Disclaimer: These beautiful, wonderful characters belong to J.K. Rowling.
After dinner, we all headed back up to the common room. We were all talking about the upcoming Quidditch game against Slytherin. Although I didn't like to fly, I loved the wizardly game as much as the next wizard and I knew that we were going to beat those stupid snakes down to hissing worms. But just as we were really starting to get into it, Ginny suddenly pulled back and gasped. We all turned to her worried.
"Ginny, what's wrong?" Harry asked, putting a hand on her shoulder.
Then she suddenly smacked her hand to her face like a house elf that had done something bad. That reminded me: Note to self: knit more hats.
"I forgot that we wanted to show you something!" Ginny said, pulling me out of my thoughts, and gesturing to Neville. Then he smacked himself, too. It was becoming a trend fast.
"Oh, yeah!" Neville exclaimed.
Harry glanced at his watch and said, "Well, we have an hour until curfew hits, so you have time to show us. Let's go now."
Ron nodded his head eagerly, clearly glad to have an excuse to get him out of his homework. If I hadn't been so curious about what Ginny and Neville wanted to show us, I would have marched both Harry and Ron back up to the common room and made them finish their assignments. Instead, I gestured for Neville to lead the way.
Neville got the message and nodded. "Just to warn you guys, the thing we wanted to show you…. Well, it's in the Forbidden Forest."
Ron suddenly seemed to change his mind. He hadn't forgotten about those spiders.
"The Forbidden Forest? What the bloody hell were you two doing in the Forest?" Ron asked, eying them suspiciously.
"Oh, Ron, calm down. We'll explain when we show you. Now will you stop worrying about the bug, hairy spiders and come on?" Ginny said, exasperatedly.
Ron glared at her but didn't say anything. "Lead on, Neville," Harry said, feeling uncomfortable as he stood in between Ginny and her brother.
Neville nodded and we all followed him outside toward the entrance of the Forbidden Forest. Neville same to a sudden halt and I ran smack into him and fell backward. He blushed and reached down to help me up. "Sorry, Hermione."
"It's okay, Neville," I mumbled as I got to my feet and looked around. "So what did you want to show us?"
Neville blushed even deeper and looked at Ginny. "I forgot which way to go. You should lead from here."
"How far in do we have to go?" Ron demanded.
We all rolled our eyes and Ginny said, "Not far. Now stop being a bloody baby and follow me."
And once again we were on the move. We all had our wands ready for any creature and we were moving in a tight-knit group. We went deep into the forest. Clearly, Ginny and I had different version of 'not far' because I was panting by the time we stopped, but she seemed perfectly fine. For that matter, so did Harry and Ron. It must be a Quidditch thing. Poor Neville was in a worse condition than I was. He had his hands on his knees and was gasping for breath.
When I had finally composed myself enough, I took a look around me. We were in a very deep part of the Forest. I had never been in this part of it, but I imagined that there were worse creatures waiting in these shadows than the ones that I had encountered in here before. It wasn't pitch-black, but the lighting was so bad that I could barely see ten feet in front of me. The trees were tall and intimidating, whipping violently in the wind that had picked up since we'd entered. They seemed to be warning us to go back and forget this place.
"Well, Ginny. What did you want to show us?" I asked, breaking a chilling silence that had settled between all of us.
She stepped up to one of the unwelcoming trees and began to sing in a voice that reminded me of loneliness, "Here I am, come to me. Open up, and run to me. Give me what it is you hide. Give me what you protect inside."
To say I was freaked out would be an understatement. I'd never heard such a lonely thing before in all my life. But then something happened. The tree seemed to bend toward Ginny, its branches reaching out and caressing her face, almost as if she was its long-lost friend. And right before my eyes the tree began to crack open. A bright light blinded me for a moment, but then it settled into a faint glow and I saw that inside the tree, there was a rolled up piece of parchment.
"What is it?" Harry asked.
Ginny smirked and reached into the tree to grab the parchment. "This, my dear, is an actual treasure map."
I gaped at it and stepped over to take it from Ginny. When I had it, I didn't open it. I just held it. I know, it was weird, but to see an actual map? I knew Ginny wouldn't lie about this. It was awesome! Suddenly I returned to myself and quickly unrolled the parchment and ran my eyes over every little detail, curious to see what the map looked like.
Suddenly, we all heard a deep menacing growl behind us. We whipped around to see a very large and angry creature in front of us. I guess curiosity really did kill the cat.