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SIYE Time:15:23 on 28th March 2024
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Hunters and Prey
By Northumbrian

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Category: Post-Hogwarts, Post-DH/AB
Characters:Harry/Ginny, Hermione Granger, Luna Lovegood, Neville Longbottom, Ron Weasley
Genres: Action/Adventure, Angst, Drama, Romance
Warnings: Mild Language, Sexual Situations, Violence
Story is Complete
Rating: PG-13
Reviews: 295
Summary: February 2000 Newly Qualified (in record time) Auror Harry Potter remains obsessed with “The List.” The ten people still wanted for their part in the Battle of Hogwarts. Their capture is essential. It will bring closure to the events of the past few years. Harry has set himself a target. He wants to see “The Last Death Eater” and the other nine captured before the second Anniversary of the battle. His attempts to meet his target will bring heartbreak, danger, and pain.
Hitcount: Story Total: 111927; Chapter Total: 6465
Awards: View Trophy Room




Author's Notes:

Thanks Amelíe, Andrea and Soraya for their comments, corrections and input. Please review. Constructive criticism is always gratefully received.

All place names in this chapter are real. There really is a Winter's Gibbet, with a wooden head dangling on a chain. There is even a Shivering Stone on Bloodybush Edge.




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5. The Hunt: Nice Weather for Fish

The Portkey took Harry to a point about half a mile from the Scottish village of Kirk Yetholm. He found himself standing on a heather-clad hillside overlooking the village. A couple of people, bundled up against the cold, hurried through the windy streets. To the north, above the white-walled and grey-roofed houses, were the Scottish Lowlands and beyond that, in the misty distance, Harry could make out the uneven horizon where the Grampian Hills thrust out from the plains. To both east and south, immediately in front of him were the Cheviot Hills, the border hills. He adjusted his rucksack and set off walking due east, out of Scotland. He checked his map. Reaching the border would be easy; from where he stood he could go east, south, or even north, and still reach England.

It was bitterly cold and the northerly wind was blowing a gale. Dark grey clouds scudded rapidly across a light grey sky. The laden clouds threatened snow, but Harry was fairly confident that they were bluffing. He walked slowly and steadily away from the village and into the hills, stopping regularly to check the area for any trace of magic and to consult his stubbornly still and silent Sneakoscope.

After walking for an hour, he left the main path, headed slightly north and slowly climbed a steep hill. His map showed the summit to be the location of an ancient megalithic site called Ring Chesters. The previous evening, while eating dessert in Antonio’s Restaurant, Hermione had lectured him about the importance of ancient sites to the early magical community. Shivering Stone was likely to be close to one of them. Unfortunately this part of the country was full of such places.

Sitting on the hill top, his back to one of the lichen covered ancient stones, he sheltered from the howling wind and looked out across the bleak rolling landscape. He carried out another check. No luck, there was nothing magical here. He ate his packed lunch; corned beef and pickled onion sandwiches and two apples, then poured himself some tea from his flask.

After finishing his food, Harry stood and stretched; he re-packed his rucksack and walked back down into the valley to rejoin the path. This was a lonely part of the world, he had seen no-one since he had left Kirk Yetholm. He trudged onwards, slowly scouting.

The sun was resting fat and red on the horizon behind him. It was drifting downwards, turning the grey clouds pink when his hike eastwards eventually brought him to a hill named Yeavering Bell. At the top of this hill, his map told him, were the remains of an Iron Age hill fort. He clambered up the steep hill while the sun became a semicircle, then a sliver, then vanished. He reached the summit in the gloaming and again checked for magic. He found nothing. Pitching his tent within the tumbled dry stone wall of the fort, in the saddle between the two low mounds of the hill, he set up his usual protection spells before settling down to cook himself dinner.

Over the next few grey and windy days Harry settled into a routine. There were dozens of sites on his map marked as: “settlements,” “earthworks,” “fort” and “stone circle.” Skirting the edge of the small border town of Wooler he turned south, visiting every ancient site he could identify. Once again he wished that he’d paid more attention to Professor Binns’s lessons. He made up for this lack by reading A History of Magic during his long and lonely nights in the tent. It was a boring read, but still more interesting than Binns’s lessons.

On his third day in the field Harry pitched his tent early, in the middle of the afternoon. Settling down in his chair he listened to the Harpies game on the radio. The Harpies were away to Tutshill Tornadoes, and to Harry’s jubilation, they won. He cursed his luck, when he’d set off he’d realised that he would miss Ginny’s matches, but he’d missed a spectacular victory and the post-match clelbrations, too.

