The Wizarding World

"Will, I think it's in here..." said Laura, as Will ran into the library.

The moment she said that; the beat made it's move. It leapt from it's perch near the door; and landed squarely on Will's head.

"Don't worry! I've got this!" said Laura, pointing her wand just above Will's head.

The monkey, meanwhile, shrieked loudly; and pulled on Will's hair.

--

"Don't worry. No pig is gonna make bacon out of me," said Hymie, as he got to his feet.

...and promptly fell back to the ground. Welp, there went his attempt to look like a tough guy. At least he'd said something cool first. Yeah, he doubted anyone would be able to think of anything cooler to say after that!

"O-oh, thanks, uh, Liam," Bart had to take a second to remember the guy's name, even though they were in the same year and house. He had always been the quiet sort, and Bart himself was not particularly quick to jump into interacting with people. He was just lucky with Hymie being the one to start talking.

Despite being helped by Liam, he still insisted on showing the way, just with Liam's help now.

--

McGonnagal shook her head, and once more wordlessly waved her wand. A cage surrounded the Tebo, and lifted it off the ground. It would then make its way down the hall, seemingly to where McGonnagal wanted it to go.

"Rodolfo, here," She helped Hymie to his feet, just in time for Bart and the others to come around the corner.

"Hymie!" Bart called out, smiling at the sight of him standing even if with help, "You're ok!" 

------------

Jenny gasped as Will's head was assaulted, and she even saw his hair standing up as it was pulled. She fumbled in her pocket for her wand, only succeeding in dropping it to the floor.

She picked it back up and pointed it forward too, but not only did Laura already have hers pointed, but Jenny intended only an empty threat. What spell did she even have that would help? She couldn't think of one, everything was happening far too fast, giving her only a few seconds to determine anything, and she was getting kind of dizzy from the rush.

"No problem," Liam gave the other boy an easy half smile before turning his head to see Will running off. He shrugged. He couldn't blame the guy for being impatient. They'll just catch up later.

It wasn't long before they came across Bart's friend, Hymie, and professor McGonnagal. Glancing down, he saw that the teacher had already captured one of the creatures running amok.

"Professor, there's another one attacking students," He wasn't sure how Will and the girls were faring but at least they'd have a chance with McGonnagal's help.

"Ahh!" Will called out, pulling on the Demiguise and flailing around wildly. "Gerroff!" He snarled, running into a bookshelf. The bookshelf was obviously charmed to the floor and didn't give an inch but Will crashed to the floor unceremoniously. The invisible monkey dug its nails into his face drawing little bits of blood and causing the boy to groan. Running into the bookshelf had evidently angered the animal. 

"Thumone gab a bag!" He mumbled through hair. He pulled his mouth free and repeated himself. "Someone grab a bag! And get this damn thing off me!"

"Jenny! Quick, get a bag!" said Laura, once again using her amazing powers of delegating.

At the moment, she was busy trying to aim her wand at an invisible monster. It was exactly as hard as it sounded; and Will flailing around wasn't helping matters.

All she had to do was hit a moving target with a spell she'd had trouble with. No, she could definitely do this. It was just a knockback jinx. Whether she hit the monkey or hit Will; Will would likely be ok. And the monkey would be knocked off his head either way.

"FLIPENDO!"

The creature was sent flying off of Will's head. It seemed Laura's aim was better than she thought. That, or she just had a ridiculous amount of dumb luck.

After a moment of dumbfounded silence; Laura yelled to Jenny.

"Quick! Bag it!"

Jenny hesitated at first, but with both of the others telling her to get a bag she just nodded furiously and put away her wand. She ran around the the table behind her, and found a bag that might be big enough if the invisible thing wasn't that big.

"Alright here!" She quickly jumped on the spot where the monkey seemed to be, and indeed she felt it squirming as soon as she got to it. Maybe she was lucky and it had been winded by the spell, because she was able to get the bag around it fairly easily. However, the backpack was trying to escape Jenny's hands, "Ah, alright! I g-got it, but I need some heeelp!" She grunted against the effort, making sure the thing didn't run away.

With the help of Will and Laura, the monkey was finally secured properly into the bag. It wasn't going to get out easily, but just in case they were watching it carefully on the table. Before they could decide what to do with it, McGonnagal showed up, followed by all the others involved. Except Bart, he'd been shooed off to the hospital wing by the Headmistress again, this time with a warning.

"Heavens, you children captured that thing?" She shook her head, seemingly very distraught at the two invisible creatures making their way into her school. There was a ripping sound as the Demiguise seemed to be making progress out of the bag, but McGonnagal raised her wand and a red light flashed, silencing and stopping all efforts from the monkey.

"Very well. I want you all to return to your dorms. We'll be asking everyone their story, but these two creatures need to be taken care of first," The mention of two characters would likely cause the trio in the library to notice the Tebo before they leave, grunting from inside its cage.

Something caught Liam's attention from the corner of his eye. Before leaving the library, he bent down to pick up a leaf. The ravenclaw was a pretty observant boy and he was sure there was no leaves like this on school grounds. Maybe it came from the forest?

