Boing... boing... boing...

Toby basically hadn't stopped moving since getting back to Hogwarts. This perhaps wasn't really saying much, given that he was usually an unstoppable force of perpetual motion, but recently this was somehow MORE true. Right now, for example, he was aggressively bouncing down the pathways on his treasured pogo stick, the mystery pogo stick he'd gotten for his birthday a good few years ago. It was still in great condition, and still one of his most treasured possessions.

Boing... boing... boing...

Up and down this one stretch of path Toby went, attempting to make up the distance in as few bounces as possible, or as fast as he could, or to go as HIGH as possible. Every now and then he did a spin or two in mid-air.

The Hufflepuff had not forgotten that Airey would be meeting him here soon, but at the moment that piece of information was pushed back in his mind while he bounced around, so Toby wasn't exactly keeping an eye out for the suited astronomer at the moment. This very important bouncing had all of his attention right now, see.

Boing... boing... boing...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Felixir

Boing... boing... boing...

Toby basically hadn't stopped moving since getting back to Hogwarts. This perhaps wasn't really saying much, given that he was usually an unstoppable force of perpetual motion, but recently this was somehow MORE true. Right now, for example, he was aggressively bouncing down the pathways on his treasured pogo stick, the mystery pogo stick he'd gotten for his birthday a good few years ago. It was still in great condition, and still one of his most treasured possessions.

Boing... boing... boing...

Up and down this one stretch of path Toby went, attempting to make up the distance in as few bounces as possible, or as fast as he could, or to go as HIGH as possible. Every now and then he did a spin or two in mid-air.

The Hufflepuff had not forgotten that Airey would be meeting him here soon, but at the moment that piece of information was pushed back in his mind while he bounced around, so Toby wasn't exactly keeping an eye out for the suited astronomer at the moment. This very important bouncing had all of his attention right now, see.

Boing... boing... boing...

So, the astronomer did not own a pogo stick of his own - choosing to spend his galleons and muggle currency on other past times instead - which is why he had needed to resort to other methods in order to produce his own for this scheduled playtime with Mr. Tempus. Of course, being a wizard, the logical thing was to simply transfigure something into a pogo stick or stretch his magical abilities and conjure one...but pogo sticks fell under the rhelm of scared muggle things that must not be tampered by magic - save for perhaps a Cushioning Charm placed upon it for the more accident prone. So just how had the astronomer arrived at the pathways with a pogo stick? Quite simple really.

It was home made. Well, Airey supposed "astrophysics laboratory made" was the more correct terminology.

It was sturdy enough to support him, hopefully, but Hogwarts did lack some of the parts to make it a real stellar pogo stick...but it would do. He would need to take it apart after their day pogo-ing around - assuming that the house elves wanted one of their ovens to work. And the freezer. And...oh never mind. Ahem.

"Fine day for pogo-ing, wouldn't you say?" he greeted with a wave of his stick as he approached the Hufflepuff. "Stellar to see you in good spirits once again. Result of a good summer I presume?" Since they hadn't really done the whle professor-student catching up bit while scheduling today.

It was Airey's voice that alerted Toby to his presence, and the sixth year looked up from his super mega intense pogoing as soon as he heard it. He didn't break his stride, though, and had very quickly closed the distance between them both, before hopping off his pogo stick and thereby increasing their height difference once again. Huh. It was always quite weird getting used to solid ground after bouncing for so long.

"Great day for it," he responded at once, giving an eager nod. It was true, too; they were fast approaching autumn, and as soon as the rain started, conditions would be less than ideal. And then there would be ICE... and then more rain. Not impossible pogoing conditions, but still.

Toby smiled widely, quite glad that Professor Airey had picked up on those upbeat vibes. It was so much better than when people noticed he was anything less than stellar, after all.

"I had a great summer. Loads of good stuff. And fun stuff." In truth, Toby may or may not have been a little reluctant to return, not that he was about to say that to anyone. Because he HAD returned, see? Here, hi, yes, hello, it me. No need to think about all that, and definitely no need to talk about it. "I got to visit Ella and Alec for a while, too." Airey, of course, would know how cool that was for him. "How about you, Professor? Did you have a good summer?"

