When Vashti said that she too was working on Patronuses Adam smiled warmly. "Oh great! Maybe we can help each other out then?" Adam suggested, reaching into his pocket and pulling his wand out again. He was about to ask Vashti if she had ever attempted the Patronus before or if this was her first attempt too when Louisa jumped in and began talking about Dallin and the Patronus that he had produced when she was there. Adam stared at Louisa for a moment before nodding his head. "That's good that he got it. I hear it takes a lot of practicing and a really, really happy memory to work right," Adam said, looking down at the page about Patronuses in the book that he was reading. "Really this is kind of the last major thing I want to get a hang of before I take the O.W.L.s. so I really should stop putting it off so much."

Adam looked back down at his book when Louisa asked Vashti about a boy he didn't know.

Wand held low in the air when the Gryffindor boy made a stop sign, João eyed the fire with fear visible on his face, though his hands did not tremble the slightest. If he had to do it, he would hex the boy to stop the fire. It wasn't an issue; what troubled him was the combination of the fire rune and the boy's wand. He didn't know what rune it was. For all he knew, it could be one as powerful as to kill someone, accidental or not. With that possibility, he raised his wand at the boy's chest level, not caring his words that claimed he wouldn't dare. He SO could dare, it was a matter of life or death here. With the lack of oxygen which was consumed by fire...

...he didn't just do it.

Turning his eyes at an awkward angle for a second to look at the wand that was pressed into his cheek, he, in return, pressed his wand into the leg of the boy. He knew very well that he was bluffing. Surely he wouldn't set anyone on fire, it was a bluff and the Brazilian didn't buy it. The boy was an idiot, he'd figured that much without the help of rumours that confirmed that very fact, but he wasn't that idiot. So, despite unnecessary words confirming he had indeed heard of his notorious reputation, his reply to his words was...

"MORDERES!"

With the shout, he yanked himself in an attempt to get out of the range of his wand, towards the door.

So?

Still pressing the tip of his wand into the boy with a million names' cheek, it did not escape Josh's attention that he had not surrendered and holstered his wand back...yet. It was no problem to the Gryffindor, though because he knew that the Slytherin would not dare doing something using that wand. He probably knew that'd be the last thing he would do before his heart stopped beating.

Or not...

The very moment that Joao yelled the incantation, the lion boy felt a stinging pain on his right leg that made him fell on his knees with the shock of it. Closing his eyes, Josh took a deep breath while waiting for the pain to go away however apparently he was not patient enough as he opened his eyes the next instant...seeing red.

Stupid coward...he had no idea who he was playing with apparently.

Throwing the Kenaz rune away, the now VERY angry Gryffindor holstered his own wand swiftly before hitting the Slytherin's wand hand to get rid of the magical stick just when he attempted a move towards the door.

''Not so quick...dude.'' he said with a deeply cold voice and pulling the boy by his right arm, he raised his fist and gave him one of his best punches.

João smiled to himself when the boy fell to his knees with immediate impact. He had opted for a simple, painful spell because he didn't want to leave a mark while it granted the opportunity to run free... though, his joy was short lived. When the fire distracted him again and he hesitated for a moment, something hit his left hand and his wand was out of it. He grunted, tried to move for the door but the grip of the boy was too strong. "Leave me!" he hissed, eyeing the fire frantically again, and before he could say or do anything else, he could see some stars.

Stiffling a groan, his nose went numb as he tasted blood on his mouth coming from his apparently broken nose. He almost lost his balance but managed to regain his sight. His nose tried to break up his head with pain, but he forced himself to clear his vision and with his strongest left hand worked to the boy's kidney. If his father's guard had taught him one thing, it was to hit to the kidney, because it gave an unbearable pain too. Hopefully, his punch was enough to loosen his grip to run away.

