System
July 15, 2022 1:55 AM
Selina Skies
July 15, 2022 1:55 AM
Team Challenge Meet and Greet by Selina Skies
Selina did her best to keep an ear on what the students of Sonora were talking about, and the challenges certainly seemed a popular topic. The name plus some application of common sense was, apparently, not enough to adequately conjure up what they might be in for (no, there was not going to be mortal peril…. No, they weren’t going to throw the first years into something that was utterly impossible for them to do), and as well as giving the teams a chance to meet and greet today, she felt obliged to expand a little on the Headmaster’s… enigmatic remarks.“Good morning,” she smiled, one Saturday when all the students had been requested to remain or assemble after lunch. “We will shortly be posting the team challenge lists for this year. If I could ask you to stand in the middle for now, the prairie elves are going to rearrange the tables with one for each team. Teams will be captained by a seventh year, so please look out for your name and number and make your way to the appropriate table.
“Whilst we wait for that to happen, a little more about the challenges,” she said, as the prairie elves dismissed the large house tables, replacing them with nine smaller ones. Each had seven or eight chairs around it, a team number and a seventh year’s name displayed in glowing letters above it, and a small selection of juices and snacks, even though lunch had just finished. “The challenges are something we do once per cycle of students, so whilst some people here may have friends or relatives who remember them, no one here has done them before—and this will also be your one and only time doing them. They are designed to create connections with people you might not otherwise have a chance to work with, and as such we have done our best to mix you up across ages groups, houses, and other variables,” - namely, splitting apart any obvious couples or friendship groups, though that sounded too cruel if spelt out so directly. “The challenges are designed to be accessible to a wide range of skill levels, and whilst each challenge will vary, there will often be an element such as every team member having to make a contribution in order for the team to be counted as successful. Therefore all team members, regardless of year, will have the opportunity - and the expectation upon them - to contribute to their group’s success.
“Today, you ca get to know your team, and start planning out some overall strategy—there are some suggested questions on each table.” These dealt with things like strengths, weaknesses, situations each student would be (un)comfortable taking a lead in, and any phobias. Whether or not the teams choose to use these talking points was up to them, and how thoroughly they would strategise based off it was anyone’s guess, but it gave them all an equal point from which to start.
“You may now find your team,” she added, waving her wand. In smaller letters, but still bright and visible, each team’s members appeared under their captain’s name at the relevant table.
OOC: Team 1:
Morgan
Wally
Oz
Iris
Patience
Piper
Eris
Team 2:
Mara
Stanley
Lavender
Gus
Amethyst
Yarielis
Lenny
Team 3:
Gabriel
Graham
Tommy
Rae
Philip
Olaf
Robyn
Team 4:
Alexander P-B
Bertie
Billy
Alexei
Christopher
Cole
Freya
Team 5:
Esme
Quincy
Rosalynn
Connie
Verdillia
Xander
Nausicaa
Team 6:
Sadie
Bonabelle
Isla
Hans
Eben
Gwendolyn
Lyla
Team 7:
Leonor
Valentine
Lorena
Lydia
Tissena
Levi
Xarryn
Amariah
Team 8:
Mab
Jasper
Henry
Xavier
Liesl
Fortune
Alexander W
Team 9:
Theo
Philippe
Ian
Winston
Claire
Samara
Lazarus
Subthreads: Team 3 with System, Olaf Brockert, Phil Carson, Robyn Lundstrom, Tommy Jamison, Gabriel Wilson
Team 1 with System, Wally O'Malley, Iris Cobb, Oz Spellman
Team 2 with System, Yaniel Ayala Velez, Lavender Brockert
Team 4 with System, Bertie Jackson, Cole Pierce, Christopher Brockert
Team 5 with System, Constance Melcher, Esme Brockert, Verdillia Scurlock
Team 6 with System, Sadie-Lake Chalmers, Hansel Hexenmeister, Lyla Holland
Team 7 with System, Valentine Duell, Xarryn Bavol, Leviosa Scurlock, Lorena Abernathy
Team 8 with System, Mab, Xavier Lundstrom, Fortune Ardovini, Liesl Brockert
Team 9 with System, Theo Spurn, Philippe Delachene, Lazarus Jareau-Fletcher, Ian Malone
13
Selina Skies
Team Challenge Meet and Greet
26
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Olaf Brockert
July 22, 2022 1:06 PM
*scowls* by Olaf Brockert
Olaf scowled. He was less than happy about this whole Team Challenge thing as it would seriously cut into his reading time. It was one thing with classes, because that was learning something which was something the Aladren did actually like. This, however, was really going to suck. Who knew what sort of Challenges they’d have to be put through?As in what sort of sadistic torture would the staff come up with? When Allegra and his older cousins had done this, he remembered that they’d had an obstacle course and a survival challenge. Neither of those sounded like much more fun to him than they had to his older sister albeit for probably different reasons. It didn’t sound like something that would be traumatic to Olaf per se, just…unpleasant. And irritating. Not to mention that even if a Challenge involved something that the first year wouldn’t hate, he was still being forced to spend time with people. Yech.
