With arms folded, Vi headed to the least favourite part of her patrols.... The border of the Forbidden Forest. A trip to the edge of the forest was certainly enough fill for her. With her wand in her hand, she paused, waiting to hear something or someone approaching. Hopefully another student hadn't developed a marvelous idea to defy the rules and head into the Forbidden Forest, right?

Curious blue eyes cast towards the ominous forest. Besides, what even slumbered in there?

Matt was just... you know, sitting there. By one of the trees. That's right, one of the trees at the very edge of the Forbidden Forest. OooooOOOOoooo, scaaAAaaryyyyy...

Only not really. Nothing seemed to be happening over there now, which, in his opinion, was a bit boring. At least compared to some of their Defence Against the Dark Arts lessons. Sometimes that made him wonder how much horror and bad stuff he would actually encounter in real life while working as an Auror.

But then again, that WAS a school, so he supposed they would try hard to keep underaged students safe. Well, """"safe"""". Anyone who had heard of Hogwarts knew that although that was a very safe place... it wasn't really. Haha.

He heard some steps moving towards the Forest and was momentarily put in CONSTANT VIGILANCE mode, with his wand at the ready, free hand on the ground and legs ready to SPRINT UP in case of-

Oh, it was only Vi. Lol? The heck was she doing there?

The seventh year squinted his eyes, trying to figure out what the Gryffindor prefect was doing. Had she seen him? She looked like she was just... watching the forest, waiting for something to happen.

Well, bad news, Vi, nothing much seemed to be happening there that day.

Or... maybe it was.

Hehehehehehehehe.

The Gryffindor conjured up a bunch of ropes and enchanted them to slither towards the girl. You know, just for fun.

She heard something rustling. The rustling noise sent shivers down her spine as she heard it approach her. Umm... Some creature? A snake or something? Vi turned around, casting a on-verbal Lumos. Her blue eyes widened as she saw a snake or something moving in a snake like fashion... slithering towards her. A yelp escaped her lips and she jumped. She tried to recover her balance by moving her feet quickly but alas she landed on the side of her foot and heard a nice clicking noise.

Fortunately she fell on a rather soft patch of ground, filled mostly with grass and the occasional odd root from one of the trees. The rustling sound still approached her. Vi got quickly to her feet and tried her hardest to hop towards the castle. It must have been some creature after her. This was awful. She had to get out of here. NOW. The adrenaline continued to pulse throughout her body and her heart beat so fast and loud so much so that she couldn't hear her own thoughts at the moment nor feel the pain of her twisted ankle.

"Stupefy!" she cried, flinging a spell into the dark forest. The rustling continued..... That would have worked on a snake, right? Vi paused. "Homenum Revelio!"

Her yelp and falling over would've been enough to give him away, but Matt managed to stifle a laugh and just snort as he watched his housemate scramble around.

Oh, she was limping. Hmm... was Chewie going to be mad at him for hurting his gal?

Welp. That was life.

Then the prefect cast a Stunning spell and Matt had to cover his mouth not to laugh out loud. Alas, her next spell sent a swooshing something around him, finally making him fall over on his side as he cracked up rather loudly.

Hallo, Vi! LOL!

Vi gripped her wand tighter, glaring at the darkness ahead of her. Then her eyes narrowed when she heard laughing. Laughing? She glared. She knew that laugh better than she'd like to admit. "Matthew Merriwether...." she grumbled as she began taking a few steps towards the laughter, wincing every so often. Ow... Ow... Ow... Had she hurt her ankle somehow?

"MATT!" she shrieked, casting lumos when she stood above her fellow housemate. Oh yeah. She was not impressed and Chewie would be hearing about this. Vi smirked all of a sudden as she pointed her wand towards him. "Titillando," she smirked. Heh.

A little payback was appropriate, yes?

The boy was still laughing his head off when his prefect made her way towards where he was. "You should've seen your face!" He said looking at her, and as soon as she pointed her wand at him he ricocheted the spell with a non-verbal of his own. Constant vigilance - HE WAS A PRO at it unless the opponent was a deceiving Slytherin who used some awful low tactics that were beneath Gryffindors, but that was another story.

"You've got to be quicker than that, young grasshopper." The seventh year told his housemate before laughing again. "That was some good reactions, right there." He added, mimicking her scrambling around before falling onto his side again and laaauughiing some more. Wand still in hand, he rolled on the ground to face the trees above him. "Ahhh, good times."

Vi was still fuming over this. Okay maybe it was a little funny but her ankle didn't think so. Tsk. Tsk. Matthew Solo. Just wait until she told your mother about this... hmmm? She folded her arms, rolling her eyes. "Yeah, Skywalker?" she asked with a humph and pushed her hair behind her shoulder to raise an eyebrow.

She was about to shove him but he was already on the ground. She plopped down on the ground next to him and glanced at him. "You're ridiculous, you know that?" she said with a chuckle as she rubbed her ankle. "You could get in serious trouble being out here, y'know? Is it just you here or did you leave any stray young ones here?"

