A/N: Whee! I'm a really happy fanfiction author right now! I just found my EFC books after they've been missing for months! **huggles books** Everything should be slightly more canon now. Yay!^^
In Which Ron and Hermione Do Some Questing
"Ron! Ron! Ron!"
"What is it?" the redhead exclaimed exasperatedly, turning around to face Hermione, who was running as fast as she could to catch up to him. She drew to a halt in front of him, her hands on her knees, panting. "Well?" Ron asked impatiently, crossing his arms.
Hermione straightened up, and, to his complete surprise, she was smiling. "Ron. We have to go save Harry."
"What are you talking about?" Ron said, bewildered.
"We can go find Harry," she explained. "Professor Dumbledore practically gave us permission!"
"Yeah, but he also said it's impossible," Ron pointed out. "He was right, Hermione. Where could we even begin to look?"
"Well, where did Harry disappear?" asked Hermione excitedly.
"Over…the Forbidden Forest," Ron replied slowly.
"Exactly! Over the Forbidden Forest!"
"What?"
"Oh, just come on!" she urged, grabbing Ron's arm and practically dragging him towards the Gryffindor common room. After giving the Fat Lady the password ("Merlin's shoe"), Hermione pushed Ron ahead of her toward the boys' dormitories.
"Hermione, I don't understand!"
"Quick, Ron! Where does Harry keep his Invisibility Cloak?" she inquired, coming up behind him as he stepped into the fifth year dorm.
"Under his bed."
Hermione got down on her hands and knees, sifting through all the junk under Harry's bed. Her nose wrinkled. "Ugh. How can you boys stand such mess?"
Ron was about to respond, but was interrupted by Hermione's "Aha!" as she pulled out the thin, silvery Invisibility Cloak.
"Hermione, what are you doing?"
"I think you should be asking what are we doing. I'm not going by myself," she declared, taking Ron's arm again and leading him out to the empty common room. Everyone else was at the Quidditch match between Hufflepuff and Slytherin, and Ron had just been on his way there when Hermione intercepted him.
"What's this we stuff?" Ron questioned as Hermione pushed him down into an armchair.
"Just be quiet and listen," she reprimanded him, and Ron shut his mouth and glared at her. "Okay, so Harry disappeared over the Forbidden Forest, right?" Ron nodded, afraid to say anything lest he invoke the wrath of Hermione. "He was blown pretty far over it, too, before he vanished. I'd say no one has ever gone that deep, not even Professor Dumbledore."
"I don't know, Hermione," said Ron. "Me and Harry have been pretty deep into it."
"Oh, hush up, Ron. And it's Harry and I." Ron rolled his eyes. "Maybe you have been pretty deep - "
"It's not a maybe, Hermione."
"But Harry disappeared over a region nearer to the mountains," Hermione continued, ignoring Ron's comment. "Someplace no one has ever been. Now, Professor Dumbledore said that Harry is in a place that no one with selfish intent can find, so it's obviously enchanted. There's no place here that's like that; trust me, I looked it up. So Harry must have been taken to some sort of parallel universe!"
"Well, that's all well and good, Hermione," Ron interrupted, "but suppose Harry really has been taken to some alternate universe. How do you propose we get there?"
"The same way Harry did."
"What?"
"I can't believe I'm doing this!" Ron shouted over the wind.
"You can't believe it?" Hermione repeated incredulously. "We're almost to where Harry disappeared, Ron!"
The two were flying under the protection of Harry's Invisibility Cloak on one of the school's old Shooting Stars. It was the only decent broom they could find, and it felt like it was going to give out any minute. Ron and Hermione had to ride on the same broom, because the Cloak wasn't big enough to hide them if they were on different ones. Right now, it was a struggle to keep it around them. It was dusk now, and everyone was at dinner, but they couldn't risk anything.
"Take her down!" Hermione ordered, and Ron maneuvered the old broom into a dive, straight for the depths of the Forbidden Forest.
"I can't believe this," he moaned, closing his eyes tight, and he could feel Hermione doing the same behind him as her arms tightened around his middle.
Suddenly, there was a jolt that shook through Ron and Hermione's bodies, feeling a lot like Muggle electricity. The two were knocked from the air and went pummeling through the branches of the trees, arms still wrapped around each other as the cloak billowed out about them.
