Chapter Fifteen
For Whom the Bell Tolls

Harry awoke early Saturday morning and sat at his sitting room window, a cup of steaming tea cradled in his hands as he watched the early sunlight glance glaringly off the golden goalposts of the Quidditch pitch. He'd chosen these quarters specifically for the view.

His private rooms occupied a narrow, out-of-the-way, two-story turret that branched off the Defense Against the Dark Arts Tower, accessed via a fifth-floor corridor. The turret had an inverted layout and entered via the upper sitting room, which perched atop the downstairs bedchamber. It gave Harry the impression of sleeping in a floating basement or the belly of a submarine.

The sitting room was sparingly decorated in autumnal colors and possessed an inviting warmth. The walls were adorned with tapestries depicting famous Quidditch matches from years past. Velvet armchairs sat comfortably at the windows, which were tall and framed by intricately carved patterns. Through them, the vibrant green of the vast Forbidden Forest could be seen. Down the tight spiral stair, the bedroom was small but cozy, with a large and plush four-poster bed and a fireplace, currently cold, and a small writing desk tucked into the corner. A crimson shag rug matched the curtains. In both rooms lingered the faint scents of old parchment and broomstick polish.

Harry sipped at his tea while a distant group of students flew about the pitch. He smiled. Once upon a time, he had been one of those students, out on the pitch the first weekend of the year, unable to wait any longer.

His first day as flight instructor was now behind him. His flying lesson with the first years had gone about as smoothly as he could have hoped, with only a single broken bone; Alara Biddle had landed poorly and broken an ankle, but Poppy had fixed her right up, muttering under her breath that Quidditch was no sport for children. There had been a fair few naturals among the class, and Harry already had a couple pinned for future Quidditch players.

He hadn't been surprised when the Quidditch captains wasted no time in reaching out to schedule the pitch for tryouts—Ravenclaw specifically had been aiming to schedule it for today—but Harry had persuaded them to give it two weeks, put up some fliers, spread the word, and give any unsure hopefuls the chance to mull it over. Tryouts were set for the Friday after next from five to seven in the evening.

Harry took his time, nursing his tea to its end while gathering his wits for the trial ahead, before settling the cup in its saucer with cool, calm fingers and setting it aside. Then he prepared his things, packed a bag, and threw a fistful of sparkling powder into his fireplace. The flames shot up, blazing verdantly. Harry ducked into the fireplace, declared, "The Leaky Cauldron!" and was answered by the sound of shattering glass before he vanished.

When he arrived, it was to be ejected—blasted, really—from the Leaky Cauldron's fireplace as if shot by a cannon, soaring over a pair of astonished pub-goers and crashing into a vacant table amid splinters and shouts. Harry then spent the next fifteen minutes nursing another drink, this one an early morning whiskey courtesy of the cackling bartender, and cursing his luck.

Harry's bad luck followed him to Dartmoor.

"Blasted bog," he muttered as he scraped his boot on a patch of cotton grass, unsure if what he'd stepped in was truly just mud.

He'd been negotiating the haunted landscape for the better part of the day and had yet to spot his quarry. His lunch break had come and gone, and so had the fair weather; the sky was graying as dour clouds traveled east, bringing with them the promise of rain. The wind had already arrived, whispering in Harry's ears as it tousled his hair, and Harry swore more than once he'd heard a moan on the wind.

His bible for this quest, Crumple-Horned Snorkacks: A Comprehensive Guide to the Hidden Wonders of the Magical Realm, had equipped him with some insight. First, he knew that Snorkacks, while not exactly herd animals, did roam in familial clans that could be either patriarchal or matriarchal. Second, he knew that Snorkacks with crumpled horns could be found among these clans, albeit seldomly, and that they were ofttimes treated as outsiders by their fellow clan members. Harry also knew that all Snorkacks, regardless of their style of horn, possessed some kind of defense versus magic, though the book had not elaborated on it, which Harry had assumed had been a conscious decision to deter poachers.

