A Measure of Courage or Foolishness

Eris Fawley had never been bothered by curfew. Rules were meant to be broken, and a curfew rule was not an exception. At least, she told herself that, as her hair changed to a shade of dark blue and she began to sneak through the corridors of Hogwarts. It was a relief that she could change her hair colour to blend into the shadows of the school, and Eris was glad for that. It helped to not get caught, even though she would hardly care if she was caught at this point.

As she stepped through the portrait hole, Eris stopped to inspect herself. She wore a loose white shirt, obviously too big on her, and fuzzy red PJ pants. No shoes were on Eris' feet, as she found it easier to sneak around the corridors of Hogwarts without shoes on her feet. Shrugging once, she kept venturing forward.

The girl loved sneaking throughout the halls of Hogwarts, and that was what she currently did. Not unlike Serena Towers, she found that midnight walks were the best time to clear her head and get away from the troubles of being at a school with such a large group of people, all with diverse interests. However, the issue that Eris wished to escape from, most evidently, was crushing boredom.

After the events of last year, she had found that sleeping was impossible. Not just impossible, improbable really. The young girl often laid awake, shifting and turning in her abyss of red printed covers, before eventually kicking off the covers and wandering through the halls of Hogwarts. Which, was what she currently did.

Each step had no purpose whatsoever, as Eris ventured down hallways and corridors. So much of the Castle had already been explored by the small child, and thus, it was with a bit of a bored bravo that she found herself in the dungeons.

However, deep down, the reason for her midnight travels was not that she was bored. Eris had taken it upon herself to patrol the hallways herself, just to make sure that no evil figures roamed the halls, ready to hurt people like they did last year.

Taking a moment to glare at a painting that she had once called an ass, Eris weaved her way through the spiralling staircases, until she was in the dungeons. Perhaps she could have some time to read over Professor Nagal's book of their family history. It still was strange, knowing she was related to one of the Hogwarts Professors, but it was a relief to know that not everyone on her mother's side of the family was evil.

Professor Nagal wasn't evil. He was just a harsh grader, but he had won Eris' affection when he let her stay after class and read to herself. She was a social person but found herself struggling to keep up with social interactions sometimes, and that was when she found herself in the Potions Room.

Yet, as her feet traced the familiar path down to the classroom, she promptly rubbed at her eyes and blinked, a concerned expression crossing upon her pale face. She heard murmuring voices, and at once, was on alert.

Wand pulled out of her pocket, Eris followed the ghosts rounding the corridor with near silent steps. Her bare feet slapped against the cold marble, nearly hurting, but she hardly felt it. Had she found another secret of the school? Was this the masked-

Her thoughts cut off, as she peered into a perfectly normal room. With a hell of a lot of people. A party? Eris raised an eyebrow, finding Serena in the corner of the room.

Without hesitation, she intruded upon Serena's conversation. Small body pressing against Serena, it was apparent that Eris was the smallest person in the conversation. She crossed her arms, standing next to Serena.

"Serena! What the bloody hell is this crap?" As per usual, she felt excited using the mild swear word, but her excitement fell away as she looked around and frowned.

"Did any of these gits learn from last year?" She muttered, more to Serena, as her eyes caught Parcel and a few others she knew. Groaning, Eris sighed as her blue hair turned back to a bright shade of red. "This is great and all, but I mean...have a party in the daylight! It's bloody stupid to have one at night where we all can get caught by teachers."

The brief tenure of Thomas Lestrange’s training to become a wizard has collected few experiences one would view as positive. His part in the destruction of the library and a hospital fight likely developed the consensus he was nothing more than a troublemaker. Considering these facts, attending a party in the Potions room past curfew was but a minor blip in this troubled resume. Thomas learned of this event in the dark corridors of the castle. A shirtless ghost blazed by the Slytherin youth in a horseless carriage, shouting “Party in the Potions room, it’s to be well lit!” Parties didn’t hold much appeal to the boy, but the attendance and enthusiasm of the ghost sparked his curiosity. Combined with his careless approach to following rules, Thomas trailed this ghost until he arrived at the Potions room.

