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I. Laying Plans
“Now the general who wins a battle makes many calculations in his temple ere the battle is fought. The general who loses a battle makes but few calculations beforehand. Thus do many calculations lead to victory, and few calculations to defeat: how much more no calculation at all!”
Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Sometime, somehow, a fly had made its way into the kitchen. It buzzed irritatingly around their heads as they discussed what to do. Well, “discussed” was perhaps not the right word. The behaviour amongst the Order members varied wildly, from Sirius Black's arm waving and frenzied shouting to Albus Dumbledore's grief-backed calm logic. Molly Weasley held her husband's hand and tried to quieten her tears. Severus Snape sat at the far end of the table where the room was darkest, staring fixedly at the table, silent and unmoving as the solemn statues of old. All around, the Order of the Phoenix fretted and wondered and reasoned and argued about how to rescue Harry Potter.
“And we are sure that he's been captured by Voldemort?”
“Almost certainly.”
“Have you considered that the boy may be dead by now?”
“Moody!”
“There's no point in beating around the bush. We have to look at all possibilities.”
“Harry’s survived before. We can't give up on him!” Black shouted, standing as if ready to run out the door that very moment.
“No one is suggesting we give up. While there is a chance, a rescue must be attempted. It will do us no good to refuse to acknowledge the depth of the situation, however,” Dumbledore cut in, killing the argument before it could become a brawl. The tensions in the room held but did not snap.
“Where would he be held?”
“Isn't Malfoy Manor his current base?”
“He knows Snape’s a traitor. Would he really keep him there?”
“He knows that, does he?” someone asked quietly. It was generally ignored besides Sirius’ smirk.
“We have to find out more information. We don’t have anything to base a plan off of.” Tonks looked unlike her usual self. She had toned down her usual bright colours in favour of more sombre tones.
“Perhaps we can find one of his followers and get information from them,” Remus Lupin offered.
“We don’t have time for that!”
“We don't have time to sit here and wait for news to come to us, do we?”
“So we get information. Then what?”
“Either we stage a sneak attack or a full scale assault.” Kingsley leaned forward, swiping a hand irritably at the fly as it circled his head briefly. “Without a location, there is no way to tell which would be better.”
“If we cannot find where Harry is, perhaps we can make him bring Harry to us.”
“Oh? What do you mean, Elphias?”
But Elphias Doge had no further idea than that. Minerva McGonagall took up the theme in his place. Her brogue was thick with stress. “He is holding Harry, no doubt, in a very secure location. I doubt we would be able to lure him into moving the boy. Perhaps a hostage exchange could be performed instead.”
“What hostage could ever be more valuable to him than Potter? He doesn't care about his followers. He would sacrifice any—all—of them in a heartbeat for just the chance to take a swing at him. The demon's obsessed. It's all he's wanted since the first war,” Moody argued.
“Not all,” Dumbledore mused.
“You mean the prophecy,” Arthur spoke up. His eye had been following the fly as it darted around the room while he listened, but now he focused on the Headmaster and pulled his mind out of its numb state of shock and fear.
Dumbledore nodded gravely. “As limited as our understanding of his recent motives and actions has been, one thing stands clear: his focus is on gaining Harry and the prophecy while quietly accumulating power.”
“He’s got one,” Bill Weasley said. “That only leaves one thing left.”
“We can conjecture all we want, and we can even be right, but without any information how he’s going to go about it, there’s no way for us to make any kind of plan.”
“Thank you, Mad-Eye! Helpful as always,” Emmeline Vance snarked.
Slam!
Several people jerked and looked over to the shadowed corner where Snape had thundered his hand down upon the table. All voices stopped as he lifted it and glanced incuriously at his palm; the fly was dead. The following silence was louder for its lack of buzzing.
“Have something to add, Snivellus?”
Snape slowly drew himself to his feet, wiping his hand on his robes. His eyes were darkened by new shadows. It made their burning seem brighter.
“It is clear,” he began, voice rough as if from years of disuse, “that we may do no more without more information.” He started to leave the room. Several people jumped up.
“And where do you think you’re going?”
“To find some,” he hissed over his shoulder before slamming the door behind himself.
II. Waging War
“It is only one who is thoroughly acquainted with the evils of war that can thoroughly understand the profitable way of carrying it on.”
Sun Tzu, The Art of War
A strip of light bled across his face. He scrunched his eyes further shut, exhausted and wanting nothing more than to go back to bed.
Hands grabbed at him. He drew back. The movement caused his entire body to flare with pain. Quidditch must have been hell the night before.
“Up, Potter!”
The voice was unfamiliar, nothing like Ron’s sleepy morning tones. He cracked one eye open (the other wouldn’t open, even when he tried) and stared blankly at the shoes in front of him.
A figure stood there wearing black robes that brushed the floor. As he slowly woke more, knees came into view, and then hands, and then a leering, bone white skull mask.
Harry jerked back with a broken cry as memories flooded back to him.
Being thrown down onto cold flagstones at Voldemort’s feet.
Voldemort’s high pitched laughter. Bellatrix joining in, then others.
Fenrir Greyback. “Can I get my teeth into his neck, too? The little girl wasn’t enough.” (Lucy?) Only subsiding at Voldemort’s command.
“Welcome, Harry Potter. Would you care for a taste of our hospitality?”
Pain.
He was pulled to his feet. He muffled a cry, teeth gritted, refusing to show the way each movement made his body scream in protest.
Being magically affixed to the throne Voldemort sat in by his wrists, too high for him to sit, ankle too hurt to stand. Finding himself forced to kneel at his enemy’s side and watch as all of the Death Eaters were called and a night of vicious revelry took place.
A muggleborn wizard being brought in, unable to bear looking Voldemort in the face for fear. Voldemort at first demanding it, then forgiving it. “Nevermind. Human eyes were never meant to stare up at a god.”
He couldn’t walk on his fractured ankle. His leg collapsed from under him when he tried. The Death Eater grumbled and cast some spell at it. He felt the bones snap back into place and a splint forming over it. The injury itself was not healed, but it was enough that he could limp along with the man’s begrudging help.
Voldemort leaning over to whisper in his ear after Bellatrix gutted the man by hand.
“Where are we going?”
“The Dark Lord.”
“Enjoy the show, Harry. After this bit of fun, we go straight to work.”
“Thank you, but I actually saw him yesterday. I—ow!”
The Death Eater twisted his arm where he held it in a grip that was half restraint and half support. No one else walked with them. He would have tried to break free and run for it if he hadn’t known he would never physically make it.
A cold, completely dark and silent cell. A door slamming shut.
After several minutes of limping along, a few turns, and one short set of stairs, they reached an ornate mahogany door. The man knocked on it with a beefy fist; the vibrations travelling through to his own body made the aches and breaks flare with pain.
“Enter.”
The Death Eater pushed open the door with his head lowered deeply in respect. Harry purposefully lifted his chin as he was dragged in behind.
It was evidently the same throne room he had been taken to on his first night in the… wherever he was. He hadn’t recognised the route from being dragged out the night before; he’d been a little too unconscious then to remember it. Voldemort sat imperiously at his throne in fine clothing.
The room was entirely empty besides the three of them. The Death Eater frog-marched him down the long room. His laboured breaths and their footsteps were the only sounds, and they bounced back strangely off of the walls.
When they were about ten feet from the throne and the dais it stood on, Voldemort rose to his feet. The Death Eater immediately stopped.
It was all so formal and dramatic. Harry stared back at the man’s gleaming red eyes with as level of a look as he could manage. He would not cave in to the facade of power Voldemort was putting on. The whole impression of it gave a sense of some court presided over by a— well, by a lord. The skull decor was probably where the “dark” part of “dark lord” came in.
Had his head been knocked the night before? He couldn't remember.
“Thank you, Crabbe.” The Death Eater—Crabbe, apparently—bowed and left. Harry wobbled, fighting to retain his balance without the man’s support. “I hope you slept well, Harry.”
“I’ve had better.”
“And last night's entertainment?”
He knew it had all been a show for his sake. A gruesome reminder of the ruthless and violent nature of the people he was now at the mercy of. “Could have used some juggling.”
Voldemort’s bloodless lip curled, unimpressed at Harry's response. He did not deign to acknowledge it. “Perhaps you will sleep better tonight with answers.”
“There it is.”
“Excuse me?” Voldemort’s eyes narrowed.
“Oh, nothing. Just that I've never been confronted by you before without hearing the whole grand plan. Threw me off a bit.”
“Crucio!” Voldemort flicked his wand, almost idly. Harry's whole sense of self was wreathed in white-hot agony for several long moments before it abruptly ended. He found himself panting on the floor, Voldemort’s heels clicking rhythmically on the ground near his head as he steadily circled him.
“If I have your attention,” he said. Harry curled further into himself. “I have been waiting a very long time to have you back in my company.”
“Couldn't you just take a shot at me from a distance?” Harry gasped through the aftershocks of pain, thoroughly fed up with how dragged out this whole thing was shaping up to be. How long were they going to prolong the torture before finally killing him? “Poison my treacle or something?”
“You think I mean to kill you.” Voldemort crouched in front of him, placing two fingers below his chin and lifting his head so their eyes met again. “You would be absolutely right in that, Harry. But first, I have a use for you.” He released his chin and rose back to his feet. “For a time, you somehow managed to elude me. You were never far from Lord Voldemort’s reach, however, despite how safe you may have thought yourself.”
He paced back to his throne and settled back into it as Harry gingerly pulled himself up to a sitting position. “What do you mean?” he asked warily. What escapes were there from the room besides the main door? He tried peering around surreptitiously.
“That useless order of Dumbledore’s, waiting for my move, has not realised I began to wage my war months ago.”
Harry’s head snapped to him, attention zeroing in. “What?” The Order had said Voldemort was focused on gathering allies. Besides the Azkaban breakout, the only signs of violence had been occasional disappearances like Trelawney and almost Trish. Wouldn't the Order know if more was happening?
If they did know, wouldn't they have told him?
“When you were caught performing underage magic in the summer—naughty, naughty, Harry—I saw an opportunity. With—”
“That wasn't you??” Harry gaped. “With the Dementors?” He'd thought for sure that Voldemort had sent the dark creatures after him when he was vulnerable. Who else would have, could have?
“I intend to kill you myself, and when I do, I want you to notice it is happening!” Voldemort growled, and yep, he was definitely getting annoyed with the interruptions. “I would not see your soul removed to make the event so unsatisfying.” Harry held up a hand as if in defeat. Voldemort bared his teeth and then forcefully returned to his earlier gloating. “The Ministry, in its arrogant blindness, gave you a full criminal trial to punish you for the crime of honesty. Ironic, really. If they had held a normal private hearing as is standard for such cases, my reach would have been limited. Instead, by handing the decision to a full Wizangamot, they gave you into my hands.”
He leaned forward, triumph in his tone as Harry's blood chilled. “That is right. Even then, I had a majority of your government in my pocket or under my thumb.”
“You made them declare me guilty,” Harry realised aloud. “Even with Dumbledore’s testimony. Their minds had already been made by you.”
“So they had,” Voldemort preened. Harry saw shadows of the self-satisfied teenager he had met in the Chamber for a moment. “As with the DMLE. Taking you from their custody would require no more than the crook of my finger.
