Beaten and Blown By the Wind

Chapter Five: King Arthur's Knight on the Bus

Harry stopped outside the front door, contemplating waking the Dursleys to tell them to run for it, but then realized they'd never listen or believe him and that their fates had half a chance of a nicer end if they were still asleep when the Death Eaters reached the house. Knowing there was nothing else to do but save himself as Aislynn begged, Harry became committed to the idea of escape. He whispered to Hedwig, who was perched on his shoulder.

"Fly as fast as you can to Hogwarts. Give this to Dumbledore and stay there until either he or Hagrid sends you back." Harry quickly tied a piece of parchment he had hurriedly scribbled 'They're here, going to Aislynn,' on before he left the house. Hedwig didn't even hoot in ascent, perhaps sensing the need for silence and took off immediately once the letter was attached.

Harry then took a breath and ran from the front door of number four, Privet Drive as fast as he could into his neighbor's yard across the street, following Aislynn's previous advice to stay off the roads if possible. Luckily the people of his neighborhood were more concerned with gardens than fences and he was able to jump through or over shrubberies, if anything to get from one yard to the next as he ran to the back yard of the people one block in front of the Dursley's and then turned to run four blocks to his left. He ran through several yards and came to a street. Stopping beside a bush, he looked both directions and ran across it, doing the same thing at every street he came to for well more than four blocks. Harry forgot to count and just ran until he could no longer breathe and his side felt as if it would split open. He held out his wand and, for the first time since leaving the front step, looked back towards where he came from.

The tranquility of the quiet neighborhood was rudely interrupted by the huge, ugly green skull and snake floating above number four, Privet Drive. He noticed his skin glowing green as the skull burned itself into his memory, letting its disgusting greenness illuminate Surrey. Harry was starting to get skittish, this being the first time he had ever seen the Dark Mark over a house and the knight bus having yet to arrive, and considered heading back to help the Dursleys. The only thing that stopped him was remembering Aislynn screaming at him that he didn't die so Harry could walk right up to Voldemort to get killed. He wouldn't let Sirius' death be in vain. Sirius had died to protect him and Harry fought every bit of Gryffindor bravery and what other's referred to as his 'hero complex' when they thought he wasn't listening to stay where he stood, waiting for the bus so that he could run away, knowing Sirius would have been as broken at his death at he had been at Sirius' if Harry went back. The greatest irony that Sirius would have blamed himself for the death just as Harry blamed himself for Sirius'. Just then the knight bus screeched to a halt behind him. Stan Shunpike started his formal introduction before recognizing Harry, not even noticing the Dark Mark glaring in the short distance.

"'Arry Potter! 'Choo doin out here in the middle of the night?" Stan asked. Harry just pushed him aboard the bus, following him.

"Close the doors, please! We have to go! We have to hurry!" Harry exclaimed breathlessly, his lungs still burning from his run.

"'Choo talkin' 'bout?" Stan asked, but straightened up a bit as Ernie closed the doors. "Where to?"

"Whales," Harry quickly concluded.

"Where in Whales?" Stan asked, looking at him suspiciously.

"I don't know, I don't care - somewhere, anywhere far from here!"

"'Choo running again, 'Arry?" Stan asked and giggled a little to himself. "Twen'y sickles, or 'ereabout," he concluded. Harry searched his pockets, immediately realizing that he had forgotten to get money in his mad rush to leave Privet Drive.

"Could I pay you when I get there? I have someone meeting me and I forgot my money. I promise I'll pay, but it's really important that we leave quickly," Harry begged with Stan.

"I dunno, 'Arry. Rules is rules an' we're supposed to keep em, ain't we Ern?" Stan eyed him suspiciously. "Where's your trunk and things? Why are you in such a 'urry?"

Harry barely kept his patience as he swiveled Stan towards the window that looked back towards Privet Drive and pointed at the Dark Mark that still glowed in the sky.

"Bless my soul! Is that...Ern, is that...you know!" Stan stuttered, paralyzed with fear.

"Merlin, Stan! I 'aven't seen that since...since..." Ernie's face went whiter than Harry would have thought possible. "Forget about the fare for now, Stan. You two 'old on, I'm not wastin' any time gettin outta here," Ernie told them. With that, Stan hit the gas so hard that Harry thought the top deck might come off with the force. After about five minutes of terrified silence, Ernie was the first to talk.

"You're lucky to get outta there, 'Arry. They don't usually put the mark up til they've done their job, so to speak. I suppose they might've wanted to make a show of you and bring the crowds. If you don't got the money, don't worry about it. They can take it out of my paycheck for all I care. I'm just glad you had the sense to get outta there before it was too late."

"Can you believe it, Ern? You and me savin' the famous 'Arry Potter!" Stan was still white with fear and shock. Harry was fairly certain he'd never seen the Dark Mark over a house before, and certainly not so close up. "Oh, Ern, there's someone flaggin' us down in London...right near number twenty, Grimmauld Place."