"Solo." He corrected her housemate with a grin.

Matt was ridiculous, 'did he know that?' "So I've been told." He said, laughing out loud again. The Gryffindor looked from Vi to the deep Dark Forest now in front of them and leaned back against the tree they were sitting under. "Nah, I haven't done anything." It wasn't like he had gone all the way INTO the Forest. Though that would be kind of cool too.

If he left any stray young ones there!? "Merlin, Vi, what do you think I am, a bad influence?" He asked, sounding almost hurt. He wasn't hurt at all, of course, but he wasn't exactly willing to risk a kid's life or anything. He knew the Forbidden Forest could be quite dangerous. "I was just chillin'." He added with a grin.

Spring was around and Zita loved the smell of all the fresh flowers that were popping up. Those smells brought her to the edge of the forest to hunt for some new things. She had grown in her fashion and was trying new things with nature. She loved that part of her experiments and now that she had mastered the charm to keep the flowers looking alive and nice she wanted to try to make some earrings and necklaces with them.

Walking along the forest line she looked in the grass and around to find whatever caught her eyes. Some yellow over there and some purples that would pop in her hair. She bent down and plucked a few from the ground.
Glancing at some of the leaves on the plants that were now growing happily n the April weather she decided to pull some of those as well, her bracelets were turning out better than expected.

Paul had trekked into the forest for some greens and things that could only be FOUND in the forest, and naturally so, so...it worked out. Since his lesson where he had gotten SICK, he had found out he had the flu. And treating that bout of the flu had come in the form of potions and resting and blaaaaah blah. But basically, it left the elderly man feeling quite tired, and more than usual. It...well, to put it blankly, SUCKED.

So he was huffing and puffing and totally out of breath as he emerged from the forest only to see the small frame of none other than ZITA. The one he had CAST from his play--or she had quit--both were viable options! And he sighed and...smiled. "Zita...nice to see you, though I recommend you don't go much further. You're getting prettttty close to out of bounds." He said simply.,

Picking a few other flowers Zita started hearing noises come from the forest. At first she didn't mind the noises, but as they got louder and the huffing and puffing grew closer her eyes widened so when the creature finally showed himself out of the forest and it was a professor Zita was almost ready to attack. Luckily she hadn't fully pulled her wand and let go the minute she saw him.

"Hello professor"


She ignored his too close comment, she wasn't in the forest so she wasn't breaking any rules. "You might want to watch how far you go in there, you aren't sounding very well. Don't want you having a heart attack when no healer is around to help sir." Speaking of healer she glanced at him a little more, "Do you need help walking to the hospital wing? You aren't sounding very good." She hoped he didn't drop dead in front of her, that would be very unfortunate.

She hadn’t taken more than thirty or so steps before she received another peck from her owl. “Please stop” she begged as she looked at her map again. “I don’t know where to go and we keep getting closer to the Forbidden Forest.” The professors surely wouldn’t want them to get so close to the Forbidden Forest, right? She tried to angle their path away from the forest again, but her owl gave her a peck yet again. “Fine.”

Traveling every so slowly forward, she wanted to make sure of her path before actually entering the edge of the forest. She really had no idea if she was reading her compass correctly. Her last experience using one was a failure, so she wasn’t sure how it would be any better this time. She looked at the compass, looked at the map, looked to the sky, then took another timid step forward. No peck. Another step forward. No peck. “Fine.” she said again, this time moving quicker into the darkness.

Just as her heart was about to explode from fear, a golden star appeared on her map. The extreme relief she felt throughout her body was enough to power her to turn around and get out of the forest. “On to location number two, my friend.” With that, she started her journey forward, not stopping to look at her map again until she was clear of the forest

Daisy was nervous about heading in that direction. So much so that she had started to head in the direction of the castle, causing the owl to peck her finger sharply as the Hufflepuff scratched her head. Daisy sighed and looked at her compass and map before moving towards a place that she did not want to go, ever. The fear-inducing darkness of the Forbidden Forest came into Daisy's line of sight.

"Can't I turn back?" Daisy asked and she got a little nip on the ear by the barn owl as if it was telling her "no". She took a couple of steps forward and soon her star map had its first gold star.

"Right! Let's get out of here," Daisy panted, waiting to get to the second location as soon as possible.

Kye had taken to talking to her new little friend as she tried to find the first location. "Well you know what would make this easier, Navigator, is if you pecked the MAP and showed me where the first location was. She was keeping the stars in mind, but since there was now a break from the pecking, Kye walked straight ahead... She looked at the map... then up again. Was there no actual landmark? Were they walking to a specific blade of grass?? Kye was getting closer and closer to the Forbidden Forest, and although she was not fearful of it, she was wondering how close the professors would be making them all go towards it. There were youngins that Kye was sure would get lost in there, even with a compass. As she looked behind her to see how far she was from the castle, the little gold star popped up on her map and it was the peck of The Navigator (yes this was now his name) that caught her attention. "Ow, what??" she said with furrowed brow before looking at the map. "Oh... Sorry about that Little Nav... Alright, well, where to next?" Kye turned around and tried to gauge which way the professors would ask them to go next.

