Disclaimer: Characters and Hoggy, warty settings belong to JK Rowling and the happy people at Warner.

Thanks to Friglit for telling me about Scottish roads, for e.g. they can be black with tarmac (as opposed to the NZ tarseal). Any mistakes herein are my own.

Apologies in advance to any readers from Scotland – my DNA left there well over a century ago and hasn't been back. So despite the pictures I looked up on this newfangled Interwebby thing, a lot of the countryside Harry rides through will look like NZ's South Island around Dunedin. (Apart from the hedges and any stone walls that will crop up.)

ooOOoo

Chapter 86

He was pleased to note they didn't pass any webs. They saw the occasional deer bounding away from them – deer didn't seem pleased to see the centaurs, and from the interested looks two or three of the centaurs sent their way and the thick fingers reaching absentmindedly for quivers before thinking better of it, the deer might be on the menu. Were centaurs carnivorous? Funny – after Simon and the unicorns it was bizarre to think of an equid as a meat eater.

Well, apart from Thestrals, of course.

And the occasional Kelpie in horse-form.

Come to think of it, Simon could be so nasty some days he might as well be a carnivore instead of a vegetarian. Maybe he was a humanitarian, if the definition could be spun on its ear that violently.

They came to the edge of the Forest with a suddenness that made Draco pull up his broom into a near stall and Harry sit back and halt Simon, although the horse showed every sign of pleasure at getting out from the trees. The horse hadn't been any the less tense since leaving Fluffy: Harry had the uncomfortable feeling of sitting astride a large keg of TNT with a slow-burning fuse. Perhaps it was just that they were outside the barrier, but already Harry fancied the wind was stronger than what they'd left behind. Horses, he recalled Luna telling him, could be even more skittish on a windy day.

Great. "Good boy, Simon," Harry whispered, just in case it helped.

Firenze turned and gave Harry a faint but reassuring smile. "We will take you on a short way more."

The centaurs fanned out across the meadow beyond the trees, wading through the lush grass – a legacy of spring – and the wizards followed as close as Simon would let them. There seemed to be a road not too far away – if that was what that sunken darkness was – but Harry was preoccupied with keeping control of the horse. Simon almost sprang into a canter but Harry kept him at a walk. Simon didn't stop twitching and trying to look around behind them, and champed at the bit until foamy saliva dripped, taking short, choppy strides in an effort to walk faster.

Simon would just wear himself out at this rate. Harry tried to pat the horse's neck, but found that the moment he leaned forward Simon took that as his cue to vault over the horizon.

"Sorry…" Harry apologised to an affronted Bane, who had horses trying to charge over him as just another item on his list of things he was less than amiable about.

Bane sniffed.

Simon snorted explosively.

Bane flinched away with a noise of disgust, his tail clamped down just like Simon's did when the horse was upset. Simon's snorts could be fairly spray-laden and that one gave the misting sky a run for its money.

Yes. There was a road a short distance away: two lanes, black surface that smelt faintly of tar even at this distance (faintly, yes, but the familiar smell of it was almost shocking after so long away from modernity), with markings running down the middle. And a happy little picnic table nearby. Harry stared at it for a moment. It seemed so… normal. A place where a driver could stop and take a break while looking out over the small woodland that was the Forbidden Forest to Muggle eyes. A place endorsed by the Muggle government and taxpayer.

The grass was overgrown and there were no bottles or empty crisp wrappers lying on the ground. If there was no rubbish then, in Harry's cynical experience, people didn't stop here often. Maybe Muggles had a problem with getting here. There might be wards on the road, subliminal magical suggestions that it would be better to make a detour somewhere further away from Hogwarts or the Forest.

And the road itself seemed to ooze through the landscape.

Harry didn't rub his eyes – it was probably the unicorn blood rather than the tar melting (the emerging day only had a suggestion of warmth rather than scorching heat to it), and he didn't want to do anything to lose the enchantment.

Apart from the unholy darkness, there was also another slight problem with the road for the young wizards and their horse. To wit, reaching it.

