Max caught Eirawen's eye for just a moment before she was swept away by the crowd, which was his only warning to follow suit before being trampled himself. Yet at the same time, he had to take extra care not to trample others-namely the large volumes of cats. Maxwell smiled fondly reflecting on his own cat, and then frowned suddenly when he remembered its unfortunate demise. He was still kicking himself for leaving his ingredients out, but in all fairness, not even the world's leading experts had known what effect gillyweed had on animals destined to avoid the water prior to the incident.<br/><br/>Snapping back into the moment again, he quickly realized that he had indeed been swept up by the crowd, and was now on board the ferry, with Eirawen nowhere in sight. Indeed, he didn't feel like he recognized anyone here, though surely there had to be some Hogwart's graduates around. Even in the midst of strangers though, being jostled by women in bikinis was never an unfortunate thing. Until, that is, he was jostled to the point where his wand slipped from his hand and rolled away onto the floor.<br/><br/>"Oh dear."<br/><br/>Catching up to the wand was quite the exercise, in more than one way. For one, getting through the sea of students on hands and knees was not only difficult, but embarrassing as well. In addition, crawling between the legs of numerous men in kilts simply did not suit his taste. It seemed that every time he approached his wand, the ship would tilt in the waves ever so slightly as to nudge it out of his reach, assisted by the accidental (and some not so accidental) kicks from the students.<br/><br/>However, as it rolled towards the edge of the boat, Max decided it was time to forget about embarrassment and catch his wand before he had to dive after it-which would have been infinitely worse. Instead, he pounced on it, and then quickly stood up, brushing himself off, and attempting to act as though he had not spent the last five minutes on his hands and knees.<br/><br/>He then realized he had managed to stand up right next to Eirawen and two others, who seemed well involved in conversation. Maybe they didn't notice.