Archive BlossomFest Bonfire

Wesley approached a group of professors and students, who were close by a bonfire and many other magical, fantastic things; such as chocolate fountains, towers of desserts and ice creams. Despite the insanely warm weather of May, his ruby red and golden House Pride scarf was loosely wrapped around his neck, and his black robe was not buttoned up. His two siblings, only the ones who also attended Hogwarts, had once again managed to persuade him to do something he wasn't intending on doing. Ian previously had convinced Wes to ask his crush someone to the BlossomFest Ball that would be showing up.

Both Melody and Ian grouped up to prompt Wesley to, now this time, go to the BlossomFest Bonfire. Their brother was not, in fact, very sociable, and really kept to himself. Though this was happening, Wes was still able to converse with Ian, his boyfriend, Melody, and possibly any Hogwarts students he had talked to in the past (for example Phaedra or Parcel).

In the hot May air, beads of sweat began drizzling down Wesley's forehead and under his nose. The sweat was making his beautiful hair seem more noodle-y than it was. ((OOC: trust me. It happens)) He untied his woolly scarf, leaving it hung over the back off his sweaty neck, and unbuttoned his robe. For some odd reason Wesley had forgotten the streams of hot weather the UK was capable of. He pulled off his robe, and tied it around his waist from his arms, tucking the wavy end into the back of the arms.

Approaching Ian and his boyfriend, Wesley looked around at chattering students of Hogwarts, some in robes and House Pride items, others in their own clothes and accessories. Melody was with her group of boy-obsessed friends, orange flames blazing off of her elbow-length silky black hair.

Verla wasn't expecting to Wes show up, or anyone else honestly since she was around. She waved at him and blushed slightly, she hid and cursed her cheeks and looked down, away from everyone else. She'd come to make new friends, and she wasn't doing to swell of a job quite yet. But once she got more comfortable, she wouldn't be able to stop talking.

Then slowly, Verla looked up and saw someone she didn't recognize standing in front of her, until she did recognize them from other places of the castle, she smiled shyly at them. She was so nervous, she didn't think she could speak, and if she did, it would come out a blabbering mess. As was habit. She didn't know what else to do or say, she really wanted to go home, she hated being by crowds and she'd never done something like this before. She didn't know what to do. She began to breathe a bit fast, was she hyperventalating? She hoped not, it's only a small bonfire. She was so nervous, and so scared. What was she to say or to do? She was way to nervous for this, she was too scared for this.

Charo had no idea what to do, she was silently panicking. This had never happened before in her whole life, nobody had taught her what to do, all she did was stand there and it felt awful. Why was everyone else just standing there? Surely at least one of them knew what to do. And how could everyone else not even notice what was happening? Charo kneeled down next to Rhea and was about to pat the girl's back to try to get whatever was stuck out of her throat. She could go get someone. That would help, right? But, by the time the thought crossed Charo's mind, Rhea had already managed to dislodge whatever had been stuck.

"Hi, I'm Charo and I have no idea what just happened, but it looked kinda traumatizing," Charo said, smiling nervously, hoping Rhea wouldn't be angry at her for not doing anything. 'In my defense I have no idea how to stop someone from choking,' she reminded herself, but that wasn't really helping. After this she would probably learn how to help someone in that situation again, she just really hoped that she would never have to use that knowledge in her life again.

Apparently it was the job of the House Prefects to lead people to the bonfire, which was one of the Blossomfest events. Serena hated it though. She could not understand why anyone thought it was a good idea to hold an event with a large fire after a number of students had almost been burnt to crisp. She sighed. She was lucky enough to not witness the fire itself. That occurred around about the time she had been unconscious, apparently. What she did witness, however, was damaging enough to her mental health. She saw the damage it had done to her housemates. Their pain and suffering. It was not just physical, it was mental. The damage that had been done on a psychological level was far worse than the damage done on a physical level - and a few people almost died. So that's not something she would say lightly.

But this was Hogwarts. If there was anything she had learnt in Hogwarts, it was that bizarre situations happened too often. How many times had the famous trio of Gryffindor been put in danger during their time in the school? She did not know the exact answer but she had heard of countless stories from her parents or from the books. Serena sighed as she silently walked towards the grounds. Behind her were a few of the Hufflepuff students that planned to attend the event too. She could hear chatter from behind her, people talking amongst themselves but Serena was in no mood to make small talk. She was only here to serve her duty. She had a very important purpose today and she was here to ensure that she tried her best to fulfil it.

