Harry brought his horse up to the front of the group and exchanged nods with Xeno and Jacob.
"Alright!" Jacob called out.
The assembled horsemen all turned to him.
"It's getting late, so I won't bother you all with needless babble! You know the rules! These here are our animagi for the hunt!" He gestured behind him to where six people quietly emerged from the trees.
Harry narrowed his eyes. James Potter stood among the six. If he could, he wanted to get him alone. This would be his first real opportunity to approach his father in such a way as to not seem engineered. In all his twenty-four years of living, he'd never actually exchanged a single sentence with him.
"They will now all transform!"
James Potter turned into a huge stag, just as the others turned into their respective animals - Lord Black into a grim, Lord Saumual Parkinson and his younger brother, Robert Parkinson, both turning into wild boar, Pandora Lovegood into a flying squirrel, and Rebecca Ogden, the daughter of Lord Ogden and consort of Devlin Whitehorn, into a grey wolf.
"They will now have a ten minute lead - on my horn blow!"
Lord Greengrass raised the horn to his lips and a long, loud and deep rumble sounded across the group.
The animagi scattered.
The hunt was on.
...
In a small part of the forest, the mists hung low over the tops of the trees, filtering through the canopies and kissing the lower branches. Dead leaves littered the floor and occasionally rustled in an opportunistic wind. In the far off distance, a second horn blow faded in and out of being like a wolf howl on a silent night.
The leaves rustled again, and any passersby would've felt it in the ground - the tiny vibrations coming up through their limbs. The vibrations grew, causing leaves on the very tips of trees to shake, ever so slightly, like the silk trip lines on a spider's web.
The vibrations grew some more, and now sound filtered through the wood - the distinct rumble of an approaching host, quiet now, but still growing.
Then, suddenly, the rumble seemed to explode, and the thunder of well over a hundred iron shod hooves rocked the forest, pounding the ground and shredding the many low hanging trees as the hoard flew through. Shouts, calls, incantations, wand flashes, the sounds and raw emotions of over three dozen hunters chasing their prey - it all crashed past, on and on, never seeming to stop.
Harry urged his horse on, the branches whipping at his face, thorns tearing his robes. He snapped his wand towards one low hanging branch and blinked as a half dozen other cutting curses joined his own to tear apart the obstruction.
The path twisted and turned, a ditch here, a bush there, now a fork. He glanced behind him to see the hunt splitting in two. The path forked again, and again the hunt split, fanning out into the forest on their own separate trails. Soon, he was alone. "Animagus revelio!" His wand flashed, but nothing happened. The sun was still up, but it was winter. Soon it would be dark, and sunset marked the end of the hunt. He grunted and urged his steed into motion, deeper and deeper into the forest. He had a stag to catch.
...
"Animagus Revelio!" Hermione cried out over the thunder and jerking motion of their horse, holding onto Daphne as tightly as she could with just one arm.
"Anything?" Daphne shouted back.
"Nothing!" Hermione craned her head to see behind her. They were alone. "We've lost the others!"
"Good!"
"Good?!"
"More chances for us!"
They crashed on, jumped a stream, and soon found themselves climbing.
The sun overhead had started to fall.
...
John Potter drove his horse harder and harder. "C'mon Neville!"
"John, I…" Neville dodged a tree branch. "I don't think I can keep this up!"
"Yes, you can!"
On either side of them, seemingly from no where, Malfoy and Nott appeared on their black steeds, now matching them stride for stride. John cursed.
"Need a rest, Potter?" called Malfoy.
"Shove it, Malfoy!"
"Longbottom there looks like he needs it!"
"Shut up!"
The four horses matched each other, burst into a clearing, and were immediately joined by one more.
"Thought I'd lost you lot!" shouted Zacharias Smith from the other edge of the clearing, the weak sunlight reflecting off his bits of steel armour.
"Why are you going that way?" shouted Malfoy.
"No reason!"
"Bullshit! Theo!"
"Animagus Revelio!" A bright light glowed from the Nott heir's wand tip. "There's one in his direction!"
John cursed again. "Neville! C'mon!"
The four horses bolted in Zach's direction who wielded his horse around and took off at a fast canter, feet kicking furiously.
Up in the sky, the sun fell another few degrees.
...
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