'I think something's following us.' Berg paused in his scramble up from the cargo harness, peering back behind them. Gellert twisted around in his seat and squinted behind them. It was difficult to tell because snow billowed thickly around them, swirling and eddying with each massive wing beat.
There was a dark patch that seemed unusually constant for the snowstorm but he couldn't be certain that it was following them. Or even that it was something more than a strange eddy caused by their passage.
'Perhaps we should go lower, see if the air gets any clearer.' Gellert suggested. With ease equal to Berg's he clambered up the shifting, feathery neck and relayed their idea into the tufted ears of the bird. The wings stopped beating, fanning out to either side of them to begin a slow descent.
It was perhaps the biggest tell that something was indeed following them when not only did the dark patch fail to disappear, but it also dipped to follow them.
'Drop?' Berg suggested, startlingly close to Gellert's ear. He'd climbed up the bird's neck behind him.
'Yes. Let's see if we can lose it.'
Star must have heard them because a moment later the world pitched on its axis. The massive wings pulled arrow-like against their side and they dove like a falling star. Wind whistled in their ears, the snow battered their exposed faces and stripped away their warming charms in moments. Gellert's stomach dropped out from under him and he was driven hard into his seat as the massive wings snapped open again with an air shaking boom and their sudden decent pulled up to level again, snowy treetops skimming by only feet below them. Both boys listened intently, a moment later a much fainter but distinctively different boom of compressed air beneath wings.
'It's a beast, leathery wings.' Gellert was more than familiar with that sound from Hermione's tendency to imitate lightning strikes when riding Katana.
'Thestral?'
'Probably.' He replied, because Katana would have overtaken them in moments if it really was him.
'What should we do?' Berg asked. Gellert had barely taken breath to answer when the decision was made for them. A bolt of crimson light exploded in front of them. Star screeched, veered sideways and clipped a treetop. His right wing pulled in instinctively and Gellert jumped, dragging Berg with him, instinctively knowing that they would be safer crashing alone than risking it with the heavy and much stronger bird.
The trees weren't very tall and the ground was soft with pine needles, so Gellert was barely even winded when he landed. He sprung up almost immediately, dragging Berg with him and charging down a shallow incline towards where trees were still crunching beneath the panicking bird. They batted aside branches, covering each other in snow which melted almost immediately with the heat of their exertion. Gellert thrust his hands out, magic following his movement and blasting a swath of trees off their root. They made quick progress from there, leaping over decimated boughs and dashing towards the golden-yellow speck that was Star. The bird meanwhile had also clambered up and was screeching desperately, massive head swinging around as it trampled yet more trees.
'Star!' Gellert bellowed and the bird's beady eyes fixed on them. The beast crouched, ready to take off, body crouched low so that the two boys could take a running jump for his harness. It was a manoeuvre they had been practicing for fun each morning, and now it seemed they would use it in anger.
Flawlessly, both boys leapt, slamming into soft feathers as hands confidently found handles. Wings surged downwards and they shot up, scything between a pair of circling thestrals. Star screeched and Gellert twisted outwards, wand brandishing to cast a barrage of jinxes. The thestrals screeched as they were caught in the downdraft of massive wings and a moment later they were clear, climbing steadily into the fog. They flew in one direction for a long minute, then wheeled through ninety degrees and climbed a fair way. Then they turned again and flew in a completely random direction.
They flew for hours, well past when they would usually have set down for the night. The two boys scampered across the shifting feathers and dangled from swinging claws to check and tend to the minor injuries Star had sustained, applying a liberal dose of miraculously unsmashed honey to each bead of blood and using Berg's clever bruise healing charm on any tender spots. Star was getting as good at this as they were, adjusting his flight patterns quickly as they moved and gliding for long stretches to give them a chance to get out along his wings.
They thought they'd managed to get away, there had been no sign of pursuit of any form. The sky cleared and the moon lit the world silver. All of their various scrapes and bruises were tended to, pine needles combed from their hair and clothes and the adrenaline of their rapid escape had faded into warm contentedness as they lounged on the wide back, feet propped up on one wing.
Then six black shaped winked into being around them. It took the two drowsy boys a moment too long to react and a cloaked figure dropped from above, landing solidly on Star's back. The bird squarked in surprise and fear, banking heavily to one side before being herded back onto course by a brandished wand at point blank range. With the boarding party only meters away they were forced to the ground in a slow, steady glide to a large field. Six more mounted figured awaited their arrival and within moments of touching the ground a colossal collar had been conjured around Star's neck, firmly anchoring him to the ground. Gellert and Berg dismounted under twelve readied wands and were quickly moved away from the beast.
Then, one of the wands flared to life and was shoved in their direction. There was a pause, then a deep, throaty laugh.
'Grindelwald!' Followed by, 'and young Tunninger. You two have caused quite a stir.'
'Herr Dolohov?' He asked incredulously. It was, and that was Frau Dolohov behind him, and off to the left, the one who'd landed on Star's back was Frau Rusev.
'Oh thank the stars. Finally.' Berg sagged to the grassy floor. Gellert almost joined him, but instead he found himself asking about Hermione.
