Azura: The Black Mage Girl
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Chapter 4- From Train to Pain
Although it is little more then stepping between two rooms, the other side of the barrier between platforms 9 and 10 is like a great leap into a new, and fascinating world. Making sure her eyes are perfectly dry, little Azura gathers her belongs and heads toward the train to look for a seat, a little sense of self-admiration in the fact that her belongs where all nicely packed in her easy to handle rolling case and she isn't amongst the students straining to haul their heavy chests onto the train.
Once inside, she proceeds down the narrow hallway from car to car, attracting looks of all sorts from the students already nestled into their compartments. Some smile, some just raised an eyebrow and watched her pass, trying to recall most likely if they had seen her at the school before. Not that it was her nature, but Azura couldn't help but feel very shy and passed by without a word, looking back and fourth briefly when passing a compartment before returning her gaze to floor. Nearing the back of the train, she begins to slow, wondering if she'll have to cram in with a lot of others. Just then, she comes to a compartment completely empty, and hops inside.
After a minute or two, she looks up and smiles as a boy a bit older than herself with red hair peers in, at his side another boy who looks the same in every detail. Azura by this time is sitting against the window with her feet propped up on the opposite seat, listening to her CD Player through earphones and reading from her book 'The Monster Compendium.' Catching the look of the boys, she lowers her earphones.
"Do you mind if we sit with you?' says the one, the other continuing "It's getting crowded."
Azura nods and smiles, saying "Sure, you're more than welcomed."
The two boys hop in, followed by a small girl with the same red hair. Azura smirks a little to herself, wondering if anyone else would find it humorous to see an entire compartment full of blazing red hair. Her smirk fades however, as she sees the small girl peering out the opening saying "I don't see Harry or Ron at all."
One of the twins reaches over and touches her shoulder, pushing her softly back into her seat saying, "I'm sure they got seats with their friends further up." The other twin turns his attention to Azura, "I'm George Weasly, this is brother Fred and our little sister Ginny."
The small girl looks down shyly, as Azura introduces herself, a little sigh in relief that they didn't seem to recognize the name Shalstone. Azura smiles brightly at her saying, "It's cool to meet you all. It's so neat, three family members attending at the same time."
Ginny smiles a bit, but it's Fred who speaks up, "Well there are five actually right now. Our brother Percy is up with the rest of the prefect gits and I'm not sure where our little brother Ron is."
George adds, "And our brothers Charlie and Bill attended here not long ago. It's somewhat of a family tradition. We've all been in Gryffindor too, and Ginny here will probably be too."
Azura replies "Wow, I wonder how likely that is to happen. I was in house Luphar in the US, where I went to school at Highcrest." but suddenly worries if she'll face the same attitudes as the blonde boy from earlier.
Fred smiles and nods, "Well let me be the first to welcome you as a new student at Hogwarts."
Azura's face aches from the smile that stretches across it, feeling she must look quite goofy she goes red in the cheeks, only drawing good natured laughs from the Weasly twins. Trying to get the focus off her for a moment, she places her cage in her lap and pulls back the cover saying. "This Amaris, my familiar."
All eyes widen as they fall on the cage, amazed at the sight of the large black bat hanging down from a drape in the center, George pipes "Ruddy excellent!", Fred adding excitedly, "And that's okay with Hogwarts regulations?!"
Azura gives a cocky smile replying, "My ante was able to talk them into it, though it did take a while. Despite what is says on the supplies sheet, there aren't any solid rules about pets of other types within reason."
"Brilliant." replies George simply.
As the train thunders off from Kings Cross Station, Azura's excitement is so built up she feels like she might burst but does her best all the same to maintain her composer and not get all giddy. This proves difficult with the passing hours, as the red haired twins seem to be making a point of making her laugh. In the process, she learns much of Hogwarts and the sport Quidditch, something she had heard of but never bothered to study into. Even hearing it from them, in her mind she still doesn't feel the least bit interested in following the game. Much more interesting to her however, is the strong impression she gets that these two boys have been up to a lot of mischief at Hogwarts and know a lot of it's little secrets.
"..so we gave the frost toad back, but we got detention for a week!" laughed Fred, finishing up a story just as the compartment door slides open, revealing a lady selling a cart of goodies.
"I'm glad to see you,' Azura admits to the lady, "I'm starving. Though, I don't know what most of that is.." She looks over at the twins, "Can either of you recommend anything good? I'll be glad to share with everyone of course, my treat."
