Chelsea walked into the Slytherin common room and took a seat on one of the big leather couches her usual spot in the common room. She took out her Herbology text book and began to study. It was easy to tell she was bored she only studied if she had nothing else to do...especially if she was studying Herbology. When she's bored is also the only time she ever really spends in the common room. She realized she still had on Scott's blue and bronze Ravenclaw scarf and smiled. It looked so out of place with her green and silver Slytherin tie but she didn't care.

"Oh hi, Chelsea. Watcha doin`?"

Chelsea looked up from her Herbology book. "Hi Kelsey! Nothing really just studying Herbology..." she said. Her leg hurt. I'll go to the hospital wing later she thought. "So did you try out for quidditch yesterday?" she asked.

Aurora stormed into the common room, tears staining her face, her cheeks even paler than usual. In her hand was a single piece of parchment covered with black slanted writing. She sat cross-legged in front of the fire and held out the letter... did she want to burn it... pretend it had never come..?

That wouldn't reverse anything...

She held the letter tight, staring at the name on the end...

HOW?! How could this happen? It was... devastating. And there was nothing she could do.

Kennedy dragged his feet into the common room. These past weeks have been the busiest in his life. He's met people, gone to class and actually participated, saved people from drowning AND he hasn't been beaten up, yet. This was by far the strangest month ever. He still wasn't sure if it was a good thing or a bad one. He also hasn't felt like himself lately, which was very odd.

He was about to make his was up to the boy's dorm when he spotted a red head. He hasn't spoken to her much since classes, so he decided to say hi. "Hi Aurora," he said when he was next to her. He noticed the parchment in her hand and wondered if she was writing more music. "How's the mus..." Then he noticed her eyes. "Hey, what's wrong?" he asked, sitting beside her.

Aurora turned and buried her head in Kennedy's chest. "I... one of my friends... from Germany... she..." she couldn't get the words out. She passed him the letter... it was written entirely in German and she didn't know if he could read it. "She... f-fire... the house burnt down... she... she was still in it. She... they don't think she's going to be okay..."

She was unable to talk any more, her whole skinny frame was trembling. WHY DID IT ALL HAVE TO HAPPEN TO HER?!

Blink.Blink.

Kennedy did not know how to respond. He also didn't know how to deal with crying girls. His green eyes shifted nervously around the room, almost as if trying to find answer as to what to DO.

Okay...

First, comfort right? Right. Wait, but does he pat her back or rub circles like his mom used to do when he was younger? Maybe both? Kennedy began to gently pat and then rub circles on her back. Gah! Was he even doing this right?

He took the letter from her and stared blankly at it. What was this language? He only knew Spanish and English.

O__O

Gosh, Kennedy did not know what to do. He perfectly...kind of, understood what she said. It was horrible and he didn't know what to say. He was a good for nothing just like his...

He didn't want to think about that now. Instead he began to say whatever popped into his head. "Shh, Aurora...you just have to have faith that she'll be okay." He smoothed her hair back, just like his mom would do to him.

Aurora let herself relax a little, just wanting to be warm. She could hear Kennedy's heart beat quicken and felt kind of bad... he didn't seem the kind of boy to be into the comforting thing. She let him rub her back... it was kind of relaxing. It was strange that, on top of all of this - with her parents, her brother and now Katja - she could be relaxed by something as simple as someone rubbing her back.

"F-faith? In wh-what?" she whispered through her tears. "If the h-healers can't d-do anything th-then there's n-n-nothing to have f-faith in."

Aww, and now he was smoothing her hair back... where did he learn that? Oh... she was making his shirt damp. "S-sorry." She took out her wand, "A-assico." His shirt dried out. "Th-Thanks Kennedy." she said. The tears coming quieter now, but still flowing freely.

"The states" I answered, in a quite nonchalant answer.

I had to reposition myself as an ambassador (which I was not) for a greater entity (which it was not) over an inferior (which she was not). So...it didn't really work that well.

"Well no, you really don't have much of an accent." Or none. But hey! Maybe I missed something. "Well, you do have an accent, but you don't."

Smooth.

"Have an er..." Wait...Um...er....this wasn't working. "What country again?" Fail. Fail. Fail.

For an actor, I shouldda done better than this.