'She was more than okay last time we heard; ripped into the headmaster of Durmstrang for not doing a good enough job of looking after you two, lit the beacon when Tunninger House fell, then managed to keep a veil beast out at Samhain.'
'Tunninger House fell?' Berg asked, horrified, from where he was sitting on the grass.
'So it seems.' Frau Dolohov turned pitying eyes on the boy on the floor. 'Unfortunately, it seems your sister took down the wards from the inside.'
Her words were met by complete silence, then Berg sighed heavily.
'Was it Dumortier?' He asked in resignation. To the bafflement of both boys, the Russian coven members who had picked them up shared baffled looks.
'Dumortier? What's he got to do with it?' Herr Dolohov asked and Gellert and Berg shared wide eyed looks.
'He's the one that's training Alice for the duel, and he's done something funny with his portal! Berg, you got it, tell them quickly!' He babbled, staggering forwards with the urgency of his speech. Herr Dolohov caught him and set him upright again. Somewhat embarrassed, Gellert turned to Berg and gestured for him to speak.
'They've made a new portal, but there's no identity clause, so the barrow wraiths won't be woken, so they can come through even if they mean harm.'
The Russian coven shared looks, then seemed to come to a decision.
'Come on, we're only an hour's flight from home. How about we settle that mighty beast of yours, get you two a bath and you tell us the full story?' Frau Dolohov flicked her wand and the chains holding Star vanished. The bird shook himself, then snapped irritably at the witch standing too close.
'Stay close, we've spent weeks trying to track you down.' Frau Rusev said with a grin, swinging up onto her Thestral. Berg scoffed, seeming to have regained a considerable amount of his energy at the mention of a bath. Gellert took a moment to update Star on the situation, then swung easily up the ladder to his back as the various beasts around them took flight. It was strange to be flying in company after so long - Star's wingspan was truly colossal and the thestrals kept drifting too close and getting caught in the turbulence from their wings.
It was strange to land in the manicured lawns of the Dolohov's palace. Lights twinkled from the many windows and elves popped up to take the reins of the various beasts. The coven hung off to one side as the boys clambered over the ever-patient Star, undoing the fastenings on his harness and passing it off to the elves. Berg lectured one elf on exactly what meat Star liked best - he really wasn't a fan of reptiles, sheep or other birds whilst Gellert recruited the coven's healer (who didn't speak a word of German) to help him tend more thoroughly to the bumps and scratches that they'd obtained in their earlier crash landing.
It felt like a long time later that Gellert sank into a warm, foamy bath in the brightly lit, ornately decorated bathroom. An elf changed that water three times as Gellert washed months of dirt, blood and sweat from his skin.
He dried quickly and dressed in clothes that seemed impossibly soft after so long in the course clothing they'd been given by the muggles. An elf sat him in front of a mirror and began to comb out his matted snare of hair and for the first time since Durmstrang he took in his appearance.
His skin was dark, tanned to a warm brown that made his lightened hair look snowy white. His cheekbones stuck out sharply from his face and his chin was sharply pointed, his cheeks hollow concaves as if he was sucking them in. He ran his fingers over the unfamiliar planes, wondering if Hermione would even recognise him. A pang throbbed through his chest as he wondered why she had stopped looking for him, or even his mother. Why was it the Russians who had picked him up, rather than his own mother's coven?
He left as soon as the elf hand managed to half tame his hair and he arrived at the dining room long before Berg. A massive, mouthwatering meal had been laid out but for the first time in his entire life, he went straight for the vegetables.
As he ate, the coven began explain what had happened on their end - they'd received a letter days after they'd gone missing and the entire coven had mustered to find them. Hermione had taken the role of Locum Matriarch and roasted the Durmstrang headmaster. They'd looked for him for a week, then Alice had gone missing from school and Tunninger Manor had fallen. There'd been a couple of days of panic as things were coordinated, then out of the blue the Grindewald family had received an owl bearing the bloodied cloaks and hats of both boys. A letter had informed them that both boys were dead, but of course neither boy had been dead in their family magic; infact, Lady Grindelwald had shared that she could feel him growing stronger by the day. So, she'd pretended to be fully taken in by the performance and had focused her efforts on keeping the occupiers of Tunninger Manor, whom she had been convinced was responsible for his kidnapping, occupied with constant raids and attacks whilst the Russian coven took over searching for them.
Of course, the Russian had had as much luck as the Germans, until they received a report of a theft performed by two wizarding boys, describes as wild, grubby and German. They'd not had much to go on from that, but then there'd been an incident where a muggle farmer had become convinced he'd seen two fey with their pet bird. They'd obliviated him, but not before taking the memory to view in a pensive.
From there, they knew what they were looking for and what rough speed and direction, but Russia was a very large country and a single bird, particularly flying so high, was very hard to find. It had been chance, Frau Dolohov revealed, that had them crossing paths with the two Atanastovas on a leisure flight, and from there they'd tried to stop them, which resulted in the crash. The coven regrouped and started searching under disillusionment until they could bring them down in a more controlled manner.
It was a long enough story, then came the time for Gellert to share his own.