"So why were you at the school?"

Draco glanced over his shoulder at his unlikely traveling companion. He jumped over a fallen tree and stopped to shine the light from his wand into the darkness around them. "Where are we?"

Harry leapt over the fallen tree as well and hurried to catch up, his own wand shining light ahead of him, "The Forbidden Forest. Where did you think we were? The Amazon?"

Draco stopped and turned, his silver eyes wide in the dim wand light. "What? What do you mean we're in the Forbidden Forest? Don't you know there's a reason this placeis called the Forbidden Forest?"

Harry rolled his eyes and stopped directly in front of Draco, "Of course I know. Better than you, probably."

"So why did you drag me in here!"

Harry growled, his free hand clenching into a fist, "I didn't! You were running as fast as you could ahead of me!"

"You tricked me! You knew I didn't want to come in here!" Draco's own fists clenched, his knuckles turning white over the grip of his wand.

"How did I manage that? You're the Slytherin."

Draco scowled around at the darkness that surrounded them. "Where are we anyway?"

"In the-"

"I know that! How do we get back?"

Harry glared at Draco, "How should I know?"

"You're the one that's always coming in here," Draco snarled at him. "Or can you only find your way around when that know it all Granger's leading?"

"Leave Hermione out of this!" For a moment, Harry's eyes flashed green and his wand went out. He cursed using a word Draco had only ever heard Professor Snape use before lighting his wand back up.

"Aww... Poor Ron's got competition for the mudblood's affections, hm?" Draco smirked as soon as Harry had looked back up at him.

"Find your own way out of here, Malfoy. I'm going to find the weapon to kill Voldemort's new pet," Harry snarled.

Draco's eyes widened again as Harry pushed past him, "Y-y-you'rre going to leave me here?"

"You're smart, reportedly," Harry called back over his shoulder, his bouncing light bouncing further and further away. "You'll find your way out alive."

"And they call you a savior," Draco snarled. He turned and started quickly after him. "You're nothing but a fool!"

"You're following me, Malfoy."

Draco growled, "Someone has to make sure you don't get yourself killed! Do you even know where you're headed?"

"The middle of the forest, the book said the weapon could be found in a cave there."

"Let me rephrase." Draco ran up ahead of Harry and blocked his path. Harry glared at him, Draco wasn't about to let him speak yet. "Are you heading towards the center of the forest?"

Harry glared at him and then let out a deep breath. "Fine. Nox." His wand went out and Draco lifted his own to beto see his face. Harry placed his wand in the flat of his palm and said, "Point me." The wand began to spin until it pointed at Draco's left shoulder. Harry let out a growl, shifted his bag and turned to begin stomping off to their right, relighting his wand as he went.

Draco laughed before hurrying off after him, "So you were getting us lost after all, eh Potter?"

"Shut up, Malfoy."

"Why should I," Malfoy snarled back shoving a branch out of his way, ignoring the loud crack it made as it snapped. "You're going to get us both killed!"

"No, I won't," Harry snapped. "But you will if you don't keep it down. The creatures that live here can hear you!"

Terror struck Draco's heart and his eyes widened. He glanced around and hurried up to Harry's side. "You're suicidal," hissed at the ebony-haired boy.

"Just shut up and move it."

Draco didn't like it, but he shut up anyway, his eyes darting into the consuming darkness of a night in the Forbidden Forest.

Severus Snape woke up late the next morning. He gasped as he rolled over to discover that his clock read it was already past ten. Then he cursed as he rolled out of bed and onto the floor. He hurried through his usual morning routine and into the living area.

"Harry," Snape called, his eyes quickly taking in the room. "Are you home?"

There was no answer and he sighed. The boy was probably with his friends somewhere around the castle. Nothing to worry about.

Snape left his rooms intent on finding the kitchen, his long black robes billowing about him. The warm summer air seemed to have no effect on his choice of wardrobe, though Harry had even bought his father lighter robes to wear.

He stopped suddenly. He'd meant to wear the new robes today, since it was Harry's birthday.

Snape cursed, but decided to eat breakfast and then change. After all, Harry was probably off being spoiled by the castle's current residents. He'd give him that before he was dragged off to the dungeons for his surprise birthday party.

A ghost of a smile flitted across Snape's lips at that thought and he began walking again.

"OOF!"

Snape stumbled back to stare at Ron and Hermione, who was helping Ron up off the floor.

"Oh, Professor," she panted. "Have you seen Harry? We can't find him anywhere."

A hand clamped over Snape's heart and his stomach flipped. "What do you mean you can't find Harry? Didn't you have breakfast with him this morning?"

"No, sir," Hermione answered as Ron finally straightened up beside. "We haven't seen him since last night at dinner."

