pen and paper

[occluminous]

Bella is picked up from Charlie's house at the end of the summer, her visits with various people and her other parents having concluded a couple of weeks previous. She feels very worldly as she gets on the bus and is inspected by the new sixth-graders. The bus trundles along to the Bay Cauldron, and she does her shopping, and helps one of those sixth-graders pick an owl, and then they all arrive at ACAAM.

She goes to her and Sherlock's room to drop off her belongings and let Euterpe out.

Comments

[pythbox]

"Awesome," says Feral.

[occluminous]

The rest of the day of classes goes by, and Bella goes to the library, and then she knocks on Feral's door with a stack of books.

[pythbox]

Feral opens it.

"Ooh," he says. "Books. Anything good?"

[occluminous]

"Maybe. There's Apparition, but we're not old enough to learn it yet. And Legilimency can be wandless and some people can learn to move things or change their colors without wands, but not everyone seems to be able to pick it up and you can't move the stuff very fast or from very far away. The thing I think you will like best is this." And she takes from the top of the stack a book entitled "Animagical: Unlocking Your Animalian Self" and hands it over.

[pythbox]

"...ooh," says Feral.

He takes the book.

[occluminous]

"Animagi can turn into animals - particular ones per Animagus, and you don't get to pick it, but you get something that suits, and then apparently you can get a really good guess what yours will be by checking your Patronus except I don't know what that is so I'll have to look it up later. They don't need their wands to do it and they can do it at will. It does take a long time and you have to be good at Transfiguration."

[pythbox]

"I am good at Transfiguration," says Feral, grinning. "Cool. Thanks."

And, book in hand, he hugs her.

[occluminous]

Hugs!

[pythbox]

Bookhugs.

[occluminous]

"What do you think you'll be?"

[pythbox]

"Who the hell knows?"

He lets go of Bella and hugs the book instead.

[occluminous]

"Well, I'm going to go look up what a Patronus is. You could sit with me in the library if you want."

[pythbox]

"Sure!" says Feral. He tags along, hugging his book.

[occluminous]

In the library, Bella plops the other books from her stack of wandless magic information on a little table between two armchairs, gets help from Mith, and finds a book on Patronuses, which she proceeds to read in one of said chairs.

[pythbox]

Feral flops into the other chair and reads about Animagi.

[occluminous]

Bella finishes her book first, and then she flips back to the page early on where the spell itself is described, and starts trying to cast it. "Expecto patronum."

Nothing.

[pythbox]

"Whatcha doin'?" says Feral.

[occluminous]

"Trying to make a Patronus. They're a sort of guardian spirit thing made out of happy memories, that take the shape of an animal - it's usually the same as your animagus form if you can do both, that's what that thing meant - and they're useful for fighting off some dark creatures. It's supposed to be advanced but the spell isn't actually very complicated and it's not dangerous to get wrong." She shows him the page.

[pythbox]

"Oh, huh," says Feral.

He tries it. It doesn't work for him either.

[occluminous]

"Maybe I just didn't pick a happy enough memory, or something." Bella carries on trying.

[pythbox]

Feral gives it another shot. This time he gets a wisp of silver mist.

"This is fun," he says.

[occluminous]

Bella copies the spell into her notebook and flicks the Patronus book away onto its shelf with her wand. "Do you want to check out the Animagus book and then go practice outside? I think Kay is giving me dirty looks from behind the history section."

[pythbox]

He laughs. "Sure."

[occluminous]

And out they go, with a brief pause at the librarian's desk so Feral can take custody of the book without Bella being on the hook for it.

"Expecto patronum!" Bella insists to her wand, and nothing. She tries her other wand. Nothing.

[pythbox]

Feral tries again and gets a good solid mist blob.

"I like this spell," he says. "It's fun."