OOC: Open thread doing homework in the hall inspired by this scene in the films  Any staff member could be helping to supervise, and feel free to already be having a conversation by the time the scene starts!

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It was four weeks to the day since they had all arrived on the Hogwarts Express for yet another year at Hogwarts. Everyone was settled into their new lessons, exchanging notes on the new teachers, or applying tried and tested strategies on the ones who had survived another year. The first years were still just as silly as ever, but at least now they weren't perpetually lost.

The weekend ahead of them was the very first Hogsmeade one of the year, and naturally mentions of dates or meeting up with old friends out of school could be heard in the low student chatter. Heads were bent over parchment in the great hall as they completed prep - homework, under supervision.

"Anyone got any green ink or pencil?" Tim asked in a low voice, "I think I loaned mine in herbology and didn't get it back. Got to draw this diagram for Prewett." He glanced around those nearby.

"Zip!"

Zeta provided her own sound effect as she did a quick spin move from Hufflepuff table to Ravenclaw, achieving only a middling threshold of sneakiness. She slid in next to Timothy. They were supposed to working quietly, and she had been and she'd accomplished so much it was time for a break. And besides, now she was helping a younger student. That was inter-house collaboration, right?

"Hullo, Timothy."

She presented a green colored pencil. Zeta always had pens and pencils in a spectrum of colors. This one was a sort of leafy green and had been sharpened down so much it was only three inches long.

"What are you drawing, there?"

“Cousin Zeta,” Tim replied, imitating her formality in a low voice so as not to draw attention from their overlords (the professors). It was only logical that Zeta would have all the colours of the rainbows on her person. She was a walking art shop.

“Thanks,” he gratefully received the well-loved colouring pencil and considered his work. “Bubotuber,” he had sketched it out from the text book, with cutaways so he could label it all up, but he liked to add a bit of colour, even if it wasn’t his strong point. “They’re so smelly,” he wrinkled his nose. “Smells like your dad’s garage[1] on a bad day,” what with the cars.

“You remember doing them?” He asked Zeta, figuring it might have provided some funny expressions for her to doodle. “What you working on, anyway?” Or meant to be working on...

1.	A description of said garage is in this bit of a thread

Akira made sure to sit close to Tim, being that she hasn't really gone out of her way to make friends, there was the one person in her classes who featured quite prominently along with herself out of everyone in the massive class of second years, however they always seemed to get the most attention out of the professors. But they weren't a Ravenclaw so its only really the lessons they would meet and Akira didn't really feel like trying to get too many friends yet, if she gets to be the most popular girl then how will she ever get some alone time?

She has a couple books out and her bag on the table, head resting on the bag and staring down at a open notebook she was seeming to work on, or doodle on. Her handwriting is a bit of a mess so it could be either. Was it the worst UFO drawing ever? Clouds? Sheep? Or was she legitimately trying to spell a word with more then one O in it? However she had stopped really working a few minutes ago, hand still holding the quill and resting on the paper with the other rested on the table. The bag opening was facing away from her as the zipper was getting in her hands way while working, slightly open with some skittles on display in an open packet.

Zeta turned her head and took a closer look at Tim's illustration. "Oh yea... looks good. I remember these.  We did them with Professor Bombay. Oooh, the bubo part, nice cross-hatching. Add some stink lines off it."

She wiggled her fingers in demonstration.  "Multi-media. Teachers love that.  Here: burnt sienna."  She provided another colored pencil for the job. Now, fully invested in her young cousin's future as an almanac illustrator, she moved her legs around to sit properly on the bench and slid notebooks onto the table, accidentally bumping into Akira Hericho (although Zeta didn't know her name yet.)

"Sorry," she said with a little smile, then turned back to Tim.

"I've got a Charms report for Kesali. Classification of enchantments. Riveting." It was halfway done, the length of parchment folded up in her textbook. But she looked back at the girl she'd bumped, who looked easily as riveted as Zeta was about enchantment taxonomy.

"Are those sklittles?" she asked her, pointing inquiringly at the brightly colored candy.

