"I expect you to stay safe." Replied John as he looked at Ruby. "If you realy want to help then stay here and keep safe that way I am not worrying about you." He smiled he couldn't stand to lose her.

Ruby sat there and looked at John and thought for a moment she could understand what he was saying but she wanted to ask him something "i don't want to loose you John, she placed one of his hands into hers and looked at him and asked "please consider me to join you i have nothing worth coming back for if you get injured" all she wanted was for him to think about it.

"Do you realy think that those fools could beat me?" He laughed. "They won't stand a chance." He smiled as he played with her hair. "But if you come I would be worried about you."

Ruby looked at John and replied "have you seen true evil?" she had being a Malfoy wasn't all about money she was worried for John she looked at him and smiled as he played with her hair she looked up at him and remembered what her cousin had said "what if i went to Dumont and asked to be challenged like Sakura?" she looked at him she was prepared to do anything to help him and her cousin and even Jack

"I can survive." Replied John. "I am so good at things like that." He smiled. "If you went to Dumont I would be upset." He looked at her sadly. "Seriously Danger is my middle name." He laughed. "I think that Jack and I could have handled thinks on our own."

Ruby looked at him and sighed "you obviously won't listen to me then there is someone you may listen to who understands my family," Ruby looked at John and kissed his hand gently and continued "Sakura is down by the Lake she is waiting for you she would like a word" she looked at John and said "i do love you but you need to understand the danger and that i could be of use" she walked out of the great hall and off to the common room

"And why would I want a word with Sakura?" Asked John, he looked at her and smiled as he kissed her hand whilest also playing with her hair. "I can do thinks on my own, I work better when I know all my friends are safe." he smiled. "And I know my girlfriend is safe." He held her hand as he looked straight into her deep brown eyes. "I know you want me to speak to Sakura so that she make me say you can go but I don't want to lose you." He kissed her hand again. "Please understand." He hoped that she would give up this crazy idea of going with him.

It seemed that William was leading the way along the route his feet had traveled many times in the last few weeks, and he was a bit shocked as he found himself standing in front of the Hufflepuff table. Well, he felt like a Huffie right now so this seemed to fit he mused as he turned to look at Nancy and Jake. "This seems like a good spot. Food is food right?" He asked, grinning a bit as he plopped down on an empty seat and looked around.

The view seemed a bit different and he looked a bit saddened as he looked over at his table, seeing a few students eating and chatting happily. He turned to the only friends he seemed to have and smiled. "So, did you guys here that a student died?" He asked, a bit nervously.

Nancy had simply followed William and Jake without thinking much about where they were heading, so she was slightly surprised to suddenly find herself standing at the Hufflepuff House Table along with the two boys. She felt sort of awkward since she'd never exactly sat at any other housetable than her own but she smiled bravely and quickly sat down on the bench next to William. Well, at least they'd made it without any attacks from the forest to the Great Hall. This really was something, right?

Putting her wand back into her pocket (Nobody was going to attack them in here, right? Hopefully...) the third year looked up and down the table for something specific, something she was longing to eat. Huzzah! Finally her blue eyes fell on the apple-pies slightly to her left, so she leaned over both William and Jake to be able to reach them before happily placing two of them onto her table. She'd just taken a bite of one of them and the delicious taste of the pie was currently slowly spreading in her mouth as she almost choked upon hearing William's question. Coughing pretty hard she was unable to say anything due to first the coughing and second due to the shock of what she'd just heard. A student had died?! Nancy just resumed to stare at William with widened eyes and a shocked expression on her face. Was he serious?!

Jake smiled a little when he saw which table William had led them to. Awesome! He smiled as he sat down and eyed some of the food, keeping a firm grip on his wand. Jake's eyes followed William's gaze as he reached out for some food from his own table, and wondered why William was so... kinda sad.

He was just about to open his mouth to ask exactly that, when Jake heard William's own question. He froze, eyes going wide. The news had spread that fast? How much did they know?

"Erm..." Jake turned quickly as he heard Nancy coughing and gently hit her back to help and distract a little, maybe. Should he say?

William smiled at Nancy as she sat down next to him and helped himself to some juice, pouring it into a goblet before offering her some. May as well be kind he mused, not wanting her to run off suddenly thinking him rude. He felt a bit uncomfortable being in this table, for some reason he thought a professor (hopefully not Kazimeriz) would come up and tell him to move. He wouldn't though, he was comfortable enough. The bench seemed more sturdy here he figured, yeah that was his excuse.

