[Charms] Team 1, Stage 2!

[Professor Daniel Hubbles]

(If team 1 had got far enough the same thing would have happened to them but if you are lost read the last few posts of Team 2, Stage 1 to find out how the door appeared!)

The golden key clicks in the door and it slowly swings open revelling a well lit room. It seems strange that a room could just appear from a pile of rubble were before there was nothing but the rooftops of the castle, but then again this was Hogwarts and nothing ever was simple. Stepping over the threshold and into the room the howling of the wind stops, the air is sweet and in the distance you can hear running water.

The room itself is a hexagon and on each of the 6 walls is a locked door, each one different colour, shape and size and they are connected but a path that runs around the edge of the room wide enough for two people to walk side by side. Part of the floor space seems to be missing, pits each containing a different substances, lava, water, wild nettles and custard. There are two crossing bridges that divide up the areas and in the centre is a platform with an oak table placed in the middle.

Upon the table are 4 hour glasses and slowly as each individual enters the room the corresponding coloured beads for each of the Hogwarts houses drops down. As you move closer you notice that there is scrap bit of parchment placed in front of the hour glasses and it reads:-

‘The key to your successes is in your hands!’

---

Ok guys so the rules are the same as before:-

1) Dark Magic is forbidden
2) If you use of the Accio spell expect a fate worse then death (points off you house *shock shock horror*)
3) No special abilities can be used…so I do not want to see any cute little cretures walking around where students where meant to be...otherwise the dragon may eat you!!!

Oh yeah and the first person to enter the thread was the one who unlocked the door!!!


Hufflepuff =30 (60)
Ravenclaw =45 (55)

[Ellie Rook]

Ellie turned the key, and heard the click click of the lock unbolting. Looking back at her teammates, she pushed lightly on the door and it creaked open. Ellie flinched, almost expecting a burst of flame from a dragon or something to come straight through the door. However, silence ensued as she cautiously stepped into the room.

A strange shape for a room, Ellie looked around curiously. The door were of different colors, she wondered if that had anything to do with what they needed to accomplish next. Ellie stepped in the room, making way for the rest of her team to follow. Straight ahead of them was a small bridge, sandwiched on each side by rather large pits, with water and what looked like custard. Ellie could see that behind the pit were to more, on or a red color, obviously hot, and the other filled with nettles.

The bridges lead to a small platform, where Ellie could see a wooden table with what seemed like miniature versions of the house points hourglasses, except they seemed to be working glasses. She could see the yellow Hufflepuff hourglass had sprung into action. Ellie stepped forward, not wanting to be the first person to walk across the bridge. She held the key into her right hand, her left hand clutching her wand tightly. "Well," She said to her team mates. "What do we do now?"

[Felicity Locke]

Felicity walked through the door after Ellie, looking around the room curiously. She made note of the colors of the doors, and committed them to memory so she hopefulyl wouldn't have to keep checking.

She noted the hour glasses, but couldn't really see any details on them. "Well, it's either the doors or the bridge." Fay looked around at the doors again, her brow furrowing slightly as if she was trying to solve a puzzle. "But most doors have locks don't they? Like the one we went through to get here." Her mind was working a mile a minute, that was the Ravenclaw side of her.

"So, I vote the bridge first. Maybe there's a clue or something there?" She eyed the bridge, then glanced back at the team. Fay would most likely step up and be the first person to go on the bridge if no one else wanted to.

[Bradyn Reed]

Bradyn's dominate left had clenched his wand tighter as Ellie opened the door. He half expected something to jump out at them, and glanced at Fay in surprise. When he made his way into the hexagonal room, he glanced around and quickly took in what he saw. Pits of doom, colored doors, and miniature hour glasses with the house colors. He walked up behind Fay and put his hand on her shoulder, squeezing it lightly before he took his hand away.

"Let's not get carried away. Obviously there are pits around the bridges, and I don't expect Hubbles would think that we'd just accidentally slip and fall into them. Surely there is something fishy about them that we should consider?" Bray looked around at his teamates, all of which were girls except for him, to see if they agreed or disagreed with him. To him it made sense, and he wouldn't admit to over-analyzing things. Bradyn was just being cautious and paranoid self.

