The room was quiet and the only sound was that of Max's feet as he trod over to the large round table that occupied a corner of the room. Nice, he thought as he sat down and leaned back in his chair, propping his feet up on the table.

Angela hadn't visited this room very often in the time that she had been employed at Hogwarts. She was often busy with the library, and with yet another endeavor that she planned to undertake this year, she knew it was likely that she would once again become too caught up in the happenings of daily life to visit.

Pushing open the door, she stepped inside, her attention immediately moving towards the corner of the room where another person was present.

"Why hello Max." She greeted as she stepped in his direction.

"Why hello, Angela," Max greeted with a grin motioned to one of the many open chairs gathered around the table. "Have a seat and tell me how good you are at playing cards."

Caleum finally found the room that he had been searching for to do the one thing he had been wanting to do since last term. With a soft sigh, he walked through the door then smiled. "Oy Max," he said then noticed the librarian. Crap! He forgot her name. Embarrassing.

"Please forgive me, but I have seemed to misplaced my brain," he began walking over to her. "But I seem to have misplaced your name."

Angela returned Max's grin before settling into an empty chair. "Ah, well I don't like to brag." She answered, not revealing that it had been some time since she had last played. "But I suppose I'm relatively good. And yourself? You seem like you've played frequently."

As the door swung open again and another professor entered, Angela turned a smile of greeting his way. Ah, Myers, if she recalled correctly.

With a small chuckle, she spoke again, this time in a light-hearted tone. "Angela Kohan. And I do hope you're a better card player than you are at remembering names, Mr. Myers." She smiled again to let him know that she was simply joking.

Caleum chuckled. "Aww, you make me look bad," he said as he playfully hung his head low. "Thank you, Ms. Kohan." He winked to Angela and took his seat. "Well, I am better at playing cards than remembering names but...I have to say that my sister is better than me." His eyes rolled with another snicker of laughter.

"I second that statement."

Constantine smirked lightly as he walked into the Staff room, his eyes on Caleum. "She is good at playing cards...she beat me pretty thoroughly at a game of go fish over the summer," he chuckled amusedly. He dropped himself into a chair beside the fire and then gazed into it, his lips curving into a dreamlike smile.

"Excellent!" Max grinned and made sure that there was an empty seat between him and Angela. "Did anyone bring the chips? If not, we can use Neo's acorns."

Angela smiled once more, glad that Mr. Myers had a sense of humor. "You're quite welcome." She answered, returning the wink. She wondered briefly how many would join their group. The more, the better.

"Your sister? Does she work here or elsewhere?" She inquired. Not having the male professors present last year, especially the newer ones, made Angela all the more curious to strike up a friendship.

"Acorns?" She repeated, looking over in bewilderment at Max, and then at the newcomer.

At first, Caleum frowned at the statement that Neo made as he walked into the room, but the realized that it was meant towards his sister...not him. "She beat you in a game of...go fish?" He was silent for a moment then broke out into laughter. Well, he really shouldn't be laughing that much because she had done the same to him.

"Neo and his acorns. I have never heard of such a fuss over acorns before in my life." His head turned to his best mate with a raised brow. "Mate, I think you have started a trend."
"Ahhh! Madison is her name," he began with a smile on his face as his eyes glanced to Constantine and then back to Angela. "And she works in the Ministry, actually in the department mum used to work in."

Sophie strolled into the staffroom and eyed the table and the cards suspiciously. They had talked about playing cards last year, but never actually got around to it. Her eyes glanced over to Caleum and quickly looked away. "Ahhh, cards?" She said shiftily.

"Join us, Sophie," Max offered and motioned to a seat directly next to Caleum. "The more, the merrier. Besides, the goal of the game is to make sure Fabian loses."

"Oh, the Ministry?" She must be a very hard worker to have gained a position in the Ministry. "If you don't mind me asking, which department exactly does she work in?"

"Sophie!" Angela's face brightened up immediately as the woman stepped into the room. "Hey, how was your summer?"

As Max mentioned Fabian's name, Angela turned her head in his direction for a moment, but said nothing, instead her expression changed to a slight frown. Hearing Fabian's name only reminded Angela of his appearance at the feast. Perhaps she would have a chance to speak to him alone soon.

Caleum heard the door opened and the smile on his face vanished and was replaced with a stunned look. Sophie! He watched her long, beautiful hair flow behind her but then out of the corner of his eye, he saw Max motion to the seat next to him. Not good! For once in his life, he began to feel anger building up inside of him, but there was only one reason for it and only they knew of the things that happened between them.

"Oh, er, yeah," he said stumbling over his words a bit to Angela. Everything had been okay on his end...until now. Playing Mister Cool and Calm was easy...was being the key word. "S-She works...i-in Magical Trans-portation, Floo Network, actually." Oh this was getting bad and it annoyed him to be so unskillful at the moment. But then he tuned in to the words of Max.