Upon opening the door, he found a handful of students accompanied by various ghosts of the castle. The party essentials all seemed to be in place. A nicely designed banner, snacks looking strangely familiar to the ones in the Slytherin common room, and an upbeat tune to lay the foundation. The attention of many students lies on a boy oozing with self-satisfaction. His appearance accentuated by a patch across one of his eyes. With a confidence that traveled far beyond his youthful mien, Thomas surmised this boy to be the initiator of the gathering.

Thomas looked down at his standard black Slytherin robes as he saw some of the attendees dressed up. It was never under any consideration for him to dress up for any event. His typical gritty presentation, a month late on his haircut would embody his lack of attention to those details. He began to approach the boy with the patch, eager to discover the ambitions behind this gathering. It was only a few steps until he saw her. Erin Ryan. The sight of her sent a chill to his bones, followed by anger. Nope. He could not stay, he would not. Though an exit quicker than his arrival would only lead to questions, likely followed by a statement from the girl that he is a coward, or something like that. Thomas had to play to his strengths. This was not her party, he hoped, and perhaps the pleasant atmosphere would lead to a forced civil nature.

"Is it courage or foolishness that makes you risk punishment yourself by being here?”

"I have decided to mate with Parsley Myth,"

Thomas caught the tail end of the conversation. The notion the girl had a mate should have been a myth. He chuckled to himself when ‘Parsley’ emerged near her, his eyebrows would ascend and blue eyes widened, eyeballs darting to the others in amazement. Perhaps there was an honest side to Erin after all. Or, Mr.Myth was just another one of her subjects. “You, a mate?” His tone would reflect sheer confoundment. Despite his urge to throw a couple digs at Erin, he would not be the one to throw the first stone. At least not yet. “Never thought you to be the type.” Thomas turned to the boy with the patch. “It’s impressive what you’ve done here. And you are?”

Potions Classroom
10.45pm
18th March 2019

Aurelia never intended to stumble across a party. Apparently she did along the way to the potions classroom where she was yet again intending to brew another vail of forgetfulness potion to help her cause. She hadn’t expected to be busting trouble so soon since it was barely only a week into being a prefect or at least perhaps one or two shenanigans would be good enough but not a whole zoo of party animals. Yet here she was, outside the very frequently visited trusty potion classroom where fancily dressed students strolled happily in oblivious to the fact that there was a prefect right under their noses.

10.45pm, which meant that there was still a good 15 minutes before curfew hit. 15 more minutes before she had to send out detention slips like the invitations of this party. Aurelia was dressed formal casually as usual unlike the party goers, a thin white sweater tucked into a pair of light blue denims and a trench coat pulled over to help herself warm in the cold basements of Hogwarts. No prefect badge, she had left it in the dormitory so it would be by luck that those in the room would recognise her as one who was going to crash the party. Aurelia let out a sigh as she leaned against the doorframe of the threshold and watched. They might not noticed she was a prefect since she was very new but what intrugued her was the other two prefects as well as ex-prefects even the ex-head girl in the room. Judging by their outfits, clearly were not here to do their prefect duties. Slytherin might possibly need two new prefects.

Honestly, Aurelia wanted nothing more than to walk away, mind her own business and let another more experienced prefect of professor to catch them instead but she new that this was exactly what she signed up for when she filled the application. 12 more minutes till she had to call the party of and give everyone of them who were still in the room by that time, a detention. She hoped they’d come to their senses and leave.

"This is great and all, but I mean...have a party in the daylight! It's bloody stupid to have one at night where we all can get caught by teachers."

Or Prefects, Aurelia thought at the girl’s words.

Ogla had never felt so...uncomfortable in life. She had next to no clue what was going on here, she had just wanted to enjoy a party and eat free food but then she overhead some very selective word choices being thrown around and all she could do was mouth, “Wow...” to herself. Things had surely escalated.

