Callum had been pleased with the rumormill that devoured his little hand outs that were a supposed entry from Amherst's diary. That had been a good way to get back at both of them for ruining his life. They had declared war, and by Salazar, he was going to wage it! And he was going to win.

The same day that Sasha had used that dark magic against him, an article had been released claiming that Sasha had killed a wizard in his home. Not just any wizard, a dark wizard, an Ex-Azzie. That was some hardcore stuff right there. If Schlagenweit was capable of murder, he had no place in Hogwarts. (Callum honestly thought it was a bunch of bunk. Sasha couldn't kill a fly if it landed in his soup.) But it had fed more fuel to the flames of his humiliation that day. And he could not just let that go.

Though he was good with wand magic, photo manipulation was not something he was skilled with. Callum had located an old wanted poster of an Azkaban escapee and found a picture of Schlagenweit to use to doctor it up. It was a pretty bang up job, but it didn't need to look realistic- as long as it had the desired effect. Hopefully it would.

As soon as he got out of potions, Callum made his way to the Great Hall. He had decided study break would be the perfect time to post them there. All of the students would see them at lunch, have a chance to gossip about it, and if any remained come dinner they would be a good reminder. Sasha's next class would be hell. Which was his ultimate goal. And so, with a tub of some ever-stick goop he had owled Hogsmeade for, and the posters in hand. The magical adhesive was some pretty strong stuff. It required a specific solvent in order to break the bond between items- and it had not been cheap. Callum had been well aware a standard adhesive would be no good. The Ravenclaw had too many supporters willing to tear down his public service announcement.

The first poster that Callum placed was glued directly in the middle of the Ravenclaw house table. He moved down the table- and about every meter or so pasted another poster to the table. "That will teach you, you stupid git," he muttered, smoothing the last one out and moving on to the Hufflepuff table. If they were even literate enough to understand the severity of the situation. He would use them sparingly at that table- everyone knew Badgers were idiots.

Fauna sat on the far side of the Hufflepuff table, slouching over her sandwich and ignoring the chatter around her. This week was the first time in her life that she'd wished she and Adelia had been sorted into different houses. Everywhere she went, Addie was there; in classes, in the common room, in the dormitory. The letter her father (and Addie's) had sent her on the 12th had crushed her, and she simply wasn't ready to talk things out with Addie yet. So she had withdrawn, doing her best to avoid everyone. It was harder than she thought it would be to become invisible again when she had done so much in the past few months to get noticed.

She sighed, looking up glumly as the Ravenclaws erupted in whispers. What now, Fauna thought, suspicious that she was the one being gossiped about.

Fauna half-stood from her chair and peered over, catching a glimpse of the posters Callum slapped on the Ravenclaw house table. Sasha's face, on a Wanted style poster. The word Murderer clearly scrawled at the top.

Oh, hell.

She suddenly remembered that she wasn't the only one miserable this month. In fact, she had it a lot easier than some people.

Fauna stood up in order to see better. She knew about what had happened during Storm's class with the fifth-years, and she'd read the Prophet article about Sasha killing someone. But really, Sasha and 'killing' in the same sentence didn't make any sense. Fauna could only assume there must be some kind of mistake.

Callum was clearly on a rampage here, as if the diary entries he'd printed hadn't been enough.

She watched his face, taking in his smug, righteous expression. Fauna shook her head, anger starting to simmer. He was such an arse! Why couldn't he leave things alone? Why did he have to make things worse?

Pushing out of her seat, she moved forward as Callum began walking towards the Hufflepuff table. Her heart started racing, and she hesitated for a second. Sasha wasn't even her friend anymore. If she wanted to avoid attention all she needed to do was let Callum slap a stupid poster on the table.

Yet all the angry and miserable feelings she'd been trying to shove away this week came surging forth, demanding that she pay attention to them. And here Callum was, looking so superior. He wouldn't be doing this in public if he didn't want someone to try to stop him. He was almost inviting conflict, she told herself.

Eyes narrowing, Fauna stepped in front of him before he reached the table. "Don't even think about it," she warned him in a low voice. "You can put those away now."

Like he'd listen to her! She glanced at the empty staff table, then looked back at him and glared.

