Tales From Hogwarts: The Forbidden Forest Fallacy

"You want to live in the muggle world?" Alex's face was blank, a perfect poker face. He had never considered any witch or wizard would want to live and work in the muggle world, that's not what they were being taught here so it made little sense. "I don't understand, why would you live like a muggle when you're a witch?"

"Well, I just want to keep my options open I suppose." Eva gave a light shrug.

"I probably will settle down with a magical job, in the long term, but I do want to keep my options open, nonetheless. You'd hardly believe it after attending the Muggle Studies class, which I consider to be hopelessly outdated, but the Muggles are so much more advanced than us wizards, Alex. Did you know that, in 1969, the Americans put a man on the Moon? Muggle technology has only advanced by leaps and bounds since then, you know. While we still have superior transportation in the form of Portkeys and Apparation, the Muggles beat us in just about every other category.

"After all, the Muggles managed to develop a weapon that could wipe out an entire city in the blink of an eye back in the 1940s! Now every country that's something has such a weapon. If the Muggles so wanted to, they could, theoretically, wipe out the entire world in a matter of hours, if not minutes, with their nuclear weapons. Especially the Americans and the Russians. Whether the Wizarding Community acknowledges it or not, the Muggles are becoming more advanced than us with each passing decade. Unless we find a way to fuse our magic with their technology, we're hopelessly outgunned. So to speak."

Eva gave another shrug and bite into a piece of bread, continuing on once she swallowed.

"A Magical Job would probably be more exciting, so I'll probably become a Charms Maker a few years down the road, I think. But still, I'd like to keep my options open. In the event I ever want or need a job in the Muggle World, going to a university would help me a great deal. And it'd teach me things that you couldn't ever learn at Hogwarts, like non-magical history, science, math, literature, grammar....the list goes on, really."

Eva paused a moment, and reflected on her words. She felt her cheeks tinge with crimson, after a minute.

"S-Sorry. Didn't mean to rant about this..." she gave a nervous giggle and tried to focus on her food again.

Alex didn't respond, he just ate silently while looking down at his plate. Even though she explained herself, he still didn't get it, he didn't understand just what was so great about the Muggle world. He had gone to primary school, he wasn't totally ignorant of what the muggles considered important, but Hogwarts had been far superior to the education he'd gotten before.

And what would happen to them, if or when Eva moved on to muggle education, and he stayed within the magical community? "I forgot, I need to work on a Defense Against the Dark Arts essay tonight, I guess you'll have to study without me," he suddenly told her.

Eva gave a surprised blink, not expecting the sudden turn in conversation. She stared at Alex for a moment before giving a slow nod. Well, if he didn't want to talk about this any further, that was fine with her.

"Ok. Hm, what about? We just finished up writing several essays about Vampires in my DADA class." Eva inquired. She rather hoped she hadn't offended Alex or anything with what she said earlier....Eva definitely did not want her boyfriend mad at her.

"It's... complex curses or something, I don't really remember," Alex replied. It was a lie, but he didn't know any other way of getting some time to think about this, development, and the future. Even though they had gotten more intimate than ever, Eva seemed to suddenly be half a world away.

"Maybe I could help?" Eva suggested hopefully. A mischievous smile came onto her face as another idea come to her, however.

"Or perhaps....we could sneak up to the Room after you're done? Maybe spend some more...quality time?" Eva lowered her tone, and her face broke out into a full grin. "I'd love to spend more time with those magic hands of yours."

Eva hoped he said yes. She was feeling a bit uneasy about what she'd said about her future after Hogwarts, and hoped to take both of their minds off of the matter. And she'd like to have more fun with him, too. That would be nice.

"Look, I'm sorry, but I need to get that essay done and I work better on my own," Alex said, getting slightly annoyed. "I'll see you later," he added, leaned over and gave her a peck on the cheek, and was off to the Ravenclaw common room.

Two days later, Eva was making her way to the Forbidden Forest, after receiving a rather urgent letter from Alex. Class the past two days had been rather hectic, especially after the incident with the Dragon in Care of Magical Creatures, so unfortunately they hadn't had a lot of time to spend with each other. Combined with her rant from before, and Eva was rather eager to hang out with Alex again. She also hoped that, if he had gotten mad about what she'd said, he had gotten over it by now.