Serena walked out of the castle, onto the grass outside. She made her way to the bonfire. In her hand was a magical candle that burnt brightly. She had picked it up in Hogsmeade and it was the best purchase she had ever made. The candle never melted. This allowed her to carry it around with her all of the time. Perfect for a girl who hated being in the dark now. She would never dare to walk into the grounds at night without the fire burning brightly next to her and her wand, ready to cast 'lumos' at any moment's notice.

As the group approached the bonfire, she watched the Hufflepuffs following her go there own way. Serena moved towards the side, standing several metres away from the rest of the students and the Professors surrounding the fire. She was standing alone, staring into the fire. Her left hand continued to hold the candle as her right hand was stuffed into the pocket of her robe. She clenched her wand tightly, gripping it as though her life depended on it. In truth, she could not relax. She would not relax until she was one hundred percent sure that everyone here was safe.

They all needed to get back into their dorms, safely. Once that happened, she could rest easily. Until then, she would be tensed and worried. Serena's eyes scanned the nearby area, making sure no student foolishly wandered off into the forest. The last time that happened, things got bad. There was a blank expression on her face as she looked around.

No one would know her true feelings. To everyone, it would look like she was just standing there alone away from the group observing everything and holding a small candle. In truth, she was terrified of what could possibly happen. She was worried they would all be in danger and the tension was gnawing away at her. She really did hate this. But she had to be here, in case she was needed. She had to stay here, on the off chance something went wrong. They needed all the hands they could get when things went wrong. Serena knew that much.

Cel grinned as the professor of Divination crouched to her eye level, turning the flower crown in her hands so that its front faced away from her, the position necessary to allow her to properly crown the French woman. Carefully the girl raised the corona of petals over Professor Barrow's head, gently resting it against the blonde strands of curled hair, then smoothed the petals down to better secure the beautiful flowers on her head. Seeing the strands of vine bunched around the main circlet, Cel gently untangled them, taking special care not to tear any.

"Finished," she announced in her dulcet tone so typical right after she had been reading, a soft smile gracing her features. The girl took a single step back. The words finished-- such a Stygian word, with its many uses. It could be used to express such opposites-- finished with work, a wearily happy retiring, but also finished with a story, the end of the road of bliss. Ah... hmm. This reminded her of something Parker once told her:



Ah, well. "You look Lovely, Professor Barrows," she grinned. "It suits you, I think." Actually, she had no idea what would suit someone and what would not, but the Divination professor was comely enough with it, so she simply smiled and ducked her head slightly. After all, who would disdain a compliment?

Absentmindedly she clasped for something in her pocket to fiddle with, perhaps a twig or a spare quill. Instead, however, Cel's fingers closed around a small cardboard box, contents rattling. The girl lifted it out of the depths of the dark bunches of soft fabric, tilting her head in slight puzzlement. Where had she gotten this? Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans. The infamous jelly beans, of which she had memorized the flavor chart of if only to thwart any plans to prank her.

Oh-- it must have been the box Parker had sent her over the holiday. Cel had already picked out every undesirable flavor within: cabbage, dirt, black pepper, bubblegum-- bubblegum was disgusting-- and so many more. The girl reached a finger into the near-empty box, plucking a random bean from the dark depths of jellybeans out of her eyes' reaches, and made a face at the choice. Somehow she had forgotten what the pattern, a dark red speckled with amber, represented, although she was certain it could not be the very similar vomit-- after all, vomit was speckled with black and red, not this red base and orange pattern; thus this was not going to give her indigestion. Shrugging, she popped the jellybean into her mouth, then dug out another random bean, green apple, it looked like, about to offer it to Professor Barrows. Cel chewed down and began to swallow, planning to open her mouth to proffer the verdant sweet. A rush of flavor flooded her tongue.



"Go on," the boy grinned, a gesture both friendly and mischievous. "Pick one!" The box he held in front of him, full of sweet jelly beans yet with a scent mixed with quite... interesting others, rattled as he shook it. Young Cel could tell there was text labeled across its colorful front, but she had not yet learned to read beyond basic letters. Shrugging her small shoulders, she plunged her hand into the box, selecting a single, random bean.

Holding it up to eye level, she simply stared at her brother in that unnerving way of hers. "Go on," he repeated, smiling wider. "I can't wait to see what flavor you get." From what he had told her, or at least what she had understood herself, she was to take a random jellybean, eat it, and decipher the flavor-- except there were several flavors that were rather deterrent to most. Why people made such strange sweets, she was rather uncertain, but Cel trusted the game. It seemed rather fun, did it not?

And so the little girl popped the red jellybean into her mouth, chewing with a thoughtful expression. "Well?" he demanded, eyes wide and curious in that expression small children tended to retain. "Shinamirn?" Cel replied in the child's lisp she still had, trailing off in interrogation at the end, unsure of the taste.

