36 Wednesday
Noelle was staring at the page in front of her. Her mind had gone blank. To cover it up she was tapping her quill against her chin thoughtfully, as though just taking a moment to think about her answer. But, in reality, she had completely lost any train of thought on what to answer for this test. After all her studying, it was really disappointing that her mind should forfeit now.
Remembering to take a deep breath and clear her mind, Noelle took a moment and set down her quill. She'd done well so far on the test, she only needed to recall the rest of the information to her mind.
Noelle was a student who did excellent in class and with projects that were submitted to the teacher later on. She had amazing grades and usually ended up spearheading any group cooperative projects whether she wanted to be socially active or not. However, she was a poor tester. She would get into the room and all of the information would fly from her head. As though someone had pointed to her brain and said "Accio test answers!" sending them far far away.
"990 A.D. The date Hogwarts was founded. Got it." She picked up her quill, dipped it in the inkwell and wrote in her answer. "Founded by… Godric Gryffindor… Helga Hufflepuff… Rowena Ravenclaw… and… Oh gosh. This is embarrassing. I don't even remember my own house?"
Noelle audibly sighed and covered it with a cough when the teacher's head snapped her direction. After a narrow-eyed stare, she looked away once more and Noelle scrunched up her nose in frustration.
Looking around the room for inspiration, Noelle's gaze fell on the Slytherin emblem, embroidered on a fellow housemate's uniform. She stared intently, willing it to feed her the answer. "Salem… Zyler… Salamander? Salazar! Salazar Slytherin!" She thought triumphantly, filling in the answer.
Brooke looked at her dumbfounded. "Really? Those were the questions you had problems with? You've been coming here how long now?"
Noelle blushed and looked away as her friend berated her. "I just blanked."
"Wow, I guess so." Brooke smirked. "Hey, you going to your Dragon group today?" Noelle nodded. "I'll catch up with you later then okay? Are you bringing Azraeyn to the party on Sunday?"
Noelle rolled her eyes. "Not really bringing him so much as we're both going."
Brooke grinned. "Mhm… Well I'll see both of you there then." She waved and continued down the hall. "Bye!"
Noelle waved after her until she turned a corner and was out of sight, before turning her own way.
Minutes later she was in the Great Hall and sitting amongst her other group of friends, preparing for their session. Faith was the only one not amongst them and Noelle turned to Kade, curious.
"Is Faith going to be joining us today?"
He shrugged and looked at her seat. "It's weird, I haven't heard from her in a couple of days."
Azraeyn sighed from his end of the table and glanced their direction. "She went home early. Her parents pulled her out of school when they heard what happened to Katie."
Noelle frowned. This was exactly what she'd been worried about happening more and more. "Well… It's a shame she won't be here, but hopefully she'll be safe I guess."
Yori huffed. "Not like it's anymore safe out there."
Noelle didn't disagree, however, it did seem that Hogwarts was more a target for the enemy than anywhere else. That and perhaps the ministry.
"Either way, let's begin." Azraeyn interrupted any further dark thoughts on behalf of the group.
Noelle noticed, much to her dismay, as the illusion began, that she was now the only girl in a group of four.
The world swirled into being around them. The group stood where they'd left off last time, but the sky was dark and the streetlamps over the dirt road upon which they stood were lit, casting a yellow glow on everything within ten feet of themselves. Wooden fences were on either side of the street, though, most of the boards had splintered or broken, leaving much to be desired of something meant to differentiate the road from the farms and fields around them.
"Where were we headed again?" Kade asked, shivering in the night air.
"Back to town for more quests I think." She responded, looking up but seeing no stars in the night sky. They had only the streetlamps and a full moon to light their way.
Yori pointed across the field next to them, a pumpkin field. "This should get us there faster, save us a road trip."
Everyone followed his lead, hoisting themselves up and over the fence. Noelle was the only one who caught Azraeyn's wolfish grin, as he watched them go. "What's that about…"
They all stayed silent, a sense of foreboding in the air. Noelle knew she at least was nervous in this environment, stepping around and over pumpkins and other crushed crops. Several of them were in good condition, but others were in varying states of decay, and it caused her to wonder what farmed tended these fields, and when the last time he'd checked them had been.
"Do any of you smell that?" Kade plugged his nose.
Yori kicked a plant out of his way. "You're probably just smelling all these dead crops."
"No no.. This is something much much worse."
Noelle tried lifting her head to smell the air and catch whatever scent it was the other two were getting. Evidently, looking away from her feet was a mistake, as she immediately tripped over the next vine that crossed her path and went tumbling into a cascade of limbs, rolling a few feet before coming to rest in a pile of dead pumpkins with a defining squelch sound. She groaned and steeled herself, planting two hands into the crops, even as their juices rushed over her skin and the smell wafted up into her lungs, and pushed herself up into a standing position once more.
