Oh thank MERLIN.

Malachi had admittedly never been so relieved to see his students than he was now. Some were worried, some looked like they'd rather be somewhere else but you know what? That was all okay because they were here and there was more trickling in still.

The Headmaster nodded to his staff and the students when they arrived and greeted him, still just a tad too shaken up to produce any words of substance in the moment despite his outwardly calm expression. It was the deep but subtle breaths he was taking that made things marginally better for him and by the time what he thought was the last of the students had begun rolling in, he felt he was in a better position to begin.

"Heads of Houses, I'd like you to do a head count, make sure we haven't lost anyone. Students, take your own little look around. If there's anyone who should be here who isn't, let someone know immediately." If said people were still alive but willingly absent, they would have additional worries but this was no time for that line of thinking. They had a situation.

"As many of you are aware, there have been things missing around the castle and things seemingly gnawed through. As far too many of you also seem to be aware, there has also been a little pink creature that's apparently been getting very chummy. Do not, let me repeat, DO NOT feed that thing. Stop if you already have. Don't cuddle it. Don't try to keep it. Do not go near it. When you see it, go the other way. We currently have a.....situation..." Yes, Dolly was quite the situation. She was here ten minutes ago and now she most certainly was not. "regarding our dearly loved...and sure to be dearly missed, Charms Professor." Did...did they get the gist of where this was going? He was trying to be tactful. "She...those things--eh?" The man stopped quite abruptly at the appearance of the house elf, the one who'd been on thin ice since that little summer stunt.

Malachi raised a brow at him. "Your....what?" The man looked to the students again, not at all impressed. "Do any of you know what he's on about?" DON'T tell him that thing had been Toddles's doing. They now had a dead Professor on their hands.

ASDFGHJKLL!!

What??? Dearly missed? Dopple was..?

Kaira felt herself reel a little. The mutants had EATEN Dopple? Is that what the Headmaster was implying? Was the missing things also their fault? And the chewed through hour glasses?

But they had actually chomped on a HUMAN BEING?

Kaira felt a burning sensation in her eyes as they started welling up with tears. Sure, she had not been close to Dopple but she sure liked her.


She found it hard to believe that they had actually CONSUMED a human being.

Max rolled up and tucked his comic under his armpit so that he could accept Bel’s hand holding and only really half-listened when she started talking to Cameron and Ronan. He was too busy watching everyone else. Because whatever this was all about seemed bigger than just access to the kitchens…..

Even the other Professors looked sort of on edge and that couldn’t be good. Uhmmm.

And then there was Toddles screaming something or other about a fluffsies? And…… what exactly was Trent implying!?!?!?!

What. Was. HAPPENING!?

“Is he trying to say those pink things did something to Dopple?” He asked, lowering his voice and shooting a panicked glance at the friends he was gathered with. He even stood on his tip-toes to see if he could spot the old lady amongst the crowd but….. nope.

Daisy's face turned a sickly pale green at the Headmaster's words. She knew something wrong was up with those pink creatures but she certainly didn't quite imagine that a teacher would be devoured. She began looking to see if any of her fellow students were missing.

When Headmaster Trent mentioned Toddles, Daisy raised her hand and spoke up.

"Headmaster, I vaguely remember Toddles looking for something at the opening feast. He was looking at the Gryffindor and Slytherin tables. That pink creature made its' presence known at the Hufflepuff table but it disappeared just as Nimma approached it. That's all I can remember, sorry."

Alice watched as the courtyard rapidly filled up with students and colleagues. Brief nods were given Kassandra and the other professors who greeted her, but there was no time for chit-chat. Something terribly unruly must have happened to provoke the headmaster to summon this meeting. (Also, what was with young Mark Gunter's chest hair?) A small amount of nervousness started building inside her as she waited to hear what it was. She managed it with a few deep breaths.

Then the headmaster to speak, and the all the calm that Alice had built up through gentle breathing was shattered into a million pieces. The first thing she felt was disgust, as she did whenever those little pink fluffs that everyone else seemed to love so much was brought up. Then guilt at being alienated from the students due to her desk missing, when now it was clear that they had had nothing to do with it. Then the guilt was replaced by sadness and shock. Dear Dolly...was...gone?

