It only took five minutes of broom flight, one apparation, and half an hour of more flying before Harry and Crookshanks saw below them, the gentle, green slopes of Little Hangleton valley.
The setting sun had dropped beneath the highland peaks now, and the remnant dusky glow was faint and dim, but the tiniest remnant of light still kissed the muggle rooftops and sparse streetlights as Harry viewed the evening. The pale light touched only upon the tallest parts of the shadowed village; it looked like a picture from a postcard.
The picturesque village was surrounded by cleared land, not large enough for farming, and from his height just above the forested road, Harry saw with a jolt of cognitive dissonance the yellow headlights of three or four cars puttering through the muggle main street.
Checking to see if his Invisibility Cloak was still secure, he nevertheless drifted down so that he would be highlighted by the skyline, his feet skimming the tops of the riotous, tangled trees.
With Crow back in the Hogwarts dormitory, helping to solidify his alibi, Harry and a still-sullen kneazle approached their destination from the air, the cold glimmer of starlight above them.
The breeze could charitably be described as 'fresh', and Harry found himself with windswept hair and wind-blushed cheeks that stung a little from the bite of the wind. Only Crookshanks' body heat near his stomach and the last dregs of his adrenaline kept Harry warm as they glided through the sky; he'd forgotten he might need gloves in this weather and was chillier than he'd planned to be.
He knew where he was going, of course; he'd seen Dumbledore's memory all those years ago, and had come here himself more than once. He was familiar with how it looked: the road, the hut, the valley below. Yet, somehow or rather, as he hovered on his old broomstick, the early night wind teasing at his temples, the sight of the Gaunt house from the air surprised Harry. It was well overrun by the riotous, lush forest that had grown up to devour it and looked smaller, more crooked, and darker in the night than he remembered.
Harry let his shoulders relax, and leaned forward to get a better look.
From fifteen feet up, the heavily shadowed shack seemed tiny. Overgrown and overwhelmed by the thriving trees, eager moss and the nettle bushes fighting it out with choking ivy, the rotting wood walls and gaping holes in the decrepit roof made the place seem pathetic.
Pitiful.
But the magic that radiated from it, the iridescent colours shimmering from enchantments like heat…
Harry blinked. Frowned.
Having pulled up his broomstick to hover just outside the ward line with care, Harry found the mage light itching at his eyes and took a moment to manage his vision.
It wasn't anything like Hogwarts; glowing rather than blazing, the network of magicks shimmering rather than melding together into that white-hot block of light that could burn his eyes out. But it was painful enough, and good practice for his control because of it.
As he hung a few feet away, Harry forced himself to look through the mage light.
His occlumency helped, as he sank into control, and the preternatural light dimmed like a telly screen searching for reception. He didn't notice how he bit his lip to sharpen his mind or the funny blink that he'd picked up to force the shift in his vision.
It was with a stuttering series of odd tweaks in his brain that he forced the colours to slip to one side slightly so that his actual eyes could see. Normally, with the usual vision, Harry made himself analyse the challenge.
A dark hut. In encroaching, nighttime woodland.
A damp, mildew scent carried to his nose, even from here.
Looking down at it from this height, the…house…was smaller than he remembered from this angle, smaller even than he'd realised last time he came here two or three years ago. It was…minimalist? Miniscule?
As an errant night breeze caught a flyaway strand of his fringe to tickle at his eyelashes, Harry cocked his head to see if a change in perspective would help his analysis.
His brain kept searching for words while he hovered there, emotionally preparing for the task: 'meagre' would be a better word for it.
No wonder Voldemort had been disappointed to fury when he finally met his erstwhile relatives.
No wonder it had once been described as a 'hovel'. From the silhouetted shape of the roof, Harry could spot three rooms maximum, or so he figured from trying to place where rooms might have once been designed to begin and end. A kitchen with all the wizarding things, he assumed: fireplace and cupboard and cauldron and whatnot. The stone chimney was still mostly there.
But what about the dining room? Living room? There surely didn't seem enough room for both of them, either of them. So some kind of all-purpose common space. And…it had definitely slept four people at one stage, so...two bedrooms?
Experience whispered: maybe someone slept on the couch? In a cupboard? It wouldn't have been Morfin.
