Harry Potter has a bad night
Harry Potter, wizard-extraordinaire was sitting on a makeshift seat, fashioned from a tree stump and a little magic. The night air was crisp and cool. In keeping with the start of Autumn in England.
Himself and his traveling companions had the rather dubious task of hunting down a frankly, batshit insane wizarding… "not Hilter, too German." Harry is thinking to himself while sitting guard. "Wizarding Cromwell. Yea that fits." Memories of his primary school history lessons coming to his mind while dwelling on their task of hunting down and destroying Vol-de-Cromwell's method of faux-immortality.
"It fits, ugly as hell, basically a religious fanatic, would happily cancel Christmas if he wins…Questionable nasal orifice!", his thoughts meander on while fighting the boredom of staying awake past the witching hour.
"Boy-who-bastarding-lived," spat the voice of a young man, "what do they know?". He was sat outside a tent, in the middle of a forest getting rained on. with only himself and a struggling campfire for company. His companions safely asleep behind him.
It would be fair to say that Harry was in a slightly tetchy mood. He was sure, nay adamant that Hermione had perfected a weather predicating charm and had worked the guard duty schedule in such a way that he gets rained on every time it was his turn.
"Even if I am right and she has," he continues, muttering to himself, "she'd just tell me it's payback for last month's accident."
The month prior, Harry mistakenly walked into the cramped travel-tent version of a bathroom to be greeted by the naked back, backside, and the briefest of hints of something else belonging to one Hermione Granger. After the briefest of appraising looks, he was a teenager after all, he did the gallant thing and about-turned, red in the face and refused to talk about it.
Not being able to look Hermione in the eye for days afterwards certainly didn't help.
"I mean," his diatribe continues, "she's sharing a travel-tent with two other people. What does she expect? The Ritz? Accidents will happen." He reaches down to pick up some orange juice. He'd found a few cartons in their meagre food stores, and since they had expired a few days previously, thought he may as well drink them up.
Grimacing to himself after a large mouthful, he feels some of his frustrations drain away. Stoking the fire with the help of his wand, he settles into the routine of keeping himself awake for the night.
"One tree, mwhaha, two trees, mwhaha, three trees mwhaha…" half remembered images of a comically dressed lilac vampire coming to mind while he plays the old faithful game of How Many Trees Can I Count Before I Get Bored. "Four trees… no three trees, stay still, stupid trees stop moving! That stuffed vampire didn't have to put up with moving trees..."
Huffing in annoyance with the general unfairness of mobile trees, he drains his second
carton of orange juice. "I'll show you," he exclaims, to his audience of trees. Reaching for his wand took a couple of attempts but he got there in the end. "Ha, right now you'll behave won't you…IMMOBULUS!" he finishes shouting the incantation to the spell and stabbing his wand in the vague direction of the closest tree.
Now Harry is a realist, he fully expected his spell to hit its intended target, and have it rendered, well just as immobile as it was before it was hit by the spell. He did not expect for a blinding light to bath the entire forest in front of him, nor to be blown off his seat.
Finding himself suddenly horizontal and strangely comfortable lying among the cool leaves of the forest floor, he pulls himself back onto his tree stump aware now that something is wrong with his co-ordination.
"Poisoned! I've been poisoned!" the rant begins anew, "but where am I going to get a bezoar from at this time of night?". He frantically starts rifling through his bag, only to be thwarted by the lack of the magical magic bullet. He searches again, then again to make sure "well bugger.".
Unknown to Harry, he was currently being watched by three figures, Unseen to all but the most deserving. One was a tall slender girl, no older than 15 with long white hair flowing straight, to the nape of her back. The second is a cheerful looking woman, slightly plump now with middle age, but hale and hearty. The last figure was that of a stern looking older woman. You couldn't describe her as beautiful, but maybe handsome… in good light.
They had been drawn to the young man's magic, filling their forest with an energy they hadn't felt in near a millennium. To say they were surprised to find an inebriated teenager muttering to himself would be a small understatement.