[mp] just about to turn [brendan]

oh god, about to turn thirteen
early march 2004
mooncalf enclosure

"Can you pass me the, uh," Shelby paused, flapping her hand at Brendan impatiently, "whatsit, the big forceps?"

Io, their mooncalf, whined pitifully. Shelby grimaced. "And another cool towel."

It was any day now, Hagrid had said, any day now the calf could give birth. Shelby desperately wanted to be there for it -- how cool would it be to see her very own Mooncalf give birth? It was more likely at night, but they didn't let he underclassmen take Calf Watch overnight (boo), even if it was their M.O.O calf they wanted to stay up with.

Plus, Shelby liked being out here with the animal. She liked attending to their needs. It focused her away from all of her stupid stupid feelingss she kept having.

She wiped down Io's snout again, the towel fairly warm in her hands. Even tho it was still cool outside, Shelby had shucked her robe in the corner of the pen, the sleeves of her jumper and shirt rolled up to the elbows and hair carefully braided out of her face. "I hope it happens before we have to leave," she said wistfully, looking to Brendan with wide eyes. It was nice, having Brendan on her M.O.O. team. Right now, he was absolutely her favourite Slytherin. She wasn't sure if he knew about the kiss, but if he did he had kept it to himself, which was splendid.


@Brendan de Havilland

“What d’you need the forceps for?” he asked, but got up to retrieve them for her anyways. Grabbing a fresh cloth, he dunked it in the pail of cool water, wrung it out lightly, and handed that over too.

He liked Shelby, quite a bit – she and Patience were the two girls in his class with whom he got along best, he thought. And since they’d ended up in the same M.O.O. group, he’d learned more about Shelby that made him like her even more. Not only was she was wicked smart (which he already knew), but she didn’t hesitate to roll up her sleeves (literally) and Io seemed to really like her.

“I hope it happens before we have to leave.”

“I expect it will,” he replied, a slow smile making its way across his face as he registered Shelby’s wide-eyed expression. “She ate less than she did yesterday, yeah? Usually when they’re getting close, they’ll go off their feed a bit.”

Bren had grown up on a farm (albeit a very small-scale one), and so this sort of thing was hardly new for him. Theirs was mainly a produce operation, but at one point they’d had several dairy cows (Guernseys, of course), a few pigs, a small herd of sheep, and a flock of chickens; they’d since stopped raising pigs but still had one Guernsey cow, four sheep, and eleven chickens.

He reached out to pet Io’s neck, the corners of his mouth turning up slightly as the side of the Mooncow’s belly bulged transiently from an internal kick.

“Didn’t Professor Hagrid say we get to name the calves?”