Chapter 3
The Forbidden Forest
They didn't say anything about the plan in the common room. There was no need to. They settled down with a few games of chess, with Si generally winning ("It's all about tactics, isn't it?") though Weasley could often get a few (literally) killer moves in with his father's chess set. After the lower years had gone to bed, they played a few more games so they wouldn't look suspicious, then retired to the fifth year dorms.
There were five beds, although only three were inhabited, and it showed. The walls around Weasley's bed were covered in moving sketches and the occasional colour picture, mostly depicting landscapes and interiors, but also caricatures of the professors and a rather worrying amount of improbably proportioned female nudes, some of whom bore a striking resemblance to a number of Hogwarts students in various years. Billy's corner was dominated by a massive signed photograph of the Tumbling Menhirs band, surrounded by pull-outs of amps and guitars. Si, on the other hand, kept his relatively spartan, keeping a picture of Christina on his bedside table, and a curious map of the British Isles that showed major wizarding sites of interest.
Weasley stared out of the window, sketching the trees on the edge of the Forest, looking rather haggard, whilst Billy flicked through a guitar magazine. He looked particularly impressed with a Sonorus-charmed amp, and started muttering about rock gigs at the Three Broomsticks. Si ignored them both, instead staring at the wall with his sunglasses on. He was grinning for some reason. Occasionally, he turned his head sideways, looked behind him, and grinned even more. After a while though, he looked disappointed and took his sunglasses off.
By that time, however, it was midnight. The escapade was on.
"Take this. Blacking Potion." Si passed round a bottle of oily black liquid, gulping some down itself. It tasted like peat and grease. "It should shadow your face for about three hours. Oh, and make sure your shades are ready. It's dark out there." He said the spell and blew out the candles.
"Yeah, possibly because it's midnight. Nocturne Lumino." Said Weasley. The room lit up with green light.
"Right, Billy, get your broom out, it's the strongest, should carry the two of you. Christina will be round in a tick to get me on her broomstick, so that's all of us. Weasley, have you got your Zonko's pencils? We might try sketching a quick map if the rumours about it being Unplottable are false, and you're a bloody good artist, for all your obsession with young nudes."
"Tosser. Fine, they're in my pocket. I've got some hot parchment too, so I'll have a go at it."
"Hep, my man. Here goes then, comrades. I'll catch you at the Quidditch stores."
Weasley looked out at the Forest once, then stepped out and clutched the broom behind Billy. He could see Christina round the curve of the tower, she waved at them as they dipped down towards the stores. Within a moment they arrived. Crabbe was already there, and Dedalus could be seen sneaking across the lawn from the direction of the greenhouses. Obviously the sleeping potion had worked. They huddled, shivering in the chill winter winds, nobody saying a word until Christina and Si dropped down behind them. Si handed over the Blacking Potion; the Slytherins gulped down a few drops, and their faces clouded over. Billy picked up the broomsticks and put them carefully behind the door.
Then, in single file they sprinted across the grounds towards the edge of the Forbidden Forest, Si stopping as they hit the treeline to file them all through. The Forest seemed more threatening in the unnatural green of the sunglasses, and the chill air was hardly making things any better. Crabbe seemed unperturbed though -- his intimidating frame had always dissuaded anybody from acting in a threatening manner towards him, and as such he had grown up with a peaceful, trusting nature. The same could hardly be said about Billy, who for all his seriousness in lessons, was treating this like a jaunt to Hogsmeade, dashing from bush to bush and throwing pine cones at Dedalus, who responded in kind. In the black-and-green of the forest, Weasley could see Si grow more annoyed. As they passed a little cairn, drifted high in pine needles, Si swore, once, and turned to Weasley.
"Dammit, that ditz is going to attract a horde of centaurs or something in a moment. And Dedalus is just as bad."
"I told you, Si, there'll be an injury before we get back," whispered Weasley in return, "This bit of the wood is packed with centaurs, we'll get an arrow in our backs or something if we don't watch it."
"Right, I'm going to put a kibosh on them until we get out of the centaur's pad. You know the Four-Point Spell? Check we're going in the right direction, will you?"
