Open Riddle Me This

[Nova Valtoria]

Hogwarts was a busy place. Nova was used to busy places, but she didn't even have her own house or room to go to for peace. There was always someone there. It was often difficult to find some time for her to be by herself - even if the library was a quiet place, there was always someone there. It had taken the Ravenclaw awhile to find the place, but she managed to find the Arts room, which was generally unused. Of course, there was always the chance that someone would already be there or would go in while she was there - and what was worse was when they were there to play instruments, and all sense of peace was lost.
However, today Nova sat in the room by herself, trying to solve a particularly difficult riddle her mother had sent her. Nova had the riddle written out next to her, with a quill and parchment in front of her, scribbles already all over the page, trying to figure it out.

 

[Molly Lamb]

Molly had decided that if she ever died and became a ghost, she was going to haunt the conglomerated arts room. She spent pretty much all her free time there anyway. On afternoons like these it was usually empty, and so it was with visions of several uninterrupted hours of painting that she skipped across the courtyard and pushed open the door.

Her optimism sank like a brick. Ugh. What was Nova doing here? Molly couldn't imagine her having any artistic talent. She wandered up behind her and rolled up onto tiptoes to look over her shoulder. "Oh, is that a riddle? I'm good at riddles," Molly said, not waiting for an invitation to sit down beside her.

 

[Nova Valtoria]

Nova inwardly groaned when she heard the door open and close. Maybe if she just kept her head down, the person wouldn't bother her, and they could go about their own things quietly, without having to interact with each other. However, no such luck as she jumped slightly, hearing a voice right over her shoulder. What the hell? Nova thought as Molly Lamb sat next to her. Nova leaned away slightly, affronted by the girl's forwardness. "That's nice." Nova said, an eyebrow raised, as she moved her riddle book closer towards her, and further from Molly.

 

[Molly Lamb]

Molly raised her eyebrows. Rude. "I guess you don't want to solve it very much," she said. "I'm only trying to help. Let me see." She reached to try to pry the riddle book from beneath Nova's hand.

 

[Nova Valtoria]

Nova rolled her eyes when Molly spoke, as if she wasn't going to be able to figure it out herself. If the House stereotypes were anything to go by, Ravenclaws were definitely much more like to solve the riddle than Slytherin, Nova thought. But she didn't even get a chance to tell Molly that, before the Slytherin girl grabbed her book. Nova's grip tightened around her side of the page, trying to tug it back. "I don't need your help, let go!"

 

[Molly Lamb]

Molly held her side of the book even tighter, determined not to let the selfish Ravenclaw take it back from her. "Just let me see," she said, giving the book a sharp tug. "If you were going to solve it, you'd have finished ages ago. You might as well let me try."

 

[Nova Valtoria]

Nova couldn't believe the nerve of this girl, as she tugged the book back, Nova scowled. "I've only just started!" Nova lied, "It's not even yours, let go!" Nova exclaimed, giving it a huge tug back. To her horror, there was a massive ripping sound as her book tore in two. Her puzzle book! It wasn't like she could just go and buy a new one. Nova looked from her book up to Molly, a murderous look on her face.

 

[Molly Lamb]

Riiiip. Molly looked down at the half of the puzzle book she'd managed to hold on to, a grin spreading across her face. It was what Nova deserved, for being so unwilling to share. "Oops?" she said, not even bothering to hide her delight. The only thing that made her falter slightly was the look on the Ravenclaw's face. That wasn't a look Molly wanted to be on the receiving end of. It was a look that said, Run.

She flung her half of the book at Nova and dashed for the door.

 

[Nova Valtoria]

Molly's face looked like she actually wanted to rip the book. Nova flinched as the other half of the book was flung at her, and she raised a hand to whack it out of the way as Molly ran away. Nova pushed her chair out of the way as she chased the girl out of the room. "Yeah you better run Lamb!" Nova yelled, feeling tears stinging in her eyes. She groaned loudly and hastily wiped her eyes. Nova never cried, but this was a present from her mother, and Nova didn't think she'd ever be able to afford another puzzle book like it. She turned and walked back to where a chair and half a book lay on the floor. She pushed the chair out of her way, and carefully picked up the book Molly had ripped, and put it next to her half. She wondered where she would be able to find cello-tape.

