Chapter 2: The North

Harry woke up with ice in his lungs and smoke on his tongue.

He lay on a shallow bowl of rock on hard ground, with a slate-grey sky above him. Snow fell in slow, sheeting flakes across the basin. The world around him looked wrong: piles of gold and silver were scattered like someone had knocked over vaults with a shovel; ropes of pearls were tangled on broken crates; jewelled goblets were everywhere; and a spill of books was half-buried in frost. The dragon was ten yards away, sleeping curled up in a ball. Its body made a low hill of pale scales and folded wings.

He just stared for a second. He remembered light and noise and falling last. He was now on a frozen hillside with Gringotts spread out on the ground like spilt coins.

First, he rolled to his knees and crawled to the dragon.

It breathed slowly and steadily. It had its eyes closed. He put his hand on a foreleg, ready to flinch, and felt heat through the scale. He looked more closely. The scars from before were gone. There was new, clean armor where he had seen cracked, flaking plates and lash marks. The wing membrane, which had been torn and ripped, was now whole. The yellowing around the eyes had even turned into a cloudy pearl.

"You're all right," he said, more to himself than to it.

His stomach growled. Very loud. He hadn't eaten since last night, and he didn't know when the dragon had last eaten. He didn't want it to wake up hungry and confused with him right there.

He took Hermione's beaded bag off his leg and looked inside—sleeping roll, Extra clothes, A few potions, A can of tea. There is no food. He cursed under his breath.

Okay. Look for water. Look for a place to stay. Get something to eat. And find out where the hell he was.

He took out Malfoy's hawthorn wand and held it flat on his palm. "Point Me," he said.

The Wand stayed still. Not even a twitch.

He frowned and tried again, but this time more slowly. "Point Me."

Nothing.

"Brilliant." He looked around—low hills—snow-blank tips. There was no road, no smoke on the horizon, and the only sound was the wind blowing through the scattered jewellery.

He noticed something dark, half-buried in a pile of coins. He pushed aside a pile of silver stags and gold coins that he didn't know what they were.

There was a long, pale wand on a velvet roll. It was carved strangely, and its surface looked like it had grown rather than been carved.

Harry's mouth got dry. He whispered, "What are you doing here?"

Dumbledore's Wand.

This Wand should be in Dumbledore's tomb. Harry still remembered when Draco had disarmed Dumbledore on the tower years ago. Wandlore was tangled on that point—but none of that explained why the Wand sat in a pile of Gringotts loot in a frozen nowhere.

He thought about it for a moment before picking it up. It warmed in his hand in a way that no other wand had ever done. The fit was both right and wrong, like a half-open door.

"Point Me," he said, and the air fogged up.

Nothing yet.

He gave Lumos a simple shot. The tip lit up for a second, and then light came out of it like it was supposed to.

So, his magic was still there, but the point me spell wasn't working at all. The place, the air, and the rules didn't seem to fit. He thought of the waterfall in Gringotts that washed away hidden things. It felt like the world was a bigger version of the Thief's Downfall.

He held Dumbledore's Wand tightly and kept Malfoy's Wand in his belt. He needed to find out quickly whether magic worked. If it didn't, he'd have to act like a Muggle, which he hated the thought of. In a strange land with no allies, he needed his magic to feel even remotely safe.

"Okay... Accio coin."

A gold coin slid across the frost and into his hand.

"Reparo."

A broken silver bowl knitted itself back together.

"Leviosa Wingardium."

The bowl rose, floated, and then gently fell back down.

Every simple spell worked just like it was supposed to. The relief was so substantial that his knees felt weak. Most of the magic worked here. Point Me was the odd one out.

He let out a long breath. He was tired, but for the first time since the vault, he felt almost at ease. What would Hermione do? The answer came with a clear picture: Hermione, arms crossed, starting a neat list—shelter, water, heat, food—and then questions. The thought of her—of Ron—made his heart hurt. He might never see them again.

He got over it. Being still would kill him faster than being sad.

"Okay," he said out loud to calm himself down. "First shelter, or I'll die of cold." Then food.  Harry, get to work."

