Jungle

"Oh Merlin please tell me she isn't serious" Green gently covered her face with her palm and shook her head. They were at the courtyard warming up for the trip. Lachine was shining her daggers while Neil examined tiny vials of potions right near her. It was like a typical mission. Until she walked in

They were all waiting for Ashley to arrive. She was late and the mission was already delayed. Now, seeing her ensemble, it seemed it had to be delayed much more. As Ashley approached, everyone seemed to be showing signs of disappointment

"Potter, don't tell me you're bringing all that!" Brian cried out

"What?" Ashley looked very shocked

"Are all those things really necessary, I mean, we're going to have to be quick and…" Helena couldn't bring herself to finish her sentence

Suddenly, Neil lifted his hand up and Ashley's sports bag flew over by him and dumped its contents by itself. Out poured all things she brought

"What is all this stuff?" Lachine disbelievingly asked

"Guess I know how to really pack…unlike you…" Ashley looked disdainfully at Lachine. Lachine then prepared to lunge herself at Ashley when Harry quickly put his arm in front of her

"Easy there leopard, she might not be quick enough to escape your wrath" Harry simply said. Lachine gave out a scary, deadly hiss and stalked away, staring at Ashley

"Well, time's running, we better go" Green broke up the silence. She snapped her fingers and a purple swirl began to float near them.

"Adios, see you on the other side" Neil said as he hopped inside the swirl. Helena rolled her eyes and jumped after

"There is no way I am going inside that….I can't even tell what that is!" Ashley cried. She crossed her arms haughtily. She could hear sounds at the end of the portal and she wasn't the type of person to walk into anything without knowing what it was

"I guess she wants to walk miles from Hogsmeade…why not give her what she wants? I'll do the honor of closing the portal" Harry replied as he raised his eyebrows, his head popping out from the other side of the swirl

Everyone was already inside the portal and Ashley could hear distant giggling. Harry made a motion of snapping his fingers and the portal grew smaller. Ashley realized what was going on and quickly threw herself into the swirl. For a few seconds she felt the world go upside down and she was being sucked in. Everything was a purple swirl. Then, she landed with a thump and she heard laughing. She closed her eyes and refused to open them until the laughing stopped. Finally it did and she slowly opened her eyes

"Oh, we thought you fainted…sorry guys, false alarm" Brian said. There was a chorus of disappointed 'awws'. Ashley ignored them and stared at her surroundings. They were at a forest, a much untamed forest. The tall massive trees almost blocked out the sunlight and it was very dark. Ashley shivered as it was also very cold and dismal

"Where to?" Neil asked. Lachine pulled out a map.

Ashley took a small peak at the map and was very surprised. Her father had one like it, except James had the map of Hogwarts. The map that was shown now seemed to be the map of the jungle. Far north of the map, she could see dotted figures that had names-really just like what her father had had. Then west of the map she could see their names with the dotted figures

"Somewhere north. I could see three death eater names…" Helena said as she observed the map

"Really who?" Harry asked, suddenly interested

"McNair" Neil said

"Isn't that the guy I gave boiling warts to 3 years ago?" Green asked, fondly reminiscing the time when she cursed McNair for hitting her with a hex in a mission not-so-long ago.

"You took a death eater down?" Ron surprisingly asked

"Yeah" Green frowned at Ron when he asked this. Ron shamefully looked away

"There's Yaxley" Neil stated

"I remember that guy! He was the one who almost dodged by Imperius Curse!" Lachine said.

They remembered the time when Lachine got so mad when Yaxley almost avoided her curse. In the preceding three days she worked really hard, thinking her magic had gone rusty, but in truth, Yaxley just slipped on a rock

"You got so mad you almost cried" Brian laughed. Lachine gave him a deadly look. Brian just smirked

"Oh there's something good" Neil said. Everyone scooted over to the map and found the name: Rodolphus Lestrange. A chorus of creepy "oooh's" circulated

"I know that guy! Uncle Sirius' cousin's husband!" Ashley smartly said

"Sirius Black? I guess that's where he got his cunning from" Harry rolled his eyes. It was true. Sirius had three female cousins named Narcissa, Bellatrix and Andromeda. Bellatrix had married Lestrange and they joined the death eater ranks

"I was absolutely sure Lucius Malfoy would be there!" Hermione frustratingly cried

"Malfoy? Nah, he's way too precious for Voldemort to let him watch guard over some silly base" Helena shook her head

"Okay, we better get going…north" Neil said and he pointed to the base. They then started hiking, occasionally jumping because of twigs and animal sounds

"Why couldn't we take one of those portal thingies there immediately?" Ashley asked as she almost stumbled upon a boulder. The jungle was so dark, creepy and scary that she wanted to back out. It seemed like everyone was used to this except her

"We want to be sneaky. It would be stupid to pop right there when they are doing stuff, we need the element of surprise!" Helena said in an annoyed accent

