I, London Man, did NOT write this story. This was written by Frosty. I am just hosting it because EF was going to cancel their account. EF allowed me to have them on my site so people can read or reread them if they wanted.

I did NOT steal this story. Also, I want to thank Frosty for letting my host their stories.

Chapter 38: Flight

Harry Potter and the Setting Sun

Disclaimer: HarryPotter by J.K. Rowling, the Twilight Saga by Stephanie Meyer and all related materials belong to their respective owners. This is non-profit fanfiction.

Warning: This story contains slash.

Chapter Thirty-Seven – Flight

The scenery passed by so quickly that Harry could barely make any of it out. Cradled in the protective embrace of his vampiric husband, he was rushed through the pouring rain away from the Burrow and towards where the rental car was parked.

Just as Edward cradled Harry against his chest, Harry cradled his broken wrist against his own. The pain was severe, but nothing he couldn't handle. He'd suffered far worse, after all.

The human struggled to look at his surroundings as it raced by. He could tell that they were passing by trees, but everything blurred by so quickly that he couldn't really see any of the distinct silhouettes of the foliage.

The rain stopped falling on the wizard's head as he was gently placed into the passenger seat of the car. It wasn't even a heartbeat later that Edward was in the driver's seat and turning the key in the ignition.

The vampire was excellent at masking his anxieties when the situation demanded it, but his young husband could see through such pretenses. Edward was worried, and with good reason. The wizards had made it abundantly clear that they had no intention of letting Harry go.

The pair had fled from the home of the Weasley family only moments before. It would take a few minutes for the wizards to move beyond the magical protections of the Burrow and pursue them by apparition and broomstick, so their escape must be a quick one. Apparition, fortunately, would be an ineffective means of pursuit. Attempting to apparate into a moving vehicle could have disastrous results. Even if the wizards were desperate enough to risk ending up stuck inside part of the car's frame, it was unlikely that they would risk appearing out of thin air within an arm's reach of a very angry vampire. It was far more likely that the pursuit would be by broomstick.

Harry opted to not bother Edward while he was driving. It seemed to be a far better course of action to simply let the vampire multitask. Edward needed all of his senses free in order to drive the car and watch for any sign of the wizards' pursuit.

To the human's great relief, no attack came. He strongly suspected that any attempt by the wizards to catch them by broomstick was being hampered by the storm. The weather coupled with the fact that Edward had the headlights turned off made the car almost invisible on the dark country roads the car was speeding down.

It was several long minutes before Edward calmed down enough to be able to thoroughly check on his husband without risking a serious car wreck. "Are you alright?" he asked.

"Other than the fact that the people I came to visit decided to try and hold me hostage? Yeah, I'm great," Harry muttered darkly as he stared out the window.

A cold sensation enveloped his broken wrist as the vampire reached over and wrapped a frigid hand around it. The pain that Harry had been feeling since throwing himself at the window subsided slightly. It wasn't the first time that Edward's cold body had served as an ice pack for the human, but the effect always seemed to catch him by surprise.

Harry looked over at his husband and gave him a grateful yet sad smile. "Really, I'll be okay. I'm just a little shaken is all. Of all the things I'd expected, that wasn't it. I mean, I knew there was a good chance that Voldemort was still around, but I never thought that my . . . that they'd resort to that." He stumbled towards the end of his statement when he almost referred to the group of wizards as 'his friends.' He'd doubted beforehand whether he'd still be their friend, but now he was certain that they were not his.

Edward hesitated for only a second before deciding to go ahead and tell his husband what had been eating away at him for some time. "They planned to call in the headmaster as soon as they saw you. They were resolved the moment you made your appearance to hold you captive and make you fight this war for them. I could hear it in their minds, over and over again. 'It's got to be him. He has to do it. He has to kill Voldemort for us.' It was almost like a mantra."

"You could hear them?" Harry asked in surprise.

"Most of them. I couldn't hear the thoughts of either the headmaster or Snape. The rest of them, though. Their thoughts were being broadcast loud and clear."

"Did . . . Did any of their thoughts ever tell you why?"

"Why what? Why I couldn't hear the headmaster and Snape or why they planned to make you fight?"

"Either, I guess."

"There was no reason for the first to come up. It was strange, though. It wasn't like your inner voice. I can always hear strange chattering when I'm near you, as if two people are trying to talk over one another. The end result is that everything is too muddled and distorted to make out. By comparison, the thoughts of the both the headmaster and Snape were just absent. As though they had no minds at all.

"As to the second issue, I didn't get the whole story," Edward paused a moment as something in the rearview mirror caught his attention. After he was certain it was nothing of consequence, he continued his explanation. "All I got was that the headmaster said that it had to be you and no one else. While several of them did miss and were concerned for you, most of them spent the last two years searching for you because the headmaster told them that the only way they could defeat Voldemort was to find you."

"Great. Just great," Harry muttered as he leaned back against the cold leather of his seat.

A sudden involuntary shiver reminded Edward of the fact that Harry was soaking wet, sitting in a leather seat, and was in the grip of a walking block of ice. The vampire reached forward and turned the heater on in order to give the human some relief.

"So that's all I am to them."

The way Harry spoke broke Edward's heart. The only time the immortal had ever heard the human sound so heartbroken was when Edward had broken up with him in the awful, misguided, and ultimately doomed attempt to give Harry a chance at a safe and normal life.

As awful as it made him feel, there was a part of Edward that was satisfied with this turn of events. He didn't want to be, particularly with how depressed it made his husband. The idea that Harry was now willing to cut all of his ties to his former life was darkly satisfying. But as alluring as the idea was, Edward could never bring himself to allow his lover to suffer so.

