The Lady in White

by Setcheti

 

 

Disclaimer: This story is a work of fanfiction, written for enjoyment only.  No money was made and no infringement intended, and the characters recognizable from Harry Potter and Buffy the Vampire Slayer are owned by others. 

 

Author’s Note:  I was inspired to write this story after seeing a series of winter-woods prints by Nene Thomas in an online gallery – hence, the Winter Court.  The story also references an AU version of the fifth HP story, meaning I just used the bits that fit my vision and arranged them to suit myself.

 

Harry Potter was walking around the lake at the far end of Hogwarts’ grounds when he saw her.

 

He hadn’t been able to sleep, and the walls of the Tower had felt like they were closing in on him, so he’d thrown on his father’s invisibility cloak and escaped into the moonlit school grounds, eventually winding up at the lake. He’d been deep in depressing thoughts as he walked; sunk so deep, in fact, that he’d stopped seeing the water or the star-studded night sky or the sparkling snow that powdered the ground.  But a flash of white movement in the nearby Forbidden Forest caught his eye …and there she was.  A woman—no, a Lady, gowned in flowing white velvet edged in black fur and white feathers, her hair pulled back from her fair face into a cascade of ebon curls.  A snowy owl flew past her to perch upon a gnarled branch, issuing a soft hoot that made her look up.

 

That was when she saw Harry – something he would only remember to be surprised about later, as he’d still been invisible at the time.  But in spite of that, her eyes met his, and she smiled.

 

It was a real smile, full of sympathy and happiness and the welcome of simple friendship, and it hit Harry in the place where the depressing thoughts were still roiling and calmed them somewhat, making some of the anger he’d been fighting to contain leach away as well.  Instinctively, he smiled back, saw that it pleased her…and then she was gone.

 

Harry thought about the Lady all the way back to his bed, and then slept a peaceful sleep without dreams of any kind.  Which meant that the next morning his head was clearer than it had been since the end of the Tri-Wizard tournament—which had been the last time he’d had an uninterrupted night’s sleep—and he was able to decide very quickly that he shouldn’t tell Ron and Hermione about what he’d seen.

 

Yes, Ron had apologized for the way he’d behaved…but in spite of how much his friend meant to him, Harry knew he couldn’t entirely trust Ron again yet.  There was something lurking just below the surface in Ron, a desperate need in him, that Harry now knew could turn his very first and best friend into a green-eyed monster in the flash of an owl’s wings.  He wasn’t soon going to be able to forget the way Ron had turned on him at the beginning of last year, or the way Ron had behaved over Viktor Krum’s attentions to Hermione.

 

Hermione, of course, would run straight to the nearest professor – if not straight to the headmaster – if Harry were to relate what he’d seen in the woods to her.  After she’d lectured him thoroughly about breaking rules, of course, and about how he needed to be more careful and why wasn’t he studying instead of wandering about.  Harry couldn’t trust her either.  She had a blind, absolute faith in the power of adults, in the final rightness of authority.  Harry had faith in that power too, of course – faith that it would always turn on him, always be used against him when he least deserved it.

 

He knew Cedric’s death hadn’t been his fault; the nightmares that replayed the incident in such graphic detail had hammered that point home until he believed it. There hadn’t been anything he could have done to stop the chain of events that had twisted through his fourth year at Hogwarts.  But yet the adults who could have stopped it, who should have seen it…they were punishing him for it, taking away one of the few precious freedoms  he’d ever been given, watching him, whispering about him.  Piled as it all was on top of yet another ‘necessary’ awful summer at home, he simply had no patience left to give anyone, no tolerance for even one more look or comment or not-so well-meaning joke.

 

He was doing his best to keep to himself, for that reason.  He didn’t really want to snap at anyone, especially not at these people who had been somewhat friends of his the year before but who now treated him like a dangerous, unstable freak.  He understood, really he did.

 

Harry just wished that someone would bother to try to understand him. 

 

 

The next time Harry saw something in the Forest, he was again walking by the lake, but this time it was late afternoon and he was fully visible; the chilly water, he’d found, soothed the achy scarring left by the Blood Quill he was being forced to use to write his lines in detention.  Inside Hogwarts he’d been keeping the scar hidden under a makeshift bandage that he’d attached with a sticking charm and transfigured to match his skin’s color and texture – and wouldn’t Flitwick have been proud of the way he’d mastered that variation of the Chameleon Charm, and all on his own, too.  Harry would have liked to have shown it to him, would in fact liked to have done without the bother of the bandage at all because it made the scars itch, but he had a feeling that the whole thing was a test and that letting anyone find out what was going on would possibly make the entire situation much, much worse.

 

And if Harry had learned anything at all over the past four years, it had been to trust his instincts.

 

He was just wrapping the bandage back on when a flash of color and movement against the dark trunks of the Forest made him look up.  There was a Lady there, but not the same one.  This one wore a black gown embroidered at its edges with a narrow frost of silver, and her raven-black hair was pulled up and back in a simple, elegant knot that reminded him of Hermione’s hair at the Yule Ball – except Hermione had not had a long lock hanging down beside her face that was silvery-white.  A raven was perched on the Lady’s shoulder, the bird’s glossy ebon feathers blending into her hair. 

 

The Lady turned her head and looked at him, and she smiled in a knowing way.  She held up her right hand, in a pantomime of sorts rather than greeting, and nodded approval.  Harry held his damaged hand to his chest and nodded back his thanks with wide eyes, at which point the Lady continued on her way and disappeared among the trees.

 

Harry walked back around the lake to a rock he liked to sit on, finished reapplying his concealing bandage, and then just looked out across the water and wondered and thought.  He felt better than he had in weeks; this Dark Lady’s silent gesture of approval had warmed the coldness inside of him that having no one to share his situation with had caused.  However it was that this Lady in the woods had known, she thought he was doing the right thing – and something told him that if she hadn’t, she’d have communicated that to him.  He sat there a little while longer, and then set off back to the stony bulk of Hogwarts with a lighter step than he’d come out with.  He wasn’t alone any more.  He could do this.

 

 

Two weeks later, all hell broke loose.  Professor McGonagall had gone into the detention room to speak with Professor Umbridge and had spotted the Blood Quill.  Harry had had the misfortune to appear for his scheduled detention just then, and the whole mess had ended up in Dumbledore’s office with McGonagall practically spitting in anger, Umbridge smiling her slightly evil placid smile, and Harry just sitting there patiently and trying not to roll his eyes when he was asked – quite loudly – the expected inane questions.  Yes, he’d known Blood Quills were illegal.  No, he hadn’t told anyone what was going on – and no, he hadn’t been planning on telling anyone, either.  Yes, he had used a charm to conceal the scarring so no one would see it.  No, not because he was ashamed (that one was from Umbridge), but because he’d known it was a test.

