Chapter 22

"This way!" Mike ordered. He was mostly speaking to the wizards. Linda and Darren dashed almost ahead of him. Harry struggled to catch up.

As to where the hell they were taking him, he had no idea. All the three had said was to leave their tents behind and only bring sleeping bags.

Of course, Harry had no problem leaving the repulsing pink embarrassment of a tent he'd planned to bring, but the sleeping bags Amber had given them were still pink nonetheless.

Getting tired of their slow pace, Mike grabbed his and Ron's arm and proceeded to drag them through the twisting woods. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Linda roll her eyes and smile. It was quite rare to see Mike so enthusiastic about...well...anything really.

His cool was façade cracked with each step further into the forest.

"Mike!" Linda panted. "We're not all pro soccer players here! Let's take a break, okay?"

Neither Harry nor Linda liked the devious smirk that crossed Mike's face. As usual, it ended with Linda shouting.

"Michael Harris, put me down!"

Linda kicked and clawed at him a couple times, but eventually surrendered to being carried over the shoulder like a flour sack.

After what felt like hours of a leg breaking hike, Mike finally announced their arrival at the destination.

All Harry could make out was a clearing covered by trees. Go figure, Mike and Darren wouldn't let them through until they made a dramatic entrance of the moment.

"Ladies and dorks," Mike began.

Whatever he had planned to say next was never heard. Harry and Ron grabbed him by the arms and stepped into the clearing.

Harry had not been sure what to expect when the muggles said they had a surprise for them. 'Wow' was the only word he could use to describe the hidden wonder behind the trees.

Wow.

The clearing was one of the most beautiful places he had ever seen. Silky grass and bushy white flowers coated the ground, looking like a heavenly pillow while illuminated by the glistening moon light in-between tree cracks.

It was a spacious area that made Harry feel both calm and drowsy at once. Even in this muggle forest, the area appeared almost enchanted. A trickle of a creak could be heard in the far back of the area. Harry remembered the lake the muggles had mentioned once or twice when talking about this trip.

The young wizard had been curious as to why Mike had told them to leave the tents behind. The answer to his question was the twisting array of old, fallen trees that had formed a large wooden cave in the center of the eye-catching panorama.

If the moon hadn't been enough to provide them the light they needed, the stars shone brighter than Harry had ever seen them here. A mixture of the burrow and Hagrid's hut were at play in the atmosphere.

"Close your mouth before you catch flies," Mike told them.

"It's so....so..."

"Amazing?" Mike finished. "I know. Darren and I found it during our first camping trip here—where we met Linda actually. Don't tell anyone else about it though. We don't want any other campers claiming this spot."

Ron and Hermione continued gawking. Harry—already over the shock factor—was at loss for words once again when he realized that the three teens he'd met less than a month ago were sharing such a dazzling place with him. Had they really become that close in such a short amount of time?

Friends with muggles. Never in a million years did he imagine this as a possibility. Every muggle he'd ever met had either feared or hated him thanks to the Dursleys. That was how Harry imagined most every muggle would treat him. With them, he almost always forgot he was in the company of muggles.

They weren't the alien, non-magic folk, just friends. His friends.

"Bad news guys...I lost the lighter." Darren said, dumping out the contents of his bag.

"Crap!" Mike said.

Darren sheepishly foraged through the materials on the floor, the cold air around them becoming noticeable.

"Go look for firewood," Harry told the muggles. "We know how to make a fire."

The muggles looked at them in disbelief, but left to get the supplies.

"Harry!" Hermione said once they were out of ear reach. "What are you talking about? We have no idea how t—

"Are you a witch or not?" Harry laughed, pulling out his wand.

"Oh, right."

Behind the wooden cave was a large, dried out spot of dirt coated with ashes. Harry guessed this must be where the muggles made the campfire each year. With a flick of his wand and a couple of dry fall leaves, a blazing fire stood tall by the time the muggles returned.

"How on earth did you do that?!" Mike gasped.

