Annnnd.... Alexa was out of the compartment. Which just caused Emmanuelle to headdesk her head right into the door jamb. Oi. Welp, nothing she could do about that now. All she could do was try and keep the other two as calm as possible. Which didn't seem to be working out as well with the girl, at least. Sigh. "Um, we hit a cow?" she suggested. Because there was no way she was voiceing what was really going through her mind. "And of course we'll still go to school! They'll just move the cow, fix the train and we'll be on our way again!" She hoped it would be that simple, anyway.

James was freaking out in his head. What if someone kidnapped Anya and Penelope.

M-m-m-maybe we should j-just stay in h-here until we're told we c-can l-l-leave" he stammered out. Yes, he was that terrified.

James brought his feet up onto the seat and hugged his knees tightly, whimpering a little from fright. He rested his chin on the tops of his knees, frowning. "Are we t-there yet?" he asked quietly.

A sudden loud grinding noise can be heard coming from outside, right before the train shudders to a quick stop, sending students, luggage, and animals toppling out of place.

Alice was rewarded by her petting of the cat with the pretty thing dumped in her lap. OHYAY. Kitty. Pretty kitty. She stroked the thing protectively as Jake put his arm around her. Awh. It was nice to have an older brother. She rubbed the cat behind its ears while watching Penelope and Anya grapple at the door, and Anya dragging her back to her seat. "Should we go find someone? Like.. like a professor or something? Or the food trolley lady? Or even a Prefect? Even though she had Cobbie with her now, it would have been nice to have Lou or Kurumi-Cookie with here as well. They could scare the evil train bogie away with their badges.

At least she thought so.

She continued to pet Spot while speaking again. "Maybe.. we should just wait it out? After all, the lights are back on.. and we might start moving again.. and we should be there soon, it's been a while. Yeah? She leaned over to peek out the window. They didn't seem to be at Hogwarts yet... but they could be close.. maybe.. probably not

And then Alice was sent flying off Jake's lap as the train came to an abrupt atop. The cat was still in her arms; she had cradled Spot and held him away from the hard ground, so he seemed to be okay. But the luggage was toppling out of the overhead compartment and onto her. There wasn't much she could do but sit there and hold Spot away from the tumbling luggage and groan.

OW.

WHAT ON EARTH WAS THAT NOISE?!?!?! It was worse than nails on a chalkboard. Nails on a chalkboard connected to an amplifier cranked to eleven. It made Emmanuelle cover her ears and wrinkle her face. And the train came to a sudden stop, sending her face first back into the door jamb, harder this time. CRACK! Ow. Now her nose hurt. She reached up to feel it and flinched. That just made it hurt worse! And it was bleeding! "I think I broke my nose!" she said, her voice sounding funny.

Penelope frowned as Anya suddenly dragged her away from the door. "But we aren't going to figure out what's wrong just by sitting here," she protested, pulling her hand out of Anya's. And they all wanted to know what was wrong, didn't they? Or was Penelope the only one? But either way, Penelope wasn't planning on touching anything shiny - she wasn't sure what anything shiny had to do with the lights flickering and the train slowing down anyway. Still standing, she was about to walk back to the door, but stopped as James caught her attention. He seemed...awfully afraid.

"Don't worry, it'll be-" But just then - the train STOPPED, and Penelope was knocked off-balance and thrown against the opposite seat, her knee taking the brunt of the hit.

Well THAT was unexpected.

Having collected herself from the fall in the back of the train, the Headmistress bustled into the middle cars and barked out her same announcement:

"EVERYONE IN A SEAT, NOW! I need to know all are accounted for and safe, and we're taking a count by those who are seated." Or something like that, anyway. "If you're not sitting down on the floor or in a chair, I'm going to assume you're having some kind of emergency, and I have NO QUALMS with dragging you up to the front of the train with me for 'treatment'."

She shot the children a LOOK and then moved on to the next compartment. She would keep going until someone replied to her patronus.

A cow? Seriously?

"I'm pretty sure it's not a cow so stop trying to make me think it is! There's probably some kind of horrible monster out here--Heeyyyy!!! I wanna see the moster!" She was suddenly very excited. She clung to the girl eagerly looking up at her. "Can I go see the monster? I promise I won't touch him unless he says it's okay?"

Just then theh train jolted to a complete halt sending her crashing to the floor with such forced that she could have felt her knees throbbing terribly. She looked over at Emm who had also fallen and was shocked to hear her say she had broken her nose. "Oh no! Are you sure?" She was about to get up to check it when the scary woman walked in and ordered that everyone remain seated unless they wanted to go with her. That was enough to keep her planted...for now...

