Darkness Rising: The Unicorn Hunt Chapter 13: Bloody Monkeys!, a harry potter fanfic

This Chapter is for Dark672: Im sorry about the H/Hr, but dont worry, it wont last much longer! thankyou for reading diligently and we love you...

Chapter Thirteen: Bloody Monkeys!

Justine walked back into the party; she had to be seen here enjoying herself to give her alibi some substance. Jacque had just taken Padma to the Hospital wing, but Justine knew the moment she woke there would be trouble. She had to be seen at the party. Spotting Kris on the other side of the room, she didn't realize she walked straight into the middle of a game. The music suddenly stopped and she was swept into someone's arms. When it started again, Justine looked up into the face of Seamus, who was grinning and dancing exuberantly.

"What's going on?" she asked, suddenly catching her wits about her again as she was whisked around the room.

"Lass, it's an elimination game, when the music stops you have to find another partner before the music starts again or your out!" Seamus seemed to be having the time of his little Irish life. Justine figured that to give her story some substance she would have to smile, so she laughed back up at him and joined in the fun.

The music stopped and she turned and ran straight into Harry, who grabbed her up and swung her around. "I'm going to win, stay by me and we can do it!" he yelled.

Justine twirled. "What's the prize you're so determined to get?" Justine laughed.

Harry did a little river dance. "I will be the lord of the dance!" Justine almost died laughing. Harry looked so weird when he did that it was hilarious!

The music stopped.

An Egyptian, Sharif, caught Justine. She had met him with Electra; he was a wonderful dancer, pulling Justine in way close, swinging them through the crowds. Next she danced with an expressive Villefort student, who's classic flamenco style got Justine laughing. She looked around at the group on the dance floor; the dancers were thinning.

Harry caught her again, followed by someone else, faces after faces swam in front of her and she laughed up at them all. Soon she was on of the few pairs left, dancing with none other than Kris. "I've been trying to get to you!" He said grinning down at her. His eyebrows suddenly drew together. Something was… false about Justine's smile. "What's going on?"

Justine tried to blink back the tears, at least Kris still knew her. "Ax has broken Tanya's heart again, and I know why Draco hates me. What made him think I cheated on him," Justine said through the tears.

"What?" Kris said, "Oh my god bunny, what the hell happened?"

Kris never got his answer, The music stopped and Justine was swept up by another guy, There were only three left, and they were forced apart so as to make it harder to get to the next partner. Kris was with Electra, who laughed as he swirled her, still looking at Justine.

Harry was on the other side of the floor with a pretty girl from Beauxbatons. She looked up. Somewhere fate must have been cackling in her little boots, plotting ways to destroy people's fragile little minds... Justine was dancing with Draco Malfoy. Justine looked up at him, barely dancing, just letting him lead her around. "You're kidding?"

Draco sneered down at her, "I take no pleasure in dancing with you, you cheating little whore, just sit back and enjoy hmm?"

Justine lost the plot. She just started crying, and crying. Life was so unfair.

Draco didn't know what the hell to do; the girl had just… broken down. They'd been pretty nasty to each other over the years, but she'd never seemed effected before. When the music stopped again he let her go, moved on to the girl in the sparkling belly dancer outfit, watching as Justine just left the floor, followed by Kris.

He didn't realize the music stopped again, and before he could turn to catch the French girl, Harry and Electra were announced as the winners.

Justine stood between Kris and Saul, who for once looked dead serious. "Ax, your actions of this evening were not only heinous in content, but you seriously hurt the emotional state of another student within my keeping for this event, as such you may be judged by a group of your peer's who, by chance, were not present at the act itself." Kris said in a serious tone.

"Your jury will consist only of those within our team who are not bias toward this situation, ergo those who did not witness the accused act. You will have the opportunity to choose one student to speak on your behalf, but under no circumstance may you speak without leave." Justine said slowly. "While we do realize that your only actual crime was the taking of something or someone," she looked at him sternly, "who did not belong to you, we are here to deal with the social aspect of your actions, and how they inflict hurt upon others."

Saul took his cue. "You will be judged by Kris, as head boy, myself and Jeffery, both of whom have only been given second hand accounts. The hearing will start immediately after we take our places, then you will appoint a speaker, who will, in an unbiased way, argue your case."

Saul walked and sat down on a chair, one of three to one side of the ship, the rest of the students, plus Leon sitting across from them. Leon had one arm around Tanya, who wasn't even looking at Ax. He had been called from dancing to come and look after Tanya. If Ax put a toe out of line he'd kill him, or die trying.

Ax looked up from his hands as every one took seats and looked at Justine. She'd been through so much tonight, Kris had told him that directly after his thing, she had a run in with Malfoy, which she wouldn't talk about. She returned his gaze and held it, her emerald eyes showing him compassion. He felt hopeful. She nodded, and he sighed with relief. "I call Justine for my speaker."

Justine stood and walked to stand in front of the makeshift podium of judges. At school they had a room for this, but they had to make do here. "I accept the right to speak on behalf of my friend, schoolmate and brother Alexander Kidson."

Kris nodded, then Justine handed Ax a small crystal phial. He drank the liquid and turned slightly blue for a second before returning to normal. She took a deep breath and she plunged in. "I call Ax to speak."

Ax got to his feet and stood to one side so that all could hear him, and was glad for Alyson when she moved to the closest seat to him available. Justine turned to him "You are under the influence of Saul's potion, and if you lie you will feel excruciating pain,"

Ax nodded, and to test the waters so to speak like the idiot he was he annunciated very slowly and clearly, "My name is Bob." Suddenly he doubled over, breathing heavily, Justine running to his side to make sure he was ok.

Justine took her place once again. "Ax, you have been accused of many crimes, but the first one I wish to address for the well being of one of our school mates, I need for you to tell us in your own words, why you had relations with Padma, was it to deliberately hurt someone?"

Ax's shook his head and made a face. "God no, I did it to prove to myself that I was still the man, I did it to prove that I could get through this, and I was still attractive to girls." Ax looked tired, Justine thought, his voice was a flat monotone, as though he himself didn't know these answers he was just discovering them himself.

Kris watched his best friend go through the experience Ax himself presided over with Kris and Justine at school. Tanya looked miserable. God, why did someone so sweet have to fall for Ax? Justine was doing an admirable job, bringing out the fact's without bias. Whatever she had seen in that girl's head, Justine was on Ax's side, and Kris didn't get why, he had to admit. Her next question clued him in a little though.

"You told me once that you didn't think you were capable of loving. I guessed it was because you were never loved yourself, only lusted after, at the time you didn't understand the difference. Ax, I think you do now, tell me." Justine said with quiet confidence.

Ax's head shot up and he looked Justine dead in the eye, a look of shock on his face. "I don't want to. That'll just incriminate me a hell of a lot more!"

Justine looked back at him. "Tell me or I'll back down as your speaker."

Ax sighed. "I only ever felt lust after the pretty girls or the ones who would make me feel good. I see now that it was lust because there was never any emotional substance to our relationship. I wanted she wanted, we both gave, and then I broke it off. Lust. With Padma I didn't even feel lust, more, complaisance. She was there, I needed to prove nothing was wrong with me…" He trailed off…

Justine grabbed Ax's hand as she looked into his eyes encouraging him. "And what was wrong with you? What was it that you were trying to get through?"

Ax looked Justine dead in the eye. God was it always this hard to admit in public you had thought that maybe you loved someone? "I think I'm in love, and I don't understand it." Was the response that came trickling from his mouth. Damn Saul's truth potion! He hadn't wanted to admit that.

Justine turned from him to look at the Kris, Saul and Jeffery. "Clearly what my friend has proven by truth is that he did not set out today to deliberately harm anyone, he was in fact, bent on self destruction. Why is it then that we are still holding him on trial for actions performed not only under the influence, but also instigated by the other party?"

There was a small gasp at Justine's words. Jeffery leant forward and said, "Are you saying that Padma came on to Ax?"

Justine looked back and said in a determined voice, "That's exactly what I'm saying. I saw it myself."

Kris looked down. "Ax, I don't want to be unreasonable. Tell me this. Under the potion," he shook his head, "Sober. If you love this someone so much, why not just tell her?"

Ax looked at Tanya for the first time. Square in the eyes. "Because I told her I wouldn't come on to her, that I'd leave her alone and give her respect. So I've been flirting like mad to make her come on to me, clearly I didn't do a good enough job," Ax looked away.

Tanya sat rooted to the spot. She had only agreed to come out of her room for this fucking hearing when Justine had told her that Leon could come. Ax had just admitted that he loved her. Oh my god. Tanya just stared at him, open-mouthed. What the hell? She had been good enough, but she hadn't made the move and now it seemed she'd missed it.

Typical, it was her fault.

Ax, for someone who didn't think he could feel love, was certainly explaining it well. Tanya shook her head; she had gotten so caught up in what he was saying that she had missed most of what Justine said.

Suddenly Kris was declaring that the decision had been made! Saul got up off the podium and came to sit beside Tanya, kissing her on the cheek and taking her hand.

Jeffery stood and said, "In relation to the accusation of taking the girl Padma with deliberation, it is the opinion of this council that you did, in your drunken state, understand you were entering into a physical state with Padma uncaringly, but we do have to take the state itself into account. We believe that the alcohol obviously, being a depressant, affected your feelings of unworthiness and self-pity. Therefore we are going to let the charge go with an official warning entered into your file at school, and request that no contact is made with the girl during the duration of our stay." He smiled at the group and moved to Jacques side.

Kris's deliberation would be the final one, and usually the one where the sentencing was passed.

He stood and looked down at Ax. "My friend, you have been accused of seriously harming the well being of a Kallaix student. None of us can contest that this week you have paid enormous amounts of attention to Tanya, and she to you. To be frank with you I can understand that you didn't realize the implications of what you were doing, you being of an unnaturally affectionate nature with girls. What I think stands to be pointed out none the less is that when her hopes were at their highest dude, you turned around and proverbially kicked her in the pie hole. Thus I maintain that although it may have been unintentional, you hurt Tanya.

"But the question does remain weather this act was done knowingly. I ask the rest of the group to look at our facts. Ax, for lack of a more descriptive word, was pissed. Padma, bent on revenge threw herself at Ax when he was at his emotional lowest, a state brought on by self-realization. Justine witnessed this herself first hand from Padma's perspective. Tanya never made her new intentions clear to Ax, no matter how hard we all may try to defend her she did tell him not to assume she would be his. Ax cannot be judged in this circumstance - it's just too complicated, he is our friend. I stand by him." Kris stepped down. He looked to Justine who just smiled one sided and nodded.

"All of you, I'm so sorry." Ax said earnestly. "I'm a bastard, but I'm learning! Just kick me in the ass when I get out of turn." Justine kicked him promptly in the ass.

The laughter was a great icebreaker; One by one all of the Kallaix student went and showed their love for Ax in their own way. Hugs, kisses, whispered apologies.

Lastly, "You know we wouldn't have really sent you home, we love you way too much. Besides we need you to win the duel!" Alyson wrapped herself around his waist, and then headed down.

When everyone had gone to bed, Leon Tanya, Justine and Ax stood on deck. Justine suddenly flung herself into his arms. "Ax, I love you. Just in case you were wondering, we're so friends, never any doubt."

There only remained four people. Justine, who had climbed the ladder to the top deck to watch the moon, claiming it was prettiest at one in the morning, Tanya and Leon, who had yet to even look towards Ax, and Ax himself.

Tanya suddenly breathed deep. She knew that she'd have to do this, but she was just glad she had Leon. She turned and approached Ax. When he went to speak she held up a single finger and closed her eyes. "I just need to… Ax there are a few things, which still get to me about tonight. Firstly neither of us bothered to act on our feelings. How stupid is that? Second, that made me question who I am, what made me, me. No one should ever wonder what is wrong with him or her. I'd like to say it's not your fault, but really it was circumstance. If you had have asked me an hour ago, I would have damned you to the deepest circle in the darkest hell, but now that I've heard your side I say this. We had no promises tonight, we weren't attached or pledged, and so I have no real right to be all that upset, okay? From now we are going to have a blank slate. We're friends, but none of our past experiences count, good or bad. Okay?"

Ax looked as though a weight had been lifted. "Friends," he held out a hand.

She took it. "This is chance number two, this time don't fuck it up." She disappeared down the stairs.

Leon looked at Ax. "If you hurt her again, I'll kill you."

