Beginner Concert Group (same day as "trio of secrets") on Magical Arts Room and Sports

Professor Pye

September 06, 2015 6:06 PM

Beginner Concert Group (same day as "trio of secrets") by Professor Pye

When Alfie had told the other professors he would take charge of the beginner’s concert group for the end of the year event he was certain many of them would be skeptical that he would be able to make it fun. Indeed, the next day when he had woken up with a clear mind he could believe that he had volunteered himself like that without being forced or prompted to by his father or someone else with an unnatural interest in Alfie personal progress of socialization. Today, the day he had set for the first meeting of the group, he realized that once upon a time he might have actually leapt at the chance to participate in something like this. Certainly back at Hogwarts he had always been the friend to leap at the idea of hamming it up in front of the school. But things had changed since then and over the years he had become some what less reckless and quite a bit more stoic. There were moments in which he still felt like a newly minted 17-year-old (these times were, most notably, his instances of casual hook-ups), but on the whole he liked to think he had outgrown his careless youth phase.

Now he was older—twenty-seven, to be exact—and that meant that he was an actual grown-up adult in charge of younger years who likely were already not to fond of him for his rather strict approach to teaching. Which, to be quite frank, was something that perplexed Alfie. Sure he sometimes set them assignments that were trying on their delicate nerves or whathaveyou, but he thought his lessons were fun. Since he didn’t like lecturing he rarely wasted time on it, spending perhaps a total of about half a class per week going over book material and using the other four and a half days to teach them with the hands-on method. Every week brought new spells for them to practice on each other or (for the more dangerous ones) practice dummies that Alfie had specifically refurbished and charmed to match the level of the individual that was currently casting the spell. He still asked those who were visibly struggling in his class to stay behind after hours or come in during their free time so he could work with them to perfect their spells, but that was less because he cared about the mark they got and more about the efficiency they would be able to protect themselves outside of the classroom.

It was this that somehow convinced him that if he were to require something of their outside of class then he really ought to give them back something of his. Which had resulted in Alfie neglecting to go out on friday night so that saturday morning he would be well-rested and on a full stomach before having to work with a group of excitable first and second years who still had yet to have their views on the world corrupted. He had given signs to the other head of houses to post in their common room telling the beginner students that they would be meeting that saturday at 10 in the morning in the MARS lounge area, and he had even gone on to announce at the beginning of each of his beginners defense classes that week so that no beginner student who wanted to participate in the concert would be left out.

Furthermore, even though the meeting was shortly after breakfast, Alfie had arranged with the praire elves to supply him with a couple pitchers of pumpkin juice and some healthy snacks (a bowl of carrot sticks and celery and two bowls of grapes, plus a small dish of hummus for the vegetables to be dipped in) for the event. He figured that pre-teens were always hungry and he would rather have them eat fruits and vegetables that he wasn’t sure they’d be intaking otherwise when left to their own devices when dinners, lunches, and breakfasts offered other more appealing treats like sweet bread or chips or burgers. At the last moment he had also attained some pita since it would provide a contrast to the hard carrots, crisp celery, and sweet grapes.

The extent to which he was preparing for this simple meeting kind of frightened him. He felt utterly domestic and he wasn’t too sure what his opinion on that was. He had even arrived early for Merlin’s sake! Though he was glad that he had now, because someone had used red paint to write a horrible secret across the hallway that the MARS room was in. Something quite awful about one of the girls dorm rooms and Alfie was now frantically pacing around. What sort of mood would the students be in now that they had seen it? He supposed he could have just vanished the message before the students could arrive and see it, but he didn’t know if any of the other professors had seen it yet or not and he felt an obligation to alert the Headmaster and Deputy Headmistress to the newest salacious graffiti and he wanted to show them the message in person since this particular one was especially nasty and more targeted than others. The effect of the dripping red paint was also kind of sinister in a faux blood type way and it kind of unnerved Alfie. Though he was not the squeamish sort, nearly seven years in the Auror business had not prepared him for the hard hitting gossipy world of teenagers and he was having a hard time wrapping his mind around the fact that someone would care this much about the population of the school to randomly target a many people as possible by publicly sharing thing that the victims could obviously want to keep to themselves.

