“Ya ready fer the forest kids?” Hagrid, The massive man, said, holding the lantern that lit up the darkness. Ginny could feel much farther than normal as they stood on the border between the Hogwarts lawn and the Forbidden forest. The wards in the air were much less free floating than they were in the castle. There was a solid wall of magic at the border between the forest and lawn, but other than that the enchantments floating around on the air were almost completely absent.
“Wh-What are we doing again?” Jack stammered while tightly gripping his wand.
“Huntin’ fer herbs. You all keep a watch out fer any acromantulas on the perimeter while I go around harvestin’. They don’t like takin’ on groups, so havin’ you lot with me will save me from having to constantly fight them off while I look through the brush.”
“Have you done this before?” Alexa asked hopefully, “So we’ll be safe?”
“Safe?” Hagrid said, “Nuffin’s safe in the Forbidden Forest. But not too bad. I doubt you’ll even get so injured that you’ll have to go to the hospital wing by the time we are done.”
With that hopeful thought, Hagrid led them straight into the dark and menacing woods, each of them with their own lantern to hold and throw out a small circle of light to fight off the blackness and looming form of the trees around them. All of them kept a careful eye on the flickering shadows, focusing on even the slightest sign of movement as Hagrid occasionally stooped down to inspect a bush or some mushrooms growing from the knotted roots at the bottom of some of the trees. He muttered to himself as he inspected them, occasionally harvesting some of them and placing them in a bag that was hanging at his side.
Ginny pulsed her magic sense as far as she could, relieving her building stress by straining the edge of her senses to feel farther. Everything in this place was faintly magical. The trees, the plants, the animals rustling around just out of range of their little circles of light. Ginny carefully focused on the magic that must be various animals circling around their light, even if they weren’t more than faint sounds to them. None visible. One moved to approach and Ginny snapped her head towards it. That seemed to startle it and it scuttled off. It was a spider. A spider that was nearly the size of Ginny. Immediately she understood the circling magical signatures. They were all spiders, surrounding them on all sides.
Urgently, Ginny pointed her wand into the air.
“Lumos!” She chanted and cheated a bit and allowed the wand to cast the spell by itself and lighting up their surroundings brightly.
“SPIDERS!” Jack screamed, “HAGRIIIIIIIIIIIID!”
“Yea, Yea, I see ‘em,” Hagrid said in an annoyed tone, “Just calm down, will ya? They’re runnin’ away, aren’t they?”
Ginny could feel the surrounding spiders scuttling away, fleeing from the light blazing from the end of her wand. She shut down the spell and they kept fleeing until they left her detection range. She let out a sigh of relief and lowered her wand.
Hagrid stood and walked over and looked around casually, “See? Skittish creatures. So long as you see them before they attack, they’ll run scared. We’re nearly done. Jus’ got five or so herbs left to collect. Shouldn’t be more than twenty or so minutes.”
They all held up their lanterns, but luckily Ginny didn’t sense any of the spiders returning again. It seems that they had really scared them off. Hagrid kept going, now only two herbs away from being done by Ginny’s count.
Hagrid collected another series of flowers from near a bush and put them in his bag.
“Alrigh’,” He said, “Jus’ one more and we’re outta here.”
Ginny turned and froze when she saw a pitch black horse with a sharp bird’s beak on its head. Its body was skeletal, looking like its skin was clinging directly to its skeleton. Its back had a pair of furled bat-like wings. Its eyes were white and misty like they were sightless. It was fully visible in the light, Jack holding up his lantern and looking a few feet to its right without even seeming to notice it.
The creature looked at Ginny, and suddenly its body language changed and it became more hostile.
“Jack! Watch out for that black horse!”
“Huh?” Jack peered closer in front of him and looked around without seeming to see the creature, “What are you talking about Ginny—”
“Get back, Jack!” Hagrid roared and charged straight past Jack to put himself between the black horse and the boy.
Hagrid swung his lantern threateningly at the horse and its head darted forward to strike out towards Hagrid. The man took a small step back and dodged the peck before the creature withdrew its head.
“Ha! Ra!” Hagrid shouted wordlessly, “Back, Thestral!” He shouted while raising his arms above his head. The black horse, thestral, backed up, intimidated by Hagrid’s size and shouts.
