The Winter Glass

Part One: Nights Before Winter

Chapter One: The Winter Glass

That November night was the coldest I can remember. It wasn't so much the temperature, though it was well below freezing and snow blanketed the ground. I recall thinking that there was something amiss with the fire. I could see it crackling merrily away, but its warmth did not touch us where we rocked an arm's length from the hearth. The reasonable thing to do would have been to crawl under the covers. I was unreasonable then, though, and I wouldn't sleep before he did.

It had been three days and he hadn't slept. He'd hardly made a sound. Now, he sat stiffly in my lap, staring around at the miserable little attic room that I had rented with my last coin. We had a bed, a table, a rocking chair, a stool, and a little window that looked up at the sky. A battered wooden trunk rested at the end of the bed. Everything was well-scrubbed, well-worn and dulled with age, as dull as his eyes were that night. And there was nothing to do but wait. Nothing to do but watch frost etch fingerprints up the glass. Nothing to do but my duty, and I had already failed once.

The knock on the window startled me. The houses in that part of the town were built so high and so close together that only the smallest child could slip between and it was as common for children to slip over rooftop gardens as it was for them to trip all the way down the stairs and out to the street. Surprised, I reached out a hand to flip the latch and she tumbled into the room, blue and shivering in her nightdress.

"You live here now." A statement, not a question.

"Yes," I told the girl, who I thought very direct for a four-year-old.

"My brother steals the blankets, and we don't have a fire in our attic," she said by way of an introduction as I pulled the window shut.

"Who are you?" he challenged her as she climbed onto my lap uninvited, speaking for the first time since...since before. He had learned something from his father, and when he did speak his voice was clear and controlled. Only six and he was prepared to rule.

"I'm Ginny."

They were different in almost every possible way. He was quiet where she was talkative. He had clear, pale skin and she was covered in freckles. His hair was the night sky, hers the sun. They were both sliding off my lap. "You're supposed to hold us tight, so we won't slip away."

"Oh." I really didn't know about children then, not like I do now. We were all slippery knees and elbows and I hauled them up in my arms.

"You're supposed to tell us a story, so we can go to sleep," she whispered conspiringly as she wrapped her arms around Harry and rested her head on my shoulder.

They had a long wait while I searched for something to tell, but they bore it patiently. I had never been one for stories because I was told, once upon a time, that telling something makes it true. I've never been one for the actual telling, either; I haven't the talent.

"Once upon a time...because stories like this must begin this way whether they were upon a time or not, whether they happened only once or many times..." I trailed off.

Harry raised his head and looked at me, and I would swear that light came back into his eyes. I owed him this fairy tale tonight. Someday I would have to tell him about his parents, how I had returned from scouting ahead to find them slumped in the carriage, throats slit, jewels gone. How the guards were scattered dead on the ground. How I had found him hidden in the seat compartment, trapped in the dark space by his parents' dead weight and bleeding from the scratch on his forehead. That night he deserved something more pleasant.

I cleared my throat, stalling. "Once upon a time, there was a wizard who was very silly and very vain. He wished to be well-loved, but did not understand that wishing to be loved is not enough to make it so. One day, he decided that no one could love him so well as he loved himself. Still, he wished never to be alone, and created for himself a mirror of the finest glass and decorated with many rare stones. When he looked in the mirror he saw himself as beautiful and perfect, as happy and contented, and as immensely powerful with many allies. He looked for so long that he believed what he saw was truth. And so he spent many hours looking in that mirror, unaware that his heart was shriveling away."

"It must have been a lovely mirror," Ginny sighed. "Did everyone want to look in it, and did they shrivel away too?" Harry nodded for me to continue.

"No, it was an awful thing," I replied. "Only the silly, vain wizard saw what he wished to see. Everyone else who looked in the mirror saw nothing of comfort. The smallest imperfection was magnified a hundredfold. The most lush gardens reflected as the bitterest wasteland. It distorted everything in the most horrible way."

Ginny nuzzled her head against Harry's neck and he rested his chin on her hair. "H'hm," she said drowsily. "Then what happened?"

"Another wizard stole it."

"But why? You said it was"--she paused for a splitting yawn--"an awful thing."

"That didn't stop another wizard wanting it," I told her. "Sometimes we want those things that are the worst for us. The other wizard spirited the mirror away to the north and hid it in his ice palace, so they say." I closed my eyes. "One day, the silly, vain wizard decided to take the mirror back. He put on his heavy boots and fur-lined cloak and hired a sled to take him to the top of the world. The wind blew hard and ripped at his clothes, but still he journeyed on. Frost gathered on his eyebrows and the cold nipped at his ears. It burned his skin black and red and blue, and still he would not turn back.

