Ella looked up from the table and gave Laura a small smile. Laura! This was good, right? Surely having a friend around would cheer Ella up a bit. Oh and hugs would help, too. Ella gave her friend a quick squeeze before letting her go. "Hey Laura." She said, trying to sound cheerful. Her tone changed immediately after hearing what Laura wanted to discuss. The frown quickly formed and Ella looked down, shaking her head. "I...no. We're not really talking right now either." Which still made Ella feel horrible. "W-what did you two fight about?" She asked quietly, finally looking at her friend again. How is it that she had fought with both of her best friends over the summer? That just seemed...insane to Ella.

"Okay," That was simple enough to agree to, yeah? There was no sense in arguing, at the moment, Nathan would definitely win.

Sinking into the seat beside him, Delphi quite honestly jumped as one of the House ghosts made an appearance, not having expected it. She offered a slight, distracted smile but otherwise kept to herself, turning to look at Nathan rather sheepishly.

Taking the goblet, Delphinia held it just to her lips before deciding to lower it. "What if I don't want to?" Just curious, of course. There was a little smile playing on her face.

Laura sighed at Ella. "I can't really remember but it was something to do with me and in the end I walk off in a huff and Sophie called me a drama queen which is totally false." Laura rolled her eyes. "I am in no way a drama queen, well I don't think I am anyway." Laura sighed seriously she had no idea why Sophie would think she was a drama queen.

Laura looked at Ella and hugged her before whispering into her friends ear. "Come on sing with me." Laura smiled as she took up on another song.
"I've been down, Down so long, But those days are gone now
I've got the will, I've earned the right, To show you it's my time tonight.

When Alexa got caught watching the girl she didn't know what to do. She looked down to try and act like she wasn't looking at the girl, but knew she had been caught. Looking back up at the girl she tried to smile, "I'm just wondering why your singing is all. I didn't mean to keep looking at you." Alexa then looked back at the table embarrassed for looking at the girl to long.

Alexa looked at him, he was so sure she would meet new people that she felt herself really smile for the first time. "Well I'm glad you are so confident in this." Then she looked around at the other tables, "Well I guess everyone is probably super tired from all the things that happened since the train. Plus with all the teachers here what fun can really be done." She picked up her fork and thought of a movie she watched where a food fight happened, that would be fun, but they would get into trouble quickly for that. Would it be a bad thing if Alexa got into trouble? hmm she thought about this, maybe, but did it really matter, what would her parents think? She looked at DJ, "Who doesn't like to have fun?" that was a weird question to ask, wasn't it.

Alexa looked at him in shock, "Your mother married a muggle?" she quickly closed her mouth knowing she shouldn't have just blurted that out. "Well yeah I guess you do know what it's like. I am not really sure why they did it to be honest." Alexa shrugged, "I didn't even go to Diagon Alley to get my things, they had the house elf go and fetch everything. To many people dad said, we might catch a virus or something." She shrugged her shoulders. "What was it like living with a muggle?" she couldn't help but ask, it was just weird to hear that someone lived with muggles.

Finally. The feast. Nathan would not lie to you if you asked him was his mouth watering at the sight of bread, even.

When Delphi asked what would happen if she didn't drink, Nathan gave a her a look. "Then I would stare at you in a disapproving way until you do."

Sophie still had her face buried in her hands as she only listened as Oakey and Elijah continued their shouting back anf forth. There were two unfamiliar voices telling them off, but Sophie didn't look up to see who those people were. Those guys were completely crazy and Sophie didn't feel like glaring at Oakey anymore. She had done that enough, yes?

Sophie looked up as the Fat Friar emerged from the centre of the table and gave him a small, half smile. He was a fun ghost and Sophie really liked his cheerfulness. Though she wasn't in the same mood as he was right now.

Now that she was able to see her surroundings, she noticed Laura and Ella sitting relatively close to her. Not close enough to do hugs and chit chats though. But the brunette could see the other two very well. She bit her lower lip and looked away. How was she supposed to act around them now? They would be sharing a dorm that same night and everything felt really awkward.

Sigh.

All she could do now was to stare at the empty plate in front of her and wait for the food to appear. She wished Headmaster Tate-- oh. Well, she wished the new Headmistress wouldn't take too long to make her speech now.

