Re: The Forbidden Forest

[Walden Macnair]

Walden frowned for a second when she asked why but then the proverbial lightbulb flicked on, "Well you would need it if you were ever stuck in a forest and all you had were rocks and a wand and you couldn't apparate out. Then you would need to make yourself something to sleep on and what better than a feather mattress." Okay so there were several flaws to that theory but that was irrelevant and before she could respond he continued, "And it's not so much about what this specific spell does but about learning how to transfigure masses and change something to another extreme."

[Violet Lockwood]

Violet looked at him, quirking an eyebrow at his reasons he offered. She shook her head, rolling her eyes at him. "Walden Macnair, that's dumb. You make it practical and maybe I can make myself learn it but I see no point in making rocks into feathers no matter if I need a squishy bed or not." She sighed, looking at him, and slowly switching her gaze to the rock still in her hand. Regardless of all she'd just said, she concentrated on it, lifting her wand and trying to remember the wand motions. She made a soft whimpering noise, without realizing it, and held her breath as she performed the charm. Slowly, and much to her amazement, the rock began to take on the form of a feather.

[Walden Macnair]

His scowl at her words turned into a smirk when, regardless of her protests, she tried the spell anyway. Reaching out he picked up the transfigured feather and handed it to her, "Not quite Emily." It still weighed just as much as the stone had. "Though I am impressed with how well the feather shape turned out. It's perfectly smooth." He stroked a finger over the feather in her palm and looked at her, "You just need to know you can do it. Does that make sense?"

[Violet Lockwood]

Violet glared at him. "Emily wasn't trying. And no, I think it sounds dumb. I can't fake to know something that I do not actually know for a fact." She sighed and dropped the feather-stone to the ground, crossing her arms and glancing around the clearing. It had gotten darker, though it wasn't terribly late in the evening yet. It just naturally got darker in the forest more quickly because of the trees. They still had a few hours of daylight left. She was frustrated though she wasn't sure why. She didn't usually get this upset over learning something new, then again, she had only ever bothered to learn things she saw as highly practical to her life. And feathers from rocks didn't feel that way. She groaned, picking up another plain rock and chucking it across the clearing as hard as she could. It struck a tree trunk and rebounded off, bouncing a few times once it hit the ground, settling in some leaves on the forest floor.

[Walden Macnair]

He rolled his eyes as she threw the rock and lay back down again next to her. "And this is why you can't keep a teacher. You need the patience to learn the basics before you can master any complex transfiguration. This is first year work." He shrugged on the ground, looking up at the darkening sky. "It's up to you whether you actually want to truly master this or if you just want to keep hitting roadblocks." He didn't have the patience to be a real teacher, especially not with someone as intelligent as Violet who he knew could pick it up in just one or two tries if she really set her mind to it.

[Violet Lockwood]

"Yeah, everything's my fault," she huffed, glaring at him angrily as he laid back down. She got up, going over and grabbing her bag and slinging it over her shoulder. "It's always just me that's all wrong. Just me screwing everything up again. Just stupid Violet causing problems for everything," she was muttering to herself by then, making her way across the little clearing, kicking at tall grass as she went. Turning around when she reached the edge, she addressed him again. "I'm going to get dinner. By all means stay here and make all the feathers you like." Without waiting for an answer, she moved into the shadows of the trees and started on her way back to the castle. However, she stopped about half way, sitting down on a tall root that was raised up out of the ground, dropping all her things beside her without a glance. Elbows on her knees, she hid her face in her hands and wished the forest would just swallow her up.

[Walden Macnair]

He heard her walk away and waited until she had left the clearing before sitting up and grabbing his cloak off the ground, shaking it off. She was overreacting to all of this, just because she couldn't get something instantly didn't mean she wasn't able to, it just meant transfiguration wasn't her strongest subject which was something she had already admitted. He didn't see why she was making such a fuss over this. Swinging his cloak around his shoulders he headed back out of the forest, slowing when he saw a spot of lightness up ahead. Stopping just within sight he realized it was Violet sitting there with her head in her hands. He knew she would have heard him approaching, and waited to see if she would react. This all seemed overly dramatic to him but after what she had been saying earlier about her childhood he wondered what else he didn't know about her past.

