Violet chewed her food, using the pause as an opportunity to further examine her friend, who, Violet felt, did not look fine at all, despite the other girl's assurances. Also, despite her praise of the food (which really was quite good), Ash herself was not eating much. Hmmm...Violet wondered what could be wrong with her. Sure, there were odd things happening around the castle (as usual), but they were common to everyone, not just Ash, and the chaos was certainly not as bad as some of the previous years. Still, Violet hesitated to press too hard right now; Ashley was known to cut and run if you pried too hard, too fast.

"Not just a good place to be alone," Violet finally replied, "but to observe other people." Let Ashley make of that what she would. "And, things are going all right--pretty well, actually, except for the weird things...well, you know all about those. Oh, I got stuck in the Slytherin Common room the other day and was late for class," Violet added. "The door wouldn't open. Again." Violet didn't like to dwell on that--not being able to get into the Slytherin rooms was bad enough, but being trapped inside and not able to get out had been a little scary for a while--it had brought back submerged fears of being locked in that sub-dungeon by the Neo-Alliance that Violet hadn't even realized were there.