From the Ashes

Healer Bryar,

I'm certain you're dealing with more pressing issues at the moment, but if you should happen to have some spare time, I would appreciate a consultation or any wisdom you may have on what to do when one has just undergone roughly nine years and fourteen inches of growing pains in the space of a few seconds.

Essentially: Everything hurts. Please advise.

Sincerely,
W. Beckett

Who Gabe and Hayley
When Early evening Tuesday (10/11)
Where A second-floor corridor
What Appeasing the clipboard

Hayley wasn't snooping, or at the very least, no one could prove that she was. For all intents and purposes, she was just a former student taking a stroll around the school. Or what was left of it. It was strange; she'd loved Hogwarts, in the vague, distracted sort of way you loved the places that served as the more important backdrops to your life at one point or another, never really so deeply she'd cried the last time she'd left her dormitory, or felt compelled to cut a piece of grass from the Quidditch pitch. Coming back, though, and seeing caved-in class rooms, corridors that ended in gaping chasms and ripped paintings deserted by their inhabitants felt sad, in a sharper and more profound way than she'd expected. The statue of Björn the Bonkers, of all things, blown half to smithereens in the middle of the hallway, had nearly reduced her to tears on her first pass. She hurried past it now with her eyes averted (silly) and rounded the corner, drawing up short in surprise when she suddenly found herself face to face (or face to chest) with Gabe.

Who: Ryan and Spencer
When: Friday morning (13/11)
Where: Ryan's rooms
What: Sixteen going on seventeen.

It had been a really weird morning. Spencer had woken up to a note hovering above him that said, in his own handwriting, DON'T FREAK OUT, and then promptly freaked out, because his bed was somewhere strange and unfamiliar and surrounded by about thirty evil looking plants. Spencer wasn't going to admit anything, but it was possible he'd shrieked, grabbed the note, and made a run for the door, only to find himself in quarters that clearly belonged to a teacher. If Ryan had thought it was funny to put him here after he'd fallen asleep, Spencer was going to be really cross.

The note, thankfully, had a bit of an explanation on the back, such as the explanation was. Spencer had a little bit of trouble believing it; it still seemed like an elaborate sort of prank, and Spencer wasn't really that impressed. He was especially unimpressed when he got dressed -- in some robes that were way too big for him, the sleeves covered his hands entirely and he kept tripping over the hem -- and found that he was stuck in the greenhouses, with a ten minute walk before he even got to the castle.

"Hey," he said, pulling aside a fourth year Slytherin when he got in there. "Do you know where Ryan Ross is?"

The fourth year blinked at him. "Professor Ross?" she said, and Spencer stared. "Who wants to know?"

"Um, me," Spencer said. "Spencer Smith, hi."

The girl raised one perfectly plucked eyebrow. "Professor Smith has a beard," she told him icily, and then it took him another ten minutes of arguing that probably, Professor Smith hadn't been born with one and didn't she know about the apparent deaging thing going on before she finally deigned to point him up about a million flights of stairs.

Needless to say, by the time he reached the rooms with Ryan Ross in a little brass plate on the door, Spencer wasn't in the greatest of moods. "Ryan," he said, pushing open the door, "do you have any idea what the fuck is going on? I woke up in the greenhouses. The greenhouses. Surrounded by plants that want to eat me." He knew, they'd clutched at his arms in a very menacing way when he made his escape.

Who: Gryffindor versus Slytherin (as represented herein primarily by Pete and Gabe; weigh in at your own risk *G*)
When: Dinnertime, Saturday (14/11)
Where: Unfortunately, publicly, just outside the Great Hall
What: Dun tole joo - Gryffindor versus Slytherin, round two: fight!

Unfair advantages were beautiful things to have, and this week Gabe had had a couple: 1) he'd started out on the older side of the staff in the first place, and 2) even if he hadn't been actually in the basement at the moment of age-fuckery, he'd still been a fair way away from Schechter's office.

On the other hand, various acquaintances and family members could have told you, if you'd gone to Spain to track them down, that Gabe as a teenager had been an enthusiastic, unfocused, but generally harmless kid. Gabe in his early twenties had been a bitch. (And any student who'd had Potions on Friday would back this one up.)

Case in point: for the past five minutes, following Pete down to dinner, he'd been ragging on Gryffindor's quidditch team, their win, their supporters, their inferiority to Slytherin, their coach, Pete's obvious bias, and the fact of, "I don't know, dude, are you blind or just too short to see your team fucking cheating?"

And yes, Gabe had sought Pete out specifically to do this.