Chapter 11
“No! Stay away from her!” Anna burst out, face flushed heatedly, anger burning in her veins. “I won’t let you hurt her!”
Scathach cast her a scorching look, a glowering scowl supplanting the tight-lipped grimace on her face, turning her expression close to murderous.
“Not another word, if you know what’s good for you. You are a student and will do as you are told.” Teal eyes flashed dangerously, the hard stones in them glinting like sparks struck from flint. “And I will not tolerate lip from insolent little snots.”
Anna glared up at her mutinously, the anger in the Professor’s eyes a stark reflection of her own.
The woman may look and sound as though she cared, but Anna knew exactly what she was doing. She wanted nothing more than to expose Nix! Somehow, she had to get to the snowy before she did.
“Anna, please. Go back to the castle. You’ll be the first to know when the owl is safely caught, I promise.” Belle interceded, her tone gentle and imploring. “No one means her any harm. But we need to find her right away.”
“Then let’s all go.” Rapunzel cut in. “As you said, we’re wasting time here.”
Belle studied the two of them, eventually conceding with a sigh, not even trying to hide the exasperation in her voice. “I can’t believe I’m agreeing to this. Honestly, what is it with you Gryffindors and being such hotheads. Stubborn to a fault. Displaying an absolute lack of forethought.”
She turned to the woman next to her almost accusatorily. “I suppose we’ll have to take them with us. Merlin knows what sort of trouble they’ll get up to if left to their own devices.”
“Whatever.” Scathach said shortly. “I don’t give a toss besides capturing that bloody owl.”
Her wand flicked once and Anna nearly keeled over, legs buckling underneath her as the magic holding them in place was abruptly lifted.
The Professor looked on disdainfully, waiting for her to haul herself back to her feet, before thrusting out a hand. Beside them, Belle, with Rapunzel in tow, vanished with a cracking snap.
Grudgingly, Anna gripped on to it.
There was a yanking tug behind her naval, and then she was hurtling through space, reappearing at the edge of the forest enclave, doubled over and sucking in gulps of crisp woodland air. She heard Rapunzel mutter a curse, looking no less pale and ill from the effects of the side-along Apparition.
“Stick close. And keep between us.” Belle motioned them ahead of her, while Scathach twisted away from Anna, moving with a hard-edged purpose as she led the way into the forest.
Anna had no intention of letting the woman out of her sight, staggering along in her wake as she fought her way through the dense thicket of overgrown bracken and knotgrass, clambering over gnarly roots and under low overhanging branches, all while forcing down the queasy feeling in her gut.
She wasn’t unwise to the perils of these woods. The moon was full tonight, the fading twilight giving way to an early night. Every rustle of movement could be anything from a saucer-eyed mooncalf emerging from its burrow to a werewolf on the prowl for an evening snack.
Few would ever dream of venturing in here. Save for those who were searching for something. Or those who sought refuge amongst the shadows, for whom the darkness held a cold comfort, the familiarity of an old friend.
A clacking of branches above her head had her jolting back in alarm, but it was only the wind playing tricks on her mind.
“Scared?” Scathach observed drolly, with a maddening curl of her lips.
“No I’m not!”
If she were here alone, perhaps she might have been.
But she wasn’t.
While she could have done without the added company–one of them at least, she thought with a glare at the Professor’s back, it was her worry for her owl that compelled her onward, along with the knowledge that Nix was here. Somewhere. And Anna would follow her into fire, let alone some creepy old forest.
Still, it was hard to shake the feeling that they weren’t welcomed.
The forest’s heavy presence loomed around them, at once forbidding and foreboding, steeped in sinister shadows that would have elicited fear in even the bravest of Gryffindor hearts. Ancient trees stood sentinel in an endless labyrinth that one could all too easily find themselves lost in. But most unsettling was the quiet, through which even the tiniest sound was magnified…
…along with the thoughts floating at the fringes of her mind.
Keep it together…please, keep it together…
The choked plea made her pause in her step, willing herself to take a deep steeling breath, desperately trying to keep her frantic emotions from consuming her.
Of course, the panic and fear clawing at her gut weren’t actually hers. Not that it made it any easier to contain the visceral reaction that they evoked. She could taste something caustic and bitter in her throat, brought up by that familiar twisting guilt that threatened once again to expel the contents of her stomach.
She imagined the snowy hunkered down on some frozen bough, huddled into herself, hurt and crying and scared out of her wits, all alone at a time when she needed comfort and assurance.
You lost control for a heartbeat. And look what happened. You hurt them. Hurt Anna. Oh god, Anna. Sweet, kind, innocent Anna. She even feels sorry for you…if she only knew the truth…
A sharp stab in her chest nearly dropped her to the ground, had the Professor not caught her by the wrist.
“What is wrong with you? Stamping around like some lumbering troll.”
Anna wrest the limb back, nearly taking a backwards spill over a fallen branch.
It’s just like they said. Sooner or later, the dark in you will come to light.
