Chapter Ten
Harry

"Why are we being herded towards the Forbidden Forest, of all places?" Hermione asked indignantly as McGonagall continued trying to shoo Lavender Brown towards the forest.

I shrugged. "Dunno why...don't you think that I would have told you, Hermione?"

"No," Hermione muttered as we crossed into the dark woods. "You and Ron have an annoying habit of telling me useless stuff and keeping all the important information from me!"

"No, we don't!" Ron cried indignantly, spewing crumbs everywhere while waving a rather large croissant in the air. "It's exactly the opposite!"

We tramped along the mossy and leafy floor for a while in silence. Ron broke it and pointed towards a faint light that was ahead. "What do you reckon that light ahead is—Merlin's beard!"

We had stumbled into a large clearing, with a crystal-clear stream running through the center.

Ahead, I could see Percy and his companions, Jason and his friends, and an entirely new group that was wearing something that suspiciously looked like linen pajamas.

"As usual," McGonagall scolded, "we are the last ones here! Hermione Granger, come forwards!"

Hermione gave a muffled squeak next to me as all heads turned to her. Looking around, I could see that Patty Parkinson [A.N./ Did I freaking get her name right?], a seventh-year Ravenclaw whose name I didn't know, and Hannah Abbot from Hufflepuff had been called up as well.

"Ms. Granger!" McGonagall called again. "Please come forwards!"

"Well, go on, then," Ron whispered, his face white. He gave Hermione a small nudge, and she involuntarily ran to the professor.

McGonagall bent down and started giving Hermione instructions. Hermione's head was tilted quizzically, but once McGonagall pointed towards the small knot of campers and linen pajama people, Hermione shakily walked towards them. I noticed that the other Hogwarts students that were called up were also heading towards the campers.

I nudged Ron, who was scowling. "What's up with that?"

My answer was answered a second later when Dumbledore clapped his hands. Talking immediately ceased.

"Today, we will be playing a game of what mortals call 'Capture the Flag'!" I saw Malfoy wrinkle his nose.

"It will be the whole of Hogwarts against our visitors—and no, Mr. Weasley, I'm not kidding."

George Weasley put his hand down.

"One student from each House has been chosen randomly to join the visitors' team," Dumbledore continued. "I will let Camp Half-Blood take it from there."

Camp Half-Blood...that was Percy's group, right?

Percy stepped forwards. "All right!" he yelled. "Each of you will receive a suit of armor and a weapon of your choice!"

"Armor?" somebody from the Slytherins indignantly screamed, whom I recognized as Malfoy. Leave it to him to complain. "How do you expect us to wear armor?"

Percy pointed to a humongous pile of sets gleaming bronze metal that was sitting at the edge of the clearing. "That's what you're wearing."

The whole clearing burst out into pandemonium, with all the Hogwarts students screaming and throwing twigs and even their wands at each other.

"SHUT UP!" Thalia's voice rang through the clearing. Maybe it was just a coincidence, but I heard a loud rumble of thunder roll through the clear sky. Everybody immediately froze in their positions.

"Do you want me to send an arrow through your gut?" Thalia glowered at Malfoy, who still looked defiant. "My father—"

"I couldn't care less about you, but I will guarantee that you will die if you don't put on a set of armor!" Thalia snapped, jabbing a finger at the armor. "And that goes for everybody else! So just go and get a—" Thalia said a word so bad that I was sure that Snape would have made her lick frogs for a whole month. Surprisingly, the Potions master didn't comment on the profanity. Thalia muttered something else, and I saw quite a few people on her team flinch.

Everybody tripped over their feet in their eagerness to get a suit of armor.

"Vlacas," I heard her hiss in exasperation.

"Anyways," Percy weakly said, trying to get back into control. "Capture the Flag is basically a game where you try to...um, capture the other team's flag."

"The title is pretty self-explanatory, don't you think?" one of the girls in linen pajamas pointed out.

"Anyways," Percy said hurriedly, "you can have only two guards to your flag. No killing or maiming is allowed." He raised an eyebrow at Thalia, who just punched him and told him in an irritated tone to keep on going.

"And in this case," Percy added, "wands are allowed, although a wider variety of weapons is available." He indicated to another pile that shimmered into existence. Swords and daggers were in neat rows, bows and quivers of arrows in a pile, so on so forth.

