Chapter Twenty One

Harry stood apart and listened with half a mind to Snape and Lupin argue in the dark room, next to the alcove.

"Put him in a taxi and send him back to the train station. He found his way here, he can find his way back,' Snape said

"You won't stop him Severus, Harry will go with or without us. He does it all the time. We can't be protected him forever. We'd have to put a guard on him night and day and that won't do," Lupin's voice was wistful.

"It is a trap," Snape argued. "If he is not with us, we can go in and out and make sure she is not there. The Dark Lord will not make the real thing this easy. He would not give up such important bait. I'll go alone and you can wait with him."

"If that's true Severus then Harry will gain experience. Both of us will be there to make sure he is safe."

"I will not risk his life," Snape's voice changed slightly.

"Do you say that because you care Severus or because you think of him more as a tool or weapon?" Lupin asked.

There was silence. Harry slowed his breathing so that he could overhear their words. It angered him that they talked about him as if he were not only a child, but not present.

"Very well," Snape intoned. "It is on your head Lupin."

"Isn't it always Severus," Remus growled. "You know there will come a time when we will have to settle our differences."

"There is no need," Snape said, sounding amused. "Perhaps death will take us first. We can only pray."

"You blame me because I am the only one left. You blame your failed assassination on James and Sirius and me." Lupin's voice rose above a whisper. "Do you have any idea what it was like when we came upon you. She kept your work a secret and her relationship to you a secret. James did not know, could not have known. Sirius and I didn't know. You were torturing her, using an Unforgiveable Curse on her. He did…we all did what we were trained to do, what you would have done."

"Three against one…" Snape interrupted.

"They aren't around to apologize to you…to make amends." Lupin continued, his voice growing angry, What do you want?! What do you expect? It happened seventeen years ago."

"Want?…Expect?" Snape snarled. "I want nothing, I expect nothing. You were her friends. You should have trusted her. Her own husband should have trusted her."

"I'm telling you we didn't know," Lupin snapped back. "We came to her rescue. If it does any good I will apologize for James from beyond the grave. IF he had known he would not have hurt you."

"I cared nothing for myself and my needs," Snape's voice rasped. "I cared for Lily's ! Something you and your friends could not do."

"Severus, what you don't know, could not have known was James true strength, and Lily's. They loved each other and before they died, he believed her. He would have come to you, I know it in my heart. He was a good and decent man." Lupin's voice was a low moan. "He would have made it right."

"You turned your back and slunk off into the filthy hole you crawled out of. How would you know what she felt before the end?" Snape was taunting. "He could not make it right with me, the bloody…."

"…You may have been around her more than I, but you didn't know her. When she made up her mind about someone, she never changed it. I knew them both and they died knowing the truth about each other." He continued, his voice had a wrenching quality to it. "You're right. I crawled back into my hole and stayed there for a long time. After years of putting up with…. with people and their attitudes, I pulled into myself and gave up. There are times I wish I could have talked to them both one last time. But I have no illusions and after all these years what is clear to me is that I loved them both and they loved me and I would not have had it another way. It is time to let her go. You cling to a dead woman!"

"She entrusted me with his life," Snape said coldly, "Not you; not Black; me. I made a promise to her and I will not break it."

Lupin seemed to be thinking that over and there was a deep and unbroken silence in the house. "You?" he sounded incredulous. "You mean Harry's… Harry's life?"

Snape chuckled, but the sound was not warm or joyous. "Is that so unbelievable? You imply that I did not know her and I beg to differ. I knew her. Every breath she took, every word she spoke…I can replay in my head. I can see her face clearly in my every waking moment. I can hear her and know what she would say and what she would do. She came to me to protect her and the boy, not you. She couldn't find you or Black. She trusted me! Why would she do that?… And that husband, James Potter, he couldn't protect her. He let her die! I was the one who saved the child. Me!"

Lupin huffed and the air seemed to be filled suddenly with static electricity as if a storm threatened. "Are we talking about the boy you loath, the child that you abuse?"

"I noticed you arrived a little late to the scene to be his benevolent protector. Where were you on cold winter nights when there was a need to watch him?" Snape asked. "Where were you when Quirrell wanted to kill him?"

