A Test in Ethics PV Eris, Kaegen, Luna & Elena

Eris Fawley was bored, which wasn't exactly a rare occurrence, but by god. She was so bored that it was painful, almost. The natural red hair's hair was a light pink, but she wandered the halls with an idle sort of spring in her step. Humming a Christmas carol that wouldn't leave her head, Eris's slow meandering was halted by the sound of footsteps near her corner of the fourth floor. At once, Eris was alert, fists at the ready.

She was not a force to be reckoned with, and it also helped that Eris knew all the patrolling prefects by name. Minus two or three of them, but regardless, any prefect that attempted to stalk the halls would have the trouble of running into a 4'5 girl with an explosive temper. Eris had started wandering the halls to make sure the figure wasn't back, but had also started wandering around in the middle of the night because being too close to all the other girls of her dorm made Eris feel scared. Sabrina was gone, and Rhea seemed more distant after the Summer.

Eris was scared, without Sabrina. Without one of her best friends from her first year, Eris felt lost in the trap of a dorm room, remembering the days when she had seen fire down from below. Remembering the nights spent in the Hospital wing with burns. All the bloody castle did was remind Eris of her failures, along with some of the good things she had done.

It helped to be active, to move around and pretend that things weren't as horrible as they had once been. It was a new year, which was evidenced by the new face moving past Eris with brown hair and a hurried look. Eris was not a stalker, but she was curious. She wasn't a ravenclaw, and if anyone dared to mention that, Eris would sock them in the face. Yet, her curiosity ran deep, and she was extremely interested in a girl wandering around in tennis shoes and pjs.

Eris's plan was to go to the Great Hall, but she found herself following the brown haired girl down to the great lake. Was that Bloom Silverton? She was Reid's friend, right? Scrunching up her nose, Eris moved forward again to say hello, but let out a gasp as Bloom (was that her name?) leaped into the waters of the great lake.

Frozen at the shore, Eris got down on her knees and leaned her head over, so she was peering into the water. "Isn't it cold in there?"

Eris was wandering, feeling alone and trying to forget her feelings. But she was not alone. In truth, the girl seldom was. She had a shadow of sorts, a prefect that spent as much time as he possibly could following her around, in the conflicting but silent hopes that either she wouldn’t run into any harm and thus be safe, or that she would run into harm and he could help her before she was actually injured. Both of those fantasies fueled the boy’s silent footsteps, watching his friend stalk about in the castle. She was a wonder, he thought. Everything about her. From her magical, fiery hair that burned in brilliant colors like the mane of a lion, daring any and all comers to face her.

She was powerful, daring and deadly, the paragon of gryffindor and the owner of the most precious thing Kaegen could think to give her. His aid, and his honor. She was a roaring fire in his eyes, a flawless demigod that had decided to grace the halls of hogwarts with her steps. She was indirectly at fault for most of the misfortune that had befallen the ravenclaw boy, his admiration for her having caused him to stay up as late as he could force his eyes to remain open.

The lack of sleep had caused his nerves to fray more and more, the firm hold he had unknowingly been keeping on his vampiric side for most of his first year slipping more and more with each passing day. First it was just when he was extremely angry, he would fall into a vampiric rage. But then he started to hear a voice, and then words. Rhymes, even, buzzed in his head at the strangest times. More and more frequently.

The boy chalked it up to a demon possessing him, and tried to ignore it. Tried to focus on Eris, on that beacon of wonder that stalked the halls ahead of him. And it worked, to a point. He didn’t hear the voice at all, but he was more tightly strung, far more so. He was constantly listening and looking, trying to find any incoming threats that may or may not be trying to kill his friend.

When he saw the other girl his arm snapped to his slingshot, fingers closing around the polished handle. She was going to die, die before she even had a chance of hurting his friend. His pupils convulsed once, then stopped, settling back down as he released his grip on the projectile launching weapon. Eris had seen the girl, and she didn’t seem alarmed. She simply followed the other girl outside, to the lake. And then Kaegen understood.

She was another one of Eris’ friends, someone he didn’t want to interfere with. And so he didn’t, choosing to sit down on a grassy mound, placing his slingshot and a stone in his lap at a comfortable distance. His friend would be fine if she was attacked, and they could have fun playing in the freezing water without any interference.

He was supposed to be a protector, after all. Not a companion.

It was always something this year. It seemed like she encountered everyone trying to push their limits. The job of being Prefect was slowly becoming too much for the girl. In between patrols, detentions, and her own studies, not to mention her own personal studies, she was overloading herself. And here she was on yet another patrol. In the middle of the night. Instead of sleeping. This all together equaled a girl with no patience and a lot of frustration. 

