The Winter Glass

Chapter Eleven: Sleeping Garden

Harry woke up with his face plastered to the top of the rough-hewn table that was wedged between Alastor's bed and the door. He scrubbed his hand over his cheek to remove the feeling that the wood's grain was embedded in his skin. A lamp, turned low, lent him enough light so that he was not terribly disoriented by his surroundings. His host had retreated to his bed sometime during the night, though Alastor had apparently roused himself enough to bank the fire in the stove before passing out.

Their soup kettle had been left on the stove, and Harry ladled some into what he hoped was a clean bowl. He felt odd about helping himself in someone else's home, but at the same time, he could tell by the gurgling snores from under the blankets that Alastor would be out for a long while. Of course, perhaps he could do some work in exchange for hospitality received.

A pile of dirty dishes waited in a basin. Harry knew how to get rid of those. He took a heavy cast-iron pot down from a hook and looked around for something to scoop snow into it with. As he selected a serving spoon, his eye lit upon the long knife with which Alastor had threatened him. Was there a reason a man in the middle of nowhere needed to be armed? Harry took this too, just in case. He hesitated for a moment, then added Ginny's diary to his pocket. She'd always kept it with her, and come to no harm--he'd keep it with him in case it held unwritten luck.

He pulled his hood tight and made sure that his cuffs fell over the edges of his mittens. With the pot under an arm, he leaned against the door while pressing one covered hand against the latch. It budged only a hair. Must be frozen shut. Harry glanced at Alastor--still asleep. As quietly as he could manage, Harry rammed his shoulder against the door.

If he had been asked, he would have sworn that the door opened before he connected with it and that was why he went head over heels into the snow. He had no time to ponder this, though, because his ears were full of the sound of the door slamming against the side of the wagon and the iron pot and knife ringing as they bounced off a chunk of ice.

The wind rolled him over again and again. Harry scrabbled at the snow, trying to dig his hands in enough to stop his wild flight over the drifts. He curled into a ball and tucked his elbows close in a vain attempt to protect himself from being buffeted by this storm that he hadn't been able to hear from inside the wagon.

This only made him spin faster. When he dared look, all was snow. It packed in around his collar and coated his clothes. He had no idea where he was, or how long he'd been tumbling through space, or if, when he looked, he'd be able to see himself against the white background.

His stomach dropped out beneath him and the constant jostling abated; he opened his eyes to see that he was falling down into a crevice. Landing hard on solid ice, he lay still until the world around him moved--well, somewhat less than it had been moving a minute before.

He sat up and vomited. This had the welcome effect of clearing his head a little. Harry rubbed at the soreness in his neck and looked at the steep banks of the frozen stream where he'd landed and wondered how in the world he'd ever manage to climb back up their slippery sides. Still, there was no point in wondering at the bottom of the slope. Harry rolled onto his knees to stand before he realized what was wrong.

His boots were gone.

Harry twisted around, looking right and left and trying not to touch his feet against the ice. Gone. Gone where? When? Blown right off? He scraped his mittens off and ripped them until he could shove his feet partway in. He sat on the ice with his hands deep in his pockets, one of them clutching the diary, and tried to wrap his mind around the situation. The wind whistled across the top of the gorge above, filling his ears.

For certain, he was lost. He didn't have a map and he had no idea where he was--and no way of seeing through the clouds to figure out which way he should proceed. The storm blowing above was an obstacle to going anywhere up at all for the time being, anyway. He had no food, no money, and his pack was still inside Alastor's wagon--wherever that was.

He had one warm coat and one set of clothing. And, of course, the diary. Very soon, he reckoned, he would no longer have his feet if he didn't find shelter. Perhaps he could burrow into a snowbank. The thought of waiting forever, frozen in this wasteland, was unpleasant. Logically, though, if he followed the stream, his chances of encountering people and shelter were far greater than if he were to venture back out onto the plain.

Shakily, Harry got to his feet and then immediately fell back onto the ice. This would never work. He could never walk from here. He'd have to fly.

Impossible.

As he stared into space, wasting valuable time, a shadow spun across the frozen stream. It blew along like a leaf, and when it slid past Harry caught it in one hand.

The shadow turned out to be an old, black hat. Its brim was tattered and threads fluttered there, unraveling from the cloth. Harry reached an arm inside, feeling rather foolish. The hat was empty. It wouldn't be half as warm as his hood, anyway. He dropped it upside-down onto the ice where it twirled around before coming to a halt.

At first, he didn't believe his eyes. He ran a hand over them in wonderment. Was it possible that the hat was growing? It hadn't been much bigger than his head, and now it was as big as a cauldron.

He squeezed his eyes shut. When he looked again, everything would be all right. He was not, he told himself, seeing things. Definitely not. Or, if he was, it was because he'd suffered a terrible fall and his head wasn't working properly yet. Hats simply didn't grow.

