Anna turned her head away from the boy and then rolled her eyes. So this was how it was going to be, huh? All the Order members were going to enjoy having her help but one? Ugh. As the saying goes, there's always one in every bunch. I mean, come on. They'd approached her and asked her for help. It wasn't like she'd approached them asking if she could help.

Anna turned back around to face the group, then said, "Yeah, whatever it is, then. Let's move on with the discussion." She'd been so excited to be asked by the girls to be an assistant. Now this boy had put her in a bad mood. She slumped back against a nearby wall, and irritated expression on her former happy face.

Steelsheen's eyes fell on a Slytherin boy, then realized this must be her counterpart at Coopers. She smiled apologetically, trying to appease him "I'm sorry but Anna was helping us at Belle's with the riddles as well as planning the rebellion, plus she was with me when we got stuck at Coopers..." she said quietly slightly embarrassed. "There could be more coming though... Professor Myers and Mr Masterson among others..." she said as she looked down, now unsure if inviting everybody at the Secret Room was a good idea. "I had to tell them about this, otherwise they wouldn't have released us so quickly." she reasoned as she looked at the Slyhterin boy. "Uhm, by the way, my name is Regina Roa, most of my friends just call me Steelsheen." she said extending her hand as she introduced herself.


Steelsheen saw the boy pull out his parchments are her eyes grew large. "Is that what you received from the mysterious owl? This one's mine." she said as she drew out her own parchments.

Clifford's brown eyes narrowed at the Gryffindor girl Prefect. There was something totally fishy about her that he didn't like. Not one ickle bit. Those other girls must've been chosen because they - like him - were brave and most generous! They clearly didn't need 'assistance'. He couldn't help but think she didn't belong there..

He wasn't about to say that out loud though. Nope, sometimes opinions were best kept to yourself. He wasn't the smartest.. but he knew that much.


Eyes still narrowed, Clifford turned to one of the younger looking girls. A Slytherin he saw - clearly his equivalent from that Belle's place. "There might be others coming?" He asked, eyes widening in surprise. Ack. He didn't like this. The Gryffindor girl was quite enough butting in. "I'm sorry, but I assumed this was a meeting for the Order members only. I mean, what's the point of this secret meeting if it's not .... secret?" That totally made no sense.

"Only the bravest and most generous are meant to be here!" He exclaimed, jaw clenched with irratation. Hmpf. This blew.

With a small sigh, he nodded at the younger Slytherin, eyeing the parchment she showed him before shaking the hand she offered. "Nice to meet you Regina. I'm Clifford Carden, most of my friends just call me .... Clifford."

"Pleased to meet you Clifford."Steelsheen said as she shook his hand. She bit her lip when Clifford commented that their meeting was supposed to be secret "I know, I know.... but Professor Myers and Mr Masterson was suspicious about who we were and what we were doing at Coopers. We gave them our reasons but they were taking their time deciding on what to do with us. When I told them about this meeting and the urgency of making it here at this time, they suddenly let us go and escorted us back here, even got us past Dion." she explained. She took a deep breath then continued "Come on Clifford, you're from Coopers, dont you think Professor Myers and Mr Masterson can be trusted? From our discussions there, they sounded to be the exact kind of adults we need on our side to fight the Ministry."

Clifford wrinkled his nose as he listened to Regina AKA Steelsheen's little speech. Truth be told, he didn't like Masterson the Groundskeeper in the slightest. He'd lost a lot of respect for the bloke after sorting through a mountain of his ruddy acorns. Hmpf.

"I kinda understand about the Professors.." He mumbled quietly, not wanting to start a huge fuss. Really, that was the last thing he wanted. "But do we really want all these others cluttering things up?" He was confused enough with the people here already.. wasn't eight enough? "We were picked for a reason, right? Bravest and most generous the letter said. Whoever formed this Order thing clearly didn't want everyone in on it.."