Ax smiled, "What no threat of shovels or cutting or pain? Not the metaphorical type?"

Leon grinned, "No, you'll just be dead." He shook his head and followed Tanya to her room and gently closed the door.

Ax turned and looked up to Justine; she looked like a porcelain doll. The type you see in the shop window with the pale skin and curly hair, the type that takes your breath away. Her dress sitting perfectly around her, creating a nest, her hair and jewellery sparkling in the moonlight.

He turned and climbed the ladder. Taking a seat close to Justine he leant over and lifted her clear off the chair, bringing her to his lap and wrapping his arms around her. "That could have gone worse." Her whisper was muffled from somewhere near his ear.

He sighed. "If that had have been at school and a fair trial, I would probably have been suspended by student vote, I really messed Tanya around, and a lot of those chicks would love to see me screwed over for messing with a woman."

Justine leant back and looked him dead in the eye. "Ax, we love you, you're our big brother, our best friend, our secret crush. You are the most amazing person. Look inside yourself and figure out how to become the person you are right now all the time. This Ax, the sweet one me and Alyson only ever get to see, is the real you, and he's amazing."

Ax suppressed tears. This girl who was so obviously hurting herself right now was comforting him, and saying all the right things. He gently reached up and kissed her on the forehead, then said in a whisper, "Please tell me what happened tonight, or at least tell me how I can make all this better."

Justine looked forlornly back at him. "You want to hear the whole sorry tale of my love life and how it's been screwed from day one?" she said bitterly, then seeing his serious look nodded.

"At the start of fourth year I finally got the opportunity to meet the family I had in Britain that I had never met. For some reason my Uncle had decided that with the rising threat of You-know-who I would be safer with him, something about some peter guy returning to somewhere. Go figure. So in September I left my friends at Kallaix and moved to England. When I arrived I was swept into a world of wonder. I was still a Wentworth but they called it something different and it was red for some obscure reason. Good old Gryffindor. And then I met you and the boy's."

Ax nodded, he could remember Justine in fourth year, she had shoulder length black hair, and was curvy, and nowhere near the beauty she was now. She had been feared by most simply because of her last name by most people in her house. Ax had been a favourite of Snape, and was even getting after class tutoring in sword duelling from the potions master, though he couldn't tell the other Gryffindor boys, so he had made friends with the quiet girl, only to discover she wasn't quiet, she had been a burst of personality, innocent and sweet and she had stolen his heart. Damn her, she'd made him respect her and it was the beginning of the end for him. They'd been friends. Always.

"So, I got closer and closer to you, but also to Ron." Ax felt her entire demeanour change, she was angry. "And I dated him for a while, while he wasn't speaking to Harry, but when they were friends again I was forgotten, just someone to kiss in dark corners, because of course we couldn't tell anyone because he was so scared of Sevie. It sucked, so I dumped him. Then, well you know all about the so-called perfect relationship I had with Draco. The only fight we ever had was when I went to the Yule ball with you, he didn't appreciate that…"

Justine paused. Her eyes somewhere far off. "I loved him, with everything I had. We would sneak around and be the perfect couple in secret, we didn't tell anyone at first by accident, and then it was so fun we kept it up. Secret liaison." She laughed. "It was so cute."

Ax let Justine talk, although he knew the story. He could remember Justine getting the origami lotus flowers in class, they would float down and land on the desk in front of her and she would smile and tuck it away, or put it in her hair. She had later told him it was a special code. White was I need you right now. Pink – Find me as soon as you can. Red – See me tonight at our special place… and every one of them meant I love you.

Suddenly Justine spoke things he didn't remember. "Ron was jealous that I'd dumped him and somehow found out I was dating his worst enemy. I didn't know, he was still just charming to me. But he got together with his older brothers, Fred and George, because I had broken his heart, and they concocted a plan. They created a false memory; one that showed Kris and I sleeping together and they implanted it into Ron's memory, knowing that once a mind had validated it, it could be placed in a pensieve. A pensieve that was left on Draco's bed. It was all Ron's fault. I never cheated - he made Draco think I had, because pen sieve's don't lie, they show the memories of a person. Ron had a validated memory." Justine was crying, great crystalline tears rolling down her face.

Ax's eyes grew round. It was Ron. Justine had been broken because of Ron. He had moved to Australia because of Ron. Everything, good or bad, was a result of one bitter little boy's determination to show up another little boy. Ax's anger was slowly rising. Justine's spirit had been broken because of bloody Ronald Weasley. He was going to die. "Justine, now you've told me this you realize I'm going to have to kill him." He said with controlled rage.

"No. We have to do the stupid 'mystery tours' tomorrow, I can't think of both, and I can't go near Draco again." Justine was calmer than she should have been. Ax was worried until her eyes thinned and she said dangerously. "Then we kill him."

He hugged her tight again. Then it occurred to him, Draco. He needed to know, Ax had seen how this had haunted Justine over the years, and Draco had the same look. "Justine we need to tell Draco."

Justine stiffened in his arms and slowly stood and moved away to the other side of the boat. "Draco can rot in hell for all I care. He didn't even give me the benefit of the doubt, he just assumed I did it, so now I don't care."

Ax stood. "I'm going to bed. Are you coming?"

She shook her head. He knew she needed time, he would send Kris up for her in ten minutes, she listened to him, but right now he had to call a meeting, All those who were still awake needed to know this.

The water looked as though a thousand stars danced upon it, where the lights from the castle refracted on its glassy surface. Justine watched as her tears made concentric circles, fascinated with the shape of them. She had nothing to do but cry, and she was entranced with just how beautiful her tears could be.

What she needed was to get away from here. Draco, god she needed to get away from him. And Ron, she had to get away before she tried to kill him. She looked up at the castle. They were both up there.

She reflected on the 'new' Draco, or what she had seen of him when he didn't know she was watching. He was taller, his supercilious nature of fourth year had settled into a superior class, which suited him. Damn he was so handsome now, those quicksilver eyes flashing at some joke Seamus had made. How unfair, he had learned to laugh and she had come back into his life and stolen it from him.

Damn Ron. It was his fault, not hers.

She needed to get away. Right now she needed to find somewhere to hide and lick her wounds, she turned to face away from the school and saw the dull glow of lights against the sky to the east. Hogsmede. MARK!

In a flash the girl in black stilettos was gone, down the wharf and into the night. In the same moment that her black dress vanished into the night, other figures, all dressed in pyjamas except for the blonde boy in dress robes, came on deck.

Kris turned to Ax. "Where is she?"

Ax's eyes went round. "She was right there," he said pointing to the top deck, where he and Justine had spoken moments before.

Alyson and Tegan looked worried; Saul ran down the stairs to her room but came back empty handed. Kris rounded on the group. "Ok, where would she go?" but was stunned when a sudden tingle came from one of the deckchairs. Alyson had her mobile in her hand, and Justine's ring tone was coming form her handbag perched on the arm of the chair. Alyson's face fell and she pressed the button to the phone to make it stop ringing.

Ax went and put an arm around her and said in a consoling tone, "it was worth a try, it was a good idea, really." Ally's phone began to ring, and the whole group Held their breath as Ax took it. "Hello?" he said slightly breathlessly. "She's there?" he nodded. "I'll be there as soon as I can, tell her it's not her fault."

After Ax hung up the phone he explained that Justine had fled to Mark's hotel to talk to him. After she had arrived Mark noticed the press and paparazzi, most of whom were present from the Hunt that day and all of which who were staying in Hogsmede, had noticed Justine's arrival. She had been stuck inside since she had arrived ten minutes ago.

In the end it was Kris and Ax who snuck out of Hogwarts and strutted up to Mark's room, pretending as though it was a planned thing they were there, and when they left the four posed for a single photo. Justine leant on Ax and Kris and they took her back to the cruiser and tucked her into her bed. Winky hovered nearby, ready to look after her little mistress, and as the lights dimmed the only sound on the boat was the soft sound of the McEwan dragons song. Her children were stressed; she would lull them into a magically deep sleep.

Leon meandered back to the DA common room. He was thinking about the Trial that had been held in the Kallaix cruiser, and wondering why Hogwarts didn't have something of the like. Kallaix definitely deserved its reputation as the best school in Australia, if not the world.

The students could be judged by their peers instead of by the teachers, who often didn't understand what was really going on in the students' minds. He'd bring it up next DA meeting – though he might have to conveniently not mention that it had come from the Australians.

"Leon! Get in here now!" Harry yelled as Leon approached the DA tower. "Terry's melting down about the Mystery Tours tomorrow."

"What's wrong?" Leon asked, "Has he lost the forms or something?"

"No that was Daphne and the Hunt course," Harry replied, "He's panicking because he can't find a hat to draw the names out of … he isn't listening to us yelling about the Sorting Hat, but maybe he'll listen to you."

Leon sighed, "Why wouldn't he listen to me over the rest of you?"

"Because we've been teasing him with stupid idea's for doing things for hours now, and he thinks this is more of the same. He seems to think that Dumbledore isn't gonna let us borrow it."

"I'll handle it," Leon said wearily, walking into the DA meeting room, where there was a raging debate going on. Everyone was yelling at Terry to just ask Dumbledore for the bloody sorting Hat, while Terry was screaming back that he could handle it, and would they just shut up and let him think.

"Y'ALL SHUT UP!" Leon thundered, taking it all in at glance. "If you need an Aussie to organize you, you really are screwed," everyone did as Leon said and shut up. "Harry, go and get the damned Sorting Hat from Dumbledore's office, he'll do anything to make you happy right now. Terry, this thing starts in less than ten hours and you haven't even got the damned hat yet? And here you all are yelling like kindergartens …"

"Kindergarten?" Someone asked in confusion.

"See three year olds," Leon drawled. "Now, Terry, is there anything else you haven't done yet?"

"No, I just need the Hat," Terry replied. "It's all under control now."

"Alright, good," Leon said, "Is there anything else that you lot need me to deal with? Cos I just feel like getting some sleep."

"God, stresser," Daphne muttered.

"You shut up!" Leon said coldly, "I've had an emotional night and I want to sleep! Have you got a problem with that?"

"What, your girlfriend broke up with you?"

Leon's eyes narrowed dangerously – after seeing all of Tanya's pain, and Justine's for that matter, tonight, he was in no mood to deal with Daphne's crap. In a single fluid movement, he pulled out his sword and pushed Daphne up against a wall, the sword at her throat. "Listen to me Daphne. You have been against the Australian's since they arrived – I've put up with it until now. If you insult my country-men in my presence again, I swear I'll kill you. If you refer to Tanya as my girlfriend again, or try to make fun of me about it, I'll kill you, or anyone else for that matter. We are not, and never have been, emotionally attached in that way. Tanya's having some problems, and I'm trying to be a supportive friend. I do not need your crap – do you understand me?"

The sword was digging deeper and deeper into the soft flesh at Daphne's next, much more pressure and it was be drawing blood. Daphne was sobbing in fear, tears of pain trickling down her cheeks, and she didn't answer.

"DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?" Leon roared, and a single drop of blood slid from his sword blade and down Daphne's neck.

"Yes," Daphne choked, as Ron and Draco advanced on Leon to try and put a stop to this.

"Leon, calm down," Draco said, and suddenly Leon dropped Daphne, spinning around. His sword wavered between Ron and Draco and the anger drained from his face.

"Don't come near me!" Leon snarled at them, "I don't know what the fuck you two have done, but what ever it was, it must have been bad. You disgust me," he sheathed his sword and stalked away from the group, and a moment later they heard his bedroom door slam.

Draco and Ron looked at one another, "Huh?"

"I'll go and see what I can find out," Harry said, "He's obviously angry at you and Ron, Draco, but I think he'll talk to me. He wasn't angry with me when I saw him before."

Hermione touched Harry's arm, "Be careful," she told him. Harry nodded and smiled at her, then headed to the bedroom area of the tower. He came to Leon's door and knocked softly.

"Who is it?" a drained sounding voice came from within.

"It's Harry," Harry called, "Leon, can I talk to you?"

"Yeah, I guess," there was a sound of footsteps from within, and the door opened. Leon had stripped off the Hogwarts uniform and was wearing a singlet and shorts, looking extremely tired and maybe even a little upset.

"What's wrong?"

"I hate losing my temper. I only do it when it's necessary, but I hate myself when I'm angry, hate the person I become," Leon replied. "I didn't hurt Daphne much, did I?"

