The Winter Glass

Chapter Fourteen: To Fly, Perchance to Dream

Harry tangled his fingers in the horse's mane and leaned low over her neck. She broke into a trot and he tensed up. "No, wait." The mare froze, her ears pricking. Harry spoke in a voice that would not carry: "Slowly, so they don't hear us." He held her to a walk, always listening for the sound of a pursuit. To pass the time and keep her calm he murmured nonsense and bits of old stories, some of them those he'd read, some of them those he'd lived.

"What's your name, girl?" he asked when they had put a comfortable distance between themselves and the gypsy camp. He tried the obvious: Silver, Star, Grey. Then came the fanciful: Streak, Shiver, Winter. A strange name popped into his head. "Hedwig?"

The horse tossed her head and snorted. "Well, I suppose that will do," Harry agreed. It was odd to be conversing with a horse. "Do you suppose, that is, if you're feeling up to it," he began, checking over his shoulder out of habit, "that since we've got away, we could go a bit faster?"

She sprang into motion. Harry's head snapped back and he nearly fell off. He laced his fingers together beneath Hedwig's neck and held on for dear life. Nothing had ever been so fast, so free. "It's like magic," he shouted into the wind.

The trees flew past and thinned; snowflakes began to fall in gentle flurries; the sky cleared and tiny, twinkling stars shone over the frosted plains. All the time, Hedwig flew faster than the wind and never tired. Harry rested his cheek against the warmth of her coat. The ride wasn't even bumpy.

He blinked sleepily at the sky. It turned colors, green and purple and yellow, and a glittering blue at the heart. "Look at the funny rainbows, Hedwig." He could barely keep his eyes open to look at the strange columns of light that reached into the heavens. "It's on fire," he mumbled into her neck.

He and Ginny were watching the sky. They were on their backs and the tall grass framed the white clouds that floated by. Closer, milkweed down fell on them like summer snow.

"When it's warm like this," Ginny said, "I can never believe that it will be winter again."

"I can." Harry rubbed a hand over his ribs absently. "Winter always comes. And then spring."

"I hate being cold."

"Save up a memory of all the warm," he said. "Then, when it's winter solstice, you can remember it again." He dropped his arm to his side. The back of his hand was almost touching hers.

Ginny twisted a stem around her finger. He could feel the heat radiating off her skin. "I'll have to write that down. I'll forget."

Harry made a noise of disagreement. Ginny would remember.

"No, really." She sat up and looked out over the meadow. "I've been forgetting things, and I wake up so cold that I don't think I'll ever remember what it's like to be warm again. Cold like being lost, or--do you remember the Longest Night right after you first came here?"

"Only a little," he admitted. "It snowed just before and we got stuck because everything was frozen solid. And you had a nightmare, talked in your sleep and frightened us half to death. You said there was a man...."

Ginny stood up. Her shadow blocked out the sun.

"Where are you going?" he began to say, but she moved and the sun was bright in his eyes again.

She was small, very small. "There," she said, and pointed to a castle in the distance made from a single block of ice. "He is waiting for you there. You have the missing piece." She started walking away and the breeze turned chill.

"Wait!" Harry rolled to his knees and reached to pull her back. His hand passed through her arm with no resistance. She was so small, so young. Her boot laces were untied. "Nothing will happen if you don't go."

The little girl who had come over the rooftops smiled wanly. "I already have. And something will happen. He is waiting to break us into serpiente suge se'senovoto kruťas slange dokuhebi snok..."

The castle was in the center of the skyfire, and she disappeared inside before he could call to her again.

The next he knew himself, they were running over frosted white tundra relieved only by scattered rocks. Automatically, Harry checked his pocket for the diary. "Where are we, Hedwig?" he asked, shivering. To himself, he asked, "And where's Ginny?"

* * *

At first, Harry thought the speck in the distance was a rock. As they flew like the wind to the north, and the speck loomed closer, he saw that it was a pile of rocks. It wasn't until Hedwig slammed to a halt that he knew it for a pile of rocks in the shape of a ramshackle hut. Wisps of smoke came from a half-covered hole in the roof and a wooden door was the only entry.