 

[Molly Lamb]

Molly was half way across the courtyard when she realised Nova wasn't following her. She frowned. Well, that was no fun. How could she get Nova into trouble if she didn't provoke her into violence? She walked back over to the arts room door and popped her head around it? "Have you solved it yet?" she asked, laughing cruelly.

 

[Nova Valtoria]

Nova's head swung around when she heard Molly's voice again, before looking back at her book, taking a deep breath and trying to discreetly wipe the tears away. What Lamb had said was mean, and Nova had just about had enough of her. Taking a leaf out of Eric's book, Nova grabbed the chair she had kicked, and flung it with all her might towards the door where Molly was standing.

 

[Molly Lamb]

Was Nova crying? Over a book? Molly wondered briefly whether it had been a special book, a gift from a sick relative or friend, or something, and then realised she didn't care. It was Nova's fault for not knowing how to share. If anything, she'd done a good thing, teaching her a lesson about how to be nice. She was about to say something to the effect of this when suddenly a chair came hurtling straight towards her. The leg of it caught her painfully on the arm, opening a small cut. Molly screamed and burst into tears. "WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT? LOOK WHAT YOU'VE DONE!" she shrieked, wondering if there might be a professor nearby. "I'M BLEEDING! WHY WOULD YOU THROW A CHAIR AT ME? YOU'RE CRAZY!!!"

 

[Nova Valtoria]

The scream that hit Nova's ears was painful, and Nova only wished she hadn't thrown the chair so that she didn't scream so terribly. But she didn't regret it, she didn't regret the pain she caused, not after what Molly had done. And for her to come back and rub it in her face, she deserved to get the chair thrown at her. But Molly continued to shriek and Nova rolled her eyes. " 'Look what I've done?!' Look what you've done!" Nova said picking up her book's halves, before slamming them down on the table again. "You're the crazy one, the one shrieking bloody murder for the tiniest scratch. Holy crap Lamb, calm yourself, you look like a lunatic." Nova snapped back. She didn't want to get into trouble for what she had done, but there was no way she was going to apologize to this psycho.

 

[Zennon Baros]

Being outside was Zennon’s most favourite thing, least of all because this is where his snakes were, the ones he’d managed to smuggle here after constantly telling himself he wouldn’t. Still, he needed someone to talk to if he couldn’t talk to the people he once considered friends. What he was not expecting was a pair of young girls, not much younger than his own sisters, screaming at each other. “Woah! Hey hold up!” There was clearly something very not good happening and Zennon made to get in between the pair before there was any more damage done. He was so hot qualified for this. “What is going on?”. ​

 

[Robert Kain]

On his way back to his classroom, Rob did enjoy taking the scenic route, revisiting the places he’d spent as a student here himself. However today things did not seem to be all as they should have been when he suddenly heard a high pitched scream. His mind instantly jumped to worse case scenario, and he could only imagine what he was going to walk in on as he made his way to the conglomerate arts room. Following the commotion he found the source, and peered between the three students with narrowed eyes. “Does someone want to fill me in?” He asked calmly, walking towards the blonde that was screaming to take a look at her arm. Sometimes children could over exaggerate their injuries for attention, so he needed to be sure of the situation before making any decisions.

 

[Molly Lamb]

Molly didn't care to look at what she'd done. It was just a stupid book. This was her arm! "IT'S NOT A SCRATCH, IT REALLY HURTS. YOU COULD HAVE KILLED ME!!" She spun around at the sound of somebody behind her. Finally! "Nova threw a chair at me," she explained, first to the older Slytherin, and then again to the professor when he caught up a few seconds later. She held her arm up for him to get a look at, sniffling. The cut was a good inch and a half long and starting to ooze. "All I d-did was accidentally break her book. I didn't mean to! And I said I was sorry. She's CRAZY!!!"

 

[Nova Valtoria]

Nova snorted with laughter when Lamb screamed at her again. Nova huffed and folded her arms when a Slytherin boy showed up, rolling her eyes as Molly blamed her immediately. But it wasn't until a Professor showed up that Nova took a deep breath, as Molly rambled on, snorting when Molly said she apologized, and didn't do it on purpose. She was the biggest liar of them all. Nova shook her head in disbelief.

