Hello Lovelies! Welcome to chapter 9! I think this one is actually my favorite chapter because it was so much fun to write. :) I'm sorry that it's kind of choppy but... well, you'll see. Anyways enjoy!

EDIT: 1/31/2012

Here's another.

Disclaimer: I own nothing Harry Potter related!

Chapter Nine; Those Stories That No One Ever Believes Are True.

Riley was running for her life.

Not the Running-For-Her-Life-Bcause-She-Just-Set-Off-A-Crazy-Awesome-Prank, but the Running-For-Her-Life-Because-The-Giants-Are-After-Her-And-If-She's-Caught-She-Will-Be-Eatin. And she really didn't think she would make a good soup, not that there was anything wrong with a good soup. You can do a lot with soup and everybody likes soup. But Riley wanted to be a pie. Because everybody doesn't like pie… they love pie. Pie is the thing that everyone looks forward to at the end of the meal. Pie is the thing that people make candles smell like, because people really can't get enough of pie. So yes, Riley often thought she would make a good pie, and if they just added a sprinkle of brown sugar—

CRASH!

Right! Not the time. Riley thought starting to run a little faster. She had been running for about ten minutes now. Jumping over rocks, zigzagging through trees, hoping with all her might that she might just lose these two very angry and very hungry giants.

It seemed luck was on her side today though, because just as she heard another tree fall about 500ft behind her, she jump down a hill and found a cave just small enough that the two twenty foot tall beings could not follow her in. So clambering over the rocks as quickly as she could, Riley slid into a small crevice just inside the mouth of the cave.

She didn't have to wait long as the giants stopped in front of the cave and tried to smell her out. But after running through a couple creeks in order to lose her sent trail, she was soaked and with the musty smell of the cave, even the giants couldn't smell her out.

When they finally gave up and moved on, Riley waited a couple minutes before sighing with relief and sliding back out of the crevice. She collapsed on a rock in the mouth of the cave, just realizing how exhausted and freezing she was.

She was very glad that the sun provided some heat and that she wasn't quite as wet as she was a few minutes ago. She figured the only reason she wasn't hypothermic at the moment, was because all the running she did was keeping her blood moving. Now though, she was shivering like mad. So gathering what was left of her strength, she started to gather wood, and after awhile she had a small fire going to help warm herself up.

She was so lost in thoughts of how she was going to find her way back, that she didn't notice the ten foot tall giant that sat down next to her and stared at her like he never before seen anything like her. When she did realize that there was something staring at her she looked up at it slowly, not comprehending at first then-

"Aaahhhhhhhh!" she screamed, causing the giant to scream too. For a good five minutes they sat and screamed. Finally Riley stopped. She collapsed to her knees; put her hands together and started pleading with the very confused giant saying things like "I'm too young to die! I haven't even broken Moony's detention record yet!" and "If you're going to eat me then at least turn me into a pie or a cake, I don't deserve to be just a simple soup!" She stopped when she realized he wasn't doing anything.

He was a rather small giant, (and no, the irony was not lost on her) he seemed to have made a type of kilt out of some bear pelts. And unlike the vicious glint in the other giants' eyes, this one's eyes held nothing but kindness and curiosity.

After a minute or two of sizing each other up, the giant reached behind him and pulled a smaller bear pelt out from behind him and held it out to Riley. Riley cautiously took it and wrapped herself with it. Enjoying the warmth of the fur and the fire, the two sat in silence until about noon, when Riley decided it was time she got moving.

She really wanted to take the pelt with her, but she couldn't afford to hold it while she walked. Then she got an idea.

She dug into her pockets and found her knife; she poked a couple holes into the pelt, and then cut out the strings to her hood— she always found them annoying anyways. After she did that, she put the strings through the holes in the pelt so she ended up wearing the fur as a cloak.

Riley grinned at the giant, who had been watching her make her cloak and stood up.

"Well, I'd best be off!" she said still grinning. "Thanks for the fur and letting me hang out. But I've got to find my way back to my place before dark. See ya!"

But as she started to walk away, the giant began to cry. Riley spun around quickly and rushed back over. Patting the giant on the knee, (she couldn't exactly reach his arm) she shushed him.

"Don't cry big guy! Uh... I'm sure we'll uh… meet again" Riley said slightly panicky at being the cause of crying giant.

When the giant stopped crying, Riley sat back down and started to talk to him. She talked for hours, about everything under the sun until finally, he fell asleep. Riley sighed in relief then quickly grabbed her stuff, tightened her bear fur cloak, and walked back out into the woods hopelessly trying to find her way back.

