Blushing when Glenn gave her a rather perplexed look, Kurumi's attention was instantly drawn to Louisa. Wait...HUH?!

Swallowing hard, Kurumi inhalhed sharply at the same time and nearly choked on her own breath. "I-I-I don't know how much help I can be..." she stammered as she slightly flailed her arms. Honestly, she really didn't know much about anything that was going on and really could only tell them what she had experienced in Potions. Although, Selina had mentioned other times about her acting strangely. And then there were those missing memories...

But obviously her mild protest went unnoticed by Louisa as she rattled off question after question in machine gun fashion. At least this time she wasn't accusing her of things.

"I-I haven't been working on any spells..." Let alone any spells with Sierra. That Slytherin had daggers for her, which was sort of unfortunate because she wouldn't mind being friends with the girl. "Never shared a book...or anything from Professor Elwood." Yeah, nothing from Professor Loonwood. Kurumi had never shared anything with Sierra, so there really wasn't anything of that sort connecting them. Her and Lewis, well, that was a different story.


Kurumi leaned over a bit to see just what it was that Vickers was looking at, but could only shake her head. "I never saw any creatures, unless you count the ones that were on the grounds last term," she replied with a small shrug. Kurumi rubbed the back of her neck nervously as she tried to remember bits and pieces about all the encounters she had had with the creatures. By far the strangest had been with the Acromantula who had actually spoken to them all. It had mentioned something at that time, something about something that had been in the forest that they, the creatures, did not like and would not return to the forest until it had gone...

But then Vickers was asking more questions and Kurumi was back to chewing on her lip. She winced noticeably when he recounted what had happened in Potions. It had been so frightening to see Lewis freeze like that, as if he had turned into a statue. She had thought...well...she really didn't know what to think when it had happened but it had been one of the scariest things she had ever witnessed.

When Vickers finished explaining, Kurumi softly nodded her head. "I...really wouldn't call it the next moment...it was all the same moment...or...it felt like it...only..." Kurumi trailed off and held her head in her hands for a moment as she looked down at the table top. "...only...all of a sudden I was in the hospital wing instead of the Potions classroom." It made no sense, especially when she said it out loud. How could it all have been the same moment only end up in two different locations?

Kurumi chewed on her lip a little more furiously when he continued, rubbing her temples absently and taking several deep breathes. "I remember Sierra and Lewis freezing and then unfreezing," she replied with a heavy sigh. She had been told by others that Lewis and Sierra had frozen after her, but she certainly had not been aware of it. Kurumi shook her head. "It's...it's like I said. One minute I was in class...speaking to Narumi...the next, or, erm, in that same minute I was in the hospital wing." Kurumi slouched a little more in her seat. Yeah, she wasn't making any sense. Then again, none of this made any sense. "Narumi...said that I had frozen before, in another lesson, only I don't remember that happening either."

But, weren't they supposed to be reading old newspapers and magazines? Was it getting hot in here for anyone else? Kurumi tugged nervously on the collar of her robes and bit down on her lip some more.

When Kurumi hugged him back his cheeks flushed a little. He always had a little crush on the Prefect since his second year, but he liked Indy. A girl who had rejected him when he had asked her out. The Slytherin looked down at the articles and sighed.

"No?..oh ok" he wasn't sure what he should do or what he should look for. He was no detective or anything. Then again, none of them were. "So if i find something like this..i have to keep it" he nodded in half understanding before he moved to pick up another article from the newspaper at the same moment as he heard Louisa talk.

Again, he agreed with the Ravenclaw when she asked if it wasn't better to ask Kurumi first. So his gaze went to the girl in the hope she could remember something. When she couldn't he sighed. This was going nowhere. Until...until Vickers spoke. He listened to his story and nodded his head every now and then because he too remembered what had happened. The panic in class after those students froze. He was about to add something when he jumped in shock as a student stood next to him.


He looked to see Glenn standing there , looking really confused. He watched as she picked up an old copy of "Witch Weekly" and placed his own article down for a second. "I'm not sure.." he whispered so he didn't talk over Louisa's and Vickers questions towards Kurumi. "I've gotten a note from Professor Scabior asking if i was interested in helping to find out what happened to the frozen students" a few seconds pause as he flipped a page. "You should help too! i think we could use some help here.." he said as he motioned to the huge pile of articles.

