Now he was here, lying on something soft and grassy, like moss. It wasn't the same sort of soft he fell into, so Harry deduced he had moved, or had been moved.

Harry's body went rigid when he heard voices, muffled like they were coming through layers of curtains. He listened closely, but couldn't deduce what they said, only that they were female, and sounded young. They also came closer and were hurried and hissed, like a subdued fight that nobody should listen in to.

With a mighty push, the curtains were moved away and Harry could clearly hear the voices now, not a room's length away from him. He heard feet move over soft surfaces, glass hitting glass with soft sounds coming from them. But over all this were the two voices, hissing at each other.

At first Harry thought himself hallucinating. He tried to find words in the speech, but couldn't. Not until he realized they did not speak English, let alone any other language he had ever heard. It was a melodic language, almost to the point of it being sung.

"Sha'a-thum falaran, nol idamie, Dyra!" one voice hissed.

"Molaese-thum falavin, nol bayabal. Soj, bala!" the other one gave back, her voice reminding Harry somewhat of a petulant child.

They held their quiet argument for a while, yet Harry gave up trying to understand. The language was just too far removed from anything he knew to recognize, let alone comprehend.

While they had their argument, one of them came close to his bed. Harry let his body relax, and forced his breath to be even and slow, trying to fake himself sleeping.

He felt hands on his exposed abdomen, slowly rubbing what felt like a salve on the spot where the Sword of Gryffindor had been rammed through him.

"Moi, moi, manruun, moi, moi." she whispered as she tenderly kept rubbing, letting more of the salve run on his belly from time to time.

"Soj mia, lugori bas manruun, ah?" the second woman giggled behind the one tending to Harry. He felt her hand go still and imagined her body going rigid.

"Bas," the first pressed out, obviously insulted by whatever the other one had said. Her hand continued rubbing in the salve, but it was less tender in doing so now. So much so that when she made an especially quick move with it, Harry hissed at the pain it caused.

"Oh," one of them breathed and then said with a cheery note. "Sudala, Manruun."

The hand with the salve moved away from his abdomen, up to his face where she drew lines of strange patterns on his forehead. Suddenly Harry understood it as some sort of spellwork, because the numbness of his eyes and eyelids was gone. He carefully opened them and was glad the room he lay in was only sparsely illuminated.

"Hmm," the second one hummed and grabbed his chin. She forced him to move his head, which caused him pain in every sore muscles, which was truly just every muscle.

His eyes fell on the face of a vision of beauty, but unearthly, like the beauty of a Veela. The first detail that was obvious to him were the eyes, which were so green, his own looked dull against them, and where he had white in his eyes, hers were a rich brown, and patterned like the bark of a pine. He let his own eyes roam around her face, taking in her looks. His eyes fell on her ears, which were resembling those of deer. Her hair, which was of a beige brown, like dying grass, was hip-long and had twigs between it's strands that came out of the woman's scalp.

He had the feeling like she also let herself analyse him before she spoke. Yet this time, to Harry's surprise, what came out of her mouth was pure, accent-free English. "Good morning. Mister Potter, I assume?"

"Y-" he tried to speak, but his throat was as dry as a desert and no words would come out. The woman understood and set a small, flat bowl filled with water to his lips. He drank eagerly, ignoring the pain the water caused when it ran down his throat. With a sigh of relief he let himself enjoy the feeling of water cleaning his mouth of the coppery taste he just now recognized in it.

"Yes, I'm Harry Potter." he croaked out. "Who are you? Have you rescued me?"

"You're a wanted man, Mr. Potter, the entire island is searching for you." she said, while sounding as if harbouring a fugitive was amusing to her. She gestured to the second woman behind her. She too, was a stunning beauty, yet younger and rounder in her features. She also had the same green eyes, the same deer-ears and the same beige-brown hair with twigs growing from her head. "This is Dyra. She has rescued you." she rolled her eyes. "Or rather, taken you as a souvenir when you barrelled into her."

Dyra waved her hands and got a greenish hue on her cheeks.

