Chapter Text
Nocturne: a composition inspired by, or evocative of, the night.
Nyctophile: a person who loves night, or darkness.
“I thought you were calling me from out of my sleep
to come and play in the dream of dreams.”
Mary Ruefle, 28 Short Lectures
Harry
Nightfall in the valley. Mist is gathering in the hollows and the low places. Stars are being embroidered upon the darkening canvas of the sky, as though a great hand holds a needle threaded with glittering silver twine. The autumn leaves are mirroring the slow death of the day. The clouds are blushing, like captured maidens in the monster’s claws. The light is unspooling; the forest is rapidly becoming dark. The moon is a ghost, but growing brighter with every minute. Birds are settling into their nests, heads down. Bats emerge, swooping and dancing into the stillness of twilight, their wings fluttering.
Moonstruck, Harry Potter stops to watch them. He watches their tiny bodies zipping and wheeling with wild joy, overhead. Joy at the coming of the night. Night delight! Harry feels it, too. His arms are full of chopped logs for the fire. He carries a little satchel, out of which tumbles an untied bouquet of roses. Their petals are the colour of blood, yet their scent is pale and unsatisfying. Ghost roses.
At the forest’s edge, only a hundred yards off, he can see the deer gathering. The light is fading fast now; all the crepuscular creatures of the forest will soon begin to materialise, waking from their daytime slumber. Harry knows that, if he takes his lantern down to the forest edge, the eyes of the deer will shine in the gloom, like reflected stars. Countless constellations of eyes, watching him back.
“Harry? Come in, lad - it’s colder than a witch’s tit in here!”
“Coming, Sirius!” Harry calls, hurrying to the door of their little cottage. He pauses again, before he goes inside; breathes in a last, longing look at the darkness. Then he turns towards the house, leaving the nocturnal beasts to their mysteries.
“How was your day?” his Godfather adds. Harry arranges his kindling in the fireplace, and strikes a match.
“Oh, the same as any other day,” Harry says, concentrating on the fire. “Spring is coming, though.”
“More roses?” Sirius asks. He removes his boots, nodding towards Harry’s bag. “From an admirer?”
“Why do you always ask that - never!” Harry gasps, blushing. “I bought them in the village.”
“One day, you’ll meet someone, and you won’t have to buy your own roses,” Sirius says, in what, Harry supposes, is meant to be a consoling manner. Sirius is not a natural parent, and he doesn’t understand Harry at all, really. But he does try.
Harry winces.
“I’ve never met anybody I’d wish to receive roses from,” he says, crossly.
“I can’t deny, it’s going to feel really strange, when it happens,” Sirius chuckles. “Do I have to approve of them first, as your… sort-of Father figure?”
“Please don’t,” Harry says, with a small smile. “I can’t imagine I’ll fall in love with somebody that you’ll approve of.”
There is an awkward pause.
“Maybe I’ll join you for a forest wander, sometime,” Sirius frowns. He sounds somewhat unsure; as though he is offering against his will.
“No, it’s fine,” Harry says, shuddering. “You’d find it boring. It’s just me and my camera. Or a book.”
“Ugh, books,” Sirius says, with an answering mock-shudder. He grins at Harry, and Harry replies with a small smile of his own, falling silent; watching the burning wood curl and the flames take hold.
“I… I set up recording equipment in the forest, for tonight. Hopefully it picks up the sounds of… something,” Harry ventures, his eyes still on the dancing flames.
Sirius frowns a little deeper, sat in his chair, smoking his pipe. Harry has been living with his Godfather for five years now, yet he still finds the vanilla scent of Sirius’ tobacco strangely jarring. Too sweet.
“Hmm, the forest monster of local legend, eh,” Sirius says, dubiously. “But I thought it haunted the woods far from here?”
“Perhaps not that one,” Harry concedes. The firelight plays all over his young face like a caress. “But, there’s all sorts of creatures in the forest! I might get a goblin! That would be interesting.”
Sirius’ frown deepens still further.
“I’m going to need your help tomorrow, Harry. With the coffins. Two more to make, now.”
“Oh dear. Who’s died?” Harry looks up from the cracking fire.
“Both the LeStranges. They want matching coffins made from mahogany, and I haven’t any - we’ll have to go into the forest. I thought you’d be pleased about that.”
“At night?” Harry gasps, delighted.
“No! Nobody goes into the forest after dark, Harry. We’ll have to hurry tomorrow, if we want to get the wood and return before nightfall. I suggest we rise early.”
As soon as the flames are dying a little, Sirius hangs a heavy iron pot over the fire, full of stew to cook. They toast bread and dip it in the bubbling pot, and sit in peaceful silence while they eat. Outside the window, a shooting star crosses the night sky, like an arrow shot from a bow. Harry goes to look out of the window, watching for another.
“I wonder what’s out there tonight?” he whispers, longingly. The dark shapes of the trees hold out their branches, like arms, to him. Sirius shudders, and gets up to close the curtains.
-
That night, Harry will have the nightmare of the Huntsman again. He often has a version of the same ominous dream: he is being stalked through the dark trees by someone whom he cannot see. He usually finds himself transformed - a woodland animal of some sort. Tonight, he finds himself in the trembling body of a rust-red fox, its fur bristling with fear. He is running through the trees, ears back, feet and claws desperately slipping in the leaves on the forest floor. The dream always ends just as he is captured by something tall and dark -
He wakes with a sharp jolt, his heart pounding. He sits up, shaking, the bedsheets pooling around his waist. But he is not captured - he is in his bed, in his little attic bedroom. Nor is he a fox. What a pity.
Harry sighs, and pulls the sheets back, slipping out of the bed. Over his mattress hangs a rustic, homemade canopy: a slender curl of scrap metal, suspended from the ceiling, and flowing down from it, some gossamer-thin linen drapes which Harry found in the market. Sirius always regards Harry’s bedroom with suspicion - the canopy over the bed, the candles, the crystals hanging in the window - all seem to be… strange, to him. Too romantic, for someone like Harry.
