Chapter Eighty: Realm of Night

Harry awoke slowly. He found his hand trembling as he reached out to pick up his glasses from the bedside table, and frowned. He and Draco had made it back safely to Hogwarts, and a week had passed since the vernal equinox that brought no crises, and he had had no nightmares. Why should he shake now?

Then he realized the room was cold, flowing and filled with a temperature more appropriate to winter than spring. Harry shivered and fought the urge to duck beneath the blankets. He had to find out what was happening.

He shifted, keeping Draco behind him so that his warmth would at least partly shield his partner from the chill, and then sat up. He saw the problem almost immediately, but he didn't recognize what it was until it shifted away from the glow of the silver strands of fog strung throughout the room and came towards him, with an eerie silence given the size of its hooves.

A cold tongue shot out to touch the scar on his forehead. The thestral bowed its head and rubbed its neck against him. Harry took a deep breath and ran his hands through the mane, which flowed over his fingers like twigs.

"What is it?" he murmured. The thestrals were the guardians of the Forbidden Forest. He supposed they might have come to alert him of a problem in the forest, but it seemed likelier they would have gone to Hagrid.

The horse stepped away from him, large wings flexing. It bowed its head, and Harry followed the gesture; so sleek and slim were the thestrals that he wasn't sure what it was pointing at at first. Then he saw that something other than silver fog coiled around its hoof, glowing blue.

Harry slid out of bed and knelt beside the thestral with a scowl he knew was grim. This web was solider and thicker than the others, a chain that grew more present as Harry gave it his full attention. When he sat back, he could see that it was tangled around the thestral's wings and neck, over the eyes and the mane.

"You want to be free of the web?" he asked, his voice still a croak.

He wasn't sure how much English the thestrals could understand; Hagrid had trained them to pull the carriages, but that didn't necessarily mean they knew words beyond the simple commands that let them do so. And this thestral simply stood and looked at him expectantly, mane falling like a dark curlicue into its pale eyes.

I'll have to do it. Humans couldn't talk to any magical species they wanted, but phoenixes could. Or, at least, the only phoenix Harry had ever known had been able to, and that was the one whose voice he bore.

He sang softly, using as little magic as he could. For one thing, it would wake Draco up. For another, he really didn't want to exhaust his voice again just as it had recovered. He focused his attention on creating a vision of the web snapping within the thestral's mind; Fawkes had spoken to him in images, not words.

The thestral danced in excitement, and bobbed its head up and down like any ordinary horse, cold breath shivering from its nostrils. Harry blinked, and nodded, and stood. No magical species had approached him like this before, asking for freedom now, as opposed to entering negotiations, but there was a first time for everything, Harry thought. At one time, he would have thought it impossible that a karkadann would come from Africa to find him, too.

He laid one hand on the thestral's neck, and swung onto its back. The creature let out a tiny snort of satisfaction, and then turned and trotted towards the door of their bedroom. Harry frowned. How did it get in?

With magic, apparently. The thestral looked at the door, and Harry caught a faint glimpse of a shiny, slimy mind rolling over next to him, demanding that the barrier cease to exist because the thestral wanted it so. The door opened, and the thestral went out, its long, thin legs negotiating the steps down to the common room better than Harry thought a centaur could have done. Now and then it hunched its shoulders to pass through a narrow gap; Harry ducked when it did.

The common room door opened the same way. In the wide dungeon corridors, the thestral began to trot, wings flagging up and down as if to hurry it forward. Harry could hear the click of its hooves now, from a distance, like dice made of bone. But no one opened the doors they hurried past, and then they were up the stairs into the entrance hall, and through the open doors and into the courtyard, and the thestral spread its wings.

Harry had only ridden one of the great horses once, in his fourth year soon after his freeing of Dobby, and he had forgotten how different the sensation was from sitting a broom. Glory thrilled through his muscles as they soared upward, and he could hear the wild Dark singing in the distance. Of course it was singing, it was near Walpurgis and it always sang then, but Harry thought sitting on a thestral's back made him peculiarly suited to hear it.

Something sparked in the air next to him, and then a black wolf paced the skies there, green eyes shining at him over the fur, a brilliant silver lightning bolt scar on its head. Harry nodded in wary greeting to the wild Dark. This was the form it had worn when it had tried to corrupt and seduce him after Bellatrix had cut off his hand.

