Tent pitching? Camping? In Runes? Well hey now, this was home sweet home with a cherry on top. Already he was making a list in his mind as he searched through the supplies that had been laid out, checking some things off, making a few editions and then rearranging all together.

It was still fairly warm out, though it was fall, and by the looks of things, it wasn't about to be raining anytime soon. Gathering up a tent, a tarp and some rope, he set off to finding a suitable place to start setting up camp. His wanderings took him past a rather pouty Neptune Bott and close to Arya and Ivory, who he gave a wave to, and then finally to a nice section of flat ground off the bank of the river; so much that he wouldn't get wet if it flooded, but water runs would be easy. A few trees about gave him the leverage he needed for what he had planned.

Placing all his items in the center of his chosen spot, he went about looping the rope through the holes in the tarp, humming a soft tune as he did so. Once that was complete, he took to climbing the trees as much as he could, bringing one section of rope up at a time and tying them off a good distance up. Four trees and four corners gave him a tarp that bowed to a bowl in the center. Next up, he found three poles and placed them in the ground at even distances along the center of the tarp, raising the hanging fabric to a roof like point, with steep slants on either side. It was actually rather cozy under the blue fabric as he began sorting out the poles and pegs for the tent he would set up under it.

Arya had the poles for their tent connected, and was spreading the the tarp out to attempt to connect the right parts when she spotted Sabel. The girl waved back, and went back to building her tent, paying him no mind until he started to climb a tree. Whyyy was he climbing a tree? Stopping what she was doing, she turned her attention to the boy as he worked on his tarp. "I like your....shelter, Sabel." There was a word for what he built, she was sure of it. Arya had skipped from her group to examine his tent thingy, more interesting in climbing the tree than anything.

A wide grin broke onto Sabel's face as he heard his friend, more excited that she had come over than of her appreciation of his handy work. "Shelter is a good way to describe it I suppose." Pausing in his work, he got up and moved over to give his friend a quick bear hug. "Though, if I didn't know any better, I'd say you are more interested in becoming part monkey than in the tarp. How's your camp coming along?"

Bear hugs. She loved bear hugs. Returning his with one of her own, she moved closer to his shelter. A grin split across her face. "Mayyybe I am." She took a step closer to one of the trees. "You think the professor would mind if I climbed a tree?" Peeking over at the new professor, she took another step closer to said tree. The woman didn't seem like she would. Hmm. "Our camp is coming along just swimmingly. Most of the tent is up." She pointed at her half finished tent.

Following her, he spared a quick glance over to her camp. "Very nice indeed." Then his eyes went back to her and the tree. "I don't think she would. Didn't say anything when I climbed four." A small shrug of the shoulders as he looked up at the knots. "Just don't fall and I think you'll be good." That said, he squatted and cupped his hands together to give her a leg up.

Oooof.
A big beefy pole was shoved into Ella's arms, but she just obliged. Trixie looked like she was ready to rumble. Heh...... eh? "The hard way? Why in Merlin's beard would we do that if we can use magic?" They weren't muggles, they didn't need to do it by themselves. She sighed, then moved forwards as Trixie instructed her to. Once she was opposite Trixie, she shoved her pole into the ground. Deeeeply. Otherwise it would fly away with the birdies.

"Sooo... how many poles do you think we'll need?" Were there instructions for this? Seriously...... they were going to fail. "Can we at least use magic to make it look prettier?" Presentation sounded like it would be important in this particular activity.

"Wow, that looks soo pretty", Fee said honestly.

Fee tip toed towards Rex and put her arms around his shoulders.
"Hi Fabulous", she smiled widely.

Trixie was making it look like she knew what she was doing even though she actually didn't. She'd never put one up before but it looked like fun. "Because you get a lot more out of it that way. Plus its funner" she grinned. Was funner a word? Probably not but it was now. The Blonde secured another pole down at the back of the two poles that had been put up. and tied them with a bit of string at the back. "There" that was the basic foundations.

