Disclaimer: No money is being made from this (alas). Characters and everything recognisably Hoggy or Warty belongs to J K Rowling.

Chapter 93

Simon tore down the road, neck stretched out and legs reaching for every last iota of speed they could find. The hooves hitting the ground resonated through the horse's body, transmitting to Harry as he clung to the saddle and tried not to collapse. His cheek was throbbing in earnest now, another distraction he didn't need, but it was nothing compared to the pain in his scar, which was now back up to pre-gale sensitivity.

Somewhere behind him, Voldemort was enraged.

And still very much alive.

Harry had thrown the anti-Voldie potion at him and he'd survived. He'd thrown stink-potion at him and he hadn't thrown up. Truly, he was not human.

Maybe if Draco and the second bottle of anti-Voldie potion came back they could try again, but while Draco had already destroyed the barrier-sustaining spells on the southern tree, flying down to attack Voldemort wasn't something Harry could expect from him – Draco wasn't one for a face-to-face attack. If only they –

Simon stumbled.

Harry yanked on the leadrope in an effort to keep Simon's head up, not that it was necessary, but he felt the need to do something, to let Simon know that there was someone with him, that Harry wasn't letting Simon face this alone. Simon snorted, surprised as he slowed to a choppy trot; distressed that his own body had betrayed him. The grey and yellow lines of magic radiating out from the charm in Simon's chest flickered stronger. And Harry's heart sank: Simon wasn't just scared of what was behind them now, he was frightened of something much more central to his sense of self – his ability to run. The fear seemed to be setting off that defensive charm, but the magic had been altered enough to give unpredictable results. As Simon shook his head and tried to tear the leadrope out of Harry's hands, a splodge of yellow bloomed and died on Simon's neck, and in its brief heart could be seen a darkness that went beyond the jet coat and delved into nothingness.

Stephanie's words came back to him – that's the price of breaking the barrier – you must lose Simon.

What if that mysterious gale had come from the barrier falling? And the magic had done something to Simon? Was that what Stephanie had meant – that the charm in Simon's chest would be altered?

Altered enough to harm the horse?

Death Eaters and Dementors were one thing, but surely Stephanie would have been clearer if Simon's life was endangered by the barrier.

Harry took the pause as a chance to retrieve the reins, which had ridden up Simon's neck. He tried to keep a steady grip on them as he urged the horse back into a gallop. "Come on, Simon, you can do it," he said as cheerfully as he could, but his voice sounded high and frightened and, like Simon's stumble had unnerved the horse, the sound of his voice unnerved Harry. He swallowed and tried again. "Let's get out of here and under cover… and we'll find you an animal Healer. Good boy, Simon."

Simon was still weaving slightly as he set off down the road again, and Harry tried to ride the horse as close as possible to the white lines down the centre of the road rather than risk tripping on something in the verge. The hard road would be worse for Simon's legs in the long term, but the important thing was to have a long term.

Two, three strides later, and Simon was back more or less on an even keel, although there was still something slightly off about the rhythm, and the soundless percussion echoing up through his bony frame jarred. A few last rags of red magic flickering from his mane answered the question before it could be asked: the Stunning spells weren't totally banished. Harry would have cast Finite incantatum if he'd had his wand, but his wand was back on the other side of the bridge, under a tree unless Lucius Malfoy had managed to extricate himself. (Which he probably had – the slithery bastard had wormed his way out of almost every other situation he'd embroiled himself in.)

A hex sizzled past him and exploded in the hedge with the smell of burning bacon. The hedge shrieked and a hole opened up.

Simon shied violently, rearing, trying to rip the reins out of Harry's hands, and plunged, bucking, when Harry, thinking the horse was going to jump over the opposite hedge, fought him for control. They reached a compromise in the next two seconds, sheltering out of sight of the Death Eaters behind a weeping willow that pushed out from a bend in the lane. Simon was still inclined to gallop but the hedges – already badly battered by the gale-force wind until they looked drunk – were lower on this side of the stream and the road curved back into view of anyone across the stream or standing on the bridge: they would be a running target and sooner or later a Death Eater worth Voldemort's trust would prove their worth by hexing horse and rider.

Something skimmed over their heads. Thinking it another curse, Harry ducked, then had to pull Simon around again to keep them behind the tree when Simon interpreted his rider leaning forward as a sign he was meant to go fast again. Cold, wet, waxy leaves clung to his face as Simon did his sideways rocking-horse impression and barged through the dangling willow fronds. Far away came a shriek of rage that sounded much like Bellatrix LeStrange, and Harry took heart from her hurt. Maybe Voldemort had chopped her hand off, he thought with mordant hope. Simon standing on it couldn't have been fun for her. Shame he hadn't trodden Voldemort into the dirt while he was at it.

"Give me half a minute then keep him going, Potter," sang out an invisible but familiar voice, its suddenness making Harry and Simon both jump.