"Weren't you the one who wanted to expel him for every little bit of mischief he ever got into! It would have left him vulnerable, open to Voldemort."

"You came in just at the right time to coddle him and turn him into a worm like his father," Snape argued back. "You and Dumbledore, so quick to sooth his feelings. You would have made him an impotent weakling."

"How dare you say anything about James to me, or anything about Dumbledore." Lupin's voice grew louder again, " As far as Harry goes, I'm surprised you haven't done away with him already."

"So you still question my loyalties," Snape hissed.

"I will always question them," Lupin shot back.

Harry couldn't hear anymore, didn't want to hear anymore. He stood looking through a window at the dark house across the road and chaffed. The two of them were arguing in the dark, arguing about the past.

He walked in and spoke to the two figures facing one another. "Will the two of you stop this?! Are we going to see if Hermione is over there or are you going to argue all night? If you are, then just set to each other and be done with it because I'm going after her and I'm going to do it now."

"Very well. If you are in such a hurry to end your life." Snape swept past him.

Lupin stepped up next to Harry. "Such an odd duck. If I didn't know any better I'd say he was insane." Harry looked at him with what little light there was that shone through the open doorway. He turned and stepped into the cool moist air and hurried after Snape.

They glided through a set of doors at the back of the house that opened to the garden. There was no light from the moon to produce night-shadows and so they had very little light other than starlight to guide their steps.. Snape went before Harry and stopped. When he stopped, Harry stopped and looked down to find the body of a muggle. There was a pool of something black around his chest, like an inkblot on white paper and Harry stepped over the body because it lay in the way. He must have hesitated because he could feel Lupin's gentle push to move on.

They climbed a staircase that ran from an expansive kitchen that was part of the dining area where the French doors opened and the body lay. The atmosphere of the kitchen was one of abandonment. There were no old cooking odors or smells and the countertops were clean and spotless. The stainless steel refrigerator's ice maker had a small cool blue light and gave off enough of it so that they were able to navigate the room. They did so swiftly, not pausing in the lounge off to the left, at the foot of the staircase, nor to look in the adjoining rooms in the hallway and foyer on the ground floor.

Harry suspected that the person Snape had spoken to in the dark in the other house and that man's companion had already set to the rest of the ground floor and had searched it thoroughly. He could only guess about why there would be a muggle guard at the doors to the back garden instead of wizards, but he thought that there was less of a chance that muggles would be as noticeable in the neighborhood. And this had been the scene of a crime as noted by the strips of crime tape that lay in ribbons pooled around the door and kicked inside out of the way.

Harry glimpsed the pile of newspapers that had been brought in and dumped in the foyer at the bottom of the stairs. One lay open on the foyer table and the headlines blared out in large print: COUPLE KILLED IN HOME BY DAUGHTER WHO GOES MISSING

The words fired his imagination as they climbed the stairs. It was a familiar scenario. Harry's own mother had been accused of killing both her parents when Voldemort was their actual slayer. It looked like Tom Riddle was up to his old tricks.

They quickly climbed the stairs making almost no noise on the soft cream carpet. Mimicking Snape's movements Harry threw himself against a wall and slid along it until they reached the first darkened doorway. His ears were listening to every sound, even the breathing of his companions and his own, as shallow as it was. Harry's imagination was going wild. Would they be in a room holding a wand to her head. How many would there be? Would it be Malfoy and Lestrange or someone he didn't know?

The upstairs light was dimmer so that the pale carpet made do as a faint path that they followed from one darkened doorway to the next. Harry could smell the faint smell of death as they passed what he guessed was the master bedroom suite. He didn't know it because he had never been in the presence of it before, but his primal brain relayed the message. He felt an involuntary shiver and his mouth went dry automatically. The fear rose another notch and the grip on his wand tightened. He felt Lupin's breath on his neck and he started to turn to look back and thought the wiser of it.

He was covered with the invisibility cloak up to his neck. If there was any problem he would pull the hood over, turn and move back down the stairs. No mistakes, he hissed to himself. Don't make any mistakes.

