Coast of Britain, AD 200
Harry glanced around at the flickering shadows in the dark woods, gingerly picking his way in the fading twilight. Movement out of the corner of his eye, somewhere to the right, and the screeching of an owl disturbed the unearthly silence. Harry turned his head back around, to be hit in the face with a mouthful of sour yellow leaves.
On he trudged, wet white and purple linen dripping on the downy dirt floor. The beat of a distant drum began as Harry spun around in alarm. The trees came alive as Harry glimpsed flickering fires deep in their depths. A haunting cry in a deep female voice split the dusk. Footsteps pounded as Harry began to break into a slow run.
The footsteps drew nearer. A young man about Harry's fourteen years old burst onto the dimly lighten path, his torch lighting his face. His bare feet were caked with dark, dusty dirt, and his toenails were cracked. His skin was white, his hair was so pale it glowed like a fluorescent icicle, and his teeth were spread in a chillingly bone smile. The only color was brown mud, pink lips, and stormy eyes.
The pale stranger uttered a lyrical word utterly foreign to Harry's Roman tongue. When Harry merely stared quizzically, he repeated it anxiously, his manic grin dying. Harry asked, attempting to stop the other's furious pointing, "Who are you?"
Eyes widening in horror, the stranger backed away, whispering one understandable word repeatedly, "Roman. Roman."
Harry tried to approach him, not understanding his panic, when a dull whiz by Harry's left ear alerted him to a throwing axe, with an intricate blade of Celtic swirls, imbedded in an oak tree trunk. Throwing himself immediately to the ground, Harry attempted to ascertain his foe. However, he could see no one; there was merely the same unnerving still.
The tranquility was disturbed when the stranger bit his lip, decidedly nodded his head, reached down and grabbed Harry's clean, strong hand in his own dirty one, and started running.
**********
Roman fort in Britannia, AD 210
Harry's eyes snapped open as he lay panting on his stomach, head buried in his goose pillow. The morning sun shone softly through open-air windows as a knock on the heavy wooden door brought him abruptly to his feet, rubbing his hair and wincing as the cool British air hit his bare feet.
Gingerly clasping the icy metal of the door pull, he was greeted by the red hair and splattered freckles of his top commander Ronald Weasley.
Raising his eyes from the heated marble floor, where they had been lowered in deference to the nude form of the Emperor' son and governor/military commander of Britannia, Ron spoke in a lowered yet urgent voice after a stiff salute which was lazily returned. "Prince Harry sir, there's been a bit of a problem."
Attempting to appear alert, Harry asked in a concerned voice, "What is it, Lieutenant Weasley?"
Wincing, Ron replied, "Last night sir, the boys and I were just out for a bit of fun, you know, with some of those fiery native women." Harry's face began to take on a severe cast. "Well sir, I suppose we ventured a bit too far into the woods in pursuit of our er... quest. We were chasing this thing, black snaky locks, skin like you wouldn't believe, and these purple eyes..."
Harry merely stared at Ron, waiting.
"Well we started hearing some sort of flute, haunting, and the sound just kept echoing, echoing, echoing as we were running in those woods. Then this sort of green mist started pouring in from all directions. It swirled around Neville, Seamus, Dean and me. Then the sound of the flute turned to cackling. We kept seeing the black-haired wench everywhere, but none of us could move. The weird mist formed a skull, sir!" Ron's eyes widened in fear. "I've never been so scared in my life."
Harry leaned heavily against the doorframe.
"We were all calling out, hysterical, trying to understand what was going on. The girl completely disappeared for a moment, and everything was still and quiet. For a moment I though that everything was over. But then, this guy appeared, with the girl cowering behind him. He was glowing, sir! Glowing. His hair and his skin were bright white, and we see the flute in his hand. It was he who was playing it!"
