Pax had found an empty table to sit at, and was swinging his legs idly, the toes of his nice dress boots scuffing the ground. He had already had his photo taken, and he had already swayed awkwardly to the music at the side of the dance floor, which was the best he could do when he couldn't quite summon the courage to actually go up to anyone to ask for a dance. For the umpteenth time that evening, he straightened out his fake-fur-trimmed sleeves and tried not to look like he was just trying to keep himself busy.

Coming to the Yule Ball alone hadn't worked out as well as it had for past parties. At prior balls, Pax had managed to show up on his own and find people to hang out with without too much trouble. It was one of the perks of being friendly with a lot of people. But at the Yule Ball, there were just so many people. Not only were there the students and staff from the visiting schools, but also the special guests from the Ministry and Merlin-knew where else in wizarding society. Pax was starting to regret not having the nerve to ask a date, or at least finding a group of friends to go with. Even if he'd been allowed to bring his cat Vesper, at least that'd be some company.

Done fidgeting with his sleeves, Pax cast around the table he was sitting at for something else to occupy him. Though the food and plates from dinner had been cleared away, there still remained, in the centre of the table, a collection of crisp, nicely-folded white napkins. They looked rather like little hats, Pax thought. He picked one up and examined it. Napkin folding was a bit like origami, really. He'd learned a little of that out of a book from his local muggle library. I wonder if I can remember how to make an origami fox, he thought to himself. So, not stopping to think that folding napkins during a grand ball might look a little strange, he shook the napkin out of its original shape and started manipulating it into a new one.

Some minutes later, he had a napkin fox, albeit a rather floppy-looking one. It seemed the folding technique didn't translate very well from paper to cloth. Pax rested his chin on the edge of the table and looked at his creation ponderously. 'Hm. Maybe that would have worked better if you were more... starchy. I wish I knew a spell that would help with that.' Still, it wasn't a bad first attempt, and Pax, now in an artsy mood, set the napkin critter to one side and grabbed another napkin to make it a companion.

Noriko wasn't certain what to think about the Yule Ball.  No one had turned into a werewolf yet, which was a plus.   The memories of her first Hogwarts Ball had proved to be rather traumatic, and with no Professor Bombay to haul her away from the man-eating monsters or catch her if she suddenly fell into a swoon, she had been rather nervous about what would happen if there was a repeat event.

Still, she couldn't help but feel a little jumpy as she edged her way across the room.  It was so crowded, and she was extremely suspicious that she had spotted at least one infiltrating Muggle, recognizable from photographs in the Daily Prophet.  Noriko wouldn't have been surprised if Muggles turned out to be this year's werewolves, which was even more terrifying to think about.  At least with the magical punch last year, she'd been able to recognize the monsters.  How in Merlin's name was she going to know if one of her classmates suddenly lost their magical powers and felt an irresistible urge to eat her for supper or burn her at the stake?

It was with this fear in mind -- and the fact that no one else was likely to even think that far ahead and realize the danger -- that she had appointed herself on Official Muggle Patrol for the evening.  Noriko began to slink between the tables that had housed dinner, keeping a wary eye out for anyone who looked out of sorts.  Surely any Muggle-fied classmates would still look suspiciously hungry, which would be a dead giveaway.  Both Professor Trishna and Professor Storm were visibly circulating through the party, and Noriko was certain that they'd be able to fight off hungry Muggles and save her if the need came along, or if she got scared and had to pretend to faint. 

But she wasn't the only one still wandering the tables.  One of her yearmates was already there, sitting alone amongst the empty chairs.

"Pax!" Noriko exclaimed excitedly.  "You should be careful!  There's --"  She broke off, suddenly eyeing him suspiciously.  Pax didn't usually play with napkins.  Had he been Muggle-fied?  Was this some sort of plot to lure her in?  "Are you...doing origami?"

Pax gave a start at the sudden sound of his own name, and looked up for the source of the voice. He was caught between being pleased to see his friend, and embarrassed to be caught playing with napkins. This resulted in an expression that was somewhere in between his usual lopsided grin and a grimace.

'Hi Noriko!' he chirped, then looked down at his in-progress creation as she asked if he was doing origami. He had dropped it promptly, so it had stopped resembling a fox and was currently just looking floppy and sorry for itself. 'Well... kinda. I, um, I was kinda bored,' he admitted, trying to poke the remains of Fox Number Two back into shape with little success. 'I can't seem to get it to work all that well with napkins though.

