Say Hollow to My Little Friend! PV Maggie Hawkins Errand

─────Maggie had made her fair share of friends since her introduction to the wizarding world. At least, she considered them friends. Maybe they didn't see her the same, and she wouldn't know or likely care. After all, she had a track record of injecting herself into situations where she was less than welcome and quite unwanted. She would allow herself to join these spaces and then make 'friends', or, rather, unrequited adorations, with people.

Still, there were a few people she thought she might actually be real friends with! Avery Chen, for instance. He was spritely and on the Quidditch team and nice, so of course, Maggie liked him! Plus, he hardly had a word to say when she pushed him around a little bit. Which was good. How could she ever be expected to be friends with someone who wouldn't let her do her own thing, even at the expense of other people?

Despite all this, though, one person that had caught her attention from the beginning was Liana Kerr. She was odd. Pureblood? Maggie thought so, at least. Pureblood energy, one might say. Still, she liked her. Liked how she presented herself and liked that she seemed to have positive feelings towards Maggie. Thought the way she verbally sparred with Hui Ming was intriguing and quite amusing, too.

Imagine Maggie's surprise and elation when Liana invited her to hang out!

The addition of Halloween decor and chit-chat was more than welcome, as well. Maggie loved Halloween. She loved the atmosphere and the snacks and the movies and the smells. Sights and sounds and music. And apple cider. Did Hogwarts have regular apple cider? Maggie sure hoped so. She didn't know how much longer she could go on drinking that godawful pumpkin juice.

"Oh, I just love Halloween. I have my decorations put up, like, halfway into September. It's the best holiday ever, I think, and I don't think it's ever too early for decorating for it," strong opinions. Muggles, especially, had strong opinions on when holidays should be celebrated and prepared for. The Christmas debate was one she was particularly enrapt in. Should you begin your preparation before or after Thanksgiving? When was the appropriate time for Christmas music? What an enigma. "Never too soon, that's what I always say."

It really did confuse and shock her that Liana didn't know who Shakespeare was. William Shakespeare? Maybe Maggie had just made an assumption, but she had heard that a number of well-known muggle leaders and names were actually wizards. She had just assumed that William Shakespeare might've been one of them, an undercover wizard. Guessed not. "He's, like, this super old guy. Super old. He wrote plays and stuff, I guess, was a poet or whatever," or whatever, he was just a super famous muggle playwright who made so many of the well-known and told stories they knew today. Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth... how did Liana Kerr, so well versed and educated, not know who Shakespeare was. "The more I think about it, the more strange it seems that you don't know who that is."

Of course, who could dwell on Shakespeare and the semantics of his writing when there were little sentient jack-o-lanterns roaming around like gremlins? "What in the good name of God is that," Maggie mumbled, glancing sideways at Liana and inching closer to the object, giggling its jolly little self silly. Of course, it wasn't a goose. Thank god. "Looks ugly, doesn't it? Little bugger should get himself some plastic surgery. Botox would do it good," this last part she shouted in the vague direction of the lantern. As if her harsh words would make it stop and cry.

One could only hope.

''I had no idea you liked Halloween so much,'' that was something to memorize about Maggie, if the two of them were to become friends. ''You must really like it here in Hogwarts then; I know that during their celebrations Muggles imitate the wizardkind a lot, so every day here might feel a bit like Halloween. I mean, we have ghosts that the non-magical folk are so fascinated by, and our regular robes and hats is what some of them wear as costumes, right?'' That was about as much as Liana knew about October 31st celebrations in the Muggle world. Mostly from an introductory lesson on the Statue of Secrecy and how much it was being breached every year on that date.

The explanation on who Shake Spear had been was informative enough, but Maggie's comment left the redhead feeling slightly abashed. It felt wrong to not be aware of something that seemed to be a well-known piece of trivia. Oh, why did she have to ask and let her housemate realize she lacked that information? It was great to have people admire her knowledge; it was embarrassing to hear someone say they expected her to know something that she didn't know. Should she ask Maggie not to tell anyone, especially Ming, about this exchange? Liana had proven to be more knowledgeable than him in the matters relating to magical plants, and she did not wish that cerebral dominance to be taken away if he heard that she wasn't aware of something every Muggle-raised child apparently knew. But no; asking not to tell anyone would only bring it to Maggie's attention more.

''I, uh- well, I don't know that much about the Muggle world, I was mostly educated in the matters of wizarding society. My main encounter with poetry was reading and analyzing Sonnets of a Sorcerer, though,'' she shrugged, trying to seem nonchalant.

As Maggie proceeded to throw insults at the poor gourds, Liana cast a sideways glance at her, confused yet again. Was the short-haired girl even talking to her, or trying to wound the mobile jack-o-lantern-men emotionally? And the terminology... Plastic surgery? Botox? That had to be more Muggle nonsense. It sounded invasive and painful; primitive means for primitive people. She shook her head, focusing on the threat at hand.

''I'm not sure what they can do; could be harmless or flesh-eating, the odds seem fairly even on that,'' she mused aloud, pulling her wand out. There was no way she'd try to wrestle those beings. Spellcasting was always the way to go. Clearly her companion thought differently, seeing as she was edging closer to the vegetable humanoids. ''Be careful, we can't be sure what their purpose is or how stable was the magic that animated it.'' Aiming at the one that was closest to her, the girl swished and flicked her wrist, incanting, ''Wingardium Leviosa.'' That had worked well enough to disable geese, why should it fail on a vine-bodied pumpkin?

Action: Trying to restrain a pumpkin man by casting the Levitation Charm at it.

