The Courtyard
 

The courtyard seemed like a cool place to hang out and meet new people. Classes hadn't really gotten underway yet, so all Brent was focused on now was the social aspect of Hogwarts. He was starting to know more and more people, which was cool. He imagined this place would really boring without friends to hang out with.

Surprisingly, the courtyard wasn't really crowded. There was a Slytherin girl about his age hanging out by the pear trees. She looked pretty focused on it, so Brent didn't really interrupt. Besides, he figured he'd be seeing her around the common room sometime later. He walked over to a nearby bench and sat down, trying to come up with another plan to meet people, since the courtyard didn't really seem all that popular. Where was everybody?

For Whit!
 

Cassie!
 

Surprisingly Kat was finished with her homework, Why did they have to have homework? They should not be assigned homework for the whole first month back at school. It only seemed fair to her. She was finished now thought and there was no reason to complain about it now.

She sat out in the courtyard where it was nice and quiet and still warm-ish outside. She walked around a few times looking around at everything, she picked up a few pears, and put them in her bag. She got her wand out and set one on fire, and exploded another. Well that was fun. Kind of. She took one from her bag and levitated it around the courtyard. She watched as it bounced around. Mmm these pears actually made good things to practice on.

Grabbed!
 

With the sun shining and the weather so bright and sunny, Noelle was not staying inside. She had a free period, and she planned on studying. The OWLs were this year and she couldn't take any risks in falling behind. Her schedule was once again packed. She managed to separate times for herself though. But everything was scheduled. If only she was one of those super smart kids that seemed to barely put in any effort. That would be the life.

Instead, Noelle was perched in the pear tree, away from distractions and mouthy first years. Her nose in her Transfiguration book. She heard a voice scattering some of the first years away and looked through the tangled tree branches to look down. Then she saw her. Daisy.

Noelle's mouth turned into a quick grin at the sight of her friend. She closed her book, and stuffed it in her extendable book sack that was perched on another branch. She scurried down the tree and dropped right now in front of her. "You're here!!" She exclaimed with a grin. Her eyes shining with excitement. Of course she was here though. The school had started back. But Noelle meant... Here The peach tree.

Dora was glad to be out of the common room... which wasn't the norm. Typically she LOVED it, but today it seemed too crowded and louder than usual. Probably because she was missing Airey and the way he did things. Which she normally didn't dwell on, but some developments this term had really hit her hard.

Ugh. With a small frown on her face, she made her way through the courtyard and found a warm spot to plop down. Pulling her wand from its holster, her sketch pad from her bag, ad a pencil from behind her ear, she settled in to do some drawing.

Turns out, she had gotten MUCH better over the summer with the help of one of her favorite Ravenclaws. Ehehe.

Dora was deep in concentration, crease in her brow as she drew in long, smooth strokes. A dandelion. A wish flower. So much detail. But it quieted her mind and helped her focus. She was almost to the point that she didn't have to take potions anymore. It was amaz...

Looking over at the plopping and voice speaking to her, the blonde smiled crookedly. "A dandelion flower. And I'm going to animate it in a moment. Cool, huh? " He was a Hufflepuff. Precious. Could she claim a second year? He was, for all intents and purposes, an ickle compared to the 15 year old, yes? YES.

"I'm Dora, by the way. Dora Umbridge, " she said as she extended a hand toward him.

Now, which pear would she choose? Some seemed too green still and others definitely looked waayy too ripe. It was the problem with picking fresh fruit, she supposed, and scrunching up her nose, Daisy turned on the spot looking at the branches of the tree.

Oh, she had found it! It looked just perfect and stretching until she was stood on her toes, the Slytherin's hand wrapped around the fruit and plucked it from the tree.

That was when she almost died of fright.

Something heavy landed and solid landed infront of her and the fifteen year old assumed an attacking position, peer held high ready to throw at whatever was attacking her.

Oh. It was a Gryffindor. Of course.

