[Feb MP] Be the change (Pixie)

that you wish to see in the world.
~Mahatma Gandhi

Trudy was excited and nervous as she made her way through the corridors of Hogwarts a good thirty minutes before breakfast, carrying three scrolls of parchment that she had turned into different kinds of posters for her campaign for animal rights. She wanted to put them up in highly frequented corridors where everybody could see them. After all, she needed to get a lot of attention if she wanted to actually change the Hogwarts curriculum and, furthermore, the treatment of animals and magical creatures in the wizarding world.

The girl felt that setting a goal of banning spells like Vera Verto from the curriculum was just a start. There were so many more things that weren’t right - animals were killed for wand cores, potion ingredients, protective clothing and probably for a lot of other things that the second year wasn’t even aware of. It wasn’t right and something had to be done about it. She had talked to many school mates already, naturally starting with her year and house mates.

While some people shared her beliefs but didn’t really feel like it was their business to try and change anything, Trudy was an energetic young little witch who felt that she had to at least try and make things right and she had been happy to see that some fellow students felt the same. Maybe she wouldn’t succeed with everything she wanted to achieve but she felt she owed it to the magical creatures and common animals to protect them, to give them a voice.

She stopped in front of the Great Hall and looked around, frowning slightly. Where was the ideal spot for her poster? She approached the wall next to the entrance door. Everyone would pass this spot at some point which meant that a poster hanging here would surely be seen.

Soon enough the girl was standing on tiptoes, trying to move one of the posters into the right position and pointing her wand up in an attempt to stick it to the wall. However, the parchment rolled itself up again whenever she tried to smooth it and lock it into its position. Two hands just weren’t enough. She groaned in exasperation when the parchment slipped out of her hand as she was just trying to use her wand on it. She should have asked a friend to join her. However, they all were busy hanging up posters in the common rooms, putting pamphlets onto the tables in the Great Hall and basically recruiting more members for the club.

@Pixie Clarke-Trickett

[OOC: poster example]

Phew, she'd found it! Pixie was out of breath by the time she got back to the Hogwarts entrance hall, but feeling very relieved. Yesterday she'd got up late and only made it to her first lesson by turning up without her bag. Thankfully a helpful housemate had shared his book and loaned her a quill, which she had gratefully used (even if it made a lot more mistakes than her spell-checking one) but, being Pixie, had forgotten to either give it back or put it in her bag at the end of class. Of course, the boy assumed she was using it for the rest of the day and it wasn't until he mentioned it at dinner that she realised she must have left it in greenhouse three. Pixie had smiled disarmingly and said she would get it after dinner - but of course there were prefects on duty and she couldn't find a way of sneaking out of the castle after dark and thus had spent a miserable evening hiding out in her dorm and feigning a headache. Yes, logically it was only a quill...but she hated the thought of upsetting someone.

So she'd woken early this morning, dressed, and snuck out of her dorm before anyone else was awake. Going out after dark was frowned upon, but going out for an early morning walk or run was perfectly acceptable. Pixie had ended up running down to the greenhouses simply to keep warm. There was a thick frost on the grass and still patches of snow in the most shaded areas and naturally, she'd forgotten to wear her cloak. Her hands were half numb by the time she reached her destination and breathed another sigh of relief that no professors had seen her. It had taken a while longer to find the quill, which had fallen off the bench where she had been working but miraculously not been stepped on or damaged. It only had a little soil on one end and luckily she knew the spell to fix that.

Running back to the castle had warmed her up, but Pixie's head was filled with visions of bacon and eggs as she approached the Great Hall. She was too early, she realised with a sinking heart, but it was hardly worth going back up to Gryffindor tower only to walk all the way back down again. Rubbing her hands, she noticed a younger girl sticking a poster to the wall next to the doors...or rather, not sticking it. Pixie grinned with amusement, but she wasn't the sort of person to enjoy watching someone struggle.

"Do you need a hand there?" she asked, walking over and dropping her bag down next to the wall "I can do a levitation charm to make it stay up there while you do the sticking charm, if you like"

Trudy startled when she heard a voice address her, almost dropping her wand as she spun around to see who was approaching her. It was an older girl from Gryffindor whom she vaguely knew and who, as far as she could tell, was quite friendly - not anyone who was going to tell her off for sticking a poster to the wall anyway. After all, the other girl offered help and that was quite reassuring.

“Oh yes, please,” Trudy, therefore, said brightly. She nodded eagerly as the other girl made her suggestion, holding her wand pointed upwards at the wall as she waited for the other girl to levitate the scroll that lay between them on the floor.

