The Wizarding World

"Woah, there sure is a lot of us!" Maxine commented cheerfully, as if there being a large number of students here wouldn't be a cause for concern in regards to them being caught. Instead, she wrapped an arm around Arcruss and grinned at him, "Good to see you again, Arc! Though, you don't need to worry, Will and I will keep everyone safe, right Will? ... Even the likes of Jenny and Gabby."

"I think you could do well to learn some modesty, Maxine," Maxwell suggested sounding more exasperated than chastising. He looked over to Sam, you had roughly said the same thing, with much less bravado than his sister. He relented, "Just be careful and don't do anything dangerous." What am I saying, this already dangerous enough.

Jennifer rolled her eyes at the sight of yet another Slytherin showing up for this raid on the forest, "Great, just what we need: More rule breakers. I swear if a teacher doesn't catch us I'll be incredibly surprised."

Samantha followed the others with her arm around Jennifer's shoulders, the latter girl squirming about the whole way. Samantha finally freed her to point at the wolf that had passed by, "Eeee!" she was squeeing to herself a bit but was just barely containing it so as not to scare it off. She knew it wouldn't attack unless it was some sort of magical wolf, since normal wolves wouldn't just walk into a whole pack of humans after all. She almost seemed to be the only one not noticing the smell, considering her excitement at being around so many creatures, even if most didn't show their faces.

For a second, Jennifer was relieved to be released by Samantha, but seemed to be keeping up close to her. Unlike with Hagrid, she seemed to be trying to hide any fear of the area around her. The smell, though, really caught her attention, "Ugh, whatever that smell is we should try to avoid it. Lets go another direction," she suggested, staying not even a foot away from Samantha.

"Of course," Will said, flexing his bicep with a grin. "If anything attacks us we'll just kick its arse and move on!" He didn't much like Gabriel and Jennifer but he definitely wasn't gonna let them get killed if he had anything to say about it.

"You know, these wolves are surprisingly friendly," he commented, reaching his hand out to stroke one. The animal snapped at his hand and snarled, tearing a three inch cut down his arm into his hand. "Argh, bugger!" Will groaned and the wolf continued as the young Gryffindor held his hand in his sleeve. "Okay so they're not that friendly." He inspected the wound. It was neither particularly deep nor particularly shallow, but it stung and was bleeding a fair bit.

The smell was getting stronger, even though the group was moving away from what seemed to be the source in the same direction as the wolves. "Wow, go away smell." 

Bang.

Will done looked around to check whether one of his group had done it. "Was that an explosion?"

"Took you long enough," said Laura, as Arcruss arrived. "Well, lets go find us a chimera,"

"I'll have you know that if anyone is going to need protecting in this party, it should be you two..." said Gabriel.

The moment he said this, there was a loud BANG; and Gabriel practically jumped. He pulled out his wand; and began scanning his surroundings.

"What the hell was that?" he demanded; waving his wand around as if he was about to hex the next thing that moved.

"Oh~ What's the matter? Need a protection, Gabriel~ " Arcruss said, enjoying to see Gabriel squirm around. "Also Yes, it sounded like one." He said holding his breath because of smell.

At the sound of the bang, Maxwell jumped and clutched his sister's arm so tightly she was sure he was cutting off some circulation. The sister a sympathetic pat to help calm him down but it didn't seem to be doing any actual good. The boy was still clinging as tightly as ever. Giving up, Maxine instead turned her gaze to Will, "Should we investigate?"

"No! No, we shouldn't," Maxwell interjected firmly, "We should just go back."

Samantha gasped as Will was bitten by the wolf, running over quickly and pulling a cloth out of her pack, "Here, let me-" she was interrupted by the explosion, and had to look around at what it could have been.

Jennifer jumped at the sound of the explosion, "What was that? Where did it come from?" She started waving her wand around wildly in every direction, the light of the lumos spell shining in all directions, "Investigate?" She responded, unsure. Her meddling side was fighting with her side that wanted to keep to following the rules. The meddling side won out, however, and she nodded, "Ok, we'll check this out,"

Bang!

The next explosion was louder and Will was pretty sure that was because it was closer. "Yeah, let's go have a look" he replied to Maxine, approaching the noise. His eyes widened as he peered through the foliage. It was too dark to see so Will poked his wand out and incanted "lum-"

BANG!

A bright burst of sparks illuminated its source as Will avoided being bowled over by what he could only describe as a ten foot long, really ugly scorpion by throwing himself into a bush. "What the hell is this?" Enquired the boy, looking at the brighter members of his group. "Flipendo!" He called, wriggling his wand at the monstrosity. A jet of blue light struck the shell but deflected straight off and it continued on towards the group.

