The Winter Glass

Chapter Thirteen: Trick or Be Tricked

An hour's walk under Nymphadora's ribbon of heaven brought him out of the enchanted forest and into a fine rain. Harry followed an overgrown path north, hoping that it would be true and not turn aside. A stream meandered not far from the road, and when at last it crossed his path, Harry threw down his belongings and scooped up a drink of water so cold it hurt his chest. With his thirst slaked, he ran a hand across his cheeks to wipe away the drops that lingered there, and as he did a twig snapped somewhere ahead. An animal? Perhaps a deer? He had no idea. Perhaps the wind. Yes, perhaps.

Harry shouldered his basket again and picked his way across the water on exposed rocks. The way was not easy, as he was not nimble in the waterlogged leather boots. Only when his feet were firmly on the far bank did he breathe a sigh of relief.

"Ho there."

"Who's--" Harry spun around on the path. "Show yourself."

Drops of water showered him as the nearest tree's limbs parted and a boy his own size emerged. His hair was pale like winter sunshine but tangled and unkempt, and his eyes matched the lowering sky. He fixed Harry with an assessing stare. "Where do you go, traveler?"

"North," Harry answered.

The second boy smiled. "So few dare to come this way. I haven't seen any other boys in a very long time." He looked Harry up and down. "None so finely garbed. You're no thief, my friend. You should walk a safer path. I can help you with that."

Relieved, Harry let out the breath he'd been holding. Thus far, it seemed everyone wanted to hinder him instead of offering him something so simple and precious as friendship. "I would be grateful. I'm Harry, by the way."

"Draco," said the other, and held out his hand. It was rough and callused, his fingernails ragged.

Harry shook it. "Are we near a village? Or a town? But--you said you hadn't seen any other boys, so we can't be. Are you the only one?"

"You'll see. Come along," Draco said. He held up a branch and motioned Harry beneath. "I'll show you to my family. You can put your boots and cloak near our fire and dry them."

Taking only a moment to consider the burden of his rain-soaked garments, Harry ducked below and found that beyond the thick trees and brush that lined the path, the floor of this forest was nearly as open as the birch wood had been. It was also far darker. "Should we be in here? Do you know the way?"

Draco sniggered. "Scared, Harry?"

"No," he protested vainly. "Only, it's dark, and it would be easy to get lost and wander in circles."

"Follow me," Draco said, his tone exasperated yet amused.

They climbed over fallen logs and muddled through a thicket of ferns. After that, the way was easier. Soon Harry noticed that some of the trees were discreetly blazed with an iridescent, slimy substance. So, Draco did know the way home.

Muffled voices came from a clearing ahead. Horses stomped their feet, and wisps of smoke brought with them the smell of roasting meat. At least a score of people, Harry guessed. Just beyond the circle of light, Draco stepped to the side and bowed.

"After you. It is tradition to allow our guests to enter first."

Harry nodded. It wasn't how he would have preferred to return to civilization--he disliked such attention--but he didn't wish to appear rude. He crossed the threshold.

There were no houses, nor even any huts. There were only men, and a scattered few women, gathered around several fires in the clearing. The men had a wild look about them. They wore clothing that had once been rich, but was now tattered. Each had a slapdash look about him as if he'd raided the closet of three men to make one set of clothes. The women looked lazy and wanton. As Harry stepped forward, every head turned in his direction and conversation ceased.

He stopped in his tracks. They looked hungry.

"Don't stand there like a ninny." Draco put a hand on his shoulder and propelled him along between the silent onlookers. At the far side of the camp, a tall, blond man stood up and waited for them to approach.

Harry stumbled to a stop in front of a blond man who bore more than a passing resemblance to Draco. They had the same pale, pointed features; the same cold, gray eyes; the same ruthless twist to their red mouths.

"Look what I've brought you, Father." Draco moved around to his elbow, and Harry saw that he held a razor-sharp knife in his hand. He pressed it into Harry's ribs, and Harry stood still. Tricked.

Draco's father said nothing, but raised one eyebrow. A woman came to his side. Draco's mother, Harry thought, blonde and stoic. She too said nothing, only looked at him as if he were a bit of mud in her path.

"I say we eat him." Another woman rose from her seat on a nearby stone. She was the opposite of Draco's parents: curved and dark. Her sleepy eyes showed a wicked amusement in them. "He will be juicy and plump." She raised a finger and traced the curve of Harry's jaw, making him shudder with revulsion. "He will be sweet."

"No!" Draco said quickly, then looked to his father in supplication. "I found him. I want him for my own companion. We're of age, he and I. I will keep his clothes, and you can take the riches he carries." He prodded Harry with the knife. "Show him."