"No, but if you had, she deserved it," Harry replied, stepping into the room. "You have a point. A lot of us have been bitching about the Australians, never really thinking that you are an Australian. I never really thought about it until now, but it must have hurt so much, hearing us saying things like that about people from your country, especially when one of those people was one of your oldest friends."

"It's been hard," Leon agreed, "You've been speaking about Australian's in general, and that hurts even more than when you're talking about just the Kallaix students. I know that you don't include in me in that, in my head at least, but my heart hurts. Really hurts, sometimes."

"We're lucky you're such an easy going guy. You've never even brought it up until now; you've just let it go. Thinking back, I'm surprised that you haven't lost it at someone before now," Harry remarked.

"You know, I think you've been spending too much time around me," Leon said, "I just noticed, you're using a lot of more Australian language – I mean, you said 'bitching' just before, and when I walked into the tower you said 'gonna' …"

"Are you trying to change the subject?"

"That obvious huh?"

"What was it you meant when you were talking to Ron and Draco? You've never had anything against them before, and Ron at least hasn't been doing much Aussie-Bashing, and with Draco it's been more about Justine than anyone else," Harry said. "Neither of them seemed to know what was going on."

"Remember how Justine broke down earlier after dancing with Draco?" Leon replied after thinking for a moment.

"Yeah, I'd wondered. She used to treat him with anger, or hurt. She's never cried, that I've seen," Harry said, "I'd meant to ask one of the Australian's about what was wrong with her."

Leon sighed, "The only thing I know is that Draco hurt Justine, and that Ron had something to do with it," he told Harry. "Tanya's told me before that she's never seen Justine cry, not even when something really bad happens … if something could make her cry, it's got to have been something bad."

"Weird," Harry remarked.

"What's weird?" Leon asked.

"Never mind. If I can make sense of it, I'll let you know," Harry replied. "So, you calm now?"

"Well, I wouldn't bring Daphne anywhere near me," Leon replied, "But otherwise yeah."

"Good. I'll see you in the morning?" Harry said.

"Guess so, yeah," Leon grinned back. "I just want to sleep now."

"If you need to talk about anything, I'm here," Harry said, and let himself out.

Draco was sitting on the huge bed in his room, flicking through the photo album that Colin had found and brought to them. Every picture had the Australian group, with Justine smiling, waving, and laughing dammit! Why did she have to be everywhere he looked these days?

He leant over the bed to stuff the album into his bag to return to the Kallaix students the next day, and, from the very back a newspaper clipping fluttered out. Interested in spite of himself, he picked it up. It showed a picture of Mark Hall, Justine, Tanya, Saul, Kris, Ax, and Alyson under the caption "The Aussie Brat Pack Reigns".

Draco arched one eyebrow and read over the article, his mouth dropping open with each new paragraph. This explained a lot, really. It also changed a lot. He'd have to show this to the Defence Council before he gave it back to the Australians. He sighed. Every time he thought he knew everything about the Australian's, something new came up.

He decided to leave trying to figure out what the implications of this newspaper article were and go back to trying to figure out what Leon had meant when he'd said that Draco and Ron disgusted him.

She wrinkled her nose. "And if I take the potion I'm going to suddenly be happy?" Justine looked at Saul suspiciously

Saul had brought her a mild for of the pepper-up potion, diluted into some orange juice Winky had brought him from the castle. "It'll give you a good day, you don't deserve to be this sad Justine."

She rolled her eyes and threw back the juice, squeezing her eyes shut as the happiness filled her every pore. "How deliriously ludicrous, its like liquid sunshine!"

Dressed in blue jeans and a white singlet Justine felt ready to face the day. Nearly. She tossed her hair into a loose bun at the back of her head and pulled on her black leather trench coat she had worn that day to lunch with Weasley. Each student had been asked to arrive at the great hall for one of the few mandatory breakfasts of the conference. She was going to face the world, and now she was going to do it smiling.

Tanya entered her room while she was pulling on her black, heeled boots. "Can we talk?"

Justine looked up at the redhead, who was dressed in dark dusky jeans with a black turtleneck, "Sure," Justine replied, thinking that this would be something to do with the night before. "Are you angry with me for supporting Ax last night?"

"Hell no!" Tanya replied, "Actually, I just wanted to let you know that I'm not angry with you at all!"

"But you're angry with Ax?"

"No," Tanya sighed, "I'm not. I don't know why I'm not, but I'm not. I don't like all this animosity, I never wanted the student trial. I was angry when it was suggested. If I'd been left to calm down, I would have been fine. Now I feel like I've torn the group apart, like I've made all this trouble for you. I'm really sorry about that … I want you to help me."

"What do you want me to help you with?"

"Stopping all the animosity that's directed at Ax right now. I don't blame him for what he did. It was my fault for not saying anything as much as his for doing something like that. But now everyone's angry, and I never wanted that. I want it to be back to how it was yesterday morning," Tanya replied.

"Tall order," Justine remarked, "I'll work on it."

Tanya bounded over and gave her a hug, "Thanks!" she said.

The Kallaixians had just entered the hall, with the notable absence of Justine and Ax, and taken their seats at their table. All of them were looking a little out of it, though Tanya seemed to be one of the more collected of the group. The moment they'd all seated themselves, Leon got up from the Hogwarts table and went to sit next to Tanya and spoke quietly to her.

Daphne, who was wearing a scarf tied around her neck, completely hiding her throat from view, seemed to not know whether to smirk or glare at them.

"What's up with Daphne?" Tanya asked.

"I tried to kill her last night," Leon replied comfortably.

"Why?"

"She was being herself," Leon replied, not really wanting to go into the details. He didn't want to remember the anger he'd felt last night.

"Well, that's understandable," Alyson remarked, "She obviously can't take her own medicine."

"Let me guess, you went for the throat?" Saul asked. "After all, she seems to be going to a fair length to hide it."

"I only drew a little blood," Leon said, now becoming uncomfortable, "Could we talk about something else?"

Suddenly the door flew open and Justine walked into the Great Hall, dragging Ax along behind her. Ax was protesting somewhat violently about it, and obviously trying to leave the castle completely. Justine, however, was either stronger than she looked, or using magic to make him stay with her.

She dragged him straight over to the Kallaix table. Ax didn't look at anyone, and no one was looking at Ax. "Does anyone have a problem with Ax eating at our table?" she demanded.

"No," Tanya said, looking uncomfortable.

"Nah," Adam grinned at Ax.

"Not really," Jeffery said, and then went back to talking with Jacque.

"Me neither," Jacque said briefly.

"What the hell? Why would we?" Kris demanded.

"Ax seems to be under the impression that we all might have a problem with him after the events of last night, even after me profuse assurances that this isn't so, so I brought him over here so you could tell him yourself."

"Of course not!" Alyson said.

Leon didn't enter into the conversation, figuring that it was nothing to do with him.

"Yes!" Saul said suddenly, and the entire table turned to stare at him. "He's wearing purple underwear!"

"Dude! How'd you know that?" Ax demanded, staring at him.

"What, you mean you were?" Saul said, cracking up, "Look at me go! I am psychic! I am now only to be addressed as Saul the Psychic!"

"It wouldn't have any thing to do with the camera you hid in his room?" Jacque enquired.

"What camera?" Ax demanded, looking between Saul and Jacque suspiciously. "What is Saul doing with cameras in my room?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Saul replied, "I find your devilishly good looks irresistible and have been stalking you for years now. I'm surprised you never noticed before."

"You're just messing with me, aren't you?" Ax said.

"Course we are," Jacque replied. "It's not often we get you in a mood when we can say something to you and you don't have a perfect repartee – this is the stuff that history is made of."

"Come and sit by me, my love," Saul said, batting his eyelashes at Ax.

Ax went over and sat down beside Saul and rested a hand on his shoulder, gazing into Saul's eyes, "I never dreamed that you could feel the same way," he said, in a romantic voice, "Why do you think I'm always getting with the girls? I need something to keep my thoughts from you … but distractions never last for long."

Saul squealed and fell backwards off the seat. "I am back in the throne mate," Ax said, holding up a hand. Kris gave him a high five as the entire table burst into laugher. Saul dragged himself up from the ground and joined in.

The ice had broken.

Dumbledore sat in his office behind his desk, stroking the top of Fawkes's silky head as the bird trilled and crooned. He started at the parchment in front of him and pursed his lips. Wasn't it hard enough for Harry when he was already in the midst of one prophesy, without adding this to his plate? The Prophesy of the Magai. Not recognised because it was made by a squib. He shook his head. And how would this even be able to come to pass? None of the Magai's were even speaking to one another…

He turned up to the Sorting Hat, sitting on his shelf. "Old friend, I need you to do something," The hat nodded and grinned, the rip in its brim turning up and crinkling. "Two of the schools you will be given to sort today are called Kallaix and Hogwarts…"

As the breakfast things cleared away, Terry Boot stood up and went to the front of the Hall. "Could I have your attention please?" he asked, a little nervously. Everyone stopped talking and looked at him, which seemed to make him more nervous still. "My name is Terry Boot, and I've been organising the Mystery Tours. I'm just going to give you a quick run down of the Mystery Tours before we go any further.

"Basically, the goal of the Mystery Tours is to see how people react in situations that are not necessarily in their comfort zones. Everyone here will be deployed in teams of four, two from one school, two from another, and will be sent to a location where they have to survive for twenty-four hours. The Sorting Hat, as an Impartial Judge, will choose the schools that have to pair up together – you do not have a choice in which school you are paired with, but each student can choose the person from within their school group that they want to go with."

Terry turned to the Sorting Hat, and a rip near the brim opened, like a mouth. "Beauxbatons and Thundreds," the Hat said.

"Could the two named schools please come and stand at the front of the line, while you pair up within your school. You should choose someone you can work well with," Terry instructed them, then waited while they did so. "OK, now, in your pairs, could you reach into the Hat and draw out a card. This card will have a heart, a star, a key, a treble, or a shield."

Again, he waited while the pairs drew out their cards, "Now, find the pair from the other school who has the matching card," Terry instructed, "Then you can move out into the Entrance Hall and wait to be Portkeyed out."

The next two schools were Villefort and Nhi-Lon Fohs. By this stage the Kallaix students were praying that they would be paired with Grendwell – none of them were interested in being paired with Hogwarts, and Durmstrang didn't sound particularly appealing either.

"Kallaix and … Hogwarts," the Hat said next.

"Dammit!" Justine screamed in frustration. Everyone turned to stare, and Justine blushed and hid her face as they walked up to pick out their cards. Justine's lips were moving almost soundlessly, but if you got close enough to her, she could be heard almost praying, "Pleasenotdracopleasenotdracopleasenotdraco…"

Ax walked straight up to Justine, claiming her as his partner. Adam and Tegan, knowing they worked well together, paired up, as did Saul and Tanya. Jeffery and Jacque, of course, would go with no else – twenty-four hours without snogging? How else would they survive? Kris and Alyson were perfectly happy to be the only ones left, and ergo together, Kris and Ax deciding Kris needed to protect her.

In the Hogwarts team, Hermione had grabbed Harry's hand the moment they were told that they had to find a partner they could work with in their group. Since Harry was taken, Draco looked around the group, wondering who else he would be able to work with – not Daphne, that was for sure, and most of the other's were people that he didn't know all that well. He and Harry worked best when it came to teamwork, since it really wasn't Draco's forte. He looked at Leon, and raised an eyebrow.

"We work well together," Leon remarked, coming to stand next to him. "Sorry about last night."

"What did you mean?" Draco demanded.

"Nothing that I can tell you about. It's for those involved to discuss when they are ready, which, at the moment, I doubt they are," Leon replied.

Draco nodded, aware that he'd get no more out of Leon on the subject. He turned his attention to the Kallaix students walking up to the Hat with them. Why did Hogwarts have to be paired with Kallaix? The only groups on the other side he thought he stood a chance at working with where Adam and Tegan, Jacque and Jeffery and Saul and Tanya. If he had to work with her and Ax … he wasn't sure how many people would make it back to Hogwarts alive. And working with Kristopher was completely unacceptable.

When called to, he reached into the hat and drew out a card with a key on it. He immediately looked to Justine, and was relieved to see that she'd drawn a card with a heart on it. Well, that was one load of his mind. Now he turned to Kristopher, who had a star on his card. Well, that meant that whomever he was working with wouldn't be trying to kill him, which was good.

