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**Wilber Winterbottom** · #1 (**permalink**) 12-25-2022, 11:27 PM

The door to a mysterious door opens to reveal a dank and dusty room, which shows more than obvious signs that it has been vacant for years. Black sheets cover the furniture. Cobwebs fill every nook, cranny, and everything in between -- including a cup filled with wooden potion stirrers. The heavy scent of mildew permeates every aspect of the room as jet-black candles emit blue flames and an old record player screeches in the corner.

For the most part, this is where the majority of the ghosts that haunt the school gather when they want to avoid the living that run about the floors above. What they do here isn't really any of your business. Some of the ghosts that float about this room will remind you of that if they catch you invading their private space. If you're lucky, though, maybe the day you step inside this room is when Sir Nicholas is hosting his Deathday Party, a celebration that he most certainly will encourage you to stick around for. If that day is not today, you had better have a good excuse for being here.

sweetpinkpixie · 09-28-2025, 12:24 PM

She had passed by this space numerous times over the years and only on a handful occasions had she stopped for any prolonged period of time to appease her curiosity. Today was one of those times and she had come armed with a notebook and an idea pilfered from her latest reading in which the very walls and air of the novel's setting seemed to hum with memory. If houses could 'remember' in Muggle fiction, then surely a room where actual ghosts gathered - and were, ironically, the life of the party - would have to reveal something measurable.

Disappointment met her at the threshold when no ghosts revealed themselves at first glance, but it did little to dampen the pull of her curiosity. Hugging her notebook tight to her chest, Iris traced a slow deliberate circumference of the room... pausing in each shadowed corner with her eyes shut as though listening for something just beyond ordinary senses. Once... twice... a third time she circumnavigated, her quill scratching in quick bursts across the open pages whenever some detail, feeling, or hypothesis demanded recording. Only when she was satisfied she had at least a baseline of impressions, did she finally claim a spot in the back left corner and lowered herself to the cool and dusty ground.

"...not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within..." she mused to herself as she bent over her notes, sketching into the margin of the open page.

Samia · 09-29-2025, 07:28 AM

Adrian had wandered in half by accident, half by curiosity, he had been trying to dodge a few first years who were being led by his ... sister - clearly aiming for a chat... and no, thank you. The room he eventually lannded in was ~~creepy~~ interesting enough for a second glance - dust, cobwebs, screeching record player… yeah, it was doing its best.

What really caught him wasn’t the furniture or the smell, though - it was the girl pacing circles like she was summoning something. Notebook, muttering, the whole bit. She looked so caught up in it that Adrian couldn’t help himself.

He drew in a breath, deepened his voice to something hollow and theatrical, and let it echo off the walls: “Leeeave this place… mortal intruder… or pay the price..…”

sweetpinkpixie · 09-30-2025, 02:23 AM

Iris froze quill stroke, her quill now hovering as her head snapped toward the source of the voice as it reverberated around the room. For ~~several painfully long seconds~~ half a beat her stomach lurched as her mind conjured up all of the worst visuals - that banished darkness coming to reattach itself to the next of kin - but as soon as her eyes landed on the boy leaning smug against the shadows... her pulse settled into something far more annoyed than afraid.

"If you're going to haunt someone," she said dryly, hugging her notebook to her chest, "you should at least attempt to make it sound convincing. If you’d gone with something like... 'leave, for the house is hungry,' or even something a little more classic like 'beware the watchful dead' then I might have believed you. 'Mortal intruder' is a bit too pedestrian even for the likes of Peeves."

Not an invitation for the poltergeist to show up, by the way.

Iris shifted her legs a bit, relaxing her posture she hadn't realized had gone entirely rigid, and pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose a bit. "Next time you interrupt my research... at least try for Poe."

Samia · 10-03-2025, 11:42 AM

Adrian’s smirk didn’t fade, but the way he tilted his head was less mocking now, more… measuring. “Poe, hm? Guess I’ll have to up my game. Though if you’re critiquing my delivery, I’d say that means you weren’t all that rattled to begin with.”

He drifted a step closer, careful not to crowd, just enough that he could glance at the notes she was guarding so tightly. His brows lifted, faint amusement curling into something more curious. “So what is this, then? Ghost-baiting?”

The grin that followed was crooked, but not unkind. “You looked like you actually believed it for a second. Like you were waiting for something to answer back.” He let the words hang, voice lower now, almost inviting. “Were you?”

sweetpinkpixie · 10-05-2025, 11:39 PM

Confirmation: the aesthetic of Slytherin boys continued to be profoundly inconvenient.

