"I wanted you to meet Rex and to say I was sorry about the train." Kay said looking her friend in the eye. She wasn't going to be soft this year. She had family to stand behind her now. "I Did not mean for it to get out of hand like that. But those two Syltherins are up to something just like last year." Kay said to Sarah. "I will try to stay out of trouble. I want to go out for the Quidditch team again this year and I don't want to miss out because of them." Kay looked at the Slytherin table right at the Devilyns. She wasn't going to be puched around.

Avery looked over at her and said,"Sure we can talk."

Miranda swallowed but still tried to keep her smile up even though she was starting to panic. But her teammate's words were gratefully accepted and she relaxed a little...but just a little. "Thanks, Ced. I really appreciate that."

But onto his trip! Miranda was pretty curious to hear how it had went. "It was?" she smiled big, and she could see how happy Cedric seemed just talking about it. "So what did you do there? Just being lazy?" At this she winked, but became serious for a second when she continued, "You'd better have been training some Quidditch while you were there. Hehe."



Her big round eyes stared at the boy, wondering what he was gonna do next. If there was need to, she'd be running of to the broomshed and picking up a BAT! But she seemed to have hit him in the right place because she could totally see his little stupid wall of obnoxious crumble a little. His question went unanswered as the huffie simply stopped and sat still, taking a hold of some grapes and shoved them into her mouth.

Why did he look weird now? Oooooh, was it the Muggle thing? "Oh. Well that's...nice." It wasn't like she had an opinion in that matter, she just had nothing else to say about it. "Oh cool, he must've seen alot of things then. Are you interested in the Muggle world?" He should be, it's fantastical! Gold disk and picture box? "Oh! You mean a DVD? On the television." Her smile was accompanied by eyebrows raised with expectation.

Her lower lip jutted out slightly at his explanation about Nessie. But she wouldn't start arguing about that - not with him anyways. He was strange.
Whoa, six siblings! How crazy was that, having to live with six people and Miranda thought her only big brother was annoying."Well...that must've been interesting, living with so many people." Was this a touchy subject for him? In all those silly soap operas her mother would watch, it was. There always seemed to be half people running around on those shows. Me? "I, uh...have one brother." Yes. Moving on!

He was fine. Allrighty. Even though he didn't quite look it. "Well if you freak out again, go do it...far away from this table. I hear there's a nice spot over by the lake." Hehe.

________________________

Eeeek! That flailing hand almost suckerpunched in the face! She couldn't really see that well still, not only had the mashed potatoe gotten stuck in her eye, but her hair was wildly dishevelled over her face and there was probably more than just that vegetably crop in there.
Gah! It was times like these (not that she ever found herself in these situations...ever) that she'd wished she had longer fingernails. Mwahahaha! He was going to look like a punctured...erm...POTATOE! Or something.

"Yes, YOU!" How thick could he be, maybe that curly hair was making his brain not get enough oxygen. "ME!? You touched my cheek with that Nargle infested hand of yours! Who knows where you've had it!" And also because he insulted the house of Badger. But, no need to mention that again. She was starting to get tired and paused for a quick second, panting and running a hand across her eye to make the starchy substance go away.

Victoryyyy! Because seriously, who would keep fighting someone who had just given them a Wet Willy?
"Aplogize, and I might consider it!" She said loudly and proceeded to flick him on the nose. Haha!- Uh oh. Suddenly she was being held by her arms. She tried to struggle but they felt so tired with the poking and now she was rolling around. Dangit! Now he was ontop but before she could start flailing her arms and hopefully hit him somewhere, Oliver had scrambled off.

Miranda heaved herself to her elbows, breathing through what seemed to be just one nostril (because the other one was stuffed with mash). He seemed to be surrendering? Uh, not likely. Because the next moment, she had PEAS ALL OVER HER! "Uaarrgh!" PEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAS! NOoooooooooo! Just for a moment, she was considering staying down and wait for someone to shovel her up to her room. But this boy...OOoooh THIS BOY WAS GOING TO GET IT!
"Friends!?" She shrieked, "We were NEVER FRIENDS You crazy curly headed twitchy little boy!" Her own eye was sort of twitching as she stood up and watched the boy back away a few steps, only to see him fall onto his butt. "Ahahaha!" Miranda laughed and doubled over. Oh, wait. Not Hufflepuff at all! She stopped, straightened up and walked briskly over to the boy. As she got closer, her one fot started to slide across the floor with all those peas thay lay like goo all over it. Uh oh.
"Aaaaaaah!" Ooohhh. She moaned as she noticed she was heading straight for him again. On her way over there, she turned to see a goblet of something and picked it up. Haha! She stopped skidding and poured whatever liquid was in there, over the boy. Turned out to be empty. Noooooooooo! She tossed the goblet away and instead just started flicking him on the nose again and wherever she found a spot.

