Lexi just shrugged and started poking the linen with the tip of her wand angrily. She was MAD and HURT... and just UGH. She let Simon put his arm around her and sighed again. "I made a fool of myself because I was bored AND because that tosspot seems to have all of our futures in his fat fist. He is controlling us all... and we don't even realize it. Look at the Headmaster... he basically forced the man to do things he didn't want to. And closing the Department of Education... how could he do that? They run the OWLs and NEWTs..." she said.

But yeah... she was so embarrassed...

She absolutely and whole-heartedly agreed with Damien that something was still...off. The anxiety in her was far from gone. And the fact that Damien felt the same way wasn't doing anything to lessen the feeling either. This was bad.

Running a hand through her dark hair, Alysson just stared at the man for a moment, trying to calm down, to focus again. American Ministry?! Oh really? "Well, Mr. Lionheart from the American Ministry..." She started, her voice back to normal, while looking at the badge he had handed her closely. It didn't LOOK fake. How did she not know about this?

Oh and there was Damien again. Alysson automatically handed the badge to her colleague, only briefly glancing at him before letting her eyes rest on the 'American Ministry' person again. What was he doing here?

"No..you did it because you were brave...far braver then me," Simon remarked trying to think of the best words that were truthful to help her see she had nothing to be truly upset about. he should have known with his feelings earlier before they departed Hogwarts that all was not as it seemed but how does one convince those in charge like their chaparones that maybe it wasn't the greatest idea to follow everything asked of them. After all they had been invited not required to be there.

"And he only things he does, you have the ultimate control. And last time I checked, he's been named junior undersecretary, not minister of magic," the sixth year added biting his lip running out of ideas. Comforting and supportive wasn't his best skill other then what he inherited by having an older brother who looked after him.His head looked up even as they stayed hidden hearing the school nurse's name being yelled by the same dispicable man.

Now what does he want with Healer Moretti?

Damien looked from the crowd around that ridiculous dais to Alysson and back to the man. Taking the badge he inspected it closely. |Hmm. It was not a fake. And he would know. Considering he spent over 15 years there. "What department did you say? What position? How long have you been there? And what exactly gives you authority to act as a liason of any sort HERE? And who in Merlin's name told you to attend to these children. The British Ministry has some of the finest Security and Law Enforecement and we would have seen to it that no harm came of them... why would you intervene," Damien said as he held the badge out to the man and stepped into his personal space. WAY into it.

Glancing briefly back to Alysson he heard and then saw the crud with Lily and his eyes nearly bugged out of his head. "Alysson, perhaps you could go tell Evander that I would like to speak with him at his earliest convenience." Yeah, Van needed to know what was going on in here. Now.

Lexi snorted. "Brave, my foot. It was simply stupid of me. I should know better by now," she mumbled miserably. VERY miserably. Simon got a little smile for TRYING to be encouraging though.

Shaking her head Lexi gave a humorless laugh. "Where is the Minister? Why isn't she here? Why is HE making these announcements, this event is a three ring circus dedicated to an overgrown madman with a serious gas problem... I can't see how anyone CAN'T see that he is pulling the strings... or someone other than Minister Carlon is anyway," she said in a low tone as she nonverbally conjured even more butterflies.

It was that or set fire to the table linens... seemed the better option... at the moment.

SPOILER!!: you two *squishes*

[QUOTE=Pinky;10224573]Damien looked from the crowd around that ridiculous dais to Alysson and back to the man. Taking the badge he inspected it closely. |Hmm. It was not a fake. And he would know. Considering he spent over 15 years there. "What department did you say? What position? How long have you been there? And what exactly gives you authority to act as a liason of any sort HERE? And who in Merlin's name told you to attend to these children. The British Ministry has some of the finest Security and Law Enforecement and we would have seen to it that no harm came of them... why would you intervene," Damien said as he held the badge out to the man and stepped into his personal space. WAY into it.

