Prologue

"Don't touch it, Ron!" exclaimed a bushy-haired teenage girl to her red-headed companion.

"Calm down, Hermione. What do you think is gonna happen?"

"Anything! We don't actually know what that thing is."

"I do! It's a gnome-crow. It's used to keep gnomes out of your garden, for those who can afford such luxuries. It's perfectly harmless to humans."

"Is it supposed to be glowing like that?"

"Well… no. But I'm sure it's just some simple charm cast by somebody who got bored. Nothing to worry about."

"They got bored, so they cast a simple charm on that thing and left it behind in the Forbidden Forest?"

Ron opened his mouth to retaliate, but then closed it again. It was always a losing battle, getting in an argument with Hermione. "You've always got to have the last word, haven't you?"

"Erm, I hate to interrupt, but do either of you remember why we're in the Forbidden Forest in the first place?" asked Harry Potter, the third and final member of the trio hat now found themselves out-of-bounds.

"What's the matter with you, Harry? Of course, we were just-" Hermione stopped short. "Why can't I remember?"

"You can't remember? Hermione Granger doesn't know?" Ron summarized, clearly amused.

"Alright then, why don't you tell us why we're here, if your memory is so good?" Hermione suggested.

"How have either of you forgotten? We came out here to… We were just gonna…"

"That's what I thought. Now stop fooling around, this is serious. Why don't we remember? Does anyone even remember walking out here?"

"I can't remember anything before seeing that gnome-crow, or whatever it is. It's like there's a hole in my memory," said Harry. Ron and Hermione admitted to having the same feeling.

"So… Should we leave?" asked Ron.

"No, someone is clearly targeting us," Harry replied.

"All the more reason to leave!" Ron insisted.

"There's clearly some powerful memory charm at work here, it was very selective. If we're able to notice the holes in our memories, I'll bet that was part of the plan."

"Harry's right. We'd probably be playing into their hands if we left," Hermione agreed.

"So, we're just gonna wait around in the middle of the Forbidden Forest while some powerful wizard is after us? That sounds safe!"

"Have you got any better ideas?" asked Harry.

"Wands out," Hermione suggested. The boys obeyed wordlessly.

Silence hung into the air for a few moments, nobody knowing what their next move should be.

"Look, a gnome-crow!" exclaimed the tall, red-headed boy to his friends.

"What's that?" asked the boy in the round glasses. Even now, in his sixth year at Hogwarts, Harry was still feeling the effects of being raised by muggles.

"It's used to scare the gnomes away," Ron explained. "We can't afford to spend money on one at the Burrow when there are so many of us who can go de-gnome the garden by hand. That's what Mum says, anyway."

"Do they always glow like that?" asked Hermione, the final third to the trio.

"I don't think so. It's kind of… pretty like that, though, don't you think?" The glowing object transfixed Ron's eyes as he spoke, the gleam displaying the curiosity on his face.

"Nothing short of gorgeous, Ron."

"Oh, shut up, Harry."

"Ron's right. Such a common object, or, at least, it is in the Wizarding World, the only source of light and beauty in this dark, dangerous forest. I'm sure it's a metaphor for something," Hermione commented.

"Right. Speaking of it being the only source of light… Why haven't any of us cast 'lumos'?" asked Harry.

"I dunno," Ron admitted. "I've already got my wand out and everything! When did I get my wand out?"

Harry and Hermione looked down at their hands and we're shocked to discover that they had their wands out, too. Neither of them could remember drawing their wands.

"This is starting to get weird," Hermione noted.

"Come to think of it, I think it's been weird for a while," said Harry. "Do either of you remember what we're doing out here?"

Suddenly, before either Ron or Hermione had a chance to respond (just for the record, both would have come to the conclusion that they couldn't remember either, had they had time to think about it), the glowing gnome-crow glowed brighter than ever (or, technically, brighter than it had in the trio's living memory which, at this point, takes up a span of about 5 minutes). All three teenagers instinctively lifted their arms in order to shield their eyes from the brightness.

"That can't be good," Ron observed.

"Run!" Harry exclaimed. And they did.

"Look on the bright side," suggested Ron's punny remark as the trio dodged trees and tried not to trip over tree roots that they wouldn't have been able to see in the dim had it not been for the light they were currently running away from. "None of us need to bother with casting 'lumos' now."

"Not the time, Ron!" Hermione exclaimed between gulps of air, her breathing quickening with her pulse.

Harry had just begun to spare a thought (the rest of his thoughts were in survival mode) to think about how his friends still managed to be themselves, even in the midst of a crisis, when the light became even brighter, and continued to get brighter until all anyone could see was blinding whiteness. Knowing that continuing to run was pointless if he couldn't see where he was going (a lesson he learned the hard way after running into a tree), Harry sunk to the ground, rubbing his forehead.

"Is everyone alright?" Harry called into the brightness. "Ron? Hermione?"

There was no reply, so Harry had no way of knowing if his friends were two meters away or a hundred. The ground, the one sturdy thing that Harry was sure of at the moment, began to shake violently. A rumbling sound filled his ears, making it impossible for him to hear anything else and beginning before his friends would have had time to say anything. Unable to do anything else, Harry clung to a nearby root, hoping that Ron and Hermione were okay, and that he wasn't about to be shaken right off the surface of the Earth.