This felt a little like a scavenger hunt. If only there was something hidden in each of the places the owl was supposed to lead them too. That would've been cool. Right now, it mostly felt like a bonding exercise with this owl he didn't really know (and would probably never see again). Yes, he trusted the owl to lead him where he needed to go. But then again, it had been told the way. There was hardly anything he could do WRONG here.

Okay, he could misread the star map. But even then the owl would let him know, yeah?

Just to make sure he'd remembered that correctly, Cam tried making a little detour on his way to the Forbidden Forest. Which...earned him a peck on the neck. Really? Couldn't it have gone for his hand at least? At least his assumption had been correct. Rubbing the spot he then made his way down to the Forbidden Forest. Alright. What now?

Where to next?

If this owl pecked her one more time! She knew she couldn't navigate well and she wished she had Ace to just follow again, but no, she had to do this on her own. Well smarty professors Zita wasn't playing this pecking game and she had hung back until she noticed the way people were going.

Now that she figured that out she could pretend to be navigating with the stuff they were given, though this stupid bird was not helping in any way. The minute she even stepped the wrong way the thing was pecking her. SHE DID NOT WANT MARKS ON HER FACE! If she had to cover even one mark she was going to cook the thing and feed it to the first years.


Making it to the forbidden forest she looked around. This was it? Really? Now they had to turn around and go somewhere else? She did not wear the right shoes for all this pointless walking. The least they could have done was have portkeys laying around.

Soon she began walking and following some familiar faces.

Paul snorted. "I just came from WITHIN the forest, m'dear. I'm fine. I'm armed with my wits and my wand--" he patted his pocket. He had a backpack slung over one shoulder filled with various things he had picked from within the forest's depth. "No healer?" he asked with a confused head tilt. Had the woman quit and he hadn't noticed, then? Hmmm...

"I'm fine, I'm just old and out of breath, Zita." He sighed a little. "What are you doing all the way out here, then? Come to clear your head?" Which would be quite the feet, wouldn't it, since it seemed there wasn't much there in the first place. Or, if there were, it was cluttered with nonsensical statements about the world being unfair to her. Paul had still not forgotten her hissy fit.

With her map in one hand, and her compass in the other Hattie began walking along. The owl was on her shoulder, and gently pecking her if she went the wrong way. She had read maps a lot though, having done a lot of exploring in her time. So she wasn't too bad at reading them. The blonde smiled, quite enjoying this. It was interesting to see the grounds at dark. She knew the grounds well, but it was different at night. She supposed that was what made it difficult to navigate, but she had the compass, map and owl and she was getting on okay.

It was a few minutes later when she was arriving at the forbbiden forest, and saw that a golden star appeared on her map. Perfect. That meant she must have been on the right way! Great! Looking back at her map, she worked out where she had to go next, and consulted her compass.

Now off she went!

Ok, so first location on the map was - the forbidden forest? Her owl, that she was calling Sebastian in her head (not to his face, though, as she wasn't sure that was his real name and didn't want to upset him unnecessarily) hadn't bitten her or anything, so she took that as a good sign. She triple checked her map, making sure she was in the right location once again before turning to the owl. "So, is this it then?"

It just stared at her. Ok. So she took that to mean yes, she was correct. She smiled and tossed a treat at the owl - even though he hadn't really done much besides stare at her, maybe she had picked the wrong companion - and then consulted her map again. On to the next stop!

So admittedly Skylar had gotten off to a quick start in terms of leaving the courtyard, but somehow she'd gotten lost and distracted and forgot all about her map and was wondering aimlessly on the grounds instead. The stars were kind of cool, ya know?

Which also meant the owl companion of hers had been casually pecking at her shoulder for like five minutes before she realized to check the map. In that she'd gone the wrong way. Oops?

Towards the forest though? Skylar hadn't been so sure about that, but double-checking the map - finally - and the fact that she hadn't been pecked, meant she was doing okay. At the forest's edge though, she turned around, because she figured it wasn't meant for them to actually go into the forest. That would have been dumb of the professors and she didn't think either them were dumb like that to send students into their forest on their own, essentially...

Solo. She had KNOWN that. Ugh. But still...“Solo.... Skywalker... Close enough,” she spoke with a wave of her hand. At least she hadn’t said Vader.

He hadn’t done anything? “Yet...” she spoke with a small smile. A bad influence? She smirked momentarily and then chuckled. Matt? A bad influence?? Well.... He wasn’t an entirely bad influence... Nor an entirely good influence but he wasn’t a bad person either. “I.....” she paused, folded her arms, and sighed. How should she put it? “It’s not like you’re a bad influence, Matt. I’m just worried about young ones following people that have a blast and end up getting themselves in a mess. ” She bit her bottom lip. “You just scared me before that’s all... I wasn’t expecting anyone to be around here, y’know?”