Harry let the basket slide from his shoulders as slowly as possible. His heart pounded in his ears and all he could hear was his own harsh breathing, though he knew there was muttering from all sides. The buckle broke and the basket spilled its contents into the dirt.

The wheel of cheese, the pear, and the loaf that Nymphadora had packed were all gone. In their place were handfuls of gold, piles of rubies, a skein of silk, vials of spices. A king's ransom.

Draco's father smiled a thin-lipped smile. "And so you shall have him, and I this. Bellatrix, give the boys your larger tent and take Draco's for now." Bellatrix sneered and stalked off to do his bidding. Draco's father had words for his son, but he spoke them to Harry: "If there are any problems, I'll kill him myself." He handed the spices to his wife and motioned them away. Draco kept the knife in Harry's side as they walked back across the camp.

Bellatrix didn't stop watching them all day. Not while Harry sat next to Draco at the largest fire, scraping up thick stew from a dirty plate. Not when Draco made Harry curry his horse, a graceful silver mare, while Draco teased her by flashing light in her eyes with his dagger's blade. And not when everyone knelt before Draco's father at full dark for prayers in a language Harry had never heard. He kept his eyes open and his head up. Bellatrix was watching. Bellatrix saw everything.

It was a relief to be sent to bed. The tent they had gained was hardly larger than the one Draco retrieved his meager belongings from. However, it did shield them from Bellatrix's vigilance.

Draco unwrapped a threadbare blanket from his bedroll and spread it haphazardly on one side of the tent. "This will be yours tonight. Now, take off your clothes."

"What?" Harry asked as he sat down, not believing his ears. "It's freezing."

"You're my prisoner, and I want you to take off your clothes." Draco held up the knife again and got to his knees. Harry could see the gleaming silhouette in the last glow of coals that penetrated through the walls. "Or, I suppose I could turn you over to my aunt. The one who can't take her eyes off you."

There wasn't enough light for Harry to read the expression on Draco's face. He didn't move.

Draco's knife bit into his neck, causing Harry to jump and cry out in shock. He swallowed the sound as fast as he could, but it had been enough. Derisive laughter and catcalls came from the other tents. Draco leaned closer, his breath on Harry's cheek. "She's making plans right now, in case I tire of you. She has a pot, and a knife, and she knows how to carve the flesh from your bones without wasting a single morsel. Exactly how to prepare each piece." He let silence hang between them for a long moment before adding, "Don't make me tire of you."

His fingers found the ties of Harry's cloak. "Such fine things," he said, caressing the fur lining, "on such as lowborn boy. My father is king here--I should have this." Draco eased the cloak off with one hand and piled it on his lap. He moved the knife lower, down to the curve of Harry's belly. "Give me your shirt."

Harry obeyed, crossing his arms and lifting it over his head. Draco rested a hand flat against Harry's stomach and used the other to press the knife into tender flesh. "Your boots next," he commanded, running the tip of the knife down Harry's thigh and over his calf to where the boots ended. He laid the blade under Harry's knee, a threat to cut the tendon above. "And your trousers."

The last Harry shucked off and flung at his captor, rolling to his feet. He stood with his hands on his thighs, unable to straighten even in the center of the tent, his vision clouded red with indignation.

Draco put the shirt on over his jerkin, and the trousers he tied around his waist. "Too short," he said, in a tone of disgust. The cloak wasn't, though, and he managed the boots as well. "Well then, goodnight," Draco said, then unrolled a set of furs and crawled beneath.

Harry could think of nothing to say. His anger and humiliation threatened to overwhelm him. He'd let it happen. He'd given Draco everything he wanted and trapped himself with his own stupidity. If he'd only thought to run, or been quick enough to grab the knife, he could have been out of the camp before anyone could follow or lost them in the darkness. He'd found a way forward with less before, but now he couldn't see a way on without at least a little clothing. He was sure that the hut he'd seen in Nymphadora's mirror was much farther ahead; he couldn't risk trying to reach it without his things.

"Go to sleep. You're going to need it."

Harry lay down because he had nothing else to do more than out of any sense of exhaustion. He wrapped himself up in the blanket, which had a weave so thin it was almost like having no blanket at all. His hands were chapped from the day's work and the skin on his fingertips cracked and bled as he rubbed them together.

His mind wandered. If he could find something to wear, and if he could untie one of the horses, could he get away without waking anyone? He had to. Ginny was waiting for him, somewhere. Time was short. It might already be too late.

