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Post by Minerva McGonagall on Jun 16, 2009 20:00:54 GMT -5
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I NEED YOUR COUNCIL THICK AS THIEVES !
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“Move!” Minerva breathlessly yelled to a group of Ravenclaw fourth years that were standing in front of the second floor stairs. That had to be a sort of safety issue. Who allowed children to stand in front of the stairs? The teachers should regulate this more. Minerva made a mental note to address this issue to the Head Girl or Head Boy, whichever one she happened to run into first. Minerva’s mood was going from bad to worse as she wandered through each stairs case. If the second floor stairs weren’t bad enough, there were Slytherin sixth years on the third floor stairs. Now, how was Minerva supposed to get around them. She could not just scream at them like she could the Ravenclaw fourth years because those boys had an extra year on her and they were Slytherins. Besides the fact they thought they owned the school, or at least a good portion of it, those sixth years could have beaten up Minerva. Okay, that’s not true. Minerva could have easily take any of those buffoons in a fight. However, she was in no mood to make too much of a fuss, so instead, she just pushed her way through. Amidst all the shouts and noises the boys could possibly make, Minerva heard no derogatory terms. That was a good thing, right? The fourth and fifth staircases were very much like the first one. There were little children on it, who shouldn’t have even been there. Why were all these people standing on the stairs? That was just a little weird. Didn’t they have something better to do? Minerva just had to wonder what these people could have been doing with their free time. She was certain they could all use higher marks. Why couldn’t they all be like her and use their free time for high quality study purposes? Then the school could increase it’s already very respectable scores.
The sixth staircase was the first and only staircase that Minerva had no trouble jogging up. About ready to pass out, Minerva trudged through the sixth floor to the seventh and final staircase she had to climb. Soaking wet, Minerva put her foot on the first step. There seemed to be no one in the way. Everything looked home free. A rare smile appeared on Minerva’s face. “Hold on!” If there had been any trace of a smile on Minerva’s face, by this time it was long gone. Straightening up, Minerva turned curtly on the heel of her foot and faced the Hogwarts Caretaker. Holding her head high Minerva replied with a polite “Good evening.” The caretaker knew Minerva. While, he generally had it out for all of the students, a few weeks ago, Minerva had yelled at a few third years for tracking in mud in the halls and then helped him clean it up. So, while the caretaker was not happy to see Minerva dripping water everywhere, because she had helped her, the Caretaker let her off with a warning. It was a close one. Minerva was sold that she was screwed. Finally, with no more obstructions in her path, Minerva headed up to the Gryffindor common room. When she gave the fat lady the password, she briskly walked into the room and up to her dormitory. She could feel eyes bore into her back as she stormed across the common room. Glancing out a nearby window, it was easy to see it was still pouring outside. Minerva just had to get out of her dirty robes. She breathed a sigh of relief when she discovered the bath was not in use. Grabbing a warm towel, Minerva stripped off her dirty clothing, grabbed her wand, flicked it and had the clothing neatly fold itself on her bed.
Taking a nice relaxing half an hour off, Minerva took the time to bathe her self, and change her clothing to a loose fitting pair of plaid shorts and a loose white long sleeved shirt. The dorm room was so quiet at this hour and it was raining out. Minerva was very surprised that she had not been interrupted during her bath. But, it was a happy surprised, she hated it when people began hammering on the door with some pitiful excuse that they had to fix their make up, or worse had to go to the bathroom. Minerva knew she should probably use the prefects bathroom sometime, but the one in her dorm room was just as functional. Not nearly as nice, but perfectly functional. Happy with her change of venue, Minerva grabbed a book from her bedside table and headed downstairs into the common room. It was almost dinner time, so the common room had cleared out and looked quite different from when Minerva first entered it. When the room was packed with students it was hard to sit back and look at the room for its beauty. There was a large fire place surrounded by comfortable and lavish red chairs. The red and gold colors of the room always made Minerva feel warm and happy. She always wondered what the other common rooms felt like. Green, silver, blue and bronze were not very warm colors. Yellow and black were okay color choices, but not as pretty as red and gold. Stifling a yawn, Minerva found a chair and settled in with her book. She didn’t feel like climbing down all those stairs for dinner. For she knew she would have to climb back up them. Minerva found her book mark and began to read. The warm fire kept her comfortable, as she got lost deeper and deeper within her book.
