Sometimes We Die

Chapter Nine: Death Eater Attacks and Tunnels

Author: H. Ashleigh

Disclaimer: I am obviously not J.K. Rowling, nor will I ever pretend to be. The views of the author and the views of the characters are often conflicting and are not equal. Please do not judge the author due to her character's failings, misjudgments, ineptitudes, and misperceptions.

Saturday, October 18, 1975

Evening

Emily was leaning over the balcony; her cigarette tip was glowing red in the clear night air and thin tendrils of white-gray smoke curled up and hugged the sharp edges of the stars.

Josie was propped against the wall near the door, her arms folded haphazardly against her body, pulling her jacket tighter around her back. Her eyes, the dark lake blue color that they were, stared out past me into the breezy night. She choked a little bit on her constricting heart forcing itself up into her throat.

I didn't know what to say; there was nothing I really could say. I had already told her what Severus had said about Frederick, but it had been reiterative information in her brain. Hearing it spoken out loud only transformed it into a tactile concept.

Emily flicked her stub of cigarette over the ledge of the balcony, and rocked back away from the edge to turn to us. She had nothing in her eyes, and Josie looked to her for an answer.

"If it was me," she said slowly, "I would go to Madam Pomfrey."

"No," Josie shook her head. "I won't."

I wouldn't either, but maybe these bits of humanity are what made such a difference at the end of all things.

She pushed herself off the wall and started pacing from one side of the small balcony to the other. Her hands were wringing in front of her body, and Emily met my gaze across the space; her jaw was rigidly set in a sort of grimace that I assumed was to show strength. It only looked like she was clenching her mouth so it wouldn't tremble.

I had never seen Emily cry, and was sure I never would, for she always commandeered a steely countenance, but it struck me in that moment to see her emotions leaking out a little bit. Her glass gray eyes fused with the pinpricks of stars behind her in confused and frustrated resignation, because she knew what to do and didn't understand why Josie refused to do the obvious and rational thing.

I turned away from them both and leaned over the cold stone railing. The night air was alive with metallic light and subtle movement. Josie's cracking knuckles filled the air with clear and bitter sound, like the snap of a twig underfoot. Suddenly she gave a sharp intake of breath, and I heard the door open. I turned around and followed her back into the castle, with Emily right beside me.

Josie was walking a little bit ahead of us, purpose in her stride. I saw Severus cut across the mouth of the hall, heading towards the stairs. Josie called out his name and quickened her pace even more. I saw him stop hesitantly at the top of the stairs, his expression crossed between confusion and alarm.

"Snape. Tell me what you told Lily about Frederick."

I couldn't believe she was talking to Severus. She had always seemed ambivalent about my relationship with him, but I assumed she preferred to ignore his existence when it had nothing to do with me. Severus stared at her dumbly, and it was one of the first times I had ever come across him not having anything to say. Her blotchy and red face probably took him aback and left him lost for words.

"Uh," he articulated, leaving his mouth hanging open.

Josie took a deep breath. "She already told me everything, how you think Frederick would want me to give the baby up. Please, tell me if this is what you honestly think."

Severus resembled a fish gasping for air under water, and then gave a curt nod.

Josie's shoulders curled over in defeat, and I immediately walked up behind her and wrapped my arms around her. Her collarbone jutted into my arms and the space behind her ears smelt like some kind of peachy shampoo. I didn't even notice Severus racing down the stairs, but Emily told me later that he had looked kind of funny, with an appalled expression gracing his usually tight facial features.

"What am I supposed to do?" she asked, turning her face towards mine. I was so close to her cheeks I saw that the shield of freckles on her face was flawed: there were bits and pieces of pale white skin shining through the dark sunspots, clear pieces of a child's smooth skin smothered underneath the hazy veneer of salty tears coating her cheeks.

Emily coughed gently behind me. No matter how close we all were to one another, she would never be comfortable enough to embrace our raw emotions; sometimes I found myself wondering if she had any to deal with herself.

I let go of Josie and she settled into her sadness, wiping the tears out of the pockets under her eyes. She hiccoughed a couple of times, and gave us both a tight-lipped smile.

