Hollywood or What?

Chapter II
Noe Þe Olde Wimple-eth Fore Me-eth

It was curious. A moment ago, they had been surrounded by a metal craft and seated in comfy seats; now they were in a rocking, rolling, bouncing, juddering wooden cart sitting on a quarter of an inch of blanket. Neither of them could remember exactly where they had been, but they knew it had definitely been more comfortable.

"What do you think’s going on?" Harry asked.

Ginny had clearly been thinking much the same. "I don’t know," she said slowly, her pensive frown unchanging. "That Death Eater summoned that strange portal thing, and then I was... um... wherever we were last. I can’t remember anything about it, though, which is strange. Where are we now?"

Harry glanced out through the window. Verdant forests flashed by, dark glossy leaves glinting in the limpid sunlight as the carriage wheels splashed along the road. It was raining heavily.

"Well, at least we’re in England."

Ginny pulled out her mobile phone, and frowned.

"There’s no reception. At all."

"That’s impossible!" Harry spluttered. "There has to be reception... unless..."

Ginny caught on, her eyes wide.

"Unless we’re not when we think." She glanced down at the luxurious calico dress she was wearing, the white blouse welling out over the laced bodice. "Well, shouldn’t we be able to tell from our clothes, then?"

"I wouldn’t bet on it. Watch any film ever made set between 1000 and 1800, and the serving wenches in the inn will always be wearing that dress. It’s like a law, or something."

"What, this style was a pub uniform for seven hundred years?"

"Only in Hollywood."

"Hollywood?"

"Never mind." He looked her over. "That said, it does suit you." He kissed her. "It’s a really nice dress."

They kissed again.

"It’s a stupid dress," Ginny murmured into his mouth. "All flouncy and stuff. And this thing –" She gestured to a region where Harry’s hands were making themselves busy. "– it’s like stuffing them in a pillowcase and dropping them off the front of the thing!"

"It has its charms," Harry murmured back. "In fact, we should get you one when we get..." A vague memory drifted on the edge of consciousness, but eluded him. "...home," he finished lamely.

"Fine, but I’m not wearing a bloody wimple."

Harry grinned and pushed her up against the rocking front wall of the carriage, kissing her thoroughly. She giggled.

"Really, Harry?" she asked flirtatiously. "Here?"

"Well, why not?"

As if in answer to his question, a lance burst through the front wall of the carriage, inches above Ginny’s head. It dripped crimson onto the floor as hooves thundered past to the left. Harry became instantly serious, suddenly alert.

"To be continued," He said, drawing his wand. "Stay here."

He kicked open the door and looked around. The carriage was bouncing fiercely now, careening off the rocks and bushes that bordered the track. A glance ahead told him what he already knew – the horses were panicked, and the reins were limp.

He grabbed the rail around the top of the carriage and swung himself forward.

His feet landed on the mudguard over the wheel; it flexed under his weight, ground against the iron rim of the wheel, sending a burst of sparks at the left horse.

The carriage lurched as the horse sprang forwards.

Harry lost his grip, dropping heavily onto the footplate. His eyes crossed, briefly, while he desperately flailed for a grip on the doorframe.

"Harry!" Ginny dropped to the floor of the carriage, jammed her feet against the doorframe and grabbed his arm, holding him up.

His shoes scraped the ground, bouncing him off the road and swinging him up in the air, clinging to Ginny for dear life.

He pulled himself forward, slowly edging closer to the front of the carriage.

Inches ahead of him, the front left wheel spun, kicking up mud and gravel.

He reached out with his foot, edging closer, caught the wheel...

...its rotation flung him up, into the air, forwards...

He snagged the luggage rail and used his momentum to swing up and onto the driver’s seat. The reins flapped wildly, whipping his face and arms as he reached for them.

He caught them, barely. He pulled.

The horses ignored him, the tug on the reins a mere irritation in their panic.

He lashed out with his foot, kicking the brake at his side; a shower of sparks sprayed from the wheel, but he realised it would not stop the speeding carriage.

