Bring On The Assignments

[Gabriel Vablatsky]

@'Felicity Dove'

Gabriel had been paired Miss Dove for a school assignment and though it best to meet the Ravenclaw in the library to benefit from the silence it provided. He took a seat fairly close to the entrance so that she would see him upon her arrival as he had wanted to come early to get set up. It wasn't the best of ideas but, knowing Gabriel, it was needed in order to provide him an atmosphere of productivity and concentration. Knowing where everything was positioned also gave him a little less anxiety when they had begun working anyways.

As he finished straightening the last of the papers, he turned to find Felicity looking about for him. To avoid being shushed if he were to yell, he removed himself from his seat and slithered over to her. "Hello, Miss Dove!" He whispered, "I set up my stuff just over here." With a motion towards the table, he intended to have the girl follow him so they could begin their work. He was interested to see how this meeting would go considering his last assignment with a Ravenclaw almost led to a few spells flying about with the intention of harm. Hopefully Miss Dove was civil and not so judgmental.

  

[Felicity Dove]

@'Gabriel Vablatsky'

For some reason, the professors felt it necessary for students in different years and houses to 'interact more' and 'work together better'. Hence why Felicity was being paired up with an older Gryffindor for this particular assignment.

At least the library was a sensible suggestion. Felicity now knew that Mr Vablatsky wasn't a complete idiot, and that they would get some work done on this assignment today. Or, at least, she rather hoped she would. She had no idea how good her partner was at the subject in question, but she knew for sure that she wasn't having her good grade suffer because he wasn't much good at it. If she had to, she'd do it all herself.

Felicity arrived in the library and immediately began searching for Gabriel. For a moment, she assumed that she had arrived before him, and was about to go and set up at a table when she heard her partner whispering her name. And he was saying something about having already set up.

The Ravenclaw greeted him with a smile and a nod of the head, before she began to follow him over to the table he had gestured to. He was organised, at least. She made a mental note of this fact as she set up her own equipment. Perhaps this assignment wouldn't go terribly after all.

"Mr Vablastsky, it's nice to see you again." She said politely. "Have you been well?" Not waiting for a response, she pushed on. "I trust that you have some of your own notes about the assignment? I have mine here." She motioned to some papers which she had retrieved from her bag. If she had known how pretentious and condescending she had sounded, her eyes may have flashed a different colour in embarrassment, but all she had wanted to do was to make sure that he was as prepared as she was.

She only hoped that he could see that.

  

[Gabriel Vablatsky]

Gabriel was a little worried after Felicity hadn't allowed him the possibility of responding to her greeting, but shrugged it off. The last thing he wanted to do was cause conflict and he assumed the Ravenclaw's behavior was only because they weren't too familiar with one another - she was a third year after all and not in the same house. They took their seats and Gabriel began shuffling through his papers to find the notes Felicity had been speaking of. "Ah yes, I do! They are right here." He exclaimed, showing her the notes he took previously. They weren't relatively neat and had a few gaps since he spaced out during class at times.

"And I am doing quite well, thank you for asking." A smile grew across his face in this moment as he placed the paper back upon the table. "Where would you like to start?" Gabriel thought it best to let his partner take the reins in the beginning to get a feel of her work ethic, how intense she really was, and to avoid any unnecessary rage if he had begun at a place she was not comfortable with. He hadn't the slightest idea of if the problem was the house or the gender... But both encounters with a Ravenclaw were surprisingly female so he believed it to be the latter.

  

[Felicity Dove]

At first, Felicity had been a little worried about whether or not her partner would have got some notes. She was rather comforted to know that he had. The notes in his hand looked neat enough, despite the few sparse gaps that littered them in places. But that was okay. There were a few little spaces in Felicity's notes too- if they put their heads together and combined their notes, they would surely have a full set of them there.

Felicity smiled at Gabriel, brushing a few stands of blonde hair away from her face. It was still blonde, at least. The Ravenclaw wasn't sure how her assignment partner would react if her appearance suddenly changed. If he had no idea of her abilities, then it could take a little bit of explaining. All she had to do was hope that they weren't subjected to that.

She frowned a little at Gabriel's question. Surely the most obvious place to start was at the beginning? Or was this a test of some kind? Felicity wasn't afraid to take the reins, if that was what Gabriel wanted, but she wasn't sure if she was comfortable with him being a passenger. Not that she was saying that he was.

"If you would like, we could start at the beginning of the topic? A refresher, if you will, before we get into the more advanced work." Felicity smiled a little at Gabriel, hoping that he didn't immediately perceive her as an idiot. The last time that she had been partnered with a Gryffindor- and it was a Gryffindor male, for that matter- the session had ended with him thinking that she was stupid and her thinking that he was a... Well, a something-not-very-pleasant. She just hoped that this time it would go better.