Anya checked out the window again. "We shouldn't..." she replied to James.

But...

FLAIL!!!

As soon as the words left her mouth she toppled right on top of James, trapping him in the seat.

She groaned slightly and rubbed her head. And then her arm. "SorryJames." she muttered softly.

"Erryonealright?" she asked in a rush. Yeah. She was still off guard and disoriented.

She looked around from her stop still on top of James. Her eyes widened spotting Alice. "Alice, are you alright?" she asked leaning down and shoving some things unceremoniously off of her.

FLAIL! "CiCi!" she squealed a little picking up her owl's cage. Minus the very loud squawking, the owl seemed unharmed. Luckily.

And then a very loud red head burst through the compartments. She scrambled quickly to seat, probably sitting on someone in the process. She was alive scary red head.

Alice was still lying on the floor, buried under the luggage, and cradling Spot safely in her arms when the new Headmistress burst in. After Anya shoved some things off of her, Alice had a bit more space to sit up.. but couldn't. "I.. I don't think I can move my right leg, she said uneasily, jerking it out from under the pile. After crying out in pain, she decided that she had probably injured it. EW. No. She didn't want to go with the crazy Headmistress lady for 'treatment'. Never. She could still.. SIT. On the ground. Kinda. Not really.

So Alice awkwardly was half-seated, half-stretched out on the floor of the Compartment and really had no choice but to stay put.

"WHAAA-" James exclaimed as the train screeched to a stop and Anya toppled onto him. "....hiAnya" he mumbled.

Well, at least Anya had kept him from falling. "Yeah...I'm alright, really. Thanks for asking" he said, his breath shaky.

He looked up in surprise when the Headmistress barged in and demanded they all sit. He sat up when Anya scrambled off of him, but couldn't help but inch his hand towards hers so their fingertips brushed. For comfort, of course.

He looked down at Alice as concern swept over his face. "Alice, do you want help or anything, or do you wanna stay on the floor?" he asked, not realizing his fingers were now overlapping Anya's a little.

"No you can't touch the monster!" Emmanuelle snapped, losing her good humor. Really, what was the girl thinking!

(OOC: A couple minutes later )

After the train's sudden stop, some red haired woman came in yelling for everyone to sit down. Em debated staying standing, but something about the way the woman spoke had her popping a squat right in front of the doorway of the compartment she had started the train ride in. Who was that woman anyway? Was she the new Headmistress or one of the Board of Governors?

"Yep, I think so," Emmanuelle answered Alexa, slightly calmer now. She reached up to feel it again. Still hurt.

"Yeah I know..." She said, rising from the ground and leaning against the wall; now that the woman had gone further down the train she could stand and do what she wanted. "but what if the monster said I could...? Wouldn't it be okay then?" Surely it had to be because she would have gotten permission!

"Ummm...well how are you going to get it fixed? I'd offer to help but you but I'm pretty sure I'd only make it worse." And so she would not even try.

Instead she turned her attention to the outside of the train. Something had to be out there because the train stopped and trains didn't just stop themselves...but what. She walked over to the window to see if she could get a glimpse of anything in particular that might give her a clue or something.

Now that the train had completely stopped and nothing else was falling, Penelope started pushing herself up off the floor, wincing a bit as she tried to bend her knee before forcing her face to be expressionless. It hurt, and it would probably bruise, but she was fine. She was sure she was. Alice, on the other hand, didn't seem to be. Then, suddenly, there was some redheaded woman yelling at them to sit unless they needed "treatment" before heading down the corridor again. Looking back down at Alice, and holding back the wince this time as she bent her knee, Penelope sat down beside Alice.

"Do you need treatment?" she asked.

Getting ready to figure out how to inform Mika that she actually hadn't meant to do the hair flickery thing, but that it was something that just happened, Kendall had reached for another truffle at the same time things started to go a bit... not right. Especially as she found that she'd just picked up the very last truffle from the box, which meant not only were the lights flickering and the train was slowing down, but she WAS OUT OF CHOCOLATE!!!!!! And Patrick was who knew where hiding from Mika, with her chocolate. Not only that, but she'd seen the blonde slide off her seat to start crawling toward the door. She was not going to let people escape when she couldn't, even if she still had Patrick's trunk and maybe he had chocolate in there too. Logan hadn't reacted yet, so she slipped Accio off her lap long enough to reach over to try and grab her fellow 'Claw's ankle. She definitely wasn't letting her escape to go stalk Patrick more and make him hold her chocolate hostage longer, and for all she knew there were dementors out there roaming the corridors. Or even worse, zombies, and here she was with no chocolate and nothing she could use to defend herself and the others in the compartment if they attacked.