Pocketing the leaf, he decided to show it to the others later. That Bart guy was pretty studious, maybe he would be able to figure out where it was from. Maybe, just maybe it would give them a clue as to where those creatures came from.

Unfortunately not only did he forget for awhile, when they finally did identify the leaf as being from the forest, the group had ended up being pretty busy. Especially after all the other kids came back from break. A blonde girl, Maxine, was always dragging Will off to find excuses to avoid Laura. Maxine's brother and Bart had wanted nothing to do with their investigation. Jenny, well, he didn't talk much to Jenny so he had no idea how to even approach her on the subject.

So, it wasn't until two or so months later that they were finally able to assemble some form of an investigation group. It was really more a bunch of kids killing boredom by acting recklessly, but semantics.

The boy leaned against a wall with his hands in his pockets waiting for the others to arrive. A few minutes passed before Maxine arrived, looking around for someone nervously before sighing in relief.

"Laura's not coming, right?" She asked Liam but the boy only shrugged in response. He didn't know what was going on between those two girls but he wanted no part in it.

Will had a bounce in his step as he joined Liam with Maxine. "Yo, this is all of us right? Let's go! The others can catch up!" He loved the forest. Despite the beatdown he had gotten from the Chimaera, he had found their excursion into the forest to be his favourite night so far. Maybe it was his pathological disrespect for authority or his strange compulsion to put himself into danger. Either way he had become addicted to the adrenaline rush, the pump of blood as he battled to survive with monsters that outclassed him so comprehensively. 

He traced a scar on his hip that he'd suffered in the encounter with the chimaera absent-mindedly, caught in the memories he had already created in just two-thirds of a year at the magic school. He wondered what stories his body would tell by the end of his time at Hogwarts. If he made it that far.

"Who's not coming?" asked Laura.

Laura happened to be standing right behind Maxine at the moment, as was dramatically appropriate. She'd also brought Jenny with her; as she hadn't really wanted to show up here alone.

She'd considered staying in the dorms. Maxine had been avoiding her like the plague; and she couldn't help but feel it was somehow her fault. In any case, she couldn't bring herself to confront the other girl about it.

However, she couldn't just let everyone go adventuring without her. She'd spent hours researching chimera. She'd been chased by skrewts. She'd even taken down an invisible monster!

She wasn't going to skip the final boss just cause Maxine apparently didn't want to be friends anymore! And if going on this adventure happened to give her a chance to find out what the heck Maxine's problem was; all the better!

Jenny was looking smug. She'd intended to keep an eye on Maxine and Will to keep them from getting Gryffindor into trouble, but she wouldn't have been able to get on this trip to the forest without Laura. Now that she was here, she could give them an earful!

"Aha! I knew you two would be causing trouble again," She said, clearly indicating Maxine and Will, "Don't think I've given up keeping you from causing trouble for our house. I know we're... behind, but we can still win! But stunts like going into the forest are going to ruin it!" She stood tall with her hands on her hips. Well, as tall as she could with her small stature. 

Behind was an understatement, though. With the various incidents Maxine and Will, as well as some of the older students, had been getting into, they were impossibly behind the other houses in terms of 'house points'.

"Alright," Liam nodded, moving off the wall to follow after Will. It was then that Jenny and Laura appeared, causing their blonde companion to jump and practically hide behind Lam. The Ravenclaw looked between the girls before stepping away and standing near Will. Nope, he refused to be caught in the middle of girl troubles.

With her meatshield gone, Maxine waved awkwardly to Laura, unable to think of something to say. Before she could say something, Jenny just had to open her big fat mouth.

"Oh no, Will, you hear that?" She began sarcastically, "Our precious house points are gonna go from 2 to 0 because of our investigation. Because, yknow, house points are more important than finding out who invaded our school."

Will looked bewildered, snapping him out of his antsy dance of anticipation. He replied, foolishly not using the same logic that Liam had in not getting involved in girl troubles. "We still have house points? How? I thought the whole thing with Greenhouse 3 and the Exploding Snap cards had put us into like, negative." That had been a good experiment. Professor Sprout had disagreed. 

They entered the curtain of trees at the lip of the forest and were swallowed by a canopy of green and an assault of earthly scents - Will loved it. "Alright guys, let's split up. If we find anything, shout and or use that sparks spell thing. Or set fire to a tree, just make sure I- we get to you!" And he bounced off eagerly searching for something to entertain him.

Laura sighed as Jenny started to talk about house points. The girl really could have a one track mind. Clearly there was only one solution to this.

"Jenny, did you ever hear the rumors of those Gryffindor kids that fought a dangerous monster; then got a bunch of house points for it?"

If Jenny thought this was going to get her house points; she'd likely charge into the forest herself. Then Maxine would see how useful Jenny was at adventuring; and they'd become friends.

Then Maxine would have to get over... whatever it was they were still mad at eachother about.

Jenny's face went red at Maxine and Will's responses. The two of them really HAD cost the house the win already, she shouldn't be concerned about it any more. But, but, it's the principle! They could recover! It's the spirit of never giving up and being brave and all that Gryffindor stuff she believed in!

