Disclaimer: i do not own harry Potter in any shape or form

Geth342: Sorry about the long update. I've been really busy. Anyway, got this chapter up now so there ya go. By the by, i thought i should mention, if anyone is wondering why i never seem to reply to a review, it's because i only reply if someone asks me a question or brings up a point i feel necessary to clarify. Otherwise, i will very rarely reply. Please feel assured that i do read each and every review and they make me smile :)

Talking about reviews, i hope you enjoy this chapter (because the next one may not come for a long while) and please read and review.

Chapter 11: The Cave

The Christmas holidays could not come soon enough for me after that. More than once I had to be reminded that wizards did not have the power to make time move faster, much to the amusement of my fellow Slytherins.

I didn't tell any of them exactly what Quake had said to me. When I told them about my extra punishment at lunch, I saw Tammy look at me oddly. It was strange- almost as though she knew something secret. I shook my head impatiently. I had enough problems on my plate without adding an extra mystery.

The train journey back was uneventful. We didn't argue once and as usual, when we arrived on the platform, I bade everyone a quick goodbye individually and used the chaos of parents meeting offspring to escape through the barrier and meet my parents. I convinced them to leave quickly as I put my head down. I left without anyone seeing me. The holidays had begun.

Typically, as soon as I got home, my father gave me the third degree about setting snakes on people and causing classrooms to explode. I mentioned that the exploding classroom was technically not my fault but he yelled at me even more and informed me that I was grounded for five days of the week I was spending with them. I smiled as I trudged to my room. It was good to be home, even if my family didn't quite understand the magical world.

Christmas that year was quite busy. My father's brother and his family came over. Jack was about my age and Sharon was two years younger. At the beginning I got on well enough with them but I found myself thinking longingly of my friends at Hogwarts. Muggles had quickly become tiresome- all the problems they talked about could be solved with a flick of a wand but of course they didn't know that and I couldn't tell them. Listening to Jack talk about his pen breaking in school and not being allowed to get a new one until the next week was almost more than I could stand. I sorely wanted to tell him that using Reparo would have solved his problem in less than a minute so could he please shut up.

In addition, they didn't understand why I was grounded. We couldn't tell them about my misdemeanours at Hogwarts so instead, when they asked me, I had to quickly make something up. My lie- that I had gotten into a fight with another boy at boarding school about my Welshness and had broken his nose- was followed by a stunned silence and then disbelieving looks. I might have been a good Wizard but I didn't look like I was capable of breaking Jack's pen, let alone break someone's nose. I was tall but more or less skinny. They said they believed me but when we were alone, my wonderful male muggle cousin turned and attacked me whilst Sharon told him to stop. He managed to get me on the floor and kept telling me to say 'Uncle'. This seemed like a very dumb thing to do so I kept quiet and tried to throw him off. Unfortunately, he was much stronger than I was and only let me up when his father walked into the room.

Sometimes, it wasn't hard to understand why my house mates hated muggles and muggle borns so much.

After that, although I still got on with Sharon who had attempted to stop her brother, talking to Jack became harder and harder. He already thought I was weird and now he thought I was a weakling. More than once I had to stop myself from casting a spell on him. I was even tempted to cast another snake, just to vent some of my frustration. When they left to go back to North Wales I could not help cheering. I thought that I wouldn't be seeing Jack for another year.

But the memory of my defeat at his hands stuck in my mind.

I took the train to Adam's house in the second week. When I arrived, Seifer and Tahir were already there. Adam showed me the room I was going to be sharing with Seifer whilst Tahir and Nick talked about some Quidditch team. Jake arrived whilst I unpacked. I thought it would be a fun week with the chance to gain more spells- Adam's parents often gave him spell books to read and practiced wand movements with him and whilst he had no interest in doing this, I did. More spells meant more power. It was something I needed.

Adam lived by a small village near the sea. The village itself comprised of muggles but the area he lived in was for magical people only. He said that it was weird to go for a walk on the beach and have to dress up as muggles so that they couldn't tell that he was a wizard. We all sympathised with him, especially as we had to wear muggle clothes as well but I was secretly thankful. I had a fondness for wearing my clothes in the holidays. After all, robes seemed too much like school uniform to me so normal muggle clothes were a way of showing that the holidays were there. Nevertheless, I groaned along with the others. There was no point in standing out.

