Coming Of Age

Coming of Age

Chapter 3 - The Little Book of Charms

Harry was floating above everything, sitting on something soft, like cotton candy. It was shaped like a big fluffy cloud, the sort of cloud a child might draw. Miles below was the world and it felt like he could see everything and everyone; whole countries, seas, mountains, forests, rivers, cities, houses.

Directly below was a large Elizabethan building set in wooded grounds. He wondered what it was like inside and, as if by magic, he found he could see through the roof and into a large room filled with people. Despite the distance the room was in crystal clear focus, as though he was watching from a place high in a corner.

As he watched the people mill around, talking and dancing, he realised he wasn't alone. Sitting beside him was a young boy, perhaps 10 or 11. Harry thought the boy was familiar, but he couldn't remember where from. Everything in his mind was all hazy, colourless.

"Hello," the boy finally said. "I haven't seen you for a long time."

"Do you know who I am?" Harry asked.

The boy nodded. "Oh yes, you're Harry. Don't you remember?"

Harry shook his head. "I'm not sure. I used to know, but I've forgotten."

"Oh." The little blond boy looked down at the scene below. It was a very long way down. "That's my birthday party."

"Then you should be down there having fun. Why are you up here all alone?"

"I'm not alone. You're here. And I've got Sheba." Harry realised the boy was holding a toy lion cub. "I found her when I was six. She was out in the garden in the snow. I wanted to keep her, but my father said I was too old for toys and made me get rid of her. When I come here she's always waiting."

Neither spoke for a while, both content to sit in the safety of the cloud. The boy quietly stroked Sheba. "I like it here. It's safe away from down there."

"Do you come here a lot? Often want to be safe?"

The boy nodded gravely. "Especially when he's angry." A little hand pointed to someone way below. "He doesn't know I come here. Doesn't know it's where I go to escape. If he knew he would stop me. You see if I'm just watching, it doesn't hurt."

"Hurt?"

"Imperius, Cruciatus. All the horrible spells. He makes me practice them. We never do any of the nice ones. One day I asked if he would show me how to make ice cream. We did, but it was cod liver oil flavour and I had to eat it all. I was very sick. That's when I started coming here."

"It's not a good idea you know. Letting him do this to you."

"I don't know how to stop him. If I don't do anything, he says I'm stupid. If I try but can't stop him, he says I'm weak. When other people have done *Imperius* on me it's like I'm sent to a place where there is just 'nothing' and all I have to do is say what they want. But when he does it, it always hurts. It's hurting now." The boy started playing with the edge of his midnight blue robe, picking at the silver stitching. "Do you like this? I got it specially for my birthday."

Harry smiled. "It's very nice. You know you can stop this. Stop him hurting you."

"How?"

"Just say you won't do it?"

"It's always been easy for you."

"No it hasn't. People like hurting me too. But if you keep on letting him hurt you, it will just get more and more painful. He'll just keep on doing it over and over again. You have to find the strength to say no; then it will be you in control, not him."

"Will you help me?" The boy held out his hand.

"Of course. You know I will."

Harry reached for the hand ...

********************

"Harry, are you drunk?"

Harry looked up, his glasses askew. He attempted to straighten them, but his fingers didn't seem to have any feeling in them. His mouth felt like it was full of feathers and he realised he had missed the chair and was actually on the floor.

"If he's drunk, then he's a wuss. He's only had a couple of glasses of wine." Ron the Publisher stepped to Harry's side and grabbed him under the arms. He picked up Harry's slight body with ease and dropped him unceremoniously onto the chair.

Harry blinked up at Ron, then around the room, which rocked back and forth as though he was on a boat. "Umm." The feathers were blocking everything, including his mind. "Umm, can I ... water?" he croaked. Emily quickly handed him a glass, which he accepted with a trembling hand and emptied in one go. She refilled it and everyone watched him drink this one at a more leisurely pace. As the feathers cleared, Harry managed to focus on his friends. He cleared his throat and gave a weak, embarrassed grin. "Sorry about that. Probably too much sun. Serves me right for having an open-topped car."

Emily peered at him. "Now you mention it, you do seem to have picked up some colour." She pushed his fringe off his face and placed the back of her hand against his forehead. "And you are a little hot. Are you sure you got all those chemicals off?"

"Chemicals?" Ron was busy watching Harry, but not too busy to accept a bottle of beer from his wife.

