AN: This first chapter was written by Quetzalcoatls, who I adopted this story from with his/her permission. Enjoy!

Spin, spin, whirling through the sky. He could never possibly go back to the way he had once been. To earth. To form. To an existence that had been so long caged. Once, so long ago. How long had it been? He'd had but a fleeting glimpse of this, of what he could, and would, become. Soaring on a mere twig, diving, twisting, chasing things only he could see. Laughing in the brilliant sky.

Once he'd had that first taste of the sky, there had been no going back, but still, something had kept him tied down. Chains of fate and destiny kept him snared. A cage within a cage of war and pain. But mere mortal wars would always come to an end. The monster defeated, those chains crumbled. He hadn't understood really the nature of his own magic.

Maybe if he had he would have paused but for a moment to say goodbye, to smile one more time with a face he wouldn't wear again. She had smiled at him that last day, that one strange girl, a sad smile. She'd know, somehow, the same way she always seemed to know. Known that he would never walk those halls again, never step foot on the grass, or speak to those he had learned to call 'family'.

The day had been perfect, pure clear blue stretched across the horizon. Large billowing clouds dotted the sky, his playground, there, just waiting for him to take flight. He'd kicked off, the ground shot away, never to be touched again. His magic unfurled as he danced around those clouds, merging with the wind, becoming a part of it. Blending until he couldn't tell where he began and where the wind ended.

Later they would find that twig, resting on the side of the lake, as though casually tossed there while its owner raced off on another of his adventures. They would never know what became of him, never know that he still played in the sky over head. Free from the earth, never to be brought down again. They'd had him for awhile, be it by choice or circumstance, but they could have never kept him. After all, you can never tame the wind.

If the wind had a face it would have rolled its eyes, as it was all he could do was sigh in exasperated amusement and continue to toss Jack though the air. Only about a century had passed since he had first seen the winter spirit that cold night. Seen him pulled out of that lake by the moonlight, but he had stuck by the boys side ever since.

At first he had simply wanted to help him get home after his apparently miraculous revival, he had sensed something was off about the boy now, but had shrugged it off as he was wont to do these days. That initial collision with the tree had been purely accidental, it wasn't like he made a habit of flying people around in the 500 years he had existed.

He had kicked the dust up in that tiny town for a moment, drawing patterns only he could see with it, prepared to leave when he realized no one could see the boy. He had gone still for a long moment, something that he hadn't done since he became the wind, and watched as the boy desperately tried to get someone, anyone, to see him.

He remembered a time like that, a time spent locked in a tiny box, invisible to everyone. At least he was visible when he was yelled at, the boy didn't even get that slight acknowledgment.

That desperation was what got to him, he ruffled a breeze through the boy's hair, trying to offer some kind of comfort. A gift he had never had. The boy didn't really notice it as that, but he asked the Wind to take him away, so he did. And so began a life of the Wind toting Jack around the sky, and Jack causing chaos to distract himself, like right now.

The current form said chaos took was an ice storm that had frozen all the trees into glittering sculptures, children slipped and slid on the iced snow, laughing happily. Jack hovered over it all, grinning like a loon. There was still an edge of pain to the smile though, no matter what Jack did, the children never saw him.

That first blizzard, only a week after he had first met the boy, had been something of a surprise, Jack's pain at being so completely unseen and unheard had brought a seemingly never ending fall of heavy snow from the sky. Wind had whipped it into a raging storm in his own sadness and anger. Foolish boy, didn't he realize he was never alone? He had the Wind, if only he could believe that.

Jack couldn't know the significance of the ancient castle they hovered over. He couldn't really hear Wind, even now after 200 years together, he still didn't understand. Sure he seemed to realize that Wind was alive in one way or another, well, either that or he was just talking to himself, Wind was never really sure.

But whether Jack could hear him or not Wind had told him all the stories of this place, tales of battling dragons and evil wizards. He liked to tell him, in the hope that one day he would hear, and realize that he wasn't alone.