Leave me

''Should i?'' Josh said sarcastically as he tightened his grip on the boy for the other had attempted to escape again. And then he saw the blood on his face. Well...then it appeared to be enough for the snake however Josh was not going to set him free till he made sure that the boy with a million names had learned his lesson.

So, in order to figure out if Joao got his lesson, the Gryffindor opened his mouth and was about to ask a question yet another instant pain hitting his side, he was unable to voice a word and just, as an instict, covered his side to protect the spot from further attack. As a result the Slytherin was free of his grip now.

But not for so long...

The pain did nothing to the lion boy but only fueled the fire of his anger. He was already seeing red and that had not helped with it anyway. He had thought a single punch would have been enough for this boy but apparently he had underestimated him.

Therefore once he was able to move, he stood up and kicked the boy into his stomach to the floor.

There, there was the pain that caused him to loosen his grip! Once he was out of here and had cleaned up, he was going to send a letter of gratitude to--

BAM!

Cursing out loud the heaviest swearing word in Portuguese, he had a hard time breathing for a moment as he lied there on his back. Every piece of him hurt, but running away was out of question now. He was not going to allow this boy to boast around telling he had beat him up. Thus, after some heavy cursing with groans of pain, he strecthed out his foot quickly and tried to yank the boy to the side, way from the fire but as strongly as he could.

It was his first serious fight ever.

"Sure," she answered Adam. She'd intended to try this alone, but maybe it would be better to work with someone else who was trying to successfully cast the same spell. It might be easier to tell if she was doing something wrong if she had someone there to help, and then she might actually succeed sooner. So it seemed she was going to stay.

She turned to Louisa when the girl spoke...and mentioned Dallin. Merlin, Vashti had forgotten how much the fourth year liked to mention him, even just briefly. "That's cool." She nodded. Perhaps, if she had a lot of trouble with this spell, she could ask him about it, since it seemed he had succeeded in conjuring his own Patronus.

She blinked in surprise when Louisa asked about Anakin though. "Um...I don't know..." She shrugged. "I haven't really talked to him about it." She hadn't seen him around much since the date, to be honest.

... and they both seemed impressed by Dallin. Louisa nodded in serious agreement, "It is very hard. He tried like five times before finding the right memory that triggered it." She elaborated on the subject that even if she wasn't all gaga over Dal, she loved that one of her close friends was this cool and brilliant. "Do you guys know what your Patronuses look like? Is there a way to know before one could cast the spell?" Because Louisa was eager to see what kind of Patronuses hers was.. and a year later she miiight find out but that was such a long time to come.

Blink. Vashti hadn't seen Anakin or asked him about it? B-b-but weren't they dating? The girl raised an eyebrow, "Umm.. okay. I'll have to find him and apologize then." She stole a glance at Vashti to see her reaction to this - if she got happy, that meant she liked him a lot and was satisfied. If she was indifferent, then she was just playing around and trying to find the right boy.

Adam smiled warmly at Vashti as she agreed to work on it with him. He had no idea how this was going to go, and in all honesty he might probably make a complete doofus out of himself in front of both of them, but ah well. As Louisa had demonstrated by the awe in which she described how Dallin had managed to accomplish producing one, they all knew it was difficult, so he was sure none of them would judge him harshly if he didn't get it right away. In all honesty what Adam was concerned the most about was this memory that was supposedly strong enough to produce a defense against dementors. His mind thought of Rubiey and the first date that they had, which he marked as one of his happiest moments ever, and there was buying JB with Louisa, and JB being the first true companion he had ever really had in his life. But deep down Adam wasn't sure that he had ever felt the kind of happiness that he read about Harry Potter and the others thinking about when they successfully managed their Patronuses. "You can give it a go too if you want Louisa. Just because you're only in your fourth year doesn't mean that you aren't capable of doing it to. I'm not sure that there's anyway to know what your Patronus will be until you produce it," Adam said, furrowing his brows slightly.

