[mp] w i r e d [jari]

March 2004

"No, Jari, we talked about this--" More like argued about it, but who was keeping track. "--we agreed on 'The Science of Magic: Myths, Mysteries, and Monsters' not 'The Loch Ness Files' It's not broad enough to cover everything." Jae said as he flipped over a crate he had used to carry the equipment in as they got to a spot near the mooncalf paddock on the grounds. They had done a few wizcasts lately as a pilot for a series they had cooked up on magic and science and magical creatures. He wasn't sure whose idea it had been, a half-baked idea one late night in the dorm where they had been questioning things in the magic world that didn't make sense. Jae had wanted to learn more about it of course, but now that he was thinking about it, it was probably Jari's idea to record the discussions in hopes that they could broadcast them to the school. Merlin knew that some of their fellow students needed to use more of their brain cells actively and perhaps this would help.

Plus with everything going on, it was a good distraction for Jae. He had outlined ideas for the next ten episodes over the past two days and done the research for half of them already.

So when they had heard from other OWL students that mooncalves were being born, Jae had grabbed Jari from the common room, they had trucked their equipment down the grounds to set up for a live look in on the moon calving process and the mysteries and myths they had found about mooncalves. It was pretty interesting stuff if he said so himself. Not that any of the students currently looking frazzled and out of sorts with the birthing going on behind them cared. But the activity would make for good background noise and audio effects.

"Where're the notes on the mooncalves?" Jae asked as he sat cross-legged in the grass and scooted closer to his mic set up on the crate between them, making sure all the connections were in place for the recording.

@Jari Trickett

"Yeah, but are you sure we shouldn't revisit the title—" Jari nearly dropped the heavy backpack slung over one shoulder as he spread his hands in front of him, like a showman, "—The Magical Myth Men," And then, after about two seconds, he laughed and shook his head. "Yeah, no, your right." Jari liked Jae's title best, and even if he didn't, he probably wouldn't have said as much. Maybe he would have fought a little harder for the Loch Ness Files, but Jae was right; they needed a broader title. And the idea of having Science and Magic in the same breath was catchy.

Bouncing a little, Jari shifted the bag's weight back on his shoulder and felt another surge of excitement about the project. The idea of wizarding radio was not exactly an original one, but Jari was enthusiastic about their spin on it. The WizCasts, as they'd started referring to them, were more than just someone explaining the weather or the latest Quidditch match. Instead, it was the two of them discussing different opinions and points of view about Magical and Muggle subjects. More than that, they would shine a light on various conspiracy theories (Jari) and present cold hard facts (Jae), and the teenager loved the balance of that.

Jari felt like he'd been living with one foot in the real world, and one in his imagination, for his entire life. And this was a real creative (and valuable, he hoped) outlet for that nonsense. And he got to do it with a friend! Naturally, the Hufflepuff couldn't have been more excited. So excited that he'd probably forgotten half of the things he was supposed to bring. "Where're the notes on the mooncalves?" Jae had asked, and Jari slid his bag off his shoulder and pulled it open.

"In my backpa—" He stopped short, eyebrows furrowed, and then gave Jae an apologetic look. "In the dorms… can we do it without them?"

Jae rolled his eyes at Jari's theatrics. "At least that one isn't half as bad as your other one. What was it? 'Hold your Hippogriffs - comma - Debunking the Beastly Myths We All Believe'? It's a show title, not an essay," he said even as he had a bit of a smile on his face. While he didn't really believe in the house sorting system, in a lot of ways, Jari felt very much life a true Hufflepuff and sometimes, more times than he cared to admit really, he liked that about his dormmate.

Not that he would really say that.

And at least he wasn't fighting about the title too much. Jae had come up with some less than stellar suggestions as well ('The Niffler Chronicles: Magical Mysteries to Intrigue and Delight' had a nice ring to it), but he didn't want another discussion (re: argument) about it. Jari was pretty easy to convince though, all things considered.

Jae pulled out his mostly organized stack of notes, rolls organized by topic - 'If kneazles really do have nine lives' and 'Which came first: the gnomes or the farmers' - but he paused and gave his friend an impatient look. Typical. He gave a big sigh and shrugged. "I guess. I remember enough, but do you?"

At the mention of the moon calves, one mother screamed out a noise that made Jae jump and glance over his shoulder, silently judging the distance between their set up and the pen where all the action was going on behind them. "Think we're far enough away?"

“Yeah, but Hold Your Hippogriffs? I mean, c'mon, you gotta admit that is pretty good?" The teenage boy smiled proudly at that first half of the title, though he had no good argument for the second half. Jae was right, as Jae typically was, and Jari shuffled along, as Jari typically did. And he continued to kneazle around in his backpack until he realized the search was futile. The notes weren't here, he'd left them behind, and the look on his face showed exactly how embarrassed he was to have let his friend down. Jae had been counting on him, and Jari knew this mistake would eat at him for a while. He could push it down and try to say it was all fine, but he regretted it already.