"He asked us, straight out, what we were doing, telling us to leave the girl alone, and asking us to go," said Ron. "I don't know why we didn't, I'm certainly not proud of it, but we stayed. Seamus drew his sword, so I did, too, and Neville and Dean did as well. He whispered something in their tongue, telling her to run I suppose. She jumped off like a sprite, and none of us even made a move to catch her. It was like we were bewitched. Just standing there, staring. Then the spell was broken, and we started advancing on him. He didn't sweat a drop though, just stood and glared. He didn't have a weapon."
"I got up to him and drew my sword, pointing it at him. We all did. He went quietly enough, still managing to remain proud. As we were tying him up though, he warned us. Said the Celts would revolt if we took him. We didn't believe him, naturally."
"Where is he, Ron?" Harry asked anxiously, raising his brilliant emerald eyes to Ron's anguished face.
"In the dungeon, your highness," said Ron with a gulp. "Manacled to the wall after we whipped him a couple of times."
Cursing, Harry ran back into his room, hastily throwing on a nondescript toga. He pushed past Ron, running down the hall as his feet echoed ominously.
He heard Ron pounding after him, and his desperate call. "That's not all, sir. When we checked on him this morning, he was still unconscious, so we looked him over a bit. Tattooed on his left upper arm was one of those black leaf-chains, with some snakes. It's the tattoo of the druids!"
Cursing again, Harry sped up, passing astonished matrons and slaves as he skidded around corners. However, calls of "Well I never!" did not affect him, for he was intent on the perplexing problem before him. His fort was still recovering from the last attack by a Celtic tribe, and his predecessor had met an untimely end on the battlefield of that conflict. The fact was, Harry could not, could not, withstand another attack. As the emperor's fifth son, all revered him, but he had yet, he felt, to earn the respect of any but the members of his own legion. He couldn't lead the men yet. The Roman army was technically better, but try telling that to them when there was a shrieking wild horde in front of them that was unafraid of death. Additionally, the tribes, so easily offended by damage to one of their own, would be incensed as a whole at an attack on a druid. Worship of the Great Mother was the one thing that united them.
Sliding, Harry reached the door to the prison chamber. Hastily fetching the key from a ring on the wall, (he needed to speak to Ron about the necessity of security) Harry turned a click, and opened to find the pale, mysterious young man opening his vaguely familiar eyes with a wince.
**********
Hogwarts
"I have one last minute announcement to make," Professor Dumbledore added with a smile at the Halloween feast. "Some of you may remember Draco Malfoy, who left Hogwarts in favor of Beauxbatons when his family moved to France. After his err... legal guardians changed from his parents to solely his aunt, who resides in England, I have the pleasure of announcing that Mr. Malfoy will be now be attending Hogwarts once more. In fact, he should be here in approximately five minutes. With that said, let the feast begin!" Dumbledore clapped his hands, and candy of all shapes and sizes appeared, though it remained untouched.
Harry stared across the table at Hermione in shock, who shrugged her shoulders uncertainly back. Beside Harry, Ron muttered, "Please let them have confused Halloween and Pull A Giant Prank on Ron Day. Please. Please." The Gryffindor table looked stony and resigned, the Hufflepuffs looked terrified, the Ravenclaws set down their books and began all intelligent people's favorite topic of conversation-gossip, and the Slytherins looked joyful.
Liz Engstrum, a first year, tugged at Ron's sleeve and asked, "Who's Draco Malfoy?"
Ron turned to the confused girl and said with a glum expression, "There aren't words."
Around the Great Hall, second and first years looked extremely puzzled.
Hermione took pity on Liz and added, "He was the ringleader of the Slytherin gang that is in seventh year now. Do you know whom I'm talking about?" Liz nodded, scared. "Harry and Malfoy had a big rivalry." Harry didn't hear his name mentioned, just transferred his stare to a water pitcher.
With barely a murmur, the front door swung open, and in walked Draco Malfoy. Harry raised his dark head and green eyes, searching him out. His form had become even more impossibly thin, almost skeletal with robes hanging obscenely from his prominent collarbones, and he was taller and paler. He looked tired.
