As Torin levitated Jake down the stairs, the boy closed his eyes and prayed he wouldn't be dropped. Jake didn't really like Torin, but he didn't actively DISlike the boy either.

Meh.

As he was levitated back to the seating area, Jake smiled slightly, though it hurt. He was relieved.

And he waited to be let down from here. Beat up he may be... but this was dangerous.

Where was Wesley?

Torin entered the waiting room again carefully floating Jake and Reese in front of him. He had managed to get here without doing anything to cause harm to them. That was rather amazing to him as he had never levitated two people before.

He gently set Jake down so that he could sit in a chair. Reese was harder seeing as she was on a board. He had to set her on the floor, then she could be taken off of the thing.

As Jake was set on a chair, he cried out in pain.

SERIOUSLY?!

"AARRGHH!" he yelled through gritted teeth, moving so he was laying across some chairs. Lupa's slight healing had helped get rid of the pain at first.

And now... just ouch.

OOC: Reese has a really bad back pain and she's just all over sore from falling down after being stunned

Reese had been mumbling under her breath the whole trip down from the fifth floor to the second floor, BUT there was one time that she didn't mumble and it had been somewhere on the third floor. Could YOU blame her, though? She was STILL on the bloody wooden board that she so badly wanted off of. Even though her back was killing her, that was NO reason to be forced onto this thing. NO reason WHAT SO EVER.

"I want off this bloody board," she hissed under her breath when Torin placed her on the ground. Like, NOW she thought. She would rather be sitting on the stone ground than being bounded to the board, though, being bounded to the thing sure beat being picked up by Chris. When he picked her up, THAT HURT! If anybody tried to pick her up again, she was going to cry, literally.

And then she heard Jake's yell, and nearly freak out. She tried getting out of her body bind, but all that came out of that was more pain...and a few tears from the pain. She did not like being hurt!

"Be careful with him!" The Prefect ordered.

Cadence stirred and slowly woke up, blinking as she heard people around her yelping in pain and generally just yelling. She sat up a little and looked around, seeing Torin was there with a couple of new casualties... one of whom being one of those girls who had shot spells at her. She stared at the girl, wanting to ask her WHY that girl had been cursing people because no one had answered that question for her yet, but the girl seemed to be in large amounts of pain, so Cadence would wait.

Instead she turned her head to Torin. "What's going on upstairs? Do they need help? I could come help!" she asked with a hint of desperation. Lanie was still up there. And she was feeling sort of better. And she would fight if they needed her to. Or get injured people downstairs if they needed to. She probably shouldn't do such things, but she would.

He felt bad when Jake called out in pain. He was trying to be careful. So he rolled his eyes at Reese. "I'm sorry, Jake. I was trying to be careful." He really was. And the boy would have been hurt no matter had he had set him down. He felt bad for making him hurt.

He looked down at Reese. "I dunno. I find it rather amusing seeing you lying on a board." Okay, he didn't really. He just wasn't going to take her off just yet because Cadence was talking to him now.

"No, you stay, Cadence. You've just been healed. Wait a little longer. Then you can go up with me." There, now she would rest up more and not be able to get mad at him for telling her not to come.

He was just amazing.

OOC for Maxie: Am I meant to be waiting for Candy's owner to post? If so, I'll just hold off a bit and give her a chance to post. If not, who plays Candy?

OOC for Zoe: Before I set Gabriella to work on Jake, can you edit in an OOC note with his injuries or PM/IM me? Just so I know what to heal. hee hee

"You're welcome, Mr.---oh, hold on a second," she said, not wanting him to try and sit up again. She still needed to examine him and make sure there were no additional injuries. "You just stay there for a little while longer, Mr. Pryce. I need to examine you and just...make sure of a few things."

There was blood on his pants, which could possibly indicate a wound. She wasn't sure if Tibi had bled himself or been near another who'd bled. "Ahh, I see," she mumbled, seeing the signs of a recent healing. Thankfully, someone had tended to a few of Tibi's wounds ahead of time.

