Carving smiles

[Rafael Fedorowicz]

Influenced by the first year girl that had been constructing a kite the other day, Rafael Fedorowicz wanted to do something creative today as well. Halloween was just a week away and what was better than carving funny faces on plump pumpkins. The first years were supposed to grow and harvest pumpkins during their herbology classes so he found a pile of them when he arrived at the greenhouses. He grabbed two of them and took them just behind the glass structure where it was quiet and remote. He had a sit on one of the rocks forming a circle and took out of his pocket a pocket knife. He picked one of the pumpkins and plunged the steel blade on the top next to the stalk. Rafael hadn't decided yet what kind of face he was going to carve on it but first he had to remove pulp and seeds to make it hollow.

 

[Mackenzie Mitchell]

Sixth year was killing Mackenzie, for all the hype and talk given about their OWLs no one had thought to mention that Sixth year would be so much worse. The Hufflepuff had spent most of the first few weeks of term either in class, sleeping in her dorm or studying in the library and she'd had enough. Despite still having a mountain of work to get to Mackenzie had taken the decision to blow it off and go for a walk in the grounds. If she had been at home she knew exactly what she would do in this situation, she would go surfing. It was what she was best at, being in the water made sense to her but chances to surf at Hogwarts were few and far between. In fact, she was sure she had only been once in five previous years with the muggle sports club and even that felt like a distant memory.

The grounds were full of chattering students and Mackenzie was envious of them all, they all seemed much happier and stress free than she was. Her only consolation was that she only had two more years before she could go home and leave the magical world behind her. When she ventured over towards the great lawn she saw an unusual sight. She saw someone carving out pumpkins, sure Halloween was only a few weeks away but to see a student carving one out in the middle of the grounds was a pretty strange sight. It wasn't often Mackenzie was surprised these days given all she had seen since starting Hogwarts, but this definitely did it. "Hey there," Mackenzie said walking over to him. "Getting into the Halloween spirit already?" She asked with a smile. As she got closer to the boy she recognised him, vaguely as a Hufflepuff, he looked round and about age so she'd probably put him in seventh year.

 

[Rafael Fedorowicz]

The hufflepuff had never before taken the time to carve pumpkins. He wasn't really fond of the celebrations but anything right now was welcome to fight boredom. He had seen his mother doing this but didn't know what kind of technique he had to follow. He was drawing the knife back and forth, cutting a somewhat circular lid when someone's shadow was cast on him. He paused and looked up. It was a familiar face. He thought he had seen this girl around common room. "Hey, what's up?" He greeted back and resumed stabbing back and forth the blade to carve the lid. It was surprisingly stress relieving. Rafael smiled back as he removed the top of the pumpkin. "Sort of. I just saw those pumpkins sitting there." He said and nodded at the greenhouse behind him. "I've never did this before so I thought, why not." he shrugged and looked down at the pumpkin he had started working on. He was clueless of what he was supposed to do next. The logical thing would be to turn it upside-down and empty it. "Have you tried this before? You can have this one." He offered her the second pumpkin he had taken. "First years seems to be abusing them but this one is free of nicks." He chuckled and thumbed on the skin to produce a hollow sound. He didn't have an extra pocketknife to give her but he was sure they could find one inside the greenhouse. "I'm Rafael." He introduced himself as he started slicing off the underside. He decided it was a better option in order to remove excess filling and at the same time flatten the bottom.