Harry Potter and His New Standards

A/N: I hate computers. Especially mine. I don't know how many times it's happened throughout this fic, but I tried to open this chapter's file off of my disc, and it 'couldn't read it'. My Microsoft Word on both computers froze up a couple times trying to recover the chapter... thirty pages, Bill Gates! No biggy... *@&#^$%+!!! :@ So, I got a load of caffeine and went at it, determined to get a chapter up before the release of OotP.

I look forward to new spells to use, to add the Order into fic #2 (maybe this one), incorporate Grimmauld Place, and to get a few new underlying plot ideas. This was meant to be the last chapter submitted before OotP came out, so I scrambled to finish it but, of course, the submission form closed down before I could put it up. :: sigh ::

I, how do you say, strongly, strongly urge you to go to this thread: http://www.fictionalley.org/schnoogle/reviews/showthread.php?s=&postid=118011#post118011 and hear my hopes on loopholes and the cooperation of you guys, the readers. Only if you've read OotP cover to cover, though. And reply! I'm on my knees, here!

Now I'll leave you alone to the chapter, with a forest full of plot bunnies for you to search for. It's a rainforest of them: growing bigger every chapter. "Welcome to the jungle, It gets worse here every day..."

Chapter 29--Mister Malignant

Courage is always greatest when blended with meekness; intellectual ability is most admired when it sparkles in the setting of modest self-distrust; and never does the human soul appear so strong as when it foregoes revenge and dares to forgive any injury.

*()%()*

Fatigue was something Holly had become accustomed with--the loathing held against waking herself everyday. But then, despite the fact she'd seen a late night and then sunup the next morning, she was amazingly alert. Her stomach was filled with butterflies hatched from odd disquietude, and her nerve endings were tingling against the cold.

Ginny was keeping good watch, tentatively looking behind them and from side to side. Holly was relying on her field of vision and hearing, though, because she had to keep the dirt trail (which somehow remained clean of snow) in sight so she didn't lose her way.

Using the Four-Point Spell to check their direction now and then, she and Ginny cut their path relatively straight. It wasn't until the trees had started to thicken that they slowed their speed--strolling to make up for energy lost from running.

Holly cleared her throat. "So..." she began, trailing off.

"Yes?"

She thought a bit--it wasn't a central topic Holly enjoyed, but one that she'd really felt the need to bring up. "You and Hermione were--are friends, right?"

"Right..." Ginny gave her a wary look out of the corner of her eye. There were stray hairs pulled out of her hair-tie, hanging around her face a bit--blocking off her expression slightly.

Holly rolled her shoulders, trying to reposition her backpack. "Do you happen to know what her Supantoris is?"

Ginny bit her lip, shaking her head. "No... I haven't talked to her much lately. Why?"

"No one seems to know," Holly told her. "She didn't tell me, which I don't blame her much for, but she didn't say anything to Lavender or Parvati either. For all I know, Harry and Ron are uninformed. Doesn't that strike you as a little strange?"

"Nah," replied Ginny indifferently, "that's how Hermione is--no assumptions escape her before double-checking her theory at the library." She shrugged. "She needs to be absolutely sure about things before giving someone a solution."

"I'd like to think that if the Sorting Hat told Hermione her Supantoris, she could be pretty sure about it," Holly pointed out.

Ginny raised her eyebrows, half-smiled at her and said, "That's true. Whatever it is--it couldn't be much--er, worse--than being an Adopter."

"Or much more awesome," added Holly. A junction of silence followed before she asked, "Whatever happened to yours and Hermione's friendship?"

Ginny was quiet for a moment more, and seeming to figure Holly's need--she started from the beginning, "We became friends behind-the-scenes my third year, during the Triwizard Tournament. Hermione needed a girl to talk to--you know what it's like trying to have a decent chat with Parvati or Lavender. And, her best friends were... are... Harry and Ron--she couldn't have many ladies' aid sessions with those two. So we studied together and talked a lot--about the Tournament, Krum, Harry..."

"She had the hots for Harry, too?"

Ginny shrugged again. "Everyone likes Harry. Except a select few males... and you, I guess."

"What makes everyone want the Boy-Who-Lived... uh..."

"in bed?" she finished. "It's a universal fetish, I suppose."

Holly raised her eyebrows. "Is it the glasses?

Ginny picked up where she left off as though she hadn't heard her. "Well, it wasn't long before Hermione had better things to do--the relationship faded as hers with Viktor got more time consuming. Then last summer she got closer with Ron, and then when Harry showed up she spent most of her time stressing over him, prefect duty, and O.W.L.s. She'd rearranged her priorities to how they'd been before... I wasn't one of them."

Holly stepped over a gray tree that looked as though it had fallen in the wind of the night before. Uncomfortably she replied, "Oh."

"I thought I could confront her about it, yes," Ginny stated, seeming to read her mind just how Hermione could. "And, then again..."

"You could also shove bamboo underneath your fingernails."

Ginny grinned. "Right. So I just let it alone."

They continued to walk, and the only sound for a long time was their feet crunching through the snow and the swishing of their jeans and cloaks. But finally a rustling behind them broke the rhythm of those sounds. Ginny had glanced over her shoulder just before the movement made itself heard. She whipped around, and Holly did shortly after. Their eyes fell on a shrub alongside their path--its leaves still hanging on bravely through the chilly winter month were shuddering.

"Do you wanna get it?" Holly whispered through the corner of her mouth, leaning sideways.

"You do the honors," Ginny told her, motioning forward.

Holly sighed and stepped forward, drawing her wand. It was a small assuagement--but whatever was behind the bush couldn't be much bigger than she was--unless, of course, it was crouching.

*()%()*

It didn't take long to spot Holly and Ginny's trail. In the rush of things, no spell had been used to hide their footprints. They broke off from the packed snow of people who'd bustling around the main entrance waiting for their carriages, and headed straight for the Forbidden Forest.

Ginny's short, careful footsteps ran alongside Holly's longer strides. They followed them, jogging, but stopped when a new set of tracks joined the path from the side.

Long gaits, bigger prints--Harry quickly discerned that they belonged to a boy, at least. The trail didn't break off, though. It followed them straight into the forest.

Harry ran in front, Ron behind him, and Hermione in the back. He was jogging relatively fast, he thought, until a loud BANG! and an echoing shout reached his ears. Harry stalled, and Ron skidded to a halt beside him. Hermione managed to fight inertia, though, and stopped behind them.

"You hear that?" Harry half-panted, glancing over at his comrade. Ron looked a little flushed from running, his freckles fading against the color in his face. He turned his head and glanced down at Harry, cerulean eyes sleepy but alert.

"Sounded like...Holly?" he murmured, gazing a little to the right where the sound had come from. He threw a forethoughtful look back at Hermione, but she didn't say anything, but from tossing a gaze over his shoulder, Harry saw she was too busy looking in the direction of the shout.

Harry didn't speak anything more, but made his point clear when doubling speed--running as though he were very overdue for Potions.

*()%()*

Spell unmistakably in mind, Ginny watched as Holly positioned her wand strangely--holding the end between the tips of two of her fingers, the majority of the wood resting against the inside of her arm. Ginny was just about ready to ask what Holly was doing before a head a sonorous BANG! exploded from Holly's wand.

A cord flew out from the end of her wand and either end plunged into the bush. A system of moves that melded together swiftly, Holly stuck her hand through the curve in the rope, twisted it, grabbed onto the sides of the cord, and pulled hard.

First a pair of cord-wrapped wrists, then arms, then a head, shoulders, torso and legs were dragged out from behind the shrub. With an 'Oof!' the person landed on the ground at Holly's feet. She shouted angrily, and yanked the blond-haired culprit to its feet.

Malfoy.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Holly snapped furiously, eyes narrowing.

Malfoy swung his hands back and forth and said, "Black! Just out on a walk--wasn't expecting to see you here..." He smiled winningly. "How sweet. Lovers out for a sunrise stroll?"

One had to admit, Ginny figured while she watched Draco flash a brilliant, white set of teeth, that he wasn't completely unfortunate. In fact, he'd grown to be rather handsome since he'd gotten taller--and broadened out a bit, sharp edges and planes squaring, rounding, and softening themselves, however very slightly. Ever since he abandoned whatever foul product he used to slick his hair this way and that, Malfoy's locks fell, frankly, perfectly; and color, however minimal, had been known to rise in his pale cheeks from time to time.

His leer affected Holly for a moment, her expression cooled. There just had to be something about the smirk Draco sported if he could make a rival still drinking the newness of her hatred forget her anger for even a split-second. It wasn't long, though, until her eyes squared again and she went on interrogating him.

"I'm not sure," she muttered, "then again the forest is only used by secretive couples and nefarious blond bastards, right?" Ginny stepped forward to stand beside Holly.

"I could think of a few others, but those would probably be the two basic categories, yes," Malfoy drawled, nodding his head. His eyes were sparkling with what could nearly be considered excitement, but his voice was as low and rocky as ever. "That's why I was surprised upon running into you, Black... I never thought you'd find someone who'd shag you. Then again, you're a bit of a--"

Holly cut him off, yanking his wand out of his hand, shoving it violently into her cloak pocket, grabbing the neck of his cloak, and snarling, "Why did you follow us, you dotterel piece of shit?"

Draco faked an injured look. "Ouch," he said softly. "But, I told you before, I was only on a--"

"Shut up, Malfoy, no one would go for a casual little walk in the forest at sunrise no matter how moronic they were. I have PMS and a wand. Don't. Mess. With. Me. You--"

She stopped, though, looking to her right. If she hadn't been horrified enough at the time, Holly had met her general repugnance quota for the day already as she watched Harry, Ron, and Hermione run toward them.

Ginny wasn't sure whether she should be put out or relieved to see the trio. There was certainly safety in numbers, but this was farcical. Besides that, judging by the expression on Harry's face, it didn't look like this was going to go over well with him.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" he asked through his panting, staring at Holly.

"I'm trying to get a few words out of Malfoy, Harry..." she replied coolly, although her cheeks had been brushed with a newer shade of magenta, "Why do you ask?"

"Do you realize how... how stupid you are?!" Harry flamed, eyes popping at Holly.

Malfoy whistled. "Nice words, Potter."

Ron made himself heard by snapping, "Piss off, Malfoy." Draco sniggered, Holly's hand still clutching at the neck of his cloak.

Holly and Harry didn't seem to notice this, though. "What do you want, Harry?"

He didn't answer this, and instead stated, "You have no idea what you're doing! Why are you doing this?" Malfoy laughed again.

"Pretty sure," said Holly, "that I made what I'm doing and how I'm going to do it clear."

"You can't drag people into all these dangerous things you do all the time, Holly!" exclaimed Harry.

He opened his mouth to continue, but Holly interjected with a sharp bark of a laugh and questioned, "When was the last time I did something dangerous and dragged someone into it?"

Harry stopped for a moment, brow furrowed in frustration before saying, "The last time you ended up in the forest?"

"Oh yes," Holly said loudly, "I remember chaining all three of you together and pulling you in here, blindfolded, for kicks." She heaved a breath, "I was abducted on the way to Hagrid's!"

