Disclaimer: Characters and settings belong to JK Rowling and the Warner people. Although Elmsworthy might object (but perhaps not – he's a pretty clever sort of Slytherin so he should know when he's onto a winner).
ooOOoo
Chapter 64: Hurdles
After making sure everyone knew some spells and hexes to deal with spiders (Granger knew two Draco hadn't, so there was something he'd got out of the afternoon already), they kept going. It took less time than they'd thought, thanks to the trail they were following. The deer which kept it open were viewed a couple of times, once a solitary young stag which bounded off up another trail, ten minutes later there was a stag with several points to each antler and its mates, three hinds. The little herd cantered off downhill towards a stream, crashing through the undergrowth, the stag snorting alarm as it held its crown of antlers high. Simon watched them go with his own head high and his ears almost touching at the tips. Draco had to jiggle the leadrope firmly to get his attention.
They faced a few more hurdles – one was a literal hurdle: a fallen tree, the trunk lying across the path. Luckily it had been a particularly slender elm, so Weasley, Elmsworthy and Granger clambered over easily. But it was too long to lead Simon around – the hillside was very steep at this point, and Draco would have had to backtrack to find a way across the stream which had cut quite a deep bed between its slippery banks.
Draco stood, pulling at his lower lip thoughtfully as he eyed the trunk. It was about chest height for Simon. Too high for the horse to step over, of course. And he didn't know if Simon could jump so high. Then he remembered the fence outside the barrier – Simon had leaped over it easily when the Dementors had been chasing them. The sulky horse didn't seem keen on jumping anything now, and the leadrope wasn't long enough for Draco to let Simon get up a good gallop.
But did the horse really need to be running flat-out to jump over the log?
"Get a move on, Malfoy."
"Shut up, Weasley. I'm trying to work out how to get Simon over."
"How about levitating him?" Granger said. "Like Professor Flitwick did."
"You think you can levitate a horse? Because I don't care to try."
"Er…"
"I've got something to dissolve the log," Elmsworthy said. He fiddled with his bandoleer. "Stand back."
Once Draco and Simon had hurried back down the track a short distance, he threw a small glass phial at the tree. Smoke rose in a thick cloud. It cleared.
"That was brilliant, Comrade Tyrol. Smoke – and the tree's still there! How did you do it?" Draco sneered.
"Shut up." Elmsworthy picked up a long stick and poked at the tree. "Blast. It should have dissolved the cellulose matrix."
"Maybe it just needs more time," Granger suggested.
"Maybe it needs more work," Elmsworthy sighed.
Weasley said, "Maybe Malfoy could ride the horse over the tree. I've seen Muggles jump horses over trees – normally they have dogs and what-not. Foxes involved at some stage, too. The twins kept sneaking after the Muggles and nicking off with the foxes, making them smell invisible and hiding them. They found a way of making the foxes extra smart so they could outwit the Muggles. Mum found out, though, and put her foot down after a fox killed her chickens – killed the entire flock and only took a couple away with it. She was livid – reckoned it was a fox the twins had saved. Told the twins to stop making the foxes smarter and let the Muggles keep them."
"Poor foxes," said Hermione. "That's fox hunting you're talking about. It's terribly cruel, you know. How did she know it was one of their foxes, though?"
"It left a note thanking her for the chickens and asking her to replace them with ducks for a change of diet. Mum gave two Galleons to the local Muggle horse people the next time they did fund raising. How about it, Malfoy? Think you can jump Harry's horse over?"
"He's not Potter's horse, and why don't you try jumping him over? Sitting on that spine is kind of like sitting on a broomstick, except that cushioning charms don't stick to him."
"Ouch."
"Exactly."
"Maybe you could run up and jump over," Hermione suggested. "He could run along after you."
Sounded incredibly undignified. But… "I'll lengthen the rope. Then I can climb up on the log and hopefully he'll have enough room to get up enough speed to follow me over."
"You sure he can't just jump over from a standstill?" Elmsworthy asked.
"Hmm. Worth a try, I guess," Draco said doubtfully. Now that the smoke had cleared, Simon followed him up to the log. Draco clambered onto it, avoiding the surprisingly large expanse the small phial of potion had stained with soot, and said, "Come along, Simon. Jump."
The horse walked up to the log and stared over it, obviously at a loss as to what Draco intended him to do. Simon sniffed at the sooty patch and then curled his upper lip back in distaste. Draco sighed.
"I'll try lengthening the rope. There. Hopefully that's not too thin – I don't want it to break." The rope now stretched out nearly twenty feet, but was correspondingly thinner. Draco wished he'd thought to bring the long flat longe-line Luna used.
"This horse is a liability, Malfoy," said Elmsworthy. "If the rope breaks and he trots off back to his field that won't be such a loss."
Draco shot him a vitriolic glare. "Back up, Simon." He lifted his arm up in front of him and made small chopping motions with his hand the way Luna had shown him when Simon was meant to walk backwards. Sure enough, Simon backed up. "Good boy, Simon. Keep going. That's it. Whoa, that's far enough. Okay now… Come on – gee up!" Draco jumped off the log and started jogging along the track, hearing Simon's hooves break into a reluctant trot on the other side of the log.
The hooves stopped. The rope jerked Draco to a halt. He looked back to see Simon glaring at him over the log.
"Just let him go back to the field, Malfoy. I'm sure he'll find his way back okay."
Draco ignored the other Slytherin. He coiled the rope as he walked back to the log. He patted Simon's head. "It's all right, Simon. I know you're just a little bit confused right now. Let's try again."