Keeping the reins tight to stop Simon from charging off down the road again, Harry squinted up through the leaves and the raindrops dewing his lenses – then looked towards where he thought the voice had been heading and saw a ripple in the misty rain curving back around towards him, a ripple that looked very much like it could be caused by an invisible rider on an invisible broom.

"I'll try and… and slow them down," came Draco's voice as the ripple drew to a halt and hovered just beyond the drape of willow fronds. He sounded exhausted; his sentences choppy. "Take the next right at the crossroads – that's the road towards Hogsmeade and it's, it's only about a mile, maybe half a mile ahead of you. Go right and keep going, uh, going south as fast as you can. Tonks and, um, the Aurors got bogged down with another… another temporal spell – the Dark Lord experimenting again – don't ask – but they're digging themselves out now. Moody had to make sure a group of junior Death Eaters were rendered harmless. Sent me back to tell you they shouldn't be long. You just have to keep yourself ahead of You-know-who's lot, and they don't have – that is to say, they don't seem to have brooms. They'll need to do sight-Apparition to keep up with, uh, Simon, and that's devilishly tricky."

"Wasn't Hogsmeade meant to be burning?"

"Funny, that. Tonks mentioned something about someone putting a… a spinach in the works. Whatever that means. But this is no time for talking Quidditch and Gobstones."

Harry nodded, keeping up his very tight rein on Simon as the horse shook its head. "Got some more of that Invisibility Potion?"

"You sure you want to try it? Simon already looks a little weird – was he hit by a Stun or something? He's all… yellowy… And what the hell is that spell in his foreleg meant to be?"

There was a brief flicker. Draco on his broom, worn pale and shadow-eyed, looking concerned, in then out of sight. He looked almost as bad as Harry felt.

"Yeah, two Stuns. But they've worn off." I think. "The yellow is from the charm in his chest, which is acting up, and Merlin knows what that spell in his foreleg is – that one only just showed up," Harry told him quickly, as impatient as Simon to be moving.

"The potion might –"

"Quick!" They'd be coming over the bridge and down the lane and then as soon as they saw Harry they'd be Apparating to his position.

"Come out from the tree. I'm not risking getting my broom tangled."

Harry tried to ride Simon out from the leaves. The horse, contrary creature that it was, decided it didn't want to run after all and turned so its head was back under the tree. Harry twisted his head around and saw Draco flicker again, still hovering a little way back.

"For Merlin's sake – you can't miss putting potion onto something the size of a horse's arse! Hurry up, Malfoy…"

The potion was wearing off, and, his action much like that of dinosaurs in early stop-motion flicks, Draco took out the bottle and dropped three drops onto Simon's rump and then another three on the back of his own hand. Draco vanished. After a slight pause while the magic seemed to creak its way through a morass of yellow and graphite lines, the horse vanished from sight, along with Harry, too, Harry realised when he looked down at himself.

It seemed too easy. "Did it work?"

"Yeah," came Draco's disembodied voice. "Let's hope it doesn't affect the… the silencing charms on the shoes."

There was a distinctive movement under the saddle, one forefoot moving as it did when Simon was running out of patience and wanted to get moving. Never mind the potion – Harry was amazed the magical wind hadn't stripped the spells from the shoes; they could probably cope with anything if they'd stood up to that. "Feels like Simon's pawing the ground."

"Can't hear it," Draco said with satisfaction, then adding quickly, "Er… Was Travers at the bridge? He'd be the, um, the big chap in black with an eye-p –"

"Yeah. He was there, all right. But something happened to his eye-patch. There was this – this wind… like a magic storm… twice…"

"I noticed. Luckily I was up high, because I dropped a good hundred meters before the spells on my… my whatsit, my broom started working properly again. And then again. Second wave. What the hell was that? Third tree, you think?" Draco was gabbling and didn't wait for an answer. "But whatever it was, if it knocked out his eye-patch then that's all to the good. I think he can use it to see through the potion's effect."

Simon was definitely pawing at the ground now, bouncing Harry up and down. Harry had been hungry earlier by the bridge, but thanks to the pain in his scar, the stink-potion and the sight of Pettigrew throwing up through his mask, and now the bouncing, he was fast moving into nauseous territory. And he was exhausted. And his brain was having serious fuzzy problems with that whole thinking business. Which was probably why he made the mistake of upsetting Draco by saying: "Oh, and your dad was there."

Draco's disembodied voice said something quietly: it sounded like a word that would set an extra-stern McGonagall to washing his mouth out with soap. "Is he okay?" Draco asked hesitantly.

Deciding that he'd suffered from enough foot in mouth disease for one day, Harry didn't answer with the first thing that came to mind – 'unfortunately that falling tree didn't crush him to a bloody and well-deserved death' wouldn't help – but said, "Well enough to have stolen my wand, the bastard." Which was still loads nicer than his edited sentence.

"Oh. Well. I'll… I'll just go and see if I can distract everyone while you… you make your getaway. Just in case that eye-patch is working, wait for – for my signal before coming out from behind this tree."

"What's that going to be, then?"

"Er…"

Harry shook his head. "I guess I'll know the distraction when I hear it."