Steelsheen sighed and rubbed her neck, seems like the headache from Coopers was rearing its ugly head again "Yes I understand that, yes we were selected for a reason, but do you honestly think that just the eight of us would be able to get Hogwarts back and overthrow the Ministry Staff? Trust me I'm not underestimating our abilities, but even if we are the most gifted of Belle's and Coopers, doing what I just said will be no walk in the park." She smoothed open her parchments again before continuing "Anyway, I understand why you're so concerned about the possibility of too many people being here. So lets get on with this riddle solving ok?"

She pointed to her 2nd parchment then explained "My riddle says to rearrange the letters from the word WORTH, stacking them and re-stacking them 'following each instruction to a tee'." she quoted the riddle as she flipped the parchment over to Clifford and showed him how she solved it "Then it said to 'look at the middle letter of the stack'-- which is a 'T', so 'T' is the answer to my riddle." she said smiling.

"How about you, have you solved your riddle?" she asked looking at Clifford's parchments curiously.

Argh. This kid was pretty smart. Probably smarter than he was already. Well, thinking about it.. that wasn't really a difficult thing to achieve. Bleh. She was right though, it was a lot to ask eight of them to solve this thing and get Hogwarts back. But being the stubborn boy he was, Clifford still disliked that other Gryffindor girl being there.. and any others that planned on showing up.

"The letter 'T'. Okay, that seems to make sense." He nodded, eyebrows furrowed in concentration as he looked over the clues she was pointing out. Her's looked a whole lot simplier than his. Lucky ducky. "It seems we're all ending up with letters." He mumbled thoughtfully, remembering how Ryan had figured out Cale's was a 'W' back up in the library.

"I'm still kinda unsure about mine." He admitted sheepishly. Darn. Was he the only one who hadn't figured it out yet? Trust Clifford to be the slowest. "Well, mine seemed to lead me to a person rather than a letter.. but it's probably just me missing something.." He did have a rather small brain after all. ".. see.. you've got to find the right yang to your yin.." He read, pointing to the words on his parchment as he recited it. ".. soft like a ginger bloom.. hard like a gun.. blah blah blah."

Steelsheen took Clifford's parchments and looked them over. She furrowed her brow thoughtfully as she read the riddle over and over "...short for a thousand... soft like a ginger bloom, hard like a gun.... a force to be reckoned....." then she gasped and pointed the following clues to the Slyhterin boy ".... short for a thousand is a 'grand', a force to be reckoned is gravity, sometimes written simply as a G.... and then it said 'soft like ginger, hard like gun'..... Clifford the answer to your riddle is a 'G' i believe, all clues seem to point to that." she said as she beamed at the boy.

Clifford sat quietly as Regina went over his riddle, chewing the inside of his cheek and occasionally throwing sulky glances in Miss. Girl Gryffindor Prefect's direction. Grrr. The nerve of some people.

He'd been right when he thought this girl was smart. Heck, she was a bloody genius! "Whaaa?" He blinked in surprise, leaning forward to look at his clues as she began explaining his answer. "Whoa! Dude, that's impressive!" He grinned excitedly, bouncing a little. "My answer is 'G' ... I can see it now! Kid, you totally rock!"

So he did have a letter too after all! Interesting.

Okay, now Anna really was in a bad mood...and this Slytherin boy had made her that way. She tried not to get in bad moods often, but this boy was something else altogether! She narrowed her eyes right back at him and gave him a sarcastic look. So he didn't want to play nice. She got that. Ugh. Whatever. Silly boy.

She'd had enough of his rambling on and on, though. It was in some people's true nature to sit quietly and always keep the peace around them. Anna Greingoth, however, was not one of those people. This boy had made her mad, and she was about to let him have it! She sat up and fixed an evil eye on him. "Do you have some problem with me being here or something?" Anna asked, finally letting out all she'd been thinking. "I'm not sure why you would, but whatever. So let's hear it then. What's the big issue?" Anna sat back against the wall once again and folded her arms over her chest, glaring at the boy and waiting for a reply. She didn't come here to argue - HE made her start, though.

