welcome to chimera!

[Janus Thickey]

Vicky Summers was a surprisingly difficult girl to find. Well, perhaps part of the problem was that they had known each other (and each other's names) for a grand totally of possibly four or five hours, during which the height of the Astronomy Tower had been between for a large majority of the time. Another part was that Janus didn't actually know how to find the entrance to the Hufflepuff dormitory. All he knew was that it was somewhere in the basement, and... well, that was the extent of it. He'd been wandering through the basements, avoiding the dungeons like anyone with any bit of common sense would avoid hot lava, for a good thirty minutes after his last class, trying to see if he could find even on person in a yellow and black tie to point him in the right direction.

After all, her name had come immediately to mind when today in class Professor Kettleburn had announced the beginning of their experimental breeding projects. It was too bad they weren't in the same year (otherwise, he suspected, they would have met each other much more quickly), otherwise he would have invited her to be his partner for the project so they could attend to create either the most interesting or explosive or dangerous project possible. As it was, he felt inclined to show her the magical creatures that Kettleburn had presented as possibilities.

Finally he cornered a younger-looking Hufflepuff girl with curly hair and a Prefect's badge, who asked who he was looking for and pointed him in the direction of the common room, although she wouldn't tell him the password or anything actually useful. So Janus was hanging around outside of the curiously unsuspecting wall that apparently lead into the Hufflepuff dorm, waiting for someone to come in out, and then-- He was in luck. Vicky came out of the common room and before the wall had even closed behind her, Janus had straightened from where he leaned against the opposite basement wal and was looking, for him, remarkably cheerful.

"Hello again Vicky," he said eagerly. "Listen, Kettleburn just announced we're doing experimental breeding in Care of Magical Creatures. I thought you might want to see the class's options."

[Victoria Summers]

Not exactly used to boys waiting around to meet her, Vicky looked up in slight surprised at Janus's presence. Not that she was displeased, especially when he offered up his reason for being here at all. Then she grinned widely. "Sounds brilliant."

Care of Magical Creatures just so happened to be her foremost passion at Hogwarts, superseding even Quidditch. How Janus knew that, she wasn't quite sure but she was liking him more and more by the second. "Well I was going to study, but this sounds a whole lot better."

Dropping her bag into the swiftly lessening opening, she trusted her housemates not to root through her stuff while she left it unattended and then joined him on the opposite side of the hallway. "How kind of you to think of me, Mr...Janus."

Truth be told, she couldn't recall his last name. It had been something like Thickey, or Skinny, or perhaps Chunky?

[Janus Thickey]

"Thickey," he said automatically. "Janus is fine, though." He'd always had a head for names, a result of long afternoons spent in his father's office in Diagon Alley reading legal cases that he didn't understand but wanted to finish anyway. Remembering Vicky Summers's name had been simple. "I thought you might be interested in it. Forgive me if I'm being presumptuous." He waved his hand dismissively at the thought of studying. "I'm sure, though, that anything is more exciting than studying."

After she'd jumped off the Astronomy Tower, though, Janus hardly suspected that it was possible to be presumptuous with her. He was unaware that Care of Magical Creatures was her passion at Hogwarts; rather, he'd recalled, as Kettleburn went on and on about the various exciting ways in which experimental breeding could go wrong, that she'd seemed interested in things that could go terribly, terribly awry - and what was better than experimental breeding?

Breaking into barrows, perhaps, but there were no barrows that Janus was aware of on the grounds of Hogwarts, and it was next to impossible to get that far from the castle without Apparating, which he could do legally, of course, but was impossible to do from Hogwarts.

Once she'd abandoned her bag he took off with her toward the stairs that lead up out of the basement, surprised that anyone could bear living down here without all the fresh air that you go tin Ravenclaw Tower. "Kettleburn's got all our choices penned out by the classroom. There are some rather exciting creatures out there - I was thinking of trying to get something that could breathe fire."

[Victoria Summers]

"That is really an awful last name,' she informed him with a smile as they headed out of the basement, at her lead as he seemed to be less than familiar with the wing the Hufflepuff commons were in. "Oh, I don't know, Ancient Runes promised to be scintillating. Anything poisonous?"

