Chapter 16
She could do it, couldn’t she? She could, she knew she could...!
Anna’s fists were clenched at her sides, as though it was taking everything in her to stop herself from acting on the sudden rush of blood to her head, which was pounding as loudly as her heart.
Scathach was still gauging her with a gimlet-eyed stare, watching and waiting, like an evil queen in disguise who was only too eager for her to accept her poisoned apple.
It made Anna’s skin crawl.
I’ll never, ever let you have Nix! She wanted to shout. If only her throat wasn’t too tight to speak.
No matter how badly she wanted to, she knew she couldn’t take the figurative offer on the table. Not with what was at stake. Not when she would be playing right into the Professor’s hands.
An inkling of a frown overtook the Professor’s features, a momentary slip of the cold mask on her face.
“I thought so.” She said finally with a scoff, looking down at Anna as though she was a weak, contemptible thing.
“Perhaps I’ll set her extra lines tonight.” Her lips curled faintly, in a way that was both mocking and taunting, plainly deriving some sort of pleasure from the agonized look on the Gryffindor’s face. “And one more thing, whelp. Don’t let me catch you outside my classroom after curfew again.”
Anna’s chest heaved. An icy numbness was spreading throughout her body, and her blood that had been boiling now felt like ice in her veins.
She knew what the woman was doing. Throwing it in her face, how weak and inept she was. And the worst part was that she wasn’t even wrong. What hope did she have of protecting Nix, when she couldn’t even conjure a proper Shield Charm?
Unable to stand that scathing gaze any longer, she turned tail and fled. Ignoring Rapunzel’s shout for her to wait up, pushing past students who were thronging the corridors, trainers squelching as they pounded across the muddy dirt path up to the Owlery, wanting nothing more than to throw herself at the unsuspecting snowy and sob into her feathers, promising that she would never do anything to risk losing her.
But she had. For an impetuous moment, she had considered–had wanted to take that deal.
Her footfalls grounded to a halt.
She felt sick, physically sick, like she was about to toss the supper that she had last night. Her thoughts were spiraling like snowflakes in a blizzard, and the weight on her chest was almost suffocating.
“Eeeeekkk!” She could hear Nix’s soliciting cries, having sensed her owner’s tumultuous emotions. Just as the snowy came swooping in through one of the tower’s stone window apertures.
She hooted once more at Anna, blinking large blue eyes that were steeped in concern.
Blue eyes that were always looking at her so trustingly, filled with so much love and gratitude.
Anna’s heart clenched in her chest. Before the snowy could soar over to her, she bolted out of the room, uncaring of where her headlong flight took her, just that she needed to get away.
‘Anna, wait!’
It was blowing a gale outside, not quite a storm, the sky overcast with nebulous clouds and the promise of more rain.
‘Anna!’
Her heart was racing, beating out of control like a runaway train, her breath coming in ragged gasps as she hurtled across the training grounds, bursting into the old broom shed, snatching up her Nimbus racing broom.
“Anna!” A pale hand caught hold of her arm, and she found herself looking up at the consterned face of Elsa Arendelle.
“Anna, what’s wrong? I can tell you’re upset. And I saw you running out of the Owlery. Did something happen?”
Anna shook her head, too wrecked with emotion to speak anywhere close to cogently. “I’m so sorry, Elsa…I couldn’t, I couldn’t…”
The blonde's lips parted slightly, but she didn’t push further, merely exhaling a soft sigh whilst reaching out with her other hand to take Anna’s broomstick from her trembling ones. “You shouldn’t be flying.”
Something hot flared inside Anna's chest. “Because you don’t think I can handle the winds?!”
Those huge blue eyes blinked, looking vaguely taken aback. “No…because you might have a concussion.”
Right, there was probably a lurid bruise featuring prominently on her forehead.
“…I’m sorry, I…”
“Let me take you.”
Anna stared at the pale blonde uncomprehendingly. “Take me where?”
Elsa’s only reply was to hitch a leg over her broom, waiting for Anna to climb on behind her.
Merlin...what was it about those eyes that seemed to hold sway over her, making her comply without questioning.
“…you better hold on to me…”
She sidled closer, slipping an arm around that sylphlike waist from either side.
The air stirred faintly around them, as though it too had felt the sliver of a shudder that passed through the pale blonde–one that made Anna even more aware of the lithe and svelte body that she was pressed up against.
And then her heart was soaring at the feeling of escaping the ground. Higher and higher they rose, to be greeted by drafty winds that billowed her robes and pinked her cheeks.
Steepled rooftops whizzed by beneath them as they cleaved through the sky, swerving and swooping alongside a flock of swallows, with the same fleetness and sureness of wing.
