the youngest of the mob

[Maka Kickett]

Maka was glad to be back from the holidays. He loved his family and everything but there was just so many of them, cousins, brothers, sisters aunts uncles mums and dads, and over christmas they al got together for a few days out bush in their country passing on traditional knowledge. he enjoyed it and liked the teachings but he was glad to have a bit of space and quiet to himself. his family was just so loud. today he made his way up to the north tower with a quill and a piece of parchment. He had to write to his sister and say congratulations. She had been accepted to surf in one of the most famous surf competitions in australia, bells beach. and even though he wasn't into surfing or sport for that matter he knew it meant an awful lot to her, and he knew Lowan wouldn't write back to her. he just wasn't the type.
He took a seat on a beneath looking out of the window and he was about to start to write when he noticed a couple of birds flying to and fro across the window signifying there was a small nest in the shelter of the roof. he got up and went over to the window to see if he could see the nest or the baby birds. he was kneeling on the window sill when he heard a noise that made him jump and turn around wobbling slightly and thus glad that there were windows to stop him going flying, or rather plunging.

 

[J.T. Hunt]

J.T. spent his transfiguration class composing his weekly letter to his mother. The young Gryffindor had to put a few innocent lies in those lines in order to reassure her, he was doing well with school. Reality was far from that as he was struggling with his classes. J.T. always had difficulty with school ever since his first years as a student at muggles' institutions but the last thing he wanted his mother to worry was about his performance in magical curriculum. Over Christmas holidays back at home, J.T. had discovered his mother's medical tests. His whole collapsed when he found out that she was diagnosed with cancer. His mother was his only relative in life and the two of them were close, always supporting each other. If classes didn't mind him before, he certainly had no desire to work on his grades. His mother didn't talk about her medical results and J.T. decided not to bring this topic during their dinner conversations. He was mature for his age even if this wasn't perceptible at a first glance. He still hadn't recovered from the shock of this frightful discovery but he had to regain control and find out how he could help his mother.

If there was one thing he liked from his new wizarding reality, that was the ability to fly. Although this was achieved by mounting a broom, the sensation was still liberating. Every time J.T. wanted to clear his mind and cast away dreary thoughts. He really needed this one now so along with his letter he was carrying as well a broom he had borrowed from a classmate. He had started saving some money to one day buy his own broomstick but there was no doubt that he was going to use these money for his mother's well-being if he had to. After releasing the owl with his letter at the owlery, he headed straight to the tallest tower to takeoff. J.T. was expecting to find someone at the parapet over viewing most of the castle's grounds. More surprisingly that someone was kneeling on the window's ledge. "Erm...are you okay?" he asked reluctantly as the other boy jumped off the ledge but fortunately not off the window.

 

[Maka Kickett]

Maka had just spotted the nest, it looked like the babies were a few days old. he could hear them chirping and see the top of their heads. he remembered when he was little and he had found a nest that had been abandoned and had insisted that he and his family raise the chicks. he had been told that they had flown away, but thinking back now maybe they had been too small to fly away, perhaps they had died.
she looked around and saw that the noise had come from a boy. he quickly stood up on the floor making his stumble look a little more like an intended motion. "g'day" he said "I'm all good. it looks like there is a bird nest up there" he said. not really thinking on how the boy would react to that news, he was used to people teasing him about his animals, and overall softheartedness. It was one of the topics that that una and low seemed to take joy in teasing him on but would not put up with anyone else doing it. "hey, you're in my classes aren't you mate?" she asked. he could not remember the boys name. or which house he was in (other than not hufflepuff).

 

[J.T. Hunt]

"Good day to you too." J.T. greeted back the boy that climbed down the window's ledge. At first he looked at his peer with suspicion but when he explained what he had found there, he proved J.T. wrong for suspecting him being up to no good. "Nice. Umm, just don't try to remove the nest. I think the mother won't return back to feed the chicks if you do so." he advised. J.T. was generally against people who were interfering with nature but the boy before him looked nothing like this. He had a healthy flash of curiosity in his dark eyes and J.T. thought he wasn't like most students who were vapid and self-absorbed. The second year Gryffindor studied the boy's face in an attempt to recall if they were indeed in the same classes. "Maybe yes if you're a second year." he said not really sure if he had seen the boy before. "I'm J.T." he casually introduced himself. "Except from finding bird nests, what are you up to today?" he asked wondering if he could join him. Perhaps the boy had also a broom and they could fly together, around the towers' roofs.

 

[Maka Kickett]

Maka could tell that the boy seemed to be interested in nature too, though he was fairly sure their interests stemmed from different roots. "It's okay mate, I wouldn' touch it even if there wasn't a window in the way. I was just lookin' at them, they look like fantails" he said not really for anyone elses knowledge but his own. he wasn't that clued up with new zealand birds, but he could recognise a lot of the native flaura and fauna of his home area.
"I thought so I am also a second year" he said when the boy said they were in the same year. great to meat you JT. I'm Maka, a badger" he said, introducing himself. "I was writing a letter to my djook 'fore i got distracted" he said. accidentally slipping in the noongar word for sister.

 

[J.T. Hunt]

The boy introduced as Maka had to be a naturalist. He could tell just by the look of the chicks what species of bird they were. "You like animals, don't you?" JT commented and leaned the broom against the wall to free his hands and tie his shoelaces. "Do you know enough about creatures as well?" he asked while finishing his first knot. JT knew about gnomes, fairies, he had heard about dragons but he wondered what other creatures were real apart from the popular ones that muggles had integrated in their fairy tales. He had heard of a class named Care of Magical Creatures but he couldn't took it until next year. For now he had to rely on stuff overheard from students of wizarding ancestry, unlike him.

