The Portal of Calamity

Chapter 1 - The Flight

It was a dark night in the Forbidden Forest when Harry Potter and Neville Longbottom were searching through the eerie woods for the thestral that had run away from Hagrid's pen. As the only ones who could see the winged dark horses, they were fulfilling a request for Hagrid to track the thestral and return it to its pen. Suddenly, Neville saw it. It was eating a dead bear cub it had found. He raised his wand at it and shouted, "Stupefy!" A red jet of light shot from his wand, hitting the thestral. It fell to the ground like a stone.

Neville turned to Harry. "Now what?" he asked. Harry stared at the fat boy and said, "We take him back to Hogwarts. That bear looks like it's been dead for days, no telling what rotting meat will do to a thestral. Madam Pomfrey or Hagrid will know what to do." Harry pointed his wand at the thestral, and was about to perform the Summoning Charm, when he heard an oddly familiar voice say, "Avada Kedavra!"

Surprisingly, Neville reacted quickly. He hurled his large mass at Harry, knocking him to the ground. The Killing Curse sped over their bodies, striking a nearby oak. Neville raised his wand at the caster and cried, "Expelliarmus!" Their attacker's wand flew twenty feet into the air, and he tripped over a tree root while attempting to retrieve it. Neville and Harry jumped the attacker and pulled off his mask. It was Walden Macnair, an executioner for the Ministry of Magic's Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures, or at least that was his legitimate job. Macnair was a Death Eater, a supporter of Voldemort. And he had not come alone.

"HELP!" Macnair cried. Harry and Neville were not about to wait for company. Harry had lost someone very dear to him in his last skirmish with the Death Eaters, and he was not about to lose Neville, a friend of five years. They fled through the forest in terror, dodging tree roots and not daring to use the lighting charm, "Lumos", for fear of making a target for a Killing Curse. After about four miles of panicked running, they encountered a large, circular object with weird symbols on it, and a tunnel- like object that appeared to be closed.

"This is nothing like Ancient Runes," said Harry, looking at the weird symbols on it. "The centaurs must have been trying for years to figure out what it means." He put away his wand and sat down on the stone thing with the symbols, and heard a loud "BEEP." Neville looked at Harry in fright. "What if the Death Eaters heard it?" he asked, crying. Harry looked nonchalant. "We must have lost them miles ago, no telling where we are. It'll take hours to get back to Hogwarts. Let's fiddle around with this thing some more." He pressed a few runes, and the tunnel generated a blast of weird smokelike stuff and turned blue. Harry threw a rock into it. He then walked into the tunnel with Neville.