Chapter 6

DISCLAIMER! No infringement intended, all settings and a majority of the characters belong to the one and only J.K Rowling!

Chapter 6

 

The first challenge was too close.  I spent hours upon hours next to Al at the library, pouring over novels and reference material about the forbidden forest.  None of it would be enough.  Albus was next to me every step of the way, reading, making notes, comparing notes.  Suggesting things.  We’d matched up our leaf to be from an Oak.  There were several different sections of the forest, and the Oak section had an entirely different set of creatures.  We had to assume that we’d need something from that section to win the challenge, or to finish it, at least.  We also had to assume that the other teams would start in different sections from us.  Sometimes, Scorpius and Rose would join us, taking a break from doing whatever it was they did when they were alone.  James was almost always on my other side, working with me.  He rarely left us alone.

“It’s my little brother and my best friend.  Of course I’m going to help you.”   He had said.  At first I suspected him of entering our names, but I couldn’t seem to figure out who had done it.  But I had more important things to focus on.

When we were too tired to keep going, we would troop into the common room, and then talk strategy until we both fell asleep on the couches.  There were awkward breaks in conversation when we’d both stare at the flames.  I had sent so many letters to my mother, begging her not to be worried.  It was in those moments that I began to fear for my life, and for her as I did so.  I was her only child… What would she do if I died at the hands of a dragon, or a forest sprite?

One night, when the first task was three days away, we were alone in the common room.  He turned and looked at me, the firelight making his skin red.

“I wish whoever put our names in the Goblet had put James’s name down instead of mine.”  He said, quietly.

“Why?”

“Because he could protect you better than I can.  He could keep you safe.”

“Albus.”  I sat up, anger flaring in the back of my mind.  I pushed it down, he was just as scared as I was.  “This isn’t about protecting any one.  It’s about having each other’s backs, and working as a team.  We’re not going to do this alone.  And there’s no way I’ll let you get hurt for me.  We’re either winning as a team, or going down as one.”

He didn’t dare to object.  Instead, he just moved slightly closer to me on the couch and stared at the flames.  I set my head down on his shoulder.

“Will you have my back?”  I asked, softly.

“Always.”

 

The next day we all visited Hagrid for help.  Scorpius didn’t come with us, he said he had other business to deal with.  The truth of it was that Hagrid didn’t like his father, and he didn’t like Scorpius either.

“Yer a little early fer yer lesson, aren’t ya?”  He asked when I showed up.

“You know what this is about, Hagrid.”  I said, quietly.

“Yeah… I figured ye’d come at some point.  They had me prep parts o the forest, ya know.”  Hagrid said.  “Come in here, I don’t want McGonagall ter knew I helped yer.”  We all stepped inside.  I sat next to Al, and James and Rose sat opposite us.  Hagrid sat at his end of the table.  Bruiser, Hagrid’s dog, watched us quietly.

“Now, the forest is gonna be filled with things, bad things.  There’s yer basic faeries and sprites, but there’s also unicorns, hippogriffs, and centaurs.  Now, what leaf did yer get?”

“Oak.”  I said.

“I suppose yer know that ye’ve got to get over there to get yer next clue, right?”

“Right.”  I replied.

“Good, now the Oak section is just past Centaur territory.  What the game makers don’t know is that the centaurs aren’t all bad.  A friend o’ mine used to live in those parts.  It’s possible if you tell them yer a Potter, they’ll let you go through, maybe even give you a lift.  Other wise, Sophie yer great with the beasts, maybe ye can tame a unicorn to ride or a Hippogriff.  If yer ridin on sommat, maybe the Centaurs won’t come after ye… ‘R else ye could outrun em… That’s about all I can give ye, other than sayin once ye’ve got yer clue, yer safe.  Ye’ll know what the clue is, believe me.  It’s nice and shiny an’ all that…” There was a knock at the door.

“And that’s why they’re called Peruvian Vipertooths.  Oh, is that the door?  Hang on, Sophie let me get it.”  Hagrid said, loudly.  He made his way over to the door, where Professor McGonagall was waiting.

“I thought I’d find you here.”  She said, brushing past Hagrid.

“No, please Professor, come right in…” Hagrid mumbled.

