o─-o─-o─-─-─-─ WITHOUT THORN THE ROSE ─-─-─-─o-─o-─o
Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling.
Notes: This chapter has quite a few footnotes, but please read them because the mythological references are important to the story. Honestly, if you're not enjoying that aspect of the story, you REALLY aren't going to like the direction this series is going in as a whole. I hope you enjoy the chapter. Thanks again for all the reviews, favs, and follows. Also, can you all tell me if you like Bjorn, or if he is anathema as an original character? He's not super-vital in the long run, and I won't change him one whit either way, but I am curious.
o─-─-─-─-─ 6. BEAR AND WOLF ─-─-─-─-─o
By the time James left for his shift the next morning, Harry had doused his wound with the entire stock of healing balm and numbing solution that James kept in their small potions cabinet. Harry could only hope that the owl-order he had placed for more supplies would arrive before James noticed anything amiss. If there was anything Harry dreaded, it was the look of disappointment on his father's face. The sloppy scrawl Harry had produced with his off-hand was awkward, but legible, and he hadn't met the potioneer yet who would turn away galleons.
Harry had pretended to sleep when James shouted for him to come eat his breakfast, and as soon as his father was gone, Harry threw on a cloak and made for the island's single dock, with his impaled hand stuffed deep into one voluminous pocket. The wound was no longer bleeding, and the sharp pain had faded, but it still throbbed queerly, deep inside the flesh.
There was a high promontory overlooking the jetty, and it was there Harry waited for three hours until Bjorn's boat appeared, a mere dot on the horizon. When the vessel was close enough that Harry could make out the red cloaks of Aurors, he huddled down between a few strategically placed rocks and did his best impression of granite until he saw the group of three men passing on the footpath at the bottom of the slope. When Harry jogged down the weathered grey steps to the dock, he found Bjorn sipping tea on the deck and reading a foreign newspaper.
"I was wondering if you were ever coming down, fugleunge," the boat captain remarked amicably, not even glancing at Harry.
"How did you know it was me?"
"Most rocks don't wiggle so much," Bjorn explained. "It was either you, or the most inept escape attempt I've foiled yet."
"I need to talk to you."
"Another day. Best be home before the Aurors return, or your father will find out you've been running wild all over the island."
Harry huffed. "There are worse things he could find out about than that." He withdrew his injured hand from his pocket, hissing as the rough coral caught on a bit of fabric and sent a ripple of white-hot pain up his arm all the way to the shoulder.
Bjorn's single, sea-blue eye stared expressionlessly at Harry's hand for a long moment. Then, slowly, he began to laugh. Harry flushed bright red.
"If you're done laughing at my misfortune, I could really use some help," Harry snapped, gesturing at the boat's ladder that Bjorn had not yet lowered.
"I was simply imagining what hard work it must have been getting yourself into so much trouble in so little time," the north-man declared.
"It wasn't my fault," Harry muttered angrily. Bjorn shot him a sceptical look, and Harry fumed. "Fine, it was a little bit my fault."
"Come on up, then," Bjorn invited calmly, lowering the ladder. Harry couldn't manage the rungs one-handed, however, so Bjorn seized the boy by his right arm and lifted him three feet to the deck as easily as Harry might have lifted a doll. Harry felt a quick rush of gratitude.
A few minutes more saw them both snuggled from head to foot in reindeer fur and sipping cups of hot tea in the tiny cabin of the boat. Harry accepted these things only out of a desire not to offend his host, which Bjorn surely knew, but the furs were soft and comfortable, and the tea was strong and rich. The cabin held only a table and two chairs, which were bolted down, and a bed that was folded up into the wall. There were some storage boxes, as well, and Harry found himself wondering if Bjorn slept on the boat.
"So," Bjorn said after they had both enjoyed a few sips of tea. He looked pointedly at Harry's hand, seeming unperturbed by the grisly sight. Harry felt like vomiting whenever he looked at it. "Is there some particular reason you're impersonating a pincushion, or is island life simply too dull for you?"