The centaurs stopped by a fence not too far past the edge of the trees, close to the picnic area. A young roan centaur eyed the picnic table curiously, the wind sporting with his long speckled hair. The others glared at the fence. The fence itself seemed rather new – wire and baton instead of the post and rail or hedgerows Harry was more familiar with around Hogwarts.

The road, only a few meters away, lay like congealed blood.

Harry remembered that as well as iron, unicorns also had a disdain for manmade tracks. It seemed this could be transmitted in the blood.

Simon arched his neck and eyeballed the road. He seemed more alarmed by the sight of it than the fence in front of him.

"This is where we must leave you," Firenze told them. "This fence is part of the Blockade. If one of my kind so much as touches it, it will call for its masters. Your broom, Draco Malfoy, should pass over it undetected so long as you are more than twenty feet in the air.

"And me?" Harry thought he could already guess.

Firenze smiled. "You, Harry Potter, must take a leap of faith."

Right. Jump. Great. He and Simon had jumped a few logs, to be sure, but nothing more than two feet high. The fence was at least twice that.

"It doesn't look too bad," Draco said from the (literally) lofty comfort of his broom. "I jumped higher than that last time I came through the barrier. Couple of fences, easy."

Harry glared at him. "You're not sitting on Simon right now, I notice. Besides, that wire doesn't look natural."

"No. It looks like it's holding a badly-disguised tangle-web spell. Simon's not affected by them – or he wasn't last time I went through the barrier – but we'd be wrapped up like Christmas presents if we touched it."

"Oh. Lovely."

"Want me to ride him over?"

"No. I can do it." I hope. "But it's wire. Simon's eyes aren't that good." Harry's inner eye gave him a gory image of Simon going through the fence and he winced; Simon picked up on it and pawed the ground. "Even with the unicorn blood, he could misjudge the wire and if it comes to a fight between steel and his legs, I'm pretty sure which would win."

Draco pulled at his lip. "Oh. Could we make it – um – more visible somehow?"

"I guess we could –"

"SCATTER!" bellowed a centaur.

Harry turned just in time to see Fluffy galloping towards them. The three heads had their mouths closed determinedly as the dog barrelled down, and the gigantic paws were almost as soundless as Simon's silver shoes. In the last split second of clear thought Harry realised the dog must have woken and started stalking them. They –

The three heads began to bark and howl in their rage at being spotted. The cacophony sent ice through Harry's marrow.

Merlin – how could we not have noticed him following us?

Simon didn't have any issues with questions of canine tactics: he ripped the reins out of Harry's hands, spun so fast he nearly tripped over his forelegs, and galloped full-tilt along the fenceline.

Fluffy bounded after him.

Simon veered right, towards the gleaming fence.

There was a howl from Fluffy and terrifying snarls: at least one of the arrows must have hit.

Simon sped up. He was coming towards the fence on an angle.

Harry could do nothing to stop the horse. Luna had said something about collecting the horse before the jump; getting him focussed; keeping him calm.

Getting him going straight towards the jump had been high on the list, too.

Simon's wasn't calm and his rolling eyes couldn't possibly be focussed on the fence, not when they were obsessed with the monster charging towards the horse with a greedy bloodlust in all six of its eyes; as far as collected went, Harry hoped that didn't mean taking the fence down with them. As for heading straight, Simon was simply taking the most direct route away from Fluffy. Possibly that ugly road had something to do with it, too. But now they were coming up to the fence and it was jump or die…

If they got much closer that wire could touch Harry… Harry should jump off… away from the fence… stay close to the centaurs… stay and fight Fluffy…

I'm not a coward.

Harry grabbed handfuls of mane.

The horse jumped.

There was no finesse or style. It was an extension of the gallop. Simon's angle of attack was no more than thirty degrees and he went over the fence on an arc that was almost flat, making a small, strained hungkf! sound on the way, corkscrewing his body to get his feet tucked up and over in a Herculean effort not to touch the blue-lit wire, nearly dislodging Harry who slid around in the saddle and held himself on by clenching the mane. And then he was on grass and across the grass and coming up to a pile of rocks and veering to the right again and then – with another swallowed hngk! and a kangaroo-leap of horror at the hideousness of the road – he was on the road and flicking his ears and tail in satisfaction, because despite the strangeness to unicorn-augmented sight this was an easier path than the lumpy ground of the verge and then Simon the racehorse found his full stride.

