Hogwarts a History – A tale of two stalkers
Chapter 08 – Strange bedfellows
…
The sun had yet begun to rise as two children snuck out of the castle. Shadows leapt under the flickering lights of their dual wands, causing Colin's heart, in Ginny's body, to leap as well.
"How are we supposed to find anything out here?" he whispered as they crept past Hagrid's hut.
"I know where they are," she insisted, which was mostly true.
She'd noticed them one day, skimming the edge of the forest waiting for the Quidditch team to emerge. She'd been there quite a while and a bored mind will find the most inane things to occupy itself.
"You think it's true what they say?" he, she asked.
"What's that?"
"Werewolves!"
Ginny, as Colin, shot her, him a glance, "Is there a full moon?"
"Uh, no."
"Then don't worry about it."
Werewolves were only a danger on a full moon, everyone knew that. What kind of idiot didn't know that?
"Why you spose it's forbidden then?"
She almost groaned at the question but stopped short. It actually wasn't a bad question. No one had bothered to explain why, they'd just said 'don't go there'. Which, when you think about it, was probably the worst way to keep a bunch of children from doing something.
"Probably something in there they don't want anyone to see."
That's what her father used to tell them, when their mother wasn't listening. "If they call it 'forbidden', it usually means they just don't want you to see it. Like the closet off the stairs is forbidden," he'd said with a wink, like they all didn't know that's where Molly hid their Christmas presents.
"You think it would eat us, whatever it is?"
If even half the things her brothers had said were true, "Probably."
That put an end to the questions till they arrived at the edge of the forest.
"Okay, we're here. Now what?"
"Shut up, I'm thinking."
She hadn't been paying attention that closely at the time. "Let's see, there was a bush, big bush. And it was right at the base of a tree… big tree."
"Congratulations, you've just described every tree for a hundred meters."
Towering over them like dark titans, one massive tree looked little different from another and thick bushes spotted all along the border.
"It looked different in the daylight."
She walked the edge of the forest, waving his lighted wand under every bush, patience wearing thinner and thinner with every wrong shrub.
"I'm sure it was around here somewhere."
"Is this it?"
Having wondered further in, Colin's brassy red hair stood out against the darkness. 'He' was standing next to a low flat bush next to a tree some five feet in diameter.
"Down here, look."
"That's it!"
Stowing her wand, the scrawny young boy scrambled under the bush and began harvesting. "This should be plenty. Uh, Colin? Colin, I need light. Colin?"
Shuffling 'her' way out of the bush she found her body, still holding her wand and staring in frozen shock.
An ominous hiss drew 'her' attention and when 'she' saw 'it', 'she' did an excellent imitation of 'him'.
(Ugh, pronouns!)
Half human, half spider; it stared with huge black eyes and wicked frightful fangs.
Ginny found her wind first and for the second time that day a young boy screamed like a little girl. The sound agitated the spider thing which hissed furiously, kicking both children into gear.
Squealing like death was hot on their heels they ran for all they were worth. The spider glared after them before crawling back up the tree and going back to sleep.
"Stupid wizards, and their stupid lights," she grumbled. "Waking people up— middle of the night. Rude, that's what it is. Just rude. Should've eaten 'em."
And she wouldn't be the only one to think such that morning. Rubeus Hagrid bolted upright as the screams passed his hut.
"Fang, you hear that?" the half-conscious half-giant asked his dog.
Fang very briefly looked at Hagrid, then the door, then got up and crawled under Hagrid's bed with a piteous whimper. No small feat given who was in it.
"Bloody coward, thass what you are," he said, rolling over and drifting back to sleep, "bloody coward."