Heart of Fire
Chapter Two: Lost
A/N I do not own anything from the Harry Potter universe.
The sound of galloping hooves, startled Harry from his peaceful slumber, throwing his blanket aside he jumped to his feet, grabbed his bow, strung it, knocked an arrow, and had it drawn before his blanket even settled. The door bust open and Harry almost shot on instinct, but he recognized the Centaur that entered.
Garth came to a stop most of his horse half still outside the door, standing almost 2ft taller than Harry with brown hair and hazel eyes, "Harry Potter we have a problem" Garth spoke hurriedly, eyeing the drawn bow in his hands.
"What's wrong?" Harry said, lowering the bow slowly but left the arrow knocked.
"A female walked into Cloudfoot territory" Garth replied.
That perked Harry's interest. "Why would a centaur enter werewolf territory alone?" Even if it was a diplomatic visit centaurs always traveled together in groups. "That would be between Thain and Scar, Why come to me?" Harry asked curiously, as he returned his arrow to the quiver lying against the wall.
"I didn't say she was a centaur" Garth stated.
Harry froze, slowly turning back to face Garth "Fae?" Harry asked.
Garth shook his head and said the one word that set the whole forest on edge, "Human"
Harry said the only word that came to mind. "Shit!" He hurriedly began grabbing his stuff, "How long have they had her?"
"2 hours give or take" Garth answered.
"Have they administered the Bite yet?" Harry's voice was muffled, as he pulled on a long sleeve shirt.
"Not that I know of, but I doubt it will be much longer"
Harry belted his knife on and reached for his quiver. "There might still be time" he thought, before going on to ask "Are the Centaurs going to lend aid?"
Garth shook his head "You know what they're like, Centaurs don't like to get involved" he said simply.
"Then why are you here?" Harry asked though he thought he already knew the answer.
"I owed you a debt" Garth replied simply.
Harry nodded it was just as he thought. Garth who was turning to leave stopped to look over his shoulder when Harry called his name. "Garth….. Thank You"
A grin touched Garths lips for a second, "you are welcome Harry" he replied, before he walked out the door. Once he was outside though he broke into a gallop.
Harry finished settling the quiver on his back and reached for his bow again, he pulled up his hood and face mask so all you could see were his bright green eyes. He dashed outside, just stopping long enough to close the door. He continued dashing to the edge of the Camp, before stopping to look back. He got the feeling he wouldn't see this place again for a long time. Shaking his head to rid himself of these thoughts he ran into the trees.
Harry knew it would take him to long to get to werewolf territory on foot, but he had a different way of traveling that was much faster. Reaching up, he snagged a low hanging branch and used his momentum to swing himself up into its branches. He then began to run from branch to branch limb to limb. This was a fast way to travel especially when he could teleport to branches that were too far apart to jump to.
"I hope I'm not too late, if they administer the Bite already" Harry could already see the dominos falling in his head. First she'll turn, then she'll escape back to her town, then on the full moon she'll transform, causing her to lose her mind and bite anyone within reach, which would catch the attention of the so called Ministry he'd heard of, causing them to come and find out what happened. End result, the forest would never be the same. They would try to tame her as if she was a wild beast, burning her, chopping down her trees, forcing her people to register and live in a world of people that despised them for what they are.
Harry would not let that happen, the forest was his home and just as she had taken care of him over the years. He would do everything he could to take care of her. Shaking his head to once again dispel the thoughts he traveled even faster through the forest, hoping he was in time. Already dreading what he would have to do if he wasn't.
Change POV.
Nymphadora Tonks was having a very bad day. Here she was with a gag in her mouth and chained to the wall, but they weren't normal chains. She could feel her magical energy being drained by them, which rendered her Metamorphmagus ability useless. So she couldn't shrink her hands and slip out of the handcuffs. Her cloths were torn and shredded and she had scrapes and bruises everywhere. Tugging on the chains one more time before she gave up and sat down and tried the think what she did to deserve the bad day she was having. She started thinking over the past day to see if she could make any sense of it.
It all started with the water heating charms for the shower in her apartment giving out, so she had to take a cold shower. Then she found out that the floo network was down following the fact that the wards for the Ministry of Magic had decided to go haywire. Blocking Apparition so you couldn't Apparate anywhere inside it causing a lot of people to have walk to the Ministry. After that she thought her day couldn't get any worse, oh how wrong she was.
