Annie followed the prefect/captain girls to the library, and was surprised to see half of the school already there. Well well, it appeared they would have some help on their quest to find an end for Isfret. The redhead nodded toward the other staff members already there and then approached the prefects, pulling the brooch out of her pocket as she did so.

"Here's the brooch," she said softly, edging her way into the group that included Gemma. She handed it over to Louisa, making certain that the side with the inscription on it was facing up. "See if you can translate those, maybe?" She honestly couldn't tell hieroglyphics from runes anyway. "I'm going to look for anything that can tell us more about the last time Isfret was here..."

What years had Myrtle said again? Er... HAD she said any? The Headmistress cleared her throat and spoke up. She might be able to make use of all the children here. "Anyone want to help me pull books from... Hogwarts' early years?"

A few moments later, Sierra heard other voices and was surprised to turn around and see an entire group of professors and students. Word travels fast, eh? Or...maybe this was the group coming in from the Great Hall. She'd seen a bunch of people there earlier right after Astronomy class was dismissed. Or, well...right after the professor was eaten, and the class had no other choice than to be dismissed...

O_O

She watched as Professor Cerulean summoned a quill and some parchment for Louisa. Well, the Headmistress hadn't made it here with the brooch just yet, so...this was better than starting with nothing at all. "The Headmistress is on her way, too," she said. "She's bringing the brooch, but we can get a head start if Louisa can remember how to draw it."

...because Sierra hadn't gotten a good look at it at all.



Speaking of the Headmistress, she entered only a few moments later, brooch in hand. Sierra edged in closer as the brooch was passed to Louisa. "Do you need some help Louisa?" she asked. "I'm not the greatest at Runes, but like I said, I have six years under my belt. I can give it a shot, at least."

She glanced up at the Headmistress and nodding in acknowledgment as the woman walked away. A second later, her eyes were back on the inscription. "Those are runes alright. Actually, I think they're pretty basic, which is odd for something this complex..." She read the inscription, matching up the symbols with the letters they stood for. "Oh...," she finally said, sitting back. "I think I have an idea."

THEY HAD LOOK FOR THE PLANT!?!?!

No no no no no no!
Oakey should have stayed in the Common Room after all. Was too late to back out of the search party now? He looked around the aisle to see if he could just duck out and leave but it had seemed that the Library had gotten even more crowded than normal. "Laura come here." Oakey said grabbing her by the shirt and pulling her closer. "Let's do as Mr. Kitridge says but you're gonna be my extra set of eyes until I know it's safe to leave."He whispered to her harshly. He peered around in every direction until he moved closer to the Head Mistress and the group who seemed to be inspecting a brooch, dragging Laura along with him.


Researching a Brooch wasn't life threatening. He joined in with the group of student leaders and eyed the brooch himself. Oakey had a knack for Runes, why wouldn't he since he had studying them so intensely all semester long. Gripping his hand around Laura's shirt tighter to make sure his extra eyes wasn't going to leave him he spoke up to the group. "Can I get a look at the runes too? I could help some."

Louisa nodded at Sierra. "Yeah, they're pictures. I didn't get a good look at the brooch but we can try and see whether they're hieroglyphics or Elder Futhark." The latter wouldn't be a problem to any of them since it was the main runic alphabet taught in Hogwarts. Her head turned toward professor Cerulean as she summoned a parchment and a quill, "I.. uhh.. didn't really see them clearly." But she held on to the summoned items, they definitely needed those.

Was the library too crowded than usual, by the way? Louisa was distracted momentarily by the students answering to the librarian's and Cerulean's orders. Huh. Interesting.



KJDSHG. The brooch with the ghosts in it! Louisa fumbled a bit before holding it steadily between her two fingers. "Okay." Louisa glanced at Nessie and the others who didn't offer to help with the runes and wondered if they could help with this books research.

She turned herself toward Sierra, the brooch extended between them and allowed her to see closely. Professor Cerulean could come and see too when she was done with the other students. "Yeah, sure. It's the Elder Futhark alphabet. I think we can handle it," Her voice was more lively than before with hope. "It is odd..." Was he distracting them with this? Grumble grumble.

