The Sword of Ice
There were people in front of me. Actual people, living breathing people. I don't think I had ever been more happy in my entire life to see anybody…even if they were holding me at spearpoint.
I was nearly vibrating with energy and trying to keep a smile off my face as a large man with furs started to speak to me in a harsh tone. I couldn't understand a word he was saying, but it didn't matter. Actual fucking people! I almost started to cry.
The man behind me tugged harshly on my arm, pulling me back against their larger frame while keeping the knife pressed against my throat. His grip was tight, and the pressure of the blade started to increase as the other one repeated what he had said, this time louder. I would have been worried about the blade slipping and slicing into my skin, but I knew that it wouldn't be able to pierce the sea serpent hide even if he had been trying to slit my throat.
While uncomfortable, I was in no danger, and I tried to reassure Severus of that without tipping off the people before me of his presence.
I could feel Severus' worry and anger thrumming in my own chest, and though I hadn't really experimented with our connection – too afraid of incurring his wrath as I had when first explaining our bond – I knew I had succeeded in sharing my reassurance and caution back to him when I saw his form still in the white tree. He appeared to be just a part of the branches.
"I don't understand what you're saying," I spoke slowly, hands raised in surrender as the large man marched forward and pressed the spearpoint just beneath my collarbone. The one behind me gripped my arm harder and I winced. I just knew it was going to leave a bruise.
"Hveri ertru!" The man shouted again, pressing the spear tip in deeper. It was only once he was closer did I start to take in details of the group around me. I had been so distracted by the fact that there were people, that I hadn't really looked at them.
The one holding the spear was probably the tallest man I had ever seen – aside from Hagrid – and he was built like a bear, though the furs did hide much. His head was shaved bare, and his pale face scarred heavily in a decorative fashion. The wounds must have been carved in deep to cause the scar tissue to raise like that.
There were two other men behind him, one just as bald and scarred, and he was holding an axe nearly as large as I was. The other had his hair short, the top tied in a tight bun. He looked much younger than the others – probably only a few years older than me – and had no scars presented on his face. I wondered if the scars had some sort of meaning, and perhaps the young man hadn't earned them yet.
There was a single woman in the group. Like the youngest man, she wasn't bald, but the sides of her head were shaved to the scalp, the hair that remained at the top was braided together in many plaits that hung low down her back. She had minimal scarring on her face, only a crescent moon on its back in the center of her forehead above the brow and a single line underneath that extended from below the moon to the bridge of her nose, broke, and then continued beneath her lip and down her chin. Her cheeks were bare, unlike the men, and I wondered if there was anything significant about it.
I was pulled out of my observation when the man behind me released my arm and wrapped his around my torso, beneath my breasts, and lifted me from the ground.
"What? What are you doing? Let go of me!" I shouted, kicking out as the man in front grabbed my forearms. He shoved my flailing legs aside and started to tie my wrists together with rope that I hadn't noticed before. "Stop it! What are you doing?! Severus!" I screamed in a panic as the man holding me threw me over his shoulder, grunting as it dug into my stomach.
A wave of reassurance washed over me and I planted my elbows in the furred back to lift my head. I could just barely make out Severus' form between the red leaves as I was carried away. Our eyes locked, green-purple to purple-green and I knew he was staying hidden in order to observe the situation, I knew that once we were out of sight he was going to find the whelps and keep them safe, I knew that they would be following close behind, and I knew that he would intervene before anything would happen to me. His plan pressed into my mind just as his anger washed over me but knowing did not ease my fear.
It was a good plan – the best in the situation with as little time as he had to come up with it – but as I was carried away and our gazes broke, I found myself deeply unsatisfied with it. The men were talking to each other, their language guttural and harsh to my ears. The woman walked behind, and occasionally she would lift her dark blue eyes up to meet mine. She would stare at me for a moment, and then go back to watching the passing scenery.
Her face was devoid of emotions, and I knew that I would find no help from her. She wasn't cowed by her companions, but indifferent to the whole situation.
They marched on for several hours, the man holding me not seeming to tire in the least, before stopping to make camp. I was dropped on the ground like a bag of potatoes and grunted from the impact as I tried to push myself up from the snow. With my wrists still bound, I was forced to use my elbows in order to get enough leverage to roll over and sit up.
The group was already busy building a fire and two of the men left with spears and bows in their hands. Those that remained paid me not an ounce of attention as one began gathering wood and the woman started shoveling snow into a small pot. The fire was burning hotly in no time and the woman set the pot on top of it while the other man started stripping branches off a tree and tying them together.