Harry rather hoped he'd luck upon the corpse of such a creature so that he needn't tangle with a live one, though he already knew his personal brand of luck wouldn't be so benevolent.

The area of Dartmoor National Park that he was currently scouring was in a different corner of the moorland from where the Quidditch World Cup match had been held. This place was all windswept fields and brooks amongst rolling hills capped with granite and not a tree in sight. Occasionally, he spotted a pony or red deer in the distance, and earlier in the day he'd disturbed an adder sunbathing on an outcropping of rock; he hoped the weather, if nothing else, would drive the rest of the snakes into their burrows, for Harry hadn't thought to bring along any antivenom or antidotes. He fancied for a moment if he might collect himself an adder stone for protection but ultimately decided it wasn't worth the risk, as he didn't know just how dangerous adder venom was.

Sweaty and moderately exerted, Harry sat himself beside the tor at the top of a hill whose name he didn't know and watched as the land grew darker: The evening sun was dropping below a horizon he could not see for the clouds, and a gentle mist crept in, providing an eerie atmosphere that absolutely no one had asked for. The wind grew louder, its whispers turning to whistles, and Harry drew up the hood of his sweatshirt. There was still some light left in the day, but if Harry didn't find a Snorkack soon, he'd be forced to spend the night.

He took a final glance from his high viewpoint, but nothing caught his attention.

By the time Harry had descended the hill, the mist had caught up to him, unrolling like a playful, ephemeral blanket that tried to hide his feet from him. He stepped more cautiously, and prayed he wouldn't stumble into—what were they called?—a kistvaen.

As Harry gingerly picked his way through the mist, his heart pounded in his chest. He couldn't shake the feeling that he was being watched, that something sinister lurked just out of sight. The mist grew thicker, clinging low to the ground to avoid the wind but swirling around his feet with each step in a devilish dance, whispering secrets.

A shape rose out of the mist, dark and indistinct.

Harry froze.

It was perhaps a hundred yards away but large enough to be seen above the mist. Harry had trouble relating its size; it might've been as small as a cat or as large as a rhinoceros.

Harry raised his sycamore wand. "Lumos!"

There was a brief flash of color—two pinpricks of yellow—before the creature was swallowed by the mist.

Harry, who was instantly reminded of the bugbear he'd seen creeping about the ruins of Hogwarts, got spooked and ran. He dashed behind a mound of granite, snuffed his light and hid, his pulse pounding, his wand thrumming like an adrenaline junkie preparing to cliff dive.

A tense minute passed. Harry peeked around the boulder but saw nothing. He knew he was losing time, but he couldn't bring himself to move for another two or three minutes more. Then he found his courage, set his jaw and continued on, hyper-alert, his sycamore wand clenched tight in his fist.

Nothing jumped out at him.

A legend of a mysterious creature, known as the Beast of Bodmin Moor, came to Harry's mind. Some Muggles believed it to be a black panther that roamed the area, but even the wizarding world was at a loss for any reasonable explanation, except perhaps the antics of an animagus. Harry attempted to rationalize what he'd seen, deciding it was one of the creatures native to the moor, like one of those ponies or deer. Whatever it was, it was quadrupedal, Harry was sure, and Snorkacks weren't quadrupeds.

Another hour passed as Harry traversed the moor. The thing in the mist, whatever it was, was following him. Stalking him. He'd seen it, a ways back, lurking, never coming close. Harry had half a mind to spew curses in its direction, but he was afraid of collateral damage—not to the landscape of Dartmoor, a national park, he didn't care about that. No, he feared that the creature, despite the horror it gave Harry, might be something more... docile or innocent. Harry could almost hear Hagrid's distraught cries of Harry's butchering of a Mooncalf.

It was dusk now, though the clouds made the moor appear darker and later than it was. Harry raised his wand and began reciting familiar incantations he knew by heart.

"Cave inimicum... Repello muggletum..."

