"Go Pam!" cheered Jez. She was frankly impressed - had Pam ever duelled before? She'd already picked up a lot of good spells! Jez suddenly had an idea. She closed her eyes and wished.
A huge water balloon hung in the air above them all.
Jez grinned happily. "Water fight!" She ran directly under the balloon and waited until a few dummies had come under it. They were almost touching her when she pointed her wand up and yelled, "Bombarda!" The water balloon exploded, drenching Jez and the dummies around her. The dummies short circuited as the water leaked into them, and they fell, leaving Jez shaking water from her hair and grinning. "That was fun," she said.

"Nice one!" Pam called to Jez, shaking herself dry. I need some skates! She felt a tingle on her feet and, upon further inspection, she found she had skates on her feet. She skated around Jez a few times to gain momentum. "Auguamenti!" She shouted. She continued to skate in a circle and used the water like a rope.

At the end... yeah. It looked like fire. Dallin nodded, turning back to look at the empty space where the patronus had vanished from. Hm. Maybe if Treyen tried again he could get the real thing. And Dallin almost suggested this, before Treyen asked him what his patronus was.

"Erm... a German Shepard." Usually Dallin was pretty proud of this, because he loved that breed of dogs and felt that they were one of the more... cooler breeds, but right now he wasn't so sure if they were so great or not. Meh.

Moving on. "You should try again," he urged, motioning to Treyen's wand. "Just... don't be so surprised. Focus on the patronus itself more, and it might stick around longer." That was actually pretty good advice, wasn't it? Dallin thought so.

Nate heard a familiar voice screaming out spells, but who was it? It didn't quite sound like Jez, but it was definitely a girl. But it couldn't be... He peeked around the half of fallen weight to see Pam and Jez soaking wet, surrounded by a bunch of twitching dummies.

"Pam! You came! Did you shut the door? It's after curfew..." Nate said. It wasn't like he really cared, but it would be nice to not have to duel a professor. Beaming, he jogged over--was the room getting bigger?--to Jez and Pam. "Diffindo," he said, swiping his wand in a slicing motion at a dummynthat was creeping up on Pam. The dummy shuddered, then its head and arms slid off of the rest of its body, leaving a clean diagonal cut. "Glad you could come," was all Nate said. He was too pumped up on adrenaline. "So, Jez, I heard that spell earlier. What was it... Everte Statum, I believe? What does that one do?"

So, Dallin was agreeing with him. That was no indication that what they saw was in fact a phoenix, though.

A German Shepard? Oh, man, those dogs were amongst the strongest ones. Definitely a dog one should be wary of...if one didn't mean well. "That's pretty cool." It was. It was also a pretty dog.

Okay. Whatever the professor said. He'll try again. The Prefect couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at the 'don't be so surprised' part, yeah, Dallin, he's not letting go of his wand this time. No worries. "Okay." He'll try and focus on the patronus a bit more.

So, breathing in and out again...and that last memory of his that worked was back on his mind. No pressure, right? Just try and get that patronus again. Sigh. "Expecto Patronum!" the wand pointing at the nothingness left out the silvery mist once more...but it soon took the shape of the same creature from before. Treyen didn't let go of the wand this time, he was just focusing on the memory, the spell and the creature at the same time. Surely, Kingsley would be proud.

But it was a phoenix, wasn't it? It looked like the ones he'd only seen in textbooks before, it wasn't like any bird...and...he still didn't know why that was his patronus.

It vanished in flames like before when he put down his wand. The patronus was a charm, wasn't it? And Mr. Spencer did say his wand was suited for 'charms'...how come it didn't work as great in Transfiguration as it did in Charms when Treyen clearly had to focus a whole lot more in Transfiguration?

Those were questions Dallin couldn't respond to, right? Best to keep them to himself...and some professor later on.

"I guess it was a phoenix, after all." Time to do some research about them, no? "Maybe you ought to try again." And they'll get to see a German Shepard, yes?

Jez smiled. "Everte Statum, the hurling hex. It sends an opponent hurling backwards, like this." Jez pointed her wand over Nate's shoulder at a sneaking dummy. "Everte Statum!" The dummy flew backwards and slammed into the wall. "You try," she said pointing at herself. "Let's see if it works as well on a human subject." Jez was like a Muggle scientist - always ready to test a theory. Exhibit A: the Hate Potion.

