An exasperated sigh escaped her lips and the little girl crossed her arms once again over her chest, nodding once up at her older cousin with a curt, "Fine." Because be aware, they would discuss that later. Katie would not forget, even if the 'Rugrat' comment slipt past her that time. Maybe she was getting use to hearing it. Urgh!

"Thanks, Will." The corners of her mouth twitched upward more, looking rather pleased with herself, because she was. 'Astute', that reminded her of Leah; that girl was always using different words like that one, it brought memories of the previous summer back when she had tried teaching her some stuff she learned all on her own. Kaitlynnh, thinking of Leah, made a mental note to write to her best friend later that night. She shook her head, as if to clear the current thoughts from her mind and focus once more.

Dark eyes blinked beneath long lashes as Katie tried figuring why Samantha was asking about the name William had blurted out, which funnily enough, it started with the letter T as well. Lifting her head a bit, the tiny first year pushed her dark hair over her shoulders and left her arms uncrossed, playing with the charms dangling from her bracelet behind her back while listening to voices she didn't recognize coming from a distance.

William blinked as he looked at the much older girl before him, suddenly feeling like a bug she could squash with a single breath. "Um... I'm pretty sure it was my fathers' last name. Mum didn't take it for some reason, it's much better than Cullack." He replied frowning a bit and shrugging as if to say whatever. "Why?" He asked, qurking an eyebrow at her with a curious look in his eye.

Turning back to Katie he smiled, "Anytime." he replied before shoving his hands back into his pockets and leaning against the wall, straining his ears to hear something he was sure he could hear. Either that or he was loosing his mind, which considering he was in Hogwarts and had a crush on a certain ghost, he just might be.

Hmm. Karma still hadn't figured out how these slides had appeared on the fifth floor, and would have preferred a different way to get back up than the ladder. She stood standing in the corridor, looking down the slide while she thought.

Or debated. Whatever it was that was going on in her mind. She needed a break from studying, and she was bored. BORED. Extremely bored. And the slide looked tempting, but what was down there? Besides the grounds.

Hmmmmm. She crossed her arms and stared at the slide, trying to figure out if she wanted to mess her hair up or not.

Torin realized just how fun it was to jump on Karma. "WHEE!" he exclaimed, laughing as he pounced on the Seventh Year.

"Karma, my darling. Please don't Graduate." It royally sucked that she was going. Where was he going to get his Karma hugs now?

The slide was looking especiallyyy tempting, even to little Precious, who seemed to have jumped out of Karma's pocket at the right time. Her little tail flicked back and forth as she stared at the slide. Oooooh the birdies and other bugs outside...

Karma squeaked as she was pounced upon, and fell to the floor. "WHAT IN MERLIN'S LACY UNDERPANTS DO YOU THINK --" Ohh. It was Torin. It was either him or Cam, but since he was bigger, he was more likely to take her down. "Well hellooo there sunshine," she said, regaining herself. "So uh. Lovely... weather, today." It was weird, being pounced upon while wearing a skirt. Very awkward.

Precious' ears perked up at the sound of her owner squeaking. ZOMG THERE WAS POUNCING! And she wasn't a part of it! There was a dark haired boy who seemed to want to play. Oh yes he did. So Precious took it upon herself to pounce onto his back in return, batting at his head.

He squeezed her and said, "the weather's really nice. And can you fail your NEWTs so you can't Graduate yet?" Yes, he was joking. No, he wasn't about to get up yet.

Then there was this... thing on him. "What is this?" he asked jumping slightly. Then he was patted in the back of the head. "I take it this is your cat, huh?"

Karma frowned slightly as she shifted and tried to move him off of her. Gah. That brat. And then he talked about her failing her NEWTs. GASP! "Yeah right, in your dreams Torin!" Pokepokepokepoke in the side she went.

Then, Precious distracted him, and she smirked. "Good kitty. Yes, it is. And her name is Precious. Evee gave her to me."

Precious stopped as her owner spoke to her, and then she placed her front paws on the pouncing boy's head to get a better look. Hmm. Not as fun. She backed down to continue batting his head. Yes, this was fun.

This was weird! So weird! His dad's last name, was also her aunt's last name. They also happened to start with the same letter, which was weird in its own way. Slowly it started to click in the Gryffindor's head. Give her credit! She wasn't a Ravenclaw after all. "Ok. So let me get this straight. Your dad's name was Timothy Treviso. And our aunt's name was Tracy Treviso." she emphasized on Aunt Tracy's last name before continuing. "I could've swore that Aunt Tracy had a brother. And I'm going to take a wild guess, that your dad had a sister, right?"

Dude! So weird, so weird, so weird! She began running her hands through her hair, trying to come up with the conclusion. Well, she already figured it out, but was in denial. How did they not know about William being their cousin? How did it escape the rest of her family that their Aunt Tracy had a brother, and possibly a family some where? This was too much!

