The Wizarding World

Hymie raised an eyebrow at Jenny. It still seemed silly to him that firing spells at people was the only solution she'd come up with. Maybe she was just one of those people that always picked the most violent possible solution to things. He made a mental note not to get on her bad side.

"You know, there's an old muggle saying..." he said. "Give peace a chance,"

--

"Sure," said Laura, as she began picking up her things. "Sure hope our next class is more interesting,"

Gabriel, meanwhile, headed for the bathroom the moment class had ended. He had no idea what had been done to his face; but he'd certainly noticed the way everyone in the class was staring at him. He wondered briefly if someone had hexed him while he was asleep. It seemed unlikely; but it was always a possibility.

The moment he entered the bathroom, he noticed that his face was covered in ink. Someone had made ink drawings all over his face. He had no idea how they'd managed to draw ink glasses, an ink mustache, and even a fucking ink beard without waking him up; but they'd managed it somehow.

At first, he felt relieved to discover that his face hadn't had some weird hex placed on it while he was asleep. However, his relief didn't last as he realized that everyone in the class had seen him with ink all over his face; and no one had said a damned thing.

He then punched the mirror so hard that it broke into pieces; and somehow managed to get a glass shard stuck in his hand. He then yelled profanities for at least a whole minute before he started to calm down.

He inspected his hand; and decided he should probably head to the hospital wing. They would likely have a spell to fix his fist up; and maybe some pain killers so it wouldn't hurt so much.

As he headed towards the hospital wing; he completely forgot to wash off the ink

Jennifer was upset. They all seemed to think she was some brute. Well, that's just what she gets for not knowing better spells, she scolded herself. It's not like she was particularly fast, the other two had been running and it's not like they'd ever listened to her before, so yelling wouldn't have helped, "Well... whatever! It's not like I wanted to come with you in the first place," she huffed and turned, deciding that she'd walk to her next class alone and not accompany them to the hospital wing. Next time, she hoped she'll have been through more than half a day of magic lessons so that she could do something more appropriate to her higher class. That is, IF there was a next time at this rate.

Will punched the air. "Finally!" He exclaimed as Jennifer's form retreated. When she was gone, he turned to the group and said "Let's move then, guys," and with that, the remaining first years made a move to the hospital wing.
-----
The Friday of the first week went without any major note. Will didn't jinx anyone and the disagreements were small if there were any at all. Saturday was as uneventful as a weekend in a magical castle-school could be. Will spent the whole day waiting for his detention to roll around, and he passed the time by taunting Maxine over what a great adventure he was going to have.

Eventually it hit 9pm and Will was already by Hagrid's hut, determinedly ignoring the other participants and electing to smile widely. The giant gamekeeper and Care of Magical Creatures professor emerged and looked around. Will thought he looked a little nostalgic but banished the thought. "All right, is this everyone? I want ted get movin'."

"Lets just get this waste of my time over with," muttered Gabriel.

Gabriel was in a foul mood this evening; or at least, more so than usual. He had done everything in his power and influence to get out of this detention. He'd complained to the teacher; to the headmistress; and had even sent a letter home to his father!

His teacher had simply ignored him. The Headmistress had informed him that she wouldn't tolerate attempts at bribery. Worst of all; his father had sent him a letter explaining in exquisite detail how he was a failure to the family for getting into detention in the first place.

Nobody at the school seemed to be respecting his power or his influence. In fact, he was starting to wonder if he even had power or influence to begin with.

He decided he would just have to establish his authority the commoner way: by hexing the next person who pissed him off. And that person would probably be that Gryffindor he was serving detention with. He hadn't bothered to remember the boy's name.

However, he'd remembered the idiot's face. He never forgot a face.

Maxine sat in a lone classroom, scribbling away at a piece of parchment. Try as she might, her glare would not burn the paper under her quill. Why? Why did that stupid racist get the cool detention and she had to sit here with her busted lip and write 'I will not hit other students' a billion times. It just wasn't fair.

She started the fight anyway! Ruining a perfectly cool prank that was sure to give her the kind of detention she wanted.

She let out a long drawn out sigh. Will was never gonna let hear the end of this. 

