"Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step." ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
Legends and myths are Harry's reality now, except whenever he meets them, they are not what he expects. He blinks at the ghastly girl in front of him, golden hair swept across her pale face.
"Hello," Harry starts, "who are you?"
She wavers in front of him, blinks. Harry doesn't know what to make of that. Instead, he quietly bows his head, and continues on his way to Patty's tree. She follows, and he notes how her feet seem too light, too airy. She makes a point not to look at him, and Harry sighs. When he enters, Patty doesn't look up from his meal.
"How did you get that?" Harry asks, sitting down to look at the unfamiliar dishes. He pokes the strange brown glob in front of him.
"The fairies," Patty grumbles, shoveling food in as if the world were ending. Harry rips off some of the brown glob substance and chews on it as he turns to look at the girl. The sweetness sours his tongue, and Harry swallows quickly.
"I thought you weren't on stable ground with them," Harry says, cocks his head to the side when the woman gives Patty a hard stare.
"Business is business," Patty says, and tenses. Slowly, he looks up at the girl. He starts, jumps from his chair, red hair bristling. He cowers behind the chair, and Harry leans over to look at him, amused.
"What is she doing here?" Patty hisses, eyes intent on Harry.
"She followed me home," Harry says, slowly.
"You!" Patty straightens, notices her staring, and squats back down. "Are you outside of your mind? That's a banshee."
"What?"
"Just- out. Get her out of here," Patty snaps, hands slamming down on his ears. Harry sighs, but complies.
"Hello," he says, waves his hand in front of the woman's face. Her eyes never flicker from the chair Patty is behind.
"Um, it's getting late. Why don't you go home, now?" Harry says, shifting in front of her view. She blinks at Harry's chest, before turning around, drifting out of the doorway. Harry stares after her back until she's out of view, closes the door.
"Is she gone?"
"Yes."
"You're absolutely sure?"
"Yes."
Patty stands up, giving a forlorn look to his unfinished meal. "My appetite is finished. Are you happy? Just when I got some nice food too."
"What was that about?"
Patty runs a hand over his face, tired. "A banshee- far from home. I don't know what she's doing so far from Ireland," Patty says, looks away and stares at the table for a moment. Strangely enough, he looks guilty.
"Aren't banshees usually loud?" Harry prompts, and Patty's face pinches.
"Yes, and they're bad news. Stay away from them, Potter, if you want to live."
Harry grins. "If you're concerned, you just have to tell me."
"Yes," Patty drawls, "My main source to eat. Is it a wonder I don't want you to disappear?"
"Don't make it sound so degrading," Harry admonishes, and turns thoughtful. "Although, I don't see how she can make me go away. I live because of belief, don't I?"
"You are still Child of Man. When you stop stinking of them, you can go gallop in cemeteries." Patty clears his throat, reaches for his cup of water.
"A cemetery? I found her standing in the forest."
Patty chokes, pounds his chest as he coughs. Finally, in a high pitch, "Was she near here?"
"Close enough."
Patty's eyes widen comically, before he exhales. "Whenever they scream someone dies." His eyes meet Harry's.
"It's always a mortal, though."
"Then why are you so concerned?" Harry asks.
"You can't understand. Those mortals, their lineage is ancient. Their blood sings. Banshees love them. Their wails will make your ears bleed," Patty says, seriously, pacing.
"Patty," Harry says, frowning, "Did you kill one?"
"No!" Too quickly. Harry glares, suspicious.
"I may have gotten him lost in the forest a few days ago, alright? Not my fault if he can't find his way out."
Harry straightens. "What happens if he dies?"
Patty stills, and for the first time the smile is forced. "Let us not think too far ahead."
"Hey!" Patty protests when Harry runs out the door, but he does not follow.
It does not take much to find her. She looks different, stark white cobwebs cling to her feet, drag against the dirt as she paces around the clearing. Her silver-gray hair is matted, dirty. Harry catches her eyes for a millisecond. They are red, as if she has been crying for centuries. She is different, but he recognizes her, anyways. She does not falter, only quickens her pace, circling around a small patch of trees.
Careful not to upset her, he stalks into the clearing. A man lays on the dirt, bleeding and cold. A bag of gold is spilled next to him. Harry grimaces at the smell. He kneels next to the figure, and his breathing is too shallow and quiet to calm him. Harry tests his pulse.