Snape muttered a cursed that made Ron's eyes widen and Hermione gasp before he ran past them. He spent the next several hours scouring the castle for signs of his foster son. Ghosts, Witches and Wizards, Portraits and even the House elves were recruited to help search. No sign of the boy wizard could be found anywhere. And that evening everyone was forced to gather in the Great Hall empty handed.

"Still no sign of him," Remus told Snape as the other man finally came into the hall.

"Stupid, reckless boy," Snape muttered, running a hand through his hand. "I should have placed a tracking spell on him his first year here. Would have, if it hadn't been for that old fool, Albus."

Sirius narrowed his eyes at Snape, but didn't comment. "Who was the last to see him?"

Madame Rosmerta stepped forward, her hand raised. "I saw him on my rounds about 12:30 last night. He said he was just looking for a quiet place to study where he could see the moon."

Remus and Snape both jumped and Snape looked over at the other man. The werewolf was thin and pale, though flushed and sweating at the same time. He shook so badly with what Snape knew to simply the effort of standing that Snape knew it was his love for Harry that was keeping him going.

"I was with Sirius all last night in the Shrieking Shack, Severus. I never left," Remus said, his voice wavering.

Sirius nodded. "He was. And he stayed relatively calm all night."

"And no one else saw anything at all?" Snape let his gaze wander through the crowd. "Everyone is absolutely clueless as to how one small boy could go missing in the space of one night?"

"Well," Remus said, hesitantly. "It is Harry we're talking about. He's worse than James and Sirius put together on that end."

Snape sighed and brought one hand up to cover his eyes.

"Professor?"

Hermione's voice broke into his thoughts and he looked up to see her pushing her way to the front of the crowd, her eyes fixed on him, despite Ron's desperate attempts to shush her and pull her back.

"I-"

"Any sign of him?"

Mrs Weasley's voice cut over Hermione's silencing the girl. Soon ," her well endowed figure had pushed up to stand next to Snape, her husband at her elbow. Snape rose one slender hand to her and drove his black eyed gaze straight into Hermione's eyes. The girl flushed and looked away.

"What were you saying, Miss Granger?"

Hermione shifted, her eyes darting to all the adults in the room before dropping to her feet.

"Hermione, he'll be angry," Ron hissed in a low voice. "And it has nothing to do with this."

"You don't know that, Ron," Hermione argued.

"What has nothing to do with this?" This time it was Sirius's voice that cut into their argument.

Hermione took a deep breath. "Well, Harry found a book, an old book, in the cemetery the other day. Remember when he went there alone?"

Snape nodded. He'd certainly never forget that. He'd been obliged to stand the temper of Harry's godfather for it and had ground Harry for the next week. "What about this book?"

"Well, it's written in what looks like Ancient, or Old, English. We couldn't translate it and that's what he was probably working on last night."

"How did he find this book," Remus asked, his voice weary.

Snape snuck a glance at him. He was growing paler. Taking pity on the werewolf, and not wanting any distractions from the hunt for his son, Snape conjured a soft armchair. "Sit, Remus. Before you fall down."

Remus's eyes widen, but he nodded and sat. "Thank you."

"Well, Miss Granger?" Snape looked back at the girl.

"H-he wasn't sure," she said, looking more uncomfortable than ever. "He saw a sort of ghost lady standing next to Professor Dumbledore's tombstone as he was leaving. She disappeared and he ran back to look." She jumped as Snape cursed softly under breath, but then continued on, "He heard voices on the wind to take it, that it was a gift, and he took it."

Sirius was the one the one that cursed this time, "I'm never allowing him to do anything without checking it out first again."

"Do you know anything else about the book or where he found it," Snape asked, ignoring Mrs Weasley as she decided this to be the perfect time to reprimand Sirius for being a bad role model.

Both Hermione and Ron shook their heads.

"Anyone else?" This time he rose his voice enough to echo around the entire room.

There was an answering murmur of denial and his heart sank.

"I know of the real last person to see him," called a man's voice.

"Who is that," Sirius called, thankful for a distraction.

The crowd began to move and look in on itself. Then someone else called, "Up there! It's the portrait of Sir Gregory!"

Snape quickly pushed his way over to the portrait, "Well?"

The man grinned cheekily. "Ask Sister Lydia, the medieval nun on the second floor. She told me to tell you she knows how he got out of the castle."

A chorus of cursing broke out as Snape, Sirius and the rest of the castle resident ran from the Great Hall.

Notes:

Wow, two chapters in as many days! I'm on a roll. I think I'm going to try to do one once a week from now on. However, my current class doesn't end until Aug 5, so it might be a tad irregular until then still. I'm trying though!!

So, how was Draco this time? Not to mention Snape. I hope I'm not getting too Out of Character with them. Oh, and just a reminder, this is alternate universe, even without OotP everything we fanfic writers write at least borders on Alternate Universe. Only the original author can truly write their universe.

Enahma: Fast enough? ;-

Ok, time to get back to real life. Puppy's a little out of control here...