They landed with a soft thud on a blanked of moss, but the falling branches didn't share their silence. The branches crashed down all around them, sending dirt and leaves flying.
And then, silence.
"Er, Ron? You can get off me now."
Ron's cheeks flared up in a hot blush, spreading quickly to his forehead and the tips of his ears as he sat up and backed away from Hermione. While the branches had been falling around them, he had been sheltering Hermione with his body, and now they were both blushing like mad.
"Er, right," he said, feeling horribly awkward. During their fall, the Invisibilty Cloak had separated from them, and was lying in a heap on the ground. "Well, I'll get the cloak."
"Ron!" Hermione suddenly exclaimed as the redhead was just bending over to pick up the cloak. "Look around you. Doesn't this place seem too…sunny to be the Forbidden Forest?"
"You're right," he said slowly, glancing around. It did seem far too sunny, and alive, and lush. "Where are we?"
"You don't know?" said a tiny voice by Ron's feet. "Why, you really don't! How remarkable."
"What? Who said that?" Ron asked, glancing around him in surprise.
"Down here!" the voice squeaked. Ron looked down, in the direction of the voice, and his eyes were greeted by a very surprising sight. There was a little gold lizard sitting on top of the Invisibility Cloak, looking up at him with a very human-like expression.
"Um, where?" Ron questioned the voice, thinking that the lizard couldn't possibly be the source. Lizards don't talk!
"Here!" the voice squeaked again. "Me!"
"You?" Ron asked incredulously.
"Of course! Who did you think?"
"Well," said Ron uncertainly. "I just didn't think lizards could talk."
"You didn't?" Ron nodded. "Oh my gracious goodness my oh!" it exclaimed, doing a little flip. "Where did you get that notion?"
"Where we come from, animals don't talk," Hermione explained.
"They don't?" asked the lizard, leaning forward and nearly falling over." Why, they really don't! How peculiar. Well, they do in the Enchanted Forest."
"The Enchanted Forest?" Hermione repeated. "So that's where we are."
"You didn't know? No, of course you didn't. That's why you asked." It twisted in such a way that Ron felt it would tie itself in a knot, but it only ended up balancing on its tail. "Well, you're in the Enchanted Forest. I don't know how you got here if you came from another place where animals don't talk, which is odd, because I know everything that goes on in the Enchanted Forest. I'm Suz, by the way."
"Everything?" asked Hermione, and Suz nodded. "Would you be able to tell me if you saw a boy with black hair, a little taller than me, with round glasses?"
The lizard appeared to ponder this very carefully. "Why, yes I did!"
"Did you see where he went?" Hermione inquired eagerly.
"Follow me!" Suz answered, flitting past them and into the underbrush. Hermione and Ron stared after him, a little stunned by his sudden departure. A moment later, he reappeared again, looking annoyed. An annoyed lizard is a very odd sight to see. "Well, do you want to find him or not?"
"Oh. Right!" said Ron, and he and Hermione followed Suz as he streaked in front of them.
Antorell stalked through the Enchanted Forest, muttering about castles and warding spells as he batted the branches of the trees aside with his staff. As that dratted magician had cast an enchantment on the forest, Antorell's staff couldn't even absorb the magic of the trees and help the wizard along. Stupid boy, he thought bitterly. If it weren't for him, I wouldn't be in this mess! And it was true. If that stupid Prince Daystar hadn't transported him to the Valley of Demons along with Antorell's summoned creature, Lady Tanith never would have had to rescue him. Not that he had needed any rescuing anyway. It was only thirteen demons, and he could've fended them off quite easily with his wizarding prowess, but –
"This way, this way!" a small voice suddenly shouted from behind him. Antorell stopped in his tracks and looked anxiously around. "Almost to the castle!"
Castle? Knowing there wasn't time for anything else, Antorell dove into the bushes, out of sight of anyone walking on the path. Soon, a red-haired boy and a bushy-haired girl came into view, wearing very strange clothing.
"Can't we slow down?" the boy complained. "What's the big hurry, anyway?"
"Quit whining, Ron. You want to find Harry, don't you?" the girl reprimanded him.
