Hunting For The Sun

CHAPTER NINETEEN

A Painting of a Perfect World

And there she was. Her chocolate curls caught by the wind and straggled over her face. She caught at them with an impatient hand.

`Meggy?´

I ran towards her, my hair snaking out and smacking my cheek as it tried to get across to the other side. My robes and cloak billowed, impeding my progress. Mum´s light blue eyes shone and she held out a tanned hand to me. I reached for it, but fell to my knees. When I looked up, she was gone.

I choked, sobbing like a baby. I bowed my head, trying to pull the air back together again, but nothing happened. I lifted my face to the racing sky and wailed. That was the first, but by no means the last, time I saw her. I knew it was her. I could remember her. I sat there for a long time. I don´t recall when it got dark, but I know it did. It was around ten o´clock that Draco came looking for me. He found me sitting in the rain, chilled to the bone, and carried me down to bed.

Our departure, then imminent, was delayed by my sickness, which developed into pneumonia. Skye, Raven, Cloud, Alethea and Draco all came to check on me, clearly impatient for the off. I tried to apologise, but they all dismissed me and sat together chatting about me like I wasn´t there.

I got very ill, and it was a good three weeks before I was well again. Skye had planned everything out, and a rucksack sat at the end of my bed. An outfit of warm black clothing was laid out on a chair. I dressed slowly, feeling odd to be moving again. I put on my own boots and then found a coat in the wardrobe. It was floor-length black, hooded and with a fine quilting, containing millions of warming charms. Instantly I could feel the heat flowing through me, and I savoured it. Nice, healthy warmth. I hefted the bag onto my back and went out to my sitting rooms. They were all waiting there, dressed in much the same clothes as me, but not with my coat. Skye wore her cloak, naturally. I honestly don´t really remember anything else.

Without another word, we all marched off into the corridors. Some black-robed priests genuflected us as we passed them, but generally we didn´t meet anyone. I was shocked at how much colder it had become in this short amount of time. I´m not really sure, but I think it was early October, and winter comes early in the north. Hogwarts wasn´t far, but a whole mountain ridge separated us, then there was the fact that we didn´t even know where Light Temple was. That could give us a problem this late in the year.

I tried to avoid the thought that it was my fault we were setting out this late as we crossed the windswept courtyard and opened the small gate to traverse the drawbridge over the wide chasm. The moment Alethea stepped off it, it slammed shut again. Somehow, that hollow boom sealed our fate tightly and shut it in a dark cupboard. We exchanged glances, then set off up the winding path in the mountains.

We were walking for about an hour when Raven halted. Skye gave her a filthy look and kept going. The rest of us, however, stopped too. Draco was, I noticed, pointedly avoiding them both. The cold wind whistled through my hair, and I frowned to Cloud. He just shrugged. Alethea looked just as bewildered as we did. Draco was gazing at the ground, so I had to bellow at him mentally to get his attention.

Why have we stopped?

What? Oh, Raven will explain

.

I sneered slightly, but turned my attention back to the scene before me. Skye had stopped now, and she turned back reluctantly to face Raven.

`Why have you stopped, Sarius?´

`Because this is the line,´ Raven explained, unruffled.

`The line of what?´ Skye looked interested despite herself.

Raven pointed to a shimmering line of sparks that I had mistaken for water. `This is the line where Hogwarts can feel our presence,´ she explained. `We mustn´t use any magic from now on, not until we cross the line again.´

`So?´ Skye shrugged. `Does that mean you have to stop?´

`No casting,´ she warned us all. `NONE.´

It´s alright,

Draco smiled. Your coat´s charms don´t count. They´re already established.

I sighed in relief. Draco rolled his eyes and stepped over the line.

`It won´t kill you, Raven,´ he said. Alethea and Cloud followed. I stepped over next, but I could see the wild panic in Raven´s eyes.

`What is it?´ I asked.

`I don´t know,´ she said, still eyeing the rather pretty line. `It just doesn´t feel right.´

`That´s because it´s good magic,´ Skye snapped. `Let´s get going. We have to go about twelve miles before we stop, and that´s another two hours or more.´

We all sighed and followed her. The countryside was growing more rugged as our little mountain path became thinner and pushed out of the trees and up onto the mountain itself. The heavens were clear. Yellow sunset sky was painted with red clouds and offset the silhouettes of black mountains like wolves´ ears jutting out of the earth as thought they had always been there, and always would be. I, however, knew better. Everything changed, and the loss of my secure little world had only served to prove that further.

