"Right? Honestly, I'm just glad that the school figured out all its dumb budget stuff and that we can have proper food again." That kind of food had just been flat out disappointing, especially from all of the praise that Papa had given it. Adrienne tucked a lock of dark curly hair behind her ear and began automatically arranging her candy on the table, popping a few more Bertie Bott's Every Flavoured Beans in her mouth, smiling happily when they turned out to be cherry and roast beef instead of pepper or beetle, a flavour she could swear she'd accidentally ended up with before. "And it's not like I don't like normal meals here, of course, but the start of term feast is always somehow more delicious, y'know? If only we could just get the speech over and done with." She looked hungrily at the spread of empty plates and glasses all over the table.

"Nice to meet you! I'm a third- no, wait, fourth year. That's gonna be so hard to get used to," Adrienne added with a grin. She had enough trouble remembering to write the date correctly on her notes when the month changed, let alone changing the year! She just knew that for the first few weeks at least, all of her parchment would have a scribbled-out correction on the top where her hand, if not her brain, still thought she was a year younger. "You?"



Adrienne rolled her eyes at the firstie's obliviousness. "Dude, I was just teasing you. All you first years are so touchy!" Honestly, if he was going to act like a baby and be practically in tears at the table, he was going to have to deal with a bit of mockery. It was only natural! After all, what was she supposed to do, pass up on a perfect chance to make fun of someone? Not a chance. People have to learn to grow up sometime.

"Look, who gives a damn about what House your father was in? Mine was a Puff, but what difference does it make? Your House is about you," she said, emphatically jabbing a finger in his direction to drive her point home, "not about your family or anybody else." Although if she'd been anything but a Ravenclaw she might have hated and/or injured absolutely everyone around her, but thankfully Adrienne was Sorted into the only really sensible place for her, and she fit in as well as she ever could here.

"Oh yeah. They tend to be reasonably intelligent, so you can actually carry on a conversation, and they're usually not half as pretentious and just... ugh as all the Lions and Snakes are," she said, gesturing towards the respective tables as she did so and wrinkling her nose in their directions.

“Sounds like she lucked out,” said Louis with raised eyebrows when Paloma shared the story of her sister’s Hogwarts days. Though he’d never met her, she certainly sounded different from his friend, and he couldn’t help but wonder what their relationship at home must’ve been like.

Before he could get too nosy, the girl had distracted him with an envelope. Oh? Lou raised a curious eyebrow and opened the tiny envelope, his blue eyes lighting up at the many moving photographs that spilled out. He looked like a proud mother who’d just received the photographs from her daughter’s kindergarten graduation. “You took these?” he asked, though the answer was obvious, as he examined the photographs. “They’re adorable, Tiny… Thank you.” He looked up from the photographs and to his friend, smiling with honest gratefulness.

Her following words made him laugh. Him and Delilah inspiring? He didn’t consider their relationship to be very romantic or inspiring, as they were rather private, but accepted the compliment anyway, his blue eyes falling shyly. “Thanks, I’ll make sure to let her know, she'll be flattered.”

Lou nodded his head with a playful smile when Paloma made him promise not to say anything about her lessons, when the girl began to interact with the charismatic Justine. Ah, yes… yes, his plan was working. Both girls seemed to be getting along wonderfully, and they had so much in common already. Good job, Bolton, good job. Now, if he could only do the same for his fellow Lions…

“Je vous ai manqué aussi, professeur,” said Louis with a smile as Justine teased him in French, his brows furrowing just very slightly as he took in her accent. Huh. It sounded a bit different from the way he remembered it. When Paloma asked where her fellow Ravenclaw was from, Lou eagerly butt in, all too excited to have the girls discover all the things they had in common, “Justine’s from Paris.” He smiled and turned to the girl, as if awaiting for her to confirm this lie fact.

Justine listened intently as Paloma spoke, her voice was soothing and that Spanish accent! It was so exotic sounding to Justine's ears. "Dove? 'ow lovely, it is such a.. 'ow you say... charming name," Justine grinned, playfully pushing Louis aside so that she might sit with the two friends , sticking out her tongue at him as she did. "Spain, I 'ave 'eard it is very nice there and beautiful too! Especially Barcelona," Justine said, leaning closer with keen interest.

The girl's next words had Justine's stomach twisting uncomfortably. Paloma had been at Beauxbatons, and for two years? If Justine lied and said she had gone there as well, but that neither girl had ever met OR heard of each other this would be sure to raise strange questions, questions Justine had no intention of answering honestly. Maybe she could somehow get around it? Claim she'd left Beauxbatons for two years instead of just last year? Yeah.. That could have work...

