Thanks for staying with me this whole time…we have a little ways to go…well, more than a ways. I think I'll write only two more chapters and I end up with six. Hehehe.

Chapter 7 Separation

The night was colder than most and Harry knew almost immediately that something was amiss. Lupin saw it too. The forest was far too quiet than it usually was, and the hairs on the back of Harry's neck stood on end. The wind had picked up dramatically and the snow came down in the start of a blizzard.

"Dementors. It has to be." He said to the three of them. "Don't you feel it?"

Lupin paced the snow nervously. "This is not good. If they are here they are not followers of the Ministry any longer. We must move quickly!"

"Sir, we need to Disappearate!" Hermione hollered as he ran ahead.

"It's too dangerous if the Death Eaters are near!"

Ginny didn't understand. All she knew that as they ran, it got colder and colder. Harry in front of her began slowing down, and she suddenly figured out why.

"Ahh!" Harry collapsed on the snow and held his head in his hands, tormented with pain.

Lupin halted. "Harry, what is it! Is it him? Did it not work?"

Hermione held Ginny back and Ron pulled Harry up to a sitting position. Harry couldn't find the words to tell them while his mind was clouded in panic and agony. The Dementors were forcing him to hear his parent's voices screaming, and nothing could stop it.

"Run!" he managed to shout. "Leave me and run!"

"What? Harry-"

"RUN!"

They heard a commotion far east and stood petrified. Giants came barreling down the mountain slopes and Dementors floated in front. Explosions of trees and hollers echoed the forest with the voices of Death Eaters heckling.

"Oh, no!" Hermione gasped.

Lupin wasted no time. In one violent sweep he tore Harry from the ground and bolted north, screaming for the others to follow. He knew where he was going. Far ahead he saw an escape route chugging around the mountain covered in snow. A train.

"Don't tell me we're going on that!" Ron gasped from behind.

"Hurry up!"

Harry now regained his footing and had gotten the same idea as Lupin. The train was liberation for them now. Their lives relied on a Muggle train bound for nowhere but freedom. The giants were slow in the forest due to their size. It took longer for the large trees to be demolished aside, but the Dementors simply glided over the foliage. Fortunately, the heavy winds and falling snow delayed them. It was getting colder by the minute.

The train was moving quickly as the four of them ran along side of it, panting painfully. Lupin pulled Ginny toward him and shouted over the noise, "Get up on the platform and pull yourself onto the roof!"

Harry watched as she obeyed and hoped she would make it. She did, and he breathed again. Lupin did the same for Ron and Hermione, and then dragged Harry in front of him. "You know what to do!"

Harry nodded and lunged toward the locomotive. Hands above him reached out to bring him up, and he held out his arm. Lupin followed up with ease, and the four of them sat huddled freezing on the top of the train. Harry was wet and cold, and he couldn't feel his fingers. The others didn't look well at all either. The important thing, he knew, was that they were safe now. That's all that mattered.

Ginny glanced into his eyes for a fleeting moment, and Harry knew something was wrong. The train turned a corner alarmingly fast, and the car jarred violently. At once Harry felt his hold slip and he found himself sliding off the side and into open air. He heard screaming above him as Ginny's hands reached to grab his.

"Pull me up!" he screamed. "Hurry!"

Hermione balanced herself next to Ginny and took hold of his free hand and together they pulled, but Harry noticed that they too were sliding. Lupin and Ron were trying to yank them backward. If he didn't do something the girls would fall like him.

"I can't hold on!" Hermione screamed as the tears froze on her face, which Harry could barely see through the blowing snow. "I can't feel my hands!"

"Yes we can!" Ginny rebuked. "Try and pull yourself up!"

But he couldn't, he already tried and it dragged them down. Harry's mind reeled in panic. The wind howled in his ears and the chugging of the train drowned his thoughts. What was he going to do? He opened his eyes again and saw a familiar object-a mountain that seemed so familiar. Wait…Harry gasped. He knew where he was!

Harry glanced up at the girls and squeezed their hands. "Let me go!"

"What!" They exclaimed in unison.

"Trust me, let me drop. Let go!"

Ginny clenched tighter in fear. "Harry, no! We can do it!"

"You'll slide off! Just let go, Gin. I need you to let go. Trust me!"