Rage took over everything else. Her hands curled into fists and she whirled to address the headmaster. "Headmaster, I suggest we get the students to a safe place and then divide the staff into two groups. One group shall stay with the students to protect them and the other shall hunt down these pink little ratfaces and exterminate them like the vermin they are! They ALL must die!"

She whirled on Toddles upon hearing one of the students ask if he was the owner of the pink fluffs. "Toddles! Do you know where these unruly ratface vermin are?!" Yes, Toddles, tell her so she can kill them.

Emma was late to the 'meeting' for two very important reasons. One of them was her cat.

She had been dancing in the astronomy tower when she heard the announcement and of course went looking for Davies because NOTHING was going to eat her beloved familiar. Thankfully, the ragdoll had been had been sleeping on her bed. Emma put on her U17 hoodie and tucked the creature away.

The second reason was more important. The second was THE most important, actually. Her brother.

Her brother wasn't in the common room by the time she had made it there, and so Emma searched everywhere on her way down to the grounds.

And the castle was BIG so that took some time.

Thankfully someone had told her they spotted him in the common room earlier, and that the group had already made it down to the grounds. So Emma rushed there.

It was actually more difficult to find him here than anywhere else in the school because of how many students had already gathered. Emma weaved through the crowd until she saw a familiar head of curly hair.

Taking his hand, she looked him over to make sure he still was all in one piece. "Are you okay? Have they said why we're all here?" Probably someone was dead. That usually warranted these meetings, but Emma wasn't going to say that to Lucas when he looked visibly panicked.

Giving a look over to Kaira she shrugged, "Maybe, but they are so cute, how could this meeting be about them? " Unless they were going to get to keep them as pets. That would be so fun and she wanted to be first in line for this new pet.

Her eyes still scanned the area and she nudged Derf again, "You are taller than me, do you see my brother?" Looking up at him she turned just to hear the flying professor say something to Mark, "Markie... stop that, you aren't a baby." She swatted at him a little to get his attention. Where was Xar, she could deal with the little brother?

So much talking and different things being said it wasn't until the Headmaster started and the elf came that Chloe really truly believed the cute little pink things were to blame and it wasn't something bad, "Did he just say something happened to Dopple?"

*wibble*

She really wanted to be taller right now so she could see, she wanted to know exactly what was going on and what was being said, but the History of Magic Professor caught her attention for as demanding as her voice was. They had fought of really bad things a few terms ago, she knew most of the students could take cute pink creatures even if they were eating things they shouldn't.

Looking around she had to find Gunnar, so she pushed away from Derf and started moving around the crowd. "Gunnar!!" Seeing her older brother she threw her arms around him, "What is going on? They aren't really going to kill them all, are they? I mean they could put live traps out or stun them with spells and send them to the ministry for research or to be placed somewhere they can live happily and not hurt anyway, right? Do they really have to kill living creatures?"


She knew they were bad, but there had to be a different way and why was that professor being so vicious about killing things in front of students, honestly wasn't that adult conversation and not being a super big meanie trying to throw her adult allowed to harm magic around? Then she called them Ratface, wow, so now she was being rude to rats and the little creatures. "theyprobablyhaveaname"

Blah, blah, blah could she go back to--

................. Dearly missed??? Zoryn's big mouth dropped to the floor. Not literally, but it may as well have.

Was Trent saying that "the pink thing KILLED DOPPLE??????" Tactful, who?

Not Zoryn.

Anyway, she was in shock for about three minutes. Like, this was a lot to process and unpack. Zor was about 1/3 amused. 1/3 upset. And 1/3 concerned for her own life.

But.... This was pretty funny right? RIGHT???????????????????????

Was laughing inappropriate? It felt inappropriate. And yet, she was smiling. But she didn't mean to smile. This wasn't funny at all. And she actually wasn't happy. Mostly she was just unsure of what to do. WHY WAS SHE SMILING???? Um, hi there. How were you supposed to react when you were just told that your favorite Professor was, well, DEAD? Zoryn Amari Spinnet was 500% not reacting right.

The creatures had killed a Professor. Typical.

