Chapter IV

The scent of blood saturated the air, it's coppery clogging his nostrils. Colossal trees blocked his sight, making him dodge and twist through the maze of their splayed branches. The screams grew louder with every hurried beat of his wings, the terrified shouts and battle cries becoming identifiable words as he drew closer.

The tell tale thumping of giant footsteps could be heard beneath the pained shouts. Harrys heart jolted in his chest at the thought of facing the giants again, adrenaline pumping through his veins as he forced the feeling down. Banishing his traitorous thoughts of cowardice to the back of his mind and letting his famed Gryffindor bravery take center stage. People needed his help, it was no time for him give into pre-battle jitters, even if his opponent were creatures best suited to a nightmare.

He dove beneath the thick curving branches and was released into a scene of blood and chaos. A hoard of giants filled the forest, long seeking limbs reaching out to grab at humans who whizzed around them through the air with metal wires and blades bared. Broken bodies of the defeated littered the ground, the dismembered corpses dropped left and right uncaring of the precious live's that had just been extinguished. They lay like so many fallen leaves, broken shells abandoned beneath the frantic hooves of saddled horses that ran back and forth in evasion of giant legs and clumsy feet.

It was a massacre.

He didn't have time to think, only to react. Before him a giant caught hold of a human's wire, yanking them off path and pulling them towards the giants mouth. Harry drew in his wings, diving downwards without hesitation.

His claws clasped the wire with a jarring screech, the metallic cable cutting into the soft scales of his grip. Hot blood dripped from his claws as he wrenched the wire from the giants grip and pulled the human to safety. The human yelped as he unfurled his wings and bringing them back up to safer heights before depositing the human on a nearby branch.

He spared a glance for the man he had saved, feeling anger ignite within him at the sight of the young man, barely older than Harry himself, that he'd rescued from death at the giant's hands. His uniform was torn, his sword slick and steaming with evaporating blood of their enemy. Short cropped blond hair was stained with splattered red, the colour out of place against his honey locks. By all accounts the man should be terrified, a young man facing an army of colossal monsters, yet his blue eyes were hard with resolve. The man was a soldier, Harry realised, someone trained to fight and win. To lay down his life for his people, fully prepared to sacrifice himself for the greater whole.

The man held his blades at the ready, prepared to attack at any moment. His eyes took in Harry's form without flinching, and Harry knew he was searching for weaknesses – points to exploit and attack should Harry prove to be an enemy. Harry knew, because that was what he would have done.

The battle still raged around them but for the moment Harry was unable to tear himself away from the the man's gaze. It was like staring into a mirror and seeing himself reflected in the man before him. Worlds apart but fundamentally the same. Both too young, both facing an enemy with strength beyond reckoning, both unwilling to ever falter or fail. Fighting on until all their enemies lay six feet under or until they died trying.

That was what he should have been, back when Voldemort resurrected himself to power. A soldier, properly trained by the Order so that he actually had a chance of winning. Not the half-schooled boy he had been when he was forced to take the weight of the world on his shoulders and bear it without a single sign of strain. Back then, back before the veil and his arrival in this new world, they had expected him to fight. Expected him fight and win and come out unscathed and unchanged.

He would always respect men like the one before him. Men who, unlike he who had no choice in the matter, had chosen to lay down their lives to fight and protect. But now was not the time. The battle raged around them and so Harry drew back, giving the man a single solemn nod as he took to the skies, rejoining the fray.

Quickly he singled in on his first target, a sizeable giant with a few small tufts of limp grey hair and a wide gaping mouth full of large hungry teeth, and attacked. Black talons sank deep into hot flesh as he raked his claws across a giants face. It lurched back and away from the man it had been reaching for. His wings flapped desperately to keep him aloft as he attacked again, scratching at the arms it brought up to protect its face in a phantom of human reaction. Not a lethal wound, but hopefully it would slow it down for a moment and give Harry the chance to inflict something a little more... permanent.

Before he could do so, the wounds healed, releasing great clouds of white steam as they just seemed to knit themselves back together. Harry wasn't deterred, laying into his enemy once again and continuing to do so until a flash of steel from a passing human finally brought the thing down.

Harry didn't allow himself a moment to rest, moving on immediately to face his next opponent.

The fight continued.

