The Antidote

Chapter One: Of Half Giants, Forests, and Castles.

Have you ever had a day where you keep expecting to wake up, yet no matter what you do, you can't? Well this is one of those days for me.

It happened so quickly and calmly that it took me a full twelve seconds just to react. One second I was walking through the snow, then I think I blinked or something and everything changed.

As I stood there trying to grasp the situation, I noticed three things. For one, I wasn't freezing my nose off anymore. I was still cold, but just a bit, as if I was standing next to an open refrigerator. The second thing I noticed was that there were trees all around me; massive trees, maybe eight or nine meters in diameter. The third thing I noticed was that my friends were no longer present.

I looked around, trying to spot them, but to no avail. After a quick mental reboot, I started to notice more oddities.

The entire ground seemed to be covered by a thick fog, too thick to see through in most parts. There were trees as far as I could see, which was actually pretty far, since the trees were spaced over maybe twenty to thirty meters apart. Scattered across the small area I could see were various small plants, bushes, and rocks jutting out of the fog. The overall appearance of the place, that I could only assume was a forest, would normally have sent shivers down my spine from the waterfalls of evil vibes emanating from every object, but the given situation had me in too much shock to do anything.

Once more I stood still, bringing my head to face directly ahead from the owl-like searching it had been doing. I stood there for a good five minutes, still trying to discharge the metaphorical electricity I received from shock, before I heard a voice in the distance.

My immediate thought was to run away, but logic won out and I discarded that idea since I didn't know where I was or how I got here, and this may be my chance to get out of this forest the easy way.

Upon deciding I would go see who was in the woods with me, I turned and headed in the direction of the voice. As I got closer, I realized that there was only one voice, so whoever it was was either crazy, talking to a quiet person, or just lonely. I was hoping for the in-between.

After about a few moments of walking, I could hear the voice on the other side of one of the large trees. By that point, I had already determined that whoever it was was talking to a pet, based on what was being said, and they were looking for something.

I walked around the tree and immediately stopped in my tracks, staring up at the huge man standing a few meters away. The man was absolutely massive, standing at almost four meters. He had a large crossbow in his hands, and a big dog by his side. He was wearing a long trench-coat made of some sort of leather that was covered in deep-looking pockets. The man also had long black hair, going a little past his shoulders, and a large beard covering most of his face. His hands looked to be the size of a trash-bin lid and his shoes looked like they could hold baby dolphins.

He was currently talking down at his dog, facing so that his right side was to me.

"Wha' is it fang? Yeh smell somethin'?"

It was then that I realized his dog was looking directly at me, just staring without moving as if it was a statue. Once the giant noticed this as well, he turned and saw me standing completely frozen from shock.

"Hey! You! Wha're yeh doin' out here? Yeh should be in yer dorms. Yeh're not supposed ter be out here. These woods are off limits fer students."

My mind still working slowly, it took me a moment to realize what he said.

"Dorms?" I croaked,"What dorms?" I hadn't even realized until then that my throat was really dry.

"Yeah, yer dorms. Like I said, yeh shouldn' be out here, 'specially not after dark." At this he leaned in closer, a suspicious look on his face. "What're yeh up ter out here anyway?"

It was then that I noticed he had been acting as though I was a suspect in a crime the whole time. I was just about to reply when I heard a feint series of small explosions nearby.

The giant leaned toward the sound, turning his head in that direction. Suddenly, he stood up straight, his crossbow raised. "Never mind abou' tha'. There are dangerous things in the forest. Time to get goin' now. Move along." He then strode across the gap between us in a few steps and grabbed me by the shoulder, only to lift me off the ground and place me in front of him. I decided it would be better not to disobey something with such amazing strength, and just walked along in front of him, trying my best not to get stepped on.

It was then that I looked at the dog again and noticed that he was cowering in apparent fear from the noises.

We continued walking for almost half an hour before we reached the edge of the forest. I had noticed as we progressed that the trees were smaller the closer we got to being out of the forest.

As we stepped out into the night air, I noticed a massive castle looming over us. To the right was a small hut, surrounded by a pumpkin patch and lots of animals. I looked back to the castle just as the giant addressed it.

"Hogwarts Castle; home of the finest magical institution in the wizarding world.