"You knock."

"You bloody well knock."

The voices came from outside the old witch's hut, where a wild winter's night was blustering away. The locals in these parts weren't renowned for much — least of all sense — but coming out on a frigid eve like this was unusually daft even by their standards. Others seemed to have ridden along with them, the muffled whickering of their horses audible past the walls and blizzard, and were also muttering to themselves.

She nestled herself further into her chair, sipped from the horn of barley wine in her grasp, and built up her roaring fire with a swish of her wand. The wand stayed in her hand as she waited.

"You were at the door first. You knock!"

"I'm attached to my hands, thank you kindly, and I shan't have them ensorcelled off or rotted away or transformed or what-have-you by whatever ghastly curse she's slapped on the wood."

"But you'll let my hands take it?"

"Caution and virtue haven't ever pretended to be happy bedfellows, son. Now —"

"What is the delay?" This new voice snapped out from behind the two speakers, sharp and imperious and clearly used to being obeyed.

"Your lordship!" said the second speaker. "We were just, ah, pondering the prospect of a horrible curse having been laid upon the —"

"Cease pondering. Use some other extremity if you must, but get her attention."

"...yes, your lordship." There was a moment's pause before the witch heard the swish of metal, and then the sound of what might be a sword hilt being gingerly thumped against her door. "Open in the name of his lordship!"

"One moment, dearies!" the old witch called, grudgingly throwing in a "Lawks!" for good measure before she rose, putting her empty horn down. "Bugger, ow," she muttered to herself as her joints protested the motion. "Never got nocturnal visitors when I was flexible enough to appreciate them."

The firelit space she dwelled in was all one cosy and circular room, with every surface from her bed to her bookshelves to her floor covered with soft furs and pelts. Several dark old grimoires and dog-eared treatises jostled for the scant space on her shelves, and were joined by an array of trophies. A skeletal dragon sculpture, pieced together from thin dragon bones. A small, old picture of a smiling wizard. The broken wands of over a dozen long-gone rivals. Cups and tarnished brooches and the sundered remains of a jade necklace.

A small wooden chest held most of her clothes bar her two cloaks, and a cauldron sat by her hearth, having been dislodged from its usual place by a bubbling stewpot. Never having mixed her potion-making and her cooking utensils was only one of the many secrets to her long life thus far.

She hobbled over to the door, palmed her wand up her sleeve like a concealed knife, and just as she judged another round of impatient knocking was about to begin, she opened the door.

Outside, half-shrouded by falling snow, two men jumped back, and several others behind them shuffled uneasily. They all wore heavy cloaks and furs against the cold. Chainmail's glint betrayed its presence underneath their outer garments and scabbarded swords were hung close at their waists. One of the men who'd been at the door had his drawn, and as her gaze fell upon him, it wiggled vaguely as its wielder agonised over whether to lunge with it or drop it to the ground.

A muggle lord's picked men, if the witch was any judge. "My word, dearies," she said. "What brings all you strong lads to my door on a dreadful night like this? It's weather what ought to be kept well away from, this."

There was a hesitant silence, and the man with a drawn sword gave her a look of unhappy dread, before the imperious voice rang out once more. "Good woman, I would have words with you."

A tall young man pushed his way forward from between the ranks of the picked men, giving the old witch a clear look at his alleged lordship. His handsome features were sharp and hard and crowned with ink-black hair, and his tall, broad stature betrayed the good eating and ample exercise available to someone of his position. A fur-lined cloak covered him from neck to toe, and he regarded the old witch, his cold, bright eyes giving little away.

The old witch met his gaze, unfazed. "Your lordship, I take it? Lawks, it's been an age since anyone's called me a good woman. And even then, they probably weren't that sincere." She hesitated, and then threw in one more, "Lawks," for good luck. It could never hurt.

"You take it correctly, old woman." The young lord's expression tightened into grimness. "I would have words with you alone."

"Your lordship..." started one of the men at his back, to be completely ignored. The lord's stare persisted, and could have cut glass.

After a moment, the witch shrugged. "Oh, as your lordship insists. So long as your nice men don't catch their deaths of cold out here."

