Harry scrunched up his eyes, trying to concentrate, his right hand tight
around his wand, the other around his broomstick. He wasn't supposed to
have his Firebolt, but he'd had to run from his quiddich practice to the
Transfiguration classroom and hadn't had time to put it away. It was his
first Apparition test, and though he, Ron and Hermione had studied hard,
that had only been theory, and was very different to the real thing. He
could feel Professor McGonagall's eyes boring into his back.
A thick, cold, rushing darkness enveloped him. He felt as though his
insides where being pulled out through his ears.......
He landed with a thump on his knees in the middle of a grassy plain. The
grass was up to his eyes and a very startling bright green. What the.... But
he was supposed to be in a forest on the outskirts of London! How on earth
had he got here?! He felt all around himself. All of his limbs where still
firmly attached. So far so good. But if nothing had gone wrong, then how
was it that he was somewhere completely different than he was supposed to
be?
Climbing shakily to his feet, Harry had just decided to mount his broom and
fly around to get some idea as to where he was, when he heard a sound, as
of approaching horses........
Artemis Fowl was practically tearing his hair out in frustration, which is quite a thing for him. Just recently, Foaly, the Lower Elements Police's top computer genius, had started getting weird signals that repeatedly shut down his computer systems, stubbornly refusing all efforts to remove them. Trying (and failing) to track the mysterious signals to their source, the fairies had come to Artemis for help. This was also a once in a lifetime occurrence. After negotiating another large amount of gold from the fairies in return for his aide, Artemis had not at all considered the possibility that it would actually be a difficult task. He'd assumed Foaly was simply overlooking some obvious answer (which happened all the time. Foaly was very paranoid) that would be easy to correct. A week later, still no closer. Artemis lifted his tired eyes once again to the computer monitor, and received a shock. The screen had gone completely blank. If he hadn't known better, he would have sworn that the screen itself had disappeared! Reaching out with one tired, shaking hand, his fingers just brushed the edge of the screen....... Thump. All of a sudden, Artemis Fowl, for the first time in his life, had no idea where he was, how he got there, or what the heck he was doing there.
Artemis Fowl was practically tearing his hair out in frustration, which is quite a thing for him. Just recently, Foaly, the Lower Elements Police's top computer genius, had started getting weird signals that repeatedly shut down his computer systems, stubbornly refusing all efforts to remove them. Trying (and failing) to track the mysterious signals to their source, the fairies had come to Artemis for help. This was also a once in a lifetime occurrence. After negotiating another large amount of gold from the fairies in return for his aide, Artemis had not at all considered the possibility that it would actually be a difficult task. He'd assumed Foaly was simply overlooking some obvious answer (which happened all the time. Foaly was very paranoid) that would be easy to correct. A week later, still no closer. Artemis lifted his tired eyes once again to the computer monitor, and received a shock. The screen had gone completely blank. If he hadn't known better, he would have sworn that the screen itself had disappeared! Reaching out with one tired, shaking hand, his fingers just brushed the edge of the screen....... Thump. All of a sudden, Artemis Fowl, for the first time in his life, had no idea where he was, how he got there, or what the heck he was doing there.
