Team Nine here! on Defense Against the Dark Arts

Haunted School

February 15, 2013 8:13 AM

Part 1 by Haunted School

The Haunted School began in the DADA classroom, a place many of the students should have been familiar with. It looked the same as it always did, only with more ghosts peeking in than usual. One each group of students entered the classroom, they would see that there was a large arrow pointing straight forward from the doorway. Though there was no visible disturbance to the classroom, once one got closer to the professor’s desk, a boggart would come around from behind, it already in the shape of the closest person’s greatest fear. It was only after one encountered the boggart that a soft, painful-sounding moan would begin. The moaning would get louder and louder until it reached a banshee-like screeching the longer the group took to identify the boggart and overcome it, preferably by using the traditional spell, but any other way of successfully subduing the creature would bring about the same result.

Once the boggart was dealt with, the moaning screeches would stop and a large piece of parchment would appear on the professor’s desk. The parchment was black and the note was written in crimson ink. It read:

Trust not the looks of friends,
Nor the reflections you see,
But continue on this frightful trend,
And move to the library.

Several seconds after the parchment note had appeared, allowing time for it to be read either aloud or by each member of the group, the classroom door would creak open again of its own accord and there would be a great screech to usher the students out if they did not move fast enough. The note could be discarded; with each group, the room would reset itself ready for the next, and there would be another note appearing on the desk after their respective boggart was conquered.

Subthreads:

Getting things started for Team Four by Thaddeus Pierce with Henry Carey, Francesca Wolseithcrafte, David Wilkes

Snakes on the Plains by Charlie B-F-R (Team 8) with Theresa Carey, Marcus Williams

Team 18 pep and doom by Derry Four with Brianna Japos, Anthony Carey

Team Two! by Eliza Bennett with Sullivan Quincy, Jhonice Trevear, Carter Browning, Sully

Team Seventeen Here by Keme RunningBear with Adam Spencer, Malcolm Carey, Arthur Carey

Team Seven? by William Casey with Alicia Bauer, Hope Brockert

Team one, part one, post one... by Henny B-F-R with Sara Raines, Alex Devereux, Fae Sinclair

Team Fifteen, Follow Me Please! by Regina Parker with Effie Arbon, Waverly Canterbury, Isabel Raines

Calling Team Fourteen. by Cepheus Princeton with The Anns, Gareth Whitebriar, Preston Stratford, Cepheus

Team Five by Ryan O'Malley with Angel Jareau, Sally Manger, Lucrezia Renaldi, Jude Butler

Team Nine here! by Arnold Carey with Clara Abernathy, Aubrielle Thornton, Rupert Princeton

Facing my fears with Team Three. by Kate Bauer with Wendy Canterbury, Jade Owen, Jorge Garcia

Ready Team 12? by Arista Thornton with Jay Carey, Addison Thornton

Team 19 - Guess someone should get the ball rolling by Michael Grosvenor with Mellie Goodwin, Abigail Thornton

(Team 20) Getting started. by Valerie Lennox with Virginia Bellrose, McKinley Andrews, Crotalus

Team Sweet Sixteen! by Josephine Owen

0 Haunted School Part 1 0 Haunted School 1 5

Thaddeus Pierce

February 15, 2013 10:01 AM

Getting things started for Team Four by Thaddeus Pierce

Thaddeus Pierce had been decidedly unhappy with the announcement that had appeared in the Cascade Hall and his commonroom. It had warned that the first Challenge was imminent, but gave no information at all about what it entailed, or even where to meet at noon on Saturday. In short, the notice served only to make Thad anxious and restless with no clear idea how to prepare or procede.

Still, something had to be done, so he sent out owls to his teammates, organizing a place for Team Four to gather at 11:30 in the school's main entrance hall. He figured giving a half hour leeway would hopefully ensure even Evan might show up a little early so they could get to wherever the Challenge was actually being held in a timely and coordinated manner.

The faux spooky decorations he passed in the corridors on the way there on Saturday morning were no doubt significant. Consequently, as his group began to arrive, he took the opportunity to give the younger team members a quick crash course in vampires, werewolves, ghouls, ghosts, dementors, inferi, banshees and a couple other stereotypically scary creatures that came up in overused costumes around Halloween time every year.

He seriously doubted they'd see any actual dementors, inferi, or even vampires, as part of the Challenge, but there might be a trivia test or something where everyone had to answer at least one question. It at least passed the time with something that felt fairly useful and productive between when they gathered and when a teacher came to fetch them and bring them to the DADA room.

Once there, Thad stepped inside, just far enough that he wasn't blocking the way in for the rest of his team. He took a sweeping inspection of the place, noting the higher than normal concentration of ghosts here. He wondered breifly if they were there to be 'spooky' or if they just wanted to watch the teams compete. He decided it probably didn't matter and dismissed the normal Sonora ghosts as a mere distraction.

The arrow on the ground was more likely relevant, but he wasn't sure they should trust it. Between the hall decorations and the Challenge's start in the DADA classroom, caution would obviously be a very good idea. "Spread out so we don't make such an easy target," he suggested, "stay calm, and watch your step for traps and curses."

He moved slowly forward, in the general direction indicated by the arrow, but offset by a few feet. His eyes were mostly on the ground right in front of him, assessing each floorboard for any threat of magical tampering before placing a foot on it. Thus engrossed, he was not the first to spot the room's true danger.

0 Thaddeus Pierce Getting things started for Team Four 0 Thaddeus Pierce 0 5

Charlie B-F-R (Team 8)

February 15, 2013 11:01 AM

Snakes on the Plains by Charlie B-F-R (Team 8)

Charlie was excited about the first challenge. He was hoping it would be something fun and wasn't paranoid or pessimistic enough to believe that the school would put him in any danger. Plus, he was the youngest, so he was sure his lovely older team mates would do their best to look after him. People, in Charlie's world, were a pretty decent bunch.

He let out a soft 'ooh' as the approached the Defence Against the Dark Arts Classroom and he noticed it was extra full of ghosts. He wondered whether this was going to be some kind of historical challenge. That wouldn't have sounded terribly exciting on paper but perhaps if the ghosts were involved, it might be a bit more exciting. Like history come to life! Only... er, not quite. However, as they ventured into the room, the ghosts seemed largely indifferent to their presence, and merely carried on as before, like so many large, floating decorations.

Charlie was still trying to puzzle out what the room held for them when he became aware, simultaneously, of two noises. One was a groaning. A soft, pained sort of sound. It would have made the hair on the back of his neck stand up but it had already done that in response to the far more – to him – disturbing noise. That slick, almost inaudible-so-that-the-horrible-things-could-creep-up-on-you rustling, shuffling slithering sound of...

“SNAKES” he screamed, pointing frantically at the writhing mass that was sliding towards him across the floor. His best guess would have been that they were supposed to use magic to counter the situations they were faced with but that logical thought had been replaced by sheer panic at the sight of the vile creatures. Besides which, he didn't really know a lot of magic yet. Unless he could levitate them so forcefully against the ceiling that they were knocked out, he couldn't really think of many other options. “Snakes!” he repeated, doing the only logical, defensive thing he could think of doing and clambering onto a desk. He grabbed a chair as if he would, lion-tamer-style, be able to fend them off. He jabbed it at the air a good distance away from the slithering reptiles. He had hated them for as long as he could remember. His Dad shuddered every time they were mentioned, and Charlie was just the same. He jabbed some more with the chair, hoping that someone came to his rescue before he had to seriously try to use it, or risk the snakes breaching his fortress via the table legs.

13 Charlie B-F-R (Team 8) Snakes on the Plains 252 Charlie B-F-R (Team 8) 0 5

Derry Four

February 15, 2013 4:40 PM

Team 18 pep and doom by Derry Four

Maybe it was due to his years on Teppenpaw's Quidditch team, when it became time for Team Eighteen to begin the first challenge, Derry felt he was obligated to make some kind of rallying speech before they entered the DADA classroom. However, knowing nothing at all about what they were about to face made suggesting obvious strategies impossible and it being indoors meant he couldn't even fall back on advice about how to deal with the weather.

Still, a rallying cry of some form felt neccessary, so he just settled for general encouragement. "Guys," he began, then added belatedly because he didn't really consider the term a gendered noun but then he remembered some people did and took offence if they thought the female portion of the group was being neglected, "and girls, whatever is in there, we can handle. We just have to work together and help each other out. We are going to beat this challenge." After five years of losing every Quidditch game he ever played, the one thing, he knew the most important aspect of a pep talk was the leader's blind but heartfelt optimism even if there was absolutely no evidence to back it up. Besides, it wasn't like he was declaring that they would win, - just that they would finish. Derry had optimism for that in spades. "Go team!"

Thus motivated, Derry led the way into the classroom. He waved cheerfully to some of the ghosts he had talked to before, then noticed the arrow on the ground. "I guess we go this way," he reasoned and followed the arrow toward the professor's desk. As he got nearer, the room darkened, strange rustling noises began to sound, and a terrible moaning noise arose. Dread filled Derry and he began to sweat in fear.

"Um, guys," said nervously, drawing his wand, and pointing it toward the room's shadows, though, of course he couldn't see anything. Nobody ever saw a Nothing, not even after it was too late. "They didn't cover Nothings before I dropped out of DADA."

This was likely because there was no such creature, but Derry didn't know that. He just knew that when he was out in the woods with Mom after dark, she would become frightened and tell him it was Nothing and that there was no way to defend themselves because it was Nothing. This thing, in this challenge, Derry was sure, was a Nothing, too. You could recognize it by the quiet, barely there, rustling noises. And there was no way that he knew of to defend themselves from a Nothing.

This was very very bad.

1 Derry Four Team 18 pep and doom 189 Derry Four 0 5

Henry Carey

February 15, 2013 6:48 PM

This is the perfect start to my day! by Henry Carey

Henry had arrived at eleven thirty just as he’d been told, with the result that he got every word of Pierce’s preparatory lecture about all the things that might try to eat them in the course of the day’s events. It did absolutely nothing to decrease his nervousness about competing against the entire school, instead just taking away most of what comfort he’d derived from knowing that most of his team was smarter than most of the other teams. Now all he could think – besides about the outside chance he might be eaten – was that he was going to look like even more of a fool than he had to in front of all these people, since he had heard of the things but either didn’t really know how to handle them or did know but suspected his wand would explode if he tried.

When their team was summoned, he walked forward with stiff, small, but quick steps, trying to keep from being at the very back of the group so he wouldn’t look like he was trailing after the others. Logically, it couldn’t be that hard. The librarian had had a part in designing it, the library was associated with Aladren, Aladren was associated with logic, so therefore, the challenge would follow logic. If you didn’t mind the chain of associations not doing the same. But it would. He told himself that repeatedly as he walked forward, resisting the urge to clench his hands into fists.

He looked around the DADA room suspiciously when he got there, reserving most of his suspicion for the arrow on the floor. He did not care about the ghosts, since they couldn’t hurt anything because they were, well, dead, but who knew what the arrow might be leading them to? Henry frowned when Pierce told them to spread out, he was very comfortable in the spot he’d found near the middle of the group, but he did it.

Harder to follow was the direction to watch the ground closely. Henry didn’t trust the others, and didn’t even really trust another team to not be lurking somewhere to hex them all out of the running – that was what would have happened if this game had been played at home, after all. The adults would have thoroughly approved, too, since they were supposed to be smart enough to watch for that kind of thing. So he kept glancing down, then up, and all around him, his eyes moving rapidly from the floor to the corners to the other people to the corners again to Grandmother to the floor then back to –

- Grandmother?

Henry froze in shock as what he had seen made its way through to his conscious mind, staring at the tall, gray-haired witch, who did not look unlike Henry himself in the face except for her small, sharp blue eyes, standing near Professor Levy’s desk. She had on a burgundy dress, he noticed, a practical everyday garment, as far as any of her clothes qualified. She was scowling at him, and her hands were at her sides. Hidden by the dress. She could have a wand in one of them –

She started to raise her right hand, her wand hand, and Henry reacted instinctively. He dove for the floor, aiming for a patch of it behind another group member. To hell with sportsmanship, or even honor. She had snuck into school to get rid of him once and for all here, where it could look like some sort of tragic accident the school would pay them generously for, and while Henry loved his sisters to death, he didn't love them to that death.

0 Henry Carey This is the perfect start to my day! 239 Henry Carey 0 5

Eliza Bennett

February 15, 2013 7:18 PM

Team Two! by Eliza Bennett

Eliza had prepared ahead for the challenges, in her own way. That was to say that, having no idea what might be required of her, she had spent a very long time going through everything she had at Sonora, trying to decide what it would be best to wear.

Finally, she had decided to keep it simple, and had dug out the same black long-sleeved shirt and pants and pair of flat black shoes she’d worn to be a Concert stagehand two years before. To her immense delight, they still fit, at least well enough. Unlike then, she had left off the necklace altogether, along with all her other jewelry except a pair of plain silver stud earrings, and her hair was in two loose braids instead of a ponytail. The left one was a little looser than the right one, since she’d just had time to get it done before she’d had to leave her dorm or else really risk not being the first member of her team to arrive at the meeting spot, but she hoped that it wouldn’t attract any attention or somehow become a liability during the challenge. She had tried to figure out what it might be just from the decorations around the school, but didn’t put much stock into that, since Halloween could encompass anything from battling Dark creatures to a bug-eating contest.

Personally, Eliza was hoping for the former. She thought a lot more of her chances against a grindylow, even one with its fingers already around her throat, than she did of her chances against a grub.

Once her team was together, she didn’t have much time to talk to them, since they were the second one to go, but she made the best of it. “Hi, guys,” she said, as cheerfully as she could. “Here it is, here’s the big day. Did everyone get a good breakfast?” She didn’t ask about sleep, since that would be a little too revealing if some of them were really nervous. Eliza didn’t think this was serious enough to be that nervous about, but she knew some people would be anyway, just as she knew the sun had come up outside this morning. It was what people were like anyway, and when a competition was thrown into the midst of a bunch of coffee-wired, Quidditch-deprived Aladrens…Yeah, it was inevitable that some people were going to be extremely nervous even aside from the first years. Hopefully, that would slow their teams down. “Just so you know, I’ve got faith in you guys.” Even if faith in Carrie O’Malley was really more faith in her own ability to put a Silencing Charm and full-body bind on the other girl and float her across the finish line if she tried to get too mouthy or non-compliant. “We can do this. Let’s go!”

The first place they had to go was the DADA classroom. Eliza smiled at the ghosts, assuming they weren’t part of the challenge, and then looked a little more seriously at the arrow on the floor. “Wands out, everyone,” she said, looking around at her team, and led them further into the room, looking for whatever it was they were supposed to be doing in here. “Does anyone see anything that looks particularly challenging?” she asked.

0 Eliza Bennett Team Two! 174 Eliza Bennett 0 5

Brianna Japos

February 15, 2013 7:42 PM

Doom is accurate. by Brianna Japos

Brianna had prepared herself for this day as best as she could. Although she did not have pants to necessarily wear since she never required them in the past and they were too difficult for her to bother struggling into now, she did have sneakers and a skort. She felt like this was the best she could do clothes wise and at least a skort wasn’t going to get caught on anything the way a long skirt might have. Along with her crutches, that she had grown accustomed to over the last couple of months while struggling through the halls, Brianna had a muscle relaxer potion and a small vial of pain relieving potion. She had taken some earlier in the day just to keep her relaxed and on par with everything and to hopefully prevent any flare ups, but she kept extra just in case. She had been doing better with taking things slowly and adjusting to her new life, but there were still moments when the pain overwhelmed her and she couldn’t handle it or she stressed her body out too much and she had back spasms, but thankfully the spasms were few and far between.

Taking a breath, Brianna approached the rest of her teammates to wait out their time and listened politely as Derry decided to give them a speech. She wasn’t sure why he pluralized ‘girl’ considering everyone knew she was the only one and him not referring to her as anything other than ‘guy’ would have been okay by her. She already felt like an outcast two folds being the only girl and also crippled, but there was nothing any of them could do about either case. Still, she would have preferred for it to not be pointed out that she was the oddball out. She had enough of that for most of her life. But she said and did nothing to show her discomfort in his words. It wasn’t like he really knew any of it anyway.

Brianna entered the room after Derry, keeping her eyes up as she looked around to figure out what they were about to come face with when suddenly the room began to grow dark and strange noises started around them. She paused in her movement, perplexed by what was happening and by Derry’s assessment of it. She had no idea what the ‘Nothing’ was that he was saying, but she didn’t necessarily see anything to be afraid of. “What is a ‘Nothing’?” She asked, curiously. She hadn’t read anything about it in her books, so she found it strange to never have heard of it before.

Moving again, Brianna walked around Derry and was about to keep walking but the darkness and noises stopped (minus the weird moaning) and instead, Brianna found Harley staring at her. Surprise won first over her emotions because there was no logical reason for him to be at her school since he went to a magical school in the Northeast, but her surprise turned to fear when he came at her spewing hate-filled words. Some were the usual like ‘duck face’ or ‘Ugly’ while others were wishing her dead and blaming her for everything.

She had pointed her wand at some point, but she had forgotten what to do. Her hands went to her ears to block him out. “B-b-bo…ggart” she whimpered. She couldn’t think of anything to change Harley into that would make her laugh. She had figured it out after the thing had changed and Derry’s ‘Nothing’ became Brianna’s everything. At one time, her worst fear had been Attoria, but now it was the boy who has shoved her down the stairs, nearly killing her.

6 Brianna Japos Doom is accurate. 203 Brianna Japos 0 5

Theresa Carey

February 15, 2013 7:49 PM

Urgh by Theresa Carey

Theresa was not enthusiastic about the challenges, but braided her hair and put on one of the plain skirts and blouses she normally only wore to Care of Magical Creatures on the morning of the first one and was early to the team meeting anyway. For one thing, it was only polite, and for another, she knew she had to do her best whatever she thought or whoever she wished she was or wasn’t with anyway. It was a competition, and Careys were born to win competitions. It was as simple as that.

With that thought in mind, she spent some time making faces at her cousins and brothers, even indulging in a little boasting with Jay and Arnold about how badly her team was going to beat both of theirs, before politely greeting each member of her team and waiting (and waiting, and waiting, or so it felt to her as she reluctantly got more and more interested in what was waiting for them wherever the teams ahead of theirs were being lead off to) to be called to face the challenge. When at last a teacher came to lead team eight to their destination, Theresa had risen a little on her toes, as though that might help her see what was coming, and felt a little flustered as she came down again and walked along with the others into…the classroom area.

Well. That was a little bit of an anticlimax.

It only stayed that way for a minute, though, before she realized they were going to the Defense classroom, and that piqued her interest again. Was Professor Levy going to administer some test of their skills? Were they going to duel each other, and the first team to have only one member left standing won? But that wouldn’t be very fair to the first years, so she guessed it would be whoever could beat a common threat together first. What could that be?

They all walked into the Defense classroom, Theresa looking between the arrows and the ghosts, and she was just about to suggest that they ask the ghosts for directions when the moaning started. Startled, she raised her hands to her ears, making a face since the noise wasn’t pleasant at all. It paled, though, in comparison to the shriek one of the first years suddenly gave, one echoed, in higher-pitched and less wordy fashion, by Theresa herself when she saw what he was pointing at.

The spectacle of him jumping on a desk, though, waving a chair, was almost comical, except for the continued yelling. “Shut up!” Theresa shrieked, thinking all the noise would probably just make them mad, before using the first spell that came to mind: “Impedimenta!”

For a moment, she thought that had done the trick, but then the moaning grew even louder and suddenly, she found herself looking not at snakes, but a very old, stooped woman, dressed all in threadbare rags and muttering to herself distractedly as she shuffled toward Theresa. Theresa stepped back, wrapping up sections of her old skirt in her firsts as her mouth twisted in distaste at the sight, even while she tried to think - snakes, people, snakes, people - "It's some kind of naga!" she exclaimed, looking to one of the older students for a solution to that problem.

0 Theresa Carey Urgh 219 Theresa Carey 0 5

Keme RunningBear

February 16, 2013 12:11 PM

Team Seventeen Here by Keme RunningBear

Keme still wasn’t sure about these challenges or his teammates. He thought their leader, Arthur, was alright. He at least seemed competent. But, he wasn’t sure about the female on the team. She seemed to need attention and he had a feeling that she was going to try to overrun Arthur any chance she had and that would just cause them issues and confusion. Keme didn’t have any issue with females being leaders, even if that was not how it was in his own tribe, but his grandmother was equally wise and important to him as much as his grandfather, the chief, was. But since Arthur was the oldest of their group, it was the most obvious that he was the one to keep them in line and it didn’t matter who it was that was trying to take control, male or female, Keme just wasn’t comfortable with the lack of respect that it could show.

Of course, there was a chance that he was off base about her and really, she was just over enthusiastic about it all, but if that were the case, she shouldn’t have showboated about her leadership skills the way that she had. Then again, if Arthur and Amira were dating, there was the possibility that Arthur didn’t mind her being so forward about it all.

He waited quietly with the rest of the team for the announcement that it was their turn to go. Once they were called, Keme, who happened to arrive to the door first, entered it and found himself in the normal Defense Against the Dark Arts room. The only strange thing about it was the arrow on the floor and all the ghosts that were hanging about. He wasn’t sure if they were the challenge or not, but since they weren’t doing anything other than watching them, he figured they probably just thought all of this was amusing and came for a show. Shrugging to himself, Keme followed the arrow towards the professor’s desk. He didn’t see anything remotely interesting in the room for a challenge. Even with the ghosts, since they couldn’t really do anything to him, he thought if they were a part of the challenge, what a waste of time this would be.

Surprise and a sudden painfully stab of fear went through him when he found a mountain lion covered in blood from its last kill waiting for him on top of the desk. Panic overrode all senses for Keme as he watched it lick his whiskers, ready to devour them for his next meal. “Lion! Lion!” Keme shouted, moving backward and away from it, “NIT TOAK SKA TS! NIT TOAK SKA TS!” Keme was no longer looking at the lion, but trying to find a hiding spot away from the man eating animal. Had he been looking, he might have seen the animal change into someone else’s fear…

OOC: NIT TOAK SKA TS = I’m running!

6 Keme RunningBear Team Seventeen Here 249 Keme RunningBear 0 5

William Casey

February 16, 2013 12:56 PM

Team Seven? by William Casey

As soon as Will found out about their first group assignment, there was an excited chill rushing through his bones. It seemed like most of the school shared his sentiments if the excited chattering in the halls was any thing to go by. He hadn't heard much from his team members since meeting them when the lists were announced. Were they supposed to meet somewhere or just go to the Defense against the Dark Arts room? Since he hadn't heard anything, he figured he would just head to the Defense against the Dark Arts classroom.

As Will headed through the halls towards his destination, he noted the excess of decorations and ghosts. He smiled at some of the ghosts he had seen before and continued his journey. He thought about his team. He figured that, at least, that upperclass Aladren girl would be there. He hoped whatever they had to do wasn't too hard for him and that he could help.

Lost in his thoughts, he soon arrived outside the door to the DADA classroom. He was sartled at the sound of noises coming from within the classroom, and decided it would be best to wait and see if his team showed up. WIth that in mind, Will leaned back against the wall opposite the classroom to wait.

0 William Casey Team Seven? 0 William Casey 0 5

Francesca Wolseithcrafte

February 16, 2013 12:59 PM

It's supposed to be a challenge by Francesca Wolseithcrafte

Thaddeus had arranged a meeting time for them. Perhaps that was similar to being a meeting chair, in that it was an organisational function. However, when they arrived at the appointed time, he also prepped them and led them into battle, strategising as they went. She was beginning to wonder what David's function was actually going to be. Perhaps he was merely good at Quidditch and this school was obsessed enough with the sport for that to seem reason enough to elect him head boy. He certainly had not evidenced any other qualities as far as she could see.

She was unfazed by the more artificial attempts to induce an atmosphere of spookiness. There were enough genuinely frightening things in the magical world that being alarmed by a few cobwebs was frankly ridiculous. She drew her wand as they entered the room. Admittedly her repertoire of spells was somewhat limited but her wand wasn't going to do anything if it wasn't even drawn.

Heeding Thad's advice, she began to make her way cautiously through the room. Apparently not everyone else on the team had taken it so to heart, specifically the bit about 'keeping calm' as, moments after a low wailing began, she found herself being dived behind. She, the youngest member and a girl. There was the possibility that the quivering mass of Henry Carey was a surprisingly progressive young man who saw neither of things as reasons to suspect her of being incapable but she rather suspecting that the truth lay nearer to him having no qualms about using her as a human shield, which was somewhat less flattering. The Carey males were proving to be a strange bunch. First there had been Malcolm, a Pureblood male who didn't know how to fly, and now Henry Carey was proving to be prone to throwing young ladies into the firing line. She might have wondered whether there was something defective about them as a group had she not been uninclined to think of Malcolm in such negative terms. Whilst not being able to fly was a curiosity it was not really a flaw, besides which she had found his company to be something she could tolerate a repeat of.

Right now, however, she had more pressing matters than musing on Carey family traits. The old woman of whom Henry Carey had seemed so alarmed melted away before her eyes to be replaced with... something that looked rather like her mother. Physically, it was all correct. There was the long straight nose, the brown hair pulled into a neat and tidy bun. But her mother would never had stood like that, with her shoulders stooped. Her mother had poise. When she turned her eyes from the floor to Francesca they were also wrong. The colour was correct but they looked distant and sad.

“I give up,” the thing which looked not unlike her mother sighed. “We're never going to beat them and... it just isn't worth it. I'm sure you did your best,” she reassured.

Had Francesca been asked whether she was frightened, she would probably have replied in the negative. She was definitely unnerved by the vision before her. It had that air of the uncanny – something familiar but turned on its head. She could never see her mother behaving this way. Life was not simple for her family. They lived under the constant pressure that their decisions and beliefs put on them. Her understanding of this meant that deep, very deep down, she wondered whether there was the possibility that it would prove too much for them. It was not something that she had acknowledged on a conscious level though. It was more the unpleasant sensation of a 'what if...' that lurked in the back of her mind. Had overt fear been a common denominator, she may have figured it out. However, as far as she could see, this creature mimicked people's relatives, as she surmised that the previous incarnation had been a Carey (although quite why Henry was so scared of a member of his own flesh and blood was an interesting question). She could not call such a thing to mind.

“We have a shape shifter,” she called out to her team mates. “Mimics family members,” she added, “Badly, in at least some cases,” she informed them.

She stared at the creature with all the fierce Wolseithcrafte determination that this simulacrum was missing. It was a dark creature of some kind. If it sensed that she was frightened it would see her as easy prey. It was definitely trying to sidle closer.

“Ventus!” she cast, swishing her wand forward at it. The spell was the offensive equivalent of a shield charm, a very basic spell but a good all rounder. It would blow a strong puff of air at the creature, knocking it back. She had practised this diligently and thus could be confident that her wand work would do more than tickle the assailant. It staggered a few paces away from her.

