3. A Not So Peaceful End to the Day.
Severus squatted down behind a row of bushes and kept his gaze forward, his hand fingering his wand. The dilapidated house before them had taken weeks of careful research during the summer to find, but they had. And now, the night before the school term was due to start, he had finally convinced Albus to let him join the Order for their latest raid.
It was true, Severus would be a highly prized prisoner for the Death Eaters, but that was precisely what had made him such a valuable Order member for the past year. While Albus was understandably reluctant to let him out of the castle in the daytime, he could not stop Severus from operating at night.
Especially because Severus was the only one who truly remembered the abilities of these particular Death Eaters, as they had been in his year and many of his classes.
But Albus could, however, stop Lily from going tonight on the grounds that he needed at least some teachers at school on a consistent basis. An agreement had been reached where Severus and Lily alternately participated in Order proceedings when asked, while the other remained at the school. Though they had both wanted to stay together they had seen the reasoning behind this and agreed. Though not without a fight, he remembered.
Which was why Severus had found himself sat behind bushes, trying to avoid rustling too much, waiting for a signal to move forwards.
He swept his wand in front of him, checking for wards protecting the part of the house he was supposed to penetrate, and found none. He snorted quietly. The idiots.
A quiet whistle off to his left brought him back to the present and he cast a quick silencing charm on his feet before levitating over the bushes and landing on numerous twigs. His landing made no noise and he smirked proudly before quickly and silently moving to the window he was to climb through.
It was a small opening; a few feet off the ground which only he, as the thinnest and tallest, could get through. He aimed for the side of it, keeping his ears pricked for any movement. A quick and thorough charm revealed that there was a Death Eater asleep in the room belonging to the window, and he took extra delight in slithering inside unheard.
Peering through the darkness, he could see a vague blob sprawled out on what must be the bed of a downstairs bedroom, illuminated by the cigarette butt in his hand. Well, he thought nastily, that was the perfect alibi for an 'accidental' fire if ever there was one, but unfortunately he had orders to capture. The prisoners would have to be alive for questioning.
Severus lifted his wand and cast a non-verbal spell, paralysing his victim temporarily. They would have a nasty shock if they woke up and tried to move, as there were no visible binds.
His part done, he levitated the wizard, whose eyes flew open comically at his sudden paralysis, out of the room. Judging by his sheer mass, he'd be lucky if the man managed to fit out the front door. How the Dark Lord could let men as obviously lazy as this into his ranks, Severus could only guess.
After much muffled swearing and some fancy wand work, Severus finally managed to rotate the man so that he could fit through the door, and began carting him off to the meeting point. Once there, he didn't take too much care in setting the man down on the ground.
"Snape!"
Severus shrugged. "He won't feel it through all that padding."
Moody growled wordlessly and pulled him roughly to the ground. "I was telling you to get down, boy. You'd have given away our position!"
Severus rolled his eyes. "I think they may possibly know we're here."
"Constant vigilance," Moody retorted. "It'll keep you alive, and don't you forget it!"
Severus snorted, not even bothering to answer this typical comment, instead turning around to track the progress of the Order members who had yet to make it back to safety.
Potter had successfully subdued his opponent and was currently dragging him towards the group, looking as though he was struggling. With a flick of his wrist, Severus lifted the unconscious Death Eater into the air and was particularly thankful to see Potter go with him, clinging on for dear life as Severus brought them to a stop.
"Oof."
Well, Severus could hardly be blamed if sudden turbulence meant Potter had to drop to the ground, could he? A heavy landing no doubt brought his head down to size.
"Snape, you're a git."
"But I'm a git with a wand, Potter," Severus smirked, checking that the Death Eater was truly unconscious before tying him up. "Which you seem to be without," he added. "Tell me, did you forget to bring it with you or did you see this as a wonderful opportunity to try out Muggle boxing?"
"I don't enjoy getting punched in the face," Potter snapped back.
"I thought not. You're more of a scatter brain than a masochist."
"I didn't forget it," Potter snarled, wiping blood off his nose. "It broke. What would you care anyway? I got him, didn't I?"
"It looks more like she," Severus drawled pointedly, "got you."
"She?" Moody barked.
"Potter's vicious attacker," Severus sneered, "goes by the name of Pansy Whitehall."
"Whitehall?" Potter asked, bemused. "I thought he – er – she...was a man."
"If you had even bothered to learn her full name at school, Potter, you would know that she was just rather fixated with male fashion. And I suppose," he continued, "that you thought her suspiciously high voice was from slow development?"
When Potter remained silent, Severus' lip curled in triumph. It almost became a fully fledged smile – not that he would admit it – when Lupin panted to a stop beside them, setting down his captive.