Except maybe our trunks, but I could barely get mine into the rack, she thought, at the same time the train had ground to a halt, and she ended up sprawling onto the floor, half across Mika's feet. "Ow," she said, glancing up to make sure that they weren't about to get squished by said trunks. That would be bad, and she scooted off the second year as she realized they loked kinda wobbly up there. Logan couldn't catch both of them, and she wasn't about to get squished. Even if that meant Mika escaped to torment Patrick again, but then the compartment door had opened to reveal a redheaded lady yelling about treatments, taking account of everyone, and that they all needed to stay seated. "Okay," she said softly, wondering who the lady was and reaching up to grab Accio as her kitty started creeping along the seat behind her. She wasn't letting her kitty get in trouble either. I wonder if she'd let me stand up long enough to look for chocolate in the trunk, she wondered, eyes big, staying seated on the floor even as the woman had stormed off to bark her orders into the other compartments.

After getting the kids out in the halls taken care of, Armen Recard made his way into the middle section with his wand lit in one hand to shine his way through the dark compartments. When he entered the place he could see that chaos had begun to ensue, naturally, and that the students were all currently sitting in the floor and standing around, eyes wide.

"Hey kids, Armen Recard Department Head Of Magical Transportation for the Ministry here. Your Headmistress summoned me to help out with the Train problem and well...we can't fix it so we will be travelling by Portkey this evening." He dropped the sack of objects onto the floor infront of him. "Don't worry, it's perfectly safe and if you are new to it, just watch what everyone else does."

The Ministry official pulled out an old stuffed teddy bear, a broken guitar neck, an empty can of soda, and a picture frame. "Everyone gather around one of the items here and make sure you touch it in order to be transported. We are meeting up at the Hogsmeade train station like normal. Don't leave the platform until we all arrive."

And with that the items began to glow BLUE ready to take off.

OCC: What he said guys! Go ahead and Rp your charrie touching a Portkey object and your charrie can disappear. You will soon see where you should post next.

Still grasping Accio tightly in one arm, Kendall risked the woman coming back and dragging her to the front of the train for whatever treatment she'd been talking about and stood up. She wasn't about to sit here worrying about if they were going to be stranded here, wherever here was, without chocolate. And even if Patrick wanted to see if things were safe again and came back, she had a feeling he'd be more likely to follow the rules and stay seated wherever he'd gone to hide. Therefore it was down to her to locate any possible stashes he had, that weren't in his bag that was annoyingly still with him. The empty truffle box certainly didn't help her any, so she needed his trunk. Which was up in the luggage rack and she wasn't about to try to drag it down on top of herself. Or risk getting in trouble for trying to summon it, since she did have her wand tucked in one of her boots. The Ministry had ways of finding those things out, and she couldn't try and get out of it by saying she'd been talking to her kitty.

However, almost as soon as she'd stood up, semi-climbing up on the seat to try and get at the latch to her friend's trunk, a strange man had arrived and dropped a bunch of stuff on the floor. A strange man who had introduced himself as someone from the Ministry, and she almost fell again as she'd swiveled her head to look at him. "It's not normal," she informed him, regaining her balance and applying herself to the trunk latch again. If they were going to the platform like normal, that would mean the train was pulling into the station. Not them all arriving by Portkey. But she didn't want to stay on the dead train either, so, randomly grabbing a small bag out of the trunk and latching it again, she jumped down and shifted her cat to the arm holding the bag of what seemed like bars of chocolate as she approached the pile of Portkeys. "Are you going to get our trunks to school? 'Cause I have two. Well, mine and my friend's, and obviously I can't get both of them there," she asked, looking at him entirely seriously as she reached for one of the old bear's legs. He was going to be responsible if someone got mad at her for not wearing her school robes, because she'd barely been able to get her trun k up into the rack. She certainly wasn't going to be able to get it safely to the platform with her via portkey, and after a second or two she tightened her grip on both kitty and chocolate as she felt the tug signaling the Portkey doing its work.

