Disclaimer: I don´t own anything all rights go to J.K. Rowling.
Chapter 14: The Forbidden Forest
Jen held back tears as Filch led them towards Professor McGonagall´s study. She couldn´t think of a worse situation they could have been in, caught in the middle of the night walking down from the tallest tower of the school, that was forbidden at all times except at Astronomy lessons, and the Invisibility Cloak lost at the top of the tower.
They entered McGonagall´s study where they sat down and waited in silence. Harry was looking down at his feet and Hermione was trembling while Jen was occasionally sniffling.
Jen knew there was no way they were getting out of trouble this time. The Astronomy Tower was out-of-bounds except for lessons and on top of that they had been out of bed in the middle of the night.
If Professor McGonagall got to know about Norbert and the Invisibility Cloak, Jen was sure her parents would get their wish of her going to a Muggle school as she could hardly see how they wouldn't be expelled.
If Jen had thought things couldn´t have been worse, she had been wrong. When Professor McGonagall charged into the room clad in a tartan dressing-gown, she was dragging Neville behind her.
"Harry!" Neville burst out, the moment he saw the other three. "I was trying to find you to warn you, I heard Malfoy saying he was going to catch you, he said you had a drag-"
Besides Jen Harry shock his head violently to shut Neville up, but Professor McGonagall saw it. As she towered over the four of them Jen thought she looked more likely to breathe fire than Norbert.
"I would never have believed it of any of you. Mr Filch says you were up the Astronomy Tower. It´s one o´clock in the morning. Explain yourselves."
But Jen couldn´t. She couldn´t come up with a good lie about what they had been doing at the top of the Astronomy Tower in the middle of the night. And neither, it seemed, could anyone else. All four of them looked down at their slippers without saying a word.
"I think I´ve got a good idea of what´s been going on," Professor McGonagall said. "It doesn´t take a genius to work it out. You fed Draco Malfoy some cock-and-bull story about a dragon, trying to get him out of bed and into trouble. I´ve already caught him. I suppose you think it´s funny that Longbottom here heard the story and believed it too?"
Jen caught Neville´s eyes and shook her heads violently trying to say to him that it wasn´t true, because Neville was looking stunned and hurt.
Jen felt sorry for Neville – poor, clumsy Neville, who always seemed to end up in trouble or get into accidents. She knew how much it must have taken him to be able to try and find and warn them in the middle of the dark night.
"I´m disgusted," Professor McGonagall said. "Five students out of bed in one night! I´ve never heard of such a thing before! You, Miss Granger, I thought you had more sense, and for you, Miss MacAvity, I had hoped you had taken after your brother more. As for you, Mr Potter, I thought Gryffindor meant more to you than this. All four of you will receive detention – yes, you too, Mr Longbottom, nothing gives you the right to walk around school at night, especially these days, it´s very dangerous – and fifty points will be taken from Gryffindor and I will be contacting your guardians."
"Fifty?" Harry gasped.
Jen gasped, losing fifty points would mean they lost the lead they had gotten in the last Quidditch match.
"Fifty points each," Professor McGonagall said, breathing heavily through her long-pointed nose.
"No – Professor – please," Jen gasped as she felt tears well up in her eyes.
"Professor – please," Hermione begged.
"You can´t –" Harry said.
"Don´t tell me what I can and can´t do, Potter. Now get back to bed, all of you. I´ve never been more ashamed of Gryffindor students."
Two hundred points lost. It put Gryffindor in last place and there was no way for them to ever win the House Cup now. They had lost Gryffindor two hundred points and the House Cup in one night.
Jen didn´t sleep that night. She was crying into her pillow, trying to muffle her sobs so she didn´t wake Megan, Lavender and Parvati, while she dreaded the next day. She dreaded the moment the other students got to know about how Gryffindor lost two hundred points.
But most of all she dreaded her brother's reaction. Peter had always been there for Jen, when their grandparents died, when she got bullied in school and when she had done accidental magic at home, the only thing Jen wanted was to make her brother proud and she knew that he would be deeply disappointed in her now.