Harry looks at his little clock. Four in the morning. If he goes out now, he might catch the beautiful hour just before the dawn, when the forest seems to hold its breath, and the early morning mist lingers like the spirits of lost souls…
Yes. Perhaps he can get something good out of being awoken from this horrid dream again! He throws on his jacket and trousers over his thin white nightshirt, shoulders his camera, and opens his window. Before he climbs out, he grabs the bouquet of roses straight out of their vase, stems still dripping.
-
Harry walks into the forest, barefoot, holding his roses in the manner of a bride. It is never really dark in the forest; not with the lantern moon hanging overhead, and the coral-blue mist, and the dewdrops sparkling on the trees. Nor is the darkness truly black. The colour of midnight is, to Harry, a very deep and starlit blue. An inky dark; one tinged with purples and the darkest of greens and blues. A bruised-dark. A dark of ritual, alchemy, and incantations. The mist pools around the roots of the trees; submerged in the holes, dens and secret places. He slips in between the trees, smoothing a hand over the cold ridges of the bark as he passes them, like tracing a hand over a lover’s back.
He happens upon a small glade in the trees, where the mist is drifting across the forest floor as water, and he watches it play, fascinated. Perhaps this is a ritual site - or one where faeries meet? How beautiful.
Harry props his camera on a fallen tree, lays the roses on the damp ground, and looks around, a little anxious. But he is quite alone.
He slips off his jacket. And his nightshirt. Bare-chested, he removes the lens cap from the camera, and stoops to peer through the viewfinder. Satisfied, he glances around again, just to make sure - then removes a small coin-like item from his pocket, and steps out of his trousers. Shivering a little, he collects his roses, and steps into the view of the camera. He holds the roses in front of his groin; he is otherwise naked. The mist licks at his bare ankles. The item in his hand is a button - he presses it, and the camera flashes.
Harry turns, to look over his shoulder, his back and buttocks exposed. The roses spill out of his fingers. He offers up a small, shy, uncertain smile.
The camera flashes again.
-
“Harry? Are you awake, this morning? Have another cup of coffee - it’s still in the pot.”
“I’m fine,” Harry mumbles, bleary-eyed. He gets another cup and sits on the window seat, looking at the streaks of fresh colour that dawn is painting onto the trees. He rubs at his face and eyes. He longs for his bed. Sirius is already pulling on his boots.
“I’ll prepare the cart. Harry - run down to the village, would you? Get the coffin sizes from Regulus? And buy us bread, cheese and milk - and don’t get distracted! We need to leave soon. I don’t care if an entire choir of ghosts or goblins accosts you on your way to town!”
Harry snorts, shoving a book under his arm to read as he walks. He takes his basket, and sets off down the winding path.
-
Harry is just buying the bread, and the warm, yeast smell is finally starting to make him feel a little hungry, when… a dark shadow falls over him.
“The pretty Undertaker’s boy! You’re out early! I thought you were almost nocturnal?”
Harry recognises that voice, and his heart sinks.
“Sirius just makes coffins - and I’m not a boy,” Harry snaps, turning around. “You’re only a few years older than me, Tom.”
Tom Riddle rakes thin fingers through his shining black hair, laughing - but the sound is off, a wrong note in a chord, and it sets Harry on edge.
“I suppose I am. You always seem so… innocent. Makes you appear younger.”
“I’m not innocent,” Harry insists.
“Still investigating the mysteries of the dark forest?”
“Yes. Sometimes,” Harry admits, awkward.
Tom appears awkward too, and seems to flounder for something else to say.
“What is that book? You’re always reading romances. You know they’re supposed to be dangerous for the psyche?”
Harry looks down at his book.
“This? It’s ‘My Lover, the Night’ by F. Greyback. He’s also the author of ‘My Lover, the Moon’ and ‘My Lover Shot Me With A Silver Bullet’. They’re great.”
“Yes,” Tom says, grimly. “They do sound it.”
“They’re just so… raw, gothic, beautiful and… passionate. They’re some of my favourites,” Harry enthuses.
Tom leans in, closer to him. He is incredibly handsome; he reminds Harry of the Prince Charming from his childhood books of fables. But… Tom is handsome in a cloying, unpleasant manner. His toothy smiles are as inviting as those marsh pits on the moor: sticky and lethal. The ones where unsuspecting creatures are sucked down to their deaths after just one misstep. He stares at Harry a lot, and he seems to have dark thoughts - they show in his face sometimes, like flickering shadows. Harry has never been able to work out what they mean.
Tom broods, he reads strange books, he goes for long walks by himself, and likes to sit alone…
He should be just Harry’s type. He is only three years Harry’s senior, too. And he is so good looking…
Harry detests him. He can’t say quite why. Tom unsettles him - and not in a good way. Harry loves dark creatures, but Tom… Tom is something else.
In his preoccupation, Harry has failed to notice that Tom has stepped up very close behind him.
“You’re so beautiful, Harry. A moonlit dream,” Tom murmurs, into his ear.
“I’m not beautiful,” Harry says stubbornly, and he flinches away. Nor am I a dream, he does not say aloud. I feel more like… an echo.
“I barely notice the scar anymore, if that’s what you’re referring to,” Tom says, and Harry suddenly feels awful and self-conscious. Tom means the scar that Harry carries over his right eye, the one that looks like a wild strike of lightning. The one that Sirius calls his ‘touch of darkness’.
“Why do you live so close to the forest? You know it’s haunted? Your Godfather and his brother, they’re strange,” Tom mutters, into Harry’s ear. Even his breath is too sweet, like rotten fruit.
“Sirius and Regulus? They’re not. Well, perhaps they are a little,” Harry admits. “But so am I!”
“I had the most charming walk through the old catacombs yesterday, found all manner of treasures. There’s a couple who tragically died during their first kiss! I could show you, if you like?”
“I don’t need to see them,” Harry says, edging away, even though the sound of catacombs and first kisses is very appealing. But not with Tom. “Excuse me. I need to find some more, erm… stimulating conversation. Good day, Tom.” And he pushes open the door of the Undertaker’s premises, leaving Tom staring at the sign and blinking in the street outside.