The wolf only threw back its head and howled joyously, though, and Harry heard the howl as he had once heard Fawkes's voice, bringing him an image of what was to come. Many things change this night. We welcome a new comrade, and the Bony People go home.

"Bony People?" Harry asked, but the wolf turned and sped away, losing coherence in the dark spaces among the stars. Harry shook his head and faced forward again.

The thestral was circling over the Forbidden Forest now, which swarmed with strands of silvery fog like reflected moonlight. Harry could see the blue chains, too, which he knew connected the thestrals in long slave coffles. They all seemed to be moving towards a certain place in the center of the Forest, and he wasn't surprised when the thestral he rode slanted down towards it, wings beating only every now and then as needed, to propel it forward.

They came down on a wide space of dead grass, fenced with black, bare trees. Just by looking at them, Harry doubted they would ever grow leaves, no matter how late the season got. The thestral's hooves clicked again as they landed; there must be stone not very far under the surface of the grass.

They stood on a mound in the center of the clearing, and the thestrals, visible by the glow of fog and their chains and their white eyes, stood in a circle around them. Every single one of them appeared to be staring at Harry.

Harry warbled out a low song, and grimaced as the notes stabbed him in the center of his throat. He just hoped the thestrals wouldn't think from his expression that he was unwilling to free them. He shaped a vision of them free, and then of a curious thestral sniffing at something dead to see if it was still bloody. It was the closest approximation he could think of to asking them why they wanted to be free now.

The thestral beneath him shifted and danced, but didn't reply. A stallion stepped forward from the rest of the herd, wings so wide that he blotted out several of the trees. He fixed Harry with an implacable eye, and snorted.

The image that snort gave in return was of a mare with a foal, and a pair of wings spreading, and the moon rising. There were natural times for things to happen, Harry supposed. The herd would not try to oppose those, and it would not try to oppose its own desire for freedom. They had come and fetched him because they wanted to be free now. Anything could have caused it, even the other species' changing status in the wizarding world or the fact that his vates powers apparently encouraged webs to melt.

Harry nodded, and then slid from the thestral's back to the mound. He bent down to examine the blue chain that curled around its hoof. He knew already that this wasn't a chain restricting movement; his mother had told him about Dumbledore sometimes riding thestrals to important meetings during the War when it was too far to Apparate, or too dangerous to make multiple Apparitions in safety. So whoever had wound this web had not done it to bind them to the Forest.

He raised an eyebrow when he realized that the chain was two chains, like the two webs put on the house elves. Is one supposed to make them more docile?

No, he saw, as he touched the chain and turned it slowly over in his hand. One set of links was the web itself, a glowing tingle of pure magic he could barely feel. The other manifested a bone-deep chill that lingered in his flesh long after he drew it back, and which affected even his silver hand when he used that instead. And, briefly, Harry saw the cold chain pass through the light of the blue-glowing one, and saw that its shadow took on the shape of a Grim.

They are bound to Death. Or they are bound to keep them away from Death. A prickle like rat's claws raced down Harry's spine. That would explain something about why only those who've seen death can see them.

He looked up and sang to convey an image of a broken-winged thestral trying to fly. He did not yet know how to undo the chains, and he was afraid of what would happen if he launched himself off the cliff and tried.

The stallion stepped forward and shoved his nose into Harry's shoulder with a poke that made it feel like the sharp edge of a shovel. The implication was clear from that, no vision needed. The thestrals would give Harry time to learn what he had to, but they wanted him to study it.

Harry nodded, and stood. His mind was already whirling with possibilities. Why would ancient wizards have wanted thestrals bound? He had never heard that they were especially dangerous; other herds lived wild in the world and barely interacted with wizards, other than coming to battlefields after wars, attracted by the smell of blood. Was it simply because this particular herd was useful? Or did it have to do with the nature of webs in the Forbidden Forest, which tried to insure that every creature born there was also bound there?

But he had to put that idea aside when he studied the chains again. This was careful work. Whoever had done this had left nothing to chance. The web transferred itself generation by generation, as it did with house elves, but the sheer intricacy of the damn thing said it was also adapted to each individual. Harry might be able to unbind the whole herd if he could find the common element that guided the chains. Otherwise, he would be reduced to tediously undoing every link from every stallion, mare, and foal.

