The winged horses were flying together in swooping circles right at the far edge of the forest. Moonlight glinted off their slick, emancipated hides. They were darker than the purple night. Dan watched as, without any obvious signal, they dipped back down under the shadow of the trees.
So the tattoo on Seb's back belonged to a real animal, a thestral as he'd called it. Dan had forgotten all about it. Seeing them in person, Dan understood a little better why Seb had called it his favourite. And he'd used thestral magic, somehow? Clearly, it allowed him to choose who the tattoo was visible to. He'd shown it to Dan. Or maybe it was a Slytherin thing? Dan couldn't think of anything else they had in common.
Still deep in thought, Dan sat back on his mattress, curled up and fell quickly back asleep. By the morning, he had forgotten the strange creatures of the night.
~
"It's true!" Chris cried, bursting into the Ravenclaw common room with glee pouring off every inch of his body. "Umbridge is gone, maybe for good. Well, she's still here in the hospital wing. But Arnie says she's completely lost it. Be carted off to St. Mungo's in no time."
"But what the hell happened?" PJ laid his book down in his lap, wonder in his eyes as Chris ran a victory lap of the airy room, high-fiving as he went.
"Arnie says she went in the forest for some reason. Probably decided it was time to put some order to whatever madness goes on in there. Very unorthodox practices, I'm sure. She came out a few hours later without a wand and screaming. His chess club were having a midnight tournament at the edge of the forest. They picked her up and took her to the hospital wing." Chris completed his circuit and slumped down blissfully in the spare armchair.
"What did she meet in the forest?" Dan wondered, his Potions revision forgotten.
"She was spouting gibberish all the way to the castle. Centaurs and giants and giant spiders and evil forest children and vines that ate people and Dumbledore, apparently."
"Dumbledore was in the forest?!"
"Nah, like he set it all up to get her or something. I don't know. She's crazy. I mean, in shock."
The whole common room was listening to their conversation. One girl had stopped so dead in taking a paperback from the bookshelf that it had fallen to the floor with an outraged th
ud.
"I heard it was fifth years, not Dumbledore." Phil sat forwards eagerly. "No one thought it was actually real, though. The rumour was that they persuaded her to go in - said there was some terrible misconduct going on, I guess."
"Bloody genius. Why didn't we think of that?" Chris nodded his head approvingly.
"Two of them took her in," a first year who'd been listening to their conversation piped up, blinking in surprise at her own voice. "I saw. I was... never mind." She carried on, a little braver. "But they took her in and came out without her about half an hour later. I guess they just got in deep enough and ran away."
PJ let out a low whistle. "That's some balls right there. If I find out who they are I will personally bake them at least four cakes. Did they get into trouble?"
The first year shrugged.
"If they've got detentions or anything we should crash them."
Chris nodded in agreement. "The whole school would probably come. Well, except the Inquisitorial Squibs."
"I guess that's disbanded now, huh." PJ said, a grin spreading across his face. He lay his head back on the top of the armchair, looking up at the blue and bronze silks that hung down from the star-painted ceiling. A true sense of serenity came over a person when in their own house.
"What about all the educational decrees?" Dan asked, frowning. "They're legislation – they exist with or without her."
"Maybe so, but there's not a single teacher in this school that will enforce them if she goes." Phil said, satisfied. He took up his quill and resumed his doodle. "Oh, and by the way Dan, you really don't want to be putting bdellium in a sneezing solution."
"Really?" Dan blinked. "That was the only one I was sure of."
Phil shook his head. "With that madness you only need 2 drachms of red myrtle and you've got belch powder."
~
Transfiguration had gone from being one of Dan's weakest subjects to his strongest, thanks to Phil. McGonagall had noticed the improvement, and always saved Dan a small smile. The written exam had gone well, although Dan could pick out at least three questions he'd definitely got wrong, and the practical so far had gone without a hitch (McGonagall hadn't noticed that his teapot (which had previously been a large snail) was suspiciously slimy, and had vanished it without bothering to touch it).
"Epoximise." Dan said firmly. The two marbles snapped together, fusing with a satisfying cling.
Professor McGonagall picked them up and gave them a good tug, but their embrace was firm. She nodded curtly, making a note on her parchment.
"Very good, Mr Howell, that will be all. Your confidence in spell casting has bloomed. If you keep up this level of dedication to your studies next year, I predict excellent OWL results."
"Thank you very much. Professor?" Dan said suddenly.