13 Francesca Wolseithcrafte It's supposed to be a challenge 250 Francesca Wolseithcrafte 0 5

Henny B-F-R

February 16, 2013 2:41 PM

Team one, part one, post one... by Henny B-F-R

Henny was feeling very well prepared but also rather exhausted from Alicia's training regime. And definitely more bruised than she had ever been in her life. She wasn't really sure whether the training was going to be of benefit, as she thought any skills she had gained might have been cancelled out by being tired and battered. Still, she felt good for being prepared. Besides which, she liked the social aspect of Alicia's team alliance, so even if the work didn't benefit her one jot in the challenges, that didn't matter.

She tried not to get nervous as they gathered for the first challenge. Yes, this was going to involve unexpected things which tested her abilities. It was a challenge. It was supposed to be challenging. But it was important to keep some perspective. The school was not going to put them in actual danger. The challenges also needed to be accessible to a range of ages and abilities. She was a highly capable fourth year. There was actually a lot that she was capable of dealing with. In fact, she considered, holding back might cause her more difficulties than dealing with the actual problems. If there was a threat and she knew how to easily take it out, her tendency would be to do that as fast as possible. However, some of the easier elements of the tasks were probably supposed to be aimed at the lower years. She needed to ensure she gave them a chance to contribute rather than letting her own slight tendency towards panic spoil it for them.

This was only part of the reason why she hung back as they were shown into the defence classroom. Her naturally cautious tendency also held her back. Her wand was drawn and she eyed the arrow on the floor with suspicion. It wasn't going to be as straightforward as following it, of that she was certain. She was expecting the unexpected. She scanned the room, searching for any other more subtle clues.

“Do we get clues from you? Or have to... solve something to do with you?” she asked a ghost. She doubted they were just going to come and out and tell them the answer but she felt that they must be in there for a reason. The ghost merely drifted past her. That left a few options... They had to approach them in some way but not the way in which she had done. She was sure there were spells one could use on ghosts but she doubted that any of them were very pleasant, and they would therefore not be in the average student's studies, nor were the ghosts likely to have signed up for such treatment. If the ghosts were the key, then it must be something that they were supposed to say to them. The other option was the arrow. Following it to trigger something, either a further aspect of the challenge or some punishment if they had not successfully completed the room. She would prefer to exhaust the option of the ghosts before that, even if she rather suspected that booby traps and quick thinking were more in line with both the challenge's theme and location. In addition to which, she couldn't think of anything logical to engage the ghosts with...

13 Henny B-F-R Team one, part one, post one... 211 Henny B-F-R 0 5

Sullivan Quincy

February 16, 2013 4:12 PM

Team Two Reporting! by Sullivan Quincy

Sullivan was neither particularly excited, nor particularly disdainful of the challenges. They were something different and a good distraction from his CATS coming up at the end of the year, so for that he liked them. He had no expectation or desire to push for his team to win the whole thing, but he didn't mind participating and was even kind of looking forward to finding out what each one entailed.

Still, he couldn't help feeling a little nervous that there had been no meetings for Team Two, as some of the other teams had done, and the only reason he was sure he wasn't being intentionally excluded or incidentally forgotten about was that Jhonice hadn't asked him why he wasn't attending any of them. It was just as well, he supposed. His team make-up didn't exactly make him eager to spend time with them. He spent most of his Sonora life actively avoiding Jhonice anyway, and he was sure he wasn't going to get along with Carrie O'Malley. She was one of Those Kinds Of Purebloods, and his recent induction into the California Pierce tribe was hardly going to offset that he was a muggleborn by birth. All he knew about Eliza Bennett was that she was a seventh year Crotalus who some kind of frenemy with Sara Raines or something. Clarissa and Carter he had no idea who they were at all beyond that they were lower classmen, and Carter might be related somehow to somebody else in Sonora, maybe. Not exactly his best friends, any of them. Not that Sullivan really had any close friends here, but he got by with a few acquaintanceships well enough. Classes served well enough to provide for all of his social needs.

On the day of the first challenge, he was a little anxious about what might be required of him, but he was a fifth year in a group containing a seventh year, another fifth year, a third year, and two second years, so he figured he should be better qualified that the younger three kids for most activities and the really hard stuff would mostly be up to Eliza to handle. This average, middle-of-the-road ranking felt quite comfortable for him, so he only had a couple nightmares in the preceding week, and was able to stomach his breakfast that morning without too much trouble. He felt particularly proud about that when Eliza asked about their breakfasts specifically and he was able to nod apathetically without lying.

He could only assume Eliza had never seen his marks in class, or that she was talking about them generally instead of inclusively, when she declared she had faith in them. Or maybe she was also making the assumption that nothing first years were expected to handle would faze a fifth year, even one who wasn't doing particularly stellar on his report cards. Or maybe she was just lying to sound motivational, which was entirely possible, too, from a team leader type of person.

He relaxed a little as they entered the DADA classroom and nothing horrible jumped out to attack them. He still drew his wand, because that was kind of his instinct when entering Professor Levy's domain, if only to put it on his desk for later use. He didn't head for a desk in the back row this time, though, instead moving toward the front like the arrow said to. He wasn't quite sure how he got to be in the front, but he was as the professor's desk came nearer and a horrific noise started up. Sully had no attention to spare for the noise, however, because the same moment the noise began was the one where he noticed there was a velociraptor in the room.

If he was running on anything but instinct and adrenaline, he would have been impressed with himself. He would have marveled that he neither peed his pants, screamed like a little girl, nor passed out. But Professor Levy must have done something right over the last four years because Sullivan Quincy's wand came up, he shouted, "Stupify!" and the most powerful stunning curse Sully had ever cast in his entire life shot toward the dinosaur, making it, at least momentarily, fall to the ground. That was all Sully needed to turn tail, run toward the door faster than he had ever run in his life, and begin screaming, "Raptors! Raptors! Run!" He turned the knob desperately in a panic but it wouldn't turn. The door was locked behind them. They were trapped in the classroom with a predatory monster that hunted in packs and would feast on all of their bones. Terrified but trapped, Sully turned around as bravely as he could with his wand raised, face white, ready to be eaten and/or see all his former teammates being eaten. But the prehistoric lizard was gone.

1 Sullivan Quincy Team Two Reporting! 207 Sullivan Quincy 0 5

Anthony Carey

February 17, 2013 1:10 AM

Yes, it is by Anthony Carey

Alan Raines wasn’t the person in his year Anthony had spent the most time with, but he had still been happy to see they were on the same team. Most of their year, being people who were from roughly the same social group and a lot of whom had older relatives who knew or in one case were romantically involved with each other and who all, except apparently the Pierce twins, had to see each other at social events over the summer anyway, seemed pretty close to Anthony, so he saw pretty much anyone else in second year as a friendly person by default and felt comfortable talking to Alan during team exercises. This had initially set Alan apart from the rest of the team in a big way, since Derry Pierce had long since acquired something like legendary status in Anthony’s mind for being the first person outside the family ever to knock Arnold off his broom, Linus Macaulay was an Assistant Captain and thus the next thing to being as old as Derry, and Brianna…was awkward, Anthony always felt like he should offer to help her but didn’t know what she would think of a second year doing that.

By the time of the first challenge, Alan was still the one he felt the most comfortable around, but he had gotten comfortable with saying a casual hello to the others in passing in the hallways, instead of forcing it the way he had at first. Well, the others except sometimes Linus. Anthony had the feeling sometimes that Linus was managing to think and behave more the way Anthony, as an Anthony rather than just Anthony, was most likely supposed to, and that wasn’t entirely comfortable. But he was okay with Brianna and Derry, with the first one reminding him a little of Henry and the other making him think of Arnold when he wasn’t playing Quidditch. More or less, anyway.

Sometimes, they made him think of his relatives more than others. Derry reminded him a lot of Arnold as he talked to them before they went into the DADA room. If he had ever thought of Arnold losing something – which he hadn’t really; Arnold not only had a nearly perfect Quidditch record, but he could also beat Arthur at some things, which pretty much made him invincible in Anthony’s eyes except when he lost stuff on purpose to their younger cousins – he would have thought his brother would have taken just about the same approach to being team leader, completely and cheerfully ignoring how very doomed their ranking among the other teams they had family members on was.

Anthony didn’t know much about tons of other people at Sonora generally, but he did know about his relatives, all of whom were on other teams. Henry was slower with magic than most of them, but would keep hacking away at a task long after Anthony gave it up, and he could remember non-practical aspects of their classes even better than Anthony could, and read lots outside of class. Jay wasn’t as quick with memorization as Anthony, but he was better with a wand. Theresa could beat anyone in the family in a foot race and hit any target she aimed at with, as far as Anthony knew, just about anything she picked up on top of sharing Henry’s refusal to quit once she started something. Arthur had spent the better part of his life learning everything he could about everything he heard about, and Arnold was still better at Defensive magic in some areas than Arthur was and even with him in the others. Mal was only a first year, but he was quick with puzzles, and thought quickly in general. They together didn’t make up the majority of the teams, but they were the people Anthony personally measured himself against, and in everything except maybe foreign languages and geography, neither of which he thought were going to be at all useful for the challenge, he could find ways in which he didn’t measure up, ways they would use to pull their teams toward the finish line with them if the teams didn’t keep up on their own.

There were, of course, four other people on his team, three of them older than him, but though he would never tell them so, Anthony didn’t rate them too highly compared to his family, either. It was inevitable that he was going to hear about being the heir with the least successful team in the whole family for the rest of his natural life. Anthony just hoped he could make them laugh with him instead of at him, and hoped Derry had the same luck with his cousins. Alan alone of them might come in ahead of his relative, since Sara Raines’ whole team was made up of girls, and if he did, Anthony thought he might be able to get away with thinking of Fae as sort of his sister, but since Sara was Head Girl and Alex, who was a distant cousin, was on that team, Anthony wasn’t hugely optimistic about that, either.

“That makes sense,” he agreed when, once they were inside the room, Derry suggested they should follow the arrow. He didn’t get nervous until things suddenly went dark and something started moaning, making him look around pointlessly and then take out his wand. “Lumos?” he tried.

He shared Brianna’s unfamiliarity with a Nothing, but since neither of them was to the point where Derry had dropped out of DADA, he didn’t think that meant much until Brianna went past Derry and suddenly, there was a boy standing there, one Anthony didn’t know. He took a step back in surprise, wondering where he had come from and if he was part of the challenge or someone from another team who’d been left behind, just before the boy started saying awful things to Brianna. That, too, made Anthony stare in shock for a second; you weren’t supposed to talk to girls that way. Not to anyone – Anthony would have gotten a short but pointed lesson from either of his parents if he had ever said anything like that to anyone – but especially not a girl. It was just wrong.

Apparently, Brianna thought it was, too, because she identified it as a boggart. Anthony knew what boggarts were, of course; it was hard to grow up in an old magical house and not see one. He still remembered the time he’d had a mythology lesson and then had a hydra come out from under his bed just as he was about to get into it that night; he had screamed the house down and hadn’t slept that night or the next one, either, even though Mother and Father had both explained that nothing was going to get him. Just thinking of that now made him nervous, since thinking of it might make it happen again if he got in the way, but –

He stepped in front of Brianna, and sure enough, the mean person twisted promptly into a many-headed snake, which was probably saying unfriendly things, too, but Parseltongue was an innate gift rather than a language the family could hire a tutor to instruct him in so Anthony didn’t know it and didn’t have to worry about what the thing’s opinion of him was. Not that whether or not it thought his haircut was stupid was really his worst problem, because he had just realized he didn’t remember what the spell Mother and Father had used to banish boggarts before was.

“I don’t – “ he started to say, then ducked as one of the heads swung toward him before finishing his sentence, not sure if a boggart-hydra could really bite him and not eager to find out – “know how to get rid of it!”

0 Anthony Carey Yes, it is 0 Anthony Carey 0 5

Regina Parker

February 17, 2013 11:34 AM

Team Fifteen, Follow Me Please! by Regina Parker

Reggie was pretty confident in their team. Did she think that they would win the challenges completely and take top prize? No, of course not. And that wasn’t to say that they were incapable of it or anything such thing or that because they were all girls that they couldn’t do it, it was just that there were twenty teams total and as good as Reggie had done on her CATS exams, there was still things she had not learned that the Seventh years might have and challenges that they may not be able to get through. She was being realistic in that. She was confident that they’ll be able to overcome whatever they were faced with and would be proud of them knowing that, but she knew that winning probably wasn’t going to happen. As long as they finished though (preferably not in last place), she would be content in that.

She gathered the team in the Entrance Hall where it seemed most other teams were waiting until their team was called and they were directed to the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. Before entering, Reggie looked at them and whispered, “Just keep low and keep your wands out. If you don’t know how to attack whatever it is in there, then throw up a shield. If you know what we’re dealing with, call out to everyone. Be careful and try not to hit your teammates.” She instructed them before entering the room, her eyes looking every which way for a sign of danger.

All she saw were ghosts though that she occasionally saw around the school, so she didn’t find them threatening. Not seeing anything directly other than an arrow, Reggie shifted to the side to allow everyone else into the room. She thought it best not to immediately follow the arrow as that just scream ‘Horror Movie’ bad move to her. Instead, she kept to the wall and went sideways into the room instead of forward. She periodically looked to the ghosts to see if they were giving off any sort of hint, but most just looked amused or perplexed, so they were no help.

Reggie turned to look back and noticed the door had closed behind them when they had all entered. Yup, definitely horror movie antics. She counted the living heads in the room to make sure her whole team was still with her before focusing on the desk, the only thing in front of the arrow that was pointing in that direction. “Does anyone see anything yet?” She asked them.

6 Regina Parker Team Fifteen, Follow Me Please! 187 Regina Parker 0 5

David Wilkes

February 17, 2013 12:24 PM

A very revealing challenge, too. by David Wilkes

Thad had taken well to the leader role, enough that David had not had to do much but sit back and let the fourth year do his thing. When Thad had sent out early-meeting invitations, David had become convinced (not that he’d needed much convincing) that this was the best thing to continue doing now that the challenges were underway, too. He was not known as the snazziest or most formal dresser at Sonora anyway, but was particularly casual at eleven thirty on the day of the first challenge, in a blue and grey t-shirt, jeans, and the older and more comfortable set of sneakers he had at school.

The shoes, at least, served a practical function as well. David had grown up in a family where the female members far outnumbered the men, it would have been hard for him to miss the discussions about the many virtues of a comfortable pair of shoes. He was assuming that part of the criteria for winning involved being the team that finished the challenge fastest, which meant they might have to run. He was only mediocre at running at best, so rubbing a blister on his heel the first time he did it because he was wearing new-ish shoes to look better would not help the situation.

He nodded along with Thad’s lecture to the younger students, kind of impressed by the amount of thought he seemed to have put into it when there was such a good chance that it would all be for nothing, and grinned, hiding nerves, when he noticed a teacher heading their way. “So in other words, good luck staying alive, guys,” he remarked to the younger students, wishing it to himself as well. Why had he ever thought being a heroic wizard sounded appealing when he was their age? And they weren’t even a bunch of utterly unexposed Muggleborns, so they probably knew that this world completely and utterly sucked in probably more ways than it was really awesome, especially since, being purebloods, it didn’t even mean a lack of relatives out to steal all their stuff for them.

In the Defense room, he took it upon himself to wave to a couple of ghosts he recognized, and was about to ask if they had any advice when the creepy moaning started and he raised his wand, turning quickly when sudden movement – Harry apparently deciding that if Fran wanted to be as tough as she seemed to want to seem, she could protect him from an old lady – caught his eye. For a split second, he was confused about both why one of the Big Bad Careys was afraid of an old lady and why an old lady was here at all, but then it turned into a different woman talking to Francesca and he decided to be confused about that instead.

He raised an eyebrow when she said what she thought it was, since he’d never heard of anything like that, but then, his brain had had to absorb so much new data over the years that he was sure he had forgotten plenty of it over time. Especially specific stuff from first year, no doubt. He needed to go over some of that for RATS, but hadn’t really gotten around to it yet, not least because thinking about the RATS made him anxious and he saw no reason to do that when he didn’t have to. “Really? Cool,” he said, stepping toward the thing badly impersonating one of her relatives after she knocked it further from her with a spell mainly just to see which of his relatives it would start looking like, though with his wand still raised in case it did get bored with them and decide to attack.

Instead of starting to look or talk like any member of the Family Wilkes, though, it abruptly changed into a gigantic green cobra-looking snake. David’s first reaction was to use a piece of language he would not have normally used in front of first year girls, or people in general, really, and his second was to try to jump back and Stun it at the same time.

“So much for your theory,” he said, glancing at Francesca. “Y’know, we should all get together sometime, talk about our families, it’d be way cheaper than real group therapy. Riddi – dangit – ” He racked his brain for something funny which was snake-related around warily watching the thing and came up with an old variety song.

“Riddikulus,” he said, envisioning a snake with a full set of human dentures, then throwing in an orange and pink party hat for good measure. It hissed angrily at him, and he tried for more conviction. “Lawyer, lawyer, lawyer, Riddikulus!”

This time, the transformation took, but it still had snake eyes and a pretty snake-like, scaled head, aside from the big gleaming smile, to contend with, so the best he could manage was a nervous giggle. It had definitely been funnier in the song. It actually looked sort of creepy and wrong at the same time as funny now that he'd sort of made it; he thought it was only the hat, which hadn't come out that well, which let it be really funny at all. "Anyone got anything funnier?" he asked, though it was at least a relief the snake didn't have fangs anymore.

16 David Wilkes A very revealing challenge, too. 169 David Wilkes 0 5

Alicia Bauer

February 17, 2013 12:27 PM

Indeed. by Alicia Bauer

She had known that it was likely the first challenge would be run one team at a time – it was the best way to avoid the total chaos that would happen if the whole school was in one place at the same time, the best way to avoid someone getting trampled, and, of course, the best way to keep her from stealing Andri’s wand and using it to impede members of teams she didn’t like in the back to keep them from containing victors – but Alicia still wasn’t happy about it. The group more or less under her command had neither a chance nor a right to win, and she hated the feeling of being completely powerless to at least help her friends any further than she already had. She had briefly considered trying to Confund members of other unapproved teams as they left the Cascade Hall, but in the end hadn’t been able to quite work up the nerve to do it under the eyes of the staff, who were no doubt around specifically to make sure that none of the more competitive students in the school did try to harm their rivals.

Between finishing a week where she had only gotten about four hours of sleep a night, her first plan for today not working, her second plan being both equally useless and something she hadn’t had time to put together anyway, and seeing herself as a coward for not fixing the challenge, Alicia was in a nasty mood as she took her wand out again, this time openly, as soon as someone came for team seven. She put in the effort, though, to give the team her usual smile outside the door of Professor Levy’s classroom. This was far from the worst day she’d ever had in spite of everything, after all, and she considered people who wore their hearts on their sleeves weak idiots with no purpose in life other than to be played by smarter people. This was not how she viewed herself, so she kept her heart firmly in her chest when dealing with all but a very small number of people and generally didn’t put the whole thing out on display even with them.

“Remember, wands out and heads high,” she said warmly, meeting each of their eyes and staying for a second longer with her first year. “Unless, you know, something’s heading straight for your head, then you duck and look up again to deal with it, but you get the idea. We’re going to be great!”

She led the group in, resisting the urge to raise her free hand, the one not busy holding her wand, up to her head, which felt unusually heavy. Her appearance, as a weapon like any other, had to carefully balance function and looks, and though her clothes (an exercise suit consisting of a long-sleeved shirt and trousers, specially made to be as flattering as possible, however much that was, and in Sonora green and Aladren black) had fallen down a little on the looks side today in her opinion since no one looked their best in clothes which were designed to let them run, climb, duel, and possibly deflect a few minor jinxes, she thought her hair, which with a bit of help from a charm she had braided up on her head so it would be out of her way, was doing an okay job of maintaining that balance. The only problem was that she usually just wore it in one braid when she practiced with her friends, so the style wasn’t completely comfortable for her. She made a mental note to wear it this way a few times in the week leading up to the second challenge, so she didn’t have this problem again, and focused her attention back on the room in front of her.

There was an arrow on the floor, ghosts hovering around the perimeter, and not much else, at least which looked relevant. Alicia looked over the ghosts for a second before offering them the winning smile she used for them when she passed one in the hallway as well as for professors, prefects, and other neutral or potentially useful entities. It was a draining effort, she hated it half the time, but it was important, as this was hopefully going to prove.

“Any chance I could get you guys to help us out?” she called out to them, and her smile faltered slightly when she got no reaction. Her eyes flicked back toward the arrow, then back to the ghosts. “Looks like we’re supposed to follow this, then,” she said to the group. “Wands definitely out now, and eyes everywhere.” She had no idea where something might jump out at them from, after all, just that something was very likely to, given the theme of the event. Halloween might have started out as a real holiday, but now, it was just an excuse for people to charm themselves into terrifying shapes and jump out at people they wanted to persecute in a way no one would punish them for.

Her good sense told her to put the others in front of her, but her pride was still stinging a little after her failure to jinx four of the six teams before theirs, so she lead the way, taking small, careful steps along the arrow until a soft moaning started to fill the room, making her look up abruptly, her wand hand flying up toward the threat, a strangely familiar looking figure….

“Oh, my God,” she gasped, staggering backward a step as a thrill of horror and revulsion ran through her as, suddenly, she might as well have been six years old again, sitting on her great-grandfather’s lap and trying to listen to a Muggle radio through all the static generated by her grandfather and the two of his siblings and pieces of their families who were also magical being in the house around her sick great-grandmother and hearing a man sadly crooning about how alone and pale in a cheap hotel, she died there in the dawn….

She had never heard the end; first her great-aunt Anna had said for Henry to turn that thing off, and then Alicia had started crying anyway. Her great-grandfather, thinking Anna had startled her, had told her not to cry in his thick accent before distracting her by first singing a little song in German and giving her his pocket watch to play with. She’d calmed down and shown him how she’d recently learned to tell time, but she hadn’t been able to get the bit of song out of her head, and now, she saw the picture she saw every time it came back to her, or she thought about what would happen if anyone she loved found out that easy old mark had ever existed. It was her own decomposing body, clearly identifiable by both its improbably intact thick, if less shiny than usual, dark brown hair and by what looked like her wand – old and chipped here, not given anything remotely like the meticulous care she gave it now, but recognizable, twelve and a half inches of simply carved walnut – still gripped in what was left of one of its hands.

OOC: The song lyric referenced is from the last verse of “I’ll Be True To You” by the Oak Ridge Boys.

16 Alicia Bauer Indeed. 210 Alicia Bauer 0 5

Adam Spencer

February 17, 2013 4:27 PM

I wish I weren't here. by Adam Spencer

The team dynamic didn't make Adam feel very comfortable, but he was trying to adjust. The only witch on their team had sent him death stares during their meeting and Adam didn't like that, not knowing what he had done wrong. He liked everyone else well-enough. He felt a bit incompetent, however, which was a new feeling for him. He wasn't as well-rehearsed in magic as his older classmates were and he didn't know what he could contribute. He did have a startling lack of fear in most cases, though that always depended on what it was exactly.

Adam looked forward to the challenges. They would be a nice break from the school monotony. He met with the rest of his team-mates in front of the DADA classroom. Adam didn't see it as a spectacularly interesting place to have a challenge. He took the time to look at his team-mates and assess their reactions. RunningBear in particular, a boy who didn't seem to really fit into the social norms that Adam was used to, intrigued him. He tried to think of what his sister would think of him, but his thought process was interrupted when their group was called in.

Once they entered, Adam saw the arrow, but took his time in looking around to see if anything looked suspicious. He didn't see anything noteworthy and was a bit disappointed in the lack of creativity on the part of his professors. There were ghosts, certainly, but they weren't doing anything interesting. His dark eyes turned to Keme who had approached the desk, but his gaze was pulled away when he heard a painful moan. The unexpected shiver at the painful sound broke Adam's concentration for a moment, and then Keme was running away yelling something in a language Adam had never heard before. He had caught the cry of "Lion!" before that, and Adam curiously approached the seemingly empty desk.

His heart froze suddenly and the breath left his body when he saw something he never wanted to see. There was his mother lying completely still on the desk, her pale skin completely white. She was clearly dead and Adam felt goose pimples rise on his covered arms. The image changed to his dead sister Charlotte, and Adam felt his throat close up just a little. The body changed to that of his father, then his younger brother and lastly his youngest sister who was still just a toddler. Seeing her little body, completely and unquestionably dead, on the professor's desk, Adam had a very hard time thinking. He wanted to sit down and cry, but though his eyes were tearing up, he had to remember this was a challenge.

"B-B--," he started, but he couldn't form the thought. He backed away, unable to take his eyes off the changing family members, his heart pounding in dread and fear, his body shaking in horror. The image of his dead family members made him want to get out of this room immediately, but he didn't know the spell to remove the boggart. Right, that's what it was. But Adam's tongue felt useless and he couldn't form words, the image of what he had just seen being so traumatic.

40 Adam Spencer I wish I weren't here. 257 Adam Spencer 0 5

Cepheus Princeton

February 17, 2013 4:45 PM

Calling Team Fourteen. by Cepheus Princeton

Saturday afternoon came quicker than Cepheus had expected. He was looking forward to not doing homework for a time, though he didn't know if he liked this alternative much better. He was finding the coursework this year much more difficult than the last, though perhaps it was because he wasn't putting as much of an effort into it. He didn't really enjoy studying so much when there was sunshine to be enjoyed outside.

He had dressed up like he did every day, though his hair was loose today from rather than being combed to the side. Cepheus met with the rest of his team in front of the DADA classroom and crossed his arms, looking bored. He was noticeably taller than a lot of people now after his growth spurt, and he didn't know if he liked it. It would make Seeking a bit more difficult, but he certainly liked not being so tiny.

Once their group was called in, Cepheus went in, opting to walk in first and take the brunt of the challenge. There wasn't anything all that different except for an arrow pointing them towards the professor's desk. Alicia's remark on having them all help each other had baffled Cepheus a bit, but he could see why it would be a good idea. He didn't see how it would work in a place like this, though, especially since they were all going in with their individual teams.

Cepheus followed the arrow cautiously, approaching the professor's desk with care. Then a figure came out from behind the professor's desk, one that he was far too familiar with and perhaps the scariest wizard Cepheus knew. The moment he saw the figure, a moaning began and the ghosts, which had bothered Cepheus at first, were beginning to spark a fear in him. The moaning startled him, and he could feel himself coming undone.

His grandfather stood before him looking taller and more disappointed than ever. Scorpius shook his head at Cepheus, his pale blue eyes never leaving his grandson's. "I'm disappointed in you, Cepheus. You have failed the family. You are not worthy of the patriarchy."

Cepheus knew his grandfather wasn't really here, but he looked so convincing. He tried to push past the mix of emotions he was feeling at this. His grandfather continued to berate him, saying things that hit Cepheus hard, but he tried to keep in mind that it wasn't real. "It's a boggart," he said faintly to his team-mates, trying to get back some semblance of himself. "I...I can't remember the incantation," he continued, his mind still too scattered to bring out that helpful bit of information.

40 Cepheus Princeton Calling Team Fourteen. 216 Cepheus Princeton 0 5

Jhonice Trevear

February 17, 2013 9:31 PM

Reporting as ordered by Jhonice Trevear

This was to be an exciting day. The first challenge was before them and they would surely triumph! Jhonice could barely eat or sleep since the announcement was posted that the challenge would be starting. Not knowing what lay ahead, she decided to dress utilitarian. She wore a light, but long sleeved black shirt and a pair of blue denim overalls with quite a few pockets. In these pockets she stuffed anything she thought might come in handy. She braided her hair into a single long braid, then wound it around itself into a bun on the back of her head. Wither her hair safely tucked away she grabbed her wand and headed out the door to hunt down some breakfast.