He looked through the beaded bag again and took out a coil of cord, a small knife, and his flint. He climbed up to the edge of the basin and looked for a place to stay. To the west, a group of dark trees grew in a shallow fold. Conifers are suitable for blocking the wind. He looked back at the dragon. It was warm and sleepy in the cold.

He said, "Stay asleep. Please."

He thought about what had gone wrong. Most of it was coins and jewellery, which were worthless to him for the moment. The books could be better. He bent down next to the closest stack and brushed the frost off the covers.

A Book About Inverted Wards. The First Makers' Runes. Family Vault 713's ledger is useless. He looked at three more. There were two in French. One was a mix of gibberish and goblin runes, with a hand that looked like a claw.

He put Runes of the First Makers and Inverted Wards under his arm. He kept the Elder Wand hidden under his sleeve and flat against his forearm.

He strolled around the basin in a circle before it got dark, looking for tracks—only his, and something heavy dragging behind him in a long arc—the dragon's tail. There are no footprints from people. Okay. He couldn't handle either an army or a mob if they saw a dragon on the ground.

He went back to the dragon and stood in the steam of its breath for a moment to warm his hands. He said, "You and me, then. We'll be fine."

He made a fist and then let go. The skin on his knuckles hurt. He bent his left hand and felt the familiar pull where the sword hilt had bitten him days ago.

Were it days?—at Gringotts. He looked at the sword. It was sheathed next to a pile of gold. He put it on. Even though magic was uncertain, steel was steel.

Harry needed a place to stay right away. His fingers went from numb to burning, and the pain was crawling up his forearms like slow fire. The skin over his knuckles cracked and hurt when he bent his hands.

His fingers were already losing feeling.. His brain told him frostbite, which was helpful and clear.

He saw a movement pattern in his head: wand angles, a carving gesture, and then a sweep. He had no idea where it came from. Not the school. Not the D.A. Maybe from that library that he didn't want to go to, that is now stuck in his head. He was too cold to fight it.

He let the memory take charge.

He pointed to a spruce tree at the edge of the basin. The roots broke free with a wet, ripping sound, and the soil snapped and was thrown everywhere. A slicing charm was then used to cut the bark off. He cut the trunk in half lengthwise. Then he put the Planks in neat stacks and used his Wand to smooth out the edges. Knots were removed, and the plank is now smooth. Pegs spun themselves out of scraps and hopped into his hand, feeling warm like they had hearts. Rafters flew into place, and the ribs bent together under the pale sky. Harry felt like a conductor in front of a small, desperate orchestra, keeping time and steadying his hands while the world tried to shake them.

A little wooden house stood on the hard ground a few minutes later.

It wasn't pretty, but it didn't have to be. The stone footings were shoulder-high and formed a tight rectangle, dark and wet from the melt. The walls were made of thick planks that were tightly joined, pegged, and had grain that stood up.  The roof was steeply pitched to let snow slide off, and the shingles were rough, overlapping shakes that shone with resin. A smoke hole sat in the middle of the ridge, and a rough hood made from a split log covered it. The door was strong. It was made of two planks with a crosspiece joining them. It hung on shaped wooden hinges, and a strong bar waited inside, in iron saddles. There was only one window on the lee side, and it had a leather flap behind slatted shutters. It all smelled like clean sap and cold air.

Harry pushed the door open and walked in.

Inside, the space was small and close. He had built a waist-high stone hearth against the right-hand wall out of flat rocks that he had dragged in from the basin. A small fire was already eating a nest of twigs, and smoke was rising through a clay-lined flue. On the other hand, a raised plank bed was against the back wall, and a thin pallet full of pine needles was under rough wool. The floor was made of packed earth, and split-board runners kept boots out of the wet. There were three wooden pegs by the door. He hung the sword on the lowest one so that his hand would find it without thinking. There was a narrow shelf over the bed that was just wide enough for the bag, a tin mug, and a book that he could keep his eyes open for.

He sat down and put his hands in the fire. The heat got into his bones. The pain in his fingers got better, then worse, then better again. His jaw relaxed. As the house settled, it creaked once, and there was a faint hissing sound from the roof. The wind tried to get into his house/shelter from the outside, but it couldn't.