...but the nose. Ahh, the nose. "Close your eyes and count to...three," she said, giving a small warning. "Ready---one, two...Episkey!" she said, her wand aimed at his nose. The nose snapped and quickly popped right back into place.

When Tibi's nose had been snapped back into place, Gabriella turned her attention to the Slytherin girl, Lina, who'd just come in. The first thing the healer did was offer Lina a strengthening potion. Sure, there were other injuries to tend to---more severe injuries---but Gabriella knew the girl's body would heal faster if she got more of her strength back.

She began rubbing an orange paste along Lina's bruises but stopped short when she noticed a tiny fracture in the girl's collar bone. "Hmm...," she mumbled, raising her wand to Lina's collar. "...just a tiny pinch of pain, maybe." The swishing and flicking of her wand began to direct the bone to repair itself. "...not too bad. I'm going to bandage your ankle, and I'd like you to leave the bandages on for at least a week---longer, if you're still sore." As she talked, she wrapped Lina's swollen ankle with a bandage. "Now lie here and get your strength back."

"Ow," Tibi muttered, wincing as his nose popped back into place. It throbbed a bit, as he lay there, but it felt good to have it back in the right place. He could at least breath properly.

His ankle gave a dull throb, not terribly unlike the throb of his nose. Closing his eyes again, he thought hard. Right. His ankle. The ceiling had fallen on it but that girl with the weird crabs had fixed it.

He couldn't move much and couldn't talk much even if he'd wanted to, but Tibi turned his head to the side again, his vision improving. Spotting Raiden, his lip gave a quiver.

Turning his head back to the ceiling, he stared at it, thinking that maybe still being unconscious might be better.

Cadence narrowed her eyes at him slightly and folded her arms across her chest. She let out a pouty, "Hmph!" and flopped back onto the cushioned floor. "Ouch..." she said quietly, rubbing the back of her still tender head. Maybe Torin was right... but she wasn't going to tell him that.

Now someone else was annoyed with him. Though he knew it was just her being stubborn, so it didn't really bother him. And she did hurt her old injury, so he was right and she did need to rest.

"I promise that you can go up with me when I leave." And he didn't break his promises if he could help it.

Cadence smiled a bit, satisfied with herself. Pout WIN. She had a feeling Healer Ashford was going to veto Torin's promise that she would be allowed back upstairs, buuut maybe if things got realllly bad again, and they needed her, the Healer would let her go.

Evelyn hobbled into the room, carrying the Slytherin girl, who still hadn't come to consciousness. She was becoming tired from carrying her down the corridor, so she gently lay the girl down on the floor.

The room was full of people, many of them injured. Evelyn tried to ignore the chaos, focusing on how good things would be once all this was over.

She sat cross-legged next to the girl and took one of her limp hands, holding it tightly. Evelyn didn't even know the girls name, but she wasn't going to abandon her now.

OOC: I think she was throwing up in the bathroom. She said something about a panic attack before going into a coma.

All she felt was searing pain, all she saw was total darkness. Then there was sudden relief as someone emptied a potion into her mouth and Candy felt herself stop bleeding. But she still felt like throwing up.

She tried to open her eyes...…. And all was black again.

Candy never felt anyone levitate her, never felt anyone take her to the seating area. She floated somewhere between pain and more pain and the potion that she had been given so quickly seemed to be the one reason she still had some life in her.

Not that she was weak…..... This was just too much for her. She was only eleven. A hyper person who never really had seen anything bad in her life. And that fight had been too much.

OOC: She collapsed from exhaustion and weakness. Her head hit the floor and was bleeding pretty badly.

Tears.

She almost felt like tears, and the feeling disturbed her. Gold wanted to pace up and down the seating area, but she knew she could not - there were other people waiting to be healed, here, and she did not want to be a disturbance to any of them.

