Kicking Stones in the Forest
Today had been tiring enough. We had gone to bed late last night because of our midnight excursion and I had just come from dealing with that pompous overvalued piece of kindling and his stupid potions test. Now we had to perform detention in the forbidden forest…Merlin I have an insufferable twit for a best friend I thought looking back at Al. His eyes were shining strangely in the moonlight.
"Hello uncle Hagrid" Al said sheepishly as we approached the ramshackle hovel that was professor Hagrid's hut. "I heard yer' got yerself inta trouble already…jus like yer dad eh Al?" the half-giant said laughing and clapping an enormous hand on Al's shoulder. I thought the force of it might break Al's back, or hammer him like a peg several inches into the ground.
"Well you know me…" Al offered hesitantly, looking off into the forest. He didn't seem entirely like his usual self. As powerful and intelligent as he was… as willing and brave to call the headmistress an old bat in front a crowd of students, Al was extraordinarily insecure at times.
Hagrid was wrong, I imagine Al is nothing like his father. I've seen pictures… they may have looked alike but certainly there were no two like Al nor would there ever be again. Just as I am not my father I thought solemnly.
I realized something was definitely off in Albus's eyes when he couldn't seem to tear themselves away from the forest. They were filled with something … foreign. His eyes are always so strange. I will never forget the way they were lit that day in the DoM.
"Now you two wil be needin to find a trail o'er strange markins the centaurs say have been left round the forest thes pas nights. I wan ya ta mark em on this here map and report to me if ya fin anythin…" Hagrid instructed calmly. "You mean we're to go in there? Alone?" I asked not entirely sure I had heard him correctly.
"Ther ain nothin much could arm Al ere in't tha right little malfoy? Besides I ave some fith and sixth years out lookin in other parts o the forest. An I'll be out ther with Fangs." The Giant said as if a few extra students in that enormous forest were reassurance enough. As if this puppy could protect us. Although Al and I could probably take on anything in this vile forest I didn't aim to test that little theory. A gust swept powerfully by, rustling the leaves in the trees with a wistful intensity. The whole forest seemed to groan and sway in response. It was like some foreign power was seeking to pull us into it. A shiver ran the length of my spine before the idiot finally grew too impatient to wait any longer/
"Come on Scor the sooner we go the sooner we can come back." Al shot dragging me towards the forest.
"I can walk perfectly fine on my own you thank you Al." My annoyance at the contact was mild when compared with my unease at having to enter the forest.
"Yeah, Yeah, lets go." He tossed back at me, letting go of my hand. My fingers tingle every time he touches me. It was odd… although my hand wasn't what was bothering me right now, it was clear there was something tormenting Al. I was trying to think of what could have possibly happened today while we were apart. James had said something to him perhaps?
"So… what did the old man say?" Al asked as we continued to walk through the forest.
"I'd like to concentrate on finding those strange markings. Hagrid gave us the task we should at least try and…" I started.
"Oh never mind that… what did Snape say? How did he test you?" Al asked excitedly, jumping nimbly over gnarled roots and rocky mounds. He was entirely too graceful for a genius I thought humorously as I watched him balance perfectly on as little of his feet as possible. I could do that too. Father said it wasn't becoming of me to jump around like some circus acrobat. It still never stopped him from being amazed when he saw me leaping on tree branches slender enough to snap under a normal child's weight.
"Polyjuice potion…" I said casually.
"Pollyjuice potion." Al repeated without inflection, continuing forward. "Thats pretty advanced" Al added as an afterthought, blinking in the darkness.
"Yeah well I passed his little test flawlessly." I wasn't sure by the tone of Al's voice whether to be proud or not. I could never be sure whether I could actually match Al's wit.
"Polyjuice potion is a specialty of my aunts so I learned how to brew it young. But really its pretty hard though… harder than Dragonsting" Al offered reflectively.
