If I had a dollar... (Remus)

[erik]

"I wish they'd quit fighting." Caedyn thought quietly to himself. More of the younger students fighting amongst themselves at one of the tables. The Great Hall was one of the few places that Caedyn actually enjoyed, save for the rampant amount of arguing and yelling that seemed to be happen nearly every time. While he was never very tolerant of idiots or people in general, he made exceptions for the younger students because he remembered what it was like for him to grow up in Hogwarts. He was always closed off and distant from everyone else. It was good, in his eyes, that these younger ones managed to be so aggressive and yet so friendly.

Breakfast was still finishing when Caedyn closed his book and let out a sigh. It has been a while since he had an intelligent conversation with anyone. This was mostly because he simply always refused to strike up a conversation. While he was still distant sometimes, he had no problems talking to people if they came to him first. Very rarely would he make the first move, even if there was something important. The only real motivation he had to act on things was his own knowledge.

Caedyn saw all of the houses congregating in the great hall and it made him wonder just what was going on. There was something going on. With book in hand, Caedyn got up and made his way over to the table to see what was going on. It seemed there was someone in the middle of all the people gathered there, but he could not quite see who it was.

[Remus John Lupin]

Remus sighed softly to himself as he entered the Great Hall. In a time when all the needed was 'concordia', fear and the need to show how tough one was managed to create the complete opposite in no time. In stead of all uniting and helping each other, stress made students easily annoyed, scared, and sometimes even aggressive. Strangely, the fact Christmas was coming up didn't seem to help - seemed to make it worse, of all things.
It wasn't that Remus didn't understand - he did. He was frightened too every once in a while. For his parents, for himself, for his friends - for they world they lived in. But he wasn't behaving like a caveman like some others did. Of course, he had to admit, some healthy competition was required in a school, but when two fourth year Gryffindors had, somehow, managed to get a Slytherin girl from their year to lash out at them, the fight grew larger than he could've imagined. Oh, great.. And he was a Prefect, he was supposed to do something about this.

Getting out of his seat, he walked towards the skirmish, planning to break it up quickly and efficiently. Too bad the Slytherin girl thought he was part of the reinforcements and fired a curse at him full speed.
Remus was, however, not the best in his DADA class for nothing, and deflected it with ease, but to the girl (and, sadly, to some of her classmates, too), that seemed only proof that Remus was going to hex her in some sort of terrible way. Before Remus could tell them to break it up, other Slytherin's walked towards them and Remus was afraid it would be the fight of the year if this continued.
Unable to decide what to do at once, he looked at the kids and groaned inwardly. He couldn't just walk in and pull them apart like he'd planned - he'd get hit by something nasty. Neither could he just deflect everything and try to calm them down; that would seem as though he was participating. In the end, he glanced around for any potential help - Lily, maybe, or a teacher. Anyone, really.

[erik]

Caedyn caught a curse out of the corner of his eye and watched it fly past, heading towards an older Gryffindor student. It was a prefect. Remus Lupin. "Great. Might as well have cast a spell at a professor as much as a prefect. Oi." He sighed and shook his head. He did notice that there were very few Ravenclaw students in the mix, so at least that was a plus. When he noticed Remus looking around somewhat frantically, he figured that his fellow seventh year could probably use a little assistance. After all, if he was going to make any sort of impact on his peers, he would have to make the effort. Without a second thought, Caedyn sidestepped a curse that came out of the crowd and made his way over to Remus. He gave the man a once over before he shrugged.

"Looked like you could use a little help." Caedyn looked at him from the corner of his eye but kept an eye on the student crowd. There was no telling what was going to come out of the pile next, but he had no intention of letting it catch him off-guard. Be it curse, charm, hex or even low flying books, they needed to be prepared. His eyes shifted to view the edges of the group as he tried to estimate how many students were in the pile-up. The best guess he could have made was nearly twenty, with more on the way. Most of them were Slytherin or Gryffindor, but there were some Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff among them.

Caedyn fished his wand out of his pocket and and brought it up at the ready. The Slytherin group that was approaching now stood between Remus, Caedyn and the crowd. What was going to happen now?

[Remus John Lupin]

Comments: Remus is a fifth year here (; He's not a Prefect in seventh, either - James is Head Boy then (:

Remus had just narrowed his eyes at a few Slytherins and had been about to tell them to 'stop this nonsense unless they wanted detention for the rest of their days', though then was surprised by a Ravenclaw that was his superior by two years. He'd seen him in the hallways maybe once or twice, but didn't know his name.

"Looked like you could use a little help." Remus smiled a little grimly. "Quite. I don't know what's come over them." Following Caedyn's glance at the fighting crowd, he added: "I was thinking about just disarming all of them - then they can come collect their wands at the head of their house and receive detention?"
In the corners of his eyes he could also see teachers moving to take action and he had to admit he was rather relieved. Surely, now this nonsense would be over soon, wouldn't it?

Deflecting a hex, Remus grimaced at the sight. Some of the students in the fight had, obviously, been caught up by accident and were unable to get out of the throng. Glancing at Caedyn for a moment, he just decided to disarm as many students as possible. It wouldn't stop the fight per se (wands weren't the only thing that could hurt others), but at least it would lessen the curses..