Weasley did so quickly, marking the map he was creating, whilst Si darted forwards to where Billy had tripped Dedalus up. By now he had proceeded to stuffing pine needles down his robes. Si pulled Billy off the giggling Dedalus and shook him roughly, swearing in an undertone with a string of invectives that only military men can hope to pick up.
Crabbe averted his eyes from the scene, whilst Weasley sketched out the cairn on the map parchment, and a rough pacing from the last minor landmark they had come across. Christina plodded along behind. She hadn't spoken in the past half hour since they had arrived in the Forest, and her face looked like moon on snow.
"Christina, you solid? 'Cos you don't look too hip at the mo."
Christina nodded weakly. "I'm dandy. Just give me a few moments to catch my breath -- all this pine fresh air always gets me this way."
"I don't think it's that. The place reeks of centaur, you allergic to horses? Wait here a moment. I'll go stop the others." Weasley ran up to Si, who was still swearing at Dedalus and Billy, and grabbed his shoulder. "Si, Christina's not feeling too good. She says it's these woods. Smells like centaurs back there, real strong around that cairn, I don't think we should stick here too long."
"Shit! You're kidding me?" Weasley shook his head. "Right, get Crabbe to lift Christina. These two are going to stop pissing around now, aren't they," --he said that as a fact, not a question-- "so we get out of centaur territory pronto, okay? We going in the right direction, yeah Weasley?"
Weasley nodded.
"Good. Let's get going. Billy, Dedalus, get off the floor and get going."
They did so. Crabbe lumbered up. "It's Christina. She's unconscious. Freezing cold, too."
"Shit. Oh shit! This is not good. Dammit, right, Crabbe, you're the strongest. Take Christina back, take Dedalus with you, get her to... shit, the dungeons are going to be too cold. Okay then, Dedalus, you're with me and Weasley. Billy, you take Christina back with Crabbe, get her to the Gryffindor pad, stick her in front of the fire. Check my trunk, it's got a Warming Potion at the back that'll get her moving again. Then put her to bed, no dodgy business or you'll be wearing your balls in your eye sockets, mate. Wake up Veronica, make sure she's looking after Christina, then get back to your beds. The rest of us'll be back as soon as possible."
"What the hell are you on, man? We're going to shag arse back to the Castle, together, we're not going any further. Okay?" Weasley looked defiant.
"No. Dammit! We've got this far, I'm not going back now. I'll go on alone if I have to."
"Faggoting fairies, Si man, don't do this to me. I'm not going to leave you alone, you know that."
"Come with me then. Dedalus, you don't want to come, you don't have to."
Dedalus scuttled off back to the cairn, where Crabbe had thrown Christina over his shoulders effortlessly. They started walking back to the castle. Billy looked back and waved. Si nodded back, turned, and started jogging through the woods, Weasley pulling up alongside him and then, together, they sprinted until Weasley could no longer smell the musk of the centaurs.
The woods were thicker; what moon there was pierced mere pinpricks of light in the canopy, and that was all. Si and Weasley lit up their wands, which helped a little. In the distance, a bell could be heard. It tolled twice, then stopped.
"Damn it's late, Si. That's got to be the Hogsmeade bell, don't see how it couldn't be."
"But that'd mean we've been turning circles."
"And the problem with that is? Look, my map isn't going to cut it, the Wizarding Survey haven't managed one yet, they've barely managed Dartmoor, and the Forest is about a thousand times as gnarly. We can keep going in circles, or we can head for where that bell was, and then go home."
"Fine, sure, whatever. Damn but this is a real bummer. You catch where the bell was?"
"Yeah, I did a Four-Pointer when I heard it. About fifty degrees, I'd say. Lets go, man."
They ran. It was after the first five minutes that they started sweating profusely, red hair darkening and black hair thinning into spikes in the torchlight. "Torchlight..." noticed Weasley, who pulled to a halt, hands on thighs to steady himself. Si pulled the sunglasses off.
Ahead of them was a hazy wall of firelight, where the Forest thinned out and the land swayed upwards into a clearing. A harsh cackle of voices could be heard, like the cracking of a thousand bones in badly-orchestrated unison. Si dropped to one knee, pulled out a pair of Omnioculars, and panned in.
