Noon, January 8

It was finally lunch.  Figaro slogged into the Great Hall with a few of his friends, already exhausted from the morning's classes.  Most notably the disaster of a Defense class.  Two students were nearly hospitalized, and Professor Storm hadn't stopped yelling at them the entire time.  Not only that but Sasha was apparently somehow a master duelist.  Figaro sneezed into his sleeve as he dumped his back under the Hufflepuff bench.  Running in the cold weather always gave him a touch of something for a few days, from flooding his lungs with that biting wet air.

But he didn't sit down, instead standing at his seat as the Great Hall began to fill.  He was looking for a fellow fifth year, hoping to decompress after such an insane morning.  At least the new Potions master was hot.

"If I have to survive another day of Professor Storm like that, I'm writing the Prophet.  That was mad as hell," he sighed to a friendly ear. "Who the hell is that guy, anyway? He really get fired from Durmstrang?"

Actually, Sasha would have been perfectly happy skipping lunch if it meant avoiding the rest of his class. Dinner too.  In fact, if it meant he could avoid seeing anyone else outside of class, Sasha would have considered asking Professor Bombay if he could just plant a veggie garden in one of the greenhouses.  But, there was safety in numbers and Fergie was braving the Great Hall.  Sasha figured he could duck in, grab a couple rolls and an apple and, hopefully, duck back out before anyone saw him. 

By now, rumors of their Defense class were bound to have spread like wildfire throughout the school.  Knight's outburst before storming out was, likewise, probably fully embedded in the Hogwarts grapevine.  The amount of time Sasha was spending around Fergie probably didn't help, including arriving in the Great Hall now with the Slytherin.  But, having been a constant presence since his family's murder, Fergie knew most of the details of what had been happening.  He was safe.  he'd seen Sasha at his worst.  Sasha didn't have to explain anything.  Hopefully, most people would be smart enough to realize Knight was just trying to stir trouble. 

It was highly unlikely Sasha was going to be trying to gather food from the Slytherin table.  Even if Knight wasn't there, between Neely and Ava it just wasn't going to happen.  Either letting Fergie go to Slytherin table alone or him squatting amongst the Ravenclaws seemed a much ... safer option.  So, Sasha lead the way down the center path between Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw tables before plopping in front of a plate.  Pickings were always somewhat slim at the Scottish table for the vegetarian but, with enough grazing, one managed to make a full meal.  He'd just picked up a roll to put some cheese into it when he heard Figaro's griping about reporting Storm to the Daily Prophet behind him. 

Quickly, he turned, shaking his head desperately.  "Please don't," he almost begged, imploringly.  That was the last thing he needed.  For any word of that incident in Defense Against the Dark Arts winding up on the pages of the Prophet.  "Just -"  Sasha shook his head, turning back to his plate.  The sooner he stuffed the roll with cheese and got out of there, the better.

Figaro broke off his conversation straight away when Sasha turned up.

"There you are!" he exclaimed and wrapped an arm around Sasha's shoulders in a brotherly sort of way, and pushd himself into the bench next to him at Ravenclaw.  Some Ravenclaws protested to the inter-house dining and spoke up, but Figaro ignored them.  The tradition never made any sense to him. Sasha was with Fergie and Figaro afforded the fancy Slytherin a nod.

"Didn't figure you'd come to lunch, mate.  I mean, holy troll bollocks, what're you now, a warlock? What the hell was that back there?" Figaro's tone was mixed with awe and trepidation.  He spilled out his questions and commentary as if he'd been having to hold it back for hours - which he had.

"Where did that come from?  I know we'd all like to hex Callum Knight back to the Dark Ages, but I can't believe you went for it, and in front of Professor Storm at that.  He's going to kill you in detention, you know that, right, mate?"

Figaro sneezed again and groaned.  "I'm dead already.  That class was insane."