He fantasised about what they could have done had he been with her, but then remembered the Ministerial Reception. He rarely attended such events, but he and Ginny had decided that they would attend tonights. The invitations were regular, but Harry almost invariably declined. The Minister had scribbled “Harry, it would be useful if you could attend this one, Kingsley” in the corner of this latest official invitation. After a discussion with Ron, Hermione and Ginny, Harry had accepted. He’d sent his (not entiely sincere) regrets when the mission was planned. He stepped outside the tent, looked up at the full moon, and was thankful that he had not yet found the werewolf village.

The long threatened snow never materialised, but as he headed south, the clouds dropped lower. Harry found himself walking through a fine mizzle, which restricted visibility to a few dozen yards and deposited a slick, thin, film of moisture over everything. The wind had dropped and the temperature had risen, but now even the air in front of him looked grey.

After several more days he turned west. To his relief, the sun finally broke through the clouds. The scenery he was walking through was, he finally discovered, spectacular. Harry often found himself standing, gazing across the wet, empty landscape; a landscape composed mostly of various lush shades of green. He trudged across purple heather. He crept cautiously through dark and ancient lowland copses. He strode over hilltops and through rings of scattered stone dating back to mans earliest incursions into these ancient hills. He skirted squelching, peaty marshes. The days passed, a week passed; he found nothing.

He spent his evenings reading. He read and reread the Auror files on werewolves. He ploughed his way through A History of Magic, looking for clues to the whereabouts of the werewolf village. He concentrated on the job at hand and allowing himself only one pleasure, to listen to the Quidditch results and match commentaries on the radio. The Wimbourne Wasps visit to Holyhead was disastrous for the visitors, who were thrashed by the Harpies. The commentators, however, noted Ginny’s poor performance. Perhaps she was missing him, Harry thought. He was certainly missing her.

Ron’s birthday was Harry’s thirteenth day in the field; he started late. He’d turned his regular morning report into a badly drawn birthday card for his friend. After finally breaking camp, he headed west. The skies were once again grey and threatening. This time, Harry was convinced that their threat would be carried out. That evening he camped near a long straight road. He pitched his tent next to a weathered wooden gibbet with a carved wooden head dangling from it. This bizarre and gruesome monument did not seem out of place in the wild landscape.

After his meal he raised a glass of Butterbeer to Ron. It was two weeks since they had been at the restaurant. His two best friends, and his girlfriend, would all be there, eating fine food, celebrating Ron’s birthday. He was alone, overlooking a gibbet, in the middle of nowhere. He missed them, especially Ginny.

Though he was next to a road, there was little traffic. Only one car passed his tent during the night.

When he woke the following morning, it was to the noise of rain thundering on canvas. The heavens had opened, the road was like a river and the weed-choked roadside ditches were filling rapidly. The wooden head swung wildly from its chain. It watched him impassively as he took down the tent and packed his rucksack. The chain connecting carved head to gibbet groaned in the wind and the wooden head cried a torrent of tears as the rain streamed down it. Harry was happy to leave it behind.




Days later, it was still raining, and Harry had still found nothing. He had only skirted the outer perimeter of his search area, but he was disappointed. This was taking much longer than he had expected. He wondered if he’d make it back home in time for his godson’s second birthday. He’d have to push on quickly. That Saturday, the Harpies visited Puddlemere. They played poorly and were defeated by the mid-table club. Ginny, Harry knew, would be devastated. He hoped that Ron and Hermione would cheer her up.

He continued on through the rain. The moon was now a tiny and rapidly disappearing sliver in the sky. The night of the new moon was approaching. There was a little over two more weeks to the next full moon, and that would not be a good time to find the village he was looking for.

The following day, after a week of grey skies, grey clouds, grey rain and bitter winds, the weather decided to show how much more misery it could pour on him. The wind increased in strength; deciding that blowing a gale wasn’t enough, it worked itself up to an angry storm and the storm blown clouds, laden with arctic water, then decided to unburden themselves.

Within an hour of setting off, Harry found himself walking through driving sleet. There was little shelter and the footpaths were running streams of slippery, freezing water. Thankful for the hiking boots, two pairs of socks and the impervious charms he had put on his outer clothing, Harry pressed on. His body remained mostly warm and dry. His face, however, was numb with cold. The weather refused to give up its attack. After more than an hour of determined effort, the freezing water finally found its way in through the tiniest of gaps in his clothing. Cold water trickled down his neck, insinuated its way into his gloves and slowly soaked his socks.