"Your obnouxious comments and boyish weirdness wont help you now Ollie!" She moved to the right, but her foot got caught in his and she toppled over aswell, hitting the floor face down, one cheek landing on what seemed like a whole pea. Of for the love of Merlin.

Miranda felt someone hoover over here and was pretty sure it was CrazyCurls standing there, about to pour whatver food he had gotten his icky hands on. But she heard a voice, and if it wasn't for the cover of peas, everyone would've noticed she was blushing profusely now. Sarah... "H-hiiii, Saraaah..." She said in a little sing song voice, a mix between a squeak and whine. "What's up? Did...um, you enjoy the f-food? Heh..."

"I want to say that I'm sorry about the train. We should not let two Slytherins come between us. I would really like it if you and I could still be friends." Kay said watching Avery's reaction. "We are in the some house and I could really use a friend in there." She didn't know if Avery would want to, but Kay did. Think of the things they could do. Kay had plans for this year and crying and be scared was not one of them.

Art just raised his eyebrow at her slightly and smiled at her, as she stood up and pushed him. She had seemed like such a quiet little thing when she had sat on him in Diagon Alley. Art was pleased that he was getting to experience all of her emotions, well almost.

He smiled brightly as she rhetorically asked if he knew what back off meant."Yes, I know what it means."

Little? He was nearly six foot at fourteen and well muscled, he could really be described as 'little'. He thought while staring down at her,"I don't know if you realise this Reagan, but you are the little one."

He decided to switch back to English.Raising a brow at her he said in an utterly calm voice."You do realise that you are being rude, to someone who simply asked how you are. Accusing him of things that he did not do. Also, that you are yelling, for no reason, in the middle of the Great Hall and that people are staring at you? Okay, just checking."

Sarah raised an eyebrow as she looked at the embarrassed Miranda.At least she thought she was embarrassed.It was hard to tell under all those peas.From her folded arms she produced a little wave, then finally, a smile. "Hiii....I haven't had the chance to eat anything yet, actually.People are taking up my time....Talking of which," she said, trying really hard not to grin at the sight of her friend.No.Be professional, Sarah! "Having fun down there?"


Sarah stood and listened as Kay told her what she'd called her for.Ahh the train incident, and this was Rex? Hmm he did look familiar, yes.Clearing her throat, she responded. "Apology accepted, Kay, for now.But please remember that you are not allowed to draw your wand on anyone.Not unless you are in the duelling arena or DADA class and the professor asks you to.And Reese, the Slytherin Prefect told them the same on the train." She didn't like getting tough with a friend, but she had to, it was her job to be unbiased. "If they are up to something I'm sure one of us Prefects will find out about it.We have eyes everywhere," she smiled, adding a wink for good measure.

"As for you," she said, to Rex, a little more stern than she meant to. "You may have your opinions on the house of Slytherin, but it doesn't give you the right to hurl personal insults around." Folding her arms, she tried to soften her face a little.It was hard.She was hungry. "Next time you see them, I suggest you apologise to them for those insults.We all strive for house unity, and petty arguments shouldn't get in the way of that." Boy it wasn't easy being mean to people.

"I don't think it was Slytherins that got between us I think it was Rex", Avry said.

Evelyn turned her body at an angle so she could face Ziva more easily. "Maybe it's just impossible for Hufflepuff's to have a meal without getting food everywhere. It certainly seems that way," she chuckled, looking at the pudding, peas and potatoes that had been spilt and thrown across everything and everyone. Evelyn didn't mind though. It made her feel like it was normal to spill cranberry juice all over oneself. "It's nice to meet you. I'm Evelyn. Evelyn Rochester. What year are you in, Ziva?"

