He wasn't supposed to be in the Forbidden Forest, hence the 'forbidden' part of the name; he knew that. He also knew that he didn't care, and so he shrugged his shoulders defiantly as he strode forward through the large, dispersed trees. Suddenly, he didn't feel so big or so bad, because now he wasn't amidst masses of students younger than him or smaller than him. Now he was beneath trees that had been around for probably hundreds of years, if not a thousand.

He had never seen trees this size, not even at home. His eyes flicked around himself in the most minute sign of distress. Then he clenched his jaw and continued to walk boldly forward. Fear meant nothing, as he was often told. He was in the forest for the same reason that he feared it. Whether it was because he was challenging his fear or just because he wanted a rush, not even he knew.

He heard the sound of something moving in the distance and his body stilled. There were vampires in these woods, vampires and werewolves, centaurs, and there were also rumored to be giants. He shuddered. The thought of living forever only being able to feed off of blood was rather disgusting, but the thought of being someone's meal was worse. At least the prior offered eternal youth and inhuman strength and powers. He thought he could take having to drink blood for that.

But the being food part, that he just couldn't take.

Laura sighed as she entered a parting in the great trees that towered over her. Was she meant to be here? No. It was against the rules, and that though alone brought another sigh to her. But it was a happy sigh. 'Cause she actually didn't care if she was breaking the rules.

Continuing to walk furthur into the forest, Lauras hand trailed along the trees she passed, skipping from one to the next, hovering in the air for a meer second or two, due to the fact that the trees where so close together. She loved the feel of the rough bark against her fingers, occaisionally changing to smooth, or nothing at all.

Eventually she reached a clearing, and flopping on the ground, Laura looked around. No one in sight. Nothing but her, and trees, and grass, and leaves. She liked it like this, and lay back, so that she was looking up at the sky. Well, part of it anyway. The part she could see through the leaves.

As he was busy spreading around bits of pumpkin for whatever was in the forest to perhaps munch on, Constantine came into a clearing and paused at the sight of a child.

...Was she dead?

Experiment time! Constantine picked up one of the pieces of pumpkin and threw it at the child, making target, and finding out that she was very much alive! (Thank heavens).

"What are you doing in here?" he asked, a worried look on his face. "You know the rules! Why does nobody ever listen to the rules..." he mumbled. He sighed, he could just LET her walk out. Cause heaven knew: what if she really didn't walk out? Or, what if a creature attacked and he wasn't with her? Not cool.

"Alright...up." He motioned for her to stand up and come to him. "You're sticking with me now until I'm done...and then we're leaving together. Okay?"

Starting as she felt something hit her, and was almost startled to see the Groundskeeper. But, she mused, it wasn't odd for him to be in here, after all, his work was to look after the Grounds. Standing up and brushing off her robes, Laura smiled sheepishly at Mr. Masterton.

She wasn't going to admit that she had ignored the rules. He seemed to have gathered that already, 'cause otherwise, she wouldn't be in here. Walking over to him, Laura thought about how she'd only come in here to get away from everything, to run from herself, in effect. She didn't speak out loud though, until she nodded in answer to him. "Yes sir," Laura agreed, a little glumly, for it wasn't really a question. She couldn't just go around ignoring staff.

Well, at least she was being cooperative.

"I'd take away points...but, it would just be easier to make you work in light of your rule breaking," he nodded and then looked down to the cut up pieces of pumpkin in his arms. "Why don't you go on and finish spreading these out? I'll be nearby, so nothing will hurt you, I assure you."

Laura just smiled at Mr. Masterton. At least he wasn't going to take points, Laura was greatful for this. She'd never lost Ravenclaw so much as a point, and wasn't going to start now.

Laura nodded back at the Groundskeeper. "Yes sir," she said. At least doing the work would be doing something, and a lot better than doing nothing. Silently thanking Mr. Masterton for not taking any points away, Laura took some of the Pumpkin that he indicated from him, and delved into the trees, begining to spread it out. But she wasn't worried about anything hurting her, otherwise why would she have come into the Forest in the first place?

Causally, as if this was not a freaky forest, Willie walked into the Forbidden Forest, hands in his pockets and head raised up high looking at the sky. He was just making his usual pass so he could stuff his stolen goodies in the tree he had marked.

Now where was that tree?

Green eyes surveyed the spooky trees, deciding which one was his. He knew he had marked it with som-- Ahhh, there it was. Walking up to a weird looking tree that had a "W" scratched on it, he pulled out his wand and then pulled out the necklace with the other. He held the necklace tightly in his hand while the wand pointed at the tree.

With only four taps against the tree, the tree bark slid open, showing him all of the stolen goodies he had taken. He opened the bag, which he had stolen, and stuffed the necklace in it. So far he had taken a watch, a bracelet and a necklace along with the bag. All of them looked expensive, so Willie was really happy.

Looking sideways to make sure no one saw him, he tapped the tree bark again, hiding all of his stolen goodies. Pleased with himself, he looked over his shoulder and then turned and quickly made his way out of the Forbidden Forest.

What object shall he steal next? Mmm?

Carter walked in to the Forbidden Forest. He figured this was the best way to go about the scavenger hunt. He started wondering around looking down at his list.

Abby makes her way to the entrance to the Forbidden Forrest. It's dark and mysterious. Of course it's the Forbidden Forrest, it's suppose to be dark and scary. She walks in looking around for anything that on the Scavenger Hunt list.

Carter saw one of the older girls from his class wandering around the Forbidden Forest too. He wondered if it would be better to form a group or not.

