Frigid Encounters Main Story

@Pericles Dralt & @Aida Mòrsgor-Ama Ellwood

Pericles would look out the window, he would not see a fleeing figure in the evening just an obvious path of egress. They escaped through this window, a truth that had meaning, value if he could piece it together. Perhaps not the who as there were too many, but the what. The owl would fly away, safe and secure. The grounds were unusually calm.

What he would see was the tree line - that it would shift. It was happening again, under the new moon, the forbidden forest was nothing more than a darkened wood. It was hard to see anything so far away in the shadowy darkness. It was nothing new to Peri, Ravenclaw had fought against the living wood before. It nearly spirited them away, they never learned why, only to avoid the perilous forest.

Meanwhile, on the floor where Vladimir Athanatos lay-

The thick golden potion did require an incantation but for those that recall those trips to the nurses office, there was none uttered. The potion was but a bandage, an attempt to delay the inevitable in a losing battle. It was something, it gave the children and staff the means to sleep at night for they have done something, the suffering was ameliorated, the black curses' spread was merely delayed. It gave them the much needed time to find an antidote, to garner an understanding.

In Vladimir's case, an opportunity to experiment. What was unknown to most was that Athanatos did in fact take the potion nightly in the nurses office but he would spit the potion back into the empty phial when he left the office or not drink it at all if he was not being watched. What followed--

Did Aida see what Vlad really did with the Thick Golden Potion?
Wisdom Roll DC 25
Roll: 4 (+10)

She could not be certain, but she knew he did something different with it. The best she could do was feed it to him. Was it really the best idea? The boy was unconscious, a mouthful of liquid was liable to end up in his lungs. But what other choice did she have? Entrust him into the care of the school nurse? The house elves that scurried about the hospital wing much like they did the kitchens and even their dormitories. She knew better than to trust what they fed her, who knew what consequences would befall the Ravenclaw, not that she had any particular affection for the boy but he could have the answers she sought.

She would fish the potion from Vladimir's pocket and pour it into his mouth, the contents would bubble in the back of his throat. A cough that would cause his battered body to convulse. A gag, leaving his red a ruddy shade of purple. An audible wheeze that whistled with each breath.

He was drowning, but he was also sitting upright. Heaving, the contents of his last meal on the floor in front of him along with the remnants of the thick golden potion his body had forcibly expelled. A sputter of blood, this blood red.

A groan.

Aida may have had her issues, but she was still Aida. Whatever strange air hung about Vladimir’s reputation, Aida still saw him as one of the very few allies she had in resisting the memory theft conspiracy… and the discomfort Vlad must have been going through as he retched, probably the verge of death, made Aida’s chest hurt as she watched.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know if I should have done that… Please, I want to help you. I just want to help you.”

In that moment, Aida was telling the truth. It was like watching the mosp bleeding out in her hands again, or the even worse fate of Manticore. Had she known what else she could do to rid Vlad of his affliction, she would do everything she could. Never did thoughts of investigating him for the sake of conspiracy information cross her mind again once she understood the gravity of his condition. Even the White General had fallen silent.

If Aida had unwittingly worked to undo the state of clear-sighted independence she wanted for both Vlad and herself alike, she had no idea. All she knew was this creature seemed on the verge of death and it hurt. Perhaps all she had done was apply a band-aid, but in the condition he was in, perhaps that could mean the difference between life and death.

Taking a blue handkerchief from her pocket, the one Pericles had given her on his birthday, Aida tried to give it to Vlad so that he could clean himself up, hopefully without introducing more fomites to any open wounds.

She heard a memory then… or was it a voice? The words of Griffith rang out clear in Aida’s head:

”...To accept a wounded creature, pain and all, and to calmly approach it, to calm it down, to slowly heal the wounds...”

Yes, Griffith was right. Aida had to be more calm in order to help Vlad.

