As always, Vickers is found up and about the Library, feeling it to be more like his room than his actual bedspace at the dorms. When he turned the corner he paused-- the shelves have been pushed aside to make room for this large desk, with stacks and stacks of what looked to him were parchment that seemed forgotten and books just not put away... at least from where he stood.

He spotted the Historian and drew towards the man. "Need any help Professor Scabior?" he murmured in the Library-approved tone. Of course he would think they need to be put away.

Kurumi had been on her way to the library to do some research on her dark creature assignment for Defense Against the Dark Arts, but became quickly distracted when she saw Professor Scabior in the library. Not that this should be odd, he was the History of Magic professor and the books here contained, well, history. It was hard to explain just why she was startled and the reasoning was probably only that which she could really understand anyway.

Her interest sparked a bit more when she saw Vickers approach the man as well and let her lion curiosity get the better of her and approached the pair. Wait...why were things off the shelves? "Good day, Professor Scabior, Vickers," Kurumi greeted, eyeing the stacks again and taking note of some of the very ancient looking newspapers. "Reorganizing the library?"

He was going to work on sorting out the books that needed to be put back on the shelves when he saw the History of Magic professor with stacks of newspapers, books and even magazines! "Erm...professor do ye need a little help?" he asked even though there were two other students asking the same thing. It didn't hurt to offer his assistance, if he didn't Isaac could easily continue on to working on sorting out the books needing to go back on the shelves.

Alyssa entered the library on her way to the research section, when she spotted Professor Scabior. She noticed Kurumi and Vickers approach and being the ever inquisitive Hufflepuff, she went up and joined them and asked,

"Hello Professor Scabior do you need help looking for something. I was going to do some research myself. Kurumi nice to see you back on your feet, Vickers hey there."

After receiving the note from Scabior, Milton had a decision to make. Obviously. He didn't favor Scabior much. But he was rather interested about this sudden frozen-student business and wanted to help with the research. He was hoping that the last big freeze was indeed the last one. Hopefully the research could tell them...?

When Milton arrived at the library, he had no trouble finding the Professor. He was surrounded by books and old newspaper. And several askew desks and bookshelves. Lovely interior decorating...

"Professor," he greeted with a nod, tucking the note into his pocket. He glanced around at the other students and paid them no attention. "I like what you've done with the place," he commented on the oddly placed bookshelves.

As usual, Tiffany went to the library to help the librarian out with his daily work.

She walked through the bookshelves and decided to start rearranging the books on the shelves when she suddenly noticed that the chairs have been moved away to form a large study area where Professor Scabior was sitting in one of the chair with piles of magazines on the table. What was all that about indeed?

Heading to the man, she asked in a lower voice,"Do you need any help, professor?"In face, helping people with their work or something is part of the job that Mr. Leobald told Tiffany to do.

"That I do." Yet, he didn't look up from the magazine he was quickly skimming through.

"Not quite." This time he did glance up, and stared at the Gryffindor prefect for a bit, as if checking to see if she would freeze again. Then he looked back down at his magazine.



"Of course. Pull up a chair." He said nudging his head to the side. He had half the mind to put on an extremely heavy Scottish accent but he was far to busy.


"That I do." Help would be nice, as he couldn't go through all these pieces of written work alone.


"Oh do you? Good, I wasn't quite sure about that table arrangement over there." He pointed to one which had relatively recent books on Hogwarts past. "But I just decided I didn't really care enough to put it somewhere else." True story and all.

"Yup." He nodded.

---

As Scabior finally finished flipped through the articles he clothes the magazine, placing it on his left side with the ones he had already finished and looked up. Really, a group had formed and quickly, which was something he hadn't expected. He cleared his throat and looked at the group. "I'm attempting too find any type of information that might explain why students-" He looked over at Kurumi. "-suddenly froze recently. Or anything similar occurrences of freezing that happened in the past." His voice was low since they were in the library after all, but it was loud enough to reach them all.

"I managed to take any and all readable pieces of text that have anything written about past school years from the shelves, but unfortunately, I will never manage to go through all of this alone before I am fifty." Sadly. "So you are all welcomed to join me." That is if they were in for reading some heavy text. "Just...grab anything and start skimming, but please try not to miss anything. Even if something seems a bit eerie to you don't hesitate in showing me."

