[Forest] The Search for Buried Treasure

[Professor Daniel Hubbles]

It was a beautiful morning; the enchanted sky above the house tables in the Great Hall was of the purest blue with just a wisp of white cloud floating here and there enjoying the morning sun. The tables bellow were bursting with all the mouth watering delights of a Hogwarts breakfast as the noise of the students bellow seemed to increase as owls fluttered in delivering the morning post. Among the other owls eight school owls landed in front of all the prefects and the head boy and girl, all containing the same, identical letter…

Morning all,
I have a special mission for you all to put you through your paces to make sure I made the right decision giving you lot the shiny badges that are now attached to your robes. I have talked to your professors and you have the day off. (YAY!)

Once you have finished reading this letter make sure you have everything you think you may need and then make your way down to the outskirts of the Forbidden Forest. There is a rumour that there is a treasure inside the forest and it must be found before it gets into the wrong hands.

I have put my faith in you 10, please do not let me down.

Professor Daniel Hubbles
Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

xxxx

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[Dania Dahl]

Dania had been chosen to be a prefect, a role that almost guarenteed she would have to ignore her instinct to remain off in her own little world and actually pay attention to what other people were doing. It occurred to her that she had the power to increase or decrease points, and while someone else might find that gift a chance to gain a little extra breathing room now that they were in the authority department the Hufflepuff wasn't neccessarily as pleased as one might think. Despite the badge glimmering and coercing her from the front of her robes Dania still didn't feel it in her power or even her heart to possibly take house points away. Then again, with time that might change..

Having lost her footing on the stairs on the way to breakfast this morning Dania might have suffered from a twisted ankle had Adrian not caught her beforehand. Trying to swallow back the rapid beating of her heart as it thundered against the insides of her ribcage she breathed more calmly, ignoring how he chuckled at her surprise before sitting with him at the breakfast table. "Hilarious." She murmured with a small grin, reaching for a warm bun and slathering a bit of butter on top. Glancing up at the sound of the post flapping in the Hufflepuff found herself surprised when an owl she didn't recognize headed straight for her, careening towards the bowl of orange juice. Throwing her arms out to save it from a sticky situation the beast cooed its relief, and she gathered the letter from it, finding the day to be filled with a lot more surprises than she had earlier expected. "You got one too." She remarked softly as her friend pried an identical letter from the owl in front of him, and as they both read she sighed. "Treasure falling into the wrong hands?" Unless the bounty was cursed and could turn the world into sawdust within seconds then she really didn't think it could fall into the wrong hands. But Hubbles was always known for some crazy schemes, so she would roll with it she supposed.

They would make their way down to the Forbidden Forest after breakfast, and while even she couldn't ignore the small flutter of excitement in her chest Dania dearly hoped this wouldn't require a lot of advanced spells. She wasn't the greatest wand-wielder around..

[Adrian Malvalian]

"You got one too..."

Dania's slightly familiar voice drifted through Adrian's mind, pulling him from the lure of his pile of french toast, which was slathered in sticky maple syrup. He felt like a fool for giggling at her slight slip earlier, but it was instinctive for him to pull out his charming smile whenever he felt uncomfortable. And it seemed to the newly-named prefect that uncomfortable went hand in hand with Dania Dahl. The boys in the dorm had taken to calling her Adrian's Dolly, a not-so-clever play on the girl's unique last name, after noticing the way he had glanced at her as she passed him, ever elusive, in the common room. At the mention of this silly nickname for his fellow Hufflepuff (and now prefect) Adrian simply smiled and urged his cheeks not to redden, while telling them never to call her that to her face, or he'd have to hex them. A few of the boys had blanched at the threat, but most of them had just continued laughing.

Adrian's eyes skimmed easily over the print on the small letter, absent-mindedly petting the strange barn owl before him before it squawked angrily and flew off, tearing him from the last few words of the note from their Headmaster. Cocking an eyebrow, he glanced over to Dania, whom he had settled down next to in hopes of not appearing a total fool after his idiotic laughter. "I honestly have no idea," he added after she questioned the main content of the note, "But don't worry. Whatever it is, we can handle it."

Again that foolish grin spread across his face, and he smothered it quickly, turning away and stuffing a large bit of french toast into his mouth, trying to convince himself that he didn't want to know what she was thinking... and trying to convince himself he could indeed handle whatever Professor Hubbles had concocted.

[Ellie Rook]

Leave it to Hubbles. Ellie was this close to running down the aisle to the Professor's table and yell to Hubbles, "I was kidding about wanting to risk my life to do something interesting." Of course this statement would be followed by a little kick in the knee. She looked up at him with a quizzical look. He could be planning anything. Ellie herself was not dressed, did not have anything but her wand on her, and was wearing slippers. The beauty of being a seventh year and head girl, no class before 11.