---

At the same time, Maxwell was doing his own scribbling in the library. He was taking note of some potions to try while he waited patiently for his fellow Hufflepuff and those two Ravenclaws to arrive. He didn't expect to be tutoring his classmates in the first week of class, but here he was. He wasn't sure how he was going to teach them, actually. Well, he was going to do his best to try at least.

Jennifer, trying her best to keep looking like she was of a higher class even despite the bruise surrounding her eye, was looking at Hagrid with mild boredom and disinterest. She would be more afraid of the Forbidden Forest if she wasn't so upset at having to be here in the first place, and the reason it all happened at all. All she knew for sure was that Maxine seemed to want to do it so she'd be sure to talk highly of it as if it were great fun later.

A brief glance towards the woods, however, and she was met with a cold shiver down her spine. It was quite likely that something horrible lived in there, though she didn't know what, and she wanted nothing to do with it really. She wouldn't have minded being forced to write lines if it meant not going into that scary and, quite honestly dirty, forest.

"Yes I believe we're all that's coming," Jenny responded to Hagrid, "I assume you do know what you're doing in there?" she didn't like it but this big guy was going to be the only one there who she could trust.

------

Samantha had managed, in the very first week no less, to become friends with the "Chefs" of the castle. As such, it's not so startling that when she showed up to the Library she had a sandwich. Unfortunately for her, Madame Pince caught her immediately at the door and the two had a very short argument about whether food should be allowed in the library. Samantha was quite intimidated, and as such quit on the argument almost right away. She hid the sandwich on a indent in the wall near a torch when Pince wasn't looking, then entered the library with a bit of a down face.

Finally arriving at the table where Max was sitting, Sam brightened up at the prospect of hanging out with her friend, and her soon-to-be new friends from Ravenclaw. She was sure this would be, as far as study sessions went, quite fun.

Soon after her arrival, Bartholomew and Hymie showed up at the entrance to the Library, "Are we late?" Bart scratched his head as they entered the library, hoping that this was not the case, "I am unaware of the current time..."

Hagrid eyed Jennifer. "Yeh could say that," he answered, withdrawing a crossbow from the gigantic coat he wore that Will suspected he would struggle to lift let alone wear. "We're goin' fer a look around the forest to see why it's so quiet. Probably nothin' but it's good to know what's goin' on." 

"Why do you have a crossbow?" Will asked.

"'Case somethin' tries ter eat me," Hagrid replied. 

"What could possibly fit you in its mouth? A dragon? Are there dragons in there?" 

Hagrid ignored Will. "This is Fang by the way. He's old so don't be expecting' much from 'im." A large boarhound showing signs of age sat behind Hagrid and Will went over and scratched him behind the ears which he appeared to enjoy. "We'll split inter two groups and go 'ave a nose around." 

"I'll go with Fang," Will said instantly, eyeing the two other students and really wanting to not go with either of them. Hagrid shook his massive head and Will was entertained by how his massive beard bounced.

"Yeh can go with 'im," the man-mountain pointed at Gabriel and Will groaned but acquiesced.

"Fine but I'm still taking Fang. He'll be better company," Will huffed, glaring at Gabriel briefly, and Hagrid nodded in agreement. He then made sure that they could alert each other using sparks from their wands and the two groups set on their separate ways. Will decided to pretend Gabriel wasn't there and instead play with Fang, who was supremely lethargic for a dog. "Who's a good doggy? Who's a good boy?"

"Cool kids like us always arrive fashionably late, bro," said Hymie, walking towards the table where Maxwell was sitting.

He didn't really think he needed a study session for potions; but it was really all he'd been able to think of to get his friend Bart to hang out with that bodacious babe from Hufflepuff. It wasn't like he could just walk up to people and ask them to hang out. That wasn't how cool kids operated.

He took a seat next to Maxwell.

"Hello, homeslices. Lets get this thing brewing,"

--

"Are you seriously leaving me with this brute?" said Gabriel. "He'll likely turn tail and run at the first sign of danger!"

He couldn't believe he'd been paired up with this commoner. What kind of incompetent school teacher would send him into a dangerous forest with only a dog and a muggle-born who likely only knew one spell?

--

Laura, meanwhile, was sitting in library, reading. She'd have preferred to read in the Slytherin common room; but that would mean hanging around the other slytherins. She wanted to avoid the other Slytherins as much as she could.

