Chapter Nine
Daniel remembered every detail of his father's office while he had been at Hogwarts. It had only been a few short weeks since he had finished his first year at the school and he'd spent the time in misery looking for his missing parents. One of the things that struck him as odd about his father's headmaster office were the numerous clocks that lined the beautiful bookcases and tables in the outer room; clocks that rang their individual but synchronized charms and bells at half-past and on the hour.
Now, he knew why Harry had so many clocks. He had been keeping track of the time so that he would stay with Duncan for three years and three years only and not one minute past. To do so would have meant that he would have been enslaved the rest of his life. He had not known about the extra day.
Daniel sat and thought about what his mother had told him. She would leave the wagons that night and return the following evening. Only- he knew that she would not return- that the devil that had tricked his father without his knowing it and undoubtedly would try and trick his mother. He also wondered what magic she had that would defeat the Kalo Beng, for he didn't doubt her ability to take revenge.
--
Harry had been captured as easily as Duncan said he would. He stood in the very spot that his son would envision over three years later and watched what Snape was doing. He was told what the bargain entailed and he stood with tears running from his eyes as he heard her scream and watched as a slice of skin was peeled from her body and magically wrapped onto the arm of the beast that stood waiting for it and for Harry's answer.
"Yes! Yes!" he shouted, "I'll do it!"
Snape glanced over at him, his hands covered in blood, and he closed his eyes in defeat.
--
Based on information Nadya had given him that day, Snape and Draco left camp and apparated to Knockturn Alley. Severus trusted the young man to have the contacts he no longer had; to find Duncan.
Draco knew who Duncan was and was reluctant to help. He was in camp only because Severus asked him to come. He had not wanted to help Potter or his friends, people he felt had made his life miserable. But he had conceded because Snape had been more of a father to him than his own had ever been.
He was still terrified of Duncan and would help only if his name could be kept out of it. Even in the present day, Draco had very little to do with his now powerful and almost out-of-control father, Lucius Malfoy; who walked in the footsteps of his former master.
Snape and Draco prowled the dim-lit streets near Knockturn Alley and put out feelers for news. Snape wanted to be the one to kill Duncan. He had almost begged for the opportunity to do so. Nadya had given him a clue and he wanted to follow it immediately. He thought that she and Yanel and Harry would be safe. There were over a dozen competent wizards, besides the Roma, watching over them. He'd even order two of the guards to just watch over Nadya.
Severus stood in the alleyway, in the insufferable summer heat, and stared down the street. Draco had gone somewhere twenty minutes earlier and had not reappeared. Severus watched as a spider spun it's web in the dusty shop window across the street. He remembered the shop well. In years past, the apothecary was where he acquired many of his ingredients for potions that his master, Lord Voldemort liked to play with; mostly poisons. He had been a willing accomplice.
Severus thought about his past, his experimentation with Duncan that had led to all of this. He also thought of a certain woman. When he had Hermione on that slab years before he remembered in detail his own past and a woman that stood before him, pleading; a woman with green eyes- Harry's mother- Lily.
She had come to him just after she had married to talk him back over to their side and away from Voldemort. "Why do you do this Severus?" she asked, her eyes full of concern. "You are not an evil man. Come back to us and help us win this battle. Innocent people are dying!"
He snorted at her and stood, his heart beating wildly with his love for her, his face stony and grim. "Lily go home to Potter," he snapped. "That's where you belong."
She shook her head defiantly. "I care about you even if you don't care about yourself." She waited patiently. It had always worked before when they were in school. If she pleaded with him he would give in to please her. But they weren't children anymore and he had been with Voldemort for several years. He wasn't soft anymore either.
"What would it take to bring you back to us?" she asked.
"You do not have it to give, Lily," he replied, crudely and snickered.
"You want me? " she asked unshaken by his crude references. "You're right, I do not have that to give. I am pregnant with James' child, Severus. If the Dark Lord hurts James I will hold you responsible and I will never forgive you."
She looked at him angrily and then reached for his hand. He stepped back into the shadow not wanting her to soil her hands on him and still he could not bring himself to show his true feelings.
"Severus how many times have I come to you offering my friendship? How many times have you refused? Do you have so many friends that you can keep refusing?"
"I don't need your friendship," he said.
"This is what you want?" she asked. "This life you lead? How can you live with yourself and the things he asks you to do?"
He wanted to answer, he wanted to say, Because I am no better than he. I am nothing.
Instead, he replied, "This is where I belong."
"Will you do one thing for me?" she asked, shaking her head in despair.
He studied her for a moment, wanting, desperately wanting to reach for her. He didn't. He nodded in agreement.
"Will you promise that no matter what happens, if you learn that Vol…the dark Lord wants to hurt James or me, or if something happens to us, you will protect the child?" She had no idea what James had done. This time she did reach for and grab his hand. His arm was stiff and he held himself rigid but she managed to pull his head to her and kiss his cheek. "Please, promise me."
Her breath was warm on his skin, her fragrance, delicate and inviting, lingered in the air. He pulled away, wanting very much to pull her closer. "I promise," he said briskly and then turned away from her.
"Wherever you are I will find you, Severus," she said to his back as he left. "I will not leave you to continue this way. I will keep coming to you! I will not give up!"