"Then we would be the one to surprise them if we popped out right under their noses" Ashley knowledgably said

"Ah-yah-yay…this girl's giving me a migraine, and I haven't even bashed a single bad guy yet!" Brian cried out

"Whoa there lion, the faster we get there, the quicker you can bash a death eater" Green patted him on the back

--

"Headmaster, I'm worried about Ashley, she has never done anything like this before!" Lily worriedly said as she and James faced the headmaster. They were in Dumbledore's office and they had been hesitating to let Ashley go on the mission

"Besides, you know we never actually gave our permission!" James furiously said. He slammed his palm on the desk

"You were so busy with your work that the day was fast approaching. I had to make a quick decision!" Dumbledore defended himself

"I mean, its risky! You know how soft our Ashley is, she'll freak in front of a death eater while the others are running!" James reasonably said

"They wont leave her, if there's one thing Lodes taught them, it's never to leave anyone behind" Dumbledore proudly said

"Yes, but they could get hurt" Lily was already sobbing softly. James put a comforting arm around her

"They wont, I've seen the record of these teenagers and they've had enough death eaters fighting to last a lifetime and they're alive and well!" Dumbledore shook his head

"But all they're experience they've worked together, they knew each other, and they will know what the other will do, it's too risky to add three in them, they might forget and work as six instead of nine!"

"Ashley's constant training with them must have changed that!" Dumbledore said to both of them. He knew it was too late because they (the teens) were already on their way and it was very stupid of the James Potter to think it could all be reversed

"Not even two weeks can change years of teamwork" Lily coldly said and she stalked out of the room with James following her, giving Dumbledore a cold, hard stare before smashing the door close

Family can change the course of loyalty. May theirs never waver.

--

"We've been hiking for hours! Can't we just stop for about ten minutes?" Ashley tiredly said

"No! We can't waste so much time!" Neil replied, looking back at her

"But I'm tired to the bone!" Ashley whimpered

"So are we!" Helena spat

"But you're used to this!" The girl whined

"So then get used to us!" Brian cried

Five minutes later…

"I want to go home! I'm hungry!" Ashley complained

"Then eat"! Lachine threw her a pack of stale biscuits. Ashley looked at them in disgust and threw them aside

"I just lost my appetite!" Ashley made a gagging noise

"This scrounge is making me sick!" Green rolled her eyes

"Silencio!" Harry cried as he spun back to face Ashley. His wand was pointing at her as he did a perfect silencing charm

Ashley's mouth opened but no scream came out. She jumped and sprang around furiously like a mad cat

"Aaah, serenity" Helena said. Ashley's face turned to a repulsive frown as she stroked her neck vertically with her index finger and pointed at Helena

"What'cha gonna do? Prod her with makeup till she's senseless? Seriously, are you even considering hurting a girl who has been used to giving out the cruciaticus curse and the imperious curse most her life?" Brian snarled

Ashley's mouth opened and if she had a voice, she would have been screaming at the top of her lungs, enough to make the team blow their cover. She began jabbing away voicelessly. Minutes later, she got tired

"Finally she gets tired! I almost hear halleluiahs singing behind me!" Lachine said in a relaxed manner

"Come on; let's not throw a feast over a restless girl finally getting tired! Time is money!" Harry cried

"In our case, time is the number of death eaters destroyed from the face of the earth!" Neil triumphantly shouted. Everyone fell dead silent and looked at Neil with dagger eyes

"Ooops!" Neil grinned. Everyone laughed

Suddenly, a scream echoed from where they thought was nowhere. They sprang around to see that the charm had worn off. Ashley was the one who screamed

"You think you can just do that to me you…you!" She was screaming so loud that everyone was making shushing noises to keep her down

"Don't tell me to shut up! You have no right to do that you imbeciles! Ooh, wait until Dumbledore gets a hold of this. The famed protégés of Count Lodes hurting the savior of light!" Ashley cried at the top of her lungs

"Ashley…"

"Shut it, I'm not yet done! To hell who cares whether there are a million death eaters right here right now I will not be treated like that!" Ashley shouted. Everyone fell dead silent. Ashley smirked in a satisfied manner

"Potter, do you remember we are opting to be silent?" Neil angrily said. He was red in anger that Ashley almost flinched in fear

"You are dead! We had wanted to ambush them!" Harry gravely said through gritted teeth. He felt like he wanted to smash her to pieces. Ashley narrowed her eyes

"We wanted to keep the element of surprise!" Lachine cried.

"Then surprise!" Someone bitterly said behind them. The next and last thing they saw was the consciousness beaten out of them

--

A/N

Oh! I know you hate cliffies as much as I do but I couldn't resist. This added a certain touch to make the story more thrilling! I hope you still like it and I'm hoping for more reviews!

Because of the pressure school has put on me, I will be updating on February 10 2008. I know this will be sort of unfair and bad but judging from my schedule, its heaven I have the tenth alive!

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