tag: sabine (v-la) you're it! word count: 1288 status: all done music: dashboard confessional credit: grapic at the top made by THE LUCY SOUND !? @ caution notes: mmm. it's okay. [/size][/ul] |
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Post by Sabine Montgomery on Jun 16, 2009 22:59:56 GMT -5
BUT IT KEEPS GETTING BETTERNEXT DAY I'M A SUPERGIRL  OUT TO SAVE THE WORLDBUT IT WON'T LAST FOREVER
There was just something depressing about rain. When it was too hot, it was at least sunny, and she could enjoy the bright blue of the sky. And the solution to warm weather was running down to the ice cream shop two blocks over and sitting out on the porch with Irina to eat it. So the heat wasn't fun, but dealing with it was tasty. And when it was too cold, it was often snowing. No matter how cold and inconvienient snow was, it was beautiful as well. All sorts of unwanted bad weather had an element of beauty. Who didn't love a snowball fight followed by a round of hot chocolate? There was nothing like curling up by a fire after being out in the snow. But while rain might help plants grow, replenish the planet and all that jazz, it wasn't very beneficial for people.
Sabine hated water. If it wasn't necessary to survive, she would avoid it completely. She had been 'lucky' enough to discover that she was a witch by nearly drowning when she was seven because she didn't know how to swim. She had been drowning, beating her arms futility against the current, then suddenly she was shooting into the air and flying back to the beach at top speed to crash into the sand. And the extra humidity of rainy weather made her hair frizz up, when her hair got wet in the middle of the day it tangled up. Long hair did that on occasion, and the fact that it was wavy made things even worse. She had been caught in a drizzle on her way to Care of Magical Creatures earlier. Her hair had gotten a bit tangled and she spent ten minutes of her lunch break combing it out again. She obsessed about the condition of her hair, just a bit.
It was now evening, and Sabine was sitting at a table in the common room. Her Ancient Runes textbook lay open to her left, with the essay she had just completed resting on top of it as the ink dried. Fifth years were given entirely too much homework to deal with. She knew that academics were very important, of course. She would never argue about the importance of getting a proper magical education and learning to become a functional member of the magical community. But being constantly reminded that their OWLs were coming at the end of the year, then being given enough homework to keep her up at all hours really wasn't healthy. The stress that induced was enough to make her hair fall out - thought thankfully the dark brown tresses were still firmly attached to her scalp. She would die if anything happened to her hair. Well, not really, it was a symbolic sort of death. The point was she was worried about her health because these high levels of stress probably weren't good for her.
She stared wearily at her Arithmancy textbook, then opened it and began flipping through pages to reach the assignment. Usually Arithmancy was her favorite subject. The way that numbers could explain everything, people, the future, connections, it fascinated her. She was just tired of writing essays at the moment, having already written her Ancient Runes paper on the Elder Futhark, and before that she'd completed her star chart for Astronomy. The sun had already set outside the window, and she could hear younger students chattering excitedly on the couch near her table. Those lucky second years would eventually become tired fifth years, but for now they could enjoy their evening free time. She was envious of them, but she didn't wish her workload on them, they would find out later. Sabine yawned behind her hand, then scratched her nose. Her attention span had waned with the hour, even as she did her best to focus.
Hm, that's odd. The chattering second years had suddenly fallen silent. In fact, most of the common room had emptied. It was all so quiet, and it had probably been happening gradually and she hadn't even noticed. Maybe she had been focused on her work. Of course, now that she was looking around thinking about how empty the common room had become, she was very distracted, but she could get back on task. Maybe it was dinnertime, and that was why everyone had gone. Her stomach was growling, but she had homework that needed to get done. Sabine just wasn't a fast enough worker, she needed to improve on that or she'd wake up to find that she'd been using her charms textbook as a pillow again and a first year was poking the side of her face and asking his friends if she was dead. That had been a little awkward, to say the least. She moved her textbooks in front of her workspace, determined to get back to work and avoid distraction.
Unfortunately for all of her well-laid plans and good intentions, she was out of ink. "Oh dear," she sighed. It wasn't always her fault that she became distracted, people kept making noise and she seemed to be hounded by the worst luck. Sabine had never broken a mirror in her life, but bad things happened to her. First week of school? She found herself falling face first into the mud on another rainy day. Last year? Oh dear lord. She had been hanging around the quidditch pitch, watching the gryffindor team practice while she worked on her Charms homework, and when she had gone by the broom shed afterward Linette Durand had been trying to set it on fire. Now Linette was head girl and she had sworn not to say a word. She couldn't say she wasn't worried. Sabine didn't like keeping secrets, and a secret like the fact that the head girl might not only be irresponsible, but mentally unbalanced and dangerous, was a little heavy. She had promised to keep quiet without thinking it through.
