Important Investigations PV Closed

The bickering in the room was understandable. They were all scared. All of them here had been victims of the attack in one way or another, but the fact remained that they were all in danger while whoever it was that was stalking the school and attacking the students was out there. Something had to give. Eris' words drifted into the cacophony of voices, telling him that he would not be going it alone if or when another confrontation occurred. Dorian nodded, glad that he had someone who agreed with what he had in mind. He definitely planned to get up close and personal with the figure again, whoever it was, and the unveiling would be so sweet.

The only downside to this meeting was those that thought it prudent to bring the past Dark Lord into the fray. As far as Dorian was concerned, if Voldemort was back and inside Hogwarts, they'd all have been long dead and rotting. Eris' interjection saved him the trouble of having to disclaim her himself. The discordant discussion raged on for a moment longer before Dorian's head craned in Max's direction as he stepped from beyond one of the rows of shelves. He had been here the entire time and had no doubt heard all that had been said. With a tight nod of his head, Dorian acknowledged the other boy's greeting. Everyone was tense. None of them were safe and they knew it.

Mention of the night on the tower had Dorian reliving the memory, something he had done each night since. The way Max had flown through the air and come dangerously close to careening from the edge- Such thoughts would do no good, and they only fanned the flames of the boy's fury. Their host for the evening had given Max his chance to speak, and then finally decided that she wished to get a few words in. There it was again. Someone else made mention of the professors in a tentative fashion, questioning whether they knew or not, which had Dorian asserting his own voice into the mix without much regard. "Of course they know! How could they not?! It's just as Max said. Professors at Hogwarts have a history of keeping students in the dark when it comes on to shady people running around trying to kill everyone." He mentioned killing. That was where this was heading and no amount of skirting the details would change that.

Dorian did not disagree with Cecilia, not in the least, but he was against the part of the plan that involved watching and waiting. It was like a bad mystery novel he'd read ages ago. "Let's say we do tell a teacher that we think we can trust; because it'll only be subjective based on each of our preferences. What then? Are we to sit idly by and trust that the teachers will protect us? Mighty fine job they did of that when Voldemort started blowing people up. Maybe whoever's underneath the mask will be merciful and only kill us a little. That way we won't be as dead as we would be otherwise and then we can thank them for being gentle!" On the word gentle, he brushed all the pieces of paper that Cecilia had on the table to the ground, unable to stop himself from doing something.

...He was not being helpful in the least. Dorian was expressing his vexation with biting, unconstrained sarcasm meant to deride. Did they truly think it would be that easy? Had he wasted his time coming to this meeting? If they were going to do this they needed to do it properly, as a unit. Holding clandestine meetings designed to tell each other to 'be safe' and wait for something to happen was basically what they had been doing before the meeting. Look where that had gotten them. Dorian's cool head was failing him at this moment, a fact that he was painfully aware of. He was angry, so angry, and rightly so. Had it been an outward anger he would have been much better able to channel it. But this was something that gnawed away at is insides. Something he couldn't guard against.

"You're all free to sit around and plan the villain to death, but I'm going for something a bit more." With that said and without pause to wait for anyone to chime in, he stormed out of the room after one final parting glance in Max's direction. He couldn't find the words to apologize, and he usually never had trouble with words, but for the fact that Max had gotten hurt because of him, Dorian would probably never forgive himself.

It became a bit overwhelming quickly as emotions ran high. Ben understood that it was normal to be afraid and he really tried to keep himself out of any bickering. It wasn't until after Dorian stormed out of the room that he decided to speak up again. A lot of theories were flying around the room and he had no idea how to keep them all straight. Some solid ideas and patterns did appear at least. Ben was good at solving riddles and logic puzzles. His own experience did play quite the role here as well.

"As a prefect, we did a lot of patrols late at night. Those halls are empty besides us," he thought out loud when there seemed to be silence after the boy left. "A prefect could easily abuse their patrol. You've said it seems to happen at night in a few areas. We could narrow down which prefects have that assignment. They might know more or perhaps be the culprit. They do know more spells than most of us."

