Chapter Three
The Forbidden Forest
-

Severus woke with a start as a menacing squawk filled the air. He heard the rustle of feathers as a massive bird took off from a nearby tree. Sitting up, he groaned as a sharp stab of pain lanced through his body, namely his back and leg. Adjusting himself into a sitting position, he reached down and touched the aching limb carefully, feeling for breaks or lesions. He hissed in pain as his fingers found a large gash on the outside of his right thigh.

He closed his eyes and leaned forward slightly, his palms flat on the ground as he tried to gather himself together and feel his surrounding. From the deadly silence that surrounded him, he could ascertain one thing by the hisses, howls, and other noises in the background: they were in the Forbidden Forest.

"I see you've awakened," a soft voice spoke from his right.

Severus opened his eyes and looked up to find Prince Remus standing nearby looking calmly down at him, his hands at his sides. His clothes, made of some soft looking white material, were shredded and burned from the crash. Any wounds he may have suffered seemed had all ready been healed. He looked only tired and frightened.

"I am thankful I found you so quickly. The wounds you are suffering from may be infected," the prince said kindly as he knelt down beside the black mage, holding his hands over the gash in Severus' thigh. A pulse of white-hot light and a dagger of pain and the wound healed over, only a barely noticeable reddening of the skin left.

"Do you expect a thank you?" Severus growled as he struggled to his feet.

"Certainly not," Remus answered, simply. "At least not from a kidnapper of royalty."

"You wished to be taken, don't tell me otherwise," Severus growled, looking around the clearing. "Where's the thief?"

"Sirius," the prince corrected looking around the clearing as if he expected the thief to appear from behind a bush. "I am uncertain. Perhaps he is nearby."

Severus hummed in agreement and cracked his neck.

"I see, well, we should get going, my master is not a patient man," Severus began walking toward what he could only hope was a path that would lead out of the forest.

"What is your name?"

"Severus," the mage snapped irritably. "May we go?"

"Where are you taking me?" the prince demanded.

He had ever intention of stunning the prince where he stood and taking him to Slytherin unconscious. At least it would keep the brat quiet. Black eyes narrowed as he tried to remember the words to the spell. He was about to speak when he saw a sinuous black-cloaked figure move out of the trees toward the prince.

-

"Oy, Sirius, wake up!"

Gray eyes blinking open wearily, Sirius found himself looking up at Dora as she gazed worriedly down at him. She was kneeling down beside him, her hand on his forehead.

"D-Dora," he stuttered.

"Hey! You're awake, drink this," a small vial was dangled above his head, its blue contents shimmering in the moonlight. Sirius sat up and ripped it from her hand. As he down it, she said, "For all you know, that could've been poison."

"You wouldn't poison me, Dora, you like me too much," Sirius said with a grin, waiting out the medicinal rush of the potion before he struggled to his feet, feeling his waist for his daggers.

Dora handed them to him, having pulled them out of her own belt.

"We found the knight, he's causing a ruckus," she jerked her head to the left and as Sirius strode over and opened the door, he found Weasley shouting at Kingsley who was looking at the knight as if he were a bug.

"We must find the prince at once! I demand that you assist me!" Weasley shouted.

"I'll help if you shut your mouth, you're attracting monsters," Sirius snapped, walking over to them, Dora at his heels. Kingsley shot him a grateful look.

Weasley stopped in his tirade to look at him.

"Monsters?" he demanded.

"Yeah," he pointed over Weasley's shoulder. "Werewolves and god knows what else are probably wandering around looking for something to snack on. There are some really nasty creatures in these woods."

Not bothering to check if Weasley was following him, Sirius walked out of the room and through a hole in the side of the airship. He could hear Weasley's armor as he followed.

The airship had made a sizable clearing, tree, split in half by the crash, lying on the ground, some of them in flames. Aberforth and Alastor were directing the rest of the crew to putting out fires. The crew worked in relative silence, shooting nervous looking toward the dark trees that towered all around them.

A scream pierced the air, echoing through the tree. Dora and several of the crew jumped and a large section of wood from the prow of the airship crashed to the ground as Gawain and Proudfoot dropped it in surprise. Kingsley didn't even blink. The dark-skin man just jerked his head toward the south and caught Sirius's eyes. Sirius nodded and took off running. The knight shouted in surprised and followed him through the trees, ignoring the bile that rose in his throat as they pushed through thorn bushes searching for the source of the scream.

