Big Brother, Big Sister, Big Headache (Committee)

[Angel Sheridan R6]

Angel walked dutifully about the corridors on the bright beautiful Sunday afternoon. She was a bit tired after the events from the night before, but she was sure she would be able to make it through the day. She had a splitting headache at the moment, but she was sure she’d be alright. A small committee meeting couldn’t possibly cause enough trouble to worsen the throbbing ache in Angel’s head. Last night had been a blast. She had spent the entire day with Hanson (and Carson, only she didn’t know he was there) and had so much fun. But, as with all things that involved Carson and Hanson in the same room together, the night ended in a bitter vengeful battle of words. The fight would have been much worse if the three weren’t in the Hog’s Head, and Angel had to break up the fight. Angel walked around the streets of Hogsmeade with Hanson and he bought her a bunch of sweet treats and clever gadgets from Zonko’s. Hanson told her “these things were to protect Angel in case Andrew or Carson tried any tricks with her.” Angel merely rolled her eyes but thanked him for the gift. They ran around the village, laughing and having a good time. By about six o’clock, the two were tired of walking and decided to spend a while in the Hog’s Head. Hanson favored the other pub because he said they served much better fire whiskey. Hanson was eighteen years old, and he was of age in both the muggle and wizarding worlds. Angel didn’t know why, but she didn’t protest at all when he bought her a glass of fire whiskey as well. They were holding hands under the table and Angel picked up her glass to take a sip of the mysterious liquid. Carson had appeared out of nowhere and started screaming his head off, telling her to stop.

“Don’t drink it Angel! Don’t you see what he’s trying to do?” Carson’s angered voice echoed through her head, which was throbbing worse than ever. “Hey, she can do what she wants. If she wants the drink, let her have it.” Angel could still picture Hanson getting up from his seat and stepping in front of Carson’s path. He started shoving Carson around a bit and they were both yelling their heads off. The very few people who were there stopped and stared. Angel remembered bitterly the way she had to draw her wand and create a barrier between the two fighting teenagers. If only she could do this every time they fought. “Hanson, it’s okay. Cool it. I’ll see you next weekend. Carson and I have to get back to school. We’ll miss curfew.” Angel’s own voice echoed in her own head as she turned the corner into the corridor where the Muggle Studies classroom was located. Professor Hardy had agreed to take part in Angel’s new program, and Angel had never been so thankful. Every one of her other professors had turned down the position. They said they were either too busy, or they didn’t think the program would flourish and didn’t want to invest their time in it. Hardy on the other hand, had been very excited. Jami Parson was a good friend of Angel’s, and had agreed to be the BBBS’s co-leader. He and Angel approached other professors to see if they could recommend any other students to help organize the program. Now the official BBBS committee had six members. There was Angel, Jami, Professor Hardy, Aurora, Celia, and a girl named Kiana Brightstar. Angel found the muggle studies classroom and opened the door.

What happened next did not help Angel’s headache. The second the door was opened, Angel heard about a dozen different sounds go off at once. It was almost like a burglar alarm, only it was in Hogwarts. Alarm clocks sounded, bells jingled, and a radio in the far corner played loud obnoxious rock music. Whistles blew, and Angel almost collapsed with all the sudden noises going off everywhere. She rushed to the radio to turn that off first, but it wouldn’t silence itself. Angel pressed the off button about a dozen times, and yet it still wouldn’t turn off. She rushed to the alarm clock, accidently dropping all her BBBS papers all over the floor. Angel didn’t care. She needed silence, and she needed it now. Angel let out a frustrated scream as she struggled to turn off the annoying alarm. No such luck. Angel ran back to the radio and was furiously pressing buttons when she heard someone else enter the room. She could have sworn that as the door opened once again; the sounds multiplied and grew louder, despite Angel’s attempts to bring silence to the classroom.

[cdc]

Jamison read over his Defense Against the Dark Arts chapter, again. This subject wasn’t getting any easier, that was for sure. Jamison wasn’t struggling too badly. The subject just wasn’t as easy as it once had been. Jamison sighed. He was trying at least. He spent most of his time studying. He barely had any time to see Meyghan or Wendi. Jami missed them both, but he just had to continue on with his studies. After all, he wanted to work at the Ministry of Magic. Jamison knew that if he studied extremely hard, he could get the grades that would please both him and the ministry. Seventh year was harder than Jamison could ever imagine, but he was managing. He was trying his best at least. Sadly, trying his best included spending his time studying and not with the people he cared about. It was okay. Jamison knew that Meyghan was studying as well and Wendi was busy with her new boyfriend. What was his name again? Jami couldn’t keep up. It seemed liked she got a new one every week. She was just trying to distract herself from Carr. He was the boy that she never got over and probably never would. Oh well. Maybe it was good to get her mind off of him. Maybe.

