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Chapter Text

Crack!

The air was driven out of Harry’s lungs as he slammed down onto the ground, sprawled on his back with bright sunlight blurring his vision above. He raised a hand to shield his eyes as they adjusted from the gloom of the Ministry atrium, his too-large robes slipping down his arms as the Polyjuice wore off and Runcorn’s limbs shrank back to those of the seventeen-year-old boy.

They were clearly not at Grimmauld Place, though Harry remembered the brief flash of landing on the front step before Hermione whisked them away again. Sitting up he could see they’d landed in a shallow depression surrounded by coarse grassland and rolling hills, a chill breeze fluttering past them as he tugged his robes tighter to his chest.

“Arrghhhh!”

The desperate yell came from somewhere behind him and Harry spun around, scrabbling to his feet.

Twenty feet away, Ron was lying in the grass. His face was pale and he clutched at the arm of his Ministry robes where a patch of glistening crimson was growing at an alarming rate.

Hermione, some thirty feet to Harry’s right was already hurrying over, clutching her bag. They reached him at the same time, each dropping to their knees either side of Ron.

“My arm! My arm!” Ron wailed, his good hand hovering over it but unwilling to touch it.

“It’s okay, Ron! It’s okay!” Hermione sobbed unconvincingly, rooting frantically in her beaded bag. “He got splinched,” she said to Harry, her arm already inside it up to the shoulder.

Harry carefully split the sleeve of Ron’s robes down the seam with his wand and peeled the sodden halves open, Ron biting back a whimper. What he saw made him want to vomit.

The flesh of Ron’s arm was laid bare from shoulder to below the elbow, flayed by the botched passage through space. A fist-sized chunk of muscle was missing from his upper-arm, a flash of white bone visible beneath, and blood poured from the opening.

Ron’s limbs were beginning to tremble and his eyes that had been fixed on the hideous wound were slipping out of focus.

“He’s going into shock,” said Hermione, “Harry, lift his legs!”

Harry did as he was instructed, shuffling around to grab Ron’s ankles and lift them off the ground, leaving smears of his best friend’s blood on the grass.

“Can you fix him Hermione?” Harry asked, trying to keep his voice level despite his rising panic. “He’s losing a lot of blood.” The redhead had already sunk onto his back, his breathing short and sharp.

“Here!” she said, wrenching her arm from the bag, a brown bottle clutched in her hand. She tried to unstopper it but her fingers were shaking too much to get purchase.

Harry reached over and held her hand steady, pulling the cork out himself, then leaning back to let her pour several drops along the length of the wound. Green smoke billowed upwards from where the drips splashed against the pulsing muscle, and when it cleared Harry could see with immense relief that the bleeding had stopped. Raw, blotchy skin now covered the weeping flesh and Ron’s humerus was no longer visible, covered by knotted tissue.

Ron had gone limp, his eyes closed, and Harry scrambled up to his head to place his ear to Ron’s mouth. Feeling shallow breaths against his cheek, Harry let lose the tension seizing his chest with a sigh.

“What happened?” he asked, as Hermione used her wand to bandage Ron’s arm and clean what blood she could off of their clothes. Her own robes were still those of Mafalda Hopkirk, presumably still unconscious where they had left their unwitting doppelgangers.

“Yaxley,” she groaned. “He grabbed on to me as we left and I couldn’t shake him off.”

She looked up at him with tearful eyes.

“Harry, I brought him to Grimmauld place. I brought him inside the protection of the Fidelius. I think he thought we were stopping and started to let go so I pulled free and brought us here, but he’ll be able to get inside. I’m so sorry.” She sank back onto her heels, crumpled and defeated.

Harry tried to parse the implications of what she was saying; Voldemort’s Death Eaters now had access to Grimmauld Place. The trio had left nothing that would lead anyone to the rest of the Order, nor give any clues about their current mission; of that they were very careful, but gone was the safety of the protective charms, gone was the way for the Order to find them, and gone were the comforts provided by Kreacher.

Kreacher. Harry thought of the old elf with a pang of guilt. He’d only just begun to form a relationship with the elf; there’d probably been a hot dinner waiting for their return, only for him to be confronted by Yaxley. Harry hoped that Kreacher had been able to get away, or would be otherwise overlooked, but it would be far too risky to call him now, or ever.

“It’s okay,” Harry swallowed. “It wasn’t your fault. It’s thanks to you we made it out at all. Thank you, Hermione.” He reached forward and placed a hand gently on her arm, pushing his disappointment down behind a reassuring smile as she looked at him.

The chill stabbed at him again and raised the hairs on the back of his neck.

“Where are we, exactly?” he asked.

“The Quidditch World Cup grounds; somewhere in Dartmoor I think.”

Now that he thought about it, it did look sort of familiar, if one could picture every square foot of grass covered in tents, flags, and red and green supporters.

“Should we leave, in case we’re followed?”

“I don’t want to move him in this condition,” Hermione replied, looking down at Ron. “I think we should set up the tent here and wait for his strength to return.”

“Tent?”

“In the bag.”

No matter how much she pulled from it, the beaded bag never ceased to amaze Harry. He dragged it over and opened the flap. Inside he could see nothing but cavernous darkness and perhaps the vague outlines of numerous objects catching the light from the small opening.

“Accio, tent!” he said, pointing his wand into the void. There was a muffled whooshing sound and Harry jerked back, narrowly avoiding being clobbered by a heavy bundle of canvas with wooden poles sticking out of each end and trailing a tangle of ropes. It leapt from the bag and thumped onto the ground next to them.

“If you could put that up, I’ll set some protective charms,” said Hermione, setting off in a wide circle and muttering incantations under her breath.

Harry levitated the tent to a clear patch of ground away from Ron and flicked his wand towards it.

“Erecto.”

It sprang to attention, canvas stretching taught between the poles and pegs loping through ropes to diligently burry themselves in the ground. It looked like it was made for two people lying side-by-side with little room to spare, but the patchwork material was familiar.

“Is this the tent we stayed in for the Quidditch World Cup?” Harry asked, Hermione finishing her circuit and rejoining him.

“Yes, I borrowed it off of Mr. Weasley, just in case. Help me carry Ron inside.”

Harry looped his arms under Ron’s shoulders while Hermione grabbed his ankles and together they heaved him through the entrance of the tent. Inside it was the same small bedsit Harry remembered; a tiny kitchen complete with table and two benches, a pair of battered arm chairs, a bathroom tucked into a corner, and two bunk beds.

They laid Ron gently onto one of the lower bunks, tucking him tightly under one of the musty blankets. His skin was grey, the familiar freckles standing out harshly on his cheeks.

Harry rubbed his hands together to try and regain some feeling in his fingertips.

“Will he be okay?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Hermione replied, looking down at Ron and worrying at her lip with her teeth. “The dittany will heal most of the splinching, but he’s lost so much blood. I don’t have anything else that can help him.”

For the second time since they’d arrived on the moors Harry cursed his lack of medical knowledge, or seemingly any knowledge of anything useful for their survival.

“We should change,” he said, as much to distract himself from their precarious situation as to rid himself of the bloodied robes that dragged on the floor around his feet.

Hermione stooped to push Ron’s hair off his forehead, then followed Harry to the kitchenette where she retrieved a set of clothes for each of them from her bag and busied herself with the kettle while Harry went to change.

Harry was glad to be back in his own clothes, and Hermione looked more comfortable too, coming out of the bathroom in a loose sweater and faded jeans and grabbing her mug with both hands to savour in its warmth.

“This was in the pocket of my robes. I can’t believe I almost forgot!” she said, reaching into the pocket of her sweater and drawing out a thin, golden chain, at the end of which swung a fat locket.

“Oh shit,” Harry blurted. “The locket!”

Stopping Ron from bleeding out on the grass had driven the whole purpose of their mission into the Ministry clean from his head.

She placed it on the table with a thunk and they sat across from one another, keeping it between them as though it might make a break for it. It was as large as a chicken’s egg, inlaid with glittering emeralds in the shape of an ornate letter S. There were hinges on one side, but no visible clasp.

“So, that’s a horcrux,” Harry said, eyeing the thing in the flickering light of the lamps around the tent. He was repulsed and intrigued by the thing in equal parts. There sat a piece of Voldemort’s soul, right there, within touching distance. The key to Voldemort’s immortality, and hopefully, his downfall.

Harry gingerly reached out a hand, causing Hermione to suck in a sharp breath.

“It should be okay to touch,” he said. “Umbridge has been wearing it all day, and Ginny and I carted that diary around without anything happening.”

“Aside from the possession, you mean?”

“Aside from that,” he ceded. “This is different though. She was pouring her heart into that thing, we know to be wary of this.”

He picked it up and turned it over between his fingers. It was cold to the touch and besides the ornamentation had no discernible marks or blemishes. Harry tried to prize the locket open but to no avail, though if he held it very still, he could almost imagine he could feel the thing ticking in his palm, as though a tiny metal heart beat behind the door.

“And we don’t have any way to destroy it?” he asked.

“No,” Hermione shook her head. “We’d need to destroy it beyond all means of magical repair. Basilisk venom, or Fiendfyre, something like that.”

“I wonder how Dumbledore destroyed the ring,” Harry mused. “Another thing he forgot to mention.” He surprised himself with the bitterness of his tone, and quickly slipped the chain over his head, tucking the locket away beneath his shirt.

“Better keep it safe until we can figure that out then.”

The light outside the tent was fading and the dull ache in Harry’s stomach was a persistent reminder of their missed meal. He sipped his tea; black owing to the lack of any milk or sugar. Indeed, their search through the cupboards had uncovered crockery, musty linens, and a few shabby books but nothing of any real use, and no food, save for a few teabags.

“I didn’t think to pack any,” Hermione apologised. “I thought we’d be back at Number Twelve by now.”

“We all did,” said Harry, waving away her apology. “We’ll have to risk going into a town for supplies.”

Hermione bit the corner of her lip.

“We can’t take Ron” she said, “And I don’t want to split up if we can help it. We still don’t know how they found us, remember? After the wedding, and those Death Eaters outside Grimmauld Place? Maybe I can find something out there?” She gestured towards the flap of the tent.

“I’ll go,” Harry said, half way out of his seat. He desperately wanted to feel useful.

“Harry,” she said in a kind voice, “do you know any edible plants or fungi?”

“I…” He faltered. Of course he didn’t, and it would be just his luck to poison them on the same day they’d made their first breakthrough in their hunt. He sank back down. “No.”

“It’s okay, I won’t go far,” said Hermione. “Keep an eye on Ron?”

Harry looked over to their sleeping friend, his shock of red hair sticking out of the blanket that was still rising and falling in short, shallow breaths, and nodded.

With a gentle hand on his shoulder, Hermione palmed her wand and left the tent.

As the flap swung closed behind her, Harry dragged one of the chairs to the entryway and positioned it such that he could look out across the shallow gully they were camped in, but where he also had a view of Ron’s bunk.

Hermione’s bushy hair was just disappearing over the crest of the ridge, and he stuffed his hands under his arms to ward off the nighttime chill that was creeping in.

He fingered the hard lump under his shirt; the locket laying serenely against his chest, belying the evil that lived inside it. It was still cold, though it should have warmed by now. He could scarcely believe they’d made it out of the Ministry, and with everything they’d gone in there for. Hopefully Hermione’s duplicate locket would prevent anyone from finding out what they’d taken. He doubted that Umbridge would admit to being robbed even if she did realise, but if Voldemort found out that the locket had been switched decades ago and was no longer safe in that cavern then he’d surely make the others impossible to find.

The daunting reality of their task washed over him anew. It had always seemed near insurmountable, but the time and effort it had taken to find one, and they didn’t even have a means to destroy it!? He counted them off on his fingers. The diary and the ring had been destroyed, and they had the locket, but the snake was still out there somewhere, and Hufflepuff’s cup, not to mention the sixth item that they didn’t even have a name for.

Ron’s prostrate form was testament to the danger of their mission. He could have bled out in the grass and Harry wouldn’t have been able to do a thing about it. As always, Hermione had saved the day.

Since their very first year at Hogwarts he’d needed her; the jinxed broom, the devil’s snare, solving the Chamber of Secrets mystery, the time turner that saved Sirius and Buckbeak, facing down the Horntail with nothing but a summoning charm that she’d helped drill into his head. He was only up to fourth year and already losing count, and yet he struggled to think of a time when she had really needed him.

What would he have done if it had been her that had been splinched? Nothing. He and Ron would have watched her perish and their hopes of defeating Voldemort would have died with her. At this very moment he was sat in the tent that she had had the forethought to pack, in case they ended up in just this situation.

Genuine shame sat heavy in his gut. It was high time he took this venture seriously and faced up to the danger they were all in. No more shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later, no more running off half-cocked, no more taking for granted that Hermione would have though ahead for the lot of them. He would be better, for all of them. He would be better for her.

A movement atop the rise caught his eye and he sprang to his feet, wand aimed at the approaching figure, but he relaxed when Hermione’s face came into view through the rising gloom. She was holding a small bundle; a cloth wrapped around something lumpy.

“There wasn’t much,” she sighed as drew closer, leading him inside and depositing the bundle on the table. Inside were a few brown mushrooms, and a handful of nettle leaves. “I’ll, erm… see what I can do.”

“Thank you,” Harry said, trying to convey the sincerity of his new resolution towards her, and receiving a small smile in return.

The mushroom and nettle stew was… not good, if Harry was honest, but it did alleviate the worst of his hunger pains. Try as they might though, they could not wake Ron to eat anything and had to settle instead for dripping water between his dried lips.

Cold and exhausted, both physically and mentally, and with nothing more they could do for him, Harry and Hermione packed away their meagre possessions and prepared for the long night. They would take turns on watch; Harry the first to take up a post by the mouth of the tent while Hermione slipped under the covers of the bunk opposite Ron, still fully clothed in case they needed to make a quick getaway.

Through it all, Ron slumbered on; the lack of telltale snores deafening by their absence.

Harry woke with a start, jerked from a fitful sleep full of running down corridors away from pursuers that grasped at his heels. The pale light bleeding through the canvas above him was that of early morning, and he leant over the bunk to look down at Ron.

He looked, to Harry’s eyes, to have regained a little colour, but he hadn’t moved from the position they’d lain him in.

Harry swung his legs off the bed and dropped to the floor, slipping his feet into unlaced boots and trying half-heartedly to smooth some of the wrinkles out of the clothes he’d slept in. His head buzzed with the threat of a headache and his heart felt heavy for a reason he could not identify.

Shuffling away from the bunks, he found Hermione in the mouth of the tent, curled in the chair they’d dragged there, dozing. Her wand hung precariously from her slack fingers, and she wore a frown even in her sleep.

Unbidden, a stab of annoyance flashed through him. She was meant to be keeping watch and yet anyone could have approached while she slept! Harry surprised himself. Where had that come from? He knew the burden she carried and besides, nothing had befallen them in the night.

He shook her shoulder gently. “Hermione.”

She flinched, grasping her wand and whipping it up to Harry’s throat before her sleep-fogged mind could register who it was.

“Harry! I’m sorry!” She lowered the wand and leapt from the chair. “I fell asleep! Oh, how stupid of me! Are you angry? I’m so sorry, I-”

“It’s okay, calm down,” Harry said, hands out to try and placate her. “We’re fine.”

“That was really irresponsible of me,” she frowned. “How’s Ron?”

“A little better I think, but still out. Come on, I’ll make some tea and we can figure out what we’re going to do.”

They wiled away the morning discussing how best to continue the hunt now that they could no longer return to Grimmauld place; using the tent and moving frequently between remote locations seemed the best bet. Despite their success in retrieving the locket it didn’t really change their plans; they’d happened upon it through Mundungus but the others remained hidden and the list of likely places was short.

A sense of foreboding grew within Harry all day that he couldn’t pin on anything in particular. He was sure there were noises outside the tent but each time he checked it was as deserted as when they’d arrived.

He wanted to move, but Ron’s condition still prevented it, and every hour that passed made it more likely that they’d be tracked down, more likely that Voldemort would discover what they were doing, at least to Harry’s mind.

Eventually, he voiced his concerns to Hermione.

“We can’t just wait around for Ron to get better. We need to find supplies; food and medicine, and leave here. There’s got to be a muggle town nearby that we can slip into.”

“Harry, we can’t move him,” she implored.

“I’ll go alone,” Harry replied, holding up a hand to pre-empt her contradiction. “I’ll take the invisibility cloak, under the cover of darkness, and I’ll only get the essentials.”

Hermione worried her bottom lip with her teeth again, torn between needing to care for their injured friend and not wanting to risk getting separated. She too had been growing restless, and her concern for Ron mounted as he refused to wake.

“You’re right, Ron is in no condition to move,” Harry continued, “but we can’t both go and leave him defenceless. I hate splitting up too, but we have no other choice.”

“You promise you won’t go off by yourself like you were planning before the wedding?” There was genuine anxiety in her voice.

“I promise,” Harry said, then dug a little deeper, past his comfort zone for the reassurance she deserved. “If the last month has taught me anything it’s that I need you, Hermione. And Ron.”

As the sun sank below the horizon and the orange-stained sky slowly bled to purple, Harry and Hermione gathered around the kitchen table. Laid upon it were the cloak, a small rucksack, and the last of their instant darkness powder and decoys from the Ministry heist.

“I’ve enchanted the rucksack similar to my bag,” Hermione was saying, “only not nearly as large since there wasn’t much time. It’s about four times bigger on the inside so you can put whatever you find in there. It might be a good idea to grab any muggle medicines you see; painkillers and antibiotics and the like, and take this money to slip into the till.”

She patted each item, counting them for the umpteenth time.

“Be careful, Harry,” Hermione pleaded. “Just what we need – nothing else.”

“Just what we need,” he repeated. “We don’t know exactly where we are, do we?”

“No, and I don’t have a map.”

“Okay, well I’ll just keep heading in one direction until I see lights or something. If you need to leave in a hurry we’ll meet at the point where we caught the portkey that brought us here for the cup.”

“Right.”

Harry pulled the cloak over his shoulders, his body vanishing from sight. “I’ll be back soon,” he said, then stepped from the tent and pulled the hood over his head.

Harry climbed up the short slope out of the depression where they’d pitched the tent. All around him were the dark shapes of rolling hills, black against the dark blue sky. There were no obvious blooms of light on the horizon, so he picked a crest in the distance and spun on his heel, disapparating with a loud crack.

He materialised on an identical patch of grassy scrub. Looking behind him there was no way to tell which of the ridges he’d come from, but he could picture it clearly enough in his mind to get back, and instead scanned the valleys before him.

A few miles away, peeking between the cleft of two hills, was a smattering of yellow streetlights and handful of white pinpricks moving between them; a large village or small town, somewhere bound to have a store.

Harry hopped as close as he dared, then proceeded the final half a mile on foot, moving slowly to avoid tripping on the hem of the cloak or his feet flashing from beneath it. Gone were the days when all three of them could huddle under the silvery material and creep around the castle at night.

The air grew colder still as he descended into the valley and even through his jumper and coat it was beginning to bite despite the autumn having only just begun. Whisps of cloud, dark against the sky, drifted low over the buildings.

He picked his way through the trees that surrounded the town and emerged on the edge of a large sports field, deserted for the night. Across the expanse of grass and wide slab of tarmac stood a supermarket; the familiar signage dark and the shutters closed, but never a more welcome sight for Harry.

He’d taken two steps onto the field when something stopped him in his tracks. An unnatural but all too terribly familiar feeling of dread was pulling on his gut and spreading through his limbs. Thin mist rolled across the pitch and his breath clouded in front of him.

The shredded whisps of cloud that had been drifting across the pale moon were looping and wheeling in a way that no wind could produce.

Ragged holes in the midnight sky; a score of Dementors glided down over the clustered houses. The mist thickened as they drew closer, wafting over the town and feeding on the background happiness, hope, and elation of the muggles. Every so often one would detach itself from the swarm and dive out of sight behind the roofline, turning Harry sick at the thought of their unsuspecting victim who could not even see their attacker.

He took a pace backwards, towards the cover of the treeline, pulling the cloak tight around him and clutching his wand. The group appeared to be moving from left to right, and perhaps they would move on when they had… finished, so Harry kept to the shadows and moved to his left, hoping to pass behind them.

The edges of the horde were passing over the supermarket when one halted, then another, and another.

The three forms hung in the air, then slowly turned in Harry’s direction. The first one twitched, almost as though it were sniffing the air, then began to drift closer.

The rest of the group continued on, but the three breakaways swooped low over the grass, getting nearer by the second. Something darted beneath them; a fox startled by their passing, but they gave no sign of acknowledgement and continued inexorably towards him.

Harry steeled himself. He’d fought off more than the whole group before; he could deal with three overly-confident Dementors. They needed those supplies.

He pictured in his mind returning to Hogwarts; the welcoming feast with Voldemort defeated and his friends around him. The spell was on the tip on his tongue when it guttered, the vision swept away and replaced with Voldemort leering over him in the graveyard, Cedric’s lifeless body sprawled on the grass.

The Dementors drew closer, gaining speed.

Harry shook his head, trying to keep his mind clear as the cold intensified. Something fluttered on his chest. Perhaps a real memory would work better, rather than an imagined victory that, if he was honest, he was less and less confident would happen.

Memories flashed before him until he desperately grasped for the aftermath of the Quidditch Cup; the triumph and elation of lifting the golden cup high amid the roars of his housemates, only for the feeling to be ripped away again – the memory darkening and suddenly he was watching Sirius fall through the veil while Bellatrix’s cackling laughter pealed inside his skull.

No! They’d be on him in seconds; why wasn’t it working? The temperature continued to plummet, almost painful now and robbing the feeling from his fingers. The laughter had morphed into the familiar screaming the Dementors clawed from the depths of his mind.

He pushed it away, teeth clenched and began to back away, buying himself a few more precious moments. Ron and Hermione were counting on him. Hermione.

The memory of her arms tight around his waist as they soared through the air upon Buckbeak to save Sirius. He could almost feel the wind on his face – before it robbed him of his breath and her embrace became suffocating as he instead stood atop the Astronomy tower and Dumbledore was being blasted over the edge by Snape.

The rattling, sucking breath of the Dementors filled Harry’s ears, close enough now that their bony hands, outstretched, almost whispered against the fabric of the cloak. He stumbled, falling backwards as the grotesque hand closed around the space he had occupied a fraction of a second before. With a choking gasp, he twisted on the spot and disapparated.

A riot of sound a colour, and for the second time in as many days Harry landed hard on his back, battling to fill his lungs with air once more.

Harry drew a ragged breath, thawing his chest with the only-mildly-frigid air and steadying his trembling limbs. He’d come that close to being kissed just once before, and had only been saved then by himself from the future. What was wrong with him? Why hadn’t his patronus come? It was his thing.

The night air was drying the sweat that covered his brow, making him shiver, but he lay there for several more minutes until he felt like he could trust his legs to hold his weight again. Gingerly, he clambered to his feed and headed down into the depression where he knew the tent must be.

A few paces down the slope he passed the invisible barrier of Hermione’s incantations and it rippled into view. Soft orange light spilled from the crack between the canvas flaps, but it was Harry’s other senses that had him quickening his pace.

There were voices coming from inside.

Chapter Text

Harry galloped clumsily down the sloping ground towards the tent, limbs still wobbly from his encounter with the Dementors. With each step the voices became more distinct; one male and one female.

“-ridiculous to be out there alone!”

That was Ron’s voice! More strained and hoarse than could possibly be healthy, but definitely him.

“We didn’t have a choice. Please lie back down, Ron,” came Hermione’s insistent reply.

“We have to- Harry!” Harry burst into the tent to find the redhead sat up in bed, trying to swing his legs out the side while Hermione leant heavily on his shoulders to force him back down. His face was grey and his skin had a waxy sheen to it, but it was an immense relief to see him conscious again.

“You’re awake!” Harry chuffed, feeling brighter than he had in hours, though the lingering chill of the Dementors still clung to his chest.

His relief was mirrored on the faces of Ron and Hermione, until they dropped in unison.

“Are you okay? What happened?” asked Hermione. With a sharp look at Ron; a silent command to stay seated in bed, she crossed the small space and brought Harry into the light by the bunks. He let her guide him into a sitting position at the foot of Ron’s bed, hands clasped together while the tremors eased.

“You’re all clammy.”

“Dementors,” Harry said plainly, shaking his head. Hermione placed a hand on his forearm.

“Shit,” hissed Ron. “Did you have to fight them?”

“I couldn’t…” said Harry, lost for words. “They went right for me, but, my patronus… it wouldn’t come.”

Ron looked alarmed and shot a glance at Hermione that Harry thankfully missed. She had been watching with sympathetic eyes when something glinted at the nape of Harry’s neck.

“Oh my God! Harry!” Both of the boys startled at her sudden outburst. “The locket! You’ve still got it on. Give it here!”

“You got it!?” Ron exclaimed as Harry fumbled with the golden chain. The instant the unnaturally cold metal was lifted over his head he felt a weight lifted from his chest; one he hadn’t even felt himself carrying, so gradually it had built. The lingering sense of foreboding went with it and the nausea that had been gnawing at his gut abated.

“Better?” Hermione asked, the locket swinging from her fist.

“Loads,” said Harry.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you got the locket,” Ron harumphed.

“Well, you were too busy trying to do yourself an injury going after Harry,” Hermione retorted. “You need to rest.” She looped the chain over her curls and slipped it out of sight again. “You’ve had it on since we arrived. No wonder you couldn’t cast a patronus with a piece of Vol-”

“NO!” Ron yelled, cutting her off mid-sentence. His hand was extended towards her as if he meant to clap it over her mouth.

“I’m sorry?” Hermione asked, looking as perplexed as Harry felt.

The exertion of Ron’s outburst had sapped him of what little strength he had and he was breathing heavily, leaning on the pillows.

“The name… Don’t say his name,” he panted.

Hermione scoffed. “Oh Ron, aren’t we a bit past that now? Remember what Dumbledore used to say? Fear of the name only increases-”

“It’s not about fear,” Ron interjected. “It’s taboo.”

“Taboo?” Harry asked.

Ron nodded. “I overheard, at the Ministry. When I was trying to stop it raining in that guy, Yaxley’s office. He was talking to someone outside about the taboo; how saying you-know-who’s name would tell them exactly where you are, protections or no.”

“Because only the Order dares to say his name!” Hermione finished, aghast. “That’s how they found us after the wedding, and why they were camping outside Grimmauld Place even though they couldn’t see it!”

She looked apologetically at Ron. “I’m sorry, Ron. You were right to stop me; we would have been sitting ducks if they’d found us now. We’ll be more careful from now on.”

Ron looked oddly pleased with her contrition and seemed to swell slightly, but what little colour he’d regained had left him again and his body sagged deeper into the bedding.

“I don’t suppose you managed to grab anything before the Dementors arrived?” he asked.

“No, I’m sorry,” Harry replied, a fresh wave of guilt washing over him.

Ron lifted a limp hand. “No worries, we’ll get ‘em next time.” He lay on his back again, taking slow, heavy breaths and allowing his eyes to slide closed. In a matter of minutes, he was asleep again.

It was several days before Ron was well enough for them to break camp and move to a new location. The dittany had replaced the lost skin and muscle, but a swath of purple flesh would forever mark his arm and even a week later he suffered from headaches, dizziness and shortness of breath.

Hermione had thankfully found a nearby farm and returned with eggs, taking the edge off their hunger and speeding Ron’s recovery but food remained an ever-present concern. Each new location was like rolling a die on whether they would get to eat that night. Each forest, each glen and moor and plain would bring its own hardships and difficulties.

More than once they’d left in a hurry to avoid a drift of Dementors spotted over nearby towns and villages, sometimes as few as ten, but they never stayed to chance their luck. It seemed wherever they went the spectres were not far behind.

To compound their woes, the weather continued to worsen. September rolled into October and what should have been the last balmy evenings of the year, but instead the cold seeped across the country. Light dustings of snow graced their more northern hides, and Harry had taken to leaving his coat on inside the chilly tent.

Each day one of the three would don the locket and what was sure to follow was twenty-four hours of sniping, irritability, and short tempers. It was as though the cursed metal sapped any and all rationality from the wearer, leaving instead shredded nerves and an insidious paranoia, and as the days wore on Harry found himself becoming more withdrawn, listless, and weary of their fruitless task.

To her credit, Hermione seemed the least affected by the horcrux and Harry learned quickly to adjust his own behaviours to accommodate the days she shouldered the burden, but Ron was another story. When the chain was around his neck he was prone to bouts of petulant sulking, and when it coincided with a missed meal he became downright unpleasant.

Harry didn’t blame him. In truth it was painful to see his best friend acting in a way that was so unlike himself, but that knowledge didn’t make his mood swings any easier to bear. The closeness that Ron and Hermione seemed to have been building since leaving Hogwarts was shattered and the two of them returned to idle bickering with little provocation.

“You’re not making any sense! You can magic up some water, why can’t you just conjure some edible food for once!?” Ron griped.

“It doesn’t work like that! Food is one of the exceptions to Gamp’s Law of Elemental Transfiguration!” Hermione replied.

“My Mum can fill a table with food like that!” He snapped his fingers.

“She isn’t creating the food! It already exists somewhere else and she’d just moving it to the table!”

Harry did his best to tune out their latest argument and concentrate on the page in front of him. True to his resolution he had approached Hermione to ask about learning more practical survival magic. She had furnished him with several books about healing minor injuries and various protective wards and charms and he took to them diligently.

Practicing what he had learned with her were some of the only times he enjoyed himself any more. He would demonstrate a muggle-repelling charm or how to disinfect a cut and she would offer pointers on his wand movement or pronunciation. During these lessons Ron would tinker with a broken radio he’d found in the tent, trying to glean any information about the world outside.

The rest of the time was filled with increasingly circular conversations about likely horcrux locations and means of destruction. The Sword of Gryffindor seemed a likely candidate, given that Dumbledore had attempted to bequeath it to Harry, but as they had no inkling where it could be, that line of inquiry ended quickly.

“What about the Shrieking Shack?” suggested Ron for the umpteenth time one evening.

Harry thumped his head on the kitchen table.

“There’s nothing special about the Shrieking Shack,” came his muffled response. “He never went there that we know. It wasn’t even called the Shrieking Shack then; that was because of Lupin, remember?”

“At least I’m coming up with ideas instead of shooting them all down,” Ron grumbled.

“What are our best contenders so far?” asked Hermione, rhetorically as she began to list them off. “Hogwarts, Borgin and Burkes, Albania-”

“Just the whole country of Albania,” scoffed Ron.

“Godrics Hollow,” added Harry, ignoring him.

“We’re still ignoring the one place we know is connected to him and we know the location of,” said Ron loudly.

Harry gritted his teeth. “I told you; we’re not going to the orphanage.”

The city felt oppressive after the wide-open spaces and quiet woodlands they’d spent the last few weeks hiding among. The rush of people put Harry on edge; too many to watch at once, but he contented himself with the knowledge that the Death Eaters couldn’t find them if they didn’t say Voldemort’s name. It might also be their best opportunity for some real food for once.

“It should be just around this corner,” said Hermione, triple-checking the scrap of paper she’d scrawled the address on.

Ron looked as uneasy as Harry felt, and the walk from their apparition point in a disused alley some streets further back was already taking its toll.

The trio stuck close together as they made for the corner of the busy high street, turning three-abreast and stopping abruptly. Across the road was not the low brick orphanage from Dumbledore’s memories but a slab of glass and steel, sticking out like some ugly interloper between the small stores.

“Oh,” said Hermione in a small voice.

Harry signed inwardly. He had known from the start that Voldemort wouldn’t have hidden a fragment of his soul in the place he despised most. It would have been like he himself storing some priceless treasure at the Dursley’s.

“Let’s go,” he said, tugging on Hermione’s arm.

“Wait a minute,” said Ron, standing fast on her other side.

Harry’s ire was rising as they stood in the open street just asking to be spotted. “The place has clearly been knocked down, it’s not here, let’s go before we’re seen.”

“You don’t know it’s not there,” Ron retorted, rubbing his neck distractedly. “Maybe it’s a disguise, or they kept all the stuff from the orphanage somewhere?”

“I’m telling you, it’s not-” Harry began, but Ron cut him off.

“We’re here now. I’m not walking away from the one lead we’ve got when it could be right over there.”

Harry was about to protest again but Hermione was looking at him hopefully and he could see that she too harboured some small belief that the horcrux might be buried beneath the building.

“Fine,” Harry growled, stepping level with them again and gripping his wand tight in the pocket of his jeans.

They crossed the road and squeezed into a single section of the revolving door, shuffling around until it spat them out into a pristine lobby. On one side sat a pair of designer-looking (and therefore supremely uncomfortable) sofas around a low coffee table. A TV mounted on the wall above them showed the news on a permanent loop.

As they moved away from the doors, Harry caught the end of the muggle weather report that trailed the headlines.

“…left baffled by the cold snap sweeping the country. Temperatures dropped as low as minus six overnight in some places, so it’s perhaps time to break out those winter coats already! The Met Office has chalked it up to dry, polar air blowing in from Northern Europe and says it should end soon. Back to you in…”

He became aware that Hermione and Ron were no longer at his side, and quick-stepped to catch up to them as they approached the reception desk on the opposite side of the lobby. Silver lettering on the wall behind the desk spelled out a name, but no indication of what the business might do. A law firm, perhaps?

The receptionist looked at them expectantly and, after a moment’s hesitation, Hermione stepped forward and cleared her throat; the designated speaker of the group.

“Erm, excuse me, I was wondering, a while ago there used to be an orphanage on this site. You wouldn’t happen to know… what happened to it, do you? Or whether it was moved somewhere?”

She glanced back at Harry and Ron and winced apologetically as the receptionist narrowed her eyes at them.

“It’s been this office as long as I’ve worked here,” she replied carefully. “Do you have an appointment?”

“Oh, no, we were just- someone we… know, grew up there and we were trying to find it for them.” Hermione finished lamely.

“I’m afraid if you haven’t got an appointment, I’ll have to ask you to leave,” came the pointed reply, and the trio dutifully shuffled out of the lobby, beady eyes on their backs the entire time.

“Now can we go?” Harry asked.

“We shouldn’t have given up so easily,” Ron fumed. “We could sneak past her, easy, and search the basement. Maybe there are still some parts of the orphanage left down there? I mean, he would have buried it, wouldn’t he? He wouldn’t just leave it out for people to find.”

“It’s not fucking here, Ron!” Harry snapped.

Hermione had the tact to move them to a nook a few doors down and avoid the attention of a confrontation in the street.

“We tried, Ron, but I don’t think it’s here,” she said in her best placating tone. “The protections he would have put on it would prevent anyone coming near, I think, and this place is far too busy to hide something so important. I’m glad we checked, but I think we can cross it off the list.”

Ron did not look pleased with being out-voted, but he at least accepted that pressing any further would be futile.

“So, what, we go back to the fields now?” he grumbled.

Hermione checked her watch and bit her lip; a sure sign that a thought was brewing behind her eyes.

“Well, it’s almost five and everywhere will be closing soon. We could hide for a few hours and then stock up before we leave? There’s a supermarket just on the corner there.”

The prospect of fresh and plentiful food did a great deal to temper Ron’s mood and they treated themselves to hot drinks in paper cups as the afternoon dwindled away. The foot traffic on the street steadily eased and street lights flickered on at intervals, casting a yellow sodium glow over the suburb.

Finally, they could wait no longer and broke from their cover to loop around behind the darkened supermarket. Around the back, bins were piled high with cardboard boxes and spoiled food, unsavoury puddles leaking from the containers, but it was otherwise deserted.

They stepped into the shadows between two of the stinking receptacles and Hermione pulled the silvery invisibility cloak out of the beaded bag.

Even at a stoop it didn’t touch the ground over all three of them, but it would be enough to fool a camera and so they carefully made their way to the rear door and, with a hushed alohamora, slipped inside.

It took the better part of an hour to shuffle up and down the darkened shelves pressed shoulder-to-shoulder, pausing every few paces to reach out and slip an item under the cloak. Harry and Ron did most of the shoplifting, passing their loot to Hermione for her to cast preserving charms on and deposit into the beaded bag.

Even with magical help, keeping something fresh could be tricky and they kept mainly to dried or tinned goods, except for a lengthy stop in the toiletries aisle and a clumsy navigation of the in-store pharmacy for long-named antibiotics that Hermione insist they acquire.

At last they reached the final rack and declared their mission complete, Hermione counting out notes from her purse while Ron talked in a rapid whisper about the different meals they could look forward to over the coming days.

They left the same way they had entered, but immediately upon stepping into the alley Harry could tell that something was gravely wrong.

Frost crunched under their feet and frigid air seeped under the hem of the cloak they still huddled beneath. Harry could almost feel his stomach dropping as despair and anguish crept up his gullet, making him nervous and jumpy.

A soft elbow in his side caught his attention and he glanced to his left where Hermione and Ron were both looking up, their faces stricken.

Drifting above the city were countless ragged black forms. There were too many to count in the slim cleft of night sky between the tall buildings; far more than Harry had encountered on their second night.

As if the awful beings could feel the three pairs of eyes on them, the closest ones wheeled and banked, swooping down on their invisible prey.

Hermione grabbed Ron’s wrist, preparing to disapparate cloak-and-all. Her fingers reached to close around Harry’s arm when his head was split with immense pain.

“Harry!” Hermione yelled, his instinctive flinch pulling him from her reach and he staggered, blind, from under the cloak clutching his head.

Harry’s vision swam and the piercing agony threatened to overwhelm his consciousness, but beneath it was a strange, giddy sense of elation.

A strange image overtook that of the alley; he was standing in the open doorway of a house. The rustic walls were panelled with wood carved in intricate and elaborate patterns, and scrambling away from him on the floor was an old man.

“You know who I am, Gregorovitch,” Harry said, though his voice was high and cold.

“No, please!” begged the man, still shuffling backwards down the hall as Harry smoothly stepped after him.

Something bright and warm rushed past Harry and suddenly he was back in the alley again. A silver otter streaked past his shoulder, chasing away a knot of Dementors that had been bearing down upon him.

The pain still throbbed in his skull, trying to pull him away again, but wheeling around he could see the dire nature of their circumstances. Ron was trying and failing to repel another horde of Dementors that had closed in from the opposite end of the alley. Silver mist trickled from his wand, dissipating before it reached the floor.

“Expecto… Expecto Patronum!” Harry cried, clinging desperately to the present.

Mercifully, a great silver stag burst from the tip of his wand and cantered the length of the passageway, head lowered and antlers forward to banish the approaching forms.

“We need to leave!” yelled Hermione over the sucking, gurgling sound of a hundred raw, lifeless mouths clamouring in the air above them.

The agony in Harry’s head was competing now with that of his fingers, so cold had it become in the maelstrom of Dementors swirling around them. His frozen digits clutched his wand clumsily as he tried to regroup with the other two.

“Over there! I saw a patronus!” echoed a foreign voice accompanied by the thudding of several pairs of boots.

Over by Ron and Hermione the Dementor horde scattered, revealing four black-clad, masked Death Eaters at the mouth of the alley.

“Incarcerous!” bellowed the closest of them, thick black ropes shooting from his wand and narrowly avoiding ensnaring Ron. There was a heartbeat of silence between the two groups, then spellfire tore through the air in both directions.

“Stupefy!” Harry yelled, taking aim at the clutch of Death Eaters and backing down the alley to the end where Hermione’s otter was still standing sentry.

Ron and Hermione were closer to their attackers and fled in Harry’s direction, loosing jets of red and blue light over their shoulders, blasting chunks out of the brickwork and concrete.

Harry reached the exit first, turning to cover his friends as they darted the last twenty feet under a hail of magic. Hermione screamed as they were showered with debris and fragments of brick from a blasting curse that struck the wall behind them, but they careened out into the street otherwise unscathed.

Eye’s watering, Harry’s tenuous grip on his own faculties faltered as the pain in his head surged and once more he was dragged under.

The man, Gregorovitch, lay foetal on the floor before him, trembling and retching.

“I will ask again, where is it?” Harry purred. He was enjoying himself.

“I don’t know! I swear, I do not know!” Gregorovitch pleaded. Harry raised his wand again, his alabaster skin almost translucent in the pale light. “It was stolen from me! Please!”

The wand paused. “Stolen? How convenient.”

“It’s the truth!”

“We shall see,” Harry replied. He reached down and grasped the man’s sagging cheeks in his hand, too-long nails drawing pinpricks of blood from the skin. He turned Gregorovitch’s face towards his own and captured his eyes with a piercing gaze.

Those watery pupils seemed to expand until they filled the whole room and Harry fell into them.

Flickering images darted past in the blackness, occasionally slowing for his perusal before being whisked away again. He was dimly aware of the man writhing and convulsing in his grip.

Finally, an image rose to the surface that intrigued him. It grew and grew until he was standing in the very same room he’d left, only it wasn’t as shabby, and there was no blood on the floor.

Harry watched as a younger Gregorovitch came bustling in, dressed in a nightshirt, yelling in a language he did not know. He was yelling at a boy crouched on the sill of the open window. The boy looked to be in his twenties, with a handsome face, a mop of blonde hair, and a triumphant grin on his youthful cheeks.

In his hand was a wand, unusually long and thin, which Harry thought looked somewhat familiar.

Before he could get a closer look, however, the boy stunned Gregorovitch and leapt from the window, out into the night.

A blink, and he was back in the present, the room once again filled with the stench of evacuated bowels and spent magic. The old man was slack in his grip, blood trickling from his nose and ears and a wet, bubbling noise emanating from his throat.

“It seems you were telling the truth,” said Harry in that high, cold tone. “You have served your purpose.” He raised his wand. “Avada Kedavra!”

Blinding green light filled his mind, and a thousand miles away his body was jerked from reality into the buffeting space between being.

Harry was on his back. Again.

The burning pain on his forehead was receding to a dull ache, and a cool hand was wiping the sweat from his brow. His eyes fluttered open to find Hermione kneeling over him. She had a graze across her cheek and a mixture of pity and concern on her face.

“Are you okay, Harry?” she asked.

He quickly lifted himself onto his elbows. “I’m fine, where’s-”

Ron was pacing back and forth several feet away, full of nervous energy and wearing a scowl. With Hermione’s help, Harry clambered to his feet, seeing that they’d landed just a stones-throw from the tent.

“What happened to you back there, Harry?” asked Ron, halting his march. The accusation in his tone immediately got Harry’s back up.

“Vol- You-know-who,” Harry replied. “He was looking for something, torturing an old man.”

“Oh, well, good thing we know that then!” Ron spat sullenly.

“Ron!” Hermione chided, but turned to face Harry. “Harry, you need to shut him out. It isn’t safe.”

“I couldn’t help it!” Harry said, his voice raised before he forcibly got a hold of his emotions. “I know, I’m… I’m sorry.”

“Let’s… go inside.”

 Harry and Ron followed Hermione into the tent where she dropped her beaded bag onto the table with a heavy thump. He leaned against one of the armchairs, resisting the urge to rub his forehead.

“Something isn’t right,” said Ron darkly.

Harry shot him a questioning look, content for now to let Ron’s mood swings slide.

“The Dementors,” Ron clarified. “Did you see how many there were? Dad said there are only about a hundred guarding Azkaban, and the Ministry keeps tight control over their numbers, but there must have been at least twice that many.”

“The Ministry is his now,” said Harry plainly.

“Yeh but only for, what? A couple of months? Dementors are an Unspeakable thing, that’s what Bill says, but it doesn’t make any sense. It’s like they’re following us somehow.”

“Or we’re seeing different groups,” Harry ventured. Ron looked physically sick at the thought.

“They went right for us, too,” added Harry, remembering the speed with which the horde set upon them. “The same thing happened to me the night after we left Grimmauld Place.”

“I’m telling you,” said Ron, “it’s not normal.”

Hermione had been uncharacteristically silent during their exchange and, looking now, Harry could see her brow was furrowed in deep thought. Finally, she looked up and parted her lips to weigh in on their discussion.

“I think we should learn to become animagi.”

Chapter Text

“I think we should learn to become animagi.”

There was silence in the tent, both Harry and Ron parsing what Hermione had said and wondering if they’d heard her right.

“Are you having a laugh?” Ron finally said.

Evidently Hermione had been expecting that they would need convincing and adopted a tone eerily similar to the one she would use when explaining their homework to them.

“I know it sounds impulsive, but hear me out-”

“Impulsive!? It sounds mental is what it sounds!” Ron interjected.

“Ron,” said Harry sharply, “just… let her speak.”

Hermione threw him a pinched smile that made Ron’s jaw twitch, but he relented, flailing his arms in an exaggerated ‘go on then’ motion.

“I know it’s not an easy thing to undertake,” Hermione continued, ignoring the scoffing sound that came from Ron, “but I think it could really help us. The Ministry has clearly lost control of the Dementors, or worse they’re now doing Vol-, you-know-who’s bidding, and fighting back only exposes us.” She turned to Harry. “How did Sirius escape Azkaban?”

Harry wracked his brain for the conversation he’d had with his godfather all those years ago. “He… slipped past them as a dog,” he replied, and in doing so, Hermione’s plan began to unfold in his own mind too.

“Exactly! We know they struggle to detect animagi - what if the next town we go to is swarming with them? What if we’re captured and taken to Azkaban? What if you-know-who has set a bunch of them to guard one of the horcruxes? If we can move about without alerting them it removes one of his key strengths. An ace up our sleeves.”

“This is ridiculous!” blurted Ron, unable to contain himself any longer. “Do you know how long it takes to become an animagus? Why do you think there’s only, like, four registered animagi in the entire country!? I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there’s a fucking war going on and we’re supposed to stop it! We haven’t got time for this!”

“It’s not actually all that difficult,” Hermione retorted, her own calm slipping as she rose to his challenge. “It’s just that by the time most wizards are advanced enough to try it, they’d rather rely on their wands.”

“What’s wrong with that? We’ll use disillusionments or get under the cloak again or something, instead of fucking about with animals!”

The pair were building up to one of their trademark common-room rows.

“Urgh! That’s exactly the kind of narrow-mindedness that plagues wizarding society and stops anyone from making any change. ‘Why bother when there’s a spell for it?’ We’ve just seen why we can’t charm our way out of every situation! Not to mention that Dementors don’t rely on sight. Until we can destroy that locket, we’re four souls – three and a half – whatever – and we’re a bigger target for them. When we find the next one it’ll be even harder! We need to do something to mask ourselves and this is the only thing we know for sure works.”

“Harry,” Ron pivoted towards his best friend, “Tell her, mate. Tell her what a load of rubbish this is, maybe she’ll listen to you.” Harry saw Hermione bite down on the retort she longed to hurl at him.

He looked at the redhead plainly. “I think she’s right.”

Ron rolled his eyes so hard it was a wonder he didn’t do himself an injury.

“You do?” Hermione asked, surprised.

“I do,” Harry replied. “We can’t keep fighting them, we can’t keep running from them, we need to be thinking in ways you-know-who wouldn’t. If my dad and Sirius managed it at fifteen between classes and holidays, so can we.”

“Unbelievable,” spat Ron. “All that’s going on out there and you want to spend time doing this?” He opened his mouth as if to say more, then thought better of it. “I’m going to bed.”

He was half way to his bunk when he paused and fumbled with his shirt, then flung the locket into an armchair where it thumped against the cushion. Harry dutifully retrieved it and slipped it over his head, then nodded towards the exit, leading Hermione through the flaps and out into the night.

They didn’t go far, stopping under one of the trees that ringed the clearing.

“Thank you, for supporting me,” said Hermione, her words fogging the air and drifting away through the forest.

Harry shrugged. “I do think it’s a good idea. Ron’s not entirely wrong though; can we afford to spend time learning to become animagi as well as finding the other horcruxes, and some means to destroy them?” He leant against the rough bark, stuffing his hands deep into his pockets to protect from the cold. “I asked Sirius about it once; I mean, where are we even going to find a mandrake leaf? And keeping it under your tongue for a month just sounds dangerous.”

“Erm, Harry, what are you talking about?” Hermione asked, puzzlement written across her brow.

“The animagus process.”

A small smile tugged at her lips. “I think Sirius might have been having you on, Harry.”

“You mean you don’t… Oh, that bastard! I wondered how they’d managed to do all that at school! I suppose you don’t have to stand in a field during a lightning storm either?”

Hermione’s musical laughter helped drain some of the tension from the day and Harry found himself chuckling reluctantly along with her.

“How do you know the process, anyway?” he asked.

“Do you remember when I said I’d summoned those books on dark magic from Dumbledore’s office? The one’s he’d removed from the library?”

“Mhmm.”

“Well, those weren’t the only books he removed. I didn’t realise until I sorted through them at the Burrow, but one of them talks about how to become an animagus. I didn’t think it would be of any use until we started running into Dementors everywhere.”

“Can’t blame him I suppose,” said Harry. “Everyone’d be trying it. Imagine what Fred and George would have gotten up to.”

“Indeed,” Hermione grimaced.

“We couldn’t register. We’d be fugitives.”

“Gee, I wonder what that would be like?” Hermione replied. “No, that would quite defeat the point. Plus, you have to register in person so they can see your form and I don’t fancy walking back into the Ministry any time soon.”

Harry regarded her in the moonlight. “You know, everyone thinks you’re a stickler for the rules, but anyone who really knows you knows that that’s a load of rubbish.”

He couldn’t quite tell in the darkness, but he thought she might be blushing. “Yes, well, only when the rules are unfair, or in life-or-death situations,” she replied.

“Funny how often those two things come up,” Harry grumbled. “So, what is the process?”

Hermione drew her wand and cast a wordless summoning charm in the direction of the tent. A few seconds later, a book came spinning through the flaps and into her outstretched hand. She sat down, her back against the tree, and Harry sat next to her, their shoulders touching.

“So, there’s a potion we need to brew,” Hermione said, flicking through the pages to a series of complicated lists and diagrams. “Some of these ingredients might be a bit tricky to find, and the preparation has to be meticulous, but after that it just needs to sit for a couple of weeks.”

Harry grimly recalled the Half-Blood Prince’s book and how useful it had been in brewing perfect potions, but the truth about its owner left nothing but a bitter taste in his mouth.

“The potion just helps guide and lock-in your animagus form though; allows you to make the transformation wandless. What we actually need to do is master human transfiguration.”

“You mean changing hair colour and limb size like we did in McGonagall’s class last year?” Harry asked.

“Essentially,” Hermione replied, “but even more advanced. Think more like Krum giving himself a shark head in fourth year.”

Harry winced. “I don’t suppose there’s any way to know what we’ll be?”

“As far as I can tell from this book, no,” Hermione sighed. “It’s sort of like a corporeal patronus in that sense, I guess.”

“Could it be the same as our patronus?” said Harry, getting no small satisfaction from the image of spearing Snape on a pair of antlers.

“I don’t think so, not necessarily. At least, there’s nothing in the literature to suggest that.”

“I’d be annoyed if we went through all this and I turned out to be a fish.”

Hermione snorted a laugh and closed the book, drawing her knees up and letting her head fall sideways to rest on his shoulder.

“I don’t think that’s likely. There’s not much to go on, but animagi forms tend to be aligned to the needs of the witch or wizard, rather than some internal reflection of who we are. Once you take the potion though, that’s it, your form is set.”

They fell into companionable silence, Harry imagining himself as different animals and how useful they’d be at avoiding Dementors and Death Eaters alike. He’d just settled on some kind of eagle when Hermione spoke up again.

“Harry, we should talk about what happened before; your vision.”

Harry leant his head back against the rough bark, not wanting to look her in the eye.

“It just… happened. You don’t know what it’s like, Hermione. I tried to resist.”

“I know,” she said, gently. “What did you see?” Her acceptance, at least for the time being, was a welcome reprieve.

“He was torturing a man; he called him ‘Gregorovitch.’”

Hermione sat up straighter next to him, his shoulder feeling oddly cold without the weight of her head upon it.

“’Gregorovitch?’ Are you sure that’s what he said?”

“Pretty sure, why?”

“Harry, Gregorovitch is a wandmaker, and a pretty famous one at that. Olivander has sort of cornered the market over here, but he’s basically the Olivander of Europe.”

“What would you-know-who want with a wandmaker?” Harry mused.

“Nothing good, I imagine,” Hermione replied.

“Anyway,” continued Harry, “he kept asking this Gregorovitch where something was and the guy said it had been stolen and then he…” The image of the broken, bleeding man caused Harry to stumble in his retelling. It was clear to see why Voldemort had inspired such fear almost twenty years ago with the single-minded brutality with which he was pursuing his current goal.

“He went into Gregorovitch’s mind and saw the thief; that he’d been right, but then he, erm, killed him. And that’s all I saw,” he finished lamely.

“That must have been awful, I’m so sorry, Harry.”

Harry just shrugged. Beginning to shiver slightly, Hermione pushed herself to her feet and tugged Harry up after her.

“You will practice your occlumency though, won’t you?” she asked, fixing him with earnest eyes.

“I will,” he nodded. There was a part of him that thought, just maybe, a window into Voldemort’s mind and actions could prove beneficial, just as it had in saving Mr Weasley from the snake, but for the sake of not passing out in the middle of a fight, he would try.

They crunched their way across the frost-hardened ground back to the warmth of the tent.

Harry woke to a sensation that felt as though it had long been confined to distant memory; the smell of sizzling bacon. He rolled out from under the covers, still clad in thick socks, jeans, and an undershirt, and quickly slipped on his boots and jacket.

In the kitchenette he was brought up short not by the bushy brown head he expected by the stove, but a tousled ginger one. Ron was stood with a frying pan in hand, three plates crammed on the tiny sideboard, dishing up the first hot food they’d had in a week.

“Ron?” Harry asked. They’d changed watch in the early hours of the morning with nothing more than nods and grunts and he was wary now of the unusually thoughtful boy.

Ron turned. “Oh, hey,” he said, a sheepish expression on his face. “I thought, seeing as we managed to get all that food last night…” He trailed off, gesturing to the plates.

Harry took a seat at the table as the third member of their trio arrived. Hermione’s hair was mussed from her pillow but her eyes were alert.

“Ron?” she asked in an almost exact mimicry of Harry just moments earlier. “You’re cooking?”

“Yes, alright, I can fry an egg you know,” Ron replied, but the venom Harry had come to expect in his voice was notably absent.

Harry and Hermione exchanged a perplexed look as she sat opposite him and in short order Ron placed plates in front of them and joined them. Two eggs, two pieces of bacon, and a slice of toast each; hardly a feast but the best they’d eaten in recent memory.

“I, erm, wanted to apologise for last night,” said Ron, looking intently down at his plate. “That thing, it’s not good for me,” his eyes flickered to the chain still around Harry’s neck, “but I let it get the better of me.”

“It’s okay, Ron,” said Harry, clearing his throat awkwardly.

“This animagus plan, though,” Ron continued, and Harry could see that his friend was addressing them seriously. “Are you sure it’s the right thing? Because we’ve already got a hell of a lot on our plate and adding another… I just…”

“It’s a perfectly reasonable concern,” said Hermione. “Don’t think I didn’t consider that before I brought it up. I was looking up the process and I’m certain that this is something we can do while looking for the remaining horcruxes. The potion is a little complex but not outside our abilities, and practicing certain magic can only be a good thing. I really think it could help us; it’s getting too dangerous to just rely on the cloak.”

Ron looked between them both; from Hermione’s wide, hopeful eyes to Harry’s steadfast resolve.

“Okay,” he finally said. “I’ll do it, for now, on the condition that if it’s taking too long, we drop it? Or if we get another clue, we don’t hang around waiting?”

“That sounds reasonable,” said Hermione, and Harry gave a quick nod.

Harry cleared the plates while Hermione retrieved the illicit book she had shown him the night before, placing it on the table and opening it with a practiced thumb to a series of lists and diagrams.

“Okay,” she began, all business, as though they were starting on a particularly challenging homework assignment. “There’s the potion, and there’s the magic. The potion takes a while to be ready, so we should start that as soon as we can and practice the magic in the meantime.”

She ran a finger down the list, her lips moving soundlessly.

“Most of these we can acquire ourselves with little difficulty; sea salt, birch bark et cetera. One of them may be a little more challenging but we’ll leave that one for last.”

She copied the ingredient list onto a scrap of parchment and returned the book to the depths of the beaded bag. Ron reached over and slid the list towards himself, his eyes tracking down it.

“What’s the catch?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re right, this list isn’t that complicated; the Polyjuice was way worse, so what’s the catch?”

“Well…” Hermione looked as though she’d been trying to avoid the topic. “The potion itself is fine, but there is a slight risk that if you attempt the transformation before you’re truly ready you might be, sort of, stuck with the results.”

“I’m sorry, stuck as an animal forever?” Ron stammered.

“That’s if you make it to an animal,” she clarified. “You could get stuck half way or with just a part…” she trailed off at the consternation on Ron’s face.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” Hermione said with forced airiness.

“Go live under it more like,” grumbled Ron, drawing a snort from Harry. It was the first time in weeks that they’d felt like friends again and the thought made the horcrux around his neck chafe anew. The sooner their task was over, the sooner they could return to normalcy, or as normal as their lives ever were.

“The ingredients, then?” Harry asked.

“Right, yes, we should pack up the tent first and then we can start looking.”

Breaking down their camp had become little more than muscle memory, so often had they been forced to new pastures by threats both real and imagined. A few stray items of clothing and toiletries were gathered up and secured in the bag, Hermione began dismantling the protective charms while the boys collapsed the tent and then went around scuffing any boot prints or apparition marks.

Within twenty minutes of breakfast, they were stood together in the clearing, bundled up against the cold under snow-laden clouds, ready to depart.

“Wait!” Hermione said, spotting something and scurrying to the edge of the clearing.

Harry and Ron watched as she threaded her way between the trees, twenty feet into the undergrowth to a young silver birch tree. It was no more than ten feet tall and already the leaves were russet and hanging limp; a casualty of the early winter.

Using her wand, Hermione scored a section of the trunk and pried off a strip of the shimmering bark. She rolled it up and placed it in the bag, trotting back to them.

“One down,” she said happily, and grasped a hand in each of hers. “Ready?”

With a nod and a crack, they were gone.

Salt air and the cry of sea birds wheeling above welcomed them, reappearing atop a cliff high above the iron-grey sea. A stand of wind-battered brambles shielded them from view as the trio reoriented themselves.

“Where are we?” Harry asked.

“The south coast, near Folkstone,” Hermione replied. “There’s a holiday camp just over there. I came here with my parents when I was seven.”

Harry saw the flicker of pain across her face. Hermione hadn’t brought up her parents since telling them about the memory charm and their subsequent move to Australia, and they had followed her lead in not brokering the topic, but occasionally the mask she wore slipped and Harry got a glimpse at the turmoil behind.

They trekked along a hiker’s path to the edge of the caravan park, then followed a switch-back trail down towards the breaking waves. Despite being further south there was little warmth to be found; the snow of the northern counties replaced with biting sea winds whose fingers wormed down collars and up sleeves.

Most peculiar, perhaps, was the horizon. Far to the south, little more than a smudge where the sea met the sky, was a streak of green land bathed in sunlight. The rays glittered off the choppy water, looking almost inviting until, ten miles out from where they stood, it turned suddenly dour. A thick bank of sullen cloud sat heavily over their heads and stretched inland as far as they could see, as though the entire country had been blanketed with its malign presence.

The cliff path ended at the beach. Not one of sand and dunes, but endless pebbles that crunched and jostled underfoot, robbing them of any momentum as they loped towards the surf.

Just shy of the water, Hermione paused to check they were alone and conjured a large, empty jar.

“Wait here,” she said, before surprising them both and wading knee-deep into the frigid breakers. She dunked the jar, filling it to the brim, then screwed the lid on tight and splashed back to dry land.

Her shoes, socks, and jeans were sodden; high-tide marks half way up her thighs, but she seemed pleased with the results.

She was shaking slightly and Harry hastily whipped out his own wand to cast warming and drying charms on her, Ron following suit, while Hermione wrestled the jar into the mouth of the beaded bag.

“We’ll boil that down for the salt,” she said, crossing another item off the ingredient list, “but we also need crushed chalk.” She glanced upwards. Standing tall behind them, where they’d just descended, loomed great white cliffs.

The lower slopes were overgrown, but further along the beach the rock face came almost down to the water and they set off noisily in that direction.

“Did you like it? Coming here?” Harry asked, locking steps with Hermione as they struggled along the uneven pebbles.

“Hmm? Oh, yes. We’d go on walks and explore little fishing villages, maybe get an ice cream, and then in the evening we’d cook on one of those little disposable barbeques and look at the stars, or read.”

“Sounds peaceful,” said Harry, watching her.

“It was,” Hermione replied. “Dad loved camping; we’d go all over. Sometimes there were other children at the sites but they never interested me much. My parents were my best friends until I met you and Ron.”

“I’m sorry,” Harry said, not speaking aloud the sacrifice she had made but meaning it all the same. She gave him a sad smile, and for a moment he worried he had upset her by bringing it up, but then he felt her hand slip into his and give it a small squeeze in gratitude.

After a few minutes noisy progress, they reached the sheer chalk face and Ron volunteered to scrabble up the scree gathered at its base to retrieve a chunk of the powdery rock. Hermione held out a vial and Ron crushed the stone in his hands, letting the fine dust fall into the tube.

With another two items checked off, Ron dusted his hands on his trousers and once again they linked arms and stepped into nothingness.

The remainder of the day was taken up trudging through knee-deep snow drifts in the far north.

Trying to find places that might harbour what they were looking for and that Hermione had been to at some point left them with precious few options, and Harry and Ron, having never travelled anywhere, couldn’t help.

They were hunting water lilies, but Hermione only knew one river well enough and remote enough to apparate to, and the whole region had been buried under a foot of snow.

They marched upstream, peering into the babbling waters and quiescent ponds, looking for signs of vegetation that hadn’t already perished in the cold snap. As the sun set, Ron eventually spotted a small mat of lily pads and Harry almost gave himself hypothermia wading in to dig out the roots by hand.

Too cold and exhausted to go on, they pitched the tent and cooked something hot to thaw their bones.

Hermione decanted the sea water into a large pot and boiled it away through the evening, filling the tent with a pungent, acidic aroma but leaving crystalised salt at the bottom that she could scrape into a dish.

“There are two more things we need,” she said the following morning. “The first is a Sycamore seed, you know the ones that look like little helicopters?”

“Little what?” Ron asked.

“They’re flying- it doesn’t matter, they’re like wings.”

“Oh those, well that shouldn’t be hard?”

“Sort of,” Hermione replied. “They’re found all over the country, but I don’t relish the thought of trapsing around until we come across one.”

“I assume you have something in mind?” asked Harry with a wry smile.

“Well, there is one place I know we’ll find one…”

The tree stood alone in the depression between two mounds, framed against the racing clouds, crumbling ruins that once marked the edge of the known world snaking behind it and off into the distance in both directions.

“I mean, it’s called Sycamore Gap for a reason,” Hermione was saying, their calves burning as they climbed up the narrow valley to the tree itself.

“I can’t believe muggles do this for fun,” Ron moaned, stopping a moment to press at the stitch in his side.

“Walking Hadrian’s Wall is actually one of the most popular routes,” Hermione replied, taking a swig or water from a bottle. “It’s why we had to wait until now. Most will have gone home by now.”

The wind had blown the frozen ground clear of snow and the branches of the tree rustled with the last stubborn leaves refusing to fall. Hermione knelt and pulled a small cauldron out of the seemingly endless contents of the bag.

“One thing I perhaps should have said; we need to catch the seed as it falls, without letting it touch anything but what we’re brewing it in.” She held up the cauldron in explanation while Ron and Harry exchanged an unimpressed look. “We’re quite lucky with the timing actually; they fall in autumn, so if we’d been a few weeks later we wouldn’t have been able to try for another year.”

“Well youngest-seeker-in-a-century, you’re up,” said Ron, elbowing Harry in the ribs.

Harry sighed and took the cauldron from Hermione, moving to stand beneath the tree and looking up into the branches.

“How many do we need?” he called back to the other two, eyes never leaving the canopy.

“Well, we’ll need three portions, so let’s get three- ooh! There’s one! Quick!” Hermione shouted.

Harry scrambled over the gnarled roots, cauldron swaying in his outstretched arms, but it had already been carried away by the breeze and fluttered into the grass. Ron snorted.

Harry shot him a look and missed his chance at the second seed.

“Come on, head in the game,” he muttered to himself. If he squinted, they did bear a resemblance to the snitch.

He almost reached the third one but it bounced off the lip of the cauldron and he ended up standing on it. The fourth, however, landed clear in the pewter with a satisfying Ting! Hermione whooped and Ron gave a hearty round of applause.

The second successful catch followed shortly after, once Harry had started to understand how the soaring seeds looped and jinked in the air. He eyed the third one, tracing an arc through the air and moved the cauldron to intercept. At the last moment, however, a phantom gust caught it, propelling it away. Harry lurched after it, caught his heel on the broken wall, and went tumbling out of sight.

“Harry!” Hermione squeaked, running up the slope behind Ron whose longer legs had gotten him there first.

She looped around the tree to find Ron stood on the wall, howling with laughter. In a tangle of limbs on the far side lay Harry. His glasses were askew and his knee was up by his ear somehow, but held aloft in a steady hand was the cauldron, and three winged seeds nestled within.

“Got it,” he said, muffled by his coat and his grin. Hermione rolled her eyes but couldn’t help the smirk tugging on her lips.

Ron helped Harry back onto his feet and Hermione stowed the cauldron away, sealing it with a spell. She consulted the parchment.

“The last one then, is Fluxweed. It’s magical, and it’s not native to here, which means we aren’t going to happen across any.” She chewed her bottom lip in thought.

“We can’t exactly walk into Diagon Alley and buy some,” said Harry.

“No, and I imagine any apothecary is going to be too busy or closely watched really,” Hermione agreed. “A private grower is our best chance. Ron, would your mum have any?”

“Maybe,” said Ron, “but there’s no way they aren’t watching the Burrow. We can’t risk that, although… nah.”

“No, what was it?” Hermione pressed.

“Well, we can’t go to the Burrow, but there is someone nearby who grows all kinds of stuff for weird potions. I went over there years ago.”

“Who?” Harry and Hermione asked in unison.

“Xenophilius Lovegood.”

Ron guided their apparition, arriving in the fields and meadows he’d spent summers racing above on worn-out brooms. They stayed clear of the Burrow itself, but even the countryside felt homely to Harry, bringing back memories of summers spent with the Weasleys; walking to the nearby village or running through orchards.

Ron was still, looking off down a hedgerow as though he could see through the hills and trees to home.

“Ron?” Hermione said softly.

He shook his head and turned, leading them in the opposite direction through rows of wilted crops.

It took them less than ten minutes to reach the crest of a low hill and, beyond, the strange, squat house of the Lovegood’s. It was a short, black tower, like a piece from some gigantic chess board. The windows were all different sizes, and spaced at random around the house such that it was impossible to tell where one floor ended and the next began.

Around the tower was a wide garden, overgrown and untended, but bursting with the most unusual plants Harry had ever seen, including in Professor Sprout’s greenhouses. Trees that spread their leaves across the ground and waved tangled roots in the air, pulsating tubers that sneezed globs of purple slime into the air at regular intervals, and even a bush whose fruit appeared to be trying to escape into the sky.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione donned the invisibility cloak and shuffled down the slope towards the house. At the edge of the fence ringing the garden they paused and Hermione checked for detection and alarming charms, but found none.

“We’re looking for this,” she whispered, opening One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi to the page on Fluxweed which showed a simple diagram of a very nondescript plant.

“So, it’s green, and it’s got leaves?” said Ron.

“Yes, but look at the shape of the leaves,” Hermione replied.

“Hermione, look at this place! It’s going to take us all night to find it! Couldn’t just be one of the floating apples could it.”

“Maybe you’re right,” she said. “We’ve always been able to count the Lovegood’s as friends but even so I don’t think it’s worth spending too long here and getting caught. Let’s split up. We’ll disillusion ourselves and each take a third of the garden.”

They cast their charms, waiting for the unpleasant sensation of being doused in syrup to end, then packed away the cloak and spread out around the patch.

Harry vaulted the fence and started to make his way through the magical thicket. Beneath the waving fronds and snagging branches there were borders and a narrow path, as though there had once been order amongst the chaos but it had long been left to nature.

His eyes scanned over orange buds and blue fruits, thorns and spines and beads of sticky sap but nothing that looked like the Fluxweed from the book. He had just turned down another barely-perceptible row when the air was rent by a trio of cracks.

Instinctively, Harry threw himself to the ground, disappearing beneath the vegetation. He shuffled forwards until he reached a gap between two umbrella-like leaves that afforded him a view of the front of the house.

Striding up the path were three men, black cloaks billowing behind them but no masks to hide their faces. One was unknown to Harry, and the second looked familiar from the café in London; the one Ron had identified as Thorfinn Rowle. There was no mistaking the platinum-blonde hair and signature sneer of the third, though. Lucius Malfoy.

Malfoy marched to the front door, his lackeys flanking him, and rapped on the door with the serpentine head of his cane. There came from within the sound of much clattering and banging, followed eventually by the scraping of a bolt and the door swung open.

“Ah, Lovegood, you’re in,” drawled Lucius, his voice carrying across the garden. “Don’t bathe on our account, please.”

His accomplices sniggered. Harry shifted on his elbow to bring the door into view. There stood Xenophilius; Luna’s father. He was wearing a stained night-shirt that fell to his knees and his white hair was haloed around his head, far more dishevelled than Harry had last seen him at the wedding.

“What do you want, Malfoy,” said Xenophilius, his voice firmer than his appearance might indicate.

“You know what,” Lucius replied. “The quality of that rag you call a newspaper has diminished of late, which is saying something I assure you.”

“Has the Ministry fallen so far as to abolish the free press?”

Lucius chose not to answer his question. “You may disgrace the very notion of pureblood, but you are being extended one and only one chance.” He leant towards the man in the doorway and Harry strained his ears to hear. “If it were up to me, you would have expended your usefulness long ago.”

“You must really be afraid of him,” Xenophilius chucked in their faces. “To send his lapdog all the way to my door and beg that I stop writing the truth about Harry Potter?”

“You insolent prick!” growled Rowle, drawing his wand. He jabbed it in the air and an upstairs window exploded, scattering glass across the garden. Xenophilius remained impassive, which only enraged Rowle further.

The Death Eater spun on his heel and took aim off to Harry’s left. With a roar, great gouts of fire spewed from Rowle’s wand, torching the undergrowth not twenty feet away from where Harry lay motionless.

He moved his arm, guiding the flames to devour more of the garden, creeping closer to Harry. The wall of fire advanced to within five feet of him, his skin feeling like it was about to blister and lips clamped shut to stifle a choking cough, when Malfoy cried “Enough!”

The fire died to glowing embers leaving behind a swath of charred earth that Harry was tucked right against the edge of.

“Wonton destruction will not convince Mr Lovegood,” said Lucius, “No. I believe you have a daughter at Hogwarts, do you not?”

For the first time, Xenophilius cracked and his face fell, to Lucius’ delight.

“The Dark Lord’s reach extends everywhere, Lovegood; even those hallowed halls.”

“Not my Luna,” whispered Xenophilius.

“Then we have reached an agreement?” smiled Lucius. He didn’t wait for a reply, instead turning and leading his entourage back towards the gate.

“Go back to your snorklumps and wrackles,” he called back over his shoulder, “and perhaps your daughter might just make it home for Christmas. There’s a good boy.”

They stepped through the gate and disapparated with a crack, leaving it swinging on its hinges.

Harry waited almost a minute, lying still in the dirt, before he felt it was safe enough to raise his head. Xenophilius had gone back inside, the house standing as quiet as when they had arrived, and there was no one else in sight.

Just then, Hermione’s busy head materialised above the thicket on the far side of the path.

“Harry? Ron?” she said in an urgent whisper.

“Here” Harry replied, dropping the disillusionment and standing half-crouched across from her. From Harry’s left, Ron came bounding across the scorched earth and they made a hasty exit back over the fence.

“Did you hear what they were saying?” Ron asked as they scrambled back over the rise, putting the Lovegood’s out of sight behind them.

“They want him to stop supporting me,” growled Harry. “They threatened Luna.” Yet another person in danger by mere association with him.

“They’d kidnap her from Hogwarts?” said Ron. His face darkened and he instinctively looked towards the distant Burrow again.

“I hope they’re alright,” said Hermione. “We can’t afford to take our time out here.”

“Good thing we’re ready, then,” Ron replied, holding in his fist, dirt still clinging to the roots, a bundle of Fluxweed.

Chapter Text

“Excellent, Harry! I knew you’d get it!” Hermione whooped.

Harry gave a satisfied snort through his pig snout before transfiguring it back into his regular nose and mouth, rubbing away the itching sensation that always accompanied the shift.

“Pfft, me? Look at yourself! I’m only just getting the hang of mammalian transfiguration and you’re already acing avian.”

The plume of brightly coloured feathers that had replaced Hermione’s hair swayed as she shook her head. With a bit of trial and error, and much pulling of faces, she could make them stand on end or lay sleek and flat, but she elected instead to return to her familiar brown tresses, quickly retrieving her beanie hat from a coat pocket and stuffing it back on her head.

The snow in their makeshift practice area had been compacted into ice that crunched beneath their boots, reflecting the clear white afternoon sky above. It was futile to blast or melt a clear patch and watch it be buried again a day later, so they’d stopped trying.

“After how Professor McGonagall’s lessons went last year I was worried it was going to take us longer, but once we’ve all got avian down we only need to master reptilian transfiguration and then we might just be ready,” she beamed.

“It’s amazing what having the fate of the world on your shoulders and ten hours a day with nothing else to do can achieve,” Harry quipped. He was feeling, dare he say it, good natured?

The immense scale of their task and the forces arraigned against them had hit him hard in the early weeks of their hunt. Coupled with their lack of success finding and then destroying any horcruxes, Harry had been left feeling numb and hollow, crushed under the weight of expectation. But things had changed.

He found himself filled with renewed purpose and vigour. Yes, they were still only one indestructible horcrux down, but they had a plan again, and they were making leaps and bounds in service of it. It felt good to be in control of their fate once more, or at least believe they were.

“Any change to them this morning?” Harry asked, clenching and flexing his toes to try and coax some feeling back into them despite his double layer of socks.

“Not yet,” Hermione replied. “I thought one of them perhaps looked a little bit darker silver, but it could have just been the light, and they need to be translucent midnight blue before they’re ready to take.”

“It’s only been a week,” she added. “Give it time.”

Harry nodded in acceptance. It wouldn’t matter if the potion were ready if they were not. He was about to suggest they continue just five more minutes; about as long as he was prepared to keep freezing his extremities off, when there came a cry of triumph from the tent.

“Ah ha!”

Harry and Hermione tramped inside to investigate, knocking what snow they could from their shoes and letting the tenuous warmth trapped by the old canvas soothe red noses and stinging ears.

On the kitchen sideboard, stood upright in an empty mug, were three glass ampoules. The liquid inside shimmered like mercury, endlessly swirling and roiling with magical eddies. It had been a tense evening of brewing that had resulted in precisely three portions, Hermione triple and quadruple checking weights, volumes, cuttings and temperatures, and now all that was left to do was wait.

That was not what had made the noise, however. The culprit was Ron, hunched at the kitchen table over the broken radio which was now hissing with static.

The radio had become somewhat of an obsession of his since the Lovegoods’, occupying his thoughts and his hands, especially when he lost his temper with their transfiguration practice, which happened frequently. Harry noted that he’d managed to rid himself of the horse ears he’d stormed inside sporting twenty minutes prior.

“It’s working! I did it!” he said, punching the air, then grasping the oversized dial on the front to tune it.

The fuzzy sound rose and fell as Ron adjusted the knob, interspersed with the occasional squawk or garbled speech.

“…ultimately down to the muggle’s effect on their own climate that we now have to suffer for…” came the voice of the Wizarding Wireless Network news anchor; a sound Harry knew from Mrs Weasley’s kitchen.

“What utter drivel!” scowled Hermione as Ron proceeded through the stations.

The sounds from the speaker devolved back into white noise before there was a short burst of a familiar voice. Ron eased the dial back again, hunting for the tiniest sliver of the airwaves that the voice had been hiding in.

“…latest known to be rounded up by the Death Eaters.”

“Is that Lee Jordan!?” asked Harry, shocked to hear Fred and George’s old schoolmate emanating from the box.

“Yeh,” said Ron, distractedly. “Fred and George said at Bill’s wedding that they were going to try and set something up with him. Something to get the truth out there since the Ministry wasn’t.” They fell silent to hear the rest of the broadcast.

“And lastly,” said Lee’s disembodied voice. “Dementor sightings are increasing every day. Do not, I repeat, do not go out at night. Keep all windows and doors locked. If you are caught outside remember to think happy thoughts and incant Expecto Patronum. Stay safe out there, and we will be back when we can.”

The radio squealed with a brief burst of feedback and then returned to dead air.

“Damn! Missed it,” Ron said, throwing himself back in a huff.

“Still, you got it working,” said Hermione. “We’ll be ready next time.”

Ron grunted. “I just want to know something. What’s going on out there? What’s happening at Hogwarts? What are the Order doing? You-know-who could have already won and we’re still out here freezing our balls off trying to find his souvenirs!”