"Oh, Christmas is here! Well, French Christmas anyway. Get it? Christmas in French is Noel? Yeah, Daisy thought she was funny. She smiled at her friend and finally assumed a nornal stance, taking a bite from her peer. Thank Merlin it hadn't been necessary to use it as a weapon. What had the Gryffindor been doing up there? Her Mum was right, Gryffindors were weird. Did you develop a liking for tree climbing during the summer, Noelle?

Had she alwaysbeen this way?

Paul was tired because he had gotten into the routine over the summer of lazing around, sleeping late, leisurely walking the dogs...et cetera. He hadn't brought his dog, but he was leisurely walking all right.

Sloooooooowwwlyyyyy.

Stopping to peer every so often at various plant life growing in the area. There was some very pretty moss Paul decided to dust his finger across the surface of on some brick...he smelled his finger, and then nodded, making a mental note or something or other.

Liam was climbing on a bench when someone distracted him. An old someone - a professor. Professor... Herbology, right? Liam wasn't entirely sure. He'd met a lot of people in a short amount of time and if professors weren't where they were supposed to be, then apparently he couldn't recognize them.

So Liam watched the man closely. Was he... smelling moss? Weird.

"Can you tell what that is by smelling it?" He asked, perching himself on the bench and raising his voice so Professor Man could hear him over the short distance between them.

Leon was idly sketching in his pad, randomly drawing anything that had come into his head.. So far he had a tree, a sketch of his cat, Cole and the back of a head of hair.. But his idle drawing wasn't helping his busy mind and he was about to put down his sketch pad when he looked up and saw The History of Magic teacher.

He gave her a warm smile and was about to turn back to his paper when he heard her exclaim and almost instantly the dark haired boy was on his feet and next to Ms. Newton in a flash. His hands out in case she needed to hang onto them.

"Are you okay Professor?" He asked, his grey eyes scanning for what she could have tripped over. "Did you trip? " His search hadnt come up with anything.. so either she was clumsy.. or something else had happened.

It was far too quiet for the beginning of the term already.

Tim figured she'd go and make a little noise or trouble for her final year here. She borrowed a skateboard from one of her friends and headed down to the entrance hall. Surprisingly, there weren't many people around at this time. The blonde thought it was because most of them were probably still figuring out the castle or finding secret rooms of the sort. Setting the skateboard down and sitting on it, the Gryffindor took out her wand. She sat quietly for half a minute before figuring out exactly what she was going to do. Pointing her wand away from her back, Tim castes a spell a launched her and the skateboard straight into the courtyard. But little did she know what the results were going to be.

The blonde lost her balance and rolled off the board just a few seconds later. She'd probably get a nasty bruise from landing on hard on her left arm.

The warrior pose was something that Noelle had been expecting from Daisy. She gave a crooked, innocent grin to her so she knew she meant no harm. She would have done the same thing if she was in the same shoes. Expect, she would have probably shot a spell off at her.... Glad she hadnt been in the same situation.

"Hey there." Noelle grinned as Daisy took her regular stance. She looked up at the tree as Daisy asked her about it. "I needed somewhere quiet to study. I have a free period. What are you up to?" She asked, eying the fruit. "I'd wash that first." She told her as she pulled out her wand. "Aguamenti" Noelle muttered before holding out the wand to her so she could wash her pear.

Paul rubbed his fingers together. He needed some moss for something...but he felt bad taking THIS moss...

"No, I'm not that brilliant!" he said as he turned to face the very small child with the small voice. "I can tell by looking at it, usually, though," he grinned. And he then took a seat next to the student. "You are...you've got a twin, don't you?" he asked softly. "McKinley. I can't remember your first name right now," he would remember in class, but with all the new first years and transfers? Yeah, it took Paul until October to get all the names usually.

"I know you're a Slytherin, though," surprisingly. He was getting better at remembering students more quickly than, say, his first year here. Merlin, he...he still didn't think he had Oliver Tate-Ber...something...SEE? STILL DIDN'T HAVE IT.

Goodness gracious.

"Noelle, it's the first week of the term!" What could the girl possibly have to study already? "I came here for the pears, obviously!" Definitely not to study. Sure, it was OWLs year but there was no need to stress about it already, was there? Daisy only planned to get stressed about it around April. Or something like that.