Either way, they had to go on with their mission. Louisa held the quill to the parchment, her mouth forming a faint smile when Sierra said she had an idea. "Me too. I think we should write down those on the parchment and match them with their transliteration. What's your idea?"

"Hey Oakey." The head girl maneuvered the brooch in her hand so that it faced the boy. "These are pretty much basic runes."

Oh, hey--it's Oakey Gunter!

Sure, the kid was a Puffer, but Sierra would be lying if she said she didn't think Oakey was pretty cool. She'd known him for a few years now, and yeah...he was an alright kid. "Yeah, cool," she said, gesturing for Oakey to come join them. If they were going to battle against a man-eating plant and a control-freak ghost, they'd need a bigger army than just two or three people.

Sierra eyed the brooch in Louisa's hands. She was glad the Headmistress handed it to her. There was no way Sierra wanted to touch that thing. What if they got sucked inside?! She got a closer look at it, thinking about the four house ghosts locked inside. She sort of missed them...

"What's my idea?" she said, repeating what the Head Girl just said. "Well, simply put...

...I think we need to unleash a load of cats on this thing." Isfret, she meant. She looked at the others, wondering if they'd pick up why she said what she said.

Laura wasn't scared of no plant, no plant could be too dangerous right and it wouldn't do anything now they had loads of eyes on it, she was fairly confident it probably was hiding well away from here but she wasn't going to say anything, she was thinking to herself when

"WHAT THE?" Laura growled as she felt her shirt being tugged by none other than her EX Friend Oakey, was he going to use her as bait or something because if he was that wasn't nice of him and she wouldn't be happy.

Laura listened, oh he just wanted to use her as an extra eye, in that case she wouldn't mind working with him for now, she looked around the room following Oakey and then he was gripping her shirt even tighter, she was confused now. "Would you please let go off my shirt." Laura asked politely, she didn't want it ripping or anything.

Louisa stared at Sierra for a second, worry starting to appear on her face. Cats. Her cats. The Ravenclaw stared down at the brooch, her head bumping into Oakey's head but not hard enough to knock either of them out. She then started scribbling down on the parchment like crazy, with each passing second the notion Sierra said was becoming more of a fact than just a suggestion.

1st line: ᛁ (i) - ᛊ (s) -_ ᚠ (f) - ᚱ (r) - ᛖ (e) or ᛗ (m) - ᛏ (t)
2nd line: ᛒ (b) - ᛖ (e) - ᚹ (w) - ᚨ (a) - ᚱ (r) - ᛖ (e)
3rd line: ᛟ (o) - ᚠ (f)
4th line: ? (?) - ᛖ (e) - ᛚ (l) - ᛁ (i) - ᚾ (n) - ᛖ (e) - ᛊ (s)

I s f r m e t
------------
b e w a r e
o f
? e l i n e s

Louisa gasped faintly, her heart pounding once again in her chest. "Merlin's beard. This is like... a warning. It's the plan of how we can cast him away." She looked up at the Slytherin and Hufflepuff and frowned. "Not my felines though." JUST saying.

She grabbed the parchment and jumped to her feet, "We need to tell the headmistress!" She was still around looking for some ancient books.

As Sierra peered over Louisa's shoulder and watched her work through the inscription, she began to nodded along. When the Head Girl was finished, Sierra looked up. "That's what I got, too--Isfret, beware of felines," she said. "So in other words, we need to unleash a load of cats on this thing." She shook head at what Louisa said about her own cat. "No, I don't think anything would happen to our cats. He's afraid of them. Or, he can't be near them for some reason or another."

"We need to get the word out--ask around, see who has a cat," she said. "I've got Hissy Fit, and..." Pause. "Headmistress Truebridge? Don't you have a pet cat?"

