Acromantulas, Centaurs and Thestrals, oh my.

[Eleanor Hope]

Hogwarts so far was turning about to be pretty fun for Eleanor. Many people around her felt the same way too which made the whole experience even more enjoyable. Not only was Eleanor new to this school and very unfamiliar with how everything worked but so were many other people in her year which made her feel a bit more comfortable about attending a new school. Before even entering the school's grounds she had already made a close friend and she was very proud of herself for doing so. Better yet, they ended up being sorted into the same house as her so at least she knew she was not entering this journey of her's alone. She had her sister by her side as well despite her being sorted into a different house so hopefully these next seven years of her life were going to be just fine.

Walking out onto the grounds, Eleanor was eager to explore. She had already explored the lakefront to try and find a magical creature in the waters but was unsuccessful and thought that the forbidden forest was probably the right place to go if she really wanted to find one so that was where she was headed off to. The forbidden forest was forbidden for a reason and she knew she wasn't allowed to go in there but no one would have to find out. After all, she was sure that it wasn't as dangerous as everyone was saying. If it was really that dangerous then why was it right next to a school? Looking behind her to check if anyone was watching, she quietly entered the forest. She would have to use her not-so-good hunting skills in order to successfully find a magical creature. If she was too loud then it would ruin her entire plan. After stepping foot into the forest she knew there was no turning back. For now, it was do or die.

 

[Bryony Woods]

Something had come over Bryony. A new found bravery, what some would call recklessness, of sorts. It was the environment that she had been thrust into. She would never normally do something so irresponsible as to go into the forbidden forest, especially when she was told not to. Yet here she was, entering the forest. On her own! She proceeded to walk into the forest, not having a particular destination in mind but making sure that she could see the way out as she moved further in. She didn't want to get lost in the forest and she definitely didn't want to get found by one of the professors either.

Suddenly there was a cracking sound coming from behind her. Frightened, Bryony hid behind the nearest tree to see if she could see what was creeping up behind her. Worst case scenario it was a Professor, what else could it be? There were no creatures in this forest... were there? She suddenly went freezing cold and goosebumps appeared on her arms, she hugged herself in an attempt to get rid of them and to reassure herself that she was fine. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all.

 

[Eleanor Hope]

The forest was darker than the rest of the Hogwarts grounds. Either that or Eleanor simply needed to get her eyes checked. It seemed like it was almost night but it was only day and she did not want to know how dark it was when it was really night. She would never admit it to anyone but she was afraid of the dark and could feel herself shake with every step she took. She wanted to turn around and go back but her mind was determined for her to find a magical creature and she was not going to be a coward and run away only because it was dark. In fact, it was so dark that Eleanor did not realise she was following something in the distance. It was a shadow and it was now moving behind one of the trees! Instinctively, she squealed and turned around to go back but had lost her track and began running around in circles, arms flailing in the air. This was not how she wanted to die.

"Please don't kill me, please don't kill me!" she yelled repetitively, running around with her arms in the air as if she was mental. The whole idea of being quiet was now out of the window or at least lost somewhere in the massive dense group of trees that was the forest. There was no way she'd be able to find her way out now and she knew that half the population of the forest knew she was here and were probably trying to find an escape route from this new specie of animal that was Eleanor. She stopped abruptly, leaning against a nearby tree to catch her breath. She had been running for too long now and was feeling herself get dizzy. If the creatures wanted to come and attack her then this was their perfect chance.

 

[Bryony Woods]

Despite feeling incredibly scared the image that she saw as she was hiding behind a tree was really funny. The thing that was following her seemed to be as scared of Bryony and she was of the stranger. Whatever or whoever was following her started to run around in circles will screaming and flailing their arms. Bryony had to hold her stomach, surely something like that couldn't be harmful towards her. She stepped out from behind the tree and held her hands high above her head while still giggling. "I wont! I wont!" Bryony said between laughs. "My name is Bryony, i'm a Hufflepuff" she called into the distance. "If that helps?" she shrugged her shoulders. Identifying what house you were in seemed to be a big thing at this school. "You do realise you probably scared off whatever was hanging around here though. So if that was your intention, you succeeded" she said smiling, although whoever was in the distance wouldn't have been able to see her smile and she hoped that the person didn't think she was being mean because that wasn't her intention.

