Angelic Wings
By
Black Rose
Chapter Seven: Ifrit's Bloody CourseRon, Hermione, Luna, and Neville walked outside after eating some food. They were going to start their training. Luna looked around and smiled; she couldn't wait to start and neither could Hermione. Ron and Neville were eager to start too but they had other things going through their minds. In Neville's case he was preoccupied by thoughts of Luna: in Ron's case it was Hermione.
"Maybe your training will show you your answers boys," a female voice chuckled behind them. It was as if the person in question had read their minds.
The four turned around to see Antonia walking up to them and smiling.
Luna and Hermione looked at the boys and then at each other.
"Will now, to start off you will be going through the Ifrit Course," the white haired woman told them.
Hermione raised her hand. Antonia smiled at her.
"Hermione, all your questions will be answered in your training. Now, if you would follow me," she said and started to walk back towards the forest.
The four teens followed her. Soon they all stopped near the forest that they had come out of the day before.
"Aright, your first trial is to run through the forest with a partner and make it to the other side."
The four teens look at her with confused expressions on their faces; they had thought it would be something harder than that. 0
"That's all?" asks Ron.
"No, your partners will change every day, and you will be magically tied to one-another. Also this course is not to be taken lightly; the soul of an Ifrit lives in this forest and will push you and your partner to your limit in many ways," Antonia told them.
"What?" all four yelled; this was certainly not what they had been expecting.
Then with a wave of her hand magical chains were put onto the four of them. Luna was chained to Neville around her left angle and around his right angle. Then her left wrist was chained to Neville's right wrist. The same thing had been done to Ron and Hermione.
The four looked at one-another and then at her with worried expressions.
"Now, one more thing." She snapped her fingers and their wands came to her in mid air.
"To help you on your way there will be colored bows on the trees. My daughter put them up to show you which way to go: they are blue and red," she told them "Now turn around."
The four turned around and saw two paths: one to the right and one to the left.
"Now you will be timed through this; the faster you get through the course the faster you can start on your magic, but not until then."
The four teens glanced at one another again. They were all a little worried, but none of them would show it.
"Don't worry; the course will not kill you. Just believe in yourselves and in your partners"
"You may begin the course that is in front of you when I turn over this hourglass."
Antonia turned over the hourglass and the four walked into the forest. Ron and Hermione chose the left path course and Luna and Neville to the right.
Antonia watched them go into the forest and smiled.
"My children be careful, and see the truth within you," she thought with a smile.
As Luna and Neville started walking through the forest they saw the first bow: it was red. They stopped and looked around.
"Which way do we go?" asked Luna.
Before Neville could answer a flaming red spell was shot at them from out of nowhere. They both looked around and saw more spells coming at them. They tried to move in different directions and fell back to the ground. The spells were coming fast now. They looked at one and other and looked down at the chains on their legs and arms. They had forgotten that they were chained to one another. They nodded to eachother, got up and ran to the left. A little way down the path something hit them and they fell down again. They looked around and saw what seemed like an invisible wall.
"I think that means that we went the wrong way," said Luna as they got up.
"You think?" said Neville sacristicallyy as they ran the other way, trying to say out of the line of fire.
They soon came to a blue marker. They then went to the right and ran right into another invisible wall and fall over. The flame spells were now firing at them on the ground. They stud up quickly and ran to the right.
"I think I found out what the colors mean," told Luna as they ran.
"What?"
"I think if we see a red bows we need to move left and then blue means that we need to move right, what do you think?"
"I trust you, so lest keep going," he replied.
Luna looked at him as they ran, moving quickly away from the spells, and began to think.
"He trusts me… no one has ever told me that they trusted me before"
After a while they came to a small river in the middle of the forest. They stopped for a moment to look around and saw two blue markers on the other side of the river.
"Why do I get this bad feeling?" Neville groaned, hoping his gut instinct was wrong. Luna nodded her head; she knew exactly what he meant, something just wasn't right. As soon as she nodded a spell hit the side of her head.
It was like time stopped for Neville all he saw was her body hit the water face down. She was bleeding, the red substance slowly staining the once clear water.
"Luna!" he yelled as he knelt down and pulled her out of the water.
Spells were still coming and hitting him on the sides, making him grit his teeth together against the pain. Neville got up, shielding Luna from the spells as best he could. He looked at the side of her head and saw that there was indeed an injury there, and it was bleeding quite badly. Neville couldn't believe what just happened; he felt like a part of him was about to die when she fell.
"I can't lose her, not now, Luna please opens your eyes, come on Luna open those pretty eyes of yours."
What he didn't know was that his eyes were glowing white the whole time he thought that.
"Luna, can you hear me?"
Luna could her hear someone calling her name, but her head hart like mad. She heard the voice again; it was calming, easing her pain a little. She slowly opened her eyes and saw Neville calling to her. There were tears in his eyes.
"Neville?" she asked very slowly, wondering whether he was real. She had thought for a moment that she was dead, but if she had been dead her head wouldn't have been hurting her so much.
"Luna, can you get up?"
"I think so" she replied.