Akira groaned lightly as she was bumped into, starting to roll to the side before blinking her eyes open and looking at what was happening. "Was professor Bombay a type of pot noodle?..." She asked in a slow and weary voice, a soft yawn left her lips as she blinked and then sat upright...and then slumped forwards in her sitting. She looked at the two and then at her own work, some of the ink from it was soaked to a point on the paper likely staining a few more layers. And what she had been trying to do looked like it just gave up halfway into scribbles.

"Skittles?....I don't have any bowling balls...." She let off another yawn and then looked at the sweets. "Oh....yeah...take some...I'm not in the mood for them really so have the bag." She removed the bag slowly and tried to be quiet with it. "History work...woo.....so exciting....I need to apologize to Peeves." She stretched out upon leaning backwards and made a few popping noises from her fingers. "Tim...please remember to make me remember to apologize to Peeves. It is a matter of....life and death...."

Kelvin sighed, between everyone not talking as quietly as they thought they were and his own late patrol the night before he could not concentrate on the same enchantment classifications report Zeta had mentioned.  He flipped the book closed in front of him.  "This is just not working," he muttered.  He had everything done for the next day, and other than the charms report he'd already put a good dent in everything they'd been assigned that day.

Some days he wished they had enforced nap time, there was plenty of time to get homework done, but not nearly enough to sleep and patrol and do homework and read.  Not that nap time would be any better, no one would be quiet for that either most likely.  "Pass some of those down here," Kelvin said through a yawn as Akira pulled out the candy.

"Wait, why would you apologize to Peeves?" Kelvin asked confused.  "Are you trying to make your life miserable?"

“Add some stink line off it.” Tim grinned at his cousin’s suggestion and the way she wiggled her fingers.
“Alright,” he agreed in a low voice, receiving what was to him just a brown pencil, and he did his best to add some ‘stink lines’ from the opening where the puss could be extracted while she explained what she was up to.
“…Classification of enchantments. Riveting.”
“Could be quite helpful-,” Tim began to reply, ever the Ravenclaw academic and interested in charms with his future aspirations of healing. He was holding out the pencils to return them to Zeta when she turned to Akira Hericho to ask about her sweets.

“… I don’t have any bowling balls…” Hericho was as coherent as ever, slumped beside them. Tim admittedly had been rather focused on his work rather than engaging in the weird and wonderful conversation Akira preferred him to join in with. She offered the fruity sweets to Zeta, ever charitable.

“History work… I need to apologise to Peeves. Tim, please remember to make me remember to apologise to Peeves. It is a matter of life and death.” Tim, accustomed to these sorts of requests from Akira now since they had become acquainted, merely replied,
“Uh, alright…?” He almost felt it was best not to ask, but Zeta was here, and she had infinite curiosity. However, it was Kelvin who asked,
“Wait, why would you apologise to Peeves? Are you trying to make your life miserable?”
“Did you make up a rhyme about him?” Tim ventured reaching for his quill to begin labelling his bubotuber. “Did you dob him in to Darkfall for another fireball roasting?”[1]

1.	5th September, Potions Class starts off with a roar

She yawned again and shook her head, before it rested onto her bag and she draw a sheet of paper from it. "No. Didn't make a rhyme. Or burn anything. We had to do a presentation in History of Magic. Combination of first and second years." She gave a small wicked grin and placed down a paper sheet of her plan for the presentation. It details a plan of Peeves coming into the class with items from Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. "I gave him firepower...said he can have those items and have fun in the class if he didn't cause as much trouble in the corridors for a few weeks after."

She stretched and then sat upright yet again, grabbing from her bag a small bottle of water, she pointed her wand at it and muttered with a small motion. "Glacius" letting the bottle freeze, then she closed her eyes and pushed the bottle gently into her eyes. "Do parseltongue's really like Vanilla Ice? If they sound like snakes can it get confused with Ice Ice Baby?" Her head slumped right back onto the bag. "Why did I get out of bed..."

Zeta munched happily on the fruity, chewy little pebbles. She popped her head up to check for patrolling teachers as the bag crinkled. So far, their illicit parlay remained undetected and undisrupted.