 

[Eleanor Hope]

A voice sounded and Eleanor froze, stopping in her tracks. It sounded like a human's voice and they were laughing at Eleanor's outburst. She listened as they introduced themselves as Bryony who was in Hufflepuff house and Eleanor took a sigh of relief, glad that it wasn't some kind of monster that was going to kill her. She seemed as innocent as Eleanor but, in all honesty, Eleanor hadn't wanted to scare off the creatures at all and hoped that this Bryony was just being sarcastic. "Oh, hey, I'm Eleanor and I'm a Hufflepuff too!" she exclaimed after finally catching her breath, quite embarrassed at her idiocy. "Actually that was not my intention at all. I'm sorry." she added with a slight chuckle. She had felt sorry for the girl having to hear Eleanor being silly and hopefully she'd forgive her. She was surprised that Bryony didn't seem at all scared of it also and commended her on her bravery. At least neither of them didn't seem to be in much danger at this point in time.

"What were you doing in these forests? I was just looking for a magical creature. There are all types of creatures here!" she said, curious if the girl was in there for the exact same reason. If she was then they could help each other and Eleanor would gladly have a new friend tag along with her. After all, she probably needed someone as brave as Bryony because Eleanor knew she wouldn't last very long by herself. A helping hand was always good in times like these.

 

[Justin Cliffeton]

Justin was doing a routine search of the forest. It was something that he had done so many times before, and half the time without a doubt he found a student there. It wasn't really the highlight of his time, because he hated having to punish people and he didn't understand why people seemed to have an issue with the word forbidden. It was a simple word, and he sighed knowing that it was almost always first years with crappy reasoning behind their visit. This time, almost like clockwork, he heard two voices coming from inside of the forest. Approaching them, he drew his wand just in case they were in some kind of trouble. When he saw they weren't, he lowered his wand but kept it in hand just in case. "Well, what brings you two out here?" He said with an extremely disproving look on his face.

 

[Bryony Woods]

Bryony walked closer to the voice of the young girl who identified herself as Eleanor and who was also in Hufflepuff. As she reached the girl she realised that she did in fact recognise her. "Hi" she said smiling at her. Even though it was getting darker now she could still make out Eleanor's features. "it's okay" Bryony replied while shrugging her shoulders. "I was beginning to think that looking for creatures in the forest was a bad idea anyway" she said laughing.

She listened to Eleanor's reasons for being in the forest and nodded at what she was saying "Same reasons as you really" Bryony explained. "I don't normally do things like this, especially not on my own. But I found myself here and decided to have a quick look around. I was just about to turn around when I saw you". As she was explaining herself she heard a rustling from behind them. She expected another student to join them or a creature but it was so much worse. A Professor. Bryony looked to Eleanor for what they should say to the Professor. "Erm... we were just.." she said talking to the floor. Trying to avoid the Professor's gaze.

 

[Eleanor Hope]

Eleanor's smile widened when Bryony told her that she was in the forest for the exact same reason as she was. To think that she wasn't the only one who was curious as to what the magical creatures looked like was very comforting considering her sister was giving her such a hard time saying that she was stupid for being so curious. Eleanor knew that it was perhaps a bit silly trying to get a glimpse of the magical creatures who were probably too busy minding their own business to make friends, but Eleanor's curiosity had always gotten the better of her and she couldn't help it. "How long have you been in the forest for? Did you end up finding anything?" Eleanor asked her in hopes that she had found some type of clue to where the creatures were hiding. She hoped that she would soon be able to find one that would want to be her friend to prove to her sister that it was possible to make friends with a magical creature.

Eleanor froze as she heard something in the distance. It sounded like something was approaching them and Eleanor secretly hoped it was a magical creature. But, unfortunately, it was too good to be true and instead of a magical creature was an angry-looking professor. Eleanor took a step back in fear, almost as if she believed the professor was going to transform into something dangerous and attack them both. Instead, he simply asked them what they were doing and Eleanor could feel herself going numb. She looked to Bryony for some assistance but she wasn't helping at all and was in fact acting rather shy. Eleanor had had enough of near-death experiences and getting caught by the professor might as well be another one of them.