Cale had had enough of this bickering. Even though they had stopped arguing, Anna was still sulking and Clifford was still shooting dirty looks her way. Pssh, seriously, enough was enough!

"Ok, I've had enough of this. BOTH of you," he said, looking at Anna--yes, he was angry with her too--"are acting like babies. Clifford, Anna is here so just deal with it, ok? The girls are all first years and didn't know what to do, so they asked Anna cause she's a prefect and older than them...if we had involved anyone else in our plans, wouldn't we have wanted them to come to the meeting too?" he asked him, eyebrows raised. "We just chose not to, unlike the girls who obviously wanted more help than each other. No need to accuse people of not being generous and brave, either. Anna, stop being moody. It's just making me moody." he snapped at his girlfriend, probably a little more harsh than necessary.

"Steelsheen, no offense, but let's just keep all this between ourselves now, ok?" he asked with a kind smile. "No other 'assistance' should be needed past this point. If other people find out about it and they're being nosy, bring them to me and I'll tell them to clear off," he told her. "If anyone else from that Defense Against the Dark Arts class tries to stick their noses in our business, they'll be sorry," he added with another wink. He didn't want to broadcast what they were doing to the whole school, even though word was bound to travel around now.

After his little rant, he let out a sigh of relief and sat down, and finally located the parchment he had copied Ryan's clue onto. "He said that binary code translated into 25 letters, and his letter was the alphabet. Only it was missing the letter S. Which is obviously his letter." he explained.

"Let's see," he said, counting off the letters in his head. "We have S, G, W, H, T, and A so far," he announced aloud. "It rings a bell somewhere in my head, I just can't figure out where...Cela, what have you got?" he asked her, since she was the only girl who had spoken so far. He already knew that Maddox had never received a second letter. He was trying not to think about that...if they all had letters, who knew what his letter could be!

Clifford was still marvelling at Regina's genius-ness, Anna the Prefect rounded on him. His eyes widened in genuine surprise before narrowing again. Hmpf. First this girl showed up to a meeting she wasn't even meant to be part of.. and then she had the downright cheek to start on him? He, who was brave and most generous and a part of the Order of the Fang. Ugh!

"Well, as a matter of fact I do have a problem." He said simply.. "I mean you're not even.." His words were cut off by Cale and his teeth ground together with irratation and impatience. Hmpf. He clearly just wanted Anna here because she was his girlfriend.

"I'm betting the girl's could do quite well on their own actually. They wouldn't of been picked if they weren't capable of handling themselves and Regina here.." Here nodded at the younger Slytherin. ".. is actually quite the genius. She just figured out my riddle."

Assistance. Snort.

Anna's evil glare quickly faded to a shocked, emotionless face as Cale started yelling at everyone (which included her, his own girlfriend) involved in the bickering. In so many ways, she was thankful. Afterall, she hadn't started it...it had been Slytherin boy sitting over there sulking the entire time. She'd just been a....victim. There, that's it. A victim. An innocent bystander.

"BOTH of us?" Anna weakly asked, giving her boyfriend a wounded look. "But, I...," she started to say, then stopped and trailed off. She gave Cale an irritated look for lumping her in with the "bickering people," but then again, she probably deserved it. "I'm not moody," she mumbled, pouting and looking off to the far wall.

Ugh. She silently scolded herself for acting and sounding like a whiney child. Cale was right. Of course he was. There were more important issues at hand. "Sorry, Cale," she said, turning back around to face him. This time, she gave him a better look. It was an "I'm sorry" look. She wasn't quite ready to say the same thing to Slytherin boy, but she'd work her way up to that one...sooner or later. She smiled and Cale and mouthed the words "Thank you." At least he'd taken up for her and defended the fact that she was here.

