Tom sighed as his hands closed uselessly on empty air. Too slow! Now poor Harry was lost in the darkness. Although he didn't want to admit it, and therefore didn't, he was mildly concerned. It wouldn't do to let the other children find out though, so he gave his trademark nonchalant shrug and turned back to the path.

"Ah well, I guess he's gone. Too bad, really. We'll just have to go on without him." And with that, he began to stride further into the forest.

"Wait, what?"

"Tom! Stop! Come back!" Ron and Hermione shouted after him. Tom turned around, excruciatingly slowly, one eyebrow raised in annoyance. As he turned, there was a slithering noise off in the darkness, vaguely in the direction Harry had disappeared towards, but higher in the canopy. Before Tom could stop himself, his eyes flickered briefly in the direction of the sound, and his cool demeanor faltered a little. He really needed to pull himself together! This whole having a body business was more difficult than he'd remembered, that was for certain. Suddenly, he became aware that Hermione was jabbering at him.

"-to rescue him! Quickly!" She was saying as he tuned back in.

"Oh, very well. If you insist. Wand," Tom demanded, holding out his hand. Ron and Hermione shared a nervous look, and neither of them immediately offered up their wand. If only one of those two had been attacked instead, Tom thought, Harry would certainly have handed over his wand without a second thought.

"Wand," he repeated, and two wands slithered out of the children's pockets, leaping into his palm. Without another glance at them, they could stay where they were or follow him, he didn't really care, he strode off the path into the underbrush. As he went, he twiddled one wand in front of him, and all of the inconvenient thorn bushes and things parted to let him through. Sometimes, a whole tree would even jump out of his way, so formidable was his magic. His other wand pointed in front of him and slightly upwards, guiding his way towards his target. Some rustling behind him indicated that the others were attempting to follow, but they were soon left far behind due to their short legs, and maybe also the fact that he closed all of the bushes behind him. Good. Now that he was out of view, he allowed his inexplicable and alarming concern to speed him faster through the forest. How in the name of Salazar had Harry gotten so far away, so fast? Although, if he was totally honest with himself, he had stalled for a good while before putting in any real effort to catch up. Now all he could do was to continue running through the forest, trusting in magic that he would make it in time to save Harry from whatever gruesome death no doubt awaited him.

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Meanwhile, Ron and Hermione were hopelessly lost. At first, they had tried to follow Riddle, worried as they were about their friend, but he was just too fast for them. Besides which, they could barely see where they were going even though it was almost certainly still mid afternoon, their robes, well suited for castle use, kept getting hopelessly tangled in the brambles, and they kept slipping in the mud. Once they lost sight and sound of Riddle, they had stopped and looked around them, and that was when they realized that they would probably have to live in the forest from now on. At least, until they realized that Ginny was still following them. When they stopped, she kept going, seemingly with supreme confidence in her choice of direction.

"Ginny, can you still hear Riddle? Do you know where he went? Ginny? Where are you going? GINNY!" Ron shouted, increasingly irritated. Ginny, as usual, did not respond. Ron wondered why he had expected her to, grabbed Hermione's hand, and ran after his sister. Even if she was going the wrong way entirely, he figured, the fewer groups they split into the better. However, it was harder to catch up than he had anticipated.

"Hermione!" he gasped, "How is she going so fast!" Hermione frowned, and pointed to a thorn bush beside them.

"You see that? All of the vegetation that was caught on her robes just turned black and withered away, letting her pass with ease. She's probably been leaving a trail of death behind us this entire time, and we didn't notice because she was in the back, I guess."

"That doesn't explain anything!" Ron protested, "How is she even doing that? See, this is the kind of thing I'm talking about, there's something not right about her, I tell you. Normal people don't do that! Please tell me you believe me Hermione, I'm begging you."

Hermione didn't answer, but instead grasped Ginny's shoulder. They had finally caught up, and she wasn't about to let her get away from them again. She continued holding Ron's hand, and they all trailed through the forest, following Ginny. After they traipsed along in silence for a few minutes, Ron finally couldn't take it any longer.

