Funeral and Proper Burial

Hilary headed down to the lake, her thimble from Transfiguration held tightly in her hand. When she had first managed to successfully transform her snail into the thimble, she had been proud of herself, especially after having such a hard time with the theoretical parts of their lessons. But after she had realized that she had essentially taken away the life of the snail, she had felt a little sick. That snail had never done anything to her, and yet, she had gone and killed it.

She carefully placed the thimble in her pocket and began to dig a small hole in the dirt with her hands, making sure she was a safe distance from the water, so it wouldn't get washed away someday. When she felt the hole was deep enough, she placed the thimble-snail in the hole, and started pushing some dirt on top of it.

Theresa walked down to the lake but stopped when she saw Hilary digging. Curious, she walked over to her friend to see what she was doing. "Hi Hilary, what are you doing?" she asked, stopping next to her and looking at the small pile of dirt. It looked like she put something in the ground.

Hilary looked up when she heard Resa's voice come from behind her. She hadn't even thought to mention this to her friend; Resa probably would have wanted to do this as well

She looked down at the small mound that covered her thimble-snail. "I'm giving my snail from transfiguration a proper burial and a funeral," she said, quietly. "I feel bad about killing it; this is the least I can do for it. It never did anything to deserve to be murdered."

Theresa looked down at the soil and sighed "poor thing, I cant believe I actually killed the snail in Transfigurations either" she said sadly. She wished that she had done the same with her snail but it was in her dorm, in a wooden box under her bed, she couldn't bare to look at it.

Hilary patted the ground flat over her snail, so it wouldn't get accidentally dug up if someone kicked the dirt around.

"I'm not sure which bothers me more," Hilary said, quietly. "The fact that I killed an innocent snail, or the fact that, at first, I was proud that I had managed to turn it into a thimble."

She tried to think of how a proper funeral was held. But she had only been to one before, and she hadn't really been paying much attention at the time to what was going on. She had been too worried about her sister to pay attention.

She did know some basic prayers, so maybe that would work.

Theresa watched as Hilary patted the soil "you must not have realised at first, it has just sunk in and that must be why you felt proud at first, it's your Raven pride at getting something done right" she said. She had felt the same when she first killed the snail.

Hilary stared at the spot where she had buried her thimble-snail. Burying it hadn't really made her feel any better, as she had hoped it would.

And then she remember something. She felt her heart sink.

"Resa," she said, a slight, horrified tone to her voice. "I think Professor Mitchell has mentioned that we're going to be working with animals a few more times before the end of the year. What if we have to kill something else? Or make it disappear or something?"

Theresa looked up at Hilary's question and was shocked, she thought that just killing one snail was terrible but would they have to harm more animals. "I hope we don't otherwise I might have to refuse to do it, what kind of animal rescuer or dragon trainer would I be if I took part in something like that" she said.

Hilary didn't answer right away. She felt conflicted. On one hand, she hated the thought of having to harm or kill another animal. But at the same time, she couldn't refuse to do class work. She couldn't risk losing the points or credit.

"What if Professor Mitchell won't let you get away with not doing it?" she asked. Her friend didn't seemed to be as conflicted on the subject as she was, and she couldn't help but wonder how Resa would handle it.

Theresa shrugged "I don't know, there is no way I will be able to drop it or fail it, it is too important" she said sadly. "I suppose I would just have to do it in the end" she said. She hated to say it but unless Proff Mitchel let her leave the animals alone, there wasnt much she could do, she would have to hurt or even kill the poor animals.

Hilary nodded. "It pretty much sucks no matter how it turns out," she said.

She moved to sit down on the grass, a fair distance from where she had buried her thimble-snail. She knew that they only way she was going to be able to get over it was to try and forget about it.

Theresa went to sit near Hilary, she didn't want to chance ruining the little grave. "Yeah it does, I just hope that we have to do it as little as possible, in lessons, if you do it wrong then don't ask for a spare rat or frog or snail or what ever we have to use" she said.

"Yeah, I was actually thinking about that earlier," she said, thinking about what Resa had just said about asking for another animal to practise on. "My snail only half transformed, and I was thinking about asking for another, so I could start from scratch. I'm glad I didn't now. I would have had to bury two snails, instead of just one."

She picked up a small rock near where they were sitting, and threw it as far as she could across the lake.

"The poor snails, it is a really good thing that you didn't, I couldn't imagine killing two snails when they did nothing but be at the wrong place at the wrong time and Professor Mitchel took them" Theresa said. She leaned back and sighed "at least the animal killing is over for now, that's an up side" she said as she looked up at the crouds.

"True enough," Hilary said, smiling for the first time since she had left the class. "Now, we just have to worry about getting through whatever homework she assigns us from that class. I'll worry about what's going to happen next class when that time comes."

She picked up another rock and threw it, trying to get it further than she had the previous one. This one was heavier though, and didn't go nearly as far.

"Me too, if it is something to do with finding an animal to use for the next lesson then I am going to say that mine ran away or something" Theresa said. She really hoped it wasnt, she felt heartless at the thought of doing something like that, to indanger and possibly kill another living creature.