Now here she was sent on this mission, the mission was simple just investigate the Magical disturbances that had been popping up in the area. That is when she thought her day was looking up. "Finally" she had thought "my first solo mission, even if it is just a milk-run" that is when her day went downhill yet again. She was assigned a partner and not just any partner, one of the worst partners that she could ever be assigned. His name was Jake Monroe and he was the most sexist-perverted, arrogant son of a bitch she ever had the displeasure of meeting, and with her being a Metamorphmagus. (Someone that could change their hair color, eye color, height-Wight, and you get the rest) she was doomed.
The mission started out just fine with them leaving the Ministry and Apparateing to the edge of this forest, but shortly after entering things started to go crazy. For some reason they kept getting turned around. After a while they found themselves at a fast flowing river that Jake decided to follow, because her opinion didn't seem matter, though for once she actually agreed with him. So she followed him as he followed the river downstream for a bit until they came across one of the Xs Nymphadora had carved into the trees, as they wondered through the forest looking for anything out of the ordinary.
Now here they were somehow managing to get turned around once again even though they had been following a river. That is when Jake yelled in frustration, he had a date that night as he had been bragging about for the last coupled days. He cast an explosion hex at a nearby tree, shattering it into pieces with splinters going everywhere. They both froze when the forest around them seemed to moan when the tree was destroyed, she had told him to cut it out that shouldn't destroy things just because he couldn't stop from going in circles, they could have been hurt.
That is when he lost it, never in his life had a women told him what to do. Not even his own mother had ever told him what to do so long as he remembered, he was a pure-blood and she was nothing but a half-blood and she wasn't even a women but a girl and she had just told him what to do. Jake was outraged he turned pointing his wand and pointed it at her, "I am your superior in blood as well as rank and you will not speak like that to me" he spat.
She drew her wand and almost had it up in time to defend herself, but was too late. He cast a hurling hex, causing her to be thrown back and landing in the river. Before she could more than gasp at the coldness of the water, the current pulled her under before smashing up against a rock and causing her to lose conciseness.
She awoke after who know how long, soaking wet and a knot beginning to form on the side of her head. "First my partner turns his wand on me and I get hurled into the river, then I wash-up on this small beach unable to Apparate, not to mention the sun is setting and I'm soaking wet. At least I didn't lose my wand" When she had been thrown back, she sub concisely secured her wand back in its holster before hitting the cold water, at this point she couldn't see how things could get any worse.
She was proven wrong yet again a few hours later, when she was struggling her way through the underbrush. She had shortened her hair so it wouldn't get caught in the brush. The brush ended and she stumbled forward, with the sudden lack of resistance. Looking around she found herself in a small clearing. Through the gap in the trees she could see it was a full moon, no sooner had she looked up then she heard a wolfs howl.
She shivered hoping she's heard wrong, in training they had been taught the difference between a wolf howl and a werewolf howl. There wasn't much difference but enough to for those trained and that wasn't a regular wolf howl, that was a werewolf and it was hunting. Just then it howled again, but this time others answered it from all around her. She felt dread settle into her stomach it wasn't alone.
She saw movement out of the corner of her eye, turning she draw her wand but even as she did they charged. She counted "1…2…3…4" she thought dodging and casting every spell that came to mind, she managed to severely injure one with a cutting curse across the chest. Due to the werewolf's hard skin the spell didn't go all the way through, but it still caused major damage. Her victory was short lived however, as another one landed a blow across her cheek sending her flying into a tree before sliding to the ground with an audible thump. The last thing she saw before darkness covered everything was the other three werewolves drawing closer.
Still unable to understand why this all happened to her. She sighed, when she heard the door open, looking up she scrambled to her feet as a fully transformed werewolf walked in. Her heart rate skyrocketed, the only thought going through her head was "how can it be fully transformed?" she could clearly see the sun shining outside. As it approached, she backed-up until her back hit the wall.
"If you cause trouble, I won't hesitate to kill you" it growled, as it started to undo her chains.
"It can talk" she thought.
