The Woods

Chapter 2

In a cold place in the North, there was an old man with a long white beard sitting in his office. In his office, all sorts of weird and curious trinkets were working. Said old man was worried. Not only did he have to prepare gifts for a lot of people, he also needed to find a missing child. Around him, the elves were working tirelessly, preparing for the festivities...

No, I'm not talking about Santa Claus. I'm talking about Albus Way-too-many-middle-names-for-me-to-remember-but-ironically-it-is-shorter-than-this Dumbledore sitting in his office in a huge castle located somewhere in North Scotland. And the missing child he was looking for was none other than our dear Harry Potter.

A couple months ago, a couple of his trinkets went absolutely bonkers, sirens sounding all night, not letting anyone sleep. When he went to check them, he discovered that those trinkets going crazy like that meant that A) Harry Potter was no longer in #4 Privet Drive, B) the wards were no longer active and C) the Dursley are dead. Good news is that Potter is still alive, just missing.

So, over the course of those months, Albus has been trying everything to find the kid. The problem was that Harry was always on the run, moving constantly, making it harder for trackers to track him. Whenever the trackers successfully located the boy and someone was sent to retrieve the boy, that someone never returned. Apparently, they had all been killed by some serial killer. This went on for a month before every tracker stopped working. Dumbledore even tried using some not-so-legal tracking spells but nothing worked. It was as if Harry had completely vanished from the face of the earth! Well, he's still alive if that's of any consolation...

What?... We skipped too much?... Yeah... We should probably go back a bit. To the hot tub time machine!... What? What do you mean we don't have that!?... Blew up!? How!?... Fine, we'll rewind time the normal way (with 3 dots).

...

Nick didn't really want to do this. He really didn't. But it was his fault for signing without reading the contract. So, he was stuck there... trying to lure kids into an 'ice-cream truck' with some other guys in order to bring them to the big Boss so he could sell them or suffer the consequences... which involves painful deaths to his entire bloodline... So remember, kids: Always read before signing anything!

"Kids at 12." Maddie, another person in the kidnapping group, said as she elbowed him.

True enough, a group of 6 kids were running towards them. Well, 5 were running & one in a hoodie was dragged along.

"Hey kids! Do you want some ice cream?" Luke, another in the group, asked. "We have a bunch of flavors: Vanilla, Chocolate, Strawberry, Coconut, Pistachio,..."

The kids excitedly yelled the flavors that they wanted. Except the kid in the hoodie who looked like he was really weary of them.

"Oh no!" Maddie exclaimed dramatically. "It looks like we ran out of those flavors! Hey, could you kids go check the back of the truck for us?"

The kids cheerfully agreed. All except the boy in the hoodie, who was trying to warn the other kids before deciding that it was a lost cause and tried to run to call the adults. Unfortunately for the boy, Luke was faster. The man swoop him up and threw him inside the truck with the others.

The trio of kidnappers climbed on the truck and drove away.

...

Harry was not expecting this. After a month of constant traveling and running into some cultists (?) in weird robes, Harry had decided to stop at a park. He didn't expect 5 other kids to come and play with him before they dragged him to get some ice cream... together.

Upon seeing the truck, his instincts immediately told him to run away. Why though, he was not sure. Maybe it was because the truck were in a pretty secluded area. Perhaps it's because the truck didn't seem too have a cooler and the sign looked like it was placed on a normal truck. Or it was the smiles of the venders, one too sweet (to the point you might get diabetes), one too awkward and uncomfortable (as if the owner of that smile didn't want to be here doing this) and one too ferocious.