Maka was also a second year but a badger as he claimed. JT was used to the way some people were referring to their houses. As a Gryffindor he could say instead a lion or a cub as the head of the Gryffindor house used to call the younger members. "Nice to meet you too. I'm a Gryffindor." he decided to name his house with its actual name. It sounded less cheesy in his head. JT just nodded without understanding to who exactly Maka was writing but he thought it was not his business to be nosy and ask. Instead he grabbed back his broom and suggested. "Would you like to go for a flight?" he asked and gestured at the broom. "We are not allowed to venture in the forest but no one said something about flying over it. We could find more bird nests on the trees." he said unaware that this could sound inviting to the Hufflepuff. "Don't worry if you don't have a broom. We can fly two-on-a-broom using this one." he made his own term on the spot for two people flying on the same broom. It could be like bicycling while having another person behind him. He had done this a thousand times but always on a bicycle.

 

[Maka Kickett]

maka nodded when the boy asked if he liked animals. "yeah, it's what happens when you are a country boy" he said. a lote more of a simple reason for why he liked animals, the fact he was aboriginal and had been brought up with stories of the dreamtime. and the numourous animals around his home,the boy ducked down and Maka realised he was tying his shoelaces as he was asking a question about creatures. "What do you mean by creatures? like spiders and snakes?" he asked. some people he knew would call snakes and spiders creatures just because they didnt like them. some peoeple just used creatures as an alternative to animals.
When the boy introduced himself as a gryffindor he nodde. "ahh, my brudje is in that house. beater on your quidditch team" he said. not sure if the boy knew Lowan, even if he didn't know him he probably knew of him, the quidditch seemed to be held in quite high esteem, and the boy did have a broom with him.
Almost as if JT could follow his thoughts the boy picked up his broom and asked if he wanted to go on a flight. "no" he said shaking his head. he wasn't meaning to be rude or anyhting, he just had a think about brooms, he had had enough bad experiences on them to put him off them, like when he was about five una had taken hi for a ride on hers, only she kept going gast and high up, and it had made him feel sick, and there was another time when he had been ragged onto the broom by his sister again only to be knocked off and fallen into a tree, or just last winter when he had finishedfirst year and had had flying lessons Lowan had decided that he was skilled anough to help him train quidditch though to maka it seemed like all he was doing was throwing apples or tennis balls at his brother and have him hit them back at him. "I am not a fan of brooms, especially tying two on one" he said. he was sure that JT wouldn't be like una. that was more a youngest brother oldest sister thing, but it had still put him off brooms for a good while. "didya come to the north tower just to fly or were you here for something else" he asked, it seemed like an odd place t fly, the quidditch pitch seemed like the most popular place to take to the air.

 

[J.T. Hunt]

JT was brought up in the northern suburbs of Auckland where it wasn't that industrial like the city. Although the expanded parkland of his home town was nothing like countyside, he still grew up close to nature. Bicycle races up the overgrown hills, always ended up in rescuing chicks who had fell off their nests or secretly taking in a stray animal at the secret base he had with the neighborhood's kids , at an abandoned motel. These were things the Gryffindor was missing a lot ever since he started attending Hogwarts. After a year away for his first year studies, his old neighborhood friends treated him distantly. JT couldn't imagine what would be their ultimate reaction if they were going to find that he was a wizard. Maka sounded a nice kind of guy. He seemed that he could have been one of JT's neighborhood kids. "Where are you from?" He asked when the Hufflepuff said he was a country boy. "I'm from Albany. It's just north from Auckland." he said about his hometown.

Over the past year and few months, JT had learnt several different terms that were used by the wizarding community. Before this new world was unfolded to him, he was referring to animals that were known to muggles, as creatures as well. But with unicorns and dragons being real, the use of that word changed dramatically. It came along mostly with the word 'magical' but JT could no longer call a cat as a creature. "No I mean, like, magical ones. Like dragons." he set this straight. It couldn't just be the creatures fairytales were featuring. There have to be more and JT had the impression that some of them dwelled at the school's forest that got defined as forbidden. He glanced for a moment out of the window to see the distant tree tops. He wondered what could have been preventing the more savaging beasts, if there were any, from attacking the castle or just, snatching a few students for meal.

JT wasn't familiar with some of the words Maka was using but he could tell that he had either a brother or a sister at Gryffindor, who was actually a beater in the Qudditch team. "Do you play Quidditch?" the next question came casually. "I want to but I have watched the tryouts. Some people are really good." he admitted. He was intimidated by the flawless some people had while flying on their brooms. He thought he had no chance to play for the team compared to them. Then Maka revealed that he wasn't overall fond of brooms. JT thought that Maka might was acrophobic. "It's okay." he said. JT wasn't the kind of person who would force someone to do something against their will. He looked at the main, grand opening of the room they were in, the balcony, that offered a stunning view of the grounds. "Yeah. I've seen older students doing that. I thought of trying it as well." he confirmed. Though he wasn't going to do the reckless thing he had witnessed before. Most students he had seen doing that, were first jumping off the balcony then mounting their brooms in midair. JT was going to play safe and land off from the tower before soaring away. "What about you? Have any hobbies apart from bird watching." he smiled softly.