"Alright everyone. Let's get too it!" Oliver Wood marched around the courtyard, around the perimeter of the gathered students. "Form a line and lay the broom on the ground beside you."

"Flying is the greatest pleasure of being a wizard or witch! As you know it is very dangerous, blah-blah-blah I know your teachers have been telling you things like that all day. I remember! I was once a student here too! I got to play Quidditch! The best sport in the world, on the best team in the world!" He winked to the Gryffindor students. "If you get the hang of this and practice hard, you can try out for quidditch next week..." Then he stopped, frowning slightly for a short moment. "Most of you anyway... ANYWYAY! Hold out your hand over your broom, like so, and saaaaaaaay 'UP!'"

His broom jumped from the ground and into his hand. "That's the first step. Now you try." He marched back and forth around the line of students, observing their progress.

Ajax rolled his eyes at 'best sport in the world'. Okay. Sure flying is great but tackling someone? Oho, it feels good to be a rugby player. The Kiwi shook his thoughts away and focused on the current exercise. He mounted the long stick thing. 'Okay. Up. Not down just say up. Not down, you'll fall flat on your face and kill yourself. And remember, Layla is here. Impressions, no screwing around. Just up.' He took a deep breath and shouted "UP!!"

Ajax flew up. But not very smoothly. He went up at a 90 degree angle in breakneck speeds. "HOOOOOOLLLLLYYYYYY SHIT BISCUITS MOTHERFUCKER IN THE ASSHOLE SHIT FUCK BITCH!!!" He shouted profanities at the top of his lungs, making some of his classmates blush at some of the more.... inappropriate curse words. Ajax willed himself to stop and he floated up there, slightly above the clouds. He whispered a gentle "Down."

"FFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCKKKKKKKK FUCK FUCK DUCK FUCK DUCKS DUCKING DUUUUUCCCCKKKKKSSSS!!!!" He flew down straight to the ground. Unless someone stopped him, Ajax would become a splat on the ground.

Daniel nodded. He stuck his hand out over the broom. "UP!" He shouted with confidence and meaning, and the broom rose up slowly at first, but then finally shot straight up into his hand. Gripping it tight, he mounted his broom, and gave a strong kick off the ground, sending him up a few feet. His grip on it became tighter as he rose up, so that his knuckles were white. He rose up twenty feet, slowly, before checking his surroundings, and accelerating. He whizzed across the field, before turning around, and darting the other way. The wind stung
his cheeks as he flew.

He looked down at the students below him, watching him shoot around the field in awe. One boy nearly took him off his broom shouting, FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCKKKKKKK as he flew by, but he stealing himself on his broom. "This - is - AMAZING." He said to himself before going back down. He thought it was only natural that he was good at it, since his father played, but another part of his mind said it was all him. His skill, his speed, and he agreed with that. Hopefully, he was good enough to make the team, even though many first years didn't.

Caelum walked with Chandler and Nolan toward the courtyard, they chatted about the wizard worlds favorite sport for the most part. It sounded scary to Caelum, who had always had an artists heart and interests. Aggressive competitive sports held little of her attention in the past. This sport seemed more dangerous than rugby, she wasn't so eager to try out for the house team.

She lined up and tried to obey the teacher. "Up!"

Nothing.

"Up!" She felt so foolish. Was she supposed to do something? Feel something?

She felt even more foolish when two students shot up into the air. Once completely by accident, dangling from his broom and flying around completely out of control. The other glided around like a professional. "U-U-Up!?" She said, somewhat panicked. It was then that her own broom chose to hop of the ground and hit her elbow, right on the 'funny bone', instead of her open palm. "Ouch!" She turned away from her classmates so that the wouldn't see her face contort and her eyes water.

Charlotte didn't actually have that clear of an idea what Quidditch was, and it didn't seem like their flying teacher would explain it. What she did know was that witches flew on brooms, and she was a witch. And she knew that climbing a tree could only get her so high. So there wasn't much to do but fly on this bloody broom, was there? She smiled at the mild curse and held her hand out, with all the confidence of someone who had already rescued a damsel in distress today.