But this one did. It was now the size of a washtub. The edges were still rough, though the inside was lined with black velvet. Harry grasped the rim and pulled himself over. The high edges blocked the wind and he swore that his feet came back to life instantly. He settled himself in, and, as he did, the hat--boat?--began to skate over the ice.

Harry hauled himself up. The hat careened along the bottom of the gorge so fast that the snow-covered walls blurred. He felt a quiver of misgiving in his stomach--what if he was going the wrong way? Still, he had no idea which way to go; for the time being, any direction was the best one.

After a time, Harry tucked himself down in the bottom of the little boat and shivered himself to warmth. He fell asleep for a long while.

* * *

When he next opened his eyes, it was not because he could feel sun pounding down on them, or because the cold wind had turned into a balmy breeze, but because he could hear fast-running water.

The boat had run ashore at a bend in the stream. Miniature ice floes rammed into the side of his craft, crumbled, and disappeared into the water. Here, the bank had only a slight incline, and snow lay in patches over dead earth. A footpath led from the shallows to a high gate; if there was anything beyond, he could not see it.

His stomach made his decision for him. Harry rubbed at it, trying to quiet the rumbling. When he reached the gate, it swung open on silent hinges to reveal a magnificent garden beyond.

Harry took a cautious step inside. The gate snapped shut, making him jump, but he was soon distracted by the heat that seemed to radiate up from the ground. Inside the garden's walls it was high summer. Between neatly trimmed hedges, plots of flowers--every kind Harry could think of, and some he'd never seen--bloomed in a rainbow of colors and perfumed the air so it was almost too thick to breathe comfortably. Jonquil, hyacinth, chrysanthemum, and azalea mixed with daffodil, tulip, and bluebell. In the distance, a small house with a mansard roof was nestled beneath a canopy of oaks.

Harry started down a gravel path toward it. Surely, the owner could tell him where he was and perhaps allow him some food in exchange for work. No one could tend such a garden on their own. Yet, the garden appeared as deserted as the snow-covered plain had been.

When he had covered half the distance, he came upon a slight figure trimming some rosebushes along the side of the path. "Excuse me, sir, could you tell me--could you help me? Where is this place?"

The gardener put down a set of shears and turned so that Harry could see a face beneath a broad-brimmed hat. "I'm very sorry, ma'am," he rushed on. "I thought--"

"You thought I'd be a man," replied the girl, without a trace of rancor.

Harry could see that she was not so very much older than he was. She smiled softly, and he was studied her tip-tilted, dark eyes. She was very pretty, he decided. "I'm very sorry," he repeated, unable to come up with something witty to amuse her.

"No harm," she said. "Wouldn't you like to take off your coat and stay awhile? What's your name?"

"Harry," he answered, shrugging off the heavy fur. "I--I'd like that very much, miss."

"Cho." She laughed and took the coat from him, leading the way toward the cottage. "You may call me Cho." A golden butterfly floated across the path. Cho captured it easily with one hand and then let it flutter back into the air around their heads.

Cho's cottage was cool underneath the shade of the oak trees, and the sun that filtered down from between the leaves was tinted green, giving him the impression of being underwater. The cottage was simply furnished; polished wood furniture and woven rugs decorated the two large rooms. Cho served him bread and cheese stacked together, waiting on him and pouring him fresh milk from a pitcher. When he was done eating, she offered him her bed and he accepted gratefully, slipping between the cool sheets and falling asleep again.

The sun was still high in the sky when he awoke, sticky and thirsty. After a little exploring, Harry found a pump behind the cottage and used it to wash his face and neck before he slaked his thirst. His host was nowhere to be seen.

Harry followed the path away from the cottage, trying to remember the way back to the gate by the stream. The garden looked different. He didn't remember these bushes, trimmed in a pattern of concentric circles on the ground, nor that trellis with the hanging vines. When he rounded a corner, though, he found Cho trimming the same rosebushes he'd seen before.

"That's odd," he said aloud.

Cho noticed him at last and smiled a welcome. "Have you slept well?"

"Very well, thanks. I reckon I only needed a nap." Harry stared at the path. The part where he'd first met Cho by the roses had been graveled with white stone; here, there was only grass.

"Oh, no," she laughed brightly. "You slept the sun right around."

Harry felt his jaw drop. "I...I must have been very tired."

"Yes. Now, why don't you sit down there, in the shade"--she indicated a statue of an angel with outstretched wings--"and tell me a story while I prune these?"

Harry said, "Couldn't I help you with the roses? I've grown some myself."

Cho's eyes lit up. "You have? How extraordinary! But, please, you're my guest. Tell me about yours."

