Milton could be a rather curious person at times. This was one of those times.

This was his first time in Hogsmeade. One would think a first-time visitor would go to maybe the Three Broomsticks or something. But no, Milton got distracted by his curiosity. And his curiosity led him to this back alley behind all the cheerfully shops. He stood at the end and peered into the darkness for a moment, before deciding to venture in.

It was quite... dark. A little damp-feeling. A tad creepy, but it didn't bother him too much. So he kept wandering in. It was more exciting than a quill shop, that was for sure.

Penelope was planning on heading to Honeydukes so she could stock up on the candy stash she liked to keep up in her dorm, but as she made her way down the street, she noticed a familiar someone turning down an alley. Hmm? Was there something back there to look at? More stores? Something interesting?

Curious, the first year decided to follow him, jogging for a few seconds to catch up to him faster. Once she had, she asked, "What're you doing?"

Milton tucked his hands into his pockets as he slowly made his way down the dark and damp street. He heard quick footsteps behind him and turned his head to see that familiar first year. Oh, her name was.... Penelope! Milton waited for her to catch up and gave her a brief smile of greeting.

"Oh, just..." Milton looked around the alley. What was he doing? "Wandering, I guess. It just looked intriguing." He shrugged a little. Maybe he expected to run into something creepy and cool. But he doubted that would happen. "You following me?" he asked with a little smirk. Obviouslyyyy.

Hogsmeade! Always an exciting place to visit, when it was open to students! There was so much to do there and so much to see and surely it was better than sitting in the common room all weekend long.

Sleepily, Ness wondered off into the streets of Hogsmeade and just like always her pygmy puff was with her. It was a lovely day outside and even though, Ness was beyond exhausted she felt she needed to be out and about. Puffless was walking way ahead of her all energetic and happily, she just followed him, not really caring where she was going. This was a big mistake though...

Where was she? The red head blinked as she only now took in her surroundings. This..this didn't look like Hogsmeade. This was creepy, and it looked like some sort of unsafe alley. Her tiredness from before had gone and had now been replaced with fear. What made it all worse was that she was alone, this would have been much less scary if someone else had come with her. Prefferably someone strong and big like Professor Williamson. Someone that could save her in a situation like this. Why did these things always happen to her?

Uh..oh!

"Puffles?" said Ness as she realized he had no dissapeared. "Where are you?" The fear in her voice was very audible and it was only getting worse by the second.

When he turned around, Penelope knew she was right in thinking he was familiar. It was Milton, the fifth year Ravenclaw she'd met in the Courtyard awhile back. The cool Ravenclaw that didn't think studying was all that great or fun. She actually returned his smile with a small one of her own.

Wandering? Well, it wasn't like Penelope could fault him for that. She did that at Hogwarts most of the time. Why not at Hogsmeade too? Especially since they didn't get to explore the village as much or as often as the castle. "I see." This alley was kinda "intriguing" she supposed. There was probably something interesting back here somewhere. Was she following him? She shrugged. "Maybe," she said, continuing with her own little smirk, "or maybe I'm just wandering too." Depended on how you looked at it. Or something.

Olive was feeling rather sulky as she made her way through the streets of Hogsmeade. Her cousin just had a baby and instead of her mom letting her come home to see Amelia...she was still here. Was it too much to ask for a day to see Amelia and Isabel? Absentmindedly kicking a pebble along as she walked, the sound of someone calling out caught her attention. Glancing in the direction the call came from, she shuddered.

It was an alley and a gloomy looking one at that. Who on earth would want to venture in there?

She headed over to the entrance and stood there. "Did you lose something?" she called out. Noway was she going in there.

What was she going to do?

Renesmee tried to spot her furry, little pygmy puff that was still nowhere to be seen. She frowned at this and took a step forward. As spooky as this place was, Ness needed to find Puffles, but before she could take another step towards the spooky alley somebody's voice stopped her.