Up ahead, the horses were pounding along, frothing, sweating, lather dripping off their sides.

Then he saw them. Thick leather straps held the horses to the shafts, slapping and clanking as they jostled the multifarious bits of tack.

He pointed his wand, aiming carefully.

"Diffindo!" he shouted. A blast of light obliterated one of the straps, and the horse on the right peeled off and galloped into the forest.

The coach pulled to the right, bounced off a rock. Harry heard something splinter beneath him. Then he realised that the shaft was sagging, dropping closer to the ground, chipping the paint as it ricocheted off stones and grit.

If he cut the other horse loose, he realised, the shaft would dig into the ground; it would certainly stop the carriage, but he wasn’t convinced they’d still be in one piece afterwards.

He leaned round the corner and shouted in through the window.

"Ginny! I can’t stop the horses!"

"Cut them loose!"

"I can’t!" he bellowed. "We’ll go end over end!"

"Without the shaft?"

He blinked. Without the shaft, they wouldn’t polevault.

He clambered forwards, leaned over the footplate, saw the shackle connecting the shaft to the carriage.

He stretched down, his arms mere inches from the blurring hooves. The pin holding the shackle was almost within his reach.

Another effort, and he could touch it.

He leaned over, clinging to the footrest, reaching down, grabbed the pin and pulled.

The pin came out, and he pulled himself up, tucking the pin into his pocket.

For a moment nothing happened. Then, slowly, the shaft separated from the carriage. It hit the ground with a thunk, a roostertail of mud spraying up behind it.

Harry kicked the brake, stamping down on it with all his weight. The carriage slowed, squealing and sparking, slewed to the left...

...he looked ahead, heard a soft, wet impact as a crossbow bolt felled the fleeing horse, which crashed into the mud, screaming...

...and the carriage hit a bank in the road, teetered, toppled. A wheel shattered, bits of spinning metal and wood arcing outwards.

The coach slid to a stop on its side, coming to rest against a large copper beech. Harry looked around, saw a lone wheel, somehow burning, roll away from the crash and into the bushes.

He dropped down – sideways? – to the ground, and saw the lance. It had gone through the driver, skewering him to the carriage. There was no question about it; the driver wasn’t going to be getting up again.

Harry felt oddly detached. He’d known Crafty Robert – K-Bob for short – for years, his mind knew, but somehow, something deeper in his mind knew that he hadn’t known him for years twenty minutes ago. Something was wrong.

A thought crossed his mind. Ginny!

He started to climb onto the side of the carriage, now facing up, but stopped as a pinprick of cold metal touched his neck.

"Not anuvver inch, squire. Down to the ground, fine sir, easy now."

Harry lowered himself cautiously until his feet touched the ground, then very slowly turned around. There stood a figure dressed in blotchy grey velvet, which seemed to soak up the colours around it and blend into the background. The rain was coming down heavier now, and the bead of water at the point of the dagger only emphasised how sharp it was – and how near Harry’s larynx.

"What... do you want?" Harry asked, being carefully not to move his head.

The man sneered.

"Let’s just say the Revenuers make house calls, shall we sir?"

As Harry watched, figures clad in black and bedecked with chainmail melted out of the woods, surrounding them. Harry became uncomfortably aware that almost two dozen sharp points, on arrows and spears and halberds and swords, were directly aligned with his stomach. Harry tried to smile ingratiatingly.

"Have I ever mentioned what a great job the Inland Revenue do?"

"Shut it." The man turned and called: "Sir!" He turned back to Harry. "We’ll see what the sheriff makes of you."

Harry gulped, then made a mental note not to gulp any more as the point of the dagger made itself gently felt.

A tall, thin figure dressed entirely in black, with lank black hair and a hawk nose stalked round from the other side of the wreck. He had the kind of walk that suggested a theme tune; indeed, as he strode, an ominous, regular, martially pounding melody seemed to drift with him, long mellow minor tones of strings and brass. There was something familiar about him.

