The Wizarding World

Arcruss Helped Laura up from the floor When she collided with Gryffindor student. "I think you dazed there for a second Laura."

Samantha perked right up at what Maxwell said, and merrily skipped along beside him.

Once they reached the kitchen, Maxwell seemed hesitant, "No worries, Max! I know the cooks personally! I bet they'll let you make whatever you want, for sure!" Her mouth was watering at the prospect of finally getting to taste Max's cooking. She wondered what kind of food he would make.

Laura fell backwards after Maxine walked right into her; landing flat on her back. She lay on the ground dazed for a moment before Arcruss helped her to her feet.

"I'm alright," she said, rubbing the back of her head.

She honestly had no idea how she'd managed to crash into Maxine. However, that didn't really matter. The important thing was that no one was hurt. She turned to Maxine.

"You okay, Max?" she asked.

It occurred to her that she still hadn't introduced Arcruss. She pointed towards him.

"This is Arcruss," she said. "He's a friend of mine,"

--

Hymie walked into the kitchen. At this point, he had pretty much almost given up on setting Bart up with Sam. In fact, he was pretty sure she was into that other guy by the way she was staring at him with her mouth watering.

Oh well, he'd tried. Come to think of it, Bart hadn't attempted to put any moves on the girl at all. He wondered, briefly, if maybe, just maybe, he wasn't interested in her at all. However, he dismissed such silly thoughts.

Bart was probably just too shy to try anything. This was clearly a situation straight out of his grandmother's muggle movies. And when had movies ever been wrong?

--

"That is the most moronic plan I have ever heard!" said Gabriel, sounding incredibly annoyed.

He didn't really know any extinguishing spells; and he doubted the plan would work even if he did. Even if the monster didn't see them; it could probably smell them. Or hear them running away. Or just light more fires. It seemed like there were a million things that could go wrong with the plan.

On the other hand; he couldn't think of a plan that sounded any less idiotic. Though perhaps Will was on the right track. While he couldn't think of a way to put out the flames; they might be able to take out it's vision somehow.

A really desperate plan came to mind. However, he doubted he would have time to pull it off before the monster decided to go after him. He turned to Will.

"Provide a distraction," he said, before running off and not waiting for an answer.

"Eh, what? Are you serious?" Will asked angrily, but realised he wasn't going to get a response as the Slytherin ran off. "Bloody hell," he muttered as the monster looked at the boy who was running and Will realised he was going to have to act, as much as he thought Gabriel may have deserved to be eaten by some giant beastie.

"OI, UGLY!" Will screamed at the top of his voice, charging the monster that struck him with its tail without looking. The tail struck with monstrous force and Will just about managed to twist out of a direct hit. The tip of the tail smashed into his face, slashing his cheek. Will was sent flying but managed to roll and scamper to his feet pretty quickly. The tail had hit him into a position where he could see the thing's face and Will raised his wand. "Flipendo!" A jet of blue light shot out of the stick of wood and hit the beast directly in Will's target: the eye. 

The monster had been ready to charge at Gabriel but the spell had caught its attention. It didn't so much as knock the monster back as it poked it in the eye but that was more than enough. It let off a monstrous roar and Will winced at the volume. He spotted that the eye had gone pink, slightly irritated by the spell. 

The thing was more than irritated; Wills earlier assessment of its low acceleration became void as it surprised him with a sudden charge and he barely managed to move. "Hurry up," He groaned as he readied himself for another assault.

Maxwell nodded, puffing in a breath of air to build up his resolve. He sure hoped Samantha was right and they were allowed to go down there. He'd hate to get in trouble.

He opened the entrance to the kitchen and headed inside, only to stop abruptly and blink with surprise. Never had he seen such creatures as these before. Small with pointed ears, not quite the elves from the stories he was used to. But he had saw mention of house elves in books before. Were these really it?

He realized he was staring quite blatantly at the elves, "Ah.. um," He coughed nervously and looked away.

---

"A little bruised but no worse than when I got here. Did you know that prejudiced gryffindor girl can put up an actual fight?" Maxine said as she stood up and was introduced to the other boy, "Oh, hello! A friend of Laura's is a friend of mine! I'm Maxine, but I'm sure you already knew that."

Samantha smiled at the house elves, "Hello everyone!" a few responded in kind, though most kept to their business, as they appeared to be quite busy. The hustle and bustle of the kitchen never seems to stop, with elves running here and there, and the smell of the place was one that was sure to inspire curiosity and hunger all at once.

