AN: Plot thickens...

7 - The Forbidden Forest

Halloween was approaching, and the first-years had absolutely no idea what to do.
"So, we know it's Landon that is going into the Chamber." Sean recapped what he had been told, and Asher nodded. "and we know he gets in by speaking snake," Asher nodded again, "but we can't tell McGonagall because…?"

"Because if we do, we'd need proof, and he could fake it, to make it seem like we're crazy. And it's too serious of an assumption."
"So we can't tell any teachers."
"Correct."
"And we are going to stop him… how?"

"We," Valerie said, dropping a box onto their table, "are going to follow him."
"Oookay, and where are we going to follow Landon?"
"He said he's going into the Forest on Halloween, so we're going to follow him in."
"But, the feast!"
"The feast can wait."

"Wait, which one is Landon again?" Asher asked, getting looks from Valerie and Sean.
"He was in your boat on the first day. Black hair, smirks a bunch…" Valerie explained, and Asher nodded.
"What's in the box?" Sean asked, knocking it lightly, and receiving a glare form Valerie.
"It's an invisibility cloak. I ordered it. As long as we have this on, we'll be invisible. But the enchantment wears off around mid-November, so we'd need to do it before then. Otherwise we'd be three kids wearing a big cloak, and we'll look stupid."
"So this," Sean said, holding up the cloak, clad in bright pink polka dots, "isn't going to make us look stupid?"
"It'll be invisible, you idiot." She smacked his hands and grabbed the cloak, "there's only one cloak that won't lose its charm, and it belongs to-"
"Let me guess, Harry Potter?" Asher deadpanned, cocking his head at Valerie.
"Actually, yes."

"I can't wait until the Halloween feast!" Elizabeth exclaimed, stretching in her chair in the Ravenclaw common room.
"Hmm." Thad replied, flipping through another textbook.
"You're becoming distant." Liz pointed out, "It's fun talking to you."
"Hmm." Thad replied again, grabbing another textbook off the desk.
"You're being boring, Thad." Liz grumbled irritated, and Thad's eyes stayed glued to his textbook.
"Hmm."

Liz stood from the table, and began to leave the common room, passing Levi and Julian on her way. "He's all yours."

Levi and Julian turned to look at Thad, surrounded by a pile of books, tongue sticking out between his lips.
"Thaddy-kins."

Thad glared up from his textbook briefly, before scowling and looking back down.
"You know we aren't trying to take a potential girlfriend from you. We're just making friends." Julian pouts, and Thad looks up.
"Yeah, we'll lay off Emma, because we can totally tell that's who you're fawning after, but we won't stop being friends with her. She's really good friend with Flint, so she comes with being friends with him."
"Then why don't you stop being friends with Flint?" Thad grumbles, flicking his eyes back down to his book. Levi and Julian exchanged a look.
"Because we're friends. Remember; 'bros before hoes', it's only been our motto, like, forever."
Thad scowled, and began packing his books.
"Fine. But you two had better leave me alone now, I really need to work on this." He said, gesturing down to the large amounts of parchment on his desk.
"Alright, but you'd better keep us updated."

"Alright, the Halloween feast is going to start soon, so we've gotta head down to the Great Hall." Chase exclaimed to the first years, who all excitedly ran toward the door.
"Now, Valerie told us to meet her by the Slytherin hourglass. She has the cloak, so nobody would see her."
"Now all we need to do is get there without getting caught."

The two of them followed the other first-years down toward the Great Hall, but took a left turn and could see the front entrance clearly. On the right side of the door was the Gryffindor hourglass, slowly dripping red sand, and to the right of that, was the Slytherin hourglass, dripping green sand.
The hourglasses counted house points, and from the looks of it, Gryffindor was in the lead, followed by Hufflepuff, then Ravenclaw. Slytherin was in last place, and beside it, Asher could see a waving hand, without the rest of the body.
"There," He pointed out to Sean, and the two jogged over to her, slipping under the cloak.

"Took you two long enough, he's already left."

The three of them shuffled under the cloak out the front entrance and into the forest. Speeding up, they could see the outline of a boy, slightly muscular.
"There he is, follow him."

The three of them followed Landon into a clearing, where there were four other figures standing, each of them with long cloaks and hoods.
"Good, son, you made it."

"We were beginning to think you would defy us, and not show up." The figure furthest on the left spoke, dropping his hood.
He was a muscular man, with a scarred face. He was missing a few teeth, evident by his crooked smile, and was looking menacingly at the boy.
"Quiet," The man in the middle scolded him, "now, Landon. Have you and Aubrey released the basilisk yet?"

"Which one is Aubrey?" Asher whispered to Valerie, who nudged him.
"Aubrey is Landon's sister, she's a second year Slytherin."

"She went to do that today. We've been taking care of it in the Chamber like you asked. But there's a kid that's on to us, I know it."

The three of them froze, and watched with bated breath.
"Which kid?" The scarred man asked, grimacing.
"His name is Thad Jenkins, and he's too smart for his own will. He's been following me around." Landon spoke, crossing his arms. "Aubrey knows, she plans on using him as the basilisk's first target. He's muggle born, so it follows the trend."

The man in the middle laughed.
"Wonderful. You make your mother and I so proud sometimes. You remember what we want you to do now, right?"
"Yeah, yeah. Get the good students and muggle-borns. So the school can't fight back when you attack. I got it."

Asher and Sean gasped under the cloak, and the scarred man smiled.
"Good. I believe you have a feast to get to, don't you?"
Landon nodded, and began to leave the clearing. The three friends followed closely behind listening to Landon murmur.
"Stupid Thad, he's too smart. It'll be great seeing him dead…"

When the three of them walked into the Great Hall for the feast, a few eyes turned to them. Instantly, they searched for Thad, who was sitting beside Levi and Julian. Asher sighed, relieved, until he saw Thad stand up from the table.
"I've got to go to the bathroom, I'll see you guys in the common room, I just have to put the last touches on my Defence Against the Dark Arts paper."
"Yeah, sure. See you then." Levi waved him off, and Thad left the room. Asher exchanged glances with Sean, who looked nervous as well.

At the end of the feast, the students began to leave the Great Hall, headed for their dormitories.

"What did you do your Defence Against the Dar Arts assignment on?" Julian asked Asher, who was followed shortly by Sean and Levi.
"Hipoggriffs, they're pretty awesome creatures if you think about it." Asher said, looking over at Julian, "What about you?"
"Well, seeing as all we needed to do was pick a creature, and explain how to beat it with magic, I picked something really easy; a Doxy." Julian smiled.
"Aren't those the poisonous pixies?" Sean asked, leaning in to the conversation.
"Yup, a simple stunning spell makes them blow up. I even tested it." Julian laughed, "What did you do yours on, Sean?"
"Red Caps." he responded, "we learned a bit about them in History of Magic, so I figured 'why not?'. How about you, Levi?"

Levi just laughed.
"I know that Thad did two projects, so I was just going to steal one of his."

The group of them entered the common room, and walked over to where Thad usually worked.
"See? It's right here." Levi said pointing down at the two piles of parchment. "This one is on… manticores," he pointed to the first one, "Those are sweet, I'm taking this one."
"What about the other one? What if it's cooler?" Julian asks, and Sean walked over to pick up the other one. He paled, and Asher looked over to him.
"What? What is it about?"

"Basilisks."