The first few days were fun. We went out around the magical area, played quidditch in a nearby field and wandered around the surrounding area. Sometimes Nick joined us and sometimes their parents took us out.

On the fourth day, Nick and his parents went out to buy something- I didn't catch what- so we were left alone for the day. It was Tahir who suggested the beach.

"We haven't been on it yet Ad. Come on, we should." He pleaded. Adam scowled.

"Yeah, but it's freezing out there. We should just stay here. Have a party." He replied.

"A party? With just five of us?" I sneered. "Yep, great idea Ad. I'm with Tahir. That cliff looks interesting. You said you've never been near it. Now's your chance." The others agreed with me. Adam scowled again.

"Fine, fine. But when we freeze to death, you can blame Tahir and Zac." He muttered unhappily. I looked at Tahir, who grinned back at me. We were going to the beach.

Adam was right. The weather was freezing. We wore thick trousers and jumpers, with scarves and hats and still we were cold. If we had been allowed to use magic, we probably would have conjured some sort of flame but as 'muggles' we had to put up with the cold weather.

The beach seemed pretty unremarkable. It was, more or less, an average beach in winter. Lots of sand, a vicious sea, some people looking as though they sorely wished to be by a fire or radiator and some cliffs. After five minutes we could easily see why Adam had been so unenthusiastic about going there.

Still, we had nothing better to do so we carried on walking around. Eventually, we arrived near the cliffs. By this point, Adam was saying how much better it would be if we went back, Seifer was grumbling under his breath and Jake was wistfully looking back the way we came. Tahir probably would have said something but this whole trip had been his idea so he wasn't exactly in a place to complain. The same went for me. However, as we neared the cliff, I spotted something. A dip in the rock.

"Hey, why don't we check that cave out?" I asked, trying to sound somewhat enthusiastic about my idea. They glared at me.

"Because it will be even colder in there than it is out here?" Jake muttered. I shrugged.

"Gives us something to do though."

"Not really." Adam said. "That cave is forbidden entry. You can't get in. Muggles can't even see it and, when you get closer, you won't see it either."

"Then why can we see it from here?" Tahir asked. Adam appeared to think for a moment. I got the feeling he was enjoying this, the fact that he knew the answers when we did not. But then, what Slytherin wouldn't?

"I'm not too sure. If you go closer, there's a sign for wizards which says entry is forbidden and some old spells have been re-enacted or something. Guess that includes a very patchy illusion." He said. We looked at each other, digesting this information. I don't know if anyone else had my idea but I was the one who voiced it.

"So…let's go check it out." I suggested casually. Adam stared at me.

"Um…Carew, did you miss ALL of what I just said? There's no cave there, so nothing to check out." He said after a silence. I shook my head at him. He was so slow.

"Etasyl, you're so slow mate. You said it yourself. There is a cave there. It's hidden. We just got to find out how to get in." I smirked at him. "Well, I'm going anyway. If you wanna come, then come on. If you're gonna chicken out like Adam, then stay." I started walking towards the cliff. Behind me, the boys considered and then followed me with Adam loudly saying that he wasn't a coward. I couldn't help smiling. Insult his courage and you could make that boy do anything. It was almost too easy.

We soon arrived at the 'cave'. It was near some rocks and, true to Adam's word, there was a sign saying that entry was forbidden and all the original protective spells had been set in place. What these spells were seemed to be unapparent- all I could tell was that they were certainly doing their job well. If it wasn't for the sign and the view from afar, I wouldn't have guessed there was a cave there at all.

After five minutes, even I had to admit that there was nothing there. Kicking the wall had done nothing. Poking it was useless. Swearing was a waste of breath. There was no way to get into that cave.

Well, that's what we thought until Jake climbed the rocks. And slipped.

He was okay mostly, but he caught his arm on a rock and cut it. He came over to us, still holding his bleeding arm and was about to say something when a noise caught our attention. The flat rock face of the 'cave' was suddenly deepening as though someone had suddenly pushed it away. We stared at it in shock and then looked at Jake. His arm was bleeding on a piece of rock right next to the newly formed entrance.

