Cain wasn't especially amorous towards reading as a whole, but that wasn't to say he disliked it, and there was something reassuring about the undemanding nature of books. The Hogwarts Library was astounding, if only because there were so many old books, but he still couldn't quite shake the uncomfortable feeling of being watched when he was in Hogwarts proper.

It was probably because the foreign students were a novelty, but far too often for his liking he would catch curious students looking at him when he turned around- or more often, glancing away. But in the quiet Salem dormitories, there was no one to watch him as he revised the book of plants in front of him. Facts didn't come easy to Cain, numbers and details slipping out of his head as fast as he read them, but eventually something would stick, and then the rest would come rushing back. It was just a case of getting there.

Sat in an uncomfortable wooden chair, Cain turned over the page, trying to remember the properties of Nightshade- other than being fatal in the correct dosage. Looking to the ceiling for assistance and tapping the page, something finally connected. "Of the family… Solanacae," he muttered, "can be used to combat colingeric poisoning. Nicotine can be derived from it." Pausing again, he looked down at the book, turning the page back and re- reading the information on Nightshade, then snapping it shut and trying to remember a little more. "Of the family Solanacae, one of the primary uses is as an antidote to colingeric poisoning. Symptons of an overdose are... dilated pupils, halucinations, and a dry mouth." Well, that seemed conclusive.

Hanging around in the dorms wasn't exactly a favorite past time for the Salem Senior. Actually, come to think of it, Vex really only was in the dorms when he was required to be. There were of course strange exceptions to this, such as right now, when he found it more beneficial to be inside rather than out. But even while he lounged on a chair in the corner of the room he couldn't quite focus right.

Originally he had planned to pour over books that contained information on the previous tournaments. He was mostly interested in what the tasks were and how frequently they had occurred over the years. For, while Vex didn't expect the first task to be dragons, again, he wasn't exactly ruling it out. Good thing he knew a few spells that he could use on their eyes if he had to.

Of course as the books proved less and less helpful Vex found himself less and less interested. Really these all proved very useless, he could probably come up with a good idea for the first task if he just sat her and tried to imagine one.

So that was exactly what he did.

The only problem with this was they became increasingly ridiculous as time went on. At first it was a relatively simple test of skill, but Vex was now at the point where  a person had to play quadpot with one arm tied behind their back while manticores were hurled at them from catapults on the ground.

His imagination certainly was a weird place.

But all of that ceased when Vex began to hear muttering from near by. "Hey Cain, what's with the Nightshade?" Vex called out. That was, after all, what the boy was talking about in his mutterings.

Cain almost jumped out of his seat when Vex spoke, but instead turned round, a small smile in place. "I'm trying to remember some of Nightshade's medical properties," he explained, "Even if we aren't in Salem, it's still important that I keep on top of my studies." Vex would understand that, after all he wanted to be an auror, and you needed excellent exam results for that. He had been worried about the Tournament interfering with his final year of study, but when they'd reached England, it had immediately become apparent that he would still be taking lessons. Hence the muttering, which was more than a little embarassing.

"What about you? I don't often see you in here," Cain stated. Vex was far more outgoing than him, sometimes a little too outgoing for Cain's tastes, and he seemed to revel in the new environment instead of floundering and getting stuck in a flight of stairs because he was rushing to classes and looking at the floor to avoid the curious eyes of students.

"Too busy socialising?" he asked without malice. Although Vex could just as easily have been studying- although that struck Cain as unlikely, Vex was too loud to make Cain think that he studied on a regular basis. Ostentatious, that was the word.

"Poisonous and you get Nicotine from it, right?" Vex asked. Really he didn't remember the latter part too well, he just remembered it had something to do with cigarettes, and Nicotine was the first thing he remembered that was in them aside from tobacco. But he could have sworn it was Nicotine, if memory served he had made a joke about it when he first found out. Something along the lines of 'well they do say cigarettes are deadly'. "But yea, keeping up with grades is generally a good idea." Not that Vex himself was doing a stellar job of it. But the year had just begun, and so far the classes had been relatively easy.

Vex shrugged slightly. "I don't like being cooped up." Which was mostly true. Wherever he was, Vex always did his best to not be stuck inside a building or room for too long. It made classes very difficult sometimes, especially when they ran longer than an hour. He simply got antsy.

"Oh you know. Socializing, tormenting my cousins, finding places Parker and I can have sex in public and not get caught. My normal antics." Vex gave a slight grin. The last thing on his list may or may not be true, but he doubted Cain would know. After all, the two had been caught doing things they weren't supposed too before. Although that usually was nothing more than topless Tuesday kissing sessions. Purely innocent, really.

"I was going through the records of the pas tournaments though. Wanted to see what the tasks were and if there was a  pattern to them. In short, no, there doesn't appear to be." Vex gave a sigh and tossed the book onto a near by table. "Feels like I've wasted a good few hours."

Cain nodded in agreement, "pretty much." Vex's recall was impressive, but then again Vex had always been successful in class. It was why he'd been chosen to go on the tournament, after all. Frowning at his exaggeration- at least he thought it was an exaggeration, although thinking back there had been a few mentions of less- than- appropriate behaviour, not that he was judging, but having sex in public did seem unlikely. But then again, Cain harboured suspicions that Vex was an exhibitionist, so it could be possible.