The shop inside is gloomy; the walls are painted dark blue. Regulus comes through from the back rooms, wearing his top hat.
“Hello, Uncle Regulus.”
“Harry! Any news on the mahogany coffins? I asked Sirius four days ago. The LeStranges want everything done yesterday.”
“We’re getting the wood today. Just need the sizes.”
“But I told Sirius the sizes already, I didn’t write it down… Just do two of six-two by twenty-four, hopefully that’s enough. How tall can the LeStranges be?” Regulus sighs. “Can I give you some life advice, Harry? Never work with your brother.”
“I don’t have a brother.”
“Oh, of course not. Well, you’re lucky then.”
Harry frowns, and leaves Regulus some bread, then says farewell and goes back outside. To his disgust, he discovers that Tom has been waiting for him.
“Want to spend the day with me, Harry? I’ll even go ghost-hunting with you in town at twilight, if you like.”
“No. We’re going deep into the forest to get wood.”
“But - the forest is bewitched! An evil spell - and some say there’s a Castle lost in the dark mists of the deep woods! You’re not safe out there.”
“I’m fine,” Harry says, determinedly. “The creatures of the forest aren’t enemies, Tom.”
“What is it that you like about the forest?” Tom demands, frowning at Harry insistently, as though Harry is a paradox of some kind.
“The solitude,” Harry snaps. “Good day, Tom.”
-
“You’re back - where’s the cheese, the milk?” Sirius demands, as Harry is hurrying up the little path. Sirius already has the horse in its bridle, and the equipment all loaded on their little cart. He regards Harry with an exasperation which, Harry knows, is borne of his own nervousness about going inside the forest. (Whenever Harry wishes to go into the woods, these days, he makes sure to tell Sirius only after he returns.)
“Oh, sorry, Sirius. Tom was following me around town again. I just… I only thought about going home.”
Sirius’ expression darkens instantly.
“I don’t blame you. That boy isn’t right in the head. I know they say that about you, but it’s true for him.”
“Thanks,” Harry says, unhappily.
“I didn’t mean -”
“Shall we just go? Bread and water will be fine for me.”
“Did you get the sizes?”
“He says he already told you, and just to make standard size.”
“He never did! I think he’s away with the faeries half the time, just between us.”
“I thought you didn’t believe in faeries, or the supernatural?”
“I don’t,” Sirius snaps. “Now come on! We must return before nightfall!”
-
The forest is silent. Not one faery scuttles in the undergrowth. Harry keeps a lookout constantly, hoping to catch a glimpse of one. Or perhaps a pixie. He’d even accept a troll, a polite one. He has never yet seen some of the creatures which he knows must be out here. If only he could see one…
As they travel deeper into the forest, and the morning light starts to be blocked out by the oppressive firs, the silence becomes almost deafening. Not the silence of a quiet hillside at dusk, nor a serene early morning, before the birds stir in their nests. It is the silence of… the grave. Mortal silence.
“No birds, nothing,” Sirius mutters. “That can’t be a good sign.”
There is no reply from beside him. Sirius sighs.
“What are you reading, Harry? I thought you were keeping a lookout for trolls!”
“Hmm?” Harry asks, too engrossed in his book now, his spine hunched forward.
“What are you reading today, I said? You look like a gargoyle, all hunched - sit up!”
“Oh! ‘The Tiger’s Bride’. It’s beautiful. Listen to the opening line: ‘My Father lost me to the Beast at cards’.”*
“Mmm, delightful,” Sirius mutters. “That does sound like something your late Father would’ve done, though. He was a funny one, James was.”
“I really love this book - I’ve read it nine times already,” Harry enthuses. “The Beast wins the girl at cards - her Father gambles away his fortune - and she is all he has to offer the Beast. And the Beast’s only desire, having won her, is to see her naked -”
“Harry, is this book age-appropriate - give me that!” Sirius demands, snatching the book clean out of Harry’s fingers.
“Hey! I’m nineteen - I can read what I like! You normally leave me to myself - don’t start giving parenting advice now!”
Sirius peers at the pages. Then, he snaps the book shut, and hands it back to Harry.
“You’re right. Although I… I wish you’d take more of an interest in real girls than fictional ones.”
“The girl? She’s not the one who interests me - the Beast is a tiger, did I mention that?”
“No, you didn’t,” Sirius mutters, looking concerned again.
“He comes to visit her every night, asks to see her naked, but she says no, and then -”
“As she should!” Sirius splutters out.
“Do you know what happens at the end of the tale? He licks off her skin with his rough tiger tongue, to find that, underneath it, there’s -”
“I don’t wish to know, Harry… Don’t you ever think about girls - or boys - and -”
“Sirius, you’re really not about to have the ‘birds and the bees’ conversation with me in a haunted forest, are you?” Harry asks him, his green eyes luminous in the low light.
“No! Well, maybe a bit. Just… love someone for their inner beauty, alright? And not somebody too weird, like Tom.”
“Tom’s hideous on the inside.”
“I just… I want you to know your worth, that’s all.”
“I do know. I’ve got high standards, Sirius. I even know my love language: a dark forest and a colony of bats, under a crescent moon. Hopefully I find someone who can give me that? What’s yours?”
“I don’t think that’s what they mean by love language… Maybe it wasn’t such a great idea to involve you in the family business,” Sirius mutters. “Wouldn’t you like to go and live in the metropolis?”
“The… metropolis? But… my forest!” Harry splutters.
“You could have more of a life there, get a good job, do whatever you want. You’re old enough now to spread your wings a bit.”
“No, thank you,” Harry says, firmly. “I need to investigate the forest. And help you. And look after you - you’d only start drinking again, if I leave.”
“I won’t! Cheeky little bugger!” Sirius huffs. “I do want you to think about spending some time away, at least. It’d be good for you. You could party.”
“But how would I investigate the most mysterious regions of the forest and seek out the dark creatures?” Harry demands.
“You couldn’t. That’s not a legitimate career path,” Sirius sighs.
“But… going to work every day, not able to follow the desires of my heart… I’d be miserable,” Harry protests.
“Yes,” Sirius nods. “Welcome to adulthood.”