Fred and George smile, Ginny is quite but smiles a bit too. Before long there is plenty of cakes and candies to eat, particularly peculiar to Azura is the little box marked, 'Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans'.
"What are those exactly?" She asks, bringing broad grins from Fred and George she knows already she should take caution from but decides to play along with whatever they have in mind.
"Oh there quite good, amazing really. There are so many wonderful flavors, similar to muggle jelly beans but the tastes aren't so limited." Fred responds, George adding "Try some, I think you'll be surprised.."
Azura can't help but notice the exchange of smirks between the two, but was to happy to worry about it so she opened the box and popped a couple into her mouth. As she starts to chew, she finds the flavors very interesting.
"Tastes like..... peanuts and cabbage.. Not bad." she informs.
Fred and George's smiles widen as they both encourage her to keep trying them, Fred suggesting a few colors such as green and brown ones. Azura plays along but is cautious, and plucks a single white one from the bunch, but from the moment she bites down on it she wishes she hadn't, as the sharp, very unpleasant taste fills her mouth. She almost spits it out, but not wanting to look bad, she fights the urge and manages to swallow. The twins burst into laughter at her expression, apparently that's what they had been waiting for. When they finally quiet and look back at Azura she has a little crooked smile and one eyebrow raised.
"So very funny gentlemen, and I use the term loosely." she says, not the least bit upset as she realizes it was all in good humor. She reads the name off the box out loud, then continues "They really do mean -every- flavor, don't they?"
George says through suppressed snickers, "Every!"
"What flavor was it? I have to know!" Fred adds.
Azura sits back in her seat and crosses her arms smirking, "I'm quite sure it was soap... Though I only tasted it a couple times in my life." This news only bringing another several minutes of laughter. Through it all, little Ginny Weasly is surprisingly very quite and still, clutching some of her shabby books on her lap. As the time passes, and the sun descends the little redheaded girl falls asleep, slumped heavily in her seat.
Talking in hushed voice so not to wake their sister, the Weaslys tell Azura more and more about the school, the teachers and the lessons, every now and then her or one them braving the unknown to try another one of the beans from the box. Above all the things they tell her, Azura finds their reports of the Dark Forest to be the most interesting.
"So, neither of you have been far in the forest then?", she asks when the subject starts to change.
"Well, no more than a little ways.", admits George, "But not for lack of trying!" pipes Fred. He then sinks into his seat, realizing he needs to keep his voice down he adds "The gamekeeper there, a massive man named Hagrid, you'll be meeting very soon always manages to run us out. He's a really nice guy mind you, we know he just means to look out for our safety but we wish he'd leave us alone."
"Well... I honestly don't think I'm going to be able to keep out of there myself, I am very interested in monsters and magical beasts." Azura says quietly.
"Well best of luck then, there are sure plenty of them in that place. If you find a way to slip past Hagrid be sure to let us know won't you?" asks George.
Azura smirks and crosses her arms simply stating "Maybe."
After what seems like a incredibly long time, Azura feels the bus start to slow and hears voices from further up the train saying they would be arriving at Hogsmead Station very soon, where they will disembark and head towards the castle. The Weasly three pull on their Hogwarts robes, as Azura pulls her long forgotten CD player from it's hidden position between her leg and the train wall. As she picks it up she accidentally brushes the volume control and notices that is fizzles like as if it suddenly lost reception, though she had one of her personal CDs on repeat.
"What's that?" asks George, noticing the device for the first time as Azura picks it up.
"It's a CD player. It must be broken though, should be playing music. Not that staticy sound."
"Static, like as in electrical?" Asks Ginny with a yawn.
"Ummmm... Yhea" replies Azura, giving a suspicious look. "It's a CD player.. you know, put the CD in, it plays music."
"We don't see alot of the muggle world." admits George with a slight shrug.
"Electrical devices don't work at Hogwarts or Hogsmead." Ginny informs.
"Oh, yhea. That makes sense, helps to keep undetected. Highcrest has to pose as a very selective private school to the muggles." Azura states nodding. She then stands, turns her back on the boys and pulls her pink blouse over her head. The two gawk for moment, temporarily stunned by the openness of Azura as she slips on a gray shirt much less likely to make her stand out to much. When she turns back to them they do their best to seem like they didn't notice at all.
As the train comes to a stop, Fred informs "Well we'll have to split up for now. You have to head for the third year carriages." George adds "I'm sure we'll see you around. I hope you end up a Gryffindor. Just be careful, the sorting ritual can be very unpleasant." the last part more directed to the groggy Ginny.
