4. The Ones Left Behind

Every night since the death of her brother she lighted up a candle on a windowsill. It was a symbolic gesture, one born from hope that the lost soul of a man that passed away in the foreign land will return to its home one day. The light was supposed to guide him and show him that there were still people waiting for him, people who cared. Diana stared at the flame burning brightly against the stark darkness of the night and thought how it was reflecting her own feelings. Despair was not something she ever thought she would experience, she thought herself far too down-to-earth for such romanticism. But here it was, unmovable and all-embracing making every day difficult to face. There was also emptiness of such depth that she felt like she was existing in a void. And in all that darkness of her soul the flame of anger was burning. She wanted to hurt somebody really badly.

Her friend told her that it was normal for a grieving person to experience those feelings but she was sure there was far more to it than simple hurt. She and Daniel were twins and the magical bond was always strong between them. Diana was often aware of his feelings and his thoughts and could at times feel the magic he was casting. When he became a dragon rider she could even hear Ashla talking despite them never having a direct bond. This one was an experience she cherished and it was to her great dismay when she found out she could understand her no more.

And she tried, oh how she tried! Ashla was probably the only creature that mourned the loss of Daniel even more than her. Diana wanted to console her but every attempt at communication was failing. Ashla simply looked at her apathetically and after a couple of days she started to answer with angry fits. Then Diana understood that the dragon wanted to be left alone so she, with a heavy heart, pulled out.

It was terrifying to look at such a beautiful, agile, full of life creature now devoid of any will to continue her existence. Diana was sure that Ashla wanted to end her life like most of dragons who lost their riders did – flying away and drowning in the sea. But human interests clashed with the dragon's, as per usual. It was decided during the Board meeting that before finishing with herself she was obliged to provide an offspring. That was due to the fact that she was a magnificent dragon, excellent on the battlefield, quick-learning and exceptionally well-behaved so D3 division wanted to preserve a little of her abilities by the means of her progeny. What Ashla thought of that all no one knew.

What Diana thought of that all everyone have already heard, and more than once. But she too wasn't able to change the Board's decision. So she seethed with anger every time she saw a Board member and they were already avoiding her like a plague.

Well, they weren't able to avoid her indefinitely, she thought with no small amount of dark satisfaction leaving the candle burning on the windowsill and grabbing her bag on her way out. She was after all the owner of the only proper bar in the town and if one didn't want to spend their evenings in a dirty rat-hole that Seven Socks was, waiting to be killed with the next bottle of piss that passed for beer in that establishment, well, they better swallow their pride and come to her.

With this happy little thought she entered into her realm. It was only a couple of houses away from her home. The building was spacious, made of wood designed to resemble a mountain cabin. Its name "Gershaw's Inn" was carved into a wooden signboard hanging over a double-doored entrance. Once inside she felt the familiar smells of burning birch logs, meat being cooked and tobacco. People she saw every day were greeting her with respect, even two guys who lurked in the corners obviously intent on drinking themselves into a stupor raised their hands in acknowledgment. She responded with smiles, as per usual. Here she was at least known as Diana Gershaw, the owner, not as 'the sister of the fallen hero'. She knew that this was how people spoke of her on the street. Well, people probably were right as her brother not only was a dragon rider, he pretty quickly became the best one D3 Division ever had. She felt pride mixed with no small amount of annoyance when his fellows spoke highly of him. The only thing she succeeded in was inheriting this establishment from her late uncle and managing it since then.

Daniel used to jest that she was more heroic than him by keeping that dump from collapsing. She disagreed. Yes, it was a hard work making the ends meet until she managed to turn the unkempt bar into a well-prospering business but it was a mundane sort of everyday struggle. It had no glamour and no danger of chasing after Dark wizards or smugglers. She always felt so normal. Now she was even worse: normal and alone.

On her way to the back of the counter she spotted one of the members of the Board, Martin Scoresee. He was apparently entertaining a new boyfriend who looked even more disgusting than the previous one. Honestly, she had no idea where he was digging them out but it spoke for his lack of good taste. This specimen looked like he had a serious personality disorder. His skin tight leather trousers were leaving very little to the imagination and his half-unbuttoned satin blouse showed a great portion of hairless chest. He had a boyish hairstyle with long bangs falling into his eyes which in turn were framed heavily with coal and mascara. And his nails were painted pink, for fuck's sake! In Diana's opinion he should be murdered immediately for putting the whole gay population to ridicule. But, as he was still alive, he might be of some use. She will happily cut that bastard Scoresee down to size.

She turned right and approached her guests with a beaming smile. Scoresee freezed upon seeing her, he knew what was coming next. She extended a hand to his date and he grasped it with his delicate fingers.