~{}~

Darkness had fallen and still Riley had no idea where she was. After a little more walking she decided to camp for the night. So after conveniently finding a big hallow tree. Riley climbed in, curled up and fell asleep.

She woke up to the sun in her eyes and the sound of something huffing and snuffling. She slowly and carefully opened her eyes and saw what seemed to be a huge spectral hound.

Riley climbed out of the tree slowly and stared at it… And it stared back… And she stared at it some more… and it stared back… this continued for quite some time until finally the dog blinked.

"Ha!" Riley yelled, pointing at the dog and jumping around. "I win! Yes!"

The dog growled and Riley glared at it.

"No need to be a sour puss, ya know."

The dog growled again, and Riley stuck her tongue out at it. It barked at her and she laughed.

"No way! I've got places to go, ya know? I can't stay here all day and watch you lose more staring contests."

The Gytrash (or at least that's what she thought it was) huffed and curled up in the tree Riley had been occupying a few minutes earlier. Riley just shook her head and started her trek back to where she hoped was the cabin.

It was only after she was about a mile away that she realized just how odd that had been.

~{}~

It was about midday, by the time Riley had found herself in another predicament.

She had been wondering along, humming some song or another, when she found herself surrounded by mistletoe. Not just any mistletoe. But giant bushels of the evil stuff. (Vaguely Riley wondered what it was with everything being bigger then her lately.)

Riley froze. She stood frozen in fear of the most evil plant ever to grow on this earth, until she heard a rustling from the bushes next to her. A boy that looked about fifteen fell out of the bush.

He looked like the definition of a mountain man. Worn out boots, torn up jeans, self-made fur coat, and brown hair even wilder then Riley's own. The boy stumbled over to right outside the circle of mistletoe, before Riley called to him in a panicky whisper.

"Stop! Don't move… they can't see you if you don't move…"

The boy looked at her confused. "What are you talking about?"

"The mistletoe! The-Most-Evil-Plant-To-Ever-Grow-On-This-Earth sitting in front of you!"

The boy looked at her like she was crazy (which, she thought. she probably was.) and walked past the mistletoe. Suddenly the mistletoe changed to multiple full moon-like things.

The boy realizing that they were facing a bunch of Boggarts, grabbed Riley by the arm and with a cry of "Oh, bloody hell!" started to run back the way he came, dragging Riley behind him. They came stumbling and panting into a small camp of more mountain man like people.

Riley looked around with raised eyebrows. There were little army tents scattered around the field, most everyone were around a small fire in the middle of the camp site. There were about ten or so people and they all looked like a rather beat up group. Some were limping; some had bandages around their arms or heads. They all looked up when she and the boy had stumbled in.

"Where's the war?" she asked then turned to the boy. "Where are we? And for that matter who are you?"

The boy looked surprised for a moment then said in a soft voice.

"Oh! Right I'm Leo. And this is my werewolf clan… Rawer..." he looked at her like he was waiting for her to scream and start running around like a chicken with its head cut off. But Riley just smiled and replied cheerfully.

"Really? I am too!" and with that she changed into a little, bright red fox, and ran around him, snapping at his heels and growling playfully.

Leo looking very confused, but still amused, just smiled and shook his head. "Ah… Not quite."

Riley pouted and turned back. She almost fell over when she was suddenly overcome with fatigue. Though she had been an animangus since she was born, it always took a lot of energy for her to change. Although she did notice that as she got older and learned more magic, it seemed to take less and less energy.

"You wouldn't have anything to eat would you? I'm starved." she said swaying slightly.

Leo looked at her confused at the sudden loss of energy.

"Eh? Side effect." She said with a smile, as if that explained everything.

When he still looked confused, she just shrugged at him. Walking over to the campfire, she started to chatter happily at the people around it.

~{}~

After swapping stories and eating more the enough. Riley got ready to move on. She made sure to pick up her new pet mouse and put him in her pocket.

His name was Elephant; he was a shape-shifter, but always stayed the size of a mouse. He was also periwinkle and got mad if you called him anything different. Apparently he had been annoying the group of werewolves, because he kept turning into a miniature dragon and singeing their eyebrows with his fire. And after talking to Riley for awhile, they thought she would like him.

The pack also let her use an owl so she could send a message to Remus to let him know she was okay. Though she knew, no matter what had happened to her. She was in HUGE trouble.