Moments later, everyone is ushered out of the train into the cold night, the students scattering off into their respective groups. Azura decides not to leave Amaris on the train, and slips her into the folds of her robe. Once outside, she's follows the flow of students to a grouping of carriages pulled by spooky, skeletal horses with tattered wings. "Thestrals.." Azura gasps, and starts to examine the nearest closely. She notices however that several students eye her like she's perhaps a bit crazy, and remembers not everyone can see these incredible creatures. Wanting to avoid making people worry about her sanity, she climbs into a carriage and is soon headed for the masive castle that is Hogwarts.
Once the carriages stop Azura steps out of her carriage along with the few other students who had cramned in with her. As the groups reform, Azura hangs back, waiting to see what everyone is doing. She is head toward the castle behind the others when suddenly, her robe starts to shudder, as Amaris finds herself an opening and takes off into the night down a deserted walkway. "Come back!" Azura calls out, in a hushed voice. She looks back at the group, everyone is standing around waiting to move on, so she makes a decision she would soon regret.
In hopes of catching Amaris before she can get her into trouble, Azura dashes off down the dark path after her. Eyes always to the sky most of the time, Azura follows the occasional sight of large bat wings for about a minute before she catches up to her pet, hanging in small fig bush. "Naughty girl!" she scolds, and returns Amaris to the folds of her robe and plucks a few figs for later. She starts to head back to the group, and suddenly realizes much to her horror, that she had had her eyes on the sky the whole way, and didn't have any clue how to find her way back.
A tinge of panic built inside, as she tries to follow the paths back in the direction she believed she had come from, but soon found she must have been wrong as several minutes pass of hurried walking with not a single person in site. "This is just perfect!" she thought to herself sarcastically. "I just got here and I'm already going to get myself expelled!" Her thoughts are abruptly brought to an end when a transparent figure dissolves from a nearby wall, fixing it's wide eyes on her when it hears her slight gasp. There is no doubt, that he is a ghost, pale and transparent with a big bow-tie.
Azura had seen a ghost or two before, so she wasn't afraid, until she heard it speak. "What's this, what do we have here? A ickl student wandering around on school grounds alone? I should call for Filch I should!"
"Please sir! It's just a mistake" Azura pleads, "I was distracted and wandered a bit, got myself badly lost. I just want so much to get back to the group, it's my first time here and I don't want to get in trouble already."
The apparition grins with see through teeth, his eyes glint ever so slightly giving Azura a uneasy feeling. After a few moments of silent thought, the ghost replies "Oh, I see poor dear, poor dear indeed. Well, allow me, Peeves to show you to the others. Come little one, follow me and I'll get you back safe and sound before anyone notices."
Azura smiles, and thanks him in advance. The ghost leads her to door into the castle, but she can't help but doubt they would pile all the children from the train in through it. Not knowing how far behind the group she was, she contents her with the hope that he's leading her through a shortcut that will merge with the others. Once inside, the splendor of the place detracts her attention from the fact that Peeves is leading her farther and father into the castle, down flights of stairs, past paintings that eye her suspiciously and many doors.
As they reach a long hallway where the chill makes Azura shiver, she suddenly starts to seriously doubt the value of the ghost's sense of direction. Stopping in her tracks, she calls out, "Are you quite sure of where your going?"
"Of course I know perfectly." Peeves replies, then grins broadly, "But you have no idea... Poor little dear, you weren't near as lost when I found you as you are now." With these words he burst into laughter and soars straight up, disappearing through the roof.
Azura stands terrified for several moments, realizing that she has been fooled, and that she had absolutely no idea where she is. It's dark, deserted, and everything around her makes her nervous. Snatching her wand from her sleeve, she starts to slowly walk down the hall keeping close to the wall. After several turns and steps she finds herself no better off than before. As thoughts of learning to transform Amaris into toilet brush dance through her head, she suddenly yelps at the meow of a scraggly looking cat, it's errie red eyes transfixed on her.
"You scared the life near out of me little kitty." Azura says, kneeling down to pet the cat, which only hisses when her hands reach out. "Alright then, I won't pet you. You look quite mangy cat, defiantly in need of grooming." After several minutes of trying to talk to the cat, the sound of footsteps echo through the hall, and Azura leaps to her feet, unsure rather to be frightened or relieved. The decision to be frightened becomes quite clear however as a tall man with long greasy hair and a very cross expression pushes through a tapestry in front of her. He turns to her, his eyes simply vicious, causing Azura to stumble a bit, her heart in her throat. Whatever this man wanted, it was clear he was very angry to see her.