“I fed you some of this golden potion and you came back to us. Can I help take you somewhere?” she said, holding out her own water canteen with her right hand. It contained boiled water from some natural water source on the Hogwarts grounds. Yes, Vlad would have had his own, but that was not on Aida's mind when she was acting on reflex. Then quietly Aida whispered to Vlad, “I don't eat the food here, either. What they're doing is wrong. I don't want them to get to you, too." Aida spoke calmly, reassuringly, knowing that his sorry state now might be a product of them having already gotten to him. Aida's blue-violet eyes watched Vlad calmly.

Interacting With: @ Vladimir Athanatos
Mentioning: @ Pericles Dralt
Action: Trying to give Vlad her clean kerchief (left hand) and water canteen (right hand)
Free Action: Talking to Vlad

Passive ability: Sixth Sense

The words of the letter were arcane to Nicholas, and not in the sense that they spoke of magic or of dark omens, but in that he could not wrap his head around them. It was true, he'd heard of the Potter murder and the scandal that it had caused, he'd also heard the unsavoury rumours floating around the school of the involvement of certain students in the arrest and subsequent framing of the Boy Who Lived. Whether or not Harry Potter had been framed or not had hardly garnered a second thought from the first year, it was so outside of his realm of reality that he'd barely thought it over. Yet, here he was, baring witness to the events that seemed to directly relate to the events. Moreover, dark magic was afoot, the wounded Ravenclaw was proof of that. The discussion among the prefects was entirely academic, and Nicholas instead opted to search the room for any sign of entry, anything that was a danger to his person. He couldn't care less about some grand conspiracy or curse, that was an issue for smarter wizards than he, especially if there were prefects present who seemed so keen to piece together the puzzle.

Still, Nicholas had been keen to interject, and even keener to get some form of guidance from the older students. It seemed the best course of action was for the younger students to return to their dormitories, it would be upon the prefects to make sure that the blonde boy made his way to the nurse. Nicholas nodded in response, but found himself taken aback by the actions that followed next. The black-haired prefect drew blood from the unconscious boy and Nicholas found himself blanching. What was the purpose of that? He was very likely dying, probably of some sort of dark curse if the earlier conversation was to be listened to.

Nicholas froze where he stood. Before he could even think, he saw the albino girl crouch down beside Athanatos and feed him a potion. A potion that the fourth-year Gryffindor had recanted on finding. Another peculiarity, no, further proof that perhaps she wasn't to be trusted. The realisation hit Nicholas hard, there was a tendency for younger students to view their seniors as invincible, closer to adults than they were to their fellows. But, they were hardly adults, they did not attempt to demonstrate authority. Where a boy lay wounded, they had treated him as an object of analysis, and discussed in hushed tones how to best solve the mystery. They had shown no thought toward the number of startled younger students. Intellectual curiosity had been the soul focus. Nicholas may have been a first year, a mere child, but he had no desire to place himself under the instruction of these students.

Especially not when the golden potion sent Athanatos reeling upright, blood sputtering forth from his mouth, as if he were the fountain topper of a particularly gory pond. Nicholas took a step back, aghast.

There were things going on here beyond the typical for a school, even one as atypical as Hogwarts. Things that Nicholas up and until that point had been blissfully ignorant of. An ignorance he had willingly fed into, he now realised, he had elected not to see what was before him, as it had never directly affected his life nor his studies. But this, this he could not so easily ignore. Mystery and curses.

"This isn't right," Nicholas muttered under his breath, barely audible, before immediately shutting himself up.

There was nothing to be gained by making his horror known, better to shirk into the background, better to observe the fallout. Nicholas stepped further back, creating distance between himself and the others. His eyes did not depart from the boy and his bloody discharge. Whatever had taken place, he lay at the core of it. But, one thing was for certain, McCowan had no intention of following the prefect's advice and returning to his dorm. Not anymore, not after witnessing the field medicine of two fellow students. He was on edge and he felt as if he couldn't trust a soul present.

