"That kid," Anna whispered to Cope, "has severe issues. Anyway, as I was saying, he pushed a suit of armor on top of me, but I just fell to the floor and busted my lip. Nothing too serious." She turned and watched Jake a bit longer, wondering how on Earth he'd managed to change so much in the course of a year. Had he been this way last school year? Anna couldn't remember him ever misbehaving this much.

"Ahh, Herbology class. Acorn tossing, if I remember correctly. He is quite the character, but I still don't believe he's capable of flooding the school. I mean, he has a new wife and a baby on the way. Surely he has more important matters to attend to than causing a flood," Anna replied.

"Speak of the devil, and the devil shall appear...," Anna said, glancing up to see none other than the groundskeeper himself passing by. "Good day, Mr. Masterson! How---..." In the blink of an eye, though, he was gone. Anna hadn't even really gotten a good look at him. Had that even been him? Hmm...maybe it was Plymouth or someone else. "There's your culprit now," Anna said, with a laugh, looking back over at Cope.

"Nice to meet you, Miranda," she continued, smiling at one of the newest additions to their little assembled group. "I'm not sure if the squid talks as we do, but apparently there's some way of communicating with him. At least Mr. Masterson says there is." She shrugged when the girl asked about the flood continuing. "I'm not really sure at all. I mean, judging by what's happened with the two bottom floors, I'd say a continuation is unfortunately likely to happen. I haven't been told what to expect as far as food is concerned, but yeah, the elves did get out."

"I think the Hufflepuffs would be very unhappy in the Ravenclaw common room," Copernicus said tightly, removing his arm from around Anna's shoulder. He nodded at the girl... another Morgan?? Was the world completely overrun by them?

"You assume that caring about someone means a person cannot be a rogue, Anna, and I assure you... that isn't true. But we've agreed to remove him from suspicion and not speak of it again, so let's do that. I should excuse myself anyway to go work on my Herbology assignment." And... maybe change his shoes.

"It's just so WEIRD. I mean, the castles never flooded before I don't think, at least I've never heard so. Do you really think SOMEONE is causing it? Or just some sort of freak accident?" She smiled at Copernicus. "No, probably no happier than we Slytherins are in Gryfinndor. Even if we all got along, way too crowded for me." She frowned at the thought.

Abby looks at the boy in question. I wonder if he's the reason we've been lossing so many house points. Abby also couldn't miss Copernicus's comment about Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaw's Common Room. "I think we Hufflepuffs can adapt to leaving almost anywhere. On the other hand the Ravenclaws will probably not want us around. We might learn their secrets to dominating the house points. Do you mind if I come with you? It might be a good idea for me to see where the Ravenclaw Entrance is just in case."

"Well, most students would be rather uncomfortable outside their usual environment. The Slytherins and the Gryffindors are getting along fairly well, but you can still tell that everyone just wants things to be back how they used to be. I wonder now if they ever will...," she said to Cope. Anna listened to what he had to say about Mr. Masterson, then she nodded when he suggested to not speak of the matter again. "I agree, and I think I need to get going to," she said. She stood from the little bench she'd be occupied and made way to leave.

"I'd lean towards saying the flood is due to some sort of freak accident with the lake," Anna said, looking over at Miranda. "Nope, I don't think it's ever flooded either, but this castle can have some of the weirdest things happen to it, too." It was true...if the students weren't transforming into animals or dashing around the school on a treasure hunt, the place was being overrun with water. "Anyway, I've got to run. Nice meeting you, though. See ya around, Abby!" With a little wave, Anna turned and left the hall.

"Yes, fine." Cope stood and grudgingly offered his arm. Such a polite boy... and he'd clearly gotten up on the wrong side of the dorm room this morning. "I'll escort you, Abby. It was nice to meet you, Miranda."

Abby can't help but notice the hostility in Copernicus's voice. She decides not to take his hand. Abby doesn't want to get rumors started about a romance between the two of them. Copernicus has too many fan girls as it is. "Can we talk for a minute in private please?" Abby whispers. She doesn't want anyone else around asking a lot of questions.

"Sure," he gave her a curious look as she rejected his arm. What was that? Ouch. "Where would you like to talk?"

"I don't know. Somewhere we won't run into a lot of people. It's a personal matter that I don't want everyone to know about." Did that sound like a good enough of an explanation? No, it sounds like I want to talk about my feeling for him and beg him to be my boyfriend. Boy, is that off the mark. I just don't want everyone to know about Christian. I really don't want Copernicus to know about him either at least not until I've had a chance to talk to Christian about what happened in the Student Garden.

This girl was totally cracked. He BARELY knew her, and she was insisting they have some sort of secret rendezvous. Well. It wasn't like he had a reputation to maintain.

"Fine, come in here," Copernicus grabbed Abby's arm gently, pulling her along toward the empty classroom just down the way.

