Tensions were running high at Hogwarts, and Zia hadn’t been paying full attention to it. Instead she was wrapped up in a book, one of those that you just had to finish. The page-turner had caused Zia to miss out on all the hullabaloo relating to the explosions at the Leaky Cauldron. As other students panicked and plotted revenge, she laid languidly on the couch.

Until.

Well, the rest of that evening had been a blur. Late, late at night - when she had just finished her riveting novel and was preparing for bed - she was called down to the Headmaster’s office. Where everything changed forever.

After hearing the news, Zia walked stiffly back to the dormitories. She was in shock and was not reacting, just forcing one leg in front of the other until she reached her bed and slowly sat atop the covers. Zia didn’t sleep; she didn’t even cry. She simply sat, staring at the wall. Her mind was completely blank, save for the message the Headmaster had relayed to her on repeat. No matter how many times the words played in her mind, Zia was frozen, unable to react.

“Your brother Ronaldo was one of the casualties.”

At first Zia hadn’t known what the Headmaster had been talking about. The words didn’t make sense - explosions? Ronaldo wouldn’t have gone anywhere dangerous -- he had Anastasia, who was just about to turn one, and who already worshipped her father. It just wasn’t possible for Ronaldo to be gone. There were so many places where he was needed.

Yet it was true. While the rest of the girls in the dorm were preparing to go to the Great Hall for breakfast and chattering excitedly about the previous night’s events, Zia continued staring at the wall, lost in her thoughts. She was still wearing her clothes from the day before, since she had been interrupted just as she was about to change.  She even had shoes on. The strange looks that she began to receive also went by unnoticed.

It was something of a rarity to catch Ligeia in a full night's sleep as the albinistic aristocratic Ravenclaw had always, oddly, become nocturnally aligned over her years at Hogwarts. Nighttime was usually when she saved more of her studies or pursued other hobbies of hers. To compare Ligeia to the other night owls she stood as one that awakened early, perhaps not 'perky' (perky didn't seem to fit in the context of her natural grace or pseudo-obliviously morbid vernacular) but more energized than she should have rightfully been after a few hours of beauty sleep. Even if she had spent half the night in minimally active mentally engaging but non-taxing activity, like whenever she caught up on sewing.

This morning, on the whole last night as well, had not been one of those nights.

For it turned out Ligeia had been the last to awake of her dorm mates, only appearing to stir right as the first few made their way to the common room caught up in their breakfast heading discussions. She groggily sat up from bedsheets, eyes shut, mumbled nothing coherent at first and generally did not rise in her regular ladylike fashion.

"Oo dear..." she said, trying to organize her thoughts after awaking with painfully numbing and all around fuzzy feeling in her head. If you were to tell her that moss had been growing out of her ears she wouldn't have been surprised and would have suggested that they check if her brain was covered in lichens and short green growths.

There had been a specific reason for this block to her natural reserves and it had been housed in an emptied flask by her bedside nook. Primarily taken because after news like last night she knew she needed to sleep, because staying up with all of her various thoughts in the wake of the Leaky Cauldron explosion, likely bombing, were not going to do her or anyone else any good. She'd be lucky to get replies from her missives for further information this morning, be it Poppa Argyle on the Wizengamot or other family friends from the MLE, Accidents & Catastrophes or the various other Ministry and beyond departments no doubt embroiled in the aftermath of what could be some kind of attack.

And of course, the innovator in Ligeia had considered she could make a sleeping potion even more fast acting with the addition of a choice ingredient. Which careful observation for the sake of magical progression noted that she might have either pickled her brain or encouraged some kind of fungus, a side effect on the side of 'unhelpful.'

She pawed for her bedside journal for documentation purposes, finally blinking her eyes open with a rather audible creak. Her blearily stare caught sight of Zia Piselli in her day-old bright orange clothes. "Do remind me not to improve Jigger's Knockout Slumber Draught on a whim," she yawned, paging through her notes.