Harry stopped arguing with Holly now, stepping back and letting Ron fill the gap. Ginny felt a little sore for him--all he was trying to do was watch over her, really. Just how all of her brothers watched over her, Harry had taken up the slot as Holly's guardian.

Now Ron was angrily saying something along the same argument Harry had before, and Holly was catapulting her thoughts back. Ginny had never seen those two argue--Holly and Ron. One of them would verbally bash them, and the other would either retort quietly or step out of it, saying nothing. Then again, it'd been a long time since Ginny saw Holly and Ron do anything together; it was no secret why, either.

Ron was basing his argument on Ginny, being a little more specific about whom Holly was placing in danger. Ginny tried to interrupt over and over, wanting to say that Holly hadn't done anything wrong--but Ron quieted her with a glare each time. Malfoy's laughing was becoming clearer, more sincere if his snickers could be called so. Finally Hermione shushed her boyfriend, stepping forward and taking up her speech with slower and calmer tones, one hand resting softly on his forearm.

"Holly," she said, "what you're doing is too bold--this forest is full of dangers."

Holly rolled her eyes and finally dropped Draco's cloak. "The most dangerous thing we've come across thus far is Malfoy!"

Draco grinned. "And what scarier thing could they encounter than me?"

"Shut up, Malfoy," Holly muttered, leveling her eyes with his, "I don't need your input right now, all right? I'll tell you when I'd like your two Knuts."

Hermione plugged onward, "I just don't think it's very wise to be in here--it's a Dark place. You don't know half of the things that are in here..."

"And you do?" she inquired, an eyebrow disappearing under a stray lock dark hair.

"No," Hermione stated evenly, "I don't--and that makes it worse. We were worried, Holly."

"Pff, I'm sure," Holly replied sarcastically. "What're you going to do, now? Take me back? Detentions from the lovebirds?" Ron flinched, and Ginny just saw Holly throw a self-satisfied smirk his way.

Draco cleared his throat. "I could give you a d--"

"Shut up, Malfoy," Holly inculcated, sounding increasingly bored with the phrase.

"Although I'd like to take you back to the castle and hit you very hard over the head with a broomstick," Harry said, "no. We're coming with you."

Ron and Hermione nodded in agreement.

"What?"

Holly fought it, but they resisted grandly. She finally gave in, and as she turned to keep walking, planes of her face sharp as she bit hard on the insides of her cheeks, Malfoy said, "Would someone like to tell me what's going on, now?"

"No," Holly said, struggling to keep her tone smooth, "you will be left in the dark."

"Untie--"

"No."

"Give me my--"

"No, Malfoy: you opted to be the prisoner, here." He opened his mouth again and she added, "And if you try and pull that detention bull shit on us I will put my foot so far up your ass you'll be sucking my toes till graduation."

Draco smiled demurely, but Holly turned before she could see the finished product.

*()%()*

They walked quietly for some time, and Draco could feel his wrists scabbing underneath the cords that Holly had bound him with. Blood had appeared around the scratchy ropes quite a while ago and dried, but he didn't say anything.

She would refuse to untie him, anyway--saying once more that she wouldn't let him run back and tattle.

The six of them slid betwixt the trees that were growing tightly together, into a clearing.

Draco had been able to hear water for some time, and now they could see the source. A wide river was flowing lazily there, devoid of ice or any evidence that it was late December. They walked toward it, looking down into the water. It was perfectly clear--you could easily see to the bottom.

Golden leaves flecked the water here and there, floating down it like spinning, half-sunken parchment boats. A fish flashed by occasionally, speeding down-river. The rippling water sparkled in the morning light, a beautiful picture against the dark, snowy background of the wood.

They followed it along the snow-less sand bank for a while before stumbling across three, white canoes--pulled up along the bank diagonally, resting side-by-side. They looked flawless, brighter than snow, carved, shaped, and sanded perfectly. There were two benches inside either one, along with two matching white oars. Other than that, they were completely empty.

Black walked forward, and picked up one of the oars. She pointed out a line of careful, curving ruins written along the handle. "Tengwar," she told them knowledgeably, "I can't read much of it--but it says something about swiftness and strength... maybe it's a blessing or somethin'."

She set the oar back into the canoe, and straightened back up. "These belong to the Elves."

"No joking, Black!" he exclaimed, posing his amazement.

She shot him a quelling look. "We can just wait here," Holly continued, abandoning her glare and adopting a tone of excitement.

*()%()*

They waited, and waited, and nothing happened. Harry leaned uncomfortably against a large rock on the bank, staring listlessly into the trees. There wasn't a sign of movement anywhere other than his and the other students with him.

Holly had passed around some rolls she'd taken from the kitchens the night before. They had been sitting there for a good two hours, though, and he was getting antsy--wanting to get up and move again before something other than Elves was drawn to where they sat.

"I don't think they're coming, Holly," he noted dejectedly.

"Me neither," she said, rubbing her forehead.

"I was thinking," Hermione asserted, "maybe they know we're here. Perhaps--perhaps they set these boats out for us... to help us find them, or something."

"Or to drown us," Ron added quietly.

Ginny spoke up. "What do we do, then?"

"Well," Holly said, "I can see a twelve-foot wall of thorns down river on either side... so you tell me."

Harry squinted, and indeed he spotted a very high wall of large, protruding spikes that arched over the river, growing out of either bank. "That's discouraging," he stated.

"They're behind us, too."

Harry turned--and indeed, they were. But that wall had grown right through the river, creating a barricade of untouchable thistles.

"We can't levitate ourselves over those," Ginny said. Harry sorely wished he'd stopped to bring his Firebolt.

Hermione sighed. "Looks like we'll have to just use the canoes, then."

"We're going to steal some elvish boats and try getting ourselves down-river?" said Malfoy. "Well, that sure sounds fun..."

They disregarded him. "Let's divide into pairs," Harry told them. He sorted it out in his mind that they should separate by strength, making the total muscle power in each canoe about equal. That put Holly with Malfoy--Holly was easily the biggest girl with the most time spent throwing Quaffles, Malfoy the smallest. Harry refused to recognize that, in all actuality, Malfoy was taller than Harry was--thinner looking, maybe, but definitely had him in height.

They could go in front... someone had to keep an eye on that canoe.

Hermione chose more delicate things, like her studies, versus playing Quidditch--and she wasn't exactly the most athletic thing he'd ever met. Ron was the biggest of the males--so they went together.

That left Harry with Ginny. Nothing a little size-comparing and personal preference could hurt, right?

They got into their designated pairs, Holly clearly angry with her partner as she violently untied Malfoy's bonds. They were the first on the river, Malfoy getting into the back of the canoe, and Holly pushing off, wading in, and hopping into the front.

Ron and Hermione followed, using the same technique.

Finally he and Ginny got themselves situated, and the entire crew began paddling down the river in a line.

*()%()*

Holly watched the roof of foot-long spurs above her warily, praying that they wouldn't crash down onto her and Draco's canoe, spearing them both and pinning them under water to either bleed to death or drown.

She couldn't blame him too much, Harry was a born leader--it was simply in his nature, but he certainly did seem to enjoy coming into her mission and taking over. He'd walked out in front for most of their time in the trees, and now had set out the teams like a captain of a pick-up Quidditch match.

It wouldn't have been so bad if she hadn't been stuck with Malfoy as a canoe-mate. She checked over her shoulder to see whether he was actually paddling. He was, however odd and uncoordinated it looked.

They oared onward, and she had to tell him how to row at the first river bend. He did quite well, actually, but that didn't matter in the end.

Because as soon as they'd made their way around the curve--Holly found herself looking at nine tributaries breaking off from the central river--raging with rapids.

"Holy--"

Her words were cut short by her own gasp when their canoe was yanked violently from its straight path to the left. She tried with difficulty to steer back to the right, and the canoe teetered dangerously for a moment before it began whipping down the first tributary, seemingly unaffected, water splashing up into it from all sides.

Holly pulled her oars a bit further into the boat instinctively just as their canoe started going sharply downhill. They rocked this way and that, and water was splashed all down her front, on her face and in her hair from the violent, white rapids of the river slapping hard against the bow.

They were both shouting as the canoe whipped around a sharp bend, nearly tipping over. Holly held tight onto the edges of it, leaning whichever way she was called to to keep balance.

They flew down, off of short cascades once or twice, their canoe being slung off of the level the river was at, and gravity pulling it down sharply. As soon as it crashed down against the water, Holly could nearly feel her ribs jutting out of place. Before another thought could run through her head, they were zooming along again.

Holly thought that if she had a lifejacket, kayak, and a decent rowing partner this would actually be kind of fun.

She sensed that the river was getting shallower, and she directed Malfoy to push his oar against the riverbed on the right side of their canoe. He did so, and they managed to push themselves onto the bank. The canoe flipped sideways as they hit the sand, and both Holly and Draco laid there, on their sides, breathing hard. Water splashed down onto them from their half-sunken canoe, leaving them both in a puddle of what felt like ice.

That could have been worse.

Holly crawled out of the boat using only her arms, letting her legs drag behind her. When she got out, she sat down and snatched her bag out of the front of their boat--it had been Impervius-ed to perfection and remained dry.

She collapsed flat onto her back, cold sand probably sticking to her all over where she was wet--but she didn't care. Eyes shut, it hit her. The company was split--the river had separated them. Not just the river... the Elves split them up. Now she was stuck here, with Draco Malfoy.

Holly would be getting Harry back--oh, yes.

Malfoy clambered out of the tipped canoe, too, groaning, "I think I broke--I think I broke everything."

"Suck it up," she growled, not having energy enough to unclip her necklace and throw her Cretionis Charm at him at the time. Holly laid her hands over her eyes and moaned--already this had gone amiss in at least a dozen ways.

She forced herself into a sitting position, casting Malfoy a sidelong glance. He was sitting, propped up by his hands, looking unnaturally disheveled. There was a scrape of sand across his face, and his hair was sticking up in all directions from the water that froze in it.

His wrists were extremely scabbed, and he had a few cuts on his hands and face where Holly had drug him out of the shrub, presumably. Carefully, Holly unsecured the breaking chain that her Charm was kept on and handed it to him--nearly feeling guilty for the damage she'd done. In all reality, he'd really never done anything to her. So there was the hair and the Quidditch incident--but he had yet to actually psychically hurt her. Himself.

She scowled. Malfoy didn't have the guts to hurt her himself. He had too many enthusiastic pawns to waste his time getting into the game.

Malfoy seemed to know what to do, and he closed it inside his hands. White scintilla gathered around all his wounds, spinning and intertwining, lowering to his skin and healing each bump and bruise in only a second.

They tipped over the canoe and emptied it completely of water before pulling it up along the bank in a better stopping position than sloppily on it's side. Holly pulled her wand out of her pocket, it was still in once piece, thankfully, and muttered, "Point Me." It spun and pointed toward her left arm. So, down-river was southeast, and she wanted to go northeast.

"We need to go back into the trees," she said, pocketing her wand and reluctantly handing Draco his.

"Why? Do you--"

"I can't give you full details until I have no other choice," she said, "Just... trust me. I know what to do."

Malfoy dubiously murmured something under his breath that sounded, but Holly overlooked it. They walked back into the trees--giving the innocently glittering river a calculating look over their shoulders.