“Would it change anything if he had?” asked Harry. “Even if he’s calling himself the Minister now we have to try and stop him, and we’re the only ones who know how.”

“Don’t remind me,” Ron growled. “Another of Dumbledore’s brilliant schemes. I bet Mad-eye could have found them years ago if they knew.”

Harry chose to avoid the bait and crossed over to the bunks. He was in no mood to debate Dumbledore’s methods, especially when he couldn’t even be sure where he fell on the matter. The man had been a mentor and, by the end, a friend to Harry since he stepped into the magical world, but it was hard not to wonder whether he had overestimated Harry’s ability to complete what had been asked.

Harry settled on the edge of one of the beds and took slow, measured breaths. True to his promise, he had done his best to remember his occlumency training. There was no practical way to test himself without a trained legilimens, but he recalled the importance of a clear mind and singular focus and tried to reach that state at least once a day.

He closed his eyes and, after the third or fourth attempt, forcibly cleared his mind of Dumbledore, of Voldemort and the horcruxes, of Ron, of Hermione.

Twice since his episode outside the supermarket he had felt Voldemort’s external emotional influence; a surge of unexplained rage or glee, but he hadn’t been forced to bear witness to the reason. Perhaps it was because the occlumency was working, or perhaps those feelings were not as strong as the first, but either reason was good enough to keep trying.

“Harry?”

Hermione’s voice brought him out of that neutral space. He didn’t know how long he’d been there, but it couldn’t have been more than fifteen minutes.

“Are you hungry?”

“Starving,” he replied, taking her proffered hand to get to his feet and following her back to the table. The radio had been pushed to one side and three steaming bowls had taken its place. They were firmly into the canned goods of their pilfered supplies, having exhausted the fresh produce days ago. Tonight’s looked like it could have been chilli.

“We’ve been making good progress,” Hermione said to the table at large. “Ron, I think you’re really almost there; tomorrow we might be able to move on to more advanced transformations.”

“Don’t patronise me, Hermione, I know I’m holding you back,” he said wearily.

Hermione’s eyes widened and she shot a helpless look at Harry.

“Ron, I wasn’t… I…” she faltered.

“Everything alright, mate?” said Harry, sharing her concern. Ron’s ups and downs were becoming steadily less predictable, no longer confined only to the days he was wearing the locket.

Ron looked up from his bowl and seemed almost surprised to see them both looking at him.

“I’m fine. Sorry, Hermione, I didn’t mean…” he trailed off, then suddenly rose from the table. “I’ll take first watch,” he said, turning and striding out the mouth of the tent without looking back, leaving the other two in uncertain silence.

Harry woke to darkness. The smiling, blonde boy from Gregorovitch’s window had been in his dreams again, always just out of reach with something he desperately wanted. It must be all Voldemort could think about.

He lay still, wrapped tight in the duvet to trap as much body heat as possible and wondered why he had awoken.

There was no storm blowing, shaking the canvas like the sails of a ship. It was cold, it was always cold, but not enough to herald the arrival of Dementors. Why then?

His answer came in the form of hushed voices; specifically, the sound of his own name.

“Let Harry sleep, I’ll take this watch,” Hermione whispered. Her voice carried through the stillness of the tent to his eavesdropping ears.

“Fine, whatever,” came Ron’s hoarse reply.

“What’s going on, Ron? What’s the matter?”

“It’s not the time,” he replied.

“Please?”

Harry struggled to keep his breathing slow and even like a sleeping person might. A part of him balked at the thought of spying on his friends; told him that he should cough or roll over to alert them, but he did neither and let them continue.

“Fine. It’s this animagus plan.”

“What about it?”

“Look, it was a good distraction for Harry. We both saw how he was; I felt the same myself, and I can’t deny that the prospect of turning into an animal hasn’t cheered him up, getting closer to his dad or Sirius or whatever, but come on? We have to be serious now. We need to drop it.”

Harry felt like the bed beneath him had vanished, his stomach pitched into his throat. Is that what it had been? A plan between the two of them to stop him moping?

“Ron!” Hermione hissed, affronted. “That’s not what this is at all! I genuinely believe this will help us, and we’re making real improvements. How could you say something like that?”

“So we’ve brewed a dodgy potion and can grow a dog tail. You call that improvement?”

“It’s a process. If you’d just stick with it, stay out with us to practice-”

“Don’t even get me started on that,” Ron scoffed. “You agreed, you both agreed that we would do this as long as it didn’t get in the way. Well now it is.”

“It’s only been a week, Ron.”

“Yeh, a week where we have found zero new horcruxes and destroyed zero of the ones we have.”

“And what exactly would we have done instead?” Hermione asked, her tone shifting as Ron stoked her ire in a way only he could. “We don’t have any other leads. When there is something for it to get in the way of, then we’ll drop it.”

They fell silent and Harry could clearly picture the staring match they were having that so often followed an impasse of their arguments. Eventually, it was broken by heavy footfalls and Harry’s bunk creaking and wobbling as Ron clambered onto the upper level.

He felt a surge of affection for Hermione. He would have understood her siding with Ron, admitting that they really didn’t know what they were doing and that he, Harry had led them on a wild goose chase, but instead she had stood by him and believed in him when he hadn’t even been around to hear it, to her knowledge at least.

Something took root in his mind that could not be ignored, and Ron was snoring long before Harry found sleep again.

When Harry relieved Hermione in the early hours of the morning she made no mention of her run-in with Ron. He watched the dawn break over the frost-coated fields in silence, no birds to sing the chorus as though they too were afraid of being found.

Ron was equally tight-lipped about the previous night when he woke; still taciturn, but willing at least to engage in breakfast conversation about their plans to move sites in the next day or two.

After breakfast, Harry rose to make his way outside, just as they had every morning for the last week, but Hermione stopped him.

“We aren’t practicing?” he asked, fearing that perhaps she’d changed her mind since last night.

“We will,” she replied, to no small relief from Harry, “but I actually wanted to talk a little more theory first, and it would be better to do that where it’s warm… ish.”

He sat back down expectantly.

“I know we’ve been doing really well with animal transfiguration, but it can get much harder very quickly and I think understanding why will help keep us motivated.” Harry caught her looking directly at Ron. “It’s my own fault really; I gave you a very basic hierarchy of difficulty so that we could get on and try something practical, but I didn’t explain it.”

Ron already looked like he was beginning to glaze over, and Harry gave him a quick kick under the table, earning him a glare.

“To understand the mechanism of animal transfiguration we need to look at how animals are classified. There are seven basic tiers-”

“Seven!?” Ron interjected.

“Seven,” Hermione replied. “Kingdom, Phylum, Class,” she counted them off on her fingers, “Order, Family, Genus, Species. There are actually several minor categories between those, but the division is largely academic. There’s also Domain above Kingdom, but nobody has yet managed a cross-domain transfiguration. Nobody has even managed a reversible cross-kingdom transfiguration, so we’ll stick with Kingdom Animalia for now.”

“Do we really need to know this?” groaned Ron.

“When you understand how and why certain spells work, you can do a lot more with them. Please, Ron, I think this could be really important. It could mean the difference between a successful or unsuccessful transformation.”

There was a pregnant pause before Ron acquiesced and bade her to continue.

“If you imagine it like a tree,” Hermione continued, “where the branches divide at each tier, it’s a little easier to visualise. You can also imagine, then, if we are at the very tip of one of those branches, the easiest move; the easiest transfiguration, is to the closest neighbour.”

Unusually for Harry, he felt like he was following her explanation so far. Something about the way she spoke about something she was passionate about was captivating him in a way it hadn’t before.

“We are Homo Sapiens,” she continued. “Genus; Homo, Species; Sapens. There are no other Homo species any more so we can skip that branch, and instead consider the Family Hominidae. These are hominids or great apes and it’s why we started practicing with chimpanzee fingers and hands. They’re our closest relatives and the easiest transfiguration to achieve.”

Harry recalled their second or third attempt; his first successful one, and his surprise at how little had changed between his ape hand and his human one. The skin was thicker and darker, coarse hair sprouting from the back. His fingers had been wider, less dextrous but with the strength to rip bark from the trees. They had shuffled around somewhat but in truth felt no different on his wrist.

“The thing is,” she said, “the further you go along the branches; the bigger the gap between what you are and what you’re trying to be, the harder it gets. We sort of skipped through the Order Primates to save time and went right up to the Class Mammalia. Rodents are a little easier because we share a sub-branch, but once you’re at Mammalia there’s little difference in difficulty between Canids, Felines, or even Whales.”

Harry was just about keeping up and he could almost hear Ron’s brain working.

“We’re not done yet,” Hermione said with an apologetic smirk. “After mammals we go up to the Phylum Chordata which includes, among others, all vertebrates such as birds, reptiles and fish. For reasons I won’t go into now-” Ron let out an involuntary sigh of relief, “Birds are easier than reptiles, which are easier than amphibians, which are easier than fish.”

How one person could fit so much into their head Harry had no idea. He should have known when they embarked on their animagus plan that Hermione would do nothing by half measures.

“How can you possibly know all this?” asked Ron, as though he had read Harry’s mind.

“I actually had a very in-depth discussion about it with Professor McGonagall when we started the topic last year,” Hermione replied. She could see she was starting to lose them. “Look, the reason I say all this is because once we take the potion we let go of the reigns and let the transformation take us where it wants.”

She placed her hands on the table and looked between them to impress her next point. “I don’t know what will happen if it tries to take us somewhere we aren’t able to take ourselves…”

“You mean, there’s no way to stop it once you start?” asked Harry.

“I don’t know. That’s the point; that’s why I want us to be prepared for anything,” said Hermione. “Maybe we’ll be limited to what we can already master, but I’ve read nothing that confirms it either way.”

“I bet it does though,” said Ron. “That’s probably why Pettigrew is a rat, right? You said they were easier? No way he could have kept up with Sirius or Harry’s dad.”

“Maybe?” Hermione shrugged, “but it’s not a risk I want us to take. Please just keep it in mind as we start trying the harder transformations.”

Lecture over, Hermione led their troop outside. Fine snowflakes drifted down from a leaden sky, perching in their hair and swirling in their wake, reluctant to join the thin dusting of their brethren that had settled upon the ground overnight. On the horizon a darker bank of cloud threatened more to come.

They formed a loose triangle in the snow, far enough apart that they wouldn’t interfere with one another or risk colliding if they fell on unfamiliar limbs.

“I thought we should try some whole-limb transfiguration,” Hermione said. “Really start pushing the limits of what we can already do before moving on to new classes or phyla.”

Changing one’s body could play havoc with the senses if one wasn’t careful, specifically balance as limbs grew, shrank, moved, or joined. It was a lesson they’d all learned the hard way to varying degrees.

Harry spread his feet a little wider than his shoulders, and bent his knees to keep his weight low down and planted in the snow. He pictured the form in his mind, then flourished his wand downwards and uttered the spell.

“Corpus Immutatio!”

Inside his boots, a change began to take place.

First his toes fused together, five bones becoming one as thick as a human arm. The very tip splayed out and his whole foot began to lengthen. Within seconds his heels extended out the top of his boots, his feet pushed vertical by their new physiology.

As his foot lengthened, his legs contracted, knees moving closer to his hips, though not enough to prevent him growing several inches. With a final prickling sensation, short dark hair bristled from his skin, covering every part of his transfigured flesh.

Wobbling on unsteady hooves, Harry lifted the hem of his trousers to inspect his equine legs.

“Brilliant!” Hermione chirped. “They’re even the same length.”

He made to take a step but quickly decided against it. Harry’s ankle was now roughly where his knee had been, and his actual knee gave him what appeared to be an extra joint. His brain couldn’t make sense of which joints to flex and extend in the right order to walk, so he settled for standing with an awkward grin.

Harry shot what he meant to be a self-deprecating look at Ron, but got something indecipherable in return that left him feeling foolish.

The redhead brandished his own wand at his left arm which began to lengthen and swell. Long claws sprouted from Ron’s fingers and a patchwork of shaggy brown, black, and white fur burst from the rips in his over-stretched sleeve.

Ron stumbled sideways under the weight of his bear-like arm which now reached down to his knee, and Hermione crunched over to him to examine it.

Rather than follow their conversation, Harry found himself watching the interaction. He couldn’t shake the feeling he’d gotten the previous night when he’d listened to her sticking up for him, not for his benefit, but of her own volition. It had sat in his stomach all night and demanded to be acknowledged.

He watched her face, the way her brows creased with concentration as she explained something to Ron. Her eyes, always so expressive, were earnest and filled with her passion for learning. They were very pretty eyes.

Where had that come from?

Harry surprised himself. It was true; of course it was true, he’d spent years looking at them and couldn’t think of any he’d rather look into, but why had that jumped into his mind?

She was his friend. His best friend, really, come to think of it. He may have hit it off with Ron first, but their friendship had had its ups and downs; they were certainly experiencing a down at the moment, whereas Hermione had been a constant in his life.

But then, why had it bothered him so when Krum had taken her to the Yule Ball? He knew why it bothered Ron; it was clear his friend had fancied her and had done a poor job of controlling his jealousy, but Harry had felt… He wanted to say protective of his friend, but…

It had been hard, too, to see her upset last year when Ron and Lavender had become an item; his protective streak again, but that had felt oddly familiar to the weight in his gut that now refused to be ignored.

Harry had almost punched a jealous Seamus who was espousing the multiple benefits of Lavender Brown, describing Hermione as plain by comparison. The boy must have been blind not to see the warmth of her smile, the fall of her curls, the curve of her- well, he was probably intimidated by the sharp mind behind it all.

People too often discounted Hermione’s intelligence as book-smarts and looked no further. They saw what they wanted to see, but Harry had the distinct pleasure of knowing all that her mind entailed. She could be wickedly funny, dishing out her wit sparingly but with lightning speed and precision when the moment arose. She was empathetic, and astute, and had grown far beyond the know-it-all title that had been unfairly bestowed upon her in their first year.

While his mind whirred, Harry’s eyes had never left her face and for the briefest moment, still deep in discussion with Ron, hers flicked up to meet them.

In that instant, the realisation slapped him in the forehead like a rogue bludger. Hermione Granger was far more than a friend to him. He wanted her to be far more than a friend.

“Fuck.” Harry cursed under his breath.

How had it taken him this long to realise?

Why had he only realised it now!? There couldn’t be a worse time to awaken to your deep-rooted desire for your best friend – while surviving as fugitives from the world’s foremost magical maniac, and just in time to witness her finally kindle something more with your other friend.

“Fuck.”

It was fine, he would just repress it. It had been repressed for, what, three or four years? Harry would just stuff it back into the bottle and never open it again.

But even he knew that such a resolution was useless as she finished directing Ron and his stomach gave a little twitch when he thought she might come over to him next.

He was so stupid. That didn’t happen before and now he’d made being around her ten times harder.

“Try to really focus on just one bear this time,” she said, giving Ron the space to try again.

No, it would have to be bottled no matter how difficult, for the good of their mission and the good of their friendship. It would be okay. It had to be.

They passed the morning making increasingly drastic and complex changes to their bodies, Harry suddenly finding himself hyper-aware of where he was looking. Did he always look at Hermione this much? They were going to think something was up, he should make a point not to, but then, perhaps that would be more obvious?

He had tentatively moved on to more bird-like features while Ron became increasingly frustrated with minor issues in his own transfigurations. Unlike at Hogwarts, there was no ‘close enough’ when it came to their task. Exceeds Expectations would mean very little if he were forever trapped in the body of a newt.

Eventually, Ron’s aggravation got the better of him and he threw in the towel, retreating back to the tent and grumbling to himself.

Hermione watched him go with a look of pity and disappointment on her face. She walked the few paces to the edge of the treeline and sat down on a fallen log, brushing the powdery snow off with a gloved hand.

Harry followed, taking a space next to her. There was something he needed to know, but in asking he risked drawing her suspicion and potentially outing himself. He’d just decided that it was best left unsaid when it came tumbling out of his mouth anyway.

“Is everything okay between you two?”

It was done now. All he could do was brace himself for her answer.

“He’s just frustrated with the slow progress, I think,” Hermione said, looking towards the tent with unfocussed eyes. Harry cringed internally at the prospect of having to clarify what he really meant.

“I mean…” his mouth was dry. “You looked like you might be getting quite close; at Bill’s wedding and at Grimmauld place. How is that…” He trailed off, unsure if he really wanted to know at all any more.

“Oh, that, erm-” Hermione gave a little shake to clear her head, then puffed a dry, almost sad chuckle from her nostrils. “No, I don’t think that’s anything.”

Harry would be lying if he didn’t admit that a small, shameful part of him felt glad at the news, but she was still his friend first and foremost and deserved a sympathetic ear.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Harry said. He meant it.

“Don’t be,” she replied, “It’s not- It just wasn’t meant to be.” She sighed and leant forwards, bracing her arms against the wood, fingers tucked under her legs for warmth. “I think I was more attracted to the idea of it than the reality, and I’m fairly certain he feels the same way.”

“What do you mean?” Harry asked, crunching himself up a little tighter too. No longer moving and training, he was beginning to feel the frigid bite of the winter air.

“I sort of assumed it might happen at some point. The best partners start out as friends first, that’s what my parents always told me and it makes sense, I think. I know we butt heads a lot but I thought maybe it would be different; that we would leave that behind us and grow together. For a while it looked like it might even be true.”

She rested her head heavily on his shoulder. It was becoming a regular occurrence and with Harry’s new perspective he realised he cherished the weight of her against him. He cleared his throat and tried not to move.

“Being out here, facing what we are,” Hermione continued, “It forces you to think about what’s really important to you; what is worth fighting for, what you want waiting at the end or wh- what you’re willing to give your life in search of. It’s not fair for me to expect Ron to change, and it’s not fair for him to expect that of me either. He’s a great guy, but he’s not my great guy.”

Harry dropped his own head to rest atop hers. He’d been doing no small amount of soul-searching himself. Indeed, there was little else to do when their days may be numbered and the remaining horcruxes stubbornly eluded them. He wondered whether, had they not set out into the wilderness, would Ron and Hermione have ended up together?

“What happened between you and Ginny?” Hermione asked.

Her question caught him off-guard, but he supposed that turnabout was fair play and she had opened up to him.

“It was for the best,” he said plainly. “We ended things right before the wedding. I think I said?”

“Mhmm,”

“She didn’t do anything wrong. I was happy when we got together, but those few months we had around Hogwarts, before Dumbledore died… I felt like I was living somebody else’s life. It was an escape from everything that was going on. I care for Ginny a lot, I really hope she’s okay, but she didn’t deserve to be treated that way.”

Harry allowed himself to feel the guilt of leading her on, even though it hadn’t been intentional.

“She will find someone who loves her for who she is, not because their own life is such a mess.”

Hermione pressed tighter against him, a substitute for a hug when one was too cold to open their arms wide.

“Well, for what it’s worth,” she said, “I think you’ll be a tough act to follow,” and for those brief words of consolation, Harry felt a spark of hope ignite inside him.

Chapter Text

Harry followed the slope of the valley down, his legs sinking knee-deep into the untouched snow. Little hollows had formed on the leeward side of the trees where he could stop to catch his breath, knock the accumulated ice from his boots, and adjust the biting chain of the locket around his neck.

Overhead, a thin breeze caused the icicle-laden branches to tinkle and chime; the only sound in the otherwise silent woods.

He pushed on another fifty feet until he reached his destination; a small stream that had carved the very valley he stood in over it’s million years of life. It gambolled down the slope, weaving between roots and splashing over rocks. Or at least, it would if it weren’t for the thick sheet of ice that covered it.

Bending close, Harry could see the water flowing under the clear barrier, visible only by the tiny bubbles that bounced along, trapped in the flow. They made not a sound.

Dropping to one knee by the bank, Harry reached into the small rucksack slung over his shoulder and pulled out three mismatched canteens. A quick severing charm gouged a hole in the ice, water welling up out of the opening, and he submerged the first canteen to its neck.

When it stopped bubbling, he secured the lid and repeated the process with the second. The sharp pain of the glacially-cold water had quickly faded to a throbbing numbness.

Just as he sealed the third and final canteen, a prickling sensation crept down his spine, like he was being watched. Harry’s head snapped up, deftly stowing the water and hefting the pack in a single fluid motion. His wand was aloft and he stayed crouched, ready to spring to his feet or dive away from incoming spellfire.

In the end, it was neither.

There was only a glimpse at first, a shadow flitting between distant trees on the opposite bank. Then, as it drew closer, it’s form was revealed.

A lone Dementor drifted through the woods towards Harry. The torn hem of its cloak brushed through the snow, creating curious sweeping tracks, and its dead hands dug into the bark of passing trees as it dragged itself forward.

It looked sickly, if such a being could ever be considered so, floating only a few inches above the ground, the blood-curdling sucking of its breath only a whisper by comparison.

Harry scanned the treeline, the sky, up and down the valley searching for others, but there were none to be seen. He levelled his wand at the approaching form, watching it.

There was no mistaking that it had sensed him; it made as direct a path to Harry as it could through the forest. It was possible, he supposed, that some Death Eater retainer was hidden close by and that this lone Dementor was bait, but such trickery was hardly necessary when only a handful of Dementors could overwhelm all but the most prepared wizards.

It cleared the treeline and sank down the opposite bank. If it were making his surroundings any colder, Harry couldn’t feel it.

He extended his wand and cast.

“Expecto Patronum.”

His silver stag erupted from the tip of his wand and caught the spectre square in the chest with its antlers. The Dementor was carried backwards twenty, thirty, forty feet before the patronus dissipated, dumping it on the ground.

Harry stood and peered at it. He’d never seen a Dementor defeated before; they always fled before a patronus, but this one was laying on its back in the snow. The glistening hole in the robes around its mouth was flapping, as though it were gasping for air.

He didn’t wait for it to get back up, turning and trudging back up the slope until the trees had hidden it from view.

At the crest of the slope, breathing hard from the uphill battle through the drifts, Harry passed through the wards around their campsite. The ground had already been cleared of their multiple, overlapping footprints and they would shortly be on their way.

“I got the water,” Harry called in the direction of the tent.

Hermione’s head poked out of the flap and she urgently beckoned him over.

“Harry! Quick, there’s Hogwarts news on the radio!”

Harry dashed inside behind her, the two of them joining Ron crowded around the radio on the kitchen table.

“-put themselves at great danger to get this recording to us,” Lee was saying. “We have disguised their voice for their safety. What you are about to hear may be disturbing.”

There was a brief fizzle and pop, then a warped, distorted voice came from the speaker. Harry thought it could be female, but it was hard to tell.

“Is this working? *tap tap* I don’t have long but someone has to get the word out. Hogwarts isn’t safe anymore. Headmaster Snape has all but abandoned us to the Carrows. They read our letters, they patrol the common rooms, they use-” the voice cut off, replaced by the sound of hushed breathing and distant footsteps. Mercifully, the footsteps receded and the informant carried on.

“They use unforgivables as punishment. They teach the Crutiatus in the Dark Arts classes, used on misbehaving students, and use the Imperius to humiliate those they dislike. The teachers are powerless to stop them. Stay away. Do not- Oh shit!-”

The recording ended there. Lee’s voice filled the silence that followed.

“We hope that they’re okay, and thank them for getting this message out. Hogwarts is not the safe haven it once was under Albus Dumbledore, despite the Ministry reports to the contrary. Do not believe what you read in the Prophet… I’m hearing we’ve attracted some attention and need to leave. Stay safe, everyone, and stay tuned.”

“Fuck!” Ron yelled, kicking the table leg and causing the whole thing to jump several inches.

“Ron!” said Hermione, more shocked than angry.

“Didn’t you year that?” he said, gesturing to the silent radio. “They’re torturing people at Hogwarts, Hermione! Kids!”

“I know, but we need to-”

“You don’t know!” he shouted over her. “You don’t have a sister there right now. That could have been her voice! Your parents don’t have to walk into you-know-who’s fucking headquarters every day for work!”

Tears brimmed in Hermione’s eyes and her voice faltered.

“We all care about them, Ron” Harry said.

“You’ve got a funny way of showing it,” he scoffed. “Ginny wanted to come with us but now she’s stuck there.”

“You know why she couldn’t join us,” Harry replied, his own voice rising now.

“They need us out there and we’re wasting time!”

“Oh, I know all about-” Harry started, something spurring him to reveal the conversation he’d overheard between Ron and Hermione, but she interrupted them both.

“Please! Please don’t fight now,” she begged. “We’ll sit down and discuss our priorities, I promise, Ron, but we’re losing the light and we need to go.”

“Why wait?” he asked. “Let’s do it now.”

Harry shook his head. “There’s Dementors nearby. I saw one while I was getting the water.”

Ron looked at him, gauging whether he was telling the truth or just trying to delay the conversation, but he eventually huffed to his feet and dug into his coat pocket for his gloves.

The three of them marched outside in silence. Once they were clear, Hermione waved her wand and the tent folded in on itself, wrapping itself up in its own ropes, and leapt into the outstretched bag.

They awkwardly gathered where the tent had stood, clearing any last remaining footprints from the snow. Without making eye contact, they linked hands and twisted together to disapparate.

The first thing to make it through to Harry’s apparition-battered senses was a deafening roar. It didn’t come from in front or behind, but from all around them, tearing at their clothes. The savage wind would have already taken him off his feet if he wasn’t buried to his knees in snow.

Harry opened his eyes the tiniest fraction, his glasses shielding them from the worst of the ice shards that pelted against their skin. The air was white with swirling snow, all racing past sideways as though it were them that were hurtling through the air. It gave him vertigo and he let go of Ron and Hermione to windmill his arms and keep his balance.

They could see nothing beyond a ten-foot circle around them; wherever they’d landed hidden by the blizzard.

He saw Hermione’s mouth moving, but her words were lost in the din. She reached out her hands towards them again, making to disapparate to a safer location, when Harry felt rather than heard the snow shift.

Hermione’s eyes went wide as her and Ron suddenly dropped three inches, then the vast snow bank calved, a shelf appearing between Harry and the others, and it slipped down away from him.

“No!” Harry yelled, throwing himself towards them, the snow clinging to his legs and robbing him of any distance.

He grasped a hand by the fingers, clinging with all his might, lying flat against the packed snow. He struggled to lift his head, fighting against the weight pulling on his one arm, and his eyes met a pair of pale blue ones full of fear.

Hermione was nowhere to be seen. Ron was swinging desperately by one hand, his legs dangling in free space.

Harry’s shoulder screamed in agony; he wasn’t going to be able to hold on. He lurched forward with his other arm to try and close around Ron’s wrist and haul him up, but couldn’t reach.

Slowly, Ron’s glove began to slip up his hand. Harry clenched with all his might but it was to no avail. The glove ripped free and Ron vanished into the churning whiteout, his glove still crushed in Harry’s fist.

Harry stared into the void, trying to catch a glimpse, any sign of his friends. The locket chain felt suffocatingly tight around his neck and a piercing cold was spreading outward from his gut to meet the one creeping in from his limbs.

There must be a way around, to the bottom. He had to get down there and find them.

He shuffled back from the edge, staying on his stomach until he was ten feet away, then getting to his feet. Still the wind howled around him, the stirred-up snow creating phantom shadows at the edge of his vision.

He kept the sheer drop to his left, hoping to find a way around as he forced each leg forward, one arm raised to shield his eyes.

The empty pit inside him was growing, consuming more and more of his will, feeding him unwanted images of twisted bodies dashed on rocks. Something flitted in the corner of his eye.

Harry whirled towards the movement, but saw nothing but racing snowflakes.

Another five agonising steps and it happened again, on his other side. Harry raised his wand high, squinting into the wind. There was no mistaking the being that slowly resolved from the white nothingness.

Its tattered cloak was flapping wildly in the gale, but it’s awful eyeless gaze was fixed on him as it fought to reach him. A second darted overhead, wheeling down towards Harry, buffeted this way and that.

“Expecto Patronum!” Harry shouted, unable to even hear his own voice. His wand sparked and faltered, the images of his broken friends refusing to be banished.

Harry cursed and dug into his occlumency training, forcing his mind clear with white noise before grasping the first positive memory he could find; dancing with Hermione at Bill and Fleur’s wedding.

“Expecto Patronum!” he roared again.

A blinding silver stag leapt from his wand, the glaring light illuminating the snow that filled the air and covered the ground. The blizzard had no effect on it, snowflakes tearing through it as it charged at the approaching Dementors.

The pit in Harry’s stomach that he’d attributed to panic and grief immediately shrank and he chastised himself for not recognising it sooner.

His patronus cantered back to him, trotting ahead at the limit of his vision like a spectral guide as he trudged onwards. Occasionally it would turn and gallop deeper into the storm, visible only as a blueish glow, keeping the hunting Dementors at bay.

The ground sloped downhill and Harry silently prayed he was going the right way, turning to angle back towards where he thought the base of the drop might be.

Either the constantly moving foreground was beginning to play tricks on his eyes or there was another hazy glow somewhere up ahead. It bobbed and weaved, growing steadily brighter, until a bright silver otter came gambolling into view.

Harry almost sobbed with relief as the otter wound around the legs of the stag and close behind it, bent into the relentless wind, limped Hermione.

They fell into each other’s arms, Harry clinging tight to her coat as he crushed her against him.

“Are you okay?” he asked, lips pressed to her ear and still having to yell to be heard.

“I think I twisted something but I’m okay, the snow broke my fall,” she shouted back.

“Where’s Ron?”

“I thought he was with you?” she said, looking stricken.

Harry shook his head. “He fell after you. Maybe he’s back where you were?”

He started in the direction she had come from but she snagged his sleeve, craning to talk to him again.

“Harry, I lost the bag.”

“The what?” It was difficult to make anything out over the constant roar.

“The bag, Harry! I dropped it when I fell and summoning it didn’t work.”

“Okay,” he said, trying not to let the hopelessness of their situation overwhelm him. “Let’s find Ron first and then look for the bag. We can’t leave without him but we can come back for the bag.”

They grasped hands, both unwilling to risk being separated again, and followed the channel Hermione had ploughed through the snow.

The blinding white of their arrival had steadily become darker grey as the sun set somewhere beyond the clouds they were caught in. Harrys arms were trembling with the piercing cold and Hermione’s lips had turned blue, her pace slowing and her hand twitching in his each time she stepped on her injured leg.

The two patronuses circled the pair, their light now the only source by which to navigate, bolstered by the fleeting joy of their reunion.

They made it back to where Hermione had fallen by following her tracks. In the sphere of light that surrounded them Harry could see a sheer cliff face climbing upwards. It looked to be no more than forty feet but the blizzard had made it appear bottomless. Snow must have built up on the overhang that Ron and Hermione had landed on, though their fall was thankfully broken by yet more of the stuff piled up against the base.

Over from where Hermione had dug herself out, on the opposite side to where her tracks led, was another impact crater in the powder.

They scrambled over to it as quickly as they could, only to find it empty.

The snow had been dug and churned by Ron heaving himself out, and a similar set of furrowed tracks led away from them into the darkness.

Harry and Hermione battled onwards, now following the new set of tracks. It was pointless to call Ron’s name; the wind was still so fierce that they had to shout to one another not three feet away. Harry’s limbs were leaden, soaked with melted snow and burning in protest at their continued march.

“Harry! What’s that over there!?”

He stared into the darkness in the direction Hermione was pointing.

“What? I don’t-”

“There!”

He saw it; the faintest shimmer of blue light that vanished as quickly as it appeared.

He hesitated. Ron’s tracks led on ahead of them, but the light had appeared off to their right.

“You think it’s his patronus?” he asked.

Hermione nodded. “It’s what yours looked like to me. It’s how I found you.”

“Okay,” Harry replied, and they stepped off into the deeper snow.

The light had only been fleeting, and impossible to tell the distance, but it couldn’t have been far. They crossed over another furrow in the snow caused by someone dragging their legs through it, though this one was already partially buried. Were they Rons, claimed by the blizzard, or had they gotten turned around in the dark?

“There! Again!” Hermione said.

This time it was at their ten o’clock, fainter than before, as though it were further away.

“Ron!” Harry yelled fruitlessly, pumping his legs to try and make up lost ground but getting precious little for his efforts.

They struggled on for what felt like hours to Harry’s exhausted mind, adjusting course each time the blue glow was spotted again, until eventually it was spotted no more.

Legs threatening to seize beneath him, Harry ground to a halt, weary beyond measure.

“I’m sorry, we need to stop,” he mumbled. Hermione looked no better, her eyes drooping half-closed and leaning heavily on her good side. She nodded meekly.

They’d halted by a hollow ringed with trees. The wind was blowing powdery snow off the lip and piling it up in the bowl, leaving a five-foot strip at the very base clear of ice.

The ground there was dry and thick with dead pine needles, and by tucking in tight against the rocky wall they could escape the clawing fingers of the wind. The constant noise had given Harry a pounding headache.

He knew that sleeping on the floor was dangerous, stupid even, but neither of them were in any condition to safely apparate away, and there was a small, irrational part of him that thought if they all just stayed where they were they could find each other. He just needed to rest a while.

Harry leant back against the cold stone, knees bent and feed braced against the snowbank. Hermione had curled up next to him and they pressed tightly together to retain warmth. He looped a free hand around her back, pulling her close.

They would keep searching again soon, just as soon as they’d gotten their breath back.

Harry jerked awake and grunted with pain as he pulled something in his neck. He felt like he was entombed in ice, his limbs rock-solid and barely his own.

The blizzard had passed and a weak pink smudge stained the sky between the trees that he could now see surrounding their hollow. It was perfectly silent.

“Mione,” he mumbled, his lips numb and unresponsive. “Hermione,” he tried again.

The bundle tucked against him made a noise.

Hermione lifted her head. Loose strands of hair poked out from under her woolly hat and she looked like she hadn’t slept a wink, but she was alive, and whole.

She struggled upright and looked around the frozen forest.

“Ron,” she said, the word enough to spur Harry to his feet. He groaned involuntarily as he flexed his stiff limbs, hobbling out into the open on wooden legs.

“Ron!” Harry called, hoarse voice booming in the still air. There was no response.

“We were heading this way,” said Hermione, pointing. “The hollow was on our left when we stopped.”

They crunched through the pristine snow, any tracks long since buried by the storm, calling his name every few minutes and stopping to listen.

Every direction looked the same as far as the eye could see. Only their own footprints gave any indication of which way they had come. If they’d started off facing just a slightly different direction they would have ended up in a completely different area, and there was no way of telling where Ron could be. If he was even still there at all. He could have apparated away to their previous camp to escape the storm, intending to come back in the morning. What if he was right now standing where they had first arrived, waiting for them?

“Ron!” Hermione called to the empty wilderness.

“Hermione, do you think maybe he could have-”

There was a sound. Harry and Hermione froze, straining their ears.

There it was again, not a voice, but the shifting of snow. It was a very small sound. It was close.

They hurried in the general direction, or at least as fast as they could buried as they were.

“Harry! Harry, he’s here!” Hermione shouted, rounding a fallen tree not a stone’s throw from where they had been stood.

Harry waded over as quickly as he could. Curled up in the bowl of the fallen roots was Ron. He was covered in a light dusting of snow, clenched into a tight ball.

“Ron, are you okay?” Hermione pleaded, kneeling in the snow to try and get a look at his face. He was moving very slowly, trying to sit himself upright. He kept one arm tucked close to his body while levering himself up with the other.

“Hermione? Harry?” he croaked.

“Are you okay?” Hermione repeated.

“Got lost,” he mumbled.

They helped him to his feet, an arm under each elbow to haul him up. Hermione gasped.

“Your hand!” She gently guided his wrist away from his body to take a closer look.

His left hand was bare, the glove still in Harry’s coat pocket after slipping off it. His thumb, index, and middle finger were purple and swollen, but his ring and little finger had turned almost black. They were unmoving, locked in a loose fist as though he were clutching an invisible ball.

“Can’t feel them,” he mused, still not entirely with it.

“It’s frostbite, Ron. We need to get you warmed up in-” she stopped as she remembered that the tent was packed away in the beaded bag, still missing.

“You’re sure it won’t summon?” asked Harry, feeling as helpless as Hermione looked.

“It should but it didn’t. Accio, bag!” They waited. Nothing happened.

“There’s no way to track it?” Harry said, moving to take Ron’s weight over his shoulder.

“No,” she replied, pacing. “I’d have to have put a charm on it, or something inside- Oh!” She raised her wand again in the direction they had come from. “Accio, Spellman’s Syllabary!”

For a moment there was silence, and then a low whistling that grew louder until a large book came spiralling through the air towards them, to the right of where Hermione had been aiming. She caught it deftly in an outstretched hand.

“This way!” she said, tramping off along the book’s flight path. “Accio, Advanced Potion-Making!” Another book came hurtling towards them and she adjusted course.

They travelled this way until the pink dawn sky had bloomed into a pale, icy blue, Hermione carrying an ever-growing pile of spellbooks like she was planning a particularly productive library session. After a slow start, Ron had regained his faculties and was maintaining a grim silence, holding his injured hand gingerly by the wrist having shrugged off Harry’s assistance.

Eventually, the latest summoned tome burst out of the snow ahead of them and the reason for their issues became apparent.

An ice-laden bough had snapped off in the high winds, pinning the bag where it had slipped from Hermione’s shoulder. One of the branches had speared into the ground right through the loop of the strap.

She quickly severed the offending limb and returned the books, swapping them for the tent. They briefly considered apparating away again with Dementors in the area, but Ron’s injured hand took priority and, though none of them voiced it, there was shared trepidation about another leap into the unknown.

Inside the canvas shelter Ron was guided to a seat at the table and Hermione warmed a bowl of water to thaw his hand.

“If we warm it up quickly enough we can limit the damage,” she was saying, rooting in the bag once more, “but it can be painful, I’m sorry. I had some muggle painkillers in here which we can- oh no.”

Harry looked around at the defeat carried in those two quiet words. Out of the bag, Hermione slowly pulled three vials of silvery liquid, no longer churning and glittering, but frozen solid.

The three of them stared at the inert potion. Ron was the first to break the silence.

“Well, that’s fucked then.”

The words clanged around Harry’s skull. Could they be true? Was it ruined? Had everything they’d worked towards for the last weeks been a pointless distraction from defeating Voldemort and ending the war? They had known it would put them behind, but at the promise of a better chance of surviving to see it through. Had Ron been right all along?

“Hermione?” he said.

“Erm, I don’t know,” she breathed.

“You don’t know!?” said Ron, incredulous. “Haven’t you just spent the last two weeks telling us how risky this is? How everything has to be exactly perfect or we’ll turn ourselves inside out? How it is not fucked!?”

“There’s nothing in the book that explicitly says it can’t be frozen,” she said uncertainly.

“You’d take that, would you, Harry?” said Ron.

“Well…” he hesitated. “We don’t know yet. Let’s see what happens to it when it melts?”

Harry had been expecting Ron to erupt with more shouting and swearing, but an odd calm came over his face and an expression that was somewhere between mirth and disgust.

“You’ve lost it, both of you. Being out here, it’s messed you up, and I can’t be part of it.” He stood, removing his raw, dripping wet hand from the bowl.

“Wait, Ron!” cried Hermione, “Where are you going!?”

“Away,” Ron replied, brushing past her and out of the tent.

Hermione shot a frantic look at Harry and they both hurried after him. He was already ten feet away, wading through the snow.

“Ron, you can’t! It isn’t safe!” Hermione called.

“Not safe!” Ron bellowed, wheeling to face them, utterly livid. “Not safe out there!? What on Earth makes you think it’s safe here!?” He held up his ruined hand. “I tried to believe in you, I really did, that either of you knew what the fuck you were doing, that this stupid plan would have some meaning, but I can see now that you’re both delusional. You’re going to kill yourselves chasing this ridiculous distraction instead of actually defeating you-know-who and I can’t sit here waiting for the rest of the country to go to shit.”

He pressed on, faster now, kicking powdery spray around him.

“Ron, please!” Hermione sobbed. Blood was rushing in Harry’s ears, making rational thought slip through his fingers as he watched his first real friend turn his back on them. The locket fluttered against his chest.

Ron stopped and raised his wand in his good hand, shifting his weight onto his heels to twist and disapparate.

Hermione’s eyes were as wide as saucers, her face stricken as she snapped back to Harry, then raised her wand at Ron and uttered a single word.

“Obliviate!”

Ron spun on the spot. The jet of blue light gleamed across the snow, darting for his twisting form.

Boy and bolt disappeared into nothing.

Chapter Text

The bang of Ron’s departure echoed through the trees, shaking piled snow from branches.

“Hermione… What did you do!?” said Harry, aghast.

She turned to him, eyes glistening with tears.

“I had to,” she choked.

“We don’t know where he’s gone, and now he can’t get back!” He gestured wildly to the spot where their friend had disappeared, only his footprints remaining.

“Harry,” Hermione pleaded, her tears falling now. “If he was caught, if they interrogated him, you-know-who would never let the remaining horcruxes be found. He’d be unstoppable.”

“Ron would never-”

“He wouldn’t have a choice. Veritaserum, legilimency, torture? They’d find out.”

It didn’t matter that she was right, she’d robbed Ron of any chance to return, to help them.

“What exactly did you make him forget?” he asked, voice trembling.

Hermione sniffed. “I tried to get anything ever said about horcruxes, anything about our animagus plan, and everything we’ve done since the wedding.”

“You tried?”

“It’s hard, Harry!” she cried, her emotions spilling out of her, tear tracks beginning to freeze on her cheeks. “I had weeks to get it right with my parents! Weeks of figuring out exactly how all their memories of me fit together; how to cover each birthday, each Christmas, each family holiday. I didn’t have a choice.” Her voice broke. “Please, Harry. I had to! If anyone finds out what we’re doing then it’s all over. We will never be safe. No muggleborn will ever be safe!”

Harry was lost for words. He’d never felt so at odds with her. The closest they’d come before was when she’d gone behind his back to McGonagall about the Firebolt, or when neither her nor Ron believed him about Draco the previous year. Those disagreements felt trivial compared to what stood between them now.

“I know what’s at stake, Hermione! But he’s Merlin-knows-where without any idea why. We may as well have just handed him to Voldemort!”

“Harry!” Hermione gasped, but it was too late, he’d said it.

Two simultaneous cracks rang out, followed immediately by two voices yelling “Stupefy!”

Hermione’s wand had already been in her hand, and Harry had drawn his and cast almost as soon as he’d realised his mistake. Two muffled thumps told them they’d hit their targets.

Harry and Hermione’s nerves were fried, kept on a hair trigger for the last twelve hours and it was a pair of unfortunate snatchers who’d paid the price. Harry stumped over to the prone forms.

Neither of them looked particularly old, in fact one looked as though he could only be a couple of years out of Hogwarts. They were shabbily dressed, with a patchwork of layers to keep out the worst of the weather.

Checking they were both unconscious, he thumbed through their outer pockets for, well, he wasn’t sure what, but he felt he’d know something useful if he found it. He was right.

In the breast pocket of the snatcher’s jacket was a battered piece of card, creased and dog-eared at the corners. Flipping it over, it appeared to be some sort of official document. There was a blurry black-and-white picture of the man at Harry’s feet and the words ‘Muggleborn Registration Commission: Licenced Detainer’ emblazoned across the top. Below that was a stamp bearing the wand and M of the Ministry of Magic, a hand-written date, and the looping, curling, overly-fussy signature that Harry recognised from countless educational decrees; that of Dolores Umbridge.

Harry pocketed it and continued looking.

In the opposite pocket was a sheaf of parchment. He immediately recognised his own face staring back at him from the front page; it was the same poster that had been in Umbridge’s office in the Ministry; Undesirable No.1 – Harry Potter – 10,000 galleon reward.

On the second page he was shocked to see Hermione’s face beneath the heading ‘Undesirable No.2’. The photo was less clear than his own, looking like it had been cropped from a shot of the Tri-Wizard Tournament if he was right about how her hair looked, but it was unmistakably Hermione. ‘Known associate of Undesirable No.1’ was plastered beneath her name, along with a 5,000 galleon reward.

Ron had not been included in the list, his spattergroit cover story still intact, but the remaining pages were filled with thumbnail photos or descriptions of other known fugitives or muggleborns. Some he recognised from Hogwarts; Dean Thomas’ face two pages back, and a Hufflepuff from the year above.

He heard Hermione approaching through the snow and stuffed the parchment back into the snatcher’s pocket.

“Sorry,” Harry grunted. “That was careless. We need to go before more turn up.”

Hermione looked like she was about to say something, but changed her mind.

The tent, set up only minutes ago as an aid station for Ron, was packed away again in a wave of a wand.

Harry hadn’t become to come to terms with what Hermione had done, but there was no doubt in his mind about sticking together. He could unpack his feelings when they were somewhere safe, but for better or worse it was just the two of them now. It would be just the two of them from now until the end.

He took Hermione’s hand. She looked at him with red-rimmed eyes but he couldn’t bring himself to meet her gaze. With a muffled sob, she twisted and apparated them away, leaving their unconscious would-be kidnappers prostrate in the snow.

The visions had returned.

He didn’t tell Hermione, but he was pretty certain she knew. It was the way she looked at him the morning after they happened. She didn’t say anything either. They didn’t say much at all anymore.

He’d been in a dark manor house this time. That is to say, Voldemort had been in a dark manor house and Harry had been Voldemort. He was walking down a wood-panelled hall, someone scurrying alongside him to keep up.

“My Lord,” squeaked Pettigrew, the source of the hurried footsteps. “You honour us with your presence.” He sketched a clumsy bow without slowing down. “If we had had more warning I could have-”

“Is there something you would be doing differently if you were forewarned of my arrival, Wormtail?” Voldemort asked, cutting him off. Harry felt his mouth move.

There was a simmering anger beneath Voldemort’s inscrutable countenance that had nothing to do with the man before it. It was the very emotion that had drawn Harry’s mind from his frigid bed and into the room.

“Are my Death Eaters not comporting themselves exactly to my instructions?”

“N-no… I mean, yes, my Lord,” Pettigrew stammered.

Voldemort reviled the man, that much Harry could tell from the way Riddle regarded the man, but his loyalty as a servant was guaranteed.

“Are they all here?”

“Yes, my Lord, all answered the summons.”

“Good.” A pair of double doors opened before him and he strode into a grand dining room. An enormous polished table dominated the middle of the room, an empty seat at its head and both sides lined with his closest followers.

A fire roared in an immense stone hearth and yet frost glittered on the outside of the windows and dark shapes drifted by beyond. It was impossible for Harry to even guess at a location.

Voldemort stalked around the room as a lion approaches wounded prey. None dared look him in the eye or turn to watch him, instead sitting ram-rod straight and staring blankly ahead until he took his seat.

The room was silent save for the crackling of the fire. It amused Voldemort to let it drag on, to let them wonder why he had summoned them and whom had courted his displeasure.

“Speak,” he said finally, the word acting like a counter-curse to break them from their petrified states and turn to look at him.

They looked nervous.

“My Lord,” said one of them, two seats down the table on Voldemort’s right. Harry recognised the man from the Ministry, Corban Yaxley. “The Ministry is now entirely under your control. We have successfully turned the remaining department heads, and those who are known associates of Dumbledore are either under permanent surveillance or have fled and been added to the wanted lists.” He hesitated, his pompous demeanour shrinking slightly. “As yet, we, erm, have been unable to Imperious any of them to learn more.”

Voldemort narrowed his eyes at the man, who flinched in response. Harry felt the dim satisfaction the action caused.

“My Lord,” simpered a woman directly to his left. Voldemort ignored her.

“And those outside the Ministry?”

“Nothing, my Lord, no whispers or mutterings that we’ve heard. Nobody goes out anymore on account of, well…” He glanced to the window.

“What of Potter?” he asked the table at large.

“N- No sign yet my Lord,” replied a man seated half way down the long table. Harry didn’t know him. “But our sources are convinced he is still in the country,” he stammered. “We’re monitoring all port key and floo traffic.”

“My Lord,” crooned the woman again. Voldemort’s scarlet eyes slid to Bellatrix Lestrange. “Let us aid you. If you were to share what-”

“I do not need your aid!” Voldemort spat. A flash erupted from his wand and Bellatrix yelped as if stung.

“Is this what you have all been thinking in my absence?” His gaze raked around the table, the occupants all suddenly incredibly interested in the wood grain or the decorative mouldings. “That I have been bumbling around helpless, needing only the peerless wisdom of one of you?” To misspeak now was to catch a quick death if one was lucky.

“Is it you, Crabbe?” Voldemort asked, singling one of them out. “Are you the one who can achieve what the Dark Lord is seeking?” He shook his head, never once looking up. “Or you, McNair? What advice have you for your master?”

“None, my Lord,” McNair replied.

“What I need are competent servants to do what must be done while I attend to more important matters. Is that clear?”

There was a smattering of “Yes, my Lord” around the table. Bellatrix nodded silently, bleeding from the corner of her mouth.

He stood. “Find the boy before I return.”

Harry had seen no more. He had woken drenched in sweat that was rapidly cooling on his body, feeling like his head had been stepped on by a dragon.

Hermione had been coming in from her watch, longer now that there were only two of them to split the nights between. Snow dusted her hat and shoulders and her exposed face was rosy and drawn. She had paused in the kitchen, looking at him sat up in bed, damp hair plastered to his forehead. They had held that moment for a long time, both reaching out across the gulf between them but neither moving a muscle or speaking a word.

Conflicting emotions broiled within Harry, his head and his heart fighting for dominance. Being alone had brought them closer together, and yet they’d never been further apart.

It was as though their bodies sought each other out; their need for companionship when nothing else remained to them, and for Harry, the alarming realisation that it was the first time they’d spent alone since the veil had been lifted from his eyes.

He had sworn to himself to keep it bottled up inside him, to not let it affect their friendship. Now more than ever it was essential that he not drive yet another wedge between them, but in spite of himself Harry was beginning to suspect, or maybe just hope, that his longing may be shared.

Gentle touches and lingering eye-contact had crept into their routine, neither one the sole instigator yet neither making any move to stop it. In the times when he could act without thinking, Harry’s hand would find the small of Hermione’s back when moving behind her, or his fingers would brush hers in the passing of a mug when to avoid such would have been trivial.

Such moments sent sparks through his limbs that were intoxicating and left him hyper-aware of her reactions. If she had flinched or recoiled he would have never touched her again, but he could feel the minute pressure as she leaned into his touch.

And yet it sat at odds with his head and the shadow that Ron’s departure had cast over them. Neither had changed their minds on the act, and neither knew how to broach the subject, which left conversation stilted and superficial. He wanted to talk to her about the wanted posters, he wanted to hear her latest theories, but the words wouldn’t come.

Harry’s warring emotions left him confused and drained, and it was clear Hermione was suffering too.

He wasn’t even sure if the act mattered anymore; Ron wasn’t returning, couldn’t return and to hang on to the pain wouldn’t change that, but he didn’t know how to move past it. It had grown into an invisible barrier between them.

So they existed day-by-day, never speaking a word of what was changing between them lest it’s very acknowledgement cause it to shatter like the ice that glazed the canvas of the tent.

Instead, they trained.

Almost every daylight hour was taken up with transfiguration, pausing only to eat and restore circulation to aching extremities. They were both driven by the same desire; a need to show something for their weeks of work, to prove to themselves that Ron hadn’t been right to abandon them.

“How much further can we go?” Harry asked, standing by the edge of a sluggish river late in the afternoon. Ice shelfs extended from the banks, chunks occasionally calving off and floating away downstream.

Magic was about the only thing they could talk about with any normalcy.

“I think to try anything more extensive would be too risky,” Hermione replied. “Until we’re actually animagi we need our wands to cast the transmutation spell. Full transformation is possible, but,” she spread her palms, “You can’t hold a wand with paws. We’d be relying on each other to change back, and I’ve never even tried that.”

It was a frustrating but sensible limitation.

“Having to keep a human arm, a human scale makes some of these impossible. We’re never going to be able to practice flying or small mammals.”

“I know,” Hermione said, sympathising. “We’ve gotten as close as we can, the rest is a leap of faith.”

She looked at the darkening sky, the temperature starting to fall from ‘uncomfortable’ to ‘painful’. “Let’s try one more before we lose the light.”

Harry had become as fluent with physical transformations as he could while limited to individual limbs. What they instead chose to focus on were the myriad of senses that came with some forms. It could be disorienting in the extreme to be bombarded with new sounds, smells, and sensations, and the only solution was to experience it.

Harry circled his wand around his head and cast.

His eyes grew and turned jet black, becoming the dominant feature of his head. At the same time, his nose and mouth extended, morphing into a narrow beak, yellow where it met his face and steel-grey at the curved tip. Across his face, sleek grey and dappled white feathers sprouted, laying smooth against the kestrel head that now sat upon his shoulders.

For someone who had worn glasses his whole life, and who now removed them from his beak, the difference was stark. The world was crisp, full of hard edges and darting movement that demanded his attention.

He could see individual snowflakes blown off branches a hundred feet away, watching them twist and flutter to the ground. In the river were fish he hadn’t noticed, hiding in the shadow of rocks or beneath the reflection of the sky that danced on the surface.

Harry reached into the mokeskin pouch around his neck; the one Hagrid had gotten him for his seventeenth birthday, and pulled out the snitch Dumbledore had left him.

He tossed it into the air. It immediately unfurled its tiny silver wings and darted away.

Hermione lost it almost as soon as it took flight, turning her head this way and that, but Harry had not let it out of his sight once. It was trivially easy to keep track of, even against the pale clouds, his predator eyes tuned to the scurrying of prey. He let it whiz around for a few minutes before summoning it back to his hand and tucking it away again.

Across from him, Hermione had transfigured herself a pair of ginger, white-tipped fox ears. They were flicking this way and that independently of one another, catching the small sounds of hidden things moving in dens and nests.

Their dichotomy reared its ugly head once more. He should thank her, praise her, hold her. Hermione had driven them through this whole process; becoming an animagus would have been a daunting task in a classroom with a professor and months of practice, but in only weeks she had taken them closer than Harry had ever imagined they would get. Even if the potion failed, he could use what she’d taught him; cat eyes in the dark or actual gills for swimming, not a foul water weed.

But then she caught him looking, his eyes human once more, and quickly looked away. If anyone was going to fix things between them, it had to be him. He just wished he knew how.

It was no small mercy when the first weak rays of the Sun peeked over the horizon and their piteous heat reached Harry’s face.

The nights had become dangerously cold now, with every layer he owned and copious warming charms only just enough to keep him functional through his watch. He doubted whether anyone out searching for them on foot would be able to survive.

Far above, drifting between the wispy clouds, a flight of Dementors rode the high-altitude winds. At such a distance they could be mistaken for a flock of carrion birds migrating to find fresh prey. They were not the first group Harry and Hermione had seen crossing the sky, but wherever they were going, if it kept them away from the pair, they wouldn’t wish for different.

“Here.”

Harry looked around to see Hermione handing him a steaming mug, which he took with a nod of thanks. She followed his gaze up to the passing Dementors that were steadily disappearing to the east.

“We need to find a muggle town today,” Hermione said while Harry soaked up the heat from the porcelain. “We’re running low.”

“Already?” he queried.

She nodded. “We’re burning more calories to stay warm, eating more, even with… two of us.” She stumbled over the last words. Harry pretended not to notice.

He drained his mug, relishing the burning feeling as it travelled through his chest, and together they broke down their camp.

Rather than apparate into the unknown, they opted to walk in the direction of rising smoke beyond a distant rise, surmising that the thin tendrils must be coming from a collection of chimneys. With nothing left behind and no intention of returning to the spot, they made no effort to hide their tracks, instead melting the worst of the snow in their path and trudging through the inches of slush that remained.

Half an hour later, and pleasingly warm from their efforts, the pair got their first glimpse of civilisation in more than a week.

The smoke was indeed that of hearth fires, but those of a small village rather than a town. The sandy-colour limestone houses and slate roofs put them somewhere in the Cotswolds, but all other features were buried in feet of snow.

“There’s bound to be a village shop or post office,” said Hermione. “If they haven’t got any food they at least might have a map?”

As they approached, Harry noticed that something seemed off about the place. The main road through the hamlet had been ploughed at some point, but snow had been allowed to accumulate once more. Some houses showed signs of life; shovelled paths and telltale smoke, but others were dark, with drifts piled up against the doors and windows.

Day-old footprints led them through the village to, as Hermione had guessed, a quaint store with a bright-red post box outside wearing a white peaked hat.

The door struck a little bell mounted above it when they pushed it open, and a grey-bearded man behind the wooden counter looked up from a paper.

“Hullo,” he said, waving them in. “It’s good to see someone about, though I don’t recognise your faces?”

“No, we’re, erm, visiting,” said Hermione while Harry closed the door behind them.

“Don’t see many visitors nowadays, but please, come in, how may I help you?” He was wearing a thick scarf around his neck and matching gloves even though a battered electric heater in the corner was fighting a losing battle with the ambient temperature.

“We were just after some food,” Hermione said tentatively.

“Just down the back there, past the envelopes,” he smiled, pointing. “Nothing fresh I’m afraid, but you’ve got my son to thank that we have anything at all. Braved a run into town just yesterday. Treacherous, it was.”

Hermione squeezed between the cramped shelves in the direction the man had indicated, leaving Harry at the front.

“What do you think of all this, then?” the man asked.

“I’m sorry?” Harry asked.

“The weather,” he replied, as though he thought Harry might be slow. “Never seen anything like it in all my years.”

“No, it’s… it’s something,” Harry replied, craning to keep an eye on Hermione who was gathering as many canned goods as she thought it polite to take.

“Tell the truth,” the man continued, thoroughly unconcerned with Harry’s apparent lack of attention, “I thought they might have done something by now. I’m getting a bit worried, myself. Haven’t seen some of the regulars in a few days now.”

“Who might have done something?”

“I dunno. The Government, I suppose?” He gestured to the newspaper he had been reading on the counter.

“May I?” Harry asked, and with a waved hand the man spun it around so he could read it.

The headline read ‘Calls Grow For PM To Step Down’ above a picture of an ambulance that had lost control on an icy road and crashed. The article continued below.

The PM suffered a major setback in Parliament yesterday when two of his own cabinet joined the growing number of MPs demanding that he step down over his handling of what meteorologists are calling the worst winter since records began.

For six consecutive nights the average temperature across the country dropped below minus fifteen degrees Celsius, a temperature more usually found in Northen Canada and never in the UK in living memory.

Scientists remain baffled by the sudden onset and persistence of the weather system, attributing it to a phenomenon known as a polar vortex, though none have yet sufficiently explained why it has been localised to the British Isles. One thing they do agree on, though, is that it will continue to worsen.

The PM has been criticised for his government’s slow reaction to the crisis, failing to distribute needed supplies to the worst-hit communities, and for the years of cuts to emergency and foul-weather infrastructure.

“The time has long since passed to call a state of emergency and deploy the armed forces to evacuate rural communities and disperse vital medical aid and clothing,” said the leader of the opposition to reporters outside Whitehall.

The PM has been unavailable for questions, but released a statement that the government was doing “all it could” to aid those in need and “would continue to act on the best advice and predictions available.”

In addition to the plummeting temperatures, no cause has been found for the mysterious illness sweeping the nation that is leaving its victims in a vegetative state.

The Minister for Health has advised taking extra precautions and only embarking on essential travel, but concern is growing, as is the victim-count, about the symptom-less disease. Doctors say it is too soon to tell, but none have yet recovered and hospital ICUs are being put under increasing pressure.

Should these twin plagues continue to tighten their grip, the PM may well find himself the subject of a vote-of-no-confidence in the next parliamentary session.

Hermione returned with an armful of goods just as Harry finished and slid the paper back towards the shop keeper.

“How much?” she asked, fishing in the bag for her purse, being very careful not to give away how large it was inside.

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” the man said, bagging the items up. “We all need to be looking out for one another at times like this, don’t we?”

They thanked him profusely and Harry took the bags from the counter.

“Look after yourselves, and each other,” he said as he waved them out the door, then turned back to his paper, the bell still chiming their departure.

“They don’t have any idea what’s happening and they’re dying for it all the same,” Harry fumed as they struggled down the street, too exposed to chance any magical assistance.

“How could they?” Hermione replied sadly, turning them down one of the smaller side roads to somewhere they could apparate from.

“They can’t just wait this out.”

“I know, Harry, but the only- Oh!” Hermione tripped and stumbled, grabbing onto Harry’s arm at the last minute to avoid sprawling in the snow.

There was a large, curiously shaped lump next to the pavement that neither had noticed and had caught her foot.

Checking that they were not being observed, Hermione drew her wand and blew the powdery snow away with a flick, then gasped.

The form was revealed to be a body, curled up as though asleep. It was a woman, very old judging by the deeply lined skin of her face, bundled up against the elements. The protrusion that Hermione had tripped on was a wheeled cart that was locked in her frozen grip.

Tears welled up in Hermione’s eyes and she crouched down to examine the woman.

Harry felt like he might be sick. Here was someone who was not trying to fight Voldemort, who posed no risk nor had no quarrel, and yet they had paid the price of his ambition. His ego.

How many more were buried in the snow up and down the country, never to be found again until revealed by the thaw? If there ever were a thaw.

This is what Hermione had meant, and though he knew the words to be true, his attachment to Ron had blinded him to the reality of the war. This was the reality.

They could have gone to the Order for help, accepted Lupin’s aid or told Kingsley about the horcruxes, but they hadn’t. They hadn’t because there was nothing more important than guarding their knowledge of them from Voldemort.

He’d naively assumed that if they were caught, they would be caught together and that the secret would die with them or be exposed, but either way they would have reached the end of their journey and it would no longer matter. He hadn’t even considered that they may be separated, that they could still be fighting when it all came crashing down around them.

Hadn’t he, Harry, vowed to himself to treat their mission with the severity it demanded? He’d thought he knew what that meant; treating wounds, learning magic, using as much force as was necessary to survive. They were but the hopes of a child. What it really meant was to make hard decisions. Make hard decisions and live with the consequences.

Hermione had done that. She had cursed her best friend, condemned him to wander aimless because she had already reached the point that Harry was striving for. It was courage, not fear that had guided her wand.

How he wished there had been another way, but Hermione had acted when he couldn’t and in doing so had saved them both. Saved them all.

He lifted her gently by the elbow and embraced her, which she readily accepted, drying her tears on his jacket.

There was nothing they could do for the woman. To alert someone would trap them there until they’d been questioned, and the ground was too hard to dig a makeshift grave, so, heavy-hearted, they continued out of the village, their hands clasped together.

Chapter Text

Harry woke, if not warm, then at least not as bone-numbingly cold as most mornings.

It wasn’t due to some miraculous change in the seasons. In fact, they had camped in some of the harshest conditions they had yet faced. No, it was down to the warm mass sharing the narrow bed with him.

From the village they’d apparated west to a location they had already been, having exhausted unique holiday locations of Hermione’s childhood. An abundance of caution drove them further still, making repeated short hops to the next visible landmark until they were miles from their starting point and thoroughly lost.

Eventually, they settled at the edge of a long-abandoned slate quarry. Dark tumble-down buildings and steep banks of scree were stark grey against the white snow, and the lake that filled the lowest reaches of the quarry had frozen solid.

A harsh wind had rattled down the slopes, seeping through the gaps in the stitching of the old canvas tent and stealing away any warmth trapped inside. Even a short spell outside to set the protective charms had caused frost to form on Hermione’s lashes and set Harry’s stomach cramping from the need to clench tight against the piercing chill.

The prospect of sitting watch out in the elements was sobering, possibly even lethal, so they made the difficult decision to forego it. If they couldn’t stand ten minutes outside, neither could any pursuer, they reasoned. They were at least still hidden behind layered repelling and warning charms.

Even their self-granted reprieve from sitting out in the elements was little comfort. After travel, securing the camp, and cataloguing supplies they fell into icy beds fully clothed and shivering. To trap warmth beneath a blanket there first needed to be warmth, and Harry’s bed was sorely lacking.

For an hour he shook and quivered, exhaling down his collar and rubbing his limbs in a fruitless attempt to find comfort. It was nearing the second hour of his torment that he looked across the darkened bedroom area to see a tight bundle on Hermione’s bunk trembling just as badly.

He couldn’t say that things were entirely normal between them again; for one thing they still hadn’t spoken Ron’s name, but his perspective had changed in the village. The barrier had melted and though they were yet to step across the boundary where it had stood, he took heart that they now could. Hermione had noticed his change in demeanour and seemed warmer and brighter in response.

Regardless, there they lay in opposing beds, both awake and suffering the cold. It seemed to Harry, if he were brave enough, to be a problem with a simple solution.

He swung out of bed, dragging the duvet and pillow with him in a fist, and padded across to the opposite bunk.

Hermione was facing away from him, only the top of her head visible under the mound of covers, and her knees protectively drawn up to her chest. The trembling was even more pronounced up close.

Gently, so as not to startle her, he placed a hand on her shoulder.

Dark, brown eyes peered at him from over the lip of the covers. She took in his face, standing over her, and the bedding in his other hand. Hermione uncurled and twisted to face him. Harry’s mouth was suddenly very dry.

“I thought…” he said, holding up his duvet by way of an explanation.

Hermione hesitated, looking at him in a way he knew meant she was thinking very quickly, then nodded and shuffled back as far as the single bunk would allow.

Something inside Harry’s chest unclenched and he shrugged off his coat – for some reason it felt impolite to get in still wearing it, lay his own quilt over the top of hers, and clambered in. Even with one shoulder hanging off the thin mattress he couldn’t avoid pressing against her.

Harry found that rolling onto his side gave them a little more room, and opted to face Hermione rather than turn his back to her. She mirrored his position, both tucked under the double-layer of blankets, faces six inches apart in the night.

He began to worry that he’d crossed a boundary, but then the heat of their combined bodies finally overcame the pervasive chill and he relaxed for the first time in a long time.

Hermione’s eyes hadn’t left his own, occasionally switching which one they focussed on; something he could only tell by his proximity to her. Eventually, she shifted a couple of inches closer, arms now against his chest, and closed her eyes.

Harry didn’t remember falling asleep, but he knew the last thing he’d seen had been her peaceful, sleeping face.

And so Harry had woken in exactly the same position, perhaps a little stiff from the cramped bed but able to savour the vestiges of warmth that still lingered beneath the covers.

He had been woken by movement next to him, and saw a sheepish-looking Hermione sitting up in the bed.

“Sorry,” she said, her voice still husky from sleep. “I couldn’t get out without waking you.”

“S’alright,” Harry replied, cricking his neck and rising from the bed to let her cross to the tiny bathroom.

He watched her go, mulling the night over in his head. He shouldn’t read into it; they were both cold and it was a way to share warmth, though, she had definitely tucked into him. They were friends, close friends, he told himself, who depended on one another. That was all.

He almost convinced himself to believe it.

Harry’s introspection was ended by Hermione’s urgent voice.

“Harry! Harry!”

He ran into the kitchen where she was holding three glass vials that were no longer silver, but a translucent blue.

“I think it’s ready.”

They held one of the sealed ampoules up between them in the light.

“I thought you said it would turn midnight blue?” Harry said.

“I did,” Hermione replied.

The liquid was certainly not midnight blue. It was a pale, ice-blue that shimmered in the weak sunlight. When she jiggled the tube it sloshed like water.

“Is it safe?”

“I think so,” said Hermione in an unconvincing voice. She handed the vial to Harry and dug out the animagus book, flicking through the pages with a well-practiced rhythm. Her finger tracked down the page and her lips moved in time as she speed-read the passage.

“…set aside for half a moon’s turn or until the solution adopts a midnight hue,” she quoted.

“Very precise,” Harry grunted. “Do we need to leave it longer?”

“I’m fairly certain that’s it. Once it changes, it’s done.”

Harry had hoped for something more concrete; perhaps a puff of coloured smoke or a miniature fanfare when it had reached the necessary maturity, but if Hermione said it was done then that was good enough for him.

“So, what now?” he asked. “Do we take it right away or do we need to be… erm, ready first?”

Hermione was consulting the next page. She’s read the whole thing cover to cover any number of times, but it didn’t hurt to check.

“Seems like we’ve got a few hours after taking it in which to attempt the transformation before it wears off, but I think it would be sensible to get everything else ready first.”

They layered-up and tramped outside into the clear, bright, and bitterly cold day. A feeling of nervous excitement was growing in Harry’s gut, like the walk down to the Quidditch pitch on the day of a crucial game.

The quarry descended in tiers into the ground, what had once been sheer stone faces now rubble and loose chips with tall, dead grass pushing through the cracks. Their tent had been set up on a wide shelf one level from the top; hiding it from view and the worst of the elements.

They stopped on a flat, wind-scoured patch of ground a short distance away. Hermione was clutching two of the vials in a gloved hand, Ron’s portion consigned to the depths of the beaded bag.

“I think, perhaps, I ought to go first,” Harry ventured, “only because, if something does go wrong, you’ll be better at fixing it.”

Hermione looked anxious at the prospect, but handed him one of the tubes.

“So, what do I do?” he asked.

“You drink it and then, just like we’ve been practicing, you cast the transmutation charm over your entire body, only this time, instead of picturing the form you want to take, you keep your mind blank.”

“Okay,” Harry said, running through the instructions in his mind. At least the occlumency would help him with the clear mind part. “Using my wand?”

“This first time, yes. After that it shouldn’t be necessary.”

“And I can do it like this? I don’t need to… err…”

Hermione caught his meaning and blushed, or maybe that was just the cold.

“No, your clothes, your wand, anything you’re carrying will be incorporated. It’s one of the other benefits over regular transfiguration.”

“Right,” he replied, regarding his many layers. It felt unnecessarily risky for his first attempt, so after brief consideration, he shrugged off his outer coat and dropped it in a heap by his feet, lifted the locket and pouch over his head and tossed them to Hermione, and finally removed his glasses, balancing them on top of the coat.

He stood in his jumper, shivering, and gave her a nervous grin.

Tapping his wand against the sealed glass container, the top dissolved away. He gave it a cautionary sniff but could smell nothing.

Hermione had her hands clasped under her chin, shifting her weight from one foot to the other and watching him intently. With a mock toast in her direction, he lifted it to his lips and gulped it down in one.

It was glacially cold; far colder than it had felt in his hand. Harry could feel its passage down his throat to his stomach where the chill blossomed to encompass his whole body, setting his heart thumping. He took a gasping breath and Hermione started towards him, but he held up a hand to stop her.

The cold slowly subsided, leaving a tingling feeling in his fingers that raced up and down his body like snakes beneath his skin.

“Okay,” he wheezed, clearing his throat and raising his wand.

It was temping to try and hold an image of a useful or favoured animal in his mind, but he followed Hermione’s instruction and let it slip away to calm nothingness.

“Corpus… Immutatio…” Harry breathed.

He felt a tug inside him and flinched, resisting. “A leap of faith”, Hermione had said. He let go.

Harry began to tremble, then his limbs started to shorten and he dropped to his hands and knees, cutting his palms on the loose slate chips. His nose and jaw were morphing and his ears shifting higher on his head. He tried to cry out but instead only a garbled chuff escaped past lengthening canines.

He wobbled as his centre of gravity shifted backwards, a new limb growing from his tailbone. Harry was aware that he could no longer feel his clothes upon him, but felt strangely warmer than he had been while wearing them. His wand had gone from his hand, now part of his new form.

He had closed his eyes in an attempt to limit the nausea of changing perspective and field of view, but in the darkness everything seemed louder and there was a strong smell on the wind that hadn’t been there before.

At last, it stopped and all was still. Harry remained on all fours, eyes closed and head bowed, panting. His breath sounded different; guttural and sharp. He stayed that way until a voice reached him.

“Harry?”

It was Hermione’s voice, but it was different. For a start, it was coming from above him which was an unusual sensation for Harry. There were also tones and harmonies in it that he had never heard before, but it was definitely her.

He opened his eyes.

On the ground before him were a pair of thickly-furred paws. They were greyish-white, with dark spots and rosettes travelling up his arms, or rather, legs. They were also unexpectedly large. He flexed his fingers and the paws dug into the ground, the tips of razor-sharp claws peeking out from his coat and cracking the fragile rock.

Ever so slowly, he lifted his head.

“Oh!” Hermione gasped.

He could see her clearly, but the rocky bluff a way behind her was unfocussed. He might have expected an improvement in eyesight, but it was nothing he wasn’t used to. From the angle he was looking at her from, Harry guessed he was standing slightly below waist height. The colour of her scarf and hat was different, the Gryffindor red more muted than before, but what he lacked in vision he more than made up for in other senses.

The wind blew across the quarry, past Hermione and into Harry, carrying her with it. He could never have described her scent if asked, but what filled his nostrils was so uniquely her that he would have known in an instant even if he were blind and deaf.

He padded over to her and she took a tentative step towards him.

“Harry, you’re…” Hermione was lost for words, beaming, with tears glistening at the corners of her eyes. “…amazing,” she finished.

He pushed off the ground with his front legs, landing with his paws on her lower ribs in an awkward standing position. She cupped his face and ran her thumbs through the fur of his cheeks. Her scent was overpowering so close up, and his wide nose pressed into the inside of her wrist, gulping in great lungfuls of it.

She laughed and looked into his face.

“They’re still your eyes,” she said, examining each in turn. “And your scar,” she added, brushing her fingers through a patch of downy hair on his forehead, the dark rosette forming a crude lightning bolt.

As Harry’s mind picked apart his new senses, he became aware of something that felt out of place. A metaphorical thorn in his paw. It was an insidious ringing, right at the very edge of his new range of hearing, that set his small, rounded ears twitching.

Cocking his head, he deduced it was coming from beneath Hermione’s coat, against her chest. He craned his neck to press against it and felt the hard, egg-sized lump of Slytherin’s locket. The sound was coming from the horcrux.

It was subtle and unnatural, and seemed to fade when focussed on, leaving one questioning whether they were hearing it at all. It did not change when he bumped it with his nose.

Harry resolved to talk about it with Hermione when he had a human mouth again, but for the moment he dropped back down to the ground and paced in a circle, trying to get a better look at the rest of his body and, to his surprise, his long, thick, bushy tail.

“I think,” Hermione said, appraising him herself, “that you’re a snow leopard. I’ve only ever seen them in books. This is incredible!”

Harry’s hind legs were longer than his front, and corded with muscle that made him think of pouncing from cover onto unsuspecting Death Eaters. Surprisingly, his tail required little direction and was already becoming second nature, moving naturally to keep his weight directly over his planted foot.

He felt strong, nimble, like he did when mounting his Firebolt, and decided that if he really wanted to know his new form, he had to find its limits.

Quick as a flash, Harry took off across the frozen heath, claws biting into the ground and accelerating him to top speed in three bounding strides. He leapt over the broken wall of an old miner’s cottage, clearing it with ease, and pivoted on landing, his tail working overtime to swing his momentum through ninety degrees and out of the gaping fireplace.

He skidded to a stop and hugged the side of the old hut, treading lightly now, and out onto the deeper snow that had avoided the wind’s greedy fingers.

Far from sinking knee-deep, his wide paws splayed out on the drifts, spreading his weight and letting him slink across unimpeded. It would do wonders for moving about the frozen countryside.

Above it all was the thing that Harry was not feeling, and that was cold. For so long it had been a constant in their lives, so much so that to be cold was normal and there were only varying degrees of frigid that registered at all, but the soft, dense fur wrapping his body was impervious; a blessed relief he didn’t even know he needed. He could feel the wind tickling his whiskers, tell it was cold by the tip of his nose, but they were just facts to him now.

On the far side of the snow drifts tumbled loose slopes of spoil from the quarry faces; small mountains of chipped slate dusted with sporadic flakes.

He cleared the snow with ease and took a tentative step onto them, his weight causing the stones to shift before the pads of his paws found grip. Surefooted, Harry moved out onto the slope.

From his vantage point he could see Hermione where he had left her, fifty feet from the foot of the slope, having traced a wide arc around their campsite. Harry stopped and crouched down as she looked around for him.

There was no cover of any sort to hide behind, but he watched her head move right over the scree and continue searching the lower levels. His white-and-grey coat was almost indistinguishable from the background, rendering him near invisible.

“Harry?” she called.

He bunched his rear legs and pounced, charging down the slope and sending chips flying with each leap. His tail whipped this way and that, keeping Harry upright as he flew across the treacherous surface.

The noise had startled Hermione and she watched him careen towards her with baited breath.

Harry hit the solid ground and bounded forward still, directly towards Hermione. Forty feet, thirty, twenty.

He imagined himself raising his wand and slicing it across himself from head to toe, shouting the incantation in his head and willing the return to his usual state, and his body responded.

Paws became hands, muzzle became mouth, and his four-legged sprint towards her morphed into an over-balanced stumble far quicker than he could comfortably run.

Harry thundered to a halt not quite soon enough to avoid crashing into Hermione, but slow enough that he could catch her in his arms to prevent knocking her to the ground.

He stood with her there, holding her tight against him, beaming and panting heavily, and then she did something she’d never done before and kissed him full on the mouth.

It took half a second for Harry’s brain to catch up with what was happening at his lips, but when it finally did he leant into her and squeezed his arms tighter around Hermione’s back.

It was intoxicating, lighting a fire within him that would not go out until it had consumed every bit of her it could. She was warm, her lips soft, and tasted divine. Her hair, caught by the wind, fluttered against his cheek. He was kissing Hermione! He could scarcely believe it was actually happening.

