Chapter 139 — The Other Bank

Cold caught the dampness beneath my clean shirt. Buckbeak stopped with his head high and his wings beginning to open, and I asked Hermione to keep him behind the trees. She took the chain from Harry, freeing him to draw his wand.

Silver moved between the branches on the opposite bank. I went down far enough to see past the nearest trunk and found myself on the ground, with Harry lying beside Sirius and one arm still across him. The torn curtain of light above them disappeared while the figures beyond it came closer.

‘Where are they?’ Harry whispered. He was searching the trees behind us while I felt for the new paper in my pouch.

Across the pool, my other self struggled to get a foot beneath him. I watched him throw the last piece, watched the lion emerge and drive the nearest Dementor away from Sirius, and knew how little longer he could keep it there. The body on the shore was shaking with the effort.

Harry turned further towards the trees and called for his dad. I pulled open the first new cover, thinking of the stones, Hermione’s howl and the twig I had broken beneath my heel. Two Patronuses had come from this bank, and we were standing exactly where the light should have begun.

‘Harry, here.’ He looked at me, though his wand still pointed towards the ground. Across the water, the first lion was already thinning.

The cold reached for the memories I had used in the ward. Luna waited in them for an honest account, rather than the impressive version I might be tempted to give her; Ron would be there when we came through the door, and Sirius still had time to hear about the home Harry wanted. I needed to keep all of that possible.

I threw the paper and called, ‘Expecto Patronum!’ Silver burst out between the trees, gathering into shoulders and a mane as the lion turned towards the pool.

It came whole. Holding it still took effort, but I was standing this time, fed and rested and treated for the wound; I knew which feeling I was reaching for. The lion roared towards the far shore, and I looked at Harry long enough to tell him.

‘It was us!’ I said. He stepped beside me, steadied his grip and raised his wand towards the water.

‘Expecto Patronum!’ A stag sprang from the tip. Harry drew a startled breath as its antlers caught the light of my lion, and the two shapes crossed the ice together, spreading silver between them.

The Dementors turned away from the bank. I kept the hope of another walk with Luna clear in my mind, along with Harry breathing beside me and making something of his own. The lion drove through the descending figures while the stag swept along the shore, clearing the space around the two boys and the man between them.

Dark robes streamed upwards. I wanted to look properly at Harry’s face, but kept my attention on the last shadows until they had left the bodies behind. My shoulder began to shake from holding my arm raised.

‘They’re going,’ Hermione said. Buckbeak’s chain moved as she brought him further beneath the branches, away from the light.

I held the lion for another breath before letting it fade. The stag lasted a moment longer, then became mist as Harry lowered his wand and caught the trunk beside him. I put my good arm against his back until he had his balance.

‘We did it,’ he said. He looked across the pool at the still bodies, his voice barely louder than the water beginning to move under the ice.

‘You made a stag.’ I nodded towards his wand, and he looked down at it with a smile and wet eyes. I did not ask him to separate how much of that belonged to his father from how much belonged to him.

Hermione whispered Snape’s name. He had appeared above the opposite bank, and I closed my hand around the empty cover before moving back with the others. One replacement was spent; the other remained in my pouch, and I wanted to keep enough strength to use it if we had to.

We were beneath the branches with Buckbeak when Snape’s red signal rose. Harry watched through a gap until we heard more voices approaching the pool, then turned away reluctantly.

‘They’ll take him now,’ he said. He kept the wand in his hand while looking towards the route back to the castle.

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‘And Snape will tell them about Peter.’ I checked my watch. ‘It’s twenty past five. We have to wait until after seven, when Sirius is alone in the tower.’

‘Then get back to the ward by quarter past.’ Hermione leaned closer to see the hands. The time between those two things looked much less generous than the wait before them.

I looked from Buckbeak to the upper windows of the castle. We did not have to reach Sirius by the landing where the guards would be standing; the hippogriff we had brought out of the pumpkins could take us to another side of the room.

‘We can fly up,’ I said. ‘See whether there’s a window or roof access, then send Sirius away with Buckbeak.’

Harry turned towards the hippogriff. Hermione followed the line of windows up to the tower, then looked back along the trees we had come through.

‘We need somewhere to keep him until then,’ she said. I agreed and led them further round the wooded edge, clear of the way the staff would use to carry the injured back.