"Cinnamon," her brother corrected. "Lucky," he added. Cel grinned back at him, the sharply unique taste on her tongue and a barely-there waft of cinnamon scent floating into her nose.

Gasping for breath, Cel blinked rapidly, finding herself on the ground-- she must have fallen; her right leg smarted terribly. In fact, when she peered at it, it seemed a small stone had given her a stinging but shallow cut. Interestingly, no headache or hallucinations--well, she didn't think any hallucinations-- accompanied this flashback, but still she sighed as she recollected her surroundings and realized what, exactly, was going on. For the fifth time this month, too.

"I'm okay," Cel murmured, rather inaudibly, before repeating the phrase a little more loudly as she climbed to her feet, hiding the wince her face muscles tried to make behind the wall of stone she hid behind. "I'm fine." Quite honestly, she was. Every other time the flash had been accompanied by other symptoms-- now she felt nothing but fatigue.

Phaedra's question to Dymphna had barely left her lips before her fellow prefect, Adam Harringtom, had made his presence known with an abrupt introduction. Strawberry brought up halfway to her mouth, Phaedra shifted her eyes over to him and confirmed her name with a single nod. Then, he awkwardly spat out an apology for interrupting and fled elsewhere. Phaedra laid the chocolate covered fruit back onto her plate.

"...Okay! I'll talk to you after, Adam!" the raven-haired girl yelled after him, pointing back towards Dymphna with her thumb. If he had enough common sense to respect a conversation in progress, it could only mean he was someone who would be a decent partner to work with. She was looking forward to meeting and conversing more with him, but for the time being there was someone else worth her attention. 

"Huh, anyway," the prefect said after whipping back around to Dymphna to answer her next question. "I think I will miss it, actually. After my term ends, I won't have anything else to do besides working on our newspaper - which probably is for the best, really. We're quite behind."

She smiled at the girl's mention of dance. Turns out Phaedra was the complete opposite of Dymphna in this regard and preferred ballroom over ballet. She found the latter beautiful, really she did, but years ago she had quit those private lessons as an excuse to focus on her studies instead. However, she couldn't avoid all dancing - throughout her early childhood (and even still) her parents were quite the party animals and were much more opposed to her excuses when it came to their reputation there. It looks bad to the guests to sit out of these events, they had explained to her, and left her with no choice but to pick up the art form. After her initial stubborn protests, she realised that ballroom really wasn't that bad after all and even grew to like it. At least it was easier to hide mistakes with that type of dance, in her opinion anyway.

"I am. I was going to go alone, but a friend asked me." By owl for some reason, something about being too afraid to ask in person - whatever that could mean. Biting into her last strawberry, she decided to skip over mentioning that part. With a shrug, she swallowed and continued on. "His name is Wes Hart. Have you heard of him, perhaps? Gryffindor, curly dark hair, kind of tall?" It wasn't the most detailed description, but their appearances mattered little - she wasn't very focused on boys either.

"The library lock-in," she repeated after the blonde, grinning. She and Adam hadn't had a chance to properly meet, but she did know that they were put in charge of organizing the entire thing. It would be a lie if Phaedra said she wasn't the slightest bit nervous about handling such a task, let alone living up to the expectations of both peer and professor alike. Despite this, she was determined to do well. "I'm excited as well. We'll work really hard to make it memorable."

Amadea had been sitting on the log for quite some time, still debating whether she should go over and actually talk to someone or just go back to her dorm. She wondered how long she had to stay, or if it was okay for her to duck out now. The problem wasn't the bonfire itself. Amadea didn't have a problem with bonfires (though s'mores were an entirely different topic). She just would rather have her own bonfire with her friends rather than have a giant bonfire with her friends...and masses of other students whom she did not know. 

This was her main problem at being at Hogwarts. She despised the crowds of people. They were everywhere, which was pretty self explanatory since, after all, it was a huge school. She had somehow managed to talk to some people and considered them her friends now, but she still didn't have the communication skills to be a social person. That said, she was a Hufflepuff. By now, she had learned that she was most likely a Hufflepuff because of her loyalty to her friends, not because of her friendliness toward others. 

As she looked around the bonfire, she finally spotted someone who she could talk to. Serena Towers, prefect of Hufflepuff and acquaintance of Amadea, was standing a ways away from her and the fire. Amadea had heard the stores from the Hufflepuff campout and didn't blame Serena for staying as far away as possible from the fire. Again, Amadea debated going over and talking to her. 

Last time she had decided to approach Serena, she hadn't been in the greatest of moods and soon after, many other people had joined the conversation, making Amadea feel overwhelmed by the amount of people. Would that happen again if Amadea approached her now? Amadea wasn't in the mood to deal with meeting bunches of other people especially ones that made her uncomfortable. 

