After a long night...extremely long in this case, you are finally allowed back to your common rooms. Nothing sounds better than a good night's sleep to put it all behind you. However, it doesn't appear anyone will be getting much sleep tonight.

A trip up or down to the dorms will reveal the rooms all ransacked. There isn't a single trunk that hasn't been run right through. Curiously, any and all mirrors have been taken. The fireplace has also been sealed away.

Whoever did this has gone through the entire common room and removed any means of communication with the outside world.

At least the roast was delicious at dinner.

Aboli hadn't much of an appetite since the events of the feast had unfolded. She was terrified for any of her muggle-related friends, and she suddenly remembered she had SNOGGED a muggle once. WOULD THEY FIND THIS OUT?! Her childhood best friend had been a muggle!

But of course, there was no way they would know this. Aboli was pacing the common area after having seen the wreckage of the dorm...her mirror was indeed gone, and she was feeling so lost. What to DO?

This term is about survival...and protecting the ones you love...

Well, this was nice.... Not. Curtis's own mind was racing over what took place, having to fill out personal information. He was calm and cool overall, but deep inside he was disturbed at the fact that one of his parents were muggle-born. He hoped he filled enough to get his family left alone. But other than that.... he just wanted to be left alone again.

Well, maybe not. As Curtis entered the common room he saw Aboli pacing about clearly not in a good mood. Sweet Aboli, as he remembered how last year started and ended with her. Without thinking he found himself walking within her vicinity. Not too close though, he wasn't trying to scare her. "Hey.." No need to ask how she's feeling. His arms folded out of comfort as he waited to see if she'd dig a hole in the ground with her pacing.

Well this was all awful. Moose had thought that his first Start of Term Feast was awful but
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He stormed up to his Dorm right past two of the older students. (ABOLI) and (CURTIS). He was only up there for a minute and then he was back down in the common room. He plopped into one of the armchairs, but it was too comfortable. Moose did not want to be comfortable right now. So he shot up from the Armchair and marched over to one of the Wooden Tables and sat in one of those chairs surrounding it. He grasped the back of one of the chairs beside him and began rocking it back and forth like he was about ready to pick it up and toss it one of the windows in here and flood the whole place of the water of the Black Lake.

He was angry that his stuff had been gone through, but that was just the icing on the cake. His contained rage was just a mix of nearly everything that raced through his head tonight. And the one thing that suddenly came back to him was the visage of the Headmaster's face melting and bubbling into the face that was now Headmaster Rosier's.
That repeated itself a couple more times. The it hit him once more. The need to throw up the first time he saw it happen. He swallowed it back then at the feast but this time.... No

Moose throw up what little he could even eat at the Feast all over himself, the floor, the chair, and the table.

Lilith quickly regretted taking the high road and agreeing to come to Hogwarts. She should have taken her grandmother's offer and remained at Ilvermorny. But noooooo. She had to play the role of the good daughter.

This was too stressful. If she got a pimple for this she was going to set something on fire.

Anywaaaaaaay. With the freedom to go to bed, Lilith went ahead and followed the Slytherins' down to her new living space. It was all...green...no natural light. Eh. She was far too mentally exhausted to care about that. She just needed her bed. She slipped into her dorm only to storm back out in less than a second, practically fuming from her ears.

"Who...touched my things?" she asked in a low, yet firm voice. No shouting. Not on the first day, anyway.

OH. But just then....

Ohhhhh....ewwwww. EEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!

A boy threw up and she momentarily forgot about the state of her belongings.

Aboli was interrupted, first, by Curtis. Who, when she made eye-contact with, made her blush because of their....last time they saw each other, which had been the train ride home. She regretted it now, but she didn't really want to tell CURTIS that. She merely sighed and shook her head. "Curtis....we have to keep the littles safe this term. Us seventh years HAVE to," she said softly as she continued pacing. "And hopefully our parents will be frightened by our lack of communication and SOMETHING will be done - " She stopped talking when a first? Second? year entered.