Alessandro was really starting to understand his cousins’ perpetually disdain for Hogwarts. It was hard to get any scrap of learning done when things like pink creatures ate the professors. And that was only the plight of this term. Each and every year he had been in attendance, the school had some kind of crisis. This pattern could be traced back as early as the late-twentieth century. These were not coincidences.

He ceased his silent judgement the moment he heard a little voice cry out the name of one of his friends. One he had been eagerly searching for in the crowd. Al felt himself relax. And Emma was safe, too, it seemed. Good. That was good.

Okay, so Abra knew about the things going missing but???? Little pink creature?????? Like???????? He wasn't talking about a pygmy puff, was he? Because there were loads of those around Hogwarts.

Apparently he wasn't, because this pink creature was sparking a lot of warnings about going near it or feeding it and all that kind of thing, and Abra's anxiety - which had been at around level eleven since he'd heard the schoolwide summons to the courtyard - spiked considerably. Why was it that he suddenly didn't want to know what the deal was with this-...

Oh.

Yes.

Abra got the gist.

And he suddenly went very, very pale. Felt sick. Started feeling like the courtyard walls were closing in. This was bad. This was very very very very very bad. This was bringing back all kinds of memories about monsters and portals and skeletons and and and...

Abra grabbed the arm of the person nearest to him and held on tightly, not knowing who they were or anything, as his breathing quickly got out of control. He was... Dopple was... this was... they were... it was all... oh no... oh no... oh nonononono...

Dorian turned his attention away from his fellow students as they were speculating what was going on and looked over at the Headmaster as he made his speech. Hogwarts never seemed to catch a break, did it? When it wasn't monsters attacking the school it were horrible professors like last year. Still, the words "dearly missed" that the man spoke made him realise the seriousness of the situation and he stood more upright, making sure that he got all the information about what was going on.

Hands in his robe pockets, Dorian's mind went to Ammonite, his purple toad who was still in the Ravenclaw Dormitory and he widened his eyes and he looked up at the tower where his common room was. He hoped nothing was going to happen to his pet.

The fifth year had not come in contact with the thing that killed Dopple since the feast as Daisy had said, although he has seen something pink and fluffy in the corner of his eyes when he walked to classes but he had never bothered to investigate.

A sudden, tight grasp around his arm made shriek out loud. Tension was already high and for a second he thought that whatever creature they were talking had grabbed him but as he looked he saw that it was just Abra "Dude, you scared me" he said as he tried to move his arm free.

Cordelia had been up in her dorm ”studying” doodling all over her history of magic notes when she heard the announcement about reporting to the courtyard. This sounded a lot like an emergency - the headmaster had used words like [i]immediately[/s] and compromised the safety of the whole school - so Cordelia had grabbed her emergency backpack from by her bed and run down to the courtyard as fast as her little legs could carry her. She was quite good at running with all the quidditch training she had been doing. Upon arrival at the courtyard, Cordelia looked around for her brother. ”Drew, Drew!” She jumped up and down to try to see over people’s heads. Her brother didn’t seem to be here yet, as far as she could tell. ”Has anyone seen my brother?” Everything that the headmaster was saying about their sure to be dearly missed charms professor went right over her head. However, the comment about things going missing did catch her attention. Was the headmaster trying to tell them that the sofa in the common room as well as other things had been eaten by small pink creatures? This was the sort of situation that could only happen in her nightmares. Hearing the instruction for the heads of house to get a headcount, Cordelia pushed her way through the crowd until she found Professor Wayland. ”I’m here,” she informed her head of house. Where was her brother?

Kalen had barely been paying attention to much of anything really. He felt like he could barely breathe and his vision was a little fuzzy. Having watching something small and cute eat someone right before his very eyes, was still engrained into his memory and had the green eyed professor shaking.

Normally a warm cup of tea would be the perfect panacea for whatever ailed him, but today, he might need to take a trip to the Healers wing.

He struggled to focus on anyone or anything, and his fuzzy vision cleared for a moment as he caught sight of someone familiar, but it quickly faded away as he struggled to focus and count his Slytherins.

He put a hand to his head and used his palms to rub his eyes.