"Tanya!" Leon called, flashing the key card to his friend; Tanya gave a peal of laughter, and grinned widely as she held up the identical card, then dragged Saul over to join them.

"Hi Leon!" she grinned, and hugged him, "So glad I get to work with you, I was so worried I'd have to be working with a group full of people I hardly knew!"

"Yeah, imagine what would have happened if we'd been paired with Daphne," Saul agreed, "Of course, it would have probably been better if we'd been paired her – now Kris and Alyson have to deal with her … I wonder how many points we'll lose when it turns out she was murdered en route?"

"Quite a few, so let's hope she isn't," Tanya replied.

"Come on, we have to wait out in the Entrance Hall," Leon said, walking on one side of Tanya while Saul walked on the other, leaving Draco to trail behind, which he was not particularly happy about. "Does anyone know where we're going?" Leon asked after a moment.

"We won't find out until we arrive by Portkey," Draco said, "Which you'd know if you'd been in the DC Tower instead of gallivanting off with the Australians."

"Gee thanks, you make me feel so wanted," Saul muttered.

"You're the only Pom in a group of Aussies," Leon grinned at his partner, "I'd be watching what you say right about now."

Draco had just realised the same thing, and decided he'd better stop making such comments if he wanted to make it out alive. They waited in the Great Hall with an ever-growing group of people. After awhile, Terry made his way out of the Hall with Hannah Abbot, Jeffery and Jacque, who were to be his group for the exercise.

"OK," Terry called to get the attention of the gathered students, "You will all be given a Portkey by me, which will take you to a pre-chosen area, and you will have to survive there was twenty-four hours. You will have no money but that which you can beg, no extra food that you cannot gather yourself, no water unless you find a well. Unless extenuating circumstance applies. You will be given a map, which will show you the location of the second Portkey, the one that you will bring you back here. It will not activate until seven am, Hogwarts time. Take a Portkey from the box that shows your image."

On the other side of the Entrance Hall was a line of five baskets, each one with an image of one of the five symbols on it. Tanya, Saul, Leon and Draco walked over to the basket with the key, along with the other three groups, and selected one of the four pebbles, each also marked with a key, from within the basket.

"Well, a pebble is easy enough to overlook," Saul remarked, "A good thing to select as a Portkey, because it doesn't matter where it goes to, we can just drop it, if we want to, and no one would guess that's its something magical."

Draco gave him an odd look, probably wondering what was going on – Saul was making an intelligent comment, and Draco had rarely ever heard anything but stupidity from the Australian boy. The four of them touched the pebble, while Terry counted down the seconds until the Portkey was activated.

Suddenly Tanya felt a tug behind her naval, and they were gone. Suddenly her feet slammed back into the ground and she staggered a half step, before quickly regaining her balance. Saul let himself fall, tumbling over in a backward summersault. Draco and Leon both staggered a little, then watched as Saul rolled around on the ground, pretending to try and get up.

Tanya looked away from her companions, and the first thing she noticed was sand, lots of sand. Then the heat really hit her. It was very hot, especially compared with the British weather they'd just left behind. It reminded her a lot of an Australian summer, which was, in an odd way, relaxing. Where they in the outback? She didn't think so, the sand was the wrong colour.

"Hot," muttered Draco, scowling around the surroundings. "Sandy and hot."

"It's not that bad," Leon replied cheerfully. "Reminds me of home, really."

"This is nothing like Britain!" Draco said, "Much less Hogwarts. This is hotter than most summers!"

"He meant Australian home," Saul put in, and Draco glared, "I knew that."

"Sure," Saul replied, grinning. "So, where exactly are we?"

"Egypt, I think. I remember doing a project in Primary school," Tanya put in. "Not sure where in Egypt, but I swear I've got the country right."

"Cairo," Leon agreed, gazing around them carefully, "This is Cairo – the Capital of Egypt," he added, just in case anyone didn't know that.

"Do you think those packs are for us?" Tanya asked, pointing. They were in a very back street of the city, and the paving was out of wack and covered in sand from the desert. Against a nearby building was a small pile of packs. There were four of them, all of which were very small.

"I didn't think we'd get packs, Terry made it out like we wouldn't, anyway," Leon remarked.

"Well, we can't be completely prepared for all of this," Saul pointed out, "They do kind of need to give us something to survive with. What if we'd been sent to the snow? We'd never have survived in what we're wearing now."

The three Australians were all wearing jeans and t-shirts (Tanya having discarded her black turtleneck very quickly after arriving), Draco was wearing a silk shirt and loose black pants – the closest he was prepared to come to Muggle clothing. Beside the packs was a pile of shorts, apparently left there for them. The four teenagers crouched beside the packs and examined them.

The packs were so thin it seemed that there could be next to nothing kept within them. Tanya opened hers, a discovered a plastic bag type thing full of water, with a tube coming out of it. "Ah!" she said, "I've seen these before. They're called bladders, I think. Really good for hiking, because the water doesn't need to be taken out of the pack, you just hook the tube over your shoulder and drink when you need to. Muggles develop some weird things sometimes."

"This is a Muggle invention?" Draco demanded, "Wow."

The Australians laughed at that. "Like I said, Muggles invent some weird, but very cool, things when given half a chance," Tanya said.

Also in the packs was a small amount of food. Not much, but enough to keep them going for a short time before they'd have to find more. "There's a note under packs," Leon said, lifting the note and reading it.

"OK, it says that the water, at least, will replenish itself, and the food will get us going, but won't last, which we knew already. It says that the shorts have been provided to make us a little comfortable, but shirts are our own concern. On the back of the note is a map showing us the way to the second Portkey, which will take us home," Leon said, and everyone gathered around him to look.

"It's in a tomb!" Tanya nearly shrieked.

"It'll be alright Red," Leon replied gently.

Draco looked at her, "What, are you scared of dead people?"

"I'll be fine," Tanya replied, but her face was pale with fear. Saul and Leon both rested a hand on her shoulder, but Draco stayed back, not feeling in the least bit welcome.

"We also have to find someone to take us to the Pyramid that contains the tomb," Leon said, reading a note from under the map. "We can't beg someone to take us, they have to offer to take us. It should take around four hours to reach the pyramid, but we'd never survive unless we were going with a caravan of some description."

"What if there isn't a caravan going out today?" Tanya asked hopefully.

"Terry wouldn't have made it impossible to get this thing done," Draco put in. "There'll be a caravan out … and if there isn't, we'll just have to steal some brooms or something."

"I think you mean camels," Leon corrected.

"Or flying carpets," Saul put in, grinning. "I know they're illegal in Britain and Australia, I did a research project on them once, but they aren't in Egypt. An accepted means of travel, actually, for Egyptian wizards and witches."

"You would know," Tanya muttered. Saul grinned and bowed. "Well, we may as well change into the shorts and get going," Tanya continued with a sigh. "We have a caravan to find, since I don't the relish the option of stealing."

"If we need to, I'm up for it," Leon told her. "We have to do this, and if we have to steal, we have to steal. I'm sure everything would be returned when we left anyway."

Everyone turned their backs on each other to change, since there didn't seem to be anything more private anywhere in the vicinity. Then they put the packs on and adjusted them so that the water tubes were in easy reach and were working properly.

Once they were ready, the group of four moved into the city, quietly discussing ways that they might get a ride to the pyramid. "Well, we could just ask," Tanya remarked, after listing to the three boys yabber about various plans. "I'm sure someone would know if anyone's going out to the pyramid. Everyone gossips."

Everyone turned to stare at her. "She has a point," Saul said, "Simple plans are usually the best."

Tanya rolled her eyes and fell silent again. Draco sighed, "I'll do it, I suppose. At least I won't scare them off," he remarked, and approached the next person he saw. "Hello?" he said. The person looked at him, and then started babbling in Egyptian. "Hello? Do you speak English?" Draco demanded.

"English? You English? I sorry, English no speak," the man replied cheerfully, and wandered off.

"Well, that didn't work too well," Leon remarked dryly.

"No shit Sherlock," Saul agreed. "Let's just find a trade centre – they'll be bound to not only have information, but people who can speak English to give it to us."

Draco gave Saul another odd look – this was several intelligent comments today … was he sick? Saul took the lead now, and led them through the city with surprising ease. "I did so many projects on Egypt that the only thing I can't do is speak the bloody language," Saul remarked, "I know a couple of phrases, but they're pretty much limited to, 'I don't speak Egyptian', 'do you speak English', and 'where is the nearest toilet'… oh, and 'Your wife is quite attractive, but you need to watch the smell'."

Leon and Tanya laughed, and Draco just rolled his eyes. Having been exposed to the touchy Australian humour, he didn't want to offend Saul right now … it could be dangerous, especially since they had to rely on one another.

Soon enough, they'd walked into the middle of a bustling centre of trade. "OK, where to now?" Leon asked.

"Let's talk to them," Saul replied, pointing in an apparently random direction.

"What? Isn't that what I did? In case you didn't notice, it didn't work," Draco remarked.

"Ah, but you aren't me," Saul replied, and walked over to the people he'd pointed out. Everyone else followed. "Hi," he said, smiling widely at a tall Egyptian man standing in front of a tent, with a smaller woman beside him.

"You are English?" the man asked, his accent almost flawless.

"Sure am buddy," Saul replied.

"I speak your language well, how may I help you?" the man asked, beaming back at Saul.

"We're looking for a way to get ten k's north, any ideas?" Saul replied.

Tanya watched as the pyramid loomed closer and closer, a dark spot on the horizon, half hidden in the heat haze, but she could hardly tear her eyes away from it. She knew that soon she would have to go inside the pyramid, and then the door would close behind her, and she would be stuck there, there would be no way out, no fresh air … they'd get trapped-

Suddenly a handful of sand flashed past her face, and she jolted, looking around to find that Saul and Leon had brought their camels up beside her, and were now half dismounting to pick up handfuls of sand and throw them at each other, with her in the middle, getting showered in sand.

She urged her animal onward faster – it hadn't taken nearly long enough for her to work out how to ride a camel, which was annoying. She'd been hoping she would have to concentrate on the camel, and then she would think about the door closing, and the darkness surrounding her, blocking out air, light, movement …

"Tanya! Join in!" Saul yelled at her, throwing a handful of sand that hit Tanya full in the back. She half turned to glare at him.

"Like I can reach the ground to get the bloody sand in the first place," she told them, then looked around to see if she could find Draco. He was riding a little way off, as if trying to pretend that he had nothing to do with the over excited Australian teens, and had a look of distaste on his face. She figured that this might be because he was riding a camel – he was probably wishing he had a horse, or at least something a little more elegant, to ride.

Before Saul and Leon could find another reason for her to participate in their sand fight, of all things, the caravan master came over to them. "We can take you no further now – our route passes no closer to the pyramid … we have left the route behind as it is."

"That's ok," Saul replied, slipping down from his camel, along with Leon and Draco, Tanya following a second later. The caravan master held out a cloth bag. "We had some spare food, which you are welcome to."

"But you've done so much for us already," Leon said, trying to wave away the food. The caravan master had provided them with head coverings to keep the sun off their faces and protect their skin from burning.

"No, really, you must take the food!" the caravan master said, and after a few moments, Saul just stepped up and accepted the bag, and the caravan master headed off, and the rest of the caravan headed after him. Tanya was staring at the pyramid, which was some nine hundred metres distant now. "We may as well divide the food," he continued, and they all knelt down to shuffle things around in their packs, save Tanya, who was staring at the pyramid as if nothing else existed in the world. It took Saul almost five minutes to get her attention and give her a share of the food.

"Oh," she mumbled, and quickly stored it in her pack. Saul took over the lead, and Leon herded Tanya ahead of him, so she was walking just between him and Saul. Draco walked out to one side, just in case they tried to start another sand fight – he would not get involved.

Tanya walked as if she were going to her own funeral, while Saul and Leon kept up a near constant stream of chatter. The three Australians were having a fairly easy time of it, being fairly used to sand, as they basically lived on the beach. Draco was struggling a little, but somehow managing to look both elegant and collected, which Saul seemed rather impressed with.

"You must be the only person I've ever known who could look elegant while tripping over," Saul remarked to Draco.

Draco just sneered at them and they continued toward the pyramid. It was huge, now that they were close to it. It dominated their vision, rearing into the sky, a man-made mountain of dusky sandstone. It was the only pyramid in the area, and stood right in the middle of the desert, with no perceptible landmarks that might have led to this site being chosen above any other place near by.

