---

The sky was clear again, which meant he could kick the 5th years outside again. Good; he wasn't really in the mood to deal with the 5th years tonight anyway. Why couldn't the 7th years be on Mondays? They were quiet. He'd have been glad to see Cuween right now.

The normally bright windows seemed dour today, and they kind of were - instead of showing their now-standard view of some exotic astronomical object, they just showed the clear sky outside and the snow beyond. One of the 'windows' was gone - the sheet folded carefully off in a corner - and so the archway out to the battlements was open. He'd spent some time earlier melting away the snow with his wand; the stones outside were now nicely warm. A charm on the archway kept the cold from seeping in to the warm tower.

He'd put a bit too much work into the melting of the snow, really, but it kept him from...well, from thinking. The world felt different and he wasn't sure how to cope, at all. Even after all the pomp of the Ball, his new clothes folded carefully stored away...his finger felt empty without his ring on it, and he kept trying to adjust it absently while thinking. Even his normal escape of cheesy literature wouldn't help; she was far, far too involved - and similar - to that stuff.

More than anything, he felt stupid. And naive - terribly so. He was supposed to be 32 years old - so why did he feel like a 17 year old again? Pathetic, that's what it was.

Even worse was the fact he'd written her just last night.

But - job. Right. Had to do that.

Same as the 2nd, then - clear sky, kick kids outside, drink coffee and glare at the slackers and be happy with the smart ones. He was closing up his desk when students started filtering up; rubbing his face and sighing, he gestured to the open archway. Schlagenweit was gone, too. Bah.

"We're charting tonight again - you should all be prepared. I'll be keeping an eye on you and your work, but feel free to talk," he told them, cleaning his glasses as he spoke.

Board

Charting (2009/16/02)
Make a star chart of the current night sky.
Identify:

• At least 12 Constellations
• 6 Individual Stars
• 1 Planet
• Make your process as detailed and clear as possible, and document how and where you got stuck if you do.

---

Sophie felt like she was walking on air. Her father had played a killer show, she'd gotten to introduce Fig to Creevers and the rest of the band; making him that happy still had her feeling overly content with herself. She felt full and happy, she didn't even mind the biting cold as they walked to the Astronomy tower. Of course she was huddled close to Figaro, hand wrapped in his with her head on his shoulder. She felt those nervous happy butterflies in her stomach.

She really did like Fig. That might have surprised anyone who had seen them interact in the last month; but she really did. He was actually...not a horrible boyfriend either. She was still trying to figure out all the rules but for the most part it was a lot of hand holding and giggling while stealing kisses in the stacks of the library. It was all fun and games with quick making up after bickering. Not a bad way to spend her time between lessons. Passing through the classroom door the air warmed but she felt herself shiver, huddling even closer (if that were physically possible without climbing on his back) to Figaro, her voice happily singsong-y, "Hiya Professor Trishna!"

Figaro had been smug as shite these last few days.  After everything added up, Valentine's day had been pretty peachy - he was still riding high getting to speak with Dennis Creevey again, and properly introduced this time.  Not like at Halloween.  Don't get us wrong now, Halloween had been excellent.  He'd found out about the baby Three Owl Standard was going to have, he got an autograph - it had been wicked.  But Valentine's day had been loads better.

Plus, regular, grab-assing with Sophie Flickwick for the last week? Merlin it was excellent.  She was always pretty, and always fun, even when she was shouting about something he'd said stupid.  It was lovely, wasn't it? Just swimmingly lovely.

He came to frigid, late-nigh Astro with Sophie, hand-in-hand and greeted Professor T with as much enthusiasm as Sophie.

"Lovely night!" he bubbled facetiously.   "Aw, shi...."

More star-charting? Drawing all those tiny little symbols, doing all the maths to get everything in the right spot - having to spell all the constellation names.  Merlin, please.  He groaned and sent a pleading look at the professor.  "Again...? Whyyyyyy?"

"Good evening, Miss Flickwick, Mister Sellaphix," he said, pushing his glasses back onto his face. "Yes, again, Mister Sellaphix. As much as I'd love to be chattering your heads off with the interesting stuff, this is what the Ministry thinks is important," he said, slightly more snappishly than intended. He settled down and got his smile back in place. "Besides, get this done fast and you can leave early - just do it well. No doodles."