 

[Robert Kain]

While it definitely wasn’t a smart idea to be throwing furniture around, and the Ravenclaw could definitely have done some serious damage, Professor Kain wasn’t entirely convinced she would have done it unprovoked. He inspected the Slytherins arm, noting that a simple band aid would have sufficed in this instance. “Is this true?” He asked the Ravenclaw who had gone very quiet indeed.

 

[Zennon Baros]

Zennon was feeling mightily uncomfortable about this whole situation, he hadn’t meant to step into something today and he wondered if the pair might’ve known each other, he never had been good with this type of conflict after all, and to think he was just trying to mind his own today. He watched as the pair tried to explain what was going on, relieved that the professor was taking over and essentially ignoring him, since he’d done nothing and had really no business being here. He now recognised one of the girls from his own house, though he thought he should have clued on a little faster, clearly he wasn’t as observant today. He didn’t know what had actually happened, but he couldn’t believe the professor was leaving the girl bleeding. He quickly leaned down closer to the girl and conjured a bandaid, handing it to the girl with a small smile, they couldn’t very well leave her there bleeding.​

 

[Nova Valtoria]

The Professor asked Nova if it was true, and Nova knew that no matter what she said, everyone would believe the screaming girl with a tiny scratch. Nevertheless, Nova shook her head. "Nope." Nova lied, with a shrug of her shoulders.

 

[Molly Lamb]

Molly couldn't believe what she was hearing. Why didn't the professor believe her? She had a great big cut on her arm! Well, it was more of a scratch, but there was a little bit of blood, and it really did hurt. She was about to ask the professor if he was stupid when the Slytherin leaned in and offered her a bandaid. "Thank you," she said, sniffling and wincing as she applied it to the cut. At least somebody could see she was the victim in all of this. She decided to stay close to the boy, scoffing as Nova denied it but failed to explain how else Molly had acquired her injury. "She's lying. The chair's right there." She thrust a finger in the direction of the upturned chair before quickly reapplying pressure to the bandaid. "I was just trying to help her with her puzzle book. I didn't mean to tear it. I'm really sorry, Nova, OK?" Her voice wobbled as she delivered the last line, and she looked down to let her golden hair hide her face.

 

[Zennon Baros]

Zennon was so confused by this whole situation, he really didn't know what was true and what wasn't, so he really didn't envy the professor having to deal with this mess. Just as he was about to try and slink away, he noticed that the younger Slytherin, had sort of decided that she wanted to stay close to him and Zennon sighed inwardly for getting himself involved. This was exactly the kind of stuff he had been trying to avoid this whole time only to be thrown into the middle of it, accidentally, because he was trying to help, well next time he was just going to let them kill each other, though he did feel some kind of responsibility for the younger girl from his house, mostly due to his sense of house loyalty and the fact that she was remarkably like Rowan at the same age, honestly it was uncanny how similar that were. He did his best not to let them see how apprehensive he was about this situation, he just wanted to help if he could. "I didn't see anything, but... that chair definitely doesn't belong there, and it had been thrown." He offered, though decided too late that maybe speaking wouldn't have been the best course of action. He had no idea who was in the wrong, but the girl did at least seem remorseful.

 

[Robert Kain]

Professor Kain hadn’t thought the injury was worth immediate attention, however the Slytherin still seemed to be squeezing her arm a little tightly and he appreciated the older boy offering her the band aid, “thank you,” he said quietly before turning to the girls. It was hard to work out what was and wasn’t true, but given the evidence of a broken book and a chair that had scratched the Slytherin that was now way off from the others, they both had played a part in this. He was disappointed the Ravenclaw and decided not to admit to anything here, and at least the Slytherin was apologising. “20 points,” he looked between both girls, “will be taken from both of you. It is not appropriate to be causing damage to property or one another,” his face had turned slightly more serious now as he spoke. He looked to the boy that seemed to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. “Please could you take Miss Lamb here back to your common room and ensure she doesn’t get in any more accidents. Miss Valtoria,” he continued, waving his wand until the segments of her book had landed carefully in his other hand, “I would like you to come with me,”.