She spotted the Ravenclaw moving quickly through the corridors, although Luna appeared to have avoided detection. The unknown fellow house member was followed by Eris, who seemed curious. Both were defying curfew though, and Luna intended to let them know. Despite her frustration, she didn't want to give out detention to anyone. Running another one was far from what she wanted to do right now. And then, another form, following Eris. This form was more stealthy, but in his focus on Eris, Luna deduced quickly that it was Kaegen. This switched Luna from anger to concern. Her fellow Prefect had grown more and more unstable. She followed quickly after the group.

They all made their way to the great lake, Luna close behind. She came up next to Kaegen, making her presence known to him. Scaring him seemed like a bad idea anyway. 

"So Kaegen. Are you gonna bust them, or do I need to do it?"

The first unknown had gone into the Lake, and Eris was attempting to speak to her it seemed. That was two rule breaks for the first girl and only one for Eris. Why couldn't she just be asleep in her bed? The girl sighed.

Elena watched all this unfold from a tree near the prefects, she had been sitting and reading all of her letters in the privacy that was so rare at this school, when she had heard people coming. Elena didn’t want to caught past curfew, detention would take time away from more important matters. Like reading and minor thievery, or homework although she did most of that during class.

Elena watched as the new prefect, Luna? She thought it was Luna, Elena never had been good with names, talked to the other one, Kaegen. Elena had seen him around, he had been following someone since Elena had got there. Must be one of the ones at the lake. Elena wondered whether he was a protector or a stalker. It would be interesting to find out.

Now the Luna prefect was saying something about busting the other kids. Elena was glad she had climbed the tree, two prefects in one place were more than she wanted to contend with.

Hold on, uh oh. Nope. One of her letters was still on the ground near the prefects. Elena was not in the clear. Hopefully they would return it tomorrow, or not see it at all. Elena drew her hoodie tighter around her.

The lake's water was calm, quiet. For every movement Bloom made, the water would ripple into oblivion. For some reason, it was very hypnotic. Turning upwards from her back, she stared out into the lake, seeing the ripples take effect.

Her mind, body and soul was hypnotized by the water's flow. It was not until the sound of another that rattled her back into reality. Bloom raised her hands and splashed around, her heart pounding. She looked over to where the voice was and took a deep breath. It was another student, one that she had seen randomly in the corridor, but had no idea who they were.

"Bloody hell," she cursed, breathing heavily, hoping her heart would calm itself down. "There are ways to come up to someone," she added, clearing her throat. "As for the water, it is not as cold as you'd think. We are pretty much in the tail ends of summer, so it is fine," she answered, her body and mind still a bit shocked.

Well, what now? she thought. Bloom could either ignore the Gryffindor student in front of her, or get to know her. Perhaps the latter was best as Bloom did want to start out the new school year with new friends. And in turn, after her confrontation with Ben, she needed a distraction.

"I'm Bloom Silverton," she introduced herself. "I think I've seen you about in the corridors. You're a second year, too, right?" she asked, hoping she was right in remembering who this person could be.

She wondered if the Gryffindor knew anything about her. "Do you know how to swim?" she asked, starting up more conversation with the girl.

Eris grinned back down at the girl, unable to stop her grin from turning into a faint smirk. "There may be ways to come up to someone, but this was the way I chose. It's not like there's many choices when you're out swimming in the middle of the bloody night."

Undoing the laces of her shoes, and rolling up her pants, Eris dipped her legs into the water of the Great Lake, biting back a gasp of shock at the cold chill that seeped through her bones, making the bottom of her feet tingle. Wiggling her toes to watch the small ripples in the wake of her movements, Eris grinned crookedly, again.

"I'm Eris Fawley, second year, yeah. I've seen you around when we were both prefects, but you know, there's so many bloody people that it's easy to never have a conversation with half of them."

Eris personally did not like the hordes of students, all of them so much taller and so much stronger than herself. It was easy to be pushed around, but Eris could also push back, yet she was sick and tired of having to go into every crowd with an aggressive stance. Sometimes a girl just wanted to go from place to place without having to elbow as many people as possible in the stomach.

"I can't really swim, I grew up in the middle of London. I can kick and all, but not very well. I don't trust myself to go for a midnight swim without being able to touch the bottom."

It wasn't like Eris had many choices of swimming pools and swimming lessons when her mother had kept Eris and her sister in the house for as much of their lives as possible. Obviously, that had lead to not having much time to do anything. There had been a swimming section at Eris's favourite park, but she had stayed away from it most of the time, unless a child had offered to teach her how to swim. Those were the best kind of children and the best kind of days, when time was spent frolicking in the cold spray of water jets, with giggles and wet hair.