"Oui? You went to Beauxbatons? I was zere myself until two years ago... " Justine slowly said, pulling a glass of water toward her with slightly trembling hands. Damn it Justine, get it together!


Justine grinned brightly at Louis' words, her heart filling up with earth at her friends kind words. She was so glad that she had met him last year, if not for the brave Lion she would still be feeling alone and adrift in a sea of unfamiliar faces. Yes, Louis Bolton was one of the few things she could probably be thankful for. "Vous avez l'air très bien jeune lion, et quest ce que c'est!" Justine exclaimed, catching sight of the Gryffindor's shiny new Prefect badge, gleefully, she poked it, it was cold and smooth to the touch. She didn't know why she hadn't noticed it before.

Redirecting her attention to Paloma as the girl spoke, asking where Justine hailed from; she opened her mouth to respond only to have Louis speak up for her, before turning to smile at Justine as if waiting for approval. "Oui, as Monsieur Louis says, I am from Paris, zough I 'ave been living in London for a little over a year now... " Justine replied, biting her inner cheek as she lied to Paloma. She didn't know why she was keeping up this act, but it was too late to go back now, she supposed. "Do you live in Spain? Or 'ave you moved?" Justine quickly asked, redacting the attention from herself.

Hope was a little ray of sunshine, and Mo leaned forward to ruffle her hair and grin in her direction. Why wasn't he being more like her? Mo was all silver linings, but today he was all dark cloud. When had he stopped being more like Hope? When had he LOST Hope?

"Yeah, exactly. We're still a team. It'll have to come back, and when it does, we're going to sweep the pitch them them." And they could all train and play and hang-out and have fun together in the meantime.

"Let's plan something for the common room for tonight."

Dora was oddly comforting in his hour of need, and Mo squeezed her right back without comment. It didn't require comment, 'cause he thought he knew what she meant. Solidarity and 'this place is rubbish', with a healthy dose of thankful feelings that whatever else was wrong, they had each other and weren't Hufflepuffs.

"I'm the best at entertaining. Note it."

That was one of the signs of growing up, right? That when bad news happened, and one did not have a Sophie climbing around in his beard, a guy should assume his Sophie had grown up. He probably didn't mind it, although it felt vaguely wrong not to have her clinging to him.

"They can, and they did. And we're going to live with it." He said it a bit gruffly, although it was followed by a smile. He followed Sophie's sightline and grunted his disapproval.

"That's my sister, there. The blond one?"

Quote:

Originally Posted by TakemetotheBurrow

And Dima! Dima was a Ravenclaw too? Maddie's face lit up momentarily when she saw him and she was tempted to wave him over but decided to watch how he handled himself instead. And boy had that been a good choice. Kid was a genius! He'd used his cute to earn him a spot RIGHT next to badged boy! Good one, D-man! That meant that he practically had an IN with the guy now and by association, it meant that SHE did too!

And there was Maddie! Was she sitting by anyone? Did she wanna sit by HIM?

Dima squished closer to the badged boy and tried to make room, then tried to wave her over. They were friends, right? Friends sat together!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grey Lady

Why didn't the boy sit down? There was plenty of room at the table. The Grey Lady stared at the boy hovering by the table. If he didn’t find a seat soon Helena was going to enlist Isidora to find him one.

Well, he had a seat now. But he was still staring back at the ghost lady.

And how come she was talking to the other first years but not him? Did he do something wrong? Did he smell? Could ghosts even smell stuff?

Watching her for a little while longer, Dima finally managed a shy smile and a wave. Hi ghost lady. Hi.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Meizzner

Would you look at that, the kids actually took the seat. Maybe he was just to nice to just sit down like everyone else. Lets go with that. HeHe, seems like he realized Nigel was a Prefect. Not that it mattered or anything.

Now some fun, he knew he was going to get a look from Dora because of it . But whatever. It was in the name of fun and being a Prefect. Basically. "No problem. See my Co-Prefect over there." Nigel said moving his head towards Dora. "She only likes to be called Miss Dora and she is very dangerous"

Who says you can't have fun with first years. It is up to them if they should believe it. Or actually ask Dora.

He was sitting next to a Prefect.

Be cool, Dima, BE COOL.

And the girl was there too? His wide eyes followed the older boy's head over beside him where the female Prefect was sitting, cuddling some guy. Was that her boyfriend? Were they gonna do that in the common room? Would he have to see that ALL the time? Gross.

"How come you're telling me?" Pause. "Am I supposed to go say hi to her?" Was that a tradition? Greeting the Prefects?

But he didn't even know this one's name yet!

