| Details for Eagle Radio |
| Summary: | A conversation about Claire's experience at the Hallowe'en Ball turns into the first big group push towards building the Ravenclaw's wireless set. |
| Date: | 1937-11-06 |
| Location: | Ravenclaw Common Room |
| Related: | None. |
| Characters |
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The Ravenclaw Common Room is one of the most airy rooms at Hogwarts. This wide, circular room's floor is covered in a deep, midnight blue carpet and the arched windows are hung with soft blue silk curtains. The high, domed ceiling carries a charm similar to the one in the Great Hall making stars glitter and move about on it reflecting the proper placements of the constellations according to the seasons. During the day, the Ravenclaw students have an excellent view of the surrounding mountains. The room is furnished with comfortable tables and chair upholstered in midnight blue with white pinstripes and bookcases stand along the walls.
Claire is sitting at one of the tables by a window, actually doing school work for once. The work is either very hard or she's stopped thinking about it, because she hasn't filled anything in on her start chart for about five minutes. With a groan, Claire lets her head drop to thunk against the table. "Just send me to Hufflepuff now. I've gone stupid."
Warren is moving through the common room, a few books tucked under his shoulder. He scans the area briefly, and he doesn't seem to be in too much of a hurry. Apparently he's looking for something, snickering briefly as he scoots by Claire. "That's all rubbish anyway, who cares about stars?"
Gabriel comes down from the Boy's Dorm and heads straight for the table that houses the wireless project. On it is a notepad covered in mostly his own handwriting, where the work on deciphering the Braille necessary to be able to follow the instructions to build the wireless if almost done. The usually chipper kid looks decidedly grumpy at the moment.
"Well, no the stars are actually pretty important, you can predict all kinds of stuff from them-" Claire starts, before realizing she's getting sucked down a tangent. "But that's not the point! This isn't that hard, I just can't concentrate." Claire lifts her head to rub her eyes with the heels of her palms.
"Supposedly," Warren replies. "I don't see it." He spends a second more staring at the star chart, and then adds, "Why don't you go take a nap and come back to it later?" He peeks over at Gabriel when he passes, calling, "How's the project going?"
Gabriel drops himself in the chair that's set up right in front of the notepad, picks up a quill then shrugs,"Its going." Then just sits there, frowning at his pad.
Having been to the library, Cathal looks about as excited as ever when he enters the common room. His blue eyes spot Gabriel and he begins heading towards his cousin,"Still working on this then?" He asks curiously.
Claire makes a dissatisfied sound. "I've been putting it off for days already." Half-heartedly she adds a pair of stars. "Em, so, you saw Nott danced with me at Halloween, right? What do you think that was about?"
"Maybe you should get someone to help you with it," Warren suggests helpfully to the girl. At her other questions there's a twitch of a grin, but he merely offers a shrug. "I don't know. Maybe she likes you?" He doesn't sound like he believes it even a bit. "Is it bothering you? I'm sure that was the point."
Gabriel answers Cathal,"Almost done with the translation so we can start working on the building." then turns around in his chair so that his chin is propped on the back of it. "I was watching that. And it didn't seem like a friendly dance at all. I think she was trying to get you in trouble some how." Obviously curiosity overrides grumpiness.
"I take it these events are related to the dance?" Cathal asks sounding curious, since he did not attend the dance it's not a big surprise he's fairly unaware of what all happened there,"Translation? What are you translating? The signal? Hmmm?" He actually does seem to be a little curious about the thing.
"Dangit, I hate when I lose," Claire says, drumming her fingers on the table. "Oh you got the braille figured out? Do you think you'll have it working by the end of term?"
"It was at the dance," Warren affirms. He considers for a second more, mentioning to Claire. "Just don't think about it. She'll probably do something horrible to you later, though. So you might want to think about that." He's very helpful, Warren.
Gabriel hands Cathal his notepad and the wireless diagrams, which are in Braille,"Translating the wireless building instructions Mupsy gave us. They're in Braille." then he looks back to Claire and Warren,"I don't think you lost. I couldn't hear what you were saying but she looked kinda disappointed at the end so at worst it was a tie. But yeah, she's probably going to try something horrible later."
You say, "And I have the translations almost done. Following your idea of using the small words first to figure out the letters."