"Goblins... Loads of the buggers..." He closed in on a muddy mound in the centre. It looked hastily constructed, or, thought Si, as if a mole of prodigous strength had emerged there, then patted down like an armchair, or a throne. A silhouette mounted it. Si tried to pan in closer, but the Omnioculars just weren't strong enough. He moved quickly through the scrub, not bothering to signal to Weasley, closing in a hundred foot or so, then brought the Omnioculars back up to his eyes. He could see the silhouette more clearly now, and panned in until he could make out the features. For a goblin, for that was what the creature was, it had remarkably clear features; a nose like a sickle, a fine head of wiry hair, eyes glinting smoothly in their hollows, a grin that was almost human. Then its lips opened, and the goblin began to speak.
"Utiurshabûrz koangobnakh kiarkhkhursnagbûrz..."
The words were guttural and harsh, and Si could not understand them. Yet it was obvious that they found favour with the crowd, which whooped with delight and savagery whenever the speaker paused for breath. After listening a while to the rhythmic scrawking, he looked around to see where Weasley was -- it was ridiculously late, he could see the sky lightening slightly. There he was, huddled by a tree stump, listening intently.
"Psst! Weasley! Shake your arse over to here quickly will you?"
Weasley looked up in astonishment to him, disorientated. "Oh, yes, wait a sec. You hear what they're jabbering about?"
"Weasley, I don't know what the hell they're saying. We didn't all spend a week down a mine, yeah? Let's just get the hell out of here, and get back to the Castle. Tell me there, yeah, before they finish and decide to look for wizard-shaped munchies to get them down from those post-speech blues. Now let's go!"
Weasley sighed, took one last look over the tree trunk at the goblins, then followed Simon home. He tapped on the map of the Forest, then looked as it traced a silver line back to the Castle. Weasley passed Si, nodded to him the way to go, and they swiftly ran back to Hogwarts.
By the time they reached the edge of the Forest, Si was yawning profusely, and Weasley's eyes were bleary with lack of sleep. They staggered across to the Quidditch grounds. Weasley looked at his watch and groaned -- it was four in the morning, they had about three hours before breakfast... Si had the broom, they climbed onto it and soared silently to the dorm window, clambered through and pulled themselves into their beds. Weasley looked across to Billy.
He wasn't there.
The Forbidden Forest
They didn't say anything about the plan in the common room. There was no need to. They settled down with a few games of chess, with Si generally winning ("It's all about tactics, isn't it?") though Weasley could often get a few (literally) killer moves in with his father's chess set. After the lower years had gone to bed, they played a few more games so they wouldn't look suspicious, then retired to the fifth year dorms.
There were five beds, although only three were inhabited, and it showed. The walls around Weasley's bed were covered in moving sketches and the occasional colour picture, mostly depicting landscapes and interiors, but also caricatures of the professors and a rather worrying amount of improbably proportioned female nudes, some of whom bore a striking resemblance to a number of Hogwarts students in various years. Billy's corner was dominated by a massive signed photograph of the Tumbling Menhirs band, surrounded by pull-outs of amps and guitars. Si, on the other hand, kept his relatively spartan, keeping a picture of Christina on his bedside table, and a curious map of the British Isles that showed major wizarding sites of interest.
Weasley stared out of the window, sketching the trees on the edge of the Forest, looking rather haggard, whilst Billy flicked through a guitar magazine. He looked particularly impressed with a Sonorus-charmed amp, and started muttering about rock gigs at the Three Broomsticks. Si ignored them both, instead staring at the wall with his sunglasses on. He was grinning for some reason. Occasionally, he turned his head sideways, looked behind him, and grinned even more. After a while though, he looked disappointed and took his sunglasses off.
By that time, however, it was midnight. The escapade was on.
"Take this. Blacking Potion." Si passed round a bottle of oily black liquid, gulping some down itself. It tasted like peat and grease. "It should shadow your face for about three hours. Oh, and make sure your shades are ready. It's dark out there." He said the spell and blew out the candles.
"Yeah, possibly because it's midnight. Nocturne Lumino." Said Weasley. The room lit up with green light.
"Right, Billy, get your broom out, it's the strongest, should carry the two of you. Christina will be round in a tick to get me on her broomstick, so that's all of us. Weasley, have you got your Zonko's pencils? We might try sketching a quick map if the rumours about it being Unplottable are false, and you're a bloody good artist, for all your obsession with young nudes."