Quote:

Originally Posted by grangerfan8

She spotted Nigel and offered him the briefest of smiles, but mostly kept her eyes on the sorting and the out of place graduates. Her ears on the table though, catching what Mo was saying but not reacting except to give him a slight squeeze.

He could still hang out with her and Nigel on night patrols.

Still, he would TRY to say hi to the girl. But he didn't want to lose his spot, seeing as it was so hard to get one in the first place. It was because of this that Dima attempted to stretch his arm AROUND Prefect #1 and Miss Dora's apparent boyfriend to tap her shoulder.

And ended up falling off his seat. No big deal.

Since he was already on the ground, he just crawled closer and stuck his head in beside Dora on the side of her not occupied by Mo, still on his knees.

"Hi," he whispered, so as not to interrupt her and her boyfriend's cuddle session too much. "I'm Dima! Are you Miss Dora? Your co-Prefect said I should come say hi." Or he IMPLIED it. Same thing. "He said you're dangerous too, but we can still be friends, right?"

Unless she ate people like the Groundskeeper did. THEN they couldn't be friends.

Budget problems? That must have been before Caelen's time. Because the redhead had no idea what that meant at all. This school was gigantic, and seemed to be sweeping with money. Weird school was weird? She would have to ask Adrienne later, because unless Spencer or Paige got the lowdown on all of this from Nate, they wouldn't really know either. And that piece of information might be really interesting. Or have bragging rights attached as the first of the three to know it. Either was good.

From the happy smile that appeared on Adrienne's face, the short girl assumed that she got some good flavors. A rush of pretend jealousy raged through her. The kind that you got when you were teasing your friends and acquaintances. Which was good, because the twelve year old had just been feeling real jealousy towards her friends and that felt crappy. All she had been getting were the bad ones! Although the bad ones were always an adventure, so there was that, she guessed? Anything to make this sound better was okay by Caelen. Because she had just gotten pepper, and was about ready to sneeze herself up to the Ravenclaw common room.

"I know! The food at the feast always somehow has that little extra pop! Beginning and end! Yeah, if the speech would be over with." She smiled. "Are these things always long winded and tedious? I wonder how long they ACTUALLY are. Someone should bring a timer one year and time the speech. Anyway, I understand fully you were so cranky, waiting for all the food to arrive!" The Ravenclaw stopped to get a piece of candy out of her purple braces with her tongue, covering her mouth so it wouldn't be a disgusting display.


Yeah, she technically wasn't allowed to be eating candy AT ALL with these suckers on, but that just wasn't going to happen, and so the preteen thought that the less her mom knew, the better. To hide her dirty little secret, Caelen blamed a lot of the candy consumption on Rockwell, who happily took the fall now that his little sister promised to clean up his potions all summer break. That was not a smart deal, and the second year was planning on backing out sometime during the school year. Of course, she would have to do so carefully, or he would go and tell mom about all of her candy and she would get the lecture. Which always sucked.

Anyway, on the subject of Adrienne and age, which the other girl had just mentioned, Caelen looked her up and down with her deep blue eyes once. Now that they were closer, she DID look older. She had no idea why she pegged her as a second year! As the tiny one twirled her shoulder length hair absentmindedly, the freckled face girl thought about why. Maybe she wanted a friend who was a second year? Maybe because the redhead saw her last year and thought she was a firstie? Who even knows? But that was a wrong assumption and now she was corrected. Which was good.

"Wow, you're a fourth year? I'm a second year myself. I came last year; when everyone was turning old and creepy." She made a face and shivered once to drive the point home, hoping it had the desired effect. Wanting the continue the conversation, Caelen looked for another topic. Something that wasn't Spencer or Paige related. Don't get her wrong, the kid loved her friends, but there had to be other topics of discussion.

Wait, did they say something about CANCELING quidditch? They couldn't do that, no! She was just going to try out this year! She had practiced half of the summer! Because of some stupid threats towards Hogwarts qudditch? Who knew if these threats were even true. Caelen had read about people who threatened to do horrible, horrible acts and then backed out on their word. Why couldn't this be one of those situations? This was dumb, this sucked! Why couldn't it be something else, like transifguration? She didn't care for that class much --no offense professor--. This wasn't fair!

"They can't do that! That's not fair! This sucks!" The redhead said more to the person near her than anywhere else. Hopefully no one else was hearing her complain. Her mother always said never to whine, and Caelen was trying really, really hard right now. But this totally sucked! Looking over, the girl played with her short hair in expectation, hoping that Adrienne was going to back her up on this, or tell her that she heard completely wrong. Because this totally sucked. The year was going to be even longer now that they didn't have quidditch to play. She wanted to play! She was practicing her flying! Uggh. Man, whoever sent those threats needed to stop right now and calm down.

