"Pierce, Shackleton, and Kapoor are back t-" Tobi suddenly caught the meaning of what else Cale had said, "What? Are you insane? Well I know you're insane but what?"

First Elan and now CALE? Why does everyone think I'm dating Aggie? She's Aggie! For Cliodna's sake!

"There are some fundamental problems with that theory of yours, mate," Tobi said though gritted teeth.

So focused was he on setting Cale straight that he completely ignored his plate full of roast pork. That said something - something Tobi wasn't going to admit to.

Mariska rolled her eyes and laughed. " Oh, best gift I've ever been given." She said dryly as Cayden teased her. She watched Robert every few moments as she spoke to Cayden, gauging his reaction. " I've taken Muggle transport before, it was terrible to be honest." She said with an other laugh. She looked back at Robert for a moment before Cayden spoke again and she nodded. " Of course, I'm in the library quite a bit myself when I'm here," She said, thinking nothing of agreeing to his suggestion.
Mari nodded. " Oh, I see," She said, not quite knowing what Broadway was. She was quite for a moment and then she looked over at Robert who seemed intent on hearing her answer to Cayden now that she had given it. " At any rate, he does, have style that is." She said, smiling at Robert in a genuine way for the first time in a few minutes. " I just thought it odd that he'd teach history, since he's used to an apparent life of celebrity." She said vaguely.

Sho walked over and raised his eyebrow. Long and torturous what? For who? And why were there flying potatoes?! He stood behind the two boys and put his hands on his hips.

"What the heck is going on with you two?" he asked, interrupting whatever they were talking about.

"Im sure it was. You'll wish from now to be covered in chocolate. Oh im sorry, the c word." he said with sarcasm. he gave her a smile as she agreed to it. "Great. Well now that your going to help me i cant fail a class." Not that he was going to before." I like books." he agreed with her as he kept noticing they were both looking at each other. It was like one of those Mexican show downs. Only...they weren't Mexican. More like French and the paranoid man. "erh...well im just going to go." he said as he could feel the tension rising. it wasn't going in his favor either." thanks mari." he told her as he moved to lightly touch her arms for a brief second." I"ll leave you to your boyfriend." It seemed like he was already ready to pop a button. he gave Robert a smile as he headed towards his own table.

Lasca was finished eating. She occupied her time with watching the commotion down the table, listening to the conversation between her friends, and watching the Staff table. Her attention turned to Nathaniel when he retrieved his backpack and pulled out some pictures.

When Mariel took them from him, Lasca leaned over and looked at them as well. She remembered that she hadn't been given permission so she went back to people watching. Mariel's comment however captured her full attention. She burst into laughter.

She shook her head and put her hand on Mariel's shoulder. "My friend, muggle pictures are not like ours. They are still, they simply capture what they see and that is all. Not at all like what you and I are used to." She didn't want to hurt Mariel's feelings but she couldn't help it. She had told her Papa the very same thing when she had first seen muggle pictures. The memory gave her a warm glow of happiness thinking about her Papa.

"Yea,it's the same concept.". Nathaniel grinned. "Please,I don't make things up. Scuba stands for self contained underwater breathing apparatus. Basically it's just a tank full of oxygen so I can breathe underwater for a long period of time.It's really fun. I swam with a bunch of fish and whales. he grinned. He giggled and said "Those are muggle pictures Mariel. They don't move. I have some in my trunk that are magical and move. Those are the ones with whales and fish.". He took a sip of his out of his goblet.

Juniper plopped herself onto the bench next to Becca and tried not to look at the mashed potatoes in the girl’s mouth. Instead, she looked up at the staff table, and saw that the Grey Lady had over there at some point. As to where the ghosts had come from… Juniper was completely clueless. She had read about the Hogwarts house ghosts, but never actually seen them. She gazed at the Grey Lady for several moments. How curious…

“Where’s Professor Lainey go?” Juniper asked Becca as she helped herself to some pumpkin juice. Surely Becca, of all people, would know. And maybe she would even pass the mashed potatoes while she answered.

Juniper glanced at Issy, who was being sort of quiet. That was weird. Juniper did not mind silence, but… Issy usually was not so silent. That was Juniper’s job. Perhaps the potato had smacked into the girl harder than it appeared. “Issy got hit by a potato that some girl threw,” she told Becca matter-of-factly.

Ludo just smiled, taking in Liz's words of reassurance then looked up as the Grey Lady began conversing briefly with him.

Ludo opened his mouth to apologize but before he could, the Ravenclaw ghost was off towards the staff table.


As Liz and the Ravenclaw boys' conversation paused, Ludo was introduced. He briefly glanced at the boy, Robert. "Ludo...'Pleasure." Though he had the smallest hint of displeasure to his voice. "You were in the compartment with Mari and Liz, correct?"