"Potter!"

Draco's voice came from somewhere behind and skywards. Harry was torn between relief that Draco had made it out of the melee and astonishment that he himself was still sitting on Simon's back. There was the minor problem about staying there, of course, but so long as Simon kept galloping in a straight line he should be okay, and all other things considered –

There were snarls and shouts and yelps from behind – Fluffy must be desperately hungry if he was going up against a herd of centaurs. He must have hoped to take them by surprise. The centaurs hadn't taken kindly to this. Harry could hear their battle-cries: one sounded like it could have come from Bane. The centaurs sounded ferocious but pleased – the battle must be going their way.

"Simon, whoa…"

Simon ignored him. He flew around the bend in the road and charged on. At this rate he'd be swimming for the Shetlands before noon.

Draco dropped out of the sky. He took a moment to adjust his broom to Simon's speed but then he was at the horse's head and had his hands on the reins.

"Whoa, Simon…"

Simon shook his head and nearly knocked Draco away, but he slowed to a choppy canter. Then to a trot, raising his knees and hocks high to fool everyone he was going faster than he was.

Despite the uncomfortable ride, Harry managed to let go of the mane with one hand and get the reins back. "Thanks."

"Welcome." Draco let go and wiped a trail of foam off his sleeve from where the horse had banged its muzzle on him. "Can that creature get through the fence, do you think?"

Harry shuddered. "Let's hope not."

"Well, he solved the problem of getting Simon onto the road."

"That's true."

"Is it just me, or does this road look a bit dodgy?"

"I think it's the unicorn blood. It's – Simon…" Simon thrashed his head around violently and nearly ripped the reins out of Harry's hands. When Harry fought the horse for control, Simon tucked his chin against his chest and began to travel down the road in great sideways bounds. Draco got in the way and Simon flung his head around again, bashing the boy and broom sideways. Draco swore. There was more foamy drool on his hip.

Harry was getting desperate. Grateful Luna wasn't here to see his terrible crime against Simon, he sawed at the reins. Beyond distracting Simon for a brief second it didn't help much. Simon's fear wasn't going away, it only seemed to be changing to anger. The silver shoes skidded on the tarmac. They were silent, but Harry felt the shockwaves of each plunge travel up through the long legs and through Simon's body. "Ouch," he complained, more in sympathy for the danger Simon's legs were in than for his own discomfort. "I'm going to stop him. All this running on roads has got to be bad for his legs."

Draco frowned. "Quite right. I'd ask what the hell you think you're doing crippling my horse like this, but I rode through the barrier with you, I just saw a rather large three-headed dog. And this road looks like it's been rejected by Hades for being too weird. That's three impossible things before breakfast. So I'm open to all sorts of possibilities today."

"Like defeating certain scaly red-eyed annoyances?"

Draco made a small guttural sound deep in his throat and looked around. His wide-eyed panicky expression said that he'd only just realised they were in imminent danger of meeting up with Voldemort.

Harry couldn't get Simon to quite halt, so he took the closest to a stop the horse would give and dismounted, making sure he had a good grip on the reins.

The tarmac didn't feel weird under his feet. It felt normal, in fact. And a bit of a relief to have his own feet doing the work, which meant he had something at least marginally under his control. He pulled the reins over Simon's head. "Good boy, Simon."

Simon shook his head and glared around at the offending countryside. The road here cut halfway down a small dip between long, sleepy hills. To their left was rocky scrubland and heather; the Death Eaters' wire fence ran along the ridge. A blackbird flew down to perch on a stile set into a hedge protecting the fields which rolled down the lower slopes and then lapped up again over the far hill. Someway back along the way they'd come was the oozing ribbon of another road leading off across a little bridge to the south east. There were some white specks in the fields that must be sheep. Harry hoped they were sheep. He didn't know what alpacas looked like.