"Up," the broom jumped up, seeming as eager as she was to get into the air. She threw her leg over and didn't wait for another signal to kick off.

Her first flight was unsteady and random, but the broom controlled intuitively. You leaned where you wanted to go, and she used this simple control scheme to narrowly avoid Ajax as he whizzed by with a much more impressive stream of curses than she could muster.

"Hey!" she called after him, and leaned forward to jet in his direction. She reached him a few feet from the ground, and grabbed the arm that was gripping his broom to steer him back upwards.

"That was pretty dumb Aj," she taunted playfully.

The walk to flying was a nice relief for Nolan, and certainly the high point of his day so far. Not only was he excited for his first lesson in which he would know what was going on, he also got to spend the walk telling Caelum and Chandler about Quidditch.

He told them of the thrill of flying and of his misadventures trying out Judoc's Cleansweep Fifteen the past summer. He filled them in on the various positions involved in Quidditch, as well as the balls. The walk wasn't too long, but by the time they got to the courtyard, he felt he had covered the game well enough. He wondered if it was too early to offer to invite them to go see the Ballycastle Bats with his family next year. They didn't go often, but his dad generally tried to take them to at least one match each summer.

A few moments later he was lined up with the rest of the first years, staring down at his broom. Of course he knew he could do it. He'd been flying around the neighborhood for six months now. And yet, what if the broom refused to come up and everyone saw that he was just as bad at this as everything else? He shook the thought out of his head. That way of thinking made you fail for sure, he knew from experience. He simply breathed and imagined how fun it would be to fly out over the lake and smiled. Cursing a teacher position was easily out of hi range, but this, this was an attainable goal.

"Up!"

The broom rose slowly but steadily up to his hand. It wasn't as quick as some of the others, but something told him it was the old broom that was at fault here. He gently got onto the broomstick, holding onto the handle with a steady grip. There were already a few students zooming about, some on purpose and some on accident. However, he knew from experience that just taking off before getting a feel for the broom was not a good idea. Especially on old school brooms that didn't get used often. With a look of concentration he rose slightly off the ground and drifted past Chandler then over to Caelum. Sure he wasn't a natural like Tidus or Judoc, but he'd been working at it. Just as he reached Caelum, her broom flew up into her funny bone. Stifling a chuckle, he floated in front of her.

"Don't worry. That happened to me a few times. Actually it hit me in the face once. I had to go to my aunt's wedding with a black eye."

He didn't mention that the black eye had actually been from one of the Weasleys' boxing telescopes his cousin had tricked him with, but this version of the story would probably make her feel better. Thinking he had gotten a good feel for the broom, he leaned forward and pulled his broom up zooming away from the ground. From this height, he looked out across the lake then toward the forbidden forest. Either looked like a great place to explore. And what better place to start than with a view from above?

But now wasn't the time. He did a few rounds of the courtyard, trying to gauge the highest speed he trusted this broom with. If he went to fast it started to tip forward a bit, which wasn't fun. And something told him he didn't want to have to brake on it to quickly. After the rounds he rose to the highest point he could reach without the broom shivering, and hovered for a while looking out at the majesty of the castle and grounds. He could get used to this.

The students high enough to see and brave enough to not-look-down might notice something peculiar.

Did something pass in front of the sun? A witch on a broom? Or perhaps it was an eagle passing over... Yet... At a second glance the sky was clear. No birds in sight. Perhaps a could then? More plausible, yet, it was difficult to look back and make sure. The light of the sun burned more the longer you looked to it.

Caelum was having a bit more luck. She had managed to get atop her broom, and was wobbling away a few feet off of the ground. Her cheeks were flushed red with embarrassment.

Moirah was doing better. Not quick, but she climbed into the air with an expression of determination.

Professor wood hooted and hollered at each first years fumble, and cheered on those doing well.

"There you go! That's the spirit! Twenty points to all your houses!"

Despite Roze's previous escapades on a broomstick, she was still a wee bit nervous. This certainly was nothing like the one her Brother had - his was new, well-looked after, and an incredibly smooth ride. She was frankly amazed that this decrepit one was happy enough to give into her commands. Upon her stating of 'Up!', it wavered ever so slightly, then shot into her hand, tail end wobbling slightly as if it were a dog, pleased to meet it's new owner.