Pam watched as Nate and Jez tried out a new spell. Suddenly she saw a flash of green on Jez's body. Suddenly she was reminded of her dream. The whole reason she was here. She closed her eyes and tried to get the picture of them out of her mind. But when she opened them again, a very pale version of Jez and Nate came floating towards her. They were holding hands, while their other hands were outstreached towards Pam. They were wearing the same thing in her dream. As they came towards her, they repeated, "You did this, you did this."

Pam backed up to the corner, dropped her wand, and held her hands up against her head. She heard a shriek, and soon realized it was her voice. She was the one shrieking, she was the one who did all of this.

Nate listened intently to Jez's lesson. After all, this spell could save his life one day. "Try on you? Alright..." Nate said. He was hesitant to go throwing Jez around the Room of Requirement. The floor and walls were stone. Still, he trusted her, so he raised his wand. "Everte--" A shriek cut him off.

His head snapped over to face Pam, who seemed to be having a sort of schizophrenic fit. "Pam!" he called, running over to her. More dummies we still following, and he blasted them back as he made his way over to Pam. "Pam, what is it?!"

When Pam dropped her wand and backed away, Jez thought it was just because of the dummies. When she started shrieking, though, Jez became worried and glanced at her. She looked terrified. "Pam?" said Jez tentatively, walking towards her friend. "You okay?" She reached out and gently touched her arm, careful not to grab her. If she was scared, then she'd probably react badly to that. "What's the matter?"

Pam took a few breaths and pointed at the two figures who were gliding towards them. "Y-You mean you can't see them?" Her hand was shaking, and she pulled it into herself to stop it. So this isn't the room then. She thought.

Nate whirled around fast, slashing his wand viciously across the nearly depleted ranks of dummies. "Reducto Maxima!" he screamed, causing a wave of white light to shoot out and hit the dummies, reducing them to dust in one hit. "No more dummies. There. Can't see what?"

Jez looked where Pam pointed, but couldn't see anything except thin air and a dummy. She flicked her wand. "Everte Statum." The dummy was knocked backwards. Jez glanced at Pam. "The dummy's gone now, Pam." But Pam had said them ... "What did you see?" asked Jez, then corrected herself. "Or do you still see it?"

"Can't you see them?!" She said, in a scared voice? "Guys!! It's you!" She backed herself up as far as she could into the corner. She quickly thought of something. "I need these two to see themselves!" She said to no one in particular. She hoped this worked...

Nate looked down, then over at Jez, then down again, then Jez again. Then he poked her shoulder, just to be sure. "Erm, Pam... We already can see ourselves..." What in the world is she talking about? he thought.

"Um, what?" Jez looked down at herself. She was soaking, so her clothes were sticking to her and her hair was a tangled wet mess. Was she really that scary? Jez was about to reassure Pam that she'd take a bath later to improve her appearance if she really was that bad, when Pam shouted a command to the Room.
And Jez saw them. She heard them. And she screamed too. "I'm wearing a dress!"

"not you guys, THEM" she said pointing past their shoulders. She let out a sigh of relief as Jez was able to see what he could. It wasnt their appearances that shocked her the most. It was what the represented. The two people that haunted her dreams only a few hours before. In her dreams, she was the killer. And now, they've come back to haunt her.

Nate whirled around and looked. Oh. Them. he thought. Thinking more about it, though, Nate realized there was deeper meaning to these figures before them. "Pam, what do they mean?" he said, sounding more frantic than he had wanted to.

He scanned over the two ghastly figures again. They looked like corpses, but why were they dead? Were they killed? Nate gasped out loud. Were we killed by Pam?

Jez was speechless with rage. She would never wear a dress!!! But her anger subsided when she looked closer at the figures. Were they ... "Are we dead?" she asked bluntly. "Did you kill us off, Pam?" 'Cos seriously, they looked scarily like corpses ... but Jez didn't like to admit she was scared. So she hid it behind either a smile or bluntness. This time it was the second option. "How do we get rid of them?" she asked, not really expecting an answer. She pointed her wand at her other self. "Everte Statum!" It did nothing. "Confringo! Bombarda! Pertrificus Totalus!" Jez shouted all the spells she knew, but none made any difference.

Judging by Pam's terrified silence, Nate assumed they were right: Pam had killed them both. Evidently together, seeing as the specters were holding hands... "Jez," Nate said quietly, "I think so." He also mouthed the words 'Pam's going mad!', but he definitely didn't need to say that out loud. Pam would hear him.