“I’m Trudy, by the way,” she introduced herself, thinking that if they worked together it was good to be on a first name basis. “I thought I’d get that done all by myself but… apparently not.” She made a grimace and shrugged almost apologetically.

Then she looked at the Gryffindor again a little more thoughtfully than before. “I made posters for a campaign for animal rights,” she explained. “And I’ve got a few to hang up here.” She lifted the rolls of parchment a bit and looked at her companion with a sweet smile. "Maybe you have some time to help me with those, too?" There was a hopeful undertone in her voice and Trudy smiled at the other girl. "Please?"

"Okay!" she said cheerfully, pulling out her wand and casting the charm, concentrating a little more than she usually did because she figured the girl would want the poster to actually hang straight. A bit to the left...yes, that looked fine..

"Pixie" she replied, not bothering to explain that it was a lifelong nickname rather than something she'd been called since she was a toddler. Even some of the professors called her that these days, so there was hardly a need for any other name. Once she came of age she planned to change it officially so nobody would accidentally call her Ge - that other name again. "That looks fine" she added, as Trudy fixed the poster to the wall. She had a fleeting thought that she hoped the younger girl had got permission for this. While Pixie really didn't care about rules, she also preferred to keep her misbehaviour secret, and sticking posters up right outside the Great Hall was hardly something she oculd deny if they weren't supposed to be there.

Oh, well. She hadn't actually done the sticking part, had she?

"Animal rights?" Pixie had vaguely heard of that concept. There were muggle organisations to look after animals that had been abandoned or ill-treated, like the donkey sanctuary a few miles from her home in Cornwall. "What sort of animals?" she asked, a little curious now. Another girl might have read the poster, but it was a lot easier to have it explained.

She hesitated for less than a second. Putting posters up wasn't her idea of a fun activity, but on the other hand it would pass the time until breakfast was ready and was certainly more interesting than standing outside the hall feeling hungry. "Sure, I can help" she said agreeably, holding her hand out for the next poster "Where do you want this one to go?"

Pixie. Truy smiled at the other girl, wondering what Pixie might stand for or if it really was her given name. She never introduced herself to other students by her full name - Wiltrud - herself. She didn’t really hate her name, but she much preferred the shorter version. Wiltrud sounded antiquated, Trudy sounded fun and light and more like a young girl than an old woman.

She was glad to hear that Pixie said that the poster looked fine. The girl beamed at her companion and hoped that the Gryffindor was willing to help some more with the other posters. She could, of course, wait for some of her second year friends to arrive but Pixie was there now and it was probably a good idea to get this done as soon as possible.

“Yes!” Trudy responded eagerly. “Animal rights. They cannot speak for themselves so I feel we need to speak for them. Fight for their rights.” Pixie asked what animals and Trudy frowned for an instant. “All animals, really,” she explained, “many kinds of animals are ill treated and need protection. We cast spells on some of them in class - that can hardly be pleasant for the animals - and then magical creatures are used for wand cores, protective clothing, potions and many other things. They are actually being tormented or, even worse, killed. I think it’s not right to do that. We could exist very well without that.”

While Pixie didn’t seem as enthusiastic about her campaign as Trudy was herself, she was still willing to help put up the posters and Trudy clearly appreciated that. “Thanks,” she said brightly and pointed at the other side of the door to the Great Hall. “What about here? I want the posters to be seen by as many people as possible.” She offered the most innocent smile, trying to conceal the fact that, in fact, she had no official permission to put up these posters. However, if she went the bureaucratic way, she assumed her chances to achieve anything were a lot lower. What was the worst that could happen to her anyway? A detention? That was hardly as bad as the things were that animals and magical creatures were put through.

Pixie wasn't the sort of person to get involved in causes. It wasn't that she didn't care, just that she always seemed to have something else to do, be it hanging out with friends or failing to get her homework handed in on time. This sounded interesting though, so she listened to the younger girl, frowning slightly. This was all new to her. She'd heard people saying that house elves should all be set free and knew there had been a club for that started in Gryffindor some years ago, but the idea of animals suffering...made sense.

"You mean like when we learn to vanish mice in class?" she asked, oblivious to the fact that second years weren't doing anything so complex yet "I never thought...I just figured they..." she trailed off, not wanting to say I just figured they didn't mind because the truth was, she'd literally never considered it before. They were just mice, and they just got used where they were needed. Wand cores she couldn't quite figure out - after all, unicorn tail hairs and phoenix feathers didn't hurt the creatures at all - but potions ingredients, on the other hand, she understood.

