Broadcast #3: Curiosity, Part 2

Justin held out his scroll. On it, drawn over the lines of black ink he'd written out the previous night, there was a shiny, red "O." At the bottom of the parchment, a small paragraph was written in the same ink with looped handwriting.

Outstanding, Mr. Finch-Fletchley. Simply outstanding. Your metaphor of a hero sprouting from a monster as an analogy for the needle's dangerous nature being transformed into the matchstick's wide-reaching use in society was certainly insightful. Very pleased to see that your reserved nature in the classroom is just a result of your thoughtful mind.

"Well that's just not fair!" Ernie said, crumpling up his own paper. "I actually read the chapter, and all I got was a lousy Acceptable!"

Hannah, who had gotten an 'Exceeds Expectations,' folded her own paper and stuffed it into the pocket of her robes. "I never would've thought by just looking at you, but you're pretty smart, huh?" she said.

Crumpling his own paper, Justin began walking away from McGonagall's class. "It's easy," he said, shrugging. "You just have to write what the teachers wanna hear."

Harry himself had gotten an 'Exceeds Expectations,' and he was happy with it. The assignment had taken him a good hour, reading the first chapter of his transfiguration textbook and then writing a full scroll. Along with his grade, McGonagall had also written him a little paragraph of his own. Only two, short sentences:

Good work, Mr. Potter. Just a bit more effort on your part and I'm sure you'll earn an 'O' next time.

The crowd of students flooding out of McGonagall's class began splintering off into their own, similar groups, all of them splitting off back home, or towards the courtyard, or the Great Hall. Along the way, Harry saw Susan heading off with her own friends, two first-year Ravenclaws.

Susan seemed to feel his gaze, and turned to him. Harry held out his paper, showing her his grade. After a moment, she showed him her paper too, along with the big, fat 'O' drawn on it. Her face was contemptuous, but it was a sort of fake, playful contempt, and Harry could almost hear the laughter behind it. He smiled at her, and she turned away.

When Harry looked back at his friends, they were all staring at him. Justin only raised a brow, looking otherwise bored, Ernie was scratching his head, and Hannah…

Her sly, widening grin burned at Harry's cheeks.

"What's this all about, Harry?" she asked, drawing closer to him, hands clasped behind her back. "Don't tell me you already found yourself a girlfriend."

Justin stepped up next to Hannah, and both of them loomed over Harry, their inquisitive looks like magnifying glasses focusing the sun's heat directly towards him. "Chosen ones have it easy, huh?" the muggleborn boy said.

Harry began shaking his head, stumbling over his words. Luckily for him, Ernie was worried about something else entirely.

"Never mind all that," he said, clapping his hands. "We're on a schedule, remember? Let's go, people!"

The man in black fled into the Forbidden Forest, and his four students followed.

They'd made sure to change out of their school robes before making the trip. It wouldn't do for them to get stuck in the underbrush, making unnecessary noise and getting caught as a result. As it was, Ernie led the way, then Harry, then Hannah, and finally Justin, who lay a grimace all around him.

"Is it too late to call it quits and go back?" he whispered.

"Yes," everyone else answered.

The outdoors was never Justin's favorite place to be. A calm, pretty field or garden, sure, but the depths of a dark and sticky forest? No thanks, he'd take a comfy couch and controlled airflow any day. Especially crouched low to the ground as he was, forced to cling to trees for cover in case Quirrell decided to turn around.

The plan was as simple as it was enthusiastic. The four Hufflepuffs would follow after Quirrell, quietly, far enough behind the professor to hopefully not be noticed. They would be in the dark, dependent on the light of Quirrell's wand to make their way, as having a light of their own would only bring them unwanted attention. To not get lost, they would all be holding hands and forming a single-file line, with Ernie at the lead and Justin at the end.

It worked well at first. Quirrell seemed his same old self, shuffling his way through the forest, going slow enough that following after him wasn't very difficult. The four tried to keep quiet, and if they had to talk—warn each other about a thicket of thorns, comment on the creepiness of the forest—they did so in short, hushed sentences that were soon swallowed up by the ruffling of tree leaves, the far-off screeching of what must've been wild animals, and a low hum, as if the forest itself were speaking to them in unknown tones.