Sneaking out in the middle of the night and going up the Astronomy Tower was something that Jen knew Peter would never do and would definitely scold her for it. If he ever found out about Norbert, he would lose it and send her home to their parents himself. But still Jen hoped that Professor McGonagall would talk to her brother instead of sending a letter to her parents as they would only take this as an opportunity to take her away from Hogwarts.
((&))
The next day when the Gryffindors passed the giant hourglasses that recorded the house points they couldn´t believe their eyes. They couldn´t understand how they suddenly had two hundred points fewer than yesterday.
But by the afternoon the story of how the famous Harry Potter, the Hatstall and two other first-year Gryffindors had lost them all those points.
Jen had managed to avoid Peter for the whole day, but her luck ran out just when she, Harry, Ron and Hermione left the Great Hall after dinner. Peter was standing at the foot of the Grand Staircase waiting for her.
"Go ahead," Jen told the others as they stopped in the middle of the Entrance Hall. "I will meet you in the common room."
The other three nodded before walking up the staircase leaving Jen with her brother.
"Come," Peter said, before leading Jen to an empty classroom.
As he closed the door to the classroom behind them a heavy silence enveloped them.
"How could you be so stupid," Peter said after several minutes, breaking the silence. "I expected better behaviour from you. Out of bed, sneaking around the castle and being up in the Astronomy Tower. Do you know how dangerous that is?"
"I know, Peter," Jen said, not meeting her brother's gaze. "It´s just... we had to."
"And why´s that?" Peter said.
"I... I can´t tell you," Jen said, not wanting to betray Hagrid or her friends by telling Peter about Norbert.
"Right," Peter said. "You can´t tell me. That would´ve helped you a whole lot if they had sent an owl to mother and father instead of telling me about this."
Jen swallowed nervously.
"Mother and father would´ve taken you out of school for this," Peter said, confirming her suspicion. "Lucky for you, they told me instead because they thought I could better tell our Muggle parents. I won´t tell mother and father this time."
"I´m sorry, Peter," Jen said. "I will try to not get into trouble again."
"Good," Peter said. "Because next time I will not hesitate to send our parents an owl. Come on, hurry back up to your common room before curfew starts, we don´t want you in even more trouble."
As Jen left the classroom, she swore to herself that she wouldn´t break anymore rules or meddle in things that weren´t her business.
Now that Peter has scolded me it can´t get worse, Jen thought as she started to walk up to the Gryffindor common room.
((&))
If Jen had thought it couldn´t get worse, she had been wrong. From going relatively unnoticed at school, Jen had gone to become one of the most hated students. Everyone seemed to hate her, Neville, Harry and Hermione, even Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws, as everyone had longed to see Slytherin defeated in the House Cup.
Everywhere Jen went she had to endure glares and insults from other students, and no one wanted to talk to her except for the bare minimum, like asking to borrow a potion ingredient in class or to borrow a quill. Jen knew that Harry had it a lot worse than her and the other two as he was more known, but she still felt terrible.
But what hurt the most was when Fred and George stopped talking to her. They, as everyone else, had hoped to finally defeat Slytherin in the House Cup but thanks to Jen and the others actions that seemed like an impossibility now and they barely talked to Jen because of it.
The only one that seemed to stand by them was Ron. He tried to sheer Jen and the others up, with wearying results of success.
"Come on, Jen," Ron said one evening. "Fred and George will come around."
"You think that?" Jen said.
"Yeah," Ron said. "They´ve always come around whenever I've done something stupid."
Jen gave Ron a weak smile before turning back to her homework.
But the best support Jen had came from Hermione. They were both equally hated and were suffering equally, too. No one would talk to Hermione either and she had even stopped drawing attention to herself in lessons, just as Jen had done too. They both kept their heads down in lessons and worked in silence only saying occasional words to each other now and then.
Jen was glad that the exams weren´t far away as it gave her an excuse to hide away in the library hidden behind stacks of books or burry herself in homework in the common room. All the studying gave Jen an opportunity to take her mind of her misery.