"I am unable to read Braille." Cathal says shaking his head a bit at Gabriel,"So if you've figured it out then I respect that. I don't know what else to try." He says absently as he looks over the diagrams.
Claire grins. "Brilliant! How do the directions look, are they complicated?" She leans back in her chair and chews on the tip of her thumb. "Now, the question is, how can I get her back?"
"Get her back because-" Warren pauses. "She danced with you." He lets that hang in the air for a second, and the he adds, "Well, if you need help, you can ask. You know that." When he turns his attention back to radio progress he makes another nod. "Well, keep at it. I'm sure you'll get it sometime."
Gabriel looks between Claire and Warren then nods a little bit and repeats Warren's question in different words,"Yes, why do you have to get back at her for the dance." Going back to talking about the radio he answers everyone all at once,"I don't read Braille either, that's why we're working on translating the instruction pamphlet. Gareth has helped a lot. Anyone that wants can help so you can too Cathal. They look complicated right now because we can't read them all but I'm sure it will be easier once everything is translated. And a lot of people were going to help but ow everyone is fighting with everyone else so I guess its just me and Gareth and maybe Cathal until things get fixed." And the grumpy look is back.
From the girl's dorms above descends Eibhlin, holding much less in hand than she usually would. Just a single book this evening rather than her usual stack of such or even a journal. Upon her robes is something quite new- a Prefect badge.
Claire stares at Warren like she doesn't get how he doesn't see the logic of that. "Who's fighting?" she asks Gabriel. "I saw Gabrielle leave the dance early, but I heard she and Chis are dating, so I guess it wouldn't be them."
Warren breathes a heavy sigh at Claire's look, the boy murmuring, "Come talk to me later." To the other kids he chimes, "Keep up the work!" And off he goes. He does pause briefly to peer over at Eibhlin when he passes the girl, noting, "That's a new look for you, Shine. I like it. Try to keep this rabble in line while I'm away, would you?" There's a thread of humor in Warren's tone, and then he's off and away.
The door to the hallway opens and Gabby come sin. She looks a bit tired, with an arm load of books in her hands, she'll glance around at the large group in the common room, and give a soft smile to everyone, but doesn't say anything.
There's an expression that might hold a bit of a blush at Warren's compliment. Eibhlin does smile, though, standing up a bit straighter even. "I'll do my best, Bennett." There is a bit of humor in her tone as well, but it's tenuous at best. She glances to the book in her hand, but opts instead to angle towards those around the radio. "How's it going?"
Gabriel is about to answer Claire when both Eibhlin and Gabrielle walk into the room. When he sees them walk in he smiles at Claire then gives Eibhlin a kind of uncertain look and shrugs at Claire,"Lots of people. So are you going to be one of the ones to help with the wireless? I leave the translation notes on the table so anyone can look over them and add to them."
Claire stands up and joins Gabriel at the Wireless project table. "Tell me what to do."
Gabriel moves over to give Claire some space and points first at the manual then at the notepad,"Well, its pretty much a straight translation, letter for letter." Flipping a few pages on the pad he shows her the first page where an almost complete alphabet key has been written down,"Here's were we've been writing down the letters once we figure out what pattern of dots is what letter. And we managed to start thanks to your idea of looking for the small words. First one we figured out was 'the'."
"Ah, ye've figured out the translation?" Eibhlin seems mildly surprised at this. "I wish I could have offered assistance, but I fear braille… is not quite as easy to pick up on as spoken languages." She speaks with a fair accent, but not so much as to make her difficult to understand. "How much have ye translated so far?" There's a glance to Gabrielle, but the redhead seems unperturbed. Much as she may have been supportive of Ophelia, she has not made a stand of choosing any sides.
Gabrielle will glance over at the group, think for a moment, then set her stack of books down on top of the nearest table. She walks over and looks down at the manual,"As soon as we get the dimensions, I can start designing the outside.If people still want."
"So you just want me to start translating?" She asks, using her wand to summon some paper from the table she left her things at. She smiles and says, "I'm glad it helped. Wait, no, that's a V." Claire scratches a letter out and changes it. "These dots are easier to mix up than I thought they would be." Claire is oblivious to the nuances of drama in the room, but there's one thing that's been bothering her. "Hey, Gabby, are you actually dating Chris?"