The hall was filled with conversations about the upcoming challenge, she soaked it all in while wolfing down some food. She had a little time before meeting up with the rest of her team so she decided to follow her normal Saturday schedule. She spotted Sullivan without to much trouble, he looked to be eating, if not maybe a little hesitantly. She scribbled something in her notebook about his 'stalwart calm when facing unimaginable horrors' along with many other things. She then proceeded to follow him around covertly the rest of the morning making notes until he arrived in time for the team meeting. She stayed out of sight for a few moments before joining the team herself.

She smiled and nodded at Eliza Bennett's speech then broke out in a full fledged grin as they entered the DADA classroom. Who knew what the teachers had arrayed against them? Hopefully something it wasn't something boring. If these 'challenges' were some clever ruse to get them to take tests she was going to be very upset. The room was dark and spooky... well, more so than normal. That was a good sign, she entered close behind Sullivan and followed Eliza's instruction to ready wands. Her eyes scanned around the room, there was definitely something different about the room. She nearly had her finger on it when Sullivan heroically saved them all. She turned towards him as shouted the spell and saw it strike something, which dropped to the ground. Sullivan in the meantime tried to clear the exit and get everyone to safety, to no avail. The door was locked. She quickly returned her gaze to what Sullivan had thought was either a dinosaur or some bird of prey, but it was gone.

Nervously she stepped toward the spot where it had been. It didn't seem terribly likely that the teachers would lock them in room with a dinosaur and from her research she doubted Sullivan would use the term 'raptor' to discribe a hawk or something, it was dark Sullivan must not have seen it very well. What else could it have been? The dinosaur type raptors had two legs, two arms, teeth, claws, a tail, elongated face.... the moaning noise was getting louder and the color drained from her face as she figured out what it could be. "Not a raptor! It's a..." before she could finish a werewolf burst from behind a set of desks near to her and let out a piercing howl. She stumbled back, landed on her bottom and lost her grip on her wand. It skittered across the room "Werewolf!"

2 Jhonice Trevear Reporting as ordered 209 Jhonice Trevear 0 5

Malcolm Carey

February 17, 2013 11:09 PM

I'm going nowhere near that thing by Malcolm Carey

The certainty of defeat was, for Mal, a very liberating thing. Knowing for sure that his team was not going to come in first – they stood a chance at the top ten, he thought, but he thought Arthur was enough like most of the family to view the situation as total conquest or nothing, it was the Carey code – freed him from the responsibility of worrying about coming in first, which freed him to focus on seeing how crazy people would get as they did worry about it anyway. Overall, he thought doing that was going to be a lot more fun.

He still, though, was a little interested in what the challenge was actually going to be, and he raised an eyebrow as they entered the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom and found it lined by what looked like most of the ghosts commonly seen around Sonora, and perhaps some others. Mal spotted some he had spoken to before – after his sister had left home and he had quickly discovered that his brother was boring, he had gotten used to speaking to portraits more than people, so he was a little more comfortable with the dead and painted portions of the school than with most of the living ones – and lifted his hand to greet them before looking, along with everyone else, down at the arrow on the floor until –

“What?” he exclaimed, to no one in particular, when Keme started yelling about lions. For a second, considering he couldn’t understand a word of everything else the other first year was yelling, Mal considered that ‘lion’ might not mean ‘large homicidal feline’ in whatever language it was the other boy had lapsed into, but no, there was a lion….

….Until, just as Mal decided to take good counsel when he saw it and head for the door but found himself trying to do that backward because he couldn’t look away from what might kill him, he would have to laugh about it afterward if after years of expecting to be murdered someday he instead became the first North Carolina Carey ever to be taken out by a lion instead of by another Carey, there wasn’t a lion there at all anymore. Instead, there was a dead body.

Mal stopped, staring at that in fascination for a second before he heard Adam begin stammering and realized: boggart.

After that, it didn’t take Mal long at all to know what to do. He moved even closer to the door, making as sure as he could that it wasn’t going to focus on him. He didn’t like the idea of facing a boggart anyway, but was not about to face one in front of all these people and most of the local spirit population if he could avoid it. Whatever it would be for him, and he really didn’t know what that would be, the group did not all need to know about it and that he feared it that much. One of the group members was a member of his family and one was his roommate, but they weren't that close; in fact, he really thought that was more of a reason to keep his fears to himself in front of them than with everyone else.

0 Malcolm Carey I'm going nowhere near that thing 256 Malcolm Carey 0 5

Arthur Carey

February 18, 2013 12:11 AM

I'm sure we're all amazed by Arthur Carey

Arthur had not been entirely sure how he would take the beginning of the challenges, and was surprised to find, as he gathered up his team beforehand, that he was actually feeling cheerful about it. This, he thought, was highly likely to be the closest thing to pure fun he’d had since he’d first discovered riddle games, especially since the ultra-competitive atmosphere of Quidditch was held at bay through a system which didn’t allow them to see their opponents and how well they were doing. His biggest concern was restraining Miss Thornton from rushing through into an ambush, and considering how mild any ambush waiting for them was going to be, considering that all the first years were playing right alongside all the seventh years, even that was only a problem in terms of points; he suspected they were being watched, as children playing at home were, for evidence of strategic thinking and good sense, so they could lose points for not demonstrating them unless he could somehow make it look like it had been deliberate and sensible without giving it away that he knew he was being watched.

Pure, unadulterated fun, and he didn’t even have to worry, just a bit in the back of his mind, about blowing himself to bits too small for his family to have anything to bury, as he sometimes did with his other amusements, especially now that he was working, for all intents and purposes, alone on that. He needed another partner – not to replace Jane, they would still compare carefully coded notes on how things went, suggest things to each other, all of that just as before, but in addition. People he was comfortable suggesting forays outside the curriculum to being, though, in short supply, he doubted he was going to find one, so he would have to stick with this team for his entertainment on days when he was in a safety-conscious mood.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” he said once he had them all together. “Miss Thornton.”

He didn’t find it necessary to say much else to them, as speeches would only sound ridiculous at this point in his mind, but he did throw in a “Here we are. Good luck, everyone” outside the door of the Defense classroom, since if there was such a thing as luck, they were going to need it, walking in against something and not knowing what it was. Arthur had his wand out from the first step, keeping his eyes and ears open, not knowing when something might happen.

He registered the ghosts, but they seemed to be spectators, and then one of the first years thoroughly distracted him from everything else, anyway. He had no idea what the other Aladren was saying, which was an unusual experience for him and not one he cared for, but the underlying message was clear enough: Mr. RunningBear was not pleased with the lion and wished to put as much distance between himself and it as possible, an idea which Malcolm seemed to share. Arthur had no objections to that idea himself, but took a more offensive approach, raising his wand to Stun it before it could give chase and just thinking at the same time that it was strange that they would have that in a challenge, instead of a sphinx, and that even a sphinx would be bizarre in a challenge with those below sixth and seventh year in it and wondering what in Merlin’s name was making that moaning sound – a sequence of thoughts so rapid he found himself unable to follow any of them to satisfactory conclusions; he thought this might be what something close to panic felt like – when the lion vanished, only to be replaced by a sequence of corpses and a strong reaction from Mr. Spencer.

“Boggart,” he finished grimly for the other boy. “Riddikulus,” he tried.

Unfortunately, as it was not his boggart and he didn’t care to think of making someone’s dead relatives funny anyway, this just inspired it to turn on him. Instead of looking like some dead strangers, it looked like his dead brother – something which, even knowing perfectly well that it was not real, that Arnold had not somehow fallen over dead in the half hour since he had last seen him, that his real brother was no doubt perfectly safe and likely to do things which would make Arthur half-wish to do him minor harm once he heard about this, Arthur found it deeply uncomfortable to look at – making his mouth twist in distaste as his free hand moved itself over his mouth for a moment, hiding his expression from the rest of the team. It was a boggart. Arnold was perfectly all right. He was no doubt, at this very moment, excitedly telling his increasingly bored teammates about how he’d defeated the boggart, whatever it was for him, probably Fae in a wedding dress, and he’d like to be a fly on the wall when she heard about that, somewhere else in the mansion. He was not dead. Arthur knew this. He would see him at a late lunch and that would be the end of that. This was not real.

“Riddikulus,” he said, his voice still fairly steady, but it did not, as he had hoped, just dissolve into smoke, as he’d seen some of the adults do before. He needed to practice his boggart-repelling charms more.

“Mr. Stratford, Miss Thornton, do either of you happen to have a worst fear which is more easily made amusing?” he asked. “Perhaps one which does not involve corpses or man-eating beasts?” He was irritated to hear the tension in his own voice; he had wanted to sound almost bored, to make it seem more like he was just including the rest of the team. That was what it was about, right? Otherwise, they would have just had the sixth and seventh years as players and left the rest of the school, who couldn’t compete, as spectators.

0 Arthur Carey I'm sure we're all amazed 182 Arthur Carey 0 5

The Anns

February 18, 2013 10:49 AM

You don't really need us for this part by The Anns

Annabelle and Annette arrived promptly to Team Fourteen's meeting place on the day of the first challenge. They were dressed, as they usually were, in identical styles but different colors for ease of identification. Today, Annette was in deep forest green while Belle had dressed in a pale grey.

Both outfits were practical for physical activity, should that prove neccessary, while still maintaining minimum standards for fashion, and their dark hair was tied up out of the way in pigtails. The pantaloons were nice, mostly black with accents that matched their blouses. The blouses were decorated with pretty embroidery in white thread. Blouse and pantaloons alike were both loose enough to allow a free range of movement and close cut enough that they were unlikely to get caught on anything. Their shoes were the same athletic pairs they had worn for Quidditch and the training runs though the gardens.

In short, the outfit wasn't anything they would be caught wearing to a pureblood party, or even class most days, but they had made an effort to look much nicer than they did jogging everyday. They even repainted their nails in clear polish for the event.

As they followed Cepheus into the DADA classroom, though, they had long since stopped thinking about their appearances and instead gripped their matching wands in their right hands and tried not to show that the high concentration of ghosts was unnerving them a little. The Pierce estate had two ghosts of its own, so the twins were used to them in small numbers, but the sheer volume gathered and watching them walk into the room was just a little eerie.

They drew closer together and fell farther behind Cepheus as a really creepy moaning started up. They lifted their wands and exchanged a glance and the understanding that, if anything came at them, they were going to throw up their best shield charm.

It did not seem immediately neccessary, however, because the only thing that appeared was some old guy who seemed more intent on berating Cepheus that threatening anybody. When Cepheus declared it was a boggart, though, they drew back further away from the old man and kept their wands trained on him warily.

"First and second years haven't covered boggarts," Annette announced, only a little nervously, excusing the team's beginners from this part of the challenge. "We'll just stay out of the way back here." She knew what one was, of course. Grandmother's house occassionally got one infesting an unused wing or the basement, but she had no close personal experience with one and would rather keep it that way. "Jade, stand back," she instucted the first year, reaching her left hand toward the younger Pecari who might not even know that much. "It's a dark creature that feeds on fear."

1 The Anns You don't really need us for this part 246 The Anns 0 5

Derry Pierce

February 18, 2013 12:03 PM

Because I'm the sixth year. by Derry Pierce

As bad as Nothings were, their immediate threat value was lower than that of an attacking Hydra. Derry stepped ahead of Anthony, making the room darken again and the sounds of the moaning sound even louder with only the quiet rustling of the Nothing to compete with it, but at least the multi-headed serpent was no longer trying to claim Anthony's head.

Besides which, knowing it was a boggart and not a real Nothing meant Derry really did know a method to get rid of it now. He had taken DADA through his CATS last year, and boggarts had been emphasized in both the initial Intermediate lessons and the fifth year reviews. And the actual spell casting was his greatest strength in most subjects. Theory and trivia memorization had consistently been the banes that held his grades down in the Acceptable range. His understanding of magic had always been more instinctive than book learned.

Derry directed his wand toward the teacher's desk - the source of at least some of the rustling - and cast firmly, "Riddikulus!"

The room suddenly brightened, party streamers filled the air, and all of the Sixth Year Teppenpaws jumped out from behind the desk and the room's darkest shadows, shouting, "Surprise!" and "Happy birthday!"

Derry laughed in delight at this resolution of the noises and darkness, his illusionary friends vanished, and a piece of paper appeared on the desk. He picked it up, read it over, and said, "Looks like we go to the library next, folks." The rest of the note sounded like nonsense to him, but he passed it around in case anyone smarter than him could make heads or tails of what might be an important hint for the next stage.

"Everyone all right so far?" he asked his team, willing to give them a few moments before moving on to collect themselves if the boggart had shaken them too badly.

OOC: Onto part two, meet ya all over there!

1 Derry Pierce Because I'm the sixth year. 189 Derry Pierce 0 5

Gareth Whitebriar

February 18, 2013 1:21 PM

Stepping up to the Challenge by Gareth Whitebriar

The mystery of the challenges was finally at an end, at least for the first challenge. Team Fourteen was gathered in front of the door to the DADA classroom, which was a positive sign. Gareth was particularly good at this subject, and the location indicated to his mind that the focus of this challenge would lie in the realm of defeating the Dark Arts. A pleased smile brushed his lips while they waited to enter.

Cepheus had grown a fair bit, but still wasn’t as tall as Gareth, nor nearly as broad through the shoulders. Their difference in height didn’t bother the large Beater much, and he didn’t contest it when Cepheus took the lead. There was a small twinge in him that cried out against it, after all he’d spent the whole of their Quidditch career placing himself between Cepheus and danger. But this wasn’t Quidditch, and his room mate’s safety wasn’t Gareth’s responsibility now.

The little Ann’s slipped in behind Cepheus and Gareth followed after. The two girls were so small compared to him that he always had the slightly absurd fear that he might step on them and crush them like little kittens if he didn’t pay close attention to where they were. He’d joined them during their morning jog, but it had been little more than a brisk walk for him. Still, it was nice to get out in the morning, when the air was still cool from the night.

At first the room appeared much like it always did, sans ghosts however. But the spooks didn’t bother Gareth, as long as they weren’t poltergeits, they couldn’t hurt them.

Gareth frowned when Cepheus’s grandfather appeared from behind the desk before he recognized the creature for what it was. A boggart. Well that was simple enough, he thought, certain that he would have an advantage over the creature. After all, how could the thing capitalize on his fear of heights?

The Ann’s backed away just as Gareth stepped forward, wand in hand and the incantation waiting on his tongue.

The bogart focused on him when he moved up, bringing himself closer to the creature than Cepheus. He expected it to hesitate, to yield or chose some lesser fear to attempt to embody. He’d underestimated the ingenuity of boggarts. In an instant the old man sank into the floor. Gareth gasped when the floor appeared to break away, falling, dropping down, leaving them suspended on a pillar of broken earth. He could almost feel the ground starting to crumple out from beneath his weight and took a hasty step back.

Terror overwhelmed the large boy as his face blanched. He hadn’t had time to prepare, the way he did for Quidditch. Cold sweat beaded on his forehead, and he tried to think around the choking emotion. The fear he always held confined in a tiny ball of ice in his guts while he flew overwhelmed all those careful defenses and he stood frozen, all thought gone as he stared down at the endless drop.

0 Gareth Whitebriar Stepping up to the Challenge 0 Gareth Whitebriar 0 5

Sara Raines

February 18, 2013 4:12 PM

Not off to the best start by Sara Raines

Sara knew, of course, what appropriate gear for a physical challenge would be, but since she didn’t know for sure that what they would face was going to be physical and, more importantly, didn’t own any, she had not dressed accordingly. It had been a knee-length dress or a leotard, and she was not about to wear a leotard around in school. What if the boys saw her? That would be indecent. She had made a little more effort with her shoes, but since running wasn’t something she did much of, she didn’t think wearing flats was really going to accomplish anything other than making it obvious she was probably the shortest person in the group except the first years. She thought Fae, not a big girl herself at all, looked substantive next to her as the team gathered together before the challenge.

Privately, she wondered if Fae was as uncomfortable with the idea of competing against their future husbands as she was. What, after all, if they beat them? Maybe not in the big scheme of things, maybe not to the point where they landed in the top three, but if they just came in ahead of them? She hadn’t said anything because she knew how Fae felt about Preston and his…insecurities, and also how Fae might not like the implied suggestion that Arnold, though admittedly a more laid-back personality than Preston, might take it badly, too, and also because she knew it wasn’t very likely to come up anyway, but what if it did? She liked the girls she had been assigned to work with well enough, and was glad for the excuse to spend extra time with her best friend her last year here, but it might have been better if they’d been paired with their boys.

There was, thankfully, not much time to think about it before they were summoned, though, so she smiled at everyone and wished them luck before they were led to the Defense room. Sara hadn’t been in it for a long time – since, unlike Catherine and probably Isabel, in time, she wasn’t at any particular risk for kidnapping, both because she had a brother and because her father was not quite that wealthy, not to mention not being associated with as many people of questionable morals, she had dropped the class after RATS – and she looked around curiously for a moment to see what had changed in a year and a half for a moment before she spotted the arrow on the floor.

Well. That was not exactly what she had hoped for. They were being asked to go toward…whatever they were supposed to fight; it was invisible, and that didn’t bode well. She looked hopefully at the ghosts when Henny questioned them, but they didn’t seem to want to give anything away.

“Oh, I don’t like this,” Sara sighed, adjusting her grip on her wand a little. She really did not like this. She knew they weren’t going to be hurt, but she was afraid of being made to look like a complete and utter fool by something as she stepped, a little off the side of the arrow, a little closer to Professor Levy’s desk and –

A flash of gold caught her eye, and she didn’t hear the moaning start as she screamed and ducked at the sight of a chimaera, its goat’s head just beginning to breathe fire. Her heart began flying in her chest, unable to believe that had really just happened.

There was a chimaera in the school. Those things had killed heroes. What on earth were the professors thinking, putting it here, with a group of girls, most of them not even through their CATS -

The others. Oh, no. Sara looked up again, raising her wand to try to do - something, she didn't even know what, her mind was completely blank except for the awareness that she had to try something before all five of the others were eaten. But the chimaera was gone.

0 Sara Raines Not off to the best start 179 Sara Raines 0 5

Thaddeus Pierce

February 18, 2013 4:48 PM

A little too revealing for my taste by Thaddeus Pierce

Thad froze when the moaning began, initially mistaking it for a reaction to his own actions, as he had just put his weight down onto a floorboard he thought was safe but had very minor doubts about. This misconception was rectified a moment later when the sound of a body hitting the ground made him look up.

He found Henry on the ground behind Francesca, apparently unharmed but hiding from a broken woman who had fully captured Francesca's attention. Judging by Francesca's assessment of their foe, the woman was an inaccurate copy of one of the first year's relatives and he had missed the creature's initial form that must have been the cause for Henry being down.

Thad pointed his wand at the woman warily, knowing shape shifters were generally bad news, and wondering if it was trying to draw Francesca in by looking so pathetic. Fortunately, she had the sense to stand her ground.

David, however, did step forward, possibly accessing his seventh year knowledge to identify what it was and how to deal with it. He did manage both, more or less, once it turned into, not a Wilkes family member, but a very large snake. A boggart. Wonderful.

David cast the appropriate spell to deal with it, but it was less than fully successful. Oh, it changed the creature's apppearance satisfactorily, reducing it's fear inducing effect, but it didn't quite manage the humor that needed to prompt the laughter that would actually banish it.

Unfortunately, Thad suspected his own attempt would face the same shortcoming. Judging by his yearbook award for Most Serious last year, it was a widely accepted conclusion that Thaddeus Pierce II did not have a sense of humor. It was a conclusion he felt ill equipped to disprove and, more than that, he had no desire to find out if he would join the trend of proving absolutely that his greatest fear also revolved around his family. He didn't know for sure, but he suspected his might be similar to Francesca's, albeit with his parents dying of a wasting illness rather than becoming hopeless.

There was no way to make that funny.

So he kept back behind David, holding his wand pointing toward the boggart in case the snake form reverted and defensive magic was needed, but he looked over to see if either Evan or Ayita looked more confident in their ability to handle this. "I think my sense of humor is worse than David's," he admitted, which was saying kind of a lot given the boggart's current appearance, but it couldn't be helped.

0 Thaddeus Pierce A little too revealing for my taste 0 Thaddeus Pierce 0 5

Ryan O'Malley

February 19, 2013 1:32 AM

Team Five by Ryan O'Malley

Ryan was a little anxious for the first challenge. His team had to do well. If they didn't, nobody would like or respect him. The Headmistress might hate him too, given her son was on the team and he was sure that she wanted her kids to win, just like Uncle Seth was probably secretly rooting for him and Arabella and Amity. And one of the last things that Ryan wanted was for the most powerful person in the whole school to hate him. She had the power to make the rest of his time here absolutely miserable.

Plus, Ryan felt he had a lot to prove. He'd lost Head Boy, which really wasn't all that surprising. Still, he felt inadequate. Though he usually felt that way, so maybe it didn't make much difference. It was just that the Crotalus wanted to feel good about himself for once and it just never happened. He sort of doubted it ever would, thanks to his mother and sister. Years of that was just hard to magically overcome.

But he had to pull himself together and put on the confident brave leader face. Of course, Ryan really had never worn such a face before. The confident part was nearly impossible. The Crotalus did not have Amity and Chaslyn's training in acting and he had a very hard time lying to people, he was rather afraid to. He was terrified that he was going to be a miserable failure as a leader, and let the team down. The person in "charge" was most likely to take the fall if things went wrong. Unless they shifted the blame on to someone else but Ryan just couldn't do something like that. He didn't think it was right.

And now he probably had to give some pep talk. Something to be encouraging. The thing was, Ryan really had no idea how to do that. What would inspire them to well, maybe not victory as there were twenty teams and this one included him, but to at least do their best and not come in dead last. It would be particularly nice to beat Carrie's team. Just so she couldn't rub his face in it that he was inferior to her. Just so she couldn't say all the things that hurt him, the ones that echoed their mother. Or at least not give her more material.

Maybe that would inspire people! As far as Ryan could tell, everyone hated the younger Crotalus. Surely at the very least Sally and Lucrezia would want to knock her down a few pegs. Of course, the seventh year wasn't sure how to do that without it sounding weird. He should be rallying them to try their best against all teams, not just target one. Though Ryan wouldn't put it past Carrie to target beating his team-and probably Arabella's-specifically. Even though she'd probably attempt to make her teammates do all the work.

He stood outside the DADA room, waiting with his team for their turn and trying to think of what to say. And hoping that the task would not involve flying. Lucrezia said she was good at it and Sally...hadn't said she was bad at it. It was just weird that the two proper pureblood girls were the ones who'd have to do the flying. And Ryan didn't just crash into things on a broom, he couldn't get the bloody thing to get up into his hand!

The Crotalus took a deep breath. Right, inspirational. Encouraging. That might be a more difficult task than the one that the staff had planned. He could add that to the list of things he wasn't good at. "Um, okay, we can do this. We might not take it all, because there are so many teams." Some of which were down a person and at a disadvantage that way. And Amity seemed to think two of her teammates were absolutely worthless. " We all have our strengths. Sally, you're brilliant and capable of just about anything. Being unemotional is actually a strength in this case. Angel, if you can master any spell you've seen on the first try, that's a real talent. Lucrezia, you're our flier." Really really weird saying that to the one who probably qualified as the most proper pureblood girl on the team-Sally was sort of just different from others-since they typically didn't like doing that.

Ryan continued. "Um, Rory...." What had she said she was good at again? Oh yes, researching, like Melanie. "I hope you've done the research on the different sort of creatures we could be challenged by and studied up on spells to use, especially given this first part of the task takes place in the DADA room. And Jude...well, we might have some mystery to solve. That could be really handy." Merlin would Ryan prefer, despite his doubts about his own intelligence, intellectual tasks to athletic ones, they had an exceedingly unatheletic team, minus Lucrezia's apparent flying abilities.

It was their turn now and Ryan led his team into the room the way he felt he as team leader should. He gazed around. The arrow pointing at the door seemed just a bit too obvious. "Okay, that has to be a trap guys. I wouldn't step on it. They wouldn't just put an arrow on the floor, have as walk through the room and open the door. That's not much of a challenge. I'm guessing the door is locked in a way where we can't use alohamora and we have to find the key somehow."

He made his way over to the professor's desk, which seemed as good a place to start as any. That's when Ryan heard the shrill voice from behind him, his eyes grew round and the color drained from his face as he turned to face the thing he feared most in the world-his mother. He knew it had to be a boggart, if his mother really showed up at school where he was, she'd go to prison. The problem was there was no way to make that woman seem funny. Well, Carrie thought she was, but that was it.

The worst part was not just hearing these things that he should have been numb to by now, but that everyone else was hearing them too. How would they ever respect someone who was afraid of his own mother, whose mother treated him in such a way? They'd never listen to him now.

11 Ryan O'Malley Team Five 176 Ryan O'Malley 0 5

Angel Jareau

February 19, 2013 7:19 AM

... by Angel Jareau

Mild anxiety flitted though Angel’s bony chest as he weaved ghostlike through the milling students, looking for team Five. It didn’t take the albino long to find Ryan, who looked more nervous than Angel felt. For him, it was just a low grade buzz in the back of his mind, like a bee flying near by. Standing silently next to the older boy, Angel studied him out of the corner of one ruby eye, careful to keep his head dipped so his observation would go unnoticed.

Even though Kiva and her family were alright with him looking at them, those early childhood lessons still held sway over the pale boy and he rarely made eye contact with anyone for longer than a brief second before dropping his gaze. Ryan looked like there might bee a whole swarm of bees buzzing around inside him.

Angel said nothing about the Captain’s obvious discomfort, opting instead to watch the rest of the milling students as they waited for their turn to enter the classroom. He was glad that the first challenge was inside, at least there was no risk of sunlight blinding him, or being forced to fly. Flying was a bit dangerous for the pureblood, his body didn’t take the vertigo well and it made him feel rather ill if he went any faster than a slow walking pace. He doubted that would be useful in a competitive setting.

“Angel, if you can master any spell you’ve seen on the first try, that’s a real talent.” Angel’s wandering attention returned to Ryan when he heard his name. Yes, the little quirk was a talent, and probably the only thing that had kept him from being kicked out of Sonora when he’d first started, barely literate, and hardly able to speak coherently. Those first years, the only thing that kept him from failing flat out was his wand work. All of his written work was a wash, but his perfect scores with the practical aspect had allowed him to just squeeze by.

It had taken years of extensive tutoring, but Angel was finally able to hold a solid A in most classes, though many of the written assignments still tended to drift down to a P. That was still better than the D’s and T’s is first and second year written work had earned him.

Angel’s thoughts were cut off when team five was called to enter the room. The albino boy drifted silently in Ryan’s wake, feeling the small ball of anxiety spike in a muffled way as they passed the threshold into the unknown. At first the room appeared to be empty, but Ryan quickly pointed out the arrow, and Angel was careful not to step on it.