[Violet Lockwood]

Violet sat there for a little while, until she heard footsteps behind her, assuming that it was Walden coming out to head back to the castle as well. She waited for him to just walk past or something, but he didn't move. Instead, she picked up her stuff again and continued walking through the forest without looking backward at him. Turning right once she reached the edge of the forest, she moved down toward the edge of the lake and dropped her stuff, sitting down in the short slightly dewey grass there. Walden was free to continue to the castle without having to pass her if he didn't want to, and she could sit there and sulk as was her plan. She crossed her arms over the tops of her knees, resting her chin on her arms where they crossed.

[Walden Macnair]

Macnair walked out of the forest after her and looked around, seeing her sitting down by herself. A good friend would walk over and try to talk to her but he had never been accused of being a good friend. Shrugging his bag higher on his shoulder he headed back up to the castle. He would sit in a corner of the common room for the rest of the evening, scaring first years and watching to see when she came back. Just because he wasn't a good friend didn't mean he was planning on letting her spend the whole night out in the chill. The idea of dealing with a sick Violet was intensely unpleasant.

[Guest]

Sirius is certainly not doing anything illegal/against school rules. No sirree. Sirius is sitting quietly and... umm... taking in the beauty of the forest or nature or whatever. Which is not illegal. Because Sirius is not doing anything illegal.

[Marlene McKinnon]

Marlene doesn't really give much of a rat's arse about legal or illegal, she figures anybody wandering into the Forest should be able to handle themselves and if not... well, the Muggles might call that Natural Selection. She's prowling through the trees herself, on guard but not particularly too cautious. A cigarette dangles from the fingertips of her left hand, leaving her right free to draw her wand in a heartbeat. She spots Sirius through the trees and draws near, leaning against the trunk of a nearby tree. "Didn't expect to see anyone else in this far," she comments.

[Guest]

Sirius almost jumped in surprise, but quickly realized it was Marlene and not McGoogles or someone else stern and disapproving. "Me neither," he said dryly. "You know it's rude to sneak up on people," he stood and kicked whatever it was that I'm too lazy to think something up for away. He carefully put his wand back in his pocket and stood easy.

[Marlene McKinnon]

"Is it?" Marlene smirks. Rude might as well be her middle name, for all the consideration she has for politeness. She takes a drag of her cigarette to stop herself from snickering at Sirius' reaction to her unexpected presence. "What can I say? Not like it's possible to be totally silent in here, ain't my fault you weren't paying attention. Guess you're lucky it wasn't one of the creatures that lurk about here or whatever," she points out.

[Guest]

Sirius smirked slightly. Years of chasing an angry werewolf around had taught him not to fear the forest anymore. "You're right," he said seriously. "There's a reason the forest is forbidden. You don't know what might be creeping up on you." He grabbed a tree branch and leaned forward. "So what brings you to the big bad forest?"

[Marlene McKinnon]

"So they tell us," Marlene agrees. She thinks instead of making the Forest forbidden, they should have some damned classes in there because really, you put a big 'Forbidden' label all over something in a school of all places and you can pretty much guarantee it'll act like a beacon to students. She's only an inch or so shorter than Sirius -the heeled boots might be a factor in that, though- and when he grabs the branch and leans forward she lifts her chin, cocking an eyebrow. "Me? Looking for things to creep up on. Or things to creep up on me, whatever. You know how it is."

[Guest]

"Thrill-seeking?" Now that's something Sirius can appreciate. Mister 'I get cranky if I miss my regularly scheduled werewolf fight each month'. "I hear there are centaurs if you go in far enough. I even saw a giant spider once. Acromantula or whatever they're called. Turned out I was on the menu for that night, so whatever you do, don't go too far northwest."

[Marlene McKinnon]

"Passes the time," Marlene says with a smirk. "I dunno, it's the practical experience and all that, heaps in here to keep you on your toes. Yeah, Acromantula," she confirms, her eyes straying in a northwest direction because she's not seen them up close herself, but she wouldn't mind testing her skills against them. She's met a centaur or two, but she doesn't find much interesting about them, Marlene thinks they're all hot air and riddles. "Probably more interesting than the centaurs, though. They just like to talk a load of bollocks."

[Guest]

Sirius shrugged. "If you go looking for them, it's your funeral." The Acromantulas were probably one of the scarier things he'd seen in the forest. They were nothing compared to the Bolars, though. He took his hands off the tree and wandered away for a few steps. There were like a million things he could tell Marlene about the forest, but most of them involved things he'd seen while chasing Remus, and the rest he'd only seen because he'd been wandering around as a dog again. So that was kind of off limits. "Centaurs don't make a lot of sense, but they're generally right," he said absent-mindedly.