Hopefully he’d be able to focus soon. And breathe, breathing was good as well.

Mary had been practicing soccer out in the grounds when a panicked Bel rounded her up. She had fallen out of the habit on practicing every morning and it showed in her skills, hence she took the sacrifice of doing it in the afternoon. So now, clad in her exercise clothes and blue sneakers, she stood here waiting for an explanation. Rhythmically dribbling the ball between her feet, she felt a discomfort in having it out in front of so many people. Most people at Hogwarts thought muggle sports were stupid.

Hearing the headmaster speak, she kicked the ball up and grabbed it, now spinning it quietly in her hands. What she heard was horrifying. She had heard some chatting in the corridors about missing items and definitely was aware of the house point situation, but..... pink fluffy things? If this didn't cause her enough distress, a professor... is dead?

Noble had a furrow on his brow as he briskly strode through the castle, wand in his hand just in case. As he made his way from the dungeons, he'd first made a stop at the Hufflepuff Common Room, and then herded the Badgers there, plus any other students he'd come across towards the courtyard.

Having reached the throng of students now, he quietly moved among the gathering until he landed beside his former housemate, Amelia. "I do hope Trent gets to the point." 'Compromised' and 'pink and fluffy' seemed less than useful for understanding the threat. He was taking it seriously, but did the Headmaster know how many pygmy puffs resided in the castle?

He didn't have to wait long to find out more, however, and Noble's face darkened. He started on the Hufflepuff head count with those closest to him Alessandro one... Bel two... Mary three... Derf four... Daisy five... but he soon faltered as he heard the words 'dearly loved' and 'Charms Professor'.

Er? Well, that was one way to break the news, Headmaster. Assuming he'd interpreted those phrases correctly, that was.

For now, though he went back to his counting. The students were his primary concern, and he needed an accurate head count. "Hufflepuffs, make a line here please, in year group order! First years at the front, seventh years at the back." It'd be much easier with them all in one place.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Waterloo

Max rolled up and tucked his comic under his armpit so that he could accept Bel’s hand holding and only really half-listened when she started talking to Cameron and Ronan. He was too busy watching everyone else. Because whatever this was all about seemed bigger than just access to the kitchens…..

Even the other Professors looked sort of on edge and that couldn’t be good. Uhmmm.

And then there was Toddles screaming something or other about a fluffsies? And…… what exactly was Trent implying!?!?!?!

What. Was. HAPPENING!?

“Is he trying to say those pink things did something to Dopple?” He asked, lowering his voice and shooting a panicked glance at the friends he was gathered with. He even stood on his tip-toes to see if he could spot the old lady amongst the crowd but….. nope.

Natalie had been MID-NAP when the Headmaster's voice boomed through the common room and the dorms. It startled her quite a bit, but it had taken a moment for her to understand what he was saying. Something about the pink fluffy things. She had done well to avoid those things all semester. She hated furry things, and those things looked mysteriously cute.

It took the prefect another moment to actually convince herself to get out of bed. Her sleepy part of the brain just wanted to ignore it, but the Prefect part of her brain told her this was important and she should go.

So she finally trudged up from the dungeons and went outside, squinting at the large mass of teachers and students. She was just in time to hear the Headmaster mention the Charms professor. Wait. Soon to be dearly missed??? Natalie stepped up to Max's side, trying to process that when she heard Zoryn yell about the fluffy things.... eating Professor Dopple.

"Wait, what?" she said aloud, STILL trying to process it. She looked at Max with slightly panicked eyes. "What are we supposed to do? Where's Liam?" Liam was her priority. Her blue eyes scanned the crowd until she found him, but she still felt uneasy. The heads of houses had tasks, but she felt... helpless. Had anyone else been eaten?

Tristan nodded at the Headmaster and immediately started to count his Gryffindors making sure all of them were accounted for. But before he could get half way through Headmaster Trent was insinuating that the creature had done something to Professor Dopple and he completely forgot where he had left off. His mouth dropping, he quickly recovered but placing his hand over his mouth.

And then there was Alice...

