Sword and the Doe -- A Harry Potter Deathly Hallows What If Story

Sword and the Doe -- Greengecko fan fiction Harry Potter Deathly Hallows

Title: The Sword and the Doe

Author: Greengecko

Website: darkirony.com

Disclaimer: I don't own this setting or these characters.

Notes: This story was written for the Support Stacie auction. The premise is: What if Ron had not arrived in time to rescue Harry when he is fetching the Sword of Gryffindor from the pond where Snape has planted it?

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The Sword and the Doe

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter 19. Setting: the Forest of Dean. Harry and Hermione are hiding out. They had to decamp the last location because someone was nosing around their campsite. It is night time. Harry is on watch, sitting at the entrance to the tent, wearing every sweater he possesses. He is repeatedly nodding off.

_The night reached such a depth of velvety blackness that he might have been suspended in limbo between Disapparition and Apparition. He had just held up a hand in front of his face to see whether he could make out his fingers when it happened._

_A bright silver light appeared right ahead of him, moving through the trees. Whatever the source, it was moving soundlessly. The light seemed simply to drift towards him._

Harry surged to his feet, brandishing Hermione's wand. His lips parted to call out for his friend, but instead of shouting to rouse her, they drew tight again. Something had reached inside him, and he stood dumb, caught up in the eerie emotions rising within him. As the glow approached, lighting the side of one great oak after the next, the feeling grew stronger. Harry was being unraveled by a gentle touch that found its way knowingly through an impossible tangle of old wounds. Harry did not want Hermione to awaken. The intimacy of the feeling was too personal to share with anyone.

The searing core of the glow stepped out from between two bulky trees and Harry caught his breath. The glow emanated from a pure silver doe. She made her way just above the ground, casting a brilliant light that clearly outlined the heavily grooved bark around her and threw the branches in the canopy high above into white relief on the dark sky.

She rotated her head to face Harry as she came fully into view, her gaze, her form so familiar, his heart ached all the way to its depths. Dizziness forced Harry to draw a neglected breath. He swayed faintly, arms limp at his sides, caught up utterly by the doe lifting her head high and contemplating him with her large gentle eyes. Harry knew her but could not remember ever seeing her before. He knew her better than he knew anything in the world and he could stand there, graced by her light, forever, if possible. She bore a truth, just for him, as if he had summoned her by staring into the Mirror of Erised.

Leading with her head, the doe turned, and strode delicately away, moving immediately behind a stout trunk, so that only her glow remained visible, shifting from one trunk to another.

"No," Harry breathed. Something scarred and wounded had connected inside of him and he could feel it tearing away again. The glow flickered through the trees, receding, leaving him alone to nurse the hollow it had outlined around his heart. The forest around him returned to unyielding darkness as the glow shrunk with distance. A cold wind rattled through, pummeling Harry's legs with gritty snow.

Unable to imagine how something so true could be dark magic, and yearning beyond reason to bask in that glow again, Harry pursued. He jogged at first, feet crushing the light snow cover, snapping branches underfoot. In contrast to the doe, who moved soundlessly, he was a lumbering giant going through the trees.

This thought made Harry hesitate. He looked back, worried suddenly about leaving Hermione alone. But the trees behind him stood empty. The tent had disappeared; he had moved beyond the magic protecting it. A simple wand wave would make it reappear, but . . . Harry glanced back at the doe, still plodding away from him. He felt an ache of loss like he did the first time Hagrid handed him a photograph of his parents, the photograph he had since turned to many times when things either were not going well, or were going so well, he ached to be able to show them.