Beach days were a beach. If "beach" could rhyme with "witch" as croaked by Arlaug. When they had explored the catacombs the other day, at least that was underground from the sun's ways. All the events were on the beach today, even dinner. For all the sunscreen potion he used Philo was red like a boiled lobster. Did this stuff have an expiration date?

Retreating to the hotel room close to lights out time, Philo dumped the contents of his side satchel. He'd been greasing this stuff along his skin for days, how could he possibly be getting sunburned? At once, his horrors were confirmed when he took a good look at the tube.

Tanning Potion. Not Sunscreen Potion, Tanning Potion. Specifically Madam Primpernelle's  Sun Boosting Tanning Potion, a favorite of his sister Felicia, who claimed the sun on the Welsh Hippogriff preserve was never enough to keep up her skin tone. Huffing Puffs, his mother must have gotten them confused with the numerous concoctions that packed the bathroom cupboards. Most of it again for Felicia, bulk shampoos, conditioners and creams. And she was only home maybe an average of five days over two months.

Frustrated at these developments and wondering how he was going to get any proper sun protection, Philo opened his trunk, threw the offending potion in, and let the lid slam shut.

Which, in hindsight, was not the smartest thing to do unless he was quick on the Colloportus.

The trunk lid snapped open again and out launched one particular fiber sewn stowaway. That carpet. Philo fell as the carpet smothered him like a poacher's net. He fought to get it off of him. When he was free Philo saw that the carpet was scuttling towards the door. And sliding under the doorway--!

"D'Arvit!" Philo cried, as this evening just kept getting worse. He flung himself at the disappearing half of carpet. The coarse fibers made his hands sting, and it was a loosing battle tug the carpet back from snaking out into the hall...

It had been a long, fun day at the beach, and Abby was still in her tankini and shorts, a cover up draped around her shoulders. She stood in front of the hotel room door that she and Raine were sharing, searching for her hotel room key in her large tote bag, when a commotion sounded from the room across the way. Some kid was yelling, which was pretty typical around here, but then a slithery something sneaked out from underneath the door!

Abby jumped for a second. The last time she'd seen something slither on the ground, it had been a huge runespoor. And while the fringe creeping out under the door had a certain sea creature quality, Abby quickly realized that it wasn't even alive. A rug! A pretty, patterned rug broke free from room 602, and started doing a little sashay down the hallway.

It just begged to be jumped on.

"Whoo! It's a surfing rug!" She dropped her tote and jumped, her still sandy feet landing  in the middle of the escaping carpet. The rug stopped in surprise.

Then it reared back a bit, trying to shake her off, and Abby flailed her arms. "Shi--"

Suddenly, the rug rippled down the middle! Abby was no match for it, just like she'd been no match for the waves earlier that day!

"Oof!" She landed with a thump against one of the other hotel room doors, and made even more noise as she clutched the handle of the door to stand up.

Steam wafted from the bathroom of room 603, carrying with it the scents of aloe vera, lobelia, and fresh water. Alvis sniffed of it, set his open book beside him on the bed, and craned his head to peer into the bathroom. "Aunt Naimh, what are you making?"

"Sunburn treatment." His great-aunt clicked her tongue and rustled through the impressive collection of herbs and ingredients that she'd produced, Mary Poppins-style, from her handbag. Potions had always been a talent of hers, and a passion now that she had the extra time to spend on them. "You may have come out lucky this time, Balthazar, but after two days on the beach, I imagine someone in our party will be needing this soon."

Alvis didn't doubt it - he'd seen Philo Falkin looking rather red around the face just this morning - but he imagined that it wouldn't be too much of a comfort to Naimh's roommate, who would have to sleep with the smell. He was just turning back to his book when a loud thump echoed from the hall, and the door jumped as though it had been struck by a sandbag.

"What was that?" Niamh called from the bathroom.

"Not sure. I'll check." Alvis abandoned his book and went to open the door. To his great surprise, Professor Reid's sister - whose name he didn't know off the top of his head - had been leaning on the doorknob and, when he pulled it out from under her, she became unbalanced. "Wow! Uh, sorry." On instinct, Alvis moved to steady the girl, his hand replacing the knob she'd been using to pull herself up. "What's going on out...?"

His question trailed off as he caught sight of the rug crawling along the hall. Alvis's eyes widened, and the words, "He kept it?" fell out of his mouth before he could stop them. He knew that carpet. He knew where it'd come from, and who would have brought it here.

"Philo, you barmy berk." he thought, hurriedly setting the younger Reid up-right on her feet. . "What the hell were you thinking?"