Callum looked up as he heard a voice, and laughed when he realized it was Fauna Blake. "And who are you to tell me what to do, hm?" he asked, dumping some goo onto the Hufflepuff table and slapping a poster down. He rubbed his hand around to smooth it out and spread out the goop. "I don't see any badge pinned to your chest." Callum had a hard time refraining from making some snide comment about her boobs when he mentioned that. Something about a badge deflating the balloons she was smuggling, things like that. He wasn't here to pick a fight with Fauna Blake. Callum was here to let the entire school know that they were sharing the halls with a murderer.

Callum followed her gaze to the staff table, and couldn't help but grin. He had chosen to do this during study break for that very reason. He'd get his posters put up, and he'd skip out on lunch so that nobody turned him when the staff table figured out what was going on... Then he'd head on to class. Maybe. He might have to skip classes to avoid getting in trouble with the professors. He'd figure that out later on, though. For now, his main goal was to get these posters up... and also to annoy Fauna Blake. Because he could. Because she was a Hufflepuff and she wore stupid hats and stupid outfits. Like right now. She was wearing denim overalls. Only babies should wear anything that was a one-piece of clothing. It matched her stupid badger face though.

"You saw the article, didn't you? Sasha Schlagenweit killed a death eater- and nobody wants to know how he managed something like that? Spent his holidays with a criminal, he did. And now he's learned so much dark magic I bet the filthy partbreed bleeds black. And I happen to think it's my duty to make sure that the students are aware of who exactly they're dealng with. Slimy git already attacked me- who's to say someone else isn't next? Maybe it'll be you..."

"He has been snogging Amherst. That probably makes him easily offended by your fashion choices... Maybe next time you wear something so ridiculous, Schalgenweit will nail you with a killing curse- right between your wide set eyes." Callum reached out then, and intending to poke her in that spot between her eyes, then chuckled darkly. "If you live that long. You're chances of survival aren't good- being a Hufflepuff and all. So why don't you be a good badger, and go dig a hole and sit in it?" With that, Callum slapped another posted down on the Hufflepuff table, a few strides away from where he left Fauna standing.

Fauna was not surprised when Callum laughed at her, told her she couldn't do anything to him, and moved past her to slap the first poster on the table. Her eye twitched at the sound. She gritted her teeth. One point for Callum, zero for her. She was not surprised at all, really, because she was used to this kind of treatment from people like Maeve, and in her experience the best thing to do was to let it happen and try to move on.

But she stood there as he grinned and continued talking. For a bully, he was annoyingly loquacious. Fauna took that moment to test the strength of the sticking charm on the poster, nudging the corner with her finger, but it didn't budge. It probably needed a special spell of some sort.

"Oh, it's your duty," Fauna repeated his words, rolling her eyes. She wanted to say more, especially about the ridiculous idea that Sasha would hex her next, when he went on.

She shook her head when he explained that Sasha and Fergie had been snogging each other, and that their snogging preferences suddenly gave them insight into her fashion choices. And would somehow predict whether Sasha would Avada Kedavra her.

Her 'wide-set' eyes widened in shock when he actually reached out and poked her. Fauna drew back and swatted at his hand. What the hell was this? What was with the dire predictions about her life span?

As he slapped another poster on the table and insulted Hufflepuffs at the same time, Fauna realized something. This wasn't even about Sasha. This was about Callum being a complete git.

Her heart still thudded in her chest and her face flushed. He wasn't going to stop, or change. Her words certainly wouldn't stop him.

She sneaked another glance at the staff table- still empty!

No, she was going to have to find another way to get his attention.

While he was distracted vandalizing the Hufflepuff table, Fauna drew her wand and pointed it in his direction. "Accio posters!"

The stack of posters zoomed towards her. She caught most of them, and then marched over to the rubbish bin and threw them in.

Fauna turned, stepped on two of the stray posters that had floated to the floor, and rubbed her foot on them, satisfied when a dark footprint marred Callum's work (and consequently, Sasha's face).

She gave him an equally dark look and kept her wand in hand. Knowing him, he wouldn't let it go at that.

