Disclaimer: This story is based on characters created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoat Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. Any original plots or characters are mine.
AN:
Answering reviews:
I don't think Harry was being mean, cruel, etc with the way he acted in last chapter. Yes, he manipulated and used his friends and teacher to get what he needed, showing his Slytherin side and all that, but he's doing it to help someone he loves, not out of self-interest and such.
I think it clearly showed his Gryffindor-Slytherin mix, sometimes using sly, underhanded or even lowly tactics but always to do what he thinks is the right thing – much like using whatever means to attain a good end. And the 'whatever means', obviously, he learned that from Tom, inevitably. I wanted to show how he's been changing, and how he'll still keep changing as he grows up and keeps being affected by his brother and the times they are living in. In this instance, he has showed that his fierce determination can border into ruthlessness if it's required.
And of course that Harry's manipulation of Tilly Toke was a bit 'laying it on too thick' as some have said – it certainly wasn't perfect. Harry still has much to learn, that was another point, lol. Anyway, we can never expect him to be as suave in his manipulations as Tom, they are too different to be able to do the same things in the same way.
About Tilly Toke being a fool for having been steamrolled by Harry into agreeing to do something so dangerous, well, not everything is like it seems in stories, one just has to keep on reading ;) We'll understand better with what will happen in these chapters.
Hope you enjoy!
Part I: Chapter 41
Harry dashed through the corridors with little Ulysses poking out from inside his jersey, and caught up with his brother just as Tom was about to enter Tilly Toke's office.
The Charms professor presented quite a sight when Harry and Tom stepped into the room. Toke looked like his usual self, cheerful and friendly, with prettily groomed blonde hair, a charming, pearly-white smile on his face, which he flashed at them, and looking quite like a handsome muggle.
At least, the wizard seemed to know what muggles wore, since he was donned in warm clothes that weren't weird or flashy, just with black leather gloves and a pretty, soft blue scarf around his neck.
The wand in his hand was the only thing noticeable. Harry and Tom had theirs stuck inside their trousers. Even if they couldn't use them, Harry at least felt safer just knowing it was there.
And he knew Tom would not ever even consider parting from his wand for two seconds, no matter the reason. Indeed, if there was something his brother loved more than himself, it was his wand, given the stunning and marvelous, albeit admittedly disturbing things, the boy managed to do with it when they practiced dark curses in the Dueling Chamber provided by the Room of Requirements.
"Here it is," said Tilly Toke proudly, as he held up a mangy boot before them. "The portkey you requested."
"So we're going through with this?" bit out Tom acerbically.
Apparently not noticing the boy's tone of voice or dark expression on his face, Tilly Toke flashed him with a smile, as he patted Tom soothingly on the shoulder and said gently, "Yes, do not fear. We'll save the muggle you care so much about!" The wizard eyed him with sympathy. "You love him greatly, I hear."
Harry saw Tom darkly scowl and hesitate for a second, and his chest constricted with apprehension. If his brother-
"Yes, I deeply love Robert Hutchins," said Tom tartly, to then covertly shoot Harry a murderous glare, apparently because he fully blamed him for having to say such lies to the wizard, having to spill such repulsive, unbearable words from his mouth.
Harry merely stared back at him, deep relief sweeping inside him, although also a frisson of musing assessment. For a moment, he had thought that Tom would say something to prevent them from going to Norway. For a split second, he had thought his brother would thwart him.
Yet, he realized the next moment, Tom had apparently chosen to go forth with the lesser of two evils.
Indeed, his brother knew that if Tilly Toke didn't help him in going to Norway to find Hutchins, he would just turn around and go look for a thestral. And Tom could hardly be able to stop him from doing that, unless he went to the Headmaster and spilled the beans about Harry's plan. And his brother seemed to realize that that could only get him expelled at worst and even then wouldn't stop Harry either, that he would find some other way no matter how many obstacles jumped in his way. When it came to pig-headed stubbornness, Harry always won, they both knew well.
Better go to Norway with an adult that could do magic, than letting Harry go alone with just a wand he couldn't use. At least that was what Harry thought his brother must have reluctantly decided.
"Do you have everything we'll require?" said Tilly Toke pleasantly, as he tied the shoelaces of the shabby boot in order to hang it from his neck as if it was a necklace, then tucking his scarf this way and that so that it hid it.
Harry was quick to nod, showing his shrunk Comet 180 and then the toy motorcar. "This is something Robert Hutchins has touched." Then, he took the Invisibility Cloak from his satchel, demonstratively draping it over an arm. "And this is what I mentioned before. What Tom and I will use instead of a Disillusionment Charm."
The Head of Hufflepuff House stared, his sky blue eyes going wide as he gazed at Harry's arm that had just then vanished from sight.
"Is that a- a- " mumbled Tilly Toke breathlessly, looking utterly astonished.
"Yes," said Harry, shooting him a smug look.
The wizard seemed thoroughly gobsmacked, before he clapped his hands together in utter delight. "Spiffing! It will indeed prove to be highly useful!"
Tilly Toke chortled happily as he swept forward, reaching the large fireplace and taking hold of a broomstick lying against the wall – a Cleansweep by the looks of it. With a tap of his wand, the wizard shrunk and pocketed it, before he turned around to stare at Harry and Tom, his expression suddenly turning grave.
