Salazar's Gold PV Group

@Scarlet Salvatore @Liana Kerr @Hildegard Schneider @Maggie Hawkins @Geoffrey Donovan

Despite not being the studious type back home, Rhys had done quite the one-eighty here at Hogwarts. There was something about all the subjects he was taking that he found rather fascinating, including History of Magic, which was saying something considering he typically hated history. And true to form, he dove headlong into all of it because he found it all so interesting. And what eleven-year-old wouldn’t? It was magic, after all.

Today he had been invited to some kind of a study group, which he happily accepted, but in all his excitement he turned up a bit early. He'd gathered his things and made himself comfortable in the library, hoping to get some homework done and read up a little bit more about the school’s history before the others showed up. Admittedly he wasn’t sure who else would be there, and as he often struggled when it came to meeting new people he was a little bit worried, but knowing at least Avery would be there eased his mind. He had started thumbing through a thick, leather-bound book when he heard the doors open and a familiar voice echoing in the normally quiet room. He looked up, green eyes curious as ever, trying to spot the boy to whom the voice belonged—Avery Chen. Seemed he was recounting the events on their boat ride into the school.

He felt his cheeks go a bit hot at the memory, but all the same he again gathered his things, including his copy of Hogwarts, A History by Garius Tombkink, and headed over.

Rhys attempted a wave back, but between the book and his bag he only managed a weird, almost silly sort of motion with his arm. As soon as he set the book down on their table, though, he waved back properly.

“Hey, Avery,” the boy greeted in turn, then looked at each of the other students Avery pointed out and did his best to commit their names and faces to memory. As ever, they were familiar only from the sorting ceremony and some of their classes. “Hi, name's..." he paused, still pondering about how to go about introducing himself. Actual name or nickname? Avery had already gone with Rhys so...

"I'm Rhys. It's good to meet you all, and also thanks for the invite.” Despite Avery's friendliness he couldn't help but feel the odd one out. It was hard to miss the fact that all four of them were from Slytherin, but he put it out of his mind as best he could and took an open seat at their table. He was about to start taking his quill and some parchment out when someone mentioned something about some treasure.

The word on its own was enough to pique the young Gryffindor’s interest.

He looked over at Avery first, then the other student. She looked older than the rest of them, and sounded it, too, given the way she referred to them as first years. “I haven’t got too far in Hogwarts, A History. Are there clues in there, maybe?” he asked, doing his best not to sound too eager.

@Scarlet Salvatore · @Avery Chen · @Liana Kerr · @Hildegard Schneider · @Maggie Hawkins

─────Maggie listened to the heroic retelling of Geoffery Donovan with rapt attention. Sure, she'd been there, but that hardly counted. She was on a completely separate boat and hardly saw half the action, only that some kid had fallen over board and vomited. Which had been hilarious, honestly, and was even funnier now that she knew that it had been her friend who had gone capsized. Wonderful turn of events.

"Oh, Merlin's beard, that was you, Avery? I saw some kid go overboard but I had no idea it was you," Maggie guffawed, a picture of amusement and surprise. Avery Chen had quite the start to the year, hadn't he? What an introduction to Hogwarts! Luckily, his savior in red robes had come to his side.

Speak of the devil.

Maggie perked up at Geoffery's arrival, happy to see the man, the myth, the legend. Absolute unit, he was. Shining example of what a Gryffindor should be, at its core. Or, at the very least, someone to make fun of. "Wowza wowza wowza! Never thought I'd be in the presence of a celebrity," she observed, plopping down beside Rhys and wiggling her fingers at him. No shame, no gain. "Regular Harry Potter, aren't you, Rhys?" She teased, glancing over at his book.

Blah. Boring, boring. Just school stuff. Nothing interesting.

Maggie Hawkins was bold.

Although it seemed that their little study group was about to get a whole lot more interesting, wasn't it? Scarlet Salvatore. Something about the name and the fact that she was older just made this all feel so official. So intriguing. Scarlet Salvatore already held Maggie's attention and she had just now met the girl. "Treasure? Like, pirate's treasure?" Maggie looked around their table with a bright grin. "Bloody hell, we're like the Goonies! The Goonies, guys!"

Just one important thing had been glossed over. Maggie hadn't the faintest idea what sort of treasure Salazar's Gold really was.

