Who: Emmeline Vance, Dedalus Diggle, Elphias Doge, and their worst nightmare
What: MASS HYSTERIA
Where: Order of the Phoenix headquarters, the attic (you know they pimped out every bit of that house)
When: Tonight



She'd faced death eaters. She'd fought death eaters. She'd been attacked by death eaters. Emmeline had no idea what could be scarier than watching a jet of bright green zoom by your face, knowing that if you'd just moved over a centimeter to the right, you would be dead and six feet under. Ten minutes ago she wouldn't have been able to tell you anything scarier than that, and this was coming from a girl who had been in the same room as two werewolves minutes before the moon went full. So---no---things shouldn't scare her anymore, not unless they were at that level of---

"I HEARD IT MOVE!" she shrieked, clutching Dedalus' arm far tighter than she should've or could've imagined. No, no, okay. They were in the bloody attic of the Order headquarters, studying---this was supposed to be easy, why wasn't anything they did easy? Emmeline swore that life really hated her, the three of them, and bloody hell! She let out another ear piercing shriek as the tail of the rather burly raccoon that was terrorizing Dedalus, Elphias, and herself made an appearance behind some crates.

"DEDALUS. GET RID OF IT."

"WHAT EXACTLY WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO DO?"

Dedalus shifted on the couch, standing between Elphias and Emmeline. He had been the unfortunate soul to be stuck in the middle, right next to Emmeline's mouth which kept making that very very loud noise. "YOU HAVE TO STOP MAKING THAT NOISE PEOPLE ARE GOING TO THINK SOMEONE IS DY--UGHA!" He felt Em once again tighten her grip around his arm, as his own hands gripped at the fabric of the couch behind him. Oooh, it was quite a sight, seeing the three of them huddled together on top of the couch in the attic. They had been studying, and then they had each felt something move against their ankles before they saw what it was that was touching them. And now? Now they were all standing on the couch, Dedalus sitting ontop of the back of it to keep his feet as far away from the floor as possible.

Glancing over, he saw Elphias was looking equally as scared as the both of them, so he nudged him with his shoulder, his eyes wide. "Hey, uh...you're good with animals, right?" He raised his brows hopefully, and jumped as he heard a scuffle coming from behind those crates. He couldn't have sworn that the couch was going to tip over at any given second, and it probably would have if the three of them put together didn't weigh as much as one normal human being.

Elphias was very quiet when he spoke. He didn't want to yell like the other two and cause it to coming charging out in attack mode - this was a Muggle beast and therefore completely unpredictable which made it quite dangerous (even if it was so very...furry). "Me?" was his hissed whisper in Dedalus's direction without ever taking his eye off the crate. "It's called 'Care of Magical Creatures' not 'Defense Against...Bitty Muggle Bears'!" Honestly! How could he be expected to know what to do?

Another high-pitched trill went up from the little bear and Elphias cringed, shifting his weight on the lumpy couch cushion. The sound the beast made sent goose flesh down his arms. Oy. This was hopeless. And he'd thought he had it bad when his brothers locked him the shed with that grouchy old gnome. Well at least the gnome didn't have a bushy tail and teeth of a vampire!

"Maybe we should just get someone else to take care of it," he muttered out of the side of his mouth, still not sure if making quick movements was a good idea. "Someone who's already sat their NEWTs?"

It had to be the stress. It had to be the stress! It had to be the fact that she was getting little to no sleep these past f few weeks, it had to be the fact that her boyfriend had broken up with her, it had to be the fact that---that---it was stress, that it was stress that was making her act like an absolute banshee at the sight of some woodland creature. Oh fucking---why did they take a seat so far from the door, ladder, thing? Why, why?

"Elphiasitsnotabear!" Emmeline shot back quickly, hands going to her ears at the sound, barely containing another shriek. It was this---this ridiculous terror building up inside of her chest that just saw the bloody raccoon leaping out from the shadows and attacking her, was that ridiculous? It would be if there wasn't one in their close vicinity, and she was finding herself so paranoid about the fact that Emmeline swore she heard another trill come from the other side of the---

Another shrill shriek escaped her throat as she caught sight of another raccoon, just sitting and staring and Emmeline almost fell off the couch but managed to clamp onto Dedalus again, "GET RID OF IT!"

Dedalus really couldn't help but pause for a minute, all fear going away at the sound of Elphias calling the raccoon a 'bitty muggle bear'. "Bloody hell man, if you can take care of something that breathes fire you should be able to take care of--THAT! OH, GAH, WHY ARE THERE TWO?!" Dedalus was cut off midsentence by Emmeline pointing out the second Raccoon, that he really couldn't help but yell along with her, just because it was his instinctive reaction...that, and he was scared. But he was Head Boy! He was...they were ALL members of the Order and they were all smarter than most of it's members, so WHY?! Why could they not handle something that was...