And for a year she put her life in peril to find him and talk to him and to let him know that he still had a choice. And then she had died.
He stood now in a daydream thinking of her and of the young woman Hermione and her own bravery. The day Voldemort had killed Lily he had turned completely from the evil wizard, the Death Eater that he was, and had started the climb back.
He had watched Harry do the same thing. Three years of serving Duncan and Harry had come back to them scarred. Severus had promised Lily that he would protect the boy and he had not, could not, stop what had happened three years before.
Severus stood now seeing his dusty reflection in the window with the shadow of the spider crawling across it like a ominous forecast of doom and thought at that moment that he would die before he let Duncan breath life for another day.
The women in our lives, he thought, never dreaming that several other woman he knew were about to make a sacrifice, that he had been sent on a fool's errand.
--
Daniel watched his mother walk away. The next morning the tents were pitched and the arena sat waiting for the crowd. Daniel knew that his mother's fortune-telling tent was at the end of the long parade ground and that she had tricked her two guards into believing the other was watching her, so that both went on with other duties and left her alone. Daniel knew the tent to be empty.
Harry had not gone to her because he had helped the men of the camp put up tents.
Daniel found him just after breakfast and begged for Harry and Ron to join him in a game of Quidditch. The three had persuaded Hermione to do some goal keeping. They quickly became engaged in the fun and spent the morning in a field near the fairgrounds. A small crowd gathered to watch and soon word spread that Harry Potter, the World Cup Quidditch Champion, and the Minister of Magic were playing Quidditch in an open field.
Daniel slipped away when his father and Ron and the 'Deputy to the Minister of Magic' landed and started signing autographs. He didn't want to be around when his father found out it had been he that had spread the word.
Daniel wrote his own letter at the bottom of the one his mother had given him and left it lying on the table in her wagon. He knew that Harry would find it later on in the evening after the performances. Daniel's uncles would drag his father away to the dressing tent to talk about old times and Hermione and Ron Weasley would probably join him.
Daniel hadn't seen Severus all day and the other wizards assigned to guard them seemed to have disappeared into the crowd forever on the look-out. He entered his mother's tent unobserved and read the signs that she left behind. He left through the back of the tent, crawling underneath, the same way she had gone earlier at midnight the night before. He was determined to follow her and see this Duncan for himself. If the man tried to trick her, he would be there to warn her.
--
Hermione watched as Harry stood up in the stilts. It was evening and the grounds were coming alive with activity. The performances were about to begin. She and Ron were in the dressing tent were a old man called Luciano was helping Harry balance himself on the very high stilts.
She was fascinated with the illusion that was created by the stilt walkers. By strapping on a harness that looked like a saddle around the hips and then draping real bird plumage over a frame the walker looked like they were riding exotic birds. Each man or woman would dress as eastern oriental warriors in their red leather vests and carry shields of bronze or copper. They would cover their faces in masks with the fur-lined hats. Altogether they looked like warriors riding large birds.
The picture was complete when the 'rider' would use the 'reins' which were really concealed wires to lift the long neck of the birds head, posing the head exactly as a bird would turn its' head. Harry demonstrated for Ron.
She listened as her husband talked enthusiastically to the dresser and the younger performers who were readying themselves for the evenings performance. Harry would break in to translate from Romani to English. The younger men were giving Harry a hard time. Hermione smiled as she watched. It has been a long time, she thought. It almost feels like it did when we were all at Hogwarts together.
She thought about the wonderful day that they'd just had riding brooms and playing Quidditch with Daniel . For brief moments, Hermione felt that she could set aside the thoughts that had tormented her over the past several weeks and join in the fun.
Now, they were all talking and laughing and Harry, with his bad leg, was getting the stilts shaken and was about to fall. Ron was tackling the young boys and Luciano was yelling in Romani. They were all laughing and shouting and having a glorious time.
She slowly backed out of the tent and made her way down the fairway and into the Roma wagon that had been offered to her for her visit. She sat down and tiredly waved her wand to produce a iced pumpkin juice; the sides of it sweating and looking enticing. The night was warm, a perfect summer night. The smells of horse dung and cooking odors clung to the air along with the smell of flowers, and new mown grass.
She reached for the pumpkin juice and her hand bumped a parchment that lay on the table. The writing was in large crude curlicues and resembled that of a child. It read: For Harry.
Probably from Daniel , she thought. He's probably apologizing for the little trick he's played on us. Earlier in the day, Hermione and Harry had found themselves surrounded by people watching them play Quidditch when someone had let on to the towns people that they suddenly had the Minister of Magic and a hero Quidditch player, Harry Potter in camp.
Children, she thought. If he only knew what kind of danger he could have put us in. They were relatively safe with the Roma people unless it started getting around that they were there- all together. It would spoil any plan they could develop that would work to trap Duncan. Just the thought of him made her stomache turn.
She twirled the paper with her wand, sipped at her juice and thought about the plan they had all been working on.
Not one to let anything lay unread, and feeling slightly guilty at invading Harry's and Daniel's private communication, she unfolded the parchment. Her eyes grew wide as she read the words- first Duncan's- then Daniels.
"An added day!" she breathed.
The half empty glass sat on the table growing warm in the July heat.