And then, as he stood there, absentmindedly bouncing his pogo stick against the floor and catching it again in one hand, Toby's eyes fell upon the contraption in Airey's possession. It was a thing of wonder, and the Hufflepuff found himself captivated. Was that a pogo stick? It was glorious; Toby's eyes were surely shining with fascination at the object. Where had he gotten it? Somehow, it felt impolite to immediately bombard the man with more questions right away, so he bit them back for now and looked back up at the astronomer, but Toby couldn't stop himself from glancing back at it from time to time.

Balancing his home made pogo stick against a rock and shoved his hands into his pockets as he grounded himself for a moment - mostly to take in the smells of the time of year as well as fully embrace the crisp air as it stung his cheeks. "Perhaps my favorite time of year, some are surprise to hear," he chuckled, his eyes slowly opening as he looked upwards towards the sky and silently calculated the position of certain celestial bodies at this specific point in time.

Stuff....oh how Airey loathed that word. Far too broad for a fellow like himself that preferred precise language, so his nose did wrinkle slightly at the Hufflepuff's overuse of the term. "Well, I am pleased that your.....stuff was enjoyable." He removed his hands from pockets and reached for his pogo stick, idly tapping it against the ground to test the gears a bit more. "Oh, Mr. Summers and Miss Bishop! I hope they are doing well."

And he was going to ignore that Mr. Tempus had mentioned their names together, meaning that they were...you know...living together. While not his students anymore, it was still a little uncomfortable to think about his students' personal lives.

"Mine? It was stellar," he nodded. "Kept busy with work at The National Space Centre among things. They hosted a Space Camp there this summer, looking to offer again next summer and are willing to give Hogwarts students the first chance to sign-up should the board approve of extending the program." Part of the astronomer's handy work, launching the camp itself. His ears turned a bit red thinking about other aspects of his summer, his gaze briefly trailing to his hands where nothing was out of the ordinary to anyone else looking.

Coming out of his own twilight zone, he snapped attention back to Mr. Tempus. "Well, not that those pleasantries are out of the way...what tricks on this, er, bad boy do you think I can handle?"

Toby looked at Airey as the professor looked up to the skies, and then followed his gaze a few moments later, though he wasn't thinking about celestial bodies or anything like that. Just things. And stuff.

Though he was one to constantly miss little details of things, Toby had been in Flamsteed's classes for over five years now, so he'd sorta maybe picked up a little bit on his disdain for some of the vocabulary that Toby himself liked to employ a lot. It was easy to forget, but the professor's response was a quick reminder that caused Toby to give a grin somewhere between 'impish' and 'sheepish'. Whoops.

"Uh-huh, they're doing great," he said with a nod, passing his pogo stick from one hand to the other and bouncing it against the ground every now and then. "They're like... proper adults now. With dogs." Did Airey feel the same way about cats as he did with dogs? Because... the dogs had fur and all... "Oh hey, no way!" Toby added, quite enthusiastic about the Space Camp thing. "That sounds awesome." QUITE awesome. The sixth year was so engrossed in the thoughts about that that he absolutely and completely missed any sort of discomfort from Airey. Though Toby was so often oblivious due to being distracted by his own thoughts that that was hardly a shocker.

Okay, but yes. YES. It was TIIIIIIIIIME TO POGOOOOOOOOOOOO.

Which MEANT that now the topic of conversation had switched to the whole point of this meeting, that Toby could finally ask about THAT magnificent looking pogo stick without feeling like it was a result of getting distracted. He took a teeny step closer, just to get a better look at it, grinning away. "Where did you get this? I've never seen one like it before." Was it CUSTOM MADE? 'Cause, y'know, Toby usually knew his pogo sticks. So, the answer to Airey's question was that.......... Toby had no idea. "How high can it go?" That was a big indicator on how much you could do on one.

Like his own, for example, could go CRAAAAAZY high in the air, which gave him time to do all sorts of tricks. Really, it was a beast of a stick.

"No matter what you can do on that, you'd look stylish doing it." Fitting, really, as this WAS Airey after all.

So far Tia had been quite enjoying her classes and professors but what she needed now was some fresh air. That and she was on a mission to find a fresh picked, perfect red apple. Tucking some hair behind her ear, the fourth year slowly made her way down the pathway, reflecting on the people she met thus far.

