Blood, Sweat, Tears, and Secrets *OPEN*

[Aíne Kildare]

The classroom was silent, empty. It was well before everyone had to get up for classes, however, as it was Saturday, there were no classes, so Aíne figured she'd have the room all to herself all day. The table sat in front of her and she checked the book she'd borrowed from one of the Seventh years. It had taken a lot of persuading to get the book and the student was expecting it back by the end of the day. Aíne sighed, such a short time to practice!

And it wouldn't be enough, even for her, a recognized (not really, but almost, Professor Gryffindor complimented her often enough) genius at Transfiguration. The spells surrounding becoming an Animagus were the most complicated she'd ever seen. A wrong move, and she might turn into an animal forever, or at least become some strange amalgram of human and animal, so she'd have to be really, really careful. This kind of magic generally wasn't advocated for students without strict adult supervision, however, if she asked one of the professors, she was terrified they'd dissuade her from such a task. But, she could, not when it was her mission to do this, to accomplish her goal.

To be one of the greatest ransfigurers in the world.

Aíne turned back to the book, trying to memorize the spells, she'd copy them down later once she'd rustled up a quill, ink, and some parchement..

[Jessica Durmstroll]

Jessica wrapped the blanket which was draped around her shoulders more tightly around her, as if she were a child again, alone in her room and simply hiding underneath the covers would ward away the monsters and ghouls of her imagination. After about twenty minutes of walking through the dark hallways, Jessica's mind had begun to play tricks on her, making the shadows cast by her wand light dance and move around her as if they were alive. It seemed that her only comfort from the gloom padded through the huge corridors at her heels in the form of her cat, Orion. Jessica's feline companion was large, slightly obese, and was mostly white with three black spots on his head and a solid black tail. His bright green eyes, which shined in the light of Jessica's wand, had a very bored, nonchalant expression, completely unconcerned with the human girl's petty fears.

You might be wondering, why was Jessica wandering the hallways of Hogwarts at this ungodly hour? It started with the nightmare, the one that left her lying in bed in a cold sweat, her heart pounding, and the one that she never remembered in the morning. It had started haunting her the night she and her best friend since arriving at Hogwarts, Mary Shadings, had wandered into the forest outside of the grounds. Jessica knew it was forbidden of course, and for good reason. The area was full of dangerous creatures such as vampires, giant spiders, and, most of all, werewolves.

Suddenly, Orion stopped, lifted his ears, and then bolted off down the hall. Jessica, slightly stunned to see her fat, lazy cat actually running, simply watched him until he had reached the end of the corridor and disappeared around a corner. "Hey! Rion! Come back!" she called in a whisper-shout, hurrying to catch up to her feline friend.

As she rounded the corner where the cat had disappeared, she lifted her wand to illuminate the space in front of her, but Orion was gone. "Rion? Rion, come back! You're going to get us both caught!" she scolded the cat, not knowing whether or not he could hear, or even understand, yet believing that he could.

It was only then, wandering in the nearly absolute blackness of Hogwarts, completely alone, did fear really start to gnaw at her insides. Her heart began to pound faster and her palms started to sweat as she tried to swallow the lump that had abruptly formed in her throat. Jessica was usually as fearless and bold as a Gryffindor, unafraid, even exalting in a challenge, but tonight, she could not get a good grip on her nerve. Tonight she was utterly alone, with no one to impress, no one to be protect or be protected if it came to the worst. It was Jessica's ultimate weakness: she was utterly and totally terrified of being alone.

She wanted to call out, but was scared to break the silence. She wanted to run, but her legs would not obey her. But what she wanted most of all, was to be back in her nice, warm, safe bed, surrounded by her Hufflepuff roommates, not troubled by her defect of dependency.

Suddenly, out of the shadows, a white blob appeared from behind one of the statues in the corridor causing Jessica to give a start and let out a shrill squeak of surprise, her wand flying from her hand and going out, surrounding her in total blackness. Well, almost total blackness.

"Rion! You unicorn turd!" she whisper-shouted at the cat that had emerged so suddenly and nearly frightened the magic right out of her. Jessica bent down to retrieve her fallen wand from the red carpeted floor beside her, when she noticed that the darkness was not as complete as it had seemed at first. From one of the classrooms up ahead, Jessica could see a faint light coming from the translucent window in the classroom door.

Curious, her initial terror forgotten now that Orion had returned to her and she had a distraction, Jessica picked up her wand, without reigniting it, and walked toward the occupied classroom, her bare feet making a soft shuffling sound on the red rug beneath her feet.