A sudden, unexpected sensation of empathy washed over Harry for the luckless Merope Gaunt; no wonder she'd been desperate to leave, in a house that size, with the menfolk she'd had.
He shifted uneasily on his broom, and as his focus waned, the shining glory of Voldemort's spell work glowered back into view like a fire coming back from the brink. The shine of mage light was a far more palatable sight than the frankly pathetic hollowness that the wretched shack let linger.
As always, Harry could only distantly touch upon words that might describe the Dark Lord's enchantments.
It was beautiful: a spiderweb of light, a knit-work of glowing threads, twining and stretching and draping the building's shell like an exquisite lace. Like crochet-architecture, a multitude of lights, the luminescent colours of which Harry could only begin to name, stringing the black building with the most delicate of filaments. In the dark, the corners of the building, from the foundations to the rooftop, gathered the swathes of light like Christmas wreaths of gossamer. Harry's eyes watered at the sight of the fabric of it, the beauty, the artistry of the truly exquisite creation.
The magic weave was dense enough to glow opalescent, but it twinkled as Harry drifted there in the late afternoon sun. Blues, silvers, green on the windows and door; pinks, roses, orange; a pearlescent sheen to the shape of it that had Harry raising an arm to stroke it even from this distance…
He paused even before Crookshanks batted at him with an impatient paw. He wouldn't actually touch it; not even he was daft enough to fall for that. It was just…beautiful, incredible, exquisite, was all.
Hovering here on his broom in the nighttime, Harry felt himself dizzy with the blossoming of a new perspective. Here, he could appreciate Voldemort's craft, and could understand why Dumbledore had called him "brilliant", why Ollivander had called him "great". He'd never felt the need to know that before.
The enchantment twinkling before him was utterly unlike the magic of Hogwarts, unlike even the odd vision of golden sigils and netting that he'd seen in the Fidelius he'd cast for Sirius, but still magnificent. With a twinge of jealousy, Harry's mind came back to the challenge.
He…he couldn't think of any more words to use, so with a single thought, Harry had the broomstick drifting down and forward so he could attempt the horcrux removal.
Once safely on the ground, Harry and Crookshanks took their time circling the building, just outside the ward line. He'd given it the benefit of the doubt last time he was here, but this visit would have confirmed the value of mage-sight even if it had helped him with nothing else already.
To others, the house was surrounded by a riot of lush greenery, with tendrils and branches stretching themselves optimistically towards the tiny clearing that the house made. Harry, however, could see where the original boundary had been: an oddly faded silver, misty light that seeped into the ground in a vaguely circular shape, centring on the house.
It was that ward line that stopped the tree roots destabilising the foundational piles, from stopping the ivy from forcing the rickety walls over, kept the nettles from sneaking in through the gaps in the weatherboard or the tiny, grimy windows, and taking root in the leaflitter that presumably gathered inside.
Harry knew enough to avoid the ward line for as long as he could – less evidence to leave that way, if nothing else – but that didn't help him with deciding on his first steps for horcrux retrieval.
In front of him, Crookshanks navigated the flora with far more grace than Harry, and he found himself tripping and cursing every second step while he scoped out the hut.
"Ruddy branches," he muttered when a low-slung branch seemed to emerge from the shadows just in time for Harry to trip over it.
"Crap! Watch-ou—Sorry, Crookshanks."
"Ow! Cor blimey! Damn it!"
"Oh, for the love of…"
His temper simmered worse and worse as the time ticked past, and his ankles grew cool with the forest damp that brushed against him. Harry was excruciatingly sensitive to the passing time as he and his kneazle walked and paused, walked and paused for thought, scrambled and tripped their way around the hut.
Finally, Harry found himself crouching between the house and the road again. His legs were damp and muddy, tiny scratches itched at his hands and ankles that had been exposed to the whip-thin branches, and there was sweat beading on his forehead again.
"Well?" he fought for an even tone of voice and turned to speak to the orange beast beside him. "Any ideas? The…ah, spellwork has no gaps, right?"
