Harry Potter: The Next Generation

Chapter 9: @PotterHbookworm

Albus

It was nearing 1:00 am and the Gryffindor common room was empty and only dimly lit by the light of the flames that flickered in the fireplace. Me and Scorpius were sneaking down the stairs from the boys' dormitory to the common room when suddenly a girl's voice spoke from the armchair next to the fire "oh you can't be serious!" Rose stood up and turned to face us "you two are actually going through with that plan of yours?"

We both stared at her. "What are you doing down here?" I asked. "Well surprisingly you, Al are not the only one who has nightmares. I couldn’t sleep. so I came down here to read a little. And I don’t have to ask you what you're doing down here. You two morons are going to the forest aren't you?" she said.

"Well that’s the plan" Scorpius replied. "Now if you'll just scoot we'll be on our way." I added.

"Do you guys have a death wish? You're going out there to face a werewolf voluntarily?"

"Yep, and we would like to do it tonight, so if you don't mind" I gestured here to get out of our way. 

She looked at me with a look that said you're an idiot then said reluctantly "well… good luck" then walked away muttering something that sounded like "absolute morons…"

I looked at Scorpius who appeared to be in some kind of daze. I shook him out of it and he quickly said "well shall we?" gesturing towards the portrait hole.

We got under the invisibility cloak and headed to the forbidden forest. 

The Hogwarts grounds were completely dark accept for the moon light reflecting in the lake. We went to the edge of the forest where Scorpius suddenly stopped abruptly.

"Scorp, what's wrong?"

"I don't know Al, maybe Rose was right, maybe this wasn't such a good idea"

A howl came from the forest, so full of pain it made the both of us shiver.

"Why the s-sudden change of h-heart?" I unsuccessfully tried to sound brave.

"I don’t know it's just, um… maybe she had a point. I mean two first years, going up against a fully fledged w-werewolf. I barely even mastered the levitation ch-charm."

"Oh come on man! Didn’t you say you wanted to have adventures? That you didn’t want to end up like your dad? C'mon! this is your opportunity!" I encouraged.

"y-yeah, you're r-r-right…" he sounded almost as scared as I felt.

Now my dad told me a lot of stories about the forbidden forest and all his adventures there with his friends. It was way scarier then I imagined. Especially at night. Yikes.

"So what exactly are we looking for?" scorpius asked

"A werewolf? I guess. We need to find out what happened to Mariana."

"Uh… yeah. But how do we know it's her and not the other werewolf? The one who bit her."

"We wait until sunrise?" I replied cluelessly.

"Albus! That’s your plan?! It's a few hours to sunrise! You idiot! What if the werewolf finds us before that? What will we do then?"

"run?"

Out of nowhere  another howl echoed through the forest, but this time it was closer, way closer. We turned arouned and saw a furry creature look at us with a hungry look in its eyes.

"is that what I think it is?" I whispered.

"aha… hi Mariana…"

"RUN!!!"

We sprinted through the forest as the werewolf chased us, it felt like an hour but it was probably about thirty minutes. "I think we- we lost it" I said catching my breath.

"yeah. Probably" Scorpius said, also out of breath. "we should stay here until it nears sunrise"

"yeah- yeah you're right."

"Well I don't know about you but I'm exhausted. Any chance you can watch out for… creatures while I rest?"

"yeah sure…"

I was probably out there for over an hour before I fell asleep too. I was so exhausted my eyelids started to feel heavier then my own head. I don't know how long I slept but when I was awoken it was still dark. Scorpius was tapping on my shoulder and when I opened my eyes I saw he was quite panicked. He pointed to my left and when I turned I saw a werewolf and this time he was really, really close. Dangerously close. But he looked a bit different then the other werewolf. We stumbled to our feet and I picked up the invisibility cloak. We ran at the top of our speed away from the creature and out of the forest.

A few miles from the end of the trees I noticed the sky has taken a new shade and the sun was starting to appear from across the horizon. I looked around and saw that the wolf had stopped in its tracks. I stopped then Scorpius who appeared not to notice stopped too. He looked at me with a questioning look and I pointed towards the werewolf and he seemed to understand. We watched as it transformed, but then we noticed it had turned into a man, not Mariana, neither of us recognized, and he didn’t look friendly.

"Um… Al, mabe we should go. Before he notices us…" Scorpius said.

"Yeah… yeah…"

We started to run towards the castle. It couldn't have been later than 5:00 a.m so everyone would probably be asleep, but we put the cloak on just in case.

As we ran I thought I noticed a figure hiding in the trees, but I couldn't point it out to Scorpius or stop to check whether I'm hallucinating because he was pulling me ahead. 

When we reached the castle we made sure no one was around and headed to Gryffindor tower.