Forbidden Forest

It was another sparring day in Gaude's private army academy. Gaude had become well aware of the abilities of each individual and chosen his opponent accordingly – he had decided to work his way up the rankings the old-fashioned way, by defeating each of the men one by one.

There was no way Gaude would start with Irma or Carter or anybody else near the top, that would just be asking for a beating without a chance to retaliate or polish his skills.

Gaude approached one of the less-than-fit looking men on the field and spoke: "Let's spar. I want to see where my skills are compared to an average bum."

"Well, look at what we have here, a pipsqeak trying to become a man. That's a good chance for me to get out of the last spot, don't like the double training all that much."

Gaude scanned his opponent's physique once more. The man was still somewhat fat, there was no doubt about it. Gaude was also certain that like any other trainees, the man's overflowing stomach was hiding a layer of sturdy muscle. In other words, attacks to the stomach wouldn't be too effective.

The man seemed to move quite slowly, so that might be something Gaude could use against him, but that might just be an act. In the end, it seemed that the most obvious weak spot was the head and groin area. Gaude decided to go with that.

"Let's begin.", Gaude said.

The moment that he did, he dashed forward, and before his opponent managed to react, kicked him in the balls. As the man was crumpling to the floor, Gaude kneed him in the face, causing the fatty to black out.

"Eh? That was easy.", Gaude said.

Some of the surrounding men who had watched the kid fight winched and squeezed their knees tightly together. Any man would feel uncomfortable after seeing such a style of fighting.

However, one of those men found the kid in front of him. "Let's spar."

Having seen the kid's dirty tactics, the man was confident in himself – he just had to protect his weak spot.

"You beat the last spot and now you think you're something? I'll show you what you're worth."

The man made sure that he was standing with his legs closed, ready to catch the run the moment he got too close.

Yet, Gaude ran just outside of the man's reach, then feigned preparing to jump towards the man's right. As the man went into a tackle to throw the kid onto the ground and pummel him into pulp, Gaude had already jumped to the man's left and landed a roundhouse kick to the back of his head.

The opponent, a bit groggy, shook his head, eyes going across the field to find the kid that dared to fool him.

Suddenly, however, a punch landed on his temple, shaking the man's brain once more. His condition had worsened once more. His last thought for the next while was 'How the hell can a kid hit so hard?', as the follow-up kick had knocked him out.

Gaude continued a streak of uninterrupted victories for a while, his stamina quickly recovered by a gulp of Invigoration Draught each time he was running low. At first, it took five men to wear him out, but towards the end, he had to take some after every fight.

Finally, however, those that hadn't been fit before being 'drafted', had come to an end. Gaude was contemplatively eyeing one of the men that had been fit from the beginning.

"Kid, so far you've been up against trash. Don't think it'll be so easy fighting those that have actually made an effort.", Carter said from the side. "I recommend you get a lot more practice in before going against any of them.

"They are my practice.", Gaude replied and took a course at the man that had thrown a casual glance towards Gaude.

Ten minutes later, Gaude was down on the lawn, battered and bruised. He was defeated, but a grin couldn't help forming on his face – it had been close, the opponent had only won because he had seen through one of Gaude's feints. The man had ended up with more bruises than Gaude did, but in the end, a child's body could take a lot less punishment than an adult's, part Dragon or not.

Gaude quickly asked for a rematch, they both used the potions to heal up and went again. Yet, this time, Gaude was beaten even more severely – his opponent had gotten a good grasp on his trickery and saw through his feints every other time.

As the time allocated to training came to an end, Gaude didn't have a chance to find another opponent. The sparring was followed by practicing moves, which was a bit easier on Gaude, as his opponent this time was a training dummy.

Finally, the day at the academy came to an end and Gaude summoned an elf to return him and Irma back home.

As there was still some daylight left, Gaude's day wasn't over.

He still had to practice his spelling of Gobbledegook – while he had improved by a huge leap after becoming part-Dragon, it was all down to skill now.

Yet, try as he might, he still sounded like a bunch of Goblins speaking in turn instead of just one.

Gaude was a bit frustrated by his inability to keep climbing the rankings. He had Dragon blood in his veins, for Merlin's sake, or however people in the Wizarding world said it. He had a strong desire to dominate any opponent, and now, he had found an opportunity: surely, a Graphorn, even if it was a mighty beast of unparalleled physical prowess, was easier to dominate. Naturally, he wasn't going to get into a tussle with the creature. After all, it was a magical beast, so magical means of subjugation were fair game.