When all the students had gathered together, Alfie cleared his throat. “To start off, I would like to apologize for any of you who might have seen the graffiti in the hallway. I just want you to know that I will not be tolerating any sort of gossip on that front today, someone is obviously trying to get into people’s heads and the best way to keep them from winning is to not let them see that it gets to you.” There, was that caring enough? Alfie wasn’t really sure so he continued, putting himself out there on a limb. “And, er, if any of you are needing to, um, speak to someone about this, er, that is to say, um, I guess my office is always open?” It was a genuine offer and though the earnest and sympathy was clear on his face, the discomfort at trying out a new role was probably just as evident in his facial expressions in his voice and Alfie felt extremely awkward offering his services like this and so he raised a hand, running it through his dark brown locks before drawing it back down his stubbled face and clearing his throat again.

“So, that being said, I suppose we ought to start this meeting off then? I assume you all know each other from being in classes together for over half a year now, but please, help yourself to the snacks and juice, I know you’re probably not hungry because breakfast just ended but I didn’t want you to get hungry just in case and I suppose I ought to also have picked up cookies or something else like that but fruits and vegetables can be yummy too, I promise!” He was rambling now and an uncharacteristic blush rose to his cheeks. Alfie was not used to being the nice, caring teacher. He was the gruff teacher who was probably a little more strict than necessary but was so because he cared. This, this was entirely new, uncharted territory for him. “Um, maybe we could all find seats now and go around sharing ideas?” He waved his wand, conjuring up a large piece of paper on a stand and he pulled out a marker to write down notes on what the students would suggest for their group to do.

“After we get all the ideas down, we can vote. So, um, why don’t we start with you?” He gestured in a general direction, hoping that the student he had pointed at had an idea. “And it’s okay to say pass,” he added quickly. “This isn’t class.”

Subthreads:

Prepare to be SHOCKED! (I was!) by Sammy Meeks

10 Professor Pye Beginner Concert Group (same day as "trio of secrets") 30 Professor Pye 1 5

Sammy Meeks

September 23, 2015 5:24 PM

Prepare to be SHOCKED! (I was!) by Sammy Meeks

So the thing about Professor “I-hate-you-and-everything-nice-in-the-world-probably-including” Pie was that, as his totally legit nickname suggested, he was a huge grump. Sammy was not crazy fond of the guy. She was actually pretty surprised when he turned out to be the one helping out with the Beginners’ concert group, especially since it was probably an entirely voluntary position--unless Headman Brockert had selected Professor Pye out of a spiteful, dark sense of humor, which was also actually entirely possible.

Sammy was even more surprised by how, like, nice and junk he seemed today. Was this the same Professor Pye? Like, had his body been snatched by aliens of niceness out of pity for the poor first and second years who had generously given their time to provide an enjoyable concert for their peers? Or was he just on drugs? Anything was possible with magic, honestly.

He gestured to a student at random to begin sharing ideas, and as luck would have it, Sammy was selected. And while Professor Pye said it “wasn’t class” and they could just pass, she didn’t really want to start the meeting off on that sort of I dunno, what do you wanna do?-esque path that could be comical in Disney movies (looking at you, vultures from Jungle Book) but sucked and was generally unproductive in real life.

“Okay, so, like, picture this,” Sammy stalled, her hands forward like a movie producer spelling out his next blockbuster hit. “Just, like, y’know, picture this.” She scanned her mind as quickly as possible. What could seven girls do that would take up a third of a concert? Think, think, think…

“A fashion show!”

WHAT?!

12 Sammy Meeks Prepare to be SHOCKED! (I was!) 310 Sammy Meeks 0 5

Ginger Pierce

September 23, 2015 7:44 PM

Dutifully shocked. by Ginger Pierce

Ginger stared at the red paint on the wall and felt a surge of something that passed too quickly to identify, this was followed immediately by both anger and guilt. Anger because the mean old sour grape had struck again. Guilt because her House and Year group fit the criteria of three girls sharing a room described in the message and her first thought was that 'the odd one out' was Lauren. She dismissed the possibility that this particular secret was about them almost immediately. So far as she knew, she and Jemima were always themselves. And if Lauren was an odd one out, and that wasn't just Ginger's own unfounded worry, they would just need to work harder at including her.