To make matters worse, his sisters seemed…happy about this whole thing. Esme seemed like she’d really been looking forward to leading a team and had been since she figured it out that she would be doing so. Of course, Olaf could see that it would be her last chance for glory since she had not gotten prefect or Head Girl. As for Isla, she had a tendency to be positive about most things. If it weren’t for the fact that there were other people in their family that were quite different from each other, it would be honestly hard to believe they were even related at times, let alone siblings. The Aladren, for his part, was doing his very best to remind the two of them that Allegra had found the whole experience traumatic and that it might not go well for them either. Olaf was a realist after all.
He listened to Deputy Headmistress Skies give the introduction, rolling his eyes. All this…nonsense about connections with random people that he’d otherwise never speak to. Okay, yes, the pureblood world was full of that, and it was seriously annoying. Olaf had very little desire to connect with others, thank you very much. He was already going to be forced to do it most of his life, he didn’t want to do it now too.
The Aladren also doubted he’d actually bond with or become friends with his teammates. He was pretty sure that didn’t happen often although he supposed that last time Emerald had bonded with her now sister-in-law Caitlin and Ruby was now friends with one of her teammates. Also, Beau Tate, their distant cousin, seemed to alway check in with Sapphire who’d been on her team.
Okay, so it did happen. But it was seriously unlikely to happen with Olaf. Yeah, he wasn’t Topaz whom nobody would possibly be able to bond with, unless maybe they were another psychopath, but he was still…not someone who bonded with people easily. He loved most of his relatives even though he didn’t understand them, but really, the only person Olaf ever felt a bond with was Grandfather. Which, considering what Grandfather was like, was kind of strange too. However, that was sort of why they bonded. Just like Isla and Liesl had their Weird Girl bond-which was exactly what they called it-Olaf and Grandfather had a Misanthropic Bibliophile bond.
When Deputy Headmistress Skies finally finished talking-he honestly never minded if she or any other professor was long winded in class but that was interesting and this was irritating-he sighed to himself and set out looking for his team. He spotted his name under Team Three and looked at the other names while he waited for the rest of the team to join him. Olaf recognized the name of the Head Boy, Gabriel Wilson who was both a distant cousin and another Aladren, so he supposed that he’d got one of the better options for leaders, more because of the latter than the former. Robyn was another first year whom he didn’t know well. Because he had spent more time getting to know the library than his classmates.
As for the rest, he didn’t know much about Graham, he supposed that his relatives around Graham’s age must have a fairly positive impression of him. Of course, two of those people were Jasper and Isla who rarely said bad things about anyone who wasn’t Uncle Eustace or Topaz, although Isla also seemed to not like her friend’s ex-boyfriend. Which was another thing Olaf did not understand about his sister. She had whined and moped quite a bit about being left out when her friends had boyfriends and she was the odd one out. Now, one of them had broken up with her boyfriend, so, problem solved.
And speaking of which, he thought Tommy might be the boyfriend of the other friend. Whom Isla seemed to like okay. Again, though, it was Isla , who really seemed to only dislike three people.
Anyway, Esme would have said something if Graham was terrible. Esme was far more picky about people than most of them other than Olaf himself. Olaf guessed that he and Tommy both might not be awful. The first year probably wouldn’t connect with either though.
