When Figaro peeked around the corner, Erin was on the ground. Unconscious, but not for very long. Sellaphix hadn't given it full force, he'd hesitated, he'd fumbled with the spell and stuttered when he said it, and so Erin was already stirring, jerkily trying to climb to his hands and knees, head down so Figaro couldn't see his face.

But he'd buggered it. And despite the dizziness and the headache- Merlin, was this what a hangover felt like?- Sellaphix had used Stupify. That was hardly anything, Erin had been stupified before, it wasn't- it didn't- it barely hurt, he could do this, he could stand back up, even if it involved swaying and having to hold onto the wall for support. But instead of hexing his face off, or blinding him with his wand so close to Erin's eye, Sellaphix had just blasted him with a black-out spell.

Slumped against the wall, head still down, Erin began to laugh at the sheer predictability of it all.

Professor Levartian was going to be so late for breakfast that it was a wonder she was even bothering to go at all. By the time she was going to get there, it would likely be time to leave for her first Arithmancy class of the morning. But she had been up for a while now, her nose stuck in a book ever since she had woken up and her stomach was starting to grumble in protest. At the very least she could oblige it with some fruit or something to munch on while her Seventh Years worked on projects. Like many teachers, she tended to give her older students a bit more freedom in the classroom and today would probably be no exception.

Myrni was still reading the book in question as she carefully made her way down the stairs from the first floor. She was an expert at reading and walking--something she had done ever since she was old enough to read chapter books that had the power of capturing her attention to the point where she didn't want to lose one moment.

Myrni would have liked to believe that those books were far and away of better quality than that which she was reading now. She could hardly believe she had caved to read Amor & Psyche by Desdemona Vonderheide. Prior to this moment, she had never personally read any of the books by the author and had been wary to do so based on the mixed reviews from those she knew. Some raved about it and others vehemently dismissed the fanatacism of readers.

Having gotten half way through the book, Myrni was still on the fence as to her verdict about it. She had to give Ms. Vonderheide credit in choosing a very intriguing idea for a story, one that even Myrni could identify with given the state of her own love life.

Reaching the bottom of  the stairs, Myrni stopped walking and slipped her index finger in between the pages. She closed the book around it and craned her neck to read the last sentence on the back cover of the book which had been haunting her for a while. Will their union withstand the test of time, or perish at the hands of those who would stop at nothing to keep them apart?

When her eyes came to the end of it, she just stared incredulously at the book. It was official: This stuff was crazy...magical crack stuffed in the pages of a book. The only real question for her was, why she was reading it?

Despite her reservations, she had just opened up the book again and continued reading when in mid sentence a flash of light seared through the pages, causing the professor to drop the book to the floor. She looked down at it, stunned at first and then her eyes darted around for the source of its attacker.

I know the book may be borderline dreadful for some, she thought wryly. But did it really require to meet its death in such a fashion?

Myrni's thoughts were promptly interrupted by the heated voices of two students who were clearly in the middle of an altercation. She watched and listened, still very much in shock.

Her eyes went wide when she witnessed the boy in Slytherin colors dared the one in Hufflepuff colors to hex him. And to her amazement (and silent admiration even), the badger complied.

As the snake went sprawling on the floor, Myrni watched as the Hufflepuff sped off out of sight. The Slytherin remained motionless for a moment before he struggled to his feet. When he eventually began to laugh, Myrni finally decided that she should intervene.

"Gentlemen! That's quite enough!" Myrni had shouted with so much force that her voice reverberated off of the corridor walls. The characteristically soft spoken professor was so loud that one would think she was using an enhancement charm. But her wand was nowhere to be seen. Her face had darkened as she looked in the direction that she had seen a streak of yellow go in and then back to the boy in green hues.Then she demanded, "What in the name of Merlin is the meaning of all this??"

Almost as disturbing as the sight of Erin Harper laughing like a homicidal maniac, was the appearance of Professor Levartian.  Figaro didn't have her for classes, but he knew enough to know that Professors did not take kindly to students fighting in the halls.  What compounded the problem was the clock tower tolling the time - 8am.  Class for the morning had already begun.