Jen, Harry, Ron and Hermione kept to themselves as they studied, working late into the night, trying to remember the ingredients in complicated potions, learn charms and spells off by heart, memorise the dates of magical discoveries and goblin rebellions, remember the different stars and constellations and their importance and much, much more...
Everything had been calm until about a week before the exams when Harry had come into the library, where Hermione had been testing Ron and Jen at Astronomy, and told them that he had heard Quirrell and what he suspected was Snape argue in a classroom and that it seemed that Quirrell had finally given in to Snape.
As Harry finished talking Jen felt dread over that Snape now only had one obstacle left before he could get to the Stone.
"Snape´s done it, then!" Ron said. "If Quirrell´s told him how to break his Anti-Dark Force spell –"
"There´s still Fluffy, though," Jen said.
"Maybe Snape´s found out how to get past him without asking Hagrid," Ron said, looking up at the thousands of books surrounding them. "I bet there´s a book somewhere in here, telling you how to get past a giant three-headed dog..."
"A Cerberus," Jen said, though she couldn´t help but agree there had to be a book in the library that told you how to get past one.
"Yes, how to get past a giant Cerberus," Ron said annoyed. "Anyway, what do we do now, Harry?"
Jen could see that Ron was hoping for another adventure, but Hermione answered before Harry could.
"Go to Dumbledore. That´s what we should have done ages ago. If we try anything ourselves, we´ll be thrown out for sure," she said, and Jen nodded agreeing with her.
"But we´ve got no proof!" Harry said. "Quirrell´s too scared to back us up. Snape´s only got to say he doesn´t know how the troll got in at Hallowe´en and that he was nowhere near the third floor – who do you think they´ll believe, him or us? It´s not exactly a secret we hate him, Dumbledore´ll think we made it up to get him sacked. Filch wouldn´t help us if his life depended on it, he´s too friendly with Snape, and the more students get thrown out, the better, he´ll think. And don´t forget, we´re not supposed to know about the Stone or Fluffy. That´ll take a lot of explaining."
Jen couldn´t help but agree with Harry, they had no proof so there was no chance that anyone would believe them.
Hermione looked convinced, too, but Ron didn´t.
"If we just do a bit of poking around –"
"No," Harry said flatly, "we´ve done enough poking around."
Jen nodded before turning back to Hermione and she continued to test Jen at Astronomy.
((&))
The following morning an owl dropped a note in front of Jen and as it wasn´t Popcorn that dropped it Jen felt nervous as she picked it up and read it:
Your detention will take place at eleven o´clock tonight. Meet Mr Filch in the Entrance Hall.
Prof. M. McGonagall
Jen looked up from the note and saw that Harry, Hermione and Neville had been delivered identical notes to hers.
Jen had almost forgotten that they had detention after all the studying for the exams and the furore over all the points they´d lost.
She put down the note and thought that she deserved the detention after what they had done and judging by the faces of the other three, they agreed with her.
At eleven o´clock that night they said goodbye to Ron in the common room and went down to the entrance hall with Neville. Filch was already there and beside him stood Malfoy. Jen had forgotten that he too had gotten a detention.
"Follow me," Filch said, lighting a lamp and leading them outside. "I bet you´ll think twice about breaking a school rule again, won´t you, eh?" he continued leering at them. "Oh yes... hard work and pain are the best teachers if you ask me... It´s just a pity they let the old punishments die out... hang you by your wrists from the ceiling for a few days, I´ve got the chains still in my office, keep ´em well-oiled in case they´re ever needed... Right, off we go, and don´t think of running off, now, it´ll be worse for you if you do."
Jen swallowed nervously at his words as they marched off across the dark grounds. Beside her Neville kept sniffing. Jen wondered what their punishment could be; judging by how happy Filch seemed it was something really awful and horrible.
The moon was almost full and shined bright, but clouds scudding across it kept throwing them into darkness. Jen looked ahead and saw the welcoming warm lighted windows of Hagrid´s hut. Then she heard a distant shout.
"Is that you, Filch? Hurry up, I want ter get started."