Actually, SHE probably needed to calm down. She was acting like a child right now! So taking a deep breath and setting her jaw in anger, the blue eyed girl decided she had said enough on the subject and reminded herself of all of the fun things to do. There was still Paige and Spencer, and the many places to explore. And she still got to learn how to be a good little wizard. See, things weren't soooo bad. They were bad, but not incredibly bad. This wasn't the end of the world.

By this point Toby had squeezed into the space on at the Ravenclaw table, happy to be sat alongside Soph and across from Mo and with a whole BUNCH of prospective new Ravenclaw friends. He'd never actually sat at this table before, had only ever ventured over to the Slytherin table once to ask Derry for homework help. It was weird how sitting at a different table gave you a whole different perspective on th-

A particular string of words met Toby's ears and he whipped his head around to look at Sophie, and then at Mo, his usual smile gone from his features. Had he just heard...?

Quidditch.............. cancelled? But... why?

Toby sat, blue eyes wide and the confusion and dismay evident on his face as he attempted to make sense of this. He was vaguely aware of Sophie's hand in his . Suddenly, Tobias snapped his head up to look at the staff table, squinting to try and find the person he was looking for even though she clearly wasn't there. Ignoring the bad feeling he was now getting from all these adults hanging around and now her absence, Toby's eyes raked the staff table again. But no.

"Where's Professor Tyner?" he finally said, the urgency making itself known in his voice. "I can't see her. Truebride never said she was leaving last term." Toby would remember THAT kind of information.

It was possible Dora was already missing all the physical affections she'd been receiving over summer, and was attempting to find some comfort in sitting with Mo. Which worked, but still wasn't the same. Still, her attempts at comforting him was genuine, and if she could read his thoughts she'd tell him how right he was.

"Now, that you'll have to prove with more than just words." She gave him a nudge. "I think we should do our gift exchange earlier this year."

With all the quidditch players surrounding her because of Mo, and with her trying to tune out most of the mindless chatter, Dora almost didn't hear the first year beside her whispering. She had to glance at her side, then down when noticing the seat empty before realizing he was there, then try to recall all that he had said and was still saying.

Miss Dora?

She shot him a confused look, placing a hand on the top of his head so she could carefully tilt it to get a better appraising look. "Do you call everyone Miss?" What was his name again? "Kid." Yeah.... that would work for now. Nigel got a raised eyebrow sent his direction before eyes where back on the child. "If you want a shot at being my friend, you can start by getting off the ground. Ravenclaws don't go around crawling on all fours." It wasn't becoming.

Kaiden had gotten bored over at the Hufflepuff table. Okay, maybe it wasn't good for the newly appointed prefect to say, or even think that he was bored, but, there was someone more important to see over at the Ravenclaw table. Like Girlfriend. He wanted to see her, since he had been to busy for the train ride and stuff. Wanted to let her know he hadn't meant to not visit her ride in the carriage with her. And he also wanted to you know, let her know about his new position. Even if he didn't want to you know talk about it. Somehow he felt he was making it to complicated.

And look, there she was. Wasn't she pretty? Oh, and look, Friend Huxley ….. and Moses. Great. He was not gonna sit nearer to him than he had to. Not after earlier. So, nearing the girls, he squeezed between them, and gave his girlfriend a little nudge. “Hi.” he said to them both, and resisting the urge to hide his badge.

Maddie considered this for a minute or two. It would be sort of cool to see some magic but then again, there was already some in progress, right? Like the enchanted ceiling! The small brunette glanced up at it quickly before her eyes focused on the badged boy once again. "Not specifically but if you want to do some, that'd be neat." Could he do some? He probably knew lots of spells, this boy.

Was he still playing up the chest poke thing? Boys. Maddison rolled her eyes at his antics and crossed her arms in front of her chest. "Good. Sorted then," And she paused, noting the boy's name. "Austin Moore." As for her being fiesty, the eleven year old shrugged. "Depends on the day." But yes, mostly. Like her mum that way, Maddie was.

"I'm Maddie...or Coop. Whichever."

Maddie wasn't moving just yet, did Dima know? She had a good view of things from over here but she did smile faintly at his efforts to make room. "S'okay, housemate. I'm comfy right here." But housemate! Did he catch that word? They were in the same house!

She would have said more but then Dima was on the floor. Maddie straightened up and peeked over as far as she could without knocking over her water goblet, wondering what he was up to. She grinned when she saw that he was headed in the direction of the badged girl of their house. Cause they SHARED a house now! Heh. Maddie approved.