"Ok. I'm just going to throw this out in the open. But Will, I think you are our cousin." Sam said, frowning slightly. Not that she didn't want William to be apart of her insanely large family, she was just a little upset that they were just realizing this right now. Shouldn't they have known about him? She was owling her mother as soon as she left them. Probably owl Samuel too. He would know if he had an uncle named Timothy.

He clung as she poked him. "You know you want to, Karma." He gave her a kiss on the cheek. haha. He liked kissing her on the cheek. It wasn't like he had feeling for her or anything. He just liked it.

Now there was a cat digging it's claws into his skull. wtf? This was why he didn't have pets. "Nice cat. I don't have any pets myself." As the cat resumed batting his head, he understood why that was.

Aww but Precious was only having funnnn. She wasn't trying to hurt him or anythingggg, pwomise. She jumped to his shoulder and nuzzled against his neck, purring. Hehehe. He'll love me soon.

"I know I want to what?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. He kissed her on the cheek, and she poked him again. "She just wants to play, that's all. You pounced, so she decided she wanted to do the same."

Now the cat was nuzzling against him. That was much better. He chuckled and petted her behind the ears.

"You want to stay here with me is what." He laughed harder as she poked him again. "You can't fool me, Karma," he teased. Her last comment was way too true. He just nodded.

Karma had to laugh at what he was saying. Blasphemy. Toooootal blasphemy on his part. But it was quite entertaining for her to watch him. And she wanted to just hug him.

"You are so dumb Torin," she said, laughing slightly. "I guess I can forgive you though."

William nodded, his attention on Sammy now as she began deducing what was going on, even if William had no clue. "Yes, I think I remember some old photos of him with a woman who looked identical to him. Mum doesn't say much about his family, i don't think she even knows anything." He replied, his face slack, void of emotions now that he was thinking about it fully. In all honesty he had never once thought of the idea of him being even remotely related to anyone; sure the purebloods were all related to each other in a weird twisted way, but this was just weird!

Keeping his back again the wall he thought hard about this. Even if his mother didn't know much, his grand parents would have known something before they disbanded from the family. They knew everything! Granny Ezilia knew what was going on ten blocks away, even before it happened. Call it a gift or what have you but boy was she smart! Perhaps he could owl her or something, surely she'd talk to him, right? Possibly.

And then Sammy was telling him something and his mouth dropped like it had an anvil on it. Blue eyes frowned as he tried to process the information. What, him family here, when why how what?!?Does not compute, does not compute! Surely she was mistaken right? Surely he only had Ari and Jaoni, who he didn't even know that well, but this! This was huge! And not just huge in its complicity but huge as in the size of their... his now possibly new family. boy was he confused. Blinking he realized he had been staring at her open mouthed for the last few minutes and blinked. "Um..."he tried to say but failed miserably. "Okay. I... I can handle this. How... wow." he tried again, his words jumbled just like his brain.

Shaking his head, letting his hair fall into his face he thought of one person who could possibly help him. Emily, Ari's mom. She'd know, right? Or maybe not since she wasn't even around right now, possibly on vacation somewhere. He didn't know who else to talk to though. He was in a state of shock and right now he wanted, no needed someone to wake him from this messed up dream. It was a dream right? Where was the pink fairy with the dark eyes taunting him though, surely she'd be popping up in a second, her ugly weird finger pointing at him, mocking him. Right now he'd even welcome her into this dream, because William Cullack was in a dream state. Yes. That was the only logical conclusion, a waking dream.

He pretended to get offended when she called him dumb. "I was going to say that I'll miss you, but I dunno about that now." He was trying his testy routine. Be as moody as she and all the other girls were. "Oh, you forgive me, huh?" hahaha

"Yessss I forgive you," she said, batting her eyelashes at him. Precious still was nuzzling, and her tail flicking back and forth, spotting a bug. She stopped, then pounced on a spider. May it rest in peace.

Karma looked at the situation they were in. They were still laying on the floor. "Uhm, I'm getting a little cold down here with these stones... can we get up soon?"

He laughed as she batted her lashes at him. She was so cute. "Aww, how can I resist you when you look at me like that, Karmaluff?" He smooched her on the cheek.

And she was cold, huh? Well, he had a solution to that. A big slide. One that he was starting to drag her towards. MWAHAHA

Whaaaaaa -

Why was she being dragged? And it was in the direction of the slides... "Torin, no WAY. I will hex you." She struggled slightly, and Precious pounced on her dragging robe.

Oh. If he did this...

Smiling evilly, he continued to drag her towards the slides. "Come on, Karma. Where's your sense of adventure?" He was finding it so hard not to laugh as he kept dragging her along.

NO NO NO NO NO.

Maybe if she started flailing, and almost hit him in the eye, or at least almost knock him out... What was she thinking? She wasn't strong enough, nor tall enough or - whatever enough.

