"Come on now!" Morticia beckons to the others and starts heading towards the Forest, the wand ready in her hand.

Niki follows Morticia and the rest as they go deeper into the forest, looking around at the trees nervously. She doesn't notice when her brother slips off again into the woods.

Peesey was bringing up the rear and so was quite safe from all the things that were lurking, as soon as Achel said to run to the forest he did, felling a bit cowardly at the moment. Once inside, he felt safer.

Kat looked ahead at the forest. It looked dark and foreboding. Marvo was looking hesitant, and his eye was starting to look a bit red again. 'Never mind' thought Kat. 'We better get on.'

"Ok, lets go see what else we can find then."

As they moved together towards the forest Kat started. Had she heard someone screaming? Or had it been her imagination. It must be her imagination... No there was a screaming sound again!

As they walked through the trees their surroundings were getting darker and darker, almost as if the sun had disappeared. Kat stopped suddenly and put up her hand for everyone to stop and be quiet.

As they waited a girl ran through the trees screaming. She carved a path through the group as she ran, and then they saw behind her a ghoul floating as fast as she could run. It was laughing maniacally as if enjoying the chase.

Kat lifted her wand and shouted "Exorcicio!" A grey spark flew from her wand and hit the ghoul in the chest. Unfortunately though it didn't work as she had hoped. Rather than expelling the ghost, it merely got its attention. "Oh no!" Kat whispered, as it turned to give them it's full attention....

"Whhhhhhhoooooooo!" It screamed as it turned on them...

Niki points her wand at the ghost, and says, "Tromos!" Nothing happens, and she curses under her breath. She glances at the girl, but she doesn't recognise her. Of course, she's new, so she doesn't know very many people.

Kat watches as Niki tries. She is starting to shake with fear now. She tries a different spell and hopes...

"Rigitio Mortonem!" A purple spark comes out this time and hits it square in the chest.

The ghost pauses for a moment, then disappears. "Good job," Niki says, and grins at Kat. Then she turns to the girl the ghost was chasing. "Who are you?" she asks, interested.

"Thanks! Oh! I'm sorry, I didn't realise you didn't know. I'm Kathryn Black, Kat. I was the one that was kidnapped last night! And now this. I really will be glad when we've got rid of this guy, if we do..."

Marvo smile, happy to see people taking their own initiative. "Okay. Lets go."

You walk to the edge of the efforts and onwards, it starts to get darks but there is a strange green glow around you, making you feel very uneasy.

After only walking a few minutes you hear a rustling to your side....

Madison, hearing the rustling, whipped around to face it. As if sensing her, the rustling stopped. It all seemed so familiar.... She looked around, noticing the green glow, and began to panic. She remembered...

"Not again..." She took a couple steps back, bumping into Lee.

"What's wrong? Are you okay?" He asked, worried. Madison tried to calm herself down.

"I-I'm fine...Just a little nervous, that's all..." Just then, the rustling started again...startling them. "What is that?"

A centaur sticks his head out of the bushes. "What are you all doing here?" he asks crossly. The rustling starts again, and the centaur suddenly makes a horrible face, and there is an awful gurgling sound as the centaur keels over. It thumps to the ground, and starts to shrivel.

Niki watches it with intense distaste. "What *was* that?" she whispers. "What do you think, stunning spells?"

Madison stares, wide-eyed. "I...don't know," she answers quietly, still staring at the centaur. "Stunning spell? He looks more dead than stunned to me..."Moving forward cautiously, she peered into the bushes where the centaur was standing. "What is going on here?"

The sound can be heard again. "Get back!" Niki yells, pointing her wand at the bushes the sound seems to be coming from. "On three... One, two..."

"On three WHAT?" yells Morticia. "What spell? Against who? Easy, we must check first so that we don't go about killing of squirrels!"

"*I’m not going to see what killed that centaur," Niki says. "How 'bout, oh... running away really really fast?" She grins nervously.

