The curly-haired Ravenclaw skipped down the steps of the front entrance in her rush to escape the muggy indoors. Churlishly glowering at a couple of passing first years, she headed for a lonely tree in a remote corner of the grounds that looked over the lake. It took much longer to get there than she remembered, and she battled her annoyance as she fought to walk calmly and inconspicuously towards the overgrown willow.
Eventually she reached at and, ducking under its ground-length branches, she slammed her satchel beside her and pulled out her wand as she sat down, restlessly flicking it at random leaves, sending them pirouetting from their branches. Subconsciously, she began muttering and turning them gold in the low afternoon sun. The image reminded her of falling confetti, long ago, falling from in front of her into her face, and she smiled.
She was able to fully appreciate the beauty of the place when there wasn't so much heat. She sighed and adjusted the angle of her back against the willow's trunk, before taking out an essay she had tried to begin in the library.
Even in the cooler breeze, however, she could not begin to contemplate beginning anything relating to History of Magic, so she rolled up her titled parchment and took out the book she had to read for that subject.
Although the lessons weren't the most interesting, she found the book an interesting read. She liked Bathilda Bagshot's style of writing.
Absorbed as she was, she didn't notice the sun begin to sink lower in the sky.

Finally!

Figaro spotted her down under the willow in the growing evening.  The loud-mouthed, academically-stunted Hufflepuff was on a mad quest to get his History essay done so that he could listen to the Quidditch match over the weekend.  But Professor Austerlitz was a horrible person and Figaro still had a half a meter to go.  He'd asked around Hufflepuff at dinner and all of them said the same thing.  Find Trixie.

Easier said than done! The quiet, golden-haired Ravenclaw wasn't at her table with the rest of aerie - they clued him in that she sometimes spaced off hanging out outside.  Following their lead, he trotted out of the castle and kept an eagle eye out for her distinctive mane of hair.

"Trixie," he said, slowing his pace down, a little breathless.  He scratched the back of his neck and grinned, hoping to butter her up for some help.  "Alright? Nice day, yea?  Got a question if you have a minute."

Or ten.

'Hmm?' She blinked in the low sun as she raised her head. 'Oh. Hi.'
She folded the corner of the page she'd been lost in and closed the book, before turning it and gripping its spine as she slammed it quite irritably into her lap. Gazing up at the awkward  Hufflepuff before her, she raised her eyeborws in mild disapproval. He wanted something and she was sure she knew what. She sighed and braced herself.
Adjusting her atitude against the bark she was leaning on, she lifted her chin so she could meet his bold stare fully.
'Go ahead. I've got nothing better to do.' She smiled.

As soon as he got an affirmative, even a meager one, from Trixie, Figaro dropped to his knees and dumped his books on the ground.  He rifled through them as he blathered forward.

"So Austerlitz, as we both know, is a harpy and this essay's going to kill us all.  I have absolutely no bloody clue what to do about - where is it..."

He paused and leaned back looking at the mess in front of it, apparently having lost track of something.  He furrowed his brow.  This whole studying thing was brand new to him, but his Runes professor was making him so that he wouldn't troll his O.W.L.s.  Organization had been a challenge these past few weeks.

"Here!" The parchment he was looking for was sticking out of his Potions book and folded two of three times.  He unfurled it to reveal the assignment details, the bit of paper Professor Austerlitz had handed out explaining how they were to complete the essay.

"What is this?"  he turned the paper round and pointed to the last section.

REFERENCES & CITATION
Your essay must include at least 7 sources, which all must be included in a Works Referenced page separate from your essay.  Furthermore, the essay should be referenced and annotated in proper E.W. (European Wizarding) citation format.  Failure to do so will result in a less than passing grade.

By this time, all of their teachers had begun to ask for citations at one time or another, but Austerlitz was the most strict so far.  Figaro had deftly ignored anything boring of having to do with parenthesis so far, so while most of his classmates had already learned to cite their sources, Figaro was only just now aware of the requirement.  And he had no idea what it meant.

"Seven sources? As in seven different books? I'm to have used seven books to write this? Overkill isn't it?"

