Into The Woods

*

"I can assure the reader that we used our seventh year to cement the bonds we had formed during our time at Hogwarts. Draco Malfoy was admitted (albeit grudgingly by some) to the discussions we held with the Headmaster in order to prepare for Voldemort's inevitable strike. Severus Snape assumed the job of training Harry intensively, and their long work sessions established a semblance of civility where there had long been hatred. Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody and his sister Arabella Figg, neither of whom we had known with any great affection, met regularly with us, laying out plans and treating us as the adults we had come to be."

"Despite all of this, Harry, Ron and I were able to resume a 'normal' sort of life. I was honored to be named Head Girl and eagerly prepared for my NEWTs - I prepared for them, as it turned out, in more ways than one. Harry and Ron played Quidditch, and talked about it when they weren't playing it. I spent much of my time relaxing in the library, guiding the younger Gryffindor students, and cherishing long-sought female companionship with dear Ginny Weasley, a Gryffindor a year below me, and Minerva McGonagall, my wonderful Head of House. I also resumed dating, a (typical, ordinary, entirely unremarkable and therefore by definition not worth mentioning further) hallmark of teenaged girls."

"While the happiness and relative freedom of that period was a memory I shall cherish forever, in retrospect we could have been preparing for the plot sprung by Voldemort at the very end of our last term..."

~ "The (Second) Rise and Fall of Voldemort", an eyewitness account by Hermione Granger

*

Harry was woken just before the sun rose. One moment he sleeping so deeply that not even dreams could touch him, the next he was aware of everything, the soft mattress beneath him, the lessening chill of night air, and -

"Harry. Harry. Harry." Ron's voice was quiet but persistent.

Harry vaguely remembered being angry with Ron the night before. "What is it?" he snapped.

"Shhh!"

Harry poked his head out from under the Cloak. "Oh," he said. "Oh my."

In the gathering light Ron stood tense by his side, eyes riveted to a third form at the edge of the clearing. Stilted and thin, it was like a skeleton with skin - greenish skin. Only sagging breasts and long black hair gave evidence it was a woman. Her mouth was parted slightly, but no sound come out.

"What is it? A hag?"

"A banshee," Ron said, voice low, panicked. "Don't yell. Don't move. Her scream - it's deadly."

In his mind's eye, Harry saw the almost cartoonish drawing that graced their textbooks under 'B: Banshee'. He wished they had included the boils and the flaking skin and the body length, shroud-like hair, so he might've been better prepared for the encounter.

Speaking of being prepared... "Where's your wand?"

"In my pack, behind her. Yours?"

"Same."

The banshee took a step towards them, hand outstretched. Her fingernails were long and twisted and as gray as the sky, shaking as she beckoned. Harry watched them, sickened, then looked up and met her eyes. They were a deep, swirling black. She smiled at him, stretching the skin of her lips so much that it started to tear apart. She took another step, to the right, and it was clear she was aiming for the foot of the bed.

Ron must have seen this, too, because with one swift movement he placed himself between them, coming so close to the banshee that Harry saw him shudder.

Harry wanted to shake Ron. Why doesn't he just let her come to me - then sneak around and get his wand...

Whatever his reasons, the banshee didn't seem to mind the change. She fixed her dark, empty eyes on Ron.

"Oh, damn... " Ron muttered. "Wands. Get the wands, Harry." He took a step away from her, the backs of his knees pressing up against the Cot. As he strained out of her reach, the banshee opened her mouth for the gargling beginnings of a scream, and Ron forced himself to be still. The sound died away, and she came closer.

Harry stumbled out of the bed, sneaking around the clearing as fast as he could go, which was not fast at all. He was only halfway towards the packs when the banshee reached Ron, reached for him. Harry abandoned stealth and dashed for the packs.

After a moment of silence, followed by a sound like he was going to wretch, Ron closed his eyes and surrendered himself to her. The banshee brought her fingers around his head, lowering the dried green skin of her lips to kiss him -

"No!" Harry yelled, spinning. He yanked out his wand. "NO!"

The banshee drew back from Ron in shock, began to wail -

"Avada Kedavra!"

Ron and the hag both crumpled to the ground.

Harry dropped his wand in horror, dashing to his best friend's side. He had aimed the curse at the banshee, he had! There was no way he could have hit Ron. Was there?

"No no no no no - " Harry muttered, rolling Ron over so he could see his face. It was contorted with pain - and his lips were quivering.

"Thank god," he breathed, gathering Ron into a hug. He buried his face in Ron's robes, trying not to think about what had almost happened. Merlin, he hated this forest, he hated it - he couldn't wait to get out -

Ron was pushing him away frantically, a look of disgust on his face. Harry let him go, murmuring, "Ron?"

"I think I'm going to be sick."

And he promptly was.

Harry kept a steadying hand on his friend's shoulder as he heaved into the bushes, though he looked away. His eyes came to rest on the hag's corpse, which was only a slightly more attractive sight.

I killed it, he thought. He had been a little too overwhelmed by the dread that he had hit Ron to realize it before. I used Voldemort's curse, the curse that killed my parents... I used Avada Kedavra...