The closer they got to the library, the more uncomfortable Liana was feeling about how much noise their little group was making, what with Avery telling his story so expressively and others reacting without much restriction. However, she couldn't deny her interest in it. After all, she had heard a considerable commotion when crossing the lake, and it had seriously spooked Aedan who shared her boat. At that time she was both worried about the person or people who were apparently drowning and also annoyed at them for scaring the jumpy boy she had barely managed to calm down just moments before. Now she knew who the culprit was. Or, rather, culprits. Avery and Hildegard. The two of them certainly had a curious relationship. If someone had pushed Liana out of the boat there would be no chance for a friendship, especially not such a close friendship as her two housemates seemed to share.

''Wait, you mean the caretaker incited the panic?'' she asked incredulously when the Asian boy recounted the incident with the impersonated squid. ''That doesn't seem very responsible.'' This was a huge understatement. Putting students in situations of controlled danger was all fine when they knew how to wield magic, but on September 1 most of them had no experience with the use of spells, and so there was nothing educational about it. She shook her head disapprovingly.

The introduction of the Gryffindor boy caught her attention as well. He seemed to be worthy of wearing the red of his house, if Avery wasn't exaggerating. Still worried about the noise they were making, now already in the library, she nodded politely to the boy and spoke in a muted voice.

''Hello, Rhys. Pleasure to meet you. It seems like the Sorting Hat made a fine decision by placing you in the house of the brave.''

While everyone else was still chatting, she settled down on a chair at the table they picked and took the scribe kit out of her bag - an inkwell, a quill and some parchment rolls. She was willing to give Slytherin a second chance in providing her with a suitable study group before she ditched them for Ravenclaw companions.

Sadly, it seemed that their studies were not meant to commence today. Liana exhaled sharply through her nose when she noticed Scarlet approaching them. This couldn't be good. With narrowed eyes and suspicious demeanour she observed the older girl address them. First, about the ruckus they were causing; the redhead had to grudgingly agree on that point - the library was most certainly not a place to speak as loud as some members of their group did. Then the upperclassman started babbling about a lost treasure, which made Liana sneer. Certainly none of them were gullible enough to buy into this obvious deceit. Right?

Apparently, she overestimated her peers. With mounting horror she watched Avery getting intrigued, Rhys already pondering where to obtain clues, and Maggie being consumed by evident excitement. Uh-oh. Liana had to remember that she was not sorted into the house of the wise. Or the critical-thinking. She was sorted into the house of the greedy and cunning. Suddenly she found herself missing the company of one Hui Ming. While proud, arrogant and lacking in tact, he would not have fallen for such a blatant trickery as this made-up treasure of Salazar Slytherin.

''Are you trying to prevent me from earning points, Scarlet?'' she spoke up, glaring at the brunette. ''This isn't the most efficient way to win. If anything you're just reducing the odds of our house winning the cup. How about you go try to catch up with me in a fair way?'' To be perfectly honest, Liana wasn't certain that she was ahead at this point. Scarlet was far from the hopeless dummy when it came to studies, it seemed, because most of the time this month they were going neck to neck in their little competition. It was making the first-year rather anxious. What if she actually lost? The whole idea of this house point competition was for her to get back at Salvatore, not to submit to a yet another humiliation,

''Guys, this is clearly a lie, there's no gold. Salazar likely left everything to his family. And if there was ever any treasure, it would have been located by other students or professors by now.'' Oh, this was such a waste of time. She could see her words weren't going to make much of an impact. Most of the group had already swallowed the bait. This would be a yet another unsuccessful study session with Slytherins.

Green : talking
Purple : thinking

Hildegard was in a group study, she was a bit more accustom with the people in it and it now seemed like they would be a group she would hang out with often.
Her walking stick was laying on the corner of the table and her cat Walter was on her laps while she was fondling him.
This time it was Liana, Maggie, and Avery, she already started to forge her own opinion on each of them :

-Liana the thickheaded, Liana got mad at Hildegard for some stupid reason.

-Seriously who get mad at someone for lighting a goose's ass and pushing it at other geese ? She's just a thickhead ! Actually it s something you at least have to see in a life time ! She should be thanking me !


-Maggie, the wanna be cool trouble make girl. That girl in Schneider's mind was just a wanna be and never once backed up any of the things she wanted to appear as.
However it was not like she did not like her, in fact the disable girl smirked as she remembered that one time she jinxed a girl discretely in her back while Maggie was watching and did not expose Hilda's deed.

-Avery was a good friend even if it seemed like she'd get into a fight with him easily.
In fact, him re-telling the story of the lake annoyed the German girl.

-Why does he have to tell this to everyone ?! And don't call me crazy ! I'm not crazy ! You are ! She thought.

