Chapter 7

The Forbidden Forest

I'm not sure what I can say to make things more clear in this chapter, but I'll try.

From the Young Wizards: There is supposed to be a way to send messages by manual, and swearing by Life's name is, I think, very significant/powerful.

Otherwise: Quickbeam is the "hasty" Ent from Lord of the Rings. I haven't seen the Two Towers movie, so I don't know what that has of him in it. Kit is just weird.

We were walking to the Great Hall when my manual started humming. I pulled it out, and the page it opened to said:

Young wizards,

We must speak with you. Please come to the edge of the Forbidden Forest tonight if you can. We swear in Life's name that we will not hurt you.

Sleeping bags had appeared in the Hall where the tables used to be. I sat down and whispered the odd message to Dawna and Evan. I told them I had no idea who or what this was from or what to do. Not many things swear by Life, I added.

Evan's response was surprising. "Evil is here. Darkness. I'll go."

"Well," I said, "you give us no choice."

My manual started humming again. It said:

Did you just get a really weird message?

Tom and Leianna

I replied:

Yes. Evan, Dawna, and I are going.

Fae

Almost as soon as I finished writing, I got:

Something sent me a message to meet at the Forbidden Forest. Should I go? I don't know what to do.

Steven

I sent to him, Tom, and Leianna:

I will go. If you are coming, meet us outside the Great Hall, invisible, after everyone has settled down.

The moon will be full tomorrow night.

Fae

Dawna turned into a mouse to keep me from being forced to keep all three of us under a spell. I only had to keep Evan and myself invisible. But if we were caught, it would be my fault. It was my spell, and, worse, they wouldn't have left the Great Hall without permission if it weren't for me. It was a big responsibility. We would be in enormous trouble if anyone saw us.

I almost lost my concentration in fear when Harry looked our way. But his eyes slid off us as if we were covered with slippery, unreal oil. We made it out safely. I started to relax before I realized that that had been the easy part.

The six of us met. Tom quickly took Dawna under his power so she didn't have to stay a mouse. She had told us that the greater the size change, the more exhausting her shapeshifting was.

"Dai stihò," I said. "What are we planning to do?"

"I was hoping you would know," said Steven.

"We'll sneak out of the school, wait at the edge of the Forest for the centaurs or whatever, find out what they want, hope they keep their oaths, run away if they don't, sneak back in, and try to not get caught. What could be easier?" asked Tom sarcastically.

"Do they count as wizards?" asked Leianna, indicating Evan and Dawna.

"Shouldn't we?" asked Dawna

"It's just that in the Speech, we have a distinction between different kinds of magicians, and 'wizard' is very descriptive," Leianna explained.

"You might need me, in case they don't keep their promises, whoever they are," said Evan. He touched something under his robes.

"Let's get out of here before someone notices that six first years are having a conversation outside of the Great Hall," I suggested.

"Brilliant idea," said Leianna, half-joking.

We crept out of the castle. You'd think, after all these years, the teachers would charm the doors to let no one out or in, but the locks opened the moment Tom started to talk to them in the Speech. Almost as if they were eager to let us out. Maybe so many people do it that the door and the locks don't mind anymore.

The moon, almost full, was veiled by clouds. This was good in that no one could see us even without invisibility spells, but bad because we couldn't see.

Something struck me.

Actually, two things. One was a raindrop. I walked faster. The other:

"Evan, do you have a lightsaber? In your cloak?" I asked.

"Yes."

"Cool!" whispered Dawna.

"Where did you get it?" asked Steven. "I thought you had never been away from Earth."

"I haven't. My grandfather gave it to me. I think he made it, but I'm not sure. It's not a very good lightsaber, anyway."

"So what?" I asked. I didn't quite know what he meant by a "good" lightsaber.

It had begun to sprinkle with rain. We put up four different shields against the rain. It should have been one shield, but we didn't have time to figure out how to work together.

We stood at the edge of the Forbidden Forest, enough under the trees so that we could let down our shields and stay dry.

"It didn't say where on the edge," I said, looking for something coming to talk to us. Evan's rabbit jumped out of his robes and sat, shivering, on the ground.

"I don't see any centaurs," said Tom.

"We don't know it is centaurs," pointed out Evan.

"What else could send us a message from the Forbidden Forest?" asked Steven.

"Maybe it doesn't usually live there," Dawna suggested. "Maybe it's a wizard."

"Or one of the Powers that Be," I added.

"Or…" Steven left the sentence hanging.

"That One doesn't swear by Life," I scolded him. I didn't want to even think about the Lone Power on a night like this.

"Maybe it's a werewolf who is going to transform tomorrow," said Dawna.

Almost as soon as she said that, a small wolf wandered out of the forest.

"Is that a werewolf?" I asked nervously.

"It must be," said Leianna. "It's in these woods."

The wolf stopped, looked at us, and turned into a red-haired girl. I decided it would be unwizardly to "freak out," as Dawna says, because of a little girl. But the only natural shapeshifter I had ever heard of was Dawna, and it takes years of study to become an animagus.

"Poke," the girl said calmly. I could feel my eyes widen as I realized that she was the girl that had appeared at the library the first time all four of us wizards met. "Hi. It's okay. I can control it."

"How did you do that?" asked Leianna in a tight, frightened voice. Her hands were covering her mouth as if she had tried to cover up a scream.

"I'm a werewolf-animagus," she explained cheerfully.

