The end of term feast. Adrienne walked into the Great Hall for what she knew was her last time at Hogwarts, and it was a weird feeling. This, then the train, and once it stopped in King's Cross, she was getting off as an adult. Thrown into the real world, so to speak, while she knew a lot of her friends were still going to be here next term. Torin, Raven, Miles, Fia . . . at least she knew her brother and Phoebus were leaving with her, even if she wasn't sure how to tell at least one of them she was planning on leaving England for a while. She'd figure that out soon. And this was supposed to be fun, sort of the last hurrah for all the seventh years who were leaving, even though she knew most of them probably felt like her and didn't want to go.

But she had her own little secret weapon, that she knew at least would make her happy. And part of her figured that anyone who wanted to get angry at her didn't have much of an argument, since term was over. Everything was done, and as far as she knew nobody could put her in detention now. Even if they wanted to. Namely, that weapon was on her feet. How anyone couldn't be happy in the face of, well, a rainbow, she couldn't know. She raised an eyebrow, though, at the utter lack of people at the Ravenclaw table yet. Oh well, she thought as she took a seat, glancing around at the other tables to see them in similar abandoned appearances. People would show up. She at least wanted one more chance to annoy Torin about something before the train, among other things. (She was curious about if the headmaster was going to speak about the events of the term, as well)

No more exams. No more books. This was...well, it was getting REAL. Soon there'd be nothing left for him to do but LIVE his life however he saw fit.


Phoebus realized this and was actually pretty excited about it. Maybe this was because he had Adrienne now. And had something to look forward to and to push him besides himself , his own expectations.

He spotted her, catching a glance at her shoes. He laughed. Her shoes...would always make him laugh. he saw no point in the pointy, gussied up things...but somehow Adrienne would not be Adrienne without the shoes. Since he was in a good mood, he crept up behind her and wrapped his arms around her. " Boo," He said, chuckling a little. " of course, it's not Halloween or anything, but you get the idea." He said, even going so far as to press a quick kiss to her cheek.

As she once again contemplated the currently empty staff table, having given up on staring at the other house tables waiting for people to arrive, Adrienne let herself get kind of lost in her thoughts a little. It was leaving her open to things, but she still figured she'd be able to sense most people who would try to sneak up on her. Not that people generally tried, or at least not anyone who had even an inkling of her capabilities with certain things. But in any case, she wasn't really paying attention to the doors and at the laugh that sounded from behind her, she didn't immediately connect it to anyone she knew.

Until she suddenly had arms wrapped around her, and she tilted her head up to look at Phoebus with a little laugh. "It's not like you could really scare me anyway," she teased as he kissed her cheek. "What's gotten into you?," she asked then, a little curious even though she knew they weren't exactly a secret anymore. Although now that she had her pretty shoes and him there, she knew it was going to be hard to think about the sad aspects of the end of term.

" True," Phoebus admitted, at Adrienne's insistence that he couldn't scare her. " I can try though. " He argued, grinning a little at her. He leaned on the table and then looked around, shrugging. " I don't know. End of term. End of school really,"He said, looking back to her again.

He smiled at her. " I'm just happy that...everything is done. And you know. You're my girlfriend." He said, sounding it out. It sounded a bit odd, but nice. He liked it. " I don't see why anyone wouldn't be happy about all of that." He made an encompassing gesture with his hands and then looked around. " Riley...he's still not like around is he?" He asked, suddenly looking just the tiniest bit guilty.

Adrienne couldn't help but grin back as Phoebus tried to argue with her. "Of course you can try. I'm just stating the fact that it's really difficult to scare me," she pointed out, before going back to looking around the still almost empty room as he leaned on the table. "It's weird, knowing we aren't coming back next fall. Don't you think?," she asked as he tried to answer her question. And there was that little almost-sad feeling again, like she was already starting to miss Hogwarts and she hadn't even really left yet. But it faded again as he smiled at her again.

