FicWad

Note: The warnings are for real.

The Harry Potter universe is the creation of J.K. Rowling. This is fanfiction. The standard disclaimers apply.


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Into the Glade


Saturday, January 12, 1991


The floor of the Forbidden Forest lay hidden under a foot and a half of snow. Branches were lined with white where the wind had not cleared them. The boughs of conifers drooped under the weight. Creeks and pools were frozen over beneath the snow, and animals likewise had retreated deep into their nests and burrows, coming out reluctantly, and only when it was unavoidable.

A few hardy birds remained, spending the long nights huddled wherever the wind couldn't get them, puffed up into little balls. Birds in the winter need a lot of energy just to keep warm through the night; their short daylight hours must be spent in near-constant search of food. The handful of Hogsmeade residents who put out seed and crumbs found their yards extremely popular, both with their regular visitors and a few more elusive ones, driven by hunger to join their tamer cousins in accepting handouts. Those who did not or could not take advantage of human generosity had a more difficult time, spending the short days diligently probing bark and rotting wood for insects and their eggs, scrounging seeds from the heads of plants still peeking above the snow, or flocking reluctantly in the bushes with the less-preferred berries which remained after their favorites were gone.

Post owls were, for most species, capable of diving into the snow for the mice that tunneled beneath it. Given the choice, though, they preferred to stay in the owlery and have food brought to them by the house elves, leaving only when sent out with mail or to fly into the Great Hall during meals and beg for extra bacon.

There is a substantial ecological impact when hundreds of owls share the same hunting grounds—many smaller predators were scarce on the school grounds. There were still large ones—those who could take down animals like deer, which owls ignored. These, too, either hibernated (acromantulas, and, surprisingly enough, trolls) or struggled (hippogriffs, thestrals).

Merely being magical does not ensure proof against the elements. Unicorns, white on white, were more elusive than ever, and the few signs of their presence were little different from those of the non-magical red deer who shared their habits—needles stripped from yews and anything else green and non-poisonous, hoofprints, droppings. Centaurs, much more resistant to cold than their appearance would suggest, nevertheless huddled together for warmth. The forest, of course, contained all manner of smaller, vaguely humanoid monsters—fairies, pixies, gnomes, bowtruckles—which adapted in ways as diverse as their other habits.

All of these were scarce in this weather, having disappeared to wherever it was they went when the forest didn't meet their needs.

Charlie hadn't even bothered to check with Hagrid this morning. The two of them had agreed that the forest was less dangerous than usual, even if the weather itself wasn't, and besides, Charlie knew what he was doing. He was dressed for the weather, and carried a bag packed with everything he thought he might need. The house elves weren't worried about the brave Charlie Weasley being unsafe in the woods! No, not him! And they enjoyed the challenge of packing him food for the day. Usually their enthusiasm left him with enough for several days, which he liked having, just in case.

He had tried to get Fred and George to come, but they were off on some super-secret project they weren't ready to tell him about yet. Percy had politely, almost apologetically, expressed his disinterest. Oliver Wood thought he was nuts, and said so. None of them liked the idea of leaving at dawn, either.

Charlie had long ago given up on trying to get girls to come with him—he assumed there must be girls who shared his interests, but had no idea how to find them. What was he supposed to do, post a singles ad in the halls somewhere? "Single male wizard seeks witch. Must enjoy leaving the castle after curfew to explore the Forbidden Forest and sneak up on dangerous animals. If interested, meet on the other side of the Whomping Willow at midnight." The only one who would show up would be Professor McGonagall, in order to drag him back by the ear and give him a week of detention.

This was why he was alone today, hovering in the canopy, staying very still and scanning the forest for movement. It was extremely quiet. A woodpecker, far away, tapped intermittently at a dead tree. Branches creaked. The January sun was pale through the overcast sky, shining through to a world of whites and greys. His breath condensed in front of him. Charlie didn't like using warming charms in weather like this—humans cut themselves off from the world far too readily, he thought, and it's best to experience the forest as it is, not as someone might think it should be.

In the distance, above the trees, he watched as a speck of grey and red resolved itself into a hippogriff carrying a deer. For a magical animal that humans could ride, a deer was not an unreasonable prey for a hippogriff, but it was bigger than their usual rabbits and squirrels. Maybe the deer were worse at hiding? Maybe it had young to feed? There were no reports of neighboring farmers complaining of missing cattle, so the magical predators presumably stuck to their natural prey, even in the winter. The deer was a mystery, and the hippogriff was coming this way. Charlie would follow it.

It in fact passed within a hundred yards of him, paying him no heed. He took off after it as close as he dared, matching its speed while weaving through the tree-tops below it. It dived into a stand of old holly trees and disappeared.

Charlie circled, and eventually satisfied himself that the hippogriff could not have come out the other side without him noticing. Carefully, carefully, he edged between the trees. These formed a ring four or five trees deep, regular enough to suggest deliberate landscaping in the distant past, but thick enough, with enough ancient specimens, to suggest that that past was truly distant. Hollies, even enchanted ones, grew slowly.