Harry gave a curt nod. "You remember those pictures I took at your anniversary party? I thought it would be nice for everyone to have copies, so I was going to do some prints." The lie flowed easily, much to his surprise. "Unfortunately, before I even got started, I dropped the bottle of developer and got soaked. I know I've washed it all off though, I was in the shower for long enough." He reached for Emily's ministering hand and kissed her fingers. "I'm feeling better now."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, yes." He waved everyone away and wondered, not for the first time that day, what was going on. One moment he had been standing in the room, then the next he was falling down a big black hole. He had a vague recollection of loads of feathers breaking his fall and then? What? It was like waking from a dream; you remember it to start with, but it quickly fades unless you write it down immediately. There had been a cloud and ... was there someone else with him? He shook his head in frustration and gave up trying to grasp the remnants of the dream. Instead he clapped his hands together and smiled a not very convincing smile. "Let's get on with the presents."

A small pile of gaily-wrapped packages and cards were brought in and placed on the coffee table. One-by-one Emily read the labels and handed them across to Harry who opened each with great ceremony. There were CDs and DVDs, camera bits and pieces and even a chance to drive a racing car. Emily bought him an engraved gold pen and there was actually a card and gift from the Dudleys. They seemed to have forgotten about how they had treated him as a child when presents consisted of old socks, coat hangers and, once, a fifty pence piece. Now, they were quite happy to spend both time and money on Harry because he was famous and that fame had nothing to do with magic.

"Just these two left. Someone left them in a box by the door" Emily pushed the final gifts across the table. They were both wrapped in plain brown parchment-like paper and tied with string. Each had been sealed with a blob of red wax and neither had a tag.

"Secret admirers." Candice rubbed her hands with glee. "How mysterious. Come on, Harry. Open them up."

He picked up the smaller of the two - a thin, flat object about three inches square - and turned it over in his hands The texture of the wrapping paper was familiar and on closer examination he saw the string was actually a golden cord. The seal had a very simple letter 'H' in its centre. Harry slid a nail under the wax to remove it, but to his surprise the cord just fall away at his touch. No one else seemed to have noticed and he frowned worriedly, not sure he really wanted to open it.

"Harry!" Emily grabbed for the package, but he kept it out of her reach.

"Okay, I'm doing it. I'm just trying to drag out the moment." He pulled off the paper. Inside was a little book, bound in a material similar in colour to the cord. It glittered gold in the candlelight, which illuminated the lounge. Across the front in ruby red letters were the words: The Little Book of Charms by Hermione Granger.

A breath caught in Harry's throat, and he thought he might choke. Instead he coughed to cover up the sound and reached quickly for his glass of water, taking a nervous sip.

"Oh, it's one of those little self-help type books. How sweet." Candice clapped her hands. "I've never seen one as pretty as this though. I wonder who the publisher is?" She held out a hand. "Can I see it?"

Speechless, all Harry could do was comply. His eyes were drawn to the alcove where he could just make out the Hermione image smiling at him. He quickly looked away, not wanting to draw any attention to the photograph.

"That's strange, there's no publisher's imprint. But there is an inscription: 'To the Boy who Lived'." Candice pulled a face. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"Is there a name?" Ron took the book from his wife. "No, nothing else. And look, the rest is blank." He flicked through the pages. "All blank pages. Nice paper though."

"Please can I have it back?" Harry held out his hand, reaching for the book. "Please!" His voice became sharp.

"Okay. Keep your knickers on." Ron passed it back. "You have some really strange secret admirers."

"You don't know the half of it." Harry quickly opened the book at random. The paper was pale cream parchment and written on it in Hermione's own neat handwriting was a charm for making a lily change colour. On another, how to make a rainbow on a summer's day. "You're right, blank pages," was all he could think to say as he slipped the book into a pocket.

"Last one." Emily poked at the final package.

Harry placed the package on his knees. It was soft and squashy, and tied with a scarlet cord. He pulled open the paper, which crackled noisily in the silent room. Sitting in the middle of the paper was a pair of Quidditch gloves.

"Driving gloves. Very nice." Mac, the sender of the racing car present picked up one of the gloves. "Weird driving gloves. What on earth are they made of? It looks like leather, but it feels really strange."

