Nightstalker

Disclaimer: The world of Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling. I am just borrowing it for fun, not for profit.








Ron elbowed his friend who sat by the fire in the common room, completely engrossed in what Ron assumed was homework.




“What’s got into you mate? When did you turn into another Hermione?”




“What? Oh I just thought I’d get this done…” He tucked the parchment, covered in rough sketches, including one of Hedwig, one of a suspicious looking wizard, his face cloaked in shadow, and one of Nightstalker, never far from his mind, into his textbook.




Ron rolled his eyes “well I was thinking, it’s been ages since we saw Hagrid, and there’s no moon tonight, no one will see us. That’s if you’re not too busy…”




Harry’s face lit up. Ron was right, it had been ages.




“Uh-oh,” Hermione came across to them from where she had been talking to Ginny, “what are you boy’s planning?”




“We’re going to see Hagrid tonight. Are you coming?” Harry had learned from experience that the best way to get Hermione on their side was to just go ahead and break the rules without asking for permission or acting like her opinion mattered at all; inevitably she came along, after much procrastination, stating that she simply must keep an eye out for them. Harry suspected that she secretly enjoyed the risk, and just played the teachers pet from habit.




“Oh Harry! You already lost 10 house points today, what if you get caught? Plus don’t forget Voldemort is back, it isn’t safe for us to go wandering alone at night, without anyone knowing where we are.”




“We have the invisibility cloak; we won’t get caught. Besides the last place Voldemort is going to be near is Hogwarts.” Ron didn’t have the insight into Hermione’s mind that Harry had. Plus like Hermione Harry suspected that secretly he enjoyed their arguments. Leaving them to it he went up to his room to fetch the invisibility cloak and the marauders map.




It was more then an hour before the common room finally emptied and Harry pulled out the map. Predictably the halls were empty besides Filch and a couple of prefects. As Harry quickly scanned the rest of the map he noted that Hagrid was in his hut, then another moving dot caught his eye.




“Hey!”




“What Harry?” Hermione stared at him in surprise at his outburst.




“What’s Snape doing in the forbidden forest?”




“What?” Hermione leant over the map. “Maybe he is keeping an eye out for Deatheaters…”




“Yeah maybe he is secretly meeting with them!” Ron butted in suspiciously. “I bet Dumbledore doesn’t know he’s out there.”




Hermione looked ready to argue but instead just shook her head, “Well he’s not near Hagrid’s hut so let’s just get moving.”




Hagrid shook his head as he opened the door to the apparently empty night “you three? You know I don’ agree wit’ you sneakin’ aroun’ at night. It’s jus’ not safe.” All the same he stepped aside and Harry thought he caught the ghost of a smile, quickly covered.




But he couldn’t hide it as three guilty faces appeared in mid-air. They sat down to cups of tea and rock cakes which only Hagrid’s half-giant teeth seemed to be able to tackle. Hagrid kept them entertained with the antics of his new magical creature’s class. Apparently a first year boy had tried to disrupt a class by letting free a Fire sprite, a playful little flying creature, cloaked in flame, it could move almost as fast as light and set fire to everything it touched. The boy had thought it a great joke when it set alight Hagrid’s beard, but the joke backfired when Hagrid tamed the creature in the first half of the lesson and then set a two foot essay on it. The three friends laughed until Hagrid offered to introduce them to “Little Inflammo”. Suddenly they all remembered essays of their own they should be finishing. Hagrid looked disappointed but agreed that their schoolwork should take precedent.




Back on the doorstep and covered with the invisibility cloak Harry again pulled out his map. The little dot labelled “Severus Snape” was moving slowly around the close edge of the forest. Without making a sound Harry pointed it out to the other two then pointed towards the forest. Hermione shook her head mutely, but Harry started edging towards the forest, taking his invisibility cloak and any chance of argument with him. Near the edge of the forest Harry stopped still and looked again at the map. According to it Snape should be nearly directly across from them. Harry scanned the bushes, and, catching a hint of movement he pointed quickly. A stealthy shape moved for a second out of the shadows, but it wasn’t Snape. He heard Hermione hiss in surprise and Ron tense beside him, unconsciously twisting his hands in Harry’s cloak. Nightstalker stopped, suddenly crouching, every muscle tensed beneath his glossy black coat, and for a second yellow slitted eyes seemed to meet green ones. Then the creature was gone.




Harry’s heart beat fast, partly with fear, but mostly exhilaration. He barely felt the map snatched out of his hands by Hermione.




“What?” he half heard Ron ask the anxious girl.




“Professor Snape is out there; he could be in danger,” but she handed the map back with a sigh of relief as she scanned the forest without finding Snape.











a/n Thanks to all those who reviewed. I have gone back and tried to fix formatting... apparently just cause you leave a blank line when you enter the text in the "add chapter" box, doesn't necessarily mean that the line stays there when you post the chapter, you need to add code which i didn't know about. Anyway it's fixed now. Hope you like this next chapter & please review! :P