In Search of Sirius: The Land of the Living Dead

Chapter Three: The Eye That Sees

Harry would probably have been disappointed with the Room of Requirement. When Snape stood opposite the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy, and thought hard about his need to find the potion Potter and his friends had been brewing, the Room obligingly presented him with its door.

Snape stalked inside and poked the silvery liquid in the cauldron with his wand. Despite himself, he was impressed. Obviously Hermione had had the sense not to let Potter or Weasley anywhere near her labours: this was as well-brewed a potion as he had ever seen. And, as he had hoped, she had prudently made more than she needed in case of accidents.

There was enough, he calculated. He took out his own potions bottle, and poured what remained of the Essence of Mag Mell inside. He added this to the small cache of materials in the pockets of his voluminous robes.

He was ready. He swept back out into the night. He settled himself by the side of the lake and waited for the moon to emerge, once more full and bright, from behind the obscuring clouds. Had anyone observed him, they would have been put in mind of a large, roosting bat.

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"Well, that helped!" said Harry sardonically. "We now need to find the Three Seers, whatever they may be, in a direction we don't know - except, oh, there aren't any directions here anyway!"

"She said something," Hermione said, her eyes glazed with thought. "She said without her help we would walk these shores forever. Something she said is the clue...."

Ron and Harry raised their eyebrows.

"No directions," Hermione muttered. "No directions...OK... got it, I think!... If there are no directions, there isn't any path we can follow... that must mean it isn't which way we go that matters, it's the place we are going to. Right, come on, then."

She looked round in surprise. Harry and Ron remained where they where, staring at her in bemusement as she began to set off across the beach.

"Come on," she repeated. "Think about the Three Seers. That's how you get from one place to another here....I think," she added, a little less certainly.

To Harry and Ron's amazement, as they walked the shoreline began to change. It was like walking through a tunnel of moving images. The wet, grey sand shifted into stringy grass. The sea became a rolling plain. And the steely light softened into a sunlit morning.

"This is more like it," said Ron, cheering up.

They strolled for sometime across the grassy landscape. Their clothes began to steam as they dried off in the warmth of the sun. A few trees broke the skyline, but there was little enough to see. There was also no hint of any danger. They began to relax a little.

After a time, they saw ahead of them a small cottage nestled in a copse of trees. As they crept closer, they saw three old women were sitting outside, working at looms. Cautiously, they moved towards them.

"Shuttle and spin, shuttle and spin," one of them was warbling.

"Bobbin and pin, bobbin and pin," crooned another.

"Sisters!" The third interrupted sharply. "There are strangers close by, I hear them..."

"The eye, the eye, who has the eye...."

"I do!"

The one who had spoken last swung about. Her face was ancient, and framed with strings of grey-white hair. She did not have eye sockets in the normal way, but one great eye in the middle of her forehead. It reminded Harry forcibly of Mad-Eye's magical eye. "Ugh, creepy!" exclaimed Ron softly. As the other two old women also turned to face them, they saw that the sockets in the middle of their foreheads gaped blind and empty.

"What is it, sister? Who disturbs our weaving?"

"What have we here, what have we here...Children, my sisters. Mortal children....."

"Mortal children? Do they have eyes, my sister?"

"Are they a gift? Do they bring us their eyes?"

"Who has sent them to us?"

Harry steeled himself and took a few steps forward. "No-one has sent us to you! At least...the lady by the shore suggested we come...but - we need your help!"

"The lady by the shore............ahhhhhh." The crone who spoke let out a long sigh as if savouring the thought. "She sent you, did she? The lady by the shore..."

"Our help, you say? You want our help?"

"Yes," Harry drove on. "I need to know where my Godfather is, Sirius Black. Can you help?"

"Can we help, can we help?"

"He asks if he we can help."

The three old women cackled together as if Harry had cracked a particularly amusing joke.

"Of course we can help," the one with the eye said. "The question is, why should we?"