"Yes?" McGonagall raised an eyebrow.
"Can I ask you something completely unrelated, if you have a minute?"
"You were very efficient with your exam. I have three."
"It's a bit silly. Just something that's been bugging me a while," Dan paused, chewing his lower lip. McGonagall waited quietly for him to continue. "It's about how the sorting hat, works," Dan said carefully. "Like, what factors it uses to decide your house. It's just, I'm muggleborn. There aren't a lot of muggleborn Slytherins. The only other one I know is in our house because he chose it." Dan wished he hadn't started speaking, this really wasn't the time, but it was too late to back out now. And if he didn't ask before the summer he'd have a whole six weeks to agonise over it. When else would he speak to a teacher, now lessons were over? "I've thought about it for a long time but I really can't think of any one thing that makes me so suited to Slytherin that Salazar would want me even with my blood status. I fit, definitely, but I'm not the epitome of all things Slytherin. I'm a comfortable mid ground. I was just wondering if there was a way to find out, you know, maybe ask the hat? I've spent five years here now. If I leave without ever figuring it out it will bug me to my grave."
McGonagall looked at Dan long and hard, her expression unreadable. Dan squirmed a little under her gaze. He was being stupid.
"I believe, and this may surprise you, that I will be able to answer your question without consulting the sorting hat, who is currently settling down for his long summer nap. However, I will need to make some enquiries before offering an answer to your riddle. It's certainly not something I can go into while Harriet Jenkins waits ever more nervously outside. I assume you will be catching the express home next week?"
Dan nodded, adrenaline shivering through his veins.
"In which case, I shall have to write to you over the summer. Was there anything else?"
"No," Dan shook his head, hurriedly gathering his things. "Thank you. Thank you so much."
Professor McGonagall nodded as he left, but behind her eyes she was somewhere else entirely and deep in contemplation.
~
Over the exam period the Ravenclaw tower had become the social hub for Dan and his three friends, as they no longer had to worry about all the various passwords to get into each other's houses. To enter the Ravenclaw common room one must answer a riddle asked by the large, eagle shaped door knocker, but for the last three weeks the heavy door had been propped open near constantly with a robust, dusty Arithmancy volume. The students looked out for each other, and the last thing someone needed after an eight hour study session in the library was to have to answer a riddle just to get to bed. Even when the book was removed at night, there would always be someone inside to answer a knock. Ravenclaws didn't sleep. Perhaps they were vampires, or perhaps they'd got too caught up in their creating or studying or debating to realise that it was four in the morning and their eyes were starting to burn.
This time, at two, Dan and Phil were let in by a girl with blue paint on her hands who immediately cursed and set about getting it off the door handle.
"You're not even in this house." She muttered as they slipped past her and up the stairs.
Chris was wrapped around PJ's lanky frame like ivy. There was no way that position could be comfortable. Dan shook them gently to wake them, pressing a finger to his lips as they opened their bleary eyes.
"Ben's throwing an end of year party," Dan whispered, ducking his head down so they could hear. "Right now, because advance notice is for losers, he says."
"Where?" PJ yawned, unsticking Chris's arm from around his neck.
"Forest. He said we'll find it. But he couldn't meet everyone in the castle and all go at once. Way too obvious."
"Open invite?" PJ said, blinking a few times to get his eyes to focus in the dark.
Dan nodded. "But get them to wait five minutes before coming out."
The night air was refreshingly cool. They ran, heads down, to the treeline; where they stopped to check that no one had seen. There was one NEWT exam left to be sat tomorrow, but it was in the afternoon and a few students were always dragged away the moment exams were over to avoid the holiday traffic. Tonight was the best night for a party, and even those who weren't explicitly invited had waited up, watching and trading rumours. Just a few feet in front of them Dan could see shadowy figures moving deeper into the forest.
They were following tiny, floating orbs of blue light – will o' the wisps, only visible to those looking to find what was at the end of their trail. The wisps were not bright enough to see from the castle, but at this close proximity they created a clear path through the trees. With ever growing anticipation, the four boys made their way into the night.
~
It was a clearing that, like most of the mysterious forest, no one seemed to be able to recall ever visiting before. Fairy lights danced under the canopy and a number of floating lanterns cast a yellow glow that filled the open space with warmth. There was not, at least at this early stage, a wild party raging amongst the trees. The atmosphere was relaxed and friendly and ultimately euphoric with the end of exams and promise of summer. Every illuminated face hosted a wide beam of content (although that might have been something to do with the huge kegs of butterbeer lining one edge of the clearing), and laughter was the loudest music.