“Sophie, Al, I know you’ve come here to get help from Hagrid.  Very smart, I commend you for using your resources.”  We smiled.  “But I’ve come to warn you that you’re going to need a little more than knowledge of the creatures inside of the forest to get by.  I hope you’ve been studying spells, too?  You will need to know a lot of spells.  There are a lot more than creatures in those woods.  I suggest page 357 in your Magical Creatures Studies book.  Good luck.”  She said.  “And be sure to beat the others.”  And she left us with a wink.

“Well, yer lucky she came in. I just so happen to have a copy of that textbook.  Oh, 357… Creature spells.  Well, here ye go.  Read up, I’ll put on the tea.”

And so we spent the day reading, practicing, and memorizing spells to use when we were inside of the forest.

Little did we know that we were anything but prepared.

 

James made sure we both slept in proper beds that night, not on couches or chares or the floor, as we’d ended up there one night after reading for hours.  We’d need our sleep.  Rosie helped me get ready, and coaxed some pumpkin juice into me, along with maybe half of my breakfast.  Al was in about the same shape.  Scorpius came over and gave us both a pep talk.  I didn’t need it.  What with being Hagrid’s apprentice, I knew everything there was to know about the forbidden forest.  That’s probably why he’d only named creatures, instead of telling us anything about them.  Our section was very, very deep within it.  We all lined up in the Champion’s tent with Edmund, Samuel, Astrid, and Elaine.  Al rubbed my back as we sat, waiting.  He had never finished his question.

“Al… If I don’t make it out-“

“Don’t talk like that,” he cut me off.

“But theres something I want to ask-“

“Champions!”  A woman said, coming over with her camera.  Welcome to your first challenge.  Can I get a picture?  Hm?”  We all lined up as we’d done since the beginning.  Many photos had been taken of this ‘momentous occasion.’  We smiled, though our faces most likely looked pale and sickly.  I zipped up my sweatshirt, my wand in hand.  I ran my thumb back and forth across it, my hand shaking.

“That’s enough, Miss Ella.  Champions, welcome!”  Richard Rosebriar said, coming into the tent as well.   “We begin in three minutes, at the sound of the cannon, you will all enter the forest and find your clues.  I suppose you all understand what the clues meant?”  We nodded.  “Good, because I wasn’t going to tell you.”  He smiled.  “Good luck.”

We all lined up at the starting places.  Ours was just a few feet away from the Durmstrang champions.  I hoped that they wouldn’t try any funny business.

The cannon sounded and we both took off running.  As he had promised, Al had my back, taking the right side of the forest while I looked left.  Nothing popped out for a while, and we were beginning to relax.  Our secion was northwest in the far corner.  We were just leaving the first part of the forest, the only part I’d ever seen.  The farther we went in, the less I knew.  We heard the troll before we saw it.

Troll?  Hagrid never said anything about Trolls in the forest…

“Down!”  I hissed.  Trolls were not particularly bright, but very, very destructive.  If we wanted to beat it quickly, without awakening other beasts, we would have to strike first.  I peaked around the tree trunk quietly, wand at the ready.  I took note of the Troll’s club.  It was it’s only weapon.  I flicked my wand.  “Expulso!”  The club exploded in it’s hand.  The troll grabbed it’s hand in pain and attempted to cover it’s ears at the same time.  It’s wailing could be heard from far away.  Shoot!  I thought, knowing it would alert other beasts.  “Petrificus Totalus!”  I hissed, and the troll froze, it’s mouth open wide.  It toppled onto it’s side.  “Sorry.”  I whispered as I grabbed Al’s hand and we ran.

“You could have let me help.”  Al panted as we ran.

“I know almost everything there is to know about this forest.  I’ll see what I can do.”  I replied, making a sharp turn around a swamp.  I ran sideways for a while, then realized that we wouldn’t be able to avoid the swamp.  SHOOT!   I thought to myself.  Well, maybe I thought something a little bit stronger than ‘shoot’ but it’s my story and I’ll tell it how I like.

In any case, swamps are particularly widely monster-inhabited areas.  I darted in, my pace slowing almost 200%.  The swamp stretched across in all directions.  The only way around it would be to go all the way to the other side of the forest.  Cutting across would be fastest, but risked expulsion to beasts such as snakes, imps, and possibly nymphs.  I hoped that we didn’t come across any.  We hopped across the  rocks and logs as far as we could, but I knew we’d need to cross the water at some point.  This would be dangerous, sinking sand was notorious in these parts.  We were perhaps halfway across when we ran out of stepping-stones.  My mind raced for a spell.

