Sorry to all my readers... I've taken way too long to update this story. Hope this next chapter lives up to your expectations. If not, you can tell me so...

Artemis and Holly made their way down the dark corridor. The only thing lighting the hall was the many candles set in brackets along the walls. There was nobody in this small stretch of castle, because to anybody who didn't know about the secret entrance there was nothing of importance down here. Also, the entrance to the Hufflepuff common room was said to be near here, but nobody outside of that house knew.

Artemis walked along, peering at every picture on the wall.

"Come on, Artemis, is now really the time to be an art critic?" complained Holly.

"First, Holly, don't you see how these magnificent paintings are animated? Isn't that amazing?"

Holly looked at the nearest picture that had a group of kids running around a field on it and shrugged.

"I guess that is pretty cool," agreed Holly, poking one of the figures on the painting, making them shriek. "But Foaly can do this with science…"

"Second, now is actually a very important time to pay attention to art, because the secret door we are looking for is behind a certain painting," he said, examining a painting with an old wizard sitting in a library filled with flying books.

"What painting is it?" asked Holly, starting to examine the paintings with Artemis.

"I believe it is a painting with a bowl of fruit," said Artemis, grinning.

Holly realized that Artemis found humor in this. She rolled her eyes.

"You just don't play along, do you Holly?" said Artemis, sighing.

They walked along for a few more minutes, until Artemis found what he was looking for. "Here it is," he said, examining the picture with the giant fruit on it. He reached up to the pear on the picture and scratched it.

Holly looked at him funny. Sometimes she had no idea what Artemis was up to.

That's when the pear on the picture giggled and became a doorknob. Artemis winked at Holly.

"Why don't we see what's on the other side," he said vaguely. He turned the knob and pushed on the painting. It swung inward to reveal a large room.

On closer inspection, it seemed to be a kitchen designed for people Holly's height. Just, then, the two were swarmed with small creatures Holly's height.

"Hello, newcomers!" chirped a high-pitched voice.

Holly located the source of the voice. It was a wrinkly little creature with huge eyes, and large bat-like ears. It was wearing a sack with a strange emblem on it. All of the creatures were wearing the same thing, and looked similar.

"Um, hello," said Holly, slightly confused. "What are you?"

"Holly, that is not very polite," scolded Artemis, but the little creatures didn't seem to care.

"We are house elves, miss," answered one. "But you are one too?"

Holly looked at the speaker. "Well, I am an elf, but not of the house variety…"

The house elves just stared at her. "What variety, then, miss?"

"Ummm… of the fairy variety, I suppose," she responded.

That answer seemed to satisfy them, so they continued preparing food. One little elf brought a big tray of pastries for them. Both Holly and Artemis were pretty hungry, so they ate up.

"See, Holly? You should be more like these little guys, they seem very eager to please," joked Artemis.

"Eager to be slaves, more like it," grumbled Holly, and shooed a persistent elf away who was offering her something with meat in it.

"Don't worry, Holly, tomorrow we will be eating with the students. We will be Slytherins. I have a plan all worked out."

Holly groaned. She never really liked his plans because it usually involved someone almost getting killed. And that someone was usually Holly.

"Excuse me; does one of you know when the next big school feast is?" Artemis asked the house elves.

"Of course we do, sir," responded an elf. "It is tomorrow night."

"That is what I thought." Artemis had been right about the books being almost exact. Even the feasts were at the same exact time as what it said in the books.

"Why do you need to know when the feast is?" asked Holly.

"That is when all of the students will be in the same room at once. If we find a way to project your image to all of the students you can mesmer them all at once," explained Artemis. "We just need to find the headmaster before then, or he will stop us from hitting his students with a hypnosis beam."

Holly nodded. It wasn't a super risky plan, because mesmers usually worked on everybody, and it wasn't a very difficult thing they were trying to make the students believe. They just needed to think that Artemis had been a student there all along, and to ignore the fairy.

Holly had been told to meet Artemis outside the headmaster's study after she had successfully mesmered the headmaster, and to call him if anything went wrong. She was still fuming for his lack of backup. He said that he was going to set up the projection system, but she saw this as an excuse to keep out of the line of fire of this potentially dangerous man.

Holly had bypassed the gargoyle at the entrance of the spiral staircase with just the magic of her shield and a little mesmer. She scaled the staircase, hoping with all her might that nothing would go wrong. She didn't want to have to knock out another wizard.

She entered the room, knowing that the man wasn't there at the moment, and found a spot to hide out. She had to wait a really long time, and when he finally entered the room, it took her off guard. She almost fell over, but being an expert cop, knew how to keep her position.

She powered up her mesmer before she unshielded so that she could hit him with it right when she came into view. She buzzed into vision, and since the man was caught off guard, and didn't have a chance to respond, she had him hooked.

"What is your name?" she asked in her layered voice.

"Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore," he responded in a dreamy voice.

"You are the headmaster?"

"Yes." His voice was slightly more strained, and Holly could tell he was trying to fight the magic.

"Tonight at the feast there will be a boy, who is new, and you will ignore him and you will also ignore me. Is that clear?"

"Yes."

"He is a student who has always gone here, correct?" Holly asked him.

"Yes."

Holly shielded again, and the mesmer let go of its hold on Dumbledore. Holly left the room and the man ignored the door opening and closing, which meant that the mesmer had worked, either that or this man was brilliant enough to fake being under her spell…

Artemis was waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs. "Did it work?" he asked.

"Yes, I believe it did," responded Holly. "But don't underestimate this guy, he is very powerful."

"I know, I do not underestimate people," snapped Artemis, then softened his tone. "Sorry, I just meant that I looked into this man and I know how powerful he is. I will be careful."

"Did you get everything set up?" asked Holly.

"Yep, in a few hours we will be all set to blend into the Hogwarts crowd, and I can begin my research," said Artemis, smiling at Holly. "Have I told you how amazing a Hogwarts feast is supposed to be?"

The next chapter will hopefully come in faster then this one did. Please review to let me know how I'm doing!