"There's not much to say," he replied, feeling uneasy under her scrutiny. "I had a bit of a branch, and Ginny..." He trailed off, wondering where she was now. "She brought me a pot and some soil and, then, well, it grew."

"Really. You must have done something right. In fact, I'm sure it bloomed because of your expert care." Cho smiled again, and Harry noted that when she did, his insides jumped a little.

"It was nothing like this." He swept an arm across the endless, perfectly manicured garden in appreciation. "My roses grew on our balcony, not in the ground. I was always surprised to see them in the spring, and next year--we've never had a winter like this last one. It looks like it's nearly over, though."

Harry rubbed a hand over his arm. The sun was so warm on it that it was beginning to prickle. "I should go. I was on my way--"

"Oh, but you can't," Cho interrupted. "I want you to tell me everything. You've only just arrived! Wherever you're going, it can wait until you've had supper, can't it?" She peeled off her work gloves and dropped them into a basket of gardening tools, which she handed to Harry. "Come on."

Harry followed her a few steps, then stopped. "Your shears--you've left them behind." He backtracked quickly to find them. They were in the gravel, open and glinting in the sun, across from a bed of snapdragons. Harry frowned. He didn't see the roses anymore--had they come so far already? His sense of time and direction was muddled.

Over roasted chicken, mashed potatoes, and fresh greens picked from outside the cottage door, Harry told Cho about the books he'd read, about Ron and Hermione, and all of the funny stories about Pip that he could remember. She nodded and laughed in the right places. Soon enough, even though the sun was still high in the sky, his head felt heavy and he allowed Cho to steer him into bed for a nap.

"What did I trim today?" she asked as she tucked the covers under his chin.

Harry yawned. "I don't remember anymore."

He didn't wake until midday. He sat up in bed, letting the sheets puddle around his waist. Harry didn't know what had awakened him. The air was soft and warm and the soft humming of cicadas reached his ears. Was it the lack of familiar sounds? There was no clatter of horses in the street like he was used to in the town.

What town?

a small voice in his head asked. Harry concentrated. He knew he'd lived in a town. He was certain of it. It was just that he didn't remember quite where it was at the moment. Once he'd had his breakfast, things would be clearer. What time was it?

Cho was sweeping the floor in the kitchen, her broom making swirling patterns in the dust. "It's a beautiful day, isn't it?

* * *

The juniper bushes needed trimming again. It was Harry's favorite thing to do in the garden, because the scent would circle around him and make his mind bright. He always felt as if he were on the verge of some great discovery. He'd snip and trim, and Cho would gather up armloads of branches to pile in a wheelbarrow. Finally, when his tongue was the sharpest, Cho would take away the shears and laugh. Then, they'd take the juniper to the compost pile, and Harry would forget the thing that had been whispering in his mind.

Today, with the sun high in the sky, as always, Harry clipped off a dead twig and added it to his growing pile. "That's enough," Cho said. "We can get the rest later."

"Why not right now?" Harry asked. "I've only got a bit more to finish. If you take this to the compost pile, I'll be finished when you get back." He gathered a bundle of trimmings and removed them from the wheelbarrow so that Cho would be able to drive it on her own. "It's hours until dark." He winked at her; he hadn't seen night in ages. Something about being too far north this time of year, and falling asleep before the sun, Cho had told him. North. The word puzzled him. It seemed so important. It seemed so dull. His thoughts slipped off of it every time he tried to catch it and examine it.

"All right," Cho agreed. Harry thought that, if he could see her eyes beneath the brim of her hat, her smile wouldn't be reflected there. "You trim the rest of the juniper. Don't touch anything else." She waved a finger playfully in his direction and brushed against his arm as she passed.

Harry whistled tunelessly as he continued to sculpt the bush to his liking. At last he was finished. Cho was nowhere to be seen, so Harry flopped down in the shade of the hedge and plucked the longest stem of grass he could find to chew on, feeling pleasantly satisfied. As he settled in on his stomach, he felt something press against his ribs. It was a book, which Harry flipped through from cover to cover. The pages were blank and utterly boring to look at. Why in the world was he carrying it around? He dropped it into the grass, where it fell open to the middle. Maybe Cho knew something about it, though he had the feeling that he'd asked her about it before. Maybe even asked her, but decided to keep the book anyway.

Harry reached blindly for another blade of grass. A thorn caught his skin and sliced through the side of his finger, making him wince. He leaned closer to see what had stung him so.

A strange weed grew beneath the hedge. Only a finger's length of vine curled up from the soil, but it was old enough to wear armor. Harry wracked his brain. This thing--it had a name. It was a rose. He'd seen one before, smelled one before. He wondered why Cho didn't have them here. They'd be beautiful. Or--had there been roses here, once?

He squeezed his finger, watching a line of red appear against the dirty skin. The line became a drop and it fell onto the book that lay open on the grass. And it disappeared.