She briefly looked up from her book to notice Maxine's brother sitting next to a kid who was wearing sunglasses inside the library for some reason. She considered going over and saying hello; but decided against it. She didn't want to disturb their studies.

Arcruss gave a quick tap on Lauras shoulder before taking seat next to her. "You do know you were hard to find right?" He said jokingly. "How could you leave your only friend alone and not invite me?" He said imitating hurtful tone. "Even after we commited such a perfect crime together!" Referring to ink mustache prank.

Maxwell grinned when he spotted Samantha and waved her over. It wasn't soon after her arrival that the two ravenclaws came over to their table as well. 

"No, no, you're just in time," Maxwell assured Bert, probably disappointing Hymie's hope of being fashionably late. When the self proclaimed coolkid took a seat next to him and spoke, he put his fist over his mouth and laughed, "I don't think we'll be doing any brewing quite yet. At least, not until I get Professor Slughorn's permission to use the classroom."

"Actually," He continued on making sure to meet the gazes of all three of his fellow students, "I think we should go over the ingredients today. I think if you understand the components of the potion then you'll be able to better utilize them in potion making, yeah?"

"Don't worry, I'd rather get eaten by a werewolf than hang out with you by choice," Will replied angrily. He wasn't going to be called a coward by some snaky git.

"Alright, send up the sparks if yeh find anything'," Hagrid instructed before setting off into the forest in an opposite direction to Will and Gabriel.

"C'mon, Fang," Will said in a voice reserved for animals and babies. He too departed into the forest, not really caring whether Gabriel was in tow.

The forest was impressive to say the least, and Will just knew that Maxine was going to be deeply jealous. He'd barely stepped foot into the mass of trees - he had used the "lumos" spell he had learned in Charms in order to light the way - and he had already seen a plethora of weird animals and plants. In the distance he could hear movement and the off roar over his footsteps; the eerie stillness of the weather amplified every sound and added to Will's excitement.

That left Jennifer with Hagrid, which she had to admit felt much more reassuring than the alternative. Despite any reassurance she had before entering, she very quickly began to regret ever letting the school send her in here without more of a fight.

Every sound was so amplified, it made her jump a few times, even before a particularly loud sound made her jump right into Hagrid. Instead of apologizing she just stayed up against him, using his size to try and calm her a little. She was terrified and it showed on her face. Jennifer was waving her lit wand in every direction, causing the light to follow it's every movement, waiting for something to jump out at her.

------

"I dislike being late..." Bart muttered but trailed off immediately as they arrived. He sat beside Hymie, opposite from Maxwell. As Max started, he nodded his head, "Ah yes, this makes sense," he responded with a very serious face. 

Samantha was sure she'd get her opportunity to interrupt the study lesson soon, so she just rolled with this for now, "Sure. Uh, do you know what ingredient might have caused my potion to explode...?" some genuine curiosity escaping her, "I'm certain I made that potion right, I must have barely been off with one of the ingredients or something," of course, this was blatantly wrong but what could you expect from her. Bart rolled his eyes a bit.

"What do you mean by 'only friend'?" asked Laura. "I've got other friends! They're just all in detention right now..."

At that point, Laura paused. It suddenly occurred to her that she'd yet to introduce Will and Maxine to Arcruss. She didn't really see any reason they wouldn't get along.

She turned to Arcruss.

"Want to meet them?" she asked.  


--

Gabriel followed after Will. He didn't get why the muggle-born seemed so excited to wander around the forest like a moron. There wasn't much here besides trees and animals. The fool didn't even seem to realize how dangerous the forest was.

According to what he'd heard from his father; the forest was filled with dangerous creatures. There were even rumors of giant spiders, man-eating spiders deep inside the forest!

Not that he was afraid of course. He was sure he could handle anything this forest threw at him. He had his wand, after all. Surely whatever was crawling around in these woods was vulnerable to hexes, right? Even if he only really knew one useful hex...

At that point, he heard the bushes rustle near him; and started to walk a lot faster. Fast enough, in fact, that he caught up to Will and kept pace with him. Even if he didn't really think he could depend on Will to fight off any kind of forest monster; it was always good to have a meat-shield handy.