Jen was very relieved when she heard Hagrid´s voice, if they were going to have detention with Hagrid it couldn´t be too dangerous. As Jen turned her head, she saw that Harry must´ve thought similar thoughts as he looked extremely relieved.
"I suppose you think you´ll be enjoying yourself with that oaf?" said Filch, who must´ve seen Harry's relieved face, too. "Well, think again, boy – it´s into the Forest you´re going and I´m much mistaken if you´ll all come out in one piece."
At this, Jen gasped, Neville let out a little moan and Malfoy stopped dead in his tracks.
"The Forest?" he repeated, and he didn´t sound quiet as cool as usual. "We can´t go in there at night – there´s all sorts of things in there – werewolves, I heard."
Neville clutched the sleeve of Harry´s robe and made a choking noise, but Jen only snorted.
"Don´t be stupid! Werewolves are only dangerous at full moons and if you look up there´s no full moon."
Neville looked slightly relieved at Jen´s words but Malfoy only looked annoyed.
"The girl´s right there´s no werewolves in the Forest today, but there´s other horrible things in there," Filch said, his voice cracking with glee as Neville, once again made a scared squeak and Malfoy's face turned whiter than usual. "Should´ve thought of those things before you got into trouble, shouldn't you?"
Jen felt incredibly relieved when Hagrid came striding towards them out of the dark with Fang at his heel. He was carrying his large crossbow, and a quiver of arrows hung over his shoulder.
"Abou´ time," he said. "I bin waitin´ fer half an hour already. All right, Harry, Hermione, Jen?"
"I shouldn´t be too friendly to then, Hagrid," Filch said coldly, "they´re here to be punished, after all."
"That´s why yer late, is it?" Hagrid said, frowning at Filch. "Bin lecturin´ them, eh? ´Snot your place ter do that. Yeh´ve done yer bit, I´ll take over from here."
"I´ll be back at dawn," Filch said, "for what´s left of them," he added nastily, and Jen shuddered as he turned and started back towards the castle, his lamp bobbing away in the darkness.
Jen looked relieved after him and sincerely hoped that she would never have to have detention with Filch.
"I´m not going in that Forest," Malfoy said with a note of panic in his voice, and Jen turned to see him facing Hagrid.
"Yeh are if yeh want ter stay at Hogwarts," Hagrid said fiercely. "Yeh´ve done wrong an´ now yeh´ve got ter pay fer it."
"But this is servant stuff, it´s not for students to do. I thought we´d be writing lines or something. If my father knew I was doing this, he´d –"
"- tell yer that´s how it is at Hogwarts," Hagrid growled. "Writin´ lines! What good´s that ter anyone? Yeh´ll do summat useful or yeh´ll get out. If yeh think yer father´d rather you were expelled, then get back off ter the castle an´ pack, Go on!"
Malfoy didn´t move. He looked at Hagrid furiously but then dropped his gaze.
"Right then," Hagrid said, "now, listen carefully, ´cause it´s dangerous what we´re gonna do tonight an´ I don´ want no one takin´ risks. Follow me over here a moment."
He led them to the very edge of the Forest. Jen thought the dark trees looked ominous in the weak light of Hagrid's lamp. Holding his lamp up high Hagrid pointed down a narrow, winding earth track that disappeared into the black trees. A light breeze lifted their hair as they looked into the Forest.
"Look there," Hagrid said, "see that stuff shinin´ on the ground? Silvery stuff? That´s unicorn blood. There´s a unicorn in there bin hurt badly by summat. This is the second time in a week. I found one dead last Wednesday. We´re gonna try an´ find the poor thing. We might have ter put it out of its misery."
"And what if whatever hurt the unicorn finds us first?" said Malfoy, unable to keep the fear out of his voice.
"There´s nothin´ that lives in the Forest that´ll hurt yeh if yer with me or Fang," Hagrid said. "An´ keep to the path. Right, now, we´re gonna split inter two parties an´ follow the trail in diff´rent directions. There´s blood all over the place, it must´ve bin staggerin´ around since last night at least."
"I want Fang," Malfoy said quickly, looking at Fang´s long teeth.
