Harry Potter and the Blind Seer of Durmstrang

Chapter 12

"Harry! We finally found you! Are you all right?" The voices belonged to two girls, Jamie and Luna, as they came rushing out of the silent woods. Harry sat on the slab of stone, his feet dangling over the edge, wiggling his toes, trying to regain movement enough to trust himself to stand.

"How did you know to look for me?" asked Harry in amazement.

"Well, of course, I saw you leaving the Common Room," began Luna, and Harry frowned.

"You... saw me?" he asked, bewildered.

"I didn't see you, exactly. I saw the Wrackspurts," she hastened to explain.

"The wrack-what?" asked Harry, now totally lost.

Jamie tried to help. "She was wearing her Spectrespecs, showing me how they worked," she said in a rush.

"You had an awful lot of Wrackspurts following you, Harry," said Luna in a tone that implied that he ought to do something about the fact.

"We wondered where you were going," continued Jamie. "So we followed you."

"What's a Wrackspurt?" asked Harry, wondering if he was actually lost inside some sort of insane nightmare, and none of the events of the previous few hours had happened at all.

Luna ignored his question and continued her story. "We lost you in the wood. It got so dark, we started to turn back, but Jamie didn't want to. She was worried about you."

Harry gave Jamie a tight-lipped smile.

"You seemed so... odd earlier," said Jamie awkwardly.

"Did you just get here?" asked Harry anxiously. "Did you see anything?" He thought with a shiver of the Death Eaters moving like wisps of smoke through the trees.

"We got lost," said Jamie.

"Why did you come out here, Harry?" asked Luna.

"I... err..." Harry faltered. Why had he come? He cast his eyes about him. A foot from his left toe, the silk scarf lay like something dead, heaped on the ground. The color of blood burned into his brain, the color of the scarf, the color of Voldemort's eyes when he'd seen them reflected in his own glasses. He shuddered. "I came for this," he said, standing gingerly, and prodding the scarf with his toe.

"Harry!" said Jamie, rushing toward him. "Your hand! It's all covered with blood."

Harry froze. It hadn't been a dream. He stood, poised on that instant, a knife-edge of indecision. He knew that the choice he made next would affect the rest of his life, and for a fraction of a second, he wavered. Should he tell them? Sound the alarm and get help? Should he wait? Hide in the shadows and brood on the choice he had been given, take the first step along the dark path that had opened in front of his feet?

"I scratched my hand on a branch," he said, stooping so his face was hidden. He picked up the silk scarf from where it lay on the ground and wrapped it around his bleeding right hand. The cut stung and still seeped. With his teeth he secured a knot to hold the silk tightly around the wound.

As he straightened again, he found that his stiff body ached and he inadvertently groaned slightly. The hours of laying frozen on the cold stone, and the effects of the body-bind curse, not to mention the cruciatus curse, had left him bruised and hurting.

"Are you all right?" asked Jamie anxiously.

"Fine," spat Harry, too sharply.

"Where's your cane?" asked Luna practically, and inwardly, Harry cursed the observant nature of girls. Couldn't they just leave him alone?