"Just a few more, it should stay standing then." They'd pretty much crated a tepee. A very cool looking tepee. "Yeah sure..." she mumbled after Ella asked whether they could make it look pretty. And then they could ensure that it stayed standing. The Blonde continued to place poles up until it looked pretty much like it wouldn't fall down. She eyed the material and then looked over at her cousin. "Erm....Help me here?" she asked.

Amy smiled hugely as they both levitated the canvas up into the air, she'd never tried this spell before, it was one of the very few she knew, now she was sooo happy

"You were putting up your tent, I want to just climb it." Grinning, she placed a foot in his hands and hands on his shoulders, glancing up at the tree. "I don't fall out of trees." Bouncing on her foot that was on the ground, she glanced at the professor once more before returning her eyes to the tree. "I can always double check your knots." She grinned as she climbed up into the tree.

Lina was very carefully using magic to put up her tent, and hadn't even gotten around to decorating or anything. She just knew she wanted to get it up, and make sure it was done perfectly to make sure it didn't fall on her or something. Though because of that, it was turning out to be slow work on the matter.

Riley atcually was enjoying himself now with this Professor. He grinned as he thought of his cheeky Scrabble answer back in the classroom. He sat down and removed his white boat shoes and placed them away from the other students shoes on the shoe rack He then used his hands to hike up his pants in the back and walked over to the pile of supplies.

"So Professor, we can decortate our tents however we like?" the Gryffindor asked excitedly. He used his wand and levitated a large piece of canvas and some large sticks over to his area. Riley then began jamming the sticks into the ground, four of them making a sqaure.

Jacqueline was there alone. She really wanted to be in a group and work in a team. She looked around but everyone was already working on their tents. She felt quite lonely. She sat on a cushion and took her wand out. ''Guess i'll do it by myself.''

Picking out one of the tents JD pulls it over to where he thinks a nice area was to put it up at. Picking up stones and sticks from the spot, he makes sure nothing was on the ground, and piles it in a small pile. He might need those sticks and stones later on.

Hearing the professor say they were able to use magic, he looked at her dumbfounded. Well he certainly wasn't gonna use it, not unless he planned on setting his tent on fire. No way! He'd done this many times, and knew exactly how a tent went up, without "magic" or the use of his wand.

Staking the tent corners to the ground, so it wouldn't blow away, he climbs inside, moving around inside the tent trying to get it up on his own, failing helplessly.

With his tent up and at least the outside decorated the way he wanted, Simon took a moment to look around. It was always interesting to see what his class mates were doing and he had to admit the shelter attached to the trees had him curious. However one Slytherin girl doing her best to put up her tent alone caught his eye and he slowly walked up to her.

"Need any help?" he asked quietly not wanting to disturb her concentration or surprise her.

Trixie was so weiiiird sometimes. "Trixie... this is going to be really hard." Without magic it would. Merlin, Ella was so dependent on magic. Everyone in this wizarding world was. So maybe they SHOULD do it the normal muggle way. Why not? She raised an eyebrow as she watched her cousin. "Uhhhhh..." But she copied, just on the opposite side.

Ella nodded, then took another pole and secured it to the ground next to the one that she had just put in the ground. They were zooming through this, and it was exciting. More poles were put in the ground, mhm. Goood, Trixie was on board with the making it look nice part. DUH, they'd get more points if it looked good. Right, all the poles were done and she looked back at her cousin. Hm. She picked up one end, and there was a lot more material than there looked. "Oh, Merlin." Heeeeeeave!

What did this have to do with Ancient Runes?

Lina glanced at him, though tried not to take too much attention away from her tent. It didn't look stable. When had she ever had to build a tent anyway? "Yeah, I think I could use some help. I think it's going to collapse--" and there it went "-- and minute..." she finished with a frown. "It's a little big for me to handle, I think."

Hoisting her up to the first branch, he made sure that she was well steady and had a good hold before stepping back from the tree. Putting his hands on his hips, he grinned up at her, shaking his head a little. "Just don't go untying them now. I don't want to get lost all under this blue." Though he did need to hang a garbage bag up and possibly a clothes line. Hmmm.

