a dark detention
The break had ended, and classes were back in full swing. I sat with Ron and Harry in the library, surrounded by shelves upon shelves of books, going over some homework.
"I had you looking in the wrong section," Hermione stated, walking over to us, "How could I be so stupid?" She slammed the biggest book I've ever seen onto the table, causing all of us to jump. "I checked this out weeks ago for a bit of light reading," she sighed, sitting down beside me.
"This...is light?" Ron asked, staring at the huge book. Hermione glared at him while I covered my mouth to stifle my laugh. Ron smiled at me, loving the fact that he'd made me laugh without even trying. She skimmed through the pages.
"Here it is! 'Nicolas Flamel is the only known maker of the sorcerer's stone.'"
"The what?" the three of us said in unison.
"Honestly, don't you three read? " Hermione said looking between us, "'The Sorcerer's Stone is a legendary substance with astonishing powers. It can transform any metal into pure gold and produces the elixir of life which will make the drinker immortal.'"
"Immortal," Ron repeated.
"It means you'll never die," Hermione explained.
"I know what it means!" Ron said, a little too loudly, and Harry shushed him. I just snickered again.
"'The only Stone currently in existence belongs to Mr. Nicolas Flamel, the noted alchemist, who last year celebrated his 665th birthday.' That's what Fluffy's guarding on the third floor! That's what's under the trapdoor! The Sorcerer's Stone."
With the new piece of information revealed, the four of us ran to Hagrid's house for more details. It was dark out by now, but we didn't care. We approached Hagrid's hut and knocked loudly.
"Hagrid!" Harry started quickly.
"Oh, hello," Hagrid replied, "Sorry, don't wish to be rude, but I'm in no fit state to entertain today."
"We know about the sorcerer's stone!" the four of us all shouted, causing the door Hagrid was shutting in our faces to be promptly opened.
"Oh," was all Hagrid said before leading the group inside. It was a cozy little cottage with stone walls and a wooden roof. Candles lit up the place as well as a fire in the fireplace with lots of furniture scattered around.
"We think Snape's trying to steal it," Harry explained.
"Snape?" Hagrid asked, "Blimey, you're not still on about him, are you?"
"Hagrid, we know he's after the stone we just don't know why!" Harry countered. We all sat around him, and I took a seat next to Ron and Harry. Hagrid's dog seemed to be taking an interest in Ron and he backed away slowly as the dog got closer to his face, ending up bumping into me.
"Sorry," he muttered, but I just smiled at him and scooted over and motioned at the space beside me, offering Ron more room to sit further from the dog. He gratefully accepted my offer, and scooted over, leaving our thighs touching. I'd never sat so close to him before, and I could feel the butterflies in my stomach.
"Snape is one of the teachers protecting the stone!" Hagrid argued. "He's not about to steal it."
The four of us looked at each other curiously, unsure of what to think. Hagrid tried to usher us out of his home again, but we persisted.
"Wait, there are other things defending the stone, aren't there?" Hermione asked, "Spells, enchantments."
"That's right," Hagrid confirmed. "Waste of bloody time if ya ask me. Ain't no one gonna get past Fluffy. Ain't a soul knows how except for me and Dumbledore. I shouldn't have told you that. I should not have told you that."
All of the sudden, the pot above the fire started rattling and, much to our surprise, Hagrid pulled a giant brown egg out of it.
"Uh, Hagrid," I asked, "What exactly is that?" We gathered around the table the massive egg was placed on and watched as it continued to move around.
"That? Oh, that...that is...um..." Hagrid trailed, trying to think of anything but the truth.
"I know what that is!" Ron said excitedly, his eyes widening in realization. "But Hagrid, how did you get one?"
"I won it," Hagrid explained, "off a stranger I met down at the pub. Seemed quite glad to be rid of it, as a matter of fact."
The egg continued to wiggle around before cracking noises could be heard. Everyone began slowly moving away from the table in fear. As the egg shattered and the shell went everywhere, Ron held his arm up to block his face and mine. It was a really sweet gesture, Ron trying to protect me, even if he didn't realize he did it.
Inside a tiny dragon was revealed, that began stretching its wings and squawking. I stood still in shock, looking at the creature. None of us could take our eyes off the creature, staring at it with wide eyes and open mouths. I'd never seen a dragon before, and I certainly didn't think I'd be seeing one tonight.
"Is that...a dragon?" Hermione asked, staring wide-eyed as well.