Nate raised his wand towards the ghosts. "Expecto Patronum!" he yelled, thinking of his underwater kiss with Jez. This time he made more progress than he had during the actual DADA lesson: a poof of silver about the size of an apple. Other than that, nothing. He started to panic, stumbling slowly back as the apparitions glided towards the three. Stepping on a broken link of chain that had been strewn on the floor, Nate slipped backwards, his wand flying up and his head hitting the floor just as the ghosts passed through his body.

Stone was out cold.

Jez backed away from her other self. Her spells hadn't worked. And then Nate was knocked out. Not good. "Accio Nate!" she screamed, making her friend sail towards her.
So, let's break this down - Jez was stuck in the Room of Requirement, in the middle of the night, with two ghost-like figures, and her two best friends, one of whom was scared to death, the other out of it. Great, just great. Jez pushed Pam behind a weight, and looped her arms around Nate's waist to pull him behind it too. She pointed her wand at another weight. "Wingardium Leviosa!" It was really heavy, and Jez had to grip her wand with both hands to stop the weight falling. She dropped it next to the first one, and focused on another. Soon she had barricaded Pam, Nate and herself into a corner using the weights. The ghostly figures were hovering on the other side, somehow unable to go forward. They seemed to have enlisted the help of the dummies, who were trying to spark their way through the weights barricade.
Jez sat down against the wall with her knees drawn up to her chest and pulled Pam down beside her. She pulled Nate up between them. "How do we get rid of the ghosts?" she groaned. She was exhausted - she hadn't slept well in days because of her own nightmares, and the duelling on top of that made her want to go back to the dorms and sleep until the end of term. But she couldn't, not without passing through the ghosts and dummies, and even if she could she wouldn't leave her friends.
Jez closed her eyes and pressed her face into her knees. Help ... she thought desperately. Please, help ...

Pam tried really hard to get them to go. "I need them gone! This isn't helping and I need them gone!" She hoped the room could do something about them. And it could. The two ghostly figures burst into white flames. Once they were gone, her fear for their lives left her, and the fear for Nate came up. "Nate?" She said, shaking his shoulders a little.

While Nate's head bobbed up and down on top of his limp neck, the Room of Requirement jumped into action. The weights with which Jez had barricaded the trio formed into a solid wall around them, serving to block out the attackers but also corner Jez, Pam, and Nate even more. The Room wasn't done, though.

The short, dark wand that the Room had created for Jez spun on the ground a few times, ending up in front of the feet of the three. It was pointing away from them, and seemed to be charging up. From the wand tip burst a whole array of silvery animals, all of which split up and walked out through the solid metal wall.

The ghosts' wails could be heard as the patronuses passed by them, dissolving them into nothing. But Jez and the other two still needed to escape. A strange cabinet appeared in the corner with them. The short, stubby wand also pointed upward and sprayed a jet of water up to form the words Locomotor Nate with an arrow pointing down at his limp body and a separate arrow aimed at the cabinet.

Jez's jaw dropped as the Room began to do its famed work. She stared at the patronuses, and the weights, and the cabinet. The water words and arrow were the ones to finally snapped Jez back to reality. She grabbed her wand and Nate's and pointed hers at him. "Locomotor Nate!" His body rose into the air, looking horribly like a corpse, and reminding Jez painfully of Scott knocking himself out on the Ravenclaw common room ceiling. She took Pam's hand in her free one and walked over to the cabinet. She was about to climb inside, pulling her friends with her, when she hesitated. Was this a trap? This could be the Vanishing Cabinet Keegan had told her about, but it could also be a Crushing Cabinet, a torture deice whose walls closed in on its occupants and slowly crushed them to death. Jez didn't really want to be crushed to death.
She decided to just go with it. She stepped inside, letting go of Pam's hand to gently pull Nate to a vertical position and close the door, leaving open a crack. It was horribly cramped, but Jez waited, one arm around Nate to keep him from going back horizontal and accidentally kicking the door open, the other hand firmly trained on him to continue the spell. His wand was safely tucked in her jacket pocket.
What now?

Pam followed Jez into the cabinet. She didn't like how close everyone was. "Jez." she whispered. She was afraid that if she talked too loud, something bad would happen. " what now?" this wasn't her idea of handling the situation. But it was the only plan they had.

The door of the cabinet closed itself, encompassing the three in complete darkness. A whirling sensation and cool breeze followed soon after, but stopped as abruptly as it had started. The second vanishing cabinet was directly next to the exit door of the Room of Requirement, its three occupants eerily still.