"We offer you a trade," put in another.

"The girl."

"It would be good to have a girl. We would have three eyes then...."

"And we will tell you how to find your Godfather."

The three of them nodded in the sunlight, smiling gently.

"No way!" Harry said angrily. "Isn't there anything else we can do? Chop wood or something....Fetch water..."

"Let me look at the girl, sister. Pass me the eye." The old woman with the eye popped it out of her head and passed it to the woman who had spoken. She slid it into her own eye socket. "Oh yes. Oh yes. Nice...."

Hermione was beginning to feel distinctly nervous. At the same time, she knew she had heard of these three crones before. She dug in the corners of her memory; then turned to Ron, who was standing beside her, and whispered frantically in his ear. Ron stared at her for a long moment, and then took off at a run towards the old women. Harry watched him in alarm. "What..?"

"Here!" Ron yelled, darting behind the blind woman farthest away from the one with the eye. "Here, I'm here...see what I'm doing..."

"The eye!" shrieked the woman, stretching out her hand to take it from her sister and turning on Ron in fury. He wriggled out from her grasp and darted in the opposite direction to harass the woman who had had the eye before.

"Pass it back!" the crone howled.

As one sister passed the eye to another, Hermione pulled out her wand.

"ACCIO EYE" she yelled.

In the moment of the eye exchanging hands, it shot out of the sisters' grasp and zoomed towards Harry and Hermione.

Just a snitch. Harry thought. Just a large, slippery snitch...He stretched out his hand and grabbed the eye. It felt peculiar, like an overgrown oyster. Disturbingly, it continued to glare at him as he held it.

The old women broke into loud wails.

"Again!"

"Tricked! Again!"

"BE QUIET!" yelled Harry, deciding this was the only way to cut in on their yowling. "I've got your eye, right? I'm not hurting it, I'm not going to do anything to it... Just tell me where I can find Sirius and I'll give you it back."

"Tricked," wept the women. "Oh our eye, our eye, our eye..." Finally one of them said bitterly: "Clever children, to trick poor old women. Brave children, to cheat old crones. Your Godfather is in the Palace of Bones. Now our eye...give us our eye...."

"Promise," said Harry firmly," that if I give you this back, you will not harm us, and you will let us go."

"We won't harm you," the woman said. A malicious tone was in her voice which made Hermione look thoughtful. Now give us our eye."

Very gingerly, Harry walked up to them and dropped the still glowering eye into one of their outstretched hands. He backed away fast, then turned, and ran as quickly as he could to rejoin Ron and Hermione. Together, they sprinted away from the cottage and its inhabitants until they could run no longer. Behind them, a horn sounded.

"Right," said Ron with forced cheer. "Got through that one all right, then, eh? So now we're heading for this... Palace of Bones...That sounds like fun."

"Yes," muttered Harry. "I dunno...something is wrong."

The cry of a horn reverberated once more: louder.

There seemed to be more trees than there had been before. And surely it was darker? The grasslands seemed to be vanishing beneath the march of forest. The horn rang out yet again.

Now, they could hear the baying of hounds, deep-throated and savage.

"Ohhhh noo," moaned Hermione. "Nooo..."

"What?" Ron and Harry demanded together, gazing wildly around as the trees closed in.

"I think," Hermione said faintly, "I think the old women have called out the Wild Hunt...."

Above the canopy of trees, across the darkening sky, nine figures rode. Antlers reared on their leader's head. Before and behind them swarmed a pack of giant hounds, whose coats gleamed white, but whose ears burned furnace red.

"We hunt!" an exultant voice roared out. "Ride, ride, ride to the hunt!"

The horn sounded again: this time with the all the thrill and urgency of a kill at hand.

Chapter Four: Hunters from the Sky

"Hermione," said Ron in a trembling voice, "I'm not quite sure what this Wild Hunt of yours is, but I'm guessing it's nothing good..."

"No. No, it's not! Harry, I don't know what to do! The Wild Hunt are... well, wild."

