Love at First Slug PV Group closed

Interacting with @Willow Anderson

Hand in hand, he walked out of the tea party with the new found interest. It would of been a lie to say it wasn't the cupcakes that were speaking for him. Without the love potion, he was whole heartedly loyal to @Santario Martin thick and thin. Although, right now he couldn't help but be attracted to the girl he once considered a rival. Oh, how the tables had turned this very night.

Before he knew it, Willow had taken him into the small hall to try and get himself cleaned off. Compared to her effects, Gray's seemed to still be strong as he looked down to the girl with tired yet caring blue eyes. Percival was tugged to the side away from any on coming students as Willow took out some napkins she took from the table during the chaos. He stood still while the girl wiped his clothing, listening in a dazed state from the shock of them almost kissing.

Slowly, his hand would reach down to the one drying him off and gently wraps it around the hand. He raises it up slightly and looks directly into her eyes once more, smiling warmly from how happy he felt around her.

"We were going to show our true colours to each other Willow, there was nothing wrong with it." he said reassuringly, his other hand raising to her chin so he can use his finger to raise it up slightly "You are a special girl Willow... I was just blinded by my arrogance not to see it sooner"

☁ Interacting ☁
@Percival Gray

There was a part of Willow that wanted to lean into this fantasy. The part of her that grew up seeing princesses whisked away by princes that saw them for who they were despite everything stacked up against them. Maybe this could be her reality, with Percival as her prince.

There was also a part of Willow that wanted to run and never look back. The part that knew of shadows that lurked around corners and fires behind doors that should never be opened. The one that remembered how Percival and Willow first met. The words Percival slung towards her about her muggle family. Wasn't she disgusting to him? Where she came from something to be shameful?

If they were to show their true colors, what would that look like? A kaleidoscope of a misunderstood rainbow? Dull greys and blacks and crimson red of bad blood that went farther back than Willow could comprehend, but a feud that Percival was raised in. Her mind was spiraling about what to do about this, what would Flash say? What would Astrea think if she could see this?

His hand entangled in hers and made her thoughts spiraling so quick she could be transported to Oz, away from Kansas and everything she understood. His smile made her melt just a little bit, finally seeing him show joy for once was almost worth it. Everyone deserved happiness, even Percival Gray. Her gaze forced up by the tilt of her hand by his hand. Napkins were forgotten, crumpled up and soaked and tea they fell to the ground.

Willow leaned into it. The part that wanted to run was quieted by the prospect of just being wanted. "No you're right there's- nothing wrong with it. I suppose I'm just surprised by the change of heart. I thought you hated me." Her eyes flicked from his lips back to his eyes. Were... were they going to kiss now? If he started to lean closer Willow's eyes would flutter shut and follow suit. But he would have to make the first move once more.

☁ Outfit Reference ☁

Reducio

Interacting with @Willow Anderson

Percival was spellbound right now, enhanced by the potion that only increased the slug's determination to reach to attack its target sooner. Right now he looked into Willow's eyes, stepping forward to slowly wrap an arm around her back. Gently he began pulling her in close, a warm smile still across his face.

Willow seemed conflicted at first from his sudden change of heart, one that saw them change from bitter rivals into something so much closer. In his frazzled mind, Gray had finally seen the true goodness of the girl he used to despise and now he couldn't be separated from her. Santario had been pushed to the back of his mind, a person he still deeply cared about but was slowly beginning to lose hope on. All he wanted was affection back into his life, not the hatred that San gave him every time they saw each other.

"I never hated you Willow, you're a good girl who doesn't deserve heartbreak again," his forged tongue said, baiting her closer to the ultimate trap that awaited her. Leaning his face forward his lips began to get closer to hers "I've never been so wrong about anyone in my life..." he whispered softly as their lips got closer and closer.

With no distractions this time their lips finally touched, a moment both of them had long awaited. However, the peaceful moment would only come crashing down not long after. A gurgle came from Gray's throat as he suddenly pulled away and put two hands on his neck, one that made it look like he was choking on something. Without warning, he began coughing and wheezing violently, his eyes and jaw wide in shock as flem slowly dripped to the floor near her

"W-what the..." was the only thing he could gasp before falling down to one knee, wildly choking and trying to cough out whatever was coming up his throat.

☁ Interacting ☁
@Percival Gray

Ah, young love was so fickle. The moment so easily broken. In this case, by Percival choking. What a missed opportunity.

In the moment Willow let herself melt into the arm that was bracing her back. Into the compliments that left hypnotized lips, into the ideal that this wasn't an amortentia induced facade of crushing. There was no more time to respond as they finally kissed, Willow's eyes fluttering shut and one hand coming to rest on his chest, the other carressing his face. It seemed like it could last forever, a less than pictureque moment living on like the portraits in Hogwarts.

But in a matter of moments Willow yanked herself back just as Percival did. Was this a prank? Had he tricked her? No- he was- choking! And it was quite gross, it took everything in her not to vomit herself as she watched the phlegm drip to the ground. She was reminded of the ball where she had to heave the boy out of a falling apart tent after he passed out from hacking up his lungs. Was this a chronic condition? It didn't matter.

