Chapter Fourteen: Narrow Escapes

Sirius hummed as he walked down the corridor towards the Gryffindor common room. He had successfully got the information he needed out of Professor Slughorn, and he hadn't had to join the Slug Club to do it. He wasn't paying much attention as he walked, and didn't see a group of girls come round the corner before it was too late. One of them stood a little forward of the others as they all halted in Sirius's way. Her mass of black hair was carefully groomed into a beehive, and the smirk on her face was worthy of any Slytherin.

"Dearest cousin. How are you today?" sneered the girl.

"Bellatrix," Sirius said shortly, stopping in his tracks. His hand strayed towards his robe pocket and his wand as he answered her question, "Fine, Bella. In fact better than fine."

The girls behind Bellatrix, Bitch Queen of Slytherin, shifted uncomfortably. The enmity between Bellatrix and Sirius was well known to lead to violence. Several times teachers had had to intervene as the spells flying between the pair ricocheted around the corridors.

"Like I really care how a Blood Traitor is. Do you know what I do to little boys like you, betraying the foundation of magic, of what it means to be a witch?" hissed Bellatrix as she pulled out her wand.

"Bore them to death?" jibed the boy pulling out his own wand.

Without further warning battle broke out between the pair. At first Sirius held back from using his worst spells but as he was forced to dodge a couple of nasty hexes sent his way by the beehived Bellatrix a grin broke out on his face; if she was going to play dirty, so was he.

"Leave him to me!" screamed Bellatrix as she saw a couple of her clique drawing their wands to enter the fray, "I'll finish this traitor myself."

"Not likely, dear Bella," laughed Sirius, his heart pounding in his chest as he felt the adrenalin kick in. Part of him loved the fight, and his cousin was one of the best duelists around; not that he would ever tell her that.

He raced around a corner trying to find a place to fight from where he had less chance of getting hit by some of the worse spells in his cousin's dark arsenal.

"Is this anyway to treat your cousin?" he yelled as he ran, "Wouldn't you prefer to give me nice presents?"

"I'll give you a present!" screeched the witch as Sirius took up a position behind a column. Her hair was coming free from its carefully maintained position, leaving strands of hair around her face giving her a slightly crazed look.

There was a momentary lull in the fighting as Bellatrix gathered herself, she knew exactly what she was going to do to the boy who had betrayed everything she stood for. With a hissing whisper she threw a spell she knew would cause him the most harm possible; only the best for her cousin.

"Crucio!"

Bellatrix looked on in glee as the spell took its full force through her anger; she had never felt more alive.

Sirius screamed as the spell caught his shoulder, the pain sparked through his body, igniting every nerve. He felt as though he couldn't breathe or think or do anything; nothing existed for him except the pain. His vision went black, and he dropped to the floor unable to gather breath to scream again. Finally, the pain stopped, and he lay on the floor staring up at the ceiling as if all he had known was pain and now that it was gone he had no idea what to do.

In the distance he heard adult voices shouting questions and Bellatrix's high screech as she pretended not to know what had happened. Someone touched his shoulder and slowly he fixed his gaze upon a blurred face. Dazed he reached out and touched the person at his side.

"James?" he slurred.

"It's alright mate, you're going to be alright. Sirius? Sirius?" James reassured him as consciousness slid away.

James looked up as Professor Dumbledore came over to the small group; he was bent at Sirius's side whilst Remus and Lily looked on aghast.

"Mr. Potter, do you know what happened here?" Dumbledore asked, a grim look in his eyes where a friendly twinkle normally lay.

"Not really, Sir. We were just heading back to the common room," James indicated Remus and Lily behind him, "When we heard the sounds of a fight. We ran to see if we could help, but by the time we got here he was already down. He will be alright, won't he, Sir?"

"I'm sure he will. Madam Pomfrey seems to be able to work wonders." Professor Dumbledore paused and fixed the trio with a stare, "Did any of you hear which spell was used?"

"No, Sir." Lily replied as the two boys silently shook their heads."