Just before they reached the pyramid, Tanya stumbled and fell to her knees, shaking, staring at the pyramid. "What's gotten into you today?" Draco demanded.

"Leave her alone," Leon replied. "Why don't we stop and have a bite to eat before we go inside – I'm feeling a little peckish."

Saul nodded in instant agreement and sat down beside Tanya, with Leon following suit. Draco scowled, "It would be easier to get inside, then think about food."

"Three against one, outvoted," Saul replied, so Draco reluctantly joined them, sitting cross legged on the hot sand and looking very uncomfortable, as they pulled out some of the Egyptian food, with Tanya appearing to do everything on auto-pilot.

"So, what have you gathered on Kallaix?" Saul asked Draco innocently. "I know you don't much about the school, but Justine said a bit about it in her … argument with you the other day – how much did you pick up?"

"What sort of thing?" Draco asked, up for the challenge of seeing how much he'd picked up.

"Well, how about the houses? I know that you got confused with some, what with the colour change and all," Saul said, innocently enough. If Saul is trying to be innocent, anyone who knew him well would start running as fast as they could in any direction that would get them away from him.

"Well, Wentworth is your version of Gryffindor, Steelwell is Slytherin, McEwan is Ravenclaw, and Petersen is –" Saul and Leon both scampered away, just as Draco said, "Hufflepuff".

"WE ARE NOT HUFFLEPUFFS!" Tanya shrieked, suddenly finding the voice that she had been lacking since they'd found out that they were going to be inside a pyramids, "You think that everything in this entire bloody universe revolves around your stupid school, our school does not accept stupid people! We are the musical and artistic people of the school, but I guess that your school just doesn't have any talent!" she was right up in his face for the last comment, then spun around and stalked up to the pyramid, slapping it, "How do we get into this bloody thing? Let's just get this over with so I can get out of the company of close minded people who see things only in stereotypes!"

In the background, Leon gave Saul a high-five, then Saul came over to Draco and clapped him on the back. "Sorry about that, I was getting sick of her being apathetic, and nothing else was working," he grinned at Draco and bounded after Tanya, leaving Draco shaking his head, not understanding what was going on here.

Justine walked along next to Ax, Harry and Hermione. They approached the base of the stairs where a sixth year student was standing holding a sign with a large heart on it. Justine reached out with one hand and groped for Ax's hand, quite scared about what she was about to face. Where were they going to be sent, if their theme was intuition?

Hermione walked over to the boy and took from a basket he was holding a pebble. The sandy-haired boy wrote the number on the attached card on a pad, explaining that it was so they could be located in emergencies. "Great, they're worried they can loose us, bet you it's like the jungles or something." Justine said with narrowed eyes.

"C'mon babe, you know you're going to be fine, I'm here to take care of you." Ax squeezed Justine's hand looking down into her worried eyes. "The way I see it we lucked out. We could have been with Daphne or Draco, this way we can focus on getting good marks okay?"

Justine managed a weak smile up at Ax, glad that he was always there for her. She reached out, as did hundreds of people in the room with love-heart pebbles and touched it. In a flash and whirl of colour the entire group disappeared from the entrance hall.

Justine felt as though she were rushing through space at high speeds, although she could still feel solidarity under her feet. She was being pulled as though someone had hold of her belly button. She came back down in a rush of white. She fell forward onto her knees and felt cold. She looked around her and realized she was sitting in a snowy forest. She began to gather herself together, Ax helping her to her feet, seeming to have not fallen at all.

"We're in the snow, great!" Justine laughed, seeing Harry help Hermione to her feet as well. She looked at Ax and noticed a sudden tension. She stopped smiling and focused, sending out a quick spell to scan the area for others. She got a mixed signal back, there was something in the trees to their left, and it wasn't human, it wasn't friendly.

Ax held up on hand and Justine felt the same spell she had just used emanate from Harry. It was weird feeling Magai magic not caused by her. Harry nodded and Ax flicked two fingers towards a nearby opening in the forest wall that looked remotely like a cave. She looked up as Harry held three fingers, making sure he looked them all in the eyes so they would understand not to move until it was time.

One finger dropped, Justine gathered herself to run.

Another, she saw Hermione turn slightly towards the cave.

The last finger dropped and Ax ripped out his sword as he ran straight after Justine, Harry pulling Hermione along in the lead.

"I say again, how do we get in here?" Tanya asked, after five minutes of trying to find the door that they knew was there. "That's it!" she whipped out her wand and pointed it at the section of the pyramid that they were sure held the door. "Alohomora!"

Suddenly the section of the wall slid in and to one side. Inside, the darkness beckoned, and Tanya suddenly went to take a step back, but Saul and Leon were already herding her into the void, knowing that she wouldn't go in otherwise. "Lumos," three voices murmured, and then a forth did so unwilling, as the door closed behind them.

Tanya held her wand up, looking fearfully around. It didn't seem so bad, she thought, relaxing a little. This entire section was open, and was big. "Did this seem as big on the outside?" she wondered.

"Pyramids, by their very nature, are big," Saul replied calmly. "They took years and years and years to build, you know."

Tanya just gave him a look. "Well, let's go then," she said, relaxing even more and starting forward. Saul went to grab her back, just as she went sprawling over a tripwire that had been hidden in the darkness. Saul and Leon hurried forward to see if Tanya was ok, so it was only Draco who saw sections of the wall open and walls descend to form a barrier around them. From the patterns across the ceiling, he knew that they were about to be stuck in a maze, and cast a quick spell that copied the pattern onto the ground at his feet.

Tanya screamed suddenly, and Draco looked up, seeing her looking around at the walls with an expression of panic on her face. "Your little tripwire brought them down on us," he informed her, but didn't say anything else because Saul and Leon were glaring at him. "I copied down the pattern that shows the way through, by the way … so hopefully this won't take us too long."

Leon and Saul helped Tanya to her feet, "Carry on, fair leader, and we shalt follow thee into the gates of hell," Saul said dramatically, waving Draco ahead of him, and Leon chuckled, as they once more pushed Tanya head of them, walking two abreast behind her.

Draco copied his map to a piece of paper, and then the led the way into the maze.

Half an hour later, and Draco was no longer think that this would only take a little while. "Tanya, I would like to know exactly how you've managed to find just about every bloody trip wire in the entire maze!" he growled at Tanya, who was sprawled on the ground for the fiftieth time in the last ten minutes, having just fallen over yet another trip wire.

"Sorry," Tanya replied, letting Saul and Leon help her to her feet. "Well, it wasn't so bad, was it? It didn't do anything too bad, did it?"

There was a sudden sound behind them, and they spun around to see a mummy walking out of an alcove that had just appeared. "No, nothing too bad at all," Draco muttered wearily. "You stay back, and let us handle it," he added to Tanya, who obediently huddled against the wall, while the three boys moved toward the mummy. This was the forth one she'd released so far.

Saul picked up a rock and hurled it at the mummy, which turned its attention to him, while Draco raced straight it, pulling out the sword that he carried with him at all times and lopping the mummies head off, while Leon leapt into the air and kicked it in the chest, sending it sprawling to the ground, where it turned to dust.

"Dude, we have that down to such a fine art," Saul remarked, looking at the dust, then they collected Tanya and started forward again.

"Can you try not to fall over any more tripwires?" Draco asked, as he had since the second one she'd tripped over.

"I'll try to try," Tanya replied, then suddenly stumbled and went down, "Oops," she said, just as Saul bellowed, "HIT THE GROUND!" the walls had opened, and all down the next part of the maze, spears were shooting out at chest height from either side of the corridor.

Tanya, already down, looked up apologetically and tried to smile. "Oops," she repeated, "My bad."

"I think we get the point now," Saul said, then chuckled weakly, "Get it – point? The spears, you get it? How they have the points?"

"How can you be so intelligent one minute, and so stupid the next?" Draco asked.

"Tis a fine art," Saul assured him.

"Like a fine wine," Leon put in, "It matures with age … only Saul … dematures … wait, is that a word?"

"I dunno, you didn't see him at eleven," Tanya said, picking herself up, then throwing herself down again as a second round of spears flew overhead.

Saul stood up uneasily, once that round had finished, and nothing happened, so they all got up and headed on. "I fail to see how you can find tripwires so easily. I've already walked across the ground that you're walking on, and you still manage to find tripwires!" Draco growled at her.

"Why don't you go third, Tanya?" Saul said, "Maybe it's just that the tripwires are activated when Draco walks past."

Twenty minutes later, Tanya had disproved this theory on no fewer than five occasions. "Not again," Draco groaned, as Tanya hit something, and jumped now, no longer sprawling every time she hit a tripwire, she was keeping her balance a lot easier now. "What's going on now?"

"The walls!" Tanya whimpered, pointing. The group looked around, and noted with mounting panic that the walls were starting to close in on them.

"Maybe it's just this section," Saul remarked, unhopefully, but Tanya took off, bolting straight down the corridor as fast as she could run, the others spurred into action by her movement. Three turns on, and the walls were so close that it was very hard to run, but Tanya was moving as fast as the limited space would allow. Suddenly she tripped, yet again, on a corner, and flew straight into a wall, breaking her headlong fall.

The stone that she fell against was pushed into the wall a little. "What now?" Leon groaned – even he wasn't very happy.

"The walls stopped moving!" Tanya yelled happily, then noticed just how close the walls were to her and panicked again. Suddenly the walls whipped back, quickly reforming.

Draco sighed in relief, "For once, it seemed you've managed to do something right," he remarked. "But it was you who got us in trouble in the first place, so don't think you've been forgiven!"

Tanya ignored him, holding up one hand, trying to revolve it, then she gave a cry of pain. "What?" Leon and Saul asked as one.

"I think I sprained my wrist," Tanya said, biting her lip, holding it against her chest. Draco, looking at the map, cursed at just the same second.

"The bloody walls have changed!" he said, "That's what your little rescue trick did!"

"Draco, calm down … we'll just have to use point me, or something like that," Leon said, focusing on that problem. Since this seemed a little more important than a sprained wrist, which she'd lived through several times before, being a gymnast, Tanya didn't say anything more. Besides, she figured that she was already causing more problems than she was worth, and didn't want to seem like she was whining.

Draco didn't have a wand on him, and had already told Saul and Tanya that he was a Magai, so Leon took over the lead, using the Point Me spell to try and negotiate the rest of the way.

For over an hour, Tanya actually managed to avoid falling over anything or setting off any traps … except for that one mummy, which wasn't too bad. While everyone else had forgotten about it, Tanya was too busy concentrating on her hurting arm to be panicking and setting off traps without meaning to.

Of course, the lucky streak couldn't last long, and half an hour further on, she fell over a tripwire and, in surprise, went sprawling, hurting her wrist a second time, crying out again, which, once again, no one noticed. The ceiling opened and a boulder was hurtling toward them on a long string. By the time it hit them, it would be pretty much touching the ground – there would be no escape.

Draco threw up his hands, and the boulder was frozen in mid air. The second jarring of her wrist was too painful to try and put out of her mind, and Tanya couldn't quite manage to stop a scattering of tears falling from her eyes. "Tanya? Oh, I'm so sorry! We forgot all about your wrist!" Leon said, kneeling beside her, both him and Saul forgetting about the boulder that Draco was holding up with magic.

"What did she do?" Draco asked.

"She sprained her wrist when she fell into the wall that stopped the walls closing in on us," Leon replied, "But we forgot when we realised that the walls had moved. You should have said something, Red."

Tanya shrugged slightly, the tears wiped away, once more collected and trying to put the pain out of her mind, or at least let herself concentrate on that, rather than the enclosed spaces. "I'd rather think about pain than some of other things I could be thinking about."

"Once we get past this rock, I'll heal it for you," Draco said, "In the meantime, can we just move on?"

The group hurried past the rock, and then Draco let go of it, and it spiralled away into the darkness, then come racing back like a pendulum, but it didn't come anywhere near enough to threaten them a second time. Draco sat Tanya down, "Now, this might tingle a bit – Magai healing isn't quite the same as normal magical healing."

"I know," Tanya replied calmly, "Justine's healed me often enough when I've tried new methods in gymnastics and end up nearly killing myself. I do that quite a lot, you know, nearly kill myself in gymnastics … I almost broke my back last year … Kris once said that she should get a pager so that I could call her whenever I needed to be healed again, but that was just stupid because she'd never find me, even if I did get a message through, and she'd have to call my mobile anyway, and it would be easier if I just called her mobile in the first place. Mobile phones are so much better than pagers, they give you so much more information-"

Draco looked Tanya in the eye, "Tanya, you're babbling," he told her, and she paused to take the first breath she had since she'd started babbling.

