Chapter 2
9 May, TA 2992 Wizengamot Chambers
The next day held many things to be accomplished for the nine people on the newly formed Wizengamot. The first thing on their early agenda was to determine their surrounding environment. The people of Hogwarts needed to find out what any peoples in the area were like as well as finding out about the surrounding area outside of the immediately visible.
"Very well, we are agreed it is necessary to learn of our present surrounding. However, we need to maintain a large enough presence in the castle to repel any native force that we may have offended by being sent here." Clarified the new Chief Witch. She along with the other eight of the newly formed Wizengamot was gathered in the small chamber off of the Great Hall to the left of the staff table.
"That's a really good point." Harry acknowledged even as he was thinking fast, "Professor McGonagall, can you get activate the statues and suits of armour like you did for the battle but instead have them patrol the grounds?"
Her lips thinned which caused Harry to almost begin to defend himself before he realized it was because she was thinking about it and not in irritation at him. "I wouldn't want to try it long term but I think it could probably be maintained for a short while," she began slowly before continuing as she turned to shortest member of the group, "What do you think Filius, two maybe three days at the most?"
The small man cleared his throat before answering, "Yes, that sounds reasonable to me. We'd want to assume, of course, that it would be on the low end of the spectrum so that we won't have to reanimate them individually all over the grounds."
Harry looked around at everyone's faces and could see the same resignation that he felt. Each felt the losses from the battle yesterday morning and the night before. And then this was thrown at them so they couldn't even rest and recover. Instead they were dropped, unwillingly, into a completely unknown situation while a number of the castles inhabitants were injured.
Neville put his two cents in now that it was assured that the school would be safe while they sent out their explorers, "Whoever goes must be knowledgeable about what plants and beasts are out there. From the view I had yesterday, it appears that we are thankfully in a rather remote area but generally if there is no people in the area there is a reason."
"That means we need at least four people in each group." Said Slughorn, "There are the two Longbottom brought up, a third that is a proficient dueller, and the fourth to be the central authority and lead."
Before anyone else could comment Harry broke in, "Brooms." At the looks of confusion he explained, "At least one of them should be on a broom, preferably all of we can manage it. The school brooms should be sufficient to get a few groups of people in the air, and if not I'm sure there are enough for at least one for each group sent out."
Andromeda agreed, "He's right. From the air they'd be able to see further than anyone on the ground, both to actually find out what is in the vicinity and to see if a nearby needs help."
"So to the root of the matter, who do we send we ask to go?" Asked McGonagall in her typically brisk manner.
"Harry, my boy," Slughorn started before being interrupted by said boy. "Ah Professor, I don't think that'd be the best idea. We," Harry gestured around the gathering, "will have other things to do quite soon so most of us should probably stay here. What about Kingsley or Mr. Weasley?"
Professor Sprout smoothed it over before his interruption could cause a problem, "Those are fine suggestions, Mr. Potter but I really think that you would be another good leader. As would Mr. Longbottom and myself, I think." She looked at each of the young men in turn as if daring them to contradict her.
In the end she had her way and they had decided on sending out six groups led by the five they had discussed as well as Bill, assuming everyone agreed. Once that was determined they took a break to get some breakfast and talk to the other three so that they could in turn find four people to head out with them.
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Out in the great Hall Harry went to find Molly since she had little Teddy this morning. He hoped that when he found her, she'd at least know the whereabouts of the two Weasleys for which Harry was searching; even that was assuming they weren't right there with her.
Harry found both the elder Weasleys at the Gryffindor table, which now that he thought about he should have know they'd be there. Looking at Molly he thought she felt rather out of place not having to cook anything, but at least she had the baby to distract her. He walked toward them, calling out a greeting as he went, "G'Morning, Mr. Weasley, Mrs. Weasley."
He stopped next to Mrs. Weasley and looked down at the wide-eyed bundle and began in a somewhat obnoxious voice, "And good morning to you Teddy." After making a few faces and sounds at the baby he spoke to the Arthur again, thankfully in his normal voice, "I'm sure that you all want to be together as family right now, after... Well after Fred, but we were hoping we could get you and Bill to help with exploring wherever this is we're at now."
Poor Molly started sobbing at the reminder of her late son. Arthur tried to stop her, "None of that now Molly, you'll start Teddy up, too." He spoke quietly into her ear. He held her shoulders glancing over only at Harry's helpless expression he said, "Go fetch Bill, I'll be along shortly."
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Harry smiled as Arthur caught up with he and Bill just as they were coming to the staff table and joining the others already sitting around it, including the already seated Kingsley. Harry zoned out as the situation was explained to the read heads and thought back to when he had lost Sirius two years ago; he had been furious at everyone. It was a blessing that none of the Weasley's seemed to have done that yet. 'On the other hand,' he thought, 'Ron has always had a temper and George has just lost his other half.' It seemed fairly obvious to him that once George came out of the stupor he had fallen in he'd be furious at everyone. Harry came out of private thoughts as heard Bill's next line.
"I don't think that sending out five groups makes that much sense. Just stick to the cardinal directions, yeah?" his comment started quietly before he built up to what he really meant," And I agree with my Dad; I'm distracted enough right now I can easily see myself making a mistake. That's not the kind of guy you want to have in charge."