Ellie looked down her table and spotted Dania and Adrian, both in the midst of reading the owl. Ellie sighed and got up from the table, grabbing a piece of bacon. She ran out of the hall and back to her room. As Ellie ripped through her trunk, she wondered why Hubbles couldn't have waited til nice, warm May to have a little adventure. Ellie pulled out a pair of leggings which she topped with jeans, a yellow longsleeve shirt, white hoodie, black jacket, topped with her house scarf and black snow hat. She pulled on her converse and sat on the edge of her bed. By no means was Ellie going into the woods under dressed. Ellie took her head girl badge off her robes, and polished it on her leg before pinning it to the inside of her jacket. Ellie stood surveying her room looking to see if there was anything she would absolutely need. She came up with nothing. She turned to walk out the door, remembered to grab her gloves, pocketed her wand, and left for the day.

Ellie still held the letter the owl had delivered all the prefects and heads. As much as she seemed that she was irked by Hubbles plan, the seventh year was actually secretly ecstatic. Finally, something a little exciting. Ellie glanced at the parchment again. What treasure? What could Hubbles possibly want in the forest? The Head Girl couldn't remember ever hearing about a treasure in the forest. Then again that would be something to draw students into the forest way more then the fact that they named the forest the "Forbidden Forest." Honestly, you add "forbidden" to anything an automatically you are going to get kids trespassing, risking their lives and limbs. Ellie felt like this may turn into a wild goose chase, one that leads right to a mountain troll or werewolf.

The day was indeed beautiful. The sun shone with its full winter power. It seemed as though it should be much warmer, but instead it maintained a just above freezing temperature. Ellie walked through the snow of the grounds creating little foot prints to follow her by. As she neared the forest, she looked up and down its dark length and sighed. She walked right up to the forest and didn't see anyone. She wandered a little further south, and found a little inlet of the trees. Here she stood, fiddling with her wand in her pocket.

[Sarie Thimble]

Sarie walked around a little dazed, how did she get prefect. She was one of the biggest trouble makers in the school. She had to read the letter twice to make sure that she hadn't missed read it. She had the rights to give and take house points! She would have to take them off herself. She got the second letter saying there was a task only prefects where allowed to do.

When she discovered that she had to go into the forbidden forest her soul jumped up and down inside her body out of excitement she loved going in there. To top it off there was a buried treasure! Man she loved being a prefect

[Mikhail Honeycut]

Mikky couldn't help at staring at the shinny Perfect's badge that now accompanied his school robe. Mikhail just couldn't believe it, he was never one to stand out and to to be pick for something like this was amazing. Though he could think of who in their right mind would chose him above all the students in his house, but Professor Hubbles is a bit crazy at some points. Mikky didn't care much on how crazy Hubbles was, he was just happy that the professor recognized him.

As the youth sat down for breakfast, his small fingers found themselves back to the badge and began to fondle with it before he started to serve himself his meal. Soon the Great Hall was full of loud chatter and owls delivered news and letters to most of the students. Something out of the ordinary caught Mikky's eyes; school owls. They were hardly seen, at least Mikhail never noticed them, and it was even weirder when one of them dropped off a letter to him. His ice blue eyes quickly read the letter for Hubbles and finished reading with his eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

'Treasure? Since when has this rumor been circling around?' Mikky asked himself as he pocketed the parchment and finished eating. He then gather what he believed he would need for this treasure hunt, which wasn't much, and began his little venture to the edge of the Forbidden Forest.

[Nathan Holloway]

Nathan had always been a proud Slytherin and the thought that he was the best Slytherin out of the bunch to be made prefect made him look down his nose at the rest of his house mates even more. The power had gone to the boys head of course; he would take points off Hufflepuff’s for coughing in the corridor, Gryffindors for talking too loud and Ravenclaw’s for just being depressed emo’s. The thing that he hated doing, and often skipped out on them was the duties which came with them and even as his brown eyes darted over the letter that had arrived that morning. He really did not want to have to do Hubble’s dirty work, why should they go into the forest, it was forbidden after all. Nathan would have been happy to have stayed their eating his full English breakfast if it had not been for an apple core that hit him on the head.

“Who threw that?” he demanded looking around the house tables, his gaze thinning as he surveyed the near by tables, but it seemed that the apple core had been thrown from the staff table. In fact the headmaster himself was waving at Nathan or was it pointing to the door? This made Nathan’s blood boil, what an arrogant, self obsessed twat! Pushing himself off from out the table he stormed out of the great hall, shoving and pushing small students out of the way in an attempt to get a clear path. He was not in a good mood and as he approached the corwd of people around the forest his mood did not improve one bit.

“Fantastic.” He mumbled under his breath. “Three puff’s, a Gryffindor girl who has not his puberty yet and an emoclaw. I think I would rather have double Divination.”

[Harrison Greg]

All those many days ago, back in the summer in fact Harrison had been very surprised when from within his Hogwarts letter tumbled a small badge that had ‘head boy’ written upon them. At first Harrison was convinced the letter had been sent to the wrong person but after double checking the envelope the Gryffindor decided that Hubbles had clearly gone off his rocker. However when the time came to pinning the badge to his robes and strutting down the corridors of the castle gave him a feeling of power and Harrison liked that! The problem was the responsibility that went along with it, that was something Harrison had not expected! The late nights were ruining his social life and then when he did have free time he had to spend it doing his work, he was lucky he has time to make sure he reminded well groomed.

