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~𖥔☾𖤓☽𖥔~
The castle is still asleep when the sound comes.
An incessant tapping, quick and nervous against the windowpane beside Harry's bed. He jerks upright, fumbling for his glasses as the fragments of a dream scatter. The sky outside is just beginning to pale—more gray than blue, that ghost hour before sunrise when even the portraits are lethargic.
Across the dormitory, Ron grumbles and turns over, dragging the blanket higher.
Harry throws the covers off, moving toward the window. The tapping comes again, and he catches sight of it: a large owl, its feathers reflecting dew in the last remaining moonlight. A scrap of parchment is tucked into its beak.
He unlatches the window. Cold air sweeps in, smelling of wet grass and woodsmoke. The owl drops the parchment as soon as its inside, as though it's impatient. The parchment is smeared and crinkled, but the handwriting is unmistakable:
𝘊𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘲𝘶𝘪𝘤𝘬. 𝘋𝘰𝘯' 𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘭 𝘯𝘰𝘣𝘰𝘥𝘺. -𝘏
Harry's stomach drops.
"Ron," Harry whisper-shouts, before padding over to his bed and shaking him awake. "Ron, get up."
"Piss off," Ron mumbles into his pillow.
"Hagrid sent us an owl. Something's wrong."
Ron sits up slowly, rubbing his eyes. "It's not another blasted dragon, is it?"
Harry shakes his head. The last time Hagrid's handwriting had looked like this, Buckbeak had been scheduled to be executed. He doesn't wait to answer. He grabs the Invisibility Cloak from his trunk and jerks his head toward the door.
They don't bother with excuses.
As soon as they make it to the Common Room, they spot Hermione pacing by the fireplace, a piece of parch. Her eyes find them immediately.
"Hagrid?" Hermione whispers. Harry nods, and that's all she needs.
The corridors are gray and empty as they slip out, the Cloak whispering over stone. A thin line of dawn pushes through the high windows, turning the dust in the air to gold. It's so quiet that every step feels like it echoes for miles.
Outside, the morning is cold. The grass along the slope down to his hut is wet enough to soak through their shoes, and the sky over the forest is bruised with leftover night. Fang's bark carries through the mist—uneasy, high-pitched, far from his usual booming welcome.
By the time they reach the hut and the cloak comes off, the door flies open. Hagrid fills the frame, hair wild and eyes worried. He looks as though he's been pacing for hours.