"I am Soj," She pointed gracefully at herself. "I'm the Healer of this grove, and while you are here, you are mine, understood?"

"What?"

"So no, not understood. Very well…" Soj sighed and rolled her eyes in exasperation. Then she took a small breath and looked back at Harry with a strictness that reminded Harry of McGonagall. "I would assume that by now you have realized that we are not the same race, Mr. Potter?"

He nodded.

"What do you know of the magical civilizations that call Britain their home, with the exception of your own race, the human mages?"

"Uhm…" Harry began, thinking of what he had learned about any other civilizations during all his years of Hogwarts. It wasn't much. "There are the Mer, the Goblins… then the Centaurs, and… uhm… Trolls, and… you?"

Dyra snorted a laugh, but quickly sobered when Soj sent her a smoldering glare. The older woman let that glare slowly turn to Harry who tried to sink back into the moss he was lying on.

"Trolls?" she spat.

"Well, they're somewhat… coherent?" Harry tried, but quickly saw that it was the wrong thing to say. Soj got a twitch in her right eye, while Dyra couldn't keep the laugh in and giggled in her hands. Soj closed her eyes, trying to get the twitch under control, and took a deep breath before she let it out in a long exhale.

Visibly calmer she began to speak. "I would hope that we are more coherent than trolls." she gave a dirty look to the still giggling Dyra. "It is but the arrogance of the wizards to even name us in the same sentence as those beasts, and it is insulting, I must admit, to not even be named."

"In my case it's probably the ignorance of the wizard, if I'm honest."

She sighed again, but gave him a small, polite smile. "At least you're self aware."

"So… What are you then? You somewhat look like them, but you're definitely not Veela."

"Suu Vedji? Sasa, maruun." Dyra said and swayed her hips in what harry thought was a weak attempt at being alluring.

Soj gave a small laugh this time and waved dismissively at Dyra. At his questioning look she translated. "She said that being compared to Veela could be counted as flirting." she then waved that off as well. "It's not that far off, though. We are related to Veela - the other line of evolutionary descension if you will. We're Dryads, you see. Nymphs of the Forests."

Harry smiled, just now connecting the dots of the few tidbits of education he had on the beautiful "Women of the Woods". That knowledge came mostly from seventh year boys, daring the more timmit amongst them to go into the Forbidden Forest to find some nymphs to lose their virginity to. They shared much of the stigma of Veela, but had a more mystical aura around them, as they were mostly not seen or heard, hidden even deeper in the forests than centaurs and often guarded by them.

Harry shook his head at the improbability of him literally stumbling into one to his rescue. Though previous words had him doubt the safety of his current situation. "You said I'm… yours?"

"Correct," Soj nodded.

"Why? What does that even mean?" he pressed on. "Am I a prisoner?"

"No. It is just, the groves do not permit a Mage walking freely within their territory. A safety measure, you see, for both sides."

"A safety measure?"

"Yes, Mr Potter. I would think you do know the reason there are no Nymphs in the… how do you call it? The Forbidden Forest? I would think you know first hand why?"

"Yeah…" he admitted and he felt his cheeks go red at the thought of doing that with the woman before him. After all, her whole being let even Fleur seem dull, as if there was something more to her beauty than simple looks, despite her floral and animalistic features.

"So you see why we cannot have a young, male mage walk amongst us unsupervised?"

"Yes, but, you said it was safety for both sides."

Soj grinned, somewhat predatory, yet amused. "A male human walking alone in a grove is bound to be… utilized for the only use we truly have for them."

"Which is…?"

"Procreation, Mr. Potter."

"What?!"

"Why, Dyra over there was over the clouds when you stumbled into her, only to have her hopes of offspring squashed when she realized your condition." she said, having entirely too much fun with his situation.

"And now…"

"Now you're mine, due to me healing you. Once you are again capable of it - once the venom is out of your system, I will ask payment for my services…" Soj declared with a broad grin on her face.