Harry choked on a hysterical giggle, but managed to repress it. If he let himself laugh at the absurdity of the situation, he would probably end up bursting into tears. "I was searching for a magical focus, like you told me, so I…I went down to the sea, and…well…" Bjorn shot him a pointed glance and raised his eyebrows. Harry flushed. "I tried to pull it out, but it hurt so much I almost fainted. I need your help."
Bjorn frowned. He took Harry's injured hand in both of his and examined it closely. In Bjorn's giant, callused hands, Harry's tiny pale hand seemed a fingerling caught in a bear's paws. Yet Harry felt safe there. He didn't know why, and it was doubtless foolish, given that he'd known this man less than a week, but he trusted the one-eyed north-man.
Bjorn removed his knife from his belt and laid it on Harry's hand. His eye glazed over and he began to mutter under his breath.
"There," he said eventually, releasing Harry's hand. "I've healed it as much as it can be healed."
"But you've got to take it out!"
Bjorn sat back and considered Harry seriously for a moment. "This kind of coral grows all around here¹, you know. But most never see it, because it lives in the deepest fathoms, where sunlight cannot touch it. At those depths, a man would be crushed to death by the weight of the water alone. Only the strongest wizards can travel to such places, so I can't think how you came upon this. Tell me how this happened, fugleunge."
Harry shifted uncomfortably, and flushed slightly, but he was too ashamed to admit the true circumstances of his accident. It had been foolish indeed, bargaining with a force of nature. There were fairy tales to warn children from doing such things, but that moment had seemed so magical, so—fateful.
Bjorn's face was as still as a stone. "Do you want to hear how I got this scar?" the one-eyed man asked after a moment. His voice was gruff but not unkind. Harry blinked at him, intrigued, and nodded hesitantly.
Bjorn grimaced and took a swallow of tea, apparently considering how to begin. He scraped his long, scraggly grey-blonde locks back from his face and gazed out the porthole as though it held the memories of his past. Then he began to spin the story.
"When I was younger, I used to gamble. I would lay a bet on anything from when the first storm of the season would be to whether my brother could catch the woman he had his eye on. So when I took up the trade to Azkaban, I started gambling with the wizenguards, including Warden Oakes. They haven't much to do, all alone out here, so they always found time for a contest. There was bad blood from the start, though. They needed the magic of a north-man to navigate the treacherous seas in these parts, but they didn't like my ways, and I didn't like theirs."
"What ways?" Harry asked curiously.
Bjorn shrugged one shoulder and scratched his beard.
"When I'd say a prayer to my family gods before eating, they'd jeer at me. So I'd make fun of them for waving those prissy twigs. That kind of thing. I liked betting against them in contests of strength—arm wrestling, knife throwing, and the like, and I usually won. They didn't mind that so much, since it fit their image of me as an uneducated barbarian. But when they challenged me to magical contests, and I held my own there, too, it infuriated them. They found it hard to counter my spells, since they aren't written in books, so I often won. Of course, I don't have the range of spells that you south-men do. In my land, each man has to find his own spells—ah, but that's another conversation."
Bjorn waved one large, calloused hand dismissively, and although Harry was keenly interested in that topic, he let it drop.
"The point is, one night Oakes and some of the others challenged me to fight a bear, unarmed."
Harry cocked an eyebrow.
Bjorn's face darkened. "I agreed. That was my first mistake."
"But how could you possibly—without your knife"—Harry exclaimed, caught up in the tale.
One corner of Bjorn's mouth twisted up, but he didn't look amused. "Ah, but you see fugleunge, they thought they were being clever. They chose a bear because that's my name—Bjørn means bear. But what they didn't realize is that I was not born with this name. It is a custom in both our lands, is it not, to take on a new name to suit one's gifts? My parents renamed me when they realized I could speak the tongue of bears."
Harry's celadon-green eyes went wide as galleons. "You can?" he breathed in awe. He had never even heard of that gift.
Bjorn smiled, eyes shining like the sea under the summer sun. "Yes. The gift runs in my family, not unlike your country's Slytherin clan."
Harry smiled to himself but held his tongue. Bjorn's mouth twisted downward again, and he looked grim.
"So, instead of fighting the bear, I simply asked her to surrender to me. In exchange, I promised to bring her safely back to her home. She agreed, and I won the bet—or I should have. But the guards had been drinking, and they wanted blood. They had planned to feast on the bear whether I defeated her or not, and to skin her for a rug. Oakes cast a cutting spell at her, and she charged him."