Who was that? The red head slowly turned around, a little frightened of what she might see. She calmed down though, as she saw it was only a girl, that appeared just a little bit taler than Ness herself was. "Um..yeah, I don't know where my pygmy puff has gone." she said replying to the girls answer. Maybe this girl had seen him, it wasn't impossible you know, seeing as Puffles only went off a few seconds ago, maybe he had gone in the direction this girl had come from.

"Have you maybe seen him? He's got indigo coloured fur and he's very fluffy?" she asked, getting more and more concerned about her precious, Puffles.

Milton waited for Penelope to catch up with him before starting to walk again. He tucked his hands in his coat pockets again. And then smirked at her 'maybe'. Or maybe she was wandering too. "Or maybe you were wandering when you found me. And then decided I was much more interesting than wandering on your own." Of course, Milton was much more interesting than a lot of things. So it made sense. "I don't blame you." Grin.

So, just out of curiousity... "Have you ever been here before? Hogsmeade?" Because it was his first time... and strangely enough, he ended up in the back alley. Eh. Whatever.

Glenn usually went to the Three Broomsticks, or one of the shops when she went to Hogsmeade.

The weather was warm, unfortunately that meant that there was also a bunch of students, more than when it was all snowy. Sigh. She ducked into a back alley, away from all the noise and talking and people and... ugh. The badger wandered a little into the alley before sitting down on the cold ground.

She opened her leather bag, now looking a worn from three year of use. She'd need to remember to buy one once school was out. Glenn gulled out a slightly dusty butterbeer that she'd had since the last time she went into Hogsmeade and pulled off the cap. She took a sip and shivered, it wasn't so warm in this alley, it kind of made her wish she'd brought her hoodie with her.

Well - at least it was quiet. No one was bothering her here.

Laura was walked down the street, she was hoping to go to the Three Broomstick because she wanted a drink, and too restock up on her sweets supply and to take some home for her mother, and sister, she had no idea where Lana had been hiding these past few weeks but she knew they would talk to each other in the summer.

Laura suddenly spotted something in the alley? Oh she must have took the wrong turn, that's what she got for not paying attention to where she was going, she slowly crept upto the creature and suddenly realised it was Glenn, she was going to have a bit of fun. "What is going on here then?" Laura said in her best Adult type voice, trying not to laugh.

Were they following her? Had anyone spotted her? After her run from the shop, Amarantha hadn't made it far before deciding that simply disapparating was just a mistake. She was a business owner and she had things she NEEDED from her shop.

And her BOOKS.

Amarantha poked her head around the corner and eyed the door to her shop. What were they DOING in there?

Gideon had side-stepped off the main street and towards the back alley when the former had become overly clogged with his fellow students. A short travel through the less then happy location wouldn't be too bad...right? It wasn't like he was afraid and the area didn't seem to be the Hogsmeade equivolent of Knockturn Alley, he just knew enough to be cautious as he walked.

It was for this reason that he spotted an odd redheaded woman looking out weirdly from the back alley onto the main street. The prefect quietly made his way closer, the woman seeming familiar...the shopkeeper from the bookstore if he remembered correctly having popped in once or twice though clueless as to what had recently transpired there. "Spying on yer own shop?"

"Someone broke in," Amarantha began lying before she even turned around, and she offered the young man a tentative smile once she had turned. See? Totally harmless here.

"I'm afraid to go in there... to see what they did to my books. I wonder... would you be willing to check for me? See if my books are injured?"

Someone broke into her shop?!

Gideon followed her gaze out onto the street as if looking for added clues as to what was up. The sixth year Gryffindor watched her as she turned around, her face adding to her reaction to his question in confirming her identity as the store owner. Though as he listened to the rest of the woman's words he was just a tad confused.

She wanted him to...check if her books were injured? That seemed like an odd request. Wouldn't waiting to make sure the perpetrator was long gone be better for that? Speaking of perpetrator...

"Did ye notify the authorities?" he asked, since that would be the first logical step after escaping...right? "And wouldn't ye rather do it yerself. We can go together...I'll keep a lookout?" the prefect offered. There was something about her that was keeping him wanting to keep an eye on her though he appeared neutral.

