Time to Get Spooky! Group 3 Oktoberfest Closed

A ghost? All the way out here? Scott knew very well about all the spirits inside the castle, but hadn’t actually entertained the thought that some of them might be residing in the grounds.. but he didn’t doubt Elena’s answer still. And Ami was right, must be, because what other bodies of water were there? They should all be on the right path, actually looking for this ghost was apparently everything to it now.

“Aight then.. and I guess you’re not allowed to say what he looks like? That’s a stupid question. I think I’ll know a ghost if I see one. I like them a lot, actually. Do you? Some people find them off-putting but I don’t understand that.”

He smiled, feeling the thick paint on his nose flake as he scrunched it, and started to prance closer to the water, hands in his pockets as he kept along the shoreline.

Riddles like these were fun.

Not that he’d ever been any good with them. In fact, he was actually very bad in that respect. But that is no reason not to enjoy it. After all, he had good company with him:
there was Anastasia, his fellow prefect, and Elena- the small but still oddly distressing dementor.. and of course Ami! As well as he boy in the green hat whom Scott had never actually met before.. But surely if he was close to his friend then he was a good one. This is not to say the reason Scott hadn’t said much on their way over to the lake hadn’t been his unnatural reluctancy around him. Jealousy? Hopefully not. That would be very inconvenient.

“Is this were we split up? I don’t think I’d like that,” Scott held the edge of his hat and squinted up to the others. “Tell me, if you were a ghost hiding with a riddle, would you be down by the water or up by the trees?”

A ghost? All the way out here? She shuddered at that thought. It wasn't that the ghosts were scary but just seeing them float about here and there throughout the castle through walls and whatnot was a bit creepy to her. What would a ghost be doing out here all the way by the Great Lake?"Ghosts can be a bit of a hassle to find when you need them."She mused thoughtfully glancing around the lake and the general area. It couldn't be that hard, could it. The mental wheels in her brain kicked into overtime as she pondered the situation."If I was a ghost...probably up by the trees? I would tend to be somewhere where people would least expect to me for a puzzle like this."She said tilting her head upwards to see if she could spot anything. The lake was calm, the sound of the water rippling a soothing effect on her ears.

'Splitting up while there is a potential ghost around just seems like the wrong thing to do honestly."She said shaking her head at the idea. Who knew where the ghostly spirit was lurking, she really tended to stay in groups like this. Herself, creepy ghost and nightime setting, it was the perfect time for some sort of horror freak incident. It was Halloween themed after all, she thought to herself beginning to wonder if this had been a wise idea. Come out, come out, wherever you are.She said starting out into the blackness of the evening stumped for a moment."I presume we can't ask for hints or anything?"She asked Anatasia.

A ghost huh? The young Hufflepuff started to look around his surroundings carefully. "Well if ya ask me it could be either place. Think about it it wouldn't be hard for a ghost to hide Round the great lake or up in tree where it could surprise us all." He suggested, a thoughtful expression on his face.

"Though if we're going to check by the lake ah would like to vote to stay right here. Where it's nice and dry." He folded his arms showing a bit of uncomfortableness with where they were. It was the type one showed when they were near their phobias or just someone that gave them a very bad feeling.

It wasn't hard to tell why for at least one person in the group. "Splitting up might not be such a bad idea. It's not like the ghost can truly hurt us. Maybe at most scare us proper good. Plus we're a fairly large group. But then again strength in numbers ya know?" The irish red head at this point was voicing his thoughts out loud without realizing talking at a normal volume instead of muttering like he usually did. "What do you all think? I believe if we just think this over very carefully we'll find the ghost."

Ami listened to all of the others' ideas bounce back and forth in front of her, the group desperately striving for a solution to a problem like none they had ever encountered before. Nothing at Hogwarts could've possibly prepared her to scare a ghost out of hiding. Weren't ghosts supposed to be the scary ones, anyway? 

All of the ideas were valid, but she felt that there just had to be a better, more efficient way to do this whole... search for a ghost and then retrieve the poem type scenario. Wasn't it faster to force the ghost out of hiding, instead of running around wildly, trying to pinpoint a ghost that was probably watching their every move?

"Let's... let's try something else. I think splitting up is a pretty good idea- we'd cover ground a lot quicker. What if we try to scare the ghost out of hiding?" she suggested, circling around back to her original thought. "You know- yell, be loud, threaten to do stuff to them if they don't come out of hiding with the riddle... that stuff?"

The concept within itself, she thought, was sound- if someone ran around a forest screaming her name, threatening to do something bad, she would definitely listen to them. But then again, what would scare a ghost? They were already dead anyway- what could they possibly have to lose? It couldn't hurt to try, though, and unless anyone else could come up with any better ideas, they would have to play it by ear.