 

His last answer had reduced the room to dead silence.  Dumbledore cocked a concerned bushy eyebrow at him.  “A test, Mr. Potter?  Please explain that statement.”

 

Harry shrugged and looked the old wizard straight in the eye.  “I knew it was expected that I would complain to someone, most likely yourself, Headmaster, or that I would tell Ron or Hermione and one of them would kick up a fuss.  And I didn’t see the need to go along with those expectations when the only possible result could be to cause more trouble for the school and to further brand me as an unstable psychopath.”

 

McGonagall gasped, but Dumbledore nodded.  “I’m afraid I have to concur with your assessment of the situation, yes,” the old wizard said.  “I knew some plan was being set in motion, but I had no idea those involved would go to such deplorable, unethical, and even illegal lengths to take control of Hogwarts.”  Out of the corner of his eye, Harry saw Umbridge turn absolutely gray.  Dumbledore didn’t even look at her.  “Please remove the charm you are using, if you would.”

 

Harry at once unwound the bandage, and handed it to his Head of House when she reached for it.  McGonagall examined it, used her wand to cast a Reveal spell over it and then essayed a small, pained smile at him.  “Nice use of the Chameleon Charm, Mr. Potter; Professor Flitwick would be pleased that you absorbed his lessons so well.”

 

Umbridge found her voice.  “An illicit use!  Students are not supposed to use concealment charms…”

 

“Oh please, Professor,” Dumbledore interrupted her, rolling his eyes.  “If we went around punishing everyone in Hogwarts who’s ever used that spell to cover up an outbreak of spots, three-quarters of the students and fully half of the staff would be doing detentions with Mr. Filch each day.”  He held out his hand to McGonagall, and she dutifully handed over Harry’s charmed bandage to him.  Dumbledore nodded over it, then handed it back.  “Yes, well done on the spell, Mr. Potter,” he approved.  “Although you might consider using a waterproof sticking charm on it, to keep it from being inadvertently washed off.  Now please hold out your hand.”

 

Harry did, if a little reluctantly – no one at Hogwarts besides himself and Umbridge had ever seen the scars.  Dumbledore looked, frowned, then picked up his wand and sent a spell into the scar that didn’t quite make Harry yelp.  The words he’d been using the Blood Quill to write rose out of the scar and into the air, hovering for a moment before dissipating like smoke, and the old wizard nodded.  “I see.  Professor Umbridge, that is inappropriate.  You will change the lines to reflect the transgression, which I believe was being disruptive during class – and they will be written with a normal quill and ink, on regular parchment.  I will be confiscating any and all Blood Quills in your possession this same hour and they will be destroyed.  I will also be notifying the Ministry that they were found in your possession and that you have been reprimanded for bringing implements of an illegal nature into Hogwarts.”  He returned his attention to Harry.  “You may replace the bandage, Mr. Potter.  Your detention for today is cancelled, please return to your tower.  You will continue to serve the rest of your detention as ordered for its duration – and you will endeavor to contain your outbursts in class, disrespect for a teacher is never acceptable.  Is that understood?”

 

“Yes sir.  Thank you, sir.”  Harry quickly reapplied his bandage and then left the room and headed back to Gryffindor Tower.  He could tell by the expression on McGonagall’s face that she’d been shocked the detention had been left to stand, but he himself hadn’t been surprised at all; if Dumbledore had cancelled it, he’d have been playing right into Umbridge’s – and therefore the Minstry’s - hands.

 

It only briefly occurred to Harry that night, as he worked over the charms on his bandage behind the curtains of his bed, that Dumbledore had probably known about the Blood Quills all along.  He didn’t resent it much, though.  Harry had suspected from the beginning that Dumbledore had been testing him as well…and had most likely expected, perhaps even wanted, him to fail.

 

He thanked the Dark Lady in the Forest for the fact that he hadn’t.  He didn’t know who or what she was – and he didn’t dare try to research it for fear that someone would find out – but that one tiny little gesture of support had helped him immeasurably.

 

 

Of course, Professor Umbridge had it in for Harry even more than before after the loss of her Blood Quills.  Defense class quickly became worse than Potions ever had been, and Harry lost points for Gryffindor almost daily no matter what he did or didn’t do.  This, of course, didn’t serve to further endear him to his fellow Gryffindors, and the gap between he and his housemates grew wider and wider.  Ron and Hermione had tried to discuss the situation with him, but when Harry wouldn’t talk to them about it they got angry and started keeping their distance as well.  Harry was bitterly disappointed in the both of them for not figuring out that if he could have talked it over with them he most certainly would have – he was well aware that he was still being tested, still being watched.  But at the same time, he was somewhat relieved that his friends had pulled back, knowing that the unpleasant distance between them meant they were less likely to be caught up in the game that was being played.

 

Weeks went by, and Christmas began to loom on the horizon.  Harry became depressingly aware that he was the only Gryffindor who would be remaining at the school over the holidays, and his  state of mind was not improved in the least when he found out that Umbridge would also be staying at Hogwarts.  He resolved that he would spend as much time out of the castle as the weather would possibly allow, and as little time in the corridors or the Great Hall as he could possibly manage.  He didn’t know if professors were allowed to take points during the holidays, but he had a feeling Umbridge might do it anyway – and he knew that as long as she was only doing it to him, no one would interfere.

 

By the time the thestral-drawn coaches left for Hogsmeade and the Hogwarts Express, Harry honestly didn’t know how much more he could take.  No one had said goodbye to him.  No one had wished him a Merry Christmas.  He’d seen Umbridge watching him with that skin-crawling smile on her face when he’d gone down to the Great Hall for breakfast, meaning he hadn’t been able to eat very much, and then she’d caught him outside of Gryffindor Tower afterwards and informed him that he would be serving detention through the holiday due to his ‘complete lack of respect and responsibility regarding his duties both as a student and as a citizen of Wizarding Britain.’  Harry had spotted McGonagall out of the corner of his eye and knew she’d heard that last declaration, but it had still been all he could do not to groan when he’d politely asked Professor Umbridge when she would like for him to attend his detentions and been informed that he would be having them for the four hours between breakfast and lunch for each day until school resumed, and that he’d best not be late.

 

Four hours, each and every day, for the entire holiday.  Harry didn’t sleep well that night.  He did manage to arrive early for breakfast, however, and to be several minutes early for his detention as well.  He wrote his assigned lines – all about being responsible – in silence, thinking that if she’d had a sense of humor she’d have seen the irony in that, since he’d been given the responsibility for keeping the Ministry from taking over Hogwarts more than a month ago and so far had done a bang-up job of it.  The only student at school that anything had changed for was him, and that was the whole point, wasn’t it?  Surely the well-being of every other student in the school was worth a little discomfort on his part.