Decisions often came back to bite you. Right now, she was regretting her decision to only bring one inkwell down with her homework. She had to go get a fresh one from her dormitory now. She yawned and stretched as she stood, shaking out the tensions that she had accumulated over the course of a day spent sitting down. There were a few other people in the common room besides herself, including someone she recognized. She shut her Runes book and put her now dry essay on top of the stack of textbooks she had brought to the table with her. It would still be there, and she had run out of ink anyway. She walked over to the couch in front of the merrily crackling fireplace. "Hello Min." Her voice was smoky, and held a patrician condescention that anyone who knew her wouldn't be put off by. She leaned against the back of the couch and ran her fingers through her dark hair. "What's that?" She pointed down at the book Minerva was reading.
notes: not my best work, but I tried
tag: back atcha
credits: I made all of this stuff
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Post by Minerva McGonagall on Jun 17, 2009 8:49:45 GMT -5
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I NEED YOUR COUNCIL THICK AS THIEVES !
------------------------------------------------------------ There was nothing more relaxing than a warm fire and a book. The book she was reading was the transfigurations textbook they had been assigned that year. Of course, dear Minerva had already read it about three times, but one more couldn’t hurt. She wanted to make sure she didn’t miss anything. Professor Dumbledore was her favorite professor and she didn’t want to ever let him down. That would be worse than letting down her parents or forgetting to give her brother a Christmas present. Minerva flinched at that last thought. She had forgotten to give her brother a Christmas present his first year. Last year, in fact. The poor bloke. Minerva had not meant to forget about her baby brother, but she had so many other pressing things on her mind. She remembered it like it was yesterday because of how humiliated she felt once she discovered that she had forgotten about him. The night before Christmas, Minerva had written to her parents and entrusted her owl with a box of sweets she got from Honeydukes and a piece of embroidery Minerva had worked on to impress her mother with. Happy with her gifts, Minerva went off to bed, not even thinking about her brother. The poor little boy woke up on Christmas morning with nothing from his sister and he was the first to inform her about it. Minerva was shocked because she swore that she had sent him something and that perhaps her owl had not delivered it to him yet. They waited all day, only to find out that Minerva did not send him anything. Feeling bad, Minerva made it up to him by bringing him back a box of sweet from the next Hogsmeade trip. First years were not permitted to go to Hogsmeade, so she’s quite certain that her brother forgave her. Minerva had always hated terrible memories like that. She despised making such silly mistakes and thinking about them made it just as bad as being there.
Going back to her book, Minerva slowly became more and more entranced with all the transfigurations. Toward the back of the book, the selection she had chosen to read was a piece on animagus. It was the most fascinating subject Minerva had ever encountered in her life. The book was reading on and on about how it was such a dangerous accomplishment and there were only a few known people who could turn into an animals. As soon as Minerva read this in the book the last time, she had immediately gone and talked to Dumbledore about it. She had not been sure how she was going to address the subject, but he seemed to already know what she wanted and explained the act in explicit detail. This made Minerva even happier because it meant that Dumbledore trusted her. This idea of animagi transformation was fascinating. Minerva had already read another few books on it, some in the restricted section, but her favorite description of the transformation was in their staple book for the year. Dumbledore told her that this was not an easy feat and that in her fifth year they were only allowed to mention it, but in her sixth year, if Minerva had a little free time on her hands, he would explain more about the spell work involved. So, Minerva was by far excited about her sixth year. Once she set a goal for herself, there was nothing that would stop her. Suddenly, a distant meowing interrupted her thoughts. Blinking a few times, to come back to reality, Minerva had to lean her body over the side of her chair in order to see a pair of green eyes starring up at her. “Why hello, Tibbles.” A huge smile appeared on her face, as she looked down at her little feline companion. Tibbles was a gray tabby cat that Minerva had begged her father for during her third year. It was during a trip to Diagon Alley. Sadly, her parents said that she had to share the kitten with her brother. That did not go over well, but father’s word was law in that household. So, her younger brother had named the cat, while Minerva took care of it. She was obviously the cat’s favorite.