"Well?" He demanded.

"Well what? Hermione asked in confusion.

"I asked you a question!" Ron wailed, "Look at the plants curling away from her! Don't you believe me that something is wrong?"

Hermione considered the problem briefly, then turned back to answer.

"Ron, I'm pretty sure that this strange effect is simply a result of whatever Riddle did to get those poor plants to move out of his way. Maybe it works for her because they shared a connection for a while or something, but nothing is wrong with Ginny per se. It's just an unusual, but convenient, side effect. I wouldn't worry about it. If you want something to worry about, how about Harry? He's probably being eaten alive right as we speak."

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Harry slowly awoke, feeling disoriented. His head was throbbing, something hard was jabbing uncomfortably against his shoulder blades, scraping against his back as if he was being dragged, and something that was somehow both soft and squishy, yet unyieldingly solid gripped him under both armpits. The wind rustled through his hair, and he could feel the spring sunshine on his face.

Where on earth could he be? Was this the dormitory? It didn't seem like it, unless the roof of Gryffindor tower had somehow blown off in the night. That would be unfortunate. Harry had already come to the conclusion that the Weasley twins were to blame for this catastrophe before it occurred to him to open his eyes, and find out where he was. However, upon opening them, he found that he was no closer to discovering his present circumstances.

All he could see were blurry, young, bright green leaves, with the sun shining through them, forcing him to squint. Was he in the forest? Must be. It was the only place he could think of that had such tall plants, aside from the greenhouses, which didn't have wind. Why would he be there? It was all so confusing, and he couldn't seem to remember any recent events with much clarity. Something about impressing Tom, maybe? Yes, that was important. Sadly, he didn't seem to be doing anything particularly impressive right now, and Tom was nowhere to be found. Typical.

All these thoughts quickly disappeared, however, when he turned his head sideways and realized that he was not on the forest floor, as he had previously, foolishly assumed. Rather, the forest floor was alarmingly far below him, so far he couldn't see it, shrouded in vague darkness as it was. Yet, even this observation didn't preoccupy him as much as it might otherwise have, as he was quickly distracted by the several dozen blurry, reddish creatures perched on tree branches around him. They looked vaguely cephalopodian, but he couldn't be certain.

"Gah!" He exclaimed, jumping nearly out of his skin. Before he could stop himself he slid off of the tree branch, and found himself dangling in midair by whatever fleshy substance was supporting his armpits.

"Careful," came an annoyed, inhuman voice from directly above him, "You'll plummet to your death. Can't you just hold still?"

"Don't be silly," replied one of the other creatures, "It's a human, and humans always wiggle. They can't help it, it's in their nature. You can hardly blame it for displaying its natural, wild behaviors."

Harry was extremely confused as to what was going on. If only he'd still had his glasses! But holding still seemed to be a good idea for the moment, so he obliged the strange cephalopod who had apparently dragged him all the way up a massive tree, for some reason.

A few moments later, he was back upon his branch.

"Hang on, just a bit further," muttered the creature holding him. The next thing he knew, he was moving upwards again, not only dragged by the armpits, but also pushed by the bottoms of his feet.

"Where are you taking me?" He asked, on the off chance that he would receive a helpful answer. It was worth a shot.

"Where do you think?" a random creature to his left said in a needlessly snarky voice, at the same time as the one pushing him replied,

"Octopolis, of course. Where else?" Harry considered this information. As he had never before heard any mention of this 'Octopolis', it was singularly unhelpful. Always the optimist, he told himself that it was a start, and tried another question.

"What are you?" In response to this query, a cephalopod he somehow hadn't noticed before swung down directly above him, right into his face. One of its arms reached out, and poked his nose gently. As the ones carrying him shifted him slightly further up the tree, the very tip of the arm suddenly landed in his mouth. It felt squishy, and tasted fishy.

"Can't you see what we are, rude human?" the creature asked.