  

[Gabriel Vablatsky]

Gabriel was somewhat relieved to know that Miss Dove wasn't as nutty as his previous interaction with a Ravenclaw, though still held some reservations. At his mention of a starting place, she seemed rather disappointed which immediately made him feel as if he had done something wrong. "Sure! That sounds great." He agreed. His hands worked carefully to flip to the beginning of his notes and as soon as he reached them, he looked up to see the Ravenclaw... smiling. He found this to be a rare occasion and couldn't resist mimicking the same expression.

Gabriel knew it was unfair to categorize every Ravenclaw, especially the females, into a single group and figured it better to leave things be and just continue with note reviewing. Needless to say, he was weary about saying anything further but knew by doing so, Felicity may think he wasn't following along properly. "This is an interesting topic, I'm glad we are able to do an assignment on it." He commented, trying to create some conversation and not have the whole experience be absolutely awkward. The further he thought about it however, he was only increasingly the likelihood of such.

  

[Felicity Dove]

At least Gabriel didn't seem like the annoying Gryffindors that Felicity had previously encountered. That wasn't to say that he wasn't one, but at the moment, it seemed as though he was was nice enough. Felicity's smile widened slightly as it was reciprocated by Gabriel, although she didn't really understand why he was being so nervous around her.

She didn't bite. Much.

At his comment about how interesting the topic was, Felicity nodded slightly.

"I most definitely agree." She said with a smile. "It truly is fascinating and I'm surprised that I have never encountered the topic before now!"

Felicity paused slightly, using a glance over her notes as a way to distract from her nervousness. She wasn't sure exactly why she was nervous. After all, she had done assignments like this lots over her time at Hogwarts, and why was this one any different?

  

[Gabriel Vablatsky]

Gabriel began warming up, slightly, to the third year sitting across from him. She seemed friendly enough for a Ravenclaw and was at least trying to engage in conversation with a pleasant expression. This was such a change from his last partner during an assignment.

He was sort of at a crossroads now however. His original statement had been a lie - he didn't think this was interesting at all and would rather be petting his toad. He needed a decent mark and was trying to hard to keep up but felt inadequate. Hopefully Miss Dove wouldn't find this out, but perhaps his idea of barricading himself within an array of questions and comments would suffice as a distraction. "It is quite surprising indeed!" He agreed, "and I do have to say that I don't think it will take us long to get through this. Don't you agree?" He was now sifting through his own papers and looked a little frazzled. He wasn't a great liar by any means and the further he dug himself into the ground, the more prevalent this became.

  

[Felicity Dove]

Felicity had noticed a change in atmosphere of the conversation. She suddenly felt nervous, as if her enthusiasm for the project had been misplaced and she had made the conversation awkward. Cursing herself, Felicity brushed an unruly strand of hair away from her face, not really noticing that the blonde had lightened dramatically, making her hair seem like it was silver or white. It had happened so often now that she hardly ever noticed it, and her attention was only drawn to it if someone pointed it out.

"I do!" Felicity said with a smile at Gabriel's remark. "Look at how comprehensive our notes are- at least we will not have to do any extra research!" Remembering something from the class, Felicity hurried to write it down. As she did, she realised just how little she knew about her assignment partner. "So, Mr Vablatsky, why don't you tell me something about yourself? I find that it is always beneficial to have formed some form of acquaintance with my partners."

  

[Gabriel Vablatsky]

Gabriel widened his eyes at Felicity's suggestion. He wasn't the most eventful person and hoped any of his quirks he were to express weren't taken the wrong way. "Certainly, Miss Dove!" He agreed, all the meanwhile trying to sift through the bland story that was his life to scrounge up something interesting to share. The Ravenclaw must have had a plentiful supply of experiences that would merit much surprise to Gabriel, making his choice all the more dire.

"Well... One thing you should know is that I have a pet toad!" Yes, this was the most interesting thing he could come up with. Most anything else would probably have been taken oddly, such as the family of seers or his mother and sister being hags. "His name is Croakenspots and was a gift when I came to Hogwarts. He goes most everywhere with me." His tone was filled with glee - Croakenspots usually evoked such happy emotions within the Gryffindor that could almost not be contained. "What about yourself?"