There was none of the awkward wrongness that he might have been worried would surface if they ever did kiss, nor even small voice that wondered whether it was right when he kissed Ginny. All the rest disappeared when he was there, locked together with her.

Tragically, it had to end when they needed to breathe again. They were both panting now, Hermione’s hands clenched tight around fistfuls of his jumper.

She grinned at him in an embarrassed sort of way, as though she’d taken herself by surprise too.

“Harry… that was unbelievable!” She laughed and took a step back to run her hands through her hair.

“That, or..?” Harry asked, still dazed.

“Well, yes that,” Hermione said, still pink, “but you did it, Harry! You’re an animagus!”

She ran back to him and threw her arms around him, just a hug this time. She was practically bouncing with joy.

“Your form is so beautiful,” Hermione continued excitedly while Harry tried not to look abashed, “and it couldn’t be more perfect for what we’re trying to do and with everything that’s happening with the weather! I’m so proud of you, Harry.”

Even the warmth of her compliments, and the considerable heat of their kiss was no enough to stave off the cold forever in just a jumper. As he started to shiver, Harry collected his coat and glasses from the ground, and lifted the locket over Hermione’s head. He couldn’t hear it anymore, but he eyed it warily.

“We’ll have to find some way to learn more about them,” Hermione was saying, “to know exactly what you’re capable of.”

“There’s something else we need to do first,” Harry chuckled.

“What?”

“It’s your turn.”

“Oh,” said Hermione, the thought completely driven from her head by Harry’s success. “I suppose you’re right.”

She took her own potion vial from a pocket and opened it with her wand, Harry retreating to give her space.

“What was it like?” she asked.

“Cold,” he replied, “but you’ve nothing to worry about.”

She took a breath to steady her nerves. “Wish me luck,” she said, and poured it into her mouth.

Hermione shuddered and clenched her fists, “Gah!”, then without hesitation, cast the charm.

Almost immediately she began to shrink and pitch forward onto all fours as Harry had done. Bright, almost blindingly white fur burst from her body as her clothes seemed to melt back through it. Her face had morphed into a pointed snout covered in the same white hair, but she still looked at him with the same soft brown eyes.

She was still shooting down, limbs narrowing and ending in miniature paws. Her form had also spouted a tail, but it was bushy; squirrel-like compared to Harry’s narrower one.

Hermione’s transformation completed and Harry looked from the brush-like tail, over her fluffy body with slender legs poking out beneath, to her rounded ears and coal-black nose.

She was smaller than Harry had been, the tips of her ears just about reaching his knee. Already she was sniffing, scratching, and twitching her ears, opened to a world of new senses.

“I think you’re a fox,” said Harry, crouching down so as not to tower over her so much. “But you’re completely white from head to tail.”

Hermione trotted over to him and he resisted the urge to pick her up. It was something he wouldn’t have thought twice about with Crookshanks, but felt strangely intimate when it was his friend behind those eyes.

Her head snapped round and she went completely still as something caught her attention. Harry looked in the direction she was facing but could see nothing, instead watching her slink off in pursuit of whatever she’d detected.

She alternated between sniffing the ground and pausing with her ears cocked, homing in on the thing.

Hermione padded out onto the snow, then stopped, staring at a point on the ground between her front paws. She began to dig, flinging snow behind her until suddenly something small and brown darted out of the hole she had made and skittered away across the ground.

She flinched as if she were about to give chase, but stopped herself and let it vanish from sight. Moments later Hermione returned to human form, kneeling in the snow over four small footprints that she had left behind.

Harry helped her to her feet.

“I heard it!” she said, gleefully. “I heard it under the snow. It was so strange; I felt compelled to chase it down. There must be some instinctual behaviours that operate on a deeper level than our consciousness.”

She grasped both of his hands in hers.

“This is brilliant, Harry. Better than I ever could have hoped. We can use these forms. They can really help us. You said I was a fox?”

“An all-white one, yeah.”

“An arctic fox I bet, given that you were winter-adapted too.”

“Did you… hear anything else?” Harry asked tentatively.

Hermione looked at him, puzzled. “I don’t think so. Like what?”

Harry placed his has over the locket, as though it might hear him talking about it.

“I heard the horcrux.”

Her eyes went wide. “You heard it?”

“Yeh,” he replied. “Only just. It was… unpleasant.”

“I didn’t hear anything like that. I wonder if they always emit a sound that’s outside the range of human hearing? I don’t know how cat and fox hearing compares; we really need to find out as much as we can about these animals, but this might not be a bad thing, Harry.”

“You think?”

“Yes. If you can hear them then it can help us find them.”

Harry hadn’t considered that. His mind had been preoccupied wondering whether the sound was some sort of sinister dark magic. He could see that Hermione was still riding high from their transformations, and possibly the other thing, and he had no desire to bring her down in that moment.

“This is all thanks to you, Hermione,” Harry said. “Becoming animagi was your idea, you brewed the potion, you taught us the magic. None of this would have been possible if it weren’t for you.”

Hermione turned crimson. “Don’t be silly,” she said, “I only showed you the way; you managed it by yourself.”

“No,” he replied. “I would still be going around in circles if it were just down to me. Thank you.”

She gave him a one-armed hug, tucking her head under his chin.

“Should we… talk about before?” he asked.

“Let’s go back inside first,” Hermione replied, starting to shiver herself.

Inside the tent Hermione boiled the kettle for tea. Harry was already missing the warmth that his leopard-coat had provided but they could hardly go around twenty-four-seven as a pair of animals.

She sat back down with two steaming mugs and they sipped them in silence, not sure where to begin. Harry found his voice first.

“So, was that like a one-time, spur-of-the-moment thing or…?”

“If that’s what you want it to be then it can be,” Hermione replied carefully.

“No!” Harry blurted, rather giving the game away on where he stood on the matter. Hermione smirked.

Harry’s outburst had broken the ice between them and they both relaxed, chucking at the situation they found themselves in.

“What I meant to say,” said Harry, “is that I don’t want it to be a one-time thing. I’ve wanted more for… well, longer than I even realised myself.”

Hermione was looking at him with a soft expression, waiting for him to clear whatever was on his chest.

“But,” Harry continued, “I could never put what we have in jeopardy. If there’s a chance it doesn’t work- I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

She reached across the table and placed a cup-warmed hand on his, smiling.

“It won’t be like that, Harry. We’re both smart enough not to ruin seven years of friendship by wanting a little bit more. Besides, it didn’t happen by accident. Remember what I said before, about finding out what’s important, what’s worth fighting for?”

He nodded.

“I know what I want now.”

Harry mentally kicked himself again for coming to the realisation so late in their friendship. How could he have overlooked such an open, intelligent, wonderful girl like Hermione? He was almost embarrassed by himself.

“How long have you known?” he asked, curious.

She pondered, peering up through her eyelashes.

“I suppose I’ve always liked you. You’ve always been handsome, daring, willing to fight for what you believe in. You’ve always been my closest friend. The best partners start out as friends first,” she repeated with a laugh. “I guess that closeness blinded me to what it really meant. Can’t-see-the-wood-for-the-trees, in a way. Then you seemed interested in Cho, then Ginny, and those felt right so I didn’t question it. How about you?”

“How long have I felt this way or how long have I known I felt this way?” Harry asked with a snort.

“Both.”

“I’ve known for weeks now. Seemed like the worst time to try asking you out but once I knew I couldn’t un-know. I didn’t want to either.”

Hermione turned slightly pink.

“I thought you were acting different. Was it when you asked about me and Ron?”

“Mhmm. As for how long it’s been there, I couldn’t say. Similar to you I guess; part of it always has.”

They both sipped their drinks, unsure where to look but feeling a little giddy at the reality.

“So, what do we do now?” Harry asked. “We’ve still got a lot riding on us; horcruxes to find, worlds to save.”

She rolled her eyes at him playfully. “I can’t believe I’m the one saying this, but I think it would be best not to overthink it. We do exactly what we have been doing; finding clues and hunting for signs of the horcruxes. Whatever happens should be natural, not forced because we feel like we have to now.”

“Okay,” he said. “Natural, I like that. We just do whatever feels right.”

With that Harry stood, leant over the table and with gentle pressure of his fingers on her chin, guided her lips to meet his.

It was languid, and addictive, and entirely deliberate.

Chapter Text

Darkness. Suffocating pressure. A stab between his shoulder blades and burning behind his eyes and Ron popped back into existence in a shallow depression, the stalks of dead grass poking up through a foot of snow.

He dropped to one knee, catching himself with his wand hand and waiting for his vision to stop popping as the sudden migraine faded.

He was… where was he?

Ron looked around at the barren, unfamiliar landscape. How had he even gotten here? There was not a soul in sight, not a sound to be heard, and not a single set of footprints in the snow.

That wasn’t right either. Why was there so much snow? It was only… wait, when was it?

The questions came thick and fast, filling up his head until he felt like he was drowning under them. What in Merlin’s name was happening to him?

He just needed to tackle them one at a time, that was all. What was the last thing he remembered?

Even that proved to be harder than he expected. He felt like he was trying to grasp handfuls of fog, or gather water in a sieve. There was definitely something there that should be a memory, but it had no shape or colour. An uncomfortable and unexplained hunger gnawed at his gut that didn’t help matters.

He would have to go further back.

They had rescued Harry from his muggle house. Yes, he remembered that; the Polyjuice and the awful aerial battle that followed.

That raised another question to add to the list. Where was Harry? Or Hermione for that matter? This seemed like the sort of thing they would be involved in but he was definitely, unequivocally alone.

No, no getting side-tracked. One problem at a time.

They’d rescued Harry and then… it was the wedding, that was right. They’d all been at the Burrow getting everything in order for Bill’s wedding. Mum had been even worse than usual and the three of them had snuck away to…

To what?

He could see it; see Harry sat on a camp bed in Ron’s tiny room, see Hermione sat next to him on his. They’d been talking, but the words were muffled and nonsensical, as though his head had been submerged in the bath.

It had definitely been something important; he could feel it. They were going to… to find something? No, they had to hide something? Gah!

The harder he pressed at it, the greater the pain at his temples grew until he was retching from the nausea.

Okay, so they’d been at the Burrow, getting ready for the wedding. The wedding had happened, he was certain of that. He remembered Fleur walking down the aisle, he remembered dancing with Hermione, and then - yes! The patronus had arrived; Kingsley’s patronus to tell them that the Ministry had fallen, and then…

That was it. That was his last clear memory before the fog descended.

That had been the first of August, so, was it now the second? The third? His instinct told him not. Quite apart from the weather – he could simply be somewhere further north – Ron felt different. His body ached and protested, his clothes – certainly not the ones he’d been wearing at the wedding – were tattered and dirty, and a heaviness sat in his heart that could not have been the product of a single day.

A keen sense of loss persisted where the memories didn’t, mixed with anger, despair, and no small amount of shame. Ron had no explanation for any of these emotions, but they churned within him all the same.

He raised his left hand to run it through his hair and yelped at the bolt of pain that lanced up his forearm. With mounting horror, Ron examined his hand.

It was bare, the back of his hand pale white in the freezing cold. Two of his fingers and the thumb were bright red, raw, with blisters forming around the nails, but the other two were black and unmoving. Seeing his injury, he now became aware of the throbbing ache that pulsed up and down the limb, while any sort of contact with the digits was like an exposed nerve set to a flame.

Gingerly, biting down on the urge to scream, he tucked it into the breast of his jacket.

Something terrible had happened. He didn’t need his memory to work that out. Ron never went anywhere alone, not with six siblings and two best friends he’d scarcely spent two weeks away from in the last seven years, but here he was, Merlin knows where, Merlin knows when, injured and isolated.

His first thought was to apparate home, to the Burrow, but his wand hesitated. That prickle, that gut feeling that takes over when there is no objective right answer, stayed his hand. Would Harry and Hermione be at the Burrow? He knew they had intended not to return to Hogwarts, even if he couldn’t recall why at the moment, but it didn’t seem likely. The sense of warmth and comfort that the ramshackle cottage usually brought him was conspicuously absent, and that felt important.

No, he couldn’t go to the Burrow. At least not right away; not until he had more answers. Where then?

He landed on Bill. Bill had always been a pragmatic guy, likely to hear him out before jumping to conclusions or flying off the handle like some relatives he knew. The only problem was that he didn’t know where Bill was. He was sure he’d heard mum and Bill talking about where they were moving to after the wedding, but it hadn’t seemed particularly important at the time.

There was, however, one place he did know how to get to that wasn’t the Burrow and might at least offer a stepping stone to where he wanted to be.

Bracing his injured arm against his body, Ron disapparated.

Never was the state of the country more apparent than in Diagon Alley. The pristine blankets of virgin snow that lay across the fields and forests had been churned to grey slush in the wizarding thoroughfare.

People hurried by with their collars turned up and their eyes cast down, trying very hard not to look suspicious. Posters adorned every shop front, every lamp post, and even a good deal of the gutter; the soggy pulp of ones that had been torn or blown down. They all said something slightly different; ‘Beware The Muggleborn’, ‘Registration Keeps Us Safe’, ‘Magic Is Might’, but all bore the header of the Muggleborn Registration Commission. Filling the gaps between the official signage were the blank faces of wanted posters. Most were of Harry, his spectacled eyes watching the street without seeing, but there were other faces too.

Ron arrived in a shadowed offshoot of the main alley; one of many used as arrival and departure points, and immediately pulled his hood up over his head.

He stepped out into the street and set off at a brisk pace away from the Leaky Cauldron, down towards the far end and Gringotts. Almost half of the shops were boarded up and abandoned; Eeylops Owl Emporium, Quality Quidditch Supplies. Olivander’s and Florian Fortescue’s had both been reduced to burnt-out husks.

He stooped to collect a sodden Daily Prophet from the ground and shook what water he could from it. The headline wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on, but the date stamped beneath it was what he sought.

Depending on how long the tabloid had lain there, it was sometime in late October – the best part of three months since his last clear memory. How could so much time have passed? What had happened to change the wizarding world so?

Ron’s feeling of uneasiness grew. He had no idea what was going on in the world; was he making himself a target by being out here? Would he inadvertently do something that screamed to all that he did not belong?

None of the other scattered shoppers were paying him or each other any mind. Still, he quickened his pace as much as he could without looking like he was running, and headed for his target.

The giant top-hatted mannequin had been destroyed, several window panes had been broken and boarded over, and the faint remnants of the words ‘Blood Traitors’ had not entirely been cleaned off the walls, but Weasleys Wizard Wheezes was still open for business.

Ron eased his way into the store.

The shelves were still a riot of brightly-coloured boxes, there were still great bins overflowing with suspicious candies, and the model train still steamed around the elevated track overhead belching clouds of rainbow smoke, but there was not a customer in sight.

There was a commotion from somewhere near the back of the store and out leapt Fred in a garish, mis-matched suit.

“Welcome, welcome, to Weasleys Wizard Wheezes! Your first stop for everything- Ron!?” He faltered mid-spiel and, for the first time in Ron’s memory, was speechless.

His carnival ring-master demeanour dropped from his face, replaced by a wary frown that aged him several years. It seemed their store was not the only front they were putting up.

“Come back here, quick, before someone sees you.” Fred waved his wand at the door, locking it with an audible click and resetting some sort of detection charm on the threshold, then turned and led Ron between the maze of shelves and through a curtain behind the counter.

“Where are Harry and Hermione?” he asked, holding the purple velvet aside for his brother.

“Erm, not here,” Ron replied.

“What!?”

The back room of the store was dimly lit, the walls piled high with teetering boxes. In the middle of the room was a scarred work bench littered with tools and ingredients, illuminated by a single lamp casting a cone of yellow light over the surface. George sat at the workbench on a stool, wrapping something up in plain brown paper and tying it with twine.

“What’s going on?” he said, looking up, then “Blimey.”

“What do you mean Harry and Hermione aren’t here?” said Fred, closing the curtain behind them and sitting on a matching stool opposite George.

“What? Where are they?” asked George.

“I- I can’t explain,” said Ron. They had no idea how true that was. “Look, I need to get to Bill’s.”

“Right, the secret mission,” said Fred, eyes narrowing.

“Well, are they alright?” asked George.

This kind of interrogation was exactly what Ron had wanted to avoid by seeking out Bill. His heart rate was starting to rise again.

“I can’t really…”

“Merlin’s arse, Ron!” groaned Fred. “I know Dumbledore himself gave you the-quest-that-must-not-be-named but don’t you think you’re taking it a bit far? They’re our friends too, you know.”

His migraine was threatening to return; a dull ache at his temples that pulsed in time with his heart beat.

“At least tell us they’re alive,” piled on George.

“I don’t know!” It burst out before he could think about whether it was a good idea. “I don’t know. I appeared in the snow, by myself. I don’t know where they are, I just- I need to get to Bill’s.”

There was silence in the cramped store room. Hearing himself say it out loud made Ron realise how absurd the situation sounded. Would they think he was lying to them? Or worse, that he’d gone off his rocker since they’d last seen him?

Fred and George shared a look. It was a look they’d perfected over almost two decades and contained an entire conversation in the span of a few seconds.

“Okay,” they said in unison.

“Give me your coat, Ron,” said George, putting away the package he’d been wrapping.

“Why?”

“Because the store is being watched,” answered Fred, “And they’ll get suspicious if you don’t leave soon.”

“Errr…” Ron hesitated, his maimed hand still hidden by the material.

“Urgh, fine.” George drew his wand and instead transfigured his own coat to match Ron’s. He grabbed the nearest Weasleys Wizard Wheezes product, stuffed it in a bag, and pulled up his hood.

“Back in a few minutes,” he said, then disappeared through the curtain followed shortly by the chime of the bell above the door.

“Where’s he going?” Ron asked.

“They always trail our customers,” Fred replied. “Sometimes search or confiscate what they buy. Think we’re secretly helping the Order. George’ll lead them around for a bit then slip away and double back.”

“Are you?”

“Hm?”

“Secretly helping the Order?”

“Of course, we’re just not morons about it. We’ve been trying to get potions ingredients in, mainly, plus a few useful gizmos here and there. Surprised the Ministry’s allowed us to stay in business at all to be honest, but they’re still trying to make it look like everything is fine and normal.”

“And you can get me to Bill’s?”

“Yes. Him and Fleur moved into mum’s sister’s old place, that one by the sea? Not now though; when it’s dark. Too many people watching the apparition points during the day.”

They fell into silence, Ron tapping his foot nervously as they waited for George to return. He’d been so intent on getting to the relative safety of the twins’ shop that he hadn’t even had time to panic about the date on the paper. Three whole months was an absurd amount of time to just forget. What if Harry and Hermione were dead? Everyone would look to him for answers, for whatever the mission that Fred had mentioned was. There had been a mission, that felt right, but he was no closer to an answer. The twins had put aside their questioning to help their clearly distressed brother but Ron daren’t ask any more lest he raise their suspicions again. Burning questions such as What the hell has happened in the last twelve weeks would have to wait.

“Ron?” Fred’s voice startled him. “Are you okay?” There was no mirth or mischief in his eyes, only concern.

“Yeh, yeh. Why?” Ron replied with forced airiness.

“Well, if I’m honest, you look like shit.”

Ron looked at his tattered, grubby clothes. His boots were scuffed and scarred, his stained jeans once a size too small now hung off his waist and lank hair brushed the top of his collar.

“You sound like mum,” Ron said with a weary snort, drawing a reluctant smile from his brother.

As darkness fell and the tall lamps up and down Diagon Alley flickered to life, the two Weasley twins exited the door of their shop and locked it behind them, casting numerous protective charms in the hope it would stand another night. They were bundled up tight against the ceaseless cold, only a few tufts of ginger hair poking between their hats and balaclavas.

The pair trudged up the street with care. Countless boots had compacted the morning’s snow which now re-froze in the plummeting temperatures, becoming as slippery as glass. Twenty feet behind them, a dark-cloaked individual detached itself from the recess of a doorway and shadowed them.

On occasion, the twins would stop by the Leaky Cauldron on their way home, but tonight was not one of those nights. They turned off the thoroughfare before reaching the inn and made for the public apparition point.

The figure watched from across the street as one of the men grabbed the other’s forearm, raised his wand in the air, and disappeared with a crack that echoed double off the brickwork. As the sound died away, the figure raised his own wand and a silver streak arced away into the sky.

On windswept sand dunes some two hundred miles west, the two men reappeared. Fred released Ron’s good arm and tugged his collar up. The wind had scoured away any snow but the ridges were crusted with saltwater ice and a frozen slurry lined the high-tide mark of the breaking waves.

“Where is it?” came Ron’s muffled voice from behind the borrowed balaclava.

“Fidelius,” Fred replied. “Wait here.”

He tramped off along the depression between two dunes, then rounded another and was lost from sight. Ron edged a little higher up the slope to try and catch his brother’s bobbing head, but saw nothing.

His hand was screaming at him now, overwhelming his senses with waves of nauseating agony. The cold had worked to his advantage in the morning, numbing the pain, but a day spent in a heated room with it tucked into his coat had brought back every excruciating sensation.

The minutes dragged on and Ron drew his wand, peering anxiously between the dunes and across the empty beach. Eventually, the sound of two sets of feet crunching across the sand reached his ears.

His eldest brother looked worn. His hair was pulled into a familiar ponytail and the scars that crossed his face were slowly fading, but there were bags under his eyes and new lines on his forehead. He approached and pulled Ron into a one-armed hug.

“It’s good to see you,” he said, releasing Ron and leaning back to get a good look at him. “Fred didn’t say what this was about?”

“I didn’t tell him,” Ron replied. “Can I stay here for a bit? I’ll explain inside.”

Bill’s eyes flicked across to Fred, but he nodded. “Sure.”

He dug in his pocket and pulled out a slip of paper upon which was scrawled a hasty note. He handed it to Ron.

William and Fleur Weasley live at Shell Cottage, Tinworth, Cornwall.

As soon as Ron had read the last word, the note caught light and crumbled into ash that fluttered away on the breeze. Ron looked up and saw, tucked between the distant dunes, a small, white-washed cottage that hadn’t been there a moment ago.

“Are you coming in, Fred?” Bill asked.

“No, I need to meet up with George and get back to the Burrow before they get suspicious.” He put a hand on Ron’s shoulder. “Take care, yeh?”

As Fred departed, Bill led Ron through the winding sandbanks towards the cottage.

“What’s going on, Ron,” Bill said, walking up the narrow path towards the door.

“I don’t know. I wish I did but… I didn’t know where else to go.”

Bill opened the door right into the kitchen. It was small, but homely, with a weathered wooden table and magically preserved wildflowers in a vase on the window sill.

“Ronald! Quelle surprise!” Fleur came dashing across the room and threw her arms around him, crushing his left hand between them.

“Argh!” Ron yelled. Fleur broke away immediately and looked at him with concern.

“Désolé! Are you ‘urt?” She tugged on the arm that was tucked into his jacket and, reluctantly, Ron let her see his hand. “Mon dieu! What ‘appened!? Sit down, sit down. Bill, j’ai besoin de mon sac de la salle de bain.”

She guided Ron to a seat at the kitchen table while Bill hurried from the room. Fleur lay Ron’s forearm on the table and gently rolled back his sleeve, sucking in air through her teeth.

Bill returned and deposited a canvas bag down next to her that clinked against the wood.

“This is frostbite,” Fleur said, examining Ron’s hand with gentle pressure on his wrist.

“Is it bad?” Bill asked, leaning over the table to see.

“Oui.” Ron didn’t need to know French to understand her response.

Fleur rooted in the bag and pulled out several bottles, lining them up on the table. Then, she summoned wraps of clean bandages and a towel that she laid out beneath Ron’s injured hand. She looked at Bill with trepidation.

“How bad,” he asked gravely, mirroring Ron’s concern.

“This, I can treat,” she said, indicating his raw and blistered thumb, index, and middle finger, “Mais, je dois amputer ces doigts.” Bill closed his eyes.

“What… what did you say?” Ron asked.

“I’m sorry,” Fleur said, forgetting herself. “These fingers,” she pointed to the blackened extremities, “they are too damaged for what I ‘ave ‘ere. I’m sorry, Ron, I will ‘ave to… remove them.”

“Remove them!?” said Ron, instinctively pulling his hand away and almost retching with pain as it slipped through Fleur’s fingers.

“Ron, Fleur knows what she’s talking about,” said Bill, trying to calm him. “She wouldn’t do it if there were any other way.” Fleur shook her head.

The throbbing was reaching an intensity that cutting them off would almost seem preferable, but sitting before the knife was a very different prospect. He looked at Bill, at the gouges that bisected his face; his thanks for coming to defend Hogwarts. Another wave of pain rose the bile in his throat. He nodded weakly.

Ron lowered himself back into the chair on unsteady legs. Bill had crossed to a kitchen cupboard and returned pinching two glasses and a bottle of Firewhisky. He placed one in front of Ron and poured a generous measure, then sat opposite and poured one for himself. Ron shakily met his toast and gulped the liquid back, briefly appreciating the novel sensation of being warm again.

Fleur unstoppered and lined up her various potions and began casting cleansing charms over her hands, the table, Ron’s clothes. Ron found himself leaning forwards, not wanting to look but also unable to pull his eyes away as she brought the tip of her wand closer to his ruined flesh. She looked up at him from under her brow.

“Bill, le distraire.”

“Tell me what happened, Ron,” Bill said. “How did you get injured? Why did you want to come here? Where are the others?”

With great effort, Ron turned to his brother. “I don’t know where to begin.”

“At the start,” Bill replied.

So he did. He told Bill about his last clear memories; of the wedding, and how even they had patches of uncertainty. He told him about appearing in the snow, about the fog of something that filled the gap but could not be penetrated. About not trusting that home would be safe and finding the twins to make it here. The sound of Fleur’s ministrations faded into the background and, thanks to copious numbing charms, the only feeling was the occasional tug or pressure which he could ignore.

Bill’s reaction, though, was unexpected. Ron had always found Bill to be the most understanding and level-headed of his siblings; a careful balance between his mother’s controlling nature and his father’s apathetic tendencies, but as Ron’s story unfolded Bill became more tense. He sat up straighter, kept glancing over at Fleur, and by the end his wand had found its way into his hand.

 “Bill?” Ron said, eyeing the wand that was not yet pointing at him but very much held ready above the table.

“Don’t panic, Ron. It’s just a precaution.”

“What are you talking about?” He was starting to feel uneasy.

“Long periods of unknown activity, confusion, headaches? Ron, they’re all signs of someone who has been under the imperious curse.”

“Imperious!?” Ron exclaimed, leaping up from the table and dragging his numb hand out of Fleur’s grasp. Bill sprang to his feet too, his wand now raised at his brother.

“Wait! Wait!” cried Fleur. Half-wrapped bandages trailed from Ron’s lop-sided hand.

“Calm down,” said Bill. “I’m just trying to keep us all safe until we can know for sure.”

“I’m your brother,” said Ron.

“And Fleur is my wife. I’m not going to hex you, Ron. Please, just give me your wand. For now.”

Ron stuffed his good hand into his jacket and Fleur flinched, but he pulled out his wand by the tip and chucked it onto the table.

“I haven’t been imperioused,” Ron said, dropping back into his chair.

“I hope not, but these are unprecedented times,” Bill replied, scooping up the discarded wand.

“Voilà,” said Fleur, tying a knot in the loose ends of the bandage. Ron examined his left hand. It was still numb and did not respond to his attempts to wiggle his fingers. A thick wad of bandage wrapped around his palm and the back of his hand, covering the knuckles where his two outer fingers had been. Looking at them, he couldn’t quite make himself believe they were gone. Rather, it felt as though they could simply be curled against his palm, hidden by the gauze. His remaining fingers were pink and shiny, but no longer covered in blisters and sores.

“It will stay numb for a while, and there may be some pain, some unusual feelings where they used to be, but, c’est fait.”

Bill summoned a third glass for Fleur and poured them all another inch of Firewhisky. This time Ron sipped at it, letting its intoxicating effect smooth the edges of his frayed mind.

“You don’t remember anything that happened to Harry or Hermione?” Bill asked.

“No,” Ron replied. “Do you think they could have been caught?” He didn’t feel up to asking the ‘or worse’ part of the question, but it was on all their minds.

“We don’t think so, but…” Bill shook his head. “None of the Order has seen or heard from any of you since Remus left you at Grimmauld Place.”

This was news to Ron. He said nothing, but made a mental note that they’d all been at Grimmauld at some point.

“It was our assumption,” Bill continued, “that if you’d been captured it would have been headline news. Harry is Undesirable Number One and you-know-who has been after him for so long that he was bound to revel in it, but now… I don’t know, Ron. I don’t know why it never occurred to us that you’d be separated. It throws all those assumptions into doubt. I need to let the Order know what’s happened.”

“What’s happening with the Order?”

“Kingsley’s doing his best but we’re struggling. Dad is still keeping up appearances at the Ministry and feeding back whatever he hears. Most of us have been running all over the place responding to Dementor attacks; evacuating people before they’re overwhelmed, helping the muggle authorities in secret where we can, mainly trying to figure out how he’s done it.”

Dementors. Something flashed in Ron’s mind; a horde of them, so dense they blotted out the sky, and a burst of blue-white light. It was gone as quickly as it came, and try as he might he couldn’t retrieve it once it had gone.

“Dementors?” Ron asked.

“Right, yeh, that was after the summer.” Bill said, rubbing his forehead. “The Dementor population has exploded. We always knew they’d side with him; it’s why every Order member has to be able to cast a full patronus, but what we’re seeing, it shouldn’t be possible.”

“He ‘as set them loose without a care who they ‘urt” Fleur fumed.

“Their numbers are completely unsustainable but every week the swarms grow. Remus says they’ve upset the climate but we’re so busy trying to put out the fires, metaphorically speaking, that we can’t stop to find out why.”

“And the others?” Ron asked. “Charlie? Ginny?”

“Charlie is helping the Order; he’s been moving between safe houses, I’m not sure where he is right now. As for Ginny, we’re still trying to get anything we can out of Hogwarts.” Fleur reached over and squeezed Bill’s arm. “Everything’s gone dark; nothing from Minerva, and nothing has come out except that recording that was played on the radio.”

Bill slumped back in his chair and Ron picked at the edge of his bandage. He knew things were bad, they’d been bad since the end of fourth year when Voldemort had secretly returned, having to make it through fifth year while the Ministry denied it, and the attack that had killed Dumbledore in sixth, but it had gotten so much worse so quickly. He’d blinked and been transported from his eldest brother’s wedding to a frozen country suffocating under countless Dementors with the hope of victory slipping farther out of reach each day. And Harry and Hermione were still out there somewhere, doing something he should have been doing too.

The sourceless shame bubbled up in his stomach again. Why was he ashamed? Afraid? Sure. Miserable? Understandably so, but why shame? The numbness of his hand allowed his aching head to reassert itself. Perhaps this was his life now; flashes of unexplained clarity, endless fog, and pain. He pushed his half-empty glass back and forth, watching the amber liquid ripple but not really seeing.

Fleur rose from the table and packed away her potions, then gathered the glasses and levitated them into the sink where they began to rinse and polish themselves.

“It is late. Ronald, you may stay as long as you like; the spare room is at the top of the stairs and to the right. Bon nuit.”

She left the tiny kitchen and headed upstairs. Bill stood to follow, then paused.

“And the bathroom is just opposite,” he said, clapping Ron on the shoulder and heading after his wife. Ron eventually dragged his feet after them, how much later he didn’t know.

Bill left early the following morning to update the Order on what had happened; on Ron’s relatively safe return but the continued absence of Harry and Hermione. To pass the time, Ron wandered through the dunes that surrounded the cottage, staying within the invisible radius of the fidelius charm. The biting cold of the air and the wide sky above felt familiar in a calming way, and unexpected for someone who would usually be found inside by the fire playing chess.

His missing fingers turned out to be less of a hinderance than he might have expected. After all, how often is one’s pinkie essential for anything, but he still felt clumsy and wooden. The strangest thing was that he could feel them. He could clench his fist and feel them moving despite there being no digits to move.

Fleur had done an excellent job, given the circumstances. While she checked the wound and changed his dressing, Ron examined the smooth flesh where they used to be. One could be forgiven for thinking he had simply been born with only three fingers.

Upon his return late that evening, Bill took Ron aside and asked him a series of probing questions, cast a few complex charms over him, and eventually declared that no, he wasn’t under the imperious, though there was no explanation for what had happened.

After that, time moved slowly at Shell Cottage. Each day was the same with Bill disappearing on Order business and Ron trying to be helpful where he could but mainly staying out of Fleur’s way. Occasionally another Order member would drop by and there was fleeting joy in seeing a familiar face alive and well in such dark times, but conversation would inevitably turn to what Ron had been doing over the past months, exactly how much he could and couldn’t remember, and of course the health and whereabouts of his two best friends. Before long, Ron came to loathe the visits, then avoid them entirely.

Ron’s faith in his brother and decision to seek him out was rewarded in the way Bill treated him. Ron was always included in his briefs and updates on Order activities and treated as an equal at the table; something he doubted would have happened at the Burrow. Despite it all, though, there was little Ron could do to help. By all accounts his spattergroit cover story was holding and to blow it would implicate their whole family in the conspiracy, putting them in danger and losing their only eyes still inside the Ministry. Polyjuice potion was too valuable and it would take time they didn’t have to bring him on board with ongoing operations, so the only place for him was to remain at the cottage.

A week after his surprise arrival, Ron had reached his wits end with his inexorable confinement but, crucially, had come up with a viable, albeit risky alternative.

“-can’t get any more in until next week,” Bill was saying one evening. Ron had only been half listening, the rest of his attention on building up the nerve to put his idea forward.

“I’ve had a thought,” he said to the room at large.

“Yeh?” Bill replied, perplexed.

“About me. As in- something I could do for the Order.” Bill waved his hand, giving Ron the floor. “You said things have gone dark at Hogwarts right? That there’s no information coming out?”

“…Yeh,” said Bill warily, as though he had already followed Ron’s thought to its logical conclusion.

Ron drew a fortifying breath. “I’m going to return to Hogwarts.”

Bill’s trust in Ron was evident in the way he didn’t immediately try to shoot the idea down.

“That as close to the lion’s den as you can get without walking into its mouth,” he said.

“I know.”

“And you know that the Order can’t support you? There won’t be any backup. I’m sure you’ll be searched going in so we can’t send anything in with you.”

“I can’t spend the rest of the war sat here doing nothing, Bill. I just can’t.”

Bill ran his fingers through his long hair. “Kingsley won’t sanction it. If anything, he’s more interested in getting people out than putting them in.”

“I’m the only one who can get in,” said Ron. “I’m supposed to be there right now. Besides, I’m of age; he can’t stop me.”

“’E is right,” said Fleur, shrugging.

Bill looked between his wife and his brother, one resigned, one determined.

“Okay,” he said.

Chapter Text

Pat-pat pat-pat, pat-pat pat-pat.

The still-unfamiliar beat of four paws whispered across the snow-covered ground, hind feet instinctively landing in the shallow depression made by the fore to stay as silent and steady as possible.

Pat-pat pat-pat.

Harry’s wide, flat nose warmed the frigid air before it reached his lungs, keeping his core warm. The pink hue of dawn was blooming in the east, turning yellow as the Sun edged closer to the horizon and casting the first long shadows of the day that he was currently picking his way between.

The air was clean and scent-less, or rather, as scent-less as it could be, for Harry had come to appreciate just how much that could not be seen by the eye was carried on the invisible currents. He could detect sap, the markings of animals, and the hint of decay. From further upwind came the distinctive smell of livestock and the tang of pollution from the muggle town they’d camped a few miles from, but there were no threats; no human sweat or aftershave or piss.

A flash of movement among the treetops caught his eye and Harry froze, all senses on alert. Something white moved silently under the canopy parallel to him, gliding between the pines. It was only when the phantom alighted on a snow-bent bough that he could make out what it was.

The snowy owl perched on a low branch, hoping for one last catch before returning to roost through the day. Perhaps it had hungry chicks to feed, or else was struggling to find food in the deteriorating weather like the rest of them.

It’s black-speckled wings were remarkably similar to Hedwig’s and Harry felt a pang of guilt for his lost owl. He crept closer, pausing when its head would sweep in his direction, until he was crouched against the trunk of an adjacent tree, watching.

The owl had become fixated on a point in the snow some twenty feet from the base of its perch. Harry twitched his ears but could hear nothing. Suddenly, it leapt from the tree and dived. Its wings made not a sound as it dropped from the sky, spreading them wide to slow and control its descent as razor-sharp talons extended.

With a muffled whump the owl hit the snow feet-first and sank up to its wing joints. There was a brief scuffle accompanied by panicked squeaking, then it awkwardly clambered out of the hole it had made clutching something small and furry and very much dead in one talon.

Harry shifted his weight on his paws and the owl looked at him. Its eyes were darker than Hedwig’s, it’s face leaner, but Harry held its gaze while it assessed him.

In unison their heads snapped to Harry’s right. The sound had reached them at the same time and Harry’s head had begun to turn before he’d even processed it. The snapping of a twig had rent the silence of the woods and if he strained, he could just about make out the sound of movement through deep snow.

Harry looked back in time to see the owl grasp its kill in its beak and take flight back through the trees. He watched it go, then slunk off in the direction of the sound.

Whoever made the sound was downwind of him so he relied on sight and sound to home in on the intruder. It was unusual for anyone to be out on foot so far from the town, and while dawn came late in November, pre-dawn outings were even rarer. It all added up to something suspicious and perhaps not muggle in nature.

Harry’s wide paws made quick work of the drifts that burred the forest floor; his own natural snow shoes to pad across the surface instead of ploughing through it like his quarry was. He had yet to lay eyes on them, but the noise they were making had resolved into two, perhaps even three sets of feet and laboured breathing as they made their slow progress perpendicular to him.

Harry slunk under a frozen rhododendron, the frost-tipped leaves and dappled shade a perfect match to his white and black coat, and waited. Within minutes the offending party traipsed into view.

Leading the way was a man bundled head-to-toe in a mismatch of coats, scarves, shawls, and cloaks, kicking a furrowed path through the snow. In his wake plodded two smaller figures. At first Harry took them to be children and was dismayed at the thought of them being out here unprotected, but as the group marched closer and their features became sharper, he saw that they were, in fact, a pair of goblins.

The man stopped to catch his breath, his hands braced on his knees and the two goblins stopped behind him. One of them was being held up by the other and appeared barely conscious.

“We’ll find somewhere… to lay low…” the man panted, looking up at the brightening sky. “A farmhouse… or barn…”

The conscious goblin adjusted the position of his companion, draped on his shoulder. Harry thought he might look vaguely familiar, but he didn’t know any goblins so discounted it for the time being.

“How much further?” they grumbled.

“Erm, only a day, I think. Two at most,” the man replied. He didn’t sound certain.

“And this friend of yours will have a way out?”

“Oh yes, even for your kind.” The goblin narrowed their beady eyes but he wasn’t looking. “Upper Flagley is in this area… somewhere. We’d have been there ages ago if they hadn’t taken my wand.”

The goblin grunted disinterestedly.

“Thought you lot were on his side anyway?”

Even at a distance Harry could see the goblin’s bared teeth.

“Not all share his vision of wizard-goblin relations,” they ground out.

“Did I tell you how I got away?” the man asked, forging ahead again.

“Repeatedly,” came the surly reply as the goblin coaxed their vacant friend into an unsteady stumble. The man appeared not to have heard.

“Three of them, there were, marching me out of that farce of a hearing.”

Harry slipped from his hiding place and shadowed them from between the trees. Their pace was agonisingly slow.

“Half-blood on my mother’s side, I told them, but would they listen?” the man continued loudly. “Snapped my wand then and there. The nerve! Anyway, said I needed to use the facilities, so I did, and when they walked me through the atrium, BAM! I socked one of them in the back of the head and dived into the nearest fireplace next to old Cartwright. Hm, he’ll probably be in a spot of bother now, come to think of it.”

The trio and their unseen companion struggled on until the full disc of the Sun had cleared the horizon. They had just paused for yet another breather when the fur down Harry’s spine tingled and his hackles began to raise.

He could neither see nor hear a threat, but he was learning to trust his animal instincts and if it said there was reason to be alarmed then he would listen to it. He crouched low, pressing himself into the ground to reduce his profile and put him in a position to pounce if necessary.

While he waited, alert, his mind travelled back to Hermione and the tent he’d left her sleeping in. Could something have happened to her, is that why he felt so on edge? It was stupid to leave alone, he’d grown complacent and foolish. What would he do if she were caught? It would be entirely his fault.

The weight of his emotions pressed on him like a physical weight, trapping him in place, but the evolving instinctual core of his mind was rapidly piecing together an answer as a thin fog rose from the ground and the temperature dipped unnaturally.

With silent, deadly grace, tattered black forms began to materialise through the trees. The low Sun had been consumed by the malign mist that followed them, a physical analogue to the hopelessness and gloom that washed off them and that was trying to consume Harry.

More and more were advancing through the dim light, the closest drifting by no more than twenty feet from where he lay crouched, but they did not look his way.

A strangled shout sounded up ahead as the fugitives caught sight of the first of the wraiths and the ones around Harry sped up, sensing that prey were nearby.

Harry, emboldened by their apparent disinterest in him, took off in a wide arc that would put him on the far side of the trio and with fewer trees to block his eyeline. He may be more confident now their theory on animagi detection appeared to be true, but he wasn’t foolish enough to test its limits.

He bounded through the snow, keeping the dark, whirling forms over his shoulder until he could see the source of their agitation.

The man was desperately wading through the trees, a look of abject terror plastered across his face. Every few seconds one of the Dementors would detach itself from the churning mass above him and swoop low, drawing a rattling breath and causing his knees to sag and his pupils to shrink to pinpricks as they dredged his worst memories to the forefront of his mind and feasted on his despair.

The goblins were faring no better, one still stubbornly dragging the other who was completely limp now and falling to their back when two Dementors passed just feet above them. Harry didn’t see them get back up.

The man had sunk to all fours now, an awkward, stilted facsimile of the wizard watching him through animal eyes. His body kept moving, clawing forwards away from the horde, but his eyes were glassy and unseeing, trapped within an endless reel of nightmares. He keeled onto his back, heart fluttering.

Harry knew he shouldn’t expose himself, knew he shouldn’t draw the attention of the swarm when he’d miraculously avoided being caught in the maelstrom like the poor beings in front of him. He should leave now and not stop running until he’d reached Hermione and apparated them to the opposite end of the country. But he couldn’t.

The feeding frenzy appeared to have calmed now, though the Dementors still circled overhead like carrion birds. One of them fluttered down from the group ever so slowly and came to rest above the prostrate man. Harry had the sick feeling that it was enjoying the moment.

It began to suck in an immense breath; a noise that Harry had heard only once before, in his third year, that sounded like nothing less than the heralding of oblivion, and he could stand by no more.

Harry’s body bent to his will, fur retracting and limbs lengthening in record time until he stood on two feet once more, his wand already in his hand and raised at the black forms.

“Expecto Patronum!”

His father’s stag leapt from the tip of his wand and barrelled towards the Dementor, mid-kiss. It whirled away in a tangle of material in the face of the blinding animal, which turned and charged down another two descending on the goblins. Harry was just about to direct it into the sky to clear off the rest of them when a harsh voice sounded from across the clearing.

“Heh! Nice one!”

Harry flattened himself against the nearest tree and peered through the mist for the source, his patronus vanishing.

“Wasn’t me,” came a reply, “Mine’s right here.”

Two silhouettes approached from the murky woods, backlit by harsh blue light. Striding closer, they resolved into a man and a woman, one trailed by a shining white rook, the other by a horned ram.

“Who was it then?” The pair raised their wands and squinted into the thin fog.

“Homenum Revelio!”

The spell pulsed out from the woman’s wand, sweeping across the snow to expose any hidden survivors but passing blindly over a watchful snow leopard not thirty feet away from them.

“Nothing,” she said, perplexed.

“Must have been this guy before he passed out,” shrugged the other, kicking the boot of the fallen man.

Despite the two patronuses circling the clearing – noticeably dimmer than his own, Harry remarked, the Dementors were growing restless. The black cloud was sinking lower, below the treetops now, and more and more were breaking away from the pack to probe the magical barrier.

“Hey! Back, Back!” the woman said, brandishing her wand at them and causing her ram to leap at the bravest of them. It made little difference. “They keep doing that. Something’s off with them, I’m telling you.”

“Everything’s off with them; they’re Dementors. Give me the creeps,” replied the man. “Come on, you grab those two.”

Wordlessly, they bound the helpless victims and levitated them into the centre of the clearing.

“Let’s get them turned in. We’ll get more since they haven’t been kissed,” he said, rubbing his hands together repulsively.

“What about that lot?” asked the woman, jerking her chin upwards.

“Leave ‘em. We’ll find them again sooner or later.”

They each grabbed a loose end of rope and vanished with a bang that shook ice from the nearest branches. Their patronuses failed the instant they left and the horde of Dementors swopped down to the forest floor, finding nothing.

They milled about, following the perimeter of the clearing like a slow cyclone until one stopped at the point closest to Harry. It peered into the trees – or so it seemed for a creature without eyes, and drew a rattling breath. Then another joined it, and another. Four, five, six Dementors stalked in Harry’s direction, tasting the air and swinging their shrouded heads back and forth.

Harry turned tail and ran as fast as his four legs could carry him.

What would have taken him twenty minutes on foot took less than five at full tilt on four paws built for chasing prey across dangerous peaks. It was not only Harry’s strength that had increased considerably, but his stamina too, and he approached their campsite breathing deep but with enough in reserve that he could run all the way back again with ease.

The protective charms still shielded the site from inquisitive eyes and ears but not, they discovered, noses. Hermione had since added additional spells that prevented odours escaping the perimeter – no mean feat when one still had to allow fresh air to pass through.

Harry navigated by memory rather than by sense, and soon reached the fallen tree that marked the southern edge of their bubble. As soon as he crossed the invisible line on the ground, the tent swam into view along with a wary brunette stood by the entrance, clutching a wand.

Hermione was already facing him, the layered charms warning her of something approaching, but she still gave a start as Harry trotted into view. Her scent was quickly becoming one of Harry’s favourite things about her and it filled the air as he followed it back to its source. He’d had years to appreciate her keen intellect, her sharp wit, her luminous eyes, but now there was an entirely new dimension to explore.

Harry dropped his animal form two paces from Hermione and, to her surprise, wrapped her in his arms. His irrational worry for her safety had been stoked by the Dementors, but that didn’t lessen the relief at seeing her alive and well.

“Harry? Is everything okay?” she asked, muffled against his shoulder. He nodded, but pulled her tighter all the same.

“Let’s get inside,” Harry said, finally pulling himself away. “We need to start packing up – there’s another group of them not far off.”

He caught the glint of the golden chain across the back of her neck as she led him inside and shuddered. Harry still didn’t trust the thing – not that he ever had, but since hearing it he was even more wary. Hermione had gone along with his suggestion that they shouldn’t transform while wearing it, but the upshot was that at least one of them had to remain human at any given time to wear the damn thing.

“I saw the note you left,” Hermione said, pointing her wand at the kitchenette that began to pack itself away. She was being casual, but he knew her well enough to hear the reproach hiding in her voice.

“I’m sorry,” Harry said, catching her hand an turning her to face him. “I only meant to be out a couple of minutes, to clear my head, but someone was passing nearby and I had to check them out.”

Hermione’s eyes softened. “Just wake me next time, alright?”

“I know,” he sighed. “It felt selfish; it’s not your problem to deal with.”

“Firstly, it’s not a problem, and secondly, we deal with it together regardless.” She cupped his face with a hand.

“I don’t know why I get like this,” Harry said, breaking away to clear the bedroom area. “Every morning and every evening I get so restless.” He pulled a discarded shirt from under one of the camp beds and sent it flying towards the beaded bag which swallowed it whole. “I tried reading, pacing the kitchen, but I needed to be out.”

“I think we need to learn more about our animal forms,” said Hermione. “It has to be linked; you weren’t feeling like this before. That book is surprisingly unhelpful about what to expect after you achieve the first transformation, but it’s entirely possible that we’re going through mental or physiological changes.”

“Like puberty?” Harry quipped.

“You did suddenly grow a lot more hair,” Hermione replied in mock thoughtfulness which broke into a laugh when Harry lobbed a bundled pair of socks at her.

“Who was it out there?” she asked, the brief levity of the moment gone.

“A wizard- no one we know, and two goblins.”

Hermione raised her eyebrows in surprise.

“I know. Sounded like he’d escaped the Ministry like us and picked them up along the way. Then the Dementors came down, they were defenceless, I- I couldn’t let them be kissed so I chased them off but that got the attention of two snatchers, or Death Eaters, I’m not sure which. They bundled the three of them off and left the Dementors to roam free.”

He half expected a rebuke from Hermione. Hell, he would have deserved it, but instead he found only sympathy in her gaze.

“I’m sure they’d be grateful,” she said. Harry gave a half-hearted shrug. Which fate-worse-than-death was preferable? Having one’s soul devoured or being a captive of Voldemort’s Death Eaters?

With the contents of the tent squared away, the pair of them stepped back out into the pale dawn light. The weather had granted them an unexpected reprieve over the last day or two, as though the Sun had mounted a counter-offensive, but the balance was already tipping back the other way and Harry’s cheeks prickled with the morning wind that blew through their camp.

They stayed within arm’s reach of one another while the tent was disassembled and the defensive perimeter dissolved. Harry pulled off his gloves with his teeth and lifted the delicate golden chain from around Hermione’s neck, brushing her warm flesh and tingling for an entirely different reason. He hung it around his own neck and tugged his gloves back on.

“I’m sorry for this,” he said. “I know it’s a pain to keep wearing it.”

“It’s okay,” Hermione replied. “We need to be sparing with our forms anyway. Neither of them are native to Great Britain and if we’re seen it might raise suspicion. If we’re too obvious about it we’ll give the game away completely.”

They pulled in closer to apparate together and Harry took his opportunity to capture her lips with his own. It was a sensation he could never grow tired of, nor the way her body sank into his. True to their resolution he had been trying hard not to overthink it, though it was surprising how much thought went into not overthinking. In truth nothing much had changed about the way they were around each other – a glaring signal of what he should have realised much sooner, he thought, though he found himself watching her more, and his stomach would heat when he caught her doing the same. Harry hadn’t yet found the bravery to kiss her as and when he liked, nor would there be enough hours in the day, but when circumstance found them pressed together, be it apparating, planning, or even cleaning dishes, the pull of her lips was inescapable.

The kiss ended and Harry was treated to a few seconds of Hermione’s hazy, desire-slackened face. There wasn’t much that could make Hermione Granger lose focus, but he immensely enjoyed being the thing that did.

She drew a deep breath, pulling her mind back to the situation at hand. “Right, yes, well. One less thing we have to do later.”

Harry snorted and pulled them out of reality as the farthest trees started to fade away into the advancing fog bank.

Harry felt Hermione pulling against him and relinquished control of their apparition, allowing her to guide them to the destination of her choice. Moments later, they reappeared at the edge of a vast park. Pristine snow blanketed what would usually be rolling lawns ideal for summer picnics; the top rungs of a children’s slide poking out forlornly.

She grabbed Harry’s hand and led him along the tree line until they reached a road. There had been some attempt to plough it, with dirty snow banked in the gutters, but even the clear path was six inches of frozen slush sat on a bed of ice.

Looking over at her, the happiness that lit Hermione’s face before they departed had already vanished. She was tense, deeply uncomfortable, Harry would say almost nauseous.

“Hermione, where are we?” he asked.

“Hughenden Park,” she replied, “Just on the edge of High Wycombe.”

“High- Hermione, this is where you live.” Harry could not fathom why she had brought them here, to her home town of all places. No wonder she looked so miserable; the place must be fit to bursting with memories of her parents. “Why are we here?”

“It’s the only place I’m familiar enough with to find what we need.” Hermione’s voice was pained. It was clear even she had not fully appreciated the effect this place would have on her.

“What’s that?”

“A library.”

“Hermione, we don’t need the information that bad. There are other places we can find a library.” He tugged on her arm, trying to guide her back to their apparition point and away from this quagmire of nostalgia.

“I know there are, but how long are we going to spend looking for them? I know this one. I’ve been coming here since I was six years old, I know exactly where to look for what we need. I’ll be fine, honest.” She was not as convincing as she’d meant to be, but Harry relented and fell into step beside her as they picked their way down the main road, hoods drawn on the off chance that a familiar face crossed their path.

They’d appeared at the end of the park that butted up against the north end of the town, and were soon walking past rows of houses. Most showed some sign of activity in the deep footprints that led to front doors, but cars remained buried and they passed no other pedestrians. Even the front yards were devoid of snowmen or children playing.

Roughly half way to the town centre by Hermione’s reckoning, they came across the first actual people they’d seen since arriving. A large coach had lost control on the icy road and become wedged at an angle between the snow banks.

Several of the passengers, wrapped in thick winter coats, had disembarked and were trying to free it by rocking it to and fro while the driver revved the engine from inside the cab. Bizarrely, a handful of people in green and brown camouflage clothing also formed part of the rescue party.

Harry and Hermione hustled by with heads bowed, unwilling to risk Hermione being seen or spending too long in such a built-up area. The months alone had instilled in both of them a sense of safety in the wild, where one could see threats approaching, unlike the many twisting streets and blind corners of the town.

All became clear when they reached the centre of the town. The area had been coned off to divert vehicles away and was swarming with people in a patchwork of warm clothing. Most stood in small family groups, laden down with bags and, in many cases, pets. A fleet of dark green trucks were parked facing out along one side, their canvas rears open and staffed by more military personnel who were handing out pre-packaged boxes of food and water.

“Keep moving please!” came a distorted voice above the hubbub of the crowd. A woman in green fatigues and a beret stood in the bed of the farthest lorry, a megaphone to her lips. “Take one box and two bottles per person and move to the busses! Beds have been set up in the leisure centre sports hall!”

As the pair watched, another coach came trundling in from a different direction and stopped short of the cones, disgorging its equally disoriented passengers to join the throng.

“North Dean,” Hermione read from the sign propped in the coach’s front window. “That’s only a few miles away. They must be evacuating the local villages.”

“It’s getting really bad,” Harry grimaced, scanning the sky apprehensively. “They’ll be sitting ducks if Dementors arrive. Where’s the library?”

“Just over there, on the opposite side.”

They kept to the fringes of the crowd, squeezing between fraught evacuees and their hastily-gathered belongings, until they reached the nondescript building. Hermione stopped and looked up at it.

“I used to come here with mum and dad every Saturday after my swimming lessons to return last weeks books and pick out new ones,” she sighed. “I stopped coming after starting Hogwarts; there was just too much magical theory to learn.” She blinked away her unfallen tears and pushed open the glass doors.

An older woman stood alone behind the desk, dressed in a scarf and woolly hat over a thick outdoor coat. Hermione immediately blanched and turned her head to obscure her face behind her hood. Harry put two and two together and subtlety moved to block the woman’s line of sight.

“The shelters are just out that way, dear, on the busses,” she said kindly, taking the young couple to be one of the many displaced people outside.

“Oh, erm, we actually wanted to use the library,” said Harry, taken aback.

“Then by all means,” she said with delight, gesturing past the desk to the rows and rows of shelves behind. “Do let me know if you need any help.”

Harry nodded politely and led Hermione, still angled away, by the hand between the stacks.

“Do you know her?” he whispered. The place was empty, there was no chance of being overheard, but the library itself exuded silence and compelled one to keep it.

“She’s worked here as long as I can remember,” Hermione replied in equally hushed tones. “I haven’t seen her in years but you never know.”

It was nothing like the library at Hogwarts. The shelves were plywood on metal frames with peeling labels listing the various genres. In one corner was a low, brightly painted table and chairs surrounded by racks of children’s books.

“We should look for encyclopaedias, anything on zoology, or perhaps nature and geography,” said Hermione, craning her neck to see down the familiar rows. Harry considered suggesting they split up to search more quickly but it was hard enough to keep up with Hermione’s determined stride to the shelves she knew could hold the answers, so he allowed himself to be swept along in her wake.

It took the better part of half an hour, but eventually they came away with a small stack of likely books and deposited them on a study table farthest from the entrance. They each picked one and Harry began thumbing through the pages while Hermione flipped right to the index of hers.

“Of course you’d be an incredibly rare animal,” Hermione said, discarding one book and sliding the next towards her. “There’s so little information about them.”

“There’s something in this one,” said Harry, spinning his own to show her what he’d found. It was little more than half a page in a section of a book on the Himalayas. Hermione poured over it.

“…native to central Asia …threatened by poaching,” she mumbled, skimming over the text. “Ah! Harry, look here! It is presumed that snow leopards, like most cats, are crepuscular, with more active periods of hunting at dawn and dusk. That must be why you’re so restless! Hmm, nothing about hearing – to explain the horcrux, I mean.”

With a surreptitious glance over her shoulder, Hermione drew her wand and duplicated the page on snow leopards, folding it neatly and slipping it into her pocket. There was more to be found on Hermione’s animal form in a book about arctic wildlife.

“This will be really useful; physiology, diet,” Hermione read the chapter headings, “mating behaviours – no thank you,” Harry caught the hint of colour on her cheeks and smirked. Like the previous page, Hermione duplicated the entire chapter and stuffed it out of sight for later reading.

“I think it’s time for us to go,” said Harry, watching the crowd move beyond the glass doors. They’d got what they came for and now his sense of unease was beginning to build again. He wanted to be back in the middle of nowhere, just them and the tent.

They returned the borrowed books to their respective shelves and gave a wave of thanks to the librarian as they hustled out of the door. A chill wind had kicked up while they had been searching that was funnelled between the buildings and rattled the canvas of the trucks. Harry and Hermione pressed together and squinted into the gust.

Far in the distance, hugging the underside of the low clouds, drifted a smattering of black specks. Harry recognised them immediately for what they were, and Hermione’s soft moan of “No. No, no,” told him that she had too.

They watched with baited breath, hoping that the forms would keep moving perpendicular to the town, but they only grew larger. It couldn’t be the same group as before; they were hundreds of miles from their last camp. They must be others.

“Come on, we need to leave. Now,” said Harry, pulling Hermione away from the approaching group. She resisted.

“Harry, all these people. We can’t.” She looked around helplessly. There could well have been people she knew among the oblivious families.

“We have to.” He hated himself for saying it, hated how much it would hurt Hermione, but knew he was right all the same. “We can’t help them, Hermione. We can’t just get our wands out and drive them off; the Ministry would be on us in seconds.”

Hermione wavered, torn between the truth of his words and the conscious decision to leave so many people to a fate they couldn’t even see coming.

“They don’t target muggles; they might be okay,” Harry pleaded, still holding her arm but not trying to force her from the spot. They both knew that wasn’t entirely true; that occasional muggles were coming under attack, but the anxiety in his voice freed her from her paralysis.

Hermione allowed herself to be drawn forward by him and, heavy with guilt, they turned and ran.

Chapter Text

“Hermione?”

He’d lost sight of her again and continued his struggle forward alone. His wand had made quick work of clearing a path when it was only knee-high, but the packed snow was creeping past his waist now and each metre of progress took a little bit longer than the last.

Harry cast yet another warming charm inside his jacket and fought on another ten paces. A raised hump just ahead looked like it might give a better vantage point for him to spy his friend and he waded towards it, lifting one leg and striking something hard and metallic beneath the snow. Harry bent to brush away the powder and uncovered a headlight, followed by a grille and a bonnet that his boot was currently resting on.

Similar misshapen lumps were dotted along the route ahead, roughly following the narrow valley created by a series of larger hillocks, thirty-feet high, on either side. On the leeward sides, orange brick and vacant windows were still visible.

Harry clambered onto the roof of the buried vehicle and peered around until he spotted three black dots bobbing in his direction low to the ground – a nose and two watchful eyes.

The small, white fox trotted towards him, its tiny paws pattering across the frozen crust. If she weren’t looking directly at him, she would have been almost invisible. Hermione hopped up onto the rear of the car, then joined him on the roof before dropping her form.

“I think there might be somewhere promising up ahead,” she said, blowing into her hands and rubbing them together, already missing her thick arctic fur.

“I didn’t realise it would be so bad,” Harry replied, head sweeping around the frozen street.

“They must have got the worst of the blizzards here. We couldn’t move for a week and we only caught the edge of it.” Close to three weeks had passed since their escape from Hermione’s home town, though half of it had been spent hunkering down in the tent clutching jars of flame as the country was battered by the worst storms it had ever known. Now well into December, the houses should have been twinkling with coloured lights and adorned with festive wreaths, but instead they stood abandoned.

“How much further?” Harry asked, looking wearily at the furrowed path he’d left in his wake.

“Not far; just across the next road. Here, try this.” Hermione pointed her wand at his shoes and made a complicated figure-eight pattern, conjuring what, to Harry, looked like a pair of tennis rackets strapped to the soles. “Snowshoes!” she beamed.

With that, Hermione twisted, shrank back down into vulpine form and bounded back down to the ground, her tail swishing. She paused to check over her shoulder that Harry was following, then pushed on ahead to act as their scout.

Snowshoes seemed like such a simple and obvious solution, Harry thought, as he tramped after her, the wide base sinking just a few inches with each step rather than three whole feet. After a few minutes, however, he quickly discovered why they weren’t quite so marvellous.

They were awkward, heavy things. Each time Harry took a step he would catch the inside of his calf with them, forcing him to adopt an unnaturally wide and high gait of the kind usually used to tiptoe through a pride of sleeping lions. There would certainly be no running in them, or much of anything hasty, but they were at least an improvement over ploughing headlong through it.

Hermione’s estimate had been accurate. At the end of the street stretched a wide expanse of flat snow and, on the far side, a flat-roofed building with a slash of blue livery still poking from under the banked snow drifts; the promise of food.

She had waited for him on their side of the swath of untouched snow; presumably some sort of main road or roundabout that separated the residential streets from the store. Twitching her rounded ears this way and that, Hermione decided that they were safe to proceed and pattered across towards the store. Harry followed in slow, ungainly strides that crushed her delicate footprints under his own dinnerplate-sized ones.

He was roughly a third of the way across when there came an ominous creaking of shifting snow and the world fell out from underneath him.

Harry was deluged in snow as the ground swallowed him whole. It filled his mouth before he could yell and his stomach lurched, the flow carrying him down and forwards until it rumbled to a halt.

He opened his eyes to pitch darkness and the sensation of being pressed on from all sides. He couldn’t even rightly tell which way was up and struggled to control his breathing before he succumbed to the panic rising in his chest. Waving his arms, Harry felt his hands break the surface and worked to dig himself out, relieved that he hadn’t been buried too deep.

His head broke free to… nothing. The darkness was absolute, so dense that it pressed on his eyes with a physical force. He waved his hand in front of his face to be sure. Nothing. The air was completely still but his first lungful stung his throat with its bitter chill.

Fumbling for his wand, Harry held it at arm’s length.

“Lumos.”

Harsh, white light briefly blinded him until, blinking, a rectangular tunnel came into focus, stretching pin-straight away from him. The floor was grey and crusted with ice but the walls were covered in looping neon symbols. Graffiti.

With a huff of recognition, Harry realised that he’d fallen down into an underpass that must go beneath the main road. Behind him the snow banked right up to the ceiling with not a single gap anywhere around. He didn’t fancy the thought of digging through it, so chose to follow the tunnel to the far end.

Harry’s footsteps echoed down the concrete tunnel and back again, creating an eerie staccato that raised the hairs on the back of his neck had him glancing back over his shoulder at regular intervals. His single source of light picked out every facet and imperfection of the passage in monochrome detail.

Harry slowed his pace as something swam into view through the fog of his own breath; a shape that was tucked in tight where the floor met the wall. He fired off a quick detection charm but got nothing in return. Cautiously, Harry approached the object.

His heart fell as he drew close enough to identify it.

A man lay slumped against the concrete, wrapped in a tattered sleeping bag, eyes closed and unmoving. An unkempt beard covered his chin and the deep lines in his weathered face belied his true age. In his lap was curled a small dog, equally still. Harry reached out a tentative hand to touch his shoulder. It was rock-hard.

He must have found the only shelter he could, but it wasn’t enough.

Where once his reaction would have been visceral, Harry only felt a dull ache, a heavy resignation that weighed on his heart with each additional victim. He could not burry or burn or carry this man, he could only walk on.

Harry quickly reached the far end, finding an equally impassible wall of snow.

“I guess I’m digging after all,” he muttered, levelling his wand. To his frustration, however, the magic he knew had little effect. Cutting hexes sailed right through the white mass, summoning only yielded him one snowball-sized chunk at a time, and melting it created an unstable slushy mass that engulfed his boots. Eventually, he gave up completely and started scooping great clumps out with his hands, his wand held between his teeth for illumination.

He’d made a sizeable hollow when the silence of the underpass was broken by a scuffling, scraping sound and suddenly a pointed, white face burst out of the snow bank. The fox wriggled out of the hole it had dug and leapt towards him, morphing in mid-air until Hermione wrapped her arms around his neck as they collided.

“Harry! You’re okay!”

“I’m fine,” he reassured her, cupping the back of her neck.

“I could hear you moving about,” Hermione said, “but I couldn’t figure out where the exit was until you started digging.” She pointed her wand at the burrow she had made. “Engorgio.”

Immediately, snow began to calve away from the sides as the tunnel expanded, stopping when it was wide enough for them both to crawl through and emerge right in front of the store. The glass doors were shut and blocked by a wind-blown drift, but Hermione led them around to the side. A small line of footprints led up the banked snow onto the roof and they scrabbled up, following Hermione’s own tracks.

The flat roof of the store was buried just as deep as the road and had collapsed under the weight in one corner. It was this gap that allowed Harry and Hermione to slide down into the building.

“Lumos,” they said in unison, twin beams of white light cutting across the dim rows of shelves. Bare shelves.

Almost every one of them had been picked clean. Anything in a bag, packet, or tin had been taken or trampled underfoot, left to leak their priceless contents into a frozen puddle on the tiled floor. Trays of fresh fruit and veg had been reduced to mush by repeated freezing and thawing in the unpredictable climate.

Harry and Hermione hunted around the store, crestfallen.

“They must have emptied it before evacuating,” Hermione said, nudging a cracked jar with her toe.

“There’s meat here,” said Harry, standing in front of a refrigerated shelf that was no longer humming. The packets of raw meat were frozen solid.

“We don’t know how long they were sat out before they froze,” Hermione replied. Her mouth twisted as she looked down at the bounty. “It’s okay, we’re not out yet, we just need to be sparing with what we have,” she said in a matter-of-fact voice. A small smile pulled at the corner of Harry’s lips; trust Hermione to rationalise in the face of a crisis.

Staying fed was once again becoming a concern, as it had their first few nights in the tent. For those early weeks it looked as though they would get by with occasional illicit, after-dark supply runs, but as the weather worsened, so did the food shortages. A stranded delivery van had provided an unexpected boon to the pair that saw them through the storms, but now there was more space than food in the kitchen’s tiny cupboards.

They turned back to exit through the sagging roof and Harry paused, huffing out an ironic chuckle. Tucked in the corner were a row of glass-doored freezers that had escaped the hungry mob, full to the brim with ice cream.

He walked over and pulled open the door, lifting a one-pint carton from the shelf.

“Just what we need,” said Hermione with a smirk.

“I’ll be damned if we come away empty handed,” Harry said, and tossed the carton to Hermione who stowed it away with a roll of her eyes before twisting on the spot and darting back into the elements with a swish of her bushy tail.

“Okay, we can cross off Hepzibah Smith’s old house,” said Hermione, scrawling something in a notebook and pulling her mug closer to her.

“It was a long shot anyway,” Harry sighed. “He wasn’t going to hide it at the scene of the crime, and that place didn’t mean anything to him. Not as much as Borgin and Burkes’ would have.”

“No, and we’ve already discounted there. The owners know dark objects like the back of their hands; they would have realised what it was.”

“I know,” said Harry, rubbing his forehead distractedly.

They were both agreed that their animagus endeavour hadn’t been a distraction from hunting down horcruxes; rather a tool in their arsenal to survive and complete their mission, but Harry found it difficult not to miss the days of steady progress and success now that their focus was back on finding them.

“I still think Godric’s Hollow is the most likely candidate,” Harry said, already knowing what Hermione’s answer would be. “It’s where all the prophecy stuff happened, and we know he was obsessed with that.”

Hermione looked at him more softly than he expected.

“I know you want to go, Harry, I just think that’s exactly what he’ll expect; we’d be walking into a trap. It’s also the site of his biggest and only defeat; I can’t see that appealing to his ego as a hiding place.”

Harry nodded and let the issue slide. He didn’t want to argue with her, especially when she was right, but the lingering idea of his parents’ home would not be so easily banished.

“I actually had another idea; one we haven’t considered before,” said Hermione. Harry tilted his head in curiosity; they hadn’t had a new idea in weeks. “The place the Triwizard Cup took you after the third task? Where he was… err, resurrected?”

Harry supressed a shudder at the memory of the graveyard; Cedric’s body lying in the damp grass, the bite of the magical ropes binding him to the headstone as Wormtail inched closer, blade in hand.

“Harry?”

“Sorry,” he said, blinking away the memory. “I guess? Didn’t Dumbledore say that it was in Little Hangleton, when they’d gone to investigate?”

“He did.”

“That’s where the Gaunts lived too; where the ring was hidden. Do you think he’d hide two so close together?”

“My gut says probably not, but the only other places we’ve shortlisted; Hogwarts, Gringotts, Albania, we can’t get into. It’s not that farfetched; he used it as the site of his return, he murdered his father’s whole family there. It’s clearly a place of great significance in his life, and I bet he’d get a kick out of hiding his own immortality under his father’s nose.”

Harry regarded her, watching her tuck a stray curl behind her ear. “You’re thinking more like him,” he said. It wasn’t an accusation.

Hermione coloured slightly. “We’ve been trying to get into his head for months— figuratively speaking,” she clarified with a wince. “I suppose the only way we’re going to work this out is to know him on some level.”

“To Little Hangleton then?”

“I think so.”

They departed under cover of darkness, Harry leading their jump across the country. He couldn’t have pointed to Little Hangleton on a map, but his memories of the night Voldemort returned were vivid enough to guide them there with ease.

The pair materialised on the exact spot the Triwizard Cup had deposited Harry and Cedric some two and a half years ago. They stood back-to-back, wands raised and hands clasped tightly together, ready to disapparate the instant they were attacked, but all was quiet save for the echo of their arrival off a distant house.

With a wave of his wand, Harry blew a patch of snow from the ground, revealing a blackened scorch mark devoid of grass in the clearing before the rows of headstones. His eyes tracked the ghost of Wormtail’s steps from where the cauldron had stood to the cracked tombstone of one Tom Riddle.

“This is where it happened?” Hermione breathed.

Harry could only nod silently.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, pressing into his side.

Some of the surrounding headstones were damaged; a corner blasted off one here, a crack running across the width of one there, but it appeared as though none of the debris from their duel remained. Someone had been through and cleaned up. Not the Ministry, surely, for they had been busy denying the event even happened; someone from the Order then, perhaps?

Harry had faced his own death far more often than any boy his age should have. The Basilisk, a feral Professor Lupin, even the Hungarian Horntail just months before the events of Little Hangleton could all have claimed his life, but it was this night that found him in his dreams and along with it, the overpowering feeling of helplessness.

He had become accustomed, dare he even say adept at fighting for his survival, but on the night of the third task, Wormtail had plucked Harry’s wand from his hand without a second thought, murdered Cedric before his eyes, and trussed him up to await whatever fate Voldemort had devised for him. There had been nothing he could do except wait to meet his end. That, more than anything, had never left Harry, despite the new and varied horrors that competed for his attention in the subsequent years.

It was equal parts terrifying and cathartic to be stood back on the same spot, suffering, like the rest of the wizarding world to be sure, but alive. His face hardened and he gripped Hermione’s hand tighter, savouring its soft warmth and the surety that this time they would walk away on their own merits, not by the luck of twinned wands.

“Let’s look around,” Harry said and they moved off between the headstones, Hermione’s face matching his determination with perhaps a little pride beneath.

There were no detectable protective spells around the grave of Voldemort’s father, nor the cauldron mark, or the place where Harry and Voldemort had been carried by the Priori Incantatem. They took to searching the names on the stones but, aside from the other murdered Riddles whose graves sat beside Tom’s, there were none that bore any clues.

Their footprints criss-crossed the graveyard and the locket around Hermione’s neck stayed stubbornly inert as Harry felt his frustration rising at the fruitlessness of their search.

“We should try the house,” said Hermione, looking up at the moonlit manor that stood atop the hill above the graves. “There would be more places to hide something in there, and set traps.”

They walked up the rise towards the house, deciding that two feet and a wand was a better plan than four paws unless they really needed it. Its dark windows stared blindly across the frozen countryside but decades of grime prevented a clear view of the interior. Skirting around to the rear, Harry and Hermione found an old door into the kitchen that had been left unlocked, and entered the building.

Any smell of dust, mould, or rot that they might have expected from the dilapidated building had been supressed by the cold, and instead a layer of frost twinkled on every surface in the wandlight.

They quartered the ground floor, moving from room to room, casting detection charms and peering into dusty cabinets and display cases. Harry’s ire was bubbling now and he was becoming disproportionately angry with each new room. He kept it to himself, not wanting to snap at Hermione when it wasn’t her fault, but his worsening mood was written on his face for her to see all the same.

As they climbed the stairs, Harry felt a sudden flash of recognition; of the worn tread, the carved balustrade, and the moth-eaten carpet on the landing.

“I’ve been here before.”

“You’ve been here?” asked Hermione, shocked.

“Well, no, I’ve seen here,” Harry clarified, trying to drag a hazy, three-year-old memory to the front of his mind. “I thought it was a dream at the time, but after the attack on Mr Weasley in fifth year I figured it might not be, and now I know.”

“What do you mean?”

“In the summer, before we started fourth year, I had a dream I was in this house. I was-” Harry hesitated. He’d never admitted the truth of this dream, nor the attack on Mr Weasley, to anyone besides Dumbledore. In fact, he’d spent most of fifth year worrying he was half way to being possessed because of it, but looking at her earnest, brown eyes, Harry knew that Hermione was possibly the only person he could trust without question.

“I was a snake, his snake, and I was crawling up these stairs to meet him. He was in one of the upper rooms, but I couldn’t see him; only his voice from behind a chair. I think he was here, Hermione.”

“How can you be sure?” she asked. There was no suspicion in her voice, she didn’t reject him out of hand, she just needed to know what he knew.

“Because the same thing happened with the attack on Ron’s dad. I told everyone I saw it from the sidelines but I lied. I was the snake, Hermione. I saw it attack him, and that really happened, so this must have been real too. He was here.”

To his surprise, her eyes lit up. “Maybe he did hide one here then, during that summer?”

The first floor drawing room yielded nothing, as did the parlour and a peeling gallery. By the fourth door Harry’s brief excitement had been swallowed by the burning frustration once again. Eventually his control slipped and he slammed a desk draw with an audible grunt of annoyance.

“Are you okay, Harry?” Hermione asked.

“Yeh, I’m just… I convinced myself we’d find something,” he sighed.

“We’re not finished looking yet,” she said, warily, “and you’ve been on edge since before we even entered the house.”

“I’m just fed up is all,” Harry bit out, immediately regretting his tone.

“Harry, you don’t think it could be a horcrux do you?”

“Hm?”

“Like the locket, how it makes the wearer irritable and paranoid if worn for too long? What if there’s one here that’s doing the same thing?” She looked around the room as if expecting to see it sat on a table out in the open. “Quick, transform! Maybe you can hear it.”

She was a genius. How had he not thought of that before? Harry pitched forward and caught himself on his front paws, the room suddenly brightening to his light-reflecting eyes. He pricked his ears for the same dissonant, barely-perceptible whine that came from the locket but was instead confronted by a new sensation; his anger has dissipated almost entirely.

What had previously been a crackling heat prickling his skin was now a dull buzz at the edge of his consciousness, easily compartmentalised and ignored. Curious, he sat back on his haunches and switched back. The irritation came rushing back again, demanding it be acknowledged. Back to feline and it was gone again.

“Anything?” said Hermione as he stood up on human legs once more.

“It wasn’t a horcrux,” Harry replied, frowning. “I think it was… him.”

“V- you-know-who?”

“Yeh. It’s gotten better since you pressed me on occlumency again, but he must be really pissed off because it’s all I can feel.”

“We should leave,” said Hermione quickly, reaching for his arm. “We need to get somewhere safe in case you can’t hold it off and get dragged under.”

“That’s the thing,” Harry said. “When I transform, I can’t feel it.” He looked at her with open wonderment. “I mean, I can, but it doesn’t consume me like before. I can ignore him.”

“Okay. Okay, this is good,” said Hermione, her mind whirring. “This is great. Harry, you can keep him out! You can stay in control!” She beamed at him and he swept her up in a full-bodied hug, Voldemort’s distant wrath somehow more bearable in the face of her joy. It didn’t last long though, and soon he felt the tug in his mind that would whisk him away to Voldemort’s if he couldn’t shut it down.

“He’s really, really angry,” Harry said, his scar starting to prickle.

