? He was curious noooow. But, he new better than to ask because she looked a little worried about something. About what, he wasn't really sure. But he couldn't do much talking because he was pretty nervous too! All this cooking stuff and being alone with her. It was weird for him.

Anyways. Dry ingredients? Right. Flour. He could do flour. With a nod of his head, the Gryffindor took a bowl and measured out one and one fourth cup. He spilled a little around, but nothing a quick cleaning charm couldn't take care of afterwards. At least he hadn't gotten it in his hair... Like the pizza. Alright, now the baking powder. Again, Zander nodded his head to show her that he was following along. Reaching out his arm, he made a grab for the baking powder and went to measure and--

What was the laughter about, was he really doing that-- And just as he turned around to see what was so funny, he ended up with a FACE FULL of flour. The third year coughed, before shouting "HEY!" Except he wasn't mad. He was actually smiling. But just as soon as the word left his mouth, he quickly turned and grabbed one of the bags of flour in his hand. Taking a good fistful of the powder he turned back to face the fourth year and rained a whole lot of flour down onto her. Hehe. Maybe baking was fun afterall?

Mack continued to laugh and tried her best to run from Zander as he threw flour back at her "Ahhh!!" She squealed as she got a face full of flour. "Oh you're going to get it now.." grabbing more flour she poured it over his head.. and quickly ran around the counter to get away from the third year. Keeping her eyes on him she carefully began planning her next move of attack..

The younger Gryffindor couldn't help but burst out into laughter too. If they thought the paint was bad... The were probably going to walk out of here looking like a pair of ghosts. Yet, it was fun. And before he knew it, he was slapped with more flour! No fair that was totally a sneak attack! "You're not getting away that easy!" And with that, the boy started chasing the blonde around the counter, flinging flour around as he did.

Good thing he had grabbed a whole bag of it. "INCOMING!" he yelled as he grabbed a huge handful and flung some of it at her backside. HEhe. Baking was fun.

"Or a hat, yes. Do you wear hats?" She turned to him to try to get a visual of him wearing a hat. The only reason she could think of for why he wouldn't wear one would be that it covered too much of his precious hair.

Following suit, Schuyler let the bunch of tea leaves fall from her shirt to land mostly on a rather large rock rather than the ground. "We'll see whose leaves dry faster." Mhmm. A competition. Actually, come to think of it.. it was going to take a while for these tea leaves to dry the old fashioned way. "Maybe we should.. speed up the process a little bit?" You know, like with magic.

True, Nigel, true. There probably WERE enough for their professor and themselves. "I'm sure Botros wouldn't mind if we saved some of these bad boys for ourselves." Then again, Schuyler wasn't that big of a tea drinker. Now, coffee. That was a different story.

Mack screamed as she was covered in flour, diving over the counter she grabbed her bag of flour and ran towards the other Gryffindor. She really wasn't sure what exactly she was going to do.. if she flung it all at him she would be weaponless... if she didn't this was going to get a whole lot worse.

Making her decision she grabbed a handful "Eat flour!!" and tossed it into Zander's face while laughing hysterically. This had to be the most fun baking she had had in a while. As soon as the flour was out of her hand she hid behind the counter again hoping that he hadn't seen her take cover.

She still couldn't stop laughing as she tried to clean her face off... this mess was definitely going to take a while to clean up but it would be so worth it just to have fun while the blizzard was still here.

Hats?

No Nigel did not wears hats unless he finds an awesome fedora like the ones he use to make years ago in transfig. "Only if you find me a rockin fedora. That is the only hat i will wear...with sunglasses, of course." It just would not be complete with those and maybe a suit. But that might be going too far.

"Oh, a competition. I like it. you thinking Hot Air Charm. Since every other fire spell would destroy these leaves" Using Flagrante, it would just become a competition on how many leaves could they destroy before there were none left. It was a horrible idea really. But would be fun.

As long as we leave enough for him. That is Nigel's reasoning. "Let's see how many are left after this. I will probably just set a couple on fire, just for the fun of it."

It is not like they loved tea or anything. Now Tea puns were a different story. Those were hilarious.

"I will!" Not that it was HIS fault Feo had gotten away in the first place. She knew it was hers, right? After all, Dima had a firm hold on his leash the whole time, but as soon as he tried to hand it over to Lex, it was whisked away. Coincidence? He thought not, mhm.

Plus she hadn't yelled at him about it, so that ALSO was evidence against her.