Sirius skidded around a tree, very nearly taking his own head off with a low hanging branch, his hand scrapping along the bark. Weasley clanked along behind him, faster than Sirius expected him to be, but still too slow for his liking. Shoving through a thorn bush, he bit back a hiss of pain as thorns dug painfully into his skin, drawing blood as he forced his way forward.

He felt it just a few seconds before he saw it, a bone chilling cold that had him stumbling the last few steps out of the brush, and a sinking sensation in his gut. A face, eerily familiar to his own, scowling, flashed across his mind.

"I don't understand why you're so special."

Sirius pressed a hand to his forehead as the voice echoed through his mind. Looking up, he saw a black-cloaked creature moving across the ground from between the trees, decayed hands appearing from beneath the sleeves of the robes. Remus has collapsed at the feet of the creature as it wrapped its fingers around the prince's arm, pulling Remus up. As if it were trying to kiss him.

Sirius stumbled another step and he saw out of the corner of his eye, Severus walking toward him, a large, silver cat at his side. As the silver animal brushed past his legs and bound toward the cloaked creature, Sirius felt some of his strength returning. Sirius grasped Severus' arm for a moment and then without a word, fainted. Severus didn't even glance at him.

"A Dementor," Severus explained to Weasley, too busy watching his Patronus force the Dementor away from the prince and back into the trees. "We need to get back to the ship before it comes back."

-

Severus glared at Sirius as the thief sat on one of the beds in the ship's steerage, drinking a cup of hot chocolate while Dora examined Remus. The prince was still unconscious and as Severus explained to her, Sirius, and Weasley what a Dementor was; they grew more and more concerned with the prince's current state.

Sirius started speaking suddenly, standing up and setting the cup on the floor. Severus didn't bother paying attention to the thief's need to speak to his boss, Aberforth. He was far too busy wondering how he was going to manage to get possession of the prince without having to kill anyone.

Glaring at Sirius as he straightened up, Weasley hovered over Remus, ignoring the thief as he walked out of the room. Severus looked at Dora.

"Does he all ways do that?" he asked.

"That's Sirius," she replied.

-

"You can't be serious?" Aberforth looked up from his examination of the surviving food stock and over to Sirius. The boy was pacing, his head bowed, hands going from his belt to his dagger to his hair, fingers tangling through the long strands momentarily before repeating the process all over again.

"Quite serious," Aberforth said. "You're going to finish the job. Take His Highness to Ravenclaw and be rid of him."

"I can do that," Sirius snapped, stopping and looking wildly at Aberforth. "I have a problem with you and everyone else staying here though. This ship is trashed."

"We need to salvage what we can," Aberforth said wisely, stroking his beard. "Shouldn't take us more than a week."

"Oh right and in the meantime, you can get soul sucked by Dementors!"

"We can handle ourselves," Aberforth said sternly, blue eyes flashing and stopping Sirius in his tracks. "You take the prince to Ravenclaw."

Sirius stared at him for a moment, fingers clenching into a fist. He nodded, shoulders squared and gray eyes flashing menacingly. Aberforth reminded himself that trusting Sirius with the job, even if he being awfully bitchy about it was for the best. The boy would get it done. No matter what it took.

"Fine," Sirius said lowly and he turned on his heels and stalked out of the room.

Aberforth called after him, "And take the damn knight and mage with you! I don't want them on my ship!"

-

Sirius slipped back into the small room, glancing momentarily at Remus.

"Still unconscious?" he asked Dora.

"Yup," she replied. "What'd the boss say?"

"I'm taking him to Ravenclaw," Sirius replied easily.

"His Highness will be returning to Gryffindor and you thieves will be put on trial for kidnapping," Weasley said, straightening up.

"You couldn't do anything to me if you tried, rusty," Sirius muttered.

"I will be taking the prince to Slytherin," Severus said smoothly. "I can easily kill all of you now and be on my way."

"A deal than?" Sirius strode across the room, boots thudding heavily on the wooden floor, and offered his hand to the mage. "You help me get the prince to Ravenclaw so I can get paid and I'll help you bring him to Slytherin. I'll give you half of my share."

Severus growled. "It would be easier to just take the prince directly to Slytherin from here. It's only a few days walk."

"You've got a point," Sirius said and he ran his fingers through his hair, humming thoughtfully.

"Of course, we are planning on killing him," Severus said smoothly. "I don't suppose it makes a big difference if his death is postponed."

