"I Think We're Lost…"

"I think we should have turned left back at that clearing…" Hermione said, trying to keep her voice strong but failing miserably.

Tonks rolled her eyes to herself and sighed, trying to keep her focus on the darkening forest in front of her, wand pointed straight ahead. How in the world she ended up in the middle of the Forbidden Forest with Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, and Ginny Weasley she had no clue. It was a lovely spring afternoon right before the end of term and summer vacation. She had just finished her Defense Against the Dark Arts exam and was lounging on the beach by the lake with her shoes off and toes dangling in the cool water. Remus was somewhere nearby reading a book (of course), while Sirius and James were trying to see how close they could get a group of first years to touching the giant squid. Lily was lying next to Tonks and she was going on about how she think she did terrible on her exam. Tonks tried to change the topic as she heard Sirius say to the first years, "Really, he's not all that scary. Just a big goldfish. With tentacles."

"So what's up for tonight," Tonks asked Lily.

"Oh I don't know, we all don't have another exam until Friday, we should all just hang out in the common room or something," replied Lily.

Tonks was about to agree when she heard a voice from somewhere behind her say, "Isn't that Harry by the forest?"

Tonks tipped her head back from where she was lying down to look at her boyfriend, upside down. He was looking somewhere beyond her, in the direction of the dark forest. She then sat up and followed his gaze to the edge of the forest; where there were four people were definitely standing. She squinted before saying, "Yeah, I guess it could be."

"SIRIUS, JAMES!" Tonks winced as Lily screamed over to the two boys.

"Christ woman, what do you want, we almost had them swimming with the thing!" Sirius said angrily as he and James made their way over.

"Harry and all them are by the forest," Lily said to them with narrowed eyes.

"So, he can do what he wants," James said to her.

"He's your cousin, James, who's about to be eaten by a troll or something!" Lily said exasperated.

"Oh please, there are no trolls in the Forbidden Forest," said Sirius as he rolled his eyes.

Lily paused, her mouth slightly hanging open. "Well, whatever, we made a promise to Dumbledore," she said to Sirius. "Keep Harry out of trouble." Sirius and James recited with her.

"Guys, can't we just go down there, tell him real quick to come back up to the school, then we can get on with our lives. We'll say there's a vampire in there or something," Tonks said finally.

"Yeah, come on guys, let's go," Remus said getting up.

"After you, Mr. Prefect," said Sirius, bowing to him.

Two hours later, Tonks got the feeling that she wasn't going to be spending the evening hanging out in the common room like she had planned. The thick branches were blocking what little sun was left and it was getting very dark. Sirius, James, Remus, Tonks, and Lily made it to the edge of the forest, but 

Harry and the others had already ventured inside its depths. They caught up with Harry, but found themselves beyond lost. After some confusion and yelling, Harry explained that Hagrid had asked them to do a little favor for him. Something about Blast-Ended-Skrewts. They were sworn to secrecy as to what they were doing for Hagrid, or why he couldn't just do it himself. Tonks was pretty sure that they didn't even know the answers to those questions.

So now here they were, stuck in the Forbidden Forest which was growing colder and darker by the minute. The shade had felt good at first after spending the afternoon in the sun, but now Tonks was just plain cold. The jeans and t-shirt she was wearing didn't help much either. Tonks knew that she was better than this. She was a Gryffindor, who was going to be a Hogwarts graduate in about a week, she was a member of the Order of the Phoenix, she had a full ride to the top Auror training college in this hemisphere, and had already received word from the Ministry that they would "be honored to welcome her to their Auror family" once she was done with training. She shouldn't be traipsing around some damn cold forest with a bunch of third years, she thought bitterly. Dumbledore better give her personal thanks for what she's going through to keep Harry safe.

Tonks had her lit wand pointing at Remus' back as he led the group along a trail that maybe actually lead somewhere. Tonks had given up on looking around frantically at every sound she heard; it was pointless. There were just too many strange noises that could be coming from too many strange creatures in this too dark forest.

Remus suddenly stopped and Tonks ran into his back and stumbled a bit. They had arrived at a large clearing. Remus barley glanced back at his girlfriend before peering back into the depths of the forest. Tonks knew him well enough to know that he was listening for something. Remus' sight and hearing were much better than the average humans due to the fact that he spent twelve nights a year as a wolf.

"Uh, I think we're lost," Tonks heard Ron say behind her. She resisted the urge to turn around and hex him into nothingness. That just put the icing on the cake of this fun-filled party. Ginny started to say something behind her and Remus held up his hand to silence her as he searched the darkness with his eyes. After a moment he moved slowly into the clearing and started to look around. Tonks looked behind her at the rest of the group and shrugged before following her boyfriend into the clearing. She stood next to Remus as the rest of the group spread out in the clearing after her.

"What do you hear?" Tonks said gently to Remus.

"Something. There's definitely something here," he responded after a beat.

"Something dangerous? Should we get them out?" she said referring to Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny.

"No, I think we're fine. If it was something dangerous we would have known about it by now," he responded, distracted.

There was a gasp from behind them, where the rest of the group was standing. Remus and Tonks turned around quickly, their wands raised, to find Ron lying on the ground rubbing his forehead and Hermione next to him with her hands over her mouth. Standing next to Ron and looking down at him, was a huge winged skeletal horse. Its black leathery skin glinted in the night air and it blinked at Ron with large, glassy, jet black eyes. Sirius, James, and Lily looked to the creatures left where another, smaller winged horse was seeping out of the darkness. Tonks felt Remus tense next to her and could feel the hairs rising at the base of her neck. She knew what these things were, and racked her brain to come up for a name for them. Lily answered her question by saying in a whisper, "Thestrals." Tonks now remembered learning about them in a lesson with Hagrid, and this also explained the confused look on Ron, Hermione, and Ginny's faces. It also explained the look of wonderment on Sirius', James', Remus', Lily's, Harry's, and her own face.

Tonks guessed that Ron must have run into the thestral, seeing as he couldn't see it. Seeing Ron run into something invisible had caused their confusion, which was understandable.

"You can see them too, can't you?!" Harry exclaimed to his cousin and his friends, and then added, "Wait, why can we see them?"

"They're thestrals. Only people who have seen someone die can see them," Lily said slowly, all while keeping her eyes on the thestral.

"Oh," Harry said before pausing. "Wait, then why can…" Remus looked at him. "Oh," Harry finished in a tiny voice.

Remus looked back at the thestrals. "Pretty much everyone who's in the Order can see them," he said to Harry.

"Come on, let's get out of here," Tonks said as she tore her eyes away from the pair of thestrals and their black, blinking eyes.

It wouldn't be so bad, Tonks thought to herself as she waited by the entrance of the clearing for everyone to file out onto the trail again. It wouldn't be so bad if there wasn't something that would remind her of everything she has seen. It was easy to repress unpleasant memories of Order missions gone wrong. But having something that only shows itself to those repressed memories just brings them all back up and reminds her why she can see this frighteningly beautiful animal. It reminds her of what has happened and will still happen and could happen to her. Tonks shakes her head at an attempt to rid her mind of those thoughts as the last of the group, Harry, makes his way onto the trail and she brings up the rear.

Disclaimer

Anything that is recognizable from any of the Harry Potter books is property of J.K. Rowling and I make no profit from it.