Hygeia stood rooted to the forest ground, paralysed. For a moment there, she thought the Ghost was going to attack her, instead, it changed directions and headed straight for the group of students who had sent sparks to rescue her, instead it backfired. Hygeia mouthed "THANK YOU!" although she didn't know if they saw it for they were really frightened too much to do anything. She felt her pockets and took out her wand. Now regaining her composure, she stood up straight and raised her wand above her hand and tried to remember the right Charm and bellowed, "PETRIFICUS TOTALUS!" It was supposed to be a body bind spell, and she hadn't tried it on a Ghost before. But all she could do is Hope that it worked....

Hygeia's spell must have missed, or never reached its target, because Kat sent a large purple spark at the ghost, which made it disappear. Niki looked over to Hygeia. "Hi," she said, "who are you?"

Kat looked at the new girl in their midst. "That was a close escape. Lucky you ran into us! I'm Kat by the way. I'd keep your wand ready if I were you I think there is more trouble brewing." As she say's this, the trees rustle again in front of them. The centaur comes out of the tree and collapses. Then the rustling starts again.

"What is that?" she asked.

"I really don't want to know," Niki mutters. "I mean, look what it did to that centaur! Should we try stunning spells in the direction of that noise?"

Kat looked at Hygeia who still looked shaken from her ordeal and replied to Niki, "I agree with Moritica, we can't do anything until we know what it is. I mean it could be another student like us, or like this girl who that ghoul chased. We need to be sure before we shoot."

"If we stun someone we don't mean to, we can revive the person... It's not like killing them, after all." Niki gestures to the body of the centaur, which is now little more than skin and bones, all the moisture seemingly disappeared. "I'd be scared to go any farther with whatever did that still around."

Winifred ran quickly out of the castle followed closely by someone that the others didn't recognise. As she approached the group, she slowed down and tried to catch her breath. "Hey guys...been looking everywhere for you...this is Ayumi," she said pointing to the girl behind her. "She just moved here from Japan and came in on the train last night."

"Heyas, Ayumi!" Yvette grinned, naively cheerful, almost too cheerful. "I'm Yvette."

Hygeia smiled nervously. "Nice to meet the three of you." she glanced at Kate, Nikki & Morticia who all looked quite grim and concerned. She then gripped her wand tightly when she saw the Centaur," Do you have any ideas who did that to the poor animal?"

"Nope...Actually, this just adds to our list of problems," Madison answered. "Hi, I'm Madison..." Lee smiled and introduced himself. "Our list just keeps getting longer," he sighed. "So what are we planning to do?"

Soon after Winifred and Ayumi reached the group another figure was seen running towards them, from the same direction the 2 girls have come, as if following them. The group soon saw it was another girl. As she approached them she stopped to catch her breath. Seeing everyone's wandering looks she started to explain herself.

"Hi, I'm Vera. I saw you guys" she said looking at Winifred and Ayumi "at the castle but I couldn't call you. This place is spooky! So, I'm sorry for following you like this..." she finished with a smile

"Can we continue with the apologies later?" Morticia interrupts rudely. "Excuse me, but there's something running around here that kills off people, so please safe your niceties for later. Where's Marvo the Magnificent, anyway? We've got a task to fulfil, so stop the chattering and let's get on with it!"

Kat glared at Morticia. She could see that once this situation was over they would definitely go back to not getting on. She looked at the latest additions to the group.

"Hi Wini, I wondered where you had got to. You weren't moping about Kali being so quiet at the ball were you? Just because he didn't wake up... Well, never mind. Good to see you made it." She turned to the latest additions. "Hi! Don't mind Morticia she's her temper is a little frayed right now. Mean while I'm Kat and the others are...Morticia, Niki, Marvo, Nimue, Yvette, Madison, Lee, Egreen, Achel, Andy, Peesemould, Nimue..."

Kat pointed at the different people as she said their names. Most of them nodded or said hi, except for Morticia who had a look that said she couldn't believe we were stood in the middle of a forest with who knows what ahead and we're doing introductions.