"I," he said in the kind of voice that pauses for an attribution after saying nothing but ‘I’, "am Alan, Sheriff of Nottingham. Doubtless you have back taxes that you forgot to pay in; I am here to ensure that you do not fall behind. It’s a service we provide, really." The man had the kind of voice that could without effort pronounce a semicolon. He looked Harry up and down. "You look like a man of means. Interesting and valuable luggage, I presume. We shall..."

He peered closer, glaring intently at Harry’s face. His eyes seemed to flicker to his forehead.

"Don’t I know you?"

Harry gulped. "No?"

"You’re not famous?"

"Only very slightly."

"Well then." The sheriff spun on his heel and started pointing to bags and cases on the ground where they had fallen from the carriage’s roof; each was quickly grabbed by a soldier and carried to a small cart that had emerged from the woods nearby. "An extra tax on our little celebrity for trying to be clever."

Harry remained very carefully silent. He struggled slightly as two soldiers bound his hands, but a knife at his throat dissuaded him from overly enthusiastic resistance.

"What are you after?" he demanded, trying to keep his temper in check.

"Nothing much." The sheriff glanced at him nonchalantly through his loupe, temporarily pausing his appraisal of a gold watch he’d found somewhere in the bags. "A little dance, a little love. Sunshine. Moonlight. Good times. Boogie. What we all want." He returned his gaze to the watch and mumbled, almost inaudibly, "and shedloads of money, of course."

He looked up again, tucking the watch into his pocket. He glanced over at the cart and saw it almost full of cases and bags.

"Well, that should do for now. Be sure to save your money, Mr Kodak – we’ll be back for it next month."

He mounted his horse, and flourished his hat in a mock salute.

"Well met, Harry of Potter. Until next-"

An arrow whistled through the air and plucked the hat out of his hand, pinning it to a tree some way distant.

"The hobbehods!" one of the soldiers shouted, pointing. The others started for a moment, then bolted for their horses.

"Another time, paparazzi-bait!" cried the sheriff as his charger reared up photogenically.

"Sir?" asked a soldier quietly. "Your theme?"

"Thugger the beam!" the sheriff snarled back. He caught himself. "I mean, bugger the... oh, just go. Leave them!"

And with that, they galloped away.

Harry spun to see what had scared them away. Out of the forest poured several dozen figures, all dressed in muted greens. One, with a bright scarlet feather in his cap, sauntered up to him and, with a broad grin, cut his bonds.

"Scathlock," the man drawled in an accent that a distant part of Harry’s brain recognised as American, "Will Scathlock. Any enemy of the Sheriff’s is a friend of mine."

"Um, thanks." He looked around at the green-clad figures milling around, keeping watchful arrows nocked in case the Sheriff came back. "Um. Who are you guys?"

Scathlock’s grin grew broader.

"We are the Merry Men of Robin Hood!" He caught Harry’s look, and added hurriedly: "No, don’t worry, we’re straight. Just... merry."

"Ah."

"Come with us. We’ll take you to see Robin, he’ll want to meet you."

Harry looked at the wrecked carriage. He didn’t seem to have much choice.

"Yeah, OK." Then a thought struck him – he hadn’t heard any sounds from inside the carriage. "Ginny!"

Harry left the Merry Men standing around the carriage and frantically climbed up. He swung the door open and stuck his head into the gloom.

"Ginny? Are you all... Ginny?"

He dropped lightly into the cabin, but it was empty. He hauled himself back up onto the side of the carriage and turned to Will.

"They’ve got her," he said numbly. "They’ve taken her with them."

Then something behind the wreck caught his eye. Five men – mostly men, anyway – stood there, trying to hold a number of instruments as nonchalantly as possible. One was sitting on his cello, whistling and trying to project an air of absolute innocence. Another was intently reading a piece of sheet music. Harry goggled at them for a moment before he found his voice.

"And who the hell are you?"

* * *

"Harry of Potter, meet Robin of Locksley!" announced Will Scathlock ceremonially. A tall, gangly figure swaggered out of a sort of elaborate treehouse and effortlessly swung to the ground.

"G’day, sport. How the bloody ‘ell are ya?"