"The...er, professors will serve as 'battlefield medics'," Percy continued, "in case somebody gets seriously hurt for some reason or another. But don't worry; that usually doesn't happen."

"Usually," I noted to Ron, who was as pale as a bed sheet by now. "Not reassuring, eh?"

"You're not reassuring me, Harry!" Ron muttered back.

"Hogwarts is on the red team, which takes the woods on the east side of the creek." Percy pointed to the side that we were on. "We, on the other hand, take the west woods. We're on the blue team. And that's pretty much the rules. The game will start in a few minutes, so take your pick of weapons if you want any, and take them quickly. The game starts when you hear the horn blow!" He and his team disappeared into the dark confines of the woods.

Hogwarts began streaming towards our part of the woods, and Ron and I were caught along with the flow.

"Oi!" Ron grunted, heaving on his armor. "This bloody thing is heavy!"

It was true. I felt like I was being crushed under Hogwarts itself. "No kidding," I groaned.

"Yeah, well," Ron said, wiggling his eyebrows at me. "We'll die if we don't wear it. I'm not sure if I want one of her arrows sticking through my stomach."

A loud blast boomed through the forest, and I supposed that that was the "horn".

"So...what do we do?" I nervously asked, pulling out my wand.

Ron frowned. "Uh...I don't know...try to get the flag?"

I could already hear the faint sounds of combat as wands and swords clashed together. "All right," I agreed. "We don't have anything better to do. Let's find their flag. It should be blue, right?"

After what was probably half an hour of searching, Ron grabbed my arm excitedly. "Harry, look!" He pointed to an opening in the forest, and lo and behold, was the blue flag. There were not guards whatsoever.

Ron chuckled as he rushed out into the open before I could stop him. I ran and caught up to him, stopping him a second before he was about to touch the flag.

"Hermione may have put up some wards," I warned Ron. "Maybe the other Hogwarts students on the blue team, too."

Ron frowned as he stared at his hand, which was an inch away from the flag. He raised his wand and called, "Specialis Revelio!"

Nothing happened. Ron whooped and grabbed the flag. That's when things went wrong.

"Got it!" Ron turned around triumphantly to face a hooded figure that was holding a bronze sword.

"Did you honestly think that it would be that easy?" I heard somebody laugh, but it wasn't a friendly laugh. It was more of a "I've-got-you-now!" laugh. The cold tip of a blade touched my neck.

"Really," Percy mildly said, pulling off the hood of his cloak without removing the tip of the sword from Ron's right wrist.

"Maybe I should have said 'Homenum Revelio'," Ron weakly said.

"No idea what you're talking about," Thalia said from behind me. Yeah, she was the one who was about to cut my head off. "But it's a bit late for that, don't you think?"

She caught me staring at her knife. "I'm not going to drive it through your neck!" she grumbled. "It's called, 'both of you are our prisoners now'."

"No!" A horde of Hogwarts students crashed through the trees. Percy and Thalia glanced at each other. It was obvious they weren't expecting such a large crowd.

"Oh, Styx," Percy muttered, readying his sword. "Where's the water?"

Thalia clamped a hand on his neck and pushed him down, dropping herself right when Ron shouted, "Stupefy!"

Percy scrambled up (having successfully avoided Ron's Stunning Spell) and walked towards the flag, still brandishing his sword. "You want it? You come and get it."

All the Hogwarts students roared and charged.

Both of the defenders began hacking and slicing. Instantly, some of the attackers dropped, clutching some part of their arm or leg that had been cut. Ron and I, forgotten in the pandemonium, looked at each other. "The flag," Ron whispered, pointing to the flag that was lying on the ground.

"I can't get through!" I hissed, indicating to Percy and Thalia. "They're in the way!"

"Well, we've got to do something fast, or else this will be—BLOODY HELL!"

Apparently, Percy had had enough, because he dropped his weapons and closed his eyes. Percy held out both of his hands.

"Surrendering?" somebody called.

"The exact opposite," Percy said as a rumbling sound echoed throughout the clearing. Thalia jumped into a low tree right when the tidal wave hit. I got submerged underwater and my head broke through the surface. My glasses were miraculously still on.

About a minute later, an arc of lightning raced down, striking the water and instantly electrocuting everybody who was touching the water. Sadly, that included me, and the last thing I remembered was that I this game was stupid.