Disclaimer: You know the drill…must I do this every time. I don't own the Harry Potter characters, yada yada yada.
A/N: So, am I updating enough for you people? I've been trying to write these things more frequently. I know what it's like to have to wait for someone to update. IT drives me insane. Anyways, I am going to take a stab at making these darn things more interesting. Evil person to soon enter the fray, and if you don't know who I'm talking about, you'll figure it out soon enough. Anyways, on with the story.
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Indra Rostau placed her coffee cup down on her desk, careful to avoid any important paperwork. She was currently working on a very important case and had to meet with a disgruntled parent in less than an hour. She wasn't looking forward to the meeting, and decided to pop some pain pills down her throat before she headed out. She knew she'd need them before it was over. Grabbing her light weight jacket and purse, she heading for the door.
"Ms. Rostau, message for you at the front desk." remarked Kate, the office secretary, waving an envelope at her.
"Coming." she said, rushing over to her. She didn't want to be late or said parent would threaten her again. She was sick of violent parents. They should all be wiped off the face of the earth.
"You know, you should really start taking on clients who don't have extremely weird names, Indra." said Kate, handing her the envelope. "Have fun at that meeting." she added with an amused smirk on her face.
"Ha, ha, Kate." she jerked the letter from the secretary's hand and ran out the front doors. She slid into her car, placing the envelope on top of her briefcase, which was already sitting in the passenger seat. Throwing her car into drive, she sped off, only to get stuck at a red light. "What is with this? It's like somebody is trying to make me late." she mumbled to herself. Her attention was drawn to the passenger window when a man nearly ran his bicycle right into the door.
"Sorry mam." the bicyclist apologized before regaining his balance and riding away. Upon turning back to the road, her gaze glanced over the envelope and she had to do a double take.
"This can't be good." she said, picking up the envelope and ripping it open with her teeth. She skimmed it quickly, and nearly dropped it in her shock. "Shit!" she mouthed, and once again slammed the car into gear. Ignoring the fact that the light was still red, she floored the accelerator and flew through the oncoming traffic, barely avoiding a collision. She had one thing on her mind, and that was to get to the nearest desolate place she could find so she could disapparate. She had a feeling a certain headmaster was going to kill her. The envelope she had discarded just a moment before was blowing violently from the wind coming in through the open window. One word could clearly been seen: Dumbledore.
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Ron and Harry were slowly making their way through the massive amounts of overgrown foliage and trees. Harry was absently swiping an errant tree branch out of his way when he practically tripped over a root protruding from the ground.
"Careful, Harry. This place is practically impossible to make it through, even if it is winter. It's always been this way, I think it's cursed." whispered Ron, as if the trees had ears.
Harry gave Ron the 'you're being stupid again' look, but Ron just shrugged his shoulders.
"Fine, don't believe me. You will soon enough." he replied mysteriously. Harry still looked at his friend as if he had grown a second head.
Their trek through the woods seemed to never end. "Are you sure you know where you're going Ron?" asked Harry, eyeing the area around him. "This looks familiar, haven't we already been here? And, why is this taking so long, I didn't even go that far into the woods, for this specific reason. I didn't want to get lost." he said, exasperated.
"I'm telling you, this place is cursed. Even mum and dad think so." he stated, and then added as an afterthought, "We're not even supposed to come in here."
"Oh that's just great, now you tell me." said Harry, dryly.
"Excuse me; I'm not the one who went running off into the forest in the first place. I just came to find you." snapped Ron.
"Well, I was kind of upset, you dolt, what did you expect me to do. And how did you find me in the first place?" asked Harry, getting angry all of a sudden.
"I don't know, I just happened upon you, I'm lucky I found you at all. Hell, you're lucky I found you at all. At least you're not wandering around here alone. At least I came to find you."
"Oh shut it, Ron. You're not the only person who would have come after me, so stop acting like you saved my life."
"I did save your life, or are you forgetting why you're here in the first place? Remember, Dursleys, evil uncle, impossibly stupid social worker who sent you there in the first place." Ron seemed to be venting his anger at this point.