The bird sang a few sweet bars until Simon gave it one of his more poisonous sneers. Simon was not a big fan of cheerfulness.

Harry had Simon walk around him in small circles, like mini-longeing. It didn't take long for the horse to calm down to something more manageable, and by then Harry wanted to sit down on something solid and unmoving for a bit. He shoed the bird away and led Simon over to the stile. The hedge should shelter the horse from view. "Here. Try the grass, Simon. This road is going north. Right?" he asked Draco, still hovering on his broom.

"Right. See that bridge there?" Draco pointed at the bridge Harry had just spotted.

"Yeah? And? Is it a magical portal or something?"

Draco rolled his eyes. "I think it's just a portal across the river. But the thing is that it's about a mile north of Hogsmeade."

"You sure?"

"Yes. The arch is quite distinctive. Those trees either end of it, too."

"If you say so. You ready to go for your tree?"

Draco shivered slightly. He was especially pale under unicorn-sight. The silvery discs of his irises flickered, red-gleaming pupils distant warning lights now instead of the fires of hell. Either the blood was less effective as the sky lightened, or it was wearing off. "As I'll ever be. Wait – the stones!"

They'd nearly forgotten. That didn't bode well for the morning's adventure, and by Draco's disgruntled expression Harry wasn't the only one upset by this near lapse in memory that could have been disastrous. Well, they had the potions that could give resonance to the trees, of course, but Harry had more faith in something Elmsworthy had custom-built for the task.

That was scary in itself.

Draco landed next to Simon. His timing could have been better.

Simon startled as a rabbit sprang out of the hedge and rustled through the grass of the field, jumping sideways just as Draco was dismounting, flinging the Slytherin into the verge. Draco was lucky enough to land in the grass rather than the prickly hedge, but the volley of epithets he let loose was a robust sign of his not being aware of his fortune.

"Bloody horse," he grumbled, sitting up and picking grass out of his hair. He checked his broom. "Seems all right," he grudgingly allowed. He rested his wrists on his knees and gave the road a Simonesque sneer. "Why are we doing this again?"

"Because it's the right thing."

"Why, then, does the right thing end up with me getting hurt or thrown in a ditch?"

"That just shows it's the right thing."

"Stupid, Gryffindor world…"

Harry gave him a hand up. "Come on. Time's a-wasting, as the centaur said. We need a meeting place for going back to Hogwarts or going after You-know-who."

"Here's as good a place as any. We can get back through the Forest the way we came. If the barrier's still up Simon can take us again."

"What about Fluffy?"

"I should think the centaurs would've done for him. Don't you?"

Harry agreed. Although he had no idea how he was going to break the news to Hagrid. He tapped the stile with his wand and spoke a warding spell that would act as a notice-me-not when Harry returned. Shame it couldn't be portable, but it would do if they needed shelter in a pinch, although if anyone was looking directly at them when they reached it they would be visible. Harry wondered if it was the one Dumbledore used when he wanted to sit in a place unseen.

The spell hovered over the stile and hummed, waiting to be set. Two smaller rings of magic hovered above the stile. "Password?"

Draco shrugged. "'Simon says'?"

"That'll do." Harry set the spell. The stile went black for a moment, then the faded wood was back to normal. Two small silver rings lay on the top step. Harry gave one to Draco and slipped the other on his little finger. The rings shimmered and took on the colour of their fingers – you had to look at them side-on to see that they were there. Hopefully this meant that if either of them were captured they couldn't be used to trap the other. This was what Hermione had reasoned, but she'd had that small line drawn between her eyes which meant she wasn't telling Harry everything she was frightened about because she didn't want him to think she was worried. "Just say the password to the ring and squeeze it two times when you're ready to –"

"I know how tête-à-tête spells work, Potter. I also know they're not very reliable, otherwise everyone would be using them."

"Well, you obviously don't know the one Hermione and Elmsworthy taught me yesterday."

Draco stopped looking scornful and started looking guardedly impressed instead. "Oh. Well, that's a bit better, I guess. Although don't start expecting me to have faith in Elmsworthy's potions."