Jamison shut his book finally and stood up. After about two hours of studying, he was finally sick of it. Really, many things had distracted him. Besides that he was thinking of Meyghan and Wendi, Jamison had been interrupted by his dormmates a couple of times and his grandparents sent him a letter. His owl, Shea, simply wouldn’t be left in the cold. She insisted on Jami letting her in. So that was another distraction. And while reading the letting, Jamison got even more distracted. Apparently, Gram and Gramp were finally moving to Paris as they had always dreamed to. What did that mean? What were Jami and Wendi to do? He really had no idea. Jamison knew that they could stay in the house, but Jamison didn’t have custody of Wendi. He was supposed to be granted it, but Keith had gotten in the way of that. Yep he shouldn’t have read that letter. Big distraction. As Jamison got up to go to the Committee Meeting, he could only think of one thing.

Big Brothers Big Sister. Jamison’s friend, Angel had come up with the idea to start the program at Hogwarts. It was a mentor program where older students were paired with younger students. Jamison liked the idea from the beginning. It was a way to get the students connected and it most cases, not separated by houses through the program. Of course, some students (Slytherins mainly) insisted on being with their housemates but that was fine. At least they were participating at all. Jamison walked down the hall to the classroom. The program was a great idea. Angel was very creative, Jami had noticed. When Jamison, turned the corner, he heard the sound of many alarms going off. He ran a bit, thinking of Angel. Jamison entered the room to see Angel looking frustrated as she could not turn the alarms off. “Angel?” Jamison then got his wand out. Really, with a spell Jamison got them all of the alarms silent. “I think that will only last temporarily.” He told her. Really, Jami was sure that Professor Hardy could got them not turn off again. Jamison sighed and picked up the papers from the middle of the floor. He handed them to Angel. “You okay?” He asked. “You look flustered.”

[Celia Richmond]

Sunday afternoon, and Celia was in the library, finishing off her Charms essay. She still had her Transfiguration to do, but she could do that in the evening-she wasn't on patrol that night, so she had some free time. It'd been a hard week, with lots of work, and building up Quidditch practice, now she was on the team. Normally she found herself slightly underworked, hence why she'd decided to audition for the quidditch team, and take part in the BBBS scheme, as a committee member. The idea of the scheme was great, in Celia's opinion. It encouraged people to get to know other students in the school, and get to know other people in other years. It was also a support scheme for the younger students especially, which she thought would help them in their school lives.

Celia herself would be a big sister to some younger child, she didn't mind the age, house or gender. As long as the kid wasn't a big troublemaker that took up more of her time than necessary, she wan't too bothered. Relatively she wouldn't have as much free time now she was doing so much stuff in the first place, and she didn't want her kid to distract her from her studies too much. Yes, she'd care about whoever it was she was assigned, just her studies were her main priority. Afterall, that was what would end up controlling her future more than anything else-they would determine what job she got, hence what people she'd meet and everything else. Well, she would find a good job, provided she got good NEWT results...which she wanted, as she didn't want to let herself down.

She packed her Charms work into her bag, and made her way to the Muggle Studies classroom, which Professor Hardy had let them use for the meetings. Celia liked Hardy, especially as Muggle Studies was one of her favourite subjects. In truth, she liked all of her subjects. late-night astronomy was a challenge, but she generally coped alright. She loved her other subjects though-Runes, Charms, Transfiguration, Herbology and Muggle Studies. She was glad to be shot of DADA and History of Magic. DADA as she didn't really like the principles-safety was necessary, but DADA wasn't something she enjoyed. History, she just found dull, as the majority of students did. As for Potions...well, she was thinking of taking it as a 7th, however she got an E at OWL, so Snape didn't let her. She got Es for History and DADA too, and Os for the others.

The meeting was for the aforementioned BBBS scheme, or more specifically, the committee members. They had recently been chosen-Herself, Jami Parson, Aurora Chan, Kia Brightstar, and the leader Angel Sheridan, and this was the first time they had met officially. She assumed that the meeting would be to discuss the plans, and how to handle applications and pairings. They had to be perfect-it wouldn't be good if the paired people ended up hating their sibling, as there would be complaints, and the scheme would be closed before it had even got properly started. They would have to think long and hard about who to pair with who. But that was for the future-today would probably just be the basics.

