'In the Meantime...Something for Fun' Cont..

[Thomas]

That's hilarious! I'm glad you liked it Nicci.

[Lauren]

(So Ima do a post with Anna/Elena and maybe a little Ylana or Clarke now seeing as Nicci hasn't had time to reply ))

Anna was sat at the edge of the trees near the Forbidden Forest; it was a little colder outside than it had been in the morning, and Anna clutched her robes around her.

"I don't see why I should have to join the school. I'm a member of the Order, I'm running for my life from the people who kept us in cages for over 100 years - I think I have enough to deal with to be honest, Anna." Elena spoke stiffly, pulling a jacket around her shoulders. "Plus, I could care less about the little dramas at the school, especially surrounding Leilani King and Vixie Brown. I've been sent to do a job, and that job is to watch for suspicion. You're making that job hard, Anneliese."

Anna rolled her eyes at her friend. "You don't understand what I see behind the walls of Hogwarts, Elena, even if I'm in a different House. And when I say that there's something weird going on with Vixie ditching Leilani and running off to act up friendship with Lancelot and Juliet, there's really something wrong."

"But what if what Vixie and her new friends are doing is totally unrelated to my job?" Elena exclaimed, throwing her arms in the air in exasperation. "The most likely thing is that Brown is giving King some space to grieve for her Death Eater scum of a "family"-" her fingers sketched quote marks around the word, like they weren't worthy of being a family. "and in the meantime she's hanging around with some different people!"

Anna stood this time, blue flashing in her brown eyes with her anger. "Elana Hesse, you really don't understand. Vixie Brown and Leilani King are the best friend dream team. Everyone knows it. The fact that Leilani's been left to sit with Shawn while Vixie's whispering to Lancelot and Juliet is something bad. I haven't got a good feeling about it, Elena!"

Elena sighed, some of her anger dissipating into the air. "Just keep a low profile, and if anyone asks why you're out here in the middle of lunch talking to a tree, say you were practicing for-"

"I know how to lie!" Anna cut her off in a hiss, and with that she stormed off away fromt he forest. How dare Elena try to dictate to her! Anna had been sitting in Hogwarts for seven years gathering information on various students so that Elana could pass it all onto Sporus! Why had he decided to even make Anna enrol anyway? She'd already learned all this once!

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ylana looked at Peter on the opposite side of the table. "So, Peter, when are we going to find your tree?" she asked quietly, so as to avoid any nosy Gryffindors in the near vicinity hearing into their conversation.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Vixie, Leilani and Lance began to hurry up the marble staircase and towards the seventh floor. The Ravenclaw girl was right behind them, so they sped up; soon, they were on the fourth floor, near the library. "Detour!" Vixie said, and they entered the almost silent room. Hoping to get themselves lost in the maze of bookshelves, they twisted through almost impassable tiny corridors created by gaps between the towering shelves. Both Vixie and Leilani had their wands out in case they weren't quick enough.

[Nicci]

Having narrowly escaped the library and back out on the moving marble staircase that ascend the castle high over the grand entrance hall, Lance hurried sideways behind Vixie and Leilani keeping close to the wall to watch their backs as the three of them climbed.
As the staircase before them slotted into position, he encouraged the young women ahead of him but froze as he noticed the Ravenclaw girl suddenly appear eerily only a few feet away. As the younger student with her glossed over eyes raised her wand to utter a curse at Leilani, Lance took it upon himself to take out his own wand to bravely defend the width of the staircase.
Foolishly waving his hand and choosing to instantly cast Protego behind him the last thing Lance remembered was the brilliant blue flash before the his body began to contort violently.

[Chris]

Shawn left the common-room about when Lance, Lani and Vixie were rushing out of the Great Hall. They were gone when he came to the entrance hall though. 'I wonder if they are in the Great Hall,' he thought to himself. Opening the door, and taking a look around, he didn't see his friends. "Hmm," he mumbled. "I wonder where else they could be," he mumbled to himself as he scratched his head.

Entering the room, he grabbed a few cookies and an apple, and decided to search for them. Munching on a cookie and depositing the apple in his pocket, he left the Great Hall, starting up the stairs.

******
Peter heard Ylana's question and said quietly, "I was thinking in an hour or so? We want plenty of time to find this tree, since the Forest is full of them." He smiled, as he added the last part, since it would confuse anyone listening in that didn't know the plan.