His anger peaked immediately but he wasn't going to yell at her. Calmly he responded, "Professor O'Hara, that is NOT how we remove unknown creatures. Even when they have done something terrible, it is in their nature and we can't blame them for that. Harming or killing them is not the answer, and to say such things in front of the students is not appropriate." He shook his head and sighed as she berated the elf. He didn't know what the creature was capable of.

She was here, standing on the outskirts of the crowd and taking note of the younger Stemp House residents in her line of sight. She didn't know what was going on, but she knew this place well enough now to know it couldn't be good and even after everything, she couldn't quite shake the feeling of responsibility where they were concerned. Had Maverick arrived yet? He'd be able to calm her nerves for sure so the brunette quietly moved through the group in search of him, though her search was unsuccessful.

Wait, Dopple was...no. That couldn't be...only somehow it wasn't that surprising given the woman seemed to have no observational skills. Poor thing was an adorable sitting duck and she didn't even know it. What was with this school?

Feeling uneasy, the sixth year navigated towards the closest Slytherins, waiting for whatever came next and wishing some of the professors at this school had a little more tact.

Still spinning the soccer ball, Mary was in a deep, worried thought when Professor Noble called for Hufflepuffs. She turned around and started toward him. It was all so crazy. Fluffy creatures, missing objects, people dead. After reaching him, she just nodded at Professor Noble, unable to produce any words.

She began thinking of home. It seemed so distant, but she, especially right now, wanted so badly to go back. Playing soccer, her parents, her siblings, not being lonely, not worrying about deadly fuzzy creatures. She just wanted to go home!! As she felt her throat dying up, she knew it was coming. She tried to stop it, but it wasn't going to happen. Then the weeping and crying started, becoming louder and louder until the tears came streaming down her face. She quietly choked out "I... I... I... just want to... to go home."

There had been a strange incident, that was for sure. Dolly had been in her office just a moment ago, feeding some of the cute little creatures that had started popping up around the castle. The Headmaster and Kalen had shown up to join her when... Well, she wasn't quite sure what happened. She had blacked out! Suddenly it had gone dark. And then everything went light. It was quite strange, wasn't it? She had asked the little furry things what had happened, but they obviously didn't know how to speak English.

Feeling quite frazzled, Dolly decided to get some fresh air. Leaving her office and somehow floating through her office door, Dolly walked floated down the corridor, noticing a few students running down the hall towards the the stairs. My, what was going on?

She finally ended up in the corridor to the courtyard, getting closer to the courtyard, when she noticed that nearly the entire student body and ALL of the staff had been gathered in the courtyard. "Oh dear, what is happening here?" Dolly whispered to herself, moving towards the doorway to enter the courtyard.

That was when another strange thing happened.

She hit some sort of... barrier.

The old woman tried again, but she was unable to enter the courtyard, somehow trapped inside this corridor. How frustrating! Why couldn't she join the others? Clearly this was an important meeting!

Dolly Dopple, unaware that she had very VERY recently been eaten and turned into a ghost, pounded her wrinkly fist on the invisible barrier that separated her from the outdoors. "What is going on here?" she called out. "What am I missing?" She didn't like to miss out, you see. "Has a Professor been injured?" Is that what she heard? You know, her hearing wasn't like it used to be.

Be missed? Kassie had missed something that seemed to be rather important. Sure she had noticed the many things going missing and the strange pink creatures, but what exactly happened to Dolly, she wasn't sure.

In the middle of the mild chaos, she noticed Kalen looking ill and headed his way. Once by his side, she reached her hand out to offer support. "Are you okay, Professor Kennedy? Kalen? You don't look well at all." She looked to try and catch the eye of Professor Adara, but there were so many students and other professors, she wasn't sure if she'd be able to find her.

Daisy quickly joined her fellow Hufflepuffs. As she went past the First-Years she saw Mary crying and looked at her with great sadness and sympathy. She stood nervously in the "Sixth-Year line" awaiting the Headmaster to say anything else.

So...the extent of the usefulness with any sort of explanation regarding Toddles and the creatures was that he was seen looking for something and the creature had been at the feast according to Swann. Well, that part he knew. The man remembered seeing the little ball of fluff from the staff dais. The fact Toddles now came bursting forward about a fluffy thing was damning in the moment and the elf had no idea just how much trouble he would be in.