“New plan; we finish the search quickly with you transformed, and then we leave.”

Harry was more than willing to agree and, transforming, chuffed a guttural sigh of relief as the pull faded from his animal mind. He padded across to Hermione and nuzzled her hand, savouring the way her nails trailed across his head and down his back as he led the way to the next floor.

Ascending the final flight of stairs, Harry was assaulted by another wave of déjà vu. His perspective now was closer to that of his dream; head down low to the floor to pick up any lingering scent, and he followed the path of the snake to a room at the far end of the hall. He passed the spot where the unknown man had been standing and came up short when he saw the high-backed chair, unchanged since his vision, it’s back to him.

Despite all his senses telling him they were alone, Harry felt his adrenalin spike, as though he expected Voldemort himself to be sat in it waiting for them. He stalked around it, close to the wall as, inch by inch, more was revealed to him. The deep wings hid the leather back from view and Harry craned his neck to see… it was empty.

The chair, like the rest of the house, hadn’t been touched in years. Harry sniffed at the seat, the arms, but could find no trace of anyone. Chiding himself for letting his imagination get the better of him, Harry turned his back on it and left the room.

The rest of the upper floor yielded nothing, doubly so with Harry’s enhanced hearing picking up no telltale drone or alien scent, so they quickly made their exit. It had been a long shot, and they were departing unsuccessful, but Harry wasn’t as disheartened as he expected he would be as Voldemort raged impotently far away.

Back in the relative safety of their camp, Hermione dejectedly crossed through another page of her notes. The Little Hangleton idea was evidently something she had been formulating for some time and yet they found themselves back at square one for the umpteenth time.

“That was my last unexplored avenue,” she said, “aside from the impossible ones.”

“Are we being too literal with Dumbledore’s theory? About them being in places of significance?” Harry asked.

“I hope for our sake we’re not, otherwise our list of possible locations just expanded to ‘Everywhere’.”

Their task hadn’t felt this hopeless since their first week in the tent, and Harry had no desire to return to the misery of those days, especially when it had only been mildly chilly back then.

“Urgh,” groaned Hermione. “I can’t keep staring at this page. I need to think about something else for a bit.”

“Let’s forget about new ones right now,” said Harry. “We’ve been carting one around with us for ages. Let’s just figure out how to destroy this one.” He pulled it from under his jumper and dropped it with a heavy thump onto the table where they could both see it.

“Yes, okay, good idea,” said Hermione, mentally realigning to this new challenge.

“To destroy a horcrux we have to-”

“-damage the receptacle beyond any means of physical or magical repair,” Hermione recited. “We know Basilisk venom works because it destroyed the diary.”

“And the Sword of Gryffindor, because why else would Dumbledore have wanted me to have it?”

Hermione grimaced. “The Sword of Gryffindor would only work because it’s imbued with Basilisk venom from when you killed it. Goblin silver on its own wouldn’t work I don’t think.”

“You don’t suppose I’m imbued with Basilisk venom, do you?” Harry asked. “It bit me, maybe I could… bite the locket?” He realised the ridiculousness of the idea as soon as it left his mouth.

“I don’t think it works like that,” Hermione said through a grin. “Firstly, Fawkes removed the venom from you, and secondly, even if you were imbued with it, you don’t have any means of injecting the venom. If it were in your saliva, I would have been long dead by now.”

It was Harrys turn to blush as she casually acknowledged their more passionate moments.

“What does that leave us with?” he asked.

Hermione hesitated, looking for all the world like she’d rather it were anything else.

“Fiendfyre.”

Chapter Text

“Fiendfyre,” said Hermione, looking at the locket on the table as if it might be listening.

Harry vaguely remembered Fiendfyre coming up in fourth year, in one of Professor Moody’s – that is to say, Barty Crouch Jr’s – many monologues on dark magic. It certainly wasn’t something taught to students, not even at NEWT level.

“Isn’t Fiendfyre-”

“Incredibly dangerous? Yes,” Hermione finished for him. “It’s not an unforgivable spell, but then, apparently neither is the one that creates horcruxes so go figure. It’s cursed fire, demon fire, and has a tendency to escape the control of the caster and, well, kill them.”

“And this is our best option?” Harry asked.

“Without being able to get the Sword of Gryffindor from Hogwarts, or find a Basilisk-”

“-also conveniently in Hogwarts-”

“-then yes, this is our best option. I expect the venom from the Basilisk you killed will be long dried up by now anyway, so we’d need a live Basilisk, and I think I’d rather take our chances with the fire.”

Harry added yet another possibly-fatal task to the list of things they’d already done on their path to defeat Voldemort. He smiled in amusement as he imagined what Ron’s reaction would have been to this latest task, but it was quickly replaced by sadness and guilt. They didn’t even know if he was alive, though Harry hoped beyond hope that he’d made it to safety.

“How are we going to do this?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Hermione shrugged. “At least the weather is on our side. No chance of accidentally setting anything on fire out there.”

“Just ourselves,” Harry snorted.

“It’s this or thinking of more places he might have hidden one?”

“You’re right,” he said. “I just can’t believe we’re doing this. Why couldn’t it just be simple for once? Why couldn’t Dumbledore have just told us how to do it? Left a memory, a notebook, anything?”

“He believed in you, Harry. He wouldn’t have left you anything he didn’t think you were capable of doing, or figuring out.”

“Then he must have known you’d be with me, because I couldn’t do half of it without you.”

Hermione smiled in spite of herself.

“I forgot to ask,” Harry continued, “Was there anything in that book he left you?”

“Oh, that,” said Hermione, “I haven’t looked at it in weeks. It’s just a collection of wizarding fairytales. I thought perhaps he’d hidden some code or message in there; maybe in the first letter of each line, or replaced some letters with disguised runes to spell something out, but I couldn’t find anything and I haven’t had time to go back again what with the horcruxes and keeping on the move.”

Harry grimaced. The longer their hunt went on, the more his faith in the old wizard had begun to wane. Perhaps Dumbledore hadn’t meant for them to embark on this quest at all, or else Harry had misunderstood some crucial aspect of it and led them off on a wild goose chase.

“Well, he was always a bit odd. My snitch won’t do anything but show that same message over and over.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Hermione said, dismissing the topic with a wave of her hand. “We focus on the here and now and destroying the one we do have.”

“We need somewhere remote, even more so than usual,” said Harry, supressing his disappointment with the ex-headmaster by diving into the problem.

“And away from anything flammable,” added Hermione.

“Where could we find somewhere like that?...”

It was another three days before a suitable location popped into Harry’s head, and the fourth was given over to breaking camp, scouting the area, and reestablishing the protective charm perimeter at their new location.

Wind rolled across the foaming sea and swept across the lone rock, tugging at their clothes and trying to drag them into the swell. No snow had been permitted to land upon the bare surface, instead it was thick with sea ice, milky-white stalactites clinging to the overhangs. The wooden hut that had once stood at the centre had been claimed by some storm in the six years since Harry had last been here; only the stone fireplace and a few twisted boards remained.

Harry paced around the old floor and came to a halt on a patch of smooth stone. This was where he had lain on his eleventh birthday, counting down the minutes to midnight. This was where he had been when Hagrid had all but knocked the door off its hinges with his enormous fists to deliver Harry his first ever birthday cake. This was where he had found out that he was a wizard.

Harry hadn’t believed him at first. What child would? But by the time Hagrid had left, his life had changed irrevocably. It was hard to reconcile that eleven-year-old boy with the man stood there now, though he may be only six years older. He hoped that Hagrid was still alive somewhere. The half-giant was tough, but too optimistic for his own good.

“I’ve set a couple of charms, but only as a precaution. The sea will be our main barrier,” said Hermione, picking her way carefully across the uneven ground. “It’s the same one we use to filter odours; I thought it might stop smoke and embers, but I honestly can’t be sure.”

The tent had been pitched on the headland several miles across the slate-grey waters, safely out of ignition range. They were alone on the rock.

“One at a time, yes?” Harry asked, walking away from the shell of the building.

“Right. One of us tries casting, the other gets ready to disapparate both if it goes wrong.”

While they’d been mulling over the issue of where to practice, Hermione had devoured every bit of information on the spell she could find in Dumbledore’s forbidden books, precious little that there was. To say Harry was apprehensive would be an understatement; the majority of the literature they had access to was devoted to the many and varied ways one could meet an untimely end via Fiendfyre.

They marched to a relatively level area of rock near the edge of the outcropping, leaving plenty of space in the middle for rampaging flame beasts. Harry raised his wand and Hermione linked her arm through his, ready to whisk them to safety.

“Pestis Incendium!” Harry bellowed, brandishing his wand.

Nothing happened.

“Did I say it right?” he asked over his shoulder.

“Sounded right to me,” Hermione replied. “Try again.”

Perhaps simply saying the incantation wasn’t enough. Something Bellatrix Lestrange of all people had said to Harry during their ill-fated rescue mission in fifth-year came swimming to the surface of his mind. In his rage at Sirius’ death, he’d tried to Crucio her and failed. “You have to mean it, Potter,” she had laughed.

Harry tried to picture the locket, not heavy and cold around his neck as it was now, but lying, glinting in the middle of the rock. He imagined a blistering inferno, and the gold beginning to melt, hissing and spitting as its grizzly contents perished.

“Pestis Incendium!” he repeated, and Whoosh!, a brief burst of flame spat from the tip of his wand. It was over as quickly as it had begun, and resembled one of Seamus’ mishaps rather than a deadly blaze, but it was fire.

The Sun arced across the sky behind leaden clouds while Harry and Hermione practiced and practiced and practiced. The brief burst of flame had slowly become a continuous trickle, then a rush, then a torrent.

By the time the last light of the day was fading, both were able to cast blazing streams of scorching flames. They were certainly more powerful than any Incendio either had ever cast, but at no point did it take on a life of its own or surge to the white-hot fury that made the spell so feared and would be needed to destroy the horcrux.

They were both dripping in sweat; a combination of extreme effort and prolonged proximity to the fire and, exhausted, apparated back to the tent.

Jars of blue fire had been left burning inside to try and stave off the cold, and while ordinarily that would have made the interior a few degrees below ‘chilly’, to Harry’s burning skin it was positively stifling.

He stripped off his coat and flung it into one of the armchairs, his jumper following close behind it. Harry’s t-shirt was stuck to his skin, the hollow of his spine wet with sweat and it was the next thing to be unceremoniously peeled from his torso. He leant against the sink to gulp down a glass of water and turned around.

Hermione had followed him inside and was staring at him. She too had divested herself of her outer layers, leaving her top half covered by a spaghetti-strapped vest, the sheen of sweat visible along her collar bone. Her face was flushed and the messy bun she’d thrown her hair into — always prudent when working with fire — had started to work its way loose. Her eyes were not on his face.

Harry knew the look on her face because it was one that he had increasingly begun to carry himself. When Hermione would stretch each morning in their shared bed, exposing a flash of pale stomach; when she would pour over her notebook, the end of a pen pinched between her perfect teeth; when she’d tie her hair up and his eyes would dart to her slender neck; in those moments Harry felt the heat of desire within him, and it was evident on Hermione’s face now.

He stayed rooted to the spot as she approached and then reached behind him to the sink. Hermione summoned a cloth from the tiny bathroom and ran it under the tap, wringing out the excess, neither of them daring to break the moment with anything as crass as talking.

Gently, Hermione began to wipe him down with the damp cloth. She started at his shoulders, following the line of muscle down to his upper arm, then across to his chest, eye-level to her. She wasn’t looking at his face, but following the path of the rag across his body, her bottom lip pinched between her teeth.

Harry placed a hand over hers to stop its movement and she tilted her head back to meet his gaze. Fire jumped between them and in the next moment his mouth was on hers, hot and insistent.

Hermione closed the few inches that separated them and pressed her body against his while Harry tunnelled a hand through her hair to cradle the back of her head, angling her to deepen their kiss. Her lips parted eagerly and he accepted the invitation, flicking his tongue against hers. She tasted like mint and salt, and the breathy moans that escaped her throat were like fuel to his fire.

Hermione’s hands roamed over the plane of his chest and across his shoulders. If he’d been wearing a top she would have grabbed fistfuls of it in an attempt to drag him even closer. Harry dropped his hands from her hair and ghosted them down the back of her thighs, scooping her up and turning to sit her on the countertop, his hips bracketed by her knees.

Now level with him, Hermione kissed him back with all she had, sucking on his lower lip and dragging her teeth over it in a way that made his head spin. Breaking from her mouth, Harry began to kiss along her jaw, trailing up to a spot just below her ear that caused her to melt. His lips continued their decadent exploration of her flesh, down the column of her neck to the juncture with her collar and driving Hermione to previously unknown heights.

Her fingers splayed across his back that was still slick from their efforts, but far from deterring her it only spurred her on, her nails digging into the muscle as he lavished attention on her collar.

Harry’s own hands weren’t idle, and after lifting her to the counter they had continued up to her hips, his fingers sinking into her soft skin. The intensity of their kiss drove his hands upwards, slipping under the hem of her vest to flutter against her lower ribs.

Hermione forced his mouth back to hers, grasping at his hair with a fervour that he’d never seen in her.

His mind lost to the heady sensation of kissing her, Harry’s hands continued their path up her body until the tips of his fingers brushed against the fabric of her bra. Hermione’s breath caught in her throat and she let out a small squeak.

Harry stopped immediately, his hands falling back to the countertop and breaking off from their kiss. They were both a mess, hair tangled and lips swollen, eyes still hazy with passion.

“I’m sorry,” Harry panted. “I didn’t mean- I got carried away.”

“No, no, it’s okay,” Hermione replied breathily, jumping to reassure him before he could chastise himself for his actions. “I wanted it, I just… I’ve never done anything more than kissing before, and never like that. It was just- it was a surprise.” She looked sheepish.

Harry took a moment to cool his raging blood. “Neither have I,” he said, moving to cup her cheek with one hand. “Perhaps we were a little hasty. We should go a bit slower.”

Hermione smiled and kissed the inside of his wrist. “Maybe,” she agreed. “But don’t think that I wasn’t enjoying myself. I was enjoying it too much if anything.”

Harry lifted her down from the counter, earning him another little squeak from Hermione, and set her back on her feet.

“We should probably get cleaned up properly this time,” he said, tossing her a towel as she headed for the shower and clamping down on his urge to follow her in there.

Despite their almost blowing past a boundary neither wanted to cross without at least talking about it first, there was no awkwardness in the tent the following morning. A colder-than-usual shower had restored Harry’s self-control, and while he was sure that Hermione had been pressed tighter against him under the blankets that night, he’d resisted the temptation to feel her skin hum beneath his fingers again.

After a breakfast of a shared tin of beans, a stale cracker each, and black tea from a twice-used teabag, they once again apparated from the headland to the lone rock in the sea.

The wind had picked up overnight and the sea was beginning to heave, splashing them with salt spray whenever a particularly large wave crashed against the outcropping. If it continued to worsen, they’d be in danger of being swept off the rock altogether.

“Your Uncle must have been desperate to bring you somewhere like this,” Hermione said as they paced the perimeter setting perfunctory charms. In suggesting the location, Harry had explained how he knew of it and their mad-cap tour of the country as Uncle Vernon tried to escape the endless letters inviting Harry to Hogwarts.

“You could say that,” Harry said, chuckling. It had been long enough that he could laugh about it now. “You weren’t there when hundreds of them came flying out of the fireplace after he’d nailed the letterbox shut.”

Hermione grimaced. “Mine wasn’t at all like that.”

“How did you find out?”

“The day after my eleventh birthday, Professor McGonagall knocked on our door. She’d dressed as a muggle, which I think helped, and said that she was from a very exclusive school and they’d like to offer me a place. Once we were all sat down, she revealed that it was actually a magical school.”

“How did your parents take it?” Harry asked.

“Dad thought she was trying to harass them at first, but I think a small part of Mum had always believed there was something going on; the unexplainable things that would happen when I was little. After Professor McGonagall showed them some magic — apparently they get special dispensation from the Ministry for that kind of thing — that was it.”

“They just let you go?”

Hermione flourished her wand as they made it back to their starting point and they headed to the flat rock that served as their practice area.

“Well there was quite a long time to wait; my birthday being in September and all. For a few weeks we thought it might have been an elaborate joke, but then my official offer letter arrived with my list of school books. They weren’t sure about it, to tell the truth. I’d already applied to a nearby grammar school and my dad always wanted me to do medicine at university, but I begged with them to let me go and they could see how much it meant to me. Pestis Incendium!”

Flame roared from Hermione’s wand, bathing the centre of the small island in twisting flames and singeing Harry’s eyebrows with the backwash of heat. They coiled around themselves and licked at the sky but no beast rose from the inferno. Hermione cut off the flow and they were immediately chilled by the wind rushing in to fill the void.

“Wish McGonagall had come to my house,” Harry lamented. “She probably wouldn’t have given Dudley a pig’s tail, but then I wouldn’t have met Hagrid so I guess it wasn’t all bad.”

“Illegal transfiguration aside?” Hermione asked with a raised eyebrow. “I’m surprised she didn’t, actually, with them being muggles too.”

“I think they expected my aunt and uncle to tell me I was a wizard. Hagrid certainly seemed shocked when I said I didn’t know what he was on about.”

Hermione cast the spell twice more with similar disappointing results.

“It was hard for them, I think,” she said, wiping the first bead of sweat from her brow and switching places with Harry.

“Your parents?”

She nodded. “They used to love talking about my school subjects with me but suddenly I was learning things that they’d never heard of and couldn’t relate to. And then with everything that was happening at Hogwarts…”

Harry’s curse raced across the ground, tendrils of flame snaking outwards, searching for something to ignite but finding only damp stone and ice and hissing as it turned to steam.

“I’d never lied to them before,” Hermione continued, “but suddenly I found myself lying in every letter and every time I went back for the holidays. I could tell them about Herbology and Charms, I could tell them about Quidditch, about my friends, but Quirrel? The Basilisk? Buckbeak? If I’d told them about any of those things they’d have never let me return. They would have been right, too, but… I had to.”

Harry lowered his wand and turned to her. Tears glistened at the corners of her eyes.

“I think they knew. The thing about never lying is that I’m not very good at it,” she said with a sad huff. “They could tell there was more going on than what I would tell them, but they never pressed me on it. Just once they asked me if I was sure that this was still what I wanted, and I told them it was.”

Hermione wiped away her unshed tears with her sleeve and Harry leaned in to press his forehead to hers. She sniffed once, then drew herself up straighter in a move Harry recognised from the many times he’d pushed his own feelings aside for the sake of the task at hand.

“For what it’s worth, I’m glad you stayed,” he said.

They alternated attempts at casting until the wind threatened to push their flames back at them and dark, snow-laden clouds robbed them of light before they’d even gotten into their stride.

The clouds broke in the early afternoon and pelted the tent with fat snowflakes, forcing the pair to remain sheltered under the canvas. At the very least it allowed them time to take stock of their supplies. Harry rifled through each of the cupboards while Hermione noted down what they had and tried to sort it into basic meals. It was a concerningly short list.

With the threat of starvation looming on the horizon, they made the difficult decision to pack up the following morning and make for the nearby town where Uncle Vernon had once hired the boat to the rock, intending to return to their campsite and training when they’d bought themselves a few more weeks of leniency.

The brief snowstorm had added another three inches to the groundcover; soft powder on top of the ice-crusted layers of previous falls. Months of winter had formed their own geology that lay atop the land, with hard-packed ice as the bedrock and stacked strata of snow, hail, and frost marking the passing weeks and months.

Each time they thought they’d reached a new record low, another front would come sweeping in to prove them wrong and introduce new levels of discomfort and hardship.

Harry had drawn the short straw to carry the locket and struggled forwards behind Hermione. Each step onto the ice layer felt like it might take his weight, but before his trailing heel could leave the ground it would crack, his leg would sink, and he would start the process all over again on the next step, climbing an endless staircase but never getting any higher.

He foolishly thought they might have been getting used to the cold, but there was no ignoring it now. Perhaps the arrival of seasonal winter was compounding the magical one, or perhaps the Dementors were creating a vicious feedback cycle that dragged the thermometer ever lower. All Hary knew was that his shins were bruised from continually bumping his frozen-solid trouser legs and that his eyes felt greasy as their moisture threatened to solidify.

Hermione’s arctic fox form was light enough to patter across the thin crust as she ran back to him, his progress agonisingly slow by comparison. She transformed and immediately sank up to her knees.

“It’s a bit deeper up ahead,” Hermione said, looking at him with ill-concealed worry.

“Right,” Harry replied. He was too cold to offer much more.

Hermione hesitated instead of bounding ahead again and Harry waited for her to voice whatever was occupying her mind.

“We’ll find it much easier if we’re both on paw,” she said eventually.

“You’re right,” he admitted, “I just- I don’t trust it. I get a bad feeling from it.”

She looked at him as if to say “What do you expect from a horcrux?” and he couldn’t blame her. She had willingly accepted his prohibition on transforming while wearing it, but now it was actively hindering them and he had nothing to point to beyond general unease. Maybe it was the horcrux itself trying to dissuade him to sabotage their mission? Did it know they were trying to destroy it? Could it?

“If it’s any help,” Hermione said, “everything I’ve read about the animagus transformation says it will be fine. Granted, it doesn’t talk about horcruxes specifically, but it’s clear that magical items are bound in some kind of stasis; it’s why you can keep your wand or any potions and the like. Heck, my bag has all kinds of charms on it and is never a problem.” She smiled at him encouragingly.

Hermione was right. She was always right and he ought to do better to remember that. They’d been so pleased to finally achieve the transformation but Harry had metaphorically cut them off at the knees by insisting they not use it simultaneously. The strange keening it emitted was purely a result of his heightened hearing.

“You’re right, I’m sorry,” Harry said, and stepped back a pace to give himself room to shift. Honestly, he was looking forward to his dense fur again.

In the space of a heartbeat, Harry transformed… and his world exploded.

White-hot, all-consuming pain lanced through his body. Someone had run a live wire from his sternum to the depths of his skull and had flipped the switch on ten thousand volts of searing agony.

Harry’s body convulsed and an awful crying yowl filled his ears that he was only dimly aware was coming from his own mouth. He thought he could hear his own name being yelled from far away but there was no space in his head to consider it beyond his searing nerves.

It didn’t stop. Why wouldn’t it stop? Some animalistic corner of his mind screamed at him to run from it, to fight it, to bite and scratch, anything. Something touched his shoulder and he lashed out with a claw to fend off the attacker.

Someone screamed.

He knew that voice, and the sound it made was the only thing more painful to Harry than whatever twisted curse wracked his mind. Hermione was in trouble.

He focussed on that realisation; let it expand in his mind until it forced enough of the pain away for him to regain control of his body. He must reach Hermione. As soon as Harry had control again he shifted back to human form.

The pain inside him immediately abated but his limbs were wracked with lingering cramps. The locket burned on his chest and did not fall away from his skin though he was on all fours. He looked up through tear-blind eyes to find Hermione.

She was lying in the snow, not three feet away from him, a bright crimson pool blooming around her, being wicked into the fresh snow at an alarming rate. The colour was almost dazzling; the only flash of life in the white and grey surroundings, but it was life that was being leeched from the woman it belonged to.

“Hermione!”

Harry leapt forward on his hands and knees to reach her. Her breathing was rapid and shallow and she looked at him with wide, fearful eyes. They dropped down to her midriff and his own followed. Three deep gashes sliced from her navel to her hip. They had torn through her coat, outer, and inner layers and opened up her flesh like a book. Blood welled up from the wound and poured down her side to join the expanding pool in the snow.

She was getting paler by the second and her limbs were beginning to tremble.

“Oh fuck, oh fuck,” Harry moaned, pressing his hand to her side and making her wail. It was like Ron all over again.

Only, it wasn’t like Ron. Harry had vowed not to be so helpless again and he had studied medicinal magic with Hermione. He just had to remember it.

Harry pointed his wand at each of the slashes in turn and cast the spell she’d taught him for staunching blood flow. It slowed to a trickle but did not cease; the wounds were too deep.

“Shit! I need dittany. Stay with me, Hermione!”

The trembling had stopped but her breathing had slowed right down. Hermione’s eyes were half-lidded and foggy, her head swaying as he cradled her against him to remove the bag from her shoulder.

With a jab of his wand the tent flew from the opening and over his shoulder to erect itself in the snow behind them. Harry summoned the small brown bottle of dittany and held it up to see through the dark glass. There was barely a thimbleful left.

He pulled the stopper out with his teeth and clenched his hand around the bottle to stop it shaking. The first two cuts got two drops each, the third only one before it ran dry. Puffs of green smoke obscured Harry’s vision but when it cleared, he felt his heart start to beat stronger again. Blood still oozed from the openings, but it no longer poured.

He lifted Hermione into his arms and pressed his cheek to hers. A whisper of air tickled the fine hairs of his face; she was still breathing.

Harry carried her into the tent and lay her gently on their shared cot. He eased her ruined coat off her shoulders and, after a moment’s hesitation, hiked up her tattered jumper and shirt to her ribs.

“Scourgify,” he mumbled, cleaning the still-wet blood from her unblemished skin. Harry held back a wave of nausea and guilt. The gashes were so deep he could see muscle beneath the layers of sliced skin. Even as he looked, a bead of blood began to well up from the deepest one.

Harry worked diligently to pinch Hermione’s flesh back together using the magical stitches she’d taught him, and then wrapped her middle in a clean white bandage. He was reminded of how much blood she’d lost when he noticed how little difference there was between the cotton and her skin.

He tucked her under the blanket and lit a ring of flaming jars around her, then stumbled back outside to set a protective perimeter and clear her blood from the snow. The bright red patch among the pristine white surroundings stared at him accusingly. He had done this to her. It was his fault she was lying unconscious in that bed.

Harry felt for the locket under his jumper. It was stuck to his skin and, with a muffled grunt, he prized it off. An angry red burn mark sat where it had been. He deserved much worse.

Suddenly bone-tired, Harry returned to the tent and pulled up a chair next to the sleeping girl. His forehead hit the pillow next to her head and his fingers found her hair, lightly stroking along her temple.

“Please, Hermione,” he whispered. “Please come back to me. It can’t end like this, not when I’ve already fallen for you. Please.”

He stayed there until he drifted off to sleep.

Chapter Text

Ron stepped out of the fireplace in The Three Broomsticks and dusted the ash from his robes. The pub should have been buzzing with people drinking merrily and thick with the smell of Rosmerta’s cooking, but only a handful of patrons occupied the sparse corners. The owner herself looked at him with wide eyes. Ron merely nodded in her direction and stomped towards the door, hefting his pack on his shoulder.

Outside, the street was lined with deep snow banks; narrow paths winding between the many doors carved by hurried feet. The stores in Hogsmeade appeared to have avoided the violence that had gutted Diagon Alley, though a heavy sense of hopelessness blanketed the village. Snow-covered Hogsmeade was the thing of postcards, but it had lost all its charm and warmth.

Ron turned up his collar against the chill wind and followed the route he’d taken countless times from the inn to the gates of the Hogwarts grounds.

Dark shapes; holes in the inky-blue sky, drifted overhead in ones and twos and, as Ron approached the wrought-iron gates in the perimeter wall, he could see more of them posted all around the boundary.

Eyeing them warily, he stepped up to the closed gates and tapped them twice with his wand. The iron rang like a bell, echoing across the deserted grounds. He waited.

Several minutes later; long enough that he could no longer feel his toes in his boots, two cloaked figures strode out of the main doors to the castle and down the path towards him, casting long shadows in the golden glow.

“Well, well, well. What have we got here?” said one of the figures as they came to a halt on the opposite side of the gate. The two of them; a man and a woman, bore a striking resemblance to one another. Even with a wand to his head, Ron would not have been able to say which was uglier.

“I’m Ron Weasley,” Ron said, putting on a voice braver than he felt. “I’m a student here.”

“A Weasley?” said the other, her eyes narrowing. Her twin spat on the ground for effect. “Bit late, aren’t we?”

“I was ill,” Ron replied.

There was a short standoff while the twins assessed Ron, examining him head to toe and lingering on his hair.

“Get Severus,” the woman said eventually, opening the gates with a wave of her wand while the man whispered into his own and then sent a silver ferret darting up the snow-covered path.

Ron was overcome with a sudden wave of vertigo as something flashed in his mind; the blue-white glow of a patronus against a field of snow, thick flakes roaring by in the stark light, then it was gone.

The twins looked at him with suspicion before taking up a position on either side of him to march him up to the castle. The castle and grounds themselves were as deeply buried as Hogsmeade, and while the piercing cold persisted, the chest-tightening anxiety that had come with it disappeared once he crossed the threshold.

In the Entrance Hall, the sallow-faced, hook-nosed headmaster was waiting for them. It was the first time Ron had seen him since the man had fled after Dumbledore’s murder, and now he stood there at the head of his school.

Ron clenched his fist around the strap of his bag, though two of his fingers didn’t move. In a hasty attempt at avoiding questioning, Bill had stuffed the two outer fingers of his left glove with wool and they stood out, stiff and awkward.

The sounds of hundreds of chattering voices and the scrape of cutlery on plates came from behind the doors to the Great Hall, but Snape led them instead down towards the dungeons.

Although he was now headmaster and entitled to all the benefits of his station, Snape was evidently not willing to fully let go of his old office, and it was into there that Ron was marched. Perhaps Dumbledore’s ghost was too much for the slimy git, he thought with satisfaction.

“Mister Weasley,” Snape drawled, turning to face Ron as the office door closed behind them all. Snapes grey eyes bored into him with an intensity that far surpassed any potions-detention scolding. “How nice of you to join us only eight weeks after the term has started.”

“Said he was ill,” the woman beside Ron said. The man on his other side pulled the bag from his shoulder with more force than was necessary.

“So I heard. Spattergroit, was it?”

“Yes.” Ron felt like Snape was testing him, but he didn’t know what on. “I got better,” he added lamely.

“Miraculous,” Snape replied after an agonising pause. “And your friends, Potter and Granger, you wouldn’t happen to know where they are, would you? Seldom have I seen you far from Potter’s back pocket in the years you have been here.”

This felt very dangerous, but Ron had known the risks when he had decided to return.

“No,” he answered honestly. To Ron’s discomfort, the twins looked almost pleased with his answer.

“We’ll see the truth of that,” one of them said, reaching for his wand.

Snape raised a single, pale hand. “There will be no need for that, Amycus. You’re as likely to break his mind as wring the truth from it. I shall do it myself.”

He twirled his wand and conjured a hard wooden chair behind Ron, then pushed him back into it with another flick.

“Try not to resist, Weasley. You’ll only make it more painful. Legilimens!”

Ron rocked backwards on the chair. He felt as though an icicle had been driven through his forehead into the depths of his mind and a strangled cry died in his throat. Images where whirling past his eyes of their own accord, memories of summers at the Burrow, of evenings in the Gryffindor common room, of his friends.

The images slowed on the last conversation he could remember with Harry and Hermione; the one in his bedroom before Bill’s wedding. As before, the sound was muffled and distorted, and he couldn’t make out what was being said. The scene was pulled away and he was racing through the now-familiar fog that permeated his mind from that moment onwards. Occasional whisps would shift and he would glimpse something he hadn’t seen before; the inside of what looked like a tiny, run-down apartment, a clearing in a snowy forest, but they would always become obscured by another bank of fog before he could get any purchase. Though the pictures faded, his heart leapt and plummeted of its own accord, reacting to something he could not see. It hammered against his ribs, subjecting him to waves of fear, jealousy, hopelessness, annoyance, and anger. The positive emotions were few and far between.

Ron was dragged onwards blindly until the mists parted and he was in the snow alone again; his first real memory after the incident. Everything since then rushed by in a blur and suddenly the spike was withdrawn and he gasped a ragged breath in Snapes office once more.

The headmaster was looking at him inscrutably. This was it; it was over before it had begun. Snape would tell them he was lying and he would never leave this dungeon. Or worse, he would leave it and be taken straight to Voldemort to peel every thought from his head.

“Well?” said Amycus, half way through tipping the contents of Ron’s bag onto the floor while his sister rooted through what had fallen out.

“He speaks the truth,” replied Snape in a tone that suggested he was already bored of the proceedings.

What? It made no sense. Why would Snape lie? Unless he was holding it over Ron to bait him into a trap.

“What?” exclaimed Alecto. “But the Dark Lord was certain they would be together? Bring a Dementor in, that’ll loosen his tongue.”

Snape pinned her with a cold stare. “You forget yourself, Alecto.” She shuffled under his gaze. “Do not question me when it comes to mind magics again. And as I have told you once before, the Dementors are prevented from entering the grounds by the protections on the castle. There are some things even the headmaster does not control.”

Ron distinctly remembered Dementors inside the grounds during their third year. Perhaps Dumbledore had made changes since then?

“I will inform the Dark Lord of this development,” Snape said to the twins, then turned back to Ron. “Weasley, you may return to the Great Hall. I believe the Halloween feast is just drawing to a close. You may be able to catch desert if you hurry; something you prize more than your own dignity if memory serves.”

Ron scowled at the headmaster but bit his tongue as he gathered his scattered belongings and stuffed them back into his pack. Without a backward glance, he strode from the room and back up out of the dungeons.

He considered just going straight to the Gryffindor common room, but his stomach was cramping and he needed to lay eyes on Ginny to check she was alright. The moment Ron pushed open the doors to the Great Hall he knew it had been a mistake.

The low chatter died immediately as all eyes turned towards him. He tried not to look nervous as they tracked him along the back of the hall to where the other seventh years were sat at the Gryffindor table, murmuring breaking out in his wake. He thumped down onto the bench next to Neville and across from Ginny, her eyes as wide as saucers. Ron opted to keep his gloves on for the time being.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” she hissed. Up close he could see a tinge of purple beneath one eye and he felt a surge of righteous anger towards the headmaster that quickly faltered when he looked around the table. All his classmates were looking at him as though they’d seen a ghost. He was suddenly not very hungry.

Ron leant in to try and avoid some of the more distant eavesdroppers.

“Bill said they couldn’t get any information out of Hogwarts. I came to help.”

“Brilliant, Ron. Thanks!” Ginny whispered, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “But where the hell are Harry and Hermione?”

He knew it would be the first thing anyone asked.

“Can we talk about this later, when there aren’t five hundred people trying to listen in?” he said pointedly. “Why are there so many, anyway? Isn’t anyone in hiding?”

“The Ministry ended its home-schooling statute,” said Neville. “All witches and wizards under eighteen years of age must be enrolled at Hogwarts. They sent people round on the first of September to make sure nobody skipped the train.”

“Even with everything going on out there?”

“We don’t know what’s going on out there, Ron,” said Ginny. “The Carrows have banned all post in and out of the castle. The only thing that arrives is that rag, The Daily Prophet, which just runs the same Harry-is-evil, the-Ministry-is-great, bury-your-heads-in-the-sand stories.”

Ron was about to tell them what little he knew of the world outside the castle walls when Seamus loudly interrupted him from the other side of Lavender.

“It’s true, then, that Harry’s run off?”

“What?” said Ron, affronted.

“Ginny said he was off fighting you-know-who-” Ron glared at Ginny who had the decency to look contrite, “but now you’re just back at school like everything’s normal? Everyone knows Granger is muggleborn; she isn’t coming back here, but now it’s obvious that Potter has fled. Probably sunning himself on a beach somewhere nice while we’re left to answer for his mess!”

“Watch your mouth, Seamus! You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ron spat back. Harry would never do something like that, but the whispering at the Hufflepuff table behind them had grown in urgency and even as Ron watched he could see the ripple spreading across the hall.

“Form your own opinion for once instead of taking it from the Prophet,” Ginny shouted down the table at Seamus.

“Of course you’d defend him!”

“What’s that supposed to mea-” she was interrupted by the scraping of benches as the feast finally ended and the mass of students prepared to leave. Many of them were pulling on outer-cloaks and there were several pairs of gloves being donned as Ron followed the crowd out into the halls.

The roaring fireplaces in the Great Hall had hidden the fact that the rest of the castle was frigidly cold – something Ron had assumed was just the usual state of the dungeons. Braziers would provide puddles of warmth along the passageways but they were few and far between.

Half way up the grand staircase, a small hand touched Ron’s elbow. He turned around to see the dirty-blonde hair and wide eyes of Luna Lovegood.

“Oh, hi Luna,” he said.

“Hi Ronald,” came her airy reply, “I knew you’d come back. It’s good to see you.”

Ron grunted as they followed the precession of students up the stairs.

“I suppose you want to know where Harry and Hermione are?” he asked.

“I’m sure you would have said if you could,” she shrugged. She was the first person he’d met since reappearing that hadn’t asked him. “You look troubled, like you’re missing a part of yourself.”

“Er, I guess I am,” Ron replied, perplexed. He’d always thought of Luna as eccentric and best and bothersome at worst, but there was a weight of expectation that came with talking to others that was completely absent with the Ravenclaw girl. It was freeing.

“I’m up this way,” she said as the Gryffindors peeled off at the fourth-floor landing while the Ravenclaws continued upwards. “It was nice talking to you. Don’t lose the rest of yourself in the meantime.”

“Bye, Luna,” Ron said, watching her hair sway as she flounced up the stairs. She was always coming out with odd stuff like that. With a shake, he made for the common room.

It was a tense wait for the rest of the Gryffindors to turn in for the night; Ron, Ginny, and Neville sat silently on the sofas around the fire that the trio usually occupied. Eventually, the last pair of fifth-years ascended the stairs to the dormitories and they were alone.

“What’s going on, Ron?” Ginny turned on him as soon as their backs were out of sight. “Why are you here and where are Harry and Hermione?”

Ron braced himself for the inevitable outcry that would follow his response.

“I don’t know.”

Ginny faltered. “I’m sorry, it sounded like you just said you didn’t know?”

“I don’t. I don’t know where they are or what they’re doing. I don’t remember anything since Bill’s wedding.”

“If that’s some lame excuse because you won’t tell me what’s actually happening, I swear I’ll curse you right here.”

“It’s not,” Ron replied wearily. He didn’t even care about her threat; he’d had the same conversation innumerable times now. “I went to Bill and he didn’t know why, but there was nothing I could do there, so I came here.”

“Hit your head, maybe?” said Neville, “or… a memory charm?”

Ron shook his head. “Thought of that, but it doesn’t make sense. No Death Eater would obliviate someone and let them go, and nobody on our side would do something like that.” He took the opportunity to pull off his gloves. The smooth, scarred tissue of his missing fingers caught the light of the fire. Ginny gasped.

“Has to have been a traumatic injury then?” asked Neville.

“Frostbite, I’m told, but…” Ron shrugged.

“How is Bill?” Ginny asked, and for a moment she looked like his worried little sister again. It was easy to forget that the entire school had been forcibly cut off from the outside world.

“He’s doing okay. Saw Fred and George too; making trouble as usual.”

“And Mum and Dad?”

“Sorry Gin, I didn’t see them, but Bill said they were getting by alright.”

“What’s happening out there?” Neville asked.

“It’s not great,” Ron grimaced. “You-know-who has basically got the Ministry in his pocket now, and the Dementors are just getting worse and worse. Half the Order is running around trying to contain them.”

Ginny and Neville swapped a confused look. “What do you mean?”

“They didn’t tell you?”

“Tell us what!?”

“The Dementors are out of control, or I guess, out of our control. There’s thousands of them, everywhere. They’re why it’s so cold.”

“I knew it didn’t make sense!” Ginny exclaimed. “Carrow just said it was a cold winter, then gave me detention for asking.”

“What’s it been like here?” Ron asked.

“Not great either,” said Neville. “We barely see Snape; the Carrows essentially run the school, one of them teaching The Dark Arts, the other is in charge of discipline or something with a few favoured Slytherins as lackeys. Detention is… well, you don’t want detention.”

“What are we doing to stop them?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well we didn’t take Umbridge lying down, did we? What’s the plan?”

“There isn’t one,” Nevile shrugged. “We tried to get some of the DA together, didn’t we, Ginny? But, I dunno, nobody seems to have it in them. They’re scared. It’s like he’s already won.”

Ron sagged into the cushions. He didn’t know what he’d expected in coming back, only that he couldn’t sit and do nothing at Shell Cottage, but now it looked like he might be sitting and doing nothing in a castle that was sounding more and more like a prison. There must be something that could be done, some way to incite people to fight back. He bet Harry would have known how, or Hermione would have figured it out.

He may have grown tired of the question, but that didn’t mean they weren’t always on his mind. Not knowing what had happened or his own involvement was a torture all of its own that Ron did his best to bury each and every day. They were always going to fight Voldemort together, weren’t they? And he thought that, just maybe, Hermione had started to see something between them.

“Come on, it’s late, we should go up,” said Neville, rising from his chair.

Ron bade Ginny goodnight and followed Neville up to their familiar room. Seamus had turned in more than an hour ago and was snoring behind the curtains of his bed. There were still five of them in the room, but three stood empty and forlorn.

Ron dropped his pack onto the floor at the foot of his bed; unable to retrieve his trunk from the Burrow, he’d have to make do for now. The sheets were cold as he stripped off, climbed under them, and rolled to look at the empty bed next to him. That upwelling of grief, anger, and shame rose within him again unexpectedly and he rolled away, breathing through it until he found an uneasy sleep.

For weeks Ron went about the school with one eye over his shoulder, waiting for Snape to collar him and reveal that he knew Ron was lying about having Spattergroit and throw him to the Carrows as punishment, but the day never came. In fact, the headmaster was rarely seen about the castle, not even at mealtimes, and the day-to-day running was left to the malevolent twins.

Even the other professors seemed to be under their thumb. McGonagall had shot him a look of shock and concern when Ron took a seat in her class, but with Amycus posted in the corner watching every move, she couldn’t spare him a quiet word.

Early in his second week, Ron experienced first-hand how far Hogwarts had fallen.

“I’m sorry! It was an ackkkk-” came the shrill cry from around the corner. Ron shared a frown with Neville and the pair pushed through the crowd making their way between lessons.

Ahead of them, a space had opened up in the corridor that nobody dared to cross. In the middle knelt a small girl in Ravenclaw robes, no more than a second year, being throttled by her own book bag. A Slytherin sixth-year Ron recognised from their Quidditch team was stood over her, his wand directing the macabre display.

“Watch where you’re going next time,” he sneered as the girl’s face turned red.

“Oi!” Ron yelled, and before the boy could do more than look his way, hit him in the chest with a body-bind curse. He went stiff as a board and toppled onto his face with a wet crunch.

Neville levelled his wand threateningly at the boy’s friends who were staring daggers at the redhead, while Ron helped the girl gather her fallen books and shepherded her away from the muttering crowd.

“Are you okay?” he asked the girl, dragging them all along the corridor as fast as her shaky legs could carry her. She nodded silently and clutched her bag to her chest. “Hospital wing?” he asked Neville.

Neville shook his head. “They’ll expect you to go there and head us off. Same with the Ravenclaw common room.”

“Shit,” Ron cursed, ducking through a tapestry and up a hidden flight of stairs. They were heading in the wrong direction for Ravenclaw tower and several floors too low; they’d never make it there before the Carrows. “There must be somewhere?”

“Well, we’ve been trying to get into the Room of Requirement,” Neville replied, checking the hallway at the top of the hidden staircase.

“Why, what’s wrong with it?”

“Nothing, you just never told us how to get in.”

“What?” Ron pulled up short.

“Yeh,” Neville replied. “You’d already be there when we arrived for the DA. None of us ever had to summon the door.”

“I’m going to be in trouble, aren’t I?” wailed the girl.

“Listen-”

“Sarah,” she provided.

“Listen, Sarah,” Ron said. “You didn’t do anything wrong. We’re just taking you somewhere you can lay low for a while until they get bored, okay?”

Sarah nodded.

“Great. Can’t believe we never told anyone how to get in,” Ron muttered as he led them towards the seventh-floor corridor with the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy.

After explaining the process to Neville, Ron conjured a small cosy room for the girl to wait in with a peep-hole in the door, so she would know who was outside, and instructions to keep it locked until they sent a fellow Ravenclaw to retrieve her.

As he expected, the consequences caught up with him in Charms later that afternoon and he was carted off to an empty classroom to serve a six-hour detention. It took a week for the “I must not interfere with disciplinary measures” scar to fade from the back of his hand, but it didn’t bother Ron in the slightest.

As November rolled into December the temperature in the halls continued to drop. The Professors tried in vain to come up with some sort of warming spell that would stick, but before long Potions classes were moved out of the frigid dungeons and whole floors of the castle were closed off to concentrate heat in the usable areas. The only benefit was that wearing gloves had become the norm and Ron was spared any further questions about his hand.

“Hey Luna,” he said, dropping down opposite her at a table in the library. Most years he’d avoided the place like the plague, but it had the distinct advantage of being one of the warmest places in the castle owing to Madam Pince’s insistence that the books not get damp, and being away from Ginny. Things were awkward between them; she was still angry at him for losing Harry and Hermione, though more so for not having a suitable explanation as to how. Instead, he found himself spending more time with Luna. Ginny had told her everything he’d said the minute they were back in class together, so he needn’t hide anything.

“Hi Ronald. Your cheek is looking better.” Ron fingered the freshly-sealed split that bisected his cheekbone.

“Yeh, Madam Pomfrey sorted it when nobody was looking. I know she can’t do much but I think she took objection to using live dummies for cutting spell practice as punishment.”

Luna finished putting the last touches on a sketch of an animal Ron had never seen before. It seemed to take up most of the essay she was writing.

“Daddy once did a whole issue on the Ministry’s secret use of live bimblers for developing anti-polyjuice potion.”

Ron felt like he had something important to tell Luna about her father, but it died on the tip of his tongue and he couldn’t for the life of him recall what it was.

“What’s anti-polyjuice potion?” he asked instead.

“Oh, you put someone’s hair in it and it turns you into anyone but them.”

“…right,” Ron replied. He’d warmed to Luna considerably, but every now and then she would throw a complete curveball that left him scratching his head.

“How are your dreams?” she asked, fixing him with her wide eyes. This was something he’d only confided in her; he didn’t think Ginny would be particularly understanding of his nightly confusions.

“The same. More glimpses of- I don’t even know what, to be honest. It’s like I know what it is when I’m there, but as soon as I wake up it starts leaking from my head until I can’t remember any of it. The feeling is the same though. I always wake up feeling like an absolute arsehole.”

“You’re not an arsehole, Ron,” Luna said. It sounded funny on her lips; he’d never heard her swear before. “You have your moments, but you’re a good person really. They wouldn’t have given you that if you weren’t.” She nodded to his wounded cheek.

“Thanks, I… I just can’t help but feel like something really bad must have happened,” he grimaced.

“You’re a brave and loyal friend, a true Gryffindor, but your path has brought you here now. There’s more you can achieve at Hogwarts, regardless of what happened before.”

“Is it wrong that a part of me almost doesn’t want to remember? What if they’ve been captured and it’s my fault? What if nothing actually happened to me and I’ve just repressed it because it’s so bad?”

Luna reached a pale hand across the table to touch his wrist and he calmed himself looking at her serene expression.

“The Ron I know would never have let that happen if he couldn’t help it.” She squeezed his wrist gently then sat back. “I think a whoople stole your memories. They do that when you’re thinking about something else, but it will give them back when you’re ready for them.”

A gaggle of students shuffled into the library, bringing a blast of colder air from the hallway with them as Madam Pince hurried to close the doors again, tutting. Having had enough of self-pitying for one day, Ron took the opportunity to change the subject.

“Don’t know what you-know-who is playing at with these Dementors,” Ron said, pulling his cloak a little tighter around his shoulders. “Unless he wants to be king of the snowflakes at the end.”

“I think they’re a perfect weapon for him,” said Luna, packing away her parchment.

“What do you mean?”

“For subjugation,” she replied merrily. “Resistance thrives on hope, and dies when people lose the will to fight for what’s right. The snow will melt, but by flooding everywhere with Dementors he makes people too miserable to fight. It’s why he’s winning. Mostly,” and she ran a thumb over Ron’s cheek as she rose from the table. Her touch was unexpectedly gentle and derailed Ron’s train of thought.

“Er, I suppose you’re right,” he said, standing up to join her.

“Come on, we’ll be late for dinner.”

They parted at the door to the Great Hall, Luna to the Ravenclaw table while Ron sat himself down by Neville. Neville had at least been understanding and acted as somewhat of a mediator in the boys’ dorm, but he spent as much time in detention as Ron did. The timid boy from first year had found his inner fire over the last two years, to Ron’s approval.

As ever, the headmaster’s chair was vacant, but before the magical tables filled with food, the male Carrow stepped up to the lectern and glared around the room until silence fell.

“You will be aware that the Christmas holidays are soon to begin, where many of you will return home.” There was a low rumble of muttering from students that had been waiting for the day since the first of September.

“However-” The muttering died. “This year each student wishing to return home for the holidays must submit a written application to myself for permission to do so.”

The babble returned with a vengeance.

“I expect-” he shouted over the noise, “such applications to be on my desk within three days. Your heads of house will inform you of my response.”

He sat back down and the tables groaned under the weight of food that suddenly appeared. Ron’s enthusiasm had left him again; for the first time in memory he was in danger of losing weight after term started. He shared a dark look with the other Gryffindors. Whatever Carrow’s reason for the rule change, it couldn’t be good.

Two days before the train was due to depart, Ginny came bursting through the portrait hole into the common room clutching a piece of parchment.

“It was approved! McGonagall gave me this at the end of class!” She flopped down on the sofa next to Ron looking immensely relieved.

“That’s great, Gin!” Ron clapped her on the shoulder.

“So was mine,” said Neville who was sat in the armchair across from them, pulling his own slip from his bag.

“I thought for sure they were going to reject it. I almost didn’t bother applying. I wonder why they did,” Ginny said, perplexed.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” said Ron, “but none of the half-blood kids have been allowed to leave. They’re keeping them here, probably to stop their parents from running.”

The smile that had brightened Ginny’s face at her good news fell away.

“I guess being a pure-blood blood-traitor is still higher than a half-blood to them,” Neville growled.

“Still,” said Ginny, looking forlorn, “at least we’ll get to see Mum and Dad, and we can finally tell the Order what’s really going on here.”

Ron hesitated. “Actually, Gin, I’m staying here.”

She gaped at him.

“You’re what? Why?”

“I don’t know if I’m ready to face them yet, what with Harry and Hermione missing, and-” he held up his mangled hand. “Plus, Luna’s application was rejected; I think they’re trying to get to her father maybe, so I thought I should stay to look out for her.”

Ginny appeared to chew on her response for a minute, moving from anger through concern and pity before ending on a kind of grudging acceptance.

“You’ll owe me for being the one who has to tell Mum. She’s going to go ballistic.”

“I know,” Ron snorted.

On the last day of term, Ron, Luna, and a handful of other left-behind students bade farewell to those heading home for Christmas, though not before all those departing had been thoroughly searched by the Carrow twins. Not all of those staying behind were half-bloods; it appeared as though the twins had kept a handful of loyal students back too. Ginny surprised Ron with a quick embrace and made Luna promise to look after him, then they were gone, rattling away down the track towards Hogsmeade.

The usual host of Christmas decorations had been forgotten this year, save for a single sparsely-decorated tree in the Great Hall. A small one had also appeared in the Gryffindor common room, though Ron suspected the Hogwarts Elves were behind that rather than the cantankerous caretaker, Mr Filch.

Ron and Luna would meet up every day at breakfast and scarcely leave each other’s side until curfew. Sometimes they would walk the grounds talking about everything or nothing until the cold forced them back inside. Sometimes they would shelter in the library, Luna doodling or reading while Ron slogged through the mountain of catch-up work he’d been assigned.

His decision to stay was substantiated when more than once the pair bumped into groups of suspicious-looking Slytherins who slunk off grumbling when the blonde-haired girl wasn’t as alone as they had expected.

Each day Ron felt a little more whole, a little more human, as the hole that had been carved out of his life — those months of missing memories — shrank into the past and he built over it with new ones. Luna had been right, the best thing he could do was focus on the here and now and try to figure out some way of either contacting the Order or bringing the school down from within.

Unfortunately, his low-level resistance had garnered him the attention of the already-suspicious twins, as the marks on his body could attest to, so it was with grim resignation that on Christmas Eve he looked up from his chair in the common room to see Amycus stepping through the portrait hole. A few of the other Gryffindor detainees fled up to their dorms, but Ron stayed seated.

“Ah, Mister Weasley, be a good boy and follow me,” Amycus said, looking entirely too pleased with himself.

“Why?” Ron asked.

“Because I have a few questions to ask you about your… illness while the headmaster is busy elsewhere.”

Ron’s fingers brushed against the wand in his trouser pocket, entertaining the possibility of drawing it, but he knew it was no use. He was at a disadvantage, sitting as he was with limited range of movement. He’d be cut down before he could utter his first hex.

Steeling himself for whatever was to come, Ron rose from the chair and was led from the room.

Chapter Text

Slow, fat snowflakes drifted through the air and settled on Harry’s black-spotted coat. He was covered in the stuff, each flake freezing fast to its neighbour like an icy carapace, but it helped to keep him hidden so he didn’t shake it off.

He could sense the bite in the air, feel it through his insulated paws; not yet cold enough to send a snow leopard to ground but deadly to an exposed human in less than an hour. Harry’s stomach cramped uncomfortably, as if telling him to get a move on.

Sniff.

The heady musk of his prey drifted from upwind again, stronger this time. He was getting closer.

They’d been low on supplies when Harry had mauled Hermione and the intervening days had done nothing to rectify that. She was still in no condition to move, spending most of her time asleep punctuated by brief minutes of muddled wakefulness during which he was able to feed her, before she would sink back down, exhausted.

Harry himself hadn’t eaten for the past two days to ensure there was enough for Hermione. He dared not leave her long enough to search the muggle town, and with no clear recovery in sight he’d taken to the only course of action left to him; hunting.

In a way, it had been an easier decision than he expected. Harry had never been hunting in his life; he didn’t know the first thing about tracking or trapping, and none of the spells he knew were particularly helpful, but lurking within him now were instincts honed over millennia that were more than ready to guide him as the effects of acute hunger took told.

A quiet excitement, a purpose, filled him as he stalked some unsuspecting animal over the course of an hour. It started as the faintest hint on the morning breeze, then a tuft of fur caught on the bark of a tree, a splash of scent on the ground. He was able to forget the gnawing emptiness in his gut as his predatory senses promised to fulfil it. If this was how all animals felt on the hunt then he could suddenly understand much better Crookshanks’ affinity for chasing Scabbers.

Piercing green eyes scanned the blank, monochrome landscape but it was his ears and nose that were leading him now. Harry scrambled down a low cliff next to a frozen waterfall and padded around the glittering pool. He would have stopped to drink if any of it remained liquid.

Climbing up the ridge opposite, he followed the contour around the side of a hill and down between the shadows of a pine wood, dark green needles still stubbornly clinging to sap-stained branches unlike their deciduous cousins.

A carpet of fallen needles deadened the sound beneath the canopy as Harry slunk between the towering trunks. Gaps in the branches had allowed piles of snow to accumulate, but most of the ground remained bare. The earth was still frozen solid. Nothing could escape the cold forever.

Harry followed the scent through the woods and out the far side. It bordered what could have been farmland; wide open tracts of untouched snow divided by the white ridges of buried hedgerow. For the first time since setting off from the tent, he laid eyes upon his quarry.

A scattered herd of deer were picking their way along the edge of the treeline some quarter mile upwind of him, nibbling bitter pine needles from the lowest branches and pawing at the ground to uncover roots and bulbs. They looked rougher than the deer sometimes seen on the fringes of the Hogwarts grounds, their coats thicker and coarser. While the muggle population had drawn together to ride out the storm, nature was reclaiming what they’d left behind and adapting to survive.

Most of the herd were spread along the woods, but a single member stood proud in the field watching the horizon. His impressive antlers singled him out as the leader, and his watchful gaze never left the grazing animals.

The animalistic instincts guiding Harry recognised the danger the stag posed, but also knew that the reward was worth the risk. Blood pumped harder through his muscles to warm them up and ready him for the chase, and possibly fight, that was to come.

He ducked back into the shade of the woods and tracked along towards the unsuspecting deer. As he drew closer, Harry slowed and pressed himself lower to the ground, each step a careful calculation and eyes fixed for signs he’d been spotted.

Something crunched under paw and the closest deer looked up, alert. Harry stayed stock-still, rooted to the spot and watching to see what they’d do.

Eventually, the deer relaxed and went back to foraging. Harry’s claws released their hold on the dirt. He’d been close to blowing it.

Another three paces closer and he was beginning to reach the limits of his cover. Much further and they’d see him coming and flee before he had a chance to pounce. It would have to be done from here.

Harry sized up the closest animal; a doe with its nose in the snow looking for green shoots. He was dimly aware that he should be looking for older or weaker members of the herd but wasn’t rightly sure how to tell the age of a deer and so the closest would have to suffice. He tried not to look at her wide, brown eyes; it was this or starve, he told himself.

With a surge of adrenalin and a spray of snow and dirt, a hundred and twenty pounds of green-eyed snow leopard exploded from the treeline towards the herd. Harry took three bounding steps and then launched himself the remaining thirty feet to the doe in one great leap.

His claws were inches from her flank when she sprang out of his reach, moving quicker than Harry could ever have anticipated.

He hit the ground hard and chased after the doe who was now fleeing across the field with the rest of the herd. If he could cut the corner they were tracing he might be able to intercept them again.

Frozen ground flew by underneath him, kicking great plumes of snow into the air. Their longer, slender legs put them at an advantage; hopping over the deep drifts as Harry charged headlong through them. His anatomy was not suited to drawn-out chases across open fields; if he’d caught them on a rocky mountain slope this would already be over.

His plan was working, the distance was closing as he ran the shorter route on the inside of their arcing path, but just as he dug deep for a final burst of speed there came a braying bellow from next to him.

Harry turned and thanked his feline reflexes for launching him out of the way of the hurtling antlers before his brain had even processed what was happening.

He twisted in the air, tail flailing madly to bring his feet back under him and landed on all fours in the snow. The stag cantered past him and put itself between Harry and the retreating herd of deer.

The chase was over, he would never catch up to them now, but there was still one who wouldn’t run from him.

Harry paced around the stag, growling low in his throat. Far from being intimidated, the stag pawed at the ground with a hoof and shook its lethal crown, daring Harry to come closer.

Any other day, Harry might have listened, but his blood was raised from the chase and it was not only he who would go hungry, but Hermione lying back at their tent too. He needed this.

Harry, darted forwards to take the stag by surprise, jinking left and right as he closed the gap between them. The antlers immediately came down, a sharpened barrier between Harry and the muscle, fat, and sinew he sought.

He leapt through an opening and lashed out with his claws but was unable to sink them deep enough into the stag’s hide to get purchase and was bowled into the snow once more.

Harry quickly righted himself and scampered back several paces to avoid being impaled. The irony of the fight wasn’t lost on him; ever since his third year he’d considered the stag an ally, a symbol of hope and defiance, of his parents, and now one was trying to kill him. He wondered if this was what it felt like to be a Dementor when he cast his patronus.

He lunged for its shaggy throat but bit down on thin air. Harry was quicker, but the stag had more experience. One didn’t reach the age it was without fending off a few predators and would-be usurpers. He probed for a gap in its defences time and time again but was always met with prongs. The one occasion Harry did manage to slip through and leave a superficial cut on its thigh, he earned himself a sold kick in the ribs for his efforts.

The fight had gone on too long. Harry’s one advantage was surprise and he’d lost it long ago. Winded and flagging, he finally admitted defeat and dashed for the safety of the woods, letting the stag chase him half way before it returned to the distant herd with a mighty, victorious bellow.

Harry followed his footsteps back in the direction of the tent. His ribs ached; he was sure to have a vicious bruise, but he didn’t think they were broken. The cold was probably numbing the pain.

In the farthest corner of his mind, anger prickled. Not at his failure, not even his own; someone else’s.

It was becoming more frequent, and while he could avoid the worst of Voldemort’s moods in his four-legged form, the constant intrusion was draining. The intensity would ebb and flow; sometimes a mild annoyance, sometimes searing rage. Whatever was going on, the dark lord was unhappy.

Perhaps it was mere coincidence, but the downturn in Voldemort’s emotions was mirrored by the thermometer, as though his very anger were sapping what little warmth remained, or was somehow multiplying the Dementor hordes that now darkened the horizon with alarming frequency.

At least he was temporarily free from the golden noose around his neck.

Harry hated leaving the locket on Hermione while she was recovering but they knew now, to their cost, that transforming while wearing it was not an option. The elliptical mark on his sternum where the locket had fused to his skin had settled to a shiny pink once the swelling had subsided, and was reflected on his leopard coat by a new black rosette.

After the panic of that evening, the locket had sat glinting serenely in the light of the captured flames, as inert as ever. Harry could almost convince himself there was an air of smugness about it, but to ascribe emotions and personality to it would be dangerous; after all, it was how Ginny had become trapped by Tom Riddle’s diary. Even so, he made sure the cursed jewellery sat atop Hermione’s clothing rather than against her skin, just in case.

Empty heath gave way to copses of gnarled oak and beech trees, bare of leaves, as Harry’s wide paws ate up the distance his would-be prey had led him. The adrenalin of the chase had worn off and the keen edge of hunger was making itself felt again; a reminder of his failure.

Threading between the naked trees, his rounded ears pricked up at the sound of chittering and scrabbling claws. Harry tucked in against a forlorn thicket of brambles and peered upwards.

Ten feet up a wide elm, two squirrels were chasing each other around the trunk. They would race up and down for a few seconds then freeze until one of them moved and started all over again, their bushy tails flapping.

Harry’s stomach rumbled.

Could he catch one? They were quick, but he would have the size advantage this time. Would there even be any point? How much meat was there on a squirrel?

He pondered such questions as the game continued, up and down and round and round, until finally the hunter in him won the argument. He couldn’t return to Hermione empty handed, even if she didn’t know what he’d set out to do in the first place.

The distance wasn’t so great. Harry waited until the pair were distracted again and leapt from his hiding place. Both squirrels made a mad dash up the tree to safety but with two powerful lunges, claws digging into the bark, Harry’s jaws closed on the closest one.

For a fraction of a second the two conflicting halves of his mind were confronted with the reality of what he was doing. The human part recoiled at having a wild animal in his mouth, and more so at the prospect of killing it. The animal half was elated at the successful catch and ready to reap its reward.

In the end the decision came quickly. Harry’s need was greater, and it was cruel to keep the squirrel in limbo. With no small amount of guilt, he bit down.

Ten minutes later a large cat trotted through the magical boundary surrounding the camp, something furry and grey hanging from its jaws.

Harry waited until he was on the doorstep before returning to human form to minimise the time he spent unprotected in the elements. Fortunately, he’d had enough sense to drop his catch on the ground first, though he still cringed as he picked several long tail hairs off his tongue.

In the bunk, Hermione was still sleeping soundly. There was more colour to her face than there had been the night before which quelled some of the worry that had been sat on Harry’s heart. The locket winked at him from atop the covers, mocking him, and he gently lifted it from her neck. She stirred as the chain passed through her hair, but settled down again when he lay a hand against her cheek.

Settling it around his own neck — it was well past his turn to shoulder it again — Harry took his kill, a stool, and the silver knife from Hermione’s potion kit and set himself up a work station just outside the mouth of the tent.

It was… messy. All Harry had to go on was a half-remembered episode of some survival show he’d once watched on Dudley’s old TV. He knew the skin was first to go, and the years in Snape’s potions class had hardened his stomach to handling entrails, but his skill as a butcher left much to be desired.

By the end, and looking like something out of a low-budget horror movie, Harry was left with a small handful of roughly cut meat and a slightly guilty sense of pride. He vanished the remnants — sometimes magic had its perks — and carried his bounty inside to the kitchen.

With a tap of his wand, Harry lit the single burner on the half-sized stove and pulled a battered pan from a cupboard. They had no oil, no butter, no salt, so he simply dropped it into the hot pan and pushed the cuts around with a chipped wooden spoon. He fried the meat as though it had personally offended him, leaving it on the heat long past well-done; sure to be tough and chewy but better than catching some disease or parasite.

Harry poured in a splash of water, a diced rubbery carrot, and a potato with the black, mushy part cut away to create a thin stew. The weak aroma filled the inside of the tent, as intoxicating as a Hogwarts Halloween feast to his empty stomach. Across the small space, Hermione stirred, letting out a sharp moan as she tried to sit upright. Harry turned down the heat on the burner and hurried over to help her.

Hermione’s lips were dry and her hair was a mess from prolonged pillow contact, but her eyes were bright and clear for the first time in days. Harry slid an arm under her shoulders and slowly pivoted her upwards, taking all the strain on his arm and shoulder to spare her stomach. With awkward, one-armed movements, he built up the pillows behind her and set her back against them.

“Harry? Is that… fresh food?” Her voice was croaky from lack of use.

“Sort of,” he replied evasively. “How are you feeling?”

“Better,” she rasped. “Less dizzy, just sore. Did you go on a supply run?” The hopefulness in her eyes made Harry’s stomach clench with something other than hunger.

He returned to the stove and killed the flame, dividing the stew sixty-forty between two bowls and carrying them over to the bed, handing her the fuller one. Steam coiled from the surface where a film of grease sat atop the watery contents. Hermione gladly accepted the bowl and inhaled deeply as he sat down at the foot of the bed.

“Not exactly. The vegetables are whatever was rolling around at the back of the cupboard. The meat, well, I caught it.”

“How?” Hermione asked, agape.

“Turns out a leopard is good for more than just keeping warm,” Harry shrugged. There was a small part of him that was worried she would disapprove. He’d never known Hermione to be vegetarian, but saying “Eat this, I killed it with my mouth,” was a little different.

“Harry… that’s brilliant!” she beamed and relief washed over him, not only at her tacit approval of his actions, but at seeing that smile illuminate her face once more. There was a time only a handful of hours ago that he worried he’d seen it for the last time and not stopped to appreciate its beauty.

“I never would have thought to do that. Was it difficult?” Hermione asked, her voice strengthening with each mouthful.

“Easier than you might expect,” Harry said. He found he was keen to share now that he knew Hermione was amenable. “I didn’t really have to think. It was… innate? I could use some practice though,” he added, pressing gingerly on the side of his ribs where the stag had kicked him and being rewarded with a throb of pain.

“There’s so much about being an animagus that isn’t documented, at least in what we have access to,” Hermione mused. “It would be interesting to collate our experiences once this is all over. Evolutionary behaviours emerging is something completely unexpected; it must be more than just our physical forms that change, our minds even.”

“That’s what it felt like,” Harry agreed. “Not that there was something else in control, it was still me, but that a part of me I’d never noticed just knew the right thing to do.”

They ate in companionable silence, savouring the almost painful burn of the hot food.

“What is it?” Hermione asked, scraping the bowl with her spoon.

“Erm, squirrel,” he replied. She grimaced and then shot him an apologetic look.

“I’m sorry, there’s nothing wrong with it, I’ve just never eaten squirrel before.”

“It’s okay,” Harry chuckled, “I’m trying not to think about it either.”

“Thank you for doing this, Harry.”

He blushed in spite of himself.

They finished the paltry meal and Harry set the bowls and pan to wash themselves in the sink, returning to Hermione in the bunk.

“We should check how you’re healing.”

Hermione pushed the covers down to her hips and hiked up her shirt to reveal the swath of white bandage around her midriff. With a precise severing charm, Harry cut them away and peeled back the material.

His heart raced at the sight of her bare flesh, more hollow than it ought to be due to their lack of food, but soft and inviting all the same. His fingers gravitated towards her, to the warmth and solid surety that she was whole, but he focussed instead on the three, pin-straight furrows across the right side of her stomach.

Harry’s healing hadn’t been perfect. There wasn’t enough dittany to fully knit the skin back together and his stitches had not been tight enough. The result was three pink lines, a quarter-inch deep and three inches apart, running from Hermione’s navel to just above her hip. He gently ran his thumb across them, only the lightest of pressure, feeling each groove in turn.

“I’m so sorry, Hermione,” Harry said, his voice catching in his throat. He’d marked her for life. They’d been in numerous scrapes and scuffles over the years but this had been done by his hand, by his own loss of control. It was only through borrowing Hermione’s knowledge that he’d been able to stop her from bleeding out entirely, but it hadn’t been enough to save her from carrying the mark of his shame.

Hermione craned her head forward to see for herself, her own fingers probing the tender flesh. He thought she looked sad, or resigned perhaps, though she shed no tears. She sighed and her warm hand came to rest atop his.

“It’s okay, Harry. Really.”

He wanted more than anything to believe the sincerity in her soft, brown eyes.

“It was my idea to change while wearing it, not yours,” Hermione continued. “You saved me. You couldn’t help what happened.”

“I still did it,” Harry said.

She put on a brave smile. “It’s only skin. I’m hardly the first person to come out of all this with a scar.”

Harry huffed a reluctant chuckle and rested his forehead against hers. It seemed every day he found a new way to admire her and at that moment it was her fortitude, for both their sakes. He lifted his head to press his lips to her brow.

“What did happen?” she pressed.

“Pain,” Harry replied simply, sitting back again. “I don’t even know, I just transformed and- pain. Worse than the Cruciatus, like the locket was trying to tunnel into my head and split it open from the inside. Maybe it was.”

“What do you mean?”

Harry unbuttoned the top three buttons of his shirt and pulled it open. The locket was sat exactly over the scar it had left, and he moved it aside to reveal the pink welt. Hermione sucked a breath through her teeth and reached out to place a hand on the unmarked flesh beside it.

“It burned you.”

He nodded. “Had to sever it off, but hey, I got off lightly,” he replied, buttoning back up again.

“I don’t suppose we’ll be able to tell whether it was the horcrux itself or some protective curse on it,” Hermione thought aloud.

“I was so worried about you,” Harry said, not hearing. “Those first twenty-four hours where you barely moved, I thought- I didn’t know what I was going to do.”

“Wait, Harry,” said Hermione, catching on something he’d said. “How long was I out for?”

“Erm… two- no, three days?”

She rapidly counted on her fingers.

“Harry, I think it’s Christmas Day. Today is Christmas Day.”

“Are you sure?”

“Almost positive. We hit the Ministry on the second of September, the Lovegood’s was mid-October, and those storms came just after we visited High Wycombe at the end of November. I’ve been counting.”

Had it already been five months since they’d fled the Weasley-Delacour wedding? It simultaneously felt like yesterday and a lifetime ago. They’d achieved so much — tracing and retrieving the locket, becoming animagi, on their way to harnessing Fiendfyre, and still so little — three missing and four intact horcruxes.

Harry wasn’t even certain this would rank in his bottom five Christmases, but he expected that the realisation would be hard for Hermione. He’d only known her to miss one Christmas at home and that was for the Yule Ball.

“Wait here,” he said, as if she could do anything but, and hurried from the tent.

There was the crunching of trodden snow and then a loud splintering sound that reverberated around the clearing before he ducked back through the flap holding a three-foot length of evergreen bough.

“Can’t have Christmas Day without a tree,” Harry smiled, and the one reflected on Hermione’s face immediately warmed the chill that had seeped into him in the minutes outside. Anything he could do to make the day a little more normal for her would be worth it, and not just because he was the reason she was bedbound.

“Help me up,” Hermione said. It was possible she would be able to stay standing unaided, but swinging her legs out of bed and getting to her feet were far too much for her abdomen and, eager to right his wrong, Harry willingly scooped her up in his arms, bridal-style.

He lowered her into one of the arm chairs, her face sporting more colour than before, possibly due to the exertion.

Harry placed the miniature tree in a conjured pot and Hermione created baubles — shrunken versions of her jars of flame, spherical in shape, and each containing a flickering orange candle flame.

“Oh, I just remembered! Pass me my bag,” she said.

Harry dutifully placed it in her hands and she began to rifle through it. Eventually, she pulled out a thin stack of what looked like card, no more than three inches to a side. She flicked through them, then pulled one out.

“Merry Christmas,” Hermione said, holding it out to him. Harry took the card.

It was a photograph. On the small square of card were a tiny Harry and Hermione, dressed up in their wedding finery, dancing. Their printed faces were alight with joy as they twirled in the soft light of the marquee, all worldly cares momentarily lifted from their shoulders as they simply delighted in each other’s company. They danced for a few seconds before the image jerked back to the start and repeated again.

“I got it from the photographer at Bill and Fleur’s wedding,” she said, answering the silent question written across his face. “It’s just a preview, that’s why they — I mean we — don’t react. He made me a few different ones and I was going to pick one to have developed fully but then, well…”

Harry watched them spin again. There was something so simple and joyful about the way they moved. How he longed to step into the picture and live in that moment for an eternity.

“It’s… thank you,” he said, unable to put into words exactly what it was.

“I have others,” Hermione continued in a way he recognised as being driven by nerves. “You laughing about something with Fred and George, me with Ginny and Fleur, the three of us but I- I want you to have that one.”

Harry knelt down to embrace her, careful not to put any pressure on her middle.

“But I didn’t get you anything,” he said as they broke apart.

“Don’t be silly,” Hermione replied. “You made Christmas dinner.”

He looked over at the remains of the squirrel stew being washed from the pan.

“Oh, well in that case we have one last course.” Harry crossed over to the magical ice box that was barely any colder than the regular cupboards and came back holding something, two spoons in his other hand. It was the ice cream they’d walked away with on their last foray into a muggle town.

He handed Hermione a spoon and popped the lid, using the other to shave a thin curl off the top of the rock-solid dessert and holding it out for her to wrap her lips around.

“Merry Christmas, Hermione.”

“Mrry Crssmss, Hrry,” came her muffled reply, followed by both of them breaking down into raucous laughter.

Chapter Text

Hermione steadily strengthened in the days after Christmas, leading up to the new year. She had avoided infection, but the muscles of her abdomen were still knitting themselves back together which left her core weak and prone to stabs of pain whenever she tried to lift anything, including herself.

Through it all, Harry was her crutch, her handrail, her assistant, even her wheelchair when she grew tired, gathering her up in his arms to carry her across the tent to one of the battered armchairs. They drew the line at helping her bathe, which she muddled through with much wincing and bitten-off gasps of discomfort.

Harry would never have wished the incident on her, but to his embarrassment he found that he quite liked caring for her. By necessity, his hands were all over her; to lift her out of bed or lower her into a seat, and he got a nose full of that quintessential her whenever Hermione would loop her arms around his neck to be swept off her feet, literally. It was mint and parchment and woodsmoke and, if he were honest, sweat. That part was his favourite, though he wouldn’t have admitted it under threat of torture.

Dulling the shine on the good news of Hermione’s steady recovery, their food situation remained dire. Unsurprisingly, Harry’s single, small catch had not solved their problem, nor even provided any leftovers to pick at.

“I’ll head out this evening, see what I can find,” said Harry late one afternoon. “I’ll be able to go further and stay out longer now you’re awake.”

“Actually,” Hermione said cautiously, “I was thinking I could come with you to see how it’s done?”

He thought about it.

“I don’t know, Hermione. I don’t have a problem with it, but someone on foot would probably scare anything away before I could get close, and besides, it’s way too cold to be out there unprotected for any length of time, especially after sunset.”

“I know,” she replied, unphased. “That’s why it wouldn’t be me, it would be the fox.”

“Errr,” Harry faltered. He wondered if perhaps she’d been more affected by her injury than they expected. She surely must be confused or lightheaded. “We… can’t do that though?”

“I had an idea about that,” she grinned. “I don’t know why we didn’t think of it before, it’s so simple.”

“What is?” Harry asked, torn between excitement and impatience. He felt she might be rather enjoying slow-walking the answer to their problems.

“Pass the locket here,” she said, holding out her hand. Harry lifted it from his neck and dropped it into her palm. “Okay, now transform.”

He looked at her warily, starting to understand what she was suggesting, but with an encouraging nod that set her curls bouncing, he acquiesced.

Harry had never set paw inside the tent before. It felt less cramped, suddenly gaining another three feet of headroom, but the smells were overpowering; scents he was familiar with but dialled up to eleven. The cushions, the bedding, even canvas itself all reeked of them. There was a subtle hint of another too, of cedar and cut grass, of Ron’s shampoo.

“Harry?”

He pushed the sensory overload to the corner of his mind and padded around the table to Hermione, lifting his front paws to the seat between her legs and bringing his head level with hers. She reached out her free hand to feather her fingers through his thick fur.

“I don’t think I’ll ever not be amazed by this,” Hermione sighed. He chuffed in response.

“Now I just… put it back on you,” she said tentatively, uncoiling the golden chain from her hand.

Harry leant back, trying to convey his worry through just his eyes. She understood.

“It’s okay,” Hermione whispered. “I’ll keep hold of it the whole time and pull it away if anything happens. You won’t lose control again. I trust you.”

The sound of her scream when he’d gored her haunted Harry. It was something he never wanted to hear again as long as he lived, yet her request felt dangerously close to breaking that. He stared into her honest eyes. She did trust him. He would trust her, and himself.

Slowly, he moved his head forward as Hermione reached towards him, holding the chain wide. It passed his nose, his cheeks, his ears, until it was suspended above the nape of his neck. Harry’s furred face was six inches from Hermione’s. Her hands began to lower and he braced himself against another mental onslaught, determined to save her from it this time, but…

Nothing.

