Chapter Twenty-Nine of 'His Darkest Devotion'- Destinies

[lomonaaeren]

Chapter Twenty-Eight.

Chapter One.

Title: His Darkest Devotion (29/?)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Tom Riddle, background James/Lily, Molly/Arthur, Ron/Hermione, possibly others
Content Notes: Extreme AU, soulmate-identifying marks, angst, violence, torture, gore, minor character deaths
Rating: R
Summary: AU. Harry Potter has been hiding in plain sight all his life, since he carries the soul-mark of Minister Tom Riddle on his arm—and a fulfilled soul-bond will double both partners’ power. His parents and godfather are fugitives, members of the Order of the Phoenix, and Harry is a junior Ministry official feeding the Order what information he can. No one, least of all him, expects Harry to come to the sudden notice of Minister Riddle, or be drawn into a dangerous game of deception.
Author’s Notes: This is a long fic and an extreme AU, as you can see from the summary. The different facets of the AU will be revealed slowly, so roll with the differences at first; in time, all should be revealed.

Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Twenty-Nine—Destinies

Tom turned his head. Outwardly, he had been listening with what patience he could muster to yet another diatribe from Arcturus Black on why Muggleborns didn’t belong in the Ministry. He knew that Harry had planned to approach Black about the life-debt he owed, but they had agreed that it was best to wait and let Madam Malfoy spread some of the facts Harry had assigned her first.

And Harry was at his Mind-Healing session right now in any case, with only some emotions filtering down their bond. At the moment, his mood was one of quiet attentiveness like soft ice. What Tom had felt came from something else.

“And if you think that pure-bloods will sit back and let Mudbloods trample over our sacred traditions—”

Tom held up his hand. Black blinked and fell silent. It wasn’t a usual practice of Tom’s, to command like that. He was skilled at listening to inane conversations with half his attention while reaching out with his true awareness in other directions.

But this time…

Tom listened, and listened, and finally made out the sound. It was like a soft bell ringing in another room, but becoming harder as the breeze from an open window stirred it. It was one of the alarms Tom had planted about the Ministry to alert him if someone with a large and active magical aura ever came within a certain distance of it, another method of finding his soulmate. Tom had never bothered to dismantle the alarms after he’d found Harry. He had idly thought they might make a good warning if Dumbledore tried another attack on him.

But now…

“Wait here,” Tom told Black, who was opening his mouth again to complain—that would be what it was, it was never anything else. “We may be about to suffer a raid.” And he left his office and shut the door behind him, making his way towards the bell in question.

It hung in one of the outer offices of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, under a spell that ensured no one came too near it. Tom didn’t want it triggered by random Aurors. But it should have been ringing more strongly than this if a spell had impacted the Ministry or was moving nearer. In fact, the tone hadn’t changed at all since Tom first heard it, which was more than strange. Was Dumbledore building up a spell just outside its range?

Tom stepped into the small meeting room and walked over to his bell, absently banishing the illusion of empty space that it occupied. The small silver instrument swung back and forth on the taut steel wire that Tom had conjured for it, the clapper lazy and gentle. Tom frowned at it, and then glanced around the room. Maybe something had gone wrong with his warding, and it had picked up on the magic of an Auror who had simply walked past on their way to somewhere else.

But when he used magic to enhance his senses, there was no recent smell of anyone near here, nor any sign that the carpet had been crushed by footsteps or the table disturbed by small pools of sweat. Tom ended the enchantment and stepped back to observe the bell again. He hadn’t built much of a sense of direction into them, given that they had been meant to indicate someone powerful in the Ministry itself, but he could read a little information from the wall the clapper pointed at when it reached the top of its arc.

It pointed towards the western wall, but already it was softening, its tone sweet instead of warning. Tom closed his eyes and realigned his senses to reach out towards the west. What was there? From what he could tell, nothing much. Quiet country, small villages where no one was performing magic, city streets…

Tom’s eyes snapped open. Yes, there was the remnant of some great gathering of magic there, as if someone had opened a gate to another world (an art Tom had never been interested in, since none of them would have had his soulmate). No wonder the bell had barely sensed it. It must be right on the edge of its magical reach.

But who would have had the power to open a gate or conduct some other comparable working? Tom shook his head. He kept a private list of the soulmated pairs in the country, and how strong their magic was. None of them even compared to him by himself, much less what he would have now that his bond with Harry was fully open.

