One
Harry could feel that this Portkey ride would go wrong. He was still reeling from getting away from Voldemort, and he didn’t realise when exactly he lost contact with the Cup and Cedric.
He felt helpless in the torrent of the ride. He didn’t know if he even could do anything. He did feel when his glasses began to slip, and he grabbed them as best he could. He would need them. Whatever happened next, he knew he needed them.
He was suddenly struck by something excruciating and lost any reason except holding onto his wand and glasses. Nothing else mattered. His two essentials had to be on him, whatever happened next.
Darkness engulfed him.
**
Conscious slowly returned to him.
He could feel grass against his bare hands, moist air, and some leaves ruffling in the wind. His hands reached out, clutching the wand in one hand and holding his glasses in the other. Some of his anxiety calmed.
It was quiet around him; he couldn’t hear anything other than a few birds tweeting in the distance. So, he slowly and carefully opened his eyes. Everything was blurry. He didn’t detect anyone close by, so he moved and put on his glasses. Harry looked around the forest, not recognising his surroundings.
He could understand that it was a forest, but not what forest.
It didn’t feel like the Forbidden Forest of Hogwarts, nor did it look like any of the forests he had been to on class trips. Well, those were more on the line of parks, really, but this just didn’t feel the same… something was fundamentally different about this forest.
There was no one around, so he pushed himself off the ground but then grouched down as he noticed another human on the ground. He crawled over, thinking that it might be Cedric’s body.
Even as he got closer, he knew it wasn’t Cedric. The clothes were different. This person was bigger in all senses of the word. Still, he crawled closer but noticed the blood pooling around his neck. He eyed the person and reached for his hand to feel the pulse. There was none, but he was still warm, as warm as Cedric had been when he took him.
So, that meant whoever killed this person might still be around. He searched his pockets for anything useful and picked up a couple of knives he had no idea how to use. He eyed them briefly; he had not seen blades like these before, but the man had too many of them on him.
He also found other things he couldn’t identify, but no wand. Did that mean these people were muggles?
He looked away from the body and spotted another. He moved from one to the next. The bodies were lined in a circle, and after checking each one, they were dressed exactly the same, all having precisely the same number of weapons and other things he couldn’t identify.
He finally looked to the centre of the circle. He was now pretty sure that whoever had killed these people wasn’t around anymore. But why… there was a big question of why.
He was still alert as he moved to the circle's centre and found a boy, some years younger than him. His face was covered with a mask and a headband. He had white hair, which sort of reminded him a little bit of the Malfoy git, but his hair looked nice, shiny and soft. His hand unconsciously moved to touch it.
He had to shake himself and check this one as well. He pulled back his hand and placed it at his wrist. His eyes widened when he felt his steady pulse. He moved the boy to his back and cringed when he noticed his hand.
He gulped down his emotions and tried to calm his overly beating heart to some form of normal rhythm.
It took a minute or more; he wasn’t sure, but he began to examine the other boy. He found similar but not the same weapons on him. And again, he couldn’t identify most of his things.
He thought about what he should do next. Should he even be here in this scene?
He shook himself again.
Whoever killed all the rest of them wasn’t this boy… so what next?
He should move away from here, but… should he take the other boy or not?
He nearly rolled his eyes at his own thought. He pulled out his wand, shot a spell to make him lighter, and pulled him onto his back. With the wand in hand, he hit another spell at him to stick him to himself and began to walk in a random direction.
The boy’s hair tickled him as he moved.
This forest was light and dark at the same time. The birds he could spot were ordinary; there were no magical kinds he could see… He had stuck his wand in his pocket, the knives in hand, and faking a hold on the boy, he moved in this forest looking for something he didn’t even know.
Even the sun began to rise before he found something and investigated the area a little closer. He knew the kid would probably wake up soon, so he looked around quickly and crawled into the small opening under the weirdly shaped tree. After inspecting the space, he removed the charms from the boy and placed him on the ground.
He was freaking thirsty, so he pulled the small water container from the boy. It was empty, so he conjured some water in it and drank at least two fills of that thing. It felt better, and Harry filled it in one last time.
He returned to the entrance of this cave-like area. It was small. He couldn’t even stand and simply crouched all the time. But it was wider than expected, so even five of them would fit here pretty comfortably if they sat down. He cast something he had only practised a couple of times with Hermione, something to do with people not noticing the area or hiding it. He wasn’t sure if it even came out right.
Harry sighed.
He had figured that he wasn’t in Britain anymore. He had cast several spells, but no owls with a Ministry letter arrived. That didn’t tell him much, just that he was probably very far from home.
He looked over at the other boy, glanced at his hand and began washing it all off. He even used one of his blades to clean it from under his fingernails. Harry hadn’t got a clue why he was going this far.
Now that he could almost feel some resemblance to being safe, he began to feel how damn tired he was.
He moved away from the boy and pressed his back to the wall, watching the boy… It had been a long day. It had started out nervous, then fun as he moved about with the Weasleys. It was nice, and the task began. It was a struggle to get past the things, and even then, when he thought it would be over, the two of them grabbed the cup. It wasn’t over… the whole thing, the task, had just been a really stupidly elaborate plan to get him.
Now, as he thought about it, some of the stray tears leaked from his eyes. It just wasn’t fair, and then he somehow saw his parents… that just… it was just so overwhelming. Even now, hours from when it all happened, he could barely believe or think that all that had happened and now… and now he had no clue where the hell he was.
His tiredness is starting to win the battle of persistence, but the boy suddenly moves, and Harry becomes alert once again.
The boy is up momentarily, crouching low and looking around in this dark space. His eyes land on him, then move away. He locates the exit, frowns, looks down, flinches, and turns to him once again.
The look in his lone eye was suspicious.
Harry swallowed, not saying a thing. He was rather hoping the boy would just leave. The exit was just there; if the spell he cast worked right, he shouldn’t be able to find this place again. Maybe he could rest then and figure out his situation after that.
“Who are you?” the boy asked, and Harry didn’t know what shit was going on because he knew he should not understand him. The words he could hear were not in the language he knew how to speak, but he could understand him perfectly right now.
“Who…?” Harry raised a hand to stop him.
“I’m Harry,” he tried to say it like he always did, but it sounded strange in his mouth. He frowned and tried again, letting his tongue move as it would. “Hari,” was the sound that came out of his mouth.
“Where is this?” the boy also looked to be frowning.
“I have no clue,” Harry answered, feeling the words in his mouth and letting it come out, even as he logically knew it wasn’t English that emerged from his lips.
Harry hoped the questions were over and he would just leave. Please leave, I really need to sleep,’ he thought but didn’t voice it.
“What happened?”
Harry rolled his eyes. “I woke up some distance from where I found you. The area was filled with strange bodies. They all had wounds on their neck but nothing else. Strangely, they all carried the same amount of everything. Even their faces were strangely similar. They were in a circle, and you were in the middle of that circle.”
“Anyone else?”
“I haven’t seen anyone since waking up.”
“Are those yours?”
“No, took it from the first body. I’m not really sure how to use these either. Just kept them, thinking they might be useful.”
“Why did you take me?”
“Did you want to be left there?” Harry shook his head, “I don’t know. Maybe I’m just way too nice to people. Either way, I’m too tired to stay awake any more.” And with those words, he let the tiredness encompass him and drag him under the blanket of oblivion and sleep. Before it entirely pulled him under, “There is clean water in your container,” he mumbled.
He could feel the wand at his side, a knife at his hand, and the glasses digging into his temple, but all that didn’t matter. His tiredness was too strong for him to fight anymore. Harry felt his body slump to the side, the wand digging into his ribs.