"The point of secrets isn't what you think Fig! It's about what everyone else is going to think," she threw her hands up in exhasperation. She knew that, logically, Fig wasn't being malicious. He just had no filter...but that wasn't good enough this time. All the times before, all the times it had teetered on the precipice of completely unacceptable but she had defended him or forgave him there was no coming back from this. There was no way to suck this life ruining Genie back into the bottle. She had been so sure he was ready, that he could handled it, she had had so much faith and trust in him and he'd just stomped all over it - and this wasn't even about her! Poor Zel! So desperate for his secrets, his desire to be like everyone else if in name only for a little bit longer.

"A year ago this would have got him booted for sure Fig. Snark'd have had him out on his ass without so much as a how'd do! How could you? I promised him he could trust you, I thought if you knew how important it was to him that it be a secret you might actually think for once-" she was cut off in the middle of her tirade by Josh and found herself torn. A part of her wanted to tell him to go bugger himself because it wasn't his fight, he wasn't friends with Zel or Fig. It was one thing for Sophie to be angry and disappointed in him it was another for others to gang up on him. Besides, Josh was a prefect he was supposed to quell the masses not join in rioting - which was swiftly pointed out to him by Comer.

"Gordic's bleeding gaters!" she thumped Figaro ounce more upside the head before it donned on her they were surrounded by people, one of them being Zel...and the look on his face. She wanted to cry, he was mad at her. He probably had every right to be, she had been the one to say Fig needed to know. He had trusted her, biting her bottom lip she reached out for the pale boys arm, "Zee... It is the point of SAWS," her voice wavered, big eyes shifting from fury to a sad worry, "I'm so sorry, I tried to warn you. I tried to tell you secrets can't stay secrets forever. Even when we take all the precautions to keep them that way," there was nothing else she could say. Looking back at Figaro she just shook her head, "When in Merlin's name are you going to grow the feck up Fig? This isn't some game Ollie left because she couldn't deal with being an outted Were. You saw how miserable she was...or do you still have your own head so far up your arse your feelings are the only ones that matter. You are the WORST".

Ligeia had almost forgotten Joshua could be hot headed. That could make things worse, like the turmoil that set off SAWS sore with each other in one single meeting. Though Figaro deserved to be shouted at in this way. Zel's status as a Werewolf was now confirmed to everyone whom were the first witnesses, so she didn't bother to continue spreading that information.

Though she had an answer ready for Church. "Figaro needs to have his mouth sewn shut so he doesn't hurt anyone anymore." Ligeia was deadly serious in the intent. Her sewing kit, a bag with more pins stuck on the outside than what was in. "Of course we'll have to leave room for a straw so he can eat all his meals in liquid form," starving Figaro wasn't going to get him to learn. "It would be no different from when my shrunken head decides to out foul mouth both a Jarvey and a species of frog."

Nicholas was trying to grab as much food as he could before a third year a couple seats down managed to ruin it all by sneezing and coughing into the food.  Who comes to dinner obviously sick?  There is a hospital hut for a reason.  The kid had already ruined a pitcher of pumpkin juice, "If you sneeze on that dessert--" Before he could finish the threat,

"FIGARO SELLAPHIX, YOU USELESS BIG MOUTHED TWAT!"

He heard Sophie yell, at a volume that made one wonder if she was one giant lung.  Nicholas turned around to watch, wondering if Fig had tried to kiss her.  That would certainly be fun to watch, but then the whispers started making their way around the Gryffindor table.  Focused on the Hufflepuff table all he heard was werewolf.  He stood and walked over when Josh started yelling at Fig on top of him being smacked by Sophie, just in time to catch that Trumble was apparently a werewolf, which explained why some first year had said something about a werewolf tumbling which had made no sense whatsoever.