"That's impossible!" Linda exclaimed.

"Brilliant!" Darren said.

Warm and comfortable, the teens spent the rest of the night telling ghost stories. Darren did most of the telling. His creative imagination really came alive with a dark side that night. Being the quiet one in the group, Harry hadn't expected him to be much of a storyteller.

A couple times, Harry could have sworn he heard the whispering of the Glass Eyed Witch. While he may be blind as a bat without his glasses, Harry wanted to keep his eyes intact.

When they weren't listening to Darren's stories, the teens poked fun at Harry and Ron's sleeping bags.

The wooden cave was never used that night—the beautiful stars shone too bright for the beauty to be wasted.

Eventually, the dreaded moment of silence in which his friends were fast asleep came to pass. His conversation with Calder came flooding back to him like an ocean of suppressed memories.

"I came to give ye a warning," Calder told him. "My son will stop at nothing 'til every wizards' taken their last breath."

Harry sighed and sat down next to the man. "I figured that much," he said. "But why?" he asked, recalling the meeting.

Calder scratched his head thoughtfully. "Why he's trying to kill ye? Good question indeed. He along with myself are very aware that wizards pose no threat. I was the first to obtain this new information. This was before the war." He finished darkly.

"You didn't answer my question."

Calder smiled sadly. "It's a long, tragic story. It'll do ye no good to hear it."

Harry tapped his foot impatiently "So why are you here? To tell me something I already know?"

"No, actually, I came to give you this too," Calder said, pulling out a sheet of paper from his pocket.

Harry took it, his eyes immediately recognizing the twisting symbols and numbers on the paper.

"A map?"

"Not just any map," Calder said. "It's the location of yer teacher. It leads to a small cabin surrounded by a fence, the place where we questioned the Death eaters back in the day."

"Witch hunters questioned death eaters?" Harry said in disbelief.

"We sure did, back when I was their leader. Worked right alongside that organization of yours. Can't recall their name... Order of The Phoenix, was it?

Harry gaped at the man. None of this made sense. How could the Witch Hunters have gone from fighting with them as trusted allies to bloody murderers attempting to annihilate the Boy Who Lived? Calder seemed to be the only sane witch hunter left. Well, ex-witch hunter that is.

Calder's face was unreadable. Even though the man knew the wizards weren't evil, that wasn't a good enough reason for the man to help him, not to this extent. He was going up against his entire family—his own son. Something was missing, something else he wasn't telling him.

"Just do one thing for me," Calder said.

'There it is; the usual impossible favor.' Harry thought.

"Keep an eye on my grandson, Cole. He doesn't know what he's doing, and I don't trust that Gled. Cole hasn't been the same since Agnes and I left."

Harry's eyes widened at the name. Agnes. Harry knew she had something to do with this whole mess. The young wizard gripped the map tightly, but before he could ask the question that had plagued his mind for weeks, Calder beat him to it.

"Who's Agnes?" Calder guessed. "That, young boy, is part of that long tragic story that'll do ye no good. A sweet young girl that Agnes. She meant an awful lot to Cole. The poor young lad thinks she betrayed him. 'Course, she'd never do a thing like that, but that's just what his father would have him think."

Harry nodded, beginning to understand how Cole felt. "He does that a lot, doesn't he? Keep the truth from him?"

Calder didn't respond. Instead, he took off his glasses and handed them to Harry.

"My own invention," he told him. "Well, with the help of a couple wizards for the special effect. They'll help ye see through the magic."

Harry wasn't sure what that meant so he out them on. Immediately, the world around him transformed in to a black and white scenery. A bright glow was coming from somewhere beside him—no, the bright glowwas him.

Harry looked up at the man in realization. "It was you! You were the man Amber saw at the meeting!"

"Ah yes," Calder said. "The young girl in the car. Gave her quite a scare I bet. All that honking nearly left me deaf. These glasses can detect any magic source in the air—objects, people, you name it."