"Let's hope we don't need them. Okay. Two squeezes means we meet here… three at the bridge… three short three long three short means you're in trouble beyond anything I can help you with so I go somewhere for help. What do you think?"

"Three short, long, short?"

"Morse code. You know. Dot-dot-dot, dash-dash-dash, dot-dot-dot."

Draco's face was don't-react-to-the-crazy-Gryffindor blank.

Harry sighed. "Eh. Hopefully you won't need to use it. Two for here, three for the bridge."

"Five for Hogsmseade – under the stand of pines by the road to Hogwarts."

"I know the place. Okay."

"But if it doesn't work or if there's suddenly lots of Death Eaters hanging around here shall we meet up at the bridge anyway?"

"If there're lots of Death Eaters hanging around a stile in the middle of nowhere then something's gone wrong. Get yourself somewhere safe."

Draco didn't say anything for a moment. He coughed. "Right. Stones."

Harry dug in his pocket. "Here." He swapped the small grey pebble for Draco's. He hefted it to see if the weight or magic felt any different (it didn't) then pressed his forefinger against it. "Okay, Rock. Point me to the tree."

Nothing.

"Ahhh… Malfoy?"

Draco was frowning and jabbing his impatiently with his finger. It was hard to say for certain in the unicorn-enhanced silver light, but his face seemed to be colouring red independently of the weak sunrise. "Was there some sort of an invocation we were meant to use?"

"Abracadabra Rock? Ha! No, it's Open Sesame!"

Draco gave him a scathing glare. "Now's really not the time to be a prat. What did Elmsworthy say we were supposed to do, exactly?"

"Activate our rocks with our fingerprints." Harry felt a terrible queasiness in his stomach. "Do you think the barrier broke the charms?"

"Maybe. God knows what sort of spells Elmsworthy used to put these together. Boffins… Can't live with them, can't dissolve their bodies in concentrated acid because they'd be warned of your intentions by the smell and then sneer at you for using sulphuric when you should be using hydrochloric…" He froze, then slapped his forehead.

Simon snorted.

Harry was worried by this, too. "Er… you okay there, mate?"

"Idiot. We're both idiots," Draco muttered. He waved his rock in Harry's face. Simon, who'd been putting his head down to snatch a few mouthfuls of grass, snorted again and gave the boys a suspicious look. "He didn't say fingers he said thumbs."

Harry didn't bother to smack himself in the forehead. His scar hadn't stopped aching since the barrier and he thought whacking it might twitch some sort of magical resonance to alert Voldemort. Well, probably not, but he still didn't know just how far-reaching the Dark Lord's powers were.

Just how tired were they? The whole thing with the rings seemed like there was something missing. It was either too simple or too complicated and Harry felt like they hadn't covered everything properly. Or was he making it too convoluted in his own head?

Some days it seemed you just had to stop thinking.

They pressed thumbs to the smooth pebbles.

The stones trembled and turned warm. A small, flickering light appeared on the top surface of each of them. Harry gave the reins to Draco for a moment as he walked around the road to check the direction. Yes: the speck moved faithfully no matter what way he faced.

Harry peered off into the distance where his stone indicated. It was hilly. He thought he caught a peep of trees across a saddle in a ridgeline. The Forest, most likely. "Hmm. Hope it's not too far. I don't know how Simon will do on those hills."

"Stick to any roads you find. Or sheep tracks. Muggles are restricted to farming around here – not that they bother with that so close to the Forest. Most of the sheep in the area are Bermudan Blackface. You know – the ones that give wool for robes. Their wool is magic-tolerant. Although if you weave it wrong you tend to disappear."