“Here, kitty kitty.” Minerva snapped her fingers toward the cat, trying to coax it onto her lap, but to no prevail. Instead, Tibbles looked at her and turned and walked away, sticking its tail straight up in the process. She pursed her lips and shook her head. Tibbles was a rather stubborn cat, but she couldn’t help but to love him. Minerva had such a soft spot when it came to cats. She was not sure whether it was their beauty or grace or the fact that she envied that grace that made her love them so much. Turning back to her reading, Minerva sat there for at least another fifteen minutes before another soul interrupted her. “Hello Min.” She expected the next interruption to be a ghost or a first year, but instead it was Sabine Montgomery. That, of course, was the best interruption she had all day. Minerva looked up at her friend, and slowly closed her book, “Hello, Sabine. I didn’t notice you in here.” And she hadn’t. Minerva always thought she had had a good eye for observation, but it seemed that today that gift of hers was off. It had been a problem during quidditch today as well. After nearly getting hit by a few bludgers, Minerva realized that she had better start keeping her eyes open. As of now, she blamed it on the weather. Whenever it was raining, one of the easiest things to do was put the blame on the weather because the weather always made very smart and witty people a bit dull. Minerva’s body probably suspected the approaching showers and decided for her that she was not going to be as alert as she normally was. Minerva followed Sabine’s pointing finger and paused for a second before slowly answering, “A book.” What a silly and odd question. She expected more from Sabine. “It our transfiguration’s book, I think it’s quite well written, don’t you agree?” Minerva allowed to book to now just rest in her lap, as she thought about what to say next.
“Have you finished your homework yet?” Minerva played with a strand of her long dark hair, as she watched Sabine, “I wanted to check some of my answers for Defense Against the Dark Arts over with you. I found all my answers in the book, but I just want to be sure, they’re correct.” Generally, Minerva was always on top of all of her subjects, but it seemed that DADA was more complex this year. It was, by far, not her worst subject, but it was not one that she found an astounding interest in. And with this particular unit, things were not shaping up to well for her. If she continued on the same track she was on, she might end up with an E as her final grade this year. Or worse, she would get an E on her OWL’s. Just the thought of performing poorly made her shudder. “Besides the work we’ve gotten, what have you been up too today?” Minerva raised her arms over her head and stretched in her seat. She didn’t want to get up and didn’t understand why Sabine had chosen to stand behind the couch. Minerva motioned to the seat near her and hoped Sabine got the message.
tag: sabine (v-la) word count: 1263 status: all done music: dashboard confessional credit: grapic at the top made by THE LUCY SOUND !? @ caution notes: no comments. [/size][/ul] |
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Post by Sabine Montgomery on Jun 17, 2009 21:05:37 GMT -5
BUT IT KEEPS GETTING BETTERNEXT DAY I'M A SUPERGIRL OUT TO SAVE THE WORLDBUT IT WON'T LAST FOREVER
She took a moment to watch rain beat against the windowpane. That was another bad thing about rainy weather. Even when you were inside and safe from all of the damaging effects the water could have on your hair, there was the sound all night. Constant raindrops beating against the window keeping her up. Despite what falling asleep with her Charms textbook as a surrogate pillow might suggest about her, she was actually a rather light sleeper. She often had bad dreams, so she was used to tossing and turning and waking up at odd hours. It wasn't a big deal. Like some people had trouble being on time or had poor senses of direction, she had trouble sleeping soundly at night. Oh well, maybe it would stop raining by the time she finally went up to bed along with the other exhausted OWL and NEWT students that had more homework than the students in the other years.
"I was over there," Sabine said, gesturing at the corner of the table covered with her textbooks and parchment. "I was probably a little difficult to spot behind the towers of textbooks." She smiled to herself. Many students complained about the amount of homework they were given, and the professors' need to remind them of their impending examinations at every possible opportunity. And yet, the professors never seemed to listen, as evidenced by the pile of textbooks and assignments by the chair she had just vacated. She could deal with having a bit of homework. She didn't especially enjoy the immense workload, but she could put up with it and she often learned quite a lot from doing it. The constant warnings of the examinations and how horribly they would all do if they didn't find some bootstraps and use them to pull themselves up with were getting to be quite grating on her nerves.