Harry found that he wasn't surprised, though he also found his complacency peculiar. Had he expected that to happen? Odd. He ran his finger down the page, watching the blood melt away before his eyes. H-a-r-r-y, he traced on the parchment.

Suddenly, his mind was filled with images of another world outside the garden walls. A world in which he'd lived with love, but no parents. Where his friends treated him with kindness, where he'd learned, where he'd survived a snowstorm. There was a world outside.

Not only that, but he had a mission. Someone to find. The page before him burned red with blood, and Harry remembered that it was the memory from when Ginny had cut her finger on a piece of glass embedded in the page. It made him sick to see; he hastily turned to the next.

There were things forgotten, but Harry was certain that the diary had ended here. As he breathed, a new picture, new words, swam across the page and he leaned in to see what had happened next. The edges of the parchment curled up, as if grinning, in response to his whispered request: Tell me things.

* * *

Ginny watched her brothers shrink into the distance ahead. They had no patience for her blundering through the snow. The day was cold, almost unbearably so. She stuffed her mittened hands deeper into the pockets, noticing suddenly that her diary was missing. She glanced at her brothers--they were too far ahead to hear her shout. It would serve them right to think they'd lost her if they couldn't stop long enough for her to catch up, she muttered to herself. Long-legged beasts, anyway.

She turned around and placed her feet in the depressions Percy had made as he'd led the Weasley boys toward home and hearth--his feet were the biggest and left the largest holes. They hadn't come far; soon, she saw where snowballs lay on top of the snow churned into piles from their rough play.

A corner of the diary peeked out of a drift. It had been so warm from her body that ice had formed around it and she had to dig it out of the snow with frozen fingers. When she pocketed it and stood up at last, her path was blocked by a magnificent sleigh. The driver was none other than the boy she'd seen the other day, the boy who had said, "I'll tell you things."

Now, the boy stared at her openly, and Ginny stared back. He had very fine, dark hair, darker even than the black velvet lining of the carriage. He was bundled in a fine cloak with silver clasps and instead of mittens, he wore gloves of a strange, bumpy leather. He lowered the reins to his lap and turned back the blanket, reaching out a hand. "Come, and I will take you home."

Ginny raised her arm, feeling as if it did not belong to her. She could not take her eyes from his face no matter how hard she tried. His fingers found hers and as she leaned forward, she finally broke free from his gaze, turning her head away. What she saw made her pause. Where before there had been two pure white horses, now there was only empty air.

Ginny made to pull back. "What--" She swallowed the next words when the boy wrenched her arm and she flew into the sled. The diary went tumbling back into the snow, unnoticed. "You're hurting me," she said as he cracked the reins and they began to slide forward--she didn't dare look to see what they were hitched to. "Please, let me down. I can walk home."

The boy tipped Ginny's chin up. "I'll make you forget home, then," he said, kissing her with cold lips. "But only one kiss. It wouldn't do to have you forget everything yet."

* * *

Harry snapped the diary closed as the image melted away. Ginny. He'd been going to find Ginny, and here he was, lolling about this garden in the middle of who-knows-where, and she could be in trouble with that boy....

He got to his feet, practically in a panic. Which way out? The garden never seemed to stay the same from day to day. He ran along the juniper hedge, then past the tulips, and then under the trellis. Cho would know the way out, wouldn't she? He stopped, pressing his hand against the pain in his side and wondering. When he thought of Cho, it was very hard to concentrate on where the gate was.

The gate. He held onto the thought, forcing his mind back to the day he'd arrived. He'd climbed out of the boat, and up the path, and he'd wished for the snow to disappear and leave him someplace pleasant. A horrible feeling crawled across his skin. Had he seen what he wanted to see? As he looked around, the plants seemed to wither and the air to chill. He wanted, very badly, to see the gate.

And then he did.

Harry sprinted toward it, his feet pounding against the dying grass. It was only a little further. He only had to remember for a little bit longer. When he put his hand on the latch, he heard her voice.

"Where are you going?" Cho tapped him on the shoulder. "You don't want to go. Stay here and tell me stories, Harry. Always."

He turned to face her. She was standing very close, and her eyes were wet with unshed tears. He thought her the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen and he hated to see her sadness. "I have to find someone, then I'll come back," he promised brashly. He didn't know if he'd ever return.

"No!" she said, her voice harsh.

"I have to," Harry insisted. He wanted to leave more than he wanted to stay. The gate opened at last and he stepped through it, turning to say an apologetic but firm farewell. When he looked back, though, the garden had turned into something awful. Nothing good had been alive it in for years; twisted vines covered the ground and the skeletons of trees. Leaves rotted where they had fallen and marble statues lay in pieces next to rusted fountains.

Where Cho had been, there stood a stunted, twisted laurel, leafless and dead.