Unless Dumbledore had managed to resurrect the bond with his soulmate, of course.

Tom stepped slowly back from the bell, his mind full of books he had read in his twenties, when he had still been searching for a way to bring his mark back. What he had found indicated that there was no way he could do so, but also that it hadn’t destroyed his potential to bond with a soulmate, which had been the question he most wanted to find the answer to.

And for someone to start a bond again that they had once rejected was also possible, but only with true love on both sides. Tom snorted. He could not imagine Dumbledore going to Grindelwald in Nurmengard, casting himself on his knees, and confessing that he had loved him for years.

So what might have happened? Had Grindelwald summoned Dumbledore and told him that he regretted the dissolution of their bond and wanted to bond again?

Then again, Tom didn’t know how love could have come into the heart of a rejected Dark Lord nursing his bitterness alone. For all that he was not a Dark Lord, Tom thought he understood Grindelwald better than most. He would have forgiven Harry much, but not establishing their bond and then turning away from it.

No, most likely there was something else he hadn’t yet considered, some way that Dumbledore had managed to receive a greater power or bring his bond back into existence.

Tom sighed in irritation and turned back to the door. He would have to go to his office and pretend interest in Black’s complaints again. There was nothing he could do without more knowledge and Harry at his side.

At least they had had this forewarning.

*

Molly swallowed as she stepped through the door of the Leaky Cauldron. She had thought it an odd place for the Aurors to ask her and Arthur to meet them and surrender their wands, but it was more the people bustling around her that made her skin prickle. She hadn’t been outside the Order’s refuge or camps in years, and she knew everyone there.

But strangely, no one glanced at them more than twice. It was a busy day, of course, bustling with parents escorting their children who were home over the Easter holiday, so perhaps that was part of it.

The bigger part, however, Molly saw when she edged around a witch with a tall hat and stopped. There was a contingent of Aurors waiting for them, yes, although only three, far fewer than Molly had thought they’d want when meeting with dangerous terrorists.

And in the middle of them was the Minister.

Molly gripped the sheaf of documents she was carrying harder than ever. Never in any dream or daydream had she thought Minister Riddle would be there to “greet” them. She exchanged a helpless glance with Arthur.

Arthur finally smiled back at her and lifted his shoulders. “Best to begin as we mean to go on, my dear,” he murmured. So far, Molly noticed, neither the Aurors nor the Minister had made any move towards them, although they were clearly watching. Arthur nodded to her and then turned around and strode towards that central table.

Molly followed slowly, and tried not to feel the old instinctive hatred when Minister Riddle’s eyes landed on her.

The Minister studied her only a moment before turning and rising to his feet to shake Arthur’s hand. “Thank you for surrendering and helping us avoid any unpleasantness,” he said, in a rich, cultured voice that made Molly blink. Then again, she hadn’t heard him speak in years. The Order avoided having possession of a wireless, in case they could be tracked by it. “I know my soulmate is fond of both of you.”

“We thought he was fond of our son and daughter-in-law, as well,” Molly said a little numbly.

“Well, I imagine that fondness diminished after they cursed him in the back and forced him into a duel,” Riddle said, his voice sharpening. It was still a pleasure to listen to, which was unnerving. He let go of Arthur’s hand and reached out for hers. Molly took it and tried not to let her eyes linger on the onyx-and-diamond phoenix pendant around Riddle’s neck. She’d thought he might stop wearing it after he’d found his soulmate, but perhaps he was attached to it. “You haven’t done anything like that that I’m aware of.”

Molly shook her head and reclaimed her hand. “No. To be honest, we were questioning the Order’s goals for some time.”

“But not enough to walk away from it and sue for pardon before this.”

“It’s hard to walk away from something you’ve built a life doing.” Molly wanted to talk some more, but Arthur’s arm slipped around her waist, and she felt their soulmate magic gently pulling at her, soothing her. She bit her lip and tried to stay silent.

“Yes, it is,” Riddle said, his voice now with a sympathetic resonance that didn’t sound feigned. Molly eyed him, and Riddle nodded to her. “But if we’re going to speak further of this, perhaps we should go elsewhere.”

Molly glanced back and saw most of the people in the Leaky Cauldron staring at them. She nodded. “Why did you want to meet here, sir?” It was hard to force the last word out of her throat, where it seemed to stick, but she managed. If she had been referring to Dumbledore that way for years, perhaps it was time to use it to talk about someone else.