"What would we use instead of those potion ingredients, though? Would we need to invent new potions?" she asked, not sounding argumentative but merely curious. Pixie knew some charms had been in use for hundreds of years with little modification simply because they worked so well, potions were probably similar. Who would invent the new potions that didn't use anmal ingredients? Would they be vegetarian potions, the? She giggled a little at that thought and turned her attention back to the posters.

"Sure, maybe a little lower so people can read it as they go past?" she suggested as she held the poster up against the wall with her wand "and maybe we should levitate one so it hangs above the foot of the stairs - actually that might be difficult, I don't always get the permament unfurling charm right so it would probably just curl up again after a little while." Pixie assumed that the younger girl, even though she was a Ravenclaw, wouldn't be able to perform a charm that a fourth year struggled with.

"Okay, I think that's even, if you want to do the sticking charm" she said after a moment.

“Yes,” Trudy said, nodding eagerly. There were so many spells taught at Hogwarts that really weren’t okay. While she hadn’t done a vanishing spell herself yet she could already tell that this was one of those that should be banned from the curriculum. However, it was probably at least a little more useful than vera verto which, in Trudy’s humble opinion, was one of the worst things ever.

“And that’s the problem,” Trudy explained patiently. “We’re confronted with all these spells and using potion ingredients from magical creatures as though it was the most normal thing on earth. They don’t want us to actually think about it.” Her cheeks had turned quite red now and she exhaled loudly.

Pixie’s question about the potion ingredients showed that the Gryffindor hadn’t really given their current topic of conversation much thought yet. Apparently she wasn’t aware of the fact that most potions the students made were going to waste in the end. Time to tell the older girl the truth then.

“Well, the point is that we are using potion ingredients for which magical creatures died. What do you think happens to the countless potions that weren’t successfully brewed by students? They are simply being vanished. Magical creatures die in vain so that unfocused students can mess with precious ingredients. I think we shouldn’t all brew our own potions in class if they require parts of magical creatures. There are plenty of potions for which no animal has to die.”

While Pixie clearly hadn’t spent as much time thinking about animal rights as Trudy had she was definitely quite helpful when it came to putting up posters. Trudy nodded in agreement when the older girl suggested hanging the poster a little lower.

Trudy performed the sticking charm as Pixie suggested and she did it twice - just to be sure that it would actually hold.

“Where do you think we can put up some more?” she asked then, looking around indecisively.

Although she had the slightly uneasy feeling that she was in the company of an animal-rights evangelist, Pixie couldn't help but feel that the younger girl had a point. She'd never really thought about it before but some of the ingredients they used were just downright nasty. While Pixie had always hated the idea of using flobberworms in potions, it was because they were nasty and slimy. Until now she hadn't actually made the logical connection that they were living creatures that had to die in order for the potions to be made.

"That's actually kind of horrible" she said thoughtfully, frowning, and so was the next thing Trudy said. Naturally, Pixie never gave much thought to how things were cleaned away in the castle. She knew that house elves cleaned the common rooms and cleared the tables after they'd eaten (including clearing up bits of food that had been dropped on the floor or spilled drinks) but it had never occurred to her what happened to potions at the end of lessons. Oh, she knew they were vanished - how else were students supposed to get their cauldrons clean? - that or poured into vials if they were successful, but really, who needed that many shrinking solutions or whatever else they were making?

It was an uncomfortable thought, but on the other hand Pixie couldn't see an alternative "We still need to practise making potions, though" she said "I mean, they come up in our exams, and we can't just make them for the first time when we're standing there in front of an examiner". Most of the time she didn't like to think about exams at all, but they were looming closer - a lot closer than for the second year who probably hadn't even thought about OWLs yet.

It was easier to just think about where to put the posters. Pixie looked carefully around the entrance hall thoughtfully. "How about on staircase bannisters?" she suggested "that way if people miss them when they go into the hall, they're going to see them when they come out and go back upstairs...oh, and we could put one on the back of the door over there" she added, pointing to where she thought she'd seen the Hufflepuffs emerge from.

She could sense some scepticism from Pixie but Trudy wasn’t going to back down. She gladly took the challenge to convince the older girl that she was right and that they had to fight for the rights of animals and magical creatures as they couldn’t defend themselves.

“Yes, it is!” Trudy exclaimed louder than she had intended. It was indeed horrible what was done to the magical creatures. Why hadn’t people tried to stop this already decades ago? How was it possible that in current times magical creatures were still being killed for, well, nothing?

“We can practise making those potions that don’t require that a magical creature is being killed,” Trudy said. “Let’s be honest, making a potion is not that hard. You just read the instructions carefully and follow them. The reason why so many potions aren’t successfully brewed is because students don’t focus properly.” She shook her head disapprovingly.