"But you're the one with the scar."
Bjorn laughed bitterly. "I was certain he'd kill her if she injured him, so I tried to stop her. I thought I could talk sense into both Oakes and the bear."
"That was your second mistake."
"No," Bjorn disagreed, his eyebrows furrowing like storm clouds. He was quiet a moment. "That was not a mistake."
"Then it worked? You talked them down?"
"I was mauled before I got a word out."
"Then how was it not a mistake? It did no good!" Harry was so caught up in the story that he forgot it was best not to criticise adults.
Bjorn smiled enigmatically, and stroked the scar that split his face like a crevasse. "Did it not? That was the last time I ever gambled."
Harry made a frustrated gesture. "That isn't worth losing your eye, surely!"
Bjorn shrugged nonchalantly and poured himself another cup of tea. "If it wasn't my eye, it would have been something else: my arm, or my head, perhaps. I'm alive now, and that's good enough for me."
Harry stared, baffled. He couldn't fathom Bjorn's indifference. If it had been him, he would have waited for an opportune moment, and pushed the Warden off a tower. "But don't you want revenge?"
Bjorn sipped and looked contemplative. "Revenge?" he answered. "On who? The Warden? As if he could have taken any eye of mine!" The one-eyed north-man laughed sharply. "Besides, that man already lives in a world of darkness. That's enough victory for me, I think."
Harry slumped back. He felt disappointed by this answer, even though he could see the objective logic of the man's words. "So they killed the bear?"
Bjorn nodded. "The guards ate bear stew for a week."
"That's awful."
"It was. Very greasy." Bjorn agreed, with a straight face. Then he softened a little and added, "Death comes to all beings, fugleunge, and in turn they are born again. So we believe in the north."
Harry nodded pensively. That was an old belief², older than the curse of Merlin, and still widely held amongst the old families. "Can I hear you say something in bear-tongue?" he asked, perking up a bit at the idea.
Bjorn chuckled. In a rumbling, guttural growl, he roared something that Harry thought he could almost understand. He beamed at the north-man.
Harry debated a moment, and then he hissed in the snake tongue, "I wisssh my father were as underssstanding as you are."
Bjorn shivered as at a sudden chill and looked vaguely impressed.
"Promise you won't tell anyone?" Harry asked, blushing.
"Aye, I'll keep your secret. A man needs his secrets, even such a small one as you."
Harry smiled gratefully.
"Now," Bjorn asked seriously. "Are you ready to tell me what really happened?"
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¹ This is completely factual. The species I'm using is Lophelia pertusa—Google it for a visual. I actually found out about this species after writing Bjorn's description of it, oddly enough, but it grows right where I picture Azkaban (somewhere between the Shetland and Faroe Islands).
² The druids are said to have believed in reincarnation, although there is not much solid evidence regarding the specifics of their beliefs and practices in general.
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When Harry's tale was done, Bjorn sipped his tea for a moment and considered. "You should not remove it," he decided finally.
"What?" Harry demanded indignantly. "I can't go around with a great bloody piece of coral stuck through me for the rest of my life."
"You can trim it down, but you mustn't remove it. It's not safe."
"Why on earth not?"
"It's bonded with your magic; I felt that clearly when I touched it with my knife. If you remove it, you'll damage the magical vein. You might never be able to cast with that hand again." Bjorn leaned forward, then, looking into Harry's eyes seriously, and added, "Apart from that, this is a gift from the gods, fugleunge, and for men to move what the gods have placed is an ill deed."
"The gods…" Harry made a face. Wizards often referred to the gods, but usually as a figure of speech or in place of a curse word. Bjorn's earnestness made Harry feel the same squeamish distaste that he felt whenever James' elderly cousins enjoined him to participate in celebrating Beltane¹ by dancing sky-clad² around a bonfire. Still, this explanation made as much sense as anything Harry could think of.
Bjorn sensed Harry's doubt. "I don't know how it is in the south, but here in the north the gods are still very much with us. I can't say which of them it was—Ægir³, perhaps, or Rán⁴—but I've no doubt it was a god."