Ron had finished wretching, and was staring at Harry in concern. "She's not - not human, is she?" Harry asked, finally.

Ron shuddered. "Definitely not. Don't worry about it. A banshee is - less than an animal."

Harry looked at Ron, who was still shaking slightly, touched by the sacrifice he'd almost had to make. Like first year, on the chessboard. Like in the Shrieking Shack. He remembered his anger the night before, with a pang of regret. "Are you okay?" he asked.

Ron shook his head in a sort of diagonal direction that left Harry utterly confused. Ron looked up at him, wearily, and said, "I feel dirty."

Harry searched a moment for the right response, and settled on "Why don't you wash up?"

"Wash up?" muttered Ron. "How? I don't feel much like taking another dip in the river, thank you very much."

"No, I thought - I could use the water charm. Make my wand a hose?"

"Maybe... it's not so cold this morning..."

"I can always cast a spell to dry your clothes later." Harry offered, glad to be of any sort of help. "Would you like me to?"

Ron held his gaze for a long second, then nodded his assent. Harry used a spell to move the hag's corpse out of the clearing, then worked on making his wand spray water, while Ron kicked off his shoes and took off his shirt. He turned to Harry, gestured to his bare chest, and grinned. "Fire - er, water - away."

Harry returned the smile hesitantly, unsure of how to go about the task as he had offered. After all, he'd never so much as used a hose before. He remembered when he was little, on hot summer days, the Dursleys would take Dudley out on the lawn and let him run through under a hose like the other little children. It was a disgusting sight - even at four or five Dudley strained his bathing suits. Still, Harry would rather have been playing by his side than left in his dark, humid cupboard.

Harry walked behind Ron before saying the spell to make water, afraid that otherwise he'd hit his friend right in the face. Then, throwing caution to the wind, he began the incantation.

It must have been the cold water on his skin that made Ron tense, the bunched muscles of his back easily seen without a shirt. His fingers were clenched, too. "I'm sorry," Harry said. "I don't know how to make it warmer."

"What?" Ron said. "Oh. That's okay."

The spray of the wand was soft and slight, so Harry said the spell again, and the water came out harder. Harry took a few steps closer, and it was perfect, just like a shower. The water ran down Ron's back, wiping away the accumulated grime, soaking his trousers so they clung to his skin. His pants, hand-me-downs from the twins, cut off mid-calf, and Harry could see the rivulets of water as they ran down his leg, between his toes, onto the ground.

Harry made himself look up, concentrated on spraying the water into Ron's thin red hair. It was soon soaked, darker than usual, plastered against his neck. At least, the bottom part was - he wasn't tall enough to reach over Ron's head, so the top of his hair was dry with misty droplets. Harry shrugged and smiled.

Ron moved suddenly, his hands coming to his waist. He pulled up the trousers that had begun to fall from his wet skin. His arms were pressed to his sides almost protectively, the little orange hairs slick, and goosebumps clearly visible.

"You're cold, Ron," he said, trying to keep his voice even.

"Am I?" Ron said. "Right, then. You'd better stop."

Harry did so, the strong blast of water becoming a trickle, dropping from the tip of his wand and wetting his fingertips. Ron turned to face him, shaking his head like a dog. "What about that drying spell you said you knew?"

"Oh, that?" Harry asked. "Hermione said she was going to teach me..."

Ron raised his arms menacingly and lumbered towards Harry. "Does ickle Harrykins want a big, wet hug?"

Harry laughed and said the spell, and Ron was instantly dry.

"Thanks, Harry. That felt good."

"Not a problem," Harry replied. Instead of watching Ron getting dressed, Harry looked off into the bushes where he had dumped the corpse. "So, that was a banshee."

Ron nodded. His eyes were half-closed, his shoulders sagging as the adrenaline wore off.

"Well, when we tell Seamus, I bet he'll be glad he didn't come along."

Ron nodded again, a gesture that was interrupted by a yawn. "I can't say I'm glad that I did - if we have one more encounter like that I'm going to hex the whole forest."

"They ought to call it the Incredibly Dangerous Wizarding Tests, instead."

"Although I have to say the 'nastily exhausting' part also fits," replied Ron, who had sat back down on the Cot, and now glanced longingly at the pillow.

"Why don't you get some rest, then, Ron?" Harry suggested. "It's early, still."

Ron acquiesced, curling up beneath the Cloak. Harry came to sit on edge of the Cot, careful not to bump into Ron's invisible form. He didn't blame his friend for being tired - the second shift was always the longer one, and nearly kissing a walking corpse probably took the energy right out of you.

Besides, it gave Harry time to think, and that was something he was grateful for. He had been so sure before that there were teachers following them, yet the incidents of the past few days made him seriously doubtful. Perhaps an observer would have waited to see whether they could handle the three-headed dog or the pogrebin, but that banshee could've killed them at any moment, any instant she was provoked into a shout -

No, they were definitely not being watched, not by anything that wasn't hostile.

But why? This place was dangerous, Harry felt it in the pit of his stomach and the marrow of his bones. Three times one of them had nearly died. Three times dark creatures had attacked them. Three times they had come across things that might've beaten a full grown wizard, should've beaten them -

Dumbledore had put him in harm's way before. But he'd always had a reason...