Weasley sighed loudly, but was hushed by Granger telling him, "Now, Ron, Harry'd be terribly upset it we left his horse wandering around in the forest…"
"FOR THE LAST TIME, IT'S NOT POTTER'S FUCKING HORSE!" Draco took a deep breath and calmed himself, realising it was lucky the log was between them because Simon wouldn't have let him get away with shouting like that otherwise. Maybe if he annoyed Simon enough the horse would jump over the log just to give him a nip. No – best to try something a little less violent. He climbed back up onto the log again. "Back up, Simon."
Once he'd backed up to the end of the rope again, Simon eyed Draco, ears cocked, plainly puzzled.
"Come on, Simon. You can do it!" Draco tugged on the rope until Simon broke into a trot. He jumped off the log and ran. The hoofbeats went into triple-time: Simon was cantering.
The sound of Simon's hooves lost the rhythm for a second. He was stopping. Draco turned, discouraged.
He was just in time to see Simon come flying over the log. The horse landed and kept cantering, bearing down on the students, and Draco, hastily gathering up great loops of the rope before Simon could trip on it, jumped sideways in the nick of time as the horse pranced to a halt where Draco had been standing.
Draco grinned in triumph, slapped Simon's shoulder and ruffled the mane. "See? Didn't I tell you he's a brilliant horse?"
"He nearly trampled you," Granger said, clutching her cat tighter.
"I was in his way. He knew I'd move. That's how smart he is," Draco boasted as he tapped the rope with his wand and reset it to its original length and thickness, although secretly he was a little rattled by having half a ton of animal bearing down on him. But it was worth it to show the other three that he, Draco, was right and they were wrong to have doubted him.
"Yeah, whatever. Come on, we've got ages to go," said Elmsworthy, clearly impressed but not wanting to show it.
Draco rolled his eyes.
They set off again, not looking back at the log.
A few wisps of smoke curled in the faint zephyrs.
ooOOoo
The wind rustled leaves high in the canopy and reached down to lift strands of Draco's fine white-blond hair from the hair-spell keeping it down, blowing it forward to tickle his nose. Elmsworthy's soft brown nest of spikes waved, as did Weasley's red mop. Granger's would take a small localised tornado to make an impact. Simon's mane ruffled in gleaming blue highlights along his crest as his head bobbed with each stride. But the breeze was welcome, for although the forest floor was cool the exercise would soon have brought them out in a sweat. It was easier to think when cool rather than hot.
Easier to think, yes, but not necessarily easier to notice things. Like any creatures sitting up in the tall beeches they passed beneath.
Simon had been getting progressively more nervous for some time now. He kept snorting low, rolling snorts and whipping his head around to glare into the shadows littering the forest floor along with drifts of last-year's leaves. Prancing and arching his neck, the horse barged into Draco for the third time, nearly knocking the boy over.
"Simon… calm down, boy…"
"We shouldn't have brought him. He's more trouble than he's worth," Elmsworthy complained. "Crikey! He nearly trod on me there! I say, get away, you brute!"
"Stop calling him that," Draco gritted out between clenched teeth as Simon pulled him around in a circle. He took a firmer hold of the leadrope. "Simon. Cut that out. Settle down, old boy."
Simon settled. For three whole seconds. Draco, moving forward to pat the horse reassuringly, was smacked in the face by Simon's head as Simon started and shied at yet another rustle of the wind.
"Ow! Fuck a bloody duck! Simon, you ar… dear old horse. Settle, I say." He glared at the horse as he rubbed his cheek. Simon's own cheek bone was hard as a brick and Draco had no doubt who'd be the one coming out of this encounter with a black eye.
Simon pawed at the ground in frustration. Then, when Draco (hoping his nose and eye weren't swelling too much) yanked at the leadrope, he followed, still prancing and twitching, refusing to walk like a normal horse. If there was such an animal.
"All right there, Malfoy?"
"Just fine, thanks, Granger."
The other three were cautiously putting a little more distance between them and the horse. That, along with Simon walking so close those great hooves kept clipping the backs of Draco's heels, didn't improve his mood. He was about to say something pointed about Gryffindor courage when a shadow flickered over him. It might have been the wind in the leaves or a bird, but the wind had died down and it had been a long time (come to think of it now) since he'd last seen a bird. There was the awful empty feeling of his stomach plummeting into his shoes as he realised he should have twigged to something being very, very wrong. But then the rope in his hands burned as, the whites of his eyes showing, Simon reared and twisted, pulled back, and nearly broke free.
Draco was pulling on the leadrope, saying, "What's the matter?" and looking around to see what was upsetting the horse so much. Granger and Weasley were drawing back from the mental horse. Elmsworthy was pulling out his wand.
And that was when Draco finally realised he shouldn't have been looking around.
He should have been looking up.
A branch creaked as the weight of a spider suddenly left it.
The spider pounced on Weasley.
Weasley shouted and cast a hex – Draco didn't hear which one. Blue light frazzled around the spider and the legs spasmed. The spider rolled towards Draco and Granger as the spell knocked it off balance. They should have finished it then. But one hairy leg flicked out and smacked Weasley's wand hand, sending his wand flying. Granger tried to get out her wand, but was interrupted by her cat going ballistic in her arms. She leaped backwards as the spider tried to snag her leg, and stumbled on a root. Elmsworthy had out his wand, but Weasley, who had dived to retrieve his wand while the spider was still rolling, was in the way of a clear shot.
And Draco had frozen.