It would be for the best, if she left, and quickly. Because she knew that, if she stayed, she would probably do something that she shouldn't, not right now, like hugging Candy.

"You're going to be alright," she told Candy, softly. This was all Remi's fault! How could he, how could he even THINK he could get away with hurting innocent people - innocent children who had barely seen life? She was going to get Remi for this, if she could. She would, too, no matter what happened, she WOULD make Remi pay, at least for this.

But it was time to leave, now. -- Gold Laksh had a score to settle, before this night was out.

Lina found herself somewhere in wakefulness and gratefully took down a potion, no matter what it was. Now that her potions had worn off, she could feel the pain from the bruising, and particularly from her ankle. She breathed through it being wrapped, trying to stay attentive to hear the healer's instructions. Once she was told to just lay there, she did just that. And quickly fell into sleep.

A silvery Hummingbird flew off into the seating area, searching for someone who would hear. It drifted off and hovered near miss Ashford's head to get her attention. Then it spoke;
"Remí is down, he's badly hurt up on the fifth floor. Medical help is needed, even though he might not deserve it. But I think he does..."

As it finished 'speaking', the bird flew off again and dissolved into a whisk of air.

She was still gripping Dylan, as she stepped into the Seating Area. Remi was out cold; but Gold was far from free of worries. She scanned the place for the Healer, now, and finally spotted her.

This was, after all, what she was here for. To get the Healer. She had asked Professor Truebridge if she could send a Patronus; but he had told her to go in person. She knew the reasons behind that, too.

"Professor Truebridge is asking for you, ma'am," she said quietly. Her breathing was fast, though light, and she still held on to Dylan. "Remi needs urgent medical attention." There was anxiety in her eyes, for the first time during the course of the night. "... and if you have helpers, Professor Truebridge says they need to come, too." Urgently. Please.

She sort of knew there were no helpers, though. Well, did she and Lina count? But the two of them were not qualified. Or in the best of shape, right now. The fifth year stood back, and her eyes instinctively searched for Candy. I kicked him for you, Shiny, she thought quietly.

She had settled her score.

"Won't let you die." Celandine whispered, though it didn't appear that she was actually talking to Raiden, considering she was staring at the roof, even if she was still clinging to Raiden's hand.

Cela just blinked. "No. Runes are on the fifth floor. Prefect bathroom. Shields. Not Celandine."

She started chewing her lip, head tipped back and eyes on the ceiling.

A part of her was glad that Barry was nearby, but she wasn't all there. Her mind was elsewhere.

She froze all of a sudden and squeezed Raiden's hand tight, making choking noises, her glazed eyes brimming with unshed tears.

"I am not anywhere." She whispered suddenly, voice sounding oddly not like her own. Letting go of Raiden's hand, Cela stood up like a rocket, gasping as she stared at the ceiling.

Surprise! Cela very suddenly moved, and Raiden's shaky body slid sideways, his injured shoulder dashing off the floor. Pain shot through the parts that hadn't gone completely numb from the nerve damage.

OWWWW.

Letting the slightest groan escape him, the boy pushed himself up, off the floor. His right hand ached from putting his weight on it, the holes he'd shot through by himself not anywhere near healed yet. Eyes turning up, he stared for a moment at her, extremely confused and worried. What was wrong with her?

"Cela." He couldn't do anything from the floor. As much as he knew it was going to not go well for him... Raiden forced himself to his feet. Everything went all whirly, and his knees did not feel as if they were quite up to the task of keep him in this stance; strengthening potions could only do so much, and the prefect was bone-tired, everything hurt, and he had no clue what was going on or why the bartender was here.

But something was wrong and Cela was... not herself.

"Cela. Cela talk to me." He couldn't stop the worry from creeping into his voice, cracking it slightly as he carried on speaking. His fingers carefully brushed her cheek before moving to her shoulder and giving her a slight shake. "Cela. Look at me. Cela!"

Knees wobbled slightly, close to buckling, and he almost fell against her. So tired... How was one supposed to get through to her?