Eris sometimes missed the simpler days, spent with simpler people, but then she would never had met half of her friends, and wouldn't have been sitting with Bloom. So she shrugged off the memories of the past and kept talking to Bloom, basking in the beauty of the starry sky and relishing the whispers of wind floating through the air, lifting Eris's hair.

While they talked, Eris was woefully unaware of the three new arrivals, unable to notice Kaegen, Luna, or the girl in the tree.

"So, that girl in the water is balloon, the prefect before me. You can bust her if you want, but if you bust eris I'll kill you where you stand. Otherwise, I can smell someone else nearby, if you want to me to bust them. If we don't do it soon they will probably try for an ambush. Can you fight?"

He didn't exactly feel comfortable teaming up with Moon, but she was his fellow prefect, after all. There was no helping it, he would have to go along with her plan. If nothing else he would have to make sure Eris didn't get in trouble. if moon tried to tell anyone anything that could possibly hinder, or annoy his friend in any way he would destroy her.

It wasn't exactly rational of him, it wasn't even close. But he wanted to protect his friend, and had recently been feeling more and more useless. After all, it wasn't like Eris needed his help, ever. It seemed like all the death witches were so afraid of her that they avoided her in favor of attacking him. He understood where they were coming from. The short gryffindor was truly a sight to behold.

He could definitely smell someone or something else nearby. It was pretty clear that whatever it was didn't want to be found, otherwise Kaegen probably would have spotted it right off. No, it was clearly lying in wait, preparing a surprise attack on either the pair of prefects he made half of, or balloon and eris, down below by the water.

The boy tested his slingshot, stone safely nestled in the pouch and listened. He could hear a mouse off in the grass, and rustling in the trees, but that was probably just a bird, wasn't it? If it wasn't, and it tried to kill moon, he might do something about it. On second thought, he had made that promise. So he would do something about it if it tried to kill moon. Probably. She was pretty weird, if her constantly trying to defuse situations that didn't need it was anything to go by.

Elena watched as Luna sighed and started walking off towards the lake. The prefect, Kaegen, somehow knew she was there even if he hadn't seen the letter, that either showed a lot of insight or a lot of skill. He had mentioned ambush and Elena definitely didn't want to get attacked, so she just swallowed her pride, carefully picked herself up and climbed down. Elena walked confidently over to him.

"Hi, I'm not trying to ambush you. I just got a bit worried when I heard someone coming. I'm glad it wasn't that masked kid, except he was unmasked I guess." Elena scratched her head, "I'm Elena, but everyone calls me Puck."

She leaned down and picked up the letter, it was the one from little Eliza about how everyone was going, it was amazing what little kids picked up on. Eliza was like her empathic loyal informant, making sure to include all of the information that everyone else left out so that Elena was able to soothe people's fears, even from such a distance. Elena had already mentally catalogued what she needed to say to keep everyone happy. Just because she was at Hogwarts didn't mean she would forget her friends.

"Anyway, shall we head down to the lake? The other prefect is already down there."

For the first time in awhile, Bloom had put the thoughts of Ben on the side-burner. There was something about Eris that just made her live for the moment. I wonder why she is not a Prefect anymore... she thought, wondering if it was perhaps because she was now a Quidditch player. She could tell that both positions of leadership would take a toll.

Bloom grinned at her response about swimming and she rolled her chestnut eyes. "If you can be in water without drowning, then you can swim," she clarified, listening to how Eris is only able to kick in the water. "I guess you just don't have the courage," she teased, wondering if the Gryffindor would make her way into the water.

Kicking her feet in the cold water, she could fee the seaweed that was curling up from the muddy ground. It was very relaxing to have it tickle her the soles of her feet. Bloom swam a bit farther from the shore, kicking her feet at the bottom. It wasn't until she felt something sharp.

"OW!" she screamed, feeling as though she had been slightly cut by something below. Luckily, the cold water took away most of the sting that could have been felt. Slowly, Bloom moved her foot around the same place and felt the same thing. It felt thin. She looked at Eris with curiosity and tried to look down into the water. It was murky and dark. Bloom was unable to see anything.

"I think there's something down here...," she said, and immediately she held her breath and dove head first into the water to where she felt something. Closing her eyes, she slowly moved her hand about, hoping to find it. At the last possible moment where she needed breath, she felt the object and pulled it up--feeling the weight of the water pulling it down.

Bloom swam to the top and coughed out any water that went up her nose. In her hands, she saw something unusual... It was a mirror. "What would a mirror be doing in the lake?" she questioned, wondering who would be smart enough to place it in the lake where someone like her got her foot cut. Bloom, holding the mirror with one hand, kicked with her feet and pulled the water with her free arm, towards Eris.

She placed it on the ground for both of them to see and Bloom stared at it. It was simple, but pretty. It was circular with an emerald outline. Water droplets were all over the mirror. In a way... It was entrancing.