"Percival- Are you ok?" She came to kneel by his side before her head snapped up to the students still coming and going from the event. "Someone go get help! Or be help! Just- help!" She knew of the heimlich maneuver but there was no part of her that felt confident in performing it on him. All she could do was kneel next to him and hope he didn't die- because that would be awkward. The amortentia was slowly wearing off- and Willow was becoming aware of the fact that they would definitely have to talk about this later.

☁ Outfit Reference ☁

Reducio

───Interactions─── Reducio @Willow Anderson @Percival Gray

OUTFIT Reducio Chanel Spring 2022 Collection

────Mentions──── Reducio @Flash Holmwood @Eun-Ji Lee Hunt @Adlai Rod

Exiting the tea party, Evelynn had wasted no time in rushing after Anderson and Gray. Even with the party fading into the distance and the environment that constantly seemed to spur her paranoia dwindling, she couldn't shake the feeling that she was on to something. Anderson was a muggleborn; or at the very least, a muggle-sympathizer. That had always been evident by the way she dressed and talked. Gray was one to admonish the very concept. There was no reasonable rationale Evelynn could conjure wherein his apparent attraction was genuine. Certainly not publicly as he was. And to see Anderson responding in that way? No... Evelynn might not have known the girl well, but it still seemed entirley uncharacteristic.

With how quickly Evelynn exited in pursuit, the two couldn't get far without Evelynn's notice. She had followed their trail, occasionally losing sight of them through a crowd of students in a hall, or around the corner of a bend. Once or twice, she had hastened down one path only to have to double back, deciding they must have taken a different route than what she'd seen. But eventually she caught up enough to hear the distinctive call for help from the voice she sought.

"Anderson!" Her own response rang out like a responding flare to a beacon. Acknowledgement that she had heard the plea.

Steps would hasten again, resolve building determination in the set of her own jaw. She knew there had been something amiss. A slight dip and pause during one step would have her pulling her wand from its sheath in her boot. Running now, she closed the distance, hoping that the others had followed after her as well, but not about to wait for their arrival if they had not.

Soon enough, the pair would come into view. They clearly hadn't quite made it to any sort of privacy given where they had ended up, but by the way Gray was doubled over, it seemed as though perhaps they hadn't yet had the chance. Coughing and sputtering, phlegm trickling from his mouth, the Slytherin almost looked like he was choking on something. But if that was the case, and part of Evelynn rushed to try to help. To perform the Heimlich manoeuvre in an effort to aid him dislodging whatever seemed to be impeding his breathing.

But as she took a step, she faltered. She had seen this before. It was Samhain Festival all over again, with Ryan in the distance doubled over and regurgitating slugs. Evelynn hadn't involved herself directly then, instead forced to hurry after Lestrange who had chosen an arguably more dangerous route. But she had born witness to the aftermath, and the fight that had broken loose as a result. The Headliner articles came rushing back, then. How the parasites sought to dwell in a host. She wasn't sure how they managed to get into the host to begin with, but she was starting to piece together the various clues to get an idea.

And as the article had said, there was only one sure-fire way to expel a slug from a victim.

"Anderson, I might suggest to have your wand in hand. As a...precautionary measure." If it turned out that he would spew many little slugs, then she would hurry in to help, perhaps even offering an apology in the process. But if it turned out as she suspected, then there was no way she would willingly put herself any closer to the creature than what was necessary for the situation. "Slugulus eructo."

ACTION: Casting Slug-Vomiting Curse at Percival

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Soon after Jack and Hanako left the tea party in the ballroom, Jack's attention was caught by Flash leaving soon after and hurrying past him. There was also a familiar cry for help that his ears caught, so Jack had to turn to make his excuses to Hanako before leaving him to follow Flash toward the source of the sound. Hopefully the amortentia-affected boy could find his way back to the dormitories on his own and would do so without too much fuss. Something was seriously wrong - worse than Hanako's situation - and Jack intended to find out what. He told the Japanese boy he would catch up with him later in order to mollify him before running off.

Before he could call out to Flash to find out what was going on, he heard the sound of Evelynn's voice calling out to Willow instead and promptly darted toward them both. Flash seemed to be headed in the same direction anyway which made sense given what Jack knew of him. Upon coming across the small group of students, Jack's attention was drawn to Percival Gray and the difficulty their dormmate was having. At first Jack might have thought to use the Anapneo spell on Gray which would have cleared his airwarys of whatever he was choking on. Once again, though, he was beaten to the punch by Evelynn who used a completely different spell. It took Jack a minute to understand why.

Like Evelynn, Jack had been there for the Samhain Festival when Erin had been choking on slugs and a bunch of people had been trying to get them out of her. He had also read the article involving hags and slugs and so immediately got an idea of what Evelynn might have been thinking in using the spell that she did. Just as Flash was drawing his wand, Jack witnessed Evelynn's spell take effect and force Gray to produce a large slug out of his mouth. The Welsh teen immediately drew his own wand and tried to think of what spell to cast on it. What would be most effective on a hag slug? Burning it? Freezing it? Bombarding it? Hurling it? No, those last two could have flung it off somewhere they couldn't find or worse - at someone. The article he had read in the school newspaper hadn't said anything about how to destroy the slug, though; only that it needed to be destroyed.

