Welcome to Gaia! ::

The boys thanked Katherine for the candy, Harry smiling to her and not noticing the discrepancy in size between his bag and the others'. Phobius, on the other hand, DID notice that Harry's bag was bigger, but didn't comment, instead sending Katherine a faintly amused look before reaching into his bag and pulling out a Blood Pop, starting to suck on it.
Harry blinked, recalling a conversation he'd had with his friends at one point regarding Wizarding candy. "A Blood Pop...? Aren't those, er, a bit of an acquired taste?" Which was basically a tactful way of pointing out that, as a general rule, the only ones who actually liked Blood Pops were vampires and psychos.
"Yes, but I like them as well - they taste surprisingly like mind-numbing terror, especially if you cover them in dark chocolate first," Phobius explained patiently around the Blood Pop.
Harry blinked again. "Er... I thought you said you didn't get afraid...?"
"I don't - I have to feed off other people's fear occasionally. I only have to do it once or twice a month," Phobius answered calmly, as if that were completely normal. "That being said, if you hear anything about someone on the school grounds being reduced to a gibbering wreck in the next week or so, probably either Malfoy or the youngest Weasley, I suggest you try not to think about it too hard - they'll probably deserve it, and they'll be fine after 24 hours rest or so."
Harry stared a moment, trying to figure out whether Phobius was pulling his leg or not, then promptly decided that he didn't want to know, instead changing the subject. "You're being surprisingly talkative today..."
"Something about Halloween always puts me in a sickeningly good mood for some reason," was the reply.

"They really do," Phobius confirmed Kat's words, shuddering as he recalled some no doubt traumatizing incident that probably involved the poor boy taking a bite out of some mind-scarring and taste-bud-destroying flavor.
Harry gave Phobius a puzzled look at the shudder, but shrugged, putting the candy away to save for later and starting to have breakfast.
Phobius, meanwhile, ate around the Blood Pop in his mouth, actually humming to himself - a disturbing noise that caused hair to stand on end and chills to tap-dance up and down spines.

Phobius wordlessly pulled out a second Blood Pop and offered it to Hermione. "This is your only freebie, the rest I've got are mine unless you decide to trade," he informed her matter-of-factly.
Harry blinked at hearing Katherine squeal, but didn't comment, instead glancing over to see what had gotten her so excited before returning to breakfast, finishing it rather quickly.

Phobius smirked slightly, accepting the replacement Blood Pop. "In all honesty, I'm surprised you like it - Blood Pops are generally a bit of an acquired taste," he noted calmly.
Harry listened to her talk about her brothers, smiling slightly, if a little wistfully; it was obvious Katherine cared about her brothers a great deal, and Harry had to squash down his jealousy that she had siblings, whereas for most of his pre-Hogwarts life he didn't have anyone but himself.

Phobius seemed to accept that, noting, "It's probably the sugar."
Harry gave her a reassuring smile. "It's all right; you must really care about them," he told her, basically giving her an open invitation to talk about them some more if she wanted to.

The boys similarly got up, Phobius finishing off his own Blood Pop before they headed to class, the four of them once again falling into the little formation that had by now become a common sight in the school: Harry chatting with Katherine as he walked alongside her and Phobius similarly walking alongside Hermione, simply enjoying her company.

(Fair enough. Since Harry's buddy is Phobius instead of Ron, though, I think I'll have them go about knocking out the troll a little differently. twisted )

Phobius, meanwhile, was idly having his own feather (which they'd been using to practice the Levitation Charm) fly around in intricate little patterns, the young man making sure not to interrupt anyone else's concentration (with the exception of Weasley and Malfoy, since frankly, he had decided being polite toward them wasn't worth the effort; that Ron boy was far too biased, and Malfoy was even worse - at least Weasley tried to take the moral high road, even if he failed horribly at doing so). He occasionally gave Harry pointers, but otherwise let his friend get it on his own - he didn't want Harry to grow dependent on him.
Later on, once the class had ended, the Gold and Silver Quartet were walking through the halls when they heard a certain bigoted redhead's voice: "'It's Levi-OOOOOH-sa, not LevioSAR' - she's a nightmare, honestly. It's no wonder the only friend she's got is that creepy Black git!" ...Well, considering Hermione had been the only one helping him with the levitation charm earlier and, it wasn't hard to figure out exactly who the redhead was talking about.