All the pretty little horses

Why osmund had signed up for this class, he couldn't remember. Maybe it was something to do with his despise for the ever useless divination that made him opt out of doing that class and choose to do this one instead. He wasn't a huge fan of animals. He didn't hate them, but he wasn't one to fawn over a furry face either. The closest time he came to being an animal lover was when he was with his cat.

Homework was always a drag for the class especially since it entitled that they opened and used their monster books of monsters, who were the nastiest books he ever read and a book that he certainly would never dream of trying to sniff. Their precious homework assignment, a two-foot essay on the benefits and misuses of unicorn hair, gave away the secret to the subject of their next class. Osmund only wished that it was something a bit more manlier.

With his essay already turned in, Osmund stood with his class with his arms folded as he stared at the baby unicorns grazing on the grounds. The professor told them to get into groups and then each group would be assigned a unicorn to meet. Osmund was the least bit amused. "Maybe I don't even want to meet a unicorn." He grumbled to himself, starting to walk in order to find himself a group anyway.

Animals weren't Linette's highest interest but she decided it would be as well to sign up for the class simply for the interesting text book. A book which bit you if you didn't know the trick for calming it down? That added an extra challenge to reading a book.

This class was going to be an interesting one. Linette was certain about that. Unicorns were creatures of wonder and so pure and special. She'd read lots of stories featuring unicorns and found the essay extremely interesting. She almost wished her wand had a unicorn hair core instead of a dragonheartstring. Almost.

Linette fell into step with Osmund and shook her head at his words. "How could you not want to meet a unicorn? Look at those babies. Aren't they so cute?" She paused as she recalled some very important information regarding unicorns. "Though I suppose as a boy it couldn't be as interesting for you since they are known to prefer girls." She wondered how the professor expected the boys to be able to complete the task with that little issue.

Lost within his own disgruntles, Osmund failed to notice that he was being followed until the girl had spoken up. He didn't need to turn around to know it was Linette, he knew her voice well enough. However, he turned around anyway because it was only polite to look someone in the eye when they were addressing you.

He frowned as she called the unicorns cute. Unicorns were many things but cute was not one of them. Unicorns were powerful and useful and the closest they came to being cute was only due to their utter grace.

It irked him that Linette had claimed that the unicorn wouldn't like him as much as her because he was a boy. He had done his homework and knew that that much had been true, but suddenly he felt the need to prove her wrong. The unicorn would like him all the same if not better. "Preference or not! That unicorn will let me pet her!" Osmund said, determined. "I guess this means we are now partners."

Professor St. Pierre started to assign partners to a unicorn and when he had come to Linette and Osmund, Osmund had nodded and obediently went to where they were placed. They had a baby male unicorn, who's coat was still gold in its youth. He didn't look very cute, but Osmund supposed he was sort of majestic looking. They were given a bucket of vegetables that they could feed the unicorn with if they wanted and told they were free to do their assignment. Suddenly Osmund felt nervous about the whole thing. "Erm, ladies first."

"You make it sound like it's a trial to be paired up with me," Linette teased. "I assure you I will be on my best behaviour and make sure the unicorn allows you to pat it. Just don't scare it with your usual scowl. That'd be enough to scare almost anyone away. Smile gently like this and you'll charm any unicorn." She demonstrated almost certain it might work. Though this was Osmund they were talking about so it might take him a little more practice.

Linette smiled at Osmund's manners. She wasn't fooled. Of course he'd be reluctant to show that the unicorn would accept him. After all they had that assignment and any information he would have read for it would have mentioned the gender preference unicorns had when it came to interacting with humans. "Certainly," she replied and picked a carrot out of the bucket before approaching the baby unicorn slowly. "Hello little man," she said softly as she held out the carrot. The unicorn sniffed it cautiously and took the carrot between his lips. Linette smiled and reached out slowly to stroke his neck. "You are a lovely boy aren't you?" she cooed. The pretty gold colouring of the young unicorn was lovely in her opinion and he would clearly be a very handsome unicorn when he'd grown up and his coat turned white.

She turned slowly to Osmund. "It's your turn. Don't forget to smile and move slowly. No scowling."

Osmund scoffed at Linette's words. She made it sound like Osmund would have trouble smiling, as if it would be a tedious task for him to do. Smiling wasn't hard for him. He just chose not to do it. He only smiled when he was pleased and he was just a hard kid to please. "Thanks, but I don't need your help," He replied, bitterly, determined to neither scare the unicorn away with his scowl, nor smile to get it's affections.

Nonetheless, he was relieved that Linette accepted his invitation to go first. He had to admit he was a little nervous about the situation. He knew that the unicorns were still juveniles, but any unicorn shouldn't be messed with.

He watched as Linette approached, not having to change anything about her personality in greeting the creature and having it accept the carrot from her. She was able to pet the beast with ease and had to admit he was a bit jealous. However, he was determined to do just the same.

It was his turn and with a carrot of his own, he approached the unicorn, slowly, like Linette said. His face was locked in its usual stern look as he eased his way over. The unicorn moved nervously in his spot. "Take it easy. Don't be afraid," Osmund breathed to the creature, or was it to himself? He was almost there. Just a few more steps and he could touch the unicorn's nose. The unicorn wasn't having any of it and neighed and stomped around. Osmund backed up quickly, dropping the carrot in the process and retreated back towards the bucket. "It's useless! The sodding thing already hates me!" He didn't reckon he'd have much more luck if he were a girl, even.

"If you say so," Linette returned easily and stepped back. Poor Osmund was doomed to failure and it was so sad to see. She'd read enough about unicorns to have an inkling of an idea as to why they tended to prefer females over males and poor Osmund fitted the profile of scary male perfectly. If he didn't take her advice he would be rejected.