The young man lacking facial scarring speared the branches he tied into the ground on either side of the fire and I had just realized that I was looking at a spit for roasting food when my shoulder was grabbed roughly. The man that had thrown me over his shoulder crouched down in front of me, releasing my shoulder to run his hands down my legs. I immediately tried to jerk away, and he gripped my thigh so tightly that it brought tears to my eyes, and instead I tried to kick him instead.
I got one good hit into his stomach, and I heard him grunt before he jerked my leg towards him so quickly that I fell on my back. Severus' name was on my lips, ready to call out to him to light this man on fire for trying to assault me – and I knew that he wasn't far, I could feel him getting closer – when the man's grip dropped to my boots and he started to feel around my ankles.
It was as he pulled the dragon bone knife out of my boot that I realized he wasn't assaulting me…he was searching me. I bit my lip to keep myself from shouting for the white dragon, and instead bore the frisk in silence and glares as his hands moved to the robe and searched the outside pockets.
He pulled the few odds and ends that I had shoved into them – a small clipping of some sort of evergreen from the first tree I had seen since arriving here, some leather scraps I had been trying to make into hair ties, and the scales I had taken from the dragons when they were shedding – and then he grabbed my biceps and pulled me back up into a sitting position. He didn't search the inside pockets, and I didn't draw attention to them.
I had another blade, smaller than the one in my boot, tucked away, along with some cooked meat. He also didn't notice the wand holsters on my wrists though that wasn't a surprise at all. I could feel that he wasn't magical, so he could not see, feel, nor sense the holsters,
The wand and the knife made me feel a little better about my situation, but only just. The novelty of seeing people was wearing off quite quickly.
After the older man had searched me, I was ignored and left to sit in the snow while the others gathered around the fire. The younger one kept glancing at me, but he didn't approach. The sun had begun to set, and I was trying to decide to spell the ropes off and make a run for it when the other two returned with several dead rabbits and what looked like a white pheasant of some sort.
The bird was tossed into the lap of the woman and she started to pluck the feathers, setting the larger ones from the wings aside, and shoving the rest into a leather bag sitting next to her. The rabbits were skinned, skewered, and set to roast in quick order and the group started to relax around the fire while the woman began splitting the larger feathers down the quill and trimming them.
Sighing in annoyance, I decided to wait it out and see where this was going. They hadn't hurt me yet – at least intentionally, I reminded myself as my arms and legs ached from where I had been grabbed, stomaching throbbing from being carried – and with the language barrier communication would be difficult. But perhaps I would be able to learn where I was if I stayed with them long enough…as long as they didn't try anything.
I flopped back onto the snow, grunting at the impact as I let their unknown words wash over me. They were laughing at something the woman said and I rolled my eyes and prepared myself for a long and hungry night. Something heavy and soft fell on me from above and I opened my eyes to see the younger man standing above me. He had dropped his cloak in my lap. I fisted my hands in the coarse fur and glanced up at him in confusion.
"Ath vera halýtt," he said, gesturing to the blanket and then myself. The words I couldn't understand, but the gesture was universal. He had given me the cloak keep me warm. The thoughtful action was appreciated, but unneeded.
I hadn't felt the cold in months since I crafted suits out of the sea serpent hide, but the man had no way of knowing that. Instead of declining the gift, I gave him a small smile and a nod before pulling what was probably bear hide up to my shoulders and rolling on my side to get some sleep.
The woman said something to the young man in a derisive and teasing tone, and the others broke out in laughter as he rejoined them by the fire. The young man replied back with an angry gesture and angrier words that had the others laughing even harder.
The sounds of the others started to fade as they settled down for the night, and I waited until only one remained awake on watch to sneak my hand into one of the inner pockets in the robe. Pulling out a chunk of dried meat, I ate it as discreetly as possible, using the heavy fur cloak to hide my movements. It wasn't much food, but I hoped it was enough to settle my stomach.
I was doubtful that I could get any rest, but before what seemed like any time had passed, a kick to my leg awoke me and I realized that it was morning already. I sat up blinking the sleep from my eyes and trying to brush my hair back when I was reminded of the rope binding my wrists together. Gritting my teeth, I flopped my hands uselessly in my lap and glared around the camp.
My captors were efficient people, that was for certain. The fire had been stomped out and covered with snow, the spit broken down, and their items packed away quickly. I was just figuring out how to stand with my hands bound when the man who held me at spearpoint grabbed my bicep and yanked me onto my feet.