"Not ghost-baiting," Iris replied at once, slipping her glasses off to clean their lenses with the hem of her jumper. "This would be entirely the wrong method for that. Too much interference, not enough silence." Her tone was as matter-of-fact as she could muster, but the edge of color at her ears betrayed her irritation... or something close to irritation at least. Her glasses back in place, the Ravenclaw tickled her nose with her quill once before elaborating. "I’m testing whether spaces that see… repeat spiritual activity might hold residual energy...patterns that echo long after the initial presence fades and the Death Day Feasts concluded." It wasn’t exactly untrue, just safely edited for context.

Her eyes flicked up then, properly meeting his features without the initial jolt of adrenaline for the first time, sharp but amused as she allowed herself the smallest lopsided smile in return. "I could make you a reading list, if you’re serious about upping your game."

Samia · 10-14-2025, 06:19 AM

Adrian’s brow arched, a ghost of a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Residual energy, huh? Sounds like something straight out of a haunted lab report.” He leaned back against the nearest table, folding his arms, the casual posture doing little to hide how attentively he was actually listening. “You really talk about ghosts like they’re… chemical reactions. Controlled variables. Measurable.”

He tilted his head, eyes glinting. “Suppose that’s the Ravenclaw in you.” This was a guess of course, maybe she was a clever Hufflepuff. His tone was teasing, but light --- almost impressed. After a moment, he added, quieter now: “Still, if you’re right… and this room holds echoes... then what are you hoping to hear?”

sweetpinkpixie · 10-20-2025, 11:21 AM

Ugh. Did he really have to make it sound like she was some showboating ghost hunter?

Did he know sounded like every Slytherin who thought a little charm and a raised eyebrow made them profound?

"Terribly stereotypical an observation, don't you think?" she hummed while removing her glasses to wipe the lenses. "Being well-versed in literature isn’t exclusively Ravenclaw territory. Not a Ravenclaw but buries himself beneath Herbology tomes like they’re the only things keeping the world from collapsing." Honestly, he could do with a recommendations list as well - a little more perspective on the world would spare him some of his melodrama. "Ghosts aren’t as mysteries as we are lead to believe, but they aren't chemical reactions either. They do leave traces, patterns, measurable things if you pay attention. But of course, that’s far less romantic than imagining them as floating apparitions?"

Iris blinked, caught between the urge to thoroughly correct him and the faintest pull of amusement. "Hearing?" she repeated, as if testing the word on her tongue. "Not exactly the sorts of echoes I’m looking for. You do realize echoes aren’t limited to sound, yes?" She tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear and brushed her cheek with the back of her hand to check for flush - thankfully, that moment had seemingly passed. "I'm hoping to feel them - sample, if you will." Slipping her glasses back on, she studied him for a couple counts before speaking again. "If you're not going to accept my hospitality to procure you a reading list but still curious, you could come join me."

Instead of lurking like ... like that.

Samia · 10-21-2025, 06:50 AM

Soooo definitely a ravenclaw then.

Adrian’s smirk deepened, the kind that was somewhere between amusement and a challenge, “You make it sound like you’re inviting me into a séance,” he said, before adding: “And here I thought Ravenclaws - ” pause “ - or non-Ravenclaws who read like them, preferred control over chaos.”

He took a few unhurried steps closer, stopping just short of the circle she’d made with her notes and quills. “But what if..... chaos is exactly what you need,” Again, he deliberately paused as he circled the set up, “Consider this my very un-scientific contribution.”

And before she could stop him, Adrian reached out to nudge one of her carefully aligned candles just slightly off its mark, enough to disrupt the symmetry, enough to test whether her experiment or her patience would react first.

sweetpinkpixie · 10-26-2025, 08:21 AM

For a moment, Iris just stared at the candle he’d nudged askew. If she were, in fact, performing a séance like he kept on insisting she was, she would have found this particular needling incredibly irritating and inconsiderate. Reckless as well, but hardly worth dwelling on the what might have been considering the circumstances.

Her jaw did tightened, however, as the gesture told her plenty about his feline personality - like one who knocked potting plants off shelves and mugs full of water off tables - and she repositioned herself with a forced roll of the shoulders and ease to her features. The temptation to push the candle back was there in principle, and to reverse his audacity, but she showed incredible restraint in the moment. "What makes you think you know anything about my needs?" she asked, tone measured but laced with something that pricked at the edges. She had had more than enough chaos the past couple of years, thank you very much. "Maybe you’re the one who could use a little more structure and a little less... whatever this is."

She paused for a beat before leaning casually back on your hands with an entirely too confident smile curling her peach glossed lips.

"Considering you just cursed yourself for at least three years in agitating the spirits with that little maneuver."

Samia · 10-27-2025, 01:31 PM

Adrian blinked once, “Cursed, huh?” he echoed, letting the word roll off his tongue like it amused him far more than it should’ve. “I’ll take my chances. Haven’t met a spirit yet who could outdo my luck.” And that was saying something, since luck of the bad kind was pretty much hereditary.