"You should."

Harry also knew a smirk when he heard one.

The misty drizzle curled in on itself in the manner of mist forming around the vacuum of someone suddenly zooming off on a broom.

Even without the wind blowing it into swirls, it probably would have been an uneven trail.

There were voices getting louder from down the road, blowing towards him in the wind; someone wondering if there was a trap being set for them… another, gruffer voice suggesting the first person investigate. There was a scream and a spike of pain in Harry's scar: Voldemort stepping in to stop the bickering and hurry up the hunt for Harry. Harry couldn't hear anyone's voice clearly enough to say it was one he recognised, but none of them were likely to be friendly. He kept the reins tight literally and his fingers crossed mentally, half his attention on what he imagined to be going on down the road, the rest on the agitated horse beneath him. Simon was not in favour of standing still, and was beginning to rear again – no major standing-on-his-hindlegs, but small bounces with his forelegs, swishing Harry through the clammy branches. Harry avoided them as best as he could, but they were dropping leaves down the back of his neck. He sighed. He really didn't want to wrestle the horse into obedience – Simon learned fast and if he got really upset with Harry he'd work out some way of getting rid of him – but if Draco didn't do something fast there would be –

Pop. Pop.

Two robed and masked figures suddenly appeared next to the tree.

Simon tossed his head and snorted. Alerted by the noise, seeing the waving willow fronds, the Death Eaters turned and pointed their wands and –

BARRRADDDABOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!

The noise was massive.

The Death Eaters shrieked and threw themselves on the ground with their arms over their heads. There was no great gale this time, but the ground jerked and the willow shook its leaves and the water they held rained over Harry and Simon, small droplets seemingly hanging in mid-air to limn a horse and rider in condensation.

Simon rose onto his hind legs when Harry didn't release the reins fast enough for his satisfaction. One powerful shake of his head, and the reins, the leather slippery now with rain, slid between Harry's fingers. Harry ducked his head just in time as Simon's rear became a sideways leap, and instead of losing his glasses (and possibly his head) in the willow, only had the hood of his cloak snagged and wrenched against his already-bruised throat. He very nearly lost his last meal. But then they were out and past the two huddled Death Eaters without touching them and galloping along the road, around the bend, galloping further and further from the bridge, and then there was a smack and Simon made a small noise of surprise and clipped a forefoot with a hindfoot as he lost his stride.

Bang.

Smack.

Thump-rattle-rattle.

Chunk.

Pitter-patter-pitter.

It was raining stone. Hard rattles of it on the road, softer thumps as it landed in the verge in the grass or on bare earth.

Harry kept his head down over Simon's neck, hunching his shoulders, hoping that the Stun had worn off enough by now for the horse to take care of the terrain, praying no piece of stone fell hard enough to stun the horse by more physical means. (Or stun Harry, because he didn't need any more help with being stupid today, not when he could have asked Draco to use his wand to remove the last traces of the Stupefy spell.)

The stone stopped falling, but there was still an odd metallic noise moving along with them.

Harry looked back: the road had curved around towards the south and was now going uphill (Simon beginning to puff with the effort) and up at the top of the hill he reined Simon in. Here, the road turned back towards what should be the rising sun and there was a good view of the bridge down to the north-west.

Or a good view of where the bridge had been.

Now there was a less-than-scenic pile of rubble blocking the stream. The chestnut trees which had formed a gentle shelter by the stream were leaning like they'd been hitting the firewhisky hard; great pale gashes where leaves and boughs had been.

Simon wanted to get going, but Harry was determined to see what Voldemort was going to do next while he still had the concealment of the potion.

"Whoa, Simon. Just for a moment. Take a look at that, boy. Draco really came through with that distraction…"

Death Eaters were staggering around the ruins, many with hands still over their ears. Voldemort – I don't believe it. He survived that?! – was a gleaming pillar of magic across the stream. His baffled rage echoed in Harry's scar. Harry wanted very much to rub his scar, but didn't dare take one hand off the reins, which were vibrating as Simon champed at the bit. Even though Voldemort was perfectly capable of Apparating, it was a relief to have water between himself and the Dark Lord.

Voldemort lifted his hands. From the distance it was impossible to see if he had his wand, but the smoky magic coiling up around him was unmistakable.

Struggling, arms waving and legs kicking, the Death Eaters were lifted into the air. Some stayed where they lay; Harry supposed they were too injured to be of immediate use.

Voldemort brought his pale hands together and then he, too, rose, floating without a broom, and slowly but surely the black-clad group drifted across the stream, landing gently and in an eerie silence on the other side.

Harry's side.

Oh, shit, thought Harry as his heart sank, and felt his scar spike again. He winced and pulled on the reins and Simon pranced, unsure of his rider.

Voldemort turned his face towards him and for a second Harry thought the Invisibility Potion had worn off. He looked down at his hands and realised it hadn't. Voldemort had found him through his scar.

Again.