She eyed him with amusement.
'Aren't Hufflepuffs supposed to be unafraid of toil?' She smiled as she regarded his reaction.
Seeing the faint desperation in his face, however, she rolled her eyes and prepared to help as she could.
'The environment isn't particularly suitable for such an...' She couldn't place the word. 'Endeavour? Exeution?' She shook her head.
'Find yourself seven books, in the library or wherever, and find a chapter in each that's likely to be most relevant.' She smiled. 'What books have you got with you? I have A History of Magic, A Study of Recent Developments in History, Important Modern Magical Discoveries and Modern Magical History, if any of those'll help you. I also have a few old Daily Prophets I scrounged from the library.'
Trixie reached into her satchel and began pulling out various leather-bound volumes.
'Don't damage these or my head'll be mounted above the old bat's door. They need to be back soon or someone'll know they're missing. I'm not sure how long my duplicates'll last.' She spread out three yellowing newspapers gingerly on the grass beside her. She patted the grass net to him, indicating he should sit there.

Figaro listened as Trixie explained about taking a little information from several books (rather than gobs of information from just one) and he nodded - that sounded less painful than he'd originally thought. 

"What...!" he muttered in awe as she started naming and then producing book after book from her bag.  Leave it to a Ravenclaw to be a library unto themselves.  Figaro had only one book with him - their History of Magic text book - and it had been frustratingly useless for the topic of his essay which was goblin music.  All he'd found about goblins in their text book was about how proficient they were in creating weapons and using them.  Swords, and cleavers, and axes and the like.  No bass guitars apparently.

But when Trixie spread out some very old Daily Prophets, Figaro's jaw dropped and he crouched over them.

"Wicked.  When are these from...?"  He carefully touched them, sliding the pages carefully open.  The wizards in the photos moved very stiffly and some of them didn't move at all anymore.  Parts of the paper were written in a language FIgaro didn't even recognize.  There wasn't a Quidditch section that he could see, and the advertisements were for strange and archaic devices and potions.

"Why do you have these?" he asked.  He'd never thought to look through old newspapers for information.  But then, Figaro didn't read the new Daily Prophets...

'Figaro, my friend, what you don't know can't hurt you.
Or rather; what the old bag who guards these doesn't know you know can't hurt anyone... But I managed to persuade a seventh-year to steal me them for an essay I was doing recently, and they've been interesting reading, actually. Most of them. It's amazing what the promise of letting people practice DADA on you can do...' She chuckled at the concerned, mild horror that was inevitably crossing his face, as it usually afected people, though she was still prodding newspapers around on the grass in front of her and wasn't looking at him. She rearranged them into chronological order, before looking up.
Trixie looked up and smiled at the awe-struck Hufflepuff. She could see he hadn't taken her hint of 'sit next to me so I don't get a crick in my neck' so she swung her legs round to roll on her stomach, leaning on her elbows where he should have just sat.
'What are you actually trying to, like, write about? These are pretty ancient, although I have a copy here somewhere from the late eighties...' She peeled copy after copy from the floor, checking the date. 'Hmmm...' She prodded her wand at her bag. 'Accio Prophet!' Three more creased copies of The Daily Prophet joined the others on the grass. She knew which was the one she meant at once. 'Aha!'
On the front was a large moving - if slightly jerkily - photograph of a group of goblins wielding various musical instruments - captioned with the headline 'Goblin group GRAGSMITH grapple for ground' and introducing a story about the band of Goblins arguing about headlining a gig or something, and a pretty nasty ministry operation to stop muggles noticing, complete with an interview with their drummer, Korbrin, and a detailed photograph of one of the guitarists' guitars, which Trixie had often studied, as she wanted to buy her dad some new bass-strings for Christmas.
She looked up at her companion and handed it over to him.
'This one's the most interesting. I'm tempted to duplicate it so I can re-read the goblin article.'
Shuffling around in the bottom of her bag for a spare bit of parchment, she used her wand to slice off the top of one she had used to test various quills, and, extracting a quill from her bag, titled it: Sources. She then added Figaro to the top right-hand corner, and the date in the left. 'Write your sources here... Name, year of first print and edition, if applicable, or article name, page, author... That kind of thing.'
She ploughed on. 'If you use any direct quotes use quotation marks and name the source and author in brackets after it. If you can, use a different coloured ink and put a little number after it in red or whatever instead, numbered consecutively, and you can put a key kind of thing on this sheet. I find that helps by not disrupting the flow of the reading.'
She felt like sighing and adding 'any questions?' but reminded herself that taking her irritation with the heat and humidity out on him was unreasonable. She was aware of his solemn observance and tried to stay focused, yet less intimidating than she knew she had a tendancy to.

