The Madness of Hogwarts - Unpopping and Open RP

[snowonthewall.livejournal.com]

The mournful howl was what brought Jon Snow out of the salty, buttery existance that had been his for so long.

He stared around him wildly as the howl came again, taking in his surroundings. He remembered this place. Confused images of his half-brother, his sisters, even his father and his father's wife filled his head. There was also something about... being married? To some kind of lobster person? That one was a little fuzzy, and Jon thought perhaps it was best that he not recall that incident too closely.

Yes, he remembered this place. This was Hogwarts, a mad castle that was worlds away (quite literally) from theWall.

He brushed absently at the black armor he wore, trying to rid it of butter and salt, and strode briskly toward the door. The howl still rang loud in his ears, and he knew it had to be Ghost's cry.

He glanced at the plaque outside the door, looking for familliar names. Most of his family he could see written on the list, but one name was absent. His sister Arya was here.

The young Lord Commander of the Night's Watch squared his shoulders and moved with purpose away from the popcorn room. He didn't know where he might find Arya, but if he knew her at all, she would be outdoors somewhere. He still hoped she had Needle, and that she was still using it.

He made it outside without incident, and again heard the howl, and so he struck out in the direction of the forest, calling out as he went. "Ghost? Ghost, is that you?"


At one point, he finally glanced up, and with wide-eyed incredulity beheld the sight of the Baby Sun, shining down with what seemed malevolent good cheer.

"Gods be good," he muttered. He had known fear, many times since he'd joined the Night's Watch, especially when he'd seen what the Others and the Wildmen were capable of. But he'd never thought that the very sun was capable of transforming into something this... evil. And as if that wasn't bad enough, he suddenly heard, blasting from all directions, a hideously awful song. He looked around frantically, noting that the plants nearby seemed to be projecting the noise, and there was no way to avoid it.

"Ghost!" he called again, ashamed of the rising panic in his voice. "Ghost? Arya?"

A huge blur of white fur came bounding out of the forest, answering at least one of his summons. Jon greeted the albino direwolf warmly, rolling around on the ground, letting himself have a moment of boyish relief and gladness at his old friend. But the moment was short-lived as once more he found himself glancing up at that horrible thing in the sky, and noticing that the music had changed subtly. He had a feeling he would never be able to get the tunes he was hearing out of his head.


Getting to his feet, allowing Ghost to lick up some of the remaining butter and salt, he turned and began a brisk walk around the edge of the forest, still calling out Arya's name. He hoped, by the Mother in her mercy, that she was still here, and that he would find her soon.

((Feel free to come chat Jon up if you aren't, in fact, Arya!))

Comments

[bigredbernard.livejournal.com]

Andy Bernard was not Arya.

On the brighter side, he also wasn't Tinky Winky.

"Heyyy. Big doggy. Cute fella, aren't you?" He sounded like he was trying a little too hard not to register nervousness at Ghost's appearance. "He your dog?" he asked the black-cloaked teenager, hopefully.

If the kid was the dog's owner, then the kid could restrain the dog from attacking. Andy hoped.

[snowonthewall.livejournal.com]

Ghost's hackles rose at Andy and he gave a low growl.

Jon spoke a soothing word to the direwolf, then regarded Andy coolly. This was a face he didn't remember from his time here, so he had no notion if he was friend or foe.

"Ghost is his own creature," he said, probably not offering the kind of reassurance Andy was looking for. "And he's not a dog. He's a direwolf."

[bigredbernard.livejournal.com]

"Yeah? Aren't they, like, endangered? With Sarah Palin shooting them out of her helicopters and all." And he made a noise like an explosion, with illustrative hand gestures, first the shooting and then a fluttering of his fingers outward to describe shrapnel.

Apparently Mrs. Palin was using bazookas on the wolves, if Andy's rendition was to be believed.

