“Honestly, I’m flying blind, quite literally,” she chuckled with a small shake of her head. Mulan wasn’t particularly great at any one subject nor was she slated for any jobs after graduating. At this point, her only option was going back to the muggle world with her family; they definitely had future plans for her. “My family wants me to return home, get into some muggle profession, live a quiet life until I get married or something and pop out children.” She said all that with a hint of a disgusted look. “But, that’s just not what I see in my future. I mean, don’t get me wrong, that’s not a bad life, but it’s just not for me. I wish I could see something, anything in my future. At least you’ve got TA. That’s a pretty solid position.”
“TA gets my foot in the door at least,” she said with a shrug. “But why would your parents ask you to do that? It doesn’t make sense, to send you to Hogwarts all these years then ask you to give up this life the second you graduate?” It seemed a bit odd to her. Her father was the one who raised her and he may not have been magical, but he always encouraged Jain to embrace her gift. She shook her head, sighed and fanned out the pamphlets in her hands holding them up. “Well a good place to start is to figure out what you’re good at. What classes were your best? Where does Mulan’s magical strength lie?”
“You might be?” he whispered back, laughing lightly. She’d definitely had more than him, and even though he was a bit of a lightweight because he rarely drank, she was far more buzzed than he was. But she liked being with him, and that was reason enough to make him smile. Once he checked to make sure all of the bags were somehow connected to each other, Randall slid his wand away and grabbed the bottle of whiskey again to take a few pulls on it, not wanting to lose his buzz so soon. At her question, he chuckled and shrugged a shoulder. “Wherever you want to go!” Rather than the words coming out in a normal voice, they came out as more of an excited exclamation, and he threw an arm around her shoulders, leaning in a little and lowering his voice conspiratorially. “We’ve got a few options. There’s, like seven secret passages to Hogsmeade, or we can sneak outside and go stargazing or something. Whatever you’re up for, I can find a way to get you there,” he promised.
“Oh, stargazing,” she said, sounding almost nostalgic. “That’s perfect!” When Jain was young, she often found comfort in stargazing. Sometimes she’d look up at the sky and talk, as though her mother might be listening. “Do you know of a good spot?” she asked, leaning on him a little for stability.
“Yeah, that’s his name, I think,” he said with a laugh. Her wink made him grin, and he started moving his wand as well, watching the bags after tying together. “I never took you for the prank-pulling type,” he said with an impressed sort of smirk.
“I’m not usually,” she confessed. “But with you, it’s fun. And I might be a little buzzed,” she added with a whispered. Randall was right, she wasn’t the pranking type. But Jain just graduated. Right now, she didn’t care what type she was, so long as she was having fun. “Now that that’s that,” she paused and giggled for how many times she said ‘that’ in one sentence. “Where are we sneaking off to?”
Jain had waited for this day for a long time, but now that it was here, she wasn’t sure that she was ready. Her only plans now were to take that diploma and become a TA so she could complete her research. She looked around at the others waiting for their names to be called too. A few faces were missing from the group. Some because the failed, but one was for another reason. A wrong reason. “Marcus should be here,” she muttered to herself. He’d been such a great friend to her and even kept her secret. He deserved to be here just as much as anyone.
“Jain Porter.” The moment was here. She took a deep breath and walked to the front toward the headmistress. She was ready to shake her hand when her next step forward took her to a jungle. She paused, a bit confused and looked around. She wasn’t in her robes anymore, but instead a yellow dress. Her wand seemed to be missing as well. With one more turn around, Jain spotted a small monkey eating some sort of fruit.
“Look at you,” she said quietly as she took a sketch book out from under her arm and began to draw. She admired the drawing for a moment before looking back up to find the monkey gone. A shame really, she thought. Suddenly the monkey was on her shoulder. “There you go, what do you think?” It was silly to be talking to a monkey, but she wasn’t sure any of this was even real. Without hesitation, the monkey grabbed the sketch book right out of her hands and took off running. “Come back here! That’s mine!” she said as she chased after it.