Once the protective enchantments were put in place, Harry opened his bag and reached in. He'd enchanted it with an Undetectable Extension Charm, but he was no Hermione; he'd given himself some extra room, enough for the tent but not for the pots and pans, which he'd left behind. He drank cold soup from a can for dinner and refilled his water bottle by spell as needed.

The wind was howling now as it tore at his tent. It was a regular Muggle tent, but it would weather the wind well enough. Harry wondered if the wind had blown away the mist, but he daren't peek outside to check—a part of him was afraid he'd unzip the tent to find that creature staring him in the face. He rolled over, pulled the blanket over his head and slept, hoping the beast had moved on.

It hadn't.

After Harry had relieved himself, broken his fast, packed up the tent, and canceled his enchantments, he'd resumed his quest. The morning was gray and dreary, but it was light enough to see by, and the wind had quieted. But the mist had returned—or perhaps it had never left—and there was the creature. It followed him as he traveled the moor, always behind him but never near, and too far to discern any details. It stayed to the mist, stalking him, though it didn't seem to care that it had been discovered. Harry had shouted at it once, demanded it leave him alone, but it hadn't so much as twitched in reply.

Hours passed, and Harry broke for lunch. He chewed mindlessly at a granola bar and some beef jerky. Curious, he chucked the last bit of the jerky in the creature's direction, but the jerky went ignored.

Harry grunted irritably. "That was the last of my food, you ungrateful..."

Any unease Harry felt at the creature's skulking was tempered with its apparent contentedness to follow benignly. Harry wondered if the creature wasn't just curious and not vicious or hungry or malevolent in the slightest. He wondered.

Another hour and two tors later, Harry crested a hill—and his breath caught. There they were. Snorkacks. Nine of them.

In the valley between Harry's hill and the next, beside a winding brook, they grazed on cotton grass and heather. Though they flew, they had no feathers; they hovered above the ground, like fish swimming in air, or like kites held aloft on the wind. In shape, they looked like eels, and they moved like them, too, slithering through the air like proud Asian dragons. Their bodies undulated even when they stayed in place, never truly motionless. Their long bodies sported three tiny hooves on each side, and their heads, while similar to dragons in shape, were furred and rabbit-like, with twitchy noses and long whiskers and emerald eyes. On their heads they wore crowns of antlers, more majestic than even Harry's father could have boasted of having, and Harry could tell the young apart as their antlers were—in keeping with the metaphor—more akin to circlets and diadems than crowns. Their tails were fluffy and ridiculous. And Harry could distinguish the females from the males by their coats: The females sported fur the color of moonlight, whereas the males wore coats of delicate, pastel pink; as with many birds, the males were the brighter and dandier of the species.

Harry was struck dead with wonder at the sight of them. He would have given anything in the world to have Luna by his side in that moment. It was all he could manage to say, "She was wrong... They can fly..."

Though in truth, he knew they could not truly fly; Crumple-Horned Snorkacks: A Comprehensive Guide to the Hidden Wonders of the Magical Realm asserted that their flight was more akin to hovering or levitation than true flight, and as such they could not reach altitudes of more than a few feet off the ground.

Inexorably, Harry's eyes were drawn to the ninth of their number, an adult male with a crown unlike the rest of his party; this one had no antlers; this one wielded from its forehead a horn, twisted and curved and hooked and glimmering with a rainbow sheen whose light wavered like the air over hot pavement in summer. It was this horn that Harry would be taking.

He hated that, one way or another, he would be leaving Dartmoor while the creature would be left hornless. It made him feel dirty. In his world, he'd been forced to hunt when food was scarce, killed as needed to survive, and he'd come to terms with that. But this... Something about it made Harry feel vile, and he didn't want to ponder it any further, not while he had work to do.

Harry threw his Cloak over himself and crept down the hill, wand out, unspoken incantations on his lips. He came upon their clan cautiously, perhaps too slowly. He was fifty feet away... forty... He had a good shot, but he crept closer... thirty... twenty...

