The Thestral was beautiful, in an eerie sort of way. It looked more like a horse than anything else, with vast leathery wings at least twice as large as its body with a wicked looking talon at the end of each part of the wing. It had large but delicate, dragon-like feet with what looked more like talons than the more widespread toe of the dragon, and it had one toe that grew out of the back of its foot like a birds, serving as an opposable thumb. Each talon ended in deadly looking points that left scratches in the dirt when it walked. Its body was basically a thin layer of skin enclosing a skeleton, with almost no flesh at all, it looked like it could do with a few meals. Its matted mane was made of what looked like horse hair, but it was impossible to tell without touching it. It had a dragon-like head with large white eyes that were the only non black part of its body. I couldn't tell weather it had no pupils or not. I was sure it could see somehow though, I had read that somewhere.

The Thestral turned its head to stare at Saul. It flared its nostrils and started to walk towards him, completely ignoring me.

Saul stood there, petrified.

"Saul," I whispered "feed it."

Never taking his eyes off the Thestral, Saul slowly reached into the bag that held the meat. As he withdrew his hand the Thestral leaped at him. Saul had his wand up and pointing at the Thestral before I could blink. "Glacius!" he cried.

The Thestral froze mid-leap, all but one of its feet in the air.

I gave a low whistle. "That's some spell, Saul."

"Freezing spell" he said matter of factly, considerably calmer now that the Thestral was immobile.

"One minute. I'll just get the hairs." I knelt near the Thestrals hind legs and carefully clipped of several tail hairs.

"Okay, let's go. How long will this freezing spell last?"

Saul shrugged "until I perform the counter curse, I guess"

I bit back a reply and started removing the lid of the container that held the blood.

"You ready to go?" I asked after I had finished with the blood and the meat that I had lain about the clearing.

"Um, yah." Said Saul "When do I perform the counter curse?"

"As soon as we're far enough away to be uninteresting." I replied "Let's go."

By the time we got back to the castle I was practically skipping under the invisibility cloak.

"Why are you so happy?" asked Saul incredulously "We could have been killed!"

"Could have, not were. If you're so scared of death you should be happy too." On a normal occasion I would have been scared too, but I hadn't been in any real danger with Saul posing as bait, and I was too elated about the hairs to really care.

Saul had to stop and think about that for a minute

We reached the castle about ten minutes later and made our way toward the dungeons. About halfway down we saw Peeves loosening the carpet so that people would trip, but were able to avoid him thanks to a concealed detour behind a tapestry depicting Several dragons breathing fire on some dancing skeletons, weird, huh?

When we reached the Slytherin common room I pulled off my invisibility cloak and turned to leave.

I was almost to the stairs that led up to the girl's dormitory when Saul called out to me. "Uh, Orchid?" Rats.

"Yes?" I asked, turning back around

"Do, um, Do you want to go to Hogsmead with me this weekend?"

"Um, I'd love to, but I have other plans." Actually, I was already going with Dylan. "Look, I'm really tired right now, I'll see you tomorrow." I then hurried up the steps as fast as I could, not giving Saul a chance to answer.

I entered my dormitory to discover that (though it was nearly midnight) I wasn't the only one still awake. Sitting on her bed, crying, was Lark. Calandra sat next to her on her bed, trying to console her.

"There there Lark, It's not that bad. Everything will be fine in the morning"

"How do you know?" Lark choked out "If I have too many on me, nobody might be able to sort through the layers!"

"What's happened!" I asked, alarmed

"I was walking back to the common room after dinner with Katie when we met a group of Gryffindors" Lark said the word Gryffindors with such contempt and hatred that I shuddered, extremely glad that I was in her good book.

"One of the Gryffindors and Katie got into an argument, and Katie called one of them a mudblood, and a-"

"Whatever Katie said about them they deserved!" I cut in angrily "The whole lot of them are blood traitors and mud bloods, and the ones who aren't are filthy idiots who don't even deserve to clean muck off the toilets!"

"I know, I know." Calandra said hastily "now can you please let Lark get on with her story?"