The monkey tore through page after page, leaving a trail she could follow. She picked each page up with a huff and once she finally reached the monkey she’d get that drawing back too, she thought. The monkey seemed to be admiring itself in the drawing when she approached. “Give me that,” she said. “I’ll count to three.” The monkey simply pulled the paper farther away from her. Fine, she thought as she started to count. “One, two... oh look! Bananas!” As soon as the monkey turned away she snatched the drawing up with a confident laugh. “Can’t believe you fell for that one.”
It only took a moment for the monkey to start crying. “Oh no, don’t give me that. What would your parents think?” Immediately after the question left her lips she heard an angry growl behind her. “Oh see, told you they’d be cross.” Jain quickly turned with a scream and ran for her life as an angry mob of monkeys chased after her.
What was happening?! She’d never studied monkeys. She didn’t know what to do. All she could do was run. He dress caught and tore on the branches as she rushed by. “Oh no.” Ahead of her was a gap. Maybe he she gave it all she got, she could make the jump. Though, the monkeys could probably clear it easily themselves. She shook her head and prepared herself, she had to try.
With a giant leap, she found herself again, in front of the headmistress. She wasn’t sure why she had jumped like that, but her adrenaline was running wild. Suddenly self-conscious, she laughed nervously, smiled proudly and took her papers before returning to her seat.
Randall was kind of surprised she went with one of his ideas, but he was down for it if she was. “Follow me,” he said with a grin, taking her hand in his and heading to where student bags were normally held for the train back. There was quite the pile already when they got there, and he looked over at her with pure glee. “Ready?” he asked, pulling his wand from his pocket. “I think in our state, magic is probably the better option rather than trying to MacDonald all of these together somehow without it.” His reference was probably incorrect, but he didn’t really care, the alcohol and excitement overpowered it.
Jain let Randall lead and she was having a surprisingly good time. She should have hung out with Randall more often, she thought to herself. Maybe if she became a TA like she wanted, she still could. “MacDonald huh?” she laughed as she pulled her wand out too, examining the bags. “They’ll never even know it was us.” She gave him a wink and started to wave her wand.
“Nothing horrible, maybe some well placed stink bombs so people go home smelling like skunks. Or maybe interlock everyone’s bags so they have to undo all the knots before they can take them, that is, assuming people have left their bags out in the open.” Randall had a bit of a bounce in his step as they walked, and the smile on his face really couldn’t be wiped away. “Like I said, harmless, but funny.”
“Let’s do it!” she said excitedly. This was definitely not like her. She would never prank anyone sober, or at least she didn’t think she would. “Bags sound fun let’s do that.” She took another drink and passed the cup back to Randall. She watched him smile and couldn’t help smiling herself. “It’s contagious,” she said without thinking.
Randall laughed at the pet name, nudging her gently as he took a long drink from his cup before offering it to her. “Depends. We could pull some harmless pranks, or sneak out of the castle to finish this bottle and see what happens…or I dunno, TP a classroom? It’s the end of the year, though, so that one might not work as well,” he mused.
“Don’t mind if I do,” Jain said as she took the cup in her hands. “Sneaking out, that’s something I’m good at,” she giggled before taking a drink. “Pranks could be fun too though, what kind of pranks. Or maybe we do both?”
Jain followed Randall eagerly out of the party. She wasn't ready for another night ruined by Dash, or another night ruined in general. Especially after what happened at prom. Whatever Randall had in mind had to be better. "So what's the plan? Hot stuff," she called him that jokingly. Who knew having a buzz could be so freeing. @randall-c-boggs
Mulan laughed and chased after her papers when Jain stopped them from flying away. “Thanks,” she chuckled as she retrieved them from the girl. Maybe it was a sign that none of these were Mulan’s calling. With a sigh, she clapped her hands over the pamphlets and looked up at Jain. “Hm? Oh, uh yea,” she chuckled sheepishly. “Gotta think about reality eventually, ya’know,” she shrugged. “But honestly it’s terrifying. Did you want to look these over?”
“It couldn’t hurt,” Jain said with a shrug. “I hadn’t really thought about it as much as I should have.” She walked with Mulan to the bench near by and sat down. “Have any ideas or is this a shot in the dark?” Some people had plans and other did things on the fly. Jain, didn’t know Mulan as well as she would have liked to, so to say she was either would be a tough bet. “Personally, I’d like to do something with magical creatures. So far, my best bet is to be a TA. How about you?”
