No matter how hard I tried to convince Marty otherwise, I really was petrified on my first day of Year Seven. Everything suddenly seemed so much more grown-up, to me. Marty was always telling me that I needed to grow up a little, especially seeing as at this point Jamie was four and starting in Reception, but it had never felt as real as it did the day I walked through the enormous gates to Secondary School.

Nothing felt like the old me. I was wearing Marty's hand-me down school blazer and the rest of the uniform I had managed to buy second hand. My top button was fastened uncomfortably tight at my throat, and my hair was tied back so tightly that it actually hurt a little to move my eyebrows (this was part of the reason why I decided to chop my hair with the kitchen scissors, only a few weeks into term. Neither the teachers nor Marty were impressed). It scared me, how grown-up I felt. I was eleven and three-quarters; I wasn't supposed to be feeling like an adult yet. That was supposed to be Mum's job, but she wasn't here. Instead, Marty walked with me to the school gates after we dropped Jamie off, rumpled up my hair a little, and told me I would be fine. He made me feel a little better, but it wasn't the same as Mum being here.

"I hate you," he told me.

"Love you too."

He grinned at me, then headed off to his form room. And then I really was alone.

Still, I made it through the first day. Right up until it was time to go home.

I was making my way through the gap between the Languages building and the Art block. I had forgotten my Art book and it had taken forever to find my art classroom again, so I was running late. And panicking, maybe just a little. I knew Marty would be grumpy at me for holding us up, and if we were late to pick Jamie up from school on his first day we'd probably find him in tears when we got there, thinking we weren't coming. So even though the gap between the buildings was deserted, as well as pretty narrow and long and dark, I went down that way anyway because I was pretty sure it was quicker that going all the way around the art block and then across the football pitch. Not my smartest idea, looking back.

I was almost out of there when I realised that the gap wasn't quite deserted, after all.

A group of three boys, maybe in my brother's year, maybe older, were leaning against the wall, laughing about something. Not much older than me, but they seemed about ten times bigger. And even though I'd only been at Secondary School for a day, I knew that these boys weren't the type of boys you wanted to run into when you were alone in the gap between the Art and Languages building.

Suddenly, I didn't feel so grown-up any more.

I did what you're supposed to do when you're a tiny Year Seven kid in this situation. Eyes down. Walking quicker. Mouth shut tight. Trying to be as invisible as possible.

It didn't work.

"Hey," said one of them. I winced at the harsh laughter in his voice. "You alright there, titch?"

I nodded slightly, trying to keep walking.

"Lost, are you?" sniggered another. "Want us to help you?"

I kept walking. I was almost past them.

"Oi," said the third guy. He reached out as I tried to scuttle past and grabbed my blazer collar. "We're talking to you, loser."

I froze, swallowing. That's when I knew I was in trouble.

I kept my eyes on the ground, my voice locked away. If I kept my mouth shut, they'd probably get bored and I could escape quicker.

The guy shook me a little. "Can't you talk?"

I made the mistake at looking up at them.

"Oh, no way," breathed the first guy. He came closer, his mouth stretching into a malicious grin. "You look just like... You're Marty Mossley's sister, aren't you?"

I said nothing.

"Well?" the guy holding my collar shook me harder, his mousey hair falling into his eyes. "Are you?"

"Course she is," the first one smirked. "She practically looks like his twin. They even have the same ratty uniform. Don't you, Mossley? What's your name, anyway?"

Don't say anything. Don't say anything. Don't say anything.

"Oh my God," the second guy laughed. He came closer too. "Poor kid. What's it like being related to that freak?"

My throat loosened. I glared at them, suddenly furious. I knew it was dangerous to be furious with guys like these, but I couldn't help the words that came out of my mouth. I didn't regret them, either.

"Don't call my brother a freak."

"What?" the boy holding my collar shoved me hard, and I hit the wall with a gasp. "What did you say?"

My shoulder stinging, my whole body burning, I turned to face them. My voice, when it jumped out of me, was almost screaming.

"I said, don't call my brother a freak!"

"We'll call your brother whatever the hell we want," the mousey haired boy hissed, grabbing my sleeve and yanking me closer to him. I swallowed, suddenly scared again, until-

"Hey!" The familiar voice was angrier than I'd ever heard it. "Get off her!"