I shot him a glare, but he was already turned away and helping the woman distribute their packs evenly amongst the others. Bending down to pick up the bear cloak, I tried to hand it back to the younger man as he passed by me, but he only shook his head and pushed it back towards me.
Shrugging, I pulled it over my shoulders to appease him. It was much too large on me, longer than I was tall, the end rested in the snow. I trying to figure out how the odd bone clasp worked when I saw the other man, the one who had carried me, stomp over. He grabbed the pointed bone and shoved it through a loop I hadn't noticed and twisted it to keep it in place.
"Thank you," I mumbled in both annoyance at his gruff behavior and appreciation, though I knew he couldn't understand the words. He tilted his bald head and then started to crouch and reached for me. I backpedaled quickly away from his grasp and a few steps more when he tried to approach me again. "No," I stated firmly, holding my hand out to stop him. My stomach was still sore from his shoulder and I wouldn't be carried again. "I can walk."
He glared at me, glancing back at the largest man, the one with the axe, before approaching me again. "No!" I gestured him to stop again, my loud shout surprising him enough to give him pause. "I," I started, gesturing slowly to myself so he understood that I was trying to communicate a point, and not run away. "I can walk," I pointed my index and middle fingers to the ground, curling my other fingers while wiggling the two back and forth to mime someone walking.
When he continued to stare at me, I repeated the words and the gestures, before pointing behind him and miming again. He glared at me, standing with his arms crossed and a severe expression on his face. I didn't know if he understood what I was trying to say, but he didn't try to stop me when I shuffled slowly around him and started to move towards the others. He turned to keep watching me, but he let me walk past him.
Sighing in relief, I ignored the glare I could feel upon my back, and the amused shouting between the others as I started to follow after them. Walking near them really brought to attention their size. They were much taller than me, even the woman stood a head and half more than my measly five foot nothing.
The man who had carried me yesterday walked closely behind, and I was learning that even though I had been used to walking for long distances, keeping up with them was quite something else. It wasn't just the heavy cloak that dragged in the snow behind me, or that my hands were bound – which effected my balance and caused me to stumble more than once – but also their long strides and fast pace.
The large man never assisted me when I stumbled, but he was more than happy to shove me forward when I started to lag behind. It was barely past midday when my legs decided that they had enough. My thighs were burning, and my feet felt like led with each step I took, the air burning my lungs with each heaving breath.
After he pushed me from behind again, I stopped with a huff and turned to glare at him. He stood there and said something that was probably insulting and derisive while he gestured to the rest of the group that was still moving onwards.
"I can't," I replied, thrusting my bound hands into his face and then gesturing to my legs. "I'm tired."
"Haltuf áhfram," he scowled at me, the grip he had on his spear tightening, before he used it to point at the group.
"Ugh," I grunted, throwing my bound hands up and turning to walk a few steps before my burning thighs reminded me why that was a bad idea. I stopped and turned back so quickly he almost ran into me and I brought my hands up to his chest to stop him. "Carry me," my cheeks burned from the embarrassment of it, but there was nothing else to be done. I was too tired to continue and already I could hear the others shouting back to us.
"Haltuf áhfram!" He shouted at me, grabbing my shoulder to turn me back and shove me towards the group.
"No!" I shouted, digging my heels in and shoving uselessly at his chest. He didn't even move from my push and I tried not to feel annoyed by that. "I'm tired, if you want to continue, you'll have to carry me," I gestured to myself and then his shoulder, miming a lifting gesture. He only continued to glare at me, jabbing his spear angrily towards the group that had stopped a few dozen meters up the hill.
In retaliation I sat down.
"Hvath er vandámlith!" The man with the axe shouted down at us from up the hill. I was beginning to believe that he was the leader.
"Hún mýun ekki khoma!" He shouted back, gesturing angrily at me. I glanced back and forth between them but remained sitting. I really should have thought to ask Severus for a translation spell or something, but hindsight was always twenty-twenty. I couldn't have possibly known I would need it so soon, but I did have the vague thought every now and then that if there was sentient life in this reality, they more than likely wouldn't speak my language. I was just happy that sentient life here still appeared to be perfectly human…if not a little barbaric.
The other man said something I couldn't hear and those around him started to laugh loudly. The woman shouted something at the man standing over me, and the man yelled something angrily, gesturing to her and then me with his spear. The sharp point was in my face as he continued to argue with the woman, and I brought my hands up to move the spear to the side.
