Jacob walked into the courtyard and looked up into the sky. He wasn't sure why he had, but he knew he had a reason. It was one of those moments when you do something and then forget why you did it. Suddenly, there was a whooshing of air above him, and he remembered where he had been going. How he had forgotten about the quidditch match, he wasn't sure, but he hurried along anyway. As he crossed the bridge, a group of three Slytherins laughed and jeered at him.

"Are you lost? Forget your way back home?" they called. Jacob ignored them, knowing they were only jealous of him and his friends, but they continued as they began to walk a little ways behind him, "Why don't you follow the hat's advice? Go home, you don't belong here." This made him stop walking. He turned suddenly on them and gave them a stern remark.

"Maybe I don't belong here," he began, "but how Hogwarts admitted three idiots like you, I'll never know." The three looked stunned by his comeback, so he simply turned away, and they didn't follow him further. He reached the end of the bridge and began walking to the quidditch pitch, when he heard just what Richard had described. It was a single pitch, monotonous and screeching, and he found himself running to get away from it. He sprinted until the noise only rang through his memories, rather than through his ears. He found himself only a few meters away from his destination. Today match was Hufflepuff versus Ravenclaw, so he didn't expect to be sitting with Richard today. He sat with Cat in the Griffyndor seating area, but they cheered for Hufflepuff together. Jacob watched as Mal seemed to effortlessly deflect bludgers that seemed to be more focused on her team than the opponents. They cheered for her together as she saved several of her players ad even managed to nail on her opponents with a well timed swing of her bat. Soon the Hufflepuff seeker managed to grab the snitch out of a steep dive. The game was finished and Hufflepuff had won. Now they had something to hold to Richard.

Jacob began descending when he heard a voice he knew he would hear again, but not so soon. "Oi, Sessions!" He turned and found himself face to face with the brains of the Slytherin triplet. He had wild brown hair, dark eyes, and stood a few inches shorter than Jacob. His scowl told Jacob that this was only going to end in one of two ways. Either the boy thought he could beat Jacob at a duel and attacked him, or a teacher discovered him before that and separated them. While he knew the latter would be wiser, he couldn't deny his wish to show the short boy up. Jacob began to simply walk away this time, when he felt a hard push from behind, and he was flung forward, multiple people saw it and began to crowd around them. Jacob got to his feet, and looked the boy in his eye. "I'm not going to fight you, I don't feel like breaking the rules today," he told the boy, but the boy continued to attack. with another knockback jinx Jacob was on the ground again. This time when he stood, he drew his wand, ready to defend himself. He realized that flipendo might be the only harmful spell the boy actually knew. He simply blocked his next attack and deflected it with his own protego. Immediately, he fired off a disarming charm as the boy fell from his own jynx. He caught the wand and lifted the boy from the ground and called for the nearest prefect or professor. It was his own prefect who arrived first, and Jacob explained the situation. He handed the boy and his wand over, and began to walk away confidently. He was almost untouchable.

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Cat found herself walking down the seemingly endless aisles of the Hogwarts library. Around her, the books seemed to simply blur into one wonderful display of knowledge. She found herself in a section she had not yet explored, so she reached up and grabbed a book off the shelf. It was a heavy blue volume and imbassed on the cover in black ink were the words, "Charms and Spells for a Master Wizard". She put the book back, as she expected that many of the spells would be far beyond her. She looked again at the shelf in front of her, and noticed a bright yellow one near the very top of the shelf. She knew she could wheel over a ladder and grab the book herself, but she decided to pull out her wand. She pointed the tip straight at the book then cast a spell she had yet to try. "Wingardium Leviosa!" She said, swishing her wand through the air and flicking it down, just as she had practiced. The book floated off the shelf, into the air, and down to her as she lowered her wand and ended her focus. It plopped into her open hand and she put her wand back in the folds of her robe. She looked at the bright yellow book and ran her hand over the title. She whispered the title under her breath, intrigued by it. She had found "Animagus: Advanced Transfiguration". She found only a few more books, including a few for her friends to take a look at, then went back to her common room. She gave the portrait in front of her the password and plopped onto one of the couches and opened the yellow book.

"The capability of making one's self an animagus is considered one of the most impressive displays of talent by a witch or wizard," She read, "Thus it is also considered one of the more difficult magics to perform." She sat for nearly an hour, learning about the impressive magic that was animagi. It was then that Jacob came in through the portrait hole, and noticed her reading. She looked up and he smiled at her.

"I found a few books to read," She started, "Even a few you might want to try." He looked through the stack of spines and stopped on a red book and looked at title. He pulled it out of the stack and walked over and sat on the couch a little way from her. He opened the book and began to read, so she was able to see the title. "Spellcraft: the Art of Creating Your Spell". She smiled and realized that like her, he was trying to do his learning ahead of their year. "Do you know how to undo transfigurations?" she asked suddenly. Jacob looked over at her and nodded slowly.