Harry felt Hermione loosen her grip and finally release him. He couldn't see the expression on her face as he dangled more dangerously off the edge.

"Hermione, what are you doing!" Ginny exclaimed. "Grab him! Don't let him die!"

"I won't, Gin!" He hollered. A pain began to numb his arm. "Ginny, look at me, I'll be fine, just let go! Let go!"

"No!"

"Do it now! NOW!"

Ginny clenched her eyes shut and gave a shriek of agony before making her decision. With pain in her heart, she released Harry to the wind and watched as his body fell and disappeared into the blowing snow.

Harry felt as if he were flying blindly as the fell, kicking off the train to make sure he wouldn't collide into it. He didn't know where he would land, and from the feel of it, the locomotive had been over a bridge. Harry made contact with the ground alarmingly hard, and force of it knocked him out for a short while. He awoke minutes later groggy and frozen. It took him a matter of time to realize that he had landed on the shore of a large creek, and his chest had broken through the ice into the water. Harry unstuck his hair from the ice and fell onto the snowy ground, unable to comprehend both his luck and his misfortune. He had saved them and managed to not land in the middle of the creek where he most likely would have drowned, but he had also lost them. He was alone again.

Ginny had stared at the place where Harry had been moments before and couldn't believe what she had done. Now because of her he could have died. He could be dead now or hunted by the Death Eaters, only because she had let him go.

Hermione pulled her backward and forced her into an embrace, but she tore away from her.

"You let him go first! You didn't object to him, you just let go!"

Hermione covered her face in shame and wept in her cloak. "I trusted him!"

Ron gathered her into his arms and comforted her, and Ginny felt betrayed. He was comforting the person who let Harry go without hesitation. She felt nothing now but alienation and grief. Looking at the defeated faces of Ron and Lupin, she knew she wasn't alone.

Harry stumbled through the snow and forest with anticipation. She had to be there now. She could help him get back and meet up with Lupin and the rest in no time. He came upon the clearing in the woods as the blizzard began to subside and felt his heart turn to stone in a matter of seconds. The moon showed the old hut in ruins, burnt down and decayed. The animals were frozen and rotted, strewn about the yard. Harry couldn't fathom it.

"Madam Deirdre!" he screamed. "Are you there? Are you there? It's Harry!"

He shoved aside logs and burnt wood, scavenging for any signs of life. Any at all. He found her cauldron under the bricks of the chimney, her herbs under the curtains, her body slumped under the broken table. Harry stared at her white frizzy hair blow faintly in the wind, and did nothing. He himself felt dramatically dead and all he wanted to do now was to sleep and sleep, and never wake again.

The morning sun gleamed down at Harry as he fitfully awoke. He heard nothing but snow falling from trees. Unwillingly he sat up and stared around the ruins, not thinking about anything in particular. All he knew was that he was cold and grieved. Harry couldn't think of anything else to do but to keep going. As much as he wanted to cry and flee from everything, he had to move on. He had to. As if he had seen nothing, Harry rose to his feet and stepped out of the ruins, not even looking back to see if it had only been a dream.

Lupin had forced the three of them off the train when the first light hit. They leapt into snowdrifts and laid low for the remaining day, keeping a keen eye out for danger. Ginny didn't care if a Death Eater was right behind them, all she was scouting for was Harry. Where had he gone? It seemed as if he knew what to do, and she hoped he did, because she had no idea at all. Hermione had avoided her the entire morning and stayed in front with Lupin. Ron, on the other hand, kept glancing back at his sister from time to time to make himself certain that she had not gone missing.

"What did he tell you, Ginny? When it happened."

"He just said that I had to trust him and let him go. He didn't say anything else, but that he didn't want us to be pulled off with him."

"He'll be fine. He's Harry." Ron gave her a comforting hug and pushed her at a faster pace. They had miles to go.

Harry tried hard to find their tracks. They had all developed secret symbols for themselves if they had gone astray. Every fifty trees Harry made an abstract sketch of a stag and looked for the insignia of the group. He never saw any that day. With his stomach rumbling for food he could only give it meager meals of vegetation that had poked itself out of the ground, ready for late spring. Harry was cold, hungry and delirious. Twice he had collapsed and thought he heard the voices of his friends talking to him about Quidditch and school exams—nothing of what he thought was important at the moment. He felt like something else was taking charge of his body and was doing all the walking for him. He spent the night sleeping under a makeshift hut and curled into himself waiting miserably for dawn to come again.