He reached down quickly, grabbing my wrists where the rope was tied and yanking me onto my feet before shoving me towards the group. I glared angrily at him, throwing my bound fists against his chest and standing on my toes to shout up at him. "I'm done walking! Either carry me or leave me here!"
I was about to return to sitting on the ground, or perhaps ducking as his expression was twisted angrily enough that he looked to be considering violence, when the temperature seemed to drop and movement out of the corner of my eye drew my attention.
The man had his free hand around my arm near my shoulder, gripping hard over the bruises that he had left there the day before, and shouting something down at me that was no doubt a threat, but I didn't notice any of that. At first, I thought it was Severus, but I knew he was at least a mile back, and it couldn't have been the whelps as I trusted Severus to keep them close, but the thing moving between the trees was definitely white.
His grip tightened and he shook me as I could finally make out the shape of what appeared to be a person walking towards us, but there was something wrong with them. They moved oddly, skin bare and pale, and the bluest eyes I had ever seen. With every step closer they moved, the colder it seemed to become.
"Haltuf áhfram! Etha ég mýun berhja thig!" He shouted down at me, and I found myself slapping his chest to turn his attention to the thing approaching us.
"What is that," I hissed, even as he shook me again. I slapped his chest harder with my bound hands and then pointed at the approaching figure.
He was still shouting at me, his spear pointing towards the group, but his head turned to where I was pointing, and his words trailed off and then died in his throat. I watched his face go from furious to panicked in seconds and suddenly he was shouting again, but this time not at me.
"Hvítm göngrind! Hvítm göngrind!" The others were rushing back down the hill, weapons ready as the man shoved me behind him and held his spear out in front of him.
The leader was shouting at the group as they joined us, getting into a loose formation facing the creature that looked like a man and yet didn't. The youngest man threw himself to his knees on the ground next to me, hurriedly grabbing twigs and branches out of his pack and dropping them into a pile.
The creature appeared to be male and was so gaunt his ribs on clear display underneath its blindingly white skin. It looked as if the skin had been mummified, dried and stretched, before being pulled over his bones. His eyes were blue and glowed in the dim light that filtered through the trees. In his hand was a blade like none I had ever seen, thin and made out of what appeared to be ice. It reflected the light around it, and it was hard to see the edges.
"Tilbúnn!" The leader shouted, and the others replied with something else. The youngest was striking flint stone and I realized he was trying to start a fire, though his shaking hands were making it difficult.
The approaching white creature stopped a few dozen paces away, lifted his clear sword, pointed it at us, and then let out a dry cracking shriek that made my ears ring.
Things came out of the forest behind it…dozens of dead things that held weapons, eyes bright blue, and a sickly dark magic seeped from them in waves that caused my stomach to roll. I thought of Severus, I thought of him so hard that I pressed my terror and urgency into him and felt his overwhelming fear ripple back.
He was coming, I could feel him closing the distance…but the dead things were much closer, and I knew that he wouldn't make it.
The dead were approaching fast and I felt my magic surge up to protect me. The rope slipped from my bound wrists and Severus' wand snapped into my hand with a flick. I cast the shielding spell without thought, making certain that it encompassed the whole group, and secretly thanked Severus for drilling combat magic into me.
My captors crouched low, bracing themselves to meet the oncoming dead head on, and then flinching back as the dead slammed into a barrier invisible to their eyes. They clawed at it, shrieking and slamming their weapons against the barrier, and though the group looked at each other in confusion, the pale creature with the clear sword was looking right at me.
The group followed its gaze and as they turned to settle their eyes on me, I pointed my wand to the pile of sticks and lit it with a flick. The fire burst into life, far too high and too strong for what little fuel it had available and the young man fell backwards as the flames roared. The group shifted away from me, bodies turned to keep the dead and myself in sight…but my gaze didn't leave the pale white creature with the glowing blue eyes.
The man who had carried me recovered first, thrusting his spear into the roaring flames and lighting the tip on fire. The others were quick to do the same, the woman lighting an arrow before she drew the bow back and let the arrow fly. It soared through my one-sided barrier and landed in the skull of a rotted corpse. It lit like kindling, before collapsing into a pile of smoke and flame.
Another arrow followed the first, and one of the men took up a bow as well. They had felled a third of the dead before my shield started to crack. Severus was still too far away to reach us before my barrier failed, and I knew that I would have to utilize more combat magic than I had ever had to before. I had never had to use the new spells he taught me outside of practice before now, and I already knew that most of them wouldn't work. What use was a disembowelment spell to a dead thing that didn't even have bowels?