So, if you wanted to, take a seat a grab something?

Derrick had heard something in the Library so he ventured on in.Of course he had expected to see the Librarian.Not Professor Scabior.Having nothing else to do he alked over to the the Professor.''Need a hand Professor?''He asked.

It kind of appeared that Milton was the only person who had known what Professor Scabior was doing in the library with this big setup... maybe? Milton wondered how many notes he had sent out. But it didn't really matter. They were there now and now they needed to crack down on some serious researching.

Milton went ahead and grabbed Hogwarts, A History first. He knew there were things in there about petrified students back in Harry Potter's era. Milton didn't know if these two situations could be related, but that's why he was going to research it. After he got the book, he found himself a nice looking table and consumed himself in the book, flipping through pages to find what he was looking for...

Daichi had been a bit perplexed after he had received the note from Professor Scabior. He didn't look like the type that wanted to find out about the frozen students from what he had seen in class but then again, maybe he just never faltered his professionalism in front of the students.

So, with that in mind, Daichi went to the library to help out as well. He was a bit late seeing that the moment he walked in the Professor had already begun speaking and he only caught the last few words so it was pretty confusing on what he had to do.

"Sorry i'm a little late sir" he apologized and hoped he wouldn't take points, he wouldn't right? cause this wasn't technically a class! "How can i help?"

As he waited, Daichi looked at the students who were already here and spotted Kurumi amongst them as well. He smiled seeing his friend back on her feet and had the urge to run towards her and give her a biiiig hug. He refrained from doing so. He could do that later hehe.

Kurumi bowed her head in appreciated towards Alyssa. "Thank you," she replied softly. It was still...weird having people tell her it was nice having her back. It was even MORE weird to find that she had missed nearly a month. An entire month. How had that happened? Well, according to everyone she spoke to she had been frozen in time. Merlin only knew how much she had missed in that time, but at least she had unfrozen.

For whatever reason.

The look that Professor Scabior gave her was...a little unnerving. She hadn't DONE anything and it made her swallow nervously as she found a seat beside Vickers. When he explained what it was he was doing here, she furrowed her brow. Other events in history of people freezing? Well, naturally she thought about the time that the Chamber of Secrets had been opened, but that just made no sense in this case.

Rising for a moment to grab one of the old yellow newspapers, Kurumi returned to her seat and began to read through the articles - which so far was only about the invention of the latest flavor of Bertie Bott's. "I never saw a basilisk..." she muttered more to herself than anyone else, thoughts about the Chamber of Secrets still on her mind.

Kurumi looked up for a moment when she heard Daichi and returned his smile. She hadn't seen him in a long time, despite the more obvious reason as to why she hadn't. Being frozen and all that...which she still found hard to believe had actually happened.

Louisa was beyond smug surprised to receive the message from Scabior, because it simply showed that maybe perhaps possibly under his cold demenor there was a hint a whiff a teensy beensy bit of care. She practically dropped everything she was doing, which was reading, and headed for the library.

The Ravenclaw reached just as Scabior was telling the students what this was about... there were already like a bunch of different aged people. The Ravenclaw rude boy was one of them... and Vickers... and Daichi... AND KURUMI! Louisa's face automatically beamed at the moving girl, a big smile was plastered on her face and she stayed behind one shelf listening to the professor and looking at her friend from between some books.

Once everyone fell silent, the Prefect walked around the shelf revealing her presence. The smile faded a bit, no need to look giddy. "I'll be taking some of those old magazines..." she didn't look at Scabior, because he probably wasn't going to notice or care or show that he noticed or cared. Louisa was trying to decipher this man. He intrigued her.

However, on her way to the table she flashed Kurumi a big one-of-a-kind Louisaish smile. "I'm very happy to see you out and about Kurumi." Without waiting for a response, because she miiight be afraid of the response, the girl stood before the old magazine table and moved her hair away from her face.

There we go...

