The Park

The park is a small forest on Hogwarts grounds, feel like taking a stroll through trees? Come here instead of the forbidden forest.

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Kiara walked through the park and sat at a bench. The accident in the great hall with Miss Ana Vaigh had bruised her up quit badly and had agravated her already her painful shoulder.

Hissing she leaned back and mumbled "oh I am just in great shape"

"Hey there Headmistress." Nicolas Casillas appeared with Persephone slighting dragging behind him.

Looking up Kiara smiled and pushed the pain to the back of her mind.

"Mr. Casillas? Enjoying the weekend?"

"Yes," Nicolas said petting Persephone. "So far. I had a bit of trouble earlier, though."

Kiara blinked, "What kind of trouble would that be Mr. Casillas?"

"Oh just a bit of a spat with my cousin's better half." Nicolas said.

Kiara looked confused for a moment,

" Oh? You are talking Mr Vaight am I correct? Mind if I ask what happened or is it under control?" she asked while nodding toward Persephone.

"He just scratched Persephone up a little bit." Nicolas said seethingly.

Kiara looked concerned,

"Scratched? What do you mean scratched? Is she alright?"" she asked as she moved forward.

"She's alright." Nicolas said. "Fortunately I had some Murlap tentacles and I was able to make a potion for Seph."

Kiara nodded, though she had a feeling she didn't like one bit.

"when you say he scratched her, how did he exactly?"
Kiara asked, slently hopeing he had been in human form.

"Well... I wouldn't use pounce..." Nicolas said. He knew he was being a rat by telling on Vaight like this but, honestly, if anyone messes with Persephone, Nicolas was willing to do anything.

Kiara stiffened "Pounced?" as she asked this her blue pheonix fire started to glow around her. She was having a lousy day and if Mr. Vaight attcked one of the animals on school grounds it would just be the iceing on top.

"Yes on her back." Nicolas replied coldy.

Kiara sighed "I will talk with him, did he know what he was doing? or was the wolf in control"

"He knew what he was doing." Nicolas said confidently, and without any hesitation.

Kiara sighed the blue fire glowing more brightly.

"Alright we are going to have a meeting in my office in one hour, we are going to deal with this right now"

She said as she wandlessly sent a automatic letter to Darien Vaight informing him to come to the Headmistress's office.

"Alright," Nicolas looked triuphant. "I'll see you in an hour then Headmistress."

Nicolas lead Persephone to a nearby apple tree.

Kiara walked through the wood like park, Saturn her blue Pheonix sored above and she smiled. If she concentreated hard enough she could feel she was soring in the skys with along with her.

Unknown to her in her concentation she started to glow with a blue fire, must have been a strange sight for any on looker who didn't know of her bonding with the bird of fire.

Sevastyan walked through the wooded park, having gotten the urge to do so some time after his first Staff Meeting with his colleagues here at Hogwarts. It went well, he had to admit. However it seemed as though the Headmistress would have her hands full with the other two Heads, one each for Beauxbatons and Durmstrang respectively, and juggling their complexities. While he did not know the Headmistress of Beauxbatons, Sevastyan was rather well-acquainted with Kazimir Orlov, the Durmstrang Headmaster. Perhaps even a bit more than he'd like to admit, what with having been one of the students in his less-than-uniquely-harsh brand of care. He probably wouldn't be so uncertain about the man's arrival had Sevastyan finished school before he even came to office, and if he hadn't outright refused his application for the position Petrov had lost due to the attempt to create Horcruxes.

((I fleshed out the Durmstrang bit of that plot twist - Boris and Nick were conversing in the Three Broomsticks. I hope it was okay to do so. . .))

Having heard footsteps ahead, Sevastyan halted in his advance through the trees to see who would approach. With a checkered past like his, he'd learned to anticipate attack and observation at any possible moment. Within a few seconds' time he had his wand drawn, gray eyes on high alert.

The first thing he saw was a blue aura-type light, and a figure surrounded in it. The aura appeared as though made up of flame. Sevastyan was no aura reader, but found this to be a rather intriguing, if not slightly alarming sight. As the person drew nearer, Sevastyan was even more surprised to see who it was.

"Headmistress? Er. . . I mean, Kiara?" he asked tentatively, still somewhat on guard but not as paranoid as some might have thought he was a bit ago.

Kiara spun around un aware she was still glowing.

"Sevastyan? I didn't hear coming sorry"

Looking up at the sky she summond Saturn down to her.

"This is Saturn my bonded familliar" she said.

"It is okay. I did not mean to startle you. Vot is vith the, er . . ." Sevastyan couldn't quite describe the glow around her adequately enough to suit him. "Vy are you gloving blue?" he asked simply, rephrasing the question. It wasn't quite perfect, but it would do.

Sevastyan watched the Headmistress closely, not sure exactly who or what she had signaled to her side until he'd seen the phoenix land neatly and carefully on its designated target. The fact that the phoenix was blue explained the blue glowing, especially since Kiara just said the bird was her bonded familiar.

"A blue phoenix? They are qvite rare, aren't they?" he asked and approached cautiously, not wanting the magical fowl to think he was going to do anything to its handler. "Is he friendly?" Sevastyan asked, gesturing with an open palm to the bird without realizing he wasn't sure of the gender of the creature.

Kiara looked down at her self at the blue flames.

"Damn it, it is doing that a lot lately.." closing her eyes the glow faded and she was now back to normal.

"Yes blue pheonix's are quite rare, especily females."

Noticing him approch rather cautously she smiled in reasurnce. "Not to worry, Saturn always knows if I am in danger. I am not right now"

Saturn flew over to Sevastyan's out streched hand and landed on his arm.

"We have been bonded for a rather long time, a pheonix being a creature of light would alert me to any dark presece around. She feels no malice from you, so you have nothing to fear from her" she said.

An eyebrow rose curiously at her comment, not quite sure what to make of the apparent fact that the Headmistress glowed blue a bit more often than this. However, he said nothing as he did not have much of a familiar. He was quite close to Morana, his thestral, but it wasn't exactly that close of a bond as Kiara obviously had with her phoenix. Sevastyan didn't like the idea of only being visible to people that had seen death, or being partially visible under the same circumstances for that matter...

"Saturn is a she?" Sevastyan inquired, more or less thinking out loud. He hadn't expected the phoenix to fly to him, but accepted the action nonetheless. Lena, the family owl, often perched upon his arm. With his other hand, Sevastyan stroked the bird's feathers gently while listening to what Kiara had to say.

"Vell, that is good. Though, I doubt she vould have let me even tventy paces of you over a decade ago," he said. If Saturn felt nothing malicious and dark from him, it would have been in for one heck of a surprise had it met him in the span of time mentioned. Of course, Sevastyan didn't exactly feel malicious toward Kiara then because they had never met until he transferred. But the fact that he had delved into the dark arts in his past surely - in Sevastyan's way of thinking - meant that he was somehow marked as a monster despite all the good and teaching he'd done. Unless Kiara's having this bird was fate's way of trying to tell Sevastyan different?

Kiara raised her eye brow at the comment,

"Oh? you couldn't have been that bad, the only person Saturn has a protective issue with me was Voldemort, and if you are trying to tell me you were as bad as he was I refuse to believe you."

Any other threat she could have taken care of with her own powers, she didn't like to use Saturn as a shield to hide behind it was bad enough she used her to fire travel out of danger.

"If it makes you feel any better we have all touched upon the dark arts at some point in our lives. What matters is who we are now not who we were then"