Shortly before 11 PM, during what is usually the Fifth Years' late-night Astronomy session...

It was good weather for ghost stories. Scary stories. Whatever.

Rain pattered against the windows, which rattled with gentle winds that were strong enough to add a bit of atmosphere but not so much so that the gathered students had any reason to fear in the fairly open-air Astronomy Tower. The windows had been darkened to block out what little light remained at this late hour, the lamp and candlelight of the castle replaced by the illusion of stars along the ceiling and the brazier that burned merrily beneath the globe as a controlled indoor bonfire. It was surrounded by a mismatched collection of chairs, some of which belonged in the classroom and others which had been borrowed (by house-elves) from each of the four common rooms. A table full of snacks -- most of which could be roasted over the fire -- lingered nearby.

Alvis checked the illusion's stability once more before settling into one of the Ravenclaw armchairs. Even after two months, it felt weird to even consider that he was supposed to be in charge of the Astronomy Club. It felt even weirder to be making these plans and hosting these meetings without Professor Trishna. The man's sudden absence and their series of substitutes in the meantime had left pretty much everyone feeling out of sorts as far as Astronomy was concerned.

Hopefully, this special Halloween-themed event, an open mike of scary stories told campfire-style, would get people interested again. Hopefully.

Swallowing his nerves, Alvis grinned at those who had already gathered. "Hey guys. Thanks for coming."

Erin was sort-of excited and sort of hesitant.  Though Erin did not particularly care for scary stories, or horror for that matter (she had enough fashion disasters to deal with), she decided to take this as a challenge.  To see if she could actually sit still without fidgeting for five minutes.  Also, apparently at these things it was socially acceptable to make slight movements from time to time, even if Erin would probably not be worried about it too much.  It was also one of her rare opportunities to actually be a teenager.  Between her job and the quidditch team, she had very little time for social activities and barely knew her roommates.  Still, even her mother told her she would only be young once, and that she should make friends and do that sort of thing.  While Erin understood that, the cards were stacked against her.  Her personality, while not deliberately hostile did not scream sunshine and rainbows.  Perhaps she was too much of a professional, and only looked at people as how they could use each other.  What her professionalism did not kill, her wandering mind did.  She knew she had work to do, and this seemed as good a place as any to start. 


"Ah, you're welcome," Erin answered, completely oblivious to the fact that the statement was rhetorical.  Though Erin did realize that after the fact, she cursed her nasty habit of letting her mouth speak before her brain could catch up.  It did make her look slightly foolish from time to time.  She wondered if that made her noted lack of attention better or worse.

"So, scary stories.  Hope no one minds if I just suddenly latch onto them.  So, whose first?" Erin asked, wondering which among the group would go first.   

How, exactly, Casey had been persuaded up here on what had been a canceled Astronomy session was a bit of a mystery. A mystery as to why Alvis Norling could succeed in inviting outsiders to the little stargazing club with eyes that almost looked to be in tears. Or if he had fallen headfirst into a patch of thistle.

Though, even without the invitation once Casey had caught wind of the change of activity that seemed to revive a certain brand of 'dormant' mischief. Let alone the holiday season of Halloween and how it might bring out different facets of other people's personalities.

Such as: it wasn't just from the flickering light; out of the corner of his eye Casey could tell that Erin Dark was having a hard time staying comfortable. Was the atmosphere already getting to her?

"Scared of the dark, Dark?" Casey pipped up from a chair, taking advantage of the acetic mix of borrowed furniture to see what the seats of the other common rooms were like outside of Slytherin leather.

"As per the first story who thinks they have a real thriller? Unless the host should start," he added with an amused glance at Alvis. When it came to Ravenclaws most likely to host ghost story corners you half expected Canterbury to be involved. Unless she had loaned him a book.

A full month had passed since Moira and Alvis had entered into an agreement. Of course the rumor had capered off but now people still seemed to be talking about them actually dating. Something about how it was surprising because of their natures, and the different opinions were all over the place in good and bad ways; some were a little too thrilled about it, others were on the fence, and others still highly disapproved. But of course, none of them mattered.

