Nifflers and a Prefect Badge Open Finished

Alan looked at the girl with the middle-short hair and the Slytherin uniform. Her question was important. ”You are right, maybe we should be looking for the owner of that badge first. IS it a good idea to try to catch a Niffler? We could get into trouble with it, no?”, he asked into the group. A Niffler was a creature and scaring it, trying to catch it would mean that Griffith would disapprove or maybe even kick him out of R.O.A.M for not handling a situation with a creature correctly. Then again he just wanted to find it to bring it into safety, as another child could accidentally hurt the Niffler.

This was a tricky situation and Alan looked into the group. ”Well, I would say to look for a Head of House, but I will keep the badge until I find someone to give it to; as for the Niffler should we look for it?” It would definitely be fun to search for it and that was motivation enough for the second year; whether he would be tracking it on his own or in a group. Could he lure it with food? What do Niffler even eat? Then again he should not give a wild animal food as it would just return for food again and that could endanger the poor thing.

Euphrasia made a nice comment: if a prefect badge was missing, there should most probably have been a prefect looking for it. Logic! +10 points for Euphrasia.

Margo searched for something in her bag and pulled out some sparkling jewellery. Now she was taking it to another level. Finally, something to start from.

Alan confined the badge to himself, promising to find someone to give it to. He didn't explicitly confirm he would return it to the prefect, who might be looking for it, though. And then he proposed looking for a niffler again.

Meenauh listened to Alan who kept asking more and more questions, and finally turned to Margo:

"Okay, Margo. These pendants would be a nice bait if we stick to the plan I proposed earlier. As none of us probably could Accio a small living creature to us, I suggest going primal and prepare some small trap for it," she proposed and then turned to Alan, "And then we should just bring it to Prof. Griffith. I don't think it should get us into trouble unless we won't be able to deliver it alive," she shrugged, "You're a Gryffindor, Alan, I suppose not acting would be worse than trying and failing."

Was there a niffler? No, no there was not. Such a creature would certainly not be running around hogwart's hallowed grounds. But griffith had happened to be nearby, and he had happened to have been listening. The vanes boy was annoying, incredibly so. But he was also one of the most kindhearted and noble little gryffindors that Griffith had ever met. And that meant quite a bit. The professor had been inside the paddock, hidden from view. And after a bit of hearing their conversation, he snuck quietly back into the stables, and emerged a minute later.

Was this allowed? Well, really, no. But they weren't going to hurt it, after all. And it wasn't like the slythering head of house was anywhere nearby, right? Not much could go wrong, aside from the little creature escaping. But griffith wasn't too worried about that. Nodding to the niffler, who had no idea what was going on but decided to nod back, Griffith opened a small hatch, and flung it out of the enclosure.

None of the students would have seen the little door, or the flash of fur, but they would about 2 seconds later when a fully grown niffler leaped through the air, twisting to grab the glittering baubles from margos hands. It only managed to snag one of them as it sailed past, before hitting the ground with an adorable fluffy roll and springing to it's feet, only to vanish around the corner of the stables. It was clearly still nearby, but for now, it was nowhere to be seen.

Adding a niffler to this, because it clearly needed one. So have fun! People can clearly still join in, as this is an open thread. GOOD LUCK CATCHING IT.

Alan nearly shrieked when there was a flash of black fur that stole the an item from one of the girl's hands, however he managed to keep quiet. Excitement flooded through him, this could only mean one thing. There has been a Niffler involved in this. ”Did you guys see? I was right! We have a Niffler roaming around freely!”, he said in an excited whisper as he looked around in the hopes to find the little beast. This is so adorable; he had doubted it for a moment but there it was. He grinned.

”We need to find it before it gets into the castle or worse, gets hurt!”, he explained, pointing into the direction the little beast took off to. ”It ran there, but if it notices we are following it will just run, if we have nothing to- I have an idea...”, he muttered before pulling at a leather thread that he was wearing around his neck; connected to it was a shiny coin. ”He'll probably like this” He looked into the round with a small grin. He would just have to walk around the Stables now.

He sneaked towards the corner the Niffler disappeared behind and carefully crouched down; peeking around the corner to see if it was still behind the stables.

A laugh erupted from Millie's lips as she saw something fluffy grab the baubles from Margo's hand. But there was a hint of seriousness to the situation- which Alan pointed out.

Now that they were all certain that there was indeed a Niffler on the loose, it was up to the group to find it. Because what Alan said was true, if the Niffler got into the castle, or was found by a very unruly student, it could be in a lot of trouble. Or get hurt. Either scenario was scary to think about.

"Well we've found out that the badge was stolen by a cute Niffler," She said through giggles. "But now we've lost Margo's pendants!" After a few more seconds of giggling, Millie finally managed to take a deep breath.

It truly wasn't her fault that this was a very special crazy situation. But a good laugh was definitely something she needed, and going on a hunt for an adorable Niffler was opposed to doing anything else. In earnest, what could go wrong? It couldn't be impossible to find a Niffler, right?

Though, Millie had never caught one before. Actually, she'd never caught anything alive before, besides fireflies in her backyard. Even then, they practically drew to her, which didn't make it impossible to catch. But a Niffler was big and black and fluffy, it must've been easier to catch them.

Margo ginned as the group shared their views. Nearly everyone seemed happy with hunting for the niffler and she couldn't help but appreciate their thirst for adventure, though it wasn't unexpected around Gryffindors. However, her train of thought halted completely when a dark blur flew through the air and one of the pendants in her hand disappeared. Shocked, she dropped the others into the grass, staring after the very real niffler. Well then, this would be fun. 