The friction was too much, Philo had to let go or risk having the skin rubbed off his palms. With a sinking feeling he watched the last of the fringe disappear under the doorframe. For a moment Philo laid there, thinking that just maybe that this meant the carpet was gone for good. His senses came back when he remembered that they were in a hotel and there had to be hundreds of muggles in the floors bellow.

There was a thud out in the hall. Dreading what he would see, Philo stood up and peered out the peephole. Not that he could tell what was going on in the hall from the fish eyed lens. He opened the door and guiltily stuck his head out.

On the other side of the hall, Abigail Reid -Professor Reid's sister, oh crap!- looked to have fallen into the door to Alvis Norling's room who -holy crap!- had a knowing look. But of course he would, having seen first hand Philo getting entrapped in the carpet during that venture in the vanishing junk room.

"Where did it go?" Philo asked quickly, figuring they knew what he meant and how important it was to find and stop the carpet.

"I was trying to surf on a rug, and-" Abby started to explain, talking fast as a tall boy in Naomi's year helped her to her feet.

Another boy, a younger one that she'd seen Aileen offering an umbrella to on the beach, stuck his head out of a hotel room, his red face looking panicked. Between Alvis' exclamation and the young boy's exclamation, even Abby could deduce that they had seen the rug before and knew it's magical surfing powers!

"It's yours?" Abby answered Philo excitedly. "That's so cool! It went that way!" She pointed down the hall and hurried after the rug, which was shuffling quickly towards the lifts.

"Should I jump on it again? I can jump on it again," she offered, glancing over her shoulder, any potential consequences to this adventure escaping her notice at the moment.

"Oh bugger," Alvis sword, following Reid's pointing finger. "It's heading for the lifts."

"What's heading for the lifts, dear?" his aunt called from the bathroom.

Alvis blanched, pulled the door in so she wouldn't see the hall if she glanced out, and gasped back, "Ah, nothing, Aunt Naimh; just a run-away - er- Swear-Frog. Don't worry, we'll catch him."

Without waiting for an answer, he yanked the door closed and took off down the hall at a run. The rug was almost to the elevators now. If it'd managed to get out from under Philo's door, who was to say it couldn't squeeze through the doors to the lifts? If it did that, would it fall to the ground floor, or would it get caught up in one of the cars? And either way, if it got out, the Muggles could see, or worst - the teachers.

Alvis launched himself forward, landed on the rug elbow-first - his right side hitting the carpet of the hall rather than the magical one - and dug into its writhing material with both hands, trying to wrestle it to the ground. "Why did you keep it?" he hissed to Philo through his teeth. "And why did you bring it with you?"

Philo followed the direction Abigail was pointing. He also felt concern should it try to travel to the other floors. "Er, yeah, jump it!"

Alvis made a claim to his gran that they were chasing down a Swear Frog. Not even Arlaug was this much trouble on a bad day. Perhaps between the three of them then could anchor it. Philo landed hard next to Alvis, pinning a corner.

"Why did you keep it? And why did you bring it with you?"

"I didn't ask to keep it!" Philo said. "It followed me up to the dormitory! I had no where else to stash it except my trunk. And sure, a renegade rug is going to be very easy to explain should I try tossing it elsewhere, and even then it could still come back to haunt me!"

Abby didn't need any more encouragement. She made a grab for one of the rug's corners, and then tried using a foot to pin it down in the middle as the boys argued about why Philo had kept the thing in the first place. The three kids looked like they were in the middle of a Twister game, wizarding style!

"Of course it's trying to get away from you!" Abby snickered. "You keep locking it up in your trunk, and you won't let it out for walks or surfing adventures, and- oof!" The rug flung her foot away and she had to scramble to put her knees on the corner instead.

"It's in Egypt! It wants to go places," she joked, treating it like a new pet already.

The rug chose that moment to slither out from under her knees and push her back. The two loose corners of the rug pointed forward, towards the lifts, as if it could smell freedom already!

Alvis opened his mouth to list of the numerous things Philo could have done, like belting the thing into a roll, but was cut off with the corner he was pinning snapped up, caught him under the chin, and tossed him to the side like a kicked log. He bounced off the hallway wall and, to his great distress, wound up half-under the carpet instead of on top. Not entirely trusting the thing not to smother him, his efforts quickly diverted to keeping it away from his face.

As flighty as she seemed, Abby Reid had a point - the rug did seem intent to go somewhere, and if it was smart enough to follow Philo back to the dorms, there must be some sort of reasoning in its threads. Which meant...

"I don't suppose you've named it?" he asked Philo, tugging at a tasseled corner. If the thing had something to respond to, maybe it'd start listening. "'Runner' seems appropriate."