"Incendio!" he settled with eventually, using the spell that had been used on him only a little while earlier. It was thus fresh in his mind how powerful the spell could be if done correctly. He only hoped it would work on the hag slug.

Action: Using Incendio on the Hag Slug
Interacting with: @Flash Holmwood, @Percival Gray, @Willow Anderson, & @Evelynn Decipio
Stats: | Sta 6 | Eva 7 | Str 3 | Wis 15 | Arc P 7 | Acc 7 |
Abilities: Prodigal Charms Learner, Binding Mark, & Perfectionist

───Interactions─── Reducio @Willow Anderson @Percival Gray @Flash Holmwood @Jack Burnett

OUTFIT Reducio Chanel Spring 2022 Collection

────Mentions──── Reducio n/a

Exiting the tea party, There do come times, now and again, where despite any proclivity and preference for being proven right, the weight of the situation of "right" drastically outweighs any smug pride accompanying it. This should have been one of those situations. This was not, however, one of those situations. Over the years at Hogwarts, Evelynn had been exposed to more violence and near-death experiences than anyone of her age ought. Time and again, the driving force behind those occurrences could be attributed to any number of malicious entities, although most could be sourced back to one of only a few driving hands. Seeds of doubt had long ago been planted, tended to and fertilized with repeated deception, and propagated into a reasonable caution that many of the more protected denizens of the school might consider ridiculous paranoia.

In this situation, admittedly, Evelynn had little more than a gut feeling and a smattering of disjointed memories that she had sewn together to conveniently explain that which had transpired before her eyes. She very well could have been grasping. The entire situation could easily have been a fabrication of her own delusions and worries, a less mundane explanation discarded even before consideration in favour of one that fit her tainted perception of the school and continued need to feel validated with her sceptical approaches.

She knew neither Gray nor Anderson very well, she would be willing to admit. There could have been the possibility that they really did have feelings of affection for each other, and that the moment of the romantic event had drawn them forth in a way that Evelynn had never before witnessed nor believed possible. Gray could have been legitimately choking. He could have been unwell. Evelynn could have been out of her mind with the route of offensive assault she had decided to take, breaking at least a handful of school rules in the process. She could have been undermining every previous attempt to portray herself a model student and to practice what she preached when it came to discipline and behaviour within the school walls.

In that moment when she had made the snap decision, all of this had occurred to her, warnings blaring at the back of her mind of potential consequences and slights to her reputation, cautioning against such a reckless approach.

And yet...she had gone through with her decision anyway, with conviction and determination, deciding that the slim chance that she might have been correct outweighed all the rest. That even the possibility of the compromised safety of her peers and the opportunity to bring a deception to an end were worth the risk. It was times like this that the sorting hat really was proven correct in its ultimate conclusion.

Still, she waited with baited breath as the spell slung forth, green light colliding with her target only compounding her trepidation and sealing the pact that—one way or another—she was now locked in for the results. Revulsion twisted her appearance as Gray's heaving continued, all the more-so when the writhing creature started to emerge. A shiver ran down her spine at the size of it as its bulbous form pushed and forced its way out of his mouth. For a moment, she actually felt a certain amount of pity for him. She wouldn't wish that experience even on D'Spacito. But as it plopped to the ground, no more slugs to follow, all the tension that had built itself up released in something between a breathy laugh and a sigh.

"He was infected..." Was it supposed to be red?

Lids laden with the weight of the new situation drifted shut as her head rolled back, shoulders lifting with a prolonged and steadying breath. The veil of the mystery had been lifted, revealing the group now to be in a precarious situation of an entirely different sort. How precarious, however, even Evelynn couldn't have realized. Having never directly fought one of the creatures herself, she wasn't aware of how challenging a prospect that was at the best of times. As much as she might try to prepare herself for the combat to come, nothing could possibly ready her for the dark reality of what would soon be making itself apparent. It was quite possible that not a single out of them would remain conscious by the end of this.

"It is a hag slug," she spoke up when her mind had cleared itself enough to focus. Eyes scanned the immediate vicinity then, taking stock of those who had newly arrived. A cautious glance would be cast in Flash's direction, noting his wand in hand. A subconscious mental note was made not to allow him out of her sight. Given his own... circumstances... she could not be certain where his loyalties lay. "Anderson, do not let it near you. It may not appear terribly intimidating, but do not allow yourself to underestimate it." Understatement of the year. "Destroy it swiftly through whatever means necessary."

Wasting no more time and prompted by the familiar voice of Burnett's casting, she would turn her attention back to the slug, "Arresto Momentum!", hoping to buy Willow more time to put as much distance between herself and the slug as possible.

ACTION: Casting Arresto Momentum at the Hag-Slug

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