As she opened the door, she was greeted by the sound of, well, noise. Everything in the room clanged and banged and smashed...everything imaginable...she couldn't help putting her hands to her ears. She forgot about the alarm that she was sure Hardy had mentioned at some point. She'd never experienced it, but she didn't expect it to be that loud...this was just insane! She looked at the others, wondering if they had any idea what to do...

[Aurora Chan]

“Y’know, you should join, Ari,” Aurora smiled teasingly at her cousin as they sat together in the Library. “It would be good for you, I’m sure. I can guarantee you I won’t allow you to be paired up with some psycho.”
“Thanks.” Ari replied dryly, head bent as she scribbled on some parchment her Arithmancy homework. “But no thanks.”
“Spoilt-sport.” Aurora rolled her eyes with a knowing smile, before standing up. “Well, I’ve got to go or else I’ll be late for the meeting. I’ll see you at lunch.” Ari grunted her response as her eyes continued to fix on the work in front of her. Shaking her head in amusement, Aurora left her best friend to it as she departed the Library. She had done her fair share of work; her Muggle Studies essay for one. In fact, she was heading for the Muggle Studies classroom right now, home of Professor Hardy’s lessons, where they would be holding the first Big Brothers Big Sisters meeting. Since Professor Hardy had agreed on chaperoning the five of them – Angel Sheridan, Celia Richmond, Head Boy Jamison Parson, Kia Brightstar, plus Aurora herself – the BBBS meetings were to be held there. Aurora was looking forward to it; she had heard of the scheme from Angel, a Ravenclaw in her year (as was Celia), and had been invited to join the committee which would run the program. Jamison, in the year above and also a Ravenclaw, Aurora knew less well, but he seemed like a decent guy; Kia on the other hand Aurora knew better, and their personalities worked well, she thought.

Aurora wondered how Angel had come up with the idea for BBBS in the first place as she walked briskly down the corridors. It would be a lot of hard work, Aurora knew, which was a bit silly for her to take on during the first year of her NEWTs, but she was enthusiastic about helping out, and therefore would not complain if she got overworked. If anything, Aurora kept her workload down in terms of lessons; Ari got it a lot worse than she did, but that was because the silly girl insisted on taking more subjects than the norm and working extremely hard on all of them. BBBS would involve all students in Hogwarts, from first to seventh year. The first and second years, Aurora was under the impression, would have to join the program, whilst third years and above had the choice. Fifth to seventh years would be big brothers and sisters, whereas first to fourth would be little ones. Aurora was aware that you had to pair everyone up with a suitable person; she herself had volunteered quite gladly to be a big sister, but knew she would put others before herself in the pairings, which she thought they would be discussing today.

It was a shame Ari refused to join, really, Aurora thought with an amused smile. The idea of Ari being a big sister to anyone but Harmony was quite thought provoking. This brought her on to worry about pairing Harmony up with someone; Aurora felt insecure giving her a big brother, but she also didn’t want a big sister for Harmony as she knew this would cause repercussions with Ari. Frowning to herself, Aurora made a mental note to make that problem a priority when pairings started to be discussed. She knew Harmony was willing to join in the program, and so did not want to disappointment her due to Ari’s overprotectiveness; and yet she didn’t want to hurt Ari’s feelings. Sighing, Aurora rounded the corner in the corridor towards the Muggle Studies classroom, before stepping up to the door. She was about to open it, when she could swear she heard loud noise emanating from the room. Blinking in confusion, Aurora listened for a moment, before deciding to… jump into the fray, so to speak. Pushing open the door, Aurora was met with a wash of sound, deafening clamour rising above what seemed to be Angel trying to frustratingly turn off a radio in the far corner of the room, Jamison Parson taking out his wand and Celia, looking rather dumbfounded.

Aurora shut the door behind her and was just about to go to Angel’s aid, wincing at the loud din, until Jami silenced the noises with a quick spell. Sighing in relief, Aurora watched as he picked up some papers from the floor and handed them to Angel, who looked very flustered. “Now what was that all about?” Aurora asked, a little confused as she walked over to the radio Angel had been fiddling with before. Thankfully, Muggle Studies was one of her better subjects, and she was used to the equipment in the room. Aurora calmly took care of all noise devices before smiling at the other three students. “Thanks for turning down the volume, Jamison. I’ve managed to shut everything off now, don’t worry, Angel.” Aurora flashed her fellow sixth year a sympathetic smile. “Glad to see I’m not the last one here.” She observed the absence of Kia, before heading for a chair. Aurora turned back to Angel, and frowned when she noticed her pallid features. “Are you all right, Angel? You look a bit pale.”