The anxiety started to fade when all he could see where ghosts. Those weren’t harmful, and their white washed appearance made them feel almost kindred to his bleached existence. Angel could hardly see the wispy forms, their pale shades blended in too well with the black and white world he lived in. He was only able to notice them when they moved.

The hush of the room was shattered by a woman’s booming voice. Instantly Angel’s entire posture changed. That tone was one to be obeyed at all costs, and one who would never be satisfied no matter how hard he tried to behave. His bony shoulders drooped and his head dipped into the perfect submissive, appeasing posture, even though the woman’s ire had yet to fall on him.

0 Angel Jareau ... 0 Angel Jareau 0 5

Henny B-F-R

February 19, 2013 11:56 AM

Snap... by Henny B-F-R

Henny was still cautiously bringing up the rear or the group when there was a flash of rapid movement near to Sara, up at the front, accompanied by an ear-piercing scream. It wasn't. It couldn't... For a moment she stood rooted to the spot, a icy sensation running down her spine. And then, without even really knowing her feet had done it, she had covered the short distance back to the door. It was locked. Keeping on eye on the room and her wand drawn, although it would be of little use, she shook the doorknob, banging frantically against the wood.

“Help! Help, let us out, let us out!” she screamed, with the approximate fear and intensity of someone who was imminently to be murdered.

Logic dictated that it could not possibly be a chimaera. They were one of the most dangerous beasts in the world. Her parents, a fully grown witch and wizard, had not been a sufficient match for them and thus the likelihood of the school putting one in a room with a group of students, some as young as first year, was not especially high. However, all logic had been pushed away in the face of blind panic on seeing her worst possible fear.

She was very conscious of her own breathing. It didn't sound right any more. It was too quick and gaspy. She tried to tell herself to breathe normally but her brain seemed to interpret that as an instruction to rapidly draw as much air in as possible. She was hyperventilating. She knew that she was and that there was supposed to be something she could do to to stop it but all she could think of was how her breathing wasn't coming right any more, and how her fingers tingled and how that meant that she was even less able to do anything to defend herself and how she was going to die, all of which made all of it worse. She sniffed slightly, alerting herself to the fact that she appeared to be crying. This did not surprise her particularly. She'd cried before during panic attacks, or when she'd worked herself up into a state over what it might be like to come face to face with a chimaera.

Her own breathing was so loud in her head that it took a moment for her to realise that it wasn't drowning out the sounds of a rampaging chimaera, ripping people from limb to limb. There were no such sounds. She rapidly and fearfully cast her eyes around the room. A chimaera wasn't that small. There were a limited number of places it could hide and yet she eyed every desk and every chair – everything that obscured any of her view of the room – with the utmost suspicion, terrified of what might lurk behind it.

“Where...... is.... it?” she asked, struggling to form words around the still uneven pattern of her breathing. She lent back a little on the door. Her head was starting to swim and what she really needed was to sit down and put it between her knees but she couldn't possibly place herself in such a vulnerable position. She guessed that was some stubborn old survival instinct. Really, it made no difference whether the chimaera ate her standing up or sitting down but people, even pessimists and panickers like her, did have this silly tendency not to be able to accept the inevitable.

13 Henny B-F-R Snap... 211 Henny B-F-R 0 5

Francesca Wolseithcrafte

February 19, 2013 12:23 PM

About more than people's fears by Francesca Wolseithcrafte

Oh, Wilkes was actually stepping up to the plate and doing something. And that something appeared to be causing a big snake to manifest. Francesca dodged a little further back, as Wilkes denounced her theory and made some comment about their families that she guessed was supposed to be funny. The spell he cast clued her in to what they were actually facing, although why he was rambling on about lawyers she had no idea. She felt defensive and irritable. Her theory had seemed perfectly reasonable based on the data she had had available. Whether David's comment had been meant as a put down or just an observation, she didn't know but it felt like the former - after all, he had made it plain at their first meeting that he wanted to get at her. What great leadership; belittling a first year for not being right first time.

She watched his attempts at making the snake humorous, although it looked more grotesque than anything. She personally felt that it ripping off some part of Wilkes would lift her spirits, possibly to the point of audible mirth, but she was fairly sure that wasn't a constructive thing to suggest. She tried to assess what was scary about the snake. There had been the fangs but they had been taken care of. It was now just generally large and threatening.

“Deflate it?” she ventured, trying to imagine the snake springing a puncture. It was hard to suggest what might be amusing, partly because one did not know what another would find funny but also because talking a joke through rather reduced its impact. When trying to deal with a boggart, one had to visualise something and then it became rather like knowing the punchline in advance. She wondered whether the spell would work if one person cast it but it was another who laughed.

“Mine wasn't something I'm afraid of,” she told Thaddeus. This was predominantly because she felt he needed all available information in order to come up with a proper strategy. It was only in a small way seeking some sort of vindication from David's snappy comment. Being thought stupid would have hurt her immensely. “Perhaps it got confused because Henry was still so near by?” she suggested, sure that he would simply not believe her if she could not offer another rational explanation. This caused another possibility to occur to her. “If we all crowded in on it at once, might it become too confused to know what to be? That might give us the upper hand,” she suggested.

13 Francesca Wolseithcrafte About more than people's fears 250 Francesca Wolseithcrafte 0 5

Effie Arbon

February 19, 2013 3:42 PM

An unlikely occurence by Effie Arbon

Effie nodded curtly at Regina's rather obvious advice, which she supposed to be more for the benefit of the Muggleborn. She held her wand ready as the entered the ghost filled room. That in itself was not scary or challenging in any way, although she had particular desire not to run into one of the castle's ghosts, whom she had found to be rather crude.

She moved slowly through the room, scanning for danger. Clearly their starting point indicated something dark was going to leap out at them. She was about to reply in the negative to Regina's question when the dreadful howling began and she saw an ugly, twisted old man limping towards her. He had lank, sparse hair, a bulbous nose and various scars and other pockmarks. Unlike most proper young ladies, Effie had been taught a great deal about Muggles. Muggles, she knew, were both arrogant and resentful creatures, not to mention unpleasant looking in the majority of cases. In the times before the Statute of Secrecy, they had abused witches and wizards horribly. Refusing to recognise the natural order of things they had, instead, attempted to exploit their magical superiors, extorting spells and potions from them. But eventually their seething jealousy had over-ruled and they had begun to persecute wizarding kind instead. They had not counted on magical people's ability to hide themselves and had only realised their mistakes when it was too late. They had been attempting to compensate for their lack of magic ever since with something known as 'technology.' It was crude and ill-suited to the purposes the Muggles strove for. They coveted flight above all things and built many contraptions, such as Helical Copters and Aerialplanes. These dangerous, unstable devices killed many thousands of Muggles every year (the only positive thing about them). The strength of the wards around their home had been the only thing that had meant Effie could shake off the fear that one would come crashing down on top of them. Clearly such a spectacle would be a challenge for even the strongest of boggarts and so this one capitalised on one of the other many unpleasant Muggle inventions she had learnt of. Muggles were vindicative and violent people and, whilst the killing curse had been outlawed in the civil magical world, it was perfectly acceptable for Muggles to own their own killing devices. Guns, she had learnt, were made of metal and were like a thick, stubby wand used to fire smaller, sharp bits of metal at another person, designed to pierce their flesh and cause serious internal injuries, which it did via some sort of internal mechanical process. She had not seen any images of this, which perhaps explained why the grotesque figure in front of her held a gnarled rod of metal with a crank handle on the side. He spun this now, winding it up in preparation to make it release its bullets.

“Petrificus totalas!” Effie cast. Shield charms stopped hexes but would useless against a physical onslaught. The creature's arms snapped to its side, halting its progress in operating its gun. Its mismatched legs bound together as best they could and it fell on its side.

It was beyond odd that the school should bring in such a thing. It violated several laws – there was the Statute of Secrecy. The only way that would not be broken would be to wipe the Muggle's mind afterwards, which – in the name of creating sport for students – she thought several people might object to as unethical. Furthermore the school would not put them at genuine risk of slaughter. Imagine the fuss!

“It's a boggart,” she stated, her voice quivering a little. She felt a little like she might cry or faint, which was really dreadfully silly now that the immediate danger had passed. However, previously her instincts had outweighed her fear. Now that it could not immediately harm her, there was a chance for how dreadfully horrid it was and how frightened she had really been to sink in. “Does anyone have experience in that department?” she asked, taking a step or two back. It was an achievement of quite some considerable measure, but her face was actually managing to look even paler than usual.

13 Effie Arbon An unlikely occurence 238 Effie Arbon 0 5

Sally Manger

February 19, 2013 4:37 PM

My thoughts exactly. by Sally Manger

To say that Sally was particularly enthusiastic for the challenges was not an entirely accurate statement. She was not excited, but she was impatient to perform. The tasks themselves would, she deduced, be likely fairly trivial, a few twists here and there to keep the participants on their toes. However, it would be an easily obtained practice of skills, at least. Moreover, competitiveness was not one of her characteristics, she was sure others were more interested to victory.

Primarily, the brunette’s concern for the desire of others was mostly in regards to one individual. She sensed that winning this-or at least doing well-was important to Ryan, and if she was compelled by loyalty to anyone, it was him. Sally felt a certain connection to her step-brother, something beyond what she really understood. What she knew entirely well was fact, and the fact of the matter was that she wanted to do well for him.

He was really trying, too. Ryan was not a natural leader, obviously preferring to blend into the background where prospective negativity could be avoided, but he was thus far doing an excellent job. The meeting he organized and gone considerably well; Sally was certain that she now had enough knowledge of her teammates in order to better anticipate their performance.

After his little speech, he led the rest of the team in. The Aladren walked closely, beside him but not directly, leaving him enough space ahead to show his clear dominance over the team. The immediate eyesore of an arrow was, as he suggested, a hair too obvious for her taste. As Ryan explored near the desk, Sally examined a separate corner of the room.

An outraged voice broke her concentration, and she whipped around to see an occupant of the room that had not been there before. That woman… Sally knew who she was. What she did not know was how her presence was relevant or even possible. Quick-working mind deduced it was something else, though something perhaps equally dangerous. “Boggart!” she exclaimed.

If she was correct, she could stop the situation easily. Therefore, both to test the hypothesis and to protect her brother, the sixteen year old charged forward until she could physically place herself between Ryan and his mother. Instantly, the woman began to change, and a small smile occupied Sally’s lips: a boggart. So she was correct. That smile faded almost immediately, however, as she recognized her own boggart’s form, a reality she had not yet analyzed prior.

The space where Pearl O’Malley had once stood was now occupied by a cloaked figure. Thin fingers of bone curved around a scythe, and the bright whiteness of the fleshless hand contrasted greatly with the blackness of the rest of the being. It emitted no noise, though the shouts of Ryan’s biological mother still echoed through her head. The sudden silence had been almost more chilling than the figure himself.

Sally knew who he was: this was the metaphorical Grim Reaper, a symbol of death. Her greatest fear was dying, and it was because of the confusing haze that accompanied the end of one’s life. It was an unknown. Despite the heat of her blood inspired by a wave of fear, she mentally applauded the boggart’s artistry. Fortunately for her, the fear was not processed in her mind as the average person might, and while her body physically responded, inspiring fight-or-flight reflexes, she remained fairly calm emotionally. “Unemotional,” she commented, her voice wavering a bit more than she anticipated. “Let me stay closest to it.” The sixth year did not enjoy it, but she was the best candidate to occupy the boggart.

“I cannot produce a Patronus,” she added gravely. “Not enough… happiness?” Sally did not fully intend for a question’s inflection, but under the strain of repression-an involuntary, habitual response-she could not think of the correct word she wanted. In any case, she could not emotionally decide what memories were powerfully happy. A potent, joyous recollection was vital to the spell.

“Can anyone else? Angel? Ryan?” She aimed the question at them specifically because they were the eldests excluding herself. Sally was aware Ryan hailed from a fairly unhappy history, but perhaps he had something. As for Angel, she knew little about him, but beyond her and Ryan, he was their best chance. Still, she opened the question to the whole team, just in case. “Anyone?”

12 Sally Manger My thoughts exactly. 198 Sally Manger 0 5

Marcus Williams

February 19, 2013 9:47 PM

My My, you two are funny. by Marcus Williams

Marcus, more than anything, was curious about the challenges. Winning was always nice, of course, but he wasn’t really concerned about that. He wanted to know what sort of creative things the staff at the school decided to come up with. It was all so mysterious and they managed to do it without anything leaking. Marcus was rather impressed. Even if this school was small, one would think that something would have gotten out. But he heard nothing and as far as he could figure, no one else had heard anything either. Which was the main reason as to why he was so curious. What could possibly be that secretive?

He waited with the team for their turn at the challenge. He wasn’t all too concerned about them. Other than the first years, Marcus figured his team had a good head on their shoulders and would be able to handle whatever it was that came at them. He didn’t know Phoenix at all, but he knew Theresa and Arabella by sight in the common room and they never seemed to be out of sorts or anything. So, he hoped that they could remain calm and collected during all of it and help him reign in the first years in case it overwhelmed them. Other than that, he figured they’d make it through all three challenges when the time came.

Marcus had hung back as some of the others ventured forward. He was taking in the scene, looking at the ghosts and trying to see in every corner. It was better to learn the surroundings and anticipate what is hiding rather than head straight on into the throngs of battle without knowing what was coming. Or, at least, that was what the movies told him. Movies weren’t always right.

Even so, it was in this position when it had all went down and the moaning became mixed in with some screaming. He had been looking at one of the ghosts, gaging their reactions when he heard Charlie shouting. Looking around, he saw the young boy on top of a table with a chair in his hands. Marcus was impressed that he could hold the chair up with his size, but he let that thought slide because he was screaming about snakes. And then he heard Theresa shouting. Marcus didn’t know if she was screaming about the moaning or screaming at Charlie, but Marcus didn’t find it at all ‘lady like’ which is what he assumed girls like her strived for daily. He frowned. That reaction wouldn’t get them very far if she lost her cool quite so easily.

Deciding it was time to get on with it, Marcus went towards Charlie in search of those snakes he seemed so adamant about. However, Marcus did not see any snakes, but he did see an elderly lady. By the look on Theresa’s face, she seemed none to impressed with the figure in front of her. He had no idea what a naga was as that was not a term he could remember from Care of Magical Creatures of DADA, but considering how uneasy she was by the old woman and how terrified Charlie had been about the snakes, Marcus had an idea as to what it was he was looking at.

Taking a step forward so that he was the closest to the girl and found bees swarming and the woman gone. He had been right. It was a Boggart. Marcus’s fear was that of bees. He was deathly allergic to them and so, he avoided them as much as possible. He also carried around an epi pen just in case. Although he was certain that not even the medic at this school knew how to work on, so he could only hope his throat did close too quickly enough on him to prevent him from sticking himself with it.

“Riddikulus” Marcus stated clearly, watching as the bees turned into the one from the Honey Nut Cheerio commercials. Marcus chuckled happily at it as it flew around looking very much like a cartoon before it seemed to disappear from them just as all the moaning stopped. “It was a Boggart.” Marcus told them, looking back at Theresa and Charlie. “Try not to lose your heads next time. The staff can’t actually put us in danger.” Or, he hoped anyway. For all he knew, Magical schools may not have any laws against the treatment of their students. “The whole point to is throw us off by scaring us. It’s all tricks.” He said this to everyone, but he was still looking at the two of them since they seemed to be the most affected.

“I think the clue is on the desk, can someone go read it?”

6 Marcus Williams My My, you two are funny. 180 Marcus Williams 0 5

Angel

February 19, 2013 10:12 PM

...um... by Angel

The furious voice was abruptly cut off. Her angry tirade was over, but in the silence a moan had begun, slowly growing louder as they confronted the creature. Already the noise was starting to hurt Angel’s ears, and he wished it would stop.

A cautious glance up showed that the angry woman was gone, in her place a fleshless being stood. The skeletal being reminded Angel of himself. Like the albino, the bone man wore all black, creating a sharp contrast against the white. The pale boy wasn’t as emaciated as he’d once been, but his cheek bones still cut sharp lines into his face. The major difference between them was that the stranger held a large curving blade affixed to the end of a staff.

This being wasn’t as hard to endure as the woman. Though the weapon looked quite sharp, the one holding it stood in quiet stillness, its stance and posture was unthreatening and hooded as it was, there were no eyes to glare or condemn him. If it wasn’t for the annoying noise that was steadily building, Angel would have been content with the way things were.

But the sound grew, and Sally spoke. Angel’s head tilted to the side as he studied the creature her words identified. A boggart. Another near mellow spike of anxiety fluttered in Angel’s mind, not fear of the creature but a surprising nugget of memory that her words dislodged.

Not a Patronus like Sally, Angel’s talent had one flaw. He couldn’t cast spells that were reliant upon the caster’s emotional state. He wasn’t capable of producing a cheering charm, let alone something as potent as a Patronus. Emotions simply didn’t work for Angel the way they did for other people. His emotional scale was similar to his colorblindness. He had a few notes, but not the full range. Rage was unknown to the boy, as was love. Instead he lived mostly on an emotional flat line that had very shallow peaks and troths.

Had Angel been capable of performing the incantation, he would have done it, even though he knew it wasn’t the correct spell. The albino lived to appease those around him, and to contradict another went against his nature. But, the sound was growing louder, and he couldn’t cast the Patronus.

“Not…not patronus. Riddikulus for boggarts.” Angel murmured, his voice hardly carrying over the noise in the room. Again his poster was that of someone expecting to be targeted, head down, shoulders hunched as he waited for the furious tongue lashing that was sure to follow the contradiction. The only reason he’d remembered the incantation was the fact that he’d had to rewrite the paper he wrote on dark creatures eight times. Last year he’d wanted to only turn in work that he hadn’t scratched words out on, the goal was a worthy one, but inevitably doomed to failure.

0 Angel ...um... 0 Angel 0 5

Alex Devereux

February 19, 2013 10:36 PM

That was fun! by Alex Devereux

As she’d watched the whole school clumping together in strangely-mixed groups of five or six, Alex had had the strong feeling that this was going to be an interesting day. All the couples she knew of had been split up, along with most family members, and friends were scattered through teams, making a lot of the natural teamwork which might have occurred counterproductive and forcing them to go for the difficult kind instead. David Wilkes had a pretty good team while Sara had one which was probably close to what she would prefer on a basis of simple companionship, so they might have gotten some perks out of being Head Boy and Head Girl, but by and large, Alex expected a good few people to become...stressed.

She was just determined to get through it all as best she could, to patiently sit through all the talk about it which was sure to take up any time she spent around people in general and her family members specifically for the next few weeks and likely a good chunk of midterm, and then to be done with it. Alex understood that people were going to get emotional about the challenges, but she didn’t understand exactly why. Groups would win, not individuals, and since not many people were going to feel particularly close to their group and there wouldn’t be much year left for them to have privileges or other awards in after the third task, that wouldn’t really mean much. The only thing she could come up with was that the Quidditch players needed something else to focus on, and since the distribution of friends and relatives through other groups made it hard to hate the other little clumps of five or six the way the teams seemed to hate each other, that couldn’t work too well.

She politely greeted the other girls when she joined them, then quietly walked with the group down to the classroom where they usually met with Professor Levy. The decorations could, she decide, use some work; for one thing, the mass of ghosts just looking at them wasn’t the most comforting sight, at least for someone who didn’t like a lot of people looking at her at once, and for another, there was something sinister-looking about the arrow on the floor, too. Alex just didn’t like anything about this, even if she did know they weren’t really going to get hurt. That didn’t mean she liked the idea of having something unexpectedly sprung on her.

She started to follow Henny when the other fourth year addressed the ghosts, thinking this was a smart strategy. “What do you think?” she asked the other girl when they didn’t answer. “Are we supposed to – “

She was cut off, though, by a scream, and she turned and froze when she saw Sara ducking a chimera. Instinctively, she raised her wand and cast a shield charm, though what possible use that could be against such a strong magical creature, she wasn’t quite sure, even as she blinked and found herself instead looking at a vast, hulking creature, somewhere between humanoid and bearlike as it stood on two feet, covered in slime and vines –

Alex shuddered. When she had been small, in an attempt to keep her alive if all the other measures used to keep small children in magical families from Louisiana from drowning themselves or falling into quicksand or succumbing to any of a thousand other ways to die presented by the landscape, her mother and grandparents had told her stories about swamp monsters which ate little girls as well as about the real dangers. Her grandfather in particular, when he wanted to and felt comfortable enough to temporarily abandon the persona of the Louisiana Carey patriarch, was a brilliant storyteller; she had had nightmares a few times about the descriptions he came up with. She had known for years, of course, that none of it was real, but that didn’t make it less scary to see one now. If anything, it made it worse.

“It’s here,” she answered Henny’s question. “Boggart.” She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to imagine it in a ballet outfit. “Riddikulus!”

The image she opened her eyes to was ridiculous enough that she couldn’t help a nervous giggle, which turned into a laugh. She registered the end of the awful moaning before she did the absence of the boggart. “Does anyone know where we go from here?” she asked, thinking the ghosts might make themselves useful now.

0 Alex Devereux That was fun! 0 Alex Devereux 0 5

Henry Carey

February 19, 2013 10:43 PM

At least we're getting to know each other by Henry Carey

As soon as he’d hit the ground, Henry had realized there was a problem, which was that if Grandmother was determined enough to kill him to come all the way to Arizona to see the job done, she would have no problem with also killing the person he was hiding behind, especially since that person was just, based on the feet, Wolseithcrafte. If Wilkes or Pierce – who were bigger, who knew more of what to do with their wands – were nearby, then she might kill them first, since Wolseithcrafte, little first year girl, was not much of a challenge, but either way, his current position wasn’t going to help him much. Not least because Wolseithcrafte had no reason to help him and was most likely, since her House placement suggested she probably wasn’t a stupid first year, making a beeline for the door at that very moment.

For a moment, that made him freeze even further than he already had, unable even to breathe. Then his joints took over for him, trying to crawl rapidly away from the danger, even though intellectually, he knew this would do no good, because there was nothing to hide behind, and even if the ghosts had gone for help, no one would get there in time, this time no one was coming to save him –

”We have a shape shifter,” Wolseithcrafte announced to the group. Henry froze again, trying to make sense of this. ”Mimics family members.”

He looked back, not even meaning to, and found that Grandmother was gone. Instead, there was just a random woman, a sad, harmless-looking creature. For a moment, he stared at that with only a glimmer of comprehension, wondering when it was going to turn back into his grandmother and kill him, but then, slowly, he began to believe he was all right and to feel relief sweeping over him, enough that his vision momentarily blurred with tears before, half furious and half humiliated, he surreptitiously rubbed them as he adjusted his glasses, which had started to slip.

Wilkes’ reaction to the shapeshifter, meanwhile, was…more unusual, he thought. Henry watched in disbelief as he decided to try to make it turn into a family member of his – only to have it instead turn into a snake. Henry, just back on his feet, stumbled another step back, pushing his glasses up his nose, wondering what had happened – could it not turn into Muggles, perhaps? Were Muggles snakes? Then how did their magical children look like people? Was that another kind of magic, and if so, what did it imply about….well, everything? Or did the staff just Transfigure Muggleborns after they got their powers, so people wouldn’t realize they were really snake-creatures?

He stared as Wilkes rambled on about group therapy being more expensive than just them talking about their families together. “I’m not poor,” he objected, though he doubted anyone was paying attention. That this was likely not the point got through to him next, and he added, for anyone who was paying attention, “and there’s nothing wrong with my family.”

He jumped a little when Wilkes succeeded in transforming the boggart into something so bizarre-looking that he almost forgot why he was still feeling the aftereffects of the adrenaline rush which had come with the certainty that he was about to very painfully die. As the group began to speculate about how to make the boggart actually funny, he edged cautiously closer to the others, just in time to hear what Wolseithcrafte was saying to Pierce.

“That wasn’t one of my family members,” he lied, then flushed and pushed his glasses up his nose again, hoping she didn’t somehow know his grandmother well enough to have recognized her for the brief moment she’d been there. The wailing was getting louder, more irritating; it was all he could do not to either cover his ears or start trying to jinx the room to make it stop. “Just – I don’t know – blow the thing up or something if you can’t make it funny.” He was pretty sure a seventh year should know how to make something explode; he would be a pretty bad example of one if he couldn’t, and Aladren didn’t take incompetents. That was why Henry thought he was the first boy from his family not to be Sorted there.

0 Henry Carey At least we're getting to know each other 239 Henry Carey 0 5

Arnold Carey

February 19, 2013 10:46 PM

Team Nine here! by Arnold Carey

Arnold was in good spirits as he waited in the Cascade Hall for his team’s chance at the first challenge, waving cheerful goodbyes to Fae and Theresa when their teams left before his and to Arthur when his team left before his brother’s. He still didn’t like competing against Fae and Anthony and just didn’t feel right at all being on a different team from Arthur, but he was sure everyone understood that the competition here was even less real than Quidditch, and it did help that they were going through the competition one group at a time. It was a lot easier to focus on helping his team do well when he didn’t have the fact of that automatically being working against the teams of his family and friends doing well right in front of him, as he would have in a game or more open competition.

Besides, as much as he hated to admit it, he had found one small upside to not being on the same team as Arthur. Competing against each other felt all wrong, but not being shown up in front of the entire group was a little bit of a relief. At school, he thought they were both respected at least a little, but just in different areas; if he had been with friends, or even people he just knew, which didn’t really describe anyone in his group, and Arthur, then all his worst fears about the challenges would have no doubt come true at once. Arthur wouldn’t, he was sure, mean to embarrass him, he’d just be doing what he could to get them all through as efficiently as possible, but Arnold was pretty sure that wouldn’t have made him feel less mortified as Arthur swept through things effortlessly and he tagged along uselessly after him.

Maybe it was because he had grown up in a magical family, but Arnold found the arrow on the floor, which did not seem to lead to anything that he could see, creepier than the ghosts around the walls once they were inside the Defense classroom. The idea of being given directions by something he couldn’t precisely identify, which had intentions he didn’t know about, put him a little on edge, made him a little warier than usual. Especially since it was pretty obvious, at the moment, that whatever it was leading him toward was not going to be something it was to be fun to have spring out at him from the shadows; he wasn’t the best at guessing what other people were thinking and planning, but a hidden ice cream party wouldn’t be much of a challenge.

Unless it was rigged somehow, maybe there was a spell on it to keep them digging into the ice cream when they were supposed to follow the arrow on to the real task, or…But he didn’t let himself go far down that line of thought, because he knew it could quickly make his head hurt. An ice cream party, even one with an entrancing spell on it, would not fit the theme, so there probably wasn’t going to be one.

“Hello!” he said to the ghosts, not able to identify a specific one who seemed to be the leader. That was a little strange, but so was putting them in a classroom with a bunch of ghosts and an arrow on the floor. “Do any of you have any advice about how to beat this room?”

It couldn’t, he reasoned, hurt to ask. Maybe the whole idea was that only those who would ask could win it. Mother always did say people made a lot of problems for themselves because they refused to ask for help when they needed it, though it was possible that was one of those comments she was really making specifically about the family for Father’s benefit so he could pretend it went over his head.