Something told her this was the beginning of a b-e-a-utiful friendship.

Hungry, hungry hippos students. Caterina had sort of developed her own feast tradition of feeding her friends (her personal favorite chocolate chip cannoli) before the feast actually started, and considering she wanted to avoid Vivi for a while, she'd made her way over to the Ravenclaws and took up a spot near said friends just after that little boy seemed to belly flop on the ground. Was he okay? He didn't seem to be injured, so she was sure he was just fine. Little boys were springy. Yep.

"Hello." She greeted generally, passing smiles to Nigel and Sophie and Dora and Toby and pretty much everyone in the general area. Where was Blue? She was going to need to save some cannoli for her. "Cannoli?" Since she'd made sure to bring them for now specifically and all.

After she'd made known that she had treats and more than enough, she turned her attention to Mo and offered him an extra smile, he still had that sad puppy look and it made her sad too, and also: "Did you see your sister is here?" Had Vivi told him she would be here? Was she staying the whole term? Did he KNOW? "She said there's no safe place to snog." Which.... seemed to infer that she was going to BE HERE.

"Coop?" He said curiously. That was a strange nickname. "How do you get that from Maddie?" He did like that name Coop though. He could easily call her' Chicken Coop' if the need ever arose for it. He couldn't think of any instance where calling her that would be necessary, but it would be for a lot of fun.

He smirked at her. "And I'm guessing today is the day to be feisty? Today of all days too!" He chuckled. To him this was the best day of his life. He was free of embarrassment of his mother, and he could begin leaning how to use magic. He couldn't wait until he was seventeen and could use magic at home. Oh the tricks he could play.

Now that was the million galleon question. Nigel just shrugged and expected Dora to talk to him about this later in the common room. All harmless fun. Because really, Miss. He could have come up with something better than that. Before Nigel can even say his name, this kid was no his way over to Dora.

Crazy

Nigel watched amused....and there was the raised eyebrow. This kid was the awesome type of insane. Really who would do that. Guess he told Dora that Nigel told him to say hello or something.

Shrug.

Still this kid was hilarious.

Probably the exact opposite of the other first year. This one liked to analyze. There was plenty of magic in the Great Hall and when the food comes it is magical. I guess. The magic of seeing it appearing wore off to Nigel long ago. Plus he was hungry and did not want to put effort into perfroming an spells right now. Excuses for the win.

"Alright then. I'm feeling too lazy to cast anything and I'm Nigel."

....Nigel was sure there was one person missing from this little Mo circle that had going on. Now that Sophie and Toby were here that left a Cat missing. And speak of the Cat. Here she was with Cannolis. Awesome Cannolis. "Hello, Cat and of course." Free Food!

Ah seems like she noticed that Vivi was here. Nigel guessed that is what 'people watching' is good for. Observation never stalking "You know your sister is going to make this term very interesting Mo"

For Cat also, But that was too much obvious to say at once.

Jasmine was surprised when Penelope said that she was from California too. "Well that's two things we have in common. We're both from California and we both have muggle dads." Jasmine could not believe that there were three Californians that she had met at Hogwarts so far. Who would have thought that she would run into so many homies so far from home. "I'm from San Diego, what about you?, Jasmine asked Penelope.

Then Jasmine noticed a familiar face from the field trip to Peru approaching. Mika greeted the group and Jasmine pleasantly returned the greeting. "Hi Mika. How are you doing?" After a quick chat with Cris, she was gone as quickly as she had come. Jasmine hoped that she would have a chance to get to know Mika better, but under less stressful circumstances. She seemed to be a really nice person.

So, Tobias did remember him! Cool. And he also remembered that he had graduated. Jory winked. "You'll find out about it soon enough, I suppose,'' was all he said. When was the Headmistress going to give her speech, anyway?

The YATI returned to scanning the Hall, his right hand fidgeting close to his wand... just in case as he listened to the conversation about the cancelled Quidditch. Well, it was very clear Tobias was in the dark about what was going on. MLE employees being there did have something to do with it.

Jory's eyes passed over the Hufflepuff table. What would he do to be a student once more sitting there.

She wasn't going to come sit by him? Dima's face fell a little, but that was okay. He had to go say hi to the girl Prefect anyway per the other Prefect's implied requests, and that was just gonna bring him closer to Maddie, right? Diagonal to her if he'd counted the seats right.

So he would come to HER.

'Cause that's what friends did and all.