Sarah spotted a variety of reading paranthepla on the desk. "Witch Weekly"? Her mother never got that... but she did once, when was it? Oh... It was when she published in it. Sarah felt spoiled for choice there was so much to read! She picked up a copy of the Daily Prophet and started looking through the classifieds -there were always some funny ones. said one. . . There was someone who forgot about Ministry regulations and posted this classified .

He listened to Kurumi answer their questions… So that effectively takes the Cockatrice out, although he remembers to keep an eye out about Forbidden Forests and the creatures that call it home. More weeding out of articles and stacking them away from whatever remains in his hands-- which wasn’t a lot, so he continued to add more and skim more topics that hasn’t been eliminated yet.

Then he turned his head curiously “All at the same moment?...” he repeated her words trying to grasp what she means “But there were weeks that separated that moment Kurumi, at least to us.” He pauses, trying figure out what it would’ve been like from one who froze “We see you not moving for minutes…. hours… weeks at a time, but for you its like… no time passed at all?” He leans back in his seat, confounded look clear on his face “Like one second you were talking and the next you found yourself somewhere else, with no recollection-- no recognition-- that something else has happened between one second to the next….”

Yup TOTALLY weird.

He sighs as he reaches out and picks up more articles to sift through, then mumbles this under his breath “Either your brain shuts down and comes back on again to pick up on your last memory or you guys have some kind of internal time-turner that shunts you forward. Except that doesn’t make sense because we can see you clearly not going anywhere.”

Maybe he should start looking for those articles, memory lapses or people who swallowed time-turners...

As you flip though the newest version of Hogwarts, A History you come to a halt on somewhere in the middle of chapter seven.

As Milton waited for an answer and mulled over his thoughts about the students being petrified, he flipped through his history textbooks, quickly skimming through the endless paragraphs.

Bowtruckle infestation, flooding dungeons, Mermish invasion... "Oh look, black mold," he mumbled quietly, hardly interested. This was centuries ago. The black mold problem was probably solved by now.

But as Milton overheard Kurumi answering Louisa's and Vickers' questions, he couldn't help but speak up too. After all, Scabior said to question anything that seemed... questionable. Or something.

"Hey Kurumi,' Milton said, pointing at her while he looked at his book. "Did you suffer from any headaches, fatigue, or blackouts before you started... freezing?" The book didn't say anything about freezing students, but it also said that the medical records from that time period were "spotty and unsophisticated...

He glanced at her once before continuing to read on. The dungeons weren't leaking, were they? They weren't wet when he went down earlier... Milton read on. He didn't know if this was even relevant, so he didn't speak up quite yet concerning what he was reading. But it was quite intriguing and interesting, so he continued on reading about the Headmaster then. He was apparently an avid journaler... yet "no factual evidence about the time period immediately following the black mold infestation has been discovered."

"Hmmm." Milton furrowed his eyebrows and turned the page of Hogwarts, A History to read more.

Completely oblivious to the rosy glow that had overtaken Daichi's cheeks - probably in the best interest of the Slytherin anyway - Kurumi returned her gaze to the newspaper in front of her and sighed right along with him. Couldn't have said it any better. What were they supposed to even be looking for?

"It's just...freezing and spells...there...um...there might be a connection," she replied in a low voice. Might be. Might not be. Kurumi really had no clue. "Professor Scabior just said to keep anything that was sort of suspicious looking."

See. She knew she sounded crazy but that was really the only way she could describe what had happened in Potions class. Waking up in the hospital wing had been the strangest experience ever. It had been as though she had simply blinked an eye and suddenly she had been transported. Which made even less sense because one could not apparate within Hogwarts. Wait...maybe she really was part house elf. They could perform all sorts of magic like that in the school. Which meant that Lewis was also part house elf...and all the others...

Er....best to keep this crazy thought to herself.

Kurumi nodded at what Vickers said. Or, at least she thought that what he said was making sense and on par with what she had been saying. "I didn't know I froze until Lewis told me...but even then I didn't entirely believe him until I was shown the date..." Which had been a month after Potions. That, and, well, Lewis just never lied to her.