"I am, but it's still kind of new to think of myself that way, y'know?," she commented with another little grin as he called her his girlfriend. And in an almost public setting, like it was becoming even more official even though there was hardly anyone to hear it. "But I know what you mean. Everything is done, especially for us, when it comes to classes and everything. And I survived Quidditch captain." Even though they'd lost. Other things seemed to have gone well for Ravenclaw at least. And she had her shoes. She laughed a little, then, as the topic of her brother was brought up. "I can't say I've seen him much since the holidays," she admitted in about as close of a response she could give to that question. She imagined Riley was somewhere around the school, but he kind of seemed to be trying to be anywhere they weren't ever since the party. Not much she could do about that, other than be thankful he wasn't being even more annoying as a reaction. The avoidance was new yet almost refreshing.

Almost done. Al.most.done. Tiberius sat alone near the end of the Ravenclaw table, wishing that time would pass faster. He just wanted to get on the train and get out of here.

He pulled his feet up onto his seat, and hugged his knees to his chest as he watched others file in. Home. He would go home soon.

Nearly nothing else mattered.

It was still fairly quiet in the hall when Raiden made his way there; apparently he was early for once in his life, because the tables weren't jam-packed full of people yet, and it was still possible to hear one's own thoughts.

Dark eyes, returned to their natural hue since his visit to the hospital, swept over the Slytherin Table as fingers absently brushed over his left shoulder. Kiri was there, and a few others that he kinda knew. But... well he wasn't quite ready to make his way over there yet.

No, he had something else to do.

So, swerving toward the Ravenclaw Table, Raiden instead took up the search for the person he wanted to find the most. Why did he have to be so damn sma-

Ooooh. There he was. Raiden stopped, still several feet away, his eyes locked on Tiberius Pryce and the expression on his face unreadable.

He'd... heard things.

Could he leave? Did he even need to eat? Tiberius closed his eyes, wondering if he even needed to be in the room. He didn't want to talk. He had no appetite to speak of. There was no reason for him to be there. He didn't even care about the Cup anymore.

He just wanted to go home. Home. Where he couldn't do magic. And where he couldn't hurt people.

The way the younger boy was sitting was... it just made it so evident that something was seriously wrong in Tibi's world. Arms drawn around knees, knees to his chest... The prefect's stomach squirmed, and he took another step closer.

"Tibi?"

His right hand raised slightly, as if it wanted to grab the other boy's shoulder, but Raiden resisted the urge.

Tiberius opened his eyes, turning his head slightly, at the sound of someone calling his name.

And he wished he hadn't looked. If there was anyone Tibi didn't want to see, it was Raiden. The boy had his hand raised a bit and Tibi couldn't tell what his intention was.

"If you... wanna hit me or hex me to get even, go ahead," he mumbled, pulling his wand out and setting it on the table. "I deserve it."

...er.

Hit and hex were definitely two things that did not come to mind when Raiden thought of Tibi. Looking slightly taken aback, the prefect stared at the boy before his expression shifted and went carefully blank.

"You know it's not your fault, right? Why would I hit you for something that you couldn't control?" He paused, then added, "We may not know each other that well, Tibi, but surely we've seen enough of each other this term that you know I'd never even think about hexing or hitting you."

Tiberius plopped his feet down to the floor and turned so that his whole body was facing the prefect. "It is my fault," he said simply, frowning. "I could have killed you."

Resting his hands on his knees, he leaned forward, chin up, and shut his eyes. "You should hit me. You should. So, you know.. just do it."

Raiden did not like this. Not one tiny bit. Here he was, finally having found Tibi, to make sure he was okay... and the kid was sitting in front of him, eyes closed, face turned up, telling the prefect to hit him.

"Did you want to, Tibi?" he asked quietly, hands hanging at his sides limply. "Don't answer that... Open your eyes. And pick up your wand." The prefect took a two small steps back, and indicated the spot he'd just occupied. "Stand."

He was waiting for it... waiting for it... nothing.

Opening one eye and then the other, Tiberius looked at Raiden, perhaps a bit confused, brow furrowed. He opened his mouth to answer the question, but then silently shut it.