Approaching the village of Byrness not long before dusk, and with no sign that the weather would change, Harry decided to spend the night in a bed and breakfast before travelling further north. As he walked along the edge of the slick, black road, a solitary car approached, its headlights a bright reflection on the wet tarmac and the central white lines. It drove past at speed, spraying him with dirty, oily water. As he walked dejectedly towards the Muggle village, he saw a lonely old stone farmhouse, a B & B sign swinging from the gate. The word “Vacancies” had been burned, poker carved, into a piece of wood which was hooked below the sign. Passing through a kissing gate, he approached the farm up a long, winding gravel track and knocked at the door. It was opened by a bearded, grizzled, thickset man in his forties.

‘Hiking, in this weather?’ the man asked. ‘Jane!’ the man called his stocky, brown-haired wife to the door. She examined Harry curiously before inviting him inside. She watched as he stood under the porch and brushed the sleet from his clothes before stepping inside and carefully taking off his rucksack. The hall was stone flagged and spacious. The bearded man helped Harry as he struggled to remove his wet cagoule.

‘Nice weather,’ observed the woman, ‘for fish.’ She smiled as she watched Harry dripping onto her hall floor.

‘Sorry,’ he apologised.

‘Don’t worry, I’ll have it mopped up in a trice,’ she assured him. ‘I’m Jane Wake and this is my husband, Jack.’

Harry was their first visitor of the year, he was told as he was made welcome. Mrs Wake showed him to a room in a side wing of the house, and invited to join them for their evening meal. Almost apologetically, she told him that this would be five pounds extra. After almost three weeks of solitude Harry would have paid fifty, or even more, just for the joy of human company.

He’d become unused to being alone, he realised. He had survived the first, friendless, eleven years of his life. As he looked back now, he wondered how he’d done it. Presumably, because he’d known nothing else. Now he had friends, lots of friends; and a girlfriend, a beautiful girlfriend. He missed them all desperately. Ginny, he missed most of all. He’d teased Ron about Hermione being absent for ten days; he realised that it hadn’t taken even half that time for his absence from Ginny to affect him.

After changing clothes and hanging up his wet outer-wear to dry, Harry went back downstairs to see his hosts. There was a small guest dining room, but Harry gratefully accepted their offer of sharing their table in the kitchen. During the hearty meal of curried mutton and rice he was cross-examined by Mrs “call me Jane, please” Wake, who obviously enjoyed a good gossip.

‘You’re a young lad to be out hiking, and all alone,’ she began, curiously.

‘I wanted to explore wild places, and I had to take my holiday before the end of the financial year in April,’ he told her. ‘I’m nineteen, twenty later this year.’

‘Same age as our Annie, our youngest,’ Jane Wake told him, ‘she’s at university, Keel. You’re not a student, then? You’re a young, free and single working man?’

‘I work in the Home Office,’ Harry told her. After long discussions with Hermione they had both agreed that a Civil Service job was the best cover story to tell Muggles. No-one knew what civil servants did, so Harry’s lack of knowledge wouldn’t be a problem.

‘I’d like to phone my girlfriend later, if I may?’ As he spoke he remembered the men at the restaurant. Ginny shouldn’t have given out her phone number. He wondered if the “cute” dark-haired guy had phoned Linny.

‘Of course,’ Mrs Wake smiled at him. She was a frighteningly skilful interrogator, and by the time Harry had finished his dessert, rhubarb pie and custard, she knew that Harry’s parents were dead, that he had been raised by an aunt and uncle and that his job paid well. Harry knew that the Wakes had two children, both girls and that the elder, Jacqueline, was going out with a solicitor from Newcastle.

The meal over, he excused himself and phoned Ginny’s flat. The phone at the flat was there at Olivia’s insistence. Lynette had initially opposed the idea. Australian wizards were apparently much happier using Muggle machinery than were the British. Olivia regularly telephoned her parents in Sydney. The flat was in a Muggle apartment block overlooking the Menai Strait. It was the only telephone number Harry knew by heart, so he dialled it.

‘Hello?’

‘Hi, Linny,’ he said, recognising the Beaters voice immediately, ‘is Ginny there? It’s Harry,’ There was a moment’s hesitation from the girl. She and Harry had never really got on, but she’d been a good friend to Ginny; a mentor to the club’s two newcomers.

‘No, not at the moment.’ Linny said.

‘Oh,’ Harry was disappointed. ‘Will she be back soon?

‘A party,’ said Linny, sounding pleased. ‘All night! A “don’t wait up” job.’

‘Oh!’ Harry didn’t know what to say. He’d long ago got over any feelings of jealousy, although there were very few occasions when Ginny went out without him. They trusted each other, they told each other everything; but it was Sunday, she should have been at the Burrow all day, and she had training early tomorrow morning. This didn’t sound like Ginny.