"Wait for me," the lord said to his men. "Edmund, have your horse ready and be prepared to give it to her once we come out. When we'll ride off, run down to the church and ask the bishop to start praying throughout the night. He'll know what for. "

He pushed his way into the hut before his men could answer, and motioned for the old witch to step back and close the door. She crooked a brow but duly did so, and the rush of the wind and snow outside was reduced to a muffled thrum past her hut's walls once more.

The lord stood still and didn't immediately speak. His gaze crept across the hut's interior, and sharpened at certain objects. The cauldron by the hearth. The dragonbone sculpture. The fire burning away with no evident load of timber nearby.

"You're the lord, I take it?" the old witch said. "Never met you before, but very gracious of you to pay a visit, I'm sure."

The lord slowly turned to her, his jaw clenched. "I know who you are. What you are."

The witch opened her mouth, hesitated, and then sighed. "Bugger it," she said. "Who blabbed? I suppose it was bound to reach someone high-up's ear eventually, but who did you hear it from? I've always preferred my ire to be directed, rather than otherwise."

"I will not say. But I've spoken with some amongst my peasantry of late. They named you a … wise woman. Someone who knows tricks no-one should know. Who can heal hurts and uncover secrets and wield power none fathom. There's a name for folk with those talents."

"Isn't there just," the witch said dryly. "I'd have a black cat as well, your lordship, but the last one I had tried hunting down a wolf this summer."

"It was eaten for its pains, then?"

"Choked on the wolf's bones." The witch eyed the lord. "Don't do much with all that vaunted power nowadays, grant you. Most muggles round here know enough to fear me … and them as are in truly dire straits overcome that fear enough to seek me out. Then I heal or uncover or bring down such storms as are needed, and hell take those as'd stop me."

"So I'd heard."

"Hmph. So why are you here, then? I'd have guessed to slay or oust me, but seeing as how your men aren't setting my thatch alight and you've just put yourself entirely at my mercy … well, you've got me curious."

The lord was quiet for a long moment before he answered, and his voice was soft when it emerged. "I need your help."

"That makes sense. Most folk do, even if they don't know it themselves. What do you need help with in particular?"

Another long moment, in which the crackling of the fire and the rush of the wind outside were the only noises in all the world. Eventually, "... my son. An infant. He's ill. He's not improving."

"Ah." The witch sighed. "That's usually it. Or something like it. And you've thrown everything at him that someone like you can?"

"Everything within my power." A faint crack appeared in the lord's voice. "No doctor or priest knows anything, can do anything. He doesn't eat, barely breathes, and when he wakes, all he does is squall thinly and bring up black bile."

The witch frowned. "You had him by the coast recently?"

"Yes," said the lord, nonplussed. "A few weeks ago, before he sickened. The doctor advised me that salt air would help the balance of his humours as he grew. There was a foul breeze on the air once I'd ridden there with him, though, and I soon left. Why?"

"Nuckelavee miasma, like as anything," the witch muttered. "Aye, I think I know what's sickened your boy."

"You will heal him," said the lord.

The witch was silent. "Depends," she mused.

"Depe —!" The lord's words caught in his throat with a snarl, and his face twisted as he forced it aloof once more. After a moment, he breathed out and said, "Can you heal him?"

"I could," the witch allowed. She studied the lord. "Pardon a daft old woman thinking aloud. Just wondering on what I've heard of you. Happens I've spoken to your peasantry in the past as well."

"What of it?" said the lord. When the witch didn't answer, he shook his head and pressed on. "Name your price for healing my son. Whatever is within my power."

"Whatever, eh? Delivered to my grasp? My word." She studied him a moment longer. "Heard you opened your forest to your folk last year, when the rains ruined their harvest. Overlooked whatever poaching they needed to do to survive the winter. Gracious, that."

"Yes. What of that? Lordship over dead bodies is worthless. Why bring that up?"

"Just thinking aloud. Contemplating my price."

"Anything. My soul, should you desire it." The lord's voice broke. "Do you wish me to plead? He is all I have left of his mother. I will plead."