"Torin I WILL hex you, don't make meeee!" Gah. All this work was tiring. If she just gave up, who knew what may happen. It could be fun. Meh.

"You are such a spoil sport, Karma. I swear." now they were at the top of the slide. Geeze, it took a while dragging her. Either he was weaker than he thought. Or she was stronger. In any case, it was time for them to have some fun!

"WEE!" he said as he pushed them both down the slide.

And earpiercing screech filled the corridor. It was coming from the submerged great hall.

Katie crossed her arms, listening silently, attentively to the exchange between William and Sammy about the photo, the names and more importantly, the people whom they came from. Despite Samantha's stressing of their aunt's last name and pointing out similarites, nothing seemed to click into place inside the little girl's mind. She was definitely not, nor ever would be, a Ravenclaw like her mother. And Katie was okay with that.

It wasn't until Sam got straight to the point that Kaitlynnh realized what she was trying to get to the bottom of all along; William was their cousin? William was. . related to them, all this time? Him, and Ari, and Jaoni? Well, technically he was a blood relative to Samuel, uncle Adrian and aunt Tracy's son. By 'law' or something crazy like that he would be related to them, but in their family, it didn't work that way. Through blood, marriage, adoption, bonds. . it was all the same, Grandma Angelina would say. It all meant the same thing. It meant family, pure and simple.

Slowly, a smile burst on her lips, dark eyes dancing excitedly from the Gryffindor to the Ravenclaw. The smile began to fade, noticing Sam's expression and William overwhelmed, it would appear. "It's a good thing. . isn't it?" she spoke with uncertainty, puzzlement setting in nicely on her youthful face.

At the sound of a loud, high-pitched screeching enough to break her eardrums, the small girl about jumped out of her skin, her hands flew to cover her ears. "I want to go now," she murmured, more to herself than anyone around her. Katie squeezed her eyes shut, pressing the palms of her hands against either side of her head. This was NOT what she expected of her first year at Hogwarts. NOT AT ALL! Where was Legend, and Mat, and Cy? Where was Kayla and Jae?!

Her mind was going faster than it has ever gone now, and she took Arithmancy! It was quite likely that William was related to them. That meant Ari was too! How cool! But before she got too excited, she needed to write to Samuel. He would know everything. Heck, maybe he even knew about William being his cousin. Then again, that would be weird that he never said anything. Anyways, she needed to write to him. She wanted to figure this out.

At Katie's tentative voice, she looked down at the two younger ones. She had almost forgotten they were there, when she noticed William's face. The poor boy. He looked like he had just seen a ghost. Wait...It looked like he had just seen a Blasted-End Skrewt. That's better. It's not like they didn't see ghost's on a daily basis. Back to the subject at hand!

"Yes of course. It's defiently a good thing. I can never have enough cousins. Literally." she chuckled, setting a reassuring hand on William. She gave him a gently squeeze to let him know it was ok, when a exceedingly loud screeching noise filled the corridor. Her eyes shut trying to drown the sound out.

They opened quickly when she heard Katie's voice. Sam didn't like the sound of that screeching. Not at all. "Come on. Let's get out of here." The Gryffindor said, taking Katie's hand in one hand and William's in the other. This was not cool. Hopefully the castle was still safe to be in. Her cousin annoyed her, but she didn't want anything to happen to her. She didn't want anything to happen to anybody for that matter.

As they walked down the hall, she looked down at William. "I am going to write to my cousin Samuel tonight. He is my Aunt Tracy's son. I'm sure he will know if he had an uncle named Timothy. Then we will solve this mystery." she smiled lightly. She would have laughed if the situation they were in wasn't so grim. What the heck was screeching like that?

William was slowly getting over his shocked state, something that would probably not happen if he were not standing in the middle of the corridor surrounded by his...cousins? The sound of Katie's voice broke through his wall and he nodded, slowly finding himself back to normal inch by inch. "Yes it's a good thing. A very good thing."

Wait until Ari and Jaoni find out! They'll be even more shocked than he is at this point. A slow grin crossed his face and he looked from Katie to Sammy and back again his head still bobbing up and down.

Just then the most annoyingly loud screech could be heard. shutting his eyes and covering his ears. What in the land of pink faries was that he tried to think before he felt someone's hand in hsi and opened his eyes to see Sammy holding it. "Good idea." he said once he could get his hearing back and he had heard what Sammy said. Walking quickly beside her he nodded once more, casting a quick glance at the way they all came, his eyes wide.

"I'll owl Ari too. She might know something else." he replied knowing if anything Ari would want to know what's been going on.

After dragging himself inside from climbing the ladder, Marcus made his way into the corridor and bent over with his hands on his knees and panting heavily. Jake, was probably already in his office waiting for him so he may as well take a break before he killed himself.