Action: Watching Vladimir for any unexpected movement or action
Stats: STA: 7 | EVA: 6 | STR: 8 | WIS: 6 | ARC: 4 | ACC: 4
Abilities: Foulplay
Mentioning @Xailah Alptraum, @Pericles Dralt, @Vladimir Athanatos & @Aida Mòrsgor-Ama Ellwood

Most of the items discovered on Vladimirs person were easily identifiable- all were, actually. The milky liquid, which appeared to briefly catch Pericles interest, was the only object that was a little trickier to put a label on. It was a... liquid. Obviously. But what sort of liquid? Potion or component? Pericles would ask. Do you recognize it? Xailah gave a mechanical hum. "Unsure." She squinted, watching the liquid creep up the small space in the vial, and fall, leaving behind a cloudy trail of residue. It would have to be looked at later. The milky liquid could have been a number of things. What those things were, she did not know. The only thing that really came to mind was, well, milk. Did Vlad have some undiscovered cookies hiding somewhere? He seemed like a Oatmeal Raisin kind of guy. Deceptive on the surface; even more so, once the outer oatmeal and cinnamon layer was chewed through; and you realize that those were not chocolate chunks, but dried grapes. Too often were Oatmeal cookies, mistaken for Chocolate Chip (somehow), usually by those who had never had a real Chocolate Chip cookie. Cookies or no cookies- milk, or no milk- the presumed potion would be put away for later examination. Xailah now had a needle in hand, readied at the inner portion of Vladimirs elbow. Pericles letter, which he had repaired, was sent off to continue its quest of reaching the hands of the intended recipient. Xailah made a comment. The Ravenclaw replied with his usual, clever response- only this one made Xailah suspect that he might have already forgotten some of the letters contents. Her lids narrowed. Lips pursed in thought. Surely he hadn't forgotten already? If he could remember a snippet of a fact heard in passing, and spout it later, then he could remember the words in a letter.

"You put too much faith in the minds of your peers." That wasn't meant as an insult to those in the room. Not all were meant to be trusted. Er- their heads weren't. In fact, it probably went the other way too. Who in the Owlery trusted each other- aside from the obvious? No one evidently. Their aversion spoke- shifty eyes, and backing away from others- when they did not. Of course, maybe they were too shocked by the scene, to even consider placing faith in one another. "I can only hope that you are right." If anything, their minds were focused on other things- like how horrifying this whole situation was, or how confusing the contents of the letter were. The Gryffindor- the little one- made it obvious that this was likely his first time experiencing a Hogwarts tragedy. If one could call this a tragedy. What was the appropriate word for the scene? Disaster? Yes, disaster would do. With time, he would understand the actions and reactions of the prefects. Maybe. If he lived long enough to gain a grasp. There were many more disasters waiting for him. This- this apparent assault and battery, only nicked the surface of the trauma iceberg, that was Hogwarts.

Xailah was what someone might call, an opportunist. If she found a figurative window, she took it. Sometimes she would take real windows too, if they were small enough- so much could be done with window glass. But that is a different sort of opportunism- that is called theft, which is highly frowned upon. Here, in the scene that lay before her, she had an opportunity: an opportunity to learn. So far she had managed to keep some decorum. Uh. Frisking aside. She had done things that didn't stir too many questions. Presumably. Though it might have not seemed like it, she had been very careful with handling situation; to prevent further disquiet among her peers. But now, she had to let the fake attentiveness drop. For the sake of obtaining information. Pericles called. Questioned what she was doing. Her hair twitched slightly. She peered past her shoulder to meet his silvers. They were rounded. With fear? Shock? She would hardly acknowledge him. "You ssshouldn't watch." She muttered.

A sharp breath was drawn, to help steady herself. Vladimirs arm was examined carefully. Why- how odd. There were marks that trailed the length of flesh. Marks like little ant trails- all bruised and gross looking, each branching from a small, scabbed pinprick. Someone stuck him before. Thats what they meant right? That could explain why his sleeve had been missing. There was some discomfort in thinking that there may have been someone walking around with Vladimirs contaminated blood, and they might have been the same person who beat the crap out of him. A stretch, but anything was plausible right now. Xailah had some aid, with the extraction- help in the form of foggy memories. In her youth, she didn't read the stories girls her age were normally interested in. Not by choice, (well, in a way, it was done willingly) but because the childrens books were always out of reach. Where there should have been fairytales about princes riding gallantly on their white steeds; sat books about muggle science, bugs, and the occasional Dictionary- basically anything but fiction. So in her early years, when someone tall was not present, her days were sometimes spent flipping through the withering pages of old medical textbooks. She understood none of what sat between the cream colored pages then, but now that she was older, she could make a little more sense of them. Not enough to know what she was doing; just enough to have an idea. So his arm was definitely going to hurt like the dickens when he woke up. Assuming he would ever wake up. If he did, a sore arm was going to be the last of his problems.