“So there could no doubt that your arrest had proceeded peacefully,” Riddle said. “And that you had surrendered. Your wands, please.” He held out his hand.

Molly swallowed and drew it. She held it by the middle of the shaft and displayed it on her palm to Riddle. Riddle claimed it with a flare of magic around his hands that she supposed was meant to neutralize any traps on it.

He did the same to Arthur’s wand, studied them for a moment, and then nodded and handed them to the Aurors. Then, absurdly, he stepped up to Molly and offered her his arm like a Muggle courtier.

Molly stared at him, but took the arm when she saw his eyes harden. “Why are you doing this?” she asked under her breath as they went towards the door.

“You’re important to my soulmate,” Riddle said, with a shrug. “I told you that already. You may choose to disbelieve me, but if I hear that you’ve been ugly to Harry because of it, then we can reconsider the amount of unpleasantness I am willing to indulge.”

For a moment, his sharp fingernails pricked the skin of her wrist. Molly nodded, a little dazed. “I have no wish to scold him. I only want to know what’s going on. This isn’t anything like I expected.”

“No one expected anything like it,” Riddle said. His face was stern and cold, but his eyes shone for a moment. “Including Dumbledore.”

Molly shivered as they reached the Apparition point and Riddle Apparated with her. She could only risk one glance backwards to make sure that Arthur was still following in the Aurors’ custody.

Riddle might be inclined to treat them more graciously because of Harry, but she was wondering if his version of graciousness would overlap with hers.

*

“How did it go with Mind-Healer Laufrey?”

“It was different than I expected it to be,” Harry said, leaning back on the couch and watching Tom make dinner, which was so domestic he found it suspicious. Then again, Tom wanting to be in charge of everything Harry did, including what he ate, did make a certain amount of sense. “Less scolding.”

“You do have a consistent perception that people would wish to scold you for what you suffered,” Tom murmured, glancing over his shoulder before he concentrated on the salmon in front of him again.

Harry sighed and looked out the window of Tom’s flat. The distant lights of London were flickering on, and he wondered idly if someone could look back at them and see them. Probably not, knowing all of the protections that Tom would have layered over the windows. “People mostly did.”

“Who?”

“Well—I mean, I don’t think my parents meant to. But they were always drilling me on what I had to do if you approached me, or how I should respond if I had the chance to meet you and tell the truth. It felt like scolding sometimes that I’d been born with your soul-mark, especially when I was younger. And the Mind-Healer Sirius had scolded him. And you’ve done the same thing.”

“I have not.” Tom turned, while their bond thrummed with a slippery cold emotion that Harry identified after a second. Tom felt aghast.

“Telling me that I should have approached you earlier? Accepted your assignment of a Mind-Healer without protesting? That I shouldn’t have remained friends with Ron and Hermione after they cursed me?” Harry was ticking them off on his fingers, and ignoring the way the bond grew hotter and hotter. “Maybe you were right, but you talked about them in this condescending ‘I told you so’ way that’s very off-putting.”

Tom blinked several times, while the bond cooled off. Then he did something to the salmon that appeared to involve a Stasis Charm, and came over to sit down next to Harry. “If I did that, I’m sorry for it. I do think that there were some conclusions you could reasonably be expected to have come to, even if Dumbledore was lying to you—”

“There you go again.”

Tom sat back with a grimace and a shake of his head. “I really did think that I was just telling you the truth.”

“I know. I know you are,” Harry repeated, when Tom looked at him and the bond thrummed like a string someone had plucked. “I know that you’re telling me honestly what you think. But I hate—I hate being a disappointment to everyone the way I know I am.”

“You are not a disappointment.”

“Admit it, Tom. You wish I would have broken away from Dumbledore and the Order and come looking for you earlier. You wish that I wouldn’t have wasted so many years believing what they did and that you were evil and so was I. You wish I was more confident and politically savvy.” Harry hesitated, and the bond writhed.

“Say the last thing.”

“You wish I was a pure-blood.”

Tom grabbed his hands and held them still. Harry blinked as the bond heated up again, and Tom leaned in until his lips were a centimeter, perhaps, from Harry’s. According to the tone of the bond, though, he had never felt less like kissing Harry.

