Harriet Potter and the Alpha in the Dungeon

Chapter 58 - Found

Thank you for reading! I don't own any of Harry Potter! Please let me know if you enjoy! Updates every Saturday!
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Harriet's mouth hung open as she stared at the thwarted centaurs.

Her emerald eyes widened in horror at the frozen expressions of fear and disbelief on their faces as their bodies remained bound in the air, helplessly, hopelessly suspended.

Ingrid sheathed her axe back in its resting place deep inside the many folds of her clothing before she blew out a breath and calmly said, "The stone is not here, wife of my son's son. I can sense the doubt in your heart....Let us continue on our path."

Harriet blinked as Ingrid turned and stalked further into the Forbidden Forest's grim depths.

"W-Wait! You can't!" Harriet called.

Ingrid stopped and turned around.

"Centaurs are a protected species by the Ministry! You can't just leave them here!" Harriet cried.

"I have not doomed them to death." Ingrid huffed, "They will hang and think of their wrongs, as their muscles ache, and their bodies yearn, they will remember what they did to find themselves in such a state.......Perhaps the next time they find witches they hope to assault, they will consider their....protected status....more than their own desires."

Silence fell between the two women before Ingrid turned around again and resumed her walk.

"So they'll come down on their own?" Harriet asked as she followed.

"Yes.....eventually." Ingrid replied, "Is this the right direction, wife of my son's son?"

"Yeah, sorry, I think it's just up ahead." Harriet nodded. Still amazed by what she had witnessed, she told her husband's ancestor, "You can call me 'Harriet', you know.......if you like."

"That is not the old way." Ingrid snapped.

"With all due respect, the old ways are gone." Harriet shrugged, "The world is new again with new people and new rules."

The low sound of Ingrid's dark laughter rang out as the pair walked along.

Harriet felt a chill run down her spine as Ingrid disagreed, "The old ways can never be gone, wife of my son's son. They have merely been forgotten....buried deep within the blood of those too cowardly to remember and too oppressed to follow them.........The world is an old place, it can never be new....People are merely imprints of the souls that came before them as are those who will surely come after."

Harriet mused on Ingrid's spoken thoughts for a moment.

"That's an interesting way to look at things." She quipped as she pushed a tree limb aside.

"It is the truth, wife of my son's son." Ingrid answered, "Interesting or not."

Harriet took a deep breath as the uncomfortable ache in her chest worsened.

She sought to ignore it as they came to a large clearing.

As she closed her eyes for a brief second and drew a breath, her memory of dropping the Resurrection Stone returned in vivid imagery.

Harriet remembered standing there, on that exact spot of the earth, as she opened her hand and let the Resurrection Stone fall to the forest floor, right onto a bed of rocks that anyone could overlook.

"Here we are....." Harriet announced as she halted her steps.

Unknowing that they had already reached their destination, Ingrid's large strides had nearly taken her out of the clearing before she stopped and turned around.