"I see you got Pansy then, Prongs."
Severus resolutely stopped said smile form emerging as Potter swore, gave Severus a vicious look, and turned his back on him. Lupin was left in the middle, looking confused.
"Where's Black?" Moody snapped, his magical eye spinning rapidly.
His question was made redundant when Black flew out of the top window facing them and began to plummet to the ground. Swearing, Severus pointed his wand at the idiot, managing to slow his descent enough that he landed softly on the ground. Losing an Order member was not what this war needed, even if it was Black.
"HA!" the Mutt bellowed, jumping to his feet. "You can't get rid of me that easily! Why don't you just come down here and-"
A flash of green light, barely dodged by Black, mercifully cut off the end of the statement.
"Sirius!"
"Potter, stop yelling," Severus hissed even as Lupin struggled to stop his friend from running to Black's side.
"With me, boy," Moody ordered, dragging Severus away from the duo and towards the house so sharply that no further comment was possible.
Together they climbed through the wreckage, keeping an eye out for any unexpected attacks, and found the rickety staircase. Moody, examining it with his magical eye, frowned.
"It won't hold both of us." He turned to Severus. "Can you get us both up there boy?"
"Us?" Severus demanded, lip curling slightly.
"I'm keeping an eye on you."
"How many times does it take to get it through your thick skull – I'm not a Death Eater!" He yanked up his sleeve, his pale and unblemished skin visible.
"Any idiot can hide a mark," Moody growled back. "We either both go up or not at all. I'm not letting you out of my sight."
Mentally cursing Moody into oblivion Severus relented, if only to get the older Auror to shut up. Grabbing hold of Moody under the armpits he began to drift off the ground, grunting as his arms took on Moody's full and less than slender weight.
"Either lose a few pounds or learn to do this yourself."
"Quiet, boy," Moody snapped, "he'll here us coming."
"Your aim is useless!" Black taunted as another green flash lit up the area. "You won't get me from there – you'll have to come down first!"
It was with great relief that Severus reached an open door and saw a silhouette at the far end of the room beyond, firing random curses but failing to hit much of anything.
"Avada Kedavra," the man muttered desperately, wand hand shaking as he no doubt pictured what the Dark Lord would do to him should he fail. "Avada Keda-"
Without even waiting to be put down on the floor, Moody raised his wand and stunned the man, making no effort to catch him with magic as he toppled gracelessly to the floor.
"What happened?" Black bellowed from his hiding place. "Did you forget how to-"
"We got him!" Moody bellowed back, magical eye still whizzing around as, even though the mission was finished, he continued to check for threats.
Severus gratefully deposited him on the floor and leaned against the doorframe, feeling dizzy. Fighting back the accompanying nausea, he closed his eyes and attempted to breathe deeply, trying to shut out Black's howls of victory.
"Great!" Damn it, he could still hear the Mutt – unfortunately. "Job done then!"
"Thank Merlin," Severus muttered, opening his eyes warily.
"Don't just stand there boy!" Moody barked, lowering the unconscious body out the window. "We have to get back to Headquarters and I'm not using that death trap of a staircase."
Five minutes and more exhausting levitation later, Severus' knees almost gave way on impact with the ground, the world spinning violently. Levitation used up far too much power, he decided, particularly as he had only just learnt the skill.
"Severus?" Lupin was by his side in an instant, looking concerned.
"I'm fine – I just need to practice," he muttered, unable to find the energy for his usual venom.
"Did you see the way I landed?" Black was crowing to a grinning Potter. "Light as a feather – and I didn't even know I was doing it!"
"Actually, Severus-"
"Not a word, Lupin," Severus warned. Black's incessant boasting about his 'subconscious flying' was going to be bad enough, but the taunts Severus would receive if Black knew just who had saved his life would be even worse.
They gathered their captives and, keeping a tight hold on them, apparated right onto the doorstep of Grimmauld Place, which Black had agreed to use as their Headquarters after he had inherited the house a long time ago. Wincing at the shrieking banshee that had once been Black's mother, Severus gratefully deposited his charge under the watchful gaze of Moody and beat a hasty retreat.
He knew that they would be interrogated now – 'questioning' was really too kind a work, given Moody's...thorough methods – and he had no desire to be there when it happened. It was all too easy to imagine himself in that room, tied down as an enraged Moody paced before him. It was all too easy to imagine himself in Azkaban, rotting away the rest of his life, traitor to the side of the one woman he had ever truly loved.
And when he saw their bruised faces in the Prophet the next day when their arrest was publicised, he thanked Merlin - as he always did - that it wasn't him.