"What were you doing there?"

"Same as you," Calder said simply. "Trying to break in. That's when I saw yer weak magic barrier. I had to get close to the car to do my job—protecting ye."

"Are you sure you want me to have these?" Harry asked, taking off the glasses.

"We're making more as we speak, you can keep those."

"We?"

"As I said, I'm no witch hunter" Calder began explaining. "The complete opposite to be exact, I'm the member, and founder—not to brag—of the W.P.S. Part of the reason I'm spending the night in the forest today to protect the wizards."

"What?"

"Wizard protection society. It was founded not long after I gathered enough evidence about the magic folk." Calder continued. "Not many members though...pretty much why I must carry all the equipment. The witch hunters aren't too friendly with us to say the least."

Calder picked up his jacket and gun. "You keep those glasses close to you, wizard," he said. "Someone around you is not what they seem."

With that, the strange man took off into the dark forest. Once again, Harry was left with more questions than answers.

While falling asleep under the stars had been nice, waking up with the blinding broad daylight was not.

Harry gripped the glasses Calder had given him from the inside of his pocket. He felt the serious need to justify that last night's events had really taken place. Regardless, he could always go back and talk to Calder incase the encounter still felt unreal.

He'd slept great. No nightmares or visions had disturbed his slumber. Harry had to partially thank Calder. The wizard protector had said he'd be in the forest, keeping an eye out for the witch hunters. Calder—like Dumbledore and Mad eye—put him at ease around threats.

Rubbing his eyes, he began to think this day might just go his way. He'd have breakfast with his friends at camp, they'd go to the lake up ahead, play a bit of soccer, and maybe even meet up with Amber in the process.

After he returned from his talk with Calder and reunited with his friends Harry had been surprised to see Amber smiling and laughing alongside them.

"She's not as bad as I thought," Linda had told him. "I think we brought out her inner-fun-side today."

It had been a strange sight witnessing the preppy cheerleader connecting with Harry's awkward geeky friends. According to Linda, they struck up a conversation with Amber on different fiction books and anime.Books. Anime.

Harry smiled viciously. Oh she was so getting teased for this later.

Harry rolled over in his sleeping bag and winced. All that running from yesterday had left his legs sore. Not having realized how out of shape he truly was, he would be surprised if he could even stretch without feeling like his thighs were aflame.

As long as he didn't have to make too many rash movements, his legs would recover from the pain smoothly.

Ron and Darren were snoring next to him. Darren's were more of a deep-breathing-type snore while Ron's imitated a congested lion. He couldn't see the others over Mike and Darren's lumpy sleeping bag bodies, but by the lack of movement he guessed they were asleep as well.

Peaceful, calm morning. Just what Harry needed. Just what he thought it would be.

It wasn't until a blood chilling scream was heard in the distance. The sound was abruptly cut short, almost like hitting a pause button on obnoxiously loud music.

Harry sat up, startled. His friends snapped awake. Had it not been for them, Harry would've thought the scream had never existed. The swift manner in which it had disappeared had caused him a second of doubt. The alert teens around him debunked that theory.

Everyone looked at each other with the same drowsy, confused expression. Mike was the first to notice it. The bright purple sleeping bag beside the muggle was empty. It was the same sleeping bag the blond boy had rushed and wrestled to sleep next to last night. That muffled scream belonged to Linda.

Mike was the most frantic, Darren following in a close second. Ron and Hermione looked to Harry as if to ask 'what do we do?'

Harry immediately thought of Calder. Could it be possible that the ex-witch hunter betrayed him? The safety he had felt from him keeping watch had now turned into fear and guilt of his reckless, trusting behavior.

Harry still never got a chance to tell Ron and Hermione about his conversation last night. Now to tell them that their friend might be in trouble because of his unconsulted decision would prove too much for him to do.

She wasn't hurt. She was fine. She had to be.

This was Linda he was thinking about after all. Strong, smart, resourceful Linda.