Exhaustion was settling its claws into him again all too easily, the bone deep weariness making itself known once again in a draining wave left his injured ribs crying out in tandem with his aching muscles. It had carved itself into him bit by bit, growing stronger with every week of hunger and injury. The strain of being forced into his animagus form for weeks on end had settled deep in him, and at times Harry had wondered how he would ever be able to escape the all consuming exhaustion that clouded his mind and left his magic too weak to heal his injured ribs, a feat that would have taken mere days had he been at full power.

It chased him now too, ebbing and flowing like waves along a beachfront, slowly whittling away what little energy he had left. A looming threat that his next bout of exhaustion would be the one to bring in the tide and tip him over the edge and land him in a dead faint. Not yet, but soon. And he could only hope that the fighting would end before he collapsed from exhaustion.

Around him the humans fought, faces grim and snarling as they battled their enemy with all the desperation fear could bring. They flew through the air with impossible grace, making pinpoint turns and arcing spins as they dragged their blades across enemy flesh only for it to heal again within moments. Every attack they made faded before their eyes, hard earned results disappearing as the enemy regenerated within moments and was ready to attack again.

How could you fight a monster your weapons had no effect on? Fucking hard, thats how you fight. Because if you gave an inch you would loose a mile, and Harry would break every bone in his body, bleed every drop of his blood, before he ever gave up.

He knew this sort of fight, had lived it for twelve months. Twelve months of struggles for survival. Not the great clashing of forces like that of the Battle of Hogwarts but skirmishes to escape before reinforcement came and they were overrun. The fight wasn't for victory, it was for survival.

A war cry roared from his beak and he launched himself into the fight again, already ramming himself into a new enemy. Scorching blood stained his feathers and burned his skin and inhuman fumbling hands reached for him even as blank eyes disregarded him. After all he wasn't human, so why would they be interested in him? Beyond the occasional attempt to swat him away none spared him a glace more for all that his claws rent their flesh and spirited humans away to safety right before their very eyes.

Out of the corner of his eye he noted the humans circling a giant, distracting it with minor frontal attacks and taunting movements even as one spun and dragged their dual blades across the back of its neck. Piping hot steam erupted from the giant as it evaporated down to its bones, collapsing onto its knees and crumbling away until all that was left was a gust of burning air.

The giant didn't get up. Didn't regenerate. It was dead, its corpse burnt bones and dissipating heat.

Back of the neck. That was their weak point.

Harry grinned fiercely, or as much as he could do so with a beak, and launched himself through the air. He knew their weakness now, knew the trick to killing one where the killing curse had failed. Finally, he could fight back.

He returned his attention to his current enemy and redoubled his efforts, coming at his great foe with renewed courage. The giant was huge, making even Harry's admittedly large form look like a common eagle in comparison. It dull eyes looked right through him, right down into the very depths of his soul as if to judge him before deeming him inconsequential and turning its attention onto more promising prospects, staring beyond him to fixate on the humans that fought around them.

Harry took advantage of this inattention to circle around it and take hold, his claws sinking deep into the blistering flesh of the giant's shoulders as he brought his beak down on the back of its neck, biting and hacking away at its neck.

His weapons, bird of prey that he was in his animagus form, were not like those of the human fighters. He had no swords, no wires with which to spin and slice. But he didn't let this hinder him. Even if his weapon of choice, magic, was unavailable to him by necessity of keeping to his animagus form, he still had methods of offence. The two handfuls of wicked sharp talons and a razor edge of his curved beak were more than sufficient, and Harry took great relish in demonstrating this upon his opponents.

Foreign blood gushed down his throat, bitter and burning in a way blood should never be. The giant's blood was tainted, foul and unnatural on his tongue. The blood was wrong, the giants were wrong. Nothing that had naturally evolved could ever taste so rotten.

The giant evaporated between his claws, leaving him grasping at air and gagging on the rancid blood. He retched, spitting the hot liquid out and coughing. That was really really gross.

As he rid himself of as much of the foul blood as he could the call for retreat sounded, the humans dropping down onto what little of their mounts hadn't fled and quickly collecting the injured and dead into their wagons. What few that could ran interference on the giants, leading away and distracting any enemies that remained from the fight.

Harry joined them, putting his claws to good use attacking the giants where he could to give the humans more time to escape.

The wagons rattled as they pulled away, horses straining under the hefty weight of their burdens as their rider spurred them faster. Within minutes the men had withdrawn, evidence of the battle the bloodstained ground and the dead they had not been able to safely recover and were forced to leave behind.