Looking at Raiden, much like a scolded child might look at the one who scolded them, Tiberius picked up his wand from the table, and slowly stood where Raiden had indicated.

And then promptly stared at his shoes.

"Don't look at your feet. Look at me." There was about a foot of space between them, distance-wise, probably about the same amount there was height-wise. Tibi was... only a second year. Maybe thirteen. And yet there he stood, looking as if the world had fallen apart because of something that wasn't his fault.

Raiden's impassive expression was only broken by the slightest flicker of sadness over this. Poor Tibi.

"Raise your wand, Tibi. It does you no good at your side like that."

Meanwhile, Raiden's wand was still in its holster on his wrist, carefully nestled away.

Well, he wasn't going to refuse. Tiberius would, at this moment, probably do anything Raiden asked him to. He had a lot to make up for.

Looking up at the boy, head tilted back as their closeness made the angle even sharper, Tiberius felt his eyes begin to tear. Not enough so that tears would fall, but enough to begin to blur his vision.

"O-ok," he said, wrapping his hand tightly around his wand and raising it as instructed. He tilted his head to the side slightly, extremely confused as to what was happening.

"Do you remember what spell I was hit with?" He had heard it was a gouging spell, but it could've been a blasting curse as well. No real way for him to know, considering he'd be unconscious at the time. Raiden moved sliiiightly forward, his left hand wrapping gently around the raised wand arm and pulling it up a little farther.

The prefect leaned forward a bit then, until he felt the wand tip prod against his own throat. Letting go of the arm, he put his own hands in his pockets and stared very calmly into Tibi's shiny eyes.

"Cast it again."

Tiberius nodded weakly. "I-it was a gouging spell," he whispered as the prefect moved closer. Tiberius jumped slightly when Raiden grabbed his arm - gentle as it may have been - confused.

He'd... never held his wand to anyone's throat and the pressure felt strange. Frozen with confusion, all Tiberius could do was stare back at Raiden, trying to blink away tears, as the boy told him to cast again.

Arm shaking, lip trembling, tears now falling down his face, Tiberius searched the older boy's face. Cast it again? Tiberius closed his eyes, remembering bits and pieces from the fight in the entrance hall. And then from the seating area. His fingers uncurled from around his wand and it fell from his hand, clattering on the floor of the Great Hall. His arm hung in the air a moment before limply falling to his side.

Opening his eyes, he took a step back, refusing to look Raiden in the eye again.

Oh, yay. Feast.

She would NOT miss Hogwarts. At all. Well, maybe she'd miss a few people FROM Hogwarts, but, as far as she knew, the castle itself could ... well ... do something. Di hadn't quite decided what.

Madiison walked past the other house tables to get to the Ravenclaw one. She did not skip, or hop, or bounce, like she otherwise would have. She just walked. But, other than the skip hop bounce thing, the little red head was almost back to normal. ALMOST. One finger playing with a lock of her hair, Di let her blue-gray eyes skim the place.

Well, maybe she would miss Hogwarts.

Just a tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiny little bit.

So the castle going to hell was off the list.

It could go on a holiday. To Morocco! On the other hand, it WAS a dirty great castle. Morocco was probably too far away. It should go to ... UMMMMMMMMMMMMMM ... France? That was close enough, wasn't it!? It could even meet up with Beauxbatons and th- MERLIN, she was ranting in her head. Again.

Di shook her head, as though trying to clear it, spotting Raiden and ... umm ... Terby(Tibberthy -Oooh, Tibberthy was a cute name!-? Di didn't remember his name. Something with T. And B. And Y) after she was done.

OHHAIIITHERE!RAIDEN&TIBBERTHY!

That was what she was going to call him. Because, clearly, it was a cute name. "Hai."

Tibi was crying. Crying. Raiden felt his expression giving way, the sadness that had been barely evident making itself completely known. He didn't like people crying. But... he also didn't like Tibi blaming himself for something he hadn't done.