“Instead of delivering you to me, however unwittingly, the fools at the Ministry somehow lost you within the first five minutes of your custody in a spectacular example of gross incompetence.”
It was good to know that even Voldemort agreed with him that their Ministry was useless.
“You completely disappeared from all reach or notice. I chased down rumours and false sightings of you, but none ever came to fruition. It quickly became clear to me that when you were at Hogwarts, even though you were under Dumbledore’s protection, I was at least able to keep an eye on you and prepare myself to strike when the chance arose. It became convenient for you to return there if it meant making you a visible target once more, so I manipulated the Ministry into granting you a legal pardon.”
“That was the Order,” Harry said numbly, even though it made a terrible kind of sense. “They arranged my pardon.”
“The Order can do nothing unless I allow it!” Voldemort suddenly raged, and Harry was reminded that despite his odd current composure, the other wizard was still a very unstable man.
“Okay,” he said, almost placatingly, desperate to find out more. If he could escape, knowing just how much influence Voldemort really had would help the Order. He just needed to survive long enough to do so; it was starting to look as if Voldemort really didn’t intend to just kill him right away. “How have the Aurors not noticed your spies in the government, though?”
Voldemort shook his head in mock sympathy. “Oh, Harry. Your faith in that noble group is misplaced. The Aurors, just like the Wizangamot, are mine.”
His mouth went dry.
“Oh, not the officers themselves,” Voldemort dismissed. “They remember my first war too well. But the clerks? The cleaners? The interns? A bureaucracy is not run by fighters, Harry, but by those. It is not the one who witnesses the event but the one who writes the report that controls the flow of information. Not a paper enters or leaves that office without my knowing it.
“Young Andromeda Tonks, member of the Order, is sent on a ‘safe’ mission by herself as a test for a promotion? My Death Eaters are waiting.” He smiled down at Harry coldly. “Senior Auror John Dawlish writes detailed reports on Harry Potter’s every move to the Minister’s office at the command of the Hogwarts High Inquisitor? I hear what you had for breakfast. My, but you have some strange aversion to fish, don’t you?”
Officially creepy. Harry tried to stand but gave up at a particularly bad pain from his ankle. “Didn’t know you cared so much.”
“Oh, I do. I was delighted to receive a report last night that you had fled castle grounds in a heightened emotional state. Dawlish thought the act could be used to strengthen his and Delores Umbridge’s case for your expulsion and potential arrest.” That little grass. “I sent my Death Eaters to retrieve you, and now, at long last, here you are. Information wins wars, Harry.”
“Apparently,” Harry muttered. He was still hung up on the fact that Umbridge and Dawlish, besides making his time at school awful, had also led Voldemort straight to him. He was definitely not signing up to be an Auror after this.
“While the Light observes and reacts to events as they occur, I am ten steps ahead.” He tilted his head slightly, a new intensity coming over him. “Severus understood that. He was always so talented at handling information. I can admire that in a man, even if it was used to my detriment.”
Harry wasn’t sure what to say. His recent argument with and doubts about Snape aside, he definitely didn’t want to reveal anything that could jeopardise the man’s safety.
A change came over Voldemort then, washing like a tide across his face and body language until the poised satisfaction had morphed into seething rage like it had always been there. Harry didn’t doubt that it had. “I do not take well to traitors, Harry. Severus betrayed me. I gave him everything, made him what he is, and he threw it back in my face. What cowardice… what courage. I had hoped to use that, feed false information to your side and betray him in turn, but he broke away before I could do so. What is Severus Snape now?”
“I don’t know,” Harry stammered. So much emphasis had been put throughout the year on hiding his and Snape’s relationship from both the Ministry and Voldemort (although it was beginning to sound like one was completely helpless to the other) that he had started to really believe that both of their safety was on the line. If information really did win wars, the last thing he wanted to do was give Voldemort more of it.
Harry barely had time to blink before Voldemort was out of his throne and towering over him. “You are lying, Harry. You forget that your life and mine have been permanently entwined since long before this day. I know you better than you know yourself.”
“I don’t know if that’s true, we don’t really sit and chat much—”
Voldemort grabbed a fistful of Harry’s hair and jerked his head back so that his face was tilted up to meet Voldemort’s eyes more directly. “Legilimens!”
Lights and colours blurred, swirled, changed. It was nothing like practicing with Snape; he had been deliberate but steady. Voldemort charged in like a bull with its head tilted and horns bared: all aggression and strength and blunt force that smashed its way into his mind maze.
When the initial attack had ended, Voldemort stood alone in the antechamber of his mind, looking around with calculating red eyes. Harry watched him uneasily, not at all certain of his own ability to control this encounter. The whole point of having a mind maze was that you could manipulate an attacker, but he wasn’t sure if he was ready for that. He probably never would feel ready, though, and Voldemort was here now. There was nothing to do but try.
Voldemort’s lips twitched into a smirk and he started to chuckle. Harry waited to see what he would do, vaguely planning on sending him straight to the Quidditch emergency boot tunnel rather than mess around and risk losing control, but Voldemort apparently had other plans.
He tilted his head slightly as though listening. Then he turned and somehow looked straight at Harry. He balked. It was like being stripped to the very marrow of his bones, naked and exposed before Voldemort’s knowing gaze. There was a tugging sensation somewhere, along some link he had never before known, an irresistible pull that dragged him forth.
Instead of observing as if he were the walls, as if the maze were him and he the maze, Harry found himself physically manifested in the antechamber beside Voldemort. He patted his arms, his legs, shocked. Snape had not said anything even remotely related to this. In fact, the whole point of the maze was that he was in control, not the attacker.
“You thought to hide from me in your own mind. You forget that I am already there.”
“I’ll work on it,” Harry shrugged.
They stared at one another for a long moment.
Then he turned and ran.
Voldemort pursued him closely as he took the most difficult and convoluted route he could think of. He ducked into a trap room desperately—it was one with every Binns lecture he’d ever heard compressed into a small room; even Snape had started to drift off when he tested it on him—but Voldemort seemed immune. Manifested himself like this, Harry was horrified to feel a yawn creep over him, and he wasn’t able to duck around Voldemort quickly enough before a hand grabbed the collar of his shirt and pulled him back.
Voldemort slammed him against the nearest desk. Seamus was slumped over and drooling slightly inches from his face. The absurdity of it all made him giggle breathlessly.
“You are the key to this place,” Voldemort hissed. Harry stopped laughing. “Where are your memories of Severus Snape?”
Harry remembered then: there were two Severus Snapes in this maze. One was the cruel professor that he had never been close to or heard anything important from. The other was a man from a village who cared for him in ways no one else ever had.
How would Voldemort force Harry to take him there and know they were even real memories? As little as Harry knew about how the connection between them affected the mind maze, Voldemort couldn’t know much more himself. This wasn’t exactly a common situation.
How could he convince Voldemort the Professor Snape memories were the ones he really wanted?
Well, by making him think Harry didn’t want him to see them.
Snape always said his acting skills were good, but he’d never put much stock in that. Time to change that. He shifted his eyes purposefully away as if lying badly. “I don’t know where, I’ve never been in my own head before.”
The pressure on his chest increased; he gasped and twitched. How was his body feeling pain for what was happening to a manifestation of his consciousness? It wasn’t fair!
It took him a moment to register that yes, it was his actual body, and no, it wasn’t Voldemort’s own mental manifestation doing it. The dark lord was attacking him in the real world.
He felt the ghost of a wand trace a shallow cut on his neck despite the fact that the Voldemort in his mind maze didn’t even have one. In Binns’ room, Harry’s eyes widened.
“Okay, okay!”
Voldemort eased up on him, not looking like he fully trusted Harry’s word but probably knowing he wasn’t going to get any better guarantee than that. Harry sat up and rubbed at his neck reflexively, although within his mind, the skin there was smooth and free of injury.
His upper arm was seized by a vice grip and he was roughly pulled out of the classroom.
“Lead the way,” Voldemort said with smooth rage in his ear, and Harry reluctantly started walking.
He took a roundabout route that also happened to lead them even further away from the cozy room full of village Snape memories. He could tell Voldemort was getting impatient but didn't want to rush it and look too willing.
How had Voldemort managed to force him to manifest here? As much as it felt like the two of them were actually walking through the halls of a (confusing, irregular) castle, their mental perception was simply bent to create that impression. They were still just their own consciousnesses here. Harry tried to follow the feeling that had dragged him here and sensed a wealth of thought and emotion at the other end that was not his own. With a jolt of clarity, he realised that whatever connection Voldemort had used went both ways. He may have trapped Harry less omnisciently here, but the maze was still inherently Harry’s own mind and creation. He could feel Voldemort’s thoughts and feelings just as he had been able to do with Snape, but what he was able to sense was far more clear than the muted impressions he’d gotten from Snape in their lessons. He could sense an explicit motive. How interesting…
When they were just outside the tunnel of Professor Snape memories, Harry hesitated. He glanced at Voldemort. The dark wizard was staring him down meaningfully.
“I…” he glanced rapidly at the tunnel’s entrance, then diverted his eyes elsewhere. “I’m lost.
Voldemort’s clutch tightened. “If you—”
Harry stepped on the inseam of his foot and twisted out of his grip. He darted off for the nearest escape, which of course was the tunnel.
Much like the actual tunnel below the Womping Willow that it had been based off of, going through this memory grouping felt like crawling slowly through a cramped and torturous reenactment of years of humiliation and insults. Every snide comment, every poor grade, every snarl and sneer and scowl pressed in from all sides and continued seemingly forever onwards and behind.
He’d never been through here before. He tried to think of Professor Snape as little as possible when he was not in the man’s class. Voldemort was struggling along somewhere else in the tunnel, but Harry could not hear or see him. All he could do was close his eyes as best he could to the rest of it and try to make it through to the other side.
It ended abruptly with the flare of dull pain becoming immediate and Snape’s sneering face being replaced by Voldemort’s crimson eyes. He must have cut off the connection when he realised there was nothing else useful to be gained. The wizard looked at him, a strange expression on his face, and finally released his hair. Harry fell forward, barely managing to catch himself with one hand and an elbow. His nose hovered barely an inch above the ground. A little patch of mist formed on the stones there from his ragged breath.
“How does it feel to know you are not even in control of your own mind?” Voldemort hissed from above. Harry touched the fingertips of his free hand gingerly to his neck; a shallow gash was oozing blood sluggishly.
He glanced up slowly, doing his best not to stretch the new cut, and tried to assess the man’s face. He appeared to be genuinely angry. Harry couldn’t figure out why until he remembered that Voldemort hated not being in absolute power and control. The statement Voldemort had just made, reminiscent of a schoolyard bully that mocked others for what he hated about himself, was convincing enough. He may have been able to force Harry to manifest, but that had been all he could make Harry do. Legilimens were not usually the passive players in a mental attack. The experience must have been unsettling to a control freak like Voldemort.
“I’ve been better,” he grunted, trying to sit up straight. Everything seemed to hurt twice as much as before.
“I see Severus remains as irascible as he ever was.”
Harry just looked at him, remembering what he had felt of Voldemort’s motivations from the walk to the memory tunnel. He wanted to know how close Snape and Harry were so that he could judge how likely a personal rescue attempt would be. Harry himself wasn’t so sure he wanted to think about it.