Hedwig nudged his arm in an encouraging way as he jumped to the ground. He rubbed her neck distractedly, hoping that she wouldn't get too cold while he went inside. There wasn't any other shelter he could see--no bush or rock made a windbreak on the plain. The owner of the hut wasn't likely to let a horse inside. Hedwig would hardly fit. Harry hurried forth to finish his errand, knocking tentatively on the door.

A deep, gruff voice came from within. "Enter."

Harry opened the creaky door and stepped over the threshold. The acrid scent of cheap alcohol and fur tickled his nose and made him want to sneeze. "Hello?"

"Wait a bit, there. Yeh haven't taken care of your animal," a man rumbled from a dark corner. "Bring her in."

"Er, all right." Harry backed up and took a handful of Hedwig's mane, pulling her gently inside the hut, which was bigger than it had looked.

'"'That's a fine horse you have there. There's a bucket o' water next to the fire. Go on, give her a drink."

Harry's eyes adjusted to the dim interior. Sure enough, there was a stale bucket of water within reach of a fire that had burned down to ruddy coals. Hedwig didn't object; she began to drink lustily.

"A fine horse," the man said again, and Harry heard the squeak of a chair and the man's footsteps cross the dirt floor. "There, now, not too fast, or yeh'll be ill." He rubbed his hand down Hedwig's spine. "Listen to Hagrid, now," he sing-songed. Hedwig's ears pricked up and she obeyed.

The man's hand was twice the size of Harry's head. He took a careful step to the side. That hand could crush my skull like it was an eggshell, Harry thought. He looked up, and up, and saw that Hagrid had a ruddy, kind face and a beard like a pelt.

"I'll make some tea, an' I've got some rock cakes around here somewhere." Hagrid opened a door and passed through to another room that Harry couldn't believe fit inside the hut.

With the giant of a man gone, Harry looked around the room. A pair of rough-hewn chairs were tucked behind a tree stump. Mice scampered in and out of a basket on a shelf, and spices, meats, and dried vegetables hung from the ceiling. A great dog, twice the size of Pip, snored with its head on its paws.

"Here we are then," Hagrid said, returning with a plate of cakes and lifting the kettle from the fire. "Suppose we sit down, and yeh tell me what a lad would be doing out here in the middle of nowhere."

Harry accepted a mug of tea and a rock cake so hard he nearly broke his teeth on it, and began to relate his tale as quickly as he could.

"Only one man lives in a hut like that around these parts and doesn't fear the cold," Hagrid said, after Harry described the place he'd seen in Nymphadora's mirror. "The rest of us... Well, we keep to ourselves. Quiet, like, and don't make no trouble. The troubles stopped years ago, but they could come again." The giant man rubbed a hand over his face. "I'll take yeh ter see 'im, but he'll be wanting an introduction."

Hagrid peeled a dried cod from a high shelf. He used a bit of charcoal to scribble something on one side that Harry couldn't read. "No paper," Hagrid grunted, handing it over.

Harry rose and made to get Hedwig, but Hagrid held up a hand. "She can't go any further. Too cold. Come along."

They walked along a track that was no more than a place the hooves of animals had worn bare. Hagrid's legs were so long that Harry had to take three steps for every one of his guide's. It was difficult for Harry to keep his footing because snow was falling again, colder than ever, and it covered the rough earth enough to trip him every few paces. Worse, Harry felt as if his very eyes were frozen.

It seemed to Harry that they walked for hours. At last Hagrid stopped at the top of a rise. "That's it," he said.

"What?" Harry saw nothing on the frozen plain, not even Hagrid's hut in the distance behind them.

"Sorry." Hagrid kneeled down next to a pile of stones and picked up a twig. He furrowed his brow in deep concentration, his tongue peeking out from between his teeth. He murmured softly as he touched the twig to the stones in a careful pattern. "Look again."

Down in a hollow below them was another hut, this one even more ramshackle than the one before. It was made of sticks and hides and mud. "How did you--that wasn't there a moment ago!" Harry exclaimed.

"Strictly speaking, it wasn't. But you weren't looking for it, neither. Now, on with you. I'll see to your horse, and you see to your business here." Hagrid clasped Harry's shoulder, then turned and lumbered off.

