Awake {Anyone}

[James Murray]

It was dark.... Dark like the murkiest depths of the Black Lake after an ink puff from the Giant Squid. Dark like a freshly opened bottle of black ink... an impenetrable darkess.

At first, James Murray was convinced that he was dreaming. He was standing in this enveloping darkness. Even as he raised a hand in front of his face, he could not see it. The floor was ice cold against his strangely bare feet... stone floors, he realized. And his robes... they were loose and comfortable.

It didn't take long for this muggle-born Hufflepuff to register that he was not, in fact, sleeping. It was all too real... and he knew what had happened without a moment's thought.

Sleepwalking. He had been sleepwalking....

With a quick gasp, he instinctively flicked his sleeve, hand open. But his wand didn't drop into it from within his sleeve. It was worse than he had imagined. That rare cherrywood wand of his was probably still sitting on his bedside table; faintly giving off a red glow in the wan light from the dying fire in his cellar dormitory.

He shook his head in disbelief as he held his hands in front of him and blindly groped for anything.... But all he caught was air. Taking a few steps to his right, he reached into the darkness for the wall. After what seemed like an eternity of too many steps, he finally reached it; fingernails scrabbling against one of Hogwarts' many portraits.

The inhabitants stirred immediately, disturbed by their portraits' moving. James could not see the two friars in an odd forest backdrop, but he could hear their quiet cries of protest. It seemed evident that they could not see him either....

Trying to shut out their angry voices, James slowly walked parallel with the wall, careful to not let his hands disturb any more pictures. He was shaking with the cold radiating from the stones and the underlying fear of being lost in this labyrinth of corridors. He must be in an inner hall.... That was probably why there was no light or stairwells along the strip of wall he was traversing carefully.

Looking around, albeit blindly, he dared not say a word. He couldn't be too far from the common room.... And there was no way he was going to allow himself to be found out of bed by a teacher. No one would listen to his excuse... even if he did have quite a bad habit of sleepwalking.

[Ryan Wade]

So it was one of the first nights in this school. Obviously it was a school that didn't exactly know how lights worked. Anything that could give off light appeared to be too far apart during the night, but they seemed to give off a lot more light during the day, whether there were windows or not.

Okay, so maybe it wasn't exactly something to be complaining about. Ryan Wade had been sitting in the hall, occasionally wandering through the dark and sometimes dimly lit hallways for a few hours. He wasn't sleepwalking or anything. He just wasn't tired and didn't feel like staying in the Slytherin common room.

Now he was out in the middle of some random corridor. Ryan knew there had to be some sort of spell that could give off light, unfortunately, he hadn't learned it yet. It was a little disappointing. Here he was, a pureblood, that didn't know any of the simplest spells. Hopefully these teachers could get this problem solved at some point.

However, Ryan could hear faint angry voices. Probably the voices of the paintings or something. It was annoying. The paintings had been giving him grief earlier because he wasn't leaving, and he just sort of gave them the cold shoulder. Now they were bugging him again? Well he wasn't going to stand this. Ryan stood up and turned to the wall. He could barely see and took some steps down the hall until he got closer to the noise.

"Hey! Shut it! There are people trying to sleep. Just mind your business." Ryan had shouted these words a little loudly and heard some other noises as a few more paintings made some more noise. Boy, this wasn't going to stop, was it? Of course, then Ryan started hearing the faint noise of someone's footsteps. They didn't sound to coordinated. He pulled himself up against a wall, hoping it wasn't a teacher wandering the hall looking for students.

[Scarlet Rose.]

Night. It had fallen so fast and she felt the pull of sleep tightening around her. If she were any other person Scarlet would have listened to her body and took the plunge into the dark abyss of her dreams. But atlas Scarlet was not any other normal student and took to the night for some sort of adventure. She was afterall a gryffie. And classes were not due to start for a couple more days and sleep could wait for a couple more hours.

The corridors, Scarlet had always seemed to be a maze and no matter what way she would take; it would never be the same. She had on a pair of dark blue jeans, a Bob Marley baseball tee, and a pair of white sneakers. It was the start of a new term and Rose felt the pull of being an outsider again and she hated the feeling. Her family, well mostly her father had moved them from place to place to find a new job, and Scarlet had changed schools each time. It put an emotion toll on inviting new people into her life only to have to leave them once more.

Scarlet had loved the thought of Hogwarts from the first time it was mentioned by a guy who worked at the ministry. His name was Dellerbie a teller and he would go around to each muggle house who held a witch or wizard and talk to them about the wizarding world. He was facinating but what really got her attention was the idea of staying at a school for seven years. It was a dream come true.

There was rarely any light in the corridors, so it was hard to tell what was in front of her, and it made this castle seem all the more magical. The pictures were talking again, she had not minded them up until this point, and once the school was in session it would be hard to sneak around unoticed and not get caught. The one thing Scarlet was scared about had been the idea of detention. Dark indigo eyes scurried across section only to hear a boy shouting at something. It was a good sign to know that there were not any professors.

It was just a few seconds before she could see the outline of him. "You do know if you continue to shout at the portraits that they will only become stubborn and increase their annoying tendencies and a Professor will find us, right?" Scarlet smiled even though she knew the boy could not see it. Scarlet was quiet for only a moment when she heard footsteps not too far from them and drew herself to the wall. Trying hard not to breathe and give away her location because atleast if he was caught the professor would continue to look around for another. Scarlet was not selfish she just knew how to play the game

[Ryan Wade]

It seemed that there were a few more quick footsteps. Either someone was running, or they had done the same as him. Pulled themselves up against a wall. Ryan lowered his hand down to his wand. Maybe he could pretend to scare somebody. Mostly because chances are, the other footsteps were other students. The professors wouldn't be down in this corridor because of how dark it was. It just didn't make sense. So obviously, there were other students wandering down here with him.

Ryan heard someone speaking, probably directed towards him. Specifically, it sounded like a girl would speak to him. Who would dare speak to Ryan Wade in such a manner? Whoever was, it bugged Ryan just as much as the annoying paintings. "You believe the professors are going to find us down here? If you haven't noticed, no one can see anything. Even if they were to light the corridor, I'm sure that unlike you, I would be fine. I could get away fast enough for no one to notice."

There was really no way for Ryan to figure out where this girl was hiding. Maybe she was just standing in the middle of the corridor, or right behind Ryan, preparing to take him out or something. You never know with some people. Ryan spun around to make sure no one was there, however, his feet got caught up on his school robe's, causing him to lose his balance and fall. When he hit the ground, he lost the grip on his wand, which rolled away. It hit the wall, from what Ryan was sure he'd heard.

Ryan knew he shouldn't have worn his robes out this late. It was a bad idea now, but it seemed like a good one, only because they were a dark color. "Okay, you got me this one time, but it will not happen again."