Author's Note: This is a horror fic first and foremost, so prepare yourselves for that, along with some Harry/Cedric moments in the first couple of chapters (which is less horror to some but might be very horror for stark Tom/Harry fans lol. But yeah, think of this as a Dark, creepy fairytale ;D

"I dare you to go into the forest for half an hour," Draco said with a smug smile, leaning back with his hands behind his head.

The reaction was instantaneous.

"No way!" "Are you crazy?" "What's wrong with you?"

None of the remarks came from Harry, who was the person Draco had dared in the first place; Harry just stared straight back at Draco, neither of them backing down from the mutual glaring. Things had always been a competition between the two of them, each always trying to outdo or sabotage the other. In the name of friendship, of course.

Daring Harry to go into the forest could definitely be classed as an extreme act of sabotage, because most people who ventured into the forest didn't come out alive, and those who did tended to be missing limbs and traumatised by invisible monsters.

Harry glanced towards the forest in question, separated from the group by a vast expanse of barren field—they didn't dare get any closer. They were close enough to feel the creepy atmosphere filtering through the circle of friends, but were far enough away to run if anything came leaping out of the trees. Beyond the thick cluster of the forest, the ruins of the old Hogwarts castle were just visible, stark grey against a dark sky, and rumours said the castle was just as dangerous as the forest.

"It's only half an hour," Draco argued, lips curling to a smirk as he continued to stare at Harry. "But if you're scared-"

"I'm not scared," Harry cut in quickly, even though the sight of the forest twisted something in his stomach. "I can go in for half an hour easy."

"Harry, don't do it!" Ron protested loudly.

"You could die," Neville whimpered.

"Don't be an idiot just to impress Draco," Pansy added, rolling her eyes.

Harry opened his mouth to promise he'd be fine when a hand touched his softly, and Harry turned to see Cedric fixing him with a sympathetic look.

"Nobody would think any less of you if you don't go in," Cedric said softly. "That's a ridiculous level of dare, even for Draco."

"If you don't want to do it, Harry, just say so," Draco murmured, still with the same damn smirk on his face. "You'll just have to do the forfeit."

"No!" Harry declared, surprising even himself. "I'm going in; I'm not scared of the forest."

His words weren't quite true, but Harry couldn't bring himself to say no to a dare, even if it was a risky one. Harry had always been a bit of a daredevil who lived for adventure, which had always been encouraged by his father and godfather. He liked the adrenaline rush he got from potentially dangerous situations, and he'd been lucky enough to never come away from anything with worse than broken bones.

And how much trouble could he really get into in half an hour? He reckoned that as long as he stayed near the edge of the forest he'd be able to leave if anything alarming appeared, and then he could say that he'd been in the forest and survived.

Draco's face paled, as if he hadn't expected Harry to agree to the dare, but he managed to sneer nonetheless.

"Get going then," Draco said, jerking his head towards the trees. "We'll be here when you get back."

"Send up red sparks if you need help," Hermione added, sending Harry a concerned glance. "And if you do need help, I'm going to see to it that Draco here is the first one running in to save you."

Harry grinned as Draco choked and spluttered at that, but the smile fell from his face as he stood and faced the forest.

Half an hour, that was all. His friends were all nearby so even if anything happened he at least had a rescue team ready to go. But it would be fine—nothing was going to happen to him.

The mud squelched beneath Harry's boots as he forced himself to walk confidently towards the forest. It had rained almost the whole day, and the whole day before that. Even now the rain had stopped, the sky was still darkened by thick grey clouds that blocked the moonlight.

Harry made an executive decision not to light his wand unless he needed to. Though he was convincing himself that he'd be fine, he wasn't foolish enough to deny that there were dangerous creatures in the forest, and he didn't want to draw attention to himself by casting a light in the darkness of the trees.

His heart pounded heavily in his chest, echoing through his ears as he stopped right by the treeline. He stared up at the tall pine trees and their leaves which looked almost black in the night, already feeling consumed by them.

Harry cast a quick glance back at his group of friends, who were all standing and watching him, though he couldn't quite make out their faces, before turning back and stepping into the trees. Almost immediately Harry felt a chill run through him, but he told himself it was just the adrenaline and not a direct effect of the forest.

Though people said the castle was alive with its own magic, so who really knew how the forest worked? Everyone who had gone deep into the trees to find out had wound up dead.

The ground here was firmer beneath Harry's feet, the trees having protected the forest floor from the worst of the rain. It was almost pitch black inside, Harry unable to see far in front of him, and though he still reckoned it was best not to light his wand, he kept it clutched close to his chest.

He took several more steps into the forest, slowly, listening out for any sounds that didn't belong to him. He almost jumped out of his skin when an owl hooted high above him, and he let out a humourless laugh as he tried to calm his racing heart.

