A little inspired by this scene from the films

Open thread for 4ths and others if you want to join in

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Thursday evenings were always a bit of a killer, the night before they'd all been up late studying astronomy and it had been a full day of lessons with Herbology, Divination and Creatures for some, Astronomy, and Ambrose's newest least favourite class beside Defences - Potions.

It was after dinner, and they'd all been assigned to congregate for an hour in the Great Hall to complete some homework, particularly Defences, it seemed Professor Storm was going to attempt to mark them all before their lesson the next day, and when Ambrose had thought mark he actually meant, write scathing comments on and then read said comments to the rest of the class to give examples of poor answers.

Today they were writing an essay about the Adfirmo family or Flesh Fortifying Charms from the Seven Shield Spells. They were not allowed to leave until it was finished, and the Professor in question was prowling between the tables, which didn't only contain the fourth years, but other years as well who had been made to sit in and complete homework.

"Roll on the weekend." Ambrose sighed to his nearby classmates when it was safe - there was plenty going on that weekend, given it was Valentines Day on the Sunday.

"I've written four paragraphs and I'm not sure I can waffle much more about skin." He remarked, looking round at everyone else's work. "What's the betting its a demonstration on whoever gets the lowest mark for their essay?" He stole a glance over his shoulder.

"Don't suppose Storm is going to be on theme and actually break a heart, do you?" 

The mood in the Great Hall now was certainly much different than what it was before during dinner. Plenty of students were currently gathered around the different tables to work on their homework. Specifically, they were supposed to be working on their Defense homework on the Adfirmo family.

Given the current work situation, Addison wasn't exactly pleased. She worked much better when not surrounded by so many people within earshot. While she didn't mind working with others, she found that having too many around made her concentrate even less. It just so happened that this was the case so far.

Looking down at her parchment, Addison frowned at the measly two paragraphs that she had written so far. 'Even Ambrose wrote more than me so far!' Of course, this current session wasn't a contest to see how quickly they could finish their work. But, it spoke wonders that Ambrose was further ahead than her. Even though Ambrose acted like he couldn't write more, she knew that she could write more on the subject so far.

Addison glanced up to make sure that Professor Storm was out of earshot for the moment. "I think its his way of torturing us ... to see how long we could last writing these essays," she whispered over to Ambrose from her spot nearby.

At Ambrose's last question, Addison quickly covered her mouth with her sleeve to suppress her giggles. Glancing up again, she didn't think Professor Storm heard her. "Professor Storm has a heart?" she asked quietly, with a grin on her face. Their Defense Professor certainly had a knack of showing an uncaring side of himself to all of them.

The Great Hall was surprisingly packed with students after dinner, although this was mainly attributed to the fact that the 4th year students were actually being required to finish an essay over the Adfirmo family by Professor Storm. All around the massive space could be heard the rustling of pages, the clip-clop of the professor strolling through the aisle, and rather a lot of hurried whispers and giggling.

Lovella was in pure Hell. True, she had already put the finishing touches on her 7th excellent paragraph and was already earnestly plugging away on the 8th, but this was far from her ideal work environment. She utterly detested the way the other students carried on with the snickering, and joking around when they were supposed to be working diligently on their assignment. Didn't they realize how incredibly important every piece of homework was to their future? Did they care about doing well in school at all? She even thought that this paper was rather intriguing. Lovella had donated an entire summer  researching the Seven Shield Spells and she especially loved the Flesh Fortifying  Charms.

She was honestly trying her best to work among the constant noise without causing a scene with the other students.  Hexing a classmate in front of a professor was never a good idea for someone who cared a great deal about their image. However, the situation came to a head when Ambrose Pepper decided to crack a joke on Professor Storm causing Addison Rockwell to break out into a fit of giggles. Lovella simply couldn't take this much longer.

Focusing her wolf-like auburn eyes on the group she pursed her red lips and said, as calm as she could. "I really don't think that has anything to do with the essay, unless I missed something in the reading." Honestly, this was the nicest Lovella had ever asked someone to be quiet.

"Not long when we're here and he's lurking!" Ambrose whispered back clumsily and shared in her giggles.

"Hah, perhaps we should as Trelawney if his aura's black." He suggested with a shrug, only knowing the phrasing from others, he didn't study Divination.

Stone interrupted from nearby, and for once it wasn't a comment worthy of stripping wallpaper or turning fruit to rot. She was one of several of his classmates whom Ambrose detested merely for how she treated others. She didn't treat them, that was the point, to a smile, to a kind word or anything.

"What has? Breaking hearts?" Ambrose replied, feeling brave amongst numbers. After all, if they were caught talking any argument would be finished, and if not there were enough witnesses before he had his ears hexed to his buttocks.

"I've heard our Professor has fans but are you suggesting ..." Ambrose's sentence diminished as he spied too many heads turning and thought he'd get a roasting.