A faint comforting beat meets his ears, and Harry sighs, relieved. It is still too slow. He can make out a faint sobbing and he starts. The air is heavy, dense, and the man starts to still underneath cold fingers.
"No," Harry states, as if it'll make a difference. Harry leans in to stare at his wound. It is gaping, bone peeking through red, and Harry closes his eyes for a moment. Faint teeth marks outline the wound. Swallows. He is not medical doctor, he knows nothing of this. But he knows enough to realize when a man is dying. Maybe it's too late. The banshee will scream, and someone will die, and anyone would be scared.
"No," Harry says again, opens his eyes. His voice stutters, and he clears his throat. "No," he enunciates more clearly, because the man cannot die, will not die, he will live. Harry rips a patch of fabric from his robe, wraps it around the man's leg in a poor attempt to staunch the bleeding.
"Live," he whispers fiercely. The sobbing has gotten louder. (Nonono, you will not die, cannot die, I won't let you. Live.) The man is cold.
Live, damn it.
The man doesn't respond, and Harry falls asleep to wails piercing the night.
"Hey, wake up." Something sharp prods at Harry's face and he starts from sleep. Sunlight filters through the skeletal branches, and Harry sits up.
"Where's the body?" Harry asks, stares at his bloody hands.
"Gone," the Leprechaun says simply, hooking a thumb over his shoulder, "Dumped the body some miles away, on the road. They'll find him."
"The banshee?"
"He didn't die, oddly enough," Patty answers, looking away. "Either way, I got the gold back."
"Why are you just hoarding gold?" Harry announces sharply, annoyed. "You don't even spend it."
"It's not my gold, dunce," Patty answers. "It's the faeries'. I guard it for them."
"Well, you're doing a piss-poor job of it," Harry says, wipes his hand on his shirt, and Patty almost looks guilty.
"Count your blessings," Patty says, "we're just lucky that Frost didn't get to the human."
"I thought you were fond of this 'Frost'?"
"Quite," Patty grins, and stops. "He's becoming a bit of an inconvenience, unfortunately."
"How so?" Harry asks, brushes the debris off his robes.
"Didn't I already say? He joined the Guardians, the goody-two shoe club that all the children like. Pathetic."
Jealous? Harry doesn't say. Instead, "Is that the only reason?"
"Do I require much else?" Patty says drily, but continues. "Frost freezes bodies. It completes the process, from alive to dead. Finalize death, if you will. If I was any later you would've woken up to a cold corpse."
Harry blinks. "How?"
"How am I supposed to know?" Patty snaps, rubbing his face exasperatedly. He straightens.
"There's still some faerie food, if you hurry." Then, a green blur, and the leprechaun is gone. Amused, Harry sits up, rubbing the dried blood on his robes. He is never hungry, but he appreciates the thought all the same.
He ambles back to Patty's tree, thoughtful, feeling the sun warm against his skin. Frost finalizes death, huh? Harry adds a new fairy tale to his mental list of figures.
The thought of cold and death and the end, unsettles and excites him with equal measure.
It's been days, and Harry is still mulling ("Obsessing," Patty says.) over the enigma and horror of Jack Frost. Aegean is never around when he comes to visit, and when he returns, Patty merely shrugs, makes an off-handed comment about freshwater mermaids. Harry decides to ignore it, for both their sakes.
What Harry doesn't understand is why someone-or maybe something would be more relevant- would want to join a squad like Guardians, if they killed bodies, or froze them. It is subject he frequents quite often with Patty, who usually offers a deadpan look, before a roll of the eyes.
"If I knew you'd be this giddy over hearing of Frost," Patty says, "I wouldn't have mentioned it."
"Quiet," Harry says, rubbing his temples in what should have been a soothing gesture. "It's just- interesting."
Patty doesn't look convinced, rather doubtful in fact, before ignoring him completely. The leprechaun purses his lips, eyes directed toward the towering dishes.
"It's your turn to clean the dishes," Patty remarks casually, inspects his nails.
Harry doesn't look away from his attention to a cobweb in the corner. "I don't actually eat much, if you haven't noticed. I only eat so you don't feel self-conscious about your weight."