She was about to comfort him, even with just a hand to his shoulder, when he THREW UP. Aboli, who always wore gloves, covered her nose with her hand and tried not to vomit herself. Using her wand, she quickly tried to siphon some of it away. "Curtis, go fetch a warm rag, please? NOW!" she barked. "Are you okay?" she asked, noticing a stray...piece...of vomit....and shuddered.

Ahem. Okay. Clear all of it...away.... Luckily she was good at cleaning spells, or so she thought. "Everything is going to be okay. We have to stick together. I may not be prefect anymore, but I WAS, and always WILL BE a snake. And snakes stick together." Where was Claudine? She'd be a help at this time. Or Fiona....

Aboli's head turned SUDDENLY at the tone, and she snorted. "None of us, yeah? They did. The bad guys. Clearly. All of our communication is cut off, I'm assuming. I don't have an owl but...are your owls still in there? Or...." What had become of the owlery?!

Curtis noticed that blush of hers, she had to have remembered their private moment last year which brought a happy memory for him. Given the lack of contact over the summer, he imagined she was embarrassed and didn't want it to happen again. That was okay with him, there were other snakes in the grass that could fill the void... However, he wouldn't object to her changing her mind on it happening again. They could use some cheering up now more than ever.

Well, she was finally talking. Since when did I HAVE to do anything? Because I'm older? Curtis automatically thought. Helping others, what good would it do for him? Well... it would make her happier. Her being happy is more appealing than crying about dead first years. "Yeah, you're right." When she mentioned parents, however, Curtis's insides nearly froze. Papa... Dad would be safe surely, but Papa? He was muggle-born, a great wizard but still... that leaves Papa's side in possible danger."I just hope we're not forced to do anything on anyone that could get us in trouble." After all, they were of age. If they were to survive, did they have to do anything possible? Or risk it all to save others? He didn't fancy certain punishments. Maybe mum could do something about this... She was the remaining link here with Dad and Papa. I could visit her office later.. Further said thoughts were then interrupted by the sound of retching..

Ugh... way to ruin the moment. Curtis stared hard at the younger kid. I get it, you're sick but right here? He was briefly annoyed which meant.... yep, Aboli went rogue again. He secretly liked it when she barked orders, showcasing her powers under that sweet, innocent, and hot look of hers. He took out a cloth from his pocket, portable dinner rag, without a word casted Aguamenti on it before a hot air charm onto it before walking over to the younger (Moose). "Here," Almost slapping it onto his mouth, "You can keep it, when you finish wiping your mouth you should fold it inside out and keep it pressed onto the back of your neck while taking deep breaths." He found himself repeating one of his parent's home remedies when feeling ill. Curtis being helpful, who would've seen the day?

Curtis then silently scourgified and used the vanishing charm on the vomit chunks. Yeah, he was drilled to learn certain spells wordlessly over the summer. Perks of having former Professors for parents.

Oh, and hello (Lilith). She wasn't so shy anymore. Although she wasn't shouting this room was mostly quiet so her words carried over to his ears loud and clear. Curtis fought the urge to grin at this. He already liked the side of her. "You too?" Curtis asked. "I wonder if they blocked Patronuses?" He was still working on learning his, it was not an easy spell. But if someone did know it well, could they summon it far enough away to reach others?

When Violet saw the condition of the Common Room, she immediately ran to her dorm to check, and found everything had been ransacked. Even her magpie, Mack, was gone, the only thing remaining being a lone black feather on her bed. She felt a tear forming in one eye--she had just found her pet again last spring, after thinking he was gone forever, and now he was gone again. She only hoped he had done a bunk and left the castle, and not been harmed by those goons.