Then there was Phillip. He knew little about the boy, other than he was one of only three people in Chris’s class who was named something normal, besides a girl named Claire and Christopher himself. However, Phillip apparently had an odd side that made up for it. Chris generally seemed to think Phillip was okay, though, not mean or anything. Olaf, however, was worried the boy was going to be another Isla. Weird Aladren. Great. At least he was an Aladren though which meant he was probably smart. Regardless of anything else, at least there was that.
Ray, however, was the girl he was pretty sure that Amethyst disliked. A rude obnoxious Pecari who sought out trouble for trouble’s sake. That was way worse than the possibility of Phillip being a male Isla. Olaf just found his sister mildly annoying at times, especially when she was being happy and positive about something that he personally didn’t want to do or, of course, bugging him when he wanted to read. But a miscreant troublemaker? Olaf had even less patience for that than he did normally, which was really saying something. He had nothing but contempt for the sort.
He sat and waited for the lot of them to arrive, hoping that the Pecari creature would not be the one who showed up next. He did not want to be left alone with her.
11
Olaf Brockert
*scowls*
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Phil Carson
July 22, 2022 6:09 PM
*happy positivity!* by Phil Carson
Phil was pretty excited about these challenges. He was pretty sure enjoying a good challenge was part of his House definition, so he thought he'd do well with them. Plus he was intermediates now, so he had mastered Magicking BasicsTM so hopefully he would be an asset with whatever needed doing. Though a couple of weeks of Intermediate classes had kind of humbled him and shown him how much he didn't know yet. Still, he wasn't a Beginner anymore and that wasn't nothing.He listened to the Deputy Headmistress talk about what to expect (and not expect - apparently teaming up with his roommate Eben was definitely not in the cards) from their teams, today's meet and greet, and the challenges ahead.
Soon enough the team members' names appeared below the Captains names, but smaller. Phil headed toward Gabriel's name first, partly to say hello and good luck to his friend, and partly to scope out who got lucky enough to be on Gabe's team. He was therefore surprised to find that Phillip was listed there. He read it twice. That definitely said Phillip and not Phillippe and he was pretty sure he was the only Phillip in the school.
"That's me!" He said grinning. "I'm on your team, Gabriel! Whoo! This is going to be the best challenge thing ever! I'm so stoked. We're going to do great!" He noticed another kid already sitting there. He also had an Aladren badge. "Whoo! Three Aladrens. We're going to rock this. Welcome to the team! I'm Phillip! You're a first year, right? I'm in third. I'm really excited to see what these challenges are all about. This is going to be really cool. Meeting new people. Learning new things. Challenging ourselves to be our best. I bet it's going to be like going on quests!" He aimed the last bit at Gabriel with a big smile.
1
Phil Carson
*happy positivity!*
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Robyn Lundstrom
July 28, 2022 1:32 AM
*spins* by Robyn Lundstrom
Robyn was so excited and so ready for the challenges! They were going to be great! They were going to be fun! The main enthusiasm for this came from the fact that she got to do them at the exact same time that Xavier did, so now who was ‘too little’ or ‘too much of a baby’ to be allowed to join in? Ha. Ha on him for every single time he’d said that.So far, Robyn had seen lots of interesting people around school but hadn’t had reasons to talk to all of them. She definitely agreed with Professor Skies’ comments about mixing them up and giving them reasons to make friends. That sounded great!
At least, in theory.
When Robyn saw her own name, it was surrounded by boys’ names (and one maybe girl), and as she made her way over she overheard one of them enthusing about how so many of them were Aladrens. Well, the point was to make new friends, ones you wouldn’t normally, right? Except the Aladren boy had definitely sounded like he thought it was a good thing to be with other Aladrens. The other beginner in the group was Olaf, whose name she knew from roll call. It was hard not to pick up names from roll call, given that there were only like, three other people in her class, but Olaf’s had stood out because that was a Disney snowman. This was a fact she had taken great care not to point out, because either he had no idea what Disney was, and would not appreciate it, or he knew exactly what Disney was, and would not appreciate it. There had been an Elsa in her class at elementary school, and anyone who made ‘Let It Go’ references got stabbed in the hand with a ballpoint pen, or got their shins bruised at the following recess. Olaf was very scowly. Robyn was trying to give him her Teppenpaw best benefit of the doubt on that. Like, maybe he really needed glasses, and no one had ever worked that out (did wizards even check? A couple of people including Professor Wright wore them which suggested yes?) so maybe he was just always frowning because the world was a bit blurry. Still, he wasn’t the most comforting person to have been placed with.