"Right. Now we better get on and see if we can find out what is causing this spell and stop it. Niki, what is the word for that stunning spell?" Kat turned back in the direction of the rustling bushes holding her wand in front of her. She had a determined look on her face as she crept forward.

"Umm... Stunning spell, stunning spell... Stupefy, stupefy is the stunning spell." Murmured Niki.

Hygeia slightly looked frazzled as she tried to remember the names of all these students. Then she heard them talking about a Stunning Spell. "Well go ahead and do it, but don't let me do it... I'm a bit clumsy and I mess up the spells." she cried with a smile, but then looked at her feet when no one seemed to be in a smiling mood.

A voice from the trees above spoke up quite calmly.

"Good morning. I came in on the train last night and I was wondering what, exactly, might be going on?"

A pair of aqua-coloured eyes peered out of the leaves. "My name's Ember. It goes with my hair."

She dropped lightly down; indeed, her hair was a rich auburn, straight as a razor's edge down to her hips.

"Like my father always said: when in doubt, climb the nearest tree and take scope of the situation before jumping in with both feet."

The rustling is heard again, slightly to Kat's left. Niki keeps her wand pointed at the source of the noise.

Niki makes a face and gestures to the body of the centaur. "This centaur was alive a minute ago, and now it looks like it's been dead for months. Whatever did it is in those bushes. Can you be quiet for a moment so that we can find it and stun it?" she snaps.

"Oh! Hello!" said Kat looking at little surprised as another girl dropped from the trees.

Then she grins. "I guess you father was very wise. Do I need to go through the names again? Or did you catch them all from your view point."

As the girl had landed Kat noticed that she appeared from the tree that had been rustling earlier. "I guess it was you that was scaring us there with that rustling. Could you see anything else from the tree that might be of use?"

Andy, being the blonde, tough, macho man that he is, walked up to the four new girls and introduced himself.

"Hi," he said. "I'm Andy Warden. I'm in the Gryffindor House. What are your names again? Um...let me think. Vera, Hygeia, Ember, and Ayumi? You're in for an... exciting year."

He looked over at the dead centaur and then back at the girls. He laughed a little then said, "Welcome to Hogwarts."

Peesey turned when he heard his name being read like a role-call. "Konichi wa, Ayumi. Ges denki ges ka? Hello Ember, Hygeia and Vera. I'm Peesemould, but you can call me Peesey, if you do so wish! Do get your wands out, it could be dangerous!" He pauses "But of course with Marvo as our leader I'm sure it'll all be fine!" He said sarcastically. "I think we better keep away from that bush! Although, everybody better keep their wands on it, it may be powerful, so we all better perform the spell at once, huh?"

Madison glanced at the dead centaur, then turned back to the group. "Look, I'm not trying to be rude or a party pooper...but we've got a dead centaur and some Voldemort supporter, what's his face from South America, with a bunch of Dementors...and everybody at school is asleep. We've got to get moving here..."

Lee nodded. "She's right...we can all get to know each other when we get through this."

"If we do," Madison mumbled.

Hygeia laughed at this, yet as she saw the serious stares from them, she knew this WAS true and real. She was a muggle-born and thought that her stay in Hogwarts would be fun, but she didn't knew it would turn out like this.

Niki shudders. "Don't say that," she warns. "Should we try and stun whatever's making the rustling? If we do, Kat, you might want to get out of the way..."

"Me? Why should *I* get out of the way?" asked Kat. But none the less she did shuffle a little out of the way.

"Ok, then..." She raises her wand and points it at the bush. "Stupifico!" The blue spark hits the bush and it stops rustling. "There! Now can we get on with finding that clearing in the forest? This way..." She starts in the direction that they had been heading. Looking just a little smug.

Niki follows Kat, and says, "I meant if we were going to be sending that spell at the bush, not you. It wouldn't be good to hit you instead," she adds with a small grin.

Yvette's hands were jittery, and she had to force herself to keep a stern grip on her wand. "I'm ready in case a Dementor comes." She remarks faintly, trying to keep a happy memory near the front of her mind. "Not that one will, of course."

