Disclaimer: Do you really think that if I owned the books of Harry Potter, I would be writing this? No? Thought that you weren't that deceivable….
AN: British/American dictionary-
Rugby – a Football kind of game except the ball can't be passed forwards and there's no random tackling. Therefore there are more rules and less pounding of fists on no one in particular.
Sooo, who wants more of the story?
(Me! Me! Pick me! Oh me! Chose me! *jumps up and down*) – it was from Shrek – if anyone wanted to know. I haven't seen that film for ages! So sorry if it's not quite right. And bears absolutely no relevance to anything.
Right, so here it is… Merry Christmas, everybody's having fun…
…Look to the future now, it's only just –
Enough of that – here's the next chapter!
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End of Last Chapter:
"Get up to the Fifth Year Second Dorm and look after the girls there!" I sprinted for the door.
"But boys can't get up there!"
"I don't care, think of something!" I ordered over my shoulder as I pelted down the hall, the Fat Lady quickly closing behind me.
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Unforgettable, In Every Way Part VIII – In Which There is a Small Problem"Need… to… get… fitter…" I muttered to myself, gasping for breath as I pelted down the corridors. I was determined to get to the Astronomy Tower before Anya did something very stupid. Like jumped off.
I skidded to a stop at the bottom of the stairwell that lead up to the Tower. The grey stone steps stared dauntingly at me, curving around like a corkscrew so it seemed that they stretched to infinity.
I gritted my teeth and began the long, precarious climb to the top.
By the time my foot fell with a thud on the last step, I had finally realized why people going out would climb all this way, just to have a snogging session. No one in their right mind would climb the stairs, unless love – or lust – had addled with their brains.
My breath caught in my throat. The Tower room looked it had been taken out of a film-set and placed at the top of Hogwarts. The full moon's white, steady glow illuminated the silver telescope, until it shone like a jewel.
But there was one, small problem.
No Anya.
I rushed to the balcony rail, peering over it into the grounds of Hogwarts.
"Oh, no…"
A figure, looking vaguely like a wraith was tearing down the path, wheeling and circling with her arms outstretched. In my mind, I could vividly hear her cries of "I can fly!"
"Ackm!" A sharp cough made me whirl around, "You wouldn't mind, giving us some privacy, would you?" Patrick McCrimmon and Kate Anderson were hidden in a corner, their arms about each other. Kate was giving me evil looks that – at any other time would have reduced me to a gibbering heap – I ignored.
"No! No, of course not!" I realized which direction Anya had been 'flying'. "I'm just going!"
I dashed out of the room and down the stairs. If anything happened to Anya, I don't know how I'd forgive myself!
I bolted out the main doors and along the path that Anya had been running.
"Since when is the Forbidden Forest the Astronomy Tower?" I groaned as I saw the Forbidden Forest at the end of the path she'd been running. I found it hard to accept that Anya had mistaken one for the other – even in her inebriated state!
Finding Anya was surprisingly easy – I just followed the loud noises. The sound of her crashing into trees and snapping twigs underfoot would have been enough to awaken the dead, alone. Accompanied by her shouts and cackles, I was surprised that the trees didn't uproot themselves and run away as fast as they could on their rooty feet.
As soon as I had come within an arms distance of Anya, I rugby tackled her to the forest floor, both of us landing in a heap on the pine needles and moss.
"Ouch! I think I hit a rock." I muttered to no one in particular.
Anya seemed content to just lounge on the ground – heedless of anything else.
Unlike her content state, I was laying on the forest floor in a heap, gasping for breath.
I rolled onto my side and, assured that Anya wouldn't go pelting off somewhere, attended to my shin.
It was badly scraped and had started to bleed quite heavily. The area around it was a pocket of numbness, but I knew that it would soon start to sting. It was quite odd to be sitting looking at my shin that was bleeding rather profusely and not feel a thing.
Coming back to my senses, I grasped at one of my torn sleeves of my robe, tearing a strip off it to wrap around the wound – applying pressure to stench the blood flow.
A choking, wet sound caught my attention as I finished tying a knot in the material, and I whirled around. Anya was being sick. I turned her onto her side so that she wouldn't suffocate and patted her on the back. What good it did to her, I had not one iota if an inkling, but it served to comfort me. I was not just standing helpless to the side.
Anya made a delightful mess on the ground. I felt compelled to gather armfuls of pine needles, moss and twigs to heap in top if it. I hoped that my efforts would hide the smell, as well as it did the sight of it.
With my arms loaded, I hurried back to Anya's side, amazed that one lone persone could create so much noise. I dumped the pile of forest undergrowth on top of her mess, but the noise did not stop.
Panic overriding anything else, I stooped beside Anya. She had ceased her wrenching and laid still, only soft moans letting me know that she was still breathing.
"Grrrrr..."
I warily looked for the unseen predator. The low sound reverberated around the clearing in which Anya and I were. The echo made it impossible to pinpoint the exact location from which the animal would spring from, as if the creature were circling our clearing before it closed for the kill.