Harry picked his way down the slope and circled the hut. This one had no door at all, only a hide flap that fluttered and let out smoke. He took a deep breath so he would not inhale it and crawled in.

The inside of the hut was low and dark; it smelled stronger than Hagrid's, too. A half-dozen small fires were lit beneath heavy iron pots and the steam issuing forth almost made Harry faint from the heat.

A man sat cross-legged in a corner of the hut wearing nothing more than a cloth around his waist. He ladled a cup of water onto the coals of a dying fire and watched the steam rise. "Get out," he said without preamble, or even look in Harry's direction.

"Are you the wizard Severus?" Harry asked, frightened as he had never been before by the man's glowering, hawk-like features.

"I will not repeat myself. Leave immediately or I will throw you out."

Harry gathered his courage and held out the dried codfish with the letter on it. "I was told to give you this, and that you might be able to answer my questions." The wizard--for Harry had decided by now that this must be Severus--did not look at the fish. Harry kept his hand extended and tried again. "Please, you have to help me. I don't know where else to go."

"You and your idiot father can go to hell."

"You knew my father?" Harry dropped to his knees. "Were you friends?"

This broke Severus's trance. "Knew him?" he repeated. "Where is your father now?"

"He died. A long time ago."

Severus looked more menacing than ever at that, but he reached for the fish and tilted it in the firelight to read the message. "Dear Severus," he scoffed, "give this boy a potion that will make him stronger than twelve men so he may defeat the cold wizard. Yours sincerely, the most feeble-minded man in the universe."

"Are there potions that can do that?" Harry asked, unable to hide his curiosity. "Stronger than twelve men?"

Severus crumpled the fish in his fist and let the scales fall into a cauldron. "That is an extraordinarily simple potion. I could bewitch your mind, ensnare your senses. Make you see beyond vision or bend your will to my power."

"So...you'll give me a potion, then, to help?" Harry was prepared to beg, if necessary, for something that would make him stronger than a dozen warriors.

"No." Severus stirred a cauldron down from a rolling boil. The fumes smelled like old cabbage and dirty linen. "I could give you a potion that would make you stronger than a thousand men, and still it would not be enough. He is no mere man. In a moment, he can turn you to ice. Two and you would be utterly destroyed. His strength lies in what he thinks he sees."

"Then," Harry persisted, though not without trepidation, "a potion that would bewitch the wizard's mind--"

"And bend it to your will? What makes you think you deserve--"

"Anyone's will, so long as he stops what he's doing," Harry broke in, his tone firm.

Severus considered Harry until he was forced to cast his gaze about the room, uncomfortable beneath the penetrating stare. "The thing you must understand is that he cannot be defeated by strength. Only by trickery. By something you know that he cannot understand. Your mind must be strong, and you must not reveal your intent."

"But how will I--"

"You're wasting time," Severus snapped. "Follow the blue aurora. Think of what leads you to him." His voice gentled only the slightest, like a diamond becoming only a stone. "I have told you all that I know. If you are too foolish to understand, then it is no fault of mine. Leave me be with my memories and my solitude."

Harry left Severus alone. He was not welcome there.

* * *

Chapter Fifteen: A Heart Encased

Harry could see the aurora glimmering in the sky long before he saw the castle. He walked for two nights, letting the northern lights guide him. On the second morning the aurora faded into day and clouds. Snow began to fall, though not so thickly that it obscured Harry's view of the icy fortress that loomed ever closer.

When Harry came within shouting distance of the castle, the snow stopped. It didn't cease; it stopped falling, like it had the day he'd left home. Even the wind was quiet, and he could hear nothing except his own determined steps on the frozen ground. Within this hushed space, Harry circled the castle.

It had no door.

The lowest windows were far beyond his reach. He placed his palms against the crackling silver-blue ice, trying to find some flaw that would let him through. He said all the magic words he knew, yet no portal opened in the walls. Harry leaned heavily against the side of the castle and slid down to the ground, resting his head on his knees. Maybe this was where he would meet his end, frozen and defeated. He would die and the other, live. Out of habit he retrieved the diary from his pocket and flipped through the dog-eared pages.