Harry frowns.
“I’ll stick with the forest, thanks.”
“You won’t. I need you to go to the metropolis and make money. It’s a much better life there. They have funfairs. You won’t even miss me.”
“If I did, could I come back? Sirius?”
“Why haven’t we found this blasted mahogany yet? It feels like its been hours! I just want to leave this godforsaken place!” Sirius growls.
A dark cloud of bats hurtles overhead, wings beating wildly. Taken by surprise, Sirius lets out a shriek, and drops the reins.
“Sirius - we have to follow them!” Harry cries suddenly, hurling his book onto the seat and leaping down from the cart.
“You’re barmy,” Sirius grumbles, but Harry barely hears him, so intent is he upon streaking between the trees after the bats. In less than a minute, they appear to vaporise into the darkness. It is just when he realises he has lost them, when -
“Mahogany!” he gasps. “Sirius! I’ve found it! Or, the bats led me to it!”
The dark red trunk rises out of a sea of quietly bobbing purple hellebores. Sirius regards it with suspicion - as though it is an apparition, and not a real tree.
“So they did,” he says, looking sombre.
-
Tree felling is an art, and requires precision - the cutting out of a certain angle of wedge from the trunk, in order to direct the tree to fall in a certain direction… But Sirius has no patience for all that.
“Get out of the way, Harry!”
The tree falls with a terrible ‘crack’ like a thunderclap, shuddering the ground; startling the birds from their nests. The sound echoes throughout the forest, loud as a gunshot. Sirius freezes, eyes wide, his long dark hair streaked with sweat. Harry, sweaty and flushed too, gasps… But there is no answering sound. Nothing seems to stir, nor to have been awakened from a thousand years of peaceful slumber by the noise…
“It’s alright,” Harry starts to say.
Then, from somewhere far off - far away and yet also far too close - there comes a great howl.
Sirius and the horse are spooked into muteness. The noise does not sound like it comes from human lungs, nor a human throat - nor those of the wolves or foxes or bears that often pass through the forest. This noise is… something else.
“Oh!” Harry cries out, looking around wildly. “Where do you think it’s coming from?”
“I don’t want to find out,” Sirius mutters, darkly. “Come on, boy! Get the wood on the cart!”
-
Night is coming down fast - the pale pink sky is being interwoven with dark threads on some great, cosmic loom - and yet, they have still not reached the safety of home. The thick, earthen scent of the felled mahogany smells… like fear. Sirius is silent; too glum and sombre to speak. It is too dark for Harry to read now, so he sits in silence, looking around him everywhere. He thinks about asking Sirius to pause, so he can leave a recorder out in the woods, and return for it in the morning… One look at Sirius’ ashen face, however, and he decides against it.
“Oh no!” Sirius groans, suddenly. “We’ve been seen! The forest knows we’re here! This is very bad.”
“How do you - oh!” Harry gasps, in breathless delight, as he sees -
The forest around them sparkles with tiny lights, wondrous and strange.
“Faeries?” Harry asks, amazed.
“Fireflies,” Sirius corrects him, disapprovingly. “We’ve disturbed them.”
“They’re beautiful. I wonder what they mean!”
“We need to get home, is what they mean. We might be being watched by something.”
“But -”
Sirius urges the horse to go faster. Harry imagines eyes watching them from the shadowy trees. He fancies he can see… a host of dark shapes, silently observing, as they pass. It brings him strange comfort, although he cannot say why.
“I fear we’re lost, Harry,” Sirius admits, with a groan.
“Oh good,” Harry says keenly. He looks around. Mottled into the bark of a tree nearby is… Is that a face? Harry hops down from the cart, enthralled.
“Harry - get back up here! You’re not going to ask that tree the way home, are you?”
“Does this look familiar, to you?” Harry asks.
Sirius sighs, but a moment later he stands behind Harry, peering at the tree in the half-light.
“Like whom exactly, Harry?”
“Don’t they look like my parents, to you?”
Sirius pauses, blinking in alarm.
“Your… your parents? Harry -”
“I haven’t caught any sign of them in the forest yet, but… it must only be a matter of time,” Harry says.
“So… You’re leaving the sound recorder out all night to try and catch a sign of… Harry, they’re long dead. I promise you.” Sirius sounds so grave, and sad too. Harry looks at him, scowling.
“What does that have to do with it?”
“You can’t communicate with ghosts, Harry -”
“I’m not just looking for my parents - actually, sometimes I hope that they are really not present,” Harry says, blushing, and Sirius winces a little.
“If you’re meeting a girl - or a boy - in the forest, Harry, I do think I should know about it -”
“Oh, look!” Harry interrupts him, a cry of wild delight.
Sirius looks up - and, overhead, the colony of bats are flying again, in the direction of the setting sun.
“They’re going west! Maybe my Mother sent them!” Harry cries. “Come on.”
Sirius follows him back to the cart, his face set in a frown of dismay.
-
They make it back to their quiet cottage without incident, and Harry can’t help but feel a tiny bit… disappointed, watching the bats dissolve once more into the fading light. As the rickety cart leaves the canopy of the dark trees, Harry feels oddly like he is being released from an embrace, but he has no idea what it is that could have been holding him.
-
Harry has his window open, to let in the cool night air. Mist is drifting inside, a ghostly visitor. He has lit a single candle, with the hope of attracting… he does not know what. He sighs. He has so many obscure and strange feelings, that… he does not understand what any of them mean.
He sets down his book, atop of one of his many precarious piles. His bookcase is overflowing; the spines of the books have mysterious and esoteric titles. On his walls are strange things; shadowy and gruesome figures, scraps of paintings, of old postcards, weird photographs. Weird… and yet, beautiful too. He has some piano scores, covered in scribbles; tunes that he is transposing into minor keys, old songs that he adapts sweetly, and yet… they always end up sounding a little haunted, too. He has a collection of birds’ feathers, fallen ones that he has found in the forest while exploring. Harry loves the idea of flight more than anything - but of course, he will never experience it, himself.