At that Harry tried to shot up and protest, but it was almost as if his spine broke into a million pieces when he even so much as tried to lift his chest for more than a few inches. He hissed out his pain, but demanded of himself to not scream, and to not cry from it.

He felt the hands of Soj on his chest, pressing him down onto the moss with gentle force. Her other hand drew lines on his body in fast strokes, and suddenly the pain numbed and his breath regained normality.

"You are still too weak. You must rest. The basilisk venom still has not surrendered itself to whatever marvelous inner defenses you possess. It will take time."

"I don't have time." Harry croaked. "The war is still going on and my frien… my friends…."

"Your body demands the time of you." Soj whispered softly. Her hands stroked his cheek, wiping away a traitorous tear. She let it rest there while her thumb stroked up and down his already growing stubble. "You were dead. I had almost given up on you when you came back to life, if ever so barely. You slept for ten days, afterwards, always between death and life. You must rest here and grow strong again."

As if she understood from his glare alone what he thought about growing strong in the grove, she sighed and said even lower in voice. "I must apologize… even during my studies outside I was never good at… banter, I think it is called. I will say that it would be an incredible gift to the grove to have a mage willingly father offspring, but we will not force you to. Promise. We are no savages, despite what many of your contemporaries might believe." She then rested her hand on his chest, over the spot where she had drawn the lines with her finger. "But you must rest. The Dark Lord will not find his end at the hands of a cripple, will he?"

Unwilling to admit to it, Harry just stared at her green eyes and kept still. It was seemingly enough for Soj as she gave him a smile and nodded. Her hands went to the small nightstand next to him, a stump with a bowl carved into it. She grabbed a few vials full of different potions, and held them up to him. "Your dose for today. These potions will help you heal, and make you drowsy, so before I give them to you I will leave you with another promise, Mr. Potter. The trees have told me of the night you came to us. Such betrayal at the hand of your friend… I cannot imagine how you must feel…"

"He didn't betray me." Harry said. "He was possessed. Vol-"

As quick as lightning he had her hand over his mouth. "Do not say his name. He has placed a taboo over it and all who dare speak it doom themselves. They send Death Eaters after whoever utters the name. It has happened with a sister grove before. We must be cautious."

Harry's eyes grew wide as he realized Ron must've known that too in order to summon those people who apparated in. The horcrux must've read his mind thoroughly, then, or fused with Ron. It didn't matter. Fact was that Harry had to put down Ron as an enemy now; a potent one at that. The realization hurt more than he thought it would.

"He was possessed." Harry repeated when she removed her hands.

"Be that as it may, the tale was still a tragic one." Soj took a fortifying breath, her eyes showing her own sadness at his fate. "Now, a promise, as I said. I will provide you with any information we can gather. Our information network is… well connected, you could say, yet somewhat impaired in their senses."

"You mean you use the trees?"

"Yes. Unfortunately they cannot discern between important things and unimportant ones. Most trees are more fascinated by the fairy nest in their crown than the battle going on around them." She rolled her eyes in fond exasperation. "Yet, sometimes, they feel the need to look around them. When magic surges, they keep watch."

"So do you have some information, yet?" Harry asked. "I doubt you just started with this. You must be well informed of the situation in Britain, at least."

"We are, yes." Soj let her head hang down, weighing what information would be appreciated.

"I'm not one to mollycoddle. I had enough of that. You can hit me with the ugly truth, it won't make it worse than it already is."

"Very well," she said and straightened up again. "It concerns your possessed friend. Are you sure…?"

"If its about Ron, I want to hear it."

"The willow next to the house of the Weasleys... She died five days ago, in Fiendfyre." Soj swallowed, but continued. "The house is gone and so are its inhabitants. We don't know if anybody survived, but the orchard spoke of the same evil that the pines of the forest have spoken of when they described your possessed friend."

"I… see…" was all Harry could muster to say as the image of fiendish, flaming dragons destroying the Burrow went through his head.

"There is no confirmation of their deaths,..." Soj began but trailed off when she saw the pained expression on his face. Instead she grabbed the potions and uncorked the first one.