The scar on his leg ached. All the muscles in his body were jelly. Welling up in his mind was the memory of darkness, of was how awful it was to be relegated to the sidelines, thrust out from the Machiavellian joy of daily Slytherin life, drowned by this darkness... The spider, which had curled up its legs, suddenly extended them and moved into a crouch. Its many glittering eyes seemed to fix, each and every one, on Draco. Moving suddenly and like lightning, it scuttled forward.
There was a ringing in his ears. His hands went weak and dropped the leadrope.
Simon squealed. His shoulder sent Draco flying head-first into the trunk of an elm as he spun and smashed both back hooves into the face of the spider.
With stars twirling around his head and popping little bright lights in his eyes like that Creevey snot's damnable camera, Draco staggered back just in time to see Simon, eyes wild, nostrils flared so that the lining showed in small scarlet glimpses of fire, hammer the spider again with his back feet. The arachnid curled around its own head, legs twitching, a few little blue sparks from Weasley's spell still twinkling off the ends of its legs. Then the horse pivoted one hundred and eighty degrees and struck with its front hooves, again and again, until the spider was pulped into the dirt. The horse's ears were flat back and Draco would have sworn on his grandfather's grave Simon was frothing at the mouth. With one final ground-shaking thud, the horse ended its attack and backed up a step.
The other three students had their mouths open in silence as they gaped at the horse. Draco approached carefully. Veins were crawling over the black hide like throbbing worms and flecks of foam trembled off lips and bared teeth. The horse was shaking all over. The hints of red in the distended nostrils made it look like the horse had just been ridden up from Hell. The look in Simon's eyes only compounded that effect. White ringed them like an eclipse, and yellow and graphite lines flickered in the charm in Simon's chest. Draco wondered if Simon was still capable of recognising friend from foe.
Somewhat unnerved by the horse (let alone the spider oozing various fluids into the dirt), Draco picked up the end of the leadrope. "Good boy, Simon," he said, trying to convince himself that this was still his horse, his friendly kind Simon who never did anything nastier than give out the occasional nip. It had been night when Simon had killed his first spider (and Draco had been curled up into a ball). He'd heard the banging and crashing and screaming when the vrikolaki died, but he'd not seen it.
If Potter had seen this side of Simon and stayed, he was braver than Draco had given him credit for. Or possibly luckier – Potter had always been luckier. Draco held the rope, still speaking calmly to the horse.
A spider leg twitched.
Simon struck again, making Draco jump. Draco blinked. Something was in his eye. He wiped the back of his hand across and it came away bloody.
"Oh, God – I'm going blind again!" For a moment he thought he was going to faint.
Granger of all people came to the rescue. Making a wide detour around the dead spider, she said softly, "It's all right, Malfoy, it's just a cut over your eye."
"It's not spider venom?" he said in a weak voice.
"No. Just some blood getting in your eye. You'll be fine."
The air sang in his ears and the Forest swayed around him. "Oh. Okay." Draco steadied himself by grabbing Simon's mane. Granger went to check Weasley, who had found his wand and was peering around into the trees, checking for movement.
"You okay, Ron?"
"Yeah. It – it was close, though."
"You're telling me," said Elmsworthy. "What'd you go and get between me and the spider for? I couldn't aim at it without hitting you?"
"Yeah, well, like you couldn't have moved sideways?"
"Er…"
"Look, let's all admit things could have gone a bit better," Granger said crisply. "But we got lucky."
"No we didn't – Simon got the spider. That wasn't luck, that was a horse." Draco took a deep breath and patted Simon's neck. It was impossible to tell who was shaking worse, himself or the horse. Simon arched his neck and blew softly into his face, checking he was all right. Draco hoped he was. He felt cold all over – his hands were blocks of ice – and his teeth were still chattering. And he refused to allow himself the thought that he'd frozen with his wand in his pocket when the spider… Draco shook himself.
Elmsworthy crouched by the spider and poked it with a stick.
Simon bit him.
"Ow!"
"He's just trying to keep you away from danger," Draco pointed out with a small laugh. "Ahem." Bugger. Hopefully he wasn't getting hysterical. God – what if Weasley told everyone Draco had needed to be saved by a Muggle animal yet again?
"Yeah. Fair enough." Elmsworthy rubbed his shoulder. He didn't seem angry – perhaps it was too obvious that Simon had his best interests in mind. "Can you stop him biting me again? I need to check something."
Draco held Simon's headcollar under the chin and tried to warm his hands from the furnace heat coming off the horse as Elmsworthy poked at the spider with a stick some more. "I think it's dead," Draco pointed out dryly. "It's that whole being mashed into the ground look it's got – that was a clue for me."
Elmsworthy ignored the sarcasm and took out an empty phial from a pocket. "The fangs are relatively intact. One of them, anyway. I'm going to get out my wand again for a sec' – try not to let your horse kill me for it." Very carefully, he used his wand to shift one of the mandibles around so that he could position the nasty tip of it into the mouth of the phial. A yellowish fluid dribbled into the bottle.
"There," Elmsworthy said with satisfaction as he stood and capped it. "You never know when Acromantula venom will come in handy,"
"I have absolutely no answer for such a patently insane statement," Draco replied stiffly, still wiping blood out of his eye. His cheek and eye already felt swollen from the earlier smack to the face, and now he knew he could expect a bump coming up on his head the size of an egg. What were the signs of concussion again? He ran through the checklist in his head and, when he realised he was able to run through the checklist, decided he was probably free from concussion. He wiped a bit of foamy saliva off the front of his robes where Simon had dribbled on him. "Now let's get moving before this spider's friends come looking for it and find us. Granger – you okay?"
"Just a little bit more bloodied," she said, dabbing at a scratch and wincing. "Poor Crookshanks was frightened." Her cat was still firmly tucked under one arm and it looked immensely displeased about the whole arrangement.