"I know," Tanya replied. Draco sighed and put a hand on her wrist.

"Heal," he said, and felt the magic jump to do his bidding.

Tanya didn't even make a sound as the magic soothed her pain, and she stood up quickly as Draco started walking immediately after Healing her.

Saul and Leon shook their heads and followed. Tanya hadn't mentioned to Draco that she was claustrophobic, and until she did, they wouldn't say anything.

Not too much longer, they reached what had to be the end of the maze. They could see where the steps that would lead them up to the next level where supposed to, there was marks on the wall that showed that there were stairs, but they couldn't see the stairs themselves. Draco groaned, "What now?" he asked, "I mean, we're obviously in the right place, but there's something that we're missing."

Tanya had wandered a little way away from her companions, and was examining some hieroglyphs on the wall. This room was far more open than the corridors of the maze where, and she was relaxing a little, though she knew that soon it would seem to shrink in on her.

Walking along the wall, her fingers trailing across the rows of hieroglyphs, when suddenly she hit something and tumbled over sideways. Everyone spun around to look at her as she yelped in surprise. "NOT AGAIN!" Draco screamed, finally losing the plot completely.

Before he could do any more than take a couple of steps in Tanya's direction, there was a loud groaning sound, and the wall flipped up and out of the way to reveal a set of stairs, which were leading up. Draco looked at the stairs, then at Tanya lying on the ground, smiling and trying to look cute, in hopes that he wouldn't hurt her.

"This has to be a trick," he said, "But I guess we may as well try it …" Tanya stood up and they moved toward the stairs.

"Lumos" came Hermione's voice from the semi-darkness somewhere to Justine's left. She looked around to see that the cave was deep, falling into darkness near the back wall and about twelve feet wide. In the Centre of the room Justine saw what appeared to be four red packs. She calmly walked over to them and held the first one up to her also now glowing hand and read from the tab on the front of the bag 'Hermione Granger'.

"Well Hermione this is your pack, Harry, Ax," she said as she threw everyone their respective packs.

Opening hers she found a white snow jacket and thermos full of what smelt like hot chocolate. She also found a pair of thick socks and hiking boots, a map, some freeze dried food, an apple, and a silver compact heat blanket. "Oh thank god." She muttered as she pulled on the jacket and snuggled down into its fuzzy lining. She smiled and looked around at the group. "Very nice."

"Well," said Ax from where he was studying the map. This thing does not have the bloody Portkey marked, all it says is that it's a kilometre away."

"So we need to go one kilometre from the cave in every direction while we have mr growly Yeti stalking us?" Justine gasped.

"I don't think that's too wise…" Hermione worried.

"Don't worry girls, we can handle it, my main concern is that we need to show intuition over magic, it's the point of our quest, and as such I don't think anything's going to come to us too easily." Ax was now rummaging through his pack, "I got a lighter in my front pocket, Justine what do you have?"

Justine looked down at her pack and undid the front pocket. Inside she found a compass and she held it up. Hermione found a page form the book 'magical creatures and where to find them', entailing the yeti and it's weaknesses and strengths. Harry found a first aid kit, most of which he could use from his days as a Muggle, but most of which Justine and Ax found delightfully funny.

"So we need a plan." Harry said as he found his voice, standing near the faintly electric entrance to the cave. "We need one fast too, it looks like we're going to get some sort of storm, and I don't fancy our chances of finding this stupid Portkey in the dark."

"Well, we obviously have to protect the campsite," Ax remarked, "So whatever happens, someone has to stay here, and it would be best if there were two people, which would mean that if one person got hurt, there'd be someone to help out."

"And that would mean that two people are out searching for the Portkey at any one time," Harry agreed, "So there'd always be someone to watch the other's back. If we use the map, we can find something that's a kilometre away from here and get out there, then try and move in a circle around the camp."

Ax nodded. "I think for the first part of this, you and me should go out on the trek, and leave the girls here to take care of the camp."

"But, what about the yeti?" Hermione said nervously.

"If we build a fire toward the front of the cave, then the yeti won't come near us," Justine pointed out. "They don't like fire, ergo we need big fire, and it won't come near us!"

"We have to find dry wood first," Harry pointed out, "Since there isn't any here."

"Why not just use magic?" Justine demanded.

"Justine, the way this is supposed to work is that you rely on magic as little as possible," Ax reminded her. "Therefore, we need to go and find wood, if we want to get good marks."

"Fine," Justine muttered, outvoted. "Should someone stay back and watch the cave, just in case? While everyone else is looking for fire wood?"

"Probably, why, do you want to?" Hermione asked.

"No, I was thinking you probably should. I'm a Magai, I can defend myself against a yeti without magic and without risk if needs be," Justine replied, "Harry's a Magai too, and Ax is a sword mage. We should go and get fire, and you should probably stay here and guard the camp."

Hermione looked about to protest at being given the boring, if less dangerous, job, but Ax and Harry agreed with Justine's reasoning, and she was stuck at the camp.

Out in the snow, Justine immediately started wishing that she'd let Hermione come instead, because it was cold and the yeti was too close to comfort. With a slight shrug, she used her powers to warm herself and to create a ball of fire that hovered at her shoulder, ready for her to point toward the yeti, if it came any closer. That done, she started hunting for dry wood.

"Dammit, how are we supposed to find dry wood in the bloody snow?" she asked herself, then rolled her eyes at her own stupidity and headed for the denser trees, keeping a very close ear on any noises that were nearby, because the yeti was somewhere in the trees.

Once they reached the top of the stairs, Draco glared at Tanya, "That was just stupid, dumb luck," he told her.

"Probably," she agreed, decidedly more cheerful as she examined this room. It was a hell of a lot bigger than the room they'd just come from, and stacked with piles of treasure all over the place. "Cool."

"Wonder what we have to do here?" Draco murmured, and everyone shrugged. "Well, we aren't going to find out standing here, so we may as well walk to the door and see what happens." They could see the door, on the far side of the room. Midway up from the floor was a shelf that ran across the wall until it hit the corner.

"There's a lot of things that could be hiding in that treasure," Leon remarked. "We should stick pretty close together, I think. Just in case."

The other three nodded in agreement, and, in a bunched up group, they made their way across the chamber, tripping over bits of treasure and carefully making their way around larger obstacles, like golden chests.

Once they reached the door, they looked back across the chamber in confusion. "Nothing happened," Tanya remarked. "Wonder if it's activated by a tripwire too?"

Saul was examining the door, and the shelf that was, for him, at chest height. Now that they were closer, they could see that hieroglyphs lined the door, and that there were six circular indents on the shelf, three to each side of the door. Each had a single hieroglyph beside it.

"If it is, don't find it," Draco told her, scowling.

Tanya laughed softly, "Well, I'll try not to. But if we need to find a tripwire to get through this door, just let me go exploring – I'm sure I'll fall over it eventually!"

"We won't need a tripwire," Saul announced suddenly, and everyone turned to look at him. "I've been decoding the door," he said, pointing to it. "It says something along the lines of we have to find the statues of the gods and place them on the shelf … It's kind of hard, decoding hieroglyphs, because the have same symbol for pretty much every vowel."

"What gods do we need to find?" Tanya asked – she'd done a bit of work on Egypt when she was in Primary School, and Saul had often shown her things that he'd done, because none of his other friends would just sit and listen to him going on about Egypt.

"We need Ra, Isis, Anubis, Horus, Hathor, and Osiris," Saul replied, "And we have to put them in their places – they're marked on the shelf."

"We'll let you do the positioning," Draco told him. "Do you know what the statues will look like? Unlike you two, I didn't spend my time researching ancient peasants."

Saul looked at him, "Calm down, Blondie," he told him. "I'll draw you a picture."

"A picture? Isn't that significantly different to a statue?" Draco demanded.

"Each of the gods has a particular image, when in statue form, and each has definitive characteristics. You'll be able to find them from a picture, especially if it's drawn by someone who knows what he's looking for. Tanya, you remember the gods, don't you?"

"I think so," Tanya replied cheerfully. "Anyway, I can just look for statues, I'll know the gods when I see them."

"Off you go then," Saul smiled at her, and she nodded, heading off.

"Is it really smart to let her go off on her own?" Draco asked. "She didn't do too well downstairs."

"She'll be fine now," Saul replied, and started drawing a picture on the ground.

"You know, why don't we just find statues, and whenever we find one, we can call you or Tanya and find out if it's one of the one's we need?" Leon asked. "That would be easier than trying to remember different pictures."

Saul shrugged, "Works for me – how about you Draco?"

"Fine," Draco replied, and the three of them set off after Tanya, picking their way through the piles of treasure, searching for anything that resembled a statue. By the light of their wands, it wasn't very easy to see much.

"Draco!" Tanya called from a little way ahead of the boys, and when they looked up, she had turned to face them, perching on top of a stone chest.

"What?" Draco called back.

"Justine has a trick that she does sometimes on our camping trips. She can make the entire area light up like day – can you?" Tanya asked, "There just isn't enough light to see what we need to do."

Draco frowned. "I've never done something like that before, but I guess I could try," he replied. A moment later, the chamber was filled with pale blue light. "Well, it's light," Draco said, when Saul and Leon looked at him. "I'll see if I can change the colour."

He concentrated for a moment, then the blue became yellow-white and the entire chamber was completely revealed. "Thanks!" Tanya called, and went back to looking for statues.

Ten minutes later, no one had found anything, and everyone was starting to get a little frustrated. There was so much stuff in here! How were they supposed find six statues in the middle of this?

"Hey! I think I've found Ra!" Tanya yelled suddenly, excited. "Pretty boy with sun disk behind his head and a scarab at his feet – that's Ra, isn't it?"

"Yup," Saul replied. "Bring it over here and show me, just to make sure."

Tanya came over to Saul, holding a foot tall statue made from gold. "That's Ra alright," Saul agreed. "Take it over and put it by the door, would you?"

"Sure," Tanya replied, and headed off while the boys returned to their searching.

An hour and a half later, they'd found Osiris, Horus, Isis, and Hathor, but Anubis was nowhere in sight. "This is getting frustrating," Leon remarked, sounding rather annoyed. "Why couldn't the Egyptians make things easy?"

"Because that belittles the point of having curses in the first place," Saul said patiently.

"It wasn't the Egyptians anyway, it was Terry," Draco pointed out.

"He is so going down," Leon snapped.

Suddenly Tanya tripped and fell over something, banging her head against a golden chest.

"Tanya!" Saul and Leon yelled as one.

Draco, who wasn't very far away from where Tanya had fallen, jumped over the chest and knelt beside Tanya, "She's bleeding," he called to the other two.

"She has a name," Tanya told him, "And she has also found Anubis!"

"And she is now going to stop referring to herself in third person, because I need to have her focus while I heal her."

Tanya giggled. "Look, I'm sorry about talking about Justine before. Justine said I wasn't supposed to talk about Justine, but then something happened and I forgot and it just slipped out and I said Justine and it all went on from there and-"

Saul came up behind her and put a hand over her mouth. "You're babbling again," he pointed out.

Draco went still at the mention of Justine, then shook himself, putting her out of his mind, and healed a long gash across Tanya's forehead.

"Thanks," Tanya said, getting to her feet and cradling a jackal headed statue in her hands. "And now we have Anubis!"

"What was he the god of?" Draco asked.

"Embalming and death," Saul replied.

"Seems to fit her horse pretty well. Did she choose it especially?" Draco asked.

"No, they couldn't name him, and I was walking by and said they should call it Anubis – then it wouldn't answer to anything else. Justine's the only one who gets away with calling him Nubie though," Saul replied cheerfully.

"You named your friends horse after the god of death?" Leon asked.

"Hey, it had just taken out seven stable hands for suggesting names it didn't like – I thought it might be appropriate," Saul replied, as they reached the door with the last statue.

Saul took the statue of Ra, and placed it on the far left of the door, where there was a picture of the Eye of Ra, then Isis, who took the form of a beautiful woman with sparrow hawk wings extending from her back and placed it beside Ra, followed by Osiris, who was made of black stone and had a fancy head-dress. On the other side of the door, Hathor was a woman holding a ceremonial ankh, and she was followed by Horus, the falcon headed god, and last, but not least, was Anubis.

