Quiet. It was an expansive, vacuum-like thing that gave the whole scene an air of supernatural stillness, as though the hand of an unseen being pressed over them, muffling even the most natural of sounds. The snowfall was brooding and ominous, an omen to those foolish enough to venture out on a frigid December night.

Two men, dusted in hazy snowfall were lying sprawled on the cold, snow-covered cobbles of the alleyway. The dark haired man's breath came out between his blue lips sending the snow swirling, his gasping breaths were seen rather than heard in the still winter night. His tousled dark hair was flecked with white, and the snow beneath his head was flecked with red. The obvious crease between his eyebrows showed a mind saturated with thought, or perhaps even pain. He was hurt, but he was alive.

The other man lay too still, his normally lined face was slack, and his eyes more sunken than was natural. His skin looked grey in the dim light, and no swirling breath escaped from his gaping jaw. Snow fell with impunity into his open mouth and clung lightly to his eyelashes and the few wisps of graying brown hair that stuck out beneath his flat cap. Blood rolled sideways out of a nostril, making its slow steady way to the growing black pool beneath his head. His face was too slack, his eyes too empty. He was dead.

Harry's head felt heavy, as he pulled his eyes closed more tightly, as a slowly swelling pain filled the spaces behind his eyes. A small groan escaped his lips as he gingerly tried to shift one throbbing leg. What had happened? The ringing in his ears told him that he was not waking up from sleep, but rather from a cold unconsciousness. Memories swirled dimly just out of reach in his foggy, undulating mind. It would have been easy to just allow the fog to float about in his memory- a comforting haze of half formed images. Instinctively however, Harry pushed forward out of the fog and into consciousness, probing for something real and solid in the mire that was his brain. With an effort something emerged- a man called Mr. Wainwright, and a Wand.

Pain. Fresh, sharp and pungent pierced through Harry, rousing him more completely than a splash of icy water. His eyes flew open and he jerked himself to a sitting position, instantly cursing his Auror's instinct as white hot stars blazed across his vision. He pressed a palm to his head to steady it's throbbing contents, but when he pulled his hand away he saw a copious amount of blood smeared on his hand, and dimly, through the spread fingers of his hand he saw the body of Arlen Wainwright his arms and legs splayed at odd angles.

Mr. Wainwright had been Harry's Ministry appointed mentor for the past eleven months, since the time that all of the special permissions had been arranged and signed off by the Minister of Magic. Many of his former classmates had chosen to return to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, to complete the year that was taken from them by Voldemort's sinister regime. Harry, Ron, and Hermione however could not return to hogwarts after their role in the dark lord's in the downfall had been become more widely known. Fame, However nobly earned, had been a constant distraction, and made a return to hogwarts a laughable idea. However, with the help of friends, Harry, Ron, and Hermione had continued their education in a more practical way.

Mr. Wainwright, far from being dazzled by The-Boy-Who-Defeated-the-Dark-Lord, seemed immune to the notoriety that followed Harry doggedly in the days following you-know-who's demise. Mr. Wainwright treated harry as he would any other apprentice Auror, speaking to him as though he doubted he knew which end of a wand made sparks. Harry was not bothered by 's lack of faith in his mental capacity, and in fact he found it a refreshing change from being hero-worshiped by strangers. In fact, most recently Harry had felt that they had struck up a tentative kind of friendship, as evidenced by the fact that had on two occasions addressed him as 'Harry' rather than 'Potter' or 'Porter'. He later gathered that Porter was the name of a previous apprentice, and not evidence that Arlen Wainwright did not know Harry's famous name or infamous story. Still for this reason alone Harry had liked the man.

In the Months they had been together Harry had learned much. Harry was the first to admit that his own practical skills, though good enough for promising OWL marks, were feeble when compared with those of real Aurors, an idea with which Arlen seemed to agree. Even Mr. Wainwright though had to admit that Harry's reflexes and instinct were extraordinary.

The body of Arlen Wainwright lying not two feet from Harry acted as a stimulus, reminding him of why they had been pelting down the alleyway with wands drawn, and why Harry was still alive while Arlen's body was rapidly cooling and stiffening in the subzero temperatures. Despite the chill of the night Harry felt a an angry heat flush through his system, and, seizing the fractured halves of Wainwright's wand, Harry was on his feet again, all pain forgotten. in three bounding steps Harry was at the end of the Alleyway looking down and the freshly fallen snow he saw the slight indentation in the snow of three pairs of footprints turning left up another alleyway that twisted out of sight. pocketing Wainwrights wand, he drew his own,

"Lumos!", he panted out, and then was darting down the narrow path, a fresh surge of anger fueling him on, totally oblivious to the danger of charging in to a wand-fight, outnumbered, injured, and too full of rage to be entirely reasonable. He sprinted along behind the yellow pool of light, trying not to become distracted by the images of Mr. Wainwrights cold body slowly being covered with snow that flit through his brain.

The alley curved Left, right, then descended in a sharp right turn that seemed to make the stone buildings around him grow larger and more ominous with each passing step. When the path leveled out Harry's wand light splashed over a stone wall directly in front of him and he barely managed to stumble to a halt, hands slapping on the solid surface, wand clutched under his fingers. Harry closed his eyes against the pain that seemed to catch up with him for a moment, and then, Green eyes flying open, he spun around pointing his wand at the ground before him, rapidly scanning the ground for tracks in the soft snow.

And there, slightly disturbed by his own prints were three sets of tracks, that stopped dead and then went absolutely nowhere. The type of tracks in short, that could only be made by three people apparently vanishing into thin air.

Harry's own Anger seemed to vanish with trail he had been following, to be replaced with terrible staggering pain, both emotional and physical. His back slammed against the cold wall behind, and he slid down till he was crouched in the snow. It took all his strength to raise his wand, fill his head with thoughts of bright red hair and a soft scent of something flowery, and exhale,

""Expecto Patronum…."

He watched blurrily as a silver stag bounded into the night, before he closed his eyes on the cruel reality of this night.

His last thought before he slipped into the void was of Ginny Weasley, and all else fell away.