Hermione looked around fearfully. The baying of the hounds was still some way overhead, but the sound was definitely getting closer.

"They're not after rabbits, then?" Ron asked weakly.

"I would say not," Harry replied tensely as the noise of the Hunt took shape all around them. They huddled together, wands out, but with no idea what kind of magic might be effective against such a fearsome opponent.

The noise of the hounds become overpowering. Hermione whimpered and clasped her hands to her ears. Above the tumult of the pack, the note of a horn soared and soared again.

"Harry..." Hermione squeaked.

But Harry's mind was blank.

The trees seemed to ease apart to allow the passage of the Hunt. The hounds bounded towards their quarries, uttering great yelping cries, then crouched before them, growling. Their red ears flicked alertly, and their huge jaws slavered. Harry, Hermione and Ron took a step backwards, turned to flee, and found more hounds poised menacingly all around them.

An immense figure rode through the trees. Massive antlers rose from his head. He was dressed all in red, yet somehow he still loomed through the forest like a tower of darkness. Behind him followed a number of other shadowy horsemen. His voice, when he spoke, reminded Harry of a mountain moving.

"WHO TRESPASSES ON OUR LANDS?" he demanded. He did not speak loudly, as such, but his speech nevertheless boomed through the gathering dark.

"Uh - er, we, we're sorry, sir, we didn't know we were trespassing..."

"WE WERE WOKEN."

"That - that wasn't us, we're sorry - " Harry gabbled, looking up in dread at the vast figure before them.

The horse stamped and whinnied piercingly. "PATIENCE, ERLANDIS. WE WILL RIDE AGAIN SOON.

"YOU STINK OF NEW MAGIC, MORTAL ONES. WHY DO YOU BRING THE RUIN OF OUR RACE INTO THESE REALMS?"

Harry looked helplessly at Hermione for guidance. "They're old magic, Harry," she breathed back. "Old magic, blood magic, from the beginnings of days - before human civilization, before wizards...The new world drove them out...into exile...."

Ron raised his hand to his mouth. "I do hope," he muttered sideways, "they aren't taking that personally..."

"I, I'm just looking for my friend," Harry blurted. "My Godfather..."

The shadowed face was silent. It seemed to be pondering something. "YOU BEAR THE TRACES OF OLD MAGIC, TOO, CHILD. HOW IS THIS?"

Harry gaped. Old magic? What..? Suddenly a memory floated through his mind. Dumbledore, speaking of his mother, who had died to save him...how this gave him the protection of an ancient magic, blood magic, flowing through his veins....

"My mother," he stuttered. "My mother's blood."

"AH." The antlered figure inclined his great head. "SINCE YOU BEAR EVEN THIS MUCH OF OUR HERITAGE, CHILD, WE WILL LET YOU PASS. IT IS GOOD TO KNOW THAT NOT ALL IN THE UPPER REALMS HAVE ENTIRELY FORGOTTEN THE WAYS OF OLD."

His steed reared suddenly, with a scream of anticipation. "WE HUNT. RIDE, RIDE, TO THE HUNT...."

The hounds, the horsemen, and the antlered leader whirled around and thrust themselves skyward. Horses stamped, and sweated, and the hot breath of the hounds beat at the teenagers' faces. The Hunt took off with cries of furious anticipation. The baying of the hounds howled through the night, fading swiftly into distant yelps.

Harry, Hermione and Ron collapsed onto the forest floor in relief.

"Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness," Hermione muttered.

"Harry," said Ron solemnly. "I think I just discovered something more scary than spiders."

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Snape stood on the shoreline with folded arms, gazing into the distance. When the tall, cloaked figure glided towards him, he cast it barely a glance.

"Stranger," the liquid voice breathed. "What would you have?"

Snape spoke carefully. "I seek nothing from this realm which is not mine to take. I am in search of that which is lost."

"The children..."

Snape did not respond.