By the window, he has a little, low table. It looks like a modest shrine. On the wall above it, a small photograph is pinned. Two figures, embracing; one with black hair like Harry’s, the other with his green eyes. His Mother wears a crown of meadow flowers in her orange hair. His Dad’s glasses are falling off his nose as he laughs. Below them, a small number of trinkets sit, arranged neatly: all he has left of his late parents. A handful of dried flowers. A stick, about eight inches long, adorned with flowers and little crystals. The pair of glasses from the photograph. (Sometimes, Harry puts them on, and tries to see through them, but his eyesight is clearly not the same. He sees only a blur; or perhaps he is seeing through into another dimension, and his room truly is filled with ghosts.)
Harry lights a second candle, places it on the little table. His parents feel… present, somehow, when their candle is lit. He is filled with a longing so deep that he wants to cry. Yet, he has no clear idea of what it is that he longs for. How do you miss people that you never remember knowing? Well, I do. My room is full of ghosts, after all. And so am I. Ghosts in my blood. Ghosts under my skin. When I look in the mirror, I see the only living incarnation of my Mother’s eyes.
As he passes his looking-glass, he glances at himself. At his vibrant green eyes, bright like emeralds possessed by spirits and enchantments. A handsome young man looks back at him in the mirror, his face pale and beautiful - apart from a lightning-shaped scar that snakes down his forehead and explodes just above his right eye. The touch of darkness, indeed.
Harry strokes the silvery scar, gently, with his fingertips. The rest of his face, he pays no mind to. He turns away from himself.
He unpicks the little film reel from his camera with care, making sure it is tightly rolled, and stores it in a small black plastic container. He rarely develops them. Sometimes he does, but only furtively, consumed with shame. Harry burns the pictures after looking them over. He has no use for erotic pictures, after all. Has no-one to give them to.
He longs to dream. Sometimes, his imagination takes him out into the forest after dark, and he flies with the nightingales, the owls, and the bats… He used to find refuge in his fantastical dreams, as a small child, but now…
He is much happier with Sirius, of course, but he has lost… whatever it was that used to make him dream happily. He has only the awful dreams of the Huntsman, ever since he left his cruel Uncle and Aunt. He is so achingly grateful to Sirius for taking him away -
Suddenly he hears… noises in the dark forest! What is that? A howl? A scream? Harry runs to the window, delighted, and flings it open further. Looking out at the dark landscape, he silently entreats whatever forces the forest holds to come and… reveal something to him.
To speak!
He stares at the forest until his face goes cold, but he sees nothing. Nothing comes for him.
Nothing speaks.
Disappointed, lonely, when the starlit sky finally starts to pale into dawn, Harry curls up in his bed and sleeps. And still… the Huntsman comes, again.
-
“‘The night is often the secret site of initiation, purification, and other threshold activities bridging the relation between what is human and what is not human,’”* Harry reads aloud.
Sirius, hammering coffin nails with his lips pursed, frowns.
“Hmm. Did you record anything good from the forest the other night, on your little machine?” he asks, not looking up.
“Well,” Harry says, “I… I don’t think so. It only picked up the sound of… they sounded like huge wings, but it was probably just a moth sitting on the sound recorder.”
-
Regulus arrives at nightfall, to check on their progress. Harry has been fiddling with his sound recorder and not really being of much help. He watches Regulus standing unhappily on their doorstep, looking uneasily back at the dark forest.
“An Undertaker who is scared of ghosts,” Sirius snorts.
“Ghosts are not usually part of the job,” Regulus snaps back, and he bolts the door closed behind himself.
Sirius glances at Harry, and he looks… uncharacteristically awkward.
“Reg - can I talk to you in the other room for a minute?” he mutters.
“Are you going to talk about me?” Harry demands.
“Yes,” Sirius says, looking unhappy.
“You might as well say it with me here, I’ll only listen outside the door anyway,” Harry replies hotly, and Sirius lets out a sigh.
“Alright - Reg, Harry’s been hoping to communicate with or… catch evidence of, the ghosts of his parents in the forest, and I’m… a little worried about him. Happy?” Sirius asks, turning to Harry.
Harry nods. Sirius and Regulus exchange anxious glances.
“You wanted to be the surrogate parent,” Regulus mutters. “So… parent him.”
“There’s no handbook for this shit,” Sirius hisses back. “I don’t know how to help if he thinks his parents’ ghosts are haunting the forest!”
“I don’t think they’re haunting it,” Harry interrupts.
Regulus looks at him suspiciously.
“So… You’re not trying to find evidence of them?”
“I just… I just can’t believe that they’d have left me completely, you know? That they would never come back to check I’m ok. Mum loved this forest, didn’t she? It was you who told me the ones who love us never really leave us, Sirius -”
“I meant that metaphorically, not literally - Harry, your parents have gone and it’s the worst fucking thing that ever happened to any of us, but they’re not going to just pop by -”
There is a knock at the door - Sirius and Regulus both jump.
“Ghosts?” Harry says, hopefully. He flings the door open - but it is Tom Riddle of all people, standing on his doorstep and preening.
“It’s not a ghoul?” Sirius calls.
“In a way,” Harry calls back. “What is it, Tom?”
“I thought you might like to go ghost-hunting with me,” Tom says, smirking. “I brought sandwiches. And a polaroid camera - to capture some… happy memories.”
“Ghost-hunting? Is that what the young people call it these days?” Regulus snickers. Harry scowls at him, but Regulus only laughs. Then he glances out of the window. “I should get back. Night is coming.”
“Harry loves the night, don’t you,” Sirius says, with a forced sort of joviality - all the while glaring at Tom from over Harry’s shoulder.
Harry scowls.
“Oh, the night is so impossible,” he says, crossly. “It keeps all its secrets to itself!”
“Harry’s always been one for escapism, and had a… fascination with the macabre… haven’t you, Harry,” Sirius adds. “Reminds me a bit of cousin Bella.”
“I should hope not,” Regulus says, with a shudder. “Didn’t she go around the forest cursing people, and then meet a rather… sticky end?”
