Elysia was actually excited for their new professor. The witch was obviously competent, despite the fact that she had so many obstacles before her. It couldn’t be easy stepping into a class knowing that some would look down on you for things out of your control. It wasn’t as if Professor Donovan had asked to be born across the pond, nor, Elysia was sure, was it her choice to be attacked by a werewolf. The Hufflepuff was proud of her school, they’d obviously progressed leaps and bounds in a short time. Tolerance, compassion, and acceptance were high on Elysia’s list of most encouraged qualities.

When Professor Donovan had explained their task, Elysia took no time in heading away from most of the crowd. She simply didn’t think it was a good idea for everyone to group in one spot. That was how people missed clues. She followed behind a streak of blue to a boulder covered in slime. It was, quite obviously, disgusting. Though the quidditch captain didn’t mind getting dirty, the gloop atop the rock was certainly not dirt. So, with an arm across her face to mask the stench, the Hufflepuff approached cautiously.

Taking her wand from within her robes, Elysia poked at the substance, noting, as Peyton had, that the substance was much thicker than she expected. A thought started forming in her head, but without closer inspection she couldn’t be sure. Taking in a deep breath, Elysia leaned in closer – holding her breath as if she were underwater. “Troll…” she mumbled under her breath.

Ugh… gross… her face was literally mere inches away from troll bogies. The young witch started retching, peddling away from the pile of gross as quickly as she could. “Professor Donovan,” She said, raising her hand and wiping her face as if the snot had touched her cheek. “That, that,” she pointed, “came from a troll,” And then stood, pointing at the gross, waiting for their new professor to respond.

Gross.

Peyton gave Ely a smile as she came over. She seemed to find the smell a lot more revolting than he had. He supposed he was just used to weird smells, after all he did live in a dorm with half a dozen other young men fresh out of puberty and he also had to tend to the animals his mother and sister liked to keep at the house. He almost felt awkward that he wasn't responding the same way she had though he thought the ripped up bunny rabbit smelt much worse.

As she started to retch he placed a hand on her back and ran it in circles. It had come naturally with him, being a big brother and all the times he had taken care of his little sister. When Helena had first come to Hogwarts she had a horrible case of Home Sickness and he often had late nights in the Ravenclaw common room comforting her.

She called for Professor Donovan and Peyton felt like smacking himself in the head for having not thought of sooner. Now that he took another look at the muck on the boulder he would say Ely was definitely right, no two ways about it and if they were tracking a Forest Troll, it could also account for the destruction and carnage that was present around them. The feathers though . . .

Peyton put his arm around Ely's shoulders, "Alright then?"

Whether her students had assumed as much or not, Shona had excellent hearing. And because she didn’t want to upset some of their very apparent delicate sensibilities just yet, she bit her lip and let her eyes drift shut in a peaceful expression, pressing a hand to the small of her back– by all appearances stretching when she was just really, honestly, trying not to a laugh once Xavier’s words registered.

God, her students. They were just the cutest.

Shooting the tallest of the Hufflepuffs another pleased smile (with the pleasant feeling that it just might be a frequent occurrence), Shona turned to flash Elysia an even brighter one, simply dimpling with pleasure as the girl gagged. “Correct,” she grinned, making her way towards the pair in broad, even strides. It wasn’t long until she reached them, and when she did she came to stand beside them, arms folded and clipboard wedged close to her chest. “By the inconsistency alone you can make an educated guess as to what had left it behind; aside from related species and similar reasons, there’s very little that would leave this sort of trace. Typical mucus trails are smooth, since they primarily function as a lubricant for easier movement. Of course–”

A few more stragglers drew close, expressions varying from boredom to disgust and vague interest. When one of them –maturely– smirked at her use of ‘lubricant’, she couldn’t help but smirk herself, amused. “Of course, scent is an excellent way to confirm that guess, as your classmate has demonstrated.” She winked at Elysia. “Three points to Hufflepuff.

“Now–” Hardly skipping a beat, Shona drew her wand and swiftly waved it in Theo’s direction; immediately the twigs fell, clattering noisily against each other. As the Slytherin whipped around, a murderously polite expression freezing those handsome features, the witch began herding the students assembled before her– Elysia and Peyton included, her hands, in fact, firmly clapped upon their shoulders –back towards the tree, where Zelig still stood. With one hand still gripping Elysia’s shoulder, Shona gestured at the others to head back to the tree on their own. “We’ve still got one creature left, guys!” she called merrily to the lot of them. Once they had all taken a spot or a seat by the roots, she stepped away from them, until she was well away from under the heavy, sloping branches. “What’ve you all found?”

