The Red Rose That Has Green Thorns

An explosion rent the air around me, and I was thrown to the ground. I hit pretty hard, scraping the palm of the hand I used to stop my fall. When the dust cleared, I raised my head, slightly dazed, and looked around. I did a double-take, and an electric shock seemed to go down my spine. I looked around again. And again.

Where was he?!

“Scorpius?” I asked, pushing myself to my feet. “Scorpius, where are you?!”

I stepped forward, and a sizzling sound started and the smell of burning - no, melting - rubber permeated my senses. Glancing down, I yelped and then jumped backwards. In front of me…I hardly dared to believe my eyes. In front of me…there was a puddle.

A glowing orange puddle.

“Spunky?” my voice was shaking, but I stood up tall and looked around, muttering a spell that repaired my melted trainer. I searched the surrounding forests with my eyes, not finding anything. But it couldn’t be anything other than he! So I continued with a simple, “I know you’re there.”

“You assume correctly and then ask directly!”

There was the familiar little creature that I had somewhat missed, standing in a new puddle of the poisonous pus just ten feet farther on. I furrowed my brow, examining him calculatingly, before finally choosing to speak again.

“The friend to meet his untimely end…” I looked around the forest, and turned back to Spunky. “Scorpius?”

“It is not up to I to say who will die,” Spunky shrugged, turning and bounding up the path. “Come, come, we must go! Along the path you already know.”

It’s true, I realized. The path looked the same as the path in all of my dreams that had Spunky in them. So then the ‘knight’ who looked like Boyd, and Martha, would be here, too. I wasn’t really in the mood to get stabbed again, but since I knew this Martha’s mindset, perhaps I could avoid that situation. But I had a long walk ahead of me - and orange puddles to avoid - before I had to worry about all of that. Plenty of time to recall everything from my dreams and put them to use now.

Spunky was content with bouncing along the path ahead of me as I dodged the puddles of acidic pus he left behind him.

That is, until he cried, “Rose, look out! Turn about!”

I spun at his warning, surprising myself with the speed with which I reacted to his cry. I myself then let out a shout, throwing my upper half backwards with flexibility I didn’t know I had, and avoiding a liquid projectile of a venomous blue. Somehow avoiding Spunky’s poisonous orange secretions, I ended up doing a backwards flip of sorts, landing on my feet and facing a creature the likes of which I had never seen.

“What the hell is that?!” I asked Spunky, noticing that the venomous blue fluid had burned a hole straight through a huge old oak tree. The thing was huge, standing the height of two of me and it seemed as though the blue projectile vomit was a lubricant for the dark blue scales of the beast. Much like Spunky was covered in his orange secretions, this creature was covered in his own blue mucus.

“It’s a creature to make the blood boil - we call it a Dream Gargoyle!”

“Dream Gargoyle?!” my voice rose higher than I meant it to. “Like Dream Imp? Supposed to only exist in dreams - and rarely - just like you?”

“Just like me in one aspect, but I give out more respect!”

I groaned, not in the mood for his riddles and rhymes at times like this. I cast about for anything - anything about Dream creatures that I knew, but realized that only the Imps had ever been something I’d found.

“You’ve read the rhyme at least one time!” Spunky bounced haphazardly around me. “You should remember, you’re really clever!”

“Thanks,” I said dryly, keeping an eye on the swaying head of larger creature in front of me.

“It was with the Dream Imps information, but the author was mistaken! It’s to be used on malevolent Dream creatures, not those who have peaceful natures!”

“With the Dream Imp information?!” I exclaimed, my voice pitchy as I dodged yet another blue projectile. I didn’t want to risk making a shield that would only shatter or dissolve - I would get hit by the unknown substance. If it could do what it had done to a tree, I’d hate to see what it could do to me.

“Yes, with that! I saw it when you were trying to send me back!”

He broke his rhymes, I noted subconsciously, racking my brains.

Brush up on your rhymes.

The line came back to me from what the judges had told us. For some reason, it was running through my mind when I was trying to think of the passage in question. It was useless! All I could remember were various facts about Dream Imps that I really didn’t even need to know, and I was distracted by the gargoyle that had its eye on me.

“Champions have forty-five minutes remaining. Forty-five minutes remaining, Champions.”

“Shit!” I cursed at the announcement that rang loudly through the trees. I had forgotten the sixty minute time limit - much like the time limit of the second task in my father’s time at Hogwarts, when Uncle Harry competed. “I have to get to Scorpius!”

Without realizing it, I had automatically decided that, since Scorpius was missing, he was the one I was supposed to rescue. And also without thinking, without even realizing what I was doing, I pointed my wand at the gargoyle and shouted:

“Dream creature, return from whence you came!
Sufferings rise anew whilst you stay;
For all the pain you are to blame!
Dream creature, you must away! Away!”

I remembered, as I finished, that I had laughed at the cheesiness of the passage, but when the skin of the Dream Gargoyle bubbled and he let out an utterly inhuman shriek, I knew this was the part that Spunky had meant for me to remember; maybe he even had something to do with my recollection of the passage. He was returning to the Dreams where he belonged, in the deepest parts of the minds of the most twisted and wicked people alive. Dark witches and wizards unknown, perhaps.

In a fountain of blue, the gargoyle’s worldly form exploded, and I watched it fall to the ground, mixing with the orange of Spunky’s pus and creating a muddied brown color that hissed and steamed. I didn’t even flinch when a drip landed on my cheek, icy cold, and slid down. Only when it dripped onto my jacket did it hiss and steam up like it had when it had burned through the tree.

