Vashti nodded as Louisa explained further about Dallin's attempts at conjuring a Patronus. It was hard; all the books Vashti had read about the subject said the same thing. The hardest part was likely choosing the right memory. She had a few specific memories in mind already, but if none of those were strong enough, she wasn't sure what she'd try next.

She shook her head when Louisa asked next about knowing what your Patronus looked like beforehand. "You could have a few ideas about what you think your Patronus might look like, but there's no real way to know for certain what shape your Patronus will take before you successfully cast a corporeal one." She'd never heard of any way to find out beforehand anyway. Finding out what animal form your Patronus would take was kind of similar to finding out what your Animagus form was - you had to perform it successfully to discover it.

She nodded again when Adam suggested Louisa try it as well. "Yeah, I mean, Harry Potter was able to cast a Patronus in his third year, so there's no reason you shouldn't try it if you want to." It didn't guarantee she - or any of them really - would succeed at this time, of course, but at least they knew it was possible since a third year student had done it. Harry Potter was no ordinary third year at the time, of course, but still.

Louisa was going to apologize about lying to Anakin about the love potion? Good. "Thanks," she said with a smile. "I'm sure he'll appreciate that." Vashti did too.

Adam was practicing the incantation and wand movement now - perhaps Vashti should try doing the same. She set her book down on an empty table and moved to another open area of the room, keeping some space between her and Louisa and Adam. Taking a deep, calming breath, she extended her wand arm, as if pointing it at an invisible enemy. "Ecks-PEK-toh pah-TRO-num," she muttered quietly to herself, saying each syllable slowly and carefully, just to make sure she was pronouncing it correctly. "Ecks-PEK-toh pah-TRO-num."

Louisa smiled warmly at their invitation of trying this out. She did try this with Dallin last term and her wand merely shivered. She was to wait for next year, though. She had a charms homework to work on. "Thanks. I'd rather see your progress and attend to my beautiful egg." The metal egg wasn't here though.

The Ravenclaw brought her book up on the table and started flipping through it to where they were supposed to study. She kept an eye on her friends, however, as they practiced saying the incantation. It was really curious to know their Patronuses now. Louisa couldn't wait!

Adam nodded understandingly as Louisa kindly declined the request for her too to practice the Patronus Charm. He noticed that Vashti had vacated a spot a little away from him so that she too could practice. Adam was concentrating harder than he probably ever had in his life to try and replicate the feeling he had the first night that JB was home with him. His parents had been at some work party that they hadn't invited him to go to, even though it was recommended that you bring your children, and he was sitting in bed watching movies. JB had been chewing on a bone thoughtfully in Adam's closet, the door open so that he could see him from the bed. Adam wasn't sure whether or not the puppy would want to sleep with him or keep to his own bed, but sure enough, just moments after Adam had closed his eyes to go to sleep JB had been crying at the side of his bed. He bent down and picked up the puppy, and instantly the puppy curled up next to him, lying his little head on the pillow right next to Adam's so that his nose was touching Adam's shoulder.

Adam stood there remembering the moment, a smile playing across his lips as he did so. Why it stuck out to him was because it was the first time in his life that Adam had ever felt loved...truly loved. It was definitely the happiest moment in his life, and he knew it was going to be strong enough for this.

"Alright...I am going to give it a go," Adam said with a little nod, more so they knew to be prepared than anything else.

Clearing his throat Adam held out his wand before pronouncing,"Expecto Patronum!" Adam's wand shook with a bit of force before a white mist started to come out the end of it. Adam was so shocked that his lost his concentration, the mist disappearing as he did so. "Woah....that was unexpected," Adam said with a chuckle.

Vashti only dimly heard Louisa's reply; she was mainly focused on the task at hand. She had the pronunciation down, and the only necessary wand movement was to point at the dementor - which was invisible and imaginery right now - so all she had to do now was focus on a happy memory. One of the happiest memories she could think of. The first one that came to mind was the Ravenclaw Quidditch Party that occurred way back in her second year. It had happened nearly four years ago, but she remembered it like it was yesterday, and it was easily one of the best times of her life. Not only was the party epic and fun in its own right, but it was also untainted by any negative emotion that she carried now, as it had occurred before the time her father had gotten ill. So it seemed like the perfect memory.