"I ran into an old acquaintance a few months back. They are... one of the infected." She started, somewhat unprompted. It was an attempt at a quick save mostly, and directed to no one in particular- just anyone who was still listening really. The thick needle pushed through purpled flesh, seeking a spindly deposit. "The curse was brought up. We exchanged theories. As we spoke, I began to realize- we both began to realize- that there is very little information that can be found on the curse..." She trailed off, when she felt the pop. The needle gained entry to the vein. Xailah pulled, at the plunger at the end of the syringe. Darkness slithered into the glass barrel, contaminating it. "The adults- they aren't doing anything." Her throat tightened. If the letter to August meant anything, it was that the ministry didn't even know about the curse. That, or they were being very hush-hush about it. "And frankly-" she grimaced, "frankly, I'm tired of trying to pretend that they are." The syrupy liquid sloshed to the top of the syringe, filling the last bit of space with liquid night. The length of metal slid from the vein it had pierced. Carefully, she recapped the needle, and placed it snuggly in her pellet-box. "Its almost been a year now. Don't you think we should have heard... something about a cure by now?" The box closed with a sharp click. It disappeared into one of Xailahs robe pockets. Xailah turned, looking to those in the room. Her cattish eyes glistened with a faint dew. Oblong pupils jumped from face to face, searching for an emotion other than shock in them.

During this time, Aida took it upon herself to administer the Thick Gold Potion to Vladimir. It seemed that the young Albino was an opportunist too. Xailah spotted the girls movement out of the corner of her eye. The Gryffindor had gone to grab her chestnut wand- to Ferula Vladimirs arm- and was therefore unable to react fast enough to stop the young girl. "Aida-" Xailah called gaspingly."No-" She reached to grab the vial from the albino, but it was too late. Down his throat the golden potion went, and up came his dinner. Aidas lack of hesitance was shocking. Xailah thought the white witch, of all people, would have understood why she insisted the potion was not there; and why she did not take it. Her lie was not meant to harm. It was meant to save. "He needed that-" He might have needed to take it to someone. What he certainly did not need, was the potion forced down his gullet. Xailah shot up from her crouched position on the floor; scrambling out of a spewing Vladimirs way. Startled, she jumped away from him. Stomach contents spattered across the floor, mixing with the straw and owl guano. And then, Vladimir was conscious. Xailah though she heard a small sound from one of the other students on standby. It was so quiet though. Maybe it wasn't anything at all. Clearly this wasn't right. Vladimirs blood was supposed to be black. Not red. He needed to be taken to the hospital wing. If the blood in his bile was a sign of anything, it was that he was bleeding internally.

@Xailah Alptraum | @River Dewlight | @Nicholas McCowan | @Aida Mòrsgor-Ama Ellwood

Those seconds spent staring off into the night were clarifying. The crisp air cleared the stink of straw and droppings from his sinuses, its vast emptiness diluting the mental clutter brought on by the crowded scene behind him. Pericles squinted towards the forest, unable to help an uncomfortable frown, given the sensation that it was somehow staring back. It was less like a place, those woods, and more of a thing. He wouldn't soon forget the way it sprang to life around them with jutting rocks and grasping vines. The spider, the smoke.... Banter with Xailah prevented his mind from fluttering too far out the window. "You put too much faith in the minds of your peers." "You are one of my peers," he sallied back softly, a teasing, gentle reminder that he didn't consider either of them all too different from the others present, in what was likely a naïve inclusion. Only, Xailah was one of those who was different to him from any old student, even if he wouldn't admit it. That was what made her next action so difficult to take in.

