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.