Seifer spoke first. "You don't think…"

"I dunno. Maybe." Tahir replied. We were avoiding mentioning the blood. The idea of using human blood to open the cave just seemed…repulsive, even to us. That's what a lot of people forgot about us. At the end of the day, we were just normal teenagers, not monsters.

"Well…let's go in." I said, falsely cheerful. They looked at me as though I was mad, but I paid them no attention. The way I saw it, we had gone to all that trouble to get the cave open, somehow we had managed it and so there was very little point in backing off. To my relief, I heard them follow me.

The cave was cold and grim, much like the beach, except the beach had a friendly feel to it. The further we walked in, the more I began to wish that I had never brought this idea up. However, when we reached a sealed archway of rock, one look at Adam's face told me that to back out now was to begin a loss of control over them. I couldn't allow that.

I swaggered forward and said "Any volunteers?"

None of them moved. I shrugged, rolled up my sleeve and spotted a rock nearby. Trying not to wince, I dragged my arm over it and watched as red liquid instantly rose up. I winked at the others, hiding my pain and the voice in my head screaming that this was a stupid idea.

As I had suspected, the blood opened the archway. I smirked triumphantly and we walked through, barely talking. Voices did not sound right there. Almost as though if we spoke, we would alert some great demon of the deep to steal our souls.

The deeper in we walked, the damper it became. I began to wonder exactly where the light was coming from. It was a luminous pale green light yet there were no lamps. It was confusing, to say the least.

Soon we reached a lake with a boat.

"Are we going on the boat?" Seifer's voice, the first voice we had heard for a while, was so unexpected that we all jumped and then giggled nervously at each other. The atmosphere of fear lifted for a moment as they all looked at me, smiling shakily. I knew I should have said 'No' and just left it, but this had been my idea. If Seifer was up for it, as he apparently was, then I had to show that I was too. The leader could not be weak.

"Sure. Looks like it'll hold two people at a time so…who wants to go first?" I asked cheerily. They looked around nervously and for a moment I thought that maybe I could get out of it. But then:

"I'll go. It looks fun." I only just managed to stop myself from groaning when Adam said it. There was an odd look in his eyes and for the first time in a while, I wondered whether he actually had forgiven me for cursing him on the first day back. I ignored that thought. He probably hadn't but that wasn't an excuse to back out. I smirked carelessly and told him to get in. I followed him in and waved goodbye to the others. If we found anything, one of could always row back and grab someone else.

We made small talk as we rowed across the lake, mainly to hide our fear. The further across we rowed, the more I regretted ever suggesting this cave. The only upside was that Adam looked like he might have been regretting volunteering to row across too.

After about ten minutes we bumped into something. An island. I looked at Adam who looked back at me.

"I guess we arrived." I said neutrally. Adam smiled weakly.

"Yeah, wherever we are anyway…so, we gonna explore?"

"Uh…yeah." I looked around for the first time at where we had actually arrived. Clearly, observation was not one of our strong points because the island was tiny. Exploration would have taken half a minute at most. In fact, the only mildly interesting aspect about the island was the basin in the middle. We walked over to it. Inside, a clear liquid filled the basin with nothing else present. Balancing on the basin was a goblet. I tried to poke the liquid with my wand but some force field would not let me. I wondered what was so special about this basin.

"Hmm…d'you reckon we use the goblet to empty the basin?" Adam mused. I shrugged.

"Probably, but why would we want to?" I said carelessly. It was his turn to shrug.

"To see what's in there. There must be something. Come on." He sounded oddly eager but I couldn't be bothered to question his sudden wish to be there. Instead I watched as he picked up the goblet and dipped it in the liquid and then spilt it on the floor. He did this a few more times when I noticed something.

"Ad, the liquid's going back."

"Back where?"

"Back in the basin. Emptying it out doesn't work."

Adam checked and realised that I was right. He swore under his breath. "Now what?" He asked. I shrugged.

"We go back." I replied. He considered it for a moment.

"But we don't know what's in there." He said.