"Enough." The witch held up a hand. "I've decided. I'll help you." The lord all but sagged with relief. "But I'll name my price once the deed's done. Payment for success. Does that sound fair?"

"Yes." The lord hadn't even hesitated before answering. "Put on your cloak. Follow me. Do you know how to ride? My son's condition took a turn for the worse a few hours back, and I don't know how much time we have."

"I can ride." The witch smirked. "I can do more than ride. Your castle's the one north-east of here, aye? Got anyone looking over your boy right now?"

"The castle's priest. A good man but a … staunch one. He doesn't know what I came out here to do."

"He'll keep on not knowing." The witch drew her wand, and the lord's eyes darted down to it briefly. "Don't worry, I shan't do him any lasting mischief. Pass me that bag there, your lordship, down by your feet. And ride back with your men. You'll have a healthy lad and my price awaiting you on your return."

"Your oath on that?" The lord scrabbled to hand over the big hemp bag at his feet, the contents clattering as he heaved it over. His composure was all but gone, and his eyes shone.

"My oath? Hah, there's many as'd warn you against accepting that, if they still lived," said the witch. "Nah, you're getting my word."

Before the lord could respond, she stepped forward and reached past him, to where two cloaks hung from the back of her door. One was her hooded travelling cloak, spun from thick wool, dyed a murky green-brown and folded and patched and reinforced so many times that it could have (and had) shrugged off a lightning bolt, never mind rain drops.

The second was smaller, thinner, and the fabric of it glittered silver in the firelight. She swept it off the hook and over her shoulders in one liquid motion, and Apparated away the instant after.

She re-appeared with the faintest of cracks, inside a small, warm, and well-lit chamber. A fire placed in a hearth at one side, sending orange light dancing over the thick tapestries that covered every wall to drink in and keep the heat. Across from it, there sat a table, on which there was a cot, and by that table, there sat an old priest, his torso bent and hands clasped in silent prayer.

The priest looked up at the crack of Apparation, peering around the room with tired, kind, and rheumy eyes, and seeing nothing at all. "Hmm?" he ventured. "Is that you, girl? Do feed the fire now, the lad'll need —"

"Stupefy. Obliviate."

The priest slumped in his chair, and the witch caught him and, with some amount of exertion, heaved him round to one side of the room. Stepping back with a pant, she stepped over to the door and the heavy lock upon it. One "Alohomora," knocked its pins into place. That done, she breathed out, whipped the invisibility cloak off her shoulders and down around her waist, and turned towards the cot.

"Bit of privacy, eh? Let's get a look at you, you wee ..." She paused over the cot, and her mouth set in a hard line. "Hmmph. He wasn't exaggerating."

The infant inside the fur-lined cot roiled feebly in his sleep, his little body sickly pale, his breaths barely fluttering his chest. A thin line of black-threaded drool came out one side of his mouth, and as the witch watched, a small cough rasped out of him.

It was the sort of cough she'd heard before, where the body didn't have that many more to give. And those she'd heard previously had at least had the decency to come from grown men.

She slammed her bag onto one section of the table, while gesticulating with her wand at another. A grey shimmer passed over it, turning the dark wood to stone, and she whipped out a small cauldron from the bag's depths and set it on the stone. Her wand circled around the cauldron's rim, and after seven rotations, water tricked out from it and into the cauldron. All the while, her hand bent claw-like, twisting and grasping in the air by the cauldron's side, and as the first water fell it, it already began to roil and steam.

"Holly for strength, and phoenix tailfeather for rejuvenation," the witch muttered to herself as she worked, drawing out each ingredient from her bag as she named them. "Owl's heart to drive out the evil there, and scarab shells to give it body. Why've the bloody recipes got to be as fiddly as they do? A pox on God for the gift of old joints."

She set to laborious work on each ingredient with a knife and mortar and pestle, counting out seconds and careful stirs in her head as each was fed, one by one, to the seething cauldron. Long minutes ticked by as she worked, and the infant intermittently squalled. She ignored it. Healing first, soothing later.

As she worked, the shadows in the room flickered, and the warmth shed by the fire seemed to diminished. One quick gesture from her wand made the flames all but roar, and it didn't help.