"Idiot," he said a minute later. "Warming charm."

He cast it. A second layer. Then a third, lighter one, tuned to fade as his body temperature rose. The relief was quick and embarrassing. He could have done that ten minutes ago. Okay. He was warmer now—next issue.

The dragon.

He stepped back into the cold and walked over to the pale shape. It was still sleeping, breathing out slow clouds that drifted and broke apart. He put warming charms along its body, being careful not to scare it. One went over its chest, one along its belly, and one across each folded wing. There was a faint shimmer of heat over the scales. The dragon's nostrils flared once, and its head sank deeper into its forelegs.

"Good," he said softly. "Stay that way."

The dragon was still sleeping, with steam coming out of its nose. Then it got to work. More trees came up when the pulls were controlled. Planks flew into place and shaped themselves. A long, low shed formed around the dragon in less than an hour. It had three sides that blocked the wind, a wide roof, and an open front. He wasn't going to box it in and get burned for his trouble. It would be deadly to box it in.

He crouched down and pulled up a few fist-sized stones from the frozen ground. He used the tip of Dumbledore's Wand to carve four wind-cutters, one for each corner of the longhouse, into each one.

He put them in the ground, buried them flush, and pushed magic into each one until they pulsed dull and steady to him. The air around the dragon calmed down right away. The knife-edge wind slowed to a low hiss as it slipped up and over the building.

He said, "This should keep you warm, my friend," and he meant it.

He carved four more for his house and put them at the four corners. After that, he found a boulder that was about waist-high and near the dragon. He scraped a heating rune across its face and fed it until it glowed faintly. The rock started to give off a steady, even heat that you could feel more than see. The air in the longhouse went from freezing to bearable, then to almost comfortable.

Immediate problems handled. Next is safety.

He picked up the last few small stones, knelt in the snow, and worked on the ward pattern that Hermione had hammered into the three of them all last year. It was like having her voice right next to him, clear, bossy, and right.

Repello Muggletum first: bend the attention of anyone ordinary who wandered too near.

Cave Inimicum for a prickling perimeter.

Homenum Revelio was bound to a simple chime if anything human crossed the line.

Muffle over the area.

A thin Protego Totalum dome to blunt stray attacks and weather both.

He walked the line, putting stones down so that all of the gold, books, and strange gear stayed inside the line. He used the heel of his boot to dig each anchor into the ground, and then he pressed his magic down through his palm until the stone caught and hummed back. He felt something invisible close with a soft pressure-pop that he heard more than felt in his ears. The air inside the circle felt quieter, heavier, and more contained.

More secure.

He raised his head. There was no dusk to speak of, and the sky was black. Small crystals floated in the air and sparkled when they hit the light from the fire that leaked out of his chimney cap. The cold was there, but manageable.

"Looks like I'm going to bed hungry tonight," he said. Hearing his own voice in the space calmed him down.

He looked at the dragon one last time, put a final warming charm on the floor of the longhouse, and watched the heat move around the boulder. The beast slept on, its chest rising and falling, and it stopped shaking.

The door slammed shut behind him as he went back inside. The small fire greeted him with a dry crackle. He put the sword by the door, took off his coat, and sat down. The bed was hard, the mattress was thin, but the heat was real, and the walls were strong.

Harry lay back and let the truth sink in: alone, somewhere else, probably forever—and still breathing. Tomorrow would be food. Tracks. People, if there were people. He would keep the fire going tonight, listen to the wind hit the walls, and breathe until the shaking in his hands stopped.

He fell asleep like a wave.

He woke up in a cold, grey, and quiet room. He didn't move for a few seconds; he just listened to the soft tick of the cooling embers, the slow draft up the flue, and his own breath. The list for the day filled up right away. It seemed too big. He pushed himself to get up anyway.

The first thing is the dragon.

He put on his coat and went outside. There was a low layer of clouds in the sky, and snow fell like dust. His wards hummed softly in the back of his head, like they were set and holding. He walked over to the longhouse, his breath steaming.