I heard something above us. Something said, "Kit…stop frightening them," very slowly from the trees. Evan's rabbit leapt into Kit's hands in terror. She stroked it to calm it.

"Sorry," she said.

"What's that?" I asked, looking above us for something. What could it be? A centaur in a tree?

"Quickbeam, of course," said the girl.

"What?" asked Evan.

She rolled her eyes. "An Ent. What else?" She let the rabbit jump to the ground, turned into a wolf, and ran back into the woods.

"What!" Tom shouted.

"What's an Ent?" asked Dawna.

"Have you read Lord of the Rings?" I asked.

"No," Dawna said sulkily. The tree was positively laughing now.

"You've been watching us this whole time!" accused Leianna.

"It was the best show I have seen since Fred and George Weasley left," the tree said in English. "They were the only students nearly as amusing as you six children are."

"Did it call us here?" Evan asked me. He obviously wasn't used to talking to trees. Not that I blame him. It is odd, to say the least, the first time.

"I did." The Ent sounded sad now. "We are afraid. We have been afraid much lately. Once… when the Dark Lord was killing unicorns to keep himself alive… and then the battles with the Dark Lord… and now."

Quickbeam wasn't as quick as he was supposed to be in Lord of the Rings. He was speaking so slowly, even Evan, the patient Jedi, was getting impatient.

"What's happened?" he asked.

Quickbeam sighed. Another tree moved slightly closer. "Something is here… Something that I have hardly seen before… and not since I was very young… not after the War of the Ring… I cannot remember what it is."

"You can't remember?" I asked, annoyed.

"Sometimes… the Powers that Be do not allow mortals to remember certain things… make certain connections…"

"Or the Lone Power," whispered one tree in the Speech.

"The Lone Power is here?" asked Steven worriedly.

"Hush!" Quickbeam whispered.

"What?" asked Evan. I remembered that he spoke very little Speech. I explained what the tree had said. I didn't think Dawna could speak to trees very well, either.

"Can no one remember?" Dawna asked.

"I am the oldest one here. I am the only Ent left. I am the only one who can remember the War of the Ring – not even the stones can remember." He spoke more quickly when remembering his youth.

"How did you survive this long?" asked Leianna. "The war of the Ring was over a thousand years ago."

He shuddered. "I was given the gift…or curse…of a life of thousands of years."

"Um," said Evan. "Not to change the subject, but how long have we been out here?"

"A long time. Doesn't matter. Is that all you know about what is happening here?" I asked desperately.

"Yes… We need you to help us."

"With what?" Leianna asked in frustration. "We can't help you if we don't know what you need help with!"

"If I knew, I would do it myself. I am sure though, that…It…is here. The Starsnuffer, the kindler of forest fires…"

"Don't get poetic. We all know who you are talking about," Evan said.

"We never speak of It here… There is too much power near."

"He's a poet and –" Dawna joked.

"Dawna –" I sighed.

"Hello. What have we here?" said a cheerful voice behind us.

We spun. I stumbled a step and stepped on Dawna's foot, but she was too astonished and, probably, frightened, to yell at me. Somebody, I think Leianna, squeaked in surprise. It was the caretaker of the grounds, Kevin Cameron.

I started to run, although I knew we would still be caught. But we were already trapped by a spell. I couldn't move.

"Six first years out at night," said another voice. Argus Filch. "Well, well, well. What are we to do with you."

"Leave them to me, Argus," said Cameron.

Filch grumbled and left. I guessed it was because Cameron was a wizard and could curse Filch if he felt like it. I doubted Filch would pass up a chance to get students into trouble.

The spell holding us in place lifted. "I would think, as the only representatives of your order of wizards and witches, you would take care to make a good impression," the groundskeeper said. "But instead, all of you are out here, and on this night of all nights! Don't you know that a very powerful dark wizard must have brought the lethifolds here? And it might still be on the grounds?"

"We didn't think it could have been a wizard," Tom answered quietly.

"What then? But that is beside the point." He started to lead us back to the castle. "We don't make rules to be mean. We don't make rules to be broken. We make them to keep students safe."

Evan glanced behind us. I followed his gaze. A small wolf followed us.

"Fifty points each!" I complained to Dawna. "Doesn't she remember what it was like to be a first year? Hasn't Harry or Ron or somebody told her?" I added to Evan, "Hermione, Harry, and Ron got fifty points off each in their first year for…I think it was the troll?"

Dawna shook her head, scowling. "Harry and Ron both earned five points from the troll. It was giving Norbert to Charlie."

"And so Ginny passes on the favor to the next generation," I finished. It added up to 150 points for Sun, 100 for Earth, and 50 for Moon. At least it wasn't just our house, but we were hit hardest.

We didn't get any more sleep that night. It was too late by the time we got to the Great Hall. And we were too worried. And too upset about being caught. It turned out Daymon had realized we were missing and Filch somehow trailed us outside. More reason not to like that boy.

I was frightened. We were all frightened. Even Evan.

I was so frustrated. I kept getting hints, little bits. Never the real thing.

I tried to read my manual. Sometimes it gives me answers. Often it makes me less frightened. Or more. Either one would be a relief from frustration.

I only got to read two sentences before it was time to get up.

This chapter was particularly hard to post because, for some reason, it seems to have been skipped over by earlier editing. I had no idea how bad it was until tonight. But I hope it's better now.

Please, please, please review!!