But at the forefront of her mind was him. Maddox. Was he married? She had no idea, but the thought that he would have left his wife to go teach teenagers at Hogwarts, well it struck Tia as heroic. And the way he transformed from feline to man. Why apples though? Cats didn't like apples.

Was it even healthy to eat as many apples as he did in class? Not that it mattered, because the way he devoured the fruit was just ... there was something special about it. Something special about him, despite the fact that she knew it was wrong considering he had to be like twice her age.

It only took one look out his office window to convince the Charms Professor that the day was nice enough for him to step outside. It wasn't something that happened often due to tedious tasks such as grading and re-thinking lessons that were more fitting for the hooligan lot of them but today he put it all aside because the sun had made one of it's rare appearances and Maddox didn't intend to miss it.

Heading down the one of the pathways, hands buried in his pockets, the man took a deep breath of the fresh air. It was already crisp with the light chill, some of the earliest indications that they were heading into the winter season; a personal favourite of his.

Maddox stopped, surveying the immediate area for any signs of an apple tree. They did grow these here, yeah? While he questioned this, he heard what could only have been approaching footsteps and the crunching of fallen leaves...Oh. "...Miss Macini." Not a hooligan. For a moment he thought he'd have regretted leaving his office. "What brings you all the way over here?" Was it a stretch thinking he wasn't the only one fascinated by nature's greatest fruit?

Well then ...

An interesting detour on his roam around the castle. It's not that he was trying to be late for his classes. This place was GINORMOUS and way more fun to explore than sitting through a professor's lecture. Besides, wasn't it going to be more meaningful if he took everything in like this? All of his senses could work at once (rather than just his sense of sleeping through studies).

Really, he should get extra credit for wanting to familiarize himself with this place.

Outwardly, Damien looked like your typical 11-year-old with a classic baby face, bowl cut hair, slightly chubby cheeks (event though he was slender) and blue-green eyes. He wasn't really ... hyper. Fairly quiet and liked to observe things before deciding on action. And what better way to be quiet and observe than to take in the grounds.

"Like I said," he muttered to himself. "Extra credit."

Hardly expecting anyone to be following her despite the fact that it was a lovely fall day, Tia stopped short at hearing footsteps which were definitely not her own. She whirled around where she found herself face-to-face with just the person she was out here for. It was as if fate his ears were ringing from being thought about.

"Mancini," she corrected quietly. "And good afternoon, Professor --" Q for QT? Too soon, she decided, quickly adding on "Quigley." Glancing around at how far out she strayed from the castle she simply sighed. "Well you caught me. I heard this rumour that the Scotland's best apple trees were planted way out here and I would have picked some for you before our lesson, but you had that no food policy and I didn't think it was right to bring you apples. Besides, they say an apple an a day keeps the teacher away and ...." she trailed off, suddenly getting flustered over her words. "But what brings you out here, not in your feline form?"

Op, look at that, he'd already gotten 6 of the 7 letters right in her name. Next time he'd be a pro at this. Student names didn't take a tremendously long timememorize but with so many of them and then quite a number at his office he wasn't sure how he was keeping up. Still, he'd remember that. "Apologies."

What was she rattling on about though? Apples? His class? No food--OH YEAH. That rule. "Well you were perfectly right in that." Though he'd hardly mention the fact he was an unremorseful hypocrite with double standards. Now how would that make him look? Then he'd have to pretend to care his reputation was marred because apparently society didn't forgive those with no regrets. Pfft. "But exceptions are one of life's greatest gifts. " On the other hand, it was hardly true they'd keep Professors away. Maddox raised a brow at her. "Are you saying you'd rather stuff me with apples to keep me away? Reckon lessons would be a little harder then."

Unless he sent a sub? Maybe they'd have more respect for that bloke and he could stay in his office napping away the session. Hmmm...Something to seriously look into.

To answer her question though, he began with a casual shrug. "I'm not a feline, I'm a man." Hence him walking around as such, sorry to disappoint. "And I'm tree watching." Taking some fresh air, same thing really.

There sure were a lot of adults roaming arounx the castle. Daisy didn't like it. She huffed and kicked a stone down the pathway. She was out and about trying to find a unadulted place to sit and work on her scroll for history class. The ,librsry didn't work...to many people and besides she worked best in a noisey environment. She guessed she had growing up on a dragon reserve to thank for that.

