Monday is a very long day

[alt_sally_anne]

I suppose I'm rested up from the weekend so it's not too hard staying up late for Astronomy observation, but we also have double Defense and then Transfiguration on Mondays. Anyway the year isn't going too badly so far. Muggle Studies is usually interesting. Professor Brutka seems like a better teacher than Macnair, which is good as I want to take Care of Magical Creatures next year.

In Charms we've been learning about repairing things. My father fixes things, that's usually how he brought in money. But of course I didn't have a wand yet when I was little so I could only watch, and it's quite a bit harder than it looks. Sometimes when something knits itself back together it goes too far the other way and you get a big ugly thick place. But then there are times when it all goes together perfectly and it's almost like petting a cat and feeling it purr under your hand.

Thomas is in my Transfiguration class on Mondays even though he's a Gryffindor. He has a bad time of it in class. Sometimes things work but half the time things turn to go to pieces on him. Neville says it's just as bad when he's in with the Gryffindors on Thursday. I told him to tell Thomas there's nothing for it but to put his head down and keep at it. He's doing alright outside of class so he's learning, even if his marks in Transfiguration will be dreadful. What really matters is your OWL score anyway and it's not the professor who tests you. Which isn't much consolation to Neville since he's pants outside of class too.

For Muggle Studies next week we have to think of twenty ways that wizarding lights are better than muggle lights (candles or the lectric things they used to use) which shouldn't be too difficult. Someone did ask Miss Professor Carrow if she could tell us how muggle aeroplanes worked and she got cross and said that was none of our concern. Blaise said later that maybe they stole wizarding magic to make them work, like perhaps there was always a flying carpet hidden inside and that kept them up. Pansy said they were enormous though, much bigger than any flying carpet she's ever seen. So then Blaise said maybe they put in four or five carpets per aeroplane. Pansy said that can't be right because flying carpets are expensive and there used to be lots of them. Still are I suppose, outside the Protectorate. Draco did you see any while you were in France?

Comments

[alt_padma]

IKWYM about Mondays. Don't they realise how hard it is to have such a long day after the weekends? Though it's wizard to be able to observe on the night of the equinox - that was nift.

I wonder if we'll always get the same assignment in Muggle Studies, because if we do, then keep posting about them, Perks; it'll give the rest of us a jump on the lessons.

[alt_sally_anne]

You have it on Mondays don't you? Since I have it on Friday I would have thought I'd get the same lesson you had, not the other way.

I suppose school started on a Wednesday though. I thought last week it was just Slytherin who had the assignment about zoo animals, though. Miss Professor Carrow started talking about how muggles would keep loads of animals in cages to stare at and wound up talking about this for most of class, and I don't think it was what she'd planned to talk about originally.

[alt_padma]

We do, which makes Mondays totally horrid. Not that the lessons are horrid. I agree, they're actually quite interesting. But the day is simply murderous.

And I'm not sure, because we did sort of talk about animals last week, which would mean yours followed ours, but then it sounds as if you had the lesson about lighting and lectrisity before we did (we talked about bateries, too, and when Linus asked about plugs she talked about the collection that the Ministry just confiscated). So perhaps Miss Professor Carrow is changing the lessons up so that no one class gets the assignments first all the time. That's rather clever, actually. And you did have your first lesson before all the rest of us, because we started in the middle.

Have you picked a topic for your Defence parchment roll?

[alt_sally_anne]

I haven't yet. Do you know what you're writing about?

[alt_ron]

I guess Transfig didn't go any better this week, then? He won't talk about it yet, but we figure that means it wasn't great.

It was freezing last night on the tower! I guess it'll be that way from now on. Nice it wasn't raining, though.

[alt_sally_anne]

It was freezing. I'm better at the warming charm than I was last year at least.

[alt_ron]

Yeah, me too. But I'm going to look for my gloves--the ones with the fingers out--before next time. They're in my trunk, I think. Not that that will make them easy to find.

[alt_pansy]

And you'd better watch your warming charms anyways. Knowing your wand, you'd end up setting yourself on fire. Or blowing your fingers clean off.

[alt_sally_anne]

Pansy raises a good point. You'd best stick with gloves. Good luck finding them.

[alt_draco]

Up in the air I saw them, all during the day and the night, too, plus these things called hellacopters which are smaller and noisier and don't fly as high. I don't know what makes them fly but whatever it is must be bad, like the stuff that muggles used for autos and to heat their homes. Because the aeroplanes left giant plumes of smoke across the sky, and the smoke would stay there for a long time after they were gone.

[alt_sally_anne]

Giant plumes of smoke sounds horrid. Did it make you cough, or was it too high up to be a bother?

[alt_pansy]

Maybe it's like a giant load of fireworks? Only, it would be awfully dangerous for the Muggles inside, I'd imagine.

[alt_padma]

Haruman says they used to write messages in the sky with the smoke trails. But the messages were all stupid and bad. He said Muggles used to pay all sorts of money to make the smoke say what they wanted it to say, so they were actually paying to make the problems worse.

It's amazing they didn't kill everyone and the whole world too.

[alt_sally_anne]

They wrote messages in smoke?

I bet there's a spell that would do that but without the aeroplane or the smoke and polucion polution. I think it would look wizard. If it were done with magic I mean, not by muggle aeroplanes.

[alt_padma]

Yeah, and besides, you could make the smoke colours and you could have it change shapes and maybe make it stay longer.

Isn't that what the Lord Protector's mark used to be? Green smoke, I mean? Only no one has to see it anymore because it's only for traitors and the like. And besides, now they just arrest traitors, they don't have to go attacking their houses like they used to do.

[alt_pansy]

How many of the twenty have you go so far? I've got ten.

And I haven't met Professor Brutka yet. Do you want to go down and talk to him later today? We can introduce him to Pyewacket. I'm sure he's worked with loads of kneazles before, but it would give us an excuse to stop by.

[alt_sally_anne]

I've got all twenty and I thought of two more if you want those. Just think about all the different problems fire can cause though, there are loads.

Let's take Pyewacket to visit Professor Brutka! Maybe after History of Magic? If he isn't teaching then.

[alt_pansy]

Wizard. And if he is, we can always just go for a walk. Pyewacket likes being out-of-doors, although he does tend to get sick if he eats too much grass.

[alt_sally_anne]

At least he's clever enough not to get sick on my shoes when he does.

[alt_neville]

I really don't get why Dean's having so much trouble in Transfiguration class. He can do the spells just fine in the common room.

[alt_sally_anne]

Some people find it much harder to do anything when Mr Professor Carrow is watching them.

[alt_pansy]

Maybe we should have a regular study group sort of thing. Where we can all practise. I know you and Neville had an informal study group, but it might be fun to do it all together, maybe?

If you lot think Thomas would be up for it, that is.

[alt_sally_anne]

I suppose but I wouldn't want him to think I wasn't 'minding a girl's business' or whatever it was he said to Padma.

Besides, Neville says he does fine outside of class so I'm not sure extra revision will help.

[alt_neville]

Don't I know it.

[alt_amycus]

Perhaps there are some people Mr Professor Carrow needs to watch particularly closely.