Though he was no expert at divination, even Sasha was aware of the ominous foreboding when he slipped into the Great Hall.  He'd been focused on his destination, the Ravenclaw table, so it was the strange clusters of whispering housemates he noticed first.  Then with a strange, unnatural quality to it, a silence rippled through the clusters as they turned to look at him.  Their faces all held the same mixture of curiosity and pity they had during the initial sensationalization when the latest article had come out.  What had happened now?  And, did he even really want to know?  It wasn't like there was much they didn't already know.

Sasha hesitated a moment and started to turn to leave the Great Hall, certain he had no interest in knowing what had led to this round of murmuring.  It was then he noticed Knight lingering by the Hufflepuff table with ... Fauna?  If it weren't for her obvious look of irritation, Sasha would have assumed this was just some new part of her bad-girl image. 

Fauna summoned a stack of papers from Knight's hands and Sasha couldn't resist glancing, curiously, back at his own house table.  Everyone now seemed to be avoiding looking in his direction and a fourth year was bent over the table, trying to pry something up with his fingernail.  He looked back towards Fauna just in time to see her chuck the stack of papers in the rummage bin. 

Knight and Fauna.  Even if Fauna and Knight weren't, somehow, friends now this spelled trouble for Sasha.  Whatever was going on between them, he wanted no part of it.  He also was fairly certain he didn't want any part of those papers that had been in Knight''s hands.  It was time to take his leave as subtly as he could. 

 Fergie had no intention of going anywhere near Callum Knight and whatever it was the unpleasant Slytherin boy was doing. Knight seemed to be devoting more time than usual to making Fergie's life difficult, after that scene in DADA. First destroying his wand, then those fake journal entries... not to mention the fact that the other boy had been shoving Fergie's head in a toilet more often than usual. Charming, right?

 So when Ferguson entered the Great Hall during study break, he at first kept his gaze carefully averted. Whatever Callum was doing, Fergie was sure he'd find out eventually. He would put off the unpleasant revelation as long as possible. As long as he didn't know, it couldn't effect him, after all. Instead, he'd begun to head in the direction where he'd spotted Sasha.

 He was distracted, however, by Fauna summoning the stack of posters Callum was affixing to the Hufflepuff tabletop. Now he was curious, and deviated from his chosen path to step forward and see what all the commotion was bout. Still keeping his distance from Callum (he didn't have a death wish), Fergie made his way over to the bin Fauna had chucked the posers into and peered inside.

 What he saw there made him freeze. Oh. Oh Godric. This was... Bad was an inadequate understatement for what this was. Sasha'd been having such a hard time lately, he didn't need this. Fergie's head shot up again, gaze flying from Sasha's face on the posters to Sasha's face in real life. Maybe he hadn't seen yet. And if Fergie could get him out of the Great Hall before he did...

 The Slytherin quickly strode over, throwing a momentary glance over his shoulder at Fauna and Callum, before reaching out to take the Ravenclaw by the arm. "We need to leave now."

Callum was entirely shocked that Fauna summoned his posters, and dumped them in the trash. The wretch was supposed to be spineless. She wasn't supposed to... to... She wasn't supposed to treat him like this! "You need to learn your place in this world!" he hissed, stepping toward her. "It would make life a hell of a lot easier for you if you learned it. Here, let me educate you." Callum took another step toward her, drawing his wand to summon his papers from the garbage before starting in on his lecture.

"First and foremost- you're a woman. You lack the manly appendage that gives a person the right to behave as you're behaving now. Maybe you weren't raised properly- but here, let me help. Women are inferior to men. You were bred to be seen and not heard. The only reason we suffer your idiocies is because we need something you have- and we enjoy the process of making babies. The only reason you're on this earth is to make us happy, and to gives us heirs. You're not required to think. We do the thinking for you. This is a man's world- and you'll never be equal. It's fact."

"Secondly- you're in my world mudblood. I can trace my wizarding heritage back to the druids. Pureblood back so many generations you probably couldn't count that high. You have no right to use magic against someone so superior. And quite frankly, it's none of your fat nose's business what I'm doing with these posters. And unless you want to pay me for the cost and time I put into them- I would suggest keeping your mits off of them!" Callum slapped one more down onto the Hufflepuff table and was moving on to the Gryffindor table when he caught sight of Schlagenweit and Amherst.

Callum still remembered what he had suffered from the end of sasha's wand. "Hold this for me, would you?" he asked Fauna, dropping some goop onto a poster and then pressing it to her forehead. "You can be a walking advertisement."