Fire seemed to work, and I was certain a good blasting spell would be just as effective if I could blow the bodies apart enough that it would be useless. The other spells I would just have to test and see what worked…and I always did better when I was flying by the seat of my pants anyway.
I moved to stand next to my captors, wand at the ready and glare harsh as the pale creature shrieked again. The dead things were climbing atop the fallen brethren, their attack upon my shield increasing as they moved to fully surround us. The group may not have been able to see my magic, but they could hear the cracking as the shield started to splinter, and I watched them spread out in a loose circle and prepare.
Seconds later, the shield crumbled with a loud boom and the dead were suddenly upon us. I lashed out with a whip of fire that swung around to the outside of our group and incinerated the dead closest to us. The flames hadn't even died before they were fully upon us.
Flipendo was effective in downing the dead long enough for one of the others to dispatch them, and bombarda blasted them back far enough to give us some space. I cast as many spells as I could think, conjuring birds to fly at their faces to distract them, freezing their feet to the ground, transforming their weapons into feathers and other useless objects. All it did was slow them down, but nothing seemed to stop their assault.
I cast a blasting spell, covering my eyes as the dead thing before me burst apart in a shower of body parts, releasing another lashing of fire to get the closest to back off, when I noticed even more dead pouring from the trees. There had to be half a hundred of them in various states of decay.
"Severus!" I shouted, though I doubted he could hear me. I couldn't focus enough to feel how close he was, but I knew if he didn't get here soon, we would be overwhelmed.
There was a cry from behind me, and I turned just in time to see the youngest male go down underneath a pile of the corpses. By the time I blasted them off, he was dead, eyes staring up at nothing and front covered in blood.
I felt that gut wrenching pull of guilt and sadness, the young man's bear cloak still around my shoulders, and I had never even learned his name.
The woman went down next, along with the man next to her, and I cast a heavy banishing charm upon the dead on top of them, but I was already engaging more of the dead and couldn't see if either got back up. I felt the leader bump against me from behind as he used his heavy axe to cleave several of them in two with one swing.
The one who carried me stumbled against my other side and I realized we had all retreated as far as we could, with the dead surrounding us from all sides. There was nowhere else to retreat to.
I cast another whip of fire and lashed it around us to give us some breathing room, but the dead were so numerous that any gap I had created was closed seconds later. We were all going to die here.
A loud whistling noise came from above, and for a moment I didn't know what it was…until I felt Severus' presence surge through me. "Down!" I shouted, grabbing the two men closest to me and trying to yank them down. They didn't budge under my forceful tugging, but they did copy me seconds later as the ground before us exploded into bright blue and purple flames, the blowback strong enough to knock me onto my back.
I could barely make out the small white dragon ascending before I lost sight of him in the white clouds. I could only use my ears to locate him as he stooped, and another group of dead were engulfed in blue and purple fire. A shriek drew my attention and I could just make out Loki's low gliding form as he soared over us and set another group of dead alight.
The whelps descended from the sky, and in seconds the battle turned in our favor. I turned to check on the other's when I found myself scrabbling suddenly away from the pale creature that had closed the distance between us. It bore down on me, slicing his nearly invisible sword at me and I ducked and weaved away from each swing.
I tripped over one of the dead, theirs or ours I couldn't tell, and I watched as the blade came down from above, heading straight for my head. I flinched back, trying to bring my wand up but knowing it was too late, when a spear came up to stop the blow…except it didn't. The spear shattered into thousands of pieces of ice, and the sword continued its downward swing.
The delay the spear had caused gave me just enough time to roll out of the way and cast a blasting charm on the creature. The spell didn't work as intended against it, barely causing him to stumble as opposed to throwing him back, but it gave me enough time to get to my feet and bring my wand up.
The man who helped me, the one who I had been arguing with before the attack, was now weaponless, and he struggled to find something usable that the dead had left behind when they had fallen. I stepped in front of the defenseless man and cast a severing hex at the white creature. Its skin split across the chest, but it didn't bleed. It barely seemed to notice at all.
Behind it, I saw the ground explode again and I stumbled from the blowback. By the time I regained my balance, the creature was on me once more. A burning arrow flew into its chest, but the flame stuttered out and died before the tip had even been fully buried. The creature lifted a hand and yanked the arrow out, its approach not slowed in the least.
A jet of flame burst from my wand, but the cold killed that as well. Behind me, the fire died, and the air was so cold that it burned my lungs. In desperation I cast my protronus, blinking in surprise as a skeletal thin winged horse burst forth, and not the doe that I was expecting. It charged at the creature, flaring its wings and head low, and though it distracted the thing, it didn't do much more than that.