Where Ginny's words had been, there was nothing. The diary was blank. Fear traced an uneven path along Harry's spine and he turned the pages faster and faster, halting at the one with the piece of glass embedded within. He flexed his stiff fingers and a drop of blood appeared on the back of his hand. He smeared it across the page.

Was she dead? Why had her words disappeared? No words came, no images. Only the bit of mirror winked at him, flashing silver like--

Like Draco's knife. He still had it, strapped to his waist; he'd not given it back when he'd escaped. Harry clasped it in one hand and stepped backward. He braced his hands on his knees, drew a long breath, and sprinted full tilt for the castle wall.

At the last moment, Harry vaulted into the air. With an almighty yell he plunged the knife into the wall, and it penetrated the ice with a high, hideous screech.

Harry hung there, holding the handle. It was stuck deep within the ice and did not move, even when he swung his feet back and forth. On the third swing, he kicked his legs up and managed to hook his foot over the sill of a window. By slow degrees he pushed himself up until he stood on the narrow ledge. The window was of the thinnest ice, and Harry slammed his shoulder against it with all of his weight behind.

The drop to the floor on the other side was not far, and he rolled to his knees in a shower of ice and snow. Inside, the castle was as still as the grounds. Harry found himself in a long corridor. He got up and began to follow it to the left, and when he did not find a single door, he retraced his steps and searched in the other direction. Still nothing. Scuffing a foot against the floor, Harry muttered a few choice words to himself. He was in. Where was Ginny?

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of something moving swiftly. He whirled, wishing he still had Draco's knife. Once around, though, there was no sign of motion anywhere. Harry backed up against the inner wall and put his hands against it to steady himself. A mused hissing came from within the wall where he touched it. He held his breath. Not only was he seeing things, he was hearing them. Never a good sign, not even in an enchanted castle.

The ice beneath his hands was rougher than it looked. Harry ran his thumb over it idly. Maybe he hadn't looked hard enough for a door in the corridor. Maybe he'd missed one outside. He turned over impossible ideas in his head, each more outlandish than the last. Maybe this was all a dream and he'd wake up safe and warm in his own bed if he pinched himself. He gave up pretending to be frozen and started down the corridor only to stop a second later.

The movement. Again. He could see them in the walls, the ceiling, the floor: slender, crystalline snakes. They twisted back and forth, sometimes turning their blue-green eyes in his direction and wavering, staring, before gliding silently away.

All of the snakes seemed to be making for the far end of the corridor so Harry took a step in that direction. A cluster of the ice snakes swarmed beneath his feet, and the floor buckled and heaved in a ropy mass as they crawled over and under one another. "Stop that!" Harry shouted, afraid he would be knocked over. The snakes stilled, and slowly dispersed. Harry took another step and they returned, their numbers doubled. "Stop," he said again. "I don't want to step on you."

Again the snakes obeyed his command. The silence had a peculiar sibilance, and Harry conceived an outlandish idea. "Come here," he commanded. The snakes flocked to his side again and cocked their heads at him inquisitively. "Show me...I need to find a girl. Her name is Ginny. She's little and has freckles and...do you know where I can find her?"

Harry thought he saw one of the snakes nod its head. He laughed, a disbelieving sound that echoed harshly--but then, the snakes slid up the wall and formed a rectangle that parted down the center, allowing him into the heart of the castle.

The inner chambers of the castle were just as empty as the surrounding lands. Harry passed through empty rooms: a library filled with tomes of solid ice, a sitting room with an unlit fire and a broken harp on the floor, a dining hall with columns that reached up into a high ceiling. The snakes trailed him as he walked, hissing softly.

"This is no good." He ran a hand over his forehead in frustration. "I want to go to Ginny. The fastest way possible, please."

The snakes began to slither in a wide arc, and soon the loop tightened until it made a flat, ribbed circle on the floor. One of the snakes bent its head to the tip of its tail and came to a stop on top of the circle. The ring of a trapdoor.

Harry grabbed the ring and pulled. It didn't budge. He ran his hand over the door; there was no lock, no hinges. "Open up," he said.

