A/N:
CHAPTER THREE
Gusts of wind rattled against the windows. There was a chill in the air as the autumn season slipped slowly into winter. Harry sat on the edge of his bed, elbows on his knees, making lazy circles with his wand as another morning passed with no word from Dumbledore. It had been a week, and Harry was still stuck there in the that little German town, in that suffocating inn, waiting.
He did not know what to do.
There had been no sign of a struggle, but his mentor had yet to resurface after vanishing on that morning nearly seven days prior. He considered setting out in search of the old man, but feared that the moment he left would be the moment Dumbledore returned – and then how would they locate one another? Aside from that, Harry hadn't the slightest idea where to start looking. He was reluctant to reach out to anyone. He hadn't spoken to Sirius in ages, and he didn't want to worry his godfather over what might be nothing at all. Riddle... he hadn't heard from him since their conversation by the lake more than two years earlier.
In any case, Dumbledore had gone off on his own plenty of times over the past two years. This was nothing new. He should just buckle down and study so that he'd have something to show off once things were back to normal. Yet in the back of his mind he could not stop thinking about that dream – the one from the day Dumbledore disappeared. The shade that had confronted him... the realism of the dream itself, mixed with the impossibility of it...
He jabbed his wand at the floorboards and a series of scratches that resembled words etched themselves into the wood. It wasn't a full inscription, but it was a start. A new charm – one that with a single incantation could carve out whatever the caster wanted written on any solid surface. Not especially practical or useful – there were other ways of achieving the same end – but it seemed just complex enough to be challenging while simple enough to be possible. The first spell that was his, the first he'd designed from scratch. He hadn't mastered it yet.
Harry sank back down on to the bedspread. He could not muster the motivation to give a better effort than that.
Then there was a knock at the door.
Harry stumbled to his feet and raised his wand. Harry said nothing. The knocking came again, more insistently. It sounded like there might be voices on the other side, but they were unrecognizable and unfamiliar. His eyes darted to the windows – the only other way out of the room. Wand still held high, he stepped closer so that he might make an exit quickly if need be. Dumbledore was missing, unknown entities were at the front door... Dumbledore would not have needed to knock. This wasn't good.
The doorknob twisted and turned against the lock and Harry's rudimentary wards. Whoever it was wasn't concerned with being heard. Harry's mind raced back to a spell Dumbledore had shown him in passing. Harry had never actually tried it before.
"Transpicio" he muttered.
The door began to shimmer and slowly became transparent – to Harry's eyes only. It wasn't perfect, he couldn't see past the door as if it weren't there at all, but he could get glimpses of the figures behind it. Two of them, both taller. He'd never seen either of them before. He had thought maybe it was the old innkeeper checking in on him, but no. These two were somehow sinister seeming, even from what little he could glimpse.
Harry canceled the spell just as the door began to bend and strain against its hinges. It seemed as if a massive unrelenting force was pressing inwards. The door would not hold for long, and Harry was certain his wards were not going to be enough to keep the room secure.
With a quick flick of his wrist his belongings wrapped themselves up into his backpack as he slung it over his shoulders. With his left hand he opened the third story window and with his right he held his wand trained on the door, which was now splintering against the onslaught. The wind swept through the room; the air was cold on the back of his neck and he shivered involuntarily. Rather than wait to face his adversaries, Harry took a breath and jumped. As he fell, he heard the door shatter with a bang and voices shout, but he was falling too quickly to make out what they were saying.
He should have been nervous, falling, but instead a sense of calm washed over him. Time seemed to slow down, it felt like he was falling far longer than he should have been. He watched, almost dispassionately, as the ground crept closer. Just before Harry made contact with the pavement, he waved his wand and slowed his momentum. He landed softly on the balls of his feet and was already moving as quickly as possible without attracting undue notice. There were more people out and about than usual, grouped together muttering to one another. The buzz of gossip crackled in the air. Somehow nobody seemed to have noticed his escape out the backside of the inn – attention seemed solely focused on the front entrance. About a block down the quaint cobbled road Harry spotted a group of three muggle women, all middle-aged, whispering quietly. He approached them cautiously as their gazes turned to meet him.
"Excuse me," he muttered quietly, "but do you mind if I ask what's happening here?
They glanced at one another and then looked back at Harry, faces blank. Harry slapped his forehead. Of course. Language barrier. He flicked his wand behind his back - and spoke again, this time in German.
"I'm sorry, could you tell me what's happening here?"