Finally he found a fairly dry patch of dirt to sit on, not too far from the treeline and sheltered by a particularly thick tree trunk. He rested his back against it as he slid to the ground, and squinted as he tried to make out the time on his watch. Five minutes down, twenty-five minutes to go.

The longer Harry sat there, straining to listen to his surroundings, the fear that had been pumping through his veins was quickly become replaced with pure adrenaline. The darkness and the encompassing trees and the scuffles of animals were almost as thrilling as they were terrifying. Harry was, admittedly, ready to flee if anything truly horrifying appeared, but otherwise sitting in the forest wasn't as bad as he had expected.

Twenty minutes had passed when Harry first heard the sound that made him truly uncomfortable—a low growling emitted somewhere behind him, sounding halfway between human and animal; Harry couldn't place what it was.

He jumped to his feet as a twig snapped sharply behind him, his heart racing wildly once more as held his wand in front of him with trembling fingers. And then there was whispering, lowly muttered words that Harry couldn't quite make out but that he knew were being said in English.

Harry couldn't help himself, and he spun around to see what was there. He was met with nothing.

He let out a sigh of relief and turned back to the front of the forest. Then he screamed.

Deep red eyes set in a ghostly white face appeared right in front of him, only inches away before the figure disappeared into the darkness, leaving behind only the overwhelming scent of blood that told Harry he hadn't been imagining it.

Harry could barely feel his legs as he broke into a run, but he only made it a few feet when an icy cold hand grabbed his ankle and he fell, wand flying from his grip as he collided with the hard ground.

Sharp nails dug into his skin, tearing it apart as he tried to wrestle his leg free from the impossibly strong hold while desperately reaching for his wand. Triumph surged through him as his hands closed around familiar wood, giving him enough determination to finally break his leg free from the tight grip on it.

Harry finally cast Lumos and turned to face his attacker, trying not to back away with fear as he eyed the snarling creature on the ground for the first time. The creature was incredibly humanoid, with a face that could have almost been considered handsome if it wasn't contorted with murderous rage. His body was also similar to a humans, though he appeared far taller than any man Harry knew, and he had a head of thick black hair that curled around his slightly pointed ears.

That was the end of the human qualities of the creature, however. His skin was as white as any vampire's would be, almost translucent, and his eyes were the colour of blood, a deep, dark red. The creature's teeth were all sharp and pointed, and stained with blood, and out of his fingers grew long claws which were also blood-stained—Harry's blood. He looked like the perfect combination of angel and demon, and somehow the angelic parts only served to make the creature even more horrifying.

The creature was still on the ground growling, and Harry was just about to send up red sparks before fleeing when he noticed the reason for the creature being slow in attacking him—a thick, thorny stem was wrapped around one of his legs, and with the light of his wand Harry could see that the black material the creature was clothed in was wet with blood.

Harry then did something that was perhaps the most stupid thing he had done in his life—he raised his hands in front of him and crouched down on the ground, albeit far enough out of the creature's arm's reach.

The creature watched him curiously as Harry studied his leg, and upon closer inspection it appeared that the thorns were deeply embedded in the creature's skin, while the stem itself was littered with claw marks where the creature had no doubt tried to tear it off.

"I can take it off for you," Harry said slowly, watching carefully as the creature cocked his head.

"I don't need help from a pitiful human like you," the creature snarled, his voice taking Harry by surprise. Even though he had heard the whispering earlier he still hadn't expected perfect English to come from the creature's mouth, and even less so in a relatively normal tone and in a posh London voice rather than the Scottish accent that Harry and his friends carried.

"You're in pain," Harry noted, managing to keep his own voice calm despite the heavy pounding of his heart. "What if your wounds get infected? A quick spell will have the thorns off in no time, and then you can go back to haunting the forest properly."

The creature's lips curled in a smirk. "And what's to stop me killing you as soon as you're finished, pretty? Your half an hour is almost up."

Harry shivered at the creature's comment—had it been watching them? How had it heard them? But he didn't have time to focus on that right now.

"Even while you're injured I don't doubt you could kill me in an instant if you wanted," Harry retorted, giving the creature a shaky smile.

"True, true," the creature nodded. "But I rather prefer to play with my food. Still want to help me, pretty?"

Nearly all of Harry's mind was telling him to flee, to turn his back and run as fast as he could out of the forest. The remaining part of his mind was the smallest but the one that was screaming the loudest, telling him he couldn't leave a creature injured like that. Even if the creature was responsible for half the deaths in the forest, Harry couldn't bring himself to leave him in pain. There was just something about the creature that intrigued the insatiably curious part of Harry.