Before she could respond, Laura tactfully cut her off and gave her an idea, "Oh, wait, that's... true," She had heard similar rumors. Wild stories, like it was even some kids who went on to become famous. Thinking about it, she decided to try the alternate approach, "Fine! We'll search the woods, and maybe if we save the school we can save our house's reputation this year!"

"You think we'll find anything?" Maxine asked bounding after Will. She assumed Liam would follow behind as well while Jenny and Laura went the other way. She would't be wrong in that assumption, but stayed back for a bit just to be sure.

"Will you two be okay?" He asked the two girls. If they said no, he would go along with them. He was sure Will and Maxine could take care of themselves. Even if they were impulsive troublemakers, they were impulsive trouble makers that knew how to get out of jams. Liam didn't know these girls as well and wasn't sure if the same could be said of them.

"Damn right we will, and it'll be big, scary and dangerous. If we're lucky it might try to kill us!" Will said in a normal, well balanced manner and not at all with way too much enthusiasm. 

They eventually reached a tree covered in deep gouges. Being the forbidden forest, that could be anything - Will had even heard about werewolves living in the forest. He wasn't actually sure how that worked but he definitely wanted to meet one. "Ooooh, hello," he greeted the savaged tree, a grin fixed on his face. "Now this looks like an unhappy beastie!"

"We've faced danger before!" said Laura, confidently.

It occurred to her that the monsters she'd faced so far had been rather small. Then again; they could always run away if they ran into something dangerous. How bad could it be?

Besides, it was the people that were hanging around Will that would most likely run into the monster. If the current trend held.

In which case, Will and Maxine would probably kick it's butt. Somehow. She hoped.

"We should be fine, right Jenny?"

Jenny was suddenly a little hesitant. Well, she was certainly afraid of facing a monster directly, but she was was more afraid that she wouldn't be there and somebody would get hurt.

"Yeah, we'll be fine," She said with not even half the enthusiasm Will had, "I mean, we're a pretty big group, strength in numbers right?" She shook off her hesitation to put on a bold face of confidence, "We should just make sure to tackle this thing as a group, understand?" Somehow she was taking charge again. Or trying to, at least.

Liam shrugged. If the girls didn't need him, he wasn't gonna force the issue. Sticking his hands in his pockets, he trekked after Maxine and Will. 

"Yikes," He heard the blonde girl say as he got closer to the other two. He noted that she was running her hand on some gnarled marks on a nearby tree, "I'm pretty sure they're fresh. Hey, which way do you think it went?"

A sinking feeling began to form in the pit of Liam's stomach. As if to confirm his suspicion, a loud roar echoed through the forest. 

Coming from the direction Jenny and Laura had went...

The boy muttered a curse under his breath, before quickly turning and running back for the girls. He didn't wait to see if Will or Maxine had followed, but he was sure they would. They wouldn't resist chasing down the chimera. That much was positive.

"I'm going to guess that way," Will replied, grin fixing its way onto his face as he pelted after Liam. They reached Laura and Jenny but the chimaera was no where to be found.

"Where is it?" he demanded, unintentionally insensitively ignoring the physical and emotional well-being of the girls -  he was more concerned with where the monster was, his head swivelling around to look.

Suddenly, a roar bellowed from his left and he barely had time to react before the chimaera erupted from the forest, spraying bark and dirt all over. He tumbled just out of the range of the creature's lion maw and scrambled under the snake tail as it whipped around to where his head had just been. The monster let out a pained-sounding, high pitched whine - was it complaining that it had missed?

Will hopped to his feet and shook mane hair from his foot. The fur was falling out? "Hey guys, the lion bit is malting!" He exclaimed. He did need a new hat.

Laura stared in horror as the chimera lunged at Will; nearly killing him.

She'd heard the others describe the chimera. She'd read several books about chimera's while researching the thing. But this was her first time seeing it; and it was downright terrifying.

The thing all of her friends had forgotten to mention was the smell. It smelled like an outhouse filled with rotten eggs. After a moment of staring at it; she realized why.

The goat head had gone completely limp. Not only that; but the flesh on it was already starting to fall off.

Part of the chimera's body was dead; and decomposing. The rest of it was in agony. Dying. Desperate. Likely a hundred times as vicious as when it was healthy.

Coming to the forest had been a mistake.

Jenny nearly fainted at the sudden appearance of the beast, but if that wasn't enough to knock her out, the smell might've been. She shook her head, trying desperately to hold out. The Chimaera left her nearly speechless, but only nearly.

"We- guh, we need a plan!" She pointed her wand haphazardly at the beast, her hand clearly shaking way too much to cast a useful spell, as she backed away, "Uh, someone has a plan, right?" Well, she wasn't exactly a tactician, was she? She realized she had no idea what sort of spell would work on it, although with how near-to-death it already was anything should have an effect on it now, right?

"Uh, uh, petrificus... totalus?" Her wand let out a pathetic little wisp of light at the lion head, probably doing nothing more than agitating it. This was way too much pressure...