After the pack leader pointed Riley in the right direction— which surprisingly was the way she was going before, she said goodbye and headed on her way. She was doing really well too. She hadn't run into anything for a long time and she still had a couple of granola bars to munch on. That is… until she quite literally walked into a chimera.

Now as Riley looked back on this, she would realize— or at least people would tell her, that this chimera had to be in a good mood. (Maybe it had just had some pie…) But at that moment she would really doubt that.

The giant lions head swerved around to see what creature dared to bump into it, and Riley's first thought was; how the hell did a goat, a dragon and a lion mate? Though most would say that wasn't the time to be thinking something like that, Riley thought it was a very good question.

When the chimera opened its maw, and let out a very scary roar. Riley decided her best course of action was to turn into something small and run.

So pulling Elephant out of her pocket and telling him to fly, (He quickly turned into a tiny hawk and flew away) Riley changed for the second time that day into a small red fox and ran for it.

Sadly luck was not on her side this time, because when the chimera (let's call it Chi) let it's fire loose, Riley was sadly not able to move fast enough and her whole tail, right leg (she still wondered how her left leg came out of that unscathed) and back got burned.

But Riley ignored the excruciating pain and kept running until she finally lost Chi and collapsed, turned back to human and promptly feinted.

~{}~

She woke up the next morning in more than a little pain, lying on her back in a very pretty clearing. There were wild daisies and violets scattered all through the clearing. Little bees buzzing from flower to flower, It was really rather picturesque. But that wasn't what caught her attention. No what she noticed first was that she seemed to be surrounded by horses… except they weren't horses, they were centaurs.

"Greetings, young one." Said a friendly voice.

Riley turned to see a beautiful black stallion… or at least half of one. The other half of the stallion was of a very friendly looking man, who smiled sweetly at her.

"Why have you trespassed on our land?" said a white centaur next to the black one. It was just as beautiful as the first, but all Riley saw in his face was cold indifference, and a sneer that kind of reminded her of Malfoy.

"Is it opposite day?" Riley asked, still a bit groggy from the pain and waking up.

"Excuse me?" the black one asked, politely confused.

"Well, isn't the white one suppose to be good and the black one bad?" she asked innocently.

Vaguely she figured she should be careful since centaurs are known to be very prideful creatures. But between the pain, grogginess and confusion; she really couldn't bring herself to care.

There was silence… then the black one burst into laughter.

"I told you Nolan, your spirit does not fit your color." he said still chuckling.

"Be quite Kane!" Nolan snapped.

"Excuse me." Riley interrupted there banter, having just realized something "What's today?"

"It is the third day of the first month of the one thousand, nine hundred and ninety second year." Replied Kane in that odd centaur way.

Riley sat there a moment and thought. Finally deciding that he meant it was January third. Then she started to panic.

"Oh no, I have to be at Hogwarts by tonight or I'll be expelled! I can't be expelled for something like this! I swore that if I was to be expelled it would be because I gave Filch a heart attack because of one of my pranks." Riley's rant continued as Kane watched her in amusement and Nolan watched in disdain.

"Hush young one. I will take you to Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry. If you ride upon my back it will be faster and less painful for you."

Trying to ignore Nolan's cries of indignation at having a human ride on Kane's back like he was a common mule, and all the innuendos from Kane's sentence. Riley climbed onto the centaurs back and happily noted that Elephant had found her again and was sitting on Kane's head. When Riley got settled, they took off at incredible speeds.

~{}~

The ride was surprisingly short and before she knew it; Riley, Kane and Nolan had made it to the Forbidden Forest. Luckily they didn't run into any other creatures and soon they were bursting through the trees, stopping in front of a very shocked Hagrid.

After Riley clambered off Kane's back with Elephant in her hand, she turned to say good-bye.

"We must leave you here young one." Kane said smiling at her.

"Yes, good bye, human." Nolan sneered.

Riley grinned and winked at Kane. Walking over to Nolan, she started to pet him.

"Good-bye, nice horsy."

Nolan started to shout at her, while Kane roared with laughter. As Riley stood there she could here Nolan yelling and Kane laughing all the way through the forest. Riley smiled at Hagrid's disbelieving face and told him she explain later.

As she limped to the Hospital wing, she couldn't help but think that her friends were never going to believe this.

~{}~

So I hope you liked the chapter. It was just something random that me and my brother thought would be entertaining. Any who please review!

Until next time ttfn!