"Are you mad that Snape dared to ask me a harder potion or that I was able to answer?" I asked curiously.
"What? Oh neither… just thinking about taking potions with you and Snape. Kind of weird when you think about the whole mess." Al finished with a sigh, leaping from an outcropping of rock onto a low hanging branch. We were weird though. Our entire friendship was weird, an oddity of nature to be sure. This forest…was stranger still. Every sound it made, every gust of air, was filled with age and memory. Just like the stones of the castle. Al must feel it too. It was frightening in here, yet I felt like I belonged in these woods more than in the real world. I wonder if the trees themselves were bound with memory. I wonder if one day I might return here with Al and merely be devoured by the will of the dark trees. To be lost forever in their depths.
Al grabbed the branch beneath him and swung nimbly back down to the forest floor. He was so deep in thought it would be extraordinarily easy to do it… Hahahahahah, I could trip him without even moving a finger. Maybe he would catch himself… or maybe he'd fall on his face… I thought mischievously to myself.
Just then he caught me staring and turned to register the smirk I had on my face. After a seconds pause he merely smiled back, then raised his hand and twirled his index finger dramatically in the air. "Oomph" I managed falling flat forward on my face. He had also managed to cushion the hard earth to break my fall.
"Bugger you Al!" I shot, turning up to look at the bright green eyes of a laughing Potter standing right above me.
"Oh Noooo, did I do that?" he teased laughing hysterically.
If anyone tried to do what he had just done to me I'd have hexed their face off, why did I realize I had merely smiled in response to his antics? We are so weird and I am not father…
I was about to grasp Al's extended hand when I saw it just lying there stamped into the ground. A diamond shaped stone that glistened like a little star… It had caught the light and held it so strangely that I couldn't help but want to scrutinize it.
I reached to pick it up, turning it softly in my hands so as to examine it. Thats when I noticed it and froze like a statue. My limbs began to shiver in fear.
"Whaddya find … Scor?" Al asked bending down to look at the stone.
"Al… this… has the Peverell family seal on it… the mark of the Hallows." I finished darkly, realizing what I had found. What horror would conspire to lead us back to the place that Al's father had faced his death and come back… alive.
"It can't be Scor…" Al whispered, extending his hand. I dropped the stone into his open palm so that he could examine it for himself.
"Scor this… has been lost since the battle of Hogwarts…" Al started incredulously, looking up from the stone to search my face. As though I had the answers his lightning quick brain sought. I like that he still looks to me for answers though. I find it extraordinarily gratifying that he should think I might be able to keep up with him, maybe I really could.
APOV
"Well I guess you found it. Quite lucky if you ask me." I said, offering the resurrection stone back to Scor.
"Are you mad?" Scor asked frantically, looking at me with those strange eyes of his. Normally they would change from winter blue to storm grey depending on the sun or brightness and yet in the glow of the moonlight of this dark forest they seemed almost like the pink in the aurora. So very strange. I'd had a dream once that his eyes were pink. Or had it been a memory?
"Well I trust you to not do anything nefarious with it." I tossed humorously at him. The look he gave me was priceless.
"Al… you are a Peverell in all but name and your father is the master of death. This rightly belongs to you." He argued, closing my fingers around the stone. "Anyway… my Father doesn't need another reason for Harry Potter's aurors or the DMLE to come smashing down our front doors. Might make it awkward for our prospects of a continued friendship don't you think." He finished looking up at me.
Why was he being so difficult? He had found it, it had come to him. These things were not to be second guessed. His eyes were so distracting though that I couldn't even think about the stone. Pink was not a natural color for eyes…
"Ours… together…" I began… "I will just hold on to it until we are smart enough to study its spellwork someday far off from now. Sound reasonable?" I offered rationally. "Fine" Scor responded uneasily, looking at me with an expression of puzzlement bordering on confusion.