Hopefully it didn't act like that in the air.

Mounting her quivering broom, Roze couldn't help but smile at everyone else's reactions to their own brooms. The New Zealander had let off an impressive tirade of swear words as his broom took of with him; a few people were zooming around the courtyard; and some people were getting smacked right in the fact by their broomsticks.
Kicking off the floor gently, nothing happened. Frowning, Roze kicked again more forcefully, only for the broom to finally get the idea and jolt her up in the air about 10 feet.

"Ehh.... easy boy." She muttered nervously as it continued to quiver. Seeing Daniel zooming around quite happily, Roze gritted her teeth and leant forward. Surprisingly, the quivering stopped, and it went forwards quite smoothly. Much like with a horse and it's rider, once Roze gained control and her confidence grew, the broom seemed to relax around her.

"Broom makers make these things way too intelligent." Roze muttered, but now she was grinning as the elation of the air got to her. Accelerating on her broom, she continued flying upwards at a fairly hair-raising angle; not that she found herself perturbed by this. In fact, she felt all the memories of her flying back at home coming back to her, which only made the experience better.

And yet, something in the distance marred her experience. As a few of the others landed, something dark flitted across the sun in the distance. Holding a hand over her eyes, Roze peered forward. It had been too big to be a bird... a dragon?! No... there weren't any in this area of Great Britain. She'd been excited enough about the prospect to question her Uncle Bobby about any indigenous species. The closest dragons to... wherever the hell in Scotland Hogwarts was, was the Outer Hebrides. So what had it been?

Hearing whoops from down below, Roze cast one last dubious glance at the horizon before descending, falling back into place beside Daniel. Dismounting, she returned her smile to her face, ignoring the niggling feeling of doubt she had just discovered. Why was she so bothered? There were loads of magical creatures in and around Hogwarts. It was probably just a Hippogriff... or... something...

"Well," Roze said to Daniel, deciding not to bring the subject up unless someone else did - she didn't want to come across as some paranoid weirdo. "That was better than expected!"

Caelum sighed, dismounting from her broom shaking. She'd not get good marks in this class. She glanced around the field, she yearned to exchange the grip of the broom for the grip of her pencil. She watched the others fly, she would draw the scene later. One dangling and cursing the air, some flying as smooth as eagles did, others hopping along on the ground like frogs... Like her.

She looked down at the large wooden thing. The straw at the end stuck out in all directions. It would not be a good cleaning broom. She wondered if witches might charm a vacuum cleaner to fly. Like in that movie...

She met with the Slytherin Quidditch team first.

“That isn’t fair at all… You are punishing the whole house!” Tim clenched his fists and scowled openly at the headmistress.

“I am not, as you suggest, punishing all for the actions of a few… I am only punishing the Quidditch team. Every single member of the quidditch team was involved, were they not? Every single one of your wands cast a spell on that train car. The entire team participated, and therefore, the entire team is being punished. No one else in your house was involved, and no one else in the house is affected by your punishment.”

“But, Headmistress, the team... “ Tim grinded his knuckles into the desk, he was standing closest to the headmistress, the rest of the quidditch team stood behind him around her office. “... Everyone comes out for the games! It is so important…”

“They will have to make due watching the other houses at play. My decision is final. The Slytherin Quidditch team is suspended for the year.”

Tim frowned. “Do you know what they said about us?”

“Yes, and they are serving their detention this evening.” The headmistress remained cool and collected before the sour faced students.

“Wade over reacted, sure! Why don’t you just kick him off the team not the whole lot of us!”

“Mister Tessler. A team is not a collection of random individuals that take random independent actions. And a good leader protects his teammates rather than throw them under the hooves of a hippogriff.” The headmistress stood and met the eyes of a much taller student. “And a good leader does not only protect his team from outsiders, but from themselves.”

“Sod off!” The philosophy was lost on the angry boy, he stormed out of the office. Some of the others left quickly, close on the heals of their once-team-captain. Others hesitated. Some tried to get another word or two with the headmistress, but she would hear none of it. Zeva was the last to leave, her eyes stung as she glanced at the headmistress, but she left without saying anything.

