The Snow Wolf, chapter 4: The Merry Band of Norway
THE SNOW WOLF
Summary:
While on his undercover mission to the werewolves, Remus disappears. Tonks sets out north, across countries and islands and frozen terrain, on a quest to find the man she loves and reclaim him from the clutches of a powerful magical beast. Along the way, Tonks meets many who help - or hinder - her quest, until at last she reaches the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard to face the dreaded Snow Wolf himself.
Note: This chapter is dedicated to
huldrejenta, my expert consultant on all things Norwegian!
Chapter 4: The Merry Band of Norway
Tonks opened her eyes, her stomach still churning. Performing her own Apparation never made her feel ill, but going Side-Along did so without fail. Besides, she hated not being in control of where her body went. She'd told her dad that once, and he'd laughed and said that some Muggles were just the same about liking to drive, but hating to be a passenger.
She looked around. They'd landed in a forest where spruces and pines stretched away in all directions, rank upon rank of them clustered so thickly that their trunks obscured any sight of what might lie beyond. Thin patches of snow huddled in the shaded places where the tree trunks stood close together. It looked like winter, though it had been autumn when Tonks left London, and surely that had only been a few days ago?
"Where are we?" she asked.
"Norway," the wise woman replied.
Tonks repressed the urge to say, Well, I knew that much.
The woman must have seen Tonks' thoughts in her expression, though, because she added, "This stretch of woodlands lies northeast of Oslo, and it continues to the border with Sweden."
That helped, though not a lot. Tonks wished, not for the first time, that Hogwarts did a better job of teaching Muggle geography. Apparition did render finer geographical knowledge redundant, since you no longer needed to know exactly how one place connected to another, but only if you already knew exactly where you wanted to go.
"I leave you here," the woman continued, turning her gentle eyes on Tonks. "I wish I could aid you on your quest, for the Snow Wolf is a formidable foe, but my own land needs me. My own love needs me."
Tonks nodded her understanding, then glanced around, thinking that if her guide was leaving her here, she must have missed some obvious sign of what she was supposed to do next. But no, it was still just woods all around, spruces and pines and low-lying shrubs, identical in all directions. She turned back to the wise woman. "Where do I go from here?"
"Keep walking north," the woman said, "and I believe someone will show you the way soon enough. You've always found help so far, have you not?"
That was true, Tonks had to admit. She'd set out without a plan, foolhardy in the extreme, yet again and again she'd found guidance.
"Farewell," the wise woman of Shetland said, and Tonks was startled to see tears of sympathy pooling in her eyes. "I wish you success in your quest, dear girl. May you find your heart's desire."
Then there was a whirl and a crack of Disapparition and she was gone.
Tonks squared her shoulders and took stock of the trees, the overcast sky, the patchwork of snow on the forest floor. Weak sunlight filtered through the clouds, but it was hard to tell the angle of the sun or the directions.
Luckily, Tonks thought, I have magic for that. She pulled out her wand, performed a directional spell, and started walking.
She walked for at least an hour, her senses alert, but she saw no sign of life in the woods beyond the rustlings of small animals and a few birds alighting in high branches. At one point a wood pigeon landed on a low branch and cocked its head at Tonks in what seemed a rather knowing way, then fluttered away again.
Tonks walked with her wand in her hand, held loosely but at the ready, glancing from side to aside and occasionally performing her directional charm to make sure she was going the right way. And all the time, the woods remained calm and still.
Until they didn't -
"Aha!" cried a figure that leapt out in front of Tonks, dressed in high boots and a coat of leather, with pale hair topped by a bright red cap. The person had a faint lilt of an accent, but addressed Tonks in English. "What have we here? A visitor trespassing on our territory? Who's this strayed into our lands, I wonder, friend or foe or what altogether?"
And then, Auror-trained though Tonks was, the red-capped figure had a wand pointed up under her chin faster than she could blink.
"I'm not a foe," Tonks said. She was careful not to move her jaw too much, with her assailant's wand pressing into the soft flesh beneath it. "I mean you no harm."
"Not a foe, hm? Easy for you to say, but I don't even know you!" Yet the woman - on a closer look, Tonks saw it was indeed a woman - stepped back and removed her wand from Tonks' throat, waving it dramatically in the air instead. "We'll soon find out, won't we? State your business!"
Tonks spread her hands, the universal gesture of nonaggression. It probably didn't help to those ends that she was still holding her wand, but at least she was demonstrating a willingness not to point it anyone - unlike the woman in front of her.
"I mean no harm, and I'm sorry if I unintentionally trespassed on your territory," Tonks said, her hands still extended to her sides. "I'm searching for a friend of mine and I'm just passing through. If you can tell me the way north from here, I'll be on my way and leave your lands."
"Not so fast!" the woman cried, but Tonks thought her voice expressed more enthusiasm than malice. "We want to get a bit of a look at you, see what manner of human or beast you may be. No, no, you're coming back to the camp with me, to meet the rest of my band. And if you're very lucky, we might treat you to a bite to eat before we send you on your way. I do cook rather a good stew, if I have to say so myself since there's no one else here to brag for me."