"B-b-brain shuts down?" she stammered. That really didn't sound good. Wouldn't that stop all bodily functions as well. Wait, were they dead during that time and then came back to life? Kurumi was almost afraid to ask that question until Vickers went on. "I can promise you that I never swallowed a time turner." Although she may have used one to get to all of her OWL exams.

Kurumi's attention was turned to yet another Ravenclaw who asked her some questions. Merlin, now there were three of them. Swallowing shyly, Kurumi rubbed the back of her neck for a moment before speaking. "Maybe...some headaches, but I thought they were just related to stress..." Because last term had been all about OWLs and this term, well, there had been A LOT on the Gryffindor's mind that had strained her to her emotional limit. "Unless you want to count the freezing as a blackout...then no...I haven't. Why?" Had he found something?

Scabior expected a bunch of students to figure out what had happened to make people freeze? Okaaaay. She stopped flipping through the Daily Prophet for the second and looked up, "I'll help. Although, the only thing I can think of would be the Chamber of Secrets..." She muttered. With the freezing people and all that. "They sort of unfroze then froze again though... so they weren't being petrified." Glenn glanced over at Kurumi and noticed the blush. Hmm. Had the other's unfroze too? she really needed to catch up o all that Hogwarts gossip stuff - otherwise she never knew what was going on.

Lost in thought, Glenn store at the pile of articles blankly for a moment. "Could it be some sort of disease that most people are immune to...?" That would explain why some people froze and some didn't. Again, why had Kurumi (and the others...?) woken up? So many questions!

The Ravenclaw's brow goes up worriedly on Kurumi's words "Yeah you did, like suspended animation thing just like Lewis" he shook his headwhen she stammered about the brain comment "Don't mind me that's just me tossing ideas around..." he knew the brain can't shut down completely as that would kill the body, but it sure seemed close to what they're seeing from the outside.

Then the Ravenclaw boy spoke up, reading something from their Hogwarts History book, mentioing about headaches and blackouts of which Kurumi confirms. Hmm more brain related stuff? He reached out for a copy of the book amongst one of the piles and uttered "What chapter are you on uhm..? he really shd try to get this boy's name.

Louisa pursed her lips together when Kurumi pretty much answered all of their questions by a negative answer. This was going to be harder than she thought it would. The Ravenclaw then kept listening to Vickers shower the Gryffindor with more questions, but Louisa's gaze was on the old yellowish magazine-like paper. So far they had ruled out basilisk... cre- wait a second. The Prefect's head snapped up straight, "You mentioned... the creatures from last term, right? The ones that just appeared at the grounds?" The girl paused thoughtfully for quite some time before raising her hand and voicing out her thoughts, "I've seen a Bowtruckle last term too..." Louisa fell silent once again, the paper in one hand while the other tapped her chin. "I didn't touch it... or even interacted with it properly. What did you see? Did you touch it? Talk to it? Went somewhere with it?" Was everyone catching Louisa's drift?

But then the Rude Boy started asking.. really interesting questions. Louisa looked at him and furrowed her brow. He must've found something.. he kept silent all the time through and just piped up now. The girl went back to her magazines, keeping her ears open for anything that would trigger another idea in her head.

Alyssa finally reached the end of her article and decided the best place to look for what may be going on in the school was to look through the history books pertaining to the history of Hogwarts itself.

She dug around until she found those labeled, Hogwarts, A History and started with the ones that dated back to the earliest days of Hogwarts.

Silvia had been heading for the library to do a bit of her own research on a few spells she wanted to try, but when she arrived, she found it crowded, and books were spread out everywhere! Didn't these people know how to clean up after themselves, or at least put the books on the reshelving cart when they were finished with them?

After looking around and taking everything in, she asked, "Um, what's going on here?" of whoever it was who was sitting closest to her.

So she was not the only one in the dark. "I don't know, maybe ask a prefect or the professor" Sarah said, not looking up from the crossword she was doing. She really wanted to know and help, yet she was in the dark.

Kurumi bit down hard on her lower lip and sort of slouched in her seat, making her body a little slower. Suspended animation? It sounded like a Freezing Charm of some sort, but weren't people and creatures conscious whenever that spell was cast on them? So, it wasn't a spell like that...because Kurumi certainly had no recollection of anything that had happened including her freezing at all.

