For whatever reason, the Muggle Appreciation Club had been scheduled for the afternoon shift, but that had just given Sasha more time to finish gathering things for the table.  Hopefully, the set up wouldn't look too much like it had been put together last minute but, if it did, it came by it rather honestly. 

The last minute nature had had more to do with the difficulty in finding items to stock the table than any attempt to procrastinate.  There was only so much pro-muggle paraphernalia to be found around Hogwarts and most of it didn't really showcase the exciting parts of muggle culture.  That was one of the downfalls of the Muggle Studies class ... or anything muggle related at Hogwarts - they could study the theory of what toasters and microwaves could but the lack of electricity made it hard to do anything beyond reading a book.  Hogwarts needed some sort of off campus muggle culture lab.  Like a home economics lab ... only ... actually, given the topics Muggle Studies often covered, it'd be very much like home ec.  And, might actually be useful for Sasha.

But, the table had been set up as best as Sasha could manage, given the environment.  There were sign up sheets and a stack of notices describing the purpose and planned activities for the club.  He'd set out a photo album with a variety of artistic, still, muggle photos and a couple muggle musician records he'd managed to borrow from the Healer and Professor Trishna.  At the end of the table closest to Sasha was a couple stacked books - all from muggle authors but with decidedly magical themes: Tolkein's The Hobbit and Fellowship of the Ring, Douglas Adam's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency as well as Ursula Le Guin's Wizard of Earthsea and Left Hand of Darkness. 

He didn't know what the display's reception would be.  Hopefully, those that disapproved would be content to dismiss and ignore it.  With luck, though, there'd be more people interested than in disagreement and brave enough to approach the table.

Blossom would have completely bypassed the Muggle club table but something caught his eye.  He immediately zeroed in on the Douglas Adams book.  Here was something that might allow him to catch up in his astronomy class.  Once he had the attention of the boy behind the table, he pointed at it.

"Would this help me in astronomy?" he asked, completely unaware that the book was meant for entertainment, not education.  "The Muggleborn witches are way ahead of me and I need some help catching up."

Merpeople had a term for deja vu that roughly translated into 'stagnant swimming'. It was commonly used in freshwater loch colonies, for with a relatively small body of water and defined boundaries, the activities in the loch could seldom change. Heliotrope was feeling this special flavor of repeat as she walked around this Club Day. It was like the Day of Tents[1] only indoors, with booths instead of tents. The same kind of activity was present in both.

And so too become Heliotrope's actions. She was walking slowly through the clusters of students. As the school month built up her feet hurt. There was an increasing pain each day. None had noticed, although Heliotrope had a subtle limp to her walk, making her movement all the more ganglier.

She was bumped by someone, caught off balance, and careened into the Muggle Appreciation Club Booth next to a Slytherin first year. Her hands shot out for balance. Her right webbed hand slammed onto the Left Hand of Darkness. Once she recovered Heliotrope found that her hand was stuck to the cover, the book opening whenever she tried to lift her hand and free it.

"Hello Sasha," she said to her tutor, though still focused on freeing the book from her hand.

1.	Career Day: RCMC

Blossom barely managed to evade the incoming Hufflepuff as she hurtled towards the table.  He felt a moment of anger but it was replaced by concern for the young girl, then by a near irresistible urge to laugh as she found herself stuck to a book. 

"Let me get that for you," he said with a snicker, reaching out for the book.  "It must be a really good book if it's that hard to put down."

Muggle Studies was Winifred's favorite class, and her best class. She always did well in it, and adored learning about the muggles. She thought they were fascinating and hoped to one day, like her mother, maybe to get to work with or live among them. She had heard there was a new Muggle Affairs office at the ministry and Winnie couldn't help but think that it would be a great job for her. (Which was surprising, nobody associated Winifred with any type of career. Especially one at the ministry.)

"Hello Heliotrope!" she said with a bright smile to her fellow Hufflepuff before turning her attention to Sasha. "Hello, Sasha!" she greeted with equal enthusiasm.