Mod Post
Roll 1d100: 21 - Unsuccessful

The giggling pumpkin skipped along the hall, not paying too much attention to the two students who were keeping a close eye, planning their move to, hopefully, catch the enchanted vegetable. It wasn’t difficult to see that the decorating of the Great hall had gotten a little bit out of hand. Liana was the first to make up their mind on how to capture the pumpkin. And so she brought out her wand, and attempted to cast the levitation Charm.

The pumpkin had stopped its skipping, and was looking around, probably planning it’s route to freedom. When Liana's spell whizzed right past it, and wound up knocking over a box of decorations on a bench. The loud crash must have spooked the orange “creature”, as it let out a screech of surprise before suddenly exploding into a million pieced, splattering pumpkin guts across the room coating the walls and floors. Now don’t think the students got away without a hit. They both had pumpkin seeds stuck in their hair, and a large string of pumpkin slid down the arm of Maggie ending in a splat on the floor. What a mess.

Reducio

Sadly you did not catch your pumpkin, but rather faced the fate of being too scary for it to handle. You will still be eligible for the reward of the errand as long as the word count is met. Please do continue your thread if you wish to! Thank you for participating

♡

MAGGIE HAWKINS

♡

interacting with: @Liana Kerr mentioning:

October 5, 2021

XXXXWell, Halloween was certainly and most absolutely the best holiday there was. There could be, really. After all, what could possibly be better than dressing up as whatever creepy-crawly suited your fancy and getting free candy from strangers? Could there be anything more wonderful? Could there, really? Not by Maggie's standards. Since she was young (well, younger), Maggie had loved Halloween and all things spooktastic. All things grim and gory. Dressing up was her very favorite tradition, but candy and decorating and the atmosphere were fortunate little side effects for an already wonderful holiday. It hadn't hit Maggie that wizards might have different traditions and holidays than muggles, the society where Maggie had grown up. An intriguing question about the dichotomy between the two worlds, wasn't it? How interesting, that two worlds that were so close could be just so different? Obviously, different cultures had different practices and suchlike, but the wizarding world was largely compromised of runoff from the muggle world. Or was it the other way around? From what Liana was saying (and Maggie knew very well to not question Liana Kerr, especially in conversations concerning academics), it sounded an awful lot like the muggle world was quite influenced by wizardkind as a whole. How very curious. "Yeah, well, maybe we all have more in common than we think. You know?" The fact that Liana, despite her good intentions, still had something of prejudice or preconceived notion of non-magical folk had not escaped Maggie's watchful eye. Sure, muggles were kinda boring, and not being able to do magic was far less cool, but she was sure that if they could, they'd be magic, too! "He's pretty boring, actually. All 'here ye, here ye' and 'four score and seven years ago' and blah blah blah," the fact that Abraham Lincoln, an American president, had nothing to do with William Shakespeare seemed to have slipped Maggie's mind. The pumpkin, though, giggling in all its ghastly orange glory as if taunting them, was more important than political leaders and super-lame poets. Resolved to let Liana handle the magical portion of the encounter, lest Maggie's own attempts land them in more hot water and a mess of (pumpkin) blood and guts, Maggie still stayed steadfast at Liana's arm. Like a loyal second, a right-hand man. "Ooh, yeah, get the little bugger, Li," she encouraged, voice hushed as if the tiny terror might explode if it heard anything too loud. Reminiscent of a Mandrake, she thought, as Liana's spell was ineffective and the creature screamed bloody murder. Which was not far from the truth, from what was happening. The pumpkin first swelled, then ebbed, then snapped like a rubber band stretched too thin. Pumpkin guts and seeds shot from the now lifeless form like frantic gunfire, decorating their robes and hair and skin in the stringy pulp. A mass of the stuff, sticky and slimy, slid down Maggie's arm and onto the floor with a sick plop. "So," wide brown eyes turned to Liana Kerr in an imploring question. "Fancy yourself a hose-down?"

Once again Maggie's words weren't making much sense to Liana - had she just quoted this apparently famous Shake Spear? Well, that certainly did not sound like poetry, it didn't even rhyme - but then again, maybe Muggles were just bad at arts. The wizarding sonnets she had read in the past certainly rhymed quite well. However, the redhead held her tongue, not willing to ask any more questions lest her housemate decided that she wasn't as smart and knowledgeable as most of their peers (hopefully) thought. Would all of their conversations go similarly? Maggie dropping some non-magical world references, and Liana having to pretend like she understood it, and tactfully change the subject? That seemed entirely possible.

Encouraged by her friend's cheering, the girl focused on casting her spell. Her aim, however, proved dreadful - even worse than when she was fighting the geese. All her wayward Levitation Charm did was spook the pumpkin-man. She flinched as it- he? she? - emitted a high-pitched screech; that was a fortunate reaction to the noise, since it at lest prevented the pumpkin guts from getting into her eyes when the enchanted monstrosity exploded.

''Sorry about that, I really thought I was playing it safe,'' she called out apologetically, looking down at her own robes that would now need washing. ''I wish I had taken the time to learn the Scouring Charm, it would come in handy now,'' the girl sighed, regretting her preference for the more exciting spells. Had she known how to clean this mess with magic, they wouldn't need to head to the showers. ''Guess we do have to go wash this all off. Ugh, it's in my hair, too!'' of course, the orange mush wasn't as visible in her ginger mane as it was in Maggie's jet black one. ''We can still have lunch together after the shower, if we're fast. Otherwise we'll have to go to class first and quickly get a snack on the next break.'' Her tummy chose this very moment to rumble, expressing its protest about the postponed lunch. Hopefully Maggie idn't hear that. ''Let's go,'' she urged, hoping her words would drown out the sound her stomach was making, and began walking back towards the dungeons.

Liana has left the thread.