"Everyone, I'd like you to meet my friends! This is Max, Bart, and Hymie! Guys, these," she gestured to the kitchen, "Are the wonderful cooks who make your meals every day! Aren't they just so nice?" she was definitely in her element here, her smile never leaving her face.

Several of the house elves responded with little bows of respect, though a few who had watched them enter seemed to notice they were needed elsewhere and started off to do whatever they needed to do.

"well only half way I did know, rest you filled yourself. What's this about gryffindor girl putting up a fight?" Already curious to hear about it.

"Yo," said Hymie, to the house elves.

He looked around the kitchen; watching as the house elves went about their work. They seemed to be pretty busy. He briefly wondered if they'd be getting in the house elves' way if they started using the kitchen right now.

However, the elves didn't seem to be paying them much mind at all; so he decided not to worry about it. Instead, he turned his attention to Sam and Max.

"So, how'd you and the house elves get so tight?" he asked, genuinely curious.

--

"At least she didn't start casting spells," said Laura. "Maybe picking fights with wizards isn't such a good idea,"


--

At that point, a rock suddenly slammed into the side of the creatures face.

"Hey! You big...ugly... thing!" yelled Gabriel, attempting to get the creature's attention.

He was currently sitting atop a broom that he'd found on the ground. He had no idea what the hell a broom was doing in the middle of the forbidden forest; but he wasn't going to complain.

Now he all he had to do was get the monster to chase him a ways; then circle around and save the annoying peasant. It ought to go smoothly provided Will didn't do something stupid.

Will righted himself as the beast chased Gabriel, first breathing a jet of fire at him and then physically following the boy, storming through the forest. 

Will did something stupid.

He too followed the Slytherin, thus preventing himself from being rescued. The creature raged and ranted, and continued to charge for its airborne tormentor. And then it paused as another roar came from deeper in the forest. It looked in that direction.

"Two?!" Will asked in surprise. The thing followed the noise rather than Gabriel and this time Will decided not to follow it immediately. "Well... damn," He sighed, brushing himself off and feeling at his wounds.

While Sam and Hymie talked, Max went over to one of the house elves nervously. He fidgeted, twisting his hands front of him, "Uhm, would it be okay if I used the kitchen to make something?"

The house elf blinked before smiling and giving a slight nod. It didn't seem this elf was much of a talker, but at least Maxwell understood the answer well enough. 

"Okay, I'm going to go see what they have," The boy told his friends before wandering off to the food storage.

---

"Well, I didn't start the the fight! She was the one who decided to get in the way of my totally great plan!" Maxine crossed her arms over her chest and scowled, "Why is she such a busy body, anyway? She should just mind her own business!"

Samantha looked back to Hymie and shrugged, "Well, I came down here looking for a little snack, and sure enough I found the House Elves. I was really surprised at first, but they are actually a lot of fun!" 

As Maxwell went off to make food, she beamed at him, "That's great! Oh I can't wait to try what you cook, hehehe," she seemed more excited than she probably should be.

Bart nodded to Max as well, and looked around at the House Elves. His face was full of curiosity, "Hey, may I inquire as to a few of your functions?" he said, talking to one of the house elves, who sort of shrugged, "I mean, I've never come across a House Elf before. Is it true that you can all apparate within the castle wherever you want? Even though wizards can't?" The elf looked uncomfortable but nodded, "You are quite amazing creatures I must say," his face was alight, having found his true reason for coming down here. Or at least, that's what was going through his head.

Gabriel looked back to notice that not only had Will done something stupid; but now there were two monsters out to kill him. He wasn't sure how Will had screwed up badly enough to summon another monster. However, he was sure stupidity had found away.

He once again considered flying away; and leaving Will to die. However, he still owed Will for saving his ass earlier. So instead of flying away like a sensible person; he turned the broom around so that he was now flying towards the monster.

Before the monster could fry him with it's fire breathe; he swerved to the left; and flew past it. He sighed with relief; genuinely surprised that he'd pulled off that maneuver. Now all he would have to do would be to get close enough to Will to pull him onto the broom.

Unfortunately, his plan came to an abrupt halt when the monster smacked him with it's tail, knocking him right off the broom. He landed on his back; and lost consciousness.

The broom landed somewhere in the trees.

--

"Maybe she doesn't think you're worthy to be in Gryffindor?" Laura suggested. 

