Penwick

All morning, she'd been watching Santi's face for some sort of sign for how their first Applied Magic class of the year should be approached. Direct questions had thus far yielded few answers, and she knew little more than that the wayward eldest Corvesso son had pulled something of a disappearing act when Santi was young, but had returned to their family once again in recent months.

The prodigal son, returned home to roost. It wasn't much for her to form an impression on. It was frustrating not knowing if she should be aiming to make a good impression on an important member of her boyfriend's family, or if she should aim to push the man into one of Penwick's many fountains for going off to fuck-knows-where and abandoning his brother without so much as a letter detailing that he was "out for milk and cigarettes."

Santiago's bone-crushing grip on her hand made her suspect that it was the latter, and that Professor Corvesso would likely find himself dogged by rumors regarding dragonpox in some inconvenient places before the week was up.

Unlike Santi, whose face implied a level of euphoria achieved from getting to show off his bug socks that she herself was unsure she'd ever felt, Enid was less than thrilled to be required to take her shoes off in order to attend class. She debated the merits of leaving them on and daring their new professor to do something about it, but she was willing to stay her hand until she had a better idea of what her goal with Professor Corvesso needed to be. Mouth twisted into a cutting scowl, she slid her ballet flats off and placed them with the others.

She made a note to send out an owl-order for a good pair of house slippers.

Seated next to Santi, she watched Professor Corvesso introduce Bella to the class with no small amount of trepidation. She was not, personally, a fan of dangerous animals being brought into small rooms that her very biteable flesh and blood was also currently occupying.

And what a dangerous animal it was. Enid was sure she recognized it from an alchemy research project the year prior, and she felt semi-confident in her guess that Bella was a Somnulent Snake, a very rare and very lethal snake that produced a paralyzing poison used in potions, but unfortunately, that was where her knowledge of the creature ended.

Santi leaned over towards her and whispered something very interesting in her ear. She raised an eyebrow at him, hissing back a quick, "Are you sure?" before turning her attention back to the task at hand, with sudden new interest.

Her new roommate and Hogwarts runaway knew plenty about the Somnulent Snake, apparently, and was ever so eager to share it with them. What a treat.

Once June was done speaking, Enid quipped, tone dry as the desert that the snake hailed from, "Oh, are we not waiting to be called on, now? That is a delightful change."

Enid made no move to raise her own hand or offer any input of her own, instead opting for an air of faux casualness as she lazily propped her head up in one hand, elbow perched on her desk and palm pressed to her cheek. Her eyes, though, were entirely focused on their professor and his snake. If Santi was right, and the situation was as he suspected, then she wanted to ascertain that for herself, and as such kept an eye out for any obvious tells, both from the creature and from their professor. She was far more interested in the games at play here than any spell they were intended to learn today.

Tagging @Santiago Corvesso, @Rafael Corvesso, and @June Selwyn.

Proof: 9 + 10 = 19
Action: If no one gives up the game before it's my turn again, I'd love for Enid to do some sort of awareness roll here to see if she can spy any evidence to confirm her intel. I'm also willing to bribe Mural with various exotic cheeses.

Kas had already been busted for skipping class. Fantastic. Wonderful. More marks on his record. Or that's what he'd thought, before the letter from Cassandre came in and dug at his conscience like a dull knife until it found guilt. Just making more trouble for Mr. and Mrs. Pryce if he got kicked out before winter break. And, well, it wasn't their fault, was it? Would he want to worry Mrs. Pryce with all these notices from the school?

Fine. Whatever. He'd go to class. But he wouldn't participate. He'd actively disrupt.

His thoughts flashed back to the letter. He would actively disrupt starting in October. For now, Kasimir would not be a sponge but rather a jellyfish in the classroom: brainless, dumb, and stinging when provoked.

He entered without books or a notepad, or his wand for that matter. Nothing but the untidy uniform on his back and the shoes on his feet. When Professor Corvesso asked him to remove those- the shoes- Kas paused. He gave the young teacher a look of disgust and opened his mouth to talk back. Once again, the letter. He kicked off his sneakers, not caring where they landed (they landed atop @Santiago Corvesso's shoes, but Kas didn't know that).

A seat in the back was his usual choice, and nothing was different about today. There he slouched in all his petulant, penitential glory as some guy talked about a surprise with enough shock factor to scream about. Kas scoffed. He doubted it was all that.

