MANDATORY.

Well that word was never good. It for sure meant the class would not be fun and it would be a serious lecture full class and did he mention not fun. Because that was the most important part. Well Dante had common sense and he brought his wand everywhere. It was something that kept him from doing incredibly stupid things at this school. Shrug. Save yourself or live to fight another day.

Both worked though Dante liked the second best.

Though he missed Professor Romanos. Especially when the accent can be heard. It made him smile. It was just so cool. It would be even cooler if a Professor was in this room right now just invisible and was spying on the students. If some people took naps or just started going crazy. Then the Professor could leap out and zap them and be all sneaky like.

Just some random thoughts brought to you by Dante Barrington.

What. A. Week. First a death, now the first DADA lesson of the term. Presumably thanks to the Slytherin's death, with the Headmistress' comment on their common sense. Which she thought unnecessary since not everyone was dumb enough to go into the Forbidden Forest and anger the Acromantaculas for who even why at this point, but she would forgive because the Headmistress was probably still trying to process everything. Merlin knew she was. It was a shock to the system, even though she hadn't known the dead student that well at all.

Heather entered the classroom, prepared to see upset, possibly glaring professors. Instead, she just saw an empty room with one classmate in it. Ooooooookay. The professor's weren't going to like, test their defenses and common sense by just throwing something on them, right? Because that would just be cruel considering recent events. Either way, she wasn't going to risk getting in trouble and took a seat on one of the usual mats laid out on the floor.

Speaking of the mats, was Professor Romanos going to teach this lesson? Where had she been all term anyway?

Mandatory Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson, huh? Adi knew very well that this was something serious so he made his way to the classroom, trying not to yawn every second. He was a little (or maybe a whole lot) sleep deprived. Into the classroom he walked. No Professor was around but there were students.

"Hey, Dante.'' The Snake got a grin as well as Heather. Soooo... what was this lesson going to be all about? There was nothing to do but wait, obviously. In the meanwhile...YAAAAWN! Adi did cover his mouth, of course. Hehe.

Mandatory DADA lesson? Now what was going on? Kace had hardly seen Professor Romanos all term and now hearing about Gregorie's death in the forest, this was all a bit confusing to say the least. He couldn't believe the Slytherin died and he was just getting to know him. He hoped the school would hold a funeral for him or something. As he got into the classroom and noticed his fellow prefect and two other students were already there. He nodded to both of them and waved to Adi. Then looking around he realized there wasn't any matts?

Erm....were they supposed to sit down or stand and wait for the professor to get here? Or even was the headmistress supposed to teach the lesson? All excellent questions that would not be answered in time. The big puff remained standing until he was told further otherwise.

Mandatory? Even after she looked the word up in the dictionary Norah didn't think it made much sense, because didn't she have to go to all lessons anyways? She could've slept through a whole lot of Arithmancy if that hadn;t been the case, uh huh. The third year entered the room and peered curiously around, but there wasn't even a professor to say hello to. Oooookay then. She was just going to stand in the corner then, yep.

Austin walked into the mandatory DADA lesson, unaware of the news. He hadn't really tried to make it to any of the other lessons, mainly because he didn't think it was necessary. Let's rephrase that. He didn't think it was necessary for him. He was planning on being a healer, so defending ones self was not something he was going to need in the future. Sure, it was important for other students who wanted to become Aurors, but not Austin Moore. He just needed to know the basics of defense spells.

But this class was mandatory, and with the weird air that's been hanging around Hogwarts, maybe it was important he went. He wanted to walk down with Ophelia, but she wasn't to be found in the common room. She was probably getting ready for the lesson, so he assumed he would meet her here. Hopefully she got the message that this was an important lesson. She would need to learn about defense spells. Austin would feel better if she did. Sure, she didn't need protecting, she could easily sass her way out of any situation. But Austin cared about her and her safety. That was something he had come to terms with recently. Austin Moore cared about Ophelia Clarke. More than he was going to let on, though. No way was she going to know about that. The beginning of the year showed him that.

Anyways, he took a seat away from the other students, his usual routine, and decided to people watch until class started.

Mandatory lesson? Confused Lux was confused. Things had been really odd lately. On top of the large swamp and strange presence on Halloween, there was Professor Romanos' strange absence and of course poor Gregoire's death. Even though she hadn't known the boy too well, she had still liked him and was sad about his passing.

Entering the classroom, she waved to Adi, Kace, and Norah before taking her seat. Hopefully Romanos would arrive soon because she really wanted to know what was going on.

Firstly, Eden had no clue Romanos was gone. Where had she BEEN? Under a ROCK? Well, okay. She'd NOTICED the lack of DADA lessons, of course......but....well oops. She felt really dumb. But anyways---mandatory lesson thing.

Should be fun...?

Ish?

The Ravenclaw, who felt very clueless, saw Kace and Adi and Lux(wow, all HUFFLEPUFFERS!) and waved at them all before taking a seat. Oh---she quickly hopped back up to open a window because THE SUNSHINE WAS CALLING. And Eden wanted some FRESH air in the musky old castle.

