Thank you EVERYONE, who takes the time to review. I love them each dearly. I also love hearing what you guys think is happening-it's you letting me know what I am putting down that you are picking up. You know?
Maybe not.
Harry Potter is not of my creation, but I did put together the plots found in Over the Line.
"What is it?" Sirius asked James. The Protean charmed pendants the aurors wore at all times had alerted them all to the message of; come to the forest. Now. By James. Sirius, Frank, Alice, and Tonks all ran to the forest at the same time, at the meet up point near Hagrid's cabin.
James looked no worse for wear than usual. "Things...in the forest..." He was still faintly out of breath. "The centaurs..." He began and shook his head, "they wish to be out of the forest. They say...something evil has taken root." He glanced over his shoulder at the forest. "I didn't come across anything, but they refused to show me where what they were talking about was taking place." Sirius whistled lowly at this new development. The snow was nearly two feet thick and they were freezing.
"Let's see if Hagrid knows anything." Sirius suggested, jerking his head towards the half-giants cabin. The group of aurors made their way over, and knocked on the door. Fang's barking woke Hagrid up and when he wrenched open the door, he looked ready to murder.
"oh," he said quietly. He moved out of the way for everyone to come in. He wore a giant night shirt, that went down to his knees, he also wore socks long enough to reach his knees, still, those few inches of exposed skin showed just how big Hagrid really was. His kneecap was the size of a skull.
He started making a pot of tea before all the adults had filed inside. "Have you noticed anything different about the forest?" Sirius began, as James warmed himself by the fire. Hagrid coughed a few times and spat into the fire before he answered.
"Som'in' evil." He said slowly, "drivin' the folk in the forest closer to Hogwarts. I was following a game trail yesterday and crossed paths with some Centaurs. Them centaurs don't like humans, so seeing them so close to Hogwarts...that's a bad sign. I was going to tell Dumbledore, but some Threstrals got into the school's gardens and I got busy salvaging."
The adults nodded, a grim weight falling about their shoulders.
"They didn't happen to tell you exactly where this evil was coming from?" Frank asked as Hagrid handed him a cup.
"Oh no, but I have an idear of who to ask." Hagrid sat himself down in his chair and stroked his beard. "The Centaurs are friendly enough to me, but only 'cause I'm not all human. But they don't much like anyone that isn't their kind. But they aren't the only sort in the forest. I'll ask him tomorrow if he knows anything."
"He? Can we come with you?" Alice asked. Hagrid thought for a moment and then shook his head.
"No, better not. If you want me to ask him anything, best write it down." The aurors exchanged a look.
"Who is it?" Sirius asked curiously.
"His name is Aragog. He is an Acromantula," Hagrid admitted. He chuckled faintly, "he's not the only one anymore though-got himself a huge family now." Hagrid smiled and nodded, "yeah, better not take you there. But if something in the forest is going on, he'd no about it. All the eyes he's got." Hagrid chuckled at his little joke.
"How...exactly...did you become friends with an Acromantula? They eat human flesh." Alice looked at him like he was mental. Hagrid chuckled.
"I got Aragog as an egg. I got him a mate too. Named her Mosag. I raised him and her in the forest. They'd never do anything harmful to me." Hagrid was absolutely sure of it.
They didn't even ask how he got the eggs. "Do you think this can wait? Or should he go now?" Sirius asked the other aurors. They exchanged glances and looked at Hagrid.
"Wouldn't mind going now. Of course I wouldn't. Need to find out what is going on, and keep the kids safe!" Hagrid slapped his hand down on the armchair. He still wasn't over how Hermione had almost been killed on his watch. He never should have suggested they split up!
Hagrid excused himself to get dressed in his room, when he came back out, he was fully dressed and had his pink umbrella and a crossbow with him.
"What is the crossbow for?"
"Well I always bring them som'in' to eat." Hagrid said it like it was obvious. He said they could come with him into the forest up until a certain point, and then they would have to wait there, just on the outside of the spider's hollow.