*()%()*

At which point Ron and Hermione were around the bend, they only got time to see the stern of Holly and Malfoy's canoe disappear down the first tributary to the left before they were pulled into the rapids of the third stream on the right side.

Hermione screamed as their canoe started cruising at a speed she would have never imagined it could go. The river was raging, pushing them down along swiftly. They rounded about three river bends in rapid succession, nearly tipping the boat each time. She could do nothing with the oar she had in her hands as the canoe made a 360-degree turn on a fourth bend, this one spiraling so fast that if their boat was any smaller it would have been sucked down to the riverbed with them in it.

After that it was only a matter of seconds before the stream slowed, the rapids glided down into smooth ripples, and they were sitting in the middle of what the river had been when they first started out.

Hermione had managed to stay somewhat dry, as did Ron. They paddled over to the right-hand bank and got out shakily, pulling the canoe to shore. When she managed to gather her composure, Hermione cast some Heating Spells--enough to dry their dampened clothes and help them fight against the cold.

"What should we do, then?" Ron asked, turning in a slow circle to examine his surroundings.

"Maybe we could try heading upriver and see if we run into Harry and Ginny," Hermione suggested.

"And if we don't?"

"Well," she said, "we can go to the far-left tributary and try to catch Holly and Malfoy, I guess."

They started walking along the bank, hiking uphill. "I should have known..." she told him, "the Elves must control the river--it was all a technique to split up companies heading into the forest..."

"What about the canoes, then?" Ron asked, "You think they do know we're here?"

"I guess." She ducked under a low branch of a tree and said, "But last year--you know, Harry and I had a couple of run-ins with the centaurs."

"Right--what does that have to do with anything?"

"Well," began Hermione, "over and over they called this their forest. They didn't want Hagrid in here, they didn't want Umbridge in here--"

Ron interrupted. "Who would?"

"They didn't want any human in here, Ron!" she proclaimed. "It was their forest... they tried to kill Harry and I... nearly had their way with Umbridge... they would have killed Hagrid if we weren't with him at the time!"

Ron nodded, looking grim. "So you think it's the centaurs doing the whole... river-thingy, now?"

"No, Hagrid told us that the centaurs were leaving, remember? Thank God," she muttered under her breath. "Now, my first thought was that it was because Voldemort--oh, honestly, Ron!--was in here." Hermione sighed.

Ron glared at her for a second, and she wondered what it would take to get him to start referring to Voldemort with the name that the Order used for him--that Harry used for him... that she used for him. "Can you think of something worse than You-Know-Who that could drive them out?!"

"The Elves!" stated Hermione stoutly. Ron made a noise. "Assuming that they're like those in Tol--"

"Oh, sodding..." he waved his arms around a bit, lost for words, "Toolqueen! Ergh... Hermione! Those are books written by a Muggle..."

"Don't be so sure, Ron," she said, "he wrote about wizards and Acromantulas and trolls and, and goblins with only a hair of change here and there--but that's not the point! It's just... I think that if the Elves he wrote about were anything like the real ones, they'd be perfectly capable to... to..."

They walked around the first curve of the bank, and found themselves looking at a wall of thorns that extended across the river to the other bank from where they stood, two fathoms high.

If they could even be called thorns. They were tall, growing off of thick vines that twisted and knotted together intricately--each stem about as thick as the width of a goblet brim to brim. They were magically engorged, obviously--each thorn more like a spike, a foot long and screaming with peril.

Hermione gazed at the barricade dejectedly, hands on her hips as she pondered what to do. Finally, it hit her. "A Reductor Curse!" she exclaimed, "Why didn't I think of this before?" She had taught Harry how to use a Reductor Curse for the Third Task, to blast solid objects out of his way. "If we used this before, we wouldn't have been split up..."

It had worked on the hedge, which must have been protected by many spells against cheating like so--a forest-grown wall of thorns couldn't be much worse. "Redusen!"

She was wrong. The spell hit the thorns and ricocheted backward. Hermione ducked out of the way, and heard an unguarded tree snap in half behind her.

She tried a few more spells--each of them left the brown-colored plant utterly unaffected. She felt a little fuddled and ashamed that none of her bewitchments worked--and also rather vulnerable.

Since Hermione entered the magical world, anything she wanted done could be done with an incantation and a wrist movement if she had her wand. And suddenly, there was some thaumaturgy, some power greater than that of her professors who couldn't keep a hedge-maze guarded from a Reductor Curse. Something in the Forbidden Forest could.

They turned, defeated, to try their luck walking down-river.

*()%()*

Around the river-bend Ginny saw Hermione and Ron disappear down one stream while her and Harry's canoe was pulled into the first tributary on the right.

Before she could comprehend what was happening, Ginny had yanked her oar into the canoe and was holding tightly onto the carved bow. That felt unsafe, though, but locking her fingers around the sides of the canoe didn't seem much more secure--her knuckles skimmed the water here and there, the boat was tipping so far.

The rapids pushed them along rather steadily until their canoe didn't quite manage to round one of the river-bends. The stern struck against the bank, sending them into a 180-degree turn. They were expediting down the stream sideways.

Again their canoe crashed--this time the bow smacked against the opposite bank, and in a split-second their boat flipped and Ginny was underwater.

The rapids rushed over Ginny, turning her over at least twice--she didn't know which way was up. The water was so cold that it felt like swords of ice were pricking every inch of her skin. Would the Elves like to give us a break now? she thought. Finally she forced her eyes open, the cold rapids rushing against them. Through the frothing water Ginny saw a fish swim beneath her--she was facing downward.

Curving her back sharply, she turned so her face could see the outline of the sun sparkling above her. With a couple hard frog kicks, Ginny broke the surface. It wasn't that she couldn't swim--but her heavy cloak and backpack drug her down and kept her from fighting the current quite efficiently.

She struggled toward the bank, and finally grabbed onto it. She gasped for air in her moment of success until a large, cold wave washed over Ginny's head and knocked her sideways. Since the gods always had to play humiliation from her lousy hand that they'd dealt her--she felt a hand secure around her wrist. "I've got you, Gin," Harry said soothingly over the rapids.

Hopelessly, she reached out her other arm, and Harry caught her around that wrist, too. He pulled her out, and as soon as she could get her knees onto the bank, Ginny drew her hands away and crawled onto the sand on her own.

She would have been fine, had she been given an extra second or two to swim back for the bank--and the fantasy heroic-rescue that Ginny had always imagined her and Harry in never seemed to pan out just how she wanted it to.

She scrambled to her feet, dripping wet all over. Her sopped hair, colored brick, hung all around her face, spare strands fallen across it--Ginny's loose hair-tie had been pulled out, somehow. Every article of clothing on her back was hanging heavily off of her... and Ginny was shivering quite uncontrollably.

Looking up, she saw Harry looked about the same. Soaked from the tips of his sempiternal untidy hair to the toes of his sneakers, he looked at her through glasses flecked with water droplets. The only color that seemed left on him was those solid, clean emerald eyes.

"You all right?" he asked, panting.

It took Ginny a moment to answer. She just stood there, trying to think over what had just happened--it had all gone on so quickly that nothing seemed to distinguish itself as reality. "I'm fine," she said eventually. Harry nodded and looked down. Water turned the sand into mud all around them as they dripped all over the ground. "How'd you get out so quickly?" she questioned.

Harry pointed at a thin, white birch nearby, its roots must have been reaching into the stream that was now flowing calmly. "I surfaced next to that--all I had to do was grab on," he told her.

They took off their cloaks, scarves, gloves, and shoes--hitting their every article of clothing with a succession of Heating Spells before putting their cloaks, shoes, and winter etceteras back on. Ginny wrung out her hair as they started to walk upriver.

It wasn't long before she and Harry stopped in their tracks, backing away from where their next step would take them. The ground was rumbling and cracking, chunks of dirt and dead grass separating from the packed earth.

Suddenly a foot-thick crack appeared in the ground, and up from it shot vines upon vines of a thick, brown-colored plant. Ginny could see the same thing going on right through the river and on the other bank. The vines twisted, braided, and intertwined, growing up, up, until there was a wall high in the air. Spikes shot out from the vines in all directions, causing her and Harry to leap even further back.

"Down-river, then!" he said, sounding about as chipper as he could suffer to be. Ginny nodded, and they turned away from the thorns--she cast a last look at the ominous wall over her shoulder. Holly's dear Elves were certainly having fun watching the forest play with them all.

*()%()*

Draco yelped and Holly jolted, stumbling backward. He pointed somewhere to their right, in the direction of a towering sycamore. Two popping green eyes were peering at them from behind the trunk, and Holly's breath caught in her throat.

But soon the thing revealed itself, side-stepping and peering at them curiously, Holly felt relief course through her. He had a long, scraggly green beard that was tucked into his belt (which, like all of his other clothing, was worn backward). His skin was bright blue, which was to be a result of having a whole lot of blue blood, if she remembered right. "Chill, Malfoy, it's only a Leshy."

The forest-spirit examined them, his chartreuse eyes glittering oddly. "Sss-studentsss," he hissed, "from the cassstle."

"Um, sir," she said, getting right to the point, "would you mind telling us where we could find the Elves?"

He eyed them peculiarly. "Elfsss? The Elfsss live in sssecret." She understood the hissing issue, maybe, but could he even try giving it a little break?

"We know," Holly snapped, before cooling her tone, "but it's urgent--we've encountered some... problems on our way to visit them."

"The Elfsss watch over the foressst--they don't have patienccce for humansss..." The Leshy gazed suspiciously at Holly and Draco for a moment before turning and running--going fast considering he wore his boots on the wrong feet.

"Great, Black," drawled Malfoy watching the Leshy disappear behind a bush it hurdled, "splendid. Now the Leshy is going to run off to the Elves and send some of their better warriors for us with their longbows and--"

"Shut up, Malfoy, he's not even going in the right direction." Holly pushed her hair over her shoulder. "It's not like you helped any--too busy shaking like a yeti was eyeing you with a starved look."

Draco rolled his eyes in a chilly way. "Sure," he said, low, gritty voice sounding oddly seductive as ever--making Holly think that he had to fake that key... he sounded like he was ten years old when he shouted about the Leshy. "We're lost, Black..."

"We're not lost!" she barked. Holly pinched the bridge of her nose, shutting her eyes. "We're just... locationally challenged."

"Right," he snapped, "how about you lead me out of the forest instead of deeper into it, then?" Holly's eyes flickered open and she peered at him.

"Will you give me a detention?"

"No," he growled mutinously.

"Promise?"

"Yes, Bl--" He scowled, cutting himself off. "Let's just go back." It was odd, hearing him refer to them as though they were there together, not just two people who ended up on a river in an elven-made canoe.

"You see," she told him, "I have some pressing matters to attend to..."

"C'mon," Malfoy said, half-smirking as he inveigled, "you know that you'd want to be seen sneaking out of the forest with me, Black. Imagine how the rumors would fly..."

Holly forced herself to return the half-smirk. "I'd rather eat bees."

"Why do you have to be so--"

He stopped mid-sentence, turning around and gazing into the trees. A low chorus of growling had begun there, accompanied by heavy footfalls. Holly and Malfoy started backing away, staring into the shadow of the trees until one, then two, then three pairs of eyes appeared--steely red glares fixed upon them.