While Louisa and Vashti continued to chat about this Anakin fellow, Adam picked up his book and headed towards one of the open spaces in the room. He set the book down, reading over it one more time, before he began practicing the proper motion. "Expecto Patronum," Adam mumbled to himself, making sure that he had the pronunciation correct.

Now dead?

Was this enough for the boy? Josh hoped it was so otherwise it was going to be dirty after that. Yes, the Gryffindor had not yet showed him the dirty side of this. Looking at the boy on the floor with narrowed eyes, he glanced back at the fire. It was smaller now as there was not left much of the flowers to be burned. Well...so he thought he could put it out.

Yet apparently the snake boy was not going to let him as he had felt something around his ankles and found himself on the floor the next moment...ouch...staring at the ceiling and the back of his head did hurt.

Seriously??

GRRRRRR....

With the heat of anger, the Gryffindor quickly moved, crawling on the other boy and he gave him another punch on the cheek and then pressing a hand on his throat, he raised the other fist threateningly ''Do you seriously want to be dead here?''

For some reason, João's happy state lasted for less than a minute. Because when he thought he had achieved his aim of hurting the boy, Josh would rise and not let him run away. This time that happened as well. The Slytherin half-rose to see if he was unconscious, then the plan was to run; but NO, Josh was already moving and...

...another loud and dirty Portuguese word escaped from his mouth with pain. He could feel the pressure on his throat but he couldn't see. His cheekbone hurt to the point of maddening him, and suddenly, for a second, he saw red and held the hand that tried to suffocate him so strongly that his own hand hurt. But that didn't matter. Trying to move it off his throat, he spat the words out with blood. It looked like at least one tooth was broken too.

"Do you want to die afterwards?!" he said, still holding the hand as he threw a strong punch at the same spot on the boy's face. "'Cos my family--they won't let you live." He tried to kick him as strongly as he could with his knee too, hoping it would roll the boy over.

He had not felt like that for days...

While it felt good and satisfying to be beating a coward, there was this annoying side of him into his mind that kept telling him what he was doing was wrong. The boy was a fifth year and he was not even armed. BUT he DARED to hex him and kept counterattacking. The Gryffindor could still feel his side and back of head hurt so yes, the snake boy NEEDED that lesson.

And the boy's words...it made nothing but cause the lion boy to let out another laugh yet this one was different from the others as it had a weird merciless tone in it. How on earth was this pathetic snake going to kill him? Wandless? There was no way of tha.......huh?

Upon feeling the punch on his mouth and kick in his stomach, Josh backed away from the boy and rolled to the side seeing that a bit of the flowers were still burning. So the anger inside him and tasting his blood made it even worse if that was possible of course. Bringing two fingers to his lips, his dark brown eyes narrowed when he saw the blood.

Okay...now it was the end of this boy.

Pushing himself up from the floor, Josh practically jumped on the boy and gave him another punch from the already broken nose of the Slytherin. Then gripping him from the collar of his shirt and his emerald green and silver tie, the Gryffindor jumped on his feet forcing the boy up as well. Then speading himself, he took the position, gathered some strenght before hitting his fist under the boy's chin.

''I am not scared of anyone's family. Send your precious daddy to me. And i'll kick him too.''

Hecate was making her way to the great hall for some lunch when she heard noises coming from the empty classroom. She peeked in hoping not to see...

Josh Carter...

"What is going on here?" She asked glaring at Josh... why was it always him?

This time, João didn't even bother to even attempt running, plus every part of his body ached to the point he didn't think he could support his weight anymore. He could only see now, but he couldn't process. His cheek hurt crazily, which kept his consciousness open, and all he could think was to kill Josh. That boy was dead, whether from his own hands or not. He wouldn't survive beating up a Neves and Teixeira.