Abby doesn't know what to do when Copernicus takes her arm and pulls her into the empty classroom, or what he had in mind either? She knows he is still hung up on Celedine Tousaint. What's wrong with him? He's always touchy everytime I try to make small talk with him. Now I've got something important to ask him, and he's being down right hostle. If this wasn't so important, I'd leave right now. Abby shuts the door are performs a locking charm on it. She then walks over to the teacher's desk and sits on the edge. No time for small talk this time. I'd just better spit it out and be done with it. "You're the smartest person I know around here, so I'm hoping you can help me with a problem I'm having..." Abby takes a deep breath. "What do you know about Parseltongues?" She tries to look him directly in the eyes and gauge his reaction to her question. Knowing Copernicus, he probably won't take her question seriously. What do I do if he thinks this is all some kind of come on? Abby blushes just thinking about it.

GRRRR!!!!! It was no good, he wasn't going to get answers here... may as well just make a move, find out where to go, or just wander around the grounds for a bit. Yup. So, with a last glance around, realising people seemed to be leaving as he just arrived, Jake heaved a sigh and smiled to the girl he had been talking to. "I should... go," he explained, backing away and heading out the door.

Irial Darkk wandered downstairs from his common room to the entrance hall. He didn't really feel like studying, or anything of that sort, so he was just wandering around. He traded his casual outfit for his usual black ensemble. His hair was down today and hanging in his face as he stepped down the staircase and sat down on one of the steps. Leaning back on his elbows, he surveyed the entrance hall with a look of disinterested distraction.

Kevin wandered down to the entrance hall from the gryffindor common room which he was beginning to like and he sighed his nerves were acting up on him probably cause it is so close to the next part of the match and he wanted to do well and stop ravenclaw from scoring and things in the match were poised evenly either house could win the match and kevin knew he had to do the best that he could to help his team win

Cope pushed his hands back into his pockets, weighing her experiment mentally. After several minutes of silence, he glanced at her from the corner of his eye. "And what did you find out?"

It sounded dangerous to him... something he wished he'd helped her with instead of Anna. Not that Anna couldn't handle it, but she wouldn't have been as concerned with hurting someone with experimental magic as he would.

"Well, Fehu made the conjuring spells have more abundant results, like with Avis and," Celandine giggled, "Orchideous." It was pretty funny that Anna had used that in a duel. "And merkstave, when I cast incarcerous, made the ropes even stronger. Our shields were stronger too." She gave Copernicus a little smile, figuring he disapproved somewhere along the way.

"I made a chart to tabulate our results."

"Clever girl," Copernicus pulled his hand from his pocket to give her arm a squeeze. And then the hand went back into the pocket. Eek. "Do you think it would work the same way on all spells, or only on spells with the intention of creating organic lifeforms like those two examples you gave? I'd be interested in seeing your results."

"Well thats the thing, we wanted to try out different runes and different spells and maybe combinations of runes and see which boost the spell effects." Celandine grinned, "The thing is you can kind of see how the spells tie in to the meaning of the runes and I was wondering if charms might be built around the rune meanings, you know?" She beamed at him and watched his hand go to his pocket.

Water trickled in by the entrance hall and wet the floor. Seemed odd, but the water wasn't coming from the outside...

Aaron was walking through the entrance hall to get to the great hall when he heard a splash down by his feet. Oh crap. It's getting higher.

He cupped his hands over his mouth and yelled at the top of his lungs, "THE GROUND FLOOR IS FLOODING, EVERYONE GO UP!!!

He then ran as fast as he could hp the stairs.

The water suddenly froze and the entrance hall looked like a large indoor ice rink.

Ice rink!

Whoooshh! Fyo arrived in right, ole, skate-y style, his roller-skates whirring as, a BIG pail of water in one hand, he GLIDED! over the ground and -

Fell, flat on his face.

....

Owwch.

Ice ice babehhhhh. Varius liked it when the floody waters went all icey on him! This was the opportunity for some fun, yo. So he, like Fyo, had his skates! Because Varius packed EVERYTHING for every potential occasion, clearly. He scrambled on to the ice, underestimating his speed and his feet started flying in front of him - making him fall right on top of Fyo who he recognised from classes.

"HEY CHUCK!" He greeted, "You ice skating too!?" YAY! Ice skating friend!

Oof.

Fyo was just about to get up when that shoe-scrunching dude he always got to see in classes - err, Varius Tipps - decided to go WHAM on him.

"Currently, I'm on the floor," he said, getting up. The bucket of water he had been gliding with was now lying, two feet away, and the water had spilled all over THE! ice rink thingy. Umm..

“HIIII! D’you like ice-skate-y, too?”

"You are!? Funny thing. Me too!" Varius said matter of factly as if it wasn't obvious since he had found himself on top of the Gryffie. Lifting himself up he noticed the bucket of water, "Was that you who brought that? What'chu got a bucket of water for?" He asked skating around the boy in circles, thinking that doing so would answer Fyo's last question.