Disclaimer: I still don't own it. And I can't afford to by the rights either.

Well, chapter 2 (yay). Things should start becoming clear soon. Enjoy. -

-------

Chapter 2

The cold bit into his very bones. He couldn't breathe, he felt his very blood starting to freeze. This wasn't the cold of a winter's night, it was like nothing he had a name for. He was in darkness so complete he couldn't tell if his eyes were open or shut. He couldn't even tell if he still had eyes. He could barely think, and the part of him that could began to doubt his own existence as his consciousness began to slip.

Harry was in there for days, or maybe just seconds. He couldn't tell. But then, just as suddenly as the… the nothingness… embraced him, it spat him out, into midair. The shock of being able to feel again, of being able to breathe, distracted him from his impromptu flight and only when he landed rather jarringly on a dirt floor did he cry out.

For a minute, all he did lie there and breathe.

Then he became aware of other things. There was a cut on his hand, and it stung somewhat. His ribs felt somewhat bruised. The air smelled strange. Not bad, just different.

And there were arms still holding him around his midsection.

Oh god… Charlie…

Harry sat up, ignoring the strange feeling of vertigo that washed over him and made him feel nauseous. He turned to look at the older man lying there next to him. Charlie was unconscious. Harry could see blood coming from a wound above his left eye.

"Charlie…" Harry's voice rasped, his mouth dry, and he coughed. He swallowed, wetting his mouth before he tried again. "Charlie. Charlie, wake up." He touched the redhead's shoulder, shook him slightly. "Charlie… Oh god, please… Charlie, not you…"

His heart leapt when the other stirred, moaning, and then opened his eyes. They were slightly unfocussed, and they looked around slightly before coming to rest on Harry's pale, scared face. "Harry…?" The eighteen-year-old nodded, and then gasped as Charlie sat up very suddenly, and turned on him, his face twisted in anger. "What were you thinking?!"

Harry sat back away from him, his face blank.

"You could have died, Harry! You could have died! God, we both could have died!"

Harry's face became cold. "I didn't ask you to jump after me."

"What was I supposed to do? Just stand back and let you go through? How would I have been able to face Ron? Mum? God, Harry, you know you could have died!"

"That was the whole point, Charlie." Harry said, gazing flatly at the older man.

Charlie stared at him, in stunned disbelief, as if the thought that Harry might have actually tried to kill himself had so far evaded him. "But… why…? Harry… you won…"

Harry turned away. "I know."

"Then, why…?"

"Dammit, Charlie!" Harry got to his feet and stood, slightly wobbly. "I just want to rest. I'm so… fucking… tired of it all. I don't want to be the hero any more. Besides…" he added quietly, his eyes closed, "What's there for me to live for any more."

Charlie frowned at him, stood as well, using a tree for support. "How can you even ask that?"

Harry looked at him. "There's nothing left for me, Charlie. No one left."

"But… Ron and Hermione..."

"Have each other. I've lost… so many…"

The black-haired boy gasped as strong hands suddenly grabbed him by the front of his robes and shoved him into a nearby tree. "That's enough." Charlie growled, staring into Harry's green eyes. "You have every right to grieve, but stop acting like you're the only one who lost people you care about in this war."

"Sirius… and Dumbledore…"

"You weren't the only one to care about Dumbledore, Harry!" Charlie shouted. "I lost people too! I watched my closest friends die around me, I LOST MY BROTHER, HARRY!"

"I know." Harry said quietly. "I was there when Voldemort killed him."

"And you forget. So was I."

Harry looked away. Charlie had been disguised as a Death Eater with several other members of the Order, there at the final battle.

"Killing yourself is not the answer, Harry." Charlie said softly.

Harry nodded, then frowned. "But I didn't, did I? We went through the veil… but we're not dead… are we?"

For the first time, the two friends looked around. They were in a wooded, fairly mountainous area, and it looked to be close to the middle of the day. "Is this… the other place?" Charlie asked, wonderingly, then frowned, and touched the cut on his forehead, and then looking at the blood left on his fingers. "I didn't think you could get hurt after death…"

Harry looked at the cut on his own hand. The bleeding had almost stopped, but it still throbbed painfully. "I don't think you can…"

"Then where are we? I don't recognise what trees these are… and the grass is weird. I've travelled a lot, but this is like no place I've ever been to…"

A shadow passed over head. Charlie and Harry both looked up, and then in a split second, Charlie had his wand out.

"Dragon."

-!-!-!-!-

Brown Solth's wings beat the air with powerful, easy strokes, catching thermals coming from the mountains and rising higher with languid grace. His rider, K'rin, sat relaxed in the harness, taking pleasure in his dragon's joy at simply being aloft. Solth had recently suffered a bad threadscoring on his left wing, and some had feared he wouldn't be able to fly again, but that new healer at the Weyr had worked wonders and Solth was as good as new.

The two were out getting some flying in to make sure Solth was strong again. Thread would fall tomorrow, and the healer had said Solth would be fit to fly it, but K'rin was going to make sure his beloved dragon would not be hurt by rushing into things.

People down there, his dragon told him, jolting the young rider out of his thoughts. "What?" he demanded, both aloud and in his head to his dragon, sitting bolt upright and leaning over to look down at the ground. Sure enough, there were two men standing there, looking up as the dragon flew over them.

Holdless? Solth asked, implying that the two were not bound to any hold or dwelling.

Possibly… but even holdless have some shelter… there's no cover around here for miles, and they don't look like they have anything portable either. K'rin replied, this time silently.