“I care little for what he is now,” Voldemort said, and Harry knew it was a lie, if only from what he’d learned during the confrontation moments before, “for he cannot save you.” It almost seemed as if there was more Voldemort had wanted to say that he had changed his mind on. Perhaps he was too unsettled by the whole thing to continue. He turned his back on Harry and began to stride from the room. “No one can.”
Harry never heard the door shut, but when he looked around to see where Voldemort had gone, he found the room completely empty. He briefly considered getting up and running. There was nowhere to go, though, and no way he’d be able to make it if there were. Even now his ankle throbbed and other injuries were vying for his attention.
He’d just let his forehead rest against the floor when the doors swung open—that he heard—and two different Death Eaters were lifting him roughly by the (aching, pained) shoulders and dragging him off. They threw him in his cell with little courtesy and slammed the door shut behind them.
As Harry settled against a wall to wait, one thing finally occurred to him.
Voldemort had said he kept Harry alive because he had “a use” for him.
He’d never said what that use might be.
III. Attack by Stratagem
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
Sun Tzu, The Art of War
They had all taken a few hours to sleep, recover, and reorganise before meeting again to sketch the bones of a plan. Severus had spent the entire break making preparations. He had intended to get started on his own plan immediately, but Dumbledore had come to his chambers and stopped him.
“I do hope you do not plan to make a rash strike of your own.”
He didn't bother to hide the bag he was packing. “Would I do that?”
“The concerns of a parent for his child can often overcome more rational thought.”
There was no point in denying the implication. It would only insult the both of them.
“Severus.”
“...I will be at the meeting this afternoon.”
“Thank you.”
He was one of the last people at the meeting. By the time he slipped into the kitchen, all seats were filled up, and he was forced to stand near the other late comers who lined the room. It was more attention grabbing than he would have liked, and he got several glares for his troubles, but that was a necessary evil. He knew he’d otherwise have been cornered and interrogated by Black.
Everyone in the Order had shown up for this, especially those who hadn’t been able to make it on such late notice to the first emergency gathering.
Dumbledore entered last, just at the time the meeting was set to start. All sound in the room died away to nothing immediately; every eye was turned to him. He glanced over briefly and met Severus’ eye. He gave a tiny nod. Severus slowly returned it.
Taking his place at the head of the table, Dumbledore looked out over the assorted Order members. His hands were splayed and the fingertips pressed to the tabletop as he stood before them. Power seemed to exude from him in a way that was always present but rarely so prevalent. Severus knew he was looking, not at the Headmaster, but at a general.
“I thank you all for gathering. We are at a critical point in the war now, but more than that, we have failed to protect the safety of a teenage boy reliant on our help. That boy will die if we are not able to rescue him from Lord Voldemort’s clutches. Harry is brave and will hold out for as long as he can, but he will not be able to do this on his own. He is dependent on our ability to get him out of there. This meeting is to strategise just how we are going to go about that.”
“Have we learned anything new since our last meeting? Do we know where he is?” Kingsley asked
“We have not. Part of what we need to do today involves creating base contingency plans for every possibility in case we have a sudden, brief opportunity to stage a rescue.”
Black eyed Severus, probably wondering if it would be worth it to make a snide remark about his parting comment from the previous night. Severus glared right back, knowing he looked horrific (Nymphadora Tonks’ hair had quite literally turned white with shock for a brief moment when they passed in the hall) and not caring in the slightest. The impromptu challenge ended when the conversation kicked off.
“Most likely outcome is that he is held at one of their most secure locations with no plans of being moved. To get him out, we’d have to infiltrate the place. If we get together a dedicated hit team that is always on call—”
“Perhaps two, a night and day shift?”
“Perhaps. Then the team, or teams, can respond immediately if an opportunity like Albus mentioned arises.”
“If so, floorplans of the known strongholds would be extremely helpful for everyone to have on hand for reference, if not to memorize.”
“Another possibility is that we may learn he is being transported and intercept them.”
“That would have a very short timeframe for us to act in. Anyone called for that would have to be someone with no other commitments like a resident job or kids. Sorry, Molly.”
“Oh, our kids are old enough to handle themselves for a few hours. It’s Diggle and that niece of his who’d have to step back.”
“As for striking at a Death Eater stronghold…”
Dumbledore pulled Severus aside as the talk turned to logistics. “I believe you have a plan of your own?”
“We need to get access to unfiltered inside information.”
“Would I be correct in assuming that you will be unable to fulfill your teaching duties?”
Severus had not spared a single thought for potions since his Mark burned late the night before. It suddenly occurred to him that he was supposed to be teaching a class at that very moment.
Seeing this on his face, Dumbledore gave a wry smile. “All classes were cancelled for the day.”
He thought about that for a brief moment before deciding that he did not care in the slightest. He returned to the previous point. “I do not have time to watch eleven year olds stir basic introductory potions while Ha—” His voice cut off quite without his permission and he glanced aside. He saw and hated the elderly wizard’s compassionate look in his periphery.
“All I ask is that you are careful. The Ministry still has an eye on you.”
They were both thinking about some of his rasher actions in the aftermath of the first war.
“Worry not,” he said softly, mind shifting to the present. “I would not do anything to endanger my own efforts.”
Dumbledore nodded, accepting this. There was a short silence between them. Severus tuned in briefly to the main discussion.
“...an Order safehouse prepared with medical care on immediate hand.”
“Why aren’t we just bringing him here?”
“We could do, Sirius, but it doesn’t change the fact that some of our fighters and very likely Harry himself will need immediate medical attention…”
“Who?” Dumbledore asked him calmly, drawing his attention back to their conversation.
Severus paused for a moment as if considering even though a part of him had already decided. “Macnair, I think.”
His mentor nodded.
A shout came from the table. “I would lay down my life!”
“I see the mutt is handling things maturely,” Severus mused quietly. Dumbledore gave him a look of gentle reproach. The expression shifted to something more melancholic as he looked at the larger group.
“We all may only do what we are able to, as much as it may pain us,” he said, and in that moment, Severus thought his eyes looked older than ever.
IV. Tactical Dispositions
“To secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself.”
Sun Tzu, The Art of War
It was hard to keep track of time in his cell. He thought it hadn’t been more than a day, but he’d only been given two meals at erratic and random times and had nothing else to judge off of. They probably wanted to mess with his internal clock or something.
Just for something to do, Harry inventoried his injuries. His ankle was badly broken but had been magically wrapped and splinted so that he could walk. One of the ribs on his lower left side hurt every time he moved; he thought it might be broken as well. They had definitely sprained his left shoulder and he couldn’t lift his elbow to anything higher than an eighty degree angle. His wrists were raw from being tied to Voldemort’s throne. One eye was swollen shut. Of course, there was also the thin cut on his neck after the solo confrontation from (the morning?) earlier. Beyond that, nothing else went further than scrapes and bruises. Overall, not pleasant, but much better than he would have expected. That he wasn’t yet comatose or dead surprised him.
Was he ever going to get out of here alive? He had no wand, no portkey, no way to call for help, and a bum ankle. The Order would probably try to help, but in the past, it had always been up to Harry to save himself.
The door groaned, then swung open. He looked up and knew immediately that this was going to be a more serious encounter. Voldemort had sent three Death Eaters to retrieve him rather than the one. He wanted to give a show this time.
“Whole honour guard, huh?” he asked. Apparently one of the men had a nasty temper: he struck out at Harry and hit him in the mouth. A split from the first night that had closed over reopened. Warm wetness trickled down his chin as they pulled him from the cell and marched him down the hall.
He noticed that they took a different route this time, but beyond that, he was lost. He had no idea where they even were. Was it one of the Death Eaters’ manors? A different safe house? Were they even in the UK? He had no way of knowing, and based on his smarting lip, the thugs with him weren’t the talkative sort.
They stopped before a grand set of double doors. Two of the Death Eaters each grabbed an arm as the third threw the doors open.
As Harry was marched into the room like a prized prisoner of war (and that was what he was, he supposed), he held his head high and assessed it quickly.
It had to be a meeting of some sort. A long, thin table stretched seemingly forever on from one end of the rectangular room to the next. Along both of its lengths sat face after masked face. Regally posed at the far end was Voldemort himself. The dark parody of Order meetings, where Dumbledore stood importantly at one end while the members sat at the table and laughed together, struck him.
“Did I come at a bad time?” he asked. His voice sounded thick from his swelling lip.
“You will not speak until you are addressed!” one Death Eater near Voldemort shrieked. From the voice and hair, he didn’t need to see her face to know it was Bellatrix. Voldemort held up a hand and she instantly subsided. Harry swallowed his nerves and stared back at his gaze.
There was something different in the way the dark wizard looked at him this time. Where before he had been self-satisfied and arrogant, there was a new wariness in his eyes now. Harry knew they were both thinking of the somehow evenly-matched encounter in his mind from before.
“Harry Potter,” he said sibilantly, rising to his feet and spreading his arms wide. “Thank you for joining us.”
Chuckles rippled up and down the table. Quiet, controlled things, as if the Death Eaters were afraid that anything which made them stand out would get them punished. Harry found himself pitying them.
“You have seen us celebrate, but now, you will have the privilege of watching us work. In fact, you will help us.”
“Never,” Harry spat, automatically, instinctively. The mood instantly darkened. Everyone looked at Voldemort as if expecting him to torture Harry on the spot. Harry expected to be tortured on the spot.
But Voldemort only smiled. “Perhaps you should wait until you have heard my proposal before turning it down.”
It was with great effort that he did not say the sarcastic answer that jumped to his lips. Instead he remained silent.
Voldemort took that as agreement. He stood at his place, towering above the rest of his followers. Standing at the far end, Harry was the only one not forced to tilt his chin up to keep the man’s face in sight.
“Everyone serves a purpose in Lord Voldemort’s world. Even—especially—traitors. Is that not right, Lucius?”
A blond head sitting a few places down from the head of the table jerked. “M-my Lord?”
Voldemort smiled at him, but the look in his eyes was nothing short of cold fury. “Your son, my slippery friend. Even his betrayal has served a purpose in my plans.”
The person beside him reached out a hand and clutched Lucius Malfoy tightly by the arm. Harry noticed they did not wear a skull mask but had pulled up a hood and used an obfuscation spell to hide their face. He wondered if it was his wife.
“My son is nothing but loyal to you, my Lord,” Lucius began.
A large-looking man closer to Harry’s end of the table pointed a finger at him. Speaking derisively, he said, “Either you're lying or don't know your sprog as well as you thought. Which is it, Lucy?”
Lucius turned to him with hackles raised, but Voldemort cut off the argument before it could start. “Yaxley, restrain yourself.” He then looked to Harry again. “Did you know that Draco seems more interested in allying himself with your side than mine, Harry?”
Harry did not know how to respond to this, so he said nothing.
“It seems to be true. Your presence here confirms it. Poor Draco, he had been so very useful. It is a shame he must die.”
Lucius Malfoy physically reacted. His wife (if that was who it was) held him back. Voldemort noticed and stared him down with snake-like precision. “Something to say?”
Lucius struggled for a moment, then bowed his head submissively. “No, my Lord,” he murmured.