In the center of the ring were two boulders, about fifteen feet apart. The hippogriff had landed on one side of these—dragging the deer with it, dripping blood. Even without the deer, Charlie could have followed by its distinctive claw-and-hoof footprints, or failing that, the blown and displaced snow that revealed its wingspan. There was nothing subtle about a hippogriff, especially in this situation.

Charlie was absolutely positive it had simply disappeared. It was too big to perch in the dense thicket formed by the hollies, even on the lower branches of the oldest trees. Everything about this hinted at Founders-Era magic. His heart raced with excitement—if this was what he hoped it was, it was a part of Hogwarts unseen in living memory or recorded history.

He knew how these things worked. If a flying animal thought it had to go on foot into the enchanted wood, you imitated it. He added some snow-proofing charms to his feet, landed, and stowed his broom away. As he suspected, once he had followed the tracks through the boulders, the trail of the hippogriff faded into view, continuing off through the trees.

Charlie followed, spotting the beast on the far side of the trees, still on foot, using its beak to drag the deer by the neck. He could recognize most of the hippogriff herd if he could get close enough to see distinguishing marks, and they likewise knew him, but this was not the time to make assumptions. He let it get as far away as he dared before slipping out of the shadows after it.

After a quarter mile, they reached the head of a valley, no doubt accompanied by flowing water in warmer weather. So far the topography had mimicked that which Charlie was familiar with, and if it weren't for the walking hippogriff and the strange circle he had entered through, he would not have noticed that the trees were in different places than he was used to. But the valley erased any doubts he harboured.

Before, he would have expected a little, stream-carved ravine that led gently down a few hundred feet before meeting a larger brook. That, in turn, would meander through a small forested valley bounded by miles of rolling moorland. Instead, the valley turned a corner and became a deep canyon. Rocky cliffs topped by a wooded upland rose on either side, reaching heights comparable to the castle itself. The canyon widened as it descended until the cliffs were a hundred feet apart, and the path down was lined on both sides with intermittent allees of ancient hollies.

'If you can build a castle, you can dig a ditch,' thought Charlie.

Up to this point, the hippogriff's tracks were all Charlie saw, but the snow had clearly undergone substantial drifting. It tapered off down here, either having blown past or somehow being magically diverted. Bare earth and scruffy grass remained, at last giving Charlie a record going back more than a few hours. He was not disappointed; this was a busy thoroughfare for almost everything.

When he wasn't excitedly staring at the ground, he was looking up. The canyon walls were rough but relatively even, tapering outwards somewhat. Sharp edges showed little evidence of weathering, reinforcing the impression (to a keen observer, at least) of land that had been pushed upwards, then pulled apart slightly here, just enough for the valley to sink into the rift. A muggle geologist would surely know more; Charlie cursed in frustration at the limits of a Hogwarts education.

It was not for nothing that Hagrid and Kettleburn respected him, though. He produced from his bag a sketchbook and spent a few minutes sketching the scene—a procedure he planned to repeat at regular intervals. Once he got further down, he would take a sample rock and stuff it into one of the many unused pockets of his backpack.

The end of the canyon was satisfyingly odd. To either side, the cliffs—thousands of feet high at this point—turned outwards, and Charlie found himself facing a shimmering wall through which he could make out a distorted version of the moorland lying on this side of the Forbidden Forest. Fine. Not all magical distortions of space needed elegant boundaries like the ring of hollies or the wall of Platform 9 3/4, and Charlie was not about to take issue with the founders' epic landscaping efforts.

At this point he had a very simple decision—left or right. He picked 'right', more or less arbitrarily. No matter which way he went, it was bound to be a good decision, right? The cliff continued on for half a mile or so, leaving about twenty feet between it and the barrier—too narrow for a hippogriff's wingspan.

Charlie assumed it must have flown off by now. He had decided, though, to reserve his broom for life-threatening emergencies—nothing else could outweigh curiosity. The same rule applied to touching the shimmering barrier. He had no way of knowing if he could ever find his way back here if he accidentally left, so he wasn't going to leave until . . . well, he'd decide that later. This late in his education, even the threat of expulsion couldn't scare him into worrying about curfew right now.

At last the cliff turned back again to his right, away from the barrier, leaving another half mile of plain between itself and high, forested hills. As Charlie came around the corner, he saw that the scruffy, grassy strip did not extend much further back, here—small shrubs grew along it, and behind them soon gave way to trees. Rising above them in the distance, a wide, forested valley was cut into the hills.

In the distance ahead of him, the hills looked like the regular forest, and in fact snow cover began halfway up their slopes. The valley on his right, though, was greener and much more dramatic in terms of landscape. So, the valley it was.

Charlie found a muddy path into the bushes, and had not gone very far before realizing the air had lost its edge of chill. Normally a breeze coming down a valley would be cold. Of course, anyone who could rearrange the landscape on this scale could easily create whatever climate they pleased for it.