Tonks made a swift study of the woman in front of her. If Tonks lunged, she was certain she could incapacitate her opponent long enough to get away, with a spell or even with her bare hands. The woman no longer had the element of surprise in her favour.
And yet…Tonks didn't sense danger here, for all this woman had begun their acquaintance by threatening her with a wand. The wise woman of Shetland had seemed certain that Tonks would continue to meet people who could guide her. Perhaps this was another occasion when she should make herself open to a strange encounter.
So Tonks said, "All right. Lead the way."
The woman led Tonks quite a distance through woods of conifers and shrubs and lichens, tromping confidently forward and expecting Tonks to follow. Tonks wondered if she truly controlled all this area as her 'territory', or if it was more that she roamed the woods because she enjoyed the chance of meeting strangers.
The camp the woman had mentioned turned out to be the ruins of an old abbey, where a small band of people had made a home within the crumbling stone walls. What remained of the abbey nestled amongst the spruce trees, its walls now little more than a few pale grey lines disappearing into the muted colours of the lichen-covered trunks. If Tonks hadn't known that what she was looking at had once been a building, she might easily have walked past and not even seen it.
In the central space, what had once been the abbey's nave now stood open to the sky, and in its middle an enormous cauldron burbled over a campfire. The stew inside did indeed smell marvellous. Several people were present, going about day-to-day tasks: tending the fire, mending clothes, and in one case sharpening a wicked-looking knife. The thick rugs rolled up against the open-air walls suggested that the band really did sleep here, out of doors beneath the sky.
"It may not be much, but it's home!" Tonks' guide declared, spinning in a circle with her arms flung wide to encompass all of the abbey ruin around them. "This motley band here's my crew, and if you get on with them then I figure you're all right. Now, I'm Hindrun, and what I want to know is, who are you?"
Tonks looked around, and saw all the men and women of the camp watching this exchange with interest.
"I'm Tonks," she said. "I'm a witch, and I'm from England, though I think you guessed that already, since you spoke to me in English from the start. Is that what you wanted to know?"
Hindrun cocked her head at Tonks. "It'll do for now. So!" She clapped her hands, grinning. "Who's for a spot of lunch?"
The others gathered around as Hindrun ladled the fragrant stew into wood-hewn bowls. Tonks counted six other people there, besides Hindrun, but her host told her there were several more who were away from the camp at the moment.
"Scrounging," Hindrun said with a careless toss of her head as she handed Tonks a bowl of stew. "We do what we have to do to get by, and sometimes that means scavenging and sometimes that means stealing, and I'll thank you not to judge us for it, if that's what you were thinking of doing. When you live on the edges of things like we do, you don't get to be so strict about morals like regular folks do."
A band of outsiders, living beyond the bounds of society and scavenging to survive - it sounded a lot like how Remus had described most of the werewolf packs he'd known over the years. "Are you werewolves?" Tonks blurted out, before she could stop herself, and then was horrified. Of all the awful, invasive questions to ask. And of all the people who should know better, Tonks knew better than anyone.
But Hindrun laughed, a big, throaty, unabashed laugh. "No, not werewolves. But - hm, something like that, you could say."
Tonks had no idea what 'not werewolves, but something like werewolves' would be, but she didn't ask. She'd asked too much already.
Instead, she settled back against one of the abbey walls to eat her stew, which was as delicious as it smelled. The man sitting to her left told Tonks nearly his whole life story over the course of the meal, then the woman to Tonks' right did the same. Everyone in this mismatched band had a tale of how they'd ended up living here so far away from everything, and they all seemed to involve heartbreak and loved ones lost or left behind.
Tonks looked across at Hindrun and saw her observing the conversation. Tonks must have looked curious, because Hindrun nodded at the unspoken question. "I too," she said, more quietly than Tonks had heard her speak so far. "I loved a honey-haired lass from across the sea. She came here to study our magic and stayed for a time, but in the end she felt the pull of her own country and went back home. She loves another now." She shook her head, boisterous again. "And I formed this merry band of misfits, and I've never had cause to be sorry!"
There was a fluttering over their heads, and Tonks looked up to see a wood pigeon land on a protruding bit of stone that might have once held a candelabra, when this ruin was the nave of an abbey.
To Tonks' surprise, Hindrun leaned her head back and shouted up at the pigeon, "Dúfa, don't be a goose now, there's no need to be shy. Come down and meet our visitor."
The pigeon fluttered down from its perch, and somewhere in the process of the fluttering it transformed into a plump young woman who landed awkwardly on the stone floor with both feet, blinked, and looked around.
"Hello," she said.
Tonks said, "But! You're -"
Hindrun laughed that irrepressible laugh again. "We're all unregistered Animagi, yes. Come on, didn't you guess? Not werewolves but like werewolves, what did you think that meant?"
"Am I too late to have some of the stew?" the newly arrived young woman asked. She looked perhaps seventeen, eighteen at most, and her accent was much more noticeable than Hindrun's, although she too spoke English for the benefit of the visitor in their midst.
"Not at all, kid!" said Hindrun jovially, jumping up to fetch another bowl. Now Tonks desperately wanted to know what Hindrun's own Animagus form was, but it seemed rude to ask.
