Brent had wandered upon a series of hourglasses and was currently studying them in-depth to try and figure out what they were all about. They were red, green, blue, and yellow, which was obviously for the four Hogwarts houses. There were also little stones in each of them, which were all about at the same level. Was this some sort of competition?

COOL!

Brent loved a good competition. He could feel his adrenaline pumping at the thought of a good race. He paused next to the green one, the one he'd figured was for his house, Slytherin. He'd thought he would be with the red, but apparently he was more cunning and ambitious than he was noble and brave. His gaze changed to the yellow hourglass, the one for his brother's house. Where was Kane anyway? Brent literally never saw any second years.

With her head full of possible divination methods to let her students try out in their coming lessons, the blond Divination Professor wasn't exactly paying much attention to where her feet led her. Raising her blue eyed gaze, tuning into her surroundings she realized where she was, near the hourglasses on the ground floor. Why her feet had led her there she wasn't certain of, but she took it as a sign that she was supposed to be there in that moment. She hadn't visited the hourglasses since she had been a student here which felt like eons ago now.

Spotting a young, brown haired boy in green robes standing in front of the hourglasses; obviously studying them, Laurel quietly walked up to stand a few feet from the boy as she commented quietly, to not frighten him as she pointed up to the hourglasses. "The house points you earn for Slytherin will magically appear in that green hourglass." He looked somewhat familiar. She had seen him somewhere.

"Did you get sorted at the feast?"

Brent was only slightly startled as he heard an unexpected voice behind him. Seeing as Defense Against the Dark Arts was his favorite subject, he'd studied it immensely, and in doing so, he'd learned to be aware of his surroundings and expect the unexpected. So while he hadn't been too startled, he hadn't really expected any company.

Turning his head, he saw a professor standing there and instinctively started trying to act cool. This was his Divination professor, right? He still hadn't gotten them all down pat yet. "Hello, Professor," he said. Nodding, he added, "Sorted proudly into Slytherin house, although I thought it'd be Gryffindor. Slytherin's turning out pretty cool, though."

He looked back at the house points hourglasses. So THAT'S what these were for! "This sounds awesome! So what do you win if you get the most stones?" he asked. This was almost a silver lining to their being no Quodpot or Quidditch here. He could compete in the house points race!

The ground floor was generally a floor she quickly walked over and left in order to get to other areas and most often in her case the Great Hall or the staff room or to go outside. These hourglasses she had visited more frequently in her youth to see how the number of marbles increased for every scored point. Focusing on the boy Laurel smiled "Hello Brent, isn't it? I'm professor Laurel Vance. I teach Divination." In case he hadn't been informed by his older housemates who was who at the feast.

"I was sorted into Slytherin too, and I am still a very proud snake." Laurel shared. "Slytherin is a cool house, did you get the chance to meet the house ghost?" The Bloody Baron was something extra. Looking over at the hourglass she said "If your house wins the house point race by the end of the year, then you win a big trophy and have a party in the common room. If you earn lots of points for you house you might even get on your HoH's special list for special achievements."

Professor Vance seemed cool. Brent didn't think he'd like her subject as much as he'd like her, but as long as he could handle the professor, he figured he could handle the subject. Divination would horrible with a horrible professor. He seriously doubted it'd be on his timetable of classes. "It's nice to meet you, Professor Vance," he said, trying to sound as polite as possible seeing as he was talking to an adult. His professor at that.

A second later, her coolness factor went up just a little more when she revealed that she, too, was a Slytherin. "Oh, yeah? Awesome," he commented, in his casual slang. He just couldn't help it sometimes. He nodded. "I've seen him around, but I haven't talked to him yet. Sounds like we have a pretty cool ghost. At least he's not as annoying as that Peeves guy and his equally annoying family." Brent had gotten splashed with glitter glue by the little one, whatever his name was.

He turned back to the hourglasses as she explained the whole competition. "This sounds awesome!" he said, fighting the urge to fist pump into the air. "I love a good competition. Kind of makes up for the fact that you guys don't have any sports here." He was really missing Quodpot. Kids back home were probably adding their names to the sign-ups right about now.

Stack of parchments in hand - because he had found an older student willing to duplicate his poster for him since he was not skilled enough to do that himself yet - Derf made his way to the hourglasses where he was SURE people would notice them because he was going to innocently take advantage of everyone's competitive nature. BUT IT WAS FOR THEIR OWN GOOD!

It really was all too suspicious. Food and drink in EVERY lesson this term? Suspicious. Which was why he needed to warn the masses and keep everyone safe! Just doing his citrus duty! Wait...that wasn't right...was it? The Hufflepuff stopped what he was doing to scratch his head and think.

CIVIC! Civic duty! Yup. That was what he was doing.

Muggle glue in hand - because a sticking charm still was not within his wheelhouse and he couldn't risk wasting even ONE of his IMPORTANT posters - Derf slathered the Slytherin hourglass with is first and then slapped a poster over it.


Taking a step back to admire his work, and emerald gems completely hidden from sight, the first year gave the poster an approving now and then moved on to the Gryffindor hourglass next.

Glue glue glue...all the glue...SLAP. Poster covering the rubies now!

Gluuuuuuuue all over his own house's hourglass next - which he REALLY made sure there was plenty of because house pride and all - and SLAP, up went another hand drawn poster.

Finishing up with ample glue and Ravenclaw's sapphires out of view, Derf BEAMED at the display. No one was fooling this Hufflepuff, nope!