Or, more likely, at Christmas when her Mother started bugging her about it, but nevermind that.

The pear was already halfway gone by the time Noelle offered her water-shooting wand to her so Daisy just shrugged it off and kept on eating the fruit. "There's no point washing it now, is there? Besides, my Dad says we acquire resistance to germs and stuff the more we come into contact with them!"

There was no conflict in Daisy's mind about the fact she took the advice of her retired Quidditch-player Dad rather than that of her Healer Mum. She also kind of knew that wasn't factually true but her brother had told her she had once eaten a bug as a child and she had been fine. Cardens had strong stomachs, you see? Besides, her eyes had caught something and Daisy frowned, munching away at the peer and squinting her eyes at her friend's robes.

"Wait. Did you always have that badge?"

Shocking? Well. She did like to keep people on their toes. Yeah. So with that being said, Dora ripped out a random page from her sketch book and balled it up. Grabbing her wand she spoke two incantations back to back and swished flicked her wand through the air with ease. The ball of paper floated easily a few inches above them and lit fire. Smoldering was happening. It was amazing.

But before Dora could get too distracted by it she looked over at the blonde boy and grinned. "I like fire." Which he was already aware of. Hehe.

"Nice to meet you, too, Kane Westwood. You have a brother? Is he your twin? I have a twin, but he goes to Durmstrang. Which is sad, but whatever. He likes it there and I like it here." She always overshared, didn't she? Sighs. "I think Hufflepuff suits you, Especially since you didn't want to start a fire with me."

Kidding. She was kidding. HEHE.

Was that his brother on the other side of the courtyard? Brent could see the distinct color of Kane's hair. He started to wave at him but then the boy was talking with some older girl. Brent felt a tiny sting of jealously at the fact that his brother seemed to be hanging out with more girls than Brent had managed to. Brent was older! Shouldn't this be the other way around?

All of the sudden, there was a loud noise and something darted into the courtyard, causing Brent to stand up and assume a defense position. Who knew what this could be? He'd heard horror stories about some of the shenanigans around this place. A moment later, a skateboard and its rider came tumbling to a halt right by his feet.

Whooooooa.

"Are you okay?" he asked, putting away his wand and offering his hand to the girl. Duuuuude. A second ago, he'd been worried that his brother was getting more girls than he was. Now, the girls were literally being hurled at him! "Sorry you wrecked your board. It looks okay, though."

"Really?" Liam perked up a bit, sliding off the bench and making his way over to the professor. "What kind is this, then?" He wasn't testing him, really, just... curious. Pure curiosity.

Liam nodded then, wrinkling his nose a bit. The professor remembered Natalie. It made sense, he supposed, for professors to remember her easily. Natalie was smarter than he was.

"Nat's my sister. Natalie. I'm Liam. ... Um, William." In case he needed real names? But he could totally call him Liam. Unless he was in trouble. But only his mum and dad did that.

Anyway. "I am!" A Slytherin, that is. Liam beamed. "Did you go here when you were a kid? What house were you in?" Important questions.

Paul smirked. "It is fork moss...very common in Scotland, you see," he smiled. "There's not much else to say about it...it's rather spongy feeling though, if you wanna' go feel," he grinned and gestured over at the bright green moss. "The scientific name for it is dicranum scoparium..." he grinned. "Do I know too much about moss, then?" Because moss wasn't exactly interesting or anything.

"Oh, your full name is William? What do you prefer?" he thought he might as well ask. "And Natalie! Yes, that's her," he didn't remember her name, either, but maybe with time he would. "Is she also a Slytherin?" Again, the memory was failing here!

He smiled and nodded. "I went here a very long time ago. Before you parents, probably, even. I was a Ravenclaw here..." he chuckled. "But I'm the Hufflepuff Head of House so...I feel as if I'm a part of the badger cete now...a group of badgers is called a cete, did you know?" He asked the first year. "If you didn't--now you do!"