Yes, no. Perhaps it was really very wise of Airey not to call Toby's bluff on the whole crying front. People had done so in the past in matters of emotions and it had never ended, uhh... well, it had never ended... well. Luckily Toby was not a mind-reader, and as far as he was concerned nobody could tell thought he'd been crying. So... it was fine.

He nodded at Airey, getting his wand from its holster again, unable to remember when he'd even put it back there after the debacle in the Entrance Hall. "W-wand," he repeated, voice sounding a little too strained for his liking, but there it was. This was fine. Everything was fine. "One step at a time. G-got it." Toby was okay. He was calm. He was in control.

Until... conflict happened.

Conflict INSIDE the Hall, conflict OUTSIDE the Hall. No matter where Toby went, there would be conflict. In fact, with this little interaction between Murdoch and Airey, Toby wasn't entirely sure whether he wouldn't prefer heading out to deal with those great big spiders. It didn't matter, though, because that was no longer an option. He was stuck in here.

When the Healer made her thoughts known and gave orders to the kids in her house, and Airey and a bunch of others spoke up against it, Toby looked very pointedly away and out of the windows of the Great Hall.

Which, y'know, turned out to be a monumental mistake, because he could SEE the oncoming hoard of acromantulas and that only served to remind him of exactly what people - people he really actually cared about quite a lot, okay? - were heading out into. So Toby quickly looked away from that again.

Gah. Conflict. Okay. OKAY. BLUEBELL FLAMES. OKAY? OKAY.

For a horrible moment, Toby had thought Airey was going to say that they Incendio the spiders from inside the Hall, and he'd been really quite thankful that that wasn't the case. Part of the reason he was here, after all, was to avoid seeing anything like... like that again. But yes, the bluebell flames idea was a whole lot better, in his opinion. So, at the go ahead from Airey, Toby gave a nod to nobody in particular and sort of... side-stepped away to... go do that.

On his own. Away from anyone else and conveniently away from any conflict. Or any people who might see any sneaky tears. Allergy tears, of course.

Toby could focus everything he had on these bluebell flame distractions, yep. Hyperfocus. Think of nothing else. Just bluebell flames, using scraps of his school robes which were really more of a hindrance right now anyway.

............... Did... did he hear... screaming? Was that Gabe?



Oh boy.

Toby looked to Airey again, automatically viewing him as the captain of this ship, to see if he was about to give the order to launch the bluebell flames. As for Toby himself, he was past the point of pale and had now gone positively grey. Merlin. This was happening. Again. Still.

Don't pass out, don't throw up. Don't pass out, don't throw up. Don't pass out, don't throw up...