The dragon was still sleeping, but something was wrong. The boulder he had left near the front legs to heat was gone. He was scared until he got closer and saw it: the rock was tucked under the beast's belly and held against its chest where the scales were thin. The dragon's front claws curled around it like they owned it. Every time I exhaled, the stone fogged up, and a wave of warmth went up the long, pale throat. It looked like a kid sleeping with a hot water bottle, which was silly.

Harry's mouth moved. If I had a camera...

He ran his hand through his hair and, since the thought came to him fully formed, tried out the name in his head: Snuggles.

He made a loud snort. No way. He wasn't going to call a creature that was as big as a cottage, breathed fire, and crushed iron with its teeth "Snuggles." That was the kind of choice that got you eaten for no reason. Names could wait until it was awake and they had talked, or whatever it was that wizards and dragons did.

He looked over the warming charms and the runes, turned up the heat in the boulder, and stood there for a moment in the steam from the dragon's breath. The beast didn't move. Okay. It needed sleep to heal.

The second problem came up with an annoying sense of urgency: his morning work. There wasn't a bathroom.

He groaned, picked up a small shovel from the gear that was lying around, and walked past the ward line. The world opened right away. The wind was stronger, the cold was sharper, and the sounds it made were like a storm on the window. He chose a spot behind a boulder that was covered in ice, dug a quick hole, and did what he had to do while trying not to think about how the Chosen One had been reduced to freezing his butt off behind a rock. Dignity could be added to the list of things to do after breakfast.

He put two stones on the ground near the tree line on the way back to show where the proper latrine should be: a pit, a cover, a privacy screen, and runes to keep the smell and flies away. In her head, Hermione would have an index for this. He hated the pain in his chest that came with that thought, so he said, "Later," and moved on.

He stomped the snow off his boots when he got home, warmed his hands by the fire, and planned out the day, starting with food. He could not conjure it—Gamp's Law, Hermione's voice reminded him sharply. He could multiply what existed, summon what he'd dropped, transform what was similar, but he couldn't make food out of thin air. That meant either hunting or trapping.

He had the knife, a coil of cord, and Dumbledore's Wand up his sleeve. Malfoy's was at his belt. He went outside again and walked around the edge of the basin, looking for signs. There were small dimples and tight, paired marks of a hare in the snow. A fox had crossed in the night, leaving behind light, neat prints. There were older slots that could have been deer, but they were hard to see because of the new fall.

"Right," he said, because saying it made it real. "Then hares."

He put three snares along a narrow path that went under some low brush and another at the entrance to a brushy tunnel that looked like it had been used. He used a strip of dried leather rubbed with pine resin to lure two of them, leaving the other two blind. The work was good because it had clear steps and precise results.

He stopped on the last set, Wand in the air. If magic failed, he should not have tested it earlier. He tried a careful Lumos and saw the light stay steady before fading away at his thought. It's stable enough. Once more, a sense of relief.

When he turned back toward camp, the light had changed from iron to pewter. He drank water by melting snow in his silver bowl and taking slow, careful sips.

Stomach still empty and knotted.

The dragon slept the whole time.

He made himself walk the ward line again. The dome made a purring sound against his skin. No breaks. The gold shone like dull sunlight trapped on the ground. Books were stuck in snowdrifts, and some of them were already swelling at the edges where frost had gotten into their bindings. He took a few of them and put them under the leather flap. Then he put them on the shelf and made a small drying rack by the fire for the worst ones. If he didn't eat today, none of it would matter.

The silence came back when the tasks were done. Now it was different. Not the kind that made you feel hungry from the inside, but the kind that gave you options. He stood in it for a moment and looked at the world he had built overnight. There was a rough house, a long shed, a sleeping dragon, and a circle of protection made of runes that still remembered a girl with fierce eyes telling him where to put each stone.

It wasn't a lot. It was enough to make it to lunchtime, if he could.

His breath was smoky. The cold crept up his sleeves. A raven called out from far away and then stopped.

"Food," he said. "Let's go look for you."

