He leads them down a couple of corridors into one that was hardly used.

Oriana looked worried and she started off the conversation. "Remember what you told me in the Leaky Caldron? About Arcadia and how she can't be trusted?

"Of course. What's she done?" said Marvo.

"Let me just tell you that she has something up her sleeve." said Oriana cautiously.

"Oh yes? What she doing now?" asked Marvo curiously.

"I can't say." Said Oriana looking about.

"Can't say?" Marvo waits looking at Oriana.

Oriana looks around; "She could be anywhere. Her or that wolf. I'm afraid of her."

"Okay Oriana - tell me," Marvo looks around - his eye turns red for a few moments, "She's not about or the wolf. Now has she done something to you?"

"Not physically - but she threatens."

"What do you mean?"

"She says if I don't do what she says she'll hurt me."

"I see. So she's threatening you. Any witnesses?"

Oriana looked surprised, "Of course not. She's smarter than that."

"Then it's your word against hers!" he remarked.

"Exactly." Said Oriana nodding her head.

"Now I do *KNOW* what she's like." said Marvo, "*I* believe you, but.. well....." he shrugged.

"And who's going to believe me against her?" Oriana said.

Marvo nodded, "Exactly. Her father, I can't do anything without proof. We will need proof Oriana."

"How?" she asked.

"I don't know. I wish I did."

"She makes me do all her dirty work."

Marvo looked up hoping she'd say more. "Like what?"

Oriana however doesn't give a specific incident, "So that when she gets caught guess whose fingerprints they're going to find all over the evidence? Mine!"

"She's getting cleverer. That's a problem." Said Marvo thoughtfully.

"I just don't know what to do."

"Get proof. Something that proves it's her. Without that I can do nothing, and if you're caught, well, I can't help you. But I'll try. If you can try and get some proof then I'll do what I can to help you.

"Thank you Marvo." Said Oriana appreciatively.

"I wish I could do more." He said.

"How did I get caught up in this?" she asked.

"If I was around and she did, or said anything that would do. My memory is admissible as evidence and she knows that."

"I see." Said Oriana, "I'll try to get evidence, but if she catches me I'm a goner."

"….or. " said Marvo, "If you can get her to meet you someplace, a place I could hide nearby and oversee what happens and what she says. But don't put yourself, or anyone else at risk."

"Yes! That would work." Oriana's eyes were bright, "I'm already at risk. Talking to you is a risk. It seems like whenever I'm around her, breathing is a risk." She appeared very nervous.

Marvo's eye glows again, "Don't worry she's not around. That wolf can hear and smell very well, and she knows what it knows but they can't be too far apart."

"Yes I've figured that out."

"Even I don't know why, or how." Said Marvo thoughtfully. "Maybe you can try and find out. Maybe there is a weakness there, something we can use." *Even Randal doesn't know for sure* he said to himself.

Oriana had recalled her first encounter with Arcadia, "I remember when Magnus pulled his prank, Arcadia seemed in a great deal of pain when she was separated from Pan."

Marvo nodded in agreement, "Indeed. From what I understand anything over 20 feet or so and she can't stand it. Anything over 5 feet and it weakens her. Plus she freaks out if anyone tries to touch it."

"Why do you refer to Pan as an 'it'?" said Oriana curiously.

"Because I don't know what 'it' is. I don't like things that I don't know what they are." His thoughts strayed to Andy Warden.

"Fear of the unknown." Said Oriana.

"No….. Not fear." It wasn't something Marvo could easily put into words but he knew it wasn't fear.

"Just don't breathe a word of this please?" she sounded worried.

"I won't.. don't worry."

Oriana appeared more relaxed, "Okay Thank you so much."

There was the sound of voices approaching and with a quick nod to Oriana, Marvo quickly moved away in case they were seen together by the wrong people.

**************

She is standing in a hallway, cold air seeping from the stone walls. It is unnaturally silent. Slowly, without realising she is doing it, she begins to walk down the hall, peering in at every doorway. Gradually, her footsteps quicken, hitting the flagstones with a muted thump each step.

She is running, now, with an urgency she doesn’t understand. She pauses for a moment at each door, opens it a sliver, and moves on, looking, always looking. The silence continues, only her quickening breath making noise in the still air. Another door. She opens it. A flicker of a face—dark hair, pale skin, blue eyes, shifting—but it vanishes as the door opens farther.