That was why he activated a notice-me-not on himself, a charm that he had not managed to replicate with runes, but managed to learn how to cast, and floated fifty feet downwards until he was eye level with the Graphorn.

Thanks to his practice with both the Re'em and a whole lot of the criminal element earlier, he managed to quickly turn the animal docile enough to take a ride on its back.

He drove the Graphorn uphill, then just went for a few miles on a path.

Suddenly, loud roars could be heard and Gaude noticed that their path was blocked by three not so friendly looking green giants, or indeed trolls.

The trolls were waving their massive wooden clubs towards him and the Graphorn, leaving little to imagination when it came to guessing their motives – they seemed to think that it was dinner time, and either the Graphorn or Gaude had caught their fancy.

As the trolls were closing in on them, the Graphorn turned around faster than Gaude thought physically possible and started running in the opposite direction. The link that Gaude had established to control the creature shattered at that moment, its instincts taking over.

At first, the run was still quite normal, but gradually, the scenery started going past faster and faster until it melted into a blur of green, brown and grey as the wind howled in Gaude's ears so loudly he wouldn't be able to hear anything even if he wanted to.

Naturally, Gaude could've just tried to float up and come to a stop, but at such a speed, it was difficult to get a grip on the uneven terrain without accidentally slamming into the ground at what felt like a hundred miles per hour – not the most pleasant way to come to an abrupt stop.

As that was the case, Gaude held onto the creature's horns for dear life. After a while of rushing down the mountainside, they were met by a few occasional trees. As the Graphorn had chosen the most direct path, it naturally just bulldozed through some of those trees.

Gaude was forced to use the shielding charm each time it happened – due to the Graphorn's back being hunched and head close to the ground even when it was running, there wasn't anything to hide behind when another shower of splinters erupted from a demolished tree.

The lucky thing was that Gaude had finally gotten the replica wand from Gregorovich's. While it didn't work as well as the one he got from Ollivander's, it was guaranteed to be trace-free. Gaude had already tested the wand within London and went into hiding after casting a few spells to see if any DMLE people showed up. Now he was putting that wand to good use to reduce his magic consumption as he feared that he would end up getting his head lopped off by a passing tree fragment.

After half an hour or so, the terrain started to flatten out a bit once more and a gloomy-looking forest was ahead of them. Unfortunately, the Graphorn hadn't finished its mad dash and Gaude was forced to keep the shielding charm up almost constantly, his magic reserves rapidly dwindling as a result.

Suddenly, the shielding charm he had been holding up was broken by the splinters of a particularly thick tree and one of the pieces smashed into Gaude's left leg. The pain was excruciating, making Gaude wince and groan before he managed to take a look. Fortunately, the leg was still attached, but it was bent under the knee, indicating a broken bone. 'Was test subject Arkis lying when he said he felt the equivalent of an itch when I cut him?', Gaude thought.

Gaude recast the shielding charm and took one of the emergency Skele-gro potions, the wind of the rapid movement splashing half of it all over his face. When Gaude finished with the potion, he saw white strings struck to the Graphorn's head, neck and horns. Tangled into the strings were a few very large and hairy spider legs.

As Gaude looked behind them, he noticed that there were actually mangled man-sized spiders flying through the air and writhing in agony on the ground. The Graphorn had bulldozed right through an Acromantula nest

As Gaude was gawking at his ride's most recent achievement, the shattered bones in his leg were pulling themselves together in the proper way and reattaching to each other, causing him even more agonizing pain. Fortunately, Occlumency was there to save him, allowing him to isolate any sensations coming from his body and lessen the suffering he felt.

Gradually, the Graphorn's run slowed down until it came to a full stop near a small pond and proceeded to go for a drink. Gaude used the remainder of his magic reserves to get off the beast, swearing to himself that he would never again try to ride a large wild beast without having a sure-fire way to bring it to a stop beforehand. His butt and groin were properly tenderized, making it difficult for him to even walk properly.

Gaude stumbled forward like a professional cowboy, his leg healed enough to support his walking, his innards attempting to unscramble themselves and, in the process, trying to expel their contents. A moment later, Gaude keeled over a fallen tree trunk and hurled his entire dinner.

As Gaude's mind slowly recovered from holding on for dear life, he started to feel the pain in his leg – while it had recovered enough to support his weight, it didn't mean that actually supporting his weight was a good idea – him walking kept slowing down the healing process and reopening the fractures.