There was mix of different students of different ages in the room, but most of the people who'd looked closer to her age than older. Of course there wasn't much of a physical difference between eleven, twelve, and thirteen year olds, but she figured some of that part had joined the room. She didn't particularly know if she wanted to speak to them either, heck she barely spoke to her own year, but that was out of the lack of having nothing to really talk about. The only thing she had in common with most kids here was going Hogwarts and being young and jubilant.

A lot of people had decided to dress up for the party, unlike Ogla. She really didn't care for dresses, unless they were black, gold, or purple, and also she didn't even own a dress, she'd purposely left them back at her Unlce's house in Ireland. Well, except for the ugly dress she was force to buy in case of formal events, which definitely wasn't what this was. She'd tried to burn the dress in a fireplace but for some reason it appeared right back in her room.

Ogla almost didn't notice this dark haired boy with and eyepatch on. She stared at him, meaning to do so inconspicuously, but he probably noticed someway in another. He'd already seen her but had been distracted by some other girls, ones who kept looking around like there was some problem to solve.

Pretty sure that she'd gone unnoticed, and glad if it was true, Ogla decided to look around a bit, take in as many people as possible. It was then that she'd finally registered the fact the some of the Prefects, or probably all of them, that had came in were looking uneasy in someway about them all being there. Ogla particularly noticed her own Gryffindor Prefects, one she remembered faintly as Aurelia with a longish name that started with a B. She probably wouldn't know Ogla so she didn't bother to approach her.

She actually considered leaving. As the time went out the party lost it's grandeur to Ogla, the only interesting thing was that a group of students seemed to be talking about mating, whatever that was about.

Ogla shrugged, she had nothing better to do. Standing, she slipped into the crowd and came as close to the little group as she dared. In case something broke out or happened, she wanted front row seats. She blended in as well as she could in her Gryffindor robes and pretended to be focused on dancing, talking, and eating, all the while listening. She vaguely recognized some of these kids as troublemakers, something to do with a library and injuries, if she could recall.

*Play this as you're reading the post*
https://www.youtube.com/embed/MN3x-kAbgFU

Rules were meant to be broken
And that's just what he’ll do
One of these days he’ll break
All the rules in front of you~

The first year doth returned to the land of hogs and warts to meet with the Nico. And the Luna. The Alpha and the Omega. The beginning and the end. The Shiori and the Akkuma. The Towers that were once sieged, but weathered the storm.

Ikea is so loved.
The good boy has returned now.
This is his haiku.

Party rock is in the house tonight
Everybody just have a good time
And we gon' make you lose your mind
Everybody just have a good time
We just wanna see you
Shake that!

Congregation. Confusion. Mischief. The musings of an ancient woman in a child's body, attempting to imitate the vestiges of what may have been a childhood at one point. The lamentations of the Nico Nico nii echoing throughout time. And from the paradoxical nature of reality's bringing, the young Ike Corbec arrived to this rather humorous gathering of shenanigans. To party like a rock star, clearly. Wearing what was clearly GLOWING WHITE SUNGLASSES, the boy smiled and waltzed right in.

Ike was not the hyper intelligent scheming type, nor was he particularly coordinated, but he made up for it in stupidly high levels of strength and endurance for his age. Basically, Ike was Naruto, except with magic and a broom. Might as well have given him an orange jumpsuit and call it a day.

Ike only knew one spell. And it was appropriately OP...His one skill was in causing an enormous explosion to occur. Yet....perhaps this is what "Geoffrey" was waiting for?

You see, Geoffrey was a particularly schemey schemer. He had transported himself from the land of oblivion and old people to follow his sister to what was clearly her school. It was just that no one else knew it yet.

But boy oh boy....if only they knew her true nature. The nature of the Shiori.

The nature of reality.

The truth might set them free.

Mari, Mari, Mari, what are you doing?