He tightened the sword strap and followed his own tracks to the snares, keeping an eye out for the snap of a cord, a flash of white fur, or anything alive that wasn't him. Somewhere, not too far away, riders might be following a trail they didn't get. For now, the clearing was his, a dragon, and the line of his own stubborn will.

The traps hadn't gone off by midmorning, and a rabbit wouldn't have satisfied the dragon's hunger anyway. Harry looked at the pale shape sleeping under the longhouse roof and knew what he had to do.

"Right," he said to the empty air. "Bigger. Four. Five if I can do it."

He collected what he needed: a knife, a coil of cord, canvas sheets cut from a fallen tent roll in the Gringotts spill, both wands, and Gryffindor's sword. He took two of the longer boards and made a narrow sledge with bevelled runners and tight crosspieces. Then he tied on a drag rope that he could throw over his shoulder. He kicked snow over the dark patches of blood near the shed and looked at the wards one more time. Be quiet. Holding.

He felt the wind on his cheek and walked along the creekbed where he had seen the herd the night before. The cold made everything sharper: the air in his lungs, the edges of sound, and the pain in his calves. After half an hour, all that mattered were the tracks and the breath.

He could smell the deer before he saw them: warm skin and crushed grass. They slept in a shallow bowl behind a screen of willow, eight this time, maybe nine. There were does, yearlings, and a big stag with frost-sugared antlers. He got down on his knees, put his elbows in the snow, and let his breathing slow down—one chance to do this right.

He pulled Dumbledore's Wand into his hand and aimed it at the stag first.

"Stupefy."

The red bolt hit the shoulder. The stag fell apart like a cloak that had been dropped. The herd panicked and surged, but the wind stayed strong, and Harry was already changing his aim.

"Stupefy.... Stupefy."

Two more fell: a doe in the middle of a jump and a yearling that stopped to watch. The rest broke up and ran, their white tails flashing. He stayed still until the noise stopped, then he moved.

The knife work was ugly but necessary. He knelt by the stag's neck and drove in hard and clean, hot blood steaming into the cold air. "Thank you," he said, and it was important. He did the same thing for the second and third deer caught before the spells wore off, and then he finished the job.

It takes a long time to dress three deer in the snow. It smelled like copper, grass, and wild tallow. His fingers got slippery and then numb. He warmed them up under his arms and kept cutting. He left the hides on for the drag and tied the legs together with a cord. When the knife got stuck in a joint, he switched to a straight Diffindo. It was quick and controlled.

He tied the first dead animal to the sledge and started to pull it. Lean, step, and slide. It would have been easier to levitate, but he didn't trust it over that distance. He used it in short bursts—ten seconds of lift to get over a ridge and then off—to protect his shoulders. On the way back, he followed his own tracks like train tracks.

He dropped the first deer just inside the wards and turned the sledge back out before his legs told him to stop. It was easier the second time because his body heat hadn't cooled down yet, and the runners made a cleaner path through his first trail. The third was hard work. He stopped to rest behind a big rock. All he could hear was the drum in his ears and a raven far away complaining about missing a meal. He ate some snow, swallowed the pain, and kept going.

He was lucky to reach the edge of the basin. The dragon had not raised its head. He could feel the heating stone glowing faintly inside him, and the air around him shimmered with a low, even warmth. Harry dragged the sledge into the longhouse and put the body next to the first two. Then he stopped shaking for a moment.

"Two more," he said to the empty air. "If the herd breaks up, look for another."

He did. A quarter mile farther north, new slots crossed the creek and went up into a stand of black pine. He followed while crouching down, stopping when he heard a twig snap too close. He saw four deer eating lichen off a fallen log through the trunks. He chose the two biggest ones.

"Stupefy.... Stupefy."

Clean hits. He worked faster now—bleed, bind, drag—and turned for home with a second sledge he made on the spot out of green poles and cord. The light faded to a colder grey, but the sun never came out. His thighs were shaking, and the tendons behind his knees were burning by the time he got to the wards with the fourth deer. He put the sledge down, his back aching from the work, and looked at the pile he had made: four bodies under the longhouse roof, with steam slowly rising from their open wounds.

"Good," he said, and then he went back for the fifth.