“Ice.”  Al said, quietly.

“Ice?”

“Use ice.”

“I don’t know any ice charms… Hm…” I raised my wand.  ”Duro.”  The disgusting, stagnant water in front of me became hard and I stepped on it.  “Duro.”  I whispered again.  Al used the charm as well, stepping next to me.  We almost made it across the swamp without being caught by anything nasty.  Almost.

“Kappas”  I said, urgently.  I tried to remember the charm to blast them away.  Kappas were known for stealing wands, shoes, and belts.  Oh, and drownings.  They like to drown things, did I mention that?  They were particularly mischievous creatures, with humanoid bodies, that looked a bit like molding frogs.

“What do we do?”

“Move!”  I said, stepping into the water and taking off at a run.  Three or four of them poked their heads above the water.

“What spell?”

“Uh… Stupefy!” I shot a red spark at one of the Kappas, and it was shot back.  “That’ll do!  Move!” I started to run.  With a strange, strangled-sounding cry, one of the Kappa’s launched at Al’s back.  “Stupefy!”

More and more of them appeared, and they grabbed onto our legs, one was in my hair, yanking.  I tried to keep myself upright, smacking their slimy little bodies off of me whenever I could.

“Stupefy!  Stupefy!  Stupefy!”  We both called out, but they just kept coming.  We kept moving forward, my only hope that we would reach the outside of the swamp and they would retreat.  One of them bit into my knee with it’s pointy little teeth, and I felt my leg collapse downward.  I was already knee-deep in the disgusting water, and it pulled me down to my chest.  They jumped on my head, pulling and pushing to get me underwater.  I fought, and I felt Al kicking them off of me, but it was too slow.  One of them crawled across my face and started pulling, with my vision gone I couldn’t cast a spell.  I batted them off of me as best I could, but I was going down.

“GO!”  I screamed to Al, prepared to die.  I knew my words were muffled, but I hoped he got the message.  Something grabbed me and was yanking.  Strong hands ripped me from the water and I got back on my feet.  I swung my arms and used the Kappas gnawing at my hands to bat away others, eventually getting my hands and face free, but more were coming.

“SON OF A-“  Al screamed.

“MOVE!”  I cried

We finally saw the end of the swamp.  Tears swam in my eyes from pain and fear.  The Kappas kept biting and holding on, trying to drag me down.  They’d already taken my belt, but I wouldn’t let them have my wand.  I batted at them and sent a couple of stunning curses at the ones attatched to Al, hoping not to hit him by mistake.  Then, just as we were getting toward the end of the swamp, they all darted away.

“They left.”  Al panted.  I brushed my tears away violently.

“That’s not good.”  I said, my voice wavering.

“Why?  They’re gone.”  We continued to wade through the water.

“That means there’s something over here that the Kappas are afraid of, and we should be afraid of it too.”  I limped on, my knee screaming out.

Then suddenly, I heard a song.

Well, this is it… I’m going to die.  I figured it was the angels in heaven coming down to sing me goodbye.  But as we went, I could tell Al was hearing it too.

“It’s so beautiful…”  He said, softly.

“Shoot.”  No, that time I most definitely did not say shoot.

“What?”  He turned, looking enchanted.

“Nymphs, we need to go.”

“But it’s so-“

“NOW.”  I grabbed his wrist and dragged him out of the water.  We were just getting away as the beautiful girls emerged from the trees.

“They look friendly, though!”  Al said, fighting me.

“A little too friendly, now move!”  We were almost to our sector.  I recognized an oak tree above my head.  One of the Nymphs was angered that I was taking Al away and her eyes flashed red.  She bared her fangs and started to run at us.  Al seemed to become shaken from his reverie, and ran with me instead of against me.  We wouldn’t outrun her, so I looked for a place to turn and shoot a spell at her, but she stopped suddenly, with a loud scream.  She couldn’t leave the swamp.

“Thank goodness…” I breathed, keeping up my pace.  “Finally, something is going my way…”

Author's Note

I love Sophie and Al, and I hope you love them too! But I think James might be my favorite. Who is your favorite character? Let me know :)