0 Arnold Carey Team Nine here! 181 Arnold Carey 0 5

David Wilkes

February 20, 2013 1:04 PM

Here's hoping that doesn't lead to us killing each other. by David Wilkes

It was too bad that laughing at the boggart specifically was usually necessary to get rid of it, because while he still didn’t find his work on it funny enough, David got a brief, if strained, laugh out of Thad’s assessment of his sense of humor. “I’m going to look on the bright side of that comment,” he said.

He tilted his head when Fran suggested deflating the snake to make it funnier. “That could work,” he acknowledged. Unfortunately, he thought it could just as easily end up grotesque – well, more than things already were, anyway. That was the problem with manipulating the physical though imagination, as popular as it was in the magical world, at least if one was him and imagined in cartoon images instead of particularly realistic ones and therefore usually didn’t end up with things looking really the way they were supposed to. It was a minor problem for him in Transfiguration, though he usually ended up close enough to the ballpark to get by. Transfiguration was like horseshoes and hand grenades, close could cut it sometimes. Really, it cut it all the time since, as far as he could tell, since the fact they didn’t kill a lot of bunnies made him think the change was usually mostly or all surface-level and didn’t really get into transubstantiation, but that wasn’t really helping him with the boggart….

He looked away from the snake for a millisecond when Henry, apparently recovered from whatever had reduced him to hiding in a huddle on the floor behind a girl, contributed his solution to the problem in counter to Francesca’s other suggestion of ganging up on it: apparently, wizards also believed that exploding things always worked. Admittedly, David could see some of the potential perks, but….

“Think we’d better go with one of Francesca’s ideas,” he said. “If we blow it up, then for one thing, that’s potentially a huge mess, and for another, they might penalize us for not doing it the right way.” Plus, he’d never been too clear about whether or not boggarts actually died when laughed at by their target, Dark creatures were fun like that, so he wasn’t completely sure what would happen if they actually tried to kill one with fire. And as much as he liked fiddling with things, he didn’t think this was really the time or place. “Riddikulus!”

This time, he turned it into a deflated rubber snake, figuring that was less likely to be moderately horrifying than a deflated live one still trying to stick its tongue out or wriggle toward them. It kept the teeth and party hat, and as it popped out of a can, he was finally able to get in a good laugh at it.

“Well, that was fun,” he said, though the most fun part of the day had really been, for him, the cessation of the increasingly loud screech in the background. “Hey, what’s that?” he asked as he saw something seem to appear on the professor’s desk.

He turned toward it with his wand raised in case it was another challenge, but it looked like a…piece of paper. If an event-appropriately creepy piece of paper. He had never liked the color combination of red and black, at least not without a generous heaping of grey or white or even both to make it obvious it was a sport’s team’s colors.

“Don’t touch it,” he advised the group, then read it aloud.

“Huh,” he said. “That’s vague enough. Do any of you guys have some particularly untrustworthy library-dwelling friends we should be worried about?” The group was heavy enough on Aladrens that this was actually a distinct possibility, since that was their natural habitat and any friends they had were likely to be fellow natives or else those who had grown comfortable with it as a favorite vacation home. He didn't think he would call any of the more untrustworthy people he knew his friends, but there was always the Quidditch team, and who knew about Thad and Evan....

The door creaked open, though, even though no one was touching it, and he said "Talk as we walk?" just before the screech compelled some of his mid-level brain functions to move his feet away from the sound without consulting the higher-level analytic ones which had been trying to address the problem of the note.

OOC: See you in the library!

16 David Wilkes Here's hoping that doesn't lead to us killing each other. 169 David Wilkes 0 5

Kate Bauer

February 20, 2013 2:43 PM

Facing my fears with Team Three. by Kate Bauer

Kate had not been surprised to see that she was a team captain when the lists first came out. For one thing, she was a seventh year, and it looked like all the seventh years had been appointed leaders. For another, she actually, in theory, had some experience in this area, since she had been Kirstenna’s understudy as Quidditch captain for the past few years and was also a Quidditch captain this year. It had pretty much, when she thought about it, been inevitable.

It had not, though, taken her long to see that the staff had made a critical error when it just listed the students in order of age on the lists instead of actually spelling out that the one whose name came first was supposed to be the leader, at least if they wanted those students to be the leaders, as the Headmistress had indicated at the Welcoming Feast. She’d been shown this by, of all the possible people, her little sister, who she had never thought of as particularly leadership-oriented, much less as a revolutionary, but from what she’d seen of group seven’s meeting in the Hall, Alicia had been the one doing most of the talking, not Valentina. Following the lead of her friends, no doubt, probably that Pierce kid Kate wholeheartedly seconded Rachel in wishing Alicia wouldn’t be so involved with, but still, some people might not have liked that. Kate herself would have been embarrassed to death if she’d been completely upstaged by a fourteen-year-old, though she wouldn’t have hexed anybody’s siblings over it, as she suspected some of the sixth years might have if they’d been stuck in David’s or Sara’s or Valentina’s positions.

Luckily, her team seemed pretty cool, and Kate was looking forward to a pretty fun day on the day of the first challenge. Being team leader, she thought, was really just going to be being the one who tackled any particularly difficult magical tasks, and maybe had to calm everyone down if someone panicked, another reason why the fourth years were probably going to find themselves in over their heads sometime today. It was, after all, a Halloween challenge. Making people panic was probably going to be a good chunk of the point of some things.

Before they went down, then, Kate gave her team a quick prep speech. “Okay, guys, this is it,” she said. “We still don’t know what ‘this’ is, but this is it. Let’s just have everyone do their best, and remember, they’re not going to really hurt you, they need the tuition money.” Okay, so maybe that hadn’t been the best joke she’d ever made, but it was better than pointing out that while some of the really old school families might see near-death experiences as good clean fun and character formation, families like her stepfather’s would just sue, and they were starting to outnumber the crazy nutjobs who were still mentally half in Europe. Society. Kate hated it, but it did have its uses. “Go Thestrals!” she added, to deflect attention from that, and then it was time to go.

They were taken to the DADA classroom, where they found a bunch of ghosts and an arrow on the floor. “Spooky,” Kate commented, expecting they were being monitored somehow and that this would be taken as a compliment. It never hurt to suck up to the judges a little. “Wands at the ready, and speak up as soon as you see something,” she instructed her group.

Unless, of course, it was something that kept them from speaking, but Kate decided not to point that possibility out. Getting too wordy was the worst thing to do in a speech, or so the two how-to books – well, really, one of them had been more of a longish pamphlet and the other a short book, but she had done some research when she’d thought she’d have to make pregame speeches – she’d looked at over the summer had indicated. Besides, probably someone else would see at the same time or a few seconds later and then speak up about the other person getting caught in something, so that would still work. Unless they were all muted somehow and the challenge was to make the sixth and seventh years use nonverbal spells, but in that case, the point was moot and nothing else needed to be said about it.

As she followed the arrow, Kate began to hear a soft moaning sound, which made her put her free hand up to her ear to rub it, as though that might make it stop taking in the sound. “What’s making that – “ she said, but then was distracted by another sound. A giggle.

Looking toward that one, she found herself staring at…herself.

At least, she thought it was herself. It was hard to tell. The figure’s height, once her ridiculous four-inch heels were accounted for, was right, the color of the eyes matched, but that was about it. The hair, piled up elaborately on top of her head, was so highlighted it looked a pale, synthetic blond color except for the barest glimmers of Kate’s own mousy light brown here and there, she appeared to have had a nose job and something done to her chin, and she was wearing so much makeup that her other features had been basically erased and then redrawn in pencil. She was also wearing a freakishly elaborate, so-overdone-it’s-ugly designer dress encrusted in what looked like a king’s ransom worth of mismatched jewels in every possible cut and color and was swaying back and forth in what looked like a drunken manner, though that could have been the shoes again.

The…thing giggled again, then spun around in a circle, letting them see the whole garish spectacle of the dress. “Isn’t it gorgeous?” it asked, smiling and batting her pasted-on eyelashes at them all. “I got all the money, and this is what I spent it on!” It span around again, glittering like a Mardi Gras float gone horribly, horribly wrong.

Kate stared, dumbfounded. "What?" she managed after a few seconds.

16 Kate Bauer Facing my fears with Team Three. 170 Kate Bauer 0 5

Waverly Canterbury

February 20, 2013 3:36 PM

There are some fun times to be had by Waverly Canterbury

The moment Waverly had heard the subject of the first challenge, she had been both excited and scared. Haunted houses were not exactly fun for her, and she hated horror movies and could barely stand any scary movies. Romance comedies were more her thing, but she didn't think the professors would want to do anything like that. And magic did have some dark, scary parts to it, hence why the first part of the haunted challenge took place in the DADA classroom. At least that's what she assumed when she got there. She wondered what her boyfriend would think if he ever heard of her school having a day dedicated to making the school a haunted obstacle course.

Reggie gave a little pep talk before they went in and Waverly nodded. She liked Reggie a lot which meant she would actively listen to her even if it was common sense. She went in after Reggie and Effie, watching the ghosts drift by. As a first-year, she had been totally creeped out by them, but by her fourth year she was used to seeing them around. She didn't mind them, she just thought they could be a little strange at times even for ghosts.

She wandered a little, seeing the arrow but not doing anything more. The classroom looked normal enough, but that could be dangerous in itself. Waverly knew that with magic, at least in this school, she should probably expect the unexpected. Which was hard.

She looked over at her teammates, wondering if they had found anything, and as her green eyes turned to Effie, she saw an ugly old man standing in front of her. She was completely flabbergasted by his appearance and by the fact that he was in here. She had never seen him before. Maybe he was supposed to be testing them? Waverly usually liked old people, but he looked pretty evil and she saw him bring some sort of metal object out of his pocket and point it at the younger girl. She had no idea what it was, but it freaked Effie out enough to stun him.

Apparently it was a boggart and Waverly wondered if that old man was some sort of relative of Effie's or someone she was really afraid of. She went over to help her out, having learned the spell from her intermediate DADA classes. Effie looked deathly pale and Waverly looked at her closer. "Are you okay?" she asked, concerned, and after hearing how she was doing, stood in front of her to take on the boggart. She tried to steel her mind or think of something funny, but the boggart nearly took her by surprise by how fast it changed.

The boggart had gone from a stunned old man to a giant spider with ferocious teeth. It might not have been her biggest fear, but it was one that she thought about a lot, and she stared at it, mouth dry and heart beating loudly in her ears. "Holy crap," she gasped as the huge arachnid took one step towards her. She had to keep it from getting the best of her, she knew, and even as she felt chills going down her spine, she lifted her wand, an image in her head.

"Riddikulus!" she said, letting the spell go, and watched as the spider shrank and colorful balloons appeared, attached to the boggart's eight legs, and lifted it into the air, causing it to hang upside down. It scrambled for some sort of solid ground, getting tangled up as it hung in space and she laughed at the ridiculous sight. It was easier to laugh when there was lots of color around. The DADA classroom was usually her least favorite because it seemed so grim in here. It was nice to bring color into it.

"There," she said, still smiling both from the spectacle and from the adrenaline from being frightened. "Who wants to take it on next?"

19 Waverly Canterbury There are some fun times to be had 218 Waverly Canterbury 0 5

Wendy Canterbury

February 20, 2013 3:51 PM

What an...interesting fear? by Wendy Canterbury

Wendy wasn't too concerned with the challenges. She rarely let anything concern her usually, and so when they came around she got dressed and went to the DADA classroom like everyone else. She knew only kind of knew two people on her team. They were her sister's friends and were also in the same house as her. The rest she had gotten to know the weeks leading up to this challenge.

Their team leader gave a little talk before and Wendy nodded to her advice. The little title Jade had given their team gave their team a more interesting quality even if Wendy didn't know what a thestral was. She knew better than to ask, though, and she had planned to look it up in the library but hadn't gotten around to it. There were just so many more interesting things to do.

They finally went into the classroom and Wendy brought out her wand. She and Bianca were the youngest on the team which meant they wouldn't know as much as the older students. She didn't know what she was expected to do better than them, exactly, so she just followed what the older students did. It was easier that way.

Kate went up to the front and Wendy looked around the classroom. The ghosts were very intriguing and she stared at them. She didn't see them all that often and didn't get an opportunity to look at them for this long. A moaning started going and Wendy cringed. That was kind of creepy. She looked around wondering where it was coming from, and then heard a high-pitched laugh coming from Kate. Or at least, someone that looked a lot like her.

Wendy's eyebrows furrowed as the look-alike twiddled around in a horrible-looking dress and Wendy went to take a closer look. She looked at their team leader and then at the look-alike, and she wondered how in the world this could be possible. "Is that...you?" she asked, wanting to make sure, but it was unmistakable. Wendy took a step closer to the look-alike, acting without thinking of social norms, and the Kate look-alike took one look at her and was suddenly a huge T-rex.

Wendy couldn't even gasp, that's how fast the change took place, and she almost choked on her own breath. The huge dinosaur was looking right at her and one of its huge feet came crashing down right next to her. It's enormous mouth opened, revealing razor-sharp teeth as it lowered its head, and she could smell its disgusting breath. Wendy screamed and ran the other away before it could take a bite out of her, wanting to put all the space between them. "They can't let dinosaurs in here, can they?" she squeaked from the back of the classroom. "I didn't know they had dinosaurs here!" So much for not getting killed. Wendy really hoped her older classmates knew a spell to make the flesh-eating dino go away.

19 Wendy Canterbury What an...interesting fear? 245 Wendy Canterbury 0 5

Henny B-F-R

February 20, 2013 4:53 PM

I think we have different dictionaries by Henny B-F-R

It being a boggart should have made things better. It did, in the sense that they weren't about to be killed but it didn't mean she could just stop feeling awful about it. The thing may not have been real but her feelings about it definitely were. It was a little like when you came out of an exam and you were still buzzing with all that nervous energy, only you didn't have anywhere to direct it any more. It hung about making you feel twitchy and ill at ease, and there was very little to be done because the source of said feelings was already dealt with. You just had to wait until you didn't feel on edge any more. The fact that Alex, a student her own age, was able to deal with it so calmly and effectively only made everything worse. On top of the panic she'd felt at the sight of the chimaera, she felt humiliated over the strength of her own reaction.

She didn't yet dare to sink down to the floor, afraid that the room would throw something else at them. That made it hard to try to collect herself, as she didn't absolutely know that there was nothing to panic about any more. Not that such straightforward cause and effect logic worked like an off-switch but it was an important first step. But the thing she feared above all others was gone. And, even if the room had more boggarts in, she knew now that was all they were. She could be rational. And with other things she had been anxious about, she had learnt to get the feeling under control. The same principles applied here, only it was bigger. The one thing that her brain failed to tell her was, that for the size of shock she had received, her reaction was entirely understandable. She berated herself for not having held it together better, after all the work she'd done. She tried to pull together her remaining shreds of dignity, some sense of calm and enough of a regular breathing pattern to translate into legs that functioned again. She could only hope that it would take her team mates a few minutes to figure out what to do next, as she wasn't sure she could promise a turn around that quickly.

The first thing had to be the breathing. It was always the first stage, to breathe. Besides which hyperventilating was a very noisy thing to do in a now relatively silent classroom. Everyone would notice, if they hadn't already. She tried to push that thought aside. It mattered if they knew – it mattered very greatly to her but she couldn't start thinking about that potential humiliation as it would only exacerbate her current problems – she would start panicking over what people would think if they saw her panicking. She breathed steadily, counting the breaths in and out. It felt more normal but the normality currently felt like a very conscious process and a very fragile one. She had to make herself keep breathing regularly. She had to not entertain the possibility that she would slip up and let it get out of her control. If she could just keep breathing, then the rest would follow.

13 Henny B-F-R I think we have different dictionaries 211 Henny B-F-R 0 5

Charlie B-F-R

February 20, 2013 5:30 PM

And you're amazing! by Charlie B-F-R

Charlie flinched a little as one of the older students told him to 'shut up.' He had only shouted 'snakes' a couple of times. Admittedly a little loudly and a little shrilly but there were snakes and he felt that was an important point to make people aware of. In Charlie's world, everyone was a kind and considerate person until proven otherwise. He could not understand why anyone would do something to deliberately harm or upset another human being. It was just unkind and unnecessary. He therefore felt it very keenly when this sense of trust in people's inherent niceness was betrayed. Being snapped at by a student who was supposed to be mentoring or protecting him definitely violated this sense of a pleasant world.

Everything else happened so quickly that he didn't have much time to take it in until it was over, and they were surrounded by happy cartoon bees. He stared at Marcus admiringly. He was still unsure about the older boy but he suspected most of those feelings came from the fact that Marcus was so very much older and very much bigger than him and so very.... male. Those things made Charlie feel rather intimidated but he was also determined to let Marcus show him what he was like before he made up his mind properly. And, based on what had just happened, he was awesome.

“Sir, yessir!” he beamed enthusiastically, blushing only a little at Marcus' comments. It was good advice and he wasn't being mean or personal. Although he had felt Theresa's remark very sharply, he was also now quick to shake it off. He felt things acutely – that is, with intense feeling but only briefly. Now that the danger had passed, Charlie promptly returned to his bright and eager self. He even put Theresa snapping at him down to stress rather than her being a mean person.

“I can!” he volunteered, when Marcus asked for someone to fetch their instructions. He realised he was still gripping his chair and set it down a little awkwardly, resigning himself to the fact that there wasn't really a dignified way to clamber down from one's retreat onto a desk. He was about to run straight for the desk at the front but realised this might not be suitably prudent. He kept his wand out and glanced about as he crept up to the notice, pausing and then snatching it triumphantly from the desk. He read the note out in his best fortune-teller predicting creepy doom tone of voice. He then immediately ruined this by declaring, in much more his normal tone,

“Oooh, the library!”

He was a little worried by the idea of not trusting friends, as he didn't want the team to start picking on each other. It didn't seem very fair that they would end up doing a task where the older students were against the younger students, which probably meant that wasn't what was about to happen. He shurgged it off – he'd just have to see when they got there.

“Door's open!” he called, as it creaked open releasing the team from the first stage.

13 Charlie B-F-R And you're amazing! 252 Charlie B-F-R 0 5

Carter Browning

February 20, 2013 7:55 PM

First Challenge...fun by Carter Browning

Carter saw the signs posted up in Cascade Hall and the Teppenpaw common room for their first challenge. He had read over the clue, but wasn't entirely certain he knew what to expect. He had also made a mental note of all of the other people on his team and found himself only really recognizing one name, Carrie O'Malley. Ah cripes and crudmuffins! he thought to himself as he smacked his own forehead in frustration. Why of all the people here did she have to be on the same team as me and all the other innocent people in our group? Do the teachers hate us or something? Did we do something wrong? Is that why they're punishing us? he wondered to himself as he sighed heavily at the sight of her name with the other ones. He decided not to dwell on it and made his way towards the DADA classroom as instructed. He walked up at almost exactly twelve noon and wasn't entirely sure where he was supposed to stand. Since he wasn't really familiar with any of the other people on his team he figured he'd wait until they were called into the room for their turn.

He watched as what he figured was the first group went inside the room for the challenge. That meant that the group huddling close by getting ready for the next run must be Team Two. He made his way over to them and waved hello. He listened to Eliza's speech and nodded in agreement. He was going to do his best on the challenges regardless of whatever they happened to be. He followed Eliza and Sullivan along with the rest of their group into the classroom for their turn. He glanced around the spooky classroom and gave the ghosts a quick glance. He wasn't afraid of any of the ghosts, but he wasn't entirely a big fan of spooky rooms. He saw the arrow on the floor and along with the others followed it cautiously. He pulled out his wand as Eiza had instructed and looked around. He heard Sullivan make some noise as he moved and found him facing what appeared to be a dinosaur.

"What in the name of merlin is THAT doing here?" he asked, flabbergasted as he watched Sullivan pull out his wand and stupify the creature. Carter couldn't take his eyes off of Sullivan as he tried to get them all out of the door. Carter continued to stare as they discovered the door was locked behind them. He went to move towards the door himself when he heard someone else exclaim something. He turned to see another girl fall on her bottom, her wand falling away from her as she exclaimed "Not a raptor! It's a..." "Werewolf!" Carter snapped his head to the spot where she seemed to be staring and found himself looking not a werewolf as she claimed, but that same creepy clown with the glowing white eyes and the grizzly yellowed teeth. It grinned widely at him and started to slowly float towards him, its hand reaching out for him as it approached.

Carter stared wide-eyed at it for about half a second, swallowing hard before raising his wand and attempting the first spell he could muster. "Ridiculous!" he shouted, showing the clown with a cream pie crammed in its face, covering up its creepy smile from view, and it slipping on a banana peel. The sight of the clown blind and falling down made Carter actually laugh aloud. The clown slumped its shoulders and faded away revealing just an empty spot on the floor. Carter stared at the empty spot and almost hooted in sheer delight. "I got rid of it without freaking out," he mused to himself. He made his way back to the classroom door waiting for the next of his teammates to have their turn. He was actually a little proud of himself. If thats the best they can do for the challenges, bring'em on! he thought confidently. I am soo ready for this!

0 Carter Browning First Challenge...fun 236 Carter Browning 0 5

Fae Sinclair

February 20, 2013 8:47 PM

It was at least interesting. by Fae Sinclair

The days that lead up to the challenge were stressful ones for Fae. She had a hard time dealing with changes and she often let her anxiety get the better of her. She had been doing better about it these last couple of years, but she figured that was mostly due to the fact that she wasn’t so anxious about Arnold any more. She knew he liked her and that had left such a great relief in her. She also had less anxiety because of her reduced class schedule and no important life altering examinations at the end of the year. The only thing she had to get through was these challenges and then a ball would be waiting at the end of it.

As anxious as she was, she was also a little excited. She had never been involved in anything like this. She had been involved in the concert because it had been mandatory, but she had been behind the scenes creating costumes and helping with makeup. She never thought she would have to be involved in something like this, but now that she was, she was a little bit enthused about it. Fae wasn’t sure how Arnold was feeling about it, but she figured he was looking forward to it since he didn’t have Quidditch games to look forward too. It was a little strange to be competing against him, but she felt no hostility or threat. That was probably because no one really expected a team full of girls to win. At least, maybe not their team. Sara was small and fragile and Fae was pretty much terrified and useless of everything. But maybe Henny and Alex would be able to push them through things? Or maybe they could simply manage to get through it and be happy for just being able to finish without the need for the boys? She thought that would be nice. She relied on Arnold to get her through the scary things, this would force her to rely on herself to get through them.

When they entered the Defense classroom, a room Fae hadn’t stepped in all year, she stuck by Omara and Analea while the others went forward. Fae had been looking around at the ghosts waiting for them to do something when she heard Sara scream. Surprise more than anything hit her when she saw her best friend act so very unlike herself. Fae didn’t even see what happened because just as suddenly as Sara’s scream was, Henny was screaming and pounding on the door to be let out. What happened? What had she missed? It must have been something!

Fae, never having a need to protect anyone, found her wand clamped tightly in her hand, raised high as she looked around for the source of the commotion while putting herself between the first years and the middle of the room where a seriously disgusting looking creature stood in front of Alex, who identified it as a boggart and vanquished it. “Oh… hold on.” Fae commented, reviving herself and moving towards the desk to read the riddle on it out loud. “So… the library?” She asked rhetorically since it made it pretty known.

Looking at Sara, Fae smiled at her and suppressed a giggle. Sara’s scream definitely gave her a human aspect about her, “We’ll keep that from the boys.” She teased, turning to the younger students and gesturing for them to move forward, only spotting Henny near the door. Heading that way anyway, Fae placed a hesitant hand on her arm, “You alright, Henny? We have to head to the library. The door’s open now, but do you need a moment? I don’t mind waiting.”

6 Fae Sinclair It was at least interesting. 194 Fae Sinclair 0 5

Henny B-F-R

February 21, 2013 12:26 PM

Us Aladrens do have a reputation for liking boring stuff... by Henny B-F-R

Breathe in. Breathe out. Think rational thoughts. Henny kept this up as Fae chirpily grabbed the note and announced the next stage of their adventures. They were to head on to the library, apparently. And should be wary when they got there... It did not exactly sound comforting but then she supposed the whole idea was to frighten them. To frighten but not really hurt, even if she felt that the one really came very close to the other in her case. The challenge setters were trying to put them on edge but things should actually be more moderate than described. It was only their own fear that really made them bad. Unfortunately, in her case, that was a very effective tactic. But if she just tried to be rational... She was good at being rational. Assess the actual situation, the level of threat, the things she could actively do about it, not just get overwhelmed. She had practised all of these things.

She shifted slightly as she felt someone pushing on the door, wondering if the next team was trying to get in now that they were done. She stepped aside a little and the door creaked open uninvitingly. She tried not to think how weird it might seem to her team mates that she let them file past her, rather than just going straight out of the door. Until Fae got to her. She tried to appreciate Fae's concern, as the other girl asked if she needed a moment and said she would be happy to wait. She did appreciate, in part. It was definitely nice of her to offer and to try to be being comforting but it meant that she had noticed, and was possibly drawing other people's attention to it to. The feeling that a spotlight was being shined on her problems made her feel worse about how she had reacted.

“No – I'm ok. Thanks though,” she said. Her words came out a bit strangled but she managed to smile at Fae. At least if she did panic, someone was willing to help. For all that she wished that wasn't necessary and they didn't have to know, it made a nice safety net. But now she just wanted to push on. Getting away from the scene of things would have helped had it not been the case that she knew something else unpleasant would be at the other end of the walk. Now that this room seemed safe again she would have much rather crawled under one of the desks and stayed put rather than face the unknown again but that wasn't an option. She pulled herself away from the wall, finding she'd managed to get enough air around her system to operate her legs again. Luckily she managed to get out of the room before it felt the need to prompt them audibly, as that would not have done her much good.

13 Henny B-F-R Us Aladrens do have a reputation for liking boring stuff... 211 Henny B-F-R 0 5

Marcus

February 21, 2013 8:16 PM

OOC: Meet in the library! (nm) by Marcus

6 Marcus OOC: Meet in the library! (nm) 180 Marcus 0 5

Arista Thornton

February 21, 2013 9:52 PM

Ready Team 12? by Arista Thornton

As upset and angry as Amira was about Quidditch games being cancelled, she became excited about the Challenges and the prospect of Exhibition games. Scouts can see Sophie and me, and anyone else, in those games! she thought as she'd signed up for the Exhibition game, first on the list for Teppenpaw.

Then signs went up about the first Challenge being on Saturday. She'd sent a message to the rest of her team (Addi, James, Marcus, Blair and Ravenna) to meet her for breakfast before the first Challenge, so there she went that Saturday. Addi had gone with her from Teppenpaw. "At least I know you'll be there..."

"Yes, I'll be there..." Addi said as they opened the door and sat at an empty table to wait for the others. When they'd all arrived, Ris explained that she'd wanted them to be sure they ate breakfast before the first of the unknown Challenges. After the six of them had eaten, she nodded to the group of them. "Ready? Let's go." she added, standing up and leading them out of the hall and down to the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom to wait for their turn.

A few groups were waiting ahead of them, so the seventh year tool this time to talk to her team. She didn't know too much about the two first years, Blair and Ravenna, but she was glad they were there nevertheless. Marcus, she knew from Teppenpaw's Quidditch Team and she thought she knew him pretty well. James was a Carey, and as many of them as she had met, they still surprised her. Addi was her sister and clearly she knew what the sixth year could and couldn't do...