He did not think about that. Kennedy didn't know how to answer that, not being one with a lot of faith. He didn't even know if it all worked the same in the Muggle and Wizarding world. "I..." Hmm. "Like have faith in the healers that are helping your friend. You know send all your positive energy to them...I'll even send them mine." He offered. Maybe that'll work. Maybe having faith in the very healer was like sending them good energy to help Aurora's friend. If that was the case, he hoped it worked.

"It's okay," he said, looking down at his shirt. Aurora seem to know a lot of spells. Out of impulse Kennedy brushed a stray tear away and tried to give her his best smile. "Um, in what language was the letter written in?" he asked, blushing for the what he just did and because of the stupid question.

Aurora nodded, "Yeah I... I guess that could work." she sniffled. It was just so... crazy! Katja was invincible... she'd never been hurt. Ever! She'd helped try out all of Aurora's potions, she'd been there for every experiment! And she'd always been fine...

She tried to return the smile as he brushed a tear from her cheek. This was what she needed right now, just someone to be there and be nice. "German. Th-they live in Koln." she said, pronouncing Cologne in the German way. She sat up, lifting her head up from Kennedy's shoulder, pulling her legs up and wrapping her arms around her knees. God... everything was going wrong! And she had a detention later that evening...

The States?

Well there was a place she had at least heard about. Connecting the accent to the name though had been a new experience to say the least, but hey, at least she could now say she met someone from overseas.

“Romania....” the girl repeated softly with a grin, “The Hunedoara area....but I was born in London.” she added, though the small witch was pretty sure he would have no idea where Hunedoara was.

“I’m Eris by the way...” the girl greeted with a friendly tilt of her head, dark hair falling with it as she stretched out a hand.

"Hunahunawhat?"

I was thoroughly flummoxed. Heh. Flummoxed. That's an awesome word. Note to self: He stood, flummoxed at the blinking lights... Yea. Heh. Heh. Flummoxed.

While I lived in my little world of unreality, or reality with cool words, I eventually notice a hand. Well, her hand. Correction: her stretched out hand. Um...Wait. That meant...oh god. Well I obviously was having some problems reconnecting with reality. Almost like...a stem of broccoli.

The stem of broccoli was not impeded by the flummoxed man... Heh. Heh.

WAIT.

RIGHT.

Ug. "Sorry, I'm a bit zoned today." I proceeded to warily shake her hand.

"Well obviously." Taryn figured there was a reason she'd not been placed in Ravenclaw, but she also figured she was pretty smart. She could totally do her part to help win back some of the points that others had so carelessly lost!

She blinked at the other girl, coming out of her thought process long enough to catch her last sentence. Tori hurried off and Taryn leaned over to scoop up Vivian and Simba and bring them up to the arm of the couch with her.

Tori trotted back into the common room, both of her arms wrapped around a giant bag of candy. Food for the pygmy puffs AND for them!

She settled back on the floor, this time facing the couch, their babies, and her BFF. "What do we want to try them on first?" she asked expectantly, opening the bag with a rattling of wrappers and a mischievous smile.

Taryn's eyes went wide and she STARED at the large bag of candy. "Wow! Where'd you get all of that?" The bag was totally crazy huge and Taryn was mighty impressed.

Taryn edged closer to the end of the cushion and leaned over, hands propping her up on the couch so she didn't topple over onto Tori. "What have you got in there?"

Someone sure didn't seem in the mood to talk about his family now did they. Marie was gonna ask him what kind of work his father did but she had a feeling she wouldn't get an answer. She'd just save the finding out about his family until later, once they knew each other a little better.

Class? He'd rather talk about school than his family? Fine, she would entertain him with idle conversation about school... for now. "Well my favorite class is potions. It's taught by our head of house, Professor Lafay." And no, that's not why it was her favorite class either. "So what's your favorite subject?"

Several enchanted scrolls cradled in his arm, the Head Boy started handing them out to his house mates within reach "First Homework of the term Slytherin" he announced loudly "Herbology Homework is posted on the Notice board. You can also take this Slytherin Scroll with you as a quick reminder of your next class and which homeworks are due. Its enchanted to update in real time so you can refer to this where ever you at." So yes, less reasons to be late or miss homework. "Lets get ourselves back on the plus side Snakes, we've explored negative territory long enough."

