I Won't Spell if you Won't

There's something about nature that is really disgusting. Maybe it's the moss, or the fact that she has just seen a spider devour a bug like a lawnmower to grass or maybe it's the fact that the groundskeeper whilst talking to a sweet looking man is chipping away at a tree and the tree is shaking and almost flinching reflexively, almost like a response to a tickle, only if it had a mouth to laugh, it'd be screaming.

And that there is a scary thought. She's been sat out here watching the Groundskeeper go about his daily business for a while now, and saw the other man approach. Out of courtesy and also fear they'd think she was there to only listen in on them, she took a few more steps back, and was on the other side of the cabin. She'd discovered this ball hidden among a great deal of stones and really wanted to try it out. It bounced. So with the newly dubbed name Bouncy Ball Cass was throwing it against the edge of the cabin.

A bird soared over the sky above her and just as the ball collided with the edge of the cabin, she saw it cannonball down into the roof, so close to her she let out a little whelp. Some birds were just too overexcited these days.

Noah skirted around, he didn't think it would be a good idea to get in the way of the Groundskeeper again. He was sure if he got too close then Noah would have to visit the Hospital Wing carrying his head in a bucket of ice.

He had finished breakfast early and wanted to go out onto the grounds, it had seemed like a good idea at the time. But with no other plan of where he was to go he found himself wandering aimlessly. How his feet had led him to this spot he didn't know, he would have much prefered to go to the lake and skip a few stones. But no, his feet wanted to cause him more trouble by visiting the Caretaker's cabin.

When he got closer all he could hear was the reptitive thud of the axe against the wood of the tree, but there was also a more random quieter noise. Noah's curiosity got the better of him, and although he probably should have just let it be and find something else to do, he crept around the side of the cabin keeping as much distance between him and the monster of a man as he could.

"Cass?" he thought he recognised the girl, well she had helped him escape the labyrinth of dungeon corridors last year and he had seen her multiple times around school, "I don't think that's a good idea."

Cass looks up to see a familiar Gryffindor show his face. It seems that it's Noah, or Mr Gryffindor. Suddenly she's forgotten what she was going to say, she was sure that it was something teasing or Cass-witty (which really means not that witty, really), but it's eluded her.
"Why?" she says empathically, looking up at him, and trying to continue catching and throwing the ball.

Although that fails, and it hits her on her shoulder with an "oof!". Mumbling about it being a stupid ball, she faces the wall again and stops trying to be impressive. At this point she asks again, "am I that bad?"

Clearly with what she's just done, the evidence is mounting up for her, which is a crying shame. She would've liked to have one person who didn't have her fail. That would've been nice.

At these thoughts, she puts her mind back to how long it's actually been since they last spoke. Must have been since last year, but now she was back in her second year robes and so was he, in the same but red trimmed of course.

"Well have you met Mr Campbell?" he asked, he would be rather surprised if she hadn't, that man always seemed to be rampaging through the school having a go at one student or another. Noah didn't understand why the man had even chosen to work with children, at or school, or even with people, he didn't have any social skills what-so-ever, "Mr grumpy guts? Ray of sunshine? Mr Soup?"

Everyone seemed to have a different nickname for the groundskeeper many of them amused Noah. I guess it went for all of the professors though, they all had names that were used by the students when out of earshot.

"Oh no it's not you, although that was rather funny," he laughed after the ball had rebounded funny, "I can just imagine that if he was to find you hanging around here or banging against his hut, he wouldn't take to kindly to it. Although..."

Noah thought about it, it would be rather amusing to wind the man up once again. Drive him up the wall, and watch him get his knickers in a twist.

"Actually never mind, I'm sure it's fine. If not he'll just have to get over it, it's not as if you are doing anything wrong, so there is nothing he can do."

"Mr Soup?" she repeats incredulously. "That's about the most insane nickname I've ever heard of. Did he invite you around for dinner or something? Cold Cucumber Soup?" At this thought she grins wickedly. She doesn't even class cold cucumbers made into liquid a soup. Soup has to be tasty and thick and not made out of cucumber and that's just not what Cucumber Soup is. It has cucumber in it for a start.