"Of course I did. I sent a patronus straight away, but... I'm just not sure if they've left or not." She clung to the wall again and tried to give the boy pleading looks. Really? Was he buying this??

It did not appear that he was.

"Fine. You keep look out here, and I'll go back to my shop."

Okay so that was one question answered positively. And just because he hadn't seen any sort of patronus didn't mean it hadn't happened, he had been in the back alley after all with buildings occasionally in the way of the view from the main street. Her pleading looks directed his way did have some effects on Gideon's level of sympathy for the woman. Surely she was worried on top of the frightened she had already confessed to.

Should he just go accross the street for her?

But then she answered accepting his plan but not at the same time. What she spoke of was not quite what he had suggested since his plan had been them to both return to shop, but Gideon figured it was a good enough plan. "Aye...alright...that might work," he agreed with a nod, his one hand moving absently to his pocket where his wand was in preparation.

Glenn heard approaching footsteps and clutched her bottle of butterbeer a little tighter; half standing up. Oh... it was Laura. The second year who was always getting in trouble it seemed. The blonde collapsed back down on the ground, staring at the wall for the short time it took Laura to reach her.

She turned to face the second year, "Something suspicious no doubt." She replied, her voice echoing as she did so. She undid her bag, searching around for food. She had some here somewhere. Ah! Got some. She spread out the packets of chocolate frogs on her bag, gesturing she said, "Care to join me in my suspicious acts, Miss. Hyde?" Picking up on Laura's adult tone and putting on her own I'm-a-polite-student voice. She raised an eyebrow at the puff. Sit down, Miss. Hyde.

Laura looked at Gwen this was funny, she rolled her eyes when she was called Miss. Hyde, though she could get used to it, maybe she would make Glenn call her it all the time, just think what would happen if she did. "I'd love to join you." Laura smiled taking out some muggles sweets from her bag, she didn't know if Gwen would like them, she then took out a couple of cans of coke and a few bottles of butterbear, and some Bertie Botts ever-flavour beans. "I've got more for later if were still hungry." Laura smiled as she sat down. "So what have you been doing lately?"

Smiling broadly, the young woman moved out into the street. It was so DIFFICULT to be out in the open like this, but she couldn't stay in the alley. Not with that boy looking at her so suspiciously.

As soon as she was in the open, however, Amarantha turned away from her shop and ducked her head a little. She'd just have to walk away from the boy and hope he didn't follow her. Maybe he would let her go.

Gideon watched the woman head out into the open, her actions were clearly tentative but of course when worried the troublemakers were still around to cause more. His attention was split between the redhead and the front of the shop almost as if shadows would appear to denote there were people inside. For surely there weren't customers still there...were there?

The sixth year realized he probably should have asked the shopkeeper that just to be on the safe side, But seeing as she had mentioned only going back to check on her books, Gideon hadn't thought of there being anyone other then bad guys in the shop. He edged towards the edge of the alley himself none too keen about lurking in the shadows anymore then he had to, just had to wait for something as he stood between alley and street.

Ah. He wasn't going to stop her. Amarantha quickened her pace and shoved her shoulders back, her sure steps carrying her further and further away from the boy and from her shop. Perhaps she'd pop in for a butterbeer before she disappeared forever, hmm?

She moved further and further away from him but not towards her shop, Gideon had noticed that when had turned and headed in past it. What was she doing? Did the shops have back doors? Whatever the case something wasn't right and at the moment it wasn't the fact that she had supposedly been bothered in her shop.

"Hey!" the prefect yelled out following purposefully after her.

Oops! No. No, thanks. Amarantha continued moving away from her shop, although she turned half around and waved her hands at the boy. SHOO SHOO BAD KITTY.

"No, go away. No, thank you. I'm fine. Please don't."

Oh.

Olive raised her brow. Pygmy Puffs seemed to really like hopping off and that was why she preferred something like a dog. At least they come when you call them. "I haven't seen him, no."

Figuring that it was rather pointless in this gloomy alley, Olive nevertheless started to scan the ground all around her. "Maybe we can try to lure him with food he likes?" It was the only idea she could come up with right now.