Once she snatched the strand of hair from Whitman’s clutches (-scowling, of course, as she did), Gracie stalked away from him, closing those last few feet in brisk, ground-eating strides; the sooner she got away from the Slytherin, the better. (The pretty American professor being the preferable option, always.) “I found hair,” she supplied, weaving through the crowd assembled at the tree’s massive roots. In a dragonhide gloved hand, she held it up for the professor to see, pinching the ends with both hands. “It looks like human hair,” she said, as classmates came to stand beside her, peering over her shoulders and the like, “but it’s stiffer, see, kind of like… fur, or, or-”

Green eyes shot up to meet a pair of—pleased ones, to say the least, bright, attentive and pleased. “Feathers,” she finished, voice going faint as realization– or something very near it –began to dawn. “It’s smooth, and stiff, and even-” She hadn’t checked, but it could be, it had to be, and, holding the strand one-handed, she bit off the glove from her other at the wrist, using that one to thumb it slowly, consideringly. “Oily,” she finally said, eyes still on the professor.

And then, taking the end of the hair where the follicle would be– if it’d been a human hair– and was indeed thicker than the tip, the Slytherin snipped off the tip with a pinch of two black, beak-sharp nails, revealing a hollowness nearly too small for the naked eye. “If this were a feather, then I’d be holding the calamus,” she murmured, lowering her hands. Her voice sounded almost too loud for her ears.

Professor Donovan only looked back at her with a slowly growing grin. “Very good, Miss Slant. And the blood?”

Gracie frowned. This part– something familiar, that her grandfather once told her, maybe –sat at the corner of her mind, patiently waiting to be remembered, but she couldn’t– she couldn’t– “The blood’s at the tip,” she said, expression pinched in thought, “rather than the, the calamus. The hairs were shed.” She looked to the professor for confirmation. “This wasn’t torn from a victim’s scalp, it was shed, and there’s much more of it around here–” at the tree, where the carcass was, “–than anywhere else in the field. Aren’t there? Whoever shed them ate the rabbit.” Perhaps she had nothing but assumptions, but it felt like the pieces were finally falling into place.

“There were some among the bushes,” Theo agreed, emerging from the crowd to join Gracie in the small crescent they and their classmates now formed. (He made his way to the front with far more ease than was probably fair, but—he was six-foot-two, broad-shouldered, and far more put together than most of his classmates could ever hope to be. That tended to inspire a certain kind of polarity.) He stood there, hands tucked into his pockets, looking completely at home in the dark, wildlife-ridden clearing as though it were merely another walk-in closet. “But nothing to suggest the owner was dragged about, to warrant this kind of amount.

“And even then that would be quite unusual, wouldn’t it?” Casually the Slytherin scuffed an expensively shod foot at the ground, before peering up into the thick, dark canopy of the tree. The movement was curiously boyish and… not, at the same time. “That kind of behavior… That’s a bit advanced for your run-of-the-mill troll, I should think.” He quirked the professor a slight, guileless smile. “Other possibilities notwithstanding, of course.”

Quickly, though, his expression smoothed itself out into a more serious expression—that innocent stare resuming its hooded, restful look for which he was so well known for. “In any case the mangling of the rabbit carcass marks a vicious species—one that appears to molt feather-like hair and feathers alike, thrive in a wooded area, display a crucial predilection for filthiness, and appear as indifferent about sharing territory with a troll…” His tone, though still as calm and light as ever, nonetheless gained a soft but pointed lilt; there was a distinct quality of must I explain everything for you all to it.

A few people laughed—some of them, uneasily.

“Thank you, Mister Whitman,” cut in Professor Donovan, voice thick with amusement.

Professor Donovan was new, Raine had explained earlier that day - on her way to lessons with Slant. So she won't notice an extra Gryffindor.[1]

Well... she was right (so far). Raine typically spent her free periods in the Library or common room but it didn't take much prodding for her to want to satisfy a small curiousity. New professors were always a curiousity. She had been smart about it; taking animagus form would have caused too much attention and it was much easier to slip into the fold of classmates as they were being herded together by the teacher after having had a look for clues.

Clues? Care of Magical Creatures wasn't her forte because... animals. People were difficult enough. But dead animals, she could understand. This was more like an investigation. Raine couldn't help noticing things. How the smell of death - and she knew it well, a hunter now - lingered; practically emanated from the dark recesses of the tree. But why maul it against the tree and not in the clearing? Did it need to corner the rabbit, who saw it coming?

The purposefully nonchalant redhead lingered at the back of the group of students as Professor Donovan considered those offerings of both Slant and Whitman. She saddled up right next to Zel, surreptitiously, keeping her eyes on Theo's charismatic strut. Nervous laughter rippled through the group. Understandably. Theo made wildcats nervous.