One sonorous bark noised, and a massive, black dog nearly as tall as the trees around it walked out from the darkness cast by the wood and into clear view--a black dog with three heads. Oh, shit.

*()%()*

Something flew past Hermione's face. It circled her and Ron a couple times before coming to a stop in front of them, hovering in midair.

It looked like a fairy, but twice the size--embellished mostly shades of red, other than his golden hair and matching eyes. He had semi-transparent crimson wings that beat and glittered in the sun, reminding Hermione of the wings that came with pixie costumes, just looking a little less wiry. He dressed perfectly Muggle fairy-tale, with layers of burgundy, maroon, blush, and cerise complete with tights, golden-buckled shoes, and zigzag-cut hems. He was gripping onto a minute, wooden flute, no longer than Hermione's hand.

"Hello there," she said pleasantly as the little creature smiled at her, "who are you?"

"Sufree," he squeaked, "this tributary's local Puck, m'lady."

So that was what he was--a Puck. Hermione knew of those creatures, they were pixie-like things on good terms with fairies, loving to play harmless tricks on humans that could, however, become quite a little out of hand.

"Hi, Sufree... this is Ron, and I'm Hermione."

The Puck nodded at either of them, swaying back and forth a little in flight. He leered at them and said, "You aren't forest-dwellers, that you aren't."

"We know," Hermione replied experimentally, "we're a little lost. Have you seen any other--any other people like us around?"

Sufree shook his head. "I haven't--the Lady sends me to seek your position, that she does."

"Who?" asked Ron, lowering his head a bit.

The Puck took a deep breath, puffing up in a bombast way that reminded Hermione a bit of Percy. "Lady Eowilindë, the fairest and wisest of all Elves in this land. She knows of your presence," he told them.

"She's an Elf?" Hermione assumed hopefully. Sufree smiled. "Could you bring us to her, by chance?"

He shook his head. "The Elves choose to be hidden from untrustworthy eyes, that they do." Sufree went silent, gliding over in front of Ron and gazing hard into his eyes.

"Indeed you are not pure of heart--you have scorned a maiden!" he gasped, "Denied Eros's plan..." The Puck abandoned his shocked visage for a very devious expression indeed, showing pointed teeth with his grin. Sufree put his mouth to his flute and played a tune, dancing in midair, before lowering the instrument and claiming, "I rebuke thee!"

Before Hermione could say another word, Sufree flew another circle around them and disappeared.

He didn't seem so bad, Sufree, other than that whole ordeal at the end and his devilish grin. More pranks were coming, Hermione sensed, as she looked down to see that her shoes were unlaced to the last two holes and knotted together several times over.

They sat down across from each other, Hermione facing the river and Ron looking toward the wood, working at the ties.

They'd been chatting while slipping their fingertips between layers of laces when finally Hermione enjoined, "So, who is this maiden you've scorned, Ron?"

He didn't answer. She looked up at him, but he was looking over her head with wide eyes and an open mouth. "T...t--t...t--"

"Ron, what is it?" Hermione asked, failing to conclude anything from his pointless stuttering.

The first bit of revenge that Sufree instated for the maiden, whomever she may be, came crashing through the trees the moment Hermione had finished lacing and retying her shoes. Ron grabbed onto her upper-arms and pulled her to her feet along with staggering upward himself, hurrying backward, toward the river.

It's skin was a pale green, and atop its head was thin, bedraggled, ecru-colored hair. With a bellowing roar, it stomped toward them--crashing through the trees and brush with a huge stone mallet in its hand.

"Troll!" Ron finally managed to say, voice breaking mid-word.

*()%()*

Ginny and Harry walked for a while, their trek uninterrupted other than by the intruding frozen air that made Harry fight back shivers. The sharp winds weren't there to interfere, though, which certainly made their trip easier.

They hadn't spoken much of anything to each other, making the silence uncomfortable for Harry. He glanced over at Ginny now and then, but she was never looking at him, rather she was peering into the trees like a rabbit on the run.

Harry kept all his senses pricked and alert, too... last year it was the centaurs driving them out, this year it seemed the Elves took up the slack. But at least the centaurs had the daring to show themselves and specifically tell Harry that he wasn't wanted in the forest, drawing back the strings of their bows. He'd almost choose that aggressive approach over the Elves' tricky games--how they remained carefully hidden and, presumably, safe whilst causing chaos.

It was like the planning of aggressive Gryffindors versus scheming Slytherins--but Harry didn't want to think about what house these Elves might be sorted into, were they witches and wizards.

It seemed an eternity before Ginny opened her mouth to say something--but the din of her first spoken word was cut off by the sound of footfalls. They both stopped, gazing into the wood to their side.

Neither her nor Harry could see a thing for some time, but the sound of shuffling feet didn't halt or even slow. She managed to mutter, "What's that?" before the walkers made themselves seen.

It was a pack of tan-skinned creatures, their flesh textured like leather--hidden by some slightly ragged solid-patterned cloths draped around them like sleeveless tops and kilts. They were mostly bald, all of them, with a little bushy hair ringing around the sides and backs of their heads, each with a unibrow. Snout-like noses protruded from their drooping, slit-eyed faces, long fingernails and toenails stuck out sharply from underneath straps of some sort of animal hide that were cut into strips and tied about various parts of their limbs.

To Harry they looked like a horrible cross between house-elves, goblins, and fairies grown to a good height of four feet... but Ginny apparently knew better. "Bendith!" she hissed, backing away. Harry followed her lead.

"What're Bendith?" he asked through the corner of his mouth.

"Interbred fairies and goblins--kidnappers," came her short antiphon as she continued to step away.

The clan of Bendith was eyeing them carefully, seeming not to hear them. Harry skimmed his gaze over them--they didn't appear to be carrying weapons, which was a relief. Both he and Ginny still had their wands, and on that note he drew his. He steadied his arm and pointed his wand at the first bandu, the leader most likely, the biggest and most leathery-looking. "What do you want?" he asked, aiming the tip of his wand between its eyes.

They still didn't appear to hear what he was saying, though, and began to mutter amongst themselves. "These aren't children, Daku..."

"...said there were children, Hagu, these must be it..."

"...still got the crimbil ..."

"...just take the small one, Bapu..."

"...not sleeping, though!"

"That doesn't matter, Hagu!" snapped the leader over the mumbling. "Just give it the crimbil!"

The bandu with the darkest shade of skin shuffled to the back of the group and picked up the smallest bandu, which was apparently the crimbil, and brought it forward. It sat the crimbil down in front of Harry, meanwhile the other bandu came forward and grabbed Ginny.

In a split-second they were gone--running into the trees, dragging Ginny with them.

Harry watched for a second, in utter shock, as the small, ugly crimbil blinked its doleful dark eyes up at him. He really didn't know what to do, but followed his instinct. Harry snatched the crimbil up into his arms, managing not to shudder against its already coarse skin, and took off at a run.

He ducked around trees and under branches, feet crashing through the brush. This is just great, yes, just great, Harry thought savagely. It didn't take him long to catch them--they seemed to be starting their trek again after a stop. Ginny had stopped struggling, in fact she was being drug across the snow by only two of the bandu now.

Harry pulled out his wand again, aimed, and said, "Stupefy!" The bandu on Ginny's right fell face-forward. "Stupefy!" The on her left that was looking around for the source of the attack toppled over sideways. "Stupefy!" The dark-skinned one hit the snow. At last the one he had supposed was the leader turned around, but Harry didn't curse this one. He walked forward, holding out his wand in one hand and the crimbil in the other.

It made a wild grab at Ginny, but Harry jutted his wand out closer to it as he continued to make his way to the bandu. It stopped, taking two steps back. "What have you done?" it asked with a scratchy voice that sounded as though it were rarely used.

Harry set the crimbil down at its feet and stepped back, watching the bandu. "Give back Ginny, swear not to come after us again, and I'll put them right," he said slowly, pointing around to make his point.

"We can't take it," replied the bandu, "you've found your child."

"Right," said Harry, stepping back and wrapping his arms around Ginny's torso and pulling her upright. She slumped heavily against him. "You... you'd better not." He didn't see the need to correct them and say that this girl was obviously not his child, but continued to use "Ennervate" on each of the head bandu's companions.

They all scurried off, looking disappointed, one of them carrying the crimbil.

Harry pocketed his wand and got a better hold on Ginny, sliding one arm behind her knees, letting her droop against his shoulder. He carried her out of the trees and back to the side of the river. Lying her down on the bank, he tried to use the reverse Stunning Spell on her, to no avail. Doing only what made sense, he wet the sleeve of his cloak and pressed it against her forehead and cheeks.

He sat down next to Ginny, dampening her face from time to time, vaguely thinking, That was weird.

She woke, squinting up at him before speedily propping herself up on her elbows and backing away from him. "What happened?" she asked.

Harry stood up and held out a hand that Ginny warily took after hesitating for a second. "You were kidnapped by Bendith and dragged into the wood," he told her while helping her up.

"Bendith, eh?" she said, withdrawing her hand and rubbing her forehead. "I don't really remember."

He didn't think she would. Harry asked whether she wanted to keep going, and she agreed, saying that they had to reach the end of this forest sometime. Picking up where they left off, they walked on quietly.

Ginny took a breath, and broke the silence. "So," she said, "you're an Adopter, then?"

The happenings of his day thus far had driven all thoughts of his Supantoris out of his mind, but at the word of it, the weight remigrated to Harry's stomach. "Yeah," he muttered, glancing at his feet.

"It's sort of like a Metamorphmagus, right?" she assumed, "Like Tonks."

Harry remembered asking Tonks how to become a Metamorphmagus the summer after fourth year when her and the Advance Guard arrived at number four. She had told him that you had to be born a Metamorphmagus, but hadn't distinguished it as her Supantoris. "Yeah," he agreed, "sort of like that." He pondered this for a moment before saying, "But, then why don't Metamorphmaguses get a sentence in Azkaban? What's so different about them?"

"Well," she replied shortly, "they can only change different things about themselves, making them look like someone else. You, on the other hand..." She smiled at him. "You can turn into anyone you want, given power and all. Even Tonks can't arrange her fingerprints differently."

Harry laughed shortly, the sound very unclean. "And again, I pose a threat to Muggles and wizards all around the world."

Ginny shrugged. "I think it's cool. Everyone does, actually. Besides--Holly said that they can probably, like, suction the power out of you."

"Hermione mentioned that... but then don't I become some sort of drone?"

Ginny clicked her tongue and said, "I think Holly forgot to share that particular detail with me." She kicked at a gray stone on the ground, punting it forward before reaching it and sending it flying off again. "You know... she--she reckons that she's got my Supantoris all figured out."

The rock had strayed over to his side of the path and he kicked it softly, forward and a little to the left. "Really?" he said, deliberately not looking at her. Maybe she would just let it slip... and then he wouldn't have to act as though he had no clue why Holly had checked every book on rare Supantorises out of the library and lugged them up to the fifth year girls' dormitory.

"Yeah," Ginny toyed with her book-bag for a moment, pushing it back, over her hip before continuing. "I'd put my Galleons on that she--that she's got it right." Harry waited in a hush, not wanting to egg her on into telling him. He'd just be patient, and eventually she'd let him know. "Holly reckons..." Ginny continued, dragging out her words attentively, "that I'm a Soul-Switcher."