"Nice to see a new man in the town", she said happily. "Welcome, I'm Diana Gershaw, I own this place." The man presented himself with some elaborate name that she instantly forgot. "Ah, thats superb! Our old Martin has finally found his soul-mate, eh? I can see it, he's got that special look in his eyes, that of a happy man! Why, I believe he is already planning a wedding, you see he is a very traditional, serious type of guy. I can't wait..."

"Diana!", hissed Scoresee staring at her darkly. "That's quite enough! Please kindly take your misdirected anger elsewhere!"

"Why? I thought it was my inn so maybe the one that should change places is you? It would brighten my day and make other patrons more... hm... comfortable."

"Their comfort is not my priority", said Scoresee, refusing to budge.

"That I already knew. Cute little thing you have here.", she said, winking to the Scoresee's date. "Make a honest man out of him, will you?" And with this parting words she left the pair. She laughed secretly at the disconcerted look of the guy. She could bet that the only thing Scoresee will be shagging today will be a hole in the wall.

"That was dirty", commented her barmaid Nanette, joining her in the back of the pub. Diana was busy with updating financial records of the inn and she frowned seeing that it was the fourth month their income was not as high as it used to be. Partially it was because of summertime but she supposed that mostly it was due to war. Now people had less willingness to entertain themselves, to travel.

"That was necessary. That bastards from the Board think they can order us around. I don't agree with such treatment. The fact that they are Aurors does not make them superior to us."

"Ah." Nanette obviously decided that it was better to change the topic. "You've cut your hair. And painted them different colour."

"Yeah, I did." Diana run a hand through her crop. "I felt like changing the style. And brunette is my natural, I've just decided to go back to it. What do you think?"

"It suits your businesswoman image", Nanette grinned. "But what will Dennis say about it?"

Diana laughed. "He hated it. Serves him right about being such an asshole during my auntie's birthday party."

He said that if Diana wanted to resemble her dead brother, she should simply Transfigure herself and be done with it. His words lead to one hell of a quarrel and they still weren't on speaking terms. She knew she will forgive him eventually, she always did. She had no idea why she was sticking to him, maybe because she was smitten with him; maybe because he was an Auror and Aurors have always fascinated her, maybe because he was unpredictable and just a little bit violent and maybe because she was a thirty-something old woman who really badly wanted to get married. Most probably it were all this factors coming into play.

"Just leave him and be done with it", said Nanette. "You could do better than him."

"Could I? Really, he is the first interesting person I've ever met. All of the others were so dull... Remember that guy I was dating before, Mike? He used to talk about Quidditch all the bloody time. Or about his boring work, just how long you could listen to a person rambling about regulations for usage of Doxycide and Chuck-a-gnomes?"

"He seemed a nice enough bloke to me, Diana. Nicer than Dennis, anyway. And you told me he was good in bed."

"Passable, Nan. And I'm happy with Dennis." Diana looked through the door to the main room, where her barman was busy attending to the clients. "It looks like Orvyn could use some help.", she said standing up. "I will go there and you go to the kitchen, ask if they need anything."

She went behind the bar and began serving drinks to the customers, who were starting to pour in for the evening. It was Friday so she knew the bar will get quite crowded quite soon. She saw Jayen striding purposefully in her direction and acknowledged him with a nod.

"Busy day I see", he said, not really looking at her. Something squeezed painfully at her chest. She just knew he had some bad news to share. It seemed that these days it was all about bad news.

"End of the week, obviously.", she said with a little shrug. "Something to drink, Sherlock?"

He snorted. "Acerbic as usual. Give me some Scotch, lass, before I wither away."

Diana rolled her eyes while she was pouring amber liquid into a tumbler. Their relationship was mostly about jokes and cutting remarks because Jayen Lynch was just that sort of guy. He liked a good laugh. One that have never met him at work might have even called him 'jolly', especially with those honey-coloured eyes always glittering at you like he wanted to share a dirty little secret and hands making wide gestures, patting his interlocutor's back or hitting a table to emphasize something he was saying. But the fact stood that he was also one of the most ruthless Aurors known to the American Ministry of Magic. Diana have never seen him working, but Daniel told her about some of Jayen's methods of dealing with smugglers and outlaws and they were downright frightening. Even D3 President have penalized him a couple of times for 'an unnecessary violence' and that was telling something. She was happy to never get to know this darker side of her brother's colleague.