Ayumi looked surprised to have been greeted so readily as the new student, and she blushed. "Ah, e-heh, Good Afternoon!" Ayumi bowed low, as was the Japanese tradition. "I'm Ayumi Yuki, and I was most pleased to hear that I was to be transferred to Hogwarts! My parents are ambassadors to the Ministry of Magic from the Japanese Islands, and that caused us to suddenly move to Great Britain. I hope you'll excuse my intrusion in the middle of the school year."

As she spoke, a red fox appeared out of nowhere and sat at Ayumi's heels. "Oh, I'm so sorry, I forgot to also introduce Shinjiku-chan." She motioned to the animal. "He's my companion, if you will. Shinjiku is a native Japanese Fox; so he is somewhat more spectacular than your average fox...Although, it looks to me as if introductions could be saved for later?"

Ayumi let out a nervous giggle and quietly stood, surveying the forest around here, taking all the people and the dead centaur...."So, Winifred here has informed me that almost everyone back at the school has fallen asleep? How unfortunate...Well, I'm sure I will do everything within my power to aid my fellow classmates in any way possible!" Ayumi smiled sweetly.

At that moment, the fox, Shinjiku leapt into the air and performed a somersault. He landed back down on the ground, but instead of a sleek red fox, a young brown-haired Asian boy stood there, dressed in a snazzy uniform and cloaked with a deep blue cape. He bowed low, and smiled saucily. "I too shall aide in any way possible to your current dilemma!"

Ayumi patted Shinjiku on the back. "There he goes again, full of surprises!" She laughed, and continued, "I'm sure you'll all be able to see the limits of his amazing abilities in due time." She then turned to the boy.

"There's no need to go around being a show-off! We've only been here for a few minuets, and already he's being rude!" Ayumi turned back to the stunned crowd, and bowed low, "E-heh.... please excuse him..."

Winifred blushed a bit when Kat inquired about Kali. It wasn't that obvious, was it? She started to get lost in her thoughts, but was brought back to earth when Kat shot a blue spark at the rustling bush.

A bit alarmed, she dug into her pocket for her wand. However, something made her freeze. Her necklace was glowing again. She stood and looked at it for awhile trying to make some connection, but even with all the research she had done she still couldn't figure it out...

Noticing that everyone else seemed to be moving ahead, however, she pushed all irrelevant thoughts out of her head, pulled out her wand, and followed the others.

Madison smiled and couldn't help herself. "Oh, don't worry about it...I've been dealing with a show off for quite some time now..."

"What?" Lee exclaimed. He grinned as Madison quickly disguised her laughter with a hacking cough. "Anyway," he continued, with one last glance at Madison, "We've got to move on...what's the plan?"

Vera mumbled a hello to everyone that greeted her and tried to stay close to the new ones. She hadn't realised the importance of the situation before but now it seemed greater than she thought. She silently took her wand out and kept it close to herself, ready to use it if needed. She followed the group closely wondering where they were going and what exactly were they looking for. Looking back to see who was left behind, she saw Winifred and noticed that her necklace was glowing. *I wonder what this means* she thought but decided to stay quite.

After performing the spell Kat looked in the bushes. She was surprised by what she found. She turned to the others behind her and said...

"You're not going to believe this, but there is nothing in those bushes. Whatever we stunned has disappeared into thin air! It must have been a spell of some sort. Creepy!"

"Let's continue with our search, then", says Morticia who hasn't taken part in the introductions, but has instead wandered about a bit, her wand raised. She points at the spot where the path splits up. "What do we do? Shall we split into two groups and search both ways, or shall we check one first and the other later?"

"I'd be happier going in one big group," Niki confides quietly, looking a trifle nervous.

"We take the right hand way. I have been here before and right is the way to the clearing. I don't think we should split up until we are closer to the hut in the clearing, and then only to surround our enemy - remember the riddle from the books." Replied Kat.