"Tosser. Fine, they're in my pocket. I've got some hot parchment too, so I'll have a go at it."
"Hep, my man. Here goes then, comrades. I'll catch you at the Quidditch stores."
Weasley looked out at the Forest once, then stepped out and clutched the broom behind Billy. He could see Christina round the curve of the tower, she waved at them as they dipped down towards the stores. Within a moment they arrived. Crabbe was already there, and Dedalus could be seen sneaking across the lawn from the direction of the greenhouses. Obviously the sleeping potion had worked. They huddled, shivering in the chill winter winds, nobody saying a word until Christina and Si dropped down behind them. Si handed over the Blacking Potion; the Slytherins gulped down a few drops, and their faces clouded over. Billy picked up the broomsticks and put them carefully behind the door.
Then, in single file they sprinted across the grounds towards the edge of the Forbidden Forest, Si stopping as they hit the treeline to file them all through. The Forest seemed more threatening in the unnatural green of the sunglasses, and the chill air was hardly making things any better. Crabbe seemed unperturbed though -- his intimidating frame had always dissuaded anybody from acting in a threatening manner towards him, and as such he had grown up with a peaceful, trusting nature. The same could hardly be said about Billy, who for all his seriousness in lessons, was treating this like a jaunt to Hogsmeade, dashing from bush to bush and throwing pine cones at Dedalus, who responded in kind. In the black-and-green of the forest, Weasley could see Si grow more annoyed. As they passed a little cairn, drifted high in pine needles, Si swore, once, and turned to Weasley.
"Dammit, that ditz is going to attract a horde of centaurs or something in a moment. And Dedalus is just as bad."
"I told you, Si, there'll be an injury before we get back," whispered Weasley in return, "This bit of the wood is packed with centaurs, we'll get an arrow in our backs or something if we don't watch it."
"Right, I'm going to put a kibosh on them until we get out of the centaur's pad. You know the Four-Point Spell? Check we're going in the right direction, will you?"
Weasley did so quickly, marking the map he was creating, whilst Si darted forwards to where Billy had tripped Dedalus up. By now he had proceeded to stuffing pine needles down his robes. Si pulled Billy off the giggling Dedalus and shook him roughly, swearing in an undertone with a string of invectives that only military men can hope to pick up.
Crabbe averted his eyes from the scene, whilst Weasley sketched out the cairn on the map parchment, and a rough pacing from the last minor landmark they had come across. Christina plodded along behind. She hadn't spoken in the past half hour since they had arrived in the Forest, and her face looked like moon on snow.
"Christina, you solid? 'Cos you don't look too hip at the mo."
Christina nodded weakly. "I'm dandy. Just give me a few moments to catch my breath -- all this pine fresh air always gets me this way."
"I don't think it's that. The place reeks of centaur, you allergic to horses? Wait here a moment. I'll go stop the others." Weasley ran up to Si, who was still swearing at Dedalus and Billy, and grabbed his shoulder. "Si, Christina's not feeling too good. She says it's these woods. Smells like centaurs back there, real strong around that cairn, I don't think we should stick here too long."
"Shit! You're kidding me?" Weasley shook his head. "Right, get Crabbe to lift Christina. These two are going to stop pissing around now, aren't they," --he said that as a fact, not a question-- "so we get out of centaur territory pronto, okay? We going in the right direction, yeah Weasley?"
Weasley nodded.
"Good. Let's get going. Billy, Dedalus, get off the floor and get going."
They did so. Crabbe lumbered up. "It's Christina. She's unconscious. Freezing cold, too."
"Shit. Oh shit! This is not good. Dammit, right, Crabbe, you're the strongest. Take Christina back, take Dedalus with you, get her to... shit, the dungeons are going to be too cold. Okay then, Dedalus, you're with me and Weasley. Billy, you take Christina back with Crabbe, get her to the Gryffindor pad, stick her in front of the fire. Check my trunk, it's got a Warming Potion at the back that'll get her moving again. Then put her to bed, no dodgy business or you'll be wearing your balls in your eye sockets, mate. Wake up Veronica, make sure she's looking after Christina, then get back to your beds. The rest of us'll be back as soon as possible."