 

Of course, when Filch had come up behind him while he was still trying to choke down some lunch and loudly insisted that he stop eating and ‘come get on’ with the work that needed to be done, Harry hadn’t been so sure about that anymore.  And when he’d been informed that he’d be working every day after his detention was served until dinnertime, he’d almost cried.

 

He hadn’t, though; Harry had learned at a very young age that tears only brought more punishment.  So he’d dutifully followed Filch to his first task, and had been relieved when it turned out to be the sort of thing he’d often done for his aunt and uncle at home.  Filch’s insistence that he do the job without magic had been met with a carefully hidden smile; Harry had never done cleaning-type chores with magic, so this was not going to be the punishment the man thought it would be.  He inquired about the location of more supplies if he ran out, and then got right to work.  By dinnertime the job was done, and Filch had no complaints – he had no compliments either, but Harry hadn’t expected any from him and so wasn’t disappointed by the lack. He already knew he’d done a good job, and the satisfaction in that saw him through supper and a few hours of holiday homework before he fell into bed and slipped almost immediately into an exhausted sleep.

 

His days fell into a pattern, one that was long familiar to him from his life with the Dursleys, and if the next three weeks didn’t fly by, at least they didn’t drag.  Christmas Day had passed mostly unremarked, as had Boxing Day, but that too was familiar and Harry didn’t let it bother him overmuch – if he’d felt a momentary pang on those two nights, remembering other, happier holidays spent in Gryffindor Tower, it was only momentary and he didn’t dwell on it.  New Year’s was over and done with before Harry knew it, and all too soon the holidays were over and Umbridge was telling him that his regular evening detentions would resume the next day.

 

Harry lay on his bed late that night after finishing up his homework and doing some magical repairs and resizing on his uniform, wondering if there was something wrong with him because he was actually dreading the return of all the other students.  The constant round of punishment and hard work was familiar and comfortingly numbing, but the constant battle to avoid showing how much it hurt to be disliked by his friends and all but hated by the House he loved had been starting to wear on him even before the holidays had begun.  And he knew that listening to his dorm-mates talk about how much fun they’d had over the holidays was going to be torture – Ron especially, he knew, would rub it in.  And yet Harry also knew that he couldn’t let himself react, not even the least little bit.  Not only because it would give Ron too much satisfaction…but because he was still being tested, and if he failed then everyone else would suffer for it.

 

He finally fell asleep long after the moon had set, and dreamed of the Lady in White and the Dark Lady standing side by side, smiling at him from the shadows of the Forest.

 

After school resumed, Harry did his best – truly he did.  He didn’t speak to anyone unless he had to – not that most people spoke to him anyway.  He studied hard each night, avoiding the noise and distraction of the Gryffindor common room by working in his dorm, so that if he were asked any questions in class the following day he would have a better chance of answering them correctly and thereby avoiding lost points.  He was scrupulously punctual, unfailingly polite, and never spoke in class unless a professor asked him a question.  He still lost some points in Umbridge’s class every week in spite of all of that, but he wasn’t losing them on a daily basis any more so he supposed that had to count for something.  His marks were good, better than ever, in fact, and the endless hours of line-writing had dramatically improved his handwriting to the point that even Snape didn’t complain about it anymore.  And if he never appeared in the common room or the Great Hall on weekends, he always had his homework done on Monday so nobody seemed to notice or care.

 

Harry, though, felt like he was going insane.  It was as though life had become a giant whirlpool that was inexorably sucking him down, drowning him, and no matter how hard he fought there wasn’t a thing he could do about it.  The people who should have helped him wouldn’t, and the people who might once have wanted to simply didn’t care enough to notice that he needed them.  He spent whatever spare moments he could contrive to slip away sitting on his rock by the lake, looking out over the water to the Forest.  Not hoping, because hope was something he’d never cultivated, but wondering.  Who they were, where they were now, whether or not they would come back, and if he would see them again if they did.  The memory of their smiles seemed to be one of the only sparks of warmth he had in a world that had turned hostile and cold all around him.

 

The other warm spark was Hagrid, who occasionally turned up at the lake while Harry was there, ostensibly to check on the giant squid.  Harry had to be careful in his conversations with the half-giant so as not to say anything that could cause problems if Hagrid repeated it somewhere, but usually just asking his friend about his menagerie of animals was enough to keep the conversation in a relaxingly one-sided state anyway.  And it was finally Hagrid who solved the mystery of the Ladies in the Forest for him, once again by repeating something he wasn’t supposed to be telling anyone.  “The Fair Folk’s been about, you know,” he’d confided in his booming whisper.  “I’d seen a few in the Forest right around the time school was startin’, tol’ the Headmaster about it too.  They don’ normally show themselves ‘round these parts, it’s some unusual.”

 

Harry had immediately asked, “Why is it unusual?”

 

Hagrid had shrugged his massive shoulders.  “No tellin’ – maybe they jus’ don’ like it here, so close to Hogwarts an’ all.  Wizards an’ the Fae, they never have got along too well.  Think there may have been a war or somethin’.”  His dark eyes had narrowed a bit.  “You ain’t seen ‘em, have you?”

 

“I wouldn’t know if I had,” Harry had answered honestly.  “I don’t know what a Fae looks like.  Are they like the Goblins, or the House Elves?  Are they dangerous?”

 

 “They can be some dangerous, or so I’m told,” the half-giant had snorted, suspicion falsely laid to rest.  “I s’pose it depends on who you are; I ain’t never had no problems with ‘em m’self.  They’re powerful pretty folk to look at, if you chance to see one.  Not that you should go seekin’ ‘em out to see one,” he hurriedly added.  “Don’t go doin’ that, Headmaster would have my hide, he would.  He weren’t none too pleased to hear they were in the Forest, but there’s not much he can do about it.  They’re friendly with the centaurs, so they’re more welcome there than we are.”  He sighed heavily.  “Probl’y best to jus’ forget I said anything, alright, Harry?  I jus’ got out o’ trouble, don’t need to be gettin’ back in.”

 

“I know what you mean.  I won’t say anything to anyone,” Harry had assured him, and was rewarded with a one-armed yet still nearly crushing hug before Hagrid trundled back to his hut.  But Harry had stayed on his rock looking out into the Forest until it was nearly dark.  Wondering.  And he’d been wondering ever since.

 

Unfortunately, wonder and a few warm sparks weren’t going to be enough to hold him together for too much longer, and he knew it.

