Running [S.C.A.R.E.D]

[Keiara Waters]

Keiara Waters is a typically brave girl. Typically being the key word. She paced in front of the Forbidden Forest. Even though it was mid-day, the forest looked particularly menacing. Ever since her first day at Hogwarts, Keiara had always wanted to venture into the forest. Sure, she toed the boundaries of the wood, but never actually went deep inside. A task lay in front of her now. One of her mates thought it would be a funny idea to bet the girl to spend the entire day in the forest, knowing that Keiara was one not to turn down a bet. And proven true to that statement, she stood, trying to force herself into the wood.

'Its just a silly little forest, you stupid girl. Go in.' Keiara repeated to herself over and over as she paced at the entrance. She pulled on a long curly strand of curly, twirling it nervously between her fingers. A bad habit her mother would say. To hell with her mother, Keiara would always retort. She shook herself, reminding herself why she had been put into Gryffindor. Because Keiara Waters was not a little pansy, Keiara Waters was brave. Or at least, thats what Keiara Waters liked to think.

Staring deep past the trees, she tried to see anything evil lurking in the forest. There was a reason the forest was forbidden. Keiara had heard stories of why. There were werewolves and other sorts of beasts that lie deep in the forest. 'I don't have to go that far in. Just a little.' She told herself. She repeated it over and over, trying to will herself to go in and just get it over with. But still, Keiara stood still in the same spot, 20 minutes later.
"This is ridiculous." She muttered to herself. Gathering up her courage, she placed a foot into the forest. 'See, not that bad.' She thought to herself. Just as she was about to venture father, Keiara heard a loud crash from far inside the wood and jumped back wards.
"I must look like an idiot." Keiara thought out loud and prayed that no one was around to see her act like a timid coward. But, like always, you cant have want you really want....

[Severus Snape]

Always being the one interested in the Dark Arts, Severus had decided to search the forest for vile creatures (Mud-Bloods not included), and perhaps even stumble across rare plants he could use in potions. It didn't bother him the days were now more dangerous than ever, and dark wizards could leap out from anywhere and conquer the school; Severus was still one for Magical Thinking: he could never be harmed beyond repair, even if he encountered one of the few that could match his intelligence.

Severus gingerly made his way to the looming tree line, and without hesitation strode between the large trees. He aimlessly wandered, hoping to stumble across something worthwhile and knowing that he could always use Point Me if he became befuddled by directions.

Nothing appeared interested in meeting Severus, and with irritation he wondered if he should have waited until night fell instead of hunting for dark creatures around lunchtime. Of course, Dumbledore had made him swear that he wouldn't go out into the grounds at night, even when it wasn't a full moon. The incident with Lupin at the end of the previous year, along with the recent rise of Lord Voldemort, had made Dumbledore so annoyingly cautious that much of the student body, even those who would doubtlessly become 'Death Eaters', rarely dared to leave the building in the dead of night. And Severus had never been much for midnight strolls to begin with, he supposed that he had picked it up from Avery, who usually went to bed before curfew for fear of bags growing under his eyes.

This left Severus to hunt during the daylight hours, which wasn't proving very effective. Defeated, he turned himself so he was facing the school grounds and headed back. The trip gave Severus time to think, as usual his thoughts drifted to his Potions book and what he was changing its contents to. A spell he was working on drifted into mind, it was proving rather difficult, but he was sure that if he could find a more fitting word in the Latin to use, it would actually work. Severus puzzled over words in the dead language and failed to notice the increase in sunlight streaming through the trees. His surroundings also faded into the back of his mind and he didn't notice how often he stumbled. Not until he walked so effectively into a thorny shrub that he managed to fall over. The thorns had barely attacked Severus, but nonetheless he let out a steady stream of curses so loudly that anyone nearby would surely hear his vulgar tongue.

[Keiara Waters]

"Stupid girl." Keiara muttered to herself after jumping back. The Gryffindor girl stood there only for a second before, pretty much throwing herself into the woods. She held her arms up in defense so she wouldn't be assaulted by the branches and thorns.
'See, was that that hard?' Keiara asked herself as she struggled over grown roots. "What is there to be afraid in here anyways? Its the middle of the day." said Keiara out loud. It was a pretty humid day, so she was tempted to pull off her robes, but then Keiara thought of how scratched up her forearms would be from pushing away the torn branches. She smiled to herself as she ripped off her school robes.

Keiara walked further and further, not really wanted to sit down. In her mind, if she sat, she would be an easy target for any hungry beast in the forest. And Keiara wanted to know what had made that noise. After accomplishing getting into the Forbidden Forest, it seemed a whole lot less scary. Panting slightly, Keiara finally stopped walked and looked back the path she came. She couldn't even see the school anymore, which meant Keiara was getting more to wards the center of the wood.

Keiara pulled back her curly dark brown hair in to a high pony tail and started to walk again. As she walked, she repeatedly had to bend over to pull up her knee high socks, which was quite a task if you were trying to avoid getting hit in the face with branches. She kept walking until she saw a dark figure that seemed to be stuck in a bush. Cautiously, Keiara approached the...well whatever it was, that seemed to lodge itself into a bush. It wasn't till she a few feet closer, Keiara realized it was another student. A pretty greasy student at that.

