Amongst the Hunted Moons

Notes:

Hello and welcome back to Under the Hunter's Moon, in this chapter we will start our exploration of what I have put under the school. If y'all have been paying attention you'll know what it is.

Does that mean that Harry is just going to forgive and forget about Lily, no. You'll see what happens and I think y'all will like it.

But enough with this mortal prattle, on with the show!

Harry Potter, Hogwarts, February 20th.

Harry Potter has had a pretty good week, after his fight with Atalanta and making up with Ron and Hermione, Professor McGonagall had shown up after classes in the common room to give him back the Firebolt, she and Flitwick had stripped the broom down looking for anything malicious hidden in the enchantments and had found nothing. She had handed the broom back and had asked him to bring the cup back to Gryffindor, all he could do was nod. He had taken the broom out for a few rides, getting used to it, and it was like a dream for Harry. It was faster than his Numbis 2000 and turned on a sickle, Ron couldn't help but to smile smugly at Hermione about being right about it not being cursed. Harry had just shaken his head, and Hermione had rolled her eyes telling him it was better to be safe than sorry, and Harry had agreed with that.

They had tried to use the Map to try and find Scabbers with no luck, he was either dead or outside the bounds of what the Map had shown, oddly enough Harry had found that the map also didn't show Atalanta. He knew the room she was in but when he had checked it while looking at the Map she was nowhere to be found. Checking it when he could see her in front of him had shown she wasn't there either. Hermione had theorized that one had to have a magical core to be seen by the map, but without knowledge of how it was made, she couldn't say for sure. Speaking of the Hunter, the day after her and Harry's fight she was walking with a slight limp but a satisfied smirk on her face, when Harry asked what had happened, she just smiled and said,

"Don't worry about it, Harry, just had to show someone their place on the food chain."

Whenever she saw Snape in the halls, she would smile at him as he glared before turning around and quickly walking away without saying a word. It was honestly pretty funny, to see the Potions Master turn tail and avoid the hunter in the halls.

Like Atalanta had asked, Harry had returned to training, but without his weapons, they had worked on hand-to-hand combat, boxing, and grappling, Atalanta had also started teaching Harry throws to use and takedowns, all of which had hurt to learn. They had walked through their fight in Gryffindor Tower, going over what he had done right and all that he had done wrong with a distant cold feeling to it like it wasn't their fight, but a fight they had seen.

The next time he had shown up the snow had started to melt, making the ground slick with mud and training a lot dirtier, but like Atalanta had said Dumbledore had found a few spare armaments from the suits of armor in the castle, both the spare and bow were in good condition so Atalanta had approved there use. It was late Saturday afternoon in the forbidden forest during a chase between Atalanta and Harry, that Atalanta had stopped the chase early, which made Harry grumble under his breath because he was so sure he was gonna tag her this time, in a clearing not too far away from where Hagrid had his first CoMC class, Atalanta had spotted the telltale signs of two trapdoor hatches of the Acromantula, right beside a game path, the same path students used when going deeper into woods.

They decided quickly to deal with them before they could hurt any of the students, Atalanta muttering under her breath about how Artemis better hurry up with the hunt, Harry decided to ignore that, he didn't even want to think of Artemis let alone know she would be coming to the castle. Unbeknownst to Harry, or even Atalanta, Artemis had returned to the castle a few times. She would watch the two from afar, hands in the pockets of her jacket turning the swiss army knife in her hand, wondering what to do. She would watch for an hour or so, trying to build the courage to approach the boy, thinking of ways of reaching out to him or how to apologize for her words, but nothing would come, so she would leave to go back to her hunt.

So, the lioness and the son of the hunt had set themselves up to ambush the ambushers, luckily mortal weapons worked just as well as divine ones against the oversized spiders seeing that they were a mixture of both mortal magic and myth. The plan was simple, Harry would drop from the trees just above one of the trap doors after luring out the spider by dropping some stones and sticks and stabbing down with his spear, with a little luck, he'll bag one just for the other to shoot out just in time to get turned into a pincushion by Atalanta. Was this a good plan? Probably not, but if the spider doesn't take the bait on the first part they would regroup and think of something else.

Turns out the plan was better than they thought, the first spider took the bait easy enough, from her spot off to the side Atalanta could see the slight shift of the trap door, giving Harry the single the boy dropped, and when he lands a screech was heard when he crashes through the top of the organic barrier, followed by Harry's scream and then a crunch of roots breaking. The second Acromantula popped from his hiding place Atalanta planted three arrows into its brain, dropping the oversized arachnid before she ran over to the hole Harry had dropped into.

"Harry!" Atalanta yells as she runs forward, getting to the collapsed trap door of the spider, "Harry are you alright?" Atalanta calls down into the hole. When she got to the hole and looked down, she almost gasped, the Acromantula had built its borrow right over a sinkhole with only roots supporting it, and Harry had crashed right through the top of it. Looking down the hole, Atalanta could make out Harry in the dark, laying on top of the debris and a crushed and dead spider, "Harry, talk to me?!"

