The Forest - R.L.

Chapter 53 - The Bacon

Sam decided to break the silence with a question.

"What's 'Disney'?"

There was a clatter as Abbey dropped her spoon in her bowl.

Both Lily's and Ely's jaws dropped.

"What?" he asked.

Even Grace was surprised. "You seriously don't know what Disney is?

"No. Should I?" Sam inquired, eyebrows furrowed. "I keep hearing you guys mention it and I have absolutely no idea what it is."

"Cinderella? Snow White and the Seven Dwarves?" Abbey asked, hoping to see some kind of recognition flash across his face. "Sleeping beauty?"

Sam just shook his head, causing Ely raise his hands to his face.

"They're animated children's movies," Lily explained. "It's a muggle thing."

"Oh. I know what movies are," Sam replied, proudly, as a second owl landed beside Frodo with much more grace than Frodo had.

Sam handed the large grey owl a Knut in exchange for the newspaper it was clutching. He unfolded it out on the table in front of him and sighed grimly at the cover story – yet another tragic tale of a murderer muggle family accompanied by a picture of a glowing green dark mark in the sky above a small collection of house.

"Next time a Disney movie comes out I'm taking you to see it, okay?" Abbey suggested, before noticing Sam's change in mood and rubbing his back with her hand.

"Sure," Sam replied, not taking his eyes of the swirling green skull in the picture.

Abbey glanced down and read the headline. "Oh, that's awful."

"And to think I'm probably related to some of the people who did it. Bellatrix is one of them for sure. And her husband too, I'll bet."

"Rumour has it that Muciliber was recruited over the holidays," Ely added. "Apparently he's even got the Dark Mark tattoo thing too."

"Did you hear what he and Avery did to Mary the other day?" Lily asked.

"Mary MacDonald? She isn't even a muggleborn," Grace said.

Lily nodded. "They corned her and tested out all kinds of Dark Magic on her. She's been in the Hospital Wing ever since."

"Oh, the poor thing!"

"Sev's been hanging out with them more and more and I'm beginning to get worried. Nothing good can come from spending time with those two, or any of that group. All they talk about is Dark Magic."

"I could've been one of them," Sam said, glancing over at the Slytherin table where Avery and Muciliber were sitting, laughing at something someone had said. "Thank Merlin I didn't end up in Slytherin."

"If only eleven year old Sam could see you now," Abbey laughed. "He'd think you'd gone crazy."

"You know the only reason I'm not a Slytherin is you, right?" Sam asked, turning to face her directly. "Because of what you said to me that day."

"I highly doubt-"

"'Loyal and kind and hardworking.... you're just jealous because you're not good enough to be a Hufflepuff', or something like that" Sam said, failing to mimic Abbey's voice. "If I'd just said to the hat 'put me in Slytherin', then I'd be there right now, but instead I was thinking about you'd said and if anything I was angry at you, I wanted to prove you wrong. The hat must've misinterpreted my thoughts and decided that I wanted to be a Hufflepuff, which I kinda did but I was also way too scared of what my family would say. Did you know that Walburga didn't invite us to the annual Black family Christmas gathering this year?"

"I didn't. But surely, if the hat put you in Hufflepuff, you must have already had some of the Hufflepuff traits."

"Yeah maybe. But I also had a hell of a lot of Slytherin traits too, I'll bet."

Abbey paused, raising her eyes to meet his. "Yes you did. And you still do. Which is a good thing."

---

really heckin long but i dont like the ending i feel like it could be better oh well

guess who's back

back again

it'sa mea, mario...? I have finally returned from my hiatus that was way longer than it was supposed to be but what can I say I suck and I only ended up writing two chapters.

The next few chapters are going to be kinda fillers, covering all the information for past and future plots before we get into the next proper events.

aLsO i have more bad news: I'm going to New Zealand for two weeks so there'll be another two weeks without updates, however I hope to get back into the swing of things once I get back.

Thank you all so much for your patience, I love you all!!

- Grace