Robyn took a seat, twisting her pendant between her fingers. It was just a simple gemstone bead, carnelian, if she remembered rightly, but it spun satisfyingly on its setting. She wished her brother was with her—Joel more than Xavier, he’d always been better at looking out for her. Plus he was older than the oldest kid here, so they wouldn’t be able to make her feel small then.
“I’m excited,” she offered, trying to join in on the wave of enthusiasm that Phil was putting forth. It was how she felt, or how she wanted to feel about the challenges, so long as someone at her table actually wanted her there. “I’m Robyn,” she added, suspecting he could figure that out, but not everyone knew the spelling rule or understood to look for a girl when seeing her name. Plus it was polite. “I’m in Teppenpaw,” she added, because she was new enough that he might not know that, and because it was Saturday they weren’t all wearing their uniforms. She was, in fact, in a Crotalus-red tank top - it was a colour she owned a lot of, thanks to her name. Unlike Elsa, she’d leant more willingly into the association. Her eyes flicked between the Aladren super-friends as she said it.
13
Robyn Lundstrom
*spins*
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Tommy Jamison
July 30, 2022 9:59 AM
*waves* by Tommy Jamison
Looking at the team names, Tommy thought he got a pretty good group. Obviously he would’ve liked to be on Rosalynn’s team, or with some of his closer friends, but this group seemed fine. He was a little intimidated by having the Headmaster’s grandson on his team, but he figured it was pretty much impossible to have a team without some kind of distant Brockert relation on it. Heck, most of them probably had more than one of them. He kinda was one, technically, if you counted through marriage.One of those such people, Gabriel, was also on his team, so that was fun. Tommy didn’t know Gabriel super well, but he was one of Stanley and Wally’s closer cousins on their dad’s side, and while he himself was related through their mom’s side, obviously, there had been some overlap at functions, so he was sure he had hung out with Gabriel outside of school at a few birthday parties or whatever, in addition to some conversations here and there at Sonora.
When Tommy got to their table, it was mostly just a few of the younger kids. Despite being among the youngest in his family, Tommy had a strong parental tendency, and he immediately adopted a supervisory mood to his demeanor. He wanted to be like a cool older sibling: trustworthy and grownup, but still fun and accessible. Like his big sister, Sophie.
“Hey, guys,” he greeted cheerfully. “Nice to meet you all! I’ve heard these Challenges are super fun, so we’re in for a great year.” Sophie talked about them fondly from her time here, and he thought he recalled knowing that Ryan, his brother-in-law, had been on a winning team. “My name’s Tommy Jamison, and I’m a fifth year Teppenpaw. I’m good at Potions in particular, but I do pretty okay in all my subjects.” Anything he didn’t understand, he had a gaggle of Aladren girls he knew who could help him, with one in particular always around. “Are you guys excited?”
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Tommy Jamison
*waves*
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Olaf Brockert
July 30, 2022 2:16 PM
*headdesk* by Olaf Brockert
The next person to show up, fortunately, was Gabriel but before Olaf could be forced to make small talk with him-which, even though the seventh year was one of the lesser evils available, he still didn’t want to do because the younger Aladren despised small talk about as much as he loved to read because it was so bloody mindless-the next person, Phil showed up.Oh. Dear. Merlin.
Phil was apparently as cheerful and positive and Isla-like as Olaf had feared that he would be. Or he’d had a lot of caffeine and sugar and other things that made a person hyperactive for lunch. The first year could only hope it was the latter because that would wear off eventually. And apparently, Phil knew and was friends with Gabriel. Great.
The third year addressed him and he responded “Yes. First year. Olaf Brockert, of the Western Brockerts.” He sincerely did not care if they were offended by how purebloods introduced themselves. Anyone who did was the one with the problem, not him. Why should him doing so be offensive? Olaf could not help being a pureblood anymore than people could help not being so. That was just who they were and how they were born. He wasn’t necessarily offended by their existence-well, okay, he was but not because of their blood status or anything like that, he just found people annoying in general-so if they were offended by his, that meant they were the ones with a problem.