Malfoy made eye contact with Harry briefly, smiled sardonically, slowly glided to the cleared place at the Slytherin table next to Pansy, and began eating. In all, it was rather non-dramatic. Harry thought Snape, McGonagall, and Dumbledore looked somewhat disappointed.
Liz began to murmur, "He's gorgeous," but stopped when Ron glared sharply at her, and hissed, "Traitor!"
Malfoy didn't talk to anyone the rest of the evening.
**********
Midnight found Harry throwing on his invisibility cloak and gingerly creeping into the dark hallway. A few hours ago, he had received a note delivered by an eagle owl who had made a rather unsavory swipe at his head with a taloned leg. The note, scrawled in an elegant hand, had read:
Dear Potter,
So, how have you been? Did you miss me during my extensive vacation? I'll bet that there was no one to spice up your life anymore. (Unless that Weasel girl turned into the fiery temptress I always knew that red hair promised.)
I should undoubtedly be proceeding to read some exceptionally long text now. I don't know what possessed me to owl you; I suppose I was bored. I'll see you in the next class that Gryffindorks and Slytherins have the pleasure of sharing. By the way Potter-looking good.
If you can't figure out who sent this, you're even dumber than I thought that you were.
Harry had reread the letter for a fourth time, then a fifth time. Why was Malfoy writing to him? It was not as if they were friends. Harry did not even want to contemplate what "Potter-looking good" was supposed to mean. It was just another game to throw him off-guard. Of course, in a typical Malfoy manner, the letter managed to insult him or his house in just about every sentence. Once again, what did "looking good" mean?
Harry had tried to sleep for hours, but he could not. All he could think about was Malfoy's annoying smirk, though the patented mouth-twist had not yet reared its sinister challenge this year, and why the Hell Malfoy looked so thin and tired. Eventually, Harry had decided to get up, and find Malfoy, even if he had to venture into the Slytherin Dungeons to do so. He couldn't sleep, damnit!
Harry glanced around at the flickering shadows in the dark woods, gingerly picking his way in the fading twilight. Movement out of the corner of his eye, somewhere to the right, and the screeching of an owl disturbed the unearthly silence. Harry turned his head back around, to be hit in the face with a mouthful of sour yellow leaves.
On he trudged, wet white and purple linen dripping on the downy dirt floor. The beat of a distant drum began as Harry spun around in alarm. The trees came alive as Harry glimpsed flickering fires deep in their depths. A haunting cry in a deep female voice split the dusk. Footsteps pounded as Harry began to break into a slow run.
The footsteps drew nearer. A young man about Harry's fourteen years old burst onto the dimly lighten path, his torch lighting his face. His bare feet were caked with dark, dusty dirt, and his toenails were cracked. His skin was white, his hair was so pale it glowed like a fluorescent icicle, and his teeth were spread in a chillingly bone smile. The only color was brown mud, pink lips, and stormy eyes.
The pale stranger uttered a lyrical word utterly foreign to Harry's Roman tongue. When Harry merely stared quizzically, he repeated it anxiously, his manic grin dying. Harry asked, attempting to stop the other's furious pointing, "Who are you?"
Eyes widening in horror, the stranger backed away, whispering one understandable word repeatedly, "Roman. Roman."
Harry tried to approach him, not understanding his panic, when a dull whiz by Harry's left ear alerted him to a throwing axe, with an intricate blade of Celtic swirls, imbedded in an oak tree trunk. Throwing himself immediately to the ground, Harry attempted to ascertain his foe. However, he could see no one; there was merely the same unnerving still.
The tranquility was disturbed when the stranger bit his lip, decidedly nodded his head, reached down and grabbed Harry's clean, strong hand in his own dirty one, and started running.
**********
Roman fort in Britannia, AD 210
Harry's eyes snapped open as he lay panting on his stomach, head buried in his goose pillow. The morning sun shone softly through open-air windows as a knock on the heavy wooden door brought him abruptly to his feet, rubbing his hair and wincing as the cool British air hit his bare feet.
