"Can't really blame him, can you?" said Daphne, ripping the kumquat to pieces as delicately as possible. She wasn't out to squirt anyone in the eye with citrus juice. "I mean, I'm no boy, so I can't say I've experienced it first hand." At this, the blond paused to place a small piece of the fruit in her mouth. Chewing, she pointed at Raiden. "But I saw Raiden here get...err."

She was going to say assaulted but that would be a bit rude towards Neptune, who, after having disliked her suddenly decided they could be friends on the train.

"Um, well, how do I put this? Forcibly acquainted with an overly excited girl too," continued Daphne, purposely leaving Neptune Bott's name out. "It's a bit like watching Quidditch. You don't get why someone is smacking bludgers at the other but you certainly can't take your eyes off once they hit."

Something like that.

Choluna walked in and immediately saw the boys. She promised Bella that she would do this, and Bella was following right behind her. Choluna walked right up to the boys and said "I apologize for my foolish behavior! I should have known better to hold my tongue! I promise not to do it again." And with that, she walked away. Again, she hoped someone would run after her and sweep her off her feet like Prince Charming, but she didn't want to dissappoint herself again. Afterall, fairy tales are not real and she didn't believe she could ever have a happily ever after.

And then suddenly she was back. And then she was gone. As quickly as she had popped in she had left. A few rapid blinks told him it had not been an illusion or mirage of being overtired.

His words came slowly as his brain tried to process. "Smacking bludgers indeed." What an appropriate way to put it.

Shaking his head he glanced at Chaucer to check if he had witnessed the sudden appearance or if he was off sleeping in a different world.

...that girl had followed them. Why hadn't he even considered that she... might... oh Merlin.

But then she was leaving immediately, and Raiden's hand relaxed around his apple. His gaze lingered on her retreating back for a second before flickering back to Daphne.

"I like hitting the bludgers... I just wish they didn't hurt when they connected." Yeaaaah. His father hadn't exactly been gentle about that this past summer. He'd had more than a few bruises as a result... "Quidditch is more fun than... well. Other stuff."

Nom nom nom apple.

One of the few tricks Allison knew before attending Hogwarts was being able to send letters back and forth, they were simple spells that usually just came to people by thinking them. Thus after a much chaotic brunch with Sabel, Chaucer, Arya, and the weird girl who had ignored her, Allison had been so fed up she had stormed to be on her own. After finding much peace and quiet at the library she had been disturbed by chatting and finger drumming, giving Allison the time to reflect. And one thing she knew was that she was giving up--at least on one person. Enchanting a paper plane--in this case a parchment plane, Allison wrote quickly and sent to Sabel.

The parchment plane then flew into the Great Hall and barely missed Chaucer's head, however it did keep tapping Sabel's forehead wanting his attention, and it would not stop until it was opened.



It was a small curt letter that few would understand, it would be a miracle if even Sabel himself understood the message. However Allison was tired of all the crazies on campus and her nerves were quite unstable. By Merlin it was barely the second day! The events at Hogwarts surely showed a colorful year for its students.

He listened to Raiden go on about Quiddich with little interest, his eyes drifting closed to perhaps get a little bit of rest. He didn't care anymore that he might end up falling asleep with his head on Chaucer's shoulder. Again, it was better than the table which vibrated with each thump of cup and plate against its old surface.

He had just been able to filter out the sound buzzing around him when his senses tuned in to something else. A repeated tapping against his forehead. At first he midly swatted at whatever it was and then when it didn't persist he opened his eyes, turning to the source. He was about to chew Kellen or Chaucer or someone else out for disturbing him, when he saw it was a plane made out of parchment.

By the still constant tapping against his temple, Sabel decided that one, it was for him, and that two, it had been the strangest morning of his life. Snatching the paper from the air he unfolded and read it. And then he read it again. Then for a third time.

Frowning he dropped his arm and stared past Raiden and Daphne at nothing, clicking his teeth together. Was Allison upset at him? His frown deepend as he tried to sort through the jumbled movie reels of memory from the past hour or so. She had looked pretty upset, or put off, but at him? Because of him?

Letting out a noisy breath he rested his cheek against Chaucer's shoulder and started scribbling below her note. One, simple line. "Allison, where are you?"

He didn't agree with expressing things through notes and preferred to speak face to face with the girl. Folding it up he sent it back off to...wherever she was.

"Thanks. Merlin's beard knows I could have done better in Arithmancy last term." Tori chuckled, "I wonder if i could still kick your butt in DADA?"