"I expect you to follow my orders in every regard," the wizard said sternly. "You'll follow my lead and my instructions to the letter. Is that understood?"
Harry instantly nodded his head, while Tom scowled for a split second before he intoned softly and solicitously, "Certainly, Professor."
Tilly Toke returned to his usual buoyant and cheerful self as he beamed at them in pleased satisfaction, looking thrilled and excited as he herded them to the fireplace, grabbing a handful of Floo powder from a pot on the mantelpiece.
"Let's embark in our adventure and save your friend, then!" said the wizard jovially. "Invisibility Cloak on, my boys, and follow me!"
They swiftly obeyed, though given the brief stab of prickling pain in Harry's scar, he knew that Tom wasn't at all pleased with the teacher's view about what they were about to plunge into.
"Adventure… he's more of a witless Gryffindor than a pathetic Hufflepuff," he heard Tom sneering with utter scathing revulsion under his breath, just as green flames burst and enveloped them as Tilly Toke boomed happily, "The Three Broomsticks!"
Covered in soot, they emerged from another fireplace, and Harry felt so dizzy after the spinning, disorienting sensation of his first foray into Floo-travel that his stomach was churning unpleasantly, to the point that Tom had to grab him by an arm to steady him as they stepped out of a hearth.
He even had to bring up a hand to his mouth and nose to prevent himself from coughing and chocking on the cloud of soot and dust. Ulysses wasn't doing much better, though the sneeze the little Scorcrup let out was thankfully swallowed by the noise in the pub.
Indeed, The Three Broomstick seemed to be packed that Saturday night. A group of rambunctious warlocks were trading jokes at a nearby table with pints of beer in their hands, a bunch of hags were playing wizarding cards as they cackled with their hoarse, screechy voices, while a pair of dwarves were dancing to the tune of some jaunty ditty played by an enchanted bagpipe that was floating and bouncing in midair.
Under the Invisibility Cloak beside his brother, Harry stared in amazement. The ambiance in Hogsmeade was certainly much different than the one they had experienced in Diagon Alley before the start of classes. The patrons of the pub didn't seem to have a care in the world, as if Grindelwald was some distant, feeble threat. Or perhaps it was the fact that they were so close to Hogwarts, the safest place in wizarding Britain, as impenetrable as Gringotts itself, allegedly.
Nevertheless, both Tom and he were soon taking care of swerving around bodies as they followed after Tilly Toke, as the professor made his way through the crowd, greeting acquaintances here and there with exuberant waves of his hand and pearly-white, ebullient smiles, and several perky winks at witches that gazed admiringly.
It was with much relief that they left the pub and walked several blocks, before Tilly Toke halted in the middle of some dark, small alley at the outskirts of the town.
The wizard glanced around, flicking his wand as if checking for any presences nearby, and then whispered, "It's safe here."
Harry pulled off the Invisibility Cloak, and gazed back at their professor, feeling a renewed sense of urgency. "We can portkey from here, right?"
"Indeed," said Tilly Toke, untying the boot from his neck to then present it forward on a palm of a hand.
"Is it to Namsos?" asked Harry hopefully.
"I'm afraid not," replied the wizard, though his expression wasn't somber or crestfallen, but rather matter-of-fact. "The worker in the Department of Magical Transportation refused to sell me a portkey to a town that's considered a-"
"A warzone," cut in Tom sharply, a dark, brooding expression on his face.
Tilly Toke blinked at him, before he flashed a glowing, charming smile at them. "Well, yes. But fear not!" He brought up a hand as if forestalling cries of dismay that never came. "This will take us to Vinje, which still hasn't been occupied by Grindelwald's muggle forces. From there, it will take us about three hours of flight to reach Namsos, according to my estimates."
"Vinje?" said Harry frowning, the name ringing a bell. He plucked out the map of Norway from his satchel, squinting down at the marks of battles and names of cities and towns, before he found it –one of the few areas not depicted with the red dots signifying German Occupied Territory. He glanced up at the wizard, some color draining from his face. "It's in southern Norway, close to Oslo. And Namsos is in central Norway-"
"Yes," interjected Tilly Toke calmly, "but while Oslo has been taken over by the German muggle forces-" he gestured pointedly at Harry's map, the capital of the country so punctuated with red points that it looked as if the map had a bad case of pimples right on that spot "-Vinje still isn't. It was the only town for which the Ministry could consent to give me a portkey to."
Harry had no choice but to nod jerkily in acceptance, though he couldn't help being filled with misgivings. It was too far away from Namsos.
A three-hour flight? It was too long. What if Hutchins would be giving his last dying breath while they were whooshing through clouds? If Hutchins was still alive right at that moment but they were too late in reaching him, he didn't think he would ever forgive himself.
And he couldn't help feeling, either, a surge of anger at his brother, a need to yell at him and violently shake him until his teeth rattled. If Tom had a shred of human emotion, especially towards a man like Hutchins who had always been nothing but kind and good to them, who had, just like Alice, made their years in the orphanage not only bearable but even enjoyable, his brother would have also been the one wanting to find Hutchins, and they would have already been in Norway by now. He was certain.