She was about to try it out for real when she heard Adam already saying the incantion. It temporarily broke her focus, and her curiosity took over, forcing her to turn and watch. She gasped softly when she saw the silver mist starting to appear at the end of his wand...but then it abruptly disappeared. "Nice," she commented with a nod. For a first try, she thought it was pretty good.

Louisa was reading something about silver metal and its indication in Magic when Adam 'wow'ed. She snapped her head up to look at him chuckling. "What? Did you make it? What was it?" She straightened herself up excitedly. Too bad she wasn't paying enough attention to him. "What was your memory?" Or was it just too personal like Dal's had been? Louisa would totally understand if he didn't want to share but her curiosity pushed her to ask. With a quick glance at Vashti, she could tell that the girl was still preparing herself. Louisa was going to stay focused on them now in case the silver mist came out again. It was beautiful and she wanted to see it!

Adam shot Vashti an embarrassed little smile before chuckling softly. "I think I was so startled that something was actually happening on my first attempt that I completely lost my concentration." When Louisa asked him what it was he smiled at her warmly. "Unfortunately I was too shocked by the fact that something was actually coming out of my wand that it didn't get a chance to transform into anything....it was just a silver mist." Adam let out a little sigh. Well...for a first try that was definitely something right?

Adam was about to give it another go when Louisa asked him what his memory was. Instinctively he shifted somewhat. He didn't really know Vashti very much, but she seemed kind enough so maybe he wouldn't feel too embarrassed to say it in front of her. "My first night at home with JB," Adam said with a little smile. "I had made a bed for him and everything in his little closet area, and I left the door open so that he could see me, but as I was starting to fall asleep he came over to the bed and started crying for me to pick him up. So, I did, and he curled right up next to me. It's kind of silly and a bit ridiculous, but really, it was the first time in my life that I ever felt like something actually loved me. He was just so...happy to be there with me. I've never had the feeling of being wanted like that before...." Adam had gotten a bit quieter as he spoke.

"Err...sorry Vashti, I don't mean to keep distracting you with my blabber while you're trying to cast it too."

Hecate raised an eyebrow. "Master Neves," she said and turned to him... the boy's pain was getting in the way of the interrogation. Sweet Circe, this was annoying. She knelt down to the boy and fixed his face... the chin, nose, and then gave him a potion. "I can't quite fix your teeth without a healer to scan you, but this will help with the pain."

"So is what Carter saying true, Master Neves? Did you start the duelling?" She then stood and then turned to Josh. "Help him up. Now." She ordered.

Had he not been in such pain, João would have laughed--and laughed hard, at Josh's obvious LIES. If the boy called this 'a little bit' of beating, then he should see a psychologist SOON, before he got in touch with anyone else. Trying to stay as calm as he could as the professor fixed his face, he felt an amazing gratitude for her. Although she understood it a bit late, she had finally fixed his face and he quickly drank the potion, a very relieved smile on his face afterwards.

"Thank you, professor," he breathed with a much clearer head. Now he could argue much better.

"Of course they are not true. What happened is, I was of course afraid of a fire in such an inconvenient room, and even then, without any kind of intervention of mine, he suddenly jumped in front of me and threatened me by pushing his wand against my cheek." That was the bare truth. He looked over at the boy, daring him to argue. He was pretty sure Lafay could read minds, it wouldn't be a problem on his side.

WHAT??!!!!

Josh's mouth held open with...disbelief. Now he was the liar huh? And if there was something more disappointing than that was the fact that Lafay was asking this boy if he was telling the truth...which meant she did not trust him even a bit.