Arista sighed, I hope we get through this unscathed... she thought as they were told to go in. "Ready Team 12?" she asked as she led the pack inside the classroom.

Ghosts were everywhere around the room and there was a large arrow on the floor. "This is too simple... Follow the arrow... It just feels so wrong..." she said. Arista glanced ahead to see where the arrow led. "Stay together..." she added, feeling like a mother hen, (especially with Addison) as they got close to the Professor's desk.

Rista's eyes widened at what she saw. A large pile of her siblings lay dead beside the desk. Addi saw it too and clung to Arista's arm.

"B-boggart... Like at the CATs Exams..." she whispered, as the boggard shifted to Addison's worst fear (as she had become the one at the front of the group).

0 Arista Thornton Ready Team 12? 0 Arista Thornton 0 5

Sully

February 22, 2013 1:47 PM

Passing my spot check by Sully

The raptor might have vanished, but they were still locked in a relatively small area with a werewolf. Sully was sure he had stunned a dinosaur, but this was the wizarding world where things were weird, so either they were facing a series of monsters that disappeared after they were at least temporarily disabled, or they had a shape shifter on their hands. Personally, Sully would rather face the wolf form over the dino form.

He stepped forward, away from the door, his wand drawn and ready. If it was a real werewolf, he didn't want to hurt it too bad, since it was a normal person most of the time. Unfortunately, it would not extend the same courtesy to them. Plus, well, he was pretty sure from recent Astonomy assignments that the moon was waning - or was it waxing? - this week, but definitely not full, he thought, so it was probably a shapeshifter.

The fifth year tried to remember what kinds of shifters there were and how to deal with them. Something that started with a B, he thought, but thinking was getting hard with all the wailing and now the werewolf was gone as the kid, Carter, stepped up, and the shifter - definitely a shifter - transformed now into a clown of all things. Granted, it was a pretty creepy clown.

B, starts with B, Sully wracked his brain, taking another step away from the door with his wand clutched in his hand, but the details eluded him and he just wished the bloody wailing would stop already.

Then, abruptly, it did as the second year kid banished the thing with a spell that finally let his mind spit out the answer: a buggert! Or maybe a borgerd. Or a bogart - no, that was that Casablanca actor guy. But something like that. He felt much better now. Mostly because the infernal noise had ceased and they were longer facing a buggert. That would take a load off anybody's mind.

Though he was kind of irritated that it was one of the kids who got rid of it. If it had been Eliza, or even Jhonice or Carrie, Sully was pretty sure he wouldn't have felt so inferior, but buggerts were an intermediate level creature and the kid was still a beginner. It was totally not fair that some kids had such a head start that a second year pureblood could identify and deal with things a fifth year muggleborn hadn't even heard of at that age, and couldn't remember very well even now. Not for the first time, Sully wished there were some kind of remedial lessons so he would stand a remote chance of not looking like a moron just because he grew up hearing about dinosaurs and trucks instead of werewolves and brooms.

"Look," he said, pointing to a splash of white on the desk that hadn't been there a moment ago. "What's that?" He would check it out himself, but he was still only a couple feet from the door and everyone else looked to be closer.

0 Sully Passing my spot check 0 Sully 0 5

Kate Bauer

February 22, 2013 2:02 PM

I'm fun like that. by Kate Bauer

“No,” Kate said, more emphatically than she’d meant to, when asked if the thing was her. Because it most certainly was not. Kate would rather die than look that stupid, never mind open her mouth and prove that appearances weren’t always deceiving immediately afterward. She looked in revulsion as the thing twirled again, saw Wendy –

Deeply imbedded instincts made her start heading backward as fast as she could when the dinosaur appeared, unable to stand her ground or turn her back on it. Less rational was reaching out to sweep one of her teammates behind her, and then raising her wand, not sure what she was planning to do about it, when it looked like the dinosaur was going to eat Wendy whole now that it had used its illusion power to draw her in, probably something to do with the average female brain and sparkly jewels –

- Illusion -

“I think – “ she started to shout, to let everyone know and maybe have three seconds to brace themselves if she was right and to have nothing to lose if she was wrong, but then it was human-sized again before she could finish. This time, it was an adult man, a thin one with pale brown hair like hers and something of her mother about his face, too, except for his expression. He had the look of someone who always had a bad smell right under his nose, and now specific disdain for her was making it worse.

“Awfully sorry about this, darling,” he said. “But after all the trouble I had to go to with our other sisters, I could hardly leave you just because you’re incompetent – “

“Isaac?” she gasped, just before he swung a knife toward her. She dropped to the floor to avoid it, sliding backward away from the homicidal adult version of her brother which she guessed represented the ultimate end she feared might come out of her family’s attempt at playing pureblood and toward the ghosts lining the walls.

“Boggart!” she yelled, in case someone else was closer to it now – her bangs had come out of her plait and were obscuring her vision – in the hopes this would distract them from the fear enough for them to fight it. It might not, they could be overwhelming, especially if one wasn’t used to them, but it was worth a try at least.

16 Kate Bauer I'm fun like that. 170 Kate Bauer 0 5

Clara Abernathy

February 22, 2013 2:35 PM

Me too :) by Clara Abernathy

Clara watched for the posting on the challenges and was excited when she finally saw the first one go up. She was pretty sure she had a small idea what it might be that they would be facing and the thought of it made her shudder a bit from head to toe. If it was a Boggart, like she suspected, she wasn't sure how she was going to deal with it. It was kind of hard explaining to people that it wasn't the darkness itself that frightened her, but the unknown of what lurked inside it that made her run cold from head to toe. How was one really supposed to say such a thing to people. "Im not afraid of the dark, but I'm afraid of the dark." It sounds retarded no matter which way you tried to say it. Clara stared at the posting on the Pecari commonroom board and sighed slightly. As much as she tried to prepare herself for the moment it didn't make it any easier.

Clara was a little relieved that she was on the same team as her cousin Brielle and her new friend Rupert. She was slightly familiar with the others on the team, but she didn't know them very well. She was fairly certain that Arnold and Arthur Carey played Quidditch with a few of her cousins, but she wasn't all that certain since she didn't really watch the games much. She was only fairly certain they played because her cousin Arista mentioned them from time to time due to the games. She made her way to the DADA classroom as instructed and caught sight of Arnold waiting in the hall outside the room. She figured the teams were going in order of team number since there wasn't any indication that they wouldn't be. She made her way through the crowd of students and stood near Arnold. She smiled and waved hello to him trying to be friendly from the start. Since her team never had the chance to really meet and get to know eachother before hand she figured now was as good of a time as any.

When it was her team's turn inside she followed Arnold through the door and looked around at the spooky decorations. She had to admit they really went all out trying to shake them for the challenges. She glanced down and noticed the arrow on the floor that seemed to lead the way. She pulled out her wand and kept a close eye for anything strange. “Do any of you have any advice about how to beat this room?” she heard Arnold ask the ghosts in the room with them. She looked a little confused as to why he might ask them for help, but didn't discourage him. If they could help in any way she wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. When the ghosts failed to say anything she was about to say something to Arnold herself, but found the words catching in her throat when the room started becoming increasingly darker.

Her palms started to sweat as she realized that the darkness seemed to be floating directly towards her. She was rooted to the spot as she stared into the depth of the blackness and began to see dark shadows darting around inside it. She couldn't make out what the shadows were and that scared her more than anything else on the planet. Her mind went blank for a second as she searched for what it was she needed to do. She found herself suddenly wanting her mother and that finally gave her an idea. She thought about the time her mother sang her to sleep and she felt the best calm rush through her. She gripped her wand tight and pointed it squarely at the inky blackness before her. "Expecto Patronum!" she shouted, watching as a silvery mist escaped from the end of the wand. The light from it was soo bright that it seemed to light up every corner of the room, pushing the darkness far away from them.

She held on tightly to the thought of her mother as the mist defeated the darkness. Once the darkness was completely gone and she was certain it wasn't coming back, Clara allowed herself to lower her wand. The silver mist with its powerful light faded from the room as did the thought of her mother. Clara suddenly found herself wiping away a few tears that had escaped and shook them off. She was glad that she had her mother's help even now. She saw the note on the desk saying where their next challenge was and put it back down. She took a deep breath and smiled at her team. She knew that they could handle this and she was more than willing to do her part.

0 Clara Abernathy Me too :) 232 Clara Abernathy 0 5

Eliza Bennett

February 22, 2013 6:40 PM

Moving along by Eliza Bennett

For a few seconds, Eliza had wondered if maybe the challenge was to see if they could work well enough together not to turn on each other in a paranoid state when nothing challenging presented itself, and then all hell broke loose and took that idea away from her pretty quickly. She wasn’t sure what a raptor was, speaking in technical terms, but she was completely confident in Sully’s analysis of what the correct response to its presence was.

She tried it, too, but the door didn’t give and then – she made a noise not unlike an angry cat when she saw that Jhonice had apparently decided not to run, which meant Eliza was going to have to go back and save her, and she was more annoyed with the staff than with the girl for that because this had emphatically not been in the implicit agreement for these things, that she’d have to take being a leader that far – there was a new problem. And then another one. And then a second year realized what they were dealing with and banished the boggart.

After a second, Eliza found the last thought she’d had before the clown had appeared and completely startled her coming back to her. It had, she thought, been something about panicking because she couldn’t remember the incantation for a Blasting Curse which could take out the door. That was strange, because she was usually very good at remembering things – spells, imagined slights, really whatever was in front of her. This was not what she thought was a good omen for the whole challenge experience.

Eliza pressed her fingers into her temples, which had given a few painful throbs, until she was distracted from that by Sully’s question about what some new attraction of the room was. This one, though, didn’t look likely to attack. “It looks like a note or something,” she said, cautiously approaching, her wand still raised in case it turned out to be ‘or something.’ But it stayed a note, one containing only a short rhyme with no signature. How improper.

“Looks like we’re going to everyone’s favorite place,” she said, false-brightly, doubting that this group really held a ton of library nuts. Merlin knew she wasn’t one. Eliza respected the library, but it was hardly an environment she thought of as casual and relaxing. She associated it with tension – the tension of exams, the tension of everyone scrambling for the top, the tension of ambition and magic and power of other kinds and, not least, grade-grubbers who would cut their own mothers’ throats to get in a little better with a professor before the big projects, the year-ending ones, and the final exams were taken up and administered and then graded to determine their progress for the year. “And won’t be able to trust anyone once we get there. Do you think we shouldn’t trust whoever wrote this about not trusting anything in the library?” The last bit wasn't, she knew, the best attempt at a joke she'd ever made, but it would do, she guessed, for now.

0 Eliza Bennett Moving along 174 Eliza Bennett 0 5

Jay Carey

February 22, 2013 6:45 PM

Not quite, but it's not really up to me, is it? by Jay Carey

Somehow, Jay had not had a lot to do with his team so far. He didn’t think it was anything personal, at least not on his side; what they thought of him, he had no idea, but he neither really liked nor really disliked any of them. That was how he felt about most people, honestly, even though his family seemed to find the idea bizarre. They were…an emotional group.

On the morning of the challenge, then, he was as comfortable putting up with his sister and cousins bragging about how well their teams were going to do compared to his and each other’s as he ever was, and he even joined in a bit, seeing it as harmless just between them. He wasn’t sure it would have gone as well if Henry had actually played for the Crotalus team last year, but his brother being a reserve on a different team from everyone else’s had him tentatively convinced that, deep down, they did all care about each other marginally more than winning. Maybe most of them would still push the others down at the drop of a hat to win, but…maybe not if the other person would really mind. That was different. Being family didn’t mean you had to try to lose, just that dirty tactics were more frowned on, especially if you knew the other person would really mind. If they wouldn’t, then really, Jay thought a case could be made for anything that didn’t really hurt anyone even if it was a little underhanded.

In the end, they split up to be with their respective teams, all the necessary gauntlets thrown down and boasts exchanged and wagers made, and Jay smiled pleasantly as he met team twelve, nodding in the right places when Arista offered encouragement and then led them into the room, which had ghosts and an arrow on the floor. He fell in obediently, too, with the formation until….

He winced at the sight of the stack of dead bodies the Thornton girls seemed afraid of, though a small part of his brain was still engaged with the fact that their family, assuming from the resemblances, probably was, in fact, bigger than his after all, not just full of people who were closer together than Henry and their younger three siblings were. He had wondered. They managed to have someone in almost every year, he thought, if not every one, whereas he and his siblings would never all be at Sonora at the same time; Theresa wouldn’t overlap with Diana at all, and no one here now would overlap with Cecilia. He made a note to be more appreciative of the role of second child and first son of only six siblings sometime even as he felt sorry for the girls for having to face their fears.

“We haven’t covered them yet in class, but I’ll try to deal with it if you’ll tell me how,” he offered, feeling, with a vague sense of eldest-son guilt, that it was his duty to do so in place of the girls, even though they were older. Arista, at least, didn’t look up to much at all after the stack of bodies. He couldn’t blame her for that, he would be upset if all his siblings appeared to be dead, too, though he doubted they would even if he did face the boggart. Henry was less pleasant than he used to be, but the Incident hadn’t permanently damaged his health, and after Cecilia, Jay thought he might be the least physically hardy member of the family. The idea that all five of them - or really, more than just one or two of them - might predecease him wasn't one he had ever really thought of before.

0 Jay Carey Not quite, but it's not really up to me, is it? 0 Jay Carey 0 5

Lucrezia Renaldi

February 22, 2013 8:49 PM

Eep! by Lucrezia Renaldi

Lucrezia had been bouncing off the walls since the second she had woken up today. It was the day of the first challenge, and the little Italian was eager to see what the staff members had in store for them. The third-year was well aware that in terms of knowledge she had little to contribute to the team due to her small age. She knew things, but there were very basic knowledge. So, the Crotalus was going to cling to the upper years to get through the challenge. Lucrezia was going to help in the things she could, but other than that she was in for the ride of her life. The most important thing for her was having fun and making loads of new friends, which was something she was quite sure she was already doing.

The smile that grazed her olive skin as she joined her team was bright enough to light up a room. Lucrezia was really easy to read through her expressions. She let her emotions take the best of her most of the time, especially around Carrie. She couldn’t stand the insufferable prat. Thankfully, her brother had turned out pretty decent, and the Crotalus had started to harbor sympathy for him, after all, he lived with her and shared genes. That had to be horrifying. So, the little Italian actually liked Ryan. He was cool and cute. She smiled up at him during his speech and stood next him to him. Having an older male nearby made her feel somewhat safer about what was going to come.

Lucrezia felt like lighting had replaced her blood. The adrenaline pumping through her system was enough to make her want to run around the school a couple of times or squeal endlessly. Her enthusiasm was taking control over her and it was obvious due to her fidgeting. What were they going to encounter in there? The team inside needed to get it going!

It was finally their turn! She squealed quite loudly and followed Ryan closely. Her eyes were looking around the room in awe. She was so absorbed by her surroundings that she missed instructions or something, but suddenly the only thing she could focus on was screams and insults. She took a step back and let the older students take care of whatever was haunting the place. The upperclassmen didn’t know what was happening, and Lucrezia was now scared. She didn’t want to face whatever horror lay ahead! If Sally and Ryan couldn’t handle it, then she definitely didn’t have an idea of what to do.

0 Lucrezia Renaldi Eep! 231 Lucrezia Renaldi 0 5

Sara

February 22, 2013 10:52 PM

To the library, ladies! (nm) by Sara

0 Sara To the library, ladies! (nm) 0 Sara 0 5

Preston Stratford

February 22, 2013 11:11 PM

Being embarassed by the challenge by Preston Stratford

Preston had been preparing for the first since he learned about it. He was the team leader and as so, he needed to make an excellent impression upon the underclassmen. He was sure that the staff members were going to base the Head Boy selection on how the sixth-years performed during the challenges. The redhead wanted to win so badly that he had forgone sleep to have enough time to do everything he had to do: keep up with classwork, quidditch, Sara and the preparing for the challenges. It hadn’t been the best of ideas, but with the help of some energy potions he was doing all right. He knew he was going to pay for it, but winning was well worth it. Nobody knew what he was doing – he hoped one of his roommates had picked up on his new habit --, but most importantly he didn’t want Sara to know. He was sure she was going to worry about him, and Preston didn’t want to hear a lecture about how this was affecting him. The only thing that mattered was winning this and showing everyone that he was Head Boy material.

The Aladren yawned loudly on his way towards the start of the first challenge. He had sent his team an owl telling to meet him there in order to wait for their turn. He felt assured about the capability of each of the members. He was happy about how they had been getting to know one another through the runs the Pierce girls had started. It was nice to know that everyone wanted this as much as he did, and he was going to be the one leading them to victory.

Since it was his custom, Preston was early, and as soon as the rest of his team joined him he gave them an encouraging smile, “We worked hard for today. I am certain we will do grandly. Remember, we have to cooperate in order to beat everyone else,” he finished with a nod. Preston had never been someone to give long speeches. It was better to go right to the point.

The Aladren patiently – not really – waited for their turn to tackle whatever it was that was waiting for them inside the DADA classroom. His nerves were beginning to creep through his system, and he took a deep breath to calm down. It was finally their turn. He cracked his neck and entered the room. He read the note and looked around to see what they needed to vanquish.

He looked over at the Pierce girls when they moved out of the way since boggarts was something they didn’t know. Gareth took the lead, and the redhead watched him as succumbed to his worst fear which apparently was heights. The redhead knew what Gareth was going through since his worst fear had been flying for a long time, but Daniel had helped him with it.

Preston took the few steps required to have the boggarts attention sincerely curious to know what his worst fear was. He didn’t know what would appear before him and not in a million years did he imagine what happened next. There she was, Sara, with a scowl on her face and the expression of contempt he so hated to see in anyone. She was screaming at him. She was telling him he was useless and that she had broken their engagement because he hadn’t passed his RATS and hadn’t been elected Head Boy. Preston blushed profusely and took a step back taking deep breaths as he did so. He had failed.

Suddenly a bout of anger surged through him at the words that Fake-Sara was uttering. He frowned, pointed his wand at the thing and muttered the incantation. He didn’t want to hear anything anymore. The boggart disappeared, but the blush was still brightly present on his face. “Not a word of this to anyone,” he said to the rest of his team. He didn’t want anyone – especially Arthur or Sara – getting the hang of this embarrassing information.

0 Preston Stratford Being embarassed by the challenge 0 Preston Stratford 0 5

Isabel Raines

February 22, 2013 11:35 PM

Interesting ones, anyway by Isabel Raines

As team fifteen got ready to go to the challenge, Isabel knew she was doing a poor job of keeping on the same perfect smile Catherine and Sara used for almost every occasion, but she kept trying to make it work for her anyway. It was the best way she could think of to hide how very nervous she was as she wondered what was going to happen, how she was going to react to it all.

She kept the smile up, or at least the effort up, until they were being led down the hallway, toward whatever they were going to see, and didn’t get it back until Reggie offered them some practical advice, all very useful things Isabel was sure she was too nervous to have thought of on her own in there. At least, under most circumstances. She couldn’t imagine what was in there, but she was afraid of it just because she didn’t know what it was. She gave the team leader a nervous smile, then, of thanks when she heard the directions for what to do if she didn’t know what she was facing or if she did, though she thought she might put up a shield even if she did know what it was, just in case. Then they went in, where there was…nothing as bad as she had been expecting.

Isabel smiled uncertainly again when she saw the ghosts watching them and gave them a small curtsy. “Hello,” she said, thinking this was only polite, since they were sort of like people. Isabel didn’t understand all the specifics of that, but they needed some respect, anyway, as she would show to new people.

She clapped her hands to her ears when the moaning started, then nearly lost her balance as she backed away from the scary-looking man suddenly running toward Effie, since her hands were still on her head when she started it. Unable to think of anything else to do once Effie identified it, she patted her friend’s shoulder, whispering “it’s all right,” even though she didn’t know what to do with a boggart, either. That was why she was hoping one of the older students would take care of it for her – unless maybe it involved seeing Waverly’s. Even knowing it wasn’t real, she screamed and ran toward the door, horrified by the huge spider. Little ones didn’t bother her so much, but she thought that thing would terrify anyone.

Waverly seemed to think someone else should take it on, but Isabel spotted something on Professor Levy’s desk and decided to see if she could get out of it that way, especially since she didn’t think it had been there before. “What’s that?” she asked, pointing toward the desk and the piece of paper she was starting to question her own certainty about the previous presence of on it. She was sure the desk had been empty, they would have seen directions or anything before the boggart, but it was obviously here now.

0 Isabel Raines Interesting ones, anyway 241 Isabel Raines 0 5

Cepheus

February 23, 2013 6:47 AM

Onward, shall we? by Cepheus

Having faced a boggart and allowing it to get the better of him, Cepheus was feeling rather embarrassed. He didn't want to seem so weak in the face of fear, but Gareth stepped forward to give it a shot. The two twins wisely stepped back. He didn't want to have a sobbing mess on his hands and he highly doubted Mr. Stratford would want that either.

His room-mate's fear was something Cepheus had been only slightly aware of. He had noticed over the years Gareth's hesitation at flying at great heights and speeds, but he had always though his room-mate just felt unsteady on a broom. Apparently it was heights, not flying itself. The boggart did a very convincing job of making the ground seem like it was breaking apart under him and Cepheus almost felt himself backing away.

Now that his mind was pieced back together, Cepheus raised his wand to use the incantation, but Preston stepped forward and Cepheus paused to let the older wizard take his chance. As frightening as facing a boggart was, it interested Ceph to see what everyone's fear was. He had seen Preston with the Head Girl enough to know that they were dating, but he hadn't expected her shouting at him to be his worst fear. Preston actually looked rather embarrassed about it, and Cepheus didn't know whether to feel entertained or embarrassed for him.

Apparently Mr. Stratford wanted to keep this a secret and Cepheus had no reason to tell anyone. He didn't know Sara Raines, really, and there was no one else he would tell. Besides his other friends, of course. "Certainly," he said, putting his wand away. He hadn't heard the door open, but he could see their exit. He sighed in relief. He wanted to get out of her as soon as possible. "Let's get on with it, then," he said, brushing back his blonde hair as he made his way to the door and on to the next challenge.

OOC: On to the library!

0 Cepheus Onward, shall we? 0 Cepheus 0 5

Ryan

February 24, 2013 3:44 PM

Just remain calm. by Ryan

The Crotalus sighed with relief. She was gone. His sister had saved him and he shot her a grateful look. He couldn't handle his boggart at all and had been starting to feel rather panicky. Not to mention the humiliation he'd felt. Sally knew all about the cause of it all, how horrible his real mother was to him. It was why he could barely handle Carrie and tried to avoid her, because everything she said to him was something his mother had said, and it triggered all his past hurts.

Now, unfortunately, his sister was in the line of fire. She was an unemotional person, which while she had listed as a weakness, he viewed as a strength in a lot of things. Ryan, being a guy and a pureblood, did his best to hide his own emotions in public, but he felt them strongly and they hurt. That was why it was so embarrassing to be unable to control them in the face of his worst fear.

Not that he didn't feel justified in it. His biological mother was a horrible person. While Ryan still didn't think much of himself, still had low self-esteem, still had years and years of what she'd said to him echoing in his head over and over at times, he had come to realize how terribly cruel that she and Carrie were. The fact that his aunts and uncles and grandfather hated her, their own sister and daughter, spoke badly of her and his biological sister was infamous around Sonora to the point where she had gotten Worst Enemies in the yearbook, not specifically with him or Arabella or Lucrezia, but with everybody . It just added to Ryan's shame and embarrassment. He was afraid of judgement for not only his many flaws, but for being related to her too. The Crotalus was convinced people hated him because of her.

In her panic at seeing her worst fear, Sally's thinking had apparently gotten a little confused. He didn't hear what Angel said, the other boy seemed to never speak that loud and there was this awful sound filling the room. However, Ryan knew what his sister was supposed to do. "Sally, you don't need to worry about casting a patronous, just making death seem funny." He didn't quite know how to do that and he turned to the rest of the team "Does anyone have any suggestions for that? Or does one of you have a boggart that can be made funny?" He knew the two first years wouldn't be able to cast the spell, they hadn't learned it yet as it was an intermediate level spell but just like with Sally, they could all give suggestions.

It probably would have also been useful if he tried teaching the two first years the spell. Lucrezia might need a refresher against a boggart too, he wasn't quite so sure about third years. Still, Ryan wouldn't want to insult her by making it sound like he doubted her. He felt they got along fairly well and that she didn't hate him because of his biological sister. So he figured she could listen along if she needed to. Instead he addressed the two first years. "Okay, Jude, Rory, I'm going to show you guys the spell to defeat boggarts." The seventh year demonstrated the wand motion and said " Riddikulus ." Ryan continued. "While you do that, you concentrate on a way to make your worst fear funny. That's what a boggart does, it manifests itself as what you fear most." He added mostly for Jude's benefit, as he knew she was muggleborn and probably didn't know about the dark creatures that inhabited the magical world.

11 Ryan Just remain calm. 176 Ryan 0 5

Jude Butler

February 24, 2013 8:39 PM

The right post (please delete the other one!) by Jude Butler

Jude was worried, terrified, in fact. Especially since she was the worst in her group, and she knew it. Even the other first year, Rory, knew much more than she did. Jude felt like she was in the dark with everything and she feared being the reason her team lost almost as much as what had happened at the fire when she was younger…

Walking up to the DADA classroom, the first year saw Ryan and went right over to him. She didn’t really want to be alone, she was so nervous and scared that she was shaking just a little bit. She gravitated to the seventh year and stood next to him. He started his inspirational speech, saying their strengths again, with which she was excited a little bit that he remembered what each of them said. Jude looked up to the boy and was glad to have met him. Their team was called and Ryan led them into the room. There were ghosts all around them and an arrow on the floor. “I won’t step on it…” she said softly to Ryan, as she followed behind him and the others.

“Find the key…” Jude repeated softly. “What if there’s some spell or something we have to figure out how to get rid of-” she started, as the group walked across the room. A shrill voice, loud and clear, made Ryan’s face white as a sheet. Then the moaning started and Angel’s posture changed dramatically. Jude watched as his shoulders drooped and head dipped down to the floor.

Sally, from another corner of the room exclaimed that it was a Boggart. Jude was confused and scared now. She didn’t know what a Boggart was, but she surely didn’t like it! Sally rushed between Ryan and the woman and suddenly the woman wasn’t a woman anymore, it was a cloaked figure, thin and bony fingers, a scary scythe in its hand and suddenly it hit her. The Grim Reaper… She shivered some more and just stared at it. It was scary, and she wanted to run, but she couldn’t remove her eyes from it. When Sally said they should let her stay closest to it, Jude wasn’t going to say no to that…

“A patronus? Happiness? Wait- I…” she started as Sally asked Ryan and Angel if they could before asking the rest of the team too. “Patronus? Riddikulus?” Jude had no idea what those things were, but she was sure she was about to find out. “How can anyone make death funny?” she said, thinking of Grandma Carol and the house fire again.

“So, a boggart is a person’s worst fear? And to get rid of it you have to make it funny?” Jude asked, her mind racing, idea planted in her mind. “Let me in front of it.” she said, after Ryan showed them what to do. She was nervous and scared, but she wanted to show her team that she wanted to try, at the very least.