 

 

The day too much longer became simply too much, it was snowing – not a pelting, icy storm, but a constant feathery fall from a soft, solid ceiling of low-hanging clouds.  Harry sank down on the ground on one side of his rock, hurting inside and out.  He wasn’t wearing his winter robes, having left the school’s warmth in something of a hurry, but in spite of his shivering he didn’t really notice the cold.

 

It had all started when Cho Chang had approached him as he made his way across the common room from the boys’ lav.  He made to go around her; she moved with him, blocking his way.  He looked a question at her and she hesitated, then whispered, “I want to…I want to know what happened the night Cedric died.”

 

Harry actually felt himself turn pale.  “I…I can’t.”

 

Tears started in her eyes.  “You won’t?”

 

“I can’t!” 

 

It came out in a fierce whisper, but it still stopped conversations around them and drew Seamus Finnegan to Cho’s side.  “What’s going on?” he wanted to know.

 

Cho sniffed.  “I asked him to tell me what…what happened the night Cedric died.  And he won’t!”

 

“I said I can’t!” Harry insisted one more time, seeing anger cross not only Seamus’ face but several others nearby.  “I’m not…I just can’t say anything, all right?  I can’t talk about any of it.  Now please just let me…”

 

“Not so fast.”  A strong hand caught his arm in a painful grip, keeping him from going anywhere.  Dean Oliver, his former Quiddich captain.  “I think you’ve slunk around the Tower avoiding everyone long enough, Potter; it’s time to spill your guts.  We Gryffindors don’t harbor cowards in our midst…or murderers, either.”

 

Harry turned to him with wide, shocked eyes.  “I didn’t kill Cedric!”

 

“Then who did?”  Seamus demanded.  “Quit saying you can’t, you worthless sack of shit, and just tell us who did it!”

 

Harry opened his mouth…and then closed it again, shaking his head.  Cho wailed, Seamus cursed…and Dean’s grip on Harry’s arm turned bruising just before it threw him rather violently to the floor.  One kick connected, he rolled away from another, and managed to scramble out of the confused, yelling melee the Common Room had suddenly become without getting hit more than two or three times along the way.  He plunged through the portrait hole, nearly collided with his Head of House, then darted past her heading for the closest exit without acknowledging her call to stop.  And once he’d ended up at the lake, there in the snow and the falling darkness…Harry Potter had wrapped his arms around his knees and started to cry.

 

It took the music several long moments to pierce his mental turmoil.  High and clear like a silver flute, each note seeming to hover just on the edge of being a voice singing of snow and moonlight, the sound of it lifted his head off his knees and he saw the blurred shape of a Lady in white moving through the Forest.  Harry staggered to his feet, blinking, squinting; his glasses had been lost during the scuffle at the Tower…but he could see her, and he stumbled past the rocks and through the snow toward her as though his life depended on it.

 

At the edge of the Forest, he stopped.  He could see her quite clearly now, even without his glasses.  This Lady looked younger than the other two had been and was gowned in purest white, her long raven tresses curling and tumbling in loose abandon over her shoulders and scattered with snowy flowers.  In one slender hand she held a bridle made of sapphires and silver by which she led a proudly-stepping unicorn through the trees, and a fluff-feathered white owl was perched upon the unicorn’s back.  The Lady saw Harry, smiled at him, and then changed her course to approach the spot where he was standing; she stopped just on the other side of the invisible barrier that marked the end of Hogwarts’ grounds and the beginning of the Forbidden Forest.  Now that she was so close, he could see the sadness in her smile, and the glimmer of a tear on her cheek as she looked at him.  “I would say well met,” she said in a voice very like the music he’d heard only moments ago, “but it is all too clear to my eyes that you are not at all well, though I am doubly glad to have met you this night for that reason if no other.  Tell me who has hurt you, child.”

 

Harry’s breath was still hiccupping in his chest.  “M-my f-friends.”  He felt the tears start again, even though he tried to hold them back.  “I…I c-couldn’t t-tell them.”

 

She nodded in understanding.  “Tell me, then.  Who was it that killed she who marked you with her love?”

 

He sniffed.  “V-voldemort.”

 

She nodded again.  “And the one who killed the unicorns in this forest?”

 

 “Vol-voldemort.”

 

The Lady nodded once more.  “And the one who killed he who honorably shared the victory you both strove for?”

 

 “Voldemort.”  It was like a weight fell off as the word left his mouth.  Harry’s spine straightened, and he repeated in a clearer, stronger voice, “Voldemort killed Cedric.”

 

Her smile came back, and she held out her free hand to him.  “There is a place of honor for you with us, Harold James Potter, and we will deal with the murderer Voldemort together when it is time.  Will you come with me?  Will you join the Winter Court?”

 

Harry didn’t know what the Winter Court was, but he didn’t care.  He felt the magical barrier tingle across the scarred skin on the back of his hand as he reached through it, and then the Lady’s hand met his and he stepped into the Forest without looking back.

 

 

Walkers didn’t usually go into the woods that bordered the park.  Runners sometimes did, in pairs or threes or a safe scatter that was deemed sufficient to keep off muggers or rapists or whatever other unsavory life forms the trees might be hiding, but walkers normally avoided the shadows under the thick, leafy boughs. Normal, however, was not how most casual observers would have described the man walking along the edge of the wood as though deciding upon the best place to enter it.  A casual observer at a distance might have mistaken him for someone costumed as an adventurer and possibly dismissed the rakish eyepatch as accessory overkill; drawing closer, however, the well-worn boots and the clothing that was so obviously meant to be worn – and looked like it had been – in some place much more adventurous than calm and comfortable England would have put paid to the idea that he was wearing anything but his own everyday clothes.  And someone drawing closer still, perhaps close enough to ask him the time if they dared, would have seen the scars that poked spiderish white lines out from under the plain black patch and realized with a shudder that they were quite possibly in the presence of the sort of man an adventurer’s costume was meant to imitate, the sort of man who made things happen just by his very presence alone.

 

A casual observer, though, or even one emboldened by curiosity, would not have known that the man was waiting for something to happen rather than waiting to make something happen.  He was waiting patiently, each and every day he was in London, and hoping in private that his wait would be up before he did some sort of damage to one of the well-meaning but clueless ‘friends’ who had insisted he come back from Africa and stay with them in London and who still persisted in treating him like he was weak and worthless in spite of all the evidence that he couldn’t possibly be either.  A casual observer would have laughed at the idea, and that without ever having spoken to him; his friends were blind and deaf to it, and he’d finally given up on hoping they would miraculously start to see him as he was.  Hence the waiting, and his daily walk.

 

Xander Harris would have been the first to admit that, when he’d initially been sent to Africa, it had been solely as a message-delivery boy and those who had sent him had expected him to come right back to London when his errand was complete.  But the man he’d been sent to deliver the message to, an old-family Watcher named Sam Worthington, had invited him to come along on the newly-urgent search for awakened Slayers, and after some arguing – mostly with himself – Xander had agreed and happily if a bit nervously plunged into the jungle at Sam’s side.