As Gaude regained his faculties, he decided to do the smart thing and let his leg heal for a few hours. Sure, he could summon the elves to take him back home, but there weren't any open wounds so he decided to just wait it out right there and then continue exploring the forest the Graphorn had brought him to – he hadn't even known that such a forest existed near his house, so he was naturally curious.

Besides, he had his wand and his magic reserves had started to recover at a rapid pace, indicating that he had chanced into another spot that was rich in ambient magic.

At first, Gaude tried sitting on a tree trunk to recover, but his thoroughly tenderized butt let him know with a sharp pain how bad of an idea that was. Since that was the case, Gaude stood on his healthy leg and took out a few more potions. This time, the potions were meant to mend muscles and skin, which was exactly what Gaude needed.

After a while, his sitting parts felt like they were ready to sit once more and that was exactly what he did, sat on a mossy tree trunk, the very same one that he used as a support while throwing up. As he recovered, however, the stench started to bother him more and more and he hobbled to another tree trunk. As he did that, he didn't even notice the eyes that were staring at him from the nearby undergrowth.

As Gaude sat down, however, he couldn't no longer not notice the owner of the eyes as a very large black wolf with shining fur came out right in front of him, its tail pointing downwards and its teeth slightly bared.

Naturally, Gaude's first response was to throw up once more as the distraction broke the concentration he had mustered to calm his digestive tract.

The stench or the act itself seemed to caution the wolf as it had taken a few steps back and stared at Gaude. Gaude cast a shielding charm and stared the wolf in the eyes, deciding to turn it into a ride – there was no way a wolf would bulldoze through trees like the Graphorn had.

However, suddenly Gaude's plans came to a halt – instead of the basic instincts and animalistic desires the wolf was supposed to have, Gaude found actual memories to be present in its mind and a lot of curiosity as well as worry directed at him. In Gaude's mind, there was only one reason for a wolf to have such a complex mind – that wolf wasn't a wolf at all.

"Are you perhaps a Werewolf?", Gaude asked curiously.

'What a strange child. He's not afraid of me and now he's even talking to me.', the wolf thought.

Gaude, getting a somewhat passable answer to his question, said: "Well, now I've seen everything. Humans becoming werewolves, humans that can go all the way to a wolf, and apparently a werewolf that lacks a human form completely. At least you can think. Good, that means I can ask you a few questions."

'Wait, how did he just find out I'm a Werewolf?', the creature thought.

"Oh, you want to know how I can understand you? Easy, I can read your mind, if you pardon my intrusion.", Gaude explained. He was still maintaining eye contact with the creature – Werewolf minds were much more complex than those of 'lower creatures', his Legilimency wasn't strong enough to work on complex minds without eye contact.

'So, you're a Legilimens? Quite a rare sight to see in these parts.'

"I dabble. Anyway, do you know any interesting places in these woods?"

'Well, there's the Acromantula nest.'

"Been there, done that. Anything else?"

'There are the Centaurs, Thestrals and well, uh, Unicorns.'

"I already have a few of each in my zoo. Oh, by the way, do you have a name I can call you by?"

'Hagrid always called me Blacky.', the wolf replied.

Gaude had a thought flash through his mind, or perhaps a memory of his flared up. He floated upwards a substantial distance and placed his palm horizontally in air as he asked: "Face and head so hairy it looks like a bush, about this tall?"

'Yes, that should be him.'

"Oh, nice, very nice. How about you take me to him. You'll have to carry me as my leg isn't fully healed yet, but I can throw in a loaf of Dragon meat, how does that sound?"

'Sounds like a reasonable deal. Hop on and let's go.'

Gaude quickly floated down and flat onto the wolf's back. The wolf didn't waste any time and started running at a fast gallop, the trees and bushes once again turning into a blur in Gaude's eyes, but this time, there wasn't anything flying at him and trying to tear him to shreds. The wolf was a lot more sensible when it came to sticking to the treaded paths.

After ten or so minutes, the wolf was winded, but they had also made it out of the woods. The wolf came to a stop at the edge of the woods and Gaude floated off. The wolf stared at him for a bit until Gaude remembered his part of the deal.

"Laly!", he summoned.

With a pop, the elf was right in front of him.

"Bring a big premium quality piece of Dragon meat from storage."

"But master, there's only one left."

"Just do it, this girl here deserves it."

The elf disapparated and Gaude took out a small phial with yet another potion in it. As he uncorked the phial, he said: "Here, it'll help recover your spent stamina."