A snake. Seriously? It was a gorgeous ophidian, sleek, shiny, and darker than those few pitch hours just past midnight. So shiny it looked like it was radiating heat waves. It looked cobra-like with it's hood and fangs and set up in that reed basket like in the movies that had cultural appropriation in them.

One blonde girl, this one he did not know, spoke about the snake. So the snake was fancy and magic and whatever. To be expected. Big whoop. Then another blonde girl, this one he had the misfortune of knowing, also spoke, but about the first blonde girl.

"God you're a prig, Pryce," he said once she prattled off her smart quip, getting up from his seat. He looked at the snake again, then at the professor. "It's a snake. Like a freakin' black cobra but magic or something, and it looks poisonous." As a city boy from the heart of New York who only half paid attention to nature documentaries because they meant school was going to be fun that day or they were simply whatever he was stuck watching with his brothers, and moreover hadn't seen one in over five years at this point, he did not know what tells of agitation a snake had, nor what a snake about to strike looked like. All he knew to see was the danger hidden under the beauty, but that was inherently there in most any snake, especially ones with hoods and fangs.

Roll : [1d20: 3] + 9 = 12 (proof)

I Don't Want To Make A Header.

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Perhaps, in a way, Maggie Hawkins might have more in common with Professor Corvesso than she might think. She, too, preferred to watch the girls in her class rather than pay attention to dreary professors (who could forget when good old Professor Blumenthal had barked a detention at her for zoning out during their unicorn grooming seminar fourth year?), though she had no mind to change that.

Her mood hadn't improved much since the sorting three days prior, in which Maggie had been sentenced to three years in what seemed to be the emo bad luck house, no parole, no bail. That meant no roommate she knew, no late night slumber parties, and no June Selwyn.

Maggie wandered down the halls to class, and she didn't mind kicking off her shoes so much on account of the heel of her right loafer was starting to peel off at the bottom. Seeing June was like a breath of fresh air, and Maggie absently noted that her hair looked nice today. There was a non-zero chance she'd spend most of today's class staring at it.

"Morning," she slipped into the seat beside her best friend, immediately reclining back and crossing her ankles out on the carpet before them. She had to say, she appreciated the unorthodox choice in seating, reminiscent of the plush selection back at the Hogwarts Astronomy Tower.

The snake's appearance made Maggie jump, something slight and unplaceable to someone who wasn't watching her intently (and nobody looked at her as intently as she looked at others). Cobra-like, black as tar, and mean, Maggie wondered if it might be placed in her dreary, emo house, too. Blah.

Upon closer inspection, though, Maggie raised a brow, unimpressed. A Somnulent Snake. It looked to her like an old friend, black and mirror-like. In the back of her mind, Maggie wondered if it knew any green snakes that shimmered with silver-plated scales, if it might know how to cheer for the school Quidditch team. "Ciao, Bella," she clicked her tongue, "neat snake."

She could play the part of clueless, silly Maggie. It was just a snake, rearing its toothy head. Nothing special. If Maggie knew its designation, she wouldn't say, and if she'd wanted to be known as a regular bookworm, she would've made that decision years ago.

June answered quickly, as Maggie had expected. It was just like her to know, to try and make an impression on their professors as soon as she possibly could. "Came to Penwick to ace those classes, too?" She quipped quietly with a grin, nudging June with her elbow and looking, again, at her hair.

Maggie hadn't had the time to make merry with many of her classmates, save for her house, yet, and the familiar lilt of a Welsh accent fell upon eager ears. She leaned back to take a look at the girl who had spoken, noting, with a hint of amusement, that she looked like a strawberry-blonde June. They could be cousins, really. "Oh, are we not waiting to be called on, now? That is a delightful change."

The girl's voice was tinged with a snide, proper sort of tone. Like someone who got what they wanted when they wanted it, a voice polished with down feather dusters and set up high on the shelf with all the fine china. It was the sort of voice that Maggie had begun to notice in her own little sister, the kind of voice that was borne only out of someone who didn't know any better.

Her hair was awful nice, too.

"Well, she raised her hand, so..." Maggie retorted, rolling her eyes and rubbing a smudge of stubborn dirt from off her cheek with that pesky middle finger, painted in fresh black polish.

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@June Selwyn, @Enid Pryce, @Rafael Corvesso

Maggie H.