She was glad to be back a Hogwarts. At the welcoming feast Mac had mentioned wanting to see some of the things she had been painting over break. Lenora had always been a big fan of History of Magic. It was one of her favorite subjects- so fascinating! So inspiring! Unlike many of her fellow students, Nora was fascinated by the goblin wars and rebellions. She had decided to work on a large piece depicting two warring goblin factions. She'd spent the entirety of winter break working on it- and it was very nearly finished.

Lenora had finished most of the painting. There were a few final touches to make, but for the most part, it was done. She had exhausted herself trying to charm the painting to do what she wanted. As it was the goblins moved. They would clash into each other and fight. She was really proud of herself for getting the painting to move. The only thing left was the sound, and she was having a hard time getting that spell to work. She wanted people to hear their battle cries and the clanking and crashing of metal on metal and flesh on flesh. She had managed to get them to utter battle cries- but the charm had worn off quickly. She needed the help of her charms professor. Or any adult wizard, really, who had experience in that realm.

She had found Mac in the common room after dinner that Friday. Lenora had sat him down in an arm chair and told him to close his eyes and not peek. She darted up to her room, grabbed the painting and her easel, and carried it back to the common room. She perched the painting on the easel so he could see it better, and was already beaming when she told him to look. "Okay! You can open your eyes now, Mac. I've got it ready for you to see."

Her friend opened his eyes, and Nora pointed out bits f the painting. "See him? That's Glibbick the Gory- vicious goblin warrior. And that one, that here, that is Babba the Beautiful- one of the female warriors. It's one of my favorite battles. I've got it moving- took all summer to finesse the charm and to finally get it to stick permanently. I want to make it yell and have all the right battle sounds. I got it to work once- well, kind of work. Got the goblins to scream anyway- but it only lasted a few minutes. I want to make sure that you can hear their weapons and the squelching in the mud and the rain falling and everything. But that's hard. I'm going to have to get some help. It's more ambitious than anything I've ever tried!

Every year the adjustment time it took to get re-settled in the Castle was shorter and shorter. Macaulay would never want to imply that living in such a spectacular place ever became old hack, but by the seventh year the incessant rattle in his bones to explore and find every nook and cranny had mostly worked itself out. This was not true of his youngest sibling who had spent the early evening hounding him for the best places to explore. Edie did not need any help getting up to mischief so he'd been as vague and dodgy as possible before sneaking off while she was distracted by the arrival of a letter. Then he'd settled himself in the commons to get a jump start on Charms work, he wasn't sure yet how much of a hard ass Donovan was going to prove to be but on the off chance the man was as dour as he seemed Mac didn't want to be caught unawares.

Of course the moment Lenora brought up her paintings he snapped the book closed and gave her his full attention, laugh easy as she insisted he close his eyes and not peek. When she finally told him to look he sucked in a sharp breath, he'd never seen anything so ambitious in his life. It wasn't just that the skill itself was impressive (though it was and always had been), there was no question that Nora could paint. The part that was most amazing to him was how much work she said was left to be done, the magic of it all. Like most Ravenclaws Nor was an overachiever, but this was top tier even for her, the idea of getting the warring goblin hoard to battle in stereo just left him agape. He literally had no words for a moment as he tried to take in ever little detail she mentioned. It's brilliance was a little overwhelming, knowing someone who could actually create such work was a bit awe inspiring.

"Blimey Len," his tone was hushed as he shook his head and leaned forward peering at the warriors mired in the muck and blood, "It's dead bril, no joke. I can't believe you managed to do all this in just a few months. Makes the time I spent fixing soy mochas seem like a total waste of the hols," his grin was lopsided as he clapped her on the back, not sure what else he could possibly say to convey just how impressed he was. "This probably explains why I only got two owls from you for the whole three months, you'er forgiven," finally he stood up and stepped closer to the painting, leaning down to inspect the work more closely, "Babba the Beautiful, isn't she the one that old Grin Dee Lowe song was about, my mum used to sing it when she made fish 'n chips".

Lenora winced in anticipation of his reaction. Macaulay's opinion meant a lot to her- and it was important to Nora that he liked her painting. She had been sharing her work with him since they were first years. Of course, back then, her capabilities were far less impressive than they were now. And even if she could manage to paint with startling accuracy and realism if the spells weren't right, the painting would fall flat- the way muggle paintings just hung there and did nothing. She wanted it to be something more than a "pretty picture".