But now he wasn't quite as buoyant as he used to be, she reflected. Like all of them, Daniel's death had hit him hard and those days his behavior have also changed. And it was a different change than that of the last person from their team. Matheus simply became more subdued, more focused on his wife and children. But in case of Jayen it looked like his darker side might be coming forth. More and more often she saw him drinking, with that dangerous look on his face that spoke of him being very close to killing somebody. She recognized that feeling, she herself was nurturing a similar one, but in his case she was afraid one day he may actually act upon it. So she tried to watch over him secretly, to keep him from trouble. And this proved to be exceedingly difficult, as he was more a cat than a man, often disappearing down the paths kinds of which she never put her foot on and reappearing after a day or a couple of days have passed. There was a whisper in the village that he was gambling or taking part in illegal broom races. She didn't know because he never answered her questions.

She was worried. She was feeling powerless to stop him. And now it looked like he was bringing her another thing to worry about.

"Just spill it out, Jay", she muttered, pouring him another drink.

"It's not that serious. Only, you asked for updates about Ashla and here I have one. Not the most pleasant one, I'm afraid. The Board want Ashla to be present during the Bonding of her children. They think that given a chance she might be willing to Bond again. There are some colleagues of ours that would like to have a dragon partner, especially an already trained one. Brutus Tindale for example. He lost Tamara during the Battle of Hogwarts and wants to be back in the saddle."

"It's outrageous! Ashla will never agree, mark my words!"

"I know she won't. But the Board doesn't want to loose such a valuable dragon. She was one of the best we had, if not the best. I understand their reasoning even if I don't approve it."

"But they want to put her on a bloody exhibition, like in some bloody circus!", Diana felt anger spreading through her. If before it was candlelight, now it was a flame eating up her soul. "This is undignified, how can you treat a war veteran like that?"

"I believe I've said them something along those lines", he answered dryly. "They laughed at me and said to me to stop being so bloody melodramatic. I only hope that Ashla is going to give it to them."

Diana gritted her teeth. She was going to approach those bastards one by one and show them the reason. That was what she was going to do.

"Don't think about hexing them, girl.", Jayen warned her. "Please remember that they are Aurors because I think you might have forgotten it for a moment."

"Hey, I don't..."

"In fact, If I even so much as see you in the vicinity of one of that guys I'm afraid I will have to take an immediate action of dragging you away by your ponytail."

"Good thing then that I cut my hair.", she said, seething. She hated being treated like her brother little sister. She also knew some useful jinxes even if she never fought against Dark.

"It will be your ear, then.", he said with a smirk. She wanted so much to smack him. Instead she smiled wickedly.

"No more Scotch for you, Jay", she said sweetly.

As Diana did every Saturday, she passed the hangar-like doors and entered the stables, dim-lighted and smelling with hay and dragon. Nearly all of the boxes were empty, the dragons taking a rest in the little valley that was nestled in between two neighboring mountains. A couple of people from the staff were busy cleaning, making reparations, preparing fodder. She passed them on her way to the more distant part of the stables. You could get there only by going through two sets of spell-encoded doors. It opened to the touch of her wand as she was one of the few people authorized to go in there. On the other side of the door was a spacious room with only two boxes inside. Only one of them was occupied and she opened a little slot to look into it.

"Ashla?", she whispered. "It's me."

A huge beast curled up on the hay gave only an irritated twitch of an ear as if to demonstrate that she really wasn't interested in conversation. Diana could see ribs poking through her matted skin and they looked even more pronounced that the last time she saw her. It was painfully obvious she was hardly eating. From under her coiled body she could see peaking out a very tip of one of the eggs. Diana knew that there were four of them and they were nearly ready to hatch. Soon, maybe too soon, Ashla will be free to fly.

"They want you to Bond again", she said matter-of-factly.

This gave her a reaction, at last. The dragon snarled and stared right at Diana, her huge golden eyes alight with some fierce emotion. The woman felt tears filling her eyes, she had no doubt that Ashla understood every word and she despaired that she in turn was unable to communicate with the dragon.

"I have no idea what are you saying but I can see that you don't like it. I will try to make them change their opinion but there is a chance I won't succeed and you will have to face them again.

Ashla growled and turned away. The conversation was over. Diana knew that no cajoling and no threats were going to make her look at Diana once more. So she left with a heavy heart. She was sure Ashla will fly. Maybe that was better, maybe at least for her the suffering will be over.

She marched back into the main part of the building. The staff was still moving around and she greeted the ones she passed by. She was nearly at the entrance when she noticed a guy she never seen before nailing a plank that have fallen off one of the boxes. There was something really strange in a focused determination with wich he was performing his task. She could easily say she has never seen someone as intent on nailing something. Intrigued, she decided to come closer.

"Hello there", she greeted him. "I've never seen you before and I know everyone in this town. I'm Diana Gershaw. Who are you?"