In her hands she held a harp, transparent and brittle. She'd tried to play it. It made horrible sounds like glass rubbing on glass. Thomas liked it, though. He would sit for hours on end while she played it. Too close.

Her breath made billowing clouds before her face. Thomas's didn't.

He liked to trap her in corners. Stand in front of her and place his hands on either side of her head. Breathe cold on her neck. And then. Then.

The door opened and Thomas entered, his face blank. "Come with me," he said, extending his hand.

Ginny had no other choice. She took it, and her arm tingled all the way to the shoulder. Thomas led her through the frozen corridors and down long, treacherous staircases to the castle's core. At the very heart was a cavernous room, and in the center of the room was a mirror.

The mirror was of the finest glass and decorated with many rare stones. Thomas stood her before it so that she was framed in its reflection. When she breathed on it, the moisture outlined a web of tiny breaks in the mirror.

"Slivers," Thomas said. "It was broken into a million pieces. I've found all of them." He moved to stand at her back. In the mirror, he was shattered. "All but the one." Thomas put his hands on Ginny's shoulders, and his lips against her nape. He ran his hands up and circled them gently around her neck. "Tell me where it is."

It was so cold. Her spine tingled and then she could feel it no more. She could hardly force the words out. "Harry is bringing it to me."

As fast as it had taken her, the paralysis left. Thomas dropped her and she fell on her hands and knees.

"To me. He brings it to me. You will tell me about him, and when he comes, I will take it from him and finish the mirror. The world will be mine again."

"It was never yours," Ginny said, reckless and numb with the cold. "The mirror only shows you what you want to see. When you leave the castle, are you still the king?"

Thomas raised a hand.

Harry woke up when his legs spasmed. He must have slept, he realized. His lips were dry and they stuck to his teeth. He was huddled in his blanket, and shivering, and his arm was the coldest.

A thin stripe of light that came in where the tent flaps didn't quite meet gave just enough contrast for him to see that he reached across to bury his hand in the cloak. The diary was in the pocket. How could he have forgotten? And, worst of all, how was he ever going to get it back--and if he did, where would he keep it safe?

His teeth rattled together and, with a snort, Draco's breathing shifted out of the deep, slow inhalations of sleep to a quicker and more uneven pattern. Harry didn't dare move for fear that Draco would think he reached for the knife and stab him. He clenched his jaw, but it was no use. His teeth simply chattered harder.

Draco twined his fingers around Harry's wrist, surprising him. "Cold enough?"

Harry didn't answer. He wouldn't let him have that.

With a sigh, Draco rolled over and flung a leg across Harry's thighs, bringing the cloak and a fur over them both. The coverings were damp-hot from Draco's body and the sensation was heavenly. Harry rolled on his side to face the wall of the tent and to get out from under Draco, and Draco took it as an invitation: He curled one arm around Harry's waist and pulled Harry close, spooning behind him like a child with a doll.

Soon, Draco slept again. Harry didn't.

In the morning, he was given his trousers and Draco's tunic, so old and stained with the soot of fires that it was an indiscriminate shade of gray. No shoes. Draco's were too small, and the other boy wouldn't give up the boots again. "Too fine for a prisoner," he explained.

Later, Harry sat near the fire, imprisoned between Draco's father, Lucius, and Bellatrix. She whispered things in his ear--what she would do to him once Draco tired of his company. How long she would make it last. How much he would scream. Draco sat just out of earshot with his mother, who shuffled a flimsy deck of cards and dealt a fortunate pattern for her son. But, from time to time, he looked over at Harry and smiled knowingly.

Three days passed, and for each of the three days, there was work to be done. Horses to be cared for. The tent to be washed and hung to dry in the weak sunlight, and then everyone wanted the same. Draco loaned him out for fetching and carrying, bargaining Harry for favors with his kin. Each night Harry was left with only the thinnest blanket, bereft until Draco shared the warmth of his bed.

If only he'd run the first night. If only he'd turned back instead of following Draco into the forest. If only he'd refused to shake hands. If only.

He thought about this on the fourth day, when he was wearing cast-off shoes that were a size too big and the thin clothes Draco allowed him. He was far to the north now, though not far enough. The days were short and it had frozen this morning; unless there was sweaty work to be done, he'd never make it through the day if he didn't let Draco wrap them up together in the cloak sometimes, not to mention that he wasn't sure he'd be able to find his way without the diary.

"Watch," Draco whispered in his ear. He crouched beside Harry in tall grass that grew in a marsh a league downstream. "I'm going to throw this rock over there, and when I do..."

Birds fluttered into the sky in a cloud of brown and green. Draco lifted a slingshot and brought one down with a sickening thud. "Fetch it, Harry."