The forest soon grew dense, dark, and coniferous. The ground, even on the path, was spongy—a bed of fallen needles littered with cones and interrupted only by gnarled roots. The largest trees had trunks many feet in diameter; these dominated the canopy where they stood, creating a dark space beneath which nothing could grow and where lower branches were pointless to maintain. Here and there one of these elders had fallen, often taking neighbors with it, leaving a clearing where young trees could germinate.

There was a squirrel, high above him. An ordinary one—non-magical, non-gliding. It stayed persistently red and its ears stayed tufted as it made its way, leaping, through the canopy ahead. 'Nice place, if you like pine cones,' he thought. Fairly soon he saw light ahead through the pines and spruces, accompanied by shades of green, pink, and white. These soon resolved into flowering trees, and the tang of the pine forest gave way to the scent of flowers.

The forest had been cool—not freezing, but enough that he was glad for his warm cloak. Leaving its shade, he abruptly hit a wall of warm air. In front of him was an apple orchard, but one that had been convinced to discard its ideas about seasons. Buds, flowers, and fruit in all stages were present on every tree.

The trees were obviously ancient—thick trunks and branches displayed the elegant growth habit of orchard trees, enhanced with age and magic. It was possible they were actively tended, but he saw no signs of pruning. Grass and flowers grew at their full height beneath them, and he saw no signs of disease or barriers to keep deer from chewing the bark. Charlie thought it more likely that someone—he guessed Helga Hufflepuff herself—had decided the band of forest behind him should have conifers, and this place should contain apple trees, and that they should remain this way in perpetuity, magically unhindered by any forces promoting ecological succession.

He was sure no one could do this today. How did this knowledge get lost? Were the founders so immensely powerful that no one else could do it their way again, and would have to discover new techniques on their own? Was the knowledge, too, hidden away like this orchard, or Slytherin's Chamber of Secrets, only to be interacted with every few centuries or more, perhaps by heirs of the founders? So far as he knew, the Weasleys weren't descendants of anyone more exciting than other Weasleys. Not that there was anything wrong with that. In any event, he was probably not anything so ridiculous as a magically-favored Heir of Hufflepuff or the like. Maybe Salazar Slytherin was egotistical enough to leave a chamber only his descendants could open, but Charlie strongly suspected that no such magic contributed to his own ease in, say, getting around the grounds without detection. At Hogwarts, any student could make their own luck.

A little ways into the orchard, a smaller path angled off the main one, and Charlie decided to risk going down it. It was still a path, right? You could do that kind of thing in stories and have it be okay.

This led to the sound of chewing, coming from a somewhat larger apple tree bearing much larger apples. They were nearly a foot wide, mottled yellow and orange, hanging on thick stems from a tree with bright orange blossoms. The chewing came from a squirrel—perhaps the same one. It was at about eye level, taking big bites out of a hanging apple, and watching Charlie while it chewed.

"Squirrel, you are standing on your food. That apple is what—ten? Twenty times your weight? Are you planning on eating the whole thing?"

The apples looked pretty good, actually. He was tempted to try one, but that never went well in stories. In a fairy tale, if you went to an enchanted world and ate the food, sometimes you could never get back, or if you could, you lost the ability to eat ordinary food ever again.

Charlie also recalled the story from muggle religion, where the first humans had been created and placed in a huge garden, and for some reason the creator god told them not to eat the apples from certain trees. That bit never made any sense to him—Dad called that kind of thing 'nose-beans'. Anyway, they also had an antagonist to the creator god—there was supposed to be only one god in those religions, so this bit had never been explained to Charlie's satisfaction. Anyway, the antagonist took the form of a snake, and it sat in one of the forbidden apple trees and convinced the first humans to eat its fruit. The rest of the story made even less sense, but the basic point of the narrative was to be wary of animals eating fruit in trees, right?

This squirrel did not strike Charlie as a likely candidate for divine antagonist.

"You don't talk, do you?"

The squirrel swallowed, paused, and looked right at Charlie. Then it leaned over, took another big bite, and resumed chewing. Temptation today was not taking the form of a Hard Sell.

"Not going to try to sell me anything in exchange for my soul?"

The squirrel had stopped dignifying Charlie with responses.

"Maybe on the way back, then?"

He continued on the main path. He was certainly not alone with the squirrel—there were butterflies and bees, and he saw flashes of color as birds flitted around just out of sight. The cliffs here edged back into terracing, the tiers of vegetation giving the illusion of a smoother hill beneath. Next came a diverse grove of nut trees, and a swampy bit where a little stream came down from the winding canyon ahead and disappeared underground.

He was walking along the right-hand wall, now. The canyon was divided now by a thicket of vegetation that grew up around the stream. The other side was far enough away that there could be other patches of different trees over there. Canyons, though, are exciting—they give you a clear goal (go further in!) and the promise of hidden things revealed to the persistent.

The ground was getting sandier, the air warmer. It was definitely like summer here. The terrace above him was well over a hundred feet up. The trees up there looked like they might be olives. He cursed his lack of omnioculars, vowing to obtain some by any means necessary when he went back to the castle, whenever that was.

Time. He had sort of hoped that the sun would move more slowly here or something, but it didn't. It was edging westward, and the far canyon wall would soon start casting a shadow. That was fine. It would still be day for a few more hours, and he had no fear of retracing his steps in the dark. But he had gear with him to sleep out here, if he had to . . . He put that thought aside for now.

