Chapter 7

Making New Friends in Unlikely Places

"Memmummah," I make a lot of funny noises when I wake up and strech in the morning. "Come on Shadow, we're going exploring today!" Shadow started to pounce all over my bed, I guess it's true what they say about cats and being curious, luckly it won't kill us.

I quickly put on my favorite pair of jeans and a clean t-shirt and a good pair of shoes. Packing my wand, it's 10" of teak wood with a core made of braided unicorn hair and pheonix feathers, into my small back pack. I also packed some parchment and other stuff to take notes on what I might find.

"Adonia, shouldn't you be doing your homework? We did get quite a lot of homework for the first week." Hermione just came in to the room to grab some more books, I guess to finish her homework, though why she would do the work on such a pretty Saturday morning I have no idea.

"I finished my homework lastnight, it was easy. I word vomited all the essays, with all the facts written all nice and neat to the exact degree of what the professors wanted...though I did go over the page limit on a few." Hermione didn't say anything as I gave her a quick grin after my little speech, then walked down the stairs and out the common room.

~Well, I already know where all the classrooms are, the library, and the Great Hall...where should I go first?~ I started walking around randomly, then found myself in the same hall that the gargoyle lived in. He seemed lonely the last time I saw him, I think I'll go visit with him.

When I got to the gargoyle...nothing happened. I waved my hand in front of his face, I patted him on the head, I even tried shaking him. Then I remembered that the professor said lemondrops, a password I guess, that made him move. "Lemondrops!"

As soon as the words came out of my mouth, the gargoyle got up and streched. I went to pet him again, this time with the gargoyle, who I shall call Mac from now on, was awake. He tried to bite me and I snatched my hand back. "Bad Mac! You aren't supposed to bite people who are trying to be friends with you!"

"Well, Miss Zeak, he is supposed to gaurd my office from just anyone walking in." Professor Dumbledore must have come down the stairs as I was trying to pet the grumpy gargoyle, I should wait till he is awake longer, maybe give him some coffee.

"Oh, hi Professor. I promise, I'm not doing anything." I was doing my best to look all sweet and innocent, and since I have a lot of practice doing that, I think it might have worked.

"Did you need anything my dear?"

"Oh, no professor."

"Then be on your way please." When he siad this he had a strange look in his eyes, like he really wanted me to stay and talk, but couldn't.

"Ok Professor." He asked me to leave, so I won't play with Mac, I guess I'll go outside, it looks interesting out there. "Bye Professor Dumbledore." I waved as I started running down the hall way, with Shadow by my side.

"Goodbye my dear....oh and walk please." I saw the Professor walk back up the stairs, when I glanced back at the door way, slowing down to a walk.

I avoided students and other professors as I walked out the front door of the castle. Free of the school, Shadow and I started to run towards the pretty forest on the outskirts of the school grounds. There was a faint trail leading through the trees, makeing sure there wasn't any one looking from the castle that I could see, I took off along the trail.

I'd been running for a while when a sudden creaky, slithery noise came from my left. I looked around to find what made the noise, but couldn't find anything, that's aslo when I realized that my cat had run off when the noise sounded off. Judging from the trail of little kitty paw prints, he ran back to the castle. Good thing his collar had a warding spell on it, making sure he would be safe and would lead him back to the castle.

Forgetting the sound, and reassured that Shadow would make it back safely to the castle, I continued along the trail. A few minuets later the trail ended in a clearing full of unicorns. I love unicorns! They don't have any unicorns in America for some reason, according to all the magical creature books that I've read, unicorns are only found in Great Britian, and some European and Asian countries.

As soon as I came out clearing, the some of the unicorns started to surround me. Before I could pet them though, one of the unicorns gave out a loud bellow, then the unicorns who had come close ran off with the rest of herd. I sat down with a disappointed plop in the clearing, I just want to make some friends! I've never had such a hard time making friends, I would like to say that the reason for this is that I just moved here and have an American accent, but I think it has more to do with the fact that I'm in two enemy houses.

Moping and cloud gazing in the clearing, I heard the pounding of hooves, and sat up quickly. I was excited, thinking that the unicorns were comeing back, but it wasn't them. The creature that ran into the clearing was a blond, blue-eyes centaur.

"Hello...my name is Adonia!" I quickly stood up and held out my hand.

"Your eyes just changed from green to blue." He came closer to me and stared at my eyes, he didn't even shake my hand before making the statement.

"Yeah, they do that a lot when I get excited. What's your name?"

He seemed to realize he was being rude, and shook my hand. "My name is Firenze. Are you a student up at the school?"

"Yes I am. Why?" I decided to sit on the ground again, Firenze laid down along with me.

"Well, the forest is dangerous and forbidden to students. I was just wondering how you came to be here, as it is a school rule that the forrest is forbidden."

"Oh...well that...I was exploring, and wanted to make friends, and got chased out of the school, and well, yeah...um...well...yeah." I hate getting caught in trouble.

"You wanted to make friends? Don't you have any at the school?"

I started to tell him all about how I just moved to the school from America, leaving all my friends, comeing to Hogwarts, the stupid hat, and everything else. We sat talking for hours in the clearing, I told him all about me, and learned a lot about the forest, and his herd.

We were discussing the stars when another centaur came out of the woods, "Firenze, what are you doing with a human?"

Firenze and I jumped up when the dark male spoke, "We were just talking Bane, nothing more."

"You know where we stand with humans, come along, the herd is meeting tonight." With that, Bane, ran back into the woods.

"I must leave now Adonia, it has been a most enjoyable talk, and I look forward to many more if you care to brave the woods again."

"Ok, and yes it has been nice. And I most definatly will come back. How will we know when and where to meet?"

"We can meet here in the clearing, it's a favorite of the unicorns so it's a safe place to meet. As to how we will know when, there is a hollow stump near the border of the forest. You can leave notes there on when to meet. If you need me faster than that, there is a summoning spell I can teach you later that will let me know that you need me." With that, I gave him a hug, and he took off after Bane, and I ran back along the trail to go back to the school. There were some new spells I wanted to look up now, can't wait to get started!