"Finally, he came to the great ice palace in the north. It was frozen shut. Hard, cold ice covered the windows and made the doors fast. The silly, vain wizard drew his wand and cast every spell he knew, yet not one could melt into the heart of the castle. At last he took a rock and pounded on the wall until he made a jagged hole. He crawled inside and slipped through the corridors until he found his enchanted mirror. The silly, vain wizard grabbed up the glass and ran back to his sled, and when he reached it, the wizard of the north was waiting for him."

"He killed the silly wizard and kept the mirror." Harry whispered his prediction against my chest, and a lump grew in my throat.

"No," I said. I had to rock them a little so they would not feel how much I was shaking. Harry knew about his parents. I had harbored the faintest hope that he would be too young to understand; I should have known better. I said before that I had no experience with children then and I did not lie. "The silly, vain wizard and the wizard of the north each took a corner of the mirror and neither would give up. They pulled and tugged until the mirror slipped from their hands and fell to the ground. The mirror cracked, and a jagged piece broke off and..." Here I stopped. In the story I knew, the piece of the mirror had--

"Sliced off the silly wizard's head," Ginny mumbled. Harry shuddered and snuggled closer.

"And the jagged piece flew out into the world, ricocheting off of rocks and trees. Little slivers and shards broke off here and there, and ruined the world around that place. Flowers died, streams ran foul, and animals grew sick. However, each winter the wizard of the north always came to find the little bits of the mirror and take them back to his home in the snow. They say that's why the cold wind blows. The wizard is still trying to find the pieces to make the mirror whole so that someday he can complete the enchanted the mirror and see his power within it."

The window rattled suddenly as the wind caught it. I looked to see if they were frightened, but Ginny's head lolled forward and Harry...Harry's breathing was regular and even. His eyes were closed.

I don't know how I did it without dropping them. Somehow, I stood with both of them in my arms and managed to pull out the trundle bed by catching it with my toe. Their limbs were wound together like little vines and I planted them tightly under the blankets. They looked so serene in the dying firelight. It was an easy thing to believe that there would be nothing but peace for them, ever, there in that attic room.

The world might have been cold and unforgiving but I could finally escape from it as they had. Kicking off my boots, I fell upon my own bed. It seemed like I had hardly closed my eyes when my slumber was disturbed by a distant shout followed by clattering footsteps on the stairs and heavy pounding on our door. My head pounded a complementary rhythm and I staggered over to open up.

The woman was knocking so hard that when I opened the door her fist caught me in the chest. Her face was flushed and her hair disheveled. She still wore her nightclothes. "I'm very sorry," she said first, "but, my daughter is--"

"Here, Mum," Ginny said, sitting up and rubbing her eyes.

"What have I told you about staying in your own bed? You could have fallen off the roof or frozen to death or, honestly, anything!" Ginny's mother drew breath. "Not to mention that I was worried, and now you've bothered these poor people that we don't even know."

"It was no bother," I cut in.

"Mrs. Weasley," she interrupted. "We have the top rooms next door. Ginny used to sneak over here to visit the Longbottoms, and I suppose it's my fault--I'm very sorry--I didn't tell her that they had to move away." At this, Ginny let out a miserable, high-pitched wail and Mrs. Weasley scooped her up and settled Ginny on her hip.

With the girl safe in her arms Mrs. Weasley took a moment to look at me. I know what she saw: a man with no right to be near her daughter. A man, unshaven, with the look of one who has ridden his horse to death. A man wearing tattered, dirty clothing vaguely recognizable as that of a palace guard somewhere far to the south, and with darker patches where identifying insignia should have been. Deserter. "Very, very sorry," she finished as she backed out the door.

When they were gone, I noticed Harry sitting up and looking at me owlishly. "Will she come back?"

"I don't know," I replied. "How about some breakfast?" Harry showed no sign that he had heard me at all. I pretended that he had been enthusiastic and rummaged in my saddlebag for a crust of bread. Harry perked up, as all small boys do, at the prospect of roasting something over the fire so I speared the crust on my knife and allowed him to make his own toast.

I think the autumn day was bright and sunny to spite me. No little boy, no man, nobody should be kept inside on a day like that, and I had no choice but to hide him. I didn't know if we were being followed, if I was thought a murderer with a bounty on my head, but our supplies were exhausted.

"Harry, I have to go find us something more to eat. You'll have to stay here." I looked closely for his reaction, prepared to lie, even, to convince him that this was right, but he simply nodded and went about making his bed awkwardly. I helped him smooth out the lumps so that the trundle could be stowed away. "You can't open the door if anyone knocks." Still no reaction.