Jude stepped up, head held high, in front of Sally and the Grim Reaper and the hooded creature turned into a great big ball of flames. She shivered, but held her wand out right in front of her. “Rid-!” she started, copying Ryan’s wand movements. But she never finished the word. The flames were so hot in front of her, she started to sweat. Her clothes started to stick to her and her eyes began to fill up with tears. The memories of that day flooded back into her mind and she shivered as the tears fell hard and fast.

“I- I-” she sobbed.

I can’t do this… I don’t belong here… she thought as she dropped down to the ground, still sobbing.

0 Jude Butler The right post (please delete the other one!) 0 Jude Butler 0 5

Sally

February 24, 2013 9:48 PM

Followed subsequently by the correct result by Sally

Drat it all! Apparently the anxiety of her boggart had taken a greater toll on her mental condition than Sally realized, since she had confused boggarts and dementors, calling for a patronus like a fool. She was a smart girl, and she hated appearing anything less. It was not necessarily that she cared about others’ opinions of her, but her intelligence was something on which she prided herself. She wanted it presented accurately.

Ryan demonstrated the proper spell—Riddikulus, to make the boggart humorous—to their teammates, just for their personal knowledge. Obviously he had not expected Jude to step boldly forward. Sally skeptically watched the first year walk in front of her; certainly this would not end well. Did Jude really expect it to work? Maybe she had taken the eldest girl’s advice in not counting herself out for the sake of blood status, but this was definitely not what she had meant. Boggarts were higher level than any eleven year old could master.

The Grim Reaper contorted into a ball of flames, and the brunette could feel its heat from where she stood. Jude must have been baking, as close as she was. The young girl tried the spell, but her voice seemed to catch in her throat, and the incantation halted. Then she cried. That’s productive, Sally commented silently. With a glance to Ryan, inviting him to share her cynicism, she strolled into the heat, perspiration dotting her pale skin until suddenly the fire was gone.

Once again, the cloaked figure occupied its space, and where there was blistering heat now held sinister cold. The fifteen year old shivered and noted that in order to compensate for Jude’s proximity, she had to position herself far closer to the Grim Reaper than she would have liked. “Some people must have missed when I said it the first time,” Sally announced loudly, gazing over her shoulder, back to her team. “Let me stand nearest to the boggart.”

“Funny. Make it funny,” she pondered quietly to herself, redirecting her grey-brown eyes to Death himself. For a brief second she called over her shoulder once more: “Clowns are humorous, correct?” Without really waiting for an answer, deft fingers drew her wand, and she concentrated. The wittiest clown I can think of…

“Riddikulus!” The Aladren was potent. Magically, it was likely she fell on the above average side, as far as natural power went. It had to be genetic, and her mother was perhaps the strongest magical being Sally had ever met. Therefore, it was not altogether surprising when her spell succeeded.

For a moment, Sally admired her handiwork; the Grim Reaper had turned into a clown, but this clown was special. His outfit favored a blue and yellow color scheme, and the bright red nose added to the look. The facial features aside from the nose, however, were what inspired an audible chuckle from the characteristically serious girl. “That’s a good look for you, Father,” she cheekily noted.

0 Sally Followed subsequently by the correct result 0 Sally 0 5

Aubrielle Thornton

February 24, 2013 10:30 PM

Lets move on! by Aubrielle Thornton

Aubrielle Thornton was ready for what the Challenge would bring. There was a thing with the unknown. Sure, it could be scary, but it could be something that you’ll never expect too. Bri had never had a boyfriend before, but she took the risk and the unknown was the best thing in the world to her. Firstly, she’d gotten the role of a lifetime and secondly, her Marius had changed her life. This was the best summer she’d ever had, and nothing would change her new self.

Still dressed in her new staple outfit, she walked to meet the others of Team Nine on the day of the first Challenge. She spotted Arnold and Clara nearby the door and she walked over towards them. Bri was thrilled that she got to be on a team with Clara. Her cousin was one of her best friends in the whole world, and she was just the person she’d love to win with. Anyway, the group walked up to the DADA room and waited their turn to go inside. Bri wondered what the task would be, but she decided they’d all know soon enough. “So. Are we ready for this?” she asked the others, in a positive tone. Eponine never got her Marius in the book or the play, but this Eponine did, and Brielle felt as if she could do anything!

As the door opened to the room, the ghosts were apparent. They didn’t scare Bri, never had, but it made her think. The movie/musical Ghost came into her mind. Mollie’s songs made this vision make so much more sense. She loved that one, it was one of her favorites, aside from Wicked, RENT, Les Mis and Miss Saigon.

When Arnold said hello to the ghosts, Bri was brought out of her reverie as he asked them if they had any advice. He has no idea what we’re going to do… He’s asking the ghosts? she thought to herself, mind racing. Then she thought better of it, and turned to the ghosts to see if they’d answer. When they didn’t, she sighed and wondered what would happen. Out of the corner of her eye, Bri saw Clara pull out her wand and she did the same thing. The room got darker and Bri looked at Clara. She knew her cousin wasn’t so okay with darkness and she worried about her. This is the Teppenpaw in me… she thought to herself as she stayed close to Clara.

The darkness seemed to float right towards her cousin and Bri was not okay with that. Clara stopped moving altogether and a moaning began. It got louder and louder. Bri stuck to Clara like peanut butter on bread. Suddenly Clara pointed her wand at the darkness and shouted the spell for the patronus. Bri blinked quickly and was a little bit surprised as a silvery mist came from Clara’s wand. The light lit up the room and seemed to have pushed the darkness away for a moment. The third year hated that her cousin had to face her fear of the darkness so she moved in front of her, back to the darkness. She didn’t fear darkness or the unknown anymore. She knew who she was.

Bri saw Clara lower her wand and wipe away tears and she smiled at her cousin, giving her strenth and showing how proud of her she was. The Teppenpaw could even tell what the happy thought was. It had to have been of her mother… Aunt Sophia was a special woman and Bri missed her too. A lot.

The screeches and moaning stopped, a bit of black parchment with crimson writing on it appeared on the desk. “Trust not the looks of friends, nor the reflections you see, but continue on this frightful trend and move to the library?” Bri read aloud to Jordan, Arnold, Clara, Rupert and Amity.

“I guess that means we have to go to the library next?” she said, glad that she hadn’t had to deal with her own boggart… To see the Black Swan could have made things very bad… A part of her wanted to go write to her Marius, but she knew that he wouldn’t be able to understand what a boggart was, especially since he wasn’t even allowed to know that she was magical in the first place…

“Well, lets do it.” she said as the door opened for them to leave.

0 Aubrielle Thornton Lets move on! 0 Aubrielle Thornton 0 5

Angel

February 24, 2013 10:50 PM

done? by Angel

Some of the tension drained out of Angel when his quiet words weren’t met with an angry retort. His soft ruby gaze shifted to Ryan as the upper classman demonstrated the correct wand movements and incantation. Before he could step forward to use the spell, one of the little first years rushed ahead. Instantly, the skeletal man vanished into a roaring ball of fire. Angel gave a soft hiss of pain, his eyes narrowing to slits as the sudden explosion of light blinded him.

Heat rolled off the fire in sullen waves, and Angel moved further back to escape the uncomfortable sensation. The first year’s attempt failed, and she began weeping. Sally moved forward again, which brought back the skeleton. Angel stood silently waiting for his eyes to adjust while the girl dealt with the fear inspired creature. After she casted the spell, it turned into an oddly dressed man. He stared at the new shape for a bit, but didn’t see anything particularly funny about the image.

He gave an indifferent shrug when the boggart vanished back into its drawer. Thankfully, the awful noise stopped when it was defeated and a slip of parchment appeared on the desk. Moving forward in his usual silence, Angel picked up the sheet, and without reading it handed it off to the closest team member. Reading wasn’t his strong suite, and reading out loud was even worse. Once the note was passed off he turned his attention to the crying girl. Kneeling, he reached out and ran his fingertips lightly though her hair. “Good now. Sally make boggart go. Good?” He asked in his awkward way.

0 Angel done? 0 Angel 0 5

Jude

February 24, 2013 11:41 PM

I'll never do this right... never... by Jude

Jude had tried very hard to get the whole word out, but the flames had stopped her words from coming. The smoke she remembered from the house fire came in one big puff into her mouth. From tears to coughing, back to sobbing tears again. I shouldn’t have done it, I shouldn’t have tried… I’m nothing… I’m- she thought as Sally stepped back in front of her again and the horrible flames turned back into the Grim Reaper.

The temperature change in the room made Jude shiver from upset, anger and freezing cold… Her arms had goosebumps, and the sweat on her face made her even colder as Sally spoke again saying that some people must have missed what she’d said about staying closer to the boggart. Jude felt like a failure. All she’d been doing was trying to help her team. She was trying to show Ryan that she was listening to him and that she believed in him and in their team. It hadn’t worked, it had only made things worse…

Sally kept talking about clowns and magically the Grim Reaper became a funny clown-like thing. Jude tried to hold back the tears that wanted to fall, but what Sally had said hurt. She had been only trying to help, and all she’d done was ruin it all. Now surely, the whole school will know that she didn’t belong there. I wish I’d have stayed home… she thought to herself as she sobbed into her hands.

I feel so alone, want home, want Mommy and Luca. I don’t feel right here and it just isn’t working… she thought, and jumped when she felt fingertips running through her hair. Jude opened her eyes and saw Angel kneeling beside her. He spoke in his odd manner and she knew that he was trying to be empathetic to her and that he was trying to be like an older brother type thing.

“Maybe… yes…” she said, with a small hiccup. “But I tried… Really, I did. But I just ruined it. I ruined all of it, and now everyone must hate me…”

0 Jude I'll never do this right... never... 0 Jude 0 5

Michael Grosvenor

February 25, 2013 9:53 AM

Team 19 - Guess someone should get the ball rolling by Michael Grosvenor

Michael was fairly ambivalent about the challenges. He saw them as something which would take up a few hours of his life during their actual completion but saw no real reason to get worked up about them, or invest any more time than that in preparing for them. He enjoyed speculating wildly along with everyone else about what they might be but that didn't really spur him on to change his habits in any way. He had enough work to do for CATS, and figured that that stuff was as likely to come up in the challenges as anything else. The one thing that concerned him slightly was his hearing. Most of his team mates didn't really know him very well. Many of them probably knew about his impairment – it was a pretty small school and people tended to be in other people's business (even imagined or fictional news travelled fast). But knowing about it and knowing how to deal with it were two different things. Little tricks like making sure he could see their face, being close when they wanted to talk to him, understanding how even a small amount of background noise was really going to compromise him... They hadn't had a team meeting, not that he was sure he would have discussed it there unless pushed, and now they were about to face the first challenge. He didn't really feel like giving them a quick run down of basic deaf awareness as they made their way through the corridors. He was relieved to have Mellie on the team. She knew how to handle him. Even if it was a step up from that to understanding what he might or might not have heard from someone else, he trusted her to have his back. She'd pick up quickly enough if he was out of the loop and bring him back in.

At first, the room they stepped into was silent. That was perfect and he was initially relieved that they seemed to be in some fairly straightforward classroom setting, where he was confident he could manage the situation. Then the wailing started. It was soft at first. An irritating edge-of-hearing sound. One that, with effort, he could ignore.

Michael had two main fears. The first had come very close to coming true last year. He had never thought his friends would end up with such a distorted view of him as Brianna had – he'd never had cause to think he was a bad guy. But he did worry that they'd realise he was kinda lame. Or that their kindness had been a kind of charity that he had massively misinterpreted. His boggart might well have been his friends explaining this and turning their backs on him, had it not been for the fact that he had recently had strong reassurances from Laurie, Eris and Mellie that they really valued him for who he was. That meant his other fear was currently closer to the surface. He stopped in his tracks as a tall ginger man stepped into his field of view. It looked kind of like Preston, if he was a grown up. In his imagination, it was more or less what Mr. Stratford looked like.

“We told Laurence not to associate with the likes of you,” it sneered. Whilst Michael was fairly sure this couldn't be real he was pretty perplexed as to what it actually was. “But he persisted. You persisted. Thinking that you were both so clever. Thinking that we wouldn't find out.” Michael's mouth went dry. This thing, whatever was, was about to blurt out his biggest secret, if what it had said already wasn't enough information for everyone to figure it out.

“Silencio!” he cast, a beam of light emanating from his wand and striking the figure in the face. He seemed to struggle for a moment against it. Michael had barely breathed a sigh of relief when the figure's voice returned.

“Do you understand what you have done?” the figure asked him. It wasn't shouting but its tone shook with barely suppressed rage. “We made it clear to Laurence that we would have no choice if he continued to disobey. But you did – you had a choice. And this is what you chose for him. Whilst calling yourself his friend. Well, he won't be subject to your poisonous influence any more. He won't be coming back. In fact, I don't suppose he'll be doing much of anything any more..” the figure said, with a cruel glint in his eye that left Michael in no doubt as to what that was supposed to mean. “I hope you're happy with the decision you made.”

Michael's stomach twisted. He didn't really think Laurie's family would kill him if they found out they were still friends. Laurie had never hinted at anything so sinister. But he was fairly sure they would chuck him out, and do their best to make his life pretty miserable. For every happy moment he spent with Laurie, he spent at least twice as many agonising over the possible consequences. That something could happen to Laurie, and that it might be his fault, was his worst fear.

Worst fear.

Dimly, that rang a bell.

Worst fear... Obviously not the real Mr. Stratford..... That meant it was a...

“Guys, it's one of those Worst Fear Monsters,” he informed the group. “And nothing it says is true,” he added. He wasn't sure that was really enough to save his and Laurie's backs but the thought of what this thing had said getting out and ruining his friend's life... And it really would be his fault for thinking it. What did you do with Worst Fear Monsters? He wracked his brains, although the wailing had now got to the point where it was really intrusive. Laughter... something to do with laughter.

“HA!” he shouted at the monster, “Hahaha!”

The laughter sounded every bit as forced as it was and the monster merely smirked at him. Right. There was more to it than that... Something to do with magic. Making magical laughter? And there was a specific spell for that that he didn't know.....

“Guys, what's the laughter spell?” he asked the nearest person, moving in closer to try to catch their response above the now prominent screeching.

13 Michael Grosvenor Team 19 - Guess someone should get the ball rolling 199 Michael Grosvenor 0 5

Angel

February 25, 2013 11:56 AM

…still new… by Angel

Angle sat cross-legged next to the upset girl, his pale fingers continued to lightly brush her hair in an attempt to offer comfort. The albino didn’t quite look at her, instead focusing more on the ground, but his ruby gaze continued to flick up to her face before dropping again as he tried to gage the effectiveness of his words. It didn’t take long to see that his first attempt failed.

Living with Kiva’s family had taught Angel a lot about younger children, and coping with their upsets. Usually it was skinned knees or not sharing, but the crying was the same. He’d gotten into the habit of petting their hair while he helped them work out whatever little problem had them upset. Before living with Kiva, Angel probably would have walked past the girl without offering aid, not out of cruelty but simply out of a lack of understanding what needed to be done.

Again his eyes rose to her face before dropping. “I do not hate. You are…small, not big like Sally. Sally is smart, many smart than me, she do not hate me too. She do not hate you.” His eyes dropped further. Speaking in longer sentences showed his ineptitude with the language more obvious than when he kept his words short, but he wanted her to feel better and that required more words to explain. “You learn. When you are big, you know. Still little now, not know. See?” He asked as he stroked her hair, hoping that he was able to get his message across broken bridge of language.

His speech had improved significantly compared to when he was a first year, at least now he was able to more or less form sentences, instead of offering up a jumbled handful of barely connected words. But he knew that he still had a long way to go to match the rest of the students, so he rarely spoke unless it was necessary to do so.

0 Angel …still new… 0 Angel 0 5

Adam Spencer

February 25, 2013 1:05 PM

Anyone willing to step up? by Adam Spencer

Seeing his dead family members had put Adam into a state that he hadn't been in before, and he was grateful for Mr. Carey's intervention. He hadn't realised how quickly his heart was pounding in his chest until he had backed away to allow himself to calm down. He watched his team-mates carefully, wanting that boggart to disappear. He found a bit of comfort that Mr. Carey's dead sibling was his greatest fear as well. Adam looked over at Runningbear who had run off and wondered if that would have been a smarter idea than taking in the sight of his dead family. Adam had too much pride to run screaming, however, and the time had passed anyway.

It was prudent to get as far away as possible and so Adam did so. He had nothing to contribute to this challenge besides distraction. He wouldn't learn how to defeat boggarts until his third year, and even then he didn't know if he would excel in it so that he could completely defeat a boggart on the first try.

Carey seemed to be having a bit of trouble defeating the boggart, but Adam hadn't heard of a mere student being able to defeat a boggart on the first try. Maybe his older team-mates would be able to defeat the boggart together while the first years watched from the back.

Adam was disappointed he couldn't be more helpful to his team. He had hoped this competition would be all-encompassing, but so far it was turning out to be a challenge for the more experienced magical students. There were more challenges than this, Adam had to remember, and he hoped the next would deal with something he was more comfortable in. And if not, at least give him something to do to help his team.

40 Adam Spencer Anyone willing to step up? 257 Adam Spencer 0 5

Jude

February 25, 2013 6:17 PM

Definitely still new... by Jude

Jude looked up at Angel and noticed that he was sitting cross-legged. His hands still brushed through her hair, and for some reason she felt like it fit. She actually liked how it felt, how he was trying to help her to feel better both about herself and in general. He didn’t really look at her, but she’d noticed in their last meeting that he barely looked at anyone, not really, anyway. At first it hadn’t worked, what he was trying to do. But then when he spoke again, telling her that he didn’t hate her, that she just hadn’t learned yet what she could do, she smiled at him.

Jude looked at him and whispered so that only he can hear, “Are you sure that Sally doesn’t hate me? It sort of felt like that with what she said, and I was only just trying to help…” The first year looked down at the floor, then back up at him when he told her that she’ll learn, that she’s still little now, but when she was big she’d know.

Angel kept stroking her hair and she smiled at him. “I see now… Thank you Angel…” she said softly to him, again, so only he could hear her. “I really appreciate it… Really, I do. If there’s ever anything I can do for you, just ask… Okay?”

0 Jude Definitely still new... 0 Jude 0 5

Rupert Princeton

February 25, 2013 6:34 PM

Excuse my jaw dropping. by Rupert Princeton

Rupert arrived at the DADA classroom a bit late. He had no real excuse for it, he had just found himself leaving his dormitory later than he had expected to. It wasn't a good impression to make to the rest of his team-mates, but he honestly didn't care too much. Rupert wasn't inherently competitive like Cepheus when it came to fun challenges, though Rupert did become a completely different person on the pitch. He wasn't concerned with the theme of a haunted school either. He was rather excited.

He hardly got a chance to breathe a greeting to them all before Arnold led them in. Inside, Rupert looked at the ghosts roaming around. He didn't see ghosts often in his own home and he didn't interact much with the ghosts here. Besides that, the rest of the classroom looked particularly boring today and Rup was disappointed. There had to be something to pop out at them sometime, right?

There was a large arrow on the ground pointing somewhere, but he was distracted by Arnold asking the ghosts for directions. Did he really think he was going to get a ghost to tell him what to do? For all he knew they could be a part of the challenge. But he didn't say anything. Rup knew how to respect authority and Arnold was clearly the leader of their team.

The room suddenly began getting darker and Rup wondered why. He looked at his team-mates, wondering if they could clue him in, but he could hardly see them any more. This was a thick darkness and Rupert didn't like it. It meant something ominous was going to happen. He held out his wand in front of him. Even if he couldn't perform any helpful Intermediate spells, he could at least levitate the creature or something simple. Maybe distract it by changing the colour of its skin.

The thought almost made him laugh, but then the darkness was heading towards Clara and she conjured a non-corporeal Patronus and defeated it. Rupert himself had never seen an actual Patronus Charm cast before and he found his mouth drop open. She was a third year and could perform the Patronus Charm? He was incredibly impressed by Clara's skill and he could hardly wrap his mind around it.

"Bloody hell," he blurted out. "That was amazing." If his mum had been there, she would have washed his mouth out good. "Sorry. Um, yes, the library." The door had opened of its own accord and Rupert followed his team-mates out.

OOC: Following the leader!

40 Rupert Princeton Excuse my jaw dropping. 248 Rupert Princeton 0 5

Reggie

February 25, 2013 8:44 PM

On to the LIBRARY! by Reggie

Everything that occurred within the few moments after the door closed had happened rather quickly for Reggie’s mind to really catch up. She hadn’t been expecting the strange moaning sound to begin and that had her attention towards the ceiling to see if there was some banshee hiding out, but looked back around when she heard Effie call out the Full Body Bind curse and thought for a moment she was trying to take out her own teammates. However, looking around, she found a deranged looking man going after her. Or, at least, it was before she declared it a Boggart. What in the blazes was her worst fear? A serial killer? That girl had issues.

About to move from her spot to the far left to help, Reggie found that Waverly went to help instead. Reggie couldn’t remember exactly when it was that she learned about the Boggart, but it was probably when she was round her Fourth year. It was definitely at Intermediate level at the very least. She stayed back and instantly became grateful for doing it as Waverly’s Boggart turned into a giant spider. Reggie’s greatest fear was not an arachnid, but those still ranked high on her list of things she did not enjoy and apparently Isabel felt the same since she screamed and went running for the door.

Reggie felt maybe her boggart would have been better for everyone since it wasn’t an actual creature. It was the dark. Whether it would be actual blackness or being blind, the idea of not being able to see through her own eyes or what was in the surrounding darkness frightened her to no end, but she had known how to beat her Boggart and she felt a fireworks display would have been much more fun to see than a flying spider via balloons.

Reggie, who had been so engrossed in the spider, suddenly noticed how quiet it was since Waverly defeated the Boggart. The noise must have been an annoyance just to throw them off. How rude. Isabel pointed towards the desk and Reggie turned to find parchment there waiting for them. “Oh.” She commented lightly before moving to the desk to read it out loud to everyone. When she finished she paused for a moment, “Well, that’s not vaguely ominous or anything.” She muttered, putting the parchment down and turning when she heard the click of the door opening. “I guess we’re off to the library.”

6 Reggie On to the LIBRARY! 187 Reggie 0 5

Angel

February 26, 2013 3:58 PM

yes by Angel

Angel tilted his head slightly and glanced at her though his bangs. “Sally not hate you. Sally is…” The pause lengthened as he tried to put thoughts into words and found the task difficult. “Sally is…book. Not people.” He gave a soft huff, the words sounded better in his mind, but spoken it wasn’t right. Angel’s ruby eyes darted over to Sally before dropping again. “She good in class, smart, good at doing work. Maybe…not so good at lunch, and talk with people?” He offered hesitantly.

The smile she offered caused Angel to give a soft hum of approval in place of his own smile. “Can help check homework sometimes if you can. I am not good with writing, like talking.” He admitted, a soft flush touched his cheeks at the admittance. Even though Jude was only a first year, she’d still be able to help him construct sentences properly, not to mention catch his numerous spelling errors.

Standing up, Angel brushed his robes out so they fell smoothly down his legs before offering his pale hand to Jude to help her up. “Good?” This challenge hadn’t been too bad, and it gave Angel hope for the future challenges. Sally and Ryan were both more advanced, and he could help by taking care of the first years if things got too bad. If nothing else, he knew several good shield charms and he could keep them behind him while the others took care of the problem. “It good to try, but need to be careful too. I not want you to get hurt. Yes?”

0 Angel yes 0 Angel 0 5

Jade Owen

February 26, 2013 4:43 PM

This is pretty messed up by Jade Owen

The Thestrals were ready and raring to go... or at least they were in Jade's imagination, and that's what mattered to this particular Pecari. She thought they had a good team assembled, with a Pecari majority (and as they were the most adaptable House in the school, that would surely play for their favour) and no complete imbeciles amongst them, which was a definite bonus. While she hadn't been particularly excited about the challenges to start with, as the date of the first challenge had drawn near, Jade had found her competitive streak making itself know; she became loud and boastful as she expressed her excitement. Despite the fact that Little W was teeny, and Kate may or may not be dating her brother (Jade had been too grossed out by the prospect to ever attempt to bring it up in conversation), and Jorge was... well, Jorge, Jade was certain that their misfit team would do well.

Kate, in her failed attempt at a pep speech, didn't seem to have such a strong belief in their abilities, but she was upbeat, so Jade shrugged it off and tried to overcome her eagerness to get stuck into the first task, regardless of how tacky the Haunted School concept may easily transpire to be. In fact, if the crude representation of their team captain that materialised before them was anything to go by, Jade had very seriously underestimated the gauche attempts at horror. Little W asked the question that was also forming on Jade's lips but before their captain had time to answer, the Thestrals were sharing the room with a dinosaur. If she'd been privvy to some of the more exotic expletives, Jade definitely would have employed them at this time. As it happened, however, she let out a short, low-pitched shuddering sound where other girls might have screamed.

Before any of them really had time to panic, however, the dinosaur vanished, replaced by what was apparently another manifestation of Kate's fears, and the reason for the unpredictable shape-shifting became immediately apparent to the fourth year. She didn't need Kate to identify the boggart for her, but the seventh year's shout might have served to clue in the younger students who might not have yet come to that conclusion. "Riddikulus!" Jade cast at the knife-wielding maniac, changing his weapon of choice into a wet haddock. She snorted appreciatively before the creature rounded on her, instead. The boggart morphed into a large house cat, emaciated to the extent that its ribs could be counted through uneven tufts of matted fur, and it was emitting scratchy spitting sounds that sent tingles up Jade's spine. The Pecari girl paled perceptibly, and raised her wand again. "Riddik... riddikulus," she managed to stammer out, with no apparent affect this time.

0 Jade Owen This is pretty messed up 221 Jade Owen 0 5

Jorge Garcia

February 26, 2013 9:46 PM

You are all so strange. by Jorge Garcia

Jorge had heard all the buzz over the last few days about the first challenge coming up. He didn’t know what he was feeling about it. There was a part of him that was excited just because it was something different. And there was a part of him that was curious to know what they were all about since nothing was really revealed about it. But mostly, he just wanted to be entertained. He became so bored so easily with life these days.

Standing in the back near the door, casually leaning against the wall, Jorge saw everything and he had to admit, he was quite entertained. No wonder the ghosts were camped out there, they were enjoying the show. At first, Jorge had been rather confused by the sight of the girl in the dress and even more so when Wendy asked if it had been Kate. And then everything went crazy. The giant dinosaur startled Jorge so much so that he bumped his head against the wall. “Ow!” He muttered, rubbing it as the dinosaur turned into a crazy lunatic trying to cut Kate up. It dawned on him just as Kate shouted that he was seeing a Boggart. He blamed the bump on the head for not connecting it sooner.

Jorge moved away from the wall when he saw that Jade was going to attempt to rid them of the Boggart. At first, he thought she had succeeded, but then suddenly the Boggart turned into a very sad looking cat. He had no idea why Jade’s Boggart was that of a bony, dying looking, raggedy looking thing, but then again, he didn’t know why Kate’s was a weirdly dressed girl turned knife wielding maniac. People were strange. Although he took notice of Jade’s odd behavior at the sight of the cat. Usually she was arrogant about things, but she seemed really put off. “You have big fears for a little thing.” Jorge commented to Wendy with a smile as he passed her by, heading to the front of the room.

