Chapter 3: The Emerald Forest


A/N: Here we go. Another chapter for you. I hope you enjoy and that our first fight scenes live up to your expectations. As the story progresses, fights will get harder and hopefully I'll get better at stretching them out a bit. Also, when classes start Harry will have to work harder to hide his magic from his classmates then he does in this chapter. Please leave me a review and let me know what you think. I've been blown away by the amount of people following and favoriting this story in a only a couple days. I have a feeling this will go on to be my most popular fic… so again, thank you for reading.


Harry was going to kill Ozpin. Who thought that launching teenagers off of a cliff was a good test of how to get admittance to a school? He realized he probably shouldn't complain though, some of the things he'd seen witches and wizards do back home, were pretty backwards. Putting the thought of his impending landing out of his head, Harry actually thought he might have enjoyed this, if he happened his broom with him.

Thinking about his broom and Quidditch, made him start to contemplate the different ways he'd landed in the past. Not all of them had been smooth but, the only one where he'd fallen from great height had been in third year and unfortunately he'd been already unconscious at that point. Harry remembered Hermione telling him that Dumbledore had cast Arresto Momentum on him which he could recall learning in second year but, he had no idea if it could be cast on oneself.

That's when he ran into his next conundrum. Luckily, he'd managed to keep a firm hold on his sword as he sailed through the sky but, there was no way he'd be able to unclip his wand without dropping something. It was obvious he had to hurry up as the trees were starting to come dangerously close to his body. The other problems were figuring out how to point the sword at himself without being skewered and whether he would even be able to cast with it in the first place

Managing to somewhat wave it towards his body he firmly, or at least as firmly as he could while falling out the sky, intoned, "Arresto Momentum!"

At first Harry didn't think anything had happened but he felt the sword warm slightly under his grip as his velocity started to slow. He wasn't moving fast enough to kill himself now but, still enough to cause serious injury. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, the tree branches soon served as an additional means of slowing down and the last minute cushioning charm cast on the ground saved him from any harm.

Dusting himself off, he looked around the small clearing and only now realized he didn't know what to do next. Ozpin had told him before that they would meet their partners for the assignment at this point of initiation but, he wasn't sure how that was supposed to take place. Before he could contemplate this further, he heard it. A low grumble reminiscent of Fluffy, the giant three headed dog, behind him, coming out of the woods. Turning around he almost wished this was round two with Fluffy because this thing didn't seem like it could be lulled to sleep with the sound of a wooden flute. The monster in question almost reminded him of a werewolf, except it was several times larger and had pitch black fur. He knew from the studying he'd done over the past few weeks that this was a Beowulf. This didn't help him much in figuring out how to take it down but he attributed the fact that he didn't freeze up to the fact that he'd faced plenty of fearsome creatures in his life.

Raising his sword as it hummed to life, the Beowulf prowled closer. He knew it would strike at him soon, and figuring that since it had worked once before with the Basilisk, he planned to let it skewer itself. Moments later, he realized that one he had learned from this experience was that this tactic did not work in every situation, as the sword had been batted right out of his hands by a swipe of its giant paw. That's how he found himself flat on his back, pinned to the ground under the weight of the massive beast glancing forlornly at his fallen blade, just out of his reach.

Harry was seriously thinking this was his end, when he heard a loud cry. Suddenly the Grimm was shifted off of him. Blinking in surprise, he sat up to see Pyrrha standing in front of him with her shield raised. He couldn't see any other weapon present. Looking over he saw the the Beowulf lumbering back to its feet. He realized Pyrrha must have bashed it with her shield. He didn't even want to think about the strength required to send the Grimm flying that far.

"I need to borrow this," he saw her looking towards his fallen sword. Before he could get a word in, she had it snagged it off the ground only to fling it away a moment later as if burned. Cradling her one hand, she just barely raised her shield in time to deflect the next hit causing her to stumble backwards.

"Are you ok?"

"I'm fine." She dived to the side. "You need to get out of here." She ducked under another horizontal swipe. "I'll try and hold it off as long possible."

From the conversation he'd overheard earlier, Harry knew Pyrrha was skilled. Actually, it sounded like she was probably the most skilled student of their year but, even he knew she couldn't kill a Grimm of that size with just a shield. "There's no way I'm leaving you here alone with this thing!"

She turned to him in surprise, obviously unused to someone questioning her ability in a fight. It was that distraction that gave the Grimm the opening he needed. He saw it lunging at her unprotected back as if in slow motion. Stretching his hand out towards her he acted without thinking, "Accio Pyrrha!"

