In The Shadows [Book Two]

Chapter Eight:

[[A/N: I hope you guys like this chapter :3  It follows a bit too closely to the books for my liking so I apologize for that but unfortunately at least chapter nine and ten will also do that, but after those, it should get back to normal.  Let me know what you think with some comments :)  Peace and love, iJay]]

Chapter Eight:

After nearly ten minutes wasted arguing of Harry arguing with Luna, Ginny and Longbottom about how they wouldn't be going, not to mention myself, it was finally settled that we'd be riding the odd skeletal horses that I'd seen roaming around the Forbidden forest not too far off from us. They were the ones I'd noticed pulling the carriages for the non-first years after we all exited the Hogwarts Express.

They were terrifying but had an odd.. beauty to them.

There were only two of them, and it was as though these horses, which I learned were called Thestrals, could hear and understand every word we said. They stared at us with white eyes, their ears cocked towards us and one shifted on his feet nervously before shaking his reptilian-like head just like any normal horse would to get rid of a fly.

I remembered the one from the giant oaf's class, the little baby.. these didn't look at all like I imagined them.

"Are those the horse-things you can't see until you've seen someone snuff it?" Ron questioned. My eyebrows rose up, wondering how he knew that. He'd always struck me as the slow one of their golden trio so it was a complete surprise that he actually knew something.

"Yes."

"How many are there?"

"Only two," I answered, not realizing my mistake until afterwards. To them, I shouldn't be able to see them, I was only fourteen, I shouldn't have seen death. Harry could only see them because he was unfortunate enough to see that Diggory kid get murdered under the Dark Lord's directive. But still, it looked like for now nobody would bring up the fact that I could see them, we didn't have the time for it.

"Well, we need three," Hermione muttered, leaving me glaring at her.

"Four!" Ginny replied angrily, her red hair practically glowing with evil intent if anyone dared to argue with her.

"Five, he is my family and Harry's, so if anyone deserves to go help, it'll be me and him."

"Actually, unless I've miscounted, there are seven of us," Luna looked off into the distance as though it mattered very little to her what everyone else was arguing about.

"First of all, you don't even know him," Harry said to me, looking like he was angry at me for suggesting that I had any right to go save him, "And look, we can't all go! You three-" He pointed at Luna, Neville and Ginny "-have nothing to do with this, you don't-"