At the sound of Grimmauld Place, Harry immediately thought that he was getting flagged down by the Order and that they would be hurrying him off the bus and paying Stan and Ernie to keep quiet until the morning as well as for his fare. Then Harry wondered why they'd call attention so close to the Black house. Preparing to run off into protection of the Order, Harry was surprised when, at number twenty Grimmauld Place, a small woman stood outside the bus in a cloak with it's hood up, red as his beloved Gryffindor common room that he had been thinking of wistfully in the back of his mind. Harry watched Stan walk to the door with shaking legs, but abandoning his speech.

"Welcome to the Knight Bus, emergency transport for the stranded witch or wizard. I'll be your conductor, Stan Shunpike. Now, if you'll kindly step aboard, I will explain the bus to you fully, but I'd prefer just be on our way as quickly as possible," Stan's voice dropped to a whisper. "The Dark Mark's flying in Surrey tonight, Ern and I are a little bit spooked, you see, and wish to keep movin' if at all possible," he whispered to the cloaked figure as she joined him on the bus and the doors snapped shut behind her. The bus lurched forward, almost knocking the two of them to the ground. Harry still couldn't see her face, but had a good idea as to who it was.

"How do you know the Mark is flying in Surrey?" she questioned him as if interrogating a murder witness.

"We were just there before you flagged us down, ma'am."

"What were you doing in Surrey?"

"We were flagged down, we were. Saw the Mark and saved young 'Arry Potter. He was running from it, ma'am. Can't say I blame 'im. I'd hate to 'ave to look over my shoulder everywhere I went for You-Know-'Oo like 'ee does. Comin for 'im in the middle of the night two days into summer 'oliday too, it's a damn shame, it is," Stan told her proudly. With that the woman snapped down her hood and looked around.

"Good. Then he did make it. Where is he?" Aislynn McGarret demanded Stan Shunpike, who suddenly seemed too interested with the hero role.

"'Ow do I know you're not one of em come to get 'im?" he questioned.

"Because if I were, you'd already be dead, Stan. Death Eaters don't take prisoners," she told him quite seriously, giving the boy a nasty spook. She paused and looked around, not seeing well in the shadows. "Harry, where are you?"

"Right here," Harry said, struggling to his feet and grasping to the back of Ernie's chair to keep from falling as Ernie drove wildly towards Wales, as far from the Dark Mark as possible. "Don't worry, Stan, I know her. She's the person meeting me."

"Right," Stan said, apologetically. "Sorry, ma'am, but I'd 'ate for one of em to get 'Arry after he had so much luck earlier."

"It's alright, but don't tell anyone else in the bus or that you pick up that you saw the Dark Mark tonight or that Harry's aboard. You will be heroes for saving him, but not tonight. We cannot have every witch and wizard in London panicking just yet."

"Where to, Miss McGarret?" Ernie asked, shocking Stan and Harry with his recognition of the woman.

"My father's place in Whales, if you don't mind, Ernie."

"No problem. That's twenty sickles each. Do you have it, or should I make note of it to bill you?"

"I have it, one second," she said, digging in her robes for money.

"How do you know 'er, Ern?" Stan asked, taking the words right out of Harry's mouth.

"We get plenty of folks here on the knight bus, Stan. And most of the young ones are runaways. Of course, most runaways don't come to the bus more than once or twice. And most people who learned to apparate at an age younger than anyone need be learning never use the bus. But there are some who needed to run off quickly with some friends before the grown ups caught on to their mischief," he smiled towards Aislynn as she counted out forty sickles. Harry noticed her handful of silver sickles and bronze knuts, but the complete absence of any golden galleons and felt guilty at her paying his way. "If you don't mind me sayin', Miss McGarret, you're just as pretty as you were runnin' away from both 'ome and 'Ogwarts. You don't forget a face like hers when it's so friendly," Ernie said to Stan.

"I don't mind at all, Ernie. Please, just call me Lynn, you know everyone does," she said, smiling and handing the forty sickles to Stan. "That goes for you as well, Stan."

"Sorry, Miss McGarret, I mean, Lynn. It's just been a while, see, and it's against regulation to be anything but polite," Ernie explained as Stan nodded in agreement to the regulations. "Though I suppose that's presumptuous of me callin' you Miss McGarret and all after all this time, eh? Or did you not want the same title as that old hag?"

Aislynn laughed. "No, it's quite alright. It's still Miss McGarret. As much as I might've fought against her title last we met, I wouldn't mind having it now, Ernie. I'm afraid it'll be Miss McGarret for a while...he was almost cleared, you know. Just a couple months shy of his name for the second time and he goes and gets himself taken from me yet again."