Instead of swearing, Harry thought of blue skies and fluffy clouds. He thought of the angle of a Wronski Feint, and imagined himself going through each step… the tiniest detail meant the difference between success and crippling failure, and Harry had to put himself into each and every motion…

The anger pushed harder. It reminded him of all the times people had fouled him in Quidditch, the times referees had made bad decisions...

Harry thought of Luna's hand in his. Her lips – soft. He remembered another time in the rain when she kissed him and –

Voldemort was standing down there by the destroyed bridge, but his presence in Harry's mind was diminished, recoiling like Voldemort had recoiled from the stinky potion; only tendrils of frustration remaining behind, cautiously seeking out the cracks in Harry's mind.

Harry thought of unicorns. He thought of their glow. Their near-silent grace. The way they came out like stars at night to guide lost travellers and offer the comfort of the infinite. Was it some sort of connection he'd subconsciously made between them and Luna? He couldn't really say. But the thought of them running alongside him as he rode Simon through the Forest was a peaceful one, like finding a waterfall to meditate by or sitting in silence with Luna and watching the stars come out.

There was an odd shift behind his scar. Voldemort wasn't gone, but he had been driven back.

Probably the best he'd get today, Harry decided.

Down by the bridge, Voldemort held his hands out, palms open. Anyone else would have looked like a man come to humbly petition the sky.

The darkness wrapping itself around him in sinuous waves spiralled up from his hands and speared into the clouds. They shuddered and darkened.

As if the dark magic had hit him rather than the clouds, Harry sucked in a quick, shocked breath. His hands relaxed the reins before his conscious mind had even thought about getting moving again. Simon, like Harry's hands, was wise enough to know when to make a quick exit and needed no further permission than this. He set off at a brisk trot along the road with an even stride that showed the last of the Stunner had worn off. When he sped up into a slow, purposeful gallop, Harry didn't even try to slow him. He would have urged the horse faster, but he didn't know how far they had to go and Simon's sprint was best saved for emergencies.

All he knew, as the ruddy clouds flowing overhead began to darken, was that this was far from over.

ooOOoo

Chank. Chank. Chank. Chank.

The clouds were almost black now and the rain was too warm to be Scottish. The darkness was spreading out from behind Harry, annexing the sky in soft billowing waves or quick darting assaults like poison from a wound. Harry didn't fool himself that he didn't know its source. He could feel the power behind it pushing away at his scar, always there, always seeking a way in, finding a new worry to exploit.

Chank. Chank. Chink.

Harry thought of the way he had to move his shoulders just so right before he pulled out of the Feint.

He thought of Luna.

He thought of unicorns.

He thought of figs, and surprised himself into a smile.

Chock. Chunk. Chank. Chank.

He thought of that bloody shoe…

Harry… Haaarrryyyy…

He thought of Luna kissing him again. That helped. Then a bolt of darkness unfurled across the sky in a banner proclaiming the might of his enemy, and Harry thought of red eyes and malice. He forced himself to concentrate on Luna – on Ron and Hermione, on Sirius, on Dumbledore and Flitwick and McGonagall and Remus all waiting for him to come back…

Chank. Chack. Chink.

… He thought of that bloody loose shoe. It must have been when the rocks were raining down all around them – Simon had tripped, kicking a front hoof with a back hoof – because it was during that gallop along the road that the silent running had become less than so.

Harry… I'm with you, Harry… with you until the end…

Fuck off, Voldemort, Harry thought crossly, and steered Simon around a fallen tree. Simon could have jumped it easily, but it was bad enough galloping the horse on the hard tarmac without leaping hurdles on the way. It also gave Harry the satisfaction of knowing he had some control over events.

Laughter on the edge of the world. Harry heard it in his mind instead of his ears because Voldemort was feeling playful: the illusion of laughter was only for Harry, yet it seemed to be following the path of a new seam of black opening up in silence across the sky and poisoning the clouds; more sooty darkness flowing out from it with all the deceptive softness of a tidal wave before it senses land. The crack in the sky– a jet zig-zag – was the same symbol as what Harry saw reversed every morning in his mirror.

Harry didn't have any illusions about coincidence.

Chink-chock-chip-clock. Simon trotted around the tree then broke into a canter again.

Simon's shoe was probably a coincidence. They really should have checked those nails before they left, but the shoe might have held up if Simon hadn't been startled into tripping himself up by rocks dropping on his head.

Was this the nail of Elmsworthy's rhyme? The one which when lost damned the kingdom?

Harry reminded himself that the odds of Elmsworthy being psychic were remote. But what if the Slytherin had sensed something while under the clumsy Obliviate? What if –

More laughter. It tingled down his spine. Fear is truth, Harry. Embrace it.

"Fuck OFF, Voldemort!" Harry gritted out, making the invisible Simon (shluk!) miss a stride. Harry could imagine the horse twitching an ear backwards. "Sorry, boy. Nothing to do with you." And it was stupidity itself to speak Voldemort's name when you were trying to hide from his minions. Probably exactly what Voldemort was trying to goad Harry into.