He shrugged the thought of boredom away. He had done much more boring things that still fulfilled his role as vates. He looked up and composed a short song of human parchment—surely the thestrals had seen writing before, if only by peering from the edges of the Forest at students doing their homework on the grounds—and a puzzling maze that would end with the herd flying free. He would have to study, and he wasn't entirely sure what he would have to study as yet, but he would ask Regulus.

The stallion poked him again, and this time it felt like the blunt edge of a shovel. The herd was grateful. Harry nodded and touched his silver hand to the stallion's neck in thanks, then turned away to find the path back through the Forbidden Forest.

The thestral who'd borne him thus far wheeled in front of him with a sharp turn and a snort. Harry accepted the invitation and rode back, musing all the while.

They're bound to Death. Why? Would that be to keep them from going back to her, or for some other reason?

He would have to talk to Hagrid, Harry realized suddenly. The half-giant had trained the thestrals to pull the carriages, and so a substitute would have to be found. But, more than that, he loved the herd. Harry wasn't entirely sure if the thestrals would remain in the Forest once they were free, but he would have to prepare Hagrid for the possibility that they wouldn't. Their wishes would still be honored, of course; as vates, Harry could do nothing less. But he hoped that he wouldn't have to infringe on Hagrid's free will to do this.

And he would have to have another conversation he wasn't looking forward to having, with Regulus.

Harry winced at the thought of the questions he would ask. I don't want to do this, but at the moment, Regulus is the only person I know who's spoken to Death directly, and even has her notice. Any tiny detail he knows might advance my attempts to undo the chains further than a dozen books would.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Hagrid sniffled, and yet another large tear rolled down his nose and got itself lost in his deep, bushy beard.

"I'll miss 'em," he whimpered.

Harry patted his shoulder, feeling awkward, less for the depth of Hagrid's emotion than for the form it took. "I know you will, Hagrid," he said. "But they've got to fly free, don't they? I know that you wanted that for Norbert." It had taken him a short while to remember the name of the dragon Hagrid had rescued and tried to raise in his first year. "Don't you want that for the thestrals, too?"

"Do yeh think—" Hagrid mopped at his face with a large red handkerchief, and finished. "Do yeh think they'd let me visit 'em?" He turned a hopeful eye on Harry.

"I don't know where they'll go once they're free," said Harry, compelled to honesty. "It could be to another place in Britain, or they might stay here, but they could also fly back across the oceans to the places where the completely wild herds live. You know that, don't you, Hagrid?"

"Don' want to—ter let 'em go!" Hagrid said, and burst out in a fit of wailing. Harry hugged him this time, but his arms could barely fit around a quarter of his waist.

"What is the meaning of this, Harry?"

Somewhat guiltily, Harry glanced up to see Snape standing in front of him. It was Saturday, and he still hadn't visited his guardian that morning. "I have to free the thestrals, Professor," he said. He still preferred the title in front of members of the Hogwarts staff. "I just told Professor Hagrid so."

One of Snape's eyebrows rose, and he stood that way, looking down on them both, though Hagrid didn't appear to notice. "I see," he said, voice clipped. "And you are not releasing the thestrals without proper research into why they were bound in the first place, I hope?"

"Of course not," said Harry, a bit stung. He knew that Snape was upset he hadn't called him "Severus," but, well, he hadn't wanted to. It made him uncomfortable. The implication that he would simply dash ahead and break webs and laugh and wave his arms around, not caring for the consequences, was a bigger offense, in Harry's eyes. "I do know already that they're bound to Death, and that I'll need to talk to Regulus about his—acquaintance with some of that magic." Though Hagrid appeared lost in his sobs, Harry wasn't quite ready to mention Regulus's journey into the portrait in front of him. "So I'll look into books on necromancy and the history of the herds. Possibly another tame herd was once bound in the same way, and that could show me why this one was."

Snape's eyes held warning in them now. "Necromantic magic is dangerous, Harry."

"I know that," Harry said, thinking of Dragonsbane, thinking of Pansy. "But I need to learn whatever I must to defeat Voldemort and to free the magical creatures."

"Have a book on thestrals," Hagrid unexpectedly volunteered, still mopping at his chin and nose. "It might help. Don't know if it w-will." He sobbed once more, then stood and went into the hut to look for it. Harry looked sadly after him. Hagrid was one of the few people he knew who might appreciate magical creatures as intensely as he did. Unfortunately, he appreciated them as pets to be tamed, and that meant he was inevitably going to have trouble with the idea of freeing them to travel to a place and context where no humans would ever try to tame them again.