His habit of bias had been subtle: focus merely shifting elsewhere, eyes pretending not to see, ears pretending not to hear. He could overlook Xailah's "opportunistic tendencies" as readily as he could overlook Ruby's propensity for violent outlash. They were his friends- Xailah, specifically, was his very first best friend. The mere thought of jeopardizing that in any way filled his heart with weighty dread. Friends weren't meant to argue, were they? Only once had he "strongly disagreed" with her, telling her off for chewing out a certain silly Ravenclaw. But what had followed? Nothing, which was how he had wanted it. Internalize. Justify. Carry on as if it never happened. Pericles could not allow someone to up and steal another student's very life essence, but in the same vein (), he could not stop her specifically. How dangerous was that blood? What effect would this have on River, too? Even if he had heard Nicholas, he wouldn't have shown an ability to respond. Instead he stood, stiff, still, muted mortification cementing his soft features into something deeply unusual and unsettled. In most situations that did not involve going against one of his own, Pericles was swift with a solution. Now he was paralyzed by his own thoughts. One could practically smell the smoke spluttering from those shiny brass cogs in his head.

When Xailah first began to speak, it was like reading a book while one's thoughts are elsewhere. Your eyes glaze over the initial sentence, perhaps the first few, and it isn't until you're partway finished that it becomes apparent you've retained nothing. The truth of what followed pricked at another fact he was ignoring: the lack of adult intervention. Pericles had just recently shed the childish perspective of adults as infallible, immortal beings, incapable of mistake. The epiphany was still too raw to wrap his mind around, so he stayed silent as she mused. He knew better than to discard Aida's words- doesn't eat the food here? "They"? Get you? She was as curious as they come, but that didn't mean she was any less brilliant than the rest of the eagles. His focus fixed briefly on the kerchief in her hands. What did she mean? His deeply curious tendencies wanted to know precisely what had happened here, though the ideal he had built up of the "standard prefect" was arguing against it, insisting that he'd best hurry up and drag the fourth-year off to the infirmary before someone else stuck him, or drowned him, or- per the Hogwarts norm- set him on fire. Pericles felt head and heart pulling in different directions, splitting him down the center. Now that Vlad was awake, he could clear up some of their confusion. But then, what were their chances of coaxing an honest answer from him?

As Xailah drew away and Vladimir started to spew, Pericles automatically took a step closer. He had tried to corner and question Vladimir once before, yet the slippery enigma proved perfectly elusive, and nettling him about his apparent detour through the Forbidden Forest had been all but impossible. Was this going to be a rare opportunity, or another dead end? Well, he wouldn't know if he didn't bother trying. "Vladimir... who did this to you?"

Questioning Vladimir.
existential crisis

Banner Credit: Winnie Harper

@Pericles Dralt | @Xailah Alptraum | @Vladimir Athanatos | @Aida Mòrsgor-Ama Ellwood

River listened intently as Xailahh enlightened her on the topic of the curse mentioned in the letter. Desperately she tried to latch onto every word and piece of information that she could, but there would still be questions. Her face was stern, small nods responding to the gryffindor as she spoke, while internally the redhead scolded herself for letting herself be in the dark about something as important as this.

“Well thank you for letting me in on some of what’s going on Xailah”, she said when the gryffindor was finished explaining what she knew. River couldn’t help but wonder where people were gaining information about this. It was common sense that Hogwarts was home to danger and dark secrets, but for River to have missed such details was a disappointment to herself. Perhaps she was just good at being in the wrong place at the wrong time, for her to only encounter situations that provided no answers, but rather created more questions.

The creeping worry of someone unknown still being around did not fade as she scanned their surroundings, though perhaps their best bet was to just get out of there as quickly as possible. What was a bunch of young students going to do about a situation like this anyways? Pericles, being the ravenclaw he is, came with the most logical plan forward. Go back to the castle, and bring Vladimir to the hospital wing. River always felt he was able to be responsible about situations where she’d simply give in to curiosity. She admired him for that, among other things.