Harry glanced at Ginny, who was looking a little pale--freckles along her nose and cheekbones standing out more prominently than before. More and more by the second he wished that Holly hadn't narrated the secret to him; the only good that came from that was that Harry wouldn't have to be completely shocked at the news this time around. And, playing his role, he asked, "What's that?"

"Basically," she said, her voice growing in confidence and clarity with each word, "I'll be able to switch myself into a sixteen-year-old T-... Riddle and back." Harry nodded, not sure how to reply to the carrier of the burden--it had been easier to interrogate Holly. "There's just, just a little of him left since, y'know, the diary."

Harry couldn't bring up his fear that there was intense evil lurking in the back of

Ginny's mind, ready to strike, but he couldn't act like it was nothing when it was so evident that she'd struggled with accepting this puzzle-piece that worked its way into her fate.

He suggested that they sit down, motioning toward a willow that sat along the bank. It had a thick, gnarled trunk, and its branches stuck out far, vines drooping from them, magic allowing each vine to still be covered in leaves. The vines on one side of the tree reached into the river, the waters slowly dragging them along.

"How do you know?" Harry attempted, "I mean, how do you know that Riddle's still..." He frowned, "There?"

Ginny sighed, sitting on the backs of her legs, feet crossed beneath her. "I just... do. I can hear him sometimes--he's very opinionated." They shared an apprehensive smile. "He sort of shares my thoughts, sees what I see... he's just a really annoying conscience that rarely points me in the right direction. It's nothing to worry about--I can drown him out, and I never go forgetting what I've done for hours beforehand."

She didn't seem extremely comfortable with the concept, but definitely accepted it better than Harry thought she had been. All along he thought Ginny was fighting off her inner demons, hating the ever present of Riddle and how he made her miserable, haunting her thoughts and dreams.

Ginny admitted that at first it was terrifying, because no one had treated her exactly the same after the incident with the Chamber, after it started leaking out that it had been her all along. She'd gone so long without thinking about Tom, without dreaming of the Chamber--whether it be a past happening or something her unconscious mind had cooked up on its own.

"I never really thought that that second voice was him, y'know?" she said, "I thought it was just my mind scolding me, but then it occurred to me that there was no way my brain could speak aloud, and then I figured out who the voice belonged to...." She sighed. "And Holly's research took it from there."

"Why'd you decide to tell Holly?" Harry asked, rubbing his upper-arms... it was late-morning now, and the chill had lessened, yet it was no Gryffindor common room he was sitting in.

Ginny seemed to ponder this for a moment, running her fingers along the sand that the willow miraculously managed to grow in, making swirling and zigzagging sequenced patterns. "Because I thought she would know what to do," she said. "I think this was sometime after Holly started her studying for this... the Elves, her Charm, and whatnot. She'd been so quiet--and, well, I knew that I needed someone's help, so it ended up working two ways."

She stopped drawing in the sand and looked up at him; brown eyes swimming such a dark color that in the shade they were nearly black. "I was sure she'd tell you, and--and maybe..." She trailed off hopefully. "Well," Ginny began again, clearly taking what she was planning to say and changing it, "then I thought it'd be easier for me to deal with telling everyone... that it'd be a chain-reaction, and you'd tell Ron, and so on. Then when someone asked me about it, I would say it's just a theory, and let them know when I was sure about it."

Well, Holly had done what Ginny had expected... and Harry had tried the next part of her prediction. Harry plucked a dead blade of grass out of the ground nearby and concluded, "You just thought you'd take the easy way out?" She nodded and flushed. "I don't blame you..." he assured her, "it was a lot easier pushing you and Holly a sheet of parchment that said my Supantoris on it and walking away rather than telling you straight out."

Ginny smiled, pulling her legs out from under her and crossing one over the other. She leaned back on her hands and said, "I almost wish I didn't find all this out until next year--but I suppose I can head it off early this way."

Harry grinned for a moment. "What I don't understand, though, is that if you're born with a Supantoris... has yours been changed, or just temporarily overrun?"

Ginny shrugged. "I don't want to worry about it." She scooted back toward the trunk of the tree. Ginny tucked some stray flaming hair behind her ears and half-smiled over at Harry, and he tried to ignore that his stomach was doing a slow somersault. "Let's just stay here for a while, it's nice to rest my legs."

With that Harry leaned back against the trunk, listening to the leaves of the willow rustling in the breeze. A soothing melody was playing in his subconscious...

Fúmë, fúmë vanya híni,

Fúmë absque srupus on nyérë,

He didn't recognize it, though. Perhaps he heard Aunt Petunia singing it, this lullaby, to Dudley once...

Hice ná móllyë man eressë mernëi,

But never had he heard such a fair voice in song...

Ane tirin or fúmëlyë,

Im i velicë intim óh melmë...

Harry's eyelids drooped, and he distractedthe vines of the willow sway this way and that in the wind before it was lost in darkness.

Then, just as he began to doze, his eyes fractured open. The day was perfectly calm; there was no wind. The tree was moving on its own accord. Before he could do anything, vines were wrapped around his ankles, and the tree was pulling him into the air.

*()%()*

Both Holly and Malfoy froze on the spot, completely paralyzed. They stared up at the beast, mouths agape in dumbfounded horror.

It squeezed between two trees, and stood only feet before them, growling and barking with all three sets of teeth bared. Holly started screaming, Malfoy began yelling, and in one movement they both turned and ran back toward the river like wild, all spells forgotten.

They swerved in and out of the trees, going as fast as their legs could carry them. The dog followed close behind, the trees not so thick here. Its strides were huge, and it was probably only moving at a jog. They zigzagged about the wood, finding that that was the only way to lose the beast. And yet, it stayed only feet behind them, each head taking turns crashing to the ground in attempts to catch one of them

Holly wasn't sure if she took a breath once, and was only aware that she was screaming, running faster than she thought she could, and that there was a massive dog with three heads tailing her. She ducked under a low branch, stumbling as she tried to straighten up.

Her hands hit the snow, slipping slightly, when she felt a sharp pull upward.

Holly turned her head quickly, afraid to be looking into the eyes of one of the dog's heads. Instead, she looked at Malfoy. He'd grabbed onto the hood of her cloak, and halfway up he put his hands along the sides of her lower ribcage and as she pushed her hands on the snow as he half-heaved her up.

One head lunged out of thin air, narrowly missing them with its snapping jaws as Holly looked at Malfoy with whatever expression had taken over her features at being helped off the ground.

It was a mad rush of adrenaline that must have kept them both going, she thought later, but had no clue as to what kicked in in Draco's system to make him help her off the ground. Later, though, she forgot about it.

The river was in view past the line of tightly fitted trees, those oaks, pines, and sycamores that stood so perfectly aligned that they had to be hand-planted and maintained to look so perfectly tamed. She and Malfoy shot through a gap, continuing to run toward the river. Draco clambered into the back of the canoe; Holly expressly pushed it off the bank and launched herself inside. Between raging rapids and insane three-headed dogs, she'd take on the rapids.

And, just their luck, the Elves didn't seem to feel like giving them the advantage of rushing waters. The river was moving quicker than it had been at first, when the whole company stumbled across the canoes, but still it wasn't enough to leave the paddles and allow themselves to be pulled along faster than they ever could have oared.

On the other hand, the Cerberus-offspring was wedged in between the trees, growling and barking--large amounts of saliva flying through the air. The trees creaked as he pushed and strained against them, trying to get through.

They paddled down-river until rounding a bend or two--when the sound of the dog faded off. Holly stopped paddling and said, "Glad that's over." She heard Malfoy stop using his oar too, and turned around. "You were screaming like a girl..." It wasn't true, but anything to get a rise out of his stony face and bran-like voice.

"So were you!" he barked defiantly.

Holly arced an eyebrow, turning a little more to get a better look at him. He looked tired, drained--all the planes of his face were cut deep and sallow, and there were bluish lines beneath his eyes. Little did Holly know that she looked just the same.

"I am a girl."

Draco seemed to be biting his tongue with his retort, and Holly was thankful--she didn't exactly feel like spearing him, the oar was far too pretty. Besides, Draco had bashed her enough over only the past three-and-a-half months.

Holly turned back, pushing her hair over her shoulder and began to paddle again. Judging by the sounds coming from up ahead, the water was moving faster. She steered around the river bend with little to no help from Malfoy, ducking away from a thick branch of a very bent beech-tree.

The air around here looked foggy--but it was the middle of winter, there couldn't be any fog, could there? Is there fog in the winter? Quite pointlessly, Holly swiped a hand in front of her as if to clear the cloud... it was definitely colder here than it had been just a few feet upriver.

Sounds of rushing water were much more evident here, and although the rapids hadn't seemed to take over the current again--they were definitely moving faster down-river. The fog thickened more and more before Holly couldn't even see her own hand if she held it in front of her face.

She turned her head and said, "Let's try moving over to the left bank again."

But the task wasn't as simple as it had sounded. The river was flowing faster yet, pulling them along quite straight. When steering by paddling didn't work, Holly tried finding the bed of the river with the end of her oar, but it wasn't there. The stream ran deep, and the fog thick.

Rowing this way and that--none of their strife was effective. Holly vaguely thought that she didn't want to experience the surprise the Elves had in store for them next.

They gave up after a while, pointlessly trying to keep their canoe running straight. The fog began clearing though--but a cold, moist, cloud remained in front of Holly's eyes, and the roar of water in her ears.

She thought nothing of it, they were moving rather speedily now, until she realized that the sound wasn't rushing water--it was falling water. "Turn back, Malfoy!" she shouted.

Struggling fiercely to steer, Holly found that they still couldn't battle the river. She pulled toward the bank, then tried to simply spin the canoe so they could fight against the current. But the waves had started sloshing into the boat again, and they managed only slight changes in direction--so they were being pulled along diagonally.

Holly frenziedly reached out for a slimy, black rock with her oar, but the white paddle simply slipped off. She swung the oar to the other side, trying to reach for a clutter of big rocks, algae growing over them like shaggy, green carpet, as though these waters didn't usually rush like they were doing now.

Wedging the end of her oar in between two of them, Holly tried to use it like a lever to pull them sideways to no avail. Instead, it slipped out of her hands. The drop-off was getting closer with every passing moment.

The best thing to do in this situation, it seemed, was to panic. "Turn, Malfoy, turn!" exclaimed Holly, throwing a quick look over her shoulder.

He seemed to be doing his best, paddling frantically on one side before switching to the other. But she knew he couldn't do a thing...

As they neared the drop-off and Holly craned her neck to look over it, the world seemed to stop for a minute--like a roller coaster that left you waiting in suspense, looking over at the scream-worthy dip ahead.

It wasn't that big of a fall--but those rocks protruding from the mist at the bottom didn't look too good. Holly's shoulders tensed as she wrapped her fingers around the edges of the canoe, shutting her eyes.

And the next minute they'd tipped forward, and were sailing down the cascade.