"It is time for you to rest." She said and placed the vial on his lips.

Harry swallowed the potion, not even thinking about what he was swallowing. He couldn't muster the strength to care. It was all going wrong. Were the Weasleys safe? Was Hermione even still alive? The second potion went down his throat and he felt his eyelids get heavy. When the third potion was poured into his mouth he already had help swallowing.

"Dyra will keep watch over you." was the last thing he heard before sleep took him.

The next days were agonizing to Harry, as he had one thing in abundance. Time to think.

Thinking was not something he liked to do in his situation. He could barely move as his muscles ached as if they were nailed together. Harry assumed it was still the basilisk venom, trying it's very best to not let him go twice.

Unable to move, all he had left were his thoughts.

The Ron with red eyes haunted his every moment, waking and asleep. He had been quick in differentiating the boy that had become his brother over 6 years of friendship with the monster that had impaled him with a poisonous sword.

Harry wondered where he could be. The Burrow was burnt down, and the Weasley family, for all he knew, dead. Possessed Ron's entire motivation seemed to have been his jealousy. He wanted Hermione, or at the very least the horcrux used Ron's desire to overwhelm him, control him and safe itself from destruction. Would the horcrux keep Hermione around, now that it was free? Why did it burn the Burrow down? Why did it even return there?

Harry groaned in frustration at those and a thousand more questions he couldn't answer. Tears of despair often ran down his cheeks and soon were replaced by him glaring at the roof, his eyes so full of hate against him, against Voldemort and the corruption he brought with him wherever his magic let it's tendrils of influence fall.

It began with Britain. Diagon Alley, once so colorful, lifely, so absolutely and undeniably magical, was now a swamp of blacks and browns, devoid of everything Voldemort claimed to defend. It was devoid of magic, empty of even pureblooded life. It was irreparably destroyed.

It went on with the people, so paralysed by fear, or corrupted into becoming the monsters they were so afraid of. It was the opportunists, now blooming in an environment in which the only skill needed to thrive was to be free of conscience. It was the madmen, who saw a nation arising in which they would make the rules - rules as mad and evil as them.

It was the day after Soj had sent him to sleep and Harry woke again on the soft moss bed, incapable of too much movement, but at least able to turn his neck without having the feeling of breaking his spine. He marked that down as a sign of him healing. He also felt that he was practically naked, with the exception of silken sheets covering him from the hip down. He denied himself the freedom to be bothered by that. It was only logical that they would get rid of his bloodied and torn clothes. He tried to remember if he had been naked yesterday as well, yet was unable to recall, so all encompassing had the pain been, emotionally as well as physically.

Able to use his neck, he took the chance to take in the room around him for the first time. It became clear that he had to be inside some sort of tree, as the walls around him were all made as if from one log. Windows, doors, cupboards, tables, stools and even the frame of the bed he was lying on were carved from the tree, with no seams to be seen.

The purpose of the room was easily as baffling as it's making. He saw a potion laboratory with two potions in small cauldrons bubbling away, next to a small library full of wooden tablets and books, some of which Harry even recognized. Right next to it, following the room clockwise, was a small nook, covered in the same soft moss he lay on, in which Dyra was reading one of the books, completely immersed in it's pages. Then there was a small kitchen, a cupboard with neatly folded, silken clothes and then his bed. It was small, but comfortable, lit by candles that never grew smaller and the fire's on which the potions simmered.

Harry allowed his eyes to roam over the figure of Dyra. It was odd, to compare the picture in the seventh year Care of Magical Creatures book, and specifically those pages all boys had been studying especially close, with an actual, real Dryad. Even though the author, one Newt Scamander, had been spot on with the drawing, he had been incapable of capturing their true look, their true beauty. Dyra wore what Scamander wrote as typical for Dryads, and Nymphs worldwide. It was a wide flowing robe of silken material, barely covering anything of their bodies. When she shifted slightly, Harry also confirmed that they seemed to not rightly care if the robe covered their more private parts at all. He stifled a cough at that, desperately trying not to blush too much.