Stepping up, the deathly looking cat turned into a petite angry looking Hispanic lady. Jorge recognized her as his mother and the look was always so familiar to him. He enjoyed upsetting his mother when he knew that her anger would easily turn to laughter, but when she was really truly angry, Jorge worried and became afraid. Those moments were rare and never at him, but when he had been young, Adelita and Dulce were annoyed with him and told him that he was a mistake that their parents wished to take back. For a long time he really believed him and, from the looks of it, still did. But, he knew it wasn’t real and his parents would never be so cruel, so defeating it didn’t really worry him. He just didn’t want to see that look on his mother’s face.

Raising his wand, Jorge exclaimed “Riddikulus!” and watched as his mother twisted and shrank into a giggling baby. Jorge chuckled at the sight of the baby. “Aw, it’s so cute.” He stated lightly, before laughing again. The Boggart seemingly disappeared and the weird moaning sound that began when it first appeared finally stopped. “Oh, does that mean we’re done?” He asked, looking around at the others.

6 Jorge Garcia You are all so strange. 220 Jorge Garcia 0 5

Jude

February 26, 2013 9:53 PM

Shield me... by Jude

Angel tilted his head and told her that Sally didn’t hate her. That Sally was a book, which Jude took to mean that Sally was book smart, and not so people smart when it came to dealing with people. “I-” she started, she wanted to try to tell him that she’d understood, when he went on. Jude smiled at him. “I knew what you meant.” she said softly. There was something about him that helped her feel better. In a way he sort of reminded her of Dane, her older brother. Dane was sort of eclectic with what he liked. He liked to keep his brown hair long and straight and was often found dressed in a pair of jeans, a pair of Vans (laces untied, but tucked into his shoes), and a striped polo shirt with the collar standing straight up. He also most often found with his scooter handles in his hand, gliding wherever he wanted to be.

She’d always thought of Dane as sort of magical (before she learned that she was just that), and she looked up to him for being able to be himself in the face of what others thought. Jude always wanted to be herself, the problem was, at eleven she wasn’t even really sure who that was just yet. She hoped that she’d learn that there at school.

Angel hummed softly at her smile and then told her that she could help by checking over his homework for him. “I’d be glad to!” she told him. “Anything you need, I’m there.” she said to him, hoping to relieve his almost obvious nervousness at telling her that. Angel stood up and brushed off his robes before offering his hand to help her up.

“Good.” she repeated to him. There wasn’t anything else that needed to be said other than repeating his singular word. “I don’t want to get hurt either… I’ll try harder, and I’ll let Ryan and Sally do it all from now on. I don’t want to ruin anything, or hurt anyone…” she said to him as she stood up with his help, wiping off her remaining teardrops with her arm.

0 Jude Shield me... 0 Jude 0 5

Kate Bauer

February 27, 2013 1:54 PM

Moving on. by Kate Bauer

Kate pushed her hair out of her eyes just in time to see Psycho Future Isaac looking very confused about where his apparent weapon of choice had gone before he was Jade’s boggart instead. Flushing with embarrassment over falling down in front of a boggart, and maybe a little over being weird enough to have the boggarts she did, Kate pulled herself back up to her feet and was prepared to take it on again when Jorge did it for her, finally banishing the thing.

“I guess so,” she said when, after the moaning stopped, he asked if they were done. She looked around the room for anything else, then spotted a piece of paper on Professor Levy’s desk. “Unless that isn’t telling us we’ve got to face a boggart,” she added.

It proved not to be that at all. Instead, it proved to be more directions. “Guess we’re not done after all,” she said, tucking her bangs back again as she read over the cryptic note. “Unless one of the other teams left it here to try to throw us off,” she added thoughtfully, passing the note around to the others. She could see Sam doing something like that, maybe, and though he had already graduated, that didn’t mean there weren’t other people who’d favor similar tactics. She didn’t think many Teppenpaws thought that way, but the other three Houses had slots available where people like that could fit in. “Think we should go check it out anyway?”

The door started to creak open of its own volition. “The room may be saying ‘yes,’ she noted. “We should probably get out of here, anyway, make room for the next team.” They were pretty high up in the numbers, so the room would want them to get out of here so the next group could come through.

16 Kate Bauer Moving on. 170 Kate Bauer 0 5

Mellie Goodwin

February 27, 2013 2:22 PM

Rolling in another direction would be good. by Mellie Goodwin

When Mellie had seen the team assignments, she had been excited and pleased by the names on hers, but still nervous about the prospect of going into the challenges themselves. She thought it was worse because she had just been named prefect. Before, she would have just cheerfully accepted that she would be, at best, the team cheerleader, maybe an extra pair of hands to move something heavy or throw half-effective Stunners at something attacking, stuff like that. Now, she felt like she had to really perform well because the school had basically put a vote of confidence in for her, one she still didn’t feel like she was entirely deserving of.

She didn’t tell anyone about any of that, though. Instead, she met up with the team with a cheerful smile, even though she was privately dealing with the paradox of feeling completely uncomfortable around everyone because she was wearing her most comfortable clothes, with her long hair – which she was kind of worried might be more of a liability today than it was even in Quidditch – pulled up in a basic ponytail. She had wanted to put on a hat to keep it further out of the way, but was worried that might interfere with Michael’s lip-reading, if they ended up needing that. So she just hoped for the best in that department, and that something interesting happened soon so she could be distracted from basically dressing like a boy around the boys.

That did happen soon enough; it was hard to worry about feeling too self-conscious in a dark, gloomy room full of ghosts and a mysterious arrow on the floor. Mellie followed it curiously until the wailing started, when she looked up to see – some adult talking to Michael?

For a second, she was confused, pretty sure that was a little anticlimacti...il she really listened to what the adult was saying to Michael and pressed her hands over her mouth, horrified. Oh, this was weird. Surely this was some kind of trick. They wouldn’t let random adults wander around talking about killing people, would they? That wasn’t a challenge for a bunch of students to deal with, that was something to call the Aurors over. And that noise in the background was just getting louder and making it harder and harder to think –

“Um – “ she said when Michael, realizing it wasn’t real, asked what the laughter spell was but just made her more flustered because of the urgency of the request. “Um – I don’t – “ She covered her ears, trying to think, and came up with a great solution to her problem. “Russell, get rid of it!” she demanded, flushing as soon as she did because she sounded about six years old but still looking to the sixth year as a fount of authority, magical knowledge, and…well, hopefully chivalrous instincts that extended to her even though they had grown up together, or maybe the Aladren obsessive need to win had rubbed off on him, or something, just so the noise stopped and the evil redheaded adult went away.

16 Mellie Goodwin Rolling in another direction would be good. 206 Mellie Goodwin 0 5

Valerie Lennox

March 01, 2013 6:58 PM

(Team 20) Getting started. by Valerie Lennox

Never in her life had Valerie felt more anxious. Not even when she was awaiting the results of medical tests that rarely seemed to come back the way she wanted them too. She was waiting for it to be her team's turn to go in and face the first part of the challenge and her stomach really hurt, which Valerie sincerely hoped was nerves and not a stomach virus. The last thing she needed was to get sick right now. She was already worried about being viewed as a liability and not wanted by the rest of her team. Getting sick would be a disaster . She'd let them all down, they'd be last and it would be all her fault. They'd hate her.

Valerie hadn't slept very well last night either. She'd tossed and turned the entire time. This was not a good thing. She always needed to get a good night's rest. Not sleeping wore down the immune system and obviously, it was not the best idea for her to do that when hers was terrible to start with. Despite her new potion, she couldn't risk doing anything to harm it further. She'd been too nervous to eat much breakfast either. Hopefully, that meant there was nothing in her stomach to really throw up.

And they were the last ones to go too, which gave her more time to sit there-yes, it was on the ground, but Valerie didn't do well with standing in one spot for a long time, she needed to conserve her energy and this seemed like the lesser of two evils-worrying. She was certain everyone thought she was sick right now, given that she was probably pale and looked as queasy as she felt. They were probably grumbling internally about being stuck with her.

Finally, it was their turn. Valerie followed the rest of the team into the Defense classroom. DADA had never been one of her better subjects. A lot of the lessons were very physical and all the Crotalus had ever been able to do was theory and a few spells. Actually, she'd always had a lot of extra essays so she was pretty good at DADA theory, but somehow Valerie didn't think that was what they were going to deal with now-and she was scared. She was already exceedingly tense and she was sure that whatever they were going to face wasn't going to help that.

She didn't immediately see what precisely the challenge was and gazed around the room. Suddenly, Valerie could hear the voice of Headmistress Kijewski-Jareau, telling her that she had to leave, that she could no longer be a student here because she was too sick. The Crotalus stepped back, struggling not to cry. All she wanted was to stay here and be normal and worse, the Headmistress had picked now to do it, right in front of all these people that she was sure didn't want her around in the first place. Valerie felt completely humiliated and was starting to feel like she couldn't breathe as she stepped back against the wall.

11 Valerie Lennox (Team 20) Getting started. 204 Valerie Lennox 0 5

Ryan

March 01, 2013 8:09 PM

Going on by Ryan

Jude had apparently decided to give the boggart a shot, which was surprising because Ryan really didn't think she had much confidence, especially in her own magical abilities. Yet, she charged ahead and the Crotalus was a little confused, but not too much when she wasn't able to defeat it. She was a first year. It was an Intermediate level spell and honestly, fire wasn't something that could easily made funny even though it wasn't much of a threat to older wizards and witches who knew how to cast a Flame Freeze charm. Jude apparently didn't know this and dropped to the ground crying. Ryan wanted to go and comfort her, tell her not to be scared, but he neither wanted to feel the heat of the fireball nor have it turn back into his mother. He felt a bit selfish for that but he honestly couldn't handle that woman.

Sally, however, stepped closer than Jude was and it turned back into the Grim Reaper. She seemed a bit perturbed as she reminded them that she was to stay closest to the boggart. Ryan did not see this as his sister having to be the hero. She was simply the person best equipped to deal with it. The Aladren was the oldest one here aside from himself and he obviously couldn't handle a boggart at all.

It made him feel a bit useless, honestly. At least in this area but that wasn't Sally's fault and he didn't feel that she'd shown him up in the least. If it was anyone's fault it was his mother's. The result of all that she'd done to him, the way she'd treated him. The insults, the blame for things he didn't do or even know had been done. The years of eating by himself off of chipped plates because his mother didn't want him at the same table or want him to eat off her good dishes. And, of course, she only had good dishes. Nothing but the best for her and Carrie. There was the sitting in his room pretending he wasn't there while his biological sister had lavish parties, which Arabella had once cynically pointed out that other children had only attended because they wanted to go on all the rides and fancy stuff and their parents didn't want to offend a Brockert.

Sally's boggart turned into a clown and this was when Ryan smirked. He knew who Ross Manger was and what he looked like. The seventh year hated the man who'd basically taken away his siblings and hurt his stepmother. Who'd hurt her as badly as his real mother had hurt him. Nor had Ryan not liked not seeing Sally or the boys at all and only seeing Peyton sometimes, when Carrie was with their mother and he could go to Uncle Seth and Aunt Lilac's. He missed his brothers and baby sister terribly and that man was the reason. "Good job." The Crotalus told Sally.

The horrid moaning screeching sound stopped and Ryan picked up the note that appeared on the desk, reading it aloud so they could all hear. "I guess we're going to the library next." He wasn't sure what was coming next, possibly combatting books. He knew there were ones out there that scratched and bit among other things. Maybe it would be a scavenger hunt to find the answers to a series of questions within books. Which would probably take an awful lot of time. Ryan wasn't sure what it meant not to trust the looks of friends though. Maybe they'd have an army of shape shifters pretending to be the friends of the people on the team that were there to lead people down the wrong path.

He gave Jude a moment to collect herself and be comforted by Angel. Ryan was really pleased with the Teppenpaw for doing so. It was showing good teamwork, using a strength to help out someone's weakness. It was what being a team was about. However, the screeching started again and the seventh year spoke. "Okay, everyone, let's get out of here and into the library." He lead the way out the door.

11 Ryan Going on 176 Ryan 0 5

Hope Brockert

March 02, 2013 7:27 PM

Here! by Hope Brockert

After quickly wishing Russell good luck, Hope followed Alicia into the Defense room. The Aladren girl seemed to be taking charge an awful lot and she was a bit surprised Valentina was allowing it. The sixth year was hardly the boldest, most take charge person around, but if she'd been the one who was supposed to be the team leader she would have instead of being told what to do by someone younger than herself.

Hope was tired of being told what to do all the time as it was. Bossing people around seemed to be Great-Grandfather's favorite hobby. He insisted on not only bossing around those who carried the last name Brockert but anyone descended through a female line too. And not just his own descendents but Uncle Hugo's too. He was the Patriarch of the most prominent Western family and he never ever ever let anyone forget it.

It was as if he thought he was not just the king, but a puppetmaster as well. Hope was pretty certain Seth was there to spy on the school or them or both. She had a feeling he wasn't very good at the latter, but if he was doing that, she should probably ask him not to ever share the yearbook with Great Grandfather. Whether or not he'd listen to her or he already had was another matter. If he had, Hope would never forgive him, though she supposed if he (or someone) already had, she'd already knowthat. Currently, she really didn't trust Seth though.

Of course, if Hope did get what she really wanted, Great Grandfather would know quite obviously and quite frankly, she didn't see why she couldn't have that. He wouldn't have minded Adam marrying Talitha, so she didn't see why, if Russell wanted, she couldn't have him. The Laynes weren't exactly new purebloods, and the other sixth year's family was fairly well-to-do, just not to the level the Brockerts were.

As a moaning sound began, Alicia seemed rather disgusted by something she had just seen. This was as close as Hope had ever seen to the younger girl losing even the slightest bit of composure so she was rather curious about what it could be that had her so repulsed and stepped forward to take a closer look.

All of a sudden, a giant snake-a basilik -appeared .Hope let out a shriek. She did not like snakes and a basilik was a bigger threat than any other. Who had let that thing in here? Why? It was supposed to be challenging not deadly. Did the staff want to be in trouble with the board and families like hers with a lot of influence? "Don't look in it's eyes!" The Teppenpaw warned her teammates, stepping back away from the creature. She wanted to look away, but she just couldn't. Not completely, she found herself staring at it's midsection, avoiding it's gaze. However, she quickly noticed that it had morphed into something else and she began to calm down. "I think it's a boggart."

11 Hope Brockert Here! 186 Hope Brockert 0 5

Josephine Owen

March 03, 2013 10:02 AM

Team Sweet Sixteen! by Josephine Owen

Being one of the last groups to enter the first challenge didn't mean they would do any worse than the groups who'd been first through the doors, Josephine reasoned logically. The only downside was that she'd had longer to sit and worry about it, but she doubted that would really impact on the overall performance of the team, either. These challenges were, after all, designed to be completed through teamwork - or so she believed - and Josephine couldn't be more thrilled with the other girls. She'd yet to have any reason to complain about any of them, and she was sure that they would be able to tackle anything the faculty threw at them.

Actually, the most challenging aspect Josephine had encountered so far was what to wear. Without having any prior knowledge of what the challenges would entail, she had no idea which attire would be suitable. After much deliberation, she had opted for flats, which were less attractive but inevitably more practical than heels, and her smartest pair of jeans, as a preference over the more attractive yet more restrictive skirt option. Likewise, the purple long-sleeved tee would enable more movement than a prettier blouse; at least the colour was appealing.

"Okay girls," Josephine graced the rest of team sixteen with a smile. "We don't know what's in store for us, but we're not in it alone. So long as we work together we'll be just fine." She sounded confident, because she was absolutely certain they could pull off 'just fine.' What was less certain was that they would win, but as she had thus far kept her sizable competitive streak concealed, Josephine would try not to be too disappointed if that wasn't the case. "Here we go1"

Upon entering the DADA classroom, Josephine didn't know what to expect. There was an arrow on the floor, and a ghost hovering in the far corner, but none of that was indicative of what the first task would entail. She looked up at the celing and then turned back round to view the door through which they had just entered to see if either of them provided more clues. "I'm not even sure what we're -" she began speaking, but stopped abruptly as something happened that drew her attention back into the room.

0 Josephine Owen Team Sweet Sixteen! 196 Josephine Owen 0 5

Kate Bauer

March 03, 2013 12:40 PM

On to the library! (nm) by Kate Bauer

16 Kate Bauer On to the library! (nm) 170 Kate Bauer 0 5

Virginia Bellrose

March 03, 2013 12:52 PM

Dances Happily by Virginia Bellrose

Ginny was so excited for the challenges ever since she had heard of them at the Opening Feast. Her very first year at Sonora was one of adventure. She tried not to show it too much, of course, because she wasn’t sure what was appropriate and what wasn’t. Things had muddled up for her the last couple of years since her father forced them to move into a strange community. Everyone was different there and so Ginny had lost some of what she had learned from her tutors growing up. Now that she was at school, her parents expected the best from her and to be a proper young lady, but she could never tell what was proper and what wasn’t most of the time.

Even so, she felt that it was okay to be excited for this. She couldn’t deny the fact that she was also a little nervous too. She had very little practical work and certainly wasn’t going to be able too much in the long run of things, so the difficult level of the challenges could be a potential problem for her. She really wanted to be involved though and didn’t want the older students to feel like she was doing nothing more than getting in their way. She didn’t know how exactly she was going to help with the challenges, but she would do her best and do it will trying not to make a mockery of herself.

Standing with her team, Ginny watched as each team went off one by one. She hated to be the last team to go, but there was nothing to be done about it. With each team that made its way to whatever it was that they would all eventually face, the more Ginny’s anxiety, both with excitement and with fear, rose. Her imagination took hold and Ginny tried to guess what it was that they would be doing. She had done this often over the last month or so, but it increased when the notice had gone up giving them warning that the first challenge was upon them. She was sure she wasn’t the only one to do this.

Ginny nervously followed behind everyone else when their team was called. Being small naturally, she did her best to look tall and strong. She did this by standing completely straight and hoping that the sneakers she was currently wearing (her mother sent her them when Ginny had written about the challenges along with an appropriate attire to wear) gave her some height.

Ginny had been close to Valerie and thus, was momentarily stunned by the sudden presence of the Headmistress. She hadn’t seen her anywhere when she had initially taken stock of the room. Was she hiding? Why? When the words of what was being said rang in Ginny’s head, her green eyes widened in surprise. Was Valerie sick? Did the school remove students if they fell ill? Weren’t they allowed to take the Pepper-Up potion?

She tentatively took step closer to Valerie and rubbed her arm consolingly as her mother had done whenever Ginny wasn’t feeling well. This movement must have thwarted the Headmistress because the talking stopped. Ginny looked around and found the Headmistress had gone, but an angry looking cloud was hanging around close to the ceiling. Quite suddenly, a loud thunder clap rang throughout the room. Ginny screamed, slapped her hands to her ears, and dropped straight to the floor, trying to make herself as small as possible. Thunderstorms scared her more than anything.

0 Virginia Bellrose *Dances Happily* 0 Virginia Bellrose 0 5

McKinley Andrews, Crotalus

March 08, 2013 5:47 PM

Wait... It's a Boggart! by McKinley Andrews, Crotalus

McKinley wanted nothing to do with the Challenges. Nothing whatsoever.

The problem was, she didn’t have that option or that choice. Firstly, the Challenges were mandatory and she had a group that was counting on her. Secondly, after the yearbook the year before, she was a laughing stock, and she wouldn’t have that. Not anymore anyway. She was a pureblooded young lady, whether other people believed that or not. She was an Andrews, and she was going to make her family proud of her.

I will NOT be afraid of dirt. It is just something that is around and I have to deal with it. she thought to herself, over and over again as she walked towards the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom to meet her team on the day of the First Challenge. She was used to the way the DADA room looked like by now, being a second year, but when she walked into the corridor, there was something odd and different about it all. She knew the theme of the Challenge was ‘The Haunted School’ but Kin didn’t really place two and two together to equal four in this case. She didn’t like it at all. Not one bit.

She got up to the rest of her team and she saw Valerie sitting on the floor. Kinley wondered why her older teammate was on the dirty floor, especially since she knew that it wasn’t so healthy for anyone to do, but she didn’t say anything. Kin was afraid that they’d all laugh at her if she did. Their wait was nervewracking, as they were the last team called in, and Kinley paced in front of the door when they were the only group left out in the hall. When they were called in, Kin followed after the others into the room.

It looked normal in the room, like any other day, except for the extra amounts of ghosts there and the arrow on the floor. Suddenly though, the room felt different as the voice of Headmistress Kijewski-Jareau rang through the room. Kin shot her head towards the voice and there she was, telling Valerie that she couldn’t stay there at Sonora anymore, that she was too sick to be there. Valerie moved backwards against the wall and looked like she was going to cry.

A moaning started that got louder and louder as they stood there. Kinley still stood there, just staring between the Headmistress and Valerie, torn between wanting to cover her ears and wanting to know what was going on. Ginny stepped closer to Valerie and rubbed her arm. When she did that, the younger girl made the Headmistress go away, only to be replaced by a dark and scary looking cloud. A loud thunder clap sounded, even more than the moaning and Ginny clapped her hands to her ears and fell to the floor.

What in the world? McKinley thought, as a thought rang through her mind.

“Wait! It’s a boggart!” She started. “It changed when Ginny stepped in front of Valerie!” she bit her bottom lip and tried to remember what her Grandfather had told her got rid of the boggarts. If I only could remember what in the world the spell was!? she thought, hoping that maybe someone else from her team, an older someone else, would know what to do.

0 McKinley Andrews, Crotalus Wait... It's a Boggart! 0 McKinley Andrews, Crotalus 0 5

Addison Thornton

March 08, 2013 7:06 PM

No, not really... by Addison Thornton

Addison was a bit worried about the Challenges, she wouldn’t lie about it if anyone asked her either. However, thanks to Emma’s time over the summer as well as Josephine and Arista, she felt like she could now start to be a better person.

When the signs went up for the first Challenge for the next Saturday, Addi’s heart pounded into her throat. “Day by day, in every way, I’m getting better and better…” she started in a whispered tone. Anyone around her would have thought that she was nuts, but it was just the positive affirmation that Emma had taught her. Addi went back up to her room and changed for her daily swim in the MARS rooms, had her swim and came back to change for class. An owl (or even her sister, who knew?) had left her a note to meet up for breakfast on the day of the Challenge.

Saturday morning, Addi woke up extra early, the Challenge went right into her daily swim time, so she wanted to get her swim in before breakfast. Once she finished her swim, Addi went back to Teppenpaw to change and meet up with her sister. The pair left together and Arista spoke. “At least I know you’ll be there…”

They reached Cascade Hall and Addi replied. “Yes, I’ll be there.” They opened the doors and chose an empty table to sit at to wait for Marcus, James, Blair and Ravenna. When the other four arrived, Ris told them why she wanted them meeting her at the Hall rather than the hallway outside the DADA classroom. Once they had all eaten at least a little bit, they left the Hall.

There were a few groups still to go when they got there, so they waited together until they were called. Arista led them inside, and Addi made it a point to stay near her sister. Sure, she was getting better little by little, but it was all a journey.

The group followed the arrow and Addi still stayed close to Ris, as she had instructed them to. They got to the desk and Addi’s eyes widened to the size of dinner plates. There she was, lying there in a heap with her other siblings, dead. Addi clung to her sister (putting herself in front by doing so) as Arista told them all it was a Boggart. The pile of Thorntons turned into a large crowd of people, walking right at Addison. Addi took a deep breath, and still clinging to Ris’ arm with one of hers, held out her wand with the other.

Jay spoke up, saying that he’d try to deal with it if they only told him how to, and Addi thought about telling him how. The only thing was, that would have been just what the old Addison would have done, not the new one. Addison looked from Jay, to Marcus, then to the others before looking back to the pale Arista beside her. The glances were fast, as the crowd was still moving fast towards her. Wand arm still up, she thought fast, trying to decide what would make that a funny thing…

Wait! That’s it! she thought, as she smiled broadly, wand pointed at the crowd coming at her. “Riddikulus!” she said, loud and clear as the crowd moving towards her turned into a crowd of male midgets in wedding dresses. She actually guffawed, a sign of the journey she had already taken, as the crowd disappeared again with a puff of smoke. A piece of parchment appeared on the desk and Addi picked it up, reading it aloud to the others. (Sure, some of it was quieter than other parts, but it was all about the journey). The classroom door opened up again and Addison just stared at it a moment before another screeching sound started.

“Come on… Lets get out of here…” She covered her ears and led the way out for the others.

0 Addison Thornton No, not really... 190 Addison Thornton 0 5

Abigail Thornton

March 10, 2013 11:11 PM

Another direction... please.... by Abigail Thornton

Abigail wasn’t too sure about what she thought about the Challenges. She wasn’t really upset about them, or excited either. Abi was more interested in learning as much about all the animals there were in the world than anything else. She shrugged it all off and she sort of kept quiet. She was the youngest there with the exception of the new first year, but as a second year she was pretty sure she would still be considered of least amount of help to the others. Even though their team was one short, they were pretty much heavy on the older kids. Russell, Michael, Mellie and Avalon were nice, they hadn’t said or done anything wrong to her, so she wanted to prove that she was worth something.

The theme sort of scared her a little bit and she hoped that there wouldn’t be things that were really scary in the Challenges! Abi was almost sure that the staff and the Headmistress wouldn’t allow anything too scary, especially since the first and second years were involved, but there was a small piece of her that wasn’t too sure they would care so much.

The DADA room had become familiar to her in the last year or two, so when Team 19 walked into the room as a group, it didn’t look too different. Sure, there were ghosts around, more than usually anyway, that was kinda weird. But the random arrow on the floor was what was creeping her out a little bit. They walked closer to the Professor’s desk and a tall red-headed man appeared into their view. Abi stopped still in her tracks. He didn’t look too nice by the first glance, and when he started to talk, she knew that he wasn’t… Michael silenced the red-headed man, but seconds later he was talking again, surely worse than before as well. “What…” she whispered in the direction of another one of their teammates before Michael spoke again.

“A worst fear monster?” she asked, backing away, further behind the older kids as the moaning got even louder than before. Abi wanted to cover her ears, but she didn’t want to miss out on anything, or not know what was about to happen. She didn’t want to be left behind in any way, shape or form… Abi had no idea what the laughter spell was, but she wasn’t too sure she’d be able to laugh after what the man had said to Michael. Mellie shouted for Russell to get rid of it and her shouting made Abi jump. In her jump, she moved a little bit, and somehow ended up nearer to the man than the others.

And the man disappeared from in front of them only to be replaced with a pair of bunny slippers. Abi’s eyes widened and she clapped her hands over her eyes. She didn’t want to see the outcome of some poor animal’s killing by a human who didn’t understand how beautiful the creature was. Get me out of here! she screamed inside her own mind, as she shook in angst and fear.

The poor bunny’s eyes and tail was still there!! she thought as she really hoped that someone could get rid of it!

0 Abigail Thornton Another direction... please.... 242 Abigail Thornton 0 5