Draco wiped at his face again. He didn't want blood getting in his eye. The trickle seemed to be slowing, thankfully, but the trouble was that as blood dried the smell of it grew stronger. He wrinkled his nose. Bleeding in the Forest was a good way to find new and interesting creatures, many of them hungry.
"Come on," said Elmsworthy.
They moved faster after that, pushing themselves along at a quick walk. Weasley, still pale, and Draco (despite his slightly wobbly legs) did the best – they were both fit from Quidditch. Elmsworthy didn't do too bad for an indoors person: his lanky legs covered the ground at a good clip. Granger struggled to keep up although she didn't say anything. Weasley offered to carry her cat for her, but for some reason the animal didn't want to be carried by him. Draco sensed the two had some sort of animosity going – perhaps the cat was jealous. It wouldn't be the first time a familiar had tried to drive off suitors. His great aunt had been a witch of great renown, famous for her beauty, infamous for having a macaw named Diablo that had swallowed three engagement rings and bitten off four fingers, two ears and a nose of the various wizards who had asked for her hand in marriage. His great aunt now lived in South America, running a sanctuary for rescued macaws. It was rumoured she was still beautiful, still single, and still had Diablo.
"Hey, Granger?"
"What?"
"I really think you should let Weasley carry that cat for you," Draco said.
"Why? I can carry him just fine," she bristled.
"Not with a twisted ankle you can't," he pointed out.
Fury crossed her face. "I don't have a twisted ankle."
"I believe it was when that spider came at you and you tripped on a root."
She whirled and glared at him. "Of course it's always the girl who twists her ankle and has to be helpless! I refuse to be a cliché!"
"Ahh… you're scaring me," he said, only half-joking. The spider had been unnerving enough. He didn't need flashbacks to the fourth-year Rampant PMS Granger version.
"What's wrong?" Weasley called back. "'Mione?"
"I'm fine!"
"She's twisted her ankle," Draco said, ignoring the Granger Look of Death. When you were Housemates with Pansy you got worse on a daily basis. (This escalated once a month like clockwork to something homicidal – and to compound this, for some unexplained reason it seemed to hit all the girls in Slytherin at the same time, making life in the House of the Snake just that bit more dangerous. Any Slytherin male with a gill of self-preservation kept careful tabs on the calendar. And now that he'd been at Hogwarts for six years he'd had a bit more experience with females and their chemistry, so he wasn't so perplexed by their mood swings – not now he had a good calendar that informed him when to duck and hide. Feminine mysteries? Bah. You could keep them – and keep them as far away as possible as far as Draco Malfoy was concerned.) Besides, Granger had been giving him her Look of Death for six years and it was getting a little stale. "But she doesn't want to slow us down. Look, I'll take the damned cat if you want."
"I'll take Crookshanks," Weasley said, striding back down the path. "Honestly, Hermione, you tell me and Harry off every five minutes for being daft, and here you are, walking on a sprained ankle…"
"I've cast chill-spells on it…"
"I've got some stuff that might help," Elmsworthy said.
"'Might'?" said Weasley.
"One batch stopped sprains."
"How about this batch?" said Draco, who could read between the lines when he had to.
"It's a new formula. I've been wanting to test it out."
"Test it out when we get back to the Infirmary," the red-head said huffily. "Now give me Crookshanks. Um, hey, Malfoy, d'you think that horse would be able to carry her?"
"Here's Crookshanks," Granger said angrily, thrusting the struggling cat into Weasley's arms, "and there's no way I'm sitting on that thing."
Elmsworthy, who had been casting about in the bushes (those closest to the path), did something with his wand to the base of a sapling. Then he stripped the leaves and topped it, and came back up to the path with a strong pole. He tapped it with his wand, frowning in concentration. The pole turned into a crutch, at just the right height for Granger. "Try this. It's not going to help matters if your foot's too painful for you to concentrate on any spells you might need to cast."
"Thanks," she said grudgingly. "Sorry. I just didn't want to slow everyone down."
"You should have told us back at the spider that you'd hurt yourself," Draco scolded. "We wouldn't have come this far if we'd known."
"Lay off, Malfoy," Weasley snapped.
Draco scowled at him. "Let her be a martyr, then. Come on, Simon."
He pushed past them. Or tried to. Simon refused to let anyone stay behind him and ("Ow! Get out of it, you brute! OW! MY BUM! MALFOY CALL OFF YOUR BLOODY HORSE!") nipped Weasley, first for being slow and then for being obstreperous.
When Granger tried to say something about horses that go around biting people, Weasley (almost making himself human in Draco's eyes), sighed and told her to lay off. "Any horse that can do that to a spider has the right to tell me to hurry up," he said, shaking his head as he massaged his backside where the second, stronger nip had landed. "When we finally get the barrier down, I'll ask Mum to knit something for him." He grinned and rubbed his long nose on the back of his wrist. "It'll keep her too busy to knit me any more jumpers for at least a year."
He patted Simon, ignoring the cat's hiss of protest at being so close to the horse, then pulled out his wand and retook his place at the head of the procession.
Granger and Elmsworthy followed without needing any prodding from Simon.
But then everyone always said they were smart.
ooOOoo
Granger was puffing and red-faced and visibly relieved when they finally sighted the pearly wall standing between the trunks of the trees. This close to the ground it seemed to take substance from the very earth: Draco had noted that as it climbed higher it became invisible, allowing natural sunlight through and a clear view of the sky. He didn't know why – Granger probably had some jargon-heavy theory, but he wasn't interested enough to ask, not at this point of time. Some trees were growing so close they touched it. One oak seemed to be growing partially within it. The leaves of the nearby sycamore, rowan and other… trees… (Draco had never been all that keen on Herbology and wasn't really sure if that was a sycamore) had shrivelled and died, but the oak looked remarkably vibrant.
