The sun was low in the pale winter sky, casting long blue shadows over the frozen forest as Dorin and Oliver trudged up the narrow path leading to the mill. Snow clung to the furs wrapped around their shoulders, and their hands were red from cold, but their spirits were high—for the first time in days.
Four rabbits dangled from Oliver's belt, freshly snared and already gutted.
"Four," Dorin said with a grin, clapping his friend on the back. "Four fine beasts, and fat too. That's a feast if I've ever seen one."
"Aye," Oliver agreed, smiling through his cracked lips. "Elsa and Nina'll be grinning for a week. Might even get broth for the old bones."
They rounded the hill and approached the mill, its tall wooden blades creaking slightly in the northern breeze. Smoke no longer curled from the chimney. The door, usually latched from the inside, was ajar.
Oliver slowed.
Dorin raised an eyebrow. "Do you think the lord is up?"
"Maybe," Oliver muttered.
They pushed the door open. Inside, the fire was out. The room was colder than the snow. The bed where the stranger had rested was empty, the blanket thrown aside. A faint trace of footprints marred the dusting of snow that had crept in under the door.
The silence swallowed the room whole.
Oliver dropped the rabbits gently onto the table, then turned in a slow circle.
"Lord Gryffindor?" he called, though his voice had no strength. "You in here?"
Dorin opened the cupboard, as if expecting to find the man hidden inside.
Nothing.
"Gone," Dorin said simply, his voice flat. "He's gone."
Oliver sat heavily on a stool. "He didn't even say thank you."
The men trudged the short path to Dorin's cottage, snow crunching beneath their boots. Smoke billowed from the chimney, and the comforting scent of burnt peat clung to the air.
Inside, Marya, Dorin's wife, sat by the hearth, carefully darning a worn tunic. Elsa and Nina giggled as they danced their straw dolls across the wooden floor.
The room was warm, lived-in, yet heavy with the weight of a hard season.
Dorin pushed open the door.
"Did he come this way?" he asked immediately.
Marya looked up, startled. "Who?"
"The Lord," Oliver said. "Lord Gryffindor. The man from the mill."
At this, Elsa sprang up, her straw doll falling forgotten to the floor.
"He woke up!" she declared proudly. "He talked to me and Nina. Said he was going to rest again, but then he went outside. I thought he was just getting air."
Dorin's mouth tightened. "When?"
"Morning," Nina offered softly. "Before we ate."
Oliver sighed, eyes darkening. "That means he's been gone all day. Could be leagues away by now."
Marya set the tunic aside. "So, he's run off?"
Neither man answered. The silence said enough.
They sat for a time, by the fire, the warmth doing little to thaw the growing bitterness in their hearts.
Dorin poked the fire. "We thought he might reward us, Marya. Thought maybe he was nobility, or a knight, or at least someone with coin."
Marya raised an eyebrow. "And even if he was? What makes you think a man like that would share his riches with smallfolk like us?"
Dorin didn't answer. Neither did Oliver.
They sat in silence again, while Elsa and Nina returned to their dolls, the fantasy of castles and knights turning quietly sour.
Outside, the wind howled softly over the snow-covered hills, and the world seemed colder than ever before.
The snow deepened with every step, and Harry's boots were soaked through, the edges crusted with frost. The wind howled in steady waves through the trees, brushing pine branches heavy with snow. What began as a confident magical hunt had turned into an exhausting, near-hopeless trudge through endless white.
He had cast Point Me, Elk at least a dozen times, each time following the wand's subtle twitch of direction. And each time, the trail seemed to grow longer. He underestimated how far wild creatures would roam in these barren lands. Especially creatures as powerful and graceful as elks.
Midday passed. Then late afternoon. And Harry hadn't eaten since morning.
Hunger gnawed at his belly, and his breath came in short, tired bursts as the cold sank deeper into his bones. The spells for warmth he had layered around himself were beginning to fray under exhaustion. Still, he pressed on, following the needle-point flicker of his wand toward the western ridge.
Finally, just as the sun dipped behind the line of pines, and long shadows began to stretch across the snow, Harry found them.
The clearing was a pocket of silence in the woods, ringed by snow-draped fir trees. The snow here was thinner, broken by hoofprints and crushed ice. And there—standing tall in the pale orange glow of the setting sun—was a bull elk, massive and majestic, with a crown of antlers like gnarled branches, its body thick and shaggy with winter fur. Two does lingered nearby, nibbling at bark along the trees.
Harry stood in silence, watching them.
For a long moment, he forgot why he had come. The elks were breathtaking—wild and elegant, creatures untouched by the wars of men or the schemes of wizards. In that moment, he almost felt like an intruder.
Then his stomach growled, painful and sharp.