"Okay, okay, I get it, now shut up." Ron looked on the verge of restarting their argument, when Harry held up his hand. "Why are we arguing?"
Ron looked slightly dumbfounded. "I don't know." After thinking about it, they both realized they had no real reason for fighting with each other. "I'm telling you Harry, this bloody forest is cursed, or haunted, or something. It's the reason we're fighting. It's probably trying to make us mad at each other, so we'll go separate directions. Then what would happen?"
Harry just stared at him. "Who knows, maybe you're right. Just to be on the safe side, let's not argue anymore, alright. And whatever you do, don't get away from me. We're safer together." said Harry, taking on the role as leader.
"Alright." replied Ron. They continued through the forest, occasionally knocking over brush out of their way. However, which ever way they turned, they always seemed to be going deeper into the forest instead of out of it. "Okay, perhaps we should just stay where we are. I was always taught that if I get lost, to stay where I am, and that someone would find me. Of course, this was in muggle school, so who knows what they were talking about. But, it might work." Harry shrugged his shoulders. "Besides, any further and we'll be entering the darker part of the forest." he pointed his finger towards the left and Ron noticed he was right. It seemed to be engulfed in darkness, even though the sun was still shining.
"I agree." said Ron in a shaky voice. Harry, deciding he might as well get comfortable, sat down in front of a tree and leaned back against it. Ron did the same, sitting against a tree that was facing his friend. "So," he said, in a conversational voice.
"So." replied Harry, raising his eyebrows. Neither had anything important to say, so the silence remained.
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Upon reaching a slightly frightening looking warehouse district, Indra parked her car where it wouldn't be seen, got out and disapparated as close as she could to Hogwarts. She then ran as fast as possible to the castle. She flew through the halls like a dementor was chasing her, and finally reached the gargoyle that led to the headmaster's office.
"Shit." she said again, as she realized she didn't know the password.
"I can assure you, miss, that that particular word is not the password." snapped someone from behind her.
Indra spun around in surprise. She hadn't realized anyone was even near by her, let alone standing directly behind her. "I'm trying to find the headmaster, could you please give me the password, Professor McGonagall."
"He's not here." she replied heatedly.
"Oh, and where might he be?" she asked, just slightly irritated at the tone of voice the woman was taking with her.
"At the Weasley's, if you must know, trying to help Mr. Potter, as obviously, you don't know how!" she hissed. "How dare you send him to that house, you know, you had to have known. Your gift would have sensed it, why did you send him there? Why!!!" she yelled, losing her temper.
Indra was taken aback, she knew they would be angry, but to downright blame her for what happened? She honestly didn't know what had been happening. She could barely contain her own rage at the woman's assumptions. "Professor," she spat, "I had no idea what was being done to the boy. How dare you accuse me of such an atrocity! I would never have left him there had I known. Never!"
"You deny it then?" she asked, just as harshly as before.
"Woman, how could you even accuse me? You know me, you taught me in school. Do you honestly believe I would leave I child to be abused? Do you?" she asked softly.
The professor stopped suddenly, as realization dawned upon her. "You're right, I don't know what I was thinking. I was just angry, and took it out on you. I'm sorry, please forgive my stubbornness." She said, as way of apology.
"You're forgiven, Minerva. I only wish I could have been there to protect the boy. I don't understand why he didn't call to me, or use the mirror."
"Neither do I, Indra, neither do I. Perhaps we will have the answers when the headmaster returns." said McGonagall tiredly.
"I don't intend to wait, professor, I'm going there right now. I have to apologize to them as well. I am the reason he was placed there."
"Don't blame yourself, child. I realized the truth, so will they." said Minerva, wisely.
"Thank you, professor. I had better go now." she nodded at the older woman and headed back down the hallways. She was dreading this confrontation more than the meeting she had skipped this morning.