--

"I dunno. I don't see how we can learn to brew some wicked elixers without brewing us some wicked elixers," said Hymire.

He noticed that Bart hadn't taken the chance to sit with Samantha, and sighed. Clearly the boy wasn't good at grabbing opportunities that were right in front of him. It occurred to him that he'd never actually discussed his plan with Bart; but he decided at this point it didn't matter.

He'd hoped Bart would be able to wow them all by brewing some sweet potions; but he guessed that wasn't an option now. He was supposed he would have to try to think of something else.

"Well, Sam," Maxwell rubbed at his neck awkwardly, trying to find a way to put it without offending his friend, "It wasn't any one ingredient that caused the explosion. It was that you er... added things too haphazardly, some of those things not even part of the brewing recipe."

"But.. uh," He added quickly, giving her a pleasant smile, "With my help, you'll be making non-explodey potions in no time! I'm sure of it!" 

He then turned to Hymie, "We'll get to brewing next time, right now let's just focus on what we need to do and making sure everyone understands the instructions."

"Detention? sound like a fun friends." Arcruss spoke brightly. " I would love to meet them. So, what did they do to get Detention?" He asked picking up the feather used in writing, waiting Laura's response.

"What's wrong, afraid?" Will laughed, noticing Gabriel speeding up as he strolled through the forest. Although the forest was rather eerie it was more intriguing than scary for the Gryffindor. He noticed Fang's head turning at every little sound. So the dog was afraid too. Brilliant.

Another roar emanated from the forest and Will paused slightly to determine where it came from. It was closer than before. Had it moved or was Will just approaching it. Or both? Will turned towards where the noise came from. "We're going this way," he stated. It might have been what they were looking for after all.

Jennifer shrieked aloud a little as a roar came from deep in the forest. Wasn't that the direction the others went? Ahhh what was she supposed to be doing here anyway? She wanted to go back to the Gryffindor Common room, where it was nice and warm, she didn't even care if Maxine was there. This forest was horrible, absolutely horrible.

Another sound closer by went off, and she immediately turned and shot a Flipendo spell into a nearby tree on instinct, shattering a bit of the bark, "Oops..." No doubt Hagrid had more important things to worry about than her breaking the trees in the forest, but maybe he was enjoying her antics.

----_-

As Maxwell explained to her that it was indeed her fault entirely for messing up the potion, she had a look on her face like she was crushed. Her eyes started watering a bit, and she was pouting. Ahhh, was she really that bad at potions?

Maxwell didn't waste any time trying to cheer her back up though, and she shook the sad expression from her face, "Yeah, ok!" She had a look of determination on her face now. Maybe she was really getting serious about this, "With your help, I'll become one of the greatest potion brewer people that ever lived!"

"They're called alchemists, you know," Bart input, a look of slight amusement and slight annoyance, mixed together, on his face.

"Well, uh... Will got detention for getting into a fight with Gabriel; and Maxine is in detention for getting into a fist fight with Jennifer," said Laura.

It occurred to her that what she just said made her friends sound like a bunch of violent delinquents.

"...they're actually really nice when you get to know them," she said, not sure if that was really a good save.

--

"Yeah, my man Bart here knows all sort of things about alchemistry," said Hymie. 

At this point, his plan was to get some sort of conversation going. His plans had been somewhat derailed; but they might get back on track if he could get Bart talking to the girl.

Movies had made this seem so much easier.

--

"Perish the thought. I simply refuse to let a commoner like yourself lead the way," said Gabriel.

For about the tenth time that day; Gabriel considered hexing Will and leaving him in the woods. However, he didn't know much magic; and couldn't do much more than elongate his teeth.

Though he supposed that would likely shut him up.

"Well, I guess that means you can help me with instructing the others, Bart," Maxwell said with complete and honest sincerity. Soon after, they went straight to the books, going over all of the material the blonde boy wanted to cover to help his new friends better understand the potion they had been making.

After an hour or so of studying, Maxwell closed his book and look expectantly at the others, "Well, that's it I suppose. Uhm... I guess we go to back to our common rooms now...?"

"Ooh, commoner," Will mocked. He probably would have said more but he stepped into a clearing that had been torn apart utterly and demanded more attention. Will doubted this had been a clearing until whatever had caused this utter annihilation had gotten there. Trees had been uprooted, a few animals lay dead upon the floor and there was a distinct smell of burnt wood originating from the scorch marks Will spied. The animals were mangled horrifically and messily but the adrenaline and excitement prevailed in Will's body.

