The fire

The three brave adventurers came up from a hole in the ground. There were only dark trees around them. The Forest was noticeably quiet. No animals or birds made any noise whatsoever. Even their own footsteps felt loud in the dead quiet around them.

"It's too quiet," Scorpius said. "Something feels wrong about this."

"I had forgotten how small the passage was. It has been a while since we used it." Albus didn't seem quite so unnerved as the others.

Rose ignored both of them, quickly starting to walk back to where the lights of Hagrid's cabin were. She would never admit it, but the Forest at night was scary, and there were so many creatures that lived there. Some, like the centaurs, were alright, but there were so many others. But they were not going into the Forest tonight. Or at least, not unless that was where Hagrid needed their help. She really hoped he hadn't gotten hold of some new creature he needed help with. That could have waited until morning. His cabin looked quite dark, but a small light was visible, so someone was probably there. Rose walked up to the door, the boys right behind her.

"Hagrid, it is us! What is so urgent?"

The moment she knocked on the door, the whole cabin burst aflame! Rose jumped back in surprise.

"Whoa. What did you do?" Albus shouted.

"I didn't do anything! But we must get away from here, or we are going to be in BIG trouble,"

The boys started running towards the forest at full speed.

"Wait! The secret passage is that way!" Rose pointed in the opposite direction from where the boys had run, but they couldn't hear her. She threw up her hands in exasperation. "Great. Now I need to go and rescue them, so they don't fall into a den of Acromantulas or something. Why did I agree to do this anyway?" She drew her wand, just in case, and started running after the boys. In the eerie silence, she heard screams and shouts. What had the boys found? She hoped it was nothing too dangerous. Then the shouts stopped. That was a bad sign.

When she rounded a small hill, she saw 6 hooded figures. The robes and masks were unmistakable, even if she had only seen pictures of them. These were Death Eaters. And they seemed to be expecting her.

"Well, what do we have here? A Weasley? Why, now we have nearly the full set. I can't believe that you all left the protections of this castle so easily. Not very bright, are you?" one of them said with a smirk.

Roes screamed and started to run back frantically. She forgot that she had a wand. In no time at all they caught up to her, and she was captured. Her attempts at kicking or hitting them were useless. She just had time to see Albus and Scorpius on the ground before her, before everything went black.

***

When Rose woke up, she was on the ground, and her hands were tied with some sort of rope, but not her feet. Her wand was gone. It was still dark, but she was not in the Forest anymore. She felt fear starting to rise in her. As she opened her eyes and moved her head to look around her, she saw Albus and Scorpius tied up next to her. She was relieved. At least she was not here alone. But there were also many hooded figures prowling around her. More Death Eaters. She tried not to scream in panic.

"Al? Scorpius? Are you okay? Where are we?" Rose whispered, trying to prevent the hooded Death Eaters overhearing her.

"I don't know where we are, but I am very sure I don't like it," Scorpius replied, also whispering. He was sitting and studying the Death Eaters, a curious expression on his face.

"Rose? Thank heavens you are awake! I was afraid they had seriously hurt you!" Albus exclaimed. He looked around before whispering back to her. "Listen, Rose. We are going to do something. You're probably not going to like it,"

"What? What are you going to do?" She did not like the sound of that. This was not the time to make stupid mistakes.

"It will only work for the two of us. But please, remember…" Whatever Albus had been about to say was interrupted as some Death Eaters dragged them to their feet. Rose was finally able to inspect her surroundings. It was a graveyard. That was not a good sign. In the middle of the graveyard, there was a huge statue. It was of some sort of polished grey stone, figuring an angel of death with a scythe. The scythe pointed sideways in front of the angel. As they came closer, they saw that the scythe trapped a person on the statue. The person wriggled around on it, clearly in pain.

"Who is that?" Rose asked quietly. "He looks familiar".

"Oh no!" Albus exclaims. "It's James!"

Rose realised that Albus was right. James Potter was trapped on a statue, and Dark Magic pulsed from it. The pulses alone were enough to make Rose want to vomit. She didn't even want to think about what was happening to James in the middle of all that foulness.

"They are going to kill him!" she cried.

"No, I don't think so," Scorpius said more calmly behind her. "Not yet anyway."

"He is displayed like a sacrifice!" Rose protested. How could Scorpius be so calm? She wanted to scream. She wanted to get away from here!

"Yes, but they won't actually kill him. He is more valuable alive. I hope" Scorpius replied, still strangely calm. "But they are doing something. Can't you sense the magic coming from that statue? It is horrible"

"Yes. What on earth are they doing to him?" Rose had tried not to feel the dark pulses coming from the statue, but it was hard to ignore. She did not like this situation.