Weasley shouted, his hand going to the hilt of his sword, the metal scrapping the hilt as it was drawn. Dora jumped to her feet, her long fingers wrapping around the hilt of her dagger. She was too quick for the knight, her blade pressed to his jugular before he could even fully draw his blade.

"Put it away," she said, her voice overly cheerful. Weasley's eyes narrowed beneath his helmet, but he put his sword back in place. It was then that Remus sat up, looking pale, but alive. Weasley breathed a sigh of relief and moved to the prince's side as Dora put her dagger away.

"Fine," Severus said suddenly, taking Sirius's still outstretched hand. "I'll help you; for now."

Sirius grinned.

-

Hestia stood uneasily in the clearing that surrounded the crash site, gazing out at the dark trees. Kingsley was sitting on a log nearby sharpening the edge of the wooden dagger that he used. Aberforth had put the both of them on guard duty. Aberforth may have been a bit strange at times, what with his pet goat, but he wasn't an idiot. Besides, his brother was the most powerful blue mage since Merlin, which was probably why they were all still alive. The magic that had been imbued upon the airship when it had been built hadn't stopped it from crashing, but it had kept it in one piece.

A branch cracked somewhere just beyond where the light from the moon touched and Kingsley leapt up, his dagger forgotten in favor of drawing his sword.

Hestia sighed, "Relax, Kingsley."

Kingsley looked at Hestia for a moment and than sheathed his sword and sat back down to continue his project.

"Do you think we'll be able to get out of here?" he asked.

Hestia shrugged, looking warily around for a moment before relaxing against the tree she had been leaning against for the last ten minutes.

"Who knows? With the way the boss is acting, we're probably going to get out of here as soon as it's light," Kingsley sighed. "I hear the prince got attacked by some monster in the forest. I bet we'll hang for this."

"First we kidnap the prince, then we get him attacked by monsters, and now we're putting him in Sirius's care; probably," Hestia replied with a smile attitude.

"You worry me sometimes," Kingsley muttered.

"I worry myself," she said with a laugh, "but it beats being depressed all the time."

-

"When will we depart?" Remus asked, watching Sirius as he knelt upon the floor of the galley and put a loaf of bread into the bag at his feet along with some dried fruit that lay scattered about on the floor.

"As soon as we've gotten enough food to last us," Sirius answered, closing the bag and putting it over his shoulder. "We've got to get to Ravenclaw before Cornelius sends someone. They'll probably hang the lot of us."

"And you'd deserve it for kidnapping the prince," Weasley said with a scowl.

"You're an accomplice," Sirius muttered. "You'll be hanged with the rest of us."

"Impossible!" Weasley looked furious. "I won't be put into the same lot as you."

"Weasley," Remus said sternly, gazing down at his ruined dress robes, "I am going with him to Ravenclaw."

"I have vowed to protect you," Weasley said carefully. "It would be further treason if I did not see to it that you were kept alive," he looked at Severus. "I do not think you should allow this thief to escort you though. I would suggest that you find another way, Your Highness."

"It is not your place, Weasley."

-

"According to this map, we're here," pointing to a spot just beyond the edge of the Forbidden Forest alongside a large lake, Sirius tried to gather his bearing and figure out how he would get out of the mountain surrounded moor.

Weasley was standing at his shoulder, looking at the map as Sirius examined it.

"This map makes no sense to me," the knight said after a moment.

Sirius sighed.

"This map is a project that I've been working on for a while now. It's a magical map. It hardly makes sense to me right now because I still can't figure out how to make it work better."

"You're carrying around a map that you can't read?" Remus asked.

"I can read it," Sirius snapped. "I just can't make the map do what I want it to do."

"Which is?" Weasley prompted.

"Zoom in on our location," Sirius sighed. "Look, Gryffindor is located at the top of a cliff and Ravenclaw is on the southwest side of these mountains and the only way to get over these mountains is to either climb them or to go through this cave here," he pointed to the tiny print.

"So what is the problem now?" Severus asked from where he was sitting.

"I want it to show me more details on this cave, but the damn map isn't working," he sighed. "It normally works perfectly."

"Where did you get this?"

"I've had it since before I can remember," Sirius said simply.

Severus snorted in disbelief.

"Wonderful, an unreadable map into a cave which probably hasn't seen a living soul since Merlin's time, and we're just going to walk through it," the mage scowled. "I'm sure we'll be killed by whatever has moved in since it was last used."

"Doubtful," Sirius said, folding up the map carefully and tucking it into his bag. "Come on, I want to get there before nightfall."

-

Next chapter: The group enters the cave and find far more than they bargained for...