Turning about, he found a line of rope and swiftly wrapped it about his shoulders. A running jump had him grabbing the bottom branch of the tree and pulling himself up after her. She was a very good climber.

Iris watched the girl from the corner of her eye, and smiled as she seemed to get the grasp of the spell. As the canvas landed on the top of the frame, Iris smiled.



"eey. We're good at this girls. Now we just have to -" She stopped talking as she saw a VERY lonely first year on her own.

"OI YOU! Excuuuse mee!!1!!" Okay... that was rude. Hehe. Oops, "C'mon over here!" She smiled brightly at the girl. "You look like you need people to work with, and I want people to make friends. So come and help Amy and Freya!" Teehee. Okay, maybe that wasn't the BEST way to catch the kids attention, but if it works... then Iris'll buy them all some candy or something. Everyone wins! Hehehe.

They need MOAR help to paint this thing. Hehehe.

"Andwhooooo. As I was saying. NOW we're going to decorate it. Everyone grab a brush and some paint. Lots of paint, actually. We want this thing to look awesome, right?!" Iris put her hands on her hips and smiled around her little crew of VERY AWESOME first years. "So, you guys paint. Use the brushes, your hands, throw the paint over the tent. I don't care. Just... get rid of ALL the white. I'm going to find some logs to transfigure into comfy couches."

And with that lovely (completely NOT bossy) set of instructions, Iris set off away from the tent to look for some logs and pebbles and stuff.

When she gets back, she'll teach them that colour changing charm that they learned last term. Awesome stuff that charm is. Annoyed the heck out of her mum, with the living room walls flashing from red to yellow to blue to green constantly. Hehehe.

"Alrig--" Simon has started to say before the tent did as suspected and collapsed causing the gryffindor boy to mirror his companion's frown. "That could be the case," he replied with a shrug, walking part way around examining the structure to think of the best way to handle things.

"Let's see if working together, you on the front, me on the back works," Simon suggested looking across the flattened fabric as he slipped his wand from his pocket. "On the count of three I guess..."

She nodded. "Okay..." She held her wand, out, concentrating on the tent again. "One, two... Three!" and with that last, she brought up the front of her tent. Merlin, she hated being small. Especially since it was hard to do magic on areas that she couldn't see. Why couldn't she be tall like the lady in the pictures?

Once she was hoisted up into the tree, the girl climbed up until she was near some of the ropes. "Fiine, I'll just touch them." She poked her tongue out at him, moving closer to the ropes, but not paying them much mind. Helllo, in a tree. Arya didn't expect Sabel to join her in the tree, and watched him curiously as he pulled himself up behind her with a few more ropes. "Forget something?" Maybe he wanted to add a swing in for fun.

"Nuuu touchie." Sabel laughed as he quickly made his way up through the branches. Long legs really helped in the endeavor and soon he was up beside Arya. He blinked at her for a moment, glanced at the ropes on his shoulder and then smacked his palm off his forehead making sure to maintain a good grip on the tree with his other hand. "I was going to tie this off down there, for garbage and for a clothes line, but I think I'm a little high for that." Unless he wanted to somehow create a pulley system for bringing up water from the river.

His eyes flicked to her camp not too far away and then back to his friend. "I can put up a tarp over your tent if you want. Or show you how, though by your skills I'm guessing you've done it before."

They were supposed to be putting up tents, eh? What did this have to do with runes, again? Erm...well, this definitely wasn't a good lesson for Vashti. She'd never ever been camping and never had any interest in doing so, and therefore she'd never exactly bothered to read any books on it, so she was really, really stuck. How in Merlin's name do you put up a tent? Was it easier doing it with or without magic? Likely with, but she was still stuck on the how part. Er...

His own wand was raised and aimed at the tent by the time Lina's count reached the three. Simon concentrated on his task, bringing up the rear persay as his partner brought up the front of the tent and so far so good it seemed to be working better. The boy smiled at their progress but kept up the spell for they still had a little bit to go before it was fully up and ready to be stayed.