Glancing briefly back to Alysson he heard and then saw the crud with Lily and his eyes nearly bugged out of his head. "Alysson, perhaps you could go tell Evander that I would like to speak with him at his earliest convenience." Yeah, Van needed to know what was going on in here. Now.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lislchen

She absolutely and whole-heartedly agreed with Damien that something was still...off. The anxiety in her was far from gone. And the fact that Damien felt the same way wasn't doing anything to lessen the feeling either. This was bad.

Running a hand through her dark hair, Alysson just stared at the man for a moment, trying to calm down, to focus again. American Ministry?! Oh really? "Well, Mr. Lionheart from the American Ministry..." She started, her voice back to normal, while looking at the badge he had handed her closely. It didn't LOOK fake. How did she not know about this?

Oh and there was Damien again. Alysson automatically handed the badge to her colleague, only briefly glancing at him before letting her eyes rest on the 'American Ministry' person again. What was he doing here?

Charles much much wanted to crawl under the table where he had seen two Hogwarts go not too long ago. That certainly seemed like the place to be right now and not here with the Royal Inquisitor and his lovely assistant. Reaching for his badge, but having the hunch that the man was not going to give it back to him anytime soon, Charles dropped his hand to his side...and took a step back as his personal bubble was invaded.

"If you will excuse my forwardness," he said addressing the man. "But I believe you have already decided that you do not want to trust me, so anything I say to you will be in vain." Charles tried to keep his voice calm and smooth so as not to start a brawl in the middle of the student seating. His daughter did not need to see that. Not to mention that in the heat of battle he would most certainly lose control of his abilities and then they all would be in trouble. He cast a look at Kurumi who was playing with the hem of her kimono. "I am not here to act as any sort of liaison...but I think you would agree that someone needs to watch these children who is not a pawn for that man up there," Charles said now raising his voice and his eyes flicking back and forth between the man he was speaking to and the young girl sitting at the table behind them.


*~*~*~*~*~*@ Lexi and Simon
Kurumi, who now seemed to be the focus of yet another strange man, decided that she needed to do be somewhere else before creepy sunglasses man came back as well. She felt the table move and the soft whisper of two familiar voices...coming from the table?!

OH NO! Had Lexi been transfigured into a table for speaking poorly about Lord Borr?! Kurumi squeaked. "Lexi! Lexi is that you?!" she said petting the table.

Damien let a little smirk cross his lips as the man displayed obvious signs of a LIAR. Interesting. Damien smirked moreso as the man let his arm drop instead of trying for the badge. "You know, I would have been more than willing to believe you if you had answered my questions. Now it seems that you have something to hide... The reason I inquired to begin with, like I said, is that I hail from the American MoM and just a few well placed calls and I could very easily find out if you were lying, you know... or telling the truth," Damien said in a low tone very near the man's ear.

His next comment brought a snort from Damien. "We in the MLE are pawns to no one, SIR. So you best just be on your way before I DO turn you over to our Department Head for questioning. Trust me when I say you would much rather have me asking the questions than him," he told him in a scathing tone. "Now leave, completely. If I see your face in here again you willhave forced my hand. I am giving you the benefit of doubt at the moment, but if you coninue to act like a creeper around these children... You will not like what happens next, Lionheart," he said with an air that meant he was CLEARLY not impressed with that alias. Be a bit more creative. Idiot.


Lexi heard Kurumi's voice coming from above her head and peeked from under the edge of the table linen to see her friend's kimono RIGHT there. |She tugged gently on it and made the PSSSST sound.

"Down here, Kurumi..." she whispered.

Simon raised a slight eyebrow as she snorted, his head tilting slightly as she mumbled almost painfully. "See I got you to smile even if its a little one," he remarked smiling softly back in return. He would take what he could get at this point. "No clue to any of those questions though I wish I knew just as you do," he answered in admittance with a one- armed shrug since his other arm was still around her. "Sure would have been nice to meet or at least see Professor Carlton's sister."

