House: Slytherin
Category: Short
Prompts: [Word] Undeniable; [Prompt] Grey Eyes
Word count: 1068 (Excluding Author's Note, but including entire Entry and Title)
Warning: This is an AU (Alternate Universe) piece.
Characters: Harry Potter; Neville Longbottom; Draco Malfoy; Astoria Greengrass
Summary: The Horcrux Hunt has begun, and it is up to Harry Potter to save his teammates from certain demise when he unknowingly awakens the creature that lurks in the darkness of the maze. Thrown together with the most unlikely of characters, Harry is forced to protect the people he's supposed to destroy.
Author's Note: This is probably my favorite entry in the entire competition so far, only because I've written something like this before and I think I'm starting to enjoy where this is going. If continued, I'd probably add it somewhere to the first short that I written for it.
As always, enjoy
-Carolare Scarletus
Follow the Shadows
There was something undeniable about the picture. They way their soulless eyes stared at me sent chills to reverberate down my spine. Sweat began to gather at my temples, and if I listened carefully, I could hear someone breathing ominously down my neck. Something told me that I wasn't supposed to come into this room, or find this picture. I quickly tossed it onto the ground and backed away. Once I did, all hell broke loose and the dark shadows that I had seen in the frame began seeping out of the broken pieces of the picture, feeding off my terror as it started their hunt.
"Run!" someone commanded beside me, though in the darkness, I couldn't quite make out who it was. Being stuck in this god-forsaken arena, left to fend for ourselves, the last of the players were beginning to feel the effects of the trial. We were only three of ten survivors of the Horcrux Hunt; the others were in a different part of the maze. They only way we knew they were still alive was because their screams didn't mingle with the sounds of the nightcrawlers. No deaths hadn't been announced, either. I didn't need to be told twice to run as I clenched my wand in my hand, turned and ran with all my might. The damnable creatures were hot on our tail. A terrified scream pierced the air, and we all turned to find Neville Longbottom struggling with one of the creatures of night as it wrapped its tentacle-like arms around his neck. I swallowed hard, drew my wand, and aimed a hasty hex toward it, successfully obliterating the damn thing with a blinding ball of light.
"Thanks, Potter," he mumbled, running along with me. Within a moment's decision, the arena morphed again. This time, we found ourselves back inside the maze, which had been fortified with large walls of bushes and vines. The distant hiss and howls of the nightcrawlers erupted all around us. I looked around, breathing heavily as I tried to get my bearings. Neville hadn't been the only one I was trying to protect; there was another player that he knew he couldn't lose, at least not yet. His expertise was the reason I've made it this far.
Grey eyes immediately pierced my vision. Before I could react, I'm slammed against the stone-like wall. Pain flowered from the impact. I winced and closed my eyes to ward off the onslaught of pain. From what we've been able to deduce, this was the haunting hour. We only needed to survive it before there was a moment of peace, a moment we could find shelter and the macabre creatures would retired. Malfoy wasn't making the task of surviving easy; if it hadn't been for his expertise regarding the creatures, I would've killed him ages ago.
"Are you mad, Potter?" he spat, pushing me against the wall to emphasize his anger. "I told you not to touch that damn thing. Now, you've woken it!"
"What hell are you talking about, Malfoy?" I hissed.
Draco's eyes darkened and he let me go. Though, he kept a far distance between us, the extreme look in his eyes was undeniable. Whatever I awoken, it was after us. I could feel it awakening, prowling the dark, dank maze. My skin crawled. I looked to my teammates, reading their energy. They, too, were aware of what was to come.
"Twenty more minutes," Neville deadpanned. "All we have to do is survive for another twenty minutes."
"That won't matter," Draco told us, standing his ground. His anger was palpable and it took ever ounce of my strength not to knock him out. "I know what this thing is capable of. It won't rest until it gets what it wants."
"What are our choices?" I asked, listening to the ambient world around us. Everything was calm, too calm. We all take a moment to look around, coming to find that we'd been transported near the cause of this whole mess. Whatever I did to do to break that picture frame, it had awoken its children. They've tasted my blood; something told me that's all that it needed to hunt. I take a good look around us, mapping out the arena in my head. It's been three days since we've woken up here. After a month of rest, the chancellor had hinted that this was where the next Horcrux would be; I could feel it in my veins.
"We've got to go head back." Draco straightened and looked around. "I've read about this creature. There are certain parts of the arena where it won't tread, but unlike the other creatures here, it doesn't have a time where it doesn't hunt."
"Is there any way of destroying it?"
Draco's grey eyes lit up and he shrugged. "You're the one who woke it up, Potter. So, you tell me."
It was undeniably my fault, so I'd just have to find a way.
"Give him a break, Malfoy," Astoria said. I almost forgotten she was still with us. The only survivor of her team, we'd picked her up in the last arena, giving us a fair advantage. Ron had played brilliantly. My heart clenched inside my chest at the image of watching my best friend be blown up. This trial had taken a toll on us all, and it wasn't right for Draco to blame me for everything. This hunt was the sadistic idea of our ruler, something designed to entertain him. We were all his pawns. "He's only trying to survive."
"Well, he isn't doing a great job of it!"
"Who died and made you our leader?" she hissed, dropping whatever weapon she procured and walked up to him. Significantly shorter than Draco, Astoria looked like a small tree compared to Draco's towering form. "You saw what happened back there. He's our only chance of ending this nightmare."
Draco took her words into consideration. I wouldn't forget the way he stopped to look at me, or the way my heart fluttered at the thought of how the ring on my finger had called out to me.