The Slytherin then flicked his wand at Sasha. "Accio Schlagenweit's wand!" He watched as the wooden stick came flying toward him. Callum snatched it out of the air, and tucked it into the waistband of his trousers, then cinched his cloak. "Try to defend yourself without your wand, Schlagenweit. No more fancy tricks from you. Guess you and your boyfriend will have to learn to fight like men for once... Should be easy for a murderer to be a man, don't you think? Unless you killed him from behind, like a real coward. Probably didn't even use your wand. Probably did it all barbaric like a muggle would. Blake would know something about that, wouldn't you?" he asked, turning his attention back to Fauna.

"Tell us Blake, how do you barbarians usually take care of business like that? Boomsticks? Bare hands? Knives?"

Josh had been nearby, but had previously decided not to intervene. He changed his mind when Knight decided to call Blake inferior. He strode over.

“Callum Knight, I do not believe that I have heard more ignorant tripe than you are spewing. 20 points from Slytherin, and for your information, you are not superior to Fauna Blake, It's been years since blood mattered, longer still since it mattered if you were male or female. In fact, while I personally am sure fauna will be a success in whatever she decides to do, I imagine you will end up in Azkaban, or, more likely, dead. And before you say you are superior to me, while my mother might be muggle-born, we actually can't figure out how far back my father's line goes, since it goes back so far. Last I’m aware, my line helped found the druids. “Josh said.

Josh then took out his wand, muttering a few spells that would usually release adhesive. They didn’t work, so he took a quick look at what Knight was holding. He spotted the adhesive, and recognised it. Unfortunateyl, itwas a rare adhesive, and he didn't have the nessecary solvent to remove it.

Turning back to Knight, he also demanded. "Knight, hand over Schlagenweit's wand. Now, or do i need to take you to the Headmistress, who would likely take a very dim view of what you have done?

OOC: I'm 99% certain prefects can take points, just not from fellow prefects. feel free to have your characters claim otherwise IC though.

Often, Jordyn would ignore everything going on around her.  In fact, she typically did, particularly when it was going on in the Great Hall and Callum Knight was involved.  It was no secret that she detested the Slytherin and wished that he would fall down in the Chamber of Secrets, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t allowed to say what he wanted to say.  It wasn’t like he wasn’t saying anything other people weren’t whispering about.  He just lacked the tact to whisper with the rest of the crowd and decided to make posters instead.

Somehow, she had always thought he was too dumb to employ a pair of scissors and adhesive to do anything, but he endlessly astounded with the level to which he went at things.  The general atmosphere was, of course, flaring up with heated feelings about Schlagenweit and whatever he did.  Honestly, Jordyn figured whatever happened would be taken care of by somebody, but it wasn’t going to be a student. 

And even if Knight was toting some sort of hatred or another, it didn’t surprise her and much less concern her enough to intervene.  He was a chauvinist, and an idiot. And if he couldn’t form an argument for what he was saying beyond, “My daddy told me,” then she put very little, if any stock into what he said.  She knew that doing anything about it wasn’t going to change it by intervening.  Besides, he made some valid points about her fashion sense… as much as it pained her to admit.

She did not appreciate him talking about Fergie though, nor did she like his implications.  Whatever he got off of making other people feel bad, she couldn’t rightly approve.  She just… well, If it got physical – in the beat up sense, she would have to do something, but here pushing a poster on someone’s forehead? They’d get over it.  She didn’t like to use her influence unless she had to.  It did not seem like something she had to do, Blake – for all it was worth – seemed to be holding her own, even if she was doing so in vain, Knight was as dense as a freshly pressed knut. 

Sipping her pumpkin juice,  she was content to just let it go to where it was going to go until she heard a voice she had come to dislike more than any other voice of any other fifth year prefect.  Harcroft.  She could feel the blood already rushing through her temple as he declared twenty points.  Her jaw practically dropped and the pumpkin juice fell from her hands, spilling all over the table, she jumped up almost immediately to avoid staining her pristine shirt with the orange juice.  A few drops landed on her knee sock – a grumble escaping her lips as she realized she’d have to tag a parchment note for the house elf on them.  They were cashmere!  Ugh! 