His question had brought up some interesting reactions. Nancy started coughing and he flinched. "Sorry! Next time I'll wait until you're finished eating" He exclaimed, hitting her on the back, along with Jake. He looked over at the boy, suddenly wishing he could take back the question, which seemed greatly unwanted.

"Erm, it was a rumor I heard, that's all." he explained, his hands out in a surrender move. "Seriously I'm not sure if it's true, I mean the Whomping Willow doesn't actually walk around and attack students does it?" He questioned, knowing it didn't. He just wanted to show that rumors were nasty, irresponsible things. "Forget I said anything." he murmured into his juice as he took the opportunity to drink.

"The... what?" Jake asked, confused. "But he died in the Libr-"

Dang... Oh well, it had to be talked about at one point, couldn't be taboo for the rest of his life, now could it?

"It's just... just that," Jake shifted around uncomfortably. "It's not a rumour, and I..." Jake gulped. "... I kinda mighta maybe... saw it..."

Jake chewed on a piece of bread here, gnawing it down, wondering whether they'd be shocked, or angry, or sad, or scared of a mystery disease like him. "It was a first year Hufflepuff," Jake mumbled on.

Cadence had walked up behind behind Jake as he stammered through his response. She was still wrapped in Set's jacket. She hadn't taken it off since... since she had gotten back to her dormitory except to shower. It wasn't just some first year. she said in a very flate tone. It was Set... Set Avis. Tears came to her eyes for what felt like the millionth time.

William looked shocked. "Oh man..." he shook his head, not having known before. It was strange, he should feel sad or something but his emotions were so gone from the hours spent crying after visiting Kazimeriz that he didn't feel anything anymore. He was a robot now he knew, something that didn't feel emotions and bounced bad feelings over to other. "You ... you saw it happen? Who did it, why, how when?" He asked his voice oddly hollow now.

Before Jake could reply though another Hufflepuff walked up behind Jake and said who the student had been. "I'm...I'm sorry." he replied, not knowing the students name but his statement was true enough.

Jake looked around awkwardly. Cadence was tearing up, and Jake used William's distracted manner to rub his own eyes roughly. "Something in my... eye..." he muttered. Yeah... tears...

Looking back up, Jake wanted to defend himself. "I never said he was just some first year!" he babbled indignantly. "It was terrible, I-"

But before he could go on, Jake asked the very thing he'd been about to explain.

"I can honestly say I don't know how..." Jake mumbled, looking up at William. He took a deep breath, determined to get through this as emotionally as possible. "I was in the Library, and I was looking for a book on Herbology, because I couldn't find one that was uncreased or completely clean or dog-eared and I remember there was a weird green stain on one of the books in the shape of a snail-" Jake stopped himself from his habit of going into too much detail, a habit of his when he was stressed out. "But I was about to go to the front desk, and I saw through the bookshelves... so clearly..." Jake shook his head, swallowing. This wasn't the place to tell Cadence, and his voiced had been breaking off as he was getting to the end of his description.

"I think I should tell you down in the Common Room later..." Jake spoke to Cadence, using his limited range of common sense right now.

Jake looked at William, giving him an awkward smile, and then round at Nancy, not really knowing what to say. He bit his lip awkwardly; would she be all sarcastic or make fun of him? Or both? There was also William speaking in that odd voice... things were so weird, and Jake felt himself thinking, again, that he wanted to go him, despite his lack of one.

William listened as intently as his emotionless mind would allow, playing with a roll that was slowly turning into tiny bits of nothing, just like his mind. "Wow mate, I'm sorry." was all he could say. He honestly didn't know what to say that would make this moment anymore awkward, but he had an idea of how to change it. He briefly wondered what his cousin would do in this situation; she was so much more braver and stronger than he was. He felt like a pathetic fish out of water, flapping around and almost empty.

While he was thinking, something snapped in his mind. He no longer felt depressed nor sad, though he still felt like breaking into tears at the news he had just heard. Be it from all the crying he had done in the past week, the rumors which had come horrifyingly true or just the fact that he had no idea how to fix his problem he stood suddenly, jumping up onto the bench beside Nancy and Jake and started singing,

"When in doubt, dance like a trout. When in doubt, dance like a trout." he sang in a drone-ish voice, moving his body like that of a fish and making fish faces as his eyes went cross-eyed. "When you're sad dance like mad, when you're sad, dance like mad." He continued, dancing weirdly, almost like the old disco kind of dance he had seen on TV one day while his mother was on the phone.