After a pause, Harry spared a look at his companion kneazle to his left. Tonight, Crookshanks was uncommonly alert; his habitual disinterest, that cat-like confidence that the world would revolve around his comfort, was missing. In its place, Crookshanks sat almost stiffly. His long, orange back was a straight and stern grey in the night, his long, wispy ears were fixed firmly forward – never mind the occasional owl-hoot and skittering of small forest things – as if all the secrets of the Gaunt hovel would soon be laid bare to him.
Crookshanks stared fixedly at the shack's front door but shared no thoughts with Harry.
Harry took a moment to take Crookshanks' alertness in, and then sprawled down onto the ground next to him.
It was damp and unpleasant to sit on, as more forest floors tended to be, covered in old leaf litter and the strong scent of decay. But once he was on the ground, Harry could slow his breathing mindfully, and set his sight on the shack properly.
He blinked, and the shadows and the lights seemed to change somehow. He blinked again: the last, desperate hints of light in the sky faded; the shadows grew deeper.
Harry blinked a third time, and this time his vision – his normal vision – seemed almost unimportant as he sank deeply, deeply, deeply, into the sensation of mage sight.
Beside him, Crookshanks' yellow eyes glowed equally in the growing shadows of the evening.
Some time passed.
Harry didn't know how long it took, but eventually, something invisible changed in the air, and after the fact, he would never be able to say what it was. Maybe some of Crookshanks' stiffness faded, maybe his muscles relaxed just a tad, or his tail softened slightly. Maybe an owl had hooted, or his night vision had sharpened to see movement in the night forest himself.
Harry moved, cricking his neck and straightening out the stiffness in his spine. He felt the coldness seep into his seat and something tiny crawling along by the top of his right sock. He flicked the insect off with his wand tip and wondered how long they had sat there.
"What do you reckon?" he asked Crookshanks, his voice sounding rough and unexpected in the night.
Those glowing eyes turned to look at Harry, who shrugged.
"I mean," the boy finally spoke, words dropping into the forest noises, "the last time I was here I sent snakes up to the front door which," he shrugged, "killed them off pretty quickly and now I can see why, yeah?" He blew out an overwhelmed huff of breath. "There is absolutely no way I can do a Dumbledore and blast straight into the building that way. Blimey. What's that one quote? That way madness lies?"
Crookshanks twitched his tail.
Harry shrugged a shoulder. "Well, I don't know where it comes from originally, but I've heard Hermione say it often enough. I know what it means: if I kept up with that line of thinking, I might as well announce to the world I'm retiring due to madness. Pick your Rita Skeeter insult of choice. So. 'His equal' or not, I'm not bloody risking myself by pitting me against…that." His right arm gestured loosely towards the death trap in question, with barely a hitch in his breath as Harry's robe sleeve brushed up against the tiny scratches on his wrist, stinging the tiny cuts.
"The windows and roof…I mean, they are the most obvious next choices, and our dear, delightful dark lord knows it. So those are a no-go too. Hence the dead snakes of last time, I guess."
Crookshanks flicked an ear Harry's way and radiated disapproval.
"What? They were conjured; I wasn't murdering actual sentient beings. They would have unconjured themselves soon or later, even without me."
The kneazle was appeased.
A long moment passed while Harry contemplated the enchanted house quietly, and Crookshanks thought cat-like thoughts in companionable silence beside him.
Finally, Harry huffed.
"I mean, he's certainly warded this place up against any and every potential human intruder who might pass by, hasn't he? Witch, wizards, muggles, whatever…They'd need to have all the power and experience of Dumbledore himself to get in the usual ways. It's…about what I expected, to be honest. Brilliant. I mean…just look at that light weave! Every single weakness in the house itself: the front door, that broken window, the missing roof tiles – they're all traps. Just look at that," he waved his right hand inarticulately at the roof tile in question, "that. I've never seen so much…layering of colour in an enchantment." He paused. "Do you reckon a dispergo is safe?
The sunny morning when Arthur Weasley had taught him and Percy to look for booby-trapped presents seemed like a lifetime ago.
"Because, well," Harry shrugged and shifted his seat an inch, "I can see all the colours, even the thrumming and the living of it all, but I don't know if He prepared a trap for mage sight. I mean, I won't be changing the spells, or even really touching them. They'd just…separate a little for me." He licked his lips. "Worth risking?"
Crookshanks stared at him.
Harry sighed. "Yeah, fine. I thought so too, if I'm honest."