"What?" Philo exclaimed to their advice. "Let it loose? Really, an animated rectangle of fabric that likes to snare people can be perfectly trusted to just stay put?" He was getting tickled by the fringe again, more of an annoyance then an attack. Something in the back of his memory reminded him that Abigail wasn't really a witch so she had a rather optimistic and potentially narrow view of magic. Philo had heard plenty of stories around the dinner table of dad's work, devices muggle or magical that from intent or sheer accident could do nasty things to people, especially "muggle bait" as he called the things meant to cause harm or death to muggles.

As he was trying to keep his corner pinned Alvis' comment ran through his head. "Oh, Runner, I get it because it wants to run away and we could put over the dinning room table. Might be more fitting if it was a tablecloth..." And he thought he was foolish earlier for thinking the carpet was like an animal. "This is a carpet! Do you honestly think of it like a dog or some pet--"

He remembered the last time he had dealt with the carpet, trying to pack everything in his trunk to go home from school, that with a commanding voice...

"Stay put!" Philo said, placing both hands on his corner of the rug. Miraculously, it stopped moving.

With two down for the count, Philo hung on to the rug valiantly as Abby dusted herself off and tried not to giggle. The rug didn't seem dangerous, save for a few bumps and bruises.

Though skeptical, Philo seemed to come around to their way of thinking, and to Abby's delight, the rug stopped!

"Hey!" She stared at him with a surprised grin. "That worked! Now you just have to get it to go back," Abby paused as the rug started to twitch. "Go back to your r-o-o-m," she whispered, and the ends of the rug seemed to settle.

"Let me try."

Abby stood in front of the rug and bent her legs a bit, resting her hands just above her knees. "Come here! Come here, Runner!" She exclaimed in an encouraging tone, slapping her legs lightly with each command. "You can do it! Come on!"

The rug inched forward, then hesitated, it's two front corners hovering above the floor like antennae. It looked poised to either follow her, or bolt in the opposite direction!

"Stay put!"

Alvis's back hit the floor - the rug's tension had been the only thing holding him away from it, and now that it had gone slack, he found himself free. He scrambled out from under the carpet and crouched, tense as a startled cat, between the carpet and the lifts, his shoulders heaving as he tried to catch his breath. His hands remained raised, and he watched the carpet warily - he still remembered the shock of the thing wrapping Theo up like a sack lunch in the Room of Requirement.

As Abby called to the carpet, its tasseled corners shifted and waved in the air. Alvis held his breath and, after a moment of thought, patted the carpet next to Philo's hand encouragingly. "Good carpet. Good boy. Er. Girl? Can carpets have a gender?"

Magic could always surprise you. If frogs could swear then carpets acted like an overgrown plush puppy toy. And how the heck did "Runner" qualify as a name it recognized? Still, as the carpet 'looked' in Abby's direction it was acting more like a pet. Eventually it scooted across to where she was patting her lap.

"Good carpet. Good boy. Er. Girl? Can carpets have a gender?"

"I think we've done enough anthropomorphizing with it already," Philo said, rising. He looked about the floor. Luckily they were still alone. He pointed. "Err, my room was just over there. We should get inside where it isn't so visible."

He still had his room key in his pocket, although even if he had forgotten it a quiet Alohamora could be used if only to enter his own room.

"What would a carpet know about Egypt?" Philo thought aloud. "It's not really part of the local wizarding culture."

"Aw, you're so cute and fringe-y!" She patted the rug after Alvis did, confident that it wouldn't smack her hand or run off. It was just like taking care of a crup, she thought. She was an expert!

Philo, who seemed less thrilled, led them back to his room. Abby picked up the tote bag she'd dropped earlier, then waited for him to open the door.

"Who knows," Abby shrugged, then looked at Philo curiously.

"Where'd you get it? You said it followed you up to your dormitory? Wow, all those stairs," Abby glanced at Alvis, who seemed to know about it too. Maybe the rug was keen on Ravenclaws. Maybe the Slytherins had sent it after him. Or maybe it was one of Aileen's wacky souvenirs- she hoped not!

"What would a carpet know about Egypt? It's not really part of the local wizarding culture."

"That's not necessarily true," Alvis said distantly, tapping the side of his nose as he recalled all the things he'd ever read about enchanted carpets. "Magic carpets are mostly found in old Persia and the Middle East, but they've been recorded as far east as Russia, and they're an ancient form of magical transportation. Though they're not so common now, Egyptian cities, Alexandria especially, were hubs for knowledge and culture from all over the world, so it's possible..."

He swallowed the rest of his ramblings as Abby asked about the carpet's origins, exchanging a glance with Philo. The carpet was his...property, pet, responsibility, pick one....and Alvis figured that telling anyone about its' origin aught to be his choice.