For now, he turned to the students again, grateful some of the Heads of Houses had already started their counts but found himself instead scowling at the History of Magic Professor's words.

"That's never how we handle creatures, O'Hara." And so much for tact. The woman had gone from a 2 to a 10 in under a second and he could only imagine how jarring it must have been for the students gathered in this already frightening situation. Time and place for everything. This was neither the time nor the place. "But the intention is very much to keep our students safe." That was never up for question. It needed to be done."Here's how we'll proceed. The common rooms will be checked and properly anchored with the appropriate wards. Consider those safe zones. You will all walk with at least one other student at all times--"

That voice.

Malachi nearly jumped out of his skin--scratch that, there was some jumping--when he heard the all too familiar voice of the Charm's Professor. For a brief moment, he was filled with hope that maybe they'd spat her out and everything was alright after all, but then he turned and saw the translucent figure and staggered several feet back before he could regain his composure.

Ooooooooh Meeeerrrlllliiiinnnnnnn.

Her question was a bit too on the nose for him. All he could do was STARE, mouth agape while several moments passed. Dolly--she--there--whu--huh--

As the reason for the meeting came to light, any thoughts of it all being just a giant misunderstanding one her newly formed theories were just craziness on her part vanished from Stasya’s mind. Especially as Toddles had made an appearance going on about his Fluffsies yet again and all it seemed to do was prove that she’d been right. She’d even been tempted to ask the house elf if Fluffsies was pink and fluffy, but by then things had gotten even crazier. That and she got the distict feeling that, if it was possible for Toddles to be any lower on the list of people/creatures the headmaster liked, the elf had managed it and she didn’t particularly want to make it worse.

Instead, she’d turned shocked grey-green eyes in the History of Magic professor’s direction at her words about the mystery creatures. That was definitely against her own principles and, if the prefects were asked to assist in something like that, she was very well prepared to go back to her silent protesting. For now, though, hearing both Professor Wayland and the headmaster himself express their shock at Professor O’Hara’s words, she felt like things might be okay. Unless one was Abra, apparently, and she was ninety percent sure that Dorian’s reaction wasn’t going to help her fellow Gryffindor prefect’s state of mind. Her eyes had flickered in Derf’s direction before she’d approached Abra. He knew him a lot better than she did, anyway, but until then she’d try. “Abra? Try to breathe. Can I get anyone for you?,” she asked, keeping her voice soft. Except, hopefully someone else would notice things were absolutely not right over in Gryffindor prefect land. All she hoped was that he wasn’t going to faint before she could get help.

Except now there was a ghost version of their Charms professor at the entrance back into the castle, Professor Kennedy looked like he was about to pass out, and Headmaster Trent was staring at her in what she hoped was just shock. They didn’t need another broken professor or two at Hogwarts.

At first, Dorian had not noticed that Abra had been breathing with difficulty. He knew about his anxiety but at the moment he was paying more attention to the situation at large than on one person so it was probably a good thing that Stasya had arrived to try and calm him down.

Overhearing what the HoM professor said about tracking the creatures down and killing them, Dorian frowned deeply and he looked over at the Headmaster, wondering what his reaction would be. Thankfully, his words were the same as how he felt and he was glad that there would be no hunt and kill today. However his next words made him groan. Out loud.

He got the idea that pairing up was for their own safety but he prefered to be alone especially when he was studying for his O.W.L exams. He did not need someone breathing down his neck. But for now, the Ravenclaw stayed quiet and probably will always be and pretend that this new rule was fine with him. Ugh. He still needed to study for Transfiguration, Herbology and Potions today according to his self made schedule and he did NOT want to miss it!

Another thing that he noticed was that the Headmaster's speech seemed to have trailed off at the end and wondering what had him looking so shocked, Dorian looked behind him to see the ghost of Dopple standing, no floating, in the air near the entrance. 'Has a professor been injured...' Well that was ironic wasn't it.

Looking back at the Headmaster and judging that he was too shocked to speak, Dorian rolled his eyes as he turned back around. "You're a ghost" he said bluntly. What? He was just stating a fact here, no need to make it worse by sugarcoating it.