The next day Luna awoke, full of joy and energy. As soon as she woke up she noticed that Alex was up too. His ruffled dark brown hair went over his brown eyes that glinted on his pale skin when he looked up at Luna while she was plating her short light brown hair into two plaits. As usual, she smiled and looked in the mirror in front of her, her green eyes were sparkling like Alex’s and she had a red mark on her pale skin where she had leaned to read in the night. They went down the stairs of their tower together where they met with Morgana and Lorsore while descending from the bear tower; Simonetta, who came from the stork staircase, and Sara from the killer whale. More classmates that they didn't know were coming from all directions, until a boy ascended from the wolf tower, he had jet black hair like Simona’s, his eyes were big and round, his pale skin was slightly freckled and he smiled under a small hooked nose.

“Hi, are you Luna Morgana Lorsore, Simonetta, Alex and Sara?” he said, pointing at each of them in turn. 

“Yep” Lorsore said, shaking his white blond head, red cheeks wobbling on his fair skin.  

Morgana merely nodded and smiled, her dark hair falling through her dark toned skin and into her eyes while Sara rudely said: “Yeah duh, seriously, I can see you're a seventh year, you should know more people” putting her hands onto her hips, her blond hair falling around her white peaky face and onto her shoulders.

“Sorry about Sara but yyyeeeaaahhh that's us...” Luna said grinning at him.

“OK follow me, then” 

He led them to the vast entrance room and through a door where they found themselves in what resembled an empty broom cupboard, the stone walls had a little dust and the wooden floorboards creaked under their weight. 

“Revelio” Abdul muttered, and suddenly the floorboards started creaking ominously as a long stone staircase was revealed. Abdul led them through the stairs and into a huge hall where there was indistinct chatter: there were seven tables and there on a raised platform were all the teachers at the front dressed in regal blue robes. With her brown hair in a bun at the top of her head, there was professor Marta Delgado del Mar, the Headteacher. The room was amazing, tall gleaming windows were letting light pool into the room. 

All of a sudden Luna’s fox arrived, her orange tail swishing through the tables and her smooth white fur gleaming as if it had gel. 

She had something in her mouth, Luna took it. It was a piece of parchment on which was written.

“Wow” Luna breathed 

“Where did you get that?” said a slightly angry voice at her shoulders, they all jumped and turned to find Abdul.

“I'm pretty sure that's classified information.” he continued 

“Luna’s fox brought it here.” Alex told him

“Well… I'm pretty sure that belongs to the library and fortunately that's where your next lesson is” 

 

After that they went to the library. It was AMAZING, there were floating bookshelves, students here and there with every type of book. At the very end there was a long window that seemed to be a disguised door. Books towered everywhere. At the end stood a blond man who wore silver robes and his cheeks dimpled when he smiled.

“Welcome to the history of magic! The first thing is that I would like you to find a few books about unicorns.” he told them.  

“The secret archive belongs somewhere in the restricted section. I'll distract the teacher” Abdul told them as he walked off. 

“Sir, can you help me find this book…” his voice trailed off as Morgana Luna Lorsore Simonetta and Alex snuck through the window/door. 

They found themselves in a slightly smaller room filled with books, their spines were slightly dusty and there was no one, Luna quickly whistled and, with a brush of fur, her fox appeared smiling slyly.

“Put this back will you.” she whispered, handing the paper. 

The fox went to the far side and disappeared. 

“Wwweeellllllll…” she said uncertainty

“Revelio” Simonetta muttered, pointing her wand to the wall where the fox disappeared. Two briks shifted and a handle appeared. Without thinking, Luna grabbed it and disappeared.

It was very sudden, Luna thought, while she tried to make her eyes adjust to the darkness but they couldn't. The darkness was oozing all around her a few minutes later Morgana Alex and Lorsore joined her, leaving Simonetta to guard. 

They stumbled through the rocky passageways illuminating it with their wands, then they found themselves at a fork: on their left there were some rocky stairs that ended with a locked door, and on their right a passage which led to a small enchanted forest: it had rock ground and a few hay stakes... and reminded Luna and Alex of something. They ventured on and came to an icy edge. While they were standing on an iced shore, across them there was deep blue water with a black and white fin gliding silently towards them. The children petrified, and ran the other way and into the tunnel. There they found here and there droplets of blood scattered, leaving a trail which they followed until their breath was cut short. 

They were face to face.

With the red wolf.      

The six legged wolf was tall at least six times the children and was bright red! Trembling (A LOT) Morgana bowed to the wolf, it limped over to her sniffing. All of a sudden with a terrible cry a hippogriff erupted from the trees waving its talons. It let out an ear splitting cry and attacked the children first and then the bleeding wolf. Luna and her friends took refuge into the forest, but then went back to see what was happening to the bleeding and not so scary wolf who was still fighting the hippogriff. In an attempt to help the wolf, they used all together one of the few charms they had already learned, and succeeded in reducing the hippogriff slightly in size, which at least scared the beasto off. 

At that point Anotnio appeared, the Head of the Bear house. He hurried the children back to the castle where they met the headteacher who was not very pleased with their unauthorised wandering in the castle premises. 

Luna and her friends hurried in search of Simonetta to tell her what they had seen, but she was nowhere to be seen. Morgana sent her her owl in the hope it reached her…

While heading to the dining all, Luna’s fox appeared once again with another precious document in the mouth. The children read it carefully, and hurriedly implored the fox to bring it back immediately. 

In the dining hall, immediately before dinner, the headteacher said that one of the students was missing from the castle, while Luna, Morgana, Lorsore and Alex stared at their empty plates feeling the eyes of Abdul directly on them. The headteacher explicitly invited them to her office, after dinner. 

The four friends followed the headteacher up to a round staircase at the bottom of the astronomy tower, hoping to receive some good news  about their friend. Fortunately the headteacher, after manifesting some disappointment for the risks they had faced during their wandering, told them that she was hopeful that they could see Simonetta sometime soon.