  

[Felicity Dove]

Felicity almost couldn't suppress a laugh at Gabriel's excitement over his toad. She knew that people could easily get excited and attached to their pets, and this was obviously one such instance. Having a cat at home herself, she completely understood Gabriel's joy- the aptly named Tabbytha was pretty much one of the family, even if Felicity was unable to bring her to Hogwarts, owing to the cat's ever increasing age.

When the question was turned back on her, Felicity suddenly became aware that she didn't lead a very interesting life. There was nothing in there that was unique, and she probably didn't have as many interesting life stories as the older Gryffindor had. So she resignedly set out on the most boring thing possible- her abilities. They weren't something she liked to show off, but they were the most unique thing about her, so she decided that it was better than nothing.

"Well, you may already know this, but I am a metamorphmagus. I can change my appearance at will." Pausing slightly, she then set about correcting herself. "Almost at will, rather. I still have some incidents of uncontrolled transformations." To give an example, because when she revealed this fact, most people wanted one, she quickly turned her hair and bright ginger before returning it to its natural colour after a short period of time.

  

[Gabriel Vablatsky]

Gabriel was decidedly perplexed and shocked when Felicity changed her hair color so quickly. He thought such an ability would be useful if she were to experiment with fashion later in life, though refrained from oogling to much. "That is so neat!" He exclaimed, despite her comment about these occurrences being random for the most part. He knew with age she would perfect the ability and wanted to be there when she had reached that point.

He was rather discouraged that he hadn't possessed an equal talent - he wasn't a seer like his extended family members and, to his knowledge, didn't inherit any special traits or abilities. If he could change his hair color at will, he would surely rub it in the faces of Ezra or Dora. "Are you able to change anything else? I heard people can change their noses into beaks!" He seemed a little too enthusiastic to find out if the Ravenclaw could actually partially alter her appearance to look like wild fowl.

  

[Felicity Dove]

Felicity sighed relievedly. There were those people who weren't so enthusiastic about her abilities and who told her in no uncertain terms to perfect the ability so that she could seem "normal" whatever that meant. Surely, if everyone was unique, there was no normal? And, for Merlin's sake, they were wizards! Their idea of normal and every other creature's would be entirely different!

At Gabriel's question, Felicity bit her lip. If she tried, she was sure that she could. Testing this theory, Felicity closed her eyes and chose the first thing that she could think of- a bird. Simply because Gabriel had mentioned it, and also because it would be quite obvious to see the difference. After a few moments, she prodded her nose to find out that it had been replaced by a bird's beak. Felicity grinned (or at least, if she could still grin, she would have). The good news was that she seemed to be learning to control her abilities. The bad news was that she wasn't sure how far that control went.

  

[Gabriel Vablatsky]

Gabriel was visibly impressed with Felicity's ability to change her nose into a beak - surely this talent was much beyond cosmetic display! He thought the beak to be a useful tool, especially for eating small grains like rice or even seeds if she fancied them, so he decided to ask the following question: "Wow! Can you peck people with that? Or do you, I mean?" His genuine interest completely controlled his thought process, draining every word he could string together successfully out of his mouth. It didn't help that he was imagining himself as a bird in the process attacking people from above.

"Not that I would expect you to. I'm sure you control your ability very well!" Gabriel spoke as he tried to make Ms Dove feel comfortable. A talent such as hers was not extremely common, so to be in the presence of a true metamorphmagus was exhilarating.

  

[Felicity Dove]

With what was as close to a sigh as could be emitted from a bird's beak, Felicity's face returned to normal. Gabriel seemed impressed by her ability at the very least, but she knew that her parents weren't. Which, when she considered it, was rather unfair. Mother could tell her off for it, she accepted that, but when it was Father, then she just felt like he was being a big hypocrite. After all, he shared her abilities- surely he should have known that sometimes she couldn't help it. Perhaps she was being too harsh on her family. In her heart, Felicity knew that they just didn't want her too seem abnormal because that could be as detrimental to her as it was to their family.

"Maybe." She said with a movement that resembled a shrug. "I've never tried it before. And I don't control it that well. Today was just luck. But my father can do all sorts of things when he-" Felicity cut off, biting her lip. Way to make her family seem even more odd.

  

[Gabriel Vablatsky]

Gabriel noticed the distressed look Miss Dove gave before her face returned to its original form. His expression quickly switched to worriment as he thought he insulted her in some way. Just before he was about to speak up, she mentioned her father but trailed off, a sure sign to the Gryffindor that perhaps it was a sore subject to converse about. However, his curiosity overwhelmed any conscious thought.

"When he... what?" He asked with an inquisitive tone. Gabriel figured the Ravenclaw inherited her abilities from somewhere and perhaps it was her father - it surely would have explained why she refrained from talking further about him.