"They're not very nice, then, are they, the gods? If they get their laughs by stabbing random humans?"
"Look on the bright side. At least it wasn't mistletoe⁵," Bjorn replied with a chuckle. Harry glared, and Bjorn softened, placating Harry. "I'll trim it down for you, all right?"
Harry sighed with defeat, and nodded.
Bjorn placed his knife on each end of the coral branch in turn and magically sliced it so that it was flush with his skin. Harry examined the results critically. Bjorn had done good work. The bits of coral that still showed were about the size of knuts, and as white as bone. They protruded from his flesh half a millimetre or so.
"Do you think I can pass this off as some kind of appliqué?" Harry questioned morosely, wondering how he was going to explain to James.
"Perhaps, but you'll need something else to explain why you never take it off. But at least you can never be disarmed—except in the literal sense, of course."
Harry blinked and perked up a bit. What with all the pain and self-recrimination, he had completely forgotten that he had gotten what he bargained for—a focus for his magic. Despite the threat of discovery that still loomed large, Harry began to relax for the first time since his encounter with the sea.
"Thank you, Bjorn," he murmured sincerely. "You didn't have to help me with this."
"You're special, Harry," Bjorn said after a moment of silence, in which he eyed Harry critically. "You'll do great things, one day, and I would see you become worthy of greatness."
Harry scowled and brushed his fringe over his scar. He hated the mark at times.
"I don't mean that," Bjorn corrected him. "I simply have an instinct for these things."
Harry lifted his eyes to peer through his fringe at the one-eyed captain. Bjorn reached out, and ruffled Harry's sleek black hair gently. Harry felt a gush of some warm emotion, and took his leave before he could embarrass himself.
In the days to come, Harry now and then found himself touching the spot where Bjorn's warm, rough hand had caressed him, as though that part of Harry had become unfamiliar to himself. The hair on his head, however, remained unchanged.
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¹ Beltane was an ancient Gaelic festival celebrated in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man. It marked the beginning of summer and was linked to similar festivals held elsewhere in Europe, such as May Day and Walpurgis Night. Fertility rituals were important, symbolized by the lighting of fires around which the people danced in a sun-wise direction.
² Sky-clad = ritual nudity, symbolizing freedom, truth, etc.
³ A sea giant, god of the ocean, and king of the sea creatures in Norse mythology.
⁴ In Norse mythology, Rán (Old Norse "sea") is a sea goddess, married to Ægir, with whom she had nine daughters, all named after different aspects of the sea. She had a net in which she tried to capture men who ventured out on the sea.
⁵ The wood of the arrow that killed Baldur, a Norse god mainly known for the story of his death, which is so tied up in other parts of Norse mythology that you should probably just go read the entire Wikipedia article. Bonus: the movies Thor and The Avengers will make more sense.
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Over the next few weeks, Harry spent nearly all of his time trying to do magic with his coral focus, allotting only a few hours a week to his actual classes, and to tracking down the dire-looking boat captain and pestering him for tips. Bjorn instructed Harry in the north-men's way of learning magic. The process might have been shorter if Harry had believed the man the first time, but it was difficult to accept that what took seven years of supervised instruction in Harry's country took five minutes in Bjorn's.
There were three steps to learning magic in the north. Step one, stay in touch at all times with your own innate magic and magical core. Step two, induce some accidental magic and observe it carefully. Step three, recreate the accidental magic. Unfortunately, the theory portion of Harry's education was a lot shorter than the practical. Bjorn was full of positively alarming ideas of how to induce accidental magic, such as pushing Harry off roofs or setting him on fire. Harry honestly wasn't sure whether the north-man was joking or not, so he just nodded and made it a point not to stand near the railing of the man's boat.
Considering Harry was only ten, concentrating on anything for more than fifteen minutes could have been considered an achievement, but Harry had always been the obsessive, driven type, and he refused to stop practicing for longer than it took to eat and sleep. Not until his magic bent itself to his will. After many dreary days of doing nothing but staring at the ceiling and concentrating so hard that he went cross-eyed, Harry finally managed to locate what he assumed was his innate well of magic. It was either that, or a very realistic hallucination, he reasoned. But it took many more days of mentally poking and prodding at the incomprehensible lump of magic before it responded to his desires.
