Chapter Nineteen:

Tonks and Mr. Weasley flew abreast on their broomsticks. Night had now fallen, meaning it would be difficult for a muggle to spot any odd beings or objects floating in the sky. They still had to be careful in being inconspicious, because the moon shone brightly. They had just finished flying over a small mountain behind Hogsmeade, and now a field lay underneath them. Tonks carefully observed her surroundings. She glanced towards Mr. Weasley. He shook his head. It was impossible for anyone to go further than this point on foot alone. Unless Harry and Luna had help from one of Hagrid's thestrals...but no, that had been checked already.

Mr. Weasley signaled for Tonks to turn around. They would head back to the castle to report their nonexistent findings, and get their next orders. Maybe if one of them had glanced over their shoulders as they flew back towards the mountain, they would have seen two small heads with no bodies attached lying still in the grass.

"My, that was a close one!" Luna threw the cloak of her and Harry. "Lucky you asked me to sleep with you under your cloak."

"Er....yeah." Harry blushed. "They've already managed to look this far? We have less time than I thought. We better move on. Don't you think?"

Luna nodded, and cast the tracking charm. The purple light shot out through the field, so the two of them began to trudge through the knee-length grass. The field, because of its thickness and length, took nearly an hour to cross. This time Harry cast the tracking charm. The both let out a groan. Their fears of having to go through the thick wood were confirmed.

"Looks a bit like the Forbidden Forest, does it not?"

Harry swallowed with difficulty and nodded.

"Perhaps we'll be lucky and find wood gnomes, " Luna said brightly.

Harry gave a small smile. After dealing with the gnomes in the Burrow's yard, he thought wood gnomes could not be much worse.

The struggled through the wood, which progressively became thicker, until the sky over their heads was covered by the green canopy of the tree tops. Harry knew it did not make a difference if it were night or day. The forest floor probably had not seen sunlight for centuries.

Their feet rustled the dead leaves on the ground. The crunch and snapping of twigs was deafening in the silence that surrounded them. Harry had not seen the Forbidden Forest this quiet ever. Well, there was that one time with Grawp...He wondered it maybe this was the Forbidden Forrest. He was not sure where its boundaries extended.

Occasionally Luna or Harry would cast the tracking charm. Quite a few times they caught themselves heading too far west, and it would take them a while to right themselves again. Harry had long ago lost track of day and exhaustion was beginning to over take him. He dreaded the thought of sleeping in the forest, but when Luna nodded off in mid-step he decided they had no choice.

"Hmmm... not yet..." Luna nudged Harry's shoulder, as he slowly began to wake up. "Ouch!" she bit his arm, causing him to jerk awake and remember his surroundings. He gasped and shut his eyes again, not believing what he was seeing.

"Don't worry, Harry. They're quite playful creatures. They wouldn't hurt a nargle."

He opened his eyes again and shook his head. "Luna, what are these things?..."

"These," Luna answered smugly, "are Crumple-Horned Snorkacks."

Albus Dumbledore sat at his desk, staring blankly at a silver gadget broken in two. He discarded most of the objects Harry smashed in his office at the end of last term, but kept one as a reminder of how he failed the child he swore he would protect.

There was also Luna. When Mr. Lovegood was told why his daughter was missing, he was force-fed Calming Draught as not to cause harm to himself and those around him. But who could blame him? Luna was his last living family member, and his past relations with Remus were anything but pleasant. Yes, the man had a difficult past, and struggled to keep life fairly normal for Luna after the death of her mother.

A knock at the door shook Albus out of his thoughts. He cleared his throat and said, "come in."

A very tired looking Mr. Weasley and Tonks emerged from the other side. They carried a broomstick each, and attempted to straighten their disheveled appearances before reaching Dumbledore's desk.

"Nothing," Tonks said before Dumbledore could ask. She threw down her broom in defeat.

"We searched Hogsmeade and stopped at the forest's borders," Mr. Wealey explained. "What now, Albus?"

"Now," the Headmaster answered, "we have no choice but to enter the Forgotten Forest."

Mr. Weasley paled, "precisely what I feared."

"But what other choice do we have?" Tonks asked. "No one's been in that forest since-"

"The days of King Arthur. We know, Tonks. Albus, everyone who has entered the wood has not come out of it."

"A myth."

"And I think it goes without saying that Harry's life comes before ours." Tonks said.

Dumbledore raised a grey eyebrow. "Speaking from the point of a professional auror, I presume?"

"Right," Tonks smiled, "so we're going now, Arthur?"

"We are."

"Amazing! It is said that they only reside in Sweden. I wonder what an entire herd is doing here." Luna stroked the pink blubbery back of one of the smaller Snorkacks. It fluttered it's pearly-white wings for a moment, and then lifted it's chin so that Luna could scratch it.

Crumple-Horned Snorkacks were very odd-looking creatures. Even Hagrid's class had not harbored anything quite like them. The Snorkacks varied in shades of pink, had pig-like snouts, but behaved uncannily like cats. They even sprouted whiskers on each cheek. Harry had noticed they all had the same type of feathered-wings, which deemed useless. They waddled when they walked, but beat their wings feverishly, not grasping the concept that they were unable to fly. But what was the most peculiar characteristic, was the horn that all of them displayed proudly in the very center of their foreheads. It looked like a cross between a unicorn horn and an elephant's trunk. It was grey in color, and expanded and contracted with every breath they took. Harry found out, (the hard way) that even though the horn did not look it, it was sharp. Luna assured him that he had been stung by a male, not a female, which might have been lethal. She did not seem in the least disturbed by this fact, and continued to return the affection to the baby girl Snorkack that had settled next to her in the dead leaves.

"Luna, I understand this is very exciting for you and everything, but we should move on. The sun's going to rise very soon." He stood up, brushed off bits of twig and leaves from himself, only to be knocked over by one of the larger Snorckacks. He scowled, and stood up again. A fifteen-foot Snorkack playfully nuzzled him. Luna laughed as Harry tried to reclaim the glasses that were stolen off his nose. "Luna!"

"All right, all right!" she laughed.

They took a moment to say goodbye to the herd of Snorkacks, and began to move along their way. Harry looked back after about twenty feet of walking and gasped. The herd had vanished, and no trace of them could be found anywhere. This part of the forest wasn't very thick, and the Snorkacks should have still been somewhat visible. Luna spun around, saw that the Snorkacks were gone and gave Harry a smile. She knew something he didn't.

Harry sighed and took his mind off the Crumple-Horned Snorkacks. There were more pressing matters to deal with. Like Remus. How much time did they have left? How were his friends fairing without him? Mrs. Weasley? Dumbledore? Oh, yes, he thought. After this he would never be allowed into Hogwarts again. But it was for Remus, and at this point in time it was all Harry cared about.

A/N: Whew, ok. All caught up. Sort of. I came back to 100 messages from yahoo groups and fic alerts in my inbox, and I'm still not done sorting it out. I didn't get as much time done on vacation as I thought I would. I thought I'd have more time to myself but that was certainly not the case. This chapter was originally longer, but I decided to leave a portion in my notebook and not type it up because it didn't fit with a few things. Aye, enough of my ramblings. I'll leave you to it. Read and review like good little people :)