Chapter 6: A looming figure

"Herne, Herne," Upon hearing Rowena's suggestion, the boy fell into a state of dumbstruck mutterance. The sole sound that spilt from his trembling lips was in the tune of that name. He repeated it over and over again, a beaming smile permanently plastered upon his otherwise average face. He had one now, a name, he was like anyone else, a true human, and his name was Herne. "Herne, I'm Herne", The boy quietly muttered, his smile never fading.

Seconds passed like this, with the boy lost in his own world, his forged delusions as he began to adjust to the name Rowena had so hastily given him. He wouldn't forsake it, nor would he ever think of denying the title the beauty before him had bequeathed a stray child such as himself. It was only after the boy repeated his name for what appeared to be the hundredth time that something else erupted from his quivering blue lips, another sound, another question, though this time it wasn't the same request. No, he had a name now. What he wanted to know was something else.

"Who are you?" Herne curiously asked, his mind now overflowing with curiosity for the beauty who stood so proudly in front of him. "What are you doing here? How did you get here? What was that thing you did? What's that stick thingy that you're holding? Did you take it from a tree on the way here? What does it do? Can I use it?" And from his lips spilt forth a torrent of obvious questions. He wanted to know everything. Like a caged child let to see the world for the first time, his mind was positively brimming with intrigue for the world around him, and it just so happened that the target of this intrigue was Rowena, who could only release a disgruntled sigh towards the child's ravenous questioning.

'So he is normal, if not a bit slow in the head, though I suppose that makes sense considering his identity prior to this point.' Rowena inwardly grumbled, her void-like eyes fixed upon the completely average child who seemed to jump in his place with fervent excitement. She was analysing him, trying to understand how he could so fluently speak her language, despite not possessing either a name nor a place to belong in this world until this very moment. 'Could he have acclimated to our language via background noise? Perhaps he lived in a village before he stumbled into this forest and heard the people's bustling noise, but even that doesn't really make sense. Hogsmeade is the only village within miles of this forest, and I didn't see nor hear tales of a nameless boy when I last came to visit, plus there's also the fact that if he were raised in that magical bastion, his name would have surely appeared upon our parchment much sooner,' Still, no matter how much Rowena inwardly debated the boy's ability she couldn't theorise an answer to his existence, he was, for all intents and purposes an oddity of the likes she had never witnessed.

Though she knew one thing about the child, and that was, like her, he could use magic. After all, he had to at least be capable of such a feat for his name to appear on their enchanted piece of parchment. Hadn't she seen proof of this fact as well? Now that Rowena had time to rest, she could easily equate the vine blockade to a use of accidental magic on Herne's part. He was stressed. He needed to defend himself, so his mind and magic took form in the appearance of that odd structure. However, it seems such a projection was relatively worthless, for although the cage managed to protect the boy from those that wished to find him and do him harm, it could not stop the creature that had already bypassed through such a defence, trapping it in with him. 'To think he'd be able to use such an advanced form of transfiguration, although accidentally, the boy seems to be pretty talented,' Rowena inwardly appraised, her lips quivering as they began to move in preparation to finally answer the boy's many questions.

"To answer your first question, my name is Rowena Ravenclaw, and I came here to rescue you. You see, I, along with some of my fellow colleagues and friends, run a school for those gifted with a unique power, one you saw earlier, one many call magic, called Hogwarts." At Rowena's words, a small glint of knowing sparked in the hollow brown eyes of Herne, as though he knew where the conversation was heading based on context cues alone, though whether he understood the significance the woman's following words held remained to be revealed. "I came to ask whether you'd be interested in joining our little school, Herne, to become one of our first students and take your place among the greats of history. You see, like me, you are a wizard and a pretty good one; if what I've seen of you proves true. We'll provide you with a place to stay, a chance to interact with fellow peers, and, more importantly, the opportunity to learn, to further your potential and study in the field of magecraft under our tutelage. So, what do you say, Herne? I will only provide you with this offer once." Rowena's clear offer resonated in the head of the overly excited child like a bell. She had told him something new. She had provided him with insight he never believed he could achieve on his lonesome. He was like her, he could do what she did, or at least he assumed as much. Surely that giant ball of flame was a feat capable only through the use of this weird magical concept.

