And the Geese are Getting Mad PV Errand Closed

With classes done for the day Geoffrey had already started to make his way up to the Gryffindor common room. As delicious as dinner seemed, he wasn't really feeling up for it. He'd been especially homesick today because it was his grandpa's birthday. Normally they would have spent the time after he got back from school at his grandparents house. It would have been all hands on deck in the kitchen, even his, putting together all of his grandpa's favorites for dinner and dessert. He wasn't anything amazing in the kitchen by any stretch of the imagination, but he could manage well enough when given instructions.

Birthdays were always a family affair, but this year? No, this year he'd be here at Hogwarts for all of their birthdays. His grandma's was in November, and both his parents' birthdays were in May, and even his own birthday he'd be here at Hogwarts Castle.

The boy heaved a little sigh as he made his way through the corridors. It'd been a few weeks since he first got there and he had already memorized how to get back to Gryffindor tower, so he was in auto-pilot as he made his way back. He was still lost in thought when he heard the strangest sounds—a pitter-pattering on the stone floor. He couldn't help the way his brows furrowed in curiosity. Was someone running barefoot along the corridors? That's a bit odd...but he didn't feel the need to look up.

The pitter-pattering went on, echoing and seemingly multiplying in sound.

Was it a hoard of people walking barefoot around the castle?

Extra odd.

HISSSSSSS

Geoffrey's head snapped up and he locked eyes with an angry, hissing goose. He froze for a second, then instinctively stepped aside. It hissed again but waddled past him, now honking as though in triumph. A few more passed him doing much the same and he felt his spirit deflate a little bit more. But he refocused quickly enough—he was getting a bit better at that now that he was on his own—and before he knew it a familiar girl, who seemed to be chasing after them, flew past him as well.

He figured he could ask questions as they went, so he followed and eventually was walking in-step with her. "Do I even wanna know, Seren?" he asked, eyes forward and focused on the tail of the only visible goose in the corridor. Not that it was hard to know where the flock was heading. The pitter-patter, hissing, and honking were dead giveaways.

[ WC · 426 ]

@Seren Yong

Hearing her name caused her to stumble to a halt for a moment, before continuing, and turned her head to face the speaker, eyes wide and a bit startled. "Ah? OH, Rhys, hi! Um, the short form is you just watched the furniture from the Transfigurations Classroom furniture run by... They've been turned to geese, and they got loose. The folk who did it want help. I decided to chase the Evil Angry Birds to see if I can catch one."

She paused, looked at him, and said "Want to help? I don't know about you, but the idea of standing for the full Transfigurations class for days on end until they're all caught sounds horrible to me."

She took a deep breath, and added "If so, let's see if we can catch this guy!"

She pointed at the only goose still visible, and began to move forwards, carefully. The goose was not moving at the moment, but it WAS staring at the two Firsties with it's beady little eyes glinting evilly at them. She gulped, nervously, but her expression was determined as she tried to position herself so that she was between the goose and escape on one side.

As she did so, she carefully began to remove her robe from over her outfit, with the hope that she could throw it over their prey's head to make it easier to carry the angry bird back.

238 Words

@Geoffrey Donovan

He couldn't help but laugh at the explanation. One of the best (and potentially worst, given how the boat ride went) things about being at this school was how unpredictable it all was. Giant squids, fake giant squids, and now furniture-turned-living-animals. "Luck they didn't turn into a small pack of hyenas or something," he finally managed between laughs as they kept on walking. "This is a lot funnier than running for our lives. Though I think that one goose might have it in for me if I'm not careful."

Rhys was still smiling very amusedly as they came upon their first goose. It only occured to him then that they had barely learned what the fundamentals of transfiguration were, so they had no chance of using magic to change them back and make their lives that much easier. That thought tempered his smile down to little more than smirk as he watched Seren approach it, slowly taking her robe off. He guessed she'd probably try to use it like a towel or something to catch the bird.

If they had to go the old-fashioned way of catching these birds, he thought, then maybe...

He reached into his bag and pulled out some bread he'd nicked from the breakfast table the previous morning. It was stale and almost as hard as a rock, but he was feeding it to a goose and not eating it himself so he wasn't too worried about its flavor now. The boy pulled out three small buns before closing his bag and pushing it aside, and then he ripped a piece and chucked it on the floor close to Seren's feet.