The chain nestled in his fur, the locket swung idly between his legs, and nothing more happened. That ever-present tone right at the very edge of his hearing was still present, perhaps louder due to proximity, but disregarded with little effort.

Hermione let out a relieved breath; evidently her conviction hadn’t been quite as solid as she’d let on.

“It’s not perfect,” she said. “One of us still needs hands to put it on and take it off the other, and we’ll have to put a loop in the chain to shorten it; stop it swinging all over the place, but it works.”

Harry hopped down and paced around the tent. Hermione was right, the locket bumped against his chest distractingly with each step, but that it had worked at all was huge. Each leap forward they took, fate and circumstance took one of their own to keep the pair from making progress, but Hermione had just put them back in the lead.

He circled back to her and pawed at his neck, indicating for Hermione to remove it. As soon as it was back in her hands, he returned to human form.

“I can’t believe it,” Harry said, amazed. “How did we not think of that before?”

Hermione shrugged. “Too caught up with the need to keep a tight hold on it, I suppose. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that we can do it.”

“Are you ready to change yet? It’s not going to reopen your side, is it?”

“I don’t think so. The scars will carry across, but it shouldn’t put any additional strain on them. Besides, I’ve spent too long staring at the inside of this tent; I’m going stir-crazy, I want to get out and this is the only way.”

“Only if you’re sure,” Harry cautioned, but she replied with a firm nod.

Harry dropped to all fours, twisting as he went and adopting the familiar grey and white coat. She looped the locket back over his head and secured a twist in the chain, tight enough to stop it swaying but not so tight he felt like it was choking him.

Hermione walked around the table and into the clear space in the middle of the tent. He could tell she was making an effort not to favour her uninjured side. Despite her resolve, she looked nervous.

Harry stepped closer and nuzzled his nose into the palm of her hand. She gave a shaky exhale but smiled at him as he backed away to give her room.

“Okay,” Hermione said, more to herself than anything, and turned on the spot.

In a blur of motion, the white, vulpine form stood where the woman just had. Her eyes flared wide at the sensory onslaught that had similarly assaulted Harry. With a chirp to catch her attention, he trotted out into the snow, bidding her to follow.

The low winter sun skimmed the top of the trees on its way beyond the horizon, illuminating thin wisps of distant cloud from below. Out in the clear air they could get a real look at one another, since neither animal form had ever met its partner.

Their size difference was immediately apparent. Harry had always edged out Hermione on height; only an inch or two in first year, but a whole head taller now. Their animagi forms, however, were another matter. His legs weren’t long like a cheetah’s, built for stability not outright speed, but if she were to crouch, Hermione could have walked under his belly.

Her scent had changed too, but was still recognisable as Hermione. It had taken on an earthier tone that seemed to be wired directly to the base of his skull, his pupils dilating and nape tingling in response. Hermione, too, had sensed a difference in Harry and they reacquainted themselves with this new aspect of one another.

He rubbed his head against her cheek, feeling their coats rustle against each other.

Further down her flank, Hermione’s fur was parted by three pink lines, stark against the white hair. They were smaller than they had been, scaled proportional to her new size, but stood out all the same. Harry pressed his nose against them sadly but she gave him a gentle headbutt in the ribs in return, a wordless dismissal of his apology.

True to her word, Hermione was eager to stretch her legs after the better part of a week within the canvas walls. She pattered off upwind at a gentle jog and Harry hurried after her.

The pair covered ground quickly across the deep drifts, Hermione by dint of her sleight weight and Harry by his wide paws. Her joy at being out in the elements was clear; her bushy tail held high and a glint in her chestnut eyes. Harry’s senses were always on alert, but for the time being he could rely on them to function in the background and simply enjoy being out with her, running side by side through the frozen world.

With each mile from the tent, their human concerns seemed to fade and their confidence grew, a definite spring creeping into four-legged steps and a sparkle of mischief shimmering between them. It wasn’t long before their gentle stroll had turned into a game of cat and- well, fox.

To Harry’s amusement, Hermione was the one who started it for once. With an elated bark she darted off their current path and through the crystalised undergrowth. He needed no excuse to give chase, bounding after her with as much intent as he’d shown the herd of deer.

Harry’s ears tracked her frenzied footsteps through the brush, his eyes picking out divots in the snow where her feet had dug in to propel herself forward until he’d gained enough ground to catch glimpses of her tail whipping behind branches and roots.

She was surprisingly quick. Harry could beat her in a sprint, but her tiny legs could accelerate her to top speed in an instant and change direction on a dime, wheeling out of reach as Harry would overshoot and springboard off a tree to keep up with her jinking path, claws leaving splintered grooves in the bark.

Even when cornered, Hermione was no easy opponent. Out of escape routes, she deftly avoided his swatting paws, nipping the back of his hind legs with her needle-like teeth until he finally outmanoeuvred her, catching the mischievous arctic fox between her shoulder blades and rolling the both of them over until they came to rest with Harry stood above her and Hermione on her back between his front paws, equally out of breath and covered in snowflakes.

He stared down at her with joy and triumph and affection, though his heart would argue a great deal more, until she stretched up and licked the tip of his nose with a small, pink tongue and the resulting short-circuit rendered all further thought impossible.

Eventually he regained control of his faculties long enough to return the gesture then, unwilling to return completely to sensibility, licked the entire side of her face.

Hermione chittered and wriggled out from under him, scrambling back to her feet and shooting him a reproachful look that was entirely undermined by her wagging tail.

Winded but cheerful, the two predators set their minds on the reason they’d ventured away from the safety of the tent in the first place. Harry opened up his senses and allowed the wind to paint a picture of the landscape ahead of them.

Unlike the last time, no tantalising waft of dinner reached his nostrils, so he set off perpendicular to the breeze, keeping the tent somewhere off to their right and swaying his head for Hermione to follow.

Harry was no expert, with only one semi-successful hunt to his name, but Hermione’s academic senses transcended species and she adopted the role of diligent student with aplomb. She shadowed Harry from twenty feet back to ensure her own movements did not pollute his senses, stopping when he stopped, listening and sniffing when he did.

Even so, it was clear as the Sun began to sink below the treetops that their initial activity had taken it out of her. Hermione made no complaint nor requested any reprieve, but Harry could see that her paws didn’t lift quite as high as before and her breathing was more laboured. He stopped once to rub alongside her, lending her his strength, but she shooed him back to the head of their silent column.

Darkness closed in and Harry’s lack of true hunting nature started to bite. His animal instincts may have been able to track unwitting prey, but he had no knowledge of where to find said prey to begin tracking in the first place. The wind remained stubbornly bland and the only other wildlife they saw were birds watching them cautiously from the highest branches. He estimated they’d completed a quarter circle around their distant camp when a change in the air brought the acrid scent of livestock.

Harry paused to let Hermione draw level, a slight limp in her step now, and he audibly sniffed and bobbed his head in the direction of the smell. She copied. There was something about it that refused to trigger his predator mind in the way the wild deer had, perhaps sensing the unhygienic conditions in which livestock were kept, or else detecting the dangerous scent of humans mixed in, but being choosey was something neither could afford. Hermione nodded her silent agreement.

Two miles on, the farm came into view. The grazing pastures were buried and untouched, illuminated by the sodium glow of a cluster of buildings huddled together as if for warmth. A farmhouse squatted at the centre, its lower windows obscured by piled snow but a thin trickle of smoke wafting out of the chimney. A path had been cleared from the front door to a nearby wood store. It was almost empty. Other beaten paths fanned out to various sheds, one of which caught the attention of the two animagi.

It was open-fronted, but the farmer had stacked hay bales along the opening in an attempt to retain some warmth. Inside, a knot of sheep huddled in one corner. It was impossible to tell their number; the thick coat of each merged into its neighbour to create a shuffling, woolly mass.

Harry loathed to take from the struggling muggles who had no say or recourse in what was happening to them, but it was a well-trodden argument in his mind now and, as always, he made the decision to act selfishly and carry the weight of it with him.

Hermione pressed her snout under his chin, sharing his woes, then moved to hunker down in a hedgerow to wait, knowing they would be too big for her to help.

Harry crossed the fields at a loping run. It wasn’t the same as the hunt; there was no nervous excitement or anticipation, no adrenalin, he was simply death to these animals, coming to reap one like so many fish in a barrel.

He hopped up onto the straw wall and surveyed the flock. They immediately began bleating and scrambling over one another, trying not to be at the outer edge of the knot. It was awful to behold, almost enough for Harry to lose his appetite, but not quite.

Quick as he could so as not to prolong their suffering, he leapt down, crossed the barn in two strides and pounced on whichever unlucky ewe happened to be closest. His jaw closed around its neck and sharp incisors pierced the flesh, silencing its frantic bleating and filling his mouth with hot blood before a snap that resonated through his whole skull rendered it limp.

The metallic tang made Harry want to gag. He’d been in enough scrapes to know the taste of blood, but the volume and harsh reality of its source turned his stomach.

Harry dragged the dead sheep away from its panicked brethren. His powerful legs were built for heaving large prey up trees, making it surprisingly easy to scale the temporary wall again with the sheep still dangling from his mouth. Its body was awkwardly large to step over, but he found a gait that made it possible and hauled it back across the fields to where Hermione lay hidden.

He dropped his kill and she ran out to meet him, sniffing and examining the carcass. Blood coated his chin and dripped down to stain the pristine snow. He must look demented, he thought, until Hermione rubbed her head against his shoulder and he leant into the reassuring touch.

It was a strange thing, to be rendered mute as an animal. Physical touch had become the only way to express emotion to one another, all complexity of thought boiled down to the simple act of mutual contact, though in no way diminished in intensity. Harry found the gentle pressure of her forehead as soothing, as heartwarming as any words she may have been able to speak. Perhaps it was even better this way, with no room for misinterpretation. He’d never been one to wax lyrical in the first place.

A commotion at the farmhouse roused their senses. Their theft had been discovered and it was time to beat a hasty retreat. Adjusting his grip on the sheep, Harry picked it up once more and Hermione dashed ahead to lead the way home.

Their journey back was much slower thanks to the literal dead weight Harry was dragging through the snow. The thick wool collected clumps of ice, acting like an anchor as they struggled onwards. Even with his impressive stamina, his jaw and forelegs were burning.

Hermione would trot ahead and then pause on full alert while Harry caught up. Occasionally she would run back along their tracks to make sure they weren’t being followed by the farmer.

They were almost half way back to the tent when Harry’s fur tingled and stood on end. Fifty feet in front, Hermione’s head jerked to one side, peering through the sparse trees. A blanket of icy air rolled over them, horribly familiar.

Harry dropped the carcass but it was too late to close the distance to Hermione as scores of Dementors came wafting between the trees, sucking and rattling as they approached.

The pair shared a panicked look. Harry couldn’t transform while wearing the locket, and Hermione was too far away to remove it. Her changing at all would likely bring the Dementors swarming down upon them. They would have to rely on their forms confusing the wraiths; an all-or-nothing test of the very assumption that started their animagi journey. Harry had evaded them on four legs once before, but there was nobody around now to present a juicier target.

They found what cover they could, Hermione hunkering down in the snow next to a dead oak, her white fur rendering her almost invisible if only they relied on sight.

The Dementors would reach Hermione first. Harry watched on tenterhooks as they drew closer and closer, the hems of their tattered cloaks two feet off the ground.

First one passed her crouched form, then another, before a third drifted to a halt directly above her. It swayed on a phantom breeze, tasting the air. If it were to notice her, she would be done for, already within arm’s reach of the thing. Harry’s heart was in his mouth.

It sensed something. With a twitch, it moved away from Hermione and directly towards where Harry lay hidden, the rest of the horde adjusting course to follow.

Harry’s alarm at the approaching Dementors was matched only by his relief that Hermione had gone unnoticed. If she was safe, he could accept that. He caught her wide, brown eyes searching for him, imploring him not to do what he was about to do, but he had no choice. Granting himself another half-second to look at her, Harry burst from the snow and sprinted away as fast as his paws could carry him.

They gave chase immediately, as he had expected. It would draw them away from Hermione, allowing her to escape. Their kill would have to be left for now.

Though they had sensed him hiding, his animal form was still troublesome for the Dementors. Harry had managed to open a lead on them and, glancing back, he could see that their pursuit was imperfect, leading them off course before they would reacquire him. As long as there were none ahead of him, he felt hopeful about his prospects of losing them.

Each minute of the chase sapped his stamina, already tested that evening, but also led them further from the tent. When they were reduced to dark smudges against the dusk light behind him, Harry changed course and began to loop back on himself. From the safety of the undergrowth, he watched the Dementors linger where they had last felt him, then continue onwards on their blind hunt. He counted fifty-three of them before giving up and slinking away.

Harry knew roughly in which direction the tent lay, but angled off slightly to try and intercept their original path back in case Hermione had waited. He knew he’d crossed it when he picked up her scent on the ground. He followed it onwards until a flash of crimson caught his eye.

A spatter of blood; one, maybe two drops coloured the snow beside her faint footprints. There was no scent of any other animal or person — it must he hers.

Harry ran now, his nose keeping him on track. More blood, only small drips like before, but frequent.

Abruptly, her trail vanished. One minute it was there, the next; nothing. He backtracked and picked it up again, but the trail was confused and gave no clear direction. He was just about to consider ripping the locket from his neck and shifting to call out to her when her pointed face poked out from a hidden pocket in the snow.

Hermione’s eyes were awash with relief, as he imagined his own were, and they bounded towards each other, heads fighting for dominance as they expressed their shared elation.

Breaking off, Harry examined her flank. One of the scars had split slightly, blood beading in the wound before it would trickle down and drip to the ground. Thankfully, it wasn’t serious, but before Harry could even contemplate his actions, he licked it.

Harry froze. It had happened without conscious thought. Licking a wound to clean it was common animal nature, and yet his human mind now had to grapple with what he’d done. It was incredibly awkward, and strangely intimate. He chanced a sheepish look at Hermione. If foxes could blush, he was certain she would be bright red.

Any heat between them that the Dementors had chased away was sparked anew. He remembered what it felt like to tussle with her, never mind that she’d let him win, but the rematch would have to wait until one of them was not dripping blood into the snow.

They walked the remaining distance side by side until they crossed the magical boundary and the tent came into view. It looked strangely homely and inviting; a sure sign that they’d been out in the wilderness too long.

Inside, Hermione returned to human form, wincing as she pressed a hand to her side. She quickly un-cinched the locket and removed it from Harry, letting it fall onto the table for the time being.

As soon as he was back on two feet, Harry shot off a wordless cleaning charm to remove the remnants of the dried blood from his chin and looked at Hermione. Their accidental intimacy in the snow outside had not been forgotten, and to see her beautiful face once more, hair cascading over her shoulders, caused Harry’s breath to hitch in his throat.

“We should check on your side,” he said thickly, his tongue feeling too big for his mouth.

Hermione nodded and sat herself on the edge of the table, hand still pressed to her shirt.

He lifted her hand away gently and slowly started to unbutton the material, starting with the lowest one. Their eyes briefly met and his pulse leapt at how dark and intense hers had become. Each button exposed more flesh until it was open to her sternum, the cup of her bra showing through in a flash of white. He could have stopped two buttons ago but Hermione made no move to intervene.

Laying her shirt open at the bottom, Harry bent to examine the wound.

“Are you okay?” he asked, aware that first and foremost he was supposed to be healing her.

“I’m fine,” Hermione replied. “Just pulled it when I was running.” She was watching him intently.

Harry swallowed and cast another cleaning charm, vanishing the trickle of dried blood down her side and the fresh that was oozing from the scar. He made quick work of sealing it up again.

Job done, he should have covered her back up, but…

Harry’s fingers were reluctant to leave her body. They were trailing delicate patterns on her skin, eliciting an occasional twitch when he fluttered over a particularly sensitive area in a way that mesmerised him. They ventured lower, skirting the hem of her jeans, then below the hem, just the tip.

His gaze flicked back up to Hermione’s face. She was chewing on her bottom lip in a way that made him wish it was his own. Those fingertips continued their path along her waistband until they were below her navel, and paused.

Hermione nodded.

Harry ventured lower and felt the hem of her underwear, his heart thumping in his chest, sending blood rushing to places other than his head. He may not have had much experience, but he wasn’t an idiot. He’d heard the talk, seen the magazines and crude dormitory sketches. It was different in person though, and with someone as all-consuming as Hermione.

He eased beneath the cotton and it was her turn to gasp, the anticipation alone enough to elicit a response. She grasped his collar and buried her forehead in his chest as his fingers brushed through the downy hair between her legs.

Lower still and he found what he was looking for, and evidently what she had been desperately waiting for him to find. Her flesh offered no resistance as his fingers parted her, tentatively mapping each sensation and reaction. Her stuttered panting against his chest was driving him wild with his own lust. He had never known that pleasing someone else could be so intoxicating; a pleasure all of its own.

Harry made delicate circles with his middle finger and Hermione crooned against him, the hand that was not threatening to tear the collar from his shirt dropping to his own trousers to undo his belt. The pressure of her against his jeans sent sparks through his limbs and he subconsciously leant into it, silently imploring her to vanish the damned belt.

The angle was awkward but Harry didn’t care. He curled his fingers upward, enveloping them in her as Hermione rocked her hips in a steady motion against his hand.

His belt finally relented and she made quick work of the buttons, giving her ample room to slide her palm down the outside of his already straining briefs. Harry struggled to keep his own rhythm as her hand caressed him and consumed all rational thought, a thousand times better than his own had ever felt.

She released his collar and cupped his cheek instead, guiding his face to her own and capturing his lips in a ravenous kiss. How many times now had they avoided death by the breadth of a whisker? Why in that moment did it feel ridiculous to deny something they both deeply wanted when the chance could be snatched away so cruelly?

Her fingers clenched around him and he almost passed out then and there, but Hermione’s own rocking was becoming more frantic and he was determined not to tap out early.

His fingers withdrew and she let out a whimper between heated kisses, but sank back into him with a throaty groan when they resumed their circling a little higher, faster and firmer now.

Harry couldn’t reach enough of her. He’d claimed her mouth with his own, his hand promised to bring her to a crescendo while the other alternated between holding her upright and roaming through her hair, but still he wanted more. There was no part of her that he did not want wholly and completely.

Her own hand was working an entirely new magic on Harry. He could have given in and let it carry him right into the stratosphere but not without dragging her with him.

She’d broken their kiss off, unable to maintain it with the increased pace of her panting and rocking against him. He knew she was close, perhaps even as achingly close as he himself was. There was a strong temptation to double down, to race for the finish line, but he fought it off and kept the rhythm as she climbed higher and higher, her own hand never ceasing on him.

With a shuddering tremble and a strangled cry, Hermione convulsed against him in pure ecstasy. As if her own ministrations hadn’t been enough, the sheer intimacy of that action was more than Harry could withstand and he followed her over the edge, holding her against him as if she could anchor him to the Earth.

Ever so slowly, they both returned to solid ground, limbs wobbly and breathing unsteady. They rested their foreheads against one another, eyes closed, Hermione still sat on the kitchen table, Harry stood before her.

Hermione was the first to speak, or rather, break the silence with a shaky giggle. The sound lifted Harry’s heart and soon he was laughing too, both of them sharing in a profound, intimate, ridiculous moment.

They kissed softly and he helped her down from the table.

“I think you might need to, erm… clean up,” said Hermione, glancing down at Harry’s undone trousers, their mirth still colouring her face.

“Oh, yes,” he replied, awkwardly holding them closed. “And then I suppose I better go and retrieve our dinner from where we left it.”

He shuffled off to the bathroom, savouring the playful eye-roll he earned on his way past, his chest lighter than it had felt in months.

Chapter Text

The light was different now.

Where once the back of his pale hand would ripple with eddies and whorls of green-tinged light, now it was flat and lifeless. The towering windows still looked out into the depths of the black lake, but a thick cap of ice stilled the dancing waters, killed them, turning his skin pallid and grey. Or perhaps that was just how he looked now.

Conversation ebbed and flowed around him, a lost echo of the lake beyond the common room, but Draco wasn’t listening.

He scratched at his forearm again through his dark robes. The prickling didn’t stop, but he did succeed in reopening the scabs that had only recently closed.

Nobody around him noticed. He suspected he could have stood up and danced a jig on the table and none would bat an eye. They had stopped seeing him some time ago. To them, he was but an extension of the Dark Lord; the favoured follower who brought down the great Albus Dumbledore. His protégé, even, some of the more naïve and sycophantic of his new admirers would say.

No, there were no friends in this room. Even the ever-loyal Crabbe and Goyle had grown beyond his control. There was no doubt that they were still his, indeed they lacked the capacity for independent thought, but his own rise had elevated them to a status they could never have dreamed of and had not the wherewithal to navigate.

They had always been menacing, feared perhaps, but respected? Admired?

The group sprawled in the corner of the common room were Crabbe and Goyle’s doing, all of them there purely for the prestige of being close to Draco. The oafs were happy enough to be dragged along in his wake, and it gave Draco a twinge of satisfaction to know that they would be swallowed by the maelstrom too.

For that is where he was headed.

There was no doubt in Draco’s mind that the path laid before his feet ended in death. He had peeked behind the veil; been ushered into the inner sanctum and known then that his fate was sealed.

A summer spent at home, around the Dark Lord and his closest followers; those honoured with his mark, and none of them could see it. They were deluded, all of them. Not in the Dark Lord’s supremacy which, when seen first-hand, was absolute, but in their place beside him. Draco’s father, his aunt, all convinced that they alone had the vision, the respect, the loyalty to sit beside him when it was done. All the Dark Lord brought was death, and it would visit them as surely as it would visit Draco.

There was no peace to be found in such a realisation, but nor did he rail each morning against the injustice or waste time peering over his shoulder. His feet carried him forward and his mind followed behind, watching with mute indifference.

Silence fell around him and Draco realised that someone must have asked him something. His grey eyes slid back into focus on the expectant faces turned his way. He didn’t even know which one of them had spoken.

It mattered not. They saw what they wanted to see, and his detached bewilderment was instead seen as a scathing rebuke to a question not worth his breath to answer.

“Shut your mouth, Cadwell,” Goyle grunted, and a vaguely familiar third year blushed and bowed his head.

“Only the most trusted families are invited to Malfoy Manor,” added Crabbe.

Draco hated when they called it that, as if his family would be crass enough to name the house after themselves.

As the group turned inwards once more and he allowed himself to tune it out, Draco became aware of another pair of eyes upon him. They weren’t slack with rapture, but hardened and piercing, boring into him from half a room away. He would have expected no less from Daphne.

For Draco was in equal parts revered and reviled. Venerated and despised. Despite what the other houses may like to believe, the majority of Slytherin house were simply ambitious people who knew the value of self-reliance and held no strong feelings on the mudbloods.

To them, he was a pariah; the brush with which they had all been tarred, and some weren’t afraid to let their feelings be known. No, there were no friends in this room.

Daphne’s younger sister, Astoria, lingered by her side. She didn’t share Daphne’s open hatred, looking at him instead with something soft and curious, perhaps even pitying, before she was dragged away by the elder.

Draco rose from his chair. Crabbe and Goyle tensed as if to follow, but he stayed them with a casual wave of his hand, crossing the vaulted room to the dormitories. Through the passage, he made for one of the shared bathrooms and locked the door behind him.

A row of cubicles faced a row of sinks, age-spotted mirrors hung above each, and Draco leant heavily on the white porcelain. He looked at his reflection.

Hair still immaculately groomed, perfectly clean shaven, but behind his eyes was a void that had all but swallowed him whole. The grey iris, once polished steel, had tarnished. He didn’t have it in himself to care.

Draco unbuttoned the cuff on his left wrist and pulled the jumper and shirt sleeve up to his elbow. The white fabric was spotted with blood and pulled at his skin as it came.

He was greeted by the familiar black skull and knotted snake, biting at his flesh like alcohol poured onto an open wound. Grabbing a nail brush off the sink, he splashed it under cold water from the serpent-headed tap and took it to his arm.

Thin, crimson trickles splashed onto the white ceramic as Draco scrubbed the skin raw. His flesh was red and raised, oozing from countless minute cuts and sores, but still the mark burned. The pain of his own ministrations did not block it out, only layered on top until his whole arm throbbed in time with his heart.

There was a knock at the door and the bloodstained brush clattered into the sink.

“Draco? Are you in there?”

He recognised the voice of Amycus Carrow.

“Yes,” he replied, his voice smooth and level.

“The headmaster wishes to see you.”

No surprise there, he thought. Severus had been hounding him all through the previous year and hadn’t stopped once he’d been elevated to headmaster.

“I’ll head up after dinner.”

“Erm, I’m to escort you there now.”

Draco blotted at his inflamed forearm with a towel and buttoned his cuff back up. He took one last look in the mirror at the esteemed Draco Malfoy, then turned on his heel and unlocked the door.

Draco inhabited a space somewhere between student and staff, belonging to both and yet neither. Both Severus and the Carrows were frequent visitors to his home, the former since before he had even started at Hogwarts, and since his elevation to the Dark Lord’s ranks they treated him with a degree of respect not afforded to the other students.

The Carrows in particular took great delight in taking him under their wing, no doubt attempting to build favour with the newest rising star since Draco’s father had fallen from grace.

The elder Malfoy had been steadily slipping since the Basilisk incident in Draco’s second year, but the events in the Department of Mysteries and his subsequent imprisonment had erased the last of his standing within the inner circle.

Of course, he still housed and financed the majority of the Dark Lord’s cadre, but his son’s achievements hadn’t improved Lucius’ station by association. Draco expected that, once he had graduated Hogwarts, his father might befall some terrible accident and leave him in control of the family’s resources.

He followed Carrow in silence. It must have chafed to be sent to fetch him like a dog, and he knew the twins already distrusted the ex-potions master, as if killing Dumbledore wasn’t proof enough of where his loyalties lay. Draco may have been credited with toppling Dumbledore, but all knew it was Severus who had cast the killing curse.

“Mandrake,” grunted Amycus as they approached the gargoyle guarding the staircase; the latest in a slew of potion-ingredient passwords that the headmaster favoured. He watched Draco ascend the spiral steps but made no move to follow him. At the top, Draco knocked twice.

The door swung inwards of its own accord, ushering him into the circular office. He had set foot inside it only once before; with his father after he’d been attacked by a Hippogriff in his third year. The portraits covering the walls were still there, including a new one of the bearded wizard himself, all sleeping peacefully, but the tables and trinkets and curios were all gone. The room was stark by comparison to its predecessor, with only a few shelves of books and a sword in a case to serve as furnishing.

Its new owner was sat behind the wide desk, the scratching of quill on parchment the only sound to be heard. He ignored Draco, who lowered himself into a chair opposite and waited.

As Severus finished the page and set it aside, Draco expected him to speak, but instead he took up another and kept writing. Two years ago, Draco would have been incensed by such blatant disregard, but no longer. If this was supposed to be some sort of punishment or test, he would wait it out.

After an inordinately long time, the headmaster finally set his quill back on its stand.

“Mister Malfoy,” Severus drawled. “This may come as news to you, but there are a rather large number of pressing matters that require my time of late. As such, when I set aside time in my day to teach you the complex art of occlumency, I expect you to attend.” His last five words were enunciated so pointedly that Draco could practically hear the punctuation.

“Thrice you have failed to show up,” Severus continued. “Why?”

Draco could have told him that he didn’t see the point; that he would never be adept enough to shield his thoughts from the Dark Lord himself, and that the entirety of his existence was either at home or at Hogwarts, both of which were well outside the reach of anyone set against him. He could have said that, if he were captured, he expected he would be killed by one of the Dark Lord’s agents before he had a chance to be interrogated, and that besides, he didn’t much care for Severus rooting around inside his head.

Instead, Draco shrugged.

Severus scoffed at his petulance.

“This is not some weekend remedial charms practice,” the headmaster hissed. “Controlling your mind may very well save your life.”

It was Draco’s turn to scoff.

“There is… information,” Severus said, “that you cannot be party to until you have mastered guarding your thoughts.”

Draco knew there were secretive things discussed at meetings of the inner circle that he could not yet attend, but something in the way his former potions master looked at him gave him a flicker of doubt. Had he imagined it, or were the eyes of Dumbledore’s portrait open a second ago? He appeared fast asleep now.

Little as he liked it, he knew that he could not avoid it forever, and now that Severus had made a point of his truancy it would have to come to an end.

“I’ll be at the next one,” Draco said, his voice emotionless.

“There is this, also,” said Severus, reaching into a desk drawer and retrieving a parchment envelope. Draco recognised the feel of his father’s paper stock, and the house crest watermark on the sealed flap was a dead giveaway.

“Why do you have this?” he asked.

“Would you rather our Head of Discipline read it first?” Severus asked sardonically.

Draco thumbed open the envelop and pulled out a folded sheaf of parchment covered in his father’s familiar looping handwriting. He skimmed down the page.

It was yet another plea disguised as a request for Draco to return home for the Christmas holidays; something he had already decided he was not going to do. Perhaps Lucius could also see the writing on the wall and wanted the whole family present as a show of solidarity. Perhaps he was hoping they’d flee before his time came.

Regardless, the last thing Draco wanted at that moment was to return home. Home to his increasingly desperate and unhinged father, to his mother who masked her fear but could not hide it from her son, to the halls where the Dark Lord stalked like a spectre of death. He crumpled the letter.

“If that’s all, sir,” said Draco, impassive as always.

Severus regarded him for a long, calculating moment.

“There are many ways to serve, Draco,” he said. “More than you yet understand.”

 Draco said nothing. He understood perfectly well what serving the Dark lord meant, patronising mentor or no.

With seemingly nothing more to add, Severus finally dismissed him with a nod.

In the end, it was trivially easy to stay at the castle for the Christmas holidays. With so many students kept back, the Carrows wanted as many who were loyal to them as they could get. Most were given childish tasks made to make them feel important; shadowing classmates whose parents were known Dumbledore-sympathisers and the like, but Draco eschewed such indignities.

The quiet of the common room was a welcome companion. Wrapped in a fur-lined cloak as the eternal winter outside steadily gained ground in the halls of the castle, Draco wiled away the days in a state of listless acceptance. He did not seek out his fellow Slytherins, and ate only to avoid questions as each day slid into the next.

It was irritating then when, late on Christmas Eve, someone sought his attention.

The other Carrow, the Dark Arts teacher, had hastened into the common room and, upon spotting him, made a beeline to his armchair. Only a few students remained scattered among the various sofas, most having retreated to their dorms to await a subdued festive morning.

“Draco, with me, quickly now!” she said.

He had no idea what was so urgent, or why she practically hummed with furtive excitement. Reluctantly, he hauled himself out of the chair.

“Follow me,” said Alecto, looking pleased with herself.

Draco let her lead him out of the vanishing archway that served as the hidden entrance to the room, but instead of turning left, up towards the great hall and the rest of the castle as he expected, she went right, deeper into the dungeons.

“As usual, it falls to Amycus and I to ensure that the enemies of the Dark Lord are properly contained in this wretched school,” Alecto grumbled, ducking down another flight of twisting steps. “We do not question His judgement, of course, but more than a decade licking Dumbledore’s boots? Severus cannot be trusted to do what must be done. He has gone soft.”

She did not expect a reply, and Draco had no intention of giving one. It was nothing he hadn’t heard the pair of them grousing about before. He pulled up the fur collar of his cloak, the perpetually-damp walls now crusted with a sheet of ice this deep in the bowels of the castle. It reflected the light of guttering torches.

“They’re blood-traitors, and liars to boot,” she whittered on.

Eventually, Alecto stopped before a plain, iron door and rapped hard upon it. The clang echoed up and down the empty hall. It swung open and she waved Draco inside.

It was, if possible, even colder than the hallway. His breath clouded in front of his face, momentarily obscuring the room from sight and instead letting his nose make the first discovery.

There was a metallic tang in the air and the sour, cloying smell of urine.

As his vision cleared, Draco saw Amycus Carrow stood in the centre of the cramped, stone room. His cloak had been hung on an iron peg and his sleeves were rolled up, his twisting, serpentine brand setting Draco’s own one prickling.

On the floor before him, slumped in a corner, was the familiar red hair and pale face of the youngest Weasley boy.

Weasley was still conscious, just. His face was bruised, one eye swollen shut, and blood dripped from his nose. His clothes were ripped and soiled, the tattered jumper he was wearing; more hideous even than his usual attire, split from collar to hip and unravelling onto the floor. He trembled, either from the cold or something worse.

“I brought Draco,” said Alecto, ignoring the young man at their feet.

“Yes, yes,” replied Amycus hurriedly. “Apparently Severus is already on his way back. Those infernal paintings will squeal to him the minute he sets foot through the doors. I thought we’d have longer.” He flicked his wand wordlessly at Weasley, who flinched and grunted.

“I’m close, I know it,” Amycus hissed, “but he’ll ruin it all.” He turned to Draco. “This rat is lying about not knowing where Potter and Granger are, I’m sure of it. Break him, Draco, and the Dark Lord will personally thank us for bringing Potter to his feet. Alecto and I will intercept Severus and give you as much time as we can.”

With that, he clapped Draco on the shoulder and the twins strode from the room, their footsteps receding along the hall until they were cut off entirely by the cell door clanging shut.

Draco looked at the Weasley boy, who looked back with one hazy, pale blue eye. He gripped his wand.

Aunt Bellatrix had taken great pleasure in teaching Draco the Cruciatus curse over the summer. “You have to let it consume you, Draco, relish in the power and clarity of exquisite pain,” she would say.

She was wrong.

Of course, that’s how Bellatrix saw it because she enjoyed inflicting torment. She was the sort of child to cut open an animal just to see what was inside. No, one didn’t have to exalt in the torture, one only had to accept it. Whether because they revel in it or are simply numb to it, it mattered not.

Hesitation, reluctance, was the difference between success and failure. To understand what you were causing, truly understand, and not waver, that is how you mastered the Cruciatus curse.

Weasley was reflected in Draco’s glassy, grey eyes as his wand came up.

“Crucio.”

The redhead convulsed as though burned, his head snapping backwards and bouncing off the stone. His body writhed, slipping from the slumped sitting position in the corner of the cell until he was prostrate, limbs unable to decide between being protectively curled up or outstretched in spasm.

Draco ended the curse. Too much in one go would hasten the insanity, Bellatrix warned him. Weasley retched but, judging from the state of the cell floor, his stomach was already empty.

He was finally getting to teach the pathetic blood-traitor a lesson and yet he didn’t have it in himself to enjoy it. Draco watched with cool detachment; the fulfilment of a childhood desire that now tasted like so much ash in his mouth.

“Crucio.”

Weasley writhed again, his back arching off the filthy flagstones. A strangled groan bubbled past his lips as though he were attempting to bite down on the scream trying to force its way up his throat.

Amycus had said something about him lying. Should he be asking questions? Draco relaxed his wand again.

Most thought Potter had fled by now, and taken his pet mudblood with him. Some said he was already dead, but Draco knew that to be false purely by the way he was spoken of at home. If anyone knew where Potter was, it would be Weasley, but did it matter? Alive or dead, Potter was no threat to the Dark Lord. He was not one tenth the wizard that Dumbledore had been, and he’d still been outplayed. Would it matter if Potter lived the rest of his life in obscurity, far away?

The sound of purposeful footsteps came pealing down the corridor. Evidently the Carrow’s interception had been fleeting at best.

“Crucio.”

Weasley rolled onto his front and pulled his knees up under himself, ripping his jeans on the rough stone. His hands had come up to his head and his fingernails were digging into the flesh hard enough to draw blood. The yell that had been fighting to escape came forth, given form by the frigid air. It started low but climbed in pitch and volume as the force with which he clamped his own skull intensified.

The iron door slammed open, framing Severus against the flickering light of the hall. There was a flash of white light and a loud bang, and Draco’s spell ended. The headmaster’s face was set, his mouth a thin line, but Draco could see in his eyes that he was livid; something that would have escaped anyone who hadn’t spent years around the man.

Draco followed his gaze down to Weasley who, to his surprise, was not slumped on the floor but staring at him, wide-eyed but unseeing. Even his swollen, purple lid had been forced open as some sort of shock wracked his system. His breathing was fast and shaky and his pupils slid in and out of focus.

Severus brandished his wand at Weasley who was hoisted to an approximation of standing by an invisible set of hands under his arms.

Without a word, he turned on his heel, his black travel cloak billowing out behind him, and strode out of the room, the limp and floating Weasley boy hovering behind him. Draco stood among the blood and piss and vomit until the dungeons were blissfully quiet again.

Chapter Text

Flame-lit stone drifted by beneath him as Ron’s chin bounced on his chest, unwilling to follow his commands to raise it. Every few feet a drop of blood would drip from his nose and splatter on the flagstones before being whisked away behind his floating feet.

Pain wracked his body, racing up and down his tortured nerves, but it was second to the acute agony unfolding within his head.

Memories, clear and vivid, filled his skull until it was straining fit to burst. They were jumbled, disordered, but undeniably his, overwhelming his fractured mind with sights and sounds, smells and sensations.

A busy London street, traffic rumbling past under the harsh light of a muggle screen, a waft of exhaust and fried food. The rushing of water in a cramped office, his limbs clumsy, not his own, and the anxiety of a plan gone awry stoking his pulse. A tent in the woods, half-buried in snow, and the bone-deep cold that touched everything within. Anger, betrayal, and a spell cried out by a voice as familiar as his own mother’s.

They jostled for position, demanding to be acknowledged before they could find their place in the void that had been missing from his memories. It was a small mercy that they were currently keeping the worst of the Cruciatus aftershocks from consuming his consciousness.

The floor had changed. It was cleaner now, the light brighter, and another voice he recognised cried out in alarm.

“Oh, good heavens!”

Ron was cradled by an invisible force and rotated gently onto his back before being set down upon a set of clean, white sheets. Even the gentle pressure of a mattress sent spikes of pain shooting down his spine.

The vaulted ceiling of the hospital wing swam into focus, but the two figures beside him, one all in black, the other in white, refused to resolve themselves. The figure in white bustled around him, waving a wand and muttering an unbroken stream of spells.

“Is this the type of school you run, Severus?” bit Madam Pomfrey, summoning a small apothecary’s worth of bottles and vials from a cupboard. “Barbaric torture, and hypothermic to boot.”

“You are lucky there is anything left of Mister Weasley to treat,” the headmaster drawled.

“Get out,” commanded the matron. She did not have the authority to eject the headmaster from any part of the school, but Snape did not protest, striding from the room as quickly as he had entered it.

A moan escaped Ron’s lips. His arms and legs had begun to tremble uncontrollably; a vicious combination of the cold of the dungeons coupled with the spasms of overwrought nerves.

“Come now, Mister Weasley. Drink this.”

Madam Pomfrey’s soft tone was, if anything, more concerning than her usual brusque bedside manner. He had come to expect an exasperated scolding every time he ended up on her ward. Care and concern were reserved only for the most gravely injured.

Something was pressed to his lips but it would have to wait. As more and more of the tapestry of his missing months filled in, Ron’s sense of urgency grew.

Where the hell were Harry and Hermione?

He could see them now, gathered in the cramped kitchen of that musty tent. Harry’s face was pulled into a tight scowl, while Hermione was looking at Ron with alarm and panic. They’d been separated in… when was it? October. And now it was…

“Gah!” Ron grunted. They were old memories, he knew that, but their sudden appearance in his head had broken their chronology, like the world’s worst déjà vu.

It was Christmas, that was right. He was in the castle and it was Christmas, which was months after he’d last seen them. Were they alive? Had they found the horcruxes? They needed his help.

With tremendous effort, Ron heaved himself over the side of the bed. His knees buckled underneath him and he crashed to the floor, sending a tray of tinctures flying.

“Mister Weasley, please!” cried Madam Pomfrey.

But then, did they need him? Cracked under Carrow’s wand, Malfoy had shattered whatever barrier had been erected in his mind and Ron could see, clear as day, it’s architect.

How could Hermione have done that to him? It was unthinkable and yet irrefutable. They wouldn’t abandon him, would they?

“Mister Weasley!”

He wouldn’t abandon them. But… He could taste the bitter hopelessness that coloured that final memory; the hunger and the pain and the overwhelming desire to be away from it all.

He’d had his back to them when she’d cast her spell.

Ron groped for the sheets to haul himself upright, still not sure which way he hoped his legs would take him, until a soothing warmth washed over him and robbed him of his faltering consciousness.

A soft clicking was the first thing Ron became aware of. It was rhythmic and soothing in a familiar kind of way.

He was lying on something soft, but his body ached like he’d fallen from his broom and hit all three keeper’s hoops on the way down. It was tempting to stay there with his eyes closed, blissfully ignorant to the outside world forever, but it could not be done.

While he had not dreamed, Ron’s memories had found their rightful place in his head during his forced slumber and they filled him with disquiet. He opened his eyes.

It was dark outside the windows of the hospital wing and glowing braziers casting a warm light across the ward. The clicking sound revealed itself to be a pair of enchanted knitting needles hovering by the foot of his bed that were busily darning his ruined jumper. By his feet, a few lumpy presents were piled, their wrappings torn and then carelessly folded back around the contents.

“You’re awake.”

Sat cross-legged in a chair by Ron’s pillow was Luna. She had a book open on her knees but was looking at him now with warmth and relief.

“Luna! How did you know I was here?” he croaked. His tongue was sticky with dehydration.

“Oh, I didn’t. I went for a walk around the castle, got lost, and ended up here by accident. When I saw you in the bed, I asked Madam Pomfrey if I could stay.” She closed her book and placed it on the night stand.

“How long have I been asleep?”

“All day. You almost missed Christmas.”

Ron glanced at the battered parcels but could not drum up any of the usual excitement of the day. He struggled into a sitting position, his whole upper body protesting at the movement.

“How are you feeling?” Luna asked.

How was he feeling? The memories may have returned but he hadn’t even begun to figure out how they made him feel. Each one carried something different with it, but undercutting everything was frustration and a sense of thinly-veiled anger at his friends; at their unwillingness or inability to take their mission seriously.

Curiously, though, it didn’t feel like his. The anger was there, but it did not fit the moment.

Ron rubbed at his neck as he thought. How long had they been holding on to the locket by then? Only now could he see that the insidious dreams of Harry and Hermione whispering, always just out of his earshot, had ceased the minute he’d been separated from them; from the horcrux.

What weighed on his chest now wasn’t anger, it was guilt. He’d let it get to him, let that thing manipulate his emotions into turning his back on his friends. It repulsed him.

And yet, it wasn’t all shame. A small, stubborn part of him railed against the hardship they’d all been forced to endure; the burden that no teenager should have to shoulder, and above all, the final moments of their parting.

Throughout his introspection, Luna was waiting patiently.

“Like shit,” Ron replied honestly.

Luna nodded. “Madam Pomfrey told me what happened.”

“She knows?” said Ron, thinking of the memory charm.

“That you were tortured and Professor Snape brought you here.”

“Oh, right. Yeh.” To reveal the truth would put Luna in danger, not to mention Harry and Hermione, but he knew that the pretence would consume him. He needed to trust someone with it before he drove himself crazy chasing the thoughts round and round his own head.

Ron leaned forward to look past Luna. The ward was empty save for the two of them; not a patient to be seen and Madam Pomfrey shut up in her office. He leant closer to the girl by his bedside.

“I remember, Luna.”

Her wide eyes gleamed in the soft light. “Everything?”

He nodded. “I remember breaking into the Ministry and barely escaping with our lives. I remember being splinched to the bone. I remember being chased up and down the country by bloody Dementors trying to find-”

Ron cut himself off. He knew he could trust Luna, but some things were better not blurted out in a post-torture outburst.

“I remember damn near freezing to death every night, and that fucking blizzard. I thought that was it, Luna. I thought I was laying down to die, and then they found me, and then… everything got fucked up and I couldn’t be there anymore. I didn’t have a plan, I just had to be away from that place, and she obliviated me. After everything, Hermione obliviated me.”

Luna didn’t cry foul on his behalf, nor berate him for his moment of weakness, she only sat serenely and let him work through his volatile emotions.

“You sound angry,” she said.

“I am angry. I think. I don’t know.” Ron pressed his palms to his eyes. “I messed up, Luna. I couldn’t take it and I left. I know I shouldn’t have. I let them down and I hate myself for it, but… how could she do that?”

Luna moved from her chair to perch on the bed next to him, her flaxen hair falling over his shoulder.

“It’s okay to be angry, Ron. It’s a horrible thing to happen to anybody, but don’t forget who you’re talking about. Harry and Hermione went through all those things with you. They love you, Ron. They were suffering too.”

Ron opened his mouth to reply, but her gentle hand on his arm told him she wasn’t finished.

“What Hermione did was wrong, maybe, but it will have broken both of them to do it. Sometimes we make the wrong choices for the right reasons.”

He deflated in the bed, the trials of the last twenty-four hours washing over him anew. Those feelings hadn’t gone, but he could see the truth in what Luna had said. He was angry, and hurt, and remorseful, and miserable, but what he wanted was to see Harry and Hermione to work through it with them. He would not turn his back on them a second time.

“Thank you, Luna,” Ron sighed. She looked genuinely happy at his response.

“So, what do we do now?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well you can’t stay here forever. Madam Pomfrey will kick you out at some point.”

She was right. Again. He didn’t know if they were still a three anymore; hell, his only meagre reassurance that they were still alive was that it would all already be over if they weren’t, but that was all the more reason to carry the torch the rest of the way or die trying.

He had an opportunity now. He was here, in Hogwarts, where they all but knew a horcrux was hiding, and Ron was the only person who knew it.

A quiet purpose filled his hollow chest.

“Luna, we were fighting against you-know-who out there. Not in the way people think, but without it we have no hope of ever defeating him, and I mean to bring the fight into Hogwarts.”

“How?”

“We can’t do this alone. We’re going to need help, then I’ll explain everything.”

Ron’s knee bounced nervously under the table as the minutes ticked away, eyes darting between the strange grandfather clock in the corner and the door behind which Neville kept a look out for their late arrivals.

It had taken two weeks since the return of the other students from the Christmas holidays to circulate Ron’s invitation to the trusted few, and another week to find a night they could all slip away unnoticed, during which he’d been increasingly cagey and impatient. His behaviour had thoroughly annoyed Ginny, who could tell something was on his mind the minute she stepped into the common room, and who had only been placated by his promise to tell her everything at their clandestine meeting.

Either Room of Requirement had picked up on Ron’s state of mind or it had a dry sense of humour, for the low lighting, heavy drapes, and central circular table could not have screamed “secret meeting” any louder.

The door opened.

“They’re here,” said Neville, sticking his head into the room.

In short order, a handful of familiar faces trapsed in in twos and threes and took a seat at the table. Ron looked around at the remnants of Dumbledore’s Army.

Beside himself, Luna, and Ginny, he counted off Lavender, Parvati and Padma Patil, Michael Corner, Terry Boot, Ernie Macmillan, Hannah Abbot, Suan Bones, and taking the last seat on Ron’s other side, Neville.

Several faces were notably absent; the muggle born members of the group like Dean and Justin, and any half-blood families that had already managed to escape, but they’d managed to scrape together a handful of willing Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs, and Ravenclaws. Exactly who he needed.

Ron took a deep breath. He wasn’t accustomed to being the person everyone looked to for direction, but here were eleven people who trusted him enough to break curfew and who, unknown to them, the success of the war might hinge on.

“Thank you for coming,” Ron said, his throat unexpectedly dry.

“We’ll always be Dumbledore’s Army,” said Hannah with a nervous smile, to nods from the rest of the table.

Ron’s knee was bouncing again. He’d wrestled all week with the prospect of bringing more people into the fold; introducing new points of failure or coercion, but he could see no way of doing this without them. Aside from the monumental scale of the task, there were parts of the school he simply couldn’t reach on his own. Nevertheless, they deserved to know what he was letting them in for.

“You all came here voluntarily,” Ron began, bringing his gloved hands up onto the table, “and I’m sure you’ve figured out it’s something to do with defeating you-know-who.”

He started to tug at the fingers of his left hand, loosening the material.

“Things are bad in here, but they’re ten times worse out there. This isn’t a kid’s defence-against-the-dark-arts club any more, you could really be hurt, or worse. Winning this fight is never going to come without sacrifice, and I need to know that you understand that, and accept it.”

He tugged off his glove and lay his maimed hand on the table.

There were gasps, and more than one hand clapped to a mouth. Ginny gritted her teeth with steely determination, while Ron caught a glimmer of pride from Luna.

“What happened?” asked Terry.

“An ice storm, caused by the Dementors.” Ron clasped his hands in front of him, but left his gloves off. “I’m not trying to scare you, but you can’t walk into this blind. Anyone who wants to leave can go now and nobody will think any the less of you.”

There was silence around the table. Nobody so much as flinched and Ron felt some of the weight lift from his shoulders.

“What do you need us to do?” asked Lavender.

“This is about defeating you-know-who. Harry and Hermione are out there right now doing everything they can, but we can help them from in here. There are…” Here Ron knew he had to choose his words carefully; give them enough information to be of assistance, but not so much that a leak would doom the whole mission.

“…items, that are very important to retrieve, and one of them may very well be in this castle.”

All of them were singularly focussed on Ron.

“They’re to do with the Houses, the Founders. One of them is a cup that once belonged to Helga Hufflepuff. The other is something to do with Ravenclaw but I don’t know exactly what; probably something similar like a trinket or small item. I don’t know if they’re both here or maybe neither are, but if they are, we need to find them.”

“I’ve never even heard of a Hufflepuff cup,” said Ernie.

“Or anything of Ravenclaw’s,” added Michael.

“Me either,” Ron shrugged, “but you’ve heard of the Sword of Gryffindor? Think something like that. It’ll probably have their crest on it.”

“What do you want us to do if we find it?” asked Susan.

“Absolutely nothing. That’s really important. Don’t touch it, don’t take it, just tell me as soon as you can.”

The conspirators wiled away the better part of an hour sharing possible locations and the mood within the differing houses. None of them pressed him for more information, for an explanation of why the items were important, united by their shared fervour at being able to do something, anything, that could make a difference.

Eventually the clock in the corner chimed, though it was still several minutes from the hour. A warning from the room, perhaps? Ron stood and the rest followed, taking their cue to leave.

“Search anywhere you can, especially the common rooms we can’t all cover, but be discreet. If you’re caught, just say we were trying to reform the DA to cause trouble, but if Snape gets inside your head there is nothing any of us can do.”

Just before the group dispersed, Michael spoke up again.

“Potter and Granger. How do you know they’re still out there? How do you know they’re alive?”

The silence suggested he hadn’t been the only one wondering.

“Because as long as they are, we have hope, and you wouldn’t have come tonight if you didn’t think the same.”

They departed with solemn nods and claps of shared camaraderie, eventually leaving just Ron, Ginny, Neville, and Luna alone in the room. Ginny rounded on Ron immediately.

“You owe us an explanation, Ronald. You’ve been off since Christmas and I know it wasn’t just about tonight. What are these Founder’s things about? What happened?”

Ron nodded back towards the table, which had transformed itself into a four-seater when none of them had been looking, and they sat back down.

“You’re right, Gin, I do.”

That took her by surprise.

“At Christmas, the Carrows finally caught up with me. I knew it was coming, but without going into the details, it was… unpleasant.” Ron supressed a shudder. “What it did do, though, was give me those missing months back.”

Ginny’s mouth was agape. “Before you turned up here? Where were you? What happened?”

“Woah, slow down,” he said, hands raised. “I was out there, with Harry and Hermione, trying to do what Dumbledore left to us. It was… bad, Gin. I know none of you have had an easy time in here, but you don’t know what it’s like beyond these walls. It… well, it got to me and, after the blizzard and my hand, I tried to leave-”

The admonishment was already on Ginny’s lips but was derailed as Ron continued “-and Hermione obliviated me.”

“That bitch!” blurted Ginny into the silence.

“Look, I’m working through it myself,” said Ron in a placating tone, “because, like, I kind of get it, but also… urgh, anyway, that’s not what I wanted to talk about.”

“It’s this secret mission from Dumbledore, isn’t it,” said Neville, putting the pieces of the evening together.

“It is. That’s why I needed the DA back, and that’s what I’m about to tell you.”

This was the moment Ron had been working up to. Expanding the inner circle required absolute trust and, besides his two best friends — former best friends, he wondered? — there was nobody he trusted more. Their bond had been forged in the Department of Mysteries and he needed it now more than ever. If Harry and Hermione didn’t survive, if the Carrows came for him again, someone needed to know the truth and carry on the mission.

“What we were hunting out there, what I just asked the DA to find, is the secret to defeating you-know-who.”

He looked at each of them in turn, leaving no room for doubt that he was anything other than deathly serious.

“He died, right? Sixteen years ago, but he came back. This is what Dumbledore was telling Harry before he died. You-know-who created these things, these horcruxes, that he put a piece of his soul in and hid them away. While they’re out there, he can’t die, do you understand? It doesn’t matter if we defeat all the Death Eaters and Dementors and him; if these things aren’t destroyed, He. Cannot. Die.”

“How many are there?” whispered Neville.

“Dumbledore thought six,” Ron replied and Neville grimaced. “But we’re not starting from nothing. Remember that diary, Ginny, from your first year?”

“That was a piece of you-know-who’s soul?” she asked, looking like she was about to throw up.

“Yes, and it was destroyed. There was a ring, too, and Dumbledore destroyed that.”

“Okay, so four left?”

“Me, Harry, and Hermione found another; a locket belonging to Slytherin, which I think — I hope — they still have.”

“That’s why you wanted Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs,” said Luna. “The other items.”

“That’s right. There’s the cup, and something connected to Ravenclaw, Dumbledore thought.”

“And the sixth?” Neville asked.

“Apparently you-know-who has this giant pet snake that could be one. That’s not important right now,” Ron hastened to add as the others shared a look of alarm.

“Okay, so, two down, one in hand, one that’s best not thought about, and two here in the castle?” asked Ginny.

“Not both here, no, he wouldn’t hide two in the same place, but we have no way of knowing which one is.”

“I don’t know what I thought Dumbledore had asked you to do, but it wasn’t this,” Neville sighed.

“Tell me about it,” Ron said with a wry laugh. “It goes without saying, of course, that if you-know-who ever got wind that we knew his secret, he would make it pretty much impossible to ever find them again and be immortal forever.”

“No pressure,” Ginny snorted.

“Let’s just hope it’s not in the Slytherin common room,” said Neville as they all got to their feet and made for a covert exit back to their dormitories.

Chapter Text

An abundance of mutton provided a bland and chewy but much-needed relief of a different kind for Harry and Hermione. Temporarily spared from the threat of starvation, they were able to return to more important tasks; finding horcruxes and learning Fiendfyre. If only they could be achieved as easily as plucking sheep from a pen.

Their Fiendfyre practice continued to yield searingly-hot flames but nothing approaching the demonic inferno that could incinerate even the strongest of protective magics, and their time back on the rock was cut short by yet more approaching Dementor swarms.

January began to tick away with no sign of the temperature rising, forcing them to undertake all excursions in furred form. Even inside the tent it was starting to become uncomfortably cold and Harry had wondered about the possibility of sleeping in his leopard form, though if he gave in to such a thought he worried when it would ever be preferable to be human again.

Voldemort’s anger simmered throughout. Harry couldn’t shake the suspicion that it was inextricably linked to the weather; surges of rage apparently followed by vicious blizzards, though Hermione was more sceptical.

It was alarming, then, when almost two weeks into the new year, Harry felt something very different prickle in the corner of his mind. Glee.

He stopped his four-legged patrol and sat, turning his mind inwards to examine the feeling. It was definitely a positive emotion, happy even, and the confirmation filled him with dread.

While Voldemort had been angry, Harry could take solace in the fact that though their own progress was slow — perhaps non-existent if he were cynical — the dark lord had not made any significant leaps or bounds either. Now, however, that looked to have changed. Anything that could make Lord Voldemort happy was surely a cause for concern for anyone else.

It pulsed there, in his mind, tantalising.

The resistance of his leopard form to the seductions of Voldemort’s emotions had been an unexpected boon; a potentially lifesaving shield against an ill-timed loss of his faculties, not to mention the distinct possibility that Voldemort may at some point notice the intrusion, but the ability was still there…

Harry warred with himself. This gleeful state may not last long, and may be of vital importance to them or the Order. They’d been chasing their tails for weeks now with no new clues or ideas.

He realised with dim irony that he’d talked himself into it.

Hermione was still at the tent with the locket, he could freely shift, he just hoped he could bring himself back. Crouched in the snow, Harry transformed back into a man.

His surroundings immediately darkened at the loss of his night-vision. The sheer elation that barrelled down the mysterious link between Harry and Voldemort’s mind forced him to his knees before his consciousness was wrenched away entirely.

He was stood in what looked to be a dark, cramped living room. In his peripheral vision he could make out a patterned armchair and cluttered sideboard, though nobody had thought to turn on a light.

Right before his eyes though, held in his pale, spindly fingers, was a photo frame containing a faded sepia picture. There were two people in the picture; an old woman and, stood beside her, a young man, possibly a grandson. He was taller than her and had a dapper, mischievous smile. Even by the faded colours, Harry could tell the boy was blonde.

“It’s him,” said a voice using Harry’s mouth, and he realised it must have been Voldemort. “The boy.”

For a brief, terrible moment, Harry thought he’d been discovered, but then he looked closer at the photo that Voldemort was now stroking and was hit with a stab of recognition. The boy in the photo bore a striking resemblance to the one from Gregorovitch’s memory. No, it was him.

The frame crumbled to ash in Voldemort’s hand, leaving the untouched photo pinched between his skeletal fingers. He turned it over.

Written on the back in a looping hand were the words:

Bathilda and Gellert, 1898

“All this time,” Voldemort whispered, “He had it.”

He sounded angry, but the excitement flooding his mind and that had ensnared Harry was the true tell of his feelings.

Voldemort turned and Harry was shocked to see a body on the floor of the room. Her wrinkled face stared blankly at the ceiling. Perhaps it was the absence of life, but she appeared ancient. With another start, an enormous snake slid into view.

“Wait here for the boy, my dear,” he said. Harry understood perfectly, but the sounds emanating from Voldemort’s mouth were twisted and serpentine. “He is sure to return to his parent’s home eventually.”

Any triumph Harry might have felt about the confirmation of his Godric’s Hollow theory was quickly replaced with mounting horror as the snake approached the dead woman.

Voldemort waved his wand and the corpse seemed to sag slightly, but what followed was truly abhorrent.

The snake slithered across the floor to the woman’s head, then into her mouth. Foot after foot of the monstrous thing disappeared down her throat, her jaw breaking in an inhuman scream as it forced its way down. Her throat bulged and her torso rippled as it writhed inside her. Harry wanted to look away, to close his eyes, but Voldemort wouldn’t.

Finally, the tip of its tail slid past her lips, then the body jerked and with a lurching, unnatural bending of limbs, the woman stood up. She swayed unsteadily and shuffled on drunken feet.

“Only you may speak to him,” said Voldemort. “Get him alone and bind him, then I shall come.”

“Yesss, Massster,” said a voice from somewhere in the woman’s head.

“I must leave. Do not let him escape,” Voldemort said, then he twisted on the spot and Harry was ejected back into his own mind.

Harry gasped and his eyes flew open. He was shaking violently on all fours in the snow, his hands already stiff and unresponsive in his gloves and his eyelashes heavy with ice. Ignoring his protesting muscles, he shifted back to feline form and took off. He had to get to Hermione.

“Hermione!”

Harry came staggering into the tent, still out of breath from his headlong flight through the snow even in his fitter, animal form.

“What? What’s happened?” Hermione said, leaping to her feet to catch him.

“God… Godric’s Hollow,” he panted. “We need to get there.”

Her hand dropped from where it had been cupping his shoulder.

“Oh Harry, this again?”

“No, no, you don’t understand,” he said. She raised a questioning eyebrow.

Harry stood up straighter and ran an agitated hand through his hair. She wasn’t going to like his answer — he didn’t like it himself — but it was too important to ignore.

“I had a… you know, vision.”

“Are you okay?” Hermione gasped.

“Yeh, I- I let it happen. I felt it, he was pleased about something, really, really pleased, and I let myself see it.”

“Harry…” Her voice was a mix of concern and reproach that cut through any defence or excuse he may have hidden behind.

“I know, Hermione, I know I shouldn’t have. We’ve just been out here so long.” He sighed. “Look, the snake is at Godric’s Hollow. He’s left it there while he goes in search of someone. This is our chance!”

“He left the snake there as a trap?”

“Yes.”

“And you want to walk into the trap?”

“…Yes.”

“Tell me exactly what you saw.”

Harry recalled every detail he could from the brief journey into Voldemort’s mind; the room, the photo, the body. He couldn’t go to Godric’s Hollow alone, wouldn’t even consider it, but they had to get that horcrux. He needed Hermione to believe him.

“Are you sure it was real?” she asked tentatively. “He’s shown you fabricated visions before; the Department of Mysteries?”

“I’m sure. I was asleep then, and this felt different. They’ve never been triggered by positive emotions before. How would he even know to do that, or fake it?”

She didn’t press the issue any further.

“The only Gellert I’ve ever heard of is Gellert Grindelwald, but it can’t have been him, surely?” said Hermione.

“Grindelwald, the dark wizard that Dumbledore defeated? Knowing our luck, Hermione, that’s exactly who it was.”

She bit her bottom lip nervously. “I don’t know, Harry. Even if you-know-who has gone somewhere, you said yourself that this is a trap specifically laid to catch us. We should use this information to stay as far away from Godric’s Hollow as possible.”

“This is the only concrete evidence we’ve got on the location of another horcrux.”

“One we can’t even destroy?”

“By the time we’ve figured out how to destroy it, it might be out of our reach again! We can’t let this slip through our grasp, Hermione. The most powerful dark wizard of our time going to visit the most powerful dark wizard of his time? How can that be anything other than bad news? Who knows how long we have before you-know-who finds him?”

“Well, he’s in Nurmengard.”

“What?”

“Grindelwald. He’s in Nurmengard. It’s a prison he built for his opponents but was locked in there by Dumbledore.”

Harry threw his hands in the air. “Great, so he doesn’t even have to find Grindelwald, he can just knock on the bloody door! We have to get that snake, Hermione, while we still can.”

Hermione fretted while Harry silently implored her to trust him.

“Okay,” she finally said, and Harry let out a tense breath. “But, we’re not going to go running in completely blind. We need some semblance of a plan. One day, that’s all I’m asking. We take one day to prepare ourselves and then go tomorrow night.”

“Okay, that’s fair,” Harry said. “Thank you.”

“We’ve made it this far by trusting each other, right?” she replied with a small smile. “This letting-the-visions-in, though-”

“It was stupid, I know. Let’s just… focus on this for now.”

“It’s okay, just tell me before you decide to do something like that again.”

“I will.” He took her hand in both of his and squeezed it. “Now, how the hell are we going to capture and contain a giant snake?”

They materialised on the outskirts of a quaint village; a cluster of red-bricked cottages and dark-tiled roofs, narrow twisting streets that led towards the centre where a church bell tower rose above the gables, and not a single light to be seen.

Wind-carved snow banks climbed the walls of the houses like some great, white desert come to reclaim the hamlet from mankind.

Harry and Hermione huddled close together, already starting to feel uncomfortably cold after only a few moments in the elements. Given half an hour, they would be swallowed by the frozen sands too.

“You didn’t see where the house was?” Hermione asked, her jaw beginning to tremble.

“No,” Harry replied. “We’ll have to find it, although I expect we’ll be the ones being found.”

“We can’t s-search on f-f-foot.”

“We switch, and then t-transform back when we hear them c-coming. C-can’t give it away.”

Harry lifted the locket off Hermione’s shoulders as she shifted into vulpine form, then placed it back around her small neck before joining her. The cursed jewellery sang its eerie whistle to his ears, nestled within Hermione’s alabaster fur. Did it know they were close to one of its siblings, he wondered?

They entered the narrow canyon of darkened houses, ears and noses roaming further than their eyes would allow. Harry’s skin prickled. Any one of the vacant windows could be where Voldemort had stood, where his horrific creation was waiting to welcome them inside with a crocodile smile, but there was no hint of movement.

The square church tower loomed taller over the peaked roofs until eventually their winding road spat them out in front of a generous village green. A crumbling war memorial stood at the centre, its names long lost to the passage of time, and the squat, Norman church rose on the far side.

Hermione caught Harry’s eye and nodded across the green to the next street, the pair crunching across the open square, leaving a trail of pawprints behind them. Just as they passed the memorial, something flickered in the corner of Harry’s vision.

He leapt around, ready to face an ambush, but was struck dumb by what awaited him. The stone pillar had transformed and, in its place, stood a statue of two people. The couple, a man and a woman, were turned inwards, something held between the two of them, shielded from the outside world. It was a baby, the folds of its swaddle delicately carved into the stone.

Snow gathered on the statues’ shoulders, but the child had been sheltered by their bowed heads, protected from the elements, from the world. Hermione’s soft head bumped against his cheek.

Harry had been so focussed on finding their second horcrux, on turning Voldemort’s trap to their advantage, that he hadn’t allowed himself to linger on the reality of where they were. This village had once been his home. He didn’t even know if he was christened, but if he were, would it have been done at that very church? Had his parents sat with him on the grass that was now buried beneath his paws? Had they had friends here? People who knew Harry by name and pinched his rounded cheeks as James and Lily had carried him up the road?

He was forced to his haunches by the sudden weight of all that had been lost, head cocked as he gazed up at the stone likeness of his family.

Soft warmth blossomed between his forelegs and travelled up his chest as Hermione, unable to hug him, nestled against Harry, keeping his head above water while the tide of emotion crested and slowly ebbed. He dropped his chin to her cheek.

In the shadow of the church, half hidden behind an ancient, crumbling wall, stood row upon row of headstones. It was there that Harry’s gaze drifted and, with a nudge of encouragement from Hermione, they padded over to it together.

Harry leapt over the kissing gate, landing knee-deep in the snow on the other side. Hermione simply stepped through the gap between the weathered slats.

They parted and threaded their way between separate rows. Many of the names were faded beyond recognition, some of the headstones even cracked or broken. Among the ones he could read, Harry spotted a few that he recognised from magical history books, and even an Abbott, but not whom he was looking for.

A low bark from Hermione had him trotting over to her, waiting patiently before a newer grave. He knew what was on it long before he could read the words himself.

It was a simple affair, the bottom half crusted with wind-blown snowflakes, but the words above clearly visible.

James Potter

27^th March 1960 – 31^st October 1981

Lily Potter

30^th January 1960 – 31^st October 1981

The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death

Harry stared at the names of his parents. He wondered why he’d never thought to come here before, or why nobody had offered to take him. The Dursleys wouldn’t have set foot in the village, but Dumbledore perhaps?

Harry reached out a paw and placed it against the cold stone below the inscription, the closest he would ever come to them. When he pulled it away, a pawprint was left on the snow-flecked granite.

Hermione reached out her own, then paused, looking at him. That she would even think she needed to ask was mildly absurd to Harry; this woman who meant more to him than he could ever say, the very first person he would have introduced to them if they were still alive. He bowed a slow nod and her own paw splayed against the headstone, leaving her smaller print nestled within his larger one, preserved in the ice on the grave of the Potters.

After a long moment, the two animals leaning on one another for warmth and support, Harry eventually dragged himself away from the grave. Perhaps he would visit again in happier times with flowers. Perhaps there was nothing more to say.

He left those feelings at the kissing gate as best he could, steeling himself for what was to come and thankful that Hermione had done the same. He didn’t know if he could have weathered her compassionate gaze just yet.

They cut back across the village green and down the next street, searching for the jaws of the trap that were primed to close around them. Harry and Hermione had debated whether there could be Death Eaters or Dementors lying in wait, but Harry had seen none through Voldemort’s eyes and, if the trap were to work, they would need to be lured in by the promise of safety. It stood to reason that Voldemort wouldn’t want them chased away before the noose was secure around their necks.

They had slunk through half the village when something different made Harry’s fur prickle. Beyond the sound from the locket around Hermione’s neck came another note, oh so faint. It clashed with the locket, discordant and harsh to his sensitive hearing.

Harry stopped in his tracks, his ears pivoting to locate the sound. It appeared to be emanating from somewhere down the next street. They crept up to the corner and peered around it, low to the ground.

It was a lane identical to all the others they had walked, untouched snow from door to door, but the sound was definitely coming from that direction. Harry ducked back and dropped his feline form.

“It’s up there somewhere,” he whispered, removing the locket from Hermione’s neck.

“Are you sure?” she asked, human once again and taking the horcrux back off him to tuck under her shirt.

“Positive, I just don’t know exactly where.”

“It’s disguised, right? So it will probably try to approach us.”

“Right. Let’s just… stick to the plan. Stick together.”

Hermione nodded and cast copious warming charms on their clothing, enough that they might just make it to the encounter before their fingers were too numb to hold a wand. With hands clasped together in a vice-like grip, Harry and Hermione turned onto the deserted street.

They shuffled through the knee-deep snow, trying not to look too tense and ready. Wands were held tight but low, and Harry forcibly looked directly ahead instead of at the rows of vacant windows that watched their passage.

With his human ears, he could no longer hear the horcrux singing. It would have to come to them.

Half way along the street, one of the nondescript cottages shimmered. Harry felt Hermione flinch, but, as with the statue on the green, the structure revealed its true nature to them. The brickwork faded away, evaporating into nothing until only a shell of a house remained. Burned beams and charred masonry framed the missing upper level of the structure.

“Harry, this must be where-” Hermione began, but she was cut off by the squealing protest of rusting hinges.

Two doors down from the ruined Potter home, a short figure lurched out into the road. It was wrapped head to toe in mismatched bundles of soiled clothing, its head juddering in their direction like some cheap animatronic.

Harry’s heart thundered as the woman limped in their direction, moving to put himself slightly ahead and in front of Hermione. They had a job to do, a role to play, and he must not get it wrong.

“Who are you?” he asked the woman, who had come to a halt several feet from them. With uneven movements, her head swung to the ruined house, then back to Harry.

“Did you know my parents?”

It would have been unthinkably careless to reveal his identity so readily, but Harry needed to play the part of naïve schoolboy. He swallowed his revulsion as the thing wearing the woman’s skin nodded emphatically.

“Can you help us?”

It nodded again and turned back towards the door it had left open to the cold. A few paces on, it paused and turned to look at them.

“I think it- she wants us to follow,” said Hermione. She had gone pale and her lips had picked up a blueish hue, the old woman reflected in her wide eyes. Some dark magic was sure to be keeping the cold-blooded snake alive in the sub-zero temperatures.

They followed after it hesitantly and it resumed its loping shuffle back inside.

Harry and Hermione stopped at the threshold and squinted into the dark interior. The room reeked of decay, Harry breathing through his mouth to avoid filling his nostrils with the stench. They shared a hardened look and raised their wands a little higher.

“Hello?” Harry called, stepping inside first. The woman was nowhere to be seen.

The room beyond was the same lounge Harry had seen through Voldemort’s eyes. He recognised the patterned furniture, though the blood stains had been vanished even if their smell remained. Hermione followed him, hands free of his for ease of quick casting but never more than an arm’s reach away.

“Hello?” Harry repeated.

There came a clattering from what looked to be a kitchen and the old woman’s sagging face appeared around the doorframe. She gestured mutely at Harry.

The pair moved deeper into the room but the woman waved her arms with agitation and gestured at Harry again.

“I think,” said Hermione, “she want’s just you to go.”

Something inhuman gleamed behind the rheumy eyes trained on Harry.

“Whatever you need to tell me, you can tell both of us,” Harry said. They’d played long enough; it was time to start bending this meeting back onto their terms.

He was certain that if the snake inside the body could have controlled the woman’s facial muscles, it would have made her frown. Instead, it merely glared at them.

They’d reached a stalemate, neither willing to follow the others wishes. As the seconds ticked by, Harry became more uncomfortable. They may have come here for the snake, but time was definitely on its side. Had it already alerted its master? How long did they have before he appeared behind them?

A wave of ecstatic glee pulsed through Harry, staggering him, and in that instant, it struck.

The rotting skin suit split open and twelve feet of coiled snake launched itself towards him, jaw flexed wide and venomous fangs reaching for him.

Harry dropped, trusting gravity to work quicker than his body as Hermione’s stunning spell tore over his head and into the striking snake. The spell glanced off its scales, knocking it sideways but ricocheting into the ceiling and spraying them all with chunks of plaster.

“Harry!” Hermione yelled as the serpent thumped to the floor.

He clamped down on the alien feelings surging from Voldemort, willing himself to stay present. Harry had avoided its bite but now its tail lay across his legs, trying to coil around them as he fought his way free. Plaster dust filled the room and clogged his nose.

“Diffindo! Diffindo!” Harry cried as he wriggled free of its tightening grasp, trying and failing to pierce its hide. He heard Hermione clatter into something across the room, busy now with the business-end of the giant snake.

“Lumos!”

The light illuminated the dust still hanging in the air but through it he could see Hermione levitate a side table in front of her just as it was reduced to kindling by another lunge.

“Petrificus Totalus!”

Another failed spell bounced off and narrowly avoided hitting Harry himself. They’d been too hasty, too headstrong in coming to Godric’s Hollow. What he needed was to reach Hermione so that they could apparate to safety, but they had been herded to opposite corners of the room by the writhing serpent.

“He’s coming, Hermione!” Harry yelled over the sound of splintering wood.

“What!?”

“He’s coming! He knows we’re here!”

Unable to hex it, Harry did the next best thing and stamped on the snake’s tail. It hissed angrily and turned its attention back to him, allowing Hermione to edge along the far wall.

“Incendio!”

A jet of flame shot from Harry’s wand and through the space where the snake’s head had been only moments before, setting one of the arm chairs alight. He’d been this snake, seen and felt it move faster when it had attacked Mister Weasley. The very cold that had been trying to kill them may have been the only thing keeping them alive, slowing the massive serpent enough for them to dodge its lethal blows.

“Harry, quick!” Hermione shouted. She’d used his distraction to clamber around the edge of the room and was now only a few feet away. She leapt, hand outstretched to catch his and pull them far, far away, but the snake was still quicker.

It’s muscled tail, thick as a man’s thigh, caught Hermione in the stomach, driving the air from her lungs and sending her reeling into the dark kitchen.

“Hermione!”

There was no reply.

It was just the two of them now, forced into a smaller and smaller arena as flames licked across the carpet and caught the centuries-old timber. The foreign joy that had flooded his veins and still threatened to overwhelm him was turning sour, notes of anger and impatience creeping in. There was a sense of urgency, of anticipation and flight.

“Depulso!”

The curse hit it in the chin and rocked it back, but still it kept coming. Those slitted, amber eyes were fixed upon him, calculating the perfect time to land the final blow.

“Hold him!” screeched through Harry’s consciousness, making his vision swim. He staggered back, catching his heel on the edge of the rug and tumbling backwards. As his hands came up, the snake lunged forwards.

“Sectumsempra!” Harry cried.

The snake screeched as deep lacerations opened up along the length of its body. They criss-crossed each other, turning the rippling green scales crimson and painting the walls with gore. The thing thrashed madly on the floor, knocking what little furniture remained flying.

He saw an opening and dived through the kitchen door, trying desperately to reach Hermione before the flames did.

“Hermione!”

With a splutter, she raised herself to her hands and knees as Harry darted towards her. The relief that washed over him was palpable and he hauled her upright, but did not whisk them away. Not yet.

The blood pouring from the snake’s open wounds had turned black and tar-like, bubbling and blistering like boiling pitch. A screaming that was entirely disconnected from the snake’s gaping mouth filled the room, filled Harry’s head with its piercing shriek.

It shuddered and convulsed wildly as more of the foul substance sputtered from its ruined form. Faster and faster it twisted until they were in danger of being caught up in its violent demise. It looked near ready to explode.

White-hot rage boiled through Harry’s mind, almost forcing him to his knees, growing clearer with each passing second.

Unable to hold out any longer, Harry gripped Hermione, raised his wand, and pulled them into the nothingness between places.

Chapter Text

Harry and Hermione crashed into the snow twenty feet from the tent, the din of their battle still ringing in Harry’s ears.

Voldemort’s anger surged through him as he struggled to keep hold of his own mind. Flashes of the cottage were pulsing across his vision; the charred timbers and carpet, battle-scarred furniture, an oozing mess that had only minutes before been the cursed snake — a piece of his soul.

Harry wanted nothing more than to see to Hermione who was still fighting for breath on all fours, but he could feel his tenuous grip on his own faculties failing. In desperation, Harry let the leopard come to the fore and dull the keen edge of Voldemort’s fury.

The relief was immediate, his animalistic mind able to separate the human emotions that no longer belonged. Harry railed against the connection for keeping him from helping Hermione, but all he could do was relax his extended claws and wait.

It was in this way that Hermione found him some minutes later, pacing restlessly close by her, unwilling to leave her side for a moment. She got to her feet, Harry immediately bounding close to press himself against her, rubbing his head against her hip.

“I’m okay,” she said. “It just winded me.”

Harry huffed into her hand; a sigh of relief as she ran her fingers through his thick fur.

“He must be livid?”

A flick of his tail was the only response Harry could give, taking up his pacing once more as those foreign feelings boiled in the corner of his feline mind. He could tell something was running through Hermione’s head; a problem being worked on, but trusted her enough to tell him whenever she had reached a conclusion.