"Bet you've broken lots of hearts. Probably with your curses." He retorted.

Feeling brave in a group and in the company of a professor are we? Lovella thought to herself with disgust. She highly doubted Ambrose would even respond to her if they had been some place a little more secluded.  He was right to think she would never cause anything in front of authority, of course, but his audacity still annoyed her.  In this situation it would be best to keep her usual calm and composure. After all, she didn't have much further to go on this paper so keeping things civil shouldn't be too hard.

"Yes, I have, but only to those who needed it broken." She began in a whisper. It was amazing how menacing her words could sound even when in such a relaxed setting. "But you've never needed my help with causing yourself physical injury have you Ambrose?" She smirked. It was true, the boy had sent himself to the hospital wing more than a quidditch player.

Her trademark coldness had begun to show now. This was what caused many students to go out of there way to avoid her. Of course, this was exactly how Lovella preferred it.

Glancing up to check to see where Professor Storm was, Addison once more turned back to Ambrose. "I know! It looks like he's enjoying it too ..." She trailed off. Storm certainly seemed like the type to enjoy terrorizing individuals, which in their case meant their entire class.

Storm having a black aura. Now, that was something that she could believe without any proof of it whatsoever. Just merely based on his actions and words in front of their classes. "I'm sure his aura is black ..." she assumed amusely. While she didn't take Divination, she knew a little bit about it from books. "Although, Arithmancy shows Storm as generally stubborn, suspicious, and have angry outbursts," she recited in a whisper.

Addison looked up as Lovella interrupted their little gossiping and whispering that she was having with Ambrose. Giving a quick scan of the room, she noted how many students were attempting to whisper while out of range of Professor Storm. This study session was definitely not her best work environment. But, why merely pick on them, when others were talking?

"It may have nothing to do with Flesh Fortifying, it does have something to do with the Patronus Charm, which is a Guardian Spell[1]," she responded to Lovella. A Patronus needed happy thoughts and memories to work correctly. If one didn't have a heart, then that makes a successful Patronus that much more difficult.

But, Ambrose decided to turn to insulting Lovella, which would then only accomplish Lovella insulting Ambrose. It was a predictable cycle and one that Addison wouldn't willfully engage, since it technically didn't have anything to do with her. She figured that it would be a good idea to be nicer to Ambrose, since he was dating one of her dorm mates. But, that didn't mean that she was about to inject herself in an argument where she had absolutely no business.

Instead, Addison looked back down at her essay and started her third paragraph.

1.	Linked Here

Luca was restless, even though he didn’t mind sitting down and reading a book or studying for hours on end, he liked to get up and walk around every so often and he preferred to talk to people and do other things while that was going on. Sitting in silence was not something Luca did very well. He didn’t particularly enjoy the ‘no talking’ rule, but he didn’t want to be disciplined if Professor Storm was quite adamant on them being silent.

They were writing an essay on Adfirmo Family and Luca had had enough. There was only so much you could write on a topic before you started adding extra words and sentences to make the piece of writing longer than it was. Luca had written three paragraphs and there wasn’t much else he could add, tapping his quill on the page lightly, he glanced across the table as he heard some people speak. His essay wasn’t nearly long enough to be receive a really good mark, but Luca didn’t particularly mind at the moment. He was bored.

Luca smiled as Addison attempted to prevent from laughing. He wasn’t working on his writing, but he wasn’t about to just jump straight into their little gossip session. It was amusing, so Luca just doodled on where he was meant to be writing his essay and couldn’t help listening in on their conversation.

“Hey, what more is there to write about?” Luca asked to no one in particular, hoping to just get some sort of help from anyone. He was stuck on his third paragraph and couldn’t think of anything else to write, so why not ask his fellow classmates?

She hadn't written all that much, a mere nine paragraphs, on the assignment at hand. But she had always thought quality trumped quantity. She'd noted on description of the spell, it's regulations and uses, but felt she could deviate a bit from the norm. So she'd decided to slip in some notions from her muggle culture, namely the reactions and effects of the spell at the dermal, epidermal and subcutaneous level. She couldn't very well test it right now and notice the changes at a molecular level, so she was merely hypothesizing.

She was pretty engrossed in her theory, and relished the moment of quiet in her mind, when she tuned in to what was going on around her. Bad decision. The puerile discussions on Storm's lack of a blood pumping organ made her scowl and shake her head disapprovingly at the lot of them. She was used to Pepper's idiocy by now, she expected pretty much anything from him, but she couldn't help arch a rather judgmental eyebrow at Rockwell. She thought the girl pretty sensible—well, at least until now. But what made Amara completely change her opinion on the girl was her reference to auras. That was just pathetic.