Kay didn't like that Sarah was mad at her. They had been though a lot last year. "I understand and don't worry I'll try to stay away from them." Kay said to Sarah. "But, Sarah. I didn't draw my wand, I only put my hand on it because Everyln had her out. I didn't, I wouldn't like anyone hurt a friend. You know that." Kay said. She wasn't going to let Sarah think she pulled her wand on someone.

"Ok, Rex was upset that the girls were being mean. They don't much like me and He was standing up for me. He was told everyone he is sorry and hopes its over. I really do want to have you as my friend." kay hold out her hand and hope Avery would take it. "Please, are families have had problems for a long time. Can't it stop with us. And Marie too. Marie an I have been friends all last year. I won't stop being her friend and I won't stop being yours." Kay was going to keep Avery as a friend even if they may have to wait each other out.

Nargle infested hand!? Now that was just plain MEAN! But Oliver, being Oliver, laughed rather manically at this. “You WIPED SPITTLE ON MY FACE! HOW BY THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS PURE IN THIS WORLD DOES THAT COMPARE TO ME TOUCHING YOUR CHEEK! ...YOU. ARE. MENTAL!” He was breathing heavily now, he was so angry. Nobody treated a Greenwood this way – NOBOOOOOODY!

Apologise? Again, no. “Screw you.” He said viscously, flinching when she flicked him on the nose. This was SO unfair! You couldn't fight back if you were a boy and this girl KNEW that! She was using it to her advantage.

Thank god he was free of her clutches at last. He looked looked so smug as he tipped the bowl of peas on her head. But then, of course he was back on the floor. But he was thankful he didn't have a mad, raving RODENT on top of him. “Oh oh oh.. you've broken my heart.” He countered sarcastically and made a fake sobbing nose when she said they were never friends.

...But now she was standing over him... and he was genuinely afraid. And when she grabbed the goblet. “Don't you DARE!” He hissed... but of course she did dare. He laughed when it turned out to be empty. “Nice try, rodent.” and would have kicked her in the shin then and made his getaway if she had been a boy; but she wasn't and he was helpless, so he just sat there, dripping in potato and not even attempting to move as she reverted to flicking him.

And then SHE was back on the floor again and guess what? Oliver howled at her. “Hahahahahaha!”

He hoped it hurt like hell.


Oliver was attempting to scramble to his feet again but there was so much potato around that he slipped back down onto his bum with another, “Ouch.”

It took him a moment to realise that he was being addressed, his vision impaired by the potato in his eyes. He reached up with both hands and wiped it away with his fingers and blinked as he focused on the girl. More girls. Was this one a complete mentalist too? Because every single girl Oliver had met so far in this stinkin' school was.

She came into focus at last and he made a face when he saw the yellow badge.. but there was another badge there too. A shiny badge which could only belong to a prefect. He gulped. Oh no. “M-me?” He asked, a hand on his chest. “SHE started this.” He pointed at Miranda. “She wiped spittle in my face.” “You can't go around doing that to people. She's completely mental.” He screwed up his face and pointed at his temple and glared daggers at Miranda.

Hmph. He pouted. Why did HE have to stay here. HIM. Why not Miranda? He jutted out his chin and crossed his arms and pouted. Fine.

And she was gone. He could do a runner. He was so covered in potato that she would never recognise him when he got cleaned up but.. dear MEEERANDAH here was bound to snitch. .. so he decided to just remain where he was. Hmph.

Pout.


Course they were mates. Figured. And Oliver could see exactly where this was going.

Pout, pout.

"I've always wanted it to stop with us." Avery said, taking her hand, "But you must understand when it cones to my family I will put them first."

"Arrrrgh!" SHE was mental??? Nuh-huh, HE was the loony one! And the way he laughed made her want to...to...GAaaaah! POKE HIM IN THE EYE! "Yeah, well... You called me a rodent!" It's true! But that's not really why this little heated discussion exploded. Errr, I think.
But she felt a little satisfaction because finally, Mister Curlyhead was looking agitated. He looked almost like she was feeling before when they were sitting down and trying to eat. Ha HA!

Flick. That ought to shut him UP! "Oh, that was not a nice thing to say!" Grumble. That actually hurt... But she wasn't going to let him see how affronted she had become. Broken his heart? Oh... He's going to get more than his heart broken IF HE KEEPS IT UP! Stomp his foot, STOMP IT!