The professor, once each student was gone, collapsed into her chair with a sigh.

“They’ll hang you for that.” Flitwick had appeared, though, Mcgonagall had not heard the door. The parents of Slytherin house were generally the most difficult to deal with and most meddlesome in school policies.

“Good.” She huffed, collecting herself and straightening her back. “If they are glad I’m gone then they will not look for me once I am.”

“And the first years… They are going into the Forbidden Forest tonight?” Flitwick, much too short for the chair anyhow, ignored it. He paced the office, inspecting books and trinkets on the many shelves of the office. “Don’t you think this is all a bit too harsh?”

Mcgonagall had taken out her quill and began to write letters. Well, she did not write letters with her hand. Instead, her quill began to move on it’s own accord across the parchment. “I have far too much to worry about this year. I want to send a clear message that I will not tolerate any more nonsense from anyone.” Her voice was sharp and impatient.

A long moment yawned between them. Then Flitwick said: “The students are not safe.”

“Professor Weasley and Cassandra are capable and I trust them completely. They are only taking a short walk through the safest paths in the forest, it is only meant to scare them you know this.”

“I don’t mean the forest, Minerva.”

Her quill stopped, the spell interrupted by distracting thoughts.

“Don’t you think it is a little late to voice that opinion? To regret our decisions?” She quipped. “We are nearly finished. Once we are finished everyone will be safe.”

“Indeed.” he turned away. If he was satisfied by her response it did not show in his old wrinkled face. He headed for the door.

“It is what he would have wanted.” She added quickly.