She was wearing a pair of bluejeans and a burgundy sweater to ward off the chill in the air. The wind tugged a bit at her auburn hair which was pulled back in a messy braid. She sighed and shifted the bag on her shoulder then kicked another stone. Oh the life of an 11 year old,! If she was older, Daisy would have thought the worldwas agains her.

He was tempted to climb a tree, but with tall he grown up folk nearby, decided against it. Hadn't really gotten into trouble just yet. Why start making a habit of it now?

Hmmm ... there was that girl from the other day. Roaming the dungeons near the Slytherin Common Room. What was her name again? Diane? Daphne? It was a D name, wasn't it? She looked like she was slightly frazzled. For being a Gryffindor, Damien would've thought she'd do the brave thing and storm around the place like it was her oyster.

"Everything all right?" he asked, even though she was looking nowhere in his direction.

"Hmm?" Daisy looked around, eyes landing for ehst felt like the first time in ages, another student. Then she realized it was the boy from the dungeons the other day, and not! the one who always made her want to hit him or throw things in his general direction. She stopped to let him catch up with her. "Fine, fine" She lied. "Trying to find a nice noisey place to study."

The boy himself looked lime be was trying to find something too. A c then Daisy realized she'd only seen him outside of class. "Say," she said. "Don't you ever go to class?"

She nodded when he apologized for messing up slightly on her name, offering up a brief smile as well, but then her brown eyes shifted away and back onto the trees momentarily.

Had she been rambling? She did that all too often of lately and it wasn't really her fault. Once she got sidetracked she just rambled. But at least Quigley seemed to make sense of ramblings. Exceptions. Well of course that made sense; adults thinking because they were grown up they could do what they want. And what was that ... "No, no, quite the contrary, that's why despite your love of apples, i couldn't bring you one in the lesson, because I didn't want to keep you away. I couldn't." She wouldn't have something nice to look at then.

Not a feline. A man, well duh, she was sure anyone with eyes knew that one. "Why'd you choose to become a feline as your animagus form, though?" Or did he not choose it? She didn't quite understand how it worked, but "Can you teach me?" Because private lessons with Quigley was something she was not about to refuse, even if she hadn't fully thought through the whole process.

He tilted his head to the side. Did she just say she wanted a noisy place to study? Not that he was an expert on subjects or ... school in general for that matter, Damien was pretty sure she was looking for a place that would be counter productive.

He had to laugh though, when she asked him about his attendance record. "I go," he shrugged. "I'm not very good at anything, but I go."

He gazed up towards the tree he wanted to climb. Wouldn't be the best place to study, but it would be fun. "Are you the type who likes school? Always completes things on time, wants to do extra credit ... makes friends with the teachers?"

Ree Xhe co "I like school.I do my work amiably enough," Daisy replied watching him eye a tree as if he wanted to climb it. She wonderedwhattype of guy he was. She hadn't made many friends ans she wasn't sure WHAT she considered Noah to be. "But befriend the professors?" She snorted. "Even I'm not that brave."

However, she was brave enoughto climb a tree. Well, if it were the right one. The boy was busy looking at a pine tree."Not sure you want to climb that," she cautioned. Pines were dangerous.

Damien turn his head around at her comment of climbing the tree. "What, you read minds, do you?" he asked raising an eyebrow. To be perfectly honest, the Hufflepuff had never done any climbing of the sort. Sure, he'd hiked a few hills and mountains back home, but trees?

He played it off, though. "Not this one," he said, making it sound like he knew what he was talking about.

Was this how you made friends? Seemed like talk that went nowhere. "So you're Gryffindor," he commented, remembering that she was wearing the colors of her house that day in the dungeons. Delilah? "Are you first year as well?"

"No," she replied uncertain if hewasbeingseriuous or not. "You just have that look that says 'ooo fun!' My brothers getit all the time." She was, however glad he agreed not to climb the tree. The last thing she wanted today was to make a trip to the hospital wing when a branch broke under his weight.

She turned looking off down the path, away from the adults. Seriously! Why were there so many adults around?! "I am," she replied to his question. "Aren't you a Hufflepuff? Is it true your common room is down by the kitchens?" It was the one place Daisy really wanted to find. The kitchens - not the Hufflepuff common room.