She was jerked off her feet, and crashing into him a moment later. The sudden drain on his magic and having the wind knocked out of him, left him in a daze, staring into her green eyes, inches away from his own. He couldn't help but marvel about how bright they were.

They were both startled out of their moment by the roar of the Grimm, enraged after missing its prey. The both of them blushing, she started to move off him. As he sat up he saw Pyrrha raise her arm and suddenly her fallen shield was zooming back towards her. Scrambling to his feet beside her, they both stared down the Grimm that was slowly circling back around.

He hurried over to where his sword had landed and picked it up, feeling it's now familiar hum. Harry wasn't sure what had happened to her weapon but, she would obviously be able to use his blade more effectively than he could. Returning to her side, he ejected his wand and offered her the hilt. "This should work for you now."

She shot him a quizzical look but accepted it nonetheless. He sighed in relief that his theory had been correct. He would have looked like either a complete idiot or an utter arse if it had still burned her. His working theory was that it had something to do with the bond between him and his wand attempting to protect itself but, he knew now was not the time to think about that.

"It might still be best if you get out of here while I have it distracted, especially now that I have your weapon."

"I only gave you half of my weapon." Harry brandished his wand. He knew he was essentially telling Ozpin to shove it, after he'd specifically asked him not to show off his magical abilities but this was life or death. This was probably what Hermione liked to call his saving people thing. There was a small, teensy, tiny chance that he, subconsciously of course, did in fact want to show off in front of Pyrrha, but he was sure it was just the saving people thing. "If you use my sword, I'll back you up from a far. I'm better with ranged attacks."

"Are you sure?" Eyeing his wand.

"I'm sure."

He was pleasantly surprised that she took him at his word, wasting no time in launching her attack. He was in awe. She moved through different stances with a practiced ease. Ducking and dodging the Grimm's attacks, while lashing out at the perfect moments to do the maximum damage. She didn't seem to need his help, which was good as he'd realized almost immediately that he couldn't safely attack himself without being at risk of hitting her.

With a final leap and large two handed strike, the Grimm's head was separated from its body. Landing gracefully like a cat, she paused to watch the monster's body disintegrate before relaxing her posture and smiling at his direction.

Of course, two more Grimm chose that moment to charge out of the woods towards Pyrrha and their fallen brethren. Not wanting her to be overwhelmed by the sudden attack, Harry pointed his wand in their direction, yelling, "Protego!"

He saw the telltale glimmer on the air as the shield was raised, which was confirmed seconds later as the two Beowulves rebounded off it with a loud bang. Shaking their heads, they turned their attention towards him.

"Petrificus Totalus!" One of the Grimm was frozen but, he wasn't sure how long it would last on something so big. The other was still charging towards him. Pyrrha was staring at him wide eyed. "Take care of the one over there! I've got this one." Turning back around he incanted, "Bombarda!"

The Grimm went sailing through the air with loud crack. It seemed his spell had shattered the mask-like bone that covered its face but, it was still alive. Once it got back to its feet, it was charging again. It seemed that the books were right, most Grimm were not intelligent and had no sense of tactics. "Diffindo!" Harry swept his wand along its midsection hoping his cutting curse would do more damage yet, he didn't expect it to completely sever the beast in two.

Looking up above it's remains, he saw Pyrrha approaching him, having already dispatched the other Grimm he'd immobilized. "Good job! Were you injured at all?"

"No, I'm good. You?" He gave her a once over but there didn't seem to be a hair out of place. It probably wasn't the best idea for his concentration.

"I'm fine as well. What you did was amazing! How exactly does your semblance work?" She looked excited but soon blushed and looked towards the ground. Harry was pretty sure it was because that could be considered a very personal question. "You don't have to answer that now if you don't want to but we'll probably have to discuss it eventually since we're partners."

"We're partners?"

"Of course! Didn't you listen to the Headmasters instructions."

"Well… after I talked to you in the locker room… I sort of arrived to the cliff late and missed what he said," Harry admitted sheepishly.

"Oh… ok. He said that we would be partners with the first person we make eye-contact with… which we did. Later we'll be matched up with another pair to form a team for our four years here at Beacon."

Thinking back to that moment Harry'd got an up close look at her eyes, he couldn't help but think, 'Oh did we ever.'

"For all four years?" Harry was surprised but very pleased.

"I hope that's not a problem." Harry could detect the hurt in her tone immediately.

"No! Of course not. Sorry I was just surprised! I knew we would have partners for this task but I didn't know it was for our whole time here. Why wouldn't I want to be your partner? I have to admit that I didn't know who you were before, but even without that white haired girl listing out all your accomplishments, I would have been able to tell from just a few minutes ago how skilled you are. Plus, you seem nice… I think we'll get along just fine. What do you say… partner?"