The goose, who had previously been fiercely eyeing Seren, immediately looked down and waddled excitedly forward, eyes down on the piece of bread. Once it had the piece of bread in its beak, he whispered, "Now!"

[ WC · 311 ]

@Seren Yong

Seren smirked and said "I think all the geese have it in for us... I remember, when I was little, on the rare occasions my Grandmama and Grandpapa could take me to their place in Wales, that the geese were always the meanest birds. Hissing aggressively if you got too close, nipping even..." She gave a pained look as if in memory of a painful bite. "I much preferred feeding the ducks to the geese. Swans aren't much nicer, either."

She paused, holding the robe, as Rhys dug in his bag, her expression one of curious confusion. What did he have in his bag that could help, a goose collar? OH! Stale bread, that was a clever choice on his part. She considered, as he prepared, and said "I have a better idea, now!"

She grinned at his rolls and bread, and said "Let's play Herder... You use the bread to call it in the direction we want it to go, I follow behind with my robes. If it decides to be uncooperative, I'll flap the robes to try to get it back in the right direction, or use it to wrap the ridiculous bird up in the worst case, what do you think?"

She noticed the Goose was eying the bread with definite interest, and she had a suspicion this would get the bird back with the minimum of damage to the pair of them.

WC: 235

@Geoffrey Donovan

Herding them did seem a better idea than attempting to catch them one by one, but he craned his head to look past the goose and noticed that it was all alone now. From the sound of the distant honking the rest of the little flock must have been past halfway down the next corridor by now. “We can try, but I don’t think I have enough bread to keep all those geese happy enough to make it all the way back to class.”

There was an angry honk and he looked back at the goose now very, very close to Seren. He only had a limited amount of bread but it was either chuck another piece to keep it happy or let it take a chance at angrily snapping at his friend. It was a no-brainer, of course, so he ripped another small piece from the current loaf and tossed it so it landed between him and Seren.

There was a satisfied sounding honk from the bird as it waddled over to get this next piece. Rhys in the meantime took a few careful steps back.

“Maybe one at a time?” he thought out loud.

The goose, now having taken two peace offerings from him, had its beady eyes set on the small loaves in his hand. Noting the sudden look of hunger on its face, Rhys tossed another piece of bread to hopefully keep it from outright attacking him.

[ WC · 241 ]

@Seren Yong

"We don't have to catch all of them ourselves, I suspect... I bet other people will help. If we get one, between us, I think we're doing pretty good, considering we do not know any spells that'll help!" She shifted a little away as the goose began to eye her with those vicious little black beads they had for eyes. It was terrifying to have one this close, and she really hoped the nasty bird did not decide to give in to the thoughts it was clearly contemplating... She did not want to end up going to the Hospital wing for a goose bite.

It might be hard to explain, since those boys seemed to not want the attention of the professors.

"One at a time, yeah we can try that. And if we want to try for another, maybe we can run by the Great Hall and get more bread." Seren grinned at her friend, and shifted a little, beginning to flap her robe in a way that she hoped would encourage the Bird of Doom to begin moving in the direction they wanted it to go. "Let us get this bird back to where they can turn it into a chair again. Or a desk, I suppose. Either way... No more escaped furniture life for THIS goose."

Her blue eyes glittered in determination as she moved towards the goose, flap flap flapping her robe.

WC: 237

@Geoffrey Donovan

With a plan clearly laid out, or as clearly as two first-years with no magic to assist them could lay one out, Rhys gave a nod of his head and continued luring the goose back to the classroom.

It was slow but steady work. A few times the bird got distracted by an echo of honks from the corridors beyond, once it turned round on Seren, its beady eyes no doubt suspicious of the flap flap flapping of her robes behind it, and a couple of times it lost interest in the bread and stood around, honking or hissing at one of them before it calmed down enough to regain interest in the bread once more. For the most part it went smoothly though, and soon enough with a glance over his shoulder Rhys spotted the doors to the Transfiguration classroom.

"C'mon, goosey-goosey," he said with a small grin as the goose pecked at the next bit of bread that he tossed its way. "Just a little more." Eventually they made it through the doors, and when Seren was inside as well he glanced over at her.

"I'm on my last bit of bread," he said. "We'll have to get some more bread from the Great Hall if we wanna try to get another one the same way."

[ WC · 218 ]

@Seren Yong