Whende skipped over to the place that Professor Lainey had pointed out. She looked at the wall and tried to conceal her smile, which was pretty pointless as the darkness covered it anyway.

She found the symbols more interesting than creepy.

Emma wasn't entirely sure what she wanted to do, "Let's keep going." She said without actually meaning those deadly words. She took a step back and was rather relieved when Professor Lainey summoned them to the part of the cave with the snake paintings. "D'you reckon Thomas did these?" She asked Alanna while examining the odd paintings, "I find them rather creepy..."

g_g had a spine tingling feeling. "Whoa...." was all she could say....

g_g thought about the stiry Professor Lainey told. "A finer and the diary....surely he wasn't trying to reincarnate anything or anyone?" she gulped at her thought. "I'm scaring myself..."

Julia leaps backwards as Lainey bites at her fingers, then giggles. "Sorry," she says jokingly, then follows her over to the symbols on the wall. She studies them for a moment, then raises her eyebrows. Most likely Slytherin pranksters? she asks herself, not believing it for a second. The fact that it probably was something else didn't scare her, but it made her want to go on an adventure and explore deeper into the cave.

Blinking up at Lainey, she shrugs and looks at the other students. She giggles quietly at one Ravenclaw in particular that looked very spooked. Resisting the urge to make her even more jumpy, she yawns and wanders around the cave, this time on her own and without Lainey.

Alanna frowned. She could sense Emma was calmer when she was with the rest of the group,and she didn't have anything against it either. Still, she didn't like Professor Lainey instantly thinking it was Slytherin pranksters. Even if the pictures were of snakes.

*Singing*

"And much to his surprise
Said, 'I don't know where you been lad
But I see you won first prize.'
Hide hide hide ho
Hide hide hize
Said, "I don't know where you been lad
But I see you one first prize.'"

"But how could you know unless Thomas himself told you?" Emma asked Professor Lainey, hardly knowing which tale to believe, "Is, he still alive?" She asked again. So many questions were floating in her mind, curiosity quickly took hold of the fear and she became very intrigued in the story.

srimathi continued to explore the cave in spite of professor thorn''s objections.she muttered lumous and went around the cave walls for the symbols the professor had told

Phoebe was getting nervous, she was still really interested. "Proffesor?" She asked. "Are there many caves in the forest?" She said wondering if they could see some more.

lizzy stared at the creepy paintings on the wall. they made her shiver. lizzy longed to go back to the castle but this was the most interestinglesson she had experienced so far at hogwarts and lizzy was determined not to miss it.

"Don't worry about it," Matt said with a smile and followed his two new aquaintances into the cave.

"I doubt this was the cave Thomas used," he commented, a bit bored now that the story telling was over. He thought a moment before venturing to ask, "Are you two working on the clues found in the common rooms?"

Whende, sitting in a corner of the cave, watching the other students walk around, heard something about clues, but the echoes of other people made it hard to hear exact words. Curse my stupid, eavesdropping ears... they're making it hard to break this habit. Debating quietly with herself, she finally stood up and walked over to the nearby group, her legs moving almost mechanically.

"Erm, I... well, it... er," she said, her words rolling over in her mouth when she'd reached the group. She finally decided just to be quiet and stand there. She probably seemed like a complete and total idiot, but she didn't mind, that happened a lot.

Linnea looked around, "I agree, Matt. From the sounds of what the girl saw, if she saw any of it at all, one would need to be further back. This is still too close, the more adventureous classmates could have wandered in this far."

She looked at him in shock when he brought up the clues. She took a quick glance at Lee then back to Matt. "Yeah, actually, I found one in my common room. Since you mention it, I suppose you found one of them?"

She glanced at the Gryffindor girl who just approached them. She looked back to Lee and Matt, let them decide if they would talk to the Gryffindor.

Crystal heard someone scream, and she jumped and began to run out of the cave. She heard Professor Lainey yell " Petrificus Totalus!", and when she looked behind her, she saw Lee's face illuminated briefly by the spells orange light. He looked a bit surprised, and Crystal stopped running . She then began laughing as he fell face forward into the damp earthern floor of the cave. "Serves him right, disrupting class like that, " She thought, smirking.

g_g jumped as she heard a scream from somewhere. her heart began to race. The professor cast a spell and directed them to move out. she hurriedly went out panting. she took deep breaths and stayed close to the group. she hoped it was a prank. she'd rather get angry at pranksters than be scared half to death be maniacs.

Phoebe hurried out of the cave wondering what had happened in all of the confusion.

“Right you are ma’am,” Salem said a bit embarrassed, “Just with the students and all…” he finished more to himself then to Lainey.

Mr. Thorn turned around quickly as he heard the screaming, strangely enough Salem thought he recognized the voice but Lainey’s shouting was louder than the other persons’ and he couldn’t quite place whose it was, he turned, not seeing Lee's single form illuminated by the spell’s light and ushered the students out of the cave, “you heard the Professor,” he said to the remaining students in the cave, “out now.” He held his wand firmly in his right hand as he escorted them all quickly out into the clearing.

Once there he scanned the trees with narrowed eyes for any animals that might be lurking about and waited for Lainey and whoever else at the entrance of the cave. “I’m sure it’s nothing,” he tried to reassure the others, “Probably just one of your classmates pulling a prank...” He joked lightly still scanning the trees.