New Leadership

Sam held his cold look on the newcomer for a few more seconds after she finished speaking, digesting the information he, or rather she (as he was beginning to suspect) had giving him. Suddenly, after coming to a brief conclusion, he felt his face split into a grin.

"Anyone who wants barker dead," he said, the grin sticking to his face, "must be a friend of mine, isn't that right.... Miseria?" He prompted, wondering if his hunch about the white wolf was correct. If not, and there was in fact another pale creature roaming the nights at Hogwarts, Sam knew that he'd feel just a little less secure from here on in?

"Any point to this?" He added, gesturing towards the one he now recognised to be Miseria Lupin in disguise.

Sam looked at the group before once more laying his eyes on Miseria. "Well, I'd sort of already covered a part of it. You were late and I'm not one to really want to repeat myself," he said, an inkling of irritation filling his mind as he toyed with the idea of repeating his instructions, before casting the thought away. "You can catch up with someone else on my other plans," he finished.

"However I had also thought of ways that we could target the Dark Followers as well without being caught. They're the eyes and ears of the new administration, you can tell by the way the interact with each other - who's allowed in their tower, who gets let off for rule breaking, that sort of thing. I had thought that we could just do small things against them, however I also had an idea regarding the young druggo kid... you know, the Ravenclaw... third year?" He prompted, the name of his accomplice slipping his mind temporarily.

"Keith, that's him. He seems to have fingers everywhere, he's the sort of person we could do well to have on our side. It's a shame there aren't any Ravenclaws here anymore, but we'll manage on our own. My thoughts were that we could get him to join us and either act as a sort of double agent, or at least get him to wreak his own personal brand of havoc on them... He has his ways of getting out of trouble, I've seen him at it, but we do not." He told them with a slight twist of the head... he really, truly detested the inequity of student levels at Hogwarts.

Byron nodded at Sam, then launched himself into an attempt at thinking. He had never been one with the ideas. Rather, he was the one who would jump on any bandwagon suggested by anyone he trusts. After all, the whole point about executing big plans was to be there with your friends, and to support them, wasn't it? In the midst of his thoughts, or the lack thereof despite the cloud in his head, another voice entered the discussion. Byron's attention swiftly shot to it, only to do a double-take at the entrance of Felix Baker. Byron's hand shot to his wand instinctively. Still, the quick reminder that Barker was really a professor now made the boy shift his hand back to his side. Byron was always slightly confused about the new professor. There were rumours about his detentions, but no real evidence of it all staring at Byron's face. He was still rather trusting about who was made staff at Hogwarts, despite the sneaking suspicions of late.

When Sam laughed in a rather odd manner, Byron watched and noticed the boy lower his wand. Everyone else in the room stayed very quiet, and in a way, this made the other boy into a sort of natural leader among them for now. Byron watched uncertainly as Sam began to threaten who was supposed to be Felix Barker. Without realising it, Byron's hand had shifted back to his wand, as if he was going to back Sam up if anything wrong was going to occur. He was very confused, made worse when "Felix" continued to speak. Thankfully and quickly enough, it was Miseria after all. Byron allowed the tension in his body to ease itself quickly, before chuckling at the silliness of it all.

"I know how boring things have been recently, Mis. But I'd rather see you scare the bloody Slytherins than pull one on us like that." Then Byron smiled, in his usual good-natured and casual fashion. "Hello, anyway." Byron nodded his head slowly, acknowledging whatever Sam was trying to tell the group. "Well, seeing that the DFs have been oddly quiet recently, there'll be no harm in finding out what's going on with them. It's definitely unsettling for them to stay out of everything for so long. Besides, I don't know where else or what else we can do for now, against whoever even. We don't even know who exactly is the enemy now; at least we don't know who's the active one. I'm ... very confused." And there, Byron stopped, crossed his arms at his chest, and continued to be lost in his thoughts.

Sam looked at Byron and nodded. What he said was true, the most dangerous enemies out there seemed to be the ones with no faces. The small time ones, such as the Dark Followers, had all ousted themselves... they were bad, but they didn't seem to have their hearts in it. The really dangerous ones though, like Alistair and Zada... they were that much more dangerous for the way they tried to make themselves appear friendly, or if not friendly, at least an appearance of working for the greater good ((See what I did there?))

"You're right Byron... it's hard to keep tabs on who's good and who's... well, not... good. But knowing the movements of those who we can be sure are not on our side seems like a good step to me, and getting the assistance of someone who can probably help us a lot more than I can would definitely be a good move, in my opinion," he explained.

((Sorry for poor quality. I'm about to hit the sack. Or my keyboard... with my face... because I'm sleepy))

Millie was quiet for most of the Order meeting. Snuggled up in Sevastian’s warm embrace she had little to say. She merely watched the people converse with wide eyes as she fingered a piece of material that hung from the blonde’s shirt. She looked up brightly at the sound of the door opening but the smile that had brightened the pallor of her face dropped and darkened her features at the sight of Barker. Millie’s body froze, her hand fisting the slack material of Sevastian’s shirt in a vice-like grip. He flinched as she groped at his skin. Sevastian turned also for a moment and Millie felt his grip on her tighten also. Her head disappeared into his robes as she wrapped her arms around him, foolishly hoping that perhaps if she hid against the warmth of Sevastian’s body, she’d be safe. Felix had left marks on her both physically and emotionally, marks she had yet to recover from. The agony of them plagued her night and day. The idea that he was there in the Room of Requirement shocked her into silence, the heavy breaths of escaping her mouth the only indication that she was still in the land of the living. Her eyes were wide and unseeing, staring into the off-white of Sevastian’s shirt. She saw nothing though, just a blur of colour.

She didn’t lift her head until she heard Mis’ voice in the place of Barker’s. Millie poked her head out of Sevastian’s robes and swallowed her throat tight. She became aware of the hand he’d placed on her back and she looked up at him, quickly stepping away, embarrassed by herself. Millie brushed invisible pieces of lint off of her robes and fell back beside Sevastian. She swallowed hard again, anger and bile rising in her throat as she watched Sam and Byron speak. Finally though, something snapped inside her, Miseria’s words tumbling around in Millie’s mind. Fun. She’d come to them, her vision as Barker for fun. Millie whirled around to face the dark-haired girl, her hands trembling with fury that could not be put into suitable enough words. She could not believe the insensitivity of the girl; or the hypocrisy.

“Considering what he did to your mother, don’t you think what you just did was a bit crass?” Millie spat, the words tumbling into the air with a venomous edge to it. “Or is it because of what he did to your mother that you feel it is fine to paint yourself in his appearance? Do tell because I really can’t think why anyone would want to do that. Or are you truly that heartless?”