asgardmeridiem | The school, the school, the school is on fire...

Entry tags:

The school, the school, the school is on fire...

Who: Anyone who wants in on it!
What: The school is on fire.
When: Days 420 around sundown and after.
Where: The school in Odin's district.
Rating: We'll see!

The sun is slowly going down and Barty Crouch jr is in Odin's district, as he's been every day for a good while though, since he first realized how easily Will Graham fell into habits. The difference is that today he isn't headed to the cafe they always meet at right away. Instead he stands leaning against a wall, ever now and then glancing at the school and waiting for a sign. He has placed the mirror - a present from Albus Dumbledore himself - in just the right position fixed it to the corner of a building and waited for the sun to hit the reflective surface at the right angle.

Dumbledore had talked of smoke and mirrors and now Barty had found the right tinder. He waits until he can see smoke, faintly but there. It would be another hour, he suspects, maybe even more before the fire spreads far enough to be noticed. But it would burn, of that he had no doubt.

It is starting to get dark when he takes the mirror back, making sure to remain unseen, and he heads down the road to meet Will. He doesn't know if anyone is still in the building he just set on fire, he doesn't much care either way. The flames would rise high and Severus Snape would feel the heat.

[OOC Notes: I purposefully set this up like an event log, so just like for them, feel free to make a header comment detailing what your character is doing at any given time. If you want to do any more last minute plotting, head on over to the plotting post! Also, here is the IC post with some of what led up to this if you want to read up and/or still tag in! I backtag forever. Slowly.

If your character has been near/around/in the school before the fire started and would thus be a suspect and/or suspect other people he or she has seen, you can play that part out here too!

Times: Before the fire, during the fire, right after the fire. ...duh.
Places: The parts of the schools that will be affected are: The library, the auditorium and several classrooms as well as Evy's office.
Obviously you can also have your character be outside the school or in the hallways or any unaffected part if they want to use the chaos to, I don't know, mess up Snape's office a little.

I just ask that no one saw Barty do what he did, so we can have more fun with various suspicions cast about.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[fire; closed]

By the time she notices the smoke, it's too late.

She stays late that day to mark the work Mr. Booth isn't equipped to take on--Egyptian history and language assignments--and very quickly finds herself lost to it. The thought that something smells burnt is one easily dismissed as yet another issue with the staff lounge's 'microwave'. Any shouts are easily muffled by her closed door, under which tendrils of smoke are curling.

But the scent of smoke doesn't go away, and by the time it's strong enough (and strange enough, almost like melting Bakelite) to concern her, she's beginning to feel queasy. The room is quickly growing hot, and now, now, it's obvious enough that there's a fire in the building. She stands quickly, trying to gather up her students' work with unusually clumsy hands, and stumbles toward the door. On the way, she trips, spilling her armful of papers, and of course she must bring them with her, she must pick them up. Her thoughts grow less steady as the smoke increases, and quickly enough, she's kneeling on the floor, trying desperately to tamp down the dizziness overcoming her.

It's all over in a matter of minutes, with little licks of fire only starting to enter the room as she loses consciousness. They're the last thing she sees as she gasps for a breath that doesn't burn down her throat or taste of ash: slender flames flickering through the thickening smoke, like imps from a fairy story, devouring the wood of her office door.

[after; open]

Evy wakes with bleary eyes in the company of the faceless women, and all her efforts to demand an explanation are for naught. Her voice is a painful, wordless croak. (Is an explanation really necessary, though? She knows what happened. She knows what transpired after she fell unconscious.)

They turn her out quickly enough, and then her only thought is of the school. She couldn't have been the only one inside it--and suppose nobody knows what's going on? Someone must be there, someone must stop the fire. The fact that it's been an hour since she was inside the building doesn't occur to her; all she knows is that she must get back to the school.

Running is too exhausting, so she staggers down the street as quickly as she can manage. It's a sorry sight: a clearly distressed woman with clothing blackened in patches, soot everywhere, and curly hair that's disheveled and singed.

When she reaches the school, she stops short, covering her mouth with her hands at the sight. Seeing it from the outside makes it all the more horrifying, and for a moment, she's frozen in place, all thoughts of doing something about it having fled her mind.

((OOC: Smoke + the fumes burning plastic gives off = delicious and deadly. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Brackets and prose are both fine.))

Edited 2014-03-20 15:27 (UTC)

[ Upon reviving, whenever she notices it, Evy's bracelet is flashing with a message. Claudia's just found out what building it was that burned, and knows Evy had class earlier... She sounds just this side of frantic. ]

Evy, are you alright? I just heard, you weren't still there, right? Call me back...

[When Evy first notices her bracelet flashing, while she's hurrying back to the school, she smacks it into submission, hitting whatever's necessary to make it stop. This really isn't the time.

Later, after she's seen the full damage of the academy, she recalls the message and listens. Even if she could speak easily enough to reply aloud, she wouldn't want to; answering at all is going to be hard enough. So she fires off ~~oh, dear~~ a curt response in text.]

Are you somewhere safe, Miss Donovan?

The fire has finally been put out. Next to the parts of the school that were saved from the fire, the burned remains look like a gaping wound. Smoke smoulders from the charred, drenched remains of that which the fire consumed: the library, the auditorium, several classrooms. And Miss Carnahan's office.

If there's anyone Severus knows who would have been here fighting the fire or trying to help rescue people, it's Miss Carnahan, and she's been nowhere to be seen. He's spoken barely two words to her since she came to his office, demanding answers about his treatment of Longbottom and of the past, but that doesn't in any way stop Severus from noticing her absence. Not that he's had any time to stop and question it.

He's a wretched sight to behold: covered in ash, soot smeared on his sweaty face, his clothes covered in filth. He's standing on the street, staring up at his school with a pale and wretched look of hopelessness.