Nut trees had given way to citrus, pomegranates, mangoes, avocados, and others he didn't recognize. He decided he would take some fruit on the way out. Yes, that was okay, right? It wasn't like some monster's hoard, where it would notice if you took as much as a knut (or, in this case, a nut). Was it?

There was a flash of gold in an orange tree, and a small round bird darted into view—a golden snidget! It was followed by a small, iridescent purple hummingbird, which dove at it. The two sped away at breakneck speed. Charlie wanted very much to just follow after them—every glimpse of wings might be an exotic, or even new, species—but leaving the path to chase after animals never, ever, ended well in stories. That, too, fell under "maybe later".

By now the canyon floor was noticeably sloped, and the walls had closed in to about two hundred feet apart. It was hot enough that he gave in and stuffed his cloak in his bag, then rolled up his sleeves. The tropical fruit ended in a line of bananas—ha, Kettleburn will love it! The canyon angled to the left in the middle of a date grove, narrowing as it went. Here ended anything resembling an orchard—Charlie now followed the stream down the middle of a desert canyon. Along the walls grew scruffy junipers mixed with distinctly unfamiliar bushes and cacti. Lush vegetation still hugged the stream-bed, full of animal life, all of it tempting Charlie to Just Stop and Watch.

The canyon turned back to the right, rising more steeply, and narrowed to forty feet. The ground was no longer even—he had to climb over boulders to avoid walking in the stream, which was anyway still protected by dense thickets. One more turn, and he was standing before a waterfall and a shallow pool. It was roughly fifteen feet across, at most a foot or two deep, and ringed by a few feet of sand. Looking up, he saw that the waterfall began at a point not much higher than the tree tops. Presumably there was a series of cascades as one climbed further up, splashing from terrace to terrace, but for now it was long past time to eat.

He sat down, getting out one of several sandwiches and a tin cup, into which he conjured water. 'Don't drink the water!' he thought, although it looked clean and smelled wonderful. A few birds—all unidentifiable—came over to peer down at him. He ate and sketched. He might not have met up with anything excitingly large and dangerous, but this was already his favorite place, anywhere.

Sandwich done, things put away, he ran his fingers lazily through the water. He was promptly knocked flat on his back, unable to move. He saw nothing suspicious in his peripheral vision, heard nothing moving beyond it. 'Don't touch the water, either!' seemed like such an unfair requirement for an adventure story. How had he gotten to this point, lying flat on his back in a secret canyon, alone, paralyzed?

He retraced his memories of the orchards, the holly-lined entrance canyon, the forest, the two boulders and the tracks coming into view beyond them . . . the ring of hollies. Hovering in the canopy. Passing Hagrid's hut, flying out a window . . . Why had he never looked back at the castle? Did he normally?

He was packing his bag and chatting with the house elves. There were lots of house elves, and the kitchens were enormous and full of food. He went over the exact conversation with them, word for word, several times. There was nothing remarkable about the conversation. Or, for that matter, the contents of his pack, or the halls, or the Gryffindor common room, deserted in the wee hours of the morning. It was dark in the dorm still when he left. He had most of his bag packed then. The other seventh-years were all asleep—he couldn't get a good look at them. Had he tried to look at them? Well, he didn't want to disturb them, did he?

He had woken up dressed in his pajamas. He took them off by his bed, and had a pair of boxer shorts on underneath. Then he put on a pair of trousers he had chosen the night before, a shirt, and two layers of sweater (no robes today), and then socks and boots. The cloak, he carried . . . he had set aside the trousers and shirt the night before. Before he went to bed in his bunk.

The pajamas he had put on after he got out of the shower, and dried himself with the towel. The showers were single-person stalls with benches, hangers, and a small table for your clothes, which you removed in order to shower . . . what?

The shadows were creeping up the canyon wall. The breeze was hot, and the leaves rustled in it, and he took with him into the shower both a bar of soap and a bottle of shampoo. That was not a direct association, that was in the shower he usually started with his face and armpits. The waterfall met the surface of the pool, leaving bubbles beneath it on his skin and the surface of the bar of soap. He washed between his legs, all over, carefully. He sometimes masturbated in the shower, and had thought of it, but wanted to get enough sleep for tomorrow. Why? It would have been nice. His cock twitched, thinking about it, his memory paused on the image, then feel, of it, in the shower, soapy and in his hand. He pulled back the foreskin to Kettleburn would argh be interested in McGonagall's cleavage? That was interesting. Banana tree. Reaching into her cleavage, he wouldn't need a squirrel. Squirrel? Damn it!

Big eyes, it had big eyes, relative to its head. It was small, and furry, and cute, and ate bananas, maybe in the wild, too, which Kettleburn pulled from within his robes this was awful why was he hard now? The leaves he could see above him were lanceolate, not toothed or lobed, and had pinnate venation. Glabrous. Maybe waxy, to withstand the desert climate. Its bark was smooth, branches not quite round, bulging in places, forking out from crotches like limbs from a headless torso, ending in feet on the floor of the shower. The tiles were white.