Laura recalled her brief meeting with Jennifer on the train. The girl had seemed quite proud to be a 'Gryffindor-born Pure Blood' in her own words. It didn't seem likely that Jenny would ever warm up to having a muggle-born in the same house as her.

"Some people here seem to take houses way too seriously,"

--

"These little dudes seem pretty chill," said Hymie, before turning his attention to Maxwell.

"So, what kind of cool confections are you whipping up there, homie?" he asked.

"Ah, yeah, that's true," Maxine replied, scratching at the back of her head. Though, she felt like Jennifer took it beyond what was usually expected of those types of people. She never actually saw the girl get on any but her and Will's cases, "Well anyway, it's getting pretty late right? We should all get to our rooms. Uhm, it was nice meeting you Arcruss. I'll see you two tomorrow, kay?" 

With a smile and a wave, Maxine jogged off down the hall. Truth be told, she wanted to get back before Will did so she could hear all about the Forbidden Forest.

---

"Oh, just some cookies," Maxwell said as he went about the preparations. He was going to do his absolute best to make something truly delicious for his friends. He didn't have a lot of time, though, as it was getting pretty close to the time for them to retire to their respective common rooms. Thankfully, cookies were relatively quick and easy to make. 

While his friends went about chatting, or in Bart's case interviewing the house elves, Maxwell worked diligently at his cooking only ever pausing to smile and reply to any questions or statements directed at him. It wasn't long before he had four very small bags of cookies ready for each of them.

"I don't think we really have time to eat them here, so you should go ahead and take them to the rooms," He said this as he handed Hymie his bag then Bart, "We'll meet you guys tomorrow, alright? I'll try and get us some time in the potion room for more hands on studying too!"

Bidding the two Ravenclaws farewell, he turned to Sam, handing her a bag, "Come on, we can walk back together."

Will spotted the Slytherin plummet to the floor from the broom and saw the beast leave the area, probably going towards the matching call. The Gryffindor dragged his wounded self over to Gabriel and with great effort began dragging him through the forest. "Bloody hell."
______

Eventually Gabriel had stirred and they had made it out of the forest, with less bickering than usual due to fatigue and injury. Once there they saw Hagrid without Jennifer but with Fang.

"Oh hello, Fang," Will greeted the dog, who had betrayed them and left them to be eaten, coolly. Hagrid looked somewhat surprised at their state. Before he could speak, Will answered the question rather casually. "What this?" He surveyed himself. "Yeah we were attacked. No big deal."

Hagrid seemed unsurprised. The forest was dangerous but Will didn't think that was very responsible of him and that he probably should have investigated. Hagrid was rapidly becoming Will's favourite teacher.

"Yer bleedin'" pointed out the half-giant, and Will wiped his face.

"Well yes, but it's not that bad."

"No, yer goin' to the hospital wing. Both of yer," He added with a look at Gabriel. 

"Okay," Will replied, before leaving to the castle. "Thanks!" he called back, leaving Hagrid confused.

"Fer what?"
___________

Will reached the castle with Gabriel and paused. "Well, time to go to the hospital wing. Have fun with that!" And without waiting for a response he bolted to the Gryffindor common room.

"What happened to you?" Asked the Fat Lady.

"I got attacked. Chimaera," replied Will cheerfully and the Fat Lady huffed as she swung open.

"That's what you get for misbehaving!" The portrait lectured as she opened up. Will shrugged, he was looking way too forward to telling Maxine what had happened to care much. Apparently she had been eager to find out too, as she was waiting up for him.

"That forest is amazing!" He burst out as he dropped into a chair in front of the roaring fire. The common room was deserted as Will told his tale to his friend.

Arcruss listened with great interest, but when it came time to say goodbye, he waved back at Maxine who was heading back to her dorms. " She was quite nice." He commented when Maxine was gone from the view. 

"Is it already that late..?" Arcruss asked from Laura while scratching his own head. " Does this mean I don't get to meet the rest of your friends..?"

After the excitement of the Forbidden Forest, time passed without anymore incidents. Which, by the way, was a major buzz kill for our resident wannabe adventurer. In fact, she was half tempted to go see that giant three headed dog again just for some sort of excitement! 

So here she was at the beginning of October, idly playing with her breakfast. The clearly bored girl, let out a long, drawn out sigh, "It's not fair. All this time and still nothing remotely cool has happened to me. I haven't even been to the forest yet. I've gotten so many detentions but never the one I actually want!"