Still, Ginger was starting to feel a bit persecuted. The first engraving in the Hall door hadn't had much to do with her, but she'd gotten caught up in the mess with all the other Gs and As in the school after the second carving. She hadn't seen the one in the Transfiguration room, but if rumor was to be believed, it had something to do with 'real' parents that didn't quite apply to her and her biological father but could have if she'd ever had any contact with him and he was as muggle-y muggle as she assumed he was. Then the one in Teppenpaw hadn't really had anything to do with her either (she hoped), but she'd still earned a week's worth of chores out of it anyway for her retaliation. She'd heard there'd been something else in the CoMC room, between the common room messages and this instance, but she hadn't caught all the details; something about loneliness, so she was pretty sure that one at least was not for her, even indirectly. And now there was this one about a trio of female roommates.

It occurred to her that maybe she was reacting a little too much to things that didn't actually concern her, and that was probably what the sour grape was trying to achieve, but she wasn't sure how to stop doing it.

Fortunately, that particular dilemma was solved for her by entering the room designated for the beginner concert group. Professor Pye was running things, which had dismayed her when she’d first learned he would be their advisor, because he was such a stick-in-the-mud stickler in class, but when she arrived in the MARS lounge he seemed actually quite human and even almost nervous, which was startling enough that she kept her own concerns limited an anxious glance in Jemima’s direction to see if her roommate seemed as agitated about the message as Ginger had been. Mostly, though, she was sending sideways looks at the professor, trying to figure out if Pye’s usual classroom manner was an act, or if this more casual, stuttering, and rambling character he was now portraying was the false one. Surely they couldn’t both be genuine, could they?

And the Sammy Meeks - who, admittedly, Ginger did not know as well as she wanted to - made a suggestion that Ginger felt was not a normal Sammy-like suggestion.

For one moment, Ginger wondered if something weird was going on to make people act out of character - a spell, a potion, some kind of psychological reaction to the sour grape’s handiwork - but then her brain actually processed Sammy’s suggestion as a concert act idea.

Ginger laughed and clapped her hands, eyes lighting up in excitement and, at least temporarily, forgetting all about the trouble the sour grape was creating. “I love the fashion show idea!” It was completely different from any of the kinds of acts her family did. While she’d been expecting to do something familiar in the concert, as the California Pierces had most of the performance bases covered and she was pretty decent in most of them, trying something different and new was even better!

“So if we did that, would we all model one outfit we like or would we all work together to make a bunch of outfits and just have a couple of models alternating down the walkway?”

1 Ginger Pierce Dutifully shocked. 302 Ginger Pierce 0 5

Gia Donovan

September 23, 2015 7:51 PM

Is absolutely speechless. by Gia Donovan

Gia had decided to join the concert group not because she felt she had anything of value to contribute to the group, but because she wanted to get to know more people and make more friends. She was rather happy, however, to see that her best friend in all of her life (Gia had never been at a place long enough to really make any friends) had decided to join the group as well. Even though she wanted to make new friends, she was never bothered by having a safe companion nearby too especially since she did not have her brother here to rely on.

When she had reached the MARS room area, Gia had paused only for a moment to read what had been written there. By now, these random acts of vandalism were not new and so Gia didn’t really take much of them into account. So far, there was only one that had indirectly affected her due to her initial, but that had been resolved quickly enough and she had forgotten all about it. Looking at this one, it involved a group of female roommates. Since Gia knew that her secret was not her own and therefore, not one that she had shared, she was not involved in this and she doubted Sammy was hiding anything either.

Gia left the message alone and took her seat in the MARS room with Professor Pye. She was still on the fence regarding the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. She liked his classes because she felt like she was learning everything that she should be learning in regards to the Dark Arts, but he also seemed rather aggressive about it and she couldn’t really understand why that was. Gia loved learning about Dark Arts. Not because she wanted any part in them, but because she wanted to be able to identify and defend against it. After what happened, she wanted to prevent it from happening ever again. And, as they say, the best defense was a great offense.

She listened to him in a half surprised, half amused way as he rambled on. She expected some sort of notice regarding the graffiti, but then he just kept talking about the food and she had the thought that he was nervous. It seemed like an odd thought to have for a Professor to be nervous just talking to his students, so it must have been something else.

They finally started the rounds of ideas and Gia found herself panicking. She hadn’t even thought of ideas! What was she supposed to say? She didn’t know how to do anything like play an instrument! She liked to sing when she was in the shower or danced by herself when she was in her dorm room, but that was about all she did and she wasn’t very good at it. She could sew and she could cook soup but neither of those things were very helpful.