There were no benches or tables, and the boys joined a group of their friends on the dry, springy forest floor. Lots of students had taken off their shoes and, as most were in their pyjamas, it had the air of a very large forest slumber party.
Carrie pulled Dan into a warm hug as he sat down next to her, summoning a butterbeer and pressing it into his hands. PJ was showing Sophie (who'd just arrived with a group of Ravenclaw girls) the latest little melody he'd taught his tattoo to sing, and Phil and Charlie were laying back on the moss picking out constellations in the sky. Chris lay his head in Dan's lap, closing his eyes.
"We're still going to Norway in the summer, yeah?"
Dan nodded, then remembered Chris couldn't see. "'Course. God knows how I'll afford it, though. I haven't mentioned it to my parents yet."
"Like we've said a million times, don't worry about it. Have you told them yet, though? I mean, you are pretty young."
"Shut up. You went all over the place with Peej last year."
"But my parents are chillax, yours are muggles. They have no idea what the wizarding world is like, I can imagine that's pretty scary."
Chris, for all his fooling around, could be very astute. Dan patted his head fondly. "I'm sure they'll come around. I'm going with you three. You're all older and know everything there is to know about everything magic. If I was on my own they probably wouldn't let me, but they like you guys."
"Your dad met me for all of five minutes."
"You complimented his fishing jacket, though. He'll trust you with my life."
Chris smirked, sitting back up. "You've got to have something to look forward to in the summer when you're too young to use magic. Otherwise you're stuck, you know. If your parents can't take you to see your friends. We're too spread out. Well, I guess you know how to use muggle transport. And you have a broom. But it would be one hell of a journey on your own to hang out with say, Charlie in Ireland. With muggle school all your friends live near you, right? So it really is a holiday – all you have to do all day is hang out with your friends and be lazy teenagers and annoy your parents. But when you don't have a single friend within fifty miles for six weeks, that sucks. I nearly got expelled during summer of second year. I used magic. Not with my wand, but like, I knew what I was doing. That's how I got off. I didn't cast any spells and I was still young, I could say it was an accident, you know? It just happened. But I could have stopped it."
"What did you do?" Dan asked, curious.
Chris yawned, wriggling to get comfortable as he lay back and narrowly avoiding Dan's rib with an elbow. "I was so bored. I couldn't play with any of the kids who lived near me because I wouldn't know what to talk about. Like they'd have talked about things I didn't know, you know? They'd have figured out something was up eventually. I'd have let something slip." They watched Ben juggle some sticks lit with purple fire at both ends. The crowd cheered as he pulled off a particularly impressive spin. "But I wanted to make friends so bad." Chris carried on. "I'd go to the park and hide up a tree and watch thirteen year olds try their first cigarette under the slide. Then one time they all got into the big basket swing and wouldn't let any of the kids have a go. So I snapped the rope. I was bitter, what can I say. That time I didn't get caught though, that could have happened naturally – obviously they knew because I still had the trace on me, but when they turned up no damage was done so they didn't bother following it up. But the next day I melted the metal on the slide with them all under it. I was pretty impressed with that. Like, I didn't know what was going to happen. I could just feel that something was, you get me? No one was hurt, don't worry, but we were the only magical family in the area. It didn't take them long to find me."
"How was no one hurt?" Dan asked, alarmed. "Molten metal is pretty hard-core."
"I dunno, I guess it wasn't hot. It didn't stick to them or anything, it was just liquid. So many memories got wiped that day. My dad knew full well it wasn't an accident, he nearly killed me. I wasn't allowed my broom the whole rest of the holidays."
Dan shuddered. "Please come see me. Like, every day. And take me places. You can all apparate, there's no excuse."
"You have my word, young whippet." Chris promised.
By now, the congregation had doubled in size and the sleepiness was starting to wear off, perhaps with help from the vast array of carbonated beverages that seemed to have grown from the trees themselves. Music was playing from a hollow stump and a few people were dancing. It was a happy kind of gloom. There were goodbyes, but they were softened with 'I'll see you again soon' and 'just wait til next year'. It was the end of an era. For some, this would be their last party at Hogwarts.
The soft, yellow light was the main feature that captivated Dan. There was something about it, a hazy, languid, tranquil quality. It was impossible to be tense or unhappy when it fell about your shoulders. Dan wondered whether it was actually enchanted, or whether it was just the atmosphere of the party that filled the clear night with its own light.