SPOILER!!: TOOOOOOOOOOBY!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Felixir

Toby looked at Airey as the professor looked up to the skies, and then followed his gaze a few moments later, though he wasn't thinking about celestial bodies or anything like that. Just things. And stuff.

Though he was one to constantly miss little details of things, Toby had been in Flamsteed's classes for over five years now, so he'd sorta maybe picked up a little bit on his disdain for some of the vocabulary that Toby himself liked to employ a lot. It was easy to forget, but the professor's response was a quick reminder that caused Toby to give a grin somewhere between 'impish' and 'sheepish'. Whoops.

"Uh-huh, they're doing great," he said with a nod, passing his pogo stick from one hand to the other and bouncing it against the ground every now and then. "They're like... proper adults now. With dogs." Did Airey feel the same way about cats as he did with dogs? Because... the dogs had fur and all... "Oh hey, no way!" Toby added, quite enthusiastic about the Space Camp thing. "That sounds awesome." QUITE awesome. The sixth year was so engrossed in the thoughts about that that he absolutely and completely missed any sort of discomfort from Airey. Though Toby was so often oblivious due to being distracted by his own thoughts that that was hardly a shocker.

Okay, but yes. YES. It was TIIIIIIIIIME TO POGOOOOOOOOOOOO.

Which MEANT that now the topic of conversation had switched to the whole point of this meeting, that Toby could finally ask about THAT magnificent looking pogo stick without feeling like it was a result of getting distracted. He took a teeny step closer, just to get a better look at it, grinning away. "Where did you get this? I've never seen one like it before." Was it CUSTOM MADE? 'Cause, y'know, Toby usually knew his pogo sticks. So, the answer to Airey's question was that.......... Toby had no idea. "How high can it go?" That was a big indicator on how much you could do on one.

Like his own, for example, could go CRAAAAAZY high in the air, which gave him time to do all sorts of tricks. Really, it was a beast of a stick.

"No matter what you can do on that, you'd look stylish doing it." Fitting, really, as this WAS Airey after all.

Proper adults. Airey shorted and covered his mouth to try and muffle an inappropriately loud laugh. Dogs wasn't code for anything, right? Scratch that. he did not particularly care to know that. At least right now. Still in transition with the departure of one class into a new term and thus was a little fragile. "Proper adults," he mused, the corner of his lip curving upwards on the right side ever so slightly. Perhaps one day he could be one of those too.

Meaning himself, that is.

Awesome? What? OH YES! Space Camp. Righto!

"If you think that may be something you would be interested in, Mr. Tempus, I can be sure that an application finds its way to you," he saluted. The astronomer would be spending much of his winter holiday at the Centre, making sure some of the new exhibits and special features of the camp were progressing as they should. Which would be a bit difficult with balancing Head of House duties for those who stayed behind at Hogwarts during the break. Something he needed to alert Medea too...acting as House Mother for a time.

Oh sweet solstice. Where had THAT term come from.

Ears blushing, he was relieved when the Hufflepuff brought their collective attention to the pogo stick he was bouncing against the ground. "Oh, this?" he said, ceasing his bouncing against the ground and instead twirling it in his right have like an oversize baton. "Something I whipped up this morning using some spare parts I found lying around my office and the laboratory. Didn't have all the parts I needed...so I had to - shall we say - borrow some its here and there from the kitchens. Just don't tell the house elves or Headmistress on me," he explained with a quick wink.

Setting the pogo stick on the ground and leaning it against his leg, he looked towards the one Mr. Tempus held and shook his head. "No where near the height yours can go," he lamented. "Good to see that you are taking care of that. Looks just as good as new."

She really was looking for an apple tree wasn't she? He thought she'd been joking but thought better of that when her eyes drifted back to the trees. With any luck she'd find one because he was started to feel peckish.

Rare event but Maddox chuckled at the words of a Ravenclaw an exceptionally humourless lot most times. "I'm beginning to think you have an answer for everything." Whether that was a good thing or not, he had yet to decide. After Mister Scabior's little stunt, he was almost certain his dislike of that house had risen. "I wouldn't protest to an apple though, for future reference." Would she bring him one to the next class? Yes?