"Ah. Oh well. And here's Madam Pomfrey to take care of young Mr. Black. I'm sure all will work out for the best." said Dumbledore, patting James on the shoulder before motioning the witch to see to her patient.

xxxxxx

"James?"

Silence reigned in the darkened infirmary as Sirius waited for a reply from the seated figure by his bed.

"James?" he asked again, a little louder. Still no reply emerged from the dark. Finally he worked a hand out of bed and poked him, repeating: "James?!"

"Wha? Huh? Who turned out the lights?" James garbled as he awoke from his doze.

"Probably Pomfrey, considering this is the infirmary," replied Sirius sensibly.

"Oh," there was a pause as James rubbed his eyes, cleaned his glasses, and felt for his wand, "Lumos. Sirius, you're awake!"

"Either that or I'm holding a conversation in my sleep. Now what the hell happened?"

"I was about to ask you that. All I know is that you got into a fight with Bellatrix again. We should really do something about that girl." James glowered , moving the light so that he could see Sirius properly.

"Speaking of girls, how did you do finding information out about Snape?"

"I don't know whether you're insulting Lily or complimenting Snape there." James pondered, "We did fine. She told us some stuff then decided that we couldn't learn everything there was to know about the 'complex person that is Severus Snape' and so she's going to help us. How about you? Get anything out of Sluggy before Bellatrix kicked your arse?"

"I was doing fine, till..." Sirius complained, before trailing off darkly.

"What happened?" whispered James, catching the note in his friend's voice.

"Unforgivable." Sirius murmured, barely audible even in the quiet infirmary, "She used an unforgivable."

"But they're illegal. It's a life sentence in Azkaban to use one of those!"

"I don't think she cares about that anymore," Sirius pulled himself into a sitting position and ran his hands through his hair, "Sluggy kept mentioning something about a Dark Arts group, and putting that together with what I heard at ... the Black's before I left, it's made me start thinking. You know all the stuff that's been going on lately? The disappearances? The mysterious deaths which aren't really being mentioned? I think there's something bigger happening behind it all. That Dark Arts groups Sluggy mentioned, he kinda said that it was part of something larger. A group of young witches and wizards, recruits, usually Slytherins or ex-Slytherins, delving into darker magic, looking for ways to cheat death. And my family..."

Sirius sneered, the people he had once called family, those he still shared a name with, had made life unbearable for him. Until he had taken his life into his own hands last summer, and had run away to live with the Potters; now they couldn't get to him during the holidays.

"My family kept talking, when they thought I couldn't hear, about a Dark Lord. Someone who's coordinating everything, someone behind it all. And I'd imagine it's not going to be pleasant, not when people live Bellatrix are mixed up in it. If she thinks that there's someone out there who can protect her..."

"What? From Azkaban? From the Ministry?" James queried in a hushed tone, knowing that when Sirius got to thinking he was one of the smartest boys in the year.

"Yes. If she thinks that, why shouldn't she use an unforgivable?"

There was a dark silence as James thought through everything Sirius had said; looking for a mistake, a way which the conclusions were wrong. But he'd seen the Prophet, the reports of disappearances and deaths. He'd noted the growing fear in the corridors as students got the feeling that their parents and teachers were hiding something from them. There was no use denying Sirius's conclusions; he'd lived in one of the darkest households of the time, he was an inside source.

"I guess you're right," he sighed reluctantly, "There is something going on, something behind it all. But what can we do? We haven't even done our OWLS."

"I don't know," Sirius stared out the black window, "But maybe if we can save Snape, then we could get more information on this thing. The more we find out the better position we'll be in to fight it when the time comes."

"You're right," James stood up, steely determination layering his voice, "You up for leaving?"

"Anything to get out of this place. We spend far too much time here."

James helped Sirius out of bed and after throwing a certain cloak over themselves they headed up to the common room.

"By the way, have you seen Wormtail lately?" Sirius asked as they left.

xxxxxx

The disused classroom grew colder as the ghost inside Severus froze the air and tried to kill the rat shivering under the cupboard.