 

He hadn’t emerged again for well over a year, almost two, and then only because a village sorcerer who he and Sam both trusted had told him that if his friends ordered him home a third time, it meant he had a destiny to fulfill elsewhere and he should leave Africa in order to meet it.  The destiny, however, did not have anything to do with Watchers or Slayers or vampires (oh my!), and all Xander had to do was wait wherever he ended up until someone he would know he could trust completely came to find him.

 

Xander hadn’t needed to be told that he shouldn’t share any of this with his friends in London, or with anyone else belonging to the Council.  He trusted all of them up to a point, because they were his friends and they’d all been through a lot together, but there wasn’t a single one of them he trusted completely.  So although he put up a certain expected amount of fuss when they treated him as though he were stupid, crippled and helpless, he didn’t let it make him angry, didn’t try to prove to them that they were wrong in any way other than just going about his daily business.  So they didn’t really see him, the friends who should have known him better than anyone else, and they didn’t realize that he was just playing along while he waited for it to be time to leave them behind and get on with his life.

 

Hence his daily walks in and around the woods.  His excuse to his friends had been that being in the woods reminded him of Africa and he was homesick, which was partly true.  But he’d also thought that the park, particularly the woods, would be an ideal place for the person who was looking for him to find him.  Because no one followed him to the park, it was one of the few places where he could actually go off unchaperoned and not have people hunting him down if he didn’t come right back; the tracking spell Willow had put on him – or thought she had, anyway – recognized the park as a ‘safe place’ and didn’t set up an alarm when he was there.

 

Today hadn’t felt any different than any other day…until Xander had gotten to the park, and then he’d felt it.  But he’d been careful, still, to follow his normal routine just in case someone was watching him.  There were old people who frequented the park, ‘pensioners’ they called them in England, retired people with very little money who really didn’t have anything better to do with their days.  Xander had gotten to know quite a few of them, and so he made the rounds and said his hellos and patiently listened to the day’s secondhand news and third- or fourth-hand gossip as though he had nothing whatsoever more interesting to do with his time.  Then and only then did he let his feet carry him toward the promise of the woods, meandering along their edge as he usually did before picking a path, seemingly at random, and wandering his way down it in no particular hurry.

 

He’d only gone five steps when he saw the horse, which was unexpected enough to be what he’d been waiting for since it wasn’t the sort of park that people brought horses to.  Xander stayed on the path until he was as close to the horse as the path was going to take him, and then he stepped off and moved purposefully toward the spot where he’d seen chestnut flanks gleaming in a patch of the winter sunlight that filtered through the dark canopy overhead.  He spotted parts of the horse a few more times, and once he thought part of the owner…and then he rounded a particularly dense clump of bushes and realized he’d been wrong on both counts.  But he also knew, without a doubt, that this was the person he’d been waiting for.  He stopped a few feet away and made a respectful bow, grinning from ear to ear.  “I hope you haven’t been waiting long.”

 

“No.  It is pleasant in the woods today, and not muddy at all.”  The centaur looked him up and down, not seeming to have any opinion about what it saw.  It – or rather, he – was easily seven feet tall and powerfully built, with dark reddish-brown hair and a short curling beard that matched his glossy chestnut coat.  “Will you come with me?”

 

“Of course.”  The centaur looked a question at him, and Xander’s grin became a knowing smirk.  “Centaurs are honorable, and they don’t normally bother with humans.  You wouldn’t lower yourself to lie to me, or inconvenience yourself to play games with me.  Since you’re here, and you’re speaking to me, I know I can trust you.”

 

The centaur snorted a laugh.  “Well said, and correct.  Humans play games enough with each other; my people have no desire to waste their time on such things.”  He inclined his head.  “I would see the badge of honor you conceal from others of your kind, Human, that I might be as certain as you are that I have found the one I seek.”

 

Xander was surprised, but he knew almost immediately what the centaur wanted; he’d been the recipient of similar ‘requests’ in Africa on a regular basis, and for much the same sort of reason.  He pulled off his eyepatch and waited.  The centaur looked, taking in the scars and the polished stone, and then nodded acceptance of what he had seen.  “Very well. We should go.”

 

“I need to take care of one thing first,” Xander told him, slipping the patch back into place.  He unfastened his wristwatch, looked around, then shrugged and threw the watch back in the general direction of the path as hard as he could.  “Okay, now we can go.”  He smiled at the questioning look.  “A…friend of mine, she gets carried away with the magic, and with the idea that she needs to protect me from everything.  I had things fixed so she couldn’t cast spells on me anymore, but if her spells had bounced off she would have gotten mad.”

 

“So you allowed the magic to attach to the object you wore, and therefore could discard it when the time came to do so.”  The centaur nodded.  “A wise plan.”

 

Xander shrugged.  “Since it worked, sure.  By the way,” he held out his hand, “I’m Xander.”

 

The centaur nodded again and extended his own hand down to meet Xander’s.  “I am Oren.  We should be going.”

 

“Yes, we should,” Xander agreed, and fell into step beside him as Oren turned and made his way through the trees, heading away from the path and the park.  They walked in silence for several hours, the woods becoming thicker and darker and older as they went, and finally becoming an ancient snow-shrouded forest that Xander knew wasn’t anywhere near London although he hadn’t been able to pinpoint exactly where they’d gone from one location to another.  One final hour of walking brought them to the base of a rocky cliff wall where a ragged, narrow cave mouth gaped between black-boled trees.  Xander squinted, seeing the silvery magickal tracery of runes that surrounded the opening and wove around the trees, and he nodded to himself.  Fae magick, then; he’d sort of expected that, given the presence of the centaur.  Not too many beings could get a centaur to do them a favor, especially not a favor that involved interacting with humans, but certain members of the fae were in the favored group.

 

The centaur had stopped walking, obviously not intending to go any further, and Xander smiled up at him.  “Thanks for guiding me here, Oren.”

 

The centaur pawed one polished hoof against the ground, snow scraping back to reveal bare rock.  “You kept pace and did not fill my ears with pointless noise; therefore, you are welcome.”

 

“And welcome to the halls of the Winter Court,” a sweetly serious voice said from the cave mouth.  A woman was standing there, wearing a white velvet dress trimmed with feathers and black fur that would have had Buffy and Willow shrieking in girly delight, several long white feathers making a striking contrast against her black hair.  She smiled at Xander and then bowed slightly to the centaur.  “Friend Oren, our thanks.  Our Queen shall be free to speak with you at the quarter waxing moon, should you desire it.”