She ignored that too, and kept on working. Past the roar of the fire, the wind dimly howled.

"Right," the witch said with some satisfaction, after several moments of assiduous chopping, grinding, and stirring. "Haven't had to whip up a cure for nuckelavee miasma in some time, but that should still do. First step, get some in you."

She scooped up a little quantity in a horn spoon and guided it towards the boy's mouth. He barely fought, but barely took any it; whatever she was able to force past his lips dripped out.

"It helps if you swallow it, you obstreperous little so-and-so." The witch grimaced and reached down with another spoonful, her other hand coming around to gently massage the boy's thin throat. It helped, and a little more seemed to be swallowed. "There we go. Step one of several."

As she spoke, the coldness of the room sank another notch, and the shadows all around seemed to deepen ever-so-gradually. There wasn't much she could do to grimace more, but she gave it her best effort, and dutifully ignored it. Her wand began to weave quick, complex patterns over the boy's torso, the patterns flowing and lighting up in golden spirals as she went.

The endless minutes ticked by, and as the witch found herself fighting off the urge to shiver and trying not to look at the growing darkness all around, there at last came the voice. Cold, and deep, and sonorous and grim as the church bells of Hell.

A fair effort. But you cannot stop me, said Death.

"Yes I can. Take a wander, you bastard," growled the witch.

Spirited efforts will not save him from me. They have never saved anyone from me. You know this.

"I know you're pissing me off something fearsome," the witched, and turned where she stood. "You're not getting anything from me today."

Death stood by the fire. Nothing but a figure-shaped slash of nothing where the world ought to be, a black emptiness dusted with the faint glint of stars.

I am here. Deny it if you wish, but you know an end has come.

"Not yet." The golden patterns blazed, and then settled down upon the boy's body. They faded in through his form, drawing out a feeble cough.

But soon.

The witch drew out a knotted clump of nightshade and a jar of white acanthus petals from her bag, and tipped them all into the cauldron at once. A flash of light from her wand made a flash of silvery steam rise up, and she immediately resumed stirring.

"I've sent plenty to you over the years," the witch said as she worked. "Many that deserved it, and many that didn't. I'll keep the odd one in exchange, if it's all the same to you."

Someone of your lineage should know that isn't how it works.

"No deal-making? Fine. I reckon I can still outwork and outwit you."

Three of your ancestors thought to outwit me as well. And you know how their story went. Around the edges of Death's cold voice, there was the suggestion of a smirk.

"Yeah. One of them succeeded, my grandfather, and he came to you in the end."

He was mine regardless. The smirk had vanished, and the voice had deepened. And for all your past glories, you are nowhere near as cunning as he.

"Matter of opinion that, I should think," the witch muttered. "Have you not wandered off yet?"

Death drew closer. You cannot work quickly enough to save this child. Before you have cast the most vital of your spells, he will breathe his last, and he will be mine.

The witch turned away from Death, drew out a small orb of blue-green light from the tip of her wand, and dipped it into the cauldron. There was a note like a clear bell and the smell of summer flowers filled the room. She grabbed for the horn spoon again, and her fingers fumbled around its handle. It clattered to the ground, and she cursed.

Death said nothing, but she could all but feel their smile.

The witch pressed on, and the darkness kept rising as each moment ticked by, rising like the weight of memory and regrets. Death was coming closer. The boy's breaths were now all but indiscernible.

Why couldn't her motions be faster? Why did medicine have to take time?

"There's some that reckon you're not real, in and of yourself," the witch said. "The actual Death? You're just a story, they say."

Death laughed. They tell different stories. And I have a form for every story they tell, more forms than the stars in the night sky. And they all come to know me, come what may. So will you.

"Oh, maybe. But not yet." Her fingers trembled with exertion, and her mind felt as if it was drifting through fog.

One last ingredient, drawn out from the depths of the bag. A budding flower, picked in the spring of that year and carefully kept healthy and in readiness until the time came. She fed it into the bubbling depths, which accepted it with a sullen glorp.

She watched the cauldron like a hawk, waiting for that subtle but vital shift in colour. And as she did, the light around faded. The shadows in the room could have been openings onto the abyss. And from the infant, there came a last, pathetic, and unambiguously final cough.