"That's not just a dragon!" Ron said, "That's a Norweigan Ridgeback. My brother Charlie works with these in Romania."
"Woah, really?" I said excitedly, impressed with both the dragon and Ron.
"Isn't he beautiful?" Hagrid asked. He looked as if he was about to start crying. "Oh, bless him, look, he knows his mummy. Hello, Norbert." Hagrid began petting the dragon and it squawked in contentment.
"Norbert?" Harry asked.
"Yeah, well, he's gotta have a name, doesn't he?" Hagrid replied. "Don't you, Norbert?" Hagrid continued playing with his baby dragon. Ron and I smiled at each other before looking back at the creature. Suddenly the dragon coughed, spewing a ball of fire out of its mouth with it, landing directly on Hagrid's beard. Hagrid quickly patted it out. "He'll have to be trained up a bit, of course. Who's that?"
We all turned out the window to see a young boy with sleek blonde hair peeking through the window. Once he was caught, he quickly ran off.
"Malfoy," Harry grumbled.
"Oh, dear," Hagrid mumbled. With that, we decided to leave and head back to the castle.
"Hagrid always wanted a dragon," Harry explained. "Told me so the first time I ever met him."
"It's crazy," Ron said, "and worse, Malfoy knows."
"Is that bad?" I asked.
"It's bad," Ron confirmed. The look on his face was enough of an explanation.
Suddenly, we heard heels clicking against the stone floor of the castle before Professor McGonagall appeared. "Good evening," she said as Malfoy stepped out from behind her with a smirk on his face. Of course. She pulled us into her classroom.
"Nothing, I repeat nothing," she began, standing behind her desk with the four of us shamefully standing in front of her, "gives a student the right to walk about the school at night. Therefore, as punishment for your actions, 50 points will be taken." My mouth opened in shock. I couldn't believe what I was hearing.
"50?!" Harry asked. I could hear how ridiculous he thought it was by his tone of voice.
"Each," McGonagall finished, "And to ensure it doesn't happen again, all five of you will receive detention." Detention?! Harry and I were good students growing up, and now we were getting our first detentions, all for trying to protect some ancient rare artifact for them.
"Excuse me, Professor," Malfoy stepped forward, "perhaps I heard you wrong. I thought you said the five of us?"
"No, you heard me correctly, Mr. Malfoy," McGonagall explained, "You see, honorable as your intentions were, you too were out of bed after hours." I grinned to myself as Malfoy's face dropped. It was about time he was knocked down a peg. "You will join your classmates in detention."
For some reason, detention was to start that very moment, and Mr. Filch came to collect us.
"A shame they let the old punishments die," he went on, leading the group of us with a lantern onto the dark school grounds, "There was a time detention would find you hanging by your thumbs in the dungeons." Ron and I exchanged a glance that showed we were thinking the same thing: this guy is absolutely nuts. "God, I miss the screaming. You'll be serving detention with Hagrid tonight."
Hagrid came out of his hut as we approached with a lantern of his own. "He's got a little job to do inside the dark forest. A sorry lot this, Hagrid," Filch said, motioning towards us. Hagrid sniffled quietly while gathering his supplies. "Oh, good god man, you're not still on about that bloody dragon, are you?"
"Norbert's gone," Hagrid sniffled, "Dumbledore sent him off to Romania to live in a colony."
"Well that's good, isn't it?" Hermione asked. "He'll be with his own kind."
"Yeah, but what if he don't like Romania? What if the other dragons are mean to him? He's only a baby, after all." I looked up at Hagrid with sympathy, but unfortunately, Filch didn't feel the same way.
"Oh, for god's sake, pull yourself together, man," he snarled. "You're going into the forest, after all. Got to have your wits about you."
"The forest?" Malfoy piped up. "I thought that was a joke. We can't go in there. Students aren't allowed. And there are...werewolves!"
"There's more than werewolves in those trees, lad. You can be sure of that," Filch taunted, staring down at the scared boy. "Nighty-night," he said, walking away.
"It's not even a full moon, Draco," I teased him.
He scowled back at me. "It's Malfoy, you—"
"Alright, let's go," Hagrid interrupted.
As Hagrid gathered us into the forest, it was even scarier than I had pictured. It was practically pitch black, and I could barely see the ground in front of me. The trees stood tall around and fog created an eerie atmosphere. Animal howls could be heard in the distance, and I very much regretted going out after hours. I was afraid I was going to get lost, so I grabbed the back of Ron's robes lightly to make sure I didn't lose him.