Flitwick paused. “As you say, it is too late for regrets. Far far too late.”

~~~


Charles Wesley and Cassandra Sylph stood in the yard waiting for the first year students as the sun was setting.

Charles was a professor at Hogwarts. He taught ‘Care of Magical Creatures.’ He was tall and handsome despite the scars on his face. Scars left there permanently by dark magic. Some said the scars made him more handsome, deepening his character. Like all Weasleys he was tall, limber, and had a thick locks of red hair.

Cassandra was the groundskeeper at Hogwarts. She was a small woman with a pale complexion and paler hair. She had round lilac eyes and her hair was cropped short around her overlarge ears.

Both were dressed for a trip into the woods. Pants, sturdy boots, Charles wore a thick belt and Cassandra donned a vest full of pockets. They both already had their wands ready.

“You all can call me ‘Charlie’.” The oldest Weasley announced. “That’s so you won’t mix me up with my Dad.” Arthur Weasley taught Muggle Studies.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Cass.” The woman waved. She was much younger than Charlie. She did not seem much older than the oldest students at Hogwarts. At a glance and under different circumstances she might have been mistaken for a 6th or 7th year.

“I think we are just waiting for Richard at this point.” Charlie conferred with Cass.

Moirah, late, waddled toward the group. Her face was red from running non-stop all the way from the Slytherin common room to here. "Did you hear? I just heard! They just told me... The headmistress... She... She... She forbid quidditch! I mean.. Just for us... for Slytherin! Slytherin quidditch is cancelled! Because of what happened on the train! There she banned us from even having a team!"

Roze had to say - she was looking forward to the detention.
Had it been the usual doing lines in a classroom, then no, she would have considered it very much an unfair punishment. But the Forbidden Forest! She was considering sneaking in there at night time, but now she was getting permission to go in. Well, in an escorted group, but still. It was exciting!
She could tell that quite a few of her classmates would disagree with her. Some looked angry, what with not actually having been involved in the train fiasco; and some looked terrified to be going into such a taboo place.

Turning to Moirah as she arrived, Roze did a double-take in shock as she shared the news. A curious mixture of silver and blue filtered from her roots to the tips of her brown hair in a sudden wave of guilt. Yeah, quite a few of the team had been complete dicks - Wade especially - but to ban an entire house from playing Quidditch? That wasn't just unfair, but that was extremely poor judgement on McGonagall's side.
"That's awful Moirah! What on earth was she thinking, doing something like that? The entire house will start a riot!" Roze exclaimed, running a hand through her hair. There were a few Slytherin first-years among the detentioneés. Although the chances of a First-Year getting into a Quidditch team was slim overall, it was still unfair on them; and the rest of the house.
She almost felt sorry for Wade.
Almost.

"Speaking of punishments... what do you reckon we'll be doing in the forest? I doubt it's just a trek to scare us - we must be having to do something." Roze said to Moirah, and the students around her. "Apparently when Harry Potter and his friends went here, they had to go into the forest on their first year too. Tracking a Unicorn or something." She added, shrugging in a perplexed manner.

Having been exempted from the class, Dani sat off to the side under a rather large oak tree to enjoy the cool breeze in the shade while the professor instructed everyone to lay the broom they had selected from the barrel on the ground next to them. From there, he explained how they would mount the broom and control their flight while on it, though most of his words were lost on Dani due to how far away she was sitting.

The next fifty minutes, i.e. the rest of the class, passed by in a blur, though that was mainly because Dani kept dozing on and off, a welcome reprieve from the nausea and dizziness she had been feeling ever since that incident in the hallway outside the dining hall. It also kept her from thinking too much about all the people flying around and how upset watching them zip around at heights like that would make her stomach. That’s not to say that she missed everything, however. She had certainly noticed the boy screaming his head off when his broom shot into the sky, and she had noticed that Roze seemed to have a control over her broom that spoke of practice.

When she noticed the other students dismounting their brooms and gathering around the instructor for some last minute comments, Dani roused herself and stood up, slowly making her way over to rejoin her friends. Despite being fairly early in the afternoon, the general consensus among the trio was to head back to the dormitory and unwind from the day, which had been rather eventful.

Upon arriving at the Ravenclaw Common Room, however, Dani was approached by the Head of the House, Professor Binns, who requested that she gather her wand and follow him for her first lesson in non-verbal magic. Unfortunately for Dani, Professor Binns was rather absent-minded, often seeming to forget that she wasn’t able to pass through the stairs and walls like he was, which meant that keeping up was quite the chore.

Eventually, however, they arrived at a classroom that was empty apart from a few straw dummies here and there. ”As a ghost, I will be unable to actually teach you more than just the theory on casting spells non-verbally, which isn’t entirely helpful,” the professor explained, his voice quite monotonic. ”Thus, I recruited an older student, who had earned exemplary marks on each of their O.W.L.s might I add, to be your tutor.”

