AUTHOR'S NOTE: I haven't read any of the Harry Potter books, and I've only seen a few of the movies—so if I give some inaccurate info, drop a comment and I'll try to fix it!
DISCLAIMER: If you recognize any characters from either HP or Max Ride, I do not own them—but I do plan to add in a few characters of my own in later chapters, and I'll tell you which ones they are when I get that far.
The Flock was flying silently, only talking occasionally. All the bird-kids were in a bad mood after they Voice had taken control of Max and made her wake everyone up at 5 a.m. that morning. Now it was ordering them to fly somewhere over the ocean near England. They hadn't seen land in almost a half-hour. Max was 'entertaining' herself by guessing who was going to talk next, and what they'd say.
Max, I'm hungry!
Nudge glided out of formation, coming closer to Max. "Maaax! I'm HUNGRY!"
"Tell that to the Voice," Max grumbled. "We would still be sleeping if I wasn't being controlled by it!"
Something about Jeb.
"Why do you still call the Voice an 'it' when you know that it's really Jeb?" Angel asked.
"Because I don't like to admit it. Jeb abandoned us, and I'm not ready to forgive him."
"Oh." The girls flew back into formation.
Suddenly, Max was hit with a brain attack—the kind of excruciating headache she hadn't experienced in a while. Fang looked over in her direction just in time to see her fall.
"Iggy!" he called as he dived to catch her before she hit the water. Yes, the mutants were stronger than the average human, and yes, they weighed less as well, but Fang still needed help to hold on to her as she wiggled and squirmed in pain. Iggy grabbed one end of Max and Fang held the other as they flew for that giant island over there—
Wait a minute! ISLAND?! That island wasn't there just a second ago! Fang tried not to think about it though and instead shouted for the rest of the Flock to follow him. They headed towards the edge of the eerie forest. Landing, they realized that they were very near what looked like someone's hut. But they knew that a take-off might attract more attention then being still and quite, so they stayed down. After Max had lost consciousness and had not awakened for what appeared to have been hours, judging by the position of the sun, Fang got restless and decided to take a risk by seeing if the person or people who occupied the hut could help. He slunk up to the small building and took a peak through a window. He couldn't see anyone inside, but when he turned around to return to the others, he found himself staring up at a behemoth of a man.
"Now, what have we got here? I don't recall seeing any creature like you in or near the forest before—what are you?" the man asked, pointing to the wings that Fang had forgotten to cover. Fang gulped.
"I—I'm an avian-human, recombinant-DNA experiment," he answered.
"You're a what, now? Oh, well. It doesn't really matter… Care for some tea?"
Fang took a deep breath, and replied, "Actually, I need help. The leader of my Flock is unconscious, and she might be in need of some medical attention. I'm not sure what happened; she just fell out of the sky. Can you help?"
"What? There's a creature in trouble?! Well, why didn't ya say so in the first place? Show me the way!" The giant looked at him expectantly. Fang made up his mind and strode determinedly toward the others. The man followed. As they approached, Fang saw Iggy raise his head in alarm; probably felt some vibrations in the ground caused by the large man's feet. Angel looked up, then made a confused expression, but didn't look overly worried. Fang took this as a sign that she had read the man's mind and hadn't heard any dangerous thoughts. Next thing he knew, the man was carrying Max toward a castle that, again, he had not seen just a second ago, and the Flock was following.