*()%()*

The forest troll swung his stone mallet sideways and snapped two trees in half to easier get through the mass of woods. It stumped forward, straggly mahogany hair hanging in its small, dull eyes. The troll inclined its head to look at Hermione and Ron, and roared. It lifted its mallet high in the air and brought it downward fast.

Ron nimbly pulled Hermione out of the way, dodging the attack. The carved stone hit the ground next to them, making the earth rumble beneath their feet. It bellowed again, and Hermione found her feet--running with Ron over to the side. The forest troll cudgeled down its hammer again, and this time it missed by a long shot.

Ron stooped and picked up a large, round stone and threw it right past the troll. It hit a limb of a tree, and the troll turned stupidly as the sound of rock on wood reached its huge ears. They both seized this chance to draw their wands.

"Impedimenta!" said Hermione, aiming at the nape of the troll's thick neck. The jinx rebounded off of its impassable hide, but one could hardly tell for the slow speed that it turned as it felt the spell hit it.

The troll grunted twice then bellowed again, raising its mallet high in the air. With a hasty swish and flick, Ron exclaimed "Wingardium Leviosa!" Its weapon rose above its head, floating in midair, turning in slow circles. Ron pulled his wand off of the levitating object, and gravity took hold. The great, stone hammer fell and crashed down onto the top of the troll's head.

Blinking blood out of its eyes, it stumbled and swayed after the mallet hit the ground near its large, stump-like feet. The troll grappled around for support for a moment before it fell sideways with a final groan, the ground trembling with its impact. One arm sprawled into the river.

Hermione and Ron didn't say anything for a second, standing stationary and breathing loudly, gazing at their unconscious troll. "Stick to the basics, Hermione," Ron said finally, pocketing his wand. "Troll? Weapon? Levitating Spell--no need to get fancy."

"Right," Hermione croaked, letting her wand slip into her pocket. She shook herself, mentally, and started to walk forward again, stepping over the forest troll's legs. "Do you think this was Sufree's doing?"

"Sufree?" repeated Ron, following her over the troll. "That mad fairy? Nah..."

"He was a Puck, Ron," she corrected, "and I'm positive he's the one who sent the troll after us."

"Why'd you ask me, then?" he questioned as they started with a hurried walk, glancing back at the troll with a large lump on its head with a little visible pride.

"He's doing this all in some tainted play on revenge, don't you see?" Hermione stated desperately, looking at him for acumen or support.

"Not--" Thump.

The very grass seemed to give out from under Ron's feet as he was sucked down into the ground. Hermione shrieked and threw herself to the edge of the hole, gazing down into it. A small light at the bottom of the dark, well-like burrow flickered on, illuminating Ron's face some ways down.

"Yech," he said, moving his wand about to examine his surroundings. "This is nasty."

"Ron," Hermione cried, "Ron are you alright?"

"Yeah..." he said, trance-like, "yeah I'm good."

"Lumos," Hermione muttered, pulling her wand out of her pocket. She shined it down into the hole. It was a fathom down, at least, but Ron seemed unscathed. Undying insects crawled around on the outsides of the tunnel, but the bottom of the digging seemed much wider.

"Can you toss me a rope, or something?" Ron asked, turning his face up to look at her.

"Oh, sure..." Hermione was halfway through the incantation before she stopped as she heard something. There was a sudden hissing noise, down in the hole, and even from there she could see her boyfriend go rigid. "Ron... Ron what is it?"

"Rope--" he gurgled, waving an extended arm up at her, "rope!" Quickly she used her wand to shoot a thick cord down to him, and with a casual flick knots appeared down the cable every few feet as foot holds.

Below her, Ron started stammering incantations to various hexes and curses, and she didn't take the time to check what the problem may be. Hermione looked around, and then backed up, cord still extending from her wand, to the wood. She hastily wrapped the wide twine around a tree three times over and sealed it with a charm.

Ron was already scrambling up the braided rope when she arrived back at the hole. She moved over to the other side of the sunken earth, and looked down the hole, lighting her wand tip again. Far below she could see the face of a gorgeous woman looking up at her, long, blonde waves of hair falling all around and over her shirtless torso.

As she helped Ron to extract himself from the trap, dragging him out by his wrists, Hermione appreciated his loyalty for a second. After he was out and kneeling on the ground next to her, Hermione saw the line she had conjured tighten again. "Diffindo," she muttered, and as the threads split themselves the strong rope snapped, and was pulled into the aperture. An answering muffled hiss of anger reached her ears as the woman trying to crawl out after Ron hit the soil far beneath them.

"What was that?" Hermione asked, looking at Ron's white face.

He was breathing vociferously. "A Lamiae, I... think."

Hermione gasped. "A Lamiae?" she echoed, getting to her feet. Ron shakily followed her lead, nodding. "Like, a child of Lamia?"

"Half-human, half-serpent, clawed feet, big talons... enjoys feeding on the blood of humans? Yes, that would probably be what you're looking for, then," Ron said feebly, running his hand through his hair.

"I didn't think they existed outside of Greek mythology!" stated Hermione, astonished. "And you actually encountered one!"

Ron gazed at her through wide, circular eyes--his face pale. "Yeah, very cool, I know..."

"Well," Hermione chided, "you're fine now, aren't you?" Ron raised his eyebrows and nodded slightly. "Children of Lamia..." she continued in awe, "I've never been sure why Zeus would give a woman the power to remove and replace her eyes at will, and even more confusing why Hera would be jealous..."

Ron made a sound of dissent at her engrossment with the prospect of a living, breathing Lamiae. "Sorry," she apologized, "it's just really interesting..."

They walked along the bank, Ron kicking sand up around their feet. He'd been thinking a lot about what Sufree had said, she knew it. Hermione had considered whom it was that he had turned his nose up on... Luna Lovegood seemed to crush over both him and Harry--maybe it was her? Perhaps it was even Hermione herself... she couldn't be around Ron all the time, who knew?

It wasn't long before Hermione and Ron had succeeded in stunning about fifteen electric-blue pixies that had come shooting out of the wood and started attacking the Weasley with twigs, managed to dissolve all of the corrosive slime left over their path by a Streeler (a giant, color-changing snail), and pry what they had thought was a log off of Ron's ankles.

"A Dugbog," Hermione said angrily, wrapping Ron's bleeding ankle with thick, white bandages she produced with her wand. "I should have known... they really do look like a piece of rotting wood..."

"I was dead convinced until it slithered up onto shore and got my entire foot--in--its--mouth," Ron said fiercely, wincing as Hermione circled an untouched cut with the bandages. He pulled a worn trainer onto his foot and tied it loosely around the cloth.

They had limped only a short way before something else came shooting out of a burrow in between two trees, laughing maniacally. Resembling a very overgrown gray ferret, it jumped into the air and attached itself to the front of Ron's shirt. "Git!" it began its stream as Ron stumbled backward, "Drunken prat! Pill shooter! Idiot! Arse blower! Tree hugger! Mudblood lover! Freckle arse! Mottle face! Fire cro-"

"Honestly!" snapped Hermione, whipping out her wand again, "Petrificus Totalus!" The Jarvey fell off of Ron, legs stuck out at perfect straight angles in front of him, mouth clamped shut.

He scowled down at it, nudging it harshly back toward its burrow with his good foot. "Considering that he lives in a hole in the middle of the Forbidden Forest," Ron said sounding falsely intrigued, "he had quite the vocabulary. I think he wanted to be my friend." He faked a flattered smile.

"No," she scoffed, "I've had about enough of this!"

"If this day gets any better by noon," he said, an unfelt, sarcastic, toothy grin flitting across his face, "I'll be rolling in glass." Ron threw his arms unceremoniously into the air and added, "Yay!"

"Yes, well, I don't think--" Hermione stopped, peering into the trees. Rustling and clicking sounds were coming from the darkness, drawing nearer and nearer.

*()%()*

The world upended itself, and Harry felt the blood rush to his head as he swung back and forth, hanging upside-down by his ankles. Ginny was dangling from her wrists at his side, kicking her legs fiercely, and trying to pull herself upward.

He struggled, twisting from side to side, feeling dizziness closing in. Harry's wand was on the ground, far beneath them. He reached out toward it, pointlessly, grappling at thin air. Panicked, he dug his hands into the pockets of his jeans, which were less roomy than those of his cloak. There he found the penknife Sirius gave to him. He flicked it open while de-tangling himself from the heavy, black fabric of his cloak that had fallen all around his head.

He did what was possibly the most difficult sit-up of all time, muscles screaming in their defense, securing his left hand around one of the vines binding him. Harry took the sharp little knife and sawed relentlessly at one vine.

It broke, and the tree thrashed about dangerously, its roots creaking and groaning. Harry was launched this way and that, swinging ominously in all directions, the vine around his one ankle jerking him in all directions. He felt his upper leg pop. When it stopped lashing with so much violence and force, Harry grabbed the part of the vine that encircled his right ankle.

Pulling himself up, he cut the second vine. Gravity pulled him down, and he crashed into the hardened ground on his back. Having a lot of difficulty breathing, Harry hobbled over toward where Ginny was dangling, stooping to pick up his wand on the way.

The tree was still flailing about, and she flopped like a rag doll wherever the vines binding her swung. Harry tried to aim his wand at the branches that hung slightly with her weight, but they were thin and moving fast.

Willow vines came soaring toward him again, and both feeling and hearing the whoosh of them go by near his ear he dodged out of the way... that was a narrow miss. "Impedimenta!" he shouted, pointing at the trunk. It did nothing but make the tree, if one could say, angrier.

Harry watched as Ginny pulled herself upward, elbows bending, arms shaking, and managed to get a hold on one of the vines with her teeth. The vine around her right wrist gave a tremor and released her, leaving Ginny hanging by one arm as the branches began swinging again.

She tried to grab for the last vine with her free hand, but failed as she swung, twisted, and flopped with each of the willow's movements. Harry hurried forward, dodging around spare vines and branches here and there, and held his wand up to her. Before she could snatch it out of his hand, a spare branch pushed Harry out of the way, and he slashed a couple new vines that came for him.

He lunged forward again, and two vines secured him around the wrists. Just as they began to pull him off of the ground, he heard a twang from inside the wood. Something whistled just past his head, and struck the willow.

In the middle of the trunk, in the definite center of a round knot, was a long, yellow-feathered arrow. Harry stared at it, dreading the willow's reaction, but the cords around his wrists loosened and fell away.

Harry quickly positioned himself under Ginny, who was hanging much higher, and she fell into him, just nearly hitting the ground on her feet. They toppled over, Ginny landing on top of Harry, her chin grinding into his collarbone and one knee between his.

She groaned painfully into his shoulder for a split-second before clumsily rolling off of him, settling down on his left with a rustle. Harry blew a chunk of her hair off of his face, taking deep, heaving breaths. "Sorry," she said, "sorry, did I--"

"No, I'm good," he croaked, putting one hand on his chest in hopes that it would repair his struggling respiratory system. Remembering the arrow, he pushed himself up suddenly and gazed into the trees. There was nothing there, no sign of movement whatsoever. He exhaled slowly as the dizziness from his sudden movement inaugurated.

"We were just attacked by a tree," Ginny noted, lying on the ground next to him. Her eyes were shut, and damp crimson hair falling all around her face. She laughed, resting a hand on her forehead. Her nose crinkled up when she did this, making her look amazingly...