"I just have to deal with it one day at a time, I guess," she said quietly.

I nodded slowly and Emily rubbed her nose.

We headed back to the common room, the blush in Josie's cheeks fading quickly.

We reached the Fat Lady, I spoke the password, and she swung open dramatically, preparing us for what we were to meet inside. Before we had even stepped over the ledge, we could hear loud, raucous laughter around the curve in the passage.

The entire common room was falling over uproariously at Potter and Black, who were trying desperately to get up to their rooms, but were blocked by people on the stairwell, who had come down to investigate the cause for noise.

I didn't know exactly what everyone was laughing at until Potter turned sideways and I saw something long protruding from his bottom. I burst into laughter, and almost fell to the ground when I realized Sirius had befallen the same fate.

"What in Merlin's name is up their bums?" Josie gasped to a fourth-year standing by.

"Their wands, I think," he replied, snickering into his first.

Emily snorted, and her shoulders started to shake with silent laughter.

Potter turned and faced the entrance, and when he saw the three of us, strode towards me with fury in his eyes and humiliation on his cheeks.

"Do you know who did this to me?" he demanded rhetorically.

I said nothing; I was laughing too hard.

"Snivellus," he said loudly. In the background I could see Sirius simultaneously trying to hid his problem and fight his way out of the arena.

"Well then, I'll have to congratulate him on a job well done," I said, wiping tears from the corners of my eyes.

"Get it out now, you have to know the spell."

I snorted. "You think even if I knew the counter-spell, I would help you? You must be barking mad."

"God, I hate that sodding bastard," he growled, his hands balled into tight fists. "He wouldn't stand a chance against me and Muggle-fighting."

"Oh, so you're admitting he's better at wand-work than you, huh?"

Potter glared at me through his glasses, which were glinting rather angrily against the light from the overhead chandelier, and then he turned away from me without another word. I didn't know what he was going to do though, because the crowd in the common room was intent on the two of them stripping in front of them to remove their wands.

Just then, the portrait hole opened up again behind us, and we moved quickly out of the way so we weren't blocking the entrance. It was Peter and Remus, carrying their bags and looking bewildered at the unusual amount of people in the common room.

"What's going on?" Remus asked Emily, who was closest to him.

"You'll never believe what Snape did to Sirius and James," she replied, pointing to the staircase, where Potter and Black were now attempting to push past the wall of bodies, to no avail. "He spelled their wands up their arse-holes."

Peter looked as if he didn't know whether to laugh or rage; Remus just chuckled a small bit, and then walked over to them, whispered something into their ears, and then the four of them left the common room, Potter glaring hatefully at me as he past. I simpered back.

The entire common room seemed to give a sigh of protest, as it was obvious they were going somewhere else to relieve their problem. Everyone went back to studying or sleeping, or whatever he or she had been doing beforehand.

"Utterly classic," Josie said to Emily and me, her misery momentarily forgotten, and I blessed Severus in my mind for making that possible. "I will never forget that."

Monday, October 20, 1975

Mid-Afternoon

"So are you excited about the Halloween stuff?" Josie asked me a couple of days later during a study break. I was writing an essay for my Charms class, specifically the charms used on a particular potion of my choice, and the mechanics, chemical reactions, etc., each had on the overall finished project. Flitwick really did a good job of catering to the sixth and seventh years choice of specialty.

"Yeah, I guess," I replied absently. "Has Dumbledore said anything about it, yet?" I jotted down in the margin of my notes an interesting anecdote about a type of thickening charm to be used in the third stage of the brewing of Veritaserum.

"No, it's all supposed to be a surprise, apparently," she said. She was filling out an intricate chart that considered many different aspects of the stars, planet alignment, moon alignment, etc., and just looking at it made me dizzy. "I'm thinking of bringing a date though, you know?"

"Oh really?" I asked. "Who?"

"Frederick," she replied sheepishly, scribbling furiously on her parchment.

"Oh," I said, raising my eyebrows a little bit. I had mixed feelings regarding Frederick Wilkes. There was no doubt he was attractive: he had dark, dark auburn hair, and eyes the color of a knife-edge. He was quiet and smart, for he was usually in my advanced classes, but he was also a Slytherin and probably subscribed to the Slytherin Code of Conduct, especially since he was a pureblood.