She knelt, her robes dampening a bit in the grass as she searched for the sparkly metal kittens. Sighing slightly at the small amount she had managed to find again, she nodded to the male Gryffindor with the coin as she stood. "You're right, that coin's probably our best bet." Her smile re-emerged at the sound of Millie's infectious laugh. 

Making eye contact with the girl who wasn't Millie, Margo mulled over her plan. It seemed logical enough, and the Slytherin vowed to discover her name by the end. "I like it. Should we use these pendants and the coin to lure the niffler into the stables? Or maybe to a classroom up at the castle. I'm fairly sure that niffler's bite so we should probably be careful." 

When you wish to find some adventure at Hogwarts, you should just ask it out loud. And it should work better if you have four people basically pleading for that.

The niffler seemed to really watch them from the corner of the nearby stables. Stables! Meenauh never noticed there were stables on the grounds. It felt like minus a thousand points from Gryffindor. Not a single point less.

So the first thing Meenauh did was to analyse the flying trajectory of the niffler who just flew over and snatched one of Margo's pendants. The trajectory should have started from the side of the stables, though it meant nothing as the niffler could have just wandered around in the grass, watching the four students talking and happily displaying shiny stuff all around the place.

Anyway, knowing the trajectory of the flight didn't add anything to the situation. Knowing the point of landing wouldn't give them much as well, as it could have run basically everywhere. So they have to stick to some clever, really clever plan.

Taken out from the whirlwind of thoughts by Euphrasia's giggling, she noticed Margo down on the ground, picking small pendants she might have dropped accidentally.

Alan came with a plan and pulled out a shiny coin on a leather thread on his neck. He quietly approached the stables and Meenauh, still silent, followed to watch him crouching and looking for whether there was any sign of the niffler.

"I think we should make the stables our huge trap. Like shut all the doors and open just one, scatter the shiny stuff in a line leading inside, and then Colloportus the door once the niffler got in. And then run around like crazy, trying to catch the niffler with our bare hands," she laughed at the last point of her plan, inviting the other girls to join the watching of Alan, who was the only one actually doing something at that moment instead of spitting out theories and plans.

Creeping around the corner, @Alan Vanes came face to face with the niffler. It was about 5 feet away, staring down the little gryffindor with tiny, adorable beady eyes of unfathomable greed. It was eyeing the coin, but the little creature wasn't stupid. It also saw the leather strap, and the boy, and had a pretty good idea of what was going on. The niffler simply sat down, and started to scratch itself with it's hind legs. It wasn't going to do anything until the boy did, and was quite happy sitting where it was.

Tiny hands scrabbled about in the pouch, pulling out margo's shiny kitten, which it licked with a long, thin, sticky tongue before rubbing it with the soft fur around it's wrist to shine it up a little bit. It was admiring it's latest haul. The niffler's head cocked to one side, and it's eyes half closed as it pressed the kitten up against it's chest, before shoving it back down into it's pouch.

Alan was the only one who was in the niffler's line of sight, having moved far enough past the round corner to be able to see the little creature, so it didn't seem to be very worried. It shivered briefly, fluffing up it's fur before rolling in a somersault backwards, returning to a sitting position as if mocking the little gryffindor boy. Taunting him to give up his shiny treasure.

[quote]Alan would have loved to tell them that their plans were useless as of now, because Griffith kept all of the doors locked. But he did not want to scare the creature away, as he already got the small beasts attention. Or else he would have told them to just ring the bell at Griffth's office to get the help of someone, who actually had a clue about Nifflers and knew how to capture them. This Niffler might as well be hurt or have some other problem, if it ran away from the Stables, where Griffith usually kept the injured or sick creatures. Alan did not know where exactly he kept them, but he knew that Griffith cared for them; could hear their pained screeches and cries for help, when he sat at the small hill right next to the Stables.

Alan shook his head and would sigh slightly, focusing back on the Niffler with a determined smile. ”Come on, get here, little boy~”, he cooed in a soft voice, keeping it low and quiet while he slightly wiggled with his necklace. Would it work? He was not sure. The Niffler would probably not understand a word he was saying, but maybe it would be smart enough to read the mood. Alan continued, ”I am not going to hurt you, I could help you find some more treasures, I am sure there are lots in the Stables... let me help you get back inside, 'kay?” a bit of hope was swinging in his words, as he continued to wiggle the necklace with soft movements through the air. He just hoped that the Niffler would go to him and well... not run or get angry.

The percentage of this working and not turning into a mess was very, very small. But, the Niffler was here, and nobody knew what to do with it. Well, Alan seemed to have an idea of what the group should do, but Millie knew he had his doubts too.

"We have to be able to trap it," She whispered to the other three girls. She racked her brain once again for something to do- a spell or some type of contraption that they hadn't already thought of. None came to mind. Somehow, she couldn't think of something much easier than shutting all the doors to the stables.

Not only would that cause a lot of noise, if said doors were locked, the plan would go down the drain. However, if Alan successfully managed to lure the Niffler, than they would have to do something to keep it contained while they searched for the professor that knew what to do with the Niffler.

And then the idea struck her like gold! She took a few steps away from Alan and the Niffler, and looked over to the other girls. "What if, when Alan gets the lil guy interested, use levitation spell to lift it in the air?" She lowered her voice a tenfold. It didn't seem like a bad idea, not to Millie, anyway.