What I really needed was a sword.
Even as I thought the words, I felt a heavy metal handle materialize into my hand. I didn't look at it, I didn't have too. Even though it had been several years, the pommel of sword of Gryffindor felt at home in my hand just as it did when I wielded it against the basilisk. I dropped the wand, not even giving it a second thought as I felt it return to the holster, gripping the sword with both hands and bringing it up to block the next swing.
The two blades met with a high-pitched ring, and though I flinched back, expecting the blade to break, it held steady. I don't know who was more surprised, me or the creature.
It starred at the blade, the shimmering surface reflecting the creature's pale face, and then its glowing blue eyes turned to me. I parried the next attack, ducked beneath a heavy swing, and ran it through with the sword in my hands. Ice spread from the wound in its chest, and the creature had one last second to look shocked before it burst apart into tiny pieces like the spear had.
Around us, the dead collapsed and didn't get back up. The foul magic that had been leaking from them was gone, and I was left standing in a field of corpses, breathing heavily and suddenly feeling exhausted once more.
Above me the dragons shrieked, and I felt the light weight of Severus landing upon my shoulder. His talons dug into the bear fur, one of his wings curling behind my neck and I felt his dual thumb-claws curl tightly into my loose hair. He was breathing heavy, small chest heaving and his hide twitching. My hand raised without thought, and Severus' head rubbed harshly against my palm , a low thrum emanating from his chest.
I turned to look back at the group, taking in the survivors. The leader stood with his axe still at the ready, behind him was the man who carried me. He was kneeling in the snow, a broken sword in one hand and gripping his side tightly with the other. I couldn't see the woman.
I approached the two men slowly, stopping when they flinched back and brought their weapons up to bear. I blinked in surprise, only realizing that they were preparing to fight me when Severus whispered words of caution into my ears. The sword was heavy in my hands, and I stabbed it into the ground to hold my hands up in surrender. The action didn't seem to placate them.
Around us, the few dragons that had landed started to take notice, turning their attentions to our standoff. They took in the two men with interested eyes, and I could see the men become more nervous as Hera started to approach. I waved her off, encouraging her and the others to back off. She did, but only after a few long seconds where I thought she would disobey and possibly attack them. It was only Severus' warning trill that made her obey.
"He needs healing," I spoke softly though I knew they couldn't understand me. Instead I gestured to the injured man and shuffled closer.
The leader gripped his axe harder but let me pass when Severus shrieked a threat at him. The injured man flinched again when the rest of the whelps started to land around us. Gemini was nosing curiously at the dead bodies, and Guinevere was shrieking at Roan as he nipped at one. Roan cowered back, leaving the dead alone, and Gemini soon followed as Guinevere turned her severe gaze upon the smaller dragon.
Severus puffed up his chest and glared at the two men as I kneeled before the injured one. He stared at me, the scars prominent on his pale face and fingers covered in blood from where he gripped his side. I reached forward slowly, and he allowed me to pull his hand away to look at his wound.
I had to rip the furs further to get a good view, ignoring his grunt as I prodded at the rather large slice that stretched from the bottom of his ribcage to his hip. "Would episky work?" I asked Severus, ignoring the injured man's flinch as the wand snapped into my hand and I cleaned away the blood with a scourgify.
"It should," Severus replied, tilting his head to peer at it. "It doesn't look deep, just long. You may have to cast it more than once."
By the time I was finished, the other man had gathered their dead and started to strip them of their supplies. I was saddened to see the woman had passed as well, her body laid between the younger man who had given me his cloak and the other man who had held me a spearpoint. I cast a quick repairing charm on the furs of the one before me, before I stood and walked over to the other.
I could see the still kneeling man poking at his healed wound and tugging at his repaired clothing, he was speaking to the other one, and the leader looked curiously over at him, but continued gathering what supplies they had left. The once injured man stood and began gathering wood, and though they both tried to hide it, I could tell they were watching both me and the dragons at all times.
Solar and Romulus were fighting over a thigh bone of one of the more decomposed corpses, and I felt my eyes rolling at their antics even as I went over to break them apart. I tugged the bone away, bopping them both on the nose when the protested with loud shrieks.
"Stop that," I hissed at their cries of protest. Shooing Hera away as she approached another corpse in curiosity. "Not food," I told them, ignoring Roan's immediate and excited question of food. "Severus, make them stop. Merlin knows what kinds of diseases these bodies are carrying."
"We should burn them," he replied. "Gather the bodies up, I'll light them."