"Severus!" She exclaimed, hurrying over help pull him out. If Keiara knew Severus (which she did) as well as she liked to think, he would probably push her off and tell her that he was fine and he wanted to get stuck...something. "What in God's name are you doing in here?" Keiara asked, grabbing the backs of Severus's robes and pulling.

[Erebus Avery]

The only heir of the Avery line had been raised carefully, groomed to always look and act accordingly and straying obviously out-of-bounds with no prepared excuse and no appropriate clothing for nasty terrain could hardly be termed "acting accordingly". Even not considering how he had been raised, Erebus was not usually tempted to tromp around the woods like some barbaric lout (or every single Gryffindor in the history of Hogwarts). His wardrobe contained nothing that was constructed to cope with brambles or obstinate wild animals and far be it from him to risk his precious robes for no good reason.

However, the posh male had found himself a reason to set out on a quest into the Forbidden Forest. Boredom. All normal activities of interest were just far too dissatisfying on that particular day. Everyone was either in far too good a mood to be nettled easily or was frolicking outside despite the humidity. For quite a while, Erebus had distracted himself by putting forth more homework effort than usual. Humidity was a dreadful thing the wreaked havoc on his poor hair.

Homework could only hold his attention for so long and he predictably tucked everything back into his bag to leave in the dorm's doorway as was his custom. A resigned Erebus applied a tincture to his fair hair to keep it tame, changed into his most worn out set of robes, and was on his way to find that vitriolic hair care disaster known as Severus Snape. After finding the library empty and Slughorn's office only occupied by a couple Ravenclaws and the old slug himself, the Slytherin gave into his suspicions and headed outside into the prickly warm day.

Encountering the forest wasn't quite as awful as he had anticipated. Erebus had been fortunate enough to happen upon a spot in the tree line that looked as if it had very recently been breached and didn't have to cast away quite so many grabby branches and bits of underbrush. Deeper into the forest, it was stuffier but admittedly more pleasantly dark and cool. Various human shouts lured him to a spot occupied by two figures. Eyes adjusted to the gloom, he said in a smooth, lilting voice tinged with obvious amusement,

"My, isn't this a touching scene? Severus, you never told me you had acquired a lovely little Gryffindor fan girl."

[Severus Snape]

((OOC: Sev on the ground and a babe tugging at him? SCANDALOUS. And the bush only makes it more exciting.))

Severus stopped his thrashing, and while loudly breathing through flared nostrils, he attempted to reach his wand to blow the foul bush into oblivion. It didn't bother him that his mouth was stuffed with plant, or that his mat of hair was being swarmed by twigs, his thoughts lay only to his pocket and the wand that was inside. Only before he managed to succeed (as he certainly would have), he received company. He would have preferred to keep the matter of him being attached to a shrub private, but he had to admit that he was probably stumbled upon by the best of people: Keiara was most likely the sole person in the school who would spread this news. However, her being under the impression that he required her help was quite another matter. Keiara had been perfectly right in her knowledge of Severus, the lanky male squirmed and tried to batter the girl away along with cries of,

"Geroff! Eam gitty potan 'greedants. Blud trater, leev buh."

It was possible that Keiara had no idea what Severus had yelped, but hopefully the point had come through clearer than his words. But if she had understood, she had chosen to ignore him and continued to tug until he was free. Severus carefully lifted himself up and brushed himself off while spitting a few broken twigs from his mouth; when he turned his head to sneer at Keiara, he discovered that sometime in the recent past Avery had glided onto the scene. It was nothing short of shocking to see the prim Slytherin in the forest, and in his astonished fashion, Severus did nothing more than raise a brow as he beat away Keiara's hands, which were still gripped to his robes ((It's because I say so.)). That done, he gingerly slid a leaf from his mouth and replied,

"It seems she has recognized my genius, Avery, something that I can hardly hold against her. However, I do wish she would recognize my preferences and help me with keeping a reasonable distance between us, her Muggle genes, after all, can sully anything more effectively than any dirt."

[Keiara Waters]

'Geroff! Eam gitty potan 'greedants. Blud trater, leev buh."
"Oh, shut up Severus, you git and let me help." Keiara said rolling her eyes but none the less continued to pull at his robes till he was standing. It wasn't until Sev was free of the death clutches of the bush when Keiara realized another member of the Slytherin house slithered his way to the scene. She quickly dropped her hands from Severus's robes and glared menacing at the pair of Slytherins.

"It seems she has recognized my genius, Avery, something that I can hardly hold against her. However, I do wish she would recognize my preferences and help me with keeping a reasonable distance between us, her Muggle genes, after all, can sully anything more effectively than any dirt."

"Oh shove it Snape. When I see poor, defenseless, useless, creatures get stuck in a brush, I can't stand to see them struggle because they are too stupid to figure out how to get of a simple bush." Keiara retorted quickly. Thats how Severus Snape's and Keiara Water's friendship worked. They were, dare say it, friendly, to each other when no one was around but as soon as someone came across the secret friends, the pair would go to bashing each other as any member of the 2 separate houses should. "So, Mr. Snape, you and your little...friend," She paused long enough to glare at Avery, "can go to hell." Keiara sneered at Severus and Avery. Although Keiara hated the slimy git, she had to admit, Avery did have rather good fashion sense.

[Sorry for the wait. Ive been quite busy]