The boys turned to see who was standing just inside the gap.

"Oh, great," one of them sneered. "Both of the Mossleys are here. Like a freaky little family reunion, isn't it?"

Marty moved closer. His face was cast in shadow as he moved out of the light, making him look even scarier. I was completely unused to my brother looking 'scary', and it shocked me a little. I was never scared of Marty, even when he was cross at me. But now, he somehow looked downright murderous.

"Get off my sister. Now."

The little gang didn't seem to find my brother as menacing as I did. The mousey boy gave a grating laugh, gripping my wrist tightly.

"Why? What are you going to do? Start throwing revision notes at us?"

He shoved me again. This time I fell over with a cry, the sharp gravel scraping painfully across my knees.

What happened next shocked me again. I had thought I knew Marty inside out. He was pretty predictable, once you'd spent your whole life telling him to shut up. I never thought Marty could surprise me, but I never would have expected him to do what he did next. It just wasn't the type of thing Marty did.

I never even thought Marty actually knew how to punch someone. But he did that day.

I remember sitting there on the ground, completely nonplussed as the mousey boy recoiled with a yell of pain, holding his nose.

But what was even more shocking than the punch was that, when Marty got in trouble for it, he didn't even seem to care.

I wake up with a start, then groan and slam my face into the pillow as tears threaten to spill over all over again. Tears of nostalgia, tears of pain, tears of frustration.

It's been just over a week since we escaped from the Feallan, and the nightmares have come every night. I'm sick of waking up with my face damp and my throat dry, sick of having to check in the mirror before I go downstairs just to make sure my eyes aren't red and puffy. I hate the little jolt of pain in my chest as I jerk to consciousness, the ache as I realise that none of it was real, that Marty and Jamie are still gone. And I hate how guilty the nightmares make me feel, because we're no closer to rescuing my brothers then we were a week ago, and time is running out.

They've boxed us into a corner. As far as we know, the house is now the only safe place to be. Like Ash said, the Venari are dangerous demons to have against you. They're allied with pretty much every demon in this realm, which means that there are possible attackers at every corner. Not to mention, we lost all of our supplies in the struggle, so we don't have the things we need for a rescue mission.

It isn't for lack of trying. In groups of two, we've taken turns going to the Venari market, trying to steal whatever we can. But the family has been going there for a long time now, and the Venari know how to recognise their faces, their voices, even how they walk. When Eclipse and I tried going, we ran into a large group of demon guards before we even got close. We managed to run before they saw us, but it was a close call. Too close. Jordan came back from his trip with a terrifyingly large scar across his chest, and if Teddy hadn't been there to heal him, he probably wouldn't have come back.

We've also been back to the Feallan castle, but the place is absolutely swamped with demons of all shapes and sizes. Jude and I went there a few days ago, and even I could tell that going any closer than we were would practically be suicide. We've tried going all over, trying to make desperate deals and alliances, trying to find different plants and herbs that could give us some sort of power. Each time, we've ran into demons who block off every pathway we could possibly take. The demons who have been given the job of guarding are, thankfully, more brawn than brain. They're easy to escape, but they serve their purpose well. There's no going anywhere with them hanging around.

I throw myself out of bed, the frustration meeting its peak. I'm pretty much always the last one awake, here. I get dressed and stomp downstairs. We'll think of something. We have to.

As I walk into the hallway of pictures, my gaze falls onto the one I noticed when I first came here: Teddy's crayon drawing of their family. But for the first time, I properly read the names that Teddy wrote above each stick figure. Me. Eclips. AJ. Pixi. Mazi. And the last name. Ash.

Trying to take that in, I walk down the corridor. Teddy and Jude are sat in the living room, discussing plans. I hang in the doorway, listening.

"There must be something!" Teddy says desperately. He flicks through Marks of Demons frantically. "They can't have convinced everyone to join them. There must be some of them who would help us. We have to find a group who have something against the Feallan, people who want them defeated just as much as we do..."

"I know, I know," says Jude, sounding irritable. "But we've been over this. There are too many against us to find someone who isn't. Even demons who hate the Feallan would have to be crazy to join us now. We're fighting an impossible battle."