The wolf looked at him questioningly, but then Gaude said: "Open up, I'll just pour it in."

The wolf opened its mouth obediently and Gaude emptied the phial onto its tongue. A few moments later, the wolf's heavy breathing had already calmed down substantially. Soon after, Laly arrived, struggling to carry a piece of meat bigger than herself.

"Here you go. I believe this concludes our deal.", Gaude said, levitating the piece of juicy Dragon meat in front of the Werewolf.

The wolf sniffed the piece of meat, then did the same towards Gaude. 'Doesn't happen to be a relative of yours, I hope.'

"Hm, should be completely unrelated, if I'm not mistaken. My blood is from Northern Hungary, this one is from the Eastern part."

The Werewolf seemingly shrugged and took a hold of the loaf with its teeth and disappeared into the forest with it.

Gaude finally had the time to look around. A few hundred yards away, there was an extremely crude-looking hut. The structure looked like it was made of half-beams, extremely sturdy and durable. Only the door was made of finer materials – planks that were around two inches thick.

Gaude gave Laly a mental command to apparate him to the doorstep of Hagrid's hut.

Finally, Gaude knocked on the door.

"Yeh I'm comin'.", came a gruff response from the other side.

A moment later, the door was open and Gaude saw, well, Hagrid, in his bearded and hairy glory. The movie really didn't do the half-giant justice – instead of being a chubby half-giant, Hagrid looked like not two hundred, not four hundred, but at least six hundred pounds of pure muscle.

"Blimey boy, what are yeh doin'ere so late?", Hagrid asked.

"Oh, you know, took the Graphorn express, ended up in the woods, met a helpful Werewolf, that sort of a thing.", Gaude contracted his miniature adventure into a single sentence.

"Graphorn express, what's that?", Hagrid asked, rubbing his beard in confusion.

"Well, you see, there's this Graphorn that likes to graze right next to my house, I figured I'd try it for a ride. It all went downhill when we met a few trolls out for a walk, they spooked it bad. The thing ran all the way down here, didn't stop until it got thirsty. Oh, yeah, if you have an Acromantula herd in the woods, I'll have to inform you that some of them got into a bit of a traffic accident."

"Oh no! Not Aragog!", Hagrid exclaimed, distress managing to somehow show in the barely visible eyes of his.

Suddenly, Hagrid was in a hurry back inside. A moment later, he had already pulled a large fur coat over his shoulders and found a bucket-sized lantern from somewhere that managed to look tiny in his massive hand.

He was already shoving a roll of canvas into his pocket – probably his understanding of a bandage.

"Come along, lad. 'ere's no time to waste! I 'ave to 'elp the 'uns I can!", Hagrid exclaimed, already raring to go.

"I'll also have to inform you that my leg was broken in a somewhat related traffic accident, it still hasn't fully healed yet."

"A'ight, jus' sit on me shoulder, can't leave yeh 'ere all by yehself."

As awkward as it was, Gaude allowed the half-giant to lift him up to a shoulder that was wider than a car seat. As soon as he had gotten a steady hold of Hagrid's coat, they rushed off. It had to be some kind of a record, riding three different mounts in one day, two of them sentient to a degree.

Gaude watched as the scenery flew past. It had to be said: if a half-giant wanted to run, they damn well ran – not as fast as the Graphorn or even the Werewolf from earlier, but it was still something unachievable by normal human standards.

Half an hour later, they had returned to the Acromantula nest. Now that Gaude got a better look at it, it looked like a spider town, complete with oversized spiders. There was spider silk everywhere, forming various tubular structures, fences, traps and labyrinths. There were also plenty of animal bones, some of them bleached white by the occasional sunlight and some looking slimy and quite fresh.

Some of the giant spiders were scuttling about, coming closer to Hagrid. Fortunately, none of them looked big enough to actually threaten the beast of a man – even a careless kick from him would smash them to bits against a tree, not that Hagrid would even consider that. He would most likely consider it playful behavior even when the arachnids tried their hardest and failed to sink their fangs into the half-giant.

After a while, a spider with foggy eyes slowly crawled out of one of the central tubular structures.

"Oh, Aragog, thank goodness yer safe!", Hagrid shouted, and almost rushed in to hug the giant spider, but then noticed a clean shave running right through the nest – the path that the Graphorn had taken.

"Oh no! What 'ave they done to yer babies!", Hagrid lamented.