 

Oren bowed back.  “Firenz, perhaps, shall come.  It was he who saw the boy’s future written in stars, and he who has met and spoken with him.”

 

“I shall tell her,” the woman replied, and then the centaur turned and trotted away without another word to either of them.  The woman returned her attention to Xander.  “What do you see?”

 

 “Runes, around your door, and on the trees.  They would keep most people from even seeing the entrance, much less trying to use it.”  He smiled sadly, gesturing toward the feathers that adorned her hair.  “And those feathers were given to you in trust for someone else, by a bird that no longer lives.”

 

She nodded.  “You see truly.  Follow me.”

 

Xander did as she asked, stamping his boots to knock off the snow and mud and then ducking a little so that the rough lip of the rocky entrance wouldn’t catch his hair.  Once inside he followed the woman a short distance up a dark and narrow but well-polished stone passage, which opened into a wider alcove in which another woman stood waiting.  This woman also had black hair, but with a wide silvery white streak in it that hung smoothly beside her face, and her black velvet dress was embroidered with silver instead of being trimmed with fur.  “Welcome to the halls of the Winter Court,” the new woman told him.  “You have seen, now I would see you.”

 

Xander knew that had been coming, and although he felt a little more self-conscious about it in front of a beautiful woman than he had in front of the centaur, he pulled off his eyepatch without hesitation and stood still when she glided very close to him and looked first at his good eye, and then at the polished stone orb that filled the empty socket on the other side.  He managed not to flinch away when she lifted long white fingers toward the scarred area, and was rewarded with a smile as she stepped back out of his personal space without touching him.  “You may cover it again,” she said, indicating that he could put the patch back on.  “You are the one.  And the boy might be more disturbed by your stone eye than by an eye that is hidden from view.”

 

Xander put the patch back in place, making sure it was secure.  “All I was told was that if I was ordered home three times then I should leave Africa because my destiny was waiting for me elsewhere, and that someone who I would know I could trust completely would come to find me,” he told her.  “I went from Africa to London, and waited there until Oren came today.  So my destiny must be waiting for me here, and now I’m here to meet it.  What do you need from me?”

 

“Follow, and I will show you.”  The woman in black swept off down a corridor to the right, and Xander quickly followed.  After a few twists and turns, the woman stopped before an arched wooden door and stepped to one side.  “You may go in.  The boy is sleeping deeply, you need have no fear of waking him.”

 

Xander grasped the ornate handle and pushed the door open – slowly and carefully, in spite of what the woman had said.  On the other side of the door was a small stone room, comfortably furnished, and on a small bed with its curtains pulled back a black-haired boy lay on his side, sleeping.  Xander came the rest of the way in, and stood looking at the boy for a moment before sitting down on the side of the bed.  The boy was pale and thin, too thin in fact, and there was a fading bruise on his cheek.  He was small for his age, which was probably around fourteen or fifteen.  Reaching out a callused hand, Xander s brushed a lock of hair off the boy’s forehead to reveal a lightning-bolt shaped scar.  The shape was familiar, and he smiled wryly to himself; his false eye was made from a composite stone, having an inclusion of raw emerald in the center of it which showed through on the polished surface in a shape very close to that of the boy’s scar.  The boy’s eyes were probably emerald-green as well, because that was the way signs like that usually worked.

 

He was here to look after this boy, then.  Xander ran comforting fingers through the boy’s unruly hair and patted a thin cheek, rewarded by the flicker of a smile on the sleeping face.  “What can you tell me?” he asked the woman who had come into the room behind him.

 

She moved to stand beside the bed.  “His name is Harold James Potter, and he is the last of his line.  He is a wizard, and has the potential to do great things…but he is also the subject of a prophecy which has been used to control and twist his life’s path since his infancy.” 

 

Xander raised an eyebrow.  “A pawn?”

 

“A sacrificial pawn,” she corrected, and seemed pleased when his brown eye darkened as he frowned.  “They cared nothing for his well-being, only for the part he could play in their many intrigues.  He came to our notice when the one he is prophesied to kill, and who also murdered his parents, entered the Forest and slaughtered several of our unicorns.  The boy has faced the wizards’ evil half-dead abomination many times since, and on the last occasion the so-called Dark Lord murdered a fellow champion who stood by his side.”  She reached down, touched the unruly dark hair with a gentle hand.  “He has been through much, and much of it cruelly unnecessary; those who controlled him cared only for his continued existence, and were indifferent to his well-being or his happiness.  Hence our interference.  We will care for him now.”

 

The eyebrow stayed up.  “And what would you like me to do for him?”

 

She smiled.  “Guide.  Teach.  Be his friend, and his brother, and the one who will understand him, one mortal to another, as we cannot.  Be his man-at-arms, his guardian, the one who stands at his side when none other may do so.”  She inclined her head in a gesture of respect that surprised him.  “Be what you are:  Knight, Hero, Seer.  And give to him of the loyal gifts that others have rejected.  He will know their value and give you his trust in return.”

 

“Oh, that’s all,” Xander quipped, but gently, and the woman kept smiling her gentle smile.  “I’m not going anyplace.  I came here to find my destiny, and this boy is it.”  One last pat, and he withdrew his hand.  “He needs me.  And maybe I needed him, too.”

 

 

High in Gryffindor Tower, near a window that overlooked Hogwarts’ grounds and, beyond them, the dark edge of the Forbidden Forest, Professor Minerva McGonagall sat in a comfortable chair in her favorite set of warm lounging robes and thought.  The day outside the window was pretty in a cold winter way, the air clear beneath the ceiling of clouds which filtered the invisible sun’s light into a pale, ethereal glow which caused the thick covering of snow that blanketed everything in sight  to glimmer like crushed crystal.  It was the sort of day, the sort of view, that Minerva usually enjoyed.

 

Today, though, she had eyes only for the invisible path through the snow that led to the Forest.

 

Three days before, she had responded to some sort of violent ruckus that had broken out in the Gryffindor common room, and had almost been bowled over when she reached it by a fleeing boy who had not stopped when she’d called out to him.  She had, however, stopped several people from pursuing him, only finally allowing Ron Weasley to go after his frantic explanation of what he’d seen happen.  And after the accusation in his eyes – which he hadn’t voiced and hadn’t needed to – had stung the place in her conscience which knew she should have followed her own instincts and told the headmaster where to stuff his brilliant plan before the winter holidays.

 

Damn Albus Dumbledore, anyway.  Her mouth twisted in a snarl.  Always playing games, wheels within wheels, that was the way Albus did things.  And Minerva had gone along with it, against her better judgment on multiple occasions, because the man always seemed to know exactly what was going on and have another plan in place to make sure things came out the way they were supposed to.