"I'm totally for the protection of endangered species and the responsible stewardship of the earth," he hastened to assure Ghost. "Especially wolves. And dolphins. I oughta get after Big Tuna on that one, next time I'm in Scranton. So, you're Ghost," to the dog, "and youuu I have not met yet," to Jon. "Iiii am Andy Bernard."

He stuck out his hand to shake, without approaching any nearer to Jon or his canine friend. He hoped Jon would cross the distance to him, as Ghost might misinterpret any sudden moves.

[snowonthewall.livejournal.com]

"I can't say that I've ever heard of House Palin," Jon murmured, wondering vaguely why he was even bothering. "It must not be terribly important in the grand scheme of things."

He took a step forward so he could clasp Andy's hand briefly. "Lord Commander Jon Snow of the Night's Watch," he said shortly. "Well met, Andy Bernard." Though Jon wasn't actually certain that this was, in fact, true. Ghost's hackles were still raised.

[runaway-stark.livejournal.com]

The Baby Sun had, to use a term that she'd overheard some other students use at Hogwarts, freaked Arya out. She'd seen quite a lot in a very short amount of time, but most of it had been confined to human strangeness and cruelty. The rain of horrible slime, the fires, and the music had all made the forest, Arya's former sanctuary, a place that she dreaded to visit.

But she would never allow anyone to accuse her of quitting, and there were Lannisters and Freys to be killed whenever she was allowed to return to Westeros, so she made sure to visit the stupid place at least once a day for her now-ritual tree hacking sessions. She felt justified in cutting this one short by virtue of the stupid Baby Sun and her arms and shoulders being sore to the point of shaking after Muggle Studies. AK-47s had proved quite a lot harder to use than her pistol.

She trudged back through the trees toward the castle, trying to ignore the horrid noise coming from the strange growths scattered around the grounds, which meant that she almost missed the sound of someone calling her name. She immediately started moving more quietly, both to better hear and to be ready to hide in case she didn't want to be found by whoever was looking for her. The voice was familiar, and her normally somber face broke into a grin as she started running toward its source.

"Jon?"

[snowonthewall.livejournal.com]

Jon had had to learn circumspection the hard way over the last few years. Those had been hard-won lessons, and they all vanished as soon as he saw Arya.

He ran to meet her halfway, moving in for a hug if she'd allow it. "Arya!" This time his exclamation was one of relief. "Thank the old gods and the new you're all right." He stepped back to look at her. "I see that you're still poking things with your needle," he remarked, noting the sword and unable to suppress his grin.

[runaway-stark.livejournal.com]

Arya lunged for her brother, dropping Needle in midair so as not to stick him with the pointy end, and brushed away the feeling that she'd done this before. "You're here!" She laughed happily, all traces of her earlier irritation gone. "I'm practicing. I'm also learning to use guns." She dropped her voice to a hushed whisper. "And I can sort of use some magic now. Do you remember any?"

[snowonthewall.livejournal.com]

"Guns? I'd like to see those," Jon said excitedly. Not that he had much of a clue what they were, but if they thrilled Arya, he thought he'd probably like them.

At her question about magic, he shook his head ruefully. "No. I don't remember any magic, really," he admitted. "I don't remember a lot. Just... that Sansa and Rob and Father were here... and something about being married to a lobster, which I think must be some sort of madness brought on by whatever makes people popcorn."

[runaway-stark.livejournal.com]

"I have a pistol in my room. I can't remember if I showed it to you before... but you might not remember it even if I did. It's a block of metal with these things called bullets that go in it, and when you squeeze the trigger the bullets fly out and hit things. It's like a crossbow except smaller, louder, and with no arrows. And Professor Harkonnen in Muggle Studies showed us how to use a bigger kind called an AK-47. It fires even more bullets at once." She made a face. "It's heavy, though.

"Oh." She shrugged, suddenly more subdued. "They were here, but... I can't really remember it. I remember voices, conversations, letters... things like that. But I'm not sure I can remember them. Mother was here, too," she added quietly, knowing that the subject of Catelyn Stark was a sore one for Jon. "And some Lannisters. But they're all... blurry."