Neville helped her up and started to move her and himself through the river to the other side. Once they were on the other side Neville could see the way to go. He could also see Antonia watching them and waiting for them.
"Antonia: Luna is bleeding, I need your help!" he yelled over to her. But Antonia didn't move; she just stood where she was, watching them as though they were not really there but only figments of her imagination.
"Antonia! Can you hear me? Luna is hurt: I need to you to help me" he yelled at her, anger in his voice. Antonia didn't move; she so wanted to help them. Tears fell from her eyes and down her face.
"As much as I want to, you need to do this on your own: have faith in yourselves my children," Antonia thought. With every tear that fell her heart hurt even more.
Another spell hit Neville on the back and he fell over, taking Luna with him. They both hit the ground. There was blood everywhere now. Luna looked over to him; she wasn't able to think straight but she still knew that Neville needed her help.
"Neville, we need to get up and run over to Antonia, and then we can sleep, alright?
Now get up and get us out of here," she told him with her eyes glowing a bluish white color.
"I trust you, Neville now get up!" She thought to herself.
Neville felt his strength return to him. He slowly got up, took Luna into his arms and moved as fast as he could towards Antonia. As soon as they were out of the forest and in front of Antonia they stopped.
She smiled at them, put her hand on Luna head and healed her cut. She then backed away from them.
"Well done my children, you may sleep now," she said and with a wave of her hand the two were transported into their rooms.
Antonia looked at the other path and waited for Ron and Hermione to come out of the forest.
While Luna and Neville where having there trouble, Ron and Hermione where in about the same boat. They had quickly figured out the directions behind the red and blue bows.
"Bloody Hell, Hermione keep up!" Ron said as they ran through the forest.
"Ron, stop running so fast or I'm going to fall" Hermione told him from behind him as they ran, trying to keep away from the spells that were being flung at them from all directions. Ron slowed down a little so she could keep up.
After some time they paused by a small clearing. They moved over to the side and sat down under some trees.
"What now?" Ron asked the woman next to him. Hermione looked back at him then looked around.
"I don't know Ron, I have a feeling we need to go through that opening."
Ron just thought about it; he didn't see another way around there.
"Bloody hell, why are they firing spells at us; this is mad"
"I don't know, but we can't stay here for long; we're going to have to make across and into the woods on the other side."
Ron didn't like this idea, but knew it was they only way out of this Hellhole.
"Alright, we go on three then," he told her.
"Three!" they both said.
The two of them ran as fast as they could across the opening. On their way a fireball-like spell hit the ground with some rocks and set the small field on fire. Alight the two looked behind them and saw the grond quickly become one big fireball.
They looked at one-another and before they could move any more a flame spell hit Ron in the leg and made him fall to the ground, taking Hermione with him. Ron screamed so loud that you could hear it all around the island. He was holding his leg with one hand.
Hermione couldn't take her eyes off of his leg, which was bleeding badly. It looked like at third degree burn.
"Ron, are you alright?"
He just looked at her like she was mad.
"Do I look alright?" he asked her sarcistically.
"Sorry Ron; I don't know what to do."
The fire was getting very close and spells were still being shot at them.
Ron looked around for anything that could help them.
"Man, we can't die here; I have so much I wanted to say to her. Now come on mind, work!"
The same thing happened to his eyes that happened to Neville. He then turned to the woman he loved.
"Hermione, would you please help me up?"
She nodded and helped him up as they started to walk slowly to the other side. The fire behind them was so close that they could feel it on their backs.
Hermione was watching Ron from the corner of her eye; he was using very will power to get them out of there. She wanted to help him so badly, but there was nothing she could do.
"What can I do?" she asked herself.
When they got closer to the other side they could see the way out. Antonia was there waiting for them.
Out of the corner of her eyes she saw a spell come right at Ron's heart.
"You will not take him from me" she yelled in her head. She moved in front of him and held her other hand out. Her eyes were changing to the same color as Luna's. The spell never touched her hand; it hit something and disappeared. She then closed her eyes and started to fall, but a strong hand caught her. Ron had seen everything except the change in Hermione's eyes. He used all of the strength left in his body to get them out of the forest. As soon as that was done he passed out, landing right in front of Antonia, who smiled.
She then bent down had healed Ron's leg. She then got up and waved her hand and they disappeared back to their rooms.
She then turned back to the forest and to the fire-like sould that stood before her. It smiled at her and nodded its head.
"I know that was hard to watch, but it was the only way that their new magic would come out" it told her.
"I know, but it's something a mother shouldn't watch her children go though. And I know they'll have to go through it again, though not as bad as before," she said, tears once again clouding her vision. The fire-soul nodded and went back into the forest to sleep.
Antonia turned and went back to the house; she needed her husband right now. As she got to the house her husband was waiting for her at the door. He pulled her into a hug and let her cry. He slowly walked her in and closed the door behind her. He then took her to their room to sleep. Tomorrow it would start again but with him watching them.
A/N-Thanks for reading, I hope you like it. Please Review, and thanks to the people that have already---- Black Rose