Pyrrha smiled and her eyes were shining again, he idly noticed. "That sounds acceptable… partner." She continued on with a bit more hesitance, "And your semblance."

Harry sighed. "It's complicated." Now that he knew they would be partners for so many years, he knew he would have to explain his situation to her at the very least, if not his whole team, so seeing her downtrodden look he continued, "Really it's complicated. I'll tell you but we don't have time now for me to explain it. It'll have to be later." Thankfully she seemed to accept that.

"Your sword has a good balance." She tried to pass it back to him.

"Keep it for now. You know what your doing. I'm better with what I have. What happened to your weapon?"

"You know that blond boy from earlier? He didn't seem to have a landing strategy and was just flailing about in the air. I didn't want him to die, even if he started bugging me for an autograph at the end there, so I used Milo to spear his shirt to a tree and break his fall."

She looked slightly guilty at her solution but Harry couldn't contain his laugh, "You speared Jaune to a tree to break his fall? That's too good!"

"Wait! You know him?"

"He ran into me yesterday… quite literally. I helped him up and he struck up a conversation. Other than that I don't know him."

"We should probably let him down before we continue on our journey."

"Lead on and I'll follow."


Harry stayed several feet behind Pyrrha as they approached the tree where Jaune was supposed to be, so he could keep his eye out for Grimm. Scanning the trees around him he heard Jaune's jubilant cry of, "Pyrrha!"

"Hello Jaune."

"Thank you so much for saving me! I think I might have been a pancake right now otherwise."

"It was no problem Jaune. I'm sorry had use such methods. Let me get you down from there."

"Does this mean we're partners now?" Harry felt a strange tightening in his gut at this seemingly innocent question but he hurriedly stepped out of the shadows anyway.

"Oh, I'm sorry Jaune. I'm already partnered with Harry here." She motioned in his direction.

"Hey buddy!" Harry called up to the blonde.

"Oh… hey Harry." Harry couldn't help but feel twinge of guilt at his dismayed expression.

"If you still have your eyes set on that other girl you were talking to earlier, you might still be able to find her if she doesn't have a partner." Harry was happy to see his plan work, as Jaune's eyes lit up.

"That's a great idea! I'll go find Weiss!" Harry filed that name away for future reference. "Well… after I get down from here."

"Sorry!" Pyrrha waved her hand again like earlier as her weapon was yanked out of the tree and, flew to her hand. Harry waved his wand just in time to slow Jaune's fall and set him on his feet gently.

"Wow! How'd you do that?" Harry wanted to bash his own head up against a tree. He was now certain that he will have used his magic in front of all of the students by the end of this stupid test. It was just so instinctive that he didn't even think about it most of the time.

"Err… you know… tricks of the trade." To his relief, Jaune seemed to buy it.

"Still, that pretty cool. You'll have to show me more sometime. Anyway, I gotta go find Weiss! See you guys later." And he was off tromping through the bush.

"Do you think he'll be ok on his own?" Pyrrha looked slightly concerned.

"I'm sure he'll be fine! He got into this school didn't he?" Pyrrha nodded at his conclusion but as he said it, he couldn't help but wonder who was trying to convince. "So where to next?"

"Well, Professor Ozpin said we have to head north to a forest temple. There we have to collect some kind of relic and then climb the cliff to finish.

"Sounds easy enough." Realizing there was no point in hiding any of his abilities from her now, he set his wand in the palm of his hand. "Point me." The wand spun around like a compass needle, finally coming to a rest in the desired direction. "We need to go that way."

He glanced over at his partner to see her shaking her head in exasperation, a small smile gracing her lips. Passing back his sword, that he then attached to his hip, she copied his earlier words, "Lead on."


Luckily for them, they didn't have to fight any more Grimm on the rest of their trek. They did come across a cave at one point though. Harry wasn't sure if it was considered the temple, especially with the strange old carvings near it's entrance, or if they just had to pass through it to reach their destination. Instead of going in blind, Harry decided to shine one of his overpowered Lumos, search light powered, spells into the mouth of the cave. He was very glad that he did, when they locked eyes with a huge Death Stalker that came scurrying towards them. After some quick thinking on his part, and two jabs of his wand later, the cave entrance had collapsed. One more flourish and he'd transfigured the loose rubble into a single slab of heavy stone. They'd decided to go around the small mountain after that.

Therefore it was a considerably more relaxed Pyrrha and Harry that finally laid eyes on the forest temple. "I think that's it."

"I agree. It appears a few of our comrades have already arrived."