The night-time sounds of tiny living beings rustled below them in the valley, and the leaves shivered and shook as a strong breeze brushed past them.
"I guess the one and only blind spot of our good, old Dark Lord is his arrogance, right? And I mean," Harry gestured again towards the stunning network of light that glowed before him. "I can see why he's got arrogance too."
A pause.
"I've definitely got a plan though, Crookshanks, so there's no need to give me that look. I just," Harry paused to lick his lips and shiver in the evening. "I just need to find a starting point."
The thought intruded that Harry would need to keep track of the time, if he was going to make the best use of the night, if he was going to come out of this with the perfect alibi, but he pushed the thought away and settled back onto the damp ground. Focus, he told himself, and found himself again sinking into the magic and the light and the pattern of it all.
Weakness, he was looking for. Just one chance.
The most obvious of descriptions of the sight he was looking at was a weave of multi-colour light that covered the building like a curtain, a spiderweb, the most delicate of lace that linked light to light, and knotted and turned upon itself to form a net that hugged the whole house.
It seemed to repel physics – or at least the forces of the world that Harry was most familiar with; no wind caused it to shake or shimmer, no creaking of floorboards or walls caused an echo of movement in the patter of light against dark that he was looking at.
But he sat and he stared and he searched for something in the building, something in the weave of the magic to grab hold of him.
While the other Harry sat in the tent with the champions and learned cribbage, this Harry sat on damp ground and traced magic lines over corners and eaves.
The other Harry played blackjack and made the first overtures of friendship towards Fleur and Viktor, this Harry made tentative strides towards Voldemort's legacy.
An owl hooted somewhere behind the Gaunt shack, and the small night-time noises – rustling night creatures that moved quietly around the forest floor, avoiding predators – returned to Harry's whereabouts, unnoticing of his silent presence.
When the whistles started blowing and the four Champions stepped forward to face down a dragon to retrieve their golden egg, finally, this Harry too stirred slightly. His bright eyes caught something, a snag in the weave, and he uncrossed his legs to lean forward, to stare at it. To make sure that the obstacle between him and his golden prize was surmountable.
The tiny singing insects that had come out in the still night froze again, and Harry found himself sitting in a puddle of silence.
"Do you see that?" he asked Crookshanks, his voice once again rough and unexpected. "That little…gap? I bloody well knew it would be this angle! I learned it last time! Vol—You-Know-Who would have 'considered the ways of house-elves far beneath his notice' and so on and so forth; You-Know-Who 'disregarded anything less than human'; You-Know-Who dismissed Kreacher, and children, and tailored his protections for the best brightest and most brilliant wizards and witches to power through!"
Crookshanks stared.
Harry coughed. "I mean, I've always assumed that all of You-Know-Who's defences are kind of perfectly tailored to baffle Professor Dumbledore and all of his brilliance. So, as long as I take a different tack to that, I'll be in for a chance!"
In Hogwarts, Viktor Krum stood up and left that Champions tent, in order to face down his Swedish Short-Snout. Here, Harry leaned over to his kneazle and raised his left hand to point. "You see the front door, right? Which is practically drowning in enchantments and warding, and the windows which kind of shine brilliantly in their frames, and even the ruddy walls which are enchanted against people and damage, right?"
"I knew it would be there somewhere," Harry muttered to Crookshanks while the great cat twitched his ears in his direction, "that You-Know-Who wouldn't have warded against animals. I mean…with a few snakes a few years ago, but I didn't— I wasn'— I was confused back then. I made them use the human entrances. I was still thinking like a person, then. So they died, I guess. But now I've realised the trick!"
A flush of warm excitement rose within him, and Harry took a moment to savour its heat.
Then Crookshanks very precisely placed a paw on Harry's knee, and he realised that he was waffling away, not quite getting to the point. And even Crookshanks had limits to his patience. He was probably worried about Harry, the wizard figured. That was fair enough.
"My grand plan. Yeah, I…I need to use, like, the animal entrances," Harry finally managed. "See there, the magic is strong around all the big entrances, but just around the west side, there's a small hole, you see. I reckon rats and mice used to use it all the time. I mean, it's tiny!"
