Chapter 14: The Curse 2

Harry narrowed his eyes at the figure of the defence professor skulking towards the forbidden forest and cursed. "Fucking bitch!"

What was Twix doing now? Didn't she know that through his reading of the original Harry Potter books, he had a crippling and justified fear of defence professors, especially with his first name being Harry? This woman had already been giving him mini-heart attacks with her cartoonishly suspicious behaviour in the library. Now she was going into the Forbidden Forest at night as well? What the fuck was she doing?

Harry paused and considered for a moment. He looked down at his chameleon-like appearance. He was only one staircase up from where he could exit the castle from the same door that Twix had obviously used. He could probably follow her with his new spell. If nothing else he might finally figure out what her end goal was. What was she seeking in the forbidden forest? She'd been running in the opposite direction of Hagrid's hut so she wasn't visiting the groundskeeper.

He had only a short time to make his decision, he concluded as her form left the castle further and further behind. If he went, he needed to go now. The question was if he should.

The whoosh of an immaterial form common to the Hogwarts hallways filled the corridor and someone else made the decision for him. "Firsties out of bed?" Peeves screamed. "Filch, Filch, flay this fool, Filch Filch find this firstie!" The poltergeist screamed at the top of his lungs when he saw Harry's partially obscured form. He'd likely been summoned by his cursing.

Harry broke out in a run towards the staircase before he was caught and given detention with the unpleasant caretaker. He'd rather get to the bottom of the Twix mystery than spend time with the unpleasant squib.

He flew down the moving staircase and executed an acrobatic jump towards the door, a poltergeist now chasing his loud footsteps. He really should have learned a sound-muffling spell, he lamented.

It was exiting the castle that finally managed to unglue Peeves from his ass. Not stopping to catch his breath, but also in case he lost his sudden courage Harry only set a walking pace once he caught up to Twix. He followed her from a safe distance, partially wondering if this was the stupid decision that would lead to his death and partially wondering if he'd be reincarnated again.

Looking down at himself to confirm that he was still camouflaged, Harry followed the woman until she stood right at the boundary to the forbidden forest. Once there the professor idly waved her wand, probably to apply a warming charm and seemingly began to wait before a particularly gnarly magnolia. She kept fidgeting as if uncomfortable or impatient and her body language in turn made Harry nervous. He resisted the urge to pace around, as he was now close enough to probably be heard if he moved too abruptly.

Suddenly Twix stilled and looked into the forest. Harry strained his eyes to see and made out a huge antlered figure in the shadows of the trees. A stag pranced out of the forest, becoming visible in the moonlight and stopped in front of the professor.

Harry froze, afraid of the possibility that the stag could smell him and give him away to Twix somehow. He turned around to see if there was enough soft grass to walk back on without being heard and flinched when he saw some sort of light rainbowy sheen blocking him off from the Hogwarts grounds in a circle that extended into the forest.

What was this? Was he caught? He should have known this was a horrible idea. Wasn't his whole goal at Hogwarts to not get into trouble? Was this whole set-up to trap him? But if so, what was with the stag, was it a conjuration of some sort? These thoughts flitted relentlessly through his head as he stood there, paralysed.

"It's definitely in the library," Twix said and Harry whipped his head around to see her talking to the stag. "I can feel it, no matter how much it tries to hide between the stench of the books already there. A good hiding spot, I admit. I've been trying to gain access. I should be done soon. Two or three months. I don't know what I will find behind the door though. Probably something horrible." She sniffed. The stag nodded slowly and Twix pulled out a piece of parchment and went on her toes to puncture it onto one of the spikes present on the animal's antlers. "I need it by next week, the usual channel will do," she said and waited for a second. Maybe for the stag to reply? The animal simply snorted and looked up to the castle, the moonlight reflected in its eyes before turning around and trotting off.

"Bloody cold out here," Twix cursed before raising her wand again, causing Harry to instinctively step back. With a twitch of the wooden stick, the barrier disappeared. The woman turned around and began her walk back to the castle. Harry managed to make himself unfreeze and follow.

