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Harry Potter In The Witcher [20]
🕑 Added 2025-06-05 12:57:12 +0000 UTC"Name?" Harry asked, his voice still quiet as they began to walk.
The elf woman looked at him, surprised that he would even bother to ask. "Cyithrel," she responded, her voice a hoarse, barely audible whisper.
Harry nodded once. They soon made it to the town exit, unbothered by any further interference. The place was practically a ghost town now. Harry looked at the elf girl, Cyithrel.
"Stay here," he said to her, his voice low and steady. Cyithrel nodded in understanding, her eyes still wide with a mixture of fear and something akin to awe.
Harry turned and walked back into the now mostly deserted town.
He moved quickly and efficiently, "borrowing" a few essential goods: a loaf of fresh bread from a baker's stall, a waterskin from a startled merchant who didn't dare protest, and a sturdy-looking horse from the town stables.
He walked back to where he’d left the elf woman, leading the horse by its reins. He handed her all the supplies the bread, the water, and the reins to her new horse.
"Here," Harry told her, his voice softening slightly. "Take all this and get out of here. Go far away. And don't even think about coming back to this shithole for at least fifty years, maybe more. Human memory, thankfully, is nowhere near as long or as unforgiving as an elf's." He helped her mount the stallion, his touch surprisingly gentle.
"If I have it my way, then I shall never return to this accursed place," Cyithrel said, her voice still hoarse but filled with a newfound determination. She looked down at him from atop the horse.
"I thank you, stranger, for helping me, even knowing that what you did today has now undoubtedly put a huge target on your own back. May I… may I at least have the name of my savior?" she asked, her Common tongue laced with a delicate, musical Elvish accent.
Harry just waved away her concern with a dismissive flick of his wrist. "It's nothing, really," he said, a hint of a weary smile playing on his lips. "I'm more than used to people trying to hunt me down. It's practically a hobby for some folks. And even if they are successful in finding me, they will quickly find that I do not come quietly. My name is Harry. And I was happy to help." He gave the horse's muscular rear a firm, unexpected slap, causing it to spur forward with a startled whinny before the elf woman had time to reply or offer further thanks.
The last thing Harry saw was her surprised, slightly indignant face as the horse galloped off with her, carrying her swiftly into the distance, away from Belhaven and its horrors. He watched after her until the horse and its rider were just a tiny speck on the horizon, and then finally out of view completely.
With her gone, and hopefully safe, Harry looked back at the now eerily quiet town. He stood there for a long moment, just staring, and started weighing the pros and cons in his head of simply burning the entire wretched place to the ground.
A cleansing fire, a warning to others like them. He grumbled under his breath as he reluctantly found more cons than pros to that particular course of action.
Too much collateral damage, too many innocents potentially caught in the crossfire, too much attention. With a final, disgusted sigh, he disappeared with a soft pop into the deepening twilight.
….
Year 1199
Eithné's POV:
"Eithné! Did you miss me!" a cheerful, far-too-familiar voice suddenly called out, shattering the tranquil peace of her hidden little forest village deep in the ancient depths of Brokilon.
Harry Potter, the infuriating, enigmatic dh'oine, had just popped into existence right in the middle of their sacred glade, as if he owned the place.
"Harry," the silver-haired Dryad Queen said, her voice as cool and serene as a winter morning, though a flicker of deep annoyance was visible in her luminous eyes.
She looked at her most unwelcome, and unfortunately, most frequent, unexpected guest. He seemed entirely unconcerned, as usual, about the thirty-plus arrows that were currently, and very accurately, pointed directly at him from the shadowy depths of the surrounding trees.
"I thought I warned you, quite explicitly, to never return to Brokilon."
"Oh, you were serious about that?" Harry asked, his face a mask of faux confusion, his green eyes twinkling with poorly concealed amusement.
Eithné just managed, with considerable effort, to hold back the glare she so desperately wanted to direct at the, supposedly, human male.
"Yes, Harry. I was," she said, her voice flat. She made a subtle, almost imperceptible gesture with her hand, and her Dryad warriors silently, reluctantly, lowered their weapons.
They all knew, from bitter experience, that their arrows would make no difference whatsoever against this particular intruder.
Harry had proven that, quite spectacularly, on his second uninvited, and far more disruptive, visit to her quiet, sacred home.
This would mark, if she wasn't mistaken, the fifth such unwelcome intrusion since they had first found him, lost and disoriented, all those many moons ago.
Eithné truly had no idea why this strange, powerful male felt the inexplicable need to just… stop in, unannounced, every few summers.
But at this point, his appearances were almost, dare she say it, becoming expected. Not an expectation she ever really wanted to have, mind you, or one she particularly enjoyed.
He would just pop in, usually with that infuriatingly cheerful grin on his face, and then proceed to force her to drink some of his magically conjured tea with him for a few hours, to "catch up," as he so casually put it.
And just as she thought, he was already summoning a delicate, steaming pot of tea and a set of ornate cups out of thin air, a small, smug smile playing on his lips.