"Um... I’ve been better." The corks dangling from Robin’s cap were distracting him. "The sheriff took Ginny."

"Ginny’s yer sheila?"

"My what?"

"Yer sheila? Yer bird?" He sighed, as if he was trying to speak to a Frenchman on a package holiday. He spoke slowly... and... LOUDLY. "Yer girl?"

"I suppose so."

It always works. Or at least, British tourists think it does.

"Well, pull up a bloody seat an’ have dinner with us, and we’ll go up to the bloody castle an’ get ‘er back for afters, how about that?"

"Um..."

"Great. Come on, meet the bloody gang?"

He guided the bewildered Harry over to where several dozen green-clad figured – both men and women, Harry realised – sat around a large campfire. He pointed out a fat figure in a brown habit, eating chips out of a newspaper.

"That’s Friar Tuck? He runs the chip shop along with our other man of the bloody cloth, the chip monk over there?" He pointed to a grey-robed figure almost hidden behind a bank of serving counters.

"Big Steve, our resident bloody strongman?" He pointed to a man who couldn’t have been more than four foot tall, though it was entirely possible that his bushy blond beard was considerably longer. The man produced something between a snarl and a laugh – what Harry had to assume was his idea of a friendly 'howareyou' – and raised the mug in his left hand. His right kept a firm hold on a six-foot quarterstaff with a vicious-looking axe head at the end. "He’s very fond of his bloody scumble?"

"Scumble?"

"The local brew? It’s made from apples?" He seemed to catch himself. "Well, mostly bloody apples?"

"Why do you talk like that? Turning everything into a question?"

"I don’t?"

"Yes you do."

"Well, if you must know..." He lowered his voice to a confidential whisper. "I’m not English?"

"I dunno, are you?"

"I’m saying, I’m not?"

"How the hell should I know?"

They reached a sort of stalemate of confused punctuation wherein they both looked away from each other for a second, trying to piece together the disjointed conversation. By unspoken consent, they shrugged and moved on.

They walked around to the far side of the fire. A cluster of slick-looking figures with broad lapels on their jerkins stood, chatting intently. They all wore dark glasses.

"What about them?"

"Oh, that’s John Fred? And his bloody playboys? They’re no bloody use? First sign of a wimple an’ they’ll bugger off?"

A small shed stood off to one side, a heavy brass padlock dangling on its door. The lock might have been an impressive security precaution, had the walls not been made of leaves woven into a loose hazel lattice.

"What’s in there?" Harry asked curiously.

"Aaaah, I was bloody hoping you’d ask that!" Robin strode up to it, unhooked the padlock –

"Why don’t you lock the padlock?"

"Look at the walls, mate? There’d be no bloody point, would there?"

There was, Harry was forced to admit, a certain logic to that, so he let it go.

Robin swung the door open. In the darkness within, dozens of gold items glistened in the firelight.

"Wow."

"They’re me bloody trophies? I just got this one –" he pointed "– at a competition last week? I was down in Tumba-bloody-Rumba shootin’ kanga-bloody-roos?"

"Kangaroos in England?"

"No, Tumba-bloody-Rumba? Try to keep up?"

The evening progressed in much the same vein, with Harry getting more and more confused. Harry spent much of his meal entertaining the Merry Men with tales of his travails against Voldemort. Eventually dinner was over, and the assemblage dissipated in various directions and for, Harry assumed, various reasons.

Harry sat on a log, staring into space, still not sure if it was wise following Robin Hood into battle. But that particular problem eventually solved itself.

"Harry," Will said, strolling up and sitting next to him. "You’ve had your fair share of combat experience, right?"

"A bit."

"Well, you’re in luck."

"Why?"

"You’ve been promoted."

"What?"

"Well, y’see, Robin..." Will seemed slightly embarrassed. "Friar Tuck tried a new experiment tonight, and it had a few fairly nasty side effects on Robin, so he needs to sit out the attack on the castle. So congratulations, you’re in charge."

"WHAT?"

"Never heard of field promotions?"

"I haven’t heard of being promoted before joining up, no."

"Well, the practice has to start somewhere."

