Jace awoke to a bird pecking at his face – he growled humanly before raising his dishevelled head to see a bird standing there with his leg poking out. Another message from Birdy! He reached over and opened his bedside draw and gave the bird a treat. It took it happily, fluffed up it’s feathers and made it’s way to the perch Jace had set up. He asked the bird if it could stay until he wrote the replies, purely because this bird knew who to take his letters to as even he had no idea – it was just birdy.

Jace sat up, he was out roaming deeper into the forest than expected and didn’t leave enough time for a decent sleep. He ached a little from having a tree fall on him, ok maybe it was a lot but he still sat up against his pillow and quickly opened the letter like a kid at Christmas.

I hate these ruddy quills! Don’t get me wrong, they produce nice penmenship but these feathers! They’re impossible! Which is why I’m sure even you can tell the difference between quill and biro.

I confess that I cheat. I take notes in pen while doing actual work with a quill. So what is one of your secrets?

Also, I found something weird. You know that really old clunker of a motor car that rambles about the forest? I think its friends with the giant squid. Why else would it be atop that jalopy and visiting the whomping willow?

- Birdy

P.S. Was irritated and had to vent somehow. Hope you don’t mind.

Jace pondered his reply and wrote it, but knew he’d send it later. He was running out of time for breakfast, checking that the bird had food and water he bolted out of the dormitory with his book bag in tow. As he made his way into the Great Hall, he did his usual scan of the crowd as everyone filed in for breakfast. You could tell who the morning people were and who weren’t.

He sat in his usual spot, most of the other Slytherin’s weren’t there and he was thankful for that as he let his eyes roam around for Isaac. Since he had been admiring the boy for so long, he decided to make his move today. He was going to talk to Isaac and see if they could talk, it was a long stretch but some how the words of Birdy echoed in his head. Just try.

He piled his plate high with food and dug in, Isaac usually did a crowd scan when he looked up from his book. Jace couldn’t exactly decipher which book it was today but that boy was always reading. Bloody Ravenclaws.

Jace had class with the Ravenclaw’s today and figured he would try and approach Isaac. The Ravenclaw boy looked at something on his wrist – probably a watch – and disappeared from the Great Hall, Jace stood and grabbed his book bag from the floor. He followed quietly and avoided the stares of everyone else, he knew he was weird to the rest of the school but he didn’t mind most of the time. History of Magic was what they had, he was quite excited about it – today they were going to learn about the Dire Wolves. Not many people were in this class, which was good and it meant he could potentially have a conversation with Isaac!

They entered the classroom, a few people were there but they were too engrossed in their books to care. Jace started to speak but a frog or whatever got caught in his throat, he cleared it quietly before approaching Isaac.

“Hey Isaac…” he said with a smirk, his smirk was a fallback in case he was nervous. The smirk always worked. Isaac turned around as he placed his books on his desk and the sneer that covered the boy’s lips made him want to hide in the corner. “Never mind..” Jace mumbled and took a seat at the back of the room, away from Isaac where he could lick his wounded pride and tried not to cry. He had never been mean to the boy, ever! If anything, he had always been polite to others. Maybe it was because he was in stupid Slytherin. Again! WHY was he in Slytherin?

The teacher entered the room.

“Please turn to page 294 – this is going to be a large chapter today class.”

Jace was still pulling his books, parchment and no-mess quill out. His mind was elsewhere, wouldn’t it be funny if the class knew they had a dire wolf sitting behind them. He could show them most of his cool tricks including morphing in front of them. His eyes glared at the back of Isaacs head for the entire lesson, hoping to burn holes in it for being so rude and for making him hurt the way he was.

When class ended, his bag was already packed. The class was all lies and he knew it, he knew about his own history and had to bite his own tongue the entire time. He paid no mind as he pushed past Isaac and out the door to his next class.