‘Are you sure?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ said Linny happily. ‘Bye.’ And with that, she hung up. Harry thought about ringing back but, depressed and confused, decided against it.

Harry gratefully accepted a cup of tea, told the Wakes that he intended to explore the entire area and asked them about interesting places and history. He was given a brief history of the Border Reivers and recommended dozens of places to visit, most with strange and esoteric names.

When Mr Wake mentioned a bastle called Black Midden, Harry first had to ask what a bastle was. It turned out to be a fortified farmhouse. He then took the opportunity to comment on strange place names.

‘Plenty of those,’ Mrs Wake assured him: ‘Winter’s Gibbet, Windy Gyle, Hungry Law, Ravens Knowe, Black Knowe…

‘Laws and Knowes are all hills,’ she explained.

‘Somebody mentioned a Shivering Stone, too, I think,’ said Harry off-handedly, not really expecting a response.

‘Just below Bloodybush Edge,’ Mrs Wake said promptly, ‘that’s another one! I’ve no idea why that hill is called Bloodybush Edge.’

‘Bloodybush Edge?’ he asked curiously, trying not to betray his excitement. ‘Where is that?’

‘If you fetch your map, I’ll show you.’

Harry hurried up to his room and pulled out his map. Mrs Wake pointed out Bloodybush Edge almost immediately. It was no more than a dozen miles away.

‘You’re using a Landranger map, she said dismissively. ‘In these hills you’d be better off with a Pathfinder, bigger scale: four centimetres to the kilometre instead of two.’ She scurried over to a sideboard and pulled a map from one of the drawers. To Harry’s amazement, there, marked on the map, about four hundred yards from the summit of Bloodybush Edge, was a small dot marked Shivering Stone.

Mrs Wake looked at Harry curiously.

‘When I was about Annie’s age,’ she began, ‘I went up that hill with my dad. It’s a bit creepy, not just the name either. For a moment, I thought the stones actually did shiver. I got a glimpse of a third stone, a stone that isn’t there!’

‘You’ve never told me that,’ her husband said.

‘It was twenty-five years ago, and it’s not important,’ Jane told her husband.

‘I’m sure that there are some great local ghost stories,’ said Harry, smiling to hide his joy.

‘Ghosts, giants, dragons, wolves,’ Mrs Wake told him.

Harry listened to tales of the hills and realised that he’d have found the place much earlier if, instead of relying on wizard documents, he had he researched the local Muggle folklore. He would never make that mistake again. When the kitchen clock chimed nine he excused himself, hurried upstairs to his room, locked his door, found his raven-feather quill and some parchment and wrote a short report to the Auror Office.

I’m on to something at last. I’m heading for a hill called Bloodybush Edge tomorrow. (He gave an Ordnance Survey grid reference — it would be meaningless to Ron, but Hermione would know what it was.) Shivering Stone is right next to it, it’s even on a Muggle map! I hope to have more news by this time tomorrow. Is Ginny okay? Send her my love.

Harry Potter


After a good night’s sleep in a comfortable bed, Harry felt much happier. Ginny’s absence from the flat was puzzling, but he pushed it to the back of his mind. He’d found his final destination. Once he’d made certain that Lestrange was there, the mission would be all but over. He’d see her soon.

However, as he dressed and packed he discovered that the weather was worse than ever. Jane Wake tried her best to persuade him not to leave. She was so concerned for his safety in the hills that he promised to phone her that evening. He put Mrs Wake’s telephone number in his morning report and asked Ron, or Neville, to arrange for someone to telephone her after dusk to tell her that he was okay.

Jane Wake provided a hearty breakfast of bacon, eggs, sausages, beans, tomatoes, mushrooms, black pudding, and something called white pudding which Harry couldn’t readily identify. He overpaid his protesting hostess by ten pounds, said his farewells to her and her husband and set off towards Bloodybush Edge, his hopes high.

Harry spent most of the day reaching his destination. He marched determinedly onwards through the foul weather. There was some respite from the northerly wind when he was in the valleys, but whenever he crested a hill the full, freezing, storm force wind hit him. The heavy sleet seemed to be travelling horizontally. The wind-driven icy water continued to find every gap in his clothing and exploited them mercilessly. He tightened his collar until he could hardly breathe, but still the water found a way in. Grateful for the huge and filling breakfast he’d had, Harry pressed on, not stopping for lunch.