As she walked back to the Common Room, she furtively patted the small bulge in one pocket of her robes--thank heavens she had brought her journal with her! She had miniaturized it with a spell when the Feast was getting started so that she could store it out of the way and it was still there--at least they hadn't bothered to frisk the students--not yet. What should she do with it? She had always kept journals since she was little, and wrote nothing but the truth in them, as Miss Howard had always adivsed her, but now the truth could be dangerous. But hiding it in the forms was obviously not safe. She felt comforted to have it there with her, but she also felt as if she were carrying a time-bomb in her pocket.

She wanted to talk with someone about what was happening, but looking around the Common Room, it struck her that now she wasn't sure who to trust. She inwardly cursed her social awkwardness and the fact that she'd so far failed to form any close friendships. Now she felt really and truly alone, because she was afraid to speak her mind to anyone, not ever her classmates.

Moose tried to shake the image from his mind. The churning feeling in his stomach subsided. The need to throw up happened, and was glad it was gone and done with a quickly as it came up. Then he was being tended to so quickly. Stop stop...He didn't ask for your help!

Right yeah. She was the Prefect last term. Aboli, she was almost as motherly as his own Mum. He listened to her reassurances and the need to stick with each other. He only nodded to her words. "I'm fine." He lied to her. Taking the wet rag from Curtis and dabbing his mouth with it. Looking at him and folding it inside out as he suggested he do and placing it on the back of neck.

Comradery was all well and good, but Moose's top priority was his Muggle Family. Everyone else be damned. He still listened to their conversations. Moose had no idea what Curtis was talking about. Petrifonus or whatever...Patronus no yeah. He was positive he heard that word last year a few times. But the Owl. "Mousetrap!" He stood up from his seat the wet rag falling to the floor.

Wooo nope. He stood up to quickly. Moose had to do some of that deep heavy breathing. His parents had just purchased Mousetrap with him over the summer as that was the recommended means of communication they were told witches and wizards used. He leaned down slowly and picked up the wet rag from the floor and placed it back on his neck and sat back down. laying his head between his arms as he rested it on the table. Mousetrap will be fine, he'll check on him tomorrow.

Stomp. Stomp. Stomp.

She was furious. There was only so much the 11-year-old could take and she was at the end of her rope. Delaney Whittle had wanted a fun and relaxing first year at Hogwarts, make some friends, and learn some magic, become the best witch ever so her father would move back to England or just take her with him to Asia but these stupid neo-freaks and their dumb leader with the faulty face were ruining it!

The young snake bust into the Slytherin common room and didn’t even have time to ooh and ahh over her new home. She paid very little attention to the boarded-up fireplace and the fact that the room now smelled like vomit OR the fact that she now lived under a lake! Because this girl only had one thing on her mind.

“The owlery! It’s empty!” She cried out to the room. She didn’t seem to care that she was interrupting. This was important. She had gone up to the owlery to send a letter to her father and brother – who she has not spoken to in MONTHS – only to find the room empty, “All the owls… they’re all gone! There’s just a bunch of feathers on the floor!”

Isabella had like any other first year painted up expectations for how her first feast and year was going to be at Hogwarts. How this evening had ended was unimaginable in so many ways from the scary men, to the omnious form they had to answer. Exhausted, worried and unsure of what they'd meet in the morning Bella just wanted to find her dorm and drag the covers over her head and go to sleep.

Entering the common room shortly after Delaney, she abruptly stopped as she heard the other girl cry out about missing owls. A boy was sitting on the floor looking like he had thrown up his dinner which judging by the smell of vomit in the air was highly likely. Bella was too drained to say anything so she just circled around Delaney and headed up to her new dorm.

Seeing the state of her belongings and how someone had torn her stuffed snake apart and left the pieces on her bed caused her to see red. Anger surging through her whole body Bella picked up her beloved snake's pieces and stormed back down to the common room where she cried out with tears streaming down her face and anger in her voice to everyone in the room. "Who did this? Who ripped my stuffed snake apart?" She didn't even know how to fix it back.