"All right, but I warn yeh, he´s a coward," Hagrid said. "So me, Harry an´ Hermione´ll go one way an´ Draco, Neville, Jen an´ Fang´ll go the other. Now, if any of us finds the unicorn, we´ll send up green sparks, right? Get yer wands out an´ practise now – that´s it – an´ if anyone gets in trouble, send up red sparks, an´ we´ll all come an´ find yeh – so, be careful – let´s go."
The Forest was black and silent. A little way into it they reached a fork in the path and Jen, Neville, Malfoy and Fang took the right path and Harry, Hermione and Hagrid took the left.
As Jen stepped onto the right path she turned and smiled reassuringly at Harry and Hermione who looked worriedly after her before walking onto the left path.
Jen, Neville, Malfoy and Fang walked in almost complete silence with Neville clutching Jen´s sleeve occasionally sniffling. Jen and Neville walked with their eyes on the ground while Malfoy walked behind them occasionally sighing annoyingly.
The trees made the Forest dark but occasionally a ray of moonlight broke through the branches above and lit up a spot of silvery blue blood on the fallen leaves.
Jen felt sad at the thought of the wounded unicorn. She had always liked books with unicorns in them and when she had read the books about magical creatures, she had been overjoyed to discovered that they actually existed. So now when she saw the silvery blood, she couldn´t help but feel incredibly sad that someone wanted to hurt such a beautiful creature.
The silvery spots of blood led them deeper into the Forest. The Forest was eerily silent around them, the only sound that could be heard was their quiet footfalls, Neville's whimpering and Malfoy´s annoyed sighing.
Suddenly they came to fork in the road, and they stopped. Neville clutched harder on Jen´s sleeve and whimpered while Fang sat down beside her.
"Great," Malfoy said, looking around at the dense, dark trees. "What are we going to do now?"
"Maybe we could split up," Jen said. "You could take one way and the rest of us the other."
"No!" Malfoy said, his voice breaking with fear. "I´m not going anywhere without that dog!"
"His name is Fang," Jen said distractedly, while studying the ground of the two paths.
"Whatever," Malfoy said. "It´s a dog I don´t care what its name is."
Jen turned around and glared at him before turning back to study the ground of the two paths.
"We should take the right one," she said eventually.
"Why is that?" Malfoy sneered.
"If you cared to look you would´ve seen that it´s more blood on the ground on that path," Jen said while pointing at the silvery spots.
Malfoy glared at Jen, but they all set off down the right path. Jen, Neville and Fang went first with Malfoy right behind them, unfortunately this time he didn´t only sigh but complained too.
"I can´t believe they are forcing us to do this," he said. "At home there would be the house-elf's who did it, not wizards."
Jen had no idea what a house-elf was but as she had no desire to start a conversation with Malfoy, she didn´t ask.
"There could be all sorts of dangerous creatures in here," he continued. "When we get back to the castle, I will send an owl to my father, he´s at the school board, and he will make sure that something like this will never happen again."
As Malfoy drew breath Jen heard something over Neville's scared whimpers and their quiet footfalls.
"I mean this is unacceptable," Malfoy said, droning out whatever Jen had heard. "They can´t make..."
"Shut up!" Jen said.
"What?" Malfoy said.
"I think I heard something," Jen said.
They all stopped and listened, Neville clutched Jen´s sleeve even harder, his whole body shaking, and Fang growled quietly out into the dark with his teeth showing and the hairs on his back stood on end. Now when Malfoy was quiet Jen could hear the sound again, it sounded like a cloak trailing over the ground, rustling the dead leaves.
Jen looked out in the dark around them gripping her wand firmly, she felt like the dark trees around them came closer obscuring whatever it was that made the noise.
Perhaps it was the inability to see what it was or that they were alone in the Forest, but Jen felt her heart speed up and swallowed tightly before grabbing a hold of Neville´s sleeve. Jen couldn´t remember when she had been this scared before and holding onto Neville´s sleeve gave her a small amount of comfort.