She wondered absently who it could be, who would be awake at this time of night, or rather, this early in the morning? It occurred to her as she slowly made her way toward the room, her cat at her heels, that it could one of the founders or prefects who would reprimand her and send her back to bed, but this thought only made her walk faster, her rabid curiosity urging her to discover what they could be doing. Jessica wasn't too worried about it being one of the founders, unless, of course, it was Professor Salazar Slytherin. If that was the case, Jessica was sure to be in a for a nasty experience. Somehow though, she highly doubted it was Salazar. What were the chances? Out of the many students in the school, plus the four founders, what were the chances that it would really be Slytherin? No, Jessica was fairly sure it was just a student, or a bunch of students goofing off or perhaps practicing some form of forbidden magic. There was only one way to find out, wasn't there?

Slowly, cautiously, Jessica took hold of the doorknob and turned, pushing the door open just enough to pop her head in and check it out. What she saw, interested her, though not surprised her. It was a lone Ravenclaw student, sitting in a chair her head buried in a large book which sat on one of the tables before her, illuminated by the light of a few candles which were lit around the room.

Orion, of course, waltzed right in past Jessica and, without even hesitating, jumped onto one of the tables in the corner, where he proceeded to curl himself up and doze off.

"Um... I'm sorry... Am I- er... are we disturbing you? We can leave if you want." she offered, taking another step into the room anyway, more to get farther from the engulfing darkness behind her than anything else.

[Aíne Kildare]

Aíne glanced up once, thinking she heard the sound of a small scuff against the stone floors of the corridors outside. She turned back to her book, guessing that no one was there. She became absorbed in the spell book once more, wondering if she should just summon her writing materials and be done with the the task of finding them later and scribbling them down in the precious little time she had before she was required to return the text to its rightful owner. A thing she did not relish with any degree of enthusiasm, alas, the owner had homework to do in it and she had wanted it done as soon as possible so she could go to Hogsmeade with the boy she was enamored with.

Another scuff snapped the Irish Ravenclaw's attention off her meticulous work and she looked around again, supposing it was some ghost determined to drive her batty with nerves and fear of being caught by one of the teachers. But alas, again there was no one and she was about to turn back to her book when she heard the door creak open. Her palms began to sweat and her heart leapt into her throat as she thought that some adult had seen the few candles she'd dared light and had come running to catch and punish her. She gulped, fingernails biting into the work-hardened skin of her palms, nearly drawing blood as she bit her lip.

To her immense relief, the one behind the door was not a teacher, but another of her fellow students. As the girl peeked in, a fat cat sidled through the crack in the door to settle on one of the nearby tables. The other student looked nearly as flustered as Aíne herself. The Irish girl heaved a heavy sigh of relief. The girl, a Hufflepuff in her year if she recalled correctly, stammered something about disturbing her. "No, no, you're not interruptin' me, truthfully, ye scared the bejaysus out of me, I've never been so scared in me life!" Aíne said, putting a hand on her laboring heart, calming it down as she took a couple breaths, "Ye can stay if ye wish, but ye cannot breathe a word of what I've been up to in here."

[Jessica Durmstroll]

Jessica couldn't help but smile, not at the words that were spoken, but at the Ravenclaw girl's thick accent. Indeed, Jessica had almost missed what had been said, so enthralled was she with the girl's heavy Scottish twang... or was it Irish? Jessica couldn't tell, having never been in contact with many Scottish or Irish people in her life.

Closing the door behind her as softly as she could, Jessica meandered over to the table at which her new companion was sitting, laboring over a very large, old-looking tome, and sat in one of the hard, wooden chairs. She was sockless and the cold floor did not feel very pleasant on her bare feet, so she sat hugging her pajama-ed legs to her chest, the blanket she had brought with her still draped around her shoulders.

Once settled comfortably (or at least as comfortably as she could get), Jessica turned her attention back to the girl in front of her. "Sorry. Didn't mean to scare you." she said absently, more focused on the ancient-looking volume on the table than the words coming out of her mouth. "Don't worry. I won't tell anyone what you're doing. Er... what are you doing?" she asked curiously, her eyes going back and forth between the blond Ravenclaw girl and the book.

"Oh, by the way," she started again, before the girl could respond. "I'm Jessica. And that," she gestured toward the white blob of fur lying with his back to the two girls on one of the far tables. "is Orion."