"Don't say that!"

Teddy runs a hand through his hair, his face screwed. When you've been with people constantly for a week, you start to notice everyone's little habits and quirks, things that they do automatically. You notice how Teddy rumples his hair when he's confused or stressed, babbles when he's nervous, how he always has to have the polka-dot cup when we have hot chocolate. You notice how Jude always has to fidget with something- it doesn't matter what it is, just something small and fidgetable- and how he sometimes mutters under his breath when he's thinking hard. You notice how Eclipse is always putting her hair up and taking it down, how her hand drifts continually up to her neck to fiddle with her necklace only to realise that it isn't there, how since we escaped from the Feallan she's been a little less calm, a little more tightly-strung. You notice how AJ paces and scowls, how Jordan bounces his leg up and down when he's sitting and doodles on everything, how the twins always disappear somewhere together when they feel overwhelmed. You notice how Coby crawls under the table when he's anxious, how he's starting to open up more, smile more, trust more.

I watch Teddy turning the pages frenziedly, knowing that it's pointless.

"You can't say that Jude. You can't. It's not true and you know it's not true, you have to know it's not true. We've always made it before. This isn't any different. We just have to think a little, that's all. It isn't easy, it isn't easy at all, in fact I think it's more, you know, not easy than it's ever been, but we can't just give up-"

"I'm not giving up!" Jude snaps. "You know that I never just give up!"

Teddy sighs, his head falling back onto the cushions. "I do know that. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have... I'm sorry."

Jude sighs too, then nudges Teddy gently. I hadn't noticed before how close together they were. "You have nothing to be sorry for. I'm just... I hate not being able to do anything."

"I know that, too."

"It doesn't make any sense," Jude growls. "It's like they're preparing for a war. They've built an army. They've created new weapons. They've managed to buy the trust of the Venari somehow, when they never bothered about them before. All for two kids? I don't get it. They've stolen kids millions of times before. Why are they so bothered now?"

I cross the room and flop down on the sofa opposite.

"Morning, Maya," says Teddy. "Are you hungry?"

"Hi. I'm fine just now, thanks." I look around the room. The house is eerily quiet. "Where is everyone?"

"Mai, Pixie and Coby are playing in the garden," says Jude. "We figured those kids need a break after the week they've had. And Jordan, AJ and Eclipse are at the beach, trying to see if they can row that little boat around the cliffs to see if there's a way to get somewhere. It was Eclipse's idea. I don't think they'll get anywhere, though. As far as I know, the cliffs around the shore are impossible to climb."

I nod, hesitating. "Is... Is Eclipse okay? She's trying to be calm, but you can tell she's been stressed ever since... Well, Ash."

Teddy nods sadly. "What Ash did, and being back at that house... It shook her, I think. Brought up bad memories."

I swallow, almost afraid to ask, but I have to. "What's the deal with that place? And what... what happened with Ash?"

Teddy and Jude exchange a glance.

"I don't know too much about it," Jude says. "Only what I've been told. I've only been here for a couple of years, you see. I wasn't there when all that stuff happened."

"Neither was Jordan," Teddy's face crumples thoughtfully. "He came in the seventies. Or the eighties. Yeah, it must've been the eighties, because the Ash crisis happened in the early seventies. AJ was there. She was the first of us. She came in the 1950s, not long before the twins." He pauses for a second, probably aware that he's gone off-topic and trying to get back on track, before continuing. "I didn't understand much about it at the time. I was only a little kid. But I remember what Ash was like. He's almost unrecogniseable now. It's scary, seeing him like he is. But last week, when he let us go... I saw the old Ash, just for a second."

"What happened?" I ask in a whisper.

Teddy looks wistfully around the room. "We didn't always live here, you know. We didn't find this place for a while. We used to live in that little house near the Feallan castle, the one we escaped from. And by 'we' I mean me, Eclipse, AJ, Pixie, Maisie... And Ash.

Ash was born in the Feallan castle, just like I was born with the Neroes, but he managed to escape when he was ten, in 1965, so he came at around the same time as me. He was always close with Eclipse, I remember. They did everything together. Everything seemed perfect, to me, although I suppose anything would've seemed that way after living with the Neroes. Even then, we managed to stop demons all the time, which we were proud of. But the Feallan... Well, they were the biggest problem, and they seemed the hardest one to get rid of."