As she watched Osmund's approach she wasn't surprised by the reaction of the unicorn. He looked like he was going to do unspeakable things to the unicorn and thus the foal now bumped his head against the side of her leg. "Oh Osmund. He doesn't hate you. He's just scared of your scowl. I told you to smile didn't I?" She crouched down next to the unicorn and spoke to him in a soft voice. "Don't worry about him. He's not really scary. He just doesn't know how to approach you."

She looked back up at Osmund again. "Now try again and this time gentle smile, slow movements and no growliness." Linette stroked the foal's mane. "And could you give him another chance?" she murmured into the foal's ear.

Osmund watched as the creature cowered behind Linette and scowled. Yeah I'm sure she'll protect you, he rolled his eyes. As if he were even going to harm the bloody creature in the first place! He was just about ready to give up then and there, finding that all attempts would be in vain because he so happened to be a male and not a female. His arms folded across his chest as he stubbornly refuted Linette's reasoning. "I wasn't scowling. This is how I always look."

His eyes wandered to other groups where he saw many having no trouble at all with their unicorns. He was even shocked to see that a few male students had found success with their unicorns, so why not him? He sighed heavily and frowned as he reached into the bucket once more, not wanting to be the only one in the whole class who hadn't managed to charm the infant unicorn into friendship.

"Smile? Like this?" He forced a smile, feeling how fake it felt on his face and how it required more muscles to make than his resting face did. He felt like he must've looked more like a madman then than he did before, but for the sake of getting Linette to shut up about it, he kept it on his face and, with a carrot in his hand, approached the foal, timidly. He paused a few steps away from the creature and extended the carrot. If the beast wanted the carrot, he could come the rest of the way to him. However, the unicorn wasn't fooled by his false smile and backed away and hide once again. Osmund scoffed and let the carrot fall to the ground.

"You always look as though you're scowling?" Linette asked pointlessly. She'd known him long enough to know he often looked like he scowled or was in a generally unpleasant mood. "I think you may need to choose a new normal look. One which doesn't scare baby unicorns." She doubted he'd be successful by the end of this lesson but a future one perhaps he could succeed.

Linette bit her lip in an effort to stop herself laughing at Osmund's smile for lack of a better description. "Unicorns can sense fakeness," she commented. How on earth could she get him to smile in a way that wasn't freaky or terrifying? "How about you think of something which makes you happy. Like um..." She clicked her fingers. "I know. Like smelling the pages of a good book. That makes you smile right?" If that didn't work then she would be all out of ideas.

Osmund scowled for real then. One didn't just change what their resting face looked like on a moment's notice, nor did he want to change it for it kept the ickle first years away from him and a handful of other unpleasant people as well. If it weren't for this bloody assignment, he wouldn't have been bothered with it in the first place.

He scoffed as she told him, after he had went ahead and failed again, that the unicorn would know it wasn't a genuine smile. "Then what do you expect me to do?" He asked, shrugging and just about to quit on the whole thing. She told him to think of something happy, which made him raise an eyebrow and then scowl when she mentioned sniffing books. "Why would that make me happy?" Did she seriously have the mention that right here where someone could overhear her?

He walked past her and looked at the cowering unicorn. Something happy, huh? He thought about what it might be like to win a Quidditch game, but that only made him pissed off because he had lost all the games up to that point. He then thought of how Finlay said his father talked about him sometimes, but then was reminded that it was Finlay and he hated that kid for merely existing. Then he thought of that summer him and Xavior went to the beach. He didn't exactly like the beach, but they ended up having fun. It was so simple and innocent and he supposed it made him smile because suddenly he felt the carrot being tugged away from his hand. Looking down, he found that sure enough it was the unicorn, who worked the carrot out of his hand and then took a few wary steps back from him. "It's okay," He said, softly. "It was your's anyway."

"Don't try too hard?" Linette suggested. "That might be part of the problem with your scowling." She shrugged. "Well you often look happy when you're sniffing books. So if you pictured it then perhaps you'd give a genuine smile." It made perfect sense to her.

Linette watched him, quiet for once, as he looked like he was searching his mind for something which would make him smile for real. It sure must have been hard. Then the miracle happened and Linette clapped her hands as she gave a small laugh. "See. I knew you could do it." She reached down to pat the unicorn again. "He's not really that bad is he? Really deep down Osmund is a big softy. You just have to find the softy in him." She glanced up at the boy. "So what did you think of when our friend here took that carrot?"

The Montagnard watched as the baby unicorn chomped away at the carrot in his mouth. He didn't want to admit it, but the little monster was kind of cute. Maybe it was sort of worth all the trouble to get to be close to such a creature, which would most likely not happen again, most definitely not by chance in nature. He wasn't going to push his luck and try to pet it, though. The foal didn't seem that comfortable with him yet.

"He's alright, I suppose," Osmund replied to Linette's question, folding his arms across his chest and bearing a small smirk. He didn't like it that she had called him a 'softy' though. In his opinion, he was never a softy to anyone, no exceptions for infant unicorns. However, it wasn't like the unicorn could really understand their speech and remember it, so he didn't bother correcting Linette. Instead, he shot a brief cold glance at her and moved on.

Class was coming to an end and Linette had to reluctantly leave her unicorn. "I think it's time for you to return to your mother," she said to him. "It was lovely meeting you and don't mind about Osmund. Like I said before he really is a big softy underneath all that scowling." She really was going to miss this lesson.

Linette handed in the remaining carrots and watched as the baby unicorns were returned to their mothers. It was time to go in for the break and then her next lesson. "Oi Osmund," she called out, "maybe next time they'll have something more your style." Though what that style would be was anyone's guess. She smiled as she made the walk back up to the palace at a relaxed pace. There was plenty of time between now and Transfiguration class.