He hauled himself to his feet and paced his way around to the side of the house he was talking of. "See? Right here. Too small for you even, and it's surrounded by magic and I barely even noticed it the first time. But the panelling's broken, right? And the magic has…stiffened it, so it can't be bent by human force."
He took a deep breath and realised that a wide grin was stretching over his face.
"I could…well, I could send another snake, but I've got no idea what's inside. And then I thought I could turn myself into a snake, but my transfigurations not that good yet. So…there's still the obvious solution, you get me?"
The exuberant triumph that burned in Harry's chest began to die down, from a flame to a smoulder, as Harry began to actually believe that he'd found the trick to the Gaunt ring.
"I've got everything going for me right now. Things I can't do at Hogwarts, I can do here."
Crookshanks looked mildly disapproving, but Harry didn't let the cat stop his enthusiasm.
"The ring's hidden under the floorboards, you know? I wouldn't even need to get into the building! The solution's to go under it. I'll miss almost all of the curses except the ones on the ring itself! It's perfect!"
Harry hauled himself into standing and turned his back to the distracting magic show, jaw clenched firmly. "If things go wrong, yeah? You know how to get a message through Crow and Kreacher, right? I mean, worst case scenario I die immediately, but I figure I can avoid that."
Crookshanks was not impressed.
"Look, I am used to it," Harry reminded. "And only slightly worse than that, I get stuck or cursed or something and trapped in here. You can get Dumbledore in that case. I don't know how well you know Fawkes, but…he'll help out, if necessary. Actually…I wonder if that's how Dumbledore broke in himself, last time…but never mind that for now."
In the black of the night, bright feline eyes were giving him a very judgemental stare.
"What? I'm not going at it Dumbledore's way, so I shouldn't get stuck with the curse he did, either. And I've had this half-formed plan for years…now, it's as perfect as I can make it."
They stared at each other for another long moment, vibrant green eyes into glowing yellow ones, but Harry didn't let himself get stared down.
"Anyway. I figured it out years ago, and I knew I had a niggle that would bring the whole plan together. And I have! Yes, I'm proud of myself!"
Finally, a meow.
"Not you! I'm not risking you on this. It needs to be me. Just watch."
And with a full-body shake to settle his nerves, Harry mustered all his concentration and then shifted: human to crow.
His human eyes swirled with colours indescribable as pressure built and magic swirled around him and in him. His muscles burned and ached and shifted all at once as his bones seemed to bend, stretch, pop.
Three minutes later, Harry found his eye level maybe 15 inches off the ground, absently ruffling his feathers and hopping about cheekily at the feet of a suddenly ginormous Crookshanks.
It took Harry a moment to settle into Crowley so that the senses weren't dizzying or overwhelming him. There was a chaotic instant of readjustment. His bruised-feeling brain refused to accept the impossibly large range of vision. His balance was wrong. The whole world was out of focus.
Then something fell into place. The forest was suddenly alive in sight and sound.
Insects humming beyond human hearing. Leaves shivering.
The edges of things. Tiny movements everywhere.
The scruffy black crow instinctively shook out his wings, settling his feathers. The world came into focus.
Tilting, Crowley hopped helplessly left, regaining his balance – he'd practised shifting, not…birding – and felt his heartbeat race when the huge kneazle-cat's displeased rumble echoed out from his surprisingly deep chest.
The cat was not purring, Crowley knew instinctively. His tiny heart raced in his small chest. It was growling. Crowley flailed in shock, tripping over his long tail while his weak wings failed to lift him aloft…
But the kneazle didn't pounce.
As he regained his balance, Crowley slowly realised that the great cat was waiting for him. He was safe for now, there was some kind of familiar sent…the predator had the feel of family.
Despite his huge field of vision, Crowley cocked his head to stare at the huge beast that demanded all his attention. It was right there in front of him. Ignoring it was hard: the deep, soft flame-like fur had extra colours in it unseen by human eyes: gold highlights flickered in the starlight, a copper sheen glistened near his paw-pads, ears, nose, tail. Bodyheat radiated, and Crowley wanted to hop closer, to investigate, to explore the shimmer and shine and gloss of it all.
Then: plans, Crowley remembered as he began to flutter towards the golden beast and tiny thoughts rushing through his head reminded him. Plans, right. Purpose. He shook the distractions away with a roll of his wings.