He hadn't had a lot of sleep lately. They'd just been chased by Fluffy. Simon had nearly ripped his legs off in a magical wire fence. There was a strong chance Voldemort would be following up the vampire scout the centaurs had killed to see if Harry Potter had come through the barrier. He was relying on unicorn blood, a couple of untested potions, his own skills with a wand that were pitiful when you compared them to Voldemort's, and Draco Malfoy. Oh, and a tall, dark, bad-tempered peppermint-loving apple thief with a good turn of speed. So basically he was in a lot of trouble and should be on the move in case said trouble began to congeal around him. But above and beyond these issues something else had been bugging Harry for the last ten or twenty minutes and he had to ask: "How come you know so much about sheep all of a sudden? I thought you knew nothing about Muggle animals. Sheep are about as Muggle as you get."

Draco stared at him. "You've got to be kidding. I've said it once and I'll say it again: you're a despicable townie and anyone would be forgiven for thinking you're a Muggle townie. Wizarding sheep are integral to our world. I thought everyone knew that? I mean, although Father employs people to take care of the land Malfoy Manor's on, it is a working sheep farm, and part of the reason my family's got screeds of money is that great-great-great-great-grandfather Malfoy bred the incredibly hardy meat-and-wool Avebury Myth from an ancient pre-Celtic landrace variety that –"

Okay, that was enough information. Death Eaters were probably on their way now. And Draco was starting to sound like Hermione or Elmsworthy.

"Does your stone work?" Harry snapped. Sheep? How the hell were sheep going to help?

Draco frowned at Harry's tone, although Harry had been more annoyed at himself for going off track. "Well, there's a little dot pointing towards Hogsmeade. I guess if I fly high enough I can go over the Dementors without being detected." He shuddered. "One advantage of cloud cover is the way you can hide in it."

"Okay." Harry checked his watch. "We've still got ten, maybe fifteen minutes until peak time. Not that we really know when that is."

"Those unicorns and centaurs really sped us through the Forest didn't they?" Draco grinned. He gave Simon a last pat on the nose. "Take care of him."

"He will." Harry was touched by his concern.

"I was talking to you, Potter. Don't let anything bad happen to my horse." Draco shoved the reins at Harry, got on his broom and kicked off lightly so that he hovered next to Simon. Simon sniffed at the broom but immediately lost interest. The bristles probably weren't edible.

Harry gritted his teeth, gathered up the reins and put his foot in the stirrup. "Just get on with it before something bad happens to you," he grumbled, forcing himself with some effort not to kick Draco as he swung the other foot over Simon's hindquarters and settled into the saddle. Simon lifted his head, ready to work, ears flickering as he took in the birdsong at the same time he concentrated on his rider. Harry patted his neck. It felt like coming home. He gathered up the reins and Simon turned in the direction he was looking. Horses were uncanny, Harry decided. Or maybe it was just Simon.

Not for the first time, Harry felt a pang at the thought of his father's cloak, somewhere in his trunk back at Hogwarts. He didn't get why their wands, Malfoy's broom and Simon's shoes were okay to take through the barrier yet the Invisibility Cloak wasn't. It came from an organic source, just like the wands. The Weasleys had sent through their fake bags without fuss. Hermione had tried to explain it to him and Ron, of course, telling him that the bags were a spun-carbon material and inorganic tethers for the magic, which had made some sense, but Harry's eyes had glazed over right after that with Hermione's first "– you know about sub-resonic fibre woven into organic flux – it's in Weaving for Magical Design and you must have read that –". He'd nodded off soon afterwards. Ron told him later that he hadn't missed anything in the following half-hour.

Draco had been right when he said his broom could climb like a Bowtruckle: he shot up like a cork out of a shaken bottle of Butterbeer and soon even Harry's unicorn-blood-sight couldn't spot him in the clouds. The rising sun was trying harder to thrust itself through the thick curtain occluding the heavens but apart from the occasional ray without much success.

Harry turned Simon's nose northwards. "Let's go," he murmured.

Simon broke into his long-striding trot. The shoes muffled any ring of hoof against the road.

Harry kept the stone in the hand with the reins. His other hand rested on his hip, wand at the ready.

ooOOoo

A/N: Not just Simon. Horses can sense where the rider is looking. Especially if the rider is scared of something and staring at it. For anyone who is interested, give Sally Swift's book "Centred (or Centered for US readers?) Riding" a read some time.

ooOOoo