Anna held tight to her as Elsa took them in a sweeping arc over the Hogwarts grounds, in banking turns around the castle's turreted towers and tall spires, darting in and out of open corridors around the quad, before pulling up sharply to clear the battlements atop of it, an updraft carrying them high into the sky.
It felt like a childhood fantasy, like how she used to dream of hurtling through the roiling skies not while straddling a stick of wood, but on the back of a winged magical beast, the ever-shifting winds and currents bending to its will.
And if she closed her eyes, she could almost convince herself of that.
By the time they were skimming over the forest canopy, the nip of cold on her cheeks was now a full flush, her breath heavy and heaving against Elsa’s nape, all her senses on edge and alive. The only thing she could think of was how she wanted this to last forever, and her arms subconsciously tightened around Elsa.
But of course, it wouldn’t.
The winds had quietened to a hushed whisper when they came in to land on the balcony of the astronomy tower, scattering a few birds from their roost.
“Wow, Elsa…that was…amazing…” Anna gasped between breaths as she dismounted a little shakily, though it left her with a vague sense of emptiness, like coming down from a high, a transition from dream to reality.
Eyes that resembled the heart of a glacier turned to meet hers, like a regal snowy owl that seemed oblivious to its own majesty, lit by sun beams breaking through the clouds, and a smile that was as soft as her gaze.
Anna’s feet may have been on solid ground, but she was once again lost in the feeling of flying. Or falling.
“Anna…” Like the wind, Elsa’s voice was a whisper.
There was so much contained in that one word, so much that Anna didn’t understand. And it was hard to think straight when Elsa was looking at her like that. It made her heart feel both light and heavy at the same time, the fluttery feeling constrained by a deep, aching guilt.
She wasn’t sure when she had taken a step forward, but Elsa hadn’t retreated back, leaving them close enough now that if she leaned in, she could…
But instead, she remained utterly still, the warmth of her breath misting against the cold of Elsa’s.
She could hear the latter over her own, its stiff and stilted cadence growing ever heavier, leaving little doubt–if there had been any–in Anna’s mind that this was the first time in forever that she had allowed anyone this close.
Through it all, Elsa’s eyes hadn’t strayed from hers, looking at her so intently as though she was memorizing every freckle on her face, as though Anna would disappear if she blinked. She could almost feel the Slytherin’s gaze on her, like frost prickling across her skin, and she couldn’t suppress a shiver.
And yet there was something so familiar about being under that stare. It was almost reminiscent of…
“Nix!”
Guilt stabbed her, while Elsa all but jerked back, like someone who had been snapped out of a trance, whatever spell or enchantment that they had been under broken. Blue eyes had lost their glaze, alarm and panic rising behind them, as though she was feeling the same wave of cold that was washing over Anna.
“…Nix…she must think I…I’ve got to find her…” Anna’s throat felt strangled, and she could only stammer out a string of incoherent words.
The snowy had to be so hurt and confused when she had bolted off like that, thinking she was mad at her, and not knowing what she had done wrong…
“Nix!” She wheeled around sharply, scouring the skies for any flutter of movement as she leaned out over the parapets. “Nix!”
There was a grunt behind her.
“Elsa?” The older girl grimaced, clutching her ankle, looking a deathly shade of pale. “What's wrong? You don't look so good...”
“I’m–” Elsa bit her lip. “–fine. You should go.”
Anna’s heart wavered a moment longer. With a final torn look back at the pale blonde, she swung a leg over her broom.
Swelling winds tugged at her braids as she took to the air, whipping loose strands of hair into her face, while the skies had darkened, almost in an instant, with bleak gray clouds of ominous portent stretching as far the eye could see across the horizon.
Her first instinct was to head for the Owlery. Surely Nix would have sensed the oncoming storm and would be sheltering there.
"CAW, CAW!"
Ugh, not crows again...Down in the courtyard, she could make out a raucous gathering of about a dozen or so pied crows, with a few rooks and ravens mixed in, making an awful racket as they darted about, cawing throatily. Her breath hitched slightly, instantly fearing the worst, such as an owl being harried and mobbed by the murder of crows.
The rabble scattered back as she descended on them, though they continued to stay close, cawing and clacking their bills. But her fears were unwarranted, as it turned out that a silver trinket box was all the kerfluffle was about. She almost let out a bit of a laugh out of relief and was about to leave them to it, when she caught a gleam of dark emerald, glinting off the gobstone-like eyes of one of the ravens.
No, not one, she realized with a chill, as she cast a foreboding glance around her, catching more glimpses of that same glint in other dark, beady eyes.