So, here she was sitting by Alvis at his club/not club event where the group told each other scary stories. Moira knew a few herself, however she was most certainly not planning on telling even one of them. She'd happily keep talking to a minimum, instead focusing on those who did tell stories and the reactions of the others listening.

At the moment everyone was deciding who should start, either effectively setting the mood or possibly destroying it. One person had glanced at her as though thinking she should, being new to these events, but a brief glare quickly changed the other student's mind. It was almost amusing, really. Perhaps it had to do with her "mysterious" nature as she'd heard some people say but more than likely she just unnerved them.

When Casey suggested their host going first Moira slid her gaze towards Alvis, waiting to see his take on it unless someone jumped in first.

Alvis's first response to Casey was a bit of a grin, just a shade shy of looking like the cat who'd caught the canary. Contrary to Casey's believe, Alvis didn't actually try to manipulate people with his gaze -- his eyes were naturally limpid and he couldn't help that -- but he did know the effect they had on certain people and was occasionally willing to leverage that for a good cause.

Getting his ever-anti-social best friend to show up for a bit of fun when there was nothing in it for him? He considered that a win.

"I did bring a few..." He tapped a small notebook that he had balancing on the armrest of his chair. "So I don't mind starting us off. But if anyone thinks they've got a good one to begin with, please, feel free."

He let the words hang for a moment, glancing from Casey to Erin Dark before sneaking the opportunity to take Moira's hand. If there was one thing he liked about their fake relationship -- besides the simple companionship of reading together in the library or on the shores of the lake -- it was having an excuse to just touch someone every now and then. It was never more than a hand-hold or a hug , but still. It was nice.

"The real fright for you would be if those notes up and vanished," Casey mentioned, having not missed the gesture of Alvis and Moira touching hands. Before the supposed chilling scare-fest stories started. The whole relationship was something of a surprise for how Casey understood Alvis, outside of the odd pair they made the Ravenclaw wasn't one to try and get close to people, Casey assumed on account of the whole unbridled legillimency thing he knew about. Moira had been a surprise because after, say, Zoe Torret who was a housemate of Norling's, the Hufflepuff didn't seem to have anything in common with Alvis. After all, outside of friends attending the Yule Ball that almost read like a pity date without context, what passed for intimacy for Alvis Norling was...

...

Salazar's Shiny Pate. Casey wanted that stricken off the internal record.

Nearly gagging at his own private horror Casey took a glance around the small gathering to this 'meeting' before looking at the cold stars outside. Casey didn't consider himself much of a storyteller but for meeting the expectations of an audience, hmm, that was a familiar challenge. Baring a standout like contradictory-scared-of-the-Dark this was about to become a snoozefest. Even if someone started with the uncensored version of The Warlock's Hairy Heart. Admittedly even Casey was thinking of that one but the story was too familiar to students at Hogwarts. Beedle the Bard's 'censored' version was the nigh same in the chill factor for the story itself, only minus eviscerated inferi. Heart removal was still heart removal, it only depending on how much one was disgusted by gore.

Disgusted. And something of an old fright, a close scrape and a long ignored venture suddenly sparked inspiration. If it was a story people wanted there was a perfect untapped source, with a few embellishments.

"I'd consider the scariest sort of thing as something that encroaches on what you consider safe. What you consider home," Casey began, contradictorily in a relaxed but rigid posture in his seat. "And for what is the prime example of all; not only is Hogwarts the home, school and reprieve for hundreds of people each year, it has its own share of horrors. Yes, it was the final site in the last war, but there have been long dormant threats within the school. The monster in the Chamber of Secrets, for example. And luckily it wasn't that much of a threat."

Punctuated with a smirk. Imagined shadow play over Casey's face optional.

"Now don't get me wrong, yes the monster was quite the threat during the two or more years the Chamber was opened. But that was the thing, the Chamber was sealed and hidden away. Those that sought it had to deliberately find and open the Chamber and only then was the monster unleashed. And the Chamber was quite hard to find. No, it would be far worse for a long lost section of castle with a dangerous occupant to have far lesser defenses. The kind that anybody could accidentally stumble into.

