Closed H Is For Homework, Which We’re Not Gonna Do PV Astra Norrick

Interacting with @Renelle Dalton
Astra speaking: #136323
Thoughts: Italics
Others: Bold

It may have been a bit brash of Astra to read ahead while she was supposed to be working on a History of Magic essay, but could anything really get more boring than that, especially growing up with Hyperion Norrick, top History of Magic student when Professor freaking Binns was teaching, showing history down your throat since you were born.

Astra enjoyed using hyperbole when it came to her dad.

After finally gathering all the necessary material from amidst the catastrophic mess she called a desk, Astra climbed up the stairs from the dungeon and made her exodus from the school building.

Gidiness swelled inside her lungs as she breathes in the crisp autumn air. Astra was what one would call an "autumnaphile," a lover of autumn. Every time the season rolled around she virtually lived outdoors, enjoying the breezes and the early sunsets and the changing leaves.

Astra figured that Renelle would be by the trees. She walked over, her wavy reddish hair blowing in her face slightly. It would look red for many more months before fading into a more brownish copper color.

She spotted her friend after a minutes search, as many students were taking advantage of this glorious day to read or walk or simply sit in the open air. Astra smiled when she spotted Renelle. The young Slytherin adjusted her school bag as she went to sit beside the brunette.

"Hey stranger," Astra said, dropping to the ground and getting out her parchment. "You ready?" Renelle looked dubious about the whole thing. Astra scratched her name on her paper with the quill. "You know you're probably just going to copy the information in my essay and then we'll spend the rest of the day goofing off. Don't act like it's such a chore." She looked knowingly at Renelle. She didn't mind sharing her academic gift with Renelle, not as much as she minded with others to say the least. She knew her friend was not the best at school, but she was still extremely intelligent in a real world sense, in her sarcasm and humor.

Reducio

OOC: Permission given to Renelle Dalton to godmod

Renelle had never been much of a social butterfly. Quite the opposite, in fact. It wasn’t because she was too scared to talk to people, like everyone always seemed to assume. She just wasn’t interested. Except when it came to one person, of course. Astra Norrick.

They’d been best friends for as long as the Ravenclaw could remember, ever since that fateful day when they visited the Dalton house as colleagues of her mom’s. Renelle had always resented her mom a bit for prioritising her work over family, but maybe it was a good thing, or she might never have met Astra.

The girl in question was now settling down next to her, hair looking as red as ever. Looking at her friend, Renelle couldn’t help but smile slightly. They’d discovered each other being at Hogwarts perhaps a week ago, but hasn’t been able to meet up until today. That was the problem with being in different houses- their schedules just didn’t match up most of the time.

“Hey, don’t say it like that!” The brunette pretended to look offended. “Say it like- Yay! I get to share my homework with my best friend!” She grinned. “Better, right?” In all honesty, Renelle knew she really ought to prioritise her studies more. Her seemingly endless struggles on that aspect of school life weren’t because she was stupid or anything. It was just so boring, and at any rate, they were first years. As long as Renelle was smart enough to achieve passing grades for the more important tests, without really trying the rest of the time, she didn’t see a problem. Not yet, anyway.

Rifling through her studying material, Renelle picked out some parchment. “So, what should we start with? There are so many essays I wouldn’t be surprised if I died of exhaustion before the day’s over.” Suddenly, she caught Astra’s eye with a serious expression. “If that happens, tell my family I love them. And tell Roderick not to come my funeral.”

Interacting with @Astra Norrick

Interacting with @Renelle Dalton
Astra speaking: #136323
Thoughts: Italics
Others: Bold

Astra laughed at Renelle's "rephrasing." "That's one way to put it," she said. She saluted to Renelle as the Ravenclaw described her last wishes. "I'd never let Rod dishonor your funeral like that."

She took out a few History of Magic books from the library. "Let's get the essay out of the way first. Then we can work on something more fun, like Charms or DADA," Astra reasoned. She set the stack of about three books in between the two. There were bits of paper sticking out, marking useful pages. "I looked through these in class to try to find some useful information." She took out a pencil and began writing her essay on gargoyles, erasing furiously every couple minutes, stopping to think for blocks of time, answering any questions Renelle had and asking a few of her own, swapping papers with her best friend every so often for proofreading.

Around forty five minutes later, the books laid open, discarded to the side, and both girls were sprawled out on the ground, but their essays were complete, and pretty darn good. Astra's legs stuck straight up, resting against the tree. She felt restless. "Do you wanna climb the tree?" she blurted out, turning her head to look at Renelle. "I don't wanna work on school anymore. Not even Charms or anything."