Having seen the two at the dance, he gave the two a look over the top of his glasses. "And as for...." He paused, seeming to be struggling for a moment to figure out how to put this. "Outside of this classroom and my sight I would encourage you two to be...restrained. But in this classroom I must ask you to focus on the assignment given, understood?" he said quietly, to just the two of them. Having said that, he gestured for them to head outside, rubbing the bridge of his nose. He smiled weakly. "Sorry for the lecture. Just try to have fun - or get it over with, whichever you prefer, eh?"

Xavier entered the Astronomy tower dressed well for the weather. His long winter cloak was wrapped tight around him fastened at the neck with an ornate broach that oddly enough showed the Wentworth family crest. While he still refused to embrace his heritage with all the crap his father had put him through he had to admit it was nice knowing that when Hogwarts was all said and done with he was going to be a very rich man. Not to mention with everything going on with the Tawse family, the Montrose estate burning down, his uncle on the run from the aurors and the aurors questioning him about Ava's death and his involvement in some kind of kidnapping it was nice to have a strong respectable family to lean back on.

He smiled at Professor Trishna wearing a similar smile to his (former?) friend Figaro. He still wasn't sure if the boy had properly forgiven him yet but he supposed he'd have to make the time to patch things up. He had to shake his head at the sight of Fig and Sophie. He would have never in a million years guessed those two would have gotten together but then his own situation was equally unbelievable. His cool grey blue eyes searched the throng of fifth years coming into class for the familiar sight of a certain bruinette Gryffindor. Six months ago if someone had told him he was going to be head over heels for Kit Branwell he would have punched them in the face but now he rarely found his thoughts far from his duelling partner. While he had gone to the Valentine's Ball with her he still had no idea where they stood relationship wise. Was he allowed to call her his girlfriend? If he did would Bellatrix hex her? The jinx happy Slytherin had refused to talk to him since he had broken up with her but he supposed it was probably for the best.

He followed the happy couple outside catching a snippet of what the Professor had said to them. He found a spot that was perfect for star gazing and began to set up his telescope and take his parchment and quill out. He had made sure that in addition to the knitted slytherin toque and scarf he was wearing he had brought an extra scarf and gloves just in case Miss Branwell had forgotten her own.

Unlike most of his classmates Peyton had walked away from Valentine's feeling disappointed and even more confused than he had ever felt in his life. He had no idea what was wrong, he just knew that watching all the happy couples dance and smooch and generally be happy had left a sour taste in his mouth. He had enjoyed his everning though, visiting the different booths and at one point indulging his little sister Helena with a dance but she had soon gone off with her own friends and he had spent much of the evening on his own. Sure he had been surrounded by people and had a few fun conversations here and there but he had such a general sense of loneliness that it was starting to ebb into the days following the dance.

Peyton entered the tower classroom behind his fellow fifth years bundled up for a night spent star gazing. He supposed a lot of his foul mood and loneliness had to do with the empty bed in his dorm room. Not having Sasha at Hogwarts, there was a huge part of himself that was just so suddenly missing. He had been best mates with the guy since their first year and now he was just gone. Sure he was going to be coming back next year but how was Peyton supposed to survive OWLs without him? He supposed it also didn't help that Sasha had been whisked away by none other than his tyrant of a Grandfather. He knew that Arathorn was a school Governor, his father griped about it often enough but he never suspected he would be the one to show up at Ravenclaw tower and take away his best mate.

As he moved outside with rest of the class he felt a horrible shiver run down his spine that had nothing to do with the February weather. Setting up his telescope only a few feet away was his brother and at his neck was the Wentworth family crest. When the boys had discovered they were brothers back in December Peyton had felt horrible for what their father had done and wanted nothing more than to reach out to his nemesis and comfort him. Coming back to school Xavier had done everything he could to ignore Peyton but now, here he was smiling, working and actually wearing proof that he was a Wentworth. Peyton had no idea what had happened to his brother during those two weeks that he had gone missing but it was clear now that something drastic had happened. Something had actually changed Xavier.

