"Come on, little bunny," Jade muttered, holding her wand aloft to spread a thin layer of light over the grounds. It was spooky being outdoors late at night. The trees cast shadows like skeletal arms across the ground, and the wind howled through the branches. She and Alana stepped softly, trying to avoid snapping a branch like every character in every cliche horror movie ever.

"What is the plan, again?" asked Abigail, hovering beside them. She cast no shadow, and there was a faint silver glow emitting from her. She looked nervous but ready, and if she could have breathed her breaths would have been slow and measured.

"If we can find the rabbit, we follow it. It'll be going back to where West is being kept. If we can't find it..."

"Then we storm the dungeons!" Alana whooped, immediately shushed by both Jade and Abigail. Abigail sounded like a deflating balloon, and Jade giggled.

"There won't be any storming, as long as we can find the rabbit."

"THERE!" Alana shouted, and they all turned to see a small, furry creature lurking on the low wall surrounding the castle. Jade tiptoed slowly, concealing herself in the shadows as they followed it.

"Abigail, can you glow a little less please?" Jade requested, and Abigail's glow turned an odd pinkish color, as though she was blushing.

"I am afraid that I cannot help it."

"Well, try to contain it," Jade said, and Abigail obliged, turning a dark silver.

                                         *                                  *                                                *

They had been following the rabbit for over an hour, and it was now almost three in the morning. Jade had accidentally slept for almost twelve hours during her faint, but Alana was beginning to show the effects of their late night. She was yawning, and her face looked less excitable than normal.

The rabbit suddenly took a sharp turn, and the three followed with renewed vigor. It slipped into a corner of the castle and pressed its paw against a stone. There was a painful grating noise, and a section of the wall slid away. The rabbit hopped in, and the girls were quick to follow.

They were in a tunnel, which was low and dark. Abigail was floating, but they could only see her bottom half, a fact which Alana found hysterical. She and Jade were crawling on the cold stone, with only their wands and Abigail to light the way. The rabbit was fast, and Jade got stuck on a few of the corners, but eventually the three girls popped out of the tunnel like corks and landed in a dark chamber.

Jade held her wand aloft and spun a slow 360, her eyes wide. The room was austere, all marble and with a single pillar in the center of the room. Torches burning with bluebell flames sat in brackets of iron on the wall. There were iron chains wrapped around the pillar, and Jade moved over for a closer look. Chained to the pillar was...

"WEST!" Alana screamed. She made a dive for the pillar, but Jade collared her and yanked her backwards, covering her mouth.

West looked like a ghost. She was pale and eerie-looking, and her head was slumped down. She was obviously asleep, and it was an enchanted sleep at that. Jade wanted to scream as well, but her attention was caught by a woman standing where the rabbit had been just seconds before.

The woman was strange-looking, with long hair that was the color of a licorice twist, narrow, angry blue eyes, and a swirling black mark on the side of her face. She wore a black dress that looked like armor with blue metal facets, black boots with blue toe caps that Jade thought would really hurt, and a long cape the color of a blue raspberry ice pop. She had a huge staff in one hand, black and twisted like a spire of rock. At the top was a glowing, shifting sphere of blue.

As Jade, Alana, and Abigail watched, the woman walked around to West. She reached out one gauntleted hand and touched the sphere on top of her staff. There was a crackle of electricity, and her hand began to glow. She formed a ball and prepared to throw it at West, but suddenly Alana flew out of Jade's grasp and tackled her. The electricity flew through the air, hitting Abigail square in the stomach. She made a face of surprise and then giggled. Her glow had turned a brilliant blue.

Jade raised her wand to call back Alana, but the woman turned to her. She summoned up another ball of electricity, and Jade wasn't fast enough to avoid it. The light didn't hurt, exactly, but it felt like being forcibly tickled, hard. Her shoulder glowed blue, and she winced.

Alana had run to the pillar and was trying to remove the chains. Abigail was whirling about, attempting to distract the woman, but to no avail. Jade, meanwhile, was trying to conjure a good defensive spell. She inhaled deeply, trying to think of a shield, a shell, a forcefield...

"Protego!" A thin, ice-white bubble shot out of her wand and wrapped around her. Another ball of light came flying, but when it hit the bubble it was reflected. The bubble pulsed and started to turn blue, and as it fractured Jade rolled out of the way.

"JADE!" Abigail yelled, her light voice incongruous in the scenario. "If you can get her staff away from her, she'll turn back into a rabbit!"

Jade gritted her teeth and nodded. She flicked the wand and said, "Expelliarmus!"

The woman dropped her staff, and Jade scrambled for it. There was a huge bang and a flash of blue, and all of the torches extinguished themselves. By Abigail's glow, Jade saw a rabbit on the floor. West's chains dropped to the floor with a clang, and Alana lifted her limp body. West's head nodded as she was moved, and Jade scooped up the bunny. It scrabbled at her arms, but she held firm. The four (and rabbit) wound back through the tunnel.

When they emerged, a rosy dawn was breaking through the fog above them. The four (and rabbit) emerged panting and sweaty, but mostly unharmed. They all sat breathing for a moment, until...

"WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?!?" Their Head of House stood over them, glaring, hands on hips. "You have some explaining to do."

Jade sat up and shifted the rabbit. "It's a long story, but I can tell you..."

"Oh, you won't be explaining to me. You'll be explaining to the headmaster- and he's going to decide whether or not to expel the lot of you."