What was that one-sided conversation she'd had with the stag? What was he supposed to do?. He'd caught Twix in an awkward position twice now. Should he go to the headmaster and tell him what he'd seen? Realistically there was nothing to do here but alert someone. Was it worth it for Dumbledore potentially reading his mind? People could be in danger.

Hadn't he already gone against his principles of non-involvement by following Twix here? It only took a mixture of running away from detention and curiosity for him to break his promise to his aunt, he thought as he slipped into the castle behind Twix and split off from the woman to go towards the Hufflepuff common room.

Looking at his colour-blended but still visibly shaky hand Harry wondered for a short moment if he was suicidal, or if putting one's life at risk was a much easier task than he'd ever imagined. The latter explanation would certainly explain the amount of stupid deaths that have occurred throughout history. He entered the common room, only to pause at the sight of Penny sleeping on one of the couches with a closed chessboard clutched in her arms.

He sighed and sat down next to his friend. He watched her young face, illuminated by the fireplace shift into a grimace as if she were having a nightmare. Reaching out towards her he took the chessboard from where she was clutching it to her chest and squeezed her hands gently while he was at it. He began to set up the pieces and listened as Penny stirred from sleep. He could almost hear her eyelids open from how silent the common room was, except for the crackling of the fire. It wasn't that late yet, and Harry wondered where the later years were, shouldn't they still be hanging about?

"Harry?" Penny asked with a yawn as she righted herself on the couch.

"Sorry for keeping you waiting, the meeting ran longer than expected. Did you have a nice nap?" he asked.

Glancing to the left he saw the girl shrug. "It's ok. I'm sure Professor Flitwick appreciated the company. He seems a bit too energetic for me to really imagine him alone. You still want to play?"

"Let's play a game, promises and whatnot. Tomorrow is Saturday anyway," he said, before admitting. "I should tire myself out for the sleepless night I have ahead of me anyway."

"How come?" Penny asked as she took the spot opposite of him and began looking at the board with her tongue sticking up.

Wondering for a second if it was fair to burden a child with his worries, Harry decided that Penny was a friend, as odd as that sounded and that he didn't have to mention details. "I fear that I know what I must do, but that I don't have the strength to do it."

"But you're one of the strongest people I know!" Penny exclaimed, shocked and looked at him as if he'd just said he was a muggle. "The amount of studying you're able to do is terrifying, you have to be brave for that. Sprout is lucky you're so hard-working, or you'd be in Gryffindor," she said and frantically convincingly waved her arms.

"Academic record aside. I'm just trying to decide between what is right and what is easy," Harry answered while filing away the name of his head of house.

"Well, my mom always says that if you have to wonder so much about what to do before you even have to do it… You should do it because you'll spend an equal amount of time doing it as you will worrying about it." Penny said sagely.

Harry hummed and turned the words over in his head. Rather than worrying about Twix, he could offload the responsibility to deal with the situation on the headmaster, or maybe even his head of house. All that he would risk was his biggest secret, depending on who he went to. However, perhaps it was paranoid to think that Dumbledore read the mind of every first-year who came into his office. One moment of bravery, or months of anxiety and potentially life-long regret if Twix did something unthinkable and he had no one but himself to blame for having had the opportunity of preventing it. The words of Penny's mom were indeed wise.

He concluded, however, that this was not really the context that they had been said for. He raised his head and looked penetratingly into Penny's eyes. "This is what your mom tells you when you're trying to escape doing chores isn't it," he said, causing the girl to sputter and weakly defend her honour.

"No-, I mean-, never-" she eeped out before sighing. "Alright, you caught me," she admitted.

"I hate taking trash out the most. I can smell it on my hand sometimes, it's gross," Harry said.

Penny calmed down and shot him a rueful smile, "It's de-gnoming for me, gnomes are dumb."

Harry nodded sagely. "Dumb gnomes," he said before taking a pawn off the muggle chessboard and pushing it two steps forward.

"Your turn."

"So weird that they don't talk," Penny commented on the muggle chessboard Harry had insisted they play on.

"I imagine it as more relaxing," Harry replied, not being able to disconnect the way that wizarding chess pieces interacted with each other from a particularly toxic video game lobby.