"Yeah," she said, looking up to stare out the window. We were sitting in the library, having snagged a good table next to a window. "I mean, as long as I can keep this from him, I think it should be fine. Are you thinking of asking anyone?"

"Me? Why would I want to ask anyone? Potter's going to be badgering me about going with him for the next week and a half. That's enough to deal with before the night."

Josie doodled a little bit in her textbook next to a picture of the moon phases, but didn't say anything.

"Besides," I continued. "You know I don't even really like things like this party. I mean, honestly. We don't need to have something like this, right in the middle of first term."

Josie just stared at me, and then glanced down at her books again. "I think I'm done studying for now," she said. "I'm going to head up for History." She quickly packed her bags up.

"Okay, see you at dinner," I said. We smiled at one another, and then she left.

I looked out the window then. The library sat on the side of the castle that hung over the cliff, and so some seats in the library, if they were paired with windows, could be very distracting. The particular window I was looking out of detailed a splendid view of the lake, beyond which lay Hogsmeade. Lovely amber, gold and red leaves blanketed the trees that surrounded the lake. Beyond Hogsmeade, mountains stood, peppered with the dark green of pine or the brilliant colors of autumn. I could see some of the closer trees swaying in a cold breeze, the leaves clinging to their branches and holding on desperately. Thin tendrils of smoke curled into the air from several of the chimneys at the edge of Hogsmeade, a sweet prelude to winter, and Christmas, which was my favorite holiday.

I thought of Christmas, and family, which invariably included Petunia, and then I thought of how miserable she had tried to make the last few holidays for me. The last one stuck as particularly potent in my mind; I had sat through gift-giving, Christmas dinner, almost had gotten through pudding before her not-so-subtle insinuations regarding my intelligence, mental capacity, behavior, et cetera, became to much for me and I excused myself from the house to walk around the block a couple of times.

I had known Severus' Christmas experiences were usually as painful as mine. We found each other wandering the streets that Christmas night, looking like ghosts blending perfectly with the fog of the streets, and the misty breath of our expelled air. All we hoped to do was blend with those closest to us, but this could never be. And so we haunted the streets, trading leaking wounds, filling each other's infinite divots of pain with some sort of unknown unguent.

And yet, now incorporating him back into my life now was like trying to stuff a torn out piece of paper back into place in a notebook. It's hard to find where to put it, because the pages don't line up neatly anymore, and the edges stick out. Every time you hold it in the crook of your arm, the loose page bothers your skin. The corners and edges get soft, wrinkled, torn, and eventually the paper gets so annoying that you decide you don't care about the information on the page anymore. It's more worth your while to just throw it into a trash bin and not have to think about it or to wonder where it is ever again.

I knew that I could never throw Severus away, literally, metaphorically, whatever. He was so much more than a piece of paper in my life; he was chapters eleven through infinity. But once he had been a real and breathing part of me; I felt he was separate from me now, a loose, breathing leaf of paper, fluttering away, delving into darkness I knew nothing of—

Boom!

I was jolted out of my reverie by the sound of someone dropping a very large book not too far away from me, and I glanced to see that my quill had been resting on what used to be my last paragraph of notes, but was now a blotch of black ink.

I quickly put my research and books away, and began walking out of the library. I threaded my way through the stacks for a few minutes before lighting upon a section set into a wall, surrounded by windows. A table and chairs was set into it: Severus and several other Slytherins were sitting there studying, and looked up when I stubbed my toe on a bookcase in surprise.

Severus grinned, and I blanched back, as we both realized this was probably the first time I had ever stumbled upon his friends and him in such neutral territory.

He was sitting with Frederick Wilkes (what a coincidence), Virginia Travers, Thomas Gamble and Tori Shelsher, and I relaxed a little bit. They were just Slytherins, and this particular group of people weren't nearly as intimidating as if, say, Jezebel Rosier or Judas Avery had been sitting there with them.