After a few minutes she got to the designated meeting point, and spotted Alex. She smiled at him and walked toward him.

"Well, here I am, Alex. I'm a bit surprised you didn't want to meet in the Room, though....so, what's up?"

Alex was waiting for Eva in the Forbidden Forest of all places because her letter to him had sounded urgent. He hadn't been exactly making himself available for her but he had been productive so it wasn't like it was a totally him. This was really weird though, she loved that Room so much, he wondered why she didn't want to meet him there.

Alex raised an eyebrow, and replied, "Um, what? You asked to meet me here, remember?"

Eva blinked slowly and looked oddly at Alex. She cocked her head and replied,

"Um, no. No I didn't. You did, remember? In the letter you sent me?"

"I didn't send you any letter, you sent me one," Alex said, and suddenly sighed. "Wait, remember when we met, it was because of those Slytherins trying to prank you? They sent you a letter from me, for whatever reason?"

"...." Eva shook her head in stunned silence, and gave an aggravated sigh.

"Great. Just what are they planning this time?" she grumbled.

"I don't even care, let's just go, we're not even supposed to be here," Alex said, looking around. They'd get detention if they were caught, and Alex would rather not have to do that.

"Agreed." Eva made her way back to the outskirts of the Forbidden Forest with Alex, silently plotting ways at getting back at those annoying Slytherine girls for wasting their time. They reached the end of the Forbidden Forest and--

--Eva was sent flying as she collided with an invisible magical barrier, landing several feet away. Steam started to rise from her forehead as the part of her that made contact with the barrier magically burned, causing Eva to clutch at it in agony as she screamed, writhing on the forest floor. The magical fire started to spread toward her hair, and would no doubt cover her entire body within a matter of minutes, if she, or Alex, didn't stop it soon.

"Bloody hell!" Eva screamed, the pain too excruciating for her to concentrate on anything else but the agony she was in.

"What the bloody hell," Alex yelled out as Eva was sent back and caught fire. "Bollocks, I can't think of the spell.... Aguamenti," he cried, sending a jet of water toward the fire on Eva.

The jet of water enveloped Eva, and it managed to put out the fire on her. She lay on the ground for another few minutes, breathing heavily as she attempted to recover from that harrowing experience. That had been....frightening, to say the least.

"W-What the hell was that?" she finally gasped out.

Alex kneeled beside her, helping her up. "Some kind of magical barrier, I don't recognize what spell it is though," he said. "I don't think the Slytherins are behind this barrier, it's a little much for a prank."

"Y-Yeah," Eva replied, rubbing gently at her throbbing forehead. Bloody hell, that had hurt. That could have killed her if Alex hadn't been there. The pain had been too much for her to even concentrate on making a water spell of some sort.

"T-thanks for that, Alex. You....s-saved my life." she said, giving her boyfriend a weak smile.

Alex smiled at her. "I'm always there for you," he told her. His smile faltered and he added, "we can't get out this way, and who knows where else this thing is?"

"And we can't Disapparate in Hogwarts grounds....if that barrier would even let us." Eva replied with a frown. "I suppose we just walk deeper into the forest....see if we can't find the source of this barrier? There must be a Ward of some sort somewhere nearby...."

Alex sighed and crossed his arms, debating it over in his head. "We really don't have any other options do we," he finally conceded.

"Unless you want to brave the barrier again, no." Eva agreed.

"Before we go, we must recognize the possibility that we could be attacked, severely injured or possibly killed if we go deeper into the forest," Alex said. "I know it really can't be helped, but we must be cautious and aware."

"Agreed. Let's keep our wands out, then." Eva replied, taking hers out of her pocket. "I'm not about to let any giant spiders take me down or anything. Though if we're lucky, maybe we'll run into a Centaur. They're usually helpful to wizards, and they might know what's going on."

"They might be our best bet for at least figuring out the situation if they feel friendly enough," Alex agreed. He held his wand out, and said, "Lumos." Light shone from the tip and illuminated the area around them.