He swiped one last time at the few remaining giants before he took after the humans. They were the first people he'd seen since his passage through the veil and he'd be damned if he just let them go. Solitude was not his natural milieu for all that he hated crowds and being the centre of attention as he had so often been in the eyes of the Daily Prophet and british wizarding public. Days on end spent in his own company, stuck in his animagus form for fear of his life, had not been kind to him or his companionable nature – although thankfully he'd managed to avoid getting to the point where he started talking to himself.

Weaving through the trees he followed the humans, flying above them as they rode. He easily kept pace, staying with them even as they pushed their horses on, skidding around as they turned onto a gravel road that ran the length of the forest. Harry hadn't noticed it there before in his rush to get to the fight, but now that he had more time to observe his surroundings – because no matter how fast the horses could run he was flying, and frankly the two hardly bared comparison, especially in terms of speed – he wondered how he could have missed it in the first place.

Trees bracketed the rode in on both sides, the forest thickening around them. Harry doubted he'd be able to get back off the path without some serious maneuvering to get through the thick vegetation, but he didn't mind. There were no trees to swerve around while above the road and that let him increase his speed with ease.

The sounds of the giants behind them grew fainter, the earth shaking footsteps of their pursuers growing quieter as the distance grew between them. The occasional giant still had to be avoided, coming in from the sides and bursting through the undergrowth only to be taken down by the humans who still flitted their ways through the treetops. A flash of bloodied metal and the giant fell, defeated before it could truly attack.

Before them the light of the day could be seen, growing larger with every beat of his wings until the grassy hill land filled their vision. The forest fell away around them, ending with startling suddenness and leaving them to run through the open.

Harry rode the thermal currents that rose from the land, stronger now that they were out in the open, taking advantage of the extra space to gain altitude and keep an eye out for any giants in the vicinity. The men grew smaller beneath him, the sounds of their mounts fading as the whistling of the wind and the familiar thump thump thump of his heartbeat filled his ears.

The landscape shone with light before his eyes, violet and purple with the occasional smear of bright whites and vivid yellows. The ultraviolet light reflected of the human's metal gear, blinding rays of white shining from where they rode, flashing and jerking about as they moved.

They rode swift and hard, passing over grassland and through the ruined towns alike without pause, shouting commands back and forth as vigilant eyes watched for any sign of more attackers. The terrain was not in their favor, open land limiting their ability to use the wire contraptions that allowed them to whizz through the air even as slowly rising grassy hills and the remnants of shattered villages blocked their line of sight.

Harry had no such obstruction and it was he, high in the sky, who saw it first. Off to the left, not three hundred metres in front of them, ambled a group of giants. The humans could not see them, and neither could they see the humans, hidden from each other's sight by the land itself. The situation was in itself a double edged sword, because for all that it gave them the chance to escape without being spotted it also meant that the humans had no way of knowing about the danger that was bearing down on them.

As they were now the humans wouldn't see the giants until it was too late, and by then the giants would be right in the middle of their tight formation. Right where it was most defended, and where the wounded were kept.

One or two giants the humans might be able to deal with, even despite the disadvantage of being out in the open, but there were too many. Four of the larger ones, and even more of the smaller ones - too many to fight off. He had to warn them, had to get them off their path and away from the group of giants.

He dove, tucking in his wings and watching the ground rush up to meet him in a steep plummeted downwards that would, to all watching eyes, end with him a bloody smear on the landscape. When he was only a few scant metres from the ground he flared his wings, catching the air roughly and ending him dive not far in front of the first horse.

Harry blocked the path of the formation, his head jerking as he tried to indicate the danger. They didn't understand, eyeing him fearfully as they circled around him and continued on straight. A wagon was coming straight for him and Harry had no choice but to regain altitude. He stayed low to the ground, flying near the front of the procession and attempting to guild them off their course only be ignored time and time again.

A screech of frustration tore from his throat. Stupid, stupid, blind idiots! Couldn't they see he was trying to help them? He'd just helped them fight off a fuckload of giants in the forest and now he was an enemy? Was he this ignorant too when he was human? Bloody hell he hoped not.

If he didn't manage to turn them around soon it would be too late. He needed another option, a plan B. A maybe he could fly ahead and get a head start on the fight, take out one or two of the giants before the humans got there? Perhaps even turn the giants away since he hadn't managed to do so with the humans?

