Nevermore

When another gust of icy cold wind subsides and he regains his balance, he can see it's an alley. Or it's not. It can't be an alley in the middle of an empty place.

The wind is too strong and disorienting.

No, it's a road. It goes smoothly and almost straight, cutting through the snow; tall bare trees frame both its sides like fences. He is high above in the air and the wind keeps carrying him away. Far in the distance there is an inhabited place - a town or village, he can't be sure from here.

He doesn't know why it's his first impulse to figure where he is, and only afterwards does he feel the need to find out what he is and why he's hanging so high in the air. Maybe because nobody of sound mind would doubt his self-identity.

But he turns to the right and what he sees makes him dive several feet. Black feathers, somehow part of him.

He manages to touch down, maybe only thanks to those feathers. He must be going crazy. Or likely he's already there. Because he knows for sure if he isn't a man, he can only be a dog. Big, black, and noble. A dog. Not a bird.

Horror empties him and he feels the feathers - *his* feathers - stand on end. He suddenly wants to lie down, curl up and hide his (usual) cool wet nose under (usual) heavy paw but his body doesn't know how to lie and he only wobbles on his feet. He looks down and sees claws. And feathers, feathers. A bird. A big black bird. A raven.

~~

It's cold, greyish and windy. However far he flies, he always returns to this place, makes circle after circle above the road, staring into the empty hilly surroundings. Nothing and nobody there. He remembers his name but he can't remember the person. He's unable to grasp either what he used to look like or what people must have been near him. It doesn't trouble him much, though.

Sometimes on the brink of his mind there are confused - words? images? - war, magic, Azkaban, fight, boy, ministry, wizards. He isn't sure what they mean. He knows they refer to him but doesn't bother trying to catch them.

~~

One day when he's pecking at the frozen remains of a hare, he feels a glance on his back. He flutters up and sees another raven - the wind is ruffling his feathers, and he looks ill and weak. Peter, he thinks clearly, but he can't say how he knows it.

He isn't glad, or angry, or curious, and he doesn't feel like getting closer. Neither does the other bird. But from then on, when he returns there he knows that he will see him from a distance. Peter never flies far, or so it seems. But he doesn't care.

~~

Something draws him south. As soon as the snow starts fading away, turning into white-grey patches on brown-grey soil, traces of strange images began flickering around him. The word 'Moony' comes to him. And the word 'Remus'. And he knows who Moony and Remus are. He remembers his face, their face, and it makes him croak though he doesn't understand why. And it pulls him south.

The road never ends and never changes. Wet untidy spring and chilly wind. Bare trees keep vigil on the sides. Every time he looks around on his way down to the ground, he sees Peter - always flying low, always ruffled and sickly. But he always manages to stay close behind.

Sometimes he can see people, now. Tiny dark figures move down the road. He can also see other birds. Dark dots float against the pale grey tissue of the sky. He isn't interested. He just notices.

~~

One day he spots a lonely man on the road and suddenly knows - Remus, Moony. Something flashes through him - Harry, James, Molly - and he hurries down, down, seize it while it's here, though he doesn't understand why it tugs him or why he should catch it, or even if he wants to. Maybe it's all because Moony isn't a bird. It perplexes him.

And so they move southwards: he floats in wide circles, often going away for a long time but always coming back; Remus walks, limping and coming to a stop now and then; Peter drags behind, never too close.

He isn't certain why he's going there. He only knows that there will be a man, Albus, who will answer all their questions.

One day he returns from his long flight and finds that Remus-and-Moony is also a raven, though a shabby one. It calms him.

~~

He knows he must look for a castle. And he senses that it's near - they see more ravens every day. He wonders at the fact that he knows some of them, either names or -- he just knows.

Inside the castle it feels awkward to fly. So he waddles. He heads to the dungeons and never stops to think how he knows that those are dungeons, or that he can get there this way, or why he expects to find Albus there. He doesn't remember who Albus is. He remembers only the image of an old-old man with sharp eyes looking out over his spectacles.

He can hear a rustle from behind and knows that it's the others - Remus, Moony, Peter and that skinny raven with oily-black feathers and unpleasant croak whose name he can't recall anymore.

His claws lead him to a door. It opens as they approach and he staggers inside without a second thought. An old man with long white hair and piercing blue eyes is sitting by the fire.

He vaguely recalls that he came here for answers, but he doesn't remember the questions. Albus is looking at him with a sad smile, tilting his head, and he mimics the motion, watching him down his beak. He knows he has found what he was seeking for, and although he can't recall what it was, he feels contented. He feels all right.

He thinks he likes the castle. He might stay here. There seems to be too many other ravens, but honestly, he doesn't care.

~~

It seems to me sometimes that the soldiers

That didn't come back from the blood-soaked fields

Didn't lay themselves down into the earth

But turned into white cranes.

Since that time they have been

Flying and calling for us

This is why we often

Fall sadly silent, looking at the sky, isn't it?

The tired siege flies, flies asross the sky,

Flies in the mist at the dusk.

And in their line there's a small gap;

Maybe it's a place for me.

The day will come when with the siege of cranes

I'll float at the greish dusk

Crying out from the sky in the birds' language

To all of you whom I've left on the ground.

(Music by N. Bogoslovsky, lyrics by E. Dolmatovsky; sung by Mark Bernes in the 1950-s. The translation from Russian is mine.)

fin