Sam let Marchand guide her to the chair, gripping the plush seat tightly between her fingers once she'd sat down. He got nods at the offer of drying her too, although her gaze lingered on the stage, and the intricate spellwork Hirsch and the Headmistress appeared to be doing there.

The Professor's question drew her gaze back to him, and Sam tentatively felt her cheek, pressing her fingers over the flesh to check all was back to normal. "Mm, thanks," she quietly confirmed with a nod. She was more comfortable, if comfortable could be considered the right word. She wasn't sure it was though. She still felt so...displaced...from where she remembered being, what she remembered doing...

As hard as she tried, it was a blank. Not even a blur. Just...blank. It was almost as if...her memory had been wiped.

Had it?

She looked at him doubtfully as he mentioned how proud he was of her. She didn't feel brave, although she supposed the Head of Gryffindor House should know. Confused and scared were much better words. Frightened, perhaps. Although if Sam Tyler was anything, she was a survivor. She wouldn't lash out unless properly threatened, and her Pa had taught her that panicking in the face of danger did no one any good.

Sam ran her hands through the fluffy curls of her no longer damp hair, and frowned. "You said...mysteriously, sir." She swallowed slowly. "H-h-how did I end up 'ere? I-i-is it related to what Hirsch and the Headmistress are doin'?"

__________________

Paul's eyes began to slowly blink, no longer stricken with that wide-eyed, terrified look. His mouth closed, that perfect O turning into a thin-lipped line. He almost looked...peaceful, as things settled down within his body, the pain lessening, hopefully.

Soon enough, he'd wake up feeling in tip-top shape? Or.....less........miserable state? The Herbology professor looked very old, lying there, with his vivacious spirit zapped from him. The lines on his face were more defined, and his old, papery skin looked whiter than ever.

With the pain lessening in her body, maybe you could tell from the look on her face maybe you couldn’t but her mouth that was open wide in pain was closed. Her wide eyes were blinking slowly now. Her strangely arranged limbs seem to be straightening out a bit.

Yes, Abey's loyal attack and guard dog was quite literally ready to BITE Skylar's hand off because NO, she should NOT be touching his best mate right now. Unsolicited touch from those the Gryffindor did not trust nor were in his inner circle of friendship were just going to cause damage right now.

But just as he was about to do so, the Headmistress' spell struck him and quite literally blew him over and tumbling across the room away from Junia and away from Abey. Yelping like a wounded cruppy, Derf really DID foam at the mouth for a moment as he attempted to scramble to his feet and thrust out his empty wand hand to shoot...well...he wasn't really sure WHAT spell he was about to shoot off but he was under the impression that he had just been attacked some how. Curse reacting to others being in close proximity, perhaps? In any case, an empty hand was going to get him no where and he wasn't even sure WHERE his fwooper core wand was at the moment (it had actually inconveniently slid across the floor a few feet away from him) so his next instinct was to look for Abey when instead his blues fell upon the bubble of sorts the Headmistress and Professor Hirsch had encapsulated themselves and the victims in.

..........and their mouths were CLOSED now.

"ABEY!" Derf hissed, scrambling on his knees over to his Gryffindor. "Abey...look...Junia is looking better. Go on...look..." he coaxed softly, staying close and with a hand on his friend's back just to let him know that yes, the Hufflepuff was STILL there.

Professor Myers on the other hand...well...he looked like he needed to retire after this term. Derf had never really thought about the man being OLD old per say...but now he looked like the bits of ash left over in the fireplace come morning.

Gaston kept a watchful eye on Skylar, ready to react if [COLOR="black"Derfael[/COLOR] swatted her, but luckily Hawthorne's bubble spell forced him back before that happened. With that crisis averted, he tried to block out the yelping as he refocused his attention on Sam. She still seemed disoriented- perfectly understandable, considering what she'd just been through- but at least now she was dry and her face back to normal (?) He couldn't help but smile just the tiniest bit when she thanked him. "Good, I'm glad I could help."

He immediately noticed her doubtful expression when he told her how brave she was, and he nodded slightly to underscore the sincerity of his words. He meant what he said from the bottom of his heart! He could hardly fathom how she was staying so polite and calm, despite everything that had happened... which was more than he could say for many others in the room.

Then she started asking questions about how she got here and what Hirsch and Hawthorne were doing. He knew it was only a matter of time before she demanded answers, but he wasn't sure how to give them. How could he tell her she'd inadvertently cursed three people? He supposed he'd better start with the easier question. "This is going to come as a shock to you..." he warned, giving her a moment or two to prepare herself before he went on. "I don't know exactly how you got here, but when you arrived you weren't yourself. I think you were cursed or posessed... or something. You were in a trancelike state and not responding to anything around you; you just kept saying, Expose the inequality. End the struggle."

