A/N: We hit 1 million views shortly after the previous chapter! Amazing!
I already used the chapter name I wanted in chapter 12, so this happened.
Chapter 44: Into the woods… again
Three weeks and I still regularly 'overhear' chatter about my trip into Azkaban. Thankfully other topics, like the impending tournament, are on the front page of the papers, but the wild speculation, and accusations, are ridiculous. The latest story, written by Rita Skeeter, theorises that the tournament will, for whatever reason, include the inmates of Azkaban. I'm not even sure how anybody thinks it could be remotely true.
Due to the unwanted attention, I've spent more time actively avoiding humanity by either hiding in the Chamber of Secrets with both Nysa's, or growling at things in the Forbidden Forest. Buckbeak, Hagrid's hippogryph, has been trying to goad me into a fight for the past week, attempting, and sometimes succeeding, to kick me. I'm sure that him kicking me would hurt a lot more than if I tried the same manoeuvre. Scar's "main attack" is biting, which would surely be fatal, even to Buckbeak.
As hiding places go, The Chamber of Secrets is probably one of the best in the castle. Albus is too busy for me to hide in his office with him, so I've taken to avoiding my latest form of followers down here, plotting my nefarious schemes. Nobody would notice if I created an illusion of a staircase to 'accidentally' drop people following me to their untimely deaths, I'm sure.
The books I appropriated from Azkaban hold Ekrizdis' research into the dementors, which mostly consists of observations about their behaviour, as he was unable to really effect them in any way outside of blocking the portal off. It seems that he only partially understood how the bridge between Earth and his 'Realm of Magic' was created, but he had an in depth knowledge of the Earth-side portal. Without going back and watching him build the ritual in the room, I won't know exactly how it works, and to get there I'd have to create an easily detected, illegal portkey – or apparate there. I don't know how to apparate, unfortunately. Albus and Moody won't be open to the idea … maybe I can ask Cedric. He's probably down at the Quidditch pitch right now. I replace the book on the shelf, removing my reading gloves and placing them on the shelf too. Scooping a shirt and tie out of the clothing cabinet, I head over to the vault door.
"Open." I hiss. Maybe I should add a password? I swish my wand at my bag so it floats beside me whilst I worm my arms in the shirt.
"Harry?" I very nearly vomit my heart out in fright.
"Hermione, Ginny, what brings you here?" I ask as casually as I can manage, pretending that I didn't almost wet myself. The girls are standing side-by-side just outside of the partially-opened door. I slip through the gap and the door closes, preventing them from seeing my lair.
"We … uh." Ginny isn't looking at my eyes, but instead the blackened skin on my chest.
"How did you get down here? I'm pretty sure I left the entrance locked." I walk past them and run the tip of my wand down the button line of my shirt, quickly threading them together.
"Draco was trying to get Nysa to bite Crabbe and Goyle, so we took her." Hermione explains. Ah, Nysa is hanging from her shoulders. Sleeping again.
"What did they have to say about that?" I ask, securing my tie. I didn't expect company down here, or I'd have dressed properly inside.
"They didn't seem opposed to the idea of being bitten by a snake." Hermione frowns and continues. "Draco was initially annoyed that we interrupted their conversation, which, judging by the grins, wasn't complimentary of the girls they were looking at, but changed his tone quickly." Ginny snorts at that.
"Is this going somewhere?" I ask. I'd planned to already be outside of the toilets by now, already on my way to the Quidditch pitch, not still standing near one of Nysa I's shed skins.
"Can you dance?" Ginny asks me, no longer distracted.
"Dance?"
"The ball, Harry! Draco said that's why we have the dresses." She explains.
"Oh, right. Forgot I didn't tell you about that." I scratch my head. "I can dance, yeah." I shrug. "Mostly ballroom stuff." A combination of history here in the castle, and the rooms in Grimmauld place.
"Really?" She seems surprised. "Where did you learn to dance?"
"Just sort of absorbed it." I smirk a bit. "Can we get going? It's a colder out here than in there." I pull my bag over my shoulder and we walk towards the stairs up into the castle.