They were in a squarish stall in a line of stalls, in one of the bathrooms of the boys' dormitories of the House of Godric Gryffindor, which had the colors red and gold. Charlie liked the green of the trees above him and the silver in the water, but not the children in the House of Salazar Slytherin. That was down in the . . . dungeons? The castle had many floors, and parts of it moved . . .

Charlie gave up. Something was riffling through his memories, following connections like one turned the pages of a book. He stopped fighting it, and started paying attention to what it was finding interesting, which included almost everything about the school. It spent some time on other students in general, not necessarily his friends. It brushed past quidditch and the Forbidden Forest, but watched him fly around the castle towers.

It watched girls undressing through their tower windows, poorly lit and always further away than he wanted. The girls from the House of Rowena Ravenclaw were worth a pause. He had never gotten close to a girl, physically. He had magazines hidden in his trunk, which he had taken with him to the forest to read . . . it spent a long time on the magazines, and he stayed hard as the sun's direct beams inched ever further away. It tried to see the images of his own fantasies, but that was trickier, and the memories of his thought fell apart.

It swooped in another direction, looking at his family and house back home, then followed his father's job to the Ministry and politics. It moved aimlessly, then found the muggle world, and images of London streets. Muggles built tall things with lots of glass, and made devices that . . . it was complicated. It was all complicated, and there were lots of connections to follow. Abruptly he was free. It took him a moment to realize he was looking at the sky here and not thinking about airplanes.

That had been . . . not very pleasant. Unfortunately he would have to touch the water again when he took his shoes off and waded into the pool; nothing happened. Behind the waterfall, obscured by ferns, was an arched doorway, and a few steps going up. Shoes back on, wand out with a Lumos, he saw smooth granite walls—not the local rock—and an inscription. It was not in a script he could read easily, but he got the overall feeling that it was probably English. He couldn't really expect the founders to carve things in Times New Roman, could he? He hoped it contained no important warnings. He could copy it all later.

From here, a passage went back and to the left, reaching a spiral staircase that ascended for about fifty feet before opening out onto a rocky terrace. Here was another small pool in front of him and another cascade—presumably there was one for each terrace. He would have to walk the length of each of them, though, as they sloped upwards here on the left—more or less western—side of the canyon. Climbing the waterfall looked like a bad idea, and he was sure flying would be too.

The path along the first terrace took him all the way back to the mouth of the canyon with no sign of a shortcut upwards; he had been hoping for stairs, or at least a climbable tree. These were indeed olive trees, but they unfortunately didn't grow very tall.

He had about an hour of sunlight left. He had good night vision, but he'd be under tree cover most of the way, and the moon wouldn't rise again until morning. So he'd have to make himself conspicuous with a lumos. Oh well—it wasn't anything he hadn't done before.

Here at the canyon's mouth he was eye-level with the tops of the nut trees. The terrace ascended more steeply as it went around the end of the hill. Here, the strip of conifers became visible in the distance.

The wind was once more like a comfortable spring day, not the hot desert breezes that followed the waterfall. The olive trees petered out, and then began what Charlie thought of as a more ordinary botanical garden—small clumps of the same tree or bush, one after the other. He couldn't identify much of any of it past the level of "maybe a maple" or "some sort of pine tree". Just give him a dragon and he'd be fine, and even with native trees he would be in good shape, but this was overwhelming!

At last he came to a passage into the hill—stairs curved gently up into darkness, hewn from the same granite as before. When he emerged once more into the desert heat back at the waterfall, he was thrilled to find he was now on the third terrace up. Unfortunately, the sun was setting, and the canyon didn't benefit very much from the twilight. He couldn't see the canyon floor from here, but he imagined it was quite dark down there.

After repeating the whole process a third time, twilight had come and gone, and he was relieved to find himself at the source of the waterfall—at least, there were no further cascades above him that he could see. The pool here was wider and deeper than the others, and as Charlie walked around it with a dim lumos, he found it was fed from the mouth of a cave. The entrance was a simple arch shape, wide enough for several people to enter at a time and walk comfortably alongside the stream. It was too conveniently sized and placed, and the floor was too flat, for it to be mistaken for a natural opening—whoever had made it had simply cut the tunnel back in the direction of the spring, or maybe even moved the spring there as well.

Charlie risked strengthening his light. The passage curved just enough that you couldn't see straight down it, but it didn't go back very far before it ended in a circular room with another pool in the middle. Nothing seemed to have made this cave its home, which would be odd if it were non-magical. Charlie took his bedding from his pack and unrolled it without bothering to cast any wards. He had put off eating in order to take advantage of the light, and was now really hungry.

While he ate, he decided to put out his light for a bit. As his eyes adapted, he discovered that the water was slightly phosphorescent. In stories, he thought, it would be enough to see by, and save the author the trouble of worrying about light sources. This pool was very pretty, but Charlie still had to cast a lumos in order to do anything with his pack.