"But..."

"Come on, we’ll get you kitted out."

"But..."

"And a word to the wise... don’t try Tucky's deep-fried Mars Bars."

* * *

And so it was that Harry Potter found himself on a horse at the head of a column of seven score green-clad lunatics, going up against a whole bloody castle of professional troops. It was likely, he considered, that he had lost his sanity somewhere, but a moment’s thought indicated that if he was to get it back, he’d most likely find it in much the same place as he found Ginny, so it all worked out in the end.

He’d had quite a lot of scumble over dinner, but it didn’t seem to be harming his thinking.

There was a storm brewing, Harry was sure of it. The rain that afternoon had been a harbinger of wetter things to come, and the thick dark clouds above had already turned the road into an unpleasant slush for the column to ride through. They’d been riding for maybe an hour when the castle loomed out of the mist. Its drawbridge was up.

"Um, Will?"

"Yes?" Will rode next to Harry, and certainly seemed rather more comfortable in the saddle than Harry.

"Do we have a plan for, y’know, getting in?"

"A plan?"

"Yeah. You know, a scheme. A plot. A vague idea of how the hell we’re going to get in."

"Oh, we never bother with those. It all works out in the end."

Oh god, Harry thought, we really are in a film.

* * *

Ginny looked out of her window. She hadn’t been badly treated, though she had a few bruises from being slung over a soldier’s saddle on the way back. She’d just been locked up in the gatehouse, in a fairly comfortable room overlooking the road to Sherwood. The sheriff had come up to gloat a few times, but otherwise she’d been left alone.

She still had her wand, though. She’d been briefly frisked for weapons, but before being captured she’d had the foresight to tuck the wand in her hair as a hairpin. It had barely warranted mention by the soldiers.

Thus she had rather significantly augmented the comfort level of the furniture in her room, and magically resized her garderobe so she had more or less the same facilities as she had at home – wherever that was, she couldn’t quite remember.

Now she’d been standing at her window, gazing winsomely out across the meadow. After all, there wasn’t much else for her to do.

In the distance, something was approaching. She squinted. As they drew closer, she realised it was a column of people on horseback, waving swords and spears and bows in what they doubtless perceived as a fairly threatening way.

But they didn’t look like the Sheriff’s men.

As they drew closer, she recognised the green garb she’d caught a glimpse of as she’d been carried away. Closer... and there was something familiar about the man at their head.

Closer yet, and she recognised Harry.

Then she looked down, and saw that the road they were charging along with no apparent intent to stop ended abruptly in a boggy, stagnant moat. Men, she thought, why can they never think things through?

She walked to the door and leaned down by the keyhole.

"Unlock the door," she crooned sweetly to the guards she knew had to be outside. She was rewarded by a roar of laughter.

"You really want to unlock the door," she continued. The laughter stepped up a notch.

"Fine," she muttered. "I’m coming out now whether you unlock or not, and when I do you’ll wish you’d ingratiated yourselves by unlocking the door." There was a crash outside that might well have been an armour-clad soldier collapsing in giggles.

"Fine then."

She pointed her wand at the door. "Aloho... No. Reducto Praejudi Extremis."

The door, that had been there for an awful lot of years, and had been made of very expensive and very hard oak, was no more. Instead it – and much of the granite doorframe – was blasted into charred and sizzling shards, pinging and ricocheting through the corridor outside.

Ginny stepped outside and dispatched the four guards with stunners, though one required a foot to the groin before he was helpful enough to stand still to be hit. Then she glanced around, took a guess at where the controls for the drawbridge were, and stalked off.

* * *

"CHAAAAAAARGE!" Will screamed, spurring his horse onwards towards the castle.

The distance to a squelchy, mostly-watery grave was closing far quicker than Harry would have liked, but he nevertheless kept pace. Then, just when all seemed lost, the heavy drawbridge started to move.

This chronicler does not know whether you, dear reader, have ever seen a solid oak drawbridge open when the ratchet is released. It starts out slowly, and accelerates until it crashes down with a fairly significant thump.