Dark green ballet flats tread lightly over the stone floors as they made their way to the Great Hall. Their owner didn’t know why or how they were mustering the stupidity to do it, but no matter how much silent dissuasion they were receiving, their path didn’t change. The last place she wanted to be was in the middle of bad-blood. Usually she managed to stay out of the trouble the other fifth-years caused, but recently, the confrontations were unavoidable. That morning in Defense was a prime example.

When Demitria’s eyes landed on the Slytherin table, she sighed. She really, really didn’t want to be around Callum Knight or any of his gang. The crisis this morning had probably put them in terrible moods and moody Slytherins were never fun Slytherins.

And Merlin help her, Strellie was a moody Slytherin. Christmas had left her sleepless and wanting to strangle her oldest brother’s fiancé. Coming back to school had left her just as sleepless and wanting to fall into a hole. Her internal light needed to be flicked back on.

She scanned the Great Hall looking for better options. Her jade eyes found it with Figaro. He was a really sweet Hufflepuff who couldn’t possibly sour her mood any further. The fact he was a chatter-box was another plus. The Russian witch just needed normality.

The problem came when the object of her vision walked away to the Ravenclaw table to sit with Sasha Schalgenweit and Fergie. She had nothing against Sasha or Fergie, but…

Rolling her eyes, the pale pixie-like girl decided to suck it up. She floated quietly over to the Ravenclaw table and sat down by Figaro. She smiled brightly at Sasha and Fergie then at Figaro.

“Do you three mind if I sit here?” Her Russian accent had come back after the break, as it always did, but it was especially strong this time since she was talking only in Russian to her three brothers. Her mother encouraged English, but around Jaska, Luca, and Maxim, it was harder.   

 Fergie'd been forced to skip breakfast entirely, so even had he wanted to avoid the crowds in the Great Hall, there was no way his stomach would have allowed him to get away with it. Lunch was a necessity, that's all there was to it. At least he'd been able to shower. He'd had to skip potions in order to do it (Fergie guessed he could have waited until the study break, but he wasn't spending one more minute with that ink in his hair and on his face than he absolutely had to), but he was clean.

 It was a good feeling. Or at least, marginally better than he'd felt since he'd woken up this morning. His wand was still missing, Callum still looked ready to murder someone when Fergie'd seen him in the corridors, and Fergie still had detention later. With Callum and Sasha. There was no way that was going to be even remotely pleasant.

 But he looked presentable, he'd talked with Sasha, and as he followed the Ravenclaw into the Great Hall, Fergie was beginning to think that maybe he'd survive the day after all. The Slytherin returned Figaro's nod with a smile and took a seat on Sasha's other side- with Callum over at his own house's table there was no way he was going over there.

 "I don't see why it's such a big deal," he said loftily as he began to fix his plate, hoping to find some way of switching the subject. He was sure Sasha wasn't appreciating the attention. "Sasha was merely defending a friend, and even Professor Storm said Knight deserved it," Fergie pointed out. "And it's not like Callum can do anything to him with a professor watching. Detention will be fine." Well, not fine. But survivable, he hoped.

 Fortunately, the arrival of another Slytherin provided a momentary distraction. Apparently Ferguson wasn't the only snake who'd decided to abandon their usual table that afternoon. "Hello, Demitria," Fergie greeted his housemate, leaning forward to offer her a small wave, wigggling his fingers in her direction. "Did you guys hear that Callum is engaged?" He asked, hoping this interesting tidbit would successfully derail the conversation once and for all. "To a third year - my sister knows her. Poor girl."

The Ravenclaw flinched, slightly, as the Hufflepuff's arm circled around them but he quickly covered the reaction with a slight hitching of his shoulders.  The shrug, he'd hoped, would give the impression of indifference though the color and heat that flooded his face betrayed him.   He ignored the protests of his fellow Ravenclaws as he was joined by a Hufflepuff and two Slytherins. 

"I was hungry but I'm not planning on staying," was Sasha's quiet response to Figaro's surprise.  And, it was the truth.  He hadn't come in with the intention of lingering but the prospects of just slipping out quietly seemed to be getting slimmer as the second Slytherin sat at their table. 