I locked him in with a heavy heart and padded down the stairs, trying not to trip over skates and blocks, and into the muddy street. All day I inquired discreetly about work, and all day I was turned away. I bent my head to the ground as the sun began to set, to guard against the rising wind, to perhaps spot a coin dropped in the street, but mostly because my spirits were drooping. I was tired and cold and hungry and I had to go back to Harry and he would know all three of those things.

Finally, I turned my feet toward...well, it wasn't home. I wasn't sure if I would be able to find my way in the dark. And, because I had my head down, I didn't see the man in the shadows.

"Careful, now," the wizened man said as I stumbled into him. He was spry and strong for his age and he righted me immediately. "You look as if you have fallen on hard times, if you don't mind my intrusion."

The man fixed me with a piercing stare over the top of a pair of half-moon glasses and I was torn between running away and staying to confess my sins. The latter won out when he waited patiently for a reply, and before I knew what had happened he had whisked me inside a rough cottage and seated me in his kitchen.

I'm embarrassed to say that my manners were not what they could have been. I have a memory of a steaming bowl of beef stew and a mug of cold milk; I have an equally vivid memory of a patient hand that removed the bowl at regular intervals, so that I was forced to slow down, and that gently rubbed by back while I waited for the growling in my stomach to cease. I'm sure that the entire meal lasted no more than a quarter hour but at the time it seemed like an eternity.

Eventually I raised my head. "Thank you. I'm not able to pay--"

He raised a hand. "My dear boy"--I swallowed down my protest at this, though I really wasn't much older than one--"I do not run an inn. I invited you here as my guest. Humor an old man; I may yet request something of you. My name is Albus Dumbledore." He proffered his hand and I took it, but I did not offer my name in return.

"I happen to be looking for someone..." My heart skipped a beat. Did he know who I was? My fear must have shown on my face, because he chuckled and gave me a reassuring smile before continuing. "Someone to do odd jobs for me. You have the look of a soldier about you, and soldiers have no fear of a little hard work. Of course, they are also trustworthy and loyal."

I had thought that I had already seen the worst of it, but I was wrong. I found myself sobbing in Dumbledore's arms, weak as a child and far less self-conscious. I'm not sure how much of what I told him was intelligible but I remember it something like this:

My father sent me to the castle to work as a page, and before long James called me his best man. I stood by his side when he was crowned king. I raised my sword to lead his forces and I raised my glass when he took a wife. I rode ahead on a dangerous road when I should have stayed beside him.

They should have come down that road. I waited and waited and tried to tell myself that they had merely stopped because Lily was pregnant again and the rough ride had made her ill. They would come around the corner any second.

When I found them there were soldiers on the ground, throats cut, breathing their last. I ignored them all and rode directly to the carriage. They were still inside. "James. James." He wouldn't talk to me. Lily stared at me silently. They had met the same fate as the soldiers.

I couldn't believe it. There was nothing to believe in. And then I heard one little scratch, a soft gasp, muffled breathing. Harry. I hefted the dead weight of his parents out of the carriage and lifted up on the seat, remembering that a hidden compartment for jewels and treasures was beneath.

It was locked.

Frantically, I searched James and Lily for the key, but my hands were numb and my patience short. I shouted for Harry to huddle down and slipped the blade of my sword under the cushions. The length twisted and bent but in the end the lock gave.

Harry was inside. He didn't move when I shouted his name. I pulled him out and shook him, more harshly than I should have. He was breathing and I knew he could see and hear me. He had a jagged scratch across his forehead, and dried blood caked his face.

A million questions spun my head as I placed Harry on the saddle in front of me. We circled the scene while I tried to figure out just how to keep him from falling off the horse; it was as if the idea of riding or even sitting didn't register with him. I realized that he was looking at the dead outriders at the same time I counted one too few men. Someone was missing.

I've never, for all James's faith in my ability to lead his men, been an expert strategist, but even a fool such as I could see the pattern here. The king and queen assassinated. The soldiers dead. One had fallen behind, perhaps, ridden back at the first to bring the news to the populace, to be heralded as one who had fought bravely and the first to serve the new aristocracy.

Any moment now it would be discovered that Harry was unaccounted for and that one of the presumed dead still had a tale to tell. I ripped the crests from my cloak and spurred my horse to the north. We didn't stop again until the horse finally gave out, and then only long enough for me to shoulder Harry. We kept walking until we came to a town where we could hide in the crowds.

I broke off the tale somewhere around this point, because the rest was rather dull, really. We rented a room in a poor section of town and holed up inside. I might never have come out again if it weren't for Harry.

Harry.