.......................................................................
Chapter 4- From Train to Pain
Although it is little more then stepping between two rooms, the other side of the barrier between platforms 9 and 10 is like a great leap into a new, and fascinating world. Making sure her eyes are perfectly dry, little Azura gathers her belongs and heads toward the train to look for a seat, a little sense of self-admiration in the fact that her belongs where all nicely packed in her easy to handle rolling case and she isn't amongst the students straining to haul their heavy chests onto the train.
Once inside, she proceeds down the narrow hallway from car to car, attracting looks of all sorts from the students already nestled into their compartments. Some smile, some just raised an eyebrow and watched her pass, trying to recall most likely if they had seen her at the school before. Not that it was her nature, but Azura couldn't help but feel very shy and passed by without a word, looking back and fourth briefly when passing a compartment before returning her gaze to floor. Nearing the back of the train, she begins to slow, wondering if she'll have to cram in with a lot of others. Just then, she comes to a compartment completely empty, and hops inside.
After a minute or two, she looks up and smiles as a boy a bit older than herself with red hair peers in, at his side another boy who looks the same in every detail. Azura by this time is sitting against the window with her feet propped up on the opposite seat, listening to her CD Player through earphones and reading from her book 'The Monster Compendium.' Catching the look of the boys, she lowers her earphones.
"Do you mind if we sit with you?' says the one, the other continuing "It's getting crowded."
Azura nods and smiles, saying "Sure, you're more than welcomed."
The two boys hop in, followed by a small girl with the same red hair. Azura smirks a little to herself, wondering if anyone else would find it humorous to see an entire compartment full of blazing red hair. Her smirk fades however, as she sees the small girl peering out the opening saying "I don't see Harry or Ron at all."
One of the twins reaches over and touches her shoulder, pushing her softly back into her seat saying, "I'm sure they got seats with their friends further up." The other twin turns his attention to Azura, "I'm George Weasly, this is brother Fred and our little sister Ginny."
The small girl looks down shyly, as Azura introduces herself, a little sigh in relief that they didn't seem to recognize the name Shalstone. Azura smiles brightly at her saying, "It's cool to meet you all. It's so neat, three family members attending at the same time."
Ginny smiles a bit, but it's Fred who speaks up, "Well there are five actually right now. Our brother Percy is up with the rest of the prefect gits and I'm not sure where our little brother Ron is."
George adds, "And our brothers Charlie and Bill attended here not long ago. It's somewhat of a family tradition. We've all been in Gryffindor too, and Ginny here will probably be too."
Azura replies "Wow, I wonder how likely that is to happen. I was in house Luphar in the US, where I went to school at Highcrest." but suddenly worries if she'll face the same attitudes as the blonde boy from earlier.
Fred smiles and nods, "Well let me be the first to welcome you as a new student at Hogwarts."
Azura's face aches from the smile that stretches across it, feeling she must look quite goofy she goes red in the cheeks, only drawing good natured laughs from the Weasly twins. Trying to get the focus off her for a moment, she places her cage in her lap and pulls back the cover saying. "This Amaris, my familiar."
All eyes widen as they fall on the cage, amazed at the sight of the large black bat hanging down from a drape in the center, George pipes "Ruddy excellent!", Fred adding excitedly, "And that's okay with Hogwarts regulations?!"
Azura gives a cocky smile replying, "My ante was able to talk them into it, though it did take a while. Despite what is says on the supplies sheet, there aren't any solid rules about pets of other types within reason."
"Brilliant." replies George simply.
As the train thunders off from Kings Cross Station, Azura's excitement is so built up she feels like she might burst but does her best all the same to maintain her composer and not get all giddy. This proves difficult with the passing hours, as the red haired twins seem to be making a point of making her laugh. In the process, she learns much of Hogwarts and the sport Quidditch, something she had heard of but never bothered to study into. Even hearing it from them, in her mind she still doesn't feel the least bit interested in following the game. Much more interesting to her however, is the strong impression she gets that these two boys have been up to a lot of mischief at Hogwarts and know a lot of it's little secrets.
"..so we gave the frost toad back, but we got detention for a week!" laughed Fred, finishing up a story just as the compartment door slides open, revealing a lady selling a cart of goodies.
"I'm glad to see you,' Azura admits to the lady, "I'm starving. Though, I don't know what most of that is.." She looks over at the twins, "Can either of you recommend anything good? I'll be glad to share with everyone of course, my treat."