The walk there seemed to take forever, but Hagrid did managed to get a buck and two does for his acromantula friends. He carried the two doe on his shoulders and drug the buck behind him by the antlers. When they reached the edge of the territory, he told them to wait on him.
His large feet carried him into the spider's hollow, where he noticed most of the little ones were gone.
"Hagrid," Aragog spoke as if he hadn't in a long time.
"Aragog!" Hagrid said happily, he was glad to see that Aragog hadn't been sleeping. He dropped the two doe and moved the buck beside it. "I bring some gifts."
"You are so kind, Hagrid," Aragog moved himself out of the shadows and Hagrid smiled at him, "What do I owe this late visit?" He asked, getting right to the point.
"Something is driving the Centaurs closer to Hogwarts, is there something going on?" Hagrid asked. A few small spiders scurried forth and started to feast upon the animals, and by small spiders, they were about the size of a Labrador Retriever.
"Yes. Something has taken to living in the forest, deep, and to the east." Aragog gestured with one of his great legs, "I have instructed my children to stay away, we would not get involved."
"You wouldn't happen to know exactly what it is, would you?" Hagrid asked. Aragog heaved a great sigh.
"To that, I do not know, but there are only a few things so evil as that, that it could be." Hagrid nodded at the spider's logic.
"Thank you very much, Aragog, you have been a great help." Hagrid said farewell to Aragog and then walked out of the hollow.
"Goodbye, Hagrid." Aragog said as he left.
When Hagrid made it back to the aurors, they sighed in relief. Hagrid nearly rolled his eyes at them. Honestly! Aragog would never hurt him.
"Well?" Sirius asked.
"He said it is something in the east, something living deep in the forest there that is driving everything away from it." Hagrid explained and looked off to the east, but honestly the rest of the adults had no idea where they were in the forest anymore, in relation to Hogwarts, on in any of the directions. The sky wasn't even visible from where they were at!
"We'll go in the daylight." James promised, as he stifled a great yawn. "We'd be at a disadvantage now," he reasoned and the other auror's chimed in.
"We'll report to Dumbledore first thing, and see what he has to say about it."
Hermione grunted as her fists pounded against the bag. It was a burn-out drill. That meant she punched the bag as much and as fast as she could in a certain amount of time. She had no idea how long she was supposed to go, but she barely had enough strenght left to breathe.
A timer went off and her arms fell limp to her sides. "Good work Granger, I counted over 150 punches, in forty-five seconds."
"That...was only...forty...five...seconds?!" She gasped around her breath. Her trainer laughed and clapped her on the back, sending her against the punching bag. She groaned.
"Thirty second water break, then we will move to squats." She grabbed her bottle of water and took several light sips and wiped her brow clean of sweat. She had been training every day for three hours since she arrived home from Hogwarts. It was a few days until Christmas.
After the thirty second break she stood in front of the mirror, spread her feet (in what her instructor called a 'horse stance') and started her round of squats. She kept her eyes trained on her own and bobbed up and down as if she was a machine. Her legs and but screamed out in protest by the time the round was over.
"Lunges around the room!" He ordered and she took off lunging-though she took her time doing it.
After that round was over he called her over to where he was at and pointed towards the ground, "cool down stretches." By that, he meant yoga. He started her in a deep lung (called Crescent lung) and had her put one hand on the ground and stretch up to look at her other hand that was straight over her head, and then switch arms. By the time he sent her to the next pose, her legs were shaking. She did her other leg and then moved through the Warrior poses (1, 2, and 3) and when she was finished with those, he had her go into King Pigeon (the most hated pose she had ever done). He let her rest in Corpse pose for an entire two minutes before he called their training session to a close.
She picked herself up off the floor like a spent rag and thanked him for a tough work out. She paid him for the private session, via her parents check, and walked home.
When she arrived, she noticed an owl perched on the fence by her door. She went up to it and retrieved the letter clenched in its beak and she stroked its head-not having any owl treats for her. The owl hooted its displeasure and flew away.
Hermione let herself inside and once she was seated at the kitchen table, she opened the letter.