In this case, it caught a – very briefly – startled halberdier under one corner.

Will turned to Harry.

"See?" he shouted over the rolling thunder of the charge. "Never fails!"

The speeding column stampeded over the drawbridge, under the mysteriously open portcullis (though an eagle-eyed Merry Swordswoman at the back of the column noted with some surprise a few chunks of what appeared to be partially melted portcullis lying around) and into the courtyard.

The startled soldiers in the courtyard spun, frozen for a moment by the sudden charge into their midst. Then they turned and ran for their weapons.

The battle was short.

Two hundred unarmed, sleepy and recently fed soldiers were no match for almost a hundred and forty well armed, slightly drunk lunatics in green catching them by surprise. Those that weren’t massacred by the initial charge retreated to the Prince’s private suite, which they barricaded and prepared to defend.

Knowing there was no food and no exit within, Harry simply ordered a number of strong guards posted outside, and left to find Ginny.

He found her on the staircase leading up into the gatehouse. Her dress was badly damaged, and she had a few nasty scrapes, but she seemed otherwise unharmed. Not so, however, the dozen or so soldiers sprawled in various degrees of significant inconvenience at the bottom of the stairs. Several seemed to have rather more joints than they had started the day with.

"What took you so long?" she smirked.

Harry took the steps two at a time and caught her in an embrace. Thoroughly entwined, she guided him up the stairs and into what had been her quarters for most of the day. A quick reparo on the door, and they were back together.

Ginny’s hands started migrating south. Possibly in search of warmer climate.

Harry reached down, not wishing to be outdone, and found his move heralded by a sharp clang and, from within Ginny’s robes, a nasal voice shouting "GERROFF!"

Harry recoiled, blinked twice.

"Um, Ginny..." he said slowly. "Um. I don’t know if you know this, but your... your... um. They’re talking."

Ginny flushed, embarrassed.

"Well, yes." She opened her gown and let it drop.

There, encircling her, were two bands of gleaming metal; one high, one low. They were joined by a length of chain, from which dangled a heavy-looking padlock. Two rivets and the horizontal keyhole gave it the look of a face – and, with the leer it wore, an altogether too smug expression.

It blew a raspberry at Harry.

"It’s a chastity bra," Ginny explained. "My mother had it fitted the moment I grew out of my old pyjamas."

"Wait a minute," Harry mused. "That can’t be right, we’re in the wrong fic for that!"

"Either way," the padlock interjected, "That’s the deal. No ring, no ding-ding."

"Oh good," Ginny observed drily, "a comedian."

"Well, how do we unlock it?"

"Um... I don’t think Mum ever covered that."

"Why not?" Harry was starting to panic.

"I don’t think she’d expected it to become an issue."

Harry shook his head in disbelief.

"Not an..." A thought struck him. "Have you seen the inside of her wrist recently?"

"Why?"

"Just a thought."

"Hang on..." Ginny posited thoughtfully. "The traditional reasoning is that somewhere, someone who is destined to be my one true love has a key that will fit the lock."

Harry gawked at her for a moment.

Then he burst out laughing.

Several minutes later, he picked himself up off the floor, tears of mirth streaming.

"Destiny? ‘Someone, somewhere’? Any old drunk turns up at the door with a shiny key, and you’re stuck with him? They don’t think things through when they write legends, do they?"

"Well, no." Ginny helped him back up onto the eiderdown. "But I have a better idea."

* * *

And so, outside the castle, echoing far and wide, went up the cry:

"CALL A LOCKSMITH!"

* * *

And there a lesser chronicler might leave the story, in order that our heroes might continue their explorations unobserved. However, one vital event ensured that this was not to be.

You see, dear reader, one of the problems with magically enlarging a garderobe to the size of a fairly comfortable muggle bathroom is that any people local to the period who happen to be searching a castle for hidden foes are perhaps likely to ignore it as a potential hiding place.

And so, indeed, it was that Harry and Ginny were captured by three soldiers who, in their minds, were now very likely in line for a promotion. A circuitous route, with long and careful pauses at each corner to avoid the sparse patrols, brought them to a nondescript door hidden behind a tapestry. They knocked.