Fred and George smile, Ginny is quite but smiles a bit too. Before long there is plenty of cakes and candies to eat, particularly peculiar to Azura is the little box marked, 'Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans'.
"What are those exactly?" She asks, bringing broad grins from Fred and George she knows already she should take caution from but decides to play along with whatever they have in mind.
"Oh there quite good, amazing really. There are so many wonderful flavors, similar to muggle jelly beans but the tastes aren't so limited." Fred responds, George adding "Try some, I think you'll be surprised.."
Azura can't help but notice the exchange of smirks between the two, but was to happy to worry about it so she opened the box and popped a couple into her mouth. As she starts to chew, she finds the flavors very interesting.
"Tastes like..... peanuts and cabbage.. Not bad." she informs.
Fred and George's smiles widen as they both encourage her to keep trying them, Fred suggesting a few colors such as green and brown ones. Azura plays along but is cautious, and plucks a single white one from the bunch, but from the moment she bites down on it she wishes she hadn't, as the sharp, very unpleasant taste fills her mouth. She almost spits it out, but not wanting to look bad, she fights the urge and manages to swallow. The twins burst into laughter at her expression, apparently that's what they had been waiting for. When they finally quiet and look back at Azura she has a little crooked smile and one eyebrow raised.
"So very funny gentlemen, and I use the term loosely." she says, not the least bit upset as she realizes it was all in good humor. She reads the name off the box out loud, then continues "They really do mean -every- flavor, don't they?"
George says through suppressed snickers, "Every!"
"What flavor was it? I have to know!" Fred adds.
Azura sits back in her seat and crosses her arms smirking, "I'm quite sure it was soap... Though I only tasted it a couple times in my life." This news only bringing another several minutes of laughter. Through it all, little Ginny Weasly is surprisingly very quite and still, clutching some of her shabby books on her lap. As the time passes, and the sun descends the little redheaded girl falls asleep, slumped heavily in her seat.
Talking in hushed voice so not to wake their sister, the Weaslys tell Azura more and more about the school, the teachers and the lessons, every now and then her or one them braving the unknown to try another one of the beans from the box. Above all the things they tell her, Azura finds their reports of the Dark Forest to be the most interesting.
"So, neither of you have been far in the forest then?", she asks when the subject starts to change.
"Well, no more than a little ways.", admits George, "But not for lack of trying!" pipes Fred. He then sinks into his seat, realizing he needs to keep his voice down he adds "The gamekeeper there, a massive man named Hagrid, you'll be meeting very soon always manages to run us out. He's a really nice guy mind you, we know he just means to look out for our safety but we wish he'd leave us alone."
"Well... I honestly don't think I'm going to be able to keep out of there myself, I am very interested in monsters and magical beasts." Azura says quietly.
"Well best of luck then, there are sure plenty of them in that place. If you find a way to slip past Hagrid be sure to let us know won't you?" asks George.
Azura smirks and crosses her arms simply stating "Maybe."
After what seems like a incredibly long time, Azura feels the bus start to slow and hears voices from further up the train saying they would be arriving at Hogsmead Station very soon, where they will disembark and head towards the castle. The Weasly three pull on their Hogwarts robes, as Azura pulls her long forgotten CD player from it's hidden position between her leg and the train wall. As she picks it up she accidentally brushes the volume control and notices that is fizzles like as if it suddenly lost reception, though she had one of her personal CDs on repeat.
"What's that?" asks George, noticing the device for the first time as Azura picks it up.
"It's a CD player. It must be broken though, should be playing music. Not that staticy sound."
"Static, like as in electrical?" Asks Ginny with a yawn.
"Ummmm... Yhea" replies Azura, giving a suspicious look. "It's a CD player.. you know, put the CD in, it plays music."
"We don't see alot of the muggle world." admits George with a slight shrug.
"Electrical devices don't work at Hogwarts or Hogsmead." Ginny informs.
"Oh, yhea. That makes sense, helps to keep undetected. Highcrest has to pose as a very selective private school to the muggles." Azura states nodding. She then stands, turns her back on the boys and pulls her pink blouse over her head. The two gawk for moment, temporarily stunned by the openness of Azura as she slips on a gray shirt much less likely to make her stand out to much. When she turns back to them they do their best to seem like they didn't notice at all.
As the train comes to a stop, Fred informs "Well we'll have to split up for now. You have to head for the third year carriages." George adds "I'm sure we'll see you around. I hope you end up a Gryffindor. Just be careful, the sorting ritual can be very unpleasant." the last part more directed to the groggy Ginny.
