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Cold water swirled around their bodies, the dirty glow of the fire staining the night, sending columns of black smoke into the night sky. Fleur and Tracey's teeth began to chatter as the cold seeped into their bones. The water sapped their warmth, and Harry knew it wouldn't be long before they had to get out and dry off, but he couldn't tear his eyes away from the flames licking the cabin. Boards nailed into place by his grandfather curled and blackened. The fire consumed them, sending roaring plumes into the air as the roof collapsed onto the structure. Along the entire shoreline, Harry watched familiar buildings dissolve into flames.
Fortunately, most of them were empty, their owners older and no longer frequent visitors. He worried about the campgrounds. He hoped the few who chose to stay, despite the rattlesnake problem, heard the fire or saw its glow and managed to escape. His hopes weren't high.
"We'd better go," Harry said, killing the jet ski's engine and turning it away from the glowing shoreline.
"Where?" Daphne asked, her voice tight with fear. Harry felt his stepsister trembling against his back, and Daphne let out a quiet sob as she clung to the side of the watercraft. Their worries mirrored his own. It was near midnight, and while the air was warm, the water was icy, threatening hypothermia if they stayed in too long.
The lake wasn't huge, but it was large enough that Harry couldn't cross it on one tank, and they didn't have much left. Calculating in his head, he concluded they had an hour or two at their current pace, which limited their options. He felt his stepsister and Daphne shivering as the cold took hold of their limbs, knowing the girls wouldn't last an hour or two, further limiting their range.
Racking his brain, Harry recalled an old map that hung over the fireplace when he was a boy. It depicted the lake and surrounding mountains from his grandfather's time, with one landmark always standing out. On a nearby mountain stood an early ranger outpost, abandoned decades earlier for a modern fire watch station.
Once, as a boy, Harry took a day-long hike to find the abandoned buildings but got lost in the dense forest on the high slopes, returning only after dark. He was scolded for worrying his father, but the desire to find the outpost never left him.
The fire engulfed the western shore, and the settlements to the south were too far to reach by jet ski, and without insulated clothing, the outpost was a slim hope but the only option he saw besides staying on one of the lake's beaches and hoping the smoke or fire didn't consume them. Given the fire's spread, Harry didn't think that was an option and made his decision.
"Who's wearing shoes?" Harry asked as he accelerated the jet ski and felt the women press against him as the momentum pulled them behind the watercraft.
"I am," Daphne said at the same moment his stepsister and Tracey said, "I am."
Harry thanked his father for making him join the Muggle scouts as a boy, knowing the skills he learned during those summers would come in handy.
With water washing over their shoulders and faces, conversation wasn't easy, and the girls showed no signs of being chatty as they skimmed toward the far shore. Harry felt their growing fear as the cold took hold of their limbs. Little Fleur's teeth chattered so hard he feared one might break, and her fingers began to slip from their grip, forcing him to slow down to wrap an arm around her.
Daphne whimpered and pressed her trembling body to his other side, and Harry wrapped his other arm around one of the friends. Despite the cold water, he felt warmth spread through his chest and down as he sensed their bodies lengthening along his as he sped up again. Fleur and Daphne's legs wrapped around both his legs, joining his stepsister and Tracey.
They made a clumsy, heavy group trudging through the black waters. The fire behind cast red reflections that wavered before the jet ski, making the trees along the shoreline look like monsters from a nightmare, their limbs reaching like skeletons. The sounds of roaring flames mingled with the droning engine and splashing water, drowning out their heavy breaths.
Crossing the lake took nearly an hour. Luckily, the fire hadn't spread east, sticking to the slopes to the west, north, and south. Harry couldn't see where the fire spread from the lake, but it popped up here and there along the shoreline behind them. The wind hadn't changed, likely saving their lives, but he didn't mention it, not wanting to worry the girls further.
As the trees drew closer, and their fingers brushed mud and sand, Harry killed the engine and loosened his grip on the handles. His fingers didn't want to leave the hard rubber. His muscles had wanted to give out twenty minutes earlier, and only his will kept them in place. If it had been just him, the weight would have been easy, but with four women clinging to him, his arms and shoulders were stretched to their limits.