Gabriel's smile slowly turns into a grin as no drama pops up /and/ people start showing renewed interest in the radio's construction. Making more space for people he motions Eibhlin over to show her the notepad in front of Claire,"We've got about two thirds of the manual translated. Like Claire said, sometimes its easy to confuse the patterns. And I lost a lot of the work we'd done when I spilled pumpkin juice on the first notepad we were using." For some reason that memory bring a bright blush to his cheeks but he ignores it and turns to Gabrielle, motioning her closer too,"Couldn't tell you yet but we'll know as soon as we finish the translation…" And then he stops just staring at Claire…
"Well, as it's braille…" Eibhlin chews on her lip a bit as she considers, tapping her book against her leg lightly. "Why not make a transfer of it? Lay a thin parchment over it and brush charcoal over it. Like with stone carvings." She leans over to peer at Claire's translations. "Then you can make small lines or notations to mark off each section of symbols. It'd take time to mark off each, but it'd be better than mistranslating, right?"
Gabrielle starts to nod at Gabriel, then pauses for a moment when Claire asks /that/ question. After a deep breathe, "No….at this point, we're not." She'll give a tight smile to Gabriel and then turn, "I forgot my deck in Divinations. I need to go get it. "and will turn to leave.
"Hmm, someone told me the other day you were," Claire says with a shrug. Until she sees Gabriel's expression, and does a double take back to the other girl. "Okay, how was I supposed to know that's a bad question?"
Gabriel starts pulling materials out of the boxes on the table and organizing them in little piles by piece type. "Gabby, I need help sorting these. Please don't go. Besides, Eibhlin's idea is good and I don't have tracing paper. I bet you do. Can we borrow some?"
Eibhlin watches Gabrielle in her rush to depart. Her brows furrow a bit, but she doesn't say anything. "If you would be willing to let us have some tracing paper," she says with a glance to Gabe, "I… well, I don't know what to offer in return, but I'd be happy to offer something."
Gabby pauses when Gabriel says please. She'll turn around, but doesn't move to go back to the table. "I don't have any tracing paper, I usually just nick tissue from the library." She'll glance at Eibhlin when she offers, kinda confused. and then she'll sigh, "I can go get some, if you need it."
"I'm sorry. I don't know what's going on, but I'm sorry I brought it up." Claire's apology is blunt, but genuine. "Let's see if we can pick it up on regular parchment. It might be thin enough to make a rubbing. Do you have any charcoal? All I have is a quill.
"I may have some charcoal upstairs," Eibhlin offers, casting a brief glance Gabrielle's way. There's a little frown, but it's certainly more inwardly directed for the way her chin drops. "Unless someone has some on hand?"
Subtle. "Yeah..I have some in my bag, " she'll turn and start rummaging though the bag she's started carrying with her in the past week. She pulls out a few different types. "I'm not sure what will better, hard or Vine." She'll hesitate for a moment then walk over to the group to hand the charcoal to Eibhlin.
Gabriel smiles a little bit but turns his head down so that Gabby can't see it. "So, who's going to help me sort parts while Claire keeps translating. And I think there's supposed to be a board in here somewhere that everything goes attached to. Now that I think of it, the should give you at least the side dimensions Gabby."
"Thank you," Eibhlin says, voice genuine. She considers the two types of charcoal, lips pursing a bit. "I… don't know. Soft is usually best with tracing paper, but we may need it to be harder with parchment?" She gives a small shrug, looking to Claire. "Would you be willing to try? Maybe just a small piece at first to see which works best." The charcoal is held out, should she be willing to try.
Claire lays a scrap of parchment over the braille and takes the charcoal. With an even stroke she pulls the charcoal across one line of text. "What do you guys think? It's a little light but I think you can make it out."
Gabrielle watches for a moment, "Try the soft , it'll be darker.Messier, but darker…..I'm not the best at charms….but if we figure out the key, can't we just charm the manual to be readable by us?"
Idrissa is making her way on into th common room after spending a good amount of time in the library it seems. She peers curiously over the ones here while she goes. "Hey guys, what you all doing?" This questioned while she sets her books down upon a chair and moves on over to see what is going on.
"Where would the fun be in that?" Eibhlin glances from the rubbing that Claire is taking of the braille to Gabrielle. There's a bit of a grin on her features- she truly enjoys this. Tedious as it is. "I bet some of us could learn braille by the end of this. I'd much rather learn it than charm it to do the work for us."