The house. Right. The ring: a shiny thing, seeking the shiny thing – that would keep him focused.
Adjusting rapidly to his new sense of balance, Crowley took mincing little steps: forward, sideways, back. His wings seemed to adjust to his actions ever-so-slightly, ever-so-importantly, and he settled into a sort of comfortable movement far faster than a wizard boy had once expected.
His mage-sight lit the way.
Shiny rings were this way.
Carefully, taking tiny little steps – birds weren't built for this, not really – and the occasional hop-hop-hop, Crowley drew closer to the looming building.
The great predator – still family, still dangerous – waited behind, and Crowley's feathers puffed up at the feeling of its great, yellow eyes fixed on him. Hunter's eyes. Watching.
Busy, busy, busy, Crowley told himself. The great cat was supervising. Crowley was a good bird. He shuffled forward.
Despite his small size, it didn't take Crowley long to hop towards the foundation, on which the wooden house sat. At this size, and so up close and personal, the magic-weave of the enchantments seemed looser.
In the dark shadow of the building, Crowley's head bobbed as he shuffled forward. He scratched around the ground, claws scraping the dirt, occasionally pecking at things to see what they were made of.
Nettles: dark, healthy, sheltered. Full of spiderwebs, ants, and tiny moths. He hopped closer. Three beetles saw Crowley coming – still new to this, still noisy – and scuttled away, their wonderful purple shells luring him after them.
The ring.
Beyond the nettles was the ivy: glossy, and sharp edged. There was magic on them, the crow could tell, and he stopped his approach to hop the long way around to the slats of the building foundation. Safety first.
His feathers fluffed up at the feeling of the cat's eyes on his back.
Wide flat wood boards.
They had once been whole and perfect, keeping out the pests, but age and lack of care had rotted holes in the weatherboard and no Dark Lord of any standing would take his time to fix up gaps against tiny scavengers.
It was a small hole, for a human, less than the fist-size of a teenage boy. But a half-grown crow fledgeling for fit in just fine, and then Crowley was in the shadow and the dark, under the house. The glow of enchantments lighting up his way.
It was dirty; crumbling leaves, rotting wood. Beetles. Woodlice munching their way through a fallen floorboard. Spiders spinning their silken webs above. A dead mouse slowly decaying on the south side. No snakes though – that was nice.
Neck twitching to take it all in, Crowley paused. Head cocked, birdlike, he fixed his eye on the goal ahead and hopped forward.
There was a rigid structure down here: tens of piles and wood-beams-on-wooden-beams held up the floor; over to the left, to the side of the house, was the kitchen chimney, still solid stone below the floors. The exit behind him smelt like autumn air and fresh wind, and before him, his goal was a hot glow of magic gathered in one particular point that guided Crowley onwards.
Careful not to flap his wings, bobbing his head down low to step mincingly over the bare earth when the ceiling – the wood beams and floorboards – grew too close, Crowley inched onwards, towards the stone, where a tiny little sun of magic tried to blind him where it lay.
Small insects scuttled away as he inched past them, tiny clawed foot after tiny clawed foot. It became faster to step diagonally.
One insect thing strayed too close; Crowley's beak snapped at it, gulping down the long-legged winged thing despite a vague feeling that he'd regret it later. Crowley continued onwards.
The urge to flap his wings – muscles twitching from a lack of control – grew stronger, but Crowley didn't mind the small space. He was a good bird.
The light of magic drew him onward.
Then he was there, exploring the site, scratching his talons into dry, compressed dirt, and for some reason scraping his beak against the solid edge of stone that built up into the kitchen fireplace above. It smelled cold, like good earth and dead things and smoky Scottish granite.
Two stone bricks up, tucked just beneath what was clearly a squeaky floorboard, sat a little velvet bag. There was something inside it: squarish, blocky, yet slightly curved around the edges. Almost as if it was one of Petunia Dursley's jewellery boxes, but Crowley wasn't interested in that.
The shiny rock was in it.
In front of him was his goal, waiting below a powerfully radiating wash of magic. Around him, the cool darkness of deep show and night. Behind, a cool night breeze blew in through the hole, luring the bird back outside into the wide sky, beckoning him out.