As for her question, he gave a small shrug assuming she'd missed the explanation he offered to Mister Hirase. "I wouldn't say I chose this form." Truthfully he'd never been too fond of cats before the change. "One doesn't choose the form. It comes from the inner traits and such. Apparently I'm very feline on the inside?" He didn't even KNOW but it didn't bother him much. Better than like...a roach or a rat. There was just no living down that kind of shame.

Teaching though....."No can do Miss Mancini." For her own good? Because he'd probably have her stuck in the same predicament? "Professor Bellaire would have my tail. It's sorta her department. Why are you interested in learning it?"

Did he just laugh at her? And really, an answer for everything, didn't that come with the territory of being Ravenclaw? Was he insulting her? She wasn't sure but she decided she would take that as a complement - for now at least. "Thank you. I try." And if she didn't have an answer, then that's what books were for. "I'll keep that in mind. Do you have any preference over apples? Green, red, candied, pie?" You know, just informational purposes. She figured she may as well try to get him his favorite. Unless he liked them all, in which case, well, she'd pick the love potion induced one best one. Hopefully his preference wasn't for candy apples though, cause that just sounded icky, even though she was sure she saw one or two up at his desk from her peers.

Huh. One didn't choose their animagus form? It had to do with inner traits? Tia scratched absently at her temple. "I wonder what my inner traits would reveal of me."

But apparently she wasn't going to find out from Quigley. Siiighh. Maybe she should work up the pouting thing? "But you have first hand experience with becoming one." Bellaire wasn't an animagus that she knew of; actually she had no idea since she barely knew the Transfiguration professor as of yet but she didn't have the attractive facial features that Quigley had so ... point against her. "I haven't considered why yet, but well, maybe it would come in handy. But if you're not going to give me animagi training, perhaps you can teach me some advanced charms?" Or just charms review; she wasn't picky. And she didn't want to have to get a detention with Quigley just to be alone with him.

"Any kind of apple suits me." He just liked the crunch. They took the edge off his canines for the most part. After the training gone wrong and them getting longer than they should be even while he was a man it helped to have something to munch on. "From what I've gathered there's a lot of red ones down in the kitchen and students swiping them when the elves aren't looking. Sticky fingered lot. Good on you for getting one the right way." Okay so they'd copped to getting them fairly but it was all the same to him; brown-nosers with a hidden agenda.

"It's likely the same as your patronus. Figure that out and you won't really need to be an animagus." See how helpful he was? No one else needed to ruin their lives on a transfiguration spell that was more trouble than it actually was.

First hand experience, this time he gave an almost dry life. "I suppose you could say so." And a shoddy experience it was. One chance at animagus training and he managed to botch it up. "The Professor tells me she's also an animagus. You could stop by her office, tell her I sent you if you think it'll help." And then she did a very Ravenclaw thing--not even a stereotype when you considered the other Ravenclaw student that had come to him for the exact same thing. Maddox slumped against a tree, not bothering to hide his amusement. What was with the guys in blue and advanced charms? "I suppose I could, but of course that would depend on the charms you have in mind--and my schedule." Because let's face it, he wasn't losing sleep for any of them.

The cold woke Cosgrach up.

The moment she opened the door to get them out, a cold wave hit his whole body, and because FOR SOME REASON he thought they would run INSIDE the castle, he hadn't worn any coat, so he shivered and his teeth began to clatter. He wanted to object, but she was too adamant to lead them to somewhere, so he kept silent and waited for her to stop.

"It's NOT a beautiful day!" he snapped, which suggested he really was awake, "I'm cold." Cue more teeth clattering. He knew exercise would warm him up or something, but still.

What a baby.

"I hear your teeth chattering, and you're overreacting. It's a BEAUTIFULLY crisp autumn morning, not winter, ya nerd. Once we get moving, the temperature'll feel perfect. I promise," Sophie encouraged him as she led him on her usual route, walking at a very brisk pace and fully expecting him to keep up with her. "But if it makes you feel better, you can imagine we're on a tropical island and it's blazing hot outside?" Would that warm him up?

Really, though, the sun was shining and not a cloud was in the sky, and the freshly fallen leaves that covered the path they were on crunched under their shoes. That was her FAVORITE part of running in autumn, right along with the sight of the foliage that had changed colors in the mountains around them. Beautiful, it was. She never took the beauty of their surroundings for granted.