The panel melted away to reveal a dark tunnel below. Harry put his head down past the rim. No faint trace of light, none at all. He spat and listened for the splatter. No sound, though perhaps he could not hear it above the faint whispering of the snakes.

It would be a leap of faith.

He wrapped his cloak around his arms as best he could to protect himself and to keep it from hindering him if he should land. No, he would land, he told himself firmly. It was a trick to frighten him away and he would not be frightened by a mere memory. Not by the very idea of being kept inside a small, dark place while his parents screamed their last.

No

.

He jumped and fell. A short way down he landed with a jolt and bit his lip, drawing blood. There was no time to dwell on this, because he was sliding downward at a breathtaking speed. Harry put his hands out to slow himself and felt the sides of the narrow tunnel whizzing past. A dip, a dive--and then he slid to a halt.

The tunnel was wider here, and it had fallen down in places. Harry climbed over mounds of snow. He could see a little; the farther along he went, the brighter it got.

At the end, the way was blocked. Icicles hung from the ceiling and reached up from the floor. They met in the middle to form a sharp-edged, impenetrable fence. On the other side, a red-haired figure lay face down on the floor next to a tall mirror.

"Ginny!" he shouted, slamming his hands against the icy bars. "Wake up, Ginny. Please don't be dead."

"She's not dead. Not yet, anyway."

Harry whipped his head around. A boy not much older than he was leaned a shoulder lazily against the wall of the tunnel. He said to him, "You're the one who came in the sleigh. And you're Thomas."

Thomas laughed bitterly. "Yes to both, and you must be the famous, fabulous Harry I've heard so much about. I've been waiting for you, you see. You have something I desire very much. I knew you would bring it, though."

Harry was at a loss. "What?" He had hardly anything to his name.

"In your pocket." Thomas nodded his head. "Ginny tells me there's a piece of my mirror stuck to her diary. I need that to complete its repair."

"The mirror's in there!" Harry said. "I can't reach it--"

"You don't have to." Thomas reached out a long arm and found the diary in Harry's pocket. He opened it and flipped through the blank pages carelessly. "We're already close enough."

Thomas found the page that had once been stained with Ginny's blood, and the sliver of mirror floated into the air. He raised a hand and it began to spin above his palm. "Watch," he said with a mischievous smile, and with one puff, he blew it through the ice prison's bars.

The sliver found its place on the mirror, and when it did, the cracks disappeared and it began to glow and hum gently.

"What use is that," Harry demanded, "if you can't get through?"

"Oh, I can get inside," said Thomas. He walked through the icicles as if they were shadows and turned around again on the other side, whisking frost from his sleeve with a sweep of his hand. "But you shall not have the mirror. The power within it is mine by right, and I will give it over to no man."

"But Ginny. You have to let her go!"

Thomas raised a dark eyebrow. "No, I don't. Why do you concern yourself with her? She's nearly dead, anyway, and doesn't care if you rescue her."

Harry clutched the icicles so hard he thought that his hands might break. "Let her go," he shouted again. "You're going to kill her!"

This made Thomas angry. He reached through the bars and took a handful of Harry's cloak, hauling him closer and raising his voice in return. "And you think to interfere with my plans? The power here is mine and not yours. You seek power over me and my decisions. I am no fool to be hoodwinked into giving up the mirror now that I have it whole again."

"I DON'T WANT YOUR MIRROR! LET ME IN!"

Thomas snorted and let go of Harry. "Anyone can come in if they know the answer."

"What's the question?" Harry glared at Thomas.

"It's a riddle, there, in the floor." Thomas turned his attention to the mirror, which was swirling a hundred different colors. "You're wasting your time," he said absentmindedly. "She cried and cried, begged and whined...and then went to sleep and forgot all about you."

Thomas said nothing more. Harry got to his knees and peered desperately at the ice. A ropy, dark flaw marred the place where the closest icicle erupted forth. He wished he still had Draco's knife so that he could pry it loose. The buried filament reminded him of the rose cutting he'd grown so long ago. This was thicker, perhaps a tree. A very tiny tree, though, would be all that grew in cold like this. Harry blew on his hands. A tiny tree, frozen forever. Tent, tine, tenet...

