Felix is... it's pretty obvious that he cried, but there is enough plausible deniability that maybe it's just the haunted and traumatized look that any healthy student eventually manifests one way or another.

(Because unhealthy students don't get the chance to look like that.)

Fenris makes eye contact with the sophomore minion to their Athens enclave. Long enough to make it clear he should hold their table.

He gets a food tray in Felix's hands. And starts the process of how to keep themselves fed under the constraint of whatever was left alone by both students and the mals.

Trevor does the same, handing Lake a tray.

"Thank you," Scorpius says, sounding almost entirely steady again. People are staring—the story of how Scorpius heroically just saved thirty freshmen from certain death by stupidity has percolated.

"Don't mention it," Trevor says absently.

Well, not absently, because he is hunting for unpoisoned calories. But he is not even thinking about the whole 'every conversation with someone powerful is an opportunity' because fuck that.

It's still the first month of term, so the maleficaria have not thoroughly infested the food lines yet and there is enough food for... like eighty percent of a meal for them all. Probably.

Scorpius himself is less talkative than usual, and just focuses on grabbing nourishment.

Trevor mentally notes how they will need to make it up in the next meals. Or gamble with their few snack tokens.

He points at their table, apparently assuming Lake is going to sit with them and not giving it much thought.

Scorpius does not want to sit with his enclavemates today.

Sure, he'll go with the Athenians. It'll be novel.

Athens is a small enclave, the triplets being literally half of their current host. Their only senior left.

When Thunder takes a sit, he says "Scorpius, those are Aika, Ioannis - they are juniors - and Patrick, sophomore."

"It's Aikaterine. Where is Livie?" Felix asks while all three of them offer hands to shake, or "You can call me Aika."

"Traded an early breakfast in exchange for help with maintenance work," Patrick tells him, having dropped his hand as soon as the other two - obvious enclavers while he was not - clearly wanted to have Scorpius' attention first.

Scorpius will shake hands with every one of them, Patrick first because none of that nonsense in this house. "Scorpius Lake," he introduces himself. "A pleasure to meet you all."

By now he has recovered enough he looks... almost normal again.

Patrick looks at the offered hand, visibly makes the mental calculations of taking it and spiting Athens, or not taking it and spiting Athens and New York. So he takes it very shyly.

Aika for her part doesn't actually look bothered. Ioannis looks oblivious, maybe because the position of the table just made it natural for him to have his hand shook last.

"What happened?" Ioannis asks.

"I don't think they want to talk about it right now," Fenris says flatly.

"It's fine," says Scorpius, sitting down properly. "A group of freshmen got ambushed by some mals. We were, uh, thirty, I should... have been more vehement about not letting that many people show up but they..." He swallows and clears his throat. "They wanted to come all together like that anyway."

Aika flinches, but somehow doesn't look surprised. The rumor mill being fast enough to spread this sort of news while also being unreliable enough to leave room for doubt? She doesn't say that was her working theory.

"That's terrible," Aika says, "but sometimes people just get clingy."

Felix is stabbing at his food mechanically.

Fenris finishes swallowing and says. "We tried to get at least a second group, but people weren't interested, so we failed."

"Everyone's alive," Scorpius says levelly, being less mechanical with his food than Felix. "—well, almost everyone." And the way his fork trembles a bit on the way to his mouth as he says that could just be your imagination. "And it will be a cautionary tale."

Felix opens his mouth to say something.

"Eat it."

Scorpius laughs, with the food already in his mouth, and has to cover it and grab some juice to not embarrass himself. "I assume you mean the food," he says lightly, smiling up at Trevor from the corner of his eyes.

"Of course, breakfast: the most important meal next to lunch and dinner."

"I hope this sense of humor stays nourished by the end of the week," Aika deadpans.

"Just stay away from any groups of thirty you see," Scorpius says lightly to his plate.

"Yeah, noted."

"Maybe we should try to organize groups to wa-"

"It doesn't work," Aika interrupts, in the tones that betray that this is not the first time that idea has been proposed.

She then looks at Scorpius, remembering that maybe this is a topic he would disagree with and making the relevant social calculations in her head, regarding the difference of status between the two of them.

"No, it's a terrible idea," he agrees. "Three to six people is best, if I'm not around."

"Most things have been tried already," Aika says neutrally, "we got stuck with what works."

"Unless it turns out New York has secret duplication magic, so we could have you all around the school," Trevor adds non-seriously.