He nodded his head when the Professor responded, blue eyes drifting towards the table and figuring out which ones to put away first. His head turns suddenly at the sound of a familiar voice “Kurumi!” he uttered surprised. She’s walking and talking again! Initially wanting to go over and give her a hug, he stopped short, remembering the Historian beside him and that he isnt in the position to give Kurumi any kind of hugs (at least his rational mind says so). Hence his reaching out and gladly squeezing her hand, pouring in as much of his relief and happiness to see her “Glad to see you’re moving about again.” literally and figuratively.

It was shortly thereafter that he heard the Hufflepuff brunette join them “Oh hi Alyssa.” he greeted her back, his eyes then shifting to the other students greet and offer help to Scabior.

Finally he saw the Historian put the magazine down and started to speak. As he listened he suddenly remembered that note he received from him earlier that day, pulling it out quickly to take a quick glance at it again. Right it was a research proposal about the recent happenings in the school. Pocketing it back quickly he continued to listen to the specifics of Scabior’s request. Now those stacks of books and stacks of articles are viewed in a different light.

Another nod of his head says he understood what needs to be done. Pulling up a seat near the stack of articles he slid into it, then reached out for a small clump of the parchment, reading their titles and taking an initial stock of them. He looked at Kurumi pulling up a chair beside him, that relieved, happiest of happy smiles on his face. His head turned at the sound of another voice “Louisa hey!” he greeted his Prefect, glad that she has joined them.

But he heard Kurumi muttering something, and shifted his attention to her and the parchment she was reading “Hmm what was that?... you found something already?” he murmured back.

Pulling a chair out after he was told he was welcome to help, Isaac sat down, and listened to what the professor was actually doing. Not a bad idea! Maybe they could find out what was causing all this! Rising again he took one of the larger books off the stack and sat back down. He hadn't even really noticed the name of the book other then it being a history book, which he figured would be a good place to start.

Leafing through page after page, he skimmed over it slowly trying to catch words like freeze or frozen, prophecy, acting oddly, and anything else that might give an idea of some of the symptoms people had been having.

Alyssa quickly pulled up a chair at the desk, reached out and took a stack of magazines and started to read the first one carefully.

So the Professor was trying to find the reason for the recent strange happening where students were just freezing up. She had wondered that herself and was glad that she was now helping the Professor with his investigations.

She slowly read each line, taking down notes before an idea hit her. She quickly picked up her quill and wrote down three words. Chamber of Secrets. That was the first thing she thought of when it came to freezing students. That was the first known event mentioned where students were frozen.

As Alyssa continued to read, she thought about what happened with some of the students last year. In fact, she had been present when she saw Sierra Greingoth go into a trance like state but that was different from being frozen...or was it?

He nodded at both new arrivals his attention now on a new magazine. "Grab a book or newspaper or magazine." Anything readable really. "We are looking for anything that might seem a bit strange and may show something of people freezing in the past.

His eyes flickered over to the Ravenclaw for a second. "None of the students were petrified." No, especially not the way they were waken up Petrified students did not work like that.

"Maybe you can call get someone to help you look through newspapers, Miss Hollingberry" There were a fair amount of them, and they needed to be searched too.

"Skim through but don't take too long." He mumbled as she grabbed a magazine from his desk. "The faster we are the better chance we have of getting through more things and finding something out."

Right. Another article reader. Good.

Scabior took his eyes off the magazine just to look around and gave the Slytherin an encouraging nod.

Taking notes? Well that hadn't occurred to him, but if it helped then to each their own.

Daichi nodded his head as Scabior told him and the older student (derrick) what to do and reached for a few newspapers and magazines. Holding these in his arms, the Slytherin turned and moved to where Kurumi was seated.

He placed the papers down on the table before he made a sudden movement towards the Prefect. He hugged her , wrapping his arms awkwardly around her shoulders. "I'm so happy you're back!" he squealed and let go. Clearing his throat, Daichi grabbed the first article from the newspaper. Not really reading every line but focused on the words like Frozen or Student or Panic and such.

A few times he made a noise as if he found something, but then it turned out to be something among the lines like. "Spell gone wrong, old lady Frozen" He sighed as he threw the paper aside and grabbed a new one.

*stare*

What...all had happened in the month that she had been "gone" and why was Louisa suddenly smiling at her and actually greeting her? Kurumi sort of just chewed on her lip and bowed her head in gratitude. Before she could utter a soft thank you, Louisa passed by towards the old magazines - which wasn't too far away from where she was sitting by the way.