Ariella almost jumped out of her skin when the ghost appeared and almost shreiked out of surprise...ALMOST. She had never seen a ghost before, and now that she had, she could safely say that they looked just like people but see through. She leaned toward Lest and asked, "That's the Hufflepuff house ghost right?"

Ameliah kind of drifted towards the Huffie table, looking for people.

HEEEEEEEY ITS ELLA! AND THAT GIRL FROM THE STATION!!

Ameliah saw the girl that splatted first. "Are you feelin' any better??" she asked as she sat down with Alexa. Ameliah wouldn't want her to still be hurt. WHY DID HER EVILNESS HAVE TO TAKE AWAY THE POTIONS??

ELLA. Ameliah FOUND HER. "ELLLLLLLAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Cue a giant hug to Ella. "Did you get hurt at the station? On the train? Using the portkeys??" Ameliah needed to KNOW.

Awar nodded, "I believe so. I wonder what the other house ghosts look like." She stood up a little and peered around.

Ella looked at Laura, surprised by what her friend was saying. "She called you a-a drama queen?" That didn't sound like Sophie. Had Laura been acting like a drama queen? But still...you couldn't just call someone that, could you? The third year didn't really know what to say so she frowned, looking down at her plate again. "I hate that she's mad at me." And especially that Ella didn't fully understand what she had done to make Sophie so mad. It was horrible. When Laura started singing, Ella gave her a small smile but decided against joining in. She wasn't really in the singing mood right now.

She let her eyes drift up and down the table, wondering what everyone else was doing. Most people looked happy...some a bit tired like her. And then her eyes fell on Sophie. She felt her eyes going all teary so she looked down again, frowning. Soph looked really upset. And Ells wasn't allowed to hug her, right? Sophie probably didn't want a hug from Ella. This made her stomach do a weird flip flop and Ella pushed the plate away from her. She officially wasn't hungry.

"Mmm, tempting.." It was, really. Delphi grinned a little bit more, quite possibly poking her tongue out at him before raising the rim of her glass to her lips and taking a drink. It was a little swallow, but it was something.

Scooting her plate away a little bit to make room in front of her, Delphinia set her goblet down. Glancing down at their entwined hands, she looked back up at Nathan before speaking quietly. "Thank you.. for staying with me and everything." For making her feel safe and not so alone with the chaos of the train and then the portkey, and Hogsmeade and the carriages.. you know, everything. Surely, Nathan already knew.

Dylan smiled "I guess I am cause its no fun not being like that. It just gets you down and its no fun being down." he had learnt that from a very early age "So I do what I can to get what I want.. which is mostly having fun" yeah who wanted to sit around doing nothing.. that is too boring!

He saw her look around the other tables, she had a good point "Yeah I guess you are right, they must be tired" what she said next got him thinking what fun could be had with the professors around? well he had one thing in mind "Well there are some things that can be done, out of sight of the professors and would be a lot of fun. " he smiled a little.. as he looked at all the students, oh how he would like to see that.

He looked back at Alexa as she asked him her question "Oh I can think of a couple of boring older students who think that having fun is not good" he said looking over at his Prefect Kurumi, though she did have good cookies.. but no! she didn't seem to be a fan of fun.. and also his quidditch captain another anti-fun person. Man climbing that train was fun and he got punished for it. So those are the kind of people who don't like having fun, see that's why he wasn't going to grow up.. cause once you grow up you lose your fun side!

Ella was a bit startled when someone starting calling out her name. She looked up, eyebrows raised, and was a bit surprised to find Ameliah coming over to her. She attempted a smile and found a real one formed on its own when she was suddenly wrapped in a hug. "Ameliah, hey!" She said, letting go of the girl and looking at her curiously. Well she was definitely glad to be back. Mhm. Hurt? Ella shook her head. "No...I mean I fell and got a bit bruised up but no...I'm okay." Her heart was a bit bruised too at the moment, though. And that really hurt. A LOT. "And you? You're okay, yeah? Nobody that you were sitting with got hurt?" Cause now Ella was quite curious too...and a bit concerned. Had a lot of people gotten hurt? Had her friends gotten hurt? MEEP. At least she knew Laura and Sophie were okay.