Here, Patty splutters unintelligibly, before scowling. "Don't waste food, then, you idiotic prude."
"Last I checked, I got you food," Harry replies, nonplussed. He is standing now, directly below the cobweb, fixated on the dot of a spider languishing on its throne.
"I've always hated spiders," Harry mutters darkly, and blows. The gust of wind throws the spider off balance, and he falls on Harry's glasses, alert and startled. Harry closes a hand over it quickly, and when he lets his hand fall back down, the spider is gone.
"Did you eat it?" Patty starts incredulously, appetite lost.
Harry throws him a dark look, and Patty wisely shuts up. He settles back on his chair, chin in hand, stares intently at the dishes. Patty doesn't say anything, unfurls a document and pretends Harry is not in the room.
The first shift creates a loud noise, starting Patty out of his bored drawl.
The second Push sends the first plate flying out the window, where it shatters against a tree. The look Patty sends Harry is not appealing, to say the least.
"What did you do?" Narrow eyes.
"Quiet," Harry says, and he is surprised when Patty actually listens, drops his quill, turning his attention to the dishes. Pressure and anxiousness sends the next two plates to the floor. Patty's head swivels to stare, before looking up slowly. Harry clears his throat.
It takes a few more moments, but Harry concentrates, and Pushes, and eventually the plates arrange themselves in some lazy manner of organization in the air. Levitation. The thought steals a few breaths from Harry.
"Well?" Patty prompts. The intrusion almost breaks Harry's hold.
"What."
"What now? Are they clean?"
Harry forces himself to calm down before he sends the dishware to the leprechaun's head.
"OW!"
Harry fails.
Harry takes careful steps, slowly. It has been a long time since he has been in the presence of humans, and he is still nervous. They shoot him odd looks, some amused, some pleased, and some confused, but ignore him, and that was good enough for Harry.
They lost all the plates. The cups too. And the mugs. Harry sighs, curses himself for his control, or rather lack of. He doesn't understand how but he understands the why. Setting his shoulders, he leaves the shop with less gold coins than he enters with.
Strangely enough, all the new silverware fits in his pocket, and Harry does not question it.
It has started to snow. Harry falters, holds up a pale hand to catch a fluttering snowflake. He doesn't think he's ever seen snow before. Except he remembers what it looks like, so that can't be true. Furrowing his brows, he watches the snow melt in his hand.
It is strange. This cold.
Harry starts at the sound of laughter, and warmth, and turns his head to catch a group of kids throwing snow balls among each other. They smile and grin, and Harry supposes it's an infectious disease, because he smiles too. Before they notice, he continues on his way.
He is a few ways away when the snow ball strikes him in the back. He flinches, startled.
"Jack!" Someone whines, although they sound amused, "He doesn't count!" Some giggles.
Harry straightens when he hears the soft padding of feet trail after him. He turns around to meet warm brown eyes and a shy smile.
"Sorry mister!" The boy says, "My friend's not very smart at his hand-eye coordination."
"Hey! I'm perfectly capable!" Someone protests, and Harry finds himself looking up to silver hair and bright eyes. They widen when Harry meets his gaze. The boy starts too.
Harry blinks.
"Jack," the boy whispers, "I think he can see you."
Harry narrows his eyes. "Jack…Frost?"
"Present," Jack quips, although he looks reserved.
Harry looks over the wooden staff, youthful face, bright eyes, and silver hair. He does not know if the drop in his stomach in disappointment or relief.
"You don't look menacing," Harry says, disappointed.
Frost contemplates over the compliment.
A/N: Warning: This might be a little long. Thanks to anyone who actually reads.
1.) It has come to my attention that some people are rather discouraged by helpful critique and feedback. I realized this when an author called me something akin to a mean grammar officer, which is nothing short of amusing, when I commented on her lack of common grammatical sense and suggested a beta-reader. Even I had to fix a few things in Ch.1 in shame and neglect once I checked again. I just wanted you, my readers, to know that I am not against helpful comments that point out my faults. In fact, I encourage it entirely. Even flames, if it makes you feel better.
2.) I have decided that this will not be Jack/Harry. Sorry to all the disappointed readers! But, not to worry, I have another Jack/Harry story in the making, so watch out for that.
As always, thanks for reading. Reviews would be adored! :).