Maybe he did have a reason, and Harry was too stupid to figure it out. Or maybe they were meant to be watched and protected, only something had gone horribly wrong -

Maybe the creatures weren't searching for him, weren't trying to attack him. Maybe they were on their way to Hogwarts.

Harry jerked around, tried to strain his eyes southwest to see through the trees. Nothing. Well, that was hopeful. The only thing he would've been able to tell from this distance was that Hogwarts had gone up in flames.

Merlin, he was becoming morbid. He went to Ron's bag, rummaged around, and emerged triumphant. He played Exploding Snap against himself until Ron woke up.

*

The events of the morning hurriedly repressed, the two boys packed up and set a quick pace towards the forest's edge. They were close to putting the heart of the woods behind them, and gladly so - Harry had shared his concerns with Ron and his friend had nervously agreed. "Something's not right, Harry, I know it."

Harry gestured in the general direction of Hogwarts. "I wish we could see it better."

"Why not?"

"Why not?" Harry echoed. "What do you mean? Do you know a spell that sees through wood?"

Ron laughed. "No. I meant we could climb a tree."

Harry's gaze shot up to where the tree tops scraped the sky. "I didn't know wizards climbed trees," he said softly.

"Course we do," Ron replied, slapping a large, sturdy trunk. "We're not allowed to have wands 'til we're eleven, what else are we going to do? There's a big maple behind the Burrow - you've seen it, Harry - that Fred and George and I used to go racing up. Ginny would watch us with this sad little face - mum always made her wear these awful dresses, and Ginny's too nice to ever complain about new clothes - and Percy would stand at the bottom shouting for us to come down, that it wasn't dignified. Anyway, it was usually an even race, cause Fred 'n George are older, but I'm a better climber - that is, it was an even race until the twins caught Charlie kissing a Muggle girl from the village, and blackmailed him into hexing the branches. Those blasted twigs used to hurl the most spiteful insults at me whenever I grabbed 'em..."

Harry listened to all of this, amused. When Ron eventually ran out of words they shared a grin. Then Ron asked, "So, you up for this?"

"I don't know," Harry admitted. "I've never climbed a tree before."

"Never climbed a tree?" Ron repeated.

"Little Whinging isn't exactly filled with forests, Ron." And if it was, Dudley would probably break the trees trying to climb them, and I'd never be allowed to do something that Dudley couldn't...

"Well. I guess you'll just have to learn quickly, then." And Ron was scrambling up the tree, arms and elbows and knees working furiously, reaching a height well above Harry before he could so much as protest. "What are you waiting for?"

Harry looked up at Ron and decided to trust him. He reached for one of the lowest branches, gripping the rough bark with uncertain fingers, and pulled himself so he was level with it. He balanced on that branch and held his hand out tentatively, finding another. And then another. Ron, seeing that Harry was following, continued his own climb.

Ron had strong arms to pull up his long, lanky body. Harry, for all his playing Quidditch, was physically quite weak, yet his small weight was easy enough to lift. Ron, Harry decided upon much observation, climbed up the trunk like Crookshanks would - swift and smiling and flashing orange - whereas Harry himself crawled up like a desperate sort of squirrel. A squirrel whose had too much butterbeer, Harry thought, after he hit his head on a branch he hadn't seen.

Still, the lump on his head not included, he was doing rather well.

They scaled the rest of the tree that way, Ron bracing him as he climbed, or sometimes going ahead and then returning to offer Harry his hand in a difficult spot. After a while Harry began to enjoy himself, the triumph of making a long reach, the exhilaration of acrobatics so high off the ground, the feel of the living tree beneath his hands and the muscles working in his arms and back -

"We've got to stop here, Harry."

Harry was actually disappointed. "Why?"

"Because the branches aren't strong enough to hold us any longer. They're unstable - Harry!" he exclaimed as his point was proven, and the branch beneath Harry's feet began to sway. Harry hurriedly crossed over to the branch Ron was standing on, the last strong, thick one.

"I'm fine," he assured his friend as he squeezed beside him. "Now, where's Hogwarts?"

As Harry looked away to the east, at the Hogwarts towers which rose distant against the sky, neither broken nor surrounded by smoke, he felt his back pressed against Ron's chest. He felt his smaller form secured by the curve of Ron's shoulder. He felt his friend's arm snug around his waist like a belt.

I'm supposed to be checking Hogwarts. I'm supposed to be...

He turned to say it was time to go down, that everything, apparently, was fine, and saw that Ron was not looking towards the castle, but was staring intently at his face.

"Here you go, Harry," said Ron, holding out something. A sliver of a leaf. "It was in your hair."

I'm supposed to be - to be -

Harry looked at the ground far below, at the thin branch shaking ever so slightly beneath his feet.

"The height," he said quickly, barely aware he was speaking aloud. "It's making me dizzy. I can't think straight."

"Let's go down, then," Ron replied. He looked confused.

"Yes," said Harry. "Let's go down."

*

When both their feet were planted firmly on the hard earth, Ron gave a little shrug. "I suppose we didn't get much out of that."