She took a deep sigh and refocused herself on why they were all here to begin with. She listened as Cale took control of the meeting. Awww, her Cale, in control and in charge. She smiled at him and drifted off into a dreamy look for a moment, before snapping out of it and refocusing once again. Geez. No wonder the two had so many accidents during Quidditch.

Anna snapped her head toward the Slytherin boy, who still had a few slide remarks to make even after Cale had told everyone to pretty much shut up. She had to force herself not to yell back at the remark she could only imagine he was about to say. This boy was clearly delusional. She turned her head back to Cale, wondering if he'd kill her if she added just one more thing.

Once again, she shot her head back in the Slytherin's direction. "The girls have chosen to ask an assistant to help them," Anna shot back. "It's done. It's over. Deal with it. Let's TRY to get along, please."

Cale shot Clifford another dirty look. "Like Anna said, they asked her to be an assistant because they obviously thought they needed help. If they hadn't asked her--well, maybe they would have figured it out on their own, maybe they wouldn't have. We'll never know, but she's here and she's staying here, and if you have a problem with that, you can leave," he snapped, pointing at the door. "No one is forcing you to stay. Of course, if you continue to run your mouth I could kick you out myself, but honestly, you seem like a nice guy and I don't want to do that," he added, his eyes still glaring at him from beneath a few stray curls. "Now, are we all good? Can we get back to this flipping meeting already without staring daggers at each other from across the room?"

Whoa. He'd just threatened to kick someone out for her. She looked up at him with glowing eyes, amazed at how wonderful he was. She decided not to open up her mouth any more about anything dealing with bickering and this Slytherin boy. Cale had taken up for her, and that had meant everything in the whole world to her. Besides, she'd just been released from some locked room, and all she really wanted to do right now was enjoy being with him. Well, that and helping out the Order, as well, of course. "We're all good," Anna replied. "No more daggers, I promise."

What was this!? Freakin' pick on Clifford Carden day? One thing he knew for sure ... Gryffindor Prefects clearly had issues. All of 'em. Clifford didn't take too kindly to being bossed around like this though, and he glared right back at Cale. And there he was thinking the guy was actually alright.

"Well, excuuuuse me." Clifford spat impatiently. "But I don't recall anyone putting you in charge." Honestly, who did he think he was? Being all Mr. High and Mighty. Just showing off infront of his girlfriend probably. The way she was staring at him all gooey eyed was enough to make him want to barf. "It's not up to you who stays or goes, y'know. But whatever, I'm done.. this was meant to be a meeting for Order members.. not a bloody reunion.." He frowned, standing up and kicking his chair back, fists clenched angrily. "I'm out of here." And with that he dropped his parchment on the floor and skulked on out of the spare locker room.

Cale rolled his eyes as Clifford continued running his mouth. Clifford had seemed like a cool kid in class--he hadn't expected him to react so harshly to Anna's prescene. Sheesh! He bet that if Clifford had a girlfriend he wouldn't be too bothered with her being there. He shot him a nasty look as he started snapping at him again. "Well, someone had to put a stop to all the childish behavior around here," he argued back. "YOU seem to be the only person in here with a problem with Anna, and if you can't deal with her then you could have just kept your mouth shut, ya know. And technically, I'm a prefect, so I can kick you out of school property if you're causing problems," he added, smirking slightly. Bwaha! He caught him that time! And calling this meeting a reunion? Please! He saw Anna all the time at practice and Hogsmeade--it wouldn't have mattered if she had been there or not. But she was, which made the whole thing a lot better, of course.

"Good riddance," he muttered under his breath as Clifford stormed out of the locker room. They had already figured out his clue--who needed him anyways? He was just being a whiny little kid, when he was, in reality, a year younger than him. He never could have guessed. Grumbling, Cale reached forward and flattened the parchments even more, simply so he had something to do with his hands that didn't involve throwing a chair across the room.