Lying there, hoping the pain would ease now that Josh was off him, he did feel nice hearing the grunts coming from the other boy, but his thinking stopped there. The next moment, when he was struggling with the raise your hand command in his brain, a weight was on him again... one punch... off in the air... his legs didn't support his weight, and he wondered for a moment how Josh was still so alive and could think clearly. Because João was positive his punches weren't light, as was heard the reactions of the other boy but there he was...

the second fist... his head lolled from side to side, eyes almost closed. He was conscious, yes, but he couldn't think. The pain was too intense to feel it. He did notice someone was talking though, and although he opened his mouth to make a sound, all that came out was a low grunt. Better to leave them sort whatever it was out... if only Josh would leave him lying on the floor...

If he dared to hit him again, Josh was now going to hit the boy to the death yet when he saw he was not moving, though still conscious, he spit the blood that was filling his mouth from his hurt lip on the snake then looked at the burning flowers. They were gone now. Instead all he could see was a little pile of ash.

Ooookay...

Taking a deep breath, his eyes went to the boy's wand at the other side of the class, resting on the floor just like its owner. So, the Gryffindor moved to get it as the door was opened and he heard the voice of...

...the hottest professor ever. Yet, she did not look happy. Had she ever looked happy anyway?

''Professor Lafay!!'' he could not help exclaiming though. Umm...had better reply her question. ''Nothing.''

What had happened had happened and was over anyway.

"Master Carter, I don't like liars." She said her attention focusing on her Slytherin lying on the floor. "This is not... nothing." She wasn't going to run to the kid's side just because he was bleeding and on the ground. It wasn't the way she was, plus, she didn't want to make the kid look weak. "Master Teixeira Neves, would you like to tell me what has happened?"

Finally, Josh let go off him and João let himself slide with the support of the wall to the ground. There, half-lying with his back to the wall, he closed his eyes for a second as the professor Lafay and Josh talked... to his disappointment, very shortly. So, obviously, Josh didn't have the courage to tell truthfully what had happened. Figures. This type were courageous only when it came to beating up the weaker ones than themselves. But now, as the question was adressed at himself--as he understood it after a few seconds, he was even more annoyed because the professor wanted to learn what had happened firstly, rather than fixing them. His face must be a mess, so why wasn't the professor helping? Did she not see it? Was the light not enough? Forcing himself greatly, he panted rather than talking properly, because his chin felt to be broken too, as well as half of his teeth, nose, and cheek.

"He... set fire... I... beat me." That was all she could get if she didn't want him to shriek out in unbearable pain.

''I am not lying.'' Josh protested. Well...to be honest it was obvious from the state of the Slytherin boy and the Gryffindor's bleeding lip that it was not nothing but he did not want Lafay to 'not like' him. So he did not insist on it more thinking trying that would anger the woman and an angry Lafay would not be helpful at this situation. See? He could think but apparently he was no Ravenclaw.

As the Potions Mistress asked her snake what had happened instead, Josh walked forward and picked up the boy's wand eyeing the darker colour of it, darker than his own of course. Why did all Slytherins have wands of darker coloured wand? Huh? He had to ask that to the wandmaker or the duelling man yet his thought were all gone when he had heard how Joao explained the situation.

Eh...how he tried to explain the situation...making Josh let out a huge SNORT.

''Of course.'' so he said with a sarcastic tone ''Ask a Slytherin and he'll tell you the pure truth.''

"He set... something on fire? and you beat yourself up?" Really... was the Slytherin trying to cover for Josh? She looked annoyed at the boy and raised an eyebrow. "Would it be easier to speak if I fixed your nose?" She asked.

She turned slowly to the Gryffindor with pure fury in her eyes. "Who do you think you are speaking to? Your head of house? Not only am I a Slytherin, I am the head of Slytherin house. Do you really think that sarcastic tone is going to win you any favors with me?" She was NOT happy. "Now. For the last time. Why is this student on the floor."

João wanted to snort at the boy when he protested, but even breathing required too much of an effort that all his sarcasm had to wait. Stupid boy. João was sure Professor Lafay could read minds, so it would only make him look worse, while it would totally serve João.