 

She’d thought Albus had made such a web of plans in the case of Harry Potter, the orphaned son of Lily and James.  And he had, of course…it was just that all of those plans had been about making use of Harry, and making sure Harry survived to be used.  Minerva was sickened that she’d stood back and allowed it all to go on as long as it had, that she’d bowed to Albus’ wishes over and over again when she’d known that she shouldn’t have.

 

And now, it was too late.  Harry Potter was gone, forever beyond their reach, and the grand and noble plans that now lay in ruins looked like nothing so much as a short-sighted old spider’s web of callous intrigues and political machinations, at the center of which had been ensnared an innocent orphaned child forced into a life of misery and darkness simply because he’d lived when others had died.  Minerva snorted softly to herself.  The Boy Who Lived indeed—the Boy Who Vanished, now.

 

They knew the Fey had taken him, of course – or at least, a select few of them knew.  Ron Weasley had come running back to her in a snow-covered panic, but luckily with enough presence of mind about him to not have told anyone else what he’d seen.  He had followed the blind, stumbling trail his friend had left in the snow, followed it all the way to the lake where Harry was wont to go and sit by himself so often of late; but before Ron had gotten close he’d seen a glimmer of sparkling white standing with what looked like a white horse near the Forest’s edge, and a small dark figure standing before it that had straightened suddenly before stepping across the boundary and vanishing.  Ron had run in that direction anyway, had paused at the rock where he could see Harry had stopped…and then, before he could go on, the trail in the snow had disappeared as though it had never been made.

 

Minerva privately thought that was no bad thing; had the trail not disappeared, Ron would doubtless have charged straight across the boundary and into the Forest to find Harry, which would have proven disastrous and possibly could have started – or rather, re-started – a war with the Fey.  Instead, though, having no path to follow and realizing he would need help, Ron had run straight back to his Head of House and told his story to her.  She’d known what had happened immediately, and severed her second strand of Albus’ web by telling the boy exactly what she thought had happened and why she believed it had.

 

The first strand had been severed in the Gryffindor common room before Ron’s return, when she’d thunderously called her House to order and told them all exactly who had killed Cedric Diggory and why Harry hadn’t been able to talk to anyone about it.  She’d berated them all soundly and impartially, and then removed all of their remaining House points and informed the shocked students that they were to be restricted to Gryffindor Tower for the next week at any time when they were not either in class or eating a meal in the Great Hall.  There hadn’t been a word or a sound uttered as she’d swept out, and then she’d encountered Ron in the corridor and taken him back to her office.

 

He hadn’t batted an eyelash when told of the punishment, or the loss of points; Minerva had seen the guilt in his eyes and known that he thought the punishment was deserved by all of them, but especially by himself and Hermione Granger, who were supposed to be Harry’s best friends.  Ron had also admitted that his mother and father were disappointed in him for not seeing that Harry was caught up in events that were not within his control and that he’d obviously been led to believe that he wasn’t allowed to ask for help or even to tell anyone what was going on.

 

Minerva had confirmed that, telling the young man far more than she’d shared with the rest of his House, and then sent him back to his dorm with instructions not to tell anyone what he’d seen happen by the Forest, only that he’d run out looking for Harry and not been able to find him and that now the Headmaster and the professors would take over the search.

 

That last part, of course, was a lie; there wasn’t going to be any search, at least not one that would find anything.  Minerva had gone straight to Albus after sending Ron on his way, taking great pleasure in telling the old spider what had gone on that night and asserting over his shock that she thought Harry would be better off wherever he was.  She’d reminded him that she had been complaining throughout this entire year about the way Albus had allowed and even condoned Umbridge’s mistreatment of Harry, and of the way he had continuously responded to her complaints with the assertion that Harry would doubtless confide in his friends very soon and then things could proceed as planned.  “You were waiting for him to break,” she’d accused the shocked old wizard.  “Well, he didn’t – at least, not in the way you wanted him to.  Even when the members of his own House turned on him not two hours ago and called him a coward and a murderer, he didn’t break his silence.”

 

Albus hadn’t denied the accusation.  “I thought…I hadn’t thought it would continue this long!  Harry should have…”

 

“Broken?” she’d cut him off bitterly.  “Everything but his silence.  He broke and he ran…and They were waiting for him.  They’ve probably been waiting ever since Hagrid first spotted them in the Forest, months ago.  And I wouldn’t be surprised if Harry had seen them too, what with the amount of time he’s been spending out there by the lake near the Forest’s edge, alone.”  She’d felt a vicious sort of satisfaction when the old wizard had flinched.  “You did this, Albus, and I stood by nodding my head and let you.  And now that child is gone, and we have no one to blame but ourselves for anything that may happen because of it.  Because you know that we can’t tell anyone, not even most of the members of the Order, that the Fair Folk were involved.  The wizarding world cannot afford a war with the Fey, nor can we win one once it’s started, but there are just enough high-minded fools running things right now who would start something anyway without a thought for the possible consequences.”

 

“You are right,” he’d admitted.  “Minister Fudge, especially, would find it very…convenient to whip up public sentiment in that direction.  And he would neither understand nor care about the consequences of his actions until it was far too late to fix things.”

 

“There’s something the two of you have in common, then,” she’d replied, and made him flinch again.  And she’d smiled, and left.  She’d gone out and fetched Hagrid herself, and had taken he and his dog Fang down to the place where Ron had last seen Harry, and then she’d gotten him to tell her about every time he’d seen or spoken with the Fair Folk that year.  He’d confessed rather tearfully that he might have mentioned seeing them to Harry, but Minerva had assured the half-giant that she was positive Harry had already seen and possibly communicated with some of the Fey on his own and simply hadn’t known who or what they were.  Fang in the meantime had failed to find a trail, and had howled mournfully at the edge of the Forest while refusing to cross the boundary, so Minerva had escorted both the dog and its distraught master back to Hagrid’s hut and then gone back to the castle.

 

The next day the school had been in an uproar, and she’d learned at breakfast that Harry’s owl, Hedwig, had gone missing from the owlery.  Which meant that the owl had gone to find her owner – which also meant that the owl was most likely dead, as the attempt she knew Albus would have made to magically recall it or to track it using the spells layered on the poor creature would have most certainly torn it apart.  Harry hadn’t known about the spells, of course; that sort of magical tampering with someone’s familiar was for the most part illegal, so no one who’d been involved with the spells – Albus and most likely Severus Snape – would have said anything to anyone else about them. Minerva only knew because Albus had asked her to help and she’d refused…and because she’d seen Severus get an odd, almost worried look on his face on several occasions when he’d witnessed the depth of Harry’s attachment to Hedwig.