Figaro gave Trixie a curious look when she dodged his innocent question about how she got the old Prophets.  Did she mean to say she shouldn't have them?  How lovely! He grinned and nodded his head knowingly.  Mister Morgan from the library was a horrible git, especially to non-Slytherin.  She must have been joking about letting Seventh Years use her for a Defense target dummy - that sounded the opposite of fun.  He cringed sympathetically,  "Youch."

Then, he answered, "Goblin music.  Ah yea!  This is this brilliant..."  He had a look at the cover article of four craggy old goblins scowling as flashbulbs went off in their eyes.  They were dwarfed by their instruments, which were familiar but had some peculiar modifications to them.  Figaro had chosen his topic more or less at random.  Goblins were a popular topic in their history texts, and music was one of Fig's favorite distractions.  He was a ravenous fan of Three Owl Standard, Dennis Creevey's band.  (He was also not unaware of Trixie's illustrious lineage being the daughter of a Weird Sister.  But his parents listened to them... Still cool though.)

"Wow, cheers!" Figaro thanked Trixie as she went about getting his reference page started for him.  She rattled off on the procedure and some of it seemed vaguely familiar.  (It should - their professors had been over it a couple of times.) He took up the parchment and dug up a quill of his own.  He was nearly about to set nib to paper, sticking his tongue out in concentration, when he stopped.  His mind had drifted onto music, and further from goblins.

"Your dad's Donaghan Tremlett, right? You ever get to do anything cool? Like with the band?" 

She laughed softly to herself. Hmm, she shouldn't have let his interest in music pass without noting. Not that any particular musical talent or interest was needed to know about her dad.

"Yeah, he is. And, nah. Not really. They're alright guys but, well, they live up to the band name. And I don't just mean the 'Wierd' part. Too close to each other to really let anyone in... Too close for anyone to want to, you know? And, to be honest, too young to not care how old I am when it's a party or gig or whatever, too old to remember when they were this age. Just the odd gig and after-show party, but they are honestly too old for that to happen regularly. I've sometimes had to stand in for a member once or twice. Mostly covering for my stoned father. I know the songs so well, I guess, I imitate their playing. Nothing too interesting though. Couple of them got some cool kids, all too young to even go here yet, though, so not really much opportunity for musicing. Stick to my own sisters for that."

Waffling on about her famous father was all very well, but she always felt a little uncomfrtable talking about it. She never knew how to ask anyone else anything. It wasn't exactly easy, or particularly kind, to turn round to someone and ask 'so, do you have a famous dad?'

"While we're not writing about goblin music, you could tell me more about yourself?" she asked, hopeful to not make everything too awkward. "I mean, we only actually know each other through occasional classes together..."

She tailed off, trying to look less curious than she felt. She'd never really spoken to a Hufflepuff in any minor depth about anything, except when, in her first year, one teary-eyed prefect gave her a butter-beer sodden lecture about boyfriends and hair-sleekening potions that Christmas evening.

Watching him, she observed his naturally earnest expression, wondering what was going through his mind. She picked up her wand and began poking bits of dry grass, bringing them back to hydration - a pet obsession of hers. She could do it in one fell swoop, she knew, but this was more dedicated, more meticulous, and helped to fine-tune her magical powers.

Frankly, Figaro had figured life in the Tremlett household would be more exciting than she made it sound.  It actually sounded kind of depressing they way she talked about filling in for Donaghan when he was too stoned to play.  Seemed a far cry from Figaro's fairly strict upbringing, and the life of fanciness, parties and excitement he imagined the Weird Sisters led. 

He sat back away from the newspapers, shifting from his needs to sit down in the grass.  It was so easy to forget about schoolwork and just dork around, even with quiet little Ravenclaws like Trixie.  He was surprised when she didn't redirect them back to E.W. formatting and library books, but rather asked about his life. 

Images from the winter and what had happened to his family flashed in his memory and just faintly, just briefly he frowned.  But right away he cut through it with a big smile and a loudly spoken question.

"What! Don't you know I'm famous?  I'm the lucky arsehole who's dad got thrown in Azkaban this winter," he said, almost like he was telling a joke.  He thought that everyone knew about that.  Still smiling falsely, he looked down and picked off grass near him, while Trixie was sprucing it up. 

"It's been in the Prophet and all over the bathrooms' morning editions," he said, still playing it off as no big deal. 

