Just another dinner ((Any Slytherins))

[gaenor]

Gaenor finished the page he was on and as the sentence carried on turned the page scanning the seven remaining lines on the other side of the page quickly. Only after he had finished the chapter did Gaenor find the dark-green clip and marked the place where he had stopped reading. Closing the leather bound book with a small snap Gaenor placed it on the small table next to him before raising his eyes to his owl who had been patiently waiting for his attention. Reaching his hand out Gaenor took the letter from between his owls beak and broke the family seal on it open quietly wondering why grandfather was writing to him. They had just spoken only two days ago so there shouldn’t be any urgent news. Scanning the letter quickly Gaenor found the point of the brief and blunt note almost immediately. Dinner with grand-father and his father, who happened to come to the country, within two weeks. “Give them quill for a moment,” Cerdiwn told some second year girl working on homework near by and waited as the girl stood and walked over while handing Gaenor the quill. Placing his grandfathers note on the table Gaenor merely wrote down an affirmation that he had received the note and would be there before handing the quill back to it’s rightful owner with a small nod. The girl returned to her homework while Gaenor handed the note back to his owl and standing to let the owl out of the common room once again.

Exiting the Slytherin common room himself as well Gaenor picked the shortest route of the dungeons. It was dinner time so the interruption of his owl arriving in the middle of his reading had came rather at the correct time. Gaenor wouldn’t have enjoyed missed dinner as he hated going to the Hogwarts kitchens. The house-elves there were hardly trained properly to quietly obey to orders so Gaenor tried to avoid the room as much as possible. While the Great Hall didn’t always have the most wonderful company in it either, as all four houses had to share the room, it was still tolerable. Especially if you didn’t loiter around for longer than needed. Rounding the corner Gaenor almost stepped head-first into the Bloody Baron who was staring at a sculpture of a dancing maiden with almost glazed over eyes. Stopping within an heartbeat Gaenor eyed the ghost and the statue for a moment before nodding briefly at the ghost and stepping around him carefully. It wasn’t pleasant at all to walk through a ghost as Gaenor very well knew from personal experience from when he had been just a first year in Hogwarts.

The rest of the way to the Great Hall passed quietly without too much trouble. Not that Gaenor expected anything else. Other students knew better than to move away from the route to Snape’s classroom as the dungeons were the Slytherin’s area. Despicable really how easily the other houses gave up on about a third of the castle so easily, as the dungeouns stretched far and wide under the castle. While Slytherins had explored most of them Gaenor was certain that there were still plenty of undiscovered rooms and passageways down here, but he was perfectly content with not having to tolerate the members of other houses down here. Rounding one more corner Gaenor saw the light up ahead telling him that he had reached the Great Hall. Stopping behind the closed doors to the Great Hall Gaenor listened for a moment. By the muffled voices and snippets of conversations sounding even here most of the school was having dinner right now. Ah well, nothing to be done about that as Gaenor most surely wasn’t about to throw some smelling charm into the Great Hall before he had had his dinner.

Pulling the doors open before him Gaenor stepped into the room and without a glance to either side headed towards the Slytherin table. He noticed plenty of familiar face already seated at the table as one tended to start recognizing the same faces after going to school with them for years. Spotting an empty seat towards the end of the table nearer to the teachers Gaenor headed that way nodding in acknowledgement to the others sitting near-by. “Evening. Ladies,” Gaenor greeted lazily as he took stepped to the empty seat. Taking hold of the jug with orange juice, Gaenor poured himself a goblet of it before taking a seat. Taking a sip of the drink Gaenor served himself some pasta quietly while keeping his ears and eyes open.

[Aden McGrogan]

The wind played itself through his hair, making it dance ever so slightly. He hardly seemed to notice it. These past few days this had become his new perch. He found that the view was calming and it allowed him to clear his thoughts and think on the past events without hindrance. Aden's mood these past few months had been fast deteriorating and his patience in most matters was running dangerously thin. Ever since his father had died the word had been turned upside down for him. He could only imagine what his sister must be going through. She was in a constant custody battle over him. Over him! The thought made his blood boil. He was sixteen! Only a year away from becoming an adult in the wizarding world. Yet the Ministry wouldn't listen, they kept insisting that he be placed in a foster home like some unknown orphan!

This perch, high up on the roof of the school, had been his savior. When he found that everything was clustering him and he couldn't seem to think straight. He simply made his way up here, using many secrete passages he had found in his years, and allowed his anger to play out. After a few hours he felt calm and relaxed once more. Aden hadn't managed to see his sister in some time, when school wasn't pressing in on them she was gone, having another battle with the courts over his fate. Dawn was doing her best in keeping Aden posted, but he was still in the dark. As of this moment, he had no idea where he was going to be after the school year ended.