The man frowned and slowly looked up at her from his kneeling position. He made no move to stand up or to shake hands with her. Instead he stared at her like she was some strange species of animal. She noticed immediately that he was as far from the word 'handsome' as English language would allow it. Then his face took on an expression of wonder and just when Diana was starting to feel a little queasy, he looked down.

"I'm nobody", he muttered and then he went back to nailing that bloody plank as if she wasn't standing right there.

She felt indignation like a bile growing in her throat. She, the outstanding citizen of Leafland, was being ignored and by this outsider, no less. She crossed her arms and looked down at the top of the stranger's black head while he was still studiously ignoring her. "Oh no, Mr. Nobody, I will have none of it! You obviously are new so maybe I should introduce you to our customs. We do not accept anonymity here. So I ask you again: What is your name?"

His eyes rose slowly to meet hers. She noticed that they were impossibly dark in the pale face. His downturned mouth and creased brow indicated that he was disturbed by something. It irked her that it might be her continued presence. "It is of no consequence but if you wish so… Severus Snape. It's pleasure to make your acquaintance." After saying this he grabbed a nail and began hitting it with a hammer forcefully as if it was somehow offending him.

She blinked, her previous irritation forgotten. What a strange guy. His mannerism was that of upper class but here he was doing a work of a commoner. There had to be some insidious reason of him being in this place. "Are you employed here?"

"Not quite. Is there really some point to this discussion, Ms. Gershaw?", he asked with a kind of cold politeness that again made her hackles rise. She guessed that most women would have backed off by now, recognizing an impossible case. But not her. She immediately decided that she would pull information out of that infuriating guy one way or another. She tapped her foot, 'incidentally' hitting the box with nails. They scattered all over the floor and the man send her the ugliest scowl she has ever seen.

"You might not know it but I own a bar in downtown. And I like to know where my potential clients come from and if they are prone to causing disruptions."

"It is highly unlikely that I will come to your inn at all", he said in a slightly snappish tone. "So you do not need to concern yourself with my behavior. Now could you please leave me at peace so I could continue with my highly responsible work."

He bended over and started collecting nails one by one. She took pity in him and waved her wand so the nails flew back to the box. "You could have thought of it by yourself", she said, smirking.

"I was said that we are not supposed to use magic here", he said matter-of-factly.

"Oh seriously, your boss is overreacting", she rolled her eyes. "Dragons won't get mad from a little spell. So will you tell me why are you so tightass?"

"And what if I won't?", the bastard rose his eyebrow challengingly.

"I will gather intelligence from your colleagues and, guessing by your behavior, it will be mostly disparaging comments."

"Go on, then", he said, shrugging. "I couldn't have cared less."

Oh, the gall of that man! See if she doesn't! She took an immediate turn and walked straight to the nearest guy form the staff. Derek Water was one of her more regular clients but he was also of the more responsible sort. She has never seen him drink himself to the ground, he always knew where to stop. She gave Derek a nod and he rose both his eyebrows in surprise.

"Derek, I have one question for you", she said, going straight to the crux of the matter. "Who the hell is that guy over there?"

Derek looked in the direction she was pointing at and out of sudden his facial expression changed to the one of hatred. She stared in shock, she has never seen him expressing such strong feelings before. He spit on the ground. "Him? He is one of those bloody Death Eaters, that's whom he is! I have no idea why Aurors sent one of them up here, they were supposed to dig the dragon caves for us. And now we are stuck with seeing his ugly mug every day. Seriously, what the bosses were thinking?"

She felt mildly disappointed with herself upon hearing his words. Why she didn't consider that before? It was really such an obvious explanation if you looked back. But of course she was fishing for something far more mysterious, stupid woman that she was.

"Hell, that's messy", she admitted.

"You have no idea. Half of us have already sworn to get the son of a whore to teach him a couple of lessons. And I understand their reason but our boss forbid us to as much as touch a hair on his head. And he has got his instructions from the President herself so it's not up to discussion. So everyone's on edge right now. I don't know where this situation will lead but I feel the end of it will be ugly."

She shook her head, it really felt hopeless. Bringing those criminals here was enough of bad idea but until no one really saw them, it was bearable. But now it looked like the Board decided to take one more step down that dangerous road. Hell, even she would like to have a go at them, after all those bastards were responsible for the death of her brother. And talking about bastards…

"Death Eater", she greeted again the kneeling man, putting as much malice into her voice as it was humanly possible. She had to admit it didn't come out as harsh as it should have had.