Thankfully, or irritatingly, a mooncalf mother shrieked, and Jari jumped a little from where he was standing. His shoulders up to his ears and eyes wide, the badger blinked in the direction of the creatures. Everyone said they were cute and all, but something about that scream brought out the conspiracy theorist in Jari. They had sweet faces, but he was pretty sure they'd bite every last one of them before the term was out. And the little ones were even more… bitey?. "Uh, yeah, probably?" Jari hesitated to answer and zipped up his jacket as if somehow the thin windbreaker material would protect him.

Addressing the erumpent in the room, Jari dropped his bag again and moved toward what notes Jae had with him. They were about other creatures, and Jari made a mental note to borrow the report on gnomes later. "Alright, so from what I remember, we were going to do a short intro and then launch into announcing today's births?" He dug into his pockets for the parchment he thought he had with the newest baby names. He'd gone down to the stables earlier to ask the groundskeeper for the names, but his pockets were empty. —wait— he remembered and shifted. Dragging the sleeve of his windbreak up, Jari displayed the list of names he'd proudly scribbled on the inside of his arm to Jae with a smile. Silently, Jari thanked Killian for letting him borrow a pen during their morning lessons.

"Got the names right here,"

"Fine, fine, that one was good, but whatever points you got with that one were canceled out by the 'Cat's Among the Pixies' title. I didn't even understand that one?" Jae said with a smirk. But he saw the way Jari was still digging through his bag and the way his lips pulled down at the corner and Jae had seen that look before. "Really, it's fine," he repeated. "We can do it without the notes, Jari."

Probably was Jari's response to his question and that was just not good enough for Jae. He turned back to look at the mooncalves, especially the younger ones and mentally judged the distance. He was pretty quick, good reflexes honed by his keeper skills on the pitch, and he was pretty sure that he could grab his gear and get away if one decided to charge. He knew everyone thought these beasts were cute (he had heard one Hufflepuff upperclassman deem them 'downright cuddly') but Jae did not share that opinion. With one glance at Jari, his dormmate seemed to agree. "Fine, but let's keep a eye out," he said dubiously as he settled into a seated position, his legs crossed and tapping his wand on the recording equipment they had managed to rig together to record them. It definitely wasn't new and it definitely didn't work as it should some of the time, but they managed.

Jae ran a finger over his notes, scanning quickly as he kept the facts and stats at the forefront of his mind that he wanted to mention when they started recording, nodding at Jari recalled their general plan for today's episode. "Yeah, that's right, then we'll go into a short history and background info on them and then you can get started on the first theory on..." Jae trailed off as he glanced up after he saw Jari fidgeting around again.

"Don't say it, don't say it," Jae muttered as he watched his friends check his pockets and then double check them, already knowing what he was probably going to say. When he pulled up his sleeve, Jae shook his head in disbelief. "Well," he said with a growing grin. "At least you didn't lose it." Jae would have never written on his arm, but then again, for Jari, this was a big improvement.

"Ready to get started?" he said as he flipped on some of the switches and moved Jari's microphone closer to his face.

“True story,” Jari replied, the smile on his face growing as Jae’s did. He was the forgetful sort, but he tried hard and that had to earn him a few points back. Jari took a seat next to his friend in the grass and got some more of the equipment situated. The old school microphone, covered in spell-o-tape and a few charms to help with over-modulation, sat between them. He reached behind him to pull his book bag closer and pulled out a notebook and the pen he’d borrowed earlier. “Why don’t we just use pens all the time, Jae?” The halfbood leaned toward Jae as he spoke, holding up the pen and then shrugging. “Borrowed this from Killian, its wicked,” And far less messy for someone as accident prone as Jari.

Jari kept his sleeve rolled up even though it was a little chilly as he transferred the names of the new calves to the page quickly. He wrote neatly, but probably not as neat as he would have if he wasn’t in such a rush. When he was finished, he ripped the page out and only half of the perforation worked. Holding the page out to Jae (jagged edges and all) he nodded. “Ready now,” and with that Jari pulled his wand out with his free hand and used it to click the first of many pre-programmed buttons. The intro music for their wizcast started and Jari cleared his throat for the introductions to start.

“Welcome to another episode of ‘The Science of Magic: Myths, Mysteries, and Monsters’, I’m Jari Trickett and—” he stopped, looked to Jae and waited for him to insert his name before continuing. “—and today we are on location reporting on the Moon Calves of Hogwarts.” Jari realized they weren’t exactly on location, sitting a healthy distance from the barn, but it was fine. “Today we have eight new births including a set of twins. Please join us in welcoming Leviathan, Atlas, Juno, Gaia,” Jari paused and let Jae fill in the last four, Cyclops, Kthanid, Cthulhu, and his sister Kassogtha. The Hufflepuff gave Jae a look that said ‘I swear these are the names they gave me, and No I had nothing to do with them’, and pressed the button for the sound effect they had assigned to Birth Announcements.

“Galloping gargoyles, one of our classmates has a Lovecraft obsession, and not the apothecary Lovecrafts,” Jari didn’t know a ton about the muggleworld, but thanks to Killian’s book exchange, he’d basically devoured anything and everything that had creature lore in it.