At that Harry decided to stay away from trying to push them into anything, plus he still needed food. He slowly loaded his plate so as not to interrupt Ernie basically reiterating Bill brief plan to try and pass it off as his own. Harry supposed he'd learn to put up with the pompous attitude; Ernie had after all stayed and fought the Death Eaters unlike a certain Smith. The only new information Harry could make out was assigned directions going clockwise around their seats relative to Ernie. Thus it was that starting at the North it went Sprout, Neville, Kingsley, and Harry.
McGonagall "Very well then you four had best get started on finding people to go with you."
Although he didn't verbally say anything he did very much agree. Time was of the essence since they had no idea what was out there and thus had no idea of any sort of posed a danger to them.
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Harry left the Great Hall and with the help of the Marauder's Map, went straight to the first person he'd thought of when the discussion had arisen. "Hey, Hagrid can you help me with something?" he asked.
"Anytime Harry, watter yeh need?" Hagrid asked as he put down the massive piece of rubble he was carrying out of the courtyard.
Harry smiled up at his first friend and explained, "We're setting up a few groups of people to go check around us and see what this place is like. I figured you and Grawp would be able to help fight off anything we might run into in the forest. Well, that and you know more about animals than anyone I know."
Hagrid chest was puffed out quite a bit with pride as Harry finished. "'I can do that. It'll just take me a mo' to go get Grawp and my crossbow. O' and Fang, too, yeah?" he wondered aloud.
"Thanks, Hagrid. Fang's a great idea." He answered, "I've got get a couple more people to find to come with us, they want a team of five. Meet you at your cabin in say, a half an hour?" When Hagrid answered in the affirmative and headed out to find his brother, Harry pulled the map out again to start looking at names.
Unlike the first time he wasn't searching for a specific person; instead he was going through them looking for any one he knew to be good at Herbology. After staring at it for what seemed like quite a while but was instead only minutes, he gave up and sent to find someone to fly but just as he started that he looked to the west of the school on the map and saw the Forbidden Forest. The need for flyers seemed to evaporate in his mind when he realized that anyone in the air wouldn't be able to see through the foliage to him. "Well in that case let's just see who I can find," he muttered to himself. Glancing down he saw Katie Bell, Alicia Spinnet, and Oliver Wood not far from away from him and that made up his mind for him.
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Harry slid around the corner and only just stopped himself from running into Oliver. "Sorry, Oliver. I didn't realize you were so close to the stairs." As he was trying to his pick his pride up of the floor amidst the girls and Oliver's ridiculous smirk Harry cleared his throat to try and explain what he wanted, "Actually I was looking for these two." He turned looked Katie and Alicia as once more asked for help to explore the immediate area.
"So how can you guys get to go have fun and I'm not invited." Oliver teased.
Though he said it with a Harry thought there was more than a hint of honesty in it. "Actually, Oliver, I think you should head down to Great Hall and talk to Neville or Professor Sprout. My group is headed into the forest and your skills on the broom would be useless, but those two have a bit more of a need for somebody in the air to watch out for them, kind of the perfect job for you."
Oliver laughed, "That sounds pretty true, Potter. Catch you later." He stepped around Harry and headed down the same stairs that Harry had run up minutes before.
Harry smiled at the girls before jesting, "So, ready to join Hagrid and I trying to see how many Giant Spiders we can piss off?" At that the anxious expressions that were spawned by that he tried to calm them down, "Relax, I'm sure we'll be fine. You took on the Death Eaters with no problem."
The three of them headed out to meet go meet Hagrid at his place, as they headed out Harry spotted the eldest three Weasleys with Kingsley and Dean loading into boats to cross the Black Lake. "Looks like Andy and Kreacher are taking Teddy for the day." He commented.
Harry and his two former team-mates made it the hut on the edge of the forest. "Ready to go, Hagrid, Grawp?" He called.
Alicia meanwhile was already gripping wand rather tightly, preparing herself to go into the place she'd had seven years to avoid entering. Even nearing midday the forest was a dark and rather forbidding place. The sunlight lit the first twenty feet or so around them but after that it was a rather muted light being filtered through so many tall trees that had grown together to act like a roof to the forest floor.
The path the five of them were following was headed in a north westerly direction from the castle and was one Harry remembered from his first year. It wasn't far from here that he had first run into Voldemort, well first time that he remembered. They hadn't even been walking for ten minutes when Hagrid spotted the end of the trail. It didn't stop like a path that been overgrown nor did seem like a game trail, instead the small length of packed dirt stopped abruptly in to the undergrowth.
Hagrid was kneeling inspecting the, new to them, growth obstructing them when they all heard a crashing sound and a booming barking coming toward them from the south. While the sound caused fang to hide behind Hagrid, it made Grawp roared and stomped that direction, since he had been in the group's north side. The giant was nearly destroying the trees in his hurry to pass them. A massive dog's head appeared in the gap that Grawp had caused, it was quickly followed by another head and then a third.