It was…harrowing. Listening powerlessly as Nix’s mental state unraveled like a fraying hemline. Hearing her being tormented like that by her own thoughts, as they spiraled farther and farther into a dark place that Anna couldn’t reach, filled with so much pain and fear.
She knew that the snowy believed herself to be a curse. It was seared like a brand into her sub-conscience. Like the silver metal cuff that someone before Anna had secured around her foot, she was still fettered to her past, and to her fears.
It was getting harder to breath. It felt like her throat was closing up. Like her heart was poised under the edge of a knife.
“Anna, look!” A soft gasp from Rapunzel snapped her out of her trance, looking up to where a moonbeam had pierced through the gloom, shedding a glimmer of soft silvery light on what appeared to be a regurgitated owl pellet.
Except this one still contained the partially dissolved flesh and organs of a small vole, rather than just the usual fur and bones.
Anna's heart plummeted further, and she fought down the urge to gag, the thought of Nix making herself sick sending another guttural wave of nausea coursing through her.
“She’s definitely passed this way, we have to be getting closer.” Belle had come up behind them, scrutinising the hacked-up bits of Nix’s dinner that lay strewn across the mossy ground.
Scathach gave a curt nod, her voice betraying a hint of emotion.
“Let’s hope we are.”
.
No one spoke a word after that.
Anna’s head throbbed. Her heart ached. And she wasn’t sure if she should be feeling relief or worry that she was no longer being inundated with the snowy’s thoughts.
‘Please be okay, Nix.’
A profound silence greeted them as they forged further into the dark nocturne woods. Anna didn’t know how long they had been walking, but their pace had slowed considerably, the trees and foliage growing so thickly here that the forest seemed to close in around them.
The moon still afforded a scant amount of light–hardly enough to make out the ground a couple feet in front of her. Anna was beginning to get a sense of what it must feel like to be gradually losing her sight, as she stumbled along in near darkness.
Scrabbling fingers groped for her wand to light it. “Lumo–”
“I know the staircase doesn’t go to the top of the tower with you.” Scathach’s low hiss reverberated dissonantly through the dark. “And I can see that common sense isn’t a flower that grows in your garden either.”
“I didn’t think–”
A scoff. “Of course you didn’t.”
“She’s right about one thing, though.” Belle’s voice sounded eerily disembodied in the pitch blackness. “We aren’t getting anywhere like this.”
Scathach made a non-committal noise in her throat. And then she pulled out her wand, glowing tip pointed straight at Anna’s heart.
“Are you bloody mad?” Belle spluttered, but she was cut off by a call of–
“Expecto patronum!”
From the end of the Professor’s wand burst a shining, shimmering figure, glowing a translucent, silvery-blue. Half-blinded, Anna screwed up her eyes, already knowing what she would find when she opened them again.
A snowy owl, made of pure, radiant light.
And yet her heart still froze at the sight.
Scathach spoke softly to it as it landed on her arm, looking up at her with an elegant slant of its head that was so familiar it brought goosebumps to Anna’s skin.
And then it lifted its wings, taking to the air and vanishing amongst the pines as swiftly and silently as it had appeared, illuminating the way forth with its guiding light.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Anna tore after it in pursuit.
Her breath was coming heavier as the air grew colder by the minute, breathing in the chilly scent of frost, pine and fir that filled the subfreezing air.
But the dim light filtering through the trees was growing brighter once more, glinting off of the silvery hoarfrost and needle ice that beset the undergrowth, while up ahead more snow shrouded the hemlock and birch.
Stumbling out of the trees, chest heaving, Anna found herself at the edge of a small clearing.
Her gaze swept searchingly over it, over the white bed of snow that coated every inch of the glade, hoping with bated breath that one of the little mounds would stir and turn its glistening blue eyes toward her.
The disappointment was crushing.
And yet there was little doubt in her mind that Nix had been here. Something must have flushed her from her hiding spot.
Striding past her, Scathach reached down, carefully picking a pristine white feather off the ground. Anna frowned. That couldn’t have been one of Nix’s. It looked to be about as long as her arm. Had it been dropped by a Hippogriff? Was that what had alarmed the snowy, causing her to take off? Or had they both been spooked by something else?
Wordlessly, the Professor stowed the giant feather in her robes, dusting herself off and straightening up. And then she stiffened, her gaze shifting sharply to a point in the trees, just out of reach of the moonlight.
“What is it, Belle? Is there something there?” Rapunzel asked breathlessly, with an anxious glance at the brunette, who too was staring off in the same direction, at nothing in particular. The two had finally caught up with them.
“Thestrals.” Scathach answered tersely in her stead. “You can’t see them, not unless…”
“You have witnessed death, with your own eyes.” Rapunzel gave a small shudder that Anna suspected had nothing to do with the inclement chill in the air.
The Professor’s cool gaze flicked to her fleetingly. “Very good, five points to Gryffindor. It would seem that not all of you are as thick as two short planks.”
Anna grounded her teeth, barely containing her anger but determined not to let the woman get to her. It helped that there were more pressing concerns on her mind.