But he grinned soon, and clapped her on the back. She beamed at him then and scrunched up her nose and did a happy little jig. He liked it! "I... didn't mean to not send you any owls," she told him. "But I did get kind of lost in painting it. I couldn't help it though. It was just turning out so well! It's so much better than I thought it would be. I've never done something this massive before. I mean, I knew I could do it. Or at least- I thought I could do it. The painting is the easy part," she said dismissively, "it's the magic that is tricky."

Lenora nodded. "Yeah! That's right, Mac. I haven't heard that song in ages, though. I'd almost forgotten about it. I just like the names of the goblins in that war. I just hope that I haven't mucked it up to the point I can't get the sound to stick. I've been making my own paints- there's potions you use in them to help the magic absorb or whatever. So I practiced a lot with brewing those over the summer, too. I owled a few other painters to ask what they used and I'm trying to perfect my own little mixture. I've heard from a lot that if you make your own paints, it makes the magic easier to stick, because the paint was made with your magic. Like glue, I guess. But I don't know all of the theory about it. Been trying to find a good book about it but I haven't found one yet." Lenora frowned a little and bit her lip. "Maybe, though! In the mean time I just got to keep trying, right?"

"But I've got to get the charms professor to help me. If I can get it just right..." Lenora trailed off and looked down, suddenly feeling bashful and ashamed. "Well, if I can get it right that would be the best," she finished lamely. She had wanted to tell Mac all about how badly she wanted to get McGonagall to hang her painting in the castle somewhere- maybe even near the Ravenclaw area of the castle- but she didn't want him to think she was being silly. She just wanted to leave some kind of mark on the castle, and this would be a perfect way to do so. A punctuation to her Hogwarts career and a tribute to her talent as an artist.

Slinging an arm around Nora's shoulders he nudged the side of her head with his, "S'alright Lenny. I wouldn't have had anything to talk about anyway. I spent all my time mediating fights between the sisters or hiding out at work," he wasn't really complaining. He loved his younger sisters, it had just been a lot to deal with the last few months. It felt as if overnight they had gone from adorable little girls who got into everything and had tea parties to crazed boy-obsessed girl-creatures. Maisie and Lisbeth were going to be the end of him if they didn't stop trying to one up one another in the way-too-big-for-their-britches-trying-to-be-grown way that completely stressed the 7th year Ravenclaw out. He was not ready to have to start cracking heads of boys for taking liberties with his sisters, but if the last week had been any indication, Maisie was pushing the envelope even further with uniform modifications.

"The new Charms professor seems alright, I'm not sure how opportune it is to be dealing with a first year professor before we sit for NEWTS, but anything is better than last year," he pulled a little face before dropping back into the armchair. It wasn't that he had disliked Gale, it was more that the man's personality got in the way of lessons. It was hard to learn anything when half the class was dead set on revolting against any and every single thing the man did. He had been a lot to take but it hardly mattered now, they had Sir. Square-Jaw (though on some level that might be worse because it seemed anyone with a pulse was more fixated on Professor D.'s brooding glower than what he was trying to teach them. It might have been too soon to tell anything anyway, after all it was only the first week, maybe they'd all get used to having a grumpy Adonis (his sister's words, not his) for a professor.

Lenora smiled. She was glad Mac wasn't truly offended by her being quiet over the summer. She just had a habit of getting lost in her own mind and in hr own little world and forgetting there were things outside of it. She often ended up late for class or missing meetings or study groups because of it. Some people thought of her as flakey- but her good friends, true friends like Macaulay, they understood it was just apart of who she wa. She was glad for that.

"Your sisters are a hand full," she agreed. "I understand that feeling. Eli is too. Bless him, I love him, but sometimes I want to throttle him as much as everyone else. I'd never tell him that, though. It would crush him." She knew she could trust Mac not to mention it, either. "At least I've only got Eli to worry about, though. Can't imagine having as many as you do. I'd probably just pretend I didn't know them. But really, they're probably getting old enough to mediate their own fights, aren't they?" she asked. "Glad you had work to distract you, though. At least there was that." Lenora didn't have that luxury. Then again, even if she had a job, she probably wouldn't keep it for long. Nora had a dream- and it did not include bumming around in a shop for the rest of her life.