"We've reached the shore," Harry said between deep breaths of air. "You can let go."
They didn't want to let go, and as the cold water washed over their bodies, Harry understood why. Pushing the jet ski onto the sandy spit that extended from the shore, he threw the front line over a branch, not caring if it held or not, and the five of them emerged from the water.
"Jesus, it's freezing," Fleur chattered, her arms wrapping around her slender body as she stepped over rocks and roots.
"Careful," his stepsister said, pointing to a jagged set of roots revealed by the waves washing over them. "We can't afford anyone getting hurt."
"Good point," Daphne agreed.
They didn't hurry out of the lake, but the effort didn't help much, and the girls huddled together, watching the fire burning along the opposite shore. The night sky was black with smoke, the air thick with it, and Harry silently cursed himself for not thinking to bring a compass, though there hadn't been time.
"Need a compass?" Tracey asked. Reaching behind her, she pulled a phone from her back pocket and smiled, waving it. "Waterproof case works… No signal, but the compass should work. As long as the battery lasts."
"That works," Harry said, quietly thanking Tracey for her phone addiction.
She was the only one who managed to bring hers. Fleur cursed and was on the verge of tears when she realized her phone and her only wand that wasn't left in the cabin had fallen out during the lake crossing. The rest left theirs behind with varying degrees of separation anxiety.
The phone indeed worked, and not only the compass but her Maps app had a small area map save offline. It showed little more than the lake and surrounding hills and was devoid of location markers and names, but it had a topographic overlay, and Harry could get their bearings using the lake's shoreline.
"We need clothes," his stepsister grinned through chattering teeth, speaking softly.
She moved closer to Harry while he worked on the map and compass on the phone, and the girls fell onto a log, clinging to each other and dripping onto the ground. A noise from deeper within the tree line startled them, and Fleur let out a brief scream of fear, making them cluster even closer.
"What now?" his stepsister asked, crossing her arms over the wet shirt clinging to her chest.
In the darkness, not much could be seen, but Harry could almost feel the heat flushing her cheeks. She kept her back to the girls, her modesty safe for now, but Harry couldn't keep his eyes from glancing at the small, white shorts clinging to her hips. The wet fabric revealed darkness, and the gap between her thighs nearly diverted his thoughts, but he reined them in and refocused as the girls looked at him.
"We need to get away from the shoreline and the smoke," Harry pointed into the forest. "About fifty meters that way should be a firebreak road. If it's there, we're only a few miles from the old Fish and Game outpost. There should be a radio and blankets to dry off."
"And the fire?" Tracey asked, glancing anxiously at the lake.
"There's a chance it could jump firebreaks and streams," Harry said. "But the wind is blowing from the northeast to the southwest, and the mountains rise in that direction, so we should be safe."
"Fire moves uphill," Daphne agreed, detaching herself from her friend, turning her back to Harry, and pulling off her white tank top.
Harry's eyes widened as he saw the heavy curve of her breasts sway in the dim firelight, and then he jerked as Fleur and Tracey did the same.
"Good idea," his stepsister said, seeing the girls. "We should all dry our clothes. Harry, you too." With only a shirt and a pair of boxers, Harry didn't think it necessary, but not wanting to argue, he took them off and wrung out the water. Ignoring a snicker from behind, he quickly put them back on. It didn't make much difference, but he appreciated the lack of cold water running down his legs.
The next step was to find foot coverings for those without shoes. Harry tore his shirt into strips of cloth, which he wrapped around the girls' feet. Without bark or leather to shield them, it wasn't much protection, but they would move slowly, and he warned them all to choose their steps carefully.
"The last thing we need here is a broken ankle. We don't have a healer, and you know how badly magic works here; I don't want to try anything advanced," Harry said, relieved to see the grim seriousness on their faces as he looked around.
It was dark and cold, the smoke stinging their eyes and making it hard to breathe. Worrying about what might be burning to produce that smoke, Harry led them up from the shore, hunting and finding a small game trail to ease their path.
The girls followed, and his stepsister brought up the rear. She was the only one Harry didn't worry about. Tough as nails and confident, she had survived war and hunger. A nighttime hike through the woods was no challenge for her. But the girls…
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