"Your co-Prefect said you only liked to be called Miss Dora," Dima responded earnestly, a confused expression crossing his face as he wriggled into the empty spot beside her. Was the other guy LYING? Were Prefects even allowed to lie? That was mean. And probably illegal too.

Shame on you, co-Prefect.

Pause. "Why not? The floor's pretty clean! And you can see stuff without people noticing you, so it's good for watching! And I didn't want to bother you if you didn't want to be bothered, and I could go back real quick if you sent me away 'cause I was already halfway there." See? It was a GOOD thing. "But I won't crawl when you're around if you don't want me to. So we can still be friends!"

"We shouldn't have to." Pause. "You shouldn't have to. It's your last term." In case he forgot. Then, in a regretful, soft voice, she added somberly, "B'we were gonna win the Quidditch Cup for you. We were. We were moving up in the standings, and this was gonna be it." No offense, Tobes. Sophie looked around at the rest of the team nearby for additional support, though she knew they had felt the forthcoming victory, too.

Locking her gaze onto the young woman in question, the third year smiled. "That's Max's girlfriend?" She scrutinized her for a long moment, observing her mannerisms and general demeanor before adding, impressed, "Huh. He wasn't kidding, was he? She is beautiful." Like, freakishly so. "So how in the world did my nerd of a cousin win her heart?" It was more of a statement of astonishment than a question, laced with a bit of teasing, for she already knew Max had pursued Vivi for a long while. Still. Sophie was a bit baffled that a girl like Mo's sister had chosen her cousin.

"...She looks kinda sassy."

Quote:

Originally Posted by Felixir

By this point Toby had squeezed into the space on at the Ravenclaw table, happy to be sat alongside Soph and across from Mo and with a whole BUNCH of prospective new Ravenclaw friends. He'd never actually sat at this table before, had only ever ventured over to the Slytherin table once to ask Derry for homework help. It was weird how sitting at a different table gave you a whole different perspective on th-

A particular string of words met Toby's ears and he whipped his head around to look at Sophie, and then at Mo, his usual smile gone from his features. Had he just heard...?

Quidditch.............. cancelled? But... why?

Toby sat, blue eyes wide and the confusion and dismay evident on his face as he attempted to make sense of this. He was vaguely aware of Sophie's hand in his . Suddenly, Tobias snapped his head up to look at the staff table, squinting to try and find the person he was looking for even though she clearly wasn't there. Ignoring the bad feeling he was now getting from all these adults hanging around and now her absence, Toby's eyes raked the staff table again. But no.

"Where's Professor Tyner?" he finally said, the urgency making itself known in his voice. "I can't see her. Truebridge never said she was leaving last term." Toby would remember THAT kind of information.

Sophie was focused upon Toby's hand in hers now, looking down at it between them while Toby expressed his dismay. She was sad for him, and for herself, for Ravenclaws, and for all the Quidditch players - but mostly for him right now, and she gently stroked her thumb over his before looking up at him. "Dunno. Probably... out of a job, I guess, and probably just recently, whenever the threat of this danger came about. Shame the Headmistress didn't give her a home here out of courtesy. Or... maybe it wasn't safe for her here?" Or maybe the woman was just late. Sophie had no idea and was just talking, but hoped the more she talked, the less likely Toby would be to go storm the staff table or something. "Maybe she'll explain during the speech." Another encouraging hand-squeeze.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Colley

Hungry, hungry hippos students. Caterina had sort of developed her own feast tradition of feeding her friends (her personal favorite chocolate chip cannoli) before the feast actually started, and considering she wanted to avoid Vivi for a while, she'd made her way over to the Ravenclaws and took up a spot near said friends just after that little boy seemed to belly flop on the ground. Was he okay? He didn't seem to be injured, so she was sure he was just fine. Little boys were springy. Yep.

"Hello." She greeted generally, passing smiles to Nigel and Sophie and Dora and Toby and pretty much everyone in the general area. Where was Blue? She was going to need to save some cannoli for her. "Cannoli?" Since she'd made sure to bring them for now specifically and all.

Though the mood was pretty sufficiently killed, Sophie still lit up at the sight of Cat. Or, at least, as much as she could with sad faces around her trying to drag her back down. But the Slytherin was a ray of sunshine and Sophie let that radiation of warmth bring a smile to her face. "Meeeee." Cannoli, please. Always. IT WAS TRADITION. "And one for Tobes, please." He needed the cheering up.

Penelope was surprised that she and Jasmine both had muggle dads from California. How much more did they have in common? "I'm from around San Francisco. I have a bunch of cousins who live in southern California." Penelope was amazed that Hogwarts accepted students from all over the world. "Do you have any pets? I have an owl here and a dog at home," Penelope asked Jasmine.

