"Put your money back." Chalice said. "I'm paying for everything, you guys are my friends, it's the least I can do."

A couple of days later she gave Chris the candy and headed up to her dorm to get ready.

"Oh my god, last night was sooooooo fun! We really have to make that a regular thing." Chalice said when she found Chris in the Common Room.

Yeah I know we should do it again this Friday! occ send the message out to everyone. We need to think of a good time. Pm me later k and we can plan it out

Piper slowly made her way into the common room with a sigh, Why does life have to be so complicated? As well as painful? She asked herself as she settled down into a comfortable chair and took out her homework, she started at it sightlessly for a few minutes before sighing and looking around. She couldn't concentrate on anything, Not with Jack and Professor Dumont swirling in her mind.
"Guh.." She sighed softly, as she picked up her homework and attempted to try and do it again.

Anna headed down the stairs and into the Common Room. She'd just been in the dorms writing her father a letter and telling him just how perfect this school year had turned out to be. If you would have asked her two days ago, Anna would have told you that this was the worst school year she'd ever had...by far. However, lo and behold, a certain turn of event involving Cale Newell had changed that around drastically. So it was with that thought in mind that Anna was currently grinning from ear to ear and walking around like her whole world had just been brightened...because, well, yeah, it HAD.

"Hey!" Anna happily exclaimed, plopping down next to Piper on the couch. "Oh...are you...okay?" Anna asked, her face wrinkling in worry and confusion.

Piper visibly brightened as she spotted Anna coming down the stairs with a wide grin on her face. "Anna!! It is so good to see you smiling again! Have things worked out with Cale?" She asked gently not wanting to upset the older girl if she had overstepped anything.

She grinned a bit as Anna sunk onto the couch next to her and she sighed a bit. " I suppose I am alright, feeling better after the dueling dummy incident, but still I can get a bit dizzy at times." She sighed a bit more, and then looked at her homework. "Have you ever had a crush on a teacher?" She asked suddenly. She needed to talk to someone about this, because it was driving her insane.

Chalice walked into the Common Room and found an empty squashy chair in front of the fire. She pulled out some firewiskey filled chocolate culdrons and ate her favorite candy and let the warmth of the fire sink into every level of her being.

Just as Cale stepped into the common room from the boys dormitory, he heard someone yelling his name. He was so startled he missed the last step and tumbled down the stairs, falling on his knees.

"Erm, right here!" he called, standing up quickly and pretending nothing had happened. "What do you need?" he asked, rubbing his knee where he had fallen.

Cale barely had time to stop rubbing his knee before his arm was practically yanked out of his socket as Astrid pulled him forcefully to the couch. Sitting down immediately, he turned to her with wide eyes and listened to what she had to say.

Slytherins? Talking bad about Gryffindors? Usually when the Slytherin's gossiped it was only about HIM, not the whole house...unless it was those traitors he had met in the library. "Who were they, exactly?" he asked, raising an eyebrows. "Did one of them happen to be a prefect?" he asked.

Astrid shook her head at him, "I don't know WHO they were! I'm pretty sure that I saw that girl in Professor Kapoor's office about a month ago but I don't remember her name. I think it started with a C." she said. "The guy was definitely their prefect though. I saw his badge." she said rolling her eyes. That fact that he was a prefect just made it that much more despicable.

OH Cale, it was horrible!" She yelled. "First I heard them talking about Nico and Anna. And they were being SO mean." she said. "Then they mentioned the treasure. They are plotting something!" she said. " By the sound of it, they are planning to cut us out of any discoveries that are made so that THEY can take the credit."

She took and deep breath in preparation for the worst news of all."Oh Merlin, Cale. They were talking about sending a letter to Minister Cooper!"

"What?" Cale exclaimed, jumping out of his chair like lightning had struck him. "I can't believe this! Will is a prefect, I thought he was alright, he never caused me any harm...I bet that stupid first year Seymour is in on it too, he's a little schemer if I ever saw one..." he grumbled.

Cale was NOT going to sit back and take this. Those Slytherins were just so unbelieveable sometimes! He felt like Evee was the only Slytherin in the whole world he could trust. Well, Reese too. Oh, and Bella and Cora. But that was IT.

"What is it with Slytherin's sending letters to the Minister?" he wondered aloud, shaking his head and groaning in disgust.

"Astrid, we have to do something! Cooper can't know about this...not yet, at least. No way! If he gets any word now that there's a treasure hunt going on...I can't imagine what will happen! All I know is it can't be good for anyone!"

Usagi walked into the common room just in time to hear Cale and Astrid's conversation. No way. Those Slytherins caused havoc last term enough by sending a letter to Cooper. In the name of Godric Gryffindor, please don't let it happen! She pleaded inside her mind and turned to Astrid with the lowest voice possible: "Treasure? I thought the only treasure in Hogwarts are friends and knowledge."

