the Severely Incompetent but Sincerely Determined Rescue Squad

The breath parting the pale lips of the Slytherin condensed like smoke against the air. She struggled into the extra jumper she’d taken out of her trunk, her head popping out of the collar in an almost ludicrous manner. She shoved her arms through the sleeves and pushed past the gaggle third years who were impeding her ability to see what was going on. Their cries of indignation fell on deaf ears as the witch struck out ahead of them, slipping a little as she hurried down over the grass towards the shield ... and towards the ice. Her heart was thundering against her ribcage and there was a small portion of her that worried she’d end up cracking a rib if it beat much harder. Her fear was two-fold. Fear for the people down by the shield and the distant fear of whomever had cast the spell.

She passed a group of people saying something about potions and she momentarily turned her head, tempted to say something, to offer what assistance she could. She shook herself, her hands coming up to rub her upper arms, and she continued on her path down to where more people had gathered. As she neared, she saw precisely what had drawn the crowd. She had missed the arrival of the adults, having been trying to steal a few minutes of sleep inside the castle. She had luckily found herself a spare blanket in a broom closet, having given away the majority of the ones she had found to the sniffling first years and she’d wanted, no, needed, some rest. There was no chance of that now. Not for any of them.

Once she was far enough down, Florence turned and looked up at the castle, squinting in the hopes of seeing something that would account for where the ice had come from. Though there were several icy outcroppings on the façade of the building, that didn’t mean a thing, she was sure of it. It could have come from anywhere inside the castle, if it had come from the castle at all. But then, if it hadn’t … where? She shook off the feeling that there was something else afoot, deciding that becoming even more paranoid about what was happening to them all would do no good, even if there were braver students around than her to cope with what was going on. She was just another cog in the Hogwarts machine. Remarkable just wasn’t really an adjective that suited her in the middle of the night.

It was just as she seemed to near the group that the dock whined its descent into the water. She ground to a stop, swallowing the sudden lump of fear that had formed in her throat. She tried to bury the thought that occurred to her but it reared its ugly head all the same. They were trapped. Truly, now, she thought. The dock had given some sort of illusion of escape, the promise that something would come and that they could be conveyed back to Britain. As it disappeared into the water, she couldn’t help but feel that it had taken some of their home with it. If not anyone else’s then most assuredly hers.

“There should be weak points in this shield!” She found herself saying as she reached the group, her eyes fixed on the Weasley and the duck. They seemed like sensible-ish human beings. More importantly, they appeared forthright enough to do something. “We should try some sort of … I don’t know … a blasting spell or something like that? I don’t know where but … surely … surely,” she got out through chattering teeth, “there’s some sort of weakness in it.”

It hadn't been the warmest place on earth when they had all arrived, but the coldness now was just ridiculous. It was like the temperature had just plummeted and ice had appeared all around them, this wasn't natural at all, but there was no way of telling where it had all come from. The stupid coldness that appeared out of no where aside, there was some kind of commotion being made by the students about adults having arrived and something or another about potions and finding a way to help "him".

Cronis had been inside near the entrance with Anabelle and Evander nearby when they had all heard about what was going on. Hit and Cronis had looked at each other, a worried look on each of their faces before they decided they would go look at what had happened. Evander decided to stay behind, no doubt because he was scared of what they might find though he knew it would do no good to stay in place, scared, especially with the dropped temperature.

The Gryffindor and Slytherin duo ran down toward the commotion, Hit thinking maybe it would have been a good idea for one of them to head off with the students mumbling about making potions to help. Maybe Evan would decide he would help with that, he was pretty good at Potions after all, he could be helpful; if he could get over his nerves first.

They arrived just in time to hear a girl talking about sending a blasting spell at the shield prompting Cronis to look up and around at the shield. Hit focused on the other Gryffindors who were near the shield close to the adults who'd arrived. She gasped when she realized what the needing to help "him" had been about as her eyes fell to the man convulsing on the ground. "Oh my god," she whispered as she parted herself from Cronis' side to go over to them. "W.. what happened?" she asked nervously, wondering if there was anything she could do to help. Though it didn't seem likely at all.

Cronis glanced at the Slytherin girl. "I'm not sure a blasting spell would be a great idea." he said. "I mean, we can try, but we have to make sure we're ready for it bouncing back, in case it does. I'm not sure if it will, but we can't take that risk." the boy added, though he thought she had a good idea with the blasting spell. They needed to find the weak spots she was talking about, or at least find out if there even were any. But there was always a weak spot to everything, they just had to try to find it.