Chack. Chink. Chank. Chink.

… Of course a loose shoe could hamper your sneakiness when it meant the silencing charms on it were broken.

Harry considered stopping and trying to stick the shoe on tighter with an adhesive spell. It mightn't be what was needed to salvage the silencing charm, but it would protect Simon's hoof. According to Luna Simon wouldn't get very far trying to gallop unshod on a road. Merlin only knew how wild horses coped, because it was a minor miracle the domestic variety ever managed to trot across a paddock without keeling over from splints, stone-bruises or acute bacterial gastroenteritis. He squinted ahead, hoping to have some tree to hide under while he was dismounted. Best to be undercover in case the potion wore off just as a Death Eater passed overhead. There was a small copse up ahead, nice and lush, but unluckily it was on the other side of the hedge. It was a shame Harry couldn't see over the hedge, but this was rather a tall one, considerably higher than his head even if he were standing on Simon's back.

Hello. What was that?

Harry stuck his toes down and stood up in the stirrups, trying to get a sense of what that change in the hedgerows meant. Was it just another section battered by the magical hurricane, or –

"Yeouch!"

Sensing his sudden fascination with something down the road, Simon slowed to a trot, the shoe making a nasty skidding sound. The change in pace nearly collapsed Harry over the horse's neck. He made an awkward landing in the saddle and, hard on the heels of his relief he hadn't fallen off Simon (or landed in the saddle in that eye-wateringly painful way Sirius had managed) came the even greater relief that Draco hadn't seen that truly dire piece of horsemanship.

"Sorry, boy. But it's all right," whispered Harry. Horses didn't like their riders staring at things: it meant that that thing held something that was a dangerous thing. Like Fluffy. Simon had already had a long, trying day involving three-headed dogs, centaurs, Stunning spells, and exploding bridges. Not to mention meeting Voldemort.

Poor old Simon. Poor old Harry, come to that.

Harry reached down to where he thought the neck was and gave it a reassuring pat when he found it. "Nothing dangerous. We're only coming up to the crossroads."

It was very dark now – Voldemort's uncanny midnight spell had eaten up any hint of the rising sun, but the unicorn blood on his eyes was still working well enough to let him see obstacles, although his depth perception wasn't quite so good now. Harry turned his head from side to side, trying to get an idea of how far away the crossroads was. Quite close. A hundred yards or so, past some straggly adolescent willows and – hang on… Harry thought – what was this?

Behind a wide gate set between old stone posts that might have been erected at the same time as Hogwarts was a row of stone houses. They had been shielded by the trees as well as the angle Harry was riding along relative to the high hedge, but at this point they rose over the battered hedgerow, windows overlooking the road blind with determination not to see what might slide past them on the outside road. They were more like cottages, really, he decided: two-storied, heavy-walled, small-windowed cottages, four of them built joining each other to save on walls. The gate was barred and chained shut and a rutted dirt driveway led from it past the cottages and down the hill to what Harry thought might be a main house, but nobody was stirring on the other side of the gate. He'd have thought farmers would be up and about by now – he'd already seen the cows were up – or some chickens or ducks wandering around the place, but other than a faint growl-whine from a frightened dog that had heard the loose shoe and smelled a horse and strange human on the spell-tainted wind, its blinking eyes twinkling silver in the assumed safety of its dark kennel some way down the drive, there was nothing.

Creepy.

He halted Simon. Simon seemed very interested in what was down the driveway – Harry was looking down there so it had to be important – but disinclined to set a hoof off the road.

No cars. No tractors. No sign of modern machinery. A wizard farm?

Could Harry get help from someone here?

Anyone?

Where was everyone?

Dead like the farmer down the cliff? Or so scared they wouldn't pull their curtains back in case something nasty came their way?

Harry flinched and looked up as another wave of darkness passed overhead in velvety ripples across the clouds. Whatever spell Voldemort had used had already blotted out any hopes the rising sun might have had of finally shedding some light on the day. Somewhere off to the north, thunder rumbled. It was too far away to be connected to Voldemort, but its timing was impeccable. All that was needed now was Voldemort Apparating in and declaring that he was, in fact, a vampire, and needed Harry's blood. (Again.) Another dark wave pulsed overhead and Harry shivered. The power or skill needed for such a spell was both awesome and awful.

But, Harry guessed in a brief moment of clear thinking as the clouds in his own mind parted for a second, that was the point. Voldemort was trying to use psychology on him.

He snorted. Thank Merlin there was no Harry Mutterer book.

Perversely amused by this notion, he peered down the driveway and up into the windows. Perhaps some of the inhabitants were already out early. Harry didn't have a clue where Death Eaters lived when they weren't at Malfoy Manor or out making bloody nuisances of themselves. Some of them – that man who'd held Simon, for instance – had hints of northern or Scottish accents and might live around here.

Harry could go and knock on the door and be turned over quick as a wink to Voldemort by some Death Eater's mum – or he might be given shelter just long enough for Voldemort to come along and burn the house to the ground along with the entire family who'd dared to aid the Boy Who Lived.