Anastasia smiled a little at her group's ideas for finding the ghost. They ranged from things that she would think of to things that she rather wished she would think of. Still, she hadn't the faintest idea where the ghost was supposed to be. She wasn't entirely sure, but she seemed to recall someone saying that the ghost should be right there and the group would need to look too hard. That hardly seemed to be the case at the moment. 

Glancing at Scott, she shrugged. She normally hated the gesture, since it was both sloppy and signaled that she didn't know everything. Neither of which was acceptable to her parents. She mentally scolded herself. She really needed to stop thinking about them. She doubted they were focusing on her half as much as she was on them, and even if they were, she was their only child, so it was rather their job to focus on her that much. "If you all would like, we can look together or we can split up. It's really your preferences," Anastasia told the other prefect. 

Elena's question caught Anastasia's attention as she finished speaking to the Gryffindor boy. "You may ask all you like, but it won't do you much good. I'm only slightly more informed than you are," Anastasia said, grinning at the end so the other girl knew she meant it in good humor. It rather irritated her, but there was only so much one eleven year old was able to do. 

When Quinn spoke, Anastasia chuckled a little. Staying where it was dry sounded perfectly alright by her. She nodded at his explanation of exactly why he wanted to stay. Based on his body language, she wondered if he was a tad afraid of ghosts. Not that she'd blame him, dead people rather bothered her as well. 

Ami's idea was Anastasia's personal favorite. Not that she thought it would actually be very effective, but she found it incredibly humorous. Ami seemed like the kind of girl her parents would rather dislike. They would say she was too loud and rambunctious for Anastasia to associate with. So, of course, Anastasia took an imidate liking to her. 

"All of your ideas are quite good, but I really can't say which is -" Anastasia began when she suddenly caught view of a ghost floating towards them. She paled a bit, which reminded her of an expression she had never fully understood.  She smirked a bit before pointing at the apparition. "Never mind that, I don't think we'll actually need any of your ideas."

The ghost seemed to be a fairly old man and it reminded her of the Gryffindor house ghost, Sir Nicholas. This one seemed far more sour though. He approached the group scowling and muttering about why couldn't he just have a peaceful afterlife but no, he had to be dragged out to help whiny brats. Anastasia rather wanted to yell at him for being late, but that seemed a poor idea at the moment. She'd just have to track him down after she was done with this. 

The cranky ghost reached the group, tossed a slip of paper at them and left without ceasing his mutterings or actually speaking to the living children. What a strange old man... 

Anastasia caught the scrape and read it out loud before holding it out to her group. 

Up and down, and up and down

you climb these everyday.

You likely saw the clue on these.

but passed it anyway.

"Same as before, I'll give you a bit of time to talk it over and then we'll head to whatever location you decide," Anastasia said brightly, before heading towards a tree a little ways away. 

She listened as the other girl decided on the prospect of splitting up which the Gryffindor thought was a terrible idea.Split up in these parts with a potential ghost in the area? What if someone got lost? Who knew what that ghastly spirit would do to them?"I think staying together is our best bet so we have more heads focused on one area."She said nodding Quinn. The prefect well.. she claimed she was only a little more informed but how was she ab- her thoughts were drawn away by something very peculiar. Speaking of said ghosts, her eyes were drawn to a ghastly being, it was a ghost alright and in a very foul mood it seems like. He thrust a slip of paper at them before floating off. She raised an eyebrow. Well, it seems like even ghosts had their bad days now and then. She was glad to see him go in a sense, no one liked ghosts. Too odd, too creepy. She listened as Anatasia read the contents of the note out loud.

Up and down..up and down..we climb these? She doubted it was a ladder. The castle did have have a fair bit of those but she never imagined having to ever use those as the school was so well-connected with it's armada of stairs. Wait! Stairs! She scanned the contents of the paper again. Now...that could be a option. She could not think of anything else that she "climbed" on a regular basis."I think it would be....stairs! Most people use those on a common basis to get to classes or whatnot."She said but the last part of the riddle was a bit confusing. Likely saw the clue on these? She frowned at that. She never really had paid much attention to some rickety old stairs. The girl would not be pleased if it was ladders, she had yet to meet someone who used ladders on a daily basis to get places..though..there could be someone. Still..stairs seemed more likely so she stuck with that.