[erik]

(*My bad! >< I knew something was wrong about my post, just couldn't figure out what it was.*)

"So just buy time? I guess if there's no better solution." Caedyn said as he glanced again at Remus. At least he was trying to do something useful and help where as a lot of the students currently in the room only had one thing on their mind. If anything was going to happen to help the situation, it would take effort. Caedyn began looking at the surroundings to see if there was some kind of more effective plan. Disarming students was fine and dandy, but there were definitely still things that could be done without wands.

From the corner of his eyes, he could see two professors beginning to move. It was about time, too. The students had been fighting for a good while now. He understood that there was a lot of stress and fighting because of the things going on outside Hogwarts, but that did not mean that it had to cause such problems within it's walls. If they could not find a way to relieve the stress and stop the fighting, the students of Hogwarts were going to tear it apart from the inside out. Maybe that was the enemy's plan all along.

"So!" Caedyn gave a little laugh, "Do you want to disarm the first one and make yourself a threat, or should I?" He continued. The thought was amusing, but he was serious. The moment someone took action, there was going to be a problem. This entire thing was just waiting for a spark to set it off.

[Remus John Lupin]

[haha, no worries - sorry for the late reply, exams are being a bitch..]


Rem half smiled at the seventh year that had come to help him. "I don't want to risk hitting any student with a hex of some sort. I think there'll be more than enough damage without us doing some of it," he said, looking at a girl who was currently sporting a set of gigantic ears and tried to get out of the fight but was practically unable to move.
He was more than relieved as a few professors joined them and he hoped someone was also getting the nurse - things were getting nastier by the minute. Remus hated to say so (as he hated prejudice in any form), but he had the feeling the Slytherins were throwing most of the nastier curses and that the few Hufflepuffs who'd ended up in the fight had been caught up without meaning to.

"So! Do you want to disarm the first one and make yourself a threat, or should I?" Remus chuckled. "I'll happily do the honors," he said with a smile, though picking up the seriousness in Caedyn's eyes. He focused on those who were doing most of the damage before he began disarming them silently, catching their wands as they flew towards him.
Surprisingly, most of the fighting students didn't seem to realise who was disarming them and it took them a few moments to spot the two students near the fight that weren't participating.
Some other students now also appeared to notice the teachers that had joined in breaking up the fight. Some even stopped fighting on their own accord (which, sadly, mostly resulted in them getting hexed or cursed in one way or another).

[erik]

Caedyn smirked at Remus and deflected a curse that came flying at the both of them. His eyes shifted once or twice about as he searched for the caster that had so stupidly chosen to draw attention to themselves. As another came flying at them from somewhere in the crowd of students, he finally caught sight of the one that had dared to attack them. It was a Slytherin, of course, but he was not sure if the snake had intended to attack Remus or himself, but his best guess was that it was intended for his friend and not himself.

As Remus began disarming the ones that were causing the most troubles, Caedyn was busy making sure that no one attacked the younger student. The teachers were starting to break up the fight and this itself was a relief on him. With the teachers there to help, this was a weight off the two of them. Just because they were good at what they did, didn't mean they could take on a large group of students by themselves.

When everything was said and done, the professors were grabbing students left and right that were responsible for the small skirmish. Caedyn took a deep breath and sat down at the closest table to them, his back to the tabletop itself. He leaned his head back and exhaled deeply to calm himself down. While he put his wand away, his eyes went back up to Remus.

"That could have gone a lot worse." He paused, "I suppose it's good to have some dueling skills after all." Caedyn laughed it off and then tapped his foot to the ground. The entire situation was beginning to cool and several of the students had gone back to their daily routine within the great hall. Life as they knew it was back to normal. At least, it was until the next day.

[Remus John Lupin]

Remus was more than glad to have Caedyn next to him. He could see the curses and hexes flash by and fade (thanks to the Ravenclaw's deflections) in the corners of his eyes while he continued disarming students as fast as he could. He didn't so much look at their houses. He didn't really even look at the, his eyes were mainly focused on the wands he had to get away from them, no matter what house they were in. He knew that even a Hufflepuff could throw a mean hex or two when he or she really wanted to.

As the teachers began to really break up the fight, he felt the relief wash over him. Luckily no one had gotten hurt too badly and although Caedyn and himself had been rather effective in slowing the fight down, it were the teachers that had the proper authority to actually stop it. Remus was a Prefect and Caedyn.. he wasn't sure - was he a Prefect or Head Boy? Either way, no matter what their status, in they end they were just peers to the other students, and peers are more easily ignored than teachers.

When the commotion had died down, Remus followed Caedyn's example, sitting down in juxtaposition and exhaling slowly, nodding at Caedyn's comment. "That could have gone a lot worse." Remus didn't really want to think about what might've happened if it had been worse. He hoped it wouldn't get worse. He hoped this whole threat of war would be over soon.
"I suppose it's good to have some dueling skills after all." Remus chuckled joylessly and nodded. "I guess so. I hope I won't need those skills again in the near future, though." Merlin, if children where attacking each other here without holding back, then what were their parents doing..?