"Eternity," he said.

The icicles that barred his way screeched as they rubbed past each other and shrank away. Harry leapt through the gap that opened and darted to Ginny's side. He ignored Thomas's angry mutters and lifted her by the shoulders to turn her over. Sparkling blue frost crept across her face and fringed her lashes. "Wake up, Ginny," he pleaded. He wrapped her up with him inside his cloak and rocked her back and forth.

As he held her, the icicles grew back into a trap within a single blink. "You have to let us go," he said quietly, not looking at Thomas. "We're of no use to you here, and no danger if we leave."

Thomas waved his hand and the mirror cleared. "You're also of no concern to me." He leaned over the pair and caressed Ginny's cheek, smirking. "So you solved the riddle. No matter; you will not live to take control of the mirror. No one can leave this chamber without my permission, and I do not give it to you. However," he said, "wizards are not without honor. Should you find a riddle that I cannot solve, you will be freed." He straightened and walked through the bars of ice as easily as if they were smoke. "Think on that while you die. It will not be long."

Harry hauled Ginny to a corner of the room and propped her up in a sitting position. "I'm sorry, Ginny. I wasn't fast enough. I wasn't clever enough." He closed his eyes and prayed--to whom or to what, he didn't know--for an answer.

Then, he looked around the empty room, shivering and sleepy. There was nothing on the walls or ceiling; no clue lay hidden in the floor. There was only the mirror, reflecting them sitting side by side in the ugliest room that Harry had ever seen. The image began to waver and change, showing them walking away from one another, their faces hurt and angry. "It shows only what he wants to see, and nothing more," he said to himself.

It came to him all at once in a rush of warmth and certainty. He knew the one thing that Thomas would never be able to understand, the one thing he himself had not understood before that very moment. Harry raised his hand to Ginny's cheek and kissed her with all the weary days of walking and fear stored up, with all the memories of years past, with all the love he had carried across frozen miles and fearful nights.

He swore her lips were warm. The entire castle creaked ominously. He swore that she kissed him back when chunks of ice began to break free from the walls and snow came down in a heavy shower. Harry gathered Ginny in his arms and held her close, shielding her with his body from the end, pretending that the breath he felt on his cheek was hers.

He had never felt colder. The ceiling split, falling, and the sky opened up far overhead. Harry turned his face from the last daylight he would ever see and whispered words Ginny would never hear over the scream of ice being ripped apart. A spray of snow washed over them in a stinging cloud as the walls collapsed with a crash.

When Harry's ears stopped ringing from the horrible noise, he realized he could still feel, and see, and breathe. None of the debris had landed on them. Instead, it had fallen away and left them in a space clear of rubble. As for the mirror, it had turned to impenetrable, dull stone, and would reflect no more.

The frost began to melt from Ginny's eyes and run down her face like tears. She coughed and blinked, and opened wide eyes. When she saw the destruction and chaos around them, she threw her arms around Harry's neck.

"I thought you would never find me," she half sobbed, half laughed.

Harry lifted her chin and kissed her until they were both breathless. "Of course I found you." He wrapped his arms around her and buried his face against her shoulder. The scent of roses wafted toward them as the windswept, frozen plain burst into sudden springtime. "I'll always find you. You are my true north."

Epilogue

And so they turned their feet from the north land and started for home. Soon it was summer, glorious summer, and the most pleasant they would ever remember in all of their days.

The way home is always shorter than the journey away, and they had a hand to hold when night fell. Their travels were not so exciting this time, though, and the secrets they shared as they walked home are not mine to tell now.

Their friends, and Ginny's family, were waiting when they returned. Neither Harry nor Ginny had cared to look in a mirror when they had stopped at inns along the way, trading a truly fantastic tale for a meal and a bed, so they knew that years had passed only when they saw age in the faces of the ones they loved. Somewhere along the way, they'd grown up.

I can tell you little else of their adventures. I looked in on all of them from time to time, though the veil hangs heavy between us, and caught glimpses of chess matches, children, celebrations. If they did not live ever after, I can tell you truly that they did live happily and that they never again lost their way--because once set, the compass of one's heart is always constant.

The End