It took only a moment for Harry to conclude – most decisively – that tonight was the strangest, most unnerving night he had ever had. And it stemmed from only a girl, too. He was just thankful that neither of his relatives were here to make it worse.
The girl, never once speaking in the whole duration of their encounter and weird acquaintance, had been dragging him again through the woods. And now they were standing on the edge of the trees, looking out towards the stretch of lake a few yards away.
Or rather, the girl appeared to be looking far over the calm surface of the moonlit water and islets, while Harry was gawking at the small row-boat drawn upon the sandy shore. Were they to row across the lake?
It seemed so, because then she dragged him forward and positioned him on the prow of the canoe, while she herself took the stern. He had to move when she pushed the canoe towards the water-line, and in the end helped her doing just that. They set out, then, after he had climbed into the vessel, interpreting her hand motion as instruction to fill the front of the canoe. (He was sorely tempted to disobey her, just to elicit spoken words from her, but in the end his self-preservation won and he refrained from that.)
He had thought they would row across the lake, though…
He picked up the voices first, nearly drowned as they were by the noises of the water and the night creatures inhabiting the islets. And then the whiff of woody smoke and grilled food entered his nose alongside the natural scents he had been inhaling – and his stomach growled with hunger, quite without his permission.
He stiffened, anticipating her ridicule. But it never came.
He did not know if he was more unnerved by it, or by the family gathering on the shore of the next islet as if waiting for him. (They looked just as impassive and thoughtful as she did!)
His silent companion ushered the canoe to a natural bay on the edge of the islet, and who appeared to be a young man helped tying it to the trunk of a tree. It was then when Harry took a closer look at him, and he could not stifle his gasp in time.
He remembered the man's face. There had been two men sharing a great resemblance one to another, in fact, when the blue stone had showed him the family…
The family. He had been brought to the people who had wanted to know him, who he had similarly wanted to meet in person. But why did it feel so unsettling now?
The girl and young man escorted him towards the campfire lit on the middle of the islet. The three other people had gone in advance, and they were now sitting on logs around the fire.
Harry had never thought that it would be like this. It felt like a trial…