[Ellie Rook]

Ellie saw that her teammates seemed to be just as cautious as she was about going out onto the bridge. She looked into the pits. The first two that they would need to cross didn't exactly look lethal, unless water and custard could kill you.

She pressed her long thick bangs behind her ear, and brought her wand up to her temple to think. they had to get a move on, they were wasting time.

"I agree with Fay. Lets see if theres anything important on that table with the hourglasses, and lets say we go from there. Sound good?" She didn't want to boss anyone around, and so she asked them their opinion. It was her personality to seem humble at least.

She dropped her wand hand back down to her waist. She looked at the key in her palm and decided she might need it later and slipped it into her robe pocket where her wand was usually kept for safe keeping.

[Felicity Locke]

Felicity glanced back at Bray as he layed a hand on her shoulder. "Very possible, but what kind of challenge would this be if nothing could hurt us? I say for now we avoid the pits, just to be safe."

"Alright. I'll go check out what's on the table. Be back in a bit." Fay turned to her team for a moment, grinned, then started her way across the bridge. Once by the table, she noticed the piece of parchment on the table. Felicity read it over, nodded slightly to herself, then grabbed the parchment.

She made her way carefully back to where the others were standing and held out the parchment for their investigation. "Look. 'The key to your success is in your hands.'"

[Ellie Rook]

Ellie watched, biting her lip as Fay walked over to the table. In the distance she could see the different colored hour glasses tick away. Ellie had already realized that the hourglasses matched the house colors. Yellow for Hufflepuff, Red for Gryffindor, Blue for Ravenclaw, and Green of course for Slytherin. She wondered what they were counting down, and what would happen when they stopped.

Fay was on her way back, holding a piece of parchment in her hand. "Actually, I put the key in my pocket, if thats what it means." Ellie said, patting her pocket and feeling the lump. "Now what?" she asked. She has two Ravenclaws on each side. She wasn't about to be the one to think of something brilliant.

Ellie peered at the pits. At the distance they were standing the large pits didn't look to menacing. They just looked like yellow, red, blue, and green blobs. Yellow, Red, Blue, and Green! Ellie's face lite up. "Do you think the fact that the hourglasses and the pits are all in our house colors matters any?"

[Bradyn Reed]

Bradyn winced at their 'Bray-be-damned, we're going over the bridge attitude.' It was true that they wouldn't get anything done unless they went to see the table first, but hey they could be more cautious. "That's what I mean, it surely can hurt you.. why chance it?" But it was obvious that his words just went over her head, and unsurprisingly she volunteered to go over to the table. Thank goodness she made it back in one piece too.

"Well, I doubt Hubbles would make us use the key for this one too, but who knows?" He said, tapping his chin again out of actual thought for once, not just to annoy Fay. "Hmm, pits matching houses. You might be onto something, L( don't mind if he calls her El/L, right?)" He looked back at the colors of the doors, then to the pits, trying to make a connection.

"Maybe.. they mix.. like Red and Yellow makes orange. Yellow and Green makes light green. Red and Blue is purple, etcetera."

[Felicity Locke]

Felicity nodded at Ellie's idea. "Makes sense. So, does that mean the hourglasses have something to do with the pits?" She glanced back slightly at Bray as he spoke of colors blending and such. "That could be a possibility too. But, where does that get us?"

Fay started to tap her chin, as she usually did when she was thinking. "I think the key opens the doors." Her gaze slid to Ellie's pocket for a moment, then she continued. "And going off of your theory Bray, there are some doors that can be made from the colors of the houses." She held up her finger. "But two cannot. The tan one over there, and the pink one." Fay pointed to the doors. "Think that means anything?"

[Ellie Rook]

"I don't know about the key. It would be too easy like Bray said." Ellie said, leaving the key in her pocket, intending to keep it close anyway. But what key was the parchment talking about? 'The key to success is in your hands.' Ellie couldn't figure it out, but she felt like she might not have to on her own, as she turned and looked back at her teammates. She had a feeling it wasn't any brass or sliver key the parchment was talking about.