"Damn, this ugly bastard looks like a walking horror film," Will commented, slightly bitter that his spell had been so ineffectual.

Laura honestly had no idea what she was looking at. It looked like some kind of cross between a crab and a scorpion; with tails on both ends. It also seemed to breathe fire. Whatever it was; it was definitely not friendly.

As she trying to come up with some kind of plan of action; Gabriel suddenly stepped forward; and drew his wand.

"Alright you hideous abomination; I think it's time someone taught you some mann..."

He was cut off as Will's spell bounced off the thing and hit him in the face. He then fell right on his ass; not entirely sure what had just happened.

"Only thing that comes to my mind from it's appearance is "Blast-Ended Skrewt" Arcruss said, backing slowly away from creature.
"If it is what i think it is, then spells have no effect on it's shell!" He still either way had wand out and ready.

"I told you this was a bad idea," Maxwell complained to deaf ears. Instead, his sister opted to laugh at Gabriel's misfortune before walking over to him.

She grabbed him by the arm and pulled him up, "Up and at em, 'tough guy'."

"Yeah, as much as I don't want to admit it, Maxwell is right, we should leave. At least until we learn more spells, then we can come back and kick its potentially poisonous behind," Maxine said eyeing the creature, or Blast Ended Skrewt as Arcruss had called it, "Unless one of us somehow hits underneath it."

Jennifer shook her head, "For once you speak sense," she wasn't as phased by this creature as she had thought she'd be. It seemed mostly a nuisance actually. Before she could do anything else, Samantha cried out.

"AWW! It's so cute you guys!" The girl was edging sideways. It looked like she was trying to find an angle to jump at it. It almost looked like she knew what she was doing with how confident she was as she bent her knees and prepared herself-

"Stop that!" Jennifer grabbed onto her arm and pulled her back, "That thing nearly blew up our companion, are you trying to get yourself killed?" Samantha only responded by pouting, "Anyway, are we leaving now or are you all going to actually try and fight it?" She directed her question to Will and the twins primarily.

"Well it doesn't seem too friendly," Will commented. "I think its looking at me funny." Did it even have eyes? "Well, I guess we can always just move on, it doesn't seem very fast." The boy spun on the spot, trying to figure out which way to go to get deeper in the forest. "This way!" He decided. And then- 

Bangbangbangbangbang!

Like a machine gun shooting firecrackers, a series of bangs sounded in the forest. Not as loud as the large abomination but equally as ugly, what must have been its kids emerged from the forest. They were only around three feet long but faster than the large one. Will estimated there were about a hundred of them, scurrying at the group and bursting forward with little explosions. "Move!" Will bellowed, waving his wand. "Flippendo!" He called over and over as the explosions illuminated the forrest in flickering flashes.

"I swear he's trying to get me killed," muttered Gabriel, as Maxine helped him to his feet.

He took a step towards the skrewt. Another fire-breathing monster in the Forbidden Forest. With this thing as well as the chimera; it was a wonder the whole forest wasn't in flames by now.

"We have the beast outnumbered. If we all rush it, then I'm sure one of us is bound to find some kind of weak point..." he said.

"... or we could just run away?" said Laura. "Leave it to it's own devices maybe?"

"No, I am done running from monsters!" said Gabriel "If you all want to run away like cowards; that's fine with me, but..."

It was at that point that they showed up. Hundreds of little monsters; all miniature versions of the big one. Any thoughts of staying to fight quickly disappeared.

"...on second thought, running away doesn't sound so bad," he said, before getting ready to do just that.

" Fighting Bad, running.. GOOD! ALL FOR RUNNING,RUN!" He yelled already taking several steps back when he saw a huge pack of Blast Ended Skrewt kids.

Maxine joined Will in his spellcasting, throwing a few Flippendos at them to hopefully hold them back while the others escaped. "Get them out of here," she told her brother.

"I..." Maxwell looked like he wanted to object. He should stay and help his sister, but he gulped, looking anxiously at the skrewts. In that instant, he grabbed hold of he two nearest him (which happened to be Jennifer and Sam), "Come on, this way!" He directed them through the forest, back to where they had entered from. Or at least, he hoped they were going back.

"Wha- I can-" Jennifer tried arguing but the situation was just so bad already that she couldn't do anything but run along with Maxwell. Samantha barely struggled, recognizing the danger but still not being able to help but keep her eyes glued to the oncoming swarm.

"They're so skittery!" She said with too much enthusiasm. Her internal struggle of "DANGER" vs "I WANT TO PET ONE" was strong, but she trusted her friend's judgement above else.