Go go go!

The combination of potions and their head of house? From now on, it would be his favourite subject too. He did see the lady, and she was a woman one would want on the same side. He just had to discover her traits... hmm...

"In here I don't know yet," since it was still his first night, "but generally DADA and charms. And potions." Now it was his favourite. Unless DADA was taught by some professor with even more power.

"He-neh-doh-ah-ra" Eris laughed giving his hand a polite shake. "Well, better known as Transylvania...." she added as the national quidditch team was named in the manner of that region rather than the actual country of Romania.

She almost shook her head playfully, zoned out seemed the correct word, the boy hadn't even introduced himself back. Of course, this just meant the young little witch would have to find out another way.

"It's all good....I take it the schedule here is a lot different than it is in the states?" She asked with a slightly raised eyebrow.


Eris couldn't help but jump a little in her seat as the Head Boy came in so excitedly with an announcement, passing out scrolls as though he were delivering fire arms to a troop about to deployed.

"Yessir!" the dark ahired witch grinned throwing her two fingers against her forehead in a salute as she happily took one of the scrolls, seeming to take her own army analogy a bit to seriously.

And it was Herbology too, a class the first year had unexpectedly enjoyed.

He knew his idea wasn't a good one, but just now realized how stupid it was. Kennedy gave her a small smile. He wanted to ask about this friend of hers, but feared making Aurora even more upset.

"Ah," Kennedy said. No wonder he couldn't understand it. He didn't know what else to say or do, so like her, he pulled his legs and wrapped his arms around his knees. After a moment of silence he spoke up and nudged her shoulder with his, "Hey, you wanna go eat something or... write a get well letter for your friend?" He hesitated on the last part, but maybe writing to her friend would help?

She didn't want to move... the feel of the fire was nice. "I... she wouldn't be able to read it." Aurora whispered, pointing to a sentence in the first bit of the letter. Katja liegt im Koma. Sie könnte nicht durch die Woche zu leben. "She's in a coma, she might not live through the week." Aurora managed, the words catching in her throat. Somehow she knew that Katja was... never coming back. "And I don't think I can eat." She said. She sat in silence for a few seconds, thinking about her old life in Cologne. She just... she had missed Katja anyway and now... Even with the argument, with the lack of contact between them in the last four or five months... "She was fearless." she said, suddenly. "Never shied from anything... She... she was brilliant. I... we argued a lot. Her brother was... well... and they were always there, any point in time. I went round a lot, and she was always pestering me to include her in my experiments and..." She was just speaking her thoughts, ignoring the ones that hurt... "It's strange... I haven't written to her in... maybe five months... I didn't ever imagine..." The tears had dried now, she was just staring into the fire. Even just talking was helping, she felt... numb.

"Thanks Kennedy... I mean, just for listening. You... well... I needed it." Because, despite all of her arrogance and all the people she knew... she didn't really have many friends. In fact, the one person she ever managed to open up to since she left Germany had somehow disappeared. AGAIN!

Kennedy mentally smacked his head. He knew this would remind her of her friend, and he still went for it. Gosh, he was mean. He listened to what she said, although there were some parts that confused him. Maybe she was leaving stuff out, but he understood. "It sounds like you guys have a great friendship." Yes, have because he didn't want to believe that Aurora's friend wasn't going to make it through and even if they hadn't spoken to each other it didn't mean they weren't friends.

At least, that's what he thought. Kennedy hasn't been lucky enough to have that one friend that he could joke and argue with when they didn't agree on something.

"No problem," he said, grinning. It was the least he could do. Aurora had accepted him just like that. She never made fun of him or treated him differently.

"No, not yet. I`m thinking about doing it another day. How `bout you?"

Great friendship... Aurora shrugged "For a while, I guess we did. But, like I said, I haven't even written to her in five months." She'd calmed down a lot now, though her voice was barely above a whisper.

"Mother says that her and Father don't want me to leave Hogwarts to come and see her." she muttered. "For the... the last time." She swallowed another wave of tears. One crying fit was quite enough thankyouverymuch.

No problem. Aurora smiled and rested her chin on her knees. "Ugh." Her smiled faltered. "I still have that detention later..."