"Is that why you weren't wearing a shirt?" Hermione asks.
"Sure, let's go with that."
"Can you teach us?" Ginny asks as we ascend. To not wear a shirt? I'd be glad to.
"To dance?" I ask, looking over my shoulder briefly. She's serious.
"Mum never thought we'd need to. We aren't the kind of family that goes to balls." She explains.
"Maybe. I don't know. I'm very busy." They both scoff, and probably rolls their eyes behind me.
"Doing what?" Hermione asks. "Hiding down here whenever you're not in class?"
"Alright, fine." I sigh as we reach the 'abandoned' toilets. "Maybe I've been avoiding all these idiots, your brother is one of them." I point at Ginny. "I genuinely have something else to do right now, so maybe tomorrow night?" I offer.
"Thank you, Harry." Hermione smiles.
"Isn't it a bit early to be thinking about this? The ball might not be until next year, or happen at all."
"Draco says his father told him it was on Christmas Day." Ginny supplies helpfully as we leave.
"Of course he did." I mutter. Maybe these two will go with each other, but Ginny doesn't seem to reciprocate Hermione's feelings. Some sort of weird triangle between the three of us – Hermione likes Ginny, Ginny likes me, although I completely ignore it. We'd be full circle if I fancied Hermione. She's a wonderful person, I think she's even my 'type'… my 'type' appears to be lesbians. But why is my entire life a complex knot of insanity? Hah. I'm glad Hedwig is the only one that knows how crude my monologuing is.
Ah, to be a teenager.
"Are you brooding again? It's been 30 seconds since you spoke." Ginny jabs my side with her fingers.
"Probably." I shrug. Maybe I should've been born as a girl, or was in another life. I've got bigger things to attend to right now, anyway. "I'm going down to the Quidditch pitch now, feel free to join me."
"You know it's illegal to apparate under-age, right?" Cedric, quite understandably, isn't open to the idea.
"To do it, sure." I agree, sitting beside him on the stands whilst the rest of the Hufflepuff team practice taking shots. "But technically it's not illegal to know how to do it."
"But I'd have to break the law to teach you, there's a whole process involved in being certified to teach, so you don't do it wrong and somebody splinches themselves in two." Damn it. Bloody certifications. There goes that plan.
"I'll have to wait a few years then." I put my feet up on the handrail.
"Why did you want to? Because of the uh..."
"Increasing number of attempts on my life?" He nods. "It'd be nice to be able to apparate away, sure." Definitely not because I want to duck under the wards of Azkaban, no sir. "so, you practising out here?" The whole thing looks too casual.
"No, we just thought we'd go for a fly." He explains, watching them in the air. "Do you want to join us? I don't think I've ever seen you on a broom." He scratches his chin and looks at me appraisingly.
"I'm more interested in the charmwork behind brooms than flying them myself, but I'm a fair flyer." I shrug innocently.
"Do you have a broom?" I shake my head. "Here." He holds out his own Nimbus. "Go and get one from the changing rooms, I think we have a Comet 220 in there. I'll tell the others that you're not undercover for Ravenclaw." He jokes with a smile.
"I don't think I'd be allowed on the team anyway." I accept the broom.
Sucker.
"That was pretty good, where did you learn to fly like that?" Cedric asks as I float lazily beside him. What he doesn't know is that James would use this 220 whenever McGonagall would confiscate his 260, manufactured in 1974, to practice with. He was only allowed his own broom back for team practice and matches. This 220 saw a lot of use, and flying Cedric's Nimbus 2000 for a few seconds added something to my talents. I'm a cheater, sometimes it's fun.
"Oh, here and there." I smile, fighting off the need to flaunt the skill, as James would have done. James was a dick, but held phenomenal skill on a broom.
"You're not going to join the Ravenclaw team, right?" He laughs nervously.
"No, I'm not really a team player." I laugh, descending on the broom. "Maybe we can do it again some time? I need to go and get frowned at." Hermione has always had an aversion to brooms, and an aversion to anything that would facilitate me in killing myself.