It was a shame that even their breaks were doomed to focus on homework. She glanced down sleepily at the book Minerva was holding. "Transfiguration? I suppose it's well written, for a textbook." Sabine shrugged and concealed a yawn behind her hand. A nice nap would be nice right about now, especially now that she was closer to the fireplace. What was it about being exposed to warmth on a rainy day that made one feel so tired? "It's not my favorite subject. I'm much better at Arithmancy." She yawned again, covering it with the back of her hand. "I'm sorry. I don't know why I'm so tired. There's something phenomenally dreary about rain, it makes everyone nod off early." She shrugged as an apology for all of the yawning, then rested both hands on the back of the couch, looking down at the book.
"I haven't finished all of my homework yet. My prefect duties have been keeping me out so much." She sighed and rolled her gray eyes. "If a Slytherin really wants to cause trouble in the corridors, they won't be deterred by me patrolling. I'm not intimidating." She smiled at that. She wasn't especially short, at five foot five, and she wasn't waif thin either. Physically, she was perfectly average, but she was never intimidating to anyone. It would be nice if just once she could get a little respect for the prefect's badge she wore. Sabine had been chosen as a prefect because she was responsible, people were meant to respect the prefects. And younger students were meant to look up to them, to see them as a positive role model that they could imitate, and thus make good choices. But she got no respect as a prefect. She wasn't asking for a parade or anything. No fanfare, just a little bit of respect, was that too much to ask for? She felt she at least deserved basic respect for the badge she wore, enough that students who were breaking rules right in front of her would at least have the decency to look ashamed when she told them to stop.
That wasn't likely to happen anytime soon, unfortunately. Some people just had an intimidating aura, and she didn't. At least younger students seemed to look up to her. They kept coming to her asking for help finding classes or reaching books that were on shelves that were too high for them. One out of two wasn't bad; still only fifty percent maybe, but that was fifty percent better than nothing. "I think I got everything on the Defense homework except number three. Poole spilled pumpkin juice on the page about Inferi, so I didn't get the best defense against one." While she wasn't planning on running up against any reanimated corpses in the future, it would be a useful thing to know. Especially since that assignment was due soon. And now her whole textbook smelled like pumpkin juice because of a silly mishap in the dining hall.
She moved to the front of the couch and took a seat next to Minerva. The couches in front of the fire were much more comfortable than the chairs around the table. It didn't really help her tiredness any, the uncomfortable chairs kept people more awake while they were working on homework. And for all she complained about professors reminding them endlessly about their OWL exams to a point where she felt a lot of stress building in her system, she was worried about how she would perform on the exams. And in order to achieve when exam time rolled around, she needed to do well on her homework. It was such a terrible thing. She didn't like doing homework and being kept up at all hours for the need to do it. But she knew she needed to do it and valued the education and wanted to do well on her exams. Sabine was confident that she was going to be fine on Arithmancy, but there were other subjects, like Astronomy, she wasn't as confident about. She was decent with Astronomy, but memorizing information to fill out a star chart was time consuming work. This wasn't a good time to discover a test anxiety or become one of those students that had to be taken to the hospital wing to get treatment for stress.
"I haven't been doing much besides schoolwork. Well, let's see..." She paused, running her fingers through her dark tresses. "I fell in the mud the last time it rained. I got ink squirted in my face when a Ravenclaw tripped and ran into me the other day. And some of the Slytherins are starting to frighten me." It was true, beyond a simple lack of respect for prefects that the entire house seemed to believe in, some of them in their year were getting a little frightening as they got older. Bunch of thugs, but despite the endless debate over brawn vs. brains, a dumb thug with raised fists ready to knock you out could still be intimidating.
notes: feels like i spent forever writing that
tag: minnie mouse
credits: I made all of this stuff
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Post by Minerva McGonagall on Jun 18, 2009 16:35:12 GMT -5
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I NEED YOUR COUNCIL THICK AS THIEVES !
------------------------------------------------------------ “Really.” Minerva turned ever so slightly to glance in the corner that Sabine was referring too. “Yes, you would be rather hard to spot.” Minerva agreed, buried underneath all of those text books, Sabine would not have been easy to see. Who would ever be easy to see? Maybe if she grew another few feet, then she would stand a chance, but the way Minerva saw it, things didn’t look quite that way. Yes, the amount of work the fifth years and the seventh years were getting was astounding. To some extent it was positively disgusting. She wondered if the teachers could up with the amount of work they got every night. It would be an interesting social experiment to say the least, see if the teachers could tolerate the same work load the students received every night. When the students complained the teachers always said that they had just as much work to do, but Minerva had a sneaking suspicion that was not entirely true. Of course the professors were responsible for watching over the students and insuring no harm came their way, but if that was what the teachers considered extra work – how did that work differ from what a prefect had to put up with? Then there was all the grading teachers had to do. Some teachers took weeks to grade papers, while others got them right back. What about those teachers who took weeks, what were they doing in their free time that they couldn’t get those papers back as soon as possible. Minerva just didn’t understand it. It’s not that she entirely hated homework. On the contrary, she enjoyed learning. She loved asking questions in class and, above all else, she adored proving people wrong. Homework was a benefit in some circumstances. If she had not thoroughly researched her last potions essay, she might have had a few points docked from her last practical.