But...being on the floor made her incapable of such actions. Because, well...she was on the floor.
Miranda rolled over and might've let the back of her hand hit Oliver on the face, and then she sat up. The Pea-ed Huffie looked at Sarah. "Oh...that's too bad. The chicken was great... And so were the mashed POTATOES, RIGHT OL-IV-ERRRR?!" Hehehe.

She smirked, but it was soon dropped by the look the Prefect was giving her. "I uh..." Having fun? No, not really. "Yes, this Slytherin here was in need of some special attention, and being the helpful Hufflepuff that I am...he got it." She blew a strong breath out of her mouth and then grimaces. This was no not Captain material...at all.

Miranda watched the boy trying to get up and tried to fold her lips into her mouth to keep it from showing. Instead she snorted, amused.
Ugh. Was he still going on about the spittle!? Miranda stuck her tounge out at the boy as he glared at her.

Sarah was Miranda's friend...but when it came to being a Prefect, she knew that title was just as important as Miranda considered having the honour of getting her Captain's badge. So this could go either way, really. She was SO glad it was Sarah who was here...and not some other prefect from another house.

Miranda slipped her way to a standing position, brushed off her robes which had so much stuffing on it, it made no difference if she let it be or tried to get all the food off. But she did flick her hand his way, hoping some of the potatoes and peas would splatter on his face.

Oh, Sylvia was here. Good. He had felt bad for leaving her on the train. "Just missing Tammy." He smiled weakly at her. But she was sorta helping him feel better. "I'm sorry I left you. Alex sorta broke her ribs and I had to see to her." Yeah, that had been a lot of fun. Not.

"Oh, they won't! They're all really good people!" she answered, confidently. Wesley wasn't about to mention Lucille's dress code violations. Her fellow 3rd year was really nifty when it came to looking like she'd been in robes the whole time. Wesley liked Lucille. She didn't want Lucille to get yelled at.

-----

Sobs momentarily stopping as her vision was blinded with white tissues, Wesley was only able to rely on Sarah's voice and her own hands, which seemed to be full of substitute handkerchiefs. At last, eyes only blurry from stray tears, she was able to get a good look at her friend. "Oh S-sarah, everybody's g-gone. Mariels g-gone. Professor T-truebridge's gone. The Headm-master's g-gone. N-nurse Avalon's gone. Helios and Kyle and A-abby's gone. E-everybody. Prefect Dominic and Prefect Tammy and Prefect Vanessa and Captain Kaika. And I d-don't," she tightened her grip on the tissues, "I d-don't want them t-to be gone. I d-don't want things to b-be different..."

Because change = scary.

"I'm s-sorry Sarah. I won't cry. P-promise." Swallowing her hiccups, she took a drink of water, and wiped her eyes with a fist full of tissues.

"Y-you don't really think Headmaster Tate's going to stick s-steel in our spines, do you?" Wesley didn't want to have a straight back. She liked crouching over. And doing somersaults.

"Thanks," she added, giving a wobbly smile, "For the tissues. And everything."

Kay understood. She was a Potter after all. "Yes, I understand. We have to start somewhere thou. We can start by sitting together. And maybe planning." Kay said with a wicked smile. "I want to tell you all about Hogwarts, classes, and the Professors." Kay said turning back to her table. She hoped that Avery would sit with her. "Please Avery, The feast will be over soon and than we can go back to our common room, sit by the fire and I can introduce you to all my Hufflepuff friends. I know that they will like you." Kay smiled at Rex and hoped that he and Avery would work things out.

"Sure that sounds like a lit of fun." Avery said.

"Ill give you my brother." Emily joked trying to lighten up the mood, and took a sip of her pumpkin juice. "What else should we talk about then?" she asked, feeling the awkwardness of the situation. "OHH!" Emily suddenly blurted out, and turned a deep red as everyone stared at her. "Which house did you want to be in before the sorting?" she asked, and wiped the pumpkin juice from the sides of her lips.

Emily took his hand and shook it a little too rapidly. "Oh, sorry." she said at seeing how hard she was gripping him. "Its just that Im really excited to be at Hogwarts." Emily explained. She looked him in the eye, and smiled at him.
He's sorta cute.
As soon as the thought popped in her head, Emily's cheeks turned a bright red and she turned away, letting her hair cover her face from him.