"Harry."

He faced Snape again, and saw that his guardian had knelt in the dirt, and extended one hand towards him.

"Be careful how you approach Regulus," he said, and hesitated for long enough that Harry felt alarm rising in his chest. At last he said, "He has asked me to brew Dreamless Sleep Potion for him, to ease the nightmares of Death's country."

Harry swallowed and nodded. "I'll only ask him to tell me what he wants to." Pain was stuck like a broken breastbone in the center of his chest, as he thought of what Regulus had given up for the information on the Horcruxes, and the Mark that he now carried on his arm.

Snape swiftly rose again as he heard Hagrid coming back, his lip curling slightly. "Why the Headmaster puts up with him, I shall never know," he murmured. "He does nothing but nearly burn his house down around his ears with dragonfire and tame animals to hand that would be better left to roam the Forest."

"Headmistress," said Harry.

Snape looked at him with his eyes narrowed. "What?"

"Headmistress," said Harry, and smiled a bit, prepared to tease. "You said Headmaster, Severus."

Snape's eyebrows rose, and he stood stiffly for a moment. Then he nodded, and murmured, "So I did," and turned for the school. Harry shook his head at his back. So like him not to admit when he was caught in a mistake.

"'Ere you are, Harry," Hagrid said, thumping back out and handing him a book which was dwarfed in his hand, but which made Harry's arms sag with the weight. "All You Need To Know About Thestrals. I added some notes about Tenebrous." He sniffled again. "Let me know when yeh do it, so I can—I come and say g-goodbye—" He trailed off into bawling again.

Harry patted his shoulder once more, and then cast a subtle lightening charm on the book and went back to the castle.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry shrugged away the memory of the strange letter he'd received that morning as he appeared inside the wards at Grimmauld Place. If Elder Juniper wanted to put off receiving the apology Harry fully intended to give him, that was his right. Harry was a bit surprised that this was the second meeting that had fallen through, but at least it left him free to meet with Regulus.

He knocked on the house's door for a moment, and listened. "Regulus?" he called, when no one answered.

The voice of Capella Black, Regulus and Sirius's mother, whose picture hung in the main hall, answered at once. "Is that you, Dark Child? Come in, and let me smell you."

Harry rolled his eyes as he opened the door and stepped inside. At least the portrait didn't tend to shriek at him the way it had whenever someone who wasn't perfectly pureblood brushed by it. But she insisted on calling him by a term Harry had looked up and not been impressed by. Of course, the stories Harry had heard about Capella Black hadn't made her sound that intelligent.

"Where's Regulus?" he asked, stopping in front of the portrait. The curtains that usually covered it were drawn back. Harry wondered if Regulus had been talking to her.

"Upstairs, dear." The woman in the picture sniffed rapturously, and then purred in approval. "Necromancy, Dark Child? A tricky magic, but if you can learn enough of its tricks without falling prey to its sacrifices, it will make you very powerful."

Harry rolled his eyes again, not caring if she saw it. The Dark Child was a prophetic name for the Dark Lord who would rise to dominate not only Britain but the entire wizarding world, so powerful that the wild Dark itself would claim to have sired and borne him. Regulus had told him that his mother had been waiting for a Dark Child most of her life, and had for a time sincerely believed Voldemort was him. Now she appeared to have transferred her convictions to Harry. Harry was uncertain why. It might have to do with his absorbere gift, and his ability to become more powerful if that was what he wanted. But he had spoken to Capella often enough that he would have thought she'd understand he didn't desire power.

"Upstairs, dear, dreaming of death," Capella continued in a melancholy tone. "Whereas you blaze with life." Another sniff. "And stink of death." She nodded. "I do think that you are him. You will bring a reign of night upon us all, and free us from the tyranny of Mudblood filth and blood traitors."

"Spare me," Harry muttered, and then turned as he heard Regulus's footsteps on the stairs.

"Sorry about that, Harry," he said. "I needed to—fortify myself with something."