“I do feel an unearthly pull, yes,” Harry nods. “And anyway, what is repulsive and what is beautiful - who defines that? What we class as monstrous or unsightly, others might call beautiful? Or, something can be both? Roses have thorns too, and hence a kind of… savage beauty?”
Sirius, Regulus and Tom exchange looks.
“Perhaps you two should just go to pub,” Sirius says, weakly. “Or there’s a travelling circus in the next town?”
“I’m not going anywhere with him,” Harry hisses.
“Not even with this camera?” Tom whines. “I had it mended for you, and everything! I bet it captures ghosts just perfectly!”
Sirius elbows Harry, sharply.
“Come on, Harry, be nice.”
“But it was you that said Tom was weird!” Harry protests, loudly.
Sirius colours. He glances at Tom, then takes the camera.
“Well, look, the camera’s nice. Give your old Godfather a small smile for once, there’s a boy.”
Harry smiles awkwardly at the camera. A polaroid pops out of the bottom, and Tom reaches for it, eagerly. Sirius quickly pockets it before it can develop, before handing the camera back.
“Alright, well. Are you going out or staying in, Harry?” he demands.
Harry looks between the darkening forest and Tom, torn between longing and… revulsion. He sighs.
“I’m staying home, I suppose.”
“Right, well, nice seeing you all,” Regulus says, elbowing past Tom, with a glare.
“There aren’t really any ghosts or ghouls in the forest, stop being so uppity,” Sirius snorts.
“Of course there are. Don’t whistle to the forest at night, Harry! It attracts evil spirits!” Regulus says, sternly. “Oh - I, ah… forgot to mention, Sirius… They’ve taken the LeStranges for post mortem in the town - you’ll need to deliver the coffins there, so that they can be placed into them. That’s why I came over really, to say that. Pity I… forgot to mention it, before.”
There is a silence. Then, Sirius explodes.
“WHAT? But… that’s on the other side of the bloody forest! Just tell them to bring the bodies back!”
“I’m sorry, brother, it can’t be helped! I asked them and they won’t. Said they only collect.”
“Bastards!”
“I’ll go!” Harry offers.
“I’ll go too!” Tom adds, grinning.
“You will not go, neither of you!” Sirius snaps.
-
“Are you sure you don’t want me to -” Harry begins, for the hundredth time.
“I’m certain,” Sirius snaps. “You’re staying home. If going into the forest at night is what it takes to prove that there’s nothing out there, then so be it! I’ll be fine, there’s nothing to encounter but bats and few trees. Go to bed.”
-
Sirius regrets travelling alone as the night covers the forest under a pall. The darkness that shrouds the great trees seems to be made out of velvet, for not even the light of the moon filters down to the forest floor. The night air is close, like the breath of some great Beast, breathing down the back of his neck…
The rain begins to fall - that explains the awful closeness - and yet, Sirius is not relieved. Him and the horse are soon soaked. The horse does not seem to mind, but this all makes Sirius even more anxious. The sounds of the rain will envelop all others; little sounds - that would otherwise warn him of predators - will be drowned out. An owl hoots loudly overhead, disturbed, and Sirius jumps half out of his skin. The cobbled path under the horse’s hooves fades away to nothing but wet leaves and dirt.
“I must have missed the turn,” Sirius groans.
He cannot keep his lantern alight - the candle and his matchbox are too wet. Soon, they are blundering about in a darkness which seems to stretch on and on; the endless forest, bewitched by an endless night.
-
They travel on for hours, yet dawn does not come. There is no reprieve: only this eternal witching hour, when all the forest seems dead, and the trees groan under the unrelenting deluge of rainwater. They are long past any part of the forest which he could hope to recognise. And, in the back of his mind, he fears that they have strayed into the deep forest. The area where, local legend has it, the great Beast roams, preying on unfortunate travellers.
His long, wet hair plastered to his face, Sirius squints through the gloom. He can see… is that a light, twinkling between the trees, far off in the darkness?
“It might be a trick light, left there by spooks and goblins,” he mutters. “Probably left to tempt unsuspecting travellers into a mire.” He looks around. The rest of the forest is so bleak and forbidding, perhaps it is worth a try… “Should we ask if they can spare some food?” he asks the horse. He receives no reply.
-
Sirius prays that whoever owns the light does not put it out. Suddenly, the trees thin out a little - and into his view comes… a great Castle! Far off, looming out of the mist. The towering spires, turrets and battlements stretching up towards the desolate coal-black sky. There is a light that burns in one of the tower windows; the light that he saw, miles off.
“How did I not know there was a Castle here?” Sirius whispers, overawed by its great and terrible size. The place looks like a fortress. It must be hundreds of years old.
As he approaches the great stone walls, the drawbridge descends, with a great clanking and groaning of the old wheels and rusted chains. He looks around for inhabitants - but sees no-one.
Not a soul.
Uneasy, Sirius ties the horse and cart under the shelter of the portcullis, and continues on alone, drawing his sodden cloak tighter around himself. There are no lights burning in the Castle now - he cannot even see one window lit. The entire place is in darkness. He ascends a flight of mossy stone steps - and comes upon a desolate Rose Garden. All is silent and still.
To his shock, the sconces on the wall all burst into flames, at once! Even in the pouring rain, the fire burns, otherworldly, illuminating the Gardens with dark shadows and brilliant highlights. The white roses seem to glow. Their leaves are lustrous and wet. Even at night, their perfume is strong, wild, beautiful.
Sirius spies a light, burning in an open doorway, and hurries up the last of the steps, his boots sodden and his cloak trailing on the ground. He pushes the heavy door open wider - to find himself in a Parlour, and the fire burning merrily! Better still, there is food spread out upon the table - a feast!
“Oh! Thank you!” Sirius gasps, and he falls upon the food and wine with desperate joy.
-
His belly full, he collects up a bag of vegetables for the horse, and bids the Parlour farewell. He has not seen a soul, and it troubles him. He takes one last sip of the fine wine. It is time to leave this place, before… He does not know exactly what he fears. Only that he is prepared to face the rain and the dark forest again, rather than remain here, and search for the Castle’s inhabitants.