Harry's first success was with levitation. He had been glaring at a feather for the better part of a day, and was on the verge of giving up for the night, since he could hardly keep his eyes open. Strangely, it was when he lost focus and let his mind drift that he finally got the hang of it. Excitement shot through Harry like a lightning bolt when the feather twitched, and by the end of the next day, Harry could float the feather anywhere he liked, albeit slowly.
There were many successes after that: some easy, some hard; and many failures. Harry taught himself to bar the midnight sun that blared relentlessly through his window at all hours, but he failed in his attempts to charm the attic as cold as a larder, despite the fact that he had always been able to do the same trick without using any magic at all. It was baffling. Then there were his experiments in magical dish-washing. That fiasco ended with the entire kitchenette getting a scrub-down by hand.
Harry also spent time researching runes, looking for something suitable to carve into his coral focus so that he could pass it off as a jewellery appliqué. James had been distracted lately, and with any luck the man wouldn't look too closely. After an absurd amount of time spent paging through books of runes and sigils from every corner of the magical world, Harry decided to keep it simple. After practicing for a while on a rock that he could accidentally pulverize without maiming himself, he carved one rune into each side of the coral in his hand.
On the inner, palm side, Harry carved Eihwaz¹, the yew rune, which signified the mysteries of life and death, rebirth, secrecy, and spiritual insight. It also stood for the world tree Yggdrasil which connected heaven, earth, and hell. Harry, who had died and come back to life once, felt drawn to all of these ideas, but, more than that, he was struck by the notion that the scar on his forehead was in the shape of a perfect Eihwaz.
On the outer side, Harry carved Isaz, the ice rune. Normally this rune symbolized challenge and immobility because ice challenged and immobilized people, but Harry had never viewed ice in the same way as other warm-blooded creatures. To Harry, ice was as welcoming and cosy as thick furs and hot tea were to Bjorn. To Harry, ice was the secret power that set him apart from others, but also protected him from them.
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¹ A.k.a. Eoh, Eow. If you go and look up what this looks like, which you should because runes are fun, I want to point out that it is not the same one that the Nazis appropriated for their SS logo. That one is actually Sowilo or Sigil (the sun rune) merkstave (rotated a little).
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Harry was napping after another marathon practice session when the sound of a door slamming startled him from his dream. For a moment he was still wandering through a frozen world where every form of life was encased in ice, and hope blossomed within him at the sound. Then he was back in his tiny attic room, and he had forgotten to make dinner.
Harry slithered over to the trap door and peeked through it. James was sitting on the couch scrubbing his hands through his hair. He glanced up at Harry, revealing heavy bags under his eyes.
"You okay, dad?" Harry asked as he descended the ladder.
James drew a deep breath, nodding and smiling wanly. "What's for dinner?"
"Er…hamburgers all right? It'll just take a minute."
"Sure."
It was an unspoken agreement that Harry prepared dinner. James was simply too exhausted in the evenings to fend for himself. It wasn't just the hours, Harry mused, as he heated the pan and pulled two hamburgers from stasis in the larder. The hours were long, that was true, but James slept every night as though he hadn't got a wink the night before. Harry figured the man slept nine or ten hours on weeknights, and on weekends he slept twelve or more. Harry had been alarmed the first time his father slept past lunch on a Saturday, but he'd got so used to it now he scarcely noticed.
When he brought his father's tray into the living room, however, he found James curled up on one of the sofas, snoring. The sight struck Harry with a pang of guilt. Harry should perhaps try to help his father more, but what else could he do? James didn't display any other signs of illness, and whenever Harry pressed him, the man became so grumpy that Harry fled to the attic.
Harry set James' tray on the coffee table, which was still wedged between the two sofas without an inch of room; James' promises of space-expanding charms had withered on the vine. Harry shook his father's ankle gently. James' eyes popped open and he flailed wildly for his wand, staring around as though he expected an attack. The bird's nest of coffee-coloured curls made him look like one of those mad old sorcerers in children's books.
"Ah, shit. Sorry, Harry. I was having some kind of crazy dream. Been having them ever since we came here."