'Oh! Wait, what do I have to be careful about?' Had Noriko started saying something about being careful? He glanced around, wondering to what she could have been referring. Of course, given how easily Noriko scared sometimes, she could just have been drawing his attention to a moth or something.

Pax was bored.  Kind of.  That was better than hungry, but it still did not ease Noriko's suspicions.  Not to mention that he was now kind of grimacing at her, and he seemd to be playing with napkins of all things, which one generally did not do unless one was in the process of a) finishing; or b) preparing for a meal.  She eyed the one in front of him suspiciously.  It did not look like anything in particular, although she was not certain if that was a strike for or against him.  At least he had not attempted to fold it into a terrifying, witch-chomping monster -- but then, if he was getting ready to eat her, he didn't exactly need to fold it into anything, did he?

"It's --"  She paused.  Normally, trusting Pax wouldn't have been a lot to ask for.  The Hufflepuff was one of her best friends at the school.  He hadn't laughed when her bum had gotten inflated, and he always stood up for her when she started to cry.  But on the other hand, didn't that make him even more dangerous?  If someone had turned him into a Muggle, she would have never seen it coming if she hadn't been on her guard.

She settled for continuing to eye him.

"Have you had any punch?" she asked warily.  Really, someone ought to have developed a set of questions for this sort of thing; it was hard, having to think on her feet like this.  Maybe she should suggest Muggle Detection to Professor Storm as a class topic for the next term.  "You aren't feeling...hungry, are you?"

'Hungry?' Pax looked back at Noriko with confusion. He liked his Slytherin classmate tremendously, but sometimes he had real trouble following her line of thinking. They'd had dinner earlier, after all, before the dancing started. Had Noriko been there for that? Pax tried to remember. Well, this was the first he'd seen of her this evening, what with how busy the Great Hall and its environs were. Suddenly, though, it clicked. She must have been wondering if he'd had enough to eat since a lot of the dishes had meat in them! Yes, that must be it. One couldn't come over to Pax's house for a sleepover and not know he was a vegetarian. 'Oh! Actually there was plenty of stuff I could eat at dinner. And dessert! Dessert was brilliant, I had one of those chocolatey-fudgey things with the strawberries on top. So I'm actually pretty full.'

Mostly for want of something to do with his hands, Pax grabbed the napkin he had been folding unsuccessfully and shook it out to start over. 'I had some of the punch too,' he added, remembering Noriko had asked about that too. 'Why?' Then his mouth contracted into an 'o' shape. 'No one... spiked it, did they?' He gathered the napkin up and clenched it in his hands anxiously. If something bad had happened to the punch, or any of the refreshments for that matter, his cautious friend would surely know about it.

Her friend's response to her question was enough to mildly reduce her suspicions.  Pax was not acting suspiciously malevolent, nor did he seem interested in eating her; he had not cited a single dish that involved cooking young witches and wizards.  Noriko let out a breath, looking relieved.  She would have felt horrible if it had turned out that Pax was Muggle-fied; she really liked the Hufflepuff quite a bit.  Having to turn him into the Ministry so that he could be locked away forever would have been very hard to do, even if he had tried to eat her first.

But Pax, it seemed, had reached the same conclusion that she had.  Noriko's eyes widened.  She wasn't worried over nothing!

"Yes," she confided, giving Pax a worried look.  "I think so, anyway.  I heard that they spiked it so that people will turn into --" 

She cut herself off mid-sentence.  Pax was not nearly as cautious around Muggles as she was.  His mother was even a Muggle, which Noriko had only found out after she had agreed to spend the night, but although she had spent most of it lying awake in her sleeping bag with her wand within reach, it had turned out that Mrs Wintergreen was not the scary kind.  She was apparently the good sort of Muggle, like the ones that Muggly the Bear was friends with, and not the kind that considered young witches and wizards a tasty snack.  After all, Pax had been her son for years, and she hadn't tried to eat him yet.

"Something awful," she finished lamely, in deference to her friend's sensibilities.  "Just like at the Halloween Ball last year."  Which wasn't quite the truth, but close enough to it; Muggles and werewolves occupied the same horrible space in her nightmares.  Noriko looked anxiously at Pax.  "But I'm not sure what we should do about it.  No one's tried to eat anyone yet, but what if they do?"