"When it's all too much and you can't take the stress dance like a fish!" He sang loudly, doing this fish dance once more before picking up a spoon off the table and singing again.

"It's okay... well, not really..." Jake mumbled. "I just don't do well with stressful situations, and it totally freaked me out."

Jake turned back to William and fell backwards off the bench in a jolt of surprise when William began dancing and... could you call that singing? "Trout?" Jake mumbled, staring wide-eyed at William. Has he gone loopy? Has Cameron bitten him or something?

Jake, now sitting on the floor with his feet incidentally resting on the bench, shook his head like a dog trying to rid hisears of water. "What are you doing?" he asked, in a low voice, kind of emotionless, but nowhere near as much as William's was.

William jumped off the bench, a look of shock on his face. "Um... singing?" He replied his voice slightly breathless. Okay, so he couldn't sing, he knew that but wow he didn't think it was that bad. "Yes trout, you know it's the only word I could come up with for my song. Not a lot of words ryhme with doubt." he explained with a shug as he stood there.

"Need a hand?" He asked, holding his hand out to Jake, a look of concern on his face." I didn't mean to, you know scare you like that." he added sheepishly.

"Oh, ok," Jake nodded. "Seems fair enough," he said, smiling slightly. At William's next words, Jake shrugged his good shoulder. "It was more the dancing that confused me... and what about clout... or pout... or... erm, you're right," he smiled again.

"Nah, I got two hands," Jake grinned. "But the help up would be appreciated."

Jake took William's hand and let his feet drop down before pulling himself up. "Thanks," he muttered, very much distracted by this time. He sat at the table again. "I'm always falling of chairs and junk... now, where were we?"

"Glad I'm not the only one who falls at odd times." he chuckled, the sound falling flat quickly. "Err, um I can't remember." okay well he could since he started the conversation but he wanted it stopped, so he stopped it.

"Ever been dunked by the giant squid? My cousin was her fifth year. here." he said nodding to himself. This seemed like a good topic of conversation he mused, not wanting to do what he did best and forget things.

Distracting himself, he took an apple from the basket and looked it over before biting into it.

Cadence said something about talking to her in the Common Room, and she simply turned and left, wandering the castle. She wasn't wearing shoes or socks, but she kept Set's jacket pulled around her as tightly as she could.

"Uhm, okay then," Jake shrugged again. "No... I don't think I've even been near the Lake..." Jake sniggered a little. "Except when Allie was chasing me around the grounds... that was quite funny..."

Jake looked up and down the table. He couldn't see many people he knew, which was odd, because he often bumped into people he knew. This was peaceful. This was good.

"You have family that are kind of school age then?" he asked of William.

William listened nodding once or twice. He couldn't help have this be awkward, even though he was trying to make it not seem so.

"You should go, it's always full of people but there's a nice empty spot no one knows about, very peaceful." He replied smiling slightly.

"My cousin Ariana. She graduated last year. She told me all about the classes and what to expect." little did she know how much her favorite classes had changed. "She often speaks about her adventures here." he said, his eyes drifting over to the oddly empty Ravenclaw table.

Jake nodded. "Cool... I think I might try and check it out properly at some point... in the summer," he added. The cold was getting to him more than ever this term. Maybe it was because they were that much further North, or because he was getting outside more often.

"Oh, my mum was an only child, so I don't have cousins or anything like that," Jake explained. "And, when I came here, I was obviously totally clueless... not sure if that would have been a good or bad thing in the long run," he smiled.

"You never mentioned your dad," Jake suddenly remembered. "Just living with your mum..."

"Have you been to the whomping willow yet?" He asked, looking over at him curiously.

"It's not that fun having relatives, you're not missing much." William replied, feeling a small tinge of something as he swallowed. It was true; those weird meetings and awkward moments with your uncle or aunt hugging you senseless while kissing your cheeks.

"My dad...I don't know where he is." He mused, suddenly wondering himself. "Mom doesn't talk much about him you know?" He paused, frowning. "Guess I should figure that out soon though." He added before nodding, "When she's not at work she's with me. We're very close." he said softly, playing with the apple.