If she was being completely honest, River would have appreciated a little bit of a warning before Xailahh whipped out the needle, intending to puncture the skin and veins of the boy laying on the floor. Perhaps she could have had a moment to go outside, get some fresh air. Though she did not have the time to acknowledge it was happening before the girl had successfully begun drawing Vladimirs blood into the little syringe.
The dhampir watched intently, not realizing she was holding her breath. She attempted to keep her attention on what Xailah was talking about, rather than the black trickle of blood filling the clear container. River had endured a lot worse than a little bit of blood in a phial, there was nothing wrong with this. She was fine, -yes. All good.

Something snapped her out of her tense state. A ruckus that went down right in front of her eyes, though she had no idea what it was. River had not noticed the golden liquid before, but barely caught a glimpse of it before Vladimir was up. She stood completely still, subconsciously suppressing an urge to step back, away from the sick splattering on the floor.

Pericles began asking questions, and as much as River wanted answers, it was more than clear that what he would need was to be brought to the hospital wing. “Peri are you sure this is the time?, she asked him quietly. "I mean I’m sure we’d all love to know what happened, but perhaps he will be in better shape to answer when he’s… you know... not vomiting blood?”, she added, looking over at Vladimir. Who knows if he’d even share the truth with the group of people in the owlery. What did some random students have to do with his business? Of course this was more important than a simple matter of whose business it is, this was about everyone's safety at Hogwarts. Though it is not like anyone would have any answers if this boy perished on this floor. River was unsure of what to do, and would stay there looking between the rest of the students.

Action: No particular action / Standby(?)
Stats: Stamina 7 | Evasion 6 | Strength 4 | Wisdom 10 | ArcPower 6 | Accuracy 7
Race & Abilities: Dhampir (aura on) & Perfectionist

Retching, his arm ached. He would reach towards his left throbbing arm. It was bare, a shock of pain shot through him as his fingertips reached his own flesh. Something compressed his arm, a tourniquet that was left on for too long. The ever-loving hell? A tug, a throb of pain. His fingers would worm beneath and tear the thick band from his arm. An aching tingle, his left arm would bend at the elbow, his hand would weakly open and close. Discolored, an almost bruised coloring. He let out a hiss, as if the noise would release the deep-seated discomfort.

“I fed you some of this golden potion and you came back to us. Can I help take you somewhere?”

"No," he rasped shaking his head side-to-side. He did not want to be taken anywhere, in truth he had nowhere to go. "I am fine," he lied although the truth was rather obvious. He passively accepted the handkerchief but he did not use it. There was a pervasive distrust for others, the canteen and the cloth could be dangerous. Intentional or not, they likely were.

“I don't eat the food here, either. What they're doing is wrong. I don't want them to get to you, too."

"Love is a dangerous drug," he muttered. While it might have sounded out of context, it was the answer to an unasked question. Why A passive motion with his left hand, he returned the cloth to the girl and wiped the spittle from the corner of his mouth with the back of his aching hand. "Give them a bit of slack, but yeah... avoid anything not of your hand." Had he known the girl's association with Alexander V. he would have warned her to not trust anything given from a 'trusted' friend. It was an eventuality that he would one day wish for her to also forget.

Aida's Sixth Sense Roll: 9 Success

His body rattled with violent convulsion as he retched and coughed. A fragility, a frailty that he had obfuscated. A headrush came with the cough, causing him to feel disoriented. There was an old scent to the blood he coughed up, a unique metallic scent Aida was close enough to smell but that was not the only scent. There was something else also, peonies? Hardly a masculine scent.

"McCowen," he sputtered. Yes, he knew somehow the Gryffindor's name. A sniffle, he could feel the contents of his stomach churn. Another mouthful of this time bile would escape his chapped lips. Crap "Sorry," an undeclared sin.

His stomach hurt. His head swam, it throbbed as did his bare arm.

He would pad around his shirt, his pants. He was looking for something. "Where?" He retched again, more blood and bile expelled. "Oh god!" No, he was not seeking divine intervention, he was just calling on them. "Gone," his voice shook. There was a swelling panic inside of him. A terrible knowledge of something, something important that was no longer-- "Blegh!" It was like freshman year, Friday night in the frat bathroom.

"Vladimir... who did this to you?"