Within, they found themselves face to face with Clough. He wore a crown. He smiled indolently at them.

"Well well, what have we here?"

"You’re the Prince?" Harry spluttered. "I might have known."

One of the soldiers, a raw recruit by the name of Scruffins, cuffed him over the head, and pushed Ginny forward.

"We found a witch, Prince Clough! May we burn ‘er?"

"A witch!" the second guard, Moth, added excitedly. The third one, subscribing to the philosophy of always being prepared, scurried up carrying a duck. The Prince waved them away.

"No, wait outside. I have something special planned for these two."

The guards retired to outside the tapestry. There they stood, smoking surreptitiously, waiting to serve their master.

They had stood there for maybe five minutes, when there was a great splintering CRASH from the Prince’s chambers.

"What was that?" the duck man asked.

"Dunno," said Moth.

Then the Prince, clutching the irritating female captive, came running out of the room, knocking Scruffins flying. He started to pick himself up just in time to be trampled by that other prisoner, the one with the black hair, as he gave chase.

He painfully dragged himself to a sitting position with his back to the doorway. The other two stood facing him.

"That was close," he muttered. He glanced at his mates.

They were cringing, crouching wide-eyed by the wall, staring past his left ear.

"What are you staring at?"

None of the three had much chance to say any more, for behind Scruffins stood a very short, very bearded, very strong man with a very big axe. It had much of the door stuck on it.

"Here’s Stevie!" the beast rumbled.

* * *

Clough’s flight had taken them out of the keep and up onto the battlements. Out here, the storm was raging at full strength; great sheets of rain and sleet swept the flagstones, gusts of wind snapped and flapped the flags flying above the castle, and jagged flares of lightning flashed through the twilight.

Clough climbed higher, to the top of the tower at the west corner of the gatehouse. He backed up to the crenellations, pointing his wand at Harry.

Harry, eyes scrunched up against the driving rain, slowly made his way up from the curtain wall and onto the far side of the gatehouse. As he approached Clough, he noticed to his horror how half a dozen swordsmen – Clough’s swordsmen – detached themselves from the shadows and encircled him. They must have been lurking up here since the battle, he realised.

Harry edged closer, no more than two arm’s lengths away from Clough. Ginny’s hands were tied, she was gagged, and fear was apparent in her eyes.

"Don’t come a single step closer!" Clough shouted, aiming his wand directly at Harry’s forehead. Ginny shot a pleading glance at him.

"Harry..." she tried to say, her voice muffled by the gag.

"You’ll never take me alive!" Clough screamed over the storm, holding Ginny with an arm around her throat.

"Don’t be a fool, Clough!" Harry was getting nervous now – he didn’t like the idea of Ginny that close to the edge. After all, the moat was a long way down. "Let her go!"

"You’d like that, wouldn’t you?" Clough clambered onto the crenellations and waved his wand down the side of the wall. "Recro foris!"

The gleaming silver vortex appeared once more, this time below him, a few feet above the swampy waters of the moat. It clearly didn’t like being cast from such a high angle, or perhaps it was storms it objected to; either way, it revolved slowly around its axis.

After that, many things happened at once.

Clough stepped up, his foot gaining purchase on the merlon, Ginny pulled behind him.

Harry lunged, closing the gap between them, leaping into an embrasure and grabbing Ginny...

...and Clough jumped.

He lost his grip on Ginny and plummeted down towards the swirling light.

Harry and Ginny teetered on the edge of the rain-slick wall, Harry’s clumsy period footwear slipping on the wet stone. But their precarious position left only one outcome, precipitated by a frantic lunge by one of the swordsmen.

They fell.

Clough hit the vortex a few yards before them, as it passed the horizontal. A moment later, just before it became a vertical rectangle too thin to hit, Harry and Ginny, clutched in each others arms, fell through.

The swordsman, who had lunged too far and passed through the embrasure a fraction of a second after Harry, missed the vortex and met a brief but damp end in the near-solid moat.