Ludo looked up and saw Mari watching Liz and Robert. Had he been sitting in her position, he might have been doing the same. "Is there something between her and this guy?" he thought. He tried to catch her eye, but before he could...someone familiar approached her.

Ludo recognized the boy from Diagon Alley. "The lady's man..." he thought.
This was just great. As Mari talked with the boy dressed in Slytherin robes and Robert talked to Liz, Ludo sat quietly. Having been so hungry before, he couldn't help but notice he was merely pushing the food around on his plate.

As Robert heard Mariska's answer his eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched. So what is she playing at then? His attention was completely gone from Cayden as Robert stared at Mariska in shock and frustration. He barely registered the brief contact that Cayden made with Mariska and a few of his words, namely Cayden calling him her boyfriend. As the boy left he just sat looking at Mariska, "I see." He stood up, not breaking his gaze from her, "If you wanted to hang out with him so much why didn't you just say so. I would have just backed off. Could have fooled me with the way you went out with me and everything...but I guess that I should have expected that from you." The fact that he wasn't yelling surprised him the most as how much anger was coursing through him. Without another word and without even still clarifying the status of where they stood with each other he walked back over toward Elizabeth and sat down next to her again with a sigh. "Can you teach me about musicals and stuff tonight?" He asked, picking up the conversation from where it had ended.

Lyra, too, smiled at Mariel's confusion. She must really not have any interaction with muggles. She then looked over to Nathaniel, and his pictures. She had been excited to see him do magic and thought of her wand, now upstairs in her trunk. She couldn't wait to start learning.

She was glad to have finally met someone who seemed to have been raised by muggle parents. She glanced at his photos.Surfing, scuba diving, I wish my dad would let me do stuff like that. "That looks like a lot of fun," she said to Nathaniel.

Lyra then turned to Lasca. "I'm glad to see that you've been sorted into Ravenclaw, too!"

"And what would that be? The fact that it's true?" Cale took a satisfied bite out of his buttered roll as he smirked at his friend. "Seriously mate, you should just go over and ask her." He swallowed and quickly added so that Tobi would smack him upside his head. That had happened already today, as evidenced by the bright red mark on his forehead which was slowly starting to bruise. "To join us I mean."
"Well, if it ain't the man of the hour!" Cale said turning around and spying Sho. "I figured you'd eat with Kelly - since you spent most of the train ride with them." He shooed off a firstie so that Sho had room to sit down with them. "Tobi and I were just discussing a very bubbly Gryffindor...." Cale trailed off as he got a wicked evil teasing smile on his face.

Sho blushed a bit and sat down next to Cale, shoving him a bit as he did so. There that boy went shooting his mouth off again. Just because he was prefect did not mean that he could just go off and say whatever it is that he wanted to.

"Ahem, yes, well... Sometimes I need to sit and eat with my fellow Ravenclaws... and the occasional Gryff," he said as he looked around the table at the spread.

"Wow, I wish I could do stuff like that. Well, I guess I could if my dad ever took me to the beach. But my summers are OK, though. Dad always takes me with him on his trecks around Europe. He's an anthropologist professor, and he goes to Turkey sometimes on excavations. It's fun, I guess, if you like old bones and stuff... Lyra stopped abruptly and blushed, realizing that she had been rambling. She was sure Nathaniel, or Lasca or Mariel, for that matter, wasn't much interested.

Tobi rolled his eyes. "Um, No, how about the fact that it's AGGIE, and she is all feminist and liberated, thus she doesn't 'cozy couple' with anyone, least of all me? Seriously, if you wanted to get on my case about coupling, could you at least find a realistic candidate?" Not that it was Cale's strong suit, Tobi knew, after all, his best friend had a thing for the school Librarian.

Yeah, because THAT'S going to work out for you, mate.

Tobi's fists actually clenched at Cale's implication that he go ask Aggie out, until Cale turned it into an invitation to join the table. "And if you're going to be on our case, it's probably better that I leave her right where she is- for your sake; she beat me to a bruised and bloody pulp this summer."

Tobi shoved Cale into Sho as the poor Ravenclaw sat down. "Will you SHUT IT!?" he bellowed in his face.

"I do actually too." Liz explains. "But it's helpful, for my moods at times. A few years ago we had to wait a few hours before leaving in the carriages to get to the school, Belle's I think it was. We had to wait a long time before we could get to the feast, and I started feeling sick. Mel, noticed my hair changing til it was almost transparent. And knew something was wrong right away. Even last year when I was hexed, it happened too."

With a smile she says "But yes, I can control it too. Like this..." Closing her eyes for a moment, her hair goes from her chin down to midback and her eyes go from green to sky blue.