Independence was hard when you were used to the constant influence of a younger "older" sister. When Mari had seen the note about the party, she had almost immediately disregarded it. As the hours progressed, however, Lucy shoved her way into the forefront of Mari's mind. All of the letters from Lucy (three) ended with the statements, "Met any boys lately? Gone to any parties? I am so excited to let loose from Mum and Dad's strict watch while I'm at Hogwarts!"

Lucy was the popular one. One year younger, but several inches taller, many people mistook Mari as Lucy's quite younger sister. It didn't help that Mari had grown comfortable in her role as Lucy's shadow. While she didn't particularly love Lucy's friends - she actually found them quite nasty, though they were pleasant to her - they were the closest friends she had in the Muggle World, besides her family. Mari had never had an issue with this fact until Hogwarts. She still struggled to make friends. She felt alone. Lucy wrote of all the fun social events that she was partaking in, while Mari had to invent friends. She once wrote about Moaning Myrtle as a companion, though her invented version of Myrtle was much more solid and much less moaning. It was hard to keep going with the ruse.

As the day had gone on, the party and Lucy had merged into a singular thought. Lucy would go to the party, thrilled to be socializing with different students. In fact, Lucy would probably scorn Mari for not going to the party. She would say, You keep moaning about how you have no friends, but you don't even try, Joy Marianna!

Mari paced outside the Hufflepuff Common Room. "It's so close to curfew," she muttered. "But it isn't curfew. Mum would be livid, but Lucy would be so proud. I would make friends...and Grace would maybe even see me as more of the big sister I'm supposed to be, rather than another Mum."

She inhaled and nodded swiftly. Mari had thirty minutes until curfew; she would have to hurry. She rushed down the corridors, disregarding her completely inappropriate party attire of plain back robes, and hoped that she would have enough time to meet just one person so she could tell the truth in her letter, for once.

Panting, she approached the Potions classroom. The loud voices from the classroom overwhelmed her, and she hesitated. Did Mari really want to do this? She could make friends, yes, but that sounded like an environment where she would feel out of place. To make matters worse, she just heard someone declare, "This is great and all, but I mean...have a party in the daylight! It's bloody stupid to have one at night where we all can get caught by teachers." Whoever owned that voice was right.

Mari motioned to turn back when she saw a girl lurking in the doorframe of the classroom. She lit up. This had to be destiny; this girl was scared of going in all the way to the party, too! Lucy would probably be disappointed that Mari hadn't gravitated toward the center of the party, but at least Mari could tell her that she had made a friend. Still breathing heavily, she shuffled toward the girl and tapped her shoulder three times, unconsciously clicking her tongue as she tapped. She brushed her knotted hair back with her hand and smiled brightly before inhaling. The words came out quickly and nervously, "Hi, I'm Mari. I'm not certain I want to go in either; how's it looking? It's just so close to curfew, and I'm not one to break rules, but I just haven't been making very many friends here and it's been hard because my younger sister Lucy's friends are all my friends back home, but she's a year younger, you see, and I mean - " she chuckled, "obviously she's not here because I'm only a first year but I'm just trying to make her proud cause I'm worried that when she comes next year and sees I'm an absolute loser she will never want to admit that she's my sister ever and that would just ruin me, you see, but I dunno, this posting seemed quite odd and it's so close to curfew and I just don't know if I want to get in trouble you see but have you heard any word of Professors or Prefects, cause I hear sometimes these parties happen without detection and I would maybe definitely stay if that were the case but I don't want to risk a detention, you see."

All of this was said in one breath, and as she got her last few words out, Mari realized she was becoming blue in the face. She loudly breathed, and red instantaneously replaced the blue in her face. Her eyes drifted downward as she murmured, apologetically, "Sorry."

It was later than Luna thought. Much, much later. Why did she misunderstand the time to nine or even earlier? Rolling her eyes, she stood still and thought about what she should do now. Seemed like there would be a lot of students got detention today, no? There were too many people near the door, too many, and seemed like they knew one another. Whatever, that was none of her business. But the Hufflepuff girl was sure brave. Really, really brave. Not really clever to just stepped in and talked like that but well... It was still okay, maybe.