"Um, no? You're very blurry. Somewhat blobby. I think you knocked my glasses off on the way up? I sort of need those to see anything . . . " Harry trailed off awkwardly.

"Glasses? You mean this strange device?" Another creature off to the right asked. Harry turned his head. From this distance he couldn't really tell if it had his glasses or not, but he could see a smaller blob detach from the larger one, squeaking with excitement.

"Well, I would tell you, except, I CAN'T SEE. Is it an object consisting of two black circles connected by a thin black strip, with a solid, clear substance in the middle of each circle? Perhaps with two long black extensions?" As he spoke, Harry was jerked slightly further up the tree. He could only imagine how long it had taken the creature to drag him this far. At this rate, he'd be ancient before he arrived at Octopolice or whatever, and even if he finally did, he wouldn't get much out of the experience, except to discover that it was somewhat fuzzy.

"I suppose the device she found does match that description, but unfortunately, you can't have it back. Sorry," the creature dragging him replied. Naturally, Harry was confused, and vaguely offended.

"What do you mean I can't have it back? I need those! How do you expect me to, uh, gaze . . . upon your beauty? Without them?"

"Listen, human, we would give them to you without an issue, except that Panther Duke over there already gave them to her baby to play with, and if she takes them away, her baby will be sad. Now, we can't have that, so you'll just have to do without until the baby drops them."

Harry wasn't sure how to respond to this, so he said nothing. Instead of speaking, he simply relaxed, allowed himself to be dragged along without complaint, and considered how he might be able to get out of this situation. After all, if he needed to be rescued or something, that would hardly look impressive to Tom, and that was definitely the most important thing he should be worrying about right now. The blurry creatures seemed pretty friendly for kidnappers, if a bit rude, so he didn't think he was in any immediate danger. Maybe, if he could subtly and skillfully inquire as to why they had taken him, he could find some way to convince them to let him go peaceably. That would be for the best, since he couldn't really reach his wand at the moment, assuming it hadn't been jolted loose at some point, and he couldn't really see what was going on very well either.

"Soooo . . . don't get me wrong, I'm delighted to meet you, but why am I here? What do you want with me?" Luckily, the creature carrying him didn't seem at all offended, and readily, almost eagerly, answered.

"Well, it's actually the 50th anniversary of the Octopolis colony! We're going to have a big party, and it's going to be totally awesome. The party planners are going all out, we have a massive cake, and everything. In honor of the special occasion, we decided to find a new pet human for the children to play with. The last one, which called itself Sally-Anne, was accidentally knocked out of the tree during a game of tag which got a little too rowdy a few months ago, but the children have been appropriately scolded."

Harry thought about this for a little while. All too soon, his thoughts were interrupted by a few angry squeaks. Next thing he knew, his glasses were finally placed in his hands. Apparently, the baby whatever had grown tired of them at last. He took a deep breath, prepared himself, then pushed them up his nose and looked around once more.

What he saw through the sticky substance left on the lenses by his captors almost made him fall off of the branch again. All around him, brachiating lazily from branch to branch, was a colony of massive . . . octopuses? Octopi? Octopodes? He wasn't very certain on the pluralization, but he was certainly impressed. Most of them were as big as he was, but red and squishy, using their suckered tentacles to navigate the forest as naturally as if it were the ocean. Once he'd finally regained his voice, he spoke in an awed tone.

"Are you . . . tree octopuses? Is that a thing now?" The octopus grasping his armpits snorted.

"What did you think we were, tree cuttlefish? Of course we're tree octopodes! Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus, to be precise. The only reason we're here is that the resident groundskeeper, forester, and ecologist, Hagrid, brought us when he was a student, as a school project. He wanted to set up a breeding colony to protect us from extinction, so here we are. After he was expelled, he stopped checking on us, so we've pretty much had a free rein since then. Occasionally, we kidnap a student or two, but nobody really notices. They just blame it on werewolves and go on with their lives."

"That's all very interesting, but I think there's been some mistake," Harry ventured, as firmly as he dared, "You see, I can't be your new human pet because, well . . . I'm not human." The octopus holding him lifted him off the branch, shook him a little, and turned him around, examining him critically.