[Professor Amaryllis Hardy]

Amaryllis had been sitting in the staff room, marking a few third year essays. It was always amusing and interesting to see how they started off. She didn't tend to set third years many essays early on in the year, as while they were already used to writing some from their first two years of schooling (History of Magic ones where the number of key words basically counted as the number of points; Potions essays with severe dictates on length; Transfiguration where explanation of principles was key; Astronomy where accuracy was highly valued in diagrams; Charms where detail was everything - these in Amaryllis' own schoolday experiences anyway) didn't really compare to a Muggle Studies essay, which required a certain special something. That knack at explaining acquired in Transfiguration; the memory for detail needed for Charms; the love for culture supposedly cultivated in History of Magic; the fluent and concise style favoured in Potions; all of these and more combined together in a good Muggles Studies essay. Muggle Studies was regarded very much as a subsidiary subject, but its skills very much supported many other subjects and managing to get them all together at once wasn't easy. So Amaryllis liked to introduce her unsuspecting pupils to them gently, one by one, with leading questions that got them using the skills that were usually there. But now, getting towards Christmas, she wanted to give them a small test, and they needed to write an essay for homework to prepare them for the small essay question at the end of their test.

So here she was marking them. She could tell from this point (as she wasn't usually able to before now) which ones were the naturals at the essay-writing part of the course, which ones would get it with just a little work and which ones it would be a bit of a struggle for. They'd all make it in the end, though. Muggle Studies was not a subject people failed - not because Amaryllis didn't make her course difficult enough, but because she saw to it that people didn't fail who showed sufficient interest in the world that many wizards looked down upon, and in doing so kept themselves ignorant and lessened the significance of their magical power. Amaryllis wasn't a stranger to hard work, and if a deserving pupil needed that, she would give it and encourage them to reciprocate the effort. Unfortunately, there were still pupils in her class who were blind to the interest and the import of the things she was trying to tell them about. She wasn't a sufficiently good teacher to capture everyone's imagination and direct it to respect and understanding for the humans they co-habited this planet with, so that they could realise the ways in which they were unquestionably the equals of wizards, and criticise them on valid points rather than using the popularly held view of Muggles.

Actually, there would be some students making their way to the Muggle Studies classroom even this minute. Unusual on a Sunday afternoon, granted. Unfortunately it wasn't their overwhelming love of her subject that took them there (yet), but rather another exciting scheme that she was supposed to be overseeing. Not as exciting as Muggle Studies, of course, but still exciting in a different way. Still something that should help older students see those younger than themselves as sentient entities, and the youngsters see their elders as something other than monsters. The teachers would always be monsters, of course. Nothing short of a miracle could turn them into human beings. Amaryllis smiled slightly wryly to herself as she gulped down the remainder of her mug of tea in one fell swoop and stood up, picking the marked and unmarked essays up as she went and starting out of the common room. Roger was sitting by the door, staring unmovingly at her, and she gave him a disparaging look as she stopped to give him a couple of words:
"Too obvious." He was about to reply but she silenced him, not trusting him, and rifled through the essays until she came to a particular one that she handed to him. "This one's really good. Raw enthusiasm for the subject... they could become a teacher." Even that was somewhat intended to wound, but she didn't relent. She left him the essay to read, if he so pleased, and swept on past him out of the door.

She became aware of a faintly irritating wailing sound as she walked up the stairs towards the first floor corridor on which the Muggle Studies classroom was located. It seemed to be getting louder as she approached her classroom, which was convenient because it meant that she could investigate it and still go in the right direction. It wasn't until she got quite a bit closer that she heard an aggressive drum beat mixed in with the rest of the noise, and it was at this point that she realised the noise was coming from her own classroom. She began to hurry, feeling sorry for whoever was in there and had set off the alarm system - even if it was someone with bad intentions, they probably still didn't deserve the ear-splitting concoction of noise. But no sooner had she picked up her pace than the noise stopped altogether. This didn't deter her from her speed; if anything, she began to go faster, still walking but yet so fast that she would have had to break into a run to go any faster. She opened the door to the classroom and was instantly hit by a wall of noise, the system incensed again by someone else entering its lair. But it wasn't as loud as it should have been. Something was missing... the Bach that her record player normally projected with great pride amongst the cacophony wasn't playing. Amaryllis frowned and hit one button on the wall, hidden behind the door, causing the noise to cease. She took in the students present one by one. All were here save for Kia.