[Marlene McKinnon]

"If you say so," Marlene mutters, though it's obvious that despite dropping the subject she intends to go looking for a nest of Acromantula as soon as she can. Once she's done a little more research, though, because there's not much point trying to test how prepared you are to handle something if you've not actually made sure you're prepared. Unless you're talking about Bolars of course, in which case Marlene is just going to stay right the hell away.
"They're probably wrong more often than not, but it's not like they're ever gonna tell you about those times," she shrugs. "Divination, fate, star-gazing, all that stuff, what's the point of it? I say make your own damn destiny, the stars aren't there to figure your life out for you."

[Guest]

Sirius let his face go blank and gazed deeply into the stars. "Marlene McKinnon, when Saturn is in the seventh house and Mars is brightest in the sky, a great tragedy shall befall you and you will have toast with jam for breakfast. Mars never lies." He smirked and kicked a rock across the grass. Little did she know that was how Sirius got the best grade in the class on his last Divination essay.

[Marlene McKinnon]

Marlene stares at Sirius for a good five seconds, then bursts into laughter. The sudden noise seems even louder echoing through the trees and she bends over, dropping the half-smoked cigarette and clutching her arms over her stomach. "Well, shit," she grins up at Sirius, recovering, "Remind me not to get out of bed that day. Can't be bothered figuring out where that falls on a normal calendar." She straightens and grinds out the smoke with the heel of her boot. Forest fires are nobody's friend, after all. "So d'you study with the centaurs to come up with all that, or just naturally gifted?"

[Guest]

Sirius kept a straight face, or at least tried to. "All one must do to divine one's future is look up at the stars. Or down at the tea leaves. Or into the crystal ball. Or, if Googly Eyes is feeling particularly poetic, into one's own soul." He nodded solemnly. Divination is serious business. Trelawney (or at least I'm assuming it's Trelawney though tbh I think it probably isn't her but whatever) makes a point of saying something along those lines every day. "I am clearly a natural talent," Sirius insisted. "I got away with predicting death by curtain in the crystal ball last month. I am a Divination god."

[Marlene McKinnon]

IDK it's probably not Trelawney yet but let's make it her because canon is our bitch so whatever, yes? XD
Marlene chuckles. "It's a talent being so naturally full of shit, right? Well, in that class, anyway I guess. Never even considered taking it," she shrugs, because the Ravenclaw in her refuses to take a useless class just for the easy marks. "Death by curtain's a good one, though. Well, embarrassing as anything, but whatever. At least you'd be original." She taps her wand absently against the outside of her leg, looking around the clearing almost as if she's hoping something will jump out at them.

[Guest]

Yeah I though Trelawney was there for 17 or 19 years or something... WHATEVER. Also I'm a fail and I apologize because I think I failed on our last scene together too holy balls I suck I'm sorry.

Sirius nods pompously. "I'm so full of shit I can't even finish the rest of that though because I just thought about what I just said. Seriously, though, it's a great blowoff class. I just nap mostly, and when she asks me for my predictions I feed her some bullshit about the Grim." Sirius finds this hilarious, due to his resemblance to the Grim when he's in his animagus form. He frequently comes to Trelawney in hysterics, sobbing that the Grim is following him everywhere and always shows up on the full moon. She's been expecting him to kick the bucket any day now, and eventually he's just going to skive off class and have James tell him if she fainted or cried. "Stupid way to die, I think. What, are they going to strangle me or something? Utterly pointless. Nothing as bad as what the stars read for you, though." He settles back into his best Trelawney impersonation. "I fear, my child, you shall die well before your prime. A giant shall fall in love with you and, well, I'll let your imagination fill in the rest."

[Marlene McKinnon]

It's no dramas, lovely. XD I've been giving people slow replies for all of 3.0 so far. >.>

"You know, funny thing is, I reckon I've seen a big, black, Grim-lookin' thing around here a few times," Marlene says slowly. That is, of course, before her brain is completely broken by Sirius' prediction of her death. Marlene prides herself on being the girl who is prepared for anything. But that... she's not prepared for. At all. Ever. Her face slackens in horror at the gaps her imagination is disturbingly willing to fill in and Marlene laughs in that way people laugh when they are too horrified to know how to respond for a minute. Then, she thumps Sirius in the arm. "Oi, that's sick! Ugh, I'd strangle myself in your death curtain, first. You know now I'm never gonna be able to look at Hagrid the same way again, right? Because you know there's more going on there than a Swelling Charm gone wrong," she tells Sirius.

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