This wasn't supposed to happen. It wasn't supposed to go like this. Dumbledore was here; he should have been able to say the right words to get Harry off. He always had the right words… except for this time, it seemed. 

“Take him away.” Fudge sounded far too pleased at the guilty verdict, and the stout woman beside him bounced up and down, causing her pink bow to jiggle in her hair.

It was with a sort of daze that Harry allowed himself to be pulled to his feet by the Ministry workers who had been hovering near his chair like eager vultures. The Headmaster looked over at them with consternation, still not meeting his eyes, and Harry wondered caustically whether the man had planned for this outcome… but of course he had. When was Dumbledore not playing some complicated game in which Harry was just a pawn? 

They had just exited the courtroom when a boom resounded through the corridor. Harry jumped, and the guards tugged anxiously at his arms, as if afraid he was going to make a run for it. 

The next few minutes were a  blur of movement and sound. He was jostled around several times and seemed to change hands on at least three separate occasions. At one point, he became aware that an object had been shoved into his hands, which had been bound behind his back by the wrists, and a voice whispered harshly into his ear, “Pine sap.”

“Pine sap??” Harry wondered aloud, utterly bemused at what was going on. He felt an impossible tugging at his naval, and his last thought before he was jerked out of the courtroom was was Mrs Weasley will kill me if I die.  

As Harry traveled through space via portkey, he felt a rising panic. The last time he touched a portkey… well, Harry could barely think of it. 

Kill the spare.

Upon landing, Harry's first instinct was to run. He’d been unable to keep on his feet, off balance as he was with bound hands, but he immediately leapt to a crouch. Looking around, however, Harry realized that no one was to be seen for miles. 

He was standing in the middle of an open expanse of wilderness. Trees and rock outcroppings liberally dotted the landscape, and the land seemed to rise and fall at random. A few feet from him, a sparrow was twittering in a scraggy bush.

He stood stock still for a moment, unable to comprehend what had just happened. After a moment, his instincts kicked in and he cast about for a sharp rock or something to cut the binds on his wrist. He found one and fumbled it in his fingers, trying to get a good grip, before frantically sawing at the ropes.

He worried that they would prove unbreakable, as he remembered how one of the guards had flicked his wand to bind him in the first place, but they soon snapped under his panicked efforts.

He winced upon seeing the bloodied, chapped skin around his wrists. He hadn’t been too careful in his haste. They stung, but he was still panting slightly from the terror of being bound and helpless. After the graveyard, he never wanted his hands tied up again. He took a breath and looked around again, pushing the pain to the back of his mind. In a way, it helped to ground him.

The sun was up, but hadn’t reached the noon height, and Harry was surprised to note that the temperature was noticeably cooler. Not uncomfortably so; he felt at ease, but enough that he guessed he had traveled some distance north.

After a few minutes of looking around and gathering his wits, Harry realized that he had better decide what to do. If a friend had sent him here, Harry should stay and wait. If it was an enemy, he’d want to at least get out of sight. Fast.

Having no idea where the nearest settlement was, he couldn’t exactly walk to a town and hitch a ride. He had no way of sending a message, either. His wand was still in Ministry custody…

Fighting the panic that had returned to prowl in the corners of his mind, Harry spotted a sizable collection of rocks about 150 meters away. If he walked there, he could hide amidst the boulders and watch this spot in case Dumbledore did send someone to pick him up.

Feeling better for a plan of action, he started to jog across the grass, ears pricked for signs of company. When he reached the rocks, he scouted them out, rock in hand, for waiting enemies.

Yeah, right, like Lucious Malfoy is gonna pop out behind a rock and shout “boo!” Finding the area empty, Harry found a good spot to sit and watch without his wild black hair peeking above the sun-bleached rocks. That’d be a way to go; The Boy Who Died Because He Lost Hide And Seek.

Bit of a mouthful. The Prophet would probably shorten it and spend the rest of the article gloating.

He had almost started to drift off in the sun’s warmth when a figure materialized by the sparrow’s bush. Harry immediately tensed, reaching for his wand and silently cursing when it wasn’t in his back pocket.

The figure was tall, slim, and wearing black. Death Eater?? It seemed to look around and realize that Harry was nowhere to be seen.

“Potter!”

A very, very familiar voice barked out, audible even from where he hid, and Harry felt his face rapidly drain of color.

Oh, no.