Despite everything, Josh was going to help the boy up back on his feet yet the snake's accusations just made him froze with disbelief...all over again! ''This is ridiculous!!!'' so he protested hitting a nearby desk. Then with a mixture of anger, disbelief and disappointment, he turned back to Lafay ''Professor, this is rubbish. I did not deny the fact that i made fun of his fear of fire but i did NOT seriously threaten him. Mistress, you know me, don't you? You know i would not threaten anyone for nothing and just so randomly. And you know i would not do it with a wand anyway. I was just...playing. Then he...''

Now at that part, the Gryffindor could not help but glare at the Slytherin wildly. If he dared to put all the blame on him again, he would just go forward and give his face a new formation with a single fist. ''...TELL HER WHAT YOU DID YOU COWARD!!! YOU ATTACKED FIRST!!! YOU HEXED ME!!''

"Thanks," Pixxi said gratefully and took the bottle. She drank most of it in one gulp, and smiled thankfully towards Nessie. Suddenly, she felt a bubbly feeling in her stomach which had nothing to do with the juice itself. "I-I'm not feeling... Well," she said while clutching her stomach. "I-I think I need to sit down." She found the nearest chair and sat down hard, still clutching her stomach. It felt like someone had fed her with giant snakes that tried to crawl out of her body. Like poison...

She looked horrified up at Nessie, her face starting to prickle with sweat. "Wh-What did you put in the juice, Nessie?" She wanted to cry out in pain, but as she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, the pain completely disappeared. Instead, she felt the urge to argue with someone, and be feisty and rude. With Nessie. Stupid Nessie who had given her poison or whatever it was. She stood up and looked at Nessie furiously, "WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME?!" she yelled at her.

It seemed Adam's attempt had gotten Louisa's attention as well as Vashti's. She listened as Louisa asked what memory he'd used and Adam answered. That was...really sweet, honestly. And yet at the same time, Vashti thought it was a bit sad - not because of the dog wanting to lay on the bed with him, but more because that was the first time he'd felt loved. What about his parents? The rest of his family? Didn't they love him? Clearly, Vashti's understanding of the situation was incomplete, though it all probably made perfect sense to Louisa since she knew Adam better. The sixth year wanted to ask further but decided it was probably too personal and none of her business.

She shrugged when he started apologizing. "Nah, it's okay. I was curious to see how you were doing anyway." But now that she'd seen, she supposed it was time for her to actually try it out. She resumed her position from before, thought of her memory, and said, "Expecto Patronum."

She waited...and waited...

Nothing.

"Hm." Maybe she'd tried it a little too quickly. Her focus hadn't been what it was a few minutes ago.

She closed her eyes and thought of the Quidditch party in her second year again, letting it replay in her mind, a small smile spreading on her face the longer she remembered. Finally, she again said, "Expecto Patronum!"

She felt a new sort of energy in her wand as it seemed to warm up from the memory. When she opened her eyes just enough to see, her smile grew - a silvery mist was appearing from the end of her wand, swirling a bit as if it was trying to form something but didn't quite have enough energy to do so. After watching it for a few seconds, she let the memory fade; the mist disappeared in the same moment.

"Wow," she breathed as she wiped her brow with her left hand.

Nessie smiled. 'Maybe the potion didn't work after all' She thought to herself. Then Pixxi collapsed on the chair. He face paled. 'What have I done?' She felt so guilty for doing this to her. She ran over to Pixxi and knealed on the floor in front of her.

"I-It's a Hate Potion. When Pixxi started yelling at her she started talking in a hurried fashion. It was Professor Lafay's fault. She was teaching us about hate potions last week and our homework was to use it on someone you care about! I am SO sorry Pixxi! Please fogive me!"She put her hands up trying to ward off Pixxi's anger. The guilt consumed her and she really wished now that she would have taken the zero. Stupid grade driven parents . . .

"Hmmm..." That didn't seem like Josh. To threaten a boy without Flores being around... but it could certainly be true. "So what happened after that?" He threatened you... then what?"

"Lower your voice Carter, or I'll take away your ability to speak." He was getting angry again. "You've earned yourself a detention already, don't make this worse." She said to him.