There was a faint noise from the road behind him. It wasn't anything loud enough to startle Simon, but Harry turned to see three cloaked and masked figures standing by the fallen tree far back down the road. To unicorn-sight they fluttered with darkness.

Harry watched them, feeling the weight shift beneath him, that particular twist of shoulder and creak of saddle that let him know Simon had bent his neck around to see.

The figures disappeared.

The saddle rocked – Simon putting his head up and down. There were still some aspects of Wizarding life the horse wasn't used to.

Harry realised his heart was racing again. There was a twinge in his scar – the first sting of the dentist's drill. He thought of unicorns and Luna – it was a reflex action now to throw their twined image between himself and evil. Hard on the heels of that, hiding behind the light, came the darker worry over all the people waiting in Hogsmeade. He thought of Hogwarts, and his heart began to speed up again from the possibility of never seeing it again.

He looked up at the dark windows and squinted. There were hints – nothing more than hints even to eyes augmented by unicorn blood – hints of life behind those obsidian panes, life like a snail sheltering in its shell hoping the thrush wouldn't come and knock on its door.

There was no place for him here.

He took a deep breath. The Death Eaters hadn't seen him – the potion was still working and even if Simon had moved they wouldn't have been near enough to hear that shoe over the wind blowing across the battered hedges. They must have been checking out the area on general principle – that was a hopeful sign. Maybe that would give Harry some precious time.

Time he was wasting sitting here.

Harry rode past the houses and didn't look back. The dark windows seemed to be staring after him. He ignored the tickling feeling between his shoulder-blades and trotted Simon along the verge to muffle the loose shoe.

Not far to Hogsmeade now… try as he might, Harry couldn't think of another place he should be going. Moody would have things under control, surely, and if Voldemort was so busy combing the countryside looking for Harry and preparing to invade Hogwarts, Hogsmeade might be a very good place to hide and recover – and with a bit of luck the recovery would involve his foggy brain.

Coming up to the crossroads, Simon picked up on Harry's excitement and put a bit of bounce into his stride, the tall summer grass admonishing them shush-shush-shush! as his long legs swung and parted it. The unripe seed-heads of rye-grass bounced off his knees and canon bones and Harry had a sudden sinking feeling in his stomach, because he was starting to enjoy himself…

Pop. Pop. Bang.

Three Death Eaters Apparated onto the road.

Simon balked at the tree cloaked figures who had appeared almost in front of his nose, and skittered across the road. The Death Eaters turned at the swish of grass as the horse leaped, and then at the sound of the loose shoe they lifted their wands and one flicked and –

BOOM!

A flash of white light hit the hedge Harry had just been riding along and burned a hole into it.

"Idiot!" a large wizard snarled at a thinner one who looked like he'd been left out to dry in the sun for several years. "Alive! We need him alive!" He slashed his wand at the road behind him and a wall of fire lit and roared across the road.

Simon reared, panicking at the flames, and tried to bolt back the way they'd come. The shoe hit the road, clattered, and then suddenly became visible as it spun across the road spitting flecks of dying magic and disappeared into the verge. Simon's naked hoof made an odd, thick clopping sound on the road.

"Revelo!" a high, nervous female voice snapped.

It was a good guess on her part and bad luck on Harry and Simon's. The spell hit Simon broadside and radiated crackling across his ribs in a cascade of competing yellow and purple magics, burning along backbone, up neck, and down long legs.

Harry looked down. He could see Simon, the lines of yellow and graphite magic rippling in waves through his mane and sending minute sparks off the tips of his ears and eyelashes, and he could make out his own hands. They flickered for a second and there was a nasty moment when he saw all the bones, then they became visibly solid. Not good. His hood was up and he tried to keep his face covered. It might get him some time…

The Death Eaters seemed almost certain he was the one they were looking for, but there was still some hesitation.

And they weren't allowed to kill him.

Harry could use that.

He reined Simon around in a tight circle. Could he run them down?

Maybe, but he couldn't jump the fire. Simon was terrified by it. The yellow lines crackled faster over the jet hide as the horse rolled its eyes at the leaping orange and red flames lighting up the artificial night. Standing before the flames, the Death Eaters cast thick, black, unnatural shadows against the silver of unicorn sight.

Simon trotted jerkily across the road, tossing his head up and down and snorting. Harry knew they couldn't run now. He reached into his pocket for the last bottle, but Simon was tugging on the reins, wanting to turn tail and bolt back down the road, and Harry's fingers were stiff from so many hours of keeping Simon on a tight rein, and clumsily kept missing the bottle… Harry's hood slipped back…

There was a sharp sniff from the witch. "It's him," she hissed with sudden eagerness. "Potter."

The two wizards had already come to this conclusion. "Alive," the burlier Death Eater growled. Harry could see through the mask to a familiar face – Macnair, the man who'd once come to Hogwarts to kill Buckbeak. He smiled the hungry smile of someone who has only one use for animals. "Aim for the horse. Incarcerous."