He remembered Oliver's thin face, Nina and Elsa's hopeful smiles, the coldness of the cottage, the hunger in the children's eyes.
"I need food," Harry muttered, gripping his wand.
He raised it.
He thought of Stupefy, of Confringo, of Petrificus Totalus. All of them too unreliable, too slow, too uncertain.
There was only one spell that guaranteed a clean, instant kill.
His fingers trembled. Not from cold. From hesitation.
"A deer isn't a Death Eater," he whispered to himself, though the words felt like ash in his mouth.
But he was a survivor. And in the North, sentiment was the luxury of the fed.
He closed his eyes. Then opened them.
"Avada Kedavra."
A jet of green light burst from his wand. The sound was soft, like breath escaping lungs.
The bull elk collapsed with a deep, slow groan.
One of the does turned, startled—but Harry moved quickly, casting again, "Avada Kedavra!" and the second green jet struck true.
The third one was already running, hooves tearing into snow—but Harry was faster. Another curse whispered, another flash of emerald.
Silence returned to the woods.
Harry lowered his wand slowly, chest heaving.
He stared at the fallen bodies. The snow around them was unmarred, not a drop of blood. That was the curse's way—instant, painless, absolute.
It was too quiet now.
A knot tightened in his chest. He had used the Unforgivable Curse—not in war, not in battle—but to hunt. And not even for himself, but for strangers. Poor, kind strangers who had called him "my lord" and patched up his body and kept him warm.
He exhaled slowly and whispered, "Thank you," to the fallen elks. His voice cracked in the air.
Then he stepped forward and raised his wand once more.
"Reducio."
The three massive elks shimmered, and then shrank until they were the size of satchels—easy to carry, ready to cook. He picked them up and tied them into a rope sling slung across his back.
The forest had fallen into darkness, the trees now looming like silent sentinels beneath the moon. Harry had wandered deeper, seeking a place hidden and dry—far enough from the mill to work without being seen. Eventually, he found it: a narrow cave, half-buried by snow and roots, but protected from the wind and wide enough for him to crouch and work.
He placed the enchanted rope-sling down gently, and the three elks returned to their full size with a flick of his wand.
The air grew heavy with their presence—thick bodies steaming faintly in the cold, eyes glassy, limbs slack in death. For a moment, Harry just stood there, gazing down at what he had done. It was the first time he had killed without rage. Without fear. Without war.
Just need.
He sighed. "Alright then. Let's do this right."
Though he wasn't a butcher, he had read enough to know what came next. If the organs weren't removed, the meat would spoil quickly. And he had no idea how long he might need to live off this meat in this strange land.
Kneeling beside the bull elk, he muttered, "Diffindo."
The magic sliced through the belly with clean precision. A pungent smell filled the cave at once, bitter and unmistakable. Harry tried not to gag as he reached in, working clumsily to remove the organs one by one—intestines, stomach, the thick, veined liver. His hands trembled, and his breath clouded in the cold air, but he kept going, repeating the process with the first doe.
When he was done, his arms ached, and his robes were stained with blood. But the bodies were lighter, and the risk of spoilage far lower.
He wiped his hand on the snow, and took out his wand again.
"Cutis Exsolvo."
The skinning curse danced in green light, and the hide of the bull elk pulled away from the flesh with a disturbing slither. Harry flinched—there was something grotesque in it—but the spell was efficient. The pelt peeled off whole, falling to the cave floor with a dull slap.
He stood still for a moment, breath coming hard, then whispered to himself, "Not all Dark Arts are evil, are they?"
The thought sat uneasily in his chest. Magic wasn't moral, not by itself. It was the wielder who shaped it.
The two cleaned carcasses—the bull elk and the larger of the does—were stored inside a deep compartment of his Gringotts trunk, wrapped in cold-preservation charms. A flick of his wand locked the space, and he turned to the final doe—the one he is going to offer to the family.
He already hacked off a large portion of flank and cut it into strips as best as he could. There was no seasoning, no oil, no cookware.
Only raw meat, fire, and hunger.
He conjured a magical flame in the center of the cave, setting it to hover just off the stone floor. The fire crackled with warmth, tinged blue and gold, and he placed the meat on a flat piece of rock balanced over it.
The smell of charred meat soon filled the small cave. It burned quickly, the outside blackened while the inside remained pink, but Harry didn't care. His stomach groaned. He tore into the meat, chewing through the smoky, tough flesh with primal satisfaction.
For the first time in days, he was warm. He was full. He was alive.
Wrapped in the elk pelt, he leaned back against the wall, letting the fire's glow paint his face in amber.
Somewhere outside, the wind howled across the white wilderness. But inside this cave Harry sat with blood-stained fingers, licking the grease from his lips.