Simon looked over in the direction of the table cloth as he heard Kurumi's voice calling out for his companion. He exchanged glances with her as if asking if she was ok with another person under the table with them. But then as a girl she might have better things to say even without her famous cookies to uplift the mood. The boy dropping his arm back to his side as Lexi whispered to her

Josephina had just been watching contently from the seating area with the students, observing as they were called up. To be honest, she thought they sang admirably well considering how impromptu it was. And Borr? He was so loud; definitely the strong voice that the Ministry needed. The change in the wind, so to speak.

Um what was that though!? The lovely healer ... Lily? Oh what a brave soul she was to kiss him! AND yet, how lucky she was!! Professor Hadley was not denying the envy she felt of her colleague at that moment, for getting called up by such a BUSY and IMPORTANT man as Lord Borr!! UGH .. Lily sooo better tell her what it was like to be there, at the dais of the great Lord Borr ...... Seriously!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pinky

Damien let a little smirk cross his lips as the man displayed obvious signs of a LIAR. Interesting. Damien smirked moreso as the man let his arm drop instead of trying for the badge. "You know, I would have been more than willing to believe you if you had answered my questions. Now it seems that you have something to hide... The reason I inquired to begin with, like I said, is that I hail from the American MoM and just a few well placed calls and I could very easily find out if you were lying, you know... or telling the truth," Damien said in a low tone very near the man's ear.

His next comment brought a snort from Damien. "We in the MLE are pawns to no one, SIR. So you best just be on your way before I DO turn you over to our Department Head for questioning. Trust me when I say you would much rather have me asking the questions than him," he told him in a scathing tone. "Now leave, completely. If I see your face in here again you willhave forced my hand. I am giving you the benefit of doubt at the moment, but if you coninue to act like a creeper around these children... You will not like what happens next, Lionheart," he said with an air that meant he was CLEARLY not impressed with that alias. Be a bit more creative. Idiot.

Charles rolled his eyes and grabbed his badge back a little more forcefully than he had intended, but it was people like this man that drove him insane. "So, then I assume you are under the impression that there is nothing wrong with this party? Everything is as it should be and there is no suspicious behavior going on whatsoever," Charles said raising an eyebrow and shoving his badge back into his pocket.

Charles looked at the man, and his hat that was rather nice looking, and wasn't sure he bought the whole 'if you had answered my questions I would have believed you' bit. He had interrogated people before and this man's intimidation act was not going to sway him nor his reasons for being here. Not when his daughter was involved. Still, if someone with this much...spunk? was in the student seating area, then perhaps his daughter was in safe hands...at least for the moment.

Still, his blood boiled when he called him a creeper. Easy Charles...punching another grown man in the face is not a way to solve problems.

This time, Charles got into HIS personal bubble so that his chin was over the other man's shoulder and lowered his voice. "I will get as close to the situation as I feel is necessary when my daughter is involved."

Stepping back, Charles began to walk out of the seating area to look for Kaishu.



Holy Merlin! The table cloth was moving! The table was alive! They had done a terrible job at transfiguring her!

Then, Kurumi heard Lexi's voice say something about down...OH NO! Had they been shrunk? Looking down, Kurumi thought she saw a shoe and pulled the table cloth up a bit to see Simon and Lexi camping out.

"What are you doing under here?" Kurumi asked climbing off her chair and joining them.

Lexi shrugged slightly and pulled her arm across her face, up under her nose, trying to remove the SNOT that was pouring from all of the crying. Yeah. It was gross. Who cares?

"I think this is all crap. Crap," she said quietly. All of it. And she wanted her boyfriend. Not that Simon wasn't a good guy and all, but Salander would give her kisses and such. Mhm.



Damien's smirk grew into a smile as the man got MAD. It was funny to him to incite rage in others. It was his job to weed out the liars and whatnot. Head Auror was not awarded to just any old bag of bones. Heh.

"See I never said that. In fact there is a lot wrong with this whole damn thing and if I had my way I wouldn't be here as security. I would be here as an exterminator," Damien hissed through his teeth at the man. Insinuating he was ignorant was not the right thing to do. Ever.

