Hallowe'en:

The Hallowe'en feast was brilliant, as it is every year. I got a bit carried away, and after a while, I noticed Anita and Jared were at the table no longer. I glanced over towards the Gryffindor table, no sign of Lotty (she usually sits on the edge, and occasionally waves over at us). So I got up and walked around. Ed wasn't at the Ravenclaw table. The feast wasn't over yet, and usually, when the whole lot of them disappear at once, it means something's up! And I hadn't got the memo.

I used a family trick we have - using my wand to call the others. When I do this, their wand glows in my colour (aqua blue/teal). The others have colours too (Lotty's is red, Jared's is green, Ed's is blue and Anita's is orange) - when the wand glows constantly, it is calling (I vocare te). If it is flashing the colour, it's an alert "I'll come to you" rather than "you come to me". So I sent the "I'll come to you" (veniam ad vos) alert, and was greeted a few moments later by the steady orange of Anita's wand calling me. I followed... it's sort of hard to explain how this happens, it's kind of like being pulled or summoned in a certain direction, it always leads to whoever's wand it is that is calling.

It was dark outside. My wand lead me out of the grounds, up a hill towards the edge of a woods (not the Forbidden Forest), where I saw Lotty standing at the edge of the trees, holding up her wand, which was illuminating a small area with 'Lumos'.

"Who goes there?"Lotty began, then she added,"Cathy - it's you!"

"What are you doing?"I asked.

"Guarding,"Lotty answered.

Mystified, I walked past her, through the trees, and as I continued following my wand in the direction of Anita's, I heard my siblings' voices coming from just up ahead.

"So are you SURE you tried 'Accio'!?"Ed was saying.

"Yes - I've tried it ten times! It isn't working!"Jared answered him.

Anita appeared out of the gloom.

"Here you are!"she greeted me with a grin.

"What's going on?"I asked.

"Ed dropped his wand down a fox hole, and can't get it out,"she responded.

"What on earth is Ed doing dropping his wand down a fox hole!?"I answered, astonished.

"Well,"Anita said, raising her eyebrows, and shrugging her shoulders,"obviously something."

"I was collecting potion ingredients!"Ed snapped, overhearing us,"a fox jumped out and gave me a shock, and it just fell out of my hand!"

"The fox has probably gone off with it,"Anita said.

"No, it's still down there!"Ed said,"the fox ran out of the woods, but I've tried everything, and I can't even see it!"

Jared was using 'Lumos' to examine the interior of the animal warren, which was large, but not large enough to fit any of us.

"We could dig it up?"Jared was saying,"anyone know any digging spells?"

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"I know one,"Ed said,"but I don't have my wand, do I?"

"You can use mine,"Jared suggested,"or tell me how to do it."

"I can't bother explaining - just give me your wand!"Ed demanded.

"Alright,"Jared answered, rolling his eyes,"I was only trying to help!"

He handed Ed his wand. Ed promptly cast a non-verbal spell. The ground around the fox hole began lifting up, but there was still no sign of his wand.

"Where on earth has it gone?"Anita said.

"Where IN the earth has it gone?"Ed said, gloomily,"Accio wand!"

Nothing.

"It goes quite deep down, but it gets wider here,"Jared observed,"look, I think one of us could fit down there! Maybe Anita?"

"Anita is not going down there!"I objected.

"Well, the only other one small enough to fit down there is Lotty,"Jared said,"and she's guarding."

"Yes, why IS she guarding?"I asked, remembering that fact,"what is she guarding against? More foxes?"

"Um,"Ed answered,"I'm not sure exactly, but we heard some strange noises about 15 minutes ago, and there are some rumours that some dangerous creatures might have gotten out of the Forbidden Forest, and it's dark, so..."

"Right,"I said.

"I can guard,"Anita offered,"if Lotty needs to go down there."

Jared was now further examining the fox hole with Lumos,"just what potion ingredients exactly were you getting, Ed?"he asked, as he was looking.

"Oh - just some leaping toadstools,"Ed answered, casually,"didn't find any, though. Think I must have been looking in the wrong place!"

"You weren't,"I said,"I saw some over by where Lotty is."

"Wait a minute,"said Jared,"I've got an idea! If we dig up the earth a bit more,"he handed his wand back to Ed.

Ed dug more of the earth around the fox hole. Now it was large enough to fit someone like me. When I say someone like me, I mean me, they sent me down there!

There was some rope left over from building the invisible rope bridge. Anita summoned it from the treehouse. We tied it around a nearby tree, I held onto it and lowered myself down.

I can tell you this, the whole time I was going down, I was thinking about my feet getting bitten off by angry foxes! The fact the rope I was relying on was invisible, was not very reassuring... At one point, it started slanting, and got very narrow. I thought I was going to get stuck, but fortunately the soil was loose and gave way (though it did give me a bit of a fright when I thought the roof was caving in).

I found myself in a fairly large, empty cavity. It was as big as a cave, so big that I could almost stand up in there. The warren passage behind me went down diagonally. There weren't any foxes in there, or even any signs that foxes had been in there. I could see a lot of roots sticking through the earth. But in front of me, I saw something very strange. It looked like a stone archway. Man-made and leading into a chamber beyond...

"Cathy!"I heard the others calling down to me.

"I'm alright!"I shouted back up.

"Have you found my wand?"Ed shouted down.

"Not yet, give me a moment!"I yelled back.

I felt a bit scared to go under the arch. I approached, my wand, lit by Lumos, lighting the way before me. There, on the floor, in the entrance of the archway, I found Ed's wand. Weird how they weren't able to summon it with 'Accio'. I picked it up and put it in a pocket of my cloak. Then I ventured further. What I saw was strange - it was a small, underground chamber. The walls were lined with pots containing all sorts of rare -looking potion ingredients, skulls of animals, bones - also what looked horribly like part of a human skull. There was an old oak table, and on the table was an ancient-looking book. I had a look at the book. It was written in ancient runes, a very old form.

I have been studying Ancient Runes as one of my extra subjects, and I can read them quite well, but this ancient form seemed quite difficult.

The first page had a list of potions, it seemed to be an index of some kind. The next page appeared to be an index of spells. I could only read a few of the words.

"I wonder how old this is?"I thought.

I crept back out into the fox den,then felt around for the rope.

"Well, did you get it?"Ed asked, when I'd climbed out.

"Yep!"I answered, pulling his wand out of my pocket,"here you go!"

But here is the strangest thing, when I tried to tell the others about the secret chamber with the old book, no words would come out of my mouth. Then I started to panic and try extra hard. I said, and I didn't even have any control over what I said,"fill over the fox hole now, we can't leave it like this."

I was determined to tell them. So I wrote it down, but when I asked them to read what I'd written, they just asked me why I was showing them scribbles.

I think that chamber has some kind of enchantment on it, to keep it secret, and to stop anyone that might come across it from telling of it.