Aden glanced down at his watch. It was dinner time, and Aden hadn't eaten in quite some time. With a resigned sigh he stood up and made his way to the trap door that was propped open. On his first trip up here Aden had discovered that the door only opened in one direction and he had been forced to use a featherweight charm and jump off the roof. Aden stepped into the tunnel and removed the stopped and allowed the door to swing shut. A few minutes later he stood inside a deserted hallway. Tapping a certain brick with his wand shut the door behind him and he set off toward the Great Hall.

Aden entered the room and promptly ignore the noise. The place was always noisy during any time of the day. With a sigh he silently made his way past the tables toward the Slytherin table. A fourth year Gryffindor crossed his path and made no move to get out of the way. Aden's wand changed the pesky twerps mind really fast. With his way clear Aden made it to the end of the table. Aden spotted Gaenor Maydell, a well known seventh year. Aden knew much about the Maydell family, had even visited the family with his father on a few occasions, but he had never actually had a personal meeting with the boy.

Aden sat down without a word and promptly Accio'ed anything that looked appetizing to him.

[gaenor]

Gaenor picked up his fork and knife before preparing a baguette for himself to go with the pasta. Some cream that was tempted with different herbs was smeared between the baguette that Gaenor cut to half and then he was all set. He would have preferred some red wine to go with the Italian food but Hogwarts didn’t serve wine. Mostly because of younger students eating at the same table but for Gaenor’s taste that had already become rather refined it would have been fine. But this wasn’t important enough for Gaenor to let it bother himself as water would do just fine. Using his cutlery Gaenor ate without any hurry. He was hungry but he wasn’t so starving he would have to wolf the food down. Besides when you hurried you couldn’t appreciate the taste of the food properly and Gaenor took everything he could from everything.

Gaenor looked up at a quiet sound of commotion and frowned thoughtfully at the sight. Aden McGrogan had his wand out and pointed at a Gryffindor. While Gaenor knew how pesky the other houses could be he didn’t approve of Aden’s reaction. Not with all the professors here and watching. Why loose control of own emotions and ruin the possibility to manipulate professors? Just as one had to pick his battles, he also had to know when to fight and when to retreat. The situation solved itself quickly and painfully and Gaenor observed Aden thoughtfully as he walked over and dropped himself into a seat wordlessly before so rudely accioing food to him, their eyes meeting once. Gaenor frowned again at this display Aden was putting up. Was he trying to impress others of his use of his wand? There were older and better spell-casters around (and Gaeron wasn't thinking of himself) so it only made the boy himself look foolish. Or was he trying to prove he was fine on his own. Which was wrong as Gaenor very well knew as no one would survive without someone watching their back and sides. Or maybe he was just so upset over something that he let his manners slip which was unforgivable for an offspring of such known and respected pureblood family.

Gaeron thought about the McGrogans. He knew his father had met with the Dawn’s father over business but not regularly and even more scarcely lately as he spent months upon months in other countries while Gaeron lived with his grandfather. Gaeron respected Dawn as she had proved her worth on a number of occasions while her younger brother seemed to lack her tact and skill. “I didn’t know you were such a drama-queen and a show off,” Gaeron said as his eyes met Aden’s once again as they held the gaze for a few moments before Gaeron shrugged and raised a bite of pasta to his lips. Chewing on it calmly, Gaeron swallowed it and took a sip of water before touching his lips with a napkin before glancing over at Aden again. “I haven’t had the chance to see your sister lately. Do give her my best wishes when you next see her.”

[Aden McGrogan]

Aden had quite a collection gathered in front of him. He tucked away his wand and looked down at the food. How long had it been since he last ate? Breakfast? The dinner last night? Aden couldn't remember, what he did remember was on his way down to the Great Hall he had been hungry. But now that he was actually looking at the food, he found that his appetite had left him. Sighing he picked up a fork and began to absently pick at the food when Gaenor spoke next to him. Aden recognized that Gaenor was addressing him but made no outward movement to show he was listening. Gaenor's statement made Aden stop cold. The hand holding his fork quivered with anger for a split second. This was the only outward sign of Aden's boiling anger. He slowly turned to face Gaenor ready to pursue a fight when his next statement stopped him cold once more. Aden's eyes flashed as he realized he had slipped. He had allowed his emotion to seep into his outward appearance and had made a fool of himself.

Aden had had many angry outbursts before, but these had been in private counsel with other student's. He made it a point to never loose his cool in a largely public place. The mention of his sister made Aden decide to forget Gaenor's first comment. He knew that if he decided to pick a fight now Dawn would hear of it and than he would never hear the end of it. Wouldn't of been the first time Dawn had to scold him for something. Gaenor had received a free card, Aden would forget the insult.....This time. But if Gaenor made another crack, Aden would strike back.