"Well...Some girls are stupid."[/B] Unlike her. Cause she was a RAVENCLAW. And eagles were not stupid. ...Or silly. DESPITE what Bliss may think. >___< "'Guess they don't realize how awesome not so cute animals are!" BEAM. Someone who UNDERSTOOD. Finally. Even Theo hated toads. Blue smiled as she listened. "Course! Looks don't matter. Not even a little bit." Nope. What an enlightened - BIG WORD. I know - boy Terry was. Obviously he was a Claw she hadn't seen around in the common room. Yup. "Everyone deserves attention even if they're not as pretty as others..."Blue trailed off, keeping her gaze down on the rat. Ouch. That kind of hit home. With the whole thing about Isis being a lot prettier and just meh. >_____< No one ever made her think of those years leading up to when she ran away from a little while. She wasn't quite sure how she felt about Terry bringing it up...kinda.


"Amadeus is an awesome name!" It was. "Is it aftah that muggle composer he lived, like, thousands of years ago?" Apparently he was important or something like that. That's what Mommy said anyway. "Oh right." Maaaan. That was disappointing. HOW WAS SHE SUPPOSED TO GET ONE NOW?!?! Humf.

Blue's eyes widened and she smiled at the boy. "You think? I like her too!" She stroked the rat again and sighed in content. What a wonderful way to start the school year. TWO new friends. Terry and Brie. Hehe.

"That's good! Because you ARE awesome and it'd suck if you didn't like it!"

....Blue frowned at Terry then the ceiling. What the...? Were they slowing down? Her stomach churned with nerves and she swallowed, eyes wide with fear cause...cause...

SHE WAS TERRIFIED OF THE DARK.



And then the lights went completely dark and the train lurched, sending Blue, Brie and WMD lurching forward. Her trunk fell over, sliding under Terry's seat. Oh Merlin. She jumped up and a hissing could be heard under Blue's seat from the annoyed!fat!kneazle. "BARNABUS!" She dove under the bench and dragged him out before shutting him in his cage. BUT WHERE WAS WMD?! And the dark... Okay...Could she panick now? She turned to Terry. "I can't find WMD!! Where's Brie?!" O___O Waaaaaah. Okay okay. Don't cry. But it was haaaard. For three reasons a) she was still an ickle girl b) she was TERRIFIED and c) SHE COULDN'T FIND HER LOVELY TOAD!!!!!![s



Blue spun around to face the ministry man. WHAT THE HECK WAS A PORTKEY?!?! O____O But she nodded anyway because she just wanted to GO HOME. Obviously she couldn't go home home to her daddy but she wanted to go to Hogwarts and curl up withWMD by her head and Barnabus on her feet with Mika jumping on the bed next to her and maybe even a hot chocolate from the kitchens and-and...NO. Right now she had to find WMD. "C'mon, let's find 'em." She said to Terry and bent down to look under the seat.

Emmanuelle's mouth dropped open as the Ministry man explained how they were getting off the train. Portkey. She hated portkeys ever since that awful crash landing after the History of Magic class trip to Atlantis last term. Granted, that was due to a certain little then first year and his fort, but still. Her back had hurt for week! Well, okay, a day. Anyway, it seemed like this was the only way off the island train, so she was just going to have to suck it up. Motioning for Alexa and Pao to follow her she started the short walk over to the pile of objects. As she walked, she asked "Have you guys used a portkey before? If not, then just do what I do." And hopefully they wouldn't run into any smoke monsters.

Reaching the pile of objects, Emmanuelle picked up the broken guitar neck and held one end while holding it out to Alexa and Pao to touch. "Now, just put, at the very least, a finger on the guitar neck and make sure you're not about to rip it out of anyone else's hand. Because that would be bad." Very, very bad.

And then there was that familiar tug of a working portkey.....

Nathan rolled his eyes when she took so much time to smile - he used his finger to poke at the corner of her lips, while grinning himself. "Smilee." he insisted.

He would have continued - poking and prodding her, if it wasn't for the sudden flicker of lights. What the-? His head turned to see outside the window .. they surely couldn't be there, yet.

Before he could brush it all off to paranoia, he heard the noise - .. what the-? were they stopping?

And then it happened.

The sudden jolt from the train stopping had Nathan stumbling down very hard - and in some instinct, he had grabbed onto Delphi's hand .. - to know she was safe, or to keep her safe if something happened - and as that something did happen, Nathan from some odd movement did fell down to the floor but luckily had Delphi landing on his lap .. while his own head bumped against the compartment wall.

Ow.

"Delphinia? You okay?"

What the hell just happened?