Thick ropes of magic snaked out from his wand.

"Protego!" an unexpected (but, to Harry's mind, welcome) voice from on high shouted, and the ropes bounced away and dissolved into the oily blackness of the road, hissing like acid on metal.

The thin wizard swore, showing wide gaps between his remaining teeth, and threw a cluster-spell up into the sky where it burst like a skyrocket into nasty stinging hexes.

Most crackled and sparkled harmlessly in the tiny raindrops billowing down from the blackened sky. But a few hit their intended target. There was a yelp that sounded like it came from a certain blond Slytherin (Simon flicked his ears and nickered unhappily), and flames flickered from broom bristles.

The thin wizard cackled with bitter triumph and threw a volley of curses after the smoking sparks of the broom, and the invisible rider zoomed away up into the poisoned sky with a series of purple and orange hexes sputtering after him.

The inky clouds swallowed them.

Harry didn't have time to hope Draco wouldn't be eaten alive by whatever magic Voldemort had set into the clouds. His fingers had finally closed around the bottle.

He swung Simon around as he slid it free from his pocket. His mind must have registered the fact that it was a dropper bottle at some point, because instead of throwing it like a potion-bomb, some impulse took him and made him pop the stopper with his thumb and swing the bottle in a wide arc that encompassed the Death Eaters.

Drops flew with merry little sparkles.

Landed.

Harry threw the bottle at the wizards in case it exploded on general Elmsworthy principle.

The thin wizard shrank back like an offended cat as the bottle bounced off his arm. "Ick," he said. He frowned. Instead of hexing Harry, he complained, "You little bugger, Potter. That's going to come up in a nasty bruise tomorrow."

Macnair shook drops of potion off his hand, lifted his wand and said, "Cru…" He broke off mid curse. Harry, who had flinched back in anticipation of being hit with some serious pain, opened his eyes just in time to see Macnair's wand hand drop to his side.

The witch sniffed and looked around. "What in Merlin's name…?"

"Did you see that?" the older Death Eater complained. "He hit me with the bottle. Honestly, there's no manners in youth of today."

Macnair tsked sympathetically. Then snorted. "But… hit with a bottle? That's kind of…"

There was a moment when the three went very still and frowns crossed their faces.

Even Simon was stumped by this sudden drop in hostilities. His weight shifted forwards and backwards on stiff, surprised legs. Harry felt like he was sitting on top of a platform set on long bamboo poles. Wandless, potionless, he could do nothing but watch as the expressions behind the patchy cloudiness of the masks shifted from angry to puzzled to dazed and back to intent. But this new focus had none of the prior 'must incapacitate Potter and deliver him to our evil overlord' urgency.

Macnair sniggered, and looked down at his chest. "Hello. What's all this, then?"

"Oo – look at the pretty flower!" the thin wizard exclaimed, annoyance at Harry for hitting him with a bottle gone.

Harry had been expecting them to turn into fish and flop on the road. At the back of his mind he had had the vague notion that he could throw them into a pond or something and let them live out their fishy lives until the potion wore off. He wasn't expecting anything like what happened when the drops blossomed into big fat daisies that absorbed themselves into the Death Eaters, leaving patterns of petals on hands and robes and, here and there, the occasional flower sitting like a brooch jauntily pinned to the black robes.

The witch tilted her head. She gave a puzzled sniff.

Simon twitched his nostrils and gave one of his rolling 'what-the-hell-is-this? snorts. He seemed to be able to smell the potion. Harry gave a cautious sniff. Something smelt like… could that be candyfloss? It smelt exactly like pink would smell should a colour have a scent.

"Tee-hee-hee!" tittered the woman. She sniffed again. "The horse likes me!"

Macnair sniggered. "You trying to open communications with a horse, Stains?" he asked the woman.

The woman sniffed again. When Simon gave her and the two men a doubtful look, she gave another giggle. "Hee-hee. Potter's got a big bruise on his face."

Well, Harry could see why a Death Eater might think that was funny. They weren't his fanbase, after all. But that didn't explain the witch saying, "Hey – bet I can hit it!" and flicking her wand at him.

Faster than he could dodge, a tiny spark of a spell hit him just below the eye.

Simon shied, and in the second it took for Harry to get him under control again, he realised he wasn't dead. Nor was he in pain. The throbbing in his cheek had gone numb. After a brief feeling of pins and needles, feeling came back. Harry lifted a hand and poked at his cheek where Voldemort had hit him. It felt exactly as it usually did.

The witch had healed him. Should he thank her? He didn't want to. She might change her mind and hex him with boils.

But she was distracted by the next thing to catch her eye. Which was a rock. "Sniff! That rock looks really rock-like. Just like a, a, er, a rock! And look at the – snurfl! – grass. It's green!"

"So it is!" The thin wizard giggled. "Green! Green as grass! Ha-ha!"

The witch stabbed her finger at Harry. Simon gave the finger a suspicious glare, as if it could go off at any moment. He really hadn't liked her sending a spell at Harry, even though it had (short-term) been to Harry's benefit. "Look at Potter! Close your mouth before you catch doxies, young man!"