Almost as soon as he had finished speaking, a tall, slender girl with golden blonde hair came into the classroom, waving and smiling cheerfully upon seeing them. ”And here she is!” the professor exclaimed, clearly having some level of affection for the student. ”Samantha, this is… Danielle. Danielle, Samantha.” The two girls shook hands as he briefly introduced them to one another, Dani offering a nod in response to Sam’s hello. ”I trust you can handle it from here, Sam?” the professor asked, taking off when Sam affirmed that she would be able to handle it.

”So, Dani -- Do you mind if I call you that?” Sam began, hesitating at the use of a nickname until the smaller girl shook her head to indicate that she didn’t mind. ”I figure that the best thing for you will probably be to just jump right on in. You’re going to need to be able to cast spells for your other classes soon, which means we don’t have time to go through all the theory behind casting a spell non-verbally. Is that alright with you?”

Upon seeing Dani’s nod, Sam continued, pacing back and forth as she spoke. ”Okay, so first things first: what is a spell and how is it cast? While that can be a rather complicated topic at advanced levels of study, you can think of casting a spell as an exertion of your will, or desire, on the world around you.

“If you can think of any acts of magic you may have done during your childhood, that’s what you were doing. The difference between the acts of magic that children perform and those that fully trained witches and wizards perform therefore is control. And assisting with a wizard’s control over their magic is the job of both the wand and the incantation. The wand is, in extremely simple terms, the channel through which your magic flows, much like a faucet is the channel through which water flows in a sink.

“The incantation, however, helps to control your magic by giving it a specific set of instructions to follow that match what you want to achieve. So, for example, if I said Lumos! and allowed my magic to flow, my wand would light up, following my instructions and doing what I want it to do. Does all of that make sense?”

Though fully aware that they were dealing with some pretty complicated topics in rather short order, Dani was following along surprisingly well, and she nodded to convey that she did in fact understand what Sam was trying to say. Sam smiled and continued.

”Okay, that’s great. Now, casting a spell non-verbally works in much the same way as casting one verbally. You still have to have your wand so that your magic can flow, and you still need to provide it with a set of instructions. The difference here, however, is that you don’t need to actually say what you want to happen. You have to think it. Unfortunately, it’s not as easy as it sounds, as it’s much harder to stay focused when you don’t have the words to guide help. So, go ahead and try getting your wand to light up like mine.”

As an example, Sam flicked her wand, the tip lighting up like a light bulb. Figuring that it shouldn’t be too hard to focus on a word and let her magic flow, Dani flicked her wand and concentrated on the word Sam had used earlier, frowning when her wand responded by flickering faintly. ”Oooh! That’s a good start! It usually takes a couple of attempts before you even get anything,” Same said, clapping with a smile on her face.

After a couple more attempts, all of which ended in the same pathetic flickering as the first, with slight variations in intensity, Sam piped up. ”Were you focusing on the word?” When Dani nodded, still pouting a bit over her lack of progress, Sam continued. ”Surprisingly, that’s more than likely the problem. Don’t focus on the incantation. It’s just a bunch of letters. Instead, imagine what you want to happen and focus on that.”

”Unfortunately, I have to go,” Sam said after Dani had made a few more attempts, each of which was marginally better than the set before. ”And you should probably get some dinner before you have to serve your detention. But keep practicing and I’ll meet you here next week, okay? See ya!”

Though Dani feared that she would never find her way to the dining hall from wherever she was, the people in the paintings along the wall were rather helpful, pointing her in the right direction whenever she asked, usually accompanied by some comment about her size or that she was adorable, which she tried to take as compliments.

Eventually, however, she arrived at the dining hall and she was able to sit down and get some food into her tummy, which had started grumbling angrily quite a ways back. Fortunately, she was able eat enough to fill her up despite not really having a whole lot of time until she was supposed to be at the entrance of the Forbidden Forest for detention, one of the rare benefits to being so small.

Upon arriving at the entrance to the forest, which was pretty easy to find considering there was already a decent-sized group of people gathered around talking and muttering about the detention. She also couldn’t help but hear a few groups complaining about something to do with Quidditch as she walked through the group searching for Roze and/or Dan, though Dani never really caught enough to figure out what exactly was the problem.

When Dani finally spotted Roze, she hurried over, weaving through the growing crowd rather nimbly until she was standing next to her friend, grabbing her sleeve to let her know that she was there. If she had to go through the woods for this detention, she would certainly want to have Dan and Roze for company.