She looked at the books on the table, recognizing The Hobbit. "My mum has this book!" Winifred announced. "She let me read it over the summer! It was really neat. I love how muggles think magic works and stuff. It's so interesting!"

Winnie cast a sidelong glance at the first year Slytherin, but didn't speak to him as he went to pick up Heliotrope's book for her. Winifred didn't trust any Slytherins. She thought they were all meanie-butts. "What kind of neat stuff do you have planned for this year, Sasha?" Winifred asked.

Sasha had busied himself with reordering the stack of records for the third time when a student finally approached the table.  He set the stack down, the Beatles' Revolver topmost on the pile and looked up at the young man.  The young man was a Slytherin but Sasha was determined to remain optimistic.  There were plenty of Slytherins who were earnestly intrigued by muggle culture. 

"Allo," he offered.  His gaze shifted from the young man to the book in question and he grinned.  For a moment, he pondered what Professor Trishna would say if Sasha told the young man 'yes' and sent him on his way to study.  He would love to be a fly on the wall that first time the Slytherin raised his hand and asked about the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal or how they managed to get a restaurant at the end of the universe.  Honestly, given what Sasha knew of Trishna, the lad would initially get extra points for making an Adams' reference in class and then Sasha would get an earful once Trishna realized the first year was being dead serious. 

To say 'yes' was tempting but wasn't exactly a very Ravenclaw-ly, prefect-ly or champion-ly thing to do.  "No, not really," Sasha finally admitted.  "'Allo, Heliotrope," Sasha offered his Hufflepuff protegé, leaning across the table to attempt to dislodge LeGuin's work from her ... hand but the Slytherin had beat him to it.  "It's fiction.  Comedy.  I mean, some of it's accurate - it's all derived from muggle astronomy but if you don't know the basics, it can be hard to differentiate between what's real and what isn't.  It's funny and brilliant and I'm sure Professor Trishna would be impressed if you read it, though." 

"You're behind in the math and science in astronomy?" he asked.  "I'd - or we'd be glad to help, though.  I've got other books that might be useful.  Or, I can answer questions.  I'm already helping Heliotrope,"  he nodded towards the slightly webbed one. 

Sasha turned towards Winifred as the ... bubbly girl came bounding up to the table.  "Allo," he offered in return with not quite the same level of enthusiasm.  "It is a good book.  One of my favorites," he admitted, picking up The Hobbit and turning it over.  "Well - I figured there could be lots of room for exploring things people in the group want to explore but I thought we'd focus at ... well, that, exactly," he said pointing to The Hobbit and, consequentially, the point Winifred had made.  "Exploring how muggles view magic - in a variety of different ways.  Books, music and other stuff.  But, like I said, we could do other things, too."

"So this book won't help but it will?" Blossom asked, still tugging at The Left Hand of Darkness and wondering why it was sticking.  "You mean it won't help me with the subject but it might buy me some leeway with the professor, as long as I don't think anything in it is real."  He'd encountered similar situations at home.  He had a courtesy uncle that could find fault in just about any botany text imaginable but he had a strange love for obscure poetry. 

The pulling from Blossom and Heliotrope flexing her hand eventually freed the book. "Hello Winifred" Heliotrope said as she stared at her fingers, flexing them. Her skin occasionally took on a gummy consistency that, with impact, caused the moisture of her hand to bond with things. It was most notable on things made out of paper.

"Sasha is a good tutor when he is not talking about overfishing," Heliotrope continued in her drone. This was the fairest endorsement she could give from what she currently recalled from her tutor sessions.

"Muggles are humans too." The vague notion was enough to hook Heliotrope's limited interest. She talked about her roommate. "Drea lives with muggles. She knows much about them. There are many muggles amongst the land dwellers that boat on the surface of our loch."

"It-"  Sasha picked up slightly warn copy of Hitchhiker's Guide and skimmed the back cover as if nestled somewhere amidst the book's description would be some clue to the boy's answer.  "It's mostly fiction.  Comedy, actually," he finally concluded.  "I mean, there's some stuff you could learn from it but you'd have to know enough to be able to separate fact from fiction, first."  And, even then, finding the bits of truth amongst the fiction would be much like panning for gold. 