"Yeah," he said hesitantly, "why do you ask?" She explained her idea of attempting to make herself an animagus. He agreed to help if the spell went wrong, so she set the book on the ground and pointed her wand at her heart. She closed her eyes and thought the spell in her mind. She didn't feel much change, until she realized that smells seemed so much more noticeable. She felt a long tail extending from her, and she finally opened her eyes. Everything seemed so much sharper in her sight now. She looked up and saw Jacob smiling down at her. He looked so much taller, and when he stepped toward her, she instinctively shank back. She looked at the arm of the couch and decided to leap up to it. She jumped up and met his eyes, then she craned her neck to look across her back and saw gray fur striped with darker patches. She felt something in the air in front of her face, and her whiskers twitched. She quickly looked back and saw Jacob again, he was almost laughing as he looked at her. She jumped back to the ground and thought about how she had been before she transfigured. She felt herself changing back and smiled back at Jacob.

"Well, that was fun," she stated. The two of them discussed some of the ways that they could use this new skill. She went to bed smiling that night, because she was what she had always loved. She was literally a cat now.

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Mal considered what she could possibly do about her situation. She knew that she might have to say something to Cedric eventually. Every quidditch practice she had to hold back the urge to tell him everything. He was a great teammate, and was quite the keeper, but she knew that eventually she might let something slip. It occurred to her that it wasn't really her worry for now. What she was the most curious about for the moment was what both Jacob and Richard had told her about. She found herself now walking to the edge of the forest, and expected to find her ears ringing just as they had said they heard. She did hear a quiet melody coming from the forest, but didn't hear the harsh trill. She found herself transfixed with the tune. It seemed to fill the air around her as she walked closer to the edge of the wood. She realized it was a beautiful song. She was soon beyond the tree line, following the music deeper and deeper into the forbidden forest. The music continued to grow louder as she walked, and soon she noticed a light ahead of her. She focused on the light in the trees, and suddenly the music stopped. Without any warning, she realized that she didn't know where she was. She had her broom and wand in her hands, so she mounted up and flew slowly and silently over the ground. With her wand ready, she progressed toward the light until she heard the thundering of hooves on the ground nearby. She quickly planted her feet and rolled into a bush on the edge of what she now knew was a centaur camp. She lay silently for a moment until she overheard a centaur's voice. She couldn't quite make out the words that he was muttering, but she picked a word or two out of his speech. Suddenly, when the speaker was silent for a few moments, several cheers rose from the camp. Then she realized there was a new speaker, but something about the presenter's voice didn't sit right with Mal. It wasn't rough and grim like a centaur, but simple and young. She shifted so she was facing the clearing, and she caught sight of a single pair of feet among the mass of hooves. Dangling just within her view were the edges of a Hogwarts robe, lined with green. Mal didn't know what a student would be doing in the forest in the middle of a centaur camp, but she didn't like the idea of stay around until the group realized she was present. She rolled over once more, until she was out from under the small bush. She mounted her broom and took off silently, and flew out of the forest and back to the castle. It wasn't until she was telling her friends that she had really calmed herself.

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Richard believed Mal's story about the centaurs, but he wasn't certain about the first part of her story. He was sure that the song she described had been the same droning tone that had invaded his mind when he had heard it at first. He walked along the edge of the forest waiting for something to happen. He waited, and waited. He almost wanted a centaur to burst out of the wood and attack him. The anticipation of the darkness next to him seemed to build slowly until suddenly he heard it. Faintly at first, but soon it grew to the point where his mind simply would not allow his feet to carry him forward anymore. He stood his ground, allowing the ringing to consume his mind. He tried to find the song within the chaos, but not a single melody appeared amidst the ringing. Soon he found himself retreating from the sound that filled the air. Richard realized now that perhaps the ringing was not a coincidence. Whatever was hidden in the woods, or whatever those centaurs were planning, The ringing was their way of warning people away. Richard had asked Hagrid if there was anything out of the ordinary with the forest recently, but Hagrid only seemed perplexed by the question.

"I don't know what ya think ya know," He said in his rough voice, "But you had best stay away from any trouble. We wouldn't wan' ya getting in too much trouble, now would we?" Richard realized what Hagrid might have been implying. "I was thinking about asking professor Dumbledore if I could get a student to help me out round the castle, but if you feel like goin' in the forest..." He trailed off until his voice was an incomprehensible mutter. Richard wanted to help Hagrid desperately, so he decided it would be best to turn to his friends. He took off from the small cottage his friend lived in, and walked to the castle. He needed to find a way into the forest.