Friday, Sept. 2nd - evening

”DON’T RUN AWAY…YOU FILTHY….STOP…Where’d he go?!?!”

The enraged Ravenclaw student’s voice echoed through the Entrance Hall as the Gryffindor she’d been after disappeared down the steps into the dungeons.  Eli dashed down one corridor, rounded a corner and then stopped, his back pressed against the cold stone.  He didn’t think the girl had followed him down here, but he wasn’t going to risk another slap in the face because he let his guard down too early.  After a moment or two of silence, not hearing any distinct sound of rushing steps coming his way, Eli sighed, relieved.  That had been bonkers!  One moment Eli was snogging this really attractive red-head in what he had thought was a fairly unoccupied corridor…The next thing he knows, this bloke’s girlfriend pulls them apart, has the nerve to slap Eli, and then starts running after him.  Probably didn’t help that Eli might have insinuated she was a frizzed freak banshee, but she had just slapped him!  Hells no!

Eli’s hand touched his cheek where the girl’s hand had made contact.  “That Hog’s hag!” He exclaimed, frustrated.  His back slid down the wall so that now he was crouching.  Truly he hadn’t known the bloke had a girlfriend (not that that would have really mattered), and it was really just a spur-of-the moment occurrence!  And for once he wasn’t even the one to initiate it, surprisingly.  If anything, the girl should have hit her boyfriend.  “Urgh…worth it though,” Eli mused aloud, a small smile making its way onto his lips.  It hadn’t been his first run-in with a significant other and it probably was not going to be his last.  Also, what a way to kickoff the start to the first weekend back at Hogwarts!  Not bad, not bad at all. 

While he was still crouched in thought, resting his tired legs, an object flew out of seemingly nowhere just inches in front of his face, startling him.  “Whomping willows!” Eli gasped, losing balance and tipping over on his side.  He quickly picked himself back up and looked around, trying to spot the culprit.  No one was there.  Glancing at the ground, Eli saw that it had been an empty inkwell that had been thrown at him.  Frowning, the Gryffindor looked back up,

“Who’s there?!”  No answer.  “WHO THREW THIS AT ME?!” Again no answer.  Eli took a few steps further down the corridor but still couldn’t see anyone in sight.  Wait a minute.  Hadn’t there been rumors going around about a new ghost in the castle?  Spotted down in the dungeons in fact.  Could it be…?  Did Hogwarts just become home to Peeves version 2.0?  Or was he just overthinking this and it simply was just some snot-nosed jokester?

Eli’s hand went to his pocket and his fingers wrapped around his wand.  “Last chance, WHO’S THERE?!”

After exhausting all of the easier cursebreaking tricks he'd read about, Harold had tried ordering some more difficult cursebreaker puzzles in the mail from some Hogsmeade joke shops. Unfortunately, he had managed to exhaust those as wells. More unfortunately, Foley had caught on to what he was doing and offered to "help" with that ghost of a smile that he might have thought was cute and mysterious if he hadn't ever been on the nasty end of several of her curses. Her being disproportionately nicer to his twin also possibly had something to do with it.

But idle hands made for a devil's plaything and Harold supposed he was overdue for her to finally show up. So the messy-haired Knight sibling barely hesitated take her up on the offer.

Now he was tucked away in some empty dungeon classroom and staring down several of his re-cursed practice items and scribbles of parchment notes by some ominously flickering lamplight. After a moment, he finally picked an item and used his wand to trace some runes around it in the light. But then the runes were pulled out of his control and began to merge, crackle and spark.

Harold ducked under a table just as the magic fired at his inkwell, spilling its contents as it flew out the classroom door and crashed into something.

• "Whomping willows!

Harold quietly groaned from his hiding spot as his classmate continued to yell, but, as his classmate's footsteps grew closer and he kept making more demands, Harold finally spoke up.

"Nobody and nothing!" Came his sarcastic drawl. With wand still gripped in his hand he poked his head out the door and hissed, "Why are you even down here? Go do whatever, or whoever, elsewhere, mate."