"I'm so happy we brought our fruitless conversation to an end.", deadpanned the man, again with downcast eyes. "This was really starting to get uncomfortable. Now if you satisfied your curiosity will you please leave me be?"

She frowned, for once at loss of words. She was sure she should be feeling pure loathing toward him but somehow this guy didn't inspire it. Or maybe that was because she was pants at being hateful. Anyway, she needed to sort out her feelings because right now she had no idea how to behave.

"We will be finishing this discussion soon", she warned.

"I hope not", muttered the man.

Jayen Lynch was a man who loved the beauty of action and the danger that with no exception followed every adventure. He considered himself brave but not to the point of recklessness. He always recognized a hopeless situation and avoided them. That was what Daniel taught him.

Now he threw caution to the wind. There was nothing for him anymore to stop him from heading straight into danger and he did just it. Their division have heard about illegal chases two years ago, but so far the three trials of approaching people responsible for the chases have failed. They were so sneaky it was uncanny, the agreement between his fellow Aurors stood that there must be at least one powerful Dark wizard between them. Traces of black magic were always present in places they previously occupied but the source of said magic was unrecognizable. And no Auror have ever seen the actual chase.

Now Jayen was being very close to taking part in one. Two months ago when he was desperately looking for a distraction he remembered this old unsolved case. He made a decision to try to approach them not covertly, as they have probably already knew every Auror in their vicinity, but openly. He played a part of a life-beaten veteran who just lost his faith in justice and decided to throw away his worthless life to try something more dangerous and thrilling. During long conversations with shady characters he made it painfully obvious that he didn't particularly care for his life. He was sure that someone relevant will eventually contact him.

It happened a week ago. The man was of shifty kind, Polyjuiced for some unsuspicious bloke and with eyes that constantly moved and lips that spilled forth comfortable lies. They met in the Seven Socks and Jayen listened while man explained the idea of the races. It looked like every time it was about different magical species. This way was fare more unpredictable, the man said, and that factor was important if you betted thousands of golden Crocks on the winner. Jayen have said that he didn't believe that all the species can be used. The man gave him coordinates and advised him to check it.

So he was now checking it.

Dragonius says it's a stupid idea. He sais it will get you killed, commented Falco, his chestnut-colored dragon partner, flying between two mountaintops. Ice glittered in the sun and the air was wonderfully fresh. Yes, the autumn was coming but it still wasn't quite there.

And what is your opinion?

I have no opinion whatsoever. I like the thrill of a hunt and it will be a good one, won't it?

Perfect, Falco. Believe me, it will be a perfect one.

Good because I would like to spread my wings a little.

That was so falco-ish, thought Jayen with sentiment, adjusting the goggles that protected his eyes from sun and frostbite. His dragon was totally carefree and he stayed so even after Daniel's death. If this or Ashla's suffering have affected him in any way he has never shown it. He was an exception between their numbers. Somehow, in some strange way, his lack of concern helped Jayen to keep it together.

We land here, said his dragon, taking a sharp turn towards a canyon that from this height looked quite narrow. He was dropping down in tight circles while Jayen held to the saddle and observed the stony walls getting steeper and higher while they were approaching. Hell, cross it, it was more than narrow, it was confining.

They were chasing through that?

It seems so. Close your eyes, we are going for a dive.

Not in my life, Falco, am I going to close them. Go on with it.

The dragon plunged down. From outside it looked like an uncontrolled fall but clinging to Falco's back apart from the wind roaring in his ears Jayen could hear little flaps of the creature's wings. The dragon smartly slipped in between rocks, only the tip of his tail hitting the wall. The canyon got wider down there, so the dragon flexed its body and with a couple of powerful wing flaps halted their fall. They landed in the bed of a dried-up river.

And it looked like they didn't need to search for long. The sight waited for them, amazing and frightening at the same time. Jayen jumped off the dragon's back and approached the gigantic fish-like skeleton. He slowly walked along it, examining the strangely-shaped structures that looked like wings and ones that looked like jaws. There were many of them and they had twisted shapes. Whatever the creature looked like when it was alive, it had to be quite grotesque. Of course if you could call grotesque a thing that was at least one hundred meters long. Three times bigger than the biggest whale.

Jayen felt curiosity radiating from his partner. He also has never seen something quite so huge.

What is it? It could have eaten me in one swallow, said Falco with good humor. Of course I would have never allowed that.

A flying fish, explained Jayen, amazed. Those bloody wankers did a chase with bloody Leviathans, for Circe's sake! You know, this is real deep shit what I'm getting myself into, Falco.

You are resigning?

Never.

TBC

A/N: Thank you for the reviews. The next chapter is going to be rather angsty, as it will be again from Snape's POV. Keep reading!