“The last is absolutely not true,” Tom whispered fiercely. “To wish that you were as bigoted as the rest of them and inclined to sigh about Muggleborns and only put up with having a half-blood soulmate because I’m powerful? No, Harry. The blood status of my potential soulmate never mattered to me, but I thought a lot about the bigotry I might have to overcome if you were a pure-blood. That you are what you are couldn’t please me more.”

The bond pulsed like a sun between his shoulders and made Harry able to sigh and believe him. “All right. But the other things I said?”

Tom renewed the Stasis Charm on the salmon and curled up on the couch with his arm wrapped firmly around Harry. Harry leaned with his head on Tom’s shoulder and wished Gerald hadn’t recommended talking with his soulmate. So far, it just hurt a lot.

“I wish things had been different,” Tom admitted. “That we could have had more years together and that you hadn’t spent so much time wishing that you hadn’t been born with my mark. But I blame the Order and Dumbledore and your parents and your godfather for that. You were raised that way. Your parents and godfather weren’t, but they accepted the bollocks that Dumbledore was spewing anyway.”

“Dumbledore was really convincing and charismatic, though. And they thought that you were a Dark Lord and he’d rejected his Dark Lord soulmate, so he knew what he was talking about.”

“This, though? This spirited defense of people who treated you badly and who need to acknowledge that, even if they did it for the best of reasons? That’s all you.” Tom lifted his head so that their eyes were meeting, even as the bond leaped and rang. “And it’s bloody annoying.”

“Sorry.”

Tom shrugged. “No level of annoyance would rise to me breaking the bond, Harry. I want you. I love you. I’ll always fight to keep you. And I’ll work on the condescending tone.” He tapped Harry’s leg. “While you work on seeing the truth about your childhood.”

“All right.” Harry leaned more heavily against Tom, then glanced over as he smelled something burning. “Do you need to renew the Stasis Charm on the salmon again?”

“Shit!”

Harry laughed. The pleasure of knowing no one would believe him if he said the Minister for Magic had almost burned their dinner was outweighed by the pleasure of knowing that no one else need ever know it.

*

“Albus. Albus, let me go.”

Albus sighed. That was the kind of meaningless utterance that Gellert had been repeating since Albus had renewed their bond. Albus knew that the horror coming down the bond was real, but on the other hand, what would Gellert have of him? This was the only way, the best way.

And Albus loved Gellert. Enough to ignore the ramblings from him that meant nothing and focus on getting them to a position where they would be honored and they could receive the cures they needed. When they were heralded as the saviors of the world.

Currently, Albus stood beneath two large trees with intertwined branches that some people considered to mark an entrance to the Forbidden Forest, his gaze fastened on Hogwarts. He needed to get back into the school to fetch some materials—potions, books, ingredients—that he hadn’t had time to retrieve when he went on the run. And he needed to make sure that he wouldn’t hurt too many people doing it.

“Albus!”

Albus turned around in vague interest. That had sounded meaningful. Perhaps Gellert had spied someone trying to sneak up on them.

Gellert hovered overhead in a contraption rather like a Muggle rocking chair, made of strips of wood braided together, wrapped with the spells necessary to protect him from the cold and keep him in place. He stared into Albus’s eyes, and the bond leaped and twanged between them. Albus frowned.

“Yes, Gellert?” A wave of tenderness came over Albus as he spoke, and he admired the curl of Gellert’s hair where it hung down by his cheek, and the curve of the cheek itself.

“Please let me go,” Gellert whispered, his head drooping. “This is madness. You must know that.”

“Many things might seem mad from the outside when you’re doing them to save the world.” Albus reached up and stroked Gellert’s hair, and ignored the way Gellert flinched from him. He would have to get used to that. If people thought he was mad, with his love thundering through his veins, well, that was the way it was. Albus had to be concerned with the safety of the world, not his reputation. “And I know that even unrequited love results in doubled powers. This is the only way that we can challenge Potter and Riddle.”

“What if we don’t need to challenge them?”

“What do you mean?” Albus thought he knew where Gellert was going with this, which would result in more meaningless chatter, but he could indulge the man he loved if he wanted to.

“What if Riddle isn’t a Dark Lord?” Gellert whispered, bending close, although there was no one to hear them in many directions if Albus’s Detection Charms were working right. “What if Potter manages to tame him?”