In the next second, Harry sighed at that, as he cast Tom a glance. There was no point in wishing his brother was any different. Tom was who he was and wouldn't change in that regard, he knew well. He felt grateful, at least, that Tom had finally decided to go along with this plan, however reluctantly and ill temperedly.
"Alright," said Harry at last, his tone hurried, as he felt his heart beginning to thump loudly in his chest with urgency and anxiety. "Let's get going then."
He obeyed Tilly Toke's further instructions without another thought, handing over the items the man requested: his shrunken Comet 180 and the toy motorcar. And before the professor even spoke again, Tom was already grabbing his wrist as he pulled him away from the wizard.
Harry went along without a word. He trusted that Tom knew what he was doing. It was his brother, after all, who had been researching about their Traces and had to know how far away they had to stand so that their Traces wouldn't detect the magic used by Tilly Toke.
Indeed, the teacher pocketed the toy motorcar, turned the Comet 180 and the Cleansweep to their original sizes, and then tapped his wand on his broom and then on his head as he cast the same spell twice.
It was strange to watch it, how the Disillusionment Charms first made the Cleensweep disappear, followed by Tilly Toke himself. Yet they weren't fully invisible, but rather like some faintly rippling distortion. Both wizard and broom were camouflaged with their surroundings, like chameleons, but Harry could see a sliver of their outlines if he focused and squinted in their direction.
And it was easy to see where the wizard was, since the Comet 180, the boot, and the man's wand hadn't been altered, and they looked as if they were floating in mid air, gripped by two hands that looked as if they were part of the objects.
Tilly Toke's wand moved as if by itself, tapping on the boot, as the wizard's disembodied voice announced, "Three minutes before it activates. Get on your broom and grab the portkey. Once we appear in Vinje, immediately throw the Invisibility Cloak over yourselves and fly up as quickly as possible."
Harry nodded as he could finally move ahead, now that the last of the spells had been cast. And he hurried forwards to take the Comet 180 from the wizard, but Tom beat him to it.
"What are you doing?" he said, frowning at his brother.
"What does it look like?" sneered Tom shortly, as he took hold of the broom, clearly about to throw a leg over.
Harry instantly snatched the broom from his brother's hands, as he snapped impatiently, "I'll be the one on the front, directing it, not you."
Tom skewered him with a seething look. "I'm not riding on the back. I'm an excellent flyer-"
"You're passable, no more," scoffed out Harry, undaunted when his brother shot him a venomous glower, "I'm the one who's superb on a broom, so I'll be the one at front."
"Getting vain and arrogant, are we?" jeered Tom acidly, his eyes narrowed to slits in anger and contempt. "Dorea Black's exaggerated gushes about your abilities have inflated your big head-"
"I'm merely stating facts," bit out Harry sharply, and he mounted the Comet 180 briskly, shooting his brother a last crisp look. "There's no way I'm putting my life in your hands when it comes to flying a broom. Now get on!"
Tom didn't move an inch, standing there like an ominous dark figure teeming with thundering rage. But Harry didn't have any intention of budging.
During Flying Lessons of their first year at Hogwarts, Tom had made himself master how to fly a broom, just as he had made himself learn how to swim when Robert Hutchins had taught them in the beach of Southend-on-Sea, because Tom would learn anything that could prove to be useful, because he refused to be lacking in any way.
Yet, Tom derived no pleasure or joy from either. Harry knew well that it was because his brother hated when he had no full control.
When it came to swimming, it was the tides and the pull of waves that Tom didn't like because they were forces he had no sway over. When it came to flying, it was having to rely on something else rather than himself that he despised. And that was the reason why Tom would never be excellent at either.
Indeed, Harry was certain that if there was a way Tom could fly around on his own, without having to depend on anyone or anything else, he would be great at that, giddy and gleeful of his own awesomeness, no doubt. But wizards couldn't sprout wings, so that was that.
"Boys!" said Tilly Toke's voice sharply, as the boot was pointedly bobbed up and down in midair, a blue light beginning to glow and emanate from it.
"Get on, Tom!" shouted Harry anxiously.
Tom clenched his jaw, but complied, even though he was clearly in a very foul mood.
The moment he felt his brother's weight settle behind him, as Tom clutched him around the waist tightly, Harry kicked off from the ground.
He brought up the Comet 180 to hover a few feet above the alley, not high enough to be seen from the top of the roofs around them, just right in front of the glowing boot that looked as if it was floating all on its own.
Harry glanced down at Ulysses, making sure the Scorcrup was safely ensconced under his jersey, and then quickly checked that the Invisibility Cloak was inside the satchel strapped across his chest, along with the clip-on compass, the map of Norway, and the phials of Healing potions.
It took him an instant, and then he was reaching forward, just as Tom did the same over one side, both clutching tightly the boot Toke had to be holding.
Something seemed to flash, and suddenly, Harry felt the most horrifying sensation as he was plunged into a whirlpool of color and wind and rush of space. They were spinning madly, tossed to all sides, hurled as if they were in the midst of some thundering maelstrom, and Harry felt utter panic.
They were spinning completely out of control and he could barely direct the Comet 180, with one hand gripping it tightly, with such effort that his knuckles were white and ached, and his other hand still grabbing the glowing blue boot that was the only thing he could clearly see in front of him, as the world seemed to violently swirl all around him.