After thinking the word cucumber a few times too many, Cass dismisses that thought and tunes back in to Noah.

"I don't think I'd like to intentionally annoy anyone," she said with a shudder at the idea, "but I think he's a little preoccupied with that man he's talking to. Did you hear what he was on about? Could've sworn he said something about a werewolf."

And that was something Cass couldn't help but get a kick out of and was doubtless that Raven'd like that idea even more.
"What if we do have a werewolf in these parts?" she asked, all too excitedly.

Noah shrugged, he had no idea where that nickname had come from either but he had heard several people say it. "I have no idea myself, to be honest. Don't know where it came from, but sometimes you don't know where these things come from."

Noah could still hear the men's voices, not the exact words they were saying but just the murmuring frustrated tones of two people that evidently didn't like each other. But then again, he didn't think that Campbell liked anyone, so this other man was no different.

"Werewolves?" Noah shook his head, he had tried not to get to close so hadn't heard anything specific, "You mean to say, that there are werewolves around here?"

Noah quickly glanced over his shoulder as if to make sure there wasn't one directly behind him, but with it being the morning there was no rational explanation for there to be. He then remembered who he was, he was a Gryffindor, and knew that he had to behave as such.

"That would be quite cool actually, well," Noah didn't think it was cool at all, dangerous yes, cool no, "I doubt there is a real werewolf, not anywhere near Hogwarts, I'm sure the professors would know and have done something about it. They've got to right?"

"I suppose loads of people don't know where things come from. Then again, I guess that's the way stories are made," she says with a faraway look beyond the cabin.

Before Noah made a story of his own and leapt to conclusions, Cass countered, "oh no! I wouldn't dream of saying that. I just think what ever they said sounded like they believed in them too, and they're adults! I didn't even know they were real," she admits. "But if someone as cynical as Mr Soup could speak about them if they were real then they must be."

Noah, as always holds a good point among his words. "They're the smartest people my parents ever met and they know quite a bunch of people, no matter how grounded to home my Mum is. If Cooper and Brennan and Celare could ever walk past something and not realise it's a Werewolf then my last name is Humbug."

Which is a cool name, granted.

Noah nodded in agreement, best stories but also rumours are those that no one knows where they were started. Making that much more intriguing when they were told, or spread, whichever.

"I think they are real, I mean, I think that there were not meant to be any left in Britain, but," he shrugged, maybe those had been stories and rumours too, maybe werewolves weren't real or maybe the stories of them being extinct in the UK was also a story told by people to make others not worry about the problem, "I'm just a kid, I don't know what goes on outside of Hogwarts or Gryffindor most the time, never mind the rest of the world and all that kind of thing. For all I know one of those muggle spacey thingys could have flown over London and I would have no idea."

The only outside information Noah ever had was that from his parents, and he was sure if there was anything wrong then it wouldn't be them that told him. Other than them, it was just the rumours that spread around school, and like he thought before, you could never be sure how they had got started or whether the source was reliable and true.

"I know what you mean, sometimes I think I may as well be a muggle with the amount of magic I don't understand. Those professors make things look so easy, sometimes it gets frustrating. I'm sure they would know how to spot a werewolf a mile off even if it wasn't wolf like"

"That's the thing with teachers," Cass says, thinking about what she is saying quite a lot as per usual. Not. "You are never too sure with what they know. Sometimes I just see them as people that know a lot, and by extension everything. Which isn't that good. I suppose they have weaknesses just like everyone does, only I haven't realised that yet."

Cass supposes that if teachers didn't notice who was a werewolf and who wasn't, no-one would. Weren't teachers supposed to go over and over their respective subjects? They'd know more than any expert and any student, wouldn't they? Or that at least is what Cass thinks, which means in her little universe, it tends to be true.

"Maybe the best option would be to ask Mr Campbell if he knows anything about it. After all, he is groundskeeper. Who better to ask?" She stows the ball away in her pocket with finality now, brushing down her muggle jeans and standing next to Noah for his thoughts on this.