"Weird," Tanya remarked, "That's the order that we found the statues in!"

"Why isn't the door opening?" Draco asked. "Do we need to do something else?"

"It doesn't say anything else," Saul replied, but examined the hieroglyphs again anyway. "Oh yes it does – it says that the door will never open to allow the treasure to pass through."

He'd been holding a piece of leather that he'd found wrapped around one of the statues, and quickly dropped it. The moment that he did, the door swung open, revealing steps up to the next level.

"What's that?" Harry asked, pointing in the snow. There was something bright red sitting on a fallen tree. "Could that be the Portkey?"

He and Ax walked over to it, tired after tramping through the snow for most of the day in a so far hopeless search for the Portkey home. Ax approached the tree trunk and looked at the object sitting on it. "Looks like it to me," he replied cheerfully, lifting the stone, which had been painted fluro red.

"The note said that the Portkey would only activate if it remained on the chosen site," Harry pointed out.

"Well, we'd better mark the tree and bury this, just in case the yeti tries to steal the stone, which wouldn't be a good thing, considering. Then, just in case, we'll finish the circuit and make sure that there isn't anything else that could be the Portkey," Ax decided.

"Probably a good idea. It's still maybe an hour and a half until sundown, and we're pretty close to the starting point now," Harry agreed, "Why didn't we come this way, instead of going toward East? By the compass, we're at bloody West-North-West now!"

Ax sighed, "Well, if we'd gone the other way, the stupid Portkey would probably be at East-North-East," he remarked, and used his sword to cut a large 'X' in the fallen tree, while Harry buried what they were pretty sure was the Portkey in the snow beside the trunk. That done, they stood and headed off.

Just before the sun went down, they reached the starting point, and, since they hadn't found anything more likely, decided that the red stone must be the Portkey, and turned to head for the camp again.

"Man, I'm starving," Ax said.

"I wish I had a muffin," Harry agreed. "Narcissa makes the best muffins."

"You haven't been in heaven till you've eaten one of Gwen's cupcakes," Ax argued. "I'd rather have a cupcake than a muffin."

"Gwen?" Harry arched an eyebrow.

"Tegan's mum," Ax replied. "She adopted me, and gives me cupcakes every time I go over there. Cupcakes are divine."

"Muffins are better, they have fruit in them," Harry said.

"No way, cupcakes have icing, and sometimes, when she's in a really good mood, she puts jam and cream in the middle of the. Man, that's a good cupcake."

"You've got me there," Harry admitted.

"What's that?" Ax asked, tilting his head slightly and looking around locate where a noise had come from.

"It's the yeti," Harry said, spotting a patch of moving white fur.

"Run," Ax resolved, "Hopefully we can make it to the cave before we have to try and fight it – I don't fancy our chances against a yeti, if we aren't supposed to use much magic."

Harry nodded, and they bolted in the direction that the cave should be in. Not much later, they could hear the crackling of a fire through the trees, and the sound of a fairly cheerful conversation. Suddenly they burst through the trees and there was the cave ahead of them, a fire blazing not too far past the entrance.

Hermione and Justine were sitting on the other side of the fire, and when Harry walked in, Hermione threw herself at him, babbling about how she was so glad that he was alright and telling him not to scare her by running off and not saying anything again.

"Don't I get a hug?" Ax asked, coming to start beside Justine, "No 'hi Ax, I'm glad you're alright'?"

Justine stuck her nose in the air and turned away from him, "I'm not talking to you, you used me as a diversion."

"We found the Portkey," Ax told her, hoping that she'd get over it soon.

"A diversion," Justine repeated.

"We needed to get away from the yeti without it following us, and we'd never have left if we didn't think that you could take care of yourself."

Justine didn't even look at him that time.

"We didn't mean to stay out all day, but things got away on us, and like I said, we found the Portkey."

Still no response.

"I found you a present," Ax tried the easiest way of getting Justine to pay attention to you.

She spun around, her face lighting up at the prospect of a gift.

Ax knew he had to think fast, otherwise, she'd be ignoring him for even longer than she would have if he hadn't said anything. "It's a … hug! C'mere!" he bounded over and pulled her into a tight embrace, and Justine hugged him back before she even thought about it.

When he pulled away, she gave him a cool look, "You're slipping," she told him, and he shrugged. At least she was talking to him again.

"I don't like the sound of this," Leon remarked. They were standing in front of a door which would lead them into the next area. From inside there was a sound of shuffling feet and things banging into the wall. "Sounds like there's something alive in there."

"Mummies maybe," Tanya said, looking uneasily around the walls that enclosed the stairway.

"Could be," Saul agreed.

"Well, we aren't going to get to the Portkey standing here all day," Draco said calmly, "If there's mummies, we know how to handle them. Tanya, you stay back, keep as close to the door as possible. Leon, you and I both have swords, so we'll attack separately, and Saul, you try and distract them a little so that they don't corner anyone."

Everyone nodded. Because she didn't know how big the next room would be, Tanya didn't offer the suggestion that she could help, because if the room was small, she'd just panic and let everyone down. She wished she wasn't claustrophobic, but she was, and she couldn't help that right now.

Draco pushed the door open and they all quickly entered the room. It wasn't as small as Tanya had feared it might be, but it wasn't nearly big enough for comfort. Inside, there were four mummies coming straight for the door. "Tanya, against the wall, now," Draco said, and she stepped back obediently.

Draco beheaded the nearest mummy quickly after drawing his sword, and Leon did the same. As the mummies fell to the ground and turned to dust, golden keys clattered across the ground. Tanya slipped away from the wall and grabbed them both. The other two mummies sudden started moving faster, and both of them were boxing in on Leon.

They ignored the stones that Saul threw at them, even ignored it when he came close enough to kick at them. They had both picked up shields and were using them to block Leon's blows as the boy tried to deal with them.

Draco came rushing in to try and do something, but the moment he got near enough, the mummies went back to back, so that one was facing Leon and the other was facing Draco. Each of them reached out to the wall, where huge swords were hanging, and took a sword down.

Tanya gave a soft whimper of fear – her friends were trapped and she was doing nothing! She looked around, hoping to find a weapon, but the only weapons she could see where two swords, the like of which of the two mummies were holding, on her side of the wall. The blades were nearly as long as she was tall, so there was no way she could use them for a weapon.

"Saul!" she called to him, because he'd been forced to move away from the fight, since he was unable to actually do anything. He looked over at her, "Can you pick up those swords?" she asked, pointing to the other two swords.

Saul went over to them, and, with some difficulty, got one of them off the wall, staggering slightly under it's weight. "I don't think I stand much of a chance of doing anything fancy with this … not that Ax has been able to teach me much."

"As Kris said at the Hunt Feast – you stick the pointy end in the other man, or in this case, mummy," Tanya told him. "I wouldn't stand a chance at doing anything, but maybe you can do enough to make a difference! Please hurry, Leon's getting awfully close to that corner!"

Saul nodded in agreement. He couldn't leave his team mates to their doom. Hefting the sword, he rushed at the mummy that was attacking Draco and thrust the sword in under it's elbow. It turned to dust and a third key appeared, just as Leon threw himself sideways onto the floor, rolling on his shoulder out of the way of the mummy, which turned to follow him.

On his feet again, Leon lashed out with his sword, and managed to snap the leather band that had attached the shield to the mummies arm. "All you have to do is get your sword into the mummy, and it'll turn to dust," Saul called to him, and Leon nodded. It still wouldn't be easy – the mummy was moving even faster now, and Leon had to think a lot about the huge sword that mummy was trying to kill him with.

"You guys stay back, I don't want you to get hurt as well," Leon called to them, before focusing his whole attention on the mummy. "Try the other keys, see if you can get out of here while I distract this fellow."

Saul, Draco and Tanya made their way to the door into the next room, holding the three keys they'd managed to collect so far, while Leon danced around the mummy, sword flicking this way and that as he desperately tried to keep the mummy's own sword from finding its mark, and at the same time trying to pierce the mummy.

"These keys don't work," Saul said, after they'd tried each of them. "It must be the key that the other mummy has."

Leon was obviously beginning to tire now, and was spending all his energy on keeping the mummy away from him, rather than actually trying to hurt the mummy. "Leon, that mummy has the key we need," Tanya called to him, and they saw the expression on Leon's face suddenly change, from one calm determination to that of one who knows what he has to do … whatever the consequences.

The next time the mummy swung at him, Leon half turned his body, thrusting his own sword toward the mummy's chest, his body in the way of it's swing, so it couldn't defend itself in time. Tanya screamed as the mummies sword bit into the flesh of Leon's arm, even as Leon's sword found its mark.

The mummy turned to dust, and a key clattered across the floor, and the giant sword fell away from Leon, also hitting the ground with a clang, but no one was paying attention to it, as Draco leaped to Leon's side and caught the Hufflepuff boy as he fell, "Heal," Draco whispered, and the magic raced to do his bidding.

The wound healed, but blood covered most of Leon's arm and chest. Leon smiled, "Well, at least Tanya's not the only one who's gotten hurt now," he said, getting unsteadily to his feet and shaking his head a little. Tanya came over to him, slipping an arm around his waist.

"You scared me," she told him.

"I scared myself," Leon replied, "But it was the only way I could have gotten past that mummy. Draco, thank you," he continued, turning to the Slytherin boy.

"Do you feel alright?" Saul asked.

"I feel fine. At least now I feel like I've managed to do something, instead of letting Draco handle everything," Leon grinned at them. "Let's move on, shall we?"

Night was approaching in the Australian Outback, and Tegan, having spent the day getting through one of the Australian Dragon Reserves, which had been easy for her, but not in the least bit easy for Ron. The little bastard had driven Justine away from the one man she'd ever love! He had so gone down today.

First there'd been the time when she'd accidentally closed the door on the Wentworth dragon breeding programme enclose … pretending not to realise that Ron was still inside. A mother Wentworth dragon standing guard over her eggs was not happy to find a human boy nearby.

The only reason Tegan had let him out was because she didn't want to upset the dragons too much – they didn't deserve to be worried by the likes of Ron Weasley.

Her wish to see Ron dead had not been helped by the fact that he had been flirting with her all day, rather than paying attention to what she was telling the rest of the group about dragons. And he was wondering why she was trying to kill him … idiot.

"OK, it's gonna start getting cold soon, so we want to find a place to stay the night, and set up a fire before night hits us," Tegan said cheerfully, "Out here in the desert, it can hit minus twenty pretty easily. Remember – the hotter the day, the colder the night."

"Once we get a fire started, any other groups in the area will probably see it and join us," Adam took over, "We'll show you how to cook your food when most of the people have arrived, that way we won't have to keep repeating ourselves."

Susan Bones and Ron just nodded – they were more than happy to let the two Australians show them how to do everything … provided that Tegan didn't accidentally teach Ron the wrong way.

Tegan finally chose a site for them to camp on, though no one was sure why she had chosen this site, as opposed to several that Ron, or Adam had pointed at, all of which seemed to be pretty much the same as the one that she had chosen.

Adam and Tegan demonstrated how to light a fire, and then Tegan banished Ron to try and make his own a few metres from the one that she claimed was 'hers and Adam's'.

By the time full dark had fallen, three more groups had joined theirs, and Tegan stood up and called everyone to her fire. Once she had everyone's eyes on her, she held up a can of bake beans, which everyone had found in their packs when they arrived. "This," she said, shaking it a little, "Is baked beans. Tucker … Food, in your words. To cook your beans, chuck it in the fire and wait for it to go BOOM!" she yelled the last word, making everyone jump.

"It'll explode outward and form a nice little bowl, though it might be a little hot … if so, your problem, not mine," she finished, and tossed the can over her shoulder into the flames, "Should take about ten minutes, and don't worry, not many of the beans will escape in the exploding process."

Tanya looked around the room they now found themselves in, and felt blind panic returning. The room was tiny! It looked to be maybe five paces across and on the other side of the chamber was a door with a box divided into sixteen squares. "What's that?" she asked, pointing.

They walked across the chamber to the door. It was one of those box puzzles that had all but one of the pieces, and you had to try and make the picture by moving the pieces around, one piece at a time.

Draco stepped forward, as did Saul, to try and make it work, but Tanya pushed them both back. "It's my turn," she told them. "I had one of these things when I was little, and I was rather good at it."

