Kurumi continued to charm book after book after book until she felt as though her arms were going to fall off from the repetition of motion. It seemed as though the books in the reference section were never ending and the only indication she had of progress was when she moved out of a certain letter of the alphabet.

"You feeling alright now, Beezus?" Kurumi asked when the younger Ravenclaw began doing her own spellwork. Things would move much quicker now that Kurumi wasn't doing double the spell casting and could just focus on the Alphabetizing Charm.

Falling into a routine, Kurumi began to hum softly to herself until she reached for the next book only to find that she was reaching for nothing but empty air. Eyes widening, Kurumi's head snapped around and she saw that there were no more books left to charm. WERE THEY DONE?!

Jumping to her feet, Kurumi grabbed a random selection of books off the shelf and released them to see if they would go back into their rightful spot on the shelves. Kurumi nearly melted into the floor of the reference section with relief when she saw them go back in their place and she smiled at the other two. "We did it guys, good job!" she chirped. "I'll go tell Mr. Kitridge we are done and then you guys want to go get some hot chocolate?"

"Thank you," Kat said as she accepted Kurumi's conjured ice pack. Her knee didn't have any permanent scar or open wound. It was just a small red spot on her knee... well... not so small actually. It kinda covered the pad of her knee. But it wasn't anything so serious so no worries.

Kat nodded. Maybe, to avoid any serious accidents, they should just do the Atmospheric Charm Kurumi had suggested. Standing up with the the support of the chair, Kat grabbed her wand and started to cast the charm on the books. "Impervius."



"You're welcome," Kat said to Beezus and gave her a small smile. Just hopefully her nose would stop bleeding. Kat considered herself lucky that she didn't get a nosebleed. No, that will never happen to her. Nuh-uh.

The blonde let Beezus sit for a while so that her nosebleed would just stop. It was fine to do it alone than to let more damage occur.

After Kat did her part in saving fixing those books, she kept her wand in her holster and checked on her red 'spot' on her knee. At least it wasn't as red as earlier, it started to become pink.

So they're finally done. Yay! Kat had a smile on her face. After that disastrous event, they were finally good to go. Kat looked at Beezus to check if she was alright. Ok, if Bee wasn't alright... she wouldn't be standing up and doing those spells. Logic.

DID KURUMI SAY HOT CHOCOLATE?!

O_______________O

Lord knows how much Kat loves Hot Chocolate. She wouldn't care if she had a chocolate overdose or something even if a Ravenclaw specifically Elliot Morganzo thinks she's a weirdo for loving chocolate so much. Well, don't even think about arguing about chocolate.

"That'd be great," Kat smiled.

For a few minutes, Beezus watched her other companions charming the books at the Reference section as she nursed her bleeding nose. Not long after, she felt that the presence of warm liquid on her nasals had vanished, which meant no more bleeding. Thank Merlin. It was actually the first time she experienced a nosebleed, even if she was on the Ravenclaw Quidditch Team, the most common injuries they had were sprains, broken ankles and wrists, nosebleed was particularly foreign so in a way, she took the situation as beneficial, since she wasn't ignorant on how the damage took place anymore.

"Yes, I am now Kurumi." the Ravenclaw responded, smiling at the Prefect and giving the Slytherin a nod.

Now, to continue their work. With self-assurance that there wasn't going to be any more accidents or scroundeled books lurking about, Beezus got to performing the Atmospheric charm with much more confidence and speed. Pile after pile. Heap after heap. Collection after Collection. The more they had finished charming, the more tiring it became, her arms weary of doing the wand movement repetitively.

She didn't even notice that the book she had just charmed was the last one until Kurumi said they done. THEY WERE DONE? Beezus shot the other a look that said 'Are you sure?'. Looking around, she saw that the rest of the books were arranged on the shelf now, and that proved it. Yes, they were finish!

HOLYMERLINTHANKGOODNESS!

Beezus sighed deeply, grinning from ear to ear when she placed the last book on its designated place. "Yeah, we did!" She felt as though she had just climbed Mount Everest. She was really glad! ..Oh, hot chocolate? The brunette sank unto a chair, then gave her companions a sheepish smile. "Chocolate? Naah, I think I'll pass guys."

Nope. Unpleasant allergic reaction would ensue.

Beezus didn't like chocolate? Awww... Who doesn't like chocolate? That's just sad... Chocolate did taste good... Kat mentally pouted. But everyone has an unique side to themselves. And Bee's dislike for chocolate was hers.

Then she remembered that Bee didn't like chocolate... Silly Kat.
"Oh right," Kat said. "You don't really like chocolate..."

Laura was going to show the Librarian that she wasn't as bad as everyone was making out she was, okay so she had a few detention and had lost a few points but it wasn't like she had blown up the school or anything that serious, searching the section she was in she couldn't see anything wrong or anyone around that looked like they were causing trouble.

