Alright, got the second chapter written! I hope everyone enjoys it :). (I apologize for any spelling or grammar mistakes, I wanted to get this written and posted before going to work so I haven't re-read it completely yet. I will when I get home again).

Disclaimer: None of the characters are mine, except for Arianna and Isabella.

Chapter 2

Corridors and Archways

Isabella led Arianna downwards, towards the Great Hall where she could hear students eating. She realized that she hadn't eaten anything since breakfast when her stomach let out a large growl. "Can we get something to eat first and then go find what it is you're all excited about?" Arianna asked. "No, we'll sneak into the kitchens later." Isabella whispered, looking around to make sure no professors heard their against-the-rules plan.

"Oh good, I'm glad that this will take so much time to show me, that not only will we miss food, but we'll most likely spend the evening running away from Professor Snape before he can catch us out of bed. And need I remind you that Ravenclaw's tower is much farther away from the kitchens than Gryffindor's, so I'm more likely to get caught than you." Arianna said, rolling her eyes, but not being as annoyed with her friend as one might expect.

"That's the spirit Ari! I knew you had a Gryffindor hidden in you somewhere!" And with that, Isabella picked up her pace, dragging Arianna along behind her.

"Yes well,' grumbled Arianna 'I wish you had a bit more Hufflepuff in you. You don't see them dragging helpless friends anywhere or getting them in trouble. Or at least, they don't let their friends starve away into nothing in pursuit of something silly."

"Goodness you're grumpy; still unable to find a topic for your paper then?"

"No and I only have 8 months to properly research, organize, collect information and then write the paper. I'm running out of time!" Arianna took a deep breath and then...

"Ow! What was that for?" She said, nursing her upper right arm. "You told me that whenever you went off the deep end concerning school, I was to hit you." Isabella stated matter-of-factly.

"I never said that!"

"Did too!"

"What? When did I say that?"

"In my dream a couple days ago. Your subconscious clearly wants me to keep you in check, therefore it's reaching out to me while we're both asleep, hoping that I can help."

"My subconscious? That is the most ridiculous..."

"Hey look, we're here!" Isabella interrupted her friend, thankful that Arianna was unable to finish her sentence.

They had stopped in front of a door, close to the dungeons. The corridor that they were in looked like it wasn't used often and Arianna once again worried that Isabella had found some damp room with moldy armchairs and the idea of a secret place for them to study unbothered. Not that Isabella studied often, the studying was more for Arianna, and she would just sit there and write down pranks and different ways to annoy Filch. And Snape, depending on the number of points lost that day from him. Arianna once again thanked the gods that she wasn't in the same house as her; she hated the thought of her friend losing all her hard earned house points because of a few pranks.

Opening the door, Isabella pushed Arianna into the room, before checking to make sure that they hadn't been followed. The room was actually nicer than expected. It wasn't covered in dust or mold and there was a nice oak desk in the front of the room with some randomly placed arm chairs scattered throughout the room as well. There were two empty book cases, one on either side of the desk, and a small fireplace tucked into the left wall. It had most likely been a teacher's office at one point. All in all, Arianna found it to be very cozy.

"Okay, so I had run in here, hoping that because it was such an unused corridor, and so close to Snape's office, that Filch wouldn't think to look here. I wasn't sure how long I'd be here and just as I started to get bored…"

"So pretty much after about 5 minutes of being in the room" Arianna said with a grin. Isabella made a face at her.

"It was more like 10 minutes missy. Anyway, just as I started to get bored, I put my head down on the desk to take a nap and…" Isabella said and demonstrated how she had been sitting with her head on the desk when all of a sudden, a slight rumbling was felt and the wall behind the desk opened. "Voila!"

"Well," said Arianna, looking very surprised, "that was unexpected."

Peering into the dark passage, Arianna lit her wand with a quick "Lumos", and saw that it was actually a set of stairs leading farther down into the bowels of the castle. "Kinda cool, isn't it?" said Isabella excitedly. "I ran all around the castle trying to find you so we could go explore it!"

Arianna raised an eyebrow and looked at her best friend. "Yeah, that's not worst idea you've ever had… what if we get hurt? No one knows where we are. What we should do is tell the Headmaster."

"Oh, we'll tell him after we get to explore it first! Don't you want to know what's down there? What if it's an old forgotten library containing all the knowledge of the Hogwarts Four? Or… or maybe it's an ancient potions lab, containing some of the rarest ingredients! Or…" Arianna held up her hand, cutting off her excitable and head-strong friend.

"Or it could be a trap."

"No one sets traps in a school. Come on! Where's your sense of adventure?"

"It's been replaced by common sense, Isabella. This is not a good idea."

"I'll tell you what. If this ends badly, if we run out of here screaming or scared witless, I'll clean your room. You know what a mess your room is."

Arianna thought about it for a moment. It was true she had a mess of a room, with clothes, quills, and spare bits of parchment strewn about willy-nilly. Ever since she was given her "personal space" to escape to for NEWT studying, she hadn't cared as much for keeping her non-school items as organized as she would have liked. She wasn't dirty by any means, just cluttered.

"Alright, deal."

The two girls headed down the stairs, Isabella having lit her wand as well for even more light. The stairs seemed to continue forever, and had a thick coating of dust on them.

Anyone will be able to see our foot prints Arianna thought to herself. We won't be able to deny having explored it first.

After about 5 minutes of just walking down stairs, they saw a doorway up ahead. Arianna grabbed onto Isabella's arm, not in fear, but to prevent her friend from running through the doorway in her excitement. Cautiously, they peeked their heads through the doorway and saw a lone archway standing in the middle of the room.

Isabella of course, started walking immediately towards the arch, wanting to take in more of it's details. She could see markings etched into the stone, and it seemed to have been made from gray marble. Arianna stepped up in an attempt to read the markings, hoping that they might have clues as to what the arch was.

"Well,' Isabella broke the silence, 'I was expecting something a bit grander... or at least harder to become bored with."

Upon saying the word "harder", which had come out slightly mumbled, the archway came to life. Inside it was a swirling mass of blue, black, and white light, and a wind picked up in the room and seemed to be both pushing and pulling the girls closer to the arch. "Run!" Arianna yelled, trying to reach Isabella to drag her towards the doorway and up the stairs to safety but, no matter how much the girls struggled to get away, they kept being swept back towards the arch. Finally, with a giant gust of wind, they were thrown into the swirling mass of lights.

Waking up, Arianna looked around. She was sitting in a meadow with Isabella laying face down beside her. She was covered in dirt and her back ached, as if she had been dropped on it. She was unable to see Hogwarts at all, and barely recognized any of the scenery around her. A river could be seen over to her right, with a forest behind it. Hearing Isabella start to wake up, Arianna turned to help her friend sit up, checking to make sure she was unharmed. Seeing that she was fine except for some sore muscles as well, she shook her head.

"You're cleaning my room for a whole year now. And washing my clothes."

Isabella just groaned and nodded.

"Where the heck are we?"

I hope everyone is enjoying the story so far. I know it's slow moving but, I like when there's a little bit of a back story before the characters are thrust into a new world. Especially seeing how my characters are OC's, their back stories and personalities are unknown.

The girls relationship will be explained a bit more in the next chapter (I'm probably a third of the way done with it) and we'll see why Arianna seems to be a little... snappy towards Isabella. I swear she's really not a jerk!

Up next: The girls discover a bit more about where they're not at and we meet Gandalf and Bilbo!