Harry mirrored his friend's gesture. "What else can we do?"

The answer turned out to be nothing, besides completing the task Dumbledore had set for them. They were closer to the village than Hogwarts, and once they reached the town they could charm a broom to get back. Until then, they were stuck on their own two feet. They avoided discussing what they could not help.

Taking a break by leaning against rocks and tree trunks, the two of them watched each other rest in awkward silence. Ron, after making sure he didn't sit on a bowtrucker this time, found a notch between two low branches of a sturdy tree and pulled himself up, long legs dangling almost to the ground. He leaned his cheek against the rough bark, and whenever he shifted position Harry could see dirt in his light red hair and indentations of treebark on his skin. For his part, Harry sat on a stone he had cleaned with a wave of his wand. v Ron tried to talk about Quidditch, but, after discussing it nonstop for the past few days, they had run out of things to say about it - possibly for the first time in the long years of their friendship. A discussion of Sirius ended fast - a discussion of the Weasleys, for all their number, ended even faster. They couldn't seem to get anything going - they always lapsed into a silence punctuated by shrugs and stares.

"I wonder how Hermione is doing." This was Harry, in a last ditch attempt to start a conversation. He had decided if one more line of discussion fell through he would spend the rest of the day brooding morosely over the pogrebin and the banshee, the uselessness of doing so be damned. "I wonder."

Ron rubbed his ears semiconsciously."Let's not ask her."

"Did you know she knew how to make a howler?"

"No."

"Really?"

Ron blinked at him - it was the only change in the expression on his face. "Harry, she's never told me anything she hasn't told you."

"Oh, I didn't think that - " Harry began, then stopped. "Nothing?"

Ron shook his head. "No."

"But you - not even - "

"No. We both decided at the beginning of - of - er, well, our 'budding relationship', as mum liked to call it, that we wouldn't let it change anything with you."

"What?" Harry snapped, startled and a bit put out. "Did you hold a conference on this?"

"Something like it," Ron replied. "You know Hermione. She likes to have everything worked out. When we broke up, she made up a chart of who to tell and when."

"I didn't think - Hermione - she's organized, yes, and she might pretend to be unfeeling - but you know her. She can get mad when it comes to her emotions. I thought she'd at least cried or yelled at you or - "

"It wasn't like that, Harry. Didn't you notice the part where we stayed friends?"

"Yeah, I did. You guys were always bickering but when you broke up, you didn't fight for weeks." Harry sighed. "It was so disappointing when you started up again."

Ron laughed. "We wondered when you were going to start teasing us about it. You seem to want to avoid it."

Harry shrugged, uncomfortable. "I'm never quite sure how to deal with you two."

"You say it as though we're a bunch of bubotubers," Ron pointed out, "or an assignment for potions class."

It was an accurate analogy, Harry decided after a moment's reflection. His friendship with Ron and Hermione for the past year had been like a potion. He'd watched it being made from the very beginning, knew the elements of caring and admiration and trust. But the most recent ingredients were unlabeled, secret. The potion - their friendship - had somehow changed. And he was afraid to drink of it.

He realized Ron was waiting for an answer, and flushed. "I don't want to say anything wrong."

"Wrong?" Ron asked curiously.

"Well," started Harry, his tone a bit defensive, "how was I to know there hadn't been some big fight you guys wanted to keep from me? I didn't - "

"Why would we keep it from you?" said Ron. He sounded wounded.

Harry threw his hands up in frustration, deciding that maybe awkward silence was underrated. "Because it was embarrassing. Because you didn't want to bother me when I had Voldemort on my mind. Because I - maybe I - "

"What?"

"Nothing. Never mind."

"No, really, Harry. What?"

It came out as something between a whisper and a mumble. "I thought... it might... have something - todowithme."

The sudden gleam in Ron's eye told Harry he had hit close to the mark. Ron's voice was carefully controlled as he asked, "Now why would you think that?"

Harry pressed his lips firmly together to keep himself from answering. This conversation needed to end before he said something - well, stupid. Besides, hadn't they better start moving again? Wasn't there a time crunch, a Dark threat - a graded examination, for Merlin's sake?

But Ron was speaking again, almost wheedling. "Harry, you said before - that we don't keep things from each other - so don't... tell me... "

"No." He was not going to talk about it.

"Harry..."

"No." This time he was firm, and he turned his face away.

There was a long pause, then Ron jumped down from his branch. "You know, one of these days I'm going to suddenly end a conversation without giving any damn reason whatsoever, and you're not going to like it."

Harry felt his stomach twist with guilt. "Ron, I - "

"Shut up, Harry. See? There you go. Conversation ended." Ron smiled, and it seemed - not false, but bitter. "Let's keep moving."

Ron grabbed his pack and pushed out of the clearing, leaving Harry to scramble along behind. Harry resisted the urge to do any number of things - hex his friend, hex himself, bang his head repeatedly against the nearest tree...

The worst part about it was that Ron was right. Harry was curious and yet he wasn't - he asked questions and then refused to listen to the answers. But damn it, he couldn't help it, he didn't know any other way to be.