My eyes wide, I rotated in my crouching position, trying to make out the monster's luminous eyes beneath the dead foliage.
The growling ceased.
My breath caught in my throat.
Silence hung over the clearing, and I could hear the blood pulsing in my ears.
I dared not move.
In a flurry of leaves, a grey form erupted out of the bush. Between Anya and myself.
A wolf stood there with its legs spread for balance, its canines protruding from beneath drawn lips. A gob of saliva hung over a lip and slowly dripped to fall on the dead leaves and grass of the forest floor.
But some innate sense alerted me that this was no ordinary wolf. It could have been the rat that frantically weaved in an out of the wolf's legs; or it could have been the way the wolf's jaw was slightly smaller than usual. It could have been either of those things, and many more, but it was the cold and calculating intelligence that the eyes held that told me in no uncertain terms.
This was a wolf to be reckoned with.
We stayed that way, the wolf and I; locked in each other's gaze, searching for a sign of weakness.
But it was a stalemate – each opponent unwilling to make the first move.
Anya groaned from her position on the ground, flopped to the side and looked up – straight into the eyes of the wolf. She promptly screamed, and in her… less than customary state – she fainted.
The wolf and I looked up from Anya's still form, meeting each other's gaze. Then, as if it had been a gun shot at the beginning of a race, we acted.
The wolf darted in to clamp its jaws around the soft flesh of Anya's neck, its mouth open in anticipation, froth bubbling over the side.
I threw myself in front of Anya, shielding her. My whole body tensed as I waited for sharp teeth to rip and tear into my skin. My eyes were squeezed tightly shut. So tight, that when I opened them in surprise that I wasn't injured in some way, I couldn't see for the spots.
Blinking, I turned to see what had happened.
There, in the clearing, where they certainly hadn't been before, stood a black dog and a deer. The deer's antlers were lowered as it warded off the wolf's attempts to break through the barrier that they had created to protect us.
Why would animals protect two humans from another animal intent on having them for its dinner? And why would they band together to do that?
In my mind, I ran through many possible scenarios of just why we were being protected, but I couldn't seem to think of a reasonable answer that satisfied me.
Oh well, 'don't look a gift-horse in the mouth', my father always said.
Suddenly, the wolf attacked the deer head-on, causing it to step back to keep its balance. The only problem was that the animals were so close to Anya and me that the deer's hoofs came dangerously close to my face. Again I shielded Anya with my body.
You're a witch, for heavens sake! Use magic you nitwit! I reminded myself.
I fumbled in my robes for my wand. I had been lying on the pocket that contained my wand and I had to roll over to gain access to it.
Please, please don't let it be broken! I silently begged. I suddenly had this horrific thought that perhaps I had snapped it – and then where would we be?
Finally, I grasped the thin column and triumphantly whipped it out. I looked up, a spell on the tip of my tongue, and was met with a hoof on the side of the face.
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Response to Reviews:
Optical Illusions: I should hope that it's true – or else I should have been packed off the Insane Asylum ages ago. Could you tell me what part you got confused at? I'm the author, so things that are obvious to me might not be to the readers and I could change the story to make it easier to understand.
Swishy Willow Wand: Ok I concede the point to you – not all Gryffindors are goody-goody. Look how the Twins turned out. ^_^ But I still like Slytherin the best.
Winky55: Unfortunately, you will have to endure another few chapters now knowing what her answer is. Mwahahahahaha! Aren't I evil! ;-)
dOvE: Aww, thank you so much! *blushes* I hope that you'll keep reviewing!
LisBleu: I had hoped that the British/American dictionary would be helpful to someone, but no one said anything and I was going to stop doing them. Thanks to you, I'll keep writing them.
Spectrecat: I didn't get the other comments that you wrote, just the second ones. But for of the questions that you posed, you'll just have to keep reading!
Hannah: It's not like I'll tell you my most prised secrets! 'When are Lily and James going to get together?' Well, really! I suppose that you'll have to keep reading and find out!
A Naughty Mouse: I still find it hard to believe that someone could, hypothetically speaking, bite someone's head off over the internet. Ah well, I'm a muggle, so I wouldn't know, would I? But then again, I might not be a muggle. You just don't know, do you? Hey, join the club! We're all strange! By the way, what pen name did you post that story under? I've looked up A Naughty Mouse, but I don't get any bones.
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AN2: Hey everyone! A really BIG thank you to everyone who stuck with it up until this chapter!
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Is that big enough? I haven't figured how to make the font bigger in ff.net – it's doubtful that I even can get the font bigger.
Thanks for the support everyone!
I'm leaving now for the very-far-away-Island of Skye. Where there is no, I repeat NO internet connection. So somehow I'll just try to e-mail the chapters to someone to post them.
I need responses for this1) Do you like the British/American dictionary at the top or should I quit doing them?
2) Do you like the bigger spacing or the smaller of this chapter?
Finally, last but not least…
3) Do you want me to continue doing the response to reviews?
Please reply with answers to this.
~*~BrokenSkye ~*~