A groan escapes the boy as he rolls over and off the spider, shaking his head to clear the cobwebs before standing, using the wall to brace himself, he pauses then turns his head to face the wall running his hand across it.

"Harry!?" Atalanta yells.

The son of the hunt's head snaps up to look through the hole he had fallen through, wasn't his longest fall, only twenty-twenty-five feet at most but it was a whole other problem as well, he couldn't see a way to climb out.

"Er, yeah. Yeah, I'm fine, nothing broken, but I don't think I can get out of her on my own." Harry calls up to Atalanta, while there was a lot of debris down at the bottom of the hole, there wasn't enough for him to transfigure a ladder sturdy enough to hold his weight, and they have covered conjuring in class yet.

"Harry Potter, you are a wizard, are you telling me you can make a ladder or a rope or something?" Atalanta asks in exasperation.

"A ladder, probably not. I could do a rope, I think, how-" Harry begins to say before a cold feeling crawls up his spine as he hears something whispering from behind him, his wand snaps from its holster as he spins around.

"tha mi faicinn fear eile a' tighinn gu geata. A bheil na tha a dhìth ort, a bhalaich?"

Harry doesn't understand what was whispered, his grip on his wand tightens as he looks into the darkness and sees beyond it, past the roots and webs, a corridor. Not a tunnel of earth and rough stone, but worked and placed slabs of granite that make a hallway that was like the castle above, Harry feels the sweat drip down the back of his neck.

"Harry, what is it?" Atalanta asks from above, her tone colored with worry.

"It's a corridor, I think," Harry calls back up.

"A corridor?" Atalanta questions a confused look on her face, "Harry, make the rope and toss it up." Atalanta orders.

Harry breaks away from the darkness just long enough to transfigure a rope, before levitating it to the top for Atalanta, as she takes it and leaves to tie it to an anchor point, Harry turns back to the corridor.

"Lumos Constellatio." He whispers as he moves his wand in a jagged pattern much like the scar on his forehead, four small balls of burning witchfire are summoned at each stop of the movements of the wand before flicking them down the corridor, normally Harry had no problem seeing in the dark, but thanks to the afternoon light streaming in through the hole above it throws off whether or not his brain needs to turn it on or not.

As the corridor lights up with witchfire, Harry takes a few steps forward, eyes peeled, and wand at the ready, Harry swallows the lump in his throat. How did a corridor get down here? It wasn't on the maps so it's possible that the Marauders never found this place, Harry thinks as he moves deeper and deeper, from the looks of it, it seems the corridor slants down a bit.

The sound of something hitting the floor behind him makes him turn back around, hanging from the hole is the rope that he had made.

"Harry." He hears Atalanta call down, "What the hell are you doing?" She says, not being able to see him.

Harry walks back over to the hole and looks up, "Exploring, there's a whole unmarked corridor down her." Harry says as Atalanta looks down at him with a confused look.

"Kiddo, in what way does this NOT sound like a bad idea?" She asks

Harry blinks up at her, "It could be a secret corridor, this might be how Black has been getting into the school!" Harry calls back up.

Atalanta sighs, the kid had a point but still, "Harry, you had to drop through an Acromantula nest to find it, besides I'm Greek Harry, going underground is a big no-no." Atalanta argues back.

"There could be another entrance farther down," Harry says as he points down the tunnel, "I'm going to check it out, if it's nothing we go tell the Headmaster," Harry says looking up at Atalanta.

Atalanta sighs, this was a horrible idea, "How long is the rope gonna last?" She asks Harry wanting a way out if nothing else.

"Umm, …A while I think, it's made from similar materials, so the magic that changed should be close to permanent," Harry says, having to think back to first-year Hermione rants.

Atalanta just nods before dropping down into the hole, rolling when she hits the floor before drawing her bow and notching an arrow. "How far can you send the lights?" She asks Harry.

"About thirty feet." He answers her.

"Okay, game plan. Keep the lights upfront and you keep behind me, same rules as with hunting. Understood?" Atalanta tells him, her voice firm.

"Yes, Ma'am," Harry says before bringing up his wand and taking a step back to allow Atalanta to take the lead.

They proceed down the corridor like this, with every few minutes Harry recasting his Lumos Constellatio spell, when Atalanta first hears it she snorts in amusement but doesn't say why she finds it amusing so Harry just shakes his head at the Lioness antics. The corridor leads forward in the direction of Hogwarts, it has a slight bend to it, and the floor is a bit slanted but other than that the hallway was like the ones in the school, right down to the same color as the flag store on the floor to the carved and fitted stone walls, all that was missing were the hearths, touches, and suits of armor lining it and Harry would have been sure he was in the school. The corridor was wide enough for four people to walk shoulder to shoulder down it, and the ceiling was a good fifteen feet up, at first Harry had seen roots, both large and small breaking through the ceiling. But as they moved closer to the castle, the fewer roots he saw, and the more water he could hear, the black lake? He was sure of it.