He mentioned the new Charms professor, and she shrugged. "I'm not so worried about my NEWTs," she told him. "If I ace them, I ace them. If not, I'll at least get average marks. It doesn't take much for me to do well. I mean, I care more about charms than the others- but you know, not the be all end all of my existence." A trait that set her apart from many of her Ravenclaw peers. "Anything has to be better than Kesali though." And she wasn't going to say it out loud, but at least the new professor wasn't bad looking. Not enough to distract her- Nora knew he was a professor and that he was old- but at least his appearance wasn't negatively or off puttingly distracting like Kesali's had been. That man had been a real weirdo. "I just hope he won't mind helping out with my paintings. And I hope he's a better professor that actually sticks around for once."

Lenora settled into a chair across from Macaulay- slinging her legs over one arm, lounging comfortably. "Good to be back, though," she said. "Bittersweet and all- being our last year. I can't believe how the fast time has gone. Makes me feel like I've wasted my time here, doing a bunch of nothing. I should have been involved more, I think."

Mac frowned a little and squinted when Nora suggested that his sisters were old enough to sort themselves out, not irritation but rather thought, "I don't know Nor. It's tricky with them, Maisie and Liss are so close in age, and Edie thinks she should be able to tag along with them. They're all just clustered together so no one really has a rational head about anything. Of course no matter what I do one of them is always accusing me of taking the other's side," there was a vague sort of laugh as he shook his head.

"I should probably butt out, but I keep hoping they'll catch the hint that they can't keep trying to scawble out their differences all the time. I've only got a year left with them, then everything changes," he didn't want to say it out loud but there was a part of him that was maybe a little scared that when he was gone they actually would be completely fine without him. Everyone was more important in their heads than they were in actuality, he knew this rationally but it was still kind of an uncomfortable feeling.

"Aw, Len, come on don't got writing off this last year when we've just started," he grinned and rubbed her shoulder reassuringly. "What about Art Club? I mean that's a pretty big deal right? Besides you've got nine months to make it count now". Mac wasn't really the sort to worry about what kind of legacy he'd leave behind. He knew, or at least hoped, he'd make his mark post Hogwarts, with one of the best gastro pubs in all the Wizarding UK. "Besides, we will forever be known as the crop of students who survived that madman Kesali and Storm not only teaching Defense but being our Deputy Head," now he really did sound amused. He respected Storm of course but that first year he taught had been pretty rough, he could distinctly remember a frog mutilation lesson that had been more stomach turning than educational.

"Well, Mac, that's just girls," Nora told him. "Besides, they're good kids. And you'll be gone next year so you need to make sure they learn to fend for themselves before you leave. Not to mention you've got your NEWTs to focus on this year- and your prefect stuff. You can't always prioritize them if you want to make the best of your last year. Rowena Ravenclaw would roll over in her grave if you mucked up that prefect title and it ended up going back to Schlagenweit." Not that Lenora exactly had anything against Sasha- but trouble seemed to follow him around.

She sighed when he mentioned the year had only just started, and smiled when he rubbed her shoulder. "I'm just sad it's all going to be over," Nora told him. "It's been home for so long. And I worry- what on earth is Eli going to do in the real world?" Nora asked her friend. "I can't even imagine it."

He mentioned art club and she perked. "Yeah! There's that! I can't wait to show everyone this piece once I get it finished. And I've been thinking of painting portraits of everyone. I made one for Zia- for her birthday- and she loved it. And Indica asked me to paint one of her. I have't decided yet how to paint Indi, though. She has so much personality to capture! I should do one of all of your sisters," Lenora said. "It would be something for you to have of them once Hogwarts is over. I know you, though, you'll write them religiously."

Nora shuddered at the mention of Kesali. "He was always creepy," she said. "You know how much I love charms- and I always dreaded being in his prolonged presence. Glad we won't have that problem this year," she told Mac. She was also a little glad that their new professor had both of his eyes and was nice to look at. "Storm isn't so bad, though," Nora commented. Of course, she also wasn't taking Defense as a NEWT level class, either. "O Morain was worse. He was such a stickler for trivial things. He gave me detention once because my uniform was out of sorts. I had stitched some nice Ravenclaw designs on my robes was all. He wasn't fond of it."