"Bugger you, no," hissed the witch. She dove forward with her wand, forcing a small golden flame from its tip that surged into the infant's chest. A flutter of motion, but not enough. "Come on!"

You cannot move fast enough, work fast enough, save him fast enough, purred Death. They moved forward. But why fret? Console yourself that this time, at least, you're not sending someone to me. Intentionally, at least.

The witch snarled with exertion, golden flames spilling from her wand's tip and hammering back the shadows. It was cold, so very cold, but her spare hand grimly clutched her dress closer to herself and she soldiered on. Fire poured up from her heart, down her arm's length, and forth from her wand, and every faint heartbeat of the boy's was now one she sustained.

Death advanced.

She kept her wand trained on the boy as the fire coursed, as her eyes remained fixed on the cauldron, as her arm began to tremble with fatigue, as her mind raced like a rat in a trap. She'd never lacked for a last trick to play in the past. She wouldn't lack for one now. She couldn't. She had her pride.

And right now, that was all she had.

Death advanced.

Second by second…

"You dare gloat?"

Only to you.

Her reserves of strength ebbed, and the witch sagged. Her spare hand patted around herself for any trick, any concoction, any last gambit she could throw into the face of Death, into the cold darkness that filled the world.

And her hand drifted through silvery fabric.

She clenched her hand into a fist, and a fierce, wolfish smile flared on her features. "Come take him!" she hissed, and she threw the cloak up from her waist and over the boy. He vanished from sight, and the cot lay bare and silent.

Save for a muffled cough.

Death snarled. You dare?

"Work against you once, didn't it?" said the witch. Her turn to smirk. "Go on, find him."

Death's snarl rose in volume. Their eyeless face flitted left and right across the room. I collect my due, speck. Always.

"Aye. But by the time you'll find him again, he'll be hale and hearty and soiling his swaddling clothes and squalling his wee lungs out and causing his dad and minders all the mischief infants ought, and you'll have no claim on him at all. None whatsoever. Now wander off and let me finish working."

Fragile, all of you. Will you guard him till his life or yours runs out? The next spring sickness, the first slip, every tremble of nerve and flesh, I will be there. I will be waiting. I will be hungry.

The witch was silent. "Reckoned so," she said eventually. She turned back to where the empty cot sat, and absently brushed her fingers along the top of her unseeable cloak. "And I think I can guard him as well."

You will be that obsessed?

"Opposite, even." The witch sighed, and pinched a bit of the fabric between her fingers. "Had a few good runs with this over my centuries. Plenty of good runs, even. Ventured into castles and palaces and mountain-temples and all sorts. Left few wiser, and quite a few stricken. Can't remember most of my motives, or even what I gained, but I had the venturing."

Death was silent, and she kept speaking. "Got a few great things under my belt as well, and snicker about that turn of phrase as you please. Slew the Beast of Blackness in a battle that broke the shoreline. Saw the Great Wall in Cathay, and the pyramids in far Aztlán, red with blood beneath the sun. Duelled the Eldritch Sultan for two days straight, and seduced him the very day after. Slew two acclaimed Dark Lords, and became a Dark Lady myself for a time. For a time. Young days. Great days."

She sighed, and with one last reluctant motion, patted the air above the invisible boy. "I've had a fun run. And if this little sod doesn't live up to my lofty standards with what I'm bestowing, I'll haunt him. That, and bugger the notion of my half-sister ever getting her hands on it."

You forfeit your greatest source of strength?, hissed Death. So be it. No more hiding from me when the battles grow fierce or the winds blow chill. Shroud this one and whoever comes after him as you wish, but you have lost that protection. And when a sickness takes you or enemies approach, know that I will come.

The witch turned to face Death. "And know what you'll be coming for," she growled. "Maybe I can't beat you when the time comes, but I've liked my mortal coil, and I'll not yield it without a fight. Know me, Taura Peverell! Mark that name, for by it and by my word, next time we meet, I'll greet you with curses. Avaunt, you bastard!"