She was excited about the idea of getting a headstart on her seventh year of CoMc even before she'd finished her sixth. It was really the only class in which Vicky pulled of nearly consistent Excellents. Hopping up the stairs, taking them two at a time in her excitement, she strode into the main hall towards the exit full of energy. "What about scaled? Natural armor would be good. So would flight. I wonder if there'd be time to do more than one species..."

[Janus Thickey]

He would have scoffed at the idea of Ancient Runes if he hadn't continued with the class to be sure that he'd be able to read the various texts printed on the walls of whatever ancient tombs he found himself exploring. Being able to read the curses you were trying to break was a useful talent, he thought. But Janus had never been one for studying, even in the subjects that were important to him; he'd much prefer poking around Professor Kettleburn's plans for experimental breeding any day.

"I don't know exactly what's there," he admitted, pushing the doors open for her like a gentleman ought to. "But if it's Professor Kettleburn, I'm sure he'll have some magical creatures that are absolutely fantastic." The sun was weakly showing through high, thin grey clouds, but the fact that Janus could see his breath in the afternoon air had absolutely no effect on his enthusiasm. "I suppose you like Care of Magical Creatures, then?" he asked, genuinely curious. "The class doesn't start actual experimental breeding for another few weeks. There might be enough time to get a practice run in if we start fast."

[Victoria Summers]

The chill made Vicky shiver once, but she ignored it afterwards, too excited to go back for something thicker and willing to stick it out. Besides, she kept up a brisk pace and it wasn't all that bad. "It's my favorite subject,' she said, unabashedly. "I want to wrangle dragons as a career."

She smiled just thinking about it and hardly had to consider where she was going, knowing her way to the CoMc pens like she was a train on a track. "Kettleburn is great too." She wasn't one of those weird girls who formed unhealthy attachments to the male staff, but she did greatly admire and respect Kettleburn.

[Janus Thickey]

"Do you really!" he said excitedly, glancing down at her as they walked quickly across the lawn toward the pens. "I've got plans for curse-breaking, my self." He should have guessed it was something unlikely, although he might not have ever thought that a girl would go into dragon wrangling. It had sounded like an interesting career for the brief moment he considered it before settling on curse-breaking, but working with magic had always appealed to him far more. "Do you reckon Kettleburn's got some small dragons down there?"

It was likely: the good Professor had always somehow managed to get his hands on magical creatures that Janus suspected were either highly illegal or highly dangerous or (most likely) both. He'd be more than happy to look into the experimental breeding of dragons. Merlin, certainly they were able to breathe fire, if anything was.

[Victoria Summers]

"Yeah,' she smiled - it wasn't easy to find many people who understood her ambition to tangle with such dangerous animals. The career had a high mortality rate, closely followed by a high disfigurement and disabling rate. "Curse-breaking's good - I don't like closed, dark spaces though." She much preferred anything that was the direct opposite of being confined - a trait that extended into many aspects of her personality and behavior. "I'm trying to wriggle my way onto your field-trip this year. You're going to a dragon reserve."

She wasn't sure if he already knew this, but that was hardly important. "Oh I hope so, but I think there's all sorts of import laws he has to conform to, besides safety issues."

[Janus Thickey]

Janus shared a similar distaste for confinement, although in his opinion, the cramped spaces of tombs and barrows and other cursed places wasn't as bad as the stifling feeling that came from staying in the same place for too long. "That we are," he said. "Kettleburn's mad, I think. I don't know if he realises that import restrictions exist." Glancing down at her, he asked, "Aren't you going on the trip to his family's place in Kenya? That was certainly exciting enough."

He did understand, though, her desire to go to a dragon preserve that was actually applicable to what she wanted to do with the rest of her life rather than cool her heels in colonial Africa. Janus had enjoyed the trip, yes, but Africa had never appealed to him, except for perhaps Egypt - too many dangerous animals that he hoped never to have to handle on his own without what passed for (barely, in Kettleburn's case) responsible supervision.

[Victoria Summers]

She looked almost sheepish a second as she explained, "I'm trying to get permission to go on both." It didn't seem likely - it would be an awful lot of time away from school, but perhaps if Kettleburn was willing to put in a strong word for her, perhaps if she made it clear how absolutely sure this was what she wanted in life...maybe then. She definitely didn't want to miss out on Kenya, but waiting a full year for a Dragon Reserve - which might be deemed too dangerous by the time it was her turn - seemed equally unbearable. If someone had asked her to chose, it would've been like trying to decide which of her children to kill (if she were the least bit maternal).