[snowonthewall.livejournal.com]

"A more accurate crossbow but with smaller projectiles?" Jon grinned. "I'd love to see yours, little sister. I don't remember anything about that from before." He tried to keep his tone light, to not let her see how much that actually bothered him.

"I don't really remember any of the others either," he said. "Maybe it's better that way. Are they all really gone? The Lannisters, too?" Jon didn't have the hatred for that noble house that his sister did, and, in fact, had quite liked Tyrion Lannister when they'd met. However, he was perfectly content not to have to deal with Westerosi politics in small, condensed form while he was here.

[runaway-stark.livejournal.com]

"I'll show it to you later. I don't think I ever showed it to you before, so don't worry about that."

She nodded. "They're all gone. I was gone for a while, too. But I'm back now." Her face broke into a quick grin. "The Lannisters are all gone. I checked." She didn't mention that she made it a habit to drop by the popcorn room and check daily. In addition to checking on her own family and hoping that one of their names would be off of that plaque, of course.

[smaug-thegolden.livejournal.com]

Elric's incessantly wailing, flaming sword had been robbing Smaug of his needed rest, even here, at the edge of his lairing territory within the Forbidden Forest—which also happened to be the edge of the woods, and beyond them lay Hogwarts grounds.

It was thus inevitable that Jon would eventually run into the irascible old dragon. Smaug lay mostly concealed within the forest, and when he heard the shouting, he craned his long neck forward, out of the trees, and peered down at the Man and his wolf companion. The dragon's luminescent crimson eyes were narrowed in annoyance. "That sounds like an invitation to be eaten," he rumbled irritably. In truth, he wouldn't have been much more pleasant even if he had been getting adequate sleep lately.

[snowonthewall.livejournal.com]

Jon's hand was on his sword, and it was out of his sheath within moments. Thank the gods that popcorn hadn't dulled his reflexes. Ghost's hackles had risen, and the wolf let out a low, rumbling growl.

"I did not know this was your territory," Jon said, trying to speak as evenly as he could considering that Smaug looked absolutely terrifying, and back in Westeros, dragons were all, at least to Jon's knowledge, dead. "I'm only looking for my sister, and then I promise to let you go about finding something else to eat."

[haplo-runner.livejournal.com]

The sudden changes in the castle grounds had failed to suprise Haplo or Dog in their exploration of their new surroundings. After all, the Labyrinth recreated itself on a regular basis in it's mad attempts to kill or trap them forever.

"He's a fine animal," Haplo said mildly, moving from the shadows of the forest. The runes marking his arms glowed faintly, a defensive response to the dangers of the Forbidden Forest and the strange child's face in the sun.

Dog paced around his master's feet, agitated. The music was hurting his ears. He wanted to go back inside where it wasn't so loud.

[snowonthewall.livejournal.com]

Jon stopped walking, hand going to his sword. He'd been startled by the man's appearance, but Ghost didn't appear to be bothered. In fact, the direwolf was watching Dog with what seemed to be benevolent interest.

"He is," Jon answered, forcing himself to relax and even smile. "My brothers and I found him with his littermates when they were pups. He's called Ghost." His expression became more serious as he asked, "What is that thing?" He pointed upward to emphasize his point. "I've never seen sorcery like that." Not that, truth be told, he'd seen much sorcery in his life, but still...

[haplo-runner.livejournal.com]

"A fitting name," Haplo noted as Dog trotted over to Ghost, his tail wagging slowly. He was always up for finding someone else to play with.

At the question, the Patryn sketched a shrug. "Nor have I. From what I have learned, these changes are recent," he said, waving a hand at the loud stalks blaring music and the strange face in the sun. "Some of the students have theories about where it's coming from, but it seems to stem from dark or chaotic magic of some sort."

"I am called Haplo," he said, remembering that introductions were customary here, and there was no one who could simply read his heart rune to learn his name.