Everyone in the room, with the exception of the two newcomers, is gathered around the table that houses the radio-in-progress. Claire is working on making a rubbing of the manual Mupsy provided and the other three are talking about the translation work and the progress that has been made. "I hadn't really thought about that Gabby." says Gabriel,"and I tend to agree with Eibhlin on this one. I kind of like the mental challenge of figuring out the hard way. Which I think was Mupsy's intention when he gave us the manual like this. Then again, maybe he just wanted us to figure out the problem, in any way necessary."
And this is why Gabby's not helping with the translation. She'll shake her head and smile softly, "Let me see the board." She'll put her hand out to Gabriel.
Idrissa glances to Gabby curiously and is then looking back to see what the others are working on. She has heard the others talk about this thing, but has not actually done anything with i until this point in time.
"I've already basically got E and R memorized, they appear so often," Claire says, copying over the rest of the page. In a couple places she has to darken up the dots by hand, but it works well enough.
Warren slips back into the room, sans book. The prefect dusts his hands together for a moment, taking one quick peek behind him before he shuffles into the common room again. When he spots the students clustered around the table he scoots over in that direction, leaning to peek over the work being done. "Hello. You're still at it?"
Eibhlin has also not been very involved in the project, but she happened to be walking in when they were working on the translation. It's her love of words that gets her. "Do we have the numbers sussed out?" she asks, glancing towards Gabriel. "It's a manual, so I'm sure there's a lot of numbers… I think those are fairly straight-forward in braille though."
Gabriel absently nods in response to Warren as he keeps searching through the parts box then straightens out with a grin, holding a longish piece of wooden board,"Aha! I don't know who packed this box but it was silly to put the boards /under/ everything else instead of along the side." Turning to Gabby he passes her the board, which is about 9 inches long and 6 inches wide. "Here we go Gabby, this will give you an idea one what the dimensions will be. And from what I've seen of other models the sides should be about 8 or 9 inches tall too." A bit more clattering around in the box'o'parts and he comes up with the side and top for the radio casing, all square. "I think we should cut some ew long sides, given them a nicer, curved top." Then he turns to Claire and Eibhlin,"Yep, we figured out the numbers too. They're on the key. Claire why don't we make rubbings of each page and we can pass them out to anyone that wants to help?"
Gabrielle will take the board with a nod and start studying it. Her eyes kinda unfocus after a minute, and she'll tilt her head running her hand over the flat surface.
"That's a good idea! We can spread out the work that way." After almost smudging one page to an unreadable mess, Claire starts making the rubbings from right to left so her hand doesn't mess up the work she's done. But it's fairly messy work no matter what she does. "It would be kind of cool if we put our names on the case in braille, or a message."
Warren slides down to park himself into a seat, observing the goings-on with moderate interest. He doesn't seem to understand how the thing works, or be in any hurry to, but he does take a look at the progress so far.
"Oh! Yes, I'd be very happy to help translate," Eibhlin says, showing some excitement. She moves to grab a chair, plopping herself down and grabbing some parchment and a quill. She waits for Claire to finish with a page, setting her book aside. "That'd be interesting. Names in braille… like a hidden maker's mark."
Idrissa is rather content to just watch the others work at this actually. When it comes to things such as these she is well, clueless. It isn't some magical beast, or cat in need of help after all. She leans against the table, arms folded upon it while she curiously watches, a soft oh escapes her and she soon nods to the bit on writing names.
Gabrielle eyes snap back into focus, "Yes! Yes, figure out the message…" She'll kinda shove the board back at Gabriel, "I…need to go…"But this isn't her normal run away, she's almost excited. "I need to know the exact measurements…and will the thickness of the walls affect it? Does it need to be a specific material?" As she's asking she's starting to move towards her books again.
Gabriel stops sorting materials to grins up at the people joining the project or watching the work,"I think that's a great idea Claire. And I don't think that thickness or material of the sides would make a difference, unless they were metal or crystal, those two might make a mess of the reception."
Eibhlin glances up towards Gabrielle briefly, shoulders shifting a bit as it becomes clear the girl isn't running for dramatic reasons this time. A somewhat more relaxed state takes the prefect and she reaches out for a sheet once Claire is done with it. "Where's the key?" she inquires, glancing over the table to spot it among everything else.