Harry raised his wand and said, "Stupefy."

His aim was true. The beam of red shot straight at its heart—

And ricocheted off an invisible shield.

The Snorkacks bolted amid a scattering of mist.

"Fuck."

The clan darted away as one, sailing through the air like low-flying kites skimming the wind-beaten grass. Harry gave chase, but the Snorkacks were swift as the wind and were slowly outpacing him. He fired a blasting curse into the middle of their party, hoping to send them scattering—and it worked. The explosion of marshy earth startled the creatures, and they split off in different directions. Harry charged after the crumple-horned one, casting spell after spell at it, but each and every one bounced off some invisible barrier or missed altogether.

The Invisibility Cloak flapped along behind him as he ran, such that he was probably invisible from all angles except from the rear. Later, Harry would think back on this scene and snort in amusement as the vision of it played in his head; but for the nonce, Harry was singlemindly driven toward the Crumple-Horned Snorkack that eluded his every spell.

It took less than a minute for it to become apparent to Harry that he would not outrun the creature. It was snaking aerially away from him, gaining distance by the second. Harry stuffed his flapping Cloak into a pocket and pulled a broomstick from his bag, faltering only slightly in his stride as he did. He launched himself into the air, above the mist, continuing his pursuit. It was a school broom, not a professional or designer brand, just middle tier, and it had a tendency to list upward faintly, but it was of a speed with the Snorkack and enabled Harry in his hunting.

"Stupefy! Petrificus Totalus! Immobulus!"

Nothing worked. Every spell simply rebounded. It was as if the Snorkack was blessed with a permanent Shield Charm. Harry tried different angles—from the left, the right, from above—but each failed. Even his trusty Impediment Jinx failed him, something that unexpectedly hurt his feelings. If the manual he'd read had mentioned anything of this nature, he was sure he'd have remembered it. Harry rather wondered if the manual hadn't specifically left this little tidbit out in an attempt to thwart poachers—poachers like himself.

Harry pursued the Snorkack across the moor, the thrill of the hunt coursing through his veins. It was a rush like no other, the perverse excitement one feels when doing something illicit, a chemical high fueled by adrenaline and endorphins. The feeling made him equal parts eager and uncomfortable.

"Ah!" cried Harry as a reflected hex ricocheted back at him. He rolled. "Blasted shield..."

There was an option available to Harry, an unblockable spell, a lethal curse he'd rarely cast, only ever directed at Voldemort. Harry couldn't bring himself to use it here.

The Snorkack flew on, its twisted horn gleaming in the sunlight, tempting him, taunting him. Harry's heart raced as he pursued it, but he knew he couldn't keep up the chase forever. He needed a new strategy... and then one came to him. The thought of the Unforgivable Curse, while abhorrent, sparked an idea: Just as the Killing Curse could not be repelled by the Shield Charm but could be blocked by a physical barrier, perhaps the Snorkack, too, was vulnerable to something tangible...

"Incarcerous!"

It wasn't a bolt of magical intent that shot forth this time; ropes, physical and tangible, erupted from Harry's sycamore wand, spinning like a bola, passed undisturbed through the Snorkack's shield and ensnared the thing around its middle. Harry felt a heartbeat of jubilation—before his heart sank once more. The Snorkack, as a creature that swam through the air, requiring neither wings nor limbs for propulsion, was unaffected; it cut through the air with the same speed and finesse as before.

Still, Harry was undeterred. While ineffective, his spell had gained him valuable insight.

It was as he contemplated this that Harry, distracted, followed the Snorkack past a trio of Muggle tourists hiking the moor, soaring right over their heads. Two women and a man, they shouted expressions of alarm and confusion.

"What the ruddy hell is that thing?!"

"Lizzie, do you see that? He's flying—fecking flying!"

"Sod it, mates, I think I'm still drunk."

Regret barely registered with Harry in that moment. It wasn't his problem anymore; let the Obliviators deal with them.