Renelle nodded, wiping away an imaginary tear. “You are a true friend.” Copying Astra, she took out her History of Magic textbook. This was probably her most disliked subject here at Hogwarts in the week she’s been here, at it was doubtful to change. Just the thought of working on that ten-foot long essay for the next few hours made gave the Ravenclaw a headache, but that was where having a ‘study buddy’ came in handy, she’d just have to nod every once in a while and copy everything her friend wrote. Still, writing so many words was hard.

Astra’s logic couldn’t be argued with, though, and they went to work on the essay. It wasn’t even ten minutes before Renelle felt like her head was going to split open from the sheer boringness of it all; at one point, she threw down her quill and announced that she was officially retired from homework. It didn’t last, though.

Somehow, the essays were finally done after what felt like an eternity. Sprawled on the ground next to Astra, Renelle glanced briefly sideways at the studying material discarded to one side. “Yup, we’re geniuses.”

They laid like that for a while; neither saying anything, simply reveling in each other’s company and the comforting knowledge that one essay was done. As for the rest… Well, problem for another time, right. Suddenly, Astra turned to Renelle, blurting out a rather interesting suggestion.

The dark-haired girl grinned. “Glad to see we at least agree on one thing.” She sat up abruptly, looking around. There were rather a lot of people milling about, but if they kept quiet and didn’t fall out of the tree or anything… “I knew picking a spot that has its back to everyone would pay off! I swear, if I choose that career path, I would give most seers a run for their money.”

Tree-climbing— a complicated and sophisticated skill. Renelle had never enjoyed having a little brother much, but now all of the time they spent running around outside and falling out of various trees while attempting to get fruit would finally pay off. Carefully selecting a spot, she gripped a low hanging branch, set her foot in a crevice, and was up in a few seconds.

But perhaps they ought to have checked the tree first before brashly getting up, for now, as Renelle inspected her surroundings, she realised they were not, in fact, alone. Right there, on a branch a feet up, was an ash-coloured creature, its tail lathe and bushy behind it, staring at her with dark beady eyes.

“Uh, Astra?” Renelle didn’t dare look over her shoulder to see if her friend had gotten on the tree as well, for fear the animal would jump on her face. “I think… there’s a raccoon here.”

Interacting with @Astra Norrick

Reducio

OOC note: The animal is not, in fact, a raccoon. It is a squirrel. Renelle’s just really bad at identifying squirrels. And raccoons.

Interacting with @Renelle Dalton
Astra speaking: #136323
Thoughts: Italics
Others: Bold

"Sure you would. 'Renelle the All-Knowing, Master of Prediction. Get a reading for ten sickles and a second one half off, today only!'" she joked, sweeping her arm towards the sky.

Renelle practically stepped on her to get in the tree. Astra scrambled to the side, her hair picking up the few fallen leaves on the ground. She made a noise of complaint, quickly shimmying up the tree's rough trunk after her friend.

Astra swung herself into the branch beside Renelle, poking her frozen friend and starting to make a comment before Renelle said, "Uh, Astra? I think... there's a raccoon here."

Astra immediately seems to tense up, her muscles bunching as she prepared to... do exactly what, she's not sure, but to do something if the raccoon chooses violence today.

Astra directed her gaze towards the same spot as Renelle, spotting the animal in question. It was a squirrel, not a raccoon. "That's a squirrel, Renelle..." she trailed off as the beast turned it's attention to her and chittered. She imitated the noise out of habit, not knowing what she might have said to the squirrel.

That may have been a bad decision. A very bad decision. I don't know anything about squirrels.

“What? No way.” Renelle frowned, peering closer at the animal in quesiton. “That’s definitely a racco—” However, she never got the chance to finish her sentence, for it was at that precise moment that Astra decided to do something incredibly stupid- she tried to speak raccoon. Or squirrel. And Astra was not good at speaking the language of wild beasts.

Whatever her friend might have told the raccoon, it must not have been a very complimentary word, for it started squeaking furiously, straightening up and glaring hard (can raccoons glare?) at both of these pesky humans who invaded its territory. Without warning, it jumped toward them like some sort of super-raccoon. Oh, wait- now that it was so close to her face, the Ravenclaw could see it was a squirrel, after all.

For some reason, the squirrel chose to attack Renelle first, which was completely unfair, considering Astra was the one who had insulted it. Maybe she just gave off a vibe that it didn’t like, but at any rate, it landed on her face and started making even louder noises than before, using it as a sort of scratching board.

Renelle could tell you firsthand there was nothing more terrifying than a crazy wild animal in such close proximity, a wall off fur blocking your eyesight and feeling like you couldn’t breathe, and when you did all you breathed in was squirrel, because that was exactly what was happening to her right now. And why did it have to be her face? She made a mental note never to piss off a squirrel, at least from this day onward. Right now, it was too late.