Cale turned to the newcomer who had just walked into the common room and had obviously heard their conversation. Should he devulge more details? Ehh, why not? "Well, see, apparently Minister Cooper thinks that there is a treasure hidden at Hogwarts somewhere. We found a book of letters in the library, really old letters that suggest there is SOMETHING hidden in Hogwarts, but I doubt it's an actual pot of gold like Cooper thinks."

"Unfortunately, the Slytherin's have gotten wind of this and insist on finding whatever this treasure is and claiming all the glory for themselves. They didn't trust me or Anna and I'm pretty sure if we had agreed to stay with them we would have been stabbed in the back eventually," he explained with a sigh as he ran his hand through his curly hair.

"Cale Newell, by the way, Prefect...I don't believe we've met," he introduced himself with the smallest smile he could muster.

Astrid was relieved that Cale was actually listening to her this time. She would be completely helpless to try and stop this without his help. Lately, she trusted him more than anyone else (except for Allie, of course). But Allie wasn't a Prefect. She needed Cale.

"Prefect or not, they are out to make our lives HELL!" she said. "If you could have heard his malicious tone." she shuddered at the thought.

"What can we do? How can we stop them?" she demanded. "I will do anything to keep the Minister from getting involved again. ANYTHING!"

Cale...Cale Newell? Ah, the second reason of the Prefect's breakup in the Great Hall. Gah, she hadn't had a chance to see Anna nowadays. But still, he's a Prefect, and needed some respect. Usagi thought and returned his smile with a slightly larger one: "I'm Usagi Ginno, second year Gryffindor and proud of it." Sighing at Cale's explanations, she muttered: "I hope we could work out a plan to get all the info we're gonna need to keep the Slytherins - and the Minister - away from the treasure and the chance to make our lives like hell."

Via entered the Gryffindor common room, she spotted some of her friends and she'd thought she'll join them. Older students are in there too. Via plopped herself at a couch as she greeted USa and AStrid, "Hello Usa, hello Astrid!" What's all the topic about again? Ministry? "What's about the ministry Usa?" Via asked.

Cale sighed. "Anna's got the letters right now in her book, we can read them all and then hopefully take a lot of notes before the book disappeared--I think Nico charmed it to do that--and then try and figure out a lead before the Slytherins do," he explained. "Remember that...thing last term that I told you about? I'm hoping my knowledge about that will come of some use and that the Slytherins won't have access to that because I refuse to help them but that's just grasping for straws right now," he added with a groan.

Where was Anna?

"Nice to meet you, Usagi," he added with a smile, trying to lighten the mood. "Sorry to bum you out with all this Slytherin stuff but...you know how they can be."

Anna hurried through the portrait hole, the book she'd received in the library clutched tightly in her hands. When she walked into the Common Room, she immediately began looking around for Cale. When she spotted him, she hurried over and plopped down on the couch next to him, shoving the book in his hands. "Sorry I'm late!" she said, a little out of breath. "Anyway, we're running out of time! The book is only supposed to last for a few hours. We should get started right away!"

Cale grinned. "You made it!" he said with delight. After all the stuff they had just been through--together--with the Slytherins, he was overjoyed to see here. He took the book from her and laid it out on the table in front of them. "You start reading, I'm gonna run and grab some parchment to take notes!" he told her, jumping up and running over to the stairs. He was running so fast, in fact, he stumbled over the coffee table a bit, knocking over a vase in the process. Ehh, he'd fix it later--he had more important things to do!

In an instant, Cale had disappeared up the stairs.

Anna nodded when Cale mentioned how she'd made it to the Common Room. "I'm sorry I kept you waiting. I bumped into Liesel in the corridors, and she insisted that we have a mini catch-up chat session," Anna explained. She opened the book to the first page, looking up at Cale and waiting to see whether or not he wanted to be the first to read. Apparently not, since he needed to run upstairs and retrieve his parchment to take notes.

"Okay, maybe when you get back I'll be done with letter one, and I can possibly give you a little bit of information," she said. She turned back to read, but jumped slightly when she heard a crash near the stairs. Without turning around, she could already guess the "who" and the "what." "Be careful, Cale," she playfully called out. "Don't worry about the vase, either. We'll get it later..."

"Oh, hey, Astrid!" Anna greeted. "I'm so glad you could join us! Maybe working together we can all figure this thing out!"

"I'm back!" Cale announced, running down the stairs again at super fast speed. Thankfully he didn't trip this time and joined Anna on the couch, quill and parchment in hand. "Ok, so what have we got so far?" he asked, looking at the book on the table.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could tell Astrid looked uncomfortable--what on Earth had Anna done to make Astrid behave in such a way? But she had asked him not to ask her any more questions about it, so he kept true to his word and just continued looking at the book.