Back in the Common Room Yvette shrugs. "I just woke up!" She looks at Nimue hopefully. "Do you have my book?"

"Your Book? Yes, of course." Nimue handed over the book to its owner. "Keep it close."

"You didn't use it?" Yvette questions, her face hopeful and nervous. "Promise you didn't!" Her eyes flick to the window, and she mentally shoves the book's magic away from her.

"Of course I didn't Yvette", replied Nimue, "it's not mine to use. I mean if you hadn't woken up...." she was aware of some anxiety in the other girl:

"But you did wake up. Look, maybe you should tell me about the book. I think we've gone beyond keeping secrets from each other. We are going to need every drop of magic we can muster between us to even have a chance of getting out of this." she paused "do you know this book is one of a pair and that Kat has its twin?"

"There's ANOTHER one?" She gulped visibly, trying to keep the dismay on her face. "Is Kat affected?"

"No secrets." Yvette repeated softly, still looking worried. "Alright then. I got this book in a magic shop with Maddie...I thought I was getting it, but it turns out the book got me. When I cast a spell I noticed weird things started happening...I felt so tired...and when it got dark, it felt like fingers were grabbing my mind and pressing my magic, squeezing it then pulling it out...it hurts so much, Nimue. Like someone pulling me through a...how do you say it? A grinder!"

Her eyes were getting watery, and she bit her lip. "I can make it stop, but only for a while. Every time I cast a spell I can feel it draining me...it's too powerful. It can kill people. It's got a bloody past, I saw so. It's users die...they die!" She started to cry softly. "I don't want to die! I didn't KNOW!"

"No, she isn't." replied Nimue, "I should explain. The other book is called 'Embracing the Truth', it belonged to Josslin." she waited a second to let these words sink in.

"I'm not sure how she came by it but it was important enough for her to come back - as a ghost - and give Kat that riddle so she could locate it and I think that was about the time Tish had her vision."

She was talking as if these events had taken place ages ago but of course all this had only taken place *yesterday*!

Nimue closed her eyes and pondered for a second. "OK, first is it when you cast a spell from the book that you have this happen or just any spell?"

Now she was getting as bad as Marvo re asking people 'questions', still it had to be asked.

"I don't know." Yvette whispered, shaking like a leaf. She'd lost a lot of weight, and her eyes were almost hollow. "I wish I did."

"OK, but it would seem a wise precaution for you not to not do any magical spells for a bit."

Nimue thought about the book some more. "As Kat's book used to belong to Joss and Joss was very keen for it to be handed on, I do wonder why all of a sudden two books turn up like this? Remind me to speak to Kat maybe she remembers where Joss obtained it."

After a moment, the door opened again, and a newcomer stepped through into the third year common room. He looked around imperiously, and said, "Where is my sister?"

Niki looked up. "I'm right here," she said quietly. "Morticia, everyone, this is my brother, Hadrian Pheidippides." Hadrian doesn't seem to care much for his sister's new acquaintances. "What's going on?" he demanded.

Niki took him aside and hurriedly explained as much as she knew. A few snatches of the conversation can be heard, and then the remark "You didn't tell anyone about... Her... Did you?"

Niki looks up quickly, and glances at Morticia. "Of course not, Hadrian. Do you have any bright ideas?"

"I don't know about the rest of you," Niki says, "but I am really scared at the moment. This is my first day here, and the castle is a little freaky anyway... I just saw a ghost, asleep! If there's something going on with the forest, who would we ask? Is there a groundskeeper or someone?"

Nimue was wondering about the teachers, especially Snape. No one else had seen Snape single-handedly hold off the Dementors attack in the forest allowing the transfigured Professor McGonagall, Kat/Scully & Mulder to reach the hut where Kat's body was being held.

She had recently spent her evenings (mainly to avoid the dealing with the 'Marvo situation') assisting the Potions Master with the reorganisation and re-stocking of his supply cupboards. While she been granted some limited access to these, she knew she couldn't get past the more heavily warded cupboards. Still, she had done a lot of cataloguing so was pretty familiar with where things were so was well worth a look to see if something useful might be accessible.

She turned to a couple of folk still in the Common Room. "Look, I'm going to check out Snape's office, if Achel comes could someone send him down?"

Madison looked at the others, then turned to Nimue. "Can I go with you?"

Nimue looked slightly hesitant for a second or two, mostly because she was aware of how protective the Professor was of his 'space', but then where was he to mind and maybe it would be wisest to not go alone:

"Sure" she replied. After she'd said it was actually quite glad of the company travelling down to the dungeon areas, which was deathly quiet in the morning and very, very cold.

"It's amazing how much you miss houseleves when they aren't around." she commented.

"Yeah...And I'm craving some breakfast." Madison shivered. "It's cold down here...." She paused. It felt weird going down to the dungeon areas when there wasn't a class. It was kinda...creepy. She thought for a moment. "Hey, do you think the ghosts are sleeping? If Joss was awake, maybe she could help us..." she trailed off. "Um...so what did you want to look for?"

"Joss took off last night - that big revelation and all, so not sure. She tends to come and go rather than haunt us like the others. But much of the time she's pretty incoherent trying to give clues about who was responsible for her death. There's something else at work though but I didn't have time to investigate it properly. I had a vision of Joss just after she was found dead and I think one of her ancestors has held her here in order you know to...."

Reaching Snape's door Nimue wondered exactly how 'locked' it would be. He'd recently given the attendant door guardians permission for her to pass because that was easier than having to disturb him every time she received a response back from MoM over the requisitions. She trusted that access was still in force.

"I don't quite know yet...there are some items that came in yesterday that might be useful if we're stuck here for a long time. Can you give me a sec?" she leant close to the door and had a 'word' with it.