The color on Sasha's face deepened under Figaro's twenty questions and he folded his arms across his chest, hugging them to him.  "I don't know," he answered vaguely with a shrug.  He didn't want to go into details about his 'defense' lessons with Kronos or how he'd used lethal magic to his defense.  He didn't want to hear that tone in Figaro's voice.  He certainly didn't want this Demitria overhearing any of it, at least.  He just really wanted to be left alone.  He felt a surge of gratitude for Fergie when the Slytherin spoke up on his behalf.  With a touch of defensiveness, he added on, "I didn't know what that spell did, alright?" 

Sasha winced and went back to layering cheese in his lunch roll.  Knight was going to kill him.  Whether or not it happened in detention, he was going to kill Sasha.  "Scheiße.  And, Professor Storm's never going to let me make up the midterm now.  He must think I'm ..." Well, what Madame Snark had made him out to be.

He left the greeting of Demetria to Fergie and Figaro and turned back to fixing his lunch.  Again, Sasha felt grateful towards Fergie as the Slytherin tried to point the conversation in a different direction.  He, himself, didn't care much about Knight or his unfortunate betrothed but maybe it would entice Figaro like a cat to a moth fluttering behind a closed window.

"Alright, Demetira?" Figaro said, smiling at the friendly Slytherin.  Fergie looked to be all cleaned up - probably where he'd been at during Potions.  Figaro took up a nice, squishy dinner roll and had into it, clearly settling in for the moment.

Sasha looked sullen and slouchy again, but Figaro just figured it had more to do with his oncoming detention than the spell that'd wrought it. 

"Firing off spells without knowing what they do?" Figaro whistled and shook his head, playing impressed.  "New trick for you, Sash.  Well unlucky for Callum it wasn't a Flowers Growing spell, right? You had to know it was good for something, or you just memorizing incantations but skipping over what they do.  You're a nutter, mate."

Figaro rambled on.  His voice was less rapid than usual, and he didn't seem overly emotional about what he was saying.  Sure, he was impressed and startled by what Sasha had done in defense of Ferguson, but he was mostly thinking out loud for the sake of hearing his own voice.  To process the strange thing that had happened. 

Demitria's smile had evaporated once Sasha looked down. The least he could have done was at least nod or maybe even try to act pleasant but no... She rolled her eyes. Teenage boys all had constant PMS. She was fairly certain of that fact. Fergie had at least gave his usual finger waggle (truthfully, she would expect no less of her housemate) and Figaro, the chatterbox, had said something. True, he had butchered her name, but most people did.

Her quiet indignation was broken by Fergie's juicy tidbit. Her mouth was half way open to respond, but Sellaphix had deftly ignored the other Slytherin and began prodding at Sasha all in the same breath again. She groaned inwardly. No wonder the Ravenclaw had a face of pure anxiety on it. If she had been in his place at the recieving end of one of Figaro's tirades, she would've had a similar expresson.

Her fingers twitched with the urge to playfully shove the lone Hufflepuff. She didn't know him that well. She sighed.

"Really, am I the only one with an intuition here? Figaro. Look at him. Stop poking and prodding at every little detail. Isn't it obvious he doesn't want to talk about it?" Her moderatley-thick Russian accent berated him.

Today had been exhausting for Sophie. On top of being an utter failure in DADA she’d twisted her ankle running in her stupid heels. She’d hobbled to the dungeons for Potions but when it had started to swell the new Professor sent her off to the hospital hut. Just how she was supposed to have gotten there in a timely manner was a mystery to Sophie. Of course now she was alright and back in her regular shoes. She really hoped none of the other Professors decided that they needed exercise to get rid of the holiday weight they’d put on. Still limping a little she made her way through the Great Hall toward the Gryffindor table until she noticed a gathering of fifth years clustered around Fig.