She would have stayed with him, he knew she would, but there was nothing to be done besides weather the storm and she was already starting to shiver. Harry bobbed his head towards the canvas, a silent appeal, and Hermione retreated inside, trailing her hand along his spine as she went.

Eventually, as the pink hue of dawn was just beginning to stain the horizon, Harry felt the alien presence ebb enough that he could safely stay in control. The intensity of the emotion hadn’t changed, but it felt more distant, and that was good enough for him.

He darted into the tent, back on two legs, to find Hermione curled in one of the arm chairs, knees tucked up supporting a notepad. She looked up at him with eyes full of warmth.

The fight and subsequent mental struggle had consumed Harry’s thoughts, but seeing her now, happy and whole, reminded him just how lucky they’d been, and just what they had achieved.

“We did it,” he beamed at her, scarcely believing his own words.

“We did it,” Hermione replied, meeting him in a tight embrace. Harry clung to her as five months of suffering, sacrifice, and heartache finally, finally, meant something.

“I have no idea how, but we did it,” Harry laughed.

He kissed her, slow and deep, savouring every blissful second of her lips.

“I thought I’d lost you,” he whispered when they broke apart, heads still pressed together.

“I’m right here,” Hermione breathed back, her breath tickling his cheek, though her hands roamed through his hair as though she’d had the same thoughts; memorising the feel of it between her fingers.

Too many times had they escaped certain death by the skin of their teeth, and he didn’t know how much longer their luck could hold out. They both carried the scars of near misses, more than one, but they were locked on this perilous path, together, until the bitter end.

It was a strange mix of emotions churning in Harry’s gut; the hollow dread of seeing the woman he loved struck down, and the shaky relief of finding her unharmed, but also a glorious lightness. He felt more human than he had in months — an ironic situation for an animagus — in the aftermath of the snake’s destruction. It was like seeing the Sun briefly peek from behind perpetual storm clouds, warming his soul.

His body tingled at Hermione’s touch, drawn closer to her than ever before by the prospect of losing her.

He kissed her again, torn between giddy elation and an instinctive possessiveness.

For her part, Hermione appeared to feel the same way, matching his own intensity and pulling them tighter together.

“Hermione, I want- I need-” Harry said, wondering if he could really do it. It hardly seemed like the right time to take the biggest step of their relationship so far, but did that matter? There would never be a right time, but they had each other now. His body and mind both clamoured for that fundamental closeness that only one thing could provide. If, that was, she felt the same.

“I want you too,” Hermione panted, and Harry’s heart swooped.

They backed into the bedroom area of the cramped tent without breaking contact with one another. Harry shrugged off his coat, leaving it on the floor behind him. Hermione’s followed, her fingers fumbling on the zipper as Harry switched his attention to her neck and that spot beneath her ear where her pulse quivered.

He glanced at the bed.

Although the passion that had driven him to this point was still surging through his veins, he would be lying if he didn’t admit that a certain nervousness was creeping in. They’d been intimate before, but not in this way, and he was acutely aware that they’d never been fully unclothed during any prior activities.

“I’ve never… done this before,” Harry said, still holding Hermione close against him.

“Me either,” she replied with a nervous smile. He had suspected as much, but it was reassuring to know they were both going in blind, so to speak.

Harry toed off his boots as Hermione pulled his jumper over his head and started to work on the buttons of his shirt. Her warm fingers slipped beneath the open material to slide across his chest.

Apprehension or no, the physical effect of her touch could not be ignored and Harry sighed low and deep at the sensation.

Hermione tore herself away to start unbuttoning her own shirt and Harry took the opportunity to divest himself of his tightening trousers. With each button, more of her pale flesh was exposed, followed by the swell of her bra, then stomach until Harry became so distracted he tripped on the hem of his jeans and only just managed to avoid falling to the floor in a heap.

Hermione bit her lip but her eyes glimmered.

The garment fell to the floor to join the rest and she stood before him, top half covered only by her bra. The three pink lines he’d left on her dipped down to her hip, and he could see that she was making an effort not to bring her arms up and cover herself, but Harry had never seen anything more beautiful. He drank her in.

“You’re incredible,” he whispered, closing the distance between them again to capture her lips once more. The air in the tent was cold, dimpling their flesh, but she felt burning hot against him. The feel of her bare skin against his was enough to banish any chill as their hands mutually roamed and inquisitive tongues darted against swollen lips.

It was then that Harry realised he was still wearing his socks.

His face flushed as he tried to discreetly remove them. Kissing Hermione should have been easy, was easy; he was no stranger to it by now, but the prospect of going all the way was causing him to overthink and second guess himself.

“Are we, err, safe?” Harry asked, looking down at her headily, her hips pressed against his and the friction fogging his mind. “I haven’t got any protection.”

Hermione nodded, fingers trailing the hem of his boxers.

“There’s a spell I cast. We’re fine. Not that I was expecting- it also helps regulate- never mind.”

It was Harry’s turn to smirk. He was clearly not the only one feeling apprehensive but it only made him love her more.

Hermione shimmied out of her own jeans and suddenly Harry had a whole new distraction to consume his mind. The tips of his fingers ghosted the tops of her thighs and swept round to cup her behind which yielded to his grip. Hermione panted, arms locked around his neck, and he squeezed again.

She led them backwards, towards their shared bunk, and Harry willingly followed.

Releasing her arms from his shoulders, Hermione lay back on the bed, her hair fanning out around her head. To Harry’s eyes, she was divine. He leant in to follow her… and bumped his head on the upper bunk.

It was one too many mishaps and Hermione couldn’t stop the laughter that came pouring out of her, hands coming up to clap over her mouth.

A lesser man might have bailed at that point; written off the experience as a lost cause, but to Harry the sound of her laughter filling the tent was the most joyful, uplifting sound he had ever heard. It made her, if possible, even more beautiful, shining from behind her chestnut eyes.

Harry laughed too, positioning himself above her on the bed and pinched her bare sides with his thumbs. Hermione squealed and clamped her thighs around his torso in an attempt to protect herself, inadvertently sending a spike of lust coursing through him.

It was exactly what they had needed.

First times could be awkward, but by laughing at the awkwardness together they robbed it of any power over them and it was forgotten entirely in the face of their want for one another.

Harry lent down and reignited their kiss, his arms braced either side of her as her own wrapped around his back. Hermione’s legs squeezed him tighter and her ankles locked behind him.

Unsatisfied with claiming only her mouth, Harry’s lips moved down her throat to her collar, and then across her upper chest. She wriggled beneath him, arms tucked behind her back. At first, he thought she was merely enjoying it, but then she shifted and her bra was thrown from the bed.

Harry lifted slightly to get a better look at what had appeared in his dreams more times than he cared to admit, finding the reality far better than anything he could have imagined. He took the removal as an invitation and moved his mouth to her breasts, kissing and teasing her peaked nipples.

Hermione’s back arched, pushing her chest harder into his face, her hands knotting in Harry’s hair and breathy gasps escaping her lips.

This is what Harry had needed. What they had both needed. This was life, and love, and brazen defiance of the hopelessness the world outside had been plunged into. This moment was theirs and nothing would take it from them.

Harry’s fingers found the hem of Hermione’s panties and dipped below them, brushing agonisingly lightly up and down. He parted her gently, exploring as she fidgeted against him. Her own nervous tension eased under his touch and her arousal grew, coating his fingers.

Harry hooked the waist of her underwear and Hermione lifted her hips, unprompted, for him to peel them off her. She mirrored him, grabbing his boxers and slipping them down his thighs where he could kick them free. Her palm caressed him on its way back up between his legs and he hissed against her.

The nerves were back, but Harry accepted them and moved on, refusing to grant them purchase as he lowered himself down onto her.

The first sensation was the surprising heat emanating from between her legs. His length lay against her and he could feel it along every inch. Harry shifted and Hermione moaned, wriggling against him.

“You definitely want to?” he asked, acting like he wasn’t throbbing with his own barely contained need.

“If you stop now, I’ll hex you,” Hermione replied, and Harry grinned at her.

He reached down between his legs to steer himself. Harry could feel his tip gliding across her, which felt heavenly in its own right, and could tell she was ready for him. Having never seen what he was doing, though, it proved harder than he thought. He moved further down and Hermione let out a squeak.

Her own hands found their way between them and he relinquished control to her, eyes closing as her fingers wrapped around him. With gentle pressure she positioned him where she wanted.

“There,” she whispered, and Harry slowly pressed forward.

The sensation of being enveloped by her was indescribable. His gaze was fixed on Hermione’s face, on the minute flickers of her mouth, her eyes as they came together. Each endless moment was like discovering her anew; a whole new facet to the woman he loved.

Part way, Hermione hissed and her face pinched, stopping him in his tracks.

“Are you okay?” Harry asked.

“Yeh,” she reassured him, nodding. After a moment, the tension in her arms relaxed and she sighed, rocking her hips gently around him. “Okay.”

Harry moved again, slower this time, until he was hard up against her and could go no further. He panted, feeling her all around him, the rush of his pulse and the fluttering and clenching along his length. Then, he began to rock.

The pace was slow, Harry withdrawing almost entirely before sliding forward again to the hilt. It was the most profoundly intimate moment he had ever experienced. They were one; so close as to almost be sharing a body. Throughout, their eyes barely left one another save for whispered kisses or gentle caresses.

He was hyper-aware of the fall of her curls, the curve of her jaw, the feel of her rippling beneath him.

As meaningful as the moment was, the physical aspect was equally intense and before long their movements began to change. Hermione had tilted her hips and her arms had come up to grip the pillow either side of her head, a rosy blush creeping across her cheeks and chest.

Harry found his pace naturally increasing, each thrust firmer than the last and a pressure growing at the base of his shaft. He had all of her and still wanted more.

One hand came up to meet hers, their fingers locking together, while the other roamed her body as if trying to cover all of it. He leant down to kiss the juncture of her neck and shoulder and got a nose full of her scent. An overwhelming urge to bite her flashed through Harry and his teeth nipped at her pulse. Hermione gasped in response.

Harry was going to come undone; he could feel it.

He breathed heavily, seeking Hermione’s face with hungry eyes.

“More,” was all she could say.

Their formless affirmations grew in intensity as each chased the other towards release.

It was Harry who succumbed first, his hips convulsing of their own accord as he clung to Hermione, fist knotting the rumpled sheets. The release was all-consuming — an order of magnitude more intense than her hand had been, and his vocal outburst was entirely involuntary.

To his relief, Harry’s own climax had been the final push Hermione needed and she shuddered underneath him, her own cries mixing with his. Both completely spent, they collapsed down together, the chill winter air steaming on their sweat-slickened bodies.

They lay entwined under the duvet some hours later, staring up at the ageing canvas of the tent. The warmth of Hermione’s body against Harry’s flank was a delicious reminder of their union, but the winter had reasserted itself as soon as their passions had cooled, robbing the heat from any exposed limb.

Harry thought he might have fallen asleep, but the kind of sleep where one remains aware of their surroundings, listening to the gentle heave of Hermione’s breathing behind leaden eyelids. His only measure of the passage of time was that he was now hungry.

He turned his head on the pillow to look at her, finding her staring, eyes unfocussed, in a look he’d seen countless times before as she mulled something over.

“Hey,” Harry said, giving her a gentle squeeze with the arm that was still trapped under her shoulders.

Hermione blinked and met his gaze, her face softening.

“Hi.”

“How are you?”

“Good,” she smiled. “A bit sore, but in a good way.”

Harry felt like he’d just completed a rigorous Quidditch training session, but he suspected she meant something different.

“Something on your mind?” he asked.

“Just thinking about Godric’s Hollow.”

It had been a whirlwind forty-eight hours, that was for sure. Lying there with Hermione tucked against him, it was hard to believe that some twelve hours ago they’d been fighting for their lives just two doors down from his childhood home. That probably accounted for some of the aching, Harry thought wryly.

He’d been so consumed with the miracle of their escape and then their mutual compulsion that the enormity of what had happened hadn’t fully sunk in.

Harry felt like he should be more affected by it; have fulfilled some inner purpose by returning to the place where it all began, but the truth was that he didn’t feel connected to the hamlet. It had been sobering to visit his parent’s grave, to see the destruction wrought on their house, but he had none of his own memories of the village. Grimmauld Place felt like more of a home, or at least it had while Sirius had inhabited it. Even the tent had started to feel homely on the nights when they had hot food, bundled up together.

He would always carry his parents with him, but the childish notion of living up to them somehow, living for them, had fallen by the wayside. Harry had his own challenges to face, and his own loved ones to protect. If anything, Harry now better understood than he ever had, the sacrifice they had made so many years ago.

“We got lucky,” he sighed, “but it was about time something went our way.”

“How did you know you-know-who was on his way?”

“What?”

Hermione pushed herself up onto her elbow.

“When it attacked us, you said “He’s coming.” How did you know?”

“I could hear him telling the snake not to let us escape.”

“You could hear him?” That puzzled look creased her face again.

“Yeh. I could feel how happy he was that we’d turned up, and then how angry he got when we disapparated. I expect it was just the only thing on his mind right then; it bled through.”

“I suppose…” Hermione said.

“I can’t believe we killed it, though!”

“Did you use Fiendfyre? I saw flames but it was so loud-”

“No, that’s the weird thing. I used Sectumsempra.”

This revelation seemed to drive whatever else had been distracting Hermione clean out of her head.

“But… that shouldn’t have worked?”

“I know! But then, Snape invented the spell — it wouldn’t be in any books about horcruxes, would it?”

“I think it’s highly unlikely that he invented it himself, especially at sixteen,” Hermione replied. “More likely that he found it in some book on dark magic.”

“Still, it worked on the snake,” Harry reasoned. “Do you think, maybe, it would work on the locket?”

“I wonder if… It wouldn’t hurt to try,” said Hermione, a half-finished thought on her lips.

Harry mourned the end of their brief escape from the responsibilities of the world; of that moment in time when all that mattered was him and her, but they could not live in denial forever. He stole one last kiss, then slid out of the bed and quickly back into his trousers — more due to the cold than any sense of embarrassment.

The locket had been discarded with the rest of their clothes and he felt a small sense of relief when it dropped from Hermione’s crumpled shirt. He had half expected it to make a break for freedom when neither of them was looking. Harry secured it back around his neck while Hermione was dressing, and trapsed out into the snow and ice.

They’d set up camp on a barren heath, swept by wind and devoid of any vegetation taller than knee-height. Despite their intentions to vary their campsites, Harry and Hermione had found themselves gravitating towards tracts of woodland and forest; something about the closeness of the trees lending a sense of seclusion whereas out here the skin prickled with the thought of someone watching from afar, even with their illusionary charms. This, then, was an uncomfortable attempt to avoid predictability.

Pattering behind him came the nimble footsteps of an arctic fox, darting between his legs and leading the way to a more sheltered depression where they could conduct their experiment. Harry chuckled and kicked a plume of snow at her as she scampered off, deftly avoiding the spray. Slipping in and out of animal form was becoming more natural to both of them; a second skin that they could freely choose between as the moment required. Or sometimes for fun.

Hermione waited for him by a flat rock, cleared of snow by her tail. As Harry approached, she switched back and came to stand at his side. He lifted the locket from around his neck and laid it on the stone like a jeweller might a prized piece in the window.

“Do you think it will work?” Harry asked.

“Honestly, I don’t know,” Hermione replied. “I have an idea of why it worked in Godric’s Hollow, but I hope I’m wrong.”

“We should probably step back; the snake went pretty violently,” said Harry, recalling the black ichor that spewed from its withering body.

They withdrew a few paces and Harry raised his wand.

“Here goes nothing.”

With a shared glance at Hermione, he cast.

“Sectumsempra!”

There was a flash of white light and dust and stone chips exploded from the rock. A glittering calcite cloud obscured their vision, tiny silicate particles catching the weak sunlight as Harry wafted his hand in front of his face.

A wave of Hermione’s wand sent the dust billowing away from them and for a brief moment Harry thought they had done it, until he caught the telltale glint of gold.

Close up, the slab had been marked by a web of deep gouges, as though someone had gone at it with an axe. The marks carved up the surface, many of them crossing behind the locket, only it had not a blemish on it.

Harry felt the keen sting of disappointment. Two destroyed horcruxes in as many days was evidently too much to hope for. Hermione let out a small sigh, disheartened but not surprised.

“I suppose that makes sense,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s the protective charms,” Hermione explained. “A horcrux isn’t any more durable for being a horcrux, it’s just that their owners go to great lengths to protect them. Impervious charms, anti-summoning charms, anti-degradation fields; all those spells are incompatible with living things. You-know-who just couldn’t shield the snake as well as he could the others.”

“It seemed pretty well shielded,” Harry grumbled.

“Oh, he will have been able to lend it some protection, but your curse overcame it. The object that contains the soul fragment must be damaged beyond all means of physical and magical repair,” Hermione recited. “Malfoy only survived last year because Professor Snape was right there and you didn’t really know what you were casting.”

Harry leant down and scooped the aggravating thing off the rock, tucking it back under his jumper.

“Still, we got one. That puts us at a solid fifty-percent destroyed,” he said with a lightness he didn’t entirely feel.

Hermione could tell, but she snorted all the same. They linked arms, Hermione dropping her head to Harry’s shoulder, and left the scarred rock to wade back up to the tent.

Chapter Text

There are few who would look upon the windswept ice fields and migrating dunes of powdered snow and recognise the country that lay beneath. Rolling green pastures and scattered woodland of what were affectionately termed the “Home Counties” had been swallowed up by the freak storm that, to the muggles, defied all explanation and showed no sign of lifting. Even the staunchest locals had been herded to the cities; the only places with round-the-clock heating, or perished in their frozen homes.

Farms lay abandoned, villages disappeared beneath the ice, and silent church towers stood vigil over once fertile and thriving land. In one barn though, perched on a low hill that had spared it from the deepest of the drifts, a glimmer of life still remained.

High in the eaves of an old hay loft, by an opening overlooking the monochrome landscape, curled a bundle of grey-white fur dotted with black rosettes and, if one looked closely, a glint of golden chain.

Harry lay somewhere between sleep and wakefulness. His paws were tucked in underneath him, and his long bushy tail wrapped around to cover his nose and stop it from freezing. Everything about his curled form was perfectly optimised to retain as much heat as possible, down to the small, rounded ears that stood up — the only sign he wasn’t truly asleep — and listened intently.

Hermione had set off more than an hour ago, and he’d lost her scent on the wind some thirty minutes after that, but he wouldn’t worry. Yet.

The separation had taken some getting used to, neither of them happy letting the other out of their sight for any length of time. It was, however, becoming increasingly necessary. The relentless winter meant that movement was slower, food was harder to come by, and each passing week weighed heavier on the duo.

The success of their Godric’s Hollow raid had sadly not marked a turning point in their fortunes, and instead stood like a singular beacon of triumph amid an otherwise desolate horizon. Harry had lost track of time without the seasons to mark its passage, but he thought they could be in April now. The intervening days blurred together in a haze of woods, rivers, and moors, empty towns and rolling whiteouts.

Suddenly, an achingly familiar scent tinged the air and Harry’s senses pricked up. Hermione. She was still too distant to hear, but she was drawing closer, coming back to him.

It was still several minutes before his ears detected her approach, and longer still for his eyes to pick her out against the snow. Had she not been carrying something grey in her jaw, he might not have seen her at all until she was on top of him.

Harry uncurled himself and stretched his stiff limbs, front claws digging into the ancient wood as his forelegs reached out and a shudder ran down his spine all the way to the tip of his tail. He leapt from his perch onto one of the beams that crossed the span below, navigating an old, rusted hoist, and from there down to a stack of empty pallets. Harry dropped the last ten feet, landing gracefully on the barn floor, passed the tent that they’d pitched inside for shelter, and trotted outside.

Hermione was hauling what, on closer inspection, turned out to be a hare. Her chin was held high to keep it from dragging on the ground as she pattered towards him. They reunited gladly, Harry rubbing the top of his head down her flank and then returning to lick her cheek.

Her prey may have been smaller than something Harry could bring down, but they had quickly learned that she was the more efficient hunter. Hermione’s adaptations for ambush-style hunting were better suited to the kinds of animals native to the country, whereas Harry was built for chasing larger prey across treacherous slopes, neither of which were in abundance. Still, they worked well together, Hermione providing a steady catch of small mammals while Harry saw them through the leaner weeks with a deer or goat that could be butchered and preserved.

Hermione had fretted about sourcing vegetables or at least some bottled vitamins from a deserted pharmacy until they realised that, just as in the wild, their animal forms could find everything they needed from just their limited diet.

The pair of them ducked back inside the shelter of the barn and Hermione lay her kill down on the floor. She turned back towards Harry to return his affection, pressing her small, black nose against his wide, pink one. He huffed as she rubbed her head under his chin, then broke contact to find space to transform.

Back on two legs, Hermione’s loose curls were tangled and wind-blown and her cheeks flushed from the effort of her outing. She crouched to remove the locket from Harry’s neck and allow him to shift too.

“Hey, I was wondering where you’d got to,” Harry said, reaching out to feel her fingers in his.

“Sorry,” Hermione replied, “I had to go miles to find an inhabited warren and then got waylaid by at least thirty Dementors passing through.”

“Did they-”

“No, no, I’m fine,” she reassured him. “Something was wrong with them, like the drift from the other week. They were slow, and so low to the ground they could have been walking, but I didn’t fancy a chase and they missed me clear enough.”

“That’s four different groups now,” said Harry, frowning.

“I know, and any other time I’d want to know why. I do want to know why, but we can’t afford to be side-tracked,” Hermione lamented.

She picked up the hare from the barn floor while Harry dipped inside the tent. The canvas creaked as he pushed it aside, stiff and unyielding with cold, and again when he returned with a flash of silver in his hand — Hermione’s potions knife.

Hermione lay the animal on an upturned pail, accepting the blade from Harry and cleanly slicing through the fur at the back of its neck. With one fluid motion, Hermione hooked two fingers inside the opening and pulled, skinning it. What followed was a practiced process of gutting and portioning the stringy meat for cooking, neither of them yet at the point of eating it raw in their animal forms. Provided they spent long enough on four legs while digesting it, they would manage for another few days.

Throughout the meal, Harry could feel a subtle tension in Hermione’s body: the set of her shoulders, the movement of her fork, and the distraction behind her eyes.

“Something on your mind?” he asked.

She looked at him with surprise, then a rueful acceptance washed over her face and she relaxed.

“I forget you’re observant now,” she sighed with a half smirk.

“Only when it comes to you. What’s up?”

Hermione set her cutlery down on her plate. Something serious, then.

“I didn’t like it out there today; you being stuck here with that thing.” She gestured to the locket.

“I didn’t like it either,” Harry replied. “I hate when we’re apart, when I can’t be absolutely sure you’re safe.”

“It’s not the same, though. When you’re here, wearing that, you’re stuck in your form. The whole time I was lying there in the snow, the only thing I was thinking was “What if they find Harry and he can’t use his wand”.”

Harry set his own plate down and moved around the table to envelop her in his arms.

“I know, I feel the same when it’s me out there,” he said into the top of Hermione’s head. “But we know that if we both go out, our chances of catching anything fall…”

“Yes,” came the muffled reply.

“And we agreed that it was more important for whoever was away from the tent to be able to switch, to apparate back…”

“Yes.”

“And that it was too risky to leave the locket in the tent…”

“Stop using my own arguments against me.”

Harry laughed, and he thought he might have been able to feel Hermione’s cheeks widen against his chest. He planted a kiss into her nest of curls.

“I do know how you feel, though,” he added in consolation. “Maybe we can figure out some kind of in-between solution.”

“I’d like that,” she replied, leaning back to look into his face. “I know it’s not healthy, but I can’t stand being apart. I don’t want to stand it. The thought of losing-”

Harry cut her off with a gentle kiss.

“You’re not going to lose me,” he promised.

She gave him a tight smile, wanting to believe it, though both of them knew it was far from certain.

Harry woke with a start.

Pitch darkness greeted him along with the sound of the wind whistling and droning through the walls of the barn. He fumbled for his glasses as Hermione stirred next to him in her sleep.

“Lumos.”

Soft yellow light filled the space, casting long shadows up the rippling walls. Nothing appeared out of place, yet Harry’s heart was racing. He sat up. What had woken him?

The noises outside were discomforting, but not human in origin. None of their alarms had been tripped, and nothing in the air hinted at dementors drawing near. In fact, Harry felt a small flutter of excitement in his chest.

It took his sleep-addled brain a long moment to realise why that was wrong, and what it really meant.

“Hermione,” he whispered, shaking her shoulder.

“Hmmm,” she grunted.

“Hermione!” his voice was still low, but more urgent.

“Wha- Harry? What? What’s going on?”

She sat upright, grabbing her own wand and pointing it towards the entrance of the tent.

“I can feel him.”

“Here!?” Hermione gasped.

“No, here,” Harry said, tapping his forehead.

Voldemort was distant. Harry didn’t know how he knew, but he did. The whispers coming down the mysterious bond weren’t overpowering like they usually were, but the door between their minds was ajar and something thrilling was leaking through.

“Quick, give me the locket, transform!”

Harry hesitated.

“It’s okay, it’s not strong, I can hold him off, but…”

“Harry?” Hermione looked at him, concerned.

“Something’s happening again, Hermione. Something he wants to happen.”

“And you want to go into his head to find out what it is,” she replied, not angry; merely stated like a fact.

“We haven’t had a breakthrough since the snake,” Harry said, apologetically. “And that wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t chosen to see it.”

“I know,” said Hermione, and he was surprised at her acceptance. “Are you sure about this? That you’re not going to lose control of it?”

“I think so,” Harry replied, as sure as he could be.

“I’ll be right here.” She clutched his hand tight.

Harry braced his back against the pillow and closed his eyes. Hermione’s fingers entwined with his had a comforting solidarity about them and he squeezed them tight as he found the door in his mind and slipped through it.

He was walking along a narrow hallway. The stone walls were daubed with crumbling, white-washed plaster that was rotting away where the damp had seeped through. It looked almost subterranean.

Every so often he would pass a wooden door. The ones that stood open revealed flashes of spartan rooms: a cot, a table, a barred window onto a pre-dawn sky — not underground then, and somewhere to the East. Harry would have liked to see more, but Voldemort did not stop to look inside, set instead on his destination ahead.

Up a spiral staircase and along another identical hallway, left turn, then right, and finally there came into view a door unlike the others. It was wooden, yes, but appeared untouched by time in a place where everything else had been ravaged by it. The planks were smooth and polished, the iron studs free of rust, and it had no handle or keyhole.

This was the place.

Voldemort extended his wand towards the door. Harry felt a moment’s hesitation in his wrist, before he tapped twice upon it.

The door swung open silently.

The inside of the room came as a shock to Harry. Instead of the bare stone of the other cells, the door opened onto a sumptuous parlour. The walls were lined with books and the furniture looked antique. Soft light came from flickering lamps and arrow-slit windows, but there was no fire.

More surprising, though, was its inhabitant.

A man stood by the far windows, looking out through the narrow opening at the approaching dawn, the pale light highlighting the lines on his face. His blonde hair had turned silver and was tied behind his head. His face was clean shaven, and Harry recognised the blue eyes of Gregorovitch’s thief as Gellert Grindelwald turned to regard his visitor.

“Ah, I was wondering when you might come here, though I admit I didn’t expect it to take you so long.”

Grindelwald’s voice was smooth, honeyed, and carried only the barest hint of an accent. There was something predatory but also reverent about Voldemort’s feelings towards the wizard. Harry could feel the echoes of admiration soured by disappointment.

“I had no use for you before now,” Voldemort replied casually. “Dumbledore’s fidelius did not hold for long. I found the secret keeper.”

“Evidently,” Grindelwald replied. He crossed the room and settled into one of a pair of armchairs. A stab of anger washed through Voldemort’s mind that this man would be so casual in his presence. He ignored Grindelwald’s offer to take the other seat.

“Albus Dumbledore is dead,” Voldemort announced.

“By your hand?” asked the older wizard, unsurprised.

“By my design.”

“A pity. Albus deserved better.”

Voldemort frowned.

“It does not bring you joy to learn that the man who imprisoned you here lies buried in the ground?”

“You think I hate him,” Grindelwald remarked. “What would I do with fifty-three years of hate? There is much you do not yet understand, Tom.”

Voldemort bristled at the use of his given name. Harry could feel his patience with the man slipping. He’d be dead already if he didn’t have something Voldemort needed.

“Where is the wand?” snapped Voldemort coldly, all pretence of cordiality gone from his voice.

“I do not have a wand,” Grindelwald shrugged. “It wouldn’t be much of a prison if I did, now would it.”

“Do not play games with me,” Voldemort hissed. “The wand you stole from Gregorovitch. The wand.”

“Ah, that wand,” said Grindelwald, steepling his fingers. “You are not worthy of it, Tom. You lack the humility and the skill to wield it and it will use you as surely as it has used so many witches and wizards before you.”

Voldemort was incensed, his caustic anger surging through Harry’s skull as he raised his wand at the wizard, levelling it between his eyes.

“You dare! I, who am more powerful and have ventured further into dark magic than any before!? I, who defeated the so-called greatest wizard of all time? You would dare question my ability?”

Grindelwald didn’t flinch.

“So many think that to defeat means to kill,” he sighed. “You think that because I do not fear you, I do not respect you? I assure you, my lack of fear and my lack of respect are entirely unrelated.”

“I will have a name whether you give it freely or I drag it from you,” said Voldemort, leaning closer, the tip of his wand just inches from Grindelwald’s forehead. “Who has the wand?”

“But you already know,” Grindelwald smiled. “He may not have shouted about it, but all the signs were there if you knew what to look for. It’s been under your nose — or whatever that is, the whole time.”

Harry couldn’t keep up with all the emotions swirling through Voldemort’s mind. Either the connection was becoming more unstable or the man himself was. Through the tumult, a cold clarity rose to the surface, though as to what, Harry didn’t know.

“Dumbledore should have silenced you fifty years ago,” Voldemort breathed.

“Perhaps.”

“I will not make the same mistake.”

In his final moments, a look of profound peace came over Gellert Grindelwald’s aged face. For half a second, he looked like his young self again, then the room was blasted with harsh, green light and Harry saw no more.

“Harry? Harry?”

Harry’s eyes flew open back in the dim light of the tent. Hermione had conjured a jar of flame which flickered balefully beside the bed while she kneeled on the mattress next to him.

“Are you okay? You’re ice-cold,” she said, pressing a palm to his forehead.

“I’m… I’m fine, yeh,” Harry replied, shuffling upright. His head was still swimming with the images and he blinked away the green flash from his vision.

“What did you see?”

“He found Grindelwald.”

“Only now?” Hermione asked, confused.

“Dumbledore had hidden him, I think. You-know-who said something about a secret keeper.” What had been so clear when he’d been watching it was now starting to blur, like trying to remember a dream after waking.

“What did you-know-who want with him?”

“He was asking about a wand; about Grindelwald’s wand. He was desperate to know who had it, and then Grindelwald said he already knew, and then you-know-who killed him.”

A dull ache was forming behind Harry’s temples and he rubbed his forehead distractedly.

“Does that mean anything to you?” he asked Hermione.

“No,” she replied, mouth pinched as she wracked her brain. “I don’t remember ever reading anything about Grindelwald’s wand. He was a formidable wizard, but I’ve never heard that attributed to a wand rather than his own skill.”

“Another mystery, then,” said Harry with an exasperation that was only partly due to the pain in his skull.

“This must be incredibly important to him, though,” Hermione continued. “If he left right before we went to Godric’s Hollow then he’s been searching for weeks and weeks.”

“What are you saying?” Harry knew by now when Hermione was leading up to something.

“I don’t think this is something we should ignore.” She got out of the bed and began to pace back and forth. “There’s something I’ve been thinking about that might help us find another horcrux, and now that it might shed some light on what you-know-who is doing right now as well, I think we have to do it.”

Harry looked at her expectantly.

“We ask.”

“We ask… you-know-who?” Harry frowned.

“Not exactly. We capture a Death Eater, confund them, and ask them.”

Harry grappled with the idea in his mind, trying to imagine the many ways it could play out. It wasn’t completely outrageous.

“Putting aside the risks for a moment,” he said, “how are we going to find a Death Eater? There’s no way we’re getting back into the Ministry, and we don’t know where they’re hiding.”

“But we don’t have to find one, Harry. They’ll come to us.”

“Why?”

“Because of the taboo.”

“Are you sure about this?” Harry asked later that evening, sheltered under a gnarled pine. They’d left the barn a hundred miles away and apparated to a spot they’d camped some months ago and would likely now never be able to return to.

“Hardly,” Hermione replied, “but it’s the best I’ve got.”

“They’ll come prepared to fight the Order.”

“I know, which means they won’t be expecting us.” She flashed him a nervous smile that made him chuckle.

“And I’m definitely the one who should be wearing this?” Harry pulled the locket out of his jumper, looping it over his head and holding it in a fist.

Hermione nodded.

“You’ll be more useful on four paws than I will.”

He hated that she was right. It would leave him unable to use his wand if she needed help, but if he were human, their ambush would be over before it had even started.

“If you get pinned down, disapparate. I’ll shake them and meet you by the bridge upstream,” Harry said. The look Hermione returned was one he knew he’d given her on more than one occasion: that she’d let him say what he needed to but there was no way she was leaving him.

Harry shifted and held out his head for Hermione to slip the golden chain back around his neck. They had chosen a site dense with trees, with plenty of cover and places to hide, and it was to one of these shadowy nooks that Harry slunk.

He had a good view of Hermione, who trudged to the edge of what could generously be described as a clearing. She looked over to where she knew he was hidden and steeled herself. They would have the element of surprise, but they would have to act fast before the tide turned against them.

In a loud, clear voice, Hermione spoke.

“Voldemort.”

No sooner had the words left her lips than there was a flurry of snow and her white fox form darted away from where she had been stood, losing itself among the trees just in time for a series of loud cracks to split the air.

“Protego!”

“Homenum Revelio!”

Two different voices shouted in unison and Harry felt the detection spell whoosh ineffectively over his head. It was telling that a shield had been the first spell cast — they clearly weren’t the first to think of ambushing the ambushers.

“No-one,” said the second voice.

Crouched low, Harry could make out four figures in the clearing. Three of them wore mis-matched layers of winter robes but the fourth was garbed all in black, a thick cloak sweeping down to his hide boots; the only Death Eater in the group, and thus their target. Harry’s sensitive ears picked out the pattering footsteps of Hermione changing position.

“Must have just missed them,” grumbled the Death Eater. “Fan out. See if they left anything.”

The quartet visibly relaxed from their battle-ready stances and shuffled in different directions, peering through the trees and around at the frozen ground. Harry picked one of the snatchers and stalked around in the direction he was heading. Hermione would act any second now.

As if she’d read his mind, Harry heard the snow crunch as she shifted back onto two legs and then fired.

“Stupefy!”

The blazing red spell caught the nearest snatcher in the side of the head and he went down like a rag doll.

“Incarcerous!”

“Stupefy!”

“Bombarda!” came the answering volley of spellfire, all hitting different trees in roughly the direction Hermione had been. Another detection spell swooped through the forest but Harry knew it would find nothing.

They were facing away from him now and he broke into a silent run, his wide paws dancing across the snow instead of sinking into it. Through the trees, his target grew larger.

Harry closed on the snatcher at a sprint. It was remarkable how unaware they were to the danger that was swiftly approaching compared to the prey he usually hunted.

Fifteen feet away, Harry veered and bounded up the nearest tree. His claws bit into the bark as he leapt one, twice, before pivoting and launching himself off the trunk towards her. His tail windmilled in the air, keeping him straight and true as a hundred-and-twenty pounds of leopard hit the snatcher between the shoulder blades.

She crumpled, driven headlong into the snow with not even enough air left in her lungs to cry out.

Harry quickly sprang away and back into the cover of the trees as Hermione’s next stunning spell hit the prostrate witch to keep her down.

“What was that!?” the third one yelled.

Harry caught a glimpse of white fur flashing between two trunks and raced in the other direction, moving to encircle the two remaining wizards. He spied a rotten log and sprang off it, a rewarding snap echoing through the clearing and more bolts of red and white streaking harmlessly into the space he’d left in his wake.

A muffled thump told him that Hermione had dispatched the third snatcher with another well-timed spell, but the blaze of orange that followed set his hackles raising.

The Death Eater had gotten a bead on Hermione’s last position and two walls of flame erupted on either side of her, an immense V with the Death Eater at its apex and Hermione trapped in the narrow sliver of forest between its burning arms.

“Enough games!” the Death Eater roared. “Avada Kedavra!”

A tall pine exploded into kindling, studding its neighbours with razor-sharp splinters that sank an inch into the bark as the top half of the tree came crashing to the forest floor.

Harry could see the orange-lit profile of Hermione’s face two trees further back, wide-eyed and searching for him.

He raced around the clearing, parallel to the flames as another tree was split asunder. The chaos drowned out Harry’s thumping paws as all stealth was exchanged for raw speed.

The Death Eater raised his wand a third time, taking aim at the very tree that Hermione had her back pressed against.

“Avad-aaahhhhh!”

Harry’s jaw clamped around his outstretched forearm. His teeth pierced fabric and skin alike, crushing the limb and fracturing the bones within. The Death Eater’s wand cartwheeled from his limp hand as Harry’s momentum carried both of them to the ground, the arm still locked in his jaw, broken bones grinding against one another.

The flames had died with the loss of the wand, tamped immediately by the relentless cold, and Harry could now hear the rapid approach of footsteps over the anguished howls of the man still in his grasp.

The Death Eater sat up and met Harry’s piercing green gaze, his eyes wide with fear for half a second before Hermione’s stunner caught him full in the face and he went limp.

She dropped to her knees next to Harry, sending snow flying and throwing an arm over him. Harry let the Death Eater’s arm go, looking like it had grown a new joint, and allowed Hermione’s presence to cool his raging blood.

She lifted the locket from him and placed it around her own neck as Harry shifted back. He grimaced and spat blood that wasn’t his own onto the ground. Harry found Hermione’s hand and squeezed; the only reassurance he needed that she was okay.

“This is Macnair,” Harry said, freeing the Death Eater of his hood. “I remember him from when the Ministry came for Buckbeak.”

“We should check the others,” said Hermione.

None of them were familiar, but all were safely out for the count. Wands were thrown into the brush as a precaution, but the pair left the snatchers where they fell. It was vital for their cover story, and they wouldn’t be lying there long.

“Now for the difficult bit,” Hermione said. Harry pocketed his glasses and smoothed his hair over his forehead before pulling his own hood as far forward as it would go, casting his face in shadow.

“This isn’t like veritaserum, or the Imperius curse,” warned Hermione. “We can’t compel him to tell us anything; he’ll just be confused, and not for long.”

“Got it,” Harry nodded. “Ready?”

“Ready.”

Harry put his arm behind Macnair’s shoulders and lifted him into a sitting position while Hermione moved to stand behind him, raising her wand.

“Enervate. Confundus.”

Macnair’s eyes snapped open, then immediately slid out of focus.

“Woah, slow down, just stay there for a minute,” said Harry. He’d pitched his voice down and added a rasp to his words.

“I… what…” Macnair struggled.

“Ambush, but they’re gone,” Harry quickly supplied. “Listen, where is the Dark Lord?” He shot a glance at Hermione, stood silently behind the Death Eater.

“He, errr, he’s away.”

“Where?”

“He didn’t say.” Macnair was slow and groggy. Harry cursed inwardly.

“Why does he need a wand?” Harry asked, throwing caution to the wind.

“A wand?” Macnair slurred.

“He wants a wand. Why?”

“He… borrowed Malfoy’s to kill Potter but… it didn’t work.”

It was an answer, but hardly enlightening. They were running out of time.

“What place is the Dark Lord protecting?”

“Pro… tecting?”

“Yes. Where must be kept safe?”

“I don’t- Argh!” Macnair had tried to lift his ruined arm to his head, the pain slicing through the fog Hermione had wrapped around his brain.

“We’ll fix it,” Harry bit. “Has the Dark Lord mentioned a cup?”

“A cup? No… I… my arm!”

“Where do we take the prisoners?” Harry half-shouted over Macnair’s growing moans.

“The… the manor,” then he squinted at Harry. “Wait, who-”

He didn’t finish his question as Hermione stunned him again from behind. Harry let him fall unceremoniously onto his back, then let out a cry of frustration, kicking the unconscious wizard’s boot.

“It was a long-shot,” Hermione sighed. “We didn’t expect him to have told anyone about the horcruxes. The bit about the wands was strange, though.”

“The only time that we’ve properly faced each other since the Tri-Wizard Tournament was the night we all escaped from Privet Drive. I told you then that my wand acted by itself to block him.”

Hermione gave him a look very similar to the one she’d given him then, too; that it was admirable but she was ultimately sceptical.

“I know how it sounds,” Harry said, “but doesn’t this prove it? That he’s after some better wand?”

“If your wand acted on its own, I would think he’d be more concerned with divesting you of yours,” Hermione said, “but I agree it is odd. Why he thinks Grindelwald’s wand would do the trick, I have no idea.”

“Reckon it would work again?” Harry asked, nudging the unconscious Macnair.

“No, he’ll be alert when he wakes again, like when you wake up from a nightmare.”

“You have nightmares?”

“Sometimes,” Hermione replied with a sad smile. Harry could tell it was not the time to discuss it.

“Are you okay with what comes next?”

She took a deep breath.

“I will be.”

Hermione pointed her wand at the Death Eater’s forehead and steadied herself.

“Obliviate.”

The spell washed over the wizard, locking away the memories of the fight, the conversation, and replacing them with a different battle with masked Order members that eventually evaded their grasp — everything Harry and Hermione had agreed on before setting off and why they couldn’t afford to keep or snap the wands they’d liberated from their owners.

A single tear slid down her cheek. Not, Harry knew, for Macnair, but for the others who had unknowingly felt the touch of her memory charm.

Without comment, she repeated the charm on the other three and the pair of them gathered at the edge of the clearing. The ruthless, hardened part of Harry told him he should kill them, that they would have shown no such mercy to him or Hermione, but something stayed his hand. A lethal curse in the heat of battle was something he could forgive himself for, but metaphorically slitting the throats of the sleeping carried a different kind of weight.

Nor would he go as far as to heal and revive their enemies. In the end, they decided to leave them there. The stunning spell would wear off in due course, and if the winter or a band of Dementors claimed them first, well, Harry wouldn’t lose sleep over that.

Harry stewed over the vision for the following two days, turning what he’d seen and heard over and over, trying to complete a puzzle for which he only had a few pieces, none of which fit together. Ultimately, the next piece was given to him after a frighteningly short wait.

Hermione had been doing a delicate piece of magic to de-bone a fish Harry had caught — his prideful trot and dripping-wet maw a source of great amusement for her — when he felt the tug; the trill of excitement as Voldemort’s emotions grew intense enough to trickle down their bond.

“It’s happening again,” Harry said, all thoughts of dinner pushed from his mind. It was a quiet sort of exhilaration; a bubbling of anticipation, but not an overwhelming pull. What was more concerning was that it felt closer than it had when Harry had spied on his Grindelwald encounter.

“Good or bad?” Hermione asked, immediately stopping her task to sit by him.

“For who?” Harry grimaced. “For him, good.”

“You don’t have to do this, you know.” She said it with comfort and reassurance, rather than exasperation.

“We can’t afford not to,” Harry replied.

Steeling himself, his fingers entwined with hers once more, Harry let himself be swept up in the feeling.

It was dark where Voldemort was walking. Heavy clouds weighed down with an impending storm obscured the night sky, turning it from midnight blue to slate grey. The cold did not seem to touch the Dark Lord, garbed as he was in his signature black robe that billowed behind him. At the fringes of his vision, his phantom servants tasted the air; drifted forwards as he passed like seaweed beneath a wave, but they did not follow.

Ahead, a looming silhouette cut a jagged black hole in the colourless sky. Pinpricks of orange light twisted up and along it, fewer than there should have been, but enough to trigger a rising dread in Harry as he recognised the characteristic shape of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Voldemort approached the tall gates of the perimeter wall even as a cloaked figure hurried down the path from the main entrance. Harry could tell it irked him that even now, when he all but sat in the headmaster’s chair himself, someone must open the gates to admit him. It showed, for now at least, that there were still some things more powerful than the dark wizard.

The cloaked figure jogged closer and brandished their wand, causing the gates to swing inwards soundlessly.

“My Lord,” huffed the Death Eater, winded. “We did not expect-”

“Leave me,” Voldemort cut her off. Evidently, he was not in the mood for sycophancy.

The Death Eater sketched a hasty bow and retreated back up the path to the castle, looking back uncertainly only once before picking up her pace at his piercing glare. Harry got the impression she wasn’t supposed to see what he was planning to do.

When at last the great doors had closed once more, the fizzing anticipation grew and the Dark Lord set off across the grounds in the direction of the black lake.

A more appropriate name would have been the white lake, for it had frozen solid from shore to shore. Here and there a hole had been broken in the ice, presumably by the giant squid, but the glassy surface was resolutely still.

Out near the centre of the lake, a lone island rose from the depths, hosting a handful of leaning pines and a solitary marble slab. Voldemort stepped out onto the ice and headed towards it.

Up-close, the stone block was immense. It was at least eight feet long and four feet to a side. It sat at the centre of the small island with the school watching over it through a gap in the trees — a beautiful resting place.

Voldemort raised his wand and brought it slashing down across the marble, a loud crack echoing across the lake as the lid of the tomb was split down the middle. With exuberant wand movements, he let the two halves fall to the ground and raised himself into the air to peer inside.

Harry hoped beyond hope that their bond was one-directional because if it weren’t, Voldemort was sure to feel the venom radiating through it as Harry was forced to look upon the body of Albus Dumbledore through his eyes.

The old headmaster looked quietly serene. Time had not touched his body. He could almost have been sleeping if it weren’t for the straight set of his mouth, so usually curved in a knowing smile.

Voldemort’s eyes drifted from his rivals’ face to his chest where his hands lay clasped around a single object. The feeling of elation peaked, reaching a level that could have pulled Harry along had he not already come willingly.

The object in question was Dumbledore’s wand. It looked no different to the countless times Harry had seen it before. Longer than a standard wand, yes, and more ornate than most, but Harry hadn’t thought it unusual for a wizard as whimsical as Dumbledore.

Voldemort’s pale fingers reached out for it tentatively, as though he expected it to shock him. He prized it from the dead wizard’s hands and seated it in his palm. Was it a coincidence, or had the wind picked up around the island?

Harry watched from inside his skull as he stroked it with his free hand, studying the grain of the wood and the handle polished through decades of use. Had this been the wand that had belonged to Grindelwald? Had Dumbledore taken it for himself after Grindelwald’s defeat?

The scarlet eyes turned up to the looming shape of the castle above and narrowed. Something cold and clinical was coming over Voldemort’s thoughts; a singular focus of utmost importance. Harry tried to dig in, to hold on and see where it went, but Voldemort had clamped down on his emotions. He’d allowed himself to feel the thrill of acquiring the wand, but that time was over. As he floated forwards, Harry slipped off the polished obsidian that had encased his mind and was ejected.

He sat up with a gasp in the tent, searching for Hermione and locking her with a frantic stare.

“He’s at Hogwarts.”

Chapter Text

“Anything?”

Ron mumbled the word through slack lips as he busied himself in the supply cupboard, conveniently located right behind Susan, sitting at her desk.

“Nothing,” she hissed back.

He stifled his disappointment. Checking over his shoulder, he nudged something off a shelf and bent down below the level of the benches to pick it up.

“Did you try that closed-off section of the second floor yet? Past the portrait of the wizard with two monocles?”

“We haven’t had-”

“Come now, Weasley. We haven’t got all day, you know,” squeaked Professor Flitwick from the front of the classroom, cutting off whatever Susan had been about to say. Ron stood and returned the fallen item to the cupboard, sharing a conspiratorial glance with Susan as he returned to his seat.

The Easter holidays were fast approaching and yet the reformed DA had made no progress towards finding the missing horcrux. There was a brief moment of excitement when a shield bearing the crest of Ravenclaw was discovered high on a shelf in the trophy room, but the inscription on the back had made it clear that the item was commissioned by an ex-student and gifted to the school, rather than a prized founder’s possession.

In the meantime, Ron and the others had ceased their minor acts of rebellion, wanting to avoid attention and, more importantly, interrogation. The result, though, was that moral was lower than ever. The Carrows and their chosen few strutted around the castle, smug that they’d finally broken the students’ spirit, and the younger pupils shuffled from class to class with their heads down, flinching at sudden sounds.

“Still nothing,” Ron said to Neville, as if he wouldn’t be able to tell from Ron’s mood.

“The castle’s a big place,” Neville shrugged. “What’s the betting that he’s hidden it in some place only the Slytherins would know about?”

Ron had been harbouring the same concerns. Voldemort was obviously proud of his heritage if Slytherin’s locket was anything to go by, though he felt like it didn’t quite fit. He couldn’t picture Voldemort placing an object from another house in the Slytherin dorms. It would stand out, for one thing.

“Or could it be in the grounds somewhere?” Neville was saying. “How much of the forest has really been explored?”

“No,” Ron shook his head, leaning closer to his charms partner. “It will be somewhere meaningful. He’s got too big of an ego to stuff it deep in the Forbidden Forest somewhere.”

Flitwick passed in front of their desk, standing on his toes to check on their progress before giving an exasperated shake of his head and moving on.

“I expected more from them, you know,” Ron said, nodding to the retreating professor. “Are you telling me McGonagall and Flitwick couldn’t take on the Carrows? And instead they’ve just rolled over.”

“Maybe they can’t?” Neville ventured. “Snape being the head has to mean something.”

“Didn’t stop him murdering Dumbledore,” Ron grumbled.

The class ended and they stumped out into the frigid corridors, most students donning hats and gloves or tightening scarves as they left the only-slightly-warmer classrooms. Neville turned to head towards the Great Hall but Ron hung back.

“You’re not coming?” Neville asked.

“I’ll meet you there,” Ron replied. “I’m going to find McGonagall. Maybe there are places in the castle that only teachers are able to access, you know?”

“You’re going to tell her?”

“No, just… probe a little. I’ll be right behind you.”

Ron waved Neville off and started in the opposite direction towards the Transfiguration wing. The halls should have been full of spring sunlight, chatter of the Quidditch cup, or the first flutters of exam nerves, but there was none of that. Cold, grey light filtered through the iced-over windows. At least a third of the student body were missing, and the rest stuck close together which made the already large castle feel positively abandoned. Even the ghosts were a rare sight.

He arrived in time to see the last of a second-year class being herded out of McGonagall’s classroom. She saw him coming and narrowed her eyes, expecting some kind of trouble, no doubt.

“Mister Weasley. You know it is inadvisable to walk the corridors alone,” McGonagall chided. “Why are you not down at lunch with your peers?”

“I just wanted a quick word, if that’s alright, Professor?”

She regarded him warily, perhaps weighing up whether listening to him or dismissing him would be worse, but in the end she relented.

“Very well. Come in.”

Her classroom was more comfortable than the hall; not only a fraction warmer, but also less foreboding somehow, as though he’d been hunched over and could finally stand up straight. In the corner, he spotted the reason.

A translucent silver cat was sleeping on top of a low cupboard, giving off the faintest of glows. Ron hadn’t seen a patronus so dim since they’d first tried in Dumbledore’s Army, but it was strong enough at least to keep the worst of the malign sorrow and despair from the classroom.

McGonagall settled behind her desk and Ron stood opposite. Now that he looked properly, she looked dog-tired. Her usually severe bun had sprung a few loose hairs and for once Ron found himself wondering how old she actually was. The stalwart professor had seemed ageless in his early years. He wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d been born with iron-grey hair and a sour expression, but it finally looked to be catching up with her.

“Well?” she asked.

“Oh, erm, it was about the school.”

“What about the school?”

“I was wondering, are there any rooms or areas that are, you know, for teachers only? Somewhere that students wouldn’t be allowed or even know about?”

She narrowed her eyes at him again.

“I don’t mean, like, the staff room,” Ron added hastily. “Or, well, maybe the staff room I guess, but somewhere better hidden than that?”

“Whatever you’re planning, Mister Weasley, I advise you to drop it.”

Ron frowned. She should know that this wasn’t about some lame schoolboy prank. McGonagall knew as well as the rest of the Order that Dumbledore had tasked Harry, and by extension, him, with something vital.

“I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important, Professor. We’re not going to cause any trouble there.”

“We?”

A slip up, but Ron remained steadfastly tight-lipped under her most piercing stare.

“Nobody knew this school better than Albus Dumbledore,” McGonagall said when he refused to crack. “If there were anything of any importance to defeating you-know-who, he would have found it.”

“Professor-”

“You have my answer, Mister Weasley.”

Ron bristled.

“What are you so afraid of?” he blurted, a look of shock crossing the older witch’s face. “You’re supposed to be fighting him, helping us, but you’re just sat here doing nothing.”

“Mister Weasley!”

“How did he even lose the first war if everyone was so spineless!?”

“Mister Weasley, that is enough!” McGonagall protested. “I have an entire school to think about, not just you! There are children here who have not been through what you have and I will do what I must to protect them, whether you approve or not.”

“They’d be a damn sight safer if you fought against the people that were trying to harm them,” Ron said bitterly, then turned on his heel, not waiting to be dismissed.

“Mister Weasley.”

Ron stopped, but kept his back to her.

“Take this.”

He looked back in time to see McGonagall levitate a square of parchment towards him. He caught it in a fist and glanced down at her precise handwriting. It was a note excusing him for being late to lunch, stating that she had requested his presence. It would get him out of any trouble should he be accosted in the halls on his way down.

Ron nodded a mute thanks, then strode from the classroom.

Five minutes later Ron stumped into the Great Hall amid the subdued chatter of lunch. He caught Luna’s questioning gaze from the Ravenclaw table but shook his head minutely, warning her off joining them at that moment. Instead, he dropped heavily onto the bench across from Neville and Ginny.

“Well, McGonagall won’t lift a finger to help us,” he fumed, reaching for a cold slice of pie.

“None of them have,” Ginny grumbled in agreement. “They fought last year when the Death Eaters got into the school. I don’t know what’s stopping them now.”

“Are you sure the thing is even here?” asked Neville.

“Almost positive,” Ron replied. “Anyway, that’s only the first step.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, these things, they’re really difficult to destroy. Once we’ve got it, we need to get Basilisk venom or find the Sword of Gryffindor or something.”

“Finding it isn’t the problem,” Ginny scoffed.

“What?”

“Well, it’s in Snape’s office.”

Ron was dumbfounded. The three of them; he, Harry, and Hermione had assumed it had been hidden somewhere by Dumbledore and that they hadn’t been clever enough to figure out where. He’d been back at Hogwarts for the better part of six months and was only now learning that it had all but fallen into his lap.

“Are you sure?” he asked frantically.

“Err, yeh,” said Ginny, perplexed. “It’s in a case above his desk. I saw it when he hauled me up there in the first week, after I stuffed that firework under Lady-Carrow’s office door.”

“New plan:” Ron said, leaning in with new-found zeal. “While the DA keep looking for the horcrux, we get that sword.”

The clock chimed in the corner of the Room of Requirement as Ron paced nervously and Ginny, Neville, and Luna sat restless at the small table.

“Okay, that’s dinner. Everyone will start heading down now,” said Ron, glancing at the clock. “Let’s run through it one more time.”

“At twenty-past, I set off the diversion in the dungeons,” said Ginny.

“And I set off the other one in the Charms corridor,” added Neville, “Then we run back to the common room and scarf a puking pastil, claiming we were too ill to come down to dinner.”

Ron nodded.

“We wait here until twenty-five-past,” said Luna, “in case Professor Snape isn’t in the Great Hall, then go to his office.”

“The password will be a potions ingredient,” Ginny said, “but he didn’t go in or out the whole time I was watching so I haven’t been able to catch it.”

“It’s alright,” said Ron. “If all goes to plan, they won’t figure out it was us and we can try again another night.”

“It’s not too late to bring the rest of the DA in on this,” Neville said.

“No,” Ron shook his head. “The fewer people who know, the better. We’re already running a huge risk as it is, and we know where the sword is. Having more people won’t make getting it any easier.”

The minute-hand slid closer to quarter-past and Ginny and Neville rose to their feet.

“Good luck,” said Ron, grasping each of them by the shoulder.

“You too,” they replied, then slipped out into the corridor.

The minutes ticked by glacially slowly inside the room. The clock seemed to have become obnoxiously loud, each movement of gear and spring reverberating in Ron’s head as it counted the seconds. When the hand jerked from nineteen to twenty-minutes past the hour, he imagined he could hear a faint thump, or possibly feel it through his feet, though he was pretty sure they were too far away to truly hear it.

“Ready?” came Luna’s airy voice. It was a marvel how nothing seemed to phase her, though Ron was starting to know her well enough to pick up on the busyness of her hands when she was nervous.

“Let’s go.”

The seventh-floor corridor where the room’s door usually appeared was thankfully deserted. Ron could not make out any distant sounds of mayhem or quickened footsteps, but trusted Neville and Ginny to have carried out their part of the plan.

He and Luna hurried through silent, icy hallways and up darkened flights of stairs until finally they reached the gargoyle in its nook that guarded the stairs to the headmaster’s office.

“Password,” it rasped when they stopped in front of it.

“Dragon blood,” said Ron hurriedly. “Lacewing, Wormwood.”

The statue remained impassive.

“Asphodel, Billywig, Doxy eggs, Bicorn horn,” said Luna, taking over.

Still nothing.

“Dittany, ahh…” Ron wracked his brain, trying to recall any of the potions he’d brewed in class over the last six years. Of course it would have to be his most hated subject, the one that he paid the least attention in, except perhaps History of Magic. Ron didn’t have a great experience with potions either, having been poisoned only last—

An idea popped into his head.

“Oh! B- Bee… ahh, Bezoar! Bezoar.”

The gargoyle turned its stone head and stared at him with its blank eyes. The pair waited with bated breath for the span of several heartbeats, before it eventually stood aside and the spiral staircase behind it ground into life.

Ron grabbed Luna’s hand and leapt onto the stairs, urging it to move faster as it carried them up and up into the headmaster’s tower.

At the top they were met with a solid wooden door. The silence was deafening as the rumble of the stairs ended with a thump. Ron’s palms had started to sweat. If this door was also locked with a password, they were screwed. If Snape had foregone dinner and was sat just the other side of it at his desk, they were screwed.

He reached out for the handle, and turned.

The door swung open without protest onto an empty room. Ron let out an audible sigh of relief, but they were still on borrowed time.

The room was as he remembered it from his fifth year, when his father had been attacked, albeit perhaps drabber than back then. The main part of the room was wide and circular, with an ornate desk sat in the centre in the light from the high windows. Behind the desk, on either side, curved a matching pair of staircases, while between them the room continued further back towards dim bookcases and cabinets.

The walls were still covered with portraits of sleeping headmasters, though the largest one that took pride of place behind the desk was empty. A conversation with Dumbledore would have been immensely useful just about then, but they didn’t have time to wait for his return.

Beneath Dumbledore’s portrait, in a plain glass case on a shelf, lay the silver hilted, ruby encrusted, Sword of Gryffindor.

Ron and Luna walked further into the room and the door swung closed behind them, the staircase grating back to life as it descended once more. They’d figure out how to get down again after they’d gotten the sword.

It was far too high to reach, even for someone of Ron’s stature, resting at least ten feet off the floor, possibly higher.

“Accio, sword,” Ron said, pointing his wand at the case. Predictably, it didn’t so much as flinch.

“Help me with this,” he said to Luna, running around the desk to the high-backed chair that was tucked under it. They pulled it out and Ron stepped up onto the cushion. It wobbled underneath him and Luna steadied him as he placed his other foot on the desk.

“Wait!” Luna said, and Ron froze, one foot on the chair, the other on the desk. She stared at the surface, eyes roaming across each paper, quill, and trinket that littered it.

“Okay,” she said after a moment, then “So we can put it all back in the right place,” by way of explanation.

Ron clambered onto the desk and turned, reaching for the shelf. He was high enough, but the desk was too far from the wall for him to stretch.

“Damn!” he cursed. “We need to push the desk back a bit.”

He leapt back down, but then they heard something that made them both freeze. The staircase was rising again.

Ron and Luna shared a panicked look. There was no way out except for down the very stairs that someone was no ascending.

“Hide!” Ron hissed, but Luna was frantically shuffling the contents of the desk back into its original state before Ron had trampled it.

Ron looked around wildly. There was the upper level, but he had never been up there and didn’t know where it led, then there was the space behind the desk. It seemed to be a sort of mini library or storage area, lined with bookcases and glass-fronted cabinets, and importantly, cast in shadow.

Luna had just finished when Ron wrenched her deeper into the office and the staircase halted at the top. He shoved her into a space between two units and squeezed into an identical one opposite her, sinking to his heels and pressing himself hard into the stone as the office door opened.

What sounded like two sets of footsteps entered the room. Movement in the corner of Ron’s eye caught his attention and he realised that he could see the room in the reflection off one of the cabinets.

He recognised the sallow face and lank hair of the headmaster, and then his stomach fell out of him as the second figure, bone-white, hairless, and red-eyed slunk into the light.

Voldemort.

“My Lord,” Snape drawled, and Ron bit his fist to keep from making a noise. “You are of course welcome at any time, but to what might we owe this great honour?”

Voldemort appeared to ignore him and, as far as Ron could tell, was gazing around the room with curiosity.

“I have always had a great fondness for Hogwarts, Severus,” he said, his high, cold voice like nails on a chalk board to Ron’s ears. “It understands me, and I understand it. I dare say there are few who know these walls as well as I. Even yourself.”

Was he… happy? Ron suppressed his revulsion and chanced a look over at Luna, who’s usually placid eyes were wide with terror.

“Hogwarts hides a great many secrets, Severus, for those bold enough to seek them. There are places here hidden by its architects that reveal themselves only to the worthy.”

Was he talking about the Chamber of Secrets? The thought had crossed Ron’s mind that the horcrux might be down there, what with the whole Slytherin connection, but he had thought it unlikely for the same reason that the Slytherin common room was low on his list of places. Besides, he had no way of getting into the chamber anyway.

“I have no doubt,” replied Snape, impassively.

It seemed to shake Voldemort from his thoughts, as he turned to face the potions master directly.

“And my servants outside the walls, they have been of use?”

“Most effective, my Lord.”

So the Dementors were his fault. They’d suspected as much, but Ron felt a small sense of vindication in knowing for certain. Voldemort however, was anticipating something. The reflection was distorted, but he appeared to be twirling his wand between his spindly fingers, caressing it almost.

“I wished to clarify something about the events of last summer,” said Voldemort, and Snape stiffened.

“My Lord?”

“It was the Malfoy boy who let my Death Eaters into the castle, correct?”

“That is correct.”

“And he cornered Dumbledore atop the Astronomy tower, did he not?”

“…He did.” Snape seemed reticent, though Ron could not fathom why.

“But he could not carry out the task I had charged him with?”

“He… could not.”

Voldemort grinned wider, his eyes flashing with something hideous.

“And…” he purred. It was an awful, predatory sound, like the rustle of the grass before a snake strikes.

“And I carried it out in his stead.” From Ron’s hiding space behind them, he could see Snape’s hand drift almost imperceptibly closer to his hip.

“You killed Albus Dumbledore? You cast the lethal curse?” Voldemort pressed.

“I did.”

The tension in the room was as tight as a bowstring ready to snap.

“As I thought.” Voldemort stroked his wand again. “Wand lore is an ancient, inscrutable thing, Severus. They respect power, conquest, changing their allegiance as their owners rise and fall.”

Ron had no idea what Voldemort was on about. Snape had backed up until his legs were against the desk, his right hand hovering by his thigh.

“You have been a steadfast servant, Severus,” said Voldemort, his gaze never leaving the man. “There are some — many — who have doubted your loyalty over the years. I admit that I myself had my suspicions at times, but you have proven yourself beyond all others, and now you may provide the most important service of your life. You will be missed, Severus.”

Ron realised what was about to happen a fraction of a second before it did. Snape’s hand moved quicker than he’d ever seen anyone draw, but it wasn’t fast enough.

“Avada Kedavra!”

Green light blinded Ron to everything else in the room as he covered his head with his hands and willed himself to sink into the floor — to not be seen.

When he opened his eyes, the room was silent. He peered this way and that in the reflection on the cabinet but could see no one. Ron leant out of his hiding space.

There was no sign of Voldemort, but he could just see a pair of legs sticking out from around the desk.

Ron crossed over to Luna who was huddled between the cupboards where he had left her, taking her trembling arms to raise her to her feet and wrapping her in his arms.

“It’s okay, he’s gone,” he said in a shaky voice.

Slowly, he led Luna back into the main area of the office.

Snape was lying on his back, staring up at the ceiling. He’d managed to draw his wand. It was held near his head and there seemed to be something silver and mist-like clinging to its tip, but it drifted away to nothing as Ron watched.

It was a horrible way to go, but Ron couldn’t bring himself to feel any sympathy for the man. He’d brought it on himself, and ruined countless lives along the way.

“You picked the wrong side,” Ron said to the lifeless man. “Git.”

“Someone will be here soon,” said Luna.

“You’re right, let’s get the sword and go.”

They grunted and heaved the heavy desk a foot closer to the wall. There would be no need to precisely move it back; there was something else in the office that was bound to draw more attention.

The case came down and Ron opened the glass to retrieve the blade. It was lighter than he expected, and he handed it to Luna to return the case to its shelf.

Careful not to touch him, the pair edged around the body of their former professor and to the waiting staircase.

Ron paused at the threshold to take one final look at the man, then hefted the sword in his hand, turned his back, and closed the door.

Chapter Text

Two sets of pawprints traced a meandering path along the bank of the frozen canal. One was larger than the other, the prints spaced further apart, and the wove in and out of contact, unhurried, but always forwards. Periodic disturbances in the snow looked like whatever had left them could have been scuffling; a jink to the left here, a swipe of what would have been a tail there. Theirs were the only marks to be seen on a once popular footpath. Eventually they veered off the path, up the embankment, and disappeared under a hedgerow.

Over the tops of the trees that lined the canal, a few miles distant, thin tendrils of steam rose from the city centre. Boilers and furnaces were working around the clock to keep the inhabitants from freezing solid, venting into the frigid air, and through those coiling vapours wove scores upon scores of Dementors.

Harry watched the mass twist and pulse like some grotesque imitation of a flock of starlings, drawn to the hopes and fears muggles that had been packed into the city. The air was thick with them; a dark cloud that cast an invisible shadow over everything below.

There was a reason Harry and Hermione had stayed away from the cities, but their winding path across the country had taken them closer than they’d ventured in months. It was humbling to be reminded that there were other people out there surviving.

He’d felt nothing of Voldemort in the days since his vision of Hogwarts and the uncertainty gnawed at him. When Voldemort had been away searching it had felt like they were getting ahead of him, but now he was back and moving in the open for reasons Harry did not know and he could feel time slipping away.

Hermione chirped and Harry tore his eyes away from the skyline and followed her into the undergrowth on the far side of the field, away from the canal that skirted an industrial estate.

“I worry for them too,” she said with a look, and Harry softly bumped his head against her.

She led them onwards, following a path she’d trodden the previous day. It circled the edge of the suburbs, past cookie-cutter housing estates and a deserted school, until it joined a pedestrian bridge that crossed the cut-away stretch of a motorway. Curiously, the roadway looked to have been recently ploughed clear; a single lane in each direction dusted with last night snowfall while three-foot high banks of it rose on either side, but there was no sight or sound of any traffic.

Further on, over what could have been a roundabout if the streetlights poking out through the snow were anything to go by, they found their path blocked by an enormous, sprawling, shopping centre. It stretched away from them in both directions, bracketed by the motorway at one end and high-fenced construction works at the other. Harry pivoted to go around but instead, Hermione headed straight towards it.

“Here?” Harry questioned with a tilt of his head.

“Quicker,” Hermione bobbed in response.

Harry couldn’t pinpoint exactly when they’d started to communicate in animal form. There was no one day where it had suddenly been possible; it was a gradual process enhanced by their growing familiarity with one another beyond just the non-human aspects. They’d been able to speak volumes with a single look as far back as fourth year. All it took now was re-learning those cues for a different, furred face.

Her eyes hadn’t changed though. “Follow me,” they said.

The section of the shopping centre they’d approached was glass-fronted, but the dark windows showed nothing but a reflection of the leaden sky. Hermione scampered up the snow bank that the wind had built against the side of the building, reaching two thirds of the way to the roof. From there she hopped up onto the decorative moulding that ran across the front of the building, walking the narrow ledge over the paving slabs thirty feet below until she came to a rainwater gutter that cut through the parapet. With a wiggle and swish of her bushy white tail, she was through the gap and out of sight.

Harry hurried to follow her. His wider shoulders made the ledge-walk slightly more precarious — his tail working overtime to keep his feet planted, and there was no way he could squeeze through the gap she had, but instead he let his powerful hind legs spring him up and over the low wall and onto the roof.

The roof was a maze of pipes and ducts, fans and machinery, all partially buried in snow or forming curious, wind-carved canyons and overhangs. He saw Hermione’s expectant face waiting patiently for him before she turned led him onward still through the warren of conduits.

Beyond the pipes rose a low, glass pyramid. The snow hadn’t stuck to it like everything else, leaving it mostly clear; a blue-green tooth piercing the endless white. Several of the lower panes of glass had been cranked open on winding mechanisms that had ceased in the cold, and it was at one of those foot-high openings that Hermione perched.

Harry padded over to stand next to her and looked down.

They were high, very high — perhaps fifty feet above a marble-like floor that was cluttered with rows and rows of tables and chairs. At regular intervals, bins and stacks of plastic trays were placed, and all around the sides were kiosks under brightly coloured banners and logos, some even decorated to match stereotypical international architecture. A mezzanine level hosted a handful of chain restaurants Harry recognised, with indoor seating away from the main area. They were looking down on the food court.

Hermione carefully stepped through the open window and onto the steel trussing that held the pyramid skylight aloft. She wound between the struts, heading for the far wall, and Harry gingerly followed.

The roof dropped lower near the walls and with sure feet the pair were able to drop down onto the pagoda-style roof of an Asian restaurant.

The oriental façade was just that: a façade. Behind the curved tiles the kitchen was open to the air and it was though there, by way of more grease-slickened ducting, that they finally reached the ground.

The kitchen was clean and tidy. The whole shopping centre had an air of the apocalyptic about it, but it was obvious that people hadn’t run from the building mid-meal as in most disaster movies. That said, the staff had clearly expected to return. Pre-prepared vegetables had turned to brown mush in plastic containers, a whiteboard displayed a scrawled message about menu changes, and a half-full bucket had been left under the drain plug of one of the fryers. They’d closed up ready for the morning shift and just… never returned.

Harry and Hermione exited through the front of the restaurant, threading between the tables topped with upturned chairs, and onto the upper level that wrapped around the food court. Hermione had gathered what she could on her first visit; soap, replacements for worn-through clothing, but Harry got the feeling that the rest of the kitchens would contain more of the same — nothing worth taking.

Dim light filtered into the cavernous space through the glass pyramid above. Occasionally a shower of snow would be blown in through the opening and drift down in the still air, dusting the tables below the glass.

Perhaps it was the acoustics, but Harry thought he might be able to hear something in the nothingness. The space seemed to amplify sound and distort it; the cacophony of five hundred diners reduced now to a phantom rustle or clang of something unseen. He supposed it could just have easily been a rat in another kitchen or snow shifting on the roof.

Hermione brushed him with her tail and led them in a silent trot around the food court to where it joined onto the mall proper.

They emerged on the upper of two levels. An endless parade of storefronts led in both directions, disappearing around the subtle curve that formed the crescent-shaped building. As in the food court, peaked skylights provided the only illumination, shining down on the polished floors, the dead potted plants, and minor kiosks that dotted the space between stores. They turned right and carried on.

Harry recognised the clothing and electronics stores, the pharmacies and the toys. The kiosks brought a strange sense of nostalgia for a normalcy long since lost. Keys cut, juice made to order, all of it deserted and so very different from what could be found in Diagon Alley. So very muggle.

He had a vague memory of being perhaps six or seven years of age and being dragged around a shopping centre not all that dissimilar from this one by Aunt Petunia. He remembered finding it mildly absurd that anyone could possibly need so much stuff, but he enjoyed it all the same. It was certainly better than when they deemed him old enough to wait in the car for the duration, or just stay at home entirely the year after that.

They crossed over one of the many bridges that connected the two sides of the upper level. Hermione’s head was tilted upwards, reading the signage of the passing stores to orient herself when there came a clatter and a stifled curse that rang out in the silent mall.

Harry and Hermione immediately pressed themselves tight against the wall, ears flat to skulls and eyes wide for danger. When after ten seconds it did not come, Harry dared to crawl to the edge of the walkway and look down through the glass railing at the level below.

Four figures had emerged from a side door into the main promenade. They were dressed like arctic explorers; thick coats zipped to their chins and fur-lined hoods pulled tight. Even so, Harry could hear the chattering teeth of the closest one.

A harsh beam of light pierced the gloom as one of them clicked on a torch. Its spotlight swept the storefronts before raking the upper level, passing directly across Harry who remained hidden behind the reflection on the glass. Hermione crept up next to him to see what was happening for herself.

“You sure there’s no-one here?” Asked one of the figures; male, but young.

“You see anyone on our way?” replied another. “Come on, I’m freezing my balls off!”

They shuffled closer to Harry and Hermione’s vantage point, the beam of the torch lingering over each store they passed.

“Gives me the creeps, this place,” muttered a third.

“No-one made you come.”

“I ain’t staying back there,” the boy replied. “I dunno, man, it just feels wrong.”

The others jeered at him, but Harry could see their nerves in the way their heads were constantly scanning the empty mall.

They came to a halt almost directly below Harry and Hermione’s vantage point, eyeing up an electronics store opposite.

“Here, hold this,” said the one with the torch, passing it to a companion and pulling a crowbar from the folds of his coat. He jammed it under the metal shutter of the store and heaved.

“Muggles,” nodded Harry.

“Looters,” Hermione replied, her disapproval clear without a word needing to be uttered.

The pair lingered a few minutes, watching the youths trying to prize the shutter open, but eventually their need to press on won out. Harry was also starting to get wary that the muggles might attract Dementors and they slunk away, leaving the boys to it.

A cry of success rang out behind them, presumably as they finally got the shutter open, but the two animals turned down a nondescript passage between two stores. The passage ended in a plain, white, staff-only door. The electric lock had failed with the power and Hermione nudged it open with ease and slipped through, Harry hot on her heels.

He might not know where they were going, but, like her, Harry could follow his nose through the labyrinth of passages beyond. The scent of fresh air grew stronger as they turned left, right, right again, and down a flight of concrete stairs until they emerged into a wide loading dock.

Crates and pallet trolleys littered the bay — the part that no shoppers were supposed to see, and the far wall was lined with shuttered doors to the outside, one of which had been left half-open.

They hopped down to the oil-stained concrete and out of the door, crossing the goods yard and over a barrier into the hedgerow beyond. Harry glanced back over his shoulder at the vast building and the more than a mile of detour Hermione had saved them from, before galloping to catch up with her once more.

Half an hour further on, where barren crop fields gave way to hilly pastures, they reached their destination.

It was the dam Harry saw first, its earthen embankment walling off the head of a shallow valley, holding back a wide expanse of ice. The reservoir should have been feeding fresh water to the city below but the outlets were choked with ice and it had frozen solid, feet-thick, on the surface.

Harry and Hermione approached from the hillside, sniffing the air to confirm they were alone. Hermione could have apparated them there from the tent, but they would have dropped in blind and with a conspicuous bang. Better to arrive unseen.

They padded out onto the snow-covered ice, paws gripping the slick surface and insulating from the chill, until they stood in the very centre of the lake. Harry shifted first and freed Hermione of the locket to take it himself. A sticking charm on his boots kept him from slipping as she joined him on two legs.

“I thought this would do for now, to save us hopping back and forth to the rock every time,” Hermione said, breathing into her gloved hands.

“It’ll work,” Harry agreed. “Remote enough, and nothing to set fire to. You don’t think we’ll be seen?”

Hermione shook her head.

“Too far to come on foot, and none of the roads up this way had been disturbed. Perhaps it would be visible at night, but we should be fine for a few hours.”

Harry rolled the stiffness from his shoulders, feeling the sting of the cold metal chain against his skin and took aim at a point fifty feet from where they stood.

“Pestis Incendium!”

Searing flame whipped from the tip of his wand, coiling over and around itself as it pooled on the ice. Steam hissed from beneath the flames and Harry stoked it higher, orange tongues leaping ten, fifteen feet into the air. The sucking inferno pulled at their clothes as air rushed in from all directions to feed the blaze, but as he cut off the flow of magic, it guttered and died.

The heat had melted a shallow depression in the ice that quickly refroze into glassy ripples; concentric circles centred on his attempted Fiendfyre.

Harry let the bitter air cool his skin before raising his arm once more and casting again.

“It still won’t catch,” he sighed after two more failed attempts. “What are we doing wrong?”