It was hot in here. Not uncomfortably so, but enough that Charlie realized the water was the source of the heat. The walls were cool to the touch, the floor a nice room temperature, but he only needed to wave his hand around to tell that the water radiated heat like a warm bath. No sense sleeping with clothes on tonight. He stuffed them into his pack along with his wand and lay down, watching the dim ripples in the spring as it welled up and flowed to the cave mouth.

As his eyes adapted to the darkness, the phosphorescence seemed much brighter. Charlie had heard of magical springs that glowed, and non-magical waters of all sorts lit by luminescent microorganisms. Here on the Hogwarts grounds—where, he had to keep reminding himself, he presumably still was—the 'magic' hypothesis seemed like the simpler explanation.

There was nothing inherently magical about the Hogwarts lake, other than everything living in it. There was an awful lot living in it, though, not all of which was benign, and yet students went swimming in it anyway. He leaned over the edge and looked down, but there wasn't enough light to see much.

It was only 7 or 8 PM at this point. He wouldn't fall asleep easily, and didn't feel like writing or sketching by wand-light. Touching the water earlier hadn't resulted in anything really bad happening, right? If anything here meant him harm, he would know about it by now. This wasn't the hero stupidly straying from the path—all of today had been about finding a secret place and exploring it. It was like coming up to the castle, knocking on the door, and slipping in on your own when no one responded and you found the door unlocked. You don't just not do these things. He brushed his hand in the water.

Nothing happened, other than his hand now glowing faintly where it was wet. The water was the temperature of a warm bath, though, and it would be awfully nice to dangle his feet in it. He put them in up to his calves. What the hell. He slowly slid in, finding himself up to his waist with smooth rock beneath his feet. This seemed to slope downwards towards the center, which seemed reasonable enough for a spring. He walked out until he was floating, and ducked his head under. It felt wonderful. This was fine so long as he didn't drink it, right?

Eventually he found a rock near the rim that was the right height to sit on, letting him lean back until the water was up to his shoulders. Once he settled down and the spring was allowed to return to its natural currents, he could feel it swirling gently past him. It was like warm, wet hands, caressing every part of his body, welcoming him to the spring. He didn't need to go anywhere or be anywhere else.

A few feet in front of him, the glow of the water seemed to brighten, as if it were concentrating in that spot. Maybe it was some sort of column of magic—an irregularity in the flow of the spring? The water hadn't seemed to heat up, though, so it probably wasn't a precursor to a geyser. That would be a very unpleasant explanation for the uninhabited state of the cave.

There did seem to be some upwelling in that spot, though. He regarded it absentmindedly, as one watches a campfire or falling snow.

The rest of the water was suddenly dimmer, as the light sped together and began coalescing in front of him, growing into a column below the surface, then rising a foot above it. In seconds this had taken the shape of a body, meeting his gaze with an expressionless, feminine face, lit from within by the rippling, sparkling light of the magic spring. It glided towards him like a ghost, and placed its hands on his knees.

They felt like solid objects in the way a jet of water feels, pushing against your skin, except retaining their shape as they ran along the outsides of his thighs.

Charlie was paralyzed. Not with fear, although he was certainly afraid. What had felt like extreme relaxation only a moment ago was now a simple inability to move. It was like a dream where the mind wants to flee, but the body does not respond. He wanted to scramble away, or at least move a few feet away, if only to break its gaze. He could do nothing—not speak, not look away, not even close his eyes. His breath went on, his eyelids blinked, his heart raced. If this thing was what had been in his mind before, it showed no interest in doing so again now that he was here in person.

It leaned over, lifting its arms, dripping, from the water, then gripped his shoulders. In one smooth motion it pulled itself forward and up, as if weightless, and came to rest straddling Charlie's lap.

It was utterly inhuman in all ways but size and shape, which were clearly those of a girl—breasts, small but visible, soft features. Her face was inches from Charlie's. He had looked into the eyes of spiders and found them less alien than this. They were like part of a sculpture—pupil-less, unblinking, unmoving, staring into his. Only through slight differences in the refraction of the phosphorescence was their shape discernible in the darkness of the cave.

She traced the fingers of one hand along his cheek, across his lips. Her other hand moved to his lap. She wrapped her fingers around his cock, pulling ever so slightly, rhythmically.

His fear, invisible on his paralyzed face, subsided, replaced by much more obvious arousal. It seemed like only seconds before he was hard in her hand. She scooted forward and pushed his erection down between her legs, grinding forward and back on it, frictionless against her watery form.

Pushing, thrusting, squeezing his thighs between hers, she began to increase her weight in his lap. The light inside her seemed to sparkle slightly less, diffuse more evenly, grow paler. She pushed herself up, hands on his shoulders, breasts coming briefly out of the water—and fell directly onto him with the full weight of a human girl. It felt like pointing his cock at a faucet or hose and turning it on to full strength. Still frictionless, but tight, with the feel of motion in the water despite the motionlessness of her body.