Hagrid knelt down and rubbed a silvery liquid between his fingers.
"Hagrid, what is that?" Harry asked nervously.
"What we're here for," he answered. "See that?" He held his fingers up to show us. "That's unicorn blood, that is. I found one dead a few weeks ago. Now, this one's been hurt bad by something. So, it's our job to go and find the poor beast. Hermione, you'll come with me, Ron, you'll go with Harper, and Harry, you'll go with Malfoy." As much as I liked Ron, I would've much preferred to have been with Hagrid as we wandered the dark forest.
As everyone left to search in different directions, I turned to Ron.
"I don't like this," Ron squeaked out. "I don't like this at all."
"Me neither," I whispered. We started walking in an opposite direction of the others, looking around anxiously, not just for the unicorn, but for anything lurking in the shadows. The wind whistled around us as howls could be heard in the distance. I could barely breathe and my heart was racing.
A branch snapped near the us, causing us to grab each other's hands quickly in fear.
"What was that?" I whispered.
"I don't know," Ron whispered back. When no more sound came, we looked down, and quickly released each other's hands before walking again. I gulped nervously.
"Do you think there are spiders out here?" I asked nervously.
"Oh, please, not spiders," Ron answered even more nervously, his voice going up in pitch.
We stood close to each other as we kept walking through the woods without any sense of where we were going. At one point, I tripped on a tree root sticking out of the ground, and Ron caught me, swiftly grabbing me and helping her back up.
"Thank you," I whispered as I turned to look at him. We were mere inches apart, and we could practically see the fear in each other's eyes. I noticed that Ron had really pretty eyes though, and Ron seemed to make the same observation about me. My eyes scanned over the freckles dotting his nose and cheeks, something I had always thought was quite adorable about him. For a moment, it felt like it was just us two, without werewolves and beasts lurking in the darkness around us, as we stared into each other's eyes.
"Help!" someone screamed in the distance. "Help!"
Ron and I snapped out of it and spun around quickly to run in the direction of the scream and Fang's barking. Soon, we met up with Hagrid with Hermione and Draco running in fear. I always knew he was a bit of a coward. Draco had us follow to where they had found the unicorn and where Harry still resided.
"Harry!" I yelled as we approached him. He was talking to a half-horse-half-man creature I concluded to be a centaur.
"Hello there, Firenze," Hagrid greeted him. "I see you've met our young Mr. Potter. You alright there, Harry?" With a swift nod, I released the breath I was holding, and the group of us went back to the castle, lucky to be done for the evening.
Hermione, Harry, Ron, and I headed up to the Gryffindor tower and sat together in front of the fire in the common room.
"You mean, Voldemort's out there, right now, in the forest?!" I repeated as Harry told us what the centaur had said.
"But he's weak," Harry explained. "He's living off the unicorns. Don't you see? We had it wrong. Snape doesn't want the stone for himself."
"He wants the stone for Voldemort," I said at the same time as Harry. Harry nodded.
"With the elixir of life, Voldemort will be strong again. He'll...He'll come back," Harry said, sitting down.
"But if he comes back, you don't think he'll try to kill you, do you?" Ron asked nervously.
"I think if he'd had the chance, he might have tried to kill me tonight," Harry said softly. My eyes widened as Ron gulped.
"And to think, I've been worrying about my potions final," Ron joked.
"Wait a minute," Hermione said, "We're forgetting one thing. Who's the one wizard Voldemort always feared?" The three of us glanced at each other and shrugged. "Dumbledore," Hermione answered. "As long as Dumbledore's around, Harry, you're safe. As long as Dumbledore's around, you can't be touched," she finished matter-of-factly.
"Just like tonight," I scoffed as Harry weakly smiled at her.
"They're not gonna send Harry into the dark forest alone after tonight, Harper," Hermione said.
"That's only if any of the teachers believe us," I sighed before we went to bed.
I woke the next morning in a cold sweat. I sat up abruptly and took a deep breath in, my eyes darting quickly around the room. I quickly realized I was safe in my bed, and not alone in the middle of the dark forest, and exhaled a sigh of relief.
"You okay, Harper?" Hermione asked, already up and out of bed.
"Yeah, just a nightmare about dying in the forest," I joked, but Hermione didn't find it very funny.
"I'm sure there's a potion or something for that if you want me to look into it?" Hermione suggested.
"That's okay, Hermione, thanks though," I smiled at her. Hermione really was a great friend.