The "something" appeared to be a glass of wine, considering what he carried in his hand. Harry stared at him in silence for a moment. Regulus flushed, looked away, muttered, and then drew the curtains closed over Capella's portrait with a suddenness that made Harry blink. He heard one more chuckle from the picture, and then she was silent, other than a faint hum that was probably the song of the Dark Child again. She had been happy to explain, when Harry asked, that the prophecy of the Dark Child was the ultimate shifting one, moving on from generation to generation and making new choices when its champion failed to appear. Harry had tried to point out that this was more likely to mean it would never come true. Capella had winked when he said that, as if he'd penetrated to the heart of some grand mystery.

"Come, Harry," Regulus said, from the stairs, and Harry shook his head and hurried up after him.

Regulus had fixed up one of the upper bedrooms as his own. Harry glanced around curiously from the doorway. The dominant color appeared to be silver—not from any Slytherin remnants, Harry thought, as much as because it was a bright color that went well with the dominant black of the house. Regulus's chest and bed and table were all sleek dark wood gleaming with inlaid traces of silver. His bedcurtains were unexpectedly thin pieces of cloth, swaying at the touch of the slight breeze Harry made as he slipped inside. The two chairs near the door were made of a white-gold wood that Harry had only seen rivaled in the Seers' Sanctuary.

Regulus sat in one of them. He took a final sip from the wineglass, then put it down and faced Harry.

"So. You want me to talk about Lady Death. How beautiful she is, maybe, since you're always rushing out to embrace her." Regulus was trying, but trying too hard; Harry could hear the crackling strain behind the usual playful, flippant tone.

"No," said Harry.

Regulus stared at him.

Harry leaned forward, staring directly into Regulus's eyes. He hadn't sat down yet, and was glad, because it let him get closer. "I want you to talk about what you're comfortable with," he said. "I want to know what I can to free the thestrals, but I would never want to make you uncomfortable or violate your free will simply to do that. So tell me what you can. And if that's not enough to figure it out, then I'll continue reading. Merlin knows that both the Black library and the Hogwarts library have enough books to let me figure this out."

He took a step back and sat in his chair, folding his arms and staring at Regulus some more. Regulus glanced away, glanced back, then picked up the glass and took an expressive drink of wine.

"Bloody vates," he muttered.

Harry inclined his head.

Regulus sighed. "All right. I—

"You should know that I didn't really know what to expect from the picture, Harry. The descriptions given by the Black patriarchs have all varied so much that it's impossible to know what you'll find there.

"I found a desert. Its sand was brown-black, and I entered it just as the sun was going down. I've never seen light so dim, this kind of smoldering twilight. I think it was mainly the effect of the sand, but I can't be sure.

"I heard a voice hail me, calling me by name—not my first name, you understand, I don't think the creatures in the portrait know anything about time passing in our world, any more than we know about its passing in theirs. This was a raven, or so I thought. Then it moved, and I realized it was a skeleton with a coat of rotting flesh and feathers on it. They regrew every time it landed, and then fell off again in this mess of dust and maggots every time it took flight.

"It hailed me, and asked me if I would come with it. I said that I would, and then I began following it.

"It led me into traps, Harry. It led me into pits that sucked at my feet and swallowed me and consumed me alive." Regulus traced his elbow with one hand, and Harry wondered if he was remembering it being broken. "Through forests hung with bones, where one movement made them all tinkle and gasp together, and the skulls laughed at me. Over a road where I walked on what I thought were stones, until I came to the end, and then I looked down and realized that every single one of them had the imprint of Sirius's face. He was screaming, screaming forever, trapped there." Regulus shuddered and put his hands over his mouth, as though afraid he would vomit. "I'm still afraid that he's trapped there," he whispered. "In Death's country, that he's trapped there and can never get out."

"He's not," said Harry at once, thinking of the strange touch on his hand he'd felt after the Midsummer battle. "I think—I think Pansy summoned him, and he was in the fight at Hogwarts when Voldemort tried to take the castle. There were things that people talked about later which could be explained only by the presence of a ghost among them. And I think he licked my hand before he went home. I can't believe that he only came forth to aid us and then went back to that horrible place."

Slowly, Regulus's hands lowered. "Thank you, Harry," he whispered. "Well, that's one nightmare conquered.

"I don't know how long we walked. At one point, I asked the raven why Death chose to live here. Why in such a place, instead of the way that the Greeks imagined Hades, for example? I don't know why I thought that would be more fitting, but that was the way I imagined it at the time.