Her reply was however a bit softer.

-Hey please don't tell this to people like that ! She said before greeting the boy.

-Hello there I sort of remember you, thanks for that other time.

Shortly after the introduction Scarlet Salvatore a girl she only knew by name came complain about the noise and suggested something about a hidden treasure.
The Slytherin witch knew Scarlet as they were in the same dorm, so she trusted her a little, however thickheaded Liana's mistrust was the one thing that made Hilda follow along, specially since it was just talking about it for now, nothing wrong about it.

-Why is she always against the fun things really ? I'd get it if it was scary but this ? She act like a muggle seriously !

-Can you tell us more about this treasure and clues you have ? It sound interesting Scarlet. The greedy girl asked

Interacting with : @Liana Kerr| @Avery Chen |@Maggie Hawkins|@Geoffrey Donovan|@Scarlet Salvatore

More than making up the details of 'Salazar's Gold' on the spot, and with reasonable enough details to convince the group of students, Scarlet knew the biggest challenge she now faced was keeping a straight face whilst everything played out. She was pretty confident in her poker face, she had had no trouble slipping little white lies past people in the past, but how long she would have to keep it up for now, she didn't know, she was determined for this prank not to fall through as a result of her letting a smile slip though.

Aside from Liana, the other first years were all new faces to her, it wasn't until one of the Slytherin boys spoke up first that she realised she knew him as well, vaguely. She was pretty sure he was the same boy that, during the fiasco that occurred in their common room at the start of the year, took on a spectating role on the floor and basically egged on the violence - if it was him, Scarlet had nearly fallen over because of him too. A couple of the girls looked slightly familiar, maybe some of her new dormmates perhaps, or she had just seen them about the common room.

"So you're interested then?" she asked, looking at him, "well... where to start," she continued as she took up an empty seat at the end of the table the group were sat at, "I'm Scarlet by the way, what are your names?" she asked, addressing the whole group.

The other boy of the group, a Gryffindor, was the next to show an interest in the treasure, she needed to think of the first part of her prank pretty fast now, "don't worry about that, Salazar didn't put his first clue in a book that common amongst students, otherwise everyone would end up finding his treasure." One of the many flying books that whizzed through the air caught her eye as it settled into a spot on the top shelf of a bookcase positioned right in the centre of her gaze. That gave her an idea.

Before she could start to explain what they had to do first though, another one of the group (Maggie) spoke, Scarlet gave the girl a friendly smile before she replied, "I guess so, but wizard's treasure in this case, so even better!" Scarlet raised her eyebrows slightly in confusion at the mention of 'Goonies,' she wasn't sure what the girl had meant by that, maybe some kind of treasure hunting wizard she hadn't heard of, either that or it was some kind of muggle term.

She thought it best to address the questions about what exactly Salazar's treasure actually was first after another girl (Hildegard), "well, Slytherin's like to think it was left with the intention of someone of their house finding it - he was pretty well known for favouriting students in Slytherin," she started, adding enough details she knew to be true in the hope of convincing them, "but that doesn't stop people from every house looking for it, it's just that Slytherin's are the ones that tend to hear about it sooner." She didn't believe there was any reason for them to not believe anything she had said so far, maybe Liana, but she doubted the girl could stop the others from perusing the chance of finding it.

"Any of you that do know a little about the history of the school and it's founders, probably know that Salazar ended up leaving the school, but what's left out of most of the books is that he left something behind for members of his house. Since it's believed no one's ever actually found it, or at least told someone they found it, it's not one-hundred percent known what it is, but everyone's come to believe it's a pretty healthy supply of galleons, as well as some kind of solid gold snakes or something." She didn't go into too much detail about the treasure, because of course, how would anyone really know if it was still something yet to be found.

Scarlet's smile lessoned a bit as she turned to Liana after hearing the girl's response to the treasure, "why would I do that, we're in the same house remember," she said back to her, whatever happened, Scarlet wasn't going to lose her cool with Liana again, not if she wanted to make the whole treasure thing happen. "I'm sure he left plenty for his family too, but I mean, he was a founder of the school, I'm guessing he had a lot to go around, and I bet you all know about the whole Chamber of Secrets stuff that happened not that long ago in the grand scheme of the school - how long was it that it took them to find that?" Scarlet directed her question at Liana, hoping she had said enough to keep the others o board. "Okay, any more questions before we get started with the first clue?"

Okay, so I was going to put the stuff about the first clue in this post too, but that's before I saw how long it got, I'll do it in the next one. Also I will be doing some accuracy rolls soon, so it would be great if you could add your stats/abilities in the next post.