Closing the door to the office behind them as they left and walked down the hall and through the book shelves to the reference section, Kurumi bit her lower lip shyly at the librarian's question. "Um...well...I was teaching Beezus and Kat the Alphabetization Charm and Beezus was testing the book she had charmed to make sure it had worked and...well...it went rogue. I was able to stop it with Finite, but we all got smacked by it. Everyone is alright though. I conjured Beezus and Kat ice packs." So, while it had sort of been Kurumi's fault in the first place that any of them had been hurt because she was teaching the spell, she had sort of set things right. A bruise here or there wasn't anything too bad. The three of them had suffered worse on the pitch.

Pushing open the door to the reference section now, Kurumi walked inside where the two girls were still waiting and then stood to the side so the librarian could take a look around.

Leobald locked the door to his office with a silent spell as he followed Kurumi down the hall through the bookshelves and into the reference section. His eyes immediately scanned the books on the shelves for damages or defacing. With the ripped books attack fresh in memory it was only natural that he was still on edge and suspicious. Everything seemed to be in order though. Glancing over briefly at the other two girls Leo smiled at them. "Hello girls!" The ice packs were hopefully working. No matter if they were or not he was going to insist on them going to the healer for a checkup when he had inspected their work.

"It was clever of you Kurumi to teach Katherine and Beatrice the Alphabetization spell so they could help you with your work." Pulling out a book from his left robe pocket Leobald walked up to test the re-charmed bookshelf. Holding the book up he felt the distinctive tug on the book and watched it move up the shelves and to its proper place amongst the other authors. Satisfied Mr Kitridge turned to the girl’s again with a beam "I’m very grateful for all the work you’ve done with fixing up the section. It looks great. I’m sorry though that you all had got to get smacked over for the magic to be restored." Sigh.

"Kurumi I’m rewarding you with 15 house points for teaching your knowledge to your younger peers and for keeping a level head when the books went rogue and managed to save everyone from being badly injured including yourself." Mr Kitridge praised. Rounding on Beatrice and Katherine he continued "And I reward you two with 5 house points each for helping out with the re-organization of the section."

Kat was still putting her ice pack on her knee. The redness from the impact was beginning to fade. At least it didn't have anything to do with blood like what Beezus had. When the Librarian entered, Kat smiled at him. "Hi Mr. Kitridge."

And... Katherine? Kat blushed. "Uhh, Mister Kitridge," Kat said. "It's Katrina." Kat's voice faded. Well, it wasn't the first time someone called her Katherine, but it sure was the first time someone at Hogwarts called her Katherine. Hehe.

When Kurumi was awarded 15 housepoints, Kat smiled at the Lion Prefect. "Congratulations Kurumi," she said. Kurumi deserved it for being so helpful. Then... Kat got 5 housepoints? So did Beezus. Ok, Kat didn't really believe it at first but she managed a smile for herself. She had to send her thanks to Mister Kitridge first. "Thank you, Mr. Kitridge," she smiled. Meheeeee.

Kurumi stood a little off to the side while Mr. Kitridge examined the room and quite literally held her breath as the librarian remove one of the books from the shelves. While all of them had been tested before she had gone to get him, there was still the chance that something had gone wrong. After all...spells and enchantments were not what they used to be at Hogwarts it seemed. Her eyes glanced over Kat and Beezus again, relieved that they were doing alright despite the rather exciting turn of events from earlier.

And then Kurumi's eyes somewhat bugged out of her head. F-F-Fifteen? Kurumi's cheeks instantly flushed and she bowed deeply out of pure reflex at the man's words. "T-Thank you, Mr. Kitridge," she managed to squeak out. Really though, she was just glad that the reference section was presentable again.

As Sierra walked into the library, she actually paused and took a careful look around. Wow. She hadn't seen this place in years...

Anyway...

Remembering there were far more important tasks at hand, she put one foot in front of the other and carried on. It seemed she was ahead of the gang, so there wasn't really anyone to follow. When she paused again, she realized she was in the reference section.

"Hmm...well, this should be a good enough place, hmm?" she said, turning to face the group.

Wand out and at the ready Leo headed up the stairs with Medea, Katrina, Laura and Cora looking for clues as to where the plant had gone after eating up the Astronomy professor. Heading up the staircases he had seen no clues that could tell them if the plant even was still in the castle.

Entering the library Leo bypassed the front desk to head for the reference section. If the plant wanted to rip up or eat more books it would be a good place for it since that section was always well stocked with books.

Stopping in front of the biggest bookcase he waited for the others in the search party to catch up.

All this plant search excited Kat. But she was still a bit nervous, not as nervous as she plays Quidditch though. This search was rather more serious and important because the whole school depended on them. They had to eliminate or do something to remove this plant that was eating Professors. The first one it victimized was Professor Burbage at the Astronomy Tower and then Kat heard stories about the plant also victimizing Professor Accent Christiansen at the Ancient Runes classroom. Gosh, Hogwarts was a mad school.