Finally, Luna saw someone familiar. Nico, Nico Shymane, the first year Slytherin who became Prefect at the same time with her. The purple hair girl had never talked with Nico until they became prefects. Stopped looking at her, Luna turned her lavender eyes to the black hair guy. This might be the person who hosted this party and if she was not wrong, this was a snake, which meant, a student from the Slytherin House. Totally unexpected, since Luna thought that a student of the Gryffindor House had to be the one who started this... And then we had a couple, a black hair girl and a brown hair guy, no comments. There were a lot more... but the young girl was sure that she knew none of them, so ignore them did not sound like a bad idea...

Wait, wasn't that a Gryffindor prefect? The name... The name was Aurelia something, Luna could not really remember. She tried to remember all of the prefect's names and faces, so even when she was wrong with the name, this person had to be a Gryffindor prefect. Luna slowly walked to the group, no, next to Aurelia and was going to say something. However, when she came closer, the purple hair girl noticed another girl, who had curly hair... Luna did not notice her before though..

"A party is sure a good place to make friends, however, as you just said, prefect, or professor can show up any time. This party started this late after all." Actually there were already two prefects near you... Poor little girl, didn't know anything. Luna turned to Aurelia, did not know if the Gryffindor recognized that she was a prefect or not but still decided to tell her about it. "The girl that has dark brown-black hair right there, warned them about the party." The reason why Luna said so was that she did not want to give that girl detention. Wouldn't it be unfair? Yes it probably would. About Nico, she would not get any detentions either. First of all, because Nico was a prefect. Second, the red hair girl was shy so attending a party didn't really sound alike her. There were some more Slytherins in here. Sadly, because of the rules, she could not help them. Just hope that they recognized that attending this party was not a good idea and left...

12 minutes ticked away to 10 then it was not before there were only 5 mere minutes before curfew hit. 10.53pm. Still, not a single one strode last her to leave. If that was so then in 5 minutes time she was to issue out detention. An honour, her first time using her authority as a prefect would be to call off a party and issue about a dozen detentions to a room full of party animals. At least the party was not that wild, if she raised her voice, she would most likely capture their attention.

Aurelia pursed her lips into a tight line in unspoken disapproval when a girl with dark curly hair had approached her oblivious to the fact that she was in talking to the Gryffindor prefect herself. She had even introduced herself as Mari and began blabbering about how she wasn’t one for trouble. An almost in audible sigh left her lips. Aurelia was just about to reply to say that she was in fact the prefect who would give her detention when a girl with a lacy purple dress that brushed her knees as she walked, approached them.

Luna, the prefect of Slytherin began to tell Mari that ‘it wasn’t a good time to be making friends’, as if she wasn’t a prefect at all. Aurelia didn’t like these type of people, people who thought hey could get away with anything. Luna clearly joined the party willingly with the shoes and fancy outfit and now she was trying to slither out of the situation by playing her prefect role. Unbelievable.

“Luna is right, Mari. The prefect is already here. In fact here are three prefects but only one with enough sense to do her duties.” She said glaring at Luna.

“It doesn’t matter, as long as they are still in this room by the time 11 hits, which is in about two minutes time, each one of them will have to sit through detention. Maybe another round of cleaning the owlery or perhaps a night with Professor Griffith to clean the muck in the stables?” She had suggested.

“That includes you too, Luna. I think the Headmaster would love to hear about two Slytherin prefects attending a late night party.” Aurelia folded her arms.

All kinds of weird kids joined Serenas side. Some odd looking girl named, Erin. She reminded Nico of a Victorian Doll. Her face was cold and was hard to read. She had never heard of her before but her instinct told her to stay away from her. Scary. Nico noticed how Luna, the other Slythernin Prefect, walk passed the troublesome group making her way to what seemed a Gryffindor girl. Definitely not dressed for the occasion. That could mean a different kind of trouble. As the guilt was starting to rise at Nico's feet, she carefully shuffeled her way towards Luna. They weren't really friends but she WAS a colleague of hers. Right?

