A/N: This fic is meant to remain relatively faithful to canon. Sorry the title is so emo, if you have any suggestions I'd be welcome to hear them. I disclaim everything except the plot.
"Why did you ask me to meet you here Mr. Nott? I don't particularly remember being one of your favorite teachers," Remus asked as he threw back his hood in the dim light of the Leaky Cauldron. They sat at a small, inconspicuous table near the center of the room. Tom the barkeep specially reserved it for these kinds of meetings.
"I wish to… make an offer." The seventeen-year-old answered quietly, staring impassively at his former professor through a pair of un-rimmed spectacles. He smiled thinly. "It is an offer I do not make lightly."
"I gathered that much. What is it you want? Safe haven from Voldemort?"
Remus silently awarded Theodore points when the only change in the boy's features to indicate his fear of the Dark Lord's name was the twitching of an eyelid. The thin-lipped smile remained in place.
"Not for me, Mr. Lupin. It's officially too late for me to disappear. I have taken the mark," another barely perceptible twitch, "and I wish to offer myself as a spy."
"And why would I be interested in that kind of information, Mr. Nott? I do not work for the Ministry." Lupin countered tonelessly, struggling to keep his own poker face in check.
"The Headmaster and I… discussed it several months before last June. I was to give him my answer when the term ended."
"So the only person who can vouch for your personal allegiances in this war is dead."
Theodore's smile slipped a little. "Yes. I'm afraid so." He hoped it was enough.
Remus sighed and leaned back in his chair, staring back at Theodore. The lycanthrope was relatively good at reading people. But Theodore had been taught, like most pureblood children, to hide his inner thoughts and struggles. And Theodore had always excelled in his studies…
"Did—" Remus fought with his words for a moment before continuing. "Did your former Potions Master know about your discussion with the Headmaster?"
"I did not have the impression it was so. My… former Potions Master did not think the Headmaster required another spy. I believe the Headmaster spoke with me without his knowledge."
"Why didn't the Potions Master want another spy?"
"Binding oneself to the Dark Lord is something I would not wish on my worst enemy—well, perhaps on my worst enemy, but certainly nobody else. The Headmaster believed that the Potions Master did not wish to pass on his burden to another, and thought that it was his duty alone."
Remus shook his head in frustration, the reel of recollections that he had gone through too many times already once more flashed across his memory. How one person could fool so many, even Dumbledore…
Theodore stared at the table, looking right through it. Tracing the ring made by the condensation on his glass of water, he lowered his voice until it was almost a whisper. "Draco Malfoy was my friend, Mr. Lupin. I do not want to watch the Dark Lord consume another. He will not consume me."
"So…" Remus tapped his fingers on the table, "you want safety for someone else?"
Theodore smiled again, finding himself curiously glad. "Yes. She has a better chance of survival among the Order than among Death Eaters. Not much more, but some."
Remus frowned. "Is she in any immediate danger?"
"That is more up to her than it is to anyone else. It depends on how long she can keep from screaming at what she calls 'the goddamn pureblood patriarchy.'" Theodore gave the impression he wanted to laugh. He didn't.
Remus sighed again and stood up. "I need to discuss this with… the others. May we continue the delightful conversation later?"
Theodore nodded. "I will send you a time."
"And I will send you back another one instead." Remus adjusted his cloak and was about to leave when he turned back to Theodore again. "Does she know you're doing this?"
Theodore looked up at him, having already become lost in his own thoughts. "What?"
"The girl. Does she know you're doing this?"
"And have her yell at me for trusting a bunch of Gryffindors with her life? I think not." Theodore reached into his shirt, pulled out a parchment envelope, and tossed it to Remus. "I was asked to give this to you. Goodnight, Mr. Lupin."
A sixteen year, eleven month, twenty-six day, twenty hour, and forty-three minute old Harry Potter sat on a bed, staring impatiently out a window of the Dursley's house. It was only two more days until he was gone of this place forever, two more days until the Dursley's would probably decide to kick him out, and those two days could not go by fast enough.
Not that he had any idea of what to do once the time came. Well, there was the search for the remaining horcruxes of course, but where to start? Why not go back to school and start there?
But was there anything left to teach him that would help him get past Voldemort? Some hidden spell, some particular flick of his wand? N.E.W.Ts seemed unreal and utterly immaterial in comparison to the ever-to-mind Dark Lord.
At least that was the excuse he intended to give to Hermione when she discovered he'd done very little of his homework over the break. Almost none, in fact. Nightmares of green light seemed to invade even his waking hours…
He vaulted off his bed, took a guilty glance at his school trunk, and grabbed a pair of dilapidated sneakers before he headed out the bedroom door. Walking down stairs and through the hall, Harry silently passed his aunt, uncle, and cousin as he pulled on his shoes, ignoring the stares that flickered between fear and suspicion.
Some things never really change, do they?
Harry left the icebox of the house behind him, walking into one of those hazy summer nights that still shimmered in the heat. He had almost made it to the park at Magnolia Crescent just trying to occupy his thoughts with anything but the green light…
Man, this heat's bloody hot, isn't it? Better than all of that fog last year. Everything needs a bit of sunlight, right? Except maybe that grass plot over there. A bit brown, patchy. Come to that, it's always brown and patchy. When was the last time I saw it gree—
Um, swings. I remember those swings. Used to swing on them. Yep. Never had any one to push me, but I managed. I always managed. Yes sir, I managed. Always been rather self-sufficient, haven't I? I had to learn to swing myself. I remember doing it right there on that swing, the one to the left, the one that's gree—
CRACK.
Harry whirled around, pulling out his wand as he did, a defensive spell already coming to mind, his heart beating a tattoo on the inside of his chest. But the apparator had already grasped his arm and was talking before Harry could even get in a word.
"Harry! We've been looking all over, we've got to get you out of here—"
Something flipped on in Harry's brain (probably due to the shock of red hair upon the apparator's head) and told him he was being held by a Weasley. Arthur Weasley, in fact.
"Mr. Weasley? What are you—"
"Deatheaters, lad! On the way to Privet Drive, the wards must have dropped when Dumbledore—passed on—we expected you to be at your aunt and uncle's house—"
Something else flipped on in Harry's head, but this time the light bulb was so bright Harry had to close his eyes.
When had he stopped thinking of Number 4 Privet Drive as home? What had been that final, completing moment? There were so many possibilities…
And he had promised Dumbledore to stay as long as the Dursley's would let him. Damn.
Green radiance flashed up into the air like a Chinese rocket and exploded like a pinwheel to reveal a skull made of emerald stars, a snake coiling out of its mouth like an iridescent tongue.
Right above Privet Drive.
Harry's mind froze as the sparks reflected in his eyes.
Green light.
Green death.
A man flung from the tallest tower, the sweeping arch—
"Harry! Harry! Come on, Harry! Stay with me!"
Harry hazily focused on Mr. Weasley. "Right. Yes."
"Have you ever side-along apparated, Harry? Yes? Good. Hold on tight."
The gruesome constellation was the last sight etched on to Harry's eyes before another resounding CRACK reverberated across Magnolia Crescent.
Theodore slept. He dreamed.
He knew these caverns from his waking hours, but rarely had they been so silent. Or, rather, so peacefully silent. The caves had known the type of oppressive, suffocating stillness that magnified all those eerie, hair-prickling little sounds that no one ever wanted to hear in the dark. The Dark Lord seemed to specialize in that kind of silence.
Theodore proceeded slowly, holding up a blue-burning lantern against the encroaching, ever-grasping darkness.
He was looking for something.
Theodore slept. He searched.
A/N: You know the drill. Please review, or don't expect new chapters.