[Nicci]

“Excuse me! Coming through....Oh Sorry” Juliet yelled, pushing her way through a corridor of students before bursting out onto the landing of the 3rd floor staircase.
‘Bother’ she cursed, out of breath to herself as she braced herself against the banister to recover. If William hadn’t taken so long to say goodbye she may have been able to keep up with following the Slytherin’s out of the Great Hall.

Rolling her eyes, Juliet pulled herself back up straight and placed on hand on her hip. What had gotten into Vixie? Had she found the book or something far more important that it could eventually be misused by Dragona for evil purposes?
Concerned, a worried expression crossed her face as she spotted a recently familiar figure walking casually up the stairs below her. <Oh thank Merlin...>

“Shawn..” she yelled out, thundering down the marble staircase as the portraits sneered at her sudden unfeminine outburst. Coming to stop a few steps away from him, she suddenly realised how strange this would seem to him. They had only really met twice, maybe three times if passing in a doorway counted and now she had just thrown herself down the stairs at him like they had known each other forever.
Shrinking back, Juliet frowned ready to profusely apologise for her action. Asking a Slytherin for help should have seemed like a stupid idea, but she waited trusting Lance's choice of a best friend.

[Lauren]

(Oou, chance to write an action post ))

Vixie watched in horror as Lance's body began to twist into impossible positions, his skin turning a sickly green and an odd texture. His eyes were closed, his breathing shallow, so she assumed that he must be unconcious. Leilani, who had watched in silence for a moment, started forward. Vixie seized her by the wrist and flung her backwards, away from Lance and his attacker. "No, Leilani, we have to go!" she shouted, forcing them both backwards, though she hated to leave Lance on his own with the now dangerous Ravenclaw student.

"But what about-?!" the blonde protested.

"He was buying us time, now MOVE!" Leilani stumbled for a moment on the next step and Vixie took the chance to push them further a few more feet, and then through a fake wall. With a tap of her wand, Vixie turned the door transparent on their side and looked out onto the staircase. Lance was slowly turning into what seemed to be a human-sized frog, but the Ravenclaw just stepped over his body like it wasn't there.

"Maybe if we can get the girl to get past, we can go back and help Lance. But it's risky." she muttered to Leilani.

She shook her head. "We have to help him, even if it's risky; he helped us."

"I agree," Vixie said quietly, watching her friend. "But that's not a spell I've ever seen before."

"I have." Leilani said in a low voice. She had stopped struggling and panicking, and there was a hardness in her eyes that scared Vixie. "My mom and dad. They still used it, even after the Dark Lord went. It was to disguise any bodies of the Muggles they tortured to death; you know, they'd just Transfigure them and bury them or leave them on the road, so they wouldn't look suspicious."

Vixie was silent as horror washed over her. She couldn't believe that Leilani had seen that spell. But she also knew that she would most likely have been forced to practice it herself if she had been there when the Wars were happening.

"We have to distract her so that we can help Lance." Vixie said, a plan formulating in her head as she spoke. "But we might need a little outside help..."

[Lauren]

Ylana nodded slowly. "Do you have any clue as to where it could be, or is it just one of those 'I'll-know-it-when-I-see-it' things?" she asked.

[Chris]

Seth and Alex looked towards each other, and then back to Peter as Ylana asked if he knew where it would be. Peter listened to Ylana's question and gave the kinda-yes, kinda-no head-shrug. Whispering to the group, "I saw it when I was taken back a couple hundred years ago, but with things being different, I'm not sure how easily we can find it. I remember that ancient magic protects it, and my abilities can't penetrate it...its as though a roof has been put in place." Peter spoke about this as though it was nothing, but anyone else would be wide-eyed at his last statement, thinking Peter must be out of his mind. "It'll be exciting," said Peter with a smile.

***********
Shawn was making his way up the stairs and heard his name. As Juliet rushed down to him, he finished his cookie. "You're Nature-fre...girl?," he added, changing the last part quickly. "What's up?" Shawn was a wee bit confused why Juliet rushed down to him.

[Lauren]

Ylana raised her eyebrows in shock at how easily Peter was talking about all this, but nodded as he talked through what he had seen and what he had found out in his trip to the past. And then when he said it would be exciting, Ylana laughed. "Yeah it should be, I haven't had an adventure where I'm looking for a long-lost magically awesome tree in ages!" she said jokingly, trying to alleviate the sombre mood that Kalina's departure from the Quidditch team had caused.