"That's a new one, I'll give you that. Your eyes do look a little funny, but it's a pretty slim excuse. You'll have to do better if you want to keep up with cephalopod intelligence."

"No, really, I swear I'm telling the truth! I'm part snake! Look at my tongue, see how it's forked?" Harry interrupted himself to flick his tongue at his molluscan captors. "I can even hiss, listen! Let me go, vomitous mass," he hissed in parseltongue.

At first, this had seemed like a good idea, a clever ploy. Surely, once they found out that he was part basilisk, they would let him go willingly. Unfortunately, it completely backfired. The octopus supporting him was so startled by his sudden reptilian vocalizations that it let him slip away, and the next thing he knew, he was falling. Now that he had his glasses, he could actually see how high he was, but this was the very opposite of comforting. It was only a moment before he hit a lower branch, bounced off painfully, then kept going. Now there was nothing below him, and he was pretty much doomed. Above him, he could hear the startled screams of the relocated Pacific Northwest Tree Octopodes fading rapidly away. He started to reach for his wand, but before he could react, he landed, with a magically gentle thud, right in Tom's arms.

"Aaargh," he groaned, because it seemed appropriate. His heart was beating very fast, adrenaline was pumping through him, and for more than one reason. He took a few calming breaths after terrifying fall, then realized that he had wrapped his arms tightly around Tom's shoulders, and his face was buried in that beautiful man's beautiful chest. To make matters worse, Tom was standing there as stiff as it was possible for him to stand without turning into a tree. Oh no, what had he done?

"Um, hi? Tom? What's up?" Harry asked somewhat awkwardly, slowly removing his hands from Tom's personal bubble. Tom gazed solemnly into his eyes for a moment, then quietly said,

"I'm glad you're alright," a small smile on his face. Harry felt like he couldn't breathe. But before he could collect himself enough to respond, Tom's uncharacteristic smile transformed into a far more characteristic smirk, and without warning, he was unceremoniously dumped onto the ground.

"You're up, apparently, at least until very recently. Are you ready to head back?" And with that, Tom strode off into the forest, without so much as a second glance backwards to see if Harry would follow him. Not that there was ever much doubt, of course. Harry had no choice but to stagger to his feet, brush himself off a bit, and hurry after him.

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Presently, they came upon Ginny, Ron, and Hermione, who had evidently been having their own adventure. Hermione looked mildly traumatized, Ginny looked the same as ever aside from a large quantity of slightly blackened arrows sticking out of her backpack, and Ron just looked confused. Not his normal, bewildered look, like nothing in the world would ever make sense to him again.

"Harry! You're alright! What happened to you?" Hermione and Ron exclaimed, rushing forwards to greet him joyfully. Harry waved his hand casually, just in case Tom was watching.

"Oh, you know, just a little kidnapping, nothing I couldn't handle. I had just escaped when Tom found me and led me back. How about you guys?" Harry glanced surreptitiously at Tom, to see if he was paying attention, and was gratified to see a small, almost fond, smile on his perfect face. Ron and Hermione immediately launched into a tale about centaurs, who apparently had called Ginny an abomination, then attempted to shoot her. Luckily, Ron explained angrily, Ginny had been able to somehow catch the arrows in midair. After that, they had galloped off into the forest, defeated.

"That sounds pretty exciting," Harry responded. "Are you guys ready to head back?" Oh, and pass me some of those snacks I packed, I'm starving."

"Yeah, we should go back," Hermione agreed, "and hopefully, we won't have any more adventures on the way." Ron groaned dramatically, slumping against a handy tree with his palm pressed to his forehead.

"Now look what you've done! Hermione, you've jinxed it!"

"Don't be silly, Ron," Hermione chided.

And so they proceeded towards the edge of the dark forest, Tom stoically leading the way, Harry trotting behind him like an overeager puppy, Ron and Hermione bickering in the back, and Ginny trailing behind them all, silent as a cephalopod.