Ameliah smiled as Ella said nothing major happened. "I'm perfectly fine! Not one bruise!" Which made Ameliah proud of herself. "Taylor and Harvey are fine, Ronnie just has a headache and puked, and I had to bandage Adam's ankle up, but I dunno about everyone else." But she was sure everyone else was fine. She hoped.

Harvey walked upto the Hufflepuff table, he did sure miss sitting here. He walked up the table looking at all the puffs to see if he could see a familiar face like... umm Justin maybe. But that boy was nowhere to be seen.. where was he? he had better not be running again.. or was there problems at home? He hoped that boy was ok.. just then he heard a girl talking as he went past her.. he looked at her and knew that she would notice him there too.. and it would be rude of him not to say hi if she noticed him "Hi.. Ella" he said as he smiled a little.. he saw that she was with some of her friends and planned to not take too much of her time so that she could get back to spending some time with her friends rather than him. He also noticed that Ella and Sophie looked pretty upset but he didnt ask... not yet anyways

Oh, a scream. Why did that always happen? Surely he wasn't that scary...

"Sorry to frighten you, young lady. Occupational hazard, it seems. A question. Yes. Are you enjoying the feast? I do hope so," he smiled.

"Lovely!" The Friar boomed back at the child as she answered him, almost making up for her lack of loudness. "Good to hear it!"

Now that was something he very rarely thought about. Did he miss eating? "I must say, it's been so long since I had food, my dear, that the idea of missing it hardly crosses my mind. But now that you mention it, this fruit," you know, the stuff he was currently standing in, "does look rather nice." Shame he couldn't eat it.

So this was the one that had been singing. The Friar had had his back to her when it was going on, trying to block it out. He might have been dead, but he wasn't deaf. "You're quite right, young lady, she should! Unfortunately I'm not much up on music myself. Certainly not something our new Headmistress might like." He didn't get out much.

"Good evening, my dear!" the Friar replied to the little one, floating down her end of the table a little further.

Stand on the table? What on earth was this young man talking about?

"Glad you're enjoying it! Although standing on tables is not a requirement to being a Badger. Last time I checked anyway," the Friar laughed heartily and bobbed up and down. "You'll like it here, my boy, Hogwarts is a lovely place to call home."

Aha! She was catching on! Elodie's inner self was smug and somersalting in high spirits over her success. "Make sure it's one that wont pop easy! You don't want to bump into something and get covered in bubble goo!" Or bubble poo. If bubbles did that. Did they? Were they even capable of it?! O_O "Let me try it out when you get it, pleeeeease Alexa? Pleeeeeeaaaase?" It had been her idea, of course. So it was only fair, and friendly. BECAUSE THEY WERE FRIENDS OKAY AND ALEXA WAS SO GETTING AN INVITE TO CAMP ELODIE.

Cambridge? That was a place. Alexa had such a cool last name! "Well then, Alexa Cambridge, you are going to see the healer whether I have to drag you there myself! By your bad wrist." Oh yeah, the second year WENT THERE. She gave the girl a smile though, just to reiterate that she was being a friend by doing this. Because that was what she was doing. "Ice wont fix it." So take that, Alexa.

--

OH HOW COOL.

"GHOOOOOST!" Hbdwneflknwel! He was dead! "Hey, Mr Fat Friar man!" Did he count as a man now if he was deceased? Elodie wanted to ask him what it was like to be dead, but you know..that seemed a little bit rude. Especially infront of all these people who seemed to hate death talk.

DEATH TALK WAS FUN. Had nobody ever read Agatha Christie?!

"Yes, she married a muggle. And the most awful sort..he hated Magic...and hated me for being able to use it...Diagon Alley is loads of fun, i actually li- used to live right on Diagon Alley, I moved to Scotland recently..." To her final question. "Well, normally i think it would be fascinating. But he was awful, so don't let my experience make you think there's anything wrong with Muggles as a whole. They're not all bad."

Ariella shrugged. She glanced around the great hall a bit before the headmistress started her speech. Ari listened as she introduced the Board of Goveners, including the Lainey lady who was in the candy tolley compartment, "I wonder why they're down here, you think it has something to do with the train stopping?"

Nathan grinned when she took the sip. Mouthing a 'thank you' to her - he poured himself some juice too and gulped it down in one go. He was thirstyyy. The throb in his head - feeling less annoying when the juice graced his body.

He just knew pumpkin juice would treat everything.