I could see a cliff crossing the valley about thirty miles ahead. That was clearly our destination. I glanced at the darkening sky, and picked up the pace. Travelling the Scottish mountains at night without magic sounded bloody hard, and I didn´t want to do it. Not, unfortunately, one of my life´s ambitions.

It was all peachy, and a sort of scenery appreciation journey, until dark. The moment the sun hid from us totally, clouds raced in. I thought at first that it would make it warmer, but then I realised how dark they were. I barely had time to flick up my hood before I heard the first patter on the leaves. It grew and grew until finally it wreathed down through the questionable cover like sheets of silver stars. Skye pulled out a normal Muggle torch and let the beam scan the path.

`You mean we aren´t stopping?´ Draco demanded.

Skye didn´t look at him. `Not yet.´

I had looked up hopefully, but now I dropped my head back down and focused my eyes on my feet as we all followed that bobbing light through the rain.

The next morning was unpleasantly early. At least I awoke to the scent of frying bacon and butter. I crawled out to find Seamus, of all people, cooking over a little fire. I was the only other person up, it seemed.

`Are you alright?´ Seamus smiled, using the edge of his shirt to shield his hands as he dropped a sausage onto my plate. He returned to tending the small, rusty black frying pan balanced on a rock in the fire.

`Yeah, what makes you ask?´ I said, taking a bite.

`I don´t know. You´ve been ill, and I worry about you,´ he said, blushing.

`That´s sweet, thanks.´ He flashed me a quick smile.

`It´s only natural,´ he shrugged, prodding at the bacon with an intent frown.

`Why?´ I asked, wrapping my coat around myself and sitting on a rock nearby.

`Oh, nothing,´ he evaded, his hands working busily, flipping bacon onto plates. `Can you get the others up?´

Part of me wanted to persist, another part, however, knew it was silly. If he was keeping something from me, there had to be a reason. He had never lied before without reason.

I crossed to the little semi-circle of six tents. I shouted through the flaps of the remaining four occupied tents. Draco groaned, grunted `Bugger off,´ in a voice filled with sleep, and didn´t appear. Skye snapped something in another language and poked her head out a little later, grumbling quietly. She glared at me all the way through breakfast. Alethea didn´t seem to hear me, so I yelled really loud at her. In the end she stuck her head out and squealed at the cold, ducking back in again, promising to come out when she had warmed up. Raven stepped elegantly out before I reached her tent. You wouldn´t believe how jealous I was that she could even make exiting a tent look glamorous, something upon which I failed prodigiously.

Eventually, we all gathered around the little fire for our breakfast. I took a deep breath through my nostrils. I could smell it long before I knew it. I sucked at the air again.

`What are you doing?´ Draco frowned.

`Snow,´ I muttered. `Shit.´

All the others looked up now. There was a lot of sniffing going on, and Skye came to the same conclusion as I had.

`We´ve got a blizzard on the way,´ she confirmed.

`I can smell it,´ Alethea agreed.

`What a load of bollocks,´ Raven grunted, folding her arms and looking away.

`On the contrary,´ Skye said coldly. `A blizzard in the mountains is a big thing. Especially when we can´t use magic.´

`I KNOW!´ Raven snapped, sending Skye the singly most unpleasant look I have ever seen. Odd how things ended up, considering. `I´m not some kind of imbecile.´

`Odd, the compulsion some people feel to act like idiots when they aren´t, isn´t it?´ Skye commented lightly.

`Odd, how some people can seem to be so god awful that you can´t believe someone so fucking nasty and irritating can even exist, then you find out that actually they´re even worse!´ Raven mimicked, giving her a flat look.

`Girls, girls!´ Draco interrupted. `Let´s not get into that again.´

Skye gave him a pained look. `Since when did you care?´ she snapped.

`Lay off him,´ Raven said wearily. `It was my fault, and you know it.´

I didn´t want to see any violence, and I could tell that the atmosphere was mounting.

`Please, let´s get going before the snow starts!´ I said loudly.

They all looked at me. I blushed and looked at my feet. They were about to start up again, when Raven shook her head and held out her hand vertically in front of her with her palm towards Skye´s face. She closed her eyes and turned away.