"Stay still," Harry murmured, hovering his wand over the creature's leg and levitating the thorns out of the wounded skin. The creature didn't make a sound, his red eyes staying intently fixated on Harry as he worked.

Harry cast a healing charm over the wounds before placing a cleaning charm over the blood-stained material, and he smiled in satisfaction as everything worked neatly. He forgot for a moment who he was helping.

The next thing Harry knew he was flat on his back on the cold forest floor, twigs and stones digging into his back, with the creature on top of him. The creature caught Harry's wrists and pinned them above his head, the weight of his body warm on top of Harry's. Harry could smell the metallic tang of blood on the creature's breath as it clogged his senses, and he barely withheld a shiver.

"My name is Tom," the creature said, leaning down and trailing his tongue from the corner of Harry's lips and down to his jaw. "Remember my name, pretty. Your time's up, so run before you die."

The creature—Tom—was off Harry just as quickly as he'd tackled him, vanished into the trees. But Harry didn't need to be told twice, and he ran towards the treeline as fast as he could, ignoring the pain coming from the cuts on his ankle.

As soon as he escaped the encompassing prison of the trees and found himself out in the open field again, a weight Harry hadn't known was there lifted from his shoulders and he almost fell to his knees in relief.

His friends who had been waiting for him jumped up in surprise when they spotted Harry running towards them. Cedric darted forwards and reached Harry first, and he wrapped Harry in a brief but tight hug before swinging an arm around his shoulder to escort him back.

"You made it!" Cedric exclaimed excitedly. "But you're hurt! What happened? How are you still alive?"

The whole group seemed to have nothing else to ask Harry but the same questions over and over again. Harry told them about the dark trees and the strange sounds, but he decided not to mention Tom and told everyone that he had simply fallen over a tree root in the darkness and hurt himself on the ground. He admitted that he felt like he wasn't alone in the forest, but left it at that.

Harry just had a feeling that it wouldn't go down well if he told everyone he'd seen a creature that had been at least partially spying on them. It was one thing to have people disappear in the forest or come out too traumatised to speak, but to have a person say as a definitive fact that yes, the forest is haunted with monsters, would make people far more uneasy and afraid. It was better to leave them living in semi-ignorance, believing they were safe enough so long as they stayed away from the forest—and for decades that had been true.

Harry's friends seemed satisfied with the story he gave them, and even with excluding the actual terrifying creature, half of the group still looked horrified at the mere prospect of going inside the forest.

"Let's just not dare anyone to go into the forest next time," Harry said finally, giving Draco a pointed look.

Draco had the decency to look sheepish. "I never thought you'd be stupid enough to accept it; I just wanted you to forfeit," he admitted. "But we all agreed that if you came out, ah, alive, then we wouldn't mention this to your father…"

Yes, explaining to the Head Auror that his only son had been dared by Draco to go into the Forbidden Forest would not end well for Draco or Harry, or indeed any of their friends. Harry's father could be reckless himself, but he feared the forest as much as the rest of the residents of Hogsmeade.

"I may be eighteen now, but my dad would still have no problem grounding me for life if I told him what I did," Harry admitted with a shaky grin of his own. "And he'd probably convince your father to do the same to you, Draco."

"Can we go now?" Neville spoke up. "I feel like we're being watched."

Several pairs of eyes glanced over to the forest, and it was only the silence from everybody else that told Harry he had simply imagined a glimpse of ruby-red eyes gleaming in the darkness.

"Sure," Harry said, offering Neville a comforting smile. "There's definitely something not quite right about that forest."

They trudged back towards the village, conversation turning lighter as grassy fields turned to stone walkways. Cedric hooked his arm around Harry's shoulders once more as they fell to the back of the group, his body warm and inviting. Harry dropped his head to Cedric's shoulder briefly before fixing him with a sly smirk.

"My parents are both on the night shift tonight," Harry murmured softly so only Cedric could hear him. "Want to come back to mine?"

Cedric grinned. "How could I possibly refuse?"

As Cedric leaned down to kiss the top of Harry's head, a low growling emitted behind them. Harry spun around, wand in hand, as his heart began beating wildly in his chest, but he was met with the sight of nothing but open countryside.

"Harry?" Cedric asked in concern.

"Didn't you hear that growling?" Harry asked, straining his ears and eyes but still spying nothing out of the ordinary.

"Growling?" Cedric repeated faintly. "I knew going into that forest would be no good for you; look how tense you are! The first thing I'm going to do when we get in is to run you a nice bath."

"That sounds lovely," Harry said, turning back around and forcing himself to relax.

But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't shake the image of blood-stained teeth and glowing red eyes from his mind. And that single name.

Tom.