InsaneJournal

Harry sits in a corner booth of the Dark Unicorn Barroom, studying the many customers of the tavern. The snowstorm is still raging outside thus more and more travellers seek refuge under the battered roof of the Dark Unicorn.

The inn has seen better days, as Harry learnt from the barman, Bernard, but given today’s weather conditions, it is packed to the brim with all kind of visitors, stuck here in the storm, just like Harry.

This morning Harry left the house he had lived in with his mum, bringing only his backpack that held his meagre belongings, and went to the nearby village. From there he travelled by Floo to the town nearest to Master Snape’s address. He couldn’t Apparate as he didn’t exactly know where his destination was. He decided to go on foot from there but a couple of miles from the town he was surprised by the weather and was very lucky to see the tavern at the crossroad a few hundred feet ahead.

While waiting the storm out, he chatted amicably with Bernard about the man’s one current and two former wives, his seven children, about the golden days of the Dark Unicorn, and any other topics Bernard was interested in, as he was the one who did most of the speaking while Harry listened to him empathically, here and there placing a nod or a ‘hmm’.

After a crowd had started to gather, Bernard left Harry to his musing and Harry waited patiently for the storm’s end. As it was getting late, and the blizzard didn’t give an inch, Harry decided to spend the night as well; anyway, it would have been too late to arrive at Master Snape’s doorstep at this time of night.

Harry is nursing a cup of mulled wine when the tavern’s door opens with a bang and two figures step inside, covered in snow from head to toe. With a flick of their wands, they remove the snow and sit down at the last unoccupied table not far from Harry.

Both newcomers are men, both tall and slender, but all similarities end there. One of them possesses some otherworldly beauty: porcelain skin, rosy cheeks, blond hair, and angelic face. Like he has just walked out of a fairy tale. The other, well, he is in severe contrast with his companion. Compared to the blonde he is almost ugly, with his avian-like features. His face is harsh and angular, his nose is beak-like, his hair is black and unkempt looking, and a frown is settled on his forehead, seemingly placed there for long-term, as if it has been carved into his sallow skin.

It is a ridiculous thought, Harry knows, but the second man reminds him of his old, grumpy house elf, Kreacher, who was his and his mother’s constant companion for years, after the elf’s previous master, Harry’s godfather, had died alongside Harry’s father when they had fought the Dark Lord Voldemort. When Harry was young, he found the elf’s constant grumbling kind of entertaining. Since Kreacher had died a few years previously, Harry found himself thinking of him many times.

Harry is watching the two men surreptitiously for a while, oddly fascinated, when the blond says something that makes his dark companion laugh. It brings such a thorough change on that severe face that it leaves Harry flabbergasted. Harry – quite impolitely, his mum would surely remind him – simply stares at the man. His laugh is like a bird in the exact moment of its departure from the ground when it is grabbed by the very first rapturous moment of its flight. This must be a rare indulgence on the man’s part, Harry is sure about that. After a too-short moment the man hides the laugh, now more subdued, behind his long, elegant white hand and Harry is saddened by the man’s need to force that laugh behind any barriers.

Suddenly the tavern’s door bursts open once again, and through the roaring of the wind a man’s shout can be heard.

“Help! The horses broke out of the stables! Any able man come and help!”

Harry jumps to his feet without delay.