Within the path of destruction, Gaude could count at least twelve and a half mangled spider corpses.

"Hey, if you want to blame someone, blame the trolls. They're the ones that spooked my ride.", Gaude commented quietly, not sure if the Acromantulae were aware enough to understand human speech.

Hagrid didn't respond, he simply rushed to the trail of corpses, looked for the ones that were still moving and relatively unharmed and splinted their broken limbs with the canvas and pieces of broken trees. At times, he even used his 'umbrella' to cut the wooden splints down to size.

As he was doing that, the spiders were dragging their fallen brethren back into the nest, no doubt to not let the protein go to waste.

Once Hagrid was done giving first aid to the spiders, he spoke to Gaude: "Aight, what's yer name, lad? I best get yeh back to 'ogwarts before the curfew. Can't have yeh losing points to yer 'ouse, can I?"

'Eh?', Gaude thought. 'Did he hear nothing of what I told him before? No matter, now he's my Hogwarts Express.'

"I'm Gaude, Gaude Vywin. I suspect you'll be hearing from my Grandpa soon enough. You seem to be excellent at handling magical creatures.", Gaude said. Someone like Hagrid, even if he did have a penchant for experimental breeding, would still come in handy. Perhaps his habit of experimental breeding could even be put to good use, if the useless products were eliminated.

A while later, Hagrid had brought Gaude to Hogwarts' gates. Gaude, unsure if he could simply pass through the wards without being introduced to the place through some ritual that would normally take place with the first years, decided to stop Hagrid right there.

"Thanks for the ride, big guy, but I'll find my way from here. Make sure not to hatch any Dragons before tomorrow."

"'atch Dragons, eh? 'aven't tried that one yet, young lad! Now, were could I find a Dragon egg?", Hagrid responded. "Right, don' wander off to the Forbidden Forest alone again, who 'nows what might be lurkin' 'ere.", the half-giant then warned, somehow regaining a semblance of being a responsible adult for a moment.

As soon as Hagrid had turned his back, Gaude summoned Laly and had her take him back home. Finding Hogwarts and Hagrid unknowingly sharing its Fidelius secret with him had been enough of an adventure for him already, he didn't need to find out what would happen to him if he tried crossing the wards without going through the proper channels.

On the next morning, however, there was a different person next to Hagrid's hut. Well, it was still the same Gaude, but his outward appearance was known as Charles Vywin.

He gave the door a heavy knock.

"Comin', I'm comin'."

The floorboards, or indeed floor beams, from what Gaude had managed to see on the previous day, creaked as the potential winner of the Strongtroll contest walked to the door.

" 'ello! Who might yeh be?", the half-giant didn't waste time to ask.

"Hello there. I'm Charles Vywin. My son spoke highly of your willingness to care for magical creatures. I just happen to be in a bit of a pinch myself, you see, I have a private zoo, but the regular stuff is just not cutting it.

Besides, I'm developing less harmful methods of extracting ingredients from the denizens of that zoo. What do you think, is that something you would like to give a hand with?

Oh, did I mention that I have almost every species of magical creatures that has been discovered so far, including those that are on the verge of extinction?"

If there was a moment in a man's life when their eyes turned into lanterns that beamed out unholy light, it had arrived for Hagrid.

"Wer' do I sign up?", he asked, then after some thought added: "I'd 'ave to find summun teh take care of teh poor beasts 'ere in teh forest firs'."

"You don't need to worry about the beasts in this forest. The company will provide back and forth transportation for you and you can choose to live on either end. You'll be able to continue with your current job and just show up on my side every so often, when there's a new procedure to try out or perhaps to help the rare creatures, such as the Re'em to give birth.

There's also the matter of a few species that I'm still looking for.

I need a group of Thunderbirds, a few Great Horned Serpents, a ball of Golden Snidgets and some Yetis. I'm not confident in holding incorporeals like the Dementors, so I don't want those yet."

"Tunde'bird ain't easy to catch, it's best you 'atch them from eggs instead. Won't mess with teh weathe' 'is wey."

"Good to know. I'll put it on your bonus tab. Berkel!"

An elf suddenly popped into existence next to Gaude.

"This is my dedicated transportation guy. Just call his name and if he's free, he'll come pick you up. The waiting time should be around ten seconds at most.

Oh, and the most important thing, the contract. Read it and sign it, once that's out of the way, you can get to work right away. There are already a few extraction methods written down on the to-do list. You can ask Berkel to take you straight to it."