"Oh, haven't you heard?" The eldest of the three women asked. The other two tittered with an almost nervous excitement. Harry shook his head. The woman who had spoken first took a deep breath and cleared her throat, then leaned down and spoke with barely more than a whisper, "they found a body."
Harry took a step back. A body? He looked back over his shoulder towards the Inn he'd just escaped. There was a growing crowd gathering around the entrance. What was going on?
The woman's face twisted into what was maybe meant to be a reassuring smile. "Don't worry, I didn't mean to scare you."
Harry shook his head. "No, sorry, I'm not frightened. I was just thinking. Who was it? What happened? Do they know?"
"Well that's what's odd – nobody recognizes him – the body, I mean. He's dressed like it's the dead of winter, but it's mild here at the moment. Washed up from the river not more than a hundred meters from this very spot."
A wave of dread swept through Harry as he considered the implications. If you didn't know better, Dumbledore's robes could look like a winter outfit. What if...
"How old was he?" Harry asked, trying to keep his composure steady.
One of the other women, younger, with a shawl draped over her shoulders, sighed dramatically. "He couldn't have been more than twenty or so. Young. It's tragic."
Harry's shoulders sagged in relief. He let out a breath. "That's... yes, that's terrible. But why the crowd?"
The older women gestured for Harry to step closer as the other two again traded looks. Harry stepped forward and whispered, "what's happening here?"
"Well," she said with a tight grimace, "they say they found evidence on the body that ties it to someone who was staying at that very Inn. In our town! Crimmitschau! Can you believe it?"
"The police are already there, investigating," the woman with the shawl interjected.
Harry's eyes darted back to the inn. To his assailants. The police? No, they'd definitely been using magic to break his wards. The German aurors, then? That was the best explanation he could think of – a death tied to someone in the inn, Dumbledore missing – were they related somehow?
Before Harry could ask any more questions the crowd in front of the inn erupted in shouting. Two men in forest green cloaks had emerged from the hotel and were hurrying quickly down the street away from the inn, ignoring questions lobbed by the congregation. There were traces of smoke coming from inside the building. The women Harry had been standing with shrieked and hurried up towards the crowd to be closer to the action. Harry slipped quietly away and ran in the other direction. He didn't know what was happening, who that dead man was, or why those police or aurors or whatever they were had come for him, but he didn't really want to find out, at least not like this. He would run, get to a floo network or an owl or something, and send word to Sirius. He would know what to do. That was his best option.
His footsteps echoed down the alleyway as he turned off of the busy streets and on to roads less frequented. It wasn't a large city at all by muggle standards, and the wizarding community there was minimal, mostly centered around Gregorovitch's shop. Too bad he'd just fled the area and wasn't planning on turning around any time soon. Where else would there be a connected fireplace? Any way to make contact?
Better yet, why was he running? Harry slowed his pace as he turned left down another cobbled alleyway with a few more people, a few shops that seemed open. Why was he running from aurors? He hadn't done anything wrong. In fact, maybe the aurors could help him find Dumbledore. The rational thing would have been to stay put and answer their questions and see if they could help him. That would be the right thing to do. So why did it feel like a terrible idea?
Harry ran a hand through his hair. The whole situation seemed off. Something on that body had sent the aurors to his room, and they had battered down the door with force. They weren't just there to ask polite questions. They'd come for him wands blazing. That meant... that meant they must think he was a suspect somehow in that man's death.
None of this added up.
His stride fell to an almost leisurely pace as he considered his options. Considered his enemies. What was he supposed to do next? He couldn't very well just knock on each door asking if he could borrow their fireplaces. He couldn't apparate, and he didn't have an owl. He only had a little bit of money that Dumbledore had handed him at the start of this whole adventure. He'd never needed to use it. Would it be enough for a train ticket?
Still walking, Harry pocketed his wand, took off his backpack, and fished around through the pockets looking for the money he hoped was still there. Euros, he knew, not British pounds, but how much did he have? A quick search uncovered a few bills at the bottom of the front-most pouch. Surely there had been more to start with, but he had never really kept track of how much Dumbledore had given him or where it had come from.
"Damn" Harry swore to himself. "I should have paid more attention."
"Yes," came a baritone voice from behind. "You should have."
Harry spun on his heels as his backpack fell from his hands, bills and books spilling from the seams and scattering with the wind through the alleyway. He reached disparately for his wand and tried to step backwards, but his shoes tangled with the straps of his bag and he tripped, falling backwards to the ground.
A figure stood before him, forest green cloak billowing, wand raised.
"Stupefy"
A/N: Like I said, short. But hi, everyone. Hope you're all doing well.