Gingerly clasping the icy metal of the door pull, he was greeted by the red hair and splattered freckles of his top commander Ronald Weasley.
Raising his eyes from the heated marble floor, where they had been lowered in deference to the nude form of the Emperor' son and governor/military commander of Britannia, Ron spoke in a lowered yet urgent voice after a stiff salute which was lazily returned. "Prince Harry sir, there's been a bit of a problem."
Attempting to appear alert, Harry asked in a concerned voice, "What is it, Lieutenant Weasley?"
Wincing, Ron replied, "Last night sir, the boys and I were just out for a bit of fun, you know, with some of those fiery native women." Harry's face began to take on a severe cast. "Well sir, I suppose we ventured a bit too far into the woods in pursuit of our er... quest. We were chasing this thing, black snaky locks, skin like you wouldn't believe, and these purple eyes..."
Harry merely stared at Ron, waiting.
"Well we started hearing some sort of flute, haunting, and the sound just kept echoing, echoing, echoing as we were running in those woods. Then this sort of green mist started pouring in from all directions. It swirled around Neville, Seamus, Dean and me. Then the sound of the flute turned to cackling. We kept seeing the black-haired wench everywhere, but none of us could move. The weird mist formed a skull, sir!" Ron's eyes widened in fear. "I've never been so scared in my life."
Harry leaned heavily against the doorframe.
"We were all calling out, hysterical, trying to understand what was going on. The girl completely disappeared for a moment, and everything was still and quiet. For a moment I though that everything was over. But then, this guy appeared, with the girl cowering behind him. He was glowing, sir! Glowing. His hair and his skin were bright white, and we see the flute in his hand. It was he who was playing it!"
"He asked us, straight out, what we were doing, telling us to leave the girl alone, and asking us to go," said Ron. "I don't know why we didn't, I'm certainly not proud of it, but we stayed. Seamus drew his sword, so I did, too, and Neville and Dean did as well. He whispered something in their tongue, telling her to run I suppose. She jumped off like a sprite, and none of us even made a move to catch her. It was like we were bewitched. Just standing there, staring. Then the spell was broken, and we started advancing on him. He didn't sweat a drop though, just stood and glared. He didn't have a weapon."
"I got up to him and drew my sword, pointing it at him. We all did. He went quietly enough, still managing to remain proud. As we were tying him up though, he warned us. Said the Celts would revolt if we took him. We didn't believe him, naturally."
"Where is he, Ron?" Harry asked anxiously, raising his brilliant emerald eyes to Ron's anguished face.
"In the dungeon, your highness," said Ron with a gulp. "Manacled to the wall after we whipped him a couple of times."
Cursing, Harry ran back into his room, hastily throwing on a nondescript toga. He pushed past Ron, running down the hall as his feet echoed ominously.
He heard Ron pounding after him, and his desperate call. "That's not all, sir. When we checked on him this morning, he was still unconscious, so we looked him over a bit. Tattooed on his left upper arm was one of those black leaf-chains, with some snakes. It's the tattoo of the druids!"
Cursing again, Harry sped up, passing astonished matrons and slaves as he skidded around corners. However, calls of "Well I never!" did not affect him, for he was intent on the perplexing problem before him. His fort was still recovering from the last attack by a Celtic tribe, and his predecessor had met an untimely end on the battlefield of that conflict. The fact was, Harry could not, could not, withstand another attack. As the emperor's fifth son, all revered him, but he had yet, he felt, to earn the respect of any but the members of his own legion. He couldn't lead the men yet. The Roman army was technically better, but try telling that to them when there was a shrieking wild horde in front of them that was unafraid of death. Additionally, the tribes, so easily offended by damage to one of their own, would be incensed as a whole at an attack on a druid. Worship of the Great Mother was the one thing that united them.