He sighed, running a hand through his dark hair as his eyes drifted to Hirsch, Hawthorne, and the three curse victims. From what he could see, they appeared to be doing at least a little better now; they weren't flailing around like they were before. But that did little to ease his mind right now. "It does," he replied, looking sadly back at Sam. "When you got here, you had three packages. I don't know where they came from or how you got them, but the objects inside were cursed. And the three people who touched them..." He had to swallow the lump rising in his throat before he could finish that sentence. "...are being tended by Professor Hirsch and Headmistress Hawthorne."

He waited for the reaction to follow, bracing himself for the polite calm to turn to hysterical anger. "This wasn't your fault, Sam," he assured her, though he doubted she'd believe it. He knew he wouldn't if he were in her place! "I don't know what happened to you, but I know you would never hurt innocent people."

Well that had gone..

differently than he had pictured it going in his head.

Usually his words didn’t make people cry. There had been that one time in sixth year when he had accidentally made a small Hufflepuff first year cry by swearing when she had run into him. But ever since then, he’d been doing all right on the not making people burst into tears thing.

This was why he wasn’t a healer. His older brother Chase had the empathy thing as well as the bedside manner. Kalen.. did not. He hadn’t wanted to just grab the boys and drag them back either, he wasn’t that type of person. He had tried to use his words, but that had gone just swimmingly and caused the young boy to have a breakdown. He also fully ignored the dagger eyes he was getting from a few of the kids. He was here to keep them safe, not be their friend.

And then Regina had knocked them all back, Kalen had kept his feet of course as he looked around.

Gaston was still talking to Sam, Hirsch and Regina were in a bubble which left all the rest of the kids to him.

“All right everyone, I will be escorting you back to your common rooms or wherever you need to go. So please follow me. ” He said as he motioned to the kids sitting down, “Let’s go. Miss Diggory, you too please.” He said as he urged the girl up.

“Mr. Botros, Mr Ashburry-Hawthorne. You two may stay, but do not go any closer.” Kalen said as he looked at the boys and then over at the cursed victims.

He nodded as he saw they seemed to be looking better, and he motioned to the other kids. “Everyone else! Come with me.”

Uuuuhhhhhhh, no.

There was a reason she'd asked Professor Hirsch to escort her somewhere if it was an absolute necessity. Like hell was Mr. Kennedy (Mr. Gives Strange Looks and Judge everything) going to escort her to her lab. For starters, he'd ask more questions than she'd have liked and would probably have found more things to frown upon than just a theory of undead birds hung up somewhere along the wall.

No thanks.

The Ravenclaw remained firmly planted in her seat as she'd been since she was first instructed to take that seat, blue eyes locked on her Head of House. He was...more or less, privvy to everything she got up to and by now she was sure he wouldn't have done more than tell her to be careful and head for the Common Room straight after. Worst case, he'd wanna go in and check how things were going with Galileo and Apollo which wasn't a horrid case at all. Who knew, maybe he'd give her some new insights.

If exceptions could be made for Derf and Abey, then she didn't see why they couldn't be made for her to. Afterall, Derf wasn't related to either Junia or Abey, he was just a concerned friend trying to be supportive--like others in the room were. He just happened to be the most passionate about it. She was concerned and could be passionate too. She wouldn't stand for a botched potion. Those ingredients weren't the easiest to come by and her supply was running ridiculously low.

'This is going to come as a shock to you...'

Her stomach sank as she heard those words. Sam was generally pretty hard to shock; she'd seen a lot of things she probably shouldn't have growing up around Knockturn Alley. Not many students came into Hogwarts being able to see the thestrals drawing the carriages, did they? But still, it was enough to know she hadn't just stumbled into an unfortunate play rehearsal whilst sleep walking.

Cursed...possessed...trance-like...

Her stomach knotted with each of those words. She had no memory of how she got here, because, somehow, someone was controlling her. That's what he was trying to say, wasn't it?

A shiver ran down her spine. But that wasn't the end of it. Seeing him glance to the stage, to Hirsch and the Headmistress, still doing that intricate work, it dawned on Sam who might have caused them to need to do it in the first place. The blood drained from her face.

She was the reason they looked so pained.

She gulped for air, suddenly feeling light-headed and her shoulders beginning to quiver. She didn't know how to process that information. Someone had used her to hurt the three of them. A housemate. Astrea's best friend. One of her favourite Professors.

She'd given them cursed objects. It felt like her fault, whatever Marchand said.