They all stared up at me; Virginia was smirking and Severus had an odd expression on his face.

"Evans," Thomas Gamble grumbled, nodding vaguely in my direction. He had oak colored hair and a face full of angles. Next to him sat Virginia, who had fine mahogany colored hair that fell in a transparent sheet to her waist, and exquisite features, including huge eyes the color of a clear green sea. Next to her was Severus, and then there was Frederick Wilkes, whose back was to me. Beside him sat Tori, who was sort of chubby, and had thick, fluffy looking hair that fell to her shoulders.

"Hey, Evans," Tori suddenly said. "You're relatively good at Charms, right?" This was a bit of an understatement: Flitwick had told me before that I was the most brilliant student he had taught in Charms since Albus Dumbledore. "None of us can get through this assignment."

"Speak for yourself," Frederick said nastily, not even bothering to look around at me.

Tori ignored him, and then stared at me. I just stared back at her.

"Did you ask her a question?" Virginia asked Tori pointedly.

"I thought that was the whole point of me talking to her," Tori said matter-of-factly.

I snorted contentiously. "Maybe the reason you don't know how to do the assignment is because you don't know how to properly form a question."

"Look, if you don't know the answers to the assignment, bugger off," Tori snapped.

Virginia turned to me, a mock apologetic look on her face. "I think what Tori is trying to do is ask for help, but her Slytherin pride is getting in the way," she said blandly.

I narrowed my eyes at Virginia, who was receiving a stink eye from Tori, and then looked over Frederick's shoulder to see what they were working on together. It was the worksheet on the basic types of charms accompanying advanced Transfiguration, and Frederick hadn't even gotten past a crossed out 'the' on question one. I also noticed that not a single one of them had a charms text out.

"Okay, well it's really simple if you have your book. The chapter on Transfiguration is entirely devoted to this subject. Each charm gets a separate section."

None of them said anything for a few moments; an embarrassed silence crept around the table, and I was awestruck. I didn't think Slytherins even knew what embarrassment was, let alone how to feel it.

"Why didn't any of you think to use your book?" I ventured.

Thomas shrugged his right shoulder and then reached into his bag under the table to get his book. The rest of them followed suit.

"Thanks, Evans," Tori said distractedly, as she flipped to the appropriate section. Severus turned around and smiled at me with his eyes. I turned and walked quickly out of the library, feeling vaguely weirded out by the Slytherin's uncharacteristic lack of common sense.

I was halfway to Defense class when Professor McGonagall's voice invaded the silence of the halls.

"Everyone report to the Great Hall immediately, no exceptions."

I stopped in my tracks. McGonagall had never called the entire student body to the Great Hall before; usually the Heads of Houses just announced anything important at a House meeting. I walked quickly through some more halls and down three more flights of stairs and came upon the Great Hall, where I could see people swarming around their respective tables.

I spotted Josie and Emily standing with the other sixth year Gryffindors, and hurried over to them.

"What do you think this is all about?" Josie demanded as soon as I got within hearing range.

"I have no idea," I replied. Potter stared at me from behind Remus, who has standing next to Emily.

"Something bad must have happened," Pettigrew observed. He was sitting at the table next to Mary, who was rifling through the Prophet.

"Sound observation," I heard Severus say acidly from behind me. "McGonagall thought it would be more worth our while to come here and play friendly games with one another than to go to classes."

"Go back to your own table, Snivelly," Potter said.

Severus ignored him, and turned to me. "You dropped this on your way out of the library." He held up my black moleskine. "Tori and Virginia, and ultimately Jezebel, would have had a field day with it if I hadn't wrestled it away from them."

"Thanks so much, Sev," I gushed, momentarily forgetting Potter and Black were standing feet away from the two of us.

Severus flushed crimson, and his eyes flashed angrily at the pet name he had told me never to use in public. I bit my lip, waiting for the rush of repercussions certain to come.

"Sev?" Potter immediately said, a huge grin spreading itself across his features. He elbowed Black playfully in the ribs next to him. "Sev? That's almost worse than Sevvie. You tolerate that, Snape?"

Severus took a deep breath in, as Black let out loud ripping laughter.