He shook his head and made sure he set himself up the farthest away from the Slytherin as he possibly could.

Billie bounced into the Astronomy tower humming to herself. She had made sure she was bundled up, her bright blue cloak - so different from the sea of black robes that the students usually wore - was wrapped tightly around her. Her boots went up to her knee keeping most of her legs warm as she wore her uniform skirt over her thighs. Her hands were garbed in a pair of pink and blue striped gloves and keeping her gold, blue and pink hair in place was a knitted hat with cat ears. Billie had always been eccentric in her dress and she liked it that way. The world was too dark not to wear bright colours!

She slipped around most of the other students as they headed outside to set up their telescopes. Her chocolate brown eyes searched for a certain cute couple. She came up behind Figaro and Sophie. While she didn't know Figaro all that well outside of classes Sophie was one of her dormmates and someone she considered to be a good friend (but then again Billie considered everyone to be her good friend)

"Don't you two look positively adorable?" She gave them both a warm smile as she started to pull her own telescope out of her bag to set it up, "So when can I start making Fig + Soph 4eva buttons?"

Sophie looked at Professor Trishna, brown eyes wide as she caught her bottom lip between her teeth. She was not aware that people found hand holding so scandalous - well anyone besides her dad. He thought boys being within ten feet of her was scandalous. She didn't drop Figaro's fingers but she did take a subtle step away from him; not much, but enough that they looked like two people instead of one giant lumbering mass. Still, it wasn't as though she were shoving her tongue down Fig's throat. She was sure she'd walked into any number of classrooms holding a friends hand before. Maybe everything really did change when you added a title like "couple" to a pair of people.

She tried to shrug it off as she tugged Fig outside, "Come on, it won't be so bad - and with the two of us it might go faster," she nudged his shoulder and gave the sandy haired boy a bashful smile before starting to set up her telescope. She visibly jumped at Billie's words, then blinked repeatedly. She knew Billie meant well, but words like "forever" were not something Soph was attaching to their current situation. Forever was a very long time when you were fifteen; and while Sophie did really like Figaro and kissing him was very fun... the idea of doing it until she was a hundred was not exactly appealing; "Um. We should probably stave that off until someone comes up with a better couple name than Sogaro or Flickaphix".

Callum didn't see anybody particularly enjoyable in the classroom. Xavier was set up- and Callum approached- confidently rather than awkwardly (although he felt very awkward) and began to set up. Callum had decided if Xavier was going to play quidditch, that he ought to try to make nice again. Besides- Callum need friends way more than he needed enemies.

"Cold as tits out here, isn't it?" he asked Xavier, pulling on his gloves and setting up his telescope. "Good weather for quidditch, though," he added. "Cold weather makes it more fun to play- you don't get as hot." He finished getting his telescope ready before he found some parchment and a quill.

"Assignment is bullocks though," he added. "Gonna breeze through it as fast as I can, get the hell back inside." Where it was warm, and maybe even he could head out. He hated this class and he hated the professor. As soon as he could get back to his warm bed the better.

Figaro rolled his eyes sharply when Professor Trishna send them onward with a warning about p.d.a.  Kill me now.  He followed Sophie out, but didn't need to be pulled.   It wasn't as simple as just getting to make out with Sophie - being a boyfriend came with all this other weird attention.  Frankly it was kind of embarassing.  Sophie was all... bubbly.  He felt like he was behaving strangly as well.  But that was how it was supposed to go, right?

He greeted other students and he started to get out a telescope.  If Sophie thought that they'd get it done quick, she clearly hadn't had the pleasure of being his partner all that often in the past.  It was Sasha who'd gotten most of their work done for them - Figaro mostly goofed off.

Suddenly Skittles McGee was upon them.  God, that one was a strange bird.

"We're not adorable," he said, his cheeks flushing a little pink (maybe from the cold...). 
He swung the half-assembled telescope Billie's way and peered through it at her.

"PEW!" he made a spellfire noise at her.  Then, deciding that was well hilarious, he aimed it at Callum and Xavier who were setting up just a bit away.

"PEW PEW PEW!"