Really? A clever woman like Lafay understood that? No, it wouldn't be any easier if she fixed his nose because he needed to be fixed from head to toe, especially his cheekbone kept trying to split his head into two, but if that was all he could get, he would get it nevertheless. Nodding with the least motion of his head, he raised his arm--it required so much of a brain work that he waited for the headache to ease for a few seconds-- and pointed at Josh. "He did," he said, his voice filled with hatred and pain. Once he got his wand back... Josh was DEAD.

Oh, now he wished he could laugh, for he would at Josh now. He was such an idiot, wasn't he, insulting Slytherins in front of Lafay. Watching him suffer would be very enjoyable. Maybe Professor Lafay would even be kind enough to kill Josh herself and save him from a great effort. Yup, that seemed pretty possible.

'I did get the letter,' Amara said, nodding. She shifted her eyes when Erin asked her another question. She didn't really want to talk about that.

'Um, well, it's ok, I guess, I -,' she paused. 'Well, I never knew my parents so you don't have to feel sorry or anything.' She looked around for a change of subject. She'd never liked the spotlight, even less when it meant people would pity or feel sorry for her. '...Nice weather, huh?' she said lamely, wishing she'd thought of something more interesting to say.

When he saw that look in the woman's eyes, Josh froze instantly and it did not took, again, much time for him to figure out what he had said. Or actually it took so much time that he was too late to stop himself before he had said that. Not to mention his girlfriend was a Slytherin too. But they had had the freedom to call them GryffinDORK so he though...nevertheless he still felt guilty.

''I am sorry professor.'' so he said looking down at the Slytherin boy's wand in his hands ''I did not mean it.''

Then he flashed a glare at the beaten boy when he spoke again, blaming the Gryffindor for everything. Yet it vanished quickly for that was nothing new for him. He had been blamed for even things he had not done in this school so or he had been the bad one when he found that Riley coward trying to flirt Evelyn. So...well...it was fine for him.

Looking back at Lafay, he took a deep breath at her question. ''That student is on the floor, professor, because i have beaten him up.''

The boy didn't ask to be healed... so she didn't. "Ahh... He beat you..." She said and then asked "Do you need assistance getting to your feet?" She asked the Slytherin.

"You did mean it, you just are sorry you said it." She said growling. "So you admit to harming the boy. Why, Master Carter? Why this time? I don't see the head girl around, it can't be because Master Neves was hitting on her." Why did he insist on making her have to tear him apart?

At least she saw the fact that the was sorry and looked like she had accepted it. Had she? And...to be honest, she was right. Since now his anger started to go away slowly, it was feeling like he did not know why he had beaten the Slytherin boy. He did not know even if he was feeling guilty about it but there was something wrong, he was sure of it.

On the other hand, even if he felt guilty, he was quite much tired of taking all the credit of nasty stuff around. Especially of those who would never do the same for him. Like those Slytherins. Not only that. They even kept being nasty towards him even if he took all the blame. Just like...that day he did not want to remember. So, he did not have much patience left for that anymore. He wanted people to know that he was not the bad guy...all the time, everywhere. It was finally the time to stand up and defend himself. Not those people who would never value his help.

''Yes, i did harm the boy...a bit.'' he was going to defend himself but it did not mean he would deny something that he did. Justice was justice. It should have been the same for everyone. ''I teased him a bit for his fear of fire. Then he...hexed me and i got angry. He hit me back, though, professor so all in a sudden...'' he looked at the beaten Slytherin ''...it was like that. I...i...don't even remember half of it''

Half or more?

Nessie smiled excusing Pixxi's vage answer she nodded and gave Pixxi one of the Pumpkin Juices.

"Sure here take one. It always hits the spot after running." She handed Pixxi one of the bottles making sure it was the right one.

OOC: The Pumpkin Juice has a Hate Potion in it.