He crouched slightly, just enough to level his gaze with hers across the small, flickering circle of light. “Besides,” he went on, voice dropping into something deliberately casual, teasing, “if they do come after me, I’m sure the brilliant non-Ravenclaw expert on ‘residual echoes’ can bail me out.”

The corner of his mouth tilted up again with a clear smirk. He glanced at the candle he’d moved, now ever so slightly off from the others and reached forward to nudge it just barely farther out of alignment.

“There,” he murmured. “For scientific accuracy.”

sweetpinkpixie · 11-09-2025, 01:11 AM

Iris exhaled slowly through her nose, the faintest tremor of a laugh caught somewhere in her throat. "You do realize," she said, voice pointed but remarkably lacking her typical chastizing tone, "that correlation and causation are not interchangeable, yes? Because if something does happen to you, I'd like the record to show that I’m not taking statistical responsibility for it."

Her quill, still poised over her notebook, tapped once... twice... against the page as though that might siphon off the restless energy prickling beneath her composure. He crouched, and she could feel his gaze like a static charge across the circle, so she glanced up only briefly before looking back down, unwilling to grant him the satisfaction of seeing her expression waver.

"Residual echoes," she continued, her tone overly academic now, as if retreating into lecture could restore order, "are energy signatures left behind by emotional events of significant magnitude. Perfectly observable phenomena if you know how to listen— or in my case, taste." The last word slipped out before she could stop it. Her lips pressed firmly together in regret before she cleared her throat quickly. "It’s not... never mind."

Her gaze flicked to the candle he’d shifted again, and her hand hovered over it for a long, deliberate second. Then, instead of correcting it, she let it stay crooked as a tiny concession. "You’re infuriating," she murmured, though the edges of the words softened into something that might be mistaken for amusement. Worst bit of it being he clearly knew he was infuriating and had zero remorse leaning into it. "But I’ll concede that you make an excellent chaos variable. Which is, of course, the complete opposite of scientific accuracy." Her quill twirled once between her fingers before tickled the tip of her nose with it. "But at least you’ve got that going for you… along with your objectively aesthetic allure."

The ideal wolf in sheep's clothing, charming his way into the fold under the guise of curiosity and distracting her own.

Samia · 11-12-2025, 12:28 PM

This really was turning more into entertainment than science for him. “Ah, so now I’m ‘objectively aesthetic,’ am I?” Adrian grinned, letting the words hang in the air and circling the setup once more.

He let his gaze flicker down to the crooked candle, then back up to her, voice dropping to a whisper. “But I have to admit,” he continued, the smirk softening into something almost lazy, “there’s a certain thrill in knowing I’m officially infuriating a brilliant Ravenclaw. Makes me feel… alive.” His fingers twitched toward the candle again, as if he might nudge it once more... but then he stopped, letting the tension stretch between them, deliberate and teasing.

And then.... he leaned forward just slightly, enough that his voice carried that low, mischievous warmth. “Does this assessment of yours mean I’ve earned the right to keep testing your patience, or do you plan to keep the next move strictly academic?”

sweetpinkpixie · 11-16-2025, 02:37 AM

Iris blinked at him - once, twice, thrice, and one more for good measure - her quill pausing mid-twirl as if her entire brain had suddenly skipped a line in its own internal textbook and her place completely lost. "Ob-jec-tive-ly," she reiterated, her tone a little less stern. "Which has its limitations. There are plenty of well-bound volumes that are pleasing to look at and still contain, misprints, poor editing choices, and lackluster writing."

Her attempt at cool detachment was immediately undermined by the faintest hitch in her breath when he leaned in like that. For one traitorous second, her mind conjured an image Eleanor Lance standing too close to a doorway she knew she should not cross. It was profoundly unhelpful.

Especially when the air around them shifted and something metallic and bittersweet ghosted across her tongue. She swallowed hard, eyes narrowing on the space between them as the heat rose a bit more in her cheeks. His question took a beat too long to register... but even then it made little sense - the result of a poor editing choice, surely.

"Why would the next move not be academic? That’s the entire purpose of the exercise. Unless you’re implying you’ve discovered some additional variable you haven’t disclosed - which, for the record," her hand lifted toward the crooked candle, her gaze following, "you should be aware that sensory interference is already compromising the integrity of the experiment so I'd appreciate it if you refrain from leaning in like you are auditioning for the role of a central figure in a gothic subplot."

Samia · 11-21-2025, 10:51 AM

Adrian didn’t move for a moment. Not because he’d been told off, he'd never take that seriously anyway -- but because something in “auditioning for the role of a central figure in a gothic subplot” lit up a spark of pure, wicked delight behind his eyes. Slowly, deliberately, he leaned back just enough to give her space… but not enough to actually retreat.