Coward. Harry glared at him with disgust.
“I feel as you do, Harry,” Voldemort sighed as though they commiserated in disappointment. Harry scowled at him. “He should have brought the child up better. Braver, to be able to follow through with his commitments. He had such promise, you know. At my order, he placed a tracking spell on your glasses some time ago. Wrote his father that it was laughably easy to do during a scuffle the two of you were involved in. He connected the spell to an anchor that he gave to Lucius.
“When he returned to the fold during the recent Hogwarts break, he was so eager to kneel at my feet. Something must have changed during those two weeks, however. I had sensed a hesitancy in him to commit… I asked you about it, did I not, Lucius? You assured me that he was ready to serve.
“Imagine what I must have thought when Corban Yaxley, punished for his indiscretion with the Ministry worker and Severus to serve guard duty in the dungeons, overheard Draco sneaking down to tell one of my prisoners that he was going to save her.”
“It is a lie, my Lord, to supplant me in your—”
“Crucio!”
The woman that Harry was now sure must be Narcissa Malfoy stiffened as her husband writhed on the ground. When Voldemort’s curse ended, she silently helped him back into his chair. Harry had the odd thought that, if Draco really had switched sides like Voldemort said, that courage must have been inherited from his mother rather than his father.
“It was the truth, as you will soon see. For a time, I considered killing Draco for his betrayal. He lives now because his plan could serve me. Sybil Trelawney was no longer of use to us. Our efforts to force the seer ability to manifest had broken her.” Here he glanced sidelong at Bellatrix. She giggled and clamped a hand over her mouth. Voldemort sighed and turned back to the group at large. “I allowed Draco to sneak her out, but I did not do so without giving her a little parting gift.” Now his gaze narrowed in on Harry. “How did you find the compulsion I put on her to tell you to ask Severus about the prophecy?”
Harry’s mouth went very dry. He glanced nervously around at the Death Eaters, many of whom were staring at him. The way the masks obscured their expressions made it somehow worse than better. Gathering himself, he said, “Random.”
“Anything but,” Voldemort snapped, eyes flashing. “I wanted to make you emotional enough to flee, to drive you from the castle's safety. And look where you now stand.” He raised his arms. The Death Eaters laughed once more.
“My patience and restraint was rewarded when Lucius reported that the tracking spell had activated after lying dormant for so long.” The necklace. He’d taken it off. “I take it you know of the prophecy?”
“I know as much as you do,” Harry argued. He was getting the feeling that he was about to find out why he'd been brought there.
Voldemort’s eyes sharpened with interest. “Severus told you, did he?”
“I wasn't taking no for an answer.” Harry gritted his teeth, forcing himself to recall Professor Snape, the cruel and impersonal man that he was trying to convince Voldemort was the only one he knew. It was hard to not remember Village Snape, the man that a younger part of Harry desperately wished was there. He could tell that Voldemort wanted to press him more on the subject of Snape. Instead, he returned to his earlier point.
“Would you like to find out the rest?”
Harry hated that he did.
“I have a task for you, and I think you will find it in your best interests to accept.” The hands of the Death Eaters still holding onto his arms tightened as if in reminder of who had all the power here. “What do you know of the Department of Mysteries?”
V. Energy
“In all fighting, the direct method may be used for joining battle, but indirect methods will be needed in order to secure victory. Indirect tactics, efficiently applied, are inexhaustible as Heaven and Earth…”
Sun Tzu, The Art of War
It was unfortunate that Harry’s ankle was hard to walk on because he badly wanted to pace in his cell. Just by feeling around with his arms, he was fairly sure that it wouldn’t have been too many steps back and forth, but a niggling feeling in his gut made him think better of putting too much strain on a joint that hadn’t actually been healed. It was bad enough that he had to use the Death Eaters’ help to get around now. If he went and truly messed it up, he’d never be able to walk through the Department of Mysteries.
If he agreed to do it.
When he agreed to do it.
The biggest reason he didn’t want to was the automatic flush of anger that crept up his face when he thought of giving in to any request of Voldemort’s. He had a lot of time to think in here, however, and think he would. More than just his life was on the line. If the whole prophecy at the heart of the debate was true, it might be his job to destroy Voldemort and save the rest of the world. No pressure or anything.
That was just it, wasn’t it? He wasn’t sure if it was. The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches… born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies… and that was all he knew. The answers lay in the Hall of Prophecies.
He didn’t want Voldemort to know the rest. Anything the Dark Wizard wanted that badly was probably something he shouldn’t get. Who knew what the rest said.
If Harry had been captured and brought here for the purpose of getting it for him, it meant Voldemort couldn’t get it himself. If Harry refused to cooperate, that would be the end of it.
Or would it? Voldemort might not be able to get it now, but as he’d so gleefully told Harry before, his influence in and control over the Ministry was growing. Someday he may very well be able to just walk right in and take it for himself.
A vague idea was starting to form in Harry’s head. Perhaps, if he curbed his impulses and used strategy like Snape had been trying to teach him to do all year, he could both survive this and still keep the prophecy out of Voldemort’s hands. He had to be involved in its retrieval if he wanted a chance at doing so, however.
The Order… Snape… had to be looking for him. He’d be hard to get to here, surrounded by Death Eaters and in the middle of Voldemort’s lair. In the Ministry, however, there’d be fewer people guarding him, and if he had the prophecy in hand, he’d have leverage as well. Maybe he could find a way to read it and it would have information on how he was meant to “vanquish” Voldemort. He might even be able to permanently destroy it before Voldemort had a chance to see it.
Basically, Voldemort was probably going to get the prophecy with or without Harry. Harry was probably going to die if he went to the Ministry or not. The only way he could stop one—or both—things from happening was if he agreed to go and kept his wits about him.
He had to focus his energies on what was going to get him out of here. Even just contemplating a plan was helping push down the rising panic that was always crawling up the back of his throat around here. He needed a strategy.
First: he had to survive his captivity long enough to make it to the Ministry. His split lip was a reminder that every time he got a little too quippy, his body ended up a little more hurt. He might have to run or something if an escape became available. It was in his best interests to shut up and stay in the best condition he could.
Second: he had to make his move sometime between getting the prophecy and giving it to Voldemort. Whether that was learning the rest and using that information to somehow fight Voldemort or destroying it so that his own death was not a waste, that was the time to act. He had to wait until then.
Third: he had to believe in Snape. If anyone was going to get him out, it was him. (Professor Snape betrayed his parents!) (no, village Snape did and was sorry, wasn’t he?) (Professor Snape was a Death Eater, he won’t help.) (Village Snape cared about his mother!) (Professor Snape didn’t care about him…) No! He’d figure that out later!
Voldemort had been very curious during both of their recent interactions about what Snape was doing. Harry realised that he didn’t know what the spy had been up to since his defection, and that made him nervous. Very nervous.
Thinking about Snape was making his headache come back.
Stay alive and stay in the open as much as possible. Stay visible, stay available. Do everything he could to make it easier for Snape, or Sirius, or anyone from the Order to rescue him. As much as he wanted his death to be a noble one, he wanted to live too.
Okay. Survive until the Ministry. Act after he got the prophecy. Trust in Snape and the Order.
He could do that.
Raucous, cruel laughter came from the hallway outside. Harry drew his knees up and wrapped his good arm around them. That panic was starting to return. Could he really just wait?
Desperate to escape and knowing there was no way to do so physically, he closed his eyes and retreated into his mind maze to try escaping another way. He didn’t consciously decide which grouping of pleasant memories to look for. He just entered the secret room and sighed as the remembered feeling of security washed over him.
Inside the memory that came up first, Snape turned from the stove with breakfast ready as another version of himself entered from a bagpipe lesson. “You’re back.”
“Yeah,” Harry whispered, settling down in a corner to watch as the other version of himself started chattering about the mad piper again. “I’m back.”
VI. Weak Points and Strong
“Though the enemy be stronger in numbers, we may prevent him from fighting. Scheme so as to discover his plans and the likelihood of their success. Rouse him, and learn the principle of his activity or inactivity. Force him to reveal himself, so as to find out his vulnerable spots.”
Sun Tzu, The Art of War
With his plan finalised and more details agreed upon by the Order for the group’s greater general strategy, Severus had to return to his quarters one last time to grab a couple of last-minute items and leave out notes detailing where his potions classes had left off in their curriculum for the substitute. He would not have considered (much less bothered) doing this if it were not for the look Dumbledore gave him after asking him to do so.
As he passed from his storeroom to the main area of his quarters, Severus’ eye caught on a small stack of parchments on his kitchen table. It was his daily mail, which he had not been here to collect at breakfast. The wards or elves must have routed it here instead.
He impatiently picked it up and flipped through it: a potions journal, a letter from one of his Slytherins’ parents complaining about the child’s grades, a note from a former student asking for a recommendation to give a potential employer. He dismissed them all as unimportant until the final scroll caught his eye.
He unfurled the parchment and scanned it over quickly before falling heavily into a chair.
Dear Harry Potter and Parent(s)/Guardian(s) Relevant:
This note is a reminder that your appointment with our vision healer is set for tomorrow, April—, at 1:00 in the afternoon. As this will be your first visit to our office, please remember to bring any past medical history in addition to any glasses or contacts currently in use by the patient.
Thank you!
Clear Sights Medical Group
Severus stared down at the paper for a long time. He only came back to himself when he noticed the parchment was crinkling at the edges; he was holding it in a clutched fist. Shakily, he laid the notice out on the table and tried to smooth it back with trembling fingers.
His door swung open. He didn’t glance up at the newcomer but knew who it was.
“Minerva.”
“Severus, I’ve come to get your final notes and instructions for Horace.”
A distant part of his brain noted that his old teacher would be working with his students. He couldn’t find it in himself to care beyond that. “I left them there.” He gestured with his chin to the other side of the kitchen table.
She stepped closer. Through his peripherals, he saw her pick them up and tap them on the table to even the edges. She did it a few more times than was strictly necessary then cleared her throat.
“Are you alright?”
How was he even supposed to answer that? To articulate the drowning feeling that came with knowing someone he… cared about was hurting and suffering and completely out of his reach? To explain that at times, he and the world seemed to be moving at an unbearably slow pace that was like trudging through molasses, and that at others, his heart would start beating rapidly as everything oversaturated with colour and each second flew past?
He didn’t know, so all he said was, “Yes.”
Minerva paused, then sat down in the chair across from him (and it was wrong, that was Harry’s chair, no one else had ever sat at his table until he came into Severus’ life). “We will find him.”
“I worry that it will be too late.”
Minerva looked at him appraisingly. “It’s only natural for a parent to worry.”
“Why does everyone keep saying that word?” he groused. She appeared unimpressed. “I have no time for these thoughts.” He stood. “What must be done now is a matter of the mind, not the heart.”
“Why must it be one or the other?” She mirrored him, rising to her feet. Her face held all the sadness he could not allow his own to show. “You think that your emotions are a weakness, that they hinder you from achieving your goals. In truth, they are a strength.” She stepped around the table and grasped his upper arms like the teacher she had once been to him. “It is what makes you human.”