Unfortunately, for as much intelligence as these children had, they were still children. While Ernie's plan did take much into account, there's only so much that a group of eleven-year-olds could be expected to think of when it comes to walking blindly into a dangerous, dark forest without any dependable form of navigation. The moment of truth came when Quirrell, against all the logic that any of the kids could muster, turned off the light of his wand. The group was instantly enshrouded in the pitch black that had been surrounding them all along.

Ernie froze, as did the other three. They all instinctively huddled together, and as they shivered in the sudden bite of cold that ran through the air, the sounds that they'd been so ardently ignoring throughout their hike began to grow louder in their ears. Low, blaring gawks echoed somewhere in the distance, as did the quiet but incessant clipping of what must've been insects crawling up and down the twisted barks of looming and now invisible trees. With a quickening of the breath, Harry remembered the giant spiders Hannah had talked about the day before, and she must've remembered too, because her grip on his hand tightened painfully.

"C-Cast a light," she said, whispering not in the attempt to be sneaky, but out of pure fear. Her voice trembled, and behind it Harry could hear the heart hammering at her throat. "Someone c-c-cast a l-light."

"No!" Ernie said, his own whisper strained. "We can't. Quirrell might still be out there, maybe he found out."

"Then what does it matter?!" Hannah said, and Harry realized that the fear she spoke with must've been simmering since the moment they walked into the forest. Maybe it'd been there ever since she'd agreed to come with them. She'd been able to hold it down, perhaps out of confidence in their plan or in herself, but that confidence was now crumbling. Her voice broke. "Cast a light!"

"If we do now, he'll know for sure," Ernie said. His own voice sounded hard, and Harry imagined him scowling out into the darkness. "We're not getting caught."

As foolhardy as he was surely being, Harry couldn't help but respect the other boy. Ernie was as scared as all the rest—this Harry could feel through the shake in his hand, and even the slight breathiness in his tone—yet he wouldn't allow himself to fall into the hole that Hannah had, and that Harry himself was slowly sinking into.

But Hannah was right. They couldn't just stand there forever. If their own fear didn't do them in, surely something out of that terrifying chorus would. A giant spider, an orc, maybe even the twisting branches and roots, which under Harry's feet felt more like half-buried snakes. It wasn't safe.

Justin's voice sounded out from somewhere close. "Two minutes," he said. "Count to two minutes, and it should be alright."

That sounded sensible enough, and so Ernie allowed himself to allow it, if only because even he couldn't hold onto the tough-guy act forever.

It was the worst two minutes Harry had ever experienced. Worse than the cupboard under the stairs, which had been equally as dark but not quite as cold, nor as filled with the unknown. In his small room, Harry had at least been able to hold out his hand and know that he would surely touch a wall, or the small cabinet where he kept his hand-me-down clothes, or the handle of his locked door. Here, even if his hands had been free—Ernie's grip was now as tight as Hannah's, and his own hand wasn't exactly limp in theirs—even if his hands had been free, Harry knew that they wouldn't have reached anything. Just air, like waving at a void.

And somewhere, they all heard a cry rise up and then abruptly die. The strange noise disquieted them more than any other, for it was close and, above that, beautiful. A single-note melody played by a master, high and piercing like a violin, reaching out from the dark and touching their very souls. But its end had been an affront to its beauty, as if, right in the middle of that great song, a string had snapped.

Time flowed on, and finally, after what seemed like two minutes, Hannah said, "now, already!" and none protested. Harry held out his wand, and with a simple flick, cast his newest spell.

"Lumos," he said, and the four were imbued with light, eyes narrowing as if coming out from a cave into early morning.

They looked at each other, finding equally pale faces. Then, Hannah marched up to Ernie and punched him in the gut. He groaned, sinking to his knees, while Hannah wiped at her eyes with the sleeve of her shirt. She didn't cry many tears, but the few that did escape her eyelids clung to the cloth of her sleeve.

"We are never doing that again!" she said.

Harry and Justin looked at each other, then down at Ernie, who's breath had been thoroughly knocked out of him. They took a step back as the downed boy got his feet under him, first with the help of his hands, then alone. Harry considered helping, but the sight of Hannah standing there, glaring down at Ernie with wet eyes, stopped him.

Air returned to Ernie in ragged heaves. "Fair enough," he said, shocking them all. "I'm sorry I scared you."

His wording had been precise; he wasn't sorry he'd made them stand in the dark, or even that he'd gotten them into the Forbidden Forest to begin with, but he was sorry that his decisions had caused Hannah so much grief. There were no excuses. Just acceptance, and an apology that came out, not without some difficulty, but certainly with finality.