No, it wouldn't work, the giants would ignore him too and either way he wouldn't be able to take out enough of the giants by himself to make a difference and stop the bloodshed before it could really start. More would die unless he came up with something better, unless he did something!

Just as hope began to leave him and he had no choice but to fly head and do a preemptive strike against the giants, he spotted something from the corner of his eye. Riding past him on one of the wagons was the man, the blond one that he'd saved, the soldier.

An idea popped into his head, reckless and stupid and likely going to fail, but at least better than him running ahead and jumping, outnumbered and alone, into a fight against a considerable amount of giants. What the hell, he thought, its worth a shot.

Alright, time to try out plan C! (And possibly D if the human didn't cooperate. Anyway it wouldn't really be kidnapping since he was actually saving him.)

He let himself float downwards until he was gliding parallel with the wagon. Meeting the man's blue eyes he jerked his head in invitation. I need you to trust me, his eyes said. For a second he thought the man wouldn't understand. His doubts were dismissed when the soldier nodded, meeting his eyes for a serious second before he crouched low and sprang onto Harry's back with a heavy thump.

Obviously plan D would not be needed.

Harry barely muffled a squawk as the sudden weight hit his injured ribs, sending blinding lances of pain through his body. He wavered under the weight, the extra weight diving him downwards for a brief moment before he adjusting to the soldier on his back and pulling back up again. The pain in his ribs settled to a dull throbbing, constricting around his chest and forcing his breath into short panted gasps.

Fucking hell. You wouldn't see him doing this again for fun – maybe if he weren't so bloody sore, but right now? Just... oww. Boney knees were spiking into his back, poking at his ribs while the heavy rectangular metal of the man's sword sealth hit against him with every beat of his wings. Not comfortable, not even vaguely, but he was a Gryffindor. He could put up with a little pain and discomfort if it would save lives.

Strong hands curled around his feather shoulders and Harry let the man get a grip before he drew away from the wagon and beat himself upwards furiously. The wind ruffled his feathers, whipping against him in fury as he brought the human higher into the sky's domain. The sight of the world stretched out beneath them. Galloping horses and their human riders were small to their eyes, a caravan of sprinting ants travelling a grassy plainland.

"Damn." Harry heard the soldier curse and knew the man had seen the group of giants.

He sighed in relief. Mission accomplished. Maybe this time the humans would actually listen and divert their course.

He didn't wait for the soldier to order him back down, already tilting his primary feathers to let him into a gentle dive, unwilling to accidentally fling the human off by dropping into a full vertical dive. It would hardly be conducive to his aim of saving them if he blatantly dropped one of them off his back some hundred meters off the ground.

As they drew nearer to the fleeing group of humans the soldier reached a hand over Harry's shoulder, pointing him towards the head of the makeshift formation.

"Over there!" The man cried, directing Harry towards a stern looking man with wrinkles and grey peppered hair who rode near the front. His short green cape flapped in the wind, flashing silver and blue at him through the fold of fabric. A crest maybe? Strong hands wrapped were tightly around the reigns of his horse, a light grey beast with wide eyes and twitching ears. A superior officer? Head of the expedition or platoon or whatever this was?

Harry dipped his head in acquisition and sped forwards, coming to fly a little above the train of men as he made his way over to them towards man. The human formation wavered at his presence, quite a few of the men shooting him terrified looks and shouting out in fright, looking as if they wanted to flee until a sharp barked command from the grey haired man set them in order.

"Commander!" The soldier shouted from his back. "Commander, Titans ahead at 11 o'clock!"

Was that what the giants were called then, Titans? Fitting, more fitting than giants or beasts or whatever else Harry had taken to calling them in the confines of his own head. Some of the names had been a bit... sweary.

"You sure about that, Soldier?" The Commander growled from atop his horse, voice rough and smokey. He was suspicious, that much was obvious. Harry didn't hold it against him, he would have been too in his position. First there were giant man-eating Titans about and attacking, and now some giant eagle had shown up and kidnapped one of his men to the sky. It was all a bit surreal. In circumstances like those he too would have taken everything with a grain of salt.

"Sir, yes, sir!" The soldier answered with a salute.

"Fuck. Jenson send out flare, I want the formation moved to the right." A woman riding at the commander's side nodded and reached into her saddlebag, pulling out the aforementioned flare and loading it into a pistol. Covering her ears as best she could with one hand she raised it into the air and fired it off to the right. With a bang a plume of green smoke shot through the air behind the flare, pointing off into the sky to their right.