"How many of you here do Muggle Studies?" she asked, sounding slightly critical as she counted them up one by one. Celia and Aurora were both keen students, probably slightly more so than Angel in her particular subject. But Angel had always been very courteous and polite, so Amaryllis held her in high esteem and wouldn't have wanted to see this project stall simply because there wasn't a teacher who would condone it. Now Amaryllis seemed a litle put out, stemming from a slight fear she had for her precious record player. Still, it was with good humour that she said, "I must have failed to teach you that the best place to deal with something is at its source." She pointed to the makeshift button that she'd pressed on the wall. "That's the source... all the alarm clocks and radios are just following its instructions. So if you turn that off, they all follow." She smiled a little and went over to her record player. "I set this up for a NEWTs class, actually. I'd intended to pop back and turn it all off before you were exposed to it. It's supposed to be a demonstration of how a Muggle burglar alarm works. So you'll know how to break into my classroom after the next lesson." She grinned, looking round at the students, and then opened up her record player and looked at it in woe.

"Who used Silencio, though?" she asked. "No, don't tell me... it doesn't matter. But it's never a good idea to use magic on Muggle devices. They're not quite as robust against magic as you might think... Silencio can work in different ways, you see - usually what takes the least effort. Either it can stop the vibrations from carrying... sometimes you even create a small vacuum when you cast it - I told you what a vacuum was when we were talking about how a vacuum cleaner worked, yes? - or else it can stop the noise simply by stopping the vibrations from being made. When it does the latter in a record player and opposes the spin of the record, that can wreak havoc..."
She lifted the broken arm of the the record player gently off the record and lifted the black disc off. It didn't seem too damaged, but it was scratched in a few places and that was a big shame.
"No matter." she said, convincing herself as much as the students to whom it probably didn't matter a greal deal. "I can fix the record player for sure, and the Bach might just be made a little... jazzier."

Amaryllis left the record player now and used her wand to move a couple of tables into a square. The most comfy chairs that the classroom possessed drew themselves up, waiting for occupants.
"Please, sit down," she said, gesturing to the chairs as she looked at the students, who were nearly all still standing up looking a bit shellshocked after their traumatic experience trying to get into her classroom. "It's just Kiana Brightstar that we're waiting for now, am I correct?" she asked, as she took a seat herself and put the papers she'd been carrying down on her front desk.

[Kia Brightstar]

((I'm so sorry that I've kept everyone waiting. The exams are keeping me ridiculously busy. ))

It was time to let go, Kia convinced herself. Keeping herself in the unhappy state that she had entrapped herself in for months wasn’t helping anyone, least of all her. Still, it wasn’t like she didn’t have a reason for it. Kae had woken up, finally, but Kia hadn’t found out about it until her little sister had left again. It had been the shock of the entire thing, Adam had assured her in his letter, not because she felt that Kia had let her down. The fact that Adam had gone with her, had had guardianship of Kaelyn since her tenth birthday and had used it to get them both to America without even telling her...yeah, that was a lot harder to let go of. Her most trusted people had betrayed her and she hadn’t even suspected it. They wouldn’t look at it as betrayal, Kia knew that. It was, as Adam had been so fond of saying, in the best interests of everyone involved. She hadn’t told Maryn or Ciaran about it though, hadn’t had the chance to. Before she had come to terms with the disappearance of her sister and cousin, Ciaran had announced something of his own. He was leaving too. She had kissed him then, hesitated for a second at his look of shock and then played it off as a friendly action. She had at least given him some of her feelings, leaving her feeling less hurt than if she had bottled everything up inside.

She was going to be late! Kia glanced at the clock and cursed, feeling the emotions confusing her mind settle peacefully as she set the two letters on fire. Letters that she had agonised over for hours. One for Kae and Adam, spilling out her hurt and anger and betrayal in a way that she could never have done to their faces. One for Ciaran, telling him that she loved him and hated him for leaving before she was strong enough to tell him about how strongly she felt for him. Both pieces of parchment were littered with tearstains and blotted ink stains. After watching the letters turn to ash, she was able to walk out without feeling the need to look behind her even once.

“I’m so sorry that I’m late,” Kia gasped out a few minutes later, standing in the doorway to the classroom and breathing deeply to regain the breath she had lost on her dash from the common room to the Muggle Studies classroom. She had let go of the past that haunted her, but she still was the same old Kia. She didn’t really know anyone there, but when had that ever stopped her? Cheerfully, Kia chose a seat near Aurora and smiled sheepishly. “I guess I lost track of time again. I hope I didn’t keep you waiting for long.”