Harry frowned worriedly. "It's fine, Dad. Are you all right?"
James nodded, yawning. His eyes slid closed again as though they were on plumb sinkers. In the past, Harry would have assumed the man was drunk and left him to stew in his own juices, but James had been true to his word and made an Unbreakable Vow not to drink voluntarily ever again.
"Dad," Harry said loudly, and shook James' leg, being careful to stand out of range of any flailing kicks.
"Whuzza? Mm?" James mumbled, opening his eyes a crack.
"Dinner," Harry answered, demonstrating by miming.
"Mmf. La'er," James grunted, and went back to sleep. Within seconds his snoring was so loud that it sounded as though a rogue lumberjack was sawing the house in two. Harry sighed, and put his father's plate in the stasis-box for "la'er".
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The next Thursday found Harry back on Bjorn's boat, not having tea, but rather travelling back to the mainland. Harry had been on Azkaban for three weeks, and since he was only obligated to stay with his lawful guardian three-quarters of the time, he was now able to leave the island for a week. In truth, part of Harry wanted to stay on Azkaban so that he could keep practicing his magic day and night, but Remus had written an insistent letter to James, and Harry's father had folded faster than Merlin on laundry day. Still, Harry was pleased to see his uncle. He had missed their usual Sundays doing the Prophet crossword, eating biscuits, and just chatting about whatever came to mind.
To Harry's surprise, Remus had crossed to Azkaban with Bjorn so that he could inspect Harry's living quarters for himself. Harry was obliged to show Remus every dusty corner of their small home—which didn't take long—before the man would be satisfied. Harry felt an odd mixture of exasperated and pleased with the fusspot werewolf.
"Can you show me your patronus, Uncle Remus?" Harry asked, as Azkaban shrank into the distance. He was leaning against the rail of Bjorn's boat, since he didn't think the north-man likely to try to induce any of Harry's accidental magic with Remus right there. Harry's proximity to the water seemed to be making Remus nervous, however.
"Ah, Harry…I'd really rather not."
"Why not?" Harry demanded, frowning and turning to look at his uncle, who was sitting on the bench outside the cabin and gripping the handholds with white knuckles. Then he grinned. "Are you afraid of the ocean? That's it, isn't it?"
Remus huffed. "I just don't see why the ferry has to be so small. Some of these waves are nearly as big as the boat. Harry, look, I know it's enchanted, but can you please come away from the edge?"
"The rail is enchanted? Then how come Bjorn threatened to dump me overboard…?" Harry wondered.
Remus went white and called frantically, "Harry! Now!"
"I'm only winding you up, Uncle Remus," Harry laughed. "Of course it's enchanted."
Bjorn, appearing from the cabin, agreed. "I refreshed the spells myself this morning."
For some reason, this did not seem to alleviate Remus' anxiety, but Harry's uncle said no more. Harry frowned and cocked his head. There was a strange tension between the two adults. Harry didn't like it.
"Bjorn, can I see your patronus? Uncle Remus won't show me his. I think he's too seasick."
Bjorn chuckled, oblivious to the sour look that earned him from the other man, and drew from his belt the large knife which focused his magic. Remus drew in his breath sharply, and half stood, his face taut and feral. Harry opened his mouth to shout a warning, but Bjorn was already looking at Remus. There was a long, unbearably fraught and frozen moment, in which the two men locked eyes, and no one moved. One was a giant with rippling muscles hardened by a lifetime of labour. The other was lanky, pallid, and utterly unremarkable. And yet, for one moment, Harry was sure that the wolf would spring at the bear and tear his throat out.
Then a silver figure soared from the tip of Bjorn's knife, and swept through Remus, knocking the smaller man back onto the bench. Remus sat, still frozen for another moment, and then melted. He glared suspiciously at Bjorn's knife, then met the other man's eyes and nodded, once. Bjorn snorted and shoved the knife back through his belt. He spread his hands out, showing that they were empty, and smiled as though he found the entire encounter quite amusing, really.
Harry released a breath he hadn't noticed himself holding, and only then looked around to see where Bjorn's patronus had gone.
"What is that?" Harry asked in a hushed but excited voice, following the progress of the bird as it soared around the boat. The bird's wingspan was wider than Bjorn was tall, and Bjorn was very tall. It was magnificent.