"The raven laughed at me. It told me that every soul is consumed in the same endless journey, trying to find Death, and that it amuses her to put traps in front of them so that the journey continues forever. Imagine, Harry, that after we die we're doomed to walk that desolate country forever. It's no wonder that some of the dead are eager to come back as ghosts."

"But I don't think we are," said Harry, surprised. "I've read some books on necromantic magic in the last little while, you know that, researching on how to free the thestrals. They describe a dark in-between country that necromancers can access; most of the books just call it the Realm of Night. And unless the ghost or spirit is vengeful or otherwise has an interest in the living world, they have to be summoned. Most of the people who die just seem to go to sleep. Endless rest, Regulus, which isn't that different from Hades when you think of it."

Regulus shuddered restlessly, and then went on with his story without responding to what Harry had said. "I stood before Death at last. I can't describe her, Harry. She was decaying, and still beautiful. Tell me how that exists, if you can."

Harry thought of Lily and the decay of her mind and the bright frenzy of her sacrificial passion, but this time it was his turn to keep silent. Regulus was rambling on, anyway.

"She told me that she had a use for servants, that she enjoyed interfering in the world. She is patient, of course, and takes everyone when they come to her, but if she can make a bargain, then she does. She's also unique in the world, and proud of it, and the same stern, sad reaper of lives that half a hundred religions perceive her to be. I don't know if she looks the same to any two people. But none of that's what you came to hear.

"She said that I would be her hand in our world, since her hands in it were chained. I think now she meant the British wizarding world, and not just our world in general. Of course she's not chained here, and of course thestrals are free in other places." Regulus looked up. "Does that help?"

"It does, actually," Harry said slowly, thinking of a picture he'd seen in Hagrid's book. It showed a thestral prancing with outstretched neck and spread wings on a bronze seal found in an ancient necromancer's tomb. The book had said that the thestral might be considered a kind of patron saint of necromancers. It had insisted that that only came from the association of thestrals with death, but it could, Harry thought, have come because thestrals were associated with Death. "They were bound because they're her creatures."

"And freeing them would—"

Harry let out a breath. "I don't know. I'll free one and see what happens. It's looking more and more like I'll have to free them one by one anyway."

Regulus nodded. He sat there with his eyes closed and his breathing quick and faint and his forehead covered with a light sheen of sweat, and Harry didn't question the impulse that made him stand and move closer.

Regulus started a bit when his arms enveloped him, but didn't hesitate to hug him back. Harry felt him shaking, and leaned forward to whisper into his ear.

"Nothing I can say will ever repay the debts that lie between us, for what you did for me during the year when you lived in my head, and for what you did when you went into that portrait, and for sharing information that terrified you or made you think I would reject you. So I'll simply say thank you, and that I love you, and that I hope you enjoy the sunlight as much as you're frightened right now by the darkness."

For a moment, Regulus embraced him so desperately that Harry lost most of his breath, but he had held his breath for longer periods of time, and simply waited. When Regulus began to cry, he was there, as silent and as supportive as he could be, offering silence or soothing words as Regulus seemed to want them. Regulus's shadow rippled, dog-shaped, watching them.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry licked his lips and shifted his weight forward. In the end, he had come to the Forbidden Forest alone to free a thestral, despite telling Snape that he wouldn't, because no one else thought he was ready, but the stallion—who might be Hagrid's beloved Tenebrous—had come to him last night and looked at him. A week of studying, and Hagrid's teary agreement, and Harry's growing sense that the thestrals had not killed or destroyed anyone, but had acted as heralds of Death and her power, rather like banshees. That would lead to the idea that it was unlucky to see one. Once, it had been.

Now, it might be again.

He had found the dead clearing after some minor searching; now that he knew what to look for, he found a path of withered grass and leaves crushed to black mold which led directly there. He entered to the accompaniment of many pairs of bright eyes. In short order, the gaps in the circle filled in as the rest of the herd sensed him and came to see what was happening. They moved in absolute silence now, even when they had to ease their wings past the trees or a pair came with necks entwined. Harry didn't know why. He could probably have found out if he kept reading.

But it was wrong to keep them here, when he suspected it was only fear that had kept them tied.

The stallion advanced to meet him when the circle was complete, and Harry stepped around the mound of grass and stone to kneel in front of him. He felt the cold breath spreading frost along the back of his neck. It was a reminder of how different the thestral was from any ordinary horse, but he turned and lifted a hoof like any horse letting a blacksmith examine him when Harry held out his silver hand.