Harry blinked and closed his mouth with an audible snap. Being taught manners by a Death Eater was even odder than being healed. As the Death Eaters began to chuckle at him, he imagined his own expression was something approximating Simon's, although without the ear-twitches.

The Death Eaters hadn't exploded. They hadn't dissolved. More importantly, they hadn't exploded or dissolved Harry and Simon.

Yet.

Macnair ran a hand across the back of his neck and frowned. "This…" he began, his frown that of a man desperately trying to remember where he'd left his house keys. He brushed at one of the daisies growing from his arm. His fingers went through the petals and a small jet of water went pssht! out from the middle.

He laughed, sounding younger and carefree.

The other two joined in the fun, making water spit from their daisies, trying to squirt each other.

They seemed happily preoccupied. Harry was just about to ride Simon around them as quietly as possible when the witch started as if she'd just noticed him for the first time. She pointed her finger at him again. "Look! Sniff! Harry Potter is riding a horse!"

She giggled, and squirted Simon with her daisy.

Simon snorted and backed up, head high, chin tucked against his chest. The horse looked appalled. Being squirted by magical daisies was clearly beyond the bounds of what a dignified stallion was prepared to put up with.

Macnair bent over and slapped his knee. "Ha! Ha! Ha! Harry Potter riding a horse!"

"Oops, my daisy – snrff! – ran out of water." The witch pouted then grinned. "Hee-hee! No water! Get it? No water!"

Macnair was still on a roll with the joke of the century. "Harry… ha, ha! … Potter is …. Heh! … he's riding a… a horse…"

"Tee hee!" tittered the witch. "Harry Potter on a horse!" She gave a sudden loud guffaw that made Simon take another step backwards. "Look! It's a horse!"

The surprised horse was further ammunition for comedy, although by the sour wrinkle of the muzzle Simon was supremely unappreciative of this honour.

"You're right!" the thin wizard exclaimed. "He's on a horse! A horse, I tell you! And… and… and… the horse is… wait for it… it's black!"

This fact was screamingly funny for the other two.

"Black!" howled the witch. Tears were streaming down her face. "Bellatrix used to be a Black! So did that stuck-up cow Narcissa! The horse is their sister!"

"Or brother!" hooted Macnair. "It could be a boy horse!"

"A boy horse is Lucius' brother-in-law! Ahahahahahaaa!" the thin wizard cackled. "A boy horse!"

"A… a… a boy horse! Sniff!"

The three Death Eaters were staggering with laughter now. The possibility of Simon being male was finer comedic material than the connection between him and Bellatrix and Narcissa.

If horses could take points, the Death Eaters would have been out of the running for the House Cup of Evil.

Harry decided he'd seen enough. And Simon was getting annoyed. He'd never been a fan of silliness, even on one of his good days.

The third, thin, wizard pointed at the hedge. "Hey, look! There's a hole in the hedge! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!"

"Merlin's balls, you're right! It's a hole!" The witch had to sit down because she was laughing so hard. "Hey – hey – hey – guess what? No, snorfle, you'll never guess… You put it there!"

"Circe on a broom! I did, didn't I?" The thin wizard collapsed next to her, howling with laughter. "Look! Look!" He pointed. "Look what Potter's doing now! That's the funniest thing I've ever seen!"

"Yes!" screamed Macnair. "He's riding the horse through the hole in the hedge! Ha! Ha! Haaaa!"

The witch pounded the road with a fist. "Now he's getting away! Whoo-hoo-hoo! Gee-up, horsie! Snrfff!"

They were finding it hard to breathe. Harry looked back once as Simon stepped delicately over the shattered roots of the hedge.

"Hey… hey… hey… Macnair… guess what else?"

"What else?"

"The… the Dark Lord is going to kill us!" the thin wizard choked out between gasps.

This was even funnier than Harry on a horse. The Death Eaters collapsed against each other, whooping and howling with laughter.

Far down the gently sloping valley was a small stand of trees. It looked more inviting than anything else Harry could see at the moment, and, furthermore, was near a gate that might lead into another field running parallel to the road Harry was meant to be following. The Death Eater had done Harry a favour: Harry could go in the correct direction and not ride Simon on the road, which would have lamed Simon if they'd ridden down it for the whole distance to Hogsmeade without a shoe. He nudged Simon with his heels and Simon broke into his rolling canter, and the laughter died away with distance and the noise of the wind.

Harry decided that whatever Small Fish was, he liked it a lot.

He was far down the hill and just coming into the stretching shadows of the trees when his scar hurt.

He slowed Simon and looked back just in time to see a green flash.

Then another.

Simon shook his mane uneasily and pawed the turf. It was as if the horse sensed what that light meant.

A third green flash.

Harry swallowed. His throat felt dry and somewhat tight. They were Death Eaters. They would have happily killed him. Nevertheless, Harry regretted their deaths.

ooOOoo