Penelope noticed a girl come over and talk to Cris and say hi to Jasmine. "Who was that girl, Mika? What was she talking about, the mountain trolls and everything?" It must have been pretty bad if Cris needed to be saved from mountain trolls.

"You don't." Maddie shrugged and eyed him eyeing her. It was sort of obvious that Coop didn't come from Maddie, wasn't it? Maddison thought so but she'd throw him a bone since he wasn't calling her snooty anymore. "M'last name is Cooper." So Coop. It was a thing.

"Guess so. Doesn't really have an off switch." She could turn it up, of course, but that was about all. Indressano women never lost their sass. That's what he mum liked to say, anyway. And since Maddie was destined to be a lot like her Mum and her Nonna, it seemed legit.


Lazy?

Maddison raised her eyebrows slightly. Was this just an occasional thing with him or was laziness something he displayed often? And if so, were the other badged people lazy too? Was it really that easy to get a badge? She'd need to ask about this later. Wouldn't want the lazy badged boy to overexert himself.

"Hi Nigel. I'm Maddie Cooper." THE Maddie Cooper. He should totally make a mental note of her name cause she was gonna BE someone important.

Maddie was still observing and the fact that Dima had gotten closer hadn't escaped her. She also observed the badged person he was now talking to and noted that she didn't seem particularly friendly. Different from the Nigel guy, that was for sure. Hm. More mental notes were being taken.

What did all these badged people have in common, anyway? That's what she wanted to know. She also wanted to scope out the Head Boy and Head Girl for reasons. Did they get crowns or something cause they SHOULD. They'd be easier to spot that way.

"Oh." He responded, kicking his feet underneath the table. Kyroh usually didn't care for people teasing him, especially people he didn't know.

Who gives a...Kyrohs eyes opened up.

She swore. SHE SWORE SHE DID!

He looked around trying to see if anyone else had heard her utter the bad word, but it didn't seem like it. Maybe you were just allowed to swear at Hogwarts? Well if there were no parents around and only Professors around sometimes they couldn't check to make sure kids weren't saying bad words all the time right?

Woah. Was that cool? He wasn't even sure. "You just said a bad word." Did she even know?

Her words almost went completely over his head until she made a sudden poking gesture, grabbing his attention again.

The girls dad was a Hufflepuff? It had never occurred to him that maybe some other people at Hogwarts were in houses that they parents weren't in. That had to be the case right? So his dad couldn't be upset right? He was still like him sometimes!

"I like conversations." He paused. "And I don't want to be pretentious." Especially considering the fact that he had no clue what that word meant and he'd have to look it up later."Do Ravenclaws not like the Lions and Snakes?" Was that like nicknames for Gryffindors and Slytherins?

But suddenly being not being a Slytherin didn't seem too bad.

Kyroh just stared at the girl and suddenly a small smile crept onto his face. "I think I might like Ravenclaw." This girl didn't make it sound too bad Whaat. And he didn't even know her name! "I'm Kyroh by the way, what's your name?"

So Penelope was from San Francisco. That was a place that Jasmine always enjoyed visiting. "I really like San Francisco. It's a really cool city." Jasmine smiled when Penelope asked her about pets. "I have a dog, but that's it for me. I'm hoping to get a pygmy puff one day though.". Laughing she said, "You should ask Cris about his pets."

Penelope was curious about Mika and the mountain trolls. How could Jasmine explain the drama that was the summer field trip? "Mika is a seventh year. We all met on the school's field trip to Peru this summer. It was pretty crazy and the mountain trolls were just one of the strange things we encountered. Cris saved quite a few people on that trip, including me." Jasmine thought back to that trip. It almost seemed like a dream nightmare. They were all very fortunate to make it back safely.

"Now see, if you had led with 'I'm Maddie Cooper', I would have known where Coop came from." He smirked again. He decided he was just going to call her Coop. It was an easier name to remember, especially since he wasn't all that great with names and faces. He was loving her sass though. It was like they were in a sass battle or something. Whatever it was, he wasn't going to back down from it.

"No off switch?" He sounded shocked, like this was brand new news for him. "So you're just sassy on good days, and on bad days you're extremely sassy?"

Ugh, it was like punch after punch to the gut, each time one of his kiddos found out. Mo grimaced as Toby took in the news, and then he leaned forward conspiratorially. Both Soph and Toby were in on this particular conspiracy. "I dunno where she is, but we can go look for her. But we'll... find time to keep you in shape for U-17, and get me ready for professional tryouts. And get Soph ready to try out for U-17, if she wants. Ok?"