"B-b-but...someone controlled me. H-h-how could they do that?"

Even through all the seriousness and concentration that was going into curing the curse, he still noticed the use of another spell from Regina. One that caused the people nearby to be blown away by a gust of wind. Hirsch, however, felt blown away for completely different reasons, causing his eyebrows to shoot right up. That...... was one way to handle that situation.

Something to break his attention from the counter curse was the sound of someone asking him a question. Hirsch glanced around until his eyes fell on one Jessa Cambridge who...... wanted to be escorted somewhere else first? He didn’t have to use up a lot of guesses to figure out where and for what reason but he didn’t have time to question it. Not when a bubble appeared around himself, Regina and the victims. Not being able to communicate with words, he simply nodded at her and then gave a nod to Kalen as well. She would have to stay exactly where she is, though.

Something that helped? Silence.

The Defence Professor turned his attention back to the victims and moved his wand over them again, mentally chanting that familiar spell. If it wasn’t such a dangerous situation, he would’ve taken the time to appreciate how synchronised his and Regina’s movements currently were. The same steady wand movement, even down to the smallest twitch. It was something to be proud about, something to feel epic about.

What was even better was that soon afterwards, there were signs of improvement amongst the three. Junia was relaxing now, Juniper was closing her mouth and Paul looked much older but not as though he was in any kind of pain. A feeling of elation settled in but that didn’t stop the spell from being cast. In fact, he furrowed his eyebrows even more and continued mentally chanting and moving his wand over the victims. Unless they woke up, they couldn’t be for sure and he wasn’t about to take any risks.

He did, however, glance over at Regina to see how she was taking it. From what he knew, there wasn’t long to go after this.

Add him to the NOPE club. After he basically laid the guilt trip of all guilt trips on him, there was no way he was going anywhere with Professor Kennedy. No, Ronan could escort himself if he absolutely had to leave. After all, he was sixteen, which was just one year away from seventeen, which was considered adulthood in the wizarding world.

In other news, it seemed that whatever Headmistress Hawthorne and Professor Hirsch were doing was working. Thank goodness.

Even though Regina cared deeply for each of the students to some capacity, it was times like these that she wished they had enough common sense to realize when they needed to step back and give the experienced adults space to handle situations like this. It was one thing to be emotional, but another altogether to allow ones emotions to get in the way.

Needless to say, she was not regretting casting that bubble. It was making stopping these curses in their early so much easier. It was just her and Roderik, wands in synch, and minds working for the same cause. Each cycle of the silence counter-curse became almost like a mantra. Regina wasn't even thinking about what she was doing anymore. Her magic was just being.

And then there was movement. First Junia's body became less tense ... then Paul's eyes blinked ... finally Juniper's mouth closed.

"Praise Merlin," she stated under her breath. Her wand movements continued as she gave Hirsch a glance. The three needed to be taken to the hospital wing pronto.

Following another series of movements, the headmistress gave the Defence professor a nod of her head. With a wave of her wand, the bubble silently popped. She then pointed her wand at the girls so that they would levitate safely mid-air. She expected Roderik to take care of Paul. "To the hospital wing."

A glance was given to Gaston who seemed to be doing a fair job of keeping Sam from being a total wreck. She gave the man a nod to follow her and Roderik and then her eyes focused on the Ravenclaw. "Sam, dear, you will need to come with us. I want Healer Reed to make sure that you are okay." Plus it was probably best that she didn't leave with the students, some of whom were bound to judge her unjustly like they had done to Kitty. She had a very strong feeling that this occurrence was just like before and the girl wasn't truly at fault, and a proper memory analysis was in order to make sure of that.

It was then she faced the throng of students inside the theatre. She spoke as she walked off the stage, "Everyone -- and I mean everyone -- is to go to their common room immediately. No exceptions. If I hear that you were dawdling or wind up somewhere else, there will be consequences." In other words: listen to Kalen, kids, without being difficult. An order from an adult was an order that was to be followed without any ands, ifs, or buts. And she especially wasn't going to make any exceptions for children who thought they were above simple instructions.

Before she left the room, she shot Derfael and (mostly) Abey a look. "Common rooms, boys. Everything is going to be okay. I will summon you once we have the situation fully under control." And that was her final word on the matter.

Kalen needed a cup of tea.

The Librarian pinched the bridge of his nose as kid after kid refused to go with him. He was a Professor, was he not? That meant he was in charge, yeah? He was the one who was many years older than the rest of them. So why was his authority being challenged?