"So how do we find the weak spot?" Elmsworthy asked, studying the barrier with his hands on his hips. He touched a branch of the oak growing in the barrier gingerly then, when nothing killed him, he plucked a leaf and put it in an empty bottle. "Fascinating," he said, apparently to the oak. He took another leaf from the possibly-a-sycamore.
Weasley bent and placed the cat on the ground. It stretched and flicked its tail, which was as bushy as its mistress' hair. "Crookshanks will find it, I hope. How about it, Crooky?"
The cat (Draco guessed it had been named for its bandy legs rather than the squashed face, which gave it the appearance of a cat that won prizes for chasing and catching parked cars) gazed around at the Forest, blinking slowly, sneeringly. Draco remembered he didn't like cats much.
"Well? What's it meant to do? Cough up a furball on it?"
"Come on, Crookshanks," Granger coaxed. "Find the weak point."
Giving out the air of someone with nothing better to do, the cat strolled along the edge of the barrier, first to the left, then, with a sudden swish of its tail, back towards the right. Its whiskers tickled at the pearly grey wall. Simon had done the same thing, Draco recalled. Simon did it now, too, as Draco led him towards the barrier. The horse, however, lost interest far faster than the cat did.
The cat stopped after twenty metres. More animated now, it batted at the barrier with its paw. Draco got the impression the cat was about to walk through the wall. Granger might have, too, because she stooped awkwardly, wincing as she put weight on her sore ankle, and picked it up. She gave Draco a significant look.
"Huh? Oh. Um, Comrade, could you just go and keep an eye out for spiders over there for a couple of minutes?" Draco said.
"What? Oh, for… All right, I'll let you lot play Secret Aurors. It's not like I'm not risking my life or anything by helping you… not as if I've not had to worry about Acromantula attack already today, but no, I'm too…" Tyrol continued to chunter as he stalked off to sit on a stump, his back pointedly towards them.
Sulking was very Slytherin.
Simon did the same thing when he was offended, which, in Draco's opinion, proved he was a Slytherin horse and thus superior.
Once the older Slytherin was out of earshot, Draco tied Simon to a thin branch that would break if the horse really had to run, took out the message and gave it to Granger. She, in turn, attached it with a bulldog clip to the cat's collar.
"Will it stay on all right?" Draco asked. "I don't want it falling off to be picked up by just any passing idiot."
Granger nodded. "I've charmed the clip. It'll accept the message on return, too. Ron, do you have one of Pig's feathers?"
Pig, Draco remembered, was Weasley's owl. Weasley produced a small brown feather and tapped it against the letter, muttering something as he did so and squinting fiercely as he concentrated on the incantation.
Something glistened along the edge of the letter like a snail trail. "There. Only Pig can take it off now. Or me. Hope you made it waterproof, Malfoy."
"No need. Some of us can afford proper owlgram grade paper."
"Huh." Weasley let that one slide, to Draco's relief. He hadn't actually meant to sneer at Weasley. Not in the middle of the Forest at any rate. Sneering could wait until they got back to the relative safety of the castle.
Trying to sound more conciliatory (and probably succeeding, if Weasley's widening eyes were any indication), Draco said, "Good owl charm, Weasley. Does that mean only your owl can find and deliver the letter now?"
"Yes. You sure about the addressing charm?"
"I'm not sure about anything. But…" Draco tapped the folded letter and said, "Inverte sonorous chronos. Tactilo. There. I hope. Now you just have to say the address, Weasley, and your owl will trigger your voice as soon as it takes the message, thus getting its instructions."
"You hope."
"Hope is a virtue." Draco carefully didn't smile.
"Huh."
Weasley was trying not to say it was the only virtue Malfoy would ever possess. Draco was no Legilimens, but he didn't need to be: he could virtually see the words hovering in giant neon lights over Weasley's head.
Weasley bent over the envelope again, still keeping his voice down, and said, "Narcissa Malfoy, Malfoy Manor."
Granger took the letter and fixed it to the cat's collar.
"How will you know when the cat comes back?" Draco asked. "Do we need to come and get it, or will it return to the castle by itself?"
She took off one of her earrings – Draco had noticed they were bells, but they didn't tinkle when she moved her head – and fastened that to the collar, too. "There. I've charmed the bell so that it will ring when Crookshanks is back on this side of the barrier. That is, I'll activate the spell on the earring I'm wearing" – she tapped it – "once he's gone and then, when he comes back, it will ring."
"Clever," said Draco. "I hope it works."
Granger gave him a sour look. He returned it, saying, "What I mean is, the barrier is inverted magic. How do you know it won't wipe spells?"
Her sour look turned to one of consternation. "I hadn't thought of that."
Draco was already shaking his head. "I think it shouldn't be a problem. The active spell is on your bell, right? Well, when I rode Simon through the barrier the only active spells I had were those embedded in the shoes. They survived. The muffling spell certainly still works; I tried it the other day just to check its longevity. The spells on the message are all sleeping – they won't be activated until the owl touches the letter. I just forgot I was counting on that when I came up with this plan…"
"It would be fascinating to see if the barrier compromises integrity…" Granger shook her head. "Let's talk about it after we get out of here."
"Amen to that," said Weasley, who, wand out, was scanning the trees. "I thought I saw something move."
"Hopefully it was a falling leaf," muttered Draco, "although hope, like virtue, would be a fine thing in this forest."