Coming up next to Sophie as Church had laid into Josh, he couldn't help but joining. "Yeah, Harcroft, no insulting us lowly non-prefecty students.  Hothead, if you've got issues leave them at the door when you want to be all Prefecty"  Nicholas laughed, for all his talk, Harcroft was not nearly as cool headed as he liked to claim.[1]  Sophie was still laying into Fig, and hitting him again, and from what she was saying, Nicholas wasn't about to stand in her way. 

He spotted an apple lying on the floor over Fig's shoulder and decided it would make the perfect projectile since he wasn't about to lean in front of Sophie to smack Fig himself.  He pulled his wand  and flicked it at the apple with a murmur so the surprise wouldn't be lost, and then an apple was flying toward Fig's head, cuffing him before spinning into air and though had made an attempt to snatch the apple out of the air, he was definitely no seeker and only ended up pushing Sophie at Fig as the apple smacked into a shocked forehead with a wet thud.

1.	Quidditch Victory

“Obviously, all the precautions weren’t taken.” Zel said sharply, “I really thought he could keep his mouth shut. It’s not your fault, it’s mine. I never should have trusted you in the first place.” He didn’t expect anybody else to keep his secret. If two members of SAWS couldn’t keep the secret, how could anybody else be expected to? After all, Sophie and Figaro had been good friends of Ollie’s. Of all people, they should have known what type of damage this could have done. Despite these thoughts, Church coming in was not beneficial for Zel’s patience. It was wearing thin, and he felt like he was going to snap at any given moment.

“Bugger off, Church!” Zel said sharply, feeling his entire body tense up. He was shaking—Zel shaking was not an unusual sight, because he was usually such an anxious, nervous, soft-spoken person. However, there was something different about the shaking now. His muscles were twitching, particularly one in his jaw.  “It’s not any of your damn business.” He knew that keeping quiet was futile at this point, but something about the head boy was setting him off. Perhaps it was the way that Church was trying to control the situation—Zel felt like Joshua had every right to yell at Figaro. Maybe part of it was that Zel wanted to lash out at somebody, and Church was the perfect target.

He felt like hitting something, breaking tables, beating his head against the wall, crying—but he couldn’t do any of those things without also losing a sense of control.

Zel couldn’t hold it in anymore. 

“Dammit, Figaro! I don’t care if Ollie was your best mate. Last time I checked, I wasn’t Ollie.” He shot Figaro the darkest glare he could, “It may not be a big deal to you, but it’s a big deal to me. My sister bit me. Didn’t you stop to  think that there was more than one reason I didn’t want to be outed?”

Using magic was too serious.

With the height difference, punching was too awkward.

Without a second thought, and without further hesitation, Zel lifted his leg and delivered a sharp kick to the other Hufflepuff’s stomach. Being underweight, he didn’t expect the blow to be particularly harsh—but his daily swims on the lake made his muscles lean and strong.

There was lot of commotion going on at the same time. People were yelling at each other, Connor had stepped in, the entire hall was lost to a ripple of undulating murmurs and Zel Trumble was practically shaking. Another apple was thrown, from somewhere, in the confusion.

Raine barely had enough time to register what the albino Hufflepuff had done when she reacted, instinctively. "Zel!" she yelled and seized him from behind by the arms: "What are you doing?" He was much, much taller than her but she knew from their swimming sessions that he wasn't so strong that he couldn't be pulled back.

More importantly, she knew that Zel wasn't an essentially violent person.

The prefect tightened her grip around his elbows. He'd just kicked Figaro Sellaphix. This was getting out of hand; that kick was all it would take for a tense crowd to snap.

Figaro just kept on talking, even as people were trying to shout some sense into him.  He just rambled on, gesticulating angrily.  He was confused, embarrassed, hurt and angry.

