Lions, Tigers and Bears ( Melody)

[Cassandra Blackfire G7]

( I am so sorry Melody! I know I have screwed up this post so many times you must think I am a spaz. I apologize greatly and am trying to make this one a good one for you!)


Cassandra sat in front of the table in the common room with a very contorted face. She had been pouring potion ingredients in the cauldron for an hour, but with little success. Trying to do a simple boil cure, she was beginning to realize that potions was just not her thing. Sighing at the cauldron, she listened to it boil. The boiling almost sounded like a mocking laugh. It was taunting her, daring her to add one more piece of rat's spleen, or another ounce of beetle's eyes. Then, it would explode on her and splatter the walls. In the wake of the explosion, it would probably turn her skin green and make her nose slide off her face.

Sighing once again, she tapped her wand on the bowl, and said, " Eva-.....MY WAND!" Looking down at her pride and joy, she had watched as some of the disgusting liquid had splashed out of its container and landed on the shiny wood. It began to fizzle, and a bit of smoke began to exude from the area. Her wand, her father's wand, suddenly snapped in half. It was like something in a cartoon. The wand tip hung on by a thread, like Sir Nick's head to his body.

Cassandra's lip began to quiver. This was one of the things she had treasured most in life. Her father's wand. What was she going to do now?! I mean, she could afford to buy one, but how could she replace her father's wand? It had worked so well for her too. She knew you could never get the same effect out of someone's else's, but it made her feel as if she still had a connection with her father. Looking around the common room, she noticed that no one was around. Plopping down on the nearby couch, she cradled the broken piece of wood like a pet and decided to have herself a good cry.

[Melody Bang-Bala G6]

Melody jumped grumpily down the last step from the girls' dormitories. It was just impossible. She had been revising Potions. It had defeated her. She didn't want to take the exam. She usually did all right in exams, without having to do all that much revision, but her Potions notes simply weren't up to scratch, she hated the practical lessons and most of all she hated Snoopus the teacher. He probably hated her too for being a Gryffindor, but the feeling was mutual. She was feeling most dissatisfied, moodily humming the opening to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. A strange smell caught her nostrils, and she looked over to the part of the room where it was coming from. A girl a bit older than her was bent over on a seat near a cauldron, looking tired and a little more fed up than Melody felt. In fact, it looked as though she were crying.

Melody opened a window to relieve the room some of the rather nasty stench coming off from the cauldron. Outside, people were revising as well, but some of them were having a good time running around barefoot. Melody envied them. Why couldn't she go and join them? Well, actually, she probably could, save for the fact that there was another person in the room and that someone was crying. There was no one else in the room, so it was up to Melody to deal with it. She couldn't exactly leave someone there crying, even if she did thrive on happy energy and not on down in the dumps emotions. Melody walked over to where the girl was sitting, not looking forward to having to comfort her but doing it all the same. Comforting wasn't her forte but she'd give it her best shot.
"Ey," she said quietly, sitting down next to the girl so that she could extend a comforting arm if need be. "Ey, ey, what's t'matter? I'm sure yer can nae deny yer dun look all that 'appy. C'mon, what's going on?"

[Cassandra Blackfire G7]

Cassie lifted her head from her hands as she heard a very thick accent come from behind. Wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, she looked up to see a Gryffindor she had never noticed before. It was a younger student, and even though she hated to admit this, she never really noticed the younger students. Composing herself a bit, she looked at the girl who was trying to console her. " Nothing really. Stupid wand. It finally broke." The short sentences were masking the pain she held inside. It was her father's wand. Something her mother had just recently told her about. She was very close to her father, and now that he was dead it was very hard to part with anything that used to be is.

Walking toward the cauldron, she began to clean up the potion. She pulled on a pair of dragon hide gloves that laid nearby. She emptied the cauldron in a special trash bin for such things. Finding a package of spell-o-tape, she began to wind it around her broken wand. " I know this won't hold it together, but it's better than nothing. I will have to get to Diagon as soon as I can to buy a new. It was just that it was my....father's... wand." She broke down in tears again.