When Kat's search party reached the library, the Slytherin gripped her wand even tighter. It shouldn't fall off otherwise she would have less reaction time if the plant decided to attack them now. GULP. Following Mr. Kitridge, the girl looked around for suspicious things. Maybe a weird creak sound or... something moving. Kat, don't chicken out.

Feeling a still a little nervous about this all, Nessie followed the others taking step after step. Every single place in Hogwarts seemed scary right now and with each step Ness took she made sure to keep her eyes WIDE open in case anything decided to suprize them. By now she didn't even know what to expect of this place. She just knew they had to find out more about this brooch.

The reference section? Aah of course they'd hopefully find some stuff about Runes here or hieroglyphics or whatever that thing had on it.

At Sierra's question, Nessie just nodded. She wasn't really one to be good at Ancient Runes. In fact it had to have been one of her weakest subjects, if not her weakest. So she was far from being any help at the moment. For now she would just listen and observe till she could do more.

From what she could tell on their way up to the library, there were no vines, leaves, dirt, or scratches that could indicate there had been a plant there at all. Despite the fact that her attention did move to the three students that accompanied them, this seemed like it was going to be a smooth sailing search for them all.

Nevertheless, her wand was still at the ready.

Having entered the library, she gripped her wand a little tighter, glancing down each aisle as they came to a stop in front of...a rather large and well stocked bookcase. "Think it'd stay in here vith it's apparent appetite for human flesh?" she muttered, glancing behind as she took a few steps around the group.

Another glance down an aisle.

Huh.

Louisa followed the others up to the library, her two cats trailing behind her, the echo of the slap on poor Milton's cheek still playing in her head. She would swear it was in dramatically slow motion. And it scared her juuust a bit that the headmistress was snappish and hit when she was under pressure. The Ravenclaw couldn't help but overanalyze the whole thing, up until she heard Sierra talk.

"It is where we should start looking for references." Louisa spent most of her free time in the library. Maybe this year was the exception with fewer hours spent in here but the Ravenclaw was... well, a Ravenclaw. She moved to the bookshelves. "Mr. Kitridge organized these references by subject. Maybe we'll find something in Ancient Runes." She said slowly moving along the bookshelf until she made it to the right section.

"You think 'Magical Hieroglyphs and Logograms' is a good start?"

Gemma hurried after the others hastily. She felt a little like the Muggle superspy, James Bond...she had her wand at the ready and had to fight the urge to hold it completely vertical and turn corners with it leading like 007 always did... a little smile spread across her face as she moved through the library following the others as she pictured herself doing just that around a row of books and then falling on the floor and rolling into a defensive position.

Then she focused again and got completely at the ready...focused and ready for anything...she followed the group to the Reference Section and once the little group stopped she stayed at the back of the group to help protect that angle of the little modge podge hero group.

She stood on her tippy toes to see what was going on in front of the student leaders.

With Nessie and Louisa already here, Sierra turned the bookshelves, as well. She wasn't really familiar with the library. At all. She only came in here if she absolutely had to, and even then, it was just to grab the one book she needed, check it out, and return to the common room. She never stayed in here for hours pouring over whatever she could get her hands on.

...and that would be another reason the sorting hat didn't put her with the Claws. She was no researcher.

Louisa was, though! Sierra shrugged in reply to her question. "You're the Ravenclaw here," she said. In other words, she would probably know best. "Did you get a good look at the brooch, though? What type of writing was on there? Because...hieroglyphs and logograms are pictures, right? Was the writing made up of picture or runic symbols?"

Or were they all in the same?

Sierra looked toward Nessie. Did she have any bright ideas?

Since the rumors of Professor Burbage being eaten by a Man-Eating Plant were clearly true Oakey barely ever ventured further than the common room, and aside from classes he was barely seen wandering the Grounds. He was TERRIFIED of Man-Eating Plants. Hell coming to the Library was probably a really stupid idea itself. Plants normally stay outside, but this one clearly didn't care about boundaries.

He had to come up though he needed to read more on Curse Breaking, he was set now on that being his career once he finished Hogwarts and wanted to know as much as he could about it. He turned the corner to the reference section of the Library to watch in Professor Cerulean, very seriously gather with other students , The Librarian, and Professor Romanos. "What's going on?" He asked as he walked behind the Muggle studies Professor.

Laura had finally caught up with the Professor who was really fast and she stood waiting to see what the Librarian or Professor Romanos said, she had her wand ready just in case something happened, Professor Romanos said that she was to keep her wand at the ready right, so she was just doing what she was told.