Neville and Jen stood huddled together with Fang growling at their feet looking out into the Forest trying to find the source of the mystic noise when something suddenly grabbed a hold of them from behind.
Neville yelped before raising his wand and sending away red sparks and Fang barked loudly at the sudden commotion.
Jen shrieked but instead of raising her wand she whirled around with her hand balled around the wand and hit with all the strength she could muster whatever was behind them. Whatever it was fell back and hit the ground hard with a loud "Oumpf!"
When Jen looked down, she didn´t see a monster, as she had expected, but instead she saw Malfoy sprawled on the ground and holding his cheek where her fist had landed.
The moment she saw Malfoy sprawled on the ground before her the earlier fear turned to anger.
"You idiot!" she screamed at Malfoy. "We´re in the middle of the Forbidden Forest looking for something that killed a unicorn and you thought it was a good idea to scare us! How stupid can you be?!"
Malfoy didn´t utter a word, only stared at Jen in utter shock.
"Whatever it was that killed the unicorn might be out there right now," Jen continued after taking a breath. "I mean we heard something strange, what if that was what killed the unicorn? We might´ve scared it away now so we will never find it! I can´t believe you! You´re so stu..."
Jen was interrupted by the sound of something large crashing through the woods, coming closer to them.
"It´s what killed the unicorn," Neville squeaked terrified.
Malfoy lost the little colour he had left in his face and Neville grabbed a tight hold on Jen´s sleeve while she shakily raised her wand and they all looked terrified out into the dark Forest.
The crashing came closer and closer and then it came rushing out of the dense trees and onto the path. But it wasn´t what had killed the unicorn, it was Hagrid. Holding his loaded crossbow in front of him ready to shoot in case of something dangerous.
As he didn´t see anything he lowered his crossbow looking at the three first-years and Fang.
"What happened?" Hagrid asked and Jen and Neville told him what had happened.
As they finished Hagrid looked furious and ordered them all to go back to where Harry and Hermione were.
They followed Hagrid back the same way he had come. Hagrid and Fang went first leading the way with the others following, Jen and Malfoy glaring angrily at each other and Neville, once again, clutching Jen´s sleeve and sniffling.
They soon reached Hermione and Harry, who looked extremely relieved to see that Jen and Neville were okay.
Hagrid told Harry and Hermione furiously what had happened.
"We´ll be lucky ter catch anythin´ now, with the racket you three were makin´. Right, we´re changin´ groups – Neville, Jen, you two stay with me an´ Hermione, Harry, you go with Fang an´ this idiot. I´m sorry," Jen heard Hagrid add in a whisper to Harry, "but he´ll have a harder time frightenin´ you an´ I don´ think it´ll be good to have Jen an´ him near each other, an´ we´ve gotta get this done."
So, they split up again Harry, Fang and Malfoy, with a bruise already forming on his cheek, heading off into the Forest and Hermione, Neville, Jen and Hagrid following the path.
They walked in silence looking down at the ground trying to spot the silvery patches of unicorn blood that now and then was reflected the moonlight. Jen was still furious, and Neville was still sniffling slightly beside her, though he had let go of her sleeve.
"Are you okay?" Hermione said breaking the silence.
"Yeah," Jen said, and Neville gave a short nod. "Just angry that we might´ve scared whatever hurt the unicorn away, now we might never find it."
"Yeah," Hermione said. "Isn´t it sad that something could hurt, or even kill, such a beautiful creature as a unicorn."
Jen nodded but wasn´t able to answer as Fang and a white-faced Malfoy suddenly burst out of the undergrowth. Fang ran over to Hagrid with his tale between his legs while Malfoy stopped in front of them looking terrified.
"M-m-m-monster!" Malfoy said pointing behind him.
"What´re yeh talkin´ abou´?" Hagrid said.
"The... the u-unicorn... d-dead and a-a m-m-monster," Malfoy stammered.
"Where´s Harry?" Jen said looking behind Malfoy trying to see if Harry was coming behind Fang and Malfoy, he wasn´t.
"Where´s Harry?" She said again, this time looking at Malfoy, who only shrugged.
"Come on we got ter find him," Hagrid said, and they set of through the Forest again.