Harry squelched through the mud and reeds, searching for the carcass. The duck had fallen across a broken branch on waterlogged tree trunk and blood trickled from its broken neck. Harry swallowed the urge to vomit and gathered the duck up carefully. He had no stomach for hunting birds. What would it have been like to fly? To feel the wind whistle in your ears and float on the updraft?

Draco was waiting smugly in the spot where Harry had left him. "You'll clean it and cook it for me to have when we're traveling. Let's return. We've got to pack, because we'll be moving on before midday."

Harry followed in his wake, groggy and cold. It wasn't long before he fell behind. Where a tangle of brush spilled into the stream, the path meandered up the side of a steep hill. Recent rain had caused a slide, rendering the way more vertical than horizontal. Harry concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other.

He didn't hear Draco's father approach from behind with a brace of rabbits slung over his shoulder until he spoke. "Move, boy." Harry scrabbled sideways, trying to hold onto Draco's kill and keep his balance. "I said move, you miserable whelp," he snarled, lifting the heavy stick he carried and swinging it at Harry's head.

Harry dodged the blow, and wobbling, caught the end of the makeshift cane in his hand to keep his balance on the slick path.

"Let go, you stupid fool." Lucius shook the cane to dislodge his unwelcome hanger-on.

"Don't," Harry cried, feeling his feet slip sideways. "We'll both fall if you don't stop!"

"Give me--" Lucius demanded, curling his fingers into a fist and jabbing swiftly at Harry's head.

Quick as a flash, Harry dropped Draco's bird and blocked the punch. He pushed back against the blow with all his weight.

Lucius skidded backwards. He flung his arms wide, trying to regain his footing on the slippery slope, but it was a lost cause. He went end over end and his head cracked on a stone with a sound much like the one Harry had heard not ten minutes ago.

Careful not to follow Lucius, Harry looked over the side, then closed his eyes quickly.

Harry blundered to where the path became a true path again, and sat down hard. He'd killed a man. He covered his face with his hands. Would Lucius have sent him over the edge? Had it really been a matter of kill or be killed? Questions swirled around in his head, and no answer came to his heart.

He didn't move at all when Draco finally came back.

"What are you sitting there for? Hurry up, and how dare you leave my duck in the mud." Draco hauled Harry to his feet by the scruff of his neck and peered down the side of the hill.

Draco choked off a curse and turned white. Then, to Harry's utter surprise, Draco's lips curled up in a wicked little smile. "So," he began, drawing his silver knife and holding it to Harry's throat, "you killed my father, and I killed you, and took his place...."

Harry took advantage of Draco's dazed musings. Everything seemed so sharp and bright, and so unbearably slow. He wrenched the dagger away and slammed his other hand into Draco's chest, following him down as he fell and landing on top of him. He swung the tip of the blade into the soft flesh beneath Draco's chin.

The world snapped back into place. "Please," he heard Draco beg, his voice high and keening. "I'll give you, give you..."

Rage. "You would have killed me! All of you!" Harry took a greedy, sick pleasure in seeing Draco writhe beneath him. He pricked Draco's skin, by accident, he thought, and a drop of blood welled up and stained the blade. If he moved the slightest bit, Draco would he impaled up to the hilt of the finely honed dagger.

Enough blood. Enough terrible choices and fear. The fury faded, but he did not let his captive know. "I want my things. And a horse. In exchange, you can tell them you killed me. You'll have your revenge. What you need to make them believe you're more than a filthy little monster." Harry paused to let that sink in. "Agreed?"

Draco nodded gingerly, avoiding the tip of the knife.

Harry rolled to one side and helped Draco up with the knife still held to his neck. "I'm going with you. Your word isn't worth anything."

The pair evaded the scouts, who were drinking and rolling dice outside the camp. Draco's horse came softly and whickered in Harry's ear. "And my things," Harry said.

Huffing, Draco, stripped off the cloak and Harry threw it over the horse's back. He didn't dare fumble with the fastenings and leave himself vulnerable to attack. With one eye on Draco, he felt for the diary: It was still in the pocket. He was giddy with relief. "And my boots."

Draco chewed his lip thoughtfully. "No, they look rather better on me than on you. I think I'll keep them. After all, I'm giving you the horse." He leaned closer, ignoring the knife that was still leveled at him, until his nose was almost touching Harry's. "And Bellatrix is within shouting distance. She's quite a fine horsewoman. You wouldn't have a chance. The camp passes from father to son, you know." His triumphant smile showed all of his white teeth. "Now go," he added, kissing Harry on the forehead and giving him a rough shove.

Harry didn't need telling twice.

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