"OH IT'S HISSING, IT'S DEFINETLY HISSING, OR DOING SOMETHING WITH IT'S MOUTH WHY!?" Dedalus pulled himself up higher onto the couch, his hair falling into his face as he gulped and looked back and forth from the crates to the Raccoon that was hiding in the shadows on the other side. "D-Do you think they're like..plotting something? They look like they're plotting something, they have those...shifty eyes and the rings around them they're definetly...moving, they're moving, aaaand...we need to stay calm. Yes. Staaay calm, and...OKAY, THAT ONE HAS TO STOP MAKING THAT NOISE." He pointed a finger over at the one behind the crates, because he couldn't see it but he could hear it and...

Oh, they were pathetic.

"It looks like a bear and I don't know what else to call it so it's a bear," Elphias said in a testy rush. He looked away from the crate long enough to shoot Emmeline a firm look - only to spot the second bitty bear at the same moment she did. Elphias gave a immediate start in his shock that they were dealing with two of them now and he mouthed a soundless "Oh" as he leapt backward, eyes boggling. He also heard Dedalus talking loudly but he wasn't entirely sure what his best mate was saying because there was sudden ringing in his ears.

...wait.

Why did his head hurt? Why was he suddenly staring up the ceiling from the flat of his back? ...the ceiling! OH GODS. He was on the floor. He was on the floor and the viscous bitty Muggle bears were going to eat him alive. He was going to die. HE WAS GOING TO DIE...but at least he'd be saving his friends? HE DIDN'T WANT TO DIE.

"Ow," Elphias moaned from the floorboards behind the couch as he slowly sat up, rubbing the throbbing pain at the back of his head. He blinked once, twice before his vision focused just in time for him to see a third little bear staring at him quizzically from less than a yard away. Letting out a very un-masculine yelp and scrambled backwards across the floor which only resulted in a multitude of flailing on his part. "THERE'S ONE BEHIND THE SETTE!"

Bollocks to being calm and collected. He'd like to see Dumbledore or Auror Moody face off against three bears.

"NONONO!" Dedalus grabbed out like a spaz to try and keep his friend from falling over, but it was like slow motion, watching him just tilt and then...thud.

"Oh bloody hell, this is...NO, GET UP, GET UP!" Dedalus was basically pointing at the newest raccooon, as though Elphias had no idea why he really just had to get up, even though he was the one who had pointed it out in the first place. He turned to Emmeline and looked at her as though he were about to dive into a tank of sharks. "Okay...I'm...okay, you just, wait here, and don't move." He looked down at the floor, and then back to Elphias, and then to the floor, and then he managed to jump down, run around the couch, pull at his friend's arm dragging him across the floor before he was standing to his feet. Dedalus watched him stumble and move around the couch, and he followed in suite, only to jump about a foot in the air as he saw one was sniffing at his shoe.

"AH, IT'S..IT'S THE HISSING ONE, IT'S THE HISSING ONE IT'S..." he kicked his foot and jumped over the couch, landing inbetween the two of them, pulling his legs close to him as he caught his breath, shaking his head. "Not going down there again, don't either of you fall off the couch because I'm not. going. down there..." Groaning, he pushed his hair back, and gasped a little bit as he saw Raccoon 2.0 moving in the shadows again, as though it were going to leap at him and eat his face or something. Getting back onto his feet, he felt Em once again cling onto him, not even minding anymore.

They were going bloody insane. They were going insane and now Elphias was on the floor, Dedalus was diving off in hot pursuit, and Emmeline was ready to simply burst into tears---wow, okay, they were insane, but she couldn't help it. This was a natural, human reaction, and with their stress levels (STRESS, THIS WAS DEFINITELY STRESS RELATED) and their---their---this was natural. Wild animal! Three wild animals! Human. Fucking. Nature.

She wouldn't even dare try to use her wand; what if she missed and the thing leaped up and bit her and then she'd have rabies and die, no, no, she was not going to get killed by some bloody bitty muggle bear---raccoon, holy hell, she couldn't even use the correct term now, and Dedalus being back within her grasp was good because--

"What the hell is going on up here?"

"BEN!" Emmeline shrieked, spinning around to spot Benjy Fenwick's head popping out of the attic door. BEN WOULD SAVE THEM, HE WOULD----OH, "Look out!"

Elphias' fall and flailing must have scared the raccoon because now it had situated itself right beside the door and Ben's head was mere centi----no, no, "DON'T SHUT THE DOOR YOU FUCKING WANKER----"

But with a quick yelp Ben's head disappeared and the door shut with a quick snap, and with it, the attic fell into silence. Emmeline froze in place, and for a few seconds it felt like that a calm had fallen upon them, but the quick trill of what sounded like a swarm of raccoons was released and, yes, oh yes---

---they were going to die up here.