Olaf did have to give Phil credit for one thing though. “Yes, three Aladrens should be beneficial.” After all, while he grudgingly acknowledged that Teppenpaws and Crotali had their good points and individuals may have strengths that came in useful, people in his house were intelligent, logical problem solvers, regardless of any other traits that they possessed. Even Topaz was brilliant, she just happened to use that gift for evil. However, despite the fact that he disliked her immensely for obvious reasons, he did respect her intellect.
And he respected Isla’s too. Even though she was cheerful and positive and optimistic and weird. Well, some kind of weirdness was okay, it was just that being cheerful and positive and optimistic got on his nerves. Especially when it was about something that Olaf was annoyed about and resented doing. Admittedly though, he hadn’t really liked seeing her mopey and sad either. Anyway, he guessed he would respect Phil’s intellect too. If he could do that with Topaz of all people, he could for the third year as well.
Then Robyn showed up. And she was excited too. Great, just absolutely *peaching* peachy . Tommy too seemed thrilled and thought they were in for a good time. Olaf could feel the beginnings of a headache coming on. He thought of the book that was in his bag-he never ever went anywhere without a book- longingly. That was what he wanted to do. Read. Every year for the last few, the Aladren had counted the amount of books that he read in a single year, trying to break his record. These stupid Challenges-and admittedly, probably school itself- was going to interfere with that big time-and he was seriously not okay with that.
And all this blasted enthusiasm was really starting to grate on him. Olaf had to speak up, the way he had with his sisters. “No, I’m not really excited. This might not be fun at all.“ He knew he personally wouldn’t be having fun at all. Unless the Challenge somehow involved reading”We might have to do things that are unpleasant. Like, last time, my sister and cousins had a Challenge where they had to do desert survival. My sister really did not enjoy that.” He continued. “I mean, we won’t have to do that specific thing this time, because Professor Skies said they were different every time but there might be something else that’s not particularly enjoyable for someone.”
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Olaf Brockert
*headdesk*
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Gabriel Wilson
July 30, 2022 4:08 PM
*leads* by Gabriel Wilson
Gabriel could not believe that he was Head Boy. Or, rather Head Student, he supposed since they didn’t seem to want to use the gender specific terms for the position anymore. Anyway, before they changed it, he’d thought he’d had a really good chance at the title. There were three boys in his class and one of those was, well, Theo. The Pecari had a lot of good qualities, but honestly, he was not really someone that seemed like Head Student material. Of course, Gabriel didn’t necessarily know if he personally was either, but apparently, the other students did.Still, when they’d changed to everyone competing against each other instead of just those of the same gender, his chances of winning had diminished significantly. The Aladren was certain he wouldn’t get it, even with the Pecaris being left off the ballot. After all, he no longer was either one out of three or one out of two, depending on whether or not Theo would have been left as an option in that situation. And unless there wasn’t much competition, Gabriel tended to err on the side of not getting it because he didn’t want to get cocky. Especially when he was up against people who were all fairly decent choices. He supposed he might have expected Alexander to get it if they were still just competing against each other (and maybe Theo.)
But he’d won and so had Morgan. So, now Gabriel got to do Head Student duties with one of his two closest friends and he was thrilled. Nothing against Mara, Esme,Alexander or Sadie, but he definitely thought it would be fun hanging out with the other Aladren doing Head Student and prefect stuff. It was more fun to do these things with friends and he already had Stanley, Lavender and Val to hang out with. Now he would have Morgan too. And Ian, who was a distant cousin that went to O’Malley twin events because Ryan was close to Ian’s mom, Valerie and made sure Ian was included. These were all great people to patrol with. It was just too bad they couldn’t have Wally, Phil and Piper join them too.
Anyway, Head Student wasn’t the only leadership position that Gabriel was holding this year. He was also going to be a Team Leader. Which admittedly was less special that getting Head Student, both because Head Student was a validation that his classmates liked him or at least thought that he would do a good job in the position, and because,well, all the seventh years would be Team Leaders, even the ones who’d been left off the Head Student ballot
Still, Gabriel wanted to do a good job at this. Maybe they wouldn’t win-after all, there were nine teams which made their chances of winning eleven percent, which was even less than his chances of being Head Student had been-but he wanted to be the best Team Leader that he could be.