Aden recomposed himself, returning to his old McGrogan self. He turned a glare-free look on Gaenor. "I'll be sure to let her know." He said in a friendly tone. "Although, I haven't seen her around lately either. She's rather busy with some business from home." That was quite enough, Gaenor didn't need to know about the issues at home. Although he undoubtedly knew about the death of Aden's father. "But If I see her first I'll pass on your greeting." Aden glanced down at his food, wondering what had happened to that growling stomach of his.

[gaenor]

Gaenor returned to his meal rather calmly. He wasn’t overly interested in it as his stomach was full already. But he was far from reaching the point where he didn’t even want to see food, non the less eat it. Cutting a piece of meat into two Gaenor raised a bite to his mouth chewing on it as his eyes were already choosing his next bite. Gaenor naturally enjoyed good food, but he ate pretty much everything edible without being quite as obsessive about food as some other students. Goyle and Crabbe being the first ones to come to mind though Gaenor knew there was something in their heads besides food as well. They had passed OWLs and classes and in seven years Gaenor had learned not to underestimate the two. Even though he most certainly didn’t expect much out of them either.

Glancing up at Aden’s reply Gaenor smiled a little seeing that the other boy had managed to recompose himself. Good. Would be better for him. It was almost curious how much younger Slytherins learned by just observing older students. Throwing a tantrum in the middle of the Great Hall would do the whole house no good, even if the worst effects would still be left for Aden. Raising his goblet of water Gaenor took a minute to digest Aden’s words. Oh, he knew a little bit of what was going on. The senior McGrogan had died. Gaenor had sent his sympathy to Dawn, as she was his house and year-mate after all and Gaenor respected her. Now would be as good of a time as any to learn a bit more about the younger McGrogan as well. With Dawn being this influential in the house Aden had quite a lot to live up to after all. “I most certainly can understood that. Family demands quite a lot of time and energy often enough,” Gaenor replied almost jovially as he raised his goblet of water towards Aden before taking a sip.

“I do rather miss seeing her blond head before me in Charms however. That class isn’t one of my strongest sides so sometimes observing her spell-casting for extra-assurance did help,” Gaenor mused revealing this small weakness without any problems. He wasn’t hopeless in Charms, even though he was better at some other subjects. And it was better to be known for such small weakness rather than appear completely flawless. That way people didn’t try to find any hurtful points and just sometimes relaxed more and let their tongues move almost too freely. Gaenor grinned lazily and mused out loud: “Can’t say we’re friends, but after sharing classrooms for 7 years we did know each other.”

[Vincent Crabbe Jr.]

((Hope you don't mind me joining the two of you. I started posting here for Gaenor in my ICT lesson on... May 26th, just didn't get the chance to finish. So you get my post here, even though it's not particularly long. As I see I'm being mentioned already. ))

Vincent was stiff. Everywhere he went he could feel it. His skin was so thick that most things just bounced off him, but this wasn't external. It was the joints and the muscles, and they ached. Ruddy Quidditch practice. He'd just stop going if they weren't going to do anything interesting. His arm muscles were strong. That was what he liked using. For smashing the Bludgers at people, for grabbing food off them, for lifting them out of the way if he was in a low corridor so he didn't bang his head by walking on them. His knuckles for giving them a little bit of warning. But he hadn't had the chance to use his arm muscles today. No, the Beaters had spent their time running around the pitch and doing leg muscles. Speeding up their reactions or something. Bludgers did move fast, but surely it was the Keepers that really needed to do that.

Vincent grunted in dissatisfaction. Things didn't make sense so very often anyway, this was just another time. He moved his thoughts on as well as quickening his pace. Vincent walked with a heavy step, and walking very quickly didn't tend to look dignified, especially in his case, so he never walked particularly quickly. He was never in too much of a rush anyway. But he did walk at a fair pace today. He was headed for the Great Hall and food after all. Sustenance was something he needed right now. Plenty of people were eating there by now, and the usual sounds of cutlery and chatter emanated out of them as he approached. He flicked his wand to open the doors for him and walked in through. For once he made his way straight to the Slytherin table without stopping by any of the others to take a bit of food. The Slytherin table was right at the end and sometimes he was just too hungry to wait.

The end of the table still had some space left at it and Vincent saw a fellow seventh year there. He sat down next to the younger boy, Dawn McGrogan's brother (Aden, he was fairly sure; even if names were unfortunately for him as a Slytherin not his strong point they just took a little extra effort), as he was on the nearer side and Vincent had put in quite enough exercise today already. "Gaenor." he greeted the older boy first since he shared a dormitory with him, and then "McGrogan," for the other boy. Both were spoken in his usual low rumble, just lower than usual thanks to his somewhat disgruntled mood. They had most likely been carrying on a conversation, so Vincent said nothing more but instead concentrated on piling up a decent amount of food on his plate and then eating it before his stomach started growling. He'd been working on his manners for years but today he was eating rather fast - he was hungry.