"So I think we're close," Will commented offhandedly as Fang started to whimper. The boy looked down at the dog and followed his line of sight, which led through more trees. Fang wouldn't budge. "C'mon Fang!" He urged, but the dog pointed its nose at the scraps and unrecognisable remains of the forest animals. The message was clear. The dog didn't want to end up like that.

Samantha stretched out on top of the table, "Agghhhh, yeah, lets just go back..." She eyed the two Ravenclaw boys, "Uhm, are they allowed to come with us? We can go hang out without talking about school, or at least not the studying part," She had to admit, it was a lot more fun to study with these three than in a class, but she felt mentally exhausted from how focused she had been at the start. She perked up though, thinking about having fun in the common room, "I can show you guys my cat Salty!"

Bart shook his head, "As much fun as that sounds, I don't reeeally think it's a good idea," he didn't say it to be mean, he was just stating it as a fact.

"Oh, well..." Samantha had a good backup idea, "How about we go to the kitchens?" yes this was perfect, "I'm feeling a bit hungry after that study session anyway," she added, rubbing her stomach.

"Anybody willing to give that snobby Gabriel tough time is already a friend on my list..... Can't stand his kind acting all high and mighty because of blood purity, not all Nobles are pure blooded...." Arcruss spoke last part to himself quietly making Laura unable to hear it properly.

"I'm down with grabbing some grub," said Hymie.

In truth; he was already getting sick of studying. Reading about potions was a lot less interesting than brewing them. Furthermore he wasn't really making any progress on the "getting Bart to talk to the girl" front.

Maybe he'd think of something after he ate.

--

"Yeah...well, anyway, I think Maxine should get out of detention soon," said Laura. "Lets go meet her!"

--

As he came upon the gruesome sight; Gabriel suddenly became sick to his stomach.  However, he refused to puke. There was no way in hell he was going to show such a weakness in front of Will.

He took a deep breath; and managed to calm himself down. Now was not the time to freak out; now was the time to think rationally about the situation.

Whatever it was they were looking for; it seemed to have fed here. Multiple times, in fact, judging from the large amount of remains. Perhaps this place was it's feeding ground? If so, it would probably be back.

"Perhaps we should leave," he said, trying and failing to sound calm. "Or summon the groundskeeper,"

"Going to the kitchens seem like a grand idea," Maxwell agreed enthusiastically. He had been meaning to go take a better look around of the kitchens for some time now. He wondered if he'd be allowed to cook in it. He sure hoped so! In fact...

"If I can get permission, I'll bake you guys something. How does that sound?"

"Nah," Will replied, venturing into the trees and disappearing into the darkness. He left Fang in the clearing with Gabriel and then circled around, an evil plan in mind. He deliberately stepped on a few twigs, cracking them under his feet and waited for Fang to look at him, then jumped out of the trees with a loud, lion-like roar.

"Ahahahha!" The Gryffindor cackled as Fang fled back the way they had come from. Or that was the way he thought anyway. Oh they were lost. Oh well. Will continued to cackle as the echo of his roar came back around, sounding much better in the echo, even increasing in volume. A snake hissed in protest at the noise and a goat, a particularly vicious sounding goat, bleated. Will did not question what a goat was doing in a forest.

"Oh that was brilliant... you should ha-have... seen your face!" He managed to get out between gasps for breath, his laughter masking the crack of twigs. Another roar came, louder than the echo.

"Huh that was pretty delayed," Will commented before his eyes widened. "Move!" He bellowed, tackling Gabriel and avoiding a burst of fire.

Out of the curtains of the forest, a monster emerged.

Samantha looked at Maxwell with a twinkle in her eyes, "You c-can bake?" she was drooling slightly, "I bet the elves would be perfectly fine with you baking something! Yes!" She quickly got up from the table and started skipping towards the door from the Library.

When the others inevitably followed her into the hallway, they would find her holding a sandwich covered in ants, "Awww..." She'll have to throw this away now. What a waste! "Darn that Librarian..."