"Even Maxwell got invited to this slug club thing. I don't know what that is but I bet it's a a lot more cooler than the load of nothing I've gotten to do," Maxine picked up a big syrupy mess of pancakes with her fork and plopped it into her mouth as she kept talking, "Well I at leath learnin thpells ith kinda awethome."

---

Over the course of their time studying, Maxwell had grown to be pretty good friends with the two ravenclaws and Sam. Though, he wasn't sure how well Sam was actually improving. At least, explosions only happened once every two or so weeks now. Regardless, he was having fun and was getting better at his reactions when getting out of the blast radius. 

He had also made good friends with the house elves over time, allowing him to come in every once in awhile and bake. "So, uhm, I'm not really sure about this Slug club thing," The boy confided in his friend while she most definitely gorged out on breakfast, "There's gonna be so many older students. It's kinda intimidating."

Jennifer shuddered once again at the bad eating habits of some of those around her, but by this point in time had simply stopped trying to change that. She instead took another route, "Ah the Slug Club. It's a place only the elites can really get into, those with great familial history or those with amazing talent. I'm not surprised you weren't able to get in. Though I will say that I am surprised your brother could, but it's possible that some simply luck out," she let out a small laugh before taking a small bite of her food.

----

Sam looked at Maxwell, chewing on some food, then swallowed hard and took a deep breath before talking, "Well it sounds really fun at least! I hear he has great food at the parties," her eyes were wide with something akin to wonder as she quickly ate up some bacon, before swallowing and continuing, "Ah, but, who knows? Maybe there'll be other first years you can get along with! I'm sure you'll be fine, you're such a great guy I bet everyone there'll love you immediately!" she beamed at him while reaching sideways for yet more food.

----

Bart was barely nibbling on some of his food, looking a little agitated. He was sitting next to his friend Hymie at the Ravenclaw table, but hadn't really said anything at all the whole morning.

Will disagreed with Jennifer, although he didn't know he had done it. "Slughorn's a dickhead, and I don't wanna be in his little suck up club," he said to Maxine. He crammed a sausage into his mouth and looked thoughtful before adding through a mouthful of food, "'o offenf."

Maxine and Will were similar, and Will could empathise with her restlessness. "We can definitely do something fun without anyone else. It's a magical castle there has to be something!" Will had been doing fairly well in Defence but his spell casting and general learning in everything else had been pretty poor. Apart from practical Defence Against the Dark Arts, some of Charms had been going okay and he'd managed to transfigure one of Jennifer's books into a flock of birds whilst she was reading it.

However, Potions was going poorly and Slughorn had taken a particular disliking to Will for his tendency to try potions. He'd rather not have Will in his room however, and had outsourced most of the detentions to Hagrid who had failed to match his first detention but provided Will with a fairly enjoyable few evening nevertheless, usually with heavy lifting and inedible food.

"lets head back to the commons for now," said Laura. "I'm sure you'll get plenty of chances to meet Will,"

(TIME SKIP!)

It had been quite an uneventful school year so far for Laura. Or at least, as unexciting as going to a magical school could be anyway. She was doing ok in her classes; and was even improving her spellcasting somewhat.

She'd tried researching the monster that attacked Will in the woods; but so far hadn't found much. Any information involving it would probably be in the restricted section. There was no way she was going near that section without some kind of plan.  

She sighed and turned to Arcruss.

"How long do you think it's going to be before something else interesting happens?" she asked.

It was at that exact moment that Gabriel suddenly stood up; and walked towards the Gryffindor table.

--

Gabriel had spent a considerable amount of time thinking. A lot of it had to do with his world views; and how being rescued by a filthy peasant fit into them.

Most of it, however, was about how he was going to take revenge on the big damned monster that had humiliated him. He'd tried researching it; but he didn't have the patience for research. He was one going to be one of the people running the world someday; he got other people to do this kind of shit for him.

He would need back up if he was going to try to take on that monster again. And by backup, he meant canon-fodder. Hence the reason he was currently heading towards Will's table.

He walked straight up to where Will was sitting.

"We need to talk about what happened in the forest," he said, somewhat bluntly.

--

"So, Bart my man," said Hymie. "Why you so quiet?"

"My brother has every right to be in that club. He is a way better person than you ever will be!" Maxine fumed, clenching her fist tight around her fork. It wasn't until Will spoke that she relaxed.