Harry picked up the other glove, smoothing it between his fingers. Dragon hide. He wanted to tell them it was made of dragon hide, but he knew he couldn't say anything. He slowly slipped his right hand into the glove, feeling the familiar touch of the hide as it moulded to his palm and fingers. The glove, which was padded up the back, reached from wrist to just below the furthest knuckle of each finger, leaving the fingertips bare. The padding, Harry reminded himself was just in case you have to fend off a Bludger. His free hand ran over the back of his hand and he saw the hide had been damaged and then repaired.

He gulped, eyes widening as realisation dawned. He had to get out of the room. Now!

"Umm. Does anyone want another drink?" Harry sprang to his feet. "I'll get another bottle."

He all but ran to the kitchen, closed the door and leaned against it, taking great gulps of air as he struggled not to hyperventilate.

With raising emotions and a mixture of fear and nostalgia, he studied the glove again, confirming what he already knew. It was his own glove, last worn in a knock-about match just weeks before the Final Battle. A bat wielded by a Ravenclaw beater had caught him across the back of his hand, breaking the bones. Madam Pomfrey, the Hogwarts matron had cut the glove off because his hand had been too swollen to remove it any other way. Hagrid had later repaired the glove for him.

Pulling off the glove, Harry chewed pensively on a fingernail. 'Bewildered' was probably a good way of describing how he currently felt. 'Scared witless' was another way of putting it! The woman in the car. The bleeding scar. Being able to do magic without a wand. These gifts. "And don't forget the moving photo and that strange dream with the clouds..." He frowned, had there been a lion too? He held a hand to his forehead as if the pressure might release more images.

All he really wanted to do at that moment was to get away to somewhere he could think clearly. Then he might be able to work out what was going on. He debated for a moment what the reaction would be from his friends if he didn't return to the lounge, but decided vanishing wasn't the answer. Mac still had the other glove and if he looked closely inside, he would find where Harry had scrawled his own name.

Instead, he crossed to the fridge, took out a bottle and made his way back to the lounge. "Okay, more champagne anyone?"

********************

The clock in the tower of the tiny village church was just striking ten as two dark shapes flew over the quiet countryside. On the horizon, there was still a trace of light from the late-setting summer sun, but the landscape was already deep in shadow. Above a sprinkle of pale stars illuminated the ever-darkening sky.

A man walking his dog through the village just happened to look up as the shapes passed over the High Street, darker than the surrounding sky. He watched them for a moment and decided they must be owls or something similar, and went back to walking the dog.

The two shapes were not owls. They were people on broomsticks and it was lucky for them that the man hadn't been wearing his glasses. Silently, they manoeuvred their unusual mode of transport away from the village, following the dark streak of tarmac leading, like the trail of a huge snail, across the empty fields. The single track road lead to a small ocean of light in the otherwise dark landscape and the two broomstick riders dropped down into a copse of trees bordering one side of the property.

Fred and George Weasley silently stowed their broomsticks against a tree, hiding them with an invisibility spell. From their hiding place in the trees, they could see into a room where six people were bathed in candlelight. They could hear laughter and conversation through the open window.

The twins glanced at each other and George gestured to the other side of the building. They carefully crossed to the gravel drive and crunched quietly towards the cars parked in front of the lighthouse's main entrance.

"They look like they're in for a long night."

George nodded. "At least we're on the other side of the building to them. Let's get on with this. The quicker we get it done, the sooner we can get out of here." He pushed his long hair out of his eyes.

Fred walked over to Harry's car and studied it carefully, his wand held before him. "The alarm is on."

"Can you turn it off?"

"Piece of cake." Fred grinned and murmured an incantation. The car became encased in a bubble of red light, which twinkled for a moment before disappearing with an audible 'pop'.

"Shh. Less noise." George gestured at his brother. "They'll hear you!"

"They're more likely to hear your big mouth!" Fred dug an elbow into his brother's side. "Come on, I don't know how long that spell will last."

Quickly the two men started working their way around the car, George taking the outside and Fred the interior. The tips of their wands glowed slightly as the sensor spell looked for any sign of dark magic. They both knew that such magic could easily hide itself from even the most complicated location spells, but the one they were currently using had been worked by Neville Longbottom. Neville, the blundering child from Hogwarts had emerged from the Final Battle as a hero. It was soon clear he had inherited his parents' abilities as Aurors, and he was currently in training. He was now a blundering adult, but an extremely gifted one.

