Service Message
I should have updated sooner, but I've been stuck in this Tenth Circle of Hell thing called AP Calculus. I'm still stuck, but I've been upgraded to a flaming cesspool with Internet access. Unfortunately, I also have a lot of crazy, College Application, SAT, Art Portfolio Review stuff to do…so updates for this aren't going to be coming lickety-split. They will keep coming, though, right until I hit that stupid multiple-choice plot thing in the 4th year, damn it to Hell. …Sorry, babbling. Read. Enjoy.
End of Service Message

The owl took its letter to the address registry in London. Every person in the British Isles (and every "magical creature" who didn't get to claim the title of person) was listed there, no matter if they lived in a magical mansion in the country or in a cardboard box in the alley down the street. Boxes weren't the oddest of addresses either. People lived in some very peculiar places, and the registry knew about every one. Harry Potter being in that closet under the stair seemed downright normal in comparison.

Deep in the recesses of the musty building, a bookish little fellow at a desk hollered, "Next!"

The large, brown barn owl alighted on the available perch and dropped the letter without an address on the desk, careful to avoid the army of burning candles lining the sides. The man picked up the handsome envelope and eyed the name on the attached note in the flickering light. "Fenrir Albtraum Svartálfar, hmm." He said nothing more. When one worked with as many names as he did, exceptional names were commonplace and only merited a small smile or frown before he went on with his work.

He wrote the name into a large parchment nailed onto his desk. The paper absorbed the ink, and then let its reply surface.

"There's six Fenrir A. Svartál…Svart…six Fenrirs in the registry," he informed the owl. "Is there anything that would narrow it down a bit?"

The brown bird turned her head around a full half turn. The clerk got the gist and flipped the letter around. His eyebrow rose slightly at the sight of the seal holding the letter closed. "Hogwarts? Hmm, new student then. It's a bit late, though, ain't it?" It was a rhetorical question. His job was to get mail to its destination, not to hunt through it for answers. He wrote into the parchment: '10 or 11 years old.' No reply came. Odd. Unless the boy was cheating with of those pesky Fidelus charms, he had to show up. The clerk tried 'prospective Hogwarts student.'

Black ink churned, welling up onto the stretched parchment in a thick black puddle. Then it was sucked back in, leaving a name and a place.

'Fenrir Albtraum Svartálfar
The Forbidden Forest'

He scrawled 'Mr. F. Svartálfar' and the address on the letter, looked up at the owl, and shrugged. "Best I can do, girl. Good luck, trying to track down this fella'. I hear that forest's big."

There was a moment when the owl stayed stock-still on the perch. Then she swooped down, pouncing on the letter angrily with a strong downbeat of her wings that blew out every candle on the desk.

After she huffed out, the clerk relit them with a wave of his wand and a muttered, "Wimmin'."

XXX

Nibble had narrowly escaped becoming dinner five times in the last hour—just in the last hour. Needless to say, she wasn't a very happy owl.

There was a reason why she had given up the Forbidden Forest route and its handsome hazards pay. It was the same reason why she had taken up a post in the Hogwarts owlery. At the school, she could glare at the dark tree line from a safe distance without ever going into it. Hogwarts children were specifically forbidden from the aptly named forest, so she knew with certainty that she would never, under any circumstances, need to deliver there.

Fenrir Albtraum Svartálfar's acceptance letter was in danger of becoming owl pellets.

It dangled from her leg as she swooped beneath the tree canopies, jarring her with each silent wing beat. She was in a hunting mode. This Fenrir child was her prey. When she finally found him—well. Let it suffice to say that he would be owl pellets in the near future.

XXX

Fen stumbled through the trees, his speed fueled only by fear. Above him, dying light burned holes through the forest canopy, casting down leaves shriveled and singed by autumn's fire. The death-like sleep of night loomed near.

He dreaded the sun's setting. It would mark his second night in the forest, away from the quiet manor he had known all his life. The world around him frightened him. It changed as he ran deeper into the trees, and it was a dark metamorphosis. Grass died, then disappeared. Bushes exchanged their shriveled berries for thorns. The creatures he saw stalking in the corners of his eyes were growing larger. Even the trees were different, now blackened trunks and gnarled limbs.

All this he saw through a haze of terror, despair, and exhaustion.

He collapsed in a hollow at the foot of a large tree as two days of running caught up with him. Oblivion wasn't far behind.

The light filtering in between the branches took on the hue of dying embers. Night came even as his vision faded to black, and he dreamt of a large spider looming over him as the woman's familiar screams began.

XXX

Impy sat in a recessed corner of the kitchen, nursing a butterbeer while her mother nursed her head with a poultice. She ignored the inquiring looks of large, bulging eyes throughout the room, even her own mother's. The elfin woman fretted over the pulped flesh of her daughter's head and tried to get the girl to speak of what had happened. Impy's teeth were clenched shut in a very unhelpful manner. Whispers drifted through the room as dinner for the Malfoys got underway.

They knew what had happened to Fen—now Dobbin, forever. Mista' Odin had told the eldest of the Malfoy House Elves the terrible news before his departure on Halloweeny, and he had told the rest of them. It had been decided that the gloves would be burned and the accidental freeing kept secret. Dobbin would remain a House Elf in the manor, and the Malfoys would never know the difference.

And they would just weather the Halloweenys with him the best they could.

So they had prepared for Impy and Dobbin's return with comforting smiles, but the young House Elves never came home. At sundown on All Saints', a search party had snuck out of the manor. They found Impy still on the castle's dungeon floor with guilty tears and head wounds and two green gloves, but Dobbin was gone.

A day later, there had been no sign of him. Impy was sometimes heard muttering something unintelligible, but otherwise she didn't speak. The question remained in every elf's mind: 'Where is he?'

