Chapter 1

Isabella Hartwell's feet were tired and sore, her spirit dampened and her heart heavy as she wondered around the seemingly deserted little town in Cornwall, still holding the now very hot dusty pink stone in her hand.

It was a searching stone, a very rare thing but Izzy had a knack for finding rare things, whether she wanted to or not. She had first come across this particular treasure when in the Hogwarts library, as she browsed the restricted section with caution. Searching stones, though seemingly harmless on their own, can be very useful to certain dark wizards who are searching out their prey. However, Isabella very much doubted that more than a couple of Wizards in the whole country knew what a searching stone was. No matter how many more books she checked, in every magical library, she never did not come across that peculiar little passage on the stones again, or in fact any other mention of them. In her third year she even wrote to the Ministry who only replied with a strict warning about "poking one's nose where it is not wanted".

Years passed before Izzy accidently stumbled across one, which had been sitting quite happily on a garden path, minding its own business.

Searching stones, as Izzy eventually found out, are an ancient kind of magic, around even before Merlin's time and because of their nature are incredibly rare. Although their purpose is to assist people in finding things, searching stones themselves hate being found. Hiding themselves often in plain sight, on pebbled beaches and down the back of the sofa.

If you do manage it to find one, they are no easier to use than they are to find. Holding the stone in the palm of your hand, you must think of what it is you are searching for, and slowly but surely the stone's surface will develop a higher or lower temperature. The colder the stone becomes, the further away one is from the desired object. The hotter it becomes, the closer one is to finding the lost object, which is all well and good when it is within a close distance. Unfortunately for Isabella Hartwell, what she was searching for was very far away indeed.

"How far are we know?" her friend Ann Marie Knightfall groaned, looking just as miserable as Izzy.

"We must be close, this thing is practically scorching my hand" Izzy replied, hastily taking a few steps in one direction, then another, before settling on the second path and marching purposefully towards what looked like a very unusual style of cottage in the distance. "She can't be" Izzy was sure her eyes were deceiving her as she got a closer look at the pretty shell-covered cottage. Taking a few more steps forward, Izzy suddenly forced to drop the stone that was burning the wool of her gloves and it hit the sand with a blast of steam. Glancing momentarily at Ann Marie who shrugged her shoulders, Izzy picked up the now normal temperature searching stone and was slightly worried to see the sand it had landed on was now a little gleaming bowl of glass.

"Isabella? Ann Marie?" the familiar wavering voice called over to them and both girls looked up to see the long lost Luna Lovegood standing before them, looking rather well if anything and not at all like a prisoner.

"LUNA!" both girls screamed and ran towards their friend who had long been missing from Hogwarts and whom no one had heard a word from.

"Luna! We've been tracking you for weeks! Where have you been?" Izzy asked breathlessly as she hugged her friend who as usual looked rather surprised.

"I was at Malfoy Manor but now I am here. Didn't anybody tell you?" she smiled softly, her eyes blank as usual.

"No Luna, nobody told us" Ann Marie could not help but laugh because there was no point trying to argue with a girl like Luna.

The three girls sat at the breakfast table in Shell cottage, the British weather not failing to pour with rain and strong winds would regularly shake the house as the storm continued. Izzy and Ann Marie had told Luna about the searching stone, how they came to find her and the current update on Hogwarts. Luna, however, explained almost nothing of the long time she's been gone, except that she'd seen the trio recently, in fact they'd left just a few days before the girls had arrived.

"But Luna, you can't just sit here and wait for the final battle to come! We have to do something!" Izzy's voice was already panicking but Luna just gave a sad sigh. "I can't go back to Hogwarts" she pointed out the obvious and Izzy shook her head. "Look Luna, we came prepared for this! You can always trust a Ravenclaw to do a bit of light reading before she goes trundling off into the wilderness" Ann Marie announced calmly and from her rucksack pulled a huge book with the title "The Founders of Hogwarts" brandished across the cover in large gold lettering.

"You see over the Christmas holidays I was thinking about ways to give us an advantage, if there is a battle that is" Ann Marie continued, pushing her thick rimmed glasses back from where they had slipped to the end of her nose.

"If?" Izzy raised an eyebrow in disbelief.

"I didn't think you wanted anything to do with the war. You certainly weren't interested in joining the DA" Luna looked more surprised than usual as she daintily sipped her tea.

"That's a story we'll have to save for another time Luna. Right now there is something we need to show you" Ann Marie smiled as she opened the book at its contents page. "I was browsing the book for anything that might be of use when I came across something very peculiar. Look here!" she pointed excitedly at something and Luna leaned over the table to get a better look.

"There's a page missing! It's not listed here at all!" Luna chirped immediately and Ann Marie nodded in response.

"And we all know that Dorothy Digglestein has a new topic for every one of her pages" Ann Marie smiled as Luna nodded in understanding.

"Oh get on with it clever clogs" Izzy huffed, rolling her eyes.

"So in my curiosity I of course check for the page which simply was not there" "And that was when she called for the assistance of moi!" Izzy chimed in and quickly stuffed a hand into her bag, retrieving a peculiar object that much resembled a time-turner, but instead of an hourglass at the centre, there was a small opal stone that Luna thought very pretty.

Isabella swiftly explained that when they had attempted to find the missing page with the searching stone, it had led to this rather peculiar necklace in the drawer of Dumbledore's old desk.

"Do you think he knew what it does?" Luna eyes were wider than usual with the anticipation of an adventure.

"Doubt it" Izzy replied thoughtfully, "but we do" she gave her friends a mischievous look as she held the necklace above the book which was promptly closed by Ann Marie.

"Find page 235" Izzy ordered the necklace, which promptly began to spin on its chain, the opal glowing faintly as it did so. Suddenly the book opened itself with a slam, the pages flicking past swiftly until it stopped on the previously missing page.

"Well that is pleasant" Luna commented as she was handed the book and began to read the page with great fervour.

After 5 minutes of the girl's eyes moving with fascination down the page, she looked up, asking "When do you suggest we leave?".