"Would you like me to tell you where you can find the children?" The being's voice flowed over him like molten honey.

"No."

"You are ungracious, mortal visitor."

Snape shrugged, and continued to stare into the distance. Finally, he nodded to himself, and strode off, his robes flapping around his heels.

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"You know," Ron commented nervously, "I really don't think I like this place."

"It's taken you all this time to reach that conclusion?" Hermione was stepping briskly forwards. "The sooner we get out of this forest the better...Keep thinking of the Palace of Bones, remember. I wouldn't like to get lost in this realm."

The landscape this time was changing only slowly: almost lazily. The light levels had, however, increased. Pale sunlight did filter down through the thinning trees. This heartened all three of them. Somehow everything seemed less terrible in the daylight.

By now, they were all thirsty and hungry. "I wish," said Hermione, "that we had thought to bring some food... or at least a bottle of water."

"Yeah," Harry agreed. "We'll be joining the Land of the Dead for real if we don't get a move on." He patted his pocket to make sure his potion bottle was still there. It would be a disaster if they lost those....and with them their way back...

"I can't help feeling," said Hermione, "that it is all too quiet. I mean, there's a reason why people don't just pop across here for Sunday jaunts..."

"Hermione!" protested Ron. "That is not something to complain about! And anyway, you mean too quiet besides the carnivorous horses, the creepy old hags and the hounds of hell? "

She smiled slightly. They were definitely moving out of the forested lands. The trees were growing further and further apart.

They walked on. They were weary now, and very thirsty indeed.

"Do you think those old hags were having us on?" Ron asked anxiously. "About this Palace of Bones business?"

"I don't think they can," Hermione answered him seriously. "The rules of this place aren't like ours...Beings here can mislead, and torment, but they can't actually lie to us."

Harry had been silent for a long while. That had been a close call with the Wild Hunt. Perhaps he should not have come; what if he lost Ron or Hermione as well? He had tried to get them to stay behind....He strengthened his resolution by thinking of Sirius. They would find him, and they would give him some of their potion, and they would take him back to Hogwarts with them. He would have his Godfather back.

The sun was setting when they came to the stone table. None of them know what this meant in terms of actual passage of time, or how long they had really been in the Land of Mag Mell.

The table was a huge slab of rough grey stone. They approached it with caution. Was there something they had to do here in order to reach the Palace of Bones? As the rays of the setting sun bathed the table in its pinkish light, Hermione let out a small scream.

A man had appeared on the table from out of nowhere. He was chained hand and foot. His grey beard was long and unkempt. He stared at the sky in hopeless resignation. Suddenly, the sky was full of a strange cawing noise.

"Kaaa - kaaa - kaaa."

Birds swooped down towards them. They seemed to blot out the sky, but probably there were only twenty or thirty of them. Hermione, Harry and Ron dropped to the ground, instinctively covering their eyes. Peering between his fingers, Harry saw that these birds were large, larger than ravens. They had a feral look about them and - he stared sickly. Their beaks - their beaks were made of bone, and charred with blood....

"Kaaa - kaaa - kaaa."

"The man on the table," Harry whispered. "Oh -! that man on the table!" He made to get up and found himself fiercely pulled down by Ron and Hermione.

"Kaaa - kaaa - kaaa."

A storm of wings beat around them. The birds stank of death. They fed for a long time. When they had finished, they swooped about in fierce circles.

"Kaaa - kaaa - kaaa."

"Oh no - they're coming for us!" Harry yelled frantically. "Quick -"

But there was nowhere to hide, and the birds could fly faster than they could run.

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Aaahhhhh. Voldemort breathed a long, contented sigh. "Good news, Nagini....Harry Potter has left the protection of that old fool Dumbledore and of his mother's family...."

His lipless mouth pulled back into a smile.

"At last...Harry Potter has plagued me for too long. I have an instrument to hand, Nagini...finally, it is the end for Harry Potter."

His thin, high laugher rang triumphantly out.

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