It was a long shot, but the only logical one he could think to suggest. Ben didn't want to accuse anyone of doing this either. Only a few students he had met even seemed capable of bullying. This seemed to go further. Was this boy right and it was a student, or something else? The Scottish lad hoped they would at least consider some logical choices like this. A bad student trying to do harm was much more likely than some cartoon villain like that voldemort people mentioned previously.

"Do we have any teachers people trust?" He asked as well. "I personally wouldn't know who to turn to besides the headmaster."

Taking a seat at the table, the frown on Eris's face deepened. Who was this girl? There must of been a reason Eris hadn't seen her around the common room, and clearly, she wasn't much a Gryffindor. Or a Ravenclaw. Hell, she could of passed for a hufflepuff. Eris wanted to kick her as much as Max wanted to hurt hufflepuffs, if she was being honest. Nothing she said made sense, and Eris almost scoffed. Even with her limited knowledge of past wizarding conflicts, the girl's words seemed stupid."It's not a dark lord, there's no pattern, there's nothing to prove anything. We're in the dark, and making up crazy theories about Voldemort being back is going to make everything so much worse. Stop trying to scare children and start thinking of how to attack whatever, whoever, this thing is."

Max. A faint smile echoed on her own face in response, when Max shot her and Dorian a tight smile, and for a moment, the rage threatening to boil over, exploded in Eris's head, in a cataclysm of red thoughts and colors, face heating up even brighter at the thoughts that raced through her head. It wasn't fair. Max and Dorian were fighters, but they had been hurt. Max had been hurt physically, and Dorian had been forced to watch. Her friends had been hurt, and why? For what reason? Why had a figure decided to hurt her friends (and herself, if she stopped to think, which the girl didn't) and why were they still determined to fight? Max could get hurt fighting the figure, hell, he shouldn't of been out of bed, yet Eris knew, with every fiber of her being, that Max was not going to stop until he found justice. Or found something out about the figure.

And Eris wouldn't stop until the figure paid for hurting Max and herself. Neither would Dorian. They would make the figure pay for almost throwing Max off a roof. There would be suffering, as whoever was messing with their lives learned just how ruthless the first years of Gryffindor could be when it came to defending their own.

The conversation kept on rolling, and Eris found herself content to listen to Max and Dorian, butting in with her own fiery comments. "You think the Professors will trust us, a group of 11 and 12 year olds, with any information? They're cowards, the lot of them. They don't want us to help in a fight for our own school. So they hide information from us, assuming that we won't notice anything off or wrong in our own school. They won't even say anything, after many of us have been attacked. Cowards, if you ask me. The fact is, we're on our own." Pure rage taking over all her thoughts, the girl refused to acknowledge the fear mounting in her at her own words. They really were alone and they were just children. How would they take on a masked figure?

With fists and fury. Her answer came in a heartbeat, childlike innocence and love of fantasy books propelling her unwise thoughts. They would fight, just like heroes always did, and they would beat the bad guys, just like heroes always did. That was the way the world worked in fantasy books and movies. Hogwarts was practically out of a fantasy world, it's rules would work the same, right? Of course it would. She refused to believe otherwise, not when the well being of her friends and other students was on the line. There was no room for fear. Only for attacks, and for revenge. The heroes always won. They would win against the figure, there was no room for other thoughts.

Before she could say another word, Dorian stood up and exited the room. In his wake, Ben spoke up, but Eris had already pushed herself up from the table, that she only recently sat down at. "He's right. Planning isn't going to anything to that asshole!" At the words, her face flushed even redder, turning a sickly shade of violet. Oh god, that was a bad word! A super bad word! Why had she said that? Refusing to show the other children just how bothered she was by her use of the word, Eris ran after Dorian.

"Dorian, wait! We need to get back at the guy. And we need to do it soon. Also, I just said a bad word! Can you believe it!" The girl rambled on when she reached her friend, vanishing from the library as he had.

If you'd like me to rework the reply so that he was in the conversation the whole time, feel free and I'll do that instead of taking this approach.