He had been alone all day and now I was anxious to return to him. I made my apologies to Dumbledore. Humiliation prevented me from inquiring about the job; instead, I rose to make my exit as I wasn't fit for anything else He stepped in front of me before I reached the door.

"I will require your presence by noon tomorrow, if that suits you. I'm sure you need some time to settle your affairs. Please use this advance to purchase what you need so that you can begin immediately." He pressed a coin into my palm.

My protest was reluctant. The payment would buy more than a few days of work. "It's too much."

Dumbledore stroked his beard thoughtfully. "Then you've underestimated the worth of the job." With that, he unlatched the door and I was ushered out into the night.

It was too late to order from the shops, but as I wended my way down the narrow roads the world seemed a little brighter. I could provide for our immediate needs, and I did, stopping in at a tavern to buy candles, a loaf, cheese, and meat. On impulse, I accepted a wriggling puppy at the barkeeper's urging. Impulsive, impractical, and thoughtless to boot. I didn't even stop to think about whether or not Harry would want to care for a dog. I assumed that he would be exactly like his father and keep one at all times.

I bounded up the stairs to our room at last, panting heavily from taking them two at a time. With one hand full of dinner and the other of Labrador retriever I resorted to kicking the door. It took a full minute for me to remember that I had forbidden Harry to open the door to anyone. Sighing, I set down the cloth that held our dinner--and probably our breakfast and lunch the next day--and fished the key out of my pocket.

The room was dark and chilly, and the candle in the hall sconce did not lend enough light for me to locate Harry. Belatedly, it occurred to me that he might not be able to light a fire. It never occurred to me that he shouldn't be left unattended around one.

"Harry?" I asked tentatively. Nothing. "Harry?"

I brought in the food and kicked the door shut behind me. Dinner went on the table that I bumped in the dark and the puppy was dropped unceremoniously onto my bed. With difficulty I groped for the small pile of kindling and blew on the coals in the hearth until I had enough light to see Harry. I thought that surely when I turned around I'd see him nose to nose with the puppy. But I didn't.

The Lab wagged his tail as he jumped to the floor. "Harry?" I called, as gently as I could. I didn't want to scare him. I almost didn't want to face him; I was the guilty party for leaving him alone for so long. Nervous, I got down on my hands and knees and pulled the stool out of the way. I reached out to find Harry but came up with a handful of air.

By now I was beginning to panic. I ripped open the package that I had brought from the tavern and lit all of the short, stubby candles, but I couldn't see Harry anywhere. I pulled out the trundle bed and reached beneath and behind. I turned over the rocker and reached my hand up the chimney flue and even flung open the window and climbed out onto the roof. I turned circles in the room until I started to feel dizzy. Failed. Failed again. I forced myself to stop and think. Could he have gone outside? The door had been locked. Perhaps the Ginny girl had come and taken him out through the window?

The thought of facing Mrs. Weasley's disapproval again so soon was unpleasant, yet I knew it was inevitable. I placed a candle in a tin mug from my kit to light my way. "Here, puppy," I said, reaching down to scoop him up where he sat sniffing at the trunk.

I had forgotten the dog entirely while I searched for Harry. In my distress I hadn't noticed its whimpering, and as I picked it up it gave a little yip. I knew then where Harry was.

I'd opened the trunk when we first arrived and placed its rusty skeleton key on the mantelpiece. I fumbled for it in the dust and shadows, and my shaky hands sent it flying. I worked my way across the floor. As I scrabbled my hands across the boards, I muttered, "Coming, coming Harry. Wait. Hang on."

I don't remember actually finding the key or opening the trunk but the sight when I did is burned into my brain. Harry was huddled inside, his mouth open and blue-rimmed. He was stiff and cold and it was difficult to remove him from his prison. When I did I saw that he was breathing shallowly.

"I'm sorry, sorry Harry, breathe now." I rubbed his back and listened to the rattle of his lungs. I wanted to hold him tightly but I was too afraid to do anything except plead with him. "Look at me, Harry. Breathe. I got you a puppy"--here it jumped up and licked him enthusiastically across the chin--"and he's yours."

Somehow the shock of being salivated on startled Harry into breathing normally again. He took several long breaths and fell into a coughing fit. With much relief, I carried him over to the bed and patted his back before dipping him a drink of water. While he alternately coughed and drank and was mauled by the puppy that had jumped up beside him, I stoked the fire and readied our meal.

It wasn't until after Harry had finished picking at his food (and feeding his crusts to the dog) that I dared speak to him again.

"What happened?"

"I could hear my parents in there." He looked at me solemnly and got up from the table to play tug-of-war with his puppy and an old sock.

The next day I turned the trunk into kindling.