When Allison received the returning parchment she was half happy at knowing he wanted to know her whereabouts, but being her studious self, with half-hearted indignation Allison picked up her quill and continued answering her Astronomy questions in the Hogwarts library. So far no one but a girl drumming her fingers had interrupted her. Unless you counted the girl and some boy chatting, her one need to send the parchment to Sabel, and Sabel returning it. There had been no interruptions. *cough*

Kellen wandered into the Great Hall, wondering where exactly Chaucer had got himself to. He was a little irritated at getting letters from the boy, much less overly dramatic ones that didn't equal the situation, but it was often when the cry for wolf wasn't answered that the beast actually appeared. He looked down at the note in his hand, and scanned the tables until he saw Sabel at the Gryffindor table. Close enough.



He was twenty feet from Sabel when his eyes switched to Chaucer's sleeping form and he frowned, "A matter of life and death and he's sleeping. Oh well." He tapped Sabel on the shoulder and gave a wave to Raiden, "Hey. Apparently I missed a traumatic situation?"

He was just about to doze off again when the rather annoying tap against his forehead persisted yet again. Except this time it was on his shoulder. Before even opening his eyes he instinctively swatted at the pest a little harder than he had intended; what could he say, he was exhausted.

Of course, his attention was quickly snagged when instead of hitting parchment his sloppy backhand hit a rather solid form. Snapping his eyes open and head up, Sabel nearly slipped off the table to a hard landing on the floor as he whipped around to see who he had hit. That of course was when the flying parchment he had been intending to smack completed its collison course to his eye.

Letting out a small yelp of surprise, Sabel fell backwards against the apparently sleeping Chaucer and clapped a hand over his stinging eye. Blinking profusely he glanced up at whoever he had backhanded, and felt a torrent relief that it had only been Kellen.

"Stern..." Ow...ow... "What are you doing here?" Gosh that stung. "Wait...I mean...sorry I hit you." Was Allison trying to kill him? "Situation..traumatic..." Was she that upset? "Yes...very much so..."

Keeping one hand over his eye he unfolded the paper airplane and struggled to read through blurry vision. He blinked a few times. Was she playing games? Or did she just not want to be disturbed? Or was she really mad at him? He had no idea and so sent the letter back after scribbling less legibly than before.

Kellen stumbled back a step or two when Sabel hit him in the chest, but before he could even think of a playful retaliation Sabel was stumbling and tripping all over the place. And then the boy got a paper note to the eye.

"Don't worry about it," he waved it away. "I'm here because Chaucer sent me a note essentially begging me to save his life. But now I see everything's apparently better and I just had my Charlotte Marie hunt interrupted for nothing. Now, what 'traumatic event' did I miss?"

The paper flew in with such violent speed in was a miracle it missed the sleeping Chaucer and talkative Kellen on its way. Not poking Sabel this time, in his eye or forehead for that matter, the parchment attacked his ears. With fury the parchment plane zoomed around Sabel's head and resumed the ear attack. Allison had no idea that her anger had transferred onto the paper, but really she didn't even have the nerve to see if her emotions were on check before she sent it, plus she was busy correcting the words she had so stupidly misspelled.

Sabel blinked. That's right, Chaucer had sent Kellen a note. He glanced at the other boy, a small smile touching his lips. "Well, it put him to sleep. I don't know if events usually rock Chaucer to sleep but he was all awake and bouncy when he first came to the table and now..." He just nodded in Chaucer's direction; there was no need to explain.

Shifting on the bench he gave Kellen some room, rubbing his eye a little. "As for the traumatic event. Let's just say Neptune was cloned and found Chaucer and myself. Sorry Raiden, meaning no offense of course." He glanced at Kellen to see if he would get the meaning; it was hard not to.

And then he was being attacked. Again. There was a moment of flailing before he caught the parchment out of the air and read it. He blinked again and then let out a heavy sigh, tucking it away in his pocket. He wouldn't bother with a response; he had no idea how irriated the next parchment plane would be and he didn't want to risk it. Shaking his head he muttered under his breath. "Sometimes."

Ella arrived at the Gryffindor House Table, excited to talk to some of her fellow housemates. She picked up a spoon and grabbed for some of the salad as usual and began to eat.

Carter laughed. "Probably." he said taking another bite of food. "You're really good in that class." he said with a smile. He ate some more. "I wonder who's teaching that class now."

As Natalie approached the Gryffindor table, she spotted Ella, one of the girls she'd met in Diagon Alley before term. She hesitated to sit down with her, since she wasn't sure if she'd remember her. Finally, working up the nerve, she walked over and sat down next to her. "Hey, Ella. Remember me?" she asked.