Nolan stood in the group with the rest, his mind on the forest. He remembered seeing the dark mass of tress from high above the courtyard. It had seemed like any other forest, but he knew from stories that there was a huge list of reasons it was forbidden to students. He had to wonder whose idea it had been to set up a school so close to such a dangerous place. He'd asked Roy about it when they met up at the lake before dinner, but the older boy and his friends had been more concerned with the excitement of Nolan's detention. That and teasing him about his "new little girlfriend."

According to Roy, they'd likely just make them walk at the edge of the forest picking herbs or something. Maybe have some harmless but intimidating creature hang out in the shadows just out of sight to give them a good scare. Still, he couldn't say he wasn't looking forward to it. He'd prefer to actually be able to do some magic before heading in there, but the presence of the professors eased the small bit of anxiety he had.

He was trying to remember everything he'd heard about the centaurs when one the girls ran up to the group, out of breath.

"Did you hear? I just heard! They just told me... The headmistress... She... She... She forbid quidditch! I mean.. Just for us... for Slytherin! Slytherin quidditch is cancelled! Because of what happened on the train! There she banned us from even having a team!"

Nolan's stomach sank. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. It was just unfair. It was... unreasonable. It was cruel. It was, he had to say, a little overdramatic. Obviously he hadn't expected to play this year. He hadn't even planned to try out until maybe his fourth year when he had a good hold on his studies. But he'd been looking forward to the matches. He'd been excited to see the school matches, cheer on his own team. As part of Slytherin, he had wanted them to beat Gryffindor and hold it over Judoc's head. On top of that, a whole year of no Quidditch would put Slytherin at a disadvantage for the next few years. Who knew if there'd be any skilled older players by the time he wanted to try out.

"She can't do that!" he blurted out. The ache in his stomach deepened. This wasn't fair. It was only his first day and the events of the train had already given him a bad reputation, gotten him detention, and now this. Still don't even know what that whole deal on the train was about in the first place, he thought bitterly.

All his excitement had left him. Nolan stood among the rest of the first years . He looked around to see where Caelum was, he hadn't seen her quite yet. From behind he heard the girl from class talking. Of course she had something to say about all this. "Yeah... Harry Potter. Don't they say he nearly died just about every time he went into the forest?" To be fair, Harry Potter had started nearly dying practically from the day of his birth. But it had been a long day, and now Nolan just wanted to get it over with.

Caelum had been standing apart from the group. She was content to be alone for now. She was an introverted personality by nature. She was gazing at the forest. She had been anxious about the forest all day. She had heard all the stories about how dangerous it was. About all the children who had never returned from their detentions. About all the evil terrible creatures residing within...

All these stories were easily forgotten as soon as she looked at the thing.

It was beautiful. The sun was setting and the light skimmed the distant treetops. She was content then to simply take it all in with her artist eye. She thought about how she would paint the scene before her. She named the various shades of color she saw. Decided which brushes she would utilize and considered the size of her canvas. She traced the craggy horizon in her mind.

She turned, hearing a familiar voice. "Nolan?" Introverted as she was, she appreciated the few she had grown close to. It had only been a few days, and perhaps it was only the stress of the train car, but she felt comfortable around Nolan and Chandler.

Nolan was talking with Roze about the forest and Harry Potter. Dani, the quiet girl had rolled in beside Roze. Caelum did the same, standing by Nolan. She didn't know much about Harry Potter or the forbidden forest.

"Unicorns?" She wondered aloud. She knew that in the wizarding world she would see many things she had taken for granted as fairy tale. The idea of a unicorn intrigued her. The unicorn was a popular totem in muggle art and history: Purity, goodness, and beauty were all exemplified by the noble unicorn in the muggle cultural mind. "Do you think we will see one?"

Charlotte was absolutely ecstatic. She was being punished with an adventure? That was fine by her, she still felt sour about being punished at all! It's not like... well, she knew she could go on and on in her mind about how unfair it was, but there was no sense in that, not when the prospect of this sort of fun was so close at hand.

She was eager to get started, but felt a little low on friendship at the moment.

Another adult approached the group, like Cass he looked like he was barely out of school himself. He was a good looking, if slightly short man of dirty blond hair, that fell in loose curls around his forehead and just over his ears. He set himself apart from students who would otherwise look the same age as him with a short, but full beard.

“Sorry for the wait,” he spoke with an American accent, with a slight Northern inflection that most Brits might not even notice. “I still get lost in the castle, didn’t grow up here like these two,” he gestured at Cass and Charlie. “I’m just as new as you firsties… First Years, pardon me.

“Alright, Charlie. Let’s go?”

He was already holding his wand, in a casual, comfortable sort of way. It was long and crooked, but all of its bends and twists brought the very point back so that it was perfectly in line with the handle.