Harry recoiled from the loud noise, flinching back with a uncontrolled jerk of his wings as he launched himself away. Sensitive avian ears were not meant to be so close to firing pistols, and his ears rang loudly with the force of the noise. By the time he got his flight back under control the human's formation had turned, the entire fast paced caravan of horses and wagons pulling to the right as they followed the flare.

Pushing aside the strings of exhaustion that pulled at his muscles, weighing him down like lead had been strapped to his very bones, Harry returned upwards flight. He and his passenger taking up position high above the formation to keep an eye on any new enemies. The strong beats of his wings were beginning to falter, growing shallower as the added weight of the man on his back spurred the creeping grip of exhaustion onwards until it had settled deep within him. Once or twice more they had to dive down to warn the Commander of a giant or two but for the most part they seemed to be in the clear.

Tired eyes watched the world in ultraviolet, feathered brows set into a stubborn frown and he fought of the clinging vestiges of sleepiness that tried to pull his eyes shut – or as close to one as you could get without eyebrow and with a beak. He blinked for a moment and felt himself fall a bit, his eye snapping open and he tried to regain lost altitude.

Looking up he reared back at the sight that met his eyes. How, exactly, he'd been so tired as to not notice that Harry had no idea. A wall stood before him, not just any small foot high migit wall but a 'I am bigger and meaner than the Great Wall of China, and if you don't like it then go throw yourself off me' wall. Bloody fucking big wall. The thing had to be fifty meters high!

Turning his head he peered over his shoulder, giving the soldier an incredulous look. Are you fucking kidding me? The look said, and it must have been evident because the soldier had the nerve to look slightly amused by his blatant disbelief. Smug arsehole, he should have just left him to the bloody giants.

That's it, this world was bloody insane. First with its hoard of evilish giants and humans that whizzed about on wires and now with a wall that Harry was positive could be seen from space. Hell it could probably be seen from the other side of the bloody universe thats how big it was – although all things considered it would have to be if it had been made to keep the giants out.

Harry turned back to the wall and shrugged as best he could in his animagus form. Well... when you really thought about it, it was nothing worse than what he usually saw back home in the Wizarding World. When you thought about it in terms of, you know, wizardy stuff – like the Pyramids in Egypt actually being five times bigger than the muggles thought they were and home to cities of magical creatures (the Pyramids being tombs being a carefully concocted ruse to stop the muggles looking more deeply than a few booby trapped tunnels of bewitched treasure and old ancient mugle artifacts) or the entire wizarding continent of Atlantis that was hidden from muggles beneath the Atlantic ocean... When you thought about it like that, 50 meter walls didn't seem all that strange after all.

He closed his eyes for a moment, sighed, and then resumed forward flight.

Merlin it was good to be back in civilization.

A/N: Before I get into the AN, there are some issues that need to be addressed.

I received a flame for this story, insulting my work, etc etc, and I am not happy, ok? If you, any of you, have a problem with my work or have got it in your heads that its ok to spew degradatory comments about what I write then two words: fuck off. Constructive criticism is welcome, mindless flaming in not, and if you can't tell the difference then that's hardly my fault. I know most of you are lovely kind people but for those of you who aren't there's something called free will which means you can click the exit button any time you want. I've said this once before but let me reiterate: if you don't like my work, then don't fucking read it.

I'm sorry that the rest of you had to see such crass behavior (and, you know, me raging out about it), because it's not just an insult to my writing but also to anyone else who has to witness people acting so offensively. I've deleted the comment now but I hope that those of you who did see it are willing to forget about the whole thing.

Ok, now onto more positive topics. :)

I hope you guys like the new chapter and that it was worth waiting for (yeah, sorry about the wait.) I'd like to dedicate this chapter to Scaccyandaquil (currently wldcynaquil) and FunnyDis1, for their enthusiasm and support towards my writing. You guys are epic and don't you forget it.

Thank you to Mordollwen Castiel, Silvermane1 and Yizuki for your continued support. Also thank you to suntan140, raven1493, wilsonsophie18, exaigon, Guests (all 5 of you), Fk306, FemUlquiorraAndGrimmjow, Claire Bellatrix Slytherin, TNM- Writer, Amaranthine Moon, Achilles Brother, xXNeverEndingFireXx, RiRi, and widdershin.

Thank you for the reviews guys, it warms my heart to see them.