He thought about going to Seamus Finnigan. 'So,' he would ask casually, 'how do normal people talk to their best friends?'

'Well,' Seamus would answer. 'You open your mouth. Words come out. It's really quite simple.'

But then Seamus only had one best friend, and Dean wasn't inconveniently in love with anybody. That Harry knew of, anyway.

Harry pushed a low-hanging tree branch out of his way and wondered when things got so complicated. Defeating Voldemort seemed positively simple compared to this. Yet it wasn't a rhetorical question. Harry knew exactly when things had gone from bad to worse.

One late night he had stumbled across Ron and Hermione in the common room, coming back from Hagrid's in his Invisibility Cloak. They had been sitting in separate chairs, which was not in itself unusual. After all, Hermione the Head Girl never enjoyed public displays of affection. Yet whenever they were alone, or with Harry, they had felt relaxed enough to be themselves, to hold hands, to kiss, to stroke each other's hair. Seeing his two best friends so close made Harry a little ill.

He hid his feelings well, but he was always acutely aware of the two of them. And so when he accidentally happened upon the late night tryst, he was surprised to see them sitting modestly apart, talking as calmly and quietly as though they were discussing homework.

"So," Ron murmured, "we won't tell him?" His face as he said this was relieved.

"If you won't, I won't," Hermione replied. Her voice was steady and muted, but sort of taut - as though there were other words she'd rather say, other words she wasn't letting out.

"It has to be his choice," Ron said, watching his hands gripped together on his lap. Then he looked up and caught her eyes, gazed deeply into them and said, "I love you, Hermione. Don't ever forget that."

He wasn't supposed to be there, he wasn't supposed to hear their words, he wasn't supposed to feel as breathless as he did. He choked, his lips scraping against the fabric of the Invisibility Cloak, and ran from the room.

That had been months ago. Months of Quidditch and chess and free time spent just being together, precious moments held against the day when they would fight and die, or live and leave, and quite frankly both options scared Harry senseless. Months where politics and Dark magic and murder were fair game in any conversation, but they never, ever broached the subject of what Ron and Hermione had decided that February night.

Harry shook his head to clear it of his memories, and made himself walk more quickly, so he could catch up to Ron. He reached out to touch his shoulder, preparing an apology that would hopefully make everything go back to the way it was, when he glanced to his side and -

"Ron, look!" he whispered.

Pushing its way through a pile of leafy green underbrush was a unicorn.

Its one long horn glinted in the sunlight, a white sparkle tinged with a thousand other colors that dazzled the eyes. The unicorn tossed its head and the reflecting light shifted so Harry was no longer blinded; they could see its pure coat, also white. A pale blue eye met Harry's.

They stood like that for a long moment, none of the three either daring or deigning to move. Then the unicorn nickered softly, turned, and vanished.

Harry was moving to follow it before he even knew what he was doing.

They were well off the main path when they caught sight of it again. It stood waiting by a slowly running stream, dipping its nose deep into the water, the white hair of its mane floating on the surface without getting wet. When the boys stumbled up to it, it turned and continued on.

They kept on following, through tangled bushes where Harry hadn't believed a path could exist, over broken stones that no mere horse could trod over, that even he and Ron had to crawl on to pass. Finally, the unicorn stopped, before a thick thatch of trees and plants.

"Is this where we're meant to be?" Harry asked softly.

The unicorn blinked, then tossed its head in the direction of the trees.

"Thank you for leading us to it, then," said Harry. He reached out hesitantly to stroke the unicorn's neck. The skin there was as soft as any velvet or silk. Looking down, he spotted golden hooves, but he thought the pearly white coat and blue eyes more beautiful.

The unicorn submitted to his petting for a little longer, then stepped backwards. A flick of the tail later, it was gone.

"Well," said Ron, clearing his throat. His face was flushed and there was a grin on his face. "I didn't know you could still do that."

"What?" Harry asked curiously.

Ron's ears turned red. "Nothing."

"I want to know," Harry said, looking at him suspiciously.

After a moment, Ron shrugged and said, "You won't like it. Remember from class? Only girls and children."

Now Harry was blushing. It was one thing to know you were as virgin as the day you were born, and Ron had probably guessed it - after all, his best friend hadn't spotted him leaving the dorms in the middle of the night - but still, it was another thing to prove it. Well, he thought defensively, I've been just the teensiest bit busy - you know, fighting a war, avenging my parents. Although, this last year's been very calm, and - oh, bother. Never mind.

Ron, thank Merlin, was not taking the opportunity to tease him, how ever eager to do so he had seemed at first. He was actually babbling, trying to change the conversation.

"... while you were... the unicorn - the branches opened up, and the clouds - and the sun - ... very shiny," he finished lamely. "So, how about them Cannons?"

"I guess," Harry said, trying to relieve his friend's discomfort, "we should go in."

Ron turned to the copse. Branches stretched up to the sky, making walls without openings. "How?"

Harry searched his memory for an appropriate charm. He could make slugs to eat the wall, but they might get hungry and have whatever was inside for dessert. Hermione had showed him a charm that made plants shrivel up and die, but that was a bit of, well, overkill. Maybe he could find a tunneling charm?