It wasn't until nearly noon the next day that he found the circle carved in the tree. It was the thirty-second from his fifty, and Harry's mind suddenly awoke. He followed the patterns to the north and felt like skipping. Finally they would meet! For the next hour he scrambled over logs and roots of trees to reach them. It had to be only another ten minute walk….five minutes…twenty seconds. Harry's body couldn't handle it any longer, and he saw the world get dark before crumbling in his place.

Hermione hunted the forest for vegetation and food that could be found. Their supplies were running low, and all she could think about was how Harry was surviving. Was he dying of hunger or feasting on food? Lupin ordered her to travel south so that she wouldn't get lost. The circle was carved in the path they made before. Hermione hoped that Ginny wouldn't be angry at her for much longer since now she was tired of it. Harry had insisted that they let go, so she did. Didn't Ginny realize that all of them would have suffered the same fate if Harry had not sacrificed himself. She managed to find little food at all besides half-frozen fruit and roots. The winter was the worst time to fight the Death Eaters. Hermione stumbled down a small incline to gather what she thought was a dead animal. It was black and the bushes blocked her view. When she came closer, her heart stopped cold in shock. It wasn't an animal. It was a person! Cautiously, she reached down to turn him over to see his face, and when she did, a scream escaped from her mouth before she could stop it.

Ron and Lupin froze at what they were doing and paused to listen. They had heard her.

"Let's go, she might be in trouble," said Lupin to Ginny and Ron, grabbing their supplies and making a beeline to the source of the noise. Ron ran faster than the two of them and caught sight of Hermione scrambling toward him with tears running down her face.

"It's him! It's him, hurry!"

Ron gripped her arms and shook her roughly. "Who are you talking about?"

Lupin and Ginny came up from behind, and Hermione gasped for breath. "Him…Harry! It's Harry!"

Lupin's eyes rounded in fear and he took hold of her arm. "Where?"

Hermione pointed and the three ran in the direction she had indicted. Ginny was the first to reach it, and when she saw him lying on his back, pale as death, she panicked.

"Harry, Harry wake up!" she held his head and shook him gently. Her voice wavered threateningly as she urged him more. "Wake up."

Lupin gently shoved her aside and felt for a pulse at his neck. "He's alive, just weak. Get him some food from our supplies, Hermione. Something soft."

She fumbled for the sack and took out a banana and crackers while Ron got the water ready.

"Wait," Lupin said softly. "I can't wake him now. Not with our enemies so close, they will detect us."

"Sir, we don't have time!" Ron interjected. "Do it now and then we'll head in another direction."

Lupin thought for another minute or so before coming to a decision. "Enervate!" At once Harry stirred and moaned softly. Hermione broke open the banana and tore off a small piece.

"Here, Harry, eat." His senses slowly kicked in as he smelled the food near his mouth. Something spoke, but he didn't care whether or not they were his enemies, or what they had said. All that he knew was that he had food. He ate it gladly but refused to open his eyes.

Lupin left him in the care of Hermione and dug through a separate sack near Ron and managed to find a small draught wrapped in a soft case.

"Hermione, have him drink this. It will give him energy."

Harry felt something wet slide down his throat and felt himself choke, but oddly enough, his body began functioning again. He saw that Hermione was holding him up so he wouldn't smother himself, and the others were standing around him anxiously.

"Finally I found you." He whispered.

"Actually, we found you. You're lucky Hermione saw you when she did, Harry," said Lupin. "I'm sorry, but our rations are low and we have to keep going. Can you handle it?"

"Sure," Harry muttered as he stood shakily on his feet. Hermione gave him the fruit and crackers, and took the water from Ron. "Can't wait."

"Where did you go, Harry?" Ginny asked. "I was afraid you didn't have a plan."

"Madam Deirdre. I was going to her." Harry tried to keep his voice steady while replying, but a tremor of hatred came out. "They killed her and destroyed her home. Nothing is left."

The group was silent for a moment before Lupin cleared his throat. "Come, we have a lot of walking to cover."