She started towards the right hand path. Everyone was so busy concentrating on spells and watching for rustling bushes that they didn't see Marvo, Nimue and Achel still chattering and not following them.

Ember blinked. "There's no need to be rude--*I* didn't kill anyone," she said, an edge of frost in her voice. "I'm sorry for the centaur, but I was climbing up the tree, remember, and I wasn't looking down at the time, sorry. If whatever killed the poor creature's in that bush maybe the best thing would be to go for help..."

"Evidently someone deals with times of crisis by taking charge of the situation," Ember commented, half to herself. "But, whatever works."

"Or the perpetrator Apparated before your spell reached them." Ember walked slowly up to the bush, tapping the tip of her own wand thoughtfully against her pursed lips. "Well, Sangria should be back in a moment--I sent her up to scout the area for any approaching danger--and maybe she'll have some news to convey."

"You CAN'T apparate or disapparate on Hogwarts ground!" Morticia sneers. "Everybody knows that, and the Forest is on the grounds!"

Morticia sighs, but then follows Kat. "I think you're right," she whispers to her, "we shouldn't split up for anything in the world. Sorry for being such a nuisance. I'm really scared. YOU didn't have this creepy dream, so maybe you don't understand..."

Kat smiled at Morticia. "No I don't know what it is like. Although I have been to the clearing before twice now so I can have some idea of how bad it must have seemed. I'm scared too, but we have to try to break this spell." She whispered back

Niki groans. "You can't apparate on Hogwarts grounds!" she says.

"Yes, a good idea Kat" Said Peesey nervously "Better not split up just yet"

"I've certainly read "Hogwarts: A History", which mentions that the castle itself is protected against Apparation," Ember corrected gently. "However, now isn't the time to get entangled in a discussion about what might or might not be effective. The strongest enchantments can be overcome, you know, by a sufficient effort of will. But that's neither here nor there."

"I," Niki says, irritated, "have also read 'Hogwarts, a History,' and the spell against apparation extends onto the grounds as well. It would be very difficult for even a number of wizards, let alone two or three, to overcome the spells, and very few people even know what spell it is. Still, this is unimportant. We need to figure out what is going on." She mutters to Morticia, "Want to guess what house *she’ll be in?"

Morticia smirks. "Not even a very 'successful' Slytherin could apparate on Hogwarts grounds, you know who I mean... Anyway." She leans over to Niki and whispers: "Hufflepuff-duffer, I guess. Or rather, I hope. As long as she's not with us!"

Ayumi meekly pipes up. "A-heh...perhaps being so new, there were some details I missed.... But you don't suppose that the rustling we heard earlier was simply a woodland creature? It is extremely probable that it ran into a hole or something right before you checked the bush." She blushed, trying to appear as polite as possible. "I mean, since it couldn't have Apparated, and couldn't have been too big...."

"Eh...well, all I'm saying is that perhaps the current situation is causing us to imagine things. Let's not jump to conclusions, eh?" Ayumi continued. "I say we focus at the moment on finding that clearing." She smiled, sounding cheerful.

The bickering about apparition and splitting up began to irk Winifred. From the back of the crowd, she meekly said, "Don't you think we ought to be moving along? We don't know what this guy has planned and we should try to intervene as quickly as possible. Kat should lead the way as she's been here before, and the rest of us should keep our wands ready in case some more of those plants or some dementors attack."

Vera nodded and walked next to Winifred. "Yeah, I agree with that there's not point standing here talking about it we're losing time. I know it's not exactly my place to say anything since I'm new and all but I've been seeing what's been happening in the school since the beginning of the year and I understand this is more serious than we think. So please let's get going?" she said surprising even herself. Usually she was a very timid 1st year that wouldn't even look at older student let alone talk to them like that.

Marvo, who has been contemplating the situation, suddenly pulls down the front of his robe, as if coming to a decision.

'Right. Let’s get on. I feel as sorry as you do all for this poor creature, but moping around here won't help. Let’s find out what, or who is responsible for this, and make them stop!'