"Eh, you're right Will, Slughorn is an ass," She remembered the first day of his class, clearly. The delight he had at finding out she was Maxwell's muggleborn twin and then the crushing disappointment when he realized she utterly failed at potions just as badly as she failed at cooking, "Though, if you're implying another castle exploration, I am definitely up for it! Just make sure some people keep their snooty little noses out of it."

The blonde shot a piercing glare at Jennifer.

----

Maxwell sighed, "Yeah, maybe." He wasn't all that sure about everyone loving him immediately, "I wish you or Maxine could go with me. At least that way, I'd have someone I know there. Actually, when I tried asking if my sister could come, Professor Slughorn's face turned a peculiar shade of blue."

The boy frowned slightly, "I wonder what she's been up to. I haven't had anytime to talk to her inbetween classes and her perpetual detentions."

The dining hall was always way too loud for Tasha's taste. Too many people had too much to say, and almost none of it was at all interesting to her, especially not amongst the Ravenclaws. If she could sit with the Gryffindors, perhaps she could at least pick up on what was going on around in their lives instead of just in their classes. Her pancakes were cooling rapidly as she stared aimlessly into the back of a random student. She clung idly to a conversation to her right between two frustrated Alchemy students, but was easily broken from it when she noticed an unfamiliar Slytherin rise from his table to approach a Gryffindor at his table. Generally ignored by the people around her, she made no move to hide her interest. In fact, she was dangerously close to leaning right into her breakfast as she strained to try and hear what was going on. It seemed futile, but the longer she stared, the easier it was was to focus, and the far too mindful chatter faded into the background. She chewed her lip absently, as always, not even close to being aware of her own actions.

"Hmph!" Jennifer had gotten used to Maxine's responses. The fact Maxine thought herself to be so much better than her was obnoxious, in Jennifer's opinion. Really, how could her brother be better than her when she's pure blood? Even further, when it came to schooling, she felt she was far superior to the others in her year at the things she wanted to be good at. Sure she was making no progress in defense against the dark arts, but that class was full of such brutish spells anyway. In fact, she had already sworn she would avoid using most of that magic to the best of her abilities, at least the offensive spells.

She then took notice of the sudden Slytherin student coming towards her table, and ended up addressing Will, who wasn't that far from her really, "Consorting with Slytherins, really," she said under her breath, not wanting the Slytherin to hear her if possible, but she figured other Gryffindors around her would probably agree.

----

Samantha frowned a bit, realizing that Maxwell really was worried. Well, she'll just have to keephim cheered up! Putting on a determined expression, she pointed at the Slytherin that had managed to make a bit of a scene, "Well, you could do like him and just walk up to her! I can go with you if you feel like you'd stand out too much. Ah, though, we can also wait until after we eat, if you'd prefer?" that last part was absolutely, definitely, most certainly not in reference to the food she had just put on her plate. It was definitely because there'd be less people towards the end of the meal staying in the hall. She was a very good friend, after all, and didn't want him to feel embarrassed.

----

Bart was doing great in his classes, you know? He was having a great time even, learning things he'd never even heard of before. Sure he was having some trouble applying it, but should he really care? He knew it better than anyone else, the rest didn't matter yet since he didn't need it. But, it was just weird. Why was he upset? Well, he did know, but he didn't want to admit it because he knew it was petty.

He sighed and turned his head slightly, noticing a girl staring at the slytherin kid as if she were obsessed with him. Oh wait, it's that girl who stares all the time isn't it? He sort of half shrugged to himself as he kept looking in her general direction. At this moment, he wasn't too worried about her. He thought about how to answer Hymie, taking way too long to think about it.

Will frowned at her. She had a point, Gabriel wasn't his friend despite the fact that they survived the monster attack together. Will had decided to just avoid him - neither of them wanted to be friends.

So Will agreed with Jennifer, not that he'd admit that. "Shut up, Jennifer," He groaned as if she had been talking forever and he was sick of her voice. Well, he was sick of her voice at least. But why was Gabriel trying to talk to him? It had to be important or the Slytherin would never have swallowed his pride and come over. He turned to Gabriel. "Yeah, what?" He asked, his tone somewhat unnecessarily challenging.

"Look's like right about now." He said as he notice Gabriel Walk toward Gryffindor table. He turned his gaze back to pitcher infront of him before he waved his wand and mumbled something. The pitcher shook couple second before turning frog green and started emit icky smell. "Ach... not again... hmm... Maybe I could utilize this spell in some manner.." He mused to himself and pinched his nose because of the smell.