His arms twitched slightly and he rolled his neck. No, he did not step back. HA! He was not intimidated by much of anything. Unnerved by the entire Borr thing, yes. Intimidated, no. And definitely not intimidated by some little man with a badge that clearly was not his own. Because if he cared to keep it he would not rile Damien Jackson up. Period.

"I don't care if your whole family is at this event. I want you out. Period," Damien called out loudly as the man made to walk away.


"Crying. Being embarrassed. Hiding. All of the above," Lexi said as she tried, surely in vain, to get the mascara from under her eyes. Sighs.

"This whole thing has been a disaster. I just want to go home," she said in a whiney voice as she shifted slightly to make more room for Kurumi. Not that the tables were all that small or anything, but you know.

Kurumi, for the time being, completely forgot about how awkward she felt around Lexi since she had learned about her and Salander. Right now, that seemed like something so small, so unimportant, that it didn't even matter. There was something really scary going on here and whatever it was was scaring her more than ghost stories ever did. She would rather be in a room filled with cockroaches at the moment.

To show Lexi that she was letting go of everything else at the moment, Kurumi wrapped her small arms around the older girl.

Seeing Kurumi appear as she pulled the edge of the tablecloth up enough to see them, the boy smiled, fight back the ridiculus urge to wave at her in hello. "All around hiding out from the rest of the world at the moment," Simon added to Lexi's answer to the inquiring about their activities.

He shifted himself seeing as he had been the last person to come under the table before the youngest girl. As the two girls hugged, Simon took the opportunity to momentarily and quietly excuse himself to the area where the chair legs stood stood, descretly snagging a clean cloth napkin or two from the table top before returning and handing them to Lexi. The downfall of being out of school and not being able to summon anything.

Everyone wanted to hug her today. Heh. Lexi wrapped her arms around the little girl and rested her head on top of hers and rocked gently. More for herself than for Kurumi. Clearly.

"You aren't frightened are you? Tate will protect us. Trust me. He will. I know that much," she said in a soft, reassuring tone.

Releasing one arm from around the girl she reached out and took the linen from Simon and wiped her face and arm off quickly and efficiently."How do I look?" she asked with a slight smile.

She was SURE she looked quite a sight. Puffy raccoon eyes. Bleh.

Arya was out of beans. She was out of beans and entirely too close to the stage that seemed to be holding a play rather than a group of ministry workers. She didn't even care about the new departments, though she didn't miss the dismissal of the education department. That was enough to have her itching to leave smaller dais and wonder the tent aimlessly.

Not the food tables though. Sabel was there and she wasn't sure she wanted to face him just yet, a torrent of emotions still rolling around inside her. Placing the empty bag on the table, she stole a pained look over towards the buffet before heading off the dais.

Kurumi appreciated Lexi's motherly movement and touch right now, it was something she was not used to feeling this kind of comfort and it was enough to make her eyes water a bit.

"A little," Kurumi whimpered nodding her head. "B-But, I don't know what to be afraid of..."

Kurumi smiled at Simon and in this moment felt like she had a big brother and sister looking out for her. They were a little Gryffindor pride.

Lexi gave Kurumi a little squeeze and sighed. "All of it frightens me. It doesn't make any sense and things that don't make sense are usually things to be frightened of," she said softly.

Kurumi sniffed. This was all too much for a 12-year-old to wrap their mind around. Sabel had looked like he had seen a ghost after their performance. The woman who had been standing next to Lord Borr had been interested in her, but she assumed that it was just because of her cookies. She felt rather special that her cookie skills were even being noticed by the Ministry. Perhaps she would be getting that cookie shop after all?

"I want to go back to school..."

"Alright," Simon answered not about to comment and make her feel bad about her appearance. They could hide out till they were to leave and it wouldn't matter how any of them looked for he assumed all that they had been here for had already taken place. He stayed quiet as Lexi and Kurumi bonded, the pair rocking slightly as he sat back giving them the room. As Kurumi sniffled, the boy offered her the other pilfered cloth if she wanted it.

"I think we all do," he mused with a sigh. "Just one big fiasco that should have been avoided in the first place."