As she wracked her brain for something to say, Gia heard someone suggest ‘fashion show’ and found the voice oddly familiar. Looking around, she saw that it was Sammy who said it. Sammy. Her best friend and sports fanatic. Sammy.

But then Ginger seconded the idea and Gia didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know a thing about fashion. Her clothes were handmade by her mother. Gia only knew how to sew in order to help her mother with it. She didn’t design anything. She just worked with what she was given and she certainly wasn’t pretty enough to model anything in front of a crowd of people.

She realized that she was after Ginger and feeling confused and uncertain, she added, “uh… I can sew?” She mumbled quietly.

6 Gia Donovan Is absolutely speechless. 308 Gia Donovan 0 5

Jemima Wolseithcrafte

September 25, 2015 5:15 AM

Has a surprising amount to say by Jemima Wolseithcrafte

Jemima was excited for the concert meeting. She was a little apprehensive that Professor Pye was going to be in charge because he didn’t really seem like a very happy or enthusiastic person. She hoped he was in charge in a ‘you’re too young to get on with things or work by yourselves’ way rather than a ‘coming up with ideas and telling you what to do way.’ She couldn’t help but think that the latter would be a little like allowing Theodore to write a musical. It would probably end up being about chess or logical fallacies or something, and have all the inherent joy sucked out of it.

On which note, her own happy concert bubble burst as she saw the horrible graffiti on the MARS wall. Three girls…She didn’t have any secrets (not really, not unless you counted setting up Jay and Francesca) but it was still a mean thing to say about anyone, and she was worried about Ginger or Lauren thinking she’d lied to them. As she entered the concert room, Professor Pye made it quite clear the matter was not to be discussed, which meant she couldn’t even make sure with Ginger in case she got told off for gossiping. As he made the rest of his speech, she made desperate, wide-eyed ‘it’s not me’ signals, which Ginger luckily looked up and caught, and hopefully interpreted correctly.

Once that was completed, she had time to notice how oddly nice Professor Pye was being. She helped herself to some juice because it seemed polite when he had made the effort, and smiled at him. It didn’t seem like his normal nature, but she appreciated the effort all the more for it.

She was glad he didn’t pick her to go first, as she’d really only signed up to paint scenery. However, as the rest of the girls discussed the idea of a fashion show, she found herself increasingly interested.

“I think it’s a really great idea, and we could have as many outfits and models as we have people who want to do those jobs. I don’t really know how to design clothes but I once saw an art exhibition where they’d made clothes out of things that were going to be thrown away. Not icky rubbish but things like old magazines, and that would make it more like a craft project, which I can do and I know Ginger’s good at too. Though, of course we could have some bits that were made with fabric, to use Gia’s talents too,” she added, smiling at the other girl.

13 Jemima Wolseithcrafte Has a surprising amount to say 304 Jemima Wolseithcrafte 0 5

Sammy

September 27, 2015 4:03 AM

And it's going surprisingly well. by Sammy

In her quest to find something girls liked, Sammy forgot an important detail: more often than not, “stuff girls liked” was not stuff that she liked. Some of the other girls looked rather surprised to hear such a suggestion come from her (two years was enough time in a small school like this for literally everyone to figure out that she was a capital “t” Tomboy), and she could hardly blame them. It was how she actually felt herself.

But people seemed genuinely into the idea, so she definitely couldn’t take it back. Although honestly, she wasn’t too sure she wanted to, which was also a surprise to her. Sammy tried to play it off to herself as just liking the attention and the glory of being the one to have come up with a popular idea, but even beyond that, she thought that maybe, just maybe, she was, like, actually… excited.

“We should probably try to have as many outfits ready as possible,” Sammy noted with a nod. “Making clothes out of not-clothes stuff sounds really cool though, so let’s do some of those and some regular materials. Do we want some people to make and some to model, though? Because I think we’d probably get more done if everybody does everything. Unless some people are, like, super opposed to actually going up on stage and don’t wanna model.”

The Pecari could hardly believe she had this much to say on the topic. And before this, she would have never imagined even caring about an outfit, but even as she spoke, she had ideas popping into her head, and she pictured herself squirreled away in her dorm later with a notebook, a pencil, and a tiny, questioning voice in her head wondering who the heck was doodling dresses.