Kurumi tried to return a small smile to Vickers, but it was hard because all this was so scary. It made no sense, especially after Milton had asked her some questions. "I never suffered from fatigue..." she said as more of an after thought to everything. Her headaches hadn't been all that bad either. "The worse has been the memory loss..."
Kurumi was back to blinking nervously in Louisa's direction. "W-W-Well...um...I didn't touch any of them and only spoke to one, an Acromantula named Ranog who said that there was something in the forest that the creatures didn't like and they would not return until it was gone only..." Kurumi trailed off for a moment as she rubbed her temples, trying to remember as many details about that day in the vegetable patch as she could. "Only...the Chimaera that had been with Ranog returned to the forest...I assume that he went with it since we haven't heard anything about any of the creatures since." No more spottings on the grounds and all that.

Some headaches, possibly related to stress. That seemed likely, especially at school. "Do you normally get headaches when you're stressed?" he inquired further. But she said there weren't any blackouts. Unless he counted the freezing. "That's the thing, I don't know. I'm in the middle of chapter seven. It says there was a black mold infestation from the Black Lake leaking into the kitchens..." Milton ran his finger along the text as he read, unaware that his fellow Ravenclaw was trying to get his name. He was too consumed in reading. "It says that six students slipped into comas... I wonder if that has any relation to the freezing... 'Cause it also said that the medical records were 'spotty and unsophisticated..." Milton was just kind of rambling at that point, not really sure if he was over-analyzing this whole thing or what.


"Memory loss?" Milton asked, looking up at her again. "Is that much different than a blackout..?" Kind of sounded the same to him. Just black spots in her memory, maybe...

Wait. "What?" Acromantula? And... a Chimaera? Milton stared at Kurumi incredulously. What kind of school was this, keeping extremely dangerous animals around?! If his mother knew about this, she would pull him and Anna out in no time.

Milton heard her say there was something in the forest that the creatures didn't like... Well, that was creepy. "But they didn't say what it was?" he asked, slightly butting into their conversation. "What other kind of weird stuff happened last year in this castle?" Too bad he wasn't here last year. He was in the dark.

"Chapter Seven...." he murmured as he leafed through the Hogwarts: A History book, partly listening to the discussion between Kurumi and his fellow Claws, but also reading the passage that the Eagle boy was speaking off "I also saw a Thestral last term... and a Blast-Ended Skrewt" he added to the discussion, although at that time thought nothing special of it other than a few errant creatures invading Wizarding living areas. Anybody who lives close enough to mountains and forests like he does gets used to those kinds of occurrences.

But his eyes grew large as he found the passage in the book "Mold infestations at Hogwarts??" he murmured wincing. "Its a long time ago but still..." molds are scary things if left uncheck, and for a castle as old as Hogwarts, re-occurrences are always an issue with such things.

But it was the passage towards the bottom that caught his eye "...the many rumors printed in the local press at that time, no factual evidence about the period immediately following the black mold infestation has been discovered..." he read aloud then eyed the stack of articles. Well rumors are rumors but Vickers still wanted to read it and determine himself if they were indeed nothing more than column fodder or there was some undiscovered truth in them. Laying the Hogwarts book down with its pages open in front of him, this Ravenclaw reached out for the stack of articles and tried to search for anything that was related to the passages from the book.

Alyssa listened as the others discussed their findings. "I agree with Vickers. There was all those strange creature sightings in placed where they usually wouldn't be found and then the appearance of the orb."

"No one has really come up with a reason that scared and disturbed the creatures that much that made them behave strangely. No one ever discovered what the orb was and where it came from."

"I also read something about freezing time." Alyssa said referring back to the magazine which she had bookmarked. "It says that a person can be frozen in time, while the rest of the world still continues to move on in time."

"Could that have possibly happened? Kurumi, I know that Vickers has already asked you that question, but did you even remember anything that happened while you were frozen? Did you by any chance come into contact with that mysterious orb last term too?"