"Well, then, off we go then," Anastasia said brightly, concealing a yawn. She was quite tired and rather annoyed at that ghost for showing up late and throwing off her timetable. Still, she had to keep a good face and finish the tour with the same level of perkiness she'd started with. She groaned inwardly when she remembered that she had more studying to do when she got back to her dorm room. She wondered if she would get in trouble for sneaking Wide Eye potion and if so, how much. It wasn't like she could go and ask a professor though, as that would be quite suspicious. She would have to see if they had coffee or something at breakfast. 

She motioned for the group to follow her as she began to head back towards the castle. She wasn't sure exactly which stairs, so she hoped that this ghost would be a tad more cooperative than the first one. She really didn't have the patience to deal with another grumpy old man. She wondered exactly why somehow would die and choose to spend their afterlife at the school of all places. Why not some ancestral home or something? It seemed odd to her. Some people were dying to get out of school and some people died and had nothing better to do than lurk there. 

Ghosts. Her face twisted into a wry grin as she saw the ghost approach, before turning to glance at Scott (whom she had made sign up with her). Ghosts were one of the rare magical things that she actually adored about Hogwarts, their creepy potential through the roof. As the ghost dropped off the riddle, Ami considered it for a moment, before Elena conceded the answer.

Drats. Here she was, her less-than-functioning brain cells defeated by a first year, of all people. Absolutely disgusting. What would her mother have said? Well, she would be disappointed, for one, and then she would've urged her to study harder and to stop fooling around as much, which Ami, of course, just couldn't give up. Messing around was the only way to make school even somewhat bearable, and this? This was a prime example of shirking her scholarly duties as a student to do something that promised a little bit more fun, a little bit more adventure.

Because, realistically, just how much adventure did mapping out the stars offer?

The group started to follow Anastasia back to the castle, and Ami couldn't help but feel a small pang of jealousy as she reminded herself that this first year was her senior, a prefect. She knew she definitely wasn't a good enough student to earn one of those badges, but half of her wanted to work hard and crack down just to prove her mother wrong, that she was capable of doing everything that Abella had as a student. Oh well.

Did Anastasia even know where she was going? There were hundreds of stairs in the castle... so she decided to voice her concern out loud. "So, uh, where are we going?"

The moving staircases of the castle had actually been one of the first things Scott had fallen in love with during his first year, and he wondered at what point his amazement with these things would wear off.. Sometimes his fascination made it seem like he’d only ever heard about magic the day before. Though he supposed this couldn’t possibly be a bad thing.

Well, then, off we go then.

With these words Anastasia began to lead the little group away from the water and back towards the castle again, and so Scott made a little jump where he stood before skipping up to walk next to Ami after tapping Elena on the shoulder and giving her a thumbs up for the solve. He wasn’t going to pretend to have tried that hard with the riddle himself, because to be perfectly honest, he was mostly in this for the walk. Some adventurous Gryffindor he was.

When he caught up with her, Ami was asking where it was, exactly, they were going. It was a good question, he realised, because at Hogwarts you could hardly be directed to “the Staircase”.

“Maybe it doesn’t matter,” He theorized, “might have to cut us some slack, or come find us itself once it’s tired of waiting! Hah, I don’t know, but I do hope the ghosts become gradually more and more specific.”

She sighed inwardly to herself as the prefect began to guide them back towards the castle away from the creepy ghost whom was presumably lurking about somewhere, she was sure. Clearly, he did not seem concerned in the slightest about their little adventure and why should he, after all, ghosts did tend to be a bit...inclusive or maybe that was just her. Whatever the case, she followed the group back up smiling at Scott in return acknowledging the gesture he gave her, it seemed she had given a satisfactory answer though that remained to be seen. After all, stairs at Hogwarts were somewhat of a common appearance. Everywhere you went, they could be found this way and that. Maybe it would have helped if she had said something like, oh, the stairs on the seventh floor or something but that would have been TOO specific, she really hoped they did not have to go that in depth.Relax and stop freaking out, you're just doubting yourself and it's getting annoying.She told herself as the group trekked back the castle looming up out of the night sky.

She groaned inwardly as Scott brought up the topic of more ghosts. This one had not seemed as welcoming and she didn't imagine any other ghostly spirit would be as welcoming."Somehow, I don't think the ghosts here are very fond of human interaction or so I've seen."She said pointedly referring to the interaction they had just had, not that she minded away. The farther away she was from those phantoms, the safer she would feel. Friendly ghost or no ghost, the things were creepy and she truly believed the things could haunt you if they so desired, she just hoped if there was another ghost, he would be a bit more friendlier than the first one but then again, he could be just as scary and that was quite a horrible scene as she pictured it in her head."Ugh, snap out of it."She muttered to herself as they got closer to the castle.