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The Weasley's, Sirius, Dumbledore, and Madame Pomfrey were so worried by this point that when they did find those two they fully planned on throttling them. It was lunch time, and the two boys had been missing now for five hours. The Weasley men and Sirius had gone searching, but had come back empty handed. They had searched everywhere, but couldn't find them. Mrs. Weasley had made lunch, but no one felt hungry.
Even though the room was filled with people, it seemed empty. No one spoke, no one did much of anything. All were worried, mainly because the two missing could get themselves into more trouble than they wanted to think about. Plus, they were both healing, if something happened right now, they could be even more seriously hurt than before. Mrs. Weasley was practically beside herself with worry. If something happened to those two, she absolutely thought she would keel over. Her heart couldn't take the strain anymore. As they were all sitting, a sudden pop from outside drew their attention.
"Who's there?" asked Mr. Weasley in a protective voice.
"It's only me."
said Indra Rostau, who was shyly entering the kitchen. The looks on their faces did nothing to alleviate
her fears. She was currently thinking
that Harry had died by looks alone. Her
hand went to her chest and she inhaled sharply.
She could feel the presence of another with such an ability as
hers. Only theirs was more
pronounced. She homed in on the energy
the other was producing and found her answer.
"Young Mr. Weasley." she breathed out, garnering the attention of those
in the room.
"What did you say?" asked Mrs. Weasley, with venom in her voice. Indra could tell there was a lot of hostility in the room, and it was directed at her. "Do you know where my son is?"
"Why, is he missing?" she asked suddenly. "Where's Harry?" this question alone seemed to enrage those in them room even further.
"Why, so you can send him back to that hellhole?" asked Sirius sharply. "You don't belong here, please leave." he spat.
"Look, I know you all blame me for what happened, but I didn't know, alright. The feelings I was getting off of Vernon made me think he truly wanted Harry to trust him. Now, I realize he wanted his trust so he could…break him of it." the realization seemed to hit her as she was saying it. "The bastard." the sheer pain that was radiating from her voice made the others realize she spoke the truth. "I am such an idiot. I should have seen his true feelings, he didn't want Harry to see it coming, of course." she berated herself.
Sirius, who still wasn't too thrilled with the social worker, spoke up. "Alright, so you realize your mistake, that's just bloody wonderful. Too bad you couldn't have realized this before you sent him there." he glared at the woman. "Now, can you help us find them?"
"Them?" she asked.
Sirius sighed in frustration. "Yes, them, Harry ran off earlier, and Ron went after them. It's been over five hours and they haven't come home yet. Can you help us find them?" he spoke the last sentence as if he was talking to a child.
Indra rolled her eyes at his tactics. "Yes, I can." Without further ado, she focused on the energy the boy was sending out with his own power, again, and then determined where they were, a forest. "Damn, that kid's strong for being so young." she said absentmindedly. Dumbledore smirked. "They're in the forest." she replied, taking note of Albus's smirk. "They're lost."
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While Dumbledore and the others were starting their search of the forest, Harry and Ron were still sitting idly against their trees.
"Harry, I'm so bored." whined Ron. "Can't we do something?"
Harry laughed at the other's tone. "What are we going to do? It's not like we can play chess or something. We'll just have to wait patiently for someone to find us. It'll happen eventually."
"Sure, they probably don't even know where we are." said Ron. "Wait, what was that?" he asked, drawing up onto his knees, and inching over towards Harry.
"What?" asked Harry, looking around in all directions. "What did you hear?"
"Something moved over there." said Ron, pointing over towards the darkened part of the forest.
Harry squinted his eyes, trying to peer into the darkness. "I don't see anything." he said, leaning back against the tree, but keeping his guard up, just in case. As he turned back around, his heart nearly stopped. There was some kind of creature kneeling behind the tree Ron was sitting against. But that wasn't what had scared him, it was the knifes that seemed to be his fingernails that scared him. They were resting on the tree, just above Ron's head.
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A/N: Okay, I haven't given you this bad of a cliffhanger in a while, so deal with it. I don't really have anything else to say, but if I get lots of reviews, I might be inclined to update quickly again. I'll try at least. I wrote this in a matter of three hours. It's six pages long, whew!