He stared back at her stoically. It was all very well for her to talk about how natural his emotions were, but if he stopped long enough to think about the way he was constantly near drowning, the water would finally close over his head. All he could do was keep treading water until Harry was saved or his legs gave out. He wouldn’t give up until then.
He gently pulled himself out of her grip. “I am sure you have work to do.”
She stepped back, giving up. “Alright, Severus. I’ll leave you to it.” Once she had swept up his hasty notes, she mercifully left.
He headed for his office. There were some notes of a different nature that he’d collected over time stashed away in a hidden drawer of his desk.
Just as he had stuffed a satchel with all remotely relevant notes and papers, there was a knock at the door. He stood irritatedly, wondering if it was Minerva come back to make him talk about his feelings again. He jerked it open and was surprised to see a different face staring up at him. A young, aristocratic face.
“Er, Professor?” Draco Malfoy was more pale than normal. “I— I don’t know what else to do.”
VII. Maneuvering
“Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.”
Sun Tzu, The Art of War
All noise in the room ceased when Severus entered with Draco in tow. He got several questioning looks from senior Order members while others, especially the few teenage occupants of the house, glared at the blond. It seemed almost everyone was here, as most of the Order had taken to hanging around the place when not busy with something else more important.
“Is that the Malfoy boy? What’s he doing here, Severus?” Moody asked, thumping his pegleg.
“I thought it time Draco become acquainted with the members of his new allegiance.”
“What?!” several people roared.
“You expect us to believe that slimy git is on our side?” the youngest Weasley boy shouted belligerently. His mother glared at him reprovingly for his disrespectful tone towards a professor, but Severus noticed that she did not seem to disagree with the base sentiment.
“Yes,” he clipped back at the red-faced teen.
“And he’s… what, had a change of heart?” Tonks asked dubiously. As the daughter of Narcissa Malfoy’s disgraced sister, she no doubt had more details than even Severus did on the intricacies of the family.
“Perhaps we should hear what Draco has to say,” Lupin cut in. Severus resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the wolf’s empathy. Surely he remembered Draco from teaching him for a year during his worst teenage phase. Although, now that he thought of it, all of Draco’s teenage phases had been the “worst” one.
“I am on your side,” Draco said after a long pause. He was trying to appear composed and dispassionate, but Severus could easily see through the act to the anxious and uncertain boy below.
“And why is that?” Lupin asked quietly.
“The Dark Lord and his followers are a rather violent sort. I find blood and gore terribly irritating to get out of robes.”
Severus closed his eyes so he would not have to see the horrified looks Draco was no doubt receiving for that line. Dumbledore’s Order was, on a whole, a rather straight-laced group. He didn’t think they would take well to the flippant sarcasm. (They had never appreciated Severus’, anyway.) Such a blasé attitude from a person they no doubt felt owed them some sort of apology for previous behaviour was unlikely to be taken well.
To his surprise, the first audible response to Draco’s joke was a bout of barking, wry laughter. Severus’ eyes snapped open and he saw that it was Black. The man stood from his seat at the table and swaggered over.
“Alright, kid. That sort of irreverence is the first step. What else have you got for us?”
“I beg your pardon?” Draco blurted.
“Taking the leap, forging your path! Switching sides! Teenage rebellion! Whatever you wanna call it. You’ve decided to make a stand. Okay, it’s a start. That’s the hard part, you know. Making a choice. Now that you have, what’s next?”
“We haven’t got any proof that he’s serious,” Granger protested, then shrunk back when multiple of the adults turned to her.
Seeing that Draco had no intention of sharing what he’d told him earlier, Severus sighed and drew the attention back to himself. “Mister Malfoy was the one who rescued Sybil Trelawney from the Dark Lord’s imprisonment. He had meant to do so in secret and take the rest of the term to consider his next move, but her public escape and the mention of his name during the process forced him to make a choice. Wisely, he chose the side he had not just betrayed.”
“So he hasn’t really changed,” Ginny Weasley said. For some reason—Severus would never comprehend these people—that seemed to ease many of their minds. Perhaps it was easier for them to believe that a teenage boy was disturbed at witnessing overt violence against his teacher than that he had experienced a complete paradigm shift. Since this was not an inaccurate assessment, he supposed there was sense to it.
The adults all looked at one another. Finally, Arthur Weasley said, “We’re not the kind to turn anyone away. More so if they need protection.”
“Does this mean I have to like him now?” his youngest son sighed dramatically.
“Not on your life,” Draco parried, but there was a tiny smirk of relief on his face as if he sensed that his place in safety was less tenuous than he’d feared.
“Someone should… be his guide around the place,” Kingsley suggested delicately.
“You mean keep an eye on ‘im til we can trust him,” Moody nodded.
“Sirius should do it. He’s here all the time,” Bill said, flashing Black a wink.
“I’m willing.”
Draco sniffed. “I don’t need a babysitter. Especially not a blood traitor.”
A few people winced. Several more scowled. Unexpectedly, Sirius grinned at him. “I’m a blood traitor, huh? Well, tell me, cousin—” he leaned down towards him so their faces were inches apart— “what does that make you?”
Seeing his godson entrusted to the care and close company of Sirius Black for the foreseeable future should have alarmed Severus. Instead, as he watched Black raise an amused eyebrow and some odd emotion flash across Draco’s face, he had the thought that the boy was going to be alright. Maybe, for the first time in his life, Draco was going to be alright.
Fortunately, no one was in the hallway when Severus dragged in Macnair’s limp corpse. He took it up the stairs to the room he had commandeered and transformed into a lab. There was a chair he had set in the corner; he tossed the body into it and put a scent blocking charm on it as an afterthought.
Then, he got to work.
There was a potion. A dark potion. So dark, the Ministry had banned it centuries ago. The kind of dark that had fascinated a young, angry Severus. The urge to be legally allowed to brew such potions had been yet another one of the multitude of slight reasons to join the Dark Lord’s cause at seventeen that, even combined with all of the other factors that led to his taking the Mark, would still never be an excuse for what he had done. He may be on the right side now, but Severus was no saint. If it would save Harry, he had no compulsions about using a potion like this. As he worked, he thought of what he had learned while interrogating and then legilimising Macnair.
So the Dark Lord wanted to send Harry to fetch the prophecy for him, did he? He remembered the look on Harry’s face (Harry’s bloodied, defiant, living face. How it had shocked and upset Severus to see. How it had comforted him) from Macnair’s memory of that meeting. He could tell, from that brief flash of curiosity and indecision, that Harry would ultimately agree. He might not want to help Voldemort, and Severus wouldn’t be surprised if he had plans of his own, but he would not reject the offer.
Good. That gave them an opening.
Plans and ideas swirled in his mind. He had learned passwords, locations, plans from Macnair. Even that Macnair had taken off work until after the prophecy was set to be retrieved. How perfect. Severus had not relished playing the boorish man’s part in work as well as service. The meeting following Harry’s departure from the room had laid out the Dark Lord’s strategy for retrieving the prophecy. Severus had told Dumbledore everything he knew the moment Macnair was dead. Even now, the man was likely brewing some sort of counter-strategy.
The potion, for all its complexity and detail, did not need a long time to sit. After a few hours, it was almost ready.
The final step required the addition of a significant amount of biomaterial. No single hair for an hour’s worth of polyjuice would be sufficient; the more that was added, the stronger and less detectable the enchantment was.
Severus’ eye fell to a knife upon the counter. It took little to make a decision. He grasped it firmly in one hand and used the other to pull a chunk of his own hair taut.
As he roughly sawed off his long black hair, he dropped handfuls of it down onto the countertop. His pace picked up; the rough treatment tugged on his scalp painfully. Piece by piece, chunk by chunk, it all fell away until there was nothing left for him to grasp. His neck felt cold.
He looked over the piled strands dispassionately, only caring to see if it was enough. He thought so.
When they were added to the potion, it changed colour and settled quickly to its final state. Satisfied, he turned to Macnair’s corpse.
A spell transfigured the chair into a trough-like container. He took several strands of Macnair’s own hair for polyjuice and dumped the potion he’d brewed unceremoniously into the trough.
Once Macnair’s body was fully immersed, he left for a cup of tea.
On his way down to the kitchen, he passed a hallway mirror. His eye flicked to it, drawn by the motion of his own reflection, and he stopped abruptly.
His hair was short, choppy, and no longer than two inches in any given spot. Most of it was less than that. He ran a hand over his scalp, feeling the shorter hair as a foreign texture. He had worn his hair long his entire life, not out of any vanity or pureblood tradition, but simply because it was what he had always done.
The handmade, careless job made him look rather insane, he thought. Beyond that, the shadows below his eyes were deep and the expression of it all was haggard. The thing he recognised most about himself was the bright gleam in his eyes. It had been there at times during the first war, on the days when he didn’t get enough sleep and crazier impulses tried to take over.
Voices drifted up from the kitchen. He changed his mind about the tea.
By the time he returned to the lab, the potion had done its work. Severus stared critically down into the tub. It appeared to be a good job; the body looked more like himself than his own reflection now did.
He spelled the potion away and dumped what had once been Macnair onto the floor. The height, proportions, face: all appeared accurate. Severus supposed he ought to be unnerved at what was essentially his own dead body, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. It would serve its purpose. That was enough.
He changed the clothes so that they fit with his own normal apparel and prepared several vials of pre-made polyjuice with the hairs he had taken from Macnair.
Once that was complete, he cleaned up the lab and dusted his hands off. There was one final test to ensure the body double would pass muster. It would also be a bit of fun.
He listened for a moment when the kitchen would be empty. When it finally was, he quickly brought the body downstairs and left it on the floor in direct view of the door. Then he hid himself in the cupboard to observe.
The first person to enter was, of course, Sirius Black. He had a coffee mug in one hand and a newspaper tucked under one arm. He was trailed by Draco, to whom he was telling some inane childhood tale.
“...so Reg was all, ‘But Mother, that’s horrendous,’ but obviously she didn’t care. I thought he looked funny as shit in them, and wanted him to have to wear them all season, but I owed him for not telling her about the—” he cut off when he clearly caught sight of the body. He stared down at it expressionlessly before nudging it with a foot. “Snape?”
When he didn’t get a response, he shrugged. “Shame.” Then he sat down at the table with his coffee.
VIII. Variations in Tactics
“The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy’s not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him; not on the chance of his not attacking, but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable.”
Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Severus was still glaring at Black across the table when Dumbledore called the meeting to order. Draco and the other children were ushered out of the room by Molly Weasley. The boy kept looking at him over his shoulder, still seeming shell-shocked from what he’d thought was the sight of his dead professor.
“We will have an opportunity to rescue Harry in two days. Information has become available regarding Lord Voldemort's plans for him. Fortunately for us, they involve removing him from isolation and using him to retrieve the prophecy we have been guarding for so long. Knowing this, we can stage a rescue.”
The energy around the room increased, sharpened. They spoke for some time about logistics and details, assigning groups and outlining back-up routes in case something went wrong.
In short, they made a plan.
As far as Order plans went, it was rather sophisticated and complex. Usually, the group was more of a hit-’em-hard and hope-it-works sort. Dumbledore had a heavy hand in the process, however, and for all his Gryffindor pride, the Headmaster had a cunning streak that Severus was intimately familiar with. He had assisted it on many occasions.