Ew, that sucks.

Lilith wrinkled her nose slightly at the sight of vomit. At least she hadn’t made a spectacle that horrible. Okay, maybe this wasn’t the time to be mad. It seemed it wasn’t just her belongings that had been ransacked. The former prefect (Lilith heard the older girl mention) assumed it was the baboons in hoods who did all of this. Perfect. They probably saw all of her undies and…

………...EW. Nooooo. Whyyyyyy?!

At the mention of her owl, Lilith crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head at the former prefect, her cheeks tinting pink in slight embarrassment. She didn’t own one. Her parents couldn’t afford to get her one this year because of the move. She wasn’t about to spill that out. “I thought the school had owls,” she replied instead. That’s what her dad had told her to use to send letters home.

Her eyes traveled to the kind-of-cool-looking guy (Curtis) and she nodded. “Yes. Everything is a mess.” Were his…briefs touched as well? At the mention of Patronuses, Lilith’s ears perked. “Do you think you could try it?” She glanced over at the former prefect (Aboli), including her in this.

The kid (Moose) who threw up still looked woozy. Lilith brandished her wand and summoned a bag from her dorm. Catching it perfectly, she took out a chocolate from it and approached him. “Here, this helps. It's chocolate.”

Annnnd apparently owls were gone. Great. Icy blue eyes looked between the older peeps.

Patronuses?

The owls were all gone? And so was Machiavelli! That was why their rooms had been ransacked--these goons had removed anything that would let them communicate with the outside world. Violet pondered on how this would be received by her dictatorial grandfather, who had charged her on pain of his extreme displeasure to write him once a week, without fail. After she'd run off to New York during what should have been her second hear, her family had kept her on a tight rein. If they didn't hear from her, they would immediately assume something was wrong. And Violet wouldn't want to be the one to have to deal with her angry grandfather. Sure, these intruders were scary, but Ignatius Blackthorne was rather frightening, too, and not just to his underage niece. Violet wasn't sure what all he'd been up to in his life, but from the way he changed the subject when certain topics were introduced, she suspected he had not always been a gentleman in retirement.

Violet was roused out of her broodings by the raised voice of a younger student and looked up. Ah, favorite stuffed toy destroyed, yes, that was a hard one. She tried to distract herself from the fear that her very real and living magpie might also been torn up by trying to do something.

"It's okay, we can probably fix it," she said to the younger girl. Violet was pretty good at repairing things, after years of potions experiments gone awry. "Mind if I take a look?" she said, holding out her hand. You could always distract yourself from bad thoughts by doing something useful, Violet had found. She was still wary of the other students, but surely it couldn't hurt to try to fix a kid's toy.

His words did ring true. Curtis', that was. She was sure at some point, they would be forced to do unpleasant things. It would difficult. But for now, she focused on bossing Curtis around in order to help this little guy. Moose, was his name?

Curtis was almost paternal, and Aboli sent him a small approving and rare nod. "I'm not sure but...even so, how many of us can even produce one? My isn't corporeal yet..." she said gently to Curtis while she moved closer to Moose. She used her gloved hands to stroke some of his hair in a reassuring way until he jumped up, clearly distraught over his owl. Her eyes roamed over to Violet, trying to decide how much comforting she needed to do tonight when Delaney, a first year, BURST IN.

And she...gasped.

"The owls....are....gone?" she put a hand over her heart. Not that she had MUCH hope right now, but she...really, sincerely hoped that they were just chilling in another location. And not.....gone. "Okay, so let's just regroup and - " AND SHE WAS INTERRUPTED AGAIN.

Another first year. Isabella, was it? "Hey!" she said quickly, standing and putting her hands in front of her as if to stop Isabella in her tracks. "NO ONE ripped your snake..the...the bad people did it. And we should call them by their proper name. The Neo Alliance," she said the name with a hard, firm nod before glancing over at another new Slytherin, but she was older. Her sorting...Aboli sifted through the night for her name. "Lilith, right? I..." She pulled out her wand. "I can't produce a corporeal patronus. Not yet...." and she doubted, now, that she would be able to cultivate that skill this year, her final year.