What really flipped Amara off and made her eyes take that slightly disturbing glint that recently made her way into her facial expressions repertoire was Stone's reaction to the entire incident. She respected the girl, on some level. Before the... incident she thought they were even sort of alike. But that was before, and the Amara now was very different. She was profoundly irritated by the girl's temper and her obvious lack of  refinement. Putting all your cards on the table was such a novice move.

"If you disapprove of the conversation, Miss Stone, I fail to see why you would participate in it, or better yet—why you wouldn't remove yourself from the current environment" she said icily, no fluctuations in her voice, as she pointed at a fairly solitary area at the table, some seats down. Her eyes never left the auburn-haired girl's own eyes, and she continued to stare intently for another second, before she curled her mouth in a tight-lipped smile, this side of deranged. There were still many wonders to be tested from her maleficium... She'd remember Lovella in the future for this specific purpose.

She turned to Hayes next to herself, her smile taking a less sinister form. She leaned over his paper and skimmed it swiftly. "Overexposure to the charm—what it causes and why, maybe?" she offered, eyebrows drawn in concentration. "Repeatedly changing the molecular composition of epithelial cells is bound to have a harmful long-term effect" she continued, hinting at an explanation.

There. That was a normal interaction, right? She could do this. Maybe. She might need help in the long run, there was only so much mimicking she could do. There was one dorm mate that could probably help her with keeping up appearances of a normal fourteen year old girl... She'd have to inquire about that.

Ambrose scowled darkly at Lovella, who had rightly pointed out his accident-prone history. If he had been an owl, he'd have ruffled his own feathers at the table, but instead gave a grumpy shrug and looked back at his essay, pouting.

He was not the only one, the conversation seemed to puff out like a candle all of a sudden, and their despised Professor was not the cause, Stone rather filled in for him.

Then Hayes broke the stalemate, but just as Amara also delivered a cut down to Stone herself. Ambrose's eyebrows shot up. Amara didn't normally stick up for him… even in this roundabout way.

His mouth gaped as she turned to Hayes and summarised some additional points the Ravenclaw may have overlooked. Ambrose didn't have a clue about the specifics of what she was on about due to the terminology, but he caught the gist and noted it down.

"You two should have a verbal duel some day, you don't need wands." He remarked, without realising he might incur the wrath of them both. He was actually paying them a compliment, but the way he grinned didn't make it seem like that.

"If I hear more chatter over there, I will extend this time into a detention, despite who is causing the noise." Professor Storm called across the hall, and Ambrose dipped his head, which only admitted his guilt for the last louder outburst. 

In deference to the Almighty Ignan’s stormy  fearsome countenance, Connor waited a respectful ten seconds before not-so-quietly saying “I’d bet on Báthory,” his grin effin’ atheist as he slanted Lovella a glance. “Seein’ how you,” he cocked bony fingers at her, pistol-like, “jes’ got told!” Whoop whoop!

Needless to say, he wasn’t all that fond of her, either.

Surprising exactly no one, Connor had never taken to the Slytherin, despite his obvious attachment to some of her housemates; she was cold and brutal, but unlikable in a way they weren’t, and her chilliness did not compel him to melt it so much as surround it with hot, flaming coals. There was just something about that austere face of hers that just itched at him, particularly when she thought she had them all pegged, and it itched at him like mad…

It was her nose, he’d decided long ago. Meanness and arrogance didn’t actually bother him, even together (one could even say he swelled at the thought of them), but it was hard to like someone even a little bit when you fancied you could see all the way up to her sniffy brain. Especially when she fancied herself the smartest and baddest witch of their year, and he could and would swear up ‘n down that ha ha, no, she deffo was not.

Connor was, certifiably, an annoying little shit. But he was a loyal one, and the thought of anyone thinking she could take their place struck a bad- wrong– chord in his devoted, idjit heart.

"I don't see why I should remove myself from the seat I have chosen simply because there are those of you who think it better to jabber on like leprechauns then do the assigned material." Lovella replied calmly to the stare of her house mate. Amara was one of the only people who could actually meet her blow for blow without sustaining any serious injury. It was odd, however, that she was trying her hand at helping out Hayes. Since when did Amara like talking with other people? And since when did she come to someone's defense? Not that Lovella acted that way either, but it was still strange.

She became further disgusted by Pepper and Todd who apparently thought it was prudent to start up a round of verbal warfare. Now Ambrose, he mainly just spat things out in his usually mistaken blabber, Godric knows he had gotten himself in trouble more than once with his meaningless but misinterpreted quips; but, Todd... Now there was someone Lovella honestly couldn't stand in the slightest. She couldn't quite fathom how someone could enjoy acting like an annoying little prat for the sole purpose of incurring the wrath of those around him.

"And please Todd." Lovella turned her narrowed eyes at the painfully gangly young man with a huff. "Spare us all from your unintelligible dialect." If there was one thing about Todd that really grated against her spine it was his insufferably droll accent. It wasn't that she cared a great deal about that sort of thing, but when you combined his unbearable antics with his speech it became quite a test not to hex him every time he said hello.

