The Marauders: Year One | #Wattys2016

The First of Thrice

The First of Thrice

The forest was still. Little moonlight filtered through the trees, the darkness seemed to swallow up the air beneath them. They stuck to the path as much as possible, but much of the path was overgrown by brush and traveling vines. "Lumos," whispered Remus, holding his wand aloft so the light glowed around the five of them as they moved through the dark, illuminating exposed roots and large dips in the ground so that they could make their way forward without falling down. Beside the sound of their footsteps and nervous breathing, the only sound was Peter's muttered counting of steps, so that they would know when they had gone far enough out to be officially off the grounds of Hogwarts.

They had gone about fifty-seven paces, by Peter's count, when James made the mistake of saying, "Blimey, I don't understand why it's forbidden, there hasn't been a blasted thing worth forbidding it over." He no sooner had spoken the words than they heard an ominous crack in the woods to their right. All five heads turned to peer into the dark.

"We're all going to die," trembled Peter.

"Shut it," Sirius snapped, "And keep counting your steps." Though his voice shook ever so slightly, too.

Lily inched closer to Remus in the darkness, keen to stay in the circle of light that his wand gave off.

Another crack from deep in the trees.

"Perhaps we should, er, turn off the light a mo'," Sirius suggested. He reached for James's arm and Lily's wrist and nodded for Remus to grab hold on Peter. Lily took hold of Remus, forming a chain. "Nox," whispered Remus, and the light extinguished, throwing them all into utter darkness.

The cracking became slowly louder and the Gryffindor first years clutched onto one another in the dark. As it became louder, it also echoed off itself, throwing the sound off various trees around them, making it sound as though it were coming from every direction at exactly the same time. None of them knew which way to look, which way to expect an attack from. But then, as suddenly as the cracking had started, it faded off, the noise getting further and further away until they couldn't hear it at all any longer.

"What do you think it was?" James hissed.

"Dunno," replied Sirius.

"Nor do I," added Remus. "But we'll have to listen closely for it to come back, just in case... Lumos." The little area they'd been standing in lit up once more only to reveal Peter cowering behind Remus, whimpering in fear.

They turned and continued on. They'd been walking for some time, though everything looked precisely the same as it had before, dark and gloomy and outlined by spindley fingers of tree branches reaching across the path. The only thing that marked the distance they'd past, besides the ache in their legs was the sound of Peter's breathy mutterings. "One-hundred-sixty-one, one-hundred-sixty-two, one-hundred-sixty-three, one-hundred-sixty-four," counted Peter, his voice low, "One-hundred-sixty-five, one-hundred-sixty-six..."

"It's not so bad in here actually," Sirius said. "I rather like it, actually."

"Peaceful," agreed James, mostly sarcastically, "I should like it a great deal better in the day."

"I wonder how old these trees are," said Lily.

"I expect as old as the castle," replied Remus. "The forest was much larger before Hogwawrts was built, you know, they had to cut much of it in order to build the castle. They preserved this portion of it as a part of a treaty with the centuars."

"There are centaurs in this wood?" Peter squeaked. "But Fantastic Beasts gave them an extremely dangerous rating and --"

"We'll be fine, Peter, for crying out loud, they're only centaurs!" James said, exasperated. "Keep. Counting."