After Professor Skies gave her introductory speech-which was mostly stuff that Gabriel knew already but not everyone had a ton of older cousins that had already done this and had told them about it so it was necessary, especially given that what Headmaster Brockert had said about them at the Opening Feast was not especially informative-it was time to meet his team. He headed for the table with his name over it where whom Gabriel assumed was one of the first years was already sitting.
Before he could say anything to the first year or look over who was on his team, Phil came over. “Hey Phil!” The seventh year greeted his friend. Then the younger Aladren exclaimed that he was on Gabriel’s team! “Really?” He said, peering at the names. “That is awesome!” This was going to be great! He wasn’t going to be in a situation like Amity had where she’d found almost all of her teammates to be totally repulsive. At least he’d have Phil! “Think it’ll be like a live action version of the quests we go on in Gaming?”
Which would be great. After all,the seventh year’s two big strategies for this whole Challenge thing were to write to Ryan and ask what he’d done as Leader-even though he hadn’t won, he’d obviously done something right, second was not bad, Ryan had been thrilled with it-and to act like it was an adventure from Gaming Club.
Then the other boy sitting there introduced himself. “Nice to meet you, Olaf. I’m Gabriel Wilson, of the Nebraska Wilsons.” Gabriel greeted the first year pleasantly. He knew the younger boy was some distant cousin but he couldn’t remember exactly how they were related. That was just how it was in the Brockert family, but he’d try to figure it out later.
Olaf commented about the advantage of three Aladrens, just as Robyn and Tommy, both Teppenpaws, arrived. “Well, all houses have their good qualities.” The seventh year stated diplomatically. After all, Crotali tended to be good planners, which might be why Ryan had ended up with second place when he’d done this, only being beaten by Morgan’s dad-an Aladren- and his team, although,from what he understood, they’d had at least one super ambitious younger student, also an Aladren, who’d been very…helpful.
Still, planning was good, and Gabriel noticed that they did have one Crotalus, Graham, who the Aladren felt was probably going to be a good Assistant Captain. Someone whom he could get on with though. True, there weren’t all that many people that Gabriel didn’t think he could get on with and a few of those he was wary of were in his year and thus, leading their own teams. Stil, he felt Graham might be easier to get on with than any of the sixth year Aladrens, even Bertie, would have been. Plus, the Crotalus was friends with Lavender and had never done anything that Gabriel found objectionable.
And Teppenpaws…were nice. And diplomatic. He didn’t know exactly how that would translate to the actual Challenges but perhaps that they could help the team…get along and be cohesive? And at least they would be nice to people. Gabriel wanted a team that worked well together.
As for Pecaris, well they tended to be more athletic types and that could definitely be helpful if they had that sort of event. Which they probably would. They had the other times. Which wasn’t something that Gabriel was really looking forward to. Sports were never something he’d excelled at, partially, he was not at all interested in them.
Tommy asked if they were excited and Olaf…replied honestly. The seventh year would give him a little bit of credit for that. “He has a point.” Gabriel replied. “ While this is very exciting and I’m looking forward to working with everyone, there might be a Challenge where we have to do things we don’t want to do. Or aren’t good at. Which is why this sheet mentions weaknesses, phobias and stuff like that. So, let’s discuss them so we can plan a strategy for how to deal with them.” Between Tommy mentioning what he was good at, and Olaf’s response to the question about being excited, this was a great opening.
“I’ll start. I’m Gabriel, for those who don’t know. I’m your Team Leader. My strengths are that I’m really good at my classes, especially Transfig, and I know a lot of trivia. As for weaknesses, well, flying and sports aren’t really my thing. I’d prefer not to do them, and even though I’m the leader, it would be better if someone else took charge if that kind of event comes up. I know that there are things I’m afraid of because everyone does, but I can’t think of anything specific, so nothing, like, terrible. Like, nothing that’s going to completely freak me out” He did remember his older cousins mentioning a boggart on their challenge.
He turned to the next person. “Your turn.”
11
Gabriel Wilson
*leads*
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