“Maybe a whole class should brew a potion together for practise when it comes to those that include magical creatures,” Trudy said. “Just think of how many students attend Potions every day, how many cauldrons are used… how many magical creatures are dying in vain… It breaks my heart.”

Pixie made suggestions as to where to place some more posters and Trudy nodded. She wanted to hang up as many as possible but right now she felt too worked up to give the places a lot of thought. She felt helpless again. No matter how many posters she’d put out there, it wouldn’t change the world. There’d still be magical creatures and other animals suffering. However, even a little success would be good, of course. She had to fight, take small steps until she’d find a way to get a bigger audience.

Pixie eyed the younger girl somewhat sceptically. Since when was making a potion easy? Maybe Trudy thought there was nothing more to it than reading the instructions, but presumably the instructions didn't just around all over the page when she tried to read them. She probably didn't have to watch whatever the person next to her was doing in order to figure out what was going on, and she'd always been able to read the labels on the ingredient bottles. Pixie bet she'd never mixed up lacewing eyes and lacewing eggs because she couldn't tell the difference between the words on the jars. She bit her lip, thinking she could tell the second year a thing or two about how difficult it was to focus sometimes...but that was hardly going to make much impression on a Ravenclaw. So she fumed quietly to herself.

"You mean like the professor makes the potion and everyone watches?" she asked, dubiously. That didn't seem like the best idea; the tallest kids would get to the front and the ones at the back wouldn't be able to see what was going on and then it wouldn't really help anyone "Or did you mean each person puts in one ingredient?" She couldn't see that working either, but maybe it didn't matter. She sensed that Trudy had got so involved with what she was planning that she hadn't really stopped to think about whether a group potion was going to help anyone learn anything.

Pixie rather wanted to get away from the whole situation, but breakfast still wasn't being served and none of her friends had appeared, so she couldn't exactly walk away. Instead she took another poster and crossed over to another door. She thought maybe this one led to the kitchens, but it didn't really matter. As long as she could pin up as many posters as possible, she could get away from this whole weird situation. "Ovr here, do you think?" she asked, raising her wand.

Trudy could tell that Pixie didn’t quite agree with her but she didn’t know why. For her Potions wasn’t a hard subject. In fact, the second year wasn’t struggling with any classes so far. Sometimes things didn’t work out at once, okay, but she had a brilliant mentor in Rowen who could explain things quite well when she needed help. Admittedly, while Rowen was a talented witch, she was not exactly the nicest of people. However, that didn’t matter much to Trudy. She benefited from the older girl’s knowledge anyway.

“Yes, for example,” Trudy nodded. “It could work either way. Depends on the ingredients, really. I mean, there are potions that are okay to brew for all students. After all, not in every potion there are ingredients for which a creature would have to die.” To the Ravenclaw it was all so obvious that she felt almost silly explaining her thoughts.

While Pixie didn’t seem to be one of the students that eagerly joined her cause she was still helpful and suggested another place where they could put a poster. Trudy nodded appreciatively. “Yes, that’s a good place, too,” she acknowledged the other girl’s suggestion. “I’d love to have the whole school covered with these posters so nobody can look away and ignore this cause anymore,” she said as she unrolled another poster.

Honestly, Pixie didn't think that was ever going to catch on. Everyone crowding around a single cauldron, dropping in a single ingredient each...maybe Trudy would like them to share a wand as well so they didn't each need one of those. After all, some wands had dragon heartstring cores, surely she would think that was cruel and want it banned as well? Granted, Pixie did feel faintly uncomfortable about some of the ingredients they used, especially the ones that still looked like real creatures, like the lacewings and other insects. And when you thought about drinking some of them...

"Maybe you should also remind people what's in the potions that they drink" she suggested "I mean, most of us will just drink a pretty purple potion without remembering that it contains bits of insect and animal claws or whatever." Okay, so it wasn't really coming from an environmental viewpoint, but Pixie couldn't help feeling that getting people to think about the subject from a different angle might convince more of them to change their minds. And really, she wouldn't mind just making potions just from plant products or the bits of creatures that could be obtained without hurting them, like hair or scales, so long as they did the same thing.

She raised her wand and helped put up the new poster. Glancing around the entrance hall there was hardly a place they could look without seeing one now, and she felt they'd done rather a good job. "Maybe just over there...ooh" Pixie as suddenly distracted by delicious smells wafting out from the Great Hall, signalling that breakfast was about to begin. A couple of boys came down the stairs and walked past them, and Pixie's stomach rumbled, leading to a new thought.

"Are you a vegetarian, then?" she asked, curiously.

