Wand still in hand, Kurumi debated doing something else with Diffindo, shaping her two halves of strawberries on her desk, but ended up mostly just staring at them with vacant expressions. It had only been a year and a half ago since it had happened. The scars were still there...still fresh...and it was hard to not think about it...

And then Max spoke and drew Kurumi's attention towards him. Her expression didn't exactly change, per say, but some of the color returned to her cheeks. She was eventually able to pull her lower lip away from her teeth which then allowed her lips to curl into a very VERY small smile. Catching his gaze for a moment, Kurumi was just barely able to mouth the words thank you to the Ravenclaw before she returned her attention to her strawberries...

That is until Elise had fallen to the floor.

Jumping to her feet, knocking her knees on the table in the process, Kurumi scurried over towards the girl and helped her back to her feet while one arm slipped around the girl's shoulders. "Here, come sit by me." And then Alice came over and Kurumi passed the Ravenclaw off to her while she went to see what Penelope was doing - because she too seemed to need a hug. "Penelope, you alright? You can join our table if you want?" You know, all the ones that were feeling awkward about all this so they could all bathe in each other's awkward and soak up each other's awkward. Yep.

Essentially pushing Penelope's desk closer to the rest of the group - which wasn't that far away to begin with - Kurumi sat down and was immediately questioned about something by Alice. Fix something? "Hmmmm? Oh." Alice was making paper-mache? Pushing the shreds of newspaper back together, Kurumi waved her wand and cast Reparo to make everything whole again. "There, just be sure to aim for your fruit next time."

See? Younger students were a good distraction. This was good.

Until she looked back at her strawberry slices that is...then she forgot about the other distractions. Sigh.