Murmurs. There were hushed murmurs in this normally silent library, frantically discussing some subject Anatole knew nothing about. It was all too...strange.

Normally, Anatole had retreated to a little nook in the Shelves to finish his book for book club, and usually it either had a few people studying, a prefect on patrol, or the same eerie silence that should be here at this moment. Talking could have been done anywhere but here, and easily distracted Anatole couldn't help but accidentally eavesdrop. The fragments of words seemed much more enticing than his novel.

"The masked figure..." "Expose him, you want us to expose him...catch this bastard..." That voice was oddly familiar, and Anatole couldn't put on his finger on who it belonged to. These snippets had something in them...fear, maybe? "Not one person can find out we're doing this." That phrase made him halt. Should he take the risk of shutting his book and dashing out? Surely, hopefully, he could make it out alive or without an injury. If they knew...

[font=Times New Roman]"This horrible stuff to students..."[/font] "Any patterns...?" "...the intent to kill..." Anatole slowly, ever so quietly shut his book and grew to standing, peering through the bookshelves and trying to find out who these voices were if anything. "Madness."

All this came rather sudden and was exceptionally confusing out of context. Anatole was clearly out of the loop: he had heard no word of masked men or murder. Murder? That was too strong. All he knew about that was from fiction or elegant crime drama. There shouldn't be any of it at the school, right?

Footsteps stormed off, passing through the Shelves and perpendicular to Anatole's nook. He peered out, finally connecting the face to the voice: Dorian Gray. Oh God. What could that mean? He didn't wish to call out to him, asking about what this was, or he could take a chance and walk into it himself. The latter seemed like the worse way out, but it had to be done. As another pair of footsteps followed out of the library (he didn't notice the face this time), Anatole grabbed his book and walked towards the sound. How could he butt in without making it seem...awkward?

He got it. Anatole picked up his pace, jogging out from behind the shelf and approaching the menacing group. "Oh! Sorry about all this, I was rather late..." (Anatole completely missed the Owl part, so feel free to get onto him about that.) "Had some...things to do. What did I miss?" Staring near the perimeter of the huddle, he noticed that over half of the people in the circle he hadn't met at the school so far. This was good, this was good. But whatever they had been discussing clearly wasn't good.

[font=times new roman]Amadea's eyes widened as she looked around at the amount of people gathered around the table. She had no idea there were going to be so many of them and with so many different ideas about the masked figure! They were all talking so quickly and quietly Amadea had trouble keeping up and trying to listen to each of them as they explained their conspiracy theories. 

She had to admit that many of them had very valid points about the masked figure, but she thought they should try taking a different approach to solving the problem. Before she could open her mouth to speak, two of the students stormed away angrily, deciding that telling the professors wasn't a good idea. Amadea hated to admit that she agreed. She didn't think the professors would want a bunch of eleven and twelve-year-olds running around trying to solve this problem that even they couldn't solve. In fact, they probably didn't want the students to know anything at all. Fortunately, it was impossible to keep everything in the dark so the students had figured out some things. 

As more people arrived, there was finally a break in the conversation for Amadea to voice everything she had been thinking in her head. "I don't think we should tell any professors about this yet," she said. "They probably don't want us trying to figure this out. They'll say it's 'too dangerous for us' or that we 'don't know enough yet.' We can't let them get in the way of this. We have to solve it on our own." 

Pausing to take a breath and gather her thoughts, Amadea went on. "Also, I don't think we should be making assumptions about the masked figure just yet," she added. "While it's a valid point that the masked figure might be a student, we have no way to prove that, and making assumptions only hurts us. For all we know, the masked figure could want us to think that they're a student, or they're just biding their time waiting for the right time to strike and kill someone. I think we should focus on figuring out things that we already know first. Make a list or write down everything that we know for sure about the masked figure in order to deduct more about them. If we start by making assumptions, then the foundation of the research we do will be weak and crumble." She cringed at the bad analogy she was making, but she hoped her point was clear, and hoped the others agreed.[/font]

Emotions seemingly continued to mount as ideas and rebukes flew around the room, people growing more and more upset by the minute. It was understandable in a situation like this - they were just kids and really, no eleven or twelve year old deserved to be dealing with something so intense as a possible would-be murderer. Fear made people angry, and anger usually lead to things being done that weren't always the wisest. At least, that's the way it seemed from the history books Max had read where people grew fearful of what they didn't understand. Gargoyles being destroyed for wanting freedom, goblins being enslaved because wizards thought they were wild, witches being burned at the stake because muggles didn't understand their magic...

