January 28, 1893 - Forbidden Forest

“I’m telling you Angie, there’s something around here somewhere.” Gus grinned as he glanced at her from the corner of his eye. He’d worked all summer (and apparently the entire first semester of school) working to open a box he’d found in a cave many years ago and had just rediscovered; the curses had bested him many years but Gus found them much easier to undo this go around, even if it’s taken him much longer than he’d care to admit.

He raised the map in front him and then lowered it, as if expecting the lines on the parchment to suddenly match with the real terrain around them. At first Gus had been disappointed to find after all his hard work the box had contained nothing, but the folded paper had fallen to the floor when he’d sighed and tossed it onto his desk. The realization it was a treasure map hit him immediately, and well… Gus wasn’t one to turn down an adventure.

He realized a couple things after that, the most important being he probably shouldn’t go alone, even if he’d been itching to leave right away. Angie hadn’t been his first choice (Endy was busy doing who knew what and Gus really didn’t want to wait for him so he’d waved it off as a false alarm), so he’d sent a cryptic owl to her asking if they could meet up. He was good at batting his eyes and she was good at ignoring him, but no true curse breaker could turn down a real treasure hunt.

Gus stabbed his finger into the parchment. “We’re here. So there should be some kind of clearing around here…” Too bad they were standing in the middle of a forest with trees looming over them.

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When Gus has asked for her help on something that included going into the Forbidden Forest, Angie had her doubts, but the Forest was so close to school and she hadn't seen Hogwarts in near a decade at this point that she could hardly say no. Plus she was intrigued and she was bored. She had requested to be kept at the bank itself for a few more months, just to make sure Cash was alright after his wedding, but the monotony was maddening. She would need a short assignment soon or she would lose her mind.

What could go wrong anyway? Ang had ventured into places far more dangerous than the Forest. It had seemed so dark and overwhelming as a student, but now it was just a vast expanse of trees in which there was very little she was prepared to deal with. It wasn't a full moon, which ruled out about the only thing Angie had never had to deal with and planned to never have to deal with if she could help it. Her parents had been vampires and what else was in there that could catch her unaware?

"Are you certain?" Gus was amiable and fun, but sometimes he grated on her patience, just a little and after wandering around the trees following his map for the better part of an hour she was wondering (yet again) just how he had become a successful cursebreaker. It was a good thing he was a nice guy who reminded her of a young Eli, otherwise she may have ignored his owl altogether.

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Tossing a glance over his shoulder, Gus grinned at her. “Oh course I’m certain. The map is probably a hundred years old by now, so things may have changed just a bit.” A bit was an understatement, but so far the map hasn’t led them wrong. Maybe they’d just taken a wrong turn or something? He’d been off at Hogwarts for a little over a year and felt his curse breaking skills starting to slip through his fingers; it seemed like it might be time to remedy that. He missed it, more than he thought he did.

(A part of him he failed to acknowledge knew it was time to go home, to return to the life that had made him inexplicably happy.)

“Here, take a look at this. Gus saddled up next to Angie as he pointed to the clearing on the map and then to a set of trees to the left of them. “Those trees look smaller than the rest of ‘em, yeah? Maybe they weren’t there when this was made.” It was the best guess he had, and without saying much else, Gus shrugged and ventured toward the clearing. It should (hopefully) lead to a cave where the real fun would begin.

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