Oakey had only taken a quick look at the Runes before his head was hit by Louisa's. Jerking his head back and rubbing it he released Laura. Who was non-to-pleased with Oakey grabbing at her. "There fine I let go." He said, "you can go actually, look for the scarey plant." He had only grabbed Laura from impulse for safety because the thought of being eaten by that plant sent shivers down his spine.

He returned his attention to both Louisa and Sierra. Sierra was actually tolerating his presence for the moment. She would probably use him for bait later or something. That didn't matter though as Louisa wrote out a code for the runes Oakey just waved it off. He hadn't buried his face in Ancient Runes books since he was a ickle firstie to need a key to decipher what it said. "Clearly it says, Isfret; Beware of Felines." Oakey pointed to the brooch without touching it. "most of it anyways, but I'm sure that this rune is fehu." He looked at the word at the top though. "What's an Isfret?" he asked.

He looked at Sierra giving her a odd look "Hissy Fit?" repeating the name of her cat. then he looked to the Head Mistress."I've got a cat too, Charmer."

Kurumi had sort of been hanging back a bit while the runic translations had been going on. Too many cooks in the kitchen caused chaos and she was sure that the two girls could translate it - especially given that it was basic runes. Interesting...Egyptian brooch with basic runic scripture on it.

And then cats were mentioned and the kneazle she held in her arms began to purr and give one of those dreamy looks up at the Gryffindor. FINALLY the world would come to appreciate the superior species! Walnut wiggled his way free from his Mistress' arms and leaped onto the table, sitting rather tall and proud and looking especially fluffy today. Kurumi glanced at her familiar and softly rolled her eyes before turning back to the group. "Well, if we need a feline to lead the charge I think we just got a volunteer," she said, jabbing her thumb at him. Yep, he was definately purring rather loudly now as well. If he could survive that long being locked in the common room he could survive just about anything.

Not that she ever doubted her familiar to begin with. She knew he was perfectly capable of taking care of himself.

Kurumi glanced over at Oakey when he spoke. "Isfret is the ancient entity that is causing all this chaos at Hogwarts right now," she said, sort of in summary. "He trapped all the House Ghosts in that brooch." She glanced back over at Sierra. "Maybe we should post a notice on the student bulletin board or in our common rooms?" That did seem to be the quickest way to spread information around and this Isfret seemed the cocky sort to overlook human communications. "Then...we need to figure out where to unleash this load of cats.The ghosts said that our familiars could sense where Isfret was...so do we let them try to find him in the castle or ask Milton and Dylan to flirt with Myrtle to see if we can sway her to help us a bit more?"

Sierra nodded along as Oakey came to the realization of what the runic scripture said. She'd just opened her mouth to explain the whole Isfret story, when Kurumi spoke up from somewhere in the crowd. Sierra turned her attention to the slightly older prefect and nodded once again.

"I agree. I think we need to gather as many people as possible and pretty much form of an army of cats," she said. She could feel her adrenaline starting to rush as she said that. The were going to BATTLE. Isfret and company stood no chance now! Or...that was the hope, at least. "Well, there's four of us here...each from a different house." She nodded at Louisa, Kurumi, Oakey, and then herself. "Maybe we can branch off, run go post a notice and try and gather our house, and then meet back at...well, somewhere."

Kurumi nodded at Sierra and pulled out a piece of parchment which she began to scribble all over. "Maybe just keep things simple and tell people to meet here?" she said with a shrug as she added that detail to the parchment. All the prefects and captains were here along with several professors and a group of students, so it seemed to be the easiest. Once she was done she gave her want a quick flick and cast a duplication spell on it so that each of them had a notice to post. "This work?" It was quick, gritty, but to the point?

Oakey nodded his head as Kurumi explained to him who Isfret was. He was "FF is in that tiny little thing!" Oakey's eyes darted to the brooch that Louisa was holding. "Shouldn't that be, I don't know. Concealed, locked up, at the bottom of the Lake, or something. I don't want to be sucked into it next." Poor Fat Friar.