At three, Chris and Ben let off a volley of fireworks that surely caught the attention of the teachers patrolling the corridors at night and at four, as the sun was just beginning tint the edges of the sky, a seventh year cranked up the music and called everyone to the dancefloor for a slow dance.
The sun was well and truly about to rise. A colony of bats had made quite a stir as they swept through the party picking up moths and bugs that had been attracted to the lights, and at one point Dan was sure he could see a centaur watching from the shadows. He was warm and happy and cuddled between Phil and PJ under a very large and fluffy blanket that PJ had conjured up. Exams were over and, now all his friends were of age, this would probably be the best summer of his life. There wasn't much that could dampen his spirits on this warm, lazy, yellow summer night.
~
The packing up and setting off phase was always calamitous. It was amazing how far a sock could travel in the course of a year. Belongings had scattered themselves far and wide and no one could even remember who they'd leant that book/pack of cards/self-chilling pint glass to anymore. No matter how long you spent packing, you'd always spend the train ride home remembering things you'd forgotten.
Dan was sure his trunk had closed without any brute force when he'd left home in September, but now, even with an extra bag already packed on his bed, he was straining just to get the sides to touch.
He left with the rest of the Slytherin boys. He would find his friends outside, the atmosphere in the castle was far too frantic to even consider going against the flow of students to reach the Hufflepuff quarters.
Ben found him on the steps and PJ joined them as they stopped to bid one final farewell to the imposing castle. Chris and Phil hailed them soon after and Ben went charging after a girl with blue hair to pull her into a hug.
They turned the corner and joined the throng of students milling around the carriages and slowly dividing themselves up. Dan stopped dead suddenly and snapped his fingers emphatically.
"I knew I'd seen them before!" He said excitedly. "I always paid so little attention I never realised they had wings. Or that they're so skinny."
He approached the closest thestral but stopped a foot away, turning impishly to Phil. "Can I pet it? Why is it no one ever pets them? Are they dangerous? I'm gonna pet it."
"Dan..." Phil said slowly.
"I can't believe I've spent the last four years thinking they were regular horses," Dan carried on, taking a step closer and admiring the tall beast. Despite the macabre appearance, it was proud and graceful and definitely beautiful. The coat, although it clung worryingly to the creature's skeleton, was glossy and smooth – almost scaly. The face was long and narrow. It looked back at Dan through huge, black eyes that were quiet with intelligence and perhaps a certain sadness. All of a sudden, Dan felt as though he should lower his voice. Behind him, Phil had still not responded. Dan turned.
"Seb's tattoo," he said, a little uncertainly and gesturing at the thetral. "The one you couldn't see. It's one of these, right? A thestral?"
The three faces that stared back at him were frozen and pale. Slowly, Phil nodded.
Dan's brow was furrowed with consternation. What was wrong with the creatures? They couldn't be dangerous if the students were allowed to get so close to them without any warning, and no one else seemed to be paying them the slightest bit of attention. Determinedly, Dan raised a hand and brushed the back of his knuckles gently down the thestral's neck. It whickered softly, and Dan smiled triumphantly. He turned back round, raising an eyebrow.
"What am I missing?" He asked defiantly.
Phil walked up to Dan and took his hand, leading him gently away from the carriage. "We can't see them, Dan. Just like we can't see the tattoos. Do you know much about them?"
Dan shook his head. "Seb's tattoo was the first time I heard the name. I didn't know these were thestrals. I never really looked at them. Why can't you see them?"
He looked at the three boys, expecting Chris or PJ to contribute, but they were both looking away. Phil took Dan's arms in his and faced him, his voice lowered. His expression was sincere and Dan held himself tense.
"The magic he cast," Phil began quietly. "So that you, and I suppose he, could see it, was impressive because it's not magic anyone other than a thestral would want to use." Phil paused, his eyes wide with – pity? "Dan, you can only see a thestral if you've witnessed death."
Ice ran cold and inexorably from Dan's cheeks down his spine to his toes and spreading out into every peripheral. He understood now the hush that had come over him while interacting with the beast. It was the quiet, respectful reverence of a funeral.
"But," he said after a silence, his voice small. "I've never seen anyone die."
No one had an answer to the question he hadn't asked. In front of him, the thestrals stood tall and solid and clear as the summer's sky and mountain peaks.