“Yes!” Trudy exclaimed eagerly. Finally Pixie was speaking her language. She beamed at the older girl. “Absolutely! I’ll tell them all about the potions they drink, the beauty products they use… There are so many things that just aren’t okay, you know? I mean, honestly, how dare we use products that magical creatures had to die for? I just don’t get it. Don’t people have a conscience?”

Trudy had many thoughts on the matter, so many actually that she could not grasp them all at once. She tried to structure herself and her campaign to achieve the most she could but it was getting increasingly hard because the more she thought about it, the more things came to her mind that were inacceptable.

After they put up another poster, the little Ravenclaw nodded quite proudly. “Just one more,” she stated happily. She’d definitely have to make more posters soon to cover more than just potions and spells practised on creatures. However, for now their job was almost done.

“Yes, over there sounds good,” Trudy agreed, happy that Pixie was offering her thoughts as well. It was always good to work in a team and take other opinions into consideration. Only that way her campaign could be successful, after all.

Pixie wasn’t the first one to ask her if she was vegetarian and likely not the last one. Trudy looked at the older student thoughtfully and shrugged. “I try to be?” she said, feeling rather small or, well, young now. “My family doesn’t really support it, though. Here at school I don’t eat meat and at home I try to avoid it but sometimes…” she couldn’t bring herself to say it now. Maybe when she’d be home for the summer she could bring the topic up again and actually become a real vegetarian who was not told to eat what came on the table.

"You mean like make up and hair products and stuff? Yeah, they definitely ought to make those without hurting animals" she agreed, and this time Pixie did mean it. Not that she was particularly interested in makeup, but it was something that could be produced in a cruelty-free manner without depriving anyone. As far as she knew, the only potion on the school syllabus that even fitted into that category was the twenty-second pimple remover potion so that would be an easy one to modify. The question was how they could go about it...

Pixie stopped herself short. She was only meant to be helping to put a few posters up while she  waited for breakfast and now she was actually thinking seriously about this thing. Not that she wanted to do anything much herself, but she could offer ideas. "What do students in other schools think about it?" she asked "Have you written to anyone at Beauxbatons?" from what little Pixie heard - mainly from her roommate who had a penpal there - they cared a lot about looking after their grounds and school, so maybe they would be more amenable to Trudy's plans. She thought about whether Trudy had written to the Daily Prophet as well - Pixie had actually gotten a letter printed the previous year so she knew they would print stuff from kids - but didn't want to suggest too much in case the girl tried to enlist her. As every Gryffindor knew, letter writing really wasn't Pixie's thing.

"Is that all of them?" she asked as they stuck up what looked to be the final poster. The smell of breakfast was wafting from the Great Hall now and more students were starting to come down. A couple of girls glanced at the poster on the bannister and paused long enough to read it, then went into the hall talking. Surprisingly, Pixie felt pleased that they'd noticed.

"Oh, I get it" she said, not really sure that she did (a girl who had been strong willed enough to change her own name at four years old would certainly not balk at refusing to eat something she didn't want), but not wanting to linger here any longer. Not when she could smell the sizzling bacon.

Except...she would feel a bit weird about eating it herself right now, after what they'd just been doing. It was a strange feeling, and Pixie wasn't entirely sure she liked it. Still, there was toast and fried eggs and porridge and all those things were perfectly fine to eat (though not on the same plate. Even Pixie had her limits). "Are you going in for breakfast now?" she asked, not sure if she should just say goodbye or whether the younger girl would want to sit with her and discuss her ideas further.

“Yes, for example,” Trudy nodded. She was actually quite proud of herself that she had made this older girl think about things that she apparently hadn’t really considered before. Making people think was a first step to getting them on her side because, frankly, who would ever want to hurt or kill animals for a beauty potion or something like that. Nobody in their right mind could support the killing of animals and magical creatures.

“Other schools?” Trudy looked at her companion thoughtfully. That was a new idea. The girl liked the dialogue, talking to people usually brought new inspiration and Pixie clearly had a point there. “I haven’t yet written to any of the other schools but thank you for the suggestion! I’ll definitely look into it.”

She nodded when Pixie asked if that was the last poster. “For now it is,” she explained. “I plan to make more but I wanted these already out here. Hopefully more students will join the cause once they know that there is a club for the prevention of cruelty against animals and magical creatures.”

Pixie asked if she was going in for breakfast now and Trudy shrugged. She wasn’t very hungry lately, unless one counted her hunger for her campaign. “Yeah, I guess I’ll have a toast or something,” she said after thinking about it for a few seconds. “Thank you for helping me. If you’re interested in joining the cause, just come to me.” Having said that, Trudy spun around after another Ravenclaw second year called her name. “I’ll see you around,” she told Pixie and made a beeline for her housemate.

[out]