There were multiple different facets to the plan, variations in their tactics made in the hopes of thwarting whatever attack the Dark Lord may have planned for by having other types to take a fallen group’s place. The possibility that any one of them may not return did not need to be explicitly stated; it was well understood.
The strongest and most obvious part of the plan was also the largest. Openly, a solid task force made of their best offensive fighters would be sent in to head off the small group of Death Eaters assigned to “escort” Harry back and forth from the Department of Mysteries before they could leave that part of the building. They would enter the Atrium via floo once Harry was already there. When the Death Eaters turned to go back the way they had come, they would be confronted with a solid wall comprised of this main force.
The second facet was this: during the workday, several small pairs of people would trickle into the Ministry and hide until after hours at pre-assigned stations along the route to the atrium, where they would remain in case the battle crept backwards out of the Department of Mysteries. They would be able to support the main group if help were needed. Otherwise, they were supposed to remain tucked away.
The final backup was Severus himself. Disguised as Macnair, he would slip into the Death Eaters’ ranks and remain as close to Harry as he could. Macnair was not a part of Harry’s initial escort, but he was one of the followers on call should they get into trouble. As the Order was rather intending to put them through a bit of trouble, it was very likely that Severus would be called to the event. Should the main Order task force and the group of backup fighters both fail, Severus was to use the pendant portkey to spirit Harry away to Headquarters. The portkey would be needed; the Order had to create an anti-apparition barrier to prevent the Death Eaters from merely slipping through their fingers with Harry. That had to be prevented at all costs. Once Harry was back at the Dark Lord’s fortress, it would be nigh-impossible to get him back out again. Bill Weasley and Emmeline Vance, one of the pairs sent in during the day, would set it up after Harry was brought into the Ministry. A small part of Severus wondered why Albus would not be joining them, but he knew that if the man made an appearance at the Ministry, Fudge’s paranoia could twist the whole situation and ruin their tenuous political situation. The last thing they needed was for a rescue attempt to turn into a criminal trial.
When the plan had at last been hammered out to the last excruciating detail, Severus slipped out of the room without a bother of goodbye to anyone. He had no strong sentimental ties to most people in the Order and knew they didn’t care much for him either. A few murmured goodbyes to him; they knew where and to whom he was going. Black looked as though he wanted to make a snide comment, but after catching sight of Severus’ expression, he subsided with an oddly pensive air.
Upon leaving the kitchen, he caught sight of the house’s resident teenagers sitting on the stairs. Draco, the youngest Weasleys, and Granger all watched him with wide eyes. He noticed their gazes flicking up to his hair more than once. With a sneer in their direction, he unstoppered his first vial of polyjuice and downed it in one go. As his body changed form, he flicked his wand at the corpse in the corner and stalked out of the house. His back burned with their curious and anxious stares as he walked away from safety and towards danger… and Harry. He apparated to an unimportant location and set to work.
By the time he had staged the scene and called for Nott’s current house elf (Macnair had always been more closely tied with the secondary set of the Dark Lord’s inner circle’s politics than Lucius’ carefully curated group) to bring its master, Severus had several new injuries and bloodied clothes to accompany them. In all, it looked as though he as Macnair had just won a fight to the death.
A pop in the street behind him made him turn partially.
“Walden? What has happened, man? You look like a wreck.”
“The other guy’s worse,” Severus said, laughing in a good imitation of Macnair’s snigger. He kicked the body at his feet. Nott’s eyes fell to it and widened; Severus allowed himself that brief moment of an ironic smile. “Trust me.”
IX. The Army on the March
“When there is much running about and the soldiers fall into rank, it means that the critical moment has come.”
Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Harry next woke when he felt a snapping in his ankle. He jerked upright with a cry, reaching protectively for it. A hand batted him away and he realised that a Death Eater was healing the injured joint. Resisting the base urge to… well, to resist, he allowed the man to finish his work. When he had, the healer stood and walked out without a word. He was quickly replaced by two of his fellows, each of whom grabbed an arm and hauled him upright. His shoulder did not hurt at the movement; they must have done something for that too.
“Is it time?” he asked them despite not expecting an answer. Unsurprisingly, neither responded as they took him to the same throne room as he had been in on his first night there.
When the grand doors swung open, he saw a moderately sized gathering of Death Eaters on either side of an empty stretch of room leading straight to Voldemort himself. Everyone there wore their full robes, masks only excepted, and the sight of them made Harry’s body instinctively tense. All of the plans and little ideas he’d been cooking up in his cell suddenly became real.
Voldemort stood and spread his arms extensively. “And now, the final member of our group. Tell me, Harry: are you prepared to hand me the prophecy?”
A thousand clever comments came to mind, many which were related to how tired he was growing of grand dramatics, but there was a certain gleam in Voldemort’s eyes that set off alarms in his head. He could only nod as dread crept over him.
“You will be accompanied by five of my own. Lucius, is your team prepared?”
“Yes, my lord.” Lucius Malfoy stepped forward and bowed deeply. He held the position for several long moments (still grovelling after his recent fall in grace, Harry saw,) before straightening and beckoning his head at the men around him. Dolohov, one of the Lestrange brothers, Yaxley, and Jugson encircled the two of them.
“You know what you are to do?” Voldemort asked.
Harry nodded. When that didn’t seem to be good enough, he reluctantly added, “Go to the Department of Mysteries, get the prophecy, come back here. I give it to you and then you kill me.”
A chuckle rippled through the watchers. Voldemort tilted his head slightly in amusement. “As long as we understand one another.”
There was no way Voldemort actually thought Harry didn’t have some sort of plan or wouldn’t try to escape. Maybe he had enough confidence in his own plan that he didn’t think Harry had a chance. With his obsession of extending his life, there was no way Voldemort could anticipate Harry’s willingness to sacrifice himself to keep his enemy from getting the prophecy.
Lucius grabbed one of Harry’s arms in a painfully tight grip. He kept his wince in and his focus on Voldemort. More was coming; he could tell.
“You will apparate into the Atrium. All of my followers who remain here do so for the purpose of joining you as support should the Order arrive.”
“You, er, think the Order might show up?” Harry asked hesitatingly, as if that could actually convince Voldemort that he wasn’t desperately depending on it.
Voldemort leaned forward, a slight smile on his lips. “Oh, I expect them to.” He waved a hand to Lucius, who nodded and gestured for the rest of their group to get in place.
“One last thing before you leave.” Voldemort’s smile widened as he looked Harry directly in the face. “You should know that Severus Snape’s dead body was brought here an hour ago and burned.”
Harry’s mouth opened in a wordless cry of horror as Lucius Malfoy apparated the both of them away.
X. Terrain
“...if the enemy is unprepared, you may sally forth and defeat him. But if the enemy is prepared for your coming, and you fail to defeat him, then, return being impossible, disaster will ensue.”
Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Severus’ heart constricted at the sight of Harry’s distraught face. When the boy had first been brought into the chamber, his immediate instinct had been to run forward and grab him with portkey in hand. The manor had protections against unauthorized portkeys, however, and there was a plan he had to stick to. Several Order members’ lives depended on him playing his part correctly, Harry’s most of all. He bided his time instead. The Dark Lord’s parting comment had been a low blow but not out of range for the wizard’s usual mind games. Severus regretted that it had needed to occur but the subterfuge was necessary. As long as the Dark Lord thought he was alive, he would be expecting Severus to make some sort of move. The Order had needed to make him lower his guard so there would be no unexpected changes to the plan.
How hard it was to stand there and act as if he were merely Walden Macnair, a man with interest in violence and little else, and not himself. Severus Snape, a begrudging caretaker turned father, standing feet from his hurting son and unable to reach out for him. The only thing that made it bearable was knowing that he would be able to do so soon enough. Whether the Order’s first two plans worked or he had to save Harry himself, Severus would hold him before the night was over. Hold him and tell him he was sorry.
The Dark Lord stood and turned to Rookwood. “You had your contact at the Floo Network Authority close all access to the Ministry at the end of the workday?”
What?
“Yes, my lord.”
Severus’ mind halted, then began whirling. The Order plan was to put up anti-apparition wards once Harry was in the building, the main task force to be sent in through the fireplaces in the atrium ten minutes after. With the floo closed and apparition impossible, they would have to go in by foot through the visitor’s entrance, which would take twice as long. The limited backup already stationed at the Ministry would have trouble taking down five of the Dark Lord’s best Death Eaters without taking critical losses and risking Harry getting caught in the crossfire. They would also be expecting help to arrive and not preparing to wage an assault with far less favourable odds.
“Excellent.” He paced down the centre aisle towards them. “Macnair, a word.”
“My lord.”
Heart hammering in his chest, Severus followed the Dark Lord out of the room and into the man’s personal office.
“Sit.”
Severus sprawled as Macnair would have, watching as the Dark Lord rounded the desk and sat in his own chair. He took his bone white wand from his pocket and began twirling it idly through his fingers.
“I have always admired your brute force. You are not a man to bandy with tricks and skills.” It seemed to be a compliment on the surface, but Severus knew it was a backhanded one. Lack of subtlety was not a trait the man before him valued. Macnair would have preened, though, so Severus did.
“I know all of my followers anticipate watching me destroy Harry Potter. After all, it is what we have worked hard for these past years, is it not?”
“Yes, my lord.” There was a clock ticking on the desk near the Dark Lord’s elbow. Severus glanced at it and internally blanched; it was almost time for his next dose of polyjuice.
“Waiting for something, Walden?”
“No, my lord, I—”
“Incarcerous!”
Severus jumped to respond in time, but Macnair’s body was larger and far slower than his own. The spell caught him and bound him to the chair faster than he could cast a spell with his drawn wand. The Dark Lord tsked and plucked it from his grasp.
“My, my, Severus. How desperate you have grown.” He laid his wand delicately against Severus’ jugular. “Did you honestly think I would believe that Macnair could have bested you in a duel? Your lack of loyalty may be one of your flaws, but incompetence never was. Never had been. I am a little disappointed in you now. So easily caught.” He tucked Severus’ wand into an inner pocket. “Do not despair. Despite the fact that you are no longer one of my followers, I promise that I will still grant you the privilege of watching me kill Potter.”
Severus met his eyes desperately and saw nothing but crimson hatred and the end of his wand. “Stupefy.”
XI. The Nine Situations
“Ground on which we can only be saved from destruction by fighting without delay, is desperate ground… Forestall your opponent by seizing what he holds dear…”
Sun Tzu, The Art of War
“You know those are bad for you, right?”
“Yes, Nymphadora.” Remus sucked in another lungful of smoke from his cig and blew it out in a thin stream.
She kicked gently at his knee from where she sat on the desk in front of his chair. “Tonks, if you please.”
He moved his knee out of range and raised an eyebrow. “Dora.”
She leaned forward coyly. “Say my name like that again and I might take a taste of that smoke.” She glanced at his mouth. He felt his face heat and squawked.
“We’re on duty!”
“We have time and a whole office to ourselves.”
Remus glanced dubiously around the tiny cubical office they were hiding out in. There was nothing special about it except the fact that the door opened straight into the hallway that led into the Department of Mysteries and was, in fact, along Harry’s expected route to and fro. “I don’t think that was what they had in mind when they assigned us as one of the backup pairs.”