When Delphi spoke next, Nathan was in the middle of getting some bread and chicken and sausages on her plate and his. Her tone - made him look at her and then her eyes made him look at what she was looking.

Their hands.

He was still holding it.

Oh.

Giving it a small squeeze, Nathan smiled and let go of it. "What are best friends for?"

Ella let out a small sigh of relief. So no one had been hurt? That was good but wait...Ronnie had been puking? Frown. "She's alright, yeah? Ronnie, I mean. It's never a good thing...the um...the puking." Ells had had headaches before but none so serious they made her sick. That really didn't sound very good. And Adam? Who was Adam? "I don't know an Adam." She said thoughtfully, trying to think who that might be.


Blink.Blink. This was a...joke, yeah? Was Harvey really at the table? Ella bit her lip nervously before deciding she had to stop acting like she had done something wrong to him. She hadn't. She had told him the truth and it hadn't worked out the way she hoped. Well that was done now and she couldn't exactly avoid Harvey all term. They were still meant to be friends...though that seemed a bit unlikely at the moment. "Harvey...H-hi." The small blonde said, giving him a small smile. "I um...How..How have you been?" Without me around

Ella jumped a little, surprised by the Friar's volume. She nodded, giving him a wider smile this time. He was really cheerful and it was hard to frown around someone who seemed so excited about the feast.

Awarlesta's eyes went straight to the Headmistress as she started her speech. Awar looked at Ari as she spoke and then back to the staff table. "I don't know...could be. I still can't take in what happened back there."

"It's been a fun hour though!! I mean- I can't really guess how the next 7 years will go by an hour, but if I had to, I'd say it'll be good!"

Dorian didn't mind too much when Alexa scooted closer-- at least she wasn't creeped out by him or something.

Oh. A target. That certainly put a damper on things. And people dying?! I mean, his cousin told stories, but he never thought to believe him. Dorian looked positively scandalised. Maybe if he just stayed on the outskirts, he wouldn't die. Realising his jaw was hanging wide open and that he probably looked like a total dope, he toyed with his hair for what was probably the millionth time today.

"They're probably just scared of badgers or something." He joked, half-heartedly. "Do people actually die though?!"

Alexa seemed to know a lot of gossip already, and Dorian vowed to find the source. He knew he shouldn't, but deep down, Dorian loved gossip.

Alexa looked up and saw the girl from the station that talked to her and then kind of just disappeared. "Oh Hi" she smiled a bit. "Hurt, Oh no I'm fine now. Are you okay?" she looked at the girl hoping she was okay. "That station was a bit crazy, wasn't it?"

Alexa looked at DJ as he talked, he seemed to ramble and talk about having fun a lot. If he wanted to have fun then why didn't he just make up his own fun she thought. "Do you know any magic yet? Maybe you can do something fun with your wand?" it was a suggestion, right? That couldn't get him into to much trouble, at least she didn't think it could. They were wizards after all, why wouldn't they be allowed to use their wands.

Alexa looked at the ghost, "Oh don't be sorry it was my fault I just wasn't expecting it." she smiled at the ghost. "Oh the feast, umm.. yes it's nice so far." she wasn't sure she was having a blast, but it was a nice feast at least. "Are you enjoying it?"

"Well I just can't see how wizards can marry muggles, we aren't even suppose to tell them we are wizards, so how does that work? Do they just blurt it out or do the muggles figure it out?" she knew she was blurting out her thoughts more then she should, her mother warned her of this, but she just couldn't help asking the questions. "I just don't know if I would ever want to meet one. Mum says they are just weird."

Nathan was feeding her, too? Gosh, wasn't she spoiled. It was as if on cue, Delphinia couldn't help memories of watching her father serve her mother at the dinner table come to the front of her mind, only to be pushed away after a minute with a slight shake of her head.

With her other hand empty as he released it, Delphi sort of rubbed both hands on her robes absently before one reached up to grab her goblet again. Maybe she was a little more thirsty than she'd originally thought.. "Everything." Was her simple, somewhat silly reply upon swallowing. Best friends were for everything, Nathaniel Aspen.

The food, though.. hm. Delphi eyed her plate. "I'm not sure I can eat," Atleast not a lot. Her tummy felt awfully small compared to usual, and nervous still. "But I'll try.." Because Nathan was being thoughtful, and she knew well he would insist if she refused.