At least her planning skills weren't as bad as her leash-monitoring ones. Nodding, the first year wrapped the fabric robe around his wrist again and nudged the crup along. This was still FUN, even though it was exhausting. Like all good things, after all.

And just then, he realized: She had gotten ahold of a bag too. The Gryffindor reached his hand back into his bag to grab another fistful of flour when-- Eat flour?? Uh. Oh. "Huh--?" O_____O Maybe it was a bad time to speak... Because he definitely did eat flour. And it was awful. And very dry. Blegh. How did cake taste so right, when flour tasted so wrong!?

He closed his eyes and made a couple funky faces as he wiped the flour off his face. But when he opened them again... He had lost her??? Had she run out on him because that's totally not cool. Wait a minute, he could here her laughter... Where was it coming from?! AHA THE COUNTER! And just then, the Gryffindor got a BRILLIANT idea. "Hey where'd yah go?" he shouted as he oh so sneakily made his way over to the fridge. Upon opening it he found exactly what he was looking for. He then made a dive for the counter top, which was covered in flour by the way, and made it just far enough to hang his head over the other side. Taking out his secret weapon and looking straight at the girl he.....

Sprayed some white whip cream onto her face. At this point... He probably should have thought about breaking into a run again... But he couldn't help it, that whip creamed face looked sooo funny! So instead he slid his feet around the other side of the counter and jumped down to sit right next to her, where he then started rolling around in a fit of laughter.

Well of course you will Dima. Dropping the leash once was excusable but doing it again earned Firsties hexes they never recovered from. Seriously. How could he have let the crup get away like that? Was it any wonder he'd been the one to do the diving? Though she didn't wanna be TOO hard on him because Ravenclaws weren't all that smart, y'know? No need to make him feel worse about himself.

Lex led them over to the fountain and flopped down while Feo got himself a drink of what could possible be refreshing water. She'd never know...unless she could convince Dima to taste it....

Just waiting on him to have his fill and Dima to feel rested. "If the Professor asked, we walked him for two hours straight, got it?" They'd barely scratched an hour but she doubted the Professor had been keeping track of time since the moment they left him back in his office.

Mackenzie couldn't help but laugh, he hadn't seen it coming when she threw the flour into his face and now she was sitting on the floor giggling like a school girl. She knew she was giving away her position but his face had been so funny. Her eyes were closed until suddenly she felt something cold on her face. Her eyes sprung open "Zander!?!" She tried to yell but whatever he was putting on her face suddenly fell into her mouth, slowly she began tasting it.. WHIPPED CREAM Well this definitely could have been worse. The blonde began licking her lips and started laughing all over again when Zander started rolling on the floor laughing.

"Okay, Okay, you win!!" the blond conceded. Seriously there was no way to top this.. and she began to wipe off the cream and sticking her fingers into her mouth to eat it.. Why not? If he was going to give it she had to take it since she was the one who started this whole thing.. She wasn't even sure that she wanted to look at the state of the kitchen at the moment and was really glad they had decided to use the room of Requirement for this instead of the actual kitchens that everyone and the elves used.. they would be less than happy with the two Gryffindor's if they walked in on the mess she and Zander had made.

He held onto the crup's leash tightly as they meandered over to the fountain, pausing whenever he jumped at his legs just to give him a good pat and such. What? Feo was being SO good, he deserved a scratch behind the ears once in a while! Plus Dima was a softie.

If Botros asked....? "If Botros asks, I will direct him to you," he decided, nodding in agreement with himself. Yep. Because he didn't like to LIE, and judging by the things that she told him to do, Lex did. A lot. So that could be HER job. After all, she probably didn't have one of those father angels sitting on her shoulder and telling her not to do bad things. And Dima didn't like to disappoint his daddy conscience.

Were they done yet?

The Gryffindor looked back up at the girl just to see her eating up the cream. It looked so good that he couldn't resist spraying some into his mouth too. Getting up from the floor, he walked over to sit right next to her, still with a goofy smile on his face all the while. Heh. So he had won. Though he wasn't very outward about it, the boy did have quite the competitive side. Call it his inner Gryffindor maybe... But between housepoints and the flour war, he was getting pretty good at wanting to win. "That was... That was a lot of fun," he smiled.

And this was the second time they had gotten each other's robes all messy. "Funny how we always end up like this after we see each other," he couldn't help but laugh at the idea. Maybe it was just their weird thing. Always a mess? Definitely a good idea that they hadn't worked in the real kitchens. Those house elves would most definitely hate them.