'Traveling by portkey can be a jumpy ride', was what Tilly Toke had said when he had briefly explained his intention of doing it whilst in mid air, 'particularly while on a broom'. But this was nothing like just a 'jumpy ride'. It was a hundred times worse than the Floo-travel they had experienced before. It was complete madness.
Tom's arm around his waist was gripping him so hard that Harry could barely breathe, and he didn't know if it was a punishing grip, purposely painful in revenge, or if his brother was truly afraid. And he could feel Ulysses' small but yet sharp claws digging into his chest, the little creature trembling under Harry's jersey, spitting out a series of faint, plaintive meows along with terrified hisses.
"Steady the broom!" snarled Tom's voice by his ear, and it sounded both enraged and also laced with a smidgen of frantic fear.
"I'm trying!" roared Harry over the noise thundering all around him. He didn't think he had ever had to make such an insurmountable effort, keeping a hand on boot, another on a wildly spinning broom, with his joints and muscles aching and throbbing, with a dull pounding in his forehead as his brother's anger rose and flared, while the strap of his satchel seemed to be embedding itself in his flesh, as the bag was tossed to all sides, though thankfully remaining closed.
And it seemed to him as if the whirlwind went on forever. The longer the distance to be travelled, the longer the 'shift in space' lasted, according to what Tilly Toke had once said in Charms class when promising he would teach them the charm to make portkeys in seventh year.
But now, Harry didn't think he would ever consider touching a portkey again, and he could only desperately wish it would just end. The strain was unbearable.
And suddenly, with a last violent jolt, everything seemed to halt, and there was peace. The boot was no longer glowing in blue light, and it instantly flew upwards, wrenching away from their fingers.
Harry knew what that meant –Tilly Toke had taken it and they were meant to follow- so he merely glanced around for a brief moment to see that they were some distance away from the outskirts of a town, noises and voices coming from afar, from below and to the right.
Certainly, the reason why Toke had wanted them to use the portkey whilst in midair was to make them appear in midair above Vinje as well. Yet, the experience had been too horrible and he would never want to repeat it again. Surely there could have been some other way.
Nevertheless, not wanting any muggles to spot them hanging there in the dark blue sky already dotted with stars, he instantly yanked open his satchel and took the Invisibility Cloak and hastily handed it to his brother, as he said urgently, "Cover us!", while he made the Comet 180 surge upwards in a burst of speed.
" 'Superb' flyer, are you!" spat Tom's voice by his ear, sounding so furious that Harry's forehead suddenly felt as if it was cracking and breaking open.
The pain was such that he could only moan and do his best to concentrate on steering the broom upwards and upwards, as the Invisibility Cloak flapped over them, gripped and secured by the hand Tom wasn't using to clutch him.
He didn't bother to point out to Tom that if he had been the one maneuvering the broom, they would have plummeted to their deaths, no doubt about that.
"That half-witted imbecile!" Tom's voice continued railing, now in a series of low, incensed, irate hissed out words, "That utter fool! Making us use a portkey while on a broom – sheer lunacy!"
Harry didn't mind that his brother was venting his spleen, since for once, in this matter, he utterly agreed with him, yet-
"Calm down!" he roared with a loud groan. "You're splitting my head apart, Tom!"
His brother seemed to clamp his mouth shut, probably doing his best to rein in his raging temper. And the pain did abate a mite, though obviously Tom wasn't one who could hold in, for too long, his urge to criticize him.
"You and that stupid scar of yours!" snarled Tom, sounding vastly irked, teeming with dark annoyance.
Harry bit out irritably, "It's not my fault that it seems to somehow channel your foul moods!"
"So you say," said Tom crisply.
Harry snapped his head around so fast and violently in his anger that it almost gave a crack.
"What – you think I've been making it up?" he spat hotly, seeing red, utterly incensed and furious, as he glowered at his brother murderously. "That I've been suffering your temper tantrums all these years, like daggers stabbing into my forehead every time you get your nasty mood swings, because what – I just like feeling the pain, I've just been fooling myself, making myself believe it? That I've been imagining it all these years! That's it's something psychological!"
His voice had risen to such a high-pitch of sheer fury that he heard little Ulysses give a complaintive meow from under his jersey. Feeling guilty, knowing how keen the Scorcrup's senses were, Harry apologetically patted him through the material of the jersey, though he kept glaring at his brother from over his shoulder.
He had thought that Tom had come to believe him by now. Certainly, at first his brother had not.
Harry didn't even remember how old they had been – five, six?- when he had finally realized that the pains in his scar always coincided with the times when Tom was angry. And Tom had been quite an angry little boy, practically at all times, when they'd been younger. Back then, Tom had scoffed snidely -he did remember that- saying that Harry was imagining things, that his scar was just a scar and couldn't 'feel' anything.
But after so many years since then, the fact that Tom still seemed to cling to the notion that his scar was normal seemed incredible to him. Especially since it was ages ago when they had discovered the only thing that could soothe it.
Tom was scowling back at him, but it seemed that his brother was thinking along the same lines, because he brought up a hand and touched Harry's scar in a slow, gentle motion.
Harry didn't fool himself though, even when he felt that familiar tingling sensation of peace and warmth that snuggly wrapped around his head like an assuaging mantle, dispelling the piercing pain and the pounding headache instantly.