Katherine hadn't come down the stairs until she recognized Dom Weasley. She felt exhausted after all of the work they'd done to get into the castle earlier, but if something was happening and it could lead to her going home, she had to know. By the time she got down, Michelle was giving out a list of ideas, and she certainly wasn't wrong. But hadn't that Ilvermorny girl just said they'd tried to take the shield down?

Another Slytherin showed up and suggested they try and find a fault in it. "They've been trying to find one. And I'm pretty sure doing that just did this," she added, gesturing towards Declan with wide eyes and a serious frown on her face.

"Michelle is right, though. We should break off in teams. I don't think we can get a letter through this shield, but maybe there's a weak spot up there? Maybe one of the Ilvermorny students knows, or one of the exchange students might have tried," she pulled her eyebrows together and looked up at it where it arced over their heads. "If we're going to blast it down," she nodded at Cronis, "someone better be sure it's safe. Clearly, it's got dark magic. They just said that. Casey has been here the longest. She's said she tried to get through, remember? When we got here. If you're going to do it, at least wait until we've got a store of potions to fix whoever gets hurt."

She turned, hearing the crack and clink of ice, only to find that the water around the ferry had frozen. They definitely weren't going to get help that way, then, even if they did fix Declan.

"I'm going to go down and help. Potions is my best subject. And if these are the only two adults we have to help us, we should probably figure that out first. He could die if we leave him and it's worse than we think."

She had no way of knowing, of course, about the three adults that were watching over them from somewhere inside the castle. So fixing the ones she could see seemed like the only way to go for the time being. Plus, they were on the other side. Maybe it was still possible for them to leave and get help.

Once everyone decided what they wanted to do, she determined that going back to help that other girl would be the place she was the most useful. So she turned to head back inside, grabbing Evander by the arm as she walked, asking him to come with her and help.

Ilvermorny was so boring. It was also so wretched. At least when she'd been younger, Mother had usually been able to confund the muggles into letting them stay at hotels. It hadn't been the best life, but it had been better than this hole.

The massive crack of lightning, then? That was a welcome break from the monotony.

Out on the lawn, there was already a group of students gathered, chattering uselessly about what the best course of action would be. And further down the lawn, there was Dominique Weasley weeping helplessly over the prone form of someone. Liesl couldn't see who from here.

This was who the Ministry had sent to save them all? See, this was why she allied herself with the Death Eaters. You simply couldn't trust the Ministry.

"Did someone say dark magic?" she didn't really ask. "If only there was someone here who knows about that. Oh wait, there is."

Liesl instinctively ducked at the freezing gust of wind from somewhere up at the castle that left the lake frozen over. Hmmm. She wondered whether this lake had any inhabitants, for they would surely not be pleased. For now though, she merely cast a warming charm on her cloak and nodded at Kit's decision to go make potions.

Not that Liesl thought Dominique and whoever was with her would be any use once they were healed. They'd already almost killed themselves. But Liesl wasn't evil; she didn't want anyone to die.

If there was something that he should've been confident in, it should've been his abilities when it came to potions. He had a natural knack for the subject and he knew that right now any help would be appreciated because of whatever was going on. Still, Evander Yaxley found himself unable to gain his wits and actually offer any help to anyone. Everyone was running around, choosing their tasks and offering help to whoever needed it, which right now was clearly the man on the ground.

The fact that the focus had shifted from the panic of being stuck at Ilvermorny to something else was supposed to be a good thing, in his mind, but not when it caused even more panic because someone could potentially die if they didn't come up with some kind of answer soon.

The Ravenclaw envied Hit and Cronis, the two of them had immediately jumped into action while he'd sat there scared out of his mind about the commotion. To say that he wasn't good under pressure was an understatement. However, he felt slightly better knowing that Kit was there with him, even though he should've probably felt more embarrassed than relieved since she seemed to be showing more courage than him.

There wasn't really much of anything he could contribute in the conversation that was going on, so he simply stood there, watching and listening to what was being said before he felt a tug on his arm and glanced at Kit who was heading back inside and seemed to want him to go with her. There is something I can do, so I might as well try to help. He thought to himself, trying to gain some confidence and he began to follow Kit before turning back around to speak to Cronis briefly.

"You'd better not do anything stupid." Evander said.

"When do I ever?" Cronis replied with a smirk.

"Always." He sighed, turning back to head inside with Kit.