"I dunno," he said nonchalantly. "Probably because your society--" not ours "--is committed to archaic practices and solutions while also touting some misinformed, ignorant prejudices and presumptions that they're more advanced than muggles. How can muggles possibly have any better solutions than magic?" he asked, his tone dripping with sarcasm as he grabbed a pen and clicked it. "Oh my, ink IN the pen, such wonder, such ingenuity." Jae rolled his eyes as he checked through the mic connections and fiddled with the button that always got stuck in the off position. When his dormmate held up the badly ripped paper, Jae sighed and nodded, licking his lips, coughing once, and then sat a little closer to his mic.

Welcome to another episode of ‘The Science of Magic: Myths, Mysteries, and Monsters’, I’m Jari Trickett and-- "--I'm Jae Kim," he added dutifully before listening to Jari finish the rest of the intro before he read the last four mooncalf names off the list, his glare increasing in intensity as he neared the end of the list. He held up the paper in silent protest as the celebratory sound effect took place for the birth announcements. These names had to be wrong and of course, it was him who had to say the messed up names. "Yes and what a mouthful those names are, but the real topic of discussion today is the myths and mysteries behind what most witches and wizards know about mooncalves," Jae started in, his eyes on his detailed notes, flipping to the history that he had carefully researched.

"Mooncalves were first discovered by Sir Robert Braithwaite in what is now known as.." Jae went on following his notes, taking a lead on this section before Jari set in on the more myths and urban legends. But what the fifth year didn't realize was that some of the mooncalves had also taken interest in their little set up. He was just in the middle of his sentence about the facts on the magical qualities that some believed mooncalves to have when one of the aforementioned creatures leaned through the paddock and chomped straight through his stack of notes. "What the!" Jae exclaimed as he half-turned and realized way too late that they were indeed sitting too close to the paddock. 

Jari thought he had asked a simple, possibly even rhetorical question about the use of pens, but Jae’s answer had his head spinning instead. There were a lot more words than he was expecting, but Jari should have been used to Jae’s way of explaining things by now. Where Jari tended to think positively, Jae tended to go in the other direction. And while Jari thought it was innocently comical that the wizarding world was still in the dark ages about something as simple as a pen, Jae saw the bigger picture, and Jari respected him for it. He shrugged, having nothing of substance to add to the conversation, and they moved further into the wizcast. 

The Trickett wizard followed along as Jae began to talk about the facts, waiting patiently for his turn to explain the myths and lore. He watched the other Hufflepuff shuffle through his extensive notes and struggled to keep from feeling inadequate in comparison until the mooncalf baby did something unexpected. “Merlin’s beard!” Jari shouted, reaching forward even though he didn’t have a plan. He tried to pull the pages from the creature’s mouth, but they were cud before he could blink, and Jari bit his lip not to laugh.

 â€œYou alright, then?” He turned back to Jae, Jari’s chestnut eyes falling to the wizard's hands and counting the number of fingers remaining.

“If we move back now, we’ll have to start over….”

Jae had laid out a well thought argument, sarcasm and cynicism and all, and Jari had just shrugged. A kind shrug, perhaps, or maybe just a dopey one, but just a shrug nevertheless. The Hufflepuff heaved a sigh and glanced toward the castle, half-wondering where a dark-haired Gryffindor was. She probably would've argued with him on it, just for the sake of it.

But soon enough, they were interrupted by the very creatures they were speaking about. Jae cursed loudly and then glanced down at the equipment with a hint of guilt. Oops. The mooncalf wrestling with Jari distracted him before he could give it too much thought. "Don't!" he said loudly as he threw out an arm to hold off Jari, pushing him back a step. "Their saliva, remember? Causes Hinkman's Rash and we didn't do the protective spell," Jae reminded him as he took another step back himself.

Their equipment sat between the mooncalf, happily chewing on his stack of notes, while Jae glared at the cheery little fellow. "Yeah, I'm fine," he muttered sullenly before glancing back at their microphones. "So what? We just keep going?"

Pulling away from the mooncalf, Jari reached the unequivocally correct -- and slightly itchy -- conclusion that they one hundred percent should have done the protective spell.

"Hinkman's rash, you say?" The Hufflepuff asked, swallowing roughly and trying not to immediately scratch the red part of his hand that the baby mooncalf's squared-off teeth had caught. He'd thought it was probably fine, but it probably wasn't, but Jari was never to sort to complain. He shrugged and nodded and itched his hand stealthily by rubbing it on the cloth of his trousers.

"I suppose so, no reason to pause," no reason at all. Jari glanced at the mooncalf, who was wandering in the grass near them. The creature seemed uninterested with their podcast now, and Jari expected he'd only been curious. "I've heard rumors that mooncalf babies refuse to go too far from their mums, and as an added protection, are capable of creating a beam of magical blinding light if they feel endangered."

"Best to observe them from a distance if you enjoy the benefit of your eyes and limbs anyway." Jari drew the microphone toward him as he chatted, eager to inform the listeners of the repercussions of mistreating these majestic creatures, even as the wound on his hand started to swell and turn purple.