True to my prediction, Hermione berates my reckless flying for a while, Ginny takes over with praise after a while. Yin and yang.
"Why won't you join the team?" Ginny asks me.
"Roger Davies."
"The captain?"
"Yes." I nod. "He doesn't like me, although the others would mutiny if I was good enough, but I don't want to anyway. Too much of a commitment. I'd much prefer to make brooms." I gesture to the forbidden forest on our right. "To make something that people marvel over like a work of art, you know? Sirius has a 1977 vintage 'Soaring Star' manufactured by Universal Brooms, they only made 10 and the company went bust in '78."
"He does?" Ginny's eyes widen like tennis balls.
"There." I point at her. "That's the kind of look I want somebody to have on their face when they look at something I've made."
"Do you even know how to make a broom?" Hermione questions.
"No, but neither did Devlin Whitehorn, and he's a millionaire now." I remind her.
"Devlin… who?" She looks confused. Ginny almost gets whiplash as she gasps at Hermione.
"Devlin Whitehorn? Founder of the Nimbus Racing Broom Company? Inventor of every model of Nimbus broom? Hermione, How could you not know this?" She shakes her head. "The Nimbus Racing Broom Company was founded in 1967 by Devlin Whitehorn with the launch of the Nimbus 1000 model, which was a wonder amongst brooms at the time." She recites, almost directly, from 'Quidditch through the ages'. It's quite impressive. I know that it's an ambitious goal to build a broom from scratch with almost no prior experience with enchanting, but nothing new ever gets created without pushing one's boundaries.
"Hey, look, Where's Hagrid going?" I look up as Ginny points to the half-giant's hut. Hagrid is standing at the tree line, lighting his lantern, his giant crossbow is leaning against a nearby tree.
"Hagrid!" I call out, waving as we skirt around his, recently harvested, pumpkin patch.
"Sorry, I'm a bit pressed fer time." He frowns beneath his messy beard as we walk closer.
"I thought you were having tea with Luna?" I didn't know, but I can see that she left just a couple of minutes ago. In a completely non-rushed skip too.
"'Fraid I had to send her to get Professor Dumbledore." He closes the window on the lantern.
"Professor Dumbledore?" Hermione's voice laced with worry already. "Hagrid, What's going on?"
"I don' think I should say." He sound uncomfortable, not looking at me as I walk to the hoof prints behind him. A centaur? This far out?
"Hagrid, What's happened? Why are there centaur tracks here?" If I ask questions knowingly enough, Hagrid eventually spills secrets.
"It were Ronan." He slumps a bit. "'E came and asked for help."
Shit.
"The centaurs came and asked for help?" I almost can't believe it.
"They said somethin's in there, somethin they can't deal with. So Magorian sent 'im to me." he explains.
"Magorian sent to you for help? This is bad. Really not good." I look into the forest. "What did they find, Hagrid?"
"A demon. Some spirit of chaos. They didn't see it comin, so they're spooked. Small mercy is that it's trapped." He heft the crossbow up. I don't think a crossbow will do much for a trapped demon…
"Wait." I turn to him. "Did you say trapped?" This seems like one of those times when I look back and realised I really messed up. I know the traps the centaurs use, having nearly fallen pray to them myself a few times, can't catch anything that can be described as a demon, so the only other trap in the Forbidden Forest that I'm aware of is the one I built to trap dementors.
"Above a pond." Hagrid confirms. "They don't know how long it'll hold it though."
"Depends what's caught inside." I say. "Should be fine for a while."
"And how do you know that?" Ginny asks, putting her balls up hands on her hips, not looking impressed at all. I feel a chill roll up my spine. I'm almost glad there aren't lots of Prewett women running around these days, that look is enough to quell Fred, George, Fabian, and Gideon – Certainly enough to make me not want to answer.
"Just a guess." I step back towards the forest. "You go and get Albus, Hagrid and I will get a head start." I quickly retreat into the forest, Hagrid in tow. He is grinning. "Oh, don't give me that look, Hagrid. We were about two seconds away from her tapping her foot."
"We? Nothin' to do with me."
Abandoned.