The Snorkack led Harry toward a lonely fog bank, and Harry, for his part, tried very hard to dissuade the Snorkack of this notion. He conjured furniture in its path; it simply flew around it. He transfigured rocks into animals; it simply flew above them. He even cast another Blasting Curse into the ground near it, trying to divert it; it kept calm and carried on. The Snorkack would not be convinced, and after a tense minute of spells, the pair of them were swallowed by the fog.

Harry's world became white and claustrophobic, the impenetrable fog pressing in all around, suffocating and oppressive. He could barely see his own hand in front of his face, let alone the creature that led him deeper into the mist. The Snorkack seemed unfazed, gliding purposefully through the fog as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and Harry had a momentary panic that he was being led into a trap.

A distant howl pierced the gloom, haunting and otherworldly and pregnant with dark promises. Harry's spine crawled, and he fought the sudden instinct to flee from the horrors that surely lurked in the mist, just beyond his sight. He gripped his broom with such force that his knuckles matched the color of the fog, but just as he made to turn the broom around, he emerged from the wall of fog like a dolphin leaping from the ocean.

Harry slowed so aggressively to a stop that he nearly launched himself off the broom. He stared.

He had emerged into a clearing within the fog, which rose up and around everything like a great white dome. It was a bubble world, a snow globe, and at its center was a church. It was an old building, its foundation strong but its roof falling in; its steeple held fast but barely, the brass bell in its belfry tilted and leaning. Connected to the chapel was a churchyard, filled with gravestones, and the whole property was enclosed in an iron fence, mostly intact but with breaches here and there. An eerie mist pervaded everywhere. Harry had never seen a place so... ethereal.

The Snorkack wended its way inside.

After a moment's hesitation, Harry followed after it.

The gate was flanked by a pair of brick pillars topped with the unrecognizable remains of statues, reminding Harry uncomfortably of his Hogwarts. The walk was old and worn and overtaken by the moor. The church doors stood ajar, the Snorkack's pink fur disappearing inside with the briefest glimmer.

Harry dismounted his broom and approached, wand out. The length of sycamore in his hand thrummed as if to say, Yes! Now we've got you! He stepped over the threshold and peered within.

The interior was drab and withered. The pews were battered and broken by the elements, and the foggy dome was visible through the gaping holes in the ceiling, beneath which lay heaps of rubble, broken stones, beams, and shingles. Each and every one of the windows had been shattered and lost to time, except for a lonely panel of stained glass, whole and pristine, featuring a benevolent, if solemn, bearded man that gazed down upon an absent congregation. The sight affected Harry in a way he couldn't define, though he supposed it was fitting that it survived when the others had not.

There was a streak of pink, and Harry spied the Snorkack as it retreated out a breach in the wall to his right. He crossed the room in pursuit, wand first, and exited through the hole into the adjoining churchyard, where mist crept betwixt faded gravestones. There was a menagerie of grave markers here: big, small, tall, short, thick, thin, elaborate, modest. All of them were worn. None of them were legible.

Harry stalked after his prey and entered the maze of gravestones. If he could not pierce the Snorkack's shield with a spell, he would attack it physically. With an uttered incantation, he pelted it with rocks, hoping to leave it stunned or unconscious. But the Snorkack was fast and moved like a snake, twisting and winding and hard to hit, and most of his improvised weapons struck headstones, adding chips and cracks to their impressive collection.

Once, as Harry rounded a corner of a particularly large and undoubtedly once magnificent marker, he came face to face with the creature, and the Snorkack jabbed at him with its cruel, jagged horn, its emerald eyes feral and furious. Harry yelped and ducked behind the stone amid the screech of horn on marble. With a swift spell, he conjured himself a sword and aimed a left-handed strike at its horn, but he, too, struck only stone.