While Harry was busy, Ron resorted to the only thing he could think of. "Alohamora!" There was the sound of crinkling tree-spines, and the forest bent and broke open. He grinned.

"I didn't know there was a door," Harry mumbled. "Good thinking," he said grudgingly to Ron, giving him a scowl that wasn't really a scowl.

Ron was undaunted. "Now let's see who gets more Charms NEWTs," he scoffed, pushing into the clearing. After a few steps, he stopped, startled, one hand reaching out to grasp a branch for support. Harry came around the other side of Ron.

"A Centaur!" Harry exclaimed. This one looked vaguely familiar. Bright hair as red as Ron's, cascading down his back and on his chin in a beard that was thick but neat. A tanned, muscled belly that smoothed into a horse's chestnut flank. He searched his memory for a name, and came up with one. "Ronan?"

"Yes, Harry Potter. I am Ronan."

Suddenly Harry remembered the last time he had seen this particular Centaur - and the last time he had seen a wild unicorn. It had been dead on the Forest floor, blood spilling out so quickly that not even Voldemort's eager tongue could catch it all. He shuddered. "What do you want?"

Ronan raised an eyebrow at so blunt a question, but did not take offense. "There are things that you must know."

Harry considered this. "So tell me."

"Very well," said Ronan. He gestured to a large stone tucked below some overhanging branches, and Ron and Harry took seats. "You remember, I am sure, the night we first met?"

"Yes, of course. I almost died."

"You should have died," said Ronan calmly.

Ron hissed something under his breath which Harry was glad he did not quite understand. Ronan did not deign to reply. Ron scowled and repeated an edited version, which was, "Why the bloody hell would you say that?"

"It isn't a matter of right or wrong, good or bad. It was the stars - and they said that Harry Potter would fall to Lord Voldemort that night."

"Screw your stars," interjected Ron. "He didn't."

Harry put a restraining hand on his friend, but looked darkly at Ronan. "Because Firenze helped me."

For the first time, Ronan's composure slipped. Anger flashed across his face. "We do not speak his name, any more than your people speak the name of Voldemort!"

"What - why?" Harry was almost numb with confusion. "He only did what he thought was right."

Ronan shook his head. "You do not understand. Centaurs read the stars, and gain the knowledge of the future. This knowledge is power, and so great is it, that we could use it to rule the world. Not even your Voldemort could stand against us."

"So why don't you use it?"

"Because we realize that no creature should have so much power. Not for good or evil. When that young Centaur helped you, he committed a crime so great that we were at first helpless to comprehend it. But now we know what must be done, and we are here to do it."

"Do what?"

"When he bent his will against the stars', your friend the Centaur moved the world in a different direction than it was meant to take. For at your death, the whole wizarding world would have been finally pushed to discover the secrets of the Forest, the secrets which you now approach today. But you will pass them by, unless I help you, and so I do."

"Secrets - " Harry turned to Ron. The other's gaze was a mixture of fear and excitement and sadness. Harry gave him a shaky smile, then looked at Ronan. An idea occurred to him, and he asked suddenly. "First, please, if you're allowed to tell us the future - will anyone die? Ron or Hermione or Sirius - or - "

Ronan gave him a baleful stare. "Do you truly want an answer? Very well. Yes, many will die. Your friend here, and the others who walk the Forest. Your godfather and your headmaster, also..."

Shock took Harry's breath away, more quick and more painful than any spell. He blinked once, twice, before he felt tears threaten. He buried his head in his hands, pressing his palms into his eyes to keep from crying. "Ron - " he said, reaching out to hold onto him.

But Ron was merely frowning, his hand gently patting Harry's hair, smoothing it almost absent-mindedly. "Oh, sod off," he said to the Centaur. "Of course we'll die, everybody does. Can you tell us when?"

"I can," said Ronan. "I won't."

Harry's head snapped up. "You - what? You - " relief flooded through him, followed quickly by anger. "Was that your idea of a joke?"

"It was a lesson," Ronan said evenly. "If you are to succeed, you must know that the truth is more dangerous than any lie. Now, if you will let me continue with my message?"

"Yes," said Harry, his voice no longer accusing, but sullen.

"We Centaurs have lived in this forest since before Hogwarts was founded. For a long time, students were free to roam through the trees, picking samples for school, or simply playing. Sometimes professors came to wander through the eves as well - and even Helga Hufflepuff enjoyed climbing high on the branches. Salazar Slytherin came here, too, before he died, exploring deep into the Forest."

"We had guests in the Forest long after the Founder's time, and most were welcome, though increasingly they were of the Darker kind. Every fifty years or so, there was a strange occurrence, a sort of lightning storm contained in the very heart of the forest. Nothing ever came of it, but still, it was a curious thing, at least to those whom cannot find answers in the stars."

"A curious thing..." Harry echoed. Ronan was offering them another mystery, and calling it 'help'. "That's it?"

"I will tell you this also," Ronan replied. "The last time the lightning was seen was almost exactly fifty years ago, and for the first time it caused harm. One boy was injured, another killed, and when the light flashed the forest echoed with their cries."