He barely made it. The last drag almost killed him. He moved the sledge six steps to the next rock, then eight, then ten, talking nonsense to it to cheer himself on because Ron would have, and it helped. When he finally crossed the ward line and the low pressure of his magic touched the back of his head in a friendly way, he let out a short, crazy, relieved laugh and then got back to work.

The rest of the light went out when he butchered.

He pulled a strong crossbeam under the longhouse roof and tied it to the support posts. Then he used hooks he made out of bent silver cutlery to lift the hindquarters. Dumbledore's Wand worked perfectly for the careful cuts—no wasted movement and no wasted meat. He cut off the haunches, shoulders, and backstraps. He stacked bones for broth, put organs in clean snow outside the wards to use as bait for a trap line later, and kept his hands moving even when his forearms started to hurt.

Putting things away. He didn't have any salt. Okay. He had winter.

He picked a shady spot behind the longhouse and dug a hole with a Gouging charm, taking his time so he didn't hit rock too hard. He put flat boards around the edges, a lattice above the floor to let meltwater drain, and quarters next to each other, with clean snow he packed down by hand in between them. He put more boards and a canvas sheet with stones on top of the pit. Then he carved a rune into each corner stone that would keep the smell from getting out to every predator with a nose.

Next, there was smoke. He made a low rack from green saplings and set it under a lean-to at the longhouse's open end. He put thin strips of meat on top of it and a shallow trench below it filled with damp, punky wood and a few green boughs. The smoke curled right away, sweet, thick, and sticky. He pushed the draft with a small, steady Calefacio charm down by the fire bed and let the smoke get thicker until it turned a dirty blue. He would turn the strips in an hour. He would do the same thing the next day and the day after that. Not perfect preservation, but better than just hoping for the best.

He stopped every once in a while to listen to the wind blowing through the pines, the low pulse of his wards, and the dragon's slow breathing. No sound of hooves. Not a sound. If riders were out, they weren't here yet.

On his last round, he caught two hares in snares and quickly skinned them, his hands moving on their own. He put the dead bodies to the side for later and cut a small steak from a spare shoulder. He cooked it over the hearth in a silver bowl and ate it standing up because he was too tired to do it properly.

He only let himself think about Hermione after that. She would have liked the smoke draft and then told him off for not digging the pit first. He imagined the look she would give the sledge, the neat hang line, and the scent-baffles—proud, bossy, and loving—and had to blink hard to keep the pain behind his eyes from getting worse. Ron would have called the sledge "Old Draggy" and the longhouse "The Dragon's Pub." Then he would have tried to ride the stag down the hill for fun. The pain was deep and clean. He put it on the shelf with the rest of his things and kept going.

He ended by putting a simple perimeter chime on the meat pit, a second one on the smoke lean-to, and a third one at the longhouse entrance. He cleaned the knife, washed his wrists and forearms with snow until they burned, and hung his coat by the door, where the heat would reach it.

Five carcasses had been stacked neatly under the longhouse roof.  Quarters were cooling in the snow pit, strips were slowly turning dark red on the rack, two whole haunches were hanging on hooks for tomorrow, bones were bundled for broth, and offal was buried where he would remember to dig it up for traps. It seemed like a skill. It felt like there was space to breathe.

The dragon kept sleeping, curled up around its warm rock, with its breath rising and falling slowly like a furnace draft. Harry stood for a moment at the open edge and watched the plume of smoke rise into the night sky. It didn't move. When it woke up, the smell of blood and smoke might have told it what it needed to know: food here, heat here, and shelter here. Not a threat.

He felt the dome with his hand—magic pressed back, solid—and then he let himself in. He closed the door with a tired shoulder. The little house smelled like the work of the day: cold wood, smoke, iron, and a line of meat fat that was sweetening the air. He sat on the plank bed and felt every pull in his back and thighs become stronger all at once.

He said "five" to the empty room, and the number felt like a promise instead of a wish. He would turn the racks tomorrow, dig a proper latrine, and start looking for a way to get to people. He had meat hanging, a dragon that wasn't dying, and a roof that didn't leak.

That was enough for now.