The light inside her dimmed a little more. She now reminded him of a very faint ghost. Her eyes acquired pupils just before the light within them vanished entirely, and she was left no brighter than his own wet skin. He could no longer make out the features of her face, but he felt breath against his lips, and the shock of skin on skin from everywhere she touched him. She squirmed against his lap, his chest. He felt her nipples, erect, as she pressed herself against him and broke eye contact. She leaned forward, slowly drawing her cheek against his until her breath was loud and hot in his ear, and her tongue flicked it once, twice, then ran along its edge from the lobe upwards. Lips, then, followed, and teeth bit down just enough to be felt without causing pain. She slipped an arm around his back, running her fingers up the back of his neck, and with the other hand turned his head slightly until she was facing into his ear.

"Charrrrrrrr-lieeeee.

Charrrleee."

It was breathy, affectionate, and terrifying. She repeated his name, each time a little different, like a child trying out a new word for the first time. And then his attention went immediately from his ear to his cock as she squeezed it, braced herself with her arms around him and feet against the rock, tensed, arched her back, and began thrusting against him.

She moved no more than an inch up before slamming down again, bucking her hips forward to grind her crotch against his. Water was sucked in between them, then forcefully displaced again with every thrust. It rushed around the base of his cock and between her legs as she moved.

Charlie had never done more than kiss a girl, and it was only the inhuman strangeness of her previous form, and his panic at being restrained, that had kept him from coming as soon as he was inside her. He wanted desperately to thrust back, to feel the muscles tighten in his legs, flex his toes—on his own he couldn't come without at least tensing up. Now there was only sensation, and his attention was divided solely between his cock and her breath, catching, in his ear.

His own breath, growing rapid and shallow, was the only outward sign he was about to come. She matched it with her own. The pleasure rose, plateaued, burst out across his body like sheet lightning in a storm . . . hung there, suspended . . . almost more than he could bear, then pulsing once . . . twice . . . and he was coming inside her as she felt it and shuddered, slamming herself down on him, digging her fingers into his back, pushing, powerful muscles squeezing down hard around his cock, vibrating, whimpering, twitching, clinging, rigid, until muscle by muscle she let go and collapsed against his shoulder.

She stayed there, arms tight around him, keeping him inside her, until their breathing had returned mostly to normal. Then she squeezed his cock, just tight enough to tell he was still hard. She was trailing kisses down his neck, starting to move up and down again. He was still sensitive, and it was overwhelming, but still he could express nothing, and his mind was of no interest to her right now. There was pain every time she brought herself down on him, but it did not take long to fade, and soon she had resumed her previous pace, and their breath once more grew swift and shallow.

He was no longer scared of her, and had at least become more accustomed to the paralysis, even if he didn't find it erotic. So once she had started in earnest, he didn't take very long to come a second time. Again, she matched him breath for breath, spasming into her own orgasm as soon as she felt him releasing inside her.

And a third time she began, and this time was able to continue for several minutes, moving faster and faster, whimpering softly at first, then louder—it hurt his ear, but he didn't care—it was incredibly hot, and made him, and then her, come a third time.

Charlie had never come so many times in quick succession, which was not for lack of trying. Even with porn—the magical kind, with moving photos—he couldn't stay sufficiently turned on to make it that far. Not that he was thinking about this, or, really, thinking much at all.

It was only after he had lasted a good seven minutes and she had brought them both off a fourth time that she rose up and off of his cock, leaving it to the now alien sensation of not being inside anything. Standing next to him, she put one arm under his knees and the other under his back, then picked him up without any hint she was exerting herself. Her body, on a human girl of her height, would be very thin—not quite to the point of being unhealthy, but approaching it. She was far stronger than that frame should have allowed.

Dry air swirled around them. It was cool at first as the spring water evaporated, taking with it the phosphorescent sheen from their skin. As she carried him from the cave, it became an evening desert wind, perfect for lying naked under the stars. The idea that there were snow covered hills just a mile or two away seemed ludicrous.

She took him to a patch of soft sand that made up the small beach around the pool, set him down, and straddled his waist. There was only starlight here, but it was far brighter than the cave, and his eyes were adapted to near-total darkness. He was able to get a good look at the girl.

Her arms and legs were long, and her hips were narrow. Charlie estimated her to be a a few inches shorter than him, but it was hard to tell. Her hands were slender—noticeably so. She had short, unkempt, light-colored hair, nowhere more than two inches long. Though short, it looked feminine by Charlie's standards, but was still somewhat androgynous, as was her face. She was more than slightly boyish.

Her breasts were small enough that she could comfortably go without a bra—not that she would ever have a use for one. She had normal armpit and pubic hair, so that she could pass for a girl younger than Charlie, but not too much younger.

Her movement and demeanor were certainly graceful, but they were also 'off', and he couldn't read her body language. She did not seem like she would benefit from wearing clothes, and Charlie had trouble imagining her in them. She was comfortable with constant, unwavering eye contact, in a way that Charlie was definitely not. That alone was one of the most striking aspects of moving outside where he could see her.