"Great, so we enjoy the feast and then will talk later." kay said holding up a peice of pie for Rex to eat. The food here was great.

Anastasia saw this exchange and nodded as well

Ema listened to Nunually stories, a sad expression on her face. "That's...horrible." she muttered, tilting her head at the girl. No wonder she got so scared sometimes. "They were pretty mean." she stated. Well duh, Ema... "That sounds like a dreadful experience."

Ema thought for a moment. "Oh, how long ago? Umm..." let's see... "Like about...seventy to eighty years ago, I would guess." she shrugged. "But don't worry about them now, most of them are fine." she eyed the Slytherin who was causing trouble with Miranda. "Some are just...crazy. But there's some of them in all houses." she smirked.

Ema shook her head. "I didn't mean to doubt your decisions, I just thought...well, it would be awfully adventurous." she gave her a grin. "But very Miranda-ish, too."

Ema nodded, putting her fists up. "YESHH! Get all those wee little bad guys...go boom boom!" she exclaimed, punching the air. "Pow pow...bye bye bad guys." okay...immature moment.

She cleared her throat and straightened her back, giving the appearance of looking a bit older. (Pffft yeah right). "Oh, I'm not sure...there are so many different levels and fields in St. Mungos. I always like those things where people come in with stuff stuck on them and stuff." she let out a laugh but tried to cover it up. "I mean, it wouldn't be funny to be stuck in a teapot. But you know what I mean. That might be cool though. I always took an interest in all that...use of muggle objects and enhancing them with magic stuff." Ema gave a little sigh. "Experiments gone wrong."

Ema sent a glare at Jake and made a mocking face. "Oh, blah blah blah," she mimicked, clamping her hands together in the air as if they were talking. "You knew what I meant." she gave him a smirk before shaking her head hopelessly.

Ema nodded slowly as Jake told her not to worry. Getting slightly bored of pretending to be interested in the yearly decorations she looked back down at Jake again. She gave him a small smile. He was right. It was Hogwarts, why was she worrying? She didn't even know why she was worrying. It wasn't like she had any proof that everything was going into total mayhem and chaos. "Okaaaaa---WHAT THE HECK?!" she jumped out of her seat as she caught site of the huge spider on Jake. "YOU - YOU - HAVE A - WHY AREN'T YOU FREAKING OUT?!" she eyed the still spider from her standing position. How had she not noticed that before?

Ema nodded. "I'm sure we will." she tried to think of what her favorite subject was. "Well, I like Muggle Studies, but I think that's just because it's easy, I come from a muggle family. But I like Charms and History of Magic, too." she shrugged. "I don't know if I have a favorite, really. Care of Magical Creatures and Herbology are pretty good too. What is your favorite?"

Ema smiled at Rex's comment. "Yeah, lots of room to mess things up and bring out our clumsiness."

"Hi Rex," Kita said, "Nice to meet you too. I've heard a lot about you." She looked between Rex and Kay and couldn't help smiling and thinking how cute they were together. She continued to eat and listened in to the conversation. She nearly choked when she heard that Kay had drawn out her wand. Her eyes started watering but she didn't care. They always watered when she is choking or about to choke. She turned to Kay and asked, "Kay? What happened?" She didn't mind if she was going to answer or not but she was concerned and words spilled out before she could stop them...

"Oh." Sylvia frowned. She didn't really want to act all happy around him if he was unhappy aswell, only if she could try and cheer him up, that couldn't be too difficult, could it? "Oooh. Is she ok? I need to go catch up with her, it's been a while." Sylvia nodded. Alex had kept telling her that everyone hated because of what she did to Torin, but he didn't seem to mind, he was helping her out when she had cracked ribs and such. Surely that means he was friends with her? Haha.

"Are you single?" Sylvia blurted that out without thinking. "Ididn'tmeantoberude." She said quickly before smacking her forehead with her palm. "Just because, I haven't seen you in a while and I wasn't so sure. I'm never sure when it comes to you." Sylvia smiled softly, hoping he wouldn't be freaked out or anything.

