The Winter Glass

Chapter Six: Watching Over Him

Late the next spring, after the last of the snows had melted and the first flowers had blossomed and died, I sat alone in Dumbledore's library and applied my quill to a heavy journal. The air was warm and the scratching of the nub across pages, combined with the drone of the bumblebees that hovered over the snapdragons spilling from a windowbox, made me want to lay my head on my arms and take a nap. In another hour or two the sun would fall across my work and wake me up, and the very thought tempted. On the other hand, I was master of the house for the time being, and it wouldn't do to sleep while the children were loose.

Dumbledore had gone away for who knows how long and Merlin only knows where. He asked me stay at his home for a few days to 'watch over things' and I accepted gladly. It had seemed like a good idea to take Harry and get away from our stuffy rooms. For a generally quiet boy, though, he had a loyal group of followers. Ron, Ginny, Hermione, and Ron's twin brothers had constructed a fort out in the garden. Every day, other children (some I knew and some I didn't) would walk out to the cottage. Harry was the coveted first pick in any game of capture the flag, because if he played for a team, they were sure to win.

Today, only Ron, Ginny, and Hermione were present. They could entertain themselves fairly well out in the garden. Hermione was embroidering something, quilt pieces to make a blanket for poor children, I think. Ron and Harry had been weeding the flowerbeds with the promise of a penny after.

Ginny, on the other hand, kept to the shadows. She'd been quiet, uncertain, all the last year even though she'd finally been old enough to attend lessons with the others. As the roses grew on our balcony at home, she'd paled and waned. I've been told many girls do at her age, and that this is fairly normal behavior, but the change in her was dramatic even to me and I normally took little notice of such trifles.

I heard the soft slap of her soles on the floorboards first. "It's very hot out today," she said.

I copied the rest of my line before replying. "Yes. It's been a very warm year. We'll probably have a dreadful summer." Then, I dipped my quill into the inkpot again. "Still, you should enjoy it while you can. Why don't you go on outside with the others?"

Ginny shrugged and climbed into an overstuffed chair. "Because I've just come in." Her voice grew softer. "Because I'm never really with the others."

I clenched the quill in my fist. Ginny had grown on me over the years, but as of late her personality grated. She reminded me of the boys that had trailed after James in our youth, hoping that one day they would be elevated to the role of advisor to the king. While she wasn't half as bad as they were, I simply had no patience for her present self-doubt. That, or I felt that history repeated itself as she pined not-so-secretly for Harry. I don't remember anymore.

I pretended that I hadn't heard the last. "Then, since you've just come in, you can be of help. Can you copy, or better, can you draw?"

"Some people think so," she said modestly. Her innocent blush lightened my mood and I was in good temper again.

"All right. Come sit here." I supplied her with materials and set her to copying a book of maps. I didn't mind copying the maps so much; I even thought they were amusing at times. I didn't yet trust her to copy letters so well, though. To my delight, she had an eye for small details and was quick and clever with a quill. We worked in companionable silence for a length of time.

The parchment crackled as she paged through the book, looking for the next map. "Oh. What's this?" Her face was open curiosity and raised eyebrows. "Are these snakes?"

I leaned over her shoulder and traced a few of the lines with my finger. "No, it's a battle plan. These lines, here," I said, pointing to the map, "show where the foot soldiers will assemble. The supply wagons will come around these hills, I think, and this part over here is their retreat. This dotted line is where they're going to go if they win, I expect."

"Have you--how do you know all of this?"

I pretended disinterest in the map. "I copied some of the map books already. There was a key." I had hardly turned back to my own work when a horrible cracking noise came from outside the window, and I toppled my chair in my haste to see what the matter was.

Ron and Harry were running with branches held over their heads. As they got close to each other, they swung the sticks wildly, attempting to hit them together.

That's not how you hold a sword,

James had said, the first day I joined the regular soldiers for training. He had a tutor to help him with his fencing, but I was one of a dozen boys finally strong enough to lift a broadsword; I would learn with the others while James lolled about on the grass, commenting on us all.

He was the worst toward a rather unfortunate-looking boy of our age. There was nothing in particular to recommend him; he had not the upstart devil-may-care face of a commoner nor the entitled haughtiness of the society-fostered. Had I not been on the right barrel of mead at the right time, I might have been that other boy instead.

"Swing around,"

the fencing master called out. "I want to see you heft it. Both hands, now."

"You do have hands, don't you?"