Snape moved into one room and Harry and Lupin waited at the entrance. They searched each room as they went. Harry thought it felt like hours and there were moments when he strained his eyes to see in the dark and thought he saw moving objects and then realized it was really just an immovable piece of furniture or a reflection in a mirror on the wall. When he thought his heart couldn't take it any longer Snape would step out of the room and they'd move on to the next. They zigzagged down the long hall, jumping from one doorway to another. Harry could barely see Snape but could almost tactilely feel his presence.

Why isn't there anyone here? he wondered. Did we miss them? Did they know? Is she here? Is it really just a trap? Questions were racing through his mind and he could feel the sweat beading up in his hair and neck and on the palms of his hands, although his mouth had long since gone bone dry. Trying not to pant he kept his mouth closed and breathed through his nose, his nostrils flaring out to gather up more oxygen.

They completed the search of that floor and moved up a narrow wooden stairway to the next floor. The house was really more than an expansive farmland cottage and so it was old and the hallway more narrow as they ascended. The landing at the top of the stairs was a short, square space of wooden parquet and opened into four rooms, whose doors were all shut. The air was still and close here with barely enough room for the three of them to stand and not touch anything or each other. Harry gave in and sucked air in through his mouth, holding it and then trying to let it out slowly.

This was a little used part of the house, more attic than another full floor. Ceiling joists threatened to crown Snape and Harry caught a glimpse of him ducking through each room, the door little more than the height of a very short man. A digital clock in one room gave off a ghoulish green glow, the light from a small window barely illuminated another. There was no one in three of the rooms.

Harry jerked his head when he heard the wooden floor creak. It was his foot making the noise. Luckily, he had not put his entire weight on it but had eased off the moment the sound was translated from his ear to his brain. The last and final door was partially open and Snape turned back stepped neatly to the other side of the door and motioned Harry to move up. They made a neat pair of bookends, both with their wands raised. There was an internal light, very dim that shone on Harry's retinas. This one he recognized; it was the light of a candle.

Snape used his toe and turned and pushed gently at the door until it swung neatly in on quiet hinges. The room was half the size of the house and a true attic or loft filled with bits and pieces of everything. However his mind was on the area where the candlelight shown and it was enough to see what was there.

Harry was able to see the second that Snape's bulk passed through the door and he stepped to his right. Harry moved in and let his eyes cover the entire area before he made another move. Snape had already moved quickly through the area as silently as a ghost. There was a figure sitting in a chair in front of Harry with the stub of a burning candle sticking up from a candlestick holder set on the floor at her feet.

It was her long hair falling forward over her bent head that he immediately recognized. She sat motionless and Harry couldn't tell if she was breathing. He remained still until Lupin entered.

No mistakes, Harry thought again. He wanted desperately to step to her side and see if she were alive. Instead, he waited until he saw Snape give him a signal. He and Lupin were back at the door.

Harry didn't touch the candle. Lupin had warned him not to touch anything in case it was a portkey. Harry was immediately reminded of the portkey that he had taken with Cedric Diggory. Once was enough, he said silently to himself and dropped to one knee.

He raised her head and saw that her eyes were open. She was gagged and bound with a magical spell. Harry knew what to do with this. It was but a second and she fell forward into his arms. He didn't know how long she had been that way but it was clear she was weak.

"Professor Lupin," she gasped dryly. "Thank goodness!"

Her misidentification took Harry back for a moment and he pushed her forward to look into her face. He had forgotten that the Polyjuice potion had transformed him. He had not questioned who he had been transformed into.

"No 'Mione, it's me, it's Harry." He tried to say the words as quietly as Snape had spoken to him.

"Harry?!" she gasped, her arms encircling his neck. She was hugging him so hard that it brought tears to his eyes. At least he thought it was the hug, but wasn't sure. He was so relieved to see her alive that he momentarily hugged her back, burying his face in her hair. Harry heard Snape's intake of breath, heard the anger in it.

""Oh Harry," she whispered violently, pulling back. "You shouldn't have come. That's what they've been waiting for." She pressed a palm against the floor to keep herself upright.

"Can you walk?" he asked.

She shook her head. "It's a trap. You must go!"

"Are you hurt?" Harry couldn't see clearly.