Minerva’s study time had become her life, much like Sabine’s. So, although, she joined the rest of the fifth years in complaining about all the homework they received. Like, Sabine, she secretly didn’t mind. However, what Minerva did mind was the fact they did indeed have OWL’s this year. She had a secret fear that she might fail. It was ridiculous, of course. Right? All these doubts that clogged Minerva’s mind were making her work harder and harder, but she wasn’t sure if it was working. She knew she wasn’t the only one flipping out about the OWL’s that were slowly, but surely approaching as each month changed. Minerva might put on a confident front, but she had an unwavering fear of failure. If she didn’t do well on all of her OWL’s, she might not be able to return to Hogwarts in the fall. What if the school didn’t accept her because she didn’t receive perfects? That would be the scariest and worst thing to ever happen to her. Not that Minerva would hate staying at home, her parents were charming, but she wanted to be her own person. She didn’t want to have to rely on people. That made her weak. Minerva narrowed her eyes, as Sabine noted that the transfiguration book was well written for a textbook. It was almost a blow to her every moral being, “What are you talking about, the book is brilliant. It’s not like every other textbook. It reads so well, almost like a story.” Maybe Minerva over did that a little, even she knew that was a bit of an exaggeration, but she loved all of her transfiguration texts. They were so heart warming.
By far, if anyone one in the entire school could say one thing about Minerva Mcgonagall, it was her absolute adoration of transfiguration. Everything about her was made for this subject. Even when Minerva received her wand, so many years ago, the wand maker noted that her wand was idea for this subject. It was destiny that Minerva was brilliant at it. That was also an exaggeration. She had so much to learn still and it was not the easiest subject to pick up. It wasn’t like charms where you just had to wave your wand and things flew around the room. Transfiguration changed things from one object to another. It defied the laws of Muggles. Okay, many things in the wizarding world defied the laws of Muggles. But, if there was no other way to defend the subject, it was just plain nifty. Minerva couldn’t think of anything cooler than making a human turn into a cat or changing a chair into a lizard. Arithmancy wasn’t a bad subject and Minerva could understand why Sabine would enjoy it. It was far more interesting and accurate than some sleezy subject like divination. If there was one thing Minerva hated more in the world than rude and troublesome people, it was divination. What a load of nonsense that was. It was all tomfoolery. Who on earth would buy into that nonsense? Actually, there were plenty of people that did, which made it so much worse. Minerva could remember two years ago when she took the class as a third year. It was horrid. The teacher was a nut case and hardly accurate. What was there to do in the class? Nothing could possibly be proven and it was a load of guesswork. It didn’t have those specific necessities that potions, charms, transfiguration, herbology, or defense against the dark arts had. It was just a horrid subject and no one should waste their time with it. At least, that was Minerva’s opinion, and it would take a lot of work to make her change her mind.
Sabine yawned again. Minerva sincerely believed the saying that yawning was contagious, she could even feel herself struggle against yawning. “Oh please stop. You’re going to make me y…yawn.” Minerva couldn’t help it, as she herself yawned after Sabine did. “Although, personally, I don’t believe the rains too…dreary. I mean, sometimes it most certainly is, but not always. I’ve always been fond of listening to the rain on a quiet day.” And she did. The rain reminded Minerva of her patronus and the happy memory she had as a child of freedom and the ability to run around in the rain. Silly as it was those types of things appealed to Minerva immensely. Not that many people knew about it, she kept those types of secrets well hidden, who knew what it would do for her reputation if people thought that Minerva sat around all day dreaming of freedom. “Oh, Sabine, you have to stand up for yourself.” Minerva’s voice grew a bit stern as she lectured Sabine, “You’re the prefect, you have the badge, try to shake them up a little. It always works for me.” Minerva nodded quite sincerely. The only trouble she had when it came to Slytherins, were the older ones and even then, she was positive that she was able to strike some fear into their eyes. They were probably afraid of getting expelled or suspended. “Intimidation is not that difficult. All you have to do is look them in the eye and wave your badge around a bit…show ‘em you mean bus…business.” Minerva stifled a yawn again and folded her hands neatly on her lap.