Fairly uncomfortable with how she had to brush her body against some students she didn't know (Since it was so crowded), Nico finally managed to fall on her knees behind Luna. What a display of a Prefect. A joke. She recovered quickly, standing up, dusting off her skirt and socks. 'M-Miss Choi! I-I don't believe we've met!' She swiftly wiped her hand clean, using her own shirt. 'My name is Nico Shymane. P-Prefect. A-At your service!' She offered her hand, as an invitation to shake it. Waiting for her answer she looked around. 'I mean.. Shouting about that we're Prefects isn't the smartest plan, I think. I got here after I heard some Slytherin girls gossip about a party and... Well, I just came to check what it was all about. And... I don't know about you but I have a bad feeling about this.' She rubbed her elbow concerned, as she eyed the students enjoying the buffet with snacks.

Looking back at Luna, Nico forgot to actually acknowlegde the presence of two other students. The Gryffindor girl she saw before and a Hufflepuff. Panicked that she made a horrible first impression, she carefully stood next to Luna. 'E-Excuse my arrogance. Nico Shymane. Slytherin.' She smiled shy but mostly nervous. She had a title to uphold. A job where students find trust in you. Being rude wasn't the way to go.

Luna listened to what Aurelia said. Oh, seemed like she was being misunderstood? However, she didn't show any expression on her face, just simply waited for the girl to finish everything that she wanted to, and started answered. "I am actually quite surprised. Only one? I really wonder how that prefect knows that the other two are not doing their duties, Miss Bezuidenhout." Calling her by the last name, Luna felt quite lucky that she could remember it, "I would love to talk about a misunderstanding story to the Headmaster."

"First of all." The purple hair girl raised a finger, "I am wearing this outfit because I did not know that we can still wear our uniform to attend. These things are just what I usually wear when going to places like this. Second," Was it her fault when she just randomly picked a dress from many other dresses that her parents told her to bring with? Raising another finger, Luna calmly continued, "I went in here to see how the situation is. Of course, standing next to the door is not a bad idea, but isn't it suspicious? Not to mention, if I really went here to 'enjoy' the party, I wouldn't just stand alone, to a place that I can see everything that is going on in this party, not talking with anyone and not eating anything. Of course..." She opened her bag, it was a small one, which was why Luna only brought three things with. The Marauder's map, hidden in a small box, her wand, and the prefect badge. She gently picked it up and showed the badge to Aurelia. "I would not bring this either. Why did I bring this if I wanted to attend this party?" She quickly put it back in her bag, Luna was just worried that she might lose it.

"Next, about the other Slytherin Prefect," Since Mari was right near them, the little snake decided not to mention Nico's name, "She was wearing her uniform. This can not prove much, so I will talk about what she had done since I was here. Avoiding talking with a guy, she did not eat anything either. The only person that she talked with is with the girl with dark brown-black hair there, and she just called her name, from what I have heard. I haven't talked about her personality either. Anyway, I don't have interested in showing the others a show about two prefects arguing, especially, right in a party like this one."

Defending herself, checked. Defending Nico, checked. Defending the Slytherins... unchecked. The third one was actually hard to do, kind of impossible. Was that mean? Luna did not know, she just did what she needed to do. "If you want to talk more about this, I wouldn't mind, but later." And then Luna realized that there was someone called her when she started defending herself. Turning to that person, she felt surprised after realizing that it was Nico. That meant, Nico had heard everything, including when Luna defended her? She rolled her eyes, tried to remember what Nico said and answered, "Miss Shymane, we actually have not met before." Glaring at the Gryffindor prefect, Luna continued. "Do not worry about it. Only two, or one minutes left before 11 pm, which means most of the people here will get detention."