Ancients. What? What is... How did... Ugh
Okay. He needed to take a moment. Several moments. Maybe a week.
Processing what just happened to him could honestly take far longer, but he didn't have that kinda time.
Danny slumped further against the high up branch in the tree he had found sanctuary on, back in his human form. Hand on his chest, trying to even out his breathing, he focused on his slowly stabilizing heart rate.
Taking another deep breath and letting it out slowly, he tried to sort through his recent 'experience' so that it made more sense to his poor, tired mind.
Skimming the memories of his near frantic flight through these dark woods, he remembers glimpses of shadows moving when they shouldn't. Large, dark, hoofed creatures with wings, glancing at him with blank white eyes. Hearing far-off commotion, he recognized what sounded like a stampede, along with sounds of bowstrings snapping.
Yeah. ...Mmmm no. Can't do it.
What the hell was going on?
Shaking his head, dragging a hand down his face, he sighed shakily.
Spiraling was doing him no good. So he needed to work through this, whatever it was, and go from there. (Thank god. It seems Jazz, Sam and Tucker finally got through to him a bit on how to talk himself through confusing situations.)
"Okay" he said out loud, voice scratching and hoarse in his ears. Taking another deep breath, "Okay."
The beginning. This all started when he was flying to the next city.
The sudden wave of pain. Not being able to stay in the air... falling. Hard.
The pain.
He shuddered at the memory. He couldn't remember much after that apart from a sudden flash of red, and then he was dragging himself into the conscious world again.
He could remember that pretty clearly, if disjointedly. It had all come back to him in broken pieces.
First; touch.
He'd felt the ground beneath him.
His hair brushing his forehead.
His arms and legs tensing as he tried to move, with pain just a touch beyond soreness, that slowed his ascent into the waking world.
Second; smell.
There had been old wood and fire smoke. New paint and an acrid smell that he remembered from right after his accident.
A faint scent of sickly incense just barely tickling his sense as he'd lifted his aching body off the ground.
Next; taste.
Ash on his tongue. Acid burning his throat.
Mouth dryer than the oven baked kale chips that Sam made once.
He couldn't swallow the bitter taste that memory had dredged up as he'd straightened his arms, and leant back on his knees, raising his head.
Then; sight.
Slightly blurry black clad figures surrounded him.
A bright light coming from his left.
Something pink, and something glittering a bit further off.
Finally; sound.
His heartbeat; slow, but steady and strong.
The quiet breathing of the figures around him.
Their shuffling feet as they shifted.
Heightened, angry voices.
Then everything had come crashing into his mind to form the whole terrifying picture.
Panicking, he'd looked around again. Taking in possible threats (kids dressed in black staring at him, and two adults arguing with each other), where he was in relation to them (in the middle of a clear space, crouched on fresh dried paint brushed into intricate designs), and possible exits (window to his immediate left).
At the angry shriek of one of the adults, he'd startled out of his quick scan. Whipping his eyes to the pink clad adult, he'd seen her crazed expression directed at him.
He'd fallen backwards as quickly as he could, but had only a moment of mounting panic before she was blocked from view by two of the kids; a black haired boy followed by a lanky redhead.
With that threat out of sight, his panic imbued mind promptly forgot about it and he'd fled. Transformation rings had washed over him, he'd risen from the ground amid surprised shouts and exclamations. He'd briefly met green eyes a shade darker than his own, before he turned and phased through the window.
He'd barely held his ghost form together, let alone phasing and flying, but adrenaline is one hell of a drug.
Once through the window he'd seen the forest , and faintly registered just how high up he was. As he flew towards the safety of the forest he briefly glanced behind him to see where had come from, and had comically screeched to a stop in midair.
It was a castle.
A beautiful, magnificent, HUGE, actual castle. Vlad's Wisconsin property was nothing compared to this.
Then he'd remembered where he was and what he was doing, and he fled the rest of the way into this forest, and found his way to this tree branch.
Yep. Okay. Got all that.
And then came the weirdness of this particular forest, that he was studiously ignoring for the moment while he tried to come to terms with everything else.
Big question though... How had he gotten to the inside of that castle in the first place?
It had probably happened during that time he'd been 'indisposed'. (Or, been in so much pain that he can't remember anything other than the pain.)
It had felt different though. Not the normal type of pain that came from normal injuries. It'd been centered around his core.
Then, there was that weird disintegration feeling. Being pulled apart, nothing, then being pulled together again.
Finally, waking up in a completely different place. Hmmm.
