6. Exploration

Ashley, Marie, and James crowded under James and Marie's invisibility cloak, Marauder's Map in hand. It was eight o'clock at night and because they were first years they weren't supposed to be out of their common rooms past seven. Even though the headmaster was their uncle they knew that he wouldn't give them special treatment when it came to breaking the rules.

They walked down a corridor on the fourth floor. One their right was a classroom and to the left was a wall. The classroom was the muggle studies classroom. They stopped walking almost tripping over one another. Footsteps were coming down the hallway. The three first years backed up against the wall. Ashley's hand hit a small brick and it slid in like a button. Surprised Ashley let out a small yelp and pulled her hand away quickly. But she it was too late, the wall behind them seemed to dissolve and the three of them fell back through the wall.

They landed with a thud on the other side of the wall. The invisibility cloak was sprawled out underneath them, no longer covering. The marauders map fell out of James' hand and was opened next to the wall of the stone hallway they fell into.

"What the hell just happened?" James asked snapping out of the shock he was in when they fell. He looked around at where they were. They were in a stone hallway with lit torches following down the hallway as far as the eye could see. There were cobwebs in almost all the corners but the rugged stones of the wall were pretty clean cut and not much different from those that made up most of the school.

"I-I think that I did it. I don't really know," Ashley said pushing herself up off the ground and standing up with James and Marie. "When we walked back into the wall my hand hit some stone in the wall and it pushed in. I guess it made it so that people could walk through the wall."

"Why wasn't this on the map?"

"Maybe they never knew about it…I guess you were right James, we did find a new passage of some sort," Marie said still in amazement in what they literally stumbled upon.

"Let's check it out," Ashley suggested excitedly. The other two nodded with smiles on their face.

"Only our first week here and already we get to have an adventure…yes!" James said as the three started down the hallway.

Katie trudged along the muddy ground of the Amazon as she made her way towards the seers home. All around her were hundred foot tall trees. She could see shadows of animals in the canopies.

She kept walking on for an hour, having to stop here and there to rest. In the distance Katie saw a light and knew immediately that it was the seer's home. She could sense the magic coming from the area. She sped up, her legs moving faster and faster. Anticipation ran through her body. She wanted the dark magic…she needed it.

The next step she took she instantly regretted. Her foot sunk into the ground half a foot with her other foot following right behind her. The ground was had taken hold of half her body before she could even think. It was moving quickly…too quickly for it to be normal quicksand. The seer had set it up no doubt. With her wand in her back pocket that was already taken by the sand she didn't know what to do. She shoved her hand into the sand and began to search for her wand. It fell out of her pocket. It was hard to move her hand around in the quicksand.

She was now up to almost her shoulders in the quicksand and still hadn't found her wand. She stretched her fingers out as quickly as the sand would allow and she felt something touch her fingertip. She moved her hand to grasp whatever it was and she knew right away that it was what she was looking for. She had found her wand. The quicksand had now taken everything below her shoulders. She tried to say a spell, but she couldn't move her wand efficiently enough for the spell to work She slowly began to lift her arm as best she could out of the quicksand. By the time she got as much as she could out the quicksand was up to her chin. She quickly said a spell and was thrown out of the pit and onto solid ground.

She panted heavily and covered from neck to toe in mud. After about a minute of catching her breath she stood up, and cleaned herself and her wand off with a simple spell. She turned to face the pit that had almost taken her minutes ago and stood there looking at it for a few minutes before deciding what to do with it.

"Tierra sólida," she said with her wand pointed at the quicksand. The pit turned to solid ground before her eyes. She smiled to herself, proud of herself for her quick thinking. She continued on slowly and cautiously. She wasn't going to fall into another trap.

Shaina sat at the Mistress' desk. She looked at the pile of work before her and frowned. She'd been having a busy day. It seemed that everything wanted to happen in one day. There were trolls that wandered out of their safe area and into London. Thousands of muggles had seen or been hurt by one of the trolls. They made it through half of London before the Ministry was finally able to stop them and direct them back to their land. After finally getting all the trolls back the Ministry had to do damage control. They had wiped thousands of memories from the incident and healed a hundred or so of the muggles who had gotten in the trolls' path.

There were a couple of young adults, maybe twenty years of age if even, that decided to have a little fun playing tricks on a few muggles. They thought it would be funny to turn a few trees in a park in Surrey alive. The trees had chased five muggle kids around the park. Again the Ministry had to sort it out, modifying the children's memories, and making sure the trees were put back in their rightful places and not moving.

Finally there was a chemical spill in the potions making lab. It caused the whole level to fill with smoke. The chemical just happened to be magic resistant, so the whole floor had to evacuate and wait four hours for the smoke to disappear and for the chemical to calm. It then had to be cleaned up and the floor secured to make sure that it was safe for everyone to return to work. So that whole floor was put back five hours in total.

Shaina was worn out. She needed a break, so she wrote a note that would inform anyone who came to see her that she would be out. She hung the note on her door before closing it and leaving through the fireplace.

