Saving a Damsel In Distress

Harry awoke slowly, despite the fervent shaking his gangly redheaded friend Ron was giving his shoulder, due in part to just being a heavy sleeper (unbelievably enough), but mostly because of his being well and truly spent from the day's activities. Following the shouting of his name out of his dream, which had consisted mostly of racing after a snitch against a nude Susan Bones, with all the eyes of the world cup focused on them, oddly enough, Harry finally managed to leave the silly fantasy behind and wake up.

"Harry, mate, wake up-Dad said people are getting rowdy outside and that we're gonna go ahead home after all. Did you hear me? Come on, get up," Ron encouraged, looking around for Harry's glasses, with the intent to hand them to the groggy Boy-Who-Lived, only to remember that his friend hadn't worn them once over the last few days. Not really processing this revelation and instead flicking his eyes back towards his family, most of whom were scurrying around aimlessly in the tent's 'living room', Ron grumbled, to a now awake looking Harry, "Bloody Irish, I'm betting. Stupid leprechauns, winning."

Apparently judging his friend to be awake enough to be on his own, Ron returned to his bed, fishing the goodies he'd bought and his wadded up day-clothes (he was still in the red pajamas he'd gone to sleep in), which Harry noted stank of sweat clear across the, admittedly small, room, out from under his bed.

Trying to keep his eyes open despite a jaw-breaking yawn, and failing, Harry then stood up and blinked rapidly, doing his best to shake the lingering cobwebs loose.

Soon enough, Harry, as awake as he was going to get, began lethargically gathering his stuff. Despite his leisurely pace, he still managed to get finished before Ron, mostly thanks to the lack of things he'd brought with him. Finishing his packing by slipping on a spare zipperless hoodie, the article quickly becoming one of his favorites to wear, and stashing his snoozing Smallguide within its connected hand-pocket, Harry then brought his dirty clothes, the only things he'd really needed to gather, up to a twitchy looking Mr. Weasly.

Once the kindly redheaded father of seven had shrunken the boy wizard's bag, and Harry had stored it in his powder-blue pajama pants' pocket, Mr. Weasley then went on to shrink Ron's, Ginny's, and Hermione's things down as well, leaving the whole entourage ready to split, with the rest of the group having already been prepped.

"So what's going on?" Harry asked, sleep still audible in his voice. "Ron said something about.. leprechauns?"

"No, Harry," Mister Weasley said, no hint of humor in his voice.

Feeling the last of his sleepiness leave him, making way for a light weariness, Harry moved his hand toward his pocketed wand subconsciously and asked, "What's wrong?"

"I don't know," the ginger-topped chaperone confessed, though his tense expression didn't waiver. "But one of my acquaintances from work poked his head in a few minutes ago. Apparently somebody's causing a scene, up by the stadium, and I'd rather us be home than here, worrying about getting swept up in it. Now," he said, clapping his hands and double checking that everyone was there, "let's get going. I'll come grab the tent in the morning. For now, just focus on getting back to the portkey field, the boot's still there."

"But Dad," Fred (or was it George?), objected, his twin already nodding, "we've still got to collect our coin from ol' Ludo! That eel's doing everything he can to wiggle out of our little bet. If we leave now, we'll never-"

A sudden, thunderous, CRI-CRACK-BOOM erupted somewhere outside the tent, the noise, which sounded like dynamite blowing a pine tree in half, drew startled jumps and shouts out of them all, including a surprised, "Eep!" from Bell.

"Bloody hell!" Fred, Harry was sure of it now, hollered, heading straight for the tent's flap.

"Wait," Mister Weasley ground out, grabbing his son by the shoulder and hauling him back. Drawing his wand, the redheaded father crept forward cautiously, muttering a soft, "Protego." A translucent blue film formed a half-dome around the wizard's front, protecting him as he peaked outside.

Harry felt the hairs on the nape of his neck tingle when Mister Weasley let out an alarmed gasp and ducked back in quickly. Pulling his trusty holly wand from his pocked and seizing its sword-like grip, formed out of comfortable-to-hold bark, Harry reached his free hand into his pocket to stroke Bell soothingly while he listened to Mister Weasley say, "Something's wrong- there are tents being set on fire- we've got to go, now. Fred, George, you're in charge if I have to run off, but for now, follow me!"

With that, the adult wizard swept out of the tent, followed quickly by his children, Luna, Hermione, and then, at the back, Harry himself.