Right. Simon had some class. She was sure she looked like someone that had been hit by a bus. Good people, that Simon. Mhm. Smiling softly at him she continued to kind of rock Kurumi and pat her back gently.

"Yeah. This has been one big... fiasco isn't a strong enough word for it, and I am too much of a lady to say what I am thinking... so fiasco it is," Lexi muttered.

Her eyes fell on her black LouBoutin's and her heart sank. She has SCUFFED them when she kicked them. NOOOOO. Okay... bigger problems than a scuffed shoe. MUCH bigger.

Kurumi rested her head on Lexi's shoulder. It would be nice to know what was going on and why they had been called to this party in the first place.

Still, one thing had troubled her since they had arrived seeing as a certain Head of Security was not present. "Does anyone know what happened to Mr. Ikenna?"

...and there was nothing much to add to Damien's questions. Which was why Alysson simply nodded slowly, her eyes still on the American Ministry person. Was he to be trusted? What was he DOING here and why the heck did they not know he was here?! When Damien stepped forward, her automatic reaction would have been to follow but she decided against it in the end. The man didn't need another person in his face right now.

Examining Lionheart's face closely for any signs of lying Alysson completely missed what was going on up on the stage - yes, she HAD after all managed to drown out Borr's annoying voice. Or at least managed to ignore it. She met Damien's eyes briefly and followed his gaze, however, when she saw the surprised expression on his face.

OMG! What was up with THAT?! It was just...there was absolutely no words to describe how the action onstage made her feel. "I...yes...I think that's...yes." Alysson didn't even glance at Damien but rather patted his arm? shoulder? something? absently in agreement before hurrying back to the Security Check In in search for Evander.

Iris had been quiet for a while now. She'd not really said much since the students came back from their singing. Resting her head on her hand, Iris used her free hand to trace circles on the table with her finger.

She noticed Lexi and Simon sat under the table, and Alysson, the other man and some American bloke argue a bit. But she stayed quiet. Iris had nothing to say. She was annoyed. It seemed like the only reason why they were here was for Borr to exploit them and make it look like Hogwarts was terrible, probably so he could throw a load of his Ministry idiots into the school.

With a sigh, she watched as Alysson ran off to get someone. Then she eyed the American man for a while. She didn't like him, much. Nope.

Lexi patted the girl's back and released her from her embrace, but kept an arm around her. She still rocked slightly and sighed. "I don't know where he is. I asked the Headmaster and he told me not to worry about it," she said with a slight shrug.

She had to admit to herself that it DID bother her a little though. Tate's attitude about it and the fact that the man seemed to have vanished into thin air.

Damien simply nodded his head and let the fact that |Alysson nearly poked his eye out trying to pat him roll off of his back. Silly girl. He had to smile slightly at the fact that she was so concerned about him though.

Perhaps Hunter was onto something when she spoke about his temper. Meh. Not that he would admit that. EVER.

Iridesca snuck off from her post helping serve people hoping to run into her favoritist niece, Satine. She walked over to the Table that seemed to be swarming with Hogwarts students. She thought it was odd that so many of them were there...and she really wasn't sure why they were here at all. She had to admit that she was a little bit embarrassed for them after the singing fiasco, but she had been proud to see her little purple niece up there smiling and singing along.

She glanced up and down the table looking for her niece and wandered closer to the table as she glanced. She looked for both that signature purple hair and for the Headmaster. She had never met him, but she wanted to tell him that she thought that the students had done a great job on such a spur of the moment performance. She was a proud Hogwarts graduate afterall and was happy and impressed with anything they did.

The young badger was more than a bit distracted by the ongoings at the buffet to pay much attention to where she was walking. Thankfully she had Sabel to lead the way, and tugged him a little closer to keep from running into anyone. She didn't know where Tate was going to find a floo, but she didn't really care since they were leaving.

She kept hold of Sabel as they made it onto the dais, and it took her a moment to realize that they had to tell the other students and professors. But words didn't seem to come to her. All she could do was scan the dais for all the students.