Half of a frustrating hour later, she finally managed to get the picture right and the door opened. Immediately Tanya bolted into the next room, which was a lot bigger than this one was. Saul, Leon and Draco started after her, but before Tanya had gotten three steps forward, she was suddenly jerked back, and they all found themselves back in the room, the door closed and the puzzle restarted … only it had a different, more intricate picture now.

"Tanya! What did you do?" Draco yelled.

Tanya glared at the door. "I don't know," she replied. "Oh well, I'll get the puzzle eventually. Let me think."

Three quarters of an hour later, she got the door open again, but when she bolted, the same thing happened, and the puzzle got even more intricate. "I can do it!" She said, "But I wonder why we keep getting pulled back?"

"Next time you get the door open, don't go running straight through. Wait for us," Draco told her, sounding more than a little irritable now. "Why don't you let me do this?"

"No! I can do it!" she replied, and started doing the puzzle yet again.

The next time she opened the door – no one bothered to keep track of how long it took her that time, agreeing later that it had been 'too long' and leaving it at that – she took a half step forward, but tripped over a step that the door had been resting on, and fell down, through the door. The moment her hands touched the ground, they were yanked back into the chamber, yet again.

"OK Tanya, this time I'm doing it," Draco told her.

"Fine," Tanya sulked, and went to stand just behind Saul and Leon while Draco worked out the puzzle in only ten minutes. Since they'd told her to stay behind, because she kept closing the door, Tanya forced herself, with some considerable difficulty, not to go racing into the next room.

Suddenly the door was closed again, and the three boys were in front of her again. "Tanya!" Draco yelled.

"You said to stay back," Tanya said in evident confusion. "So I did."

Draco put a hand to his forehead, "We have to go through the door at the same time," he told her with a sigh. "Right, I'm going to do the puzzle again, and this time you walk with us."

Tanya nodded, and Draco went back to the door.

This time, when he finished it and the door opened, Draco grabbed Tanya and made sure that they walked through the door at the same time, into the next chamber. This chamber was as bare as the last one had been, though it was somewhat bigger than the last one. The walls were covered with hieroglyphs, but Saul couldn't make any sense of them when he went over to the walls to examine them.

Because they didn't understand the hieroglyphs at all, Tanya, Draco and Leon went to sit on the floor near the door and let Saul concentrate. "He's been sensible all day," Draco remarked, looking at Saul as the McEwan boy examined the walls. "Isn't he usually the idiot?"

"He's McEwan," Tanya replied, "He's pretty much the most intelligent person in our entire year – he got one hundred percent in all but two of his OWLs two years ago and he gets one hundred percent on just about every test we ever have to sit … he just likes being an idiot and hiding the fact that he's smart."

"Why?" Draco asked.

"Do you really want to have a male Hermione?" Tanya asked. She didn't know the Hogwarts Head Girl very well, but she'd heard quite a bit about her, and thought that she sounded a lot like Saul gone wrong. "I think it's mainly because most of his friends are footy-heads who laugh at him when he acts at all intelligent."

Draco just shook his head, not understand why anyone want to act stupid, if they had a choice in the matter … and then he remembered what Seamus had told him – sometimes you just have to act like a kid, it's good for you.

"Wonder what this is?" Saul murmured aloud, seeing a small circle in the very centre of the room, it was raised a little from the rest of the floor. Standing on this, he looked around the walls again, and immediately realised that several of the hieroglyphs on the walls went blue when he stood here.

He turned around, and then around again, looking at the markings and trying to decide what order that they should be read in.

"The door you seek…" he murmured, "Through which to pass … is not locked … just heavy. It says the door is heavy – well, that's easy enough I suppose. Let's go push it!"

He bounded over to join them at the door, and the other three stood up and put their shoulders to the door, pushing against it with all the strength they could muster. Slowly, it began to move, centimetre by painful centimetre. Finally it was open enough for them to slip through, and into the next room.

On the wall, there was a set of hieroglyphs, but they were only in one place, and there was no other marking anywhere in the room. "Saul?" everyone turned to him.

Saul sighed and went to stand by the wall. "Can someone write this down as I translate?" he asked, and Draco took out a piece of paper and Tanya handed him a pen from her pocket, showing him how to use it.

"This thing all things devours

Birds, Beasts, Trees and flowers

Gnaws iron, bites steel

And grinds hard bones to meal

Slays kings and ruins town

And beats high mountain down."

Saul translated slowly, and before he could even go back to look over what he'd written and solve the riddle, Draco said, "Time."

"What?"

"Time, that's the answer," Draco replied. Everyone looked at him. "What? Hermione gave Harry some Muggle book called the Hobbit, and he made me read it … this was one of the riddles from that."

"How did a riddle from the Hobbit get into an ancient Egyptian pyramid?" Leon demanded.

"Something to do with Terry, I'm sure," Draco replied, and they walked into the next room. Saul, in the lead, jumped back a little way when he stepped into a pool of water.

"What?" Draco asked.

"Can you light this place up?" Saul asked, "I just stepped into water, and I don't know how deep it is."

A moment later the chamber was filled with light and they could see that there was a labyrinth of water filling the chamber. "What's this supposed to be?" Draco wondered.

"Snake!" Leon yelled, pointing. Indeed, winding it's way through the tunnels of water was a rather large water snake. "That's a Coral Snake! They're really poisonous."

"It's pretty," Tanya remarked, looking under Draco's arm at the scarlet and yellow snake that was winding its way towards them.

"Keep back," the boys told her, pushing her back toward the last chamber, even though the door had already closed behind them, trying to get her out of the way of the snake. Ignoring Tanya's protests, they started discussing what they might have to do with the snake.

Finally, Saul find some hieroglyphs that said that they had to milk the snake and throw the venom at the door to advance to the next section. "How the hell are we supposed to milk a bloody coral snake?" Leon demanded. "Someone would have to catch it for a start, and does anyone here know how to milk a snake?"

Tanya suddenly walked over to them, holding something in her hands. "Tanya, get out of the way and let us think," Draco told her. Tanya rolled her eyes and thrust a tube into Draco's hands.

"Hold that," she told him, "And don't come too close to me."

In her other hand, they realised that she was holding a pronged staff. "What are you doing?" Draco demanded.

"Catching a snake," Tanya replied, pacing across the dry parts of the maze, following the snake. When she caught up with it, she swiftly thrust the staff down, catching the snake neatly behind the neck, then reaching down calmly as the creature thrashed around, tyring to escape.

Slowly, she slipped her hands around the creatures neck, while the three boys watched in amazement. Then she let the pronged staff fall, and used her other hand to catch the snake just before the end of the tail so that it couldn't escape. It writhed, twisting it's body into shapes to try and make Tanya let go, but she wasn't about to let it, carrying it calmly back over to the three boys.

"Draco, I'm about to make the snake's jaws open, when they're fully open, put the tube between it's jaws and hold on tight. I'll let the snake bite, and keep up the pressure on it's teeth so that the poison keeps coming." Looking at the tube that she'd given him, Draco realised that it had a tight covering over the top, which the snake's teeth would pierce when it bit down.

Amazed that someone could be so calm while holding a snake as poisonous as the one that Tanya was, Draco obeyed, and soon they had a tube full of poison. The moment the tube was full, the snake shuddered, and turned to pale stone, and the water on the ground also turned to stone, leaving the chamber flat and totally bare.

Tanya carefully extracted the stone teeth from the top of the tube and put it down in a corner.

"So, you overcame your claustrophobia to pick up one of the most poisonous snakes in the world," Saul remarked, "Well done."

"So that's why you've been behaving weirdly all day!" Draco said, with an expression of clarity taking over his features. "You should have said something!"

Tanya blinked at him. "I didn't realise you didn't know," she told him. "Saul and Leon both do, so they've been trying to keep me calm all day – I guess I just thought that you would know … not that I was thinking much about anything except these walls being so close together," she looked warily around the room.

"We thought that you hadn't told him because you didn't want him to know," Leon told Tanya with a laugh, "So we didn't tell him anything for fear of making you angry."

Everyone shook their heads, laughing quietly. "Well, now I realise why you were so panicky. Sorry about losing my temper," Draco told Tanya.

Tanya smiled at him. "Don't worry, I don't mind. I probably deserved it, even if I am claustrophobic, I've been pretty hopeless all day."

"You weren't at all hopeless with that snake," Draco pointed out.

"I like snakes," Tanya replied, shrugging. "I've never been scared of them, and one of my carers taught me how to milk them once, and how to catch them so that I could take anything poisonous outside the house when she wasn't around," then she yawned widely.

"Maybe we should stop and have something to eat, then sleep for a little while before we tackle whatever comes next," Saul suggested. "Whatever comes next, we'll be able to face it much easier if we aren't tired."

Everyone nodded in agreement and they set up a sort of camp in the middle of the room. "It's about nine thirty at night, Hogwarts time, so we're well overdue for a sleep. Something big is probably coming next, so we may as well get as much sleep as possible," Draco remarked, checking his watch. "If we take two hour watches, we should get a pretty good sleep."

"Why watches?" Tanya asked, "There isn't anything nasty in this room, we're safe here."

"I don't trust this place," Draco replied. "We sleep in watches, just in case."

After seven hours of sleep, they were all awake, had something more to eat, and then Tanya did the honours and threw the poison at the wall, revealing a set of stairs.

"And up we go," she remarked, "Hopefully no small spaces up here."

Everyone smiled slightly at that, and they headed up the stairs.

When they reached the next level, the door was already open and waiting for them. This level was a single room, rather like the treasure level, and was a long corridor, lined with pedestals on either side. Every second pedestal had a very life like stone monkey perched on it. There six monkey statues.

"I see the door," Saul remarked, nodding toward the other side of the chamber, "But I don't see any obstacles."

"Let's go then," Tanya said. "The obstacles will come when they come."

They started down the corridor, looking around for any trace of danger, but it didn't come until they past the second set of monkey statues.

Tanya was looking straight at the statue, when suddenly it moved.

"Guys," she whispered, and pointed to the monkey, which had just jumped to the ground and was coming towards them.

"Shit."

Well that's chapter thirteen, hope you all enjoyed! I pronised cookies to all those who reviewed! (pulls out huge basket of magical cookies that go to the flavour of the person who is eating them favours) OK!

Taxzombie - Man, your review was inspirational, look at the length of this one! (hands the cookie) im a daimond amoungst toadstools, thats so sweet, i hope you catch the chapters up soon! thanyou for your review!

Queenie - MATE! (gives cookie) your a legend! (fends off rubber chicken!) well i suppose you wont like this one then...Cliffies are good, they keep yáll coming on back!

Bladeknight - (gives him massive cookie) yes you did see the fraft, but ichanged it (smug look) thanks for reviewing hun!

goDDark - thanks for reading and reviewing (gives her a tube of whipped cream and a cookie) We missed you on gaia, but it was great that you reviewed, and twice! legendary stuff, i officially dub the with an OoK (order of Kalliax) YOU ROCK!

Dark672 - ok, i'll say this now, i like you ok? dont get upset at me First off, this story is not your work, and Wolfmoon and i have written it H/Hr for our own resons. Dont get me wrong, the pairning annoys the hell outta me, but when you continue to be upset no matter how much we reassure you that they will break up soon it leads me to belive you dont even read my responses to your reviews, which is depressing cause i love responding. Its one of my favourite jobs. I happen think this story is really good.I can understand the Jacquething.Jacque was my best frind in High school, short for jacqueline, she spelt it that way, but pronounced it Ja-Key. Kallaix is an elitist schhol, we only take the best student by invitation, thus we have to be good, but we havnt won everything, Hermione trumps us in the Conferance for points'everytime, and we havnt played Hopgwarts in quidditch, theyre strong point yet. We might win that, were good quidditch players, but if we do SO WHAT! there are tons of other things for people to beat us at! now all the prelims are out of the way we get up to FINALS! when it gets tough. I like you Dark, you speak up and make me rethink the way i write the story, but stop repeating yourself, i do listen to you. (gives three cookies)

Murdrax - Yeah (hands cookie over) The warewolf scene was classic :) thanks for R+R! see you soon!

Darcy - (holds out big cookie) Ron was naughty! Thanks for reading!

So i say again - Read and review you legendary people, and i will give you candy, yes CANDY! i also have the actual "teen witch weekly article"i wrote it for all interested, say so in your review and i'll send you a link:) - Princess