A shiver prickled its way down Max's neck and ran down the length of his spine like a spill of cold water, his body momentarily shuddering. No, this wasn't some misunderstanding; someone out there was truly trying to hurt them. The problem wasn't a lynch mob that would hurt the masked figure, it was the figure hurting the lynch mob because they were all scared children who would clump together and become easy targets. Max slid his hands into the pockets of his robes to stave off having to wipe the sweat gathering on his palms. He didn't want to admit this particular emotion to himself, but it was there nonetheless.

Terror.

Not just for himself, either. His friends, his acquaintances, maybe even for his dormmates that he didn't really get along with. Danger was glorified in its own way in history, but if you dug a little deeper into the dustier tomes, you found a darker side to things. 'Adventures' came with recurring nightmares for years, near death experiences set people shivering violently even if those experiences were so long ago they couldn't possibly remember every detail, things that went bump in the night made paranoia give every shadow a shape... It shouldn't be this way. It shouldn't.

"Who can we really trust?" he asked almost despairingly, heat creeping up his face as he realized he'd asked aloud and his voice had cracked like a child's. But it was giving him a nauseous feeling to think about the fact that this place was home, and now home wasn't safe. Again.

He swallowed it all down as he listened to Dorian speak, determined not to let it overcome him. His first instinct had been to let someone with more authority handle it, but then authority had never served anyone well in Hogwarts before. What should they do? What could they? His mouth opened to call Dorian back as his friend stormed out, but he slowly shut it again when he realized that it probably wouldn't be wise to say something now that sounded like they wouldn't do anything. It would only frustrate Dorian, and Max could understand why. He'd do anything to get rid of this feeling of losing a safe place, anything at all. It just had to be approached from a more logical perspective or it could all be for nothing.

The Ravenclaw boy had a good idea about the prefects, and Max nodded as he attempted to reign in his racing thoughts and focus. Being scared was making it all too loud, and he gripped the fabric of the inside of his pockets to ground himself as he considered the possibility of a prefect being the masked man. A good place to start, though if that was the case then it was even more likely that a professor was in on it.

"Eris - " Max tried when the girl began speaking, but she was also too worked up for him to get through to at this moment. They were on their own... That was probably true. Hell, the masked figure could be someone in this room for all they knew. Could he really trust Aubren and Eris? Rhea and Phaedra? His dormmates? Could he even trust Dorian? They still hadn't established that the masked figure was working on his own and it was possible the roof had just been a test. It was - it was -

Eris stormed out, Anatole came in to ask what was going on, the Hufflepuff prefect came up with some good points on bias. But Max's own head was his worst enemy. The Hufflepuff prefect. Anatole was also a prefect. Eris had been as well, and it seemed like the Ravenclaw boy was also implying he had been. Home wasn't safe. The only person you could really depend on was yourself.

The blood rapidly draining from his face, Max took a couple of steps back, his hand whipping out of his pocket to slide into his robes and feel the comforting grain of his wand's wood. Meeting up to talk in a group like this had been a bad idea - if the masked figure could be anyone, you had to assume it was everyone.

Silently, eyes darting from side to side, he backed away from the growing crowd with a dry mouth. "We can't trust a professor," he said hoarsely, gaze finally snapping back to the girl who'd called them there. "We can't even trust the people in this room, really." It was someone already in the castle. So. He turned before anyone could say anything else and walked out, feeling more nauseous with each step. He should really chase after Eris and Dorian. But... He couldn't. No, the only thing he could do now was go somewhere alone and get his head straight.