"Oh I get it, it was a bloody test, huh? So you just figure set me up with some huge secret and not even tell me you're gonna tell me? Sophie, shut the hell up! And stop hitting me! You don't just get to hit people, you crazy - Go to hell, Church!" Figaro wasn't the only one to lash out at the Head Boy who'd come charging in.  "No I won't shut up! Zel's a werewolf! Everyone knows now! Whatever! No one's getting expelled! You're all a bunch of giant-arse whinging babies.  Me grow up? You grow up! Ligiea you are bloody demented, you know that! Tough me and I'll hex you, swear to Merlin's hairy b- Who did that?!"

The apple had hit him again!  He was tired of being hit and shouted at, and so when Sophie was pushed into him, he just pushed back.  And then was swiftly kicked by Zel.  Figaro was doubled over in an instant.

He didn't have time to consider how this had turned into what it was, but he did know he was sick of just taking it.  And so when he came up, he had his wand out.  "Screw you!  Vibrosura!"  A jet of pink light told the tale - he'd cast the Jelly-Legs Jinx in Zel's direction, but honestly his aim was the crapper.  It could hit anyone near Zel.[1]

1.	Figaro pushed Sophie, then cast a hex kinda sorta at Zel.

The staunch old witch from Durmstrang looked up from her lentils and paused, her fork half way to her mouth.  There was a ruckus.  Her eye found it's way to the space between Hufflepuff and Gryffindor tables at a large knot of students which had formed and from which was eminating high-pitched shouts and arguing.  She identified the Head Boy, but otherwise did nothing but slowly curl her lips into a smile. 

She blew on her hot fork of food.

Whatever was going on, good for them.  It was good to finally see some spirit from the Hogwarts home students who seemed to lack the drive and passion of her own students.  Of course, should things get out of hand, she could count on the Hogwarts staff to enforce whatever discipline they had.  At Durmstrang, Ylva was often fond of letting the delicate student strata ecosystem handle these sorts of things up to a certain point.

"My my, someone in there has quite the powerful voice..." she mumbled to no one in particular.

The Hufflepuff dinner table had certainly become interesting in the last few minutes alone. It started off nice enough, comparing scars and what not, then suddenly, up Zel's a wolfie. Apparently it was a big deal or something? For the most part Seto just sat and watched all the commotion. He was on Fig's side, for the most part. After all, people were bound to find out eventually. It's not like it would stay hidden for long, may as well tell the world. Besides, who really cared?

"Shu' yer damn trap, Gryffindork," Seto spat towards Harcroft just as emo head boy Ravenclaw showed up. Kid was just such a nuisance to the world. It wasn't even his problem, loser should go back to his table where he belongs. But it seemed that even the arrival of Mr. Important Pants had no sway on the goings on. Not that Seto expected it to. The authority held by the prefects was a joke anyways. Pretending otherwise was just stupid.

Everything seemed to escalate quickly from there. Before long Seto found himself jumping over the Hufflepuff table. He wasn't exactly sure why, somethign to do with Zel kicking Fig. The details hardly mattered as Seto landed on the floor shouting  "Oi! Trumble!" before clocking him square in the jaw.

He regretted it, as soon as he hit Figaro. It didn’t make Zel feel any less angry,  and in fact, he felt worse—hurting others was not something that came to him naturally, and he truly felt horrible about hurting Figaro. Yes, it was okay if Sophie beat on him, if people threw apples at him, but Zel felt like he should have been better than that. He was relieved when Raine restrained him, though it wouldn’t have taken her much effort. He relaxed and shook his head. “What have I gotten myself into?” he murmured. The next thing Zel knew, there was a sharp pain in his jaw, followed by throbbing.

His breathing became shallow and quick—Zel felt like he absolutely deserved that punch. He could only look at Seto for a brief moment before bursting into tears. Really, he felt absolutely ridiculous and utterly humiliated. Above all else, he felt a deep sense of shame, shame for punching Figaro, and just general shame towards his entire situation.  The first drop of a tear was about to fall, but Zel wiped it away. It was too late, his eyes had already begun to water up.

Zel wanted to get away from the chaos; he wanted to remove himself from the situation. He wanted to go jump into the lake and never come out.