As she strode up to Erin, Figaro ducked behind the corner again.  Futility, he hoped for a second that he could hide and just let Erin Harper deal with the whole situation.  Who'd believe Figaro Sellaphix hexed someone if they hadn't seen it with their own eyes?

But it was no use.  Professor Levartian had seen them and she was madder than Figaro had ever seen her.  He gritted his teeth and stepped out.  And even though twenty yards separated he and Harper now, he wasn't going to put up his wand.

"It's nothing," Figaro said.  His nose was bleeding.  He wiped the warm trickle on his sleeve.  "It's nothing."

Erin's laughter had pretty much died when the professor had started to yell; he'd whipped around, eyes going wide in surprise, then lurched into the wall as his head and stomach violently disagreed with such rapid movement. He stayed quiet as Professor Levartian strode up to him, but he turned his head enough to watch Figaro as he sidled out from behind the wall, his expression unreadable. Sellaphix should've run, the stupid twit. Erin could have handled this himself without Sellaphix there to bungle everything up.

But perhaps because Figaro was there, Erin went for a different approach. The professor had obviously seen them fighting; Erin wasn't stupid enough to think they'd get away with this. But if they were already screwed, what was the point? The Slytherin's eyes slid back to Professor Levartian. "I fell," he said blandly, "Into a suit of armor." Although his tone didn't betray a thing, there was no denying the cheekiness of his obvious lie. His voice lowered a little as he continued, and now there was a hint of something else in it, although it was still hard to read- amusement, perhaps, or some sort of challenge, like he was daring Figaro or the professor to contradict him. "You know, these hallways can be awfully dangerous."

Even as he spoke, a thought was occurring to him, something he couldn't quite grasp the edges of. Maybe he was still recovering from being stupified- his head still felt stuffed with cotton, that was true, and there was a ringing in his ears- but there was something, something... he wanted to ask the professor how long she'd been there, what she'd seen- why, as an authority figure, hadn't she done something, then, when she saw one student hexing another?

Myrni was almost as surprised by her anger as the boy wearing Hufflepuff colors. At first it looked like the boy was going to hide, but he finally reappeared and proceeded to tell her that it the little skirmish was nothing. Myrni was hardly a dupe when it came to such things. She had endured her share of duels with rival classmates in her time at the school. Some she won and some she failed miserably at.

But now she was in a position of authority and there was some amount of responsibility on her part to not exactly encourage such behavior, even if she thought allowing students to engage in some harmless means of conflict resolution was healthy. The only problem was, when did it cross the line from being harmless to being harmful?

As it were, both boys looked to be shaken up by the encounter and she wondered if an alternative means of dealing with their problems might help. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes at her own silent suggestion.

Instead, she raised her brows and regarded each boy in turn, and lingered on the Slytherin boy as he began to explain his side of the story. Again, she refrained from rolling her eyes, this time at his feeble excuse that he fell. She almost let the words, "Are you sure that's the best lie you could come up with" come out of her mouth and she almost wouldn't have believed he had been sorted into Sytherin House had it not been for the colors he was wearing.

She picked up on his challenging tone and for a moment, she was uncertain if it was more directed at his opponent or to her. One thing was for certain, though. She wasn't about to let him think she was a professor he could walk all over, even if she was a self proclaimed pacifist.

But, there was more than one way to achieve one's goal of punishing students for fighting. In response to his last words, she cooly responded, "Yes, these hallways can be very dangerous." She allowed a pregnant pause to hang in the air as she considered her next course of action. "I think you both should join me in the Arithmancy Classroom for detention. Please come during your free period so that you can tell me about it in more detail." She looked from one boy to the other again, searching for signs of further challenging. Neither boy was taking Arithmancy with her this year and usually for anyone not taking it by choice, it was quite possibly one of the most torturous kinds of punishment available.

Someone is bound to be bored to death, she mused. To them, she simply said, "For now, I'd head to your morning classes."