He examined the chain closely, studying, one more time, the dog-shaped shadow. The purely magical chain he could absorb, but the cold one, forged in despite of Death herself, could be broken only one way.

This was the other reason he hadn't let Snape come with him, other than Snape's disagreement about him ever being ready. Snape would not appreciate what was required to break that chain.

Harry turned and laid his arm along the chain, ignoring the immediate numbness that followed, and the creeping pain. He reached into his robe pocket, thinking fleetingly how much easier this was with a left hand, even one he had to dip and scoop things up with instead of using his fingers on, and pulled out the series of small thorns he'd plucked as he walked.

Then he drove them into his arm with all his strength, shedding his blood on the chain.

The links he touched hissed and steamed and broke apart, puffing away like snow attacked by sunlight. Harry promptly began moving his arm up the chain, driving the thorns down over and over again, teeth clenched to keep from screaming. Freely given blood—not such a huge sacrifice, except that the chain was long, and there were so many chains, one tying each individual thestral, and the person who freed them would have to use thorns and not a knife.

And, of course, most of the time no one would think to free thestrals.

Harry traveled in a crouch, stabbing the thorns to open new flesh whenever it seemed that the cut would clot, and growing weaker and weaker, more and more dizzy, as his blood left him. At last, though, he had marked and dissolved the whole chain from the stallion's hoof to the end, which floated in a tangled ball of ghostly metal somewhere in the center of the herd. Then he lay back, panting, and drank the magic of the other chain down his gullet.

His vision blurring, he saw the moment the last bond parted.

The stallion reared, his body becoming longer and thinner and more elongated, but also bigger, as though he were a piece of cloth spreading on the wind. Harry soon thought he looked like a mass of bones on a dark cape.

The Bony People, he thought. That was what the Dark meant.

The stallion's bones separated. They drifted around each other like a constellation, now and then orbiting, bound within the general confines of the unfolded skin. When the spine went below the hooves, Harry blinked in dazed confusion, and thought he should close his eyes.

He heard soft paws striking the ground beside him. He managed to open his eyes and turn his head, thinking another thestral had chosen to come near him in hopes that he could free it, or in attraction to the blood.

Instead, he saw a slim gray dog, her head positively aristocratic, her body as thin as the stallion's spine. She dipped her head, black eyes fixed on him, and such perfect cold surrounded him that, for a moment, Harry thought she had frozen him inside a black crystal.

Her tongue swept across his silver hand. Harry screamed in pain as he felt the vicious tingling pain of it, as though he was waking a limb he'd been sleeping on for hours. Then the tongue returned for another scrape, and the pain was worse, and on the third worse again. Harry heard his voice crack as the cries strained his throat again, but he really could not have stopped.

At last it ended, and Harry pulled his hands limply to him, cradling his face, uncomfortably aware of how light and clumsy they felt when he'd given up so much blood—

Wait.

Harry pulled his hands back and stared. His left hand was flesh now, its healing process and acclimation to his body seemingly sped up, and it flexed and responded as the other did. There remained only one patch of silver, right in the middle of it.

It might have resembled a dog's head, if Harry could have squinted enough.

He shivered, and then rolled his head over to see the gray dog standing next to the unfurled thestral, who was putting himself back together again, in—indescribable ways. When he'd more or less wrapped himself in a lump of skin, they both turned to look at Harry. He heard a faint, high, chilling cry.

And then both were gone, and Harry felt another thestral grip his hair, while yet another rolled him gently over. He clung to consciousness long enough to see them pick him up and begin transporting him towards Hogwarts. He also managed to summon enough magic, with the power he'd just swallowed, to set up a flare of green sparks about the color of the Killing Curse. That would attract attention, and insure that he saw Madam Pomfrey to get a Blood-Replenishing Potion.

The night around him seemed deeper, wilder. He wasn't surprised when the black wolf came and paced at the flying pair's side again.

The Bony People are going slowly home. And Death knows you. The wolf laughed, a deeper and more disturbing sound than Harry had ever heard one of his pack make. An uncomfortable life you have, little cousin.

And it turned and broke apart into blackness again. Harry closed his eyes and tried to determine what would get him into more trouble: going into the Forbidden Forest alone, or the long, ragged wound that ran the length of his right arm.

Somewhere in the wondering, he passed into darkness.