Gemma smiled at the young boy, "We are on a mission to find some information about the brooch that the Headmistress was given...it seems to be causing major issues around the castle...." she said in a whisper.

The Professor nodded her head up and down slightly and then flicked her wand, "Accio quill and parchment." instantly a blue quill and a piece of parchment came flying towards her from somewhere else in the library...she stepped through the crowd and towards the young leaders talking. "Louisa, if you can remember what they symbols looked like you could draw them here and maybe that would help us figure out what type of Runes or markings we are looking for..." she said it excitedly...this was one of her expertise after working in the Muggle Museums for so many yeas.

She handed the parchment and quill to the girl and then turned grabbing a few books off the shelf...she was a little surprised by all of the dust falling from them as she grabbed them. She opened up one titled Ancient Hieroglyphs and started flipping through the pages to find an alphabet...she thought she had seen a few of the markings on the piece of jewelry when she had reported her picture of her brother missing to the Headmistress.

Leo focused on looking for vines, leaves, dirt or really any indications at all that the plant was in the library. The shelf he was eyeing though seemed to be free from plant traces. Hearing how Katrina and then Medea came up behind him he commented to them. "It looks like the plant hasn’t been through here but let’s spread out and check the rest of the aisles anyway for traces." The stone that had formed in his stomach was slowly unknotting itself as it seemed that just maybe the plant had left the library untouched this time.

Turning around to go check some other bookshelves Leo smiled at Gemma and Oakey as they joined the group. "We are looking for clues as to where the plant went after it nabbed Professor Burbage from the Astronomy Tower." He explained.

"Oakey, Laura and Katrina keep your wands at the ready just in case. Check the nearest shelves and see if you can find anything plant like vines or leaves on the shelves or books." Leo motioned.

Walking over to where Medea was standing Leo looked down the same aisle and said quietly. "I think if the plant was here it has left for more populated areas."

Sarah had been reading books and in general occupying her favourite place the library, when she noticed a whole troop of people congregating around the referance area. Sarah, an expert at evesdropping kind of picked up a bit about ging on, yet she innocently went up and asked, "what is going on?". They looked like they were on a mission, "can I help?" she asked. She really wanted to help, yet the kind of help that was not 'scram'. She could be REALLY helpful.. if she was in agood mod , which she was now

Penelope was pretty sure the group hadn't been this big when they'd been down in the Great Hall. But suddenly there were more people, even a few prefects, and she supposed it was a good thing. The more people they had, the more likely they'd find the plant, right? So she continued looking around, not really sure if there was any place in particular she should be looking...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Princesspower

Sarah had been reading books and in general occupying her favourite place the library, when she noticed a whole troop of people congregating around the referance area. Sarah, an expert at evesdropping kind of picked up a bit about ging on, yet she innocently went up and asked, "what is going on?". They looked like they were on a mission, "can I help?" she asked. She really wanted to help, yet the kind of help that was not 'scram'. She could be REALLY helpful.. if she was in agood mod , which she was now

She paused for a bit when she heard Sarah. "Yeah, c'mon and help," she said gesturing for her to come on over and just assuming the professors wouldn't say no to another addition to the group. "We're just looking for the plant that took Professor Burbage."

Gemma glanced up from her book....what was she lost...they were looking for the plant thingy and not information about the brooch....she shut her book after turning over an edge of a page...she tried not to meet the eyes of the librarian or bring attention to her page marking because she knew Leobald would probably glare at her for hurting one of his books. She stuck the book under her arm and focused on what he had mentioned....she looked intensively for the leaves and vines hinted and followed her glance to where Leo and Medea were at. She walked over slowly to overhear their brief discussion..."Yes, I don't see anything else left in here from the plant...but I think we should focus on finding information about that brooch..." she said anxiously.

It was not that Selina was late- she just did not want to be here. So she CHOOSE to hold up the rear of the group of people heading to the library. Hopefully Kurumi gave her cookies or something after this taxing day- that was, of course, if they survived. The library was so not her thing and the fact that they were spending time in the library for something outside of what she was assigned by a Professor sort of gave her a slight twitch in her left eye. What if she panicked and broke the book that they needed? What if she drooled on the ONE crucial line that they needed to solve the case and it smudged? What if SO many things. That was why Selina was not equipted to handle the library. It was Kurumi's thing.

Then again after Kurumi graduated did the thing they were not allowed to talk about, she supposed that SOMEONE would have to pick up that mantel. Ugh Merlin, was it going to be Selina? She hoped not.

Hanging out in the back she just listened as all the adults spoke about what they were going to do and some sort of strategy. See, if this was on the Pitch one person, the captain of sorts, would be allocating who would be doing what. That way it would be more efficient. Sometimes, a dictatorship was called for. And the Headmistress seemed like an awesome person to do that. Maybe her and Vivi could make her a hat. Not pink of course because that would clash with her hair/.