But it was Gracie's discovery that still weighed playfully on Raine's mind. For some reason it reminded her of Quidditch. A recent, nagging conversation. Not to mention: the particular scratch marks, those feathers, its violent nature...

"Ah!" she exclaimed in an unfortunate beat of silence past Theo's presentation. Faces turned - most of them confused, though she ignored this and tried to pretend that there was nothing unusual about her being here. "Right. Fondness for filth," Raine smirked. "Only the Holyheads[2] would have that for their mascot. It was a Harpy, wasn't it?"

Fortune favours the Quidditch-minded.

1.	Permission obtained from Professor!
2.	Holyhead Harpies, Welsh Quidditch team.

For a moment, Shona worried that no one would get it—or, rather, those who did, wouldn’t speak up. After taking a glimpse of Professor Hagrid’s old syllabus (a page, even), the werewolf knew today’s lesson was hardly news, and nor would be the ones that followed; that, she knew, could sometimes inspire a sense of complacency, or indifference, and so did—allowing those who still floundered to improve. It was, in a way, practical thinking, and perhaps even a kindness uncommonly demonstrated in regards to another’s grades. Shona, being a practical, mostly kind person herself, could appreciate that. Sort of.

Right now, though, she wished that wasn’t the case—especially as the clearing rustled with silence.

Thankfully, it didn’t last for long. Pleased (and, maybe, not a little relieved) with the redhead’s answer, Shona grinned at her, a sharp, quick thing that only widened at the looks of alarm crossing her classmates’ faces. the little lambs  “Six points to Slytherin. Thirteen points for Gryffindor,” she said, suppressing it into a smirk that did absolutely nothing to quell their little heartbeats. And then she looked up into the darkest recesses of the tree, “Chitra, if you would?”

Leaves rustled. “About time,” a voice sneered, high and scornful—and then something burst from the canopy, showering those under it with leaves and broken branches.

It– she– landed with a flare of vast, outstretched wings the color of burnished gold—sending a faint but distinct wave of stench towards the tree. Straightening, the harpy stood tall at seven feet, and appeared all the more taller by the haughty lift of her chin and an equally haughty, narrow frame.

Out in the open, her features were plain to see, now; her face was thin and pale, made all the more so by a jagged helmet of red-black hair and white, sharp cheekbones. Her nose was long and sharp, with wide, red nostrils. A long, wiry neck flowed into a plumage of similarly dark feathers—ceding only to bare breasts, spindly bird-like feet, and small, clawed hands at the tips of those very wings.[1]

“Harpies,” Shona began, rising up from her seat to cut through the crowd, “are a tall, vicious, humanoid species famous for their avian characteristics, ferocity, and exclusive gender—all of which are proudly demonstrated in Greek myths.” She reached the harpy, striding forward until they were side by side, at which point their guest (or, host, more like, considering the unobtrusive but undeniable fact that she was clearly more at home here than they were) leaned in, critically eyeing Shona’s head. “The literal meaning of the word seems to be ‘that which snatches’ as it comes from the Greek word harpazein, which means ‘to snatch’.”

Without so much as a divert of attention, Chitra helpfully held up a hand, allowing the moon to reflect off of slightly translucent claws– her other picking through Shona’s hair, now, uncaring of their audience. She seemed rather put out, actually, to have found nothing, something she vocalized with a disgruntled hrrmph.

“They travel in flocks,” Shona continued, “enjoy strife and violence, and are (stereo)typically unpleasant, bloodthirsty, and filthy.” Eyes glancing to the side, she smirked; Chitra, on her part, only snorted, a loud, rude sound that had a vaguely drilling quality. “Like Merfolk and Goblins, they have their own language. Much of it relies on direct projection of intent, such as territory and mating, location of prey, and declaration of feud. Violent flocks are called furies, which is where the brunt of their reputation comes from and the foundation of their popular portrayal is founded upon. Otherwise they keep to themselves, although back in the day they were a popular means of vengeance, particularly against those who’d murdered their family.”

“You humans,” Chitra jeered.

Shona sighed, but didn’t argue. Rather, she shook it off and looked to the students, something rueful curling her lips before she glanced to the harpy in askance. “Chitra?”

Chitra tossed her hair carelessly. “Bring the brats over,” she drawled, surveying the lot of them with cool disdain. “Let ‘em have their questions.”

---

Thanks, guys, for the participation! Points shall be allotted accordingly in a moment.

1.	Chitra’s appearance, as based on the first figure from the right.