His brother's 'caress' was no apology, it was filled with purposeful intent. Indeed, he wasn't even surprised by the words that sprung from his brother's lips in the next second.
"Better?" said Tom tartly, his dark blue eyes narrowing with vexation. "Can you now focus back on flying properly? You've been making us go around in circles like disoriented, headless chickens for the past couple of minutes."
Harry shot him a venomous look before he jerked his head away from his brother's touch and spun it forward again.
Hutchins, he remembered again with anxiousness spearing through his chest. And Toke. Where the hell was Tilly Toke?
They had flown so high up into the sky that he could barely see anything below, just a small smattering of lights – electric, no doubt.
The night was dark but also filled with stars, with a large, glowing full moon that proved to be quite useful since it infused everything in a soft, silvery light that allowed him to see quite well. Yet they were too far up and he began to make a slow descent, glancing this way and that, searching for any sign of the Charms professor.
He felt Tom tugging the Invisibility Cloak tighter around them, and thought it was for the best. Surely it would have been easier to yank it off so that Tilly Toke could see them. Yet they couldn't risk being seen by some muggle. And it was clear that Toke was also keeping up his Disillusionment Charm because he didn't catch sight of him.
It was soon that they were floating above Vinje, Harry feeling hopeful that Toke would look for them there and that the wizard had thought of a way of finding them.
Glancing down, he saw that Vinje wasn't so much as a town but a village, with thatched cottages here and there, most made of wood and just some few of stone, with a colorful church at one side, all located in a valley, surrounded by mountains that weren't too tall, though they had snow on their peaks.
The village itself was surrounded by vibrant green grass. Indeed, the night wasn't even that chilly. In these parts, the south of Norway, it was clear that spring had already arrived.
However, even though it must have looked charming and quaint in any other circumstances, at present the village seemed to be teeming with frenzied activity. There had to be about three hundred people below, all running around, many in uniforms – that of the Norwegian Muggle Army, evidently- armed with weapons but there were also many villagers helping along.
They seemed to be preparing themselves for an attack, wheeling around machine guns and artillery, carting sacks of food and crates of provisions, buttressing their houses, lining stones and sacks of earth or sand or who knew what, like defensive walls of a fortress, and carrying around all sorts of other equipment and armament.
Indeed, Harry knew, from the map Ignatius Prewett had given him, that Vinje was one of the last few remaining resistance pockets. Oslo was already occupied by the muggle Germans, as much of the rest of the country.
However, here in this small village, they were frantically readying themselves for one desperate, valiant, last stand.
Harry was suddenly gripped by the fierce desire to fly down and brandish his wand and help the muggles that still held some sort of frenzied, frail hope even though they had to know that the rest of the country was already lost, and that in their isolation they would soon fall too.
It was nothing more than a futile daydream, of course. Harry knew he could do nothing, but a blaze of admiration still flared in him as he watched them. There was some heroism in war after all, and here was the example.
"Look up!"
Harry snapped his head up at his brother's command, and stared as he saw a ball of faint light that was floating about several feet above them, moving around in slow circles.
With a feeling of deep relief and exhilaration, Harry instantly made the Comet 180 swoop upwards in a flash of speed, soon seeing that the ball of light was accompanied by a wand floating in midair and a boot with shoelaces knotted, making it look as if it was hanging from an invisible perch – Tilly Toke's neck, of course.
"Professor!" breathed out Harry, as soon as he reached the bouncing items. "We're here, under the Cloak!"
"Thank Merlin! I thought I had lost you. What happened?" cried out Tilly Toke's disembodied voice, sounding shaken.
Harry felt Tom stiffen and go rigid behind his back, surely out of sheer fury and wanting nothing more than to hiss out a virulent flow of vitriol against the teacher.
Indeed, his scar began to throb again, and he snapped angrily and in warning, "Tom!"
It hadn't been Tilly Toke's fault, after all, that Harry hadn't been able to follow the boot as soon as they had appeared in Vijen. It was Tom's fury and the pain it had caused in his head that had made Harry lose focus, and sidetracked him.
"Never mind, never mind, boys," said the Charms professor's voice, now sounding both cheerful and pressing. "Follow my light, quick, it's getting late!"
"We'll be right behind you, sir," retorted Harry hastily, as he swerved the broom in place, before he asked over his shoulder, "Tom, what distance do I have to keep so that our Traces don't detect if he does magic?"
"Fifteen feet, minimum," replied Tom caustically.
Harry nodded, just as Tilly Toke's ball of light shot ahead, and he instantly zoomed after it, careful of maintaining the required span of space between them.
It was quite suddenly, when they were about to leave the area, that something making a shrill, wheezing noise sounded as if it was coming from just below them.
Out of sheer instincts and having recognized the sound from when he had heard it when Leisure Alley had been bombed, Harry made a violent hurtle to a side, plunging into a dive to save their lives.
Indeed, the projectile shot pass a bare inch away from them, rising into the sky, before its trajectory curved and it began to descend and plummet down.
Tom's arm was crushing his ribs again, and Ulysses had once more sunk his claws in his chest, just as a great explosion boomed, lightening everything in a flash of bright yellow light before clouds of smoke and dust billowed into the sky.