Moments later, everyone is ushered out of the train into the cold night, the students scattering off into their respective groups. Azura decides not to leave Amaris on the train, and slips her into the folds of her robe. Once outside, she's follows the flow of students to a grouping of carriages pulled by spooky, skeletal horses with tattered wings. "Thestrals.." Azura gasps, and starts to examine the nearest closely. She notices however that several students eye her like she's perhaps a bit crazy, and remembers not everyone can see these incredible creatures. Wanting to avoid making people worry about her sanity, she climbs into a carriage and is soon headed for the masive castle that is Hogwarts.
Once the carriages stop Azura steps out of her carriage along with the few other students who had cramned in with her. As the groups reform, Azura hangs back, waiting to see what everyone is doing. She is head toward the castle behind the others when suddenly, her robe starts to shudder, as Amaris finds herself an opening and takes off into the night down a deserted walkway. "Come back!" Azura calls out, in a hushed voice. She looks back at the group, everyone is standing around waiting to move on, so she makes a decision she would soon regret.
In hopes of catching Amaris before she can get her into trouble, Azura dashes off down the dark path after her. Eyes always to the sky most of the time, Azura follows the occasional sight of large bat wings for about a minute before she catches up to her pet, hanging in small fig bush. "Naughty girl!" she scolds, and returns Amaris to the folds of her robe and plucks a few figs for later. She starts to head back to the group, and suddenly realizes much to her horror, that she had had her eyes on the sky the whole way, and didn't have any clue how to find her way back.
A tinge of panic built inside, as she tries to follow the paths back in the direction she believed she had come from, but soon found she must have been wrong as several minutes pass of hurried walking with not a single person in site. "This is just perfect!" she thought to herself sarcastically. "I just got here and I'm already going to get myself expelled!" Her thoughts are abruptly brought to an end when a transparent figure dissolves from a nearby wall, fixing it's wide eyes on her when it hears her slight gasp. There is no doubt, that he is a ghost, pale and transparent with a big bow-tie.
Azura had seen a ghost or two before, so she wasn't afraid, until she heard it speak. "What's this, what do we have here? A ickl student wandering around on school grounds alone? I should call for Filch I should!"
"Please sir! It's just a mistake" Azura pleads, "I was distracted and wandered a bit, got myself badly lost. I just want so much to get back to the group, it's my first time here and I don't want to get in trouble already."
The apparition grins with see through teeth, his eyes glint ever so slightly giving Azura a uneasy feeling. After a few moments of silent thought, the ghost replies "Oh, I see poor dear, poor dear indeed. Well, allow me, Peeves to show you to the others. Come little one, follow me and I'll get you back safe and sound before anyone notices."
Azura smiles, and thanks him in advance. The ghost leads her to door into the castle, but she can't help but doubt they would pile all the children from the train in through it. Not knowing how far behind the group she was, she contents her with the hope that he's leading her through a shortcut that will merge with the others. Once inside, the splendor of the place detracts her attention from the fact that Peeves is leading her farther and father into the castle, down flights of stairs, past paintings that eye her suspiciously and many doors.
As they reach a long hallway where the chill makes Azura shiver, she suddenly starts to seriously doubt the value of the ghost's sense of direction. Stopping in her tracks, she calls out, "Are you quite sure of where your going?"
"Of course I know perfectly." Peeves replies, then grins broadly, "But you have no idea... Poor little dear, you weren't near as lost when I found you as you are now." With these words he burst into laughter and soars straight up, disappearing through the roof.
Azura stands terrified for several moments, realizing that she has been fooled, and that she had absolutely no idea where she is. It's dark, deserted, and everything around her makes her nervous. Snatching her wand from her sleeve, she starts to slowly walk down the hall keeping close to the wall. After several turns and steps she finds herself no better off than before. As thoughts of learning to transform Amaris into toilet brush dance through her head, she suddenly yelps at the meow of a scraggly looking cat, it's errie red eyes transfixed on her.
"You scared the life near out of me little kitty." Azura says, kneeling down to pet the cat, which only hisses when her hands reach out. "Alright then, I won't pet you. You look quite mangy cat, defiantly in need of grooming." After several minutes of trying to talk to the cat, the sound of footsteps echo through the hall, and Azura leaps to her feet, unsure rather to be frightened or relieved. The decision to be frightened becomes quite clear however as a tall man with long greasy hair and a very cross expression pushes through a tapestry in front of her. He turns to her, his eyes simply vicious, causing Azura to stumble a bit, her heart in her throat. Whatever this man wanted, it was clear he was very angry to see her.