`She´s right,´ she conceded. `We need to get going.´

We broke camp, splitting the load between us. The wind whistled over the rocks, and our path grew more and more difficult. I buckled my clothes around me to stop them catching in the gale and pulling me over the sharp drop on our right. Skye lead, as usual. I was about third, and Draco was in front of me. I think it was Cloud behind me, then Alethea. Raven was attempting to distance herself as much as possible from Skye. She lagged behind, looking strangely normal with her hair tied back, face and nails scrubbed clean and without her flowing robes. I turned my face back, but the wind caught me full on. I bowed my head, and kept going. The wind roared in my ears, stinging my eyes and making them stream. The air went up my nose and, when I opened my mouth momentarily to make up the breath that my nose couldn´t catch from the gale, pummelled its way down my throat. I attempted to call out to Skye, but my words were stolen away and shattered against the cliff behind us.

I felt the first stinging pellet collide with my nose as we topped a rise in the path. Then another white ice-flake shot up my nose, then another into my eye. Skye turned back and yelled something to us. Draco turned and bellowed it to me.

`She says we need to keep going!´ he reported. `We´ll have to tie ourselves together and follow her!´

I nodded, and passed the message to Cloud, who saluted me and turned to Alethea with words that I couldn´t hear. We waited, pressed against the cliff face. In time, a rope was passed back from the front. I tied it firmly around my waist then passed the rest back to Cloud. The dark shape I knew to be Draco began to move again and I felt the confirming tug on the rope.

We made much slower progress in the snow, but it was so thick that I could barely see Draco ahead of me. I didn´t know what Skye was doing, but it sure worked.

I don´t think we can talk now,

Draco said. Skye says we have to keep going all day if we´re going to get to Hogwarts in time.

In time for what?

I asked.

Beats me

, Draco laughed. I´m just going to trust her and hope for the best. She seems to know what she´s doing.

I smiled to myself and fixed my eyes back on the path. I couldn´t shake the feeling that something wasn´t right. I put it down to my inability to see more than about a foot through the swirling flakes.

However, inside I knew that it was more than that. It was the `watched´ feeling. I had grown accustomed to it, which should be a lesson to you all. I barely had the time to yell out before that hand closed over my eyes and mouth. I kicked out to the back, flailing with my arms. I knew I should do some fixed routine to get out of this, but all the moves flooded into my head at once and I couldn´t pick out anything. I struggled, but I´m not really all that strong. Whoever held me was, though, and they held me firmly. Another figure was approaching with a thick cloth. I could smell something coming off it. The smell was slightly like white spirit, and also peppermint overlaid with alcohol. I knew one thing for sure, I didn´t want that near my face.

He was trying to fix it over my mouth and nose, but I jerked away. I smacked the back of my head accidentally into my assailant´s face and he broke away, clutching at a broken nose. I took the opportunity to shove at him with my gloved hands. He stumbled and windmilled his arms before his foot slipped and he vanished into the dark of the snow-ridden valley below. The man with the cloth dived at me, but I dodged. I slipped on something, falling to the ground with a sharp pain. His legs caught over mine, and he tumbled. Nothing would deter him, whoever he was, and he grabbed my plait, which had fallen loose when my hood went down.

I screamed and flung myself back. He snatched at my forehead and held me like some kind of animal while he clamped that sodden rag over my nose and mouth. I tried not to breathe and tried to scrabble out of his reach. I couldn´t see anything and had no idea where my friends were. I thought I saw Draco throw someone over the cliff, and Seamus slam another up against a wall, but I couldn´t be sure. Just out of my reach was a lock of black hair, streaked with red. I could see a spreading patch of red snow near the hair, and suppressed a shock of horror.

My assailant clutched at my ankles and made to pull me back. I rolled, jerking my legs up and ignoring the strike of cold through my clothes. I slammed my fist into the top of the man´s head and he shifted. I tried again to free my legs, but he recovered too quickly. I scrabbled with my clothes to get out a gun or something. Someone was above me. I looked up in horror, and tried to reach out to defend myself, but my body wouldn´t respond. I was too weak. Sheer exhaustion and cold grasped me, and I fell back. The moment I stopped, however, the cloth was slammed against my face and I struggled to breathe. The cloying smell dampened my senses instantaneously, and after only a moment, breathing through it felt like I was swallowing water. I attempted to rise, scratching my own skin to wake me up, but nothing happened.

The man behind me pulled himself up and began to bind my arms and legs. He picked me up like a sack of potatoes or something. I screamed, a long, piercing note that echoed for a long time, sounding for all the world like a siren, but then he stepped up onto the air. A gentle thrumming that turned to a whirring chopping noise sounded overhead, and I could see the dark shapes moving beneath us. All the other assailants grabbed onto a rope ladder hanging beneath us, then all went black.