I nodded, but Lark shook her head and Calandra took up the story for her.

"Good. Anyway, it turned into a fight and then one of those stupid Gryffindors started firing hexes everywhere, and before anybody had realized what was going on, Lark had cast a spell on the one that had been arguing with Katie and he started hopping around on one foot and bumping into everyone in his house while he sang a song about happy he was and-"

I burst out laughing "Good for you Lark!" I chuckled, patting her on the back

"I wasn't finished!" Said Calandra indignantly "It was still seven or eight against two, and once Lark had used that charm on their friend they got really angry and started firing dangerous hexes everywhere. Katie ran to get help and by the time she came back with a teacher they had already done that to her."

She pointed at larks face, but Lark hastily pulled the covers of her bed over her head.

"Oh come on Lark." Said Calandra "Orchid won't tease you, will you, Orchid?" Calandra asked in a warning tone

"Of course not." I replied hastily

"Okay" sniffed Lark, she seemed to have her crying under control now "I'll show you"

Lark let the blanket obscuring her head fall into her lap and brushed away her heavy, dark blond hair to reveal her face.

I gasped involuntarily. Lark's face looked like it had been hit with more hexes and charms than there were students at hogwarts. The color of her face was a grayish brown, which was what happened when you used more than ten color changing charms on a certain object to frequently (I knew this from the time me and Nuala got into an argument about what color her dress robes should be.). One of her eyes had been turned upside-down and her other had been blackened around the edges. Her eyebrows had been moved around to shape the words LOOSER across her forehead and her eyelashes were missing altogether. Before I could look more closely she had covered her face again.

"That's, that's terrible!" I exclaimed "Why didn't you go to the hospital wing though?"

"She did" Said Calandra "Aidana the nurse gave her a potion to spread on herself and we're hoping it will go away by morning, but Lark thinks that there are too many layers of spells for them to be undone."

"Don't worry Lark" I said, trying to sound optimistic "I'm sure everything will be fine in the morning, why don't you go to bed, you shouldn't be up all night worrying about this."

After Lark had gone to sleep, or at least pretended to, Calandra pulled me aside. "Orchid, I know that you're mad, but don't go and hex those Gryffindors, you'll just get into trouble."

"I don't care!" I whispered furiously "Didn't you see what they did to her!"

"Well, yes. But Katie did say some really nasty and embarrassing things to them, and that guy that Lark Hexed was captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team, and they have a game this week." Calandra looked like she was about to stop, but she continued anyway. "if it had been me in their situation, I think I would have hexed Lark too."

I just stared at her. "Calandra, you can't honestly be taking their side. If this is a joke, it isn't funny."

"I'm Lark's best friend." whispered Calandra "Do you really think I'd joke about something like this?"

"I can't believe what I'm hearing." I said

Calandra looked like she was regretting what she had said more and more "Of course, we did get revenge" she said, trying to make amends "A bunch of Slytherins heard about Lark and attacked the Gryffindors on their way back. Lark was lucky; at least she can still walk." Almost crying, Calandra got up from my bed and hurried over to hers on the other side of the room.

I stared after her, was she serious? She had never defended the Gryffindors before; then again, Katie could be pretty nasty sometimes… What was I thinking! Katie was one of my best friends, I couldn't blame her. Calandra was to blame, it was her fault! But Calandra had said that she had gotten revenge, now the Gryffindors couldn't walk. But Calandra hadn't said that she had been with the Slytherins that had attacked the Gryffindors. It wasn't her fault, it's not like the whole house could have gone. But the whole house probably thought the Gryffindors deserved what they got…

The argument chased itself around and around in my head until I went to sleep.

TheLovelyLily: Thank you for reviewing

Lula May: The end of this chapter was kind of for you, we tried to put in more of Orchid's nasty side. Orchid is kind of conceited actually, and she doesn't really care about her title very much, sort of like ron, she has no idea why she was made a prefect. Do you know howwe canchange what we've allready written? Because we can't figure it out, thanks for pointing out the Gryffindor thing.