Once she'd collected her food, the young woman, Dúfa, came and sat on the floor a small distance from Tonks. She appeared curious to talk to their visitor, but shy.
"I saw you, you know," she said softly. "When you were walking through the woods, I landed on a branch and looked at you. I suppose it was rude of me to spy, but I was very curious."
"That's…all right," Tonks said. She'd never, to her knowledge at least, had an Animagus use their animal form to spy on her before, but she wasn't as annoyed at the thought as she probably should be. The kid seemed sweet. And also way too young to be living such a hard life out here in the woods, no matter how well Hindrun looked after her little band.
Then again, the young werewolf Tonks had begged for news of Remus at the start of this journey hadn't been much older. And at least Dúfa could change into her animal form as she chose, instead of having it forced on her against her will by the rising of the moon. And no one was likely to try to kill her out of fear and prejudice.
"I'm curious, if I may," Dúfa was saying. "Where is it you were going when Hindrun found you? We don't get so very many visitors here."
Tonks set down her empty bowl so she could give the girl her full attention. She'd told this story so many times in the last days, but it never got easier.
"I'm looking for my friend," she said. "My very dear friend. He went missing and I'm trying to find him. I've just learned that he might have been taken by…" She hesitated to say it, not knowing what reaction it might bring. But if she didn't tell anyone, how could anyone help her? "He may have been taken by the Snow Wolf."
Dúfa gasped and nearly upset her bowl of stew. "I've seen him!" she cried. "I saw your friend, oh, I'm certain it was him!"
"You saw Remus?" Tonks exclaimed. She lurched to her knees, trying to get closer to the girl, desperate for any news she might have.
"Yes, yes!" Dúfa gasped, reaching out to grab both of Tonks' hands, forgetting her shyness utterly. "I was flying over the woods and when I saw a white wolf running, I swooped down to see. Oh, it was terrible, the biggest, fiercest wolf you can imagine. I'd heard the stories of the Snow Wolf, but I didn't know if they were true. This wolf was like a nightmare, a nightmare that comes to you out of the far north of dreams." She shuddered, staring at Tonks with wide eyes that remembered the terror of what she'd seen.
"And Remus?" Tonks asked breathlessly. Everyone else in the camp had gone completely still around them.
"He's a man, older than you, with hair going grey and a face that looks kind and weary?"
"Yes!"
Dúfa's hands squeezed Tonks'. "I saw him. The Snow Wolf was carrying him, clutching him in his jaws. But he was alive!" Dúfa hurried to add, when Tonks recoiled. "I don't think he was exactly awake, but I know he was alive. I saw him breathing."
"Where was the Snow Wolf taking him?" Tonks whispered.
"I don't know!" Dúfa cried out, anguished. "I wish I could tell you! I was too frightened, and I didn't follow them to see!"
"I can tell you that," Hindrun said darkly. She'd circled in closer as Dúfa spoke, and now she crouched down next to where Tonks and Dúfa still clasped hands. "The Snow Wolf was taking your friend to his lair, far up in the north, where he lives in a terrible fortress made entirely of ice. I don't know where it is exactly, though, because nobody with any sense goes near the Snow Wolf by choice."
Tonks turned to look at Hindrun. "I've heard his fortress is on Svalbard."
Hindrun shuddered. "Yeah, that sounds about right. Far past the Arctic Circle and nastily difficult to reach. I take it that's where you're planning to go to rescue your friend, am I right?"
Tonks looked at Hindrun. She looked at Dúfa. She looked around at all the band of outcast Animagi who'd been kind enough to take her in as one of their number for the day. And she said, "Yes."
Dúfa cried out, a little wordless noise of distress. Tonks squeezed the girl's hand in what she hoped was comfort and Dúfa stared back at her with terrified eyes.
Hindrun, though, gave an almighty, put-upon sigh. "All right, fine," she said.
Tonks turned to look at her in surprise, releasing Dúfa's hands. "Fine…about what?"
"I'll take you there! I think you're a fool for seeking out the Snow Wolf, but as anyone here can tell you, I've always been a sucker for a hopeless mission. I'll take you as far as Finnmark at least; you can ride on my back." When Tonks continued to look at her in confusion, Hindrun grinned. "You know we're all Animagi here - didn't you wonder what animal I was?"
She stood up from the floor, striking a dramatic pose. Then her skin gave a sort of whole-body ripple, and she stretched and lengthened and grew, until there before Tonks stood, in all its huge and shaggy glory, a beautiful, long-legged reindeer.
.
A note on the names, for anyone who loves names and languages as much as I do! Hindrun is an invented name, but created in consultation with not one but two(!) Scandinavian friends, built from Old Norse name elements. It roughly translates to "secret deer." (Because she's a reindeer Animagus, GET IT?)
And Dúfa is the Icelandic word for dove/pigeon (though it's also an Old Norse name, with a different etymology). In the original Hans Christian Andersen story, it's wood pigeons who finally tell the protagonist where to find her lost friend, and it was delightful to be able to keep that element here in the Harry Potter world of Animagi.
.
(Continue to CHAPTER FIVE)
.