"Sev Snape," he said. Severus' face began to color to a dark purple, and he glared at me hatefully.

"Sevvie Sev Snape," Potter countered.

"Snivellus Snape."

"Great, oily bat, Sevvie, Sev, Sev," Potter taunted.

"Shut the bloody hell up, you two!" I said loudly, reaching into my bag for my wand. "Merlin, can't you ever get over yourselves? Your jealously is so obvious, Potter. I don't like you and I never will, but constantly demoralizing my friend certainly isn't helping your case. And Black, you're just a needy puppy, constantly following his lead," I continued, brandishing my wand at Potter. Emily moved quickly out of the way. "Can't you think for yourself for once in your life?"

"Woah, Evans," Potter said, holding his hands out in front of him in questionable compromise. "Keep your knickers on."

The hex was halfway out of my mouth when McGonagall came up behind me and harshly rebuked my antics.

"Miss Evans! What're you doing? Don't you think I called this meeting for a reason? It wasn't so you could argue commonly over some name-calling. Pull yourselves together and consider for once that maybe there're more important things going on than your petty bickering."

I turned around to mutter an apology to her, but she was already sweeping past us and heading up to the teacher's table. Severus had disappeared as well.

"Attention," she said as soon as she breached the platform. "ATTENTION!"

The Hall immediately echoed silence.

"Now, I don't want any of you to be alarmed. You all need to act as if you are more than mature enough to be allowed ten months away from your parents guidance each year, even you first years." She paused here, gulping visibly, and if I were close enough to her, I probably would have noticed her hands shaking. "There has been a mass Death Eater attack on a nearby town, Ullapool. It is very close to here, no more than fifteen kilometers."

A huge collective gasp went up around the Hall, as everyone broke into quiet, murmured conversations with their neighbors.

"Silence, please," she said, after a few minutes of this. "I am aware some of you have relatives in Ullapool. If you would please come forward now, we can discuss this in closed quarters."

Mary stood up, and looked over at us nervously.

"You live in Ullapool?" Remus asked her quickly.

She nodded before turning to meet the other students and McGonagall in the antechamber off the hall.

"Oh my gosh," I said quickly to Josie and Emily, biting my nails.

Dumbledore stood up then, and raised his hands for silence.

"No one will leave the castle for anything, is this understood?" he rumbled ominously. "I am barring all of the exits with alarms, and will be immediately notified if anyone has set foot on the grounds. Classes are cancelled for the rest of the afternoon and evening, as well as any extracurricular activities, and to deter any unnecessary wandering of the halls, dinner will be served in your Common rooms. Prefect duties are obsolete this evening; the teachers and myself will be patrolling. You are all dismissed."

Everyone immediately began talking again. I noticed out of the corner of my eye Potter, Black, and Pettigrew standing around Remus, who looked sick to his stomach, but I turned away and forgot about it as Josie grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the Hall with her and Emily.

"I can't believe this is happening," she was saying.

"Ullapool is mostly Muggles," Emily supplied knowledgeably, busying herself with the strap on her bag.

"All of those poor people," I said quietly, still being led quickly up the stairs by Josie. I couldn't bear to think about them; they were being tortured right now, and it twisted my lower intestines into knots.

"Thank Merlin it wasn't Hogsmeade that was attacked," Josie said. "The castle would be under siege!"

"Lord Voldemort wouldn't attack a village like Hogsmeade right now," Emily said. "There are way too many wizards and witches, and he isn't strong enough yet, and he doesn't have enough followers either."

"How do you know how many Death Eaters there are?" I asked her.

"I don't know for sure, but I read a speculative article in the Prophet. Apparently Aurors think there are only about fifteen to twenty Death Eaters in his ranks, so why would he attack a community full of adult wizards?"

We were pushed most of the way up to the Common Room by the rest of our worrying housemates, and before I knew it we were sitting in armchairs, discussing the attack with fearful speculations. Before long, the early dinner arrived. Everyone ate in relative silence, and that was when I noticed that Potter and his friends were nowhere to be seen in the common room.