I flicked my wand and floated the corpses into another pile, ignoring the blatant staring the men were doing, and then chasing Gemini away as he tried to pluck the moving body pieces from the air.
Severus shrieked at the whelps and Loki shrieked back in defiance, but they finally settled. Once the last body part settled into the pile, Severus climbed down my arm and glided to the snow-covered ground. I thought about saying something, knowing that it wasn't the fault of the dead that their bodies had been reanimated with foul magic, but I couldn't find anything to say.
Instead I nodded to the small dragon that stood only a little higher than the height of my boot and Severus turned and lit the pile of dead bodies on fire. His flame burned so hot that the first few inches were beyond the color spectrum my eyes could see, and the pile was reduced instantly to ash.
I stood over them, hands clasped behind me, ignoring the blistering heat I could feel on my face, keeping vigil until the pile burned out. It only took a few minutes before the fire died, just as Severus intended, but it still felt like a lifetime had passed before I finally turned away. The two men were staring at the pile of ash and snow, their gazes flickering between me and the small dragon at my side. I raised a single eyebrow at them, trying to keep my expression neutral like I had seen Severus do a hundred times during potions class.
"Gehtur thú gertr hath?" The leader asked, gesturing to the pile of ash and then to the three dead behind him. "Gehtur thú gertr hath fryr thá?"
"I think they want you to burn their dead," I told Snape, gesturing to the small dragon and then three dead just as the leader had done. The heavily scarred man nodded his head once, hands tight on his axe, but he didn't bring it up to bear.
"That would be wise," Severus replied. He climbed up the fur cloak to settle on my shoulder and I approached. The man moved aside quickly, keeping me in sight but not threateningly. He seemed more curious than anything now.
Seconds later there was another pile of ash, and the other man, the one who had carried me and had been gathering wood grunted in annoyance and dropped his pile. The wood pieces were large, too large for a simple campfire, and I realized that he had been gathering it to build a pyre. Unnecessary now, as Severus had already taken care of it.
A noise in the forest had everyone back on high alert, and the men had their weapons at the ready in less than a moment. The sound was getting closer, and I moved quickly back to the sword of Gryffindor. Pulling it from the snow I brought it up to bear, but what came from between the trees wasn't more dead or another pale creature, but a black dragon with the sled tied behind her.
"Ophelia!" I shouted, only just then realizing she had been missing from the group. Someone, likely Severus, had worked the leather strips into a sort of harness, and the loop around her neck was easy to shed if she needed too. Ophelia dragged the sled closer before she ducked her head to bite at the end of the straps, with a tug and twist she was free of the bindings and bullying her way through her siblings to harass Gemini and shriek threateningly at Roan.
It couldn't have been easy, dragging the sled through the snow and rocky terrain. The levitation spell probably having died not soon after I was taken. But Ophelia had done it, and it with little difficulty. She didn't appear tired at all.
Once the other men realized that another threat wasn't to come, they lowered their weapons and started to speak softly amongst themselves. The one that had been gathering wood started to build a fire and I realized that they intended to stay here for the night. It made sense, as the sky was already dimming, and we were all tired from the fight.
"Is that the sword of Gryffindor?" Severus asked, crawling down my arm to take a closer look. I held the weapon aloft and rotated it so he could see the ruby incrusted hilt and Godric Gryffindor's name engraved into the flat of the blade.
"So it would seem," I replied with a sigh.
"How?" He asked, eyes wide and dorsal fins fluttering. "How did it get here?"
"I must have summoned it again."
"Again?!" Severus hissed, rearing his head back and snapping his gaze to mine. He sounded thoroughly flummoxed. "What do you mean again?"
I shrugged, walking over to the sled and taking my – Hermione's – bag from the sled and pulling out strips of dragon hide, dragon bone, and a long piece of sea serpent skin. "You know, the thing with the Chamber of Secrets in my second year. I summoned it from the sorting hat and used it to defeat the basilisk."
"Basilisk?!" He shrieked again, crawling further up my arm and glaring again. "I heard nothing of this!"
"Really?" I asked curiously…I had thought everyone knew. "Everyone was talking about it at the end of the year feast."
He climbed further up my arm to perch once more on my shoulder. "I thought it was just exaggerated stories, rumors started by children."
"Oh," I replied, nodding my head. That did make sense…a girl of twelve slaying a basilisk was quite the tall tale if nobody else had been there to witness it. "Well, it wasn't."
"What happened to the snake?" He asked, twining two of his thumb claws in my loose hair and digging the other two into the fur cloak.