It was for naught, however, as Dyra heard his choked cough and was ripped away from her book. Probably thinking that he had problems with his throat she hurried over to him, her robe wrapping around her shoulders, neck and belly, but nothing else.

He tried to look away, he truly did. His sense of decency demanded of him to give her the courtesy to not look, yet he was incapable. It was very much magic working, so much he recognized. It was as if his eyes were a compass needle and Dyra the north pole. He had to look and was even forced to by the magic surrounding the Dryad, this time not broken by pain.

Dyra didn't seem to notice his predicament, or severely misinterpreted his uncomfortable look with one of pain. Her legs carried her through the room in no time, where she sat down next to him on the bed and began to inspect his wounds with her soft and gentle fingers. She frowned at the wound on his belly and used some of the same salve Soj had used to rub it over it.

Voldemort himself may have strolled in the room on a tricycle, wearing pink robes, Harry wouldn't have noticed. His brain came to a grinding halt at the perfect, round and full pair of breasts dangling over him, softly jiggling with the circling motion Dyra's hands made.

He felt it too late to even try to counteract it. The silken sheets rose with the bulge growing between his legs. Dyra's hands stopped only for a moment. Her eyes darted to his loins for but a blink of an eye. Then she continued the treatment, a self-satisfied smile on her face.

"Buso Soj, maajaguo manruun ma meviali." she quipped and her grin grew even wider.

"I-" Harry shook his head a bit to get his head cleared. "I don't understand… at all. Sorry."

Dyra smiled at him with that same grin as the cat that got the canary. She pointed at his loins, then at herself and then, with an exaggerated frown, crossed both of her index fingers. "Soj," she added.

"Soj told you not to… well…" he nodded towards his hip, unable to finish the sentence.

"Ah, Soj buso." Dyra answered, as if he would understand more this time around.

At the very least she seemed to be spurred on by the fact that Harry talked with her. She let her second hand roam his chest with no purpose other than touching him. Her chest wandered even closer to his face and if he felt her legs touching his once or twice he was sure it was no accident.

It reminded him of the few moments alone with Ginny where they had come close to going the entire way, only stopped by the fear of being found, or treating over a boundary none of them had a concept of. The thought of Ginny reminded him of the Weasleys, and it reminded him of Ron.

His face warped into a silent snarl. Ron was controlled by a horcrux, Hermione a s hostage and he had nothing better to do than let his base desires take over him. He was disgusted by himself.

Dyra noticed and stopped her unmasked attempt at seduction. "Manruun?"

Harry looked at her and noticed that her smile was gone for a look of concern. He took his time to assess her expression, trying to determine her intent. Was she honest in her concern, or was she just out to finally get out of him the one use they had for wizards?

Eventually he decided to give her the benefit of the doubt when she slipped off the bed and kneeled next to him, her hand holding his own, to comfort rather than to seduce.

"Thank you," he whispered, his eyes never leaving her own. She tilted her head in question.

Harry sighed and gave her a small smile. "You don't understand anything I say, do you?"

She shrugged.

"I could tell you that looking at you makes me feel guilty… in so many ways." He started, almost as if a valve was opened, to pour out his heart. She wouldn't understand, he knew, but she looked at him and listened. "My best friend has become a vessel for the darkest magic known to man. My other best friend is probably struggling for her life right now. The girl I swore to protect by denying my feelings for her is in a school run by Death Eaters. They all count on me to finish this. The entire nation needs me to end this war." He felt tears run down his face, just as much as he felt a great weight being lifted.

"And here I am, ogling at your… I should be out there. I should be thinking of a fallback plan. Do something. I don't have a wand, all of our gear is gone, we lost the one piece we had and the sword to destroy it."

"Mo, mo, Manruun." Dyra whispered and wiped away his tears for him.