Deep inside his mind the true Severus woke, the bitter cold bonds around him had grown tighter. Shaking his long hair out of his eyes he examined his surroundings again. The fires on the horizon were smaller than before, the world a little darker. Around him he heard a maniacal laugh and the air seemed to cut deeper into his skin with its chill. He struggled hopelessly against his icy restraints, trying to use what wandless magic he knew to free himself.

Outside, the ghost shuddered as he felt Severus wake, the cold air warmed a touch as he turned his attention inwards away from his rodent problem.

Gaining a respite from the cold, Peter tried to devise a plan which would get him out of the room alive. Sticking his nose out from under the cupboard he peered around trying to see with his beady eyes an escape route. Sadly the only way out seemed to be his route into the classroom, and that lay on the other side of the room beyond the ghost and patches of ice water.

Making a snap decision the rat scampered from his hideout and running as fast as his little legs would carry him he raced towards the hole. Diving in he struggled to make it back through, but before he was free to make his escape back to human form the ghost Severus noticed him.

The movement had attracted his attention and, after ruthlessly subduing the mortal in his mind, he strode over to the hole. Grabbing the last piece of rat he put all the cold and death he could into his touch.

Peter felt a pinch on his tail, but with freedom in sight he wasn't about to give up. With a last wriggle he felt the tip of his tail snap off with the brittle cold, and then he was free.

Out in the corridor Peter ran like Mrs Norris, the castle cat and bane of his existence, was after him. So scared that the ghostly Snape would follow him, he didn't even stop to change back before he ran helter-skelter out of the dungeons. Up stairs and down back passages he went before slipping through a small hole in the Gryffindor common room wall.

"What's that?" said a female voice high above his head, "Is that a rat?"

"Where?" asked a wolfish smelling male.

"There. It just came through the wall."

Wormtail sniffed the air: three males, one who smelled of wolf, and a female. Definitely Remus, undoubtedly with James, Sirius and Lily, he decided. Since Lily hadn't been informed of their animagus abilities, and wasn't likely to be unless James got his act together soon, it wasn't safe to change back here. So with a whisk of his tail Peter scurried up the stairs to the dormitory.

"It's gone up to your dorm." Lily said, looking round at the impassive boys, "Aren't you going to do something?"

"Oh. Yeah." James said, realising that their inaction wasn't doing them any favours, "Come on Padfoot, lets get that rat before it eats your chocolate supplies."

"No! Not the chocolate!" yelped Sirius as he followed James upstairs.

"What's with Sirius and his chocolate?" Lily asked, watching the formerly ill boy take the stairs two at a time.

"I have yet to figure it out," lied Remus, flicking through a book on Charms, "Do you think this would work?"

Remus turned the book so Lily could read through a charm to improve confidence. They were sitting by the fire in the common room, the only light from the newly fed fire and a couple of magical lights Remus had conjured floating above their heads. Remus watched Lily as she read the passage, noticing how the glow from the lights made the colour of her hair stand out more against her pale skin. Sometimes he could really see why James never gave up on her, though most of the time she was just Lily Evans, friend, to him.

"He really does like you, y'know. All the gifts and everything, they're just his way of trying to show you how much." he said suddenly.

"I know," Lily sighed, "I wish he'd just have the guts to tell me without all the rest of it."

Remus nodded as the dark-haired pair came bounding back down the stairs.

"Look who we found!" cried James,

"Peter! How did you get up there? I didn't see you go past." Lily frowned.

"I was very quiet, clearly." Peter said with a nervous half-laugh.

"Right, now that we're all assembled. Gents, and Lady," James added, falling silent for a moment gazing at Lily until Sirius kicked him in the shin, "Ouch! As I was saying, Lady and gentlemen, we are here to save one Severus Snape. The question I lay before you is: How?"

James sat down and from somewhere under his robe pulled a quill, pot of ink, and spare parchment.

"Is he always like that?" Lily pleaded with the others to tell her otherwise.

"Yep."

"Always."

"Sometimes the speeches are longer."

"Hey! That's not fair, they're not speeches. They're introductions to extraordinary..." James was quickly muffled by four cushions thrown at his head.

A/N: Thanks go to Half-drowned Dracula for betaing this. :)

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