Yes.  Muggles were humans, too.  That should be their club's new motto.  "I ... well, there are quite a few students who are muggleborn.  We do grow up around muggles and it is a bit of a transition when we come here.  And, I ... yes, there are muggles around lakes." 

So far, they'd determined that muggles were human and Douglas Adams didn't write cliff notes for Astronomy class.  This was off to an interesting start.  "So - you're...are you all interested in the club?  Would you want to join?"

Blossom looked at Sasha frowning.  "Well, I really don't know a lot about Muggles and I must admit to being at least a little curious.  Do you think it would help with my Astronomy?"  He eyed the Hitchhiker's Guide with a certain degree of interest.  "Would it be possible to borrow this book anyway?  I'd like to see what Muggle humour is like."

He wasn't really sure he wanted to join the club but he refused to fall behind in Astronomy and if this club would help, he'd put up with learning more about Muggles.  And he did have a number of questions about Muggles.  There were just so strange, after all.

"Ooh, that sounds marvelous and fascinating!" Winifred chirped. She loved looking at how Muggles viewed magic! Muggle Studies was her absolute favorite class. Muggles were so neat and so very fascinating and lots of fun. "I've always wanted to ask a Muggleborn what they thought about magic before Hogwarts, but my mum told me that it's not appropriate to talk to them like they are different from us." Winifred didn't see anything wrong with it, but tried to listen to her mother when she could.

Winifred didn't know that Drea lived with muggles! "Drea is so nice," Winifred commented to Heliotrope. "I've always liked her. It must be so much fun to live with muggles! I grew up in a wizarding village. My dad's a squib, though, and he says that's a lot like being a muggle stuck in the magic world."

"Do you think some of the Muggleborn students could talk to us about growing up muggle?" Winifred asked. "I would really like to hear about it, and what it's like to go home. I bet it has to be really hard to keep that kind of a secret from everybody. Especially if you have muggle friends who think you're just off to boarding school or something." Winnie shook her head sadly. She couldn't imagine! But then again, she was very bad at keeping secrets.

Sasha nodded and handed the book over to the first year.  "I - sure.  You can borrow it.  It's good.  It's kind of classic muggle literature.  I mean, not in the way of Jane Eyre or Kafka or Tolstoy.  But, every muggle knows of it.  And, I'm sure referencing it in Astronomy would amuse Professor Trishna.  And, it'll help give you an idea of how much muggles know about space and how much they dream and ponder about what they don't know.  Stuff like this helps muggles find the motivation to want to fly into space and explore our universe." 

He wasn't sure how much Hitchhiker's Guide would teach the Slytherin about Muggles as a whole but it could certainly help pique his interest further.  "There's lots of different types of muggle humor, too.  That's just ... the nerdy kind."

His table certainly seemed to be drawing a variety of different ... personalities.  From the Slytherin's somber, refinement to Winifred's ... peppiness to Heliotrope's ... airy-ness. It could be intimidating if Sasha thought too much about it. 

"I ... well ... I'm muggleborn."  Sort of.  Technically.  As far as Winifred's questions were concerned.  "You're welcome to ask me.  Maybe we can get other muggleborns to come to our first meeting and you can ask them, too.  Since ... well-"  His experience wasn't exactly representative of the norm.  But, it was worth making other students aware of.  He was certain he wasn't the first student who's parents didn't take kindly to the concept of magic.  He was equally sure he wouldn't be the last. 

"I guess - depending on your situation it can be fun growing up with muggles.  We have more toys."  Honestly, Sasha wasn't sure what wizarding children did with their time.  "Or, it can be challenging.  None of my friends at home know I'm a wizard.  And, I go to school with muggles over the summer and have to keep it a secret that I'm a wizard.  Outside the wizarding world, my sister's the only one that really knows I'm not a muggle."

One of the prime advantages to being tall is the ability to see over crowds. Taryn was so used to this by now that she barely noticed the bustling flow of students bustling around her waist. They parted around her to give space for the basketball she dribbled lazily as she walked, peering from club banner to club banner. There was plenty to look at - Hogwarts house Quidditch teams, game clubs, bands and hobbies, but what she was looking for was nestled off to one side, at a little under-furnished table for of still photos and Muggle books.

Taryn saddled up with ball in hand just in time to catch the tail end of the red-head's words, followed by answer from the boy sitting at the table proper. His story sounded awfully rough to share, so Taryn decided to chime in.

"That's the long and short of it," she said, coming up behind the smaller girl. "Nobody's got a life without challenges, after all. But honestly, it ain't always that hard, keepin' things quiet. Muggles're pretty good 'bout overlooking what they don't wanna see, but they don't think that different from most wizard-folk. Give'em a few lines about boarding school and hormone disorders and it's just like goin' home to anywhere else."

That said, she peered over the redhead and grinned at the blonde manning the table. "Well, if it ain't Professor Pegasus Pony's assistant." And a fellow champion, if she remembered correctly; though he'd been pretty quiet about it at the announcements. "Sasha Schala-something, right? So you're the Muggle Appreciation guy. Awesome. "

She side-stepped the two little ones and slipped the ball out from under her arm to avoid knocking a twelve-year-old in the head with it. "Figured you'd be the one to talk to for this: I wanna put together an exhibition of Muggle sports. Like a student-run seminar." Her grin widened, and she flipped the ball into her hand to spin it on her finger. "Folks 'round here don't seem to know nothing about sports if there ain't a broom involved. The way I see it, they'll change their tunes if we give 'em a good show, but ol' Muffy's stadium's a bit hard to get to right now. So! I figure we rig up somethin' down here an' show 'em what they're missing. You follow?"

Blossom was still smarting from his treatment at the hands of the Slytherin Quidditch captain.  Here, it seemed, in the person of this massive visitor from Salem was potentially the key to getting a little of his own back.  "You're wrong there," he said, looking up so far he nearly fell backwards.  "A bunch of the first years were playing football together about two weeks ago.  My roommate is a star player.  There wasn't a broom or a wand in sight."  He didn't intend to confuse the half giant girl but he'd never heard that what the rest of the world called football, the Americans called soccer.  Football to them was a gentler version of rugby, with padding and more breaks.

"I could talk to him as see if he was willing to help with your exhibition."

The arrival of one of Sasha's fellow champions and her unprompted assistance had been entirely welcomed and unexpected.  In fact, it had almost all the traits of a rescue seemingly from nowhere except for one rather large detail: given the girl's sheer size, Sasha had watched her approaching from over three tables away.  He offered the Salem student an appreciative grin then nodded to Olivier. 

Even with her curious accent and judicious use of not-entirely-grammatically-correct, colloquial forms of contractions, she'd managed to be more eloquent about the matter than Sasha had.  "Ja.  Exactly.  And, I'd gone to boarding school before Hogwarts and it's not uncommon for students to transfer to new schools after Level 2 exams. But, I don't think ... no one would have believed hormone ... changing schools was a more reliable explanation for me." 

Professor Pegasus Pony's assistant?  Sasha blushed and shrugged slightly.  "I'm not really ... his assistant.  I just ... I ... Sasha's fine.  And, I'm the club president.  You're Dickenson, if I'm remembering correctly?" 

Sasha found he had to listen very closely as Dickenson spoke but, if he had heard her correctly, or if he was ... following ... he did like her idea.  "Muggle sports seminar?" he repeated, just to make sure.  "I assume it wouldn't just be talking about them, right?  But - demonstrations.  Informal skirmishes.  I've actually never played basketball.  It'd be fun to try something new.  I used to play football a fair bit, too."  He nodded towards Blossom.  And, if there were any halfbloods amongst the Durmstrang kids, there had to be footballers amongst them.  "Now - I mostly do equestrian sports.  And, play polo, but those are slightly different."