A trip to the food trolley had turned out to be rather more dangerous than usual as the train had come to a screeching halt and Patrick tumbled to the ground, Orion's cage ended up flying through the air; landing a few feet away from him. "What in Merlin's name is going on?" He muttered as he got back to his feet and brushed the dirt from the knees of his pants before grabbing his owl's cage, he might have gotten a bit scraped up from the fall but that wasn't about to stop him on the search for the compartment where Kendall and the other kids in the compartment were; before he had had the opportunity to find everyone, he ducked into another compartment to see blue objects near him. What are those? Are we still going to be getting to Hogwarts? There were far too many questions wandering his mind but the announcement from the Ministry man had cleared up the objects, so they were portkeys; huh. Not something that he had seen before but if that was the only way that he was going to be able to get off the train then, he'd have to do it. Stepping forward, he touched the picture frame and waited to see what was to come since this was strangely exciting; all of the sudden the feeling of being pulled had taken over him and he had tried not to focus on it.

Everything was beginning to move so quickly! From where she stodd she saw a man walking up and introducing himself as a Magical Transportation person. Well that was a relief, that meant they could finally get out of there!

But what were portkeys and what on earth was Hogsmeade? Did the thing still work even if you didn't know where you were going? She didn't even want to think about that answer for fear that it wouldn't have been a pleasant one. Instead she held on to Felix in the event something else would happen.

When Emm walked over and grabbed one of the items in the bag then walked back she examined it. It didn't look much like a key at all! They had been lied to! They were never getting off this train

Oh...but Emm was explaining how it work. Okay. False alarm. Everyone would live. She took hold of the key as was explained--but not before securing Felix in her arms--then felt a sudden tugging...

James looked up at the Ministry guy that walked in and started talking. He looked at the Portkeys on the ground and his face went mellow. He had used a Portkey like once before and hated it.

James knelt down and looked around. "Why not we use the teddy bear?" he suggested to his group, sniffling a little.

Elise was sleeping rather comfortably, head rested against the window as she dozed. She did every term. Travelling somehow just made her a little drowsy. So she slept through the whole flickering lights episode, and didn't quite notice the train losing speed. Nope. She just slept on.

But when the train shuddered to a stop, Elise's eyes flew open as she was hurled across the compartment, landing on her left arm onto the seat opposite her. Hearing a sickening crack, she pretended it wasn't her as she watched the very pink person come in and order everyone to sit down.

Nodding, she tried to push herself up before wincing. "Ow!" she groaned, pushing off with her other hand. Once seated, she tried straightening her arm. Wincing in pain, she decided she'd better get a seventh year to Episkey her or maybe even just wait for Healer Tillstorm.

Another voice. Oh, gr- Department Head of Magical Transportation? So they were getting out of there? Brilliant! Awesome! Whatever word you can find for it. Oh, wait. Rewind and repeat?

Portkey.

Oh, no. No. No. No. She hated portkeys. Especially after History of Magic last term. The landings were horrible. But she didn't seem to have any other options, she mused as she shuffled closer to the Department Head guy.

Wincing, she reached out for the guitar neck just in time for the object to turn blue. Feeling the familiar yank behind her navel and the nausea, Elise closed her eyes. This was probably going to hurt.

Then, she disappeared along with everyone else. Poof.

When Penelope asked her if she needed treatment, Alice shook her head abruptly. "I don't know.. but I don't want it... even if my leg IS broken." She could drag herself for a little while.. right? She could hop on one foot or something. She was still holding the unharmed Spot, the prettiest cat in the world, and she set him down next to Penelope. After rubbing his ears one more time. The lioness reached for Frank, who was sitting, unscathed, on top of all the luggage. She placed her precious chocolate frog pet dutifully on her shoulder, where he sat at attention. "What... what'rewesupposedtodonow?" She asked tentatively.

She almost didn't want to know the answer.

And.. and then a tall man appeared from out in the corridor, telling them to grab a Portkey. HEEEEY. That guy wasn't Headmistress Redhead! Why should they trust him? Well, apparently they were going to, because James had already grabbed the teddy bear. "Whataboutourthings?" Her trunks? Her bunny teddy was in there. She could not LIVE without her bunny teddy. She reached up a small hand for the teddy bear, but it was too high. "JAMES-Y. Can you lower that thing so us that are NOT standing can reach it? Yeah, thanks."

And. Reaching upwards was hurting her leg. So, after taking a look around at the others, she reached up just a little higher for the glowing blue Portkey and felt a nauseating sensation from behind her navel, as if she was being pulled. Her head started to spin. And her vision started to go blurry. Yeah, this DID hurt more when you had a broken leg.

And then it all went black.