“I don’t know,” Hermione replied, her own frustration evident. “I know it’s not exactly advised learning material, but what’s the point of including it in your book if you’re just going to dance around the topic?”

She’d given up reading and rereading their limited texts. Harry was pretty sure she knew them all by heart now anyway. Hermione took Harry’s place front and centre and held her own wand aloft to try.

By late afternoon the reservoir was pockmarked with whorls, ridges, and craters, each a failed attempt at coaxing life into their demon fire. Hermione’s hair had started to break free of its ties and her cheeks were reddened by the repeated cycles of fiery heat and icy cold. It reminded Harry of particularly trying potions lessons, only the cost of getting it wrong was immolation and the reign of an immortal madman, not singed eyebrows.

“Argh!” Hermione cried as yet another flame flickered into nothingness.

“We’ll get there,” Harry said, though it was half-hearted. “Come on, we’re losing the light. We can come back tomorrow.”

“We’re not letting this beat us, Harry. Tomorrow. The day after. This damned spell isn’t where it ends. Pestis Incendium!”

Another roaring bonfire sprang to life on the ice, tumbling over itself in its eagerness to consume anything it could touch. The daylight had faded to the point that their faces were bathed in the orange glow of the fire. It danced and swayed, greedily gulping at the air, until something moved within it. A flash of fur, or was it scale. A fang, a wing, and a screech that had nothing to do with shifting ice.

Hermione wrenched her wand away and the fire died. She met Harry’s eyes, as wide as her own.

“Hermione, did you-”

“I… I’m not sure.”

“That definitely wasn’t normal fire,” Harry said, looking to the pool of steaming water she had left. “You saw that too, right?”

Hermione nodded.

“How did you do it?” Harry asked in equal parts elation and wonderment.

“I don’t know. I was…” she blushed. “I was angry.”

Harry let out a tense laugh.

“We should have known. You don’t often get angry, but when you do-” He threw a mock right jab reminiscent of the one Draco Malfoy had once been on the receiving end of. Hermione swatted his arm away, her serious expression also cracking into a smile.

“Do you think you could do it again?”

“Maybe?” She shrugged.  “It was a spur-of-the-moment thing and the moment has sort of passed, but I could try.”

Hermione raised her wand again, aiming further away than she had before, and cast.

The familiar bloom of heat washed over them and the flames grew, only this time they were definitely taking a distinct shape. They did not dart sporadically into the air, but curled inwards, overlapping to form areas of bright definition and thin shadow in a hulking, animalistic form. The thing, whatever it was, brayed and the heat from the inferno swelled.

With audible effort, Hermione yanked her arm away. The faceless, formless beast looked as though it wanted to protest, the flames surging towards them before it collapsed and extinguished on the ground.

“I could feel it pulling,” Hermione panted. “My control slipping.”

“But you did it! Hermione, you did it! We can finally destroy this fucking thing,” Harry whooped, tugging at the chain around his neck. “And any other we find.”

She gave him a nervous smile.

“Not here though,” Hermione hastened to add. “I thought it would be fine to practice, but actually feeling it, no, we need to be much, much further away.”

“That’s okay, we can do that.” Harry had begun to pace, planning out their next moves. “We go back and pack up the tent, apparate a few miles down the coast from the rock, scope it out, then if it’s clear we torch this thing.”

He punctuated his idea by cupping her face and kissing her firmly, a squeak of surprise escaping her mouth past his lips.

“This is it, Hermione. There’s nothing left standing in our way once we find the last two.”

They took a longer route back, swinging wide around the distant city as the inky twilight now concealed the droves of Dementors orbiting it. Harrys loping stride ate up the miles, driven by the promise of destroying another horcrux, and deliberately this time, not by chance or luck.

He let himself imagine what it would be like to be free of the golden noose, to be able to freely switch at will or to find Hufflepuff’s cup in some dark cave and be able to obliterate it then and there without ever touching the thing. Hermione’s shorter, quicker steps by his side were no less eager and he frequently caught her glimmering eyes as they darted across the landscape.

Harry’s anticipation made the comedown all the more bitter as they neared the campsite and the temperature plummeted. The soft, powdered snow had frozen so hard it squeaked under paw with each step.

His fur prickled and stood on end as he and Hermione stalked closer to where they’d pitched the tent. He knew why, but seeing it with his own eyes was no less disturbing.

Tattered cloaks and skeletal arms, a host of Dementors drifted about the sagging canvas of the tent.

He exchanged a troubled look with Hermione. They’d never found a Dementor-repelling charm that could be anchored to their location. Until now, they had managed by staying alert, moving when a larger horde was spotted, and a large helping of sheer luck. It appeared as though their luck had run out.

Harry hadn’t felt the distinctive pressure on his skin of passing through their usual charms, but his senses were filled with the thirty or more Dementors that surrounded their camp and the unnatural cold they cast around them. It would have been easy to miss.

They were still hidden. Maybe they could beat a hasty retreat and wait for the Dementors to move on after finding no prey inside. Maybe. But the locket burned around his neck, so close to being cast off for good if only they could reach the tent.

It was only thirty Dementors, fifty at most. Harry had fought off more than that before, alone to boot, and they needn’t banish them for good — only buy themselves enough time to summon the tent and leave.

Harry looked at Hermione.

“We can take them.”

“Are you sure?” her gaze spoke back to him.

“Positive.” Harry shook his neck, causing the locket to sway and Hermione understood.

She shifted back into human form, crouching in the snow next to Harry and reached over to take the locket from him, passing it over her own head — he had the stronger patronus and it would be all the more potent if he were free of the horcrux.

The Dementors around the tent sensed the change immediately. The sudden appearance of a magical, human soul caused them to pivot towards Harry and Hermione, gaping mouths sucking at the air in rattling gasps, tasting.

As soon as the chain was free of his head, Harry shifted too, palming his wand and rising from his knees in one smooth motion. The cold prickled his cheeks as the Dementors swooped towards them, cloaks fluttering, twice the bounty now materialised from thin air before them.

Harry gathered in his mind his collected memories of the woman beside him whose hand he held tight; memories of her smile, her voice, her laughter in his ear and her flesh beneath his fingers, and poured them out of his heart and into his wand.

“Expecto Patronum!”

The dazzling silver stag leapt from the tip of his wand and charged down the approaching mass of Dementors. Its light reflected off the snow and ice, painting the entire campsite in glaring white that forced Harry’s eyes to narrow slits.

The Dementors didn’t stand a chance and were sent reeling in all directions as, through the blinding light, sliced a crackling red bolt.

The curse scorched Harry’s sleeve as he flung himself sideways out of its path, losing his grip on Hermione in the process. It detonated against a tree behind him, setting his ears ringing and showering him with burning splinters.

Harry’s concentration shattered and the stag faded away, the night now impenetrably dark in its after-image. Temporarily blinded, Harry scrambled as he heard barked orders and the tramping of heavy boots.

“Someone’s here!”

“Over there, I think I got one!”

“Incarcerous!”

Something heavy whistled inches over Harry’s head, ruffling his hair. His eyes had recovered enough to make out silhouettes against the pale canvas of the tent and he sent a volley of jinxes back towards their attackers, just missing them as they scattered.

Where was Hermione?

He couldn’t transform and run — she wore the locket and couldn’t follow, and he couldn’t apparate away or they’d have no way of knowing how to find one another. He had to reach her, now.

Another spell crashed into the snow by his left hand, showering him with ice chips and he rolled away from the impact, pushing himself back to his feet to run to cover. More spellfire chased his heels until he crashed down behind a large boulder.

Back against the rock, Harry took a steadying breath, sharp and cold against the heat of his chest. He leant out around it, then pulled his head back before the answering bolts of light could reach him. For once, the snow wasn’t just a hindrance, outlining the dark figures even in the fading light. There were at least three of them on him; one hiding behind the flap of the tent, the other two in scattered cover. He hadn’t seen Hermione, but he thought there might have been a flash of blue light coming from the far side of the tent.

He pushed off the boulder, staying low and turning to face it. Harry dug his back heel into the ground, took aim, and banished the rock with all his might. It went careening forwards, startling his attackers and utterly demolishing the fallen log that one of them had ducked behind. They managed to leap out of the way but Harry was already moving, firing as he went.

There was definitely spellfire on the far side of the camp. Two more attackers were firing at a point some way into the woods, presumably where Hermione was hiding. Harry hit one of them in the back with a bludgeoning curse, sending him to the ground with a wet crack, but in doing so he’d allowed the other three to circle behind him.

Harry ducked a scorching hex and half-dived, half-fell behind a narrow tree. He could hear them moving again, fanning out to get around his meagre cover. He wanted to shout to Hermione but he couldn’t risk letting them know who they’d stumbled across.

He leant out and fired at the one approaching from the right but ducked back immediately when three answering curses shot towards him. If he didn’t move right now, he would be boxed in.

Heart thumping, Harry launched himself off the tree and into a full sprint towards where he thought Hermione could be. He thought he might even have seen a flash of her face as she battled her own assailant, but there was no time to confirm. Multicoloured bolts of light hissed through the air around him, carving up the space he’d been only a second before. His own hexes were thrown wildly over his shoulder, unaimed, hoping only to stop them drawing a bead on him.

His attention was suddenly drawn to a rapidly approaching ball of yellow light. It was the same part of his brain that told him when he was on a collision path with a bludger — the “move now!” part. Harry had nowhere to move.

“Protego!”

The translucent shield blossomed behind him but it was too late. The spell clipped the edge of the expanding barrier, ricochetted downwards and struck his ankle. Pain lanced up Harry’s leg, his momentum carrying him forwards until his foot hit the floor and buckled. An anguished howl burst from his lips as he tumbled to the ground.

Harry rolled onto his back, pointing his wand back the way he had come but the ropes were already flying. They ensnared his wand arm, lashing it to his body and squeezing the breath from his lungs.

A figure jogged out of the darkness towards him, their wand aimed directly at his face.

“Now who-”

A bolt of red light struck the man in the face and he fell like a rag doll. Harry craned his neck upwards to see Hermione across the camp, fear etched across her face as she twirled her wand again. His bindings frayed and slackened, but remained tangled around his body as he fought to wriggle free.

Harry extracted his wand arm, meaning to sever the rest of his bindings until another attacker emerged from the gloom. He rolled right to avoid their curse and felled the assailant with a well-placed counter-jinx. The ropes were slowly working loose if he could just ignore the stabbing, grinding pain throbbing in his ankle.

Another glance backwards showed him that Hermione had closed on him, coming to his aid. The distance between them had halved, but over her shoulder Harry could see one of the cloaked figures taking aim.

“Look out!”

She followed his frantic gaze and spun around, bringing her wand up. The spell flew past her outstretched arm and caught her square in the chest, lifting her from the ground and launching Hermione ten feet backwards to slam back down again. Harry heard the air forced from her lungs by the impact, and the choking sound of her trying to claw it back.

“Expelliarmus!”

His wand was ripped from his hand, then a heavy boot stamped down on his outstretched wrist for good measure, crunching as white-hot pain shot all the way to his shoulder.

Harry drew short, sharp breaths, gasping through the radiating pain of his wrist and ankle and the mounting dread of being disarmed. His bonds were tightened to a suffocating degree and Hermione was similarly trussed and dumped next to him.

“Wake the others, if you can,” said a gruff voice — a sickeningly familiar gruff voice. Walden Macnair leaned over the pair of them, pulling his insulated face covering down and leering at his captives.

His companion returned with two of the other attackers, one looking significantly injured and not entirely lucid. Evidently one of them hadn’t made it. Burning hatred for the man above him filled Harry. They shouldn’t have let him live.

“The tent was mostly empty. A bit of food, some clothes, nothing worth anything.”

Harry silently thanked Hermione and her beaded bag that was still tucked under her winter coat. He wanted desperately to look at her, to promise he would get them out of this, to know that she was okay, but he was terrified of drawing attention to her. He could hear her shallow breathing beside him.

The rush of the fight had kept him warm, but lying in the snow with the adrenalin leeching out of him, Harry began to shake. Each tremor jolted his injured joints with a stab of discomfort.

“No dog,” the other man continued. “I don’t think it was them. Are you sure-”

“You saw my arm!” barked Macnair. “Anyway, who do we have camping out here all alone?”

For the second time that night, Harry was blinded by dazzling light, this time from a wand sone directly onto his face. His heart plummeted at the audible gasp from one of the snatchers.

“Well,” Macnair purred, “if it isn’t the famous Harry Potter and his mudblood friend. I know someone who’d like to meet you.”

Chapter Text

Draco watched the silent snowflakes swirl past his bedroom window, briefly illuminated by the light spilling from the manor’s high windows before passing into black again. Beyond the snowstorm, a patch of darkness rippled. Its tattered cloak was blacker than the nothingness around it, sucking in the feeble light rather than merely the absence of it. He exhaled, breath fogging in the frigid air of the room and when it cleared, the thing was gone.

He pulled the fur-lined cloak tighter around his shoulders for what little difference it would make. Behind him, matching furs lay piled on the undisturbed bed. He hadn’t been sleeping much. Noone in the house had.

For once, it might have been preferable to stay at that wretched castle. Ironic, since the Easter holidays had been cancelled for everyone else and they were trapped there whether they liked it or not. Draco was trapped in a very different way. He hadn’t asked to come back, he simply was.

News of Severus’ death had spread through the halls like Fiendfyre. Nobody had seen a body, of course. Nobody knew for certain, but they all knew. Every student had been dragged out of bed in the early hours of the morning by their heads of house. That preening fool, Slughorn, had been wearing a look of detached shock beneath his ridiculous moustache as he led the Slytherins to the Great Hall.

The other houses had filed in, looking equally perturbed and sleep-fogged, until the Carrow twins sauntered through the double doors, dressed and alert, and climbed the dais where the head usually stood.

Their proclamation was swift and without ceremony. Severus had stood down as headmaster effective immediately and the male Carrow was to assume the position — his sister now taking his role as deputy head and Head of Discipline. All holidays were cancelled, all post was forfeit, all permissions, rescinded.

The staff took the news with dejected resignation. Some of the students were more vocal in their disbelief, but the overall air was that of numbness. Severus had not been well liked — no, he had been outright despised — and his resignation could not be met with sadness, but most of them knew that, for them, things would get worse.

The following day, Draco had been pulled aside and reassured that, of course, himself and a select few would retain the privileges their unquestioning loyalty had bought them, and that in fact he was warmly expected back at home for Easter. He hadn’t understood why until he’d stepped out of the floo at the manor.

Draco blinked away the memory as his mind returned to the present. Lapses such as these had been happening more frequently, probably tied to how little time he spent in his bed of late. Something glinted out in the grounds, the reflection of a momentary flash of light somewhere unseen, gone as quickly as it came. He narrowed his eyes but saw nothing but inky black and churning white. He didn’t even know what time it was. It was late, or early, Draco could tell that much.

The panelled walls of his childhood room bored him, pressed in on him until his feet carried him out into the hall just for something to do. The elves had left another plate of food outside his door, next to the previous two, all untouched. The fact that nobody had thought to tidy them up was significant in itself. Perhaps he was hungry, or perhaps the ache in his gut was just his new state of being. Either way, he ignored it.

He stalked down the carpeted hall, past portraits whose names he’d once learned but who were now so much pigment on canvas for all the interest he could muster. The wide stairs at the end of the landing led down into the main hall, facing the doors to the grounds so as to be the first thing any prospective visitor saw. Draco turned at the bottom, eschewing the dining room that he could no longer stomach to eat in and crossing the hall into the drawing room.

There was a fire burning in the hearth at the far end of the room, casting its flickering light over the chairs and sofas that had been pushed to the sides, and the lone figure that inhabited the room.

Draco’s mother sat in a chair by the fire, her own furs wrapped tight around her thin frame. She was still beautiful, not a hair out of place, but her pinched expression and glassy eyes belied her true state of mind. Only Draco’s father pretended to be happy with their current situation, and poorly at that.

She watched him as he crossed the room to a small trolley and poured himself a glass of something amber from the decanter that sat atop it. Draco saw the flicker of disapproval that crossed her face, but she was wise enough not to say anything.

The alcohol burned his throat and set his empty stomach churning but it would be worth it if it let him pass out dreamlessly later on. He sank a second glass and replaced the crystal stopper with a shaky hand.

“Draco?”

His mothers voice, soft and cautious, as if she were unsure how he might respond. He didn’t look round.

“Draco, I-”

Whatever she had been about to say was cut off by the banging of the front doors swinging open and the howl of the wind that raced in behind them. The house was cold but it was nothing compared to the air that surged into the room, pooling around his ankles like meltwater before the offending party could wrestle the doors closed again.

Draco spun on his heel, steadying himself with a hand against the drinks trolley and his mother rose from her chair as four black-cloaked figures stumped into the drawing room dragging two bound captives between them.

The leader beat the snow from his cloak onto the carpet and pulled down his face wrap, revealing himself to be Macnair.

“We got Potter!” he blustered, beady eyes alight with malice.

“You- what?” Narcissa asked.

“Potter! We got Potter, and his mudblood bitch.”

Macnair reached back and dragged the captives forward into the firelight. Sure enough, Draco recognised the face of his childhood nemesis and the muggleborn know-it-all. They looked different, harder, their faces set and weathered, Potters jaw dark with stubble. He was favouring one side, trying not to put any weight on his left leg.

In fact, looking around at the others, it was clear that there had been a fight. One of the party was being held up by his companions, his head lolling and blood steadily dripping into the fibres of the carpet.

Narcissa approached the pair to examine them more closely while Draco waited, impassive. He caught the eye of both of them, but could read nothing in their expressions as he gave them nothing in his.

“Search them while I summon the Dark Lord,” Macnair said, shoving a pair of wands and what looked like a handbag into Narcissa’s arms. “Start with her bag.”

Draco thought he caught a momentary flicker of alarm in Granger’s widened eyes, but it was quickly mirrored on everyone else’s face as the air in the room grew still.

“No need. I am already here.”

Lord Voldemort waltzed into the room as though his feet never touched the floor. He was dressed as always in long black robes that flowed on invisible currents, seemingly impervious to the cold that had driven the rest of the house’s residents to permanent winter wear. Behind him lurked the ever-present Pettigrew, simpering in his master’s shadow. Draco remembered the hollow dread of coming home to their new house guests.

The room was silent save for the dark wizard’s footsteps and the hiss of his robes along the floor.

“Harry Potter, at long last,” Voldemort whispered, though all could hear. “You have given my Death Eaters quite the chase, but it was only a matter of time before you ended up before me again.”

Potter had locked eyes with the dark lord, refusing to look away.

“And to think,” Voldemort continued, “There are some who thought that you were out there, leading a resistance, fighting the inevitable, when it is clear you have simply been hiding. Hiding and waiting to be found.”

Macnair and the other Death Eaters sniggered sycophantically. There was movement at the entrance to the drawing room and Draco saw his father slip in. His eyes widened at the sight of public enemies number one and two in bindings in his house, and his mouth began to open, but a sharp look from Narcissa silenced him.

“And your obedient mudblood, always at your heel.” Voldemort turned his piercing gaze on Granger, who held it with equal venom. “Those cold nights must have gotten lonely, no? Lonely enough to debase yourself like your father?”

His words had the intended effect as Potter twitched in his ropes. His mouth stayed firmly closed, but he could have flayed the dark lord with his eyes. Voldemort leered.

“I think I shall break her first while you watch, Harry. See what comes of defying me.”

Draco caught the minute movement of Potters eyes, the flicker to Granger’s neck and if he looked closely, yes, a sliver of gold glinting beneath the collar of her coat. Curious.

“Coward.”

It was the first word either of them had uttered since being dragged in out the cold, and Potter spat the two syllables directly at Voldemort.

Voldemort’s lip curled dangerously as he slowly turned back to Potter.

“Oh yes?” he said, his words dripping with poison.

“After all these years,” Potter ground out between clenched teeth, “Surrounded by your cronies, my hands tied and no wand, you’re still too scared to face me. You’re a coward.”

If it had been quiet before, it was silent as death now. Draco recognised the bait for what it was. He suspected that the Dark Lord recognised it too, but it didn’t matter. He couldn’t torture Granger first, now. Whether it was true or not, he couldn’t let the taunt stand when so many had heard it. It was clever, really, the way Potter had forced his hand, though he was about to pay a dear price for it.

After a pause so long and heavy the air could have been turned to glass, Voldemort replied.

“A new plan,” he said to the room at large though he was still glaring at Potter. “First, I will teach young Harry some manners, some humility, and then,” He spoke directly to Potter now, “when you are begging me for the mercy of death, then I will break the mudblood so exquisitely that you would take her life with your own hand just to end her torment.”

Voldemort spun around, drawing his wand from the folds of his robes as he swept in a wide circle around the room, suddenly full of zeal.

“In the centre, here,” he said loudly, gesturing to the party to move Potter to the middle of the room. “And remove his bindings. I don’t want any hindrances.”

Granger found her voice as Potter was shoved forwards, stumbling on his injured leg and letting out an involuntary grunt.

“No! Harry! Let him go!”

“Put her with the others,” Voldemort commanded, silencing her cries with a flick of his wand.

Pettigrew grabbed hold of the ropes binding her and wrestled her towards the doors, fighting for every foot as she kicked and pulled against him. No sound came from her mouth but it continued to work frantically. Draco didn’t need to hear her to know what she was saying. “Harry.”

The rest of Macnair’s band left to tend to their injured member, leaving Draco, his mother and father, Macnair, Voldemort, and Potter in the room. Potter’s ropes had been cut and he flexed his arms instinctively but remained leaning awkwardly to one side.

“Anything smart to say now, Harry?” asked Voldemort, looking awfully like he was enjoying himself. “Think wisely, they will be the last sane words you ever speak.”

“Get it over with. It can’t be as painful as listening to you,” Potter grunted. It was a valiant, if pointless display, Draco thought. Potter was clearly suffering. His mistake, though, was underestimating the Dark Lord’s sadism. He would regret his defiance. They all did in the end.

Nevertheless, Voldemort bristled. He obviously wasn’t used to anything other than fear, or fear disguised as reverence. He trailed his wand gracefully through the air, a feather-light extension of the limb it was delicately clasped in. His other hand came up to caress the knotted wood in an uncomfortable display of what could have been called affection.

“So be it,” he purred, before levelling his wand at Potter. “Crucio.”

Potter’s body seized up as the spell hit him, then his leg buckled and he collapsed to the floor twitching and writhing. A strangled cry forced its way out of his tortured throat and his fingers bit into his palms as he involuntarily rolled over.

After thirty seconds his limbs began to shake, his head repeatedly thumping on the floor, bloodying his nose. After a minute he’d stopped making coherent sounds at all.

Finally, Voldemort ended the curse. Potter gasped in a ragged breath, wracked by tremors of cold and lingering agony. His eyes were fuzzy and unfocussed behind his cracked glasses, sweeping over Draco without seeing.

“Accept it, Harry,” Voldemort purred. “This is your destiny. We were meant to end up here, you and I. You deserve this.”

He lowered his wand and a second Cruciatus curse enveloped Potter’s body. Draco had witnessed uncountable faceless people tortured at the hands of the Carrows, his father, his aunt, and occasionally the Dark Lord himself. He did not avert his gaze or clutch his stomach, but he did not relish it either. Something about watching a boy he went to school with twist in agony on the floor of his home carved out what little humanity remained within him.

Potter’s limbs were contorting themselves into grotesque shapes, the muscles firing sporadically with no sense of proper articulation or self-preservation. His cries were becoming rougher, less human and more animalistic as his larynx tore from the continued strain.

Again and again the Dark Lord humbled him. He would allow short breaks every now and then — a minute here, two there — to delay the inevitable babbling insanity, but there was always the promise of more pain to follow.

Potter’s screams stopped entirely, the spasms of his abdomen preventing him from drawing the breath needed to cry out, but throughout, Voldemort was becoming more frustrated, more irate, instead of basking in the glow of his long-sought victory over Potter. He cast each successive curse with increased vehemence and ended it with unusual dissatisfaction.

Eventually, as the blackness beyond the windows took on a blueish hue, the Dark Lord broke off entirely.

“Something’s not right,” he said agitatedly, pacing back and forth and examining his wand. Potter lay prostrate at his feet. His glasses caught the firelight, turning them into orange mirrors that hid his eyes. The shallow movement of his chest and occasional spasm said he still lived, but blood trickled steadily from his nose, under the rims of his glasses, and the ruins of his nails that had been torn across the floor.

“Fine work, my Lord,” said Macnair, “If he ever thinks again, he’ll be-”

“Quiet!” Voldemort demanded, and Macnair was cowed immediately.

“No, no, the wand protests. It fights me. It isn’t mine.”

To Draco’s numb horror, the Dark Lord rounded on him.

“The night of Dumbledore’s death, show it to me!”

“I…” Draco faltered under the frantic, scarlet glare of Lord Voldemort.

“Legilimens!”

An invisible white-hot spike drove through Draco’s forehead and into his mind. The drawing room was gone. Sights and sounds, smells and tastes whirled past him and Voldemort’s razor-sharp talons snagged on them all, clawing at them and discarding each as worthless. There was a screaming which might have been his own, reaching a crescendo before he was suddenly back on the Astronomy tower one year ago. The old headmaster stood before him, wandless, his back to the ledge and a look of profound sorrow on his wrinkled face.

Draco tried to move, tried cut it off, to think of something else but nothing worked. It was as if Voldemort was stood behind him, hands clasped around Draco’s head, forcing his eyes open with nails that dug into the flesh of his face. Forcing him to watch.

He saw the other Death Eaters arriving, urging him to strike down the old man. His wand-hand trembled, and then Severus stepped past them all. Dumbledore looked at him, said something that was carried away on the wind, unheard, and then a flash of green from the potion master’s wand and Dumbledore was falling, falling, falling out of sight.

But no, that wasn’t it. Voldemort’s anger and confusion radiated through Draco’s skull, rebounding off the inside agonisingly. Time slowed, and then reversed. Dumbledore flew back up and alighted on the tower. Severus’ wand recalled its killing curse, and he backed away. The Death Eaters left and it was just Draco and the headmaster on the tower, and then…

Then Dumbledore’s wand leapt up off the floor some distance away, back into his hand as Draco’s disarming charm was sucked back into his wand. It happened again, and a third time as Voldemort poured over that single moment, watching it forwards and backwards until every facet had been examined. Then something cold and final rippled through his mind.

The claws retracted and the drawing room swam back into focus as Draco pitched forwards onto his knees and emptied the meagre contents of his stomach onto the floor. The liquor burned worse on the way back up, splashing over his hands and mixing with the bile of his empty stomach. Something warm and wet trickled down his top lip and he wiped it with a shaking hand, seeing with detached curiosity that it was blood.

“It’s not possible,” Voldemort was muttering. He was pacing again, though Draco kept his head bent low as another wave of nausea wracked him. “How could it… unless… Severus.”

He growled the late Death Eaters name. Draco couldn’t see his face, but the way everyone else in the room bar the barely-conscious Potter took three steps back told him enough.

There was more talking, sounds Draco was having a hard time parsing but he thought it could have been his father. He turned his head to find Potter looking at him. A blood vessel had burst in one of his eyes, painting the iris emerald green against vivid red. There was something in that look. Was it pity, or sorrow, or was Potter even aware that he was looking at Draco?

Voldemort’s voice rose over the hum.

“Take Potter away. Bring another up. I must be sure before I continue.”

Hands scooped Potter under his arms and dragged him out of Draco’s field of view. There was more commotion, scuffling, and he found the strength to rock back upright to sit on his heels, head still woozy from the invasion of his mind.

Something was happening. His father had tight hold of his mother who seemed to be fighting to reach Draco. She was talking, pleading. He recognised the tone of her voice but not the words. Before him, Voldemort peered down at him, head cocked to the side.

“You don’t even know what you did, do you,” he said softly. Draco couldn’t tell if the words were coming through his ears or directly into his head.

“But then, if you had done as I instructed, this would have happened anyway and I would have never known of Severus’ betrayal. Yes, it is better this way. It had to be this way,” Voldemort said matter-of-factly.

Something was coming. Draco’s subconscious mind had reached a conclusion while the rest of him was still struggling to regain control of his faculties. The way Voldemort spoke, the way he held himself above Draco, closing on him. Draco’s hind-brain was screaming at him to move, to leave, but he was already caught in the web.

“You could have been a valuable servant, Draco, but you lack conviction. I will let nothing stand between me and ultimate power. Nothing. Least of all, you.”

The tip of Voldemort’s wand came into focus, levelled at Draco’s face. He turned to look at his mother, to see the horror etched upon her face as she clawed against his father’s strangling arms and wonder “How?”

Then all was green. Then all was gone.

Chapter Text

A caustic hate such as Hermione had never felt for anyone before seared through her veins as Peter Pettigrew dragged her bodily from the drawing room of the manor. She had been robbed of her voice and in its place lay only fear and unbridled rage. Rage for the man holding her who had betrayed Harry’s parents and brought Voldemort back into being. For the monster himself who wanted nothing more than to see them suffer. For every damned one of them back there letting it all happen.

She was manoeuvred deeper into the house, past the main staircase and down an unlit hallway. Hermione knew Harry would do it, but it hadn’t made living it any less heart-wrenching. The locket still bounced against her chest as she stumbled in Pettigrew’s grip and if Voldemort found it, everything would be lost. He’d willingly put himself under Voldemort’s wand for her.

Hate was not an emotion Hermione regularly reached for, preferring instead to condemn a person’s actions rather than their character, but there was no more fitting word for what was inside her; the only thing preventing despair from consuming her entirely.

They made a series of turns in quick succession and then she was hauled down a narrow flight of stone stairs. She would have gone tumbling down them if it weren’t for her captor’s grubby, too-long nails biting into the ropes around her chest.

A door of vertical iron bars waited at the bottom, lit only by a flickering orb of orange light. At one time it might have been a wine cellar, but an acrid, distinctly human smell made her doubt that it was still used as such.

Pettigrew tapped the handleless door with his wand and it swung open. Hermione was roughly shoved inside, losing her balance and just managing to twist as she fell to land on her shoulder with a stab of pain. The moment she had crossed the threshold, the silencing charm had broken and her bindings dissolved, but the door was slammed closed again before she could get back to her feet.

Hermione hurled herself at the bars.

“Let me out! Harry! HARRY!” Tears wet her cheeks as Pettigrew disappeared back up the staircase and out of sight, her cries echoing uselessly down the halls.

She slumped against the bars and sobbed. Now that the object of her hatred was out of sight, desolation gained the upper hand. Soon the muffled, distant shouts of someone in immense agony drifted down the stairs and she beat against the iron anew, screaming for Harry until her throat was raw, but it made no difference.

After an indeterminate amount of time, a bony hand was lain gently on her shaking shoulder. Hermione flinched away and twisted towards the source.

“Come now, dear, you’ll do yourself an injury, and you can’t very well help him if you’re hurt.”

The voice was hoarse and reedy, but vaguely familiar, and as the dim light from beyond the cell illuminated a wrinkled face, she realised it was one she recognised.

“Mister Olivander?”

“That’s right,” he smiled kindly. “Let’s sit you down over here.”

He helped her to her feet and, for the first time, Hermione realised that there were several other people in the room too. None of them were known to her as Olivander was, although she thought one woman looked vaguely familiar from their raid on the Ministry all those months ago. Some figures she couldn’t see at all, lying with their backs to her, unmoving.

Olivander himself looked terrible. His spine had a distinct curve that she didn’t remember from his Diagon Alley days, forcing him to stoop low, and he was so thin that she could count the bones in his hands. A threadbare cloak was wrapped around his robes which hung off his emaciated frame, and Hermione noticed that she too was shivering.

He led her over to the side of the cell where a blanket had been lain down to protect from the chill of the stone floor and, with great effort, sat. Hermione sat down next to him.

“They have Harry,” she breathed, as though by not saying it out loud she could prevent it from being true.

“I see,” Olivander replied gravely. “I am sorry, Miss Granger.”

“You remember me?”

“I remember all my customers, my dear,” he said with a hint of that old twinkle in his sunken eyes. “Vine and dragon heartstring, ten-and-three-quarter inches, nice and springy. Though…” Olivander paused and considered her. “I suspect you may find a certain Holly and phoenix wand just as amenable.”

“I’m not sure I…” said Hermione. Her concern for Harry was taking up a considerable amount of her rational thought.

“You and Mister Potter are close, are you not?”

She nodded, unable to truly articulate the depth of what they shared.

“Hold on to that, Miss Granger,” he insisted. “Most stuck down here are not so fortunate; separated from their loved ones, no-one to fight for them.”

“Why are you here?”

“Oh, that does not matter now. I believe my usefulness to the Dark Lord has come to an end. Fight, Miss Granger, for Mister Potter’s sake. Do not give up while you still have breath in you. Who you are — what you are, these people underestimate you.”

Hermione scoured his shrewd eyes for an explanation but could find nothing beyond his kind, slightly knowing expression. Did he mean because she was muggleborn or… something else?

Before she could ask him for clarification, there came the sound of footsteps on the stairs followed by a rhythmic thumping. Hermione leapt to her feet and moved to where she could see past the barred door, Olivander creaking to a stand after her.

Pettigrew was descending the stairs again, dragging something behind him.

“Back!” he barked, aiming his wand through the door at the prisoners. “Back against the wall!”

Hermione and the others warily backed away from the door. When he was satisfied, Pettigrew opened the cell and, wand still aimed, dragged the object into the room.

“Harry!” Hermione cried when she saw him in Pettigrew’s grasp, and started towards him.

“Ah!” the man snapped, brandishing his wand again and she froze.

Pettigrew dragged Harry in by the collar and dropped him, then peered around the cell at each of the prisoners.

“You!” he said, jabbing his wand towards the Ministry woman.

“Nooo!” she shrieked, curling into a ball against the wall. “No! Please!”

“Come here!” A thick cord shot from his wand and lashed itself around her ankle, dragging her towards the door.

“NO!” Her screams climbed an octave. “I have a family!”

“Shut up you-”

“I’ll go,” said Olivander.

“What?” Pettigrew seemed confused.

“Leave her. I’ll come with you.” Olivander repeated.

Pettigrew narrowed suspicious eyes at the old man, but eventually he vanished the rope binding the woman and conjured a new set that wound themselves around Olivander’s wrists. Hermione caught that same, inscrutable look in his eye as he passed her, then he was gone up the staircase and the door slammed closed once more.

“Harry!”

Hermione fell on him in an instant, cradling his head with her hands. Her eyes swam as her fingers smeared the blood on his cheeks, the sweat in his hair. He was unconscious, but an ear laid to his chest brought a wash of relief at the steady thumping beneath.

“Oh, Harry.” She planted a tear-moistened kiss to his forehead.

Olivander had been right; she needed to do something, and now that Harry was with her again there was no better moment. She did not know what Voldemort had planned, but there was no doubt in her mind that he wasn’t done with either of them. Pettigrew could return at any moment for him, or her for that matter.

Hermione cast around the cell for something — anything. The other prisoners were keeping well back, like being near Harry Potter was some curse that they might all be infected with. They would be no help.

She was still wandless, but perhaps there was something else she could do.

Her eyes landed on the cell door; seemingly the only way in or out of the room, and she approached it. The bars were as thick as her thumb, but there was a good six inches between each of them. Not enough space for a human to slip through, but a small animal maybe.

The locket sat heavy around her neck, its metaphorical weight far greater than its physical weight. Harry had barely survived transforming while wearing it, and if she were to try the same then they might both end up unconscious. The only other option was leaving it on Harry, but if someone came for them while she was gone, she would have effectively handed the horcrux to Voldemort on a platter.

Time Hermione didn’t have ticked away as she weighed the choices before her.

Another distant scream made the decision for her — no matter what, they could not stay here. She would shift, consequences be damned.

“I won’t leave you,” she whispered into Harry’s ear, then returned and braced herself against the cell door. From her recollection, Harry had suffered great pain and confusion; unable to tell who she was or where they were. Not ideal, to say the least, but perhaps bearable for a few seconds. If she positioned herself just right, she might be able to shift, fall between the bars, and return to human form on the other side before losing too much control.

Hermione took a deep, steadying breath and wedged her shoulder between two of the bars. “For Harry,” she thought, and transformed.

There was a blast of sound and smell, a dizzying shift of perspective, and then she was stood outside the cell on four furred legs, completely unscathed.

Nose, ears, paws, and tail, all functional and accounted for, and all senses on overdrive as her heart pumped adrenalin round her system. Importantly, there was no pain.

Somewhere deep in Hermione’s mind, the final piece of a puzzle she didn’t know she had been building clicked into place. It begged her to look at it, but she refused, for she had only one purpose in that moment and it lay ahead, up the stone stairs.

Hermione scampered up the stairs, for once cursing her bright wight fur that would be incredibly conspicuous in the dark house. A gasp from behind told her the escape had not gone unnoticed, but Hermione doubted any of them would raise the alarm. Her ears picked up water running in pipes behind the walls, the footfalls of people in other parts of the manor, and the sickening sounds of abject misery at Voldemort’s hand.

At the top she turned right, remembering that she’d been pushed left on her way down, but beyond that, her memory was fuzzy. She’d been so overwhelmed with their capture that she’d neglected to commit the path to the dungeon to memory.

Fortunately, she didn’t have to. Her nose picked up the unmistakable scent of Pettigrew turning right at the next corridor. It was a mix of stale sweat, Earth, and something decidedly prey-like.

Getting out of the cell had been the first step, but now Hermione was forced to consider the next. Wands would be the most important. Without a wand they couldn’t apparate away, so that would be her goal. Their own if she could find them, but any wand if not.

She paused at the next intersection and thought. If their effects were still in the drawing room, they’d be all but unobtainable, but she didn’t know where else they might have been taken. Perhaps if she could just get a look inside, she could give them up as lost or keep looking.

Hermione didn’t pass a single soul on her way back to the entrance hall, though the sounds of ongoing torture grew louder. The drawing room doors had been left ajar and with increasing trepidation, Hermione peered through the gap.

Olivander was heaped on the floor, a quivering mess while Voldemort stalked around him, giddy, elated, damn near drunk on his own power.

“Do you believe the legends now, wandmaker?” he cackled, then filled the room with the red light of the cruciatus curse.

The sound of the old man’s bones snapping etched itself into Hermione’s brain. His tortured muscles pulled against one another so hard he almost tore himself apart.

She forced her eyes away from the horrific scene, scanning the tables for their wands and her bag and silently praying that Olivander’s heart would give out quickly — silently thanking him for showing her kindness in such darkness.

The one thing she could glean was that their things were nowhere to be seen. Hermione turned tail to flee the entrance hall when the briefest whisper of home caught her nose. It was the smell of Harry’s shirt, not coming from the man himself, but one of the ones packed away in her bag. She pressed her nose to the tiled floor, drinking it in, and following its meagre trail to the foot of the main staircase. Then up.

The upper landing was mercifully empty. Hermione’s nose told her that the scent was coming from the East wing, but it was harder to pick out among the decades of smells trapped in the ancient carpet. She padded along on silent paws, ears twitching this way and that.

The whole house was like a maze, with passages branching off left and right at random, and seemingly no end to the myriad of doors. Hermione was half way along another identical corridor when a door fifty feet further ahead swung open.

The sound of voices from inside the room spilled out into the hall, as well as that of multiple sets of feet.

She glanced back. It was too far to the last passage to reach in time, but there was one just twenty feet ahead on the right.

Hermione sprinted faster than she ever had in her life, on four legs or two, to reach the junction. Her claws dug into the fibres of the carpet to propel herself the remaining five feet as a leg stepped out of the door ahead.

The bushy tip of her tail had just whipped around the corner when three men strode into the corridor.

Hermione pressed herself against the wall and held her breath, trying not to pant as they stumped along the passage. They passed by her turning without looking sideways and were off down the hall, their footsteps receding as her heart slowed back down.

Then something shifted behind her.

Hermione leapt around to find someone stood in the corridor not ten feet from her, staring at the arctic fox in the hall.

Narcissa Malfoy regarded Hermione. Her mascara had painted black trails down her cheeks and her eyes were rimmed with red, but the tears were now gone and her jaw was clenched.

Slowly, she opened her fist to reveal two familiar wands, and a beaded bag clutched in her other hand.

Hermione stared at the woman, who stared right back. By all accounts she should be stupefied by now; trussed up and on her way back to the dungeon if not dead already, but Narcissa Malfoy had not moved from where she was stood.

The wands, the bag in her hand; exactly what Hermione was after and, unless it was deceit, offered willingly.

Hermione didn’t have the time to hang about in the hallway and pick apart the action. She threw caution to the wind and shifted back into human form.

Narcissa flinched, but did not cry out or pull away. Instead, she reached her arms out towards Hermione, holding out the items. Whatever had caused her change of heart, Hermione did not deign to ask, hastily taking the two wands and looping the strap of the bag over her head. She turned to head back downstairs when Narcissa stopped her.

“No.”

Hermione clutched her wand and regarded the woman warily. Had she taken the bait in a trap?

“Turn back into… whatever you were, and stay close to me.”

Narcissa swept past her and strode back towards the stairs at a brisk pace and, trusting her for the moment, Hermione did as she said. Her four legs quickly caught up to the long stride of the matron of the household.  The men that had forced their impromptu meeting were nowhere to be seen and, trotting by her side, the pair descended the main staircase.

Her paws had just touched the tile when the scent of prey hit her nostrils again. She realised what it was just in time to duck into the folds of Narcissa’s trailing robes.

“Narcissa?” came Pettigrew’s perplexed voice.

The woman whirled about to face him, Hermione hopping to keep out of sight behind her.

“Lucius said you were… erm…”

The man was clearly uncomfortable and Hermione could hear that Narcissa was breathing heavily through her nose. A glance upwards revealed her clenched fists. She was tense.

“Right… well, I was just going to check the cellar,” said Pettigrew awkwardly when he got no response. He started to shuffle away when Narcissa finally found her voice.

“I shall do it myself.”

Pettigrew paused.

“Are you sure you want-”

“Do not presume to give me commands in my own house, Peter,” Narcissa fumed. “Return to the Dark Lord’s side, where you belong.”

Hermione didn’t dare move to get a look at his reaction, but he slowly reversed course and crossed the hall back into the drawing room. He slipped inside and closed the doors with a soft click. It didn’t escape Hermione’s notice that there was a chilling absence of any sound from within.

After a few calming breaths, Narcissa carried onwards. Her heels clicked on the tiles as they retreated deeper into the manor, following the twisting route of passages that led to the subterranean cell. Hermione noticed that Narcissa appeared to know the route by heart.

Down the final stone staircase, Hermione shifted back again and shadowed Mrs Malfoy all the way to the door. The elder witch opened it with a tap of her own wand and Hermione blew past her to the unconscious Harry.

He was still alone in the middle of the cell, the other occupants giving him a wide berth and trying their hardest not to be noticed now that Narcissa was at the door. Harry himself was unchanged; breathing steadily but dead to the world around him. He would be too heavy for Hermione to carry or drag, and levitating him would mean she wouldn’t be able to use her wand if they had to fight their way out. He needed rest, but more than that he needed to be anywhere but here. Biting her lip, Hermione cast.

“Rennervate.”

Harry’s eyes fluttered, half-open, and a hoarse groan escaped his cracked lips. He wasn’t fully conscious — it would take more than a simple reviving spell to shake off the effects of a trauma-induced collapse, but he was perhaps lucid enough to hold his own weight.

She superficially healed his smashed ankle, just enough that it would bear his weight for now, and conjured a splint around it and his wrist.

“Harry? Harry, can you hear me?”

His lead lolled towards the sound of her voice and in the dim, orange light she could see his pupils dilating and constricting as he tried to focus on her face.

“Quickly,” hissed Narcissa from the door.

“Harry, we’re getting out of here but you need to stand up. Please. We have to go right now but I need your help.” Tears stung her eyes and clung to her eyelashes as she implored him to move.

Whether it was her words, her tone, or simply the pleading look on her face, something made it through to Harry’s clouded mind. He struggled first to a sitting position, then rolled onto his hands and knees, and with a great effort and much wobbling, to an uneasy slouch.

Hermione ran to his side, pulling his good arm over her shoulder and taking as much weight as she could bear while still holding her wand in her free hand.

“Thank you,” she whispered to him.

Harry’s legs moved and Hermione guided the pair of them towards the exit, then through the open door and onto the narrow staircase.

“You are free to go,” said Narcissa to the rest of the prisoners, still cowering against the far wall. “I cannot vouch for your safety, but this is your only chance to leave.”

Hermione reached the top of the stairs, panting with the effort of keeping Harry upright, and turned down the hall. Behind her she could hear the frantic footsteps of the other survivors before Narcissa strode past them to lead the way.

Left, right, right again, they inched ever closer to the exit. Hermione’s shoulders were burning but she kept pace with the others, half-leading, half-dragging Harry to safety.

As they reached the entrance hall, Narcissa threw open the front doors and the first of the captives began to spill through them out into the snow, warded by a silver mink that leapt from her wand. She turned then towards the drawing room and twirled her wand in a complex, looping pattern. Hermione watched as the seams around the doors and the join between them fused into a solid slab of carved wood.

“Thank you,” Hermione breathed as she passed the woman, her teeth already chattering in the arctic air that blew in from the grounds. It was all she could muster, but could not begin to convey the depth of her gratitude. As she made to move away, Narcissa grabbed her arm.

“Azkaban,” she said, her throat bobbing as her eyes filled up again. “Go to Azkaban.”

The handles of the drawing room door rattled.

“Cissy?” came the muffled voice of Lucius Malfoy from the other side.

Hermione wanted to ask why, what about Azkaban did they need to know, but there was no time.

“Go!” Narcissa implored as the handles were shaken more vigorously and someone pounded on the wood.

Hermione grabbed a fist full of Harry’s jacket and heaved them both towards the exit. The thumping from the drawing room was growing louder, mixed in with the sounds of spellfire taking chunks out of the wood.

The pair stumbled out into the snow-covered grounds. There were no dementors to be seen, chased away by Narcissa’s patronus, and the other captives had left furrowed tracks in the snow leading to the main gates some hundred feet up the drive.

Suddenly, the ground heaved and an explosion rocked the manor, chunks of tile and burning wood clattering through the entrance hall.

Hermione redoubled her efforts, pulling Harry with all her might. Only fifty feet away now.

A pitched battle was being fought in the manor behind them. Spellfire crackled and whizzed through the night. There came a high-pitched scream that could only have been Narcissa before the grounds were illuminated in lurid green light, burning Hermione’s eyes and throwing their shadows forward beyond the gates. Twenty feet.

Shouting from behind, the sounds of people stumbling over rubble. Ten feet.

“No!” screeched Voldemort with unchecked fury. Hermione felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end as magic filled the air with static just as her and Harry tripped over threshold of the grounds, through the prickling barrier of protective charms, and disapparated into the night.

Hermione sat on the edge of the cot, watching his chest rise and fall under the blankets, running her fingers lightly through his jet-black hair. She had cleaned away the dried and fresh blood alike, and healed what was within her ability to heal, but the sight of him still made her heart ache.

Over the last day, the bruises had begun to bloom in earnest. They covered most of his body, striped and mottled in the shape of his muscles, like one of those anatomy text books that muggles used. She could trace the fibres of his pectorals in the purple lines that marked his skin.

Everything since the manor had been a blur. Hermione had taken them back to their tent, foolishly left untouched by the Death Eaters in their haste to bring their prisoners before Voldemort. They had stayed less than a minute, only long enough to summon it back into her bag but even so she thought she heard the crack of new arrivals as they made their own departure.

She had hopped them up and down the country until she was exhausted, trying to do everything she could to lose a tail she wasn’t even sure they had. In the end, she had pitched the tent in a secluded hollow and got to work mending Harry between bouts of fitful sleep.

This should have been a happy moment. Escaping the clutches of Lord Voldemort by the skin of their teeth but still here, alive, together. Instead, looking down at his peaceful face, grief sank its razor-sharp talons into her chest and squeezed until she couldn’t draw breath.

A realization had struck her in the manor, one that she had pushed aside at the time but could no longer be ignored. In retrospect, she’d had all the pieces for a while now, but maybe some part of her had refused to put them together.

Harry was a horcrux.

Tears splashed anew onto his chest and she wiped them away, sick of shedding them but unable to stop.

It was all there in front of her, laid out neatly like an exam question awaiting an answer. Even as far back as second year the evidence had begun to mount, but none of them knew what they were looking for. Now that she knew, it seemed that clues had been everywhere.

It was the transformation that had been the nail in the coffin of her subconscious denial. She hadn’t even felt the horcrux when she shifted into her fox form. They had been labouring under the false presumption that somehow combining oneself with a horcrux would have catastrophic effects, but that was only true for Harry. Once a soul had been fractured, torn apart, could you force two pieces back together again? Hermione didn’t know, but Harry’s experience of the animagus change while wearing one would say not.

His hearing, too — the way he could hear the horcrux and she couldn’t. Not the advanced hearing of an animal, but an innate connection unique to Harry himself. The more she had pieced together, the more stupid she felt; such as the way the Dementors had been completely oblivious to her as a fox but could still pickup on Harry as a leopard, albeit weakly.

Even before they had become animagi there was the strange link between Harry’s and Voldemort’s minds that allowed him to spy on the Dark Lord, and allowed false visions to be sent the other way as they had learned to their detriment in fifth year.

It should have been obvious when they confronted Nagini. They knew the snake was a living horcrux, and yet the fact that Harry could eavesdrop on the communication between the snake and the wizard had passed her by.

And from it all, the most devastating conclusion of all. Neither can live while the other survives. It wasn’t prophesy, it was magic. Undeniable, unconscionable magic. They had set out to destroy Voldemort’s horcruxes knowing that they were the only thing tying him to life. If any remained, he could not be defeated, and now here one lay, breathing softly under her palm.

No, that was wrong. Harry was not one more horcrux, he was so, so much more than that. He was her friend — her first and only friend at one time, and though it was true she had made more since, none had compared to the bond they had formed. He was her equal, the other half of her whole, the take-a-leap-of-faith to her look-before-you-leap. He was her love; the only person she could share every facet of her soul with, whose unquestioning loyalty was her parachute when she fell and the only person who had ever earned the same from her. He was her everything.

And he had to die.

It wasn’t fair. None of it was fair. Hermione had entertained the thought of destroying the other horcruxes and Voldemort himself, somehow, and then running off and living their lives together in isolation, just the two of them, looking out for each other. It had taken Voldemort, what, eleven years to return the first time, and only then with help from his followers. Maybe it didn’t have to happen at all. But deep down she knew she was fooling herself, and that voice could only be ignored for so long before it brought the fantasy crashing down.

It turned out that knowing the five stages of grief didn’t make one immune to them. Nor, apparently, did they come neatly one after the other. In the last thirty-six hours, Hermione had swung readily between denial, anger, bargaining, and depression.

The denial was short-lived, the logical side of her mind having reached its conclusion and no re-examination of the facts would change that. She could think of many people to be angry at, and the possibility that Dumbledore could have known — surely had to have known — stuck in her mind like a splinter. There were many questions she would have liked the old man to answer, but “How could you?” was chief among them.

Bargaining, well, her happily-ever-after fantasy was a bargain of sorts, with herself, and she had never before called on any higher power, though she reserved the right to try. Depression was where Hermione found herself at this moment, faced with the unavoidable reality that they would not, could not, reach the end of this path together.

As for the fifth, she could conceive of no possible future where she ever reached a state of acceptance.

Her fingertips traced the line of his jaw for the hundredth time, committing the shape of it, the texture of his skin and the prickle of his stubble to memory. She squashed down the thought that the number of times she would do this was finite — one fewer now.

Harry stirred and leaned into her touch before opening his bleary eyes. The blood had cleared, leaving only a spiderweb of faint pink through the white. His broken nose had been fixed and his cracked lips had sealed well.

“Hey,” he croaked. His voice was like tin dragged over gravel.

“Hey,” Hermione replied, a smile lighting her face in spite of her mood, happy to hear his voice again, to see his eyes and feel his touch back.

As he took in her face though, his own smile faded. He could read her better than she could herself at times, and she was doing a poor job of concealing all that was going on inside her head. Hermione had known she would have to be the one to tell him, but she had wished they could have had just one more morning of blissful ignorance. It was both a blessing and a curse that the news would come from her lips.

“Hermione, what’s wrong?” Harry asked.

Chapter Text

Everything was wrong.

Nothing could be right with the way Harry looked up at her with such love and concern, like she wasn’t about to say something that would change his life forever.

“I was just worried about you,” Hermione lied, blinking away the wetness in her eyes before it could brim over.

Harry cocked his head but his expression remained unchanged. She never had been able to lie convincingly to him.

“It’s okay, Hermione, you can tell me. I feel-” Harry winced as he shuffled to a more upright position. “-much better.”

She couldn’t keep it from him, and yet simultaneously wanted to protect him from it until her dying breath. The conflict was tearing her apart and the one person who would understand, who she could turn to, was the one who would be hurt by it the most.

Harry waited patiently and Hermione knew that there was no other choice.

“I realised something, Harry. Something that I should have figured out a long time ago and I’m sorry it’s taken me this long. Something that scares me and I don’t know what we’re going to do.”

He reached across the bedspread and clasped her hand with his own. His fingers were calloused, rough against the back of her hand and she catalogued the sensation; revelled in it for the briefest of moments when before it would have passed her by. She wiped her eyes with her sleeve. She would not make this about her.

“We’ve been looking for you-know-who’s six horcruxes,” she continued, and Harry nodded.

“Diary, Ring, Snake, Locket, Cup, and the mystery one,” Harry counted them off.

“Well, there’s a seventh.” Hermione sniffed, willing herself to hold it together just a little longer. “Another horcrux he never intended to make and probably doesn’t even know about.”

Harry opened his mouth to ask the question she knew he would, but she couldn’t bear to let him.

“It’s you,” said Hermione quickly. “It’s in you. You are the seventh horcrux, Harry.”

Harry’s open mouth slackened. At first he looked baffled, then amused, like she was trying to be funny, but Hermione watched with aching sadness as his eyes went glassy and he truly thought about what she had said. She felt a burning need to fill the silence that followed, to not let the statement simply hang unsupported.

“It was the animagus transformation that did it,” she said softly. “When you shifted while wearing it, it almost destroyed you. Well, I didn’t have a choice, but when I did, nothing happened. It got me thinking about… everything else: about the Dementors following you, about the dreams, the senses, even the parseltongue. I’m so sorry.”

Harry’s mouth slowly closed, but still he said nothing. Hermione could almost hear his brain working, picking apart years of memories and experiences, some she might not have even been aware of.

“I might be wrong?” she proffered.

“You aren’t.”

There was a certainty to Harry’s voice. There was no going back to the way things were before. Harry knew now, and there was no un-knowing.

“I’m sorry,” Hermione repeated.

“No, it’s me who should have figured it out sooner.” He still looked distant, like his thoughts were elsewhere. It was understandable. She’d had almost two days to come to terms with it while Harry was still in the first five minutes.

“It doesn’t mean that-”

“Where are we?” Harry cut her off. He wasn’t ready to talk about it yet, she recognised. That was okay, she would be there when he did. Hermione allowed him the change of subject.

“We’re safe, for now. I managed to grab the tent, obviously, and now we’re somewhere deep in Wales. I’m not exactly sure where, to tell the truth; I just kept hopping until I couldn’t see a trace of civilization in any direction.”

“How did you get us out of there?” he asked.

“I didn’t.” Hermione replied simply. “It was Narcissa Malfoy.”

“Her!?”

“Yes. I managed to get out of the dungeon,” Hermione avoided saying how for now, not wanting to remind him of her discovery, “And I was looking for our wands when I bumped right into her. I thought she was going to stun me, but instead she gave me our wands and my bag, and let out everyone else who was being held there — even covered us while we escaped the grounds. I’m pretty sure he killed her for it. I don’t know why she would do that?” she finished sadly.

Harry screwed up his face, looking like he was trying to remember something.

“He did something to Draco,” he said slowly. “I can’t… everything is all muddled together but I remember seeing Draco on the floor. He was in a bad way, and they were talking, but…” Harry shook his head, his memory failing him.

“You were so hurt,” Hermione whispered, her voice cracking. “I didn’t know if I was going to be able to mend you.”

Harry opened his arms and Hermione realised just how desperately she’d been awaiting the invitation. She fell into them, only her concern for his healing wounds preventing her from crashing into him as she usually would. Her own arms snaked around his back and they held one another, painfully aware of how close they had come to it all being taken away.

“I know you antagonised him on purpose,” she said into Harry’s mottled, purple chest.

“I would have done it whether you were wearing the locket or not,” Harry replied, kissing the top of her head. “Narcissa Malfoy may have opened the door, but you got us out of there. You saved us, Hermione.”

The mention of Mrs Malfoy sparked something in Hermione’s mind, something she couldn’t believe she had almost forgotten.

“She mentioned Azkaban, Harry!”

“What? Who?”

“Missus Malfoy, right as we were about to leave, she said “Go to Azkaban”.”

“Did she say why?”

Hermione shook her head. “No, there wasn’t time. What do you think it could mean?”

“Given what you said about her helping you escape, it doesn’t seem like it would be a trap, but I can’t see anything good being at Azkaban,” Harry replied.

“Perhaps there’s someone there she thought was important? I expect you-know-who broke his own supporters out ages ago, but he can’t be keeping all his enemies in the Malfoy’s basement, surely? Maybe Azkaban is his now? We don’t know what’s happening with the Order.”

“Maybe,” Harry pondered. He shifted in the bed and grunted in pain.

“What am I doing?” Hermione chastised herself. “You should be resting!”

“I’m fine,” Harry protested, but at a stern look from her he lay back down.

“I’ll wake you for food in a little while,” she promised.

As Hermione retreated back to the kitchen area of the tent, she saw a dark look cross his face when he thought she was out of sight. The horcrux revelation was weighing heavily on him, she could tell, but she could not insert herself into his process. He would speak eventually, Hermione knew that, and she would wait as long as he needed.

Hermione kept a careful eye on Harry over the following day. His bruises began to turn from an angry purple to a muted red, some of them even fading to a dull yellow-brown. Most of the damage of Voldemort’s curses had been muscular; strains and tears which, while undoubtedly painful, could be worked through. Hermione would hesitate to call anything about their encounter lucky, but broken bones or significant bleed would have been far trickier to heal.

Physically, Harry was on the mend, but mentally he stayed tight-lipped. Hermione would catch a wistful or troubled or angry expression on his face when he thought she wasn’t looking, and knew it could only be about one thing. Occasionally she would look up to find him watching her quietly. Was he too trying to fill himself with a lifetime of memories in what little time remained? She couldn’t bring herself to ask.

Ideally, she would have given him a week to recover, but Hermione shared his desire to move. She was acutely aware that they were likely being hunted in earnest now and, more than just the threat of being found, a new plan would also distract Harry’s mind.

“I don’t see how we have any choice but to check out Azkaban,” she said the following morning as Harry eased himself onto the bench at the kitchen table. “We don’t have any other clues, and I still think that, on balance, it’s unlikely to be a trap.”

“I agree,” said Harry, “but there is something we need to do before any of that. Something we should have done right away but I couldn’t get out of bed.”

“What?” Hermione asked, wondering what could have been more important than Harry’s recovery.

“Do you remember what we were doing before we got snatched?”

“We were… oh!” It suddenly came rushing back to her.

The locket had been part of their routine, their life, for so many months that it all but blended into the background. Their capture had completely eclipsed the fact that, only hours before, Hermione had finally breathed life into her demon fire. She pulled the golden chain over her head and dropped the locket on the table with a thud.

“That’s right,” said Harry, leaning in to talk to it directly. “Time’s up.”

Harry waited in leopard-form while Hermione deconstructed the tent. Every minute in the elements without the protective double-coat of her winter fur was a reminder that they didn’t belong here. They weren’t welcome and mother nature would punish them for their hubris though, really, there was nothing natural about it.

Harry could mask his discomfort better on four legs — something to do with hiding potential weaknesses, Hermione presumed, but she was attuned to him well enough to see the stiffness in his gait and the way he shortened his stride to minimise stretching.

He sat patiently, thick tail wrapped around his paws as she stumped over to him, shifting as she came within arm’s reach.

“Ready?” he asked.

Hermione nodded, lips already too numb to articulate a response. He looped his arm through hers, raised his wand, and whisked them away.

The moment they landed, both shifted back into animal form. The biting cold instantly retreated as Hermione’s dense fur trapped the air warmed by her body. Her ears and nose said they were alone, and Harry appeared to agree as he relaxed from the coiled crouch he had adopted.

Harry led the way, following a path that was still familiar to them. Downwind of him, Hermione picked up his animal scent. It was different to his human one and yet unmistakably familiar; muskier, Earthier, but with the same undertones of soap and leather.

It was bittersweet. She hated how each positive thought was now tinged with the sadness of inevitability.

They tracked across a barren headland, too choked with snow and ice to tell what had grown there before, and followed the cliff edge to the very tip of the outcropping. The sea that had heaved and swayed the last time they had been here was now still, frozen solid against the shore. It gave the place an eery quality, disconnected from time without the rhythmic roar and gush of the breakers. In the distance, the lone rock jutted from the ice field like some deep-sea beast coming up for air.

At the end of the headland, as far as their feet could take them, the pair returned to human form. Bitter wind raced across the ice sheet and up the cliffs, tugging at their clothing and worming its way under the hem of Hermione’s coat.

Wordlessly, they linked arms again and Hermione blinked them the short distance to the outcropping. Her feet slipped on the ice-crusted rock as they landed but Harry kept her upright.

Picking their way carefully across the treacherous surface, Hermione placed the locket on the ground in the centre of the island. It was a strange feeling, the realisation that neither of them would ever pick it up again. It looked so innocuous sitting there, glinting dimly in the diffuse light of an overcast sky; no hint of the foulness that lay within.

“What do you think will happen?” Hermione asked, her teeth beginning to chatter.

“I don’t know about the ring, but the snake and the d-diary didn’t g-go quietly,” Harry replied through trembling lips.

They slipped and slid back to their arrival point, as close as they could get to the edge without falling off the rock entirely. Hermione fixed her gaze on the pinprick of yellow that watched her from the centre of the island.

“Remember: anger,” said Harry, gripping her free hand.

Hermione snorted. She had no shortage of anger within her now; it would simply be a matter of picking which facet to channel. She chose the most obvious and poorly contained of her frustrations, using the feel of Harry’s hand in hers to drive it to ever more agonising intensity.

The thought of him taken away. The thought of winning but in doing so suffering such a profound loss. The thought of the profane magic residing inside him as Voldemort’s final insult. It threatened to overwhelm her. It could ruin her if she let it, balanced on a knife edge, until she gave it the slightest push to the side of righteous indignation.

“Pestis Incendium!”

White-hot fire spewed from the tip of her wand and engulfed the locket in the centre of the island. The ice was instantly vaporised, sending clouds of steam billowing across the rock, obscuring their view but lit from within by a growing inferno.

As soon as the stream ended, Hermione was yanked into darkness, crushed, stretched and squeezed until she reappeared back on the headland.

A piercing shriek rippled across the sea. Out there, amid the frozen waves, something was growing. They shielded their eyes, too bright to look at as the flames swelled. They bit and snarled and clawed and howled, an army of flaming beasts roiling on the lone rock.

“Did it work?” Hermione began to ask before the answer became all too apparent.

An explosion of shadow engulfed the island, smothering the twisting flames in an oily blanket that spread from the centre of the rock. An orange glow that seeped from underneath was the only evidence that the fire still lived and for a moment it looked as though their efforts had been in vain.

Far from banking the embers though, it only stoked their anger. The Fiendfyre flared again, rushing from beneath the shadow-made-solid and pushing it back, confining it to a single tower that jutted up from the island, and then it began to climb.

Clawed arms of flame scaled the pilar of darkness, hungrily sucking in air to feed their voracious appetite. The wind pulled at Harry and Hermione’s clothes, dragging them towards the inferno and they dug their heels into the snow against it.

The shadow was twisting, pulsing, trying to escape the flames that now formed a terrible cyclone around it. The light grew brighter and brighter, each dancing tongue blurring into the next until, with a scream that reached into Hermione’s very mind, the firestorm came crashing down.

Her ears were ringing and Harry looked dazed too as they looked out across the sea. The flames were still roaring, probing the fringes of their containment, but there could be no mistaking what had just happened.

“It’s gone,” Hermione gasped, half-giddy with emotion.

“It’s gone,” Harry agreed, clutching her tight.

The Fiendfyre rasped, echoing across the expanse to them, demanding more to consume, to burn. Hermione felt its gaze on them and it rose up, then spilled out onto the ice towards them.

She yelled in surprise and Harry pulled them back from the edge in shock. Steam rushed in its wake as the flames raced towards the headland.

“Do we leave?” asked Harry frantically.

“If it reaches dry land, we won’t be able to stop it!” Hermione cried.

She wracked her brain for an answer as it drew closer, the ice cracking and heaving under the shock of the sudden heat. Thick clouds of noxious steam and smoke filled the air, obscuring the conflagration from view. It roared from somewhere inside the haze.

“Where is it?” Harry barked, squinting.

A gust of wind parted the veil and they saw it. Its rage had been greater than its speed and the frozen sea had not been able to withstand it. Flaming, animalistic forms clawed at the ice as the centre of the blaze — its searing core — melted a hole clean through the ice.

The iron waters consumed it hungrily, boiling and hissing as more of the thing was dragged into its depths. The hole expanded as the Fiendfyre slowed, more of the ice shelf calving off beneath it. In a matter of seconds, the final licks of flame disappeared into the sea which bubbled and spat, and then calmed from foaming white to steel-grey.

They both let out a sigh of relief.

“Someone might have seen that, or you-know-who’s Ministry might have detected it. We need to leave,” said Hermione. The approaching fire and accompanying panic had momentarily driven the cold away, but it was already returning with a vengeance.

“Let’s never come here again,” Harry replied.

In spite of everything, Hermione felt lighter. Though she was still under the shadow of their latest horcrux revelation — one that she doubted would ever shift — the snow looked a little brighter, her back felt a little straighter, and the usually polar wind was instead bracing, blowing the cobwebs from her mind.

Like a frog slowly boiled in a cauldron, it had been easy to trick themselves into thinking they’d grown immune to the effects of Slytherin’s locket. It had certainly held less sway over their emotions as time dragged on, but only its absence revealed the lingering presence they’d become blind to; not an all-consuming dread and hopelessness, but a subtle heightening of anxiety and a push towards expecting the worst outcome of any given situation. An imperceptible drain on hope and happiness.

They pitched the tent on a desolate moor, set their protective cordon, and headed inside to warm numbed limbs. Nursing steaming mugs of weak tea, they sat in companionable silence, Hermione watching Harry over the curling vapours.

“Do you think Dumbledore knew from the start?” he asked out of the blue. “When he left me with my aunt and uncle after that night; do you think he knew then?”

“I don’t know, Harry,” Hermione replied. She had wondered the same. “I wouldn’t have thought so. Everyone thought you-know-who had been defeated for good.”

“Dumbledore didn’t. He knew he’d come back. I wonder if that’s how?”

“No,” she reassured him. “No, Dumbledore didn’t even start thinking about horcruxes until our second year and Riddle’s diary. You said so yourself.”

Hermione put down her empty mug and clasped his hands, warmed by the chipped ceramic.

“It doesn’t change who you are, Harry. It doesn’t change anything that’s happened or the choices you’ve made, the people that love you. That’s all you.”

He looked sceptical.

“You can’t say you don’t look at me differently. I look at me differently, knowing…” he trailed off.

“Not in the slightest.”

It was true. She railed against the injustice of it, the violation that Voldemort had wrought, but it had not changed how she felt about Harry, how she saw him, for an instant.

“It doesn’t define you. Only you can do that.”

She leant over to kiss him. He was hesitant at first, but sank into her touch. If Hermione knew him at all, she knew it would have been plaguing his mind and that the reassurance of her affection was something he’d desperately needed.

Harry half rose from his seat to deepen their kiss, but grunted through their joined lips, pressing a hand to his ribs.

“Are you okay?” Hermione asked.

“Yeh, just pulled wrong is all.”

“We really should take longer for you to recover properly.”

“I’ll be fine, honest, I just need to stretch it out. I’ve had worse from Quidditch.”

Hermione seriously doubted that, raising an eyebrow to say as much, but he was nothing if not stubborn and merely smiled ruefully in response.

They cleared the mugs away and took turns changing and showering. The smell of smoke clung to Hermione’s hair, taking multiple rinses and cleansing charms to even begin to shift. It felt trivial in comparison to their other problems, but sometimes she really missed the small things, like shampoo.

She was tempted to leave it damp, already tired from the day’s exertions, but there was a real danger it would freeze overnight or give her chills, so she set about diligently separating and drying the curls with blasts of hot air from her wand.

Harry had fixed something bland but filling in the meantime and she gratefully accepted a bowl when she finally emerged from the tiny bathroom.

“Do we need to talk about Azkaban?” Harry asked, scraping his bowl with his spoon.

“Tomorrow,” Hermione sighed. She didn’t care that the weight of the world still rested on their shoulders or that they’d just kicked one more pillar out from underneath Voldemort; they deserved a break. Just one night where they didn’t have to think about the next task, the next move. A night where neither of them had to worry about who was wearing the locket. They could pretend to be carefree for twelve hours.

Darkness fell and so did they, into the narrow bed they shared. The sheets didn’t feel quite so ice-cold without the metallic bite of gold around her neck. She nestled in next to Harry, feeling the warmth of his body and the steady thump of his heartbeat. Her fingers danced lightly through the hair of his chest, finding the welt that the locket had left behind when he had tried to transform with it, but not the necklace itself. It was gone.

Hermione kissed his arm lightly, then his shoulder, feeling goosebumps erupt across his torso that had nothing to do with the temperature.

Harry was on his back, and she shifted to reach more of him, her breasts pressing against his shoulder and chest through her top and her leg coming to rest below his waist. A single jar of flame left on the floor of the tent cast a weak light over them, only enough to pick out the edge of his jaw, the line of his nose, but she would know his face by heart even in the pitch black.

The tips of her fingers ghosted up his cheek and brushed a lock of errant hair off his forehead. He was hers. He always would be, no matter what came after, as she would always be his. Time marched against them, but she could stop it. Just for a moment.

Her head came down at the same time as his came up, their lips meeting in the darkness. The taste of him stirred her desire; the prickle of his stubble against her bottom lip. If the sensation had been described to her, she would have thought it unpleasant, but it was the feel of Harry’s mouth against hers and that made it sublime.

She could feel him swelling against her thigh and her own libido responded in kind, knowing the intimate feel of him inside her.

Their kiss deepened, her tongue brushing tentatively against his lip met eagerly with his own. Harry’s hands found the small of her back, caressing the hollow of her spine and exploring outwards, one sending shivers all the way to her scalp while the other cupped her behind and squeezed.

The friction of her chest against his sent miniature sparks of pleasure fizzing through her nerves and she impulsively bit Harry’s bottom lip, tugging on it with her teeth. Hermione let it go immediately, but the hungry sound he made banished any embarrassment she might have felt.

She rocked her hips, grinding herself against his thigh while simultaneously kneading him with her own. They both groaned in unison.

Harry’s hands bracketed her hips and he tensed, intending to shift to a more advantageous position. Hermione felt rather than saw his jaw clench as his bruised muscles protested and she laid a gentle but firm hand on his chest. With a pressure that invited no argument, Hermione coaxed him back down until his shoulders were firmly on the mattress. She slid sideways until her hips rested directly on top of his and her knees bracketed his abs, and sat upright.

Harry’s hands gripped the soft flesh of her waist and he flexed beneath her, the pulse shooting straight from his core into hers and setting her eyelids fluttering. Hermione splayed her fingers across his chest, her nails creating ten perfect divots in the muscle and Harry hissed in some mixture of pain and pleasure, though he made no move to stop her.

She dragged herself away from him for the briefest moment to grab the hem of her thin pyjama top and pull it over her head, baring herself from the waist up. The way Harry looked at her filled her heart as much as it stoked the flame of her desire. It was wonder and lust, admiration and infatuation. It was love.

Hermione pulled the duvet up around her shoulders — raging desire could only keep one so warm — and guided Harry’s hands back to her, up her stomach, across the ridged scars of her abdomen, and to her chest. His thumbs flicked and circled deliciously and she rocked again, feeling him nestled between her legs.

His hands fell and Hermione made to protest before she felt him lifting and moving beneath her, shuffling his briefs down his legs to free himself. Hermione writhed again and stifled a mischievous laugh at the grunt it drew from his throat.

She could have hours of fun coming up with new ways to test his resolve, and the thought of a potential breaking point where he could hold back no longer excited her to no small degree, but that was a game for another time. Right now, she wanted him wholly and completely — no teasing or second-guessing, just him.

Hermione lifted herself up on her knees. She took him gently in one hand, standing proud and ready, while with the other she pulled the fabric of her loose pyjama shorts aside.

She went slow, adjusting to the feel of him as she sank back down until their hips were flush once more. It was staggeringly intimate, an intensity felt deep within her, completely different to any other time they had come together.

The tiniest movements of her pelvis sent ripples through her body that demanded more, and Harry’s own flexing seemed to suggest he felt it too.

Hermione began to move back and forth, her breath catching with each cycle as Harry’s broad hands climbed her torso again, exploring the pebbled, hypersensitive flesh.

She leant forwards, pressing their bodies together to reach his lips again and claiming them. Her hips lifted but Harry’s followed, keeping the rhythm she had set as though he could not bear to have any less of her.

Hermione’s hands rumpled the sheets and kissing became more difficult as they crept closer and closer to coming undone. She found his eyes and filled her world with them, her chocolate-brown reflected in the black, surrounded by his vivid green. Breath hitched, muscles clenched, and her vision swam as they cried out, unrestrained, in unison.

As the tremors wracked her body, Hermione’s arms finally gave out and she lay flat against Harry’s chest, basking in the warmth of his body and letting the aftershocks ripple through her.

In the wake of her pleasure came a wave of exhaustion. She slid off him and tucked herself back into the crook of his arm, eyelids heavy and heartrate slowly returning to normal; a thin sheen of quickly-drying sweat the only evidence of their activity. The rise and fall of his chest beneath her arm had a soothing surety to it, like the endless rush of breaking waves from her holidays in France, and she let it carry her towards sleep.

“You know what this means, don’t you?” Harry said softly into the darkness. “The seventh horcrux.”

“I know,” Hermione replied. Her eyes stayed closed, tears prickling the corners that would not let them escape.

Harry’s arms held her tighter and she felt the touch of his lips against the top of her head.

“I wouldn’t change anything,” he whispered, his words muffled as a mixture of exhaustion, contentment, and sorrow dragged Hermione’s conscious mind down, down, down, “if it meant not being with you.”

Chapter Text

Harry’s whiskers twitched in the wind that raced up the deserted high street, funnelled between the low-rise family-run stores and cafes. It should have carried the heavy scent of seaweed, of crab pots, nets and diesel, but the cold had made it odourless, clinical.

Hermione pattered ahead of him, disappearing and remerging periodically behind abandoned cars. The whole town was empty, devoid of life save for the two of them that made their silent way East. Further inland, the snow was sculpted into drifts tens of feet thick, burying whole communities, but here at the coast the relentless wind had scoured it away, leaving only a thick casing of compacted ice on every surface.

His limbs still ached, no doubt exacerbated by their previous night, but each twinge was a reminder of the feel of her skin against his, the sound of her breath in his ear, and he welcomed it. Such small things had suddenly taken on extraordinary meaning when their fleeting, finite nature was brought to the fore. There was no loophole, no get-out-of-jail-free card. Harry knew that he had to die.

The possibility had been sat in the corner of his mind for well over a year; the possibility that he might very well — no, probably would — die fighting Voldemort, but it had always been just that; a possibility. When it was a choice, a willing encounter, it had been easier to reconcile and there was always a chance that he wouldn’t. But now, there was no chance. It was a certainty. He had to die.

The news had come with a sour note of irony, when they had sacrificed so much and escaped death so many times in order to bring Voldemort down, and now death was simply waiting for Harry to arrive.

He ached for Hermione that she had been the one to figure it out first. He would have done anything to spare her that knowledge, but one of the pitfalls of having a partner as brilliant as her was that very little ever escaped her attention. Harry wasn’t even sure he would have realised at all until it was too late. Hermione had saved them all and damned herself in the same breath.

To spend his final months, weeks, or even days sulking about it would have been an unforgivable waste. True, it took him several hours to reach that conclusion, but crossing his arms and digging in his heels would not have bought him any more time, and would only have resulted in a very poor lasting memory of him. It was a terrifying prospect really, but he would stay strong for Hermione.

One thing was certain; she had to go on. It would be painful, but she had so much more to give to the world and he would hate to be the reason she didn’t.

So it was that he followed the flick of her bushy tail and the tapping of her paws, savouring the moments as they came and finding a hundred new things each day to love about her.

At the end of the street, they turned to follow the road along the quay wall. Thick chains weighed down with salt spray icicles separated them from the jetties that were dotted with small sailing and fishing boats, all locked in the frozen harbour. Ice cream parlours and fish-and-chip shops lined the other side of the road. In any other year they would have been readying themselves for a busy summer of tourists, but none were coming.

