the marriage stone (Discontinued)

Chapter 28 Viking

The pounding of his head woke Harry. Groggily, he tried to raise his hand to touch his temple, only to find something weighing down his wrists. Blinking in confusion, he became aware of the extreme cold seeping into him and a violent rocking motion to the ground he was sitting on. As his eyesight cleared behind the pounding headache he found himself staring at the heavy iron manacles that were weighing down his wrists, a short length of chain stretched between them. The world around him lurched, and he slid sideways against a heavy wooden object, cold, wet spray striking his face. Looking up in shock he tried to make sense of what he was seeing.

He was in a large boat, seated near the stern but slumped against a large wooden barrel. From his position in the bottom of the boat he could see the prow rising up before him, the end of it curving in the shadowed shape of a dragon. The prow was rising and falling as pounding waves of water rocked the boat. Only a few steps away from him, seated on wooden benches were two extremely large men draped in heavy cloaks of fur. Both men had a fierce set to their bearded faces as if hardened by a life Harry did not want to imagine.

A glance behind him down the length of the long boat showed that there were a dozen more men of a similar caste seated throughout the boat. Large wooden oars were propelling them through choppy waters, the oars moving by themselves.

For a moment Harry felt a wash of panic roaring through him as he thought perhaps he was on the boat that took men to Azkaban. Sirius had told him that Azkaban was on an island, and prisoners were taken there chained in a boat. But though his heart was pounding fiercely in his chest, Harry forced himself not to cry out. There was no reason for anyone to take him to Azkaban. And besides, why would the boat to Azkaban look like some sort of Viking long boat? It didn't make sense.

He tried to figure out how he could have gotten there. He'd been playing in the snow with Ron, Hermione and Ginny. He vaguely remembered seeing something small and silver flying toward him, the flash of it glinting in the fading sunlight catching his attention. He had thought for a moment that someone had released a snitch in the middle of their snow ball fight, but then the thing had struck the ground and Harry could remember nothing more until he'd woken up here.

A stun grenade, he wondered. He'd heard of such things in the Muggle world. Perhaps there was a magical equivalent? But if he and the others had been stunned, where were the two Weasleys and Hermione? He could see no one else chained on the boat.

A cold gust of wind blew against him, nearly blinding him with its icy chill and he found himself shivering violently. Were they Death Eaters, he wondered. Were they taking him now to Voldemort? But why kidnap him? Why not just kill him out right?

"Are you cold, lad?" One of the grim-faced men had noticed his movement and had turned piercing blue eyes on him. Someone further back in the boat tossed a heavy fur cloak forward and the man immediately draped it over Harry. It looked like it was made out of the skin of a bear - though Harry couldn't remember hearing much about bears wandering around England these days. Nevertheless, he grabbed the cloak and pulled it over him, grateful for its warmth. As he settled it around his shoulders, he took quick stock of his condition.

Besides the headache, he did not appear to be wounded, and the headache was already fading. He was now more grateful than ever for the eyesight correcting potion Severus had made for him, since he doubted his glasses would have survived the kidnapping. A quick search of the inside of the jacket he was wearing confirmed that his wand was gone. He was completely defenseless.

He was leery of drawing attention to himself, but he had to find out where he was and what they intended to do with him. Obviously they didn't mean for him to freeze to death. They had no need to give him the cloak, so he took comfort in the fact that they wanted him alive. Though considering what he knew Death Eaters did to their prisoners, maybe being alive wasn't that great a thing after all.