She couldn't help but giggle at Akira, whose verbalised train of thought was a wild ride of silly associations. "Hex me, but she's a funny one," she said, more about Akira than to her.

But then she remembered something.

"Oi! Kelvin. Have you done the Charms thing yet?" Kelvin was known to be an exceptional student and Zeta, she had other aptitudes. It's not that she couldn't, its that she ... wouldn't... "Where are you putting for the Sticking Charm?"

“I gave him firepower…”

This statement alone did not sound like any apology was necessary to Peeves, but the opposite. Nobody gave Peeves ammunition unless it was against their mortal enemy, and even then with extreme precautions. Peeves had no alliances, so to speak, he was a poltergeist.

“Why did I get out of bed…?”
“Hex me, but she’s a funny one.” Zeta remarked, and turned to Kelvin to ask a question.

“Not sure,” Tim replied to Akira meanwhile, “maybe you should go to the hospital wing, you’re sounding a little more unusual than normal,” he suggested in what he hoped represented the kind, concerned friend manner. However, his thought was entirely interrupted by a heavy bump beneath the table and an exclamation of pain from a higher-pitched voice somewhere around their knees.

Aoide Shacklebolt rubbed at her head in the gloom beneath the Ravenclaw table. This has been an altogether better idea as of five minutes ago to score some sweets from an older Hufflepuff. ‘You’re small...’, the seventh year had said, and her over-enthusiastic and gullible first year mind had leapt to the challenge of helping such an older, wiser student. Unfortunately she was still about half a dozen sets of legs away from being under the table where several of the Ravenclaw quidditch team were discussing tactics in low voices, which had been her intended target.

Her robes had become snagged under the foot of someone at the Ravenclaw table, which had brought her crawl to an abrupt halt.
“S’cuse me,” she squeaked to the owner of the shoe, realising her cover was blown, “you’ve got your foot on my robe.”

A voice from beneath? Zeta turned away from the "study group" and checked under the table.

"Shacklebolt!" Zeta whispered, surprised and delighted to see a wee one from her own House infiltrating Ravenclaw upon her own, um, clever plan. The older girl grinned.

"What are you doing under there? Getting a new perspective? Find anything interesting?"

Aoide Shacklebolt was a delight to the older students because she was always so keen to participate in their schemes. There had to be a good story here.

"It's in the book Zeta," Kelvin said.  He wasn't about to give her the answer. And he couldn't help but be distracted by Akira.  She didn't quite seem confunded but she didn't quite seem normal either.  "Tim's right.  Did you get hexed?"  Which was worse?  Asking if she was hexed or assuming she was being her usual weird self.

Noise from under the table, and Zeta talking to someone under the table pulled his attention.  It wasn't like the floor wasn't clean, the house elves saw to that, but why in Merlin's name would someone be crawling under the tables.

He bent to look under the table, "You are going to get kicked down there."  Had his year been that strange as first years?

“Shacklebolt!”

Aoide recognised Zeta Pepper peering under the table at her and looked hopefully at her older housemate.

“Shh!” She squeaked, thrusting a raised finger to her lips in the gloom beneath the table. “I’m on a mission for Team Badger,”

“You are going to get kicked down there.” The first year spy swivelled on the balls of her feet, and bumped her head again, seeing a Ravenclaw prefect the other side. What was his name? Kevin? She had forgotten. That was awkward.

“Please don’t!” Aoide appealed, shuffling away from him in meek appeal. “I - I - I dropped something down here earlier. I’m sure.” She made a show of looking for an entirely fictional item beneath the Ravenclaw table. “Or maybe it was further up…” Aoide tried to scramble forward again, forgetting she had been halted a moment before by a foot tethering her robes. The anchor tugged her back and with a worrying tear of fabric, the little Hufflepuff went sprawling under the table properly this time.

“My robes!” She yelped, dismayed at the damage, rather than the fact her cover was well and truly blown. Giving up on the game and the promise of sweets, she scrambled up on the bench beside Kelvin, cradling her torn school robe hem in her hand.