The way she was responding to everyone... it didn't seem as if words were really making their way through.

So...

He kissed her.

It wasn't her fault that Cela equated kissing with Copernicus. And kind of with zapping and falling out of trees but that was another story. So considering that she wasn't completely all there, it wasn't so bad that she reacted by... well... she kissed him back, kind of a lot.

Her mind woke up a bit and she noted that she wasn't having to lean up as far as usual and that this kiss tasted different and didn't feel... like...

She opened her eyes, eeeped and stepped backwards, blinking in shock and surprise and alarm.

Raaaaaaaiden?!??????????

And why was he standing up?!? She dived forward again and carefully tried to lower him to the ground.

Did someone confund him?

O_O

She just sort of stared.

Woaaaaaah woah. Woah. Weird. This was weird. Not... completely and totally horrible, but definitely awkward and slightly uncomfortable and far more than anything he'd ever experienced before, or expected, really. It was really a relief when she stepped back; the prefect opened his eyes and stared at her shocked face. Shocked meant that she was here. She was lucid again.

Deep breath. He'd... completely forgotten about the breathing thing. Something told him that this was not the first time today.

"Don't-"

Going down. Raiden's knees finally gave out; the floor would've hurt had Cela not jumped at him just before he crumpled. Thank Merlin for that, as everything already hurt far too much.

"Don't make me do that again." He didn't clarify as to if he meant the standing part or the kissing part, thinking it was obvious he meant them both, as a whole. "Are you... here? Now?"

He wiped the back of his bandaged hand across his mouth, as if to banish the strange feeling that lingered there afterward.

As Cadence laid there, she became sort of... entranced by the girl everyone kept calling Cela. She sat up a little, watching her, her head tilted slightly to the side. Something was very... wrong with her. Her eyes looked sort of funny, and she kept saying things that made no sense. Cadence looked from Cela to Torin, "T-Toooorin..." she said quietly, making a gesture for him to come closer. Then she whispered, "I think there's something wrong with her. She's sort of scaring me." Then realizing there was probably nothing Torin could do, Cadence called over to the only adult in the room. "Healer Ashford?" she called, in a bit of a worried voice.

Torin had been watching Cela curiously when Cadence talked to him. Aww. She sounded a little scared. Poor girl. "It's okay," he told her reassuringly. Nothing bad would really happen. Not if he could have any say in the matter. But now she was talking to the Healer, so maybe he wouldn't need to do anything.

Barry was almost back to his usual self now. He was a bit tired but he could sleep later.

Something was wrong with Cela. She wasn`t her bouncy, happy self. Then to prove it she spoke and got up. Barry rose to her side but then Raiden was already there. And he kissing her. Kissing Cela. Didn`t he know Barry had liked her? Why did they have to make it so difficult?

Then they both went down again. "Are you both alright? Feeling sane now?" maybe that was a bit too much but Barry was slightly annoyed at how Raiden had just kissed her. Barry hadn`t gone after her because she had been happy. But Cela needed help first "What happened?" he asked worridly

Conscious that she was being watched by Hufflepuffs, Celandine wasn't sure what to say. But she was more in control of herself, though she really hardly remembered the last few minutes and certainly nothing that she might have said.

She nodded slowly.

"I'm... its gone!" Cela's eyes widened. The Imperius she meant. It was... she didn't feel stuck to the second floor any more. It didn't feel completely gone. It twinged when she thought about it. She pressed one hand against her cheek in confusion. Had Raiden broken that by... randomly kissing her? Or... was something wrong with...

"He can't die." Celandine whispered. "He isn't allowed."

She felt a twinge, a gossamer thin web of compulsion. Weak enough that she could ignore it, but enough that it was still there... just.

Celandine bit her lip and rubbed at her wrist.

"I don't know." She whispered, not wanting to do any acknowledgement of anything difficult. "I'm so tired..."

She lowered her eyes.

She hadn't said anything... strange, had she?