They walked through the Forest with Hagrid, holding his crossbow in front of himself, in the lead and the others following. Jen and Hermione were clutching each other's hands while holding tightly to their wands, terrified that something had happened to Harry.
Suddenly Jen saw something in a clearing ahead. It looked like someone sitting on a horse.
"Harry!" Jen screamed as she recognised the person.
Both Jen and Hermione ran past Hagrid and towards Harry.
"Harry! Harry, are you all right?" Hermione screamed from beside Jen as they got closer.
As they entered the clearing Jen gasped. What she had thought to be a horse wasn't a horse at all but a centaur. It was a young centaur with a palomino body, white-blond hair and astonishingly blue eyes.
Harry looked at them for a second, his face white and he looked scared.
"I´m fine," Harry said, and Jen felt greatly relieved the moment the words left his mouth. "The unicorn´s dead, Hagrid, it´s in that clearing back there."
Hagrid sat off in the direction Harry had pointed with Fang at his heels.
"This is where I leave you," the centaur murmured to Harry. "You are safe now."
Harry slid off the centaurs back and stood shaking at the ground.
"Good luck, Harry Potter," said the centaur. "The planets have been read wrong before now, even by centaurs. I hope this is one of those times."
The centaur turned and cantered back into the depths of the Forest. Jen stood confusedly looking after it, wondering what its words meant.
((&))
As they returned to the common room, they found Ron sleeping in one of the armchairs in front of the extinguished fire. When Harry roughly shook him awake, he shouted something about Quidditch fouls.
When Harry had woken Ron up Hermione and Jen sat down in the remaining armchairs. The moment Jen sat down Silver, her cat, came running out of nowhere and jumped up in her lap where she laid down and purred while Jen petted her, glad for the comfort the small warm body provided.
Harry didn´t sit down, instead he started to tell them what had had happened in the Forest while he paced in front of the fire. Jen could see that he was still shaking.
She felt horrified as Harry told them what had happened.
"Snape wants the stone for Voldemort... and Voldemort's waiting in the Forest... and all this time we thought Snape just wanted to get rich..."
"Stop saying the name!" Ron said in a terrified whisper, as if he thought Voldemort could hear him.
But Harry didn´t seem to be listening.
"Firenze saved me, but he shouldn´t have done... Bane was furious... he was talking about interfering with what the planets say is going to happen... They must show that Voldemort´s coming back... Bane thinks Firenze should have let Voldemort kill me... I suppose that´s written in the stars as well."
"Will you stop saying his name!" Ron hissed.
"So all I´ve got to wait for now is for Snape to steal the Stone," Harry went on feverishly, "then Voldemort will be able to come and finish me off... Well, I suppose Bane´ll be happy."
Jen swallowed feeling utterly terrified. This night seems to only get worse and worse, she thought.
"Harry," Hermione said determinately, "everyone says Dumbledore´s the only one You-Know-Who was ever afraid of. With Dumbledore around, You-Know-Who won´t touch you. Anyway, who says the centaurs are right? It sounds like fortune-telling to me, and Professor McGonagall says that´s a very imprecise branch of magic."
"Hermione's right, Harry," Jen said when Harry still didn´t look convinced. "As long as Dumbledore´s here Voldemort won´t dare to come near you. Everything I´ve read about Dumbledore tells me he´s the most powerful wizard of our time. With him here Voldemort can´t do anything. And don´t care so much about what the centaurs say, most of them doesn´t even like wizards or trust them. Bane might not even have liked Firenze talking with you or about anything Bane thinks only concerns centaurs."
They talked for most of the remainder of the night. When Jen and Hermione, exhausted and their throats sore, finally climbed the stairs up to the girl's dormitory the sky had begun to turn light.
Jen barely had enough energy to change into pyjamas and, after nearly falling into bed, she was asleep nearly the same moment her head hit the pillow.
The remainder of the night Jen dreamt of dead unicorns with silvery blood, angry centaurs with bows and arrows and a hooded figure with a cloak dragging over the ground rustling the dead leaves.