The overall impression she gave was of something wild, not fully earthly, resembling a human yet clearly not human. She provoked desire—lust, even—but not in the way of a veela, which seemed crass by comparison. She was like the memory of dawn and sunset over the field by the Burrow, when he was very young, and the dew was on the grass and mist hung over it—when the red and golden light shone through petal and leaf, turning them into jewels that kings and goblins could only envy—when his heart had filled with longing for the world, and he wanted to go, just get on his broom and sweep over the fields, claiming the experience and memories for himself, filled with the knowledge of his own glorious being.

She was what he wanted when he was twelve thousand, fifteen thousand feet above the castle, feeling the air's thinness, wind frigid, blinding him and whipping his hair, but with the whole earth spread out before him, all the way to the gleaming ocean in the far, far distance—when he felt in his heart the bigness of it all, the sheer breadth of possibilities, the promise of the world beyond school, beyond the limitations of childhood.

She was what he wanted when he saw his first dragon in person—iridescent blue and green, graceful—not like a lizard or crocodile, but like a work of art—what a lizard ought to be. A dragon is inconvenient. It is a problem for humans, just by being there. It is enormous, powerful, and dangerous, and attempting to hide it or ignore it is monumentally difficult. But it is dangerous in the way of any animal that needs to eat to live. And it was that living—that simple, ordinary living—that made the dragon what it was to Charlie—a glorious, flying, fire-breathing, thoroughly magical animal that went about the ordinary business of being an animal with as much determination as any other—the center of its own universe, to itself unexoticised, yet all the while defying the worlds of wizard and muggle alike by its sheer improbable existence.

Magic cannot create love, but love itself is magic. For most people it is the greatest magic they will ever touch, and those who realize this count themselves infinitely fortunate if they ever experience it. A nymph—for that was what this was, without doubt—has magic that pulls on you. It reaches into your heart and mind and grabs you in some of the same places that love does, and pulls in some of the same directions. Oread, Naiad, Napaea, Pegaea, Crinaea—whatever this was (and surely she was not fussy about classifications, and could not tell you), it was a minor god. Not omnipotent, not omniscient, bound to her spring—but powerful enough that even the strongest and most cunning of wizards risked becoming mere playthings, should they cross paths. And certainly she took the form of a human, had evolved, or came into existence, alongside of humans, found them interesting, even desired them—but she was not herself human, and her acts were driven by her own
inscrutable purposes.

She was sitting upright, moving slowly, putting her whole weight on him, so that her clit was rubbing up and down the length of his once-again hardening cock. Her expression had not, so far, strayed beyond looking intent on watching him or on her own body and sensations. Right now it was the latter—she had broken eye contact, and stared at the cliff before her with a look of inwardly-focused concentration. It took a minute or two, but she was soon able to slip his cock back inside her, slammed herself back down, and simply ground against him.

She sped up, leaning slightly back to brace herself with her hands on his thighs. On his back as she had left him, he was only able to see her face. Her lips were parted, eyes closed, and that, by itself, was the most erotic thing Charlie had ever seen. In the cave her whimpers had been simply that—little moans and squeaks, if directly in his ear. Out here she was becoming much, much louder, until he could hear her screams echoing off the canyon walls. She switched, abruptly, to moving straight up and down, lifting herself up and dropping, squeezing and pulling on his cock with her pelvic muscles. He came almost immediately, harder and longer than before, and she wailed into the sky so loudly that it might have been heard at the castle, if the wards allowed.

She collapsed on top of him. She was light—her full weight was not so much to ever become uncomfortable like this. Eyes still closed, she touched her lips to his, and his urge to respond at last met with the ability to do so. First his lips were free to move into place and fit with hers. Then his neck was released so that he could press up against her, and then in one burst his body twitched as everything from his chest down came under his conscious control, followed slowly by his arms, fingertips inwards. Tentatively, he lifted them, embracing her, running them in awe along the smooth skin of her back and sides.

She murmured in pleasure, squirmed in response, and kept kissing him. Her arms were along his sides, hands under his back. He traced his fingertips over her shoulders, and she shivered as he brought them along her neck, then down her spine, feeling each vertebra and rib as he went. For the rest of his life, when he felt the shapes of everything beneath the skin of a lover as he caressed them, it would fill him with joy, as a reassurance that they, too, were a living thing like him, wondrously wrought of bone and blood and sinew. It made this girl—whatever she might be—seem far more real than anything else had so far.

She squeezed his cock, once, gently, as if to remind him that it was there, still hard. It twitched in response. He instinctively lifted his hips, and was unable to stop. She moaned but didn't move as he thrust up and forwards into her. Masturbating, he might have tried to draw the experience out for as long as he could, staying at the edge of orgasm. Here, doing this for the first time, drenched in magic, removed from any remotely familiar context, with the most beautiful girl he had ever seen moaning into his mouth—he thrust faster and faster until he came, and she shuddered along with him.

That seemed to have been enough to trust him not to run away, if indeed that had been her concern, as she rolled off him to his side, head propped up on one arm, looking down at him. He rolled to face her, and she pushed once more into his mind.

She communicated in images—showing him pictures, or else by pushing forward ideas. He soon realized this was simply a substitute for speech, given that they lacked a language in common, and she lacked the ability to learn modern English quickly enough to suit her.


She began to tell her story.