Her eyes followed Louisa for a moment before her attention was drawn elsewhere.

Which was to her hand. The hand that Vickers was now holding. As if his greeting hadn't been enough to make her blush, this gesture certainly was as Kurumi knew Vickers wasn't really the sort to make physical contact with others. Smiling back at him, Kurumi returned the squeeze shyly. "Thank you, Vickers." She really did appreciate all the well wishes, even if she really wasn't entirely sure what had merited it all. The only way she knew time had passed was the changes in the weather outside and the days on the calendar in the common room. It was still...very surreal.

Back in her seat now, and not missing Vickers' smile, Kurumi chewed on her lip a bit more as she scanned the pages and looked up for a brief moment when Professor Scabior addressed her and nodded in agreement to his suggestion to seek help. This was going to be rather difficult considering that they really didn't know what they were looking for. Sigh.

Kurumi's violet gaze shifted to Vickers when he whispered to her and she cocked her head to the side, somewhat in defeat, and pointed to an article mentioning basilisks. "Not...exactly..." she replied. She hadn't really found anything at all. "It's just...whatever it was that happened to me...it wasn't because of a basilisk."

Still somewhat deep in thought on the matter, Kurumi's body went rigid for the briefest of seconds when she felt a pair of arms thrown around her. Eyes widening for just a moment, Kurumi turned her head and saw that it was Daichi who had come up and hugged her...and squealed. "Daichi..." Kurumi giggled, giving him a small squeeze back in return.

Again, the words "you're back" just sounded and felt weird to hear.

"You...might not want to toss that article," Kurumi said as she picked up the paper Daichi had just discarded after seeing one of the headlines. Spell...frozen...whatever it was that had effect her, and apparently the others, had to have been the result of some sort of magic.

Alyssa continued to slowly leaf through the pages of the magazine she was reading. Then she came across interesting. A cyronkinetc burst spell which froze people. Alyssa read on but didn't think that this was the spell that had affected the students. It actually involved freezing them like they were frozen like ice. But not wanting to eliminate that as a possibility since no one actually did a body temperature read on them.

Or maybe this spell didn't actually make them freeze like ice, but just made them fall into a cryogenic stasis, which she remembered which was how people preserved their loved ones hoping to bring them to live.

Then Alyssa came across an article about Freezing Time. Could that have been possible? Maybe the students had been frozen in time, while the rest of the others not affected by the spell still moved on in time. It seemed to reason since none of the students remembered what happened anything when they unfroze. All they remembered was the last thing they did before they froze. Alyssa quickly placed a parchment marking that page before reading on.

As Milton was flipping through the textbook, he had just come across what he had been looking for. Ah, the Chamber of Sec-

'None of the students were petrified.' The dull sound of Scabior's voice made Milton turn his head up. And he gave him THE LOOK. Just as Milton was starting to think this guy could be okay...

Shutting the book, Milton set it aside, deciding he would do some studying later that night on his own time. He was still curious.

But he didn't know where to go next. Milton sat there, thinking about everything and mulling it all over in his head. If they weren't momentarily-petrified, then he had no idea what it could be. He was just stuck on the petrified stuff.

"Professor, is there any other way people can become petrified? Or is it just Basilisks? Like, with the Chamber of Secrets stuff?" Chamber of Secrets stuff. That sounded intelligent. Heh. "And is there only one way to become... un-petrified?" Maybe there was a miniature Basilisk slithering around under an invisibility cloak. And then it... died. Or something....

"Hey Vickers," she smiled at her partner in crime and an idea just flashed in her head. Louisa paused staring at the boy's eyes from where he sat and she stood. It lasted for only a few seconds though before the professor mumbled something...

... he noticed. That she TALKED, not that she just appeared out of nowhere and just went ahead with work. Weird. "Okay.." she mumbled back to him. "Not sure what we're looking for though. We've already ruled out basilisk." Mhhmmm?