“Are you kidding? Poole is such an idiot,” Minerva paused, “If you haven’t removed the juice, I can do that for you. I have a nice little spell that works for that type of stuff. Mum taught it to me a few years ago, when my brother spilled grape juice on one of my shirts. She says it works on anything, so I don’t see why it couldn’t get pumpkin juice out of your book.” She nodded decisively and looked over at Sabine again, watching her sit down next to her. Poor Sabine, that day sounded rightfully awful. Minerva recalled her own struggle earlier to not fall into the mud. “You aren’t the luckiest lass, are you?” Minerva tilted her head to the side and ran a hand through her hair before securing her eyes back on Sabine. Ignoring the Ravenclaw comment, Minerva shrugged, “The Slytherins are just, I dunno, trying to get more power than what they already have, I suppose. They’re not even worth thinking about.” Well, Minerva never thought much of the house. Sure, a few great wizards came out of it, but none of them were as clever and nice as Sabine. Minerva just had a difficult time understanding Sabine’s intimidation by them. She was so much smarter. Minerva would bet fifty galleons that Sabine could have taken anyone of those brutes in a duel and come out on top.
tag: sabine (v-la) word count: 1453 status: all done music: dashboard confessional credit: grapic at the top made by THE LUCY SOUND !? @ caution notes: it's a lot of rambling, sorry. xP [/size][/ul] |
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Post by Sabine Montgomery on Jun 20, 2009 14:46:58 GMT -5
BUT IT KEEPS GETTING BETTERNEXT DAY I'M A SUPERGIRL OUT TO SAVE THE WORLDBUT IT WON'T LAST FOREVER
Sabine smiled ruefully as she stared over at the pile of textbooks on the table. She had almost created a cave for herself, buried behind the mountain of homework they had been assigned. But again, she might have more time to do it all if they didn't keep running prefect patrols at all hours. There were other students in their year who were desperately working on all of their homework at once too, but there was a reason they hadn't been given a badge over the summer. There one found the slackers, the students that didn't care enough to buckle down and take their academics seriously, and the less talented (which she meant as kindly as possible.) Some had more trouble learning magic than others. It was really just a human thing, like some people were better at certain subjects than others. The solution was simply to put in more effort for the classes that were more difficult to compensate. If they put their minds to it, they could be competent, at least. But there were always others up after everyone went to sleep, still scribbling away on their various assignments.
It was understood among those that faced late nights that when the common room got quiet, it should stay that way. Interrupting others or being disruptive late at night only made the stress of homework worse. And the people that were being disruptive never had their own assignments to finish, they only wanted to be disruptive to those who did. She could at least use her authority as a prefect to scold those students and make them go up to bed and let everyone else concentrate. "It made spotting anything else difficult as well," she said, gesturing at the near-empty common room. "I hadn't even realized everyone was gone." She shrugged. Even when she had realized that most of Gryffindor house was down eating dinner, she hadn't felt particularly motivated to follow them. They were up in the tower, which meant she would have to walk down and back up after she ate, and eating would be a big drain on time she never seemed to have. She'd just be a little more zealous when it came to breakfast the next morning. What was it about staying up late that made one hungry in the morning? Whatever it was, at least breakfast was considered the most important meal of the day.
"I'll take your word for it. I mean, it's interesting I suppose, but I didn't find the instruction particularly heart-warming." Calling a textbook heart-warming did seem to be pushing it, just a little. Textbooks were meant to educate and enlighten, and while that was incredibly important she didn't see why that meant that particular book warmed the heart or uplifted the spirit. "Course, you're better in transfiguration. Maybe that's why you like the book so much," she said teasingly. It wasn't a shameful thing to admit that Minerva was better in Transfiguration than she was. Minerva was probably better in that subject than everyone in their year. Everyone knew that it was her top subject. And besides, it had never been Sabine's strongest subject. If it was, the two of them might not get along. Two intelligent Gryffindors that were good in the same subject would be a recipe for an unhealthy level of competition. As it was, her subject would always be Arithmancy. She was by no means inadequate in other subjects, but she took a little more pride in her best one, it was only natural.