"And several people have." He paused, in trademark Slytherin grin #23, for those who followed such things the perfect kind of smirk for where this story was about to go. "Anybody remember the worst of di Luca's detentions in Potions class? If she wasn't watching you like a vulture the full time during lines and essays, she handed you the futile task of cleaning out cauldrons without magic. It didn't even have to be one from a recent bungled mistake in class, she had plenty of them.

"All the Potions professors have had plenty of them. Far more than they could even use for a full month's detentions. If you've been tasked with cleaning out blighted cauldrons or sorting out questionable ingredients you get tasked to the storeroom. Or should I say, rooms. Plural. Beyond the door the professor enters through are further halls and storerooms. Ask anyone ever put off or skittish from a Potions detention and they'll tell you about the time they were briefly in those derelict halls.

"The layout of Hogwarts can change, has changed much over the years. And there are potions storerooms long forgotten about. Stacked to the brim with spent ruined cauldrons with their residues, ingredients long spoilt and rotting away if not practically emulsified in their brines. Nobody goes there because nobody wants to, who would even want to deal with centuries of uncleaned places of potion wastes. Most, when they get to the dank back corridor are immediately put off by the smell and return to the proper classroom.

"Until, let's say, you have somebody not as savvy as his older brother," Casey continued, opting to spare Bruno Mastiff this one time redicle, not even changing the name of the 'protagonist' to something like 'Druno Thastiff.' "Though he served many Potions detentions he thought he could get back at the professor by stealing the answers for an upcoming exam. Having been tasked to cleaning for so long he considered himself well versed with the chambers privy only the potions staff. So he goes further in, considering that like a fortunate secret passage he may soon find a back way into the professor's office. Only, daft as he is, he gets himself further lost in the clutter. Lost into a maze of rooms with only the putrid colors of stains as indicator of which room he's been in, only after fifteen minutes he can't make headway into getting out of there into the more familiar sections of the dungeons. Every door greets him with warped cauldrons, the mulch of long spent herbology rejects, rooms flooded with gloomy fluids he would rather not loose his shoes in. The Weasley's wished they had made something this nasty when the introduced the Portable Swamp to their stock.

"There he is, glasses fogged up from heavy breath in the noxious fumed environment, confounded by the dizzying number of rooms. How could there be this many rooms, these many polluted storerooms in the bowels of the castle? Maybe its the fumes getting to him but the fungal outgrowths and molded ingredients have gotten worse. He's seen flowers made out of meat, waterfalls of dishwater flowing into the ceiling, lost pets covered in cake frosting as if some bizarre cake for an owl's birthday. The air has become as sick and thick as cough syrup, the corrosive acids of the deluge of potions wastes getting through his shoes and robes. He can't think of which way is back, can't think of using his wand or calling for help. He can only plod on, this strange quagmire in the castle basement. Think about it. Millennia of the dumped potions, incorrectly vanished brews or slopped solutions tossed out the side of classes. Worse than the worst student's result in a potion class multiplied over a thousand times over. What happens when all those wastes potions, things that should not been mixed together, have? All of it, these storerooms, are not just individualized piles of junk. They've blended together."

Each word became emphasized. "Blended together into one thing. Something not alive or birthed but persisting as a mockery of life. Because the goo can think. It's trapped this student right where it wants him."

There really should have been some kind of special effects for these tales tonight. But Casey could improvise on his own; as one hand gestured the other surreptitiously went for his wand, unnoticed as the words flowed from his mouth, hopefully in the same viscous manner as the combined potion residues at the center of his tale, seeping into every crevice to make the listeners uncomfortable and freaked out.

"And that's when he sees the walls crumble away, this being of goo casting off the facade of twisty corridors and nooks. And not only does the enormity of the potion goo have him surrounded, he can see the figures of the other people claimed by the goo."

---

((OOC: Part 2 concludes after a round of reactions!))

Casey's tale was original, Erin had to give him that.  Erin was not much of a story teller, but she was not exactly scared yet.  The scariest thing Casey had mentioned thus far was Professor di Luca.  Erin could not really say if being covered in goo would be scary or not, because that seemed to happen to everyone after five years in potions.   Erin wondered if there would be a moral or something to this story, because it kind of sounded something Ravenclaw parents told their children.  Don't skive off in classes, or else the weird mutated magical monster will get you...and drag down your test scores!.    Erin couldn't help it.  She  did not laugh out loud, but she was smiling a bit. 