Granger held her cat's head between her hands, her eyes half shut as she whispered to it. She gave it one last pat. "Good luck, Crookshanks," she said as she let the cat go.
Crookshanks padded off silently and was absorbed into the barrier. Draco caught one last glimpse of the bushy tail swishing before pearly mist obscured it from sight.
He breathed out. Time to get moving. There was Simon, beginning to paw at the ground, but not yet upset enough to pull free from the branch. And over there was Elmsworthy, eyes transfixed in a disturbing way… Draco untied Simon and called to the other Slytherin.
"Comrade Tyrol? Comrade?"
Comrade Tyrol wasn't moving. He was bent forward slightly. Draco felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.
"Comrade Tyrol…?" Oh, hell… "Here," he said to Weasley, thrusting Simon's leadrope into his hands and ignoring the squeak of protest. Cautiously, walking almost sideways in case he had to make a dash in the opposite direction, he crept up behind his Housemate.
Elmsworthy had his eyes fixed on something in front of him.
Ever so cautiously, Draco craned his neck to see what it was.
It was a small white mound swelling up from the roots of a dead tree. Purple spots blossomed and then shrank away as they emitted small clouds that hovered and crept over the floor of the forest. One curled around Elmsworthy's foot and trailed a tendril along his ankle. Something about the clouds seemed almost sentient, the way they tested the small zephyrs and climbed through updrafts and skulked in lees.
"Oh, for Merlin's sake!" Draco snapped, making Elmsworthy jump, "couldn't you have a better reason for ignoring us than watching exploding puffballs germinate?"
"Sorry. But they are interesting. It's not often they get observed in the wild. I've certainly never seen it."
"No, because most people have lives outside of a book," Draco snarled. He shook his foot as one of the little clouds tested his ankle as a potential place to grow. "Shoo. Go on, get off. Wretched stuff… I thought you were keeping an eye out for us."
Comrade Tyrol had the grace to look embarrassed. "Sorry."
"Well, we're leaving. You can come if you want."
"I said I was sorry."
"Huh."
"Malfoy…"
"Stop mucking about," Weasley said. He was very pale and clutched Simon's leadrope in a white-knuckled grip. With a nod into the shadowy undergrowth between two oaks, he showed them why.
Three Acromantulas, none of them very large as Acromantulas went but all of them bigger than Snuffles (or Black, as it had turned out), were watching them. Draco might not have seen them if not for the glitter of their eyes and the way one of them was slowly extending one leg.
Draco hurried over to take the leadrope and run a hand along Simon's neck. The horse's muscles were bunched up and felt like rock. Simon's ears weren't back yet, which was good. Draco didn't want Simon charging off after the spiders.
"Don't run," said Elmsworthy. "Walk."
"Easy for you to say," said Granger. She was easily as pale as Weasley, if with more reason: her ankle must have been agony by now.
Draco thought like lightning. "Come here, Granger. You're going to get on Simon."
"Like hell I am."
"Yes. You are. You're limping. Those Acromantulas are looking for anything weak. You're a target."
"But…"
"Get on the horse, 'Mione," said Weasley. "We can't levitate you all the way out of the Forest – we might need our wands."
"What? No! I can–"
Not taking his eyes of the spiders, a bead of sweat trickling down from his temple, Weasley cut her off with a slicing movement of his hand. He spaced the words out from between clenched teeth: "Get on. The fucking. Horse. Hermione."
Granger's mouth opened and closed. She went red. Then she hobbled over to Draco and Simon. She shut her eyes for a moment. "M'scedahis," she said.
"What?" said Draco.
Granger jumped as Simon pawed the ground again and tossed his head, shaking his mane at the spiders.
"I'm scared of heights, all right?!"
Draco blinked. "Oh. Well, never mind. Just hold onto his mane and if you fall off… relax."
"Relax?" she squeaked.
"First rule of flying a broom – learn how to hit the ground. Relax and roll. But Simon won't want you to fall off. Will you, Simon? Good boy. Now, come up a bit, Granger… I'll have to levitate you onto his back…"
She squeaked again then pressed her lips tightly closed as he levitated her (in rather a wobbly fashion – curses rather than charms were his strong suit) up and onto Simon's back.
She winced.
"At least you're not male," he muttered.
"What?"
"Nothing." Hell, she looked terrified. She wouldn't last long on Simon's back if she was rigid with tension. "Never mind. Just… keep your toes up. It helps your balance. And look where you're going – that's not the ground. Hang onto his mane – that's right – no, don't worry, you won't hurt him. Very good. Sit up a bit. That's it. There! You're doing fine."
"We haven't started walking yet," she pointed out shakily.
"No, but just sitting on a horse is a big step."
She gave him a quick, grateful smile. That was a first.
"Weasley, can you walk to Simon's right? You can keep your hand on her leg…er… oh, hell, you two are a couple so that's acceptable… and Comrade Tyrol, if you want to take the lead…?"
They set off. Granger made a small squeak when Simon started walking, but then clenched her jaws shut and made no more sounds although her face was very white. Simon, thank whatever powers kept horses in check, had decided to be a riding horse rather than some attack-horse, and kept walking at a smooth, even pace. With one hand holding the leadrope, the other his wand, Draco kept looking back.
The spiders didn't appear to be following them. As they rounded a bend in the trail and the shadow between the two oaks went out of sight, Draco fancied he saw the three spiders still squatting there watching the humans and horse depart.
He tried telling himself that that meant they were probably not going to attack anyone, but Draco wasn't good at lying to himself.