Turning to Lasca as she heard her laugh and felt her hand on her shoulder, Mariel said, "Oh, right, Muggle pictures... Sarah tried to tell me about those." Suddenly memories of her unnerving accidental visit to the Muggle Studies office came flooding back to her.

Shuddering, she turned her attention to Nathaniel as he explained. "So just a Muggle invention for a bubble-head charm." That was easy to understand if difficult to picture. "But why didn't you just use the charm?" Nodding as he reiterated what Lasca just said, she added, "Well, I would like to see those pictures." At least she could better understand that.
Glancing over to Lyra as she contributed to the conversation, Mariel offered her a smile. "Do you really get to go to places like that? That sounds amazing. I've never been outside Britain." She was always fascinated to hear of places people have travelled.

Ok...things were finally settling down......a fantastic meal...even for her tabby, HiJinx...

Quite a floor show....students and professors, alike....

Msybe it was time for Qaz to step up and help some of the newbies....

Nathaniel smiled at Lasca. "Mariel.. I can't use magic outside of Hogwarts. Don't you remember that? Plus,Father doesn't like magic. Even if he is a wizard himself.". He put the pictures back into his bag. " Do you like the person your father married?"


"That's really cool. I live right on the beach." he said smiling. He pushed his glasses up and added "We travel a lot. Mostly it's just my Father and myself. It's loads of fun and I get to do a bunch of things and learn about other cultures. I've learned a few different languages and what not.

Mari looked up as Cayden said he was going to go then and she gave him a little smile as he left. " Boyfriend?" She said, questioning that last bit as she and Robert hadn't ever really discussed anything...they had just sort of said they'd see one another at school. Of course, he seemed intent on being around Elizabeth (her friend, of all people!) so she had gotten miffed and well...now things were weird again.



Mari looked quite surprised as Robert stood up suddenly, staring at her as if she had mortally offended him. She opened her mouth to answer him. " You could have told me the same thing you know, about Elizabeth." She said somewhat snappisly, and then she closed her eyes a moment before she spoke again, sighing with frustration. " I know we didn't talk about..." She stopped as he spoke again. Her green eyes narrowed and she made to get up as he spoke. " From me? What's that supposed to mean?" She said as he walked away. She looked at him, an indignant expression on her face. " The nerve of..." She stopped then, and sat back down, telling herself to calm down. No one needed to see how angry she was or actually how he had hurt her feelings just then. She took a deep breath and thought that this was the first time she had sat alone in a long time.
Mari pressed her lips together a bit as she got up and walked past Robert, intent on ignoring him now. For the moment, anyway. " So, Ludo...do you have any theories as to why the new History of Magic Professor decided to retire from acting to teach instead?" She said, trying to ignore the feeling that she had made a bit of a mistake in getting so irked over nothing earlier.

Aura sighed, as she realized no more food was flying around the table. She took a sip out of her drink and quickly made sure that Sherlock & Rain were not on the table, or in anyone's food. She smiled softly as she took a bite of her mash, she looked around and sighed...

"Can you pass the butter please?" She asked aloud to anyone that could hear...unbuttered roll was not the best as it is.

Cale let out a yelp from the push and bounced off Tobi's boney shoulder. "Oye, well, it's your last term, thought you'd like to make it spec-ouch!" He had the feeling that he was going to have a large bruise on his shoulder tomorrow.
"Like whooom?" He said reaching across the table to snatch up the gravy boat. "There were quite a few fifth years eyeing you up like chocolate in a candy store. You could always try one of those. Although," he drowned his potatoes and some beef in gravy. "I don't really take you as a cuddly-wuddly type."

"Hey, I can control myself when said topic of conversation is aroun-ouch!" Suddenly Cale became a human ping-pong between two of his bestest friends at Hogwarts. "Will you two stop! I've already got enough bruises on my body!"

Qaz had tried sounding like a voice of authority....but the only one that had really listen was her tabby, HiJinx.........

perhaps when they got up to the tower....

Sho chuckled as Cale was shoved this way and that. It must have been a sight to see the Prefect being manhandled by those he was supposed to be keeping in line. Though Sho was hungry and Cale needed to not look like he was beaten up so he moved on to piling his plate up with food.

"Well Tobi's the one that you seem to be making go crazy," he said, leaning forward to grab a role and smile at the boy.

Qaz had had enough....as much as she loved this school, this was insane....

She stood up, looked at her Tabby, HiJinx....and said 'GET TO BED!'


Then she walked towards the staff table....

Aura looked over to where she heard someone yell 'Will you shut it' and saw her house's Prefect Cale Thorton talking to Tobi Avalon. "Hey Cale, Tobi" Aura spoke loud enough for them to hear her, or she hoped she usually tended to speak in far too soft and wavery of a voice. Aura looked over to Qaz and sighed, "Need help Qaz?"