MANDATORY

For some reason, Cora wasn't sure as to how to take that word. She had always been lead to believe that all their lessons were mandatory. Wasn't that why they were held? Lessons were meant to be attended and there was nothing less. Perhaps some students had to be reminded of that or something.

Popping her head first into the classroom, Cora slowly entered and glanced around. That was some thing different, she thought to herself. There wasn't a professor present yet and that slowly raised a red flag in the back of her mind. There was usually a professor present or at least a note on the board and there was neither at the moment.

Something was amiss she reasoned as she attempted to be even more aware of her surroundings.

A mandatory DADA lesson. Nicole wondered what it meant. She knew the definition of mandatory, but she had never heard of a lesson that everybody had to participate in. It was probably related to something bad. Possibly related to the Slytherin boy's death.

She had her wand in her bag and hopefully still had her common sense in her mind as she headed down to the DADA classroom. The first thing the Ravenclaw noticed was that there were no Professors in the room. Out of habit, she looked around with her eyes narrowed if she could feel an invisible DADA Professor ready to scare the students all of a sudden. Hogwarts had certainly taught her "constant vigilance". She understood what Oleander had meant back in the summer.

Nicole smiled at her friends Adi and Lux before she took a seat at the front of the classroom. She continued scanning the room while she waited for the lesson to begin.

Cilla was feeling very nervous as she entered the classroom. This was a mandatory lesson so she was determined to push herself as much as possible no matter the cost to her. When she looked around and saw the lack of any professors it slightly freaked her out.

Penelope was nervous about this lesson. Everything about this lesson worried her. It was mandatory. That was never a good sign. She hadn't seen Professor Romanos around the school recently. Actually, she was fairly sure that they hadn't had any DADA lessons for a very long time. Was Romanos back? Were they getting a new DADA professor for some reason? Why was this lesson mandatory? Looking around the classroom, Penelope noticed a lack of the usual yoga mats, and there didn't seem to be any professors around. Perhaps Professor Romanos was not back. Who would be teaching the class?

Sophie hadn't minded the lack of Defense Against the Dark Arts lessons this term thus far. It wasn't her weakest subject by any means, and she had kept up with her OWL studies on the subject on her own time. Luckily, she was a great independent studier - even if her studies had drifted to the patronus charm and lingered there for a long while, eh hem - and she was holding her own just fine.

Still, she did miss Romanos and her weird ways of making Zander crazy and all the yoga mat nonsense that always reminded her of Mo. It didn't matter now, though, did it? There was finally going to be a lesson, things were going to go back to normal...

...or not. No professors present, no yoga mats... hmm. So... maybe it WASN'T a proper lesson. Mandatory, though, which... surely meant SOME kind of important information was going to be shared then, hmm? And... oh. Ohhhhhhhh.

That kind of mandatory defense lesson.

Yes. Sophie thought she knew what this was going to be about.

For now, since there was no one there to tell them what to do and she was sure Romanos wasn't going to be there with them, Sophie wandered over to the windows and opened one Eden hadn't already opened and stood by it, letting the fresh air engulf her as she peered out over the grounds. Taking in the calm before the storm.

A mandatory lesson? Okay he knew he had to take classes and that his schedule was always mandatory but he had never seen the word MANDATORY in front of the lesson. And why defence class? Did the Professor came back? So many questions ran through his mind as he entered the room But one in particular. ... WHERE was his best friend?! He knew that being a Prefect must be hard work but COME ON!

He spotted Sophie Brown near one of the windows and immediately walked to her after seeing no Professor. He knew she was a friend of the Prefect as well and he needed information. "Oi Brown" he called as he walked towards her. "Have you seen Zander lately? I need to tell him something but I feel like hes avoiding me! " it was clear that he was annoyed.

Mandatory lesson?

Why in the world this DADA lesson was called mandatory? Something's bad had happened maybe, Bianca thought. Honestly she was kinda dragging herself away from the issue since the biggest issue that she would face soon was her NEWTs. So while she was not attending classes, she preferred locked herself at the dorm preparing for the NEWTs and sometimes she just baked some good treats for herself.

Wait, was it really the first lesson of Defense Against the Dark Arts since the term had started? Wow, she didn't remember.

The brunette senior walked to the classroom after she concealed her pretty tired face due to NEWTs stress with make up. Hopefully nobody would realized that. As she entered the classroom, there was no Professor there. Where was Romanos? She was going to teach, right? She did love how she taught the lessons along with yoga. There were some students there and she was too lazy to greet them (first, she just knew some of them and second she acted like she was invisible now). Bianca decided to sit at the back row by herself.

The first thought that had come to Brooklyn’s mind when she’d seen the notice for a mandatory DADA lesson was to not come. She hadn’t thought about people dying, or the fact she hadn’t remembered seeing Professor Romanos around the castle all term. She’d just thought about not showing up just to see if the mandatory thing was really going to be enforced. Although the people dying thing hadn’t exactly been out of her mind altogether. It was sort of irritating, and the tiny redhead almost felt like it was back at the beginning of term when he’d gotten them all in trouble. She didn’t forget those things, and even death didn’t change that. At least Slytherin hadn’t lost points for it, to her knowledge. That would have irritated her even more.