"Well, there are still traces of the curse Hermione picked up. I've dealt with them and the car's clean." George twiddled his wand as if it were a baton. "I've set up some protection spells so that if someone tries the same thing again it shouldn't get through. What about inside?"

Fred's head popped up from where he lay across the seats. "Neville's spell is actually having the desired effect here too." He gingerly held up a piece of paper between thumb and forefinger. "This is sending the sensor crazy."

"You shouldn't be touching it." George scolded

"It's okay. It's not active any longer."

George took the paper, squinting as he tried to read what was written on it in the dim light. Finally, he held his wand over it. "Lumos." The wand tip gave out a warm white light, enough to read by. "It's got a name and address. Somewhere in London." Fred was out of the car, reading it over his brother's shoulder. "Is this part of the curse?"

"It's more than that. Can you see where it's discoloured?" George nodded. "There's something impregnated in it, probably a potion. We can't do anything to counteract it without knowing what's actually in it." He suddenly looked very solemn, but there was a disrespectful tone in his voice. "And you know who the best person to talk to about potions is."

George looked as if someone had taken away his favourite joke book. "Oh no. You are not serious!"

"Snape."

"Can't we just ask Sirius?"

"He'll only tell us to talk to Snape."

"Of all the people we could have on our side, why did it have to be him?"

Fred giggled. "Come on we'd better get going."

"Snape!" George allowed his twin to lead him back to the trees. "It'll be like going back to school again.

********************

A hand reached out in the darkness and pressed a button on the clock. The display lit up, grey numbers against a pale background. 2:24am. Ten minutes later than when he'd last looked.

Harry sighed and turned back to look at Emily. She had been asleep for about half an hour now, and he felt sure it would be safe for him to get up without waking her. He needed to find some space to think, somewhere he wouldn't be disturbed.

Carefully, he began to extricate himself from Emily's entwining limbs. They made love after the party and she was still twisted around him, her hair spread across his torso. He ran a hand over her hair, enjoying its silky feel, and studied her sleeping face. There was a soft flush to her cheeks and her lips were slightly parted. Inviting. He wanted to kiss her, but knew she would probably wake up, so instead he touched a finger softly to her lips. She sighed and moved enough for him to slide out from under her. As he crawled off the bed, she turned away, pillowing her head on her hands.

By the light of the nearly full moon, Harry managed to find a tee shirt and a pair of jogging bottoms and he crept from the room. Out on the landing, he quickly dressed, mindful of not waking any of his other houseguests, and crept down the spiral staircase. He scrabbled around in the dark and eventually found a pair of running shoes.

The door leading out of the house creaked loudly as he opened it, and he froze, listening for any noise in the house. There was nothing. He pulled the door closed behind him, walked across the patio and out to the cliff top. The night was warm and he could hear insects and other creatures chattering to each other.

The moon seemed huge as it hung above the cliffs casting everything with an unreal silver glow. It picked out the chalky cliff top and turned the grass into grey blades. Harry stood for a moment on the cliff edge, drawn into the unnatural, mystical light which seemed to seep into his being, touching something deep inside. The light pulled him closer to the edge and he knocked a few pebbles loose. They cluttered down the cliff face, lost in the darkness below.

It would be so easy, Harry pondered, to just step off the edge and into oblivion. To end the confusion and never have to worry about anything ever again.

He closed his eyes and time seemed to stop. The still night was breathless on his face. He felt so at peace, blissfully empty and the longer he stood there, the more tempting it became just to step forward. Nothing could hurt him ever again if he just stepped out. He would never have to face his fears. Never have to ...

The screech of an owl shattered the illusion and Harry staggered back as though a giant hand had grabbed his shirt and pulled. The mystical quality of the night splintered and he was back in the real world with an unsafe cliff edge and ragged rocks below which would break every bone in his body.

Harry shuddered and dropped to the ground. What on earth had he been thinking? To even consider doing anything so stupid, just didn't bear thinking about. He quietly ran through some meditation techniques to help clear the fog from his mind. The moon didn't seem quite so close now and the inclination to jump was slowly dissipating, but it was frightening to think how easy it would have been just to walk off.

What was going on?

"Boring, Harry," he whispered to himself as the same question spun round and round his head. "Find a different track to following." Yesterday, when he had gotten up and driven to London, his whole world had been full of expectation. He thought he had it mapped out and sorted. Nothing in the slightest magical had happened since he left Hogwarts and all he had wanted was a nice peaceful birthday.