"Feallan are powerful," explains Jude. "Really powerful. Like you saw last week. They can fly, they can use enchanted weapons, they can travel from our world to the human world, they can control the human body... And they're immortal. They get to the age sixteen and then they just stop aging. Apart from the Feallan leader, from what I've heard. I've never seen him, I don't even know his name, but I've heard that he was human once. But when he was thirty, he managed to become one of them, and he's been like that ever since. And apparently it made him more powerful than the rest of them, somehow. I don't know how true that is, though. What I do know is that nobody knows a way of destroying them."

"But that's the thing," Teddy says, leaning forward animatedly. "One day, Eclipse and Ash came home from a Feallan mission, really excited. They told us that they didn't have time to explain, but they thought they'd found something, something that might help destroy the Feallan once and for all. And then they just left, just like that. The rest of us tried to follow, but we had no idea where they'd gone. It drove AJ crazy, I remember, but there was nothing we could do but wait for them to get back and wonder what they had found. And then, they did. But something was wrong.

The mission hadn't gone as they planned. When the came back from the quest, something had happened to Ash. He was weak and shaking. He could barely stand. Eclipse had managed to get him away from whatever had done it to him, but he was practically dead on his feet. I managed to heal him, but it was a close call. Too close. For a second, we thought he..."

"W-What happened to him?" I ask fearfully as Teddy trails off.

"We don't know," Teddy says. "Neither of them would explain, and none of us want to ask Eclipse now in case it brings back more memories. But Ash blamed Eclipse for what happened to him. Said the whole thing had been her idea. And as soon as he had the strength... He left. Hardly even looked back."

Teddy's voice starts to choke a little, and Jude touches his arm in his usual awkward show of comfort. I get up, move next to him to put my hand on his shoulder until he manages to pull himself together a little.

"We were devastated, of course," he says with a gulp. "We didn't think we'd ever see him again... But we did, the next time we fought the Feallan. And he was fighting with them. Clearly, he was on their side now. And that... That hurt more than anything. And it got worse, over time, until he became... The Ash he is now. Capturing us without a second thought. It's like our friend never even existed."

I swallow, watching as his green eyes shimmer with tears. "I-I'm so sorry."

He takes a deep breath, calming himself. "Thanks."

"Maybe there's still time for everything to go back to how it was before," I rub his shoulder again. "He let us go last week, right?"

"Yeah," Teddy looks troubled. "I'm worried about that. The Feallan will have punished him for what he did. I... I hope he's okay, despite everything."

"You're way too forgiving, Ted," Jude huffs, pushing Teddy with his shoulder. He falls onto me slightly, and it startles a laugh out of both of us.

"Maybe," says Teddy, straightening up and rubbing his arm. "But Eclipse feels the same way, I can tell, even if she tries not to show it. It's why she's so on edge."

Jude starts to reply, but whatever he says is cut off by a shout from Pixie, from the lawn. Her voice is panicked, and the three of us jump up immediately.

"Jude! Teddy! Maya! Come quickly!"

Pixie and Maisie aren't the type of kids to get upset easily, I know that even after a week. So I know that whatever it is, it can't be good. We race outside, through the back door in the kitchen. As soon as we get outside, I gasp, along with Teddy. Jude doesn't make a noise, but his eyes narrow dangerously. The kids are standing nearby, staring at something a little way off, their eyes wide with fear.

Standing right at the edge of the painted white line on the grass, the mark of the force field, is a dark figure.

Author's Note:

Sorry that chapter was so boring *insert laughing face emoji here because I can't do them on the computer*. I think a better name for it would be The Chapter Where Nothing Actually Happens But Teddy And Jude Explain Stuff Kind Of But Also Leave 90% Of The Explanation Out Because They Don't Know Much About What They're Explaining. Except if I did that, it would probably take longer to read the chapter name than it would the actual story and you'd get bored a whole lot quicker. Because I really do write too many words, sorry again. I talk too much. But hey, a long-winded explanation had to happen at some point, and this is only the beginning.

Soo... Enjoy, I guess.

-HufflepuffHorizon xxx