Approaching the large stone structure, Harry immediately recognized one of the students already there as Ruby's older sister Yang and another girl with black hair. Entering the ruins, he noticed pillars scattered about, all but one carrying a random chess piece.

"I think these are the artifacts we need. Which one do you want to take?"

"I don't know. I think there might be a significance to the piece we take. It might have something to do with how we get chosen for teams. Did you notice that there are two of every style of piece?"

"I didn't but, I do now that you pointed it out." Harry thought over this carefully, he was used to Hermione making these kind of choices in the past but, it seemed that in this situation it was mostly up to luck. "We might as well just choose a random one. Only one relic has been taken so far, so there's no strategic value to being picky unless you want to wait for more people to show?"

"No, I think it's best for us to finish the initiation as soon as possible… if you agree?"

"Of course. I'd love to get out of here, hopefully without any more fighting." Glancing around quickly once again. "How about this one?" He snatched up the white Rook piece, only knowing its name after playing countless games against Ron over the years.

"Sure."

Both were startled to hear a loud cry coming from the entrance of the ruins. Rushing out, Harry was confused to see Ruby scrambling off the ground into a standing position. Yang's new partner spoke, "Did your sister just fall from the sky?"

Yang started to respond, "I-," but was cut off as one of the other students, a short redheaded girl, came riding in on a massive Ursa before it slumped to the ground dead.

"Did we just see that?" He asked looking to Pyrrha. She seemed as shocked as he felt.

Suddenly, Harry noticed Ruby was pointedly wildly at the sky about something, "Oh my god! Weiss! She didn't jump."

Looking upwards he spotted a giant Nevermore clutching the white haired girl, Weiss, who moments later was now falling through the sky. Sighing, he wasn't sure why he was relegated to saving people from crashing into the ground during this whole mission but, he once again flicked his wand a couple times, more subtly than before of course.

The screams of horror from his soon to be classmates all cut off quite dramatically when the girl bounced off the ground like a trampoline, from his overpowered cushioning charm, rather than becoming a splattered mess. They all just sat there staring, trying to figure out what happened, while Harry held back. He noticed Pyrrha watching him, an eyebrow raised in question. He just shrugged in response.

Clicking his wand into his sword, he raised it pointing towards the sky, "That thing is coming back!" Successfully distracting them, they all began clamoring for their weapons. "Anyone have any ideas on how to ground it? We won't be able to kill it while it's flying around."

"I'm on it! Ren! Give me a boost!" The small redhead that had ridden in on the Ursa called to her partner. He seemed to be gathering aura as she jumped into his cupped hands.

"No! Wait! It's too dangerous. We need to make a-" She was off, already rocketing upwards, his last word falling on deaf ears. "...plan."

The girl, Nora he believed he had heard her being called, was now firing her gun at the ground, giving her further lift. As she reached the apex of her arc, which was higher than the Grimm she was attacking, her gun started to lengthen into the form of a giant hammer. Realizing what she was going to do, he started running towards where he thought the giant bird would land.

He heard the resulting smack, almost like a clap of thunder, as the hammer collided with the Grimm and they both tumbled towards the ground. To his relief, this girl seemed to have her own landing strategy and he was able to focus on the growing shadow on the ground before him.

A quick wave of his hand cast the impervious charm on his glasses. Even though he knew it would cost him, he was immediately glad that he did as he was hit by the giant dust cloud that the Nevermore kicked up. As soon as it began to settle, Harry charged forward, raising his sword with a cry of "Incendio!" Just like he'd pictured in his mind, his blade was wreathed in thick, roiling flames. He almost dropped it because of the heat. He put all his weight behind his downward strike but, he was still surprised at the ease of which it cut through the bone mask protecting its head. It had hit true, and was sunk to the hilt between the Grimm's eyes.

As it began to disintegrate around his blade, he cancelled the fire with a "Finite." It was only then that the exhaustion hit him. Harry knew he'd obviously pumped too much energy into the spell, and all the others he'd cast today. He'd need to work on his control soon. Fighting to stay conscious, the amount of weight he rested on his sword steadily increased. Fortunately, Pyrrha arrived a moment later, helping to hold him upwards.

"That was an incredibly foolish thing to do," her stern expression swarm into his range of vision.

"I know." His voice sounded slightly slurred. "But it worked."

"Yes. It did." She rolled her eyes.

"I think I'm going to have a short nap now."

The last thing he heard before he completely lost consciousness was Ruby's excited voice, 'That was so cool!"


Next time on The Wizard and the Grimm...

Harry and Pyrrha have their talk and explanations are given, we find out about teams, and classes are started.