His concern for the brooch and the House Ghosts almost disappeared when Kurumi mentioned what Milton and Dylan were doing with Myrtle. He really really wanted to see this, he'd be laughing his butt off!


Returning from his imagination of Dylan and Milton hitting on Myrtle, Oakey again just nodded in agreement with Kurumi, and Sierra both. He looked around at the three of them. He felt severely out of place now. Two Prefects and the Head Girl, he would also like to mention being the only MAN, but that really wasn't an issue. Better here than Flirting with a dead girl, right?

"Got it." Oakey said with a grin "I'll be back in a jiffy, I'll let others know if I pass them by as well."
Taking one of the posters, Oakey sped off back to his Common Room. He had to give Charmer a nice little pep talk while he was there.

The Headmistress had disappeared into the bookshelves for a bit and when she came back, her arms were full of thick tomes documenting even the most mundane things about Hogwarts. She hadn't known what years to grab, so she just wound up taking stacks about Hogwarts from about 1600-1900. If the ghost Isfret had been at Hogwarts during the 20th century at all, even Myrtle would have heard about it. So it had to be before then, that was her reasoning.

"How's the brooch work coming along?" the redhead called out as she dumped the stack of books on a desk. She leaned over and spied a bit of parchment detailing something about grabbing cats...? "I do have a cat," she answered Sierra with a frown, "but he's not at the school any longer."

She'd sent him home back when she was still wearing the brooch. "You know, I think we're going to need something more than just cats to combat this ghost..." She flicked her wand into her hand and quickly sent off a nundu patronus. "We need to know how they got rid of Isfret the first time." Right?

Everything seemed to be coming together pretty quickly. Sierra was already reaching for the few things she'd brought along with her, when Kurumi suddenly created something and started passing it out. Sierra reached for hers and then scanned through it. "That was fast," she said with a smirk. Impressive. No wonder the girl made such high marks--she was pretty much a human computer! "Cool, thanks. Alright, I'm off to round up the Slytherins, so I'll you back here in a--..."



Sierra trailed off when the Headmistress suddenly reappeared. Sierra's eyes grew wide at the mountain of books she'd brought with her. They didn't have to...read those, did they? Looked like a job for someone like Louisa. Kurumi, too, maybe.

"So here's what we discovered," she said. "The inscription on the brooch reads--'Isfret, beware of felines'. That's why I asked about your cat. I've got a kneazle, and I know there's a ton of people here in the castle that have one, too." She passed Kurumi's announcement to the Headmistress. "We had one person from each house working on the inscription, so we were going to each take one of these and hang it on the bulletin board in our common rooms. We think we need to form some sort of army of cats."

"You know, Headmistress, when the ghosts asked us to come to Myrtle's bathroom, they asked us to bring our pets with us," she recalled. "I think they were trying to tell us something. But...what next? I mean, we can't just show up to battle against an evil ghost with an army of pets and just hope the plan works..." She looked at the books. They were going to have to read them, weren't they?

Gemma had watched proudly as the students read the Runes and uncovered the inscription...and they had done it quickly...she knew O would be proud...she thought with a little smile that quickly faded with the memories of their last encounter....must focus on today...she tuned back in to hear the student speaking with the Headmistress about the feline pets and ghosts and bears...oh my....well not bears but you know...

She flipped through her book looking for any information about Isfret....but coming up empty handed, she closed the book abruptly as a thought came to her, "Well, I def think the felines are a starting point, but I think our ultimate answer is the ghosts...I feel like they know how to take care of the Isfret...so maybe we need to figure out how to get them out of the locket and they can help us...." it was a long shot and she didn't know how to do that exactly....but they were in a library with lots of knowledge to search through...but the question was did they have time to figure out the answer....

No, no, no, no, and NO. Louisa was not going to use her cats against this Isfret entity. Whether he was afraid or threatened by their presence or not. Louisa glanced around spotting the two of them randomly poking and licking the books on the floor. Sigh.

