The Northern Wind
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Alex remembered the northern wind and emerald eyes.
He couldn’t have been very old, that year when he and his father had wandered throughout the cold winter of North America. Places and towns and cities were blurs in his mind, snippets of a skating rink, and children throwing snow at each other in gleeful warfare. He scarcely remembered anything from those early days, not even his mother’s face. In fact, he couldn’t even remember seeing his parents together, only a flash of red light and someone’s painful sobs.
But he could, in fact, remember the northern wind.
It had been in Canada, he suspected, or maybe the low-lying plains of America, but at any rate there had been no ocean for thousands of miles, only a frozen wasteland and the barest reminders of past bountiful crops. There had been animals huddled in groups, cattle and horses and even the strange emus, uniting in their own tiny communities, sharing the communal warmth between them, warmth that was a necessity in the face of such a wild and biting northern wind. And though in his memories all the towns bled into a single street of nameless stores and identical houses, he could recall a set of curious emerald eyes that now seemed so familiar, and the harsh feeling of the northern wind.
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Snowflakes drifted down from the sky slowly, giving the young boy enough time to stick his crimson tongue out into the cool air and capture the tiny white object, smiling at his success. There was so much snow here, much more than when they had stayed in New York, and exponentially more than there had been in Portland. He liked it so far, studying its confusing but entertaining nature, as the solid faded away and became cool water before he could even bring it into his mouth.
His father smiled at him, and Alex returned the grin, flopping backwards into the snowdrift in front of the parked vehicle and carving a silhouette into the fluffy white snow. They were miles from the nearest town, stopped at a nearby wilderness park simply in order to enjoy the wonders of the weather.
The sun warmed his face while the snow cooled his hand, and he found it the most curious sensation he’d ever felt. Sighing, the young boy found himself content amidst the snow, finding pleasure the simplest of sensations.
“Can we live in the snow, Dad?” he asked excitedly, throwing up into the air above him a handful of the white material, laughing as it tumbled back down onto his face.
He could hear the smile in his father’s voice as he responded, and that only made Alex smile even more, for his father seemed to smile less and less these days. “It would get pretty cold at night, Alex, and where would we live in the summer?”
This stumped the young boy, but only momentarily. “We could build a sand castle by the ocean for the summer and an ice palace for the winter! So then we could play in the snow in the winter, and swim in the ocean in the summer!” And the notion seemed so simple and so easy to Alex, he couldn’t help but sit up in the snowdrift and look over at his father for approval.
The man smiled down at his son and laughed, but it was a gentle and amused laugh, not at all condescending or harsh. The boy grinned and tossed a hidden missile of snow at his father, previously hidden by the fabric of his mittens.
“Oh, is that a challenge?” asked his father, and Alex couldn’t help the giggle that escaped him. He quickly dove behind the snowdrift once more, peeking over the edge to get a clearer view of his opponent. A bomb of pure white exploded beside him, covering him in snow. The battle raged back and forth between them, the son trying his best to hit his father, the father trying his best not to get his son.
And then it happened.
Everything changed in a heartbeat, so fast that Alex wasn’t entirely sure that anything had changed at all. He had sunk back down behind his fortress for a mere moment, only to dodge a snowball that had been launched against him, but when he looked up once more, his father had gone suddenly still.
“Dad?” he asked cautiously, instantly forgetting the battle. In a life of constant movement and inexplicable occurrences, Alex had learned long before his time when to drop the antics of childhood.
His father, with his back still to Alex, called out to his son. “Get back into the vehicle, Alex.”
A shiver ran down his back, and the boy found himself strangely nervous. “Dad?” he asked again, though his voice faltered at the end of the word, his body on edge.
Suddenly, his father turned and all Alex could see was the intense flash of brilliant emerald eyes that had replaced the dull grey of his father’s gaze, and the boy knew instantly that something had gone horribly wrong. “Alex!” he cried out, and something shimmered around his father’s familiar form, replacing the usual figure with a young man, ebony hair reflecting the midday sun.
The boy needed no other prompt. He sprinted to the vehicle, throwing himself into the backseat and locking the doors, though he knew somehow that the locks would most likely accomplish nothing if the threat came for him. He pulled the blanket up from underneath him and wrapped himself up completely in it, save for a small slit around his eyes.
All he could do was watch as the threat that had frightened his father so emerged from the forest beyond the car.
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James Ryerson realized suddenly, in the middle of the snow battle between himself and his son, that they were being watched. This realization frightened him, because at any other time his defenses would have been prepared and he would have been ready, as he was always ready. But the winter had been a long one, and it was such a beautiful day way out in the countryside, and all he had wanted to do was enjoy himself, if only for a little while.
However, he was not really the Muggle James Ryerson, and as a result he could never achieve the simple pleasures that he so desperately craved. He quickly ordered his son back to the vehicle, but in that moment, the presence in the trees moved forward swiftly, and he grew distracted, his disguise collapsing in his panic. He could see the shock in Alex’s eyes as he saw his father replaced by Harry Potter, the façade of James Ryerson brutally pulled away. But his son was clever and loyal, and quickly ran to safety, as Harry breathed a sigh of relief and could finally turn all of his attention to the threat that had so suddenly come upon them.