Anna blinked and jumped back in shock as Clifford continued on and on with his little rant. "No on had to PUT him in charge. He took charge because BOTH of us - you and I - were acting like whiney children!" She continued to glare at the boy as he proceeded to yell at her boyfriend, one thing no one should ever attempt in her presence. "Don't yell at HIM!" Anna called out. "He did the right thing, and you know it! If you want to leave, then fine, LEAVE! We know your clue!" Anna fussed.

She shot him an icy look at he proceeded to stand up, kick his chair back, and leave the room. "Ugh!" Anna called out, rolling her eyes in frustration. "Look, he dropped his parchment." Anna bent down and picked it up. "We made need this..."

After the dust settled and all was said and done, Anna gave Cale and apologetic look. Geez. Everything had gone completely NUTS in the past thirty minutes or so. She grabbed his hand and sat down next to him. "I'm sorry," she weakly said. "He just made me so mad, but I...well, thank you for taking up for me. I know that took a lot to stand up to someone like that. I didn't make things much better, though, so I'm sorry." Her apologetic look turned to a shifty little smile, and she added, "You should remember what a horrible, bossy temper I have, though. Think back to Diagon Alley...the Hogwarts Express. Remember?" She was trying to cheer him up...make him laugh at something. Who knew whether or not it would work, but she could at least try.

Celandine watched wide-eyed as the older students bickered.

she ventured quietly, "Well there are 8 of us, 8 letters...mine is O...Theres only one word i'm hoping to spell."

Her eyes widened as the Slytherin student stormed out.
"Is he going to be okay?"

Cale's eyes widened. "Wait, what word?" he asked. He pondered it a bit, and suddenly realized why those letters had rung a bell to him. Grabbing his parchment, he pulled a quill and some ink out of his bag and wrote down the letters they had figured out. "Ok, we have O, W, H, S, A, T, and G," he said as he wrote each respective letter out on the parchment. "Rearranged, we have...'HOGWATS'" he announced, unable to contain the chuckle of laughter. So, if Maddox had gotten his clue, maybe he would have R? "Ok, so we're spelling Hogwarts, obviously," he said with a grin.

He turned to Maddox expectantly, "Why don't you have a clue again?" he asked.

"Who cares?" Anna wanted to reply, but then she thought better of it. "He'll be alright. I think he left his parchment on purpose, though. I have it right here," she said, holding it up so Cela could see it. "The letters do sound quite close to....," Anna started to say, but then stopped herself. She wasn't technically an Order member, so she'd let one of them have the glory of saying it aloud for the first time. That is, if the word was what she thought it was.

"Hogwats?!?!" Anna exclaimed, giggling just a little. She still wouldn't say the real word aloud. She'd wait til one of them came up with it. She tapped her fingers on her legs, waiting patiently for Maddox to reveal that he had....an R. Or, well, that he should have an R. Where on Earth was his clue?

Ah, finally. Of course her perfect boyfriend had been the one to figure it out first. She smiled at him, nodding as he mentioned the word Hogwarts. "Has anyone figured out what to DO with the letters and word once we have it? Do you just send it back by owl, or what?"

Maddox was zoned out when he suddenly heard his name, "OH Right, my clue!" He searched his pockets and finally found his clue. "here it is." He held out the parchment.





He looked at it then said, "Obviously its 'R'." He shrugged. Noting the other clues.

Cale nodded. "But why is it R? Other than the fact that it puts the missing R in "Hogwarts". Maybe we have to respond to these owls with the answers of our clues, but what if they want an explanation to how you found it? You just guessed?" he said with a chuckle.

"there are seventeen of them on there." Cela agreed looking at the parchment. "But now what? are we supposed to send a response or just show up at the gates? It said not to contact again 'til the treasure is in hand...is the treasure at hogwarts or is it hogwarts itself?"

Cale looked at the parchment again. "Ummm, maybe I'm just going blind and can't read this or something, but I only count 16," he said, tapping the parchment with his fingers whenever an R appeared. He counted again and again, only getting 16 each time.