Saturday 28 September, midday. Hogwarts.
After a morning of writing letters to every influential person she can think of who might be able to assist with publicising her new pet project, Hooch's fingers ache. She puts down the quill pen and stretches her fingers wide, to full span, and turns her hand over and over, marvelling at the capabilities of a structure of bone, musculature and skin to perform a task to excess, even under protest.
Her shoulders are stiff too. She needs to get outside and take some exercise.
Catching up her broom from its accustomed storage place next to her coatrack, she shrugs on a leather jacket and her flying gloves and heads out into the grounds. In the distance she can see the figures of some of the students practicing over by the Quidditch pitch, probably one of the teams, and she therefore points her broom handle in the opposite direction before mounting and kicking off. She's not on the clock right now; let them carry on by themselves.
Her course takes her towards the lake, and she leans forward to skim the ground close as it falls away towards the water, then pulls up hard as it levels off, curving around over the shallows to return to the bank which she follows throughout a circuit of the grounds.
Returning to her starting point once more, she alights on the ground and looks out over the lake thoughtfully. The rotting stumps of the old boathouse are in plain view, and although nothing has been said about it since Mr Nott departed from the school after his brief teaching stint, she assumes that nothing has happened since to change his mind, and that the Headmaster is still as whimsically amused by the effects of his meddling on her own post as previously.
Well, time enough to worry about that if and when a new boathouse starts going up on the lakeshore. In the meantime, she will occupy the inhospitable winter months by teaching her charges how to swim.
There's the fluttering of wings and a soft hoot, and she looks up from her reverie to see two owls sitting close by, eyeing each other suspiciously. Both seem to be for her, so she settles herself down on the sawn log from a fallen tree, extends an arm, and lets the bolder of the two hop on to it.
An answer from Roger. Good. It makes things easier if she has people like himself and his friends on board. She'll write to him again tomorrow, after she finds out what the Prophet can do for her. And the other owl? It's from Mrs Tonks, and bears equally good news, in that she's volunteered to do the advertising design work herself.
Hooch's expression takes on the smug quality of a cat in possession of the very best cream in the creamery as she gazes back over the lake once more. Now if she only gets an answer back from Rita Skeeter, her day's endeavours will have been most profitable indeed.
Her shoulders are stiff too. She needs to get outside and take some exercise.
Catching up her broom from its accustomed storage place next to her coatrack, she shrugs on a leather jacket and her flying gloves and heads out into the grounds. In the distance she can see the figures of some of the students practicing over by the Quidditch pitch, probably one of the teams, and she therefore points her broom handle in the opposite direction before mounting and kicking off. She's not on the clock right now; let them carry on by themselves.
Her course takes her towards the lake, and she leans forward to skim the ground close as it falls away towards the water, then pulls up hard as it levels off, curving around over the shallows to return to the bank which she follows throughout a circuit of the grounds.
Returning to her starting point once more, she alights on the ground and looks out over the lake thoughtfully. The rotting stumps of the old boathouse are in plain view, and although nothing has been said about it since Mr Nott departed from the school after his brief teaching stint, she assumes that nothing has happened since to change his mind, and that the Headmaster is still as whimsically amused by the effects of his meddling on her own post as previously.
Well, time enough to worry about that if and when a new boathouse starts going up on the lakeshore. In the meantime, she will occupy the inhospitable winter months by teaching her charges how to swim.
There's the fluttering of wings and a soft hoot, and she looks up from her reverie to see two owls sitting close by, eyeing each other suspiciously. Both seem to be for her, so she settles herself down on the sawn log from a fallen tree, extends an arm, and lets the bolder of the two hop on to it.
An answer from Roger. Good. It makes things easier if she has people like himself and his friends on board. She'll write to him again tomorrow, after she finds out what the Prophet can do for her. And the other owl? It's from Mrs Tonks, and bears equally good news, in that she's volunteered to do the advertising design work herself.
Hooch's expression takes on the smug quality of a cat in possession of the very best cream in the creamery as she gazes back over the lake once more. Now if she only gets an answer back from Rita Skeeter, her day's endeavours will have been most profitable indeed.