She was worried about Sasha, mostly because the whole thing seemed vastly out of character to her, but she was really more worried about Fergie. She hadn’t had a proper chance to fuss over him yet, which she promptly started to do wrapping her arms around his neck from behind and placing a loud kiss on his cheek, “You scared me half to death! Is anything broken? Are you concussed? You hit the desk hard you could be concussed,” she tilted his head back to look, “Is there a knot?” she tried not to muss his hair too much as she inspected his forehead, lips pursed to one side, “I swear. I’m going to feed that idiot to the SQUID”.

 "Sasha's not a nutter." Fergie countered, spooning a dollop of mashed potatoes onto his plate. He knew Figaro didn't mean anything by it - the Hufflepuff was a chatterbox by nature, it seemed. But, Sasha was going through a tough time and was, understandably, a bit sensitive. "If I thought I had a spell that would do something unpleasant to Callum, I wouldn't be too worried about knowing what the exact effects were, either. As long as it wiped that smug look off his face."

 Fergie only wished he'd been concious to see it.

 And of course, Sasha was immediately concerned with the academic side of things. "Maybe you'll be able to talk him around," Fergie said hopefully, pausing to take a bite of his lunch and thinking about it before continuing. "He can't be that angry with you, if he's going to blatantly tell Knight he deserved everything he got. Maybe he'll... admire your gumption. I mean, you were doing what you're supposed to - thinking on your feet and defending." That was kind of the entire point of the class, after all.  "Just... not in an orthodox, necessarily classroom-friendly way."

 Demitria's admonishments were not as... tactful as Fergie would have liked, but it did effectively get the point across, he supposed. The corners of Fergie's mouth twitched up in an amused, appreciative smirk. He opened his mouth to comment, but was derailed when someone attacked him from behind!

 Okay, not so much attacked as hugged. But for a moment it had been a little alarming, since he couldn't exactly see who was hugging him, until they gave him a loud, obnoxious kiss on the cheek and Sophie began lobbing questions at him a mile a minute. "If you mess up my hair I'm going to give you a concussion," Fergie informed her, but without any heat and accompanied by a good natured grin. "I'm fine. See?" He pushed her hands away and lifted up his hair. "No bump or anything." Thank heavens. He would have killed Callum if his face had been marred by that thump on the desk.

 Fergie flattened his hair down again and scooted a bit closer to Sasha, making room for the Gryffindor girl.  "I won't complain if you feed him to the squid anyway, though," he said, patting the empty spot on the bench next to him to indicate she should sit down, completely ignoring the renewed grumblings of the rightful occupants of the table. Merlin, would it kill them to share? "If the squid will even take him. I bet even it has better taste."

No one, it seemed, had taken Fergie's bait and the comment about Knight and his third year bride-to-be went almost completely unnoticed.  In its stead, Figaro plowed on with his twenty questions about the whole Defense Against the Dark Arts affair. 

"Someone taught it to me to be used in self-defense," Sasha defended, testily.  In fact, hadn't Kronos taught him that spell for exactly that purpose?  Kronos had, somehow, intercepted that horrible letter and that curse had been the first spell he'd taught Sasha for the purposes of protecting himself from bullies like Callum.  "I knew it was for defense - I'd used it in dueling practice."  Not at school; Sasha had never gone anywhere near the dueling club but he didn't need to specify that.  "But, it was always blocked.  I'd never seen it ... hit." 

He leaned forward just enough to give Demitria one grateful nod to confirm he, indeed, didn't want to talk about it.   Given he was now, officially, surrounded (especially with the arrival of Sophie, to the annoyance of his fellow Ravenclaws), Sasha resigned himself to the fact he wasn't going to be slipping right back out.  As Sophie set, immediately, to fawning over Fergie (it was a shame she wasn't doing that to Figaro - Figaro was really the one that needed the intensive distraction), Sasha pulled a serving dish of peas towards his plate but pushed it back at the sight of the bits of bacon interspersed with the peas.  He opted for the carrots instead. 