He nodded at Regina as she spoke and then looked at the kids. All right, no more Mister nice guy. “As the Headmistress just echoed what I said, I’m going to say it again. Everyone, Common Rooms. Now!” He said as he pointed to the door.

“Anyone who feels like arguing with me, will not only lose fifty points and end up in detention, I will also personally deliver them to their common room in a full body bind.” He said as he pulled out his wand. They needed to be safe, and he was going to do whatever it took to keep them safe.

“Common rooms.. Now. No exceptions.” His said in a voice of steel.

A nod? A yes? Phew! Jessa gave a sigh of relief, sinking further into her seat to wait for her Head of House who'd so understandingly offered to escort her somewhere else first. Good. Very good. The young girl didn't even wanna BEGIN to think of how she'd gather all those ingredients again to brew another potion in such short order and was glad she wouldn't have to.

Until the Headmistress happened.

No exceptions. Right. Of course. She supposed there was no having the man veto what his boss said and it had a scowl settling onto her face. Blue eyes turned to the Librarian when he piggybacked off the Headmistress' final words. Ugh. UUUUUGGGGHHHHHHHH.

Thinking quickly, Jessa pulled for her bag she'd thrown down earlier and reached for a quill and a small bit of parchment. While the others made their way toward the man, she scribbled a small set of instructions regarding the potion she'd been so hung up on. Once she was sure she'd gotten it all--and mentioned the means of removing the wards and curses she'd placed on the door (to protect her birds mostly), she levitated it over to Professor Hirsch, hoping he'd at least be able to make a check for her before it was too late now that it was clear she wouldn't be able to.

Reluctantly she turned to Mr. Kennedy, moving toward the door with the intent of keeping well at a few steps away from him the entire walk.

Honestly, she should have skipped this rehearsal. It wasn't as if they've gotten anything done anyway.

Hearing her name, Sam glanced past Marchand and over to the Headmistress. She gave a nod, somewhat surprised but mostly reassured by her tone. She rubbed her lips together to moisten them before responding. "O-o-of course, Pr-professor." She released her grip from the seat of the chair, and gingerly stood to follow them.

Once in the Hospital Wing, maybe someone could help her understand how she'd been controlled, and what she could do to protect herself from it happening again. She found the whole thought of it unsettling. What if there wasn't a counter next time...what if she did something worse?

Fighting she could do, if only she knew what she was up against.

Gaston didn't know how he was still keeping his rising emotions in line, but even more surprising than his own calm (Or more accurately, his facade of calm) was that Sam was still holding it together, despite just learning she'd been used to curse the others. He was prepared for tears, yelling, even fainting... anything but this! Her question went unanswered as he thought about it for a moment. "I don't know for sure, Sam," he said. After all, the Dark Arts weren't his area of expertise. "But my best guess is they used a cursed object to control you somehow." Made sense, right? Whoever it was seemed to have an affinity for cursed objects.

He silently eyed the girl with concern and sympathy for a moment, but he didn't allow his gaze to linger on her too long. He was afraid he'd burst into tears if he did. "Sam..." he began, but his voice trailed off. "I can't make any promises, but I will do everything in my power to find out who did this to you and see that they're brought to justice." He was sure all of the other professors would do the same!

His eyes drifted toward Hawthorne just in time to see her nod in his direction and rose from his seat to follow her to the hospital wing, once again offering Sam an arm to hold on to. "That's it... easy does it, Sam," he said, his eyes wide with worry as they refocused on the girl. "Just lean on me if you feel unsteady."

What happened next, yes she'd seen the looks from Derf, well, it all was sort of a blur because Hawthorne blew them all away and encompassed herself and Hirsch and the victims in a bubble for complete concentration. Also, did Derf not realize that Junia was her dormmate? And even though she maybe wasn't as close to the Botros family as some others, she did care about the well-being of both Junia and her cousin. Her cousin had sat at the Slytherin table often enough that she felt a kinship with him, however slight.

But no matter for that, because the fifth year was just staring in awe at the precise wand movements of Hawthorne and Hirsch. Awe and maybe a mix of envy; maybe she could learn something like that post-Hogwarts? But her defense skills weren't exactly top-notch ... and yet, Skylar wasn't sure they needed to be. As she watched with admiration though, everything around her faded. That is until Hawthorne broke the silence and the victims fluttered to vague sense of consciousness.

Common rooms. Right. It took Kennedy echoing the Headmistress' words and his threat of point loss before the fifth year found herself able to move, as she'd been hypnotized by the synchronized wand movements. But she didn't need to be told a third time. She had dormmates to inform of the rehearsal happenings - in particular, Vivian, of course. Because she was sure as prefect and a friend, the blond would most certainly want to know.