"White-tailed sea eagle," Bjorn answered, with perfect equanimity. "Keep your eyes peeled and you might see one someday. They live around here."
Harry admired the glowing silver bird as it dove at the waves in an imitation of hunting. As though it sensed his attention, the bird swooped around and dove at Harry. The dark-haired boy reached his hand up to touch it, but just before he made contact, Bjorn gestured sharply with his hand, and the patronus dissolved into motes of silver light that winked out one by one.
Harry glared at Bjorn, who was frowning as though something were tugging at his mind. Harry huffed a sigh.
"Can I see yours now, Uncle Remus?" Harry pleaded, turning a bright smile on his uncle.
For a moment Harry didn't think Remus was going to answer him at all. The man's face was still wooden. But then Remus looked sideways and Bjorn, pointed his wand at the deck and murmured, "Expecto Patronum." A silver mist swirled out of his wand and coalesced into the shape of a large, shaggy dog. The dog cocked its head at Harry. Remus stroked its head, and the dog turned, licking Remus' face enthusiastically. Remus smiled, but his scar-lined face, which was already prone to gloominess, looked more forlorn than ever. After only a few seconds, Remus dismissed the patronus, turned his face away from the others, and resolutely stared out to sea as though his last friend in the world was floating out there amongst the waves.
Harry and Bjorn exchanged a look, and Harry shrugged. The man and the boy drifted to the other side of the boat, since Remus seemed content to brood alone. They chatted absently, and before long the Shetlands appeared on the horizon.
"Oh! I almost forgot. I carved some runes," Harry murmured excitedly, showing Bjorn his coral focus. Bjorn made an approving noise, taking Harry's small hand in his two large ones and turning it this way and that. He drew out his knife and checked the wound again, confirming that it was as healed as it ever would be.
"What are you doing?" a voice asked sharply. Remus was staring with murderous fury at the sight of Bjorn performing magic on his nephew. "How dare you—" His voice shook with rage, but before he could finish the sentence, his eyes widened and an expression of shock overwhelmed the anger. "What is that!"
Harry stuck his hand behind his back and assumed the world's most pathetic semblance of innocence. Remus had seen that expression enough times to know what it meant, looming north-man or no.
"Harry," Remus warned ominously. Harry cringed and heaved a deep sigh. Bjorn chuckled, and Harry shot him a venomous glare. Bjorn conspicuously turned around and pretended not to be listening.
"It was an accident," Harry began, displaying his coral-pierced hand hesitantly.
Remus studied Harry's face. "You're a terrible liar, Harry," he remarked. His voice sounded very tired. Harry turned bright red and felt a sinking sense of shame.
"A-all right," he stammered. "But you can't tell Dad."
"Not a chance," Remus replied flatly.
Harry spluttered. "But—it really was an accident. I was only looking for"—he faltered—"for seashells, and I got knocked over by a wave. I don't know how it happened, really. Bjorn helped me heal it, but he couldn't remove it. I know I should have gotten a proper healer, but…I just couldn't tell Dad. He's been so exhausted lately, I don't think he can take anymore, really. And it's too late to do anything more now, anyway."
Harry rather thought he deserved an award for this extemporaneous bit of theatre.
Remus sighed and ran a hand through his limp, mousy hair. "I suppose you think it's fashionable to have a scar," he remarked, glowering in Bjorn's direction, apparently forgetting his own plethora of faded white scars. "Harry, I have to tell James. He's your father."
Harry lips quivered, and he did not have to try very hard to achieve the effect he was going for. Remus looked pained, but torn.
"Look, I'm the one who almost got drowned," Harry said quickly. "I'm the one that got impaled by a great bloody lump of coral. I know how dumb I was. It scared the wits out of me. Believe me, I'll never do anything like that ever again."
Remus groaned and rubbed his forehead as though this dilemma were hurting his brain. "I'll…think about it," he said finally.
Harry threw his arms around his uncle's midsection and squeezed him tightly.
"Think is all I said," Remus cautioned irritably.
"I know," Harry answered, voice muffled by Remus' cloak. He was grinning, however, certain he'd won.