Turning on her heel, Jordyn tossed her napkin back and frowned deeply.  “Harcroft, stick to your own house.  I’ll deal with the problems in mine.  You have no right to take points from a Slytherin, it’s the rule.”* Her voice cut harshly through the air, almost hissing as she staked her claim on the punitive issues applicable here.  It wasn’t his problem and he would be wise to drag his bum back to the Gryffindor table and let her deal with it now, because she obviously had to. 

“I think a detention is a far more suitable punishment anyway.  Dusting in the library with Morgan would be far more fitting.”  She crossed her arms over her chest and looked straight at Harcroft, it wasn’t even about Callum for her – he could go suck on a knut, but no one stepped on her toes. 

*Taken from the HP Wiki entry on Prefects: Prefects are allowed to take House points away from other students in their own house as a penalty for rule-breaking, but they are not allowed to take points from other prefects or students in other houses.

Fauna noticed Sasha come into the Great Hall, and pause. She saw Fergie peek into the bin. And she saw the look on Callum's face when he realized she'd thrown his ridiculous propaganda away.

Watching his expression shift to mingled shock and outrage was very satisfying. The corner of her lip curved up and the possible consequences of her actions floated out of her head. All she felt for a moment was smug. Ha! That that!

But the smugness fell away as he stepped forward, summoned back the posters, and lectured her about her 'place' in the world. Fauna stared at him, sickened and taken aback. She'd heard what a chauvinist he was, but there was no way to be prepared for the archaic shite spewing out of his mouth. In some ways it was worse than the insults from Maeve and her friends, who though they had very specific ideas about how girls should act, they'd never faulted her for being both female and muggleborn.

Fauna glanced around at the students in the Great Hall who were chuckling uneasily. She tried to push back the shame, knowing that he was wrong, and knowing that making her feel bad was his intent, and yet she couldn't.

And then it all got so much worse!

When he put the glue on the poster and reached for her, she froze up, unsure what the hell was happening until he drew back and she had the damn poster stuck to her forehead. Her face burned as she gripped her wand- Merlin, she still had her wand in her hand and she hadn't done anything. As the shocked laughter from the crowd got louder, she was almost glad they couldn't see her horrified face, and she was almost relieved he hadn't done anything worse, and she hated herself for some part of her being grateful that he'd only humiliated her.

It was through a haze that she heard Callum summon Sasha's wand and berate the two boys. As some of the attention was diverted from her, she swallowed down the lump in her throat, reached up, and gently tugged at the poster.

Ow. Shite.

It was stuck, like the idiot kid from the Christmas Story who'd stuck his tongue to the flag pole. She fought back the panic that made her want to tug at the poster harder, and instead focused on tearing the poster off right above her eyes. She still looked like a duffer with part of the poster stuck to her forehead, but at least she was a duffer who could see.

By that time, Callum had asked her a question that she didn't quite catch (probably more muggle hating drivel), and Josh had appeared and told him off. Fauna crumpled the rest of the poster in her hand and threw it in the trash. She felt both embarrassed and glad that the prefect had done something, but shook her head when he tried a few spells to remove the poster.

"It's fine," she said, not wanting everyone to look at her. "I'll take care of it later." Which probably meant running to Tulo like she did every time she had a problem.

Soon Jordyn spoke, her Slytherin-spidey sense tingling just because another prefect was stepping on her turf and trying to get Callum to act like a decent human being. Fauna resisted rolling her eyes. She was not a fan of the fifth-year, and thought she should have stepped in much earlier if she'd had the power to do so.

"Gee, maybe he should, I don't know, clean up the posters too," Fauna muttered crossly after Jordyn suggested her idea of a suitable punishment. Dusting in the library? One of those duties that Callum surely believed a woman or a house elf should do, but still, those posters had to go.

Spotting Fergie, Sasha hesitated in the doorway, watching as the Slytherin made an obvious detour towards Knight and Fauna.  Cautious curiosity flickered, briefly, in Sasha's face when Fergie looked up from rubbage bin and across the hall at him.  Fergie stepped hastily away from the bin and started towards Sasha once more, a new sense of urgency in his stride.  Obviously, whatever was on the pieces of parchment was bad news; no surprise, considering the source. 

