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Chapter 1
Zelda Belododia and Aoise Clover raced down the corridor, grinning insanely at the mad stunt they had just pulled off. Armed with skateboards, superglue, blue buckets and cold hot chocolate, they had watched their Potions teacher, Severus Snape, as the liquid had fallen on his head and he stepped on the skateboard, the surface of which the girls had covered with superglue. They stopped running and burst out laughing. They were far enough away that Snape wouldn't catch them.
"Misses Clover and Belododia, I know that was you." Snape's drawling voice echoed in the otherwise silent corridor. Zelda swore as the two girls began to run again.
After about five minutes, they reached the library and burst in, panting. Their friend Kat Forbes was sitting at a table near the door, text book open and writing an essay. They went over to her and sat down.
"What'cha doing?" Zelda asked, and Kat looked up from her essay.
"History of Magic. 'Ancient Methods of Magical Travel'." she informed them.
"Sounds interesting." Zelda commented sarcastically. Her two friends looked at her.
"It is!" they said at exactly the same time. Zelda raised her eyebrows at the two Ravenclaws. Kat stood up.
"I need to find another book. This one has hardly any information." she said, and went to get more information on the subject. She came back a few minutes later with a large leather-bound book that had faded runes on the front. "It's old, and the title is 'Travel', so I figured it would be good." she said in response to Zelda's questioning look. She opened it and squinted at the tiny writing. Zelda and Aoise looked at it and gasped.
"That's so complex! How can you understand that?" Aoise asked, stunned at Kat's talent for Ancient Runes.
"I can't understand all of them, but I can get the gist of it." she told them, and they nodded in response. "Let's go back to the Common Room: I'll finish it there."
"But I can't go in there! I'm a Slytherin!" Zelda protested.
"You can come, no one really cares." Aoise told her, and Zelda accepted it. The three walked up to Ravenclaw Tower.
The eagle doorknocker asked a simple riddle that the girls got almost instantly. They entered the Common Room and sat down in front of the fire. Kat continued her essay while Aoise and Zelda made a start on their Potions homework. They had almost finished when one of their other friends, Leo Whitecroft, came and leapt between them, almost falling into the fireplace as he did so.
"How did you get in here?" Aoise asked him and he shrugged in response.
"The riddle was super easy. Even my sister could have got it right, and she's 7!" he exclaimed.
"People from other houses aren't supposed to come in here." Kat reminded him, hoping he would leave and take his caffeine-induced energy elsewhere.
"Zelda's here, and she's a smelly Slytherin. I don't see why she's allowed and I'm not." Leo protested.
"They invited me in." Zelda told him.
"Kinda like how vampires can't go in someone's home without their permission?" Leo questioned, and Zelda got up and started hitting him. Everyone in the room turned to see the strange sight that was an angry Slytherin chasing an annoying Gryffindor around the Ravenclaw Common Room. Aoise rolled her eyes and got up to sort out the pair while Kat tried to continue her homework.
A few minutes later, Aoise had got Leo and Zelda sitting back down quietly, and Kat was one page away from the end of the book. She turned the page and frowned.
"What?" Aoise asked, and Kat looked up.
"There's a load of sand in here." Kat informed her, shaking the book to get the sand out. It formed a small pile on the floor, and Kat went back to reading. Zelda picked up a handful and threw it at Leo. He swore at her and threw some back. His aim was completely off, and the sand went all over Aoise and Kat.
"Seriously? A sand fight?" Kat asked, glaring at her friends. They nodded. Leo threw some more sand at Zelda, and managed to get it on target. Aoise punched him in the arm. He threw sand at her. She caved in and threw some back. The two began chucking sand at each other, and Zelda quickly joined in. Kat decided there was no point trying to work with them around, so she got up and dragged them towards the door. They stepped out of the Common Room and Kat took them to where she was sure she would find their Hufflepuff friend, Beth Watkins.
They walked for a few minutes, before finding Beth sitting by the lake with a book in her hand. Kat was just about to get her attention when Leo pulled something out of his pocket and threw it at the Hufflepuff. More of the sand.
"Hey, Beth!" he yelled as Beth turned around and glared at him, putting her book away as she did so.
"Why did you throw sand at me?" she asked, and Leo shrugged in response. "You are such an idiot." Beth complained, and Leo stuck his tongue out at her.
"Hello, Beth." Kat said, and Beth seemed to notice her and the other girls for the first time.
"Hi, guys! Leo was being such an idiot that I didn't notice you!" she exclaimed, and Zelda laughed at Leo's expression.
"We should probably head inside. It's getting dark." Aoise said, glancing at the sky. I was indeed becoming quickly overcast. Although, strangely, as the sky got darker, the sand in the group's hair seemed to stand out more, as though it was glowing. The ground began to shake slightly beneath them.
"What's happening?" Beth asked, sounding slightly worried.
"It's the sand." Kat said. "The book it was in was about travel, and on the page with the sand, the heading was 'Time'. I think… I think it might have been Time Sand."
And then everything disappeared.