Looking down at where she fell, she gasped and stumbled backwards, not caring where she fell now, as long as it wasn't there. Azraeyn caught her from behind, stopping her retreat and looked where she couldn't tear her own eyes away from.
What she'd thought was a pile of dead pumpkins was a dead body. The juices, now covering her hands, was his blood, thick and sticky, and red. She furiously tried to scrape off the blood onto her tunic, whimpering. It wouldn't have been quite as traumatic an experience for her just to see the dead body she figured, so much as to have fallen into it.
"W-well there's the farmer." She concluded, her voice shaking.
The other two boys stepped forwards to examine the body, both staying a few feet away. Kade spoke next. "Wonder what killed him…"
Noelle's jaw dropped and she silently pointed beyond. The boys, who stood in front of her, were silhouetted against the moon, which now stood like a backdrop behind them, taking up half the night sky. And, silhouetted beyond them, was a ginormous figure, rising from the field and looming over them.
"G-guys!" She managed to force out a cry.
The boys barely made it up and out of the way, seeing the creature just in time before it swung its arms towards them. Now the group simultaneously pulled their weapons and backed up, huddling together and walking in a circle around the creature. It too, circled, along with them.
As they became the ones backlit by the moon, the creature became illuminated itself. It stood at least ten feet tall over them, made of pumpkins. The pumpkins, like those in the field, ranged in their states of decay, but overall, most had maggots swarming about them, and holes which seeds and pumpkin strings hung loose from, dripping onto the ground. Each pumpkin was connected by vines and weeds and stems. And the face of the creature had been carved into the face of a jack-o-lantern, open wide in a forever grimace.
"Pumpkin golem!" Yori shouted.
"Happy Halloween." Kade mumbled.
At separate times, from different directions, the group each rushed in, swinging their weapons. Noelle stood back and shot her bow, but it didn't seem to be very effective. The boys at least, using swords and daggers, severed several vines, but there were so many that it would take an hour only to cut off its arms. As the creature swung again and knocked Yori, the biggest of their group, flying across the field, Noelle didn't know that they had that kind of time. Spotting the road a hundred paces behind them, and the streetlamps, now dim in comparison to the moon, Noelle had an idea.
"Hold him off!" She shouted and took off running, attaching her bow over her back.
She heard them all calling for her as she ran and she prayed her idea would work.
Another cry behind her, this time from Kade. She tried to ignore it, pressing on.
Reaching the street, out of breath, Noelle looked up at the streetlamp and then at the decaying wood of the fences. Stepping up onto a board she tested her weight. When the wood held up underneath she, she stood up on it, now accosting it with her full weight. She sucked in a breath and looked up again at the lamp which was now just within reach. Leaning forwards, she reached for the lantern held aloft by the post.
"Almost… Almost… Got it!" Just as she grabbed the lantern, the fence piece cracked underneath her, sending her tumbling once more to the ground.
She shielded the lantern with her body, rolling and feeling something sharp bite into her arm. Standing, she saw a large splinter from the fence protruding from the back of her arm, blood trickling down. Ignoring it for the time being, she ran off again, this time in the direction of her friends once more.
Knowing she only had likely one shot at this, she stopped twenty feet out from the golem. The boys were looking more haggard, struggling to lift their weapons to it.
"Stand back!" She shouted and they turned, surprised, at her voice.
It took them a second to process her words but they danced back out of harm's way. She began running again, building up momentum and putting her arm behind her before launching it forwards once more, throwing the lantern towards the golem.
Her aim was true and Noelle sent up a silent prayer of thanks, as the lantern crashed into the backside of the golem and it went up in flames. Slowly, the vines began withering away and the pumpkins practically melted into goop, sliding down the creature. It let out terrible screams and tried to hit them all once more, but could manage almost nothing more as it became nothing again.
When the screams had finally died, the boys wandered over to her. Each one of them was bloodied or covered in the remains of the crops, looking like a bunch of undead themselves.
Kade let out a nervous laugh and then grinned at her. "What made you think to do that?"
She pushed a slimy tendril of hair out of her face, thinking desperately of how a shower would feel at that moment, and smiled back. "Well, I've heard that when there is a field overrun with weeds, to the point where even the crop is no longer viable, a farmer will set alight his fields. Start over. And this just seemed like a situation where one could use some weed killer, wouldn't you agree?"
The boys all nodded solemnly and Azraeyn smiled at her. "Clever."