"Fabian has to loose? Why?" There had to be a story behind this one and at least it would be something to take his mind off of Sophie...and her beautiful face.

Sophie smiled politely but this quickly faded when Max offered her a seat next to Caleum. Her heart started to race and her hands started to shake. Maybe she should have gone back to her hut, this was too hard. "Fabian?... Umm... I'm sure we can..beat him." She said sounding extremely distracted.

Sophie now smiled when she heard Angela's voice. "Angela! It's sooo good to see you." She said. This was a good distraction, it was so good to see a friendly face. "My summer?" She said in a slightly higher pitch voice. "It was... something" Was all she could managed to say, looking down to avoid looking back at Caleum.

Sophie instantly noticed the change in Caleums voice. She bit down on her lip and kind of swayed on the spot, unsure of whether to sit next to him or not. There didn't seem to be many chairs left, and if would have been rather rude to ignore Max's invitation. She could sit on the floor. No, then she'd just look silly. Slowly, Sophie made her way over to the chair Max offered and sat next to Caleum.

Breath in. Breath out.

Angela glanced at Caleum with curiosity as he began to stumble over his words. O...kay. "Sounds like an interesting job." She commented. Saying nothing further, she absently listened for Max's reply. She was wondering about that as well, though her concern for Fabian overode her curiosity in knowing why Fabian had to lose.

Now she definitely knew that something was up. "Good to hear. I had quite the relaxing summer myself. Friends and books kept me company." She added with a smile. She had no idea what was going on at the moment, but something told her that trying to distract Sophie seemed like the best idea. "I'll have to come by your hut later for a cup of tea. I never did get around to doing that last year."

And she sat next to him.

Caleum pressed his lips together trying his best to listen to Angela at the moment, but then was finally distracted with one word. Books! "Ahh! Just my subject," he began trying to bring the smile back to his face to make things seem as though nothing was going on. He needed acting lessons for sure. "What type of books do you prefer reading, Ms. Kohan?"

Sophie had to hold her hands in her lap to stop them from shaking. "Oh that's good to hear!" Sophie nodded, trying to think about nothing other than their conversation. "Oh I would love that. I guess we got so caught up last year. We really need to have a get together soon." She said, trying to smile. This was hard...already! "I still wanted to visit the library and get some books..."

Drago made his way into the staff room and blinked at the gathering already there. He raised a brow at it, remembering that it was usually quieter at this time of year. "Am I interrupting something?"

Antonio stopped into the staff room to see what it looked like and was surprised to see a large group of his fellow professors already there, apparently engaged in a card game. He had heard them talking about playing cards at the staff table, it made sense that the games would go on here. He smiled politely at the group, not wanting to interrupt, he didn't know the others that well and didn't want to interfere. "How's it going?", he asked the group.

Alex peeked into the Staff room to see if the card game she'd heard about had started yet, seeing it hadnt she walked into the room. "Got room for one more?" she asked with a smile.

Fabian found Max's note pretty late that evening, he couldn't turn the cards game down since it would be a good source of entertainment and he was seriously interested on who would show up to play this year.

He arrived at the staff room before the hour, or so the clock said so. He was fairly distracted eying the time piece that he slammed straight into ... "Och! Alex, pardon me" both of his hands flew to rest on her shoulder to keep her from stumbling off balance. Now why was she blocking the doorway? He peered his head around her shoulders to view inside of the room. "Hello!" he barked in greeting, now they didn't seem that scary? Unless Max had a flying monkey in there he didn't spot yet.

Oh they were interested in the same things, seeming as though to feel the same feelings...it was almost too much to deal with. But he wanted to play and play he would do.

And then other professors began to show up. The more the merrier. OY! It was the akward quiet, the kind that one could cut the air with a knife but still....-sigh-.

"Oh, no no, not interrupting at all," Caleum began to Drago, watching as others began to follow suit. "Welcome...welcome to all." Oh he was happy to be able to meet new faces, chat with the ones he already knew. Ah. And Fabian showed.

When Kapoor finally made his way down to the staff room he was carrying a sandwich and thumbing through a pamphlet on the history of Muggle humour. 'Interesting!' He'd've never thought that felines could be so...so...sarcastic. Oh, those imaginative Muggles. Finishing the last bit of his sandwich and pocketing the pamphlet, he took out his wand and did a quick cleansing charm on his hands and of course on the front of his clothing for he was covered in crumbs.

He scanned the room and was delighted to see some, as of recently, familiar faces such as Madame Kohan and Professor Pierce. "Ladies,", he said, greeting them. "So glad you're going to play. Uhm,...", he cleared his throat. "You will remember to show a little mercy on an old man, my game is not at all like it used to be."

Kapoor gestured towards the table and with his wand, untucked a chair for Alexandria, between Brooks and empty seats.


Kapoor spotted Professor Dumont and gave him a pat on the back. "Glad you could join us, Antonio."