Thrashing around on the tree trying to pry the squirrel’s grubby little paws off her face, Renelle was honestly surprised she hadn’t fallen down yet. Whether that was a good or bad thing, she hasn’t decided yet.

“ASTRA!” Finally getting a rare moment of her mouth being free, Renelle searched around furiously for her dear friend who had caused a squirrel to attack her. “A little help!!!???”

Interacting with @Astra Norrick

Interacting with @Renelle Dalton
Astra speaking: #136323
Thoughts: Italics
Others: Bold

Astra's eyes widened impossibly far and she stared at the fuzzy creature currently chattering its head off. "I don't think raccoons sound like that, Renelle," she said, glancing at her friend. She was leaning away from the squirrel, who now looked incredibly angry. What the hel- what the heck did I say to it? she thought as it fluffed up.

And then it jumped. Astra screamed a little out of surprise, almost taking a tumble out of the tree and landing with her legs on one branch and her arms desperately clinging to another in a rather impossible position.

She could see Renelle struggling as she tried to right herself. "ASTRA!" the dark-haired Ravenclaw shrieked. "A little help!?"

"Working on it!" Astra said in a loud tone, finally getting herself upright and grabbing onto Renelle as her friend tipped, almost falling off the branch. She locked her legs around the branch she was currently on, using her other hand to grab the squirrel by the scruff of his neck. Making sure Renelle is holding on, she whipped out her wand, yelled "Immobulus!", and swiped her wand in the double peak motion. The squirrel suddenly stopped moving, luckily mostly detached from Renelle's face (which she promptly moved as soon as the thing stopped kicking).

For a tense minute, both first years stared at the petrified creature clutched in Astra's hand. "I will never, ever chatter back at a squirrel again," the girl said slowly, her heartbeat steadily decreasing from the adrenaline filled situation. "Solemnly, on the River Styx, cross my heart and hope to die. Never ever again."

As the situation slowly cooled down, Renelle could feel her hammering heart growing fainter and fainter. Everything had happened so fast- one second, she was sitting calmly in a tree; the next, a squirrel was eating her face. That sort of thing didn’t happen very often, but now that it did, the Ravenclaw didn’t think she would ever, ever forget. No matter how much she wanted to.

She glanced down, where Astra was hanging on a branch that looked like it was barely enough to hold her weight, squirrel in one hand. That. Damned. Squirrel. Who would now pay.

Without so much as a warning, Renelle suddenly climbed down from her spot high up in the tree so fast she practically jumped, grabbing the petrified squirrel from Astra’s hand along the way.

The moment she reached the ground, she started speed-walking toward the Great Lake, which thankfully wasn’t very far, meaning she didn’t have to endure much weird stares. The first year been joking earlier about the Seer thing, but now she thought she might have been onto something.

Then, finally reaching the shore, Renelle held the squirrel up so that she was looking into its horrible black eyes. “And that’s for my face.” she hissed. Not even hesitating, she plunged the squirrel into the water, dunking it in the Great Lake.

She repeated the process a few more times, until the squirrel was so wet it looked like it’d just went swimming. Being paralysed, though, it couldn’t really do anything except stay still and get dunked. Without looking to see if Astra had followed her, Renelle called over her shoulder, “Hey, do you think I should drop the squirrel in the lake? I mean, it did jump on my face.”

Interacting with @Astra Norrick

Interacting with @Renelle Dalton
Astra speaking: #136323
Thoughts: Italics
Others: Bold

Astra jerked in surprise as Renelle practically jumped out of the tree and marched over to the Great Lake. Her eyes widened as she realized what was happening. Ah, crap, she's gonna kill it if I don't unfreeze it. She scrambled down the tree as quickly as she could, accidentally falling the last quarter of the way down.

She got up with a groan, wincing as a sharp stab of pain shot from her tailbone. Augh. Astra hopped over the books still lying on the ground and sprinted to catch up with Renelle's tall person speed-walk.

The Ravenclaw was dunking the squirrel into the chilly lake water over and over again. "Renelle, it's gonna- I should-" she tried but then Renelle called, "Hey, do you think I should drop the squirrel in the lake? I mean, it did jump on my face."

Astra winced slightly as she thought about that. "It's gonna drown if you drop it in frozen. And, I mean, we were the ones who- well, I was the one who insulted or challenged it or whatever I did. So maybe I unfreeze it before you drop it in the lake?" She knew that neither of them were going to have much fondness for squirrels after this incident, but she didn't want to murder the thing. It felt wrong.

OOC: If Renelle agrees to unfreeze the squirrel, Astra will cast the General Counter Spell (Finite Incantatem), which she has in her trunk.