I flicked my eyes open, and realised that they must have given up with the cloth. The same scene was before me as when I had blacked out. I narrowed my eyes to almost closed and prayed that they hadn´t noticed me. There was a horrible sour bitterness in my mouth, throat and nose that I knew was the stuff from the cloth with its foul, oily smell. I swallowed silently, shifting my head so I could see out of the open hatch. I could tell by now that I was in some kind of helicopter. I didn´t like it. I hadn´t been in one before and the thrumming chopping noise set my ears to ringing. I was lying on the floor, hands and legs bound. I could see feet directly in front of me, so I closed my eyes and listened.

I could hear no others of my group. That was certain. I tentatively pushed out with my mind. No familiar senses came back to me. I swallowed back tears of sheer frustration and despair as the helicopter swerved away from my friends. I didn´t even want to think about where I might be going. The icy wind stung my face and jerked on my hair. One of the men pointed this out and I was shoved further into the cabin with a foot. I repressed the squeak of pain threatening to come to my lips and concentrated on laying still. This looked to be a long flight.

~*~

By the time I awoke, having slumped into an uneasy breach between consciousness and unconsciousness, it was pitch black. I could hear shouts and calls from below. Beams of light were directed towards us and the thrumming was strained, like we were landing. I tried to piece this all together in my groggy head and failed. Something was happening. We were landing somewhere. That was all I could manage.

One of the men jabbed me with a foot and shouted something at me in a foreign language. I groaned, peeling my eye open and slamming it shut instantly as a bright searchlight scanned through the cockpit.

`Dragon!´ he snapped. Then he followed it up with several sentences that I didn´t understand at all. He then tried many other languages, none of which I recognised, before settling on heavily accented English.

`You are Dragon?´ he growled.

`I don´t know what you mean,´ I protested weakly.

`You are the one they call they mean Dragon?´ he asked brusquely.

`My name isn´t Dragon,´ I said, confused.

`They call that means Dragon,´ he persisted.

`A word that means Dragon?´ I asked.

`Yes!´ he grunted.

`That would be Draco. He´s someone else,´ I said, not sure if I should be telling him this.

He said a short sharp word that I assumed was rude, slamming his fist against the metal wall of the cabin. He turned, looking out across the high landing pad. He shouted something to a black-coated someone. The person shouted something back then disappeared into the darkness.

`You not Dragon?´ he asked, turning his heavy-browed gaze back to me.

`No,´ I said.

`You Raven?´

`No.´

`Sky?´

`No.´

`Truth?´

`No.´

`Cloud?´

`No.´

`Sunshine?´

The very word burned at my heart. I had forgotten how much it meant to me. In that moment I decided not to do this. What had I done for anyone by telling the truth?

`No.´

`Who you?´ he snapped, exasperated.

`I´m the guide,´ I lied. `You got the wrong one. Who did you want?´

`Dragon,´ he grunted. `Any them.´

`You got the wrong one,´ I said.

`Got another!´ he said, on a sudden flash of subhuman memory.

`What?´ I snapped, colour and blood draining out of me.

`Girl. White hair, pretty. Nasty words.´

I said nothing, not wanting to give her away or to ruin any lies she was formulating.

`I take you her,´ he decided. He lifted me easily by the arm and slashed the bindings on my ankles. I was given no time to stretch out my stiffness and he lifted me down to the landing area without another word. I wobbled outrageously, trying to force my legs into some kind of motion and keep up with him, but he walked too fast. I tripped, crashing to my knees and filling my hands with flecks of gravel from the wet concrete. I cried out, blinking back tears. He turned and rolled his eyes before jerking me roughly to my feet. I stumbled after him. He led me down some stairs under one of the massive searchlights on the roof of this building and into a stone corridor. He looked through several tiny barred windows on the iron doors before selecting one and taking out a set of keys.

As he searched for the right one, he turned to me. `Good thing you not say Sunshine, eh?´ he grinned. He pushed on the door as I tried to stem my confusion. He stepped inside, and I followed. Skye was chained to the back wall, her snow-coloured hair stained dark red and straggling. Her clothes were torn, belying what might have happened. A surly expression was on her face.

`Sunshine,´ my guard said to Skye. `I´ve got your guide.´ With that he laughed nastily and pushed me roughly inside, slamming the door behind him.