12 Sammy And it's going surprisingly well. 310 Sammy 0 5

Caelia Lucan

September 27, 2015 11:54 PM

For some, perhaps. by Caelia Lucan

Caelia stared at Sammy incredulously as she began to take charge on the fashion project. Or, rather, she would have if she knew what that word meant. In reality she was just looking at Sammy with a dumb look on her face, completely confused, wondering who had swapped bodies with her and why. Her Pecari roommate was exactly the sort of girl Grandmother Viviane had warned her away from—the rough and tumble sort who played with the boys and didn’t care for dresses and other pretty things like Caelia did. However…this rough and tumble sort had actually suggested a fashion show and Caelia wanted to scream. It was such a good idea too, the perfect thing for a group of young ladies to pull off. She remembered her grandmother having organized several “for charity” fashion shows before and knew Grandmother Viviane would approve of their part in the concert for certain if she felt well enough to come.

“I can embroider some,” she offered, remembering that her grandmother had insisted upon teaching her since being able to stitch pretty patterns onto plain white muslin cloth squares was something proper witches were supposed to know how to do. “I’ve never made a whole dress or anything but I can do details.” She wasn’t sure she could figure out a pattern. That was much too hard—she would have to learn how to do measurements and cut things out properly and put figures together and all that sort of thing, but if someone wanted daffodils on their skirt she was sure she could put some nice yellow ones on there for them.

And then Jemima Wolseithcrafte had suggested they made the clothes out of non-cloth material. Hold on, what? Jemima, though she hung out with Lauren Song and Ginger Pierce, was also good friends with Owen Brockert, and her older siblings were definitely of the respectable sort even if her younger sister played on the Quidditch team. Caelia couldn’t believe her ears as Sammy backed up Jemima’s idea and Caelia could only find herself nodding along to the whole situation. She didn’t want to take part so much now that the clothes they were going to put together were going to quite certainly be…what was the word Emrys had taught her yesterday? Gaudy.

However, it wasn’t proper to outright contradict others and she hadn’t quite mastered the ability to quietly shoot down ideas and so instead she kept her mouth shut except to smile and say “yes, I think those are all wonderful ideas.” Signing up for the concert was something that she had once been so excited to do! But Emrys wasn’t in the group and Kelsey and Kira weren’t in the group, and there were only two other purebloods besides herself there and Caelia didn’t know how she felt about either one of them. She picked up one of her blonder curls and twisted in nervously.

10 Caelia Lucan For some, perhaps. 307 Caelia Lucan 0 5

Laila Kennedy

September 28, 2015 12:19 AM

I don't know, I'm liking it... by Laila Kennedy

Laila had been kind of worried about joining the concert group all by herself, especially seeing as there was only one other first year on the list. And then, when she arrived there was another one of those nasty messages up in the hallway and in the room, Professor Pye was there with snacks and a stern word against gossips and vandals but a kind word for those who were traumatized by anything the vandal had done. Which, while it surprised Laila, also somewhat comforted her.

She was a firm believer in the “people can change” idea and it seemed as though right before her eyes Professor Pye was showing that he was one of those people. Underneath his rough exterior he was really just a nice guy. Laila smiled extra at him and put some food on a plate even though she wasn’t hungry to be nice to him. She wouldn’t let it go to waste since Mamma always said that was a sin, but she would nibble at it and then take it back to her dorm to snack on while she did homework later.

As the older girls went around and shared their ideas for the concert, Laila kept quiet. She thought a fashion show sounded nice. She certainly did love to dress up and have people tell her she looked nice afterwords—there was something comforting about receiving compliments and so she nodded along until it came to be her turn to talk.

“That recycled material ideas is so cool!” She added, already thinking of the non-cloth things they could make clothes out of. It kind of reminded her of those ABC parties her dad and uncles would sometimes talk about from their college days when the students came up with costumes to wear out of Anything But Clothes. He had never shown her any pictures of the events, claiming that he’d never taken any, but the idea of having an ABC runway was a fun one for her.

“I overheard my dad and my uncles talk about this ABC party they went to when they were in college, and to get in you had to be wearing an outfit made out of Anything But Clothes, so we could call our part of the concert the ABC Runway or something like that.” She shrugged as if to dismiss her idea. She didn’t know if the others would like it and she didn’t want them to feel bad saying so if they didn’t. “I don’t know, it would be kind of cool because it combines how we’re making our clothes for the runway but also we’re at a school and you learn the ‘ABC’s in schools…”

She trailed off and offered a hopeful smile to the others.

10 Laila Kennedy I don't know, I'm liking it... 318 Laila Kennedy 0 5