At first, I didn't really care; they would probably inappropriately be trying to raise everyone else's spirits if they had been there. But as the hour closed in on ten, and they still had not made any sort of appearance, I began to grow concerned. Not because I actually cared about Black or Potter, but because I was a Prefect and could be held accountable for their absence.

"I'm going to sleep," Josie announced at ten thirty, closing her Astronomy textbook. "I'll see you guys in the morning."

"Good night," Emily murmured from behind her Potions text. I said the same.

At eleven Emily also excused herself, and I noticed that most of the Common Room had retired. I was sitting close to the fire with my Charms text open on my lap, one of Josie's kneazles curled around my neck. She was purring loudly, as kneazles were wont to do. Over in another corner was a small group of seventh years and by the portrait hole was a group of third years playing Gobstones. I didn't know how anyone else could really sleep; I was nervous and fitful, thinking about Ullapool, and Mary's family. At twelve, I was the only one in the Common Room, and Potter and Co. still hadn't returned.

I took out my moleskine and rifled through it slowly. It was full of poetry, little things I had written; it was a standard writer's journal. I didn't asininely record every second of my menial life, like some people did. I had doodled on pages and written letters to Petunia that I would never send. I had also charmed it to be endless; there was always another page at the end.

At twelve thirty, the portrait hole opened and James Potter crept in, wary of any nosy people who had stayed up.

He was halfway across the Common Room when he noticed me sitting by the fire.

"Oh, hello Evans."

"What are you doing?" I demanded, standing up. I forgot Ginger had been wrapped around my neck, and she fell to the ground, hissing.

"Going up to my room," he replied.

"Where's everyone else?"

"Uh, in their rooms?" he replied, gesturing to the empty Common Room.

"No, you bleeding imbecile. Where're Black and Pettigrew? Where's Remus?"

"Oh," he said.

"Well?"

"Around," he said, shrugging his shoulders nonchalantly. Then he continued on upstairs.

"Hmpf," I muttered to myself. Ginger stared at me indignantly from the hearth. It wasn't long before he came downstairs again.

"Potter, where're you going?"

"Out of the Common Room," he said, pointing at the portrait hole.

"Why? And what is that you have in your hand?" He was holding a bundle of silvery purple fabric in his right hand.

"It's nothing, Evans. Are you done with the third degree? Because I really need to go."

"If you don't tell me where you're going, I'm going to follow you."

He snorted. "Yeah, right. You wouldn't be able to find me if you were even brave enough to break the House rules."

"Try me."

"Okay." And he turned and walked out the portrait hole. I quickly followed him.

When I stepped out of the portrait hole, the thin coldness of the hall stuck to me. The Fat Lady was snoring lightly, a teeny bit of dribble oozing out of her pink mouth. I heard Potter's footsteps ahead of me, but couldn't see him at all. It wasn't very dark either, because dim lamps illuminated the hall.

"Damn," I whispered to myself. Invisibility Cloak. "Potter, students aren't supposed to have Invisibility Cloaks!"

He chuckled lightly, and I followed the sound of his voice. "Accio Cloak," I whispered ever so lightly, but nothing happened.

"Please," he said. "You think I would be stupid enough to not put anti-summoning charms on the cloak? It's covered in protection spells. You are never getting this off my body."

I thought quickly. I couldn't grab the cloak off him, but I was certain I could attach something to him, like a gum wrapper. If I was able to attach it to the outside of the cloak, I would be able to follow that without him ever knowing.

I spotted a wadded up piece of paper in the corner, and silently tore a bit off of it. Then I changed the color of it, making it glow a pulsating bright white. I silently attached a Magneting Charm to it, and then sent it in his general direction. It floated away and glowed violently blue when it stuck to his back. He would never even know it was there.

"Evans?" I shrank back in one of the shadows and said nothing. "Evans, are you there?" He waited a few moments silently. Then he turned and moved down the hallway. I followed him not too closely, keeping one eye on the paper and another on where I was walking, so I didn't trip over anything and reveal my presence.

I had always wondered where Potter and his friends got to some nights, and maybe tonight I would finally realize the answer. I didn't think for a second that I was being stupid or nosy; they didn't need to be out wandering the grounds on any given night, especially not when there was an attack on a village so close nearby.