With the students outside, Tapendra took a moment to collect his thoughts and reheat the mug of coffee that had gone cold on his desk. He took a long sip from it before he pulled his long cloak over his shoulders and headed outside, walking along the row of students with long strides.

"Get to work, Mister Sellaphix," he said, giving Figaro a light, painless thwack on the head with his wand. His voice sounded amused, though, and hehad to admit he was. "While I'm sure we both agree Astronomy would be much more interesting if our telescopes shot lasers, now isn't the time to try it."

His gaze shot to Callum for a moment and the amusement drained from his tone. "You're free to go when you're done with your chart, Mister Knight," was all he said, before he continued off down the line.

Callum looked at Figaro like the boy had six heads and each head had a multi-colored tongue and he had the body of some strange never before seen creature when he started making a ... pew noise? He arched an eyebrow, seriously worried about Sellaphix's sanity. Why would a telescope ever make that noise? It didn't make any sense. "Keep your crazy over there," he called out to the Hufflepuff. "I don't want to catch it."

And then Trishna said something about laser sounds- and Callum had no idea what he was on about. (Being a pureblood with zero experience with muggles or anything muggle related, the entire gist of the sound effect was totally lost on him.) But naturally Trishna sided with the Hufflepuff, and Callum grumbled.

He intended to finish his chart as soon as possible- and when he had his telescope set up, Callum ceased his chattering and began to seriously focus on getting everything taken care of. He started at the top of the list- with the constellations- and began to carefully chart and label each one. He wanted to leave, but not badly enough to half-ass his assignment and get a poor grade on it. Callum would do a good job on his star chart, turn it in, get a good grade on it, and then get back into nice, warm, bed.

Demitria entered the Astronomy tower not ready for the cold blast of air from the outside. Her teeth began to chatter radically. With a final shudder, she stepped fully into the room. She looked around the empty classroom confused for a few seconds before she realized there were voices outside. Pulling her cloak tightly around herself, she braced herself for the imminent cold and went outside.

The night was beautiful and completely clear. It was positively gorgeous, but the lack of clouds made it colder. “Good evening, Professor,” Mimi smiled at the professor, but seeing what the other students had started doing, she scowled. “Star charts, so much fun. Oh well, it’s better than being stuck in a classroom.”
She nodded genially to Sophie and Figaro before ambling over to the two other Slytherins. “Hey Xavier, Knight. How are you?”

Figaro accepted the correction from Professor Trishna without a second thought.  He pretty much didn't bat an eye when swatted with a wand, especially with the nice, fun teachers like the crazy Professor Trishna who was into muggle science, whatever mumbo jumbo all that was.  He obeyed though, especially when it turned out he wasn't going to get a rise out of Callum.  Apparently the cold was motivation enough for everyone to be getting around to business whereas Figaro took lack of structure as license to dork around.

He mounted his telescope on the stand and swung it around, not to point at the sky but at his new girlfriend Sophie. 

"Whoa! The craters on this moon are wicked! So deep and craggy!"  he joked, cackling boyishly. 

Sophie had, for lack of anything else to do covered her face with one hand. Sometimes... sometimes she just didn't know what to do with Figaro. He wasn't the sort of boyfriend you could ever really take anywhere. He was hopeless! Always making jokes and dragging his feet about everything - baiting boys like Callum and Erin. The thing with Erin bothered her in an 'under the skin' kind of way. She still wasn't happy that Fig had told the other Slytherin she had no interest in his "silly light show". Soph was nice to most people - till they gave her a reason not to be.

Apparently Fig wanted her to crack her telescope over the top of his head tonight. Of course... Fig seemed to forget she thought on her feet twice as fast as he did. Swinging her already assembled telescope to focus on his trousers she squinted - scowl forming on her lips, "Gordic's Garters! Too tiny to have anything worth seeing! You're FIRED". Figaro was a horrible influence! She was a good student, well save that whole standing up to Storm thing. Still, she couldn't help the smirk that twitched on her lips as she threw a look over her shoulder. Hopefully Professor T had only heard Fig being a tool and not her less-than-ladylike response. That'd be an interesting one to explain. It wasn't like she'd ever actually seen it.