Stepping out of the tent, Harry found himself quickly swept up in a whirlwind of frenzied activity, but unlike before, there was no merriment to be found, no festive spirit blanketing the gathered crowd. Instead, Harry was met with fear, panic, and confusion the instant he stepped out, onto the slick-with-dew grass. The night was clouded over, but light, put off by half a dozen blazing tents, provided plenty of light to see, although its hypnotic, dancing flames combined potently with the scurrying sea of bodies to inject even more disorientation into the fleeing crowd.

Not immune to the feeling, which was what Harry imagined being cast adrift into the ocean mid-storm must feel like, with naught but the insistent, choppy tide to guide you, the boy wizard found himself separated from his friends within a matter of minutes.

Stepping out of the stampeding crowd, Harry ducked into a row of tents, breathing harshly and trying desperately to regain his bearings. Clutching his wand in one hand and his Smallguide in the other, within his hoodie pocket still, Harry peered into the frothing mass of migrating magicals, scanning as many faces as he could in the hopes of spotting a familiar one.

A flash of orange-red hair in the corner of his eye had Harry whipping his head around. Just barely spotting Mister Weasley, headed fast in the opposite direction, by himself, Harry took a leaping step forward, preparing to sprint his way to the man so as not to lose track of him, when a faint scream from behind caught his attention.

Sliding forward on the now-muddy ground, maintaining his balance but scaring deep furrows into the torn up turf, Harry felt a sickly mass of indecision settle in his gut. Gritting his teeth in disgust at his own hesitation, Harry froze up.

With safety quickly heading in the other direction, did Harry really want to possibly risk his life for a stranger?

'Would I be able to live with myself if I didn't?' Harry asked himself, and, quickly answering his own question with a harshly spoken, "No," he kicked off, rocketing himself back, towards the scream, in a turf-pounding sprint. Realizing he was heading toward the same woods he'd dragged Luna to the previous morning, Harry sped up, breathing heavily as the bottoms of his pajama pants got dirtied with mud- flung haphazardly into the air from his rapidly kicking feet.

A sudden, "Somebody, help m-!" rang out, quieter than the scream before but obviously closer.

Now even more on edge, unwilling to think about the reasons why the voice, which Harry recognized as a young girl's, would suddenly go silent mid-cry, the adrenaline filled incubus wasted no time in leaning towards the ground, never breaking stride, and scooping a handful of thick mud up.

Busting through the tree line, ignoring the thick thorn bushes as they ripped thin lines of beading blood, through his pajama bottoms and into his legs, Harry spared a brief moment to process what he'd stumbled upon.

Two men, both cloaked in black robes, almost reminiscent of a dementor's cloak, were looming over a downed girl, who was limply sprawled on her side next to a softly babbling stream. She was, as far as Harry could see, of a petite build, slim of height and with a delicate body. Her wider hips and peach-sized breasts, hidden beneath comfy-looking cotton pajama's, stopped the boy wizard from identifying her as a child, instead of the young teen he reevaluated her as, and her golden-silver hair, a fascinating shade he'd never encountered before, hid her face beneath its voluminous length.

Choking just long enough at the sight of her to overhear one of the men mention their unexpected fortune to the other, Harry expeditiously forced himself into action, pointing his vibrating holly wand at the talking man's face and snarling out, "Issemos!"

The two would-be kidnappers reacted, while not sluggishly, still far too slowly, and before the first man had even hit the ground, scratching at his fused-together eyelids, the second had already gotten a face full of mud. While not quite as blinded as his friend, who caught a roared, "Stupefy!" a second later, rendering him unconscious, the muddy faced man still literally didn't see Harry's punch coming.

Both slipping under the force of Harry's fist's collision with the man's nose, which let out a sickening crunch! under Harry's fist, only the fury-eyed incubus maintained his footing, while the darkly dressed adult wizard fell heavily onto his back.

The man's skull connected with one of the stream's polished flat stones, sounding out a meaty thud, but his groaning form clued Harry in to the fact that he too could do with a stunning, and so, with another "Stupefy", Harry took him out of the equation as well.

Breathing heavily, with a shaking Bell in his pocket and a pounding heart in his chest, Harry scanned the clearing jerkily, high from his attack. Still, as the seconds continued to tick by in silence, with naught but the sounds of peacefully running water and breathing keeping the silence at bay, the strung up teen allowed the tension to flow out of his tensed muscles.

Sighing, Harry muttered out two, "Ligansnno," 's, restraining the unconscious wizards within thick leather straitjackets, before pocketing his wand and kneeling next to the prone girl.

===========================================

We'll have one more chapter tomorrow and a big one...

So who do you the girl is? Any idea, comment...