Getting up by himself before that silly boy had any stupid ideas of lifting him up; it took all of even an expert on policy like João's will not to laugh. He did crack a nasty smirk, however, half with disdain and half with pleasure. The boy was a complete idiot, wasn't he. He couldn't even see that if he talked properly, he could find a way out--at the very least, his detention would be light. But he was such a typical 'dork that he thought shouting would solve everything... and of course it didn't.

"I only know your name, Josh, how could I know that you were 'kidding' around?" he adressed the boy calmly, eyes twinkling. It of course had caught his attention that Professor Lafay had pronounced the word 'detention' for only the other boy, so if he had completed the rest of his story truthfully, calmly, but omiting a few unimportant details not to bore the woman... he was safely out of this.

"When he threatened me, which apparently I misunderstood the combination of 'I'll set you on fire' and a wand against my cheek, I panicked and to get him off me, I performed a small stinging charm which caused only momentarily pain--" he hadn't intended to do so; on the contrary he had aimed the spell to be quite painful for a while but apparently, the boy felt no pain, "--but then he attacked me the ugly Muggle way." Yup, his word choice was fully towards influencing Professor Lafay into his own favour.

While being fully honest. Of course.

Josh was still glaring at the Slytherin coward and could punch him again if he was not going to confess the fact that he had sent a hex and attacked first yet hopefully Lafay's words helped him to get his common sense back. He did not want his ability to speak to be taken from him otherwise the snake boy could easily turn everything to his own advantage and he himself would be just watching with horror, disbelief and anger, unable to speak for himself.

And he had already earned himself a...

WHAT?!!! Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat??!!....

He got detention and this dirty snake person who liked to twist things to sound innocent got nothing? Now Josh had to frown at that as well.

''Professor, this is unfair. He...''

...started to speak again. So, silencing himself the lion boy stopped to hear what Joao had to say.

*SNORT*

He did it again, of course. Twisting things. And actually it was surprising how the Slytherin managed to make what he had done sound like some innocent self defence.

''How could you know i am not kidding around? It is simple, pigeon head. VERY UNLIKE YOU, i find threatening useless and threatening for no reason pointless. As you have experienced, i go and act when i mean it. No talking about it like some pathetic coward.''

A new place? Whats this? Amy had found another new spot, which was terrible, because considering how many years she'd been here and still hadn't found everything. Bad. She thought she knew everything about Hogwarts, and yet daily she was being beaten. Amy didn't like being beaten.

Slowly the brunette pushed open the door to the small classroom. Bloody small, but still. She looked around at the old, dated style of the classroomthat was. Oooh, she wanted this style room, she sat down on the floor and looked up, looking around the room, her brown hair brushing her back as she peered, being utterly retro and vintage.

Jack was lounging lazily on one of the classroom tables, his head resting on The Trials and Triumphs of Tara the Tangible. Admittedly, it was a boring book, but it was comfy enough. He closed his eyes, until her heard the door open. His dark grey eyes flickered right and he saw Amy coming in. Jeez, he hadn't talked to her in... ages, really. He turned over slightly, supporting himself on his elbow, grinning at her to see if she'd notice.

Wow. The cealing in here is really dirty, Amy thought critically, as she looked up, narrowing her eyes at the cobwebs. Amy HATED cobwebs. A lot, they were so nasty and they just hung around and wouldn't go and always had spiders. Which was gross. It was a fact. The walls were okay, but she saw why this room wasn't used any more, it was practicly derelict...

YAAARRGH! Amy jumped up as she spotted someone in the corner, or rather, caught someones teeth, they were all white and glinty. Dear Lord, it was like the Chesshire Cat, come to life. Slowly, Amy backed off, whose that? She asked, peering into the dark

Jack jumped as he felt someone, obviously Amy, catch his... teeth. He got such a surprise, he fell off the table and landed flat on his back on the cold, hard floor. Lovely. He felt something run over his hand, and he squinted to see a black widow spider scampering away. He groaned as he got to his feet, and stood in front of Amy. "I'll give you a couple of clues. Male, six foot seven, blonde surfer hair, blue eyes, Californian tan, sea shell neckless." He said sarcastically in a fake (and exaggerated) Los Angeles drawl, though his natural Galway accent managed to creep through a couple of the words. "Nah," he said, sitting back down on the table. "It's just -lumos- me." He said, holding the wand between himself and Amy so that she could see him.