James asked the greasy-haired boy when he didn't lift his broadsword immediately. "Or is it that you don't have ears? Or, maybe, you haven't cleared them out in a while because you're afraid your miniscule brain might leak out through them?"

I sniggered, not really meaning to. The boy was an unpleasant little toad but I couldn't see what he had done to warrant James's attention. Surely he was beneath the notice of a future king.

The other boy turned a deep red and pretended not to hear. I gave James what I hoped was a quelling look, which seemed to spur him on instead.

"Wait. Maybe he doesn't have any ears under all that greasy hair. He's earless."

The boy raised his broadsword with trembling hands. He walked right up to James, who wore an expression of sheer terror on his face. I grew increasingly nervous as he approached James, and lifted my own sword.

When the other boy had closed the gap between them and held his sword pointed toward James's throat, James changed his expression in the blink of an eye. Had I blinked myself, I might have missed seeing him draw his saber at lightning speed to knock the heavier broadsword away. He held the greasy boy with the tip of his blade.

"Never,"

he said, and I know he planned to continue, but a group of women visiting from god knows where came around the side of the castle. Their gasp, followed by a collective clucking of disapproval, was all that saved James from giving more than his best threat that day.

"James,

" I said, trying to warn him.

"Who's James?"

"What?"

Ginny looked at me, wiping off her quill. "Who is James? You keep saying 'James' under your breath."

"No one. Go outside."

"If he's no one, why do you keep talking about him?"

"Go outside," I snarled at her. "Leave me alone."

Ginny backed out the door, watching me as if I were a rabid dog about to attack. Once out of the room, she turned and ran, her feet clattering down the hall. I rested my forehead on the desk. It was getting harder and harder to stay in the present and sometimes I wasn't sure what was the present and what was the past.

"James is the past, Harry is the present. James is the past, Harry is the present," I muttered over and over until I fell into dreams.

* * *

"Come on," James called.

I ran after him down the narrow path, the bushes close on either side. They seemed to close in upon us in the half-light. The sun was down, and it would be dark soon.

"Wait." My tunic snagged on a branch, and I struggled with it, trying not to expose my back to the ever-present midges. "I've been caught."

He came back, face full of mischief and eyes alight. "I can't be getting you out of scrapes forever. There, you're free." He made a face at me, inches away. "Catch me if you can."

No matter how fast I ran, his heels were always disappearing around the next bend. The air grew damp and unpleasant. I stubbed my toe on a rock and paused, swearing viciously. When the pain abated and I could walk again, I realized that I was alone. "James? James, are you there?"

I took a few steps forward, treading cautiously on my sore foot. He was gone. "James." There was no path, only trees and brush and darkness. I held still, hearing only my own breath growing louder in my ears. I was lost.

In the dark.

Alone.

Something crawled by, low to the ground. I couldn't move. I tried, then tried again. I was never in the dark with James, but all manner of things lived in the forest and most of them were hungry. It was my worst nightmare. It was the oubliette in dungeons where I'd been kept for a day after being impudent to my parents once too often.

I could manage no more than a whisper through trembling lips. "Where?"

"I'm right here, you fool." James jumped out in front of me, and I grabbed him and held on as hard as I could, shaking as if it were full winter.

He said nothing for a very long time, only let me lean on him and shudder with great, dry sobs. At last he reached a hand up my back, pressing it behind my heart. "Was it so bad as that?"

"Only for a moment," I said at last, sheepishly, and he pulled away and reached out a hand to reveal the path hidden by a veil of ivy.

"Then let's hurry, or we'll miss him."

I had planned this, after all. I was the one who wanted it after sundown. I was the one who wanted to give that boy the scare he deserved for defying James. "Yes."

Over a stream and up a hill, and we came to the edge of the clearing. I boosted James up into a tree as silently as I could before climbing up after him. There, we waited, and when the moon came out so did Remus, James's secretary. He drew an arrow, angling his bow as if he were going to shoot down the sky. After a moment, though, he lowered it and scattered a handful of salt in the shadow of an oak before melting into the bushes.

James shifted on the branch behind me, his breath tickling my neck. "Be still," I whispered as the limb creaked. Only a moment later I heard the sound of a large, clumsy animal in the brush across the way. I could see Remus's shadow creep forward, bow raised.

"Now he'll get a scare."

The greasy-haired boy stumbled forth from a tangle of ivy, clutching the note that James and I had written from a 'mysterious admirer' to lure him forth. I held my breath; surely Remus was a skilled enough archer to miss when the target was wrong. No--he was drawing back his arm--

James gave a strangled yell at the same time a magnificent stag leapt from the underbrush and into the arrow's path. The barb buried itself into the stag's hide, causing it to stumble and then bolt away.