I don't think it has something to do with the Chamber of secrets.... daichi answered Glenn back as he flipped a page. i mean, it had been a Basilisk who froze the students and when we went down to the chambers last year during class there wasn't one. because it had been killed, right? Mweh it was the best he could remember reading About it.

Throwing aside an random article that didn't even have the basic words such as Frozen, he grabbed another one. This was harder than he thought it would be.

And the whole mold infestation at Hogwarts so Many years back made the Slytherin even more confused. He scratched the back of his head and sighed deeply. Then, the talk went to the creatures and this time , Daichi looked up from a new newspaper article he was reading. i have seen a black unicorn last year near the forbidden forest.... Which, according to Williamson had been pretty rare... OH! kurumi! You saw the unicorn as well! Maybe it has something to do with that creature. he said with a frown, not knowing if it would help anyone further. But... Then i should have been Frozen as well...But i haven't MWEH... Back to the start.

Overhearing Alyssa saying something about a mysterious orb, Daichi looked at the Hufflepuff. what orb? he asked as confusion was written on his features and he looked from Alyssa to Kurumi as he waited for a reply.

As you turn the page, you notice that there isn't much about the previous text. Just a small chart. A small chart that seems to be missing something.

Milton listened to a few of the students say that they had interacted with stray animals last term. "But none of you ever froze... so I don't think the animals had anything to do with it." It was still very peculiar, though.

He heard the Hufflepuff mention a 'mysterious orb'. Milton narrowed his eyes. That sounded familiar... Oh. "Didn't Tate say something about an orb? At the feast at the beginning of term..." Right? It was vaguely familiar. Milton looked around at the rest of the students to make sure this wasn't just a figment of his imagination.

Turning his attention back to his textbook, Milton wanted to read on about the black mold infestation... but he didn't have much luck. Instead, he found a chart of School Rolls. He almost kept reading on, but glancing at it, he noticed something.

1753 was missing. There wasn't a student count for the school year of 1753.

"Hold on, take a look at this. Turn the page," he told the group of students around him. "There's a roll, a count of all the students for each school year... Except for 1753. And that's when the mold infestation was." What could that mean? Was it even significant?

Scabior never gazed up from what he was reading, as he opened his mouth to answer the question. "Basilisks are the only known way, and even then it is rare because a Basilisks' gaze is intended to kill someone." Not petrify. It just so happened that the students who were petrified may years ago never looked at the creature directly.

"It's not a disease." The Professor said dully as he continued to read "And if it is the only way you'll find out is if you read and stop speculating without any reason to speculate."

"As a group, we are looking for anything in the texts that might seem a bit strange or really relate to people freezing in the past, like whats been going on recently." He nodded, grab and book and come join.

He looked up in time to see a student doing a crossword. How helpful. "If you want to help us look for examples of freezing in the past you are more than welcomed, otherwise please head to somewhere else in the library." She was taking up space that someone helpful could use.

There was a lot of chatting. And in the library at that, but for this Scabior would allow it, as he continued to read he couldn't help but catch on to the conversation that the Ravenclaw boy was having with others.

It seemed like had found something?

As Vickers made his way to the articles, after talking to his housemate, Scabior gave him an approving nod. "Nice thinking Mr. Vanderbilt." Perhaps...just perhaps...there might be some relation in the articles. "Try looking for one of those papers around the same year." Or the years before or after. The really old papers of course. Scabior hopped off the table was sitting and even made his way over to help.

"Stating the very obvious that we already know." That was not any new information. "Have you found any facts around why." Or was it just a sourceless article?

Scabiors brows came together. Roll count missing? He reached over to another table grabbing one of the copies of Hogwarts, A History and turned to the chapter that Milton was talking about. "No doubt the Headmaster just didn't calculate the roll....or didn't want it written for some reason."

Kurumi was back to rubbing the back of her neck a little when Milton asked her some more questions. "Um...sort of. Last term was awful because of OWLs especially." She really hadn't thought the headaches were anything out of the ordinary to be honest. They were not all that persistent in her case and, well, Kurumi didn't think that there was anything conclusive to be made about headaches alone. Lots of people got them. "Comas?" she asked as she peered over a little to see just what he was reading. "But...when you are in a coma I've read cases where people were aware to some level of what was going on around them. It is your body's way of slowing you down so you can heal..." Which had little to no connection to what had happened to Kurumi. At least she felt so. "Not to mention that people in comas don't all wake up at essentially the exact same moment..."