And that was when Aboli, as she looked all around at the scared faces - and Curtis' smarmy one - all looking at HER, at each other, first years and everything in between, that she took a deep breath and hopped onto the couch, standing up. "OKAY Everyone! Snakes! Listen up!" She cleared her throat.

"This school year is going to be hard and difficult for all of us. But we're Slytherins. If any house can survive this, it's us." She made to make eye contact with each of them as she spoke, her eyes lingering on Lilith, for some reason. She was so new and so....scared looking. More so than some of the first years. "We have to do...what we can to survive. We have to. And that might mean we have to do gross...mean....terrible things," Aboli shuddered. "But bottom line is - don't be stupid. None of you are! You were sorted HERE, in Slytherin, for a reason. We have to stick together, and make sure we survive EVEN if it means doing things we don't want to do because....because if something bad happens to us, if we refuse to comply, no GOOD can come of it. What will a rebellion this early suggest? It isn't smart or wise. You have to wait for the right time. So we have to play along - we don't need to overact - we don't need to do more than expected - but we hAVE to make it out. And I am NOT leaving this school having watched any of you - " She nodded at them all, even the ones she had just met - "Not...n-not make it out. I have your back. I would probably...you know...d-" She cleared her throat. "I will do what I must to ensure you all remain safe. Whatever the cost."

Aboli stepped down off the couch. "It might not mean anything to some of you, but...I'm here to talk. I'm the prefect still, even if I don't have the badge officially." She shot Curtis a look. "Be smart. Be brave. But don't be stupid. These guys aren't playing. They...they might have killed our former Headmaster. They won't hesitate to do the same to us."

There was no time to waste - Gabi had to round up the remaining Slytherins and FAST. Truth be told, so many of them had been relocated to the room that she wasn't sure many would still be around to grab.

She walked in and immediately pointed her wand to her throat, magically enhancing her voice so it rang through the dormitories. "ATTENTION SLYTHERINS! Hogwarts is currently under siege. For your safety, report to the common room immediately and prepare to be evacuated," she said. It was a little...blunt, of course, but it got the job done.

She paused, hoping that Claudine was still trailing close behind her.

The Snakette was indeed sticking close to Recard. Throughout the trip to the Common Room, her wand had been held aloof and her eyes remained alert. With each step taken to the Room, she had expected that they pounced upon. Worst, she expected to be pounced upon by one of her family members. It occurred to her in that moment that there was no way she would be able to return to the Blaze mansion. Not after all of this…

Whatever. She’d figure out her life later if survived.

The Common Room was exactly as she remembered but her attention was trained up at the direction of girls’ dorm. Claudine just hoped that all the students would get their butts up and push their bodies. There was no time to waste.

Fiona had been in her dormitory when she heard the amplified voice of her head of house informing the Slytherins to join her in the common room for evacuation. The Snakette quickly grabbed her wand and exited the girls' dormitory. Her eyes scanned the common room and immediately they fell upon Claudine who was in very close proximity to Professor Recard.

Gabi was aware that most of her students were, unfortunately, in the room for the better half of this semester. That was SORT of good news though, because that meant less students she had to transfer back and forth. "Come along, there is no time to lose. Everyone follow me to the spare office on the sixth floor," she told them all once they had gathered. "Do not wander off. Do not question my instructions," she added.

She sent out a spell to make sure there were no remaining students in the dorms - nope, all clear. No one hiding out or doing anything stupid. With that, she gestured for them to follow and headed out into the corridor.

OOC: In case you haven't heard, we're all hanging out HERE so feel free to post us there now. Just go ahead and assume no one tried to interfere with them as they headed there!