Arthur cautiously and slowly turned back around, ready to 180 in a split second if he had to. “I swear I turned around as quickly as I could. But no, I promise I won’t say anything if you don’t want me to.” He stood there awkwardly for a minute still startled by the whole thing. “What uh,” he coughed into his hand and cleared his throat. “What were you um, doing out here? With the hippogriffs I mean?” He was curious about her lack of clothing as well but he would die before would even consider asking her about it.
Jain looked around nervously before answering. If he’d found her out here it was possible there were others close by. “Personal research project. Some of the professors might not think what I’m doing is ‘safe’ or ‘appropriate’ so I’ve been keeping it to myself. I’ve done my homework and I’m in no danger here. No reason to make people worry for nothing right?” She grabbed her back throwing the strap over her shoulder. “I was just preparing to come back to Hogwarts now when you spotted me.” She turned around and scanned the ground. “Maybe I should change locations for departure,” she mumbled to herself. Directing her attention back to Arthur she said, “Thank you for keeping this between us.”
Marcus was sitting in the middle of what appeared to be a torn up notebook and various teapots filled with boiling water and hot tea. It wasn’t so much that he wanted to drink it, but instead… He was pouring the contents of the pots all over his research journal. The words were melting away and his sketches were starting to turn into horrid nightmares.
He heard someone approaching him but made no effort to see who it was. Instead, the tea continued to pour out of the pot and all over the notebook and the ground. “You should probably ask someone else if you want an opinion on your prom outfit.”
“Marcus,” Jain said as she crouched to be on his level. She looked around at the tea soaked parchments and let out a sigh. “What happened?” Something was clearly wrong here. He seemed to enjoy his research just as much as she did her own. And she would never sabotage her own work. She’d spent to much time and effort on all the notes, the pictures, everything. She’d always felt that was something she shared with Marcus. It seemed only right that something be wrong now. There was no other explanation.
As soon as the hippogriff left Arthur began to walk towards her. Until she started to undress. He whipped his around so quickly his back popped and he covered his eyes even though he wasn’t facing her anymore. “Oh god I’m sorry! Jain, it’s uh just me. Arthur. I’ll uh, stay back here until you’re, you know.” He felt his cheeks heat under his hand and the tips of his ears turn pink. This, was so embarrassing. He must of had the worst timing in the world. She probably thought he was such a creeper. He would smack himself except then he’d have to take his hands off of his eyes and he didn’t want to risk it. “I swear I wasn’t trying to spy on you! I was just passing by and saw the hippogriff. I just wanted to make sure you were ok.”
Jain took the opportunity to dress quickly while his back was turned. “You saw that?” she asked, her tone a bit downtrodden. “The hippogriff are friendly, or at least that one is. It won’t hurt me.” She knew they could be a dangerous animal, but she studied them thoroughly before attempting to join them. The more she knew, the less danger she would be in. Or so she believed. And she was out here to learn even more. In her mind, with each passing hour their threat became less and less. “You can look now,” Jain called as she finished pulling down her shirt. “You’re not going to tell anyone are you?”
“I am! I just-” Bobby looked at the package of steaks on the ground and then back up at Jain who seemed to be holding a few dead ferrets. Well, wasn’t this the weirdest way to bump into someone. Bobby wasn’t out there to consume raw meat so he assumed Jain wasn’t out there to do that either.
He bent down and picked up the paper package and looked at her with big eyes. “I was just going to give these to the Thestral herd.” He pointed the dead ferrets in her hand. “Is that what you were doing? We could go together if you want.” He was always willing to befriend someone that had similar interests, why else would she be carrying that cargo?
“I actually didn’t know there were Thestrals out here,” she said, half excitedly. “I mean, I assumed there could be. I just never really thought of it that much.” Jain looked at the dead ferrets, going over her options. She could tell Bobby what she was really doing with them and part ways. After all, he was out for similar reasons, there’d be no harm in it. Or she could join him. She wouldn’t be able to see the Thestrals, but clearly he could and perhaps he would tell here where to hold her ferrets. Wait. She ran that through her mind again. Clearly he can see them. Why could someone so sweet like Bobby see Thestrals? What had he been through. “I wasn’t actually out here for the Thestrals, but I would love to join you. It would be a great experience!” For now she wouldn’t mention it.