Hannah kept glaring for a second, eyes narrowing, then lowered her head. "Well… I guess I shouldn't have hit you. I'm sorry too."

Harry felt himself release a deep breath he hadn't even realized he was holding in, and he thought he saw Justin do the same.

"Don't mess with Hannah," Justin said, hands in his pockets as if he were casually waiting for the bus and not stuck in the middle of a dark and terrifying wilderness. "Got it."

That got a chuckle out of Harry, and before they knew it, all four were laughing. Whatever spring they'd been coiling up had finally sprung, and luckily for all of them it hadn't resulted in their split or further horror. The laughter seemed to brighten the forest around them, casting the pitch black in shades of monochrome grey, even toning down the atmospheric clatter that had been taking them in its maw.

"Alright chaps, time to go back," Ernie said. He looked around, eyes searching through a forest he couldn't truly see, and sighed. "We lost him alright. No point sticking around now."

Hannah and Justin nodded, but Harry raised his wand above him, still looking through the shadows. "Wait a bit," he said softly. When everyone stared at him, he coughed and raised his voice. "You all heard that at the end, didn't you?"

The memory felt morose to all of them, and not only because it reminded them of those horrifying two minutes in the dark.

"It sounded like…" Hannah started, but couldn't finish. Not out loud, and Justin was kind enough to finish her thought for her.

"Like something dying," he said, face blank. "Or getting killed. Not too far, either."

Harry pointed. "Somewhere over there," he said, and without another word, began walking over.

The other three looked at each other, confused faces darkening as their source of light wandered further away. Over the last week they'd had with him, they had grown used to Harry's tranquil, almost reclusive demeanor. Often he would just do as the others did, happy enough to follow along with their wants as he had with Ernie's. Now, as he walked further on ahead, losing himself in the dark, his sudden bout of individual desire seemed far too alien. But, they followed.

"Can we get any more light here?" Hannah said, their party now stretched.

Ernie pulled out his wand and cast his own light spell. He slowed, positioning himself at the back of the group, and with Harry in front, the light was enough that no one had to glare down at the ground just to make sure of their footing anymore.

Seeing the two boys waving their wands so casually, Hannah grumbled. "I wish I could pick up spells so fast," she said. She looked back at Justin with suspicious eyes. "Don't tell me you can cast lumos too."

He shrugged. "Maybe. Might as well let these two handle it, though."

"You're just being lazy," Hannah said.

"It's all practice," Ernie said, frowning. "Should've seen our room after charms class. Harry kept us all up with it, casting over and over."

"I tried to be quiet," Harry said sheepishly.

"It's not about the noise, mate. You lit up the whole room."

"I had my curtains drawn."

"Very thin curtains," Justin said.

Before Harry could answer, they reached their destination, and the sight that waited there for them stopped them all short.

Lying on the ground was a corpse. The body was that of a horse, its coat so white that they could see its bright silhouette even in the deep shadows it hid. On its head, caked with dirt, was a horn. And it was a fresh body, very fresh if the blood oozing off its neck and pooling on the dirt meant anything. It was a silvery blood, their wand-light reflecting off it and making it sparkle in the dark, as if the stars had been stolen from the sky and tossed into a pile of mud.

No one knew what to say. None so much as turned to each other, eyes firmly set on the dead creature, feeling only a deep well of disappointment, and the strange sense that something had been swiftly stolen, something unnamable but important. The unicorn had been beautiful beyond belief, this they knew, could see it with their own plain eyes, but now it was only a body, an object, cast off uncaringly like so much trash. Merely part of the land now.

The group looked at it for what seemed like a long time, their silence fading into the sounds of the forest, themselves part of the land now. Eventually, Ernie cleared his throat.

"Alright chaps," he said, his voice dead flat, "time to go back."

They did.

On their way out, Harry felt something slipping away from him. It wasn't anything he was actually holding, but he knew it was slipping nonetheless. As if the darkness hadn't been beaten back by his wand-light, but had merely receded and was now slowly filling him again, this time permanently. As if the silvery blood had been his own, and now it would cake the forest floor for the rest of time, forever removed from him, and no amount of his own red blood could ever replace it. When Harry stepped out of the tree-line and out into the castle grounds, he felt his shadow cling tightly to him, darker than ever, set to stay.

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