Wonderful.
The distant roar becomes increasingly louder as we draw closer to the trap. Whatever it is definitely isn't a dementor, unless they make this noise when they get trapped.
As the trees thin out, I can start to make out the 'demon' that has wandered into my trap. A burning figure, perhaps towering at twenty feet tall, large curved horns atop it's head, which it uses to butt against the edge of the shield formed within the trapzone. Clawed hands, with more fire. Sunken holes in it's "head" which burn with dark fire in place of eyes.
"What is it?" Hagrid asks whilst I attempt to distract myself by leaning against one of the trees holding the spells. Luckily it holds back the fire, or the trees – and therefore the spells – would have been destroyed. I've definitely never seen something like this walking around the forest before. What is it doing here?
"Let's go and say hello."
"'Arry, wait-"
"Excuse me, Mr Demon, may I ask how you got here?" I ask, sounding much more confident than I feel.
"PLAY NOT THESE GAMES WITH ME, WALKER OF TIME." The booming shakes my bones as the deep voice rushes through the forest. 'Walker of Time'? Is this some immortal being that has wandered into my experiment? "FREE ME FROM THIS PRISON AND I PROMISE YOURS SHALL BE A SWIFT DEATH."
"A very tempting offer." I remark sarcastically, earning a snarl whilst I work my way around the pond to find the spot where it touched the ground.
"I, PEEVEROSS NOG'THROLL, DESCENDANT OF CHAOS, WILL BREAK FREE AND BURN YOUR WORLD TO ASHES." I continue to shimmy around, looking for it's footsteps. Why can't Balrog-esque creatures ever have normal names? It didn't get here by walking, as there are no footprints, or 'timeprints', so it must've flown in. The magic surrounding it's body is a whirling vortex of black fire, angrily whipping around outside the visible spectrum. What ever 'chaos' the beast referred to, it probably is descended from it. Not a particularly nice fellow. A spark of yellow is nestled deep within the fire, no doubt the creature's true magic, rather than the projected fire. Strangely enough, it's the same colour as-
"Peeves!" I blurt out. 'Peeveross'. Peeves. What the hell? Peeveross roars angrily.
"DO NOT PRESUME TO CALL ME BY THAT PUNY NAME!" He bellows.
"Peeves. I will not let you out until you calm down and change back." My wand pops back into it's holster. The fire around Peeveross' body whirls increasingly faster as it closes into a shell around his body, and in a puff of smoke – Peeves appears.
"Ohoho, Potty, Bumbles won't be happy with you! Oh noes!" Peeves floats upside down as he laughs. He, unfortunately, has a point. If he'd gotten free and went on a rampage… Endangering students with some sort of creature, it's all too reminiscent of Newton Scamander's expulsion. "Now let me out!"
"And what have you learnt from this?" Albus looks at me disapprovingly from across his desk.
"That there are worlds beyond our own out of reach to us, but nonetheless have minor influence here."
"But more importantly?" He looks at me over his glasses, lacing his fingers together against his mouth.
"Not to leave my half-developed experiments lying around where something may run into them. Such as inter-dimensional poltergeists." Albus refused to explain Peeves' true nature to me, and said that some things are better left to rest. I suspect Peeves exists as Peeveross in Ekrizdis' "Realm of Magic", but as Peeves here. After he became trapped in the circle, he pulled his whole form into this plane to attempt to break out.
"Severus has expressed concern about your recent behaviour. Stating that 'non-disruptive' behaviour is atypical for you." Months ago, Albus wouldn't give me such direct, albeit still filtered, quotes from Snape, but he knows that I will find out exactly what was said at some point.
"So even when I'm not doing anything wrong, he thinks I'm doing something wrong?" I shake my head in disbelief. Maybe he was dropped on his head as a child? Perhaps that would explain the nose...
A/N: I'm going to go through and read the entire story again to get the creative juices flowing once more, as I feel that I've not been doing the story justice recently. It's quite daunting looking at 120k words on the story stats, but I'm looking forward to it.
Thoughts and suggestions are, as ever, greatly appreciated.
Enjoy!