Then he felt himself flying through the air, the wind knocked out of him as he was roughly thrown into the snow, and he knew instantly that the danger was completely and utterly real.
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Alex barely stopped himself from crying out as some invisible force blasted his father into the snow, but the boy remembered the lessons ingrained into him from before he could remember, becoming almost instinct. Stay quiet, don’t move, and trust no one, his father had told him countless times, never jokingly or lightly, always with a half-desperate look in his eyes.
So all he could do was watch silently as his father pulled himself out of the snow and faced the hooded figure that had appeared out of nowhere, seemingly out of thin air.
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“Oh, I always hoped it would be me that would find you!” exclaimed the hooded figure hungrily, the sneer apparent even though Harry could not see the figure’s visage. “Imagine that, little old me finding Harry Potter out in the middle of a cold and desolate winter! Draco will praise me for this, no doubt, and Mistress Bellatrix will finally elevate me to the position that I so greatly deserve.”
“You haven’t captured me yet, Death Eater,” spat out Harry, his wand finally back in his hand, and it was old habit again, back in the days of the war when the next danger was always only a few moments away.
The figure laughed. “Death Eater? You have been gone a long time, haven’t you, Potter? No, I am no Death Eater, but I suppose you could call me one of their successors. Why-” The figure was cut off abruptly, crying out in anger as the spell hit him squarely in the chest mid-sentence, throwing him tumbling through the air onto the frozen road, a sickening crack announcing his landing. He groaned, and Harry knew for certain that it was a man then, as the hood fell back and revealed unfamiliar features but a familiar hatred burning fiercely in the man’s eyes.
“Crucio!” he called out, and Harry barely got out of the way, dropping down and rolling several paces away. He rebounded quickly off of the balls of his feet, springing back up into a fighting stance, firing off another curse at the man. His opponent cried out in pain, body convulsing as he dropped his wand, and Harry quickly made his way over to him, pinning the man’s hands and putting his wand squarely in front of the man’s eyes.
“Did you tell anyone else that I was here?” commanded Harry, a fierce passion apparent in his face, causing the man pinned beneath him to shiver in sudden fright.
“No,” he gasped, spots dancing in his vision as he struggled for air, “I swear it.”
“Good,” whispered Harry, and there was desperation behind his green eyes, as he raised his wand and uttered two disgusting and horrifying words. Green light erupted around the two men, and suddenly there was only one man recovering his breath on the desolate and frozen road.
Harry ignored the voice that screamed in horror at his actions, and it was easier now than it had been years before, for it was not the first time he had used the Killing Curse, and another, pessimistic, voice whispered to him that it would not be the last. He murmured another spell, reducing the body before him to ashes, as he put his wand away and turned back to the vehicle.
It was then that he saw two brown eyes staring in open horror out of the rear window.
He moved quickly to the vehicle, all other thoughts and memories pushed away, unlocking the car doors with a simple whisper in his mind, and opening the door. Alex scrambled to the other side of the vehicle, still wrapped up tightly in his blanket, though he clutched it now almost as a shield.
“Alex, everything’s alright,” soothed Harry, reaching out his hand.
His son only recoiled further into his blanket, brown eyes reflecting a world of pain and fright.
“Alex, please,” breathed Harry, guilt and shame hanging on every word, born of the pain he had inflicted on the one person in the entire world that still mattered to him.
The boy, though still frightened and shocked, recognized the plea in his father’s voice, though the face and the hair and the eyes were not those he was used to. He did, however, find the young face and the emerald eyes familiar, as if he had seen them before, long ago.
He climbed out of the vehicle, still wrapped up in his blanket, and waited. The man who had the voice of his father said absolutely nothing at all, simply falling to his knees and throwing his arms around his son, holding him close and tight and safe.
“I’m so sorry,” he breathed against his son’s shoulder, and the boy felt some of his fright fading away.
“It’s okay, Dad,” he said softly, as his father dropped his arms from around him and drew something of his pocket. A wind had started to blow outside, a harsh and unrelenting wind, blowing away the warmth of the day striking cold and fast against the boy’s cheeks.
Suddenly, his father’s wand was in front of his face, and his heart skipped a beat, afraid once more.
“Dad?” he whispered, starting to shake with fear.
His father’s strange green eyes held unshed tears, as the northern wind whistled harshly against Alex’s face.
“Forget all of this,” his father whispered, and a bright light enveloped Alex’s view, blinding him. The last thing he saw before fading into oblivion was those curious emerald eyes, and the strength of the northern wind striking coldly upon his face.
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Lying cold and tired in his cell, Alex Ryerson remembered so clearly the strong whistle of the northern wind and the pair of brilliant green eyes, and he knew then without a doubt that his father would come and save him.
The Auror's Duty by Aelan Greenleaf
Chapter Notes: Thank you so much to everyone still reading this story. I apologize profusely for the wait; writer's block has stalled me since the beginning of May, and before that university simply took up too much of my time. My sincerest apologies, and I hope you all enjoy this chapter as much as I enjoyed being able to write it!