Harry once again had Hermione’s brilliance to thank for their current trajectory.

“So, Azkaban,” Harry had said that morning after breakfast. “How do we get there?”

“Well, it’s sort of the point that you can’t,” Hermione replied. “It’s unplottable, it’s surrounded by strong anti-apparition charms, like Hogwarts, and the Ministry only allows people to and from the island by registered portkey.”

“But…” Harry cajoled, knowing when Hermione knew more than she was letting on. She smiled, rolling her eyes.

“But, there is some information out there. It’s common knowledge that it’s somewhere in the North Sea, and obviously you-know-who has orchestrated break-outs before so it’s not impossibly hidden.”

“Even though it’s unplottable?”

“That just means you can’t find it on a map and muggles can’t see it. There are so many people that need to come and go — guards, lawyers, aurors et cetera — that it would be impractical to physically hide it like Dumbledore did with Grimmauld Place.”

“Okay, so it’s in the North Sea and if we get close enough, we should be able to see it?” Harry pulled a face. “It’s not much to go on, is it?”

“No, but we can narrow it down a bit more than that.”

“Oh yeah?” he asked. It was hard not to love the way her mind worked.

“Do you remember when there was that mass breakout in our fifth year? The one with Bellatrix and Dolohov and all the others? Well, seeing as the Daily Prophet was spewing utter drivel at the time, I was watching the muggle newspapers instead. Just after the escape, there were a handful of articles about an explosion at sea heard by some fishermen but no wreckage being found, as well as several seemingly random murders, all from around the Newcastle area.”

“So you think that might be the closest landfall to Azkaban! That’s brilliant!”

“Might be,” Hermione hedged, looking appreciative nevertheless. “It’s somewhere to start at least.”

Harry had little doubt that she was wrong now.

The clouds overhead were leaden and ominous, pressing down on the town oppressively. They swept in a vast band across the sky, curving from horizon to horizon like the edge of a hurricane. Following their spiral trajectory with his eye, Harry gazed out to sea where the darkness gathered to a near impenetrable gloom. The bands of cloud corkscrewed tighter as they got further away from the shore. Something was out there, at the epicentre beyond the horizon, and Harry was pretty sure he knew what.

He paced over to stand next to Hermione on the edge of the quay. She, too, was looking out into the eye of the storm. She turned her head to look at him.

“Out there?” she asked him with her eyes.

“Looks like you were right.” He bumped his head softly against her cheek, and she rubbed her face into his dense fur.

The wind ruffled Harry’s hair and he set off, following the dockside until it turned and jutted out from the shore. The wharf was littered with coils of rope and empty lobster pots that the pair picked their way between, heading further out on the concrete breakwater.

At the very end, three hundred feet from the seaside promenade, it dropped abruptly into the water. There was an orange life ring hooked onto a post for emergencies. Fat lot of good it would do now, Harry thought.

Their path lay onward still, away from dry land and out over the solid sea. Even if they knew where the island lay, they could not apparate to it. They would have to go on foot.

A set of steps had been cut into the side of the wharf to allow sailors easy access to and from the dinghies, and Harry’s wide paws gripped the ice that coated them as he descended. Pausing on the bottom step, he placed a tentative paw on the frozen surface. It splayed out, distributing his weight as he leant more heavily on it but, crucially, it did not move and there was no telltale cracking sound. The ice was thick.

He walked out on all four paws and Hermione followed. If it would take him, it would take her without issue.

The water within the harbour had frozen calm and flat, but the same could not be said about the ice field beyond the breakwater. Out there, the sea had raged against its imprisonment. The ice had been broken and re-frozen multiple times. Huge slabs of it had been lifted up on top of one another or been turned on their sides only to become locked in place as the temperature continued to drop. It made the whole expanse a maze of crystal walls and precarious crevasses.

Harry and Hermione traversed mile after mile of the alien landscape. Soon the town was lost behind the jagged ice peaks and their only means of navigation was the looming eye of the storm fixed in front of them. With no buildings or trees in sight, Harry’s sense of scale quickly abandoned him. Each ice boulder was identical to the next, and the storm rotated lazily overhead but never seemed any nearer. It went on forever in all directions and if it weren’t for one horizon being black and the other being grey, he would have sworn they were walking in circles.

The two of them trotted side by side, never changing other than to pass single-file through the narrowest of the ice canyons. She was a constant, a fixed point in an otherwise changing world, less like a friend and more like a limb now; an extension of his very being. To be without her was unthinkable.

It was a selfish thought, but it was almost better this way; he didn’t know how he would cope if she were the one who harboured the horcrux. He drifted closer to her and felt the comforting presence of her vulpine body against his.

After several hours, a new shape pierced the horizon ahead. Not the hulking form of an island prison, but something angular, metallic, and entirely muggle. Climbing a low peak with the aid of his claws, Harry laid eyes on a massive container ship that had become trapped in the ice floe. It was listing at an unnatural angle and the stern had been lifted out of the water as the bow became choked with ice, putting the T-shaped superstructure and the bridge over a hundred feet in the air. A perfect vantage point.

The pair approached the stricken vessel, using the ice it had ploughed into to climb over the gunwale and onto the deck. Stacks upon stacks of containers were piled high on the deck, one on top of the other. Some of the stacks had collapsed, battered by the ice storms, and several containers had broken open, spilling their cardboard and plastic contents across the deck.

Harry picked his way over the detritus, fighting the incline of the listing ship and making his way aft towards the bridge. He climbed a metal staircase onto a catwalk, then up again past doors to dormitories and the ships galley. He hoped that the crew had managed to escape but did not want to take the time to check. There would be nothing he could do for them if they hadn’t.

The switchback staircase ended at a metal door labelled “Bridge – Authorised Personnel Only”. It was shut fast, the wheel that served as the handle encased in ice. There would be no gaining entry without resorting to his wand, but perhaps he didn’t need to. Crouching on his back legs, Harry leapt upwards, springing off the handle to extend his leap another five feet and landing lightly on the roof.

The roof was slick with ice and littered with vents, antennae, and aerials, but it boasted a commanding view across the sea. Back the way they had come, Harry could just make out a white smudge that could have been the coastline; a slightly brighter shade of grey than either the sea or the sky. Ahead, however, his stomach knotted.

Still some distance away, but close enough for there to be no doubt about its existence, hulked a black isle protruding from the ice. The silent storm gathered around it like a protective shroud, making the edges fuzzy in the darkness. It almost looked as though the clouds themselves fell into the island, but that could only have been a trick of the light.

“Up here!” Harry chuffed in the back of his throat, and a moment later Hermione sprang onto the roof to join him, having picked out a route more suited to her leg length.

“Do you think there’s anyone in there?” she asked, gazing out towards the prison.

“I don’t know, but I don’t envy them if there are.”

Their bearing set, Harry and Hermione clambered down from the abandoned ship and set off into the ice field once more. It had looked like a straight shot from up high, but it was still several hours before the shape of the prison began to emerge above the uneven terrain. The darkness of the brooding cloud layer was somewhat offset by their keener vision, but even so Harry estimated that the Sun must not be far from setting.

The haze was messing with his eyes again, making the clouds appear closer than they could possibly be. Looking up, he could see the eye of the storm turning almost directly overhead, shifting in and out of focus as Harry’s predators’ eyes tried to resolve something against the ashen background. He had set a single paw on the rocky shore when he realised what it was and stopped dead.

The sky was choked with Dementors. What, from a distance had looked like cloud sinking into the island was in fact thousands upon thousands of the creatures. They spiralled out from somewhere behind the walls of the prison, climbing in a slow vortex that blotted out all behind it, a veritable tornado of them.

At the apex of their corkscrew climb they fanned out in all directions, drifting on invisible currents to spread their malevolence to every corner of the country.

Except they didn’t just climb. As Harry watched, he saw one falter and fall from the sky, tumbling like a snowflake until it fell out of sight. Another, higher up, met the same fate. Though hundreds ascended from the prison, a score or more never made it to the summit. Harry tracked one directly above them as it cartwheeled from the rising plume, down, down, until it landed soundlessly on the rocks ten feet away from them, unmoving.

He shared a fearful look with Hermione.

“I thought if they were out there, there wouldn’t be as many here.”

“Something’s causing them to multiply out of control,” she replied.

“Anybody still in there is going to be in no fit state to help us with anything.”

“I know, but we can’t turn back now.”

There were no maps of Azkaban, or at least none that they had any hope of seeing, so they were operating on instinct alone from this point onwards.

The fortress looked ancient. Its high walls were constructed from immense blocks, none the same size or shape and all of them as big as houses, hewn to fit together seamlessly without mortar. It bore no embellishment or decoration, no crenelations or soaring buttresses like Hogwarts castle, just sheer black stone, vast and unmoving.

It hadn’t survived the centuries unmarked, however. The pits and gashes of spellfire scarred the black granite at regular intervals. Some greater force had knocked car-sized chunks out of a towering gatehouse set into the southern wall. Time and weather had turned the crumbled edges smooth, but the gates themselves were sealed so tight that not even light passed between them.

As they circled the island, more recent damage became apparent. Jagged rubble littered the rocks, not yet claimed by the sea, and a whole corner of the bastion had been pulverised. The exposed outer walls must have been ten feet thick, shielding a cramped mass of stone cells — some now open to the elements — and dark halls. Whatever had cracked the prison had been immensely powerful, but it had also left the door open for Harry and Hermione.

The Dementors circled endlessly above and Harry took a moment to make doubly sure they hadn’t been detected before clambering up the rubble and into the halls of Azkaban.

They found themselves in a featureless, stone corridor. Wind droned through the passages, echoing off the walls until it seemed to come from all around them, confusing Harry’s senses. For once he was glad that the unnatural cold was supressing the odours of the place, but he could still detect the sour notes of urine and the metallic tang of blood, none of it fresh.

With each step it became increasingly clear that no living person would be found here. Aside from the absence of any sight, sound, or scent of life, it was also so indescribably cold that even Harry was beginning to feel uncomfortable. They pushed on regardless, convinced or perhaps just desperate that Narcissa’s last words held meaning. It would have been a cruel and unusual trick indeed to help them escape before sending them off to die, but Harry was starting to wonder if it might not have been the Malfoy’s last laugh.

Each cell they passed was identical and barren. An eight-foot by eight-foot stone cube with a raised slab of stone that might have passed for a bed, shut behind a door of iron bars inscribed with illegible runes. The passage turned often, keeping their sightline short and adding to the feeling of enclosure; never being able to see further than the next stone wall and unsure what was lurking just out of sight. Mercifully, the interior seemed to be devoid of Dementors.

The passage eventually spat them out at a confluence of several other halls and a single barred gate with an ornate keyhole.

“Impervious to magic, I assume?” Harry said, sniffing at it.

“Probably,” Hermione replied, “But we’re not going to use magic,” and she stepped clean between the bars.

Harry tentatively extended his neck, pushing his head between the bars. They squashed the fur on the sides of his head, but his whiskers passed through unscathed and, with a little wiggling, he joined her on the opposite side.

This section of the prison must have been for the staff. For the first time since setting foot inside the stronghold, they encountered furniture, offices, break-rooms and personal items. One room held racks of dark green robes, another, rows upon rows of files and parchment.

By Harry’s estimation, difficult as it was without any outside reference points, they had turned back on themselves and were following a zig-zag path back towards the southern side.

“This is useless,” he growled. “There’s nobody here.”

Hermione had crossed through what looked like a receiving room for new inmates, with a high counter along one wall and a crude photo station in the back corner next to a pile of slates. She pushed against a solid iron door on the opposite wall, leaning all her slight weight into it, and it squealed ajar. Her head disappeared through the crack, then darted back in, eyes wide.

“What if it’s not a person she sent us to find?”

Harry padded over to the door. It shrieked in rusty protest again as he widened the gap to accommodate his own head, and he peered through.

He had been right that they’d been moving South. The door opened onto a tunnel that led from the main gate, under the bulk of the building, to a vast courtyard in the centre. The prison surrounded it on all sides, leaving about an acre of cobbled stone open to the sky above.

The end of the tunnel, roughly twenty feet from the door Harry looked out of, swam with Dementors, all gliding past in the same direction. The vortex of them they’d witnessed from outside the walls touched down in the courtyard, with hundreds of the things swirling around and around in a single mass.

In the very centre of the open space, a pedestal had been erected, and sat atop it, no bigger than a closed fist, was a golden cup.

Hermione’s head appeared between his legs and they watched together as one of the swarm detached itself and descended towards the cup. It drifted down, head first, bobbing rhythmically and Harry imagined he could almost hear its rattling breath as it tasted the soul on the air.

The air around the cup shimmered and became distorted in the way it had around Sirius when Harry had unknowingly saved himself and his godfather from the kiss in his third year.

Suddenly, there was a flash of light and for a split second the cup was encased in a translucent dome. The lone Dementor was obscured from sight as a knot of its brethren drifted across the mouth of the tunnel, Harry and Hermione craning to see between them, and when they had gone, two Dementors hovered in its place.

The two creatures climbed, beginning their ascent into the vortex but one of them, whether it was the original or the progeny, Harry couldn’t tell, didn’t even make it as far as the rooftop. It stalled and fell limply from the sky, joining what he now recognised not as shadows clinging to the corners of the courtyard but a heap of tattered black cloaks. Other fallen Dementors.

Hermione nipped at his front leg and pulled her head back inside. As soon as the door creaked shut behind Harry, she shifted.

“What are you doing? They’ll sense us.” Harry asked, joining her in human form.

“Oh my God! This is how he’s been doing it!” Hermione said in an urgent whisper, completely ignoring him. “It’s the horcrux, Harry! The cup! He’s placed it here and they’re… feeding off it or something!”

The translucent dome flashed through Harry’s mind.

“But he’s protected it against being consumed-” he said, continuing her train of thought.

“-which is why they’ve been acting so strange — dying. It must be like a placebo or something, a way to induce the propagation without an actual soul,” Hermione finished.

“How on Earth did he manage that?” said Harry, baffled.

“I’m quite sure I have no idea. I wonder if that’s what links them to him in some way — that they’re feeding off him but also not… sort of.”

“It doesn’t matter. If we destroy the cup then not only do we rid him of another horcrux but it might even break the nightmare cycle going on out there.”

The air itself squeaked as the little remaining moisture was pulled out of it, ice crystals forming around the edges of the outer door. They’d spent too long in human form. They had been found.

“They’re more likely to go for you, Harry,” said Hermione urgently, her breath misting. “You go for the cup, I’ll hold them off of both of us for as long as I can.”

Harry nodded, ignoring the implication for now, and placed a gloved hand on the doorhandle. He could hear the skeletal fingers tapping at the other side of the door. Hermione drew her wand, looked directly at him, and cast her spell.

“Expecto Patronum!”

The dazzling otter bounded from her wand, filling the small room with light and warmth, and Harry threw his shoulder into the door.

Twenty Dementors jostled for position outside the door and they were all thrown backwards, first by Harry, then by the patronus that darted out of the gap he had made. They fled back up the tunnel into the maelstrom as Harry and Hermione began to advance to the courtyard.

They breeched the end of the tunnel, Hermione’s patronus projecting an invisible bubble around them through which no Dementor would pass. A ripple went through the swarm and the slow spiral picked up speed, agitated by their presence. She gripped Harry’s shoulder tightly, already breathing heavily with the strain of keeping the charm going against such a vast horde.

He could see the cup clearly now, the badger crest inlaid on the polished gold, just as Harry remembered from the memory Dumbledore had shared with him over a year ago. Harry pointed his wand directly at it.

Hermione sagged against him and he let his carefully compartmented anger bubble through him. Harry Potter had every damn right to be angry. Since before his second birthday his life had been a series of mental and physical challenges, and even finding a place he belonged within the wizarding world hadn’t changed that. Fighting both authority and anarchy, often at the same time, had forced him to abandon childhood and now he stood, at the culmination of it all, choosing the right time to die lest he doom everyone he ever loved to the same fate.

“Pestis Incendium!”

Furious heat singed his wand hand as monstrous flame bucked and snarled across the courtyard, careening directly towards the horcrux on the pedestal. The Fiendfyre consumed the cup whole, molten saliva and sintering jaws sucking it into the stellar furnace that was its stomach.

Hermione’s otter flickered, no longer blazing white but translucent blue and Harry recalled the locket’s demise in the heart of her own fire.

“We need to get-”

An explosion rocked the courtyard, throwing the pair back towards the tunnel where they landed in a heap, winded and deafened.

Harry blinked his eyes and for a moment he thought the world had caught fire, until he realised that the cursed flames were devouring every Dementor their orange tongues could reach. The cyclone of Dementors was igniting from the ground up, winged beasts of pure flame darting between them and spawning new blazes.

Across the courtyard, the hulking form of Harry’s initial curse bellowed. The air shimmered in the heat-haze of its breath and embers spewed forth from its maw. It had swelled beyond anything Harry would have been able to cast, feeding off the destruction its spawn wrought among the Dementors. Next to Harry and Hermione, a whole section of the courtyard wall collapsed, as though its fate was tied to that of its phantom inhabitants.

The Fiendfyre charged and Harry and Hermione moved in unison. They both returned to animal form before their feet were even beneath them and darted for the new opening, knowing the fire would be on them before they’d managed to wrench open the door they had entered through.

Harry’s longer legs got him there first and he bounded up the rubble to a second-floor corridor. Hermione was hot on his heels when the Fiendfyre pounced, shaking the pile of loose masonry and sending her tumbling into a gap in the floor below. Heat blasted Harry and he took off down the hall, hoping beyond hope that he could link back up with Hermione again.

The previously dark passages were lit now with a malevolent orange that grew from behind him. Unable to fit its hulking form into the building, the fire had split into a pack of unnatural hunters that whooped and howled as they poured through the prison, burning anything that would catch.

The fortress rumbled as more distant sections collapsed, the dust trickling from the ceiling just enough to make Harry miss the staircase he was barrelling towards. Running full-tilt, he was suddenly airborne, tail windmilling through the air as he crunched into the far wall and fell to the floor in a heap.

It stung fiercely, but Harry would lick his wounds later as the glow from the top of the staircase brightened. At least he was now on the same floor that he’d seen Hermione disappear into.

He ran again, breathing hard and tasting sulphur on the air. Through a series of tight corners, Harry mounted the walls to keep his speed up as the cold sea wind of the outside tickled his whiskers.

Around a final corner and there, at the end of a passage that must have run the length of one whole side of the building, was the purple-grey not of stone, but of the clouded night sky. Harry dug deep, chasing the horizon like it were his prey.

He had halved the distance when the blaze spilled around the corner behind him, while ahead, a flickering form swooped in through the opening. Still sprinting, Harry recognised the shape of a Dementor blocking his exit, its cloak wreathed in flame that filled the narrow passage.

Harry shifted. His human legs could not maintain the pace his feline ones had set and he began to topple forwards, his wand jabbing out as he overbalanced.

“Expecto Patronum!”

The silver stag galloped ahead of him, its antlers brushing the walls on either side. It speared the burning Dementor on them and carried it bodily out into the night just as Harry pitched forward and caught himself on racing paws.

From a passage on the right, a white shape shot into the corridor, racing ahead of him, and Harry felt a rush of relief as he recognised Hermione.

The two of them erupted out of the prison and into the night. They dashed across the rocks and out into the ice field without breaking their stride, trying to put as much distance between themselves and the island as possible.

The Fiendfyre pack gathered along the icy shoreline that was already starting to melt in the heat. It roared furiously at their retreating backs, then turned to devour what was left of the fortress and its inhabitants.

They ran and ran until their lungs burned and their legs shook.

Eventually they cantered to a halt and stood, heads bowed, gulping in the frigid air. There was a buzzing at the back of Harry’s skull that he put down to dehydration as the sound of his rough panting filled his ears.

After several moments he had regained enough strength to lift his head again. As it had been on their arrival, the ice field looked the same in all directions, but he knew they had fled in the direction of the distant mainland and figured they couldn’t be far off. Something glinted overhead and he looked up curiously to see a minute fracture in the clouds above through which a single star was twinkling.

Hermione slouched over to him, tail limp, and rested against his foreleg. He lowered his head to lick her with a dry tongue. Two horcruxes gone in as many days — it would have been a miracle except they’d worked so damned hard to destroy each of them. Miracle made it sound as though it had just happened all by itself.

The buzzing swelled and ebbed again, annoying him, until it twigged what he was feeling. Voldemort.

He nuzzled Hermione to get her attention and fixed her with a meaningful look. She leapt up and placed a paw over his, concerned but understanding. With a few more steadying breaths, Harry allowed his true form to return to the surface and fell backwards into his own mind, along the bridge from the horcrux to its owner.

Voldemort was agitated.

It should have been simple now, trivial even. The boy escaping was an annoyance, yes, but those responsible had been dealt with and now he had the wand, everything else would fall before him as it should.

And yet here was an unexpected twist in the finale of his return. His Dementors, the most unquestioning and therefore faithful of his servants, had left. For some inexplicable reason, they no longer followed his commands, even being so bold as to attempt to attack him, though they had been dispatched with trivially.

It wasn’t possible that someone would be able to break the bond. For a start, the place was unreachable, far too heavily guarded by them for even a wizard as great as Dumbledore to approach alone, and he was dead. Even if someone could reach Azkaban, they would not know what they had found, would have no way of damaging it. It wasn’t possible.

Yet something had happened. It niggled at him, a splinter in an otherwise flawless performance.

He could check; there was time. He could fly to Azkaban to soothe his mind, could check Little Hangleton, could visit Hogwarts. It was no matter. In fact, it was time to reveal all anyway, to step out of the shadows and claim his mantle for all to see, and what better place to do that than Hogwarts anyway.

Yes, it was time.

Harry crashed back into his own mind, gasping and spluttering. His limbs trembled with cold as he felt Hermione shift next to him, grasping him by the shoulders to help him sit upright.

“We were right,” he panted, pulling his shaking arms to his chest. “The missing horcrux is in Hogwarts.”

“What did you see?” Hermione asked, crouching to put herself level with him and cupping a gloved hand to his face.

“Felt, really,” he replied. “The Dementors aren’t his anymore. He’s suspicious, going to come here to check, then go after his other ones; the cave, the shack, everywhere.”

Hermione looked back over his shoulder in the direction of the slag heap that had once been Britain’s foremost magical prison.

“He’s not going to like what he finds,” she said. “As soon as he realises the second one is gone too, that this wasn’t a fluke, he’ll know.”

She swayed on her feet and Harry rose up to catch her, feeling warmer for moving again.

“You can’t apparate like this, Hermione, you’re exhausted. You need to rest, just a couple of hours, then head him off at Hogwarts.”

She nodded distractedly.

“I suppose, yeh, rest. Then we’ll go right there.”

“Not we, you.”

She looked at him and finally understood what he was saying. Her eyes filled up.

“No…”

“He will either win or die at Hogwarts, Hermione. We both know it, and we need to make sure it’s the latter. I can’t come with you. I can’t come any further.”

“No, that’s not… what if…” Hermione was uncharacteristically speechless, confronted with a problem without an answer. Harry took her arms in his.

“There’s only one left now. Only me,” Harry whispered, resting his forehead against hers. “If he goes down at Hogwarts, what if he comes back in me? Possesses me? What if, by leaving one horcrux, he escapes death again? I can’t do it, Hermione. They all have to be gone before you face him. It’s the only way to be sure.”

His tears ran down his nose and mingled with hers.

“I can’t,” Hermione breathed. “I can’t do this without you. Don’t make me do this without you. I need you.”

“You can. You have to. I’m so sorry.” Harry’s words fogged in the air and were carried away across the ice. The wetness on his cheeks stung as it froze, but it was insignificant compared to the pain in his heart. “I wanted… I wanted there to be more time.”

“Not yet,” she begged, her voice barely more than a murmur. “Stay with me, at least until I go. Stay with me. Please.”

Harry pressed a tender kiss to her brow and gave a small nod.

Chapter Text

Ron woke to the dark interior of the hangings of his bed. He stared up at the velvet canopy for a long moment, trying to remember if he’d been dreaming. He wasn’t sweaty, his heart wasn’t trying to escape his ribcage, and he hadn’t sat bolt upright — all the telltale signs of one of his frequent nightmares. Why, then, was he awake?

A quick charm told him it was a little after midnight. He felt agitated, restless, like he wanted to get up and move, and not the slightest bit tired.

Ron pulled back the three layers of duvet on top of his bed and swung his feet to the floor, pulling open the hangings. He was surprised to see Neville also awake, kneeling on his bed, and Seamus peering out from between his own curtains.

“What is that? Can you feel that?” Neville asked, frowning.

The air was practically humming, as alive and awake as the three boys.

Ron quickly swapped his full-length pyjamas for a sweater and a pair of jeans. It didn’t feel right to be dressed for sleep when the whole room felt like it was on the precipice of something, waiting. As he bent to pull on his shoes, he looked under his bed. The Sword of Gryffindor was right where he’d left it, sandwiched between his mattress and the slats of the bed frame. He left it there; it wasn’t that kind of anticipation.

“I can’t see any Dementors,” said Neville, peering out of the narrow window of the tower.

“Of course you can’t, it’s nighttime,” huffed Seamus who was still in bed.

Neville shot him a sideways glance and beckoned Ron over. He shuffled aside and Ron gazed out into the grounds. Despite a thick layer of cloud obscuring the Moon, the snow-covered lawns were bright enough to see all the way to the edge of the Forbidden Forest, and if he craned slightly, a sliver of the perimeter wall. Just as Neville had said, he could not make out a single black shadow hovering out there.

“Something could have pulled them round the other side of the castle?” Ron suggested, but Neville looked sceptical. “We should find McGonagall.”

“Wait up!” said Seamus, jumping up to throw some clothes on. Ron rolled his eyes but didn’t fancy starting a fight just because Seamus didn’t want to be left on his own up there.

As they made their way down from the boys’ dormitories, other doors opened and curious heads poked out.

“What’s going on?”

“Did you feel something?”

“Go back, you’ll get us all in trouble!”

They reached the common room to find a similar gaggle of girls standing warily around the staircase to their own dorms.

“Ron!” said Ginny, separating herself from the group upon spotting her brother. “Were you woken up too? What’s happening?”

“We don’t know,” Ron replied. “We’re going to find McGonagall.”

“I’ll come with you.”

It looked as though the whole of Gryffindor tower had been woken at the same time and none of them felt much like going back to sleep. Seamus broke off to question Lavender and Parvati while Ron, Neville, and Ginny headed towards the portrait out of the common room.

It had just swung shut behind them when brisque footsteps echoed up the corridor and McGonagall herself strode into view, fully dressed, and making purposefully for the dormitories.

“What are you three doing out of bed?” she asked, a tense energy about her that mirrored their own.

“We were coming to find you, Professor,” Ron replied. “What’s going on? The Dementors weren’t outside?”

“They have left the grounds,” McGonagall said. “I don’t know why, but I doubt it was a deliberate action by our esteemed headmaster.”

There was a commotion behind them and more students came clambering out of the portrait. The remainder of the seventh-years came first, followed by Ginny’s friends in the sixth, and before long half of the House was milling about in the hallway.

“Well really!” McGonagall snipped. “I came here to bid you all stay in the tower while I find the rest of the staff and investigate! This simply will not—”

“Oi! What are you lot doing out past curfew?”

McGonagall spun on her heel and put herself in front of the students as four figures marched up the corridor.

When Headmaster Carrow had locked down the school for the Easter holidays, he had brought a score of Death Eaters into the castle, no doubt fearing an uprising. Four of these new staff now approached the Gryffindors, their wands raised, hard light shining into the faces of the students.

“Put those down!” McGonagall fumed. Ron saw her own wand appear in her hand which only a moment ago had been empty.

“Get back to bed, the lot of you, before I decide to make an example of someone! That means you too, lady.”

“You forget yourself, Mister Cartwright,” snapped McGonagall, and the Death Eater looked momentarily alarmed. “Oh yes, just because you left these halls twelve years ago doesn’t mean I have forgotten you, though you seem to have forgotten yourself!”

The Death Eater turned slightly pink, but quickly recovered from his temporary loss of composure.

“I won’t warn you again,” he growled, shoving his wand forward menacingly.

“Your grades were not so formidable that I fear your wand, Cartwright, and I will decide what my House shall and shall not do.”

A wordless red hex shot from the tip of the Death Eater’s wand, filling the hallway with light as it lanced towards the professor. McGonagall didn’t even flinch when it burst upon a translucent shield that had appeared in front of her as if from nowhere.

“As I was saying-” McGonagall began, but she was drowned out by a roar from the massed students behind her and suddenly the hallway was alive with spellfire. Light blazed down the hall, ricochetting off walls, floors, and suits of armour as fifty students returned fire at the four Death Eaters.

They stumbled backwards and one of them fell to the floor before the others could deflect the classroom spells, unprepared for the sheer volume and ferocity of them.

“Yes, well, it’s very sweet of you but not really what I had in mind,” Ron heard McGonagall mumble as he stepped up next to her to press their advantage.

Flanking their professor, Ron, Neville, and Ginny sent a barrage of curses down the corridor while McGonagall busied herself intercepting and deflecting the returning fire before it could reach the students.

“Where was this attitude earlier, professor?” Ron yelled over the din, narrowly missing one of them with a piercing curse and copping a nasty hex in return that Ginny deflected.

“Watch yourself Mister Weasley, I am still your Head of House,” McGonagall chided him. “However, I do owe you an apology. My mind and spirit were clouded by those foul beings and, no matter why they are now gone, we will fight for this school. I am sorry.”

“What was that, professor? I didn’t quite catch that over the noise of the battle.”

She gave him a stern look but Ron simply grinned back. Whipping her wand over her head, McGonagall sent a pulse of magic rippling down the corridor. In its wake, the suits of armour creaked and groaned as they climbed off their plinths and hefted their weapons. The sentinels marched on the Death Eaters, halberds, flails, and great-axes swinging lethally through the air. Importantly, it gave the students a brief respite from attack.

“Fourth years and below, back to your dormitories! No arguments.” McGonagall called over their heads to general groaning. “Fifth years, you will stay in the common room and guard the entrance!” This at least brought some of the older students on-side, and they began shepherding the younger ones back through the portrait.

“Sixth and Seventh years,” said the professor, turning to the handful that remained. “I will not ask you to come with me, especially those of you that are not yet of age, but nor will I forbid it. We find ourselves in desperate times, with an enemy already deep inside Hogwarts. What lies ahead is dangerous, and possibly lethal. There is nothing less noble about staying to keep the younger students safe.”

There was a screeching clang as one of the armoured golems fell, its breastplate skidding across the floor and coming to a stop against Ron’s foot.

“We’re coming,” he growled, to fervent agreement.

“Very well,” McGonagall replied. “We need to link up with the other Houses and get a message out to our allies. I have no doubt that Voldemort will send his own reinforcements when he gets word.”

Another crash and two more suits were obliterated. Spellfire began to hiss past them again between the gaps in the armour wall.

“Constance, we’re on a war footing now. You know what to do.” McGonagall said to the Fat Lady, who nodded sombrely and disappeared out of the side of her frame.

“All these years, I never asked her name,” Ron mused as they turned to face their attackers once more.

“Stay behind me, and watch out for each other,” McGonagall called, pushing up her sleeves and readying herself to jump back into the fray as the last of her guardians was blown to pieces.

They fought hard for each foot of corridor, the ten of them — students plus professor — steadily driving back the three remaining Death Eaters. What the students lacked in skill, they made up for with numbers as a steady stream of blasting, burning, binding, and petrifying jinxes kept the Death Eaters from gaining the upper hand, supplemented by the dazzling and terrifying conjurations of Professor McGonagall.

The Death Eaters hadn’t yet resorted to killing curses, perhaps under orders from their masters, but they fought with ferocity. A sixth-year boy fell as they approached the grand staircase, bleeding from a nasty gash across his arm caused by a severing curse that could have taken it off entirely if Neville hadn’t pulled him aside. One of his dorm-mates stayed back to help him but the rest pressed on.

More blasts and cries were ringing out from elsewhere in the castle, the sounds of other small battles being fought that grew louder as they drew nearer to the entrance hall.

Two more Death Eaters joined the three they were fighting, running up the ever-changing stairs, and the Gryffindors were fought to a standstill on the fourth-floor landing. They took what cover they could find behind statues and braziers, firing in the gaps between scorching spellfire.

“If we stay here, they’ll get around us!” Ron bellowed, whipping his head to the side as a chunk of stone was blown out of his cover. Parvati screamed and hit the floor, limp, as a jet of blue light caught her in the gut. Seamus and Lavender dragged her body back behind the balustrade.

Just then there was a shout as one of the Death Eaters was hoisted into the air by an invisible force and flung into the cavernous stairwell, disappearing from sight. The others turned and began firing upwards at something Ron couldn’t see.

“Fillius!” McGonagall called with relief as the diminutive Charms professor hove into view leading a group of students in blue-trimmed robes.

“And the Ravenclaws!” shouted Neville.

“Minerva! I am so glad we found you,” squeaked Flitwick, his wand dancing so fast the tip was just a blur.

The two groups joined on the landing and Ron instantly spotted Luna. Her blond hair was full of grey dust but her face lit up at the sight of him. Before he even had a chance to think about it, he’d pulled her into an embrace.

“I’m happy to see you too, Ronald,” Luna laughed.

“Get a room you two! We’re fighting a battle over here!” Ginny yelled, and Ron let Luna go hastily, his ears burning.

“Just… glad you’re alright,” he mumbled, but there wasn’t time to feel embarrassed as another four Death Eaters emerged from an upper landing and started to fire down on the grouped students. They dived for cover again, sending counter-curses flying up into the rafters.

“Keep moving! Keep moving!” yelled McGonagall, taking the lead once more as she pressed on down the stairs. Flitwick took up the rear, duelling their pursuers four-on-one, backing slowly after them.

In the Entrance Hall another pitched battle was being fought. Professor Sprout and the Hufflepuffs had turned the hall into a mess of rubble, fighting another band of black-cloaked attackers. Crowded behind the main stairs, in the passage that led down to the kitchens and the Hufflepuff common room, were at least a hundred black-and-yellow robed students.

“Pomona!” McGonagall called. “Why are the first years here!?”

“Kitchens are on fire,” Professor Sprout replied, sending a Death Eater cartwheeling across the hall until he struck a wall and didn’t get up. “Common room will be cut off soon if we can’t get a handle on it!”

“Where’s Horace?” called Flitwick, hurrying down to join them.

“I wouldn’t count on the support of Slytherin House right now,” McGonagall grumbled.

With the three heads of houses and almost two-hundred students gathered together, the Death Eaters that were still fighting quickly retreated into the maze of corridors, disappearing from sight.

“They’ll be back,” warned Sprout.

“Into the Great Hall, quickly now,” McGonagall commanded, and everyone filed inside, gravitating towards the back of the room near the staff table. Ron and the others hung around the entrance, by the professors.

“We can’t stay here,” McGonagall was saying. “I still have students locked in the tower that need rescuing.”

“As do I,” added Flitwick.

“And we need to gather the rest of the faculty to push out the Carrow’s and their ilk,” said Sprout.

“I heard spellfire coming from the direction of Aurora’s office, and Septima is up that way too,” McGonagall nodded. “Either way, those hateful twins will come right here. Weasley!”

Ron started, alarmed at having being caught eavesdropping.

“Yes, professor?”

“Am I right that, some months ago, you were hiding students from our Head of Discipline?”

“Er, yes, yeh.”

“I am ashamed to say I never did find out how you were doing it. Where was it, and would it shelter the rest of the student body?”

Ron looked across at Neville, Ginny, and Luna who had all joined the throng.

“It’s the Room of Requirement, and yes, I think it would.”

“The Room of what?”

“Requirement.”

“Honestly, if you spent as much time studying as you did uncovering Hogwarts’ many secrets, you’d be…” McGonagall’s voice drifted into the background as something she had said stirred up an image of the headmaster’s office only weeks ago.

“Hogwarts hides a great many secrets, Severus, for those bold enough to seek them.” Voldemort’s own words before he killed Snape, and suddenly it clicked.

“Oh, fuck!” Ron exclaimed, slapping a hand to his forehead.

“Mister Weasley!?” McGonagall protested, but he ignored her and turned to the others.

“It’s in the Room of Requirement! The thing, “Hogwarts hides a great many secrets.” It’s in the bloody Room of Requirement!”

“Are you sure?” asked Neville, looking electrified.

“It’s the only place we haven’t looked, and you just know he’s the sort of person to think he’s the only one to find it.”

“Mister Weasley, what in Merlin’s name are you on about?” demanded McGonagall.

“Sorry, Professor,” Ron said, turning to face the staff. “Yes, the Room of Requirement could shelter the students, but there’s something we need to get from it first. Something really, really important.”

The transfiguration professor scrutinised him, but whatever she saw in him convinced her.

“Very well, but make it quick. Pomona, you set up a defence here until we can move the students. Fillius, you take three students and relieve what staff you can find before collecting your House. Abbot, Macmillan, Boot,” she raised her voice and three familiar faces came running over, “you help the Elves tackle the fire in the kitchen. Weasley, I will come with you and you can show me this room, then I will lead the rest of Gryffindor House there.”

“Professor!” Hannah shouted, and the group looked around to see the regrouped Death Eaters flooding down the stairs into the Entrance Hall led by the furious Carrow twins.

“You just couldn’t stay in line, could you,” snarled Amycus, reaching the ground floor and standing in the doorway of the Great Hall. “Well, it is high time this school was rid of the filth that has been allowed to taint it for the last century. Your deaths will mark the end of this shameful period in Hogwarts’ history and the beginning of a new era.”

McGonagall bristled and drew herself up to her full height, back straight as a rod.

“I had rather planned on it being your death.”

Magic exploded into action with McGonagall hurling spears of ice from her wand that were narrowly deflected by Carrow to impale two of his comrades. The other professors leapt forward and filled the air with their own dazzling and terrifying magic, pushing the Death Eaters half way back across the Entrance Hall before they could respond, but respond they did. They’d been surprised by the sudden action, but now curses came raining down among the students and professors. The older students ran forward to join the fray while there were screams and panic from the first and second year Hufflepuffs at the back of the hall.

Battle raged around them as Ron watched the remainder of Dumbledore’s Army rallying the students around them.

“We need to help them!” shouted Ginny.

“This is more important,” Ron yelled in response. “I need to get back to the tower. I need the sword!”

“We’ll come with you,” said Neville, ducking a jet of white light. “We can get the other students out.”

Weaving and bobbing, Ron, Luna, Ginny, and Neville slipped out of the hall in the space the Hogwarts defenders had created during their advance and darted down a side passage.

“This way!” Ron said, ripping aside a tapestry to reveal a narrow staircase leading upwards.

They emerged just down from the second-floor landing, above the group of attacking Death Eaters. It was sorely tempting to start cursing them from behind to try and even the odds, but they needed to move on without being followed. The din faded behind them as they climbed and darted down deserted corridors until a new sound rang out from ahead.

They turned the corner towards Gryffindor tower to find two Death Eaters trying to break into the common room. One corner of the Fat Lady’s painting was charred and broken, and they were working at the stone they had exposed.

“Expulso!”

“Reducto!”

The Death Eaters didn’t even have a chance to look round before Ginny and Luna’s curses hit them in the back, slamming them into the wall before they collapsed like rag dolls. The four students skidded to a stop in front of the portrait.

“How do we get the damn thing open?” Ron said, prizing at the edges of the frame with his fingers. It wouldn’t budge. “Constance! We need to get in!”

To Ron’s surprise, the Fat Lady stuck her head back into the frame.

“Well, since you asked so nicely,” she said haughtily, but the portrait swung open all the same.

Ron barrelled inside and immediately hit the deck as erratic spellfire burst against the stone where his head had been.

“It’s us!” he yelled, rolling behind a sofa, and the attack ceased.

“Sorry,” said a sheepish Fifth-year as Neville grasped Ron’s forearm to haul him off the floor.

He left Neville and Ginny to coral the Gryffindors, bounding up the stairs to the boys’ dormitories with Luna hot on his heels. They reached the top, panting slightly, and he kicked open the door.

“Sorry about the mess,” Ron cringed, quickly kicking a pair of discarded pants under the bed before Luna could see them.

“It’s quite alright,” Luna trilled, looking around the room with fond amusement.

Ron heaved his mattress off the bed to reveal the Sword of Gryffindor lying underneath. He wrapped his hand around the hilt and gave it a test swing. The blade sang as it cleaved the air.

Back down in the common room, Ginny and Neville were running around counting heads and trying to calm the youngest students.

“We’ll go ahead,” Ron called out to them over the babble. “Give us ten minutes, then follow on!”

Neville nodded and Ron and Luna ducked back out of the portrait, over the unmoving Death Eaters, and beat it for the seventh floor.

The empty halls pattered with the sounds of distant battle, reverberating along the corridors from somewhere far below. It was discordant and alien in the halls of a school. Ron noticed that for the first time since he’d returned to the school, he couldn’t see his breath any more.

Finally, they tore past the troll tapestry and came to a halt opposite the blank wall where the door to the Room of Requirement would appear.

“The place where the horcrux is hidden. The place where the horcrux is hidden,” Ron chanted under his breath as the two of them paced back and forth the requisite three times. On the third, they wheeled about and he let out a shout of triumph as the door materialised.

He ran towards it, almost dragging Luna behind him, wrenched the door open and… stopped dead.

“What the—”

The room on the other side of the door was immense. The vaulted ceiling was hidden in shadow and the far end wasn’t even visible behind mountains and mountains of junk. Great walls of tables, cabinets, hat racks and trunks towered above them. There were piles of cauldrons, rolling hills of books, and what looked like the lower half of an entire stuffed troll sticking out of the heaped garbage.

“We’re never going to find it in here!” Ron groaned, letting the tip of the sword drop to the floor with a clang as he deflated.

“Wait, Ronald,” said Luna. She was gazing up at the jumbled chaos, following the line of one ridge as it merged into the next. “It’s a maze.”

“It is?” Ron asked, trying to see what she was seeing.

“Yes, and I bet the horcrux is in the centre. This way!” It was Ron’s turn to be dragged eagerly forwards as Luna led them down an avenue to the right.

Her head was tilted upwards, reading the stacks as they wove their way deeper into the room. Left at a pile of empty picture frames, straight on between the mismatched sets of armour, it went on and on for what felt like an age but could only have been a few minutes, until they rounded the final corner and were met with a clear, circular space and nowhere else to go.

“Check these stacks for something belonging to Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff,” said Luna, darting to the nearest heap. Ron took the opposite side and they worked towards each other, peering into the nooks.

“Ah ha!” Luna shouted, and Ron hurried over to her. “In there, see?”

Ron turned his head this way and that, trying to see between a forest of chair legs what Luna had spotted. There, an arms reach away, was a delicate silver tiara perched atop a regal looking bust, and engraved on the front was the eagle of Ravenclaw.

“What is it?”

“It’s the Diadem of Rowena Ravenclaw, said to bestow great wisdom upon its wearer,” Luna replied. “It’s been lost for centuries.”

“That’s got to be it,” Ron said, trying to find a way to reach it with the blade. “I can’t get the sword in there.”

“Here,” said Luna, weaving a slim arm between the jumbled chair legs to reach for it.

“Aaahhhh!” She yanked her hand back in pain, clutching burned fingers. The stack wobbled precariously.

“Are you okay!?” Ron yelped, looking at her. “Is it cursed?”

“I didn’t touch it,” Luna reassured him, still holding her hand tenderly. “There’s some barrier around it.”

Ron eyed the diadem again, trying to fit the blade of the sword into the gap but there was no direct path. The pile groaned again, displeased about being disturbed.

“Damn! As if anyone just walks around carrying dragon-hide glov…” Ron began, but then an idea struck him.

“Hold this,” he said to Luna, pushing the Sword of Gryffindor into her good hand and rolling up his left sleeve. He strained his memory, trying to recall everything he’d been told about what he would need to do, and supressing for now the acute hurt that came with the memories. He filled his mind with a singular image and purpose, then tapped his outstretched arm with his wand.

“Corpus Immutatio!”

Ron’s skin rippled from the point his wand touched. It took on a reddish hue and began to harden, a thick crust spreading over his forearm and hand before a spiderweb of cracks spread across it, splitting the carapace into individual scales. He flexed his fingers, the thick hide making movement more difficult, but not impossible.

“What did you do?” Luna asked, awed, as she ran a blistered finger lightly over the scale.

“Transfiguration,” Ron replied. “I gave myself lizard skin. I don’t know if actual dragon skin is possible; there’s a hierarchy and magical animals— Never mind, this isn’t the time.”

He lined himself up in front of the stack again and reached into it with his transfigured arm. He could tell in an instant when he’d reached the protective barrier around the diadem. It felt like lowering his hand into scalding water, but his thickened hide gave him just enough protection to grasp the headpiece and wrench it free.

It clattered across the empty space as Ron shook his arm vigorously, smoke curling from the edges of the singed scales. He reversed the spell, his now human skin looking pink and raw, but the diadem was free.

“Here,” said Luna, holding the sword out to him. “It should be wielded by a Gryffindor.”

Ron flexed his grip on the blade, it’s point bobbing. The diadem glinted up at them from the floor, giving no hint about what may or may not lay within it.

“I hope they were right,” Ron murmured, raising the blade overhead.

He brought it down hard, as though he were wielding a battle axe rather than a sword, just to be sure. The blade whistled through the air and cleaved the diadem in two, sticking an inch into the stone floor beneath it.

Ron and Luna were immediately thrown backwards into the mountain of forgotten objects by an explosion that robbed all light from the room. It shrieked its fury right into his very soul, clawing at his eardrums, his eyes, his mind as its death rattle reverberated around the room.

Gradually, the sound faded and the light returned as the shadow that had spilled from the diadem dissipated. Ron flexed his jaw to pop his ears and clambered out of the heap he’d been thrown into, helping Luna to do the same.

“I’m pretty sure that did it,” he chuckled in disbelief, wrenching the sword from the floor. The diadem had shrivelled and partially melted; it’s two halves curled in on each other like dead leaves. Before Luna could respond, though, the ground began to tremble and a low groan filled the air.

The stacks of disused furniture and lost belongings around them teetered. Smaller objects rained down, smashing on the floor or pouring like water between the gaps. There was a crunch of splintering wood and the whole top half pitched to the side.

“It’s coming down! Go!” Ron yelled.

They ran from the centre of the maze as the pile came crashing down, burying the remains of the diadem under a ton of detritus. Each stack held up the next, and as one went, they all started to fall like dominos.

Ron and Luna sprinted back the way they had come, the tidal wave of objects pelting their heels. Ron turned the wrong way and was jerked back by his collar before he could be crushed by an ornate mirror that shattered into smithereens before him.

The destruction was outpacing them, towers beginning to topple next to them, then ahead of them as they ran underneath the falling debris. Luna levitated a hole in the tumbling wreckage and they ran through it before it could close behind them.

They were almost there. The back wall was getting closer with each step, but between it and them lay a sprawling ridgeline of scrap that they had taken a long detour around when they had entered. There was no time left to go around it. Ron threw his arm around Luna’s shoulder, aimed for a point right at the base, and thrust his wand forward.

“Bombarda Maxima!”

The mountain heaved. A giant bubble of nothing erupted underneath it, throwing furniture spinning up to the ceiling. On the far side, the door to the room was waiting for them. As if in slow motion, the bubble of smashed junk expanded and expanded and expanded, and then began to collapse.

The pair sprinted through raining splinters and torn pages, the roar of imminent destruction filling their ears and tearing at their robes. Through they ran and crashed into the door which sent them spilling into the hallway. Ron rolled over, seeing the rush of debris careening for them, and kicked the door closed. It rumbled and shook, then shrunk to a single point and vanished.

Ron and Luna lay on the floor, panting heavily and covered in debris. The Sword of Gryffindor was still clutched in Ron’s right hand and his pulse raced. Without a second thought, he rolled towards Luna and kissed her like his life depended on it.

Her uninjured hand came up to clasp his face and she met his lips with equal enthusiasm.

“Well, about time,” came a familiar voice, and they hastily broke off to see Neville and Ginny leading the remaining Gryffindors along the corridor towards them. The expressions on the students faces ranged from glee to disgust, depending on their age, and Ron quickly helped Luna to her feet.

“Tell me you at least got the thing,” said Ginny, her eyebrow raised but a definite smirk on her lips.

“Destroyed, well and truly,” Ron replied, finding not embarrassment, but pride within him.

“Yes!” cried Neville, punching the air.

“You get the others safely into the room, we’ll go and find McGonagall, tell her to start bringing the rest up,” Ron said, already squeezing past the students to head back to the Entrance Hall. “Somewhere big enough for them all! And maybe with a back exit if it can do that!” he called out over their heads before disappearing with Luna around the corner.

The sounds of fighting had severely diminished, which was either very good news or very bad news, Ron surmised. They descended the grand staircase cautiously, wands raised, until the Entrance Hall came into view.

The destruction was even worse than when they had left. The windows were smashed and two of the great House hourglasses had shattered, spilling their glittering contents across the hall. There were bodies. Mostly, Ron saw with relief, Death Eaters, but there were students among them too.

They reached the ground floor and looked around. Through the doors to the Great Hall, they could see the majority of the students. Beds had been conjured to carry the injured, of which there were many, and the staff were flitting between them. Ron was pleased to see Madam Pomfrey among them, as well as the Arithmancy and Ancient Runes professors, and even a few emerald-trimmed students.

“Ah, Mister Weasley, Miss Lovegood,” said McGonagall as she strode in from the grounds.

“The Room of Requirement is open,” Ron said. “Ginny and Neville have taken the Gryffindors there and it’s ready for everyone else.”

McGonagall looked tired. Her hair had come loose from its bun and her robes were dotted with tears and burns. There was a smudge of blood on her cheek.

“Very good, we shall start sending them up immediately.”

“Did we win?” Ron asked.

“We expelled the Death Eaters for now,” McGonagall sighed. She glanced across the hall and Ron followed her gaze to the crumpled body of Amycus Carrow, the former headmaster.

“We lost fourteen students, and another thirty-six are injured,” she continued, her eyes wet with sorrow and fury alike. “Horace has secured the Slytherin students who were unwilling to cooperate, and we have managed to get the word out that we are under attack. All we can do now is wait to see who answers.”

“But the castle is ours?”

“It is ours,” McGonagall replied, “but now we have to keep it.”

She stood aside to let them see out into the grounds. The rolling, snow-covered lawns were empty, but beyond the boundary wall, on the hillside that the village of Hogsmeade clung to, a hundred torches flickered in the night and a glowing green skull with a coiling, serpentine tongue shimmered in the air.

Chapter Text

The soft sound of gentle breathing was the only thing to be heard in the otherwise silent tent. The wind had finally abated and Harry sat on the edge of the thin mattress, stroking the hair of the woman he loved.

Hermione hadn’t wanted to sleep; had fought against it, but her exhaustion was too great and she had succumbed less than an hour after they had pitched the tent. Harry had made sure her wand would wake her in a couple more. She could rest for now.

Harry hadn’t slept. He could feel the aches in his body that sleep would soothe, but the desire to do so had completely left him. It seemed so pointless to spend his last few hours in a state of unconsciousness. There would be an eternity to sleep soon.

If he had lain down his head, Harry had no doubt that he would have been dragged into Voldemort’s turbulent mind. Flashes of the dark wizard’s thoughts were already forcing themselves back along the bond to Harry: A puddle of gold in the middle of a ruined courtyard, the stone melted like wax and still glowing. An ice-choked cave, a ghostly boat, and a crystal basin lying empty. Voldemort knew.

He knew his secret had been discovered, but still he was compelled to be absolutely sure. To hope, if Voldemort did such a thing, that one of them might have been missed, been overlooked. His path would lead him to Hogwarts and the final horcrux. Or, at least, it would be the final one by then.

At any other time, Harry would have been forced into animal form to resist the waves of emotion pulsing down the link between their minds, but just as he did not want to sleep his final moments away, nor did he wish to spend them in the Dark Lord’s thrall. He blocked out the siren’s call, its claws skating off his mind like glass.

Harry knew what he must do. He had already decided.

That he had to die was not up for debate, only the how. He would never ask Hermione to be the one to do it — he certainly wouldn’t have been able to do it to her. Facing an army of Death Eaters or Voldemort himself and taking as many with him as he could had a certain poetic justice to it, but there were too many ways it could go wrong. For one, he might not even die and instead end up captured, thus dooming Britain and himself in one fell swoop. No, there was only one option. He would take his own life.

He felt… okay about it. Not good, but taking control of his own fate for once was liberating. No Voldemort, no Dumbledore, no prophesy, just Harry making this decision by himself and following it through to the end. He could live with that. He could die like that.

It was time.

He hated leaving without a proper goodbye, but what goodbye would ever have been enough? If Hermione were awake, if he could see her face, the love in her eyes when it came time to go, he might never have been able to. No, he knew he wouldn’t have been able to. He hoped she would be able to find it in her heart to forgive him.

Harry eased himself off the bed, letting her curls fall from between his fingers. She didn’t stir, nor should she have after fending off more Dementors than Harry had ever seen, practically on her own — a truly amazing witch. His amazing witch.

He’d heard that people usually left notes for this sort of thing, but he knew right away that it would be impossible. There was no possible way he could convey all he wanted to on a sheet of parchment. He wouldn’t be able to find the words to speak them, let alone write them all down coherently, but he still needed her to know, needed her not to wake up and question where he was.

In the end, he settled on three words, scrawled in his spiky handwriting on the back of the photograph she had given him for Christmas. He laid it on his pillow next to her sleeping head, the tiny Harry and Hermione dancing together endlessly as he stepped out into the cold.

Harry trekked through the snow for a short while until he was certain that the sound of his apparition wouldn’t wake Hermione. He had wanted to leave her his wand, but more than that he didn’t want her to find his body, which meant he would have to apparate somewhere remote first. It was still bitterly, dangerously cold, but the fact that he could walk for ten minutes at all meant that something had changed.

Harry looked back at his footprints. He wondered if Hermione would follow them when she woke.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered into the still air, and disapparated.

Having decided that he would destroy the horcrux by his own hand, the next problem had been how. It ought not to be difficult. The cardinal rule with horcruxes was that one had to damage them beyond all means of physical or magical repair, and there was no spell that could bring a person back from the dead, no matter how they died. Nagini had been tough, protected by Voldemort’s magic, but she had died all the same.

Harry pressed forward through the bare landscape, letting his memory guide him. He had never cast a killing curse before, and didn’t want his first attempt to be on himself, if that was even possible. He supposed he could just sit down and let the cold claim him, but that sounded slow and painful. No, he wanted something quick and reliable.

He spotted his destination ahead and halted. Now that he was here, it was all very real, and his limbs trembled with more than just a chill. Harry carefully placed his wand down at his feet. He wouldn’t need it now, and he couldn’t guarantee he wouldn’t try and save himself in his last moments. He left the stick of Holly half buried in the snow and walked on.

Harry’s boots crunched on the loose slate as he approached the bluff. The quarry was untouched since he’d last been there, save perhaps for a new layer of snow. Down there was where they had pitched the tent, and over on the other side was where he and Hermione had achieved their first animagus transformation. He could still remember the first time he had caught her scent with his heightened senses.

He stepped up to the lip of the quarry. Over a century ago the miners had carved away at the rock for building materials. The far side rose in tiers but where Harry stood, they’d left a sheer five-hundred-foot drop to the bottom of the pit. This is how he would do it. Quick and reliable.

A love of Quidditch had long since cured any fear of heights, and Harry moved his toes over the edge of the cliff, small flakes breaking off and tumbling down into the abyss. He tried to calm his shaky breathing and focus on his purpose. He was ridding Voldemort of his penultimate horcrux. It was inside him, Harry, and had to be destroyed.

His thoughts rebelliously turned to Hermione, asleep in the tent, and he wrestled them back again. Voldemort would live forever if he didn’t do this.

Harry teetered on the precipice.

He needed to stop thinking and just do it. He would count, and then he would step.

“Three,” Harry said, teeth clenched.

“Two.” He closed his eyes.

“One.”

He couldn’t do it. Harry stumbled backwards away from the edge and dropped into the snow. He couldn’t bring himself to do it.

Harry cursed his own cowardice, wresting back control of his frozen limbs. He couldn’t make himself do it; his self-preservation had taken over in that instant and forced him backwards instead of forwards, so what on Earth was he supposed to do now?

The problem hadn’t just gone away. The horcrux still resided inside him.

“Arghhhh!” Harry roared with frustration. Was there no end to the misery Voldemort had wrought on his life that Harry was now sat here trying to debate with himself the second-best way to end his own existence!?

His outburst was interrupted by a hollow, rattling breath.

Harry’s head whipped around to see a single Dementor gliding up the slope behind him. Its torn robes skimmed the snow and it flew at a precarious angle, but it was coming for him. Others were just visible in the distance, not yet close enough to sense him. He backed away slowly, closer to the cliff edge, spying his wand on the ground behind the Dementor.

His hands found the edge of the rock again. He was out of options.

The thing was clearly in bad shape. Harry reckoned he would have a good chance of outrunning it if he shifted right now, but a small voice told him “no.”

It was the same voice that had led him to the quarry. He couldn’t make himself jump, but this way he just had to do… nothing.

The Dementor lurched closer. He wouldn’t die, Harry knew that, but he would be mindless enough that he wouldn’t notice the hypothermia setting in, or perhaps would stumble off the ledge in a state of torpor. He wouldn’t have to picture Hermione’s face as he fell — it would only be his body falling, after all.

There was a faint screaming creeping in at the edge of his hearing, and his vision was darkening to a circular patch of indigo sky and a dreadful silhouette that grew larger within it.

The screaming of his mother grew louder and was joined by another; that of Hermione when he had mauled her. The despair and anguish of the two women echoed around his head and an icy hand clutched his jaw.

Harry felt as though he was falling, and yet he could still feel the cold ground beneath his palms. His face was being tugged, the intensity building and building until he thought it might be ripped clean from his skull.

Intense, all-encompassing pain ignited within him. It throbbed from his chest, from his head, to reach every part of him, a hundred times worse than Voldemort’s cruciatus curse had been. Harry felt like he was being ripped in half from the inside.

If this was what having one’s soul removed felt like, let it end, he prayed. Let the agony carry him into oblivion so that he need feel it no more — feel anything anymore. Not the grief and the heartache of never seeing Hermione again, never seeing their children run about between their legs, never seeing her grow old. Let it end.

He was vaguely aware that his hands had become paws, his nose had become a snout, the fight-or-flight response of his dying soul triggering the animagus shift on its own in a desperate bid to spur him into action, but it was too late, and the darkness finally claimed him.

The first thing Harry noticed was that he was able to notice anything at all. He was definitely thinking, which meant he definitely existed, didn’t he? He could feel his arms and legs cushioned by something, and the steady flow of air through his nostrils. At least, he assumed it was air. He cracked open his eyes and was met with endless white under midnight blue.

Harry had never given much thought to the afterlife, or whoever presided over it, but one thing he was fairly certain of was that having a soul was a non-negotiable requirement for entry.

He got to his feet, four of them, realising that he was still in the shape of a snow leopard, and was pondering the meaning of animagi abilities persisting beyond death when he properly noticed his surroundings.

The endless white wasn’t some ethereal limbo, but powdered snow that blanketed the ground around him, cratered by his own boots. He turned and found himself barely two paces from the lethal drop above the quarry. He hadn’t passed on to some other place but was instead exactly where he had passed out, which meant that he was…

“Ha!” Harry exclaimed, though it left his throat as a yowl. He quickly shifted back, head pivoting around. The Dementor was nowhere to be seen; he couldn’t even feel its presence. Come to think of it, he couldn’t feel any presence; not even the one he’d been resisting for hours.

He was still himself. He was still whole. Voldemort’s anchor in his mind had been a weight Harry didn’t even know he’s been carrying until it had been lifted. He felt dazed, naked almost, freezing cold but also serene in the absolute quiet. It was a solitude that would take some getting used to, but one he didn’t have to face alone.

Harry staggered down the slope and found his wand, untouched in the snow. How long had he been out? It was still dark, though unless he were mistaken there was a marginally lighter hue dusting the horizon to the East. He needed to get back to the tent, if she hadn’t already left.

He slipped through space, materialising back on the coast he had departed from. To his right, he could see the tracks he had left on his departure, as well as a second set that had been left in a hurry, kicking snow as they went and then dragging on the way back. Hermione’s tracks!

She had followed him to his disapparition point and then returned, meaning she had likely already left.

Harry ran through the snow, sending sprays of it flying in his haste to reach the camp. He ducked around a hedgerow and his heart leapt as he saw Hermione, the tent already packed away, standing ready to disapparate.

“Hermione!” Harry yelled as he drew near.

“Expelliarmus!”

Hermione had whirled around at his cry and disarmed him before he had even seen her lift her wand. His own cartwheeled through the air and landed in the snow by her feet. Now that he could see her face, he could see that her eyes were red-rimmed but she wore a look of tortured anger.

“How dare you use his face,” Hermione snarled, her wand pointed directly between his eyes though her hand was trembling. “How dare you say my name with his voice! I should kill you. It’s no less than you’d deserve.”

Harry understood immediately and longed to reach her.

“It’s me, Hermione,” he said carefully, holding his hands open.

“It’s not,” she choked, though he saw the faintest flicker of hope within her. “It can’t be.”

Very slowly, her wand tracking him the whole way, Harry got down on his knees in the snow. He brought his hands to rest in front of him and fixed her with his gaze, before letting his feline form take him once more.

“Harry!” Hermione’s voice broke and she almost fell to her knees herself at the sight of him.

Harry bounded through the snow towards her and Hermione ran towards him until they collided in the middle. Her hands gripped his fur and her tears fell on his face, and then he was human again and was holding her tighter than he had ever clung to anything in his life.

The heat of her cheek burned against his neck and she was pressed so hard against him Harry could feel the frantic pounding of her heart against his chest. She was life, chasing away the shadow of death that clung to the memory of his actions. The sound of her staccato breathing and the smell of her hair filled his senses as though she were the only thing that existed in that moment.

He sobbed with her as they knelt in the snow, neither willing to loosen their grip on the other for a second.

“I thought you were gone,” Hermione said eventually, still buried in his neck.

“I was,” Harry heaved through ragged breaths. “I was, but I’m back and I’m never going again.”

She pulled back to clasp his face, drinking in every inch of him, her eyes sparkling with the remnants of her tears.

“Harry, your scar!” Hermione said, pushing his fringe away and staring at it.

“What about it?”

“It’s… well, it’s practically gone.” She moved his head forcefully, tilting it up and down, left and right in the dark. “There’s just the faintest mark remaining. Does that mean…”

“I think so,” Harry replied, a smile splitting his own tear-reddened face. “I can’t feel him anymore. He was beyond furious that we’d found his horcruxes, but now,” he shrugged. “Nothing.”

Hermione threw her arms around him again and he rocked back on his heels.

“How did you do it? How did you do it and come back?” came her muffled voice.

“I was kissed.”

“Excuse me?” said Hermione, leaning back to look at him again, and the implication was so absurd that Harry couldn’t help but laugh out loud.

“A Dementor’s kiss,” Harry clarified, reaching out to touch her shoulder when her mouth dropped in horror. “I’m okay. I’m still me, honest.”

“But… how?”

“I don’t even know. I tried… well, I tried something else first and couldn’t, and then one of them found me so I just sort of… let it. I think at one point I shifted, but after that I just remember waking up in the snow.”

“You shifted while it was… you know?”

“Yeah.”

“I wonder…” Hermione began, her mouth twisting. “You have — had — two souls inside you. Or, at least one whole soul and one partial soul. I wonder if, when you shifted, that left his partial soul as the most human one, and the Dementor, erm, took that one.”

“Whatever happened, I didn’t think I would be here to talk to you about it.”

Harry surprised himself with the realisation that he hadn’t kissed her yet, and quickly rectified such an egregious oversight. She tasted sweeter than he had ever known.

“I’d love to unpack this tent and pull you right inside it,” Hermione said when their lips parted, “but we can’t right now. I was just about to leave for Hogwarts.”

“You’re right,” said Harry, putting the enormity of the last few hours behind him for the moment. “If he isn’t there already, he will be very soon.”

While they had been talking, the band of indigo sky had turned an expectant cobalt.

“Do you think Hogsmeade will be safe to apparate to?” Hermione asked, pulling the pair of them back to their feet.

“Well,” said Harry, taking her hand. “I had an idea about that.”

They arrived into pitch blackness, the sound of their apparition echoing back at them. It took Harry a moment to get his bearings, but over his shoulder was a circular opening that appeared just a little less black than everything else. He led the two of them in that direction, his feet crunching on something small and hard that littered the floor.

They emerged from the mouth of a cave. The sky had darkened again so far North, and the horizon was no longer visible behind the mountain range that surrounded the hidden wizarding valley. In the distance, the towers and spires of Hogwarts cut a jagged silhouette against the sky, lit by a hundred points of yellow light. What lay below them, though, was more alarming.

The village of Hogsmeade sprawled across the foothills, its impossibly steep roofs leaning towards one another like a caricature of a muggle village. Several of the roofs were ablaze, the thatch belching black smoke into the air, and the streets were awash with torchlight. A river of torches led towards the castle and was already beginning to spread across the grounds. High in the air, about eye-level to Harry and Hermione, the Dark Mark twisted and gaped.

“You were right not to take us directly there,” said Hermione, looking down sadly at the village.

“I didn’t think they’d burn it,” Harry replied. “I’m sure Sirius wouldn’t mind us using his old hideout.”

“They’ve already been let into the grounds. They’ll be in the castle soon, but how are we going to get in to find the last horcrux?”

“I guess knocking on the door is out of the question,” said Harry grimly.

“There’s the secret passages?” Hermione suggested. “The one in Honeydukes, or the Shrieking Shack?”

Harry shook his head.

“Snape knows about those. He used the Shrieking Shack one. No, he’ll have blocked them up or have them monitored or something. We’d be sitting ducks. Unless…”

“What?”

Harry took a knee and used the tip of his wand to draw a crude castle in the snow with a big circle around it.

“The Marauders Map showed seven secret passages into Hogwarts,” Harry said, filling in the village, forest, and lake on his map. “The passage to Honeydukes, the passage to the Shack,” he drew them in. “There’s one that goes out towards the Quidditch Pitch, and another in the direction of the station. These are all no-goes, Snape knows about all of them.”

“That’s only four,” Hermione pointed out.

“Yes, the other three had all caved in and weren’t passable any more. There would be no point in blocking them up or watching them.”

“I don’t see how that helps us?”

“Well, they weren’t passable for humans…” Harry let the unsaid half of his sentence hang in the air.

“You think?”

“I don’t know, but it beats walking up to the front door.”

“Okay, agreed. How do we get into one of these collapsed passages?”

Harry grimaced. “The only one I know of on this side came out somewhere in Hogsmeade.”

By unspoken agreement, Harry and Hermione descended the narrow pass to the village on four paws. Swift and silent, they bounded down the rocky path until they reached the houses that marked the outer edge of the hamlet. The smell of smoke filled the air. Smoke and people.

They kept to the deep shadows cast by the moon that was beginning to peek between the breaking clouds. Harry was leading them towards the centre of the village; the place where his memory was telling him the thin line of the disused tunnel terminated, but drew up short at the sound of shouting and muffled explosions.

“Spellfire” Harry said with just a look towards Hermione.

“And if Voldemort has taken the town, the only people to fight would be-”

“-the Order” they realised together.

They switched tack, veering instead towards the battle. The sizzling and snapping of duelling curses grew louder as they galloped behind the back of the shops, through frostbitten herb gardens and over padlocked crates. It was coming from the vicinity of the Hogs Head pub. Harry stopped in the mouth of an alley and looked out.

He had been right about the location. A large group of Voldemort’s supporters had broken off from the precession towards the castle and were instead ducking in and out of broken storefronts to fire indiscriminately on the pub. What caused Harry to look twice though, was the tall, bald wizard who stood in the porch of the Hogs Head, firing back.

Kingsley Shacklebolt leant around the wooden pillar and dropped a Death Eater who’d been running for cover with a bolt of blue light, ducking back before a hail of answering red could reach him. More spellfire shot from the far corner of the pub, and another from a smashed upstairs window. Harry and Hermione ducked back out of sight, returning to human form.

“The Order are here,” said Harry, voicing what they both knew. “They can help us take the castle.”

“Something bigger must be going on,” Hermione said. “How else would they know to come?”

“I don’t know, but we need to link up with them.”

Hermione muttered an incantation and the tip of her wand glowed blue-white, then she held it up to her lips.

“Hold your fire. We’re coming in from the north,” she said into her wand, then flicked it forwards for her silver otter bust from the tip and scamper across the open space into the pub.

“They’ll know where we’re hiding now. Go!” urged Hermione, and they ran out after it. Harry caught two Death Eaters unawares, dropping them with stunners while Hermione deflected the erratic fire directed towards them, and they sprinted for a small side door that was wrenched open just moments before they collided with it.

Harry and Hermione spilled inside, skidding to a halt in the dingy main room of the pub. It was so dark, it took a moment for Harry’s eyes to adjust to his surroundings.

“Hermione! I thought that was your voice but I didn’t— and Harry too! Can it be?”

“Mister Weasley?” Hermione asked, blinking hard.

Before anyone could answer, the pair of them were swept up in a bone-crushing hug and Harry was suddenly confronted with the fact that, other than their brief stint as guests of the Malfoys, it was the first human contact they’d had besides each other in months. He appreciated the sentiment, but suddenly felt very claustrophobic. The person let go and stood back, revealing the beaming face of Arthur Weasley. Harry quickly flattened down his overly-long fringe, not yet ready to face questions about the sudden change in his scar.

“Nobody has seen or heard from you in months! We were so worried when Ron turned up in the state he did.”

Ron! Harry hadn’t forgotten his friend, but with everything they had been though there hadn’t been much time to really dwell on him. Instead of anger, Harry felt only keen guilt that he hadn’t been more concerned about his whereabouts.

“Is Ron okay?” Harry asked. He saw Hermione blanch out the corner of his eye.

“He’s, erm, well he’s up at the castle, so we don’t really—”

“Do you think you could have this reunion while stopping us from being overrun, perhaps?” barked a gruff voice and Harry turned, only to be confronted with a ghost.

Albus Dumbledore frowned back at him, except beyond the pale blue eyes he was different; broader, greyer, and harder of face.

“Right you are, Aberforth!” replied Arthur, hastily leading them further into the room.

“Is that—” Hermione began.

“Albus’ brother? Yes,” Aurther said, “He’s the only reason we’ve been able to get here at all.”

Harry looked around at the rest of the defenders, finding himself surrounded by familiar faces. Kingsley of course was holding the front door, and there were Bill and Fleur taking turns to fire from the cover of the far window. The stairs rumbled and Fred and George came leaping down them.

“More of them coming in from— Harry! Hermione!” said George, his frown turning into a grin.

Just then the fireplace flared green and two more people stepped out. The soot cleared to reveal Remus and Tonks, wands in hand, ready to join the fight.

“Tonks! Watch the front!” boomed Kingsley, retreating back into the main room.

“Righto! Wotcher, you two!” she said, winking at Harry and Hermione before moving to take up Kingsley’s position.

“What are you two doing here?” asked Remus.

“We might ask you the same thing,” replied Harry, taken aback by the flurry of activity.

“Minerva sent out a message,” rumbled Kingsley, as much to Remus as Harry and Hermione. “They were fighting to expel the Death Eaters from the school, but the whole place is locked down now and we don’t know what’s going on behind the walls. Obviously, we can’t apparate in, but you-know-who has taken the village and we need to break out of here before we can help those inside.”

A curse exploded against the building, shaking dust from the rafters as if to prove his point.

“Any sign of the man himself?” Remus asked.

“Not yet,” replied Kingsley.

“He’s on his way,” said Harry, and they turned to him.

“Are you sure?”

“Positive. He is coming.” He glanced at Hermione and she gave an imperceptible nod. “We need to get inside the castle. We need to find something, and then we’ll have a real chance of ending you-know-who for good.”

“We’re trying to get in too, Harry, but it’s locked up tight,” said Kingsley.

“I know, but we think there might be a way.” He turned to face the twins. “Do you know where the tunnel that runs under the lake comes out?”

“Yeh, it leads to the fountain in the square,” said Fred, “but we’ve tried it before, you can’t get through it.”

“At all?” Hermione pressed.

“It’s a death-trap,” said George. “Too small to squeeze though, too unstable to dig out any wider.”

Harry and Hermione shared a meaningful look.

“We can do it,” Harry replied. “Can you take us there?”

There was a moment of silence in which Harry imagined the Order to be weighing up their words and whether they could blindly trust the two teenagers who had miraculously returned after disappearing nine months ago.

“Do it,” said Kingsley. “Fred, George, Bill and Fleur, you lead Harry and Hermione to this tunnel. The rest of us will fortify this position while more of our number arrive, then we’ll push for the castle.” He turned to directly face Harry and Hermione. “When you get inside, we need to know what’s going on, and we need Minerva or whoever is the senior surviving faculty member to lift a portion of the lockdown to let us in. We don’t stand a chance if Hogwarts isn’t on our side.”

The six-person team gathered by the side door that Harry and Hermione had entered through and readied themselves, hearts thumping and wands ready. At a signal from Remus, the defenders sent a rippling volley of covering fire into the Death Eater positions and, through the flickering light, they ran.

The square was at the centre of the village and the group skirted a few blocks around it, avoiding the densest concentrations of Voldemort supporters who by now seemed to mostly be at the castle.

“Where have you been? How have you been surviving?” George asked Harry as they ran at a crouch through the twisting outer streets.

“Everywhere. Nowhere. Camping, and hunting, mainly,” Harry replied evasively. There would be a time to tell their story, but he was anticipating the arrival of a very angry Voldemort at any moment and until the last horcrux was destroyed, they couldn’t afford to lose focus.

“Camping?” George asked incredulously.

“Were you attacked?” Fred chimed in. “Because Ron was—”

“Down!” yelled Bill, and they hit the deck as scorching light flew over their heads. Harry rolled and leapt up, seeing Hermione close on his heels as more spellfire kicked up sprays of dirt where they had been laying, flying from between the nearby houses. They scattered to cover, firing back in the direction of the attackers.

“How much further?” Bill shouted over the popping and cracking hexes.

“It’s just beyond this next row!” Fred replied.

Bill let loose a stream of blasting curses that tore fist-sized chunks out of the stone buildings and showered the streets with piercing shrapnel. At least one attacker screamed and fell.

“Move!”

They leap-frogged one another, pushing the unseen attackers back while they slowly advanced on the square. Harry could see it now; the iced-over fountain in the middle of a very open stretch of cobble. The assault seemed to have been repelled and they gathered in the mouth of the street, looking out into the square.

“We do this quick. In and out, no hanging around,” said Bill. “Ready? Go.”

They were half way to the fountain, running at a full sprint when magic burst from all around them again.

It tore up the cobbles and showered them with debris, scorching the air as the spells passed between them. Behind Harry, someone cried out and hit the ground hard. Four of them threw themselves behind the stone fountain, tucking in as tight as possible as curses glanced off the masonry.

“Fred!” Bill yelled.

Fred had been struck and was lying in the square in a rapidly-expanding pool of blood. George was crouched over him, his wand-hand projecting a shield that was taking a heavy magical beating while the other tried to staunch the flow of blood from Fred’s clavicle.

“Shit!” Bill cursed and rolled back out, causing Harry to hastily fire a stream of covering jinxes into the Death Eater’s hiding spots. Bill reached his brothers and together, he and George dragged Fred back behind the fountain, couching under the wands of Harry, Hermione and Fleur.

“Bouge! Bouge! Laisse-moi le voir!” cried Fleur, pushing through them to get to Fred, immediately weaving her wand over the puncture. Another wave of spellfire pushed them back down behind the low wall.

“How do we get in?” Harry shouted, firing another curse and ducking back. George scrambled around him and Hermione to a carving of a mole that adorned the side of the fountain, hiding among a host of other animals that wrapped around the entire base. He tapped it with his wand and its nose twitched, then it turned and burrowed itself into the stone, leaving a hole where it had previously been. George reached a hand inside, grabbed something, and twisted. There was a clunk, then a grinding sound as the fountain vibrated. After twenty seconds, it ceased.

“It’s open!” George said.

“Where?”

“Look inside!”

Harry stuck his head over the lip and looked down into the fountain. The pool was solid ice, though there appeared to be a thin film of liquid water sat on top of it. Water trickled down the statue in the middle too, as though it were beginning to melt. The water created a clear window through the ice and through it, Harry could see a spiral staircase descending into darkness.

He ducked back into cover. Ordinarily, the water would have drained down the hole, but the ice plug was preventing it. He jabbed his wand back over the side.

“Fractus!”

The ice shattered and tumbled down the staircase. Their way was clear, but Bill, Fleur, George, and the unconscious Fred were still pinned down. Harry hesitated.

“Go!” urged Bill. “We got you here, now go. We won’t make it at all if we can’t open up the castle.”

Hermione grabbed Harry’s hand and together they heaved themselves over the edge and down into the hollow beneath the fountain. They slid down the ice-slickened steps as the opening grated closed above them, cutting off the sound of the battle and enveloping them in pitch black silence.