"Sorry, only I can go in else we'll have another problem on our hands", she was back outside the door in less than a minute so Madison didn't get too freaked in the corridor.

"That's fine then" she commented as she came out and re-closed the door. As they made their way back through the gloomy passages, she filled Madison in on her experience in the forest and how terrible she felt after encountering the Dementors even at a distance once she returned to safety.

"The new kid said he was in Slytherin last night so I know he got back safe from the forest, but you cannot imagine what they are like, the Dementors. He did have direct contact with them and I just wondered whether he might have stayed up wallowing...as an after effect; maybe not effected by the spell if he had absorbed Achel's antidote or even taken something himself. Then just not noticed that it was morning. But there was no sign of him though evidence of chocolate so he must have sorted things out. I did find this though on the desk..." she showed Maddie the partly drank potion bottle. "Some of the same reviving potion the Professor gave to Marvo last night, might come in handy."

She then went on to voice one of the great mysteries that the students at Hogwarts had encountered- where exactly did the staff sleep? OK, there was always the fun speculation that Snape had a coffin down here somewhere or that McGonagall had a secret life 'on the tiles' in cat form but at times like this...

This about brought them back to the Common Room….

A few minutes earlier Andy had entered the common room with Marvo. "Well, Dumbledore is asleep and we can't wake him up, but you'll never believe what we saw on his desk!" exclaimed Andy.

Andy got wide-eyed. This statement he just said made him wonder if the others thought him and Marvo were snooping. But THEY wouldn't do a think like THAT...

Marvo pulls the piece of parchment from his robes "Looks Like he was probably hoping to write more but...'"

His words trail off as he looks around the room "Where's Nimue?"

Niki looks very close to hysteria. "Who knows a lot about the forest?" she says, anxiously. "Do any of you?" She looks around, staring at all the people.

"She went down to see Prof. Snape, I think," Niki informs him. She notes that even the portrait of a witch- her plaque reads "Sylphonia the Sullen"- appears to be asleep.

Nimue and Madison re-enter the room. Yvette suddenly spoke up, "I wonder - could the books be used to stop the sleeping spell?"

"Why would anyone want to put the castle to sleep? It can't just be a joke, or something. If we knew the motive, we might be able to find the person." Niki looks around. "Do we know the motive?"

Nimue looked at Yvette with slightly shocked expression. What she had said was very obvious but how. Two matching books, *Truth - Illusion* it made some sense.

"OK", she said, "you bought the book in Hogsmeade on the day we went there. I don't remember where Joss was then but Kat might because they were best friends then." Nimue looked as thought trying to sift though all this memory was on the verge of giving her a headache.

"You obviously felt the book should be kept to yourself these past few weeks even though it's been making you ill. Joss certainly wouldn't have done to the trouble she did of concealing the book in Ravenclaw if she didn't feel there was something important about it." she paused.

"Yvette, unless I am really losing it I'm certain that around the same time as you thought yours had been burnt up in Gryffindor, Joss was attacked and killed!"

Kat had listened to the conversation about the books and Joss and she had her own ideas.

"I think there might be more books. I have a vague recollection of the guy in the wood wanting to know about all 4 of them. So where are the other 2? Egreen, didn't you have a strange book you were studying? Was yours another 'Embracing' book? Something like Embracing the dark maybe? And as for why this is happening, I'm not quite sure. But those 4 books, whoever has them, I think are the key to what that stranger in the forest wants. I don't think he is going to take kindly to us being awake, thanks to Achel.

The main questions we need to answer now is: where is Achel; where are the other books; and what do we do now we know that no-one else is awake?"

"Could it be something like 'Touching the Darkness?'" Niki asks.

Marvo turns angrily to Niki "Touched by the Darkness! That book has NOTHING to do with this!"

Niki flushes and looks highly embarrassed.

"I have that book! I remember I got it at Hogsmeade the first day I came. And Marvo's..." Andy stopped. Should this be revealed? He would let that be Marvo's decision. He went on. "Marvo has...read it as well I think," he said.

"It's the Embracing that the first 2 books had in common, so it has to be Embracing the ... something." said Kat.

"So far we have Embracing the Illusion and Embracing the Truth"

Niki shakes her head. "I have absolutely no idea..." She thinks for a moment. I haven't seen either of the original books, actually, but I haven't run into anything like that. I tend to prefer Muggle literature to wizarding books, though, so I haven't looked in the library since I got here. Could one or both of the others be there? Hogwarts is supposed to have one of the biggest wizarding libraries in the world."

Egreen looked somewhat sullen at this question, a little reluctant to be so open perhaps?

"You are right, Kathryn. There are two others. My own is 'Embracing the Dark', it was my fathers before he disappeared and I inherited it. As for its twin, it is in my cousin Achel's possession and is 'Embracing the Light'. Skotos/Phanos - twin pillars of the magical arts. As for Achel as far as I am aware he hasn't come down from his House.

"Ummmm. Well I guess that makes Achel turning up even more important. I take it you don't know anyway to break into the Hufflepuff house do you?" asked Kat.

"Yes, it does. However, I am fairly confident that Achel would have had the foresight to take his own potion!" There was more than a touch of the Slytherin aloofness back in Egreen's manner.

"Then someone knew I had the book...and they didn't want me to? Or was it the book that helped cause Joss's death?" Yvette's face was slowly turning white. "Kat got the book AFTER Joss died?"

"Yes, Joss came back and gave her clues to find the book. I think you were busy. But no Morticia's vision of Joss' death doesn't suggest a book was involved in any way. Just good old fashioned dark art killing." Nimue replied.