"I don't know," I sighed, thrusting the sword back into the snow and bringing my wand out. I transfigured the dragon hide strips into a belt and the bone chunk into a decorative belt buckle that looked like a dragon's mouth. "It's probably still down in the chamber, rotting or whatever."
The noise that emitted from Snape's muzzle could only be described as a wail of despair. "Rotting?!" He screamed, drawing the attention of the two men who were in a quiet conversation a dozen meters away. "Rotting?! How could you leave it rot?! Do you know how much basilisk parts a worth? The potion ingredients! Rotting!" He wailed in despair and it took everything I had not to start laughing.
"Aw," I cooed, reaching up and caressing his head and neck until his fins relaxed. "I'm sorry," my tone was more amused than apologetic. "I was more worried about not dying. The lost opportunity to harvest it didn't even occur to me."
"Do not mock me!" Severus nipped at my fingers, and I flicked his nose in retaliation causing him to sneeze.
"I wouldn't dream of it," I laughed softly as I used the dragon bone and the white opalescent serpent hide to form a scabbard for the sword. It took a few adjustments, but the sword fit securely in the end and I looped the scabbard through the belt and tied it around my waist. "As for the sword," I began, struggling a moment with the decorative buckle before I figured it out. "Well, legend is that if you display true Gryffindor courage, the sword will come to you in a time of need. I've already summoned it once, maybe it has an affinity for me."
"I'm not certain if that's a good thing, having a magical artifact showing you favoritism."
I snorted at his dry comment. "And I'm certain your cynicism has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that it is an object from the House Gryffindor of which we speak," I commented, my voice laced with obvious amusement. Snape did not deign to answer, instead choosing to growl lowly and ignore the conversation all together…as he was known to do whenever he lost an argument.
I let him drop the topic, choosing instead to pull back the hide covering the sled and start gathering meat to feed the dragons. "Are you alright?" I asked Severus, worried about the near two days of separation as the whelps started to gather around me, chirruping and warbling in excitement. Their heads came up to my hip now, and I realized that they were growing up quickly.
"I am fine," he replied, shaking his head and bumping the side of his face against my cheek. "A little tired. And you, did they hurt you?"
"Food?" Roan chirped, smelling the meat as I started to separate them into piles. His head was tilted back and his mouth open as if I was going to just start tossing him pieces.
"Food?" Gemini repeated.
"Yes, yes," I sighed, making a vague shooing motion with my hand. "Just give me a bloody moment. I'm alright," I answered Severus, feeling my muscles twitch in exhaustion. "A little sore, but fine. They never hit me, but they weren't exactly kind. That one, the one with the spear, he's very grabby."
"Do I need to handle him?" Severus asked, turning to look behind him at the two men. "I could get rid of them," he offered, and I didn't know if I should have felt amused or horrified. He was contemplating murder, but he was doing so for my honor. I was almost flattered.
"I assure you, that will be quite unnecessary," I replied, deciding to try for a neutral approach. "But we'll keep an eye on them all the same."
"Food?!" Roan chirped louder, interrupting our conversation and I bit back my automatic response of annoyance. Moments later, the dragon whelps were huddled in their little piles, gorging themselves on their meals. If I put a little extra in each pile…well, Severus didn't say anything.
I grabbed some meat for myself and Severus before joining the two men by the fire. They shifted awkwardly, though they didn't protest as I sat down. The meat was already cooked, but I still skewered some smaller pieces on a stick and shoved them into the flame. Severus liked his food burning.
The men were watching me while trying to appear like they weren't. It would have been amusing if it wasn't exactly what everyone did back at Hogwarts when they found out I was the Girl-Who-Lived. It didn't help that I probably left a bad impression with them as well, especially after my little tantrum when I decided I wasn't going to walk anymore.
Well, no time like the present to start again, as Hermione would say.
"Harielle," I spoke slowly, gesturing at myself. I repeated it a few more times, before I gestured to the white dragon who was full and plump in my lap. "Severus," the little dragon looked up at me, blinking slowly before laying his head back down. He must have been more tired than I thought with all the flying and fire breathing he had done.
"Ólafur," the leader gestured to himself. "Arnar," he then gestured to the man who had carried me. I smiled, finally feeling like we were getting somewhere.
Then Gemini bullied his way into the group, startling Ólafur and Arnar, tried to climb into my lap which Severus was occupying – and did not appreciate – and I flopped backwards on the snow, sighing as Severus and Gemini shrieked angrily at each other. So much for good second first impressions.