“I’m sorry.” He choked out, though with all the commotion, it was unlikely that anyone would have heard him, except those who were listening. He pulled away from Raine, and  attempted to turn towards the exit. Really, the albino was just done with this whole… Situation. He knew that he was likely to get a detention, but at the same time, he really did not care. He had other things to worry about.

There were two scenarios in which Mairead could usually be trusted to demonstrate relatively good behavior.  One, during quidditch practice.  And, two, during meals.  Both events involved activities that Mairead found relatively enjoyable and, as such, had little motivation to disrupt them. 

But, it wasn't during every meal that a multi-house brawl broke out.  Mairead sat up and took notice about the time prefects and head-students started gathering around the loud-mouthed Hufflepuff in an attempt to intervene with ... whatever was going on.  What the Hufflepuff had said, Mairead had no idea.  But, it didn't much matter.  Mairead abandoned her chicken and potatoes and clambered up to stand on the Gryffindor bench to get a better view of the proceedings. 

It was clear wizards didn't have a lot of experience with hand-to-hand sparring.  The cluster of students could have learned a thing or two from Jarlath and the others in their group back home or by observing a few more muggle playground battles.  "Put yer shoulder behind-" Mairead started to coach from the sidelines but then caught a glimpse of Raine in the crowd.  Prefect.  Quidditch Captain.  It was enough for Mairead to consider tempering her response. 

Until, of course, a shot of pink flew randomly through the crowd and caught her in the side.  About the time Mairead's legs began to shake uncontrollably, she launched herself at the closest person to her: a Ravenclaw and the Head Boy.  Whether he was the source of the hex mattered little.  It would be a gratifying counter attack either way and since it felt like her legs were unlikely to support her weight, she either had to grab hold of the seventh year as she punched him in the side or collapse to the ground. 

She opted for the first option.

Heliotrope had been oblivious to the conversation around the table as she chewed her food. The general din of dinner faded from her ears as she scoped mashed potatoes and meat into her mouth with her hands. Her eyes were only focused on the short square of her space of the table, not noticing the increased shouts and then violence until it came her direction.

It started with shoving that knocked into her, then an apple bounced of her roommate Obderedria's head. Heliotropes head pivoted to the sides of the growing brawl. Her instincts kicked in. Living wild in the depths of Loch Lomond she had tangled with many creatures that had threatened the colony at times. Hogwarts was like a home, her colony at this place roommates and fellow Hufflepuffs. So she would defend.

She searched for her Kelp Whip put it had been left in her room. The was no time to get her wand out from her lycra swimsuit under her clothes. She would need another weapon to fend off predators. Heliotrope selected the miniature trident from the tools arranged along her plate. She didn't know what they were there for but the house table provided tools.

With her weapon in hand Heliotrope leapt onto the table, crouched, knocking plates and bowls aside, just like an older Hufflepuff who jumped over the table. Her eyes darted to figure out which were Hufflepuff colony and which were attacking. But the one Hufflepuff was attacking the other. Why were they fighting the others in the colony? She got up to run down the table to aid. But an untimely bump caused her to trip and she went sailing over the other end of the table, hands flailing to support her fall. It turned into an awkward dive and she crashed on the floor hard at the feet of a wide framed Gryffindor.[1]

The tines of her miniature trident had been jabbed into his calf. Heliotrope was slightly dazed from the rough landing, her legs bent oddly over the bench.

1.	Nicholas Bevans

Dinner had descended into chaos, there were whispers and screaming. Zel was saying he never should have trusted her, Fig was accusing her of setting him up - which she hadn't done at all, and calling her a crazy something - his thought being interpreted by another thud upside the head from her apple, "Oy! I don't hit people, I HIT YOU"! Then she was shoved into and away from Sellaphix in what felt like slow motion, her spine landing against Hufflepuff's table edge as the back of her knees crashed into the long bench. She let out a yowl of pain and her mind went just a little bit fuzzy with now unadulterated fury.