They weren't out of the woods yet, not by a long shot. And when the woods were the Forbidden Forest…
ooOOoo
"Are you sure this is the way we came?" Weasley asked.
They were standing on the trail. Draco was sure it was the one they'd come by. That fallen beech which seemed to have collapsed into the embrace of an oak was familiar.
That web strung across the trail was new. He might not have seen it had he been travelling at speed.
Perhaps that was why the deer, still struggling in the sticky mesh, had not seen it until it was too late.
Weasley swallowed audibly. "I remember those two trees there," he said, gesturing towards the pair Draco remembered. "But that… that's new. Oh, bloody hell… there's going to be spiders coming out of the woodwork any minute now…"
Draco said nothing. He watched the young stag as it thrashed its legs and made a hoarse moaning sound. It looked like the one they'd seen earlier. Its eyes, big and dark, reminded him of Simon's.
Simon, ears canted slightly back as his neck arched and his eyes bugged at the trapped deer, snorted fearfully.
Draco licked his dry lips. "We can't just leave it here."
"It's not like we can hang around ourselves," Elmsworthy pointed out grimly. "Look."
Weasley made a sound not unlike that of the deer at the sight of two spiders climbing up trees to either side of the path.
"Where's the third one?" whispered Granger.
Draco desperately wanted to know the answer to that one, too.
"Everybody ready?" Draco muttered. He was well aware that spiders could talk – he'd tried talking to one right before he'd been bitten. That had taught him two things: one: you could try reasoning with creatures, and two: creatures otherwise capable of reason generally considered it an unnecessary encumbrance for dealing with someone who could easily fit into a menu.
Draco wasn't going to make the same mistake twice. However… "Spiders! I know some of you understand English! We are powerful wizards who can kill you easily. Leave now and we will not fight you."
The uphill spider made an agitated chittering. It seemed to be communicating something to the one downslope.
The two spiders gradually shrank back into the cover of ferns and leaves. This did not reassure Draco – all it meant was that the spiders were now out of sight. Not necessarily gone. And what had happened to the third?
"Come on," hissed Elmsworthy.
"In a moment," said Draco. He led Simon closer to the deer, but then stopped when it began struggling so hard he feared it would break its legs. "Damn. How am I supposed to get close enough to free it?" he muttered to himself.
"Petrification hex?" Granger suggested.
Draco looked up at her. "Maybe. But I hear deer can have heart-attacks under those." Hopefully she wouldn't know how he knew. His father's library was none of her business. He sighed. "Do you lot promise you won't breathe a word of this?"
"If it means we get out of here faster, then yes," said Elmsworthy impatiently. "For God's sake, Malfoy – if those spiders think you're taking their dinner away from them there'll be hell to pay…"
"All right," said Weasley, albeit with palpable suspicion.
Granger nodded.
"Good," said Draco. He pointed his wand. "Imperio."
Freeing the deer was a matter of moments and a good, soapy jinx to dissolve the sticky goo on the spider silk. The deer was soon standing on its own four hooves, free.
They walked past the web and then Weasley hit it with a burn-hex, crisping the web into fragments that curled and drifted away.
There was an angry chitter from the bushes downhill.
Not showing how alarmed he was becoming Draco calmly said, "Finite incantatum."
The deer shook its head, briefly bewildered. It looked around, got its bearings, and cantered off along the track. It moved quick and easily, bounding around one particular tree.
Draco squinted and saw the third spider crouched there.
Then the deer was gone into the trees.
ooOOoo
They knew they were going the right way when they came to the fallen tree with the dark stained patch in the middle. Elmsworthy's potion still hadn't dissolved the cellulose.
"I am not staying on while it jumps over that," Granger said definitely. "Even if I wanted to, I couldn't."
"We can levitate you over," Weasley said. "We – oh, shit!"
Spiders – five of them – scuttled out from behind trees or climbed down from the branches.
Acting as one, the three boys clustered around Simon, who had whirled to face the spiders, nearly unseating his rider.
The horse made an angry squealing roar – Draco had heard it the time the vrikolaki had attacked – and pawed the ground. Granger gasped sharply but said nothing.
"They think they've got us trapped," said Elmsworthy.
"You mean they don't?" Weasley replied with a death-head grin.
"Incendio," said Draco, hitting the nearest spider which screamed and curled up on itself and was dead within the second.
"Arachne inhume!" That was Granger, white-lipped but accurate as her spell hit the next.
Elmsworthy's anti-spider spell only clipped the next, and now there were more spiders coming from over the hill.
"Let's keep going along the track and put that log at our backs," said Granger.
"No," said Weasley, his eyes fixed on the nearest spider, "a clear – arachne inhume! Damn – space is better. Spiders can creep up too easily – arachne inhume! Ha! Gotcha! – and if we're back-to-back we can defend ourselves."
Draco had to agree, especially as several more spiders had crept out of the bracken down near the stream and were sidling around behind the log.
"Two Incendios to blast a hole in the middle," muttered Elmsworthy from the side of his mouth, "and we can leg it through the break."
He and Draco nodded to each other. "The stain? Three, two, one… incendio!"
The two spells hit the blackened patch.
There was a roar and a flash of blue and crimson light. The log exploded. Splinters rained down over the Forest. Draco was nearly dragged off his feet as Simon bolted forward in terror. He yanked on the leadrope and the horse slewed around, almost tripping on its own long legs, Granger yelping as she slid to hang upside-down under the long neck.