They've been walking down the stone hallway for five minutes now and they haven't found anything but cobwebs and torches. They turned another corner and were greeted by a beautiful sight. They stepped into an extravagant room. There was a fireplace with an everlasting fire that is charmed so that it can't set the castle on fire. There were four armchairs, one blue, one red, one green, and one yellow. The four house colors. In the middle of the chairs was a large coffee table. On the walls were four portraits. One portrait had a blue and bronze frame, another had a red and gold one, the third had green and silver, and the last had yellow and black. Above the fireplace were pictures of the four people from the portraits in younger years. Some were with all four, others with just two or three of them.

"Merlin! This must be where the four founders used to live!" Marie said excitedly. She walked up to the portrait with the blue and bronze frame and lifted her hand to touch it.

"We were wondering when someone would find this place," the blue and bronze framed portrait said suddenly. Marie jumped back from the portrait quickly, her hand back at her side. The three first year's eyes were wide open in shock. "What? Did you expect the portraits not to be charmed?"

"I…we…uh…" Marie tried to say something but she was still in full shock.

"We, um, well yes," James said.

"Well we are…and in case you didn't know I'm Rowena Ravenclaw," the blue and bronze framed portrait said.

"I'm Helga Hufflepuff," the yellow and black one said.

"I'm Godric Gryffindor," the red and gold framed portrait stated.

"And I'm Salazar Slytherin," the last one said. "What houses or house are you three in?"

"Gryffindor," Ashley replied. "We didn't even know a place like this existed."

"Yes well no one but us four knew about it," Helga said.

"This place is amazing!" Marie stated recovering from her shock.

"Thank you."

"Um…why did you all make such a place?" James asked curiously.

"Well we wanted a place where we could get away from the school, but still actually be there," Gryffindor answered.

"Uh…okay."

"What he means is we wanted a place to just get away from all the hassle that is school. You know with the students running around all the time," Salazar cleared things up.

"Why didn't you just use the headmaster's office?" Marie asked.

"Well first of all when we were running the school there was no headmaster. The idea of a headmaster happened just after we died," Ravenclaw replied.

"Secondly we wanted a place that the students didn't know of so they couldn't bother us," Slytherin finished.

"But what if something happened…like something bad?" Ashley asked.

"We had a parchment that was permanently stuck to the doors of the Great Hall where if we were needed all you had to do was write it down and it would appear on that parchment there," Hufflepuff answered pointing to a parchment above the mantel.

"Then what happened to the parchment? It's not there anymore."

"During the first reign of Voldemort it was destroyed," Gryffindor said.

"Um, guys we need to go," Ashley said pointing towards a clock that read one am.

"Oh…we promise to come back. We can tell you all how things are going at school," Marie said to the portraits. "Bye."

Slowly Katie inched her way closer to the cabin in the forest. She paid close attention to her surroundings being careful not to fall into another trap. She was only a couple of meters away now. She took another step, but was met by an invisible barrier. She put her hands out in front of her to find a place where the barrier broke. She walked along the barrier her hand searching for an open space.

Five minutes of walking had passed by and she still hadn't found an opening. She was starting to get frustrated. She slid her hand another inch along the invisible wall and felt a hole in it. It was a very tiny hole, the size of a pinhole. She was surprised she found it. But now that it had been found she wondered what to do. It sure wasn't big enough for her to even fit her finger through it.

She stood there with her finger on the hole for a good ten minutes thinking of what to do. Then it came to her…an enlargement charm. If she could enlarge the hole big enough she'd be able to squeeze through it. The only problem was she couldn't see the hole as it was invisible so she wouldn't be able to tell when it was big enough. She guessed she'd have to do a trial and error type thing.

Katie pointed her wand at about where the hole was. She didn't know if it was exact or not as she had to lift her finger from the hole to point her wand at it, but she guessed it was pretty close to the hole. She cast an enlargement charm on the hole and reached out her hand to feel how large she had made the hole. It was not the size of her fist. She estimated about five more times with the spell that intense will get it large enough for her to fit through. So she cast the spell five more times the exact same way that she had before and surely enough the hole was now the size of a window. She could definitely fit through it.

She stepped through the hole and was now on the other side of the invisible barrier. Proud of herself she kept on walking towards the small cabin in the middle of the area. She trudged along until she was but five meters away from the cabin. That was when she saw a miraculous sight. Just outside the door was large jaguar with brilliant green eyes that were right on her. It rose to its feet and made it's way towards her. Katie stood tall and confident, but inside her heart was pounding. She didn't know what the wild cat would do to her all she knew was that she wouldn't let it sense fear.

The jaguar circled her slowly as though examining her in some way, shape, or form. Katie's eyes followed the creature watching it's every move while it circled her. Then as if satisfied that she was worthy enough to continue it stopped circling her and made it's way back to the cabin and inside. She let out a breath she didn't know that she was holding and continued walking towards the cabin. As she reached the door it opened just as she lifted her hand to knock.