Harry began hacking and coughing, dashing forth as fast as he could so that they could get out of there as fast as possible.
"Mortars," he then croaked out in realization, as soon as the air was clear again. "The soldiers in Vinje must be using their mortars to destroy the roads that lead to the village."
And they would destroy bridges and farmland and anything else they could, to leave nothing behind for the Germans. It was always the measure of last resort, as Old John Bryce had told them, the tactic also widely used during the Great War.
The understanding sunk in, grim, harsh, and bleak.
Neither of them spoke after that, as Harry kept expertly steering the Comet 180, following Toke's ball of light, as they saw a large cluster of tiny lights in the east –Oslo– which they soon left behind.
Both he and Tom were feeling tense, alert, and wary. They saw signs of battle in the distance, like lightning striking and flashing in the night sky and thunder cracking and roaring, the sound of explosions and air raids and bombings on the few towns and cities left that offered some resistance.
There were long stretches of time during which there were no sounds at all, and then something struck and boomed, and everything went silent again, only to unexpectedly resume once more.
It frazzled and frayed the nerves, and made Harry grit his teeth as he made their broom soar forward. He wished he could go faster. The Comet 180 could easily outstrip Toke's Cleansweep, but it was the professor who had to lead the way because he was the only one who could do magic.
They had heard the wizard's voice casting a Point Me charm, then clearly stating 'Namsos', and under the flashes of light of distant explosions and bombings, they caught glimpses of the wizard's wand spinning like the needle of a compass.
They could only follow, the silence between Harry and Tom grave and stretched thin. Three hours, Toke had said, but it felt like an eternity, as they left grasslands behind and began seeing frost covering grounds, then frozen lakes here or there, followed by patches of ice and snow, as the air turned more chilly and cold as they kept flying north.
Their teeth were clattering, Harry's fingers around the broom handle seemed to be stuck there, turning blue, as icicles formed, no matter how many times he swerved around to dodge large clouds that would certainly freeze them to the bones if they speared through them.
"Lower!" Harry shouted once, when he couldn't bare the dampness and coldness anymore. "Professor, we need to fly lower!"
Tilly Toke seemed to understand their predicament, because the ball of light plunged down several feet and Harry gratefully followed. He was past caring if muggles saw the light or not, let them think it was a shooting star or something of the sort. He really couldn't care less. He just wanted to clamber off the broom as soon as possible.
They were dressed in their warmest muggle clothes, but without the aid of Warming Charms, it felt as if they were streaking through winterland utterly naked.
Their clothes were wet, frozen against their skin in places, their shoes and socks soggy, their scarves petrified, like slabs of thin ice, and poor Ulysses had curled himself up in a small ball underneath Harry's jersey and he felt the little Scorcrup shivering from time to time.
He murmured soothing words to his familiar, promising food and warmth soon, and would have liked to pet him, but his fingers were glued to the broom, so he could only keep a running flow of soft-spoken reassurances.
The cold was blistering, especially at such flying speeds, and his facial muscles seemed to have turned to stone. At least the glasses he no longer needed offered protection for his eyes, and his own body partially sheltered Tom from the full and worse brunt of the slapping, freezing winds.
At some point -Harry didn't know when since he had long lost any track of time- Tilly Toke's sphere of light began to descend, and he felt a profound sense of solace, as if he had been suddenly released from an eternal torment.
As they sped several feet above leafless treetops, he suddenly caught sight of something.
A large clump of dark green tents, large yet looking frayed, where bundled next to one another, like a knotted small village, with people rushing about, some trucks stationed nearby, crates being loaded into them and –he realized with a start when he saw two white tents bearing large red crosses- there were not only soldiers running around, but also nurses and doctors in white coats stained with the dark scarlet of blood, barking orders, getting injured people transported in stretchers into the back of the trucks as well.
"It's the British!" breathed out Harry, his green eyes wide. "They're preparing to leave, just like Ignatius Prewett said." He shot a glance backwards at his brother, fervent hope and joy swelling in him. "It's them – the British Muggle Army – Hutchins' army! We've found them!"
"So?" bit out Tom mordantly. "It's highly unlikely that Hutchins is there-"
"But maybe they found him already!" interjected Harry swiftly, happiness encompassing him. "We must at least check!"
And without waiting for his brother's indubitably caustic retort, he plunged the Comet 180 forward, dashing as fast as a speeding bullet, as Tom clutched him tightly again.
He reached the ball of light in no time, and he called out in a bright, merry tone of voice, "Professor! They are there – the English muggles." Then he barked at Tom, "Let him see my face. Pull down the Invisibility Cloak!"
"What for?" demanded Tom sharply.
"Just do it for a moment, will you?" snapped Harry with exasperation.
Clearly not at all pleased, Tom barely lifted the Cloak some scarce inches from Harry's face. But it was enough.
Harry jerked his chin in the direction of the tents they had left behind, since his frozen fingers still felt glued to the wood of the broom's handle, and he reiterated vehemently, "There, there, professor, look, there!" as he jerked his chin again and again towards the tents, feeling as though he was a mule with a head twitch spasm, but there was little else he could use to indicate the site.
"The British Muggle Army, you say?" intoned Tilly Toke's incorporeal voice, sounding musing.