"That's a sensible idea," Cain said encouragingly, "But I'm sure that you have enough magical knowledge to be able to cope anything they throw at you, not that it'll matter if you don't win. Although it would be nice if Salem did well." Not that he would have anything to do with it, Cain hated the idea of competing in front of four schools' students and teachers, not to mention failing Salem. He had only come to see his Mother- and he wasn't even sure he wanted to do that.

"What do you think the task will be then?" Since Vex had decided to do so much to prepare for the task, he should have an idea about what kind of thing he would be doing, surely?

It would be nice if Salem won. Exactly. Only to Vex it wouldn't be nice, it would be Earthshaking. A huge upset that would knock all of these schools off their high horse. Except maybe Hogwarts, because he wasn't entirely sure they had even gotten on it yet. But ruining smug Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, that was where the true money was. Vex relished the idea of them losing again, and this time to an American school, and a young one at that.

"Team challenge, probably," Vex commented in a bored tone. "Only thing that makes sense, really. And if it's on the pitch, I'd reckon it would have to be something all three people could do together. Probably a maze a la third task in the last tournament. Probably something filled with cosmic monstrosities and the like. If that's the case though, I imagine it will be more difficult than previous tasks. But only because we have three people instead of one."

Vex shrugged slightly. "Unless they want to really mix it up and do a team capture the flag or team slayer. King of the hill, maybe? VIP escort?" At this point Vex was just listing off games he had played on his xbox back home. But come to think of it, those all worked with four teams of three. So there was no reason why they couldn't happen now.

"Personally, any of those sound better than my first thought. I hope its one of those."

Cain nodded, surprised at the depth of thought Vex had put into the question. "Well, so long as Salem does well, that's okay, surely? And I'm sure you'll do well, you've put a lot into preparing so it should pay off. It's very impressive." He smiled, wondering if Vex's ego really needed the stroking. Probably not, but it was true.

"That said, what do you think of Hogwarts? It isn't what I expected at all, I wasn't expecting… I guess you could call it a sense of history. It's kind of weird, having all the old stuff just there, and the students don't even notice it, I think." The ghosts, for example. He'd been told by a Hogwarts student that one of them was the daughter or Ravenclaw, and then there was the forbidden forest, and of course all the paintings and secret passages. Cain couldn't help comparing it to Salem, which might be old, but wasn't obviously old in the way that Hogwarts was.

"It's really weird, how different it is. I guess we're lucky that we didn't go to Durmstrang or Beauxbatons though, it would be really alienating if I couldn't understand the lessons." Although he would probably be alright if he went to Beauxbatons, because he did speak some French- not fluently, and his Mother had always laughed at his accent, but it was passable.

"Yea, yea," Vex said before letting out a small laugh. "So long as everyone does their best we're all winners!" He was joking. Mostly. It was true, so long as they did well, it didn't matter. After all, he had taken some time to scope out the other school champions. Hogwarts and Beauxbatons seemed like no contest, not that he really expected the latter of the two to be. Durmstrang was simply horrifying. Salem would be hard pressed to beat them.

"Hogwarts is about what I expected," he admitted. "My pop was a Ravenclaw here, and all my cousins, aunts, uncles, you name it, have gone or are going here." Or something like that. Supposedly a few others along the way had gone to other schools around the world, but those weren't any close relative so Vex hardly counted them. "So they've told me a lot about the place. But yea, it's kinda weird that they just walk around as if the thousand year old stuff is nothing special."

"Good point," Vex agreed. How did the Beauxbatons and Durmstrangers deal with the language gap? "Do you think they only brought people who could speak English? Or do you figure the ones who can't simply use, like, translating spells on their pens or something?" After all, he didn't figure they taught languages at the other schools, so he didn't really expect that many of their students to know English. Hell, he figured about as many of them knew English as Salem of Hogwarts students knew French or... whatever they spoke at Durmstrang.

"Really?" Cain asked before he could help himself, "I didn't know that." It must have been nice to know a bit beforehand, other than sketchy information that turned out to be wrong. Like the one about how the Slytherins went out and had mad parties with the centaurs in the forbidden forest and ate house elves every Tuesday. And the one about the ghosts eating students who misbehaved. Although he shouldn't really have been surprised about that, because they were slightly ridiculous.

"Um, I think that there's a Beauxbatons boy who doesn't speak English. I'm not sure about the others, but they seem to speak English well enough mostly. It must be awkward, with all the technical language, though. Plus, lots of things don't really translate well, especially with speech, and it's more difficult when you're trying to understand someone who's dictating because you don't really have a chance to go over things, and- yeah, they've been very impressive so far." Cain cut himself off, giving Vex an apologetic smile.

"Um, translation charms is a good idea. I expect that people are using them, just to make sure they aren't getting anything wrong. I think essay writing would be worse though," Cain mused, "Because it's easier to translate something into your own language than try and say it in a different language." It would be awful trying to write an essay on anything in any language that wasn't English.