"Crikey!" exclaimed Elmsworthy. "Wow. Now that's what I call the subtle art of potion making…" He scrabbled at his bandoleer. "Hey, spiders, I've got more where that came from…" he breathed. He extracted two phials and threw them at a rotting log in front of the nearest spiders. The phials broke on the crumbling wood. When the fire spell hit the potion soaking into the crumbling wood, the flames roared up and over three of the spiders. "Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-haaa! Yeah! Eat hot potion!" he bellowed as the spiders flailed and died.
The spiders withdrew to a safer distance. A few twitched where they had been crushed by the ends of the logs; the ends of the first log had been blown up and around and in the process rolled over several spiders, pulping them as thoroughly as Simon could ever have hoped to do.
That was lucky, because Draco was being dragged around by a frantic Simon, who had Granger still hanging for dear life around his neck, and Weasley was pulling at a piece of wood embedded in his cheek.
"Elmsworthy! Calm down! Just… wait half a moment before you blow anything else up, okay?" Draco called out. "Granger?"
She dropped to her feet, winced as her ankle gave out, then sat down heavily. "Ow."
Draco helped her up. "We need to get out of here before these spiders recover," he said.
She nodded in resignation. "If that horse stays still long enough, can you levitate me up again?"
Simon did and Draco could. Granger winced as she tried in vain to find a comfortable spot to sit (Draco could have told her it probably took a special knack or special genes that gave you a bottom made from leather).
"Come on, you two," she called out. Weasley (who must have decided to leave the stick until they got back to the Infirmary) and Elmsworthy (who had a phial in one hand, his wand in the other, and an unsettling new light in his eyes as they passed the smoking wreckage of the elm log and the dead Acromantulas), were quick to move even without being bitten by the horse, who kicked out at one moving Acromantula before Draco pulled the leadrope and insisted he keep walking.
The surviving spiders did not follow.
ooOOoo
They took Simon back to the paddock first, then returned to the castle, taking Granger to the Infirmary on a stretcher. Although Elmsworthy (muttering something about interesting properties of unstable cellulose) nearly disappeared down towards Slytherin and whatever laboratory he'd managed to find for himself, when Draco said he was going to go with the two Gryffindors as he wanted something to take care of the black eye Simon had given him, Elmsworthy decided to tag along, too, suddenly remembering he could ask Pomfrey about his sprain potion.
They were just in time to see a red-faced and clearly at-the-end-of-her-tether Pomfrey Summon Potter down from the windowsill where he was trying to roost.
Luna, who was holding a bowl of corn, had a rumpled look. "Harry… it's all right, we're not going to deep fry you… Mmm… looook…. yummy corn… Draco! What happened to you?"
"Simon nutted me. By accident, of course."
"Well, it's hardly as if he'd do it on – oh, Harry, please calm down!"
Potter clucked and tried to escape from the bed where Pomfrey had landed him. He bounced off an invisible wall and squawked some more.
It might have been funny if Draco hadn't already had a trying day and wasn't in the mood for more foolishness. Still, once he got a Pensieve he could always decant the memory and laugh over it another time. Being a wizard was awesome.
"Make him drink this," Pomfrey told Weasley, who was boggling at the sight of his best friend pecking corn from Luna's hand.
"What is it?" Weasley took the small steaming beaker and peered into it doubtfully. "Alphabet soup…?"
Potter crowed.
Pomfrey pursed her lips. "It's the spell. Distilled straight from the remedy book Chicken Soup for the Brain. Give it to him while it's hot. I'll hold his mouth open…"
They poured it into the squawking Potter, who immediately sagged, unconscious.
"Is he okay?" Draco was surprised to find he was the one who'd asked the question.
"Yes, yes, he'll be fine when he wakes up. He won't remember any of this. I hope you'll be kind enough to gloss over some of the details, Mr Malfoy." She glared at him. Knowing she'd never really liked him (she was a Potter fan, of course, silly woman, Draco thought), he gave her his best bland look in return, only making her glare harden. "Hmm. Chance would be a fine thing. Now what do the rest of you want – oh, dear… Mr Malfoy, have you been fighting again?"
Draco bristled. "No." You deranged harpy. "I walked into a horse."
"Well, that's novel. I'll get you some Bye-Bye-Bruise. No concussion?" She waved her wand over his head. "Big lump there, but no, no concussion. You got off lightly. Honestly, those Muggle animals are worse than Quidditch… Now, Miss Granger. Your ankle, is it? Tsk. Mr Elmsworthy, do you have any of that sprain potion left?"
"I made a new batch. It's untested – I modified the old recipe but I don't know if –"
"Give it here." She waved her wand over the phial he took from the bandoleer. "It should be fine."
To everyone's retrospective disgust, it was. Granger's ankle glowed fluorescent orange for two seconds, then the swelling disappeared and the ankle was left looking completely normal. She flexed it, then stood, testing her weight. "Goodness! It's like I never hurt it. Huh. All that, and I never needed to sit on that bl-" (she glanced at Draco and visibly caught herself) – "on that horse all the way out of the forest." She sounded quite vexed. Her cheeks went pink as she shifted gingerly in her chair. "Er. Ahh… Madam Pomfrey, do you, er, have anything for, um…" she leaned closer to whisper into the medi-witch's ear, but Draco's ears were sharp enough to hear the word blisters.
Weasley's ears must have been sharp enough, too. They went scarlet.
Luna's silvery eyes were almost popping out of her head. "You'd never been on a horse in your life! Don't tell me you rode Simon bareback all the way through the Forest?" She was sitting on the side of Potter's bed, stroking his hair. (Draco didn't know why she bothered; Potter was out like a light.) Luna shook her head in sympathy. "Ouch. And people tell me I'm crazy!"
Granger glared at her.
Draco gave Luna a wink with his good eye as soon as Granger wasn't looking.
ooOOoo