{Forbidden Forrest: 1982}
There was no light.
No sound.
Only the sharp, metallic taste of fear on his tongue and the sickening thud of his heart pounding in his ears.
He didn't know how he got here—only that this wasn't home. Trees loomed above him like giants, skeletal and swaying. The air was cold, thick with rot and something else… something ancient. He was barefoot, his feet sinking into the wet earth, clothes unfamiliar and child-sized.
"What the hell...?" he whispered—but it came out wrong. High-pitched. Fragile.
He looked down.
Small hands. Pale, trembling. Not his.
He staggered back, breath catching, and that's when he heard it—a rustle, then a low hiss behind him.
A figure stood in the shadows between the trees.
And another.
And another.
Pale faces. Glowing red eyes. The kind of nightmare you only read about in dark fantasy forums—except now, they were real, and they were hungry.
"Human child," one whispered. Its voice was like cracked ice. "So far from the wards… what a gift."
He turned to run, but his legs were too short, his body too weak. The world spun around him in a swirl of panic and thorns. A branch slashed his cheek. He kept running.
He could still see—from the corner of his eyes—the figures merge into shadow, creeping in close, swerving between the trees with horrifying speed, faster than anything human. No footsteps, no breath. Just the silent inevitability of the hunt.
Then—
Fangs. Pain.
White-hot fire sank into his shoulder. He screamed—not with the voice of a man, but of a boy barely five.
The vampire's grip was cold, cruel. It dragged him close. "Just a taste…"
But before it could drink deep—
CRACK!
A beam of light tore through the darkness.
"Stupefy!"
"Confringo!"
The vampire was thrown back. Another one hissed and lunged, only to be hit mid-air by a searing flame.
Two red-robed figures emerged from the trees—Aurors. Wand tips blazing, faces grim. A duel erupted around him in flashes of crimson and gold. He lay on the forest floor, numb, vision blurring. Blood soaked his collar. He heard shouting. Spells. A name, maybe.
He was fading. But just before the dark claimed him again, he caught a final whisper—this one, from inside his own mind:
"This... this is the Forbidden Forest… Hogwarts… magic…"
Then all was quiet.