"We read about the student who was killed," Ron said, confused. "But it never mentioned the other - "

"The injured boy had the skill and talent to heal himself of the fever and blood loss. An impressive accomplishment, no doubt, but he was destined for even greater things..."

Harry stared at Ronan, the phrase echoing in his mind. "Greater things? You don't mean - Voldemort - "

"I can not answer that question. Already I have stayed too long, and said too much." He turned to leave.

"But - " Harry began, standing up to run after him. "Oh, please wait! I'm not going to ask you about the future."

Ronan sighed, and looked back at Harry. "One last question, then."

Harry groped for words. "If the Forest is so terrible, then why - there was a unicorn which led us here - and it was so bright, and beautiful - "

Ronan smiled, and his eyes for once seemed gentle and encouraging. "Why, Harry Potter. What better place to light a candle, than in the darkness?"

And he was gone.

*

They returned to the main path in silence, pulling back thorny branches and helping each other across streams. When at last they reached the place where they had left the path, marked by a single unicorn hoofprint, Harry decided to speak.

"Ron, I - "

"Harry - "

They both stopped short. "You first," said Harry.

"I just wanted to say that I'm sorry, you know, for getting angry earlier. It doesn't mean anything. If You-Know-Who - if Voldemort is after you, I don't want you thinking you can't talk to me." Ron flushed a bit, but nodded his head to show he meant it. "What, er, what were you going to say?"

How can I explain to you how frightened I've been, when I don't even know it myself? Harry took a deep breath, looking up at the sky for a moment. His gaze lingered there, and he realized it was beginning to pink. "Did you know the sun's setting?"

Ron tore his eyes from Harry's face and followed his gaze. "What? We didn't spend so long in the trees!" exclaimed Ron. "We spent an hour, maybe, at the most."

Harry stared for a moment, then kicked the dirt. "I am so sick," he muttered, "of things I don't understand."

Trusting to the sky and their weary bodies instead of to their own sense of time, Ron and Harry set about in search for a place to sleep. The land around the path was rocky and filled with underbrush, and they couldn't find a clearing. At last Ron spotted in the distance the sloping gray form of a cave.

"There," he said with determination. "We're sleeping there."

Harry had neither the will nor the inclination to argue. He followed in Ron's wake as the bigger boy pushed his way through the bushes to get to the cave. It was smaller than it had seemed upon first glance, and surprisingly empty. There wasn't much more than dust and pebbles on the ground.

"Dinner?" Harry asked, hoping Ron would understand that he wanted to keep to the mundane.

"What do we have left?"

Harry stuck his hands in his pack and came out with several cans. "Noodles. Meat. And, um, pudding."

Ron shuddered. "I hate pudding. Let's go with the noodles."

Tossing the container to Ron obligingly, Harry turned to the mouth of the cave. "There's got to be some sort of protection we can set up, so we don't have to spend half the night sitting guard again."

"Try an alarm," offered Ron. "You can set one of those to stay while we're sleeping. It won't really protect us, but it'll wake us so we can protect ourselves."

Harry followed Ron's advice, then eagerly accepted the food his friend offered. They sat cross-legged on the ground, bandying about theories of how they had managed to lose a good portion of the day.

"Maybe Ronan did it," Ron said, twirling the noodles onto his fork and sticking it into his mouth. He chewed, swallowed, and continued. "Made time move faster, or something."

"I don't know. Can Centaurs do that?" Harry paused to take a bite of his meal. "Maybe it was a spell. Or a reverse Time-turner."

"Does that even exist?"

Harry sighed.

"I'll take that as a 'no'."

"Take it as an 'I don't know'," Harry replied. "I get the feeling someone's playing with us here, but it's - it's hard to do anything else when you don't know what's going on."

Ron caught Harry's eyes, then dropped his gaze down to his dinner. He took a last bite, then pushed the empty bowl away. "I'm done."

Harry finished the rest of his meal while Ron got the Cot set up, pulling out the Invisibility Cloak and tucking it in around the frame, as though it were a real blanket. "Hospital corners, Ron?" he asked.

"What?"

"Never mind." Harry didn't feel very eager to explain Muggle phrases to his friend. He dumped what was left of his noodles in the fire, waited for them to be burned up, then put the fire out. The cave plunged into darkness. He stumbled to the Cot, accidentally stepping on Ron in the process. A few exclamations of pain and muttered apologies later, he eased himself into the cot beside Ron.

"Harry - is this weird for you?"

Harry would have jumped at the sudden question if he wasn't aware that Ron would feel the shaking of the Cot. "No," he said evenly, "why?"

"Just - I'm not tired. I thought we could talk, but - you know, I -"

"No, I don't know," Harry replied. "Perhaps you could tell me?"

"Will you cut me off again?" Ron's voice was flat, but it contained a challenge.

Harry grimaced. "I started to say this before, that - that listening to Ronan being so damned cryptic - it made me realize how stupid I was being. Trying to run from what you were saying." The sentence was spiralling rapidly out of his control. "Trying to run from what I was thinking. Ron, I - "

Softly, gently. "What is it?"