"Wait, the others though," Jennifer bit her lip. She wanted to make sure everyone came along as well, so she mentioned this to Max while looking at him a bit worried.

"You know, it'd probably be a good idea for us to learn something that can stop them. All we're really doing is making them angry." He really had only used the knockback jinx in scraps so far, and hadn't been taught anything. A weapon then? He scanned the surroundings.

The skrewts had ignited the the forest and a tree came crashing down, crushing a line of the small ones. "Does no one notice this forest being set on fire all the time?" Will pondered. The skrewts were advancing too quickly and Will knew he had to act. He hit the big one with a knockback, getting its attention. Then with a call of "Lumos!" his want illuminated. The light was red but when he waved it around it did the job. He sprinted away from the others and the small skrewts followed suite.

"Ah where am I gonna gooooooo?" He groaned as he ran. He came across another clearing but this one had a large metal box in it. A cage.

The grey metal was blackened with scorch marks and the door was ajar and seemed to lock with two heavy bolts at the top and bottom. The Blast-Ended Skrewts were on his heels so Will scaled the cage door in a fluid movement that he doubted that he could do again so rapidly if he tried and then pushed himself off onto the top of the cage.

Half of the skrewt swarm poured into the cage and Will pulled the metal door closed, trapping more with it. It was heavy and he could feel the veins in his body pushing against his skin as he shut it. When he got the door moving it closed under his own weight.

"Yea-eh-eh-eahhhhh!" He called triumphantly as he stomped the top bolt into the lock position. He fell back onto the roof of the cage, panting and sweating and just realising how tired he was. Inside he could hear the skrewts exploding and protesting at their imprisonment but Will allowed himself to rest as he stared at the stars.

Laura ran for quite a while before she realized that the skrewts were no longer chasing her. As she stopped to look around, she realized the only person she could see was Gabriel. Of course she'd end up stuck in the middle of the woods with the most annoying person she knew. Her luck just seemed to work that way.

Gabriel didn't seem excited to see her either.

"Of course I'm stranded with the..."

He was cut off, however, by loud noise; like metal hitting metal. Laura quickly ran off to investigate the sound; not really caring whether Gabriel followed her or not. Eventually, she arrived at a clearing; to find Will sitting on top of a metal cage filled with skrewts. Or at least, pieces of them. Apparantly they didn't get along so well when cooped up.

"...showoff," said Gabriel, trying very hard not to sound impressed. "You know, you could have told me you had some kind of trap set up before.."

"We didn't," said Laura, cutting him off.

She stared at the cage. There was simply no reason for it to be here in the middle of the forest. Unless her friends had set it up and not told her about it? However, that was incredibly unlikely. She doubted any of them could even LIFT the thing.

Furthermore; the scorch-marks seemed to imply that there'd already been something inside it. Most likely something that breathed fire. Come to think of it, hadn't the chimera breathed fire?

"Hey Will, how big did you say that chimera was?" she asked.

Arcruss had started running with others but got separated, he been running quite awhile before he stopped and noticed that he was lost in a dark forest. He felt great anxiety and fear press on him from dark  forest, shivering jumping from slight snap of branch echoing in forest.

" Hello?! Anybody?!" He called out looking around.

"Hey, wait! Where are you going?" Maxine yelled after Will as she ran after him. The Skrewts moved ahead of her, all their attention directed on the Gryffindor boy. She feared for her friend's life and prepared to cast another spell no matter how fruitless it may be.

However...

A cage appeared into view and the girl stared in awe as Will fluidly scaled it and trapped at least half the skrewts inside. 

"That was brilliant," She congratulated Will, but kept a wary eye on the other half of the skrewts. She then heard Laura's question and raised a brow, "Uhm, what's on your mind Laura? You think this cage has something to do with it?"

---

Maxwell stopped, glancing anxiously at Jennifer and Samantha, "A-alright, yeah, you're right."

"You two go back to get a teacher," The boy trembled and had to clench his fist to calm his nerves, "I-I'll go back and make sure they're okay."

He was scared, terrified even. But the worry for his sister out weighed his own fear. He was about to turn when he heard Arcruss yelling out, "We're over here!"

Jennifer nodded at first, very much wanting a teacher to get involved, then looked appalled, "Wait, no, I'm not letting everyone deal with this alone! Samantha, you go get a teacher,"

"No way! I want to help!" she said with a smile while pounding her chest with one hand, which made Jennifer just slap her own face with her hand.