The walk across the fields was long and they attempted to avoid being too open about it because although it wasn't curfew, the rules were murky about what they were doing none the less. Especially since they did not have Kettleburn's permission.

[Janus Thickey]

They were skirting the edge of the Forbidden Forest as they walked, although its usually siren call wasn't as powerful to Janus as it normally was when compared to the illicit thrill of getting a preview of Professor Kettleburn's madness in action. Janus could only imagine the sorts of creatures that Kettleburn had rounded up for the seventh years' NEWT-level section on experimental breeding; while he wasn't exactly a specialist in Care of Magical Creatures, he nonetheless found it interesting to get an early glimpse at the sort of insane creatures that might fill the tombs he was expected to be clearing of curses.

"Good luck," he said, throwing a glance over his shoulder back towards the castle to make sure that nobody was noting their way toward the pens at a time that was most definitely not during class. "I'm sure someone will put in a good word for you." Then he dug in his pocket and pulled out his cigarette case, flipping it open and holding it out towards Vicky so that she might have the first choice of the few fags he had left. "Care for a smoke?"

[Victoria Summers]

Ha! Another thing she liked about Janus. She'd been caging smokes for about a week now because the ration her mother begrudgingly sent her had run out and there was no asking for more before the first of the month. Happily, she slipped one out and lit it with a bit of wandless magic she'd been working sort of hard on (which explained the number of burn-holes currently in one of her jumpers). "Yeah thanks, Kettleburn seems to like me so who knows."

Grinning at him, they finally reached the first set of paddocks which housed a small herd of Thestrals. She could see them well enough, thanks to her two-year-old self and the good old Ukraine, but she wondered if Janus could. "See 'em?"

[Janus Thickey]

He lit his own cigarette with a match; Janus liked the simplicity of some Muggle things, and wasn't exactly feeling up to the concentration necessary for wandless or wordless magic. But he slipped both the cigarette case and the match book back into his pocket and for a moment thought about jauntily taking Vicky's arm as if they were on some sort of ridiculous promenade across the fields, through the edges of the Forbidden Forest, towards the pens where all sorts of incredibly dangerous creatures were kept, but it was both a stupid thought and they were already at the pens, besides.

The pen they stopped at first looked, to Janus, to be empty. He'd led a relatively happy life, despite his mother and what she'd done, and he'd never seen anyone die. "I can't," he admitted, glancing down down at her, wondering whose death she'd seen to allow her to see the thestrals. "You can, I guess? What do they look like?"

[Victoria Summers]

"Like the offspring of vultures and horses mated and then began to rot but refused to die,' she stated plainly, studying the ugly but somehow elegant creatures carefully. They were all at the far side - feeding, it looked like. On what, she probably didn't want to know. "They're sort of pretty. I wonder if you chose them - would that special kind of invisibility pertain to the offspring?"

It was a little to telling of a personal life she rarely, if ever, spoke of that she could see them. But the harsh beginnings of her life hadn't left much of a mark on Vicky at all, beyond this ability she supposed. She couldn't remember a single thing about the Ukraine - although her mother was often eager to tell her all about it.

[Janus Thickey]

Janus took a moment to consider what that might look like, impressed as well by Vicky's plain - but certainly evocative - way with words. "They might be pretty if you like that thing," he said carefully, unable to imagine a combination of the things she'd described that might have the word 'pretty' applied to it seriously. "And it might. I guess it would depend on the characteristics of the creature you crossed it with. Maybe," he grinned, "if you crossed it with a flobberworm? They're certainly boring enough that invisibility is interesting enough to show up in the offspring."

He realised quickly enough when she didn't expand on whose death allowed her to see the thestrals that she wasn't quite inclined to talk about it, and so he didn't push the subject. After all, Janus had never really been terribly excited to talk about his own family's history; he was just socially keen enough to know when people didn't want to talk about something and to therefore avoid the topic so as not to bother them, especially when he'd prefer the conversation to continue for longer. Talking to Vicky was certainly interesting.