Remus would not have missed.

We tumbled down from the tree and ran back to the castle. In the morning, both of the other boys were still alive--suspicious, but alive.

James and I never talked about that night.

* * *

"Look out!" Hermione's shrill cry startled my from my daze. Blearily, I raised my head and watched through the window as Harry nearly took Ron's eye out with a well-timed swing. "Ron, duck next time!"

The entire way to the attic I told myself that I wouldn't take it out. I would just check to see if it was still there, safe and sound. And when I got to the attic, I told myself I would only see if the blade was still sharp, and be certain that rats hadn't nested in the scabbard or some other silliness. And when I drew the sword, that I would look at it and put it back. By the time I carried it out into the garden I had given up talking to myself.

"That's not how you hold a sword," I said. The three stopped their games to look. I presented the hilt to Harry, and he drew the sword with the ease of an expert. It fit him as it had never truly fit me.

"Like this?"

It was, for some reason, very hard to breathe. Harry looked almost like his father--as if an artist had painted James, but not been able to get him to sit for the entire portrait, and so had gotten the details wrong. He had an ease and grace with the blade in his hand that made one forget how awkward he was when unarmed.

"Like that." I wanted to test his skill, to see if he could parry an assault, but I had no other weapon. Besides, the thought of drawing blood nauseated me. Before I thought of a solution, Dumbledore returned.

"Ah, sport and sunshine. Good day, Harry, Ron, Hermione," he said, beckoning me closer.

"Good day," they replied, with a mixture of respect and awe, and gathered close to inspect the sword.

"Do you think it wise," Dumbledore said, his eyes on the little group, "to allow him that now?"

Harry could hold it, Harry could wield it; why should he not have it? "I was no older when it was mine."

"That is not what I meant." Dumbledore's face became tired and set. "I meant that he will have questions. Questions that you may not wish to answer. About his family, about how he came to be here, and about you. I think you will not refuse him for long."

"No," I replied, truthfully.

"And, should the sword be seen by the wrong sort, you and he will be in grave danger."

I wish I could say that I considered this carefully. I should have; commerce had increased with the southern lands and more and more travelers passed through every year. It would only take one word, one whisper in the right ear, and the search for Harry would begin again. A part of me was tired, I suppose, of flight.

I am ashamed to say I ignored this advice. "I think not." Dumbledore looked disappointed with me. "It will be Harry's. I will, however, ask him to keep it stored away until he is older." In my mind, the moment he was ready to lift the sword, he was ready to keep it. I wanted to protect him, but I did not want him weak. "We will take it with us today."

Sighing, Dumbledore nodded and inquired about the progress I had made while he was gone. We made small talk, returning to the roles of master and servant. The library was coming along nicely, I thought, and I supposed I could finish copying a shelf before the summer came. Then, three-quarters of the whole would be complete. I rambled on, conscious that Dumbledore was not listening to me; rather, he watched the children very closely.

Ginny came around the side of the cottage, her arms crossed tightly over her chest and Pip at her heels. She sidled up to me and tugged gently on my sleeve. "Mum expects us for tea. You too." She leaned past me. "You are invited too, sir."

Dumbledore finally came out of his reverie. His eyes twinkled as he regarded her. "How every generous. I'm sure your mother will have a lovely tea ready, but as I have been traveling for many days I think I would like to stay at home this afternoon. Go along, now, all of you." With a slightly troubled smile, he waved us into the lane.

Ron and Harry (who was carrying his new sword) kicked a rock back and forth across the dirt until a misplaced swing sent it flying into Hermione's ankle. Her hiss of rage made them apologize profusely and smarten up. Boys their age can only last so long, and before long Ron was looking about for something more to do.

"What've you got there, Gin?"

Ginny's bodice bulged at the waist. "Nothing."

"C'mon, let us see." Ron jostled his sister until she dropped the book she had been hiding in her clothes.

"I didn't steal it," she said right away. "I found it in the bushes outside the garden. It can't be Dumbledore's. All of his books have words inside."

Ron picked it up and flipped through it, then held it out to me. She was right. The pages were blank.

Shrugging, I handed it back to her. "Perhaps someone had nothing of import to say. I don't see why you shouldn't keep it."

The smile on her face was almost as broad as Harry's when he drew his sword once more to admire the way it shone in the sunlight.