She nodded at the others suggesting to spread the word and ask for pet cats fighting, even if it made Louisa look like a hypocrite for not wanting to sacrifice her cats. She grabbed one of the posters and was about to say something when the headmistress joined them with a big pile of books in her arms. Again, Louisa nodded at what Sierra was saying - man, this Snake can be feisty excited when she's fighting an entity. Whew!

OHOH! Louisa liked what the headmistress was saying! No cat army just yet! "Yes!" She blurted out but quickly kept silent until Sierra finished talking. "I.. uh.. don't think the ghosts knew about this brooch and the warning for Isfret carved behind it since they didn't bring it up. Or well they didn't have the chance to--" She paused in her out loud thinking and soon grunted. "If they weren't so hesitant in sharing what they knew, they would've saved us a lot of trouble." Professor Cerulean was probably right. The Ravenclaw put down the parchment and quill and stated firmly, "I agree. We should wait a bit before publishing these posters too." And wheeeere was that Patronus going? Louisa held further ideas down and instead moved closer to the pile of books the red haired woman had brought with her, "Do you need help looking in those books?" Or was that summoned one to help?

Befelda learned about the ghosts and all the commotion everywhere inside the Library. She cuddled Fluffy, her cute furry cat to her arms, and went straight to the Library and to the Reference section. She saw too many students and even the Headmistress was there.

"What the bloody hell was this all about?!", she asked to the air. Everyone's panicking and commotion everywhere around the Reference section of the Library. Fluffy was agitated and even stuffed herself more in Befelda's arms as the commotion goes on.

What seems to be the problem?

Every time he tried to read a book. Every time. He was starting to dislike that patronus.

Hogwarts was no place to relax, of course not. Not with teenagers, hormones, common rooms being locked, wild beasts, estranged ghosts and don't forget: Peeves. With five books in his arms Scabior made his way into the Hogwarts library. Maneuvering his way around desks and chairs he really didn't even think twice as to why the Headmistress wanted him.

She needed his help.

Everyone needed his help.

He was that amazing.

"Ghosts are not my speciality." Scabior said as he made his way to the reference section and placed the five books beside Annie. Surely the library had more? Eh. Looking over at his colleagues he gave them each a nod.

As Sierra listened to Professor Cerulean, she turned her gaze back to the brooch. She still thought the answer had something to do with cats, but...she also trusted the professors knew more than she did. Nobody really knew all the answers, but the professors stood a better chance of figuring things out. "Okay," Sierra said, nodding in response to what the Muggle Studies professor said. "I guess we'll just have to...go back to square one." She looked at the books. She just really didn't want to read all of them.

Before she could really get started on anything else, Louisa chimed in. Sierra sort of smirked at how hesitant the Head Girl was in offering up her cat for this army they were discussing. Then she followed that by offering her help in looking through the books. Those books were haunting Sierra! She was just going to have to help read them, and that was all there was to that. Sighing, she said, "I can help look through them, as well..."

Unless...

"Or there's that one spell we learned in Arithmancy class," she said, perking up. "Professor Hadley's been teaching us about cursed objects all term. There's this spell we use, Arithmos Revelio, to tell if an object is cursed or not. If it is, a series of numbers will come up. Maybe if that's the case, the numbers will tell us something." It was worth a shot, at least.

Oakey hurried back to the Library Reference section with his black cat in hand. He looked around curiously to Louisa, Sierra, and Kurumi who were still in the Library and were still holding the posters that Kurumi had conjured up.
"Did I miss something?" He asked any three of them.

He looked around the area to see a ton of books just about everywhere. "What're we looking up how to properly form a Cat Army?"

More populated area.

"Like the great hall?" She turned her gaze to Leo. Was it ever decided if a professor was staying with the students or if they would be going back to their common rooms now that they were open? She glanced towards Gemma momentarily as she suggested they help with finding information about the brooch, eyebrows knitted together. There had been much commotion about finding the Headmistress's brooch, but what did it have to do with the plant?

Apparently nothing?