Now that she thought about it, those ravens that had attacked them at Hogsmeade had had a similar glint in their eyes too…
A hand inched into her robes, fingers hesitating, before closing around her wand.
One of the ravens gave a deep croaking call. Then all at once, they took off into the air.
Without thinking, Anna shot after them. There had to be a reason they were here, in Hogwarts. And every instinct in her gut was telling her that it had to do with Nix. It was too much of a coincidence to even try to convince herself otherwise.
Throwing herself flat over her broom, she streaked forward in pursuit, eyes screwed up against the rushing wind, doing everything she could do to not let the ravens out of her sight.
The storm was closing in on them with each booming rumble that shook her bones and each flash that lit the sky, causing the little hairs on the back of her neck to stand on end. Already she was soaked to her skin from flying through louring clouds that were dropping ever lower, heavy with icy precipitation.
She didn’t know how far beyond the castle they had flown, or how long she had managed to keep up the chase, veering and swerving in hard twists and turns, in and out of dense frozen fog, until those black wings finally disappeared for the final time into a cloud.
Shaking her sodden bangs out of her eyes, Anna bit back a curse.
The adrenaline-filled haze was starting to fade, leaving her cold, wet, and shivering like a leaf, with only her robes between her and the bitter winds, and with the realization that she had just flown headfirst into the thick of the storm.
A storm that was only just beginning.
She could feel the electricity in the air, and the winds were ramping up further, rocking her like a boat on a storm-tossed sea. Fueled by a desperation and rising panic, she levered her broomstick around, damn near sending it into a spiraling tailspin.
“S-snow?”
Her eyes weren’t deceiving her. Sleet and snow had begun to fall. Within seconds, it was already coming down as thick and fast as she had ever seen. Not so much falling as hurtling down, casting the earth and sky in a veil of white.
It would have been almost mesmerizing if it wasn’t so terrifying.
The temperatures must have sunk below freezing, each puff of breath warming her face for the briefest of seconds before being wicked away by the cold. Flakes clung to her eyelashes, and she could feel the sting of driven snow and graupel on her frozen cheeks.
In a heartbeat, the tempest had become a full-on blizzard, and she was caught in its frigid grip.
No, this was no blizzard. This was Nix. The snowy was out there somewhere, searching desperately for her. She could feel it.
“Nix!” The choked cry scraped through her lungs like an icy dagger, only to be drowned out by the keening winds.
She was flying blind now, any sense of direction she had lost to the blinding whiteout, as her eyes searched hopelessly for the looming silhouette of the castle.
All around her she could see nothing but thick swirling snow, careening in whirling vortices, eddying in pirouettes through the air, fraught and frenetic, with an edge of franticness. But what struck a chill to her heart were the winds that were shrilling a dissonant refrain, filled with so much fear. It was in the very air, in the cold that gusted…
This was the storm inside of Nix. The magic within her that seemed to be inextricably tied to her emotions. And if she got scared enough, she wouldn’t be able to control it.
Gritting her chattering teeth, Anna could only cling half-frozen to her broom, and to a singular thought––Nix.
It was an exacting effort just to stay on her broom, chilled to the bone, lashed by an onslaught of sleet and blistering winds, blown hither and thither like the wind-whipped snow. Though given that she could hardly feel her fingers at this point, it was honestly a miracle that she was still hanging on.
The cold was starting to numb her senses. But she knew that she had to be closer than ever–to the beating heart of the storm. If she could just hold on…for a little longer…trusting in the bond that she shared with Nix…trusting that Nix would find her…even if it was through a snowstorm of the snowy’s own making.
‘No matter where you both are, she’ll know when you’re calling, and how to find you.’
Anna’s broomstick gave a sudden lurch, throwing her heavily to the side and pitching into a barrel-roll. She hung on grimly with all the strength in her hands, and for a fleeting moment she thought she might be able to hold on, but her flagging grip gave out…and then she was falling through the air.
Only it didn’t feel like she was falling, but flying.
She could no longer hear the storm around her or feel the turbulence of the winds. As quickly as it had begun, the icy tempest had abated, replaced by an unearthly silence.
Through the wisp of consciousness that was left in her, she glimpsed a pair of white feathery wings, spanning out majestically, breathtaking and ethereal in their soul-stirring beauty, like something out of a dream.
A dream in which she was being cradled in the arms of an angel.
She had to be hallucinating. Maybe she was delirious from cold.
“I got you, Anna.” A soft breathy voice reached her ears, just as her eyes drifted shut, losing her struggle to cling to consciousness.