Thunder pealed in the confines of the room, and light left its imprint on her eyelids, and by the time she opened them again, Death had retreated.

Taura sighed, and fought to keep standing, though she allowed herself to slump. Blearily, she turned back round to inspect her cauldron. "Oh, Hell," she muttered. "You turned blue ages ago."

She leaned back into her task, twitching the cloak to one side. The infant looked blearily up at her, his tired little gaze meeting her own.

Taura frowned contemplatively, and then rummaged in her bag for fresh acanthus.

The moments became minutes, and in turn became several hours, and in the unfashionable hours of the morning, the lord at last returned. He threw open the door of the chamber, snow still on his boots and cloak, and looked around frantically, his eyes bloodshot with tiredness and worry.

The witch sat by the table to face him as he entered, the boy asleep in her arms. "Here you go," she said absently. "Right as rain. Bit of rest'll do him some good over the next few days, but I imagine he had resting down to a fine art already."

The lord sagged with simple relief then, and wept as he took his son into his arms. The witch sat back and let him get on with it, and reached out to chew on a chicken leg she'd liberated from the castle's kitchen earlier. Some things, she didn't need an invisibility cloak for.

"He's alive," the lord whispered. "He's alive and healthy. Thank God. Thank you."

"Miracle-worker, that's me." The witch waggled the half-gnawed chicken leg. "Your peasantry didn't deceive you. Don't mind your priest asleep there. As far as he needs to know, he just dozed off while waiting for your son's condition to improve, and while he slept, his prayers were answered."

The lord steadied himself, supported his son in one arm, and dried his eyes with the other. "Y - your price?" he asked.

"My price?" The witch blinked. "Bloody hell, I'd nearly forgotten about that."

"You have one, surely."

"Oh, well, er." Taura scratched her head. "This chicken leg'd do for a start, retroactively. Healing's hungry work, and I presumed upon it."

"Have the leg. Have the whole bird. Have a flock, have a dozen farms if it pleases you."

"Nothing that drastic in mind, thank you. Can't abide the thought of spending my days mucking out animals anyway. Nah, I reckon … that access to your forests, that you granted to your folk?"

"Yes?"

"Well, more of that sort of thing, if you don't mind. Happier and healthier you keep 'em, less they'll be needing my help for things. Peace and justice and no babes starving in their cots, all that."

"I … only that? Yes, of course." The lord looked bewildered. "Is that all you'll ask?"

"One other thing. Or a few other things." The witch tapped a folded-up square of silvery fabric on the table by the cot. "I've given him this gift here. It's his, not for anyone's use save him and whoever he freely gives it to. If I'm not around, then he's to put it on whenever he's sick or what-have-you. Might buy him time while your doctors do their work. Alright?"

"Of course. A gift?" The lord weakly laughed. "You have imposed nothing on me so far, good woman. Nothing I begrudge."

"Then here's my last," Taura said. "What's your name, your lordship? Family name included."

He looked bewildered. "Wulfric. Wulfric Potter."

"And your lad's?"

"Eric."

"And you can read, aye? And you'll teach him to do so?"

A faintly affronted note crept in under Wulfric's bewilderment. "Yes. Not all lords do, but my line hold ourselves to high standards."

"Had a look in his eyes. You learn to pick up the signs." Taura yawned. "Ten or eleven years, maybe, you'll get a letter for Eric Potter. And you'll remember what I did here today, and see that he's to take that letter up on its offer if he truly wants to, and never mind your own reservations or whatever a priest might whisper in your ear. Let him have all the tools to leave his mark on the world that he can. He, and all that follow him."

"A le -?" Wulfric paused, and he breathed out. "That still seems so small a price."

"You know how them small things accumulate over time," Taura said vaguely. "But if your conscience really presses you, you could get me a cup of wine for the road as well. It's a chilly night, after all."

Wulfric nodded, placed his son back into his cot, and turned to call for a page. As he did so, Taura turned to study the sleeping face of little Eric, and sent one last wistful glance towards the invisibility cloak at his cot's side.

"Use that gift wisely, now," the witch said. "And if you can't do wise, at least strive for well. You and your kin do better than me."