"Yes, I'm sure," said Harry adamantly. "It's them! Is there any way to check if Robert Hutchins is there with them? Maybe we should land and-"
"That's not necessary," interjected the Charms professor, his tone gentle. "I can use here the spell I intended to use in Namsos. You know what to do, Harry."
Harry nodded, though Tilly Toke didn't see it because Tom had briskly covered him with the Cloak once more. Nevertheless, he was quick to turn the Comet 180 around and zoom well away from Tilly Toke and whatever magic he was about to use.
With his heart stuck in his throat with breathless anticipation, he saw how his toy motorcar appeared as if out of thin air – Tilly Toke having taken it out of his disillusioned pocket. The wizard's wand swirled in the air before the tip touched the toy, the man's voice enchanting something in a whisper.
Abruptly, it seemed as if purple sparks were shooting from the toy, but they suddenly sputtered, dwindled, and then vanished.
"Your muggle friend is not anywhere nearby," said Tilly Toke's voice softly. "He's not with the army, Harry."
"Oh," muttered Harry somberly, his shoulders slumping with dejection. He perked up in the next instant. "Alright, let's get to Namsos as planned then, and try there."
They were swiftly flying again through the cold night sky the moment the teacher cast the Point Me charm again, but soon, much earlier than Harry had expected, Tilly Toke's sphere of light began to descend once more.
Indeed, they were reaching a large mass of things, which Harry soon realized had to be what was left of Namsos.
It had barely taken them fifteen minutes, by broom, of course. By any muggle means of transportation the tents of the British Army had to be quite far away from the derelict ruins of Namsos. Because that was what they saw: shambles, debris, crumbled houses and roofs and whatnot. A whole large town destroyed.
It bore all the evidence of having been raided from the air with bombs, of having suffered attack from artillery and machine guns, of having been the site of a brutal direct confrontation of soldiers against opposing soldiers. There was nothing but wreckage and desolation.
Harry landed swiftly before he could keep glancing around, shuddering, both from the freezing, howling wind that swept by, as well as from the feeling he got from the ruined Namsos. Their surroundings were as deathly silent and still as a tomb, the sensation spine-chilling and ominous.
His skin prickled with goosebumps, just as he felt Tom stiffly and with very jerky motions climbing off the broom behind him. It was a good thing to stretch their legs a bit, to help their blood pump through their aching, stiffened muscles, to attempt to exercise some modicum of warmth into their chilled flesh and bones.
Harry couldn't do so immediately though. He had vigorously shaken his arms, but his petrified hands were still clenched and stuck to the Comet 180's handle. He attempted to jerk up a fingertip, but he couldn't even feel it.
Indeed, his hands were of a very sickly hue of blue, quite an ill portent, and he groaned. The movement caused in his facial muscles even hurting.
Thinking of nothing better he could do, he brought the handle close to his face and took a deep breath, to then blow the warm air coming from his lungs unto his hands, to see if it would thaw the frost and ice. He blew and blew again, his cheeks white from the cold turning bright red with the effort. But it seemed he would have to spend a year puffing and huffing like a blowfish before it yielded any results.
Tom tsked with annoyance, glaring at him, before he commanded sharply, "Come here, you twit."
Harry shot him a suspicious look, and then glanced around, finding Tilly Toke several feet away, already having dispelled his Disillusionment Charm from himself and his Cleansweep. The teacher was observing them with an amused expression on his face, which irritated Harry a mite, but he knew that Tilly Toke couldn't help him. Not with magic anyway, so he was stuck with Tom.
Sighing, Harry stomped through the snow, bringing his hands –with broom handle along- up towards Tom. "Well?"
Without another word Tom began to rub Harry's hands with his own. His brother had been wearing thick mittens during the whole journey, unlike Harry who had stuck his inside his coat's pocket since he couldn't properly steer the broom's handle with mittens getting in the way. So his brother's hands felt warm, and apparently his rubbing motions were careful and gentle by the looks of it, but it felt to Harry as if his hands were being harshly scrubbed and grated with stones.
He hissed under his breath in discomfort, as the pain increased as Tom kept rubbing, making him feel as if a thousand tiny needles where stabbing and piercing through the flesh of his hands.
But his fingers began to lose their bluish hue, blood seemingly rushing back to them, to such point that his hands were pink the moment they suddenly became unglued and finally freed from the broom's handle.
Tom snatched the Comet 180 before it could fall from Harry's hands, while Harry wasted no time in vigorously flexing his fingers time and again, fisting and unclenching his hands repeatedly, the sense of touch rushing back to him.
Harry shot his brother a bemused look, as he muttered, "Thanks."
Tom waved it off with a regal, dismissive gesture of his hand.
Just as Harry hopefully dug through his coat's pocket to fish out his mittens, only to discover that they were as soaked as the rest of his clothes, he saw a flash of purple from the corner of his eyes and instantly snapped his head up.
Away from them, Tilly Toke was casting again the spell on the toy motorcar. But this time, however, the sparks didn't die off. Instead, they blossomed and shot forth, like an arrow that disappeared into the distance.
"He's here?" breathed out Harry, his eyes as wide as platters, his heart thundering in his chest.