Though her ribs hurt and her lungs burned when she tried to breathe in she dove straight for Fig, throwing all her weight into the boy, landing a solid blow to his lower chest as they toppled to the ground. In a flash her right fist made hard contact square center of his face followed by a sickening crunch. There was blood, but it hardly phased her as she took another swipe at him, "You self centered wanker! If you weren't such a hopeless idiot maybe you'd quit getting your arse handed to you by girls who can't weigh more than a buck o' five soaking wet," her voice was a pained hiss as they squirmed and rolled on the floor. So much for her promise to Reid about acting like a dignified lady!

Helga's Garters it was confusing and a commotion that quickly scaled out of control. The other Flickwick just sort of stared wide-eyed looking as things all came to a head. Zel was a werewolf? Okay wow. Poor lad. Ollie had trouble with it, and Zel didn't need that. Perhaps he needed a hug? Nah, that was too much. Well more like she didn't want to be overbearing or offensive. Plus this was not the time or place for hugs. Any sort of daydreamish state she had been slipping into as Sophie brought up a memory from the summer (she wasn't there for sadly) was gone the moment things started going from normal talking to loud and yelling. "My ears." Though she said that sort of quiet and more to herself. She just had not been expecting it. Watching it all unfold she felt sort of frozen. Violence was not the answer.

There was a split second decision, be it between pulling Sophie from Fig or tackling Seto before he did something silly. Fact remained if she noticed someone had a fork in their leg then she probably would have jumped into save them or do something about tending to that but she had not taking notice of that. Cassie went the direction of Seto since the last thing Zel needed right now was being punched or worse, Fig had started it after all. To this day Cassie did not see what Sophie had seen in Fig. Maybe she should gone with cousin solidarity, but tackling her ex was the direction she went.

"Violence is not the answer!" Cassie bellowed in her sweet little voice, so really it wasn't that loud, as she went with as much force as she could to tackle Seto to the ground. Her mass of curly hair fell into her face and she looked at Seto. "We don't attack out other housemates." Funny she was preaching such things when she had just, well, tackled her own housemate. "Don't you see how this effects him!" Though she was not making any moves to remove herself from Seto. It was heart breaking to have seen Zel crying, which was why tackling Seto won out over Sophie. Though she was a luster and she was sure her clothing was askew. Oh the very thought was making her cringe, she was out of place and out of order. This whole situation was chaos and she did not like it.

OOC: This is not particularly intended to be responded to, though of course you can if you'd like! Just providing background nonsense


There were some—not many, but some—for whom the 'does he or does he not have a furry monthly problem' was not an end-all-be-all issue. Deus, for example, upon hearing the ruckus over from his table, responded with a slow upward eyebrow quirk, a pause, and an even shrug.

Then he immediately whipped out his charmed bookie parchment.

"Place your bets, lads and lassies! Short odds on Sophie fists, long odds Trumble throws a punch, mid odds on a hex. Even odds prefect breaks it up to professor breakin' it up. Sellaphix is pretty much guaranteed a hospital wing visit, so place your bets in time ranges. Open option on gruesome suggestions from Canterbury."

Sickles, knuts, and the very rare galleon slid over the scarred Slytherin wood with slips of paper, all of which slid easily into Deres' pocket. Out of loyalty, he placed sickles down on Sophie. Payout was nonexistent, given the high probability, but it was the principle of the thing. He nodded when Harcroft laid into Sellaphix, and Comer in turn to Harcroft.

"Who had Comer intervenin'? Batreaux? Here you go—" He dispersed the payout of sickles. And then Trumble did the unexpected, and gave a rather impressive kick to the vicinity of Fig's stomach. Deus let out a low whistle and tilted his head. "Oooh, no one had kick. Sorry folks," he smiled charmingly, "House keeps the pot."