Chapter 38: Year Two - Chapter Thirteen
There we were, the five of us.
There we were, my own patience running incredibly thin just as my worry increased ten times with each step we took into the Forbidden Forest. "I can understand Amanda, since she's lost some wheels in her head from one too many falls from the broomstick," I said dryly, "But why are you three in this too?"
Luna's seraphic calm seemed to spread from her to the others, and she gave me a gentle smile, as if explaining something ever so simple. "Well, since Nargles have been removed in the school, in order to seek them out I must go in the wilds." She explained it as if it was obvious; what wasn't obvious was the willingness to sacrifice someone's well being and safety in the castle, basilisk lurking its halls notwithstanding, with the very definite risk of ending up food for some manner of dangerous wizard-eating beast in the wilderness.
"We can still seek the lake's shore from here, Shade," Megan said, "And I thought we might find some interesting potions' ingredients."
"I decided to come along because it looked interesting," Wayne added, the one with the feeblest of excuses ever. Still, I couldn't help but pinch the bridge of my nose and keep a worried look around us.
"What about asking Hagrid, the Gamekeeper?" I hazarded.
"He said that they lost half a dozen bludgers in the Forbidden Forest, and not all of them were recovered," Amanda said, chirping the knowledge out as if amazed by it.
"And he didn't try to stop any of you?" I muttered in disbelief. "Hagrid, do your job at the very least," I grumbled.
"He gave us his dog," Megan said. "He said that since we were your friends, he could trust us to give him a walk." I stared at the five monsters of cold logic, and then looked around. Megan awkwardly shifted her weight from one leg to the other, "We let him slip in the forest," she mumbled, looking downcast.
"Accio, Fang!" I all but bellowed with my wand outstretched. There was a yip from a certain distance, and a massive dog came flying towards us, leaving behind a trail of foam and saliva. He landed straight on his paws, woofing happily at my sight. His eyes betrayed his intelligence; he too didn't want to be in the forest, and he too had tried to run away from it, but his sense of directions was as horrible as mine, and thus he had gotten lost into the depths.
"There you are, my brother in arms," I said with relief, kneeling to hug the large doggo who was the best-est doggo ever. He woofed, happily throwing his leash my way for me to hold on to. "Now," I said most amiably as I stood back up, dusting my robes. "We can leave this hellish forest behind us and-"
"No," Amanda said, resolutely. "I want to catch a bludger."
"Probably right in the face," Wayne piped in, and I couldn't help but snicker at the joke. Megan's lips twitched in amusement too. Luna, instead, remained beatifically calm. She was looking beneath small leafs and using a stick to push the dirt away. She even briefly stopped to watch a caterpillar rise over a tree trunk. Said caterpillar birthed wings in a few instants, and then flew off without becoming a butterfly.
It had to be a magical caterpillar, hence a magical monster meant to suck the souls of the innocents out of their bodies.
"Yeah, yeah, funny," Amanda lifted her wand. "I've got a wand with a jinx on it and your name on the list."
"Let's give Fang a walk," I said, "Keeping our eyes on the lake's shores," I continued, gazing at all five of the dunderheads, much to Fang's pitiful whining. I shared his pain, and his disbelief at me being roped in such a suicidal thing. "And if a bludger coincidentally ends up flying near us, we can try to capture it."
"We can see the shore from further in the forest," Amanda said. I looked at her, and she looked back at me with her wand still in her hand.
"You don't want to do this, Amanda," I said, my left hand's fingers twitching ever so slightly by my side.
"Oh?" she smiled, the smile of victory. "What about it, Shade?"
"Petrificus Totalus!" Megan took the cue, and Amanda's body stiffened ever so slightly before falling to the side. I looked at the Hufflepuff, who in turned looked back at me unashamed and unafraid. "What? It wears off in a matter of minutes."
I glanced up at the sky, hidden by the trees' canopy, and then quietly got Amanda's wand in my hand. "You'll get this back once we're back on a safe track," I grumbled, lifting her up with a spell out of my own wand. "You know how badly this is going to look if Filch sees her like that, no?"
"Well," Megan shyly brought one of her hands behind her head. "W-We Hufflepuffs didn't do anything, sir. It was the Ravenclaws. They're the odd ones!"
"Is there a Wrackspurt infestation?" Luna asked, looking from Megan to me, and then to Wayne and the petrified Amanda. "Because if there is, the remedy is to think happy thoughts and the Wrackspurts will go away. I'll start," she smiled, looking at each of us in turn.
"Let's not throw any of us under the metaphorical train," I grumbled, walking in the direction of the lake's shore. Once there, we'd just lay her on the shore and wait for the petrification to wear off. "A couple of minutes and she'll be right as rain, right?"
Wayne's eyebrows furrowed. "Why should rain be right? Doesn't the wind make it fall sideways sometimes?"
I looked at Fang. Fang barked, happily waggling its tail at being out of the Forbidden Forest. I sat down by his side, and stared at the lake's ripples. As if on cue, the others all sat down nearby. If only there was someone willing to paint the scene, I was relatively sure it would be half inspiring and half utterly hilarious. There we were, a Ravenclaw with a large dog by his side, another first year Ravenclaw looking at her Butterbeer Corks' necklace, and a third one instead with her arm outstretched, staring at the sky from her petrified position.
The two Hufflepuffs sat nearby, playing with the Wizard Cards and waiting for the time to pass on a large and smooth stone.
It was such a tranquil thing.
Tranquility shattered when Amanda's arm flopped down, and the angry twelve, maybe thirteen year old girl stood up and looked at me, her hand extended. "My wand," she huffed.
"Aye," I said, gingerly giving it back.
She then turned, and flung a hex at Megan.
Megan answered in turn.
Wayne scuttled closer to me, the Wizard Cards in hand. "Want to play?" he asked, letting the two girls fire off stinging hexes at one another.
"Can I play too?" Luna asked, innocently ignoring everything happening in the background.
"Let's make it a three players' game," I said, shaking my head.
My tranquil days, my peaceful days, my happy days...
...shattered, as if a bludger had broken through.
But then again, I was smiling all the same.
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