Ellie smiled. She had noticed something before a Ravenclaw. It was definitely a self esteem booster. Ellie took a few steps closer to the pits as Bray talked. She looked at the pits and then at the doors as he mentioned the colors. "It all makes sense." She said, "But what does it have to do with the key. I'm sorry but I'm not about to go grab a hand full of lava and throw it in some water." Ellie said sarcastically.

Ellie paced in two steps. Fay was right, the four colors could not make pink or tan. Ellie looked at all the door, trying to figure it out. "The doors are all different shapes to. I don't think its just colors we have to worry about." Ellie said, sighing. She was confused.



[ El is perfectly fine! <3 ]

[Bradyn Reed]

Bradyn shrugged. "I don't know, but I think we can safely assume the hourglasses, pits, and doors are all connected in some way." He looked around, determined not to give into the urge of pacing around. "That's true, Pink can only be made with white and red, and I think the whitest thing here is Fay. And I don't really know how you'd make tan."

"And I agree with El, I don't think the old key has something to do with it just yet. That would be far too easy. And I don't know how we'd mix them if we had too, either." He shrugged, a little dumfounded now. Mixing sounded like a good idea until he remembered that brambles and lava weren't quite safe to the touch and that water only looked blue in large quantities.

"Well, since we've checked the bridges, maybe we should check out the doors now." He said and walked towards the pink one. Perhaps if he found the hole for the key, it'd give him an idea. "I'll go this way, Fay can take the green one. El the tan, and whoever finishes first can take purple or orange?"

[Heidi Sauber]

The first stage had not gone as well as Heidi would have liked but they were now going onto Stage 2 and she was determined they would not get defeated this time. As she walked through the door she had to stop herself from swearing loudly as she could not believe what she had walked into. The other students where standing by the table with a slip of parchment in their hands. With a small frown Heidi kept an ear open to what the others had to say while flicking the hourglasses noticing that the coloured stones only fell down when people entered the room or said something that made sense.

“They are just house points.” She mumbled over her shoulder as the others were on about trying to open the other doors. Clearly they had moved off the whole hourglass theory and were not trying something else, as normal Heidi was a few steps being a typical Hufflepuff if she had time she when she could sit and think about something that she would be fine but they did not have time…maybe they were not meant to think.

“Have your guys thought that being simple is the best way. All the doors seem to be locked and the only way you open doors with a key and we have a key, I do not think Hubbles would set us something that mind boggerling after all he had to think it up and he is not the sharpest tool in the shed…you know that as well as I do Ellie.”

Heidi was only sharing her opinion and talking to anyone who would hear her out, she could only hope that at least on of the other people in the room were listening or noticing that a few more coloured beads had dropt down into the Hufflepuff hourglass.

[Bradyn Reed]

[ liz, do you have a reading disorder? ]

[-doesn't feel like posting, just felt like throwing that in xD ]


[-shot-]

[Felicity Locke]

Felicity grabbed Bray's arm before he walked off again. She glanced over to the Hufflepuff girl who just came in. That was true, it could very well be that simple.

Fay turned to the girl and tapped her chin again. "But, there's only one key, which means we'd have to go to each door and open it together. And that is very annoying to waste that much time."

She sighed, exasperated. "But, I still think it isn't just a coincidence that the hourglasses match the pits. I don't think Professor Hubbles just wanted to show us our housepoints."

[Bradyn Reed]

Bradyn almost fell over when Fay grabbed his arm rather roughly and he turned back around. "I don't know, Fay, he's not going to be like 'Secret points, bwahaha, you can't see'. All teachers usually write them on the board or point out that you got some." The glanced back towards the bridges and shrugged.

"It's not a matter of the pits matching the hourglasses. It's a matter of them matchings the House colors, no? That's what I think anyway. What do you guys.. well, girls, think?" He still thought they should check the doors out, but obviously Fay was being the bossy moose this time, as if there's times when she's not.