But, this... How had this happened? The castle below wasn't the grand towering beacon of light and magic it had once been. The towers lay shattered over the ground, the windows that had once glowed soft gold on cold winter nights, broken. He drifted down, barely a breeze, as he glided around a cracked tower and through the shattered window of what would have once been the headmasters office. Jack of course followed, confused at the way the Wind was acting, it had never done something like this before.

He landed lightly on the threadbare carpet, as the Wind curled around the room, making strange tarnished silver instruments chime softly. The room was a disaster, the heavy oak door had been torn off its hinges, the desk overturned, and portraits ripped from the walls. What looked burns and claw marks littered the room.

"Some kinda fight must have happened here, hu?" Jack said quietly to himself, Wind sighed in agreement, it was obvious that the headmaster of the time hadn't gone down without a fight, but he couldn't see any bones in the room. So he or she survived to leave at the very least.

With a tug he pulled Jack from the room and down the spiral staircase, the ancient gargoyle lay broken on the ground at the bottom, torn from the doorway. Jack picked his way through the debris glancing around warily. Wind spun in the hall for a moment before heading to the left, down towards the great hall, he needed to check something.

Many twists and turns later found them standing before the massive double doors of the great hall. Wind pushed hard, forcing the closed doors open with a horrible screech of rusted metal. Jack cringed at the sound, wondering if maybe there really was more to the wind then he'd thought, the way it was acting was to deliberate for a wild force of nature.

Wind blew through the now open doors and into the dark room, the ceiling above was cracked showing nothing but dull stone, and for all that they still hovered off the ground all the candles were dark.

Jack glanced around walking towards the head table while Wind tried to figure out why the candles being out felt so important, it, it was just wrong. The candles had never gone out! A flicker of an old memory raced across his mind, Hermione and her copy of Hogwarts a History again. In all the time the castle had stood the candles never went out, they were thought to be tied into some enchantment that drew power from everything magical alive, the only way for the candles to be out...

Gone? The Wind moaned in denial, but the shattered ruin around them only compounded the belief. Jack stilled where he was examining the candles at the head table cringing at the pained ignored him for the moment though how could everyone be gone? Magic had been so powerful! Nothing could have possibly destroyed all of magic! But, not everything was gone...just wizards, and everything they had protected, that he and the castle were all that was left of wizarding magic, and everything else... Everything, the dragons, the merpeople, the Goblins, even the damn Acromantula. IT. WAS. ALL. GONE.

Wind tore through the room to grab Jack and leave this, this grave behind, he couldn't stand to stay here another second. To look at this place and know what it had once been. Jack yelped as he was torn away from the table and pulled out the door. Leaving the single flickering candle he'd been looking at behind.

Jack wasn't sure what he would have done without the wind, it followed him everywhere and had been there for as long as he could remember. He'd always thought it was strange the way the wind acted like it was alive sometimes, and he'd taken to talking to it like it was after about a hundred years. Sometime he was sure he could hear a voice in the wind whispering things back, but he could never be sure, the sound would fade away as quickly as it appeared and he would just write it off as the leaves rustling. Now after the incident at the strange castle he was beginning to think that those whispers where more than his imagination.

He looked up at the moon from his spot in the center of his lake, wondering just how to figure out if there really was more to the wind then he'd thought. Jack hesitated before calling quietly.

"Wind?" The Wind spun around him ruffling his hair as it always did, he hesitated again. "Are you, I mean... At the castle..." He trailed off after stuttering over himself, embarrassed and afraid to really hope. Wind had gone still, barely a breeze disturbed the trees around. A faint whisper reached his ears, sounding like almost nothing, but Jack stared around himself wide eyed. He was sure he had heard his name.

"Wind." He asked again cautiously. The voice was a little clearer this time.

"Jack?" It was barely a whisper, but it was there. Jack sat frozen in shock for a long moment before leaping into the air with a whoop.

"YOU'RE REAL!" He cheered, the Wind was still for a brief moment before gusting hard into the clearing and launched Jack into the sky. He laughed as the Wind tossed him around apparently just as happy with the breakthrough as he was.