How did this happen? Who did this? Someone has to have been responsible; it couldn't have simply happened without reason, without cause.

He hears the footsteps approaching but doesn't really register them, not until he vaguely realises someone is standing nearby. He throws a weary glance in the person's direction - and sees that it's Miss Carnahan. Looking dishevelled and worse for wear. Like she'd been caught in the fire herself.

Without thought towards the other day, he hurries over to her, a hand reaching out to grab her arm. "Miss Carnahan," he says, his voice croaky from smoke inhalation. "Where have you been?"

Evy starts when she's taken by the arm, turning her head sharply towards the man who's grabbed her. But it's only Professor Snape, looking nearly as poorly off as she feels.

The conversations--if that's what they can be called--that have transpired between the two of them don't matter to her now. Whatever his flaws, he's a familiar face at a moment when she needs one. Their disagreements don't take precedence over the burning of the school.

Eyes wide, she shakes her head in answer to his question. Never mind where she's been; it's hardly important now, is it? Not when the school's been completely gutted in places, and who knows how many others were hurt, or worse, in the conflagration. Not when she can barely think of it herself, an hour past her death.

And then, belatedly, she points at her throat. Even if she wanted to explain, she'd be hard-pressed to make much of anything come out.

'No'? What does she mean, 'no'? If he'd had Legillimency to scope her mind, then he'd understand but - he's in no way capable of such a thing here in Asgard. He at least understands from the way she points to her throat that she can't speak.

Hand still gripping her arm, he flashes a quick assessing look down at her clothes, snaps his gaze back up to her with the franticness of a man wanting answers for what's happened to his school. For why Miss Carnahan had been nowhere to be seen.

She does, after all, possess Fire Magic. And she's admitted before to being worried about not having control over her magic. And has admitted to unleashing devastation and destruction. Perhaps a burnt school isn't quite the plagues of Egypt, but it's devastating enough for him.

His grip tightens and he gives her arm a small but firm, almost accusing jerk. "Did you do this?" His other arm waves with a wild gesture at his school. "My school? Did you?"

She slaps him in the face with her free hand, doing her best to wrench her other arm from his grasp at the same time. The latter doesn't quite work, but the former is satisfying enough that she doesn't care.

Burn down the school? How dare he suggest she'd ever attempt anything so rash, so destructive, so utterly contrary to her every feeling and stated belief? How dare he suggest she started the fire she died in?

Imhotep doesn't come into it, or shouldn't, anyway; the entire business in Egypt is the furthest thing from her mind. She stares up at Professor Snape, furious at him and her utter inability to come to her own defense. All she can think to do is to mouth the word Why at him and resist the overwhelming desire to slap him again.

The slap comes as such a surprise to him that he immediately releases her arm regardless how much she's wrestling herself free, and takes a staggered step backwards with a look of complete shock on his face. His cheek is stinging where her palm had just cracked against it.

He sees her mouth why but he's too stunned for a moment to even reply. "You have Fire Magic," he finally says. "I distinctly recall you telling me that you were uncertain how to handle your magic--"

Edited 2014-03-21 05:55 (UTC)

Evy shakes her head firmly, and as tempting as it is to mouth some rather worse things in Snape's direction, she doesn't. She'd be tempted towards more invective than mere four-letter words anyway, and how well would ungrateful brute, utter faithless clod and the like really come across?

There's no helping it. She'll have to explain, and she'll have to do it without any preamble. One can hardly pantomime an entire sentence, let alone paragraphs of euphemism. It's horrible to say, and she looks away immediately--away from Snape and the burnt-out school both--but she does it. I DIED.

With the shock of the strike across the face still resonating through him, her mouthed words do nothing to help the situation. He swallows, the lingering taste of smoke thick and dry at the back of his throat, and as he throws another glance down at her singed clothes he suddenly thinks about the fact that her office--

And then her words sink in properly. She'd died. Burned to death, perhaps. Or suffocated from the smoke. It doesn't matter how it happened. Doesn't matter whether Miss Carnahan started the fire or not. The fact is, it happened, in his school - the school he is supposed to be protecting.

If only he hadn't gone home early.

"Are you… Are you alright?" he asks in a small voice.

All right?

Oh, Snape, she is about as far from all right as it gets, and that--that--is why you're getting an incredulous look right now.

The fact that's he's no longer snapping at her is all that really matters, though. Evy shrugs in answer. She's not, and if pressed, she can admit she knows it; her heart's still racing, even though she's standing still, and really, how can anyone be all right at a moment like this?

But what does it matter? She gestures vaguely, brushing the thought away.

Severus knows that was a stupid question; a stupid question prompted by a pang of guilt, by the shock of being slapped across the face.

He throws a glance up to his school and... Merlin, he can't bear to look at the damage. The past however long it's been since he discovered his school ablaze all feels like a surreal nightmare. And one of his teachers died. He had truly failed in his duty to protect his school.

When he sets his eyes back on Miss Carnahan, there's a quiet wretchedness to his exhausted expression. He reaches out for her again, this time tentatively so; he certainly owes Miss Carnahan the duty of ascertaining that is in fact alright. "At least let me take a look at you."

Evy cringes away a little when he touches her, but she doesn't shake him off. She gestures up and down to herself; here she is, but really, there's not much to see at the moment.

She's been steadfastly avoiding looking too much at the remains of the school. That first long gaze was more than enough. The thought of her office, of all her books, of her students' work destroyed--more than anything, the essays she lost in there pains her.

And, oh, the mummification projects! Her expression crumples and, absurd though it must be, she nearly feels like crying. Nearly. Evy isn't someone who cries easily, but oh--they couldn't have survived that, she'll have to tell Davesprite and the others that all their work was for nothing at all.

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while you were out.... voice!

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