Errr. Suddenly the weird murderer as walking over to her, and was describing...the "fittest" man in the world to some girls, but that wasn't impressive to her, she shrugged, screwing up her nose, though she could hear an irish accent jumping out, and then she could finally see him, never, ever ever become an actor she grinned at him, why are you lurking in corners, pretending to be amazing americans exactly?

Jack shuffled his feet, chuckling. "Promise," he agreed, having a sudden vision of himself with a one liner in the background of some crap film, and then simply having to have his character cut from lack of 'potential'. He smirked at the thought but returned to the present.

"I wasn't lurking!" He said indignantly, though still grinning. "You're the one that attacked me and tried to kidnap my teeth." He told her, trying to sound upset, though Jack was a terrible actor.

Jonathan hurriedly went to the empty classroom on the first floor. He did gave a note to Kurumi to meet him here. So just in case he comes first than she did, he ran to the first floor. It's still pretty cold but the calendar did say February and it could only mean that winter is saying goodbye. FINALLY! Spring may be cold too but at least it's not as gloomy as bloody winter.

Jonathan entered the empty classroom and gave a sigh of relief. Great. She's still not here. Jonathan then took a seat on the floor as he put his bag beside him. Shoot! He forgot his gloves today but still, he's not going back to the dorms just to get gloves. He them leaned on his bag and waited for her.

Kurumi hadn't expected to receive a note from Jonathan while she was having lunch at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall, and it had been obvious in all the flailing and squeaking that had occurred when the enchanted parchment found her. After finishing what was left of her stew, Kurumi had hurried to classroom eleven as quickly as her legs could carry her.

She flung open the door and peered in, only to see that Jonathan was sitting on the floor dressed like he was going to the arctic. It was already February and she wasn't sure that all those layers were really needed. Then again, her home in Niigata was colder than most places she had been to.

"Hey," she said with a small wave. "I...hope I didn't keep you waiting for too long..."

Jonathan was about to take a nap when finally Kurumi showed up. He looked at her apparently in spring clothes already. The dungeons were still cold, "i think my body temperature is broken" he laughed. Yes, it is still cold in the dungeons even though the snow is starting to melt. Or maybe, he has a point. His body temperature is broken. Is he having a cold?

He stretched his arms and legs as he opened his bag "Have you eaten lunch?" he asked as he kept digging underneath his bag. Jonathan did have soup as always. He wasn't that hungry. Then he took out two cupcakes that his owled delivered. "My mum apparently gave me this in case I'm not eating any desserts here." Jonathan sighed. His mother worries too much. "And..." he looked away "... he told me to share it with someone" he smiled. He hasn't told her anything yet, but clearly the note was implying that she knew. Mother's instincts perhaps?

Well, dessert is always better before doing anything... Or at least to Jonathan that is. He handed Kurumi the other cupcake.

Kurumi tugged on the collar of her wool sweater awkwardly. Was she dressed too warmly? She supposed that her knee length jeans were a bit cold even for her, but the note had said that they were going to dance, so she thought it would be a better idea than pants. "I doubt it," she laughed, taking a few more steps forward. "I am just used to the cold."

She nodded. "I was actually eating when you sent me the note." No need to mention that she had stuffed her face with what little bit she could. She was still a little hungry to be honest. Her eyes widened when he presented her with a cupcake. "That was very kind of your mother," she chirped. "Strange that she sent you two cupcakes though." Didn't mothers usually send things by the dozen or something like that?

She reached out and took the cupcake. Her nostrils were immediately filled with the sweet aroma of chocolate. "Thank you."