But after backing up a few steps, the thestral reared up on its back legs and opened its beak and let out a loud bird’s cry that hurt Ginny’s ears. Its batlike wings unfurled from its back and flared out. Hagrid was unmoved and shouted again. “Hah! Ya! Git on with ya!”
The thestral landed back on its hooves and after letting out one more defiant bird cry turned around and ran off back into the woods. Ginny was shaken. She had looked hard at the creature through the whole fight. As far as her magic sense went, the creature wasn’t even there. It was completely invisible to her until she caught sight of it.
“What’s happening? What’s going on?” Alexa asked while peering into the darkness in front of Hagrid in confusion.
Hagrid turned back around after seeming satisfied that the thestral wasn’t coming back.
“C’mon,” Hagrid said, “We got ta get back now. Before it comes back with a herd. Don’t know what’s pissed them off, but best to clear out.”
“Piss off what?” Alexa asked, “What about the last herb you needed?”
“Is fine,” Hagrid grunted, “Get it later. Now, move it. I’ll be takin’ the rear. Let’s get back as soon as we can. I’ll explain later when we’re outta this place.”
The three of them started walking fast back towards the castle. Ginny looking around the whole time feeling suddenly vulnerable. She had relied on her magic sense for what felt like forever to help prevent any surprises. But the thestrals were immune and could completely ambush her without her even being able to know if they were there until she could see them with her eyes…
There was a bird cry above them and the rustling of wings above them and then silence. They walked quicker, now nearly jogging now. With the rough terrain and uneven roots on the forest floor, Jack and Ginny were struggling to not trip as they moved fast. Hagrid with his massive size and Alexa with her unfair dexterity seemed fine.
Just before they reached the edge forest, the canopy above them rustled and suddenly everything burst into a blur of chaos.
— — —
The thestral flew above the trees, and called for the herd. At first it had simply been curious about the group of humans. The big strong one came in sometimes and all the forest dwellers knew to avoid him. He had wrestled the alpha of the herd into submission when the thestrals first moved to this magical forest. He was strong. Yet even he had the thin golden strings of Fate wrapped around his soul. Weak, barely able to provide even the slightest nudge as it was in most living beings. Barely even to influence a single individual to make a single different choice in a year. Yet through accumulation of these small nudges, Fate guided them all into their proper place.
Upon inspecting the group, the thestral had witnessed the red haired human youngling. It had no golden strings of Fate at all. Not even the smallest tendril touching her soul. She must be of the Beyond.
It was the thestral’s duty to eliminate all of the beyond in their area with all haste. If left unchecked, Fate’s methods of dealing with intruders were destructive and could cause this forest to be destroyed in the resulting chaos.
If the youngling wasn’t killed now, then the herd would be forced to brave the wider world and find a new place to live. To escape the chaos Fate would stir up in order to eliminate the girl of Beyond using her own methods. The thestral liked it here, and so did the rest of the herd. But if the youngling wasn’t killed or left this area soon, then they would have to go. They would be forced to. Because one did not mess with Fate and often find many survivors in the vicinity of the one who dared to defy her.
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The herd arrived, flying around the thestral and screeching their cries and asking it the situation. The thestral told them what had happened quickly, especially to the Alpha himself. The Alpha waited for a moment as the herd screeched and debated what to do with this news.
Then the Alpha let out one firm cry and the herd fell into line. They would attack now. And if they failed, then they would leave.
The herd circled around and saw that the humans were nearly at the barrier where the wards would stop the thestrals from passing through to attack.
The herd dived through the trees, branches snapping and scratching as they dived down through the canopy.
Once through, they all flared out their wings to brake in the air, barely able to stop themselves before the herd landed hard on the forest floor. Without pause, the herd surged forward as one, all intent on the red headed youngling who was staring at them in shock. Her look backwards caused her to twist her foot around a raised tree root and she fell to the ground and let out a cry of pain as she hit the ground hard and her ankle twisted.
The big human stopped and turned around, hovering over the girl as she painfully got to her feet, one of her feet twisted and her leg looking like it could no longer bear her weight.
The herd kept its charge towards the pair. If they must fight the strong one to get to the girl then so be it. They were doing the humans a favor even if they didn’t know it. Only the thestrals of all creatures had been blessed with the ability to see the chains of Fate that tightly bound them all directly.