Scarlett looked up as the door opened and two of the train kids came in. Interesting. Still, any help she could get would be good, so she didn't say anything sarcastic about how long they had taken, regardless of her desire to do so. The blonde had taken hold of the boy's hand, pulling him along after her.

She released him, though, once she approached Scarlett, asking the big question: "What do you need us to do?"

So Scarlett pointed out the items she thought might be helpful, and Kit just nodded along, moving to the cabinets to see if she could find the pre-made potions or what they needed to make them.

Two of them were found out quite quickly but the balm they needed to make wasn't, so Scarlett called out the ingredients to Kit and Evander as she prepared a cauldron over a flame.

"Well thank goodness," Scarlett murmured to herself, registering that the easiest of the bunch was the one they'd yet to make. Either they were lucky, or they were on the entirely wrong track. In the end, they had no other choice. She left the pair of them to it, running back out with the others until that was done.

Once she reached the group, she tried to remember the name that Kit had given her. A prefect. Lord, she couldn't remember.

"Y'all, Kit told me someone knows dark magic. I've got a couple things here and they're working on another. Is there any way to get something through there?"

That was quick. Or maybe it wasn't.  Liesl hadn't seen this girl before.

"That would be me," Liesl said.  "Though I'm not convinced this is dark magic.  We don't call fire charms dark, but you'd hurt if you burnt yourself on one."

She stooped to pick a rock up from the ground.

"Heads up," she warned, before tossing it towards Dominique. Instead of ricocheting back at them, the rock bounced across the ground near where the other woman was crouching.

Liesl turned to the potions girl.

"You can get something through, so long as it's not alive."

She thought for a moment more before aiming a spell at the rock and turned it into a daisy.

"You can even get spells through.  If you're up for a little animate to inanimate transfiguration, we could get you through there."

[ooc: Jackles gave me the go-ahead on this and for Dom after they sort him out. For reference.]

Scarlett stared, wide-eyed, at the other girl. "Oh, absolutely not," she replied immediately, not even stopping to think about it. "Don't take this personally, but I have no idea how skilled any of you may or may not be. We should just give them to her," she pointed at the blonde on the other side, "and see if we can't fix it. We've still got a couple folks down there working on the other idea I found, and they said Potions is their best subject."

Turning towards the shield, she watched for a few moments, her eyebrows pulling together. Guilt. She hated that feeling. It was possibly the worst feeling ever. What if she dropped the potion and they had to find another? Or make another? How long would this man really last? And what would happen if she couldn't hold him still enough to make him take the potion?

Scarlett scowled but decided that this girl seemed competent enough. And, if nothing else, she could hope with everything in her that one of these two would know what to do, or that their Deputy Headmaster would be creeping around again. He was pretty frightening, though, so she wasn't sure she could trust him to any real extent.

Sighing heavily she turned towards the girl with the plan, her expression exceedingly reluctant. "Fine," she countered her own words, running her tongue across the inside of her lower teeth. "I'll do it."

Crouching down, she rolled the potion forward, holding her breath with the expectation that it would just decide to shatter or something equally unhelpful. It didn't, though, spinning through until it hit the blonde's leg.

Swallowing hard, she turned and faced the other girl. "Right. Unless anyone else wants to volunteer, may as well get a move on."

Liesl smiled.  She always got her way, and this time it hadn't even taken any arguing.


She tapped her wand on her chin, trying to think of what material to turn the girl into.  Liesl didn't really want to deal with distribution of masses right now, but that meant she would need to turn her into something that wouldn't be too heavy once she was transformed.  On the other hand, the material shouldn't be too light or fragile, either.


"Okay," she said eventually.  "There's a really simple transfiguration that will turn you into a statue.  Then I'll shrink you down, toss you through and undo all the spells when you're on the other side." 

"Sound good?"

Scarlett wasn't the biggest fan of this situation. She really wasn't. But it was too late now. So she turned towards the other girl, shifting her weight back and forth and shaking her hands to get rid of her nerves.

The idea was definitely a solid one, but there was one hitch that she didn't know about, if only because Transfiguration was hardly her best subject. Why couldn't they be doing something with Charms so somebody else could be the guinea pig?

"Just... make sure I come out of this with some clothes on, yeah? Other than that, I think we're good to go."

She tossed her wand towards the shield, watching it bounce through and land against the man's leg. Scarlett frowned slightly but gave the Hogwarts student a nod. Lord, if her daddy had cared enough to stick around, there's no way he wouldn't have been proud.