Hermione,
I miss you so much it's crazy. This summer will really stink if I have to go this long without seeing you. I hope your parents aren't being to mean to you, because of what happened in the forest. I mean, I understand them being mad, but you explained how it all had happened in one day, and just didn't have the time to write them? Maybe you should have began that way.
Anyway, you haven't really missed anything here, at least not yet. Harry's mom had the baby! He's probably already written you, but it is a boy! They named him James Jr. I don't think that is very creative, but then again I'm not even old enough to start imagining having kids-
Hermione really couldn't explain why her stomach did a weird contortion act at reading that particular sentence. She shook the feeling from her mind and continued reading:
Anthony, Terry, and Michael started to regret the decision to stay at Hogwarts about the third day into it. We all tried to warn them, but they wanted the experience. Not our fault. I really wish I could have gone back to Grimmuald Place over break to spend some time with Cissa. I really miss her too. She basically is my littler sister, but you already knew that.
I'm sorry that this letter is kind of just a bunch of rambling nonsense, but you didn't give me much to work with in your last letter. So, totally all your fault Granger. I'm rambling like an idiot.
So! What have you been up to these three weeks? How is staying so far away from the Hogwart's Library? Have the withdrawl symptoms finally let up? I'm just kidding, but not really. I can just see you now, fingers twitching slightly as you itch to read something-anything stimulating. Don't worry. The month will be over before you know it, and you'll be able to swim in the knowledge.
Again, I'm kidding, but not really.
I really miss you-everyone misses you.
Have the best of days, that is until we meet again,
Draco Malfoy.
Hermione was grinning like an idiot by the time she finished reading her letter. Her mother walked in and observed the look on her daughter's face.
"Whose letter is that?" She asked.
"It's from Draco." Hermione replied as she folded it back up and stuck it back inside the envelope.
"Ah. How was training?"
"Intense. I was actually going to go upstairs and shower before dinner, if that is alright?" Hermione asked while she stood up. Her mother caught a whiff of her and nodded her head.
"Please." Her mother begged and Hermione rolled her eyes. The tension had finally left them about Hermione's behavioral hiccup.
After her shower, the three of them had a pleasant dinner.
"And he said he died?" Harry asked, his eyes wide. Draco nodded and pointed to the name that was walking around the grounds, seemingly aimlessly.
"Yes. A few years ago it seemed like. But the twins swear that the map has never made a mistake before."
"And you haven't told my dad, or Sirius?"
"They'd probably take it away from me!" Draco responded. Draco had been meaning to show Harry the map for weeks, but one of their other friends were always around! Neville always wanted to talk Plant with them, or go out on the grounds and enjoy the frigid cold. Rose always wanted to be in Draco's shadow, fantasizing. Terry, Michael, and Anthony nearly depended upon Draco for daily entertainment.
The only way that they had managed to escape today was that Snape was allowing the Dueling Club to meet in the Great Hall, for those that remained (which was actually quite a bit this year), to practice dueling.
"I can't believe my father would make something like this. I mean, it's amazing!" Harry said with a faint grin. His mother was a brilliant witch and could get magic to do anything she wanted, but his father...well he was great at what he knew, he just didn't seem to know that much. Don't tell James he thought that, though.
"He wasn't the only one. There were three others. Sirius, Remus, and someone else. But I can't ask who the fourth on was, unless I tell them that I have the map." Draco had thought about this for several days, but that name of the dead guy was still there, glaring him in the face.
"Maybe Snape was mistaken? Have you looked up that name in the Hogwarts archives?" Harry asked and Draco nodded.
"Yeah, but he wasn't much of a student. He was in Slytherin and was a beater on the Quidditch team for a few years. He was in Hogwarts about fifteen years ago." Draco explained. Harry nodded slowly.
"That would put him at just finishing Hogwarts during the First Wizarding War. He was a Death Eater, wasn't he...?" Harry asked slowly, "if he was an Order member, I would have heard about him already."
"What makes you think he was involved in the war at all?" Draco asked, his eyebrow raised.