Instead he'd ended up stood in a shower with blood pouring down his face. The whole of his life seemed to have become one hell of a mess and he didn't know how to deal with it. It felt like he was being backed into a corner with the only way out being to fight. But fight whom and why?

Below him, he could hear the waves crashing on the rocks and just for a brief moment, the idea of jumping once again seemed an answer to his problems. He started to fiddle with the pieces of cord circling his left wrist. They were the cords from the two packages. Gold and Scarlet - Gryffindor colours. He wasn't sure why, but he had felt an urge to keep them close and had tied them round his wrist just before going to bed.

Why had Hermione and Ron (he knew the gloves had come from Ron) sent him these gifts? The obvious answer was, of course, it was his birthday. But why send them now? Why this birthday? Unless, everything was linked with what happened in the car and this feeling of being trapped.

He looked out at the stars, so bright and clear out here away from the city lights, and remembered trying to see them at Privet Drive when he was growing up. He hardly got the chance to see the summer stars because he would be sent to his cupboard under the stairs long before the sun had set. In the winter, at least he had a chance of occasionally seeing the night sky. Sometimes it was because Aunt Petunia banished him to the garden for some minor infringement of one of his aunt and uncle's rules. Or it might be because he was hiding from cousin Dudley. He recalled the Christmas after his sixth birthday when Dudley had accused him of breaking Aunt Petunia's new crystal vas. Dudley actually knocked the vase off the table with a cricket bat. Harry had spent ages shivering under a bush while through the window he could see Dudley grinning and Petunia striding back and forth shouting at Vernon. He'd heard words such as 'orphanage' and 'call in the welfare people' and 'he's your relative, Petunia, not mine'.

All through those 10 years, Harry believed he actually deserved the treatment being meted out. With no friends of his own to use as a gauge of what 'real' families should be like, he just accepted what his aunt and uncle told him - Harry was trouble and deserved whatever he got.

He wondered what he would be doing now if he hadn't found out he was a wizard and been given the chance to go to Hogwarts. He had the feeling he might have ended up on the wrong side of the law, or stuck in some dead-end job living in a seedy studio flat. Or worse, having to work for Uncle Vernon, probably sweeping his offices.

Meeting Ron and his family had been Harry's first contact with a 'real' family. He was still in awe of the Weasleys even now, 10 years later; of the way they had taken him in and shown him what it was to be part of something. Molly Weasley had treated him as if he was one of her own children. And Arthur Weasley had been the father Uncle Vernon never wanted to be.

Those first years at Hogwarts had been the best of his life. From being a boy with nothing, he found himself in a wonderful new world where everyone thought he was famous, where he could do magic and where he even got to fly on a broomstick.

There had been something even more important than those things, however. He had friends for the first time and that was the best thing. Ron and Hermione were his closest, but there were loads of others: Seamus, Dean and Neville to name but a few. Even Colin Creevey and his brother! And, of course, there had been Hagrid. He could put up with the couple of months each year he had to spend with the Dursleys as long as he knew all these people would be there when he got back to the school in September.

Even the more dangerous times, such as fighting a Basilisk or confronting Wormtail, seemed to be just 'great adventures' to a young boy with no real concept of fear, and any danger was quickly forgotten so the next adventure could be planned.

Then came Cedric Diggory's death and from that point everything changed.

Harry closed his eyes, trying to blot out the image still engraved on his mind even after six years. Wormtail's voice shouting "Avada Kedavra", the flash of green light and Cedric's body spread-eagled on the ground. But it was the look etched on the dead boy's face that stayed with Harry even to this day - a look of surprise and disbelief.

Cedric's death had been only the beginning of that awful night. It lead to the return of Voldemort, of Harry being tortured by the Dark Lord and of a pain Harry never knew existed. The pain of seeing his parents, not alive, but as shadowy, ghost-like beings. But they had been so real; they moved and they spoke to him.

For the first time, Harry understood what had been missing all his life. What Voldemort had taken from him the night he murdered Lily and James. Harry had always coped with their deaths because he didn't remember them. Yet suddenly there they were, in front of him, and he knew his life would never be the same again.

His heart had been broken. He had survived the Dark Lord's attack, but everything from that point on changed. He saw his parents in dreams, thought he remembered things from before they died, heard them talking to him over and over again.