"Don't you realize that it's over?" Harry whispered. "These past seven years I've spent here. At Hogwarts. It's the only thing I've ever known. The only good thing, anyway. I don't think the Dursleys really count."

There was a snort from the other side of the Cot. "Locked you in a bloody cupboard. Known you seven years, and I still can't believe that."

Harry shivered at the anger in Ron's voice. He wanted to say, It was just small, and dark, but it wasn't - it wasn't so bad. I liked being in there. I only hated when the doorknob turned, and you didn't know who it was - who or what was coming in from the outside -

He couldn't say it, had already said too much, so he only replied, "Did you know that I'm almost as afraid of leaving Hogwarts, than I am of Voldemort?"

Ron seemed to be groping for words. "I don't have an answer to that, Harry."

"You don't have to have an answer, Ron."

There was another long silence. This time it was Harry who broke it. "Aren't you going to miss it? The school, I mean? Hogwarts?"

"No," Ron said firmly. Harry stiffened in surprise. "I'll tell you what I'm going to miss. I'm going to miss playing Quidditch on a team. I'm going to miss Seamus and Dean, because I probably won't stay in touch with them. I'm going to miss watching Malfoy taking lectures from Hermione. And I'm going to miss you - miss having you with me so much, almost every moment of the day."

Why wasn't Harry's throat working properly? There seemed to be a lump of something stuck in it. "I'll miss you too, Ron."

There was a short, surprising bark of laughter. "Listen to us! Like mum's not going to make you visit the Burrow at least once a month." It won't be the same, thought Harry. After a moment, Ron said hoarsely into the air that hung heavy between them, "I don't think it'll be the same."

Harry closed his eyes. He moved to press his fingers into Ron's palm.

And Ron took them, and held them, and they fell asleep without another word said.

*

The figures stood in a ring, black robes scraping at the ground, covered from the tops of their bowed heads to the ground which they would kiss.

"Welcome, my little Death Eaters," came a deceptively gentle voice. "It's so good of you to be here."

"My Lord," they said in answer. "My Lord." The words whispers to hide the fear, or shouts to mask it.

"No doubt you know that a plan has been long in the making. The time has come for it to be begun. In fact, for the past week, dear Wormtail has been working to set the scene. Yet now that the moment is here, I need more than this pathetic creature to achieve our victory. Are you ready?"

Those who had been ready to torture children, to kill their adversaries, to deliver the Dementor's Kiss, shuffled uncertainly. Their words said what their voices did not. "We are ready, my Lord."

"Good," said Voldemort, turning to a huddled form beside him. " What is your name, boy?"

The strength of his voice was surprising, from so small a figure. "No. I won't tell you."

"Crucio." His screams filled the air filled the air for a brief moment, then softened and became whimpers. "What is your name, boy?"

"I - I won't."

"Imperio." The figure jerked as he fought, then relaxed, compelled. "What is your name, boy?"

"Dennis Creevey."

The Dark Lord nodded. "Very well, Dennis Creevey. Dumbledore, the fool, has surely told you all about how I'm going to kill all the Muggle-borns, starting with the sniveling little brats at Hogwarts. But, you remind yourself, no one can Apparate into Hogwarts. It's unplottable, too. But there is one way to get in and out of Hogwarts, and you will help me to do it."

"You will be my portkey."

A startled gasp came from Lucius Malfoy. Usually Voldemort punished anyone who so much as breathed when he did not command it; the cry had been one of surprise and admiration, so the Dark Lord permitted it. He gestured for the blond-haired Death Eater to continue.

"Has this ever been done before?" Lucius asked, looking over Dennis Creevey as though he were a particularly fascinating experiment.

The Dark Lord smiled. "In my younger days. He'll die instantly - but his corpse will remain a portkey."

"But - how? "

"He will not be fully active at first. There is a loyal student left in Hogwarts with the power to initiate the portkey. She will do so, killing the boy, and we will take him back to Hogwarts, where we will kill Dumbledore."

"Not Harry Potter?"

"No. Harry Potter will be otherwise disposed of."

Lucius looked as though he wanted to ask another question, but thought better of it. He stood aside. Voldemort smiled in satisfaction, drew his wand from the folds of his black robes, and muttered a spell. Lucius recognized it - it was the forced apparition spell, which he and the Lestranges had perfected. It had taken many trials to get it exactly right, and poor Karkaroff had never been the same.

The little boy disappeared, and they waited a long time, the Death Eaters afraid to speak and Voldemort having no desire to. In the distance, a bird gave a trembling chirp, as though even the beasts of the forest and kings of the sky knew to fear Lord Voldemort. He heard the cry, and smiled.

At long last, the crumpled body of the boy reappeared. There was a young girl, perhaps fourteen, standing with him. The scarf on her neck was Ravenclaw blue and her clear brown eyes were wide and triumphant. Seeing the imposing form before her, she fell to her knees, her hair spilling out and hiding her face as she kissed the hem of his robes.

"You shall be rewarded," Voldemort said, his voice higher than ever with excitement. "But later. Now - it begins."

The Death Eaters gathered round Dennis Creevey's still form, and, as one, grabbed it. They disappeared.

The girl watched, and laughed, and sobbed.

*