Wait a second. That all painted a very specific picture.
Wait... paint! He had woken up in the middle of a painted circle with a bunch of symbols inside of it!
That only cemented his theory further.
He heaved a deep, shaky sigh, running a hand down his face.
Danny had been summoned. Summoned to who knows where, but he had just been summoned.
Sam had talked to him about the possibility of being summoned once, after reading about it in a book from her favorite gothic bookstore. It had had a load of books about the occult, and summoning spells and rituals for demons and other things.
They had actually done a bunch of research into the possibility after that, but they hadn't found any that looked like it would affect him specifically, so they had dropped it and moved on.
Apparently, he had qualified for the summoning that all those kids did. Joy.
All those kids looked about his age, now that he thought about it. They had been wearing a sort of uniform, black and flowing. There had been two adults there as well, dressed strangely too. One all in pink and the other in glittering shawls of some kind.
Black robes on kids and two adults, all in the same room performing a summoning ritual together. Hmm. Sounded a bit like a cult.
And they had all seen him transform. Twice now.
Uuuuuggh.
What was he going to do now?
Legs dangling off his branch, his back pressed against the rough bark, he sighed again for what seemed like the hundredth time in the past hour. He was really, really tired. He hadn't slept in a while, not counting all the times he had been forced unconscious recently.
Curling up, knees to his chest, up high on his tree branch, he laid his head on his arms. He could figure this out after a short nap.
It was probably a really bad idea to sleep in a weird creepy forest, just outside of a castle where he had been summoned against his will by a bunch of kids in black robes...
But you know what?
He highly doubted that he had been followed all the way out here, wherever 'here' was.
So, he was probably safer in this weird, creepy forest from being found by them, than anywhere else. He smirked to himself slightly at how ridiculous his life was, as he drifted into uneasy sleep.
Hmmm. This was beginning to get a touch out of hand.
Dumbledore felt that, should the world truly succumb to the chaos that Lord Voldemort wanted to bring about; it may be more pleasant in comparison to the crazed tirade that he had been subjected to for the past half hour. Courtesy of a particular Undersecretary to the Minister.
Still, he kept his hands steepled before him, a polite expression of interest on his face.
Professor Trelawney and Professor Umbridge's sudden intrusion into his office this afternoon had been a surprise.
It had begun with Professor Trelawney, near shouting with joy over a successful summoning of some kind, followed closely by Professor Umbridge bursting in angrily and thus a shouting match was initiated. Until Professor Umbridge completely overrode Professor Trelawney with an almost impressive volume and lung capacity.
Hmm, Professor Umbridge must be particularly angry with the situation if she is missing her first class with the fifth years to shout about it.
This was further proven as the aforementioned tirade carried on longer than even he could have expected; though he had not been able to parse out more than the occasional word such as "freak", "dangerous", and "summoning", as they were liberally repeated.
Based on these particular words, regardless of context, he knew this particular issue is one he couldn't afford to ignore.
Raising a hand to stop the incomprehensible tirade, he was mildly surprised that it worked. Professor Umbridge quieted into a seething, yet thankfully silent, rage.
"Thank you Professor Umbridge, that is enough." He then turned to Professor Trelawney.
"Now then, Professor Trelawney, could you please tell me what you know of this situation?" He asked calmly.
He raised his hand again and turned to Professor Umbridge, anticipating her protest. He couldn't keep her silent this time, unfortunately.
"Professor Dumbledore! I have already told you the situation at hand! This incompetent excuse of a professor," she cried, sweeping her arm to point at Professor Trelawney "summoned an unknown creature! A dangerous being that displayed powers that have not been documented, let alone seen before! All to try to prove that the Ministry is incompetent and some summoned abomination is the answer to all that is wrong with this school!" Umbridge all but screamed, but thankfully at a comprehensible level.
"I understand that is how you have perceived the situation, Professor Umbridge, but I would like to make my own judgment, and to do so I need to know as much as I can about what has occurred. Not only was Professor Trelawney present during this event, but from what I understand currently, she orchestrated the ritual that caused it. So, if you would please withhold any further comments until Professor Trelawney has had a chance to speak." He said, prompting her to click her mouth shut and glower at him hatefully.
Dismissing her subtly, he turns back towards the wide-eyed Professor Trelawney.
"Professor Trelawney?" He prompts.
She starts, and trains her eyes on him. Realizing she had a chance to speak up, she gathered her shawls around herself, and raised her head proudly.