"My condolences, Lynn. After reading that article in the Daily Prophet yesterday by Albus Dumbledore, I'd've given my left hand to apologize for all the nasty things I thought or said about 'im these past fifteen years. They should'a listened to you, all of us should've. But how were we to know 'ee was innocent?"

"It's alright. Maybe it was best only a few of us knew. Had he been out and about, we might've lost him sooner," Aislynn said with a look towards Harry. "I may have missed my time with him, but other people were by his side in my absence, and that was perhaps more important than me being there. Do you agree, Harry?"

"You were going to take his name? What's that supposed to mean? You and Sirius were...engaged?" Aislynn and Ernie laughed as Stan gasped.

"You were engaged to Sirius Black? I 'eard of you! You're the one with the prophesy! Me mum told me you fought the aurors who came to take 'im to Azkaban, screaming and kicking and hexing 'til 'ee was taken! Did you really fight the aurors?" Stan's recount of Sirius' arrest suddenly stole Harry's attention from her being engaged to him.

"Yes, I really fought the aurors. It didn't seem like a very bad idea at the time, but looking back, civilized conversation might have been a better idea, and a tad more effective. I told him not to leave the house that night, but it wouldn't have made the difference. The damage was already done. They would have come and taken him from the house, and then I might've been taken to Azkaban with him. I barely kept myself from hurting anyone desperately when they took him, but had they stormed my house, I wouldn't have stopped myself from protecting it," Aislynn told him, her face grave. "I knew he was innocent, but no one wanted to believe me at that point," was her sad afterthought.

"So you were engaged?" Harry asked after a pause. Aislynn laughed.

"Aye, and we had a wedding as grand as your mother and father's planned. It was to be right after Christmas so that everyone could come without moving their schedules around. In fact, your mother and I had been out picking flowers earlier that day. It was a beautiful day and you hardly fussed at all for a one year old stuck in a stroller as we shopped. We met your father and Sirius for lunch in Diagon Alley and then the two of them took the afternoon off so we could all just hang around and be one big happy family for a short while," she looked at Harry with shining eyes. "That's the one thing we were all blessed with. That last day of our good times was one of the happiest."

After some conversation, Harry and Aislynn settled down into beds side by side on the second deck of the bus in a shadowy corner where they would have the advantage of seeing anyone coming before they were seen. They chatted a little of nothing of importance, Harry expressing his nausea at seeing the Dark Mark above his aunt and uncle's house that he would have not confided in anyone aside from Sirius under normal circumstances, when Aislynn decided they needed some sleep. Harry was just about to nod off when a question popped into his mind.

"Lynn?"

"Harry?"

"What happened after she threw the shoe at Sirius? A happy ending, I hope?"

"No, not quite yet," she said, laughing softly. "First Sirius had to dodge the things she was hurling at his head and then Arthur Weasley and another boy literally carried her out of the common room. Remus, who was a prefect then, changed the password immediately and sent someone to tell the two boys and not the girl so they could get in and Sirius could escape to his dormitory before we let her in again, hopefully a little calmer."

"So it just ended there?"

"Nope. I yelled at him. I screamed at him without realizing he had just come to the sudden knowledge that he had been in love with me all those years. I couldn't understand why he was so hung up on a silly word like that. That's when he got mad. He yelled and screamed at me until he couldn't anymore."

"What did he say?"

"He said it wasn't a stupid word, that though it is to most people, it was undeniably me to him. That he was a fool for not realizing it sooner."

"Realizing what sooner?"

"That I was the one for him, as he put it. He said he didn't lie to her that I was the one and always was. That I was beauty, not just beautiful. That if I couldn't give him a chance to let him love me that I may as well cut out his heart and leave him for dead right there," a tear fell down her cheek, even though she was smiling. "He always was a drama queen when he thought he had the crowd or needed to be to get his way. He had both working for him right then," she laughed sadly. "I told you he was my knight in shining armor. Arthur would've been proud to have him at his round table. Sirius had a bad temper, but he was chivalrous, brave, and had certainly picked the lady whose honor he'd fight for. I used to love those stories as a child. After that, I'd tease him that he'd be able to challenge even Sir Accolon with his crazed love for Morgan le Fey or Sir Lancelot with his hopeless love for Guinevere, shattering hearts into as many pieces as his own as he went. He always scowled at that."

"So what did you do?"

"What do you think I did? I cut out his heart and left him for dead! And then I forgot I was dating your father at the time and told Sirius he was a damn fool to take so long to notice me, but I'd give him his chance," she laughed a little before sobering up and yawning. "But it's been a long night and we need sleep now. Goodnight, Harry."

"Goodnight...Beautiful," Harry teased, having caught on to the only nickname possible Sirius could have chosen to bug someone who seemed to hold herself in such high regard into silently dealing with it lest someone else catch on. Looking to see how this was taken, he could have sworn he saw her smile a little bit before he closed his eyes to sleep.