Sliding, Harry reached the door to the prison chamber. Hastily fetching the key from a ring on the wall, (he needed to speak to Ron about the necessity of security) Harry turned a click, and opened to find the pale, mysterious young man opening his vaguely familiar eyes with a wince.
**********
Hogwarts
"I have one last minute announcement to make," Professor Dumbledore added with a smile at the Halloween feast. "Some of you may remember Draco Malfoy, who left Hogwarts in favor of Beauxbatons when his family moved to France. After his err... legal guardians changed from his parents to solely his aunt, who resides in England, I have the pleasure of announcing that Mr. Malfoy will be now be attending Hogwarts once more. In fact, he should be here in approximately five minutes. With that said, let the feast begin!" Dumbledore clapped his hands, and candy of all shapes and sizes appeared, though it remained untouched.
Harry stared across the table at Hermione in shock, who shrugged her shoulders uncertainly back. Beside Harry, Ron muttered, "Please let them have confused Halloween and Pull A Giant Prank on Ron Day. Please. Please." The Gryffindor table looked stony and resigned, the Hufflepuffs looked terrified, the Ravenclaws set down their books and began all intelligent people's favorite topic of conversation-gossip, and the Slytherins looked joyful.
Liz Engstrum, a first year, tugged at Ron's sleeve and asked, "Who's Draco Malfoy?"
Ron turned to the confused girl and said with a glum expression, "There aren't words."
Around the Great Hall, second and first years looked extremely puzzled.
Hermione took pity on Liz and added, "He was the ringleader of the Slytherin gang that is in seventh year now. Do you know whom I'm talking about?" Liz nodded, scared. "Harry and Malfoy had a big rivalry." Harry didn't hear his name mentioned, just transferred his stare to a water pitcher.
With barely a murmur, the front door swung open, and in walked Draco Malfoy. Harry raised his dark head and green eyes, searching him out. His form had become even more impossibly thin, almost skeletal with robes hanging obscenely from his prominent collarbones, and he was taller and paler. He looked tired.
Malfoy made eye contact with Harry briefly, smiled sardonically, slowly glided to the cleared place at the Slytherin table next to Pansy, and began eating. In all, it was rather non-dramatic. Harry thought Snape, McGonagall, and Dumbledore looked somewhat disappointed.
Liz began to murmur, "He's gorgeous," but stopped when Ron glared sharply at her, and hissed, "Traitor!"
Malfoy didn't talk to anyone the rest of the evening.
**********
Midnight found Harry throwing on his invisibility cloak and gingerly creeping into the dark hallway. A few hours ago, he had received a note delivered by an eagle owl who had made a rather unsavory swipe at his head with a taloned leg. The note, scrawled in an elegant hand, had read:
Dear Potter,
So, how have you been? Did you miss me during my extensive vacation? I'll bet that there was no one to spice up your life anymore. (Unless that Weasel girl turned into the fiery temptress I always knew that red hair promised.)
I should undoubtedly be proceeding to read some exceptionally long text now. I don't know what possessed me to owl you; I suppose I was bored. I'll see you in the next class that Gryffindorks and Slytherins have the pleasure of sharing. By the way Potter-looking good.
If you can't figure out who sent this, you're even dumber than I thought that you were.
Harry had reread the letter for a fourth time, then a fifth time. Why was Malfoy writing to him? It was not as if they were friends. Harry did not even want to contemplate what "Potter-looking good" was supposed to mean. It was just another game to throw him off-guard. Of course, in a typical Malfoy manner, the letter managed to insult him or his house in just about every sentence. Once again, what did "looking good" mean?
Harry had tried to sleep for hours, but he could not. All he could think about was Malfoy's annoying smirk, though the patented mouth-twist had not yet reared its sinister challenge this year, and why the Hell Malfoy looked so thin and tired. Eventually, Harry had decided to get up, and find Malfoy, even if he had to venture into the Slytherin Dungeons to do so. He couldn't sleep, damnit!