"No, you can't, we need a teacher to help," She tried to explain it quickly. Samantha's face got serious and it was clear she wasn't going to cooperate, "Ugh, you're wasting time!"

Will sprung to his feet atop the cage and bowed theatrically before dismounting from the construct and landing with a thud and none of the catlike agility that had gotten him on top of the cage initially. "Well that's that problem sorted. Nasty buggers, they are," the scene was quite gruesome where the skrewts had massacred each other, and there stood only one remaining victor in the cage, pacing around. King of the Cage.

"The black marks were there before the things started exploding. You think this is where they kept the big guy?" Will inspected the cage as the skrewt acted menacing. "Do one," hissed the Gryffindor boy. He spotted some dents and damage and nodded. "Okay so in my professional Batman opinion: the Chimaera isn't here. So where's it gone?"

Though Gabriel had no idea what "batman" meant; he assumed that it must be some kind of muggle term. It seemed to be an adjective; probably related to cleverness. 

In any case, he wasn't going to embarrass himself by asking Will what it meant. Not when they had more pressing concerns. 

"Maybe whoever brought the chimera here came back to retrieve it?" he said. 

"But why would they dump a dangerous monster in the middle of the woods; then come pick it up again?" said Laura. "It makes no sense," 

"Doesn't seem a very Batman thing to do, does it?" said Gabriel.

Laura stared at Gabriel for a moment. She had no idea why he was suddenly comparing whoever brought the chimera into the forest to Batman. 

"Not very...what of them?" she asked. 

"Batman. It's a term that refers to cleverness..." said Gabriel. 

For a moment, Laura considered explaining to Gabriel that Batman was a popular muggle superhero. That moment ended when he spoke again. 

"I shouldn't expect someone of your upbringing to know what it means," he said.

"...yep. I guess that's one word I was not familiar with," said Laura.

"I should have just stayed at dorms....?" Arcruss said with shivering voice. "Lumos" He whispered, his wand now emitting light from tip. still not seeing any signs of others from group.  Until he heard someone response back to his shout earlier. 

He began to ran toward the voice fast, he didn't want to be any second longer in the forest alone. Soon Reaching Maxwell, he felt great relief to see another person.

After that, they continued the search the area, coming across Maxwell and the others along the way. However, the rest of the night proved uneventful and Maxine trudged back to the dorms clearly crestfallen.

The next day, her mood still appeared to be a bit soured as she poked at her breakfast with a fork. She was only half-listening to her fellow Gryffindors, instead putting all her focus into stabbing a sausage.

"So unfair..." She mused aloud. The one night she finally made it to the forest, the chimera was gone, only leaving a scorched cage in its wake.

"Hmph," Jennifer was cutting some french toast into little triangle as she spoke, "That chimera or whatever you were looking for was just another one of the dangerous things in that forest. There's far too many ridiculous things out there and I have no idea how they allow something like that to be next to a school," she was actually quite happy. Everything had turned out alright and no teachers had noticed her out there. Turned out they didn't need anyone to save them, although she was still upset that it had all come to that in the first place.

Gryffindor's points were safe and so was everyone who went out there. Jennifer was quite relieved, and it was clear her contrast to Maxine yet again.

Will shrugged. He had thought the skrewts were pretty cool. He had been made painfully aware, however, that he lacked the ability to fight most of the things he came across. He needed to work on that, he couldn't protect anyone by pushing stuff. 

"So why's there a cage if it's wild?" Will asked Jennifer, who was the smartest person in his immediate vicinity. "Maybe that's not for the chimaera? Or maybe someone put it there? Bit stupid in a forest right?" He speared a sausage with his fork and devoured it. 

They also needed better ways to get around the castle at night - Will had nearly been caught several times. Castles had to have secret passages, right?

"Well..." She had to think about it for a second, but came up with an explanation, "I imagine the Groundskeeper, Hagrid," she didn't seem particularly pleased to talk about him, "He probably puts some of the more dangerous creatures in cages. Maybe you should go ask him?" She then ate a piece of her toast, expecting Will to not want to ask, for some reason.

Hymie took a seat across from Sam and Max. He didn't really care that he was at the Hufflepuff table. If muggle movies had taught him anything; it was that cool kids were all defying rules. 

"So, Max...anything you want to get off your chest?" he said, staring at Maxwell as if he was interrogating him. 

"Maybe something about a radical, rule-breaking adventure that you went on without two cool cats who would have been all for that?" 

--

Meanwhile, Laura was at the Slytherin table; talking to Arcruss. 

"Shame we didn't run into that chimera last night," said Laura. "Though I guess it's for the best since we didn't really have a plan,"