They knew better than to underestimate Fate.
— — —
Ginny felt her right foot pulsing with hot pain as she hopped forward, only to fall to the ground again as she tried to put weight on her twisted ankle. She hissed and grit her teeth as lancing pain shot up her whole leg and her foot felt like it was on fire. Hagrid was standing behind her, shouting and gesturing as the herd of thestral charged through the forest towards them, screeching and snapping their bird beaks loudly as they moved.
“GINNY!” Alexa shouted as she noticed that Ginny was on the ground. She turned around and started running back. Jack hesitated and turned back too after he noticed that he was alone in running forward.
“No, go Jack! We’ll catch up!” Alexa shouted. Jack hesitated, and Ginny could see that he was less than twenty meters from the barrier. Ginny and Alexa were more like forty meters.
Jack didn’t move.
“Go!” Ginny said, “Run for… help!”
At that, Jack started moving again and started sprinting towards the Hogwarts lawn. He raised his wand and let out a bright Lumos charm and started waving it frantically even as he ran. Signaling for help. That was smart, Ginny thought absently as Alexa helped Ginny to her feet as Ginny leaned heavily on her to take the weight off of her ankle.
With Alexa supporting her weight, the two of them hobbled as quickly as they could towards the barrier out of the forbidden forest.
Ginny started weaving magical tendrils and sent one each to lance into nearby large stones scattered around the forest floor.
“BACK, ALL OF YA!” Hagrid roared at the herd of thestrals as they drew close, the man taking backwards steps to match Alexa and Ginny’s desperate hobbling forward behind him.
The herd slowed a bit, but they were close now and the over two dozen creatures continued moving and all lunged at Hagrid at once like pigeons flocking to bird seed at a park.
Hagrid reached up his bulky arms to cover his face and began shoving the thestrals back, their attacks barely able to leave shallow scratches on him. But despite Hagrid doing his best to hold back the herd and shoving them hard to trip them around himself, several slipped around him and leapt towards Ginny and Alexa with their beaks wide.
Ginny raised all of the stones held on the end of her magic tendrils out of the earth all at once with a plume of dirt. Ginny whipped the stones as fast as she could, not concerned with preserving her magic anymore. They were ten meters away from the barrier now.
Ginny’s five stones flew and smashed into the heads of the thestrals leaping at her and Alexa. The creatures that were hit went limp and fell to the forest floor unconscious without getting close to the two girls.
The rest of the thestrals gathered around tripped over the bodies of their unconscious herd members, causing a general mess of confusion of trampling hooves and chaos.
The two of them kept hobbling forward, Alexa breathing heavily as she almost carried Ginny forward while bearing both of their weights as they moved.
Ginny’s magic was nearly empty from her desperate play with the stones, but she found another three stones and lifted them into the air with her magic, not caring that her magic was draining by the second.
A thestral managed to spot Ginny and Alexa through the chaos, and dived towards the two of them, its beak open wide and sharp like a blade at its tip and wings flapping to keep it gliding towards them.
Ginny whipped one of her stones hard and it slammed directly into one of the creature’s whitish eyes. Its body instantly went limp, and it fell to the ground with a wet thump of flesh on dirt just behind them.
Hagrid kept shouting and holding off the majority of the thestral herd, including a much bigger thestral than the other ones that was fighting Hagrid directly.
Alexa flinched, but kept helping Ginny move forward. They were so close to the barrier, but Ginny’s vision was going black in the corners. She had spent too much of her magic, and her mind was starting to go fuzzy as she kept using it to keep her two remaining rocks levitating just behind her and Alexa. She finally remembered her familiar bond and tugged hard for Fawkes’ help. But he didn’t respond, seemingly still asleep. The other end of the bond only twitching weakly in response to her call for help.
Another thestral spotted them in the chaos and jumped in the air and started rapidly gliding towards them on its batlike wings. Ginny groaned and then with a wrench in her magic sent another stone blasting towards the thestrals head and sent it slamming into the ground. Her magic sputtered and started to move erratically and Ginny was forced to drop the remaining stone she had floating behind them reflexively.