Harry shook himself. Date with Cho, he thought.

Her dark eyes flickered open and she grinned. She propped herself up, looked at the willow nastily.

Harry didn't know what made him do it, but he looked her in the eye and asked, "What does he think?"

Ginny gazed at him darkly for a moment before her features slackened. She rubbed her temple and shut her eyes. Harry's apology was on the tip of his tongue before she replied, "He's laughing like a bloody maniac." Her eyes opened again. "Apparently," Ginny said loudly, as though trying to make Riddle hear her, glaring up at the sky, "he--thinks--it's--pretty--amusing." She paused for a moment then said, "He's done," with a crooked grin.

"Did he stop or did you block it?" Harry asked, standing up.

She followed his lead, leaning forward to grab her own wand. "Drowned him out with a new train of thought for him to play with. He's been laughing most of the time, anyway." She pocketed her wand. "What did you do to stop the tree, anyway?"

"I didn't do anything," Harry replied, a little relieved for the new topic. He pointed at the knot in the willow where the arrow was stuck.

"Did it freeze the tree?" Ginny asked, walking forward.

Harry shook his head. "No, I think it just sort of--fell asleep?"

Carefully the Weasley approached it, gazing at the arrow. She glanced at the drooping vines and branches of the willow then enclosed the arrow in her fist and yanked it out. A long trail of purplish liquid dripped out of the knot, sliding down the trunk.

Ginny strode away quickly. Harry hobbled toward her, and upon questioning clinched that he was fine.

The feathers on the end of it were a deep, golden yellow that shone and sparkled in the sunlight just as the river did. The tip was sleek stone, and barbed. "Wouldn't want to get hit with one of these," Harry remarked, pointing at the spikes sticking from either side of the arrowhead.

Ginny nodded, turning it over so they could look at the end of it. "It's been sealed, look," she said, showing Harry a horizontal line along the edge of it. "It must've been poisoned--which really makes me hope that it was meant to hit the tree."

"Can I see it?" Ginny handed him the arrow, and he looked at the tip of it again. He rolled it over. On that side of the arrowhead was carved two curvy symbols, like those on the oars of the canoes. Harry tapped them with the tip of his finger. "These might be initials."

"An elven arrow... I should have known," moaned Ginny sardonically.

"All I know is that it came from in there."

They walked into the wood, gazing all about for footprints. Harry and Ginny strode deep inside and in every direction, but there was nothing--not a single sign that there had been an Elf there not long before. They turned back.

"Anyway," said Ginny as the neared the edge of the trees, "it's a comfort that they hit the tree. Maybe they aren't, y'know, evil."

Harry smirked at her, trying to distract himself from the pain in his leg by gazing intently at Ginny and rolling the lightweight arrow betwixt his fingers. The river and the willow were in view now, and he hobbled forward.

An ominous growling surrounded them, suddenly. They both stopped immediately, gazing about. In a split-second, there were bodies hurrying forward from behind the trees, and popping up from the other sides of shrubs.

Some shuffled forward crouched low to the ground, hands dragging in the snow. Others scurried about, knees bent, and others still walked with a straight, powerful posture. The low grumbling was now a chorus of growls, hisses, and grumbling voices speaking in a tongue Harry didn't recognize--or perhaps simply couldn't descry what they were saying.

There was an array of them--some were slimy and yellow with Dobby-sized luminous eyes; some had knotted black hair, slanted eyes, and dry, gray skin; and others seemed like a combination of the two.

Harry didn't take much notice, though, frozen stiff on the spot. All he knew was that there were over a dozen of them, and they were closing in, wringing their crooked, mottled hands.

*()%()*

Holly felt the canoe dropping faster, her feet disconnecting with it. She could hear Malfoy yelling over her own scream--he was right behind her.

In slow motion, she watched their trusty elven canoe fall down, water of the cascade pushing it faster than gravity could take it, oars flying out to either side.

It felt like invisible hands were using strings to lift up all of her organs--the sensation of falling twice as real as it ever was in a dream. The rocks at the bottom drew ever nearer, the ice-cold mist hitting her face.

And, just as her feet were so close to the rocks she could nearly feel them cracking upon impact--the falling stopped. Like she'd grabbed onto a Portkey the wrong way, a hook seemed to secure itself around her navel and pull. She soared backward, bent, arms and legs in front of her. Water imbrued her as she passed through the waterfall, expecting her spinal cord to snap in half as she hit rough stone behind it.

But nothing of the sort happened. Holly was thrown onto her back, head smacking against stone floor. She felt blood seep out from a cut and into her hair for a second before her Charm closed it. Dizzily, she sat up. It seemed that she'd gone blind for a moment before her eyes adjusted.

Holly, with a moaning, slow-moving Malfoy next to her, had been sucked into a high-ceilinged cave. The sun shone through the cascade, sparkling on parts of the dark, stone walls. Turning her head, Holly could see a ways into the cave, but the rest was lost in darkness. The only thing she was certain about as she got up and walked back toward the waterfall was that the deeper you got into the cave, the colder it must get.

Glancing over her shoulder, Holly saw Malfoy slowly prop himself onto his elbows, wincing. She pushed a few stray strands of wet hair out of her face and turned back to the cascade. Holly reached her hands upward to block some of the water from buffeting her, and stood at the edge of the cave so the shore would be close by when she got out.

But, as her hands touched the water, they stopped. Small streams of water leaked through her fingers. Holly moved over, running her hands along the solid surface. It was like glass--a single pane of smooth glass spread between one wall of the cave and the other--some water leaking on the inside of it.

She walked all the way across the cave--and she couldn't feel a single opening. Pulling out her wand, Holly muttered "Incendio," in hopes that the wall was just ice. The waterfall simply absorbed the jet of fire, though. She tried a Reductor Curse to no avail. The wall just sucked it in, too.

Holly hit the cascade with every hex and jinx she could think of--although a Tickling Charm probably wouldn't have done a thing. She shoved her wand into her pocket and slammed a fist against it. It made a resounding booming noise that reminded Holly of someone being crosschecked into Plexiglas.

Holly threw a few more punches at the walled waterfall, feeling her knuckles crack and repair themselves. She rested her forehead against it, clenching her jaw in both anger and fear. The water ran over her already wet face, and Holly shut her eyes. Analyzing the situation was far below her.

She swore loudly at it, and kicked it. Nothing--not as though she'd expected results. Holly yelled a curse again and hit the side of her fist against it, turning away.

Malfoy seemed recovered now, standing up and rubbing the back of his head. He took his hand away from his skull and examined his palm for blood... there wasn't any, but he did look off-color. "Well," he said distractedly, "color you moody."

Holly didn't say anything, and instead started to pace, fingers entangled in her hazardous curls. They were stuck inside a freezing cold stone cave with nothing but what she had in her backpack--most things, of which, were probably crushed when she landed flat on her back.

"Breathe, Black," interrupted Malfoy's low, gravelly voice.

"We're stuck in here, you stupid bastard!" Holly exclaimed, dropping her hands from her hair and clenching them at her sides. Her shout totally threw off the balance of Malfoy's seductive tones, echoing off the walls. And Draco, who'd been keeping his temper cool thus far, began to show a flush rising in his cheeks.

"What are you angry about?" he drawled, managing to keep his tone even, "Look what I have to work with! I'm stuck here, with you, Black. It's dark. It's cold. And fucking little Potter and Friends aren't about to find us, are they?"

Holly glared at him, knowing that he was indubitable. "I can't believe what an imbecile you are, either!" he continued, voice rising, "'Turn, Malfoy, turn!' Like I could do a bloody thing!" He took his topic and turned it around, simply to scoff at her. "You just live off others. Holly Black waltzes into danger without a care, because she knows that her ever watchful and heroic, lucky ickle god-brother Potter will show up to save the day." Draco didn't seem to be very angry at all--except for the pencil-thin crease between his eyebrows and pinking cheeks.

"You're pathetic. All of you. Black, you can walk into this country and into this school and act as if you own it. But you have no idea what you're up against..." He puffed up, glaring at her darkly--he knew something. He had to know something... "You've no clue what the hell you've gotten yourself in to, and I'm not talking about the damn Forbidden Forest. You pathetic, weak girl--ruining the name of your pureblooded family just like that dog substituting as your father did; you should have stayed in the dirty freak orphanage that spurned you..."

She didn't know what did it--she didn't know what his petty insults opened in her mind, but Holly threw herself at him, pinning him to the rough, stone floor.

Malfoy sat in a shocked silence for a second, staring at her. Recovering, he threw his shoulders forward and twisted, forcing Holly onto the floor next to him, making spare pebbles dug into her back and shoulder blades right through the three layers of clothing she wore. Clabbering on top of her, Malfoy shoved her shoulders down with his hands and glared at her. There was a definite flush of anger on his face now--and his silver eyes looked coal-black. "What the f--"

If he thought he was going to win this by size, he was wrong. Holly rotated her shoulder sharply, gravelly floor digging into her through her cloak, and swiped an arm out. Holly hit it hard against his forearms, knocking his hands off of her shoulders.

Catching Malfoy off his guard, he fell forward onto her. This gave Holly a split-second advantage to swiftly roll over and slam him down again. He grinned up at her as she pinned his arms to the side. The smirk wouldn't win--he was still angry... the smile was even further from reaching his cold eyes than usual. Never, not even once, had Holly seen Malfoy really smile. "If you wanted to be on top, all you had to do was ask," he sneered.

"I hate your ass, Malfoy," she said weakly. He made no attempt to bowl her over again, although he certainly had to potential to.

"Is that all? Because I assure you it can be fixed," he said, breathing a little raggedly. Holly dug her knees into the insides of his forearms and pulled her wand out of her robes for good measure. One hand on his right shoulder, Holly poked his Adam's apple with her wand and he coughed.

"I fucking despise you, your hell-bent house along with every scaleless marine eel in it, and the unclean particles of your corrupted family that I've been forced to lay eyes upon," she snapped through clenched teeth, jabbing his throat with the tip of her wand again.

"Now, that's just discrimination." Draco's grin flickered then died. "My mother's always said that the Blacks were a respectable pureblood family until your father came along--what sort of whore he shagged to put together a bitch like y-"

Holly clenched a fist and pummeled it into Malfoy's jaw, then hitting him again in the eye. He ripped his arms out from underneath her knees and shoved her off of him, violently scrabbling on top of her.

Taking cue from what Holly had done before, Malfoy held down her arms, letting her lunge around. He was stronger than her, but there was no way she'd give up that easy. "Lucky for you you're a girl," he said, voice lower than ever. "I don't hit girls."

Voices were ringing in her head, which always happened when she let her temper slide all the way into its active place.

"Do you want to stay in St. Cloud, Black?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Then shape up! This is your warning. Once more and you're going to Hibbing. Even better, we'll ship you all the way back to Cleveland."

"Unless I'm adopted."

"What, Black?"

"Unless I'm adopted!"

"You're thirteen--people want babies, not reckless teenagers..."

Holly had been losing her cool since the second she was born--and once past rolling around on the carpet, kicking her legs and screaming, she'd done nothing but gotten into more trouble. It was a mad rush of hot blood that not even time could cool. This year it had been muffled... she forced it out when she could--it was embarrassing. Yelling was one thing, hitting people was another.

