The students make their way out of the common room and to the main door leading out of Hogwarts.

As soon as they step outside they sense something is wrong. The day is so silent, as if it was very early in the morning, not a single bird sings, only the rustling of the trees in the distance.

Then from behind a bush they see it.

It is about seven-foot tall with a single long stem ending in a large open 'funnel' with a bright yellow rim. From this funnel a long vine protrudes and swishes from side to side, a rather nasty looking barb at its end.

It stands on three large roots, still covered in earth and as you watch it moves, with surprising speed towards you... followed by three more!

Andy stood up straight and replied, "Yes, Sir!"

He walked to the door. He laughed hoping Marvo knew it was a joke. After he stepped out of Hogwarts and saw that plant/thing/whatever it was, he grabbed his wand. Not knowing what spell to cast he held it out pointing it at the plant, and said absolutely nothing.

Niki had been looking around at the forest with considerable interest. She had arrived quite late the previous night, and hadn't seen much of the grounds. When the plant comes into view, she gives a muted squeak of alarm, and when it notices the group, she jumps back a considerable distance, landing on someone's foot. With a hasty apology, she brandishes her wand and shouts "Impedimenta!"

One of the plants shuddered and stopped moving. It's 'stinger' flops to the floor.

Madison grinned. "Good job, Niki! You know, we may actually get through this..."

Niki grins back. "There are more of these things, though. Shall we try again?" She looks quite unnerved by her success at the spell. "I've only read about that before," she says sheepishly, "I never had a chance to try it."

Morticia takes out her wand and looks at Niki. "Ready? Trois, deux, un - IMPEDIMENTIA!"

The spells leave the wands hit the plants, Morticia's glittering extremely bright (she's always thought that casting spells was the true magical thing compared to potions and other nasty stuff, so she's practised useful spells all her life).

Kat breathed a sigh of relief. She had frozen at the sight of the plants and hadn't been able to move. Maybe she wasn't up to this even if the others were. She looks at Marvo to see he is looking a little scared too.

"I wonder what will be next. Shall we move on? Maybe with wands at the ready." Kat looks at the others and draws her wand out from her robes.

One plant has ducked the spells and comes for Kat, its leaves making horrible noises. Morticia, who still has her wand out, raises it quickly, points it at the plant and shouts: "Tarantallegra!"

The plant starts to jump a bit and then jigs sideways and disappears somewhere behind some trees...

Kat jumps as Morticia shouts and turns to see the plant disappear. For a moment she felt her stomach drop again and then it was gone. "That was close. Thanks Morticia."

She waits for Marvo to lead on.

A head pokes out from the bushes. Niki recognises the boy as her brother. "Hadrian! Why are you out here by yourself?" she demands.

"I thought I'd let you figure out that riddle yourself," he says with a grin, and Niki scowls at him.

"Get back here with us! There are poisonous plants!"

Hadrian grins again, and holds up a handful of miscellaneous vegetation, which is barely recognisable as pieces of one of the plants. "I can manage, Niki."

"Hadrian... please." With a sigh, the boy complies, and joins the group, keeping a little to the back.

"We should get on, quickly" says Morticia with some concern as the stunned plants start moving a bit again. "They seem to recover."

She points her wand at the plant that was stunned by Niki with the first spell. "Rictusempra!"

No effect can be seen. "Hm, well, I guess you can't tickle plants, dammit! Uhmm.... what was it.... Orchideous?" A bunch of flowers appears at the top of Tish's wand. "Gosh, no, that was the wrong one..." Morticia brushes the flowers away and gets increasingly nervous about messing up so much (though, as you know her, she must have been pretty nervous before, otherwise she wouldn't make so many mistakes in a row.

"Locomoter Mortis!" The spell doesn't work. "Leg-locker, but of course plants don't have legs... Hah! See how you like this one! Reducio!" The plant shivers a bit and starts to shrink. Then, seemingly afraid of these fast growing humans, it stumbles away, still effected by the Impedimenta-spell.

"Quick, put spells on all the other plants as well so they'll keep out of the way till we're done."

First two, then four, then SIX more plants stumble around corners or from behind bushes.

Achel rushes to the front 'Quickly, make a run for the Forest! I'll hold them off as long as I can. Nimue, can you help me?'

He is still talking very fast as he stretches his arms wide and you see the plants slow... then stop.

Nimue nods in agreement and assists him in his task.

Niki points her wand at one of the remaining ones. "Petrificus Totalus!" she yells, and one of the plants stops dead in it's tracks. When Achel appears and tells them to go on, she looks reluctant, but turns to one of the older students for instructions.