"Lead the way then~ " He said, standing up from hi chair, bit too eagerly. Almost tipping over the ink bottle.

Hymie noticed the way Samantha stared at Maxwell after he mentioned he could bake; and turned to Bart.

"Yo dawg, you might want to learn to cook," he said, before following Sam and Max into the hallway.

--

"Ok then!" said Laura, as she lead him out of the library.

Soon, they were waiting outside the classroom Maxine was serving detention in. Detention would likely be out soon. Probably. In truth, Laura had no idea how long her friend would be in detention.

She supposed that if she didn't come out soon; they could go do something else. It wasn't as if she was in some kind of hurry to introduce Arcruss to the rest of her friends.

She briefly wondered if Will was doing something interesting; but she doubted it. It seemed unlikely to her that his forest detention would be as adventurous as he'd hoped.

--

"Hey, where are you going?" asked Gabriel, as Will walked out of sight.

Not that he cared that the other boy had just abandoned him in the middle of the woods. He wasn't at all worried about being alone in the forest full of monsters. And even if he was; it CERTAINLY beat Will's company. In any case, he didn't really have any reason to be afraid....

...until something suddenly jumped out of the bushes and roared at him. He was so startled that he fell backwards onto his ass. He reflexively drew his wand; preparing to hex whatever foul creature had just jumped out of him!

However, he realized who it was before he could even speak the incantation. It was Will. It occurred to him that he should probably have seen this coming. It seemed to him that Will was just the type of person to abandon someone in the woods; then jump out and scare them. 

He got to his feet, and headed towards Will; ready to give him a piece of his mind.

"YOU MORONIC SON OF A..." he started to say, before Will suddenly tackled him to the ground.

Before he could protest; a burst of flame flew through the spot he'd previously occupied. It occurred to him that if Will hadn't tackled him to the ground; he would have been burnt to a crisp right about now. It also occurred to him that they were still in danger of being burnt to crisp if they didn't get out of there right now.


He struggled to his feet; and pointed his wand at the monster. It was pretty hideous; it looked like a bunch of different animals had been shoved together into some kind of abomination. It was also fairly large; and he doubted very much that the handful of spells he knew would be useful against it.

However, he had to try something.

"Incendio!" he said, sending a small burst of flame at what he hoped was the monster's face.

Without bothering to see if the flames did much damage; he quickly grabbed Will's arm and ran.

Will scampered through the forest as the monster snarled and roared at them and gained ground - it was fast. The two boys made it through a small gap between two trees, trees that were probably thousands of years old due to their sheer girth, and Will stopped and looked back. The beast, being bigger than the gamekeeper's hut, couldn't fit through the gap. Will stopped and turned, panting slightly. "Haha!" He laughed at the creature, which seemed to understand that Will was mocking it.

It spat fire at Will, which he dodged nimbly. Then it thrashed its tail against the tree and roared loudly, as if it was throwing a tantrum. "Wow, someone isn't happy," commented the Gryffindor as if the monster was as trivial as a child. 

And then the tree fell. 

In the light of the fire Will saw that the monster was comprised of a lion's head, a goat's body and a reptilian tail that looked rather powerful and lethal. "Damn! Move!" He shouted as the thing charged at Will who dived out of the way quite easily. It was very fast but its acceleration was not its greatest trait. Nevertheless, whatever it was had separated the two boys. It seemed confused as to whether it should go for Will or Gabriel and instead of acting just stood there looking from side to side. "Oh good, it's really stupid," Will commented.

Then he got an idea, one which he was pretty proud of. "Can you put out the fire? If it can't see it won't be able to get us, right?"

Maxwell patted Samantha on the back in empathy, "I'll make you something even more delicious to make up for it."

He then set off down the halls to the kitchens. It wasn't long before they arrived there. The young hufflepuff looked at the door with hesitance. This was actually the first time he was ever going to the kitchens directly. He glanced back at Samantha and the Ravenclaws, "You sure it's okay that we're here Sam?"

---

Maxine flexed her hand as she walked out of the detention room.

"Ugh, my hands are cramping now," She grimaced, not noticing the two Slytherin students waiting for her until it was too late. She bumped right into Laura, sending herself sprawling in the floor.God, she really needed to stop doing that. What was it? The hundredth billion time she bumped into someone this week alone?