"Don't worry," Hermione said, attempting to calm Mike.

The blond teen struggled to untangle himself from his sleeping bag. The task was an easy one, but his rash movements only made it harder.

"She probably just had to pee and got camp-pranked along the way."

Hermione sounded convincing enough to ease Mike's worries a bit.

Harry guessed he was thinking something along the lines of 'She's right...we're at camp after all. Still... the scream was alarming.'

Harry frowned. He felt as nervous as Mike had looked. Years of anxiety triggering situations allowed him to mask it better. But he, unlike Mike, knew about the witch hunters and death eaters after his skin. The muggles probably thought the worst case scenario was her being attacked by a wild animal.

Still, Harry played it cool. There was no use in worrying the muggles just yet. "Hermione is right. Though, if you're still worried we can look for her.

"Ron, Hermione and I will search the woods. The three of us can cover more ground." Harry told them. "You and Darren can search the trails. Linda will probably meet us back here by the time we give up searching."

He made sure to laugh at the end of the sentence to draw any last traces of worry away from the two.

"Whoever pranked her is getting a fistful of revenge!" Mike said.

Darren nodded fiercely. All throughout the last five minutes he hadn't said much, just looked scared. The young artist had never been a boy of many words. It was hard for Harry to know what he was thinking most of the time. Somehow his worriment remained more visible than Mike's at last glance before they took off.

The wizards were on Harry only about a minute after Mike and Darren left, shooting questions at him like bullets.

"Where are we going?!"

"Do you think it was the witch hunters!?"

"You don't believe anything you told them, do you?"

They ran towards the wood while they asked. Harry wanted badly to dodge their questions. The ones he knew the answer to were unhelpful. The ones he could only guess...he dreaded the answer.

In between pants and painful trekking through the twisting forest, Harry somehow managed to tell them about Calder before they arrived to meet him. If the witch hunters had anything to do with this, then Calder would know.

Harry would find him there with the witch hunter in handcuffs and Linda safe and sound. That image was the only thing that kept him running even when his lungs and legs began to feel like flames.

Ron and Hermione didn't take the news of Harry trusting Calder too well, but they acknowledged that now wasn't the time to start a fight.

Partially, Harry was correct. They did find Calder. On the ground. Bleeding. No Linda in sight.

Calder only groaned at their arrival, his head barely lifting to see who'd arrived.

"Calder!"

"shhhhh... Keep yer voice down boy, and ready that wand." Calder picked himself up into a sitting position, wincing. "They could be back at any moment."

Harry heard the 'they', but skipped the stupid 'who' question. There was no need to ask who had done this. Instead he asked "Which way did they go?"

"The car park," Calder said.

"Hermione, stay behind with Calder," Harry said. If anyone of these teens knew how to heal fatal wounds with only five years of magical training, it was her.

Not wasting any time to say anything more, Harry ran.

His hands tingled with fear, anxiety, and adrenaline. Nothing seemed real. It was one of those 'I can't believe this is happening moments'. It was hard to feel anything except numb emotions. Harry knew his body would've given out ages ago, but the adrenaline didn't allow him to feel any pain. Yet.

He had done a good job of keeping these emotions contained in the presence of Mike and Darren. Now, alone with the situation, his body forced him to feel them. Trees whooshed past him, and voices whose words he couldn't or wouldn't make out came into focus when he reached the car park.

Ron had ran alongside him all the way here. Even though his best friend was here to help, Harry still felt alone in the situation.

They stumbled onto the concrete to find that unlike yesterday morning, many more cars were parked here.

Today was the last day at camp. More teens and families had arrived for the final festival showdown. Assuming they hadn't already taken Linda, it would be a nearly impossible task finding the right car.

Harry and Ron split up, running through the crowded mess of cars and people. How long they searched, Harry didn't know. The only thing he remembered seeing before dropping to the ground in front of the crowed were several muddy footprints on the cold concrete, similar to theirs, but the shoe size much bigger.