Medea slowly stepped her way down the aisle she was closest to, taking note of each book title while listening to all the information being gathered at the present moment. Runes, cats, ghosts...Isfret. Medea paused where she was and rubbed the bridge of her nose. This was enough of this Egyptian magic or entities or whatever it was for one day.

Locked common rooms. Trapped ghosts. Hmmm...

Numbers and runes weren't in her line of specialties, though were similar to hieroglyphics in a sense. Something that she WAS familiar with. "There's a start." she commented, pulling over a chair from a nearby table and sitting down, picking up one of the stacked books. "Though I vould stop touching the brooch in case it truly is cursed."

Ahem, just... no touchy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anna Banana

"So here's what we discovered," she said. "The inscription on the brooch reads--'Isfret, beware of felines'. That's why I asked about your cat. I've got a kneazle, and I know there's a ton of people here in the castle that have one, too." She passed Kurumi's announcement to the Headmistress. "We had one person from each house working on the inscription, so we were going to each take one of these and hang it on the bulletin board in our common rooms. We think we need to form some sort of army of cats."

"You know, Headmistress, when the ghosts asked us to come to Myrtle's bathroom, they asked us to bring our pets with us," she recalled. "I think they were trying to tell us something. But...what next? I mean, we can't just show up to battle against an evil ghost with an army of pets and just hope the plan works..." She looked at the books. They were going to have to read them, weren't they?

Anastasia stopped flipping through the first book on her stack to give her full attention to the Slytherin prefect. The girl was explaining everything she'd missed, and, well, the redhead had to commend her on doing a good job. Again.

"Well I think the cat idea is a good one, nothing wrong with that, but... you're right. What next." This is why she'd summoned who she had summoned. "We're going to need a way to get Isfret here and a way to release the House ghosts, right, before we use the cat army... So that's what I'm looking for in here." She thumped the books. "An answer to how they shooed Isfret away the first time."

Myrtle HAD said the ghost was here previously, HADN'T SHE?!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lezleighd

She flipped through her book looking for any information about Isfret....but coming up empty handed, she closed the book abruptly as a thought came to her, "Well, I def think the felines are a starting point, but I think our ultimate answer is the ghosts...I feel like they know how to take care of the Isfret...so maybe we need to figure out how to get them out of the locket and they can help us...." it was a long shot and she didn't know how to do that exactly....but they were in a library with lots of knowledge to search through...but the question was did they have time to figure out the answer....

"Right, exactly," the Headmistress nodded her approval of what Gemma was saying. "I don't know if we need a potion or a spell or what, so I just grabbed everything I could on Hogwarts' history."

Speaking of the ghosts... Bunz leaned toward Gemma and lowered her voice. "Do you think we should question Myrtle more? Or Peeves? If they've been helping this Isfret all along, they should surely know more about him than we do..."

Quote:

Originally Posted by Magical Soul

OHOH! Louisa liked what the headmistress was saying! No cat army just yet! "Yes!" She blurted out but quickly kept silent until Sierra finished talking. "I.. uh.. don't think the ghosts knew about this brooch and the warning for Isfret carved behind it since they didn't bring it up. Or well they didn't have the chance to--" She paused in her out loud thinking and soon grunted. "If they weren't so hesitant in sharing what they knew, they would've saved us a lot of trouble." Professor Cerulean was probably right. The Ravenclaw put down the parchment and quill and stated firmly, "I agree. We should wait a bit before publishing these posters too." And wheeeere was that Patronus going? Louisa held further ideas down and instead moved closer to the pile of books the red haired woman had brought with her, "Do you need help looking in those books?" Or was that summoned one to help?

"I agree," Annie settled back into her seat with a sigh, tugging the book onto her lap. "Yes please," she nodded at the Head Girl and shoved a stack of books her way. "Look for ANYTHING that can help us, ANYTHING at all about Isfret, the house ghosts, whatever works!"

Quote:

Originally Posted by FireboltSword

"What the bloody hell was this all about?!", she asked to the air. Everyone's panicking and commotion everywhere around the Reference section of the Library. Fluffy was agitated and even stuffed herself more in Befelda's arms as the commotion goes on.

