On A Mission Finished

Interacting with @Lydia Cooper @Aaron Jones @Euphaustus Boppity

She had finally finished working on the middle section of her snowman and quickly began the assembly of the head so she could bring Penelope to life. As she continued her assembly she continued her education about Wicca. "There are eight holidays in total, Yule, Imbolc, Ostara, Beltane, Litha, Lammas, Mabon, and Samhain. Which is also Halloween. They all coincide with the seasons and have a different part of the story happening. I have a book on it if you'd ever like to borrow it Lydia, it's a quick read!" The children's book version of the Wheel of the Year was something she had cherished ever since she was a little girl, and she definitely would love to share the wealth of knowledge with anyone who wanted to learn more.

She listened to them talk about their break plans and scheme about how to make the snowmen dance and how to finish up the leader snowman. Willow zeroed in on getting Penelope finished and went with Euphaustus' suggestion to dress her in pink and purple. She bounced over to the box of supplies and got everything that was necessary to dress her up, a nose, eyes, buttons, two sticks for arms, and a purple scarf. She turned around with she heard Lydia casting wingardium leviosa, a spell she had not yet mastered and watched in awe. "Lydia you're amazing! Thank goodness we have you." She backed up and took out her wand and attempted to cast a spell of her own. "Tarantellegra!" For a second, nothing happened. But slowly Penelope's arms began to move and Willow jumped up and down with glee. "It worked! We can make our snowmen dance!" She didn't know how to stop the dancing, but she figured that would be an issue for later.

Interacting with @Euphaustus Boppity, @Lydia Cooper, and @Willow Anderson

Aaron looked around the rest of the courtyard and came to the determination that probably no one else would be joining. That was sad, since there was no way they could make a whole army with just the four of them, but Aaron was still glad to have had this experience making new acquaintances. Although Euphaustus came off as a bit odd, Aaron was interested to know what he would get up to over the course of the Christmas holidays. And Willow seemed really cool, too! She had a really interesting religion (and he now recognized her as the second-string Keeper for the Quidditch team)! He knew her name had sounded familiar.

Aaron turned his attention back to the present, and he watched in awe as Lydia successful cast the levitation charm. Napoleon's middle snowball levitated onto the giant base, and Aaron clapped jovially. "Nicely done!" he complimented, touching the middle ball to make sure it was securely on there. He then happily got to work decorating the face. He grabbed a carrot for the nose and large buttons for the eyes. Before he put the button eyes onto the snowman, though, he looked at the buttons carefully.

"You guys know the movie Coraline?" he asked, hiding his face as he spoke to his fellow Muggle-borns. He quickly turned around and revealed to them all that he had placed the buttons over his eyes and was able to keep them there with his face muscles. "Look! I'm the Other Aaron!" he said, trying to put on a creepy smile that ended up looking like a normal, overly-excited smile.

He dissolved into laughter, though, when one of the buttons fell off his face. Then he was able to see Willow's dancing snowman. "Oh, cool! It worked!" he said, taking off the other button eye. "Penelope is great!" Aaron complimented, before going back to working on Napoleon's head. They were all almost done with their mini army, and Aaron was excited to see all of them dance together. Especially the two with feet.

-Interacting with @Aaron Jones , @Willow Anderson -

Seeing her spell working that nicely had put Lydia in an extremely excited state, and once she saw Penelope dancing thanks to Willow's charm well, she couldn't wait for Napoleon to start doing that as well. She smiled wide at her friend and nodded, "I would love that Willow!" she said, regarding her offer to lend her the book about the Wheel of the Year.

As Aaron checked that the two snowball were set well, Lydia walked to the supply box and got a black hat for Napoleon's head: even though the idea of creating a hat like the one that the real Napoleon was usually portrayed with sounded really cool, she wasn't sure that she would have been able to recreate it in the snow. Once she got back to the big snowman, Lydia took some time to look around and couldn't help the big smile that showed up on her face: her best friend was having a really good time, and her new friends were enjoying themselves as well; the weather was amazing, and the feeling of the fresh air was just so pleasant that she couldn't help but start considering that day as one of the best she had had at Hogwarts so far.

"You know, I actually have never seen that movie!" she told Aaron, the black hat now resting over Napoleon's head. "I know that I wanted to watch it with my sister, but she got scared for some kind of reason, so I never actually watched it. Is it good?"

Interacting with @Aaron Jones @Lydia Cooper

Willow nodded towards Lydia, "I'll try and find you in the common room one day to hand it off. Shouldn't be too hard!" Willow took a pause from building to appreciate the snowmen that they had built. She was glad to be spending time with fellow Hufflepuffs doing normal kid thing amidst all of the magic chaos.

Her eyes drifted over as Aaron put two buttons on his eyes and mimicked the movie Coraline, she erupted into a fit of giggles. The creepy smile was almost too accurate. "I'm with your sister on that one. I will never watch that movie again. The Other Mother gave me nightmares for weeks! I had to sleep with my parents." Willow's face flushed as she revealed that, wondering if it would be seen as childish or silly. But that movie actually was scary. She bounced over to really take in Napoleon. "He is quite the commander for this snowman army! I would feel safe if he was the one protecting Hogwarts."

Truthfully, she didn't exactly know if protectors were even needed at Hogwarts. She knew there were magic wards that prevented muggles from seeing the castle and everything, just like Diagon Alley. Did they have other wards up to protect against magical creatures? Truly, she had no clue because her knowledge about the wizarding world was still limited. Even after a whole semester in.

Interacting with @Willow Anderson and @Lydia Cooper

"Hey, it's a good movie!" Aaron said, sounding a bit defensive but in a silly manner. Not like he was actually upset. He put the two button eyes onto Napoleon, and with Lydia's top hat on the snowman head, it was completed and levitated onto the other two snowballs.

The snowman leader towered over the first years in the courtyard, and they all congratulated each other on a job well done. With Napoleon and the two smaller snowmen - Bilbo and Penelope - they had a mini army of sorts. Nowhere near as big as if they'd had more people to help, but it was enough. Unfortunately Euphaustus had to leave a bit earlier, but the rest of them were clearly proud of their hard work.

"Well done, guys!"

After lingering for a bit to talk more about the snowmen, Aaron trudged through the snow with the girls. It couldn't be coincidence that everyone here was a Hufflepuff, meaning they could head back to the common room together and get warmed up. Maybe even get some hot chocolate in the Great Hall. He had a feeling that they would all become good friends over the year. He already considered Lydia one of his best friends, and he and Willow seemed to share a love for flying.

Still laughing about the dancing snowman and the idea of the army, the trio left the courtyard and went back into the castle.

THREAD FINISHED