Albus sighed and took his hand away from Gellert’s hair. This was indeed the same kind of nonsense that Gellert had brought up again and again. “Let’s say that I grant the truth of this for one moment. What happens then?”

“We don’t have to go up against them, and you release me from this bond,” Gellert said immediately.

“No,” Albus said softly. “I mean that there’s still good to be done in defeating Riddle even if he’s not a Dark Lord. He’s still a disgusting politician who chose to play the game of pure-blood supremacy. And he’ll draw Harry into that game and secure his hold on power. We need to defeat him even if he has some name other than Dark Lord.”

Gellert closed his eyes. Tears were leaking down his face. Albus kissed them away, and then turned and faced the school again. This time, he could sense someone coming towards them, but he held his wand back. There was every chance that this person was an innocent, even throbbing with the strong aura of magic.

Then red and golden fire sparked through the forest, and Albus frowned. In a way, the person coming to confront them was indeed an innocent, but not anyone he would have wanted to see or stood a chance of persuading to his side.

The flames settled in front of him, and rolled aside like a curtain to reveal Fawkes’s settled form. Albus watched him dispassionately. There had been a time that he trusted the phoenix’s counsel absolutely, but it had become clear that they were working for two different versions of reality.

“I do wish,” he told his ancient companion, “that I knew why you wanted Riddle and Potter to win the war so much.”

Fawkes ducked his head and trilled. The song wove into Albus’s mind, and, for a moment, formed an image. Albus tilted his head. It seemed to him that he was standing above some kind of amphitheater, and he wondered if Fawkes was showing him a symbol, an image of a gladiatorial contest between the different realities they represented, perhaps.

The image came more and more clear. The amphitheater was built of white stone, and Albus found that he knew it. It had once been a public space for the wizarding world to hold gatherings, competitions, and duels, but had been bought by the Black family sixty years ago and turned into a private training arena.

It was full of people in the image. They were clapping and cheering. Albus didn’t see many people he recognized, but here and there was red hair that might have been a Weasley, and, close to the front, the Potter parents.

Tom Riddle and Harry Potter stood in the middle of the amphitheater on the raised stage, and showed off a large scroll tied with a golden ribbon between them. Albus squinted. The image promptly moved closer like a Muggle camera, and he could see what was written on the outside of the scroll.

Muggleborn Reparations Laws.

Albus snorted under his breath, and the picture vanished. Fawkes stared up at him like a chick in the nest, giving very soft chirps that conveyed nothing to Albus.

“Do you think that vision is new to me?” Albus demanded. “The particular contents are, but not the vision itself. It is only that that is one version of reality out of a hundred. And even if they won and passed such laws, what would keep them from passing other, less acceptable ones? Ones that would legalize Dark Arts and take control of Hogwarts entirely from the Headmaster?”

Fawkes gave a low croon and turned his head. Albus followed his line of sight. He was looking at Gellert, who was hovering still next to Albus, and utterly silent. His eyes were fixed on Fawkes, however.

Albus shrugged. “I must do some less than acceptable things in the name of the greater good. But I am making the sacrifice myself, not expecting anyone else to make it with me. And I love him. Tom Riddle loves no one and nothing.”

Fawkes gave him one last sad look, and then turned and flew back towards the castle. Albus relaxed minutely. He had thought that perhaps Fawkes would try to interfere, but he seemed to think that simply projecting his version of the future was enough.

Albus was glad that he followed an agent of Fate who was more proactive.

He returned to studying the castle, and finally decided that he would find no better route into it than the secret passage that ran from the Honeydukes cellar. Luckily, it wasn’t a Hogsmeade weekend and there would be no students in attendance.

Albus turned to tell Gellert his decision, and blinked. Gellert’s left hand was darting away from his side, as if he had a wand there to palm. But Albus had hidden his wand long before he took Gellert out of Nurmengard, so he knew it couldn’t be there.

“What do you have in your hand, Gellert?”

Albus knew that his voice was gentle and loving, but he got a near-terrified look from Gellert before he opened his hand and said, “Nothing.”

Albus leaned towards him and cast an honesty hex on him. But Gellert only repeated the word when Albus asked the same question.

That left only one explanation. Albus shook his head and smiled gently at his soulmate. “You know that you don’t have to lie or act as though you’re mysterious to get my attention. You already have it. You always will.”

That made Gellert look ill, and the bond flickered with orange-red splotches. But Albus had to ignore that. There were many things that he had had to ignore since he had come to love his soulmate.