Her only other option was to continue sitting on the log, looking like a loser while everyone else conversed with their friends and toasted marshmallows. Weighing her options, Amadea decided to go with the one that made her actually seem included in this event, talk to Serena. She stood, brushing off her robes and slowly walked toward the other girl. Amadea wasn't good at reading expressions or body language, though unless Amadea was really dense, it looked like Serena had a very neutral expression. Amadea wondered what she was thinking about. 

Amadea reached the other girl, opened her mouth and waited for the words that didn't come out. Now that she was over here, she realized she probably should have thought things through a bit more. What was she going to say? Should she re-introduce herself? Did Serena even remember her? She decided to go with something simple. "Hi, Serena," she said. "Enjoying the bonfire?" She inwardly cringed, cursing her lack of social skills for the millionth time. She just hoped that Serena didn't mind being interrupted from whatever she had been thinking about before.

Serena stared in the flickering flames of the bonfire. The warmth of the fire did not actually reach her over here but she could still see it and the other students that hovered around it. She sat down after a while onto the grass, not wanting to stand and hugged her knees. This was going to be a long evening, it seemed. She was just grateful for the light that the bonfire provided. She really hated the darkness. It was terrifying, in fact.

Hearing her name, Serena glanced up to see a familiar face appeared. She smiled softly, "Amadea, right?" She asked the girl, recalling the time she had met her in the Festival Grounds not too long ago. The Hufflepuff was pretty sure that was her name but that afternoon was very weird. She had gone out by herself, aiming to be alone and ended up surrounded by at least five strangers. It was a very odd day, which involved so much confusion. Nothing made sense to her. Hopefully today was a lot more simple. She was not sure she could handle the drama and mess of that day. It physically hurt her and emotionally baffled her.

"So far, it's better than the festival the other day," She replied back to Amadea, smiling softly as she patted the grass next to her, "Want to join me?" She asked her fellow Hufflepuff, looking up at her. Serena felt awful about what happened. Hopefully she could apologise and make it up a little to the girl today. That poor girl had only come over to make sure she was okay, from the look of it, and ended up getting caught in a weird situation that almost resulted in a fight. It also resulted in a Serena that ended up scolding most of the group, fed up of being surrounded by their drama.

The bonfire, so far, was a lot more peaceful. Of course, she had arrived not too long ago and no one had tried to start a fight by the looks of things. She just hoped it remained peaceful. Drama was not on the list of things Serena enjoyed these days. Looking at the others, there were a whole bunch of people enjoying marshmallow smores. Serena stared at them. This is what the camp out should have been like... Students sitting around a fire, chattering away, eating smores and just having fun. They could scare ghost stories and pretend to get scared.

That was the plan. They weren't actually meant to get scared. Or end up in hospital. Or end up almost dead and forever traumatised by it... 

The bonfire flames hid faces well. Almost as well as the dark mask itself. In full hooded robes, a dark mask, and distance to hide himself, the masked figure watched the students chat and party around the large flames. He wouldn't take any actions tonight. This was a learning opportunity. He would stick to the shadows and the exterior of the party.

Any who approached the figure would find he had disappeared or blended into the crowd. He had no desire to speak to anyone or be spotted. Some students might think they saw a dark figure, others would be paranoid of the dark, but no one would know who he truly was nor would they even know where to start.

The blonde could barely contain her eye roll as a boy interrupted them because of course that would happen. There were only a few boys that she could stand to be around, most of them just got on her nerves, always butting into everything and chewing with their mouths open. At least her fellow Ravenclaw had some sense and apologized after.

"We are," Dymphna replied with a wince. Classwork had piled up as she worked on her articles, submitting them as quickly as possible so she could get back to it. Not to mention all the time she spent reading for Book Club and other activities. It was busy and usually she liked it that way. However, this month it seemed to be too much. At least there were a few events to help everyone unwind.

"Oh. That should be fun." None of her friends had asked her, then again she hadn't asked them either. The name didn't sound familiar at all. "Sorry, I don't think I've met him." Maybe she had heard of him but just didn't remember it. She had met quite a few people since the beginning of the year afterall. "I'll keep an eye out for you both at the dance though."

Dymphna matched her grin, glad that she and Phaedra had gotten the chance to talk. To really talk, not just debate and throw their knowledge around like weapons. "I'm sure it'll be wonderful." She opened her mouth to speak again but the sound stopped short on a small gasp. There had been something just on the other side of the bonfire but she hadn't been able to make it out through the flames. It had looked dark but it was night, everything looked dark. With a shake of her head, she dismissed whatever it was she had seen and focused back on her rival. "What were we talking about again?"