"Let's do the exchange... tonight," Mo grinned at Dora and squeezed her again. Maybe not tonight, though, since they needed to have some sort of excitement for the little sprogs. "Tomorrow at the latest. You're going to love your gift."

Or probably not. Doras were very hard to shop for, and Mo knew that MOSTLY she just appreciated the effort from him. And the feeling was mutual. He leaned lightly against Dora for a moment before letting her go. "I miss Ace."

Ah, Kaiden. Super awkward thingy. Mo nodded at the other seventh year, just a polite acknowledgement of a peer person. It was no secret Kaiden hadn't ever really been much of a fan of him, but he'd put up with Mo's fit on the train with reasonable aplomb. "Congrats on the badge, mate. You're dead lucky Alec graduated or you'd be stuck in the same boat as West and I."

That was an apology. Couldn't he tell?

Girlfriend was here. Mo's end of the table was particularly crowded, but he still budged over to let her slid in between himself and Nigel. And cannoli, so yes. Cats made things so much better. He put an arm around her and stuffed a whole cannoli in his mouth. "D'youhearboutQuidditch?" He swallowed and tried again. "Quidditch?"

She knew. She did. "Vivi. She's... an Auror, so I guess we need bodyguards or something. Ignore her, 'cause I always do and I've made it to 17."

"Let's just assume we would have won and call it a done thing. RAVENCLAW CHAMPIONS OF EVERYTHING." Mo shook both fists in the air in celebration of their Cup. 'Cause it was going to be theirs this term, and now... now he'd never win a Cup. Oh, well.

He watched Vivi too, although she wasn't particularly interesting, so he soon turned his attention back to Sophie. "Look, here's something true that you need to know about the world. Your cousin is a famous Quidditch player and not bad looking, and girls throw themselves at him. Vivi's more than just sassy... so maybe they make sense in some way I don't get at all, but don't act surprised that Max can get a girlfriend worth having. He could date anyone." But Mo was loyal to a fault, and he wasn't sure that Max could do better than a Branxton.

Hey, there was a kid on the floor. "Hey. Hey, kid... person. You. Come up here and have a cannoli. You can sit by Dora and be her new best friend, 'cause her old best friend graduated and she's in the market for one." Dora got a look that was pure sass, but Mo did scoot them all down the bench to make room for the crawler.

"What are you called?"

Hope stared down the table and gave a small wave to her American friend. It had been a while since she had heard from Gwen. She however turned her attention right back onto Mo.

Hope laughed and ran a hand through her hair trying to fix it back up, after all she had only spent the whole last year with little to no hair. All grey in color. "Exactly! So let's just keep in shape until then. I vote yoga days on Wednesdays." At least she might be able to keep up this time without her joints hurting.

"Yes! I love it!" She could already see it now. Her and the team just laughing and playing around the common room. They could get food and drinks from the kitchen, although they would probably get their fill at the feast. Who cared? Not her. "What should we do?"

Tonight? That was a lot sooner than she planned, but she figured it could be possible if they waited until after everyone was asleep from all the excitement of the day. Or they could wait until tomorrow. She nodded. Dora liked that plan a lot better. "Give me a hint." A hint couldn't hurt, right? Right.

"I think you'll love yours too." She couldn't be certain since Mo was still a challenge to shop for, but a fun one. And this gift had been fun for her since it involved some work on her part and had sort of came to be right when she'd done Alice's gift.

........ yeah. Yeah.

Dora managed to keep her back straight and not deflate completely at that statement, but she could stop her expression from doing so and turned away in attempts to school it back into place.

Yeah. "........ Me too."

She was looking for a distraction and sort of found one in Cat. Not really a good person to distract her from her thoughts considering, but it was better than actually talking about how much she missed Alice. And she wouldn't bring up the girl, right? No. "Hey, Cat." She smiled faintly at the girl, and helped make room for her. "I'll take one of those." Always better than the elves cooking, hers was.

Huh. "That's what he told you?" That was... actually amusing. And she didn't think it'd last long, but she could have some fun with it. "My friends just call me Dora. If you ever get to be one, you can drop the miss." She winked at him solemnly.

And this kid was talking a LOT. Did it ever come to an end? Could it? This was sort of why Dora didn't like having little ones around, they sort of didn't shut-up. They were also messy in the gross sort of way.

She was about to attempt a reply when Mo spoke up and Dora turned her head to scowl at him. He really did know how to mess with her when he wanted. "Don't listen to him, kid." She turned her attention back to him, though the annoyed look still remained and irritation was evident in her voice. "I only have one best friend and she won't be replaced." Ever. Mo could stop the joke there now.