"One, of course I trust you, you twit. Two I'm really only in Slytherin because of you… things of power don't interest me… I'm powerful enough as it is." I had opted for simply finishing his thoughts out loud. At that Scor began to laugh wildly. "What?" I queried suspiciously, why was the twit laughing.
"I'm a good deal more complex than James, it will take more than that to guess what I'm thinking." Scor added as the laughter continued.
I was wrong? Thats odd I'm almost never…
"Close though… half right." Scor finished leaping up into a tree branch away from me to stop me from arguing about the stone… I stared at him in utter shock. Wow! He's better at that than me! Wow he's …
"Amazing Scor!" I shouted as he climbed higher, moving faster and faster through the branches. His hair shone brightly in the darkness, like a forgotten ljósálfr before their race passed into legend, disappearing from the world. A light elf was nothing like the small statured elves bound in service across the magical world. In fact one could claim they were exact opposites. The idea of enslaving a ljósálfr was like contemplating drinking the blood of a unicorn, sacrilege. Their vanishing was considered one of the most tragic moments of magical history. Scor looked inhuman the way he moved. It was amazing, that he felt so free around me.
I could sense the magic he was using on his feet and whistled in awe. It was really inventive spellwork. The magic required more control than I had learnt from aunt Hermione.
"I would probably blow up the trees trying that." I called after him.
"You mean like this!" he shouted from above. 'CRACK' I heard explosively as splintered wood came raining down in brightly colored flames.
"That is so cool Scor!" I shouted again.
"Thank you, thank you. I do try so terribly hard." He offered, descending gracefully to bow with a dramatic flourish in front of me. What else has he managed to hide I wonder? Where was the calm reserved Malfoy I came in here with?
"I didn't know Malfoys were allowed to make fools of themselves in public." I shot laughing playfully. I was smiling like a giddy schoolboy at him. His reaction however made me immediately regret my words. His smile vanished in a flash and his face changed dramatically, becoming dark and somber. He looked rather like an angry lordling's son. I imagined my head paraded around on a pike by soldiers at his behest.
"Well we can't all grow up with the great Harry Potter as their father." Scor snapped angrily. He'd had a tough life. Always expected to be perfect. Play the little princeling. I of course had been subjected to a similar childhood, although one might have trouble comparing the two.
"Oh… hey I'm sorry Scor… I didn't mean it like that at all… I really only thought that was amazing…" I offered dejectedly, feeling horrible. His features softened at my words... as though he'd realized I hadn't meant offense. I tried to change the subject by flattering him.
"As added recompense you can berate me on that point I was unable to guess."
"Oh um well… actually… I … can't remember… I was distracted… thinking that your eyes were doing strange things in the light…" Scor offered sheepishly.
"What? Mine too?" I stopped incredulously as we entered a tiny clearing. He was just about to respond when suddenly we saw it. There in the clearing standing on an elevated mound of bedrock was a white clothed figure, staring longingly at the moon. It turned towards us as we approached and I knew then and there from the way light seemed to pour from it that it did not belong in our world.
This chapter and the next were very fun for me to write since they introduce a myriad x10 of elements that will be brought up years later. You are all going to want to speculate about what most of the stuff means... especially when the next chapter comes out... i can tell you now that the majority of you will be wrong in your assumptions, although i welcome you to share with me your thoughts. Since i mention that ljósálfr disappeared it would be rather obvious if what the boys run into were one of them (-_-) so i guarantee you that that isn't it (although i imagine they would be similar in their appearance if not their substance or identity to whatever or whomever the boys meet in the forest). If ljósálfr appear in this story they will not be until much later. [They are scandinavian in origin like half my family ^_^]
The following chapter is already entirely written... but i will hold off on updating it "until i gets me ma cookies! x 100!"
RRR (read, review, recommend... blah blah blah ad nauseum)... in all honesty BUGGER that because ABOVE all i sincerely merely hope you enjoy!
Next chapter: Ethereal Creature of the Moon