And all the time there was Voldemort dogging his every step. He began to feel that the Dark Lord's only purpose in life was to destroy everything Harry loved, admired and needed. Each new event caused Harry' heart to die just a little more. Voldemort's return. The desperate need for his parents. The growing hatred between the two sides. The dissolution of Hogwarts. Arthur and Bill Weasley's deaths. The deaths of so many other people on both sides.

But the very worst - the thing that had turned Harry's heart to stone - had been what he, Harry, had done to Albus Dumbledore. The man who had been his mentor for seven years, who had always been there when Harry needed help.

It had been the great wizard's idea. Dumbledore had found a way to finally rid the world of Voldemort for good. The only problem was someone had to be the bait, had to lead Voldemort into the trap which Harry would spring. Not for the first time, it was Harry, and Harry alone, who had the power to act against the Dark Lord.

At first Harry refused, demanding another way be found, but in the end, he had no choice. Dumbledore lured Voldemort to a cave beneath the new Slytherin School and Harry had been waiting. Using an ancient blinding spell, Harry had opened a chasm in the cave wall; releasing a power so potent he could hardly control it. The power had snaked out in long crystal tendrils, snaring both wizards into its grasp and dragged them back into its lair. The last time Harry saw Dumbledore he was trapped in that crystal web of power, frozen as though encased in ice.

It had been the End.

Not just of Voldemort, but the end of Harry. Even thinking about it now, three years later, caused a great icy fist to clutch at his heart. His only consolation for all that had happened was the knowledge the wizarding world was free at last from the clutches of Voldemort. Knowing that didn't help the pain, however, which was why he had walked out on everything - his friends, all that had been so important.

Harry turned, lying on his stomach, and peered over the cliff edge. Below, the white foam of the waves was visible as they broke on the rocks. He had been happy these last three years - well, at least for two of them anyway. Happy because this new life, with its lack of danger and absolute normality, had been exactly what he wanted and needed.

So why was that other world interfering in his life again? Hadn't he done enough? Hadn't he gotten rid of the Dark Lord for good? Why would Ron and Hermione send him those things? Why did Isabel (or whoever she was) hex him? And what had happened to him after he collapsed earlier? It had felt a little like an Imperius curse, but how could it be? There was no one here at the lighthouse to cast it. An image of a blond boy flashed through his mind. Had the boy been in his dream? And where did the infuriating lion come from? Had his desire to jump come from Imperius as well? And if the Dark Forces were responsible why were they after him again? What had he done this time?

Harry sat back up, crossing his legs, and dragged a hand through his hair. Did he want to be involved with that other world again? It had felt so good using magic and he could still feel the tingle of it. He flexed his hand, wanting to try casting magic without a wand again, but too afraid to do so.

In the early days, just after leaving Hogwarts, he had often wondered what his wizarding friends thought of him. Did they hate him for walking out? Would they ever forgive him, especially Hermione? He had tried so hard to leave it all behind.

He pulled off his glasses and dragged a hand across his eyes, not wanting to accept the fact he was crying. The pain and loss, which had been tucked away in the backwaters of his mind for so many years, had finally found a way to the surface. He could feel it surging upward as the memories where finally allowed back into his psyche. They spilled like a waterfall into his conscious thought and suddenly it was all too much.

Harry gripped his knees to his chest and began to cry.

The soft rustle of wings cut through the weeping and Harry felt a feather light touch on his shoulder. Twin sets of claws lightly squeezed into his flesh and he looked up into the white-feathered face of an owl. He blinked, the tears burning rivers of fire down his cheeks, and almost instinctively he raised a hand to the bird. It nipped lightly on the fingers before stepping down onto Harry's outstretched arm.

"Hedwig?" The name was a whisper, spilling out through gulping breaths. "What are you doing here? How did you find me?"

The owl, a gift from Hagrid ten years before, pecked at a strand of tear-soaked hair and fluttered her wings so that the soft under feathers touched Harry's face as if wiping away his tears. Then, she hopped to the ground.

Harry's head dropped back to his knees and the sobbing continued. Deep down inside he wondered whether he would ever be able to stop crying again. He reached out a hand for the comfort of feathers, but instead long slim fingers intertwined with his own. He felt himself being gathered into soft arms and pulled gently against a warm body. He didn't struggle as a hand stroked his hair and a soft musical voice sang. "Hush now. The night cannot harm you. I am here."

He curled up into the embrace and cried away the pain.

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