The Holy Trinity couldn't see her mad--not Harry, not Ron, and certainly not Hermione... Ginny knew about her tantrums--her real tantrums--but had never witnessed one.... God forbid that her father knew how many orphanages she'd actually been in. Dumbledore knew the count, of course. He had to know.

Holly hated being choleric and rash, she loathed it. There was a face she needed to keep on here--she had no past, and nobody had to wonder about it. Nobody.

But, what was it that made Malfoy--petty, water-churning Draco Malfoy--get under her skin with the simplest of invectives? What detail made him so nettlesome?

His ear-length hair was falling in his eyes, and even though it adumbrated his face Holly could still see bruises rising on his jaw and under his eye. He didn't hit girls, huh? Breathing hard, she wanted to say, 'Imagine that!' but only managed to reply, "I hate you." One corner of his mouth upturned itself.

"Hate is good..." he said deeply. She forced himself to look him straight in the eye, never blinking, watching the knots and ties of his cold, lying, gray eyes with her own--pretty honey eyes that were hardly her own. "It's passionate, intense--" Draco leaned down, close enough to her face that she could see every mark on his features, every eyelash, each impurity. She flinched and looked away as he continued in a whisper, lips teasingly brushing her ear: "a breath away from love."

Holly sequestered the last of the muffled songs of memories from her thoughts of the present and glared at Draco as he moved away from her. Most of the girls in the school would give anything to be pegged to the floor by Draco Malfoy, but Holly wasn't enjoying it.

There was a moment when all they did was glare at each other. "You fight dirty," Malfoy noted, keeping his voice so level Holly felt aggravated that he could sound so casual.

You wanna see dirty? she thought, feeling a leer turning up instinctively the corners of her mouth.

Malfoy opened his mouth to continue, but before he could Holly sharply brought her knee up between his legs. He spluttered, and Holly threw him off of her. Feeling savagely victorious, she pushed herself off the ground and stood up, snatching up her wand where it lay on the ground, forgotten.

Let him get up and punch her in the eye--see if she cared! As far as avoiding injury went, Holly had the upper hand. Malfoy didn't look ready to spring, though... he was half-curled into a fetal position on the ground, grumbling something incomprehensible, hands where Holly had hit him.

She leaned against the cave wall, watching him through narrowed eyes. She wasn't going to apologize... she simply couldn't do it. It was a while before he managed to stand up and hobble toward her saying, "You bitch..." expanding quite a bit on that note.

Holly crossed her arms in front of her, wand twirling between the tips of her fingers. "What the fuck is your problem?" he exploded in closing, baring his teeth.

"You're the one who called my mama a ho..." she said, playing an accent of her dear friend Jo and jerking her head once, "although you sh'n't talk about her. Your dear old mummy lets you nail her, right? I mean, your dad ain't the prettiest of men. I think the Malfoys are a little too pureblood for their own good."

Holly dodged his blow but not his tackle. He pushed her some ways back into the cave and slammed her against the wall. "Take it back," he hissed, face thrown completely into shadow in the ever-darkening cave. Holly could see his eyes glinting, his shiny-blond hair (glowing even when wet), and some of the planes of his cheeks--but that was it. The darkness made him look stronger than he'd ever acted.

Feeling uncharacteristically brave, Holly drew out, "Take back that my mom's a slut and I'll take back that you fuck yours, Malfoy." He threw another fist at her face, and Holly quickly turned her face. It collided with her cheek, versus hitting a space between her eye and nose. "Looks like you'll also have to take back that you don't hit chicks, huh?" The rising bruise vanished but the paroxysm remained--throbbing.

"I've never really been sure about you anyway, Black," he retorted, "Look at those shoulders."

Holly clenched her teeth, but managed a faux smile. "I'll kick you in the groin this time, Malfoy," she told him. "Though... I've never really been sure about you, either. Look at those shoulders."

With an extra push against her, Draco stepped back, drawing his wand. He pointed it at her heart, and Holly aimed her own at his neck. "Relying on your magic stick?" she scoffed, "Maybe you are a--"

His aim changed and he said, "Confrinasus!" Holly grasped her left hand over her nose as it snapped and began to bleed, pooling in the palm of her hand, dripping onto the floor. The cartilage repaired itself quickly, and the blood flow slowed.

"Conjunctiva!" Malfoy grappled at his eyes, bellowing. "Rictusempra!" He was torn between holding his hands over his eyes or grasping his stomach. "Locomotor Mortis!" He toppled over with his knees stuck together, half-laughing, and half-crying.

Holly watched him for a moment before removing all the hexes. He glared up at her, grasping his wand and raising it again. "Expelliarmus," she said lazily. Holly caught his wand deftly with her left hand and grinned. "And I was so convinced you were good at this--"

Malfoy reached out his hand and said, "Accio!" His wand shook in her hand and flew to him. Holly raised her wand to curse him again, but he got there first. "Impedimenta."

She froze, arm halfway raised. "I am," he told her, standing up. "You stay there for a moment, will you?" Holly tried to shift position, but only found that her eyes would move. Malfoy grinned. "Lumos."

He shined the narrow beam of his wand into the cave, and she could see that they were very near the end of it. Draco couldn't reconnoiter much further, though, as there was a huge teal-shaded dragon, yellow eyes wide, lying in the way.

*()%()*

"Oh no..." Ron said as the clicking drew ever closer. "No, no, no, no, no..."

Hermione shot a look at him, drawing her wand. "Quiet!" Ron whimpered and stepped backward, holding his wand out unsteadily.

The first one scurried out of the wood--half-cartwheeling through the tight-packed trees. Three feet wide, black and hairy, the spider was bigger than any one Hermione had ever seen. She hit it with a Stunning Spell, praying that it wouldn't bounce off--but it did.

Thinking quickly, she aimed her wand lower and said, "Perveractum!" The Acromantula was flipped over, and she hit the fleshy underside of it with a fresh Stunning Spell. This time it worked, and only a second later had Ron managed to stutter the same order of bewitchments, stopping another spider.

They came, one after another, each, in turn, being added to the stack of their quiescent kin. The closest one got was to touch Hermione with its antennae briefly before she shrieked and disposed of that one too.

But, the more that came, the bigger they got. Soon the trees were swarming with them--most of the Acromantulas were too large to fit through the compact trees. The stack got ever higher, and the task even seemed facile for Ron after a time.

"Perveractum... Stupefy."

"P-Perveractum--Stupefy!"

"Perveractum..."

"Stupefy..."

They'd become so engrossed in disposing of the giant spiders that neither of them noticed the splashing behind them.

Two large, wet hands closed around Hermione's arms and started dragging her backward into the river. She screamed and lunged about, trying to see her captor. Ron, who had just finished levitating an Acromantula and moving it out of his way, turned around and gazed at Hermione.

He aimed, and exclaimed, "Perveractum!" Hermione and whatever was holding her both flew backward, into the water. She looked up, water rippling above her. The strong hands were still around her arms, and now there were stubby legs flailing against hers.

Hermione struggled, twisting and bending, trying to extract herself from its grip. Her lungs screamed in protest and every inch of her skin stung with the cold of the stream's waters. Finally her captor stood up, and pulled Hermione out of the water, too. She blinked water out of her eyes, hacking and gagging--loads of water had gone up her nose.

Ron had stomped into the river; the Acromantula stream seemed to come to a stop. He looked at a loss for hexes, but pointed his wand over her shoulder. Hermione looked down--the hands around her arms were purple and hairy. There was no way... a river troll?

It couldn't be something to boast, really, having encountered all three types of trolls that Newt Scamander had written about before graduating from school.

Hermione bent over and coughed, spitting up water. The creature turned, pushing her through the easy-flowing waters of the river, uttering nonsense words under its breath.

She unambiguously wished that Ron would think of a spell soon--her wand was caught between a few weeds along the bank. It wasn't long until Hermione heard him come to a conclusion. "Incendio!"

The troll hollered agony. But, instead of gripping her arms tightly and crushing the bones like they were mere sugar-cubes, it let go of her.

She fell into the water and struggled to her feet, finding that she was nearly shoulder-deep in the cold water. The current could have swept her away, if the Elves played their card and send her tumbling through the rapids, but nothing of the sort happened. She struggled toward Ron, who stepped nearer and held out an arm.

He secured his hand around her wrist (which was so tiny he could have wrapped his hand around it twice over) and pulled. Hermione reached another hand out to him, and he entwined his fingers with hers and helped her up onto shore.

"Hermione--Hermione are you all right?" Ron's eyes danced with concern as she blinked water droplets out of her eyelashes and nodded. She turned her head and just saw what looked like a ball of fire with two short, yellow horns and hairy purple arms disappear around the winding river's bend. "I'm so sorry about the Flipping Jinx... I was in sort of a pattern and..." He delivered a kick to a very small Acromantula that had scurried over the growing pile of its Stunned elders.

"It's okay, Ron, it doesn't matter--" she said quickly, pointlessly wiping her face on the sopping sleeve of her cloak. He moved to kiss her on the forehead, but she turned away, going to retrieve her wand. "Good thing magical fires tend to be waterproof..."

A few Drought Charms, Heating Spells, and apologies later, Hermione and Ron were walking, neoteric, along the river again. "This is like the opposite of what I wanted to do today," he stated.

Little had happened other than when an imp lurking on the bank tripped Ron and he landed sprawled in the sand.

When he seemed completely torn over this, near tears for a few minutes afterward, Hermione discovered a Pogrebin had been crouching in his shadow for what must have been a long time--it's emotional effects kicking in faster after the imp had humiliated Ron. Wondering why Hermione hadn't realized a shiny, round rock following them before and how in the world a Russian demon ended up living in the Forbidden Forest--she pointed it out.

Ron kicked it hard, launching it into the trees, and Hermione finished it with a Stunner. "This is unbelievable..." she said, thoroughly exasperated.

"That Puck is one dirty son of a bitch," Ron remarked, seeming very uplifted after the exit of his Pogrebin. "It'd be a lie if I said that I hope none of the others are dealing with stuff like this...."

Hermione wasn't paying attention. Instead, she was gazing into the trees, squinting her eyes. "Do you see that?" she asked him, pointing.

There was something just a ways into the wood that she could just scarcely see on the ground. It seemed to flicker in her vision, like the Leaky Cauldron did when she was ten, searching for the supposed entrance into Diagon Alley. Her eyes hadn't been trained yet to see all these things Muggles couldn't at that time.

But Hermione had no trouble spotting magic now--but the image of this spot of light on the ground faded in and out, like gazing at someone through an over-worn Invisibility Cloak.

She glanced over at Ron who was looking at her intently. "See what?" he asked, switching his gaze from her to the trees and back again.

"It's..." she stopped, focusing hard. Hermione gazed at the spot, slowly striding forward. It was like a trick picture, that you had to bring close to your face, push away, and then cross your eyes to see what it was supposed to be showing you. But the nearer to it she moved, the more its camouflage wore away.

"I still don't see--"

"Hush!" she breathed.

Several steps into the trees, its deceiving disguise ripped away. Three movements melted together as one: Hermione jumped back, gasped, and pointed.