OH OH! Louisa dropped the third magazine and turned around to look at Kurumi happily and curiously, "Professor? Why go through books and magazines before we interrog- ask Kurumi some questions?" She moved her gaze to the man, beaming, "I mean it's way more efficient this way. We can at least know where to look or for what. For example, Kurumi did you like buy something from one of them suspicious vendors in Hogsmeade or even Diagon Alley?" Yes, Louisa still had her evil talisman theory going. "Or maybe you, Lewis and Sierra were working on any spells before? Did you guys share a book at one point? Did you borrow one of professor Elwood's crystal balls?" More questions? Louisa could think about ten more... and then if she sat and got comfortable about thirty more.

Eyes were still on Kurumi for answers to this, something detailed would be perfect.

Glenn wandered into the library. Huh? What were all those people doing?

She recognised the evil professor and... Kurumi? Wasn't she supposed to be frozen? The badger eyed the prefect as she passed. She thought that those guys were frozen in the Hospital Wing!

The blonde walked right past Scabior and went to stand next to Daichi, not meeting his eyes she whispered, "What're you doing?" She raised an eyebrow and picked up an old copy of "Witch Weekly" that featured a faded looking photograph of a member of the band "Spellbound"; She giggled as Glenn flipped the page.

She frowned at the magazine. The contents were terrible: "I've never been the same since I replaced my wand... a true story", "Witch Weekly decides the best Witches at dressing like a muggle", "WHO is also famous in the muggle world? You'll shocked to find out." and a lot more rubbish. Whatever they were researching and it didn't seem like it would be celebrity gossip, these stories didn't seem like they'd be any use. Glenn tossed the magazine onto the table and picked up a copy of The Daily Prophet instead...

Many students were gathered around some tables in the library, the HoM teacher among them "Need help?" Sarah offered eagerly. She loved reading

It wasnt because of a Basilisk...

Vickers furrowed his brow thoughtfully, eyes shifting between Kurumi and then to Scabior as he spoke to the Ravvie boy about students not being petrified. Well so much for his theory about the Historian breeding a Basilisk type thing and let it out last term under the pretext of the class exploring the Chamber of Secrets. He went back on the small stack of articles he had in his hands and started weeding out anything that mentioned the Chamber of Secrets and its unfortunate history in Hogwarts, as well as any coverage of Basilisks and putting them on a separate stack, collecting more articles and doing the same thing.

With a few more stack of articles not related to the Chamber or the Basilisk in his hand he started to read the articles again. There were a few that made mention of a Cockatrice-- some were from the TriWizard Tournaments from years past, others talking about its legend. "Not a snake.... but not a bird or some other kind of reptile... like a Cockatrice?"he asked Kurumi.

As he listened to Louisa ask her questions he went back to his other theory of a contagion, but then how did it spread? Was it airborne or moisture in the air that carries it? And for all his fears down at the Dungeons, why hasn’t he gotten it? “When you and Lewis and Sierra stopped moving I thought it was some kind of outbreak coming from the Plimpies.” he admitted to the Lion Prefect. “But if it was then there should have been more people down with it from that class, so far it was just you three and that young Ravenclaw.” He eyed Louisa. They were sitting so close to Lewis, had trays of Plimpies around them, they should’ve been struck down next right? Yet they’re both ok.

So what if it wasn’t a contagion?

Then he started to replay the events at Potions class in his mind "Back during that Potions class Lewis was saying something and stopped mid-sentence... and he just sat there, like in suspended animation… " he started, his eyes just staring at a blank spot on the table as the scenes from the class played over in his head “… then Sierra did the same thing. She was talking then stopped as if someone placed a freezing charm on her. Then suddenly they went back to moving and talking again, as if nothing happened.” It was the strangest thing to witness, even more bizarre was Lewis’ reaction afterwards “Lewis was sitting behind me, and it was so clear on his face that he had no clue why everybody was staring at him…. like… like he wasn’t even aware that he just stopped moving.” blues eyes searches Kurumi’s violet ones “Was it like that for you too? One moment everything was all normal for you and the next people are staring at you?”

And there was another question “Kurumi, when you froze in Potions, and Sierra and Lewis ended up freezing again, were you aware that the entire class practically flew into a panic? That we were all made to leave quickly and other teachers and the Healer came in to figure out what was going on with you guys?” It was quite a frightful day that was, certainly something that wasnt easy to forget “Do you remember anything happening at all from that last Potions class to today?”