“Thestrals…they sound dangerous.” Especially for a little owl. And Nix couldn’t even see them!
Even if the deaths of mice and other small critters did count–and Anna highly doubted that they did, she hadn’t seen the snowy bring back a fresh kill in all the time she had been in her care.
‘What about those ravens?’ A voice in her head pointed out. ‘You can’t deny that they looked as dead as doornails. Just like you can’t deny that you know next to nothing about Nix’s past. Apart from how terrified it’s made her of her own powers.’
Suddenly, the thought of Nix being able to see thestrals seemed anything but a comforting one.
“Most would think so, yes, but they’re really far from.” Belle assured. “They’re incredibly human-shy, which is to be expected given the prejudice against them. Dangerous if they feel threatened, but not without reason to be. Look, there it goes now, slinking back into the shadows.”
“Like all magical beasts, how dangerous they are depends on their temperament and emotional state.” Scathach made sure to look Anna straight in the eye as she said that.
Her meaning couldn’t have been more clear.
Anna’s fists shook, nails digging crescents into her palms.
Nix was not dangerous!
Anxiety-ridden. Shying at every little thing that moves. Deathly afraid of losing control of her magic for reasons that Anna was only truly beginning to understand.
But she wasn’t some half-feral thing, driven by fear and instinct, as the Professor would have her believe.
Her little ‘accident’ today would never have happened if not for those awful ravens. She just needed to be left well enough alone, that’s all! Once Anna had calmed her down and quelled her fears, she would be back to being the soft floofy girl that Anna knew and loved, of that she was sure.
Before she could bristle at the Professor, there was a shift in the shadows. A twig snapped behind her.
“It’s a strange hour to be skulking around these parts.”
Into the clearing stepped a half-man, half-equine creature. A light flurry lifted his long black mane, revealing a longbow and a quiver of arrows slung across his torso, which was melded at the waist to the dappled-gray body of a horse.
“Kocoum. How nice of you to drop in on us.” Scathach drawled over Anna’s stifled gasp. “Shouldn’t you be off contemplating the movements of the planets and asking questions of the stars, or whatever it is that you centaurs do?”
The centaur surveyed them impassively.
“You shouldn’t be here.” He said finally, with a swish of his tail. “Your presence here bodes ill. It is not just I who has read the signs of a great disturbance in the stars. We stay our bows this time, only because you come in search of the child. Henceforth leave this place and return to whence you came.”
Child? If Anna wasn’t already confused, now she was truly lost.
“A great disturbance?” Scathach lifted a brow coolly, keeping her features carefully schooled. “Do tell.”
“We do not share our knowledge with your kind.” Kocoum looked stonily back. “Nor do we concern ourselves with the affairs of humans.”
“So you have said.” Scathach said testily. “And yet here you are, concerning yourself. Just like how you claim that the killing of innocents is a terrible crime, yet you will stand idly by while–”
“It is not our place to interfere in what has been foretold. So it has been for centuries past.” The centaur replied evenly.
“That is not what I’m asking!” The Professor seethed, all pretence of coolness forgotten. “Only for you to tell me–”
“The stars do not hold the answers that you seek.” Kocoum interrupted once more. “I had hoped that you could be brought to your senses, but it seems your mind is made up.”
“It is.” Scathach bit out.
Kocoum shook his head, his voice deep and grave. “Then there is nothing more for us to say here. But heed these words: gaze too deep into the past or future, only pain you will find.”
Anna held her breath as the centaur’s eyes flicked to her. And for a moment, she thought she saw a flicker of pity flit across his face.
Then with a flash of hooves, he was gone.
Once again an excruciating silence fell over them.
Until it was shattered by a shrill shriek which sounded like it had come from some monstrous fiend that was part bird and part beast, piercing through the night and into her very soul.
“Nix!” Anna’s stomach gave a little lurch, a shudder of fear running through her. Before Belle or the others could get a word in edgewise, she had already whipped around, taking off at a madcap sprint.
The pulse in her throat was pounding hard and fast as she raced through the rimy grass, wending in and out of trees cloaked in icy fog, ignoring the calls for her to slow down and come back.
Every howling gust felt like it had come from the gorge of a dragon–one that breathed cold instead of fire, biting into her skin, chilling her to the bone. And whispered on them was a voice, rasped with guilt.
‘…I’m sorry…’
‘…I have to do this…’
“Obliviate.”
Anna’s breath froze as soon as it left her lips, the sight before her stopping her dead in her tracks, though it took a numbed second for her to realise that.
Lying out-cold against a snowbank, straggly black hair and rumpled school robes contrasting sharply with the dusting of white powdery flakes on them, was a Gryffindor boy whom she recognised at once.
Olaf? What was he doing all the way out here? And why was he...
A slight figure stood over him, the wand in her hand slipping from her trembling grasp and tumbling softly to the snow.
Anna gaped at her, breath still suspended like the ice crystals in the air.
“Elsa?”