And as he stared into the fire, he whispered, "I'll repay them."
He would return to Oliver and Dorin. With food. With gold. With thanks.
But not yet. For now, he rested, and in the dancing firelight, the silence of the forest gave him something he hadn't felt in days.
Peace.
The morning frost had bitten less fiercely than before, but the cold still clung to the air like a warning. Harry stood at the mouth of the cave, the magical wards around it shimmering faintly as he removed them with a few silent gestures of his wand. One by one, the protections vanished—concealment, temperature barrier, sound-silencing—until only bare winter remained.
He adjusted the strap of his pack, tightened the belt at his waist where a leather pouch full of gold and silver coins hung heavily, and then turned toward the trail that would lead him back to the mill. Slung over his shoulder was the doe—massive, freshly cleaned but not skinned, its belly stitched with a quick sealing charm to hold the insides stable.
Harry had thought of bringing more. But this one offering, he felt, would be enough.
The journey was long. The snow crunched beneath his boots, the sun rose sluggishly behind a veil of cloud, and his breath came in white puffs. But his step was lighter than it had been in days. The meat from the night before had worked wonders on his strength, and each step now carried him with a steady, resolute energy.
By midday, he crested a low hill, and there below it—nestled between skeletal trees and the edge of a frozen stream—stood the old stone mill. Smoke curled lazily from Dorin's cottage chimney.
A sense of warmth spread through Harry's chest. Homey, hopeful.
He began descending the slope.
Down below, Nina, the younger of the two girls, had been chasing a piece of rag that served as her doll's new blanket when her eyes lifted toward the hill. She froze, her small mouth falling open.
"El—Elsa! Look!" she shrieked, pointing frantically. "The Lord! The Lord is back!"
Both girls bolted from the snow-covered yard, hair bouncing under their fur-lined hoods. Their excited cries shattered the still air.
"Milord! Milord Gryffindor!"
Harry smiled as they came racing up the path, small boots thudding, eyes wide as the great carcass swayed on his shoulder.
"It's so big!" Elsa gasped, stopping just short of him.
"I've never seen a hunt like this," Nina whispered, staring in awe. "You caught it all alone?"
"I did," Harry said with a small grin, adjusting the weight of the doe.
Moments later, the door to the cottage burst open and both Oliver and Dorin came running, breath fogging, hands still holding half-peeled gloves.
"By the gods," Oliver muttered.
"Milord…" Dorin's voice trailed off as his eyes fixed on the doe, then on Harry, then on the children. "You came back."
Harry nodded and knelt down slightly, allowing the weight of the animal to shift forward. He flicked his hand behind his back, silently canceling the Featherweight Charm.
With a dull, heavy thud, the full weight of the beast hit the ground—and both men staggered backward, blinking.
"You carried that?" Dorin asked, stepping up, gripping the leg experimentally. "Seven hells, it weighs more than my workbench."
Oliver let out a soft laugh of disbelief. "Didn't even break a sweat."
Before Harry could respond, a figure approached from the cottage, wiping her hands on her apron. Marya, Dorin's wife, looked worn, tired from the kind of labor only a northern winter demanded of mothers and wives—but her eyes were clear and soft as they fell on the young man.
She dropped a full, deep curtsy into the snow.
"We thank you, milord," she said, her voice quiet but sincere.
Harry shifted uncomfortably.
"Please," he said. "you don't have to bow."
But she rose slowly, smiling with both gratitude and pride.
"You brought meat in winter," she said. "And you gave my girls a reason to laugh again. I'll bow for that, milord."
Dorin was already trying to drag the doe toward the mill's side wall, gesturing for Oliver to help.
Harry reached down to untie the leather pouch from his belt. He held it out to Marya.
"There's gold in here," he said. "More than enough to keep you warm, fed, and safe for few years. It's yours. I owe you all my life."
But she looked at it as if it were on fire.
"I—milord, we never expected—"
"And yet," Harry interrupted, "you saved me. You could have left me to freeze. I won't forget that."
She took the pouch with trembling hands, blinking furiously.
"Elsa," Harry said, turning to the older girl, "I think your father and uncle will need help butchering that thing. Want to be the first one to pick the best piece of meat?"
Her face lit up like a lantern, and she grabbed Nina's hand and squealed, "Yes, milord!"
As the children ran off, Marya still stood holding the pouch of gold. "Thank you," she said again, softly.
Harry merely nodded, then turned to the others.
"Let's get the meat prepared," he said. "It's time for everyone to eat."
And for the first time since waking in the snow, Harry Potter—called Lord Gryffindor by strangers and children alike—felt useful.
Not as a soldier. Not as a savior. Just a man with hands to work, and food to share.
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