[Nicci]

Frowning at his choice not to use her name, Juliet was quickly reassured that he obviously knew Vixie rather well.
“Have you seen Vixie?” she questioned, putting her hands behind her back “She just fled out of the Great Hall like a bat out of hell with Leilani and Lance in tow. They hit the staircase but must have turned at some point as I lost them. I’ve just covered the main corridors on the third floor but no one had seen them.”
Pausing, she blinked realising that her story would sound incredibly strange especially when he obviously knew that Juliet and Vixie weren’t exactly the best of friends.
“I...I was concerned..” she stuttered with a slight cringe “....About Lance. Why would I be concerned about Vixie!”

[Chris]

Peter nodded, and said quietly, "it should be simple, if I can find the general vicinity." Looking at his friends, "we can plan on leaving sooner rather than later? I'd rather not miss practice if we can avoid it, but this is more important, even though Will will say otherwise." He chuckled.

Alex and Seth shrugged and Seth added, "whenever you want to do it, buddy."

***************
Shawn shook his head as she asked if he'd seen Vixie. He was skeptical that she would be worried about Vixie, and it made more sense when she said that she's concerned about Lance. "I was hoping to find Leilani, so we can continue looking? I wonder why they would be in a rush," he added, not sure what would drive them to do that.

[Lauren]

Ylana nodded. "I agree," ((Ack! Idk what to put *facepalm* I fail XD))

~~~~~~

Vixie Peeked through the see-through wall again and cursed. Leilani, who had been pacing the small chamber that they were in while Vixie voiced her plan, rushed forward and looked too.

"What are you -- Oh, I see what you mean." She stopped talking halfway through her sentence and instead agreed with her friend. As ominous as the scene was, she couldn't help but admit that Lance looked funny as a frog.

"Have any idea how we could turn him back into... Well... Human...?" Vixie asked Leilani sceptically.

"I'm not a Transfiguration genious, Vix." Leilani replied sadly, watching Lance hop around a little, croaking.

[Nicci]

Juliet shrugged casually, and tried to offer him a caring part smile to the thought of Leilani. He seemed genuinely caring towards the whereabouts of his significant other and yet at the same time remained relaxed about it.
Leading the way up the stairs discussing possible side routes they could have taken, Juliet’s eyes fell on a the slimy, orange sized pale green lump with sticking out legs that was lying sprawled out over the edge of one of the stair ledges.
Instinctive curious about anything with four legs, she dashed wide eyed up ahead eager to investigate.

“Oh my goodness...Shawn! Shawn!..It’s a frog! A real frog.... A Rana temporaria, look at its markings and gosh I’ve never seen one this big before. It must be twice the size of a normal adult.” Juliet explained in a quick euphoric tone before wrinkling her nose at the look of skepticism on Shawn’s face.
“No it’s not a toad!!...Look at it, it’s smooth and slightly green and...”
Gasping as she gently prodded it, she made a squeaky noise in the back of her throat in distress “I think it might be dead...oh bother..It needs water....Shawn it needs water!!!.....Oh should really have bought my gloves with me....”
Carefully scooping up the amphibian, she held her cupped hands tightly against her chest.
“I’ll catch up with you....Keep looking I won’t be gone long”

[Chris]

Shawn raised an eyebrow when they came across the frog. Juliet was getting all excited, and he was losing interest. As she started to walk off, he thought to himself, 'definitely nature-freak.' Shawn needed to decide where to look for his friends next.

[Lauren]

the Ravenclaw girl looked around, wand brandished at them, and then slipped silently down a corridor and into darkness.

Hurriedly, Vixie and Leilani pushed the wall open and hurried over to where Juliet and Shawn were standing, Lance in Juliet's hands. "No, Juliet, that's Lance!" Vixie exclaimed loudly; several passers-by turned around and looked at them curiously. Self-conciously, Vixie lowered her voice when she next spoke. "This Ravenclaw girl was stalking 'Lani and we went to hide... Anyway, she got Lance with a Transfiguration charm and turned him into this... Toad... Thing."

"She's telling the truth," Leilani added, as if they might be doubting her friend, appealing straight to Shawn.