Roze was somewhat taken aback at Nolan's tone of voice with her - then again, he was a member of Slytherin. Another pang of guilt hit her, along the same question; Why had McGonagall acted so rashly? Hell, even when Umbridge had been at the school, the most she did was ban a couple of students from playing Quidditch - not that entire house.
Looking at Nolan, she shrugged at his question. He wasn't wrong.
"Well, yeah. But that was kinda because of Voldemort, Dementors, giant spiders, Death Eaters... stuff like that. I don't think we'll be encountering any of those things." She said, then paused, frowning slightly. "Apart from maybe the spiders. But my brother used to sneak into the forest all the time and he never saw any. He didn't see any Unicorns either - sorry Caelum." She added, turning to the slightly awe-struck girl who had spoken up.

As Roze felt a tug on her sleeve, she turned to see Dani, and her face split into a wide smile. She'd been getting a bit anxious - other than Dan, she didn't really have any friends; and if the look on the Slytherin's faces were enough to go by, she had a few enemies already.

"Heya Dani! How did your classes go? You must be pretty smart to be able to do non-verbal magic at our age." Roze said, with a hint of envy in her voice - although not in a negative manner. She did feel as though Dani had both advantages and disadvantages to her muteness - but being able to do non-verbal magic would be amazing to conquer. Especially in a dueling situation. When saying an incantation, it is often easy to interrupt your opponent by blasting them or something before they can get the words out. Non-verbal magic would overcome that issue.

Before Roze could say anything else, a newcomer to the group alerted the First-Years to the beginning of their detention. The guy was a newbie, like he had said - but he looked kinda young to be a teacher.

"Huh. I wonder where they got this guy from." Roze murmured to Dani as they began filing into the forest.

"Alright. Let's head out." Charles motioned and lead the way toward the forest. Cassandra would take up the rear, and Richard would be left in the middle to intermingle with the student body.

They followed the path away from the castle and toward the forest.

Caelum looked down, feeling disappointed about the unicorns. Then she looked up and felt something else entirely. The new teacher. She looked away with pink cheeks as she realized she was staring. She reminded herself to walk forward, but felt awkward and self conscious, and she didn't understand why. She kept pace with Chandler and stole glances at the new teacher, Richard, form time to time when she thought no one else would notice. She'd pretend to be glancing over at something else... The horizon... The orange lights in the castle windows... any of the hundreds of dark gnarled trees that now surrounded them.

Outside the forest it was twilight, but inside it was already night. The thick canopy blocked out the sun and the night creatures were already roaming.

Nolan shifted his weight from one foot to the other and back again. He wasn't sure what they were waiting for, but he had already been growing impatient even without the bad news. Of course Roze had an answer for him and Caelum. Of course she did. He merely grunted and turned around at her response. He knew he was being unfair, but he found it hard to care at that exact moment.

It was then a young man made his way to their group, apologizing for being late. Nolan thought he might be a seventh year, but his accent and the way he spoke to the teachers made it clear he wasn't. Well at least even adults find the castle confusing. The thought of this guy asking a second year for directions crossed his mind and he couldn't help but smile just a little bit.

Walking with Caelum he noticed her glancing up and looking around every now and then. "You looking for a unicorn?" he asked. "Hate to say it, but she's right. We probably won't see one. They would probably all avoid a group like this. And I hear they don't really like boys." He looked around himself. "But that doesn't mean we won't see something cool anyway, right?" A small bit of the excitement he'd felt earlier returned, and he looked up into the branches of the trees hoping to see something. "By the way," he murmured to Caelum, "Do you know if anyone's asked what we're supposed to be doing?"

Caelum shook her head as they walked. "I didn't hear... I though it was just some sort of punishment hike. Do they usually give a project or task?"

Caelum found this whole concept and version of 'detention' to be very strange. In muggle schools they punished you with boredom, forcing you to sit in a room for a certain amount of time. In other types of educational institutions, such as in the finishing, boarding, or military schools they might punish the students with push ups or carrying buckets of water or other difficult physical tasks. Was a wizards punishment a difficult magical task?

Cassandra spoke up.

"Alright, I know you haven't had a Herbology class yet... What we are doing is looking for Silver Asphodel. It's a flower, kind of like a Lilly. You have probably seen regular 'ol Asphodel that grows around the castle, it's white and bigger than what we are looking for now. The silver kind only seems to grow in the dark forest and bloom at night. You can't miss it. Tiny silver Lilly, the flute has five or six points, the leaves and stems are a little bit fuzzy like Heather or Billy-Bumblers-Ear. Don't eat it." She passed around soft velvety black pouches to each student. "Be careful not to crush them but try to get the whole thing in tact, including the root and all, in here. The roots don't go deep you won't need much more than your fingers to work it out. If it doesn't come out easy, you might have the wrong plant. Don't pick the wrong plant."

She didn't say why not to pick the wrong plant, speaking as it if were obvious, the way she said don't eat it.