“Nasty little buggers, gnomes are. If you don’t watch yourself, you’ll get a troublesome bite or two…or three come to think of it,” Professor Brixby cautioned with a thick Scottish accent and a shake of her head, carrot colored tendrils falling about her face in a wild display that only a natural redhead could pull off. Her green eyes sparkled as they looked for their next victim amongst the overgrown lawn.

               Donghae marveled over his advisor and how well she seemed to fit into the landscape—a low, stone wall surrounding a sizeable cottage set against a backdrop of rolling, green hills speckled with whomping willows­—not the least bit ashamed of having a crush on her. She was beautiful in her wild ways. She had pale skin mottled with more freckles than the night’s sky and her waist length hair, full of tangled curls, was drawn back into a hair tie (or what little she could control of it).  He was one of many admirers who attended Hogwarts School of Wizarding, but one of the few lucky enough to have her for an advisor.

               Professor Brixby was the Muggle Studies Professor and very much dressed the part. She preferred to wear simple blue jeans and oversized sweaters, which seemed to fit her perfectly all the same, instead of the preferred formal attire of her colleagues. She was younger than most of the professors which automatically gave her a cool factor and her eagerness to learn more about the muggle world made Donghae a virtual encyclopedia of knowledge for her, seeing as he was muggle-born and all.

               “Ah, there’s one!” Brixby shouts, pointing in the direction of a gnome with an obscenely large noggin. Donghae still couldn’t get over how strangely human they looked, and at the same time, not. They looked like misshapen old men with more hair on their feet and chins than the top of their bulbous heads would ever dare hold, and most barely came up to the knee they were so little.  

               The gnome turned to Donghae with a smirk of a challenge before swiftly turning around to wiggle his round . “Naaa-na-na-naaa-na!” it teased from a shrub just a few meters off.

               “Doesn’t it just make you want to teach it some manners?” Brixby laughed, excitement tickling her words. “I just love de-gnoming gardens! It’s so therapeutic, but I think I’ll leave this one for you.”

               “Me?” Donghae choked out. He wasn’t ready. No matter how many gnomes he watched his professor chuck over the garden wall, he was pretty sure he’d never be ready. Out of all the strange things Donghae had seen over the last five years at Hogwarts, this was by far the strangest, and to a muggle-born wizard that was saying a lot.

               “Yes,” she answered. “You’re the one who wanted extra money this summer. I already have a job, remember? Now, make me proud,” she encouraged with a nod.

               Professor Brixby had spent the better part of the afternoon teaching Donghae the not-so-fine-art of chucking these foul-mouthed underground creatures over garden hedges, gates, walls and fences. “All one has to do is grab it by the legs and fling it over the wall, keeps them out for years. No magical wards needed. No one knows why. They just can’t seem to figure their way back over,” she explained with a shrug.

               Apparently gnomes weren’t the brightest creatures, often surfacing from their underground burrows to see what the all the fuss was about after hearing their brethren squeal as they flew over the wall. Most didn’t even run away when you approached them, so engrossed in their teasing, they couldn’t be bothered by it really. Catching one was simple, so his professor said, and so Donghae set off to do just that.

               He was no humanitarian, as gnomes were pests through and through, or so he was told—but it was one thing to watch as their little legs cleared a hedge wall and it was another thing, a different thing all together, to be the one causing it. She had already assured him that they didn’t feel a thing. To be honest, he was more worried over how their skin would feel, most pointedly, if they would feel like a lizard’s skin. Donghae didn’t like lizard’s skin. It felt soft and hard, slimy and dry, scaly and smooth all at the same time. It was a strange fear in the muggle world but in the wizarding world, a surprising amount of things felt like lizard’s skin. It was unsettling.

               He wanted to ask Professor Brixby before attempting anything but what did it really matter? He had a job to do and didn’t want to appear weak in front of her.

               Donghae headed toward the gnome slowly, much like Brixby instructed, but with more frequent looks over his shoulder to ensure that he was still doing it right. Brixby encouraged him with a flick or two of her wrist, as though shooing a child off to play. It was all he needed…at least until the next few steps.

                “Remember to spread your legs wide and squat low. It’s just like catching a knarl,” she explained again. Only problem was, Donghae had never caught a knarl. In fact, he had no idea what a knarl was, but he would be damned before he let Professor Brixby know that. “Then swiftly  grab his legs, swing him up and over your head like a one of those lovely helicopters muggles fly in all of the time—remember, the dizzier it is, the better—before letting him go to watch him sail over the wall.”

               Donghae wanted to remind his professor that people rarely flew in helicopters but before he could open his mouth, he was cut off with the rudest of noises. The gnome, whose lips were larger than Donghae previously recalled, cut him off by blowing raspberries to no one in particular. A motorboat of activity, the sight was odd and so childlike that he couldn’t help but smile. It was like watching a clown at the circus; strange, creepy and sometimes scary but silly enough to make even the most frightened child crack a smile.

               The effect wore thin after a while though and Donghae decided to use the gnome’s preoccupied state to his advantage. While the gnome’s eyes were squeezed shut in extreme raspberry concentration, Donghae seized the opportunity, plunging swiftly for the knobby little legs before carrying out his teacher’s instructions. With a last shout of protest from the gnome, Donghae watched as it flew over the wall like it had invisible wings.

                It took about two seconds before he heard it land with a soft thud, immediately followed by an even softer “ouch.”

               “Are you sure it doesn’t hurt them?” he asked, feeling a pang of guilt at the sound.

               Brixby snorted, “Hurt a gnome? Nah. Their bones are harder than stone, their butts are like Quaffle balls­—and everyone knows that a gnome always lands on their —and their skin is tougher than leather. Only jarveys have shar