Due to such a hectic schedule the only time he normally had contact with his friends anymore was during breakfast, lunch and dinner. But today, well today was clearly not going to be his day either as in the middle of his story to a beautiful looking seventh year Ravenclaw an owl landed with a thud in front of him. Curiosity took over and as he tore open the envelope he saw the ever more familiar handing writing of Headmaster Hubbles. “You have got to be kidding me.” He groaned as he looked around the Great Hall, noticing that all the other prefects (and more importantly Ellie) had stood up and walked out of the hall no doubt towards the forest. “Got to go beautiful” he grinned as he leaned over and pecked the cheek of the Ravenclaw before standing up and turning to leave.

But that was when he heard his name being called out from across the distance and saw the headmaster himself beckoning him over. “What now?” He groaned, as he made the slow, walk of shame over towards the staff table. He felt the eyes of all the pupils in the hall upon him, they most likely weren’t, but that is what it felt like. However as he approached he saw the grinning face of Professor Hubbles as he leaned over handed him a rather crumbled looking bit of parchment.

“Enjoy Greg!” He heard the headmaster shout after him followed by what can only be known as an evil chuckle. There were a few choice words Harrison would have liked to use to describe Hubbles at that moment in time but he was following a group of first years and he did not want to poison their ears with such crude words, however as soon as he was hit by the cold winter air the words escaped from his lips, echoing over the silent castle grounds.

“His almighty Hubbles has given us another letter.” He shouted, announcing his arrival to the group of students who where gathering around the edge of the forest. As he came to a stop next to Ellie he shot her a smile worthy of a tooth paste commercial looking down at the small bit of parchment in his hands and reading out its contents.

“Dear students, thanks for turning up! The hidden treasure is buried deep in the forest, due north, in a cave guarded by a troll…well it might not be guarded by a troll but the fairy tale I found mentioned something about a troll…” Harrison paused and rolled his eyes at the headmasters rambling. “…have fun finding it and please be careful. I got a certain distance myself at some point, look out for my signs. Lots of love…blah, blah, blah.”

Screwing up the bit of parchment in his hand Harrison threw it over his left shoulder before turning around and marching straight towards the forest. It was time for him to be that brave Gryffindor that he was meant to be and take charge of the situation! “Anyone else coming?!” He shouted over his shoulder as he continued to strut his stuff into the darkness of the forest.

[Kristiana Thorn]

Somehow it had happened something that had taken her completely by surprise, most of her classmates were surprised by it as well. When Kristiana took out the bright shiny new Prefects badge she almost gasped out loud. She shook her head in disbelief and kept thinking to herself that it must have been a mistake, but when she read the note it was actually addressed to her. Kristiana stared for a while at the badge wondering what the hell the headmaster of Hogwarts was thinking making her a Prefect. She was sure the man was loosing his mind, but if he was then well it was in her favor now wasn't it? She had actually been given a bit of power, and this made her grin as she rubbed the pretty badge making sure it shined brightly.

So now back at school she received several shocked looks as her fellow Slytherins gleaned that bright, shiny, badge on her robes. Kristiana liked the looks they gave her because it made her realize that they were worried about her and what she'd do with this new found power. She hadn't decided that yet herself but she was having fun toying with them none the less.

As she woke that morning it was to find a note on her bed, reading it to herself she wondered what in the world was going on. She hadn't realized that having a job as prefect would involve her having to do lord knows what. That was it the man had to be daft, no other way to explain it. Kristiana had to go and see what this was all about, so she grabbed her rucksack and threw in a few things, since she had no idea what they would need. Leaving the comfort of Slytherin dungeon she left and headed outside.

Of course she wasn't the first one there, nope she'd leave that to the kiss asses like Ellie who was probably the first one there. No matter Kris showed up and that was all that mattered.

[Ellie Rook]

The group had started to fill out. Soon most of the prefects were in place. Ellie smiled and greeted each one of them. She could tell that some of them would rather be locked in the dungeon for a week then be out here. Ellie thought it was rather bad sportsmanship, and she just hoped she could catch one of them muttering something just so she could tell them off. Unfortunately, she didn't.

It was cold outside, and she shuffled to try and keep warm. It wasn't long until Harrison came down to the forest with news in his hand. Ellie couldn't help but return the smile that Harrison gave her. She looked over his arm to the parchment as he read and read it herself. Yes, it definitely was a typical Hubbles letter. Ellie kept herself from laughing at the lots of love. Oh Dan. She thought, and then corrected herself... Professor Hubbles... Professor...

"Well, that certainly clears up some of the questions I had." She said, looking up at Harrison. She turned and walked with him toward the forest. "So, basically we may or may not have to fight a troll? Hubbles had really out done himself this time."