On his way back through the dark Rose Garden, he pauses. The bush of roses is laden with blood-red blooms, and he smiles, looking at their lush, full beauty.
He reaches in, parting the thorny stems.
“Ah - so like Harry these are! The most beautiful one hides at the back…”
He picks a rose in full bloom. Its petals are red and wet like tongues, its perfume a deadly seduction. Harry will love its - what was the term the boy used? Savage beauty?
He is about to descend the final mossy staircase - when all the flickering torch lights go out.
Sirius turns - and his face slackens in horror.
“Oh NO! NO!” he screams - and a dark shape seizes him with violence, pinning him to the stone wall. Talons pierce the flesh of his shoulder - he cries out again, overwhelmed with sheer terror. “Spare me! Have mercy!” he howls, and the Beast looks down on him, its hideous face contorted into a sneer.
“Look at me,” the creature demands. “Do I look kind, and beautiful?”
“No! You are Beastly! Spare me, please!”
“You stole from me! Now you will pay!”
“But - pay… for one rose?” Sirius wails.
“I gave you hospitality - and, in return, you stole from me!”
“I’m sorry! I… who are you? Let me see you, please, allow us some light?”
“NO!” the voice thunders. Then the creature draws back. “Wait… Do I… know you?”
“No,” Sirius splutters. “I’ve never been this far into the forest before - not since I was a child!”
“A child?” There is an awful silence. “I know who you are - Sirius Black! You used to be the playmate of the young Prince - and a cruel, taunting playmate you were, too!”
“What? I’ve never! I’ve never seen this Castle before! I used to… to play with a boy in a village, but that was over two decades ago - more!” Sirius cries. “I swear, I -”
“I recognise your face… Yes.” It is the most sinister use of the word that Sirius has ever heard - he takes his wet matchbox from his pocket, determined to see to whom he speaks -
“You wish to see me? Then feast your eyes!” the creature howls - and a torch bursts into flame, only inches from Sirius’ face. He cries out as the flames lick and singe his skin -
And then his entire body goes numb with terror, for standing before him is a creature ascended from the pits of Hell -
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill you where you stand!” the monster cries.
Sirius trembles with fear - then, he reaches into his pocket. Grasping something wet and crumbling, he holds it out. Paper. A sodden polaroid photograph.
“The rose was for my beautiful young godson, Harry! See how lovely he is! Spare me - if I die, he’ll be quite alone!”
The Beast stares down at the photograph, as though… spellbound.
“Give him the rose,” he hisses, finally. “But you then return here, to take your punishment. If you do not, you will be Cursed - and so will he!”
“Don’t hurt him! I’ll return, I swear it!”
The Beast pauses.
“Or you may send the boy, in your place.”
Sirius gasps.
“No! Not him - I’ll come back! Let me arrange for his future, and I’ll return straightaway,” Sirius cries - and runs for his life.
-
How he finds his way out of the dark forest of eternal midnight, with the horse scared half to death and his own brain turned to mush inside his skull, Sirius never knows. He is feverish by dawn; he cannot understand what he has seen! How could that cruel, horrible creature have known Sirius as a child? He tries desperately to think! He was once playmate to… a strange, skinny young boy - a Prince, by the name of Severus. The Prince’s Mother had been desperate for her son to make friends, and had arranged it with Sirius’ Mother… But it had only lasted a couple of years - the two of them had not become friends at all. The opposite. Sirius winces. Perhaps he had… not been kind. But he had been a boy, himself! And Severus had been peculiar; selfish, and proud.
But, stranger still - how could the Beast have known all that? Unless…
No… That couldn’t possibly have been Severus himself? Under some dark magic?
No - impossible!
At the sight of their little cottage, all Sirius’ strength leaves him. Harry comes tearing out, looking wild and scared. He sees Sirius, slumped in the seat of the cart - and the two coffins still tied to their places - and runs even harder towards them.
“Sirius! What happened?” Harry demands - even as Sirius falls from the cart in a dead faint upon the dew-damp grass.
-
“How is he, Harry?”
“I don’t understand it, Regulus. He cannot speak at all - and every time he looks at me, he starts crying. He gave me this,” Harry added, holding up a red rose, “but he will not tell me how he came by it, nor what happened to him in the forest.”
“Ghouls and goblins, most likely,” Regulus mutters, handing Harry a plate of bread and cheese. “Take this to him. Go back in and sit by his side; don’t leave him alone.”
Harry nods.
He pushes open Sirius’ bedroom door, still holding the rose in his other hand. Sirius, lying in bed under his quilt, turns to look at Harry - and wild, terrified expression possesses his thin, pale face.
He sees the rose, and he… whimpers.
“Sirius! Something is making you sick - is it worry that makes you unable to eat? Why are you so anxious?” Harry asks, setting the rose and the plate aside. He kneels at his Godfather’s bedside, but Sirius just covers his face with his hands, and says nothing at all.
-
The following evening, a great, terrible black horse arrives.
Harry is playing a mournful tune on his piano, but he cannot concentrate. His mind is too haunted. His rose sits in a small vase by the window. As he looks up, he sees the strange horse, standing outside their cottage; grave, silent and ominous. It appears to be… waiting for something. Or someone?
The door at the top of the stairs opens. Sirius appears, fully dressed, his face ashen. He descends in silence, a bag slung over his shoulder. Harry leaps to his feet and accosts him.
“What is going on? Where are you going? When will you return, Sirius?”
“I… may be a long time,” Sirius whispers: the first words he has spoken in hours.
“What is frightening you?” Harry hisses, shaking Sirius roughly by the elbow. “What’s happening?”
Sirius’ eye falls upon the rose, which still blooms.
“That rose cost me my life. That is why the horse waits. I have to return. It is too dangerous to break my promise.”
“Your promise to whom?” Harry demands.
“Oh, Harry! It’s too awful! I realised something terrible - the man whose rose I stole is… someone I knew and wronged in my youth! A Prince, who was once a man, but he’s been… changed. It must be black magic! And now he is… oh, the sight was monstrous! His Castle is beyond the dark forest, I encountered it by sheer bad luck - or perhaps I, too, was Cursed! And now… I must return - or else, he has threatened you! I swore I would go back. I must face my punishment.”