Thread tomorrow. Solth reminded him. K'rin's sense of duty prodded him. He couldn't leave two people out and helpless in the open.

Go down, Solth. If they need it, we'll take them back to the Weyr. The rider told his dragon, who rumbled his assent.

-!-!-!-!-

Harry had his own wand out and at the ready as he watched the dragon definitely begin descending towards them.

"Stunning spells on three," Charlie said, grimly watching it grow ever closer.

The dark-haired man nodded. "What kind is it, Charlie?" He watched the redhead squint at it, and then shake his head.

"I don't know. I've never seen one like that before." Charlie sounded genuinely surprised, and Harry didn't blame him. Charlie knew everything about dragons, having spent years working in a dragon reserve in Romania. To see a species he knew nothing about must be quite a shock.

"It's still coming closer." Harry said, tightening his grip on his wand.

"I know. Get ready. We have to wait for it to land. If we stun it in the air, we could hurt it."

Harry thought about arguing that point, but decided now wasn't the time. Instead he nodded.

"One…" Charlie said, beginning to raise his wand arm, and Harry did the same, his heart beating ever faster. The dragon was huge. Maybe twenty-five feet long. He wondered if just the two of them casting stunners would be enough.

"Two…" The dragon touched down lightly on the rocky ground. Harry swallowed, the spell on his lips, and then blinked as a tall, slender man jumped lightly from its back and began walking towards them.

"Wand down." Charlie said urgently, holding his hand out in front of Harry as though to physically restrain him. Harry could tell the redhead was just as surprised as he was.

The stranger waved at them as he grew nearer. He was dressed oddly, to Harry's eyes. Trousers that seemed to be made of dark brown leather, boots, and a thick leather jacket. He also wore a leather cap, with flaps that covered his ears, as well as a pair of bulky-looking goggles that he held in his hand. "Ho, there!" He called. Harry frowned, his accent was odd, completely unfamiliar.

Charlie raised his own arm in greeting as the stranger reached them. Harry could see he was fairly young, somewhere between Harry's eighteen and Charlie's twenty-seven years. His hair was hidden by his cap, though his eyebrows suggested it was dark brown, and his eyes were grey-blue, and seemed open and trusting. "It's dangerous out here, you know. Thread tomorrow." The stranger said, almost by way of introduction.

Harry and Charlie looked at him blankly.

"…'Thread'?" Harry asked.

But Charlie had, to his mind, a far more pressing question. "Hey, how'd you get that dragon to let you ride it?"

-!-!-!-!-

K'rin stared at the two strange people standing before him, an expression of utter disbelief plastered to his face. He nearly laughed, assuming these people were joking, until he realised that they were, most definitely, serious. They spoke so strangely too, sounding like no one he'd ever heard before. They looked odd too. The black-haired one was wearing pants of a strange blue material on his legs, and a red shirt that looked to be of some sort of woven material, though a far tighter weave than he had ever seen. The other was dressed similarly, and both wore black cloaks.

"I am K'rin, rider of brown Solth." He said slowly, "I mean… he's mine, so… why wouldn't I ride him?"

The redhead seemed to struggle with this concept, though seemed genuinely impressed, to K'rin's puzzlement. "But… how'd you tame him so well? I mean… he looks completely docile… did you put some sort of spell on him, or feed him something to calm him?"

K'rin stared, then giggled, then burst out laughing, slapping his thighs. Behind him, Solth rumbled in amusement, a sound which made the two strangers jump.

Are these two serious, Solth? He asked his dragon, as he sobered up. They really seem to think you should be dangerous!

I can be dangerous if I want. Solth replied, sounding slightly put out. Then added, they are like the healer.

"What?" K'rin said, surprised, looking back at his brown, surprised.

"I asked how you tamed him so…" the red-hared man began, but K'rin shushed him with a gesture of his hand, looking only into his dragon's slowly-whirling blue eyes.

"Sorry, not you. I'm talking to Solth."

The healer's apprentice. The one who knows little of our ways. The dragon said.

Of course. He just showed up one day. T'laf brought him in, I remember. He was raving mad back then, Leffana thought he had a fever. He's never been able to answer what Hold he was from…

Ask if these two have a hold. Solth suggested.

"Solth wants to know if you have a hold." K'rin said, turning back to the strangers, who were goggling at him now. To be honest, they were making the young brown rider slightly uncomfortable.

"You… you were talking to your dragon?" The black-haired one asked, incredulously.

"Of course," K'rin said, impatiently. "I asked you a question. Where do you live."

"In England." The redhead said, hurriedly, and it was K'rin's turn to stare.

You ever heard the healer's apprentice talk about an 'England', Solth?

Possibly. Solth said, his bad memory getting the better of him at last. K'rin sighed.

"The two of you better come with me."

"Why?" The redhead asked.

"Because I don't know where you're from, so I can't take you home. And you won't find shelter within a day in this place. You'd die out here tomorrow, exposed."

"That… 'Thread'… you mentioned?" The black-haired one asked. K'rin noticed an interesting scar on his forehead, under his hair.

"Of course, Thread. What else?" He turned and began walking back to his dragon. "Come on, Solth'll take us back to Telgar."

"Where?!" the two strangers demanded at exactly the same time.

------

To Be Continued…

I know it's a bit odd right now, but things'll start picking up by the next chapter. Culture clashes, gotta love 'em.

I have no laid out plot for this and I'm pretty much writing as stuff enters my head. It's a new approach I'm trying. Hoping I can keep this story going.

Like? Review!