"Good, I hope you do," she smiled.She really hated having to tell off her friends, but the situation needed to be sorted. "Then I'm sorry for assuming you had," Sarah apologised herself for the slip. "I saw your hand on it, and thought you'd pulled it the same time she had hers.I do know," she nodded, unfolding her arms and letting them hang by her side.

Oh these explainations were going to be good.She could feel it.

She had to appear stern, the boy had found out that she was a friend of Miranda's, and Sarah couldn't play favourites.

Stern face.

Stern fac-- WAIT! Spittle?!

"Mirandaaa," Sarah looked over at her friend, and tilted her head.Truthfully she was a little disappointed in her. "Is that what happened? You can't so that just because he called you a rodent.....why did you do that anyway?!" she asked the boy, whose name she didn't yet know, slightly tersely."Personally," she continued, stretching out a hand to help him up off the floor. "I would say both of you are mental, if this mess is anything to go by.Just one of you couldn't have caused it." -pause- "I mean HOW OLD are you both?!" Well she knew how old Miranda was, this new kid not so sure.Definately old enough to know better, though!

Looking from one to the other, Sarah had to fight not to laugh at them.This did require her to get tough, to give them a warning.If she could she'd make them clear up as well, but she wasn't sure a Prefect had that power.

"Apologise, both of you.Now, please." She wasn't going to stand for any nonsense.Hopefully Miranda would understand that, and not be mad at her. "And say sorry to those around you, too.They didn't escape without getting flicked with food," she sighed, glancing around the immediately vicinity. "And you," she said, looking over at potato boy, "what's your name, for future reference?" He looked like a troublemaker. "If you can't behave at our table, I suggest you go back to your own.But both of you, please consider this a warning.I catch you making trouble again, I shall have to inform a professor." And she reallly didn't want to have to do that.

"Oh good, I trust you'll keep them that way?" she winked.Good.Wesley had good taste in friends then.She could be trusted, and so could they.

-------------------------------

With her arm around her friend, Sarah sat and listened to all her concerns. "Oh Wes," Pulling her closer, she wrapped her in a tight hug. "I know you miss everyone, I miss Mariel terribly, but change is a way of life.People leave, people....pass away," she paused, not wanting to say anything in a way that would upset Wesley further. "But don't let what happened last term make you cry.Remember them all for the happy times they gave you.And know, that they are not far away." Yeah, that was good.Hopefully it was.She'd never tried to counsel anyone before. "Don't apologise, hun.No need," she soothed, rubbing her arm in a comforting way.

"Steel in our spines? What? No..." Sarah giggled at Wesley's misunderstanding. "He won't do that.It's an expression.Means we need to stay strong.And we will, right?"

Sarah tilted her head and rested it on top of her friends. "Anytime, you know that."

Kay looked up at Kita. She had forgotten that Kita idin't know that had happened. "Well, The two syltherins that I had trouble with in DADA class and Rex had words. He was sticken up for me and one of the Syltherin pushed him. I put my hand on my wand and the syltherin didn't like it. She pulled her wand. I Told her to back off. Well then Sarah came and thing just got out of hand." kay said hoping her friend would stand by her. She really didn't want to start the year off lossing friends. She had lost Lorcan last year and was really sad about it. 'where was Lorcan anyway?' Kay thought. "Kita have you seen Lorcan?" Kay knew Kita and he were still friends and she would always worry about him.

"Pfffft," Jake retorted, creatively. He stuck his tongue out at the girl. Wowwww, so chillllldish...

Yes... this was Jake talking.

Ahem... yeah.

But she was awesome, and they were only mucking about, so Jake smiled right back again, eyeing the food on the table. Once again he'd lost his appetite... and he was getting sleeeeepy. But not as sleepy as he used to get at feasts... when he'd actually fall asleep.

But Ema's LOUD VOICE was enough to wake Jake up a bit. The boy jumped, startled, and Charlie scuttled up to sit on top of the boy's blond head, ready to kick some butt, should said butt need kicking. "What?! WHAT?! WWHAT DDDO I HHAVE?!" the boy exclaimed, looking all over. What was it? A fatal wound? An evil kidnapper behind him? A set of Gryffindor robes on?

Shudder.

Soooo, Jake stayed absolutely stock still. "WWWHHAT IIIIIS IIIIT?!"