Harry stares at him in horror.
“But Sirius, this is all madness speaking, surely?”
“No, Harry - you were right. There are things in the forest, dark things! Terrible things!”
“Is there no way for you to escape this?” Harry whispers, heartbroken for him.
Sirius looks down at him in despair.
“Only if… no. I cannot say it.”
“What? Tell me, I must know!” Harry cries.
“Only if you go, in my place,” Sirius hisses out, his voice low and ashamed.
“Me?” Harry stares at him in shock.
“I have left a letter for Regulus; he’ll arrange for you to go to the metropolis. Your life will be better, there, and you’ll be safe.”
Harry is silent.
“Sirius - it’s evening now. Go in the morning, please? Just have one more night at home. This wronged person can spare you for one more night?”
-
At midnight, one of the cottage windows is pushed open, and a slender figure leans out.
Harry breathes in the cool night air, his eyes bright. He lowers a small bag down to the ground, on a piece of rope, trying to be as quiet as he can. As the moon begins its slow ascent, he slips out of his window, and climbs down the ivy-covered trellis. He collects the bag. The moon watches on. The stars wink down at him. (Sometimes, Harry wonders whether the stars he sees even exist any more; if the light has taken so long to reach him, perhaps they have already died, and he just does not realise it yet.) The great black horse is waiting outside by the path, patient - and so still, that it might almost be a statue. In the pale moonlight, its glossy skin shines, soft as satin. Harry shoulders his bag, and climbs up onto the horse’s back.
(In the morning, Sirius will wake, and go anxiously into Harry’s room to bid him farewell - to find the bed empty, and the boy gone. He will cry out Harry’s name in despair, and he will mourn, and rage, and wail. But he will not dare to venture into the forest again.)
-
The horse conveys Harry on, his destination a mystery. They travel through woodland that is increasingly barren and desolate, and eventually gives way to marshland. Dread settles in Harry’s heart; a great bird of prey landing, talons in his chest and its beady eyes trained hungrily upon him. He is fearful. Fearful of where he is going; of this mysterious person whom Sirius finds so… terrifying.
He’s been… changed, Sirius had said. Changed how?
Still, Harry cannot leave Sirius to such a fate, not when his Godfather has given him the only happiness he has even known.
All that is over now, he thinks, sadly. Must I stay with this terrible person, forever? Is that the price that must be paid?
They travel through a swamp. The mist is rising from the ground, like spirits escaping from watery graves. The ground groans under the weight of marsh pits, full of fetid water. They bubble: cauldrons, overflowing with potions. The stumps of the trees soon become taller again, and begin to loom through the mist. Spectres, awaiting Harry’s arrival. Several times, he believes he sees the great shape of a man - or, perhaps, a Beast - only for it to be revealed as the broken spine of a tree once the mist dissipates. Harry does not have a faint heart, but even he is uneasy to be so alone, his fate so perilous and uncertain. The mist is beautiful, and the forms of the trees too, and the sounds of the nightingale calling out across the marshes, but…
Night enshrouds the forest. A funereal night. A night of last rites and broken promises. Harry is exhausted. He is soaked to the skin from rain that he can barely feel - even the air here is saturated. The trees whisper strange things to him. He wonders whether he can… still turn back?
-
“A Castle? In the middle of nowhere? How can this be?” Harry whispers.
The great gate, bordered by dank and monstrous trees, rises up before him. Behind it haunts the dark Castle; all turrets, twisting spires, and crumbling battlements. The horse stops at the gate, clearly bound to convey him no further. Harry walks cautiously through the portcullis. The building is enrobed in shadows. Looking up, he sees rows of hideous stone gargoyles. They glower down at him with empty eyes. Everything about the Castle is rotting, where once it must have been ornate. Moss and fungi grow between the stones. Ivy enshrouds the columns and arches. Great tree roots ensnare the once-proud staircases. Damp piles of wood smoulder - the smell of the black smoke is heady and acrid. There are strange noises coming from far off, out in the marshes; but they do not sound like they come from the vocal cords of ordinary creatures.
He disturbs a colony of bats, hanging from an old archway - they scratch at his face and cling to his hair as they hurtle past, and Harry has to take cover behind a crumbling pillar.
The Castle appears… deserted.
Where is this Master, to whom Sirius was to offer his life?
Harry drifts along a terrace, and up a flight of stone steps, looking at statues with missing heads and limbs, and gargoyles with great wings and fangs, until he comes upon… a Rose Garden?
The Garden is long abandoned: roses grow wild in all directions, and the bushes are snares of wicked thorns. Flowers designed not for love, but for… incarceration. Some are white, the white of bleached bone; they glow on the bush like moons. Some are red, the red of arterial blood; they seem to absorb the low light, like velvet. Harry gravitates towards them, and he is about to pick one - but it catches fire! Amazed, he watches the red rose turn to red ash, before his eyes.
He drifts down a long, dark corridor, lined on one side with great glass windows. Their streaming white curtains blow in a cool night breeze. As he enters what appears to be a Parlour, a hearty fire bursts into life in the hearth, animated as if by an invisible hand.
“Is someone there?” Harry calls out, and his voice trembles.
There is no answer.
Harry removes his sodden cloak, and hangs it, dripping, from a stand. He takes a seat at the great mahogany table, laden with breads and cheeses and glistening fruits - but is too unsettled to eat.
A ghostly hand pours him a goblet of wine. Harry stares; watches the jewel-coloured wine winking in the infernal blaze of firelight. Is it safe to drink? Harry is not usually one for wine, but he is so alone, and so cold, and this place so unfriendly… He takes the glass goblet - and finds the wine is mulled and warm. His fingers are frozen…
He drinks.
He does not touch the food. After the wine is gone, Harry curls up on the sheepskin rug before the crackling flames, and passes out from sheer exhaustion.
A set of ghostly figures conveys him, in slumber, to a dark bedroom, where they strip his soaked clothes away, wrap him in soft blankets, and there, they leave him. Curled on his side; seeking the warmth of an embrace that… never comes.