"Doesn't matter, she's alive. That's enough." Snape stepped in and reached for her. He lifted her easily to her feet and then picked her up completely.

Harry heard a small moan and he reached for her, but Snape had already stepped away from him.

They stood at the threshold of the room and listened. It was as if Snape had the ears of a fox or some night animal.

Suddenly, the air was filled with the sounds of sirens. Lights were flashing through the dark windows. Harry could see Lupin and Hermione going down the hall and at the head of the first set of stairs. He and Snape were still on the stairs to the attic rooms.

"It's the police!" Harry whispered. Not knowing for sure if Snape understood he added, "Muggle law enforcement."

Up ahead there was a faint pop! and Lupin vanished. Snape sat Hermione on the soft carpet and grabbed Harry. He pulled the invisibility cloak over his head and shoved him into a room. Harry saw him bend over Hermione as the door closed.

The thought that initially ran through Harry's head as he was searching for a hiding spot, was the thought of being taken out the front door with lights shining on his face, the way they did on the evening news. He'd have someone's palm on the top of his head pushing him into a black sedan and there would be an emblem on it that read; St. Brutus School for Incurable Criminal Boys.


He almost laughed out loud at the thought. Here he was cramming his elongated Lupin-size body into a cupboard the size of which would have made his old cupboard at the Dursley's look palatial. He was hoping that the invisibility cloak would conceal him from the policemen. How they had been notified was anybody's business because Harry was pretty sure that he and Lupin and Snape had gone undetected in their search of the house.

He was also grumbling about having been left behind. It was obvious that Lupin had disapparated and that because he couldn't, Snape had done the only thing possible and had done the same. He was just hoping that he had found a way to remove Hermione from the house and thought he would not have risked his life to leave her behind.

Not that Harry didn't understand. He understood completely, and was chiding himself for having forced his way into the rescue, when he didn't have the skills to even Apparate. It was clear that Lupin and Snape could have handled it if he'd just shown up and told them how he knew she was there. But that brought on another rash of questions about how Snape managed to find him in the first place. It was almost like he had followed him from Hogwarts.

The possibility that it was a trap set by Voldemort didn't enter his mind right away because of the muggle police. But Harry didn't doubt that Voldemort was quiet capable of pulling it off since he was part muggle himself. He'd used muggles before and it was a way to separate him from help. If it was a setup just like the one Sirius had walked into with Pettigrew, then he, Harry, would be accused of killing the muggle downstairs and even possibly helping the murderer, Hermione Granger, to escape.

Harry wondered if it wasn't a ploy to keep him alive but shut off from the wizarding world until Voldemort finished up his business. It seemed apparent to Harry that he hadn't yet learned of the prophecy or he wouldn't have set up such an elaborate scheme; he'd have come for him straight away, as soon as he knew he was away from Hogwarts.

It seemed that he had some sort of guardian angel following him around and the thought dawned on him when Snape's words floated through his head, "Where were you on cold winter nights when there was a need to watch him?"

All sorts of riddles plagued his thinking as he listened in the dark. There was a tremendous amount of noise downstairs and just below him. Harry's head was bent low and over his knees. It was the first time he wished that the Polyjuice potion would wear off and he would at least shrink down to his own size. The cloak was covering him entirely and about to suffocate him when he heard the first footsteps coming up the stairs. Several pair headed up to the next floor above and at least two people were searching the floor he was on.

He tried thinking of other things than the fact that his legs were on fire from being cramped in the small space and the air was becoming more and more toxic with every breath he took. He was running the Lupin's and Snape's argument through his head so he wouldn't have to think about not feeling his lower extremities.

He already knew about the incident that they had first tried to explain to him when they were all at #12 Grimmauld Place. Why they kept talking about it made little sense to Harry. It was obvious that Lupin had loved his mother, he'd seen it in his eyes in the movie films he had watched. But Snape's feelings bordered on obsessive. He knew that his mother had worked with Snape and it was becoming more apparent that she had trusted him with a great deal and had tried to protect him when their assassination plan was aborted by his own father and Sirius and Lupin barging in at the wrong time.