The next door, the face is different, older, but still disappears. And now the end of the hallway, and she is out of breath, slowing, clutching her sides. There is no door here, only a low stone archway, and through it a pair of lovers, kissing. Dark raven wings sprout from the woman’s back as the girl watches, matching the colour of the man’s hair.

She turns and runs, blindly, in the other direction. After a time, she slows again, finding herself in the middle of a hallway. She feels tense and nervous, although she cannot explain why. Footsteps behind her, sounding like the doors of a tomb drawing shut. She spins to see a face familiar and beloved, and runs towards it. But the face changes, becomes sharper, more feminine, more like the girl’s own, and the figure holds up a book, and smiles an enigmatic smile.

She begins to advance, slowly, on the girl, who is frozen to the spot. The girl cannot move for an instant, although it seems like an hour, and finally she wills her feet to move and begins to run. Even at her slow, menacing walk, the woman is faster, and the girl runs and runs and runs. A hole opens in the stones before her, and she tries to slow herself, but she can’t. She skids, slides, and falls.

It seems a hundred years of falling through cold, dry darkness, and then she lands on something smooth and dry and dusty, like old silk. A window of light from above lights the pit she lies in, and the serpents twisting around her. Green and gray and black, sliding in and amongst each other.

"Hello, little friends," she says, relieved. She is at home with snakes. But they ignore her, continue to slither closer, and she feels the first pricklings of unease. They cannot understand her. They cannot speak with her. And now they are coming closer, she knows, to bite her.

One, the largest, twists around her arm and moves towards her shoulder. Petrified, the girl does not move a muscle, staring at the snake with wide, terrified eyes. In the instant before its fangs meet her flesh, the serpent changes into a handsome, smiling blond boy.

Niki sat up in bed, clutching the sheets to her chest, heart pounding. A nightmare, she reassured herself. Only a nightmare. It’s all right. But it wasn’t. She kept hearing the footsteps behind her. Her lips formed the word ‘Mama’, and she shuddered.

Silently, she slipped out from her bed and moved to the door. Down the stairs to the common room, then, in the soft green light… Only one person was still sitting, studying. He intended to graduate early, after all.

Niki burst into tears.

Nathan looked up as he heard a sound. He was not in a very good mood. The Slytherins had chosen to be nasty to each other instead of taking proper revenge for the drowning of the Firsties. He saw Niki standing there, looking sleepy and shocked and broken. "Hey, what's up?" he asked gently and rose to walk towards her.

"A...a bad dream," Niki mumbled, and suddenly she was running towards him and hugged him tightly. It wouldn't have mattered that it was Nathan. At the moment, she wanted human contact--any human contact. She probably would have hugged Arcadia. Although hugging Nathan was perfectly all right.

Nathan just held her for a while, then sat her down somewhere and went to get her a cup of the tea he'd been drinking while studying. He put in a considerable amount of sugar and gave it to her. "It'll be all right, pet," he said softly. "It's just a dream."

Niki took a sizeable gulp of the tea, smiling her thanks, but still looked preoccupied. "I know, it's just...it's scary. That sounds silly, doesn't it, but it's true..." She hugged her knees to her chest and took another swallow. "It was getting so much BETTER over the summer, and now my nightmares are back... I used to hate sleeping..."

"I'll get you a potion tomorrow." Nathan sat down next to her and put his arms around her shoulder. "Something to make you sleep tight and without trouble, I bet there's something... I think I remember something in 'Restoratives, Antidotes and Immunisations'... don't worry, we'll find something."

He kissed her forehead. "Now, go back to sleep. Don't worry. And in case you dream bad again just knock at the door to our dorm, I sleep next to the door so I'll probably hear it and come out."

"I used to take it...don't know if it's working anymore..." Niki sighed. "Don't laugh, but.. I don't know, I'm scared to go back to bed... Scared of more nightmares."

"The more you're afraid the more likely nightmares will be..." Nathan started but then realised it was no use. He thought for a moment. "Wait here," he said then and disappeared in the corridor leading to his dorm.

After a moment, he returned with two blankets and tossed one to Niki. "Well, if you're afraid to go to bed, you'll just sleep here in the common room. We'll arrange the chairs to put up your feet. I'm going to stay in case there are more nasty dreams waiting to trouble my Miss Greece."

Niki turned slightly pink, but smiled. "But you need to sleep too, don't you?" she asked, but she was already tucking the blanket around herself and curling up in the armchair, looking almost peaceful for once.