The voice distant, it sounded as if he was underwater. He took a pair of rapid, pained, yes fearful breaths through flared nostrils. There was not enough air. "Vic,"
he announced. Whatever he was looking for was unrecovered. Without looking, his hand would wander and reach for Aida. He was trying to stand, the girl the closest thing to stability in reach. "I need to find him."

The discussion between the albino girl and the boy coughing up blood went over Nicholas's head, and he supposed that was entirely natural. Even from where the boy stood, his gaze was shrewd enough to comprehend that their hushed tones and muttering were abnormal, but so was the situation, so Nicholas supposed that to continue to be surprised was foolish. He fought to suppress the feelings that had welled of worry and instead turned his mind toward the events, attempting to puzzle them out in much the same way that the older students were. It seemed they were not in immediate danger, and that small comfort was all that he could take. He breathed, slowly, allowing himself to calm ever-so-slight. Even the racking coughs that followed the wounded boy's words did not cause him as much worry as they may have had they occurred not a few moments before.

The words he sputtered after made up for that panic tenfold. He had said Nicholas's name. Dark eyes opened wide and the first year instinctively took a step back, shocked, what was the context behind that? He was hardly the most intimidating member of the student body who had come across his wounded form. Moreover, how did he even know who he was? They did not pass in the same circles, there was an age difference, and experience difference. Would the others believe that Nicholas had somehow had something to do with the situation? That was preposterous.

The first year steeled himself and forced himself forward, recanting his step back and then some, "Yeah, that's me," He spoke hesitantly, the words prodding for some kind of reaction, "I'm sorry, have we met before? I'm afraid we probably haven't had the pleasure." Nicholas could not hide the accusatory tone in his voice, nor did he care to.

The fellow students, particularly the cat-like prefect seemed almost predatory, and to be singled out by name by the sole victim of some kind of attack made the Irish boy feel cornered. Preemptively, he had changed his posture, hackles raising. Defensiveness was natural to the young wizard, and he slipped into the frame of mind as naturally as he could breathe. The glare he gave to the wounded Ravenclaw made it evident that in spite of his condition, retching and vomiting up whatever contents may have lined his stomach, panicking as he searched for whatever had gone missing from his person, the first year saw him as a threat.

Then, finally, the answer to the male prefect's question. Vic had done this. The name was foreign upon Nicholas's mind, before it matched with one which had circulated the rumour mill of Hogwarts for longer than the Gryffindor had been at the school. Victor Moore, a student near inseparable from the bleeding figure before them. Until his death, of course.

"The dead boy?" Nicholas asked, ambivalent to whatever damage his lack of tact or tone could have done, "I didn't think ghosts could rip open boxes or rob people."

Nicholas would have dismissed the answer as the ramblings of a wounded man, had it not been for how he had said his name earlier. The first year remained transfixed on that, it was as if he had been on the precipice of whatever darkness had been plaguing the school, only to be grabbed by Athanatos's hand and pulled into the swelling black. Tellingly, he avoided responding to his desire to find the dead boy who had attacked him. He was older and in spite of his wounds, it was extremely unlikely he would take the words of a humble first year to heart. It was even more unlikely that Nicholas would even feel comfortable speaking with any form of authority toward an older student. Instead, he waited for someone else to talk him out of it on that front. Besides, he was more concerned with protecting his own person than talking the older boy down from some form of suicidal chase.

Action: Stand-by
Stats: STA: 7 | EVA: 6 | STR: 8 | WIS: 6 | ARC: 4 | ACC: 4
Abilities: Foulplay
Mentioning @Xailah Alptraum, @Pericles Dralt, @Vladimir Athanatos & @Aida Mòrsgor-Ama Ellwood

Interacting with @Vladimir Athanatos
Mentioning @Xailah Alptraum, @Pericles Dralt, @Aida Mòrsgor-Ama Ellwood

Xailah and Pericles said she could wait there with them, and walk the boy down to the hospital wing. She let out sigh of relief as she really didn't want to go it alone. However, it seemed that things got out of hand quickly.