Sasha's shoulders drooped as the sense of foreboding morphed into dread.  It was clear, by the time the other young man took him by the arm, that whatever Knight was up to had something to do with them or him.  Though, why that lead to Knight laying into Fauna for ... whatever (from where he stood, he could only hear the occasional word the brute was flinging at the older Hufflepuff), Sasha didn't know.  "What's he -"  Sasha started to ask Fergie, quietly, before shaking his head.  He trusted Fergie completely and without question; if Ferguson was insisting they needed to leave then Sasha would accept that.  He ducked his head and started to follow towards the door when he heard Knight cast the spell and, then, felt his wand wriggle loose from his pocket. 

He turned and started to make a quick, desperate snatch at the wand as it hurtled through the air towards Knight but he wasn't even close.  The wand had found its way into Knight's hand by the time Sasha had turned, his eyes lighting across the place where Fauna's face had been before he'd even managed to snatch at his wand.  But, it hadn't been Fauna's face that had been looking back at him from across the room; it had been his own, grinning goofily back at him in strange, sepia tones.  For a moment, Sasha scowled in confusion then glanced at Fergie, a desperate question etched clearly across his face before looking back.  From where he stood, Sasha could only make out the large print at the top of the page but it was enough.  Heat seared across his face and he took a deep, shaky breath and tried to swallow past the lump in his throat.  Then, Knight started into him. 

"I - I didn't ..." Sasha started desperately in his own defense, shaking his head.  "I'm not a - I was defending myself!  He was - that man was going to kill me!  He'd already killed my family!  I didn't know what else to do.  And, you have no right to judge me!"  It had been the defense Sasha had been telling himself over and over.  But, everything had happened so quickly - all he really, distinctly remembered was that grisly old face coming at him in the dark, that wand ending up in his hand and Sasha firing off the first spell that had come to mind.  Is that what people thought, though?  Did they really think he was a murderer? 

And, were they taking Knight's assumptions about Sasha and Fergie seriously?  He'd hoped, when neither he nor Fergie had responded to the initial accusations during their Defense class that nobody would notice.  But, in true Knight fashion, he couldn't let it go.  "And, he's not - we're just friends!  I'm ... I'm not like that!"  He ignored the pang of guilt but forced himself not to look at Fergie, despite the urge to offer an unspoken apology.  It was mostly true, after all.  They weren't boyfriends though Sasha was slowly accepting they weren't, exactly, just friends either.  He really wasn't quite sure what, exactly, they were or even how one determined such things.  All of which wasn't a public discussion.

"Give me back my wand."  He knew it had been pointless even before he'd said it.  His best and only hope at this point would be staff intervention.  And, he was highly doubtful Josh's intervention would count.  Or Jordyn's.  The red in his face grew several shades darker as the crowd around them grew in numbers and he wanted nothing more than to turn and rush out of the Great Hall and away from all the curious glances.  But, he knew, he stood no chance of seeing his wand again if he did so.  The chances of getting it back were already slim enough as it was. 

 Fergie felt sorry for Fauna, he really did. She was a nice girl, just with an unfortunate taste in headwear. She didn't deserve to be on the receiving end of one of Callum's ignorant tirades. And had Fergie not felt the need to get Sasha out of there as soon as possible, he would have stuck around and told his housemate where he could stick his opinions on Sasha, women, blood purity, and, well, pretty much everything else. It might not have done any good and he probably would have gotten his face bashed in, but it would have been worth it.

 Of course, in the end Fergie ended up sticking around anyway. Upon hearing the summoning spell, he whirled around, a scowl settling on his face. Seriously? Callum couldn't just let them walk away? Wasn't what he'd already done bad enough? Ferguson didn't see how even Knight could think it all right to make things even worse. He guessed it helped that Callum had absolutely no conscience and a shriveled up bubotuber where his heart should be.

 Fergie returned Sasha's questioning look with an apologetic one. The Ravenclaw had already been through more than enough - he didn't deserve this.  Especially not over something as idiotic as Callum's hurt pride. "Leave him alone, Knight." Fergie crossed his arms and redirected his attention towards the bully. Honestly, he couldn't remember ever wanting to hit anyone as much as he wanted to hit Callum Knight right now. What the hell was his problem?