Claire hands off the next page she finishes to Evie. "Muggle ones are usually made out of wood." Scratch, scratch, scratch. Making the copies is surprisingly concentration-intensive work, and she's starting to get charcoal all over her arms.
Warren props his head on a hand, the prefect voicing, "Has anyone thought about getting a manual that you don't have to translate? Or just getting one of these from somewhere else?" He keeps his eyes on the work in the meantime, adding, "You have to plug the muggle ones into something too."
Gabrielle nods, "Wood…ok. no metal. No crystals…" She'll shuffling her books till she gets to her sketchbook and divination book. "I need to go get my Cards….and look into something." She'll look at the group and give a small smile. Unless stopped she'll make her way out. She leaves her books, minus the 2 mentioned on the table. Her bag also goes with her.
Eibhlin starts the translation by marking off each symbol. Just small hatches to denote which is which. To see if her theory that it will make it easier to get whole lines done will hold true. She glances up at Gabrielle, tilting her head a bit, "You've been with those cards a lot… is the coursework for your Divinations class that heavy this year?"
Gabriel seems very happy to see the project being picked up by so many people. "I think our version will just work by magic Warren. And I've found a few books in the library that talk about the theory behind a wireless but I couldn't find anything with diagrams, like this one. And besides, if we use a different instructions book Mupsy might consider it cheating and take the wireless away."
Claire leans back to get a glance out the window. "I've got to head up to the astronomy tower, but these pages should be enough to hand out if people want them. I'll make some more tomorrow." She goes back to her original table and rolls up the star chart.
Over her shoulder, Gabby will holler back with a small laugh to Eibhlin, "No…It's just the only class I don't completely suck at!" She'll start to open the door to leave.
"Mupsy won't mind," Warren waves this off, shaking hand back and forth in a negating gesture. "He'd be proud, I'm sure." A somber nod follows, and he nods briefly in farewell to Claire. "Well. If you need any parts. I don't think you'll need me so much for this, though."
"I'm sure we could hunt down a proper manual our next Hogsmeade weekend," Eibhlin admits quietly. She looks a bit awkward about this, more or less, "but… Mupsy may indeed be disappointed. Why give us the braille if he didn't want us to face the challenge?" She leans back, watching those that depart. "Especially with how far we've come already."
Gabriel grins at Warren,"We're more than half way there and, to be honest, I'm enjoying the puzzle of it. We'll be able to tell if Mupsy got us all the parts we need once we finish the translation of the manual but it looks like we're going to be making a fancier case than just the plain wooden box that came with everything so Gabrielle might need your help getting things for that."
"Because he wants to make you suffer," Warren offers cheerfully. He gestures toward Gabriel, adding, "Or because it's more fun. I wouldn't do it, but it's not really my project. I'm just here to offer advice. Advice is free." Because he has to do his job sometimes, after all.
Eibhlin chuckles softly, shifting to get to her feet as well. She straightens up some of the work, notably where she'd left off. "I'd leave it to the younger ones myself," she admits to Warren, "except I'm a sucker for languages I don't yet know."
Gabriel looks up at Eibhlin and shakes his head,"Its supposed to be a house project not a 'younger ones' project. Please, help all you'd like. And its meant to create house unit, in a bunch of different ways."
"You should help," Warren agrees, motioning over at Eibhlin. "You're a Prefect now." Warren is too, but apparently in his world he doesn't count. As if to prove this, the boy also pushes back from his chair. "I don't think I'll ever get past English, myself. Unless I make a potion." His brows scrunch up at that thought. "Could I do that? Maybe. What'd you use." Now he's just mumbling to himself.
"Aye," Eibhlin agrees, smiling a bit at Gabriel and Warren. "But then I'd be taking the fun away from all ye. Whereas iff'n I just give advise like Bennett here, ye'd be able to take all the credit when it's done."
Gabriel smiles one more time the shrugs in a have-it-your-way kind of way before going back to making his little piles of parts, sorting them in what must be a pattern that makes sense to him since he's being quite meticulous and switching piles from place to place on the table once in a while.
"I already did that, I wasn't trying." Warren scoots away from the table, chiming, "Good luck, call me if you need something." Then he's away on his own business, planning potions or whatever else he does when he isn't being a magic capitalist.
There's a small shake of the head from Eibhlin as Warren departs. She grabs up her book, gives a not to Gabriel, and starts up the stairs back to her dorm room.