"Do you get it now? You don't want to kill me Tibi. You don't now, and you didn't then. I told you to cast the same thing, and you wouldn't. You wouldn't have in that situation either, were you given the choice."

Taking care to step over the dropped wand rather than on it, Raiden grabbed the boy's shoulder and pulled him into a one-armed hug, arm wrapping around the kid's shoulders in what he could only hope was interpreted as an attempt to comfort him.

"Who are you to blame yourself for something that I don't even blame you for."

And... there was Madiison. Raiden attempted a smile at her.

"B-but.." Tiberius attempted to argue that it still was his fault... He had been convinced that there was something he could have done to prevent it from happening. But the words didn't come.

He allowed himself to be pulled into a hug, his own body trembling with little-boy sobs, almost desperate to agree with Raiden about the blame, but still feeling unable to. He wrapped his arms around Raiden's middle and buried his face in the boy's robes, grateful for, and yet feeling undeserving of, comfort.

...

BLINK. BLINK. BLINK.

Bad timing?

Madiison SAW what was happening, something she hadn't noticed before. Tibberthy was crying and Raiden was hugging him. The scene itself was starting to make the red head teary when her brain registered what Raiden was saying.

Oh, yeah. REALLY bad timing. Because Tibberthy was crying about something to do with the attack and the curse.

... and there went the hours she had wasted this morning trying to focus on other things so she wouldn't have to think about all the HORRIBLE things that had happened, that SHE had done, recently. She wanted to be HAPPY because this was, obviously, going to be her last day at Hogwarts. SURELY her parent's weren't going to let her come back HERE after ... well ... Yeah.

Her smile slowly faded away and the red head sat down. This was a whole new level of depression.

Like, AGAIN. Hadn't she BEEN through this already? Somehow, watching Tibberthy cry and Raiden huggle him just made it worse ... somehow. Don't ask her how, her brain worked in mysterious ways. Tears were threatening to form in her eyes and, if this were a different situation, she would have burst out crying, not caring about containing them. But she didn't want to cry. Not now. Not when she had already wasted away her precious tears. Besides, Tibberthy was MISERABLE.

Not that she could tell much. His face was hidden now.

WIBBLE.

WE WANT HUGS TOO, RAIDEN!

But, the girl half returned Raiden's smile and then she started thinking about castles. And Hogwarts. And everything Hogwarts could do when it was visiting Beauxbatons.

"It's alright. Just calm down. It's okay, everything is okay." He really had very little experience with things like this... he'd been on the receiving end a few times, as a kid, when he'd ended up panicking a bit. So Raiden just repeated what was coming to mind from memories.

He knew that everything wasn't actually okay, at least not right now. Everything was blatantly, boldfacedly not okay. But that was only because it was too soon. He couldn't even begin to try to see how traumatic it had been; human minds were not made to imagine such things.

"It's scary and it's horrible and it's painful right now, isn't it," he murmured, a hand patting against Tibi's back as he let the boy cling to him and cry. "But one day it won't be. And it will be so much easier for you to look at it and accept that you did absolutely nothing wrong by me. The person responsible for my injury was not you."

Now Madiison looked really upset too... Raiden's eyes strayed away, having been focused on the kid attached to him, to the small red-headed girl. She too looked like she was going to cry, which... well. Rai was kinda a bit out of arms, especially properly working ones. If Madiison was gonna cry... she'd have to come over here and hug Raiden AND Tibi herself.

Jacob entered the great hall slowly. With an expression on his face, that looked like he was starving. He dragged his feet, while holding his stomach. He moved towards the ravenclaw table, and realized that they would have to wait for the speeches before they ate. Great!

Taking a seat towards the middle. Jacob looked around the table to see who was here. He saw Tibi and the Slytherin Prefect at one end...he wasnt even going to ask what was happening. It seemed that he was completely lost the entire term. Not knowing what was going on.

Jacob's stomach growled at him. He was getting hungry. Putting his elbow on the table, and his head in his hand. He started drumming his free hands fingers on the table