"They weren't all thinking like that. Your godfather, for instance, was far more interested in the fact that you were alive and well. As was Ronald Weasley," Edward said in an attempt to ease Harry's pain.

"Yeah, but they both seemed to like the idea of me being a prisoner."

"They're scared. They're scared that there may be nothing they can do to stop Voldemort," Edward explained.

"And that suddenly gives them the right to kidnap people?" Harry asked hotly.

"Of course not," the bronze-haired vampire replied placatingly. "I'm in no way defending what just transpired, but I would like for you to understand why it happened the way it did. Desperate people often do things that they would never do or even condone under normal circumstances."

Harry blew an angry breath out of his mouth and let his eyes slip shut. "I guess it doesn't really matter anyway. No matter what they want, this was never going to be anything more than a short visit. I would have preferred to leave things on better terms, but an end is an end."

"You should rest," Edward said softly. "I'll wake you at the first sign of trouble."

Harry wanted to refuse. He wanted to stay awake and be ready to fight and kick and scream if the situation demanded it. But he just felt so drained. And disappointed.

The teen didn't wake up until the very early hours of the next morning. He was surprised for two reasons.

First, he now had a small brace on his left wrist. It wasn't anything fancy or precise, but it was sufficient to keep him from moving his broken wrist.

The second thing that surprised him was that he wasn't in the same hotel room he'd been in the previous morning. In fact, he wasn't in the same hotel at all. The current hotel had much more in common with the roadside motels Harry had seen in the States than the palatial accommodations the Cullen family preferred to stay in. The style of the room didn't bother him, but the change in venue did leave the human with a cold feeling of dread.

Edward was on the phone when the human woke up. "Thank you, Alice. I appreciate it. But please hurry."

"What's going on?" Harry asked groggily as he sat up.

"The wizards work quickly. They weren't able to track us in the storm, so they've opted for a media blitz," the vampire said as he tossed a newspaper down on Harry's lap.

On the front page was a pair of artist sketches. One was of Harry and the other was of Edward. The images were remarkably accurate.

"I was able to return the rental car and check us out of the old hotel before we were discovered, but only just barely. A newscast announcing your 'abduction' began playing only a few minutes after I left the lobby. There is a good chance that the hotel staff has contacted the authorities. The wizards probably know my name and your alias by now," the vampire explained grimly.

Harry cursed softly as he brought his legs up to his chest. Things were going from bad to worse.

"I've been keeping a close eye on the staff at this establishment and none of them suspect anything yet. It helps that I've made damn sure none of them have seen you. But we can't stay here for long. Alice is working on our travel arrangements. A private jet will be taking us from a nearby countryside airfield to Italy. We'll be able to fly back to the States from there," Edward explained.

"But how? There's no way we can use our passports without setting off red flags."

"Actually, we won't have any difficulty once we reach Italy," Edward assured his husband.

"Why not?"

"The Volturi are going to help us."

"What?" Harry was barely able to keep himself from shouting at the mention of the infamous Italian coven.

"Carlisle has been in contact with them. They have a great deal of pull in Italy. They are old friends of Carlisle and owe us a favor for taking care of Victoria, so they have agreed to help us return to the States. Besides, they want to see the latest addition to our coven."

"Oh goody," the human mumbled. "I get to meet the largest, most powerful coven of vampires. A coven that will think of me as a walking appetizer."

"It's our best option," Edward replied in a frustrated tone.

Harry realized that the uncomfortable experience of meeting the Volturi was a small price to pay when measured against the massive problems that he had once again created for Edward. "Sorry. I just . . . This whole situation is . . ."

"I know," the vampire said quietly as he crossed the room to join Harry on the bed.

Edward stretched himself out next to Harry. The human mimicked the action a moment later. They remained next to one another in silence waiting for Alice to call. Harry was so used to the quiet that he jerked a little when the call finally came.

"Good news, I hope," Edward said as soon as he answered the call.

Harry couldn't hear what Alice was saying on the other end of the line, so he had no choice but to wait until the conversation was over to find out what the call entailed.

"The flight is all set up," Edward said as he put the phone away. "We leave here in one hour."

When they finally left their room and began the short walk to the airstrip—which really did appear to be in the middle of nowhere—Harry couldn't help but notice that there didn't appear to be any place for Edward to have dropped off the rental car.

"Edward, where did you return the car?"

"Back in London," the vampire replied as he began to haul their luggage towards the strip.

"So then how did we get here?"

"I carried you."

"You carried me?" Harry asked incredulously. "And the luggage?"

"It was an easy task. You underestimate the strength of vampires. Or else you greatly overestimate your own weight," Edward said blandly before turning to smile at his husband. "I'm joking. We took a cab. While I could have carried you and the luggage, I wouldn't risk your health by doing such a thing in the pouring rain."

"So you must be my passengers," a thickly accented French voice called out and interrupted.

Harry looked up to see an elderly looking man in a dark turtleneck waiting for them by what appeared to be the only plane at the field. The man looked very stern and stood rigidly next to a small white jet.

"Yes, we are," Edward called back. He turned to Harry and softly instructed the human to go ahead and board the plane.

Harry did as Edward told him to and walked swiftly over to the plane. The hatch had been opened to create a short set of steps into the passenger cabin. The human spared a look over his shoulder as he boarded the plane. He looked back just in time to see Edward hand the man a wad of cash.

The money was likely for keeping his mouth shut about the identities of his passengers, Harry realized.