The Quiet Path
It all happened blindingly fast after that. She asked rather matter of factly if he needed anything from inside — No — then she rose to her feet and strode over to the hedge, where he had first seen the fox watching him last summer. Where he had seen her watching him, he realized. It had never been just a fox. He wondered why she had waited so long to kidnap him.
“You'll need to crawl under after me,” she said, nodding at the fox-sized gap under the green leaves. “Don't let go of my tail.”
“You're going to be a fox again?”
She nodded. “First, I'm going to blindfold you. Where I'm taking you, even seeing certain things can be dangerous, and there are certain rules that you must follow.” She crouched so she was eye level with him. “They are the most important rules you've ever been given in your life.”
“What are they?” He was sure his eyes were the size of saucers. In the back of his mind, he was aware of the risk of Aunt Petunia or Dudley looking out the window and seeing him talking to Hazel. He was worried if that happened, all of this would vanish and he'd never see Hazel or the fox again and he'd never learn magic, and he’d never get his very own bedroom.
“You must take nothing from the other side — which also means you mustn't eat or drink anything, even if it's offered to you — you must never tell anyone your true name, and you must never make any promises.”
They weren't rules like he was used to and they seemed all that much more intimidating for their unfamiliarity. He nodded solemnly. “I'll follow the rules.”
“Repeat them.”
“Don't take anything or eat or drink anything even if someone offers it to me, don't tell anyone my name, and don't make a promise.”
“Remember them. There are consequences for breaking these rules, worse than anything your aunt and uncle would dole out. I wouldn't take you this way if I had a choice, but it's the quickest way to get to the house, especially if we want to avoid being seen. Now, hold still. I'm going to tie a blindfold around your eyes. Tell me if it's too tight, and don't take it off until I say, no matter what happens. If you lose me, just stay where you are. I'll find you.” She paused, giving him a pointed look. “And don't peek. They'll know. You can't trick anything in there.”
He began to feel more nervous as she straightened up and produced a red and white striped scarf. He closed his eyes as she wrapped it around his head. The fabric was scratchy, and it smelled like vanilla and roses.
"Er..." he started.
Something poked his leg. He reached down and felt fur. A cold, wet nose pressed into his hand, then nudged him again. Right, he was supposed to hold onto her tail and crawl under the hedge with her. He reached down until he felt the fox’s bushy fur and grabbed onto the tip of her tail gingerly, stumbling, then dropping to awkwardly crawl on three limbs under the hedge with her.
At first, he barely fit. Branches and leaves smacked him in the face, snagging on the fabric and nearly pulling it off. Then he felt something soft, like silk or spiderwebs though not sticky, or maybe water, but not wet, pass over him all at once. The ground beneath his hand was suddenly soft, loamy soil, and the branches that had been snagging on his clothes and the scarf let go of him. The next breath he took no longer carried the rich scent of dirt and decomposing leaves, but rather carried the unbelievably strong green scent of growing things.
The fox stopped moving, so he did too. He realized he had been gripping her tail too hard, and loosened his fingers. When he felt the gentle scrape of teeth against his skin, he let go entirely, stung though unhurt, and wondered if that meant he could take off the blindfold yet.
He scrambled to his feet and was reaching for the scarf around his eyes when a hand took his. He jumped, then realized Hazel must have turned into a person again.
“Not yet,” she said. “We need to walk for a bit. Follow me, and remember the rules.”
Right, the rules. He gulped and tried to remember them. Don’t take or eat anything, don’t tell anyone his name, don’t make any promises. He didn’t think he had broken any of them yet, but they gave him something to focus on as he followed her blindly, his only guide the feeling of her larger hand holding onto his. Her footsteps were silent, and it made his sound loud by comparison. He couldn’t hear much else. In fact, it was oddly quiet here, wherever they were.
Had they gone through the hedge to the neighbor’s garden? But they should have reached the other side of it by now, and where had all the birds and the sounds of lawnmowers gone? Plus, it didn’t smell like Privet Drive. He’d lived there as long as he could remember, and it had never smelled so green. The air was cool on his face, and a slight breeze made it eddy in whirls across his skin. It felt thicker than air should. Not harder to breathe, but but heavier, somehow. More.
They walked for a while. He didn’t ask how much longer they had to go, or even where they were going, following rules older and more unspoken than hers. He didn’t want to make her decide he wasn’t worth kidnapping because he annoyed her with his questions.
Finally, he felt her hand tighten on his and she tugged him sort of sideways, but it felt like she’d found a new direction, one he’d never gone in before. The normal sounds of the world came back with a vengeance; the drone of insects was deafening, and he was more aware of the shrill calls of the birds and a distant dog barking than he had been before. The way the air smelled changed too, to the dry scent of summer, of freshly cut alfalfa in fields, though the feeling of the sun on his face didn’t return.
“You can take the scarf off now.”
Hazel let go of his hand as she spoke, and he reached up immediately to rip the scarf off his head. Once he finally got the chance to look around, all he could do was gape. He wasn’t very good at judging how much time had gone by, something Aunt Petunia hated about him, but he was sure they had only been walking that long. He wasn’t that thirsty, and his legs didn’t hurt, and he didn’t have to go pee, which meant they certainly hadn’t been walking for the hours it should have taken for the sun to move that far across the sky. It was already dipping beneath the horizon, giving the country lane they were standing next to a golden glow.
They were in a strip of trees and brambles, the sort that separated the fields in some places, under a natural arch made by vines that had stretched between two trees. Across the lane from them was a huge weeping willow on a small lot of overgrown land surrounded by hedgerows on two sides, a stone wall on the third, and sheep pastures all around.
It was nothing like Privet Drive.
“Where are we?”
“On the outskirts of a town called Badwell Ash.”
“Where’s that?”
She blinked down at him. “I don’t know. Somewhere in the UK.”
All the doubts he’d had when she brought the scarf out and blindfolded him came rushing back. If it wasn’t for the fact that he’d seen her change from a fox into a woman, he might have panicked, but he told himself maybe being slightly mad was normal for magic people.
He was not reassured when she pointed at the willow tree in the empty lot across the lane and said, “Look. That’s where we’re going to live.” He stared at her, wide-eyed, and she gave him a sharp grin. “You’ll see. It’s all a matter of perspective. Follow me.”
They crossed the lane, and she walked across the overgrown grass to pass through a gap in the willow’s boughs, where she promptly vanished. Harry stumbled to a halt, staring at the empty space where Hazel had gone. That feeling of panic began to creep back up, but he told himself magic and forced it down. Taking a steadying breath, he followed her into the gap in the drooping leaves and found himself standing in the front entrance of a cottage.