 

The school was still in an uproar, of course.  Dolores Umbridge had been sacked, and in the papers everyone was howling for answers; evidence had been leaked to several papers – by Minerva herself, in fact, although very few people knew it – that Umbridge had been appointed to her position by the Ministry solely to deny the existence of the Dark Lord and that the woman had been doing everything in her power to torment the Boy Who Lived and Had Now Gone Missing.  Rumors were flying thick and fast, each one more extravagant than the last, although none of them came close to touching on the truth.  The Gryffindors weren’t adding their part to the rumors at Hogwarts except by their mass show of silent dejection at mealtimes, but Minerva didn’t expect that to last much longer if the Slytherins kept up the way they had been.  Severus appeared to expect that as well, and he seemed to want it to as he hadn’t been reining in his House the way he normally would have.  Rather the same way Minerva hadn’t stopped Ron Weasley from sneaking out to talk to Hagrid on several occasions by way of Harry’s supposedly also missing cloak of invisibility, especially as she was the one who had declared the cloak missing and posited that Harry had probably taken it with him. 

 

She hadn’t spoken directly to Albus since the night she’d confronted him in his office.  And thanks to his involvement in the ‘search’ and the necessity of fielding all of the questions that were coming his way, Minerva had basically taken over his job.  Some of the rumors were hinting that she wouldn’t be having to give the job back once everything was said and done.  Minerva was publically ignoring those rumors, of course, but she’d made a point of speaking with several members of the Order about the situation and had found that she was in danger of being bumped up to head that group as well; certain of them were not taking the news of their current leader’s spate of spectacularly bad judgment very well, especially Alastair Moody and the Weasleys.

 

Minerva had , in fact, just finished having a very difficult and at times tearful Floo conversation with Molly Weasley about some things which had been uncovered regarding Harry’s aunt and uncle, the Dursleys, which was why she had sat down for a tea break in her chambers before heading back out into Hogwarts to resume her duties.  She looked out across the sparkling winter landscape to the far, dark fringe of the Forest, and silently bade the Fair Folk to take better care of Harry Potter than the wizards had.

 

 

Harry felt like he’d been asleep for a long time.  He was warm and comfortable, and he hadn’t been dreaming.  He burrowed deeper into the soft pillow with a contented sigh.

 

There was a quiet chuckle.  “Someone’s waking up,” a man’s tenor voice observed in a distinctly American accent.  “I’m guessing you slept pretty well, huh?”

 

Harry opened one eye – the one that wasn’t buried in the pillow – and saw a twenty-something young man sprawled comfortably in a nearby chair, booted feet stretched out in front of him.  The man had wavy dark hair and one amused brown eye, the other being covered by a plain black eyepatch.  He looked friendly and comfortable and completely at home, and Harry rolled over onto his back, blinking.  This man didn’t look like one of the Fair Folk, and he didn’t feel like a wizard.  And he was dressed like someone out of an action-adventure movie.  Harry blinked again.  “Are you…do you belong to the Winter Court?”

 

“Only because you do.”  The man shrugged, smiled.  “I’m Alexander Harris, but you can call me Xander.  And the Lady of Shadows told me that your name is Harold James Potter, but I’m pretty sure that’s not what you want me to call you.”

 

“I’m just Harry.”  Harry blinked again.  He vaguely remembered being told that his two Ladies in the woods were Maris, the Lady of Owls, and Arna, the Lady of Shadows – being told by their queen, the Lady of the First Snow, after she’d brought him away from Hogwarts and into the warm safety of the Winter Court’s hidden haven in the Forbidden Forest.  He looked a question at the older man.  “Why are you here?”

 

“I’m here because of you,” Xander told him.  “A centaur named Oren came to find me in London, and he brought me here to the Winter Court’s little hideout-away-from-home.”  His one brown eye twinkled.  “Kind of thumbing their nose at those people up at the castle by putting it right here, aren’t they?  I mean, you can actually see the castle from some of the windows.  That was the school you were going to, right?”

 

“Hogwarts, yes.”  Harry sat up slowly.  They were that close to Hogwarts?  But that meant that when everyone came looking for him…

 

“The wizards can’t see this place, and they’ll never find it,” Xander interrupted, seemingly reading his mind.  “It’s protected by really strong rune-wards, Fey magic.  And if you’re worried about people searching for you…well, I understand that they’ve spent the past three days looking in the wrong direction, as in anywhere but in the Forest.  Probably because someone knows exactly whose protection you’re under, and they know that if they pick a fight with the Winter Court they’re going to lose big time.”  His smile came back, reassuring now.  “You’re safe here, Harry.”

 

Harry thought about that.  He wanted to believe it, but…“What about Voldemort?”

 

Xander shrugged.  “That evil undead freak they told me about?  The way I understood it, he doesn’t dare come into the Forest since the unicorn-killing thing.  The Fey think he’s an abomination, they’d feed him to his own snake and then kill the snake if they ever caught him sneaking around in the woods again.  And that’s only if the centaurs didn’t get to him first.”

 

That was probably true – Harry didn’t think anyone would want to tangle with either of the centaurs that he’d met.  Still, though… “I think…I think that everyone expects me to kill him.”

 

“Some of the wizards may expect that,” Xander agreed with another shrug.  “But you know, people who let some Nazi-wannabe undead guy and his gang of inbred thugs run amok all over the place and just pretend it’s not happening can’t really be the sharpest tools in the shed to begin with, right?  He leaned forward, expression serious.  “I think these people have been forgetting who the grownups are and who the kid is – I’ve seen it happen before.  They totally sold you on the idea that it was your responsibility to fix their mess because they weren’t fixing it and you were ‘special,’ didn’t they?”

 

Harry nodded, trying to hold back tears.  Did this man really understand?  “The more I tried, the more they wanted from me,” he whispered.  “I could never get it all right.  And now I’m being punished for breaking the rules, but no one would ever listen to me so I didn’t have a choice!”

 

He lost his battle with the tears then, hiding his face in his hands, and was only a little bit startled when the bed dipped under a larger weight and strong arms pulled him into a comforting embrace.  “No, you didn’t have a choice,” Xander soothed, rocking a little, letting him cry.  “But the punishment is over now, Harry.  You are never going back to those crazy people again, all right?  You’re a member of the Winter Court now, they don’t give up their own.  And I will always be right beside you, no matter where you go.”

 

Harry knew Xander was telling the truth, he could feel it, and it made him cry harder because it was too much and he just couldn’t understand it all.  “But who are you,” he whispered.  “Who are you?”

 

He could feel the smile, too, and a strong hand gently stroked his hair.  “I’m the White Knight, the One Who Sees,” Xander told him.  “And from this day forward, Harry Potter, I’m your guardian…and your friend.”