Harry felt the familiar tug of a portkey release his navel as he landed in a heap in the dirt. He groaned pushing his face off the ground, spitting out leaves and dirt out of his mouth, as he blindly grabbed for his glasses. He found them carefully putting them on, glad that they hadn't broken, as he looked around in confusion.

All around him, as far as he could see in any direction, were ferns closely growing together and enormous trees with trunks several yards around that reached farther into the sky higher than any building Harry had ever seen except for maybe Hogwarts herself. There was nothing around that clued him into where he was though.

Sighing he reached for his wand and realized with horror that he didn't have a wand anymore. It had been destroyed when his link with Voldemort had been destroyed. Both of their wands had dissolved into nothingness when Harry had finally killed the dark lord. Now he was safe from Voldemort's wrath, but stuck in the middle of a forest with no wand, no way to apparate, or cast a patronous to send a message or even perform a simple point-me spell.

He grimaced while looking at the trees. The trunks were too wide to get a good grip on to climb and there weren't any branches until several stories up. There was no way he would be able to climb them and see where he should go. The height of the branches also hindered him by blocking his view of the sun making it impossible to tell whether it was rising or setting or in what direction.

He turned a slow circle trying to determine if there was any path or trail he could follow but there was solid plant life on all sides of him. Each direction looked practically the same as what was next to it on top of the lack of noticeable path.

Biting his lip, Harry randomly picked a direction. He had already been gone for five days and any longer Draco would start to suffer the side effects of the separation from him, not to mention that he was more than a little worn out himself.

Walking though the forest wasn't exactly easy with how close the plants, mainly ferns, were packed together, but there were small animal trails that he could follow that helped him to navigate around some of the larger foliage. Most of the plants that he did have to push past let him by fairly easily. There was one fern that sliced his arm open when he tried to walk through it electing a sharp yelp as he pulled the sharp grabby plant away from arm. Luckily though most plants didn't have the same violent defenses.

One plant he had recognized while trudging though the forest was a large amount of Stinging Nettle. He had already almost walked into a large plant and the cut from the sword like fern was already itching and irritated and he didn't want to deal with more pricks and itching from the large spiny plant.

There were very few animals around that he was worried about meeting, most forest dwelling creatures that were big enough to cause him any kinds of problems were nocturnal and as long as he had found some kind of shelter by then he would be fine. The only thing creatures that he worried about for a second were bears, and wolves. If wolves found him there wouldn't be anything he could do and it was in the middle of winter so he severely doubted that any bears would be wandering around, even if it was warmer than usual for a winter day.

Harry walked through the forest for what he gauged had been an hour since he had first started walking, when he heard rustling ahead of him. He moved warily. His first thoughts of it being a person were shot down instantly when he heard a large growl and a bear come into view. Any hopes that a bear would be hibernating right now were shot down as his luck failed him again.

The bear roar and took a step towards him, growling angrily. Harry took froze for only a second before he spun on his heels and crashed through the underbrush disregarding the ferns that were cutting at his arms and pulling at his robs. He didn't stop until he tripped over one of the enormous tree roots that and worked it way out of the dirt stopped him in his tracks.

He sprawled onto the ground the breath instantly knocked out of him. Gasping for the air that his lungs were denying him, he tried to scramble up and only succeeded in tripping over another sneaky tree root. Breathing heavily on the ground he realized with relief that the bear wasn't chasing him. It probably hadn't been chasing him to begin with he realized, remembering the smaller mound of brown that had been a the bears feet.

The bear had been protecting its cub, Harry realized as he pulled himself up from the ground tenderly, wincing as the dirt and forest floor he brushed off his arms rubbed into his new cuts and scrapes. That was not something that he had been expecting. Winter was not the time for cubs of any kind let alone bear. Something prickly uneasily at the back of his neck as he looked backwards from where he had run.

There wasn't anything he could do though. He know had a bigger problem. He had no idea which direction he had been originally traveling. The only way that he could make sure that he wasn't double back on himself would be to double back to where he had met the bear and his common sense told him not to test fate more than he needed to. With his luck there would be a pack of wolves there now too. Sighing he looked around and noticed with interest that in one direction the foliage seemed to be thinner or at least not as difficult to navigate around as it had been up until this point.

His elation at trudging through slightly less dense foliage was short lived when he realized that the sun was no longer as high as it had been when he had landed in the forest and that a setting sun meant that he would have even less time before he had to look for some kind of shelter for the night, if he couldn't find some kind of civilization soon. Biting back worry he pressed on determined to go for as long as possible before the sun gave out on him.

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Another short chapter, sorry. They do get longer the farther into the story we go, I promise. I realize there are some things that may seem weird or not possible season wise, but believe me they'll make more sense farther into the fic. Read and Review please!