He walked quickly through the corridors for ten minutes or so, and then lighted upon a picture of a woman in an ugly corset and a short skirt with tulle peeking out. She had fishnets on and winked at Potter suggestively.

He poked his wand out of the cloak and tickled her right nipple. She giggled coyly and then the portrait swung open and he hurried inside. I tried to slip through as well, but the portrait shut very quickly and she stared down at me, biting her bottom lip. I just rolled my eyes at her, and used my wand tip to tickle her nipple as well. It seemed to take longer for her to open the portrait this time, but eventually she did, and I stepped quickly inside.

I was enveloped in cold, earthy air and was immediately glad I was still wearing my jumper. I could not see Potter ahead of me, so surmised there must be a curve in the tunnel. It slopped downwards gently, and I hurried after him.

We walked in the tunnel for quite some time. It was easier to keep an eye on Potter now that he had taken off his invisibility cloak. He also had his wand tip alight.

First we were going downhill for what seemed like ages; then the ground leveled out, and the ceiling was dripping. I assumed we were out from underneath the castle now. I trailed my hands along the walls and felt moist dirt adhered to bits of stone.

Potter still had no idea I was behind him.

Eventually the tunnel began to tilt upwards. I tried not to breathe heavily. It felt as if we had been walking in the tunnel for ages. The ceiling was slopping closer and closer to our heads, until we were both forced to crawl on the ground.

I lost sight of Potter for a teeny bit around what I assumed to be a bend in the tunnel. When I got around the curve, he was no longer anywhere in sight, and I had come to a dead end.

"Drats," I muttered. The dirt making up the ceiling was very dry, and rooty, and I wondered how close I was to the surface. I quickly figured that the only place he could have gone was up into the night air, and he must have somehow been able to go through the dirt ceiling, almost like a trap-door trick, as there was no way he could have apparated anywhere. I was almost positive we were still on Hogwarts grounds. But I didn't know the spell to trigger the trap-door, so I settled for blasting my way through. And bviously, a simple Alohomora would not work in this instance. I racked my mind for more complex opening and blasting charms.

"Apertio," I muttered. Nothing happened. "Retego."

Still nothing happened.

"Dehisco," I said. A small bit of dirt crumbled down from the densely packed ceiling. "Dehisco maxima!" The dirt blasted out from my wand and fell in pattering spats to the ground. I cautiously lifted my head above ground level, and instantly froze in my tracks.

A huge, full-grown werewolf was barreling straight towards me. The snarl on his face was indescribable. The closer he got to me, the more frozen I became. My fingers dug into the earth around me and the artery in my throat was threatening to burst any second. In those short moments, my life flashed before my eyes. I saw the world as a two year old, was swinging on the neighborhood swing sets as a five year old, was receiving Christmas presents as an eight year old. I was being taunted at school as a nine year old, received my Hogwarts letter as an eleven year old, was flirted with by Potter as a thirteen year old. And then as a sixteen year old, I was facing a full-grown werewolf with no idea how to defend myself. All of my third-year training against dark creatures was sucked out of my mind with the sucking sound of a vortex. All sound had retreated to this vacuum. Time seemed to slow down, but it was not slowing down enough.

My world snapped back into focus.

The werewolf was mere feet away from the hole, and I flung my body back inside of it. I had no idea if he could fit into it, but I was not taking my chances in the open night air. Half a second later, his snout was sticking into the ground, saliva was spraying on me, his snarls reverberated against the walls of the tunnel. I was terrified beyond description. It was like nothing I had ever experienced before.

The werewolf's eyes were a bright, furious yellow, and there were several long and bleeding gashes on his rabid snout. His teeth were long and the color of mucous during a sinus infection. His claws scrapped dangerously at the opening, threatening to rip up the ground in his eagerness to get to me. I was sitting on my bum and scrambled back even further. I rushed back as fast as I could, and put my weight on my right wrist the wrong way; it snapped and pain rushed from the bones and tendons and escaped out of my mouth in a desperate cry of pain. He was practically inside the tunnel now, squeezing his way towards me. I could see his entire body except for his feet.