Just as Harry realized just what it was that had run toward them Grawp had whipped his massive fist around colliding with the side of the Cerberus' left most head. As Fluffy rolled over to get away from the giant Grawp was yelling in his massive voice, "No! No hurt Hagger!"
At this Hagrid went to defuse the ridiculous situation and Harry started cracking up. As his apparent received the strangest looks from Katie and Alicia, Harry explained, "That's Hagrid's dog. I met it my first year, its name is Fluffy." He attempted to reassure them that they'd be fine, though by their faces he had failed badly, before leading though the path of destruction to the now whining, though still fearsome animal and the rest of the group.
Hagrid took a bit to calm down both his brother and his pet, however once achieved they stayed on opposite sides of Hagrid as the group headed out into the new section of trees that though they didn't yet know it was one of the oldest in middle earth called Fangorn Forest.
The five were following a path that Harry had come up with really at whim. Since the original path they followed had lead them in a more northern direction than intended he thought they could just make a loop out of their travels. That way they could cover more ground then simply walking a straight line from the school grounds and then retracing all of their steps to come back.
They had turned south not quite hours into the hike. Not long after that they ran into a river flowing back toward Hogwarts. Deciding to follow this river result in a few splashes when Fang decided to play in it, of course his shaking himself off resulted in massive dirtying drops going everywhere including straight into Harry's face.
As they walked Harry noticed an off white line stretched across the trees in front of them. "Hagrid," he called, "Is that what I think it is?"
Hagrid grunted, "Eh, yeh that's Acromantula Silk. A few of 'em must o' been in this part o' the forest still when we got here."
Harry's first response to this was immediate 'Well shite,' in his mind. Audibly however, he called to the others, "Watch out for massive spiders. It looks like some of them have been in the area." His warning however was ill timed. It had caused the girls to turn to him when he spoke and thus they missed said beast coming up from behind them to pick up Alicia.
It was her scream that alerted the others inspiring a few rather expected actions. Fang of course hid like a coward and Hagrid started yelling at the Acromantula trying to reason with it like he had with Aragog and Masog. It was Harry and Grawp that did the most good, though.
Harry started flinging stupefy repeatedly,knowing it wouldn't hurt Alicia if he missed and her instead of the spider. He was already racing around to try and get a better angle on it so that Alicia wasn't between them so much. 'This isn't working I need something stronger.' On that note and in desperation since he didn't want to lose Alicia he tried Sectumsempra.
Unfortunately, for him the Acromantula had started to back pedal and was already making its way away from them. "We need to stop it!"
It was then that Grawp's swings finally connected he missed the body of the beast, which is a good thing or Alicia would have been squished as well, but managed to catch two of the legs bending them in a completely unnatural direction.
That gave Harry and idea. He put as much power behind the simple spell, and yelled out "Tarantallegra!" The spell hit the spider's hairy side and caused its legs to start jerking around in what would have been rather an amusing fashion if it hadn't been a killer beast that was still holding his friend in its massive pincers.
The Acromantula must have been in a goodly amount of pain since Harry's spell was forcing it to dance on its broken legs. Its actions supported this hypothesis, as it pincer's twitched and it made the most hideous of noises before dropping Alicia in its agony. Despite its twitching and having three quarters of legs usable it still managed to scuttle over a leaning tree to get to the other side and away from the wizards.
Katie finally unfroze and raced toward her friend. "Alicia are you okay? I'm so sorry I just froze, I couldn't do anything" She babbled despite Alicia reassurances. After a brief glance Harry left the two of them to make sure there weren't any more after all he'd always seen those things together, even the Triwizard Tournament had had a few in the maze.
He did in fact find another; or rather he discovered that Fluffy had found the other. When Harry had looked over he saw Fluffy laying down enjoying himself and wondered why the dag hadn't even tried to help them with the spider. It was as he was wondering this that he saw what it was doing that he understood.
Fluffy was laying along the bank of the river they had been following with one head lapping at the water's surface and the other two were happily munching away at what could have only been an Acromantula between them. The dog looked up at Harry when it saw him approaching and barked happily and picked up the bulk of the spider as if it were trying to say, "See look what I did,"
Unfortunately, not all the results of their run in were that good. The reason Alicia had thought she was fine was because of the spider's venom. Evidently, it was an anaesthetic to stop the prey from moving and so Alicia couldn't even feel the cuts to her side. She ended up not even being able to stand since her core was so affected.
They did end up making it back to the castle before the evening meal, although Hagrid had to carry Alicia the rest of the way, and Grawp, Fang, and Fluffy stayed backed in the forest itself or at Hagrid's in the case of Fang. Nurse Wainscott, Madame Pomfrey's assistant, was not in the least pleased to hear about what they had been doing when the four of them trooped into the hospital wing. After all she and Poppy still had people in their healing from the battle fought just days ago and only the two of them to heal them all. It was a blessing that at least Slughorn and a few of his students could make the potions they needed and that the one Alicia needed was in fact one they had already. Apparently, Slughorn had collected Acromantula venom from someplace and that is after all the hardest to find ingredient for the anti-venom.
Now that he knew Alicia would be fine Harry had to go find the Wizengamot and share what they'd found out about at least the north of the forest as well as finding out what they had been up to while he had been gone.