XXX

Nibble, in her frustration, had started to tear apart a corner of that blasted F. Svartálfar's letter with her beak. She had been in the Forest for a day now, and there was still no sign of the brat.

She lunged, ripping out more paper guts. Where was he?

XXX

There was a creak of a little used door, and the House Elves gasped as Lucius Malfoy stalked into the kitchen. His pale eyes swept across them, dissecting and discarding each elf. When he didn't find what he looked for, he did a second search for signs of guilt. A glare settled on Impy and her mashed head.

"Where is he?" he snapped. "Where is that stunted, pathetic runt!"

XXX

After his usual death threat to the house elves who would be decontaminating the Potions classroom for the upcoming school week, Severus Snape left the magically sealed off, steel-reinforced dungeon and stormed through the halls towards the headmaster's office. His Slytherin upbringing had taught him to keep his ear to the ground, and lately he had been hearing some very disturbing things. He intended to give Albus Dumbledore an earful about each one. And to get some answers.

As luck would have it, he caught the wizard on the staircase that led to the dormitories during mealtimes. It also led to the Dining Hall during class time and to the classrooms during lights out. A thoroughly uncooperative stair. Him finding Albus on it was its first good act of service, in his opinion.

He glared down at the headmaster from a good four steps up, somehow still feeling shorter than the man. That didn't stop him from putting on a dangerous face and stalking down until they stood only one step apart. "Dumbledore," he began in that light, silky tone that was a whetting stone for the barbed words to come.

The walls around him rumbled slightly, as they had been doing for the past week.

Then he paused and shot a look at the stone walls, realizing it would be better to have this conversation safely in Hogsmeade—or better yet, across the ocean in a den of vipers.

He chose his words with all the tact of a Slytherin who knew his life was forfeit with a slip of the tongue. "I hear that our late arrival hasn't replied to his letter. Yet." The yet was an important thing to say. "Perhaps he is a Muggleborn who mistook it for a joke? I suggest we send a teacher to retrieve the boy. Now"

Albus's voice was so quiet he had to crane to hear it. "It's only been two days, and Believe me Severus," the man sighed, "I would gladly send the entire staff, if I knew we could get a hold of the boy. His address has been a slight problem."

Severus tried not to pinch the bridge of his nose. "Not a Fidelus charm."

"Fortunately, no. The boy is in the registry."

His eyebrows snapped up and he reared back. "We know where the boy is—and he hasn't been retrieved!"

The Headmaster's eyes widened. The crowd of portraits on the walls ran for the hills in the background of a painting far away, leaving the three-dimensional men to fend for themselves. The Potions Master himself froze. That had been a monstrous slip of the tongue. It was, quite possibly, the worst slip in Hogwarts history.

The school had long been spelled to enforce fairness. No matter how muddy the bloodlines of the students were or how selective the teaching staff was, by Merlin, every eligible child would be allowed to attend. So the school made up the lists of children who would come, the school made sure every one of those children showed up, and the school would bloody pulverize any faculty member whom it thought was an enemy to the cause.

And Severus's words had made it sound like they were denying the boy entry to Hogwarts.

There was an ominous rumbling of stone beneath their feet. Albus and Severus looked down to watch the staircase split in two between them. Clinging to the banisters, they were thrown hard in opposite directions. Thankfully, Albus's half stopped and seemed satisfied when he took a tumble to his knees. Severus, though, had the unluck of his stair crashing into the nearest wall, knocking him loose from the stone railing. He made a desperate grab for the edge of a step, finding purchase as the walls grumbled.

He was granted a moment's peace to hang, catch his breath, and stare down through the hundreds of feet of empty space that angry stairwells crashed about madly in.

Albus managed to climb to his feet on his staircase half. Then the school rumbled. Severus's half swung violently back towards its twin. The Potions Master had visions of the two halves reconnecting with his corpse smashed in between the two.

The long drop down suddenly looked very comforting. He let go and fell onto a whiplashing staircase. It froze when he made contact, as if stunned. He clung to the banister to keep from crashing down the stairs. In the moment of stillness he looked up towards the ceiling of Hogwarts and swore, "I'll bring the boy here myself!"

All movement ceased and the school gave one last rumble that sounded like a decisive snort before growing silent once more. Severus got to his knees, breathing hard, and looked up at the headmaster. He wondered why the man had gotten off with a figurative slap on the wrist.

Reading his mind, as usual, Albus answered, "I'm old, frail, and I've personally made sure some of Hogwarts'…less welcome students were allowed to attend." He propped his arms and head on the banister, sighing. "I do believe the old girl has developed a soft spot for me." He left out the point that Severus was a notorious Slytherin, whereas Albus was the anti-thesis.

Severus turned and leaned against his own banister. At the moment, he hated the school but didn't dare say anything out loud. He closed his eyes and asked, "Where, exactly, is this boy I promised to bring for—her?

"Somewhere in the Forbidden Forest."

The dark professor whipped around to stare up at Albus. "You can't be serious."

The old wizard shook his head sadly. "I'm afraid so. And, Severus?" he added, "Do try to find the boy quickly. The old girl will become quite tetchy if Mr. Svartálfar should die." A devilish twinkle entered his eyes as he put on the mask of the senile, old fool. "Lovely way to start a weekend, don't you think? Good luck. Now I'm off to breakfast."

Severus let his head fall back into the stone banister. Hard.

XXX

Fen started awake in a dead sweat, cocooned in a suffocating bundle. He struggled to get out and succeeded except for his legs, which became hopelessly tangled in the mess. At least he could breathe. He breathed very fast when he realized he had been moved in his sleep. His eyes flitted around the dim, cavernous place, wondering, 'Where am I?'

XXX

…Good question. God knows I've asked it enough. So. Got any ideas?