"I want to kill that monster we encountered in the Forbidden Forest," said Gabriel. "And to do that, I will most likely require assistance,"

--

Hymie waved his hand in front of Bart's face.

"Earth to Bart-bro? Come in Bart-bro?" he said.

He noticed Bart was looking in the direction of a girl. It seemed obvious to him what was going on: Bart had another crush. Apparently he had moved on quite quickly.

He quickly took a seat next to the girl.

"Hey there, pretty lady," he said. "Does a groovy lady like you need a study partner? Cause my homie Bart over there has some mad study skills,"

--

"I hope he's not going to go pick a fight with will," said Laura. "Maybe I should go over there and try to..."

It was at that point that Arcruss randomly turned a pitcher into a green, smelly...thing. She put her hand to her nose; attempting to block out the disgusting smell.

"Why would you even do that?!" she demanded.

"What." It wasn't a question, but a flat out baffled statement as she turned to stare at the Slytherin boy, "You want to fight a Ch-" 

She stopped herself, side glancing Jennifer. She didn't know about Will, but she sure as hell didn't tell Ms. Big Mouth Busybody about what happened to her friend. Should they even be talking about this in front of her? Maxine betted that the girl would squeal to a teacher at a moments notice, "You're serious, huh. Maybe you should, I don't know, talk about this in private?"

---

"Oh! That sounds like a grand idea," Maxwell nodded, turning towards the Gryffindor table. It was at that moment that he noticed the Slytherin talking to them, "But it looks like they're busy, uh, let's just go after breakfast is over, yeah."

Jennifer's face was as you might expect, startled at the sudden idea of some sort of killing some creature, and in the forbidden forest no less! She was going to say something but caught Maxine's glance. They were going to try and keep her out of it, she realized. Well, she wasn't going to let that happen!

"You shouldn't be going to the Forbidden Forest just to kill something there. How would that reflect back on us?!" she looked at Gabriel, "I don't much care if the Slytherins want to go cause trouble, but I won't stand for the Gryffindor name to be tarnished any further. Maxine's causing plenty of trouble as it is," she looked at her as she said so, mostly implying all the random detentions she'd caught herself in.

----

"Mhm, best to wait until there's less of a crowd," Samantha was happy with Maxwell's decision, and she returned to her regularly scheduled eating.

"Oh fine," Will sighed, piling his plate with meat and grabbing a fork. His dad had always told him breakfast was the most important meal of the day, after all. "Where d'you wanna go?" He crammed some food into his mouth and said "'o boom cosets!" He gulped the food down. "I'm very pretty and I don't want you doing anything I'll have to hex you for."

Will left the table with Gabriel and considered his options. He wasn't the type to kill stuff randomly like the kids on the corner that used to shoot cats with bb guns, but his old man had taken him hunting for pheasants once and it had been a fun experience. And this chim- whatever, as they had identified the beast as, had smacked him around quite a bit. It wasn't as much a hunt as a battle and his pride was on the line. That being said, Will hadn't learned anything since then that would be big enough to beat the enemy in question.

Try as she might, Tasha just could not get what she wanted from the conversation. They were simply too far away, and they were never facing her long enough for her to gather what was going on. As she leaned back from the table, defeated, she noticed the boy, suddenly in her personal space, grinning at her. It took her a moment to remember what he contributed to what was just moments ago, background noise. She looked past him to see his comrade looking her way, before turning back to the speaker. “A pick up line, a rather classic one,” she observed, noting the practiced aloofness of her fellow Ravenclaw. Considering his usual demeanor, she knew she was not far off. Masterfully concealing her excitement about being on the receiving end of an age old tradition, she continued. “Although since you’re the one talking to me while the other one in is staring in my direction, you’re more of a 'wingman' in this particular scenario.”

"Uh...yeah...pretty much," said Hymie, somewhat caught off guard. "What gave it away?"

--

"I will tell you the plan when it is time to implement it. But for now, we're heading for the forest," said Gabriel.

He really hoped he'd have a plan by the time he got to they got to the forest. It would be quite embarrassing to admit that he was making this up as he went along.

--

Laura noticed Will and Gabriel walking towards the exit to the Great Hall. Now this was genuinely surprising. What could those two possibly be doing together? Had Gabriel challenged Will to a duel?

She got to her feet, and turned to Arcruss.

"I'm going to go follow them," she said, before she walked off.