He continued to check for any signs of magic, and checked his Sneakoscope at the same time. Always the results were negative. By mid afternoon Harry was uncomfortably wet, and despite extra clothing he was cold to the bone. He saw little point in drying and warming himself, as the wind and sleet would soon chill him again. Grateful for the waterproof map case he’d bought with his hiking gear, he re-checked his map; he was close. A vaguely defined path climbed steeply south east towards a forest ahead.

After skirting the forest for a few hundred yards, the trees on his right fell steeply away into a valley. There would be shelter from the wind down there. Turning his back on the forest, he looked up at the grassy upturned bowl of a hill. He couldn’t see the summit; the land rolled over and flattened and it was not so much a summit as a plateau, but he didn’t need to climb that far. About halfway between forest and horizon, which was only half a mile away, stood an odd-looking rock outcrop. Two stones jutted from the wind-swept moor. Harry checked: magic!

He approached cautiously. The stones did, indeed, appear to shiver. He kept his distance and circled carefully. The effect was strange and unsettling. There was a third stone. It was difficult to see. After careful observation he realised that, rather like the entrance to the Leaky Cauldron from Muggle London, Muggles would be unable to see the third stone. He circled a second time. The third stone, the hidden stone, was concealing a magical entrance. The entrance was similar to the barrier at King’s Cross; it would be easy enough for him to pass through. Unfortunately it was also, like the barrier at King’s Cross, impossible for him to see what lay on the other side.

It would be dark within the hour and he was cold, wet and hungry. He’d found the place. It wasn’t going to move. He decided to camp overnight and travel through the stone at dawn. Walking back down the hill and into the forest, he began looking for a sheltered spot where he could pitch his tent. His map told him that he was now on Dry Hill. It lied; water was dripping from the trees and the ground underfoot was sodden. He checked his map again. Ahead, apparently, was Sneer Hill. The joke was wearing thin on Harry. After much searching he found a clearing that wasn’t completely waterlogged, took off his rucksack and unfastened his tent.

Erecto,’ he said, before casting Muggle repelling, protection and alarm spells. After double checking his spells, he opened the flaps and entered. It had been a joy to sleep under a roof last night, but now, as he stood sodden, shivering and starving, the comfortable tent was a welcome relief from the weather.

Inside, the tent appeared to be a small bed-sitting room. A door in the back wall led to a toilet and shower room. On the left wall was a bed, a bedside table and a wardrobe. In the centre of the room was a heater. On the right wall was a larder, two cupboards, a two ring stove, a sink, a small table and two chairs.

Harry stripped off his clothes, towelled himself dry and took a change of clothes from the wardrobe. He dressed quickly, pulling on two jumpers, as he knew from experience that it took some time for the heater to warm the tent. After hanging his wet clothes in front of the heater he stood in front of it himself until he had regained some feeling in his fingers.

Finally warm, he opened his cupboard and found a tin of beef and gravy and another of mixed vegetables. He emptied both tins into a pan and put it on the stove. It was bubbling in five minutes. After eating the lot straight from the pan he went to the larder, tore a chunk of bread from a whole loaf and proceeded to scrape the pan clean with the bread. By the time he’d finished, it hardly needed washing.

There were still several of Kreacher’s homemade treacle tarts in the larder. It was the one thing Kreacher made that Harry thought was even better than Molly’s cooking. He had more sense than to tell either of them. Both were convinced that they were Harry’s favourite cook and that his praise to the other was simple politeness. Making some hot custard, he poured it over a third of the cold pie, sat on the bed, ate and planned.

Harry’s copy quill report was finished before nine. After writing a detailed report of everything he’d found he sketched a map showing the exact location of the third stone. He reminded his friends to phone Jane Wake, if they hadn’t already. She had told him that she would call out the mountain rescue team if she didn’t hear from him and he didn’t want Muggle volunteers looking for a lost hiker, not in this weather. He waited until nine before signing it. His signature was the act which transferred the report to the desks of Ron and Neville. He spent the next hour tidying and preparing, set his alarm for an hour before dawn and then went to bed.

Birds were noisily encouraging the sun’s ascent when Harry’s alarm woke him. He peered outside the tent and discovered that after two relentless days the storm had finally blown itself out. After a hasty breakfast, he packed his tent and removed all traces of his presence from Dry Hill. His rucksack on his back, his waterproof jacket open, and wand in hand, he approached the stones. As the wet grass began to steam in the first feeble rays of dawn, he stepped between the two stones and approached the third. There was no way of knowing where he would arrive. Wherever it was, he hoped that everyone was still asleep. He pulled his Invisibility Cloak from his jacket, threw it over himself and stepped forwards through the Shivering Stone.

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