When Milton asked about memory loss her cheeks flushed instantly and she looked down at the random newspaper article she had been reading from the 1700's. "Um...well...um...doesn't a black out require some sort of...head trauma..." Maybe she should be looking at some medical magazines while she was in here.

Kurumi chewed on her lip some more, her eyes scanning the front page of another newspaper. "There were... a lot of creature encounters last term..." That was really all there was to say about that, right?

Well, Kurumi had already said why the creatures were not where they usually were, in the Forbidden Forest, because there was something there that frightened them and they didn't want to be near. So..Kurumi simply shrugged at the Hufflepuff's first comment.

Kurumi shrugged her shoulders some more when Alyssa pointed several questions in her direction. She had mostly just answered those moments ago, minus the mention of the orb which Kurumi had almost forgotten about since, well, it was now in pieces. "It's like I told Vickers, I----" but she was cut off with Professor Scabior spoke and her eyes went back to the newspaper in front of her.
Kurumi smiled at Daichi when he tried to reason out a theory having to do with the creatures. Kurumi had almost forgotten about the unicorn...Merlin, she had encountered a lot of the creatures that had appeared on the grounds last term. A lot. There may have only been two encounters that she had heard about that she had not been around for. Then again, Lewis hadn't really been around for any of them....so besides there being something in the forest, Kurumi couldn't really see a connection between them and what they were attempting to research now.

"Do you remember a ball that Toddles, the baby house elf, was throwing around the Opening Feast?" Kurumi asked. The creepy orb that had seemed to practically seek her out in the corridor last term. "The Headmaster has already been investigating it and, well, it shouldn't be too much of a concern now because...it is in pieces." However that had happened the Gryffindor didn't know. She just saw it in pieces in the observation ward.

Hearing Milton speak again, mentioning a year, Kurumi shifted through the yellowish Daily Prophet papers in front of her until she found some with dates in 1753 and 1754. Separating the 1753 ones, Kurumi took the first part of the year until June and then passed the other half of the year to Vickers. "Maybe there is something in here?" If it was recording in the textbook, then the Daily Prophet should have said something too, right?

Not that the Daily Prophet was always a reliable source. History had taught them that much.

Daichi frowned as he placed down his article. As a matter of fact, yes, he did remember that house elf throwing around a ball. But... "i thought it was just a play ball" he said with a blank expression. The food at the feast had had his full 100% attention that he had only vaguely watched the house elf. Eh..seems like he really needed to pay attention more.

And that it was in pieces was something he REALLY didn't know. So when Kurumi told him this his expression changed again in to confused one. Why did Scabior asked him to help? he was useless and didn't even know half of the things going on!

But, he wanted to help though so he picked up an old book and lazily skipped through it.

Hearing the older boy, Daichi stood up from his seat to move to where he was. He eyed the roll and just like he had said, there hadn't been a record during 1753. "What if whatever has happened to the frozen students now has happened to the whole school back then?"his face paled a little at the thought. If it was true than that would have been horrible!

Silvia nodded in thanks to the professor for answering her. Researching what had caused some of her classmates and professors to freeze? Silvia was all for that. She really wanted to figure out this mystery. It had been on her mind a lot lately but she hadn’t really had time to look into it, and wouldn’t have known where to start looking anyways.

Her own research forgotten, Silvia took a seat at a table and looked over everything piled on it. Then she stood back up and reached for a heavy book on the other side of the table. Sitting back down, she took a good look at it. It was an old history book; the pages were a bit yellowed at the corners and the ink was beginning to fade in a few spots, though it was still readable. She began to flip through it, hoping there would be at least some hint in it about what had been going on at Hogwarts this year. If not, then hopefully there would be at least something interesting in its pages to keep her entertained.

Sarah was eager to help, wasn;t that why she was standing around, waiting for instructions. She took out an old history book from a gazillon years ago, carefully turning the page, lest the paper break, as it fel like doing. "Maybe there are old hospital wing records, like who had what when.? Maybe it will say something about mysterious freezing?" Said Sarah thinking about it.