Sasha focused intently on Fergie's defense and support even as he speared a few pieces of carrot with his fork.  He could hear a cluster of his fellow Ravenclaws down the table whispering amongst themselves as they cast the stray, curious glance down the table at them.  One of them was hunched over a bit of parchment though it seemed clear to Sasha they were all chattering on about the cluster of students now representing each of the Hogwarts houses at the Ravenclaw table. 

But, Sasha didn't have the time nor the desire to worry about such things - not when he could worry about things like his midterm with Professor Storm.  That was just on an entirely different scale.  "I hope so.  I just ... what happens if you, you know, fail a class?  They don't let you take them past OWLs, do they?  Do you think they'll let me retake them?  Because of everything?"  The last question was directed, primarily, at Fergie since alone, as far as Sasha knew, understood what all 'everything' referred to.  Luckily, he had solid Os in most of his classes going into the suspension and he no longer had the same urgency to continue with his muggle curriculum.  Those subjects could wait until summer, if necessary. 

When Demitria called Figaro down from his interrogation, he just rolled his eyes with a good-natured tolerance.  Sasha never wanted to talk about anything but school - didn't she know that?   And the rule held true,  soon Sasha was talking about his coursework again.

The arrival of the cooing, doting Sophie Flickwick wasn't Figaro's favorite herald of good omens, but he didn't mind her that much.  Plus, her squealing, girlish ministrations were entertaining and he laughed at Fergie's expense, piping in with a teasing falsetto.

"Not concussed. Merciful me!"

More dinner roll.

Fergie had almost had a point - that as extreme as Professor Storm was, why wasn't he up for a little extreme defense from his students? The only problem with what Fergie was at was that Ferg was assuming that Professor Storm was a reasonable and not insane teacher.  Wrongo.

But before Figaro could really get on with finding out just who that 'someone' was, a Hufflepuff leaned across the aisly and jabbed him in the back.  He torqued around only to see someone waving the morning's Daily Prophet in his face.   Now Figaro wasn't a paper-reading man, but this copy was battered and an article was cirlced and a name was underlined.

Intruder's Identity Revealed
by Evan Irallis

January 8, 2009

Dear Readers - As many of you are aware, early Christmas morning, tragedy struck one of the wizarding world's unluckiest young men.  In the early hours of Christmas, a cloaked wizard broke into the muggle home of now almost famous Ravenclaw student, Sasha Schlagenweit, and murdered the family.   

Until now, details about the incident have been extremely scarce.  Until now, all we've known about this mysterious tragedy is what is stated above.  An unidentified witch or wizard broke into the Schlagenweit residence and killed muggles Gerhard, Marie and Anna Schlagenweit along with their human, muggle, housekeeper.  Sasha Schlagenweit managed to escape the invasion with his life.  The fate of the intruder has, as of yet, been undisclosed.

However, as you my loyal readers well know, Evan Irallis is never easily discouraged from digging up the whole truth.  An anonymous source has, yet again, provided me with a few details that I believe the readers will find most intriguing.  My credible source has verified that the intruder, a former Death Eater by the name of Manfred Ashford, was also found deceased at the Schlagenweit residence.  Classified by the Ministry as a Level Three Watched Wizard, Ashford served twenty-five years in Azkaban for his involvement with the Death Eaters.

My anonymous source tells me that, though Ashford is forbidden from carrying a wand, he was in possession of a wand at the time of the murders.  It appears, this fifth year Ravenclaw managed to come in possession of Ashford's wand and turned it on the ex-Death Eater.  How the young man managed to come into knowledge of a curse capable of killing a full grown Death Eater is quite a mystery though, as you all may remember, this boy did spend a month in the company of one Kronos Malvivicus. 

Perhaps the young man learned more than the Ministry is letting us know?  Is that why the Ministry is trying to keep us in the dark?  Is there a more sinister side to this Sasha Schlagenweit that the Ministry is trying to keep quiet?  Given the boy's choice of company, it wouldn't be surprising.  However, with so many of our children sharing the same halls with a boy capable of killing a Death Eater, one might ask if we have a right to know.

"Uhh..."