"Yes, and we have no way of finding out. In case you were too thick to notice, pouring it out doesn't work." I pointed out.

"You could drink it." He offered to my amazement. I didn't reply, so stupid a suggestion it was, and so he filled the goblet up and offered it to me. When I did not take it, he tried to pour it in my mouth. I ducked and knocked it out of his hand.

"Are you crazy?" I shouted. "What the hell were you thinking?" I was breathing hard. Had he seriously thought it was safe or was he trying to kill me? I couldn't tell and it scared me senseless.

"What?" He muttered sullenly. "I thought we could find out what was in the basin."

I stared at him. "Adam, did Professor Chappell teach you nothing? You DON'T drink strange potions unless you have a death wish." He didn't reply. A sudden rush of anger filled me. Grabbing his jumper in my fist, and moving straight up to him, I snarled "Don't you ever and I mean EVER do something as bleat-brained as that again. You could have killed me you little idiot. I swear to God, if you ever try a stupid stunt like that again, I will do something I will probably regret but you will certainly regret it more. Do you understand me?" He still didn't reply. "DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?" I screamed. He nodded sullenly.

"Yeah, I understand." I didn't let go of his robes until he looked at me. "I'm sorry Zac. I wasn't thinking at all." I nodded curtly and we got back in the boat and rowed to the others. As we rowed, I thought about what had just happened. His apology had sounded sincere, but could I really trust him? Sincere sounding apologies were easy enough to do and for all that he was my friend, friendships in Slytherin were not the same as friendships in Gryffindor or Hufflepuff. They were liable to change within a few harsh words and actions. Although I had quite a few friends, there were only three whom I could say that I trusted- Jade and Seifer, to an extent and, oddly enough, Tammy. I had no doubt that Adam would say the same about me.

Eventually, we arrived back where we had left the others. They looked at us curiously but we just said that there had only been a small boring island and whatever had been dangerous once was clearly not anymore. We did not mention the basin or our fight. They believed us.

Jake's arm was still bleeding for some reason, so Seifer suggested using water to clear the cut. Jake didn't really want to, claiming (correctly) that the water would probably be cold. I watched, amused, as my best friend became exasperated and went to the lake to cup some water for him. They had clearly been arguing about this for a while.

And then I wasn't so amused.

The moment that Seifer put his hands in the water, he fell forward. Around his wrist was something white and slimy. He tried to move backwards but another one grabbed him. Sickly, I realised that they were hands. Dead, human hands. I didn't know what to do.

Thankfully, Tahir was quicker off the mark than I was. He instantly moved forward and grabbed Seifer's leg and began to pull. Adam joined him and then Jake and I did. It became a tug of war between us and the dead. They had nothing to lose and everything to gain. We had Seifer to lose. It was a life or death situation and, what was worse, we couldn't use magic to resolve it. And Seifer's head was under the water.

After what felt like an eternity, we pulled Seifer free. He had been under the water for a long time we realised. He was pale, eyes closed and barely breathing. His face was a mass of cuts, bites and blood. The top of his clothes had been ripped; he looked like he was on death's door. And the dead bodies were climbing out of the water. This was why the cave had been sealed off.

We looked at each other and then towards the exit. Without a word Tahir swooped to pick Seifer up and we began to run. I didn't know how quickly dead people could run and I didn't want to find out. In fact, I don't think I have ever run quite as quickly as I did that day. Even Tahir, weighed down with Seifer as he was, ran as swiftly as the rest of us.

When we came to the arches, we either scooped some blood from poor Seifer's face or used Jake's arm, cursing the few precious seconds it took to do so. No one wanted to be caught by our hunters. The moment we left the cave was the first feeling of true happiness I had had that day. Somehow, we all knew that the dead bodies would not follow us into the daylight. We all began to cheer. We had survived.

"Oh my God! What's happened to you kids?"

We all looked towards the startled voice. A muggle woman with a dog had said it, her eyes wide with shock. My face matched those eyes. How did she know we had been in trouble? Then I noticed that she was staring at a figure on the ground and realised that she was looking at Seifer. I followed her gaze and instantly felt sick.

Seifer had stopped breathing.