“Gothic subplot?” he echoed, amusement dripping from his very being. “Interesting, very interesting” He tapped one finger lightly against the edge of her open notebook, just shy of actually touching the page -- another tiny violation of her order, just to watch the way her breath hitched when he was too close.

“Actually... I didn’t discover an additional variable”, He pointed out before crouching again across the circle of flickering candles, “I created one.”

“You. Finding it harder to focus when I’m standing where you don’t want me.” Did she think he didn't notice? Because he very much did. He tilted his head, studying her with infuriating patience. “You can call it sensory interference. I’m calling it data.”

“Besides… the way you’re reacting?” he smirked, “Feels a little less ‘purely academic’ and a little more like you’re the one stepping into the gothic subplot with me.”

sweetpinkpixie · 11-23-2025, 02:19 AM

Iris just stared at him.

Flatly at first, then with a slow-building expression that suggested she was seriously calculating the exact number of Hogwarts rules she would violate by hexing a peer in an enclosed ghost-active environment. A particularly compelling option, given that he was now circling her like some Heathcliff-adjacent menace who’d wandered straight off the moors and into her life. Wild, bothersome, disrupting a perfectly rational woman for sport… yes, that tracked.

She blinked hard, grimacing as her tongue became laced with a riot of flavors. "Your 'so-called-data'," she said sharply, "is not only extraordinarily biased but also wildly presumptuous." She tried to adjust the candle he'd displaced but stopped halfway, fingers hovering in the air as a burst of salty-buttery sweetness hit her tongue. "And you are..." she broke off, frowning as though the right word might appear if she glared hard enough - they did not. "...you are intolerably emboldened for someone whose contribution to this exercise has been nothing short of entropy."

Interference incarnate and the main character of the control group 'unhelpful'.

"And for the record, I simply..." Her words halted again as the flavor on her tongue shifted to something with a bit more tang. The thoughts the moment had elicited caused her to blush and she quickly leaned on her secondary and far more defensive ones. "... if you take one more step into my circle, I will hex you. For science."

Samia · 11-23-2025, 10:03 AM

Such flowery language. He would be lying if he said it wasn't exhausting to follow. Because it really was, though he didn't show it - mostly on principle.

So when she went on and threatened him, a slow grin pulled at the corner of his lips - infuriating, pleased, and far too unbothered by hex-based consequences.

“For science,” he repeated, voice low and delighted, as though she’d just handed him a priceless gift instead of a warning. “You know, most people try to keep their hypotheses non-violent”

Was he planning to stop? Not really.

“But if you hex me,” he went on, “And I’m honestly dying to know…” His gaze dipped briefly to her hands, the poised quill, the slight tremor she kept trying to hide - before rising back to her face. “…how will your experiment function without its chaos variable?”

sweetpinkpixie · 11-28-2025, 09:21 AM

Iris didn’t sigh, exactly, but she did inhale through her nose as though she were attempting to filter him out of the air and something in her posture suggested the spiritual equivalent of closing a very heavy book with great force.

"Peacefully," she said at last, her tone clipped and prim. "My experiment will function peacefully without its chaos variable. In fact, I anticipate a measurable increase in clarity once the source of… gravitational disruption stops circling me like a celestial body convinced it is the center of the universe." Not to mention several books on her shelf were not going to have to be locked in her trunk indefinably.

He grinned.

Of course he did.

Her quill flicked sharply as she wrote something—mostly for the theatrics of it.

"And since you insist upon being morbidly curious," she huffed, lifting her wand with academic precision despite the faint quiver in her fingertips, "I suppose it is my scholarly duty to provide… demonstrable data."

Her eyes narrowed.

"Hold still. For science."

Don't say she didn't warn him.

She leaned toward him... just a breath, just enough for her pulse to stutter with the brief and utterly ill-advised thought of where such proximity tended to lead in certain literary forms...

Absolutely not.

Before he could retort - or lean any closer - her wand carved the air in a decisive flourish.

"Melofors."

Samia · 11-29-2025, 03:22 PM

Adrian moved before the spell even finished leaving her wand.

Not a full dodge, that would admit fear, but a subtle tilt of his head, a clean pivot of his shoulders, just enough for the spell to whistle past him and burst harmlessly against a column behind him.

The grin he gave her was nothing short of pure amusement. Stepping back into the candlelight with infuriating calm, he added, “I said I was curious. Not stupid.”

He crouched again across from her but this time he didn’t cross the circle, or didn’t invade her bubble, “So,” he continued lightly, “Now would you like to keep on pretending I’m the one ruining the integrity of this experiment?” He rested his forearms casually on his knees, eyes gleaming with delight, “or,” he added, voice dropping softer, “are we finally admitting that our mutual interference might be the most interesting variable in the room?”

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