"And betting on Báthory?" She almost laughed aloud. "Well, you can wipe the drool of your face because that's one treat that's a bit beyond your reach." With that said she turned her attention to the end of another paragraph. If there was any justice in this world she would finish before her classmates drove her completely mad.

Kelvin was working hard on an essay that had been assigned in history the day before.  He'd mostly finished the defense essay the day before, and had used the first part of the supervised study session to put the finishing touches on it.  The history one was easy and he was enjoying it, which was way the whispering around him hadn't really bothered him as he continued to write and chuckle at the talk about Storm.

He paused though when the insults started between the students seated around him.  The insults that got loud enough to draw the professor's attention from across the room.  At least Connor didn't immediately comment, though Kelvin wasted no time in kicking his friend for talking.  He didn't want to see what Storm would come up with for detention.

"If you all get us a detention, I'm going to show you the ill effects of the adfirmo spells."  Kelvin said in a hushed voice to those around him.  Then he looked directly at Lovella, he couldn't help himself, the way she'd insulted his best friend, "He's intelligible to anyone with an intelligence.  And you're just jealous that it's beyond anyone's ability to see you as any kind of treat."  His face turned bright red when he finished and realized that he'd said all that in defense of Connor.

For once Amara was actually amused at what was going on around her. Who knew? Maybe her theatrical debut hadn't been such a bad idea, humans were annoying, yes, but they were also amusing as of late. The idea of not being the odd one out, the entire table having somehow bonded in their displeasure of Stone was an intriguing concept. This could be her chance at turning the tables, at being welcomed as one of their own... the perfect cover for her burgeoning changes. The real ones.

She almost chuckled at Pepper and Todd's comments, stopping herself short of actually making a sound, but the corners of her lips had curled into a little smile and she tucked her head down to hide it, seemingly lost in her paper. It was only when Stone started talking again, that she lifted her head up to eye the girl with amusement and something akin to pity. "You shouldn't flaunt your faults like that Miss Stone. If you lack the ability to multitask, doesn't mean we do " she said with an arched brow, as she lifted her quill off the parchment. "There, all done" she waved the piece of parchment in front of her eyes. "And I even jabbered like a leprechaun" she smiled serenely.

Ignoring Watkins' comment on the ill effects of the Adfirmo family spells, which she'd like to see him try on her... and fail, obviously, she instead muffled a giggle at seeing how positively adorable his display of his affections for his mate were. Nonetheless, the boy had a point. "And again, if you cannot understand Mister Todd's unintelligible dialect, perhaps I should kindly point you towards some translation charms? Seeing as you seem to have some difficulties where nobody else does" she said as calmly as ever, only letting her amusement show in her last words.

She rolled her parchment up, tying it with a purple ribbon and put it in the pile on her right. "Well, I've finished with Defence, anyone up for the Potions assignment?" she asked the rest of the table, ignoring Stone's presence.

Despite himself, Pepper couldn't help but scoff at some of the comments and chuckle. He had to pit these two against each other more often, this was classic material.

"I could listen to you two all day." He giggled, though without realising how stupid that could sound. If he did listen to them both all day, he probably would get tired of it - especially if they conspired to torture him with such curses.

"'Up' for the potions essay is a bit enthusiastic for me, no offence," Ambrose replied finally to Bathory's query to the group. "If any of us were 'up' in potions, I think Di Luca would burst us like a balloon and boil the remainder of us."

He made a face and shook his head.
"But I suppose I could try and use Adfirmo - heh, I'll put that in my essay..." He picked up his quill, tongue poking out the corner of his mouth and began to write.

The bickering between the fourth year students didn't seem to cease at any moment. They were a very sociable bunch, although for some of the oddest reasons. Addison was certainly not exempt from that. After all, she was just talking about Professor Storm's lack of a heart. A physically impossible phenomena, but something that seemed fitting for their icy Professor.

Turning back to her parchment, Addison worked quietly on her essay. Despite her work, she still caught a few points of the conversations at hand. Amara helped Luca, and Connor of course had to speak up with a bloody comment. It didn't appear as if he even attempted to think before he talked.

Addison couldn't help but to frown as the bickering turned into insults about Todd. Of course he, of all people, certainly invited the comments against himself. Despite that fact, Todd was in her house. He may be a twat, but he was a part of her house. The best course of action, in her opinion, was something that several of her fellow fourth years appeared to lack: restraint.

Finishing up two more paragraphs of her essay during the squabble, Addison pushed a piece of her hair out of her face. Amara, who was already finished with her own essay, seemed eager to move on to the Potions assignment. "I would, but I'd rather not leave this unfinished," she stated with a quick glance up, after starting another paragraph.