"What the hell are you on, man? We're going to shag arse back to the Castle, together, we're not going any further. Okay?" Weasley looked defiant.
"No. Dammit! We've got this far, I'm not going back now. I'll go on alone if I have to."
"Faggoting fairies, Si man, don't do this to me. I'm not going to leave you alone, you know that."
"Come with me then. Dedalus, you don't want to come, you don't have to."
Dedalus scuttled off back to the cairn, where Crabbe had thrown Christina over his shoulders effortlessly. They started walking back to the castle. Billy looked back and waved. Si nodded back, turned, and started jogging through the woods, Weasley pulling up alongside him and then, together, they sprinted until Weasley could no longer smell the musk of the centaurs.
The woods were thicker; what moon there was pierced mere pinpricks of light in the canopy, and that was all. Si and Weasley lit up their wands, which helped a little. In the distance, a bell could be heard. It tolled twice, then stopped.
"Damn it's late, Si. That's got to be the Hogsmeade bell, don't see how it couldn't be."
"But that'd mean we've been turning circles."
"And the problem with that is? Look, my map isn't going to cut it, the Wizarding Survey haven't managed one yet, they've barely managed Dartmoor, and the Forest is about a thousand times as gnarly. We can keep going in circles, or we can head for where that bell was, and then go home."
"Fine, sure, whatever. Damn but this is a real bummer. You catch where the bell was?"
"Yeah, I did a Four-Pointer when I heard it. About fifty degrees, I'd say. Lets go, man."
They ran. It was after the first five minutes that they started sweating profusely, red hair darkening and black hair thinning into spikes in the torchlight. "Torchlight..." noticed Weasley, who pulled to a halt, hands on thighs to steady himself. Si pulled the sunglasses off.
Ahead of them was a hazy wall of firelight, where the Forest thinned out and the land swayed upwards into a clearing. A harsh cackle of voices could be heard, like the cracking of a thousand bones in badly-orchestrated unison. Si dropped to one knee, pulled out a pair of Omnioculars, and panned in.
"Goblins... Loads of the buggers..." He closed in on a muddy mound in the centre. It looked hastily constructed, or, thought Si, as if a mole of prodigous strength had emerged there, then patted down like an armchair, or a throne. A silhouette mounted it. Si tried to pan in closer, but the Omnioculars just weren't strong enough. He moved quickly through the scrub, not bothering to signal to Weasley, closing in a hundred foot or so, then brought the Omnioculars back up to his eyes. He could see the silhouette more clearly now, and panned in until he could make out the features. For a goblin, for that was what the creature was, it had remarkably clear features; a nose like a sickle, a fine head of wiry hair, eyes glinting smoothly in their hollows, a grin that was almost human. Then its lips opened, and the goblin began to speak.
"Utiurshabûrz koangobnakh kiarkhkhursnagbûrz..."
The words were guttural and harsh, and Si could not understand them. Yet it was obvious that they found favour with the crowd, which whooped with delight and savagery whenever the speaker paused for breath. After listening a while to the rhythmic scrawking, he looked around to see where Weasley was -- it was ridiculously late, he could see the sky lightening slightly. There he was, huddled by a tree stump, listening intently.
"Psst! Weasley! Shake your arse over to here quickly will you?"
Weasley looked up in astonishment to him, disorientated. "Oh, yes, wait a sec. You hear what they're jabbering about?"
"Weasley, I don't know what the hell they're saying. We didn't all spend a week down a mine, yeah? Let's just get the hell out of here, and get back to the Castle. Tell me there, yeah, before they finish and decide to look for wizard-shaped munchies to get them down from those post-speech blues. Now let's go!"
Weasley sighed, took one last look over the tree trunk at the goblins, then followed Simon home. He tapped on the map of the Forest, then looked as it traced a silver line back to the Castle. Weasley passed Si, nodded to him the way to go, and they swiftly ran back to Hogwarts.
By the time they reached the edge of the Forest, Si was yawning profusely, and Weasley's eyes were bleary with lack of sleep. They staggered across to the Quidditch grounds. Weasley looked at his watch and groaned -- it was four in the morning, they had about three hours before breakfast... Si had the broom, they climbed onto it and soared silently to the dorm window, clambered through and pulled themselves into their beds. Weasley looked across to Billy.
He wasn't there.