Crowley jumped. Just a little, just to stretch, just to feel the movement of air, and judge the distance above. He let himself have the smallest flutter of his wings.
He clacked his beak, chattering at the stone and the box and the bag.
And then, after a long pause where Crowley judged and weighed and evaluated all the dangers – the magic, the taste of curses in the air, the wood, but not on the velvet, Crowley's neck darted forward.
Crowley pounced!
His beak snagged fabric.
He tugged.
And walking backwards, backwards, in a constant fight against the little cuboid shape that refused to roll smoothly after him, Crowley dragged and yanked his little prize outward.
Jerkily, in fits and starts, the bag and jewellery box and their contents were lurched and jolted away from the fireplace, towards the light. The wardline. The waiting kneazle.
Crowley enjoyed this game.
The erratic movements of the box-in-bag fought him back.
His clever beak yanking, jerking, controlling.
He chattered to himself cheerfully. Crows were clever! Crows were smart!
At one point he did battle with an interesting shaped rock. A pebble, in the path of his boxed ring! He pecked, he bit, he shook it! The pebble clattered away from the triumphant Crowley and he could march on unimpeded! Good crow.
And then the tugging and yanking began again. Talons digging into earth. Tail feathers brushing the dusty ground.
He didn't know how long it would take him to yank his prize from under the house. But the reward was coming; he'd win the shiny ring soon. He'd earn it!
Crowley didn't know how much of what kind of magic he'd avoided simply by sneaking beneath the floorboards.
He didn't care about that now, or about alibis, or waiting kneazles, or castle lockdowns anymore.
Crowley wanted his prize, his goal, his ring!
He worked and worked, and eventually his little head and beady little eyes popped out of the gap in the weatherboard, and the small crow's body followed.
The air was colder now: the northern wind smelled like snowfall and wet earth. Cawing in pride, Crowley spread his wings, fanning the dust off them, washing the breeze over his triumphant body with care.
Then, with a final jerk of his neck – through the gap under the house again – Crowley tugged his little prize free.
The softest rasp of fabric on wood seemed to rock him from tip to toe; foiled!
The little bag – ancient now, dusty, fraying at the seams – was caught on the broken outcropping of wood. Crowley screamed defiance and fought.
It became a violent tussle, like the ring didn't want to leave. But Crowley was a good crow, Crowley would have his prize! He shook it and shook it and shook it until he won!
His chest heaving, feathers ruffled, Crowley strutted once in a circle in victory.
Then he was out in the dark of the night, and the beautiful golden kneazle-cat was waiting for him, so he had an audience supporting him as he investigated his winnings.
The bag was tattered; never mind. It was the ring, the shiny thing with glowing magic and something he was fond of – pebbles? Stones? – that was inside and he'd worked hard for them.
He hopped around in the dark night, lit by only moonglow and stars, and thought to find the opening of the bag. Crowley would need to tug hard, pull up, for the square thing to slide out, but he was clever so his tail spread as counter-balance, his beak opened –
And then all light disappeared from around him as a shadow leapt.
—Danger—
He twitched —escape— but he was small; the shadow was big— the kneazle-predator was—
A heavy paw batted at him and Crowley flopped over.
Wings fluttered, useless. Two feathers jerked loose, drifting useless in the wind.
Another paw, squashing a wing. His heart raced and Crowley panicked and flailed.
The great cat moved—Crowley's pulse fluttering – and the crow was pressed firmly down into the cold earth. Inescapably.
He peck-peck-pecked! He scratched!
The kneazle pressed him down harder…
Blood thundering, terror boiling, muscles shuddering with hopeless fear.
And Harry found himself pressed firmly under Crookshanks' chin and one of his safely-sheathed paws. The treasure box – the prize! – was sitting inoffensively a foot away, perfect out of the panicked bird's reach, and the kneazle held the crow in position, waiting, waiting while Crowley flailed and flapped and exhausted himself so that Harry could find the right space in his birdbrain and stop fighting.
Slowly, Crookshanks lifted his warm paw from the daft crow he'd accosted.
It was a slow and careful fledging crow who waited a moment to accept that freedom, and then slowly began to twitch and fumble his way upright. The rumpled-looking bird ducked his head, shame-faced, and opened his beak to chatter a noise that never quite came out.