And so they did battle amidst the mist of the graveyard. The Snorkack had apparently given up the prospect of retreat; now it took to the offensive as often as Harry. They exchanged blows and retreated round corners, one never besting the other. Occasionally, Harry would fire a spell at it, but it would always rebound uselessly into a gravestone. The creature had managed to stab Harry once in the shoulder and cut him twice more on the arms, but Harry had yet to injure it in return; he didn't want to, truthfully.

"I only need your horn, damn you!" he shouted at it. "It's important!"

The beast only shrieked in reply, a high-pitched whine, almost like a bird's cry but more terrible.

Their sortie lasted for a solid three or four minutes, though time always appeared stretched in battle, and it seemed like an hour for Harry.

Eventually, their fight took them back to the exterior wall of the church, beneath the watchful eyes of the man in the stained glass, in the shadow of the belfry. There came the unexpected thudding of paws on the ground, and Harry turned his head in time to see a great black hound bounding toward him, its yellow eyes glaring, its fangs flashing. With a yelp, Harry twisted on the spot, turning his wand on the beast, a spell on his lips—!

Somewhere, glass shattered.

Harry's foot caught on a loose stone—! He fell—!

"Confringo!"

As he lost his balance, his arm flung upward, and the spell went awry. The dart of magic struck the bell tower and exploded with a resounding gong-like tintinnabulation. Harry fell flat on his back, his wide, fearful eyes locked on the great brass bell as it came crashing down, scraping against the church roof with an ear-grating groan, and obliterating the eave to impact summarily the ground with all the force and ferocity of a meteor, spraying earth in all directions.

Harry avoided death by mere feet.

The Snorkack hadn't been so lucky.

Harry, his face splashed with dirt, rose quickly and unsteadily to his feet, his wand trained again on the newest threat—the wild dog. But the beast did not appear threatening, despite its threatening size, its fiendish eyes and its menacing fangs, which were bared no longer. It wasn't aggressive, at any rate, standing there idly and gazing at Harry almost meaningfully.

Harry lowered his wand fractionally. For a moment, he was reminded of Sirius. There were similarities between his godfather's animagus form and this dog—the large size, the black fur, the haunting disposition—but it was not Sirius. It was the eyes that convinced him; they weren't Sirius's eyes. Rather than a friendly brown, they were a malevolent yellow and possessed of no real intelligence.

Somehow, Harry knew what the creature was almost without thinking. Unbidden, the word left his lips: "Grim."

The dog blinked. It set its gaze on the Snorkack before retraining it on Harry, and Harry understood.

"It was you I saw in the mist," he said. "You were the beast that followed me through the moor. But... but why?"

The hound howled, an eerie, ghastly cry that had all the fine hairs on Harry's body stand on end. It was a howl of terror, one that warned of—promised—death. Harry's wand hand twitched upward instinctively. As the howl's last fell note was carried away by the breeze, the hound of ill omen turned and wandered off, out the graveyard and into the wall of fog beyond.

Harry watched it go, staring after it for a long, quiet, pondering moment before turning to regard the crushed corpse of the Crumple-Horned Snorkack. Had the Grim been drawn to Harry because of the Snorkack? Had it known a death was coming? Sensed it?

Then Harry was struck by a more sobering thought: Had the omen been meant for the Snorkack... or him?

He swallowed past a sudden lump in his throat and checked himself, casting aside his superstitions and steeling himself for what still needed to be done. He approached the Snorkack and knelt. Harry didn't consider himself a man of faith. The Dursleys hadn't been, and so Harry had never been exposed to that way of life. And piety hadn't been common in the wizarding world either, so it had never had a chance to catch on with Harry. Still, kneeling in the damp grass of that churchyard, Harry thought it appropriate to say a prayer for the fallen creature.

Murderer, he condemned himself. It was marked for death the moment I found the Book.

Harry wasted no time in removing the horn from the carcass, wanting to leave the moor behind as quickly as could be done. When he stood, horn in hand, his eyes met those in the stained glass, and Harry had the sudden notion that he was being judged.

He only hoped the judgement wasn't too damning.