All of a sudden, some unknown force was pulling the wolf back. His snarls increased in severe intensity, and he fought with all his might to be allowed full access to my human flesh.

But his legs suddenly disappeared from view and then his hips, and midsection, his chest, his head. Something was forcibly dragging him out of the hole. I cursed myself for my curiosity, but I had to know what the cause for his retreat was. Avoiding my wrist, I slowly inched my way over to the opening again, and pulled myself up with my left arm.

Directly in front of me stood a gigantic stag, bigger than I had ever seen before, his legs staunched into the ground. Through his legs I could see the werewolf, violently struggling with a black dog almost as big as him. The stag galloped forward and caught the werewolf's waist in his antlers. He hurled him twenty feet away. The dog bolted after the werewolf, using his snout to push the werewolf further to the edge of the dark woods, about fifty feet away. The werewolf reached around and swiped at the dog, who quickly dodged it, grabbed the werewolf by one of his ankles and forcefully dragged him to the edge of the woods. The werewolf kicked out at the dogs jaw, but the fall he had suffered had knocked the wind out of him and there was no strength behind it.

I looked back at the stag; he was still standing ten feet away from the hole, staring at me oddly. Then he turned and ran away towards the forest, disappearing quickly in the darkness of the trees.

"Bloody hell," I said. I had no idea what I was going to do now. My wrist throbbed in pain, and I knew no healing spells. There was no way I was going out into the night air; I would have to crawl back in the tunnel a good ways to the portrait.

I thought hard about any sort of spell I knew to relieve at least a little bit of the pain, and then my mind happened upon a numbing spell I had read in a book one time. If I didn't do the spell the correct way, my hand would be paralyzed until a mediwitch could undo the damage. And I was sure Madam Pomfrey would not be able to do that.

I was pretty sure of the spell, and there was nothing else I could do.

"Obstupefacio."

My hand immediately went numb. I couldn't use it for anything, but at least it wouldn't hurt if I accidentally jarred it against the wall.

I stared ahead of myself. The tunnel stretched out into an unfeasible length. But going onto the grounds with a loose werewolf lumbering around was suicide.

I set out, crawling at a miserably slow pace. I was really starting to regret my idiotic nosiness concerning James Potter.

Speaking of James Potter, what in Merlin's name had happened to him? I had seen no sign of him at all when I had popped my head out. How had he gotten past the werewolf? Had it really taken me that long to get the tunnel open, that he had completely bypassed the werewolf and gone in a different direction?

My mind found this very hard to believe, but what else could have happened to him? And I had never heard before of a stag and a wolf-like dog ganging up on a werewolf. It was unprecedented, the behavior that I had witnessed that night.

I tried to look for correlations. Obviously it was the full moon. A werewolf had attacked me. Potter and Black and Pettigrew and Remus had all been missing that night. But I could not for the life of me see any sort of relationship between Potter and Co.'s lack of representation in the common room, and the werewolf.

I crawled as quickly as I could, and sooner than I expected I was walking on flat ground. The spell on my hand was strong and I felt no pain. About twenty minutes later I was pushing through the portrait hole and out into carpeted corridor. The girl in the portrait verbally pouted, but I ignored her and continued to the Hospital Wing.

"What on this earth happened, Miss Evans?" Madam Pomfrey demanded. I had entered the dark, empty Hospital Wing and sat on a bed halfway down the ward. She had been alerted in her office and had come out wearing a dressing robe and slippers.

"I had a nightmare, rolled out of my bed," I replied succinctly.

"And you landed on your wrist," she finished. "Finite Incantatum."

My wrist immediately began throbbing again. She tapped it three times with her wand, and said some complex Latin. "Cracked a couple carpals, and snapped your radius," she muttered. "Now, would you rather have a potion or spell?"

I always preferred potions as means of healing, so I opted for the former. She gave me a potion for bone repair and a potion for pain. I requested a potion for sleep, and she quickly obliged. Five minutes later I was practically unconscious.

A/N: Thanks to my readers and reviewers, and thank you so much to my beta reader, MRSSPICY.