Map Quest PV closed

This particular day, was surprisingly boring, normally Alex would expect something out of the ordinary to happen, like a sudden appearance of a prankster ghost or his book fleeing from him again, but not today. Yawning slightly he rubbed his eyes as he was making his way down to the grounds, he figured he could use the fresh air. Just over a hill he saw his favorite slytherin laying down on the ground, seemingly interacting with something. He could bet all of his galions that she was up to no good, preparing a new scheme against the professors or maybe a student that have crossed her. Making his way he smirked and pulled out his wand

"Rictusempra"

With a swift hand motion, he twisted his wand and then pointed it at her, a thin spark flew out and rushed towards the girl, for someone whose so obsessed with emotions, he rarely saw her laugh, and he could bet it'd be a good prank to pull on her while she least expects it

"Hey there, come here often?"

He already closed in enough for his query to not be yelled, though he already knew the answer, he'd usually find her around these parts if he would ever try to look for her, though if anything their random meetings so far were quite... Random, or at least thats what he thought, maybe the girl orchestrated these meetings in advance, maybe not.

It worked like a charm, he actually never noticed it, partially because he never seen her laugh, but she her laughter was quite cute. Something flew from her hand, he figured he'd at least get that back for her before she loses something else, but as the spell started wearing off she retaliated with a sudden shoe flinging. It hit his chest and bounced off, he didn't remember her throws to be that hard, but he deserved it at the very least.

She started to murmer something her herself while trying to catch her breath while Alex was looking for the ufo, finally finding it... It was a pencil, why would she have that? Cautiously picking it up, he wiggled it by the end and it seemed to slightly bend, that was normal, for whatever reason Alex decided that was the deciding factor that it was in fact, a pencil. He got back to her, she was holding into a folded paper and suddenly gripping him and pulling him down, needing to pick his brain for something

"Ou', chill Erin, it was just a joke"

he found himself on the ground with her, seemed like she wanted to ask him something or maybe show him something.

She took her pencil back while reassuring she wont split open his head like a watermelon. For whatever reason, she seemed almost excited for whatever she was about to say, while odd it also caught his attention. She started listing people off to him that disappeared all of the sudden... Now that she mentions it, he never managed to find that fat kid ever since, he always assumed he was simply hiding from them due to fear or some other odd reason. But then she also mentioned the previous head boy. He met him once, around the same time he met the fat kid, come to mention it, they were both the same year and from the same house but, he didn't see him for quite a while either... And apparently he showed up again in the dance lately.

"Hmm, that is strange, I haven't seen Anatole ever since either... Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure he was a 2nd year as well, I should have seen him at the common room at the very least"

Then she started listing names of professors that have come and gone, they... Yeah, they just vanished all of the sudden come to think of it. This odd babble of hers started making some sense to him.

"No, no, I remember these names, I've attended some of their classes too"

He confirmed, but why would the prefects denie their existence, that was a bit too weird, but also somewhat intriguing, Erin apparently had a good grasp over Alex's tendency to be overly curious about various oddities, that was entirely in his ballpark, now he likely wont be able to stop obsessing over it for quite a while.

"So, you think they just vanished? Just like that? Maybe the professors were sent away, I mean, they got replaced after all, isn't Headmaster Solomon replacing Headmaster Blackburn now? But, I didn't hear any mention regarding the huge traffic we have between professors and... Come to think of it, Gryffindor had a bunch of prefects change positions, like almost once in a couple of months"

He was too into this, whatever this is. without even realizing it he was already actively participating in the conversation, it was like one of those mystery books he liked to read as a kid, but with magic so its even better!

And now she gave him something new, apparently Hugh Lowe knew something. He never met this person face to face but he heard of him, he had to after all, Hugh was their current prefect. Rubbing the back of his head he deliberated over her statement, then she continued, apparently he told her about him being some sort of a knight? That's new, he never heard a student refer to themselves in such a way before. Furthermore apparently he was playing dumb, there's no way he wouldn't know about the previous prefects, professors and headmaster. She then continued to assure him that he's aware of the situation, in more ways than he might show.

"But how can we make him talk...?"

He didn't realize it at the time, but his particular phrasing there was probably a huge mistake on his part, he said we, as in he is already so deep in the conspiracy theory that he'd fully intend to cooperate with her, which... Is true, he would, besides the fact that he found the whole story fascinating, it had a lot of meat to bite into, he could now find something to cast away his boredom and do something fun for a change, though knowing her, it wont be fun for everyone.

"You said that he didn't answer you honestly before, right? What if we had him drink one of those truth potions? Then he wouldn't really have much of a choice, right?"

At the time, Alex wasn't entirely aware of how illegal doing something like that was and that its actually not fully reliable, but for the time being that was the best idea he had to offer.

She did raise a good point, getting something like a truth potion would be hard, they likely don't have it in stock in the potion storage room and he had no idea how to make one. Since he's pretty much broke, buying it is not on the table either, so that idea collapsed just as quickly. She then showed him what she was working on, a map it'd seem, of the basement nonetheless. Hogwarts has a huge castle, if the basement is just as large, there'd be a lot of territory to traverse, and knowing the place, its bound to have several secrets to uncover, what she showed him wasn't quite familiar, he didn't remember going through passages that went like any of her lines oddly enough.

"Oh, so that's what you were working on, eh?"

He leans over to look at the map a bit better, she in the meanwhile considered audibly to simply beat the information out of him, he wasn't a fan of that idea but it was a viable option, then again, it'd be really bad if they end up finding out that he really doesn't know anything like he said. Then she proposed the tickle charm he used on her earlier... Tickling him enough would cause him great discomfort and granted that might cause him to spill the beans willingly without the need to use violence, though this method is violent enough. But then she stated that without context laughter sounds like screaming and crying. She wasn't wrong, it did but on the other hand why would that be relevant, maybe it was her attempt to warn Alex that if someone were to hear them casting this charm on the prefect they might rush to his aid? A fair point on her end.

"Ok, so we can use the charm on him, that sounds good to me, though do you know about a place isolated enough for it to work...? I like the direction you're going for with the basement, but... Isn't your house usually lurking around there? I haven't been down there that often myself so I wouldn't honestly know, um, I know that there's a thing that muggles do which isolates sound from a room, not sure how they do it but I heard about it still, maybe something like that could work?"

Probably would be a bad idea to do it somewhere where they could be caught if they were to do such a thing. He never considered the fact that he was actively planning on kidnapping a student and torturing information out of him, he looked around for a moment just to make sure no one else was near by before looking back at the map, it was good that these grounds were so spacious, otherwise they'd be incriminated a long time ago.