@Liana Kerr | @Avery Chen | @Hildegard Schneider | @Maggie Hawkins | @Geoffrey Donovan

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MAGGIE HAWKINS

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interacting with: @Scarlet Salvatore | @Hildegard Schneider | @Avery Chen | @Liana Kerr mentioning:

September 23, 2021

XXXXWell well well, it looked like Liana and Scarlet already had a regular rapport going already. Maybe rapport was too strong a word, though, actually. It looked more like a regular old rivalry to Maggie, in all honesty, but she could stay out of the business of others just fine. No, actually, it was an occasion. This was an occasion! Maggie staying out of someone else's business? Nobody would've thought it a possibility, but it looked like today was choc-full of miracles. Liana was trying to argue with Scarlet, it seemed, convince them all to not pursue the treasure. Which was pretty silly, in Maggie's mind--treasure was treasure was treasure. Didn't matter where it came from. Well, it did, if you wanted to get involved in a sort of moral argument about ethics and morality, but that wasn't really a concern of Maggie's at the moment. No, right now she wanted to live her Goonie's dreams and find some hidden treasure in the castle. Arrival at Hogwarts had proven to be quite enlightening, actually, providing Maggie with some much-needed context and plenty of legends. Hogwarts had plenty of myths and legends and 'quests', didn't it? The Chamber of Secrets, Salazar's Gold, the concept of Dumbledore's Army all those years ago. And Maggie supposed that there were even more legends and such years before her own enrollment at Hogwarts. This? Salazar's Gold? This was her opportunity to solve one. "Come on, Liana, lighten up! I'm sure she's really just trying to show us some treasure!" Maggie leaned forward, nudged Liana's shoulder with a hand balled into a fist. Just gentle, friendly, as most of her touches were. Well, with people she liked, at least. "I'll even do my homework. I promise, I'll do some genuine studying if you let us hunt for treasure!" A little bribery never hurt. Stamina | 5 || Evasion | 10 || Strength | 4 || Wisdom | 3 || Arcane Power | 6 || Accuracy | 7 Calming Presence

This was a battle lost, so much was evident. Liana had to admit that Scarlet possessed some pretty wicked manipulation and trickery skills. Not that any truly advanced techniques were required when dealing with this particular bunch. Still. If she came up with the idea of a lost treasure on the spot and managed to convince four people that it was real, she truly was a worthy snake.

''I was under the impression that the Chamber of Secrets had been discovered by Salazar's heirs numerous times before it was finally located by the Hogwarts staff. Much the same would have happened to the treasure. The clues, if there were any, would have been made accessible chiefly to Slytherins, and someone would have found it centuries ago. Likely his heirs, because the way history portrays him, he was not the generous type who wanted everyone to have equal chances,'' the redhead retorted to Scarlet's feeble explanation, all the while feeling like nobody was paying her any mind. Oh, hopeless. ''But sure. Lead the poor gullible first-years on. You're not winning our competition, though, just saying,'' she added, beginning to put her books and parchments back into her bag - it was evident that no studying would happen today. She might as well see how this turned out, if only to be able to say 'I told you so' to her peers at the end of it.

''The downside is that your homework remains undone and you may get a couple of Ts for that, Avery.'' Of course such things only mattered to studious people who possessed enough critical thinking to realize that the treasure was completely made up. Well, perhaps she had an advantage over them here, because she knew Scarlet Salvatore from before. However, she didn't feel like recounting the story of their meeting to try and make the other first-years see that the upperclassman was untrustworthy. Let them get some low grades for not turning in any homework or for presenting half-hearted assignments. That was not her problem. She had most of her own essays and answers either finished or at least drafted by now, anyway. And she would not lend them any help with homework when they came asking for it.

''Alright, Maggie, as long as you promise to study afterwards, it's fine if you play Scarlet's little game for a while,'' she conceded, feeling that she sounded more like a mother than an eleven-year-old. Well, she certainly was feeling older than the others, especially now, when she was the only one that could see through this thinly veiled lie regarding Salazar's Gold. The girl suppressed a rising wave of frustration, reminding herself that they weren't choosing Scarlet over her. They were just choosing an exciting game over doing homework. Well, at least that was the case with Maggie and Avery. She wasn't so sure about Hildegard, with whom their tentative semi-friendship had ended after the goose attack. ''I'll even watch you while you guys go for it. No worries, if we find a treasure, I'm not going to demand a part of it. It's all yours.''