 Harcroft soon stepped in, speaking up for Fauna and trying to remove the poster Callum had stuck there. It didn't work. Fergie wasn't surprised. Callum wasn't the type to let work like this be undone easily. Poor Fauna. And, really, he hoped Harcroft wasn't fool enough to think Callum would just hand the wand over. Knight didn't listen to anybody unless he had to. All Josh had earned himself, more than likely, was an unpleasant hexing. And apparently the wrath of Jordyn. Who he loved with all his heart, he did, but honestly? A detention? Knight deserved a whole lot more than that.

 "Just ignore him, Sasha," Fergie recommended, standing by the Ravenclaw's side and continuing to glare at Callum while the tall blonde attempted to defend himself against Callum's accusations. "Anyone with an iota of sense knows you're not a... He's just being a trouble making arse. Don't let him get to you."

  "And, he's not - we're just friends!  I'm ... I'm not like that!"

  Oh...

 Fergie couldn't help it, he flinched, head involuntarily turning to look at Sasha, a hurt expression flickering across his face. Which was, he knew, ridiculous. It wasn't like he wanted Callum, let alone anyone else, to know that they were... what? Just friends, he supposed. Because Sasha wasn't like that. Strange. Sasha seemed plenty like that when his lips were pressed against Fergie's.

 "He's right." The Slytherin said quietly, shrugging and trying to be nonchalant about it. "We're just friends. You'd have to be an idiot to think otherwise." Like him, apparently. "Just give him back his wand and let us go, please?"

Callum laughed when Harcroft tried to take points away from him. "You fat git, you can't take points from a Slytherin. What kind of idiotic prefect are you to not know how it works?" He shook his head, "Guess Gryffindor didn't have any better choices, did they? You lot are about as worthless as the badgers. At least they're smart enough to hide in their holes instead of having to be the damn hero all the time."

"And just because you got one line of pureblood doesn't mean a damn thing if the other line is muddy. Means you're worthless to me. And to anyone with good sense." And he was a right fool to think Callum would end up in Azkaban. Chances were he made better grades than Harcroft did. Callum, contrary to popular belief, studied, did his work, and busted his ass to make good grades- otherwise his dad would murder him.

When Jordyn interfered, he gave his prefect a charming smile. "Thank you Miss Dimbleby for putting him back into his right place. And I'll agree to that- I didn't expect to get away without a detention for this. I just think it's my civic duty to make sure the school knows the truth about who we're learning alongside next to. I don't know about you, but I don't think I feel very safe studying with a murderer who's allowed to get away with using dark magic in class."

Callum was surprised when Fauna tore the poster off across thet op of her eyes. He had expected she would tug on it, then leave it there because it couldn't be removed. She was smarter than she looked. "Didn't think you'd be smart enough to figure that out, Blake. But now you've got a name tag. People are going to think you're the murderer. We all know you've not got the spine for that..."

"And don't talk about my arse, Amherst. It's already bad enough sharing a dormitory with you. Writin' in your diary, putting Schlagenweit's name in hearts and burning scented candles. They ought to send you to the girls' dorm. You wouldn't be looking at them in the shower the way I see you looking at Tawse and Pennyapple."

His attention was diverted when Sasha finally spoke up again. "Not like that?" Callum saw Fergie flinch, and there was a tiny part of him that felt a little bad. If Maeve had said that about him, he'd be hurt. But that was different. He hated Fergie for what he was, and he hated Schlagenweit for... well... being Schlagenweit. "Well both of your boyfriends will be disappointed to hear that, Amherst obviously is. Seems you've got Harcroft in love with you now, too. Sampling different houses? Who'd you pull from Hufflepuff? Matty Amherst? Going to keep it all in the family?"

And then Harcroft and Schlagenweit both demanded that he return the wand. Callum tucked the papers and adhesive in his pack, and slung it over his shoulder. "You mean this wand?" he asked, tugging it from the waistband of his trousers. "You know, they say brittle wands are the best for dark magic- and it means you're insecure. How brittle is your wand, Schlagenweit? Why don't we find out!" Tightly gripping both ends, Callum snapped it in half with apparent ease. "Ooh, tough luck, Schlagenweit!" He dropped it on the ground, then pointed his own wand at it. Confringo!" There was a loud pop as the curse left his wand. When it collided with Sasha's there was even louder pop, a lot of dueling sparks, and them a large cloud of dark smoke rose from the ground where his wand had been. Callum waved his arm around until it dispersed, and a satsifed smirk settled onto his face when he saw the pile of dust. "Have the wand, I don't want it," he stated, picking it up and blowing the dust in Sasha's face.