“You didn’t see Sirius’ eyebrow, then?”
He certainly had, but this wasn’t the time to admit it. He released another breath of smoke on a sigh. “I just hope we’re able to rescue Harry.”
She reached out to him again, this time to take his hand comfortingly in hers. “Yeah. Me too.”
“Do you have a manticore?”
“Go grindylow.”
“You know, that sounds so stupid. We just have one syllable. Go fish.”
“But there’s a bunch of fishy animals in this game. Sea serpents, merpe—”
“Merpeople are not fish, Ronald, that’s extremely offensive!”
“They can’t tell what you’re saying, Granger,” Draco drawled from where he lay across the couch in the sitting room of Grimmauld Place. “They won’t be offended. All sounds like noise to them.” He seemed to think draping himself across the furniture was a way to be disrespectful, but all of them already did it, so no one cared unless they were trying to sit down there.
Like Ginny. “Move your skinny legs, mate.”
“Where’d you come from?”
“Your mum’s house. Budge.”
He looked ready to ignore her, but there was a determination in her frame that said she’d grown up with six older brothers (all bigger than he was) and was more than capable of moving him herself. He begrudgingly shifted and she plopped down. “Actually, I was in the kitchen. I was trying to find out when they leave for the Ministry but they kicked me out. Madame Pomfrey’s in there, you know.”
They all grew quieter at that.
“I hope she’s not needed,” Ron said solemnly.
“Me too,” Hermione added. Draco didn’t say anything, but his face matched theirs.
“Do you think Harry’s okay?” Ginny asked.
“He’s strong. He’s got to be.” Ron tossed down his cards and set his chin in his hands.
A quiet sniffle came from Hermione’s corner of the room. She clamped a hand over her face and buried it in her lap; the others ignored it besides Ron placing his hand on the curve of her back.
“Professor Snape will save him,” Draco spoke up, surprising everyone (including himself).
“You really think that?” Ginny asked him.
“Yeah.” He sat up straighter and met her eyes. “I do.”
“Are we all ready to go through?” Kingsley asked. Sirius squared his shoulders and triple-checked that his wand was in its holster. He was eager to get out, fight, and find his godson. It had been a big debate in the Order if he should be allowed to go along or not, but in the end, it was decided that every fighter was needed and he was one of their best. Had been, at least. He’d tried to regain the skills he’d had before his imprisonment, but there was no real way to know how he’d perform in an actual fight until he got in one.
“Ay. Everybody remember their position?”
They all nodded.
“Stop stalling, let’s get the bastards!” Sirius barked a laugh. A few people chuckled.
“Don’t get your fur in a knot, Black. Right, I’m first.” He tossed a handful of floo powder into the fireplace. “The Ministry!” He stepped forward. Kingsley, the next to go, was already in place when the grate flared again and Moody fell backwards into him.
“What happened?”
“What’s wrong?”
“Did it not work?”
Sirius jumped forward to help Kingsley lift the old auror back up. The man waved them off and grunted in pain as he adjusted his bum leg.
“Floo’s blocked,” he said grimly.
Sirius’ stomach bottomed out. “No, it can’t be!” He reached for some floo powder to try for himself, but Arthur grabbed his wrist and lowered it with a shake of his head.
“It won’t do any good, Sirius.”
“Bill and Emmeline will have the apparition block up by now,” Kingsley reminded them. “It’ll have to be the visitor’s entrance then. Everyone know the apparition point?” When they nodded, he and Moody both turned on their heels and disappeared with a pop.
Sirius hastened to follow. A new urgency had filled his bones. He pictured Harry, alone and surrounded by Death Eaters, waiting for help that was now going to be late.
They couldn’t all fit into the telephone booth. Sirius squeezed in with the first group to go down, unwilling to wait any longer to get to his godson.
Hopefully the delay wouldn’t cost any of them their lives.
Bill shifted in place again. He and Emmeline had already finished setting up the anti-apparition barrier and were now tucked away into an alcove. They were the closest pair to the atrium. The hope was that they wouldn’t be needed.
“Did you see his face?” Emmeline whispered.
Bill nodded, not looking at her. The scene they’d witnessed several minutes ago still played over and over in his mind. Harry had been apparated in, held tightly beside Lucius Malfoy and surrounded front, back, and to either side with Death Eaters as though at the centre of a compass. When they’d first appeared, Harry had been crying out in anguish. The sound had made the hairs on the back of Bill’s neck stand up. Lucius Malfoy’s subsequent slap and admonishment to be quieter had raised both of the hidden-away Order members’ hackles. As soon as the group had disappeared down the hall, the two of them had gotten to work on the barrier.
“What do you think happened?”
Bill didn’t want to speculate about what they’d done to his younger brother’s best friend. He remembered the boy he’d met for the first time before the Quidditch World Cup, a small kid that seemed too thin to be carrying the weight of their entire world on his shoulders. “I don’t know. He looked a little beat up, but there didn’t seem to be any major injuries.”
“Yeah.”
They fell into silence for several moments. Bill battled with himself before giving in to the urge to check his watch once more.
“They’re late.”
“I know.” Emmeline chewed on her lip, glancing down at the time as well. “What happens if they don’t show?”
Bill thought of Harry’s shoulders, lifted in a strong line of defiance as he was walked off. “We fight.”
Minerva McGonagall was not a woman prone to grand displays of emotion. She rarely allowed herself to show the feeling brewing beneath the surface, reserving that vulnerability for the peers she felt most close with.
Within the privacy of her own office, however, she could not help herself from burying her face in her hands. She had watched too many of her Gryffindors die for this war, buried too many graduated students turned friends. If their plan failed tonight, she might very well need to say goodbye to one of her favourite fifth years. All she could think was that there were no parents for her to give condolences to.
Well, that was not entirely true anymore. She envisioned Severus, his hair cropped short and a dangerous gleam in his eyes.
What she would give to be there tonight to help! Albus had told her to stay behind and watch the school while he remained at headquarters, however, and she took her job as deputy headmistress very seriously. They could not leave Hogwarts entirely unprotected. Delores Umbridge was the next authority after Albus and herself, and there was no world in which Minerva would willingly give that hag control over the school and its students.
A clock chimed the hour. She glanced at it; the main task force ought to be in the Ministry by now.
She allowed herself one more moment of distress before composing herself and rising to fix a cup of tea.
John Dawlish paced down the hallway of the school with a scowl affixed to his face. He had allowed the Potter boy to leave the building, thinking that such an obvious break of curfew would strengthen his and the High Inquisitor’s position for his expulsion. Instead, the brat had completely disappeared. From all appearances, it looked as though his favourite teachers did not know where he was either. No matter what they told him, he knew Snape, Dumbledore, and even McGonagall were often off in search. Either that or they were hiding him. Either way, the Ministry was not able to get ahold of him. Now his supervisors were breathing down his neck and the paperwork had doubled.
What a terrible way to start the workweek.
Percy Weasley stood in the centre of his bare apartment, looking around uncertainly. If this were a normal night, he would have already collapsed into the single worn armchair to read a book and pretend he was enjoying the evening rather than simply feeling lonely. If this were a normal night, he wouldn’t be replaying the memory of that afternoon over and over in his head.
He hadn’t been meant to hear it. There seemed to be a lot of that going around these days: secrets and whispers and sly glances and things that most certainly were not Ministry protocol. Several times, he had seen people do things that were not being recorded or documented (strictly against policy, he might add) and felt… well, just a bit off. He had alluded to it in the most vague terms to one of his supervisors and been advised with a hand on his shoulder to “not let it trouble” him, that he would be “better off” if he simply looked the other way.
Even as a low-level worker in the Minister’s office, he still heard the rumors. Especially as a low-level worker. Hovering in his rooms now, he knew three things.
Harry Potter was missing.
Harry Potter was dangerous and Percy didn’t think his family should be associating with him.
Harry Potter did not deserve to die.
Percy had most definitely not been meant to hear about the “special favor” the head of the Floo Network Authority was paying Unspeakable Rookwood by shutting down floo access to the Ministry for the night. He also most definitely should not be interfering with whatever was about to go down.
With an aggravated sigh at himself, Percy re-donned his coat and didn't bother locking the door behind him on his way out.
Severus woke quickly, blinking his eyes to adjust to the firelight. An indistinct figure hovered in front of him. A few more blinks and he could make out the face.
“Narcissa?”
“Shh,” she murmured, bending to untie the unforgiving bonds that held him fast to the chair.
“What are you doing?” he asked softly, bringing his hands in front of his face and flexing his fingers experimentally when they were set loose. They burned as blood slowly returned to them. He saw that they were his own slim hands once more; the polyjuice must have worn off.
She did not answer right away. It was not until his torso and legs had been released, leaving him fully free once more, that she spoke again.
“He will kill Draco.”
Severus watched her leave the ropes on the floor, deliberately arranged as if he had wiggled out on his own. “Draco is safe. I made sure of that before I—”
She was already shaking her head. “Not if we win the war.”
He shook the feeling back into his legs and feet. “Everyone is at risk if he wins.”
Narcissa folded her delicate fingers together in some echo of a prayer. “I do not care about everyone, only my family.”
Oh, how Severus understood that statement. It was what had brought the two of them into this side at all: the inherent selfishness of putting your own needs and those of the people closest to you before those of the general good.
“The others have gone.”
Severus considered that. “How?”
“They apparated into the Ministry.”
The anti-apparition barrier was supposed to be up. If they had been able to get through, something had already gone terribly wrong.
“And the Dark Lord?”
“He went with them.”
They had not anticipated that. The Order was not ready to fight the Dark Lord himself. They would need Dumbledore, and he didn’t have his wand. “Narcissa, I need you to send a patronus.”
“To whom?”
“Albus Dumbledore. Tell him that the Dark Lord is at the Ministry.”
“And you? What are you going to do?”
Apparition was one of the few spells Severus could manage without a wand. He checked the pocket beside his heart to make sure… yes, the portkey was still there. That was all he needed.
“I am going to save Harry.”
Snape couldn’t be dead. Snape was a force in his life, a pillar that he’d been able to lean on more than once over the past several months.
Snape was dead.
“Move faster.”
He glared up at Lucius Malfoy. “How can you be so stoic? Weren’t you two friends? How can you not care at all?”
“He was no friend of mine. He would not have betrayed the Dark Lord if he had any sense; I do hate stupid people.”
“And what about Draco?”
Lucius’ jaw twitched. “He will earn our Lord’s favour back with future loyalty.”
Remembering Draco Malfoy through the fresh nuance that came with knowing he had betrayed Voldemort was partially distracting Harry from the gaping pit that had opened up inside of him. It was hard to think about much of anything now, including his plans to either escape or read and destroy the prophecy. Everything was fuzzy. Focusing on something else helped.
“Do you honestly think Voldemort will forgive Draco for betraying him? He doesn’t do that.” The other Death Eaters around them were silent. No one seemed to care about what they were saying, only about getting to the Department of Mysteries. He caught a glimpse of Lucius’ cane wand and remembered second year. “Well, I guess he did forgive you for getting his diary destroyed.”
Lucius shoved him towards a door. The group of them went through, revealing a long corridor that seemed vaguely familiar. “Forgiveness isn’t free,” he hissed in Harry’s ear.
