Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Harry Potter characters. They are the property of JKR. The story and Lindsey Roberts is mine. A/N: This is my second Fan Fiction here, please review!

Chapter 13

Hermione was having a hard time riding on Buckbeak's back, not only was she scared of heights, but she had been foolish enough to only wear a spaghetti strap shirt. It had been fairly warm back at the house, but now that they where hundreds of feet above ground, with the wind roaring in their faces, she had begun to tremble with cold.

Harry was much in the same boat, but he at least had on a cloak on. He could feel Hermione shivering directly in front of him and swore he could hear her teeth chattering as well. Rapping his arms around her and pulling her closer he whispered in her ear, "I think we are almost there," as he rested his head on her shoulder, her strap falling down her arm.

Hermione nodded numbly and rested her head back against Harry's chest. She yawned and closed her eyes. The rocking of Buckbeak floating up and down slowly slipping her into a sleep.

"'Mione...come on, we are there wake up." Harry said quietly shaking Hermione a bit as her eyes fluttered open slowly. "Huh...waddya say?" she said stupidly as she tried to roll over to fall back asleep. This unfortunately was a bit mistake. As she rolled over she lifted her leg from Buckbeak's side and began to fall face first down into the sand, she let out a loud scream.

Harry quickly grabbed Hermione's front and his other hand coming around and grabbing her butt to lift her back up and set her down a bit strangely. She ran a hand to her chest and breathed deeply in and out. Not even noticing Harry's weird look and blush. "Well that's one way to wake up isn't it?" she asked him laughing.

He smiled at her and shook his head and started to look around. "Well this doesn't look too bad, what do you think?" Hermione was finally beginning to look around but before she did that she reached into her bag and grabbed a sweater to put on first.

She glanced about at the long white sanded beach and the green palm tree's swaying in the breeze. The crystal blue water splashed up the shore and left dark spots of sand in its wake. Breathing in the cool air she turned to Harry and smiled. "Well it seems nice to me. Definitely better then what I was expecting."

She turned towards the mountain and looked up at it; it appeared purple in their distance. Looking around at all the green tree's that surrounded the bottom of the mountain. It seemed that they would have a semi-pleasant trip.

"Okay, we need to ride Buckbeak down the beach a bit to the right and find a really large rock formation towards the water. Neville has the trail drawn up from there." Hermione nodded and walked over to Buckbeak. Harry helped her up and got behind her again. "Okay Beaky, don't fly I think Hermione is tired of that, just head on down that way." He told him pointing right.

In seconds they where going top speed down the beach, sand flying behind them and wing blowing in their faces. It didn't take long before they saw the rocks and Harry pulled Buckbeak to a stop. He slipped off and helped Hermione down.

"Okay, now according to the map we go directly north of the rocks." he told her looking at the map and then her. They walked over and faced the rocks and smiling and there so far accomplishments they turned, expecting to see a nice green path, but that's not what they saw.

Neville had outlined a trail all right, and there was a trail there, well sort of. Instead of all the lush green tropical plants they had been seeing along the beach, there in front of them stood the gloomiest looking trail either had ever seen. Dark, black trees outlined it, looking almost burnt. The leaves looked dead and hung down, some falling off completely. Spider webs hung along the top of the trees and spiders crawled up and down tree trunks. The floor was littered with an assortment of things. Snakes slithered nonchalantly in and out of the path, bird dropping lay littering it with white and yellow spots. And a putrid smell came form what appeared to be a dead carcass of a black panther.

"Why the hell would Neville outline the only path that looks like this?" Harry said as a bird swooped down and grabbed the snake. He watched as the snake reached back and bit the bird's leg, and in a second the bird was down and the snake had dinner.

"Harry it's probably not as bad as it looks, I mean this is supposed to be the only way up, and the ministry probably made it look less appealing to travelers." But Hermione didn't seem to sound very convincing in Harry's mind.

"Maybe we could find another..." Harry began but was cut off with an angry look from Hermione. "Harry for whatever reason Neville outlined this path, it is the path he chose and we need to follow it," she turned and looked back at the path taking a big gulp. "But Hermione you and I both know Neville isn't exactly...well..." Hermione looked over at him pursing her lips together and resembling a starting McGonagall, "and well we should follow it." He ended.

"I guess we just leave Buckbeak here. You hear that Beaky, you stay here and behave." Harry told him rubbing his face affectionately. Hermione turned and smiled at him as he snapped at an overhead bat. They both turned back and took a deep breath. "Well we have 6 days to do this." Harry said as they set off.