[snowonthewall.livejournal.com]

Jon gave Haplo a respectful bow. "I'm Jon Snow," he said. "Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, though I don't suppose that actually means anything to you. I just recently found myself here." He indicated his armor, which still sported remnants of butter and salt.

Then he glanced skyward again. "That thing seems like to drive all of us mad," he remarked. "Should I worry it will do other things besides play obnoxious music?"

[haplo-runner.livejournal.com]

Haplo nodded, "Not exactly, but it does sound like a station of importance."

The nearest series of stalks began blaring obnoxious music, eliciting a scowl. Haplo drew a series of complex runes in the air where they flared to life, multiplying rapidly between them. At a word, they streaked through the air, smashing into the stalks with explosive force.

"Given the tenacity of these things," he said, nodding as the destroyed stalks returned, "it is indeed possible. I wouldn't consider anything that has happened as overtly hostile, but it has been a serious annoyance."

[snowonthewall.livejournal.com]

Jon shrugged. "I suppose it might have been an important title, once," he said. "But it doesn't provide much comfort when you're actually on the Wall."

He watched Haplo try to destroy the stalks nearby with runes, with little success. "That's some interesting magic you're practicing yourself," he remarked, his nonchalant tone belying boyish curiosity. "How do you make those symbols appear?"

[haplo-runner.livejournal.com]

"It's the magic of my people, Patryns. Our magic is rune-based in nature." His frown only grew as the stalks began blaring their music again. "And it seems to have little effect on whatever force is driving them."

"The Wall? You were a sentry on a wall?"

[snowonthewall.livejournal.com]

Jon nodded. "Yes. The Wall divides the lands of the Wildlings and the Others from the Seven Kingdoms. It's the job of the Night's Watch to guard the Wall, as a line of defense before anything can attack the lands to the south." He sighed and smiled wryly. "Once it was an honor to serve on the Wall. Now it's a place for criminals, misfits and bastards."

[haplo-runner.livejournal.com]

Haplo chuckled, "Those who act in defense of others should be regarded with honor. Birth has no bearing on how worthy a man is. Skill in combat whether with a blade or magic should be the mark of a good man."

Dog barked happily at Ghost, capering around in a circle, seeming to invite him to play while the men talked.

[snowonthewall.livejournal.com]

Jon nodded. "True," he answered. "At least, that's how it should be. But the Seven Kingdoms have become complacent. We don't have nearly enough men, and we have too many enemies." He frowned, glancing around the courtyard again. "I should be back there," he said quietly. "I swore my vows to renounce my family and take up arms for the good of the kingdom. But my sister is here, and so am I, now. I... don't think I could leave her a second time." Jon had no idea why he was telling Haplo any of this, given that he'd known the man for all of about five minutes. Then again, Haplo was a stranger who didn't know the kinds of things Jon was facing on the Wall, so maybe it was easier to confide in him because of that. Or maybe it was just simpler than that. Jon was only sixteen, and he did miss his father, who had been beheaded (although this had not stopped him from attending Hogwarts.) and, shoved into his position as Lord Commander, he wasn't exactly surrounded by people he could be that forthright toward. Haplo was a stranger, he was older than Jon, and so for just a second, he didn't have to pretend anything.

And besides, Ghost liked Dog. The direwolf had happily leaped into play with his new friend, content to let the humans talk.

[haplo-runner.livejournal.com]

Haplo watched the young, serious man for a long moment. "I understand," he finally said softly. "A very long time ago, my people were of a very solitary nature. They did not.. cooperate well with others and rarely with their own kind. When we were cast into the prison of the Labyrinth, we had to learn how to rely on each other. Generations of my people died there," he said, his eyes distant, lost in some dark memory.

"But we learned that family, and those you can rely on, are your strongest allies. Even more than a strong back, sharp sword or strong magic."

His eyes flicked to Dog, who was still busy playing and ignoring the humans, and his smile returned briefly. "He saved my life back in the Labyrinth. I would have died without him."