Harry? Antorell wondered, listening with interest. There was no one else in the Enchanted Forest who could possibly have a name like that except for Harry Potter! Did the girl say his name was Ron? Strange name. Wait. With that sort of name, the two must have come from Potter's world, and they were looking for him. So if he followed them… What luck he had stumbled upon! Not that he had happened on it, of course. Everything Antorell did was completely on purpose. Now he could find the castle quite easily, if whatever it was the boy and girl were following actually knew the way.
"Yes, I do, Hermione," said the boy, "but he's not going anywhere! He'll just be in this forest. Nowhere else he could go."
Hermione. That was a much more normal name. His mind made up, Antorell –
"What's this?"
Drat it all! Antorell shrank back into the bush he was hiding in (he had been just about to come out and order them to show him the way). The girl stooped over and picked up Antorell's staff, though he guessed it only looked like a plain stick to her.
"You don't know?" said that squeaky voice again. "You really don't! How shocking. You really don't know much."
The red-haired boy glared at the source. "I'll have you know, Hermione knows a lot!"
"But I don't know what this is, so let Suz explain," the girl scolded him, and Ron turned red.
"It's a wizard's staff," the voice informed the two. I wish I could see whatever it is that's guiding them, Antorell thought, straining to see. "Don't know where he is, but he's around here somewhere. Take it with you."
"A wizard's staff?" the boy repeated blankly. "Wizards don't carry staffs!"
"Don't talk about things you don't know," said Hermione. "They very well could here! Now, why should we take it along, Suz? Why can't we leave it here so that the wizard can find it?"
"You want to do that? You really do! How positively horrible! You don't want the wizard to get his staff back. Let's go, or your friend might leave the castle."
Ron and Hermione looked at each other a moment before following the voice, Antorell's staff grasped firmly in Hermione's hand. Antorell cursed. Now he really would have to follow them, at least until he got his staff back and could enchant them. Once they had gone forward a little on the path, Antorell struggled out of the bush, brushing leaves off his robe and smoothing his hair before following.
"What an idiot," said the woman known as Lady Tanith. "He'd lose his head if it weren't screwed on. Oh well. At least he's getting there, and maybe he'll have the sense to stop those two from finding the Potter boy. No, that's giving him too much credit. Khaos!"
"Yesss, milady?" a serpentine voice replied from the darkness.
She smiled. "Go put a damper on Ron and Hermione's spirits. And while you're at it, maybe you can teach Antorell a thing or two. Idiot needs some brains to fill that empty space in his head."
"Yesss, milady," Khaos hissed, and he slinked away to do Tanith's bidding.
Tanith smirked. If there was anyone she could rely on, it was Khaos. She should've sent him in the first place, rather than that fool of a wizard. Only reason she rescued him was because Zemenar was his father, and she had thought he might be somewhat like him. But she had been wrong, for the first time in a long while (the other time will not be mentioned here), and the boy didn't have the common sense of a pebble. Tanith sighed. Oh well. At least Khaos could fix things. Her smile returned, evil and menacing. Yes, he could definitely fix things.
*~*~*~*~*
Next chapter: In Which Ron and Hermione Come Upon Some Trouble
Wow! An update without you people pestering me! Harry was beginning to get a little bit boring, so I had to go back to Ron and Hermione. They're so fun to write! Anyway, the next chapter will contain Harry, so don't worry. And now for the thank-you's!
Firefox – Thanks for the lovely poem, too. As you can see, it worked!
Elenrihil – A happy Thanksgiving to you, too, though it's more like Happy Holidays, now. =~_^=
girloz14 – Did I update fast enough?
DumbOldDork – How am I doing on length, and is it making my story better?
Dragonlet – No, he didn't get eaten, as explained here. Daystar just made Antorell vanish, and I figured he transported him.
Kell Shock – Oh, they have their ways.
Kaylin – I will!
Allison – Do you really think so? I'm flattered!
Meshelly – Hm…broomsticks…
guess – Tanith reminds me of Beryl, yes, but it wasn't on purpose, I swear! I just had this image of her, and that's what it came out as.
Isn't it sad how I can actually list everyone out vertically and address each every person's review in under five minutes? I find it very sad, so review and make me feel better….please?