He had made hasty decisions when he was young, such as abandoning the emotional bond with Gellert because of a difference of opinion. He should have sought a reconciliation then, and perhaps Tom Riddle and Harry never would have risen. He and Gellert could have changed the world enough to make a Dark Lord impossible.

Albus sighed wistfully and walked towards Honeydukes under Disillusionment, Gellert also Disillusioned and floating behind him.

*

There was a fire in front of him.

Peter woke up squeaking and flailing, then blushed despite the fact that there was no one around him. But he’d had nightmares about fires from the time he was very young. Maybe it was just a consequence of accidentally lighting his pillow on fire when he was little and wanted to be warmer.

He sat up and then stared. There was a fireball in the center of his carpet. Peter snatched up his wand to conjure water, but then realized the fireball was sitting very tamely in place and not going anywhere else.

Real fires weren’t so polite, of course. Peter rubbed his fists into his eyes and wondered if he was still dreaming.

But then the flames congealed in on themselves, and Peter could see that it was Fawkes. He leaned forwards, concerned. Minerva was the Headmistress now, and perhaps Fawkes had come with a message from her. “Fawkes? Is Minerva all right?”

Fawkes opened his beak and sang. Peter shivered, closing his eyes. He had only heard phoenix song one other time, and it was one of the most peaceful memories in his life.

But now, a different image appeared in his mind, one not at all peaceful. This was of a dark tunnel that seemed to slope upwards. Peter was reminded of the tunnel into the Shrieking Shack, but after a few moments of the pictures growing clearer, he realized it wasn’t. Instead, it was the tunnel that led into Honeydukes, behind the state of the witch on the third floor of Hogwarts.

“Something is wrong with the tunnel?” Peter stood up and threw on a day robe over his sleeping one. “Is a student in trouble?”

Fawkes’s voice soared, and the picture in Peter’s mind expanded outwards from the edges in red lines, like the opposite of a burning piece of parchment. He could see, now, that the tunnel was empty—except for two figures in the middle. One of them seemed to be floating in the air, tied with ropes, and the other was coming down the middle in long strides.

Peter squinted. They were Disillusioned, but then Fawkes’s voice grew more shrill and insistent, and he could see the face of at least the leading figure.

Dumbledore.

Peter shivered violently. “I have to get Minerva,” he muttered, and reached for the doorknob of his quarters.

Fawkes leaped up and abruptly landed on his shoulder, making Peter freeze. He’d never thought a phoenix would be so close to him. Fawkes bent down until his red beak was right in front of Peter’s face and warbled, again and again and again.

There were words now in Peter’s mind instead of images, but not comforting ones.

It is your fight.

Peter swallowed so hard that it hurt his throat and tried to shrug Fawkes off his shoulder. Fawkes stayed, even clinging. Peter turned to stare, and he knew he probably looked panicked, but that was only honesty, because he was.

“Do you know what I am? A frightened man whose Animagus form is a rat! I didn’t speak up when I should have and had clues that Harry Potter was the Minister’s soulmate! I didn’t report on the efforts of the Order of the Phoenix when it was active! What makes you think I can face Dumbledore in a fair fight?”

Fawkes spread his wings and gave a stern reply that was less words than the flash of light off the blades of his feathers. What makes you think it has to be fair?

Peter closed his eyes. That was—true. He had his rat form. He had his experience with the Marauders playing prankers, although to be honest, mostly they had been the kind that took four people to set up. Or three, after Remus declined to forgive Sirius.

Maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe he had to do what he could do anyway, because Dumbledore couldn’t have come back here for any good reason.

He finally got Fawkes to leave by melting down into his rat form and running silently under the door of his quarters and towards the third floor. It would take him longer to get there this way, but he needed the sense of safety that his Animagus form provided right now.

Then there was a rush of wings above him, and abruptly Fawkes swooped down, grabbed Peter in his talons, and began flying as urgently as he’d delivered the message in the direction of the witch statue.

Peter squeaked in annoyance, but Fawkes didn’t respond. Peter tried to tuck his paws under his belly and ignore the pressure of the talons against his sides. So far, they weren’t breaking through the flesh, and he didn’t think phoenixes were predators, anyway.

He thought.

Peter sighed, and closed his eyes, trying not to wonder about the fight that waited for him.