"Yes," said the Charms professor, though he wasn't flashing a pearly-white smile at him, "but whether he's still alive is impossible to know. The spell doesn't detect such, just the location of the body, whether breathing or not. The general location of it, that is. Come and you'll see."
Harry didn't waste a single second in rushing forth and trail after the wizard's heels. They climbed through the shambles and ruins, seeing only some parts of walls of buildings left here and there, everything covered in patches of melting snow, ice, or frost. But nothing stirred, it was completely deserted, except, as they soon saw, for the bodies strewn over the place.
Though it was clear that some army had gone picking through the rubble, because there were mounds of dug tombs at one side of the outskirts of the town, and because the bodies that had been left were completely unrecognizable. Too mangled and burned, both faces or clothes, to tell if they had been civilians or soldiers, German, Norwegian, French or British. There were just some few with recognizable uniforms, apparently having been left behind because whichever side had run out of time to go searching for more comrades.
Nevertheless, it was a sight more horrible than the one he had experienced when Leisure Alley had been destroyed. There were no moans and muffled, terrified screams pleading for help coming from people still buried alive under rubble, but the scene was much larger. A whole town, not just a street. And the significance of the lost battle was much more dreadful and dismal.
Seeing the bodies, Harry would have liked to pause and halt here and there to check for a pulse, but he was aware that Hutchins was his main priority, so even though he stared at the devastation evidencing a massacre, he hurried along, with heart lodged in throat.
Tom, meanwhile, with Comet 180 in hand – Harry had no problem in letting him carry it, though his brother's obvious intentions were to be the one at front next time they had to fly, yet Harry would he swift to snatch back the broom when the time came- was glancing around dispassionately, as if it was an everyday occurrence to be strolling about a battlefield laden with corpses.
As Harry followed their Charms professor, he began rubbing his familiar through the wool of his jersey. Ulysses had climbed up under his clothes to be able to poke his head out from Harry's collar, but the little Scorcrup was still shivering, and Harry attempted to give him some warmth just as Tom had done with him.
Ulysses purred with contentment at that, and licked Harry's chin in appreciation. Though Harry didn't think he could be helping much, since he was shivering and chilled to the bones himself due to his wet clothes and the wind that blew and made it all the worse.
Suddenly, Tilly Toke halted, and Harry saw something that looked like a small purple star twinkling in mid air, and he blinked, glancing around.
"This is the area, then?" he asked. "Hutchins is somewhere around here?"
Toke nodded, and Harry glanced down at his Scorcrup, scratching him in between the small black ears, as he whispered urgently, "This is your part, Ulysses. Find him."
With a bob of his head, Ulysses sprung out from Harry's clothes and neatly landed on the ground. In a flash, the little creature had tiny nose pressed on the earth, sniffing madly like a Niffler.
In the next bat of an eyelash, the Scorcrup was dashing forth, with Harry running behind him.
It seemed to stretch for unbearable minutes as Ulysses kept leaping forward, turning this side and that around a ruin, taking a corner, twisting between debris, before he skidded to a halt in front of a building.
It was a church, part of its roof collapsed, its west side blown to smithereens, whether from explosives or a bomb it was hard to tell, and with its wooden double doors completely destroyed by what had clearly been a incessant volley of machine gun bullets. It seemed as if some townsfolk and soldiers had barricaded themselves inside, before the Germans had managed to blast open a path.
Indeed, the floor inside was covered in bloodstains and bits and pieces of flesh and other things Harry didn't want to think about, and there were some completely blackened and scorched corpses sticking from under some rubble.
But Ulysses seemed to hesitate, as if he had lost track of the scent. Harry watched, his heart beating hard, as the Scorcrup retraced his steps, turned around, and began sniffing again.
Suddenly, Ulysses peered up at him with sparkling eyes as green as Harry's, and he let out a loud purr of satisfaction, as he swayed his fluffy black tail back and forth in excitement. After declaring his triumph in such manner, he streaked into a side room, Harry hot on his heels.
Harry choked as soon as he came pelting in. The stench was unbearable, so fetid that he had to bring a hand up to cover his nose. Ulysses was sneezing hard and jerkily shaking his head to all sides, as if attempting to get rid of the odor suffusing the room, but still resumed his sniffing with evident considerable effort and determination.
It was when Ulysses meowed loudly, sticking up a paw to indicate something, that Harry finally realized what kind of room it was. A lavatory, or better said, a chamber filled with quite rustic loos. Spanning all along one wall, there was a large, rectangular cistern made of wood, with a series of holes as large as heads on the top lid.
It was some sort of communal toilet, to sit down on top of one of the holes and do one's business. And there was evidently no chain to yank to flush things away through indoor plumbing. Moreover, a swarm of flies were buzzing around, forming what looked like a dense black cloud, feasting and having made it their home.
Harry glanced down at the Scorcrup again. Ulysses was once more thrusting a paw towards the loo, insistently.
"No," Harry croaked in disbelief, realizing what his familiar was trying to make him understand.
Having lost all color from his face, he nevertheless stepped ahead, his hands shaking so badly that he didn't succeed the first time he attempted to lift the lid.
He heard Tilly Toke and Tom entering the lavatory just as he managed to yank the top open.
Harry gagged, his stomach rolled, and he swayed at the horrific sight.