Do you listen to yourself?

Name: Kenneth Sean Towler
Gender: Male
Date of birth: 11/24/1977
Year: 7th
House: Gryffindor
Blood status: Halfblood-- that is, his parents are both magical, but of halfblood and Muggleborn descent.
Physical characteristics: Kenneth Towler is at best described as lanky. Lacking the athletic build of the Quidditch players, he could probably look better after gaining twenty pounds or so, but he's not overly fussed about his appearance and has the energetic nature characteristic of someone with high metabolism. Tall and long-limbed, he's saved from being too gawky by being on the move more often than not and typically wearing a ready grin. He has a somewhat untidy mop of medium brown hair and bright, frank brown eyes.

( Would you come my way? )

It was a weird COMC class today. First of all Hagrid wasn't looking at all cheerful like usual, and though we were supposed to cover graphorns, Hagrid suddenly switched the curriculum to kneazles because he said Professor Umbridge was visiting and would not like us to know anything about dangerous creatures.

And just as he said that she came in, and cleared her throat a few times, and then Hagrid just went quiet and brought out the baby kneazle and barely said anything. Keeley O'Shaughnessy took over a bit and made mention that kneazles were good judges of character in order to buy time for Hagrid to recover himself a bit.

And then at that point, the baby kneazle launched itself at Umbridge, claws out.

We all worked together on it and managed to get the kneazle off of her, but she gave Hagrid a really ugly look, smiled in a nasty way at the rest of us, and left at the end of class muttering.

It's really worrying. I don't know what's going to happen now. Hopefully she won't cancel the class like she did with DADA tutorials.

And no one's caught the ten Death Eaters yet.

Wow. A lot of interesting stories on today's Daily Prophet, huh?

( Private )

I think I'm going to take a walk outside for a while.

Hurrah! It seems as though my dormmates, not to mention Harry, Ron and Ginny, are back despite their rather sudden departure, and everyone seems to be fine. And Leanne, I'm glad you don't have to leave Hogwarts after all. It would have been really sad if you did, and all of us would've missed you.

Well, lots of people seem to have had nice holidays, at least from how happy they looked when they came back. Katie, did you have a nice time at the Weird Sister's concert and all that? You look particularly happy.

Huh. Everyone really IS back. Oakby too. He also looks really happy.

Except the people who are taking DADA, many of them, don't look so thrilled. It seems like a rather peculiar assignment that doesn't have much to do with DADA, does it?

It's nearly New Year's, and the others are in the den having mulled wine (or in Carrie's case pumpkin juice), and I'll join them in a bit, after I finish up this Astronomy essay.

This journal's handy to keep all sorts of info and scribbling in. So I think I'll put down a few New Year's resolutions.

1) Spend at least three hours a night studying and don't get distracted.

2) Pass NEWTs.

3) Make sure not to get any detentions from Umbridge, since I hear that she's kind of strict.

4) Spend at least one day a week with friends, since I'm not coming back next year, and besides everyone will have jobs and so on and who knows where everyone will be?

4.5) Get a job immediately after school lets out, of any kind. Helping wait tables at the Daily Grind cafe last summer helped out a lot to save up money to get a place after I finish, but more would be better.

4.75) Also save up money to buy mum and dad something nice this year for their birthdays for once rather than just a box of chocolates or what have you.

5) Make the best of the year, be nice to everyone, don't live in a way that I'll regret it later.

I hope everyone's having a nice Christmas. I'm starting with NEWT revision, and it's a bit difficult with the ruckus around the house with what my brother did this time with everyone around making noise, but hey, it's not that bad.

Mum outdid herself this year, and I think we'll have enough food to feed an army. I think I'll bring back a care package because no matter how good the house elves at Hogwarts cook (and they do cook very well, don't get me wrong), there's nothing like my mum's lemon poppyseed cake.

( Private )

Well, anyway, I'll look forward to seeing whoever else is coming to Angelina's party. I'm sure it'll be a great time!

Hmmm... weird. Fred and George are nowhere to be found, and not in class. Hope nothing's the matter but something must be, because otherwise I'm sure the teachers would've said something about them not being in class. Oh dear. I hope it works out, whatever it is.

There was a big box of chocolates sitting around in the Common Room. Someone left them out, I think, but they're half gone by now. I had a few and they were quite good, so whoever had left them out, I hope you don't mind.

... Wait, hey, what's going on? Why are certain people not in classes and random people I don't recognise IN classes? Are people getting sick or something?

Wow, so many people have birthdays and so on coming up soon! And there's also Christmas! It's a wonderful time of year. I'll have to figure out what to get everyone and how to afford it and not end up doing something lazy like getting a huge quantity of cauldron cakes and just passing them around like the tea trolley lady. If anyone has ideas for what they want, or what to get other people, they can feel free to let me know, of course.

In any case, I'm really looking forward to Christmas hols. It'll be nice to take a break from the studying and to see my family, and I'll get a chance to organise things and be ready for term to start up again.

The Common Room looks fantastic! Great job decorating, Prefects. And oddly enough, all those weird-looking hats and things that were left lying around on the sofas have disappeared and no more have appeared to replace them.