"Professor!" she exclaimed alarmingly out of nowhere, perhaps trying to direct his attention on something else so she could run away. But she knew that was impossible and simply stood there helpless as the professor waited for an answer. She knew this was not going to end pretty. "I got lost!" she shouted awkwardly, her voice raising higher than it normally would. "I don't know where I am and I just stumbled upon Bryony here who could maybe help me get out! I'm so glad you showed up because I'm pretty sure I'd be dead by now." Some of it was a lie but the part about being lost definitely wasn't. She had simply wandered in there in hopes to find a magical creature and had definitely lost herself along the way. It never took long for Eleanor to lose herself. Besides, she wasn't going to be much longer in the forest anyway and maybe the professor showing up was just a sign that she needed to give up and get out.

 

[Cain]

Students often entered the forest, and they seemed to be getting younger each time. Cain was growing older as time passed, and he was beginning to learn a little of the responsibilities he would some day need to act with. Running around collecting new and interesting things was not an activity he could do forever, it was foals work, and he was getting too old for all of that. His brother and he had separated some time ago, for Cain fancied going a little closer to the end of the tree line this time. Frequently he wandered a little close, and had met some of the students at the castle because of this, and whilst he was sure he would always have his concerns, he rarely actually feared them these days. They were nice, though the adults were slightly intimidating, but no where near as much as his father.

He had heard laughter and chatter for some time now, and continued closing in until he was just barely within eyesight of them, but retained his silence to avoid drawing sudden attention and scaring them - there was that older one, he had seen the professor many times from running into him when with other students. He knew him to not be violent, but that was about it. He seemed to be conversing with the young pair of females with him, and so Cain decided to simply observe them.​

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[Justin Cliffeton]

Justin rolled his eyes at the pitiful and expected excuses from both of the girls. Well, at least the reasoning of the one who had said anything at all. He couldn't believe that they thought he would take it easy on them for saying they were lost. Did they trip and fall into a hole and magically appear in the forest? His facial features quickly turned to that of annoyance. What tipped it off the most was when a Centaur appeared. He put his wand down and turned to the Centaur. "Please leave us be, I'll be taking these two back to the school and we won't disturb you." Justin knew better then to antagonise a centaur, he wouldn't be stupid enough as to threaten one either. "Both of you," he started, turning to the girls, "will come with me back to the castle where we will discuss why you were in the forest." he said, turning around and gesturing for them to leave.

 

[Bryony Woods]

Bryony rolled her eyes at Ellie's excuse "seriously?" she thought to herself, "that was a poor explanation". But then again, Bryony found herself speechless so how much better was she in that situation? The professor didn't seem very impressed with either of the girls and Bryony knew she deserved to be in trouble. After all the forest was forbidden and obviously for good reason as a strange looking creature that Bryony had only ever read about materialised in front of her eyes. A creature that seemed half man, half horse. But the Professor was trying to drag them away before they had a chance to talk to the creature. Bryony frowned at the Professor and looked to Eleanor to share with her this moment of astonishment and magnificence.

 

[Eleanor Hope]

Eleanor knew that her excuse was not going to work. She stood there awkwardly as she watched the professor's face change to a look of annoyance. No matter what she said, nothing was going to be good enough. They were both in a lot of trouble and it was too late to try and fix that. It wasn't until a magical creature appeared that Eleanor's mood had abruptly changed from worried to ecstatic. She smiled brighter than ever before and wouldn't take her eyes off of the being as the professor spoke. "H-Hi there." she stuttered in complete amazement as she looked the creature up and down. She was lost for words and couldn't believe that she had managed to find such a thing. It looked like that of a human but was also a horse at the same time. She hadn't seen anything like it and was the most excited she had ever been. Her next goal was to make friends with it. How could she go back to the castle now that she's finally found what she's been looking for since the first day of school? The professor had to be crazy. "No." she said simply, continuing to stand there and look at the creature. She didn't want to leave the creature and nor did she want it to leave her. Going back to the castle meant giving up and she couldn't do that, especially now that she's come so far. Nothing was going to stop her from doing what she wanted, not even her professor.