Josh was now angry at Knight for destroying another student's wand. He was slightly irritated at Jordyn calling his bluff in public, but he hadn't truly expected it to work. " Knight. First, purists area dying breed. Second, have you heard of self-defence? It isn't restricted to stunners, Knight. At worst, it would be a crime of passion. He came home to fidn his parents murdered and the murderer still in the house. In that situation, I would have probably used lethal force as well." Josh said. Then he burst into laghter when Knight said he was in love with Sasha. "and nope, I'm not in  love with any boy. It's a girl thta's captured my heart" Then he said, no longer laughing, " Knight you realise that intentional destruction of someone else's wand is a criminal offense? The ministry is the only body that can desroy a wand, and only wih the wzengamot's express permission." Josh said, hoping a professor would come soon.

Apparently what Jordyn had walked in on before was just the tip of the iceberg and Harcroft was the tippy-top of that.  In comparison, his tendencies towards power-tripping and self-righteousness beyond the call of prefect duty were small nargles compared to Callum’s attitude and even Fauna Blake was snipping.  Jordyn was just trying to lay down a fair punishment.  Perhaps cleaning things up would further humiliate the boy into thinking about what he did before he did it. 

Glancing at Callum who decided it was going to be a good time to sweet talk, Jordyn suppressed some eye rolling, “A week of detention, Knight. And you have to clean all of this up,” she motioned to the posters that were on the floor and on the tables.  She didn’t want this around, it was trash and however much she was not a complete fan of Schlagenweit’s, she didn’t want to humiliate him either.  It wasn’t Callum’s place to deal with it and if he had concerns, he could go to Snark, not put up posters.  “You can go to Snark with your concerns, but keep it out of the Great Hall.” 

She glanced at Fauna with an expression that might have read ‘are you happy now?’ if Jordyn actually cared about Fauna’s happiness.  Since when did Blake find a voice for herself?   Honestly, she had just been the weird, quiet girl who liked to kiss other girls and Devlin before – now she was actually… doing things.  It struck Jordyn as bizarre, but not important.  She was trying to make this as smooth as possible and affect Slytherin as little as possible.  They had a reputation which she tried to tone down as a prefect, she certainly didn’t need this to blacken their name. 

She had assumed it was taken care of, that things were going to calm.  But, it hit the fan.  Callum summoned Schlagenweit’s wand and they were arguing back and forth.  She glared at the Ravenclaw, having thought he knew better than that.  Knight was an idiot, and to play into what he was saying, to – to say things in response to him, it was useless.  And it was hurtful.  She watched the fight and a tick caught her by surprise – almost unnoticeable to anyone who wasn’t looking, but she spied it.  Fergie tensed up and the almost lightening fast look of hurt on his face had not escaped her.

Jordyn would ask about that later. 

Immediately her eyes turned to the wand in dispute.  “Callum Knight,” she started in a stern tone – hoping it would get his attention, but Harcroft and Schlagenweit’s voices overpowered hers.  Everything happened so fast after that, the taunting, the drop and then the curse.  Jordyn jumped as the sparks flew from Callum’s wand and set upon the wand.  “Knight!” she practically screeched, completely unsure of how to deal with this one at this point. 

Harcroft was doing nothing by lecturing Callum.  In fact, Callum would probably laugh at him.  Jordyn almost did and she was absolutely horrified by what just happened.  Taking away a wizard’s wand, no matter the wizard, and destroying it was a grave offense.  She could think of only one option. 

“We are going directly to Madame Snark’s office! This is completely unacceptable. Completely inappropriate!” She would have grabbed his ear and dragged him if she could, but she was afraid he might use magic against her as well.  Apparently he wasn’t afraid to use curses at will either.  “Right now,” she gritted her teeth and started to turn on her heel, watching him with her dark eyes to get him to follow.  She was not playing around and if he wanted to save his own skin he was going to come with her now.