After thirty minutes of slowly making their way through the tunnel, they finally entered a chamber. It wasn't like any chamber Harry had been in all his time at Hogwarts, including the Chamber of Secrets. The chamber was round, almost perfectly so, with the sounds of lapping waves coming from it, Harry cast an eight-point Lumos Constellatio spell before sending them out to illuminate the chamber.

The worked stone stop right before it as it gave way to a smooth rocky shore, Harry could see the light of his spell reflected off of black glassy water coming from the far left side of the chamber, the ceiling was high but Harry could almost make out the top. The chamber floor was uneven, and Harry could almost call it natural if it wasn't for the four pillars that raised from the ground to the ceiling each a different size due to them being placed up the uneven stone that raises out of the middle of the chamber.

The pillars were inscribed with Runes Harry had never seen before, and images of battles, wars, and hunts. And from the bottom of each pillar, that twisted up and around each of them were barbed Gorse vines that looked as if they were made from iron. In the middle of it all on the raised platform of stone, stood a gate.

Gray stone made up its three sections, two jutted from the ground and bent in the shape of a U, with skeletons of humans, hounds, and demons on either side, the hounds were running forward, and the humans had some type of horn or instrument they were blowing in and the demons raised spears and bows. The third part of the gate floated over the other two pieces, with something written in a language Harry couldn't read, while already creepy the Demigod and the Hunter out, what put it over the top was the erie red light that the portal that looked to filled with mist gave off.

"What the hell is that Harry?" Atalanta asks as she was looking at the gate, all Harry could do is shrug, he had no clue.

"Fancy a look around before going to the Headmaster?" Harry asks the hunter who was stiff, her eyes shifting back and forth.

"I would like to point out that is the last words of anyone in a horror movie, Harry," Atalanta says in a flat controlled voice.

Harry nods his head in agreement, "Point, but the chamber isn't that big, and I just want to look around." He says, "we touch nothing, howev-" Harry begins to say but stops as he hears something in his right ear.

"gus do mhisneachd a dhearbhadh, do neart a dhearbhadh, tha e air a bhith cho fada bho bha fear agam airidh air teagasg." A voice, low and light, breathy and husky breaths into Harry's ear. He jumps, spinning around and sending out a purple cutting curse off to his right. Atalanta spins around searching for threats and seeing none.

"Kiddo, what the Hades, you almost gave me a heart attack!" Atalanta hisses at him.

"You didn't hear that?" Harry hisses right back.

"Thig a bheag dhiadhaidh, feuch am bheil na tha agad a' gabhail, rach suas chum an doruis." The voice whispers again, Harry turns, looking back at the gate.

"That! That right there!" Harry says.

"Harry, I don't hear anything," Atalanta says as Harry begins to walk forward, towards the gate with his wand held high.

"Sin e am fear beag, thig a dh'ionnsaigh a' gheata. nì mi an còrr." The voice takes on a teasing tone as Harry's eyes narrow.

"I think it's coming from the gate," Harry says climbing up slowly towards it.

"Then why the fuck are you going near it?!" Atalanta says, almost not believing this boy's idiocy, "Get back down here you moron, we're going to Dumbledore about a creepy ass whispering gate under the school!" Atalanta yells from the bottom of the raise, not wanting to get near the gate.

"No shit, I just want to see what it says at the top." Harry says, "I'm not gonna get within ten feet of that thing." Before he climes a little closer to the gate, coming with twelve feet of it, and shines a Lumos spell at the hovering top of the portal.

feumaidh iadsan a tha 'g iarraidh na maighdean-cogaidh, tìr an t-soluis agus na beatha fhàgail, agus dol a steach do thìr an sgàile ; sìor-fhàsach leis a' bhàs.

Was carved across the top of the floating stone, Harry just nodded, yeah. He had no idea what it said and he wasn't about to stick around and find out, but as he turns around to head back down the stone path, he sees Atalanta's face go from one of worry to one of fear. Harry doesn't even look back, he calls upon the hunt, to leap back down to Atalanta and make a break for it, but it is far too late.

Harry feels something clamp down around his waist, he looks down to see the oversized jaws of a wolf or a hound biting through him, he feels cold in the jaws wrapped around him, his eyes flick towards his right side and he wished he hadn't. Eyes, uncountable, in the darkness that made up the bulk of the creature's form, all looking at him. His eyes flick back to Atalanta, she's sprinting up the landing, arm out reaching for him, and as Harry reaches for her, he hears the whisper once again.

"Fada ro fhadalach airson sin." It whispered.

And Harry was yanked out of Atalanta's reach and into the portal behind him.

Notes:

Oh, shit! Cliffhanger!

Welcome to the interlude arc, you'll get the name of it next chapter but this is where I fully jump the fucking tracks and step away from cannon to have my own little fun with world-building.

Did anyone figure it out yet? I left breadcrumbs all this time.

Just in case, here's a hint. Hogwarts isn't the first magical castle in Scotland that trained people in things.

The next chapter is gonna be fun.