Harry took the leading chain again while Hermione carried the coil. We stopped before every open patch to listen and watch for lights, eventually finding cover on the far side of a low bank. An old evergreen had kept the ground beneath it drier than the surrounding leaves, and a narrow gap gave us a view of the castle.

Buckbeak settled with the chain laid loose beside him and Harry holding the end. I sat against the bank, finding that several minutes could be occupied quite fully by breathing and waiting for my shoulder to settle. Hermione crouched beside me and asked about the dressing.

I eased the collar away so she could inspect its edge. ‘No fresh blood that I can see,’ she said, drawing the robe close again without touching the bandage. ‘Pomfrey still needs to look at it when we get back.’

‘I know.’ I left the collar where she had put it, which was warmer and made it harder to keep checking the wound myself.

Harry watched the castle. After a while he asked whether Sirius knew anyone had listened to Snape, and I told him I hoped the professor had explained while he was with him. Harry lowered his eyes to the chain, letting the links move slowly between his hands.

‘I wanted the stag to be my dad,’ he said. ‘Even when I started thinking it might have to be us. I kept looking.’

‘You were allowed to want it.’ Hermione sat on his other side. Harry wiped his wand on a clean corner of his robe before answering.

‘When I cast, I thought about them wanting me. Before everything happened.’ He stopped rubbing the wood and held it still. ‘I can’t remember that, really. But they must have.’

‘Yes,’ I said. There were photographs and a diary in the world because his parents had lived before the night people kept using to explain him. Harry looked at the wand for another moment, then put it away where he could reach it quickly.

Voices passed beyond the bank. Someone called a name from nearer the castle, and we stayed quiet until the answer and the footsteps had both moved away. Only then did I take the pouch onto my lap and look for a blank piece of treated paper.

‘A way to open a lock,’ I explained when Hermione looked at the brush. ‘If we get that far. I’d rather not arrive and discover I can only stare at one.’

I set the paper on the firm cover of my notebook and began the Alohomora pattern. It was a spell I had used before, though that did not tell me whether the lock we found would yield to it. My hand had steadied while we rested; I still stopped before making the last narrow join, giving my fingers time to loosen round the brush.

After checking it, I let the piece dry and wrapped it separately from the remaining Patronus. One of each was ready when I put the brush away and closed the pouch. Buckbeak watched me for a moment, then returned his attention to his feathers.

The next hour passed slowly. We changed places when somebody needed to move, keeping hold of the chain and leaving a watcher at the gap; Harry took the first turn while Hermione sat with Buckbeak, then I watched and let them rest against the bank. Nobody came close enough to see beneath the evergreen.

Cold crept steadily into my feet. I tucked them beneath my robe and thought about Luna’s hand on the walk from the Thestrals, and how I would describe what I had done after leaving the ward. I would not be able to say I had been sensible throughout, however thoroughly I rehearsed the sentence.

At a quarter to seven we began bringing Buckbeak towards a place where he could take off. The castle was full of light, with figures behind windows and doors opening somewhere beyond the bank. We stayed near the trees until two moving lights beside the path passed behind a wall.

The upper part of the Dark Tower stood clear of the adjoining roof. I could make out a small terrace and a tall window, both on the side away from the main entrance, and showed Harry where I meant to go.

‘Will he carry all three?’ Harry asked. I looked at Buckbeak’s back, then at the short climb to the tower.

‘We give him time after we get on. If he struggles, we get off, and nobody shifts about in the air.’ Hermione nodded rather too quickly, then went to make room beside the hippogriff’s flank.

I bowed and waited for Buckbeak’s answer before gathering the chain. Harry helped secure the coil close to his neck, with enough freedom for him to turn his head and no loose length near his feet. Climbing on took more care than our first flight had, and I stayed still near the base of his neck while the others joined me.

Harry helped Hermione up behind me and came last. We had very little room to move independently, which was convenient for the rule I had just given them. Buckbeak shifted his feet under the combined weight, and we let him stand until his shoulders settled.

I checked the chain as his wings spread, then encouraged him forwards. He took several running strides before the lift came, harder than I remembered and with the grass uncomfortably close beneath us. A second beat carried us clear, and Hermione’s arms tightened around my middle as the ground fell away.