But to Harry, there was a piece missing. He knew about the duel that had landed his father and Snape into St. Mungo's. What he didn't know was what had happened that night that still remained a secret to him.

Suddenly, a hurried whisper drew his attention back to the room.

"Harry, it's me," a voice said. "It's Arthur Weasley. Come out and I'll make it all right with the muggle police."

Mr. Weasley! Harry thought. Ron's sent his dad. He pushed open the cupboard door and forced his legs to unfold. He stood wavering in the dim light of a wand. When he looked up he stopped cold. Standing in front of him was Severus Snape and Remus Lupin. Holding a wand on them was Hermione who grinned at him with a naked savage grin on her face. Harry recognized a certain insane light glimmering behind the hazel eyes. It was Bellatrix Lestrange.

And, standing beside her was Voldemort.

Harry's hand immediately went towards his pocket where his wand lay.

Voldemort waved a finger at him. "Tsk, tsk, Harry, you mustn't do that. We both know that these are useless to us," he said. He waved his own wand in a lazy circle as if his wrist were limp. "Now that I have you all rounded up I find myself disappointed. This really was much too easy."

Harry's eyes traveled to Snape's who looked back grimly at him. "You."

Voldemort cackled, "No, of course not Harry. This is not my loyal friend Severus Snape. This is my even more clever friend Lucius Malfoy. We couldn't leave this up to Snape. You see we have played a little trick on you this evening." The faced grimaced in a crude evil smile. "However, he will join us soon. I do love theater you know. And we did watch an amusing performance tonight."

Harry thought about it. When had they made the switch from Snape to Malfoy? What about Remus? Harry thought cringing inwardly. So they hadn't rescued Hermione, and now they were all caught and it's my fault, he groaned to himself.

The evil wizard must have had an inkling of his thoughts because he cackled again. "Yes, I have the mudblood girl and she was very enlightening. She was so willing to tell me what I wanted to know."

"You lie," Harry managed. "Nothing you say or do is the truth. Hermione wouldn't tell you anything."

Voldemort's face looked contorted with amusement. "She told me what I wanted to hear before she died."

"You lie!" Harry said again, holding himself back. He glanced at Lupin who was looking back, his face unreadable, and then it folded into a grin and Harry knew that he wasn't looking at his friend.

Somehow he had gone into the cupboard with one group of people and had exited to meet another group.

And, Voldemort knew it all. Knew about his mother and Snape, knew about the assassination attempt. But what about the Prophecy? he wondered. The two men had not said the words when they were arguing in the house across the street. Now Harry understood. Snape was arguing against his going into the Granger house and Lupin was arguing for it. That had felt strange at the time but he had thought nothing of it. And Snape had been right. It had been a trap and they had all fallen into it.

It had to of been Percy, Harry groaned inwardly. Percy's report and the films. Percy must have told them about the films.

Voldemort's eyes glittered as he watched Harry and suddenly the effects of Harry's own Polyjuice potion dwindled. With a few convulsive spasms he was himself again.

"Miss Granger did give us a useful piece of information," Voldemort said as he moved nearer. "I hadn't thought of this potion for years. Child's play really and here it was for our use." He spoke and two other transformations began.

Harry stood helplessly watching as Severus Snape changed to Lucius Malfoy and Remus Lupin transformed into Peter Pettigrew.

"You see Harry, every day has its' moments," Voldemort said.

"Master your plan was brilliant," Lucius said and bowed his head.

It was only a matter of time," Voldemort said, smugly. "I wish to see Snape as soon as we return to the house. " The wizard turned briefly to Harry. "Before the night is over young Mr. Potter you will tell me what I want to know." He pointed a long cadaver-like finger at Harry's chest and then disapparated.

Harry stared at Lucius Malfoy and Peter Pettigrew and felt his mother's vial rise and fall on his chest underneath his shirt and the knife that Snape had given him ride hard in his hip pocket. There was nothing he wanted more at that moment then to experience what it would be like to plunge the knife into Pettigrew's black heart and watch Lucius Malfoy's face bloat and turn black from the poison.

It was not to be. He was herded down the stairs and out into the moonless night, where the stars looked too bright and too cold.