Herne's body radiated joy. His eyes, hollow brown in colour, appeared to gain the glint of life he so sorely lacked. No longer a broken doll, a marionette with its strings cut, he released one dazzling smile that could even stun a troll before his lips began to move, creating the words he oh so wanted to tell. "Yes, Um, I'd like to join your school," Herne excitedly stammered, his tongue proving to be a faulty piece of equipment in this very moment as he stumbled over both his words and saliva to give Rowena his answer. His heart was racing at a hundred miles a minute, he couldn't hear, he couldn't even think, the sole sound that reverberated throughout his elated mind was his organs deafening roar of happiness, whatever Rowena was saying fell upon deaf ears. However, her actions proved to tell a story that words could not, for a smile, ever so slight, stretched upon her permanently stern face while her body began to move, inching closer and closer to the shaking boy before wrapping one dainty palm around his silver pelt shirt.

"...'ll…*Thump*....go….*thump*...now," Few words managed to cleave their way past Herne's inadvertent wall of sound. He couldn't make out what the woman was saying spare for the singular syllable of go, and then, before he knew it, his body began to twist and contort. A horrible, gut-wrenching sensation stemmed from his navel. It felt like his body was being pushed through something it couldn't fit through. His mind felt clouded, blocked by the strange sensation. Herne felt sick, and then, before he knew it, he felt nothing, and the forest fell silent.

Both the boy and the beautiful woman could no longer be found amongst the monochrome world of the woods. No sound broke the peaceful seal the forest had cast, nor did anything or anyone move. Not even the bushes by the child shook with the slovenly, sceptical steps of the long-forgotten wolves. It was odd. It was eerie, they should have resumed their hunt or at least taken the opportunity to escape, yet they did nothing. For they could do nothing. Soon a strange liquid began to pool on the outskirts of the shrubbery the creatures hid in, though it wasn't anything they leaked, not urine or saliva. It was red in colour and sticky to the touch. The crimson bile spilt forth endlessly from within the bushes, seeping into the world around them, acting as nutrients for the soil upon which they lay. The wolves were dead. Blood riddled their corpses as their body lay still, obscured by the bushes, never to be found by either predator or prey. Tied upon their feet appeared to be vines, roots of grass that sprouted from nowhere to bind them, keep them still until their final moments, while in the centre of their head lay a whole, a circular void where blood and brain pooled endlessly, in the middle of which sat a stake made of wood. They didn't die a natural death. They had been killed by something, someone, the same thing that killed the Grindylow, and their deaths were recent. It had happened while the boy and the woman still existed within this monochrome world.

There had been more than two pairs of eyes focused upon the child throughout the entire meeting. Another creature had lingered in the distance, obscured by the many trees and veiled by the darkness, the shadows that hid all. A looming figure, its height rivalling the trees it blended against, it was tall, lanky. Its movements, despite being cloaked by the umbral guise of darkness, appeared jarring, and unsettling. It was a beast that did not belong in this forest nor this country. It should never have appeared here, for its mere sighting brought despair upon those in its presence, a creature not native to this land, just like the child it stalked. And without a second look back in the direction, the boy dissipated in, the beast sunk into the darkness, its gaze now focused upon a castle that stood defiantly atop a cliff.

If only Rowena had known then that the magic she equated to the accidental spellwork of Herne truly belonged to this beast, perhaps such tragedy could have been avoided, maybe the boy wouldn't have had to suffer, he could have lived a normal life and died a normal death without bearing the brunt of the hell that lay in store for him, though whether the beast would have allowed for such a scenario to play out remained an unknown.