His wings rustled, dusty and bedraggled, and his clever beak reached back to tug the most calcitrant feathers back into place silently.
Then the bird turned his back on the dangerous kneazle and ignored the Dark Lord's horcrux to walk the walk of shame; he fluttered his way dismally back to the safe side of the softly glowing ward line, where Harry took a moment to pause and shift back into his more familiar form.
As his size expanded, his fingers clenched. For an extraordinarily odd moment, the muscles around his shoulder blades spasmed madly.
Then he was human again, groaning face down on the damp forest floor while his feet twitched and trembled with burning cold cramps.
Cold, slightly shocky, and feeling embarrassingly stupid, Harry moaned without words for longer than he wished.
Muscles shook. There was a blossomed headache – again! He was so sick of them – as if he had overused a whole bunch of neck muscles he'd never really bothered about before.
"My muscles," Harry groaned out, half-eating the forest detritus that his face was pressed into. "Dammit. Owwwwww." He ignored his kneazle to wait out the tremors.
"Hmmh! Ruddy Merlin. Ow, ow, ow!"
Time passed, and it took him far too long to regather himself and recollect his thoughts.
When he had the attention to spare, Harry felt the damp coolness of the earth sinking through his robes, the dark shadows of the encroaching forest tease at his skin with cold fingers, and started to look up. He'd managed barely a muscle twitch when his green eyes saw judgemental yellow ones, and he froze at the silent observation of his loyal companion.
"I'm, ah..." Harry coughed. "Nice assist there. Thanks."
Some kind of insect was buzzing close by. And there was an owl hunting to the west.
Harry forced a grin. "Knew I brought you for a reason. I'm not going to try to, uh, play with it anymore. I promise."
Crookshanks stared at him silently.
"I got it, I got it. I'm sorry, okay? Destroy the ring, right?" Harry continued the lopsided grin even as it grew fixed upon his face. He began pushing himself into sitting with arms that trembled. "That would be the first time I've spent so long as a bird, I guess? The birdbrain…it was distracted, alright? I'll know better next time."
There was a tiny twitch of Crookshanks' tail which had Harry flinching. "I…thanks, okay? Thank you a lot. I'll get you, what do you want, a freshly fried fish? Just for you, okay?" He shrugged and spent a moment brushing off the leafy debris. "I didn't want the horcrux, you know. I just…it was dark, and Crowley was tired, so I distracted myself with the thought of its shine. I'm not cursed."
Harry took a moment to find his wand again, which had transformed with him but fallen forgotten when he changed back, and absently cast a warming charm. "Uh. Thanks to you. I can promise you I wasn't enchanted or bewitched or anything. Just…distracted. But in my defence, I was watching it roll about for a good long wh—nevermind."
The adrenaline – story of his life – began to fade again, and Harry wiped the sheen of sweat off his brow with a dusty sleeve. "You want to know what I think? The bag must be a trap as well; no curse made me think that the box and ring were safe too, that I'd made it past the defences, yeah?" Even when I knew better, went unsaid.
The loyal kneazle-cat didn't look happy, but reluctantly agreed with Harry's priorities and accepted the topic change with only a quiver of his whiskers.
"There's definitely some kind of killer curse on the ring, right? And I shouldn't risk the box. So…I won't even open the bag to be safe. We'll stab through the whole thing in one go when we get back. I saved tons of basilisk fangs."
An ear twitched encouragingly.
"How about I tuck it – bag and all – into my own pouch, and we kill it as soon as we sneak back into the castle? The Chamber of Secrets, do you reckon? Or the Room of Requirement? Your choice."
Suddenly the exhaustion hit him, as Crookshanks deigned to acquiesce to the urgent desire for rest that reared up in Harry like he'd just hit a wall.
"Or tomorrow works too," Harry murmured to his companion a moment later, while they both climbed on his broomstick. "Horcruxes have been safe in my trunk compartments before, and I need sleep before I do something else stupid. We'll apparate back just as soon as we make it a bit down the road."
And he did. And no one at all, our of Harry and Crookshanks and Crow, were aware of his successful retrieval of his prize as he stumbled into his bed not half an hour later.