Another two thestrals spotted them and jumped into the air while Ginny and Alexa emerged from the forest and onto the Hogwarts lawn, both of the girls falling to the ground as Ginny lurched forward in her desperation to get through the barrier before the thestrals arrived while they were defenseless.
The thestrals glided towards the two of them as they lay on the ground. Both of their legs were still on the other side of the barrier. Ginny quickly curled in to draw her legs fully through the barrier and quickly rolled away from the edge. But Alexa seemed slightly confused and relaxed, not able to see that she wasn’t fully through the barrier yet.
Despite knowing that she was running on magical fumes, Ginny quickly shot a magic tendril towards Alexa at full speed and connected it to her shoes and tugged hard. Alexa’s knees shot up to the girl’s chest as her shoes were sharply drawn back just as the Thestrals reached the edge of the barrier.
The two creatures scraped and pecked at the barrier, but nothing they did managed to pierce it it. But there were little visible flashes of light in the air where they struck and were deflected. Alexa quickly scrambled away now that she could see the edge of the barrier from the flashes of light.
Ginny’s vision sputtered and her head felt like it was full of cotton as she lay on the Hogwarts lawn, her twisted ankle burning up with pain even as she lay there still on her back.
— — —
Alexa looked at the strange flashes of light that were appearing in thin air on the border of the forest just in front of her. She glanced behind her, Jack was already half way back to the castle based on the frantically waving the ball of light at the end of his wand that she could see in the distance.
She looked back into the forbidden forest and saw Hagrid fighting what looked like nothing. Flailing around and roaring and shouting even as red scratches and heavy impacts appeared on his body from seemingly nowhere. The forest floor in the whole area churned and rumbled as all the invisible silent creatures rampaged around and caused the dirt to shift and churn as they moved..
“Hagrid!” Alexa shouted, “We’re out! You can come back!”
Hagrid didn’t seem to hear her, so she shouted the same thing again except louder this time.
He heard her this time and after a quick glance towards them, turned his massive battered and bleeding body and charged towards them full speed. He drunkenly stumbled side to side and waved his fists around before diving through the barrier, panting heavily and bleeding from all over, his clothes tattered.
Seeing that he was through, Alexa turned to her friend Ginny and saw the girl was laying there looking at the stars above them with a half lidded gaze.
“Hey!” Alexa said and snapped her fingers just in front of the girl’s face, “Don’t fall asleep!”
Ginny blinked dumbly and looked at Alexa with a blank look. Her eyes were unfocused and only showed faint recognition as she saw Alexa's face above her. The flashes of light at the barrier grew more and more intense, but it seemed to be holding for now against the invisible creatures.
Alexa flinched as there was a sudden crack of air behind her. She looked and saw Headmaster Dumbledore standing there, inspecting the area with a serious expression.
“Headmaster!” Alexa said in sudden hope, “Help, Ginny’s hurt! We got attacked by a bunch of invisible creatures in the forest!”
The headmaster looked at Ginny and without saying a word nodded to Alexa and kneeled down with a serious expression on his face.
Ginny blinked as she saw the old man above her.
“Big… meanie…” Ginny muttered as the headmaster reached out and tightly gripped her shoulder. Then the two of them twisted and compressed into a single point in the air and with a crack of displaced air they were gone again.
Dumbledore was probably taking her to the hospital wing. Alexa went over to Hagrid who was nursing his numerous wounds and inspecting himself.
“You need any help?” She asked, “You look injured.”
“Sure, lass,” Hagrid said, “That'd be good. This is the big wound. Alpha went for the stomach. Press my jacket to it, hard as you can.”
The man laid down and took off his tattered jacket and handed it to Alexa. She dutifully took it and pressed it to the deep wound in Hagrid’s abdomen leaking out blood even as she watched. She kept the pressure on, putting her full body weight on the jacket to get it to stay as she leaned over the massive man.
“Are you going to be okay?” She asked Hagrid as they laid there.
“I’ll be fine,” Hagrid assured her, “I’ve been through worse than this. Now we jus’ got ta wait. Healer’s will be comin’ any minute now, I’m sure.”
And so they waited.
Alexa was very relieved when Professor Snape with a winded Jack in the lead arrived and started casting some healing spells on Hagrid. She never thought that she’d be relieved to see Professor Snape, Potion’s professor, of all people one day.