Arithmancy was a bit like Divination, but far more accurate. It used numbers to explain the workings of the universe, how things connected, what things meant. She loved figuring out how everything in the world was connected. And using Arithmancy to decode names and items...the way everything could be explained using numbers would never cease to fascinate her. Transfiguration was interesting and all, but it wasn't the subject that had really captured her mind, like it had for Minerva. Forget Divination, all of its smoke and mirrors. "Look into the tea leaves and you'll foresee the death of a loved one." It wasn't precise, and she liked precision. Sabine liked to understand things, and Arithmancy provided an understanding of connections. She hadn't really enjoyed their most recent assignment, but it had been a little tedious, and it was still her favorite subject. Arithmancy created understanding and nothing tried to eat her, which seemed to be a problem in Herbology and Care of Magical Creatures.
She put her hand over her mouth guiltily. "Sorry Min. Didn't mean to be contagious," she said. The sound was muffled behind her hand, but still clear enough to be understood as English. "Really?" she asked, looking puzzled. Maybe it was a different thing for different people as well. "It's always kept me up at night. And I have...issues with water." Sabine chewed nervously on her lower lip for a moment, her mind drifting again to the first time her parents had been sure she was a witch. Her mother had always been a witch, but with one parent being a muggle they hadn't been sure if she had inherited the magical or the muggle blood. How exactly one inherited blood was a little out of her depth, but she understood that people who only had one half of their parentage could go either way, but people could have magical blood out of nowhere as well. And purebloods could still produce squibs, though they were always hushed up and hidden away, like they were shameful. It seemed a little unfair to them, people couldn't help how they were born. If they could, there would be no muggleborns because they wouldn't know they could be magical, and there would be no squibs because they were born knowing and wouldn't want to give that up.
Sabine hung her head and stared down at her hands. "I know, I know, it's just..." she trailed off and looked up at Minerva again, running her fingers through her hair. It was a nervous habit. Whenever she was under duress, she played with her hair. It was like other people's nail biting. "You can just stomp in there and sort them out. It's easy enough for you to say that intimidation is easy," she sighed. "Some of those Slytherins intimidate me. I'm not sure that some of them wouldn't punch me if I tried to tell them that they can't creep around at night." The hospital wing would probably sort her out soon enough, and she could always report them to the professors, but confrontation wasn't her strong point. She didn't really fancy being punched at all, if she was being honest with herself. Gryffindors were supposed to be brave and face anything without fear or hesitation. The brave lions. But she really didn't want to get beaten up by Slytherins.
"Really? That'd be great, I haven't managed to clean it up yet. Hold on." She swung her legs up and walked over to the table, rifling through her pile of textbooks until she located her Defense Against the Dark Arts book. It was easy enough to spot, the edges were wrinkled from being soaked and drying again, and it smelled faintly of pumpkin juice. It would have really smelled if it was out in the sun, good think Min knew how to clean it up. She walked back to the couch and set the textbook down on the coffee table, wrinkling her nose at it as she sat down. "I couldn't remember how to clean it up without damaging the ink. Removing water might have pulled up the ink, I wasn't sure." At that moment, Sabine felt a little jealous. Her mother had never really used magic around the house, or taught her anything. Everything she knew about magic she had learned at Hogwarts. Apparently, her mother didn't want to make her father feel bad, since he was a muggle and couldn't use magic in the first place.
It was sort of romantic, that she'd given up a lot of magic around the home because she loved him. Romantic, and inconvienient when it came to situations like this. "My theory is in a past life I owned a mirror shop, and one day I went mad and smashed the whole lot of them, and I'm still working off the bad luck." She smiled. She didn't really believe in those silly superstitions, they made as much sense as tea leaves telling people when they were going to make money or suffer a terrible injury. They made an amusing joke though. "Slytherins always want power. They're cunning and ambitious. Like Ravenclaws seek knowledge, or Hufflepuffs value hard work." The difference was, though she didn't say it out loud, was that Slytherins always seemed to have unscrupulous motivations for gaining power. She couldn't help but think about them. Minerva, in her opinion, was just as clever as any Ravenclaw, the sort of person that should be given power because it wouldn't go to her head. But Min didn't seek power. The old saying, absolute power corrupts absolutely, didn't factor in that the type of people who actively sought power (ie, Slytherins) never seemed to be entirely good people to begin with.
notes: sorry for the wait
tag: minerva
credits: I made all of this stuff
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