"Snape said he knew him. He's got no family, and Snape was a bit older than him at the time, right?" Harry asked, to which Draco nodded slowly, "so please, name off some kids in Rose's year that you know. Rose doesn't count." Draco tried to conjure up some names of the second years in Ravenclaw, but he didn't even know the rest of the Ravenclaw's in his year.
"Fine. I see your point. So he was a Death Eater. Snape still said he died. And the map doesn't show ghosts, so..." Draco thumped the map with his finger at where Barty Crouch Jr. was walking into the forest.
"He's going into the Forbidden Forest!" Draco nearly shouted. Harry noticed it too, and soon the man's name disappeared from the map, as he passed where the magic was placed.
"This is too freaky. We've got to tell now." Harry said sternly, looking Draco square in the eye. The blond boy nodded his head.
"Yeah." He frowned, "I hope they don't take the map though." Harry shrugged.
"Where are they at?" Harry asked and the boys searched the map until they found the names they were looking for. "Dumbledore's office? Must be important." Harry murmured.
"We can wait outside for them. Let's go!" Draco tapped the map, "Mischief Managed!" The ink disappeared and he folded up the map. They nearly ran down the hall from the Library, until they ended up in front of Dumbledore's office. Draco hadn't been in the office since he and Hermione had been called there over Christmas break in first year, but he still remembered the way. The two boys set up camp across the hall from the statue and waited until the adults came out.
A few minutes passed and Draco took the map out to inspect it. Barty Crouch Jr. still hadn't returned from the forest.
Draco had just cleared the map again when the someone (or people) started to descend the steps from Dumbledore's office. Draco stowed the map away and the boys stood.
James and Sirius came down the steps and looked pleasantly surprised to see the boys waiting on them. "We have something to tell you...but in private..." Harry said, using a serious tone. Jame's eyebrows shot up nearly into his hairline, but Sirius gestured the boys down the hall-which was in direction of the small tower that the auror's were given to stay in.
Once they were on the other side of the portrait, James and Sirius sat the boys down and loomed over them expectantly.
Harry glanced at Draco, for him to start.
"If I said Barty Crouch Jr. was in the castle..." Draco began. The look of alarm that passed across the adult's faces caused Draco's blood to pump cold for a second.
"I would ask how you learned that name," Sirius said quietly-in a leveled tone, like he was stopping himself from shouting.
Draco gulped down his nervousness and pulled the Marauder's Map from his cloak pocket and dropped it onto the table between him and the adults. The look of surprise that cross the men's faces was priceless-at least it would be in a different circumstance.
"How did you come across this?" James asked in a breath.
"Fred and George Weasley passed it down to me." Draco answered honestly. "But they never knew who made the map in the first place. So tell me. Padfoot, and Prongs..." Draco looked almost too pleased with himself as he said that, "is the map ever wrong?"
The guffaws that erupted from the throats of the men caused the boys to exchanged a panicked look. That was not the reaction they were expecting. It took several minutes (several minutes) for the men to stop laughing.
"Oh. Oh god." James wheezed, his hand at his side.
"Draco. My dear boy Draco," Sirius dropped himself into the seat next to Draco and patted his back, "color me impressed. The professors during our Hogwarts days couldn't figure out who made the map, and here you did! Well done!" Draco looked uncomfortably at Harry, who returned his look.
"The map is never wrong, no." James seemed to sober up first, "and you have truly seen that man's name before?"
"Yes. Several times in fact. Usually in the dungeons, but whenever I have went after him, I've never ran into him. Professor Snape told me he had died."
James and Sirius exchanged a weighted look. "Yes. It was believed he had died, but the map is never wrong. Any living soul that steps foot onto Hogwarts property is placed on the map. No ghosts, no animals."
"Where is he now?" James asked him.
"We watched him walk into the forest roughly ten minutes ago..." Harry spoke up. The color drained from James and Sirius' face instantly.
"Stay in the castle, boys!" James ordered as he and Sirius ran from the room.
Gosh. I've hit a stint of muse juice from somewhere, and I just can't seem to stop writing... Here you go! (any errors are because I was slightly inebriated while writing).