Being the youngest of four Sophie had mastered withering looks around the age of three. The young Mr. Sellephix was treated to one such look at his high pitched squeal. She did not sound like that, and she did not thing Figaro was as funny as he found himself to be. Actually she was in the mood to cuff him upside the head and tell him to grow up. Sometimes his antics were amusing - but he had not yet reached a level of emotional maturity that was comparable to anything beyond maybe a flobberworm. Sophie hated flobberworms. Horrid little pests, she didn‘t value them for much of anything because she didn‘t care much about potions… so in many ways Figaro Sellaphix exactly like a flobberworm, and held about as much use for her.

Flicking her hair over her shoulder she turned her eyes back to Fergie, not completely convinced that he was alright. He had hit his head pretty hard. Still, if he wasn’t going to give into the hysteric side of his nature then she wouldn’t push the issue - at least not in front of everyone. Picking at a dinner Roll she leaned over the table to see what Fig was on about then only to swallow hard and look at Sasha. There was a long awkward pause before Sophie finally said, “Everyone knows Evan Irallis is just as bad at Rita Skeeter, making up stories without any facts and calling it journalism…” her voice trailed off as she shared a look with Fergie, trying to decipher how much of this he might know and not have told her. They didn’t usually keep secrets from one another but he was kind of crazy about Sasha.

Of course Kit had been in the DADA class. It was her favourite and best subject, despite the staffing change. But this particular class...well it hadn't been enjoyable as most. Callum Knight finally getting part of what he deserved by one of his bully victims, well that had been satisfying. But the method? Not so much. It had disturbed Kit, and she was hardly the easily shaken type.

So instead of grabbing a quick lunch and working on obtaining her next belt up, she grabbed a her plate and headed straight for the Ravenclaw table. Where she wanted to go was easy enough to find- for one thing Fergie was there. He was never too far away from Sasha lately, Kit noticed. And several other students were surrounding Sasha, and none from his house. Now wasn't that interesting?

She saw the morning Daily Prophet by Sellaphix. Yes, she had already seen it, so she would have probably been spending lunch with Sasha regardless of how lessons played out.

The discussion looked like it was well underway by the time Kit joined them.

"Evan Irallis' reputation isn't really the point," Kit said to her housemate. "The world is full of people willing to believe anything packaged in a semi-professional manner. And this is probably the worst possible day for this particular bit of slander to come out."

Oh she was sure the questions were going to be flying everywhere if they hadn't already. And Kit felt it was her duty to help Sasha and Fergie, mainly Fergie because he was a friend of hers and anyone in trouble for helping defend Fergie deserved Kit's respect and aid wherever she could give it. Especially from Callum.

"I wanted to apologize," Kit told her one and only Slytherin friend. "I should have helped you in class against Callum."

She looked back to Sasha, trying to balance being polite and proper in this situation. Hardly a typical Miss Manners situation.

"I'm sure half of the student populace, myself included, agree with the professor that Mr. Knight was given exactly what he deserved, but that's hardly going to settle the brute down," Kit said, choosing to focus on the problem that could be tackled (literally), instead of the larger more ominous one in the paper that would likely greatly reduce Sasha's support amoung their fellow students.

"I don't suppose you've been practicing other effective offensive spells with less questionable origin?" Kit asked. If Callum's history was anything to go by, Sasha would need them.

Figaro was the sort of person who did believe most everything he heard until he heard different.  He didn't now enough about the Prophet to be able to say which reporters were crooked and which weren't, like Sophie and Kit, who seemed content to keep on at comforting Sasha.

"No no no," he butted in, leaning in over the table to get a more full on look at Sasha, and to show him the Prophet.  He nearly put his elbow in the gravy, but another Ravenclaw snagged it out of the way with an annoyed look.

"Sasha, you see this, mate? Not true is it? You didn't ... kill anyone did you?  Your family's okay, right?"

As previously stated, Figaro had to know for himself.  It couldn't be true.  Clearly Kit and Sophie didn't believe a word of it, but Fig had to know.  From Sasha.  Who'd know.