An awful thought struck him then and he turned to the man with an incredulous look. “You promised him Draco, didn’t you? Back whenever he found out about that stupid book, you promised him Draco as a follower!” The pinched look on the aristocrat’s face told him all he needed to know. “Sweet Circe. You’re a shit father.”
“Everything I do is for Draco!” Lucius defended reflexively, then glanced around at the other Death Eaters. He probably knew that wouldn’t be taken favourably by Voldemort if it got back to him.
“No, it’s not,” Harry said with conviction. “It’s for yourself.” Lucius scowled, but Harry continued before he could say anything further. “Also, forgiveness is free. If you need to buy it, it’s not real forgiveness.”
Snape’s face came to mind then, accompanied by a sledgehammer of grief. He never had actually forgiven the man, had he? And now he was dead. He’d probably been killed thinking that Harry hated him, which wasn’t true at all, and now he would never have the chance to make it right.
His footsteps faltered; the will to walk seemed to have been sapped from his body. The Death Eater behind them—Dolohov, he thought—sent a vicious kick to his calf. He stumbled and kept going.
His mind partially left its haze when they came to a halt. He looked up and saw that they were in a dim cavern surrounded on every side by shelves bearing small glass spheres.
“The hall of prophecies,” Lestrange rasped.
XII. The Attack By Fire
“But a kingdom that has once been destroyed can never come again into being; nor can the dead ever be brought back to life.”
Sun Tzu, The Art of War
It didn’t take very long for them to find the right prophecy. The glass ball weighed light in Harry’s hand. He stood there, looking down at it blankly for a long moment. This was what his parents, Cedric, and now Snape had died for? This was what Harry would soon die for?
How insignificant a little thing, to cause so much pain.
“There’s no need to pray to it. Let’s get moving,” Jugson groused. As if it broke some sort of spell, the others shifted and turned to go back the way they had come. Lucius reached out as if to take the prophecy from him, but Harry quickly slipped it into his pocket. Their eyes met, Lucius clearly debating if it was worth fighting over it or better to just take Harry straight back.
“It seems breakable,” Harry mused. The man winced, and that was that.
The six of them left the hall of prophecies at a slightly faster pace than they had entered it. Harry let his fingers rub circles over the glass in his pocket, mind furiously working to find a way to learn what it said. He’d assumed it would be something he could read, but that obviously wasn’t the case. Was he supposed to divine the prophecy from the ball? That wouldn’t turn out well; he’d always been rubbish in Divination. Did he have to hear it? How could he?
He didn’t have time to sit down and work it out. If there was no way for him to quickly find out what it said now, he’d have to resort to his second plan of breaking it so no one would ever get access to it again. If the Death Eaters he was with didn’t kill him for it, Voldemort certainly would.
They started down a long hallway. A tension crackled in the air. Harry surreptitiously slipped the prophecy out of his pocket, mentally preparing himself to smash the glass upon the ground.
“I don’t like this,” Yaxley grumbled.
“You haven’t even be—” the Lestrange brother began, but was cut off by a curse slicing through the air.
Harry jumped in surprise. As if in slow motion, the prophecy slipped through his briefly lax fingers and hurtled towards the stone steps below.
“Harry! Run!”
“Tonks?!”
“Run, Harry!” That was Remus!
Smash!
A ghostly spectre rose from the shattered glass. Harry realised with a start that it was the figure of Trelawney.
Another two pairs of Order members came running from different directions, one of them casting a spell that caused a loud blaring noise. Everyone cringed away as the prophecy went unheard amidst the chaos.
“The rest of the Order is supposed to be here! Get to the atrium, they may have been delayed!” Remus called.
Harry turned to run, but Jugson wrapped his arms around his torso far too tightly. He gasped in pain as his broken rib flared and struggled helplessly in his grip. The Death Eater twisted them around uncomfortably but nothing happened.
“They have an anti-apparition barrier up!” he bellowed.
“Don’t let him go!”
A scream of pain came from the side. Harry watched as one of the new Order arrivals, Hestia Jones, collapsed to the ground. She didn’t get back up.
The Order tried to keep them off, but the Death Eaters started pushing them backwards. Harry was kept back from the spellfire and dragged along as they inched their way towards the atrium.
One more pair of Order members joined the fight. Harry recognised Bill Weasley and Emmeline Vance. Two other people fell; the fight was too evenly-matched.
Just then, a shout came from the other end of the atrium.
The rest of the Order had arrived.
“What took you so long?” Remus called to them.
“Floo’s blocked! Had to take the long way!” Sirius called back. There was a joy in his face as he began duelling with Lucius Malfoy.
Jugson cursed as if he knew that they were cornered. The odds were far in the Order’s favor now. Lestrange fell with a glowing curse. Harry was just beginning to think that they might actually make it out alive when Bill Weasley was hit with a glowing green streak.
Emmeline Vance gasped and toppled over. Harry tried to follow what was happening as the air reverberated and his ears popped.
“The barrier!” someone shouted.
“Summon the Dark Lord!” Lucius screamed. Yaxley pressed his fingertips to the Dark Mark on his arm. Pops started to echo around the room mere moments later, bringing a large force of black-robed Death Eaters to the atrium. The fighting doubled in ferocity.
Jugson grabbed onto Harry hard enough to bruise. Knowing he was about to apparate them away, Harry remembered the book Snape had written for him about all of the Death Eaters’ weaknesses.
Anram Jugson. Weakness: an old injury in his left knee from the first war.
Harry lifted his foot and kicked.
The man howled in pain, loosening his grip. Harry ignored the piercing ache in his side to slip free and ran in a random direction to get away.
He had to find an available Order member and get to them. The last thing he wanted to do was distract someone in a duel and get them killed.
A blaze of heat lit the room. Harry jumped and looked over to see who had cast the fire spell.
Voldemort had arrived.
XIII. The Use of Spies
“Be subtle! be subtle! and use your spies for every kind of business.”
Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Severus turned on his heel, focusing intently on the Ministry atrium. As he apparated away, he caught sight of Narcissa lifting her wand and beginning the incantation to summon a patronus.
A blast of sights and sounds assaulted his senses immediately upon arrival. He had seen too many battles—and this was a battle—to be disoriented for long, however. He scanned the room critically, searching for Harry. The Dark Lord was directing a firestorm towards a cluster of their best fighters on the other side of the room. Severus sent a desperate prayer to magic herself that both of them would stay out of the monster’s way until he could get Harry out of there. He thought he’d caught sight of the boy ducking between fighters when a new disturbance unwittingly drew his attention.
A sizable group of Ministry employees had arrived. They ringed the edges of the room, gaping at the battle in shock. At the forefront was Percy Weasley, who was gesticulating wildly as he spoke with… the Minister? Severus was still observing this when Weasley stopped in horror. The young man broke away from the group and ran mindlessly into the fray. He finally stopped to grasp a body lying prone across the floor. Severus realised it was Bill Weasley.
That explained the anti-apparition barrier. The spell would have been too much for Emmeline to hold on her own.
He was surprised to feel a pang of grief at the sight.
He refocused. Harry was the priority (Harry was always the priority). Find Harry. Use the portkey. Bring him home. He began scanning the room again, desperate for any sign—
There! Running along the rim of the room, glancing about for help, Harry ducked distractedly out of the way of a stray curse that Severus knew would have turned his bones into ice shards. The sight made his heart skip a beat.
Enough. Time to get them both out of there. Severus began running towards him.
“Traitor! You’re supposed to be dead!”
Severus turned and bared his teeth at the Carrow twin that had yelled at him, twisting effortlessly away from the curse flying his way.
“I do not,” he snarled, stalking forward and dodging another curse from a panicking Alecto, “have time for this.”
She swiped a quick cutting curse; he shifted so that it barely grazed his cheek and reached for her wand hand in the same moment. He grasped her wrist in a vice-like grip and pulled her off balance, slamming his elbow into her temple. She dropped like a stone. He plucked the wand from her limp grasp and looked up.
Harry wasn’t too far off, but he was looking in a distant direction. It seemed as though he were about to run off again, so Severus did the first thing that came to mind.
“HARRY!”
Harry stiffened. Bright green eyes, almost luminescent as they reflected the spellfire around them, turned and locked on him.
There was a brief moment where everything around them seemed to pause. Harry’s face slackened in shock; Severus remembered that the boy believed him to be dead. Then it lit with a sudden desperation and the boy started running towards him.
Sound crashed back into the world as a hex hurtled Severus’ way. He reluctantly turned his focus to Rabastan Lestrange and summoned a quick shield with Alecto’s wand. He tried to keep track of where Harry was as he dueled the man, but Black and Lucius crossed his line of sight as they continued a very mobile duel. Severus cursed and tried to disengage with Rabastan. He couldn’t locate Harry with the few brief glances the fight allowed him.
The task became unnecessary when Rabastan suddenly paled and backed up. Severus felt a wave of instinctual fear.
He turned slowly, unsurprised to see the Dark Lord looming there with all his terrible might. Red eyes were focused solely on him.
Harry. He needed to find Harry now. Where had he gone?
“Severus. You never did learn when to give up, did you?”
He slid one foot backwards despite knowing that he stood no chance in a duel against the Dark Lord. He didn’t even have his own wand.
The man who had caused so much pain in Severus’ life lifted his wand to end it. He watched the tip begin to glow green.
“DAD!”
A small blur dove in front of him as words that would haunt the rest of his days came.
“Avada kedavra!”
Harry’s body landed quietly when it fell to the ground.
A voice cried out.
Severus stood frozen. His limbs would not move.
The Dark Lord began to laugh. It broke Severus’ paralysis. He fell to his knees beside Harry, hands shaking wildly as he grasped the boy’s shoulder.
“Harry. Harry!”
“I told you I would kill him before you, Severus, did I not?” the Dark Lord spoke. “I always keep my promises.”
No. He was supposed to save Harry. This was not the plan. This was not his promise. A ragged, wordless scream tore out of his throat as he laid his forehead against the boy’s chest.
The fighting seemed quieter. Everything was distant, his ears full of cotton.
Wait, no. The fighting had begun to peter out.
Find Harry. Use the portkey. Bring him home.
Someone began sobbing in the background. Severus clutched a fistfull of Harry’s shirt and noticed that one of his nails had broken and started bleeding sometime during the battle.
It was odd, the things a person noticed when the world shattered apart.
Voldemort lifted his wand again. Severus anticipated death; he would not leave Harry’s side, not even to save himself. The only reason he did not join Harry in the afterlife was Voldemort’s distraction to something in the distance.
“Dumbledore’s here!”
A fresh commotion broke out. Severus couldn’t bring himself to care. It did not matter. Nothing mattered anymore.
Find Harry. Use the portkey. Bring him home.
His fumbling, trembling fingers found the portkey in his pocket. Lily’s pendant. Harry’s necklace. His other arm wrapped around Harry’s limp torso and pulled him tight against Severus’ chest.
“Fish stew.”
The atrium spun away, as nauseatingly and as quickly as his world had crumbled moments before. They appeared in Grimmauld Place, just like they were supposed to. As if the plan had gone right instead of fatally wrong.
He held Harry’s body close as he kneeled on the cold kitchen floor. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”