"So what happens next," Erin asked, smiling.  She  did approve of the Slytherin grin though.  It had been far too long since she had seen one, or had cause to use it.  She was still slightly fidgeting though, not because she was scared, but because she always did.

When Alvis moved to subtly take her hand Moira reached and held his as well. Over the past month she had become far more comfortable around him and little things like hand holding she didn't give a second thought to anymore. As much as he enjoyed the simple concept of touch she was more than accustomed to it.

Maybe just a little she enjoyed it as well. Touch wasn't something she practiced with other people very often outside of her family and it wasn't a terrible thing. Although if someone else tried taking her hand she might very well punch them.

Casey decided to start the night's story telling, and certainly he had the knack of it as far as facial expressions and some mannerisms went, even if the story was far from frightening. Still she give him her, mostly, full attention even as he seemed to pause for effect.

Casey didn't jump at the chance to tell stories, but once he got going he really got into it. And he was right about the familiar being a good place to start. Alvis vaguely recalled hearing a rumor around this time last year, one of first- and second-years who'd gotten "lost" down in the dungeons and the hours it took before they were retrieved. The way the castle's layout changed, who was to say there weren't secrets lurking in the shadows?

Alvis looked to Moira out of the corner of his eye and grinned, enjoying the anticipation that filled the room. He gave her hand a squeeze, then momentarily de-tangled their fingers to reach under his chair. It seemed like some of the crowd -- Moira included -- wasn't yet feeling the fear from Casey's tale. They'd have to fix that.

Folks said that great minds think alike. His partnership with Casey usually disproved that theory: they worked together so well precisely because they came at ideas from opposite direction. But tonight, for once, they were on the same track.

While Casey (subtly) reached for his wand, Alvis drew out a drawstring bag that he'd prepared earlier. Before the hush could stretch on too long, he scooped out a palm-full of shimmering blue-white powder and tossed it into the fire. A ghostly-white cloud blew out in all directions. Beneath the powder's crackle and pop, it sounded like snuffing out a thousand candles at once.

It was steam, not smoke, and cool to the touch as it billowed around them -- Alvis wouldn't drag Casey or anyone else all the way up here just to give them either an asthma attack or a scalding. It flooded all corners of the classroom and settled into a thick fog that muted the firelight and obscured the room past their circle of stories. Some parts of the fog reflected light. Others didn't. It would be perfect for obscuring shadows and letting imaginations run wild.

Satisfied, Alvis returned the bag to the floor, brushed the last debris off on his pants leg, and went back to holding Moira's hand as they waited for Casey to continue.

It was at times like this that Casey was glad he had been secretly training in 'dual wielding' two wands. His mind needed a similar kind of disconnect, to both continue narrating without suspicious pause and set to work summoning a few things with his wand.

"Being trapped in the goo would have been bad enough after its wall dissolving trick," Casey continued, adopting a more fierce posture in his seat. "That is until those claimed by the goo appeared. The lost fool saw wands pointed at him. Wands held in skeletal hands peaking out of black cloaks. The hood of each cloak lowered, each fleshless face obscured by a monstrous mask."

Meanwhile, in the darkened corner of the room thanks to the further dimming of light and the ghostly haze, something appeared. Two things actually. One dark cloak and a feline shaped mask, much like the attair of the new villains in the tale.

"Were these other students lost to the ooze, those that before this lad had dared wandered into sections of the dungeons that should have never been touched? Or were they agents of the ooze? Each boney feature of these cloaked figures did have a jellied false skin over their bones. Maybe they only exsisted so the ooze could have access to wands. For they were able to cast spells. The lost fool swears that a full body bind hex hit him as the cloaked figures advanced. His limbs were lifeless, his brain mush, he could do nothing but keep his eyes locked at the advancing figures. One with a mask shaped like a manticore, another a cerberus, another a nightmarish bird. They didn't even mutter incantions but spell lights flew about as the circle tightened. He was sinking into the stuff, caught as with quicksand. The masked figures impossibly kept themselves aloft as their neared closer, their cloaks somehow immune to the effects of the sludge."