"Thank you Professor Dumbledore!" She exclaimed in her most impressive and mystical voice.
"I cannot express how incredible it is to tell you that the long thought to be mythical planet, Nibiru, was in position with Polaris, allowing me to perform an incredibly rare, ritualistic magical summoning! And it worked!" She exclaimed, smiling.
"The summoning worked! A being came into this world from the beyond! And my class, my ritual, my summoning helped them to come here!" Excitement palpable in her voice, she extended her arms outward, displaying her numerous shawls like wings.
She went on to excitably describe the entire summoning ritual. From the glowing summoning circle, the plummeting temperature, and the unexpectedly strong air currents that came from nowhere, to the actual being that was summoned. A creature with stark white hair, hovering in the air unsupported. She finally explained the summoned being's escape from the classroom.
After she had finished her explanation, there was a moment of silence, as he took in the information.
"Alright now, Professors," he began, "Let me see if I understand the situation so far."
Dumbledore took a breath and steepled his hands once again, pinning both his professors with his characteristic penetrating gaze.
"Professor Trelawney" he said, looking at her "In your 5th year Gryffindor divination class, you had a special summoning ritual planned due to the rare alignment of two astrological bodies. However, this class coincided with Professor Umbridge's inspection, as is her duty as the High Inquisitor."
Here, he turned to Professor Umbridge and inclined his head slightly. He had an inkling that Professor Trelawney had also planned this particular lesson as a way to annoy Professor Umbridge during her inspection, regardless of if it had worked or not, but he would keep that to himself.
"Professor Trelawney began the ritual, and then, after the unknown being had been fully summoned successfully, Professor Umbridge Stunned it, thus incapacitating it." Dumbledore paused here, to look over his half-moon glasses at his professors for a moment before continuing.
"Then, before either of you could come to an agreement on how to proceed with the situation, the summoned being woke up amidst the students under your care, and then made its escape through the window. The window of the divination classroom, that is at the top of the North tower, I might add. Have I missed anything important?"
"It was a boy" Professor Trelawney said suddenly, as if only just realizing and remembering that fact herself, "A human boy."
Silence greeted her correction.
"A boy?" He asked quietly, "what do you mean it was a boy? You said that the summoned was from the beyond? That it appeared as if it were mist and then solidified?"
"Yes! Yes! He flew out the window, and then the students saw him fly into the forest! He could still be here! We could learn so much from him!" Professor Trelawney shouted gleefully, much of her mystic facade forgotten in the face of the successful summoning.
"Dumbledore, it was nothing but a freak! Once that thing was summoned it transformed to look like a human boy! As soon as it looked to be waking up I stunned it to detain it, but then not even a few minutes later it was awake again and then flying out the window! Nothing natural could be that resistant to magic! That thing is uncontrollable and dangerous! " Umbridge burst out, exasperated.
Dumbledore could only stare at them a moment.
This made no sense. A human couldn't be summoned through ritualistic magic without very extreme and painfully fatal consequences.
Was the summoned really human? Or was he really just masquerading as one, as Professor Umbridge was implying?
Well, even with the very small chance that the summoned was human, or even partly human, that didn't mean no chance at all. Which meant he had a job to do.
He had an unknown, possibly human, boy on Hogwarts grounds; most likely scared out of his mind from being summoned to an unknown place. He needed to find this boy to get the whole story.
Standing abruptly, he said "Professors, if you will both stay here, I will be back soon."
He walked past his stunned professors and closed the door to his office, abruptly cutting off their questions and exclamations.
He made his way through his school, passing by the quiet dining hall; the students still in their common rooms, or classes.
Striding out into the grounds, he made his way past the lake and towards the Forbidden Forest.
As Dumbledore made it to the edge of the forest, he paused.
He knew and understood a great deal, and yet this situation is not one that he could have predicted. Ritualistic magic was hardly ever practiced and it was even rarer an occurrence when the rituals were successful.
What would he find within the forest?
What mystery was he about to unfold?
He walked into the forest.
Wow. Dumbledore's perspective is tough to write in.
Tried my best. rewrote it about 3 times. I think it turned out pretty okay though, so I'm counting this as a win.
If anyone has any advice I'll gladly take it!
I know this chapter came pretty fast after my first two, but I'll be studying for my boards for a bit and moving to another state for work soon so bear with me! (I will not be abandoning this story though, you can be sure of that!)
Thanks for reading!
(I should probably state at least once that these characters don't belong to me, just the story that I'm putting them through!)