A heart wrenching sob escaped him as he felt her soft fingers over his cheeks. "I feel like I'm leading you on." he breathed out. He felt exhausted. His mind was drained, as if the admittance to his sorrows took all his energy with him. His eyes fell shut. He enjoyed having her fingers still on his cheeks. He could pretend it were Hermione's, or Ginny's fingers.

He startled when he felt her stand up and step over him onto the bed. His eyes darted to her, but all he could see was the look of concern, and maybe even sadness on her face. She laid next to him, further up the bed. Her arms slung around him, his chest and his head. With gentle pressure she pushed his head against her chest and rested it below her chin. Soft hands began to stroke his cheeks and hair, while she whispered sweet nothings to him.

His eyes fell shut. Her embrace made him feel safe, and erased his thoughts from his head. For a short moment he tried to figure out if it was her magic, or just his exhaustion, but he quickly let himself fall into this soft and comfortable void.

Her hands stroked his hair. His head rested against her. There would be no nightmares for him that night.

Harry was woken up the next day by the smell of onions, herbs and meat wafting through the room. His eyes opened to the sight of Dyra throwing all kinds of ingredients into a big pot. She had a small smile on her face. Harry had to look away quickly, embarrassed again.

Her robes were all over the place, just like the day before. It reminded him of the position he fell asleep in yesterday, making his cheeks blush beet red. Though he also couldn't help but smile. He had slept better than he could remember having slept for years. Then he blushed even deeper red, because other than potion induced sleep, this one had not - not in any way - been dreamless.

He figured that was the price to pay when a nymph uses her magic to soothe your mind. One thing was sure, though. Harry would take dreams in which he, Dyra and countless nameless Dryads rolled around the sheets over one with Voldemort any day of the week.

Harry also felt oddly refreshed. He hadn't felt this awake for a long time. Dreams of Voldemort, of Sirius, of Dumbledore and all the other horrors he had witnessed had taken away the regenerating effect of his sleep for months now. Today, as he laid there on the soft moss bed, still hurting from the venom and his many wounds, he felt like a new man.

He tried sitting up. His arms ached, but held his weight. It was his abdomen that protested too much for Harry to get any further than leaning on his elbows. It was progress, but much less than Harry wanted; than he needed.

"Merlin dammit," he pressed out through gritted teeth.

Dyra saw him getting up. The next moment she was beside his bed and stuck a pillow behind his back.

"Thank you," he said and let himself lean back into the silken pillow.

Dyra just nodded her answer, while she already grabbed the salve and began to rub it onto his stab-wound. It didn't hurt as much as it had the days before. Still, he felt the venom making a stubborn last stand in him. It would not go out of him without a fight. It made his belly somewhat numb, while simultaneously hurting in a constant, stinging way.

"Soj shaidia vudun, wud Mamaanie." Dyra said to him.

Harry just shrugged, not understanding a word of Dyra's language. She looked at him and smiled, telling him that she tried, more out of courtesy than communication.

His abs were covered in the salve when Dyra stopped to rub it in and tended to his other injuries. They almost paled compared to the stab-wound, but were significant in their own right.

Dyra very carefully removed the silken sheet from the right side of his hip and Harry smiled at her awkward way of trying to not expose him. That had to go against her nature so much, even her muscles seemed to have second thoughts.

Harry stifled a laugh and got a mock glare back from the Dryad. It was soon replaced by the frown she had when she looked at the huge bruise on his hip. She took a potion and slowly let it drop onto the blue and yellow, on some spots almost black skin and shook her head when it did exactly nothing.

Sighing she placed the potion back on the shelf and threw her arms up in defeat. She pointed at his abdomen and then back at the bruise, drawing a gestured connection between them.

"The bruise doesn't heal because of the basilisk venom?"

She pointed as he said "basilisk" and nodded. Then she used her index fingers to gesture fangs at her mouth and hissed while poking his sides with them. She wiggled her fingers and let her hands circle around his body. Harry understood her gesturing, but couldn't help himself and laughed at the ridiculous pose Dyra struck.

She tried to glare at him, but her mouth betrayed her with a slowly increasing smile