Offstage the cloak was animated upright, mask set at head level. After that setup came the tricky part. Sending up sparks was a simple signal of distress, an early DADA tactic. Like a timed firecracker Casey was aiming to delay such a shower of sparks as the spell 'snuck' around the room to add to his illusion.

"He feels as if he's being pickled the more he is mired in this goo. As if his own flesh will be eaten away, replaced by false jelly and held in reserves to attack the next poor soul to loose their way in the spaces beyond the potion storeroom. It's past his neck now, only his eyes and nostrils are free to observe the last sight he sees, one of the masked figures bending down over him, wand exchanged for a glittering knife. Then darkness."

A suspensful moment of tense silence. ('tense' for tha narrator in particular as trying to hold onto a flash of sparks was much like keeping down a troublesome belch)

"And sometime later he wakes up. Unbelivably sticky, plastered to the floor just outside of the unused potion classroom. He's lucky to be alive. That his, until he finds the note pinned to his chest. The words scratched in dark red lettering:


"He never was sure of who had been taken. But he never set a foot out of bed after curfew for all his nights afterwards. For he was sure that in the dark, one of those figures in the monstrous masks may swoop in and take him him back to the horrid brew sitting stagnent under the brew."

Another brief silence.

And then several things happened at once.

When the haze had settled into the thickest around the cluster of students, the underpinings of Casey's deft spellwork all triggered at once. Suddenly the erect cloak, puppeted as if someone was behind the mask, sprang into the center of the audience. The sparks triggered as well, a booming CRACK compared to the hushed snuffing of candles that came from the powder tossed into the fire.

Though Casey hadn't anticipated how turning his spells around to such a degree would mean that he was, in essence, targeting himself. The sparks hit strong like a stunner, knocking his chair over as it looked like the sudden cloaked figure was enveloping him. There was the thud of Casey falling against the stones.

The animation from the cloak was also spent. While the cloth fell lifelessly the oddly metallic mask clattered across the floor, out a door crack to the ramparts, and lost down a drainage hole.

Erin was impressed by Casey's tale.  She was even more impressed by the amount of spell work that went off, but heaven help her, she was having a hard time holding in her laugh. She hoped it looked like she was more scared than laughing at this point, but the horrors of potion store rooms were more likely to be professors than undead cloaked mask thingies, or whatever Casey had described.  Even the spell work added to the hilarity in Erin's opinion.  She really wanted to act a bit better, but she had to take a minute to regain her composure.  For once in her life managing to be appropriately polite, she commented,

" I liked the spell work, that was a nice touch.  I've got a tale as well, if you want to hear it," Erin commented.  She doubted it was original as Caseys, but it was not like Erin was very creative to begin with. 

To be sure, Casey's story was...creative. It took Alvis by surprise. He didn't know what he'd expected from Casey telling a ghost story, but bizarre, twisted, and a more than a little gooey hadn't been it. The sparks and shadowed shapes were especially creative. He hadn't known Casey to have that kind of dramatic nature in him.

As the last line faded, he glanced around the circle to take in the other's reactions and thus missed the sparks and leaping cloak save for the resounding CRACK that made him jump. He whirled back around just in time to see Casey crash to the floor.

"Casey!" Alvis lurched out of his chair, a hint of legitimate fear in his voice -- a bit from the story, yes, but mostly because that last thump sounded painful and if Casey cracked his head open over some stupid ghost story he didn't know what they'd do. Especially since he was technically in charge for the moment.

He hurried to the fallen chair, breathing a sigh of relief when he found Casey mostly in one piece. He offered the other boy a hand to haul him up and then stooped to help right the chair. As they settled it back onto its feet, Erin Dark chimed in to offer a tale of her own.

"Yeah...yeah, sure." Alvis sighed, turning his wand to the fire pit and muttering a spell under his breath. The wood in the brazier shifted, stirring itself around and refreshing the layer of fog that surrounded them. "Go for it, Erin. The fire's yours."