Cam immediately went down on all fours when he reached up near the Forbidden Forest. WHHYYY??? He didn't know... it just... made him wilder. Yesss yesssss. Was the Forbidden Forest really even that forbidden? Cam stopped every minute or so to check on the parchment, seeing if he'd... sniffed any wood or not. Heh. He soon started covering the leaves around the ground around himself, ya know, to get that NATURENESS to be withinnn him.

Good camouflage toooo.

"PSSSSTTTT. Forbidden Forest. GRANT MEEEEEE YER WOOOD!" He crossed past a few treeessss, but no sign of anything from the list.

Carter continued walking around the forest looking at all the trees and the ground and listening closely hoping he'd be able to find things.

As Jack headed towards the Forbidden Forest, he couldn't help but roll his eyes. Of COURSE it had been an ode--what else had he been expecting? Well, at least Torin was out of danger from Exploding!Bunz now.

"Ok sooooo I bet we can find some wood really easily in here," he said, looking around at all the trees. The only problem was--he didn't really KNOW what types of trees they were. They all looked the same to him...big trunk, green leaves. Yeah. That was the extent of his knowledge.

He noticed the eye roll but ignored it. It was time to focus on the treasure hunt.

"Yes, I'm sure that we can find wood in a forest." Was he being sarcastic? Maybe. But he couldn't really help it. "I wish I knew more about trees..."

Yeah, he was good at Herbology. Not this stuff.

Jack sighed. He had been hoping that Torin knew a bit more about trees than he did, but apparently not. "Maybe we can just look for the type of wood in our wands?" he suggested. He pulled out his wand and studied it--ok, maybe that was what ash looked like. Of course, his was polished and sanded and whatnot but, it was a starting point.

"Hey, maybe we'll get lucky and find a unicorn hair or something too," he said with a small grin. THAT he would be able to recognize. He coughed awkwardly and looked around, unsure of what to do next. Now that he was alone with Torin he didn't know what to talk about--the last conversation they had had wasn't exactly the best in his memory.

"What kind of wood is your wand?" he asked.

Okay, he doubted that they would find a unicorn hair, but he was willing to go along with the whole wand wood thing. It was better than any idea he could come up with.

"My wand is Hawthorn." Which was pretty cool as that was his tree sign in Celtic Astrology.

As the students wandered through the forest, a slight rustling came from overhead. Perhaps it was just a squirrel bouncing from treetop to treetop.

Or perhaps it was something else.

Regardless, a few leaves scattered to the ground from one rather harmless looking tree. Was it one on the list?

Jack was just about to comment on how he had NO idea what Hawthorn was when something caught his eye.That tree, and those leaves--those looks a bit different than the other ones.

"Torin, over here!" he said, picking up one of the leaves and examining it. "It came from this tree...I THINK this is one of the woods on the list for the wands. Emphasis on THINK," he added as he touched the wood on the tree. Hmmmm, it seemed very...magical. If that was possible.

Cam was SNIFFIN' like CRAAAZZYY. He passed by A LOOOT of trees and he wasn't sure if any of them were wood from the list. Were they? WERE THEY?? No, Cameron Karsten was not an expert on trees. Yet. Still on all fours, he started screeching like a merman around the forest out of boredom, almost forgetting the fact that unicorns and centaurs had lived in this area buuut he was covered in leaves. LEAAAAVESSS.

The perfect camouflage, right? HEH. "OIIIII can a centaur help meee find some wood? Any centaur? Anyone?" But soon he heard something beehhiind. WHAT WAS IT, EH? Was it really a centaurrrrr?

But he heard something behind him. LEAVES. Jack was there already. Ooooohhh Jack. Torin was there too. BUT HE RAAAANNN straight towards those two. "Oak leaves. I think." Cam ran his hand along the tree, and SNAAATCHED the leaves from the Gryffindor Captain.

Carter looked up as some leaves started falling from the treetops. He picked one of the leaves up and looked at it. It looked like an oak leaf. He went to the tree and ripped a piece of the bark off and put it in his pocket.

As Jack was examining the leaves, trying to figure out exactly what they were, he heard someone come up and--WHOOSH! The leaves were out of his hand before he could even react. "Oi! I found those first, you little thief!" he grumbled, trying to grab them right out of his hands. "Didn't anyone ever tell you that you don't get anywhere in life by CHEATING?" he asked. Nevermind--there were more LEAVES where they came from anyways. Grumbling, he grabbed a few more and then shoved some in Torin's hand as well.

And he was just going to take his word for it and assume these were oak leaves. Pssh, he had no idea! Besides, it wasn't the LEAVES they needed anyways. Silly child. They needed the WOOD! He pulled a tiny twig off of one of the branches and patted the trunk a couple of times. "Sorry tree!" he muttered. Wasn't that what Bunz always did? Yeah...she would be proud.

He was confused right now. One second he was looking for wood and the next Jack was shoving stuff at him.

But Cameron was a little thief! And cheater!

"... Why are you apologizing to a tree, Jack?"

Jack blushed and looked down at the piece of wood he had just collected from the tree. "Well, you know...it's just kind of habit after Bunbury's lessons, you know?" he said. Hopefully the Bunz Fanatic would understand what he was talking about. "You always apologize if you hurt them and since I just broke a piece of it off...it felt appropriate," he said, crossing his arms. Yup. It was totally NOT weird!

"So, I think that's one wood we've got down, right?" he said. "Do you think we should stick around here or move on?" he asked, looking around at the other trees and trying to decide if they were worth sticking around near.

Carter looked on the other side of the tree to see the Gryffindor quidditch captain and someone he didn't know. He smiled. "See you found some too." he said showing his piece of bark.