It sneered as it finished undoing her chains. Leaving the handcuffs on it shoved her toward the door. Having no choice but to compile she began walking, but when she passed the threshold of the door she stopped again in shock. There were werewolf's everywhere she looked and they all turned to look at her. As she emerged from the small shack she was in, turning she could see it didn't look as big from the outside as it did from the inside. She was given another violent shove, this time it sent her stumbling. "Keep moving" the werewolf that was escorting her commanded.
At this point she was starting to hyperventilate, her rational mind trying to make sense of what was going on. "What's going on here? Werewolf's fully transformed? it's the middle of the day. This just can't be happening" she was so busy looking at the werewolves and didn't see the rock before it was too late. She tripped landing on her stomach sending all the air from her longs, desperately trying to breathe as she saw spots dance in her vision. She was picked up and shoved forward once again, this time she managed to stay on her feet and finally managed to pull much needed air into her lungs. Taking two more steps she felt the chains jerk behind her forcing her to stop.
They had come to a stop in the center of a circle of rocks about ten feet from end to end. Probably the same rocks she had tripped on. The rocks were about as big as her head around her, with some kind of markings inscribed into them though she was too far away to see clearly. There were also two posts in the ground one on either side of her. She barely had enough time to take it all in, before she was forced to her knees. They took off the handcuffs and chained one hand to each of the two posts. "Well at least I know what the posts are for" she thought with a small laugh.
The fear started to take hold of her again. The werewolf's had started to gather around the circle of rocks as she was being chained down. She counted at least 30 in all she thought but couldn't be sure, "eye's front human" the werewolf behind her growled. Looking forward quickly she notice a white werewolf with red eyes approaching. She decided it was male there was something about the way he walked that screamed male.
As he came closer she notice he had stripes of slightly darker fur they went from his shoulders down at an angle to each hip crossing in the middle which made it look like an X. She thought it was a scar at first, but as he drew closer she noticed it was just slightly darker fur. The only scar that was on him was clearly visible on his side just by looking at it she was surprised it hadn't killed him, it looked so bad. The werewolf came to a stop in front of her, the werewolves around her knelt down on one knee and bow their heads in respect. She supposed he was the leader of the pack, the leader gave a brief nod of his head and they rose once more to their feet. He then turned his attention to her, as soon as she looked up into those red eyes she felt a shiver run down her spine, but she wouldn't look away. She refused to look away.
"It seems a human has once again trespassed on our territory, my brothers and sisters didn't I tell you this would happen after that annoying brat of a boy came to live here in this forest" he spoke loud enough, so that he could be heard by the rest of the werewolves. A low growl met his announcement. "But, unlike last time you don't have a weak chief and I won't allow this trespasser to walk free like the last one" she could feel the glares coming from the assembled werewolves. "I'm not without mercy however, I will let this human decide her fate" the gag was then removed from her mouth, but before she could say anything the werewolf began speaking again. "So I give to you a choice human, you can either join us and become a fellow werewolf or you can die" he knelt down and grabbed her chin with his long fingers bringing her eyes level with his, and whispered "it would be a shame to ruin such a pretty face, wouldn't you agree" with what looked almost like a smirk. She didn't like the look in his red eyes one bit. She then did the most stupid thing she could have done, she spat at in his face.
"I would rather die than become one of you" she growled with all the hate she could muster. She felt him remove his hand and a second later he hit her across the face with the back of his hand. If she hadn't been chained down she would have collapsed from the blow, her vision almost going black from the blow she heard him start to speak aloud once more to the assembled werewolves.
"You see I try to be nice and give her a choice to live and join us and this is how she repays my generosity" he stopped to wipe his face with his hand, before continuing on. "And now I have no choice but to kill her" he stopped for a second before saying in a whisper. "I'll take great pleasure in killing you human" she could see hate in his eyes as he raised his hand and she watched as his claws grew until they were two to three inches long. She felt a pair of hands pull her head back exposing her throat. She could barely see him go for her exposed throat, closing her eyes realizing she couldn't hear anything do to the blood pounding in her ears. She took a deep breath and waited for the pain as her throat was slashed open.
A/N Thanks for reading, and thank you for the positive reviews on the last chapter, so I hope you like this chapter, read and review please, Suggestions are welcome, until next chapter bye. Updated 2/21/2016. Hopefully I fixed a lot of the issues with the chapter.