In any case, she’d ended up coming to the lesson. She liked DADA well enough that the idea of not coming hadn’t really been serious, and she was curious anyhow. Especially as she’d walked into the classroom and found no mats on the floor and no professor. That was definitely weird, but she narrowed her eyes for a moment and looked around just in case she’d be able to tell if there was someone invisible. Being invisible was kind of rude, but it was possible in DADA. The missing mats were a bigger problem, since she had nowhere to sit. Maybe she should’ve brought her blanket like she’d done when she went outside earlier in the week, but she hadn’t. Standing was going to get annoying awfully quick, especially if there wasn’t a professor in the room to distract her.

A stony-faced Toby made his way for to the DADA classroom for this mandatory lesson, just as the notice board had instructed. He was thinking about all sorts of things, but mostly attempting to focus on the question of whether this mandatory lesson would be taught by Professor Romanos, and if she was back from wherever she was. It felt better to focus on that than on other things, for sure.

He entered the classroom and looked around, though not really taking much in. After a moment he went ahead and found himself a space off to the side of the room and waited for the lesson to start, quite preoccupied with his thoughts. Hopefully he had the right amount of the required common sense for today, yeah?

Angel was confused about this, she had never been forced to go to a mandatory lesson before and when she arrived there was no signed of a Professor, she was wondering what was going on but she was sure she would find out once the Professor got there.

Angel looked around and sighed as she went over and sat away from the rest, she was still trying to figure out why Professor Romanos or any professor for that matter wasn't there to greet them like they normally was.

Mandatory. She couldn't believe it. Was it because no one saw Professor Romanos? Emmylou was wondering where she was too but mandatory. Maybe it could be about that Slytherin boy? It was sad and the fifth year really didn't know that much about what really happened. She wasn't sure if she wanted to know what happened. Just thinking about it made her want to cry, she probably only talked to him once or twice since being at Hogwarts.

To keep her mind off of it Emmylou thought about where the professor could be or what this lesson was going to be like. She wondered if Romanos would be here or if another professor would be taking her place for the time being. Emmylou looked around the classroom. It was very strange to be here after not being here all term. As she looked around she found a seat next to her boyfriend Kace. "Hey." Emmylou whispered to Kace. She wondered where Cinna was or if she was coming but she had to be here it's mandatory.

The words mandatory, all written in capital letters on the noticeboard were not exactly something that could be ignored, were they? Layla had taken DADA as a subject anyway, it was one of those that she considered to be entirely useful in the future. Despite the fact that she was sure that she would end up pursuing a muggle route, perhaps in connection with her talents in sports like her brother, there was every chance that she’d have to use defensive spells in some context or another hence her appearance here.

She walked into the classroom and immediately spotted her dormmate Eden whom she proceeded to flop next to. Wasn’t like she knew any of these others anyway, their faces were vaguely familiar though but not familiar enough for acknowledgment. There was no professor in the room so the brunette got a ‘hey’ in greeting. As for what they were planning to do in this lesson was questionable. It seemed important, Layla wasn’t particularly clued up in the current affairs of Hogwarts and so was oblivious – the way she liked it.

Still important lesson meant giving all her attention, didn’t it?

Not good not good not good.

Thornton did not like this one bit. He hurried into the room and promptly took a seat by himself, chewing his lip nervously. Mandatory. That word, in Thornton's experience, was never good. Because if it were a good thing, it wouldn't need to be mandatory to get students to show up.

So this was NOT GOOD. Thornton looked around the room to see who else was here. And if anyone had any idea what was going on.

Margo was beginning to wonder if they were ever going to have a Defense against the dark arts lesson. She had been looking forward to these lessons and nothing had happened all term!! So Margo was pretty excited to see that a lesson was going to take place.

And after reading the notice board it said MANDATORY! So with out further ado Margo bounced her way into the classroom and looked around. She felt like she had been out of the loop for so long. She had some family issues come up and haven't really been in the mood or much. But now that everything was sorted out back at home Margo was all smiles again. She was actually happy for the first time in what felt like months.

Margo looked around for a Professor, but didn't see one, oh well, she was sure one would show up eventually.

A mandatory lesson?

Hady wasn't sure what was going on but she had several theories all of which she would keep to herself. So when the time neared for the DADA lesson she had made her way there without much worry. Quietly entering the room she noticed her fellow mates and have a nod at each of them also seeing the Professor wasn't here yet.

Sighing softly she moved off to the side standing alone and simply taking everything in. There was no need to question what was going on cause she was sure they'd all find out soon enough.

Janelle was curious about the mandatory Defense Against the Dark Arts class. Mandatory made it serious and that was a little troubling. She entered the room not knowing what to expect. Seeing that most of her classmates had already arrived, Janelle looked for an empty spot to occupy.

Not seeing any Professors yet increased Janelle's curiosity. Nothing she could do but wait though, so that's that what she did. She would bide her time by checking out the others in the room.