Lucy saw her fellow mate Ella sitting and eating her salad so she thought to join her and the other girl who was coming near, as she went close she took a seat next to her and said "Hey Ella, how are you and how were your holidays?" with a smile

Ella looked up as she heard her name. "Oh, hey Natalie! How was the rest of your summer?" she asked with a weak smile. She remembered talking with her on the street, and that was fun. Now that they were at school, maybe they could talk more. But her mood was a bit off since she had just had a pretty brief breakup down at the front gate. She smiled again as she saw Lucy. "Hey, Lucy. I'm fine, and my summer was great. How about you?"

Natalie couldn't help but sense that something was bothering Ella. However, they didn't know each other extremely well yet, so Natalie decided to let it go, assuming that if Ella really wanted to talk about it, she would do so. "My summer was alright. You know, just spent most of my time preparing for school and such," she explained. "How about you?"

Natalie turned to the girl who had sat on the other side of Ella. "I'm Natalie Conoman," she offered with a smile.

Daphne just sat back, with her bowl of fruit (with missing fruit) and watched the conversation (and lack thereof sometimes) bounce back and forth. Wrinkling her brow, she shot a questioning look at Raiden's direction before clearing her throat.

"Hi!" she said, extending a hand towards the new arrival. "My name is Daphne Hopton. I'm a friend of Raiden's."

Nice to meet you?

"She's a bit worse than Neptune, I'd venture," Raiden said flatly, giving Kellen a little nod before going back to his apple. "Neptune was only worrisome, that girl looked full-on terrifying."

Oh. Oh. Daphne Hopton didn't know... oh. Well she was introducing herself, so that all worked out just fine, didn't it.

He nommed more of his apple. It was almost gone, and he was... actually not so hungry anymore! Hooray for that.

Kellen blinked and took her hand immediately, years of caning for lack of etiquette working flawlessly, "Kellen Stern. Pleased to meet you, Daphne." The smile lasted about four seconds, which was the time it took for his brain to register the name Neptune.

"Neptune's certainly... well she's interesting, I'll say that. Very nice, very polite, and then she suctions onto you and doesn't let go." He raised an eyebrow at Raiden, "Overfriendly is an underexaggeration, you know. And then she got into some kind of girly snit-fight with Emilia in the Ravenclaw common room, which actually let's be fair was instigated by Emilia for some reason I don't know..." His voice trailed off as he thought it over. His brain was blanking on what happened after that, which was usually a sign that he didn't want to know.

"And Sabel! There's this Ravenclaw girl who walked into the common room announcing that she was on the prowl for single Ravenclaw boys. And then she started talking about you and Chauc...oh." He looked down at his sleeping cousin, though how the boy could be sleeping after Sabel tackled into him he didn't know. "Oh that's the girl that... no, she's way worse than Neptune." He rolled his eyes, "Neptune isn't bad, just... affectionate. Very. Disturbingly. Affectionate."

Big grin at Raiden, "Picked a winner there, friend!"

Worse than Neptune?

He hadn't even met this girl yet and from what he had heard she had sounded rather...zealous. But worse than Neptune. And...

Sabel nearly jumped off his seat as his head snapped towards Kellen, suddenly very awake. Well, deer-in-headlights-ready-to-bolt kind of awake. "Wait! Common room?! Talking about....."

He trailed off, staring at the Ravenclaw in shock. He was not hearing this. His eyes snapped from Raiden, to Daphne, to Chaucer, to Daphne, to Raiden and then back to Kellen. "By golly Stern....do I even want to know what they were saying?"

No...he was pretty sure he did not. But retaining curiosity had never been one of his strong points.

Retrieving her hand, Daphne's smile faded as well. If she was to be honest, Daphne...was....frightened.

Not for herself but for the entire male population; well, alright, mostly she was frightened for Raiden Kururugi. He was going to die before he even graduated. Wide-eyed, she listened to Kellen go on in a bit of a rant about...girls.

She then looked at her reflection on the nearest silverware. She was a girl. Did she go around suctioning herself to the opposite sex? No. She didn't think so.

"Neptune Bott isn't so bad," commented Daphne tapping her chin. "Although, I guess I'm not a boy so I wouldn't know." Hmm. "She's young," she said in the girl's defense. It was...the best she could do. Truth was, Neptune was a bit...err. "She should be okay in small doses." Very small doses.

Chuckling at Kellen's last comment, Daphne swept her hazel eyes towards Raiden. "You have to treat her well, okay? Like a lady. At least Neptune isn't going around calling us peasants and wanting to have our heads chopped."

Unlike...someone...she had met. And...cue Sabel Dakest being utterly confused. Raising one hand, Daphne brought it to pat his shoulder and...changed her mind half-way. That was probably not a good idea in his current state of mind.

"Probably not," she answered him. "You've received enough trauma for one day."

Rex goes to eat. Then he dances around the table.