“Let’s go,” I said, turning and starting to run back along the path, desperately trying to make up for lost time as Spunky bounded alongside me, and then eventually ended up ahead where I had to continue dodging his puddles.

The familiar part where the Boyd look alike would show came into view, and I slowed, allowing myself a minute to catch my breath. It wouldn’t do to look to harassed when I showed up, or Boyd might instantly recognize who I was supposed to be in this little fantasy forest.

“I’m coming, just you wait,” I muttered, striding confidently forward. There he stood, as I remembered, tall and menacing at the entrance to the execution grounds. His wagon stood nearby, and beside it was Martha, who looked up at me with curiosity as I strode straight up to the Boyd look-alike purposely.

“What is your business here?” He asked sharply, reaching his arm out to block my path as I had guessed he would. “What is your business at the execution grounds?”

I fluttered my eyelashes innocently, looking down and digging my toe into the dirt.

“I’m here for the execution,” I let myself say for the second time in my life, glancing up at him in faux shyness before darting my gaze back down to my feet. “Why else?”

His arm swept around and his hand tightened on my upper arm. I winced, but didn’t whine or try to pull free.

“How do you know about the execution?” he hissed, eyes glinting dangerously.

I blinked up at him innocently, and said, “You know! Of course you do - don’t you? News like this travels so quick!” and upon finishing that, I made a show of wincing and trying to free myself, “Can you please let go?” I asked, “It hurts!”

He did let go, but then he drew the wickedly sharp sword I was hoping would stay sheathed. He used it to make me step backwards and he repeated, “How do you know?”

I blinked, feigning confusion. “Why wouldn’t I know?”

“The date for this execution was not publicly released.”

“Oh?” I said, then I grinned, almost stupidly, and said, “I must have just gotten lucky with the date then, although I could have sworn I was told it was today…oh, well!” I forced a giggle out, childishly, and saw the sword lower a fraction, so I asked, “If you don’t mind my asking, why wasn’t the date released? Usually they are so we can all see punishment!”

“His accomplice still runs free,” the knight said what I already knew he was going to, only in different words.

“Accomplice?!” I faked shock, stepping back and widening my eyes as though frightened. “There’s another of these lawless people running around our forest?!”

The sword lowered the rest of the way as the man harrumphed - déjà vu, much?

“Another lawless bastard that needs to be put in his place,” he sighed, “and the one who is to be executed won’t talk. Loyal to his partner, that’s what he is, I’ve got to give him that.”

“It’s too bad that we can’t get the other, too,” I batted my eyelashes, not leaning close as I did last time for my garb was no where near as flirtatious. I instead examined my feet, and then looked up and grinned in the childish innocence I had nearly perfected. What can I say? As a Weasley and a part-time troublemaker, you pick up a few things. So I continued with the shy, “But since I managed to pick the right day, good sir…don’t you think you could let me in?”

I didn’t add the strong, handsome, and dashing like I did last time - now that I thought of it, that was a bit much. I did, however, bat my eyelashes stupidly at him like the time before.

“I don’t know…”

“I mean,” I forged onward, making myself look more shy and innocent than before, “if I don’t get in now that I’ve managed to make it here at the right time on the right day, all of my hard work will be for nothing! And I’ve come from quite a way away, you know…” I feigned being near to tears as I cried out, “I want to see this lawless bastard get what he deserves!”

He leaned closer to me, the glint in his eyes of a different sort than before as he said, “A woman who likes to see the punishment for those who break the laws of the Wood is a woman who is well worth pleasing.”

I suppressed my shudder of disgust and let a broad grin overtake my features.

“Really?” I asked in a hopeful tone. He nodded, then called to Martha to bring two of the finest gowns from the wagon.

When she came up to him, she was the flirtatious girl I remembered her being in my dreams, and this time I noticed a covert glare I might have missed the first time that could have alerted me to Martha’s malicious intentions. Again, the Boyd-alike picked the blue dress and told me to go with her.

With a sense of dread since I knew what was coming soon, I followed Martha. Perhaps I could overpower her and explain beforehand…? No. That approach would not convince her. Unless…

Once in the wagon, I caught her reaching for the knife, and caught her wrist from behind, twisting it behind her back and catching the blade by the handle as it fell. I put it to her neck and told her calmly, “Please do not cry out. I know you intended to hurt me for the looks from your Lord Knight, but I have a favor to ask. I know you like him, but he is using you. Martha, isn’t it? The man they are executing has been framed. I know this because I am the other they are looking for. Martha, please take me in and help me save him. He lied and said his accomplice was another man, but he was lying to protect me. If it were the knight outside, you would do the same, wouldn’t you? Even though it hurts because you know he’s just using you. You know it but you do whatever he asks anyway.”

I took a breath, and she choked back a cry.

“I would do anything for him,” she told me softly, “even though he cannot love me.”

“And I would do anything for my friend,” I told her. “I know you may not believe me, but he was framed by your knight himself, and I need to save him. I must.”

And just like that, I had her. Again, I looked back upon my decisions and realized that the arguments I had were weak. Had I said them with enough conviction to sway her to my cause, or was it just because she knew Boyd was the culprit? I didn’t know, but already I was past him, the parasol over my face, as I walked past the second guard and into the main clearing where a huddled form sat in the corner of a large cage.

Déjà vu.

“I’m coming,” I whispered softly.