I'm going to take a stroll to the greenhouses and check on that plant. It almost looked like it was going to bud... fingers crossed!

Hmm. Well, mum's owled, and seems a bit frazzled, more so than usual, something about some regular lunch customer of hers named Bode something or another being in the hospital, but hey, maybe it's nothing serious, yeah? Also it seems as though my brother visited home again and left with her week's wages and they're going to be late on the rent because of it and inconvenienced them a bit. Hope it'll all settle down somehow soon enough.

I am not sure how, but it looks as though someone spilt pumpkin juice all over my notes for COMC. Not quite sure what said notes were doing halfway jammed underneath one of the armchairs anyway. Guess I should pay a visit to Hagrid to get some more information so I can rewrite the notes.

By the way, who's the skinny Slytherin sixth-year bloke who smells like smoke all the time? I'm not quite sure what he said or did to my sister, or why, but Hannah Abbott stopped me in the hall and said that she's in a right state.

Guess I should try to find her after visiting Hagrid and get to the bottom of that as well.

Well, I guess it could all still be worse. It's a good thing that in the grand scheme of things, all these are just minor setbacks.

Say, why's there a toad jumping about the Common Room trying to hop into Laura Jane Appleby's lap? It doesn't look like Neville's.

It's two days late probably due to the fact that post's a bit slow these days, but that's a little matter when mum actually had the time and remembered to send a cake! It's massive, so... well, who wants cake? Just let me know.

There's really a great quantity of mistletoe hanging about the school. It's a bit early, isn't it? Guess some people are happy about it though. But Oakby has been in the hospital wing pretty much since it appeared. I guess it's not really working out for him so well. I guess the mistletoe's the reason poor Christopher Summerby's been taking the long way to classes. Peter's sister gets a mischievous look on her face whenever she sees him, at any rate. I've not had any get attached to me yet, though, but that's all right. Don't really want to put anyone in an awkward situation at any rate.

I got a nice set of quills from my younger sister, which was nice of her, as the old ones were getting a bit stringy and one of them broke because it got crushed underneath a few extra books I'd picked up from the library.

The plant I was talking about last time I wrote in this thing is getting a bit better. At least the leaves aren't all yellow any more. It's still kind of puny-looking though.

Those girls were really overly harsh on other girls, weren't they? I think most of the people they put down weren't deserving of it at all. It's a pity that they're so negative about other people-- that's not a good mindset to have.

What is an outdoorsy look? I guess I put on a cloak and the like when going outside? But it's Scotland, and November? I'm kind of confused. Oh well.

I did have something interesting to say-- oh!! Today after Herbology I was helping Professor Sprout put some Moon-Calf dung away in Greenhouse Two and I saw one of the newer potted plants had gotten accidentally kicked over-- and she said that it was a Tabula rose and those were kind of finicky but if I wanted I could re-pot it and see if it survives. I hope that it does-- I read that they're very interesting plants.

Okay. I should probably grab something to eat before I start on the COMC homework. I missed dinner because I was re-potting the Tabula rose. Oops.

Wow, this is really interesting. I'm reading this book about the properties of various plants used in different types of healing potions because we're writing an essay on Venomous Tentacula and it would be nice to get in more research about more plants and it says that when poisoned by Belladonna one should immediately follow with strong coffee if one doesn't have the antidote on hand (because the coffee will help slow the effects of the poison and purge it from the body), and the antidote itself is another poison-- Amanita. Guess the Ravenclaws have something there when they drink all that coffee, but I don't think any of them are poisoned.

I'm glad the Hogsmeade weekend is coming up. I'm running out of inkblot-repelling parchment. Hey, I have an idea! Perhaps one of us Gryffindors should spend the day at Quality Quidditch Supplies and see which of our housemates visits and ask them if they would like to play Quidditch. It's horrid what happened, isn't it?

Oooh, I'd better be off. I don't want to be late for Astronomy tutoring.

Wow, is it true that Transfiguration students had NO homework at all this week because McGonagall really wanted to give people a chance to do their best for the upcoming match? I'm sure everyone was chuffed about that!

Well, everyone but Hermione Granger. I think I heard her ranting about it earlier. Say, is she the one who's been leaving those knit caps and things lying around? I saw that funny house elf who cleans the Common Room wearing like a dozen of them. It's getting cold, but I'd think that one cap would be enough, yeah? It's quite curious.

The Quidditch should be really exciting tomorrow. I'm sure we'll do very well. The hexing and stuff will also be at an end, which would be nice. Oh, hey, is it true that Montague saw his teammate hex poor Alicia the other day? I hope he didn't tell whoever it was to do that. Alicia's a nice girl and without her assistance I am sure Professor Sprout would have despaired of me by now and doesn't deserve that at all. Hey, Alicia, you feeling better?

Ooh, what's this about the Ravenclaws giving detentions? They'd always seemed like such a nice bunch.

But I shouldn't continue reading these things, interesting though they are. There's that essay on black hole theories for Astronomy due next Monday, and I'm sure with the Quidditch this weekend will be more or less shot, so I should get to work on that, probably.

Now, I just need to find those notes I took from tutoring...