---

Sellaphix to Stand Trial
Runespoor Explosion Case Closed

She noticed him settle himself and could tell his facade was nowhere near as careless as he tried to make it seem. As he picked off the grass, she stole a sideways glance at his face. She had only vaguely heard rumours, but rumours circulated around and about everyone. His bravado, however, unsettled him. Something made her sure he wasn't as indifferent as he was trying to make out.

'I've heard all sorts of rumours about people in this school since we started here,' she pointed out.

She could feel her curiosity mounting inside her, as she tried to remember every mention of the dementor-guarded prison in the past few months, but couldn't remember any specific names or situations.
In her excitement, the green of the grass was getting more and more blue, so the blades she was re-hydrating we almost teal by the time she realised. Hastily repairing the betrayal of her interest, she stopped to face him.

"But, anyway. What happened?"

As they talked, both students had focused their eyes on Trixie's sweet little wandworks in the grass.  But when she looked up, so did he.  He laughed very lightly, just once.  He could kind of tell that she saw right through him.  But he didn't feel too embarrassed about it, mostly because she didn't seem to want to take the piss.   

He shrugged and instead of making a joke, he decided to just tell her plain.  Maybe then a story he liked better would get around.  "My dad's employee told the Aurors my dad was selling illegal stuff.  There was this big explosion and everything.  They arrested the employee and my dad both and at the end of it, my dad got sent to Azkaban."  He shrugged again.

My dad's not a criminal," he made sure to add firmly.  It had been since Christmas the last time he'd seen his dad.  There'd been a couple of owls.  He frowned without wanting to.  Figaro tried very hard not to think about it.  Right now, it seemed normal not to see his dad much - it was the school year.  But he knew what kind of home he'd be going home to. 

Trixie was watching him while he resignedly related what she could only assume was the truth - as far as he himself knew - about his father's imprisonment. Her brow furrowed slightly as she processed his affirmation of his father's innocence. Empathy swelled inside her as she noticed his eyes lose focus, whilst his mind followed his own thoughts.

Although she had never really been homesick for her parents, a cold shiver slithered down her spine at the thought of her own father locked up with dementors for any period of time. She clicked her neck to alleviate the unpleasant sensation.

Her wandering mind began to try and imagine what life in Azkaban could be like. Though the morbid chill disgusted her, her wonder could not keep her contemplations at bay.

'D'you hear from him much?' She hadn't meant to voice her trail of thought, but her curiosity had never been very easy to curb. 'I mean, do they let him write to you? Is it like a muggle prison, with visiting and stuff?'

She knew that he understood the possibilities she had implied by referring to the unnamed authorities as 'they'.

Figaro swallowed hard, still trying to not think too much about the reality of their family's situation.  How terrible it must be for him in Azkaban.  He shrugged again when she asked him another question, and went back to picking at the grass.

Shaking his head, he said, "I don't know anything about muggle prison, but mum says that you have to be 17 to visit and you need special permission.  He's allowed post, though, at least." [1]

He sighed again, trying to shake out the blues.  "Last letter he wrote was mostly about the apothecary and me and my brother," Figaro said.  "He doesn't say much about what its like other than he's fine and he misses us.  Don't know that I really believe him, though."

Figaro straightened up and sat full up on knees and stretched his back, his hands clasped behind his dirty-blonde head.  "He did make a point of getting on my case about O.W.L.s, though, and that I'd better work hard this summer."  Fig managed half a smile.  Even from Azkaban, his father was the same as ever.  Grades and Future Career, always without end.

1.	What Figaro has heard from his mother is probably incomplete.  I didn't want to say 'yes or no' too firmly.

Biting back the temptation to point out telling someone to work hard was a bit rich coming from someone in jail, guilty or not, Trixie began to also pick at the grass, distracted from her usual obsession by the turn of conversation. So many questions where circling around the inside of her head, tapping her skull in incomprehendable chaos. She closed her eyes forcefully, consciously making an effort not to ask anything too probing.

"Do you think he'll still be there when you are seventeen? I mean, will he have been let out by then?"

Before he could even answer, she added, "would you even want to go? I mean, with the dementors and everything. Would he want you to go?"

She wanted to know the details now so she could comfort him, as well as satisfy her own blistering curiosity. He seemed a little lost to himself in his current state, as many had observed, behind his back, since about Christmas.

Sensing her question had been a little less sensitive than she had meant it to, she began to shuffle newspapers together so a quick getaway or change of conversation topic would, if necessary, be possible. Tugging one out from underneath A History of Magic, rather less ceremoniously than she would have usually taken care to, she gazed at the black and white moving photographs in feigned interest.