She shuffled her feet against the stone floor, waiting patiently for someone/s in the group to finally lift the unconscious boy up, but that never happened. Instead, what happened was a series of events that made her jaw drop - first Xailah attempting to siphon blood from the unconscious boy. Surely this was something that Nurse Brumbly would handle, no? She almost wanted to stop her, but it seemed like she knew what she was doing, and so she kept to herself.

It was then one of the girls poured the golden liquid down the unconscious boys throat. She gasped, again almost reaching out to stop her, but failing, as it was certainly too late. The boy flew upwards, sitting upright, sputtering the liquid out of his mouth. She stood there in shock as she tried to keep her focus on the conversation now going on around her, but growing concern for the boy's safety grew in her - perhaps the healer's call that her father told her about. But... what could she do? She wasn't with her father, she didn't even have any healing spells. And, from the flashes of conversation around her she was able to catch, not even the adults could heal the boy's affliction. Xailah even called it a curse. Her breath caught, and she stood there with a blank stare on her face. Naive little Starlee was slowly learning more and more about the horrors that had been going on at Hogwarts and she really wasn't sure what to do with the information. Most likely it was something she would bury inside herself, choosing to ignore it, but she couldn't ignore that now.

A shred of remembrance finally clicked within her - this was the same boy who was unconscious from the train incident earlier that year. He had attempted to warn them that disaster was going to strike their train car, but Starlee didn't - no - couldn't believe him. And then he had somehow ended up unconscious outside - perhaps also partially due to Borvo's birdcage soaring through the sky and clubbing him in the face, but of course Starlee didn't see this. She tried to piece this information together, but all she could really deduce now was that the strange black liquid she had seen that contrasted so deeply with the surrounding snow was... well... the boy's 'blood', if you could call it that. At least now she could put a name to the face - Vladimir. Why did this boy seem to get in all sorts of trouble? She managed to loose track in the conversation over this trying to figure out just what was going on here. But she knew no 'Vic,' and had no further clues.

He reached out to the girl who had poured the strange liquid down his throat, attempting to stand. She would scurry quickly over to him, offering up her arm and shoulder for the boy to grip to stand, ready to finally be of help in the situation. Although, perhaps she did have an ulterior motive of taking him (or at least attempting to take him) to the hospital wing instead, but she wasn't going to make that known. "Here, take my arm." she said, her usual upbeat tone completely gone from her voice, replaced with something more monotone.

Action: Running over to help Vladimir stand

For Moderation:
Stamina: 4 - Evasion: 5 - Strength: 6 - Wisdom: 8 - Arcane: 6 - Accuracy: 5
Abilities: Healing Sage

Though the rasping Vladimir seemed far from in stable condition, seeing the boy come back from unconsciousness gave Aida a rush of relief so powerful that, for now, she forgot to be paranoid. The white witch habitually suspected almost everyone-- anyone could be in alliance with the memory thieves, intentionally or not. In a way she had for months distrusted Vladimir, whose story and motives were murky despite Aida’s hours of unabashed stalking. Yet, his current condition moved Aida on a level that conspiracy theories could no longer reach. As Vladimir reached out, Aida instinctively moved to (attempt to) catch him on her shoulder to support his weight.

As she moved, Vlad’s words swirled about in her mind undigested. Love? Drug? Slack? Like a song heard by a musician for the first time, Vlad’s words soaked into the fabric of Aida’s subconscious. No thoughts solidified; Aida could not think through her perception of Vladimir’s agony. All she knew now was his pain, and helping him. A waft of fragrance hung about the young man: peonies. Among her human peers Aida always had one of the strongest and best-trained senses of smell, a trait that routinely contributed to her wayfinding in dark places ever since she was little. She did not know why he smelled of peonies, but it provided an accompaniment to the rest of Vladimir’s communication. Aida had thought Victor dead, but what was Aida confident about after months of combating mental manipulation, trauma, and hallucinations, often on the verge of starvation?

”I will help you find Victor, dead or alive,” Aida said firmly. “Are you looking for the letter? Pericles just sent it by owl.” Aida, the compulsive truth-teller, was the last person to be trusted publicly with unspoken secrets.

Interacting: @Vladimir Athanatos
Mentioning: @Pericles Dralt
Action: Attempt to catch and support Vlad on her shoulder