What seems to be the problem?

The redhead looked up sharply from paging through Entities and Oddballs of the Eighteenth Century to stare at the little Hufflepuff with a mouth like a sailor.

"Watch your tongue, young one," she chided the girl with a frown. Merlin, she had brought her cat. Those kids were quicker than she knew when it came to posting things on their notice boards.

...and without bothering to explain much more, Anastasia went back to the books. There had to be something here... there just had to be....

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaos.Doodles

"Ghosts are not my speciality." Scabior said as he made his way to the reference section and placed the five books beside Annie. Surely the library had more? Eh. Looking over at his colleagues he gave them each a nod.

"They aren't mine either," Annie let out a long sigh and looked up as her knight in reluctant armor arrived. "But if you know anything about the one ruining our castle, please, now would be the time to share."

She gave him a LOOK and then picked up the five books he'd brought. "Any mention of an Isfret in any of these?? Have you heard of him before, Dash? Apparently he was at Hogwarts once before... post-House ghosts but pre-Myrtle...." And that was about all she knew.

Oh, and, "He hates cats."

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anna Banana

"Or there's that one spell we learned in Arithmancy class," she said, perking up. "Professor Hadley's been teaching us about cursed objects all term. There's this spell we use, Arithmos Revelio, to tell if an object is cursed or not. If it is, a series of numbers will come up. Maybe if that's the case, the numbers will tell us something." It was worth a shot, at least.

"Good luck with that," the redhead called out toward Sierra. Not to be discouraging or anything...

Kurumi remained the quiet observer while everyone was thrown into a discussion about what to do next and her eyes widened when the Headmistress brought more books for them to look though. "Are any of these books from the Restricted Section?" Kurumi asked as she grabbed one from the stack and began to leaf through it's Table of Contents. "Considering how old an entity Isfret is and how much the possibility of ancient Dark Magic in involved...it would probably be worth checking out books there as well." Hey, it had worked historically at Hogwarts for the Golden Trio, right?

And right now Kurumi was especially proud that her, Kat, and Beezus had recharmed and fixed the Reference Section. Could have been a nightmare doing all this research in here the way it had been earlier in the term.

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Sierra had to grin at Oakey's question. "No," she said, plopping down a big book right in front him and gesturing from him to look through it. "We discovered that we first have to figure out how to get the house ghosts out the brooch. We're looking up ways to do that, but...so far we have nothing."



...and then Professor Romanos said something about Sierra's earlier suggestion, causing Sierra to turn from Oakey and instead give all her attention to the Defense professor. She nodded in response to both things she's said--that the idea was a start and that they should stop touching the brooch.

Especially if ghosts might fly back out of it any second now...



Sierra first nodded toward the headmistress. A way to get Isfret here and the ghosts out the brooch. Right... How they'd do that was the question. "I just wish we had Myrtle," she said, remembering the boys were supposed to be bringing her along. Where were those boys anyway? Leave it to them to get lost... "She's working for him, and...I think she knows his plan." Hadn't the Headmistress told her to come along?

"We need a spell," Sierra said, picking up on what Truebridge had said to Cerulean. "Myrtle said the ghosts used a spell to get rid of Isfret the first time. So if we could just get the ghosts to come out, we could ask them about that spell..." She sighed. They'd gotten nowhere pretty fast when it came to figuring out how to get the ghosts back.

She looked toward the brooch, remembering that Romanos had told her casting on it would be a start. "Okay, well, here goes nothing as far as Professor Hadley's spell goes," she said. She sighed. If she messed things up, especially when it was something this important, she'd never let herself live it down.

"May I?" she asked, looking toward Louisa. She hesitantly reached for the brooch and placed it on a little study table as quickly as she could. She didn't want to hold it any longer than possible. She raised her wand and went through the movements she'd been taught. "SpeRevelio," she said, because that would reveal if the object was cursed. Then... "Arithmos Revelio," because that would reveal what the curse was.