4:28 pm
Empty Classroom, Fourth Floor

Jazz was pleased with the turn-out that ensued on club day for the Hogwarts Players.  A lot of amble minds and eager hearts expressed interest.  It was enough to spur a series of giddy giggles whenever she thought of it.  The list of possible musical ideas grew by the hour.  Gods, how she loved the theatre.

Jazz had been here twenty minutes earlier setting up.  Though when she arrived she realized there wasn't anything to set up.  Just some rearranging of the tables to fashion a circle of chairs.  That took all of three minutes.  To pass time she produced several red and white banners to cover the walls.  Then she shot out rainbow confetti pieces from the tip of her wand like a fountain.  Soon there was a sparkling pile of color on the floor in front of her.  I wonder how long it'd take me to make a pile big enough to jump in. she thought, eyes focused on the confetti.

In all honesty, she was sort of bummed that night.  Meaning she wasn't jumping up and down with excitement.  She was... mellow and slightly uninspired for no apparent reason.  Which was not what she wanted when dealing with the Players.  And that realization bummed her out even more, because it was really inconvenient for the first meeting of her club.  Her club.  She prayed to the Goddesses that her attitude won't ruin anything... like the motivation of those eager to participate.  The last thing she wanted was to put on a mediocre musical with indifferent Players.  Of course, putting on a bad musical was out of the question.  It was impossible.

Maybe if I keep the confetti coming, it'll create the illusion of fun and excitement to come.  Then I won't have to work so hard to make a good impression.

Eliza had changed out of her uniform and into a more comfortable outfit after her last class. She then rushed to the empty classroom that Jazz had indicated would be the location for the Hogwart's Player's first meeting. Even though Eliza had was not on the list from the Club Day, one could hardly imagine the group of thespians without her.

She was an artist and a performer through and through and though she was the president of the art club, this one was also quite important to her means of expressing herself. Even if she wasn't singing or acting in the club's productions, she was hard at work behind the scenes with set design and costuming.

Entering the classroom, she saw Jazz looking rather subdued and all by her lonesome, with confetti sprouting from her wand. Eliza whipped out her wand and scooted over next to her friend and fellow seventh year. Playfully nudging her, she asked with a grin, "Need help?"

The room was rather festively decorated, although given the pile of confetti on the floor, the two girls in the room were cleaning up after the previous occupants.  "It must have been quite the party if they left this much confetti behind," he said, choosing a chair near the door.  "I'm surprised the house elves didn't clean it up before we got here."

As usual Blossom's talent for sticking his foot in his mouth was working at full power.

Obderedria wasn't too sure why she was here. There were so many others that she thought could be actors. People more loud and dramatic. The ones you would see onstage. The littler younger than her, more childlike. But the Head Girl had been so supportive when she found Obderedria singing. So she had to come.

There was quite a lot of confetti in the room. Obderedria liked it, colorful little things flying through the air. Magic probably let you do that over a large space. What if they did that in the Great Hall, or cast confetti from the towers?

One of the first years she'd seen around Club Day made a comment on the house elves. "Maybe they're busy with dinner?"

"Uh," said Ted, coming in behind Blossom Rose. "I don't think it's tear-down, Rose. It's set-up. I think." The confetti gave him pause, but maybe the cheerier-looking of the older girls had been trying to cheer the more gloomy-looking one up. He'd swung by out of curiosity, having seen their table at Club Day and had no idea what to expect, but throwing an impromptu party to make another smile seemed like something theater people would do.

He spared a glance to the room's fifth occupant and did a double-take. His face lit up. "Wicked!" he declared, crossing quickly to the Hufflepuff girl. "How'd you get your hair to do that? That is so cool."

Teddy's own hair was its usual bright shade of turquoise, though he'd been experimenting with it, so it now faded to dusk purple tips. His eyes flashed a friendly green as he grinned. "Can I take a closer look? D'ya mind?"

He turned to reply, only to see Ted slide over to talk with the Hufflepuff who looked like she'd lost a fight with a green paintbrush.  Then he saw the hair.

There was another one.  If it wasn't bad enough with Mercedes Posada going through eleven hair colours per class, now there as another clown prince.  At least it explained the ridiculous hair colour.  Ted Lupin was actual something of a celebrity, Blossom had discovered.  Both his parents had died in the battle between Harry Potter and Voldemorte.  Being an orphan bought him a small amount of sympathy from Blossom and his parentage bought him a great deal of leeway.  He was a respectable Pureblood.  It was just too bad he wasn't a Slytherin.

"Huh?" When your hair naturally added spots you got used to the looks. Somewhat. For Obderedria it mattered on whether she had anything else on her mind when she was out an about in new places, to not worry about what other people thought of her unusual hair. It would be one thing to have one stripe or a few streaks of a different color. But the impossibility of forming spots the way her hair naturally did added to the startling singularity.

At first she forgot that it was Ted Lupin -- from rumors abound -- figuring that the first year must have had a faulty hair coloring charm. Then when his hair changed into a familiar shade of green all of her thoughts stockpiled at once.

"It just, happens," Obderedria shrugged, hooking her hand back to scratch her neck under the brown and green locks. "It must have been magic, that was the first time I found out I had magic -- originally it was hairspray--" (actually spraypaint) "--but not everything washed off afterwards -- but it just grows like this now and--"

"Wait, like touch it?" She paused, a hanging section of hair pulled out with the return of her hand. She'd never had a boy touch her hair before, be he blue of house or head -- though since Ted was metamorphic--mighty morphin'--however it worked, maybe he could match? One like him could naturally change their hair color. Though how much control would be needed to transform your hair strand by strand?

"I suppose."

Rico swept into the room, his hair sticking out in different places. He had had a fight with his comb and the comb won. His sneakers were untied and his T-shirt was inside out.

He had a dream that a couple of older boys had "made him defy gravity" which basically meant hanging him upside down by a spell he knew, but he had no choice but to let them, he didn't want to get in trouble with Landis again, eek. He had been off all day.

The blue hair kid had shook him out of it. There was another kid his age like his sister! He hoped that he wasn't a jerk like her. Rose stood aside, staring at the confetti on the floor.

"Too festive for you, huh Blossom?"

Like a waft of smoke Mercedes drifted in next to her brother, who was next to Blossom. "Hola Hermano"
Her hair was a a very orange, to compliment her jeans and her blue tank top.

A small gryffindor with electric blue hair stood examining a 4th year hufflepuffs green spotted hair. Sadie clicked over the the boy and looked at the girls hair as well. "Are you a Metamorph too?" Mercedes shortened herself and grew, towering over the little gryffie.

"I thought they were cleaning up, rather than setting up,"  Blossom confessed.  "What happened to you?  No offense but you look like you just got your hair styled by the whomping willow." 

He'd made up his mind that trying to fight with Rico was going to be less than productive, at least for a half dozen years or so.  At this point he pretty much needed all the friends he could get.  There had been no free Slytherin dorm rooms, so he was stuck having to share with Rico.  As was typical for boys that age, there wasn't much trouble going from friends to enemies and back to friends within a few days. 

Rico chuckled, "Uhhhh... Sorry, I've just been off this week since our meeting with the demon librarian. But, I have yet to see that tree, would you like to accompany me on that adventure?" Rico had promised to ask before pulling Blossom into everything, and his word was his law.

The botanist in Blossom Rose perked up immediately.  Now that he thought of it, he couldn't understand why he hadn't paid this marvel of magical mayhem a visit before now.  "We'll do more than just go see it," he whispered to Rico.  "I'm going to see if I can get a cutting, to see if I can get one to sprout."

Perhaps it wasn't the wisest course of action but them eleven wasn't exactly the age of wisdom.  The fact that the adventure was far more likely to end up at the hospital hut than with the two boys smuggling a whomping willow cutting into their dorm room to raise like some kind of potted pet hadn't occurred to Blossom.  It just sounded like a grand adventure that the two newly re-established friends could go on together.

"Is there anything we can do to help?" he asked suddenly, as much to take his mind off his sudden desire to seek out the whomping willow as out of any desire to assist.

"Cor," Ted breathed, spreading a handful of Pineas's hair across his palm. He was careful not to pull, since she'd been so nice as to let him get a closer look. The green polka-dot spread out with the strands, revealing how each one held only the color it needed to form the shape and nothing more. "That's brilliant. And it just grows like this? Some magic you've got. I'm impressed."

He grinned at the Hufflepuff again as he let her hair go and came around to face her head-on. "It took me ages to figure out how to go two-tone, you know. Like, three months straight, and that's when I had time to practice every day. Patterns're the next step." He held out a hand for her to shake. "Thanks for the look. I'm Ted. What's your name?"

And then Mercedes Posda turned up. Ted frowned up at her. Over the last week or so he'd figured out what it was about her that put him on edge. Partially, it was her blatant tendency to flaunt the talent they shared with little respect for the people around her, but it was also her lack of self-control, as far as he could see. Ted went to a lot of trouble to end every day looking roughly as he'd started it, reigning in errant emotions and correcting involuntary change. But Mercedes changed at the drop of a hat. She switched hair colors with her mood and even changed her size in a way that couldn't be comfortable in a still-growing body, even if she was a girl. It made Ted wonder if she even remembered what her 'normal' face looked like any more, or if she'd only settled into the most comfortable mask.

"No, Posada, she's not," he said, answering her question in Drea's place. "She's just got the most awesome hair in school, and she's nice enough to let me take a look."

Dessa wandered into the Hogwarts Players meeting feeling nervous. After the fight she'd had with Blossom in front of the booth, she was afraid that the cheery older girl running the club would still be mad at her. However, if they had forgotten, she didn't want to remind them by acting sulky.

Plus, when she walked in and saw a giant pile of confetti, it was hard to stay apprehensive. "Wow, confetti! Are you going to clean it up? Please don't!" She stepped up to the pile and began running it through her fingers. She then remembered that there were others in the room watching her antics, and glanced around.

Unfortunately, no one particularly close to her was here. However, she did see Ted Lupin--examining the spectacularly spotted hair of a Hufflepuff girl--and Rico Posada, who generally seemed nice enough. She meandered closer to them, hoping to be included in the conversation.

"It's Obderedria," she replied to Ted, "but you can call me Drea, it's much easier to remember--oh my--"

Suddenly they were getting swamped with first years. Not that Obderedria should be saying anything about it, she had been one only last year. Already for just being a year older she felt out of the loop for how quickly they were all talking.

There was the one girl who had a look alike brother (twins?) and she was growing up just taller than her and Ted. She seemed a little snippy and Obderedria wasn't sure who she was talking to. "Me, no, I'